Guild Wars 2

Aza.2105:

My friends,

Anet is suggesting we bring single target builds to a aoe fight. Instead of doing what is right and using aoe skills to kill groups of monsters. But there is a problem…..most encounters in gw2 are with groups of monsters fighting you. Single mob fights are quite rare, I’d say 85% of fights consist of groups of mobs attacking you….while the other 15% is a single target fight.

A aoe change would make the game worse, due to the fact that CC is quite weak. Typically in many mmos, to assist single target damage dealers you use CC to immobilize, sleep etc the mobs. But in gw2, things like immobilize last 2 secs, blind is only on next hit and so forth. So there is no time to CC and single target dps a mob then move to the next one.

GW2 is a aoe game, so its natural for everyone to use aoe skills over single target ones. In fact, I wondered why single target skills even existed in the game, thinking that maybe it was a mistake. If Anet wants single target skills to become stronger all they have to do is simple increase the amount of single mob encounters.

That I agree and add:
Arena net said they didn’t intended those AoEs to be used as player use it now. In other words it is ANet’s caprice and not real balancing as there is no need for balancing. AoEs have good restrictions, procs and cooldowns as well as channeling conditions. Good example is AoE that freaks out all non ele players – Meteor Shower. It looks devastating, does huge damage and so on but people forget facts:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meteor_Shower

So ele must stand still for 4,25 seconds and channel spell – do not ever forget how ele vulnerable is and this can be easily intrupted
meteors doesn’t always hit target(s) – you can cast it on one target and it might happen it has been hit only once or up to 5 times, my personal record is 3
Once casted, spell is on very long cooldown on 30 seconds.

In other words, ele can NOT spam this spell. This spell can NOT be main source of ele’s damage. What people usually don’t see is ele swap attunements and use other staff spells that are also AoE and most of them are not noticable as Meteor Shower. Everybody will say now “See ele just spam it”. Well don’t forget IT IS difficult to constantly swap attunements, it is difficult to manage attunements cooldowns (you didn’t know attunements have cooldowns just like spells?) at the same time keeping everything at the distance (do not ever forget how ele fragile is).

Also, other AoE spells are not easy catchable by the enemy. Take eruption as example:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Eruption

Most people don’t see this at all and numerous times our enemy was kicked out of AoE by knockback (usually by melee classes).
What is the issue here – this spell has channel of 1,75 second but once casted it doesn’t do damage – it waits for 3 seconds and mobs or people can easily move away from AoE.

Another example Static Field
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Static_Field_

This is almost instant cast but huge cooldown and more over, it is possible will not do any damage on enemy.

Another
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ice_Spike

It has slow drop and just as Eruption, enemy can move away.

So what we have? Lava font and flame burst that also can’t be spammed. Nerf? Seriously? These are the current state facts. And it is not balancing issue – it is ANet’s desire not to use AoE, simply as that.

P.S: I am quite sure it is the same/similar with other classes. Even though Necro has shorter cooldowns, his staff AoEs are all visible and all are traps so they can be avoided with ease. Nerfing is also not an option for necro.

Inkubus.7529:

Aza.2105:

My friends,

Anet is suggesting we bring single target builds to a aoe fight. Instead of doing what is right and using aoe skills to kill groups of monsters. But there is a problem…..most encounters in gw2 are with groups of monsters fighting you. Single mob fights are quite rare, I’d say 85% of fights consist of groups of mobs attacking you….while the other 15% is a single target fight.

A aoe change would make the game worse, due to the fact that CC is quite weak. Typically in many mmos, to assist single target damage dealers you use CC to immobilize, sleep etc the mobs. But in gw2, things like immobilize last 2 secs, blind is only on next hit and so forth. So there is no time to CC and single target dps a mob then move to the next one.

GW2 is a aoe game, so its natural for everyone to use aoe skills over single target ones. In fact, I wondered why single target skills even existed in the game, thinking that maybe it was a mistake. If Anet wants single target skills to become stronger all they have to do is simple increase the amount of single mob encounters.

That I agree and add:
Arena net said they didn’t intended those AoEs to be used as player use it now. In other words it is ANet’s caprice and not real balancing as there is no need for balancing. AoEs have good restrictions, procs and cooldowns as well as channeling conditions. Good example is AoE that freaks out all non ele players – Meteor Shower. It looks devastating, does huge damage and so on but people forget facts:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meteor_Shower

So ele must stand still for 4,25 seconds and channel spell – do not ever forget how ele vulnerable is and this can be easily intrupted
meteors doesn’t always hit target(s) – you can cast it on one target and it might happen it has been hit only once or up to 5 times, my personal record is 3
Once casted, spell is on very long cooldown on 30 seconds.

In other words, ele can NOT spam this spell. This spell can NOT be main source of ele’s damage. What people usually don’t see is ele swap attunements and use other staff spells that are also AoE and most of them are not noticable as Meteor Shower. Everybody will say now “See ele just spam it”. Well don’t forget IT IS difficult to constantly swap attunements, it is difficult to manage attunements cooldowns (you didn’t know attunements have cooldowns just like spells?) at the same time keeping everything at the distance (do not ever forget how ele fragile is).

