Guild Wars 2

From my experiences with the game over the past few months the downed state has only caused problems.

In PvP the defensive side of the downed state makes it near impossible to single out players in zergs and in smaller scale fights it gives an even larger advantage to the group with a few more players. On the offensive side things like quickness or stealth stomping feel necessary for finishing off downed players, putting classes and builds which don’t have access to these things at a disadvantage.

In PvE it greatly reduces the difficulty of the game. Did you just mess up? No problem, you just got a second wind where your allies can revive you in mere seconds, an enemy that you have attacked can be killed to get you back up, or you can use defensive downed skills to escape and heal yourself back up.

Overall the downed state is just too much of a factor in the combat system and does more harm than good. I’m not advocating a removal of the system; I just want to see a few changes to make it less of a factor in the game and to balance out ways to deal with downed opponents.

Anyways, here are two simple changes I feel will address this:

Revised suggestion:
• If a reviving player is damaged they are interrupted and cannot attempt another revive for 8 seconds.
• Finishing moves should remove stealth, quickness, stability, and anything of that sort.

Old suggestion:
• Players cannot revive downed-state players while in combat.
• As an alternative to the above: If a reviving player is damaged they are interrupted and cannot attempt another revive for 15 seconds.
• Finishing moves should remove stealth, quickness, stability, and anything of that sort.

the finishing thing is good but the other one. nah

trouble is , its needed in dungeons now that we cant respawn incombat , to do your changes would mean to remove their recent update for “no rez rushing” , so yea…..id still approve of removing the rez rushing for this though.

It sounds like you’re completing missing the point of the downed state.

The whole point is to provide players with a second chance, an opportunity to fight your way back up, or to have an ally help you back up. You’re proposing changes that would basically destroy the downed state simply because you’re having trouble finishing people off when they’re downed. I don’t usually have any problems with that unless there’s several guys healing the one downed person, in which case why exactly should a single player be able to singlehandedly defeat the combined resurrection efforts of several other players?

If anything, what needs to be changed is the fact that players can use finishers while in stealth, or shrunk, etc, as this takes the fight completely out of the downed player’s hands and renders him completely helpless.

critickitten.1498:

It sounds like you’re completing missing the point of the downed state.

The whole point is to provide players with a second chance, an opportunity to fight your way back up, or to have an ally help you back up. You’re proposing changes that would basically destroy the downed state simply because you’re having trouble finishing people off when they’re downed. I don’t usually have any problems with that unless there’s several guys healing the one downed person, in which case why exactly should a single player be able to singlehandedly defeat the combined resurrection efforts of several other players?

If anything, what needs to be changed is the fact that players can use finishers while in stealth, or shrunk, etc, as this takes the fight completely out of the downed player’s hands and renders him completely helpless.

But that second chance is too forgiving and has too much impact on the game which is the whole point behind this thread.

I’m fine with a second chance, and a weakened downed state will still provide that.

The thing is, it seems like most PvE encounters are kind of balanced around the fact that reviving is possible. I mean at the moment most of the temple events would be impossible without reviving downed people (though obviously if it was removed they would just rebalance the fights). I don’t really have a problem with it though in dungeons or open world.

PvP it is a real problem though in my opinion. The amount of small group fights that have been solely decided by who can rez their guys. Simple fix would be to just make damage stop the reviving process in PvP environments.

Problem is, this doesn’t fit with the whole carebear thing Anet has going. Probably best just to accept that this game is designed for casuals/scrubs and either move on or learn to live with it.

Bri.8354:

But that second chance is too forgiving and has too much impact on the game which is the whole point behind this thread.

I’m fine with a second chance, and a weakened downed state will still provide that.

No, it won’t, because despite your claims, the downed state is already too weak to begin with.

If a guy goes down in front of me in WvW, there’s only two ways they’re turning that fight around:
1) They have multiple people helping them back up as I slap their face with my sword
2) They had previously reduced me to such a low amount of health that it would only take a few blows to knock ME into my downed state.

