Guild Wars 2

When you have five Skills and two or three or even five are AoE what are you suppose to use? just because its one mob wont stop players using all their assigned skills?

Its not like we have oodles of choices in skills to take down said mobs…

JonathanSharp.7094:

Mirta.5029:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted to let you guys know that we’re reading this thread.

Your logic, reasons, anecdotes and ideas are being listened to. Also keep in mind, that as I said yesterday, a skill can be a balance problem in one area of the game, but underpowered in another. That’s the nature of using one set of #‘s to balance across all areas of the game. So we’re keeping that in mind as we look at this. We may need to do different tweaks in different areas of the game.

We’re also not going to make a knee jerk reaction to this. We’re still gathering data, watching player trends, and having meetings on all possible ramifications from possible changes.

thank you for the answer, it calmed me down. If you think there’s a problem with AoE in WvW, nerf it in WvW, but not PVE, because nerfing AoE in PVE when some classes already have problems would effectively kill off engineers and staff builds of mesmer, elementalist and necromancer.

No prob. Some classes have a ton of AOE, while others don’t have as much. So we’re not just going to do a blanket nerf to all AOE – that’s not fair to all classes. We’ll go on a class by class, weapon by weapon basis.

And as I’ve said, we may need to tone something down in one area of the game, but it may be totally fine in another area.

For some weapon sets, the AOE options may be too strong compared to the single target options, which is what we aim to address.

I’m just wondering, I know some skill behave different in spvp than they do in WVWVW and pve. Will there also be a split between WVWVW and pve, since at some points i have the feeling pve gets nerfed due to wvwvw while there was no need to nerf pve and the other way around. Of course I’m a player and there wise I don’t have access to all the data you gather, but since i play both pve and wvwvw (no spvp though, I hate the idea of getting rating for pvp as a individual or small group, where in wvwvw it is a an server and there wise it dose not bug me that much), I have me own experiences that sometimes give me this immersion. Like with certain ele nerfs that indeed where needed for wvwvw, but that actually made me quit playing my ele and ending up as a necro because my pve build just didn’t feel viable anymore. It was a very tanking hard to kill build support build, but on the other side damage output was very low, due to the fact I only had have offensive stat on each piece, either power or persion.

dear god, people can overreact, they said tweeking, not nerf overall. Classes are far from balanced and if you read these reactions you can see why. The sky ain’t falling in for 100 less or more damage, learn to adjust and trust in the team kitten This isn’t their first run, and as far for AOE they are correct, AOE is OP and it’s the biggest imbalance between classes atm.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Mirta.5029:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted to let you guys know that we’re reading this thread.

Your logic, reasons, anecdotes and ideas are being listened to. Also keep in mind, that as I said yesterday, a skill can be a balance problem in one area of the game, but underpowered in another. That’s the nature of using one set of #‘s to balance across all areas of the game. So we’re keeping that in mind as we look at this. We may need to do different tweaks in different areas of the game.

We’re also not going to make a knee jerk reaction to this. We’re still gathering data, watching player trends, and having meetings on all possible ramifications from possible changes.

thank you for the answer, it calmed me down. If you think there’s a problem with AoE in WvW, nerf it in WvW, but not PVE, because nerfing AoE in PVE when some classes already have problems would effectively kill off engineers and staff builds of mesmer, elementalist and necromancer.

No prob. Some classes have a ton of AOE, while others don’t have as much. So we’re not just going to do a blanket nerf to all AOE – that’s not fair to all classes. We’ll go on a class by class, weapon by weapon basis.

And as I’ve said, we may need to tone something down in one area of the game, but it may be totally fine in another area.

For some weapon sets, the AOE options may be too strong compared to the single target options, which is what we aim to address.

If anyone thinks AOE is too strong in WVW i challenge you especially Devs to come run with me for a night.Im on Maguuma we can party and see how it goes. I am a staff Elementalist and stand on walls in the line of fire alot. You can typically stand there taking AOE damage from attackers for 15-30 secounds. Then its easy you step back 5 feet and heal. Compare that to the warriors damage or the thieves burst damage where you cannot simply step out of. AOE damage on walls is horrid right now compared to siege, it takes forever to AOE a keep door down.We are already limited to 5 people that can receive the damage.If you make it more single target damage doesnt that kind of eliminate AOE’S all together?

Wow let’s make the least played classes that focus on AE even more ineffective. See Necro, Engineer.

Fox.3469:

dear god, people can overreact, they said tweeking, not nerf overall. Classes are far from balanced and if you read these reactions you can see why. The sky ain’t falling in for 100 less or more damage, learn to adjust and trust in the team kitten This isn’t their first run, and as far for AOE they are correct, AOE is OP and it’s the biggest imbalance between classes atm.

Can you give some specific examples of how it is “the biggest imbalance between classes?”

I’m not aware of any class which lacks a strong AoE option (even thief, which is very single target centric, has shortbow).

Do you feel there’s imbalance because you can’t tag a lot of mobs during events? Do you feel there’s imbalance because zerg v zerg fights in WvW turn into a mess of red circles on the ground? What specifically do you believe is imbalanced?

Mortalitas.9710:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Mirta.5029:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted to let you guys know that we’re reading this thread.

Your logic, reasons, anecdotes and ideas are being listened to. Also keep in mind, that as I said yesterday, a skill can be a balance problem in one area of the game, but underpowered in another. That’s the nature of using one set of #‘s to balance across all areas of the game. So we’re keeping that in mind as we look at this. We may need to do different tweaks in different areas of the game.

We’re also not going to make a knee jerk reaction to this. We’re still gathering data, watching player trends, and having meetings on all possible ramifications from possible changes.

thank you for the answer, it calmed me down. If you think there’s a problem with AoE in WvW, nerf it in WvW, but not PVE, because nerfing AoE in PVE when some classes already have problems would effectively kill off engineers and staff builds of mesmer, elementalist and necromancer.

No prob. Some classes have a ton of AOE, while others don’t have as much. So we’re not just going to do a blanket nerf to all AOE – that’s not fair to all classes. We’ll go on a class by class, weapon by weapon basis.

And as I’ve said, we may need to tone something down in one area of the game, but it may be totally fine in another area.

For some weapon sets, the AOE options may be too strong compared to the single target options, which is what we aim to address.

