Guild Wars 2

So! Currently, Area of Effect (AoE) spells only affect a total of five different enemies. It just doesn’t feel like an AoE to me, it feels more like a normal spell with a slightly larger target base. I suggest changing the way an AoE works, so that it doesn’t limit to only five enemies, but rather works in a different way.

Say you’ve got five enemies, then the AoE spell / effect would work at normal damage, and would do 100% to the enemies. Now, say you have 12 enemies. Rather than just capping the AoE at five, add diminishing returns to the effect. So if you have 12 enemies, the spell won’t do 100% damage to all of them, but it will do less – while still affecting all of them.

I think that this would make AoE’s feel much more “AoE-like”, and really improve the use of them. :P

Thanks for reading.

You realize they are pretty much overused as they are now? If they make AoEs any better, I’m quitting WvW for good. AoE needs to be toned down, not up.

Oglaf.1074:

You realize they are pretty much overused as they are now? If they make AoEs any better, I’m quitting WvW for good. AoE needs to be toned down, not up.

well did you read his whole post? you could even argue he is asking for a nerf in fact

That’s all well and good with raw damage AoEs. But what about Condition AoEs like Necromancer’s staff? There is no way to scale Conditions on a percentage basis like that.

Well, sure you could. Conditions are set to do a certain amount of damage over time. If you just reduce that for every person over five, then it will have the same effect as it would on a raw-damage AoE.

I’d rather have them remove the limit altogether, and have it work that “you walked into that BIG RED CIRCLE OF DEATH? die then.”

Seriously, let AoE hit the entire area in question – suddenly the squishy caster is worth taking down, and anyone running through a barrage is taking a risk of being hit, instead of arrows passing harmlessly through people.

Apply this to everything though – shouts, boons, traps, everything. if you’re in range, it hits you.

I know someone is going to cry that this makes “X” class overpowered, but I’m saying flat out right now, they’re wrong. Sure, in theory a few ele’s could hold a bridge, right up until a couple guardians casting aegis bring the zerg to eat their faces. then you have the fun of boon stacking, which suddenly makes that sigil that removes boons on critical hit (think there’s a necro well that does too) useful.

Open the whole can of worms, and let battle commence!

AoE needs capped and its fine as is. Its silly to think that a fireball explosion is going to go through a meat shield of 5 people and magically wrap around them and hit everyone else. 5’s a good number. As for taking out the cap again, why? you’ll just bring turtling back with heals. Kinda pointless asking for this…

I agree, every other MMO has Area of Effect attacks that actually affect everyone in the area. Why is it such a problem in GW2?

Lord Aargadon.4135:

AoE needs capped and its fine as is. Its silly to think that a fireball explosion is going to go through a meat shield of 5 people and magically wrap around them and hit everyone else. 5’s a good number. As for taking out the cap again, why? you’ll just bring turtling back with heals. Kinda pointless asking for this…

It is silly to assume that if you got 10 people standing in a puddle of lava, 5 of them are automatically levitating.

Tbh, I would love seeing the AoE limit taken out, it would promote healthier tactics instead of commanders in WvW telling people to stack on their dot, the tighter the better. That is the exact opposite of how it should be.
Its such a shame that the massive battles don’t feel massive at all due to it just being two battling dots of meat.

GW1 tactics: “Don’t ball for puppy’s sake! Spread out, don’t stand in AoE! It hurts you!”
GW2 tactics: “Don’t spread out for puppy’s sake! Ball up, stand in AoE, it’s safer that way!”
Am I the only one who thinks that is ridiculous?

Alternatively, if the limit stays there, at least make other players physical (Problematic, I know), so you can’t stack 50 humans inside 1 charr.

Fred Fargone.3127:

GW1 tactics: “Don’t ball for puppy’s sake! Spread out, don’t stand in AoE! It hurts you!”
GW2 tactics: “Don’t spread out for puppy’s sake! Ball up, stand in AoE, it’s safer that way!”
Am I the only one who thinks that is ridiculous?

