Guild Wars 2

I want to discuss defiance buff and how can it be improved in dungeons.It will be talked only about dungeons and nothing else.Open world isn’t important in this discussion at all.I will post some ideas to let the discussion start.

moiraine.2753:

NoTrigger.8396:

lets say a boss has 5 defiance stacks you need 6 interrupts to stun the boss. but what if the boss regains defiance stacks the longer you wait to take them down. like 2 players use CC and remove 2 defiance stacks. if the other players dont use 4 CC skills within 5 seconds the boss will have 6 defiance stacks again.

I like the idea about increasing stacks overtime so lets add a few tweeks on top of that to make it harder.

First thing first remove the possibility bosses to be stun locked to death.
The Second most important thing is how and what defiance does.Make a Special attack that can’t be dodged/blocked/parried/reflected or using a spell that will save you from the hit.The only possible way to stop it is by having a player who will interrupt it(Only silance/interrupt willl work on it nothing else).The special attack has to be well telegraphed and visible.

When the special hit occurs the rest of the group has to removl the defiance stacks really fast or they won’t be able to avoid the dmg that they will suffer from Special attack.The dmg has to be unavoidable only interruptable(It will hit heavily for tons of dmg,like a truck).

At this moment almost 90% of the bosses don’t require to be CCed at all,because you can avoid every their spell with active mitigation.That way bosses’s attacks are negated easily and people focus only on DPS and dodge.

Scryeless.1924:

I like the idea of Defiance stacks being lowered in the same manor as they do now but instead of only allowing one CC skill to take affect it should render the boss stunned in a double damage window of opportunity.

Defiance could function as a stagger counter. It could be something that parties have to really fight for. Maybe instead of just counting in a repetitive up and down cycle the stacks could build up by one for each player hit by an attack. Bosses could gain two or three stacks for each player put in down state and four or five stacks per player rendered double down.

I also think that Bosses and trash mobs, alike, should act more like players. Suppose a player doesn’t execute a dodge in time and loses 60% of his health to an attack, the NPC should then focus that player and try to hammer that player until double down is achieved.

It’s not the main issue.

Main issue is that we don’t need to interrupt anything ever and that interrupts are very underpowered.

In other words, interrupts should put skills on full cooldown against monsters and monsters should have powerful offensive and defensive abilities.

Then Defiance can be made more beginner friendly, if even needed.

I thought this post had some good points:

phys.7689:

Crystal Reid.2481:

moiraine.2753:

Chris,

I want to ask you something.Will Defiance be redesigned?Is there any plan for it at all?Because right now it is removing the need of any CC in the fights.If raids come will interrupts,stuns,fear become an actual mechanic?Will they be more useful from now?

All I can say on this is we have been talking about it internally and trying to come up with different solutions that make CC valuable without allowing players to “stun lock” creatures (which would be a very real problem if we did not have Defiance). I can’t say any more on that at this time, so here’s a better question for you:

If we removed Defiance, how would you propose a replacement that makes CC (interrupts, stuns, fears etc) valuable without creating a situation that allows players to CC a creature to death.

i showed this during the last discussion so yall may have already seen it.
basically bosses should build a resistance to control effects that lowers the effect duration based on how much CC and how powerful/long the CC that has been done to it.

so when you use a few cc effects, your 2 second effect may only last .5 seconds(when its at 75% reduction)

When it reaches 100% it will completely negate all crowd control until the resistance degrades below 100.

here is an example with jsfiddle, if you press the hsho(headshot) button and the stun button you can see how the resistance goes up.

i would, upon adding this system increase the base boss action speed (so they do more stuff)
Also, though i didnt program it in, i would make stuns under a certain amount of time get negated, but still add to the meter.
so lets say you headshot 75%, it wont actually stun/interupt, but it will add to the meter.

http://jsfiddle.net/phyicus/N3WCk/

so now, stuns would become less effective when spammed, but still usuable unless you are spamming.
a pro at using control would maximize the use of the CCs, and what they have available. Some times using fast interupts, some times using long controls. when his bar is high, only the strongest(longest CCs) will get through his resistance, but only last a moment (basically an interupt)

Play around with their javascript example they linked. Seems like one of the better proposals.

I agree with Wethospu.

We all know that for example chain deep freezing can make bosses like Archdiviner/Imbued Shaman nicer for a few seconds of bursting but it’s pretty insignificant with how much it really helps. Increasing the duration of the freeze would lead to problems in PvP/WvW for sure since they are too stubborn to separate balance changes, so it doesn’t seem like an option.

Putting boss skills on full cooldown would make it much more useful to cc bosses.

Wethospu.6437:

It’s not the main issue.

Main issue is that we don’t need to interrupt anything ever and that interrupts are very underpowered.

