Guild Wars 2

This is a really good video, and as a necro, Anet really needs to address the defiant and unshakable problem. It is lazy design, and it renders my fear-build completely useless in a boss battle. It shouldn’t all be about DPS.

randomfightfan.4091:

Kaaboose.3897:

Solo chalenges like that SHOULD exist for the players that want them IMO. But that should NOT be possible in a team scenario. If it’s possible to SOLO a team effort then what’s the point in brining a team? There’s no need to work together if each of you is capable of doing the encounter on your own.

What’s the point? Getting the content done 5x faster, thus, 5x easier is one big point in bringing a team. Why solo a dungeon (aside from wanting the challenge and status) if it takes an hour to solo but 10 minutes as a team?

Because these players are after something, ANYTHING, at this point that can provide SOME semblance of a challenge. That’s why they do it.
And IF it is possible to solo boss then how is this boss ever going to pressure a group into working as a team?
What it boils down to is instead of a 5 man team, you have 5 players tackling a single player objective together.
This makes perfect sense in the open world but NOT in a dungeon.

Could we maybe get some Info from a Dev about the current state of Bosses / Dungeons and supporting tactical teamplay in dungeons?

Kaaboose.3897:

randomfightfan.4091:

Kaaboose.3897:

Solo chalenges like that SHOULD exist for the players that want them IMO. But that should NOT be possible in a team scenario. If it’s possible to SOLO a team effort then what’s the point in brining a team? There’s no need to work together if each of you is capable of doing the encounter on your own.

What’s the point? Getting the content done 5x faster, thus, 5x easier is one big point in bringing a team. Why solo a dungeon (aside from wanting the challenge and status) if it takes an hour to solo but 10 minutes as a team?

Because these players are after something, ANYTHING, at this point that can provide SOME semblance of a challenge. That’s why they do it.
And IF it is possible to solo boss then how is this boss ever going to pressure a group into working as a team?
What it boils down to is instead of a 5 man team, you have 5 players tackling a single player objective together.
This makes perfect sense in the open world but NOT in a dungeon.

I just did an arah run with a group where people left b/c they just couldn’t get past Lupi to save their life. After adding me, they all died to Lupi twice during 1 fight, me needing to keep the boss from resetting and the other guys getting ressed by the guy using up his res orbs. We beat the boss after the 2nd wave of reses finished. I’d be VERY surprised if anyone would consider this boss a soloable objective.

These players are also after rewards. Soloing content takes so much time that it’s not worth the reward. They do it for other reasons. Just because a player has solo’d 5 dungeons doesn’t mean they’ll never group up in those dungeons again. It probably means that player will never solo that content again but will be an invaluable asset to a team. Even the best players like to relax when doing rewarding content every now and again.

With the proper play, any boss in any game is soloable with the proper play. It might take some extreme skill but it’s possible. That still doesn’t make it a non-team objective.

A level 36 engi solo’d the spider queen in ac, yet groups of 5 level 80s wipe there.

randomfightfan.4091:

Kaaboose.3897:

randomfightfan.4091:

Kaaboose.3897:

Solo chalenges like that SHOULD exist for the players that want them IMO. But that should NOT be possible in a team scenario. If it’s possible to SOLO a team effort then what’s the point in brining a team? There’s no need to work together if each of you is capable of doing the encounter on your own.

What’s the point? Getting the content done 5x faster, thus, 5x easier is one big point in bringing a team. Why solo a dungeon (aside from wanting the challenge and status) if it takes an hour to solo but 10 minutes as a team?

Because these players are after something, ANYTHING, at this point that can provide SOME semblance of a challenge. That’s why they do it.
And IF it is possible to solo boss then how is this boss ever going to pressure a group into working as a team?
What it boils down to is instead of a 5 man team, you have 5 players tackling a single player objective together.
This makes perfect sense in the open world but NOT in a dungeon.

I just did an arah run with a group where people left b/c they just couldn’t get past Lupi to save their life. After adding me, they all died to Lupi twice during 1 fight, me needing to keep the boss from resetting and the other guys getting ressed by the guy using up his res orbs. We beat the boss after the 2nd wave of reses finished. I’d be VERY surprised if anyone would consider this boss a soloable objective.

These players are also after rewards. Soloing content takes so much time that it’s not worth the reward. They do it for other reasons. Just because a player has solo’d 5 dungeons doesn’t mean they’ll never group up in those dungeons again. It probably means that player will never solo that content again but will be an invaluable asset to a team. Even the best players like to relax when doing rewarding content every now and again.

With the proper play, any boss in any game is soloable with the proper play. It might take some extreme skill but it’s possible. That still doesn’t make it a non-team objective.

A level 36 engi solo’d the spider queen in ac, yet groups of 5 level 80s wipe there.

Going to bring up WoW once again here. Now I can’t speak for recent content since I stopped playing at the end of CATA but if you did not bring part of WoW’s Trinity to a fight you would not be able to compelte it (There were exceptions but as a general rule this was the case)
At best you could do a 5 man dungeon with 3 guys. 1 DPS, 1 Tank and 1 Healer.
If you remove part of the trinity the group is going to fail. And this is important becuase it gives each player a purpose. A player can say to himself “If it wasn’t for me, the group wouldn’t have been able to overcome this encounter.” They are an important part of the team, as are the rest of their teamates.
Because GW2 has abandoned it’s Trinity Damage is now all that matters and you and your teamates are now just a crutch for an encounter. Yes it’s going to go faster because there are more of you there but if the encounter is soloable then that’s really all you are doing. Speeding up the process. The encounter is still going to finish whether you are there or not.
As such players have lost the feeling of purpose, individuality and meaning in GW2 combat. For a game that claims “The most important thing in any game should be the player, We have built a game for them” this is a real problem.

Also if you want to see LUPI soloed at normal speed look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-WJP0LR5VU

What I’m getting from your desire to bring the trinity back is that instead of having a game based around player skill, where if a player is good enough they can do anything, you want a game that significantly devalues skill entirely and promotes class instead. I’d rather play a game that it doesn’t matter what or who you are, you can do anything yourself as long as you’re good enough over a game where it doesn’t matter how good you are, if you don’t have the right team comp, you will never succeed. That means that the 5 most skilled players in this game play the class they love the most but still not be able to beat a lot of content just because their class isn’t the right class.

This is probably why I never played WoW and why I like this game so much (wish there was more content and more difficult/rewarding content but that’s a different subject entirely).

Just because content CAN be solo’d, that doesn’t take anything away from other players being in the group. Unless a player is actively holding a group back, in how the game works now, every player can safely say they helped to make the run as fast and smooth as possible. There is also the added benefit of having exceptionally skilled players helping out not-so-gifted players while they’re still learning. 5 man groups wipe and rage quit on Lupi daily. Having 1 good player carry them through and teach them the ropes will show them that the content is do able and might keep them from rage quitting next time or might motivate them to learning how to do the fight right. It’s the whole “If 1 guy can do this, why can’t me and my 4 friends do it?” kind of motivation or w.e you want to call it. I guess what I’m trying to say is why shouldn’t a player be rewarded for being skilled instead of being rewarded for being the right class?

By the way, the strife lupi solo vid you linked isn’t a legit solo. That was done pre-reckless dodge fix. Before you could dodge out of the bubble with a dodge that had an attack at the end of it. That was considered as much of an exploit as blinking through walls and was fixed. There is a reason why strife’s solo isn’t in the dungeon solo thread.

If you want to see Lupi solo’d at normal speed or faster speed
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/links/Compilation-of-dungeon-solo-videos-1/page/2#post2132465

Or just click the link in my Sig. Also:

For another warrior doing it twice as fast and without reckless dodge.

randomfightfan.4091:

What I’m getting from your desire to bring the trinity back is that instead of having a game based around player skill, where if a player is good enough they can do anything, you want a game that significantly devalues skill entirely and promotes class instead. I’d rather play a game that it doesn’t matter what or who you are, you can do anything yourself as long as you’re good enough over a game where it doesn’t matter how good you are, if you don’t have the right team comp, you will never succeed. That means that the 5 most skilled players in this game play the class they love the most but still not be able to beat a lot of content just because their class isn’t the right class.