We’re two. The purpose of AOE is not to deal damage but rather to control an area. Removing the AOE limit achieves two goals:
- zerging becomes far less effective because a single siege engine rips through them
- positioning becomes more important, especially in small skirmishes

Both lead to more tactical play.

Every skill is effective against an idiot. AOE is no exception, and balancing should not be done around idiots.

If you want to see the limit removed, you’re gonna have to expect a nerf in damage across the board.

Are you willing?

I agree with this suggestion.

I think AoE’s should be split between PvE and WvW. Keep the 5 target limit in WvW, but remove it in PvE.

Oglaf.1074:

If you want to see the limit removed, you’re gonna have to expect a nerf in damage across the board.

Are you willing?

AoE doesn’t deal insane single target damage, and removing the limit doesn’t mean it would hit any more damage.
It will only change the tactics in a healthier direction in WvW. Ergo, nerfing the damage isn’t really necessary,
Tho I don’t mind seeing it reduced based on the amount of targets taking damage, for example 5% reduction in damage for every player above 5, minimum of 60% damage dealt to each one.

The actual effect of taking out the limit is that players spread out. So it doesn’t mean that a single AoE is going to hit 30 players. It is unlikely that a single AoE would hit more than 5 players even with the limit taken out, except in special situations. But having such a ridiculously low limit has led to balling up being the most viable WvW tactic, which is just ridiculous.

I don’t mind zergs, but when your group engages enemy, you should spread out, not go stand on top of each other. (Or if you do, you should at least be penalized for it)

Fred Fargone.3127:

removing the limit doesn’t mean it would hit any more damage

Yes.

Yes it would.

Oglaf.1074:

Fred Fargone.3127:

removing the limit doesn’t mean it would hit any more damage

Yes.

Yes it would.

Not in the way he means it (I think).
You deal damage to more targets at once, but not more damage on each individual target.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Oglaf.1074:

Fred Fargone.3127:

removing the limit doesn’t mean it would hit any more damage

Yes.

Yes it would.

Not in the way he means it (I think).
You deal damage to more targets at once, but not more damage on each individual target.

That doesn’t change the fact that the damage potential of AoE abilities would go through the roof.

The target limit is there for a reason.

Oglaf.1074:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Oglaf.1074:

Fred Fargone.3127:

removing the limit doesn’t mean it would hit any more damage

Yes.

Yes it would.

Not in the way he means it (I think).
You deal damage to more targets at once, but not more damage on each individual target.

That doesn’t change the fact that the damage potential of AoE abilities would go through the roof.

The target limit is there for a reason.

The target limit, as previouly implied, outright frigging kills tactics. “Oh, dear … that
Elementalist is casting Meteor Storm? Let’s all pile up into one ball, and we’ll be fine!”

Zergball is bad. The other thing, is that most player AoE doesn’t do near the damage of even a medium-spec’d one-person attack. GC Ele + MS, you might eat the occasional 3k hit on a reasonably armoured char. Do I need to mention things like Kill Shot or BS?

Hell, the OP’s idea of scaling damage on AoE, or in fact creating a “damage epicenter,” is darned good. It’d still keep siege useful in WvW, and allow for more tactical combat.
Honestly, even merely upping the player AoE cap to -say- 10-15 would work wonders.

yes and the reason is qqing

Oglaf.1074:

Fred Fargone.3127:

removing the limit doesn’t mean it would hit any more damage

Yes.

Yes it would.

Stating arguments without reasoning behind them amounts to nothing.
Removing AoE cap does not cause more damage to a) Individuals b) Overall, as players would stop balling. (Like they did in GW1.)
There is plenty of space in WvW to spread out, yet everyone is trying to get as close to others as they possibly can. Why? It is safer. Which is utterly ridiculous. Make it unsafe → People spread out.

Now you’re still not hitting any more targets than 3-5, but now the battlefield actually looks like a battlefield and people are starting to consider healthier tactics.

Of course, I’m excluding lobotomized veggies who can only hit 1, 2 and W from my calculations.