In the former case, I was likely going to lose that fight anyways because I’m outnumbered, and in the latter case, I still have the advantage because I’ll have more HP than he will in his downed state, so if it comes to swapping blows, I’ll outlast him.

In any other situation than the two stated above, it’s a relatively quick assassination, whether I use a finisher or simply pump him full of damage until he keels over.

Similarly, in PvE, the downed state lacks significant firepower to kill a mob that is at 100% health unless you’re down-leveled by quite a lot. Downed state only offers enough damage that you could potentially kill an already-weakened mob, but that’s about it.

And your proposals make the game significantly worse, because it means that one player with sufficient AoE can keep an entire group of enemies from helping their one downed friend back up. That’s a terrible suggestion. You, by yourself, should not be able to stop an entire gang of players from helping up their buddy.

The only place where downed state is a significant problem is sPvP, and that whole area needs to be rebuilt nearly from the ground up to begin with. Downed state is the least of its problems.

And also, if a player was able to down a player even when he had multiple allies supporting him, I say he deserves a good chance at finishing off the player, not 5 people running over and bringing him back up in a second even though that player failed to keep himself alive and those players failed to support him while he was alive. The ability to interrupt reviving players would allow this.

Bri.8354:

And also, if a player was able to down a player even when he had multiple allies supporting him, I say he deserves a good chance at finishing off the player

Why? This isn’t some kind of honorable duel. Downed state was basically added because of the removal of healers. If a dude has 5 friends healing him in other games what sort of chances do you have to kill him?

Bri.8354:

And also, if a player was able to down a player even when he had multiple allies supporting him, I say he deserves a good chance at finishing off the player, not 5 people running over and bringing him back up in a second even though that player failed to keep himself alive and those players failed to support him while he was alive. The ability to interrupt reviving players would allow this.

Why?

Why should one player be able to defeat the combined efforts of six players with minimal effort or skill?

Let me answer that for you: They shouldn’t. And in any 1-vs-1 scenario, if you’re not reliably finishing off anyone you drop into the downed state, then you are doing something very wrong. Even on my ranger, I can finish off virtually anyone I manage to drop into downed.

I totally agree with the OP’s points, and I think it affects this game in a negative way more than people realize. Down state in its current form is only good for bad players because they aren’t punished for bad play as long as they’re around other teammates. Why Anet would encourage bad play, I don’t know.

If I am downed, I personally feel like I already “lost” and I think it’s really cheesy that I can then get back up so easily if other people are around (or if something/-one I hit earlier dies). If I get downed, it’s because I messed up or the opponent(s) is better, or as in most cases, I was overwhelmed. Regardless of why, I deserved to go down and it shouldn’t be so easy for me to get back up, let alone with half my health and absolutely no penalty on top of that. It also should not take longer to stomp someone than it does to revive them.

Down state lets (semi-)glass cannons get away with their play style in a group setting with few consequences. A thief in my guild almost every time when encountering an opposing group in wvw will steal-haste-pistol-whip and down 1-2 players and then he goes down himself within 3 seconds. No joke- almost every time. And then he proceeds to shout out directions while he’s throwing stuff on his backside. I’ve talked to him about buffing up his defense a bit, but that’s not the point here. His group of course saves him, he gets revived and credit for kills that in my opinion he didn’t even deserve. There should be a greater penalty for him so he stops such cheap and lazy game play. This kind of mindset only encourages zerging even more, which is currently one of the biggest problems of this game, whether people like it or not. This tactic also makes PVE easier, as was already mentioned.

Down state in its current form is simply lame and if you like it as it is, well, too all his own, but in my opinion you should probably really learn how to be a better player so you don’t have to rely on it in the first place.

Zerbo.5381:

Down state in its current form is only good for bad players because they aren’t punished for bad play as long as they’re around other teammates.

….

Down state in its current form is simply lame and if you like it as it is, well, too all his own, but in my opinion you should probably really learn how to be a better player so you don’t have to rely on it in the first place.

