Guild Wars 2

Grevender.9235:

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.

In a proper and stable world that would be correct. However we are more the opposite. Griefing and crying would raise to new levels before unseen. And you know what happens once you see something…

This games skills haven’t been tweaked no where near as much as GW1’s were up to this point. To me all the skills besides the main #1 skill, needs to be more pronounced to add excitement and balance the opposing #‘s from there. To many skills give slight affects, that is somewhat drab I’d say.

If the only change to AOE is being done to players abilities I think that is a mistake. Personally I think the AOE in every aspect of GW2 is far far far to much. Not just players aoe but mobs, dungeons, WvW, siege, it is all silly over the top to much. Add to the huge amount of AOE the fact that most of it leaves some sort of condition from dots to 1 minute snares etc and there simply is to much in every aspect of the game. No easy fix for sure, but I would love to see changes so hopefully it will go far beyond nerfing players AOE abilities.

From the point of view of players using an AOE ability vs single target, to me that has more to do with the way they designed abilities. I am playing a necro at the moment and there is very little single target abilites that I can even use, let alone be effective with

The best we can do is play as much as we can before these nerfs hit the fan and hope you have got your moneys worth out of the game before then. I can’t imagine myself playing this game where the strengths of most single target classes (Warrior, primarily who also have plenty of powerful AoE) continue to get stronger while AoE heavy classes just keep getting weaker patch after patch.

New name after patch: Warrior Wars 2

why are people worried about nerfs?

DaedalusDragon.3754:

New name after patch: Warrior Wars 2

More like Ranger Wars 2.

Just like in Guild Wars 1 when the Ranger spike team was hot stuff. Epic single target damage on short cool down from 900-1200 range away! No need to leave your base!

Salacious.7358:

why are people worried about nerfs?

I’ve been playing MMO’s for quite a while now (some might say too long) and in all that time I can honestly say that I have never seen a nerf take place that actually improved the fun aspect of the game for the players. They may make the devs stats look better but that’s not why most of us play the game…

lunawisp.2378:

Salacious.7358:

why are people worried about nerfs?

I’ve been playing MMO’s for quite a while now (some might say too long) and in all that time I can honestly say that I have never seen a nerf take place that actually improved the fun aspect of the game for the players. They may make the devs stats look better but that’s not why most of us play the game…

BINGO!

The targeting of AOE is strictly a narrow-minded “value judgment” on the part of the devs.

We have 5 skills on our bars at a time. You nerf aoe you’re going to change that to 1 or 2 skills, because most are AOE.

Meanwhile, single-target professions like thief and warrior are positively out of control in their burst and sustained damage while aoe professions barely hold on by bunkering up, and they’re telling us they want to nerf the bunker builds AND the aoe they use to do damage.

Which makes those of us who play the game scream:
“Do they even play their own game? W… T… F…”

Last night I saw first hand the crazy power of AoE that Anet seems to be worried about. We (Dragonbrand) were attacking Anz tower in EBG and they (Maguuma) seemed to have maybe 4-5 people only inside defending. When we breached the wall and got to the stairs, we were hit by a massive surprise attack. The stairs were a choke point and they were simply painted with a blur of particle effects. There must have been a good 50 of us in the zerg and most of us were killed right there in the opening seconds. The rest were scattered, fleeing off the walls and back through the wall opening. Maguuma had held their 50+ zerg at the top of the tower and waited to dump 50+ AoE’s on our heads at the choke. I’m not sure how I feel about this. It seems like a legit strategy, but realistically how do attackers have a hope of dealing with it?

Anet’s problem seems to come from the scaling of the zerg. Individual performance is laughable sometimes (Rangers and necros lol) but added together it just becomes a kittenstorm.

