Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen discussions related to my suggestion in the past. Did a search using the forum search tool and found nothing, as expected. For those curious, I got 5 unrelated posts searching with “dodg”. I’m just curious, has my suggestion already been discussed?

Dodge affects all areas of the game. It is a good, active mechanic. However, the invulnerability it gives is very powerful. It tends to trivialize certain encounters. I am not suggesting that the invulnerability simply be removed. Incoming damage could just be reduced by a given percentage. My connection isn’t always the best, and others certainly have it worse. I understand how frustrating it is to try to dodge an attack, but fail due to lag.

I’d like to include skills that give evade as well. Maybe the amount of damage reduction could differ depending on whether it’s dodge, evade(by skill), or distortion.

Conditions would be tricky to deal with, but maybe a similar reduction in duration could work when dodged.

Knockbacks and such would be even more tricky to deal with. I’m not sure of a good way to deal with this situation. It might require that each type of CC affect a dodging player differently. The more powerful CCs may need more visible tells.

This suggestion would mean that some non-projectile attacks, like necro scepter 1, will always hit the target. They may need to be changed around a bit. It would be interesting to see some skills unaffected by dodge. This would not be a simple fix, by any means. The whole game will require tweaking to accommodate the proposed change.

Off topic: I personally don’t like what dodge currently does to encourage stacking in dungeon encounters. If it were a damage/condition duration reduction, then the defensive and supportive stats could actually play more of a role in fights. This fix certainly won’t solve all issues with dungeons, though.

TLDR: The invulnerability from Dodge could be replaced with an effect that gives damage reduction and condition duration reduction.
(Suggestions for CCs?)

As with all online games ‘lag’ will always be an issue. The one-shot kill /wipe unless you dodge is annoying for higher lag scenarios. Not much can be done to change that.
The only thing I can suggest here is watch the boss and look for those early tells/signs of big single hit incoming (most of them have several seconds of build up or a sequence of skills they use- it’s not random).

That’s why you are limited to so many dodges/it’s on a slow regen.

Dodge is meaningful – ‘you dodged that bullet/arrow’ = you got clean out of the way just in time (no dmg taken – makes sense). Having dodge just be a % reduction of dmg you might have taken removes the purpose of dodge. It would mean that people with heavy armor can take even more dmg compared to light/medium further causing more imbalances.

There are normally some skills in each char class which are ‘un-dodgable’ – there are limited for good reason.

TPMN.1483:

Dodge is meaningful – ‘you dodged that bullet/arrow’ = you got clean out of the way just in time (no dmg taken – makes sense). Having dodge just be a % reduction of dmg you might have taken removes the purpose of dodge.

Except it’s not even a dodge atm, it’s just an invulnerability with a roll animation tacked onto it.

TPMN.1483:

As with all online games ‘lag’ will always be an issue. The one-shot kill /wipe unless you dodge is annoying for higher lag scenarios. Not much can be done to change that.
The only thing I can suggest here is watch the boss and look for those early tells/signs of big single hit incoming (most of them have several seconds of build up or a sequence of skills they use- it’s not random).

That’s why you are limited to so many dodges/it’s on a slow regen.

Dodge is meaningful – ‘you dodged that bullet/arrow’ = you got clean out of the way just in time (no dmg taken – makes sense). Having dodge just be a % reduction of dmg you might have taken removes the purpose of dodge. It would mean that people with heavy armor can take even more dmg compared to light/medium further causing more imbalances.

There are normally some skills in each char class which are ‘un-dodgable’ – there are limited for good reason.

Sorry, I meant that I understand why the invuln is there in the first place. I’m not saying that dodge should purely be used to move out of the way of attacks, since lag is the issue there.
Also, in most cases in this game, it’s not quite what you described. It’s more like: you dodged a Lava Font or that move that Subject Alpha does by throwing yourself through it.
I forgot about the disparity between the different armor classes. Maybe they’ll be tweaked to account for this. I’d like to see certain traits that upgrade dodge to a greater reduction in damage and/or condition duration.
I’d like to emphasize that this would be a huge change to the game and would require other things to be changed around too.

