Guild Wars 2

Seriously.. I am a necro, and i love it. But the thing is… The only build i REALLY like is the wellomancer. So this build is based around wells.

Seriously.. I am a necro, and i love it. But the thing is… The only build i REALLY like is the wellomancer. So this build is based around wells.wells are AOE. I use 2 wells wich is 2 utility skill slots. And, as my primary weapon, i use a staff. The staff’s number 2, 3, 4 AND 5 skill are all AOE. Thats 6 skills i use, wich are AOE. If you nerf AOE, you will basically kill the necro…

Seriously.. I am a necro, and i love it. But the thing is… The only build i REALLY like is the wellomancer. So this build is based around wells.wells are AOE. I use 2 wells wich is 2 utility skill slots. And, as my primary weapon, i use a staff. The staff’s number 2, 3, 4 AND 5 skill are all AOE. Thats 6 skills i use, wich are AOE. If you nerf AOE, you will basically kill the necro…Anet, any information about the necro and AOE nerf would be highly appreciated! Thanks

If they reduce the damage, I hope they compensate by removing the 5 target limit.

Me personally, i hope they stay as they are. because this build works great for Orr farming etc.

If they nerf the aoe on D/D ele I will quit. I usually dislike posting stuff like this, but it’s true. 2 out of 20 D/D abilities are single target. TWO. If they nerf the aoe they are directly nerfing out ST damage as well, and that is unacceptable unless certain other classes receive heavy ST damage nerfs as well.

I think this is mainly a nerf towards Elementalists and they will get hit the hardest. The other classes will receive minor nerfs.

Aoe in wvw needs a BUFF to not a nerf, they should have never added the 5 target limit, ZERGING is already out of hand and theirs NOTHING to break a 50 – 100 man zerg except having more then the other zerg.

I fail to see how aoe in dungeons is gaming the system, the system is already easy and aoe already is pretty meh with a 5 target limit, they only need to buff single target damage weapons / skills a bit.

It will be interesting to see what changes they will be making. The vast majority of elementalist spells are AOE. In either dagger/dagger or staff all but a couple damage powers are AOE.

I have not really heard anybody complaining about how hard hitting elementalists are just complaining of their mobility/survivability. If they gimp aoe to much instead of making more specs an option it will probably wind up condensing it even more than it already is. Oh well its an MMO so wild swings in power is pretty expected I guess.

Vayra.3290:

If they nerf the aoe on D/D ele I will quit.

they will, and they kitten well should. so, bye. d/d eles are too much faceroll. too much damage for zero risk.

I play an ele main and nerfing aoe will absolutely destroy us. We have virtually no single target skills worth a kitten It would be ok if we had single target options, but we don’t. We are already weak enough in PvE (terrible dps), so if they apply this to PvE we will be utterly screwed.

Seriously, the problem with ele is too much healing/mobility/cc, NOT AoE. I want more damage and less of the former, not nerfing our pitiful damage even further.

Time to re-roll a thief.

So lets talk about opportunity cost for AoEs, since the devs are apparently concerned with a lack thereof.
Opportunity cost for many AoEs: Don’t move too far, because then mobs will just move out of it.

I love my Wellmancer, but if my timing is wrong, I’ll just have wasted my utility-skillslots because the enemy didn’t stay in my AoE. Please don’t make my favourite skills useless…or if you do, at least buff axe damage, because I don’t like melee fights, and direct single target damage/damage frequency on the ranged weapons sucks.

I still want to know if it will affect Guards/Warriors who aoe with all their attacks.

kaid.7695:

I have not really heard anybody complaining about how hard hitting elementalists are just complaining of their mobility/survivability.

Exactly they implied there had been complaints about aoe classes being too powerful when I doubt I’ve seen one, indeed if anything its the opposite.

I don’t get all the QQ. A NERF to AoE does not mean that your 20k crit will turn into a 2k crit it more will be more like from 20k to 15k which probablx still is to much. Area of effect should have the draw back of lower dmg for more targets hit else why would you even think about going Single traget .