Xenon.4537:

Last night I saw first hand the crazy power of AoE that Anet seems to be worried about. We (Dragonbrand) were attacking Anz tower in EBG and they (Maguuma) seemed to have maybe 4-5 people only inside defending. When we breached the wall and got to the stairs, we were hit by a massive surprise attack. The stairs were a choke point and they were simply painted with a blur of particle effects. There must have been a good 50 of us in the zerg and most of us were killed right there in the opening seconds. The rest were scattered, fleeing off the walls and back through the wall opening. Maguuma had held their 50+ zerg at the top of the tower and waited to dump 50+ AoE’s on our heads at the choke. I’m not sure how I feel about this. It seems like a legit strategy, but realistically how do attackers have a hope of dealing with it?

Anet’s problem seems to come from the scaling of the zerg. Individual performance is laughable sometimes (Rangers and necros lol) but added together it just becomes a kittenstorm.

What about this?

1) Send in stealthed allies to kill off zerker aoe artillery?
2) Invulnerability covered rush?
3) Protective bubbles/cleansing area, heal support?
4)Thin outside the box?

Basically a mindless zerg rush deserve to be annhilated, stop for one second and think, there are a pletora of defensive skills in this game to protect allies in a large radius….USE THEM!

Believe me I’ve got nothing against you, but I think Anet should base the balance on the skill level of people, if you want a game where people can just :“ugh me attack , me win” than don’t design 8 professions and skills combinations, just have a game with attack-defense-heal button layout

Arheundel.6451:

Basically a mindless zerg rush deserve to be annhilated

this! this so much!!!

back to my point:
well, what about introducing friendly fire in a slow manner? like: let’s only affect friends for 10% of the actual damage AND let’s share conditions.

Xenon.4537:

Last night I saw first hand the crazy power of AoE that Anet seems to be worried about. We (Dragonbrand) were attacking Anz tower in EBG and they (Maguuma) seemed to have maybe 4-5 people only inside defending. When we breached the wall and got to the stairs, we were hit by a massive surprise attack. The stairs were a choke point and they were simply painted with a blur of particle effects. There must have been a good 50 of us in the zerg and most of us were killed right there in the opening seconds.

Remember that player AoE skills are limited to 5 targets. If you got wiped out that quickly, there were a) several more than 4-5, all using siege for AoE or b) LOTS more than 4-5 (likely hidden due to culling issues).

Aoe is not the big overal problem
Something overpowered in pve might feel underpowered in pvp and vice versa
I’m not gonna fingerpoint to a specific profession “that one is way op” cause the grass always looks greener at the other side.
(until you play the other profession and see what they have to sacrifce to deal some extra damage or to outlive more than one encounter..)

The combat system is very dynamic and aoe helps to make it so.
The real problem is fingerpointing the problems because it may not always be profession-wise either or on the same area of the game
like in pve,where mesmer has phantasmal warden as a desperate tool to deal some aoe when chaos stom misses,still sometimes when a strong mob casts an unexplainable powerful aoe
the warden is dead before even doing anything(same goes for shattters)..leaving the mesmer with few or without hits on mobs in pve sometimes compared to other professions with many aoe skils in pve.
So perhaps environmental aoe is a factor too;it should be more explainable sometimes

If you want to do as much damage as a warrior as an elementalist in pve expect to die alot cause you have to sacrifice everything of toughness to be on the same damage level
I see alot of complaints about dagger/dagger ele but I don’t think people realize what they sacrifice for this as a scholar
Is it wrong to play as a glass cannon?(how about melee cannon?)Not imo,as long as you have fun and don’t mind all the dying on the road.
Also in pvp i followed a match between friends:crit ranger vs D/D ele..first time ele down in one hit,the other time it took the ranger 2 hits with longbow on sight.
Maybe that tells very damage oriented ele’s could deal alot of damage in pvp/wvw,but die faster than they can deal damage in melee with D/D..they are a mouse for the cats.And unless they go very tough/support-like they will die alot
Infact some of the aoe spells of the ele are pretty underwhelming on all areas of the game,meteor shower coughs*Some of the ele aoe cant keep up with the fast paced combat style i have the impression(people dodge and run ,slow slow aoe,especially on staff)
Of all the profession elementalist is the most difficult profession to solo and stay alive with during the leveling process too imo(thief is close but has more escape tools form combat in pve)
Nothing is easier to level than a minion master,in lower areas they can even solo group events once they reach higher levels