No.

If you have lag issues, I empathise but that’s your issue. I wouldn’t buy an FPS and then ask for enforced tab targeting because I happened to be playing on a crud laptop.

I admit that my suggestion will not change anything for those that already have lag issues. Please stay on topic. I fixed the one sentence that you read to hopefully clear up any confusion in the future.

Still a no.

This isn’t aimed at you specifically, but why are people so desperate to facetank in pve exactly?

They don’t need to change dodge to fix the PvE problem.

Mobs don’t heal, don’t really mix up a set of sklls, don’t hit often, hit hard when they do hit and are quite ignorant and will run right up to you even though they have a bow.

Mobs behavior is what needs to be changed, not gear stats, dodge, or any other player functions. If mobs hit more than once every 10 to 15 seconds, dodge would become something that needs to be used but it would also encourage people to want to use toughness and vitality since they won’t be able to just dodge everything now. Thier hits should also be reduced so that toughness and vitality are useful and not still be one shot by the mob. Not saying they need to take away their one shots completely, just not every ability should be a one shot or hit so hard to make the player wonder why they even bothered with toughness and vitality.

I had proposed in another thread the following with regards to making defensive stats more worth while:

Vitality: Impacts energy regeneration. Higher vitality means you can dodge more often.
Toughness: Impacts dodge effectiveness. Say base dodge is 50% dmg reduction. Higher toughness would increase the damage reduction amount.

So dodge would then have varying levels of effectiveness and frequency based upon how you stat defensively. I think this is a neat alternative to nerf’ing zerker and DPS based builds/stats.

I’m going with no.

Dodge is active combat and damage mitigation. That’s the fun part of combat.
What your suggesting is basically going back to the dark ages of MMO’s where stats are everything. Toughness and Vitality make a difference and can still be useful without any changes to them.

TexZero.7910:

I’m going with no.

Dodge is active combat and damage mitigation. That’s the fun part of combat.
What your suggesting is basically going back to the dark ages of MMO’s where stats are everything. Toughness and Vitality make a difference and can still be useful without any changes to them.

Stats are everything — that’s the point. If you’re a clutz you don’t dodge as well.

EDIT: You have choices that’s the point. If you spec glass canon you shouldn’t have the exact same defensive abilities as someone who specs brick wall. That’s why stats are important.

from a logical standpoint… no it doesnt make sense, lol. Dodging = no damage.

Now as for blocking~ that could be changed to reduce damage instead of take no damage. So what you want is for block to be changed and given to all classes.

juno.1840:

TexZero.7910:

I’m going with no.

Dodge is active combat and damage mitigation. That’s the fun part of combat.
What your suggesting is basically going back to the dark ages of MMO’s where stats are everything. Toughness and Vitality make a difference and can still be useful without any changes to them.

Stats are everything — that’s the point. If you’re a clutz you don’t dodge as well.

EDIT: You have choices that’s the point. If you spec glass canon you shouldn’t have the exact same defensive abilities as someone who specs brick wall. That’s why stats are important.

This is where you’re under the assumption that stats are everything, yet complaining that people with 0 defensive stats are as durable than those who go with raw defensive stats. There’s a reason why stats aren’t everything it’s active combat. The use of CC’s/Blinds/Ret/Aegis/Prot/Dodge etc…. make all glass cannons viable pending they actively use this to their advantage instead of using merely stats to cover for it.

Change dodge so that it gives 75% damage reduction to all ground-based attacks such as traps and AoE. You’re moving out of the way of a spike trap but you’re still getting hit by a spike or two. Makes sense. It should still grant full avoidance to direct attacks though.

And I don’t see how Block makes any more sense than dodge in being a % damage reduction. Especially not blocking with a shield. (ie: Shield Stance, Gear Shield, etc) Perhaps weapon and magic blocks could be % based but not shield blocks.

Sure if the cc effect from the attk dose not go off. To let ppl say thf class able to land there unbreakable stun 100% of the time will comply brake the class in all formats.