How about not nerfing any of class. Instead make the weaker classes better at combating other classes.

Improve how enemies in PvE combat AOE player builds. By making then less predictable in how they move.

From dulfy’s transcript:
“Q: Elaborate your plans for changing AoEs
This is not a quick fix, we are getting a lot of data.
If your skil does 10 damage to a single target, if you have another skill that have the same opportunity cost but deals 8 damage to 5 targets, the AoE skill is better – we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs.”

Which aoe has the same opportunity cost as a powerful single target skill say on a staff ele? Meteor shower has a long cooldown and cast time it costs way more than any single target spells the class has. Same with churning earth on D/D.

I’m good with this as long as they carefully balance the ‘cost-opportunity’ factor. No more skill spamming through skills 1-5 please….. let casual players learn how to take advantage of the skills based on ‘understanding’ the skills:

AoE damage scales based on how many players they hit……it should have been like this all along.

EDIT: No direspect to the complainers here… but I simply don’t get the argument against having AoE Damage be scaled based on the players it hits.

I personally think it’s reasonable to say that not every AoE should scale based on how many players it hits…. but I certainly believe all offensive AoEs (the ones doing pure damage) should scale based on the amount of players it hits.

(+) Also to clarify the point above me I think what Mr.Sharp was referring to was that: the penalty for wasting an AoE on a single target is not enough for players to care so one would carry around AoE instead of single target skills:

AOE Skill: 8 dmg per person.
Single Target Skill: 10 dmg per person.

On one person:
Aoe does (8 × 1) = 8 dmg & single target skill does 10 dmg.

On two person or more:
Aoe does (8 x2) = 16 dmg & single target does 10 dmg.

Especially on a CTP situation where people are trying to “stay on the point” it makes AoE that much more effective than single target skills.

The quote “we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs” is utterly ridiculous. Eles don’t have a choice! If you didn’t want that you shouldn’t have designed a class with 95% aoe!

LaronX.8079:

I don’t get all the QQ. A NERF to AoE does not mean that your 20k crit will turn into a 2k crit it more will be more like from 20k to 15k which probablx still is to much.

Name 1 aoe spec that is overall more powerful than a single target spec. I’m talking in terms of overall damage. There isn’t one, staff ele is demonstrably inferior to D/D.

I’ve got a staff ele, the aoe is primarily an area denial tool than a damage tool, because its too easy to avoid the damage, that is why it isn’t that strong.

D/D is AoE too… but the thing is, its damage is significantly lower on a single target compared to thief single target skills (which people complain about all the time). I’ve never even heard complaints about aoe until now…

Reposting from another thread due to mod lock.

Distaste.4801:

Just like their are single target skills that do absurd damage, the same goes for AOE. Both need nerfed and who is to say the single target ones are getting nerfed as well. Why should some AOE skills literally do more damage than a single target melee attacks? The answer is they shouldn’t thus the nerf.

Now I believe the AOE target limit is a bad solution. The correct solution would be what WoW implemented. The AOE has a total damage it can do to a number of targets, if there are more enemies in the AOE then the total damage gets averaged out over the the number of enemies. So a 1k AOE to 5 players becomes 500 to 10. Or perhaps the WAR route is better where everyone in the AOE gets effected BUT you cannot stack AOE’s. Or another route is just reducing the damage to each player hit past 5. Anything is better than the current 5 limit but we definitely don’t want 100% damage to everyone because then WvW will become all AOE classes, yes far worse than even now. Warhammer proved what unlimited AOE does to RvR, we don’t want to repeat that here.

IMO the way to balance AOE is to reduce their damage so they don’t hit harder than single target damage, but allow them to hit more than 5 people at further reduced damage.

The inherent problem with this is that it doesn’t discourage zerging in WvW, as the devs have said they want to do.

If anything, your suggestion actually encourages people to zerg even more than ever, to completely neuter the effects of any AoE attacks. If that small zerg of ten grows to 50, you just cut each person’s personal damage to 20% of the original figure….AoE builds would be completely destroyed with just that one patch.