Which might be another thing;..is it the aoe or the down and up scale not balanced everywhere(begin/end game) as it should be perhaps?
Whatever you do,never take steps too drastic when it comes to nerfing professions
Perhaps in wvw there should be some kind of negative effect if people just spam the same aoe too many times on the same locations.Or if too many of same professions spam their aoe on each other it should reduce intensity or something…
Sometimes when i go in downed mode because of an Aoe created by mobs/boss i’m like where did that come from.but does this mean it is too powerful?perhaps a crucial graphic effect is missing to indicate its time to dodge,..so many factors here..One for a fact;the problem is not just aoe in totality

Xenon.4537:

Last night I saw first hand the crazy power of AoE that Anet seems to be worried about. We (Dragonbrand) were attacking Anz tower in EBG and they (Maguuma) seemed to have maybe 4-5 people only inside defending. When we breached the wall and got to the stairs, we were hit by a massive surprise attack. The stairs were a choke point and they were simply painted with a blur of particle effects. There must have been a good 50 of us in the zerg and most of us were killed right there in the opening seconds. The rest were scattered, fleeing off the walls and back through the wall opening. Maguuma had held their 50+ zerg at the top of the tower and waited to dump 50+ AoE’s on our heads at the choke. I’m not sure how I feel about this. It seems like a legit strategy, but realistically how do attackers have a hope of dealing with it?

Anet’s problem seems to come from the scaling of the zerg. Individual performance is laughable sometimes (Rangers and necros lol) but added together it just becomes a kittenstorm.

As others mentioned, stealth units, invulnerability and such are solution. Mindless zerg should always fail.

I might add, any player AoE at present pre nerf state can hit up to 5 targets only. Meaning – they can’t annihilate 50 people so quickly (or ever with their abilities). On the other hand, siege weapons in their AoE can hit 50 players at once. And I saw this a lot in WvW when forces keep siege weapons behind certain walls. Once enemy breach the wall, few players at those weapons are good enough to kill everybody. Seems like good anti zerg strategy.

Wrapping up: this is not the AoE nerf we are talking about. Siege weapon AoE prolly won’t be nerfed at all as it is not class/profession based and any player has access to it.

If they nerf AOE I do hope that there will be replacement skills,….
Else it’s gonna be pretty boring imo.

And yes AOE is in most cases the right way to go, just look at Orr, the density of the creatures and respawn rates. I’d like you to give it a try to single target everything there and kill it.

Plus every MMO has AOE skills and it is custom to gather mobs in packs and AOE them down, why did they even add AOE in the first place then if they don’t agree with doing that ?

It’s like EVERY fun aspect of the game has to be NERFED all the time.

Note to Eles: Buy that cheap crude salvage kit and have a go on your exotic staffs, I will follow after this patch.

.__.

Xenon.4537:

Last night I saw first hand the crazy power of AoE that Anet seems to be worried about. We (Dragonbrand) were attacking Anz tower in EBG and they (Maguuma) seemed to have maybe 4-5 people only inside defending. When we breached the wall and got to the stairs, we were hit by a massive surprise attack. The stairs were a choke point and they were simply painted with a blur of particle effects. There must have been a good 50 of us in the zerg and most of us were killed right there in the opening seconds. The rest were scattered, fleeing off the walls and back through the wall opening. Maguuma had held their 50+ zerg at the top of the tower and waited to dump 50+ AoE’s on our heads at the choke. I’m not sure how I feel about this. It seems like a legit strategy, but realistically how do attackers have a hope of dealing with it?

Anet’s problem seems to come from the scaling of the zerg. Individual performance is laughable sometimes (Rangers and necros lol) but added together it just becomes a kittenstorm.

