Guild Wars 2

Should skilled dodges and active defenses such as blind and aegis be rewarded?
If so, with what?

With clearing content faster, like is currently the case.

Seems like this shouldn’t be in the balance section…. more like GW2 Discussion….

Dodge-spamming aside, aren’t they already rewarded for by not being hit?

No, I should be allowed to stack toughness and healing power and simply facetank all the enemies without having to think about dodging, moving and situational awareness.

At the same time I should be able to clear the content just as fast as those people who go full glass in order to maximise damage and take the time to learn to dodge and learn the encounters.

Fenrir.3609:

No, I should be allowed to stack toughness and healing power and simply facetank all the enemies without having to think about dodging, moving and situational awareness.

At the same time I should be able to clear the content just as fast as those people who go full glass in order to maximise damage and take the time to learn to dodge and learn the encounters.

thefantasticg.3984:

Seems like this shouldn’t be in the balance section…. more like GW2 Discussion….

You missed the not so subtle subtext. This absolutely has everything to do with profession balance, specifically professions that are geared towards offense and active blocks/dodges/reflects (aka the current meta).

The answer is there must be something to reward good dodges and skill, otherwise you may as well remove the mechanism.
The real question is how do we reward good dodges and skill?

Being able to dodge currently means you need less defensive stats and thus can take more offense, leading to good players creating the current zerker meta.

If the zerker meta is altered and mob damage becomes more frequent & smaller in size, you won’t be able to mitigate it actively through dodging or skills. You will be forced to take defensive stats.
In this type of scenario – where is the reward for bothering to dodge? Slightly less damage recieved?

fadeaway.2807:

thefantasticg.3984:

Seems like this shouldn’t be in the balance section…. more like GW2 Discussion….

You missed the not so subtle subtext. This absolutely has everything to do with profession balance, specifically professions that are geared towards offense and active blocks/dodges/reflects (aka the current meta).

The answer is there must be something to reward good dodges and skill, otherwise you may as well remove the mechanism.
The real question is how do we reward good dodges and skill?

Being able to dodge currently means you need less defensive stats and thus can take more offense, leading to good players creating the current zerker meta.

If the zerker meta is altered and mob damage becomes more frequent & smaller in size, you won’t be able to mitigate it actively through dodging or skills. You will be forced to take defensive stats.
In this type of scenario – where is the reward for bothering to dodge? Slightly less damage recieved?

I wouldn’t call zerker players skillful for avoiding damage. Mob ai is so sluggish and predictable that its not very hard to dodge. How is that hard and skillful?

Mob ai should work like live players, this is how it worked in gw1. Then I’d say dodging would require a higher skill cap.

You say that but I see many many pugs (before I stopped pugging altogether) die to COE Alpha 2/3… and those are extremely easy to dodge… after you learn the signs.

thefantasticg.3984:

You say that but I see many many pugs (before I stopped pugging altogether) die to COE Alpha 2/3… and those are extremely easy to dodge… after you learn the signs.

Then they need to work on their dodging.

You’d think that was not so subtle from all the dieing but it wasn’t.

should dodges be rewarded? yes
how? by taking notably less damage
should it nullify ALL damage? if you’re a thief with feline grace, vigor, and energy sigils, yes
otherwise no, just most of it.

player mechanical skill should be rewarded, yes, but so should other things like team support and good builds. GW2 isn’t a pure action game

They should but what we currently see are countless whines of vocal minority that most likely bought the wrong game (“Why can’t I tank?”) and now are trying to force their elitsits views on the silent majority.

haviz.1340:

They should but what we currently see are countless whines of vocal minority that most likely bought the wrong game (“Why can’t I tank?”) and now are trying to force their elitsits views on the silent majority.

There was no tank in gw1 either, but it had much more pve depth than gw2.

If you’re a ranger and you take “Steady Focus” (+10% damage when endurance is full) you get punished for using the built in dodge. Just sayin.

On the other hand there’s at least one food that gives might on evade. So there’s that.

It is already rewarded.

What i suspect is the real issue is the cost to benefit of dodging vs say block or similar.

Thing about dodge is that if it is misused, it is quickly available again. Depending on timing you can dodge 3 times in a 15-20 second period.

In comparions you may be able to block twice in a 30-40 second period. And the blocks may come with extra expenses like cast time (dodge is virtually instant) and rooting (dodge is a rapid movement ability).

The overall problem of this game is that it massively favors spamming short recharge/cooldown skills/effects. End result is that dodge is the go to defensive ability rather than the “oh crap, i am out of options!” defense because it can be ready for use again in 5-10 seconds depending on vigor being up or not.

haviz.1340:

They should but what we currently see are countless whines of vocal minority that most likely bought the wrong game (“Why can’t I tank?”) and now are trying to force their elitsits views on the silent majority.

“play as you like”…

ANet explicitly stated that this game won’t have dedicated tanks and healers. Argue “play how you like” all you want, but these people are trying to stick a triangle in to a circle by trying to tank or heal.

mahariel.4981:

ANet explicitly stated that this game won’t have dedicated tanks and healers. Argue “play how you like” all you want, but these people are trying to stick a triangle in to a circle by trying to tank or heal.