This is probably why I never played WoW and why I like this game so much (wish there was more content and more difficult/rewarding content but that’s a different subject entirely).

Just because content CAN be solo’d, that doesn’t take anything away from other players being in the group. Unless a player is actively holding a group back, in how the game works now, every player can safely say they helped to make the run as fast and smooth as possible. There is also the added benefit of having exceptionally skilled players helping out not-so-gifted players while they’re still learning. 5 man groups wipe and rage quit on Lupi daily. Having 1 good player carry them through and teach them the ropes will show them that the content is do able and might keep them from rage quitting next time or might motivate them to learning how to do the fight right. It’s the whole “If 1 guy can do this, why can’t me and my 4 friends do it?” kind of motivation or w.e you want to call it. I guess what I’m trying to say is why shouldn’t a player be rewarded for being skilled instead of being rewarded for being the right class?

By the way, the strife lupi solo vid you linked isn’t a legit solo. That was done pre-reckless dodge fix. Before you could dodge out of the bubble with a dodge that had an attack at the end of it. That was considered as much of an exploit as blinking through walls and was fixed. There is a reason why strife’s solo isn’t in the dungeon solo thread.

If you want to see Lupi solo’d at normal speed or faster speed
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/links/Compilation-of-dungeon-solo-videos-1/page/2#post2132465

Or just click the link in my Sig. Also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI83CVxZIug&feature=youtu.be
For another warrior doing it twice as fast and without reckless dodge.

I don’t understand how you got the impresion I’m after a class based system based on my previous posts. I go into great detail regularly stating that I do not want the classic Trinity back and that everyone being able to do a bit of everything is very important to Anets idea of the new Trinity.
GW2 in an MMO and one of the things that makes PvE in MMO’s so great is that players need to team up and work together to achive a common goal. Working together is activly encouraged in most aspects of GW2 PvE and that’s one of my favorite things about it but when it comes down to the actual combat this is no longer the case.
I’d also like to point out that having one player be able to carry a group through an encounter is not encouraging the others to work together to improve, it’s doing the opposite. You’re encouraging them to find a good player to do all the work for them. It’s the “Give a man a fish or Teach a man to fish” philopshpy.
And I certinly want player skill to be rewarded as it’s the basis of Risk Vs. Reward and the very reason why ‘hardcore’ guilds exist in the first place.
Lastly your side point here:

(wish there was more content and more difficult/rewarding content but that’s a different subject entirely).

One of the reasons we don’t have more challenging and rewarding GROUP content if because of the way the game currently does not have a trinity. Some solo challenges with apropriate rewards would be great (So long as it was balanced correctly) but Anet can’t really provide a good group challenge when it is possible for a single player to previal.

Kaaboose.3897:

I don’t understand how you got the impresion I’m after a class based system based on my previous posts. I go into great detail regularly stating that I do not want the classic Trinity back and that everyone being able to do a bit of everything is very important to Anets idea of the new Trinity.

As far as I’m concerned, any time you NEED a dps, healer, and tank, you will be looking for the specific class(es) to fill those roles. You want to be a dps ranger? Not good enough, be tank or nothing. You want to be a tank warrior? Not good enough, go back to dps. You want to be a dps guardian? Not good enough, go back to support or tank. Stuff like that. At the same time, classes like mesmer, engi, and necro would get the short end of the stick in situations like this. They could do good in certain roles but would get outshined whereas now they can and are completely viable if played right. Skill > all in this game over roll comp.

GW2 in an MMO and one of the things that makes PvE in MMO’s so great is that players need to team up and work together to achive a common goal. Working together is activly encouraged in most aspects of GW2 PvE and that’s one of my favorite things about it but when it comes down to the actual combat this is no longer the case.

I’ll just say if that’s your experience then your experience and my experience were very different. If you haven’t played a fractal 48 yet, you might not see the level of teamwork needed to make a run like that go smooth.

I’d also like to point out that having one player be able to carry a group through an encounter is not encouraging the others to work together to improve, it’s doing the opposite. You’re encouraging them to find a good player to do all the work for them. It’s the “Give a man a fish or Teach a man to fish” philopshpy.
And I certinly want player skill to be rewarded as it’s the basis of Risk Vs. Reward and the very reason why ‘hardcore’ guilds exist in the first place.
Lastly your side point here:

(wish there was more content and more difficult/rewarding content but that’s a different subject entirely).

One of the reasons we don’t have more challenging and rewarding GROUP content if because of the way the game currently does not have a trinity. Some solo challenges with apropriate rewards would be great (So long as it was balanced correctly) but Anet can’t really provide a good group challenge when it is possible for a single player to previal.

I completely understand your “Give a man a fish” philosophy but I choose to believe that players aren’t that lazy. If they are, I also believe the skilled players (since there are so few) would realize they are getting used and either refuse to help or make the skilless reward the skilled for their hard effort. One good (yet controversial) example of this is back when arah p4 was seemingly impossible, skilled groups would sell their slots after they had killed Simin. Now Simin has been nerfed so only the players who can barely beat Lupi fail at Simin (or those who have terrible builds with 0 damage and all tank vs a boss that doesn’t deal damage and is a dps/mechanics and coordination check).

In my experience, the hardcore guilds group up so they don’t have to deal with terrible players mooching off their skill. They want to group together so they can do the hardest content as easy as a noob group doing the easiest content.

Anything can be achieved with enough skill. I don’t see how that should make it impossible to make content for the 99.9% who would find it incredibly challenging. If game makers refrained from making challenging content just because someone somewhere is good enough to solo it, we wouldn’t have any challenging games.

randomfightfan.4091:

As far as I’m concerned, any time you NEED a dps, healer, and tank, you will be looking for the specific class(es) to fill those roles. You want to be a dps ranger? Not good enough, be tank or nothing. You want to be a tank warrior? Not good enough, go back to dps. You want to be a dps guardian? Not good enough, go back to support or tank. Stuff like that. At the same time, classes like mesmer, engi, and necro would get the short end of the stick in situations like this. They could do good in certain roles but would get outshined whereas now they can and are completely viable if played right. Skill > all in this game over roll comp.

Random, you do realise this thread is about the Proposed GW2 Trinity, not a classic one right? Check the link in the OP for Anets design on how the Trinity in GW2 was ment to trun out.
That’s what I’m asking for here. Control, Damage, Support, not the classic Tank/DPS/Heals.

randomfightfan.4091:

I’ll just say if that’s your experience then your experience and my experience were very different. If you haven’t played a fractal 48 yet, you might not see the level of teamwork needed to make a run like that go smooth.

The way fractals scales just compounds the problems in the current META. Toughness, Vitialiy, Healing Power are all useless since if you get get hit by anything it’s going to be a one shot. So all players doing thoese are going to go right to the current beskerker META.
While WoW was also guilty of stright up stat boost for it’s Herioc (Hard) mode encounters they also added in new mechnics to further complicate the fight and challenge the players.
GW2 should be doing the same thing instead of just upping a bosses stats.

randomfightfan.4091:

I completely understand your “Give a man a fish” philosophy but I choose to believe that players aren’t that lazy. If they are, I also believe the skilled players (since there are so few) would realize they are getting used and either refuse to help or make the skilless reward the skilled for their hard effort. One good (yet controversial) example of this is back when arah p4 was seemingly impossible, skilled groups would sell their slots after they had killed Simin. Now Simin has been nerfed so only the players who can barely beat Lupi fail at Simin (or those who have terrible builds with 0 damage and all tank vs a boss that doesn’t deal damage and is a dps/mechanics and coordination check).