I fully support this. Hit everything, but do less damage per target for clusters over five, to a limit in the diminished damage. If you drop a fireball and five people are in the way, the fire will keep going, but it will be subdued when it hits the rest of the people in range. It makes sense.

If I’m raining arrows down on five people there is plenty of room for them to get hit by a lot of them. If there are more people in the target area the damage will get spread out amongst more people. It makes sense.

Some of them don’t, but it can’t always be a perfect analogy. So yes, diminishing returns for groups over 5 to some specific percentage. It’s a very good idea and people need to step past the drop the limit argument and actually concider the whole idea.

Finally, what exactly does it matter if AoEs are capable of insane total damage because of an unlimited number of targets? That doesn’t actually make them more powerful if they didn’t manage to kill a single one of those targets, which is usually the case. Are we playing WoW, or something, and trying to ensure maximum damage potential, even though it doesn’t mean anything?

This change should not effect melee in any way.

and also we should stop thinking as only the enemy has the possibility to spam AoE

Fred Fargone.3127:

Stating arguments without reasoning behind them amounts to nothing.
Removing AoE cap does not cause more damage to a) Individuals b) Overall, as players would stop balling. (Like they did in GW1.)
There is plenty of space in WvW to spread out, yet everyone is trying to get as close to others as they possibly can. Why? It is safer. Which is utterly ridiculous. Make it unsafe -> People spread out.

What Oglaf probably meant was that by removing the limitation, even though each individual player now deals less damage per target, it doesn’t change the damage a group of players does, other than the fact that they can now hit every target in the opposing group, rather each player only hitting a random subset of 5 group members.

And some AoEs have things like stuns or knockbacks. You really cannot argue that applying stun on all 40 members of a zerg instead of just 5 isn’t going to mean more damage.

Oh, and there’s also AoE heals, which were limited to 5 exactly because zergs would have been far too powerful. Add a few well-coordinated Warriors and you have a constant stream of healing shouts going on.

The only real way to allows AoEs to hit every target within range would be to remove all CC and condition damage on them and make it so that damage-to-target is inversely proportional to how many targets you hit, e.g. Damage-to-target = Base Damage / Number of Targets Hit.

Olba.5376:

Fred Fargone.3127:

Stating arguments without reasoning behind them amounts to nothing.
Removing AoE cap does not cause more damage to a) Individuals b) Overall, as players would stop balling. (Like they did in GW1.)
There is plenty of space in WvW to spread out, yet everyone is trying to get as close to others as they possibly can. Why? It is safer. Which is utterly ridiculous. Make it unsafe -> People spread out.

What Oglaf probably meant was that by removing the limitation, even though each individual player now deals less damage per target, it doesn’t change the damage a group of players does, other than the fact that they can now hit every target in the opposing group, rather each player only hitting a random subset of 5 group members.

And some AoEs have things like stuns or knockbacks. You really cannot argue that applying stun on all 40 members of a zerg instead of just 5 isn’t going to mean more damage.

Oh, and there’s also AoE heals, which were limited to 5 exactly because zergs would have been far too powerful. Add a few well-coordinated Warriors and you have a constant stream of healing shouts going on.

The only real way to allows AoEs to hit every target within range would be to remove all CC and condition damage on them and make it so that damage-to-target is inversely proportional to how many targets you hit, e.g. Damage-to-target = Base Damage / Number of Targets Hit.

I guess you’re missing my point. After the limitation is taken out, it shouldn’t take long for people to realize that hugging each other in the battlefield is the worst tactic ever.
It should not be rewarded, it should be penalized.
Removing limits would do just this: Penalize moronic tactics that should not work in the first place. It’s so horrible its almost a glitch.
Therefore, people will learn to spread out, and you won’t be able to hit 40 players in the zerg due to them actually acting like they were in battlefield and not hugging each other.

Damage-to-target = Base Damage / Number of Targets Hit.

Yeah, something like this is necesary, although I think:
Damage-to-target = Base Damage*0.5 + Base Damage*0.5 / Number of Targets Hit.
would work whole lot better.