Review: Glyph of overload

[Galeskyring.9617]

Released 3/10/2020 in the new "glacial mining tool"

This new glyph on harvest of a node generates 1 stacking charge which caps at a total 25. Upon reaching a minimum 10 charges a special action is made available to use. This special skill converts the generated charges into the 100% bonus strikes on nodes, consumption of nodes being fully harvested diminishes charges. Further more charges are consumed at 2 per rock, 2 per tree and 3 per plant nodes. The charges last 1 hour/59m99s, this time doesn't diminish while logged out or on alternate characters (that I've noticed) and the time is renewed with each gained charge and stacks are retained even with map changes.

After spending almost a hours testing the glyph no bugs seemed to be found however!

The charges are per character and are only generated by tools using the overload glyph, further more even after using the special action skill to convert the charges for use it only applies the 100% bonus strike to tools using the glyph thus combos with others is not possible.

Overload is potentially useful however has 2 glaring problems, 1 it doesn't directly compete with glyph of bounty. 2 It was blatantly designed and intended for multiple tools too use the glyph for highest use rate meaning clunky glyph swapping between tools or ( more obviously intended) purchasing multiple to socket into more then 1 tool at a time.

I cannot personally recommend this glyph as it's usage is niche and only beneficial to clever usage at the right moment or equipping multiple tools to accelerate stacking speed to reuse more often. Average new glyphs only require $10 to acquire said new tools they come in and are either worth using or not regardless of single/double/triple copy uses. However Overload clearly has a sparse usage rate unless abusing 2-3 copies at a time too accelerate charge generation to cut out down time between 100% bonus strike windows.

Perhaps the worst glyph in the game (yes even compared too flight) due to the evident requirement to stack copies to reap any use on a casual basis too validate using it over other glyph's

[Setz.9675]

How does this new glyph not directly compete vs glyph of bounty? They have the same multiple strike functionality but bounty is random whereas the new one is targeted. Also 200 charges would mean 100 bonus strike for rock and wood which is a 33% return on 300 total strikes so care to explain?The charge consumption, does it take 2 charges for rock and wood to grant a 1 base +1 additional rescource or does it take 2 charges for a 1 base + 2 additonal rescource?Does the new glyph gather multiple times on the same node? For example that home garden node, I sometimes get 4 strikes from 1 node, will this glyph force those 4 gatherings from 1 node on the home garden or is it 1 base with a 100% chance for a 2nd strike?While using the special action to use charges, do you still gain some charges back or is it purely gain stacks/consume stacks?Does every gather from a single node grant a charge or is it the depletion of a node that grants the charge?

The usage of the glyph to my current understanding should be used at node farms like wood/flax and home instance to force high gathering from the garden plots, so depending on what the return rates are this glyph should be equivalent to bounty but higher value in the home instance.

[Galeskyring.9617]

@Setz.9675 said:How does this new glyph not directly compete vs glyph of bounty? They have the same multiple strike functionality but bounty is random whereas the new one is targeted. Also 200 charges would mean 100 bonus strike for rock and wood which is a 33% return on 300 total strikes so care to explain?The charge consumption, does it take 2 charges for rock and wood to grant a 1 base +1 additional rescource or does it take 2 charges for a 1 base + 2 additonal rescource?Does the new glyph gather multiple times on the same node? For example that home garden node, I sometimes get 4 strikes from 1 node, will this glyph force those 4 gatherings from 1 node on the home garden or is it 1 base with a 100% chance for a 2nd strike?While using the special action to use charges, do you still gain some charges back or is it purely gain stacks/consume stacks?Does every gather from a single node grant a charge or is it the depletion of a node that grants the charge?

The usage of the glyph to my current understanding should be used at node farms like wood/flax and home instance to force high gathering from the garden plots, so depending on what the return rates are this glyph should be equivalent to bounty but higher value in the home instance.

Due to a recent tool wide update tools now strike extra hit's instantly if they occur. So in case of a plant node you get 1 strike, if a 2nd strike pops as a bonus instead of the node being depleted you now instantly claim that too thus depleting the node in that 1 strike. As such you won't see a plant node beyond that 1 strike unless a 2nd bonus strike occurs.