Again you’re bringing up the problem with the curent META. DMG>All. It causes as much class discrimination as the Trinity in WoW did. There should be a place in the game for Toughness, Vitality, Healing power in the game otherwise what’s the point of it being there in the first place? The fact that a build that has any of thoese stats in it is considered ‘bad’ is a huge problem.

randomfightfan.4091:

Anything can be achieved with enough skill. I don’t see how that should make it impossible to make content for the 99.9% who would find it incredibly challenging. If game makers refrained from making challenging content just because someone somewhere is good enough to solo it, we wouldn’t have any challenging games.

You seem to believe I don’t actually like a challenge in my games simply because I want a system that encourages group play over solo play. I’ve been gaming since the NES era, back where if you didn’t actually get good at a game you would never progress in it. I competled both Ninja Gaiden and Battletoads if you want an indication on how far I’ll presure a challenge if it’s fun and entertaining.
I’ll say it one final time. I do want a challenge in GW2 but with the system as it stands that challenge is not going to be feasable, or perhaps even possible.

I’ll make this simple as this kind of replies to everything. I support the dmg>all mechanic right now as toughness, vit, healing is only ever useful if you’re getting hit consistently while damage will always be supporting the team as long as you’re staying up. With the dodge mechanic and multiple other ways to avoid damage (blinds, blocks, evades, straight up kiting, and others), you really only need the ability to survive 1 big attack as long as the player is capable of surviving until you get yourself back up to full. If there were challenging bosses out there, where they had many minor attacks mixed in with the slow big ones, it’d be significantly harder to pull this off. It would also encourage most people to go tanky until they found the best strategy and developed enough skill to take on those types of bosses with higher damage/less tanky gear. In the end, everyone skilled enough would adapt and improve until they are able to go take out the hardest boss in the game with the glassiest gear.

If you want to find a boss that really encompasses what guys like us would be looking for, go to HotW p3 and fight the wolf boss. It’s a fun and challenging fight but it suffers from many flaws. The biggest one is that it’s in HotW p3 where the sub bosses take forever to die and the main bosses are underwater.

You made me nostalgic with your nes statement though :p My first console was the snes. Super Mario World was the greatest thing ever!

Yes, what they really need to do is have a long hard look at the combat system. Currently there’s a problem with their idea of a trinity (the classes are simply not balanced), and with the bosses. The bosses trivialize several game mechanics, such as control skills amongst other things, and also condition damage. Which is bad for classes that are heavily focused on those mechanics. And it all seems to be in favor of DPS. Some classes clearly out-DPS other classes, and that’s a big problem. But there’s also the a fore mentioned scaling problem. The game does not introduce new mechanics as the difficulty level increases. They just scale up mob health and damage, as a lot of games tend to do. But that’s lazy design.

What they should do I think, is introduce boss behaviors and attacks, that only appear at certain difficulty levels. Boss mechanics that encourage the players to use things other than DPS.

The game also currently trivializes the downstate mechanic at many boss battles, which is a shame. The downstate has a lot of potential, but if bosses simply wail on a downed player till they are dead, while being immune to control skills… why even have a downed state in the first place?

You go over one of the reasons I want weak atatcks mixed in with the regular ones randomfightfan. It encourages better use of control and support. With the current system it’s easy to just throw up Support effects like the Aegies and have it be effective. If there were weaker attacks in the mix you’d have to be more careful with aegis or it would be wasted.
And yes, I can see that in a group working PERFECTLY together could pull off these fights in pure glass gear, and doing so would be a challenge no doubt! However, for a single palyer this should be impossible.
BTW I prefered Super Mario Bros. 3 to Super Mario World. Don’t get me wrong I lvoed that game but I just had more fun with 3.
Also Mad, Your point about the downed state is right on the money. I’d actually like to see a boss that stomps (or for added hilarity kicked your downed body off a cliff!) if you failed to use the downed state skills to prevent it (or the support from your team)
Once again, this would work with the system I propsed in the video as you’d be encouraged to be careful with control rather then spamming it. (Or desperatle spamming it to get thoese last few stacks of defiant off before the inevatable boot kick!)

Kaaboose.3897:

BTW I prefered Super Mario Bros. 3 to Super Mario World. Don’t get me wrong I lvoed that game but I just had more fun with 3.

And I agree with that as well. I always were a NES gamer… and still am. Got that thing hooked up to a widescreen tv, and it still works. Just last week I played Turtles 3 the Manhattan Project with someone who had never played it before, and we had a blast.

But what was astounding, was how well designed the boss battles were. Even with a very limited combat system (the player has only 4 different attacks), the battles were exciting, diverse, dynamic and fair. Almost all bosses introduced a new behavior when their health started getting low. And bosses responded to the positioning of the players. While not perfect (the ai can be tricked in TMNT) the bosses seemed to respond directly to what the player was doing (and not spam attacks randomly). Several bosses had moments where a boss was deliberately vulnerable for a few seconds, but greedy players would get punished if they wailed on the boss too long.

This is something I’m missing in GW2’s boss battles. Too many bosses in GW2 keep going and going, without introducing new mechanics. Take the jellyfish boss in the underwater Fractal for example. That thing has a lot of health, but at no point does he do new attacks. The battle would be a lot less tedious, if the boss started doing some really nasty attacks at low health. And it seems like an easy thing to implement.

Many bosses in other games also gain an increase in attack speed as the battle progresses. Bosses start running faster, and chaining longer attacks. These are all things that could make GW2’s boss fights much more fun.

kab you are wasting your time with this random
he has no idea what trinity is or what it can provide .he wants skill, there’s plenty of skill involved in trinity and there are plenty of ways to require skill from each of the roles

" I support the dmg>all mechanic "
this made lol ^

I would be more interested to see a comment from Anet on the state of their trinity…and what are their plans for the future to address this problem…

FalconX.9287:

kab you are wasting your time with this random
he has no idea what trinity is or what it can provide .he wants skill, there’s plenty of skill involved in trinity and there are plenty of ways to require skill from each of the roles

" I support the dmg>all mechanic "
this made lol ^

I would be more interested to see a comment from Anet on the state of their trinity…and what are their plans for the future to address this problem…

Your entire post made me lol. Why are you hating on a strategy that skilled players brought into this game? When the game first came out, everyone was going tanky spec so they wouldn’t die and EVERYONE was calling zerker gear terrible since if you’re dead, you’re not doing any damage. Skilled players proved you could not only survive using zerker gear, but vastly outshine tanky specs by properly using class mechanics that avoid damage. It took a long time before the rest of the player base adapted to this playstyle, but the content in this game is too easy for bad players to succeed using high risk gear. And now you’re Lol’ing at me for believing a high risk high reward playstyle is good if the player can handle the risk. You obviously have no idea what dodging and blocking can do.

Sure there is skill in the “holy trinity”, but it’s nothing compared to a game where the best defensive tool is dodging (controlled entirely by the player and their ability to implement it). I’ll always be more impressed with a person who is able to avoid all forms of damage through timing and coordination more than I’ll be impressed with people who are able to out tank all the damage and healing themselves (or getting healed) constantly. Tanking takes better gear, dodging takes better skill.

randomfightfan.4091:

Sure there is skill in the “holy trinity”, but it’s nothing compared to a game where the best defensive tool is dodging (controlled entirely by the player and their ability to implement it). I’ll always be more impressed with a person who is able to avoid all forms of damage through timing and coordination more than I’ll be impressed with people who are able to out tank all the damage and healing themselves (or getting healed) constantly. Tanking takes better gear, dodging takes better skill.

There’s no coordination or skilled “team” play with dodge. It’s just a short term damage aversion which is only required because you have very few forms of sustained healing, although there are other forms of damage mitigation such as the protection and aegis boons.

There are some ways a skilled team can “coordinate” to avoid damage, but Kab’s point is that it’s not really required to succeed (where as a healing role is required in a trinity design). If a role is not required to succeed, then maybe it’s not really a defined role, or the game is not designed to utilize the roll well.

