Guild Wars 2

Full berserker can’t use control skills? Please enlighten me.

Well, let’s take an easy example – you could encourage players to switch their weapon sets more often in combat, say a warrior would be much more encouraged to switch to a hammer and use control abilities instead of going for hundred blades, or rifle butt if he uses a ranged weapon as secondary, etc.

A guardian might want to bring a shield for knockback, an engineer could be well encouraged to bring the ram-head gadget, or use flameblast, and any other control skills that “interrupts” your damage rotation.

Berserker means that you use Berserker stat weapons/armor/trinkets.

I agree i like where this is going, with the new addition to elites, it finally gives mobs a little more AI. I mean till now its just been red circles and dogging 1 hit kills. Adding more elements to the combat like this can prove useful to counter the dps race. Back in gw1 healers were a pain in group mobs, yet here there almost non existent and def not something ppl focus fire on or anything, I know there no holy trinity for us but group dynamics in enemy AI is always a plus.

I enjoyed the downstate as well. It’s also a great thing for people who haven’t done the Halloween Finisher Achievement yet. You can now do it simply by downing these NPCs instead of having to jump into PvP

+1 to you OP. I agree with everything.

so mobs with a silver portrait frame are elite mobs…haven’t those been in dungeons this whole time? the only new thing is that they broke free from dungeons which is nice. but they shouldn’t say the enemy type is new as it isn’t it just wasn’t named yet.

I love this addon since the patchwork!

I’m for this too! +1!!!! I saw a lot of players baggin on the idea of “PvP finishers” in PvE. Anyway, i feel A-net is making a move in the right direction, giving their AI purpose and skill even! enemies dodging my attacks, and tanky creatures reviving their allies. It’s like an actual game! The people complaining, i think, have never gone on a VS run (BiP necro right here)

The whole point of finishing npc’s is to sell finishers to non-pvpers.

++++++++1
agreed, adds a LOT of diversity and potential to combat and encounters

Felvine.9681:

so mobs with a silver portrait frame are elite mobs…haven’t those been in dungeons this whole time? the only new thing is that they broke free from dungeons which is nice. but they shouldn’t say the enemy type is new as it isn’t it just wasn’t named yet.

In all honesty there were already several instances where these elites were in open world PvE before this patch. for example there was one in particular that was in fireheart rise I believe it was a godforged or something, also there were a ton of these in different world boss events depending on how many ppl were there and how it scaled up.

While I wouldn’t want to finish every wolf and the wolf they summon, I think it’s a great mechanic and could make some DEs interesting here and there.

If finishing enemies was revealed earlier, I would have bought more finishers with real money knowing that I have a use for them in PvE! I can only hope I get another chance to purchase the super explosive finisher.

notebene.3190:

While I wouldn’t want to finish every wolf and the wolf they summon, I think it’s a great mechanic and could make some DEs interesting here and there.

Yes, which is why I’ve suggested that only “sentient” races that are veterans or higher would seek to stomp and ressurect others, so that this mechanic doesn’t overwhelm you as soon as more than 3 npcs would be aggro’d.

This is a great idea

Put that way, it does make more sense. I was a little astonished last night when I saw “FINISH THEM!!!” pop up on one of the toxic mobs.

I couldn’t care less about the store finishers. My charr’s “finish” animation is entertaining enough.

I’m not crazy about it. When I started the intro instance I thought it was neat, but after the 20th time I was over it. It just takes so long to stake them. This is sensible in PvP to give the downed person a chance to interrupt it, but here it’s just… oh man, GET ON WITH IT ALREADY.

Also not fond of how fast they recover their health when they use the bandage skill. You have to rush over and stake them as soon as they go down, which was a real pain when I’d be fighting a group of them and I’d have to stop to sloooooooowly wiiiiiiiiind up my staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake and then go back to fighting the rest…. oops another one down loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime and back to the fig- STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE. Honestly I kind of hate it and hope it doesn’t become typical for monsters.

Lalocat.6793:

I’m not crazy about it. When I started the intro instance I thought it was neat, but after the 20th time I was over it. It just takes so long to stake them. This is sensible in PvP to give the downed person a chance to interrupt it, but here it’s just… oh man, GET ON WITH IT ALREADY.

Also not fond of how fast they recover their health when they use the bandage skill. You have to rush over and stake them as soon as they go down, which was a real pain when I’d be fighting a group of them and I’d have to stop to sloooooooowly wiiiiiiiiind up my staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake and then go back to fighting the rest…. oops another one down loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime and back to the fig- STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE. Honestly I kind of hate it and hope it doesn’t become typical for monsters.