Dedicated can be read multiple ways.

Very few games (Rift being one exception) have the freedom to define your own role as GW2 does. This means that dedicated is by design, not by choice. If you pick a priest in most games you are a strong healer but lacking in offense or tank. Pick a warrior and you are likely to be a strong tank. Pick wizard and you get heavy offense but tip over in a strong breeze.

In GW2 any profession could on paper go from tank to offense to healer by moving the numbers around. But in practice, not by a long shot. Everything, at least in PVE, is DPS with a dash of something. And that dash is likely to be overly taxing on the DPS to be worth it.

Dodging a 6-7k crit is probably the biggest reward you can hope for. Asking for more than that is just greedy

fadeaway.2807:

The answer is there must be something to reward good dodges and skill, otherwise you may as well remove the mechanism.
The real question is how do we reward good dodges and skill?

I’m gonna go ahead and make a wild change:

Proposed change number 1:

• When you use Dodge, if you evade an attack/skill because of it (“Evaded” text appears), you are refunded 25% of a Dodge cost.

• If you use Dodge and it didn’t make you evade anything (“Evaded” text doesn’t appear), you lose -25% of a Dodge Cost.

Pro: Rewards good dodging, punishes bad/spammy dodging
Con: overly rewards good dodging, more endurance could lead to more spam

Proposed change number 2:

I feel like dodging an attack is already a reward by itself so in this proposed change, I’m cutting the refund of dodging an attack, while keeping the punishment for spamming dodge:

• When you use Dodge, if you evade an attack/skill because of it (“Evaded” text appears), nothing else happens besides you evading the attack.

• If you use Dodge and it didn’t make you evade anything (“Evaded” text doesn’t appear), you lose -25% of a Dodge Cost.

Pro:
Rewards a good dodge by it’s functionality, you evade damage, that’s all.
Punishes bad/spammy dodging

Con: How do you explain that failing a dodge will punish your endurance pool? Only by introducing a new Hint/Tutorial -> could be resource intensive

Number 2 would be the option I would go to, and I truly believe it would be good for the health of the game. Please comment on this.

+1g for every skilled dodge/blind/aegis/block used!
As many already said, correct preperation and reaction are rewarded by better clear times.
Edith to avoid doublepost:

• If you use Dodge and it didn’t make you evade anything (“Evaded” text doesn’t appear), you lose -25% of a Dodge Cost.
  Punishing players for not reading an enemy accordingly even more? Nty. Although one could say dodges aren’t needed in this game anyway

Agony, the idea behind this is, if you didn’t dodge anything, that means you didn’t think it through when you used dodge, but then you got all these things to carry your bad decision to a state where it doesn’t matter and you keep spamming dodge like vigor, blocks, blinds etc.

Even if it’s deemed bad for PvE, there’s no arguing that it’s essential for PvP to have this change.

There is too much dodge-spam in PvP. People dodge randomly and get lucky/unlucky based on those dodge spams. It turns the teamfights/combat extremely RNG-heavy, it’s bad for the game is it not?

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Agony, the idea behind this is, if you didn’t dodge anything, that means you didn’t think it through when you used dodge, but then you got all these things to carry your bad decision to a state where it doesn’t matter and you keep spamming dodge like vigor, blocks, blinds etc.

Even if it’s deemed bad for PvE, there’s no arguing that it’s essential for PvP to have this change.

There is too much dodge-spam in PvP. People dodge randomly and get lucky/unlucky based on those dodge spams. It turns the teamfights/combat extremely RNG-heavy, it’s bad for the game is it not?

The whole game is one big RNG, Magic Find, Bag Loots, Rank Chests etc.
Luck is part of pvp, sometimes you take a chance and you either get lucky or you die.
What was it… 50% gear, 20% skill, 10% luck…

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Agony, the idea behind this is, if you didn’t dodge anything, that means you didn’t think it through when you used dodge […]

There’s also dodging to get a traited buff or effect (Evasive Arcana, Thief Might+Swiftness etc).

If you didn’t dodge anything it can also mean that the dodge got you out of the range of the attack.

Fighting thiefs and not trying to read and dodge backstabs is asking to get killed. Not trying to dodge a hammer combo will most likely cost you the fight. Not having a dodge available for when it hits will do the same.

High evasion builds on the other hand truly are stupid and should get reduced in their effectiveness, no arguing about that. Dodge rolls are not the biggest problem with these builds tough. More like having skills that let you teleport around, dodge for a long time, dodge extremely often – even with vigor you only have 1 dodge roll every 5 seconds.

Yeah! Like…

With heals on a guardian? or DPS on a warrior?

…Oh

Good use of dodge is already rewarded… you clear content faster, and are more desirable for groups.

…
Man, if you know enemy class, weapon, build(from boons line) and good dodge in a time main skill ..
1. you can live a little moar time, take a chance live to heal cd
2. your enemy place that skill on cd, and you can try do same damage and be safe

it is great rewards, i think, really
In every mirror 1vs1 fight will win best doodger, eveiding of all main damage is a “skill meter” of gw2