Was part of the maguuma squad that pulled this off last night. We had a very organized group that planned this strategy well ahead of time. Knowing you would only have one way up because you were destroying your only other way up we set up 1 catapult and 4 superior arrow carts. The next step was we had about 5 to 8 elementalists change to staff and drop a ton of air 5 stun fields and water 4 chill fields to slow you down. It was a hilarious moment in mumble when you all started to die. In the end most of the work was done by arrow carts.

We were all cracking up as about 30 loot bags piled up at our feet. Also a guardian tossed down one of those staff 5 walls on the ramp going up so only about 1 guy got by. Eventually we were wiped because tanky people ran up and started disrupting us. Staff eles are just so kitten weak single target or against moving targets we just couldnt deal with a couple tanky people.

Thanks for the laughs!

-Warband of Absolute Retribution

Edit: Also thiefs. Bunch of em came in stealthed and dagger stormed our siege.

Well if they just simply make AoE only hit 5 ppl and 5 ppl only like most boons / support skills i think they will get a good handle on the AoE vs single target skills.

Jski.6180:

Well if they just simply make AoE only hit 5 ppl and 5 ppl only like most boons / support skills i think they will get a good handle on the AoE vs single target skills.

Already works that way. Siege isn’t limited in that fashion though.

Jski.6180:

Well if they just simply make AoE only hit 5 ppl and 5 ppl only like most boons / support skills i think they will get a good handle on the AoE vs single target skills.

AoE already only hits 5 people.

ATMAvatar.5749:

Jski.6180:

Well if they just simply make AoE only hit 5 ppl and 5 ppl only like most boons / support skills i think they will get a good handle on the AoE vs single target skills.

AoE already only hits 5 people.

Well to both that not comply what i mean say an AoE has a lasting time and dose a trice ever sec when it hits one person the max now is only 4 even if that person leaves the zone of AoE. I am talking about the AoE only having a set number of charges per cast not per tick.

Xenon.4537:

Last night I saw first hand the crazy power of AoE that Anet seems to be worried about. We (Dragonbrand) were attacking Anz tower in EBG and they (Maguuma) seemed to have maybe 4-5 people only inside defending. When we breached the wall and got to the stairs, we were hit by a massive surprise attack. The stairs were a choke point and they were simply painted with a blur of particle effects. There must have been a good 50 of us in the zerg and most of us were killed right there in the opening seconds. The rest were scattered, fleeing off the walls and back through the wall opening. Maguuma had held their 50+ zerg at the top of the tower and waited to dump 50+ AoE’s on our heads at the choke. I’m not sure how I feel about this. It seems like a legit strategy, but realistically how do attackers have a hope of dealing with it?

Anet’s problem seems to come from the scaling of the zerg. Individual performance is laughable sometimes (Rangers and necros lol) but added together it just becomes a kittenstorm.

I do believe you ran into the WaRtified tower we called “Fort Anza” that night. Similar to what we did with “Fort Mendon”
We were able to wipe you guys a few times til your thieves would work past while invised or more tankier invulnerable guardians would get in behind us.
OP? I don’t think so.
Zerg tactics are dumb tactics. (sometimes)

As a necro, whose primary weapon is a staff and primary build is condition damage, I certainly don’t cause huge damage against enemies, but to nerf my primary attack even more is laughable. This would be the end of the GW2 for me…I’m already frustrated with crappy drops, on the verge of leaving, and this would just be the icing on the cake. Play the game the way I want indeed, well if I can’t effectively kill anything while soloing, while the warrior next to me takes enemies down with little effort, what’s the point. DD attacks are few and not terribly great and Necros are already a little balanced on the weak side for single enemies, to make them even weaker is just a bad joke.

i’ve only played as an ele, and between by D/D setup and staff setup, i see more DPS from my single target attacks, because first of all, the cooldown for them tends to be shorter than my AoEs abilities, so in long term combat, i am ultimately using more single target attacks than i am AoEs. now i heard due to some circumstances in mass combat there is views on AoEs being overall seemingly too effective? if you’re going to nerf anything, then maybe have a target affected limit, or something.