If anyone thinks AOE is too strong in WVW i challenge you especially Devs to come run with me for a night.Im on Maguuma we can party and see how it goes. I am a staff Elementalist and stand on walls in the line of fire alot. You can typically stand there taking AOE damage from attackers for 15-30 secounds. Then its easy you step back 5 feet and heal. Compare that to the warriors damage or the thieves burst damage where you cannot simply step out of. AOE damage on walls is horrid right now compared to siege, it takes forever to AOE a keep door down.We are already limited to 5 people that can receive the damage.If you make it more single target damage doesnt that kind of eliminate AOE’S all together?

seriously? yes please transfer to mag n make numbers even more ridiculous. Huge xfers have meant yaks/isle defenders have <1/4 force and maps are dominated by mag, so its very hard to see the node defense issue when you might have 2 ele’s/necro’s laying fields on a node attempt. When 5+ fields are all layed on a gate constantly by mindless zerg, go and repair without mist form, there is your challenge that won’t happen on mag because of the huge transfers and an imbalanced match. Most wvw’s have seen this issue and line of sight aoe definitely needs a nerf

Snow White.9680:

As someone who plays a class that has next to no aoe abilities, and is always struggling for loot because of it, I’m very excited about this change.

Nice job ANet Thanks for listening!

If that’s really the basis of complaint, the real issue is that a single profession lacks AoE abilities, and should probably be given at least one weapon set that’s strong for AoE.

However I’m not aware of any profession like that. Even a thief can use a shortbow for ranged AoE.

It sounds more like a complaint of wanting the entire game catered to the strengths of a particular profession using a particular weapon combo.

I would love to know more specifically though what your situation and experience is.

ArenaNet, could you please explain what this change means for weapon sets that feature strong AoE but weak single target damage, for example Elementalist staff?

“For some weapon sets, the AOE options may be too strong compared to the single target options, which is what we aim to address.”

“If your skill does 10 damage to a single target, if you have another skill that has the same opportunity cost but deals 8 damage to 5 targets, the AoE skill is better – we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs.”

Taking what you said at face value, the logical conclusion is that Elementalist staff AoE skills would be nerfed to something like 50% of their current yield, because that is the magnitude of nerf required to achieve your stated goal (i.e. making AoE skill damage against a single target lower than single-target skill damage).

So now everyone will play thief.. W vs W will be a joke now.. AOE damage is a problem when is made by siege.. a well fortified keep with decent superior siege can hold zergs with no problems at all..

Now let’s all play thief and make W vs W a big pvp arena.. it’s fun how they want to nerf this and thief’s keep winning vs 2 or 3 enemies easily with perma stealth and huge damage

Elysios.9274:

So now everyone will play thief.. W vs W will be a joke now.. AOE damage is a problem when is made by siege.. a well fortified keep with decent superior siege can hold zergs with no problems at all..

Now let’s all play thief and make W vs W a big pvp arena.. it’s fun how they want to nerf this and thief’s keep winning vs 2 or 3 enemies easily with perma stealth and huge damage

culling, ones that is fixed thief’s will cry. Since due to culling their stealth is effective 1 or 2 secs longer and they can actually attack in that time without getting a debuff that will prevent stealth. So once it’s fixed they have to chose between getting the debuff or being visible instantly.

morrigana sedai.2091:

Elysios.9274:

So now everyone will play thief.. W vs W will be a joke now.. AOE damage is a problem when is made by siege.. a well fortified keep with decent superior siege can hold zergs with no problems at all..

Now let’s all play thief and make W vs W a big pvp arena.. it’s fun how they want to nerf this and thief’s keep winning vs 2 or 3 enemies easily with perma stealth and huge damage

culling, ones that is fixed thief’s will cry. Since due to culling their stealth is effective 1 or 2 secs longer and they can actually attack in that time without getting a debuff that will prevent stealth. So once it’s fixed they have to chose between getting the debuff or being visible instantly.

off topic but culling/rendering bug is actually when the character model isn’t redrawn on other players screens for a period after exiting stealth (or any1 exiting a mesmer portal) due to latency. The stealth debuff is working as intended, char models just aren’t redrawn. Much more important than an aoe tweak

AOE isn’t a problem. There are some problems with how people use it perhaps, but AOE itself is actually really, really necessary in PvE and almost all classes use it.

Is the problem that people are using AOE a lot? Well,
1) We don’t always get to see the number of targets (culling)
2) Combos require AOE a lot of the time
3) People leave and join combat often, so AOE makes sense to prevent that
4) There are way more AOE skills in the game than single-target skills
5) PvE is balanced around AOE skills, so people are more familiar with them
6) Some classes / builds essentially only have AOE skills
7) ZERGS. How do you expect a small group to take on a huge zerg? AOE should level the playing field and makes it less worthwhile to bunch up.

AOE is popular for all those reasons. Those are all good reasons, and not a reason to nerf AOE. They might be a reason to buff some single-target skills, not including the thief backstab, etc, that are already way OP.

Only saw 1 person complaining about PvE loot, but PvE loot is terrible anyway so it makes sense that anything that potentially makes that worse would be irritating. My warrior and thief with little AOE don’t see worse loot than my ele, but maybe for some people it’s different. Buffing PvE loot (already in the cards) and giving classes with single-target damage more AOE options are 2 ways to handle PvE farming needs. Or, how about taking 50% of the mobs out of PvE so we don’t get swarmed trying to go from point A to point B? I can get 3+ mobs on my tail just trying to walk down the road. If that was only 1 mob, single-target skills would be much more attractive.

Honestly, if you’re really really freaked out about AOE use in WvW, I think the best thing to do at this point is separate PvE and WvW skills. Because the AOE-heavy classes already do so much less damage than the single-target classes it’s not even funny.

You want to know why most eles run a bunker build? It’s because we can’t kill mobs fast enough to survive anyway, so we might as well go bunker. Eles and engineers are already having problems in dungeons, don’t make this situation worse by nerfing AOE.

Also, last point – why are you judging people’s playstyle? The only thing we’ve heard really is that you think people use AOE skills too much. That’s a playstyle judgement, and we haven’t heard any real concrete reason for changing it other than ‘the devs don’t think people should be playing this way’. That’s kind of worrisome honestly – I’m sure you have some reasons, but could you put them out there more so we can have a talk about how to fix those issues?