Also, other AoE spells are not easy catchable by the enemy. Take eruption as example:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Eruption

Most people don’t see this at all and numerous times our enemy was kicked out of AoE by knockback (usually by melee classes).
What is the issue here – this spell has channel of 1,75 second but once casted it doesn’t do damage – it waits for 3 seconds and mobs or people can easily move away from AoE.

Another example Static Field
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Static_Field_

This is almost instant cast but huge cooldown and more over, it is possible will not do any damage on enemy.

Another
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ice_Spike

It has slow drop and just as Eruption, enemy can move away.

So what we have? Lava font and flame burst that also can’t be spammed. Nerf? Seriously? These are the current state facts. And it is not balancing issue – it is ANet’s desire not to use AoE, simply as that.

P.S: I am quite sure it is the same/similar with other classes. Even though Necro has shorter cooldowns, his staff AoEs are all visible and all are traps so they can be avoided with ease. Nerfing is also not an option for necro.

You do realize Anet was mainly speaking about pve and not pvp…. so skills on short cd like dragons tooth that do considerable AOE damage….. multiply that by 4 other aoe’s from your group and mobs drop fast…. but thats the point I thought.

Otherwise get rid of all the mobs in encounters….. dredge in fractals for example… always like 10 or more of them on your group for most of that fractal…. the shaman fractal at the start theres groups spawning non stop for the first few minutes…. then the flame shaman boss that spawn lava worms….pretty sure this game is built around aoes…. and if not why make all the encounters and areas require aoes, and make single target skills kitten weak?

Ya sure lets nerf AOE’s because thats not how we intended content to be done…. yet we added 5-10 mob spawns all over the place where the only effective way to pass is to aoe lol….. some pretty fail kitten logic on anets part if you ask me.

aoe should be set, less than 5 targets u gain the damage but if more were in the aoe are damage is reduce. more targets in aoe less damage. easy fix

Namu.5712:

You do realize Anet was mainly speaking about pve and not pvp…. so skills on short cd like dragons tooth that do considerable AOE damage….. multiply that by 4 other aoe’s from your group and mobs drop fast…. but thats the point I thought.

Otherwise get rid of all the mobs in encounters….. dredge in fractals for example… always like 10 or more of them on your group for most of that fractal…. the shaman fractal at the start theres groups spawning non stop for the first few minutes…. then the flame shaman boss that spawn lava worms….pretty sure this game is built around aoes…. and if not why make all the encounters and areas require aoes, and make single target skills kitten weak?

Ya sure lets nerf AOE’s because thats not how we intended content to be done…. yet we added 5-10 mob spawns all over the place where the only effective way to pass is to aoe lol….. some pretty fail kitten logic on anets part if you ask me.

Scroll down to Q: Elaborate your plans for changing AoEs
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/16rsh9/jan_17_dev_livestream_summary/

Seems like both PvE and PvP will be affected. But dragon tooth even dough it does a lot of damage he has very slow fall and mobs easily avoid it.

I think ANet doing things upside down. On some other page I found they claim they want to make single target profession stand out. If so, why they don’t make our single target abilities more interesting (not more powerful) so players would want on their own to use them more and not so many go for AoE.

I am going back into this video
http://www.twitch.tv/mmorpgcom/b/358339359

If we have situation where all professions are equally present in the game, it means players do not have problem with balance. Clear sign of:
- lack of ideas
- die hard anti AoE mentality

Fook.3914:

aoe should be set, less than 5 targets u gain the damage but if more were in the aoe are damage is reduce. more targets in aoe less damage. easy fix

if you give the chance to choose, you can be certain that you wouldn t see almost any AoE in dungeon ever.

But the choice is not by nerfinf some skills and buffing other….
Many classes uses ALL their skills so it would just become an unnecessary knee jerk nerf to many classes (depsite what they say).

Any decent solution to the problem needs lot of work…..something that i do not expect in a patch……

Like giving for example the choice for ANY spell to be single targeted for more damage..

At that point you just see how baseless was the statement on aoe in dungeons.

This AOE proposed nerf is really scary to me because I enjoy playing a necromancer and a grenadier engineer wearing full berserker gear. Even they do considerable damage with AOE, still nothing compared to warrior and thief dps with the same gear albeit mostly to a single target. As so many have pointed out, a flat out nerf would render these two classes unplayable and even further ostracized if that was even possible. This really leaves a bad taste in my mouth and if the nerf was bad enough, force me to stop playing even though I have spent many hours getting the gear etc for my characters.

Inkubus.7529:

Scroll down to Q: Elaborate your plans for changing AoEs
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/16rsh9/jan_17_dev_livestream_summary/

ARGH, THAT LINK!

One of the issues brought up a lot in WvW./sPvP is AoE (Area of Effect). We feel like they are too strong at the moment and a lot of people in WvW are gaming the system using AoEs.

“Gaming the system”? How? What are you talking about?

The people “gaming the system” are the ones abusing culling and stealth in tandem to create a system whereby you can’t SEE the targets you’re trying to shoot. Mesmers are “gaming the system” with portal bombs of 30+ players. People using AoE against a zerg (which is what the skills are supposed to be used for) is NOT gaming the system.

Reducing AoE effectiveness to bring them in line with the single target damage skills.

They don’t need reduced effectiveness, and making them weaker only encourages zerging.

Major update coming to all the AoE skills – make classes that are good at single target damage stand out a bit more.

