Combo Fields - are they actually worth the bother??

[Rokeb.3815]

Early on in EoD you are required to do some 'combo fields' - no problem I thought, I know what those are. My first character was a necro that levelled with staff - I used to get combo fields all the time - no idea what they where or what they did, but I'd be yelling 'Such Synergy!' all the time.

 

Well, I'm on a Firebrand with Axe/Torch.  Hmm nada.  I don't have any finishers - I do have a light field on Axe 2 and a fire field on one of my utility skills.

 

Luckily, I have a great sword on offhand so I have another light field and two finishers available.  I pretty much never switch to greatsword, since despite how much I like the look and game play, it is vastly inferior in general gameplay to the axe/torch combo.  

 

Part of the issue with combo fields is that I have no idea the details of what the combo fields are really doing - there is no 'tool tip' to guide me, no hard and fast numbers taking into account my stats.

So, it seems without activating a tome and then coming right back out (I've already got to switch weapons).  I can do either a light or fire field and either a leap or whirl finisher.

 

So - I've got 4 possible combos available.

Fire Aura - 5s (or is it longer? Does duration get affected? How can I even tell?) - gain might every time I get hit, burns foes.  

Light Aura - 5s (??)  - gain resolution and condi damage is reduced by 10%

 

The whirl finishers give me bolts

Burning bolts - do some burning damage - how much? How long? No clue.

Cleansing bolts - condi cleanse - sounds good and useful.  Does this include me? Or just allies? 

 

Ok - the fire aura might be ok, but tough to tell, the light aura - whoop de doo.  I suppose some builds get a benefit from Resolution - mine doesn't

Burning bolts - could be ok, can't tell.  I have a lot of skills that already do just this - and do it well, with just one button press and that don't require me to get stuck in an 'inferior' weapon for 10s to use only a few skills.

Cleansing bolts - same deal.  I can already remove conditions from allies - with Purging flames - that also does a huge amount of burning damage.

 

It just seems to me that combo fields are (at least for firebrand) an overly complicated and slow way of doing things I can already do with another skill that gives better results as well.

Am I missing something?  Does firebrand just have a weak selection of combo skills?

 

Swapping out greatsword for sceptre/focus would give me a blast finisher instead - in my case I opted for greatsword, since a Celestial greatsword costs less than 2 gold, and a the scepter/focus combo costs over 25 gold.  Are the blast finisher skills any better in actual gameplay?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Rokeb.3815
fixed typo

[Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294]

1.  Combo article on the wiki:  https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

2.  Yeah, they can matter a lot, depending on what field and what effect you are trying for.  Blasting a light field is an area condi clear.  Blasting a dark field is are blindness.  The whirl finisher in a light field removes a condition from yourself.  So, yeah, they can be powerful and can be important.  Do you have to use them, outside of times it is required?  Not really.  BUT, think about what it means if you're in a party of five people and you get condi-bombed by whatever you're fighting - like literally every condition in the game dropped on you.  And you drop a light field and your buddy drops a blast finisher and cleanses the conditions off of everyone in the fight?  THAT is powerful.  THAT is saving the team from (potentionally) wiping on that encounter.

[Danikat.8537]

I think combo fields are intended to be more of a bonus effect than an important requirement. Also I think they're really designed for two or more players working together so in most situations it's not expected or required for 1 person to have both fields and finishers equipped at the same time.

All of which makes the training thing seem a bit odd. I understand having it as one of the activities for the heart, because it seems like they were aiming to cover all the combat mechanics, but it's an odd one to include in the story because it's a very artificial situation that's not likely to be important in actual combat.

[Infusion.7149]

Guardian isn't as combo oriented as say elementalist or engineer. If you play d/p thief for example you more or less are relying on combos for stealth. Luckily for you firebrand is strong enough on its own.

[Salt Mode.3780]

Combo fields are out shadowed by the amount of boons classes can offer. Back when core days it was essential to learn the different combos like blasting into fire field for might uptime. Nowadays why bother doing that when you have a button that does it for you.

At this point combo field is more of a PvP/WvW thing and only a few are being used like smoke fields for stealth or occasionally Mesmer into chaos field for chaos armor.