TLDR:
Give single-target classes more options, tweak WvW to make zerging less attractive, rebalance PvE so we don’t get huge mob trains on our tails. These are all things that will make your preferred playstyle more efficient. Could you put our more details about what worries you with AOE use so we can fix the underlying issues instead of nerfing?

morrigana sedai.2091:

Elysios.9274:

So now everyone will play thief.. W vs W will be a joke now.. AOE damage is a problem when is made by siege.. a well fortified keep with decent superior siege can hold zergs with no problems at all..

Now let’s all play thief and make W vs W a big pvp arena.. it’s fun how they want to nerf this and thief’s keep winning vs 2 or 3 enemies easily with perma stealth and huge damage

culling, ones that is fixed thief’s will cry. Since due to culling their stealth is effective 1 or 2 secs longer and they can actually attack in that time without getting a debuff that will prevent stealth. So once it’s fixed they have to chose between getting the debuff or being visible instantly.

Their single target damage which is way over the top as it is. Their shortbow clusterbomb is also very good, and on a weapon that probably has some of the best weapon skills in the game, offering mobility/teleport, immobilize (from stealth), dodge+cripple, aoe poison field, a blast finisher which can also be used as an aoe bleed, and a auto attack which bounces between targets.

I`ve been looking all over the net on some of the more visited gw2 and mmo related websites and the overall reaction this aoe fiasco is very negative. Most players feel like anet is not listening to them, implementing changes that were not asked for. Instead of fixing bugs that plague certain classes ever since the betas or make certain weapons more attractive (you know, like the ones almost nobody uses) they choose to release half finished areas (lost shores), and now, take out the few tactical advantages a small organized team had over a zerg in wvw.
I keep hearing about “esports” yet, look how many people play tpvp, look at the ques sometimes, the boring meta and the lack of basic things, like leaderboards and many many other things. Don`t get me wrong guys, i`m not bashing the tpvp scene, but compared to it the number of players doing wvw is, by far, a lot larger. A lot of people seem to think wvw is all about zergs, but if you look closely at it, there are a lot of tactics involved, both at a macro and micro level. A small team can make a huge difference and can help grab a lot of objectives while a zerg is busy somewhere else, can cut reinforcement, harass, and so on. Nerfing aoe`s even further (the 5 target limit is just asinine) will make a lot of things harder for a force that is outnumbered.
I`m not sure what triggered this whole crusade against aoe damage, if thye`re doing it to balance tpvp or wvw pvp but, like usual, they`re not telling us anything. They keep saying they will be more transparent, but all i hear is “i cant comment on this now”, “we`ll reveal more in the future” or just plain silence. Ask in the necro forums for example how ignored people feel there, the last dev post was like a month ago and it didnt say much really.
I hope there are people around who played Warhammer online and remember the old bomb squads of bright wizards/sorc with guard from a tank. Now THAT was aoe that needed nerfing. The aoe in gw2 is rather weak to be honest, most abilities have cooldowns, so spamming them is out of the question. They`re easy to notice also, since you get a red circle that simply tells you to move out of there. I`d only agree with a nerf to the radius of aoes if it makes stealth break on damage. That would even things out a little.

Huh? Since when is AoE an issue? This is new to me.
I have little AoEs on my classes, the only strong AoE combo that comes to my mind is teleport+churning earth, but it is balanced due to the long cast time, infact most times I’m able to avoid it.
Shatter AoE is quite strong but very counterable.
I’m mostly a WvW player tho so maybe you noticed something in sPvP/PvE that I didn’t see.

I am curious why they looked at applying a broad nerf to AOE in general first rather than buffing the (few) single target attacks some classes have to make them a useful alternative worth considering in leiu of spamming the staples? They are right in saying you’ll prefer the 8 damage AOE but some classes have so many AOE attacks that an overall nerf to AOE feels like you are gutting them.

The real problem is in class design and weapon abilities. A nerf won’t fix that. Perhaps they need to revise the weapon attacks for a better mix of AOE, single target, and buff/debuff type attacks and even defensives. Somehow I think most everyone would get behind that idea even if its unlikely to occur.

The thing that gets me is that GW2 has a really fun base play model with fighting that will keep some people playing while overlooking the issues elsewhere. By building on that with better thought out abilities you strengthen the game as a whole. You don’t want to take the fun out of playing with a nerf that makes people feel gimped or like they fight with a wet noodle of an arm instead of being an actual hero.

I wonder if they will also tone down the NPC/Boss AoE blanketing of event areas. Now they are at times really unfair.

As I said in another post, AoE is not an issue and we have seen no compelling evidence to that effect. Anecdotal comments so far are just that, don’t withstand scrutiny and are in fact contradictory.

This is just a treat the symptom rather than the disease approach.

The issue is not AoE and JS hinted at part of a real underlying issue…the non-AoE skills on some weapon sets are weak. The answer is NOT to weaken the AoE but boost the non-AoE components so players can CHOOSE the most effective ability themselves (and even make mistakes) rather than have them prescribed through make alternatives useless.

Also players need to just get out of the red circles…even with a high ping I can usually manage that (PVE) and AoE stacking (both PVE and PvP) could be controlled thru limiting target areas to a specific number of simultaneous AoEs.

It is amazing that so many players have just blindly accepted that the is an AoE issue. We have seen no evidence of it…we have seen some of the symptoms mentioned above but AoE is not the underlying cause. And this is what I am driven by with this. A half-baked analysis of the issues will not yield good outcomes. And I have seen no real analysis and evidence that supports the contention that AoE is the issue and needs some sort of nerfing.

Zonzai.2341:

As ANet and several posters have already said, THERE WILL BE NO ACROSS THE BOARD AoE NERF. Read the kittened thread for kitten’s sake.

Right, they said there will be no “blanket nerf to all aoe”, which is in direct contradiction to what they said in the livestream, which is that they would reduce the effectiveness of aoe “across the board”.

Clearly their idea of what they think they are doing is changing, but the criterion that they will be using to evaluate whether or not a particular weapon set’s AoE abilities need nerfing has not changed.

So it’s understandable that classes like Elementalist are freaking out because this proposed change appears to have come straight out of an Excel spreadsheet as opposed to playtesting, with little thought for how this will actually impact the classes.

