Guild Wars 2

I think this game shouldn’t be balanced around endless kiting.

Here’s my suggestion to fix this in a fair way:

• Add an Endurance Cost to Movement during Skill activation.
  - You can still move during Skill activation even when you have 0 Endurance.
  - The cost can be something like 1 Endurance every 0.25 s of movement, or it can be a fixed amount specific to each skill, that is spent regardless of whether you are already moving when you start activating the skill, or start moving halfway during the activation.
• Make Endurance recharge faster when you stand still (whether you’re using skills or not).

This makes standing still and dodging at the right time closer in effectiveness to constantly strafing.
This makes melee builds closer to ranged builds in PvE effectivess, by giving them the ability to dodge more often while fighting still.

you can’t kite at full speed. hell, movement speed bonuses don’t work unless you’re running straight ahead, which is the opposite of kiting (since running forward means either running towards the enemy or running away).

Necromancer with Staff can benefit from speed bonuses by running away while casting the various Marks.

You can kill enemies with ranged weapons without ever getting touched because of kiting.
This causes ANet to adapt 1 of 2 stances:
- Do nothing about it, causing encounters to be easier for ranged builds.
- Do something about it, usually in the form of cheesy skills, nerfs or buffs that fix PvE to ruin PvP and vice-versa.

I’m just throwing ideas that might reduce the ability to abuse mobility in this game.
And it is abused.
—-
All of the current mechanics would still apply:
- Benefit from speed bonuses while running forward
- Regenerate Endurance while moving

But you’d also:
- Regenerate Endurance faster while still
- Spend some Endurance while activating skills on the run

This way, instead of giving ranged professions/builds a clear advantage in PvE (and to some extent PvP as well), you can give melee professions/build a way to compete in effectiveness by having the ability to dodge more often than kiters.

They’ve already reduced mobility by slowing the player down in combat whilst a mob-swarm assaults you at full speed.

Necromancers and Elemantalists by nature are meant to be ranged. Elementalists in my experience (my main is one) are virtually useless in close-quarters combat.

Ranged builds can attack while still – from afar – wich will give them as much dodging capabilities as melee builds.
However, Ranged builds exploit mobility infinitely better than melee builds.

This somewhat evens the playing field by making “standing still” a valid strategy – wich currently isn’t.

Essentially, the changes I suggest neither buff Melee nor nerf Ranged.
Both Melee and Ranged will benefit from standing still.
Both Melee and Ranged will be penalized for attacking while moving.

The suggestion is about buffing “standing still”, wich happens to be something that Melee builds are forced to do more often than Ranged builds.

Combat speed is, broadly, the same for everyone. There is the occasional mob (some of the glass-cannon Risen, or mob’s with sprint / charge skills) who can catch you, but mostly everything moves at the same speed in combat, so I don’t agree that’s a valid point, ukn.

I’m a little bit on the fence with this one. I wouldn’t use the word abused, for a start. Kiting is a legitimate mechanic, so there’s no abuse going on. On the other hand, some classes do seem to have a definite advantage in doing so. One that Nurv hasn’t mentioned is the Engineer (my main). On release, the class was, by all accounts, broken. Our kits didn’t scale properly, so we weren’t doing the damage that other classes were. And there was much lamentation!

Not from me. I wasn’t having trouble with 2 pistols anyway but, at some point & I forget exactly why (I think messing around with set-ups to try to beat boss fights in AC), I switched over to using bomb / grenade kits. Bruno, I CAN just run away at full (combat) speed, dropping bombs all the while…

I don’t blame Nurv for expressing his concern, or trying to generate ideas. I’m not convinced his suggestions will make a great deal of difference (I don’t have any need to dodge most of the time, so the Endurance changes wouldn’t matter much to me). But he does have worthwhile argument, and one worth discussing, I think.

I should also point out I have tried all the classes to at least L8, and 5 of them to at least L20, so I’ve some idea of the capabilities of all.