Such a method may have worked for WoW but it would be useless in GW2, effectively rendering any AoE builds pointless in the long run since you’d barely be scratching your foes at all.

Blanket nerfs do not work. The number of AoE builds in the game that are actually legitimately overpowered can be counted on one hand (D/D ele comes to mind, and…really that’s about it) and yet we’re pitching the idea to nerf ALL forms of AoE. That’s a terrible strategy that will make people leave this game in droves out of utter frustration at having their long-existing and balanced strategies obliterated because of an overreaction to the “power” of AoE.

You point out that an AoE attack should not out-damage a single target attack. Yet I’d point out that you’re also suggesting nerfing all AoE to the point where, when fighting 1v1, your damage as an AoE player is instantly halved if just one more player comes along and starts fighting you too. And if it becomes 3 players against you, you’re dealing 33% damage now. How can you possibly be expected to survive? Eventually it’ll reach a point where the enemy is out-healing your damage, and then you’re absolutely doomed. And it wouldn’t take many players to hit that point, either.

You’d be forcing players to switch to single-target builds, especially in WvW where zergs are in the dozens of players and thus would easily out-heal any AoE thrown against them. Can you explain how that possibly makes AoE equally as powerful as a single-target hit?

AoE has to deal more damage than a single-target attack because if it deals the exact same amount as a single-target attack (or even worse, less than single-target attacks), you risk the enemy out-healing the damage you deal, making your ability to hit multiple targets entirely worthless.

From dulfy’s transcript:
we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs."

The problem here is that, for staff eles and staff necros, we use aoe skills on single targets because we don’t have many single target spells. Ele staff fire 2 and Necro staff 2,3 are all AoE skills I use in every fight because they are a necessity.

If I use my short bow to group enemies herd them into a group. Then move around them using AOE skills. That is skill not a exploit.

Anet just needs to make enemies smarter. So a mob don’t get into one easy to attack little ball.

morrolan.9608:

From dulfy’s transcript:
“Q: Elaborate your plans for changing AoEs
This is not a quick fix, we are getting a lot of data.
If your skil does 10 damage to a single target, if you have another skill that have the same opportunity cost but deals 8 damage to 5 targets, the AoE skill is better – we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs.”

Which aoe has the same opportunity cost as a powerful single target skill say on a staff ele? Meteor shower has a long cooldown and cast time it costs way more than any single target spells the class has. Same with churning earth on D/D.

Indeed – how is the AoE skill better (for single targets) if it does 8 instead of 10 damage to a single target? I don’t get that math – I’m already giving up flexibility when doing AoE damage (because enemies can easily walk out of it, plus I have to aim them, which cuts down my ability to move around, because I just don’t have that well coordinated fingers), plus they usually have longer cooldowns, plus they would (in that case at least) already do less damage to single targets.
Also, why on earth would I target single enemies when I am swarmed by five of them? That’s the whole point of AoEs, to be able to properly engage several targets at once! Professions which focus on single target damage already deal much higher single target damage than professions which are more AoE heavy…The more I think about it, the less I see the problem.

Edit: Also, weapons which have many AoE skills. If I want to play a ranged necro without sometimes using my AoEs on single targets, well…a good portion of my weapon skills would go to waste.

Blissified.8369:

Aoe in wvw needs a BUFF to not a nerf, they should have never added the 5 target limit, ZERGING is already out of hand and theirs NOTHING to break a 50 – 100 man zerg except having more then the other zerg.

I fail to see how aoe in dungeons is gaming the system, the system is already easy and aoe already is pretty meh with a 5 target limit, they only need to buff single target damage weapons / skills a bit.

Or communicate,split up,flank,or portal bomb ? What do you mean Nothing….? Just because you havent tried everything,doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do against.Imo AOES are way to strong,Especially,in a zerg.

Pretty sure they were talking about Grenade Build Engineer.