In fact if dodge was removed from GW2, you would magically see a greater need for the support role because teams would die without it.

I fear that at present, teams would die even with it.

juno.1840:

randomfightfan.4091:

Sure there is skill in the “holy trinity”, but it’s nothing compared to a game where the best defensive tool is dodging (controlled entirely by the player and their ability to implement it). I’ll always be more impressed with a person who is able to avoid all forms of damage through timing and coordination more than I’ll be impressed with people who are able to out tank all the damage and healing themselves (or getting healed) constantly. Tanking takes better gear, dodging takes better skill.

There’s no coordination or skilled “team” play with dodge. It’s just a short term damage aversion which is only required because you have very few forms of sustained healing, although there are other forms of damage mitigation such as the protection and aegis boons.

There are some ways a skilled team can “coordinate” to avoid damage, but Kab’s point is that it’s not really required to succeed (where as a healing role is required in a trinity design). If a role is not required to succeed, then maybe it’s not really a defined role, or the game is not designed to utilize the roll well.

In fact if dodge was removed from GW2, you would magically see a greater need for the support role because teams would die without it.

I guess GW2 is more focused on individual player skill whereas most other mmos are focused on team coordination skill. Nothing wrong with either. I’m just a player that values skilled individuals working together over individuals working together skillfully. That’s just my personal preference, nothing more. I just hate having to rely on someone else who might not be up to the task and not being able to succeed because of them. Additionally, I hate it when someone rage quitting equates to the content being uncompletable.

randomfightfan.4091:

juno.1840:

randomfightfan.4091:

Sure there is skill in the “holy trinity”, but it’s nothing compared to a game where the best defensive tool is dodging (controlled entirely by the player and their ability to implement it). I’ll always be more impressed with a person who is able to avoid all forms of damage through timing and coordination more than I’ll be impressed with people who are able to out tank all the damage and healing themselves (or getting healed) constantly. Tanking takes better gear, dodging takes better skill.

There’s no coordination or skilled “team” play with dodge. It’s just a short term damage aversion which is only required because you have very few forms of sustained healing, although there are other forms of damage mitigation such as the protection and aegis boons.

There are some ways a skilled team can “coordinate” to avoid damage, but Kab’s point is that it’s not really required to succeed (where as a healing role is required in a trinity design). If a role is not required to succeed, then maybe it’s not really a defined role, or the game is not designed to utilize the roll well.

In fact if dodge was removed from GW2, you would magically see a greater need for the support role because teams would die without it.

I guess GW2 is more focused on individual player skill whereas most other mmos are focused on team coordination skill. Nothing wrong with either. I’m just a player that values skilled individuals working together over individuals working together skillfully. That’s just my personal preference, nothing more. I just hate having to rely on someone else who might not be up to the task and not being able to succeed because of them. Additionally, I hate it when someone rage quitting equates to the content being uncompletable.

You’re missing the point of MMO’s entirely then random.

Kaaboose.3897:

randomfightfan.4091:

juno.1840:

randomfightfan.4091:

Sure there is skill in the “holy trinity”, but it’s nothing compared to a game where the best defensive tool is dodging (controlled entirely by the player and their ability to implement it). I’ll always be more impressed with a person who is able to avoid all forms of damage through timing and coordination more than I’ll be impressed with people who are able to out tank all the damage and healing themselves (or getting healed) constantly. Tanking takes better gear, dodging takes better skill.

There’s no coordination or skilled “team” play with dodge. It’s just a short term damage aversion which is only required because you have very few forms of sustained healing, although there are other forms of damage mitigation such as the protection and aegis boons.

There are some ways a skilled team can “coordinate” to avoid damage, but Kab’s point is that it’s not really required to succeed (where as a healing role is required in a trinity design). If a role is not required to succeed, then maybe it’s not really a defined role, or the game is not designed to utilize the roll well.

In fact if dodge was removed from GW2, you would magically see a greater need for the support role because teams would die without it.

I guess GW2 is more focused on individual player skill whereas most other mmos are focused on team coordination skill. Nothing wrong with either. I’m just a player that values skilled individuals working together over individuals working together skillfully. That’s just my personal preference, nothing more. I just hate having to rely on someone else who might not be up to the task and not being able to succeed because of them. Additionally, I hate it when someone rage quitting equates to the content being uncompletable.

You’re missing the point of MMO’s entirely then random.

Why can’t a group of skilled individuals can’t be allowed to work together to achieve a common goal without always needing to be 100% focused on your team? Why can’t an mmo exist that’s slightly different where the focus is more 50/50 between yourself and your team? There’s a reason why this mmo appealed to me and kotor and WoW didn’t. Why am I not allowed to have nice things and share them with other people

And if an MMO is only about worrying about your team, then what’s the point on even making solo content?

Nobody is saying there shouldn’t be solo content. However if there’s team content, it should actually require team work — not just a collection of five people that happen to be killing mobs together.

Honestly very little teamwork is required in this game as currently designed. There are exceptions (like anything in life), but most content is not requiring any role other than DPS.

juno.1840:

Nobody is saying there shouldn’t be solo content. However if there’s team content, it should actually require team work — not just a collection of five people that happen to be killing mobs together.

Honestly very little teamwork is required in this game as currently designed. There are exceptions (like anything in life), but most content is not requiring any role other than DPS.

True, teamwork isn’t REQUIRED, but it will always make things go smoother. I’m assuming you’re talking about open world pve here though as in any dungeon where the players aren’t total trash, they will be very much so working as a team. They might not have 1 guy in front tanking everything while another heals him and 3 others ranged the boss but there’s still a lot of teamwork going on.

As a thief, I have completely selfish traits for max dps but that doesn’t mean I’m not being a team player. Those selfish traits allow me to do some amazing team play with hardly even trying. I stealth people who are low and need to lose agro, I drop smoke screen in for a player who’s being targeted by ranged attack, I cleanse conditions for teamates, and provide the best resing/rallying support among any class. I also toss down blind fields so the mobs can’t hit us and rip off countless ticks of defiance in short amounts of time so we can cc the boss again if necessary. I take advantage of any field put on the ground as the thief has the best supply of finishers in the game. I cripple the mobs, burst them, stack conditions, and periodically give weakness to any enemies in my sights. All this while putting out some crazy high dps (not just spike, it’s pretty much sustained spike). Just like any other class, I can tank by avoiding damage, heal with my own heals, and have respectable dps if I chose to build for it.

There’s a lot of teamplay in this game. The best part of the team play is that it focuses on the player’s individual skill in order to pull off said plays. It’s just not the copy/paste tank tanks, healer heals, and dps dpses thing everyone’s used to. It’s more of an everybody is their own and everybody else’s trinity.

You are right RandomFightFan that you can use team work, the game doesn’t prevent it. However the game doesn’t really require it (again with some exceptions). If you use some team work the game is that much more rewarding.

If all you have to do is nuke things down, faster is better, DPS is best.

randomfightfan.4091:

True, teamwork isn’t REQUIRED

That right there is what everyone is talking about, man. Yes teamwork makes things smoother but that’s the case for basically any game where multiple people play. That doesnt mean that the game mechanics encourage true synergy. And I’m not saying that you cant synergize, I’m saying that the combat mechanics in place don’t encourage it as much as they should.
Also I love how you keep referring to the tank/healer/dps trinity when people have said over and over again that theyre referring to the dps/control/support trinity which is the trinity that ANet promised, not one that people are carrying over from other games.

dps=dps/tank=control/healer=support…

A duck by a different name…

digiowl.9620:

dps=dps/tank=control/healer=support…

A duck by a different name…

I can kinda see how you could think support is healer as healing is a part of support (although damage prevention is a larger part) but how the hell does control=tank? CC and tanking are even different things in other MMOs.

both tanking and control reduce or eliminate incoming damage on most or all of the team, and allow for positioning of the mob.

digiowl.9620:

both tanking and control reduce or eliminate incoming damage on most or all of the team, and allow for positioning of the mob.

