I find it amusing that people, for some reason, have failed to blame current game issues on the true 600lb Gorilla in Guild Wars: Consumables
If you search this site for nerf consets, nerf consumables, or variations thereof, you will find precious little and many times it was stated in jest or with sarcasm and others have been royally flamed (which I will probably recieve).
Speed Clears in thier current form are only possible because of consets. Without them, SF could only be maintained by A/E with GoS and A/Me with Echo. It would bring the speeds way down with out destroying this gameplay segment like a full SF nerf would.
The best way to nerf cons, in my opinion, is to eliminate stacking. What I propose is that cons should be divided into two groups, Major and Minor.
Major cons would be party wide buffs with heafty stats. Major cons persist through death and zoning, basically lasting full duration no matter what. 30 minute duration still.
Minor Cons would be single target buffs with lesser stats and more specialized buffs. Minor cons would dissipate on death or zoning. 10 minute duration.
Each Person can have 1 major and 1 minor at any given time. If a new con is cast before the old runs out, it overwrites what ever was in place.
A change this major, makes cons look kinda useless, so the 2nd phase would be to re-deploy the popular cons with new buffs and stats as well as adding in a few new cons.
The Major cons (with some proposed changes) would be:
Armor of Salvation: +50 Armor, +1 Health Regen, conditions and Hexes expire 33% faster.
This is intended to make Armor of Salvation a defensive buff. I think making cons into a choice between Offense/Defense/little of both is a proper way to make them work.
PowerStone of Courage: +20 melee attack Damage, +20% Critical Chance, +20% attack Speed
This is intended to make a strong melee party. The old Powerstone was somewhat overlapping with other cons.
Grail of Might: reduce cast times 50%, +20 energy, +3 energy regen, spells you cast heal you for 200% of the energy cost
This is intended to make the Grail of Might a Caster buffing con.
Essence of Celerity: All Stances last 50% longer, Enchantments you cast last 10% longer (stacking with +20 weapons), spirits live 20% longer and have +100 health, Dervish forms recharge instantly, you can control 50% more minions, chants and shouts last 20% longer, ranger pets have +100 health and attack 20% faster.
An all around buff to all classes intended to make anything work a bit better, defense or offense.
Scroll of Resurrection: Every 10 seconds one dead party member is resurrected with full health and energy.
This is intended to be a sort of get it done no matter what buff. It may take hours, you may have the worst builds, but eventually you will beat it.
Any other buffing consumables become minor cons. Minor cons will only have one buff, or maybe multiple buffs with a coresponding debuff (i.e. -health, - speed, etc) .
Minors would be redistributed so that there are several options each of:
+33% speed
+100 health
+50 energy
+33% attack speed
-50% skill activation
+1 to all attributes
A new set of minor cons would also be made: attribute is set to 16, -75 health
There would be 1 con for each attribute of each profession. Yes, this would essentially allow any class to be any class. So no more class discrimination. If this proves to be way to powerful, there could also be added a -30 attribute points, or maybe all other attributes are -3 or something. These would be craftable or maybe from Traveler gifts or chest drops.
For DP cons, I suggest any non-party DP removals be changed to a targeted use item (i.e. remove 15% dp from targeted ally)
For Summoning consumables, I suggest that the summoned creature will rez out of combat (like allies in EoTN).
These changes would do several things. It would reduce the speed clear times considerably (notice no recharge or speed buffs) and open many other options and variations to try in dungeons and elite areas without making them total pushovers like now. Also note, that I make these as general suggestions, that may still need fine tuning. There are also probably major and minor cons that could be made beyond what I have listed, that people might come up with. It will add to the economy with out destroying it. It should promote more general gameplay by eliminating the need of most gimmick builds in PuGs, while still leaving room for people to do speed clears, but with much more variation.
Anet has shown they can rapidly add new cons, so I think this could be implemented without affecting much of anything else and be done in a quick and concise manner.
A
