What's with the Conditional Deep Wound?

I am really trying to understand why the Paragon has no solid DW skill. All of them, to my understanding, are conditional. They are chucking a spear into your body, but can't cause a decent deep wound? That sounds very ridiculous to me. If their is a skill that I have missed, please tell me, but if not, tell me what you think is the reason for all the DW skills to be situational. In a logical way of thinking, it makes no sense at all.

It's a spear head! It is embedding in your body! Of course their's a deep wound! Why does a person have to be moving, or not moving, or ensorcelled, or eating at the time of the attack to get a deep wound?

another attempt to keep the para from being 'overpowered' I guess

whats wrong with conditional deep wounds? not every new class has to be equal to that of a warrior in every single way. besides, warriors only have access to unconditional deep wound in the axe line:

[card]Decapitate[/card][card]Dismember[/card][card]Eviscerate[/card]

along with three other conditional:

[card]Gash[/card][card]Crushing Blow[/card][card]Swift Chop[/card]

and then two random inflicting condition skills:

[card]Drunken Blow[/card][card]Desperation Blow[/card]

as for the paragon, they have 5 conditional deep wound skills, one of which is elite:

[card]"Find Their Weakness!"[/card][card]Cruel Spear[/card][card]Merciless Spear[/card][card]Slayer's Spear[/card][card]Vicious Attack[/card]

along with a skill that self inflicts a deep wound:

[card]"It's just a flesh wound."[/card]

then comes the dervish, which has two conditional deep wounds, and one unconditional with a drawback:

[card]Reaper's Sweep[/card][card]Wearying Strike[/card][card]Wounding Strike[/card]

then the sin, who has three deep wound skills, all requiring some form of condition (must follow X attack):

[card]Twisting Fangs[/card][card]Impale[/card][card]Augury of Death[/card]

finally the mesmer, who has two spells that cause a deep wound, one of which is conditional:

[card]Accumulated Pain[/card][card]Phantom Pain[/card]

so, the issue is that paragons dont have the same ability to deliver deep wound as the warrior does. but the thing is, no other class does. the warrior class is the class of the deep wound. while paras do have a lower ability to deliver deep wound than a warrior, they have things that balance themselves with the warrior: a plethora of team enhancing shouts, chants, echos, (covering everything from speed boosts, to hex removal, to +dmg, to energy return, to added deffense, and so on), a superior primary attribute, the best IAS in GW, all with a 80 armor level.

yes, in a realistic world, a spear should be able to deliver a unconditional deep wound, but so should a sword. so do we need to add a unconditional deep wound to the sword line as well? its just how Anet has set up the skill lines.

Paragons attack from range. Ranged deep wound could be game breaking, so they balanced it by being conditional.

Quote: Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

So Cruel Spear doesnt count? I think thats a good deep wound skill.



Plus.. [skill]"Go For The Eyes!"[/skill] + [skill]Vicious Attack[/skill] anyone?

Quote: Originally Posted by Crazyvietguy

Quote: Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

I understand the point of fearing it will break the game, but they might as well make monks use bo staffs to defend themselves if they want to take away from the fact that a spear should be able to inflict a deep wound on par with any warrior weapon.

Sever artery+Gash=deep wound. So why not the same for a spear? Game breaking, I can't say it would be, it just would be similar to a warrior's ability. Now, if you say that a warrior should be the only one that can do that, that is your opinion and I accept it. If you say it would cause a spike fest, well it already is. Spiking is all one can do to really get around the heavy enchantments. It's to the point that a warrior without adeep wound skill is considered useless.

So, the conditionals have a purpose of balancing the Paragon? He would be better off throwing rocks, and he still has a chance to inflict a deep wound with a big rock.

I understand what you guys have said, but all you've pointed out is that Warriors can and everyone else can if "X" happens. Spears aren't spells. An axe elite does it, a sword only needs to have a bleeding individual,and DW is possible.

What seperates an axe, a sword, a hammer and a spear? Spear heads are half the length of a short sword ingame, but can't at least get the same DW function as a warrior and his classic combo? That's what my point is. I have a skill to make them bleed, but I need a warrior to cause the DW? Just doesn't sound very logical when you look at the implement and its application.