So the core of your argument is that if you like the downed state in its present form, then you’re obviously bad at the game and only like it because it allows you to get away with poor play?

That’s not only false, but it smacks of severe elitism to boot.

In my opinion, yes.

You’re talking from a point of view of what other games when you die, you simply die and have to respawn.

GW2 does things differently, and in GW2 there is downed state which is integrated as part of the difficulty of the game in both PvE and PvP.
It is something you must adapt yourself to.

The devs do not want you to single out players in a zerg so easily, or want to turn PvE into a chore where you have to keep respawning. Let’s admit it – it’s not fun.

Zerbo.5381:

In my opinion, yes.

Points for honesty, but you immediately lose those points for having a point of view that is impossible to respect.

To imply that “only bad players like it” is essentially insulting everyone who disagrees with you.

First off, just NO to “can’t revive while in combat”.
It just cannot work with the current meta of both PvE and PvP.

In PvE downed is needed due to oneshot galore present in endgame; not even the interupt suggestion would work because in most encounters it’s pretty much impossible to not be hit (i.e. imbued elemental, when you stand still you get burning dmg by terrain).
If oneshots were removed the game would be a lot less action than it is, because damage would be much more forgiving and less reflex-dependant.

In PvP I can agree with the rupting because seeing people I just downed get recovered in 2 sec is frustrating.
What I want to see in PvP is downed state equality.
Some classes get AoE rupt when downed, some others don’t, and this is a really tide-turning factor which should be fixed. Either nobody gets it or everyone get it.

If they removed WP costs and halved repair costs I would support this thread.

Balancing the different downed states is a different discussion entirely I feel. I would agree that some time definitely needs to be spent on it.

Zerbo.5381:

…

A thief in my guild almost every time when encountering an opposing group in wvw will steal-haste-pistol-whip and down 1-2 players and then he goes down himself within 3 seconds. No joke- almost every time. And then he proceeds to shout out directions while he’s throwing stuff on his backside. I’ve talked to him about buffing up his defense a bit, but that’s not the point here. His group of course saves him, he gets revived and credit for kills that in my opinion he didn’t even deserve. There should be a greater penalty for him so he stops such cheap and lazy game play. This kind of mindset only encourages zerging even more, which is currently one of the biggest problems of this game, whether people like it or not. This tactic also makes PVE easier, as was already mentioned.

Down state in its current form is simply lame and if you like it as it is, well, too all his own, but in my opinion you should probably really learn how to be a better player so you don’t have to rely on it in the first place.

What is a “Better player” anyway?

In the example you gave, what happens if “his team” doesn’t revive him anymore when he goes down? Will he learn then? Will the team not learn? It’s not the downed state that’s making bad players, it’s bad players that encourages (begets) worst player.

The downed state might need a bit tweaking in PvP, but leave it the way it is for the rest of us.

Firegoth.6427:

You’re talking from a point of view of what other games when you die, you simply die and have to respawn.

GW2 does things differently, and in GW2 there is downed state which is integrated as part of the difficulty of the game in both PvE and PvP.
It is something you must adapt yourself to.

The devs do not want you to single out players in a zerg so easily, or want to turn PvE into a chore where you have to keep respawning. Let’s admit it – it’s not fun.

The way I view things, downing a player means they are defeated. It gives a chance for the player to finish an enemy to revive or for his allies to eliminate the threat before he is fully dead.

But the issue I have here isn’t really how things are viewed, but how it affects the game. When players are allowed to rapidly revive, or essentially heal others with no effective way to counteract it, it makes it very difficultfor players to pick players out of large groups.

I do not find this to be of good design. Designing the game around not being able to pick apart groups strengthens zergs and lowers the effectiveness of the individual. It turns WvW into running around in a zerg and the only hope of being able to weaken or defeat the zerg is with another zerg.