Bearhugger.4326:

Change dodge so that it gives 75% damage reduction to all ground-based attacks such as traps and AoE. You’re moving out of the way of a spike trap but you’re still getting hit by a spike or two. Makes sense. It should still grant full avoidance to direct attacks though.

And I don’t see how Block makes any more sense than dodge in being a % damage reduction. Especially not blocking with a shield. (ie: Shield Stance, Gear Shield, etc) Perhaps weapon and magic blocks could be % based but not shield blocks.

66-75% damage reduction on aoe sounds about right, I’d say allow conditions to still apply from aoe at the reduced damage, but give immunity to all cc, as well as cripple, chill, and immobilize for the duration of the dodge.

Block could use some work as well, right now it’s just aegis on a duration instead of a charge and really kind of boring. Something more like a 220 degree frontal arc that blocks anything, while leaving you open from behind would make for some really interesting positioning tactics instead of just rotating your various forms of invincibility.

Fenrir.3609:

No.

If you have lag issues, I empathise but that’s your issue. I wouldn’t buy an FPS and then ask for enforced tab targeting because I happened to be playing on a crud laptop.

+1

I totally agree with this.

I’m all for discussion but I don’t see the need for people to propose sweeping changes like this; why fix something that isn’t broken?

No to this nonsense.

A Dodge is meant to make you avoid damage, it simply makes zero sense to receive still damage, when you didn’t got hit…

Just pure nonsense, but its just clear that such stuff can come only from people, which have problems with it due to lags.

Get a better pc/better internet, then you have lesser lags and if you can’t get better internet in regard if your DSL speed, than ask your internet provider for “Fastpath” to reduce your Ping Times with that to get that way less lag.

If thats still not helping, then reduce some of the graphic settings, because so more you exaggerate it with the graphic settings, the more can it cause lags for your pc, especially in large battles with tons of AoE effects gettign spammed, like for example a Tequatle Fight or in Wvw, when two big fiended groups are crushing into each other causing a massive effect spam.

But it makes absolutely no sense in any kind of way to make dodges not let you completely avoid incoming damage, because thats exactly the sense behind a dodge to do exactly this, the intention behind it.

True Orpheal, but it’s a mechanic that’s independent of your gear which is one of the causes to DPS gear being better that sustain gear (there are a million posts on this throughout the forums so no point in debating it here).

One way to put value into non-DPS gear is to associate the innate defensive abilities of Dodge with non-DPS stats (i.e. defensive stats… gasp).

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

They don’t need to change dodge to fix the PvE problem.

Mobs don’t heal, don’t really mix up a set of sklls, don’t hit often, hit hard when they do hit and are quite ignorant and will run right up to you even though they have a bow.

Mobs behavior is what needs to be changed, not gear stats, dodge, or any other player functions. If mobs hit more than once every 10 to 15 seconds, dodge would become something that needs to be used but it would also encourage people to want to use toughness and vitality since they won’t be able to just dodge everything now. Thier hits should also be reduced so that toughness and vitality are useful and not still be one shot by the mob. Not saying they need to take away their one shots completely, just not every ability should be a one shot or hit so hard to make the player wonder why they even bothered with toughness and vitality.

This is the real problem. Not dodge, not gear…it’s the very fundamental mechanics of PvE. Between Unshakable, stupid AI, and TKOs, no amount of player-side alterations will solve the problem.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Mobs […] will run right up to you even though they have a bow.

That’s because if they’re seen ranging with a bow, Zhaitan kicks them from his party. :p

This would be a terrible change in my opinion. Dodge would be only a active way to have pretty much the Protection Boons if it only mitigate the damage. No i like that i need to learn the encounter, find the animation and dodge at the right moment to evade a big attack. The problem with dodge is that you can use so often. I end up using it to evade not only big attack, but also a bunch of normal attack from all kind of mobs. If we had less endurance regen, and less access to almost to completly constant vigor (like on the guardian) this would force player to watch more carefully our endurance and keep our dodge for specific attack big attack that would kill you or take away a huge chunk of your life. This would also force people to use other tools to survive encounter. For exemple, in Fractal against the Grawl Shaman. When my team have some people to rez, i usually agro the Grawl on me and keep him away from people that need to be rez. I have a constant Vigor in fight because of my build, but even with that i don’t have enough dodge for all his agony arrow, and since i’m Zerker i don’t have the life to survive more that 1-2 Arrows. So i use all the tools i have available. My heal block, my elite make me invulnerable, i have 3 aegis, a wall of reflect and a block with my focus. How many times do you have to think about all those other skills? A very few time. I rarely time my heal to block a specific attack, i use my elite in desperate moment, and my focus when i rez someone in the middle of the fight. But i rarely need them to keep my alive or block something specific, because i have so many dodge against enemy that usually attack at a slow rate.