Charges work in a tide manner, you gather to build up then use the special skill to convert, you cannot gain new charges until the converted ones are depleted so if you strike 10 plant nodes to reap the minimum use rate then farm plants with the 100% bonus strikes through charges you will lose 3 of the 10 stacks per plant node reaping roughly 3-4 nodes before new charges start to build up.

In most cases it's only proven to be 1 bonus strike per node depleting it as a result due to the tool function change. Rarely ever getting to strike the node by command a 2nd time. Because of this you could reap more off a bounty glyph more regularly compared too overload. This is why it doesn't directly compete, it simply takes too long to make use of the charges and the yield is much lower then bounty unless you buy multiple copies to accelerate the charge stack rate and farm everything in sight but that also consumes more time preparing the charges to squeeze out those extra hits.

Striking an ore node normally say a mithril will animate 3 hits and generate 3 ore units and deplete the node. With overload (on 100% bonus windows) will pull the 3 units then provide 1 bonus ore unit and deplete the node (unless a rare bonus bonus strike appears.) Outside of rich ore nodes this will not be beneficial vs using bounty ins most every case.

When I mentioned 'clever' use I was directly referring to such things as special nodes or sites, accruing benefit only by essentially maxing out 25 total stacks then farming said sites. It's further more worth noting you barely gather 8-9 nodes using a max charge on purely plants while gathering roughly 13 nodes when using the charge son only tree and ore nodes (excluding rich nodes)

It is also worth pointing out using the special action occurs only once! Flipping all built up charges at that time and only applies to nodes farmed with tools using the overload glyph so the bonus strikes will deplete by use only those tools. It cannot be toggled on/off outside of removing the glyph or equipping another tool.

A good comparison example involves the home garden plots. Plant a max 12 seeds for the ascended seeds which yield 1 unit per strike. Baring bonus hits that's 12 total units, with bounty you could regularly reap roughly 17-20+ or even close to 30 if really lucky but with overload (max charges) you only 100% guarantee reaching roughly the 17ish units with another big difference being pre-invested time to build up those charges where as bounty needs no prep time and yields often far more overall turnout. Rendering casual usage subpar outside stacking copies on multiple tools to max stacks faster while farming any nodes overall.

Another prime example is bitterfrost berries, farming most of the node sin the map I regularly accrue 55-60 total units and that's minus about 6 nodes left in the map where as farming every node with overload i barely made it too 55 units WITH hitting every node in the map and even then it was required to farm about every plant node along the way for the sake of building up the charges to reap the bonus strikes. A great deal more effort and time sunk for less then bounty could get in a much smaller time.

[Setz.9675]

Thank you for the additional info, will stick to bounty then.

[Galeskyring.9617]

@Setz.9675 said:Thank you for the additional info, will stick to bounty then.

No problem, like I said though overload is only good in niche situations and its only truely worth it if max charged. Bounty just face rolls so much better. The fact it was blatantly designed to be rather bad unless you stack it is a sad new money grab attempt with glyphs.... At least timekeeper competes well with industry.

[casualkenny.9817]

This is just speculation, since I don't have it nor will I get it, but:

1) harvest junk nodes with it to build up charges? (lotsa plants like potatoes and and strawberries and what not) Place the thingy on sickles2) use the SA key to trigger for useful nodes like lumber. Will any tool+glyph be able to get the bonus strikes?

You can also charge it in places like sirens, where bounty doesn't affect pearls

[Galeskyring.9617]

@casualkenny.9817 said:This is just speculation, since I don't have it nor will I get it, but:

1) harvest junk nodes with it to build up charges? (lotsa plants like potatoes and and strawberries and what not) Place the thingy on sickles2) use the SA key to trigger for useful nodes like lumber. Will any tool+glyph be able to get the bonus strikes?

You can also charge it in places like sirens, where bounty doesn't affect pearls

1: You can build charges on any node including synths in guildhall and wvw however it always takes 25 nodes to max the charges and 10 to meet the minimum to use the special action.

2: Even after using the special action you only get 100% bonus strikes using tools equipped with the glyph of overload, there is no ability to mix and match glyphs.

