[POLL] Simplifying the Boon/Condition Spam

[XenesisII.1540]

What do you think about if they were to apply the "Crowd Control are doing too much" rule to skills in regards to boons and condition applications.

In other words, no skill/trait/autoproc is allowed to apply more than 1 type of boon to allies, or more than 1 type of condition to enemies.

So for example "Stand your ground" would only apply stability, and not resolution as well.

Or "Enfeebling Blood" would only apply weakness and not bleeding as well.

This gets somewhat messy with skills such as auras which have a few traits that add additional boons to overloads.

But overall would be ok if they went in that direction to try and curb the boon/condition spam? Of course with adjustments such as this you should expect that those skills would get boosted for the boons or conditions they apply to compensate, whether it's more stacks or longer duration etc.

Edited November 24, 2023 by XenesisII.1540

[joneirikb.7506]

Quote

no skill/trait/autoproc is allowed to apply more than 1 type of boon to allies, or more than 1 type of condition to enemies.

If I get this straight, if I did an auto attack that adds say Bleed, and have a trait that also adds Vulnerability, and a sigil that also gives me a chance to add poison, it would only give me 1 of those? (Which?/Piriority system?)

[XenesisII.1540]

31 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

If I get this straight, if I did an auto attack that adds say Bleed, and have a trait that also adds Vulnerability, and a sigil that also gives me a chance to add poison, it would only give me 1 of those? (Which?/Piriority system?)

In the condition example you listed it would apply all 3 of those conditions because it's from 3 different sources. But let's say your auto attack added two conditions like say rev mace adds torment and poison(3rd hit), then we would nerf this down to just apply torment(since the first two autos are already torment), and the trait Expose defenses for vulnerability, and sigil  for poison, it would be separate applications.

The other option for this is if we make weapons only apply a single type of condition from their skills, as the mace 2 can apply burning(which we could change to torment only to go along with the auto attack). Or we could make it only 1 damaging condition type can be applied per weapon, but other non damaging conditions can be applied (so mace 3 weakness would stay).

The more basic idea is just take make all skills/traits apply single boon or condition. With traits we could go an extra step and make them only apply to the caster, not to allies as well, which kinda resolves the tempest overload boon spam to others.

Of course none of this will happen, as it's too much work for anet to bother looking into it, and they don't want to reduce boon spam anyways. Just thought I would throw the idea out there to see if it's a direction players would be interested in for boon spam reduction.

[Ashen.2907]

What if the condition aspect was limited by max stacks from a single source rather than max number of unique conditions? So one skill might inflict one stack each of poison and bleed while another might inflict two stacks of poison?

[ArchonWing.9480]

I think might should work like how vulnerability does, and go by %. Right now a minstrel build can have 1800 power from 25 stacks of might and will often have fury to boot. And then some incidental condi damage to boot.Now obviously no zerg goes around in just minstrels but my point is that it makes a huge difference and those wet noodles sometimes aren't that wet en masse.

They already started on capping boons in general. Boons except swiftness are capped to 30s, so I think it's time to cut down certain boons even lower in wvw to 10 seconds for certain boons that really shouldn't be perma uptime though the particulars of that should be subject to debate.

Of course we wouldn't need this if they would just have some more boon strips, so whatever.

Edited November 25, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[joneirikb.7506]

Hmm, ok I see what you mean now.

+1 to Might do % instead of flat stats.

Curious about changing boon/condi max limits for WvW? Say Might/Stability is max 25 stacks, what if they cut them down to 10 for wvw? And the rest stack duration up to 30 secs, so how about 10-15 ? Not sure about condis, lost count of how high you could stack those.

[Dawdler.8521]

13 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

Hmm, ok I see what you mean now.

+1 to Might do % instead of flat stats.

Curious about changing boon/condi max limits for WvW? Say Might/Stability is max 25 stacks, what if they cut them down to 10 for wvw? And the rest stack duration up to 30 secs, so how about 10-15 ? Not sure about condis, lost count of how high you could stack those.

Or you could do something with actual impact across the board.

Boons are non-stackable. Full stop. All of them. 

You have 10s of 5 might stacks on you and someone pop AoE with  7s of 3 might stacks? You still have 10s of 5 might stacks on you. You have 3s of protection on you and someone pops 5s of AoE protection? You still have 3s of protection on you.