I watched the live chat and I completely understand the underlying logic to the opportunity costs of certain skills to be out of balance. However, I hope Anet is aware that there are several methods to standardize opportunity cost to all abilities instead of simply reducing their damage.

1. Recharge time – AoEs (should) generally have long recharges
2. Being channelled – allows it to be interrupted
3. Forcing the player to be rooted
4. Is only point-blank/melee
5. Cast times – mobs/players could have run out of where the aoe circle was planted
6. The Profession itself – less base hp? less access to condition removal? poor healing abilities?

I have seven 80s in full exotics and I compare all damage abilities against my warrior’s Hundred Blades (she was my 7th char and I honestly never believed damage could go so high until Dec). It’s high damage, moderate recharge, and AoE….BUT it roots, is a channel, and is melee. An elementalist’s Meteor Shower on the other hand is moderate damage, long recharge, ranged ground-targeted, and AoE…but it also roots, and is a channel. Are they OP? Not if you consider all their drawbacks, so is it really an issue with non-autoattacks AoEs?

Now the elementalist Fireball is ranged but does a 120 range AoE blast as an auto-attack. Sure compared to a mesmer that’s unfair since the mesmer has at most a bouncing staff auto-attack, but taken into account how hp an elementalist has, hitting so many targets with the possibility of drawing aggro is in itself a risk and ultimately an opportunity cost if it leads to death.

Next we have piercing attacks. Rangers, Engineers, and Necros all have them but require actual positioning to be optimal. Not only that, they usually need another tanky class to work in conjunction with to help position the mobs so they can in turn reposition in relation to those mobs to be effective (ie. balling). Again the only time I would think this is OP is as a mesmer…but then that’s just because the mez has so few AoEs, and if it’s an issue, develop more.

Another thing from the live chat that made me want to comment was the example of how it was not favored to be able to aoe two people when one was rezzing another downed player.

The first thing in my head was: who on earth rezzes under open fire? Is it being said that stupidity should go unpunished? In that case how about looking at mob/boss AoE damage whilst we are rezzing our party members then? I’d like to be able to haphazardly keep rezzing allies wherever and whenever during a boss encounter too, and say that its AoE is OP cos it killed both of us.

Which reminds me, Ascalon Catacombs explorable path 3 final boss has an AoE which still hits where it shouldn’t. How about actually addressing that?

I will not accept any “balancing” which is not complete and cohesive, which includes mob damage, tagging and all the other points raised by players in all the other 12 pages of this thread.

I don’t know about other caster classes, but with my necro, the only toon I have and the only toon I will ever have, I rely on condition damage, a friend of mine has a mesmer with a similar build, most of which comes from AOE, so while melee attacks do more damage, yes, they mostly only do more damage against single enemies. Now a necro has a lot life, but is also very squishy as a light armor user. If I get in a fight with more than 3 enemies, if AOE is nerfed, it greatly hampers my ability to run this game solo. If you get 8 or 10 casters using AOE in a pinch point, of course they’re going to take down 50 – 60 rushing in, especially if you throw a few warriors in to the mix to take out the stragglers that make it through the AOE. This is not imbalance, this is strategy…using a given class to their max potential…nerfing AOE is will ineffective, now instead of 8 or 10 casters in a pinch point, now there’ll be 15 or 20…the net effect will be the same.

If they wanted a warrior-only game, which seems to be the direction, as warriors are already vastly stronger against single enemies, they should not have created caster classes.

Leamas.5803:

If they wanted a warrior-only game, which seems to be the direction, as warriors are already vastly stronger against single enemies, they should not have created caster classes.

So it seems. Look ele – most of players (almost all) consider D/D ele build in PvP. When you think about it, you transform mage like class into a melee class with it.