You don’t have to stake them.. just like in PvP, you can continue to attack them and drain there health. Once their downed state life bar is empty they die just like normal. Staking can just be a quicker way to move on and kill them.

I really like this and the idea of elite foes, they don’t seem that hard right now (they do a lot of damage but didn’t saw any interesting mechanic) although it seems like this is a preview of this type of foes (will hold judgement until the next LS).

One thing I did not liked about them is the fact that they run to revive the downed ones, for NPC’s I do not think this is a good idea since they are really slow at doing this which allows you to burn the rezzer fairly easily since it’s just taking the damage while reviving, taking away some of the challenge.

I mean I’m not asking for an instant revive but they should use some downed skills other than auto-attacks, or maybe the foes that are “still alive” could use some reviving skills.

I just want them to create groups of enemies like they did in GW1, there were a lot of this groups that had an amazing synergy for an AI and I’m sure that it would make fights more interesting in dungeons rather than just avoid the DPS from foes auto-attacks.

Something like this guys (there are a lot more and some more challenging, but it’s just a quick example): http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Peacekeeper

The rangers spread up conditions on foes which the necros use to their advantage, warriors and paragons provide defensive buffs to make the monk’s healing easier, something like this where the abilities of the foes help each other.

Applying this to GW2: It would be interesting to see foes take advantage of combo fields, to give them some of the traits like condi removal via shouts or the creation of a Shield of Absorption while reviving, have a grenadier engineer apply conditions to us and then a necro uses epidemic… I know that I’m asking for a lot and it won’t be done quickly, but one can dream right?

Leave downed state for pvp/wvw. It just wastes time when you could be off and doing something else. I absolutely dislike it.

Bragdras.9572:

Well, let’s take an easy example – you could encourage players to switch their weapon sets more often in combat, say a warrior would be much more encouraged to switch to a hammer and use control abilities instead of going for hundred blades, or rifle butt if he uses a ranged weapon as secondary, etc.

A guardian might want to bring a shield for knockback, an engineer could be well encouraged to bring the ram-head gadget, or use flameblast, and any other control skills that “interrupts” your damage rotation.

Rifle butt, Warrior hammer, and guard shield would still be terrible selections. Even if the mobs start ressing they are still, for all intensive purposes, with-in cleave range meaning 1. that they will likely die before the res is finished. And 2 knock back control skills such as the ones mentioned are still bad for PvE.

Warriors who know what they’re doing should have axe/mace on swap and be rotating between gs and axe/mace. Mace off hand still has the optimal control skill for full zerk groups and rotating between the 3 warriors in the party is simple. Really killing off downed NPC’s will just be another step in the process for full zerk groups.

I only see downed mobs as a form a time gate, it’s trivial and shouldn’t be used.

you know not everybody plays a warr…..yet. Im on an alt, ranger (lvl 35) and i have to kill the kraits 1st before i deal with nightmare courts. Krait have no down state and there main purpose seems to support the courts. Ive had situations where i downed the court 1st only to have the krait bubble around her while the 2nd one rezed (i had to go melee). Also situation were they will put red circles on the downed allies making it hard to go up there to finish her without taking hits.

It will only work on enemies that don’t respawn. Imagine this kitten in Orr. It will have no place in the open world unless in certain instances. Also the finisher only will qualify for the kill, making it harder to earn kill credits.

No. No, no, and no. I utterly dislike the entire concept of ‘finishers’. I understand the usefulness of the mechanic in PVP and that’s fine because I don’t do PVP. But I see no reason why I suddenly need to drop everything I’m doing so I can jump in the air and shove a magic stick through the chest of every single NC mob I come across. I personally found it to be a huge pain in the story instance and considered dropping the whole thing and skipping the LS this time around so I wouldn’t have to deal with it. Please, please do not continue this in the rest of the game.

Rastenn, then just burst down the enemy’s HP. You don’t HAVE to use a finisher on them, it just makes it easier to take them down.

Yes! Also I want that enemies can finish downed players. Oh, I can already imagine the tears in the forums

Spiking in PvE kinda defeats the purpose of the rally system, and makes all traits related to it obsolete.

Not like rallying wasn’t near impossible already due to every mob possible walking in front of whatever you’re trying to rally off of.

If PvE spiking becomes a common thing, I’m done. You just doubled the amount of time it takes to get normal mob killing done. GW2 is already slow enough.