Grenades are the highest dps option Engi has.
Happens to be AOE
Has no opportunity cost as you can cast them at 1/2 cast time with no cooldown.

RIP Grenade kit.

Good build should not be punished by nerfing them! Instead of nerfing, balance classes by improving there skills to counter better builds.

Lily Miranda.5407:

From dulfy’s transcript:
we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs."

The problem here is that, for staff eles and staff necros, we use aoe skills on single targets because we don’t have many single target spells. Ele staff fire 2 and Necro staff 2,3 are all AoE skills I use in every fight because they are a necessity.

This is why they need to introduce more viable builds for certain classes…. and they said in the interview that they would. I would be shocked if any AoEs stats were changed before they add more build options to the heavy AoEs reliant classes.

FluffyDoe.7539:

Lily Miranda.5407:

From dulfy’s transcript:
we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs."

The problem here is that, for staff eles and staff necros, we use aoe skills on single targets because we don’t have many single target spells. Ele staff fire 2 and Necro staff 2,3 are all AoE skills I use in every fight because they are a necessity.

This is why they need to introduce more viable builds for certain classes…. and they said in the interview that they would. I would be shocked if any AoEs stats were changed before they add more build options to the heavy AoEs reliant classes.

But I don’t want to be forced into melee just because my ranged options are AoE heavy

Frotee.2634:

FluffyDoe.7539:

Lily Miranda.5407:

From dulfy’s transcript:
we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs."

The problem here is that, for staff eles and staff necros, we use aoe skills on single targets because we don’t have many single target spells. Ele staff fire 2 and Necro staff 2,3 are all AoE skills I use in every fight because they are a necessity.

This is why they need to introduce more viable builds for certain classes…. and they said in the interview that they would. I would be shocked if any AoEs stats were changed before they add more build options to the heavy AoEs reliant classes.

But I don’t want to be *forced into melee just because my ranged options are AoE heavy*

Welcome to eles World! We only have 2 skills ( in d/d ) that isn’t AoE. So now, we will only use earth 1 for kill enemys So fuuuuunnn. NO.

Sooo…with all the bugs, glitches, exploits, and myriad ways to improve the game…they decide to nerf aoe. I would have liked to have been at that meeting.

Fox Soul.4809:

Frotee.2634:

FluffyDoe.7539:

Lily Miranda.5407:

From dulfy’s transcript:
we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs."

The problem here is that, for staff eles and staff necros, we use aoe skills on single targets because we don’t have many single target spells. Ele staff fire 2 and Necro staff 2,3 are all AoE skills I use in every fight because they are a necessity.

This is why they need to introduce more viable builds for certain classes…. and they said in the interview that they would. I would be shocked if any AoEs stats were changed before they add more build options to the heavy AoEs reliant classes.

But I don’t want to be *forced into melee just because my ranged options are AoE heavy*

Welcome to eles World! We only have 2 skills ( in d/d ) that isn’t AoE. So now, we will only use earth 1 for kill enemys So fuuuuunnn. NO.

now I guess you’ll need to have a word with Mr. Sharp then about the ’ lack of single target builds for eles.’….. gl with that :X

killcannon.2576:

Sooo…with all the bugs, glitches, exploits, and myriad ways the improve the game…they decide to nerf aoe. I would have liked to have been at that meeting.

Trust me broseph you were lucky that you weren’t there…. I was only there cuz I like reading 0.1ms rage posts on the side of livestreams (so funny).

So, basically, because AOE should not be used on single target, AOE will be nerfed ?
How about making single target skills more reliable instead ?
Once again, PVE players will be hit hard because of PVP, good bye to eles and engineers in dungeons.
The other crap point is, if they nerf AOE, some balancing will be necessary again, and I bet there will be even more nerfs to mesmer (even if they can still be OS, people will complain, Anet will listen again and nerf).

Once again, this comes from a good idea, but application seems to be poorly designed. It would be cool to have more details about this. it might be a good idea if other changes are done, but the way it is said, it sucks.