Condition spam is more complicated due to the way Anet has decided to balance elites over the years. With core specs back in 2013 or something one could say well just limit the damage/stacks once again because they will be condi OR power and thus "easy" to balance only the condi aspect against power, but all the elites have everything all at once and the existance of celestial effectivly destroys any resemblance of balance. We dont even know how the playing field would look without celestial anymore.

[joneirikb.7506]

5 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Or you could do something with actual impact across the board.

Boons are non-stackable. Full stop. All of them. 

You have 10s of 5 might stacks on you and someone pop AoE with  7s of 3 might stacks? You still have 10s of 5 might stacks on you. You have 3s of protection on you and someone pops 5s of AoE protection? You still have 3s of protection on you.

Condition spam is more complicated due to the way Anet has decided to balance elites over the years. With core specs back in 2013 or something one could say well just limit the damage/stacks once again because they will be condi OR power and thus "easy" to balance only the condi aspect against power, but all the elites have everything all at once and the existance of celestial effectivly destroys any resemblance of balance. We dont even know how the playing field would look without celestial anymore.

Honestly I'd want to go in this direction myself, non-stacking for all boons/condi, change their effects slightly so for ex Might gives an X% damage bonus, and Vulnerability the opposite etc. But figured that would be too much resources put into WvW (and affect the rest of the game). Since they in theory can adjust numbers between modes I hoped that boon/condi duration/stacks was one of those numbers. At least then it in theory would be easy enough that the leadership might sign off the bill of a six-pack of beer and two large pizzas to hold the WvW section active until it finished it.

[Dawdler.8521]

6 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

Honestly I'd want to go in this direction myself, non-stacking for all boons/condi, change their effects slightly so for ex Might gives an X% damage bonus, and Vulnerability the opposite etc. But figured that would be too much resources put into WvW (and affect the rest of the game). Since they in theory can adjust numbers between modes I hoped that boon/condi duration/stacks was one of those numbers. At least then it in theory would be easy enough that the leadership might sign off the bill of a six-pack of beer and two large pizzas to hold the WvW section active until it finished it.

Nonstacking for condi would require a metric TON of rebalancing skill though, or people will walk around with like 200 damage/s on them. At that point you might as well delete condi from the game and just have power in various forms.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[TheGrimm.5624]

tl;dr version: We need to balance each group against its own counter and not cross the groups and trying to balance them that way since that seems to create less balance in the direct counters.

I do appreciate when Anet shares the why of some changes. In one of the feeds where they reduced strips the thought was that by reducing strips they could allow more boons which would trigger more players to close range. So the idea was that people weren't getting into melee range because they were losing their boons. 

They didn't see it, or state it, in the other two points from the same view. People weren't getting into melee range due to all the boons they were facing, nor did they see it as they weren't closing due to all the ranged AoE pressure. 

So this all a matter of Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock.

Or, Melee Range Boons Anti-boon(Strips/Converts) CC. You could add in the factor about Condi versus Power but those both fall under Melee and Range, We also have more and more hybrid that people are still going back and fourth on and is just as old a conversation as this one is. So for sake of the conversation will leave those alone as another thread. You could also add in skills here as an element but that is a different part of the problem as well.

How those factors mix define the combat and what will happen from a 1v1 to a 50v50v50 and everywhere in between.

So just like paper scissors rock there needs to be up and downs and something needs to counter something else. 

So what opposes what:

• Melee versus Range
• Boons vs Anti-boon(Strips/Converts)
• CC vs All

The issue we run into is that they try and cross groups to try and balance the out the different groups. Example, they give more boons to allow Melee more chance versus Range. To address stacking they allow more Ranged AoE, but then counter that with Projectile denial. So instead of addressing Melee versus Range they try and adjust Boons vs Anti-boon causing more imbalance in the groups.

So the answer to the question is actually in forming what is the question.

What is the vision of the fight suppose to look like? 

We have seen the days of the Hammer Trains, we have seen the days of the Pirate meta. Now we now have the Boon meta. What we end up with is tightly moving groups versus people circling packed groups. The boon meta seems to want to see focused group versus focused group and that impacts groups sizes as in more numbers just wins which trickles down to imbalance in anything less than zerg v zerg v zerg.