Astralporing.1957:

Ooh, let me guess – a dagger thief?

Actually, I play a pve mesmer.

If aoe is supposed to be the counter to stealth, which it already does poorly, and they nerf aoe, then what happens?

Okay so I have followed this thread from beginning until the post just above me… AOE… OP? Really? I main a mes and we have 3 reliable AOE abilities 2 of which depend on our weap choices… Our slot skill AOES do 0 count it 0 direct damage but depend on the enemy to do something in reaction. So let me lay out the AOE abilities we have… Mind Wrack does High AOE damage. But can be blocked dodged and so on. Plus clones can be killed before reaching the target making it much less effective. The only way to really be stuck in a mindwrack is if you are crippled or immobilized. Mind Stab GS#3 if anyone EVER thought that this ability was OP then well they are doing it wrong. Damage is less than our effing auto attack and it removes a boon on hit but the cast time is SO LONG as well as the effect to trigger that by the time it actually pops out of the ground at your target location the enemy is already 500 units in the opposite direction. Chaos storm apply random boons to yourself and allies and random conditions to your foes. This is the only way a mesmer can innately apply more than 1 or 2 damaging conditions at a time and none of these conditions last for longer than a few seconds. ANet devs…. I will believe your AOE needs to be nerfed philosophy when my chaos storm is as crazy damaging as the kitten risen illusionists in the Ruined City of Arah… Now I know its a dungeon and the enemies are supposed to be challenging…. But 1 second inside that chaos storm dropped over half my health not geared as a glass cannon…. You can let me believe you care about balance when you take a hard look at how you balance the power in several of your NPC mobs. Until then I take all comments you make about balance with a grain of salt. That being said balance WITHIN classes. SURE thats great! Make the mesmer glamour or mantra build more viable. Balance BETWEEN classes…. Tread lightly friends. A game where all classes are perfectly balanced leads to stale play. If class A can do one thing AMAZINGLY well but class B cannot you do not balance to where class B now has an exact cookie cutter replica of class A. You day okay what can class B do that class A cannot? How do we change the way that skill performs to bring it that one skill up so that people look at class B and go Wow they do this amazingly well and it really helps us deal with class A. It needs to be handled case by case not blanket.

^And I know that Jon Sharp and others have said it will not be blanket here but they said in the video that it is across the board. The post here looks more like saving face over what was said in the video. I want numbers I want classes they are looking at in terms of the AOE damage and how they will balance inside the classes out if they go through with the nerf.

Snow White.9680:

Actually, I play a pve mesmer.

I play PvE mesmer as well using staff and scepter/focus as my weapons. It is true that the AoEs in the weapons itself are not highly prevalent but all shatters are AoEs as well. They have about same radius as untraited lava font has.

I’ve focused on clone generation which means I can push out both mind wrack and cry of frustration with three clones both pretty much the moment I open battle. This means that in events I hit most of the enemies in a group since they like to hug. Additionally I can drop chaos storm and phantasmal warden for extra AoE damage.

Forgets thief’s lets nerf AoE because that’s what the community wants. Genius.

LOL… yeah seriously… Do the game designers and people calling the shots have a crazy obsession with the thieves? Its ridiculous all classes EVEN some thieves think that some thief traits need toned down while others need buffed to be made viable. But from left field… they decide that AOE is a problem. Not stealth… Not a GC thief’s ability to insta down any bunker in the game… Bunkers are a response to a bigger problem… Burst….

Valento.9852:

They designed elementalists in a way that the class does make sense, this nerf/rework will have to adjust graphically with the class (animations and such) and its philosophy.

@Edit
Oh, and ele players never ever complained about other classes who have much stronger AoE attacks despite this being one of our class’ highlights.

I agree. When you look back at Alliance Battles in GW1 with map designs that are closest to the current sPvP set-up, everyone rolled with eles to roll through the capture point, and then bunkered them there if they need holding.

jportell.2197:

^And I know that Jon Sharp and others have said it will not be blanket here but they said in the video that it is across the board. The post here looks more like saving face over what was said in the video. I want numbers I want classes they are looking at in terms of the AOE damage and how they will balance inside the classes out if they go through with the nerf.

Agreed. It doesn’t help that most ANet devs that are involved in profession balancing are PvP nuts. For example of the three game devs interviewed at least Jonathan and Matt are highly involved in WvW and PvP side of the game. I don’t really know anything about the third guy but many older ANet developers such as Izzy and Jon are also very PvP focused.

Most balance changes so far have been driven by PvP or WvW. You hardly ever hear anything from developers that work on actual PvE. Except maybe from Jeffrey but he is a “new guy”. Are there even anyone in the “balancing team” that is actually a PvE enthusiast as opposed to PvP/WvW?

Besides I’ve hard time understanding many of the balance decisions anyway – or lack of them. There are professions in the game that are mediocre at best (i.e. necro, engi). There are professions that have a single or few stupidly strong builds (i.e. apparently ele) while everything else is mediocre. Then there are professions that are very good (guardian, warrior, mesmer) and a profession that is outright broken in one aspect of the game while still being at least decent out of it (thief).

I have very little faith that they in fact do a reasonable change. I fear they merely look at ranged AoE and conveniently ignore the melee AoE. Similarly I suspect they will mostly focus on elementalists because of the way how staff is used in WvW. The worst thing that they could do is move most AoE damage to single target autoattacks which pretty much means that against single foe you will just autoattack because that’s the most efficient way to do combat.

Edit: I see some posts here referencing statements that seem to answer my post whereas other statements seem to suggest there is no clarification yet – sorry if it has in fact been truly answered

Hesitant to post here since I know my question may likely get lost in the sea of posts… but I’m curious if Anet is referring to all AOE in a blanket sense, or if they mean aoe attacks that are also stapled on to relatively strong direct damage attacks.

For example, meteor shower is in ability that does no direct damage to any single target upon cast (meaning activating the ability itself does not direct damage a target).

On the other hand, Fireball is an ability that does direct damage as well as aoe damage.

I wonder if perhaps they are more concerned with things like the latter (Fireball) which does both direct and aoe damage moreso than pure AoE spells (like Meteor Shower).