So by that logic, support is tanking too because it has abilities that reduce damage to the group (protection, aegis, regen, etc.)?

digiowl.9620:

dps=dps/tank=control/healer=support…

A duck by a different name…

Try reading this owl: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/

Kaaboose.3897:

digiowl.9620:

dps=dps/tank=control/healer=support…

A duck by a different name…

Try reading this owl: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/

I read through that entire thing and to me it seems they intended for every class to fulfill each roll in that trinity. The control was more focused on cripples and chills, which is definitely going on now. Support was more focused on projectile destroy/reflections along with boons and conditions, which is definitely going on now. And everybody knows about damage.

Even in CoF p1 farm, it perfectly demonstrates this. The mesmer pulls the adds to the right, pushes the boss against the wall, and always uses signet of inspiration to double might and fury stacks for the team, while dealing damage. Warriors use banners, fgj, omm, and tank the boss while dealing damage. Thief annihilates the turrets, pulls the boss towards the wall, passively stacks multiple helpful conditions, stealths, and gives the highest quick single target dps in the game. That’s the gw2 trinity in action right there.

In higher level fractals it’s used a lot more effectively and a lot more often. Just looking at grawl ritual, you stack boons, spec for max control and dps, then go wreck some grawl. On the shaman, walls are used to keep the team safe and to easily revive downed allies. Reflects are used to make the enemies kill themselves and make for easy transition phases. Ground target cripples and chills are placed under the shaman, slowing him down considerably. They also keep the teammates safe while killing the shield. Condition removals are always flying out and blinds, aiges, protection, retal, and a bunch of other boons/conditions fly out to help the team.

I take back my previous post about supportive team play not being necessary now that I know what ANET meant when they classified support. People are supporting their team all the time, hardly without even realizing it. After reading the post you linked, I really don’t see how the gw2 trinity is not working as intended.

melonLord.8712:

digiowl.9620:

both tanking and control reduce or eliminate incoming damage on most or all of the team, and allow for positioning of the mob.

So by that logic, support is tanking too because it has abilities that reduce damage to the group (protection, aegis, regen, etc.)?

Well no good tank can stand for long without a solid healer on the back row.

randomfightfan.4091:

Kaaboose.3897:

digiowl.9620:

dps=dps/tank=control/healer=support…

A duck by a different name…

Try reading this owl: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/

I read through that entire thing and to me it seems they intended for every class to fulfill each roll in that trinity. The control was more focused on cripples and chills, which is definitely going on now. Support was more focused on projectile destroy/reflections along with boons and conditions, which is definitely going on now. And everybody knows about damage.

Even in CoF p1 farm, it perfectly demonstrates this. The mesmer pulls the adds to the right, pushes the boss against the wall, and always uses signet of inspiration to double might and fury stacks for the team, while dealing damage. Warriors use banners, fgj, omm, and tank the boss while dealing damage. Thief annihilates the turrets, pulls the boss towards the wall, passively stacks multiple helpful conditions, stealths, and gives the highest quick single target dps in the game. That’s the gw2 trinity in action right there.

Makes me think that toning down Defiant ¹ and reflection ² should bring things more in line.

¹ rather than have it a blanket block on controls for every x fight participants, a rising chance of resistance on hard blocks may be a option. Meaning that as more and more knockdown, push, pull and such gets used, the higher the chance becomes that the next one will be resisted. If left alone for a while, the chance would fade.

² right now reflection outclasses destruction by a massive amount, as it uses the damage of the projectile source rather than the reflection source as the basis for damage done. This exemplified by how the opening burst of Lupicus stage 2 reflected via mesmer Feedback do enough damage to send him right into stage 3. Or how you can basically take out 2/3 of a young karka’s health if you reflect the initial burst of projectiles. This while the more riskier retaliation use the casters own power rather than the incoming attack, even tho the caster has to take damage for retaliation to do anything.

And yes, my initial impression from the linked blog entry was that every profession should have some way to perform either role. Either as a jack of all trades or a specialist.

digiowl.9620:

randomfightfan.4091:

Kaaboose.3897:

digiowl.9620:

dps=dps/tank=control/healer=support…

A duck by a different name…

Try reading this owl: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/

I read through that entire thing and to me it seems they intended for every class to fulfill each roll in that trinity. The control was more focused on cripples and chills, which is definitely going on now. Support was more focused on projectile destroy/reflections along with boons and conditions, which is definitely going on now. And everybody knows about damage.

Even in CoF p1 farm, it perfectly demonstrates this. The mesmer pulls the adds to the right, pushes the boss against the wall, and always uses signet of inspiration to double might and fury stacks for the team, while dealing damage. Warriors use banners, fgj, omm, and tank the boss while dealing damage. Thief annihilates the turrets, pulls the boss towards the wall, passively stacks multiple helpful conditions, stealths, and gives the highest quick single target dps in the game. That’s the gw2 trinity in action right there.

Makes me think that toning down Defiant ¹ and reflection ² should bring things more in line.

¹ rather than have it a blanket block on controls for every x fight participants, a rising chance of resistance on hard blocks may be a option. Meaning that as more and more knockdown, push, pull and such gets used, the higher the chance becomes that the next one will be resisted. If left alone for a while, the chance would fade.

² right now reflection outclasses destruction by a massive amount, as it uses the damage of the projectile source rather than the reflection source as the basis for damage done. This exemplified by how the opening burst of Lupicus stage 2 reflected via mesmer Feedback do enough damage to send him right into stage 3. Or how you can basically take out 2/3 of a young karka’s health if you reflect the initial burst of projectiles. This while the more riskier retaliation use the casters own power rather than the incoming attack, even tho the caster has to take damage for retaliation to do anything.

And yes, my initial impression from the linked blog entry was that every profession should have some way to perform either role. Either as a jack of all trades or a specialist.

I agree with both points. Hard cc abilities should never be completely shut down. With defiance up, it basically tells the players to use cripple, chill, or immo or nothing. It is not fair to have to strip off 18 stacks of defiance because some idiot ele doesn’t realize that just spamming a skill rotation isn’t skillful. Don’t use dagger earth 4 when defiance is down and the boss isn’t doing anything.

Projectile block skills really should have their duration buffed to warrant their use over reflects. Mesmer feedback doesn’t stop the mesmer from using any abilities and lasts for 7 seconds. Guardian shield stops the guard from doing anything and lasts for 4 (actual shield, not the semi op summon shield that lasts for 24). Then there’s line walls like mesmer focus 4 and thief smoke screen. The focus is on a 20s cd and lasts for 5s while smoke screen has 30s cd, lasts for 7 seconds, doesn’t reflect, doesn’t cripple, but has an equally useful field. Wall of reflect has a slightly longer cd but lasts up to 5 seconds longer. Reflect is winning in every category.

I’m not hating on mesmer here, they just happen to have some of the best reflect skills.

I also wouldn’t mind seeing bosses just use a temporary defiant buff that wears off after a few seconds, just to prevent people from CC locking the boss.

digiowl.9620:

² right now reflection outclasses destruction by a massive amount, as it uses the damage of the projectile source rather than the reflection source as the basis for damage done. This exemplified by how the opening burst of Lupicus stage 2 reflected via mesmer Feedback do enough damage to send him right into stage 3. Or how you can basically take out 2/3 of a young karka’s health if you reflect the initial burst of projectiles. This while the more riskier retaliation use the casters own power rather than the incoming attack, even tho the caster has to take damage for retaliation to do anything.

They already hardcapped Feedback at 20 reflects, so it’s harder to bring down Lupi from phase 2 to 3, especially if he uses his AoE in the beginning of Phase 2. And to be honest, if they nerfed reflects, the people that can bring Lupi down the fastest, will still be able to bring lupi down the fastest. Dodging is AoE is extremely easy when you’re in Melee range. Dodge backwards once, dodge forwards after that, and you’re safe. You’re actually more vulnerable for lupi’s AoE at range. Although, the only difficulty in melee is that you don’t have much time to react.