Instead part of the issue might be going back to addressing that balance in Risk/Reward of the distance in which a group fights. So if you want melee to close range, allow the cleave to hit more targets. That create more reason for melee to close on a group if they know they can impact more by reaching their destination. Reduce Ranged AoE numbers but leave pierce and then reduce projectile denial numbers to be solo target or two at best. That way Range is still effective at targeting and hitting their targets but not just blanketing an area. This also addressing issues in group sizes. If a group is using more range, bring more melee to close and counter. If a group is too heavy melee bring in more range to try and distance and pierce thru a melee train.

CC vs All could follow the same general guide line. Melee range CC hits more targets where as ranged CC hit less. But melee range CC impacts should be smaller than Melee attack impacts so that we don't create the stun-death meta. There should be some risk of damage for a stun built train versus just a hammer train. 

In the Boon vs Anti-boon again we need better balance. Getting a Boon is a positive but there should be risk in having that turned against you if there are going to be that many thrown around. Right now boons are being used to address range of play, numbers of play and conditions. So to do that they lean more into the boon versus anti-boon balancing which creates more imbalance in the numbers of play side of three issues its trying to cover. Again there are multiple potentials here. If we want to keep this much boon application then we need more coverts. If can reduce the number of boons then I would say more strips over more converts. If we reduce the number of targets boons can be applied to from 5 to 3 then we could go with more strips and less converts is another example. There are other options here as well but I am out of coffee and that's enough rambling to start with. 

If you made it this far, I would recommend a coffee or tea for you as well since we should both in Guild Wars 2 versus Forum Wars 2 on a weekend. Good hunting! More later.

 

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by TheGrimm.5624
spelling, which I am sure I missed more of

[blp.3489]

4 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

If we reduce the number of targets boons can be applied to from 5 to 3

I think this would be very interesting.

Then again, I think a special event with no stability boon would be a hoot.  Give the firebrand players a week of freedom and remind the composition oriented players what a huge advantage they have over pugs.

[Aeolus.3615]

On 11/25/2023 at 10:28 AM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Or you could do something with actual impact across the board.

Boons are non-stackable. Full stop. All of them. 

You have 10s of 5 might stacks on you and someone pop AoE with  7s of 3 might stacks? You still have 10s of 5 might stacks on you. You have 3s of protection on you and someone pops 5s of AoE protection? You still have 3s of protection on you.

Condition spam is more complicated due to the way Anet has decided to balance elites over the years. With core specs back in 2013 or something one could say well just limit the damage/stacks once again because they will be condi OR power and thus "easy" to balance only the condi aspect against power, but all the elites have everything all at once and the existance of celestial effectivly destroys any resemblance of balance. We dont even know how the playing field would look without celestial anymore.

That could be improved towards gw1 stacking mechanics, if a player affected by a shout, a shout icon would appear and would not allow that player being effected by the same shout while in its duration of effect.

From fb F keys one player should be only buffed from one tome skill and not by several same stacking tomes as well, while mantras ic no issue on stacking it's results.

The objective would be stop the massive stacking that exist by same aoe boon utilities, a player could be affected by several diferent ones but not the same.

Limit the aplication of some boons just from a specific class or very very few.

From conditions i believe Anet needs to calm down the condi spam overall, increase the amount of cleanses will just make them more useless in massive defensive blobs , for example no class should apply all condis at once or have them in the same set that will just  make that spec super strong in small scale but useless in large scale, vulnerability is useless on zerg or massive groups, actually only helps massive groups dealing with smaller ones,vulnerability should affect power based damage only and maybe scale it up towards 30% more direct damage, this would be just aplyed be some melee weapons skills but never on the autos...

Torment could become the boost towards condi damage on players imagine it like an hex, and instead of doing damage since its counterpart it is might this condi/hex would be the oposite of might in this case stacks players would cause players do less damage.

Barrier is another problem in large group gameplay with the addition to barrier to all classes (sooooon) its becomes a super nuisance in favor of the bigger zerg, reduce the amount of classes that have access to barrier would help, i would say leave it on 2 classes, scourge and give it to FB when purging burns from allies  heals on barrier values those allies.

Asuran golems racial skills could have fun and improved usage on barrier towards allies and other mechinal "pets" of other classes, this could be fun to improve a possible golem mancer build, golem could be imune to non damaging conditions, but would not receive heal from normal healing as well.