I’m merely curious.. I hope they do clarify… but I guess I shall see regardless when the patch hits. Also, if there IS clarification on this already and I missed it, I do apologize – I try to collect accurate info but sometimes it’s hard to get all sources of dev posts etc.

Northlander.4619:

Snow White.9680:

Actually, I play a pve mesmer.

I play PvE mesmer as well using staff and scepter/focus as my weapons. It is true that the AoEs in the weapons itself are not highly prevalent but all shatters are AoEs as well. They have about same radius as untraited lava font has.

I’ve focused on clone generation which means I can push out both mind wrack and cry of frustration with three clones both pretty much the moment I open battle. This means that in events I hit most of the enemies in a group since they like to hug. Additionally I can drop chaos storm and phantasmal warden for extra AoE damage.

I understand that is it POSSIBLE to aoe on a mesmer. The problem is the amount of time / set up. Especially since other classes can hit 1 spell and do equal or more dmg.

FateZero.8536:

Jay.3284:

GoZero.9708:

I’d really like to see gameplay videos and data that ANet bases their standards on.

This x100. Their patches seem to be abysmal and feel like they don’t play their own game. It’s getting a bit absurd now.

Yes, I also would love to see how ANet derive their so called observation/data to make these abysmal changes. Dev, are you willing to come out and clarify this with the playerbase? or are you going to delete this post of mine, give me an infraction and PM me saying it’s not a healthy discussion?

That is exactly what they did to me for voicing my opinion! I never attacked anyone, I just voiced my opinion and was infracted for it. Obviously I can’t give you my opinion now, or I risk further punitive actions. I think sometimes that devs / moderators don’t agree with someone and hand out infraction points all too easy….. sad really.

Shlamorel.8714:

I wonder if perhaps they are more concerned with things like the latter (Fireball) which does both direct and aoe damage moreso than pure AoE spells (like Meteor Shower).

I doubt they are concerned about fireball. Fireball is mostly single target with tiny AoE. They most likely mean skills like lava font, meteor shower, eruption, ice spike and the scepter AoEs.

I believe the issue here is that a team of elementalists can do a massive amount of AoE damage with those skills because attunement swapping allows you to basically lay down multiple high damage large AoEs one after another.

Snow White.9680:

Northlander.4619:

Snow White.9680:

Actually, I play a pve mesmer.

I play PvE mesmer as well using staff and scepter/focus as my weapons. It is true that the AoEs in the weapons itself are not highly prevalent but all shatters are AoEs as well. They have about same radius as untraited lava font has.

I’ve focused on clone generation which means I can push out both mind wrack and cry of frustration with three clones both pretty much the moment I open battle. This means that in events I hit most of the enemies in a group since they like to hug. Additionally I can drop chaos storm and phantasmal warden for extra AoE damage.

I understand that is it POSSIBLE to aoe on a mesmer. The problem is the amount of time / set up. Especially since other classes can hit 1 spell and do equal or more dmg.

So should classes be brought to a middle ground? Should ele’s then have clones? Should Warriors have stealth? Should engies then have portals? Mesmers can do things that other classes can not do. It’s the nature of having distinct professions that certain classes should excel in certain areas that other do not, and vice versa. I would not give up my main ele’s ability to lay down effective aoe to do single target damage in line with a thief. That’s what the thief profession excels at, as it should be.

I would suggest to only nerf AoE skills based on how many targets it hits. An AoE skill hitting 1 target should still have the same damage as it have today, but when your AoE skills are hitting 5 people it should lower on damage and MAYBE raise the cap on how many people it can hit.

Eviscera.9703:

I would suggest to only nerf AoE skills based on how many targets it hits. An AoE skill hitting 1 target should still have the same damage as it have today, but when your AoE skills are hitting big zergs up to 10 people it should lower on damage and MAYBE have a cap on how many people it can hit.

Aoe skills only hit five people currently.

killcannon.2576:

So, essentially, you are saying you want classes brought to a middle ground? Should ele’s then have clones? Should Warriors have stealth? Should engies then have portals? Mesmers can do things that other classes can not do. It’s the nature of having distinct professions that certain classes should excel in certain areas that other do not, and vice versa.

Mesmers can keep their portals. But let’s not pretend that they aren’t incredibly broken.

The fact that a single person can singlehandedly drop 30+ enemies right into the middle of your WvW keep with NO effort on your team’s part….that’s an indication that the idea, while cool, is more than a tad broken right now.

And that’s part of the point really: there are so many other much more broken things out there that this focus on an across-the-board AoE “tweaking” seems like a total waste of time.

killcannon.2576:

Snow White.9680:

Northlander.4619:

Snow White.9680:

Actually, I play a pve mesmer.

I play PvE mesmer as well using staff and scepter/focus as my weapons. It is true that the AoEs in the weapons itself are not highly prevalent but all shatters are AoEs as well. They have about same radius as untraited lava font has.

I’ve focused on clone generation which means I can push out both mind wrack and cry of frustration with three clones both pretty much the moment I open battle. This means that in events I hit most of the enemies in a group since they like to hug. Additionally I can drop chaos storm and phantasmal warden for extra AoE damage.

I understand that is it POSSIBLE to aoe on a mesmer. The problem is the amount of time / set up. Especially since other classes can hit 1 spell and do equal or more dmg.

So should classes be brought to a middle ground? Should ele’s then have clones? Should Warriors have stealth? Should engies then have portals? Mesmers can do things that other classes can not do. It’s the nature of having distinct professions that certain classes should excel in certain areas that other do not, and vice versa. I would not give up my main ele’s ability to lay down effective aoe to do single target damage in line with a thief. That’s what the thief profession excels at, as it should be.

Well said… All professions have certain class mechanics that should make them special… Trying to Nerf something to bring it in line with other classes is a bad design philosophy. Nerfing something to bring it inline within the class…. Better but still a bad design philosophy. Buffing something to bring it on par with the highly favorable builds inside the class… There is something worth looking at… And I hope is something they do. Balance needs to be within classes before between classes and even then it should not be PERFECTLY balanced which will lead to extremely stale play. There needs to be some form of imbalance even if only slight. To keep it interesting.

1 Anet don’t lie to yourself. There is no going around PVE/PVP split for some of the skills. You already broke your own rule with Safe Yourself and boon runes.

