ArenaNet talk:Skill feedback/Miscellaneous/Fixing Effect Stacking

Why would this make hex removal more viable again? Using your example, of SS+Wasterl's Worry+Backfire etc, it would have very little difference. They remove Backfire which is covering SS so they start dieing even more from the effects of SS, and Wastrel's gets covered by everything and still has its effect when it ends. Very little change. You still take damage/get diversioned/shamed etc from using a skill or take 100+dmg from Wastrel's Worry if you dont. All it really gets rid of is Backfire+SS+Empathy+Shame etc stacking.

However, it is quite a good idea, since a smart person could cover SS with Backfire for a sudden spike (when Backfire is removed, foe (lets asume a War who laughs at why he has Backfire on him) is auto-attacking so suddenly gets massive dmg and their team's hex removal is recharging). This sort of "hidden spike" would mean that teams would have to communicate more etc such as: "dont remove backfire on me cause I have SS under that" etcCrimmastermind 01:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * That's the point.
 * It would make hex removal more viable because people running hexes would not stack ten of them on one person.
 * Like crimson says below, it would add more strategy to both sides. 72.235.91.16 23:55, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't split up others' posts. -- Gordon Ecker 03:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)


 * What about making the number of enchantments or hexes removed scale with the number of hexes or enchantments currently on the target? For example Remove Hex could be changed to "Remove 1 hex from target ally, for every 3 hexes on target ally, remove 1 additional hex, for each hex removed, this skill takes an additional 2 seconds to recharge", and Rip Enchantment could be changed to  "Spell. Remove 1 enchantment from target foe, for every 3 enchantments on target foe, remove 1 additional enchantment. If an enchantment was removed, that foe suffers from Bleeding for  seconds. For each enchantment removed, Rip Enchantment takes an additional 2 seconds to recharge.". Additionally, more hex and enchantment punishment skills could be given scaling effects like Defile Enchantments and Envenom Enchantments rather than having fixed effects like Shatter Enchantment and Rip Enchantment. -- Gordon Ecker 01:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * That's an individual skill idea, and I've thrown some of those on the suggestion pages, but stacking effects (especially hexes) will always be powerful unless you add a penalty. At least this way, people who run hexway have to a: communicate what they're doing, 2: Keep track of their hexes and 3: Don't use too many cover hexes. 72.235.91.16 23:55, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Doesn't seem like a bad idea, to be honest. I only worry about degenerate builds that stack so that once you remove one layer, there's another to get through... and especially that "hidden spike" idea, especially since there are skills that can remove hexes on enemies.  --Kalas Silvern 04:51, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * How is that degenerate? I think it would be inventive.  Even if builds using this mechanic became gimmicks, you'd still have to pay attention to what you're doing.  No more c+123456 fire-forget gameplay.
 * I think I see what you're saying. You're saying people might do this
 * (bottom) Spiteful -> Parasitic Bond -> Insidious -> Defile Defenses. To be honest, by the time you get that many hexes, your monk should have enough reflex time to get the insidious so you only have 2 covers affecting you.  ~Shard  [[Image:User Shard Sig Icon.png]] 17:15, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we have different ideas on degenerate. I was under the impression it was having a team running essentially the same skills on every bar, and the combination being broken.  I was thinking of builds centered on multiple copies of certain mesmer hexes, along with shatter delusions and maybe a couple necro hexes for backup/cover, and being able to shatter hexes off for damage while screwing someone over as they do something else at the same time.  Seemed a tad broken to me, since you could even spam shatter hexes to alternate effects.  Don't need that backfire yet?  Wait till they heal, and shatter a good 3 or 4 hexes to get it in effect just before it goes off, bam, insta kill.  As long as the protect against that scenario somehow, this would be an amazing change to this game.  --Kalas Silvern 01:13, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This is kind of good, because it promotes thinking, but it would be kind of strange. Since only two or so hexes have their effects, do all the hexes on you show on the status bar thing (sry, I don't know its name) or only the ones that are having an effect. If it was only the ones having an effect at the moment it would be bad, because then they could throw up SS+Backfire then cover with Parasitic Bond+Another Cover and then when they spike, remove the two cover hexes so their monk suddenly dies if they try to heal and another dies if they don't. Still, that kind o promotes thinking and working together (but doesn't really fix hexway too much, just means they have to have 1 or 2 spikers). If it showed all the hexes on you, there would have to be some sort of way of identifying the ones that had their active effect now and some sort of order of when they will take place so players would be able to communicate stuff about their hexes (eg, "don't remove any hexes on me, or else I suddenly get SS+Backfire+Empathy+VS+a whole lot of other shit that insta-kills me"). This again is quite good and encourages communication, but would be probably pretty complex to implement and no-one would really want to a system that shows the hexes in order of when they were cast so you could see what was covering what because then you wouldn't have the system now where you see which ones last longest on you. This could of course be avoided by putting weird little numbers on those icons on your status bar which gave the order they are covering on you, but that would probably be more complex. Also, if they didn't implement some way of differentiating which hexes were currently active on you, it would pretty much break the game and make hexway more powerful since no-one knows whats going to happen if they do anything.Crimmastermind 08:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Another thing, how would this stack thing work with skills that have an effect on ending, do they only trigger if they are currently hexes that the two "active" hexes, or if they are any old hexes?Crimmastermind 08:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Another thought, if you want to get rid of mass hex spamming, you should also nerf mass enchantment spamming as well, otherwise G-Wars would become prot spamming central since everything that absolutely kills everything quickly as hell just got nerfed.Crimmastermind 08:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * enchantment spamming is less of a problem because removing all enchantments is easier and less costly most of the time.Also if you spam enchantments those enchants are active skills when you spam hexes those mostly are fire cover and move on the monk cant remove them all anyway  Lilondra  [[Image:User_Lilondra_Eviscerate.jpg|19x19px]] *poke*  15:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I did mention that in the suggestion. ~Shard  [[Image:User Shard Sig Icon.png]] 23:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't you still be able to cover important hexes with stacks of other hexes? The hexes might not have an effect, true, but they're still there, and they still need to be removed before the problem hex can get removed. And when stacking problem hex on problem hex, removal would simply mean another pain. That might be a problem. 145.94.74.23 22:16, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem is still there, it is just hidden. You simply spam VoR+Empathy+SS and the monk either wastes their hex removal to get rid of one hes which is immediately replaced by another, or they do nothing and don't use hex removal anyway. That does not promote hex removal, because removing one hex in the stack will do nothing, while now it would do very little (reduce damage a bit, but ally still dies, just slower). Thus it will encourage monks not to bring hex removal, because it would just be wasting a skill slot, since removing a hex will simply make another hex in the stack start taking effect. It would be then smarter to simply outheal the damage those 2 hexes are doing and wait for the hex to naturally expire, since those two hexes can't really kill the target by themselves anyway, and all the other hexes are expiring. This fails to limit hex stacking, but it hurts cover hexes, which is definately not solving the problem. Also, how would skills that only have an effect when they end (parasitic, wastrel's worry etc) work in this way, only if they are at the top 2 will they do anything? This makes Gu9ild Wars even worse, because to try to fix a problem, you have done nothing and simply killed off another twenty or so skills from the viable list. Thnx 4 nuthing.1337H4AX0RK1NG 05:29, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This actually solves very little, and creates a heck load of problems. First:cover hexes become useless. You just chucked like 10 skills in the "never going to be viable list". Second, it doesn't balance hex removal. It simply means that any hex-heavy teams need to be more skilled to win, and any hex removal becomes redundant against crap hex heavy teams. The result? You screw up RA, FA, JQ & every other form of low end PvP. All that, for not balancing hexes. Why? Because then only superly OP hexes will be run (WoD, VoR etc). Build-Wars becomes more elitist (or else your WoD gets covered by Life Siphon). Hex removal isn't buffed, nor made to be any more appealing (if they throw 3 hexes on your ally, your spell that removes 1 hex in effect does nothing). You just nerfed a whole shit-load of enchantment removal skills. Congratulations, you managed to become as good as Izzy at balancing! Most of your suggestions are actually decent/good, but this one is just lol.
 * I think this would upset the game balance so much that its simply not feasible. However, maybe something like this could be used to regulate shouts/chants and so on, as a solution to the whole paragon overpowered/underpowered thing?