….so you’re going to nerf AoE and buff classes that deal single target damage well (like the Thief)?

….I have no words.

i just want to quote this as the worst statement ever by Anet that managed to make possibly all (non thieves) players agree against it:

•If your skil does 10 damage to a single target, if you have another skill that have 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.

The real thing is…
Players are forced by class design to use 8 dmg AoE skill against single targets losing 2 points of damage…… <==

This is what happens.
Elementalist, for example, would pay to have all their AoE changed to single target and damage upscaled accordingly-….

They don t have any 10 damage single target skill, they have few 1 dmg single target skill….they are forced to use randomly when they wait for their 8 dmg AoE they were FORCED to use against 1 target.

To be honest, I think I would like it if the ele staff were changed to be more like the ranger longbow. As in, some single target burst skills, and some larger aoe skills.

coglin.1496:

Why should a skill do 5 times the damage to up to 5 targets then a single target skill.

did you even wonder why a bomb makes more damage than a gun shot? because drumrolls …. it’s a bomb! ( = meant to deal massive AoE damage).
So, just for basic logic, AoE are truly meant to be devastating; anything less than that, and we have a faulty mechanic.

ThiBash.5634:

To be honest, I think I would like it if the ele staff were changed to be more like the ranger longbow. As in, some single target burst skills, and some larger aoe skills.

That is why I proposed new weapon for ele and a like that will be long range weapon with mostly or all single target abilities (BUT VERY INTERESTING TO USE) with one or none AoE.

Grevender.9235:

did you even wonder why a bomb makes more damage than a gun shot? because drumrolls …. it’s a bomb! ( = meant to deal massive AoE damage).
So, just for basic logic, AoE are truly meant to be devastating; anything less than that, and we have a faulty mechanic.

Seems logic to me. Guess they are anti AoE mentality after all.

OK then we will just stand there and exchange punches using single target abilities, die and pretend it is fun.

What does AoE dmg mean to u in GW2 ? for me its skills like nerco staff skills/wells ele’s some of its staff/scepter ect skills that target alot of mobs at once were as attacks that go in a cone or attack 3 or less is a cleave not AoE

Grevender.9235:

AoE are supposed to be extremely destructive. Why people want to tune a bomb to the level of a bullet is completely beyond my understanding abilities.
In certain other MMORPGS I played, some AoE skills had 30min cooldown or more, but their effect was so devastating that they could really change the fate of a siege at the last minute, completely obliterating two or more enemy parties.
Let the nukers be nukers, but it’s okay to give non-nukers some -very complex- way to protect themselves.

It’s beyond mine as well. It’s like the whole “reduction” of the explosive field radius…uhm hello it’s an explosion the radius IS supposed to be bigger then a thief’s dagger splash damage radius. Right now as an Engineer you practically have to be inside your enemy to use bombs and don’t get me started on why grenades miss 50% of the time. Micromanagement doesn’t = physics. Take the exploding bullet. The pistols should never fire as slowly as the rifles do but we see it happen anyway which does affect dps tremendously already, why nerf it further.

Now for some classes I completely agree they need to increase the single target effectiveness.

We have two classes and only two that have 1 shot abilities.
We have three classes that can three shot enemies all the while keeping their tremendous defense and vitality in the process.
And we’re supposed to believe that all weapons are equal but we see differences in damage output on different classes with the same exact build. (Warrior Rifle vs Engineer Rifle/Boomstick/Whatever it was supposed to be)

I hope they balance it soon because it’s out of hand, and the bugs for the classes that haven’t been touched since launch don’t help much either.

tigirius.9014:

I hope they balance it soon because it’s out of hand

I completely agree, and am happy not to be alone in my wondering xD

I wonder if they realize that nerfing AoE instead of touching all the bugs, glitches, and exploits that players are actually bothered by is like adding the Lost Shores update instead of fixing all the things wrong with existing content. It just introduces more problems, pisses off your players, and requires more patches to fix later.

tigirius.9014:

We have two classes and only two that have 1 shot abilities.

We have three classes that can three shot enemies all the while keeping their tremendous defense and vitality in the process.

I can see a glass cannon thief perhaps one shot killing a glass cannon elementalist due to the light armor and being in the lowest health pool. A full exotic/80 glass cannon ele has around 14k health.

A full glass cannon ele can kill another full glass cannon ele if they are setup a certain way, have stacks, and actually hit the other glass cannon with churning earth. (assuming the other ele is too stupid to move out of the area during the 4 second channel or simply count to 3 and hit the dodge button).

Are there other things that can do over 14k to someone in one hit (regardless if it is a 4 second wind up or not like churn), again assuming their target is a glass cannon ele with light armor, base toughness, and 14k health?

I think almost any class can both three shot or be three shotted if they are in full glass cannon gear. There is a huge difference between hitting a cannon ele with 14k health and 1200 toughness compared to hitting a p/v/t ele with 20k health and 1800 toughness for example.

Unfortunately there are far too many people running around in zerker gear to do high damage numbers, that turn around and whine about being 3 shot by someone.

Saying that players use too much AoE on certain weapon sets in GW2 is like opening a hamburger joint, and then saying that people eat too much fatty foods. Just doesn’t make sense.