Just make mobs faster, that way you can’t run in a circle with a range weapon and kill pretty much any melee mob in the game, and make them run To you, and not where you was 0.5 sec ago. (if u strafe in a circle, they don’t go straight for you, they run after your circle)

Well, Raedwulf, in the open world, most fights can be won by charging in, and spamming AoE/cone attacks (hundred blades, whirling wrath, pistol whip, etc)

But take those melee professions to at least 30 and do a dungeon, focusing on melee weapons.

Even if you play smart, while using melee weapons, this is what will happen:
a) either the enemies have very predictable patterns of telegraphed attacks,
b) or you will spend alot of time doing nothing but running away or strafing around the enemy to avoid getting hit for more than 2 seconds.
c) or you somehow are forced to stack defensive stats/boons/conditions in your build (protection, aegis, blindness, regeneration, smoke field-stealth, etc) to survive

While melee can move sideways while doing damage, ranged can move sideways, forward or backwards!
The ability to move forward or backwards makes a huge difference when you consider dangerous boss AoE.

In PvP the issues are somewhat softened, but still there.
Rewarding you for standing still and using your dodge in a timely fashion would make this game alot more enjoyable, than the constant dizzying kiting.

Well, Nurv, actually my second alt is a L68 greatsword-based Warrior, who has done all the dungeons up to SE i.e half of them. So yeah, I already know what it’s like for a melee class, thanks. I am ambivalent about your opening point. I thought I said why quite reasonably. I read your direct response, and I think… Why so aggressive? Or did you not mean to be?

A) Yes? And? Every game, once you recognise the mob patterns, is exactly the same . Just as PvP or WvW are, once you learn to recognise the animations of the player alts you’re facing.

B&C) If you insist on a glass-cannon spec, you will get battered. Would you prefer to be OP? If you don’t want to be battered… What are you arguing for here? This isn’t about kiting now; it seems to be “I expect to be able to stand in front of the mob & beat it down before it beats me. I’m a player. I ought to be able to do that.” I’ll say it again, my second is a warrior. That’s really open to the cannon spec – massive damage, and, oh boy do you go down fast when you get it wrong!

There are certain mobs, usually boss mobs, where I have no choice but to resort to bow or rifle. 360 degree massive AoE is, literally, a killer. But mostly, I’ve a choice over how I play, and I have to make adjustments according to circumstance. I am NOT forced to kite, unless I’ve chosen to play in such a way that I take a lot of damage very fast. I can CHOOSE to kite but that’s a choice between killing something slow & easy, or quick & riskier. It’s a choice.

I thought your OP was reasonable & worth discussing; I said as much. I thought your response to me was confused. I’m not sure what exactly you’re saying now (apart from AoE bosses are horrible for melee classes, but hey! Occupational hazard! ).

Aggressive?Where? :O

You said you played all profession to at least 8, most to lv20, and mentioned your main being Engineer.
So I kind of assumed you didn’t have a dungeon-able melee profession, that’s all.

Regarding B&C) I am just saying that ranged professions can do their full damage while moving forward, back, left and right.
Melee can only do full damage while strafing around the target.

Melee often have to go away → often can charge back in, but most dangerous enemies do stuff we need to move away from more often than every 10-15 seconds.

I’m saying that, if standing still gives you better endurance regeneration, it will allow melee to feel like melee, by using mainly dodge to avoid damage, rather than constant strafing and running.

So no, I’m not saying melee should tank, they need to react to attacks and dodge/protect themselves.
But expecting melee to run around all the time is silly.

Actually, would be nice to have “parry” as an alternative to “dodge”.
It would use up only 25% Endurance instead of 50%, but only protect against single target attacks, or something.

punishing mobility and favoring static combat is the perfect, exact OPPOSITE of what GW2 should be about.

Great insight, there…
So I’m suggesting that standing still gives us more Endurance.
Endurance = Dodge.
Dodge = Move out of danger.

So if I’m suggesting that standing still lets you dodge more often, how does that promote static combat?

Continuous kiting is not fun.
It’s not skill either.

The difference between occasionally dodging vs continuously kiting, is that you can use skills while kiting.

Melee can’t do that most of the time, because when a melee needs to move, it’s usually away from a circle, often ending out of reach of their target.