You take this out and you’ll have to get Anet to redesign a bunch of boss encounters.

I.e. Grenth kill phase.

In a zerg, there is absolutely no way you will be able to get out of the ice aoes alive without dodging. A damage reduction won’t help at all.

While you have a point in PvE Juno, I think that your suggestion could lead to disaster scenario’s for damage spikers in PvP and WvW.

CreativeAnarchy brings up the solution that is in my eyes the best. Changing encounters to include more pressure damage.

I’ve elaborated on that (and other things) in this thread a few months ago.

I actaully really like the suggestion. I think making dodging too powerful, makes mitigation kind of useless in boss encounter.

That being said, it is kind of weird that you dodge a bullet and still take damage.

The Lost Witch.7601:

While you have a point in PvE Juno, I think that your suggestion could lead to disaster scenario’s for damage spikers in PvP and WvW.

CreativeAnarchy brings up the solution that is in my eyes the best. Changing encounters to include more pressure damage.

I’ve elaborated on that (and other things) in this thread a few months ago.

Except that damage spikers themselves would have less-than-optimal dodge due to glass build.

I’m sure my proposal of making it’s effectiveness based upon defensive stats (vit, tough) would be a bit difficult to polish on ANet’s end. Then there’s effects to consider, say you dodge an attack for 55% dmg reduction but the attack also include a debuff like blind or bleed. So should it be RNG (55% in this case) to completely avoid the debuff, or should the debuff be reduced in duration (again 55% reduction in this case)? Interesting ideas that create another layer of depth to builds.

laokoko.7403:

I actaully really like the suggestion. I think making dodging too powerful, makes mitigation kind of useless in boss encounter.

That being said, it is kind of weird that you dodge a bullet and still take damage.

It is equally as weird that you dodge through an explosion, field of fire, ice wall, etc… and take no damage.

Realism has very little part of this argument.

What you are suggesting OP is basically what wildstar is doing as their next iteration of an action based combat. You get 2 dodges that reduce damage or completely avoid it in certain situations, but in other situations you still take some damage. You also get a sprint which lets you get out of the way of some attacks as well.

However in that game something like 90% of the moves are free targeted, AOE attacks since it was designed around that kind of combat. Unfortunately i don’t think it would work in GW2 because you would basically need to redo the entire game in order to make it work.

There is a lot to learn about action MMO combat from this game, hopefully developers in future games will learn from all the mistakes made in combat here.

Scynte.1340:

I’ve seen discussions related to my suggestion in the past. Did a search using the forum search tool and found nothing, as expected. For those curious, I got 5 unrelated posts searching with “dodg”. I’m just curious, has my suggestion already been discussed?

Dodge affects all areas of the game. It is a good, active mechanic. However, the invulnerability it gives is very powerful. It tends to trivialize certain encounters. I am not suggesting that the invulnerability simply be removed. Incoming damage could just be reduced by a given percentage. My connection isn’t always the best, and others certainly have it worse. I understand how frustrating it is to try to dodge an attack, but fail due to lag.

I’d like to include skills that give evade as well. Maybe the amount of damage reduction could differ depending on whether it’s dodge, evade(by skill), or distortion.

Conditions would be tricky to deal with, but maybe a similar reduction in duration could work when dodged.

Knockbacks and such would be even more tricky to deal with. I’m not sure of a good way to deal with this situation. It might require that each type of CC affect a dodging player differently. The more powerful CCs may need more visible tells.