I’d prefer it if the mobs didn’t go into downed state myself. It’s fun for a while, but then it just starts to drag the fights out. Plus, I got a nasty surprise the first time I got downed while fighting them. “kitten … But the enemy is almost dead, I’ll just kill him and rally off him. … What the heck? He’s downed TOO?”

And of course, the enemies killed me since downing an enemy doesn’t count as a kill for a rally.

That said, I don’t mind if a few special enemies go into downed state as a special mechanic (like for a boss fight). It’s just that having ALL enemies have it gets tedious. (And it also feels weird that the Nightmare Courtiers get it, but the Krait don’t. What, are the Krait somehow inferior?)

Troll post. Please lock and delete this topic. Or make PvE finishers instant cast and with a 1200 range on ‘f’ finisher interact key. And the ability to disable in options visual effects of finishers, so it doesn’t contribute to the cluster of effects on screen.

I think it’s somewhat interesting that humanoid mobs should have a down-state. It might an additional strategic element to completing an encounter.

It makes you ask a few questions. Should you:

• Finish them off with a stomp?
• Finish them off with more DPS?
• Poke them whenever you see them use their #4 ability, and possibly letting them die from bleeding?
• If it’s a Warrior, should you let them Vengeance?

For now, it looks like their #4 could only be interrupted by an actual interrupt skill instead of just poking them with an auto-attack, but the possibilities are there to make certain fights more interesting and less predictable.

At the same time, it might also be interesting if some mobs could also stomp you out if you go down. In a group setting, it might be wiser to use control abilities to prevent mobs from stomping your allies instead of rushing to res them back up. Other times, trying to get your downed teammates to rally could be a better solution.

Honestly, I’ve always wondered why mobs in the outside world (at least the named ones anyway) never had a downed-state to begin with. For certain champions and legendary monsters, it could make sense.

Imagine Tequatl having a down-state— you might need 20+ people to spam their PvP finishers until it officially dies.

I do agree that the downed state was interesting. I liked the interaction that took place – Other NPC’s trying to res. The combat felt more real and alive. That said I do not want it in any events that could have a zerg. I hate running around 30 mobs trying to figure what I should press F on to loot, read Scarlet’s Invasion. It’s not any fun in zergs. But I loved it in the solo instance for example.

Would be nice addition but if we want more human-like behaviour from npc they should also have human-like hp. Not a 150k hp meatbag that is a level 80 elite in dungeon that hits for 4k with its auto-attack.

Bragdras.9572:

I would love to have an overhaul to all “sentient races” NPCs to have them to in a downed state where they would help each others up, …

Heh heh heh… you got that from me, didn’t you.

As such, I agree with the both of us whole heartedly. It adds an element of “realism” (for want of a better word in a game) when enemy mobs try to help each other revive. It’s a nice step back to GW1 where the mobs were groups of foes that actually worked together.

I for one like the downstate in PVE mobs. Gives my finisher some use. It also encourages group play and less of spamming 1 to win.

I dont really see this as an issue. Most of the stompable toxic aliance members are exceptionaly squishy before you put them into the downed state. I suspect they already have less HP than most other mobs around them if you discout downed state and not much more if you just burst through the downed state. I think the ettin halucinations end up takeing me longer to kill than just downing one of the sylvari and proceeding to just burn off the remaining hp and they are alot less threatening once downed as well.

I love it. It makes me feel like the characters are actually trying and that they are people (if that makes any sense to anybody else). I mean, they are holding on to their lives and relying on their allies instead of simply dropping dead. I think it makes sense for sentient races and that at least the foes that are of one of the five playable races should do it.

I see how it is bad for people that just want to farm them, though.

Hmm I would like say… just veterans? I mean every sentient NPC would be obnoxious. I would be happy with sentient veterans and above being revivable in downed state by other sentient NPCs

After playing it for some days now, I can say: I hate this new feature. It kills the fun out of the PvE fights. Keep this stuff for PvP!

When I kill a mob in PvE I want it to stay dead instantly. It is annoying enough to have all the instant respawns which are still ingame in various places. It is annoying enough to have to fight moas, dear and pigs, while actually doing some LS event not related to them, it is annoying enough to have the LS event put in the middle of some normally already crowded spot anyway. We don’t need further mechanics to be annoyed while playing honestly!

Grileenor.1497:

After playing it for some days now, I can say: I hate this new feature. It kills the fun out of the PvE fights. Keep this stuff for PvP!

