Talk:Reflect
From Guild Wars 2 Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search
Creating this page[edit]
What about creating this page? There are some skills which reflect projejtiles for example Whirling Defense | Corvus 08:09, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
- Done. - Infinite - talk 09:11, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
- Wall of Deflection??-- Frozzen 09:35, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
- It's unknown whether 'reflect' or 'deflect' are based on the same mechanics, and I think this page may be misleading simply upon pure assumptions and the analysis of few skill description. Glastium 09:43, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
- The description reads reflect on both entries specifically, therefore (at least until further notice) we can assume and document reflection as such. Deflection is not reflection, which is why it's not on the article. - Infinite - talk 17:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
- Would I be correct in thinking that Reflection damages the other guy after protecting you, and Deflection merely protects you? Zolann The Irreverent
19:36, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
- Would I be correct in thinking that Reflection damages the other guy after protecting you, and Deflection merely protects you? Zolann The Irreverent
- The description reads reflect on both entries specifically, therefore (at least until further notice) we can assume and document reflection as such. Deflection is not reflection, which is why it's not on the article. - Infinite - talk 17:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
- It's unknown whether 'reflect' or 'deflect' are based on the same mechanics, and I think this page may be misleading simply upon pure assumptions and the analysis of few skill description. Glastium 09:43, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
- Wall of Deflection??-- Frozzen 09:35, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Reflect the Reflected?[edit]
Is it possible to re-reflect a projectile which has been reflected back at you, or vice versa? Poor word choice from me, but for those of you who understand my question, would you happen to know the answer? :) ~ ♥ Kailani! ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ 18:27, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
- My guildie and I did minor testing on that, so I can only speculate, but the few times we did try it, reflect only works the first time should both attackers have a reflecting skill working. In other words Attacker A hits Attacker B. Both have reflect on, but B reflects the attack, A receives damage. Should B attack it would reflect off of A and damage B only. I think this is done to keep it from death looping infinitely. I assume the game recognizes the damage type of the reflected damage packet as something completely different than attack/spell damage, thus ending the reflect action and preventing a loop. Nay the One and Only
00:41, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
- My guildie and I did minor testing on that, so I can only speculate, but the few times we did try it, reflect only works the first time should both attackers have a reflecting skill working. In other words Attacker A hits Attacker B. Both have reflect on, but B reflects the attack, A receives damage. Should B attack it would reflect off of A and damage B only. I think this is done to keep it from death looping infinitely. I assume the game recognizes the damage type of the reflected damage packet as something completely different than attack/spell damage, thus ending the reflect action and preventing a loop. Nay the One and Only
Reflected Projectiles and Combo Fields[edit]
Do allied Combo Fields apply the effect on reflected projectiles? Like Feedback? I used Feedback on BWE3 but i'm not 100% sure --Inoshiro 08:50, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, but in this case both this and feedback are fields themselves. Respectively the projectiles will get ligth and ethereal combos. ShadowedRitualist 20:36, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Who and what can be reflected[edit]
I created a section for this at the suggestion of Stephen Lo Presti.
There is a page for what skills can reflect (see Reflect), but nothing I could see for what can actually be reflected.
My desire is to have a comprehensive list of what (attacks) can be reflected, and which NPCs can be reflected.
E.g. Can world bosses be reflected? Champion NPCs? Elite NPCs? Trap projectiles? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bruce (talk • contribs) at 7:37, 5 October 2014 (UTC).
- For what I've seen after traveling all over game and checking changes after updates, what can be reflected is actually quite simple: If it's a projectile, and can be blocked, it also can be reflected. If a skill has a chance to bypass blocks, it will also bypass reflects when that chance triggers. I have seen not a single case of a projectile that can be reflected but not blocked or vice-versa. When they make an enemy unblockable is must be by changing the skills directly to make them unblockable or giving them a permanent hidden effect that makes all their projectiles unblockable, we have no way to tell which one of those was done if all of their projectiles are unblockable, as we can't see the IDs of skills used by NPCs in the combat log unless they are player skills. So everything that can be reflected is a projectile, but we can easily know when something isn't actually a projectile unless we've seen it used by a creature that will use a blockable version, so we can try and reflect that. Take sure-shot Seamus. His point blank knockback shotgun shot can't be reflected but can be blocked, and it goes through obstacles like the house's corner or the nearby tree, which makes it a cleave. So the categories would be:
- Reflectable projectiles
- That are evident projectiles
- That are not evident projectiles
- Unblockable projectiles
- Attacks that may look like projectiles but are not projectiles.
