Guild Wars 2

Ok, clearly not the full version bosses get, but I’d like to see some form of diminishing returns on CC. I don’t see it as a huge deal in PvP, and may not even be necessary there, but having spent a lot of time fighting Centaurs and their dogs, I’m tired of getting chain KDed. Many other games have a system of diminishing returns on CC effects, in which you can CC a player once, but each attempt after that within a short period of time has less and less effect to it.

Exactly how this is implemented is up to you, but I do have a suggestion. Have it so that each time a player is CCed, they get one stack of a buff, call it “Stubborn,” which would last about fifteen seconds. The first stack would only reduce the duration of the next CC attack, so they get up faster, break stun faster, etc. The second stack would additionally substitute strong CC with weaker ones, turning KB or Fear into KD, KD into stun, stun into daze, immobilize into cripple, etc. The third stack would completely negate the next CC attempt.

Now, when a player burns that third stack, it clears all stacks and he starts over again, and of course if they only get CCed occasionally it would never build above one stack, but it would basically prevent chain stunning, while fully allowing some reasonable level of CCing within a given period of time.

Use stability.             

I second the notion of using stability. Most classes have more than one way to gain stability, and it’s sometimes coupled with a stun-break. You are sometimes forced to change your skills to deal with certain enemies. Get into the habit of it

Also note, most of the enemies that hit you with knockdowns do so in close range. Hit them with cripple/immobilize/chilled, knock them back, kite, etc. to keep a gap between you and them while you dish out the damage.

Some classes don’t have stability, and of those that do they usually have long cooldowns so you can’t keep them up even 25% of the time during a fight. Stability has a perfectly good function, which is to make you immune to CC at a time of your choosing when you absolutely need to stay up, but a more passive, universal effect like this would be better for general circumstances.

1) All classes have Stability (Some have more than others)

2) Devs don’t want to segregate how PvP and PvE works to allow PvE players to hop into PvP and have a good idea of how things work (Adding Diminishing Returns to PvE only would affect this, people hopping into PvP won’t know there’s no DR there)

3) A lot of Knockdown skills are telegraphed and can be moved away from/dodged/evaded/distorted/immuned/stabilitied/interrupted. While yes it can be annoying to be farming up 5-8 Centaurs at once and be knockdowned a lot, it encourages using alternate skills/finding ways to split groups/controlling certain mobs/bursting down certain mobs.

Taril.8619:

1) All classes have Stability (Some have more than others)

2) Devs don’t want to segregate how PvP and PvE works to allow PvE players to hop into PvP and have a good idea of how things work (Adding Diminishing Returns to PvE only would affect this, people hopping into PvP won’t know there’s no DR there)

3) A lot of Knockdown skills are telegraphed and can be moved away from/dodged/evaded/distorted/immuned/stabilitied/interrupted. While yes it can be annoying to be farming up 5-8 Centaurs at once and be knockdowned a lot, it encourages using alternate skills/finding ways to split groups/controlling certain mobs/bursting down certain mobs.

This is true, can’t say it better

1) Not really. Thieves technically have access to it in one of their Elites, but you can’t consider that to be a useful form of it. Likewise Necros only get it during two of their Elite forms, and through one specific trait. Rangers can theoretically get it but only in some very unusual ways. It’s far too few and far between on all but a very few classes, and even when it is active it rarely lasts long enough to avoid more than a couple of attacks. Maintaining anything close to 50% uptime is impossible on any class.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stability

2) There are already plenty of differences between PvP and PvE rules, plenty of powers that behave differently in each. There’s no reason this couldn’t be one of them, but there’s also little reason why this couldn’t be a part of PvP. Keep in mind that it only really applies to chain CCing, if you’re only CCing a character every ten to fifteen seconds then the effect of this change would be minor to nothing. Very few builds even have the option of CCing opponents fast enough to hit even the minor effects discussed here.

3)Yes, many can be avoided, if you care to do so, but in many cases of chain CCing you can get hit by several of them before you even fully recover from the first, making avoidance impossible if you failed to avoid the first move. Factor in enemy culling that often removes the telegraphing of their movements, or how some enemies do not telegraph their movements, and it’s a significant issue sometimes. In cases where you can easilly see a KD coming, like when facing a lone Ettin or something, it’s a non-issue, they can’t chain CC you anyways, and this proposal would do little to change such an encounter, but in a situation where you’re facing a half dozen Centaurs and three dogs, and they all start using KD attacks in rounds, then it could be a serious help.