And the damage from reflects is already based on the caster. The base damage is based on the foes, but the multipliers from Power and Critical chance are all due to the caster of the reflect.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I also wouldn’t mind seeing bosses just use a temporary defiant buff that wears off after a few seconds, just to prevent people from CC locking the boss.

Most players who find that the current defiant and unshakable mechanic is a stupid idea, wouldn’t mind to have this a temporary buff. At the moment, you are just wasting control skills to be enable to use exactly one control skill. With a temporary buff control skills wouldn’t be completely useless. But you need also mechanics to prevent players from just dps all things to death.

Kabooses idea may be a step forward but its no use to have a boss with many weak and few strong attacks if zerk groups could kill the boss in 5 seconds like the searing effigy at the end of the citadel of fail path one. Perhaps a reflection buff, which will appear every 10% and stays for 5 seconds health could help. With such a mechanic the party could dps itself to death if the players dont pay attention.

A good control boss example is the double fight against Ralena and Vassar. If they stand together the fight becomes very difficult ( i’m not mentioning the lvl 80 groups who can just ignore this because of bad scaling ). You need to put them apart, luckily they dont have defiant and unshakable, so you can use your cc skills to have an advantage

Perhaps bosses could simply be designed in a way where they receive temporary immunities to all of these things randomly. I was brainstorming a while back about a possible boss concept for GW2. It was basically like this:

You have a boss that randomly switches between anti DPS, and anti CC. When it turns anti DPS, it receives a force field around it that punishes anyone who attacks it directly with massive feedback damage. The only way to get rid of it, is by using a control skill to force the boss out of his field. This power would occasionally deny players from simply DPS’ ing the boss to death.

When it turns anti CC, it is rooted in place while channeling energy, but is extra vulnerable to direct attacks (both melee and ranged). It can’t be influenced by control skills while channeling, but it is the perfect moment to hammer on the boss aggressively and deals loads of extra damage. A moment of weakness for the boss. This weakness however would be like a double edged sword.

After channeling, what follows is either an attack that punishes melee, or an attack that punishes ranged. Both attacks look very similar. The difference being that the ranged attack would make the boss shoot a projectile into the air, which then fragments and rains down on the back line. The alternative is that the projectile shoots into the air, but then comes falling directly down again, causing an explosion that does massive damage to nearby players. Players would have only mere seconds to dodge out of the way , or they could preemptively take their distance from the boss before it finishes channeling.

At 20% health, the boss would gain a new ability where it focuses on one player, and chases him relentlessly, while gaining fury (which grants extra damage). Stuns could be used to keep the boss at bay during this attack, and condition removal could be used to strip the fury boon, so he deals less damage.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

You have a boss that randomly switches between anti DPS, and anti CC. When it turns anti DPS, it receives a force field around it that punishes anyone who attacks it directly with massive feedback damage. The only way to get rid of it, is by using a control skill to force the boss out of his field. This power would occasionally deny players from simply DPS’ ing the boss to death.

You mean like Half-baked Komali or Sotzz the Scallywag ? Real original ideas you got there.

I would love to see a boss with this mechanics implemented Mad Queen, not only it will spawn 100 " Boss is OP ner nref fren nref it immediately" threads but it would be a challenging and good fight where you have to be careful with dps and control.

Bright.9160:

digiowl.9620:

² right now reflection outclasses destruction by a massive amount, as it uses the damage of the projectile source rather than the reflection source as the basis for damage done. This exemplified by how the opening burst of Lupicus stage 2 reflected via mesmer Feedback do enough damage to send him right into stage 3. Or how you can basically take out 2/3 of a young karka’s health if you reflect the initial burst of projectiles. This while the more riskier retaliation use the casters own power rather than the incoming attack, even tho the caster has to take damage for retaliation to do anything.

They already hardcapped Feedback at 20 reflects, so it’s harder to bring down Lupi from phase 2 to 3, especially if he uses his AoE in the beginning of Phase 2. And to be honest, if they nerfed reflects, the people that can bring Lupi down the fastest, will still be able to bring lupi down the fastest. Dodging is AoE is extremely easy when you’re in Melee range. Dodge backwards once, dodge forwards after that, and you’re safe. You’re actually more vulnerable for lupi’s AoE at range. Although, the only difficulty in melee is that you don’t have much time to react.

And the damage from reflects is already based on the caster. The base damage is based on the foes, but the multipliers from Power and Critical chance are all due to the caster of the reflect.

1. i was only using lupi as a example of the issue i see with reflect.

2. as long as power is from the attacker, reflect has issues. Notice that nothing else that punishes actions (retaliation, confusion) use attacker power against himself. Only refect does that, and that in essence makes it unbalanced vs alternatives. Especially as ANet’s idea of a PVE challenge is dodge-or-die attack spam.

Bright.9160:

You mean like Half-baked Komali or Sotzz the Scallywag ? Real original ideas you got there.

Still better than having no ideas.

digiowl.9620:

Notice that nothing else that punishes actions (retaliation, confusion) use attacker power against himself. Only refect does that, and that in essence makes it unbalanced vs alternatives. Especially as ANet’s idea of a PVE challenge is dodge-or-die attack spam.

Yes, this dodge-or-die idea really bothers me. It all kind of falls apart if the things that you must dodge aren’t clearly communicated, and the things that are less dangerous pretty much look exactly the same.

I’m not against the idea of a boss in a high end area having some attacks that must be avoided at all costs. But with the limited amount of dodges that we have, properly telegraphing each move becomes infinitely more important.

As we’ve seen, some players seem to be easily satisfied, since they found a way to tell the different attacks apart. To those players I say, come down from your ego-chair and look at the game more critically. We’ve all played games with better boss fights. It is okay to demand more from a game that you like. Hey, news flash, I love Guild Wars as well. But that love doesn’t completely eliminate my critical thinking. I can still look at the game objectively and point out things that could obviously use some improvement. It really shouldn’t require any effort on the part of the players to see what is happening in a boss fight. If a player doesn’t dodge an attack, because the game doesn’t properly communicate that he should be dodging, then it really isn’t the player’s fault. That’s game design 101.

The first couple of times I fought Lupicus, all I saw was he sticks out his legs, he swipes his arms, he waves his arms about a bit, he spits something. All of those moves looked about equally threatening. And I can’t be dodging all of them. He spams way more attacks than any single player can dodge. So how do I know that him raising his arm means he’ll be summoning a grub on top of me? Most of the time I’m so busy fighting him, that I don’t really see what it is in his behavior that causes the grub to appear. Now that is not a fault on my part. If the boss is about to summon something on top of me, it should be very clear that he is summoning something, and where it will appear. A few lightning flashes would have helped to tell the normal moves apart from this particular attack. It’s a little extra effort that’s needed to create a more fair challenge.

Sure, you can memorize it all, and through trial and error and multiple deaths, learn what he does. But it should be clear right from the very start. Currently with a lot of bosses, it’s just a giant mess of random damage. And often when I’m downed, I have no idea what just hit me, and how I could have seen it coming.

If I play a game of God of War, I always know exactly what just hit me, and how I could have avoided it. So that the next time that it happens, I know precisely what to look out for. THAT is good combat design. And even with all that painfully obvious telegraphing of moves, the battles can still be fiendishly difficult. But the challenge comes from the fight itself, and not from poor design.

Back to the topic of the trinity

What I’d really like to see is a change to the overall boss designs, so all mechanics are valid counter measures again. What we currently see, is basically Anet eliminating half the combat system for bosses, because it is the simplest solution. They simply dumbed everything down, and I feel they should put more thought into their boss mechanics. If I bring a fear-build to a boss fight, then I should be able to some how affect that boss with fear. Not all the time, but at crucial moments it should affect him. Same with enchantment stripping, speed boosts, condition removal. And yes, reflection is way overpowered at the moment. Especially since only a few classes can reflect, and it is not only a powerful form of defense, but also offense. What ways does a necromancer have to stop incoming projectiles? None! No walls, no deflections, nada! We have death shroud, and we have protection.