I’m assuming it’s WWW that they are considering. If they think there is not enough risk in using AoE’s then make all AoE effects hit everyone in the given area in WWW. Friendly fire and all.

That would add a whole lot of strategy to using AoE and would allow them to be powerful, maybe even bumped up in power.

covenn.7165:

tigirius.9014:

We have two classes and only two that have 1 shot abilities.

We have three classes that can three shot enemies all the while keeping their tremendous defense and vitality in the process.

I can see a glass cannon thief perhaps one shot killing a glass cannon elementalist due to the light armor and being in the lowest health pool. A full exotic/80 glass cannon ele has around 14k health.

A full glass cannon ele can kill another full glass cannon ele if they are setup a certain way, have stacks, and actually hit the other glass cannon with churning earth. (assuming the other ele is too stupid to move out of the area during the 4 second channel or simply count to 3 and hit the dodge button).

Are there other things that can do over 14k to someone in one hit (regardless if it is a 4 second wind up or not like churn), again assuming their target is a glass cannon ele with light armor, base toughness, and 14k health?

I think almost any class can both three shot or be three shotted if they are in full glass cannon gear. There is a huge difference between hitting a cannon ele with 14k health and 1200 toughness compared to hitting a p/v/t ele with 20k health and 1800 toughness for example.

Unfortunately there are far too many people running around in zerker gear to do high damage numbers, that turn around and whine about being 3 shot by someone.

This isn’t really a thread about thieves, but I would just like to note that a gc thief can burst 16k+ in 1 – 1.5 sec against a balanced PVT ele with 1500ish toughness and 18-19k HP. So no, it isn’t strictly about gc vs gc and what happens there.

I see it happen on my ele all the time, and I do it to others on my thief.

I like to see what less aoe skills would do to gw2.

In gw1 you had to coordinate a spike to take targets down. Right now when some players are sparring they all get one shot by one single player joining in.

Yay! No skill or coordination involved.

On the other hand, some soft AoE skills with increasing dmg over time would be great for coordinated spikes, or controlling the enemy.

Kintari.4172:

This isn’t really a thread about thieves, but I would just like to note that a gc thief can burst 16k+ in 1 – 1.5 sec against a balanced PVT ele with 1500ish toughness and 18-19k HP. So no, it isn’t strictly about gc vs gc and what happens there.

I see it happen on my ele all the time, and I do it to others on my thief.

Hmm really? I haven’t noticed that personally. Maybe there are less gc thieves running around these days.

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

I like to see what less aoe skills would do to gw2.

You exaggerated with your one shot statement by a long shot. Please keep it real. With that said, i will at least respond to the genuine part of your post.

Less AoE and you will pretty much always have to roll in a big zerg as small numbers won’t have a chance against larger. I am not sure how much less AoE you can have when it already hits for mediocre damage on most abilities, has a 5 target limit, and many of them can easily can be moved out of or avoided all together.

covenn.7165:

I can see a glass cannon thief perhaps one shot killing a glass cannon elementalist due to the light armor and being in the lowest health pool. A full exotic/80 glass cannon ele has around 14k health.

How wrong you are! This is me in LA

http://i.imgur.com/2oIZFOZ.jpg

I am wearing berserker gear transmuted into that costume (power main + precision + critical damage)
I have staff from AC with rampager stats (precision main + power + condition dmg)
I am missing last two runes of Lyssa
I have 2 Ruby Orichalcum Earrings (power main + precision + critical damage)
I have 2 Coral Orichalcum Rings and Coral Orichalcum Amulet (precision main + power + condition dmg)
Traits 30 Fire, 20 Air, 20 Arcana

That is example of glass canon and it is 10805 Health, Outside LA goes up to 11,4K but that’s it! Ele can only dream about being glass canon with 14K health

No I don’t die often due to a fact I use AoEs properly and I hit in PvE with this real hard. I like that idea – play properly or die. That is so satisfying being glass canon. You have awesome AoE spells but if someone sneeze at you – you die.

There are other glass canon builds for ele and all those builds have same health like I do.

I think those who fail at the word “dodge” or fail at making builds which counter AOE have an issue.

dandamanno.4136:

make all AoE effects hit everyone in the given area in WWW. Friendly fire and all.

this is exactly what I suggested pages ago: insane boost to AoE AND add friendly fire, this will probably completely remove Zergs and finally give sense to everything.

dandamanno.4136:

I’m assuming it’s WWW that they are considering. If they think there is not enough risk in using AoE’s then make all AoE effects hit everyone in the given area in WWW. Friendly fire and all.

That would add a whole lot of strategy to using AoE and would allow them to be powerful, maybe even bumped up in power.

Hello griefing!

You know, when World of Warcraft went from Wrath of the Lich King to Cataclysm, they did pretty much the same thing we’re talking about; nerf the hell out of AoE’s. It turned out being not so bad. We actually had to use skill in dungeons and figure out which mobs to focus down first.

However, this game is NOT WoW, and I honestly think that killing AoE would really ruin a lot of appeal that this game has. I don’t want WoW, I want to keep GW2.

EDIT: Also, let me add; are you serious? Adding a friendly fire effect to AoE? That’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard suggested in a MMO that attempts to bring the community together.