When I kill a mob in PvE I want it to stay dead instantly. It is annoying enough to have all the instant respawns which are still ingame in various places. It is annoying enough to have to fight moas, dear and pigs, while actually doing some LS event not related to them, it is annoying enough to have the LS event put in the middle of some normally already crowded spot anyway. We don’t need further mechanics to be annoyed while playing honestly!

Which is why I’ve clearly suggested that only “sentient races” at veteran rank or higher would go into downed state and res others, stomps would be reserved for dungeons though, you wouldn’t be bothered much in the open world, and dungeons would have a more interesting spin.

Having to stomp all Veterans would get a bit annoying too, I think, since they can spawn in huge numbers during some events or dungeons. I think restrict it to Elites and Champions.

You know you don’t have to stomp them, you could simply damage them until they completely die out right? You can still damage other NPCs trying to res downed ones, and, if damage is inssuficient, use crowd control abilities.

Veterans only spawn in very high number when it’s at a point there’s enough player that they melt just as fast as they spawn, you wouldn’t even see the difference in such environment because you’d still be spamming autoattack left and right.

i think this is a good idea.

However i don’t think this should be implemented world wide.

adding this feature to veterans and elites would be great.
adding it to champions isn’t practical. we all know how we attack and kill champs.
Imagine a champion train of 30+players zerging a champion. then all 30 + players try to finish off a downed champion…and only 1 gets him for no reward what so ever . just a waste of 3 seconds (not to mention sea champions…………….)

Another idea would be to add this feature just for dungeons.
Ofc, trash mobs still have to be trash mobs..but fighting a champ boss fight with a a couple of veterans that could bring back the champ from a downed state would be interesting.

bottom line:

-leave the trash-normal mobs out of this
-leave the champions out of it aswell
-elites or veterans could use this
-make the pvE finishing move be at least 2x faster
-make it more rewarding if you actually use a finishing move on the mob rather than simply slashing it away
-make it so large groups, and zergs also have their own rewards when ganking up on a single mob with a finishing move.

another idea would be to add this just for living story zones and maps… personally i wouldn’t like having this feature following me from queensdale all the way to arah..

Bragdras.9572:

You know you don’t have to stomp them, you could simply damage them until they completely die out right? You can still damage other NPCs trying to res downed ones, and, if damage is inssuficient, use crowd control abilities.

Veterans only spawn in very high number when it’s at a point there’s enough player that they melt just as fast as they spawn, you wouldn’t even see the difference in such environment because you’d still be spamming autoattack left and right.

It’s inconsequential in groups, but it gets tedious pretty quickly when soloing. If your weapon set is primarily single-target only, you can’t keep damaging a downed target because it means you’re not damaging other, still active enemies who are more dangerous. And you can’t completely ignore the downed guy either because he will Bandage himself back to full health if you leave him alone. This tilts the balance in favour towards cleave weapons and professions with AoE skills, which I think is something that should be avoided, given how much PvE already favours these.

And Veterans don’t always melt quickly in large zergs. If the Vets are also level scaled above player level, they can take quite a beating before going down. I’m thinking of one map in particular (Southsun Cove), where having Vets need stomping would just make the map even more unpopular than it already is.

It’s inconsequential in groups, but it gets tedious pretty quickly when soloing. If your weapon set is primarily single-target only, you can’t keep damaging a downed target because it means you’re not damaging other, still active enemies who are more dangerous. And you can’t completely ignore the downed guy either because he will Bandage himself back to full health if you leave him alone. This tilts the balance in favour towards cleave weapons and professions with AoE skills, which I think is something that should be avoided, given how much PvE already favours these.

Not true, you can simply interrupt the downed target’s self res by hitting them once, and then focus again on the other NPCs that might try to res for a bit, besides, damage wouldn’t be the only way to prevent them from ressing.

And rolling a build that has absolutely no access to neither cleave nor control whatsoever? You’d be basically purposely making a bad build, which really would have no place outside of openworld.

And if you’re in the open world, veterans are almost always on their own or with normal ranked enemies, which doesn’t matter cause normal ranks would still die and not res.
The only times there are more than 1 veterans spawning at a time in openworld is when there is more than one player, at which point it doesn’t matter if you can only damage one vet at any time.

And Veterans don’t always melt quickly in large zergs. If the Vets are also level scaled above player level, they can take quite a beating before going down. I’m thinking of one map in particular (Southsun Cove), where having Vets need stomping would just make the map even more unpopular than it already is.

Sentient / humanoid races only.. Karkas and animals obviously don’t fit this category of needing stomps.