It is well known we can’t go with staff in front lines, and if they reduce our AoE, there is no point having one.

while i appreciate the devs communication on the subject.
the whole issue with aoe damage seems to stem from WvW. but it seems most players don’t relize the fact that if you play the pvp map that your armor and weapons are different from the pve side. but in WvW it is not it uses the same armor and weapons. its my opinion that’s where the aoe imbalance comes from.
my question to the dev team is this. wouldn’t it be easier just to adjust WvW to use pvp only gear and adjust the pve aspect of WvW accordingly. and leave existing skills alone for time being? That way pve builds wouldn’t get completely nerfed for a fun aspect of the game that should be considered and treated as PvP and not PvE? i mean outside of pvp the aoe damage doesn’t seem out of balance with the exception of a couple classes that it could be brought up some since they were nerfed down a bit too much.

AoE skills are a problem.

Indoles.1467:

AoE skills are a problem.

Not very descriptive…

Kintari.4172:

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 love the analogy. Oh well, just a few more hours. I can’t wait to see what chaos the upcoming AOE changes bring.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Kintari.4172:

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 love the analogy. Oh well, just a few more hours. I can’t wait to see what chaos the upcoming AOE changes bring.

Probably more than that. I’m not entirely confident they’ll roll the patch overnight. More likely they roll it early morning or in the afternoon, around the time that dailies typically reset anyways.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

The best we can do is play as much as we can before these nerfs hit the fan and hope you have got your moneys worth out of the game before then. I can’t imagine myself playing this game where the strengths of most single target classes (Warrior, primarily who also have plenty of powerful AoE) continue to get stronger while AoE heavy classes just keep getting weaker patch after patch.

New name after patch: Warrior Wars 2

Here’s the thing though, warriors are not over powered in any way, shape, or form. In pve they may perform well but in both spvp and wv3 they are near the bottom of the list in terms of performance.

And just to be clear, hundred blades has many drawbacks attached to it’s use, namely it’s a 4 second self root channel that only hits 3 targets at a time. Which is the target of many peoples complaints. Let’s also not forget that to get those crazy big numbers you have to spec glass cannon which in melee range can get you killed quite quickly, especially when you’re struck in place.

critickitten.1498:

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Kintari.4172:

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 love the analogy. Oh well, just a few more hours. I can’t wait to see what chaos the upcoming AOE changes bring.

Probably more than that. I’m not entirely confident they’ll roll the patch overnight. More likely they roll it early morning or in the afternoon, around the time that dailies typically reset anyways.

People assume the aoe changes will be coming in this update but that isn’t exactly what they said. I hope when they said they were going to take their time with these changes they meant they were going to give it more than a week and a half.

Honestly, I think it’s because of the way anet makes their game to be huge hordes of mobs everywhere that aoe seems powerful. Maybe they should just make more areas with less mobs that are farther apart, but stronger. Kind of like southsun cove, but with more things to do besides gathering mats.

Navzar.2938:

Honestly, I think it’s because of the way anet makes their game to be huge hordes of mobs everywhere that aoe seems powerful. Maybe they should just make more areas with less mobs that are farther apart, but stronger. Kind of like southsun cove, but with more things to do besides gathering mats.

Southsun Cove is not solo-able, especially by an AOE user, you end up doing a lot of ninja’ing around mobs. If they moved more toward this model it would contradict ArenaNet’s promise of “Play the way you want”. Really the only place AOE is considered a problem is in WvW, why nerf it in PvE if most people do not consider it problem. They’re fixing ghost problems, minor at worst, while ignoring so many real, and major, problems…I’ll never understand it.

Leamas.5803:

Southsun Cove is not solo-able, especially by an AOE user, you end up doing a lot of ninja’ing around mobs.

Er, yes it is. I run through Southsun Cove by myself for Passiflora and Ori nodes all the time.

In fact there are YT videos of people who have been able to farm them solo, who are making quite a lot of money off of it.