Not to mention you’d have that one giant jerkwad who would AoE you just because he felt like it. I repeat, friendly fire on AoE’s is beyond stupid.

covenn.7165:

tigirius.9014:

We have two classes and only two that have 1 shot abilities.

We have three classes that can three shot enemies all the while keeping their tremendous defense and vitality in the process.

I can see a glass cannon thief perhaps one shot killing a glass cannon elementalist due to the light armor and being in the lowest health pool. A full exotic/80 glass cannon ele has around 14k health.

A full glass cannon ele can kill another full glass cannon ele if they are setup a certain way, have stacks, and actually hit the other glass cannon with churning earth. (assuming the other ele is too stupid to move out of the area during the 4 second channel or simply count to 3 and hit the dodge button).

Are there other things that can do over 14k to someone in one hit (regardless if it is a 4 second wind up or not like churn), again assuming their target is a glass cannon ele with light armor, base toughness, and 14k health?

I think almost any class can both three shot or be three shotted if they are in full glass cannon gear. There is a huge difference between hitting a cannon ele with 14k health and 1200 toughness compared to hitting a p/v/t ele with 20k health and 1800 toughness for example.

Unfortunately there are far too many people running around in zerker gear to do high damage numbers, that turn around and whine about being 3 shot by someone.

You aren’t seriously comparing a 1.5second 16k series of attacks to an elementalist who has to get tons of stacks of might before the fight, keep them on through the fight, and then hope the enemy sits in his giant 3-4 second cast time earth attack… are you? And have you ever even played the ele? They do not get 14k health with a glass cannon build…

Well, as an Ele I learned about my skills and their limitations, I can easily avoid almost ANY of my own AoEs, so why not play an ele to see for yourself?
Grab of Fire is elementalist’s highest damage skill, it is melee and easily avoidable, Dragon’s Tooth hovers over your head for like 2s-3s before dropping (and requires a target, sigh), it is OFMG-ly avoidable…. almost everything can be avoided or mitigated in some way.

I feel like this entire problem boils down to two entirely different problems that have nothing to do with AoE itself.

Loot tagging is an issue and needs to be fixed but not by lowering any AoE to damage thresholds so low they can’t tag enemies. Support and the myriad of other build designs need to be accounted for in loot drops instead of just damage. I am always taken aback when I think about this. How did the game release with this kind of loot tagging system? This game focuses on everyone being able to do damage to some degree but as a group based game (most of the time) it requires support players but they don’t get the proper rewards from pve events.

The other problem is WvW. Something most who agree with this change don’t see is that AoE is the only reason zergs aren’t the absolute ONLY strategy currently. A lot of bad players might complain that they can’t destroy gates fast enough because of the AoEs. This is truly foolish. I don’t consider myself any Sun Tzu, and in fact I’m a terrible strategist and overall war games person, but even I know that a frontal assault will always be defended, when facing off against any intelligent foe, by a funnel. Other strategies for taking down keeps (or w/e) include siege weapons from a distance, luring defenders out via any means, and even a slow method of any one of those mixed with a cut off from supply… in fact that should always be considered. I’m sure there are many other methods that people smarter than I have come up with or are trying too, but as it is these methods are in general inferior to zerging because it is so effective when you have a large group facing a smaller group. AoE is the only defense to these zergs thanks to funnels and I can honestly say that when AoE is weakened to keep this from happening zergs will become even more potent.

If you disagree please say so but those seem to be the only issues in the game where AoE are involved and it is my personal opinion that AoE is not only a non-issue in those regards but in fact a necessary and beneficial tool in WvW to counteract the only prominent strategy right now.

As someone who loves my staff Ele and Necro. I use those skills in PvE because they are the best to control situations for my squishy characters. That and the other weapons do not appeal to me very well. But generally in PvE its pretty rare to fight one mob at a time. And having the ability to control a situation in the chance of multiple enemies is what I want to have (and do). As far as damage goes I can’t say I do any extreme damage. I’ve seen many single-target players kill stuff way faster then me. Because they barely need to kite and do more damage.

But I will agree that there is something wrong with AoE when it comes to tagging loot during events. But even being an AoE user myself I can get out AoE’d by others as well. But I feel terrible for melee’rs in such situations. Thats why I don’t mind being in groups during such events since it seems to help others in the loot department.

As far as PvP, I don’t do it much. But I have seen plenty of people just stand in my Lava Font during huge zerg rushes and not even try to move. I mean, I get a majority of my kills from dumb stuff like that. But is it really the AoEs fault or the player in that regard? I understand its impossible to deal with something that covers the ground that an enemy have to get through to get to you (if they are melee). But it still seems it is needed to a degree. You are not going to go in gung-ho meleeing when there is a 20+ person horde opposing you. You are going to throw grenades or something.

Obviously I don’t want to see what I find the best use for my class (Ele). But I will recognize there is some issues, but it is a very sensitive area imo. But whatever happens happens I guess. >.<

Inkubus.7529:

Scroll down to Q: Elaborate your plans for changing AoEs
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/16rsh9/jan_17_dev_livestream_summary/

Seems like both PvE and PvP will be affected. But dragon tooth even dough it does a lot of damage he has very slow fall and mobs easily avoid it.

I think ANet doing things upside down.

Thanks for the link. I liked this part. I hope they really start balancing the game now. I’m sick of waiting for them to get this show started.

