Feedback:User/Vahkris/More than just fire on weapon skills
More than just fire on weapon skills | |
|---|---|
| User | Vahkris |
| Categories | Mechanics |
Anyone who has watched a Guardian demo video knows about Virtue of Justice putting a blue fire effect on the weapon skills to signal that your next attack will set the enemy on fire. This not only applies to the Guardian, but to anyone in range once the Guardian activates Virtue of Justice. Everyone gets that blue fire, and their next attack lights the enemy up in flames.
Example of current system: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/2/2a/2011_March_Justice.jpg
Can more than just blue fire can be shown this way, though? What if the effect you see over your weapon skills signaled the effect that would be on your next attack?
Apply Poison causes your next 5 attacks to apply Poison. What if when you activate that you saw a green mist/cloud (or some other appropriate graphic) over the weapon skills to visually show your next attack would apply Poison?
Sharpening Stone causes your next 5 attacks to apply Bleeding. What if when you activate that you saw red bubbles similar to the spheres shown during Necromancer life drain abilities (or some other appropriate graphic)over the weapon skills to visually show your next attack would apply Bleeding?
If there's another source of "on next hit" burning effects, the flames could be normal color, and blue flames would be only Guardian as the source.
We heard about a Thief trait to spread "venoms" to nearby allies. Venoms are new and unknown as of this writing, but they sound similar to the above abilities (applying poison, mainly). If these venoms applied other effects beyond poison or bleeding, graphics for those could be put on it. For instance, if they spread a venom that applied Chilled and did extra cold damage, you could put snowflakes or ice above the weapon skills to make allies aware of the new effect on their attack. Extra lightning damage could be electricity, or blind could be smoke or a light pattern.
All of these would obviously sit behind the buttons and bars above the weapon skills, just like the current flame does. This could be a good visual effect to easily be aware of the next effect, instead of having just a tiny buff icon appear. Obviously some care would be needed to make sure you didn't see 4 different effects and get sensory overload. One way to accommodate this is only the next effect would be visible, and any other effects would only appear once they were next to be used (assuming every available and ready effect isn't fired off on the next attack regardless of order). The Guardian's passive Justice flame while charging up would also be hidden while other effects are active until it was ready to go.
This could also be used for any weapons or upgrades that have a "critical causes next (1...n) attack(s) to have <special effect>", and that effect would become visible on the weapon skills as a visual reminder it occurred. This would allow developers to put various effects onto attacks that would keep the visuals simple and obvious without resorting to another icon to remember.
If it becomes too complicated to be implemented, perhaps this could in the end be limited to just the degen conditions (burning, bleeding, poison).