Lolyta.4582:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Necros can’t control their pets, but the only part of that control problem that is actually a problem is getting them to attack what you want them to attack, or not attack what you don’t want them to attack.

With all due respect, DUH! That’s the only control I mentioned the lack of.

Kal Spiro.9745:

They don’t agro things, anymore, unless you agroed them first. It was supposed to be on Ranger and Necro pets, and I know it’s the case for Ranger, so it should be the case for Necro too.

Woulda, coulda shoulda. My Flesh Golem aggroed several Risens tonight (it’s 3:12 AM CDT on June 3, 2013) in Mt. Maelstrom along the road. I was not close enough to aggro them, and in fact, they didn’t attack me- they immediately attacked my flesh Golem who was mindlessly roaming ahead of me and slightly to the left side of the road, too close to the Risens in the creek/swamp alongside the road.

So either I’m having my usual luck discovering ‘bugs’ that don’t seem to affect other people (lolwut) or they didn’t fix the aggro issue on Necro minions.

My Necro doesn’t summon, though, so I can’t actually confirm it.

[/quote]

It’s not your imagination my ranger does that everywhere i go.

It’s not so limited to AI tho it’s also their aggro table. It should be the same as ours but smaller because these pets just go all over the place.

They also are in despirate need of immunity to AOE style attacks for every pet across the board even if it’s only 80% because it’s insane to have to resummon something within two seconds of having it.

And when I say that it’s not just for one class I’m talking all of the necro pets, turrets, elite skills (both racial and class), traps that summon help, the whole shabang because it shouldn’t be so easy for enemies or other players to just send an AOE after the pets and then ignore them entirely to focus on the player. That’s not skillfull that’s a free pass by the devs.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Bright.9160:

You mean like Half-baked Komali or Sotzz the Scallywag ? Real original ideas you got there.

Still better than having no ideas.

digiowl.9620:

Notice that nothing else that punishes actions (retaliation, confusion) use attacker power against himself. Only refect does that, and that in essence makes it unbalanced vs alternatives. Especially as ANet’s idea of a PVE challenge is dodge-or-die attack spam.

Yes, this dodge-or-die idea really bothers me. It all kind of falls apart if the things that you must dodge aren’t clearly communicated, and the things that are less dangerous pretty much look exactly the same.

I’m not against the idea of a boss in a high end area having some attacks that must be avoided at all costs. But with the limited amount of dodges that we have, properly telegraphing each move becomes infinitely more important.

I think the problem there is the “play the game, not the UI” mantra that ANet is applying.

Cryptic opted for a different approach with Neverwinter. There every big attack with some kind of area shape put a big loud marker on the floor in the shape of the attack area. Frontal cone or charge = a red line/cone, AOE = circle and so on.

Sure, it may lead to people looking at the floor more than the boss. But thanks to the aiming system being more shooter like you need to make sure you keep the crosshair on the boss rather than just lock and forget.

Never mind that said game do not have hidden cooldowns (weapon, kit, attunement swaps) and so you are glacing around constantly to maintain aim, check cooldowns and spot AOE markers.

The combat can get furious, but i always feel more in control than i do in GW2 for some reason.

Hey Kaboose.

What do you think of a system where 10 stacks of defiant is the max, and for every 1 it goes down, the chance to stop an ability is equal to that number * 10

Example.

Alpha starts with 0 defiant stacks. Our mesmer pushes him, now has 5. Carrying a hammer, I hit my 5 skill to knock him down, which has a 50% chance of succeeding due to the 5 stacks of defiant. If it works, the defiant stays. If it doesn’t, then it gets knocked down to 4, until we start the whole system back at whatever pre-determined number the boss is at.

That makes for an interesting suggestion. Personally, though, I’d like to see the stacks naturally fade over time as well, though. The purpose of defiance stacks is to protect a boss from being stunlocked and therefor trivialised – if you have defiant stacks fade at, say, one stack every five seconds, then obviously the boss isn’t being stunlocked if their stacks are fading.

digiowl.9620:

Makes me think that toning down Defiant ¹ and reflection ² should bring things more in line.

People have been saying the first all through this discussion.

For the second… I think that would naturally happen if the reliance of PvE mobs on burst damage is reduced. in the karka example, for instance, for a normal young karka (which doesn’t have the trample attack that the vets have), the barrage represents something like 75% of the karka’s threat potential, and they do very little damage between bursts. Reflecting that in their face is the most effective means of dealing with them, yes, but if you simply block, destroy, dodge, or otherwise neutralise those projectiles rather than reflecting them, odds are pretty good you’re still going to be able to squish a single young karka before it comes around again.

At the moment, a lot of PvE is based around ‘if you can avoid damage from the bursts, you’ll survive the pressure’. As an occasional thing, that’s fine, but we really need to see more encounters where the pressure is also a significant threat. The power of reflects is simply coming from the fact that if the majority of an opponent’s damage is from bursts and you can reflect those bursts, you’re both dealing and preventing a lot of damage. However, you can’t keep reflects up permanently, and if damage output is still significant between bursts, then all reflects would do is provide a breather and some additional damage rather than being able to turn a large portion of the target’s damage upon them.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

What ways does a necromancer have to stop incoming projectiles? None! No walls, no deflections, nada!

Personally, I think Spectral Wall should have a projectile-blocking effect. Necromancer isn’t one of my primary professions, but a wall that provides protection and vulnerability – but only if your allies/enemies pass through it – always struck me as a bit of a case of ‘why not just use a well instead’?

bullettohead.9715:

Hey Kaboose.

What do you think of a system where 10 stacks of defiant is the max, and for every 1 it goes down, the chance to stop an ability is equal to that number * 10

Example.

Alpha starts with 0 defiant stacks. Our mesmer pushes him, now has 5. Carrying a hammer, I hit my 5 skill to knock him down, which has a 50% chance of succeeding due to the 5 stacks of defiant. If it works, the defiant stays. If it doesn’t, then it gets knocked down to 4, until we start the whole system back at whatever pre-determined number the boss is at.

It’s an interesting suggestion but Personally I really don’t like the idea of a control effect working coming down to RNG. I want to know that if I time my control effect right it IS going to work.

draxynnic.3719:

At the moment, a lot of PvE is based around ‘if you can avoid damage from the bursts, you’ll survive the pressure’. As an occasional thing, that’s fine, but we really need to see more encounters where the pressure is also a significant threat. The power of reflects is simply coming from the fact that if the majority of an opponent’s damage is from bursts and you can reflect those bursts, you’re both dealing and preventing a lot of damage. However, you can’t keep reflects up permanently, and if damage output is still significant between bursts, then all reflects would do is provide a breather and some additional damage rather than being able to turn a large portion of the target’s damage upon them.

One reason I’m really into the idea of bosses slowly pressuring you (or your group) down is because it gives you time to learn the encounter, And more room for adding in tactics to deal with the boss.
The one hit stuff, While it certianly has a place in GW2 combat, really should not be the norm.
Lastly, one more thing for thoese that seem to think that the whole DPS>ALL metagame is just fine you need to realise that for a TRINITY to work all 3 roles must be of similar importance.
WoW got away with making bosses immune to Stuns and similar abilities because they were not part of the trinity (TANK/DPS/HEAL) but rather an optional extra.
With GW2’s proposed Trinity (Control/Damage/Support)you cannot make bosses immune to these abilities or you have just removed part of the Trinity.