Q: How close do you feel each class fulfill the class philosophy

• We use one set of balance numbers for wvw, pve, and spvp. We do this because people get acclimated to characters – we want people to play a class in a certain situation and feel comfortable in another
• Some classes are filling their roles, some are not
• We are brining up the weaker builds to be on par with the good builds.
• So yes they are but there are more work to be done.

Orion.7264:

I wonder if they realize that nerfing AoE instead of touching all the bugs, glitches, and exploits that players are actually bothered by is like adding the Lost Shores update instead of fixing all the things wrong with existing content. It just introduces more problems, pisses off your players, and requires more patches to fix later.

Whenever the topic comes up in game it’s always the same thing. Why are they adding new content instead of fixing bugs, fixing traits or reworking whatever profession someone believes is OP/UP? I have to agree. I’m at a loss to explain what they’re doing.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

I feel like this entire problem boils down to two entirely different problems that have nothing to do with AoE itself.

Loot tagging is an issue and needs to be fixed but not by lowering any AoE to damage thresholds so low they can’t tag enemies. Support and the myriad of other build designs need to be accounted for in loot drops instead of just damage. I am always taken aback when I think about this. How did the game release with this kind of loot tagging system? This game focuses on everyone being able to do damage to some degree but as a group based game (most of the time) it requires support players but they don’t get the proper rewards from pve events.

The other problem is WvW. Something most who agree with this change don’t see is that AoE is the only reason zergs aren’t the absolute ONLY strategy currently. A lot of bad players might complain that they can’t destroy gates fast enough because of the AoEs. This is truly foolish. I don’t consider myself any Sun Tzu, and in fact I’m a terrible strategist and overall war games person, but even I know that a frontal assault will always be defended, when facing off against any intelligent foe, by a funnel. Other strategies for taking down keeps (or w/e) include siege weapons from a distance, luring defenders out via any means, and even a slow method of any one of those mixed with a cut off from supply… in fact that should always be considered. I’m sure there are many other methods that people smarter than I have come up with or are trying too, but as it is these methods are in general inferior to zerging because it is so effective when you have a large group facing a smaller group. AoE is the only defense to these zergs thanks to funnels and I can honestly say that when AoE is weakened to keep this from happening zergs will become even more potent.

If you disagree please say so but those seem to be the only issues in the game where AoE are involved and it is my personal opinion that AoE is not only a non-issue in those regards but in fact a necessary and beneficial tool in WvW to counteract the only prominent strategy right now.

ANet listen to this guy, he gets it.

Player 1: “Oh look a zerg happening at the fort! Lets join them.”
Player 2: “Nah, too much AoE spam.”
Player 1: “But they nerfed it now.”
Player 2: “Really? Hold on, i’ll get the rest of my guild to join in as well.”
Player 1: “Leeeeroy JENKINSSSSSS…”
Player 2: “For great ZERGNESS!”

This will happen. Like DaedalusDragon.3754: said, AoE is the only effective method against zergs. Lets just wait and see how this change reflects on gameplay first…

critickitten.1498:

Technically a cone is a volume….just sayin’. :P

I literally logged into my account to correct your statement because I cringed when I read it. Volume is the measurement of space inside of a item. Where as area refers to 2d space of a item. Then you can see that volume refers to a 3d object.

So in this case a “cone aoe” has volume (cone is a 3d object).
The cone, however, is not volume.

Because a cone is a shape not a measurement.

Now if you meant: Cone has a “volume of effect”, then that is technically correct, but this is not totally true in game. How the skills work do not reflect their shapes.

Such as, if you are standing slightly up a hill from a point where a elementlist casts “Fire Grab” it will miss you (or in my experience it does). This means that the cone has little to no height in place for the hit box, only length and width. Without a height a shape can not have volume. A item with length and width only is a 2d object which refers to area. Hence why most call the skills AoE (area of effect) instead of VoE (volume of effect).

This is a pve nerf that is going to have disasterous consequences for WvW.

Quite simply, thieves are out of control. The ONLY way to deal with them at all, and its a pretty crummy method, is to AOE the heck out of where you think they have gone. Nerf AOE and it makes a thief Godmode. With absolutely zero way to deal with them.

Basically, Anet needs to implement stronger single target weapons and change the nature of their dungeons. If their dungeons mob you with handfuls of creatures, the basic method of dealing with them is AOE. So this would mean redesigning every single dungeon in the game.

I don’t have a strong single target weapon on my guardian. After the AOE patch I will likely be really messed up. Every single fun skill I have is AOE – all my builds are designed around Mighty Blow and Whirling Wrath. I will be totally useless in a balanced or dps build if nerfed.

You know the irony?

Pretty much the only time I heavily use single target skills, is when I’m solo farming.

Let that sink in for a minute.

That’s really the only time I am reliably 1v1 with anything. Most of the rest of the time I’m in events, where guess what, it’s all waves of mobs.

And I don’t do much solo farming anymore. Why?
Because the drops suck.
I can’t help but do the math, I can take one mob at a time, or I can join events that have lots and lots of mobs. Which leads to much faster kills, which means getting drops at a slightly more decent rate, and the only way to tag enough mobs to make it worth the effort? AoE.