Cool, might be the end of cookie cutters, if they balance the other weapon skills to become more viable.

I wonder if D/D ele will get Engineer’s smiter’s boon on Grenades.

NickDollahZ.5348:

Pretty sure they were talking about Grenade Build Engineer.

Grenades are the highest dps option Engi has.
Happens to be AOE
Has no opportunity cost as you can cast them at 1/2 cast time with no cooldown.

RIP Grenade kit.

A moment of silence for grenade kit, bomb kit, flamethrower kit, elixir gun, mortar and rifle gun.

killcannon.2576:

Sooo…with all the bugs, glitches, exploits, and myriad ways the improve the game…they decide to nerf aoe. I would have liked to have been at that meeting.

I would go further with so many things broken Anet priority as always is to find a new way to screw with their customers

Some one probably descided only farmers and bots use aoe so lets nerf them, cant have any one getting loot and enjoying the game if their not in a fractal can we.

Time perhaps to shelve the ele give up and join the zerg can any one suggest a good name for a warrior?

A dreadfull idea..simply dreadfull. I lvoe the way how they say we want you to play the game your way but you are playing it a way we don’t like lol hypocrites. So many classes need BUFFS not nerfs..How the heck is nerfing aoe’s going to do anything than damage already gimped classes like necros for example and staff eles?

Plus not everyone plays W v W..I only do PVE yet I will be punished cos of aoe damage in w v w..nice job. Just remember ESO is coming up soon.. I would really think about what you do to alienate your players or else you are in great danger of being the next swtor…

Hmm… I’m seeing some conflicting thoughts here.

Anet has said that they don’t want people to “just spam 1” in combat situations, but now they don’t want you to use AoE special abilities against single targets, which for a fair number of weapons means almost every ability besides 1.

So do you want us to rely on only 1 for single targets, or do you want us to use specials which happen to be AoE’s?

Yeah… I’m not sure if they’ve seen staff ele? Defensive skills aside, staff ele has -2- skills that only hit one target (earth 1, air 2, unless I’ve missed something.) You could make the case for water 1, though that has a splash effect that heals (so it ‘hits’ more than one thing in some way) and also is so low damage it really is more of a heal.

And you can’t really make the case for other weapons since eles can’t swap. So either I roll single target, and get stampeded by mobs if a botch a pull, or I roll AoE and single mods will take me infinity+1 to kill.

Also… buff engineers. Mine is tired of being a second rate grenade monkey.

AOE is a must have for open world PVE.

Dredge suits that summon other dredge, AOE. aggro one aggro nearby of same type, AOE. Story instance in cramped quarters with useless NPCs, AOE.

If they want to nerf AOE they really need to up the effectiveness of CC in PVE!

FluffyDoe.7539:

Fox Soul.4809:

Frotee.2634:

FluffyDoe.7539:

Lily Miranda.5407:

From dulfy’s transcript:
we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs."

The problem here is that, for staff eles and staff necros, we use aoe skills on single targets because we don’t have many single target spells. Ele staff fire 2 and Necro staff 2,3 are all AoE skills I use in every fight because they are a necessity.

This is why they need to introduce more viable builds for certain classes…. and they said in the interview that they would. I would be shocked if any AoEs stats were changed before they add more build options to the heavy AoEs reliant classes.

But I don’t want to be *forced into melee just because my ranged options are AoE heavy*

Welcome to eles World! We only have 2 skills ( in d/d ) that isn’t AoE. So now, we will only use earth 1 for kill enemys So fuuuuunnn. NO.

now I guess you’ll need to have a word with Mr. Sharp then about the ’ lack of single target builds for eles.’….. gl with that :X

killcannon.2576:

Sooo…with all the bugs, glitches, exploits, and myriad ways the improve the game…they decide to nerf aoe. I would have liked to have been at that meeting.

Trust me broseph you were lucky that you weren’t there…. I was only there cuz I like reading 0.1ms rage posts on the side of livestreams (so funny).

We have ST specs, it just uses AoE skills But apparently we’re not allowed to use AOE skills against single targets. . .