2. Alpha team has to much influence (see wvw aoe topic for my long arguments). Where are we in this story? Aren’t we as important or ‘right’ about things? Your making off book implies you will take our council to heart, well read all 300+ messages here then. With an open mind please. You guys are (honestly) biased, because, you know if ascended weapons will come or not, if they will have better stats, and if so how much. Your mind is already taking this info into account for aoe ‘update’ (fix is not right description, more of a nerf imo). Please don’t biase yourself around info you know, and we don’t. The game is what is it, and that is the live steam of game. Not what is in your planning book.

3 Apart from few skills, i hardly think aoe skills are op. Post below this one will elaborate on Meteor shower, 100 blades and churning earth (three Iconic aoe skills, on why anet is wrong). Keep in mind other aoe’s are even weaker, so even without the listed aoe skills downsides, they are very ok.

4) I’ve always hated auto attack damage on some weapons. Especially condition damage themed auto attacks are terrible and unreliable. This is the bigger simptom rather then fixing aoe’s. Like why do scepter (mesmer, ele), auto attacks, do such bad damage? You push people to the other weapons, which by mere coincidance have more aoe’s.

5) all the most potent aoe’s (except Clusterbomb perhaps) have cooldowns. Meteor shower, 30 secs not usable. Churning earth same. That alone is punishment alone. In another game, some of the cooldowns where 30 min. (but the effects where 100x bigger then any guild wars 2 skills). I think cooldowns are a punishment that is vastly underestimated by JonathanSharp & Co. Guild wars 2 is a much faster paced mmo then most (you can die super fast), so don’t even think about increasing any of the existing cooldowns they are fine. I often change weapons to find out the skill I planned to use is still on cooldown. Enough balance for me.

6) Unbalanced in wvw? Are you joking? 5 limit is an incredible limitation. Right now 30 vs 50+ zerg can hold of some time (not forever), by putting the right aoe’s, in right environment (small passage). You are saying ‘fine, 30 man team, we find it justified you are screwed, so we will take away you ability to hold of the much stronger enemy with aoe’s. No way.

7) Ok still about wvw aoe, but now the ‘kill potential’, wich seems OP in JonathanSharps & co opinion. Role a elementalist. Make him full berserker. Try to even cast a meteor shower on a wall, against a 50+ zerg attacking you. Just test it (you are here to do that right?). The most probable answer is, ‘you are right phoebe, I died before my aoe cast was complete, I must admit, Berserker is not reliable on elementalist, unless played in team or incredible careful, wich by itself is a very big downside’. Now try a more balanced option (mix some defence, aka water, with air traits), use knight gear (still defence but good offense too). You damage will be good, but nothing spectacular. 1k crit at most on bunkers, 2k on glass canon (their fault, they are not eligable for complaining). Ive RARELY killed people with this. rarely. This is not a lie to defend the skill. People run out of meteor shower, because they know it hurts them. Ive had much better succes with single target focused damage (admittedly, the few reliable that exist) focussed damage. I suddenly got more kills and drops. Aoe to potent? No thanks. Wrong.

8) The ‘and wvw’ part in your sentence, seems a bit put their to cover yourself from WvW responses. Still your last updates where purely PVP focussed decision, if wvw counted even a little bit, some of the updates would have been done differently. The only exception being mesmer portal. Still that was a nerf. I can’t remember a boost to any skill ever, that definitely seemed intended for wvw. You guys seem to displace wvw as the least important part of the game (and pve too). In pvp stats are tremendous boosted (compared to other game environments), that makes any balance there, unbalanced in other game settings. Any nerf there, is a triple nerf in pve, and half a nerf in wvw. Stop forgetting about this please.

9) Many parts of pve consist of loads of strong monsters attacking you at the same time. Are you implying that when 10+ strong mobs (Orr, fracts, any veterans of sort, twin bosses etc), will have a free lunch at us? If single target damage is the most viable damage (result of nerfing aoe by any degree), then it means we will kill these monster tremendous slow, being killed in the process of not having a ‘breath’-moment (to regen hp, cool down of skills).

10) What about existing aoe penalties? Casting times? Roots? 5 target limit? Easely interrupted? If you nerf aoe’s, then why should these downsides still exist? Why should be be triple punished for something? Now your heart may say ‘this aoe nerf is justified’. But realize having to work around all these downsides at the same time, is not fun (wich is exactly what game is about). If i remember correct, Jonathan, it was you who scrapped ‘all warrior skills’ cost adrenaline, because it just made warrior unplayable. In my humble opinion a severe aoe nerf (without single existing punishment removal), is not playable either.

10) Broken single target skills. Sometimes in wvw people go downed, and CANNOT be hit by anything for some strange reason. Cause they somehow, manage to abuse the terrain (like they go slightly below the earth). Ive seen it happen about 20 times in my wvw career. Funny fact? Aoe was the ONLY VIABLE way to kill them. Point? Fix bugs first. Then balance.

11) If you nerf aoe damage, i’ll go to thief or mesmer. My point? You push a player that like his profession to another he likes not so much, but that he knows is much more viable at the job (single target damage).

12) Aoe’s are necessery strategy against some professions. Mesmer clones. I can’t count how many times i killed 10+ clones, downed the real mesmer down to 25% hp, and he still somehow got away in the chaos of renewed clones (I had mesmer control +T’ed so somehow he used skill that made me target one of his clone, like decoy perhaps. Aoe are viable here. If you push us to single target damage, then mesmer is superior overpowered. With all the clone fooling/tanking, mesmer will have twice (if not triple) the survivability of other profession.

13) Continuing point 12. Thiefs using shadow refuge. One of the most powerfull skill in wvw, and only can be countered by ONE MEASURE. Aoe’s. Even with current damage rating, my aoe’s only ever killed twice or so a thief in Shadow refuge. (100+ times they still escape my aoe spam in it, or survived it simply). Nerf even more? Halleluja. Thief profession here I come!

14) Nerfing or removing aoe from Wvw and it’s strategy impact. Siege weapons only viable thing? Server who are reluctant to use siege will fail automatic? Arrow cart nerfed? Or kept and it will overpower any aoe skill ingame (because nerf)? This means defending something will be an autofail at some point (cant defeat a force with only 1-1 tactics).