Want fewer people just throwing AoE at events? Make drops decent enough to where we don’t feel like it’s the only way to get anything (and possibly lower what’s required to tag a mob), remove DR, take the code into the parking lot, and burn it.

You don’t want people using AoE against a single target.
I’m not even sure where to start on this one.
So I’m on my staff Ele and I come up against a mob I want to kill. Now since, as you say, I shouldn’t be using AoE against it, that means I can’t use Meteor Shower.
Or Static Field.
Or Eruption.
Or Lava Font.
Or Flame Burst.
Or Unsteady Ground
Or Shockwave
Or Frozen Ground
Or Ice Spike
And technically this also includes Geyser and Healing Rain

That leaves me with:
Fireball
Burning Retreat (wait, that might be out too)
Water Blast (hmmmm, has a blast radius, the nit-picky might consider that an AoE in basic terms)
Chain Lightning
Lightning Surge (blinds in AoE around target, could be out as well)
Gust
Windborne Speed (uh oh, also Effects the Area around you)
Stoning
Magnetic Aura

Am I just supposed to stand there and hit them with Fireball and hope they die first?
Or am I supposed to swap to my daggers…
Oh, oh wait…..

Want my Ele to not use AoE against basically every mob ever?
Give her freaking weapon swap, of some sort, any sort!

I feel at this point I need to emphasize what the acronym AoE stands for, despite the many others who have touched on it. You see, AoE isn’t just some weird gamer lingo, it’s actually short for something! (crazy right?)
AoE means Area of Effect, as in, it effects Everything in an area.
The inclusion of the word “Everything” should be carefully noted.
The idea that something should Effect an Area just not Everything in that area is amongst the dumbest things I’ve ever seen.

There is no reasonable argument that can be made for that.
“But, but an Ele could just drop a Meteor Shower on a clump of 40 people clustered at a door!”
And? They shouldn’t have all been standing in the same place.
“But a few Ele’s could keep up a constant field of Healing Rain!”
So? Nothing stopping the other side from dropping a couple Meteor Showers on the nicely grouped sitting ducks. It’s called Tactics. (Besides, there’s no guarantee the healing AoE heals the people who actually need it anyway, what with the cap and all)
By adding the five person cap on AoE spells it does nothing but encourage people to clump up, because it’s safer, which then requires more AoE to match.

Is AoE a problem? How can it be?!
You already ripped it’s soul out. (By the way, I have to ask, when you sold it’s soul how much did you get for it? 30s?)

tl;dr, No, but the five target cap needs to go.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

That leaves me with:
Fireball
Burning Retreat (wait, that might be out too)
Water Blast (hmmmm, has a blast radius, the nit-picky might consider that an AoE in basic terms)
Chain Lightning
Lightning Surge (blinds in AoE around target, could be out as well)
Gust
Windborne Speed (uh oh, also Effects the Area around you)
Stoning
Magnetic Aura

Am I just supposed to stand there and hit them with Fireball and hope they die first?
Or am I supposed to swap to my daggers…
Oh, oh wait…..

A small correction if you will, Fireball on staff also does small AoE. If enemies are close enough it makes splash damage around main target. That leaves Stoning and Magnetic Aura (untraited) as true single target abilities. That’s it! 4 elements, 5 abilities per element gives 18 AoE abilities and 2 single target abilities. If traited, magnetic aura as any other aura with trait Water XII Powerful Aura can be applied to party members and then it becomes AoE also.

Now ANet says “we don’t want AoE to be used on single taget enemies”… OKAAAAAY and did everybody forgot mobs reaction to AoE in BWE3? For those who didn’t had a opportunity to try BWE3, mobs were running away from AoE. Everytime I was putting some Lava Font, mob would runaway from it. Now, every mob ignores it. Whey feel Lava Font as spa or something. ANet says they also want to encourage other builds. Well I was playing with Air attunement in BWE3 all the way. When game realised and Lava Font or Eruption became mob’s spa, there was no point to stick to Air only. I just realized I can load them with everything I have and I have AoE only and now it is a problem? You people are just cynical!

Instead of nerfing all this, why don’t you just upgrade part of code that you already had!? Right now, your mobs are stupid! Very very stupid! Some mobs are scripted to do certain things at certain events (usually their health percentage) and that’s it!

MAIN PROBLEM IN GW2 COMBAT
Right now, all mobs do is gathering info to calculate aggro and find shortest route towards player that is close enough to spam their abilities. Instead, you could make mobs smarter, give them more abilities. Let me put an AoE in front of them and let they jump on me at the same time avoiding AoE. Let they combine forces, let they make combos like players do.

Why? Because combat as it is is boring! And we want our AoEs to get rid of boredom as quickly as possible. If in party and we don’t kill enemies by ourselves, we weaken them enough so party members finish them off quickly so we could move on! Nerfing AoE won’t solve this boredom. It will make things tougher and more boring than it is already.

So we’re mostly in agreement? AoE’s fine? I can go back to leveling my warrior so I can run around and Killshot people for 19k and giggle?

If they don’t want AoE, then they should make single target abilities only… nerds.
There’s nothing wrong with AoE.

All I have to say is that ANet should be UTTERLY careful with nerfs of any kind right now. This game in its current state needs more content, more diverse activities, more ways to have fun… it does NOT need reasons for players to stop playing, and nerfing obviously has a high risk of causing that. If the class a player got used to is suddenly not fun anymore, there’s a high chance the player will just stop playing.