[Melech.4308]

@Galeskyring.9617 said:

@casualkenny.9817 said:This is just speculation, since I don't have it nor will I get it, but:

1) harvest junk nodes with it to build up charges? (lotsa plants like potatoes and and strawberries and what not) Place the thingy on sickles2) use the SA key to trigger for useful nodes like lumber. Will any tool+glyph be able to get the bonus strikes?

You can also charge it in places like sirens, where bounty doesn't affect pearls

1: You can build charges on any node including synths in guildhall and wvw however it always takes 25 nodes to max the charges and 10 to meet the minimum to use the special action.

2: Even after using the special action you only get 100% bonus strikes using tools equipped with the glyph of overload, there is no ability to mix and match glyphs.

Just curious but what are common examples of mixing and matching glyphs? I've only ran with glyph of volatility so I'm intrigued

[Khisanth.2948]

@casualkenny.9817 said:You can also charge it in places like sirens, where bounty doesn't affect pearls

but does that actually prevent them from consuming charges? same issue also applies to the last node of a node farm

[Nitek.7156]

How does it interact with 1 node harvests, like Mistborn Mote from Dragonfall?

[Phazon.3975]

So if I am understanding this correctly.

You need to harvest 25 nodes to get a special skill that gives you 12-8 bonus strikes depending on the nodes you harvest. It is only 1 additional strike per node with the Overload buff and you can't generate more stacks until you use up all your bonus strikes. This is strictly worse than Glyph of Bounty or any other money-making glyph for that matter. Even if you buy multiples, you are missing out on chances to get things like volatile magic, watchwork sprockets, leather, etc. on the nodes you don't care about to generate charges because more than likely you're going to save your charges for nodes such as iron, money plants like flax, blooming passiflora, jungle plants, or LWS nodes, and in the end you'd only get 1 additional strike per node. I rather get sprockets on nodes like mithril rather than build up these charges and get petty reward in the end. Sounds super restrictive and bland.

You said that only tools with the glyph on it would gain the effect but wouldn't that mean that once you activate the skill, you have to either remove the glyphs on the tools you wouldn't want the additional strikes to trigger or strictly avoid nodes you don't want to use them on? This glyph just sounds like bait tbh. Unless you like the tool itself (which I admit does look pretty cool), do yourself a favor and avoid this glyph and get yourself 1 bounty glyph and 2 money glyphs of your choosing (Volatile, Watchknight, leather.)

((Psst get yourself an all-purpose trio of glyphs for your tools! Bounty, Volatile (Or other if you don't have LWS4.This is for trophy shipments), and either Watchwork/Leather. Volatile for trash nodes, Watchwork/Leather on the next profitable, and Bounty for the $$$ nodes. Swap them around depending on the map your on and how you please!))

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

These glyphs are becoming increasingly convoluted.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Nitek.7156 said:How does it interact with 1 node harvests, like Mistborn Mote from Dragonfall?

It is possible to gain additional strikes on those so you could get two per strike per mote but that means you have to run around gathering 25 other nodes then gather 8 motes then gather another 25 other nodes again.

[Nitek.7156]

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Nitek.7156 said:How does it interact with 1 node harvests, like Mistborn Mote from Dragonfall?

It is possible to gain additional strikes on those so you could get two per strike per mote but that means you have to run around gathering 25 other nodes then gather 8 motes then gather another 25 other nodes again.

I was thinking if you could stack it on normal flowers, and just bust it all on mistborn motes it might be really good for that zone, and i watched a video and was wondering how it ate stacks, cus it seemed like sometimes it wouldn't eat stacks on first 2 node hits. Maybe it would be more effecient on 1 node plants, guess not.

Target farming mistborn motes if you are minmaxing you could probably get 50+% on mistborn motes w/o too much hassle, which is better than bounty.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Nitek.7156 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Nitek.7156 said:How does it interact with 1 node harvests, like Mistborn Mote from Dragonfall?

It is possible to gain additional strikes on those so you could get two per strike per mote but that means you have to run around gathering 25 other nodes then gather 8 motes then gather another 25 other nodes again.

I was thinking if you could stack it on normal flowers, and just bust it all on mistborn motes it might be really good for that zone, and i watched a video and was wondering how it ate stacks, cus it seemed like sometimes it wouldn't eat stacks on first 2 node hits. Maybe it would be more effecient on 1 node plants, guess not.