Honestly it seems that everything boils down to ANet making a gimmick (dodge), into the be all end all of PVE combat. I guess it is supposed to be their solution to the “i swing a sword” issue they jabbered about in that video…

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

As we’ve seen, some players seem to be easily satisfied, since they found a way to tell the different attacks apart. To those players I say, come down from your ego-chair and look at the game more critically. I can still look at the game objectively and point out things that could obviously use some improvement.

There are a lot of things I think GW2 needs to do to improve. Fix the Challenge vs Reward issue. Stop dumbing down to Hello Kitty Wonderland. Stop trying to make fights ‘harder’ with more HP and more damage, when all it really does is make the fights longer at tedious. Etc. Just because I think your posts about bosses needing better tells are unfounded for most bosses in the game (there are some where you have a point, but you’ve never talked about those. You only bring up the ones that are perfectly fine), doesn’t mean I’m a fanboy who thinks everything in this game is perfect. Far from even. I’m getting more and more fed up with the game to be honest. Luckily I’ll be away for over a month soon, so maybe when I come back, some stuff will be fixed.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It really shouldn’t require any effort on the part of the players to see what is happening in a boss fight. If a player doesn’t dodge an attack, because the game doesn’t properly communicate that he should be dodging, then it really isn’t the player’s fault. That’s game design 101.

If a player doesn’t dodge a telegraphed attack, it’s not the player’s fault? What? It shouldn’t require any effort from the player to see what’s happening in a boss fight? What are you, high? If I were fighting a giant undead dog for real, and I didn’t watch what he was doing closely, and he kills me, how would that not be my own fault? You’re fighting some supposed legendary monster, I mean, that means you should at least be paying attention.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

QQ lupi is hard, snip

I have to admit, when I first fought Lupi, I had no idea what I was doing either, and I didn’t know how to dodge grubs either. But back then, we stacked at range and ranged him through phase 1, so that’s not really relevant. I asked more experienced players to help me there. It isn’t hard to figure out his moves, especially not with so many video’s on the subject.

Not to mention, he’s supposed to be one of the hardest bosses in the game. And he’s been trivialized so much already. I’ve killed him in 85 seconds on casual runs. You want to go ahead and make him even easier?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Sure, you can memorize it all, and through trial and error and multiple deaths, learn what he does. But it should be clear right from the very start. Currently with a lot of bosses, it’s just a giant mess of random damage. And often when I’m downed, I have no idea what just hit me, and how I could have seen it coming.

I’m starting to understand what your real point is more and more. You’re one of those people that can’t stand the fact he can’t beat some content first try. I personally think that if every boss is made so obvious that anyone can kill him on his first try, that is what defines bad game design.

Not to mention AI in this game is already bad enough. What enemy would be so stupid that he screams every time he’s going to attack you. In what war did anyone ever shout “HEY GUYS, IMA BE FIRING MY BAZOOKA, YOU GUYS BETTER GET COVER!”. That makes so sense. Bosses are stupid enough as it is, they would become absolutely pants-on-head-kittened if they started being even more obvious about their moves.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

And yes, reflection is way overpowered at the moment. Especially since only a few classes can reflect, and it is not only a powerful form of defense, but also offense. What ways does a necromancer have to stop incoming projectiles? None! No walls, no deflections, nada! We have death shroud, and we have protection.

Actually, 7 out of the 8 professions have reflection. Mesmer’s and Guardian’s reflections are just better than the others.

Not to mention, you’re crying because Necro’s don’t have reflection? You have the highest HP pool in the game, have 2 health bars and you want some viable protection as well? You’re complaining about class balance, yet what you’re asking for would make necro’s rather unbalanced. I have to agree that in PvE, class balance is kind of a joke, but that’s not the fault of the class mechanics, but the PvE mechanics. PvE combat favors DPS and reflects, which is why Guardians, mesmers and warriors APPEAR unbalanced. If PvE favored CC and support for example, people would be crying how guardians, eles, necro’s and engi’s would be OP. It’s just the class mechanics.

If Anet wishes to fix this PvE unbalance, they should fix PvE, not the classes.

Bright.9160:

If a player doesn’t dodge a telegraphed attack, it’s not the player’s fault? What? It shouldn’t require any effort from the player to see what’s happening in a boss fight?

Yes. That is correct. A player should simply be able to see what is going on, without having to study youtube videos to understand what the attack is that gets you killed.

Take for example that Castlevania video that I posted. The boss you fight is engulfed in red flames, and yells out “BEHOLD!”, and then hits 90% of the room with a wave of flames. It doesn’t require any effort on the part of the player to see what the boss is doing. Even if you are looking the other way, or if the camera bugs out, you still hear him yelling, and you hear the incoming wave of flame. If you’re not out of the way, it is 100% your own fault.

Now don’t mistake this for me wanting to make the fights easier. That is an entirely different matter. I just think no player should ever be killed because the animations of a boss aren’t clear. There should be a very clear difference between normal attacks, and deadly attacks. No, it should not require you to pay close attention. It should only require you to be aware what is going on, and respond accordingly. The boss should make sure it is perfectly clear what’s going on. That is good boss design. That doesn’t mean the boss can’t still be hard. Try and understand that the two are both possible at the same time.

Bright.9160:

I asked more experienced players to help me there. It isn’t hard to figure out his moves, especially not with so many video’s on the subject.

You should not have to study videos! Merciful Grenth, I can’t believe that you’d defend such stupid design! You shouldn’t even have to ask other players what to look out for. A good boss clearly has distinct attacks. You can even look at the bosses in GW1, even those had better tells. If Dhuum sank into the floor mid-battle, and then a green cloud appeared next to me, then I knew he was about to hit me in the face, and that it would hurt. I knew that I would have to get out of the way fast. That is good design.

Bright.9160:

Not to mention, he’s supposed to be one of the hardest bosses in the game. And he’s been trivialized so much already. I’ve killed him in 85 seconds on casual runs. You want to go ahead and make him even easier?

NO! I want him to properly telegraph his actions! That is all. If that makes the fight easier, then it’s a poorly designed fight. If that is your idea of difficulty, why not just paste a big black sheet of paper in front of your monitor for added difficulty? Boss fights should be hard due to their mechanics, not due to poor communication!

Bright.9160:

I’m starting to understand what your real point is more and more. You’re one of those people that can’t stand the fact he can’t beat some content first try. I personally think that if every boss is made so obvious that anyone can kill him on his first try, that is what defines bad game design.

You ENTIRELY missed the point, and couldn’t be more wrong. Here is the thing:

A good challenge is one that is painfully clear what is expected of the player, and what to look out for. And forces the player to develop an effective strategy.

A bad challenge is one that is unclear what is expected, or what to look out for, and forces the player to find out through trial and error.

I don’t want players to beat a boss on their first try. I want players to UNDERSTAND a boss on their first try. THAT is the difference.

Bright.9160:

Not to mention AI in this game is already bad enough. What enemy would be so stupid that he screams every time he’s going to attack you. In what war did anyone ever shout “HEY GUYS, IMA BE FIRING MY BAZOOKA, YOU GUYS BETTER GET COVER!”. That makes so sense. Bosses are stupid enough as it is, they would become absolutely pants-on-head-kittened if they started being even more obvious about their moves.

That is a terrible indefensible argument. Because a boss that clearly indicates that he has a bazooka, and that players should take cover, is a good boss! The difficulty should come from dodging his attacks, and actually fighting him. And NOT from learning that he has a bazooka to begin with.

Really strong attacks which could one or two shot should be telegraphed. Look at the Golem Boss in Caudecus Manor. This thing has an attack which could one shot players and this attack has no animation. This is poor design because you have no warning that he is doing.

A better example how to implement an one shot mechanic is the fight against the molten berserker in phase two. He has a fire shockwave which can one shot the entire party, but this thing has a 5 seconds animation. 5 Seconds are more than enough to get yourself to safety and with safety i mean to get out of range, or to make yourselfe ready to dodge or jump over this wall of death. Yes it is easy to avoid this thing. Ok should be easy, seen to many players just standing and waiting for their death. -.-