This suggestion would mean that some non-projectile attacks, like necro scepter 1, will always hit the target. They may need to be changed around a bit. It would be interesting to see some skills unaffected by dodge. This would not be a simple fix, by any means. The whole game will require tweaking to accommodate the proposed change.

Off topic: I personally don’t like what dodge currently does to encourage stacking in dungeon encounters. If it were a damage/condition duration reduction, then the defensive and supportive stats could actually play more of a role in fights. This fix certainly won’t solve all issues with dungeons, though.

TLDR: The invulnerability from Dodge could be replaced with an effect that gives damage reduction and condition duration reduction.
(Suggestions for CCs?)

All these elements are already in the game though. There is no need to waste dev time on them.

Dmg reduction vs white dmg: Toughness, high Vitality stat, Prot, regen, aegis, various blocks and special abilities such as mist form, in many cases stability counters any damage where CC and damage is combined in same attack, etc.

Dmg reduction vs condi: -condi duration, vitality, regen, prot, passive effects such as guards Signet of Judgement which affects all dmg received condi included, blocks (when initial condi application is block then the condi doesnt get applied and doesn’t tick), various condi cleanses, passive abilities such as diamond skin or automated response etc.

If people chhose to trait 30,30, x, x, x and dont run appropriate utility skills and ignore their toughness and vitality stats then come complain here about taking damage, then those are their personal L2P issues, not problems with the game.

Usagi.4835:

I’m all for discussion but I don’t see the need for people to propose sweeping changes like this; why fix something that isn’t broken?

I’m going with “Because we do not agree that it isn’t broken” .

Dodging, conceptually, is about avoiding damage as opposed to reducing it, so I think Anet got this right for it’s intended use in the combat system. And, as has been noted, changing something so fundamental as dodge is non-trivial. It has a resource cost and there are times when there is more to dodge than resources allow. It must be used intelligently.

More to the point is the notion that dodge is somehow uniquely responsible for things like stacking behavior. Recently someone suggested that the problem was a lack of player-player collisions. I don’t think it’s that simple. It’s more about how combat is conceived in terms of combat roles and general mechanics.

As others have said before, I believe the solution lies in improving encounters by giving mobs faster, weaker attacks.

As you may (not) have noticed, Anet is already working on reducing the amount of endurance regeneration players get; they have started back in the Dec 10th patch and will continue to do so with the upcoming balance patch (guardian and mesmer getting a longer cooldown for vigor on crit traits). In doing so, I believe it is safe to say they acknowledge that dodging is too powerful at the moment and they are trying to tone it down a bit. Key word here: toning down. Not throwing out the window.

@OP:
You pointed out many flaws in your own suggestion, namely the difficulty in dealing with conditions and CC. While it is honorable to try and come up with a special rule for each skill, situation and encounter, it leaves us with a very complex and far from intuitive system. I would once again encourage Anet to continue to go step by step and use mechanics already available. For example, weakness could be a much more common condition: it decreases both direct damage and endurance regeneration.

Also, skills unaffected by dodge are already in the game. This includes (but is not limited to): Mai Trin’s teleportation shot, AC’s Spider Queen AoE circles, and Static Field. There’s at least one or two more, but I can’t remember off the top of my head. All of the above, however, are still blockable.

Lastly, I don’t really like quoting marketing material as an argument, but it does show that the combat system boils down to “be quick or be dead” for the most part. Take it with a grain of salt nonetheless:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/

Combat in Guild Wars 2 is flexible, fast-paced, and dynamic. You’ll achieve victory through timing, dodging, and quick thinking, not immobile number-crunching.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

laokoko.7403:

I actaully really like the suggestion. I think making dodging too powerful, makes mitigation kind of useless in boss encounter.

That being said, it is kind of weird that you dodge a bullet and still take damage.

It is equally as weird that you dodge through an explosion, field of fire, ice wall, etc… and take no damage.

Realism has very little part of this argument.

Because dragons, zombies and teleports are totally realistic.

I could see this if all classes have the same hp and defense, but they don’t.

That’s really as far as this conversation needs to go, I think.