you have the manners of a fifth born

If you support AllLivesMatter or BlueLivesMatter, you are not my friend.

If you think the riots are unjustified and irrational, unfollow me right now.

oc meme: Neron - my good old lightside imperial agent. it’s been so long since i’ve drawn him. :’)

Have you ever seen a light brown heart with a word or phrase flash randomly on your screen and didn’t know what it was? You contributed to a COMBO with an ally and you didn’t even know it!

PUZZLE HEART

You know those necklaces or bracelets in real life that people can get where one person has half of the heart and another person has the other piece of the heart and they fit together like two pieces of a puzzle? Think of that in game regarding combos. You need two opposite parts to fit together to create a combo in game. Lets break it down to the two basic parts. And don’t forget that puzzle heart!

COMBO FIELDS

The very first thing needed is a combo FIELD. The field must be created by an ally for you to use. Enemy fields cannot be used by you. When allies cast skills on the ground, it creates a border around the effect. But not every skill that has a border on the ground is a combo field. You see fields every time you’re in combat, and there’s a VERY EASY way to identify what skill is a combo field.

The screenshot above is a skill that creates a border on the ground, but the border is unimpressive.

Now that we can identify a combo field on sight, what exactly IS a combo field? A combo field is an area that will imbue a future attack with the field’s juicy goodness. There are 9 different field types. Listed are the fields and the professions that can create them.

BE AWARE! Only one combo field can be used at a time. Lets say that a Necro lays down a DARK field on the ground. Then a Mesmer comes up and lays down an ETHEREAL field on top of the DARK field. Each of the two overlapping skills will do their skill things, but only the DARK field on the bottom will be active. When the Necro skill on the bottom expires, then the Mesmer ETHEREAL field will become active until the Mesmer skill expires.

“But what do I do with these amazing combo fields???”

COMBO FINISHERS

Imagine shooting a wooden arrow through a bonfire. As the wooden arrow passes through the fire, it catches fire. On impact, the arrow itself does a fixed amount of damage to the target, whether it’s on fire or not. The flame from the arrow will ignite the target to burn after the impact.

That example is a perfect example of a combo. The bonfire is the FIRE FIELD. The wooden arrow is the PROJECTILE FINISHER. The target catching fire is the COMBO EFFECT.

BLAST FINISHERS must end in a field and will create AREA (affects 5 targets within 240 range) effects. Two of the most sought after combos are blasting fire for long-lasting might, and blasting water for area heals.

LEAP FINISHERS are much like blast finshers, but the selfish version as they only affect one target. The leap must travel through some part of a field to activate the finisher. The leap finisher effect is sometimes mildly larger than that of the blast finisher effect. Notice the water field healing coefficient is much larger for leap than blast.

PROJECTILE FINISHERS come in two varieties. The #1 auto-attack skill (and some other projectiles) are only 20% chance to be finishers. Only a random 1 out of 5 attacks will trigger the combo. The other attacks are usually 100% guaranteed projectile finishers.

Special note. The DARK field lifesteal will siphon health back to you. The LIGHT field condi removal, and the WATER field regen do not effect back to you. The projectile will impact at the target. The projectile will then affect a single ally within a small radius of the target with condi removal or regen.

WHIRL FINISHERS inside a combo field will shoot out combo projectiles. Notice that the WHIRL finisher projectiles are virtually identical to PROJECTILE finishers.

FINAL NOTES

Whoever creates the field doesn’t have any influence on the effect created. Here are two examples.

An Ele creates a water field. A Warrior blasts the water field for area healing effect. The healing attribute of the Ele has no bearing on the heals done. The healing attribute of the Warrior is what will increase the heals done since the Warrior used the finisher.

But when it was Logan, Eir, Caithe, Rytlock and Zojja, you were playing catch-up. You were in the deep end, trying to sort out five different personalities and types of grief and resentment before time ran out. One of them was your mentor, to ease you in, and Trahearne helped, but he’s even more of an old soul with contacts in every clique and decades of training. You’re the baby of the group, whether you’re playing an older character or a sapling sylvari, you’re breaking into an established dynamic and trying to throw back the tide. 

But that changes after the original story’s done. Season 1, which we’re about to re-live, introduced six new, younger representatives for each race, often without much indication they were important at all. One was the son of one of the original mentors, one was an actual child, one was never meant to survive, one was even a villain. But instead of getting catapulted into a mess of distant, formerly legendary heroes, now we’re fumbling around with our peers, creating that mess. 

Take Kasmeer - thrown out of high society, her family disgraced, unprepared to deal with the real world’s messy, violent challenges, a noble stranded without a safety net. She stepped up without complaining to go trekking through a deadly jungle. She bagged the woman of her dreams. She lost her nerve when confronted by one of her own gods going rogue, but held herself together so we could stop him. And she decided to go into the Mists themselves to demand the other gods answer for their inaction. Now she’s a woman of determination and active choices. 

And Braham, whose development has been at the forefront. He started off not knowing how to pull away from his mother’s legendary shadow. Then he elevated himself to being a person of prophecy in his culture. He struggled with a personal loss that made him push those close to him away, but finally got his closure and owned up to what he really needed. He was a maelstrom of emotional conflict; resentment, grief, guilt, resentment again, over-compensation and anger, but he’s found his self-reflection and become an ally worthy of trust, become more healthy and getting a sense of humour - AND able to tell someone outright when he loves them. Also he’s WAY taller. 

Did you notice Taimi getting slightly taller each time we saw her? She was originally petulant, obsessive, egotistical and minuscule, and now she’s still those things but tempered by humour and proven results, but she’s BIGGER. At first she was still in school and getting treated harshly by elders who couldn’t respect her age. There’s no avoiding it - life’s been rough for Taimi and she knows there’s no quick magical solution that fixes it all. Now when she jokes around with us, it’s not childish, but more like keeping a positive outlook in the face of multiple certain dooms. 

And Rox, going from the days of Citadel lackey, trying to win Rytlock’s dangled approval, to finding a new home and family who don’t need her to prove anything? Canach actually trying to kill us, failing, taking the loss to heart and coming back, not changed, not upstanding, not without fault, but just willing to admit he can be wrong, and then leaning on you for support when he needed it most? Aurene, just… Aurene?

This has been an evolution of technology and mechanics but above all, character, watching this game over the years. Destiny’s Edge, too, have ended up taking a cue from it and going from legendary heroes back to just people, needing help to really find themselves as they realise what true love is meant to be, or whether that’s something they needed at all, or find out what it means for your child to grow up and see you as a stranger, they’re developing in new and logical ways that have not once felt forced or without cause and effect. 

PLEASE use them! for whatever your heart desires!!!

You don’t have to credit me, would be nice if you do it tho.