Not to mention most of the complains against AOE are due to the ignorance and/or lack of skill of the complainer in playing the game. Yeah, just stand there while a warrior does his 100 blades on you instead of moving away, and then complain the skill is overpowered… typical.

Last but not least, starting nerfs when some damage types are still broken is not very smart. Yeah, condition damage, I’m looking at you. Fix the bugs first, and then look for eventual remaining imbalances.

I still stand by the fact that this is a kitten moment by devs. Looking at the fact that over half the skills in the game AOE damage lol. And looking at the fact that 90% of the content is centered around aoe’s….. unless we are expected to run around for 5 minutes trying to single target 10 mobs…… ya let me tell you how fun that will be eyeroll.

Seriously, leave the AoEs alone. There is really no problem and there are so many bigger issues that should be focused on.

DiogoSilva.7089:

You’re fault is that you’re probably comparing aoe skills with single-target skills against single targets. In that situation, of course aoe is going to be weaker: it’s supposed to! But can you honestly tell me that staff’s fields are bad when you’re playing with a party,against a lot of enemies, or the combination of both? No, they are crazy. You basically generate a huge amount of party combo fields, keep entire mobs balled with crowd control, and destroy them with spammable fire fields + meteor shower.

The problem is that while no, the numbers don’t scale 1:1 for AoE hitting 5 targets:Single Target, AoE’s don’t always (or even often) hit 5 targets at once. In a game with no threat mechanic for tanking and no effective way to corral enemies into a contained area (1 weapon-dependent skill aside), more often than not AoEs will not be hitting 5 enemies, and therefore the mathematics assumed in the livechat do not apply.

AoEs are currently weaker across the board than single-target skills, and only become “overpowered” by comparison when a player is hitting the maximum number of targets. That’s a given in WvW because of zerging, but it is certainly not the norm in PvE.

If the planned nerf follows the very specific maths which the devs outlined in the livechat – making AoE damage exactly equal to single target damage, i.e., if a single target skill does 100 damage, an AoE does 20×5 – this is disastrous. AoE will be laughably useless in the majority of PvE content. The only way to offset this would be implementation of a threat mechanic, which would in turn necessitate major reworks to several classes and the introduction of the trinity.

If this is a PvE problem, make the changes just affect PvE.

If anet thinks this is a PvP/WvW problem, then they are wrong. They already have designed WvW to favor the zerg by a large margin.

Well, if AoE’s get nerfed, I hope they come up with some way to avoid being overrun by groups of mobs every time you stick your nose out of town. Without decent AoE’s the PvE aspect of the game is likely to become pretty boring pretty quickly.

I can see it now, running around in circles for ten minutes plinking away at a group of mobs with a feather duster.

Im talking only PvE as the current PvP options in this game are boring as kitten imo so I hardly play them.

My two main toons are a DD Ele (aurashare) and a HB Warrior. I’ve already given up on my level 80 Engineer. (Anet, how about you give us Engis a bone?)

As far as my DD Ele goes, I do not mind if Anet nerfs my AoE AS LONG as you buff my single target dmg. Otherwise, no, I do not need a nerf. I am, and I’m sure many players are, in a situation where we can compare the effectiveness of the classes in Pve first hand since we play multiple toons.

Just comparing my fully geared DD Ele to my fully geared HB Warrior….there is no contest in the amount of effectiveness the HB Warrior has over the DD Ele. How do I notice this? Dungeons go a LOT faster when I am playing with my HB warrior than with my DD Ele no matter the grp make up. That is taking into consideration that my DD Ele is a lot more offensively built than the vanilla DD build since I do not need that much survivability as I do not play PvP. My air autoattack does ~1000 dmg per hit.

But lets not take my word for it. THE BEST set up for dungeons right now, is basically 4 Warriors and a Mesmer (For harder dungeons, prob replace one Warrior for a Guardian). Try it out. Its amazing what raw power and survivability can do. Forget about dumb auras and boons that my DD Ele provides. Warriors can buff themselves via shouts and destroy everything.

You know what I think when I get a Necro, Engi and Staff Ele in a dungeon grp? Oh gawd, this run is going to be slower and I will have to cover their butts.

So once again…..how is AoE overpowered? For AoE classes, buff single target dmg or no nerf.

Caramel Ham.4891:

So once again…..how is AoE overpowered? For AoE classes, buff single target dmg or no nerf.

How about, “Buff ST damage AND no nerf to AoE.”

How are we going to call AE a problem when there are arrow carts, cannons, and catapults around. Talk about opportunity cost…

I don’t think AoE needs to be changed, but rather, some skills need to be balanced (there are some others which are obviously better with no drawbacks, but this isn’t limited to AoEs).

I just hope that you guys don’t nerf it to the point of “AoE shall only be used when it is efficient to do so, say, facing 3 or more mobs at once”.
If you do, for example, nerf the Elementalist’s Meteor Shower and Lava Font to the point I’d only use it if it’d hit more than 1 target, I think you can predict how fun it would be to fight a monster spamming just Fireball, since we only have access to 5 skills at once.

Or a Guardian’s Greatsword rotation would become auto-attack and Leap of Faith until single mob dies.