- And the rare attacks that we don't know if they are projectiles or not because their appearance is not clear, they have always been unblockable, and we have nothing to compare them with.
- Reflectable projectiles
- I think that's all of them. Mith
Talk 19:45, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
- Our task is to communicate that in a way that is friendly to and easy to understand by new players, while still being fairly true to the mechanics by not over simplifying. Someone who doesn't have much of an idea of what can and can't be reflected will look at an article like this and want a list of "critical points" -- i.e. Situations that they can watch out for that are relevant to the mode of play they're interested in doing. Because, from a new players perspective, everything is chaos, but if they know what to watch out for, they can identify these critical points.
- For what I've seen after traveling all over game and checking changes after updates, what can be reflected is actually quite simple: If it's a projectile, and can be blocked, it also can be reflected. If a skill has a chance to bypass blocks, it will also bypass reflects when that chance triggers. I have seen not a single case of a projectile that can be reflected but not blocked or vice-versa. When they make an enemy unblockable is must be by changing the skills directly to make them unblockable or giving them a permanent hidden effect that makes all their projectiles unblockable, we have no way to tell which one of those was done if all of their projectiles are unblockable, as we can't see the IDs of skills used by NPCs in the combat log unless they are player skills. So everything that can be reflected is a projectile, but we can easily know when something isn't actually a projectile unless we've seen it used by a creature that will use a blockable version, so we can try and reflect that. Take sure-shot Seamus. His point blank knockback shotgun shot can't be reflected but can be blocked, and it goes through obstacles like the house's corner or the nearby tree, which makes it a cleave. So the categories would be:
- What I'd like to avoid is having the list only comprehensible by experienced players, which I feel misses the target audience.
- I feel having sections for dungeons, mini dungeons, world boss events, pvp, and wvw, that are very explicit and detailed, is helpful. Perhaps the general PvE section can be less explicit, though I feel some discussion on who can be reflected in PvE open world play would be helpful, too. Not specific NPCs, but types of monsters.
- I.e. Can you reflect normal monsters? Yes? Which ones can't you, if any? Can you reflect veterans, champions, and elite monsters?
- Most of this can be discovered manually, but some is pretty hard to test, and I envision an (ever-evolving) resource that clarifies enough of this to the extent that it serves as "training wheels" that can eventually be "removed" once the player has explored this aspect of the game enough and internalised the mechanics.
- - Bruce (talk) 07:36, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Project page[edit]
There is a projects page for this section--see here: What can be reflected
- I've added information from a relevant reddit post to this article, rather than to the "who and what" article. I like the idea of a special project page, since the mechanics seem to change every few major updates and there are a number of misunderstood cases. At the same time, I prefer that any relevant notes be added to existing articles, rather than forcing readers to skip back/forth between several articles. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 08:34, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
- ok, but I'm not sure what you're saying. What are you proposing we should do?
- I feel the project page serves a purpose that this talk page doesn't serve so well.
- Or were you talking about the old "who and what can be reflected" page that has since been merged with this article?
- (great additions re: fractals and dungeons, by the way. That's the sort of obscure, but helpful info I was hoping for.)
- - Bruce (talk) 07:36, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- I'm saying: I like the idea of a project page to coordinate testing, but I don't like creating a separate article to describe who or what gets reflected. That information belongs on the reflect and/or projectile pages, in my opinion. At the time that I posted, that content had not been merged into this article.