Step 1: All playable race enemy NPCs get a downed state. All Veteran+ non-wildlife NPCs allied to said enemies can revive.
Step 2: All non-playable-race and non-wildlife enemy NPCs get a 50% chance of a downed state.
Step 3: All Veterans and Elites playable race enemy NPCs can finish players who are in downed states. (Side note: Champions and Legendaries do enough high damage as is that they don’t need finisher abilities; IMO, it would just make them weaker since they’d pause to run up and do a finisher for a single player)
Step 4: Shorten players and Elite NPCs finishers.
Step 5: Playable race allied NPCs that can be revived upon death presently get a 50% chance of being put into downed state.

I love the change to the Toxic sylvari, and would love it spread a bit more.

Bragdras.9572:

Not true, you can simply interrupt the downed target’s self res by hitting them once, and then focus again on the other NPCs that might try to res for a bit, besides, damage wouldn’t be the only way to prevent them from ressing.

And rolling a build that has absolutely no access to neither cleave nor control whatsoever? You’d be basically purposely making a bad build, which really would have no place outside of openworld.

That’s presuming you’re in control of the situation though. If you’ve gotten in over your head due to patrols/over aggro, you may not have the time necessary to keep an eye on the downed guy. Suppose you’re up against 4 foes. Foe 1 has been downed, he’s starting to Bandage. Foe 2 runs over and starts to res him; you know from experience it’ll take him about 4 seconds to get Foe 1 back in the fight. Foe 3 is currently chasing you around, and he’s got block/CC abilities that hinder your ability to fight back. Foe 4 is standing back and blasting you with conditions that are really taking their toll, as well as summoning minions. To top it all off, you need to pop your self-heal now before Foe 3 interrupts you again. What do you do in such a situation?

And I didn’t say that I was deliberately choosing a build with no cleave or CC. It’s that the game design is favouring weapons that DO have these skills over those that don’t, which I feel is a trend that needs to be watched carefully. Players should not be compelled into using specific builds or weapons just because they’re the most effective; if they do, then other weapons, builds or maybe even professions start to become regarded as useless or redundant, which hurts diversity and options. I don’t want GW2 to get into the situation GW1 did where for some professions, unless a player used a specific build, they would never, ever find a place in high-end content.

Bragdras.9572:

The only times there are more than 1 veterans spawning at a time in openworld is when there is more than one player, at which point it doesn’t matter if you can only damage one vet at any time.

Not always. I can think of several areas in the game where Veterans spawn close together (sometimes it’s a Champion and one or two Vets). They’re rare, yes, but I shudder to think of facing a Champion supported by two Vets, and every time you down a Vet, the Champ runs over and starts ressing. You can’t damage him enough to kill him, and his Defiant buff means you can’t interrupt him either.

Bragdras.9572:

Sentient / humanoid races only.. Karkas and animals obviously don’t fit this category of needing stomps.

I don’t know. The Karka seem to be intelligent; they were capable of tracking the Consortium agents back to Lion’s Arch and launching what amounted to a full scale invasion on the city, so I’d argue that they deserve to get a Downed state too.

That said…

Step 2: All non-playable-race and non-wildlife enemy NPCs get a 50% chance of a downed state.

I really like this idea of Konig’s, and think it could be applied to Vets and Elites. Such foes only have a 50% chance to get a downed state, which I think evens the odds. Champions and Legendaries always get a downed state.

No to finishers in PvE. It takes too much time. I just want to kill the mob and move on to the next one.

Keep the finishers in PvE.
I actually like the added level of combat that it provides and something else to think about while you are maneuvering, fighting, using abilities, etc.
I /don’t/ think a downed state should be added to /everything/ though.
I think with this update, they (perhaps inadvertently) managed to find a balance for it.
The Toxic Nightmare Court sylvari have a downed state. However, the Toxic krait do not, so not every enemy needs to be stomped into the ground.
Some of the suggestions in these threads are interesting, though I do have to wonder what the point of giving Champion down states would be.
It just makes little sense for a Champion level creature, that can take on an army of heroes (I use that word loosely…) to be finished off by one guy who just happened to be lucky enough to be the first to stab a flag into him. Let Champions fight to their bitter end… You could say it’s part of their ‘Defiance’…
It makes more sense to be a racial thing. Sentient/humanoid races make sense in this aspect, while animal/monstrous creatures should not.

(P.S. Because I feel like I should add this disclaimer… All of this is just my opinion… not trying to hammer this over anybodies head here, unlike some other people in these forums. :p)