In my view, this system degrades the combat as a whole. It turns the game into overpowering the enemy group via numbers and creates very stale fights, such as in castle warfare when one team stands in the castle, and the other outside, without either being able to reduce the others numbers.

Rapid reviving of downed state players is the root of this. It gives a player too much survivability in a group because they can just have a few players near instantly revive them without effective ways to counter the revival.

Zerbo.5381:

I totally agree with the OP’s points, and I think it affects this game in a negative way more than people realize. Down state in its current form is only good for bad players because they aren’t punished for bad play as long as they’re around other teammates. Why Anet would encourage bad play, I don’t know.

That’s just a ridiculous statement on the issue. Let’s blame all downed states on the player being bad. Anet is encouraging bad players by allowing downed state.
Ridiculous.

Downstate adds a different level of complexity and depth to the fights though. It also makes the fights last longer instead of just dying and running back and repeat. With downstate, you can use it to your advantage too, even in small groups vs big groups. The small, smarter group knows that it can use downstate to its advantage, so if organized properly, it can beat a larger group. You just have to know that when you down people, someone’s going to res them, and in that moment, you can either have someone who knocks back healers, or people who attack the healers.

It’s not really encouraging zerging unless you fight as if there is no downstate. If you fight using downstate as part of your strategy, then the fight comes to which zerg is smarter/more skilled. Of course, if you got really dumb zergs, then it just falls to numbers and who has more man power. That’s expected though.

I just don’t think no down state will work for GW2 simply because we have no dedicated healers, no dedicated tanks, and/or DPS. Also, WvW is large and dying instantly just makes any siege or fight rather boring and a “dps” race rather than giving room for strategy.

One more thing about down state: it encourages build variety. You have your high damage builds, your support build, and your bunker builds. High damage people usually have the role of damaging and downing people, support build handles CC and group damage/buff, bunker draws enemy fire. Of these 3 usual roles, support and bunker usually handle finishing off people, but sometimes the damage role can do it too but they usually have to keep moving to not become a beacon for “kill that person with the shining hand”. It works out and balances the fight if you think about it.

Downed state replaced the dedicated healer. It gives your party a chance to give you health back.

I really don’t like the downed state. In PvE when bosses spawn adds, it’s actually helpful as the downed players can rally on killing one of them.

It’s supposed to be there in lieu of actual healing, but In WvW downed state means all conditions get cleansed off of you. I already wasn’t going to consider a condition build, but upon hearing this I don’t know who would. What’s worse is that you can can wail on one player for quite a few downs and no damage is actually done. You’re supposed to die instantly after a few downs, but a couple moments without down completely recycles that and thus it’s extremely unreliable.

There are also the downed abilities which don’t provide much in the way of strategy or challenge, but do prolong a stomp for no good reason on only some of the classes. As an engineer I get some of the worst ones. People have to take stealth or stability to reliably kill people in many situations

I don’t know or care what the alternative could be or whether anything but balancing the abilities should be done, I just don’t like the downed state.

Bri.8354:

• Players cannot revive downed-state players while in combat.
• As an alternative to the above: If a reviving player is damaged they are interrupted and cannot attempt another revive for 15 seconds.

On the one hand, you’re arguing against the downed state by disallowing players to revive their downed allies…

Bri.8354:

• Finishing moves should remove stealth, quickness, stability, and anything of that sort.

…But on the other hand, you’re arguing for the downed state by disallowing enemy players the ability to quick/stealth/shrink stomp downed players.

So which is it?

Bri.8354:

From my experiences with the game over the past few months the downed state has only caused problems.

In PvP the defensive side of the downed state makes it near impossible to single out players in zergs and in smaller scale fights it gives an even larger advantage to the group with a few more players. On the offensive side things like quickness or stealth stomping feel necessary for finishing off downed players, putting classes and builds which don’t have access to these things at a disadvantage.

In PvE it greatly reduces the difficulty of the game. Did you just mess up? No problem, you just got a second wind where your allies can revive you in mere seconds, an enemy that you have attacked can be killed to get you back up, or you can use defensive downed skills to escape and heal yourself back up.