I do it on my elementalist. It’s okay solo content as long as your not trying to solo the champion karka or 2+ vetern karka. You an still tank the champion long enough to mine the rich ori and escape though.

I actually like that the area has fights vs a low number of stronger mobs. I also feel that kind of content brings out the worth of single target skills as well (or it would if eles had any).

fellyn.5083:

DaedalusDragon.3754:

The best we can do is play as much as we can before these nerfs hit the fan and hope you have got your moneys worth out of the game before then. I can’t imagine myself playing this game where the strengths of most single target classes (Warrior, primarily who also have plenty of powerful AoE) continue to get stronger while AoE heavy classes just keep getting weaker patch after patch.

New name after patch: Warrior Wars 2

Here’s the thing though, warriors are not over powered in any way, shape, or form. In pve they may perform well but in both spvp and wv3 they are near the bottom of the list in terms of performance.

And just to be clear, hundred blades has many drawbacks attached to it’s use, namely it’s a 4 second self root channel that only hits 3 targets at a time. Which is the target of many peoples complaints. Let’s also not forget that to get those crazy big numbers you have to spec glass cannon which in melee range can get you killed quite quickly, especially when you’re struck in place.

I appreciate your response and since the ele is my main source of info (tied with guardian) I would have to say that the warrior is OP, at least compared to most other classes. Hundred blades drawbacks are all very similar to D/D Churning earth. Churning earth roots you for 3.25 seconds but you see none of that damage until the end. Churning earth also has a 30 second cooldown where as hundred blades has an 8 second cast time… And even when specced full glass cannon I can’t even match the damage of my friends lvl 80 warrior with hundred blades when he is running a mostly support build. AND my survivability is STILL lower than his while he is doing more damage than me. The only positive for churning earth is that you can teleport to the enemies vicinity using lightning flash, but that forces you to use up a utility slot just so you can make your strongest skill practicalish.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

I appreciate your response and since the ele is my main source of info (tied with guardian) I would have to say that the warrior is OP, at least compared to most other classes. Hundred blades drawbacks are all very similar to D/D Churning earth. Churning earth roots you for 3.25 seconds but you see none of that damage until the end. Churning earth also has a 30 second cooldown where as hundred blades has an 8 second cast time… And even when specced full glass cannon I can’t even match the damage of my friends lvl 80 warrior with hundred blades when he is running a mostly support build. AND my survivability is STILL lower than his while he is doing more damage than me. The only positive for churning earth is that you can teleport to the enemies vicinity using lightning flash, but that forces you to use up a utility slot just so you can make your strongest skill practicalish.

Small correction, Churning Earth doesn’t root enemy, it cripple enemy. So, using Hundred blades still can be effective if not too far from ele. Having in mind Churning Earth is PBAoE, enemy it is near ele.

critickitten.1498:

Probably more than that. I’m not entirely confident they’ll roll the patch overnight. More likely they roll it early morning or in the afternoon, around the time that dailies typically reset anyways.

Oh I remember starting days where they had situations like “New patch available! Reset in 2 minutes!” and game had name Build Wars and Login Wars.
In any way, I expect update will be done at noon or late hours on 28th PST which means in Europe we will get this update 29th.

PS: It is 28th 7:24 CET in the morning – no update yet. Time to go to work – yawn.

Inkubus.7529:

Small correction, Churning Earth doesn’t root enemy, it cripple enemy. So, using Hundred blades still can be effective if not too far from ele. Having in mind Churning Earth is PBAoE, enemy it is near ele.

While technically correct, I think his point is that it roots the ele casting the skill for the full duration. The cripple is just a (not so effective) means of keeping enemies in the circle for that cast time.

ATMAvatar.5749:

While technically correct, I think his point is that it roots the ele casting the skill for the full duration. The cripple is just a (not so effective) means of keeping enemies in the circle for that cast time.