I also play my Necro as a Wellomancer, it was the most enjoyable class and build for me to play to 80. I am like many others who haven’t heard how AOEs have been a problem in PVE, so this discussion in the Q&A was a bit of a surprise, and makes me feel very protective of the class/build I enjoy. I would really like to understand what the problem is, and how it steps away from the way the devs hope GW is played, especially with builds like the Wellomancer taken into account.

Created a new suggestion for AOE nerfing here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Longer-AOE-cooldown-rather-than-less-dmg

Just nerf elementalist, it’s the only overpowered class.

I’d like a bit more clarity on what exactly constitutes AoE here. Sure we are all familiar with ele/necro/engi AoE but what about other classes. My warrior’s sword hits multiple targets, is that being nerfed? What about my mesmer’s shatters? My Ranger’s axe/pet skills too?

There are tons of skills that can hit multiple enemies and don’t have the AoE circles, what’s in line for a nerf here?

Elementalist’s damage doesn’t need a nerf- just tone down boon gaining on weapon swaps and make them a bit easier to take down. Nerf their ability to get back up from downed so they can sit on the floor with the rest of us with their hand up- tired of having them run out of a tower, burst their d/d skills, downed, up and back in tower, or downed on walls, up, away, ressed.

As a main ranger, nerfing aoe would mean the one aoe skill we have would be (even more) useless.

Here’s what would happen if you nerf aoe- there would be even more thieves running around than their are now, forcing everyone to run around in zergs of thiefs. You can tell the devs play thief, one of them must have been killed by aoe and now wants to nerf it.

If they want to break up zergs in wvw, BUFF aoe by removing the 5 man limit- then there would be a penalty for all bunching up in a big group.

It’s about time they started making pvp only skills – keep the 5 man nerf for pve, release it for pvp.

The Mesmer/Necro/Ranger buglists on their respective forums span pages and pages and this is the non-issue they focus at. Brilliant. Just brilliant. WTG ANet. Woohoo.

Victory.2879:

Elementalist’s damage doesn’t need a nerf- just tone down boon gaining on weapon swaps and make them a bit easier to take down. Nerf their ability to get back up from downed so they can sit on the floor with the rest of us with their hand up- tired of having them run out of a tower, burst their d/d skills, downed, up and back in tower, or downed on walls, up, away, ressed.

As a main ranger, nerfing aoe would mean the one aoe skill we have would be (even more) useless.

Here’s what would happen if you nerf aoe- there would be even more thieves running around than their are now, forcing everyone to run around in zergs of thiefs. You can tell the devs play thief, one of them must have been killed by aoe and now wants to nerf it.

If they want to break up zergs in wvw, BUFF aoe by removing the 5 man limit- then there would be a penalty for all bunching up in a big group.

It’s about time they started making pvp only skills – keep the 5 man nerf for pve, release it for pvp.

Ele can’t swap weapons.

Mesmers only have 2 reliable AOE skills that are weapons based and our mind wrack is target based but the explosion hits other characters…. I just hope that they don’t nerf us further. Also D/D eles sorry but your guy’s damage is way bigger than a thieves… It is true. And it is more sustainable. But I hope they make more weapons/builds viable for classes before the nerf bat comes out.

Devildoc.6721:

Ele can’t swap weapons.

Attunement swapping counts as a weapon swap when accounting for Sigils that proc on weapon swap.

On Topic:

I don’t get the idea of nerfing AoE because “It’s almost comparable to single target damage”

If you want people to stop using AoE’s on single targets then you’d have to give people the option of using single target abilities… This would mean in most cases lowering or removing the cooldown on them since people often use AoE’s on single targets because their 1 single target ability is on cooldown and the AoE’s do more damage than just spamming #1

the Ele is suppose to be the master of aoe as that one of there things they have going for them with the staff. Although that description of ele’s come’s right from the A.nets description page something to the effect Elemental Master’s of AOE. So there AOE is suppose to be second to none.