ExTribble.7108:

I second the notion of using stability. Most classes have more than one way to gain stability, and it’s sometimes coupled with a stun-break. You are sometimes forced to change your skills to deal with certain enemies. Get into the habit of it

Also note, most of the enemies that hit you with knockdowns do so in close range. Hit them with cripple/immobilize/chilled, knock them back, kite, etc. to keep a gap between you and them while you dish out the damage.

This game is too focused on kiting already.
Measures should be taken to move the gameplay towards other directions.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s far too few and far between on all but a very few classes, and even when it is active it rarely lasts long enough to avoid more than a couple of attacks.

In cases where you can easilly see a KD coming, like when facing a lone Ettin or something, it’s a non-issue, they can’t chain CC you anyways, and this proposal would do little to change such an encounter, but in a situation where you’re facing a half dozen Centaurs and three dogs, and they all start using KD attacks in rounds, then it could be a serious help.

Snipped the above to address what’s worth addressing:

If you’re using stability as it’s intended, which means when you’ve burned your own CC’s, dodges, mobility skills, run out of kiting room, etc., then you will not have many problems. What I’m seeing here is that you want to farm a bunch of mobs that have knockdown abilities and are disappointed you can’t just overaggro and nuke their brains out without thinking about keeping yourself alive. If you control your aggro, I don’t see this being a problem whatsoever.

Your suggestion for the “defiant” status simply reduces the challenge of farming some areas.

edit:

This game is too focused on kiting already.
Measures should be taken to move the gameplay towards other directions.

I can’t deny that. But this is definitely not the solution.

Ohoni.6057:

1) Not really.

While yes, some classes only have it available through Elites, it’s something that can be popped as a last resort to not only prevent knockdowns but also allow the knockdown skill to go on cooldown thus giving ample breathing room for various other ways to avoid knockdowns to occur.

Maintaining anything close to 50% uptime is impossible on any class.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stability

And so it should, Stability really shouldn’t be high uptime due to how powerful it is, combined with other ways to avoid control it’s still a hugely powerful boon that allows specific periods of immunity at crucial times to achieve something big (Breathing room for heals/damage/escape or the ability to stomp someone in PvP thus taking them out of the fight for sure)

2) Very few builds even have the option of CCing opponents fast enough to hit even the minor effects discussed here.

Lots of builds utilise way more than 1 CC ability per 15 seconds -

• Elementalists – The average D/D elementalist will utilise many CC effects from different attunements in order to keep control over targets. Underwater a majority of their available skills are CC effects.

• Thieves – Have various immobilises to use (Shortbow stealth attack – Heck this “Defiant” would stop Devourer and Basalisk Venoms from being useful due to them being based upon multiple applications (Up to 3 per person affected by the venom) not to mention Needle Trap and Tripwire also causing CC)

• Rangers – A stun and knockback on Greatsword, 15 second cooldown on knockback from Longbow ontop of various pet knockdowns/fears/daze etc

Just as examples – The game is very CC intensive (Due to it trying to become an E-sport, meaning skill based CC to prevent everything being a DPS race)

3)Yes, many can be avoided, if you care to do so, but in many cases of chain CCing you can get hit by several of them before you even fully recover from the first, making avoidance impossible if you failed to avoid the first move.

Implies you’ve pulled too many to handle, also popping Stability at the beginning of the fight will often put all the targets knockdowns on cooldown thus making the rest of the fight CC free (I know, as I do that when AoE farming multiple Centaurs + their Dogs even on classes that have limited access to stability)

There are still ways to avoid things like this occurring;

• Pulling targets away from groups – Take them either 1v1 or in smaller groups, vastly reducing the number of available CC effects that can land on you.

• Focusing your CC onto the targets that will do knockdowns – Take them out of the fight while you clear some of the others up/wait for endurance or other cooldowns to recharge.

• Focusing your DPS onto the targets that will do knockdowns – Kill them outright before they get chance to knock you down.

You have to make the trade-off depending on what you’re fighting “Do I want to kill as many as I can live through?” or “Do I want to save myself the annoyance of being chain CCed?”