15) Tiny ledge in defence building, on top of the walls that look at the enemy, is incredible anoying. You must stand onto it or you cannot damage enemy, even if it is right into your sight. Either remove it (i can live with it – even though it makes aoe’ing wall easier), or you fix it so ledge itself does never ever cause ‘obstructed’ to defenders. Now ‘rush aoe cast’ get out to survive’, is the only method (and you must stand onto dangerous ledge for that).

16) If aoe’s are overpowered, why do you insist on giving monster superior aoe abilities? I know it’s part of the challenge, but if you nerf our capability, why can the fractals dredge path, endboss battlesuit, aoe with such overpowering madness? It can aoe kill you twice in like 5 secs. Dodging one time is not enough if he keeps focus on you he will lock onto you again. The aoe make if you happen to stand in middle dodging fail (you still inside aoe marker). And worst, you MUST take his aoe, or fail the debuff at times. I like challenge, but i fail to see why player would get nerfed while mobs retain this ability. There is no counter to a well placed aoe by the battlesuit. Especially not when he does 5 in a row (happened twice today).

17) I have 5400 wvw kills. Some player loads more then me. Still you guys never ever have enough time to do this much wvw. My conclusion? Every wvw battle is different. Playing one day or week, will definitely give wrong impressions. Wvw is so chaotic, that wrong conclusion are easely drawn. OP aoe’s seems one of them. (at first week i might have agreed, having played wvw so much, I vastly disagree). Spammable immobalize killed me way more often then any easy to avoid aoe.

18) Wvw downed state is now messed up (can be somewhat countered by devastating aoe’s), but with single target damage, being much more viable then aoe’s, will turn the zergfests into ‘target vs target’, ‘if target does downed, we ress him fast’ endless battles. The biggest zerg will most likely win now (now smaller zergs sometimes win, by betteer aoe strategy). You want to take away this intense feel of strategy and involvement?

19) Guild wars 1 Elementalist is incredible underpowered. long cast time for weak aoe’s, wich way to high mana penalty. Roots are much bigger punishment in gw2, so the added roots equal mana penalty. But their tremendous low damage, is a nightmare. Do the same to gw2 and you will a lot of damage to the community. Do not in a single moment use Gw1 memories/principals for the continuüm of guild wars 2.

20) No matter how carefully you proc the data, your already confidant idea of nerving aoe damage will one way or another destroy certain build, play styles, even professions. You nerfed enough by now. It’s time to stop. Only PVP has reasons for nerfing (so all class are equal), but in wvw/pve, if anything, boost unreliable single target skills. Please for the love of guild wars 2, the 5 Gods, and the community, do no stupid aoe nerfs. Saying you’ll do it carefull, is like saying ‘tonight we’ll drive off a cliff, but we’ll do it carefully’. Get it? Please no nerf. Nerving = player fun destroyed. Player fun destroyed = game destroyed. Game destroyed = Anet existance? I know this is exaggerated, but you guys often take decision (faulty ones) so easely, it makes me think, you guys think you are at an immortal job throne. Of course that is not true.

Aoe Elaborating.

Churning earth, superior long casting time, a single move, stun or daze, Knockdown, screws the skill. Secondly a high damage melee profession, can dish out a lot of damage in those 3 secs casting time. That alone is balance. Nerf it, destroy it.
Meteor shower. Long cast time, roots. If player forces you do move or dodge, bye bye meteor shower. I used meteor shower a lot, and its only viable when fully cast (not interrupted early). That is quite hard both in wvw and in pve. Sometimes in wvw i really want to finish the cast and my hp drops from 17k to 3k. Then I must go out very fast or die. The funny thing is, this risky action I just performed, killed nobody. They all just backed out of meteor shower because it’s so obvious. Or they got a ress in downed. PVE meteor shower is a gamble. Sometimes only 3 meteors hit (bad damage). Sometimes a lot of them hit. Even when a lot hit, i think elementalist deserves a unique aoe capable (still with lot of gamble in it, and risk) skill like this. You can nerf it again (after beta nerf). But you will also destroy the skill usefullness.
100 blades, only hits 3 ppl. Here the nerf is there already. 100b is a 100% root, in super dangerous melee range, where aoe’s might kill you in a few seconds. (it is known mobs focus on closest enemies thus the warrior most of time, and then spam both melee + aoe attacks on them. in fracts this mean super heavy agony damage + aoe + condition + melee damage). That alone make this skill balanced. The only reason the perception is there this skill is to strong is because the attacks add damage, in one number, making it look like a huge damage strike. A meteor shower or some auto attacks, almost do the same damage in the same lifespan. Hell a thief can do a 30k strike in 4 secs. So again perfectly balanced. Even with the very high damage of this skill, gravelings in AC die super slow, i think i would need 4x 100b (fully going off), to kill one single graveling (the bigger ones, not the smallest). Why would you punish us to even worse, almost certainly die a few times, scenario’s in dungeons, by nerfing skills like this?

killcannon.2576:

Should engies then have portals?

Actually….yeah. On this ONE, I would have to say “yes”. Engineers should have some kind of portal-like ability. Maybe a “blast catapult” or something.

There’s at least two places in-game where NPC engineers can launch your character. One in Lion’s Arch (to reach a vista), and the catapult/cowtapult. Giving engineers a portal-ish ability with different mechanics to it would be a great improvement.

Just don’t make it a kit that equips you with a white, gun-like device that you use to generate the portals. It would be fun, but Valve might sue.

Snow White.9680:

I understand that is it POSSIBLE to aoe on a mesmer. The problem is the amount of time / set up. Especially since other classes can hit 1 spell and do equal or more dmg.

Could you elaborate which class you mean? Certainly not necro. Staff elementalist can do more damage but not with a single skill and the damage is far from instant unlike with mesmer.

I’ve a level 80 elementalist, guardian, mesmer, necromancer, and ranger. I play nowadays only PvE because I detest all the thieves in WvW. I don’t team PvP at all. I play following weapon combos:

Elementalist. Traits: 30 fire/10 air/10 water/20 arcane. ~15k hp. Gear cdam/pow/vit. Utility is arcane wave (for staff combos), mist form, and signet of air. Weapon is staff because it allows me to stay in range and provides good team support for events. I always skip veterans and any enemy resistant to mez as both are too dangerous. I used to play dagger/dagger but staff is just a much safer choice. Also impossible to D/D dungeons. Note: While I don’t play my ele much nowadays I’ve him parked at shatterer so he sees some action now and then.