- Second, since that time, I also agree with Mith that we should keep things simple, i.e. creating 20 subsections makes it harder for people to understand than noting only the exceptions to the general rule (more below, where Mith responded originally). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:34, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Categorisation of projectiles[edit]
How are we going to categorise
- projectiles
- and projectiles that are projectiles, but don't look like it? (on the Reflect article)
I went with Tennessee Ernie Ford's categorisation at first, separating projectiles by those that looked like projectiles, and those that don't.
But then MithranArkanere made an edit and said:
- There are no "non-projectiles" that can be reflected. Only projectiles that do not look like projectiles that either blockable or unblocable. The unblockable ones can't be reflected.)
I reason it might be better to just list projectiles and projectiles that don't look like projectiles under the same section, since then we can have, say, a big list of what can be reflected in path 1 of Citadel of Flame, rather than having to have another CoF p1 heading with projectiles that are projectiles but don't look like projectiles under it (which would result in two lists, rather than one list for each dungeon, dungeon path, etc.).
I do feel the fairly granular categorisation is helpful (E. G. PvE, then, Dungeons after that, then Citadel of Flame, then Path 1, Path 2,Path 3),since it follows the natural thought process of a player ("what can I reflect in CoF? Oh look, here's a list, sorted by path"). Bruce (talk) 13:00, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- I disagree: the more sections, the harder it is for people to understand the basic principles, outlined by Mith:
- Reflects work on projectiles.
- There are exceptions:
- Some can't be reflected (some due to special cases, some to bugs)
- Some things look or sound like projectiles, but aren't; the game should not reflect them, but people think it should.
- Some things that aren't projectiles can also be reflected.
- There are alternatives to reflection that often serve a similar purpose, e.g. untraited iWarden.
- Put another way, I think our goal should be to simplify things as much as possible. Too much granularity makes it seem as if each skill is its own special case, whereas, as Mith pointed out, most projectiles behave as expected. People shouldn't need to read the entire article to figure out whether Feedback is going to help or hurt.
- That said, I think I forgot to mention that it's great that you catalyzed updating this type of information. Your instinct was spot on: there are some things about reflects/projectiles/block that the wiki doesn't cover as well as it ought to, specifically the exceptions. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:44, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- From what I could test through the game, (mostly elementalist, mesmer and guardian skills), there's not a single case of something that can reflected but not blocker/absorbed, nor vice-versa (there were a few exceptions like when the Phantasmal Warden still absorbed unblockable projectiles, but the problem was in the warden's skill, not the projectiles). And whenever they changed a projectile to make it unreflectable on an update, they made so by making it unblockable. Unless someone can catch a dev and ask them directly and they say otherwise, I'll assume that if an attack can be reflected, it is mechanically a projectile, and that the reflect mechanic works exclusively on projectiles. If I'm not wrong, then the simplest classification I can think would be but just two tags/properties/variables/whatchamacallits:
- Projectile? Yes/No/Unknown.
- Unblockable? Yes/No.
- A combination of these two then gives you all possible cases:
- From what I could test through the game, (mostly elementalist, mesmer and guardian skills), there's not a single case of something that can reflected but not blocker/absorbed, nor vice-versa (there were a few exceptions like when the Phantasmal Warden still absorbed unblockable projectiles, but the problem was in the warden's skill, not the projectiles). And whenever they changed a projectile to make it unreflectable on an update, they made so by making it unblockable. Unless someone can catch a dev and ask them directly and they say otherwise, I'll assume that if an attack can be reflected, it is mechanically a projectile, and that the reflect mechanic works exclusively on projectiles. If I'm not wrong, then the simplest classification I can think would be but just two tags/properties/variables/whatchamacallits:
Reflectable? Projectile Not projectile Unknown Blockable Yes No n/a Unblockable No No No
- N/A for "Blockable + Unknown" because we'd know. If it was blockable and reflectable it'll be a projectile.
- Oh, "absorb projectile" and "block" are probably two different mechanics, and the old Phantasmal Warden a proof of that, but now that they fixed the warden to not absorb unblockable projectiles Block and Absorb go again hand in hand so the difference is irrelevant for the table.
- And so there would be no "things that aren't projectiles that can also be reflected".
