Guild Wars 2

I’d actually like to hear what my fellow dungeon forum goers think about Defiance and what they might choose to do with it if they had the ability to change it. This is mostly a thought exercise for entertainment and not a commentary like “defiance sucks” or whatnot. If you had a chance to design the defiance mechanic, how might you do it?

First, I suppose it’d help to define the reasons why Defiance exists. There are creatures that ANet has decided should be resistant to crowd control effects. CC should work some of the time, but not all of the time on these creatures. It should not reward stunlocking or reckless use of CC, but should reward intelligent and well-timed use of CC.

What do you guys think you can come up with?

I’d like to see a system where the first CC from each player will interrupt a boss, with subsequent CC’s from a player being ineffective until a certain period of time has passed. However, while each of the 5 players in your group can interrupt a bosses attack once in that period, only the first CC used on the boss will have full effect, to prevent chaining long effects such as those on an elementalist’s ice bow. This would reward individual skill in being able to interrupt key skills, but also reward coordination (who will interrupt what, when). I feel like the current system favors spammable CC’s too much in removing defiance stacks.

Obviously this system would not work for world bosses, but this is about dungeons, so…

I kinda like Wildstar’s system, it’s a slightly better version of defiant. Each boss will have 2 stacks of interrupt armor, and they regenerate pretty quickly (maybe after like 5 seconds, don’t know the exact time). You can’t interrupt or CC the boss while it has stacks of interrupt armor, so it means you just need to synchronize your CC’s within a small window of time.

It’s basically the same thing as defiant, but less stacks and the boss wont’ remain at 0 stacks for more than a few seconds. It doesn’t have the problem of a random player using a CC just cause he felt like it and ruining your interrupt attempt.

TurtleDragon.3108:

I kinda like Wildstar’s system, it’s a slightly better version of defiant. Each boss will have 2 stacks of interrupt armor, and they regenerate pretty quickly (maybe after like 5 seconds, don’t know the exact time). You can’t interrupt or CC the boss while it has stacks of interrupt armor, so it means you just need to synchronize your CC’s within a small window of time.

It’s basically the same thing as defiant, but less stacks and the boss wont’ remain at 0 stacks for more than a few seconds. It doesn’t have the problem of a random player using a CC just cause he felt like it and ruining your interrupt attempt.

This, I like it because it needs just that little bit more coordination than GW2s system. However, the 2 interrupt armor is not enough, you could basically chain CC frostbow 5 quite easily and make the fights easier instead of harder.

copy pasting one of my preview post on a similar subject (sinilar to the interupt armor in wildstar or a simplified stamina system from monster hunter):
I did used to write about this topic in the dungeon forum and I still stand my point Defiant is not that bad of an attribute in the current state of gw2.
With a few alterations to the way it works it could lend to encounters(5 man-ish) where cc have a consequence.
The fact is that even if defiant was removed I would not be such a big deal destroying the boss asap is still a better tactic than stun locking (time wise), in lage events and trains zerg would still effortlessly kill the champ and the overall way to play of the mass would not be affected.
I will illustrate the alterations i would make to Defiant i will give an example.
a 5 man boss has 3 stacks of Defiant.1, each time it is CCed it loses on stack, each 3 second it gains one back, now he has one attack with the potential to wipe the party he uses each X. To counter it you have to 1. prepare a lot of dodges, blocks and invulnerability skills or 2. interrupt the attack.
With just this you changed the way the whole group face the boss each time it charges is wipe move the players will be able to deal with it by using 4 CCs during a 3 seconds window.
Add to this a few “rewards” for interrupting this move like +7% damage dealt or a 4 seconds stun on the boss and you have even more interesting ways to play around the boss as a groups: use the highest burst abilities only after the move is interrupted …
…they can do so much…

The thing that bothers me about Defiant/Unshakeable is that it’s very much an ‘RPG’ sort of a solution. It draws your eye to the top of the screen instead of keeping it watching the mob. It’s not really much of a timing challenge or something that makes you think, it’s more of a simple coordination challenge. It has a light-handed approach to Vulnerability that makes a condition that could be a timing based clutch team coordination of multiplier and burst, into this waaayyyy too consistent bland mush of nothing.

I kind of just think a hybrid could be pushing the action elements more.
There’s definitely action games out there that have similar ‘window of opportunity’ concepts.

Vindictus has an item called the Chain, which allowed you to hold down boss so your allies could beatdown a target that was normally crazy mobile. The Street Fighter series has the concept of Dizzy, where moves have a stun value separate from their damage value and doing enough of the former in a time-frame disables your foe. In FPS games there’s Flashbangs which can blind/stun the opponent, but also yourself and your teammates.

In light of this, I think what I’d like to see is something like creating the Resurrection/Downed State equivalent for Control.

Like, Channeling in order to put the mob into the Impaired State, which removes Unshakeable. And reworking Unshakeable as a straight immunity to all non-DoT non-movement effects. (Stun, Daze, Knockback, Knockdown, Launch, Pull, Fear, Blind, Weakness, Vulnerability, and the healing reduction portion of Poison.)

So, Much like Resurrection/Downed State;

• you stand still and forfeit all action in order to channel.
• anybody can help add progress.
• this progress is displayed as a bar over the mob’s head like health.
• there’s an obvious non-particle visual cue that the boss is in this state.
• the mob can still act although it’s actions may be more limited.

Unlike Resurrection/Downed State;

• the channel is not a uniform value (harder mobs or phases can require more channeling)
• you steadily lose endurance while channeling in addition to no longer being able to regenerate endurance naturally or from any effect.
• the boss automatically returns to normal after 2 seconds.

So in order to control the mob you must trade off active defense potential.

In addition to making Condition Duration and slotted Active Defenses/Passive Defenses more like interesting choices instead of clear dismissals. It’s like Dizzy in that it gives depth to something that is pretty flat and simple right now (Endurance) and has a timing challenge element, like a Flashbang in that your use of it is naturally limited through dangerous consequences (defensively vulnerable both during the channel and afterward), and like the Chain in that it’s a mechanic with teamplay in mind.