In other words, interrupts should put skills on full cooldown against monsters and monsters should have powerful offensive and defensive abilities.

Then Defiance can be made more beginner friendly, if even needed.

Your post got me thinking back to Guild Wars 1, and how useful interrupts where in that game. Of course we didn’t have the Doge roll in that game so when a hard hitting skill was about to go off, from certain bosses you had to interrupt it, because it wasn’t possible to soak the damage or to dodge those.

mesway. ah yes. mesway

Wethospu.6437:

Main issue is that we don’t need to interrupt anything ever and that interrupts are very underpowered.

Would this be because a dodge is cheap and an interrupt skill is expensive?

Stooperdale.3560:

Wethospu.6437:

Main issue is that we don’t need to interrupt anything ever and that interrupts are very underpowered.

Would this be because a dodge is cheap and an interrupt skill is expensive?

Nope. Interrupts just simply dont put skills on a full cooldown. Try it on an ettin when it charges his skills up. It simply stops for a moment and continue to do the attack animation … Lame.

Interrupting is only useful for stopping channeled skills, because if that happens, the skill goes into its full cooldown. If a skill is interrupted during the activation phase, the skill goes on cooldown for 4 or 5 seconds, and then is available again.

I do think a change needs to be made so that any interrupted skill, regardless of when the interrupt lands, puts the skill onto its full cooldown.

Zaxares.5419:

I do think a change needs to be made so that any interrupted skill, regardless of when the interrupt lands, puts the skill onto its full cooldown.

As someone who is currently relearning sword/pistol thief, I fully support this

The only time I wouldn’t want a skill to go on full cool down is when I interrupt it myself. (IE I start to drop my warbanner and the allies rally) Otherwise I think it would add alot more dept to the game. And we would see more use of interrupt skills.

On a side note. I got to thinking about how the game was before defiance. I remember way back, when I ran AC story with a full guild group. We were all new and inexperienced. But one of us discovered if we threw a rock we could knock down the End boss. We ended up making a circle around him and throwing rocks non stop so he couldn’t stand up. Sure it took forever to beat him, but we were really laughing on TS.

I remember when fear bypassed defiant. That was fun as well

Purple Miku.7032:

I agree with Wethospu.

We all know that for example chain deep freezing can make bosses like Archdiviner/Imbued Shaman nicer for a few seconds of bursting but it’s pretty insignificant with how much it really helps. Increasing the duration of the freeze would lead to problems in PvP/WvW for sure since they are too stubborn to separate balance changes, so it doesn’t seem like an option.

Putting boss skills on full cooldown would make it much more useful to cc bosses.

Zaxares.5419:

Interrupting is only useful for stopping channeled skills, because if that happens, the skill goes into its full cooldown. If a skill is interrupted during the activation phase, the skill goes on cooldown for 4 or 5 seconds, and then is available again.

I do think a change needs to be made so that any interrupted skill, regardless of when the interrupt lands, puts the skill onto its full cooldown.

Yup i couldn’t say it better.Once a spell is interrupted it has to go inactive for specific amount of time.It should never go active 5 seconds later after the interrupt occured.

Yeah, you have to consider PvP balance as well. All interrupts putting skills on full CD would be very unforgiving on some skills (2 sec cast with 30-40 +CD) and be very underwhelming on others (Thief attacks, short CD/high reward skills, ie. Lava Font, etc). I do feel that interrupts (a staple in the predecessor) are not rewarded properly though. Mesmer’s have a handful of traits for such a build that go unused due to this very problem. Perhaps a +10-15 sec CD on interrupted skills (doubled for Power Block) would be balanced and would put ‘shutdown’ builds back on the map. I think it’s unanimous (no matter the new balance values) that 4-5 seconds just isn’t enough reward to keep this playstyle on people’s radars. This is very sad after seeing the beauty of a Blackout/Diversion Mesmer, just a couple years ago, in action on PvP teams.

For all its faults, Wildstar had the better take on Defiance (or Interrupt Armour, as it was known there), especially in end game dungeon encounters (bosses and thrash).

To those unfamiliar with their system, it’s broadly similar to GW2: boss tier enemies have a certain amount of Interrupt Armour (“IA”) that players would have to deplete before being able to land any CC. The two main differences are

a) IA is reset to maximum stacks (typically 2) within 10s of the first stack dropping. This punishes flagrant and misuse of interrupt skills and promotes team coordination.

b) Successfully interrupting any mob skill puts the mob into a state known as the Moment of Opportunity (“MoO”) whereby they will be stunned and receive 150% damage for a certain duration. This promotes specific and deliberate use of interrupts, especially since Wildstar has in-game incentives (better loot drops) for speed runs.