Overall the downed state is just too much of a factor in the combat system and does more harm than good. I’m not advocating a removal of the system; I just want to see a few changes to make it less of a factor in the game and to balance out ways to deal with downed opponents.

Anyways, here are two simple changes I feel will address this:

• Players cannot revive downed-state players while in combat.
• As an alternative to the above: If a reviving player is damaged they are interrupted and cannot attempt another revive for 15 seconds.
• Finishing moves should remove stealth, quickness, stability, and anything of that sort.

the flaw in your premise, is you are missing that downstate is part of the TEAM effort in the game, if people are good at ressing their friends, they have an advantage, and they are supposed to have that.

People always complain the game is too DPS focused, and lacks strategy, in the same breath they hate downstate, which is a strategic team focused non dps way to help allies.

Part of the advantage of toughness and vitality is to be able to better revive allies ( this is why revive boosting/helping skills are usually in these trait lines)
essentially you succeeded at part one of the DPS game, but you failed at tactical planning and dealing with your opponents ability to recover.
the battle isnt over when your opponent falls down, its only over when they are dead, that is intentional, and logical, and mirrors real fights. And yes people who have someone who can support them in combat have an advantage over you, this is completely logical. and intentional.

They just need to take downed state out of spvp and WvW its just an annoyance it makes a 2v1 impossible to win if they actually rez each other.

Bri.8354:

From my experiences with the game over the past few months the downed state has only caused problems.

In PvP the defensive side of the downed state makes it near impossible to single out players in zergs and in smaller scale fights it gives an even larger advantage to the group with a few more players. On the offensive side things like quickness or stealth stomping feel necessary for finishing off downed players, putting classes and builds which don’t have access to these things at a disadvantage.

In PvE it greatly reduces the difficulty of the game. Did you just mess up? No problem, you just got a second wind where your allies can revive you in mere seconds, an enemy that you have attacked can be killed to get you back up, or you can use defensive downed skills to escape and heal yourself back up.

Overall the downed state is just too much of a factor in the combat system and does more harm than good. I’m not advocating a removal of the system; I just want to see a few changes to make it less of a factor in the game and to balance out ways to deal with downed opponents.

Anyways, here are two simple changes I feel will address this:

• Players cannot revive downed-state players while in combat.
• As an alternative to the above: If a reviving player is damaged they are interrupted and cannot attempt another revive for 15 seconds.
• Finishing moves should remove stealth, quickness, stability, and anything of that sort.

While I respect your personal opinion in general I disagree totally. As a person who mainly WVW. I think it adds an aspect of difficulty to the game that adds challenge. Example 5 people hold a keep 12 come to take it you kill 8 out of 12 attackers. Using siege, arrow carts yada yada. Now those twelve people start to res other players which adds a since of urgency to down the remaining 4.

My point is its been part of the game since the beginning people have learned to deal with it from both aspects. I’ve come up on fights with people down and saved them to fight again, only to be wiped with them. Also had the same thing in reverse and it end in victory.
Learn to deal with what has always been there,I don’t like that my ranger seems under powered compared to other classes. But I dealt with it and figured out a build to survive and do damage.

Just saying to cope with the hand you are dealt, you can complain but it won’t get changed in the end. Good luck

Downstate was done poorly end of!

Downstate was put in to combat burst in PVP due to there being no dedicated healer, but instead it actually gave more reason to create a builds around bursting someone down in 1 second. Reason engis only viable offensive build is 100nades, because condition builds are limiting and terrible.

Downstate is clearly favoring some classes like Ele or theif or mesmer which have a free teleport/invulnerably while classes such as Engi (their 2 down skill is basically a here come finish me, i’ll even pull u towards me and help) is terrible and guardian which all the player needs is to pop stablity and then the guardian downstate is useless.