I personally have thrown out many curse-words whilst trying to AoE farm Centaurs on my Wellomancer (Running with Norn racial Elite so no stability) and getting chain-cc’d and sometimes killed because of it, yet I know there are many ways to avoid it (That aren’t my usual – Run in and whack down all the damage I can and kill everything before I die tactics)

If you’re using stability as it’s intended, which means when you’ve burned your own CC’s, dodges, mobility skills, run out of kiting room, etc., then you will not have many problems. What I’m seeing here is that you want to farm a bunch of mobs that have knockdown abilities and are disappointed you can’t just overaggro and nuke their brains out without thinking about keeping yourself alive. If you control your aggro, I don’t see this being a problem whatsoever.

Actually, it comes from the fact that in certain events they come in sets of “dozens” by default, no effort on my part necessary, and really survival is not a serious concern, because even from my backside I can usually survive the encounter, it’s just annoying then you literally can’t do anything (becaue all your stunbreakers have been burned and you’d still on your back). That sort of “I can’t do anything” frustration is why most games do implement CC diminishing returns, because “can’t do anything” is not fun.

While yes, some classes only have it available through Elites, it’s something that can be popped as a last resort to not only prevent knockdowns but also allow the knockdown skill to go on cooldown thus giving ample breathing room for various other ways to avoid knockdowns to occur.

Yes, but it’s not something one can use practically on a regular basis, since the cooldowns are excessively long, and in many cases they are tied to locking down your moves to a completely different set. If every class had access to something reasonably similar to Stand Your Ground then I would conced the point, but Thieves getting Stability during Dagger Storm is not really “Thieves have Stability,” and does not solve the problem I’m trying to solve here.

And so it should, Stability really shouldn’t be high uptime due to how powerful it is, combined with other ways to avoid control it’s still a hugely powerful boon that allows specific periods of immunity at crucial times to achieve something big (Breathing room for heals/damage/escape or the ability to stomp someone in PvP thus taking them out of the fight for sure)

Right, which is why I’m not pushing for 50% Stability uptime, I’m pushing for something that is considerably weaker in nature, and would have very little impact except in cases where CC effects are flying all over the place. I agree that people shouldn’t be able to have Stability up most of the time and that it serves a very situational purpose, I’m just saying that there should be a more limited protection that just occurs automatically.

Just as examples – The game is very CC intensive (Due to it trying to become an E-sport, meaning skill based CC to prevent everything being a DPS race)

I’m not saying my implementation is the best way to do it, it was only a starting point. Feel free to suggest alternatives. Taking note of what you’re saying, perhaps instead of keying off 1, 2, or 3 stacks of this buff, then effects would key off of 2, 4, and 6 stacks or something, with weaker CC effects that are meant to be stacked only applying 1 stack of Stubborness, with the stronger ones like Fear or KB applying 2-3 stacks, so that successive KB would trigger the diminishing returns relatively quickly, while multiple dazes or Immobilize would take more effort to trigger it.

If anything, it would add another layer of strategy to CC builds, since you’d need to pace your applications to avoid maxing their stacks.

Implies you’ve pulled too many to handle, also popping Stability at the beginning of the fight will often put all the targets knockdowns on cooldown thus making the rest of the fight CC free (I know, as I do that when AoE farming multiple Centaurs + their Dogs even on classes that have limited access to stability)

When they tend to come in waves their CC effects are all on different cooldowns, and even if you kill the first groups the next wave arrives well before the ability that offers Stability refreshes on all but a handful of classes.

We aren’t talking about “avoiding” CC. Set that aside as a completely different issue. We’re talking about what happens when you ARE hit by several successive CC effects.

This is an interesting suggestion – but I don’t think we should be implementing stacks on players, instead we should change the mechanics themselves.

For example:
Knock down – If you are in the KD effect another skill which KD has no control effect
Launch – If you are mid air (not KD) another blowout / launch should have no control effect, if you are KD with a launch coming you should be launched
Pull – should occur only while one is not midair / being pushed or pulled
Push (knockback) – If you are in the push / KB animation no CC should affect you, while you are KD the KD rules apply
Stun – stun should not stack, if you get hit with another stun while stunned it should have no effect
Fear – Fear should not stack, if you get hit with fear while afraid it should have no effect

The above changes would allow a player to experience CC properly – not be jerked around or chained all the time without proper timing. sPvP would adjust to this and simply chain control based on time / animation instead of spamming it.