Guardian. Traits: 30 zeal/30 honor/10 virtues. Gear is pow/tgh/vit. Utility is shouts. Greatsword and staff are the weapons. I hardly ever use staff though and I have plans to change it to scepter/focus. “Stand your ground” + binding blade + symbol + whirling wrath + leap. A few more swings and everything around you is dead. Stand your ground ensures you aren’t interrupted because pretty much every enemy group has one puller in Orr. Greatsword is just really good and fun weapon and guardian itself extremely hard to kill. Other weapons are not bad either except maybe torch but they lack the synergy of GS.

Mesmer. Traits: domination 20/chaos 20/illusions 30. Gear pow/vit/cdam. Utility is usually mirror images, decoy, blink because I need the clones for shatters. Weapons are staff and scepter/focus. I am contemplating about switching focus to precision/pow/crit now that I dropped the sword. Sword forces you to pick the stability mantra and I just hate the illusionary leap because it often keeps failing. I started with torch instead of focus but torch doesn’t really have anything useful while focus has the swiftness curtain which is a must. Currently mesmer is my favorite.

Necromancer. Traits: 30 spite/30 death magic/10 blood magic. Gear is pow/cdam/vitality. Utility is wells. Staff is the weapon of choice since I only farm with this guy (which means I spent most of my time on this guy). The only worthwhile weapon is the staff because necro kills pathetically slow so you want as many enemies around you as possible. Everything else is bad. Axe is low damage. Scepter is even worse. Dagger is the best in damage which is actually quite sad considering its overall pretty low damage. It is also purely single target. Plus necro lacks stability completely which makes it hard to melee in Orr.

Ranger. Traits: skirmishing 30/wilderness survival 20/nature magic 20. Gear is a mix but as much precision as humanly possible. Utility is traps with signet of hunt. Weapons are axe/warhorn and greatsword. I almost always use axe because warhorn allows me to buff my crit rate even higher plus it’s a nice team buff. Axe itself is okay. Certainly better than sword which autoattack I hate. If greatsword came with a critical boost I’d use it more.

I see no reason why Arrow Carts should ever hit less than an ele’s meteor shower.
Professions should not have area control compared to things that need supply to make.
Compensation for said change should also be accounted for. (Boost some 1 on 1 to make them worth using!)
I welcome this change with open arms

Northlander.4619:

I believe the issue here is that a team of elementalists can do a massive amount of AoE damage with those skills because attunement swapping allows you to basically lay down multiple high damage large AoEs one after another.

The thing is, team set ups require a good coordination. If they don’t have it, people can just leave the aoe area and the spike fails. A good example would be stacking churning earth- they need to designate the area and use communication software to synchronize the cast and warp.

IMO, devs shouldn’t be punishing teamwork.

edit: as for meteor shower v arrow cart- meteor shower has a 4.25 sec cast time and 30 sec cool down and 1200 range.
Arrow carts can be fired continually and have 2500 range.

Navzar.2938:

edit: as for meteor shower v arrow cart- meteor shower has a 4.25 sec cast time and 30 sec cool down and 1200 range.
Arrow carts can be fired continually and have 2500 range.

Yeah, I was going to say this and you beat me to it. Fun fact: arrow carts used to hit a LOT harder back in beta. Remember that? LOL … bodies everywhere

Causic.3798:

I see no reason why Arrow Carts should ever hit less than an ele’s meteor shower.
Professions should not have area control compared to things that need supply to make.
Compensation for said change should also be accounted for. (Boost some 1 on 1 to make them worth using!)
I welcome this change with open arms

Siege weapons can hit a maximum of 50 players, player aoe a max of five. So…you were saying?

Palador.2170:

killcannon.2576:

Should engies then have portals?

Actually….yeah. On this ONE, I would have to say “yes”. Engineers should have some kind of portal-like ability. Maybe a “blast catapult” or something.

There’s at least two places in-game where NPC engineers can launch your character. One in Lion’s Arch (to reach a vista), and the catapult/cowtapult. Giving engineers a portal-ish ability with different mechanics to it would be a great improvement.

Just don’t make it a kit that equips you with a white, gun-like device that you use to generate the portals. It would be fun, but Valve might sue.

You can buy the portal gun from a NPC, and I have no clue how to make the cattlepault small and mobile.

No, its not. gimme my aoe back

killcannon.2576:

Palador.2170:

killcannon.2576:

Should engies then have portals?

Actually….yeah. On this ONE, I would have to say “yes”. Engineers should have some kind of portal-like ability. Maybe a “blast catapult” or something.

There’s at least two places in-game where NPC engineers can launch your character. One in Lion’s Arch (to reach a vista), and the catapult/cowtapult. Giving engineers a portal-ish ability with different mechanics to it would be a great improvement.

Just don’t make it a kit that equips you with a white, gun-like device that you use to generate the portals. It would be fun, but Valve might sue.

You can buy the portal gun from a NPC, and I have no clue how to make the cattlepault small and mobile.

please keep things on topic, this is a topic on AOE.

AoE is neccessary in the core gameplay simply becuase the game revovles around faster paced combat with multiple mobs. How many times in Orr or Dungeons have you ever fought with just 1 mob at a time? AoE is neccessary becuase you’re usually fighting 2+ guys at the same time in PvE. If you lower that, fights will take longer (forcing you to use more auto attacks, unless they decrases the CD on weapon skills to compensate) and players will die more, especially classes that rely on quickly killing something to survive (thief, ele). Basically if this goes through the game will become less fun overall. They would have to atleast double the damage of single target skills by whatever was nerfed in AoE just to allow for a small drop in the pace of gameplay. I don’t see this happening. Lots of potential to ruin the game’s fun factor here, and that fact that they’re considering it makes me think they don’t know what fun is.

The whole issue with aoe is Anet’s fault. And its not a problem with the aoe skills themselves, its the fact that 85% of encounters end up you vs a zerg of mobs. The natural response on how to deal with this is to get aoe. The same can be said for WvW when you see a zerg you bring aoe.

So the solution to the problem would be to focus more on single encounters, not to nerf aoe. In regards to wvw, this is difficult because anet can’t control the nature of the zerg in that environment.