Quote: Originally Posted by ss1986v2

I'm not convinced that there's any reason you would bring sever along on it's own if gash wasn't conditional upon it. It's 6 DPS at best and it's most definately not spikey - in fact it's pretty damn poor IMO without gash.

Never said it was spikey. But if you play pressure warrior and keep switching targets, the bleed gets annoying to clean off and if left unattended it bleeds 150 HP. If sever artery is crappy then so is barbed spear. The point was that you aren't bringing a skill that does nothing on its own but trigger DW on the next one.

Quote: Originally Posted by Spura To be fair, conditional on Gash and Crushing Blow are trivial for their respective attributes. Sever+Gash for instance and you aren't throwing away 1 skill slot for it, because you'd bring sever anyway since it is useful on its own. Same for KD of choice + Crushing for hammer. You are probably bringing a KD anyway if using a hammer. There is no such combo for spears, no prep up attack. The only real options are Vicious and Cruel, Slayers spear condition is really never met or if it is, the target is so high in HP that you aren't spiking with it. crushing i agree with, yes. but ive never seen a warrior with a spare skill slot decide to bring sever along, unless he was using gash. 6 DPS that is easily removed is not worth bringing on its own. maybe if we are talking about newbie island in pve, sure 6 DPS aint so bad. but everywhere else its a poor skill on its own.

and id have no problem if there was some kind of barbed spear/gashing spear skill combo. that would be fine, but it is still conditional. this seems like ppl actually want different conditions rather than the ones that are available, not that they shouldnt be conditional.

id much rather use two skill slots on "GFtE" and a skill like vicious attack, than waste a skill having to bring barbed spear to land the proposed gashing spear. at least "GFtE" offers some kind of decent effect.

Quote: Originally Posted by Spura

Alright, we have now come to a next empasse in the debate. If the Sever artery+Gash=DW is considered conditional(which in retrospect it is, but more controlable), then a spear combo of a similar nature could in fact be useable and just as controlable, if not more so.

The thought of it being even better than the current warrior classic combo would be obvious. Though,kiting would still make it not a constant scenario, it would still be very advantageous during combat, but not any more than the warrior version.

My original point is still that the conditional natures of the current DW skills for a paragon just make you jump through hoops or bring a conditioon that takes more luck than skill or more skill than should be needed to achieve the DW goal.

i agree that a sever/gash style combo would work for spear mastery. i do think that the proposed "gashing spear" skill would have to be a bit of a lesser version of gash itself. the reason being that its a ranged attack. i just think that if you are going to have ranged deep wound skills, the conditions to achieve it need to be a bit tougher to reach, or the skill needs to be toned down when compared to melee ranged deep wound. notice how barbed spear costs less than sever but has a greatly reduced duration of bleeding. some combination of decreasing the +dmg, reducing the deep wound duration, or increasing the adren cost of the "gashing spear" should help to keep it balanced with other melee ranged deep wounds (for example, no plus dmg, same duration, 7 or 8 adren).

[skill=big]Vicious Attack[/skill]

So far, if this is mixed with [skill=card]"Go For The Eyes!"[/skill] and a high Command att, you would almost never not get a deep wound. However, the fact is that a decreased DW skill would be inferior to the current skills that are in use to some degree. if not similar to the above skill, the thought is inferior and shouldn't even be considered.

Ease of application to be sacrificed for overall effectiveness just isn't workable, and we all know it.

Vicious + Gtfe require 2 high attributes though. If you have only 33% extra crit on GTFE then it isn't reliable, so you need high command and high spear mastery, warrior's combos are in the same attribute.

[card]"find their weakness!"[/card] [card]"go for the eyes!"[/card]

with 3 martial weapon users on your team... this rarely fails to apply DW right away (of course its not in the spear line ...but whatever)

All this debate about conditional or not, why not just bring Merciless and then hit them after 50% health? I mean, you are trying to kill them anyway right. Just wait until they are more dead to hit with the DW. It isn't as if you really need the 21 seconds worth of DW, 3-4 seconds is all you should really need to have...