Wells and mines.

[Bacon of Light]

Consider a PVE scenario consisting of a single boss who doesn't move around much.

With 5 level 50+ necromancers, 5 traited Wells of Darkness (48s cooldown, 8s duration, 4 pulses of blindness each) can be rotated to provide 40 seconds of areal blindness (radius of 240). With a downtime of 8 seconds, it's pretty impressive.

Now, with 3 necromancers of any level, who have access to at least 2 utility slots, 8 untraited Wells of any sort (60s cooldown, 8s duration each) cross-profession-combo'ed with mine-spamming from an engineer, can be rotated to provide PERMANENT areal blindness (radius of 15).

If this is true, does it mean that any single boss fight in this kind of scenario can practically be trivilized with this group composition? Or is a nerf coming?

[Mif]

Or is a nerf coming?

If you build it, they will come.

[Lucky_]

It may work, however there is a bit of a problem. We tried the AoE blind elite in our explorable run on two necros (since we lacked burst damage dealers in the group) to keep the NPC alive on graveling event.

The blind is unfortunately not very reliable. NPC died promptly even with blind pulsing. So while possible, it seems unlikely that you will be able to keep boss blinded permanently. It will make it much easier though.

[General_Typhus]

"elite" monsters probably have a certain "resist" chance for effects like blind

[Rashanda]

"elite" monsters probably have a certain "resist" chance for effects like blind

This. ^ I'm sure in PvE scenarios, it'll be much less simple than that.

[Binaris]

Diminishing returns would be the most likely counter. Such as

10 sec blind
5 second blind
immune to blind for x amount of seconds.

Given the various kinds of controls. I could see them skipping the diminishing and jumping straight to an immunity period to promote more a more varied type of control plan.

[General_Typhus]

Diminishing returns would be the most likely counter. Such as

10 sec blind
5 second blind
immune to blind for x amount of seconds.

Given the various kinds of controls. I could see them skipping the diminishing and jumping straight to an immunity period to promote more a more varied type of control plan.

Blind doesn't really work like that in this game.

[Malthurius]

It seems like a feasible build, however would require quite a bit of coordination between the players to pull off effectively.

[Arkenaw]

If they are attacking faster than 1 attack per 2 seconds the effectiveness diminishes.

[Hellspawnxxx]

Well as you said it would have to be a boss that doesnt move much. Therefor a really good team well organized could pull this off once in awhile. ANET rewards players for ingenuity and team work, they dont punish them. atleasts that what I took from Guildwars 1. because the build is so situational I doubt youll ever see groups looking to specifically form up around this build.

[Purple]

The blind condition, regardless of duration, will only actually cause one attack to miss, and then quit. Wells are an example of a way around that, where they proc the blind every two seconds, renewing its presence, however, many mobs can attack more than once within a two second interval.

[Bacon of Light]

Let's delve into this two-second-interval-pulse thing a bit.

With 3 Wells of Darkness chained by 5 necromancers, the pulses are in deed at an interval of 2 seconds.

However, in a team of 3 necromancers and 2 engineers, the chained and well-timed "blast finishers" from mine-spamming at the "permanent dark combo field" formed by 8 chained Wells of any kind, would create pulses at an interval of ONE second.

Why? From my understanding, if an eningineer is to spam mines, each explosion (blast finisher) would take 2 seconds (i.e. 2 GCDs). If a second engineer starts spamming mines one second late, then we would see an explosion every second. That is a brand new blindness every second in this case.

A side note is that, theoretically speaking, mines combo'ed with chained Healing Springs from 2 rangers can sustain a permanent healing field, and mines with Lava Font spam from a fire-traited elementalist can sustain a field of permanent might boon. So, we have combos that seem really OP because of the spammability of mines (or similarly, Cluster Bombs from multiple thieves in some cases).

[Deleted]

If they are attacking faster than 1 attack per 2 seconds the effectiveness diminishes.

Ping Pong we have a winner
Plus , with programing it will be easy to counter (if the mob is blinded for more than 4 sec , he will choose to attack the furthest away target
While atm aoe hit on the ground abilities-1 shot cannot miss

Edit : Nvm u can doghe his 1-shot aoe damage and gather again in 1 place , aplying the second Well , while w8ing for his aoe cd .
But in PvP atm , the next attack used to the specific person is missed (if u are binded) , while he aoe meele splash damaged is delivered normaly to the rest of the ppl