Now the big problems inherent to the GW2 system that acts against all this are as follows:

a) Interrupts are sometimes a product of RNG, e.g. Daze as a random effect from Chaos Field, Ranger canine pet’s knockdown. This can probably be fixed by removing these RNG factors.

b) Dodging, especially with Vigor, negates most negative effects easily and does not require any team coordination.

c) Most interrupt skills have cast times, and not all are the same. This makes any timing interrupts to coincide with enemy cast times extremely difficult.

d) Interrupting mob skills only sets it back by 5 seconds or so, meaning it’ll be ready much quicker than the party’s interrupts.

Now, I’m not saying both of Wildstar’s IA system above works for GW2 as is. Having in-game rewards for speed runs is a debatable matter, and resetting Defiance stacks may be a little too “hardcore” for GW2’s target audience. However, some of it can make a big step towards rewarding higher-skill play, for example,

a) Normalise all interrupt skills to instant cast and possibly remove all RNG stuns, daze, etc.

b) Implement Wildstar’s MoO system. This rewards higher skilled players with faster kills, while regular players can carry on with their regular play style.

c) As with Wildstar, give dungeon Champion tier mobs 2 stacks of Defiance that resets after 10s. This means that 3 out of 5 party members need to coordinate their interrupts in order to benefit from the MoO. Open world Champions will likely have to be set to uninterruptible, but I don’t foresee that as a problem as nobody in these events even care about the original Defiance mechanic anyway. In the case that ANet’s tech can’t support timed resets of Defiance, simply keeping the current Defiance counter works, too.

d) With the new Living Story achievements, players get a buff at the start of the repeated run to prompt them towards a particular challenge, at which they are rewarded should they get the achievement. So why not introduce this to dungeons and fractals (especially since we already see a hint of that in the Grawl fractal)? Let’s say, for example, killing the Cave Troll in AC gives a bonus event chest and AP, or defeating the Jellyfish Beast at the end of the Aquatic Ruins Fractal with nobody getting eaten gives a bonus chest and AP.

In short, the idea is to make Defiance an optional mechanic for players looking for a challenge, while at the same time giving them a incentive to do so (faster kills, bonus chest, etc.). There may be a number of “elitist” groups that pop up as a result, but that’s not all too different from the current “Zerker only, link gear, 8g per run” groups, who are few and far between.

Another suggestion is to make a specific “interrupt” mechanic. The interrupts in GW2 are tied to CC, since specific interrupt skills actually apply Daze, rather than simply being an interrupt. This means that knockdowns/dazes/etc and specific interrupt skills (like Mantra of Distraction) both share the Defiant mechanic.

If Anet does not want people to stunlock bosses with CC (such as the example earlier in this thread with beta AC), but still allow for interrupts then they can either make certain skills only interrupt (bypassing Defiance) and apply no CC, or make all those CC skills apply an interrupt through Defiance (but the CC effect itself is eaten by the Defiance). As for the fear of stunlocking bosses?… who cares, its still inferior to just straight up damage, it just allows for more diversified builds and strategies.

This is how it was for three days back when Power Block was interoduced in GW2, the CC from the Mesmer’s skills was absorbed by Defiance, however the interrupt effect was still applied. This worked this way because the skill was placed on cool down (thus interrupting the skill), rather even when defiant was active. Those three days created a whole lot of excitement for the direction of GW2 PvE… but then Anet nerfed it into the ground simply because it was unintended, and it was an accident that they introduced the sort of mechanic that many people were excited about.

Tman.6349:

Yeah, you have to consider PvP balance as well. All interrupts putting skills on full CD would be very unforgiving on some skills (2 sec cast with 30-40 +CD) and be very underwhelming on others (Thief attacks, short CD/high reward skills, ie. Lava Font, etc). I do feel that interrupts (a staple in the predecessor) are not rewarded properly though. Mesmer’s have a handful of traits for such a build that go unused due to this very problem. Perhaps a +10-15 sec CD on interrupted skills (doubled for Power Block) would be balanced and would put ‘shutdown’ builds back on the map. I think it’s unanimous (no matter the new balance values) that 4-5 seconds just isn’t enough reward to keep this playstyle on people’s radars. This is very sad after seeing the beauty of a Blackout/Diversion Mesmer, just a couple years ago, in action on PvP teams.

Aren’t PvP and PvE modes split?I thought they were.I may be wrong lol

In theory? yes. In practice? naaaah. A minimal difference in cds for, like, 3 skills?

deSade.9437:

In theory? yes. In practice? naaaah. A minimal difference in cds for, like, 3 skills?

Ouch…That’s just…I don’t have words

Oh, and boon duration for SY. It’s 10 in pve, 5 in pvp. If I’m not mistaken.