It doesn’t add as much depth as people are thinking it does. It takes a tiny bit of brain power to combat. Like i’ve shown with the guardian downstate the Ranger,Engi,Guardian downstates can be nullified with a simple pop of stablity rendering them uttlerly useless. All they do is prolong a players death, nothing more, nothing less.

If it was something which actively changed the course of battle allowing someone to a risk vs reward decision then the downstate would be a lot better. Things like the warriors 3 downskill but being able to be activated near death rather than at death.

phys.7689:

the flaw in your premise, is you are missing that downstate is part of the TEAM effort in the game, if people are good at ressing their friends, they have an advantage, and they are supposed to have that.

People always complain the game is too DPS focused, and lacks strategy, in the same breath they hate downstate, which is a strategic team focused non dps way to help allies.

Part of the advantage of toughness and vitality is to be able to better revive allies ( this is why revive boosting/helping skills are usually in these trait lines)
essentially you succeeded at part one of the DPS game, but you failed at tactical planning and dealing with your opponents ability to recover.
the battle isnt over when your opponent falls down, its only over when they are dead, that is intentional, and logical, and mirrors real fights. And yes people who have someone who can support them in combat have an advantage over you, this is completely logical. and intentional.

The only team effort I see is using simplistic and overpowered healing to bring back defeated players. There is little actual strategy involved other than “hey everyone, Bob is down, cover and revive him!”. 5 seconds later, it was like Bob was never down in the first place.

Funnily enough, this downed state system actually encourages DPS focused gameplay. Its so forgiving I can sacrifice most of my defense as I know the down state has my back and I’m actually more of a benefit with this type of behavior as the advantages of sacrificing defense outweigh the potential risk.

Heck, I can even use my offense to benefit downed players as well. Did someone down my ally and is going for the kill? No problem, just burst him down and help your friend. Or I can even use quickness to revive him twice as fast.

Your solutions can be simplified with one simple step.

Apply a diminishing return to players reviving a defeated player so that having more then 2 players contributing would be a waste

• Even in dungeons, you don’t want every member of the party zerging to one corpse. That just gives the PvE boss an easy way to wipe the entire group…
• Better then a healer-cap because we don’t want people whining about the Healer Daily more then they already have.
  With diminishing returns, people working on their daily can still get credit if 10 people swarm on an NPC.

Just like it real life, you can’t just overload a person with meds/antibiotics and expect them to get better.

—

I am fine with the finishing thing as the use of stealth, haste, or stability are strategy use of mechanics.
Note that ‘Finishing’ also puts the player in a vulnerable state for you to unload a burst combo. You should be prepared to adapt to the situation by re-focusing on the attacker instead of trying to defend your friend once they pop stability/stealth.

Being stealthed doesn’t make them immune to damage after all.

Really you could just increase everybody’s maximum health and throw out the downstate altogether.

The only benefit you would be sacrificing is the second chance for people who can’t dodge the 1-shot abilities from PvE bosses. Even then you could just nerf PvE bosses and fix everything.

Personally, I enjoy downed state. Adds a level to PvP that doesn’t exist in other games. Yes, it can be frustrating… but it gives the opportunity for 2 or 3 skilled players to take on a far larger number and have a chance.

If they removed downed state, it really would turn this game into just another WoW clone.

Tolmos.8395:

Personally, I enjoy downed state. Adds a level to PvP that doesn’t exist in other games. Yes, it can be frustrating… but it gives the opportunity for 2 or 3 skilled players to take on a far larger number and have a chance.

I’m confused here, I find the exact opposite happening where the 2 or 3 skilled players are unable to take down any of the larger numbers as once they do, they get back up in seconds and its as if they never took down the player in the first place. The only real way for those 2 or 3 players to make any sort of difference would be to use a hail of AoE to take down many players at once, including downed players, and even then they would be in a better situation without the downed state.

Tolmos.8395:

Personally, I enjoy downed state. Adds a level to PvP that doesn’t exist in other games. Yes, it can be frustrating… but it gives the opportunity for 2 or 3 skilled players to take on a far larger number and have a chance.

