Blind is powerful. Consider rebalancing it.

[Shiyo.3578]

There is an overabundance of AOE blind on random abilities. Blind is a powerful, if not, one of the most powerful debuffs in the entire game.

One of the biggest reasons ranger and warrior are doing so bad in SPvP right now is because while before pre-feb, they were perma blinded, the second they were able to land any damage it nearly 1 shot the person. You also added explosive entrance blind which is nearly perma blind vs holo's(on top of blind grenade).

Please consider lowering the durations of all blinds, removing it on some skills, or just making some of it single target instead of AOE.

[Drachenfalke.7605]

Ehrm…. Maybe thel old Guild wars 1 veterans can remember how blindness worked:

• Blinding Flash Spell. Inflicts Blindness condition (3...7...8 seconds!!). Cooldown 8 s !! Concise description: Your melee and missile attacks have a 90% chance to miss. Your projectile spells also have a greater chance to stray from their intended target.

This Chance to miss lasted for full 8 seconds and every!! melle attack had a 90% Chance to miss. This is was I call "Blindness". The GW2 Version of Blindess is a soft-Version.By the way: this Elementalist who used blindness for a complete warrior shutdown were called Blinding-Bit..es. They were super anoying.

[KrHome.1920]

If any condition is problematic currently, then it is immobilize, which btw. is stronger than blind.

[Tayga.3192]

@Drachenfalke.7605 said:90% Chance to miss.

Ew, rng.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@KrHome.1920 said:If any condition is problematic currently, then it is immobilize, which btw. is stronger than blind.

This, I can drop blind with one auto, way rather that than be rooted and have to stand buy roots with hp only to be rooted again few sec later. I know this isnt imobilize but same thing.

[Swagg.9236]

@"Drachenfalke.7605" said:Ehrm…. Maybe thel old Guild wars 1 veterans can remember how blindness worked:

• Blinding Flash Spell. Inflicts Blindness condition (3...7...8 seconds!!). Cooldown 8 s !! Concise description: Your melee and missile attacks have a 90% chance to miss. Your projectile spells also have a greater chance to stray from their intended target.

This Chance to miss lasted for full 8 seconds and every!! melle attack had a 90% Chance to miss. This is was I call "Blindness". The GW2 Version of Blindess is a soft-Version.By the way: this Elementalist who used blindness for a complete warrior shutdown were called Blinding-Bit..es. They were super anoying.

The reason why blind was tolerable in GW1 was because not only did a team generally build toward supporting players in the presence of blindness (although, it was indeed torture to encounter it in RA and AB half of the time), but GW1 also had a metered combat rhythm in which seconds were not nearly as significant as they are in GW2's hyper-spammy, low-TTK meta. Just as an elite skill or a high-energy skill (skill bar opportunity cost) could technically maintain blindness on a target almost indefinitely (with high stat investment that also cut into the user's base HP; more opportunity cost), GW1 also featured condition durations that stretched into the 10s or 20s of seconds. Nobody batted an eye at that half of the time because the combat was tailored to that sort of timescale. GW2 doesn't have that; it's just that the developers weren't creative enough to make a supplementary role for blindness that wasn't just "miss your next attack lol."

[fatedhater.9301]

It not really a matter of which condi is "stronger" blind spam feels bad, and when you have oppressive damage and cc coupled with it you can easily see the need for reductions in time or amount.

It is most problematic with holo because it is extending the length of the holo's dodge, means you cannot punish a wasted dodge, and comes with a cc and 2k dmg. Energy sigil and high vigor uptime makes it even more of an issue trying to punish wasted dodges.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

Blind is not powerful. Blind spam is the issue.

The occasional blind works like an interrupt that can be outplayed by stowing your skill and then removing the blind with an auto to avoid skill cooldown / energy wastage. It's actually a pretty fair mechanic.

The problem happens when you have builds that can spam it every second or so via AoEs or passive traits that auto-proc blindness on any old random skill for no apparent good reason. Then players end up constantly facing an uphill battle of removing the blind by getting to do nothing but auto while their blindspamming opponent freecasts.

[Shiyo.3578]

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Blind is not powerful. Blind spam is the issue.

The occasional blind works like an interrupt that can be outplayed by stowing your skill and then removing the blind with an auto to avoid skill cooldown / energy wastage. It's actually a pretty fair mechanic.

The problem happens when you have builds that can spam it every second or so via AoEs or passive traits that auto-proc blindness on any old random skill for no apparent good reason. Then players end up constantly facing an uphill battle of removing the blind by getting to do nothing but auto while their blindspamming opponent freecasts.

Yes. I can keep people nearly perma blinded vs me on d/p thief and it's really unfair. Even doing my DPS rotation alone will keep someone blinded half the time, it's absurd. Holo also has too much FREE blind on it's dps rotation.

The issue is that Anet completely undervalues how powerful blind is and hands it out on everything, when it's essentially as strong as hard CC.

[Shao.7236]

If blind was more of a timing thing rather than lasting 5 seconds, the so called abundance would be much less of a problem. At best it should last 2 seconds. Max 3 seconds if it's from a long cooldown, very often players find themselves wanting to remove that blind but lose so much time trying to reach for the offender and when most attacks that deal damage are just one hit based, it's easy to nullify them with re-application.

[Widmo.3186]

Pls dont compare gw1, which was great game in all aspects, and almost every skill there was...logical - to abomination such as gw2.Imo I think that not blind is a problem per se, but skills/traits that makes it spammable. For example teef Black Powder - pulsing blind clearly visible on the ground that you can easily - E A S I L Y manage to dodge/move in-out during intervals. Maybe its just me, having some k hours on teef that makes this skill not a problem and easily outplayable, never had a problem on any class against it. Other thing is Shadow Shot, 5 initiative gap closer with visible animation, another easy to dodge and if teef spams it - he wont live for too long.Meanwhile there are things like engi Flashbang or nades, those are ridiculous, abused and as we all noticed, needs to be nerfed asap. Its basically like you would give Weaver passive blind application on every tick of Lava Skin or Primordial Stance - gl meeles, have fun.Also, ye, I think immob spam is even bigger problem. Like ranger roots. For real, whoever thought this is a good idea mustve been either already fired from the company, or now is one of its leaders. Ill give u an example what other companies, with actual competetive PvP scene, did when they released same "mechanic" (Void Tendrils)

@"cmcary.4762" dont forget boi, we have bingo to play!

But hey, "Grenades holo is the type of innovation we like to see from players." -CMC

[Shiyo.3578]

@Shao.7236 said:If blind was more of a timing thing rather than lasting 5 seconds, the so called abundance would be much less of a problem. At best it should last 2 seconds. Max 3 seconds if it's from a long cooldown, very often players find themselves wanting to remove that blind but lose so much time trying to reach for the offender and when most attacks that deal damage are just one hit based, it's easy to nullify them with re-application.

When I use steal, it stealths me and AOE blinds 5 people around me for 5 1/4s in the position of where I LAND steal at. It's so obscenely overpowered I don't even know what to say at this point. Dueling anyone on thief with a slow weapon results in them never being able to fight back because they're always blinded, which might as well be hard CC at this point.