[AliamRationem.5172]

Some classes heal by pushing a button. Others heal by playing the piano.  Combo fields can be important or barely matter at all. It just depends on a lot of factors.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

for open world pve no they're not worth the bother, unless your class needs to blast fire for might. sometimes a blast/ leap thru water can be a good heal for some classes or if you're facing a condi mob a blast on a light field to clear condis. occasionally a smoke blast/ leap to skip uneccessary parts, or if you're teef its a part of the dps rotation. its a good idea to learn what all of the combo field interactions do but those are the main ones.

[Sebrent.3625]

I was recently asking questions of Elementalist forum and the advice they gave was about making good use of the combo fields. So I I'd say that some of the context around if it matters or not depends a good bit on the class/spec.

The example they were giving was getting fire aura more often from comboing different abilities with fields as it provides additional condi cleanse as well as more burning for anything that may hit you.

Mesmer with Staff also makes good use of Etheral for getting more Chaos armor for various reasons that depend on the spec being played.

[Teratus.2859]

It depends on the class using it, traits that benefit from it as well as the type of field and what combo effect it actually provides.
It also matters what kind of thing you are using those fields on as well.

Some classes and builds can make good use of certain combo fields but there are other fields which are significantly less useful in most PvE situations and outright detrimental in others.

Poison and Dark fields in particular are notorious for screwing up other players beneficial combo fields.
On my main Ranger build I actually rely a bit on my Lightning Wyverns electric field F2 skill to gain an additional hard CC Daze via a Leap combo.
I also use a leap combo to gain additional healing from the Water field my healing skill provides.

I can't tell you how many times I have tried to pull off one of these leap daze's or leap healing combos at a crucial time when there are other players around only to have those other players completely mess them up with their combo field spam.

Boss is about to break, I go to leap into my lightning field to daze and break him and some Necro throws down a dark field.. yay instead of a great hard CC.. now I have a worthless dark aura.. or even better they pop down a poison field and I trigger 8 seconds of weakness which the boss is completely kitten immune to anyway.
Oh and i'm not forgetting you other Rangers with your Smokescale F2 AoE Blindness which also doesn't effect bosses but you use it anyway.. thanks for the 3 seconds of utterly worthless stealth guys.

Excuse the salt lol but this kitten has happened far far too many times over the years and to sum it up in a single word I think the only one that really does it justice is "infuriating" XD
I think combo fields in Gw2 have great potential and they certainly are a lot of fun to actually play around with when you are soloing stuff.
But we really do need some kind of priority on our own combo fields to get around other players screwing up peoples builds and playstyles.
If I put a field down, want my combo attacks to completely ignore other players fields and only interact with my own fields while they are active.
If I want to interact with other players fields then let that decision be mine to make.

And yes I know soft CC's do impact breakbars lol
They are just slow and not as valuable as hard CC's are, and they all have caps to them anyway which are more than likely going to be constantly hit due to constant skill spam put down by players so it does make additional soft CC's from combos pretty much worthless in these situations.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Teratus.2859

[Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294]

Teratus, there was a change not too long ago to combo fields so that you prioritize your own combo fields when you do a finisher.  That SHOULD help with your combos.  🙂

 

I think the point to putting the combo field part in that heart was to teach new players and people that don't use them/aren't aware of their power to use them.  You DO have to use a combo field in one of the early story boss fights - the good news with respect to that is that you get a special action key to have Marjory drop some fields you can combo with.

[Rokeb.3815]

Thanks for all the comments! Doing a bit of digging it certainly seems that for some of my characters - such as my scrapper, there are some useful combo's I should take more advantage of - like Hammer 3 (double leap finisher) into heal gyro (water field)

 

[Rogue.8235]

3 hours ago, Rokeb.3815 said:

Thanks for all the comments! Doing a bit of digging it certainly seems that for some of my characters - such as my scrapper, there are some useful combo's I should take more advantage of - like Hammer 3 (double leap finisher) into heal gyro (water field)

 

 

Don't forget hammer 3 in lightning fields for stuns and massive breakbar damage.  Hammer 5 into 3 usually breaks a bar in story mode content.