The thing people also miss is the fact that without Downed State, glass-cannon build users would be even more frustrating because they can just kill players and run away.

Downed State forces them into moments of vulnerability by either making them ‘Finish’ their target or abandon their kill.

Bri.8354:

I’m confused here, I find the exact opposite happening where the 2 or 3 skilled players are unable to take down any of the larger numbers as once they do, they get back up in seconds

Again, this is just due to the fact there’s no limit to how many healers a single defeated player can have.

This is not an issue with downed state, but the mechanic of healing downed/defeated players. There should be a limit to how many people can be healing someone at a time.

However, if the bigger group is just outright better coordinated and healing / defending properly, there’s no helping how well the smaller group plays. That should still stick.

DreamOfACure.4382:

Your solutions can be simplified with one simple step.

Apply a diminishing return to players reviving a defeated player so that having more then 4 players contributing would be a waste

• 4 being the magic number since dungeons can only hold 5 players, making having 4 the highest possible group of healers (With 2 healers being the recommended number, while everyone else keeps fighting)

That’s already built into the game. The game won’t allow more than 4-5 people to resurrect one target.

I normally agree with CritticKitten and his posts but here I have to say that I have a very real problem with the downed state in it’s current form. Because of the downed state a lot of time the better player won’t win. Before you disagree completely please hear me out. Some downed states are much better than others. In WvWvW for example an Ele can run out and defend a keep as much as he wants with zero fear of actually dying so long as the keep or tower portal is within range and the gate will be up for the needed time for him or her to self heal. On top of that if you ever get into a 1 v 1 downed fight against an Elementalist you’re guaranteed to lose. The reason is because they get a nice a little heal when they mist form and so even if you’re spamming attack skills at each other they can mist and heal much more than what you will if you cast your self heal the instanst they mist form. But this isn’t just about Ele’s and their downed state. It’s about the balance between all classes. If you get into a 2 v 1 situation and it’s a Mesmer and any other class you’re up against. Well you have to kill the Mesmer 2nd always no matter what. The reason is because their downed attack ability causes confusion on each hit along with damage. So even when you’re winning if you down the Mesmer first, you’re going to lose the second fight more often than not. The engineer downed state is a joke and their only real defense has a warmup timer on it. The ranger, guardian, and warrior interrupt’s are too easy to avoid. The thief downed state abilities are good but not great. They really only fool newer players. And in high level sPvP play it’s more about who kills a guy first in full team fights than anything else, thus making some classes better than others because of their ability to remove themselves from the middle of the fight.

I see ANet’s point in the downed state mechaninc though. They don’t want someone to run for miles in WvWvW then get instagibbed and have to make the run all over again. It would be a huge turn off to newer players. Even in sPvP they don’t want that to happen, where a player walks out of his spawn and is instatly dead and has to wait 30 seconds (tournament timer). This isn’t a FPS where a head shot will take a player out of the match momentarily, or shouldn’t be at least which is the reason I believe the downed state is present in the first place. That being said though the imbalance is pretty high between classes.

My suggestion is to do a PvP / PvE split. Keep things the way they are in PvE. Let them have their abilities. In PvP whether it be WvWvW or sPvP increase the downed player health back to what it used to be and give them only two options. Self Heal and Rally. They cannot attack and have no other abilities at their disposal other than the self heal ability and there is still a chance that their teammates can revive them or rally off of kill. And I don’t mean a PvE kill in WvWvW. It has to be another player that is killed that makes them rally. I think my recomendation would keep the majority of the players happy and at the same time remove the downed state woes in PvP situations.

critickitten.1498:

That’s already built into the game. The game won’t allow more than 4-5 people to resurrect one target.

Yes, I know, I edited my post.

My suggested DR is to make it so only it applies to each healer.

Make it so the 2nd healer only adds 50% effectiveness, 3rd person adds only 25%, 4th adds only 12.5%, etc.. So any more then 2 wouldn’t really worth it unless it’s a seriously dire situation.