On adition: aoe skills that make boons consumes faster, and 2 or 3 skills that would target specific boons as well like quickness and alacrity, with adition of some aoe offensive skills aply 1 stack of damage condition on pulse, something like torment from above.

Edited November 26, 2023 by Aeolus.3615

[Ezraholic.7349]

 

On 11/25/2023 at 11:28 AM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Boons are non-stackable. Full stop. All of them. 

You have 10s of 5 might stacks on you and someone pop AoE with  7s of 3 might stacks? You still have 10s of 5 might stacks on you. You have 3s of protection on you and someone pops 5s of AoE protection? You still have 3s of protection on you.
 

This sounds straight up bad. Example: 1) a random person in squad pops this 1 stack of might 0.1s before you as a healer try to give these sweet 12 stacks. Whose fault it is that you have bad boons? Ofc one would blame the healer. 2) Someone accidentally/a tag along new player/troll gives their group 2s of protection from some trait/skill, as your boon giver was about to give 10s - and suddenly crashes your organized squad's boons. 3) Boongiver's gameplay would be literally staring at the boon bar to see whether they use their next boon skill or will that just be wasted. And what is the point of having skills that after use don't do anything, and it might not even be your fault? Doesn't sound like an interactive gameplay and I can't see it affecting any game mode well. 4) It would completely defeat the point of anyone else but healer adding to boon range, as they have the highest boon duration in most cases. Or worse, if you were to limit boons to 1 per skill, that would probably require to bring even more specific-classes-only gameplay, not just firebrand, because sorry but this class can provide x boon, so now we need firebrand and x class in one party. And to counter that every class would need a set of utility skills that brings x boon to squad.

Just nuke duration of any boon from any skill on WvW, if you don't like people having consistent boons. Or add boonstrip to more classes. 

[Dawdler.8521]

5 hours ago, Ezraholic.7349 said:

 

This sounds straight up bad. Example: 1) a random person in squad pops this 1 stack of might 0.1s before you as a healer try to give these sweet 12 stacks. Whose fault it is that you have bad boons? Ofc one would blame the healer. 2) Someone accidentally/a tag along new player/troll gives their group 2s of protection from some trait/skill, as your boon giver was about to give 10s - and suddenly crashes your organized squad's boons. 3) Boongiver's gameplay would be literally staring at the boon bar to see whether they use their next boon skill or will that just be wasted. And what is the point of having skills that after use don't do anything, and it might not even be your fault? Doesn't sound like an interactive gameplay and I can't see it affecting any game mode well. 4) It would completely defeat the point of anyone else but healer adding to boon range, as they have the highest boon duration in most cases. Or worse, if you were to limit boons to 1 per skill, that would probably require to bring even more specific-classes-only gameplay, not just firebrand, because sorry but this class can provide x boon, so now we need firebrand and x class in one party. And to counter that every class would need a set of utility skills that brings x boon to squad.

Just nuke duration of any boon from any skill on WvW, if you don't like people having consistent boons. Or add boonstrip to more classes. 

That’s called skill mate. Team play. Coordination. Everything people claim they have when they boonball and face roll the keyboard to apply all the boons all the time without a care in the world. So what’s the problem with that? 

Oh did you fail that because some noob popped the wrong skill at the wrong time?

I dont see how that’s my problem as your enemy.

[Samis.1750]

28 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

That’s called skill mate. Team play. Coordination. Everything people claim they have when they boonball and face roll the keyboard to apply all the boons all the time without a care in the world. So what’s the problem with that? 

Oh did you fail that because some noob popped the wrong skill at the wrong time?

I dont see how that’s my problem as your enemy.

I seriously doubt that Anet wants to create a situation where somebody gets yelled at or squad kicked for adding one of their boons. One good thing about this game is that

having another player around is a almost always a good thing. 1 dead player used to rally 5 and they changed that to 1 only rallies 1 - which was a good thing.

[Kirevey.5079]

I wonder how it would be if condis would work as 'strips' for boons.

Example: 

You have 10 stacks of might and someone puts 5 stacks of vuln on you. 5 stacks of might get removed and no vuln is applied.

You have 10 stacks of might and someone puts 15 stacks of vuln on you. All might is removed and 5 stacks of vuln are applied.

Clearly it would need to do a lot of balancing across the board on what skilss have what condi/boon but it would be interesting. Cleanses and boon strips at that point would not be necessary and it would kind of matter when ppl are using their skills again.