Target farming mistborn motes if you are minmaxing you could probably get 50+% on mistborn motes w/o too much hassle, which is better than bounty.

Not by much. Bounty is already at ~47%

[Galeskyring.9617]

@Melech.4308 said:

@Galeskyring.9617 said:

@casualkenny.9817 said:This is just speculation, since I don't have it nor will I get it, but:

1) harvest junk nodes with it to build up charges? (lotsa plants like potatoes and and strawberries and what not) Place the thingy on sickles2) use the SA key to trigger for useful nodes like lumber. Will any tool+glyph be able to get the bonus strikes?

You can also charge it in places like sirens, where bounty doesn't affect pearls

1: You can build charges on any node including synths in guildhall and wvw however it always takes 25 nodes to max the charges and 10 to meet the minimum to use the special action.

2: Even after using the special action you only get 100% bonus strikes using tools equipped with the glyph of overload, there is no ability to mix and match glyphs.

Just curious but what are common examples of mixing and matching glyphs? I've only ran with glyph of volatility so I'm intrigued

Mix and match is the idea of running multiple glyphs per tool which is 100% impossible due to 1 glyph per tool, however overload misleads due to a lack of clarity, making you think that since it creates a special action to cast after building up 10 or more arcane sparks/charges you could use the 100% strikes on anything but you in fact have to still be using the overload glyph on a tool in order to obtain the end effect with strikes which means you cannot swap tools/glyphs to try and cheat the system.

[Nitek.7156]

@"Khisanth.2948" said:Not by much. Bounty is already at ~47%

bounty says 33% on tooltip :/ how do you get 47% out of it?

It also says on https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Bounty

"Extra strikes are subject to certain limitations and restrictions; see notes on additional strikes for details."

"The last node in a node farm will never give bonus strikes, and harvesting from the last node will deactivate any bonus strikes you have left on other nodes"

Overload isn't 'additional strikes' its a bonus yield.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Nitek.7156 said:

@"Khisanth.2948" said:Not by much. Bounty is already at ~47%

bounty says 33% on tooltip :/ how do you get 47% out of it?

It also says on

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Bounty

"Extra strikes are subject to certain limitations and restrictions; see notes on additional strikes for details."

"The last node in a node farm will never give bonus strikes, and harvesting from the last node will deactivate any bonus strikes you have left on other nodes"

Overload isn't 'additional strikes' its a bonus yield.

It is 47% because you can get additional strikes from your additional strikes.

1+ .33 + .33 ^ 2 + .33 ^ 3

As for whether it is additional strike or bonus yield ... https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/shatter-your-gathering-goals-with-the-glacial-mining-tool/

which grants a 100% chance of extra gathering strikes while charges are available.

I don't own the glyph and karma versions haven't been added to the gathering vendor so I can't check but I assume ANet knows what it does.

[ginolatino.8672]

Sorry maybe I've misunderstanding but: I put the Glyph on my mining tool, mining 10 nodes to get the special action key, go to my home instance and mine the Bauble node (usually give 24), I should get 32 right?Actually this doesn't happen to me :(

[Galeskyring.9617]

@ginolatino.8672 said:Sorry maybe I've misunderstanding but: I put the Glyph on my mining tool, mining 10 nodes to get the special action key, go to my home instance and mine the Bauble node (usually give 24), I should get 32 right?Actually this doesn't happen to me :(

Quote from the wiki on additional strikes.

---

The following nodes cannot receive additional strikes:

All rich ore veinsAll home instance nodes except for those from the Black Lion Garden Plot Deed (which do receive extra strikes)Guild hall synthesizersOrrian OystersQuartz CrystalsPrimordial Orchids planted by the player (see A Henge Away from Home)Nodes planted in the Hidden Garden (see Kudzu III: Leaf of Kudzu)

---

Overload can build up charges on about every node in the game, the same is not true of using it's charges for bonus strikes because it like bounty abides by the rules of additional strikes however it will still use charges even if the bonus strike isn't valid so no you cannot get more then 24 baubles in the home instance.

[ginolatino.8672]

Tyvm now get it :)