Guild Wars 2

The downed state was something new to me when I moved to gw2. Never seen it in other mmos so I wasn’t for or against it. With how pve pans out and also for intense battles in spvp/tpvp, I grew on it. However I do notice something troubling about the downed state, and that’s the simple fact that some people have it WAY better than others. Mostly I’m talking about the ground downed state because there are very few difficult regions and spvp maps that deal with water at all. While invuln stomps (mist form, elixir) stability finishers and blind finishers are annoying, I guess its the price for playing smart. You use what you get.

Warrior: Hammer takes forever to pull out, and then it’s like watching the game winning pass in slow motion. I suggest 2 things, 1 being make it a charge skill. By this I mean if you hold the skill button down, it will ready the hammer, but it won’t toss it until you let go or after x amount of seconds. The other part being to speed up the hammer projectile speed. Often on my thief, I don’t even have to blind or go stealth. I will start a finish, wait 1 second, stop and dodge, continue finishing. It’s so predictable.

Ranger: Daze is fine, love it actually but I have the issue with the pet raise. In pve, yes its great especially if your in a dungeon and the team is busy surviving or simply unaware you’re down. However in pvp, it is useless on land. Unless you and your enemy both get downed it does no good because it just runs and starts healing. In water the heal is ungodly but on land it should do something like stealth you for a few seconds when it arrives (2?) or fear nearby enemies for a second. Otherwise, love the skill. Hell even a trait to do something like that would be great.

Thief: only suggestion is give maybe a 1 or 2 second timer before the teleport can be used. Too many times I’ve clicked 2(weapon skill) after I get hit real hard and then I waste the teleport.

Elementalist: don’t know exactly what would be a fair change but there vapor form is just too op. They can be downed, vapor, and get inside a keep/tower/castle and just get back up. Warrior, although they may live long enough to activate vengeance, they are susceptible to damage and conditions but more importantly, vengeance isn’t ready the second they get downed. When being downed you have that second or so of invulnerability which is enough for an ele to use vapor form freely. I just don’t think that’s reasonable for a downed skill. I’m fine with the utility skill, as it has a tremendous cooldown but as a downed skill it’s just too good. At least a Mesmer blinks out of the shadows when downed, revealing the real one with little trouble. Immobilize(the only counter) is difficult to time when talking about an insta cast when downed.

Engineer: maybe it’s just hard to tell in the middle of fights but against downed engineers, I can’t recall ever being affected by grappling line. On my thief, I know scorpion wire (the same thing) often has troubles predicting where an enemy will be and will miss really badly. Not sure what to suggest on this aside fixing it’s targeting. Booby trap is quite fun to watch though.

Engie downed is awful, but it can work.
Fight against a thief in EB other night, it was at 1/4hp & i was downed, got it into downed, but only just lost the fight.

Whereas with ele, my main, I know I`d of just been stomped or wasted my time using vapour form to drag out the death.
Yes, it can be useful if near a keep, but you can stop them entering.
Aside from that, when not near keeps, ele downed state is a very bad joke, give me a suicide button any day over that…

Although good teams probably don’t do this, but when someone see’s a downed player usually like a bunch of players will gang up and try finishing them off. This includes ele’s ofcourse. Now although the offensive side of a downed ele is bupkiss, the defensive side plays really nicely in 2 ways.

1. it distracts the player(s) and keeps them preoccupied with planting you, hopefully giving your team more time to either help rally you or take an objective or even wail on some other guy.

2. lets say you see someone else downed in a fight and as an ele, you get downed. you can hit the guy a few times and, if you’re team is smart, vapor form can help you stay alive long enough to rally off their defeat. Ofcouse this depends on what profession that other downed guy is playing but it still opens the door for you. Getting past a door in wvw with vapor form is just 1 way its op. The other being an inevitable delay in being defeated.