Rooting ele during long cast – yes. I though he refers to rooting enemy. Yes, skills like those (Meteor shower, Healing Rain, Earthquake and mentioned Churning Earth) are big problem to use due to mentioned root, yet give quite good effects. Important to say, all of them are AoE and we are talking about nerfing AoE so if their effectiveness is lesser than it is now and still require rooting – usage will be quite questionable.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

fellyn.5083:

DaedalusDragon.3754:

The best we can do is play as much as we can before these nerfs hit the fan and hope you have got your moneys worth out of the game before then. I can’t imagine myself playing this game where the strengths of most single target classes (Warrior, primarily who also have plenty of powerful AoE) continue to get stronger while AoE heavy classes just keep getting weaker patch after patch.

New name after patch: Warrior Wars 2

Here’s the thing though, warriors are not over powered in any way, shape, or form. In pve they may perform well but in both spvp and wv3 they are near the bottom of the list in terms of performance.

And just to be clear, hundred blades has many drawbacks attached to it’s use, namely it’s a 4 second self root channel that only hits 3 targets at a time. Which is the target of many peoples complaints. Let’s also not forget that to get those crazy big numbers you have to spec glass cannon which in melee range can get you killed quite quickly, especially when you’re struck in place.

I appreciate your response and since the ele is my main source of info (tied with guardian) I would have to say that the warrior is OP, at least compared to most other classes. Hundred blades drawbacks are all very similar to D/D Churning earth. Churning earth roots you for 3.25 seconds but you see none of that damage until the end. Churning earth also has a 30 second cooldown where as hundred blades has an 8 second cast time… And even when specced full glass cannon I can’t even match the damage of my friends lvl 80 warrior with hundred blades when he is running a mostly support build. AND my survivability is STILL lower than his while he is doing more damage than me. The only positive for churning earth is that you can teleport to the enemies vicinity using lightning flash, but that forces you to use up a utility slot just so you can make your strongest skill practicalish.

I understand what you’re saying and I agree to some extent. But that doesn’t mean warrior is op. It just means ele’s need work. What it would take to fix them I have no idea as I’m by no means an expert on eles. But for all intents and purposes warrior is the most balanced class in the game and has been since launch.

Hundred blades is just one skill. The only other complaint warriors get is kill shot, which I do agree could be toned down by quite a bit. So yeah, 2 entire skills are what people base their argument that warriors are op on.

Take those 2 things away and warrior is perfectly average. They don’t do anything better than any other class in the game and a lot of things worse. Which is why in spvp and wv3 they are considered not good.

fellyn.5083:

It just means ele’s need work.

And that is concern regarding AoE nerf. Well, update is not up yet and we shall see how it goes. I hope they will boost a little basic attack on staff but I doubt it.

the real problem with aoe is that the skills and targeting systems for them totally suck if you dont have some stupid tank there to hold the mob still… then we get into stupid territory with the weirdness surrounding how the damage is dealt by things like the ele’s meteor shower (first getting used to the ele i got flattened when not a single meteor touched ANY of the 2 or 3 mobs who were in the aoe field) Targeting is the issue, and while being able to point somewhere and say “kitten this spot in particular” thus denying it to your enemy (walls, towers, and other elevated areas in wvw, spvp, and even pve in some cases) you get pigeon-holed into bad places in other areas of the game. The mesmer is a prime example of why casters need lots of aoe… mesmers can pull off some incredible stunts, but in general pve you are screwed into long, boring fights with 3-4 mobs because you just dont have the power to stand there and spank them all at once with some hard aoes, similar issue with the ele… the ones they have hit crazy hard, but take time that you don’t have if you even might become the focus of their binary rage.

Actually, IMO… large AoE done correctly for pve belongs to the necromancer and their system of marks and wells, basically being a magical ranger trap, this is the correct concept, even if I feel the damage is rather lack-luster… it’s all there, you arent screwed too hard for a missed click, not rooted to 1 spot for an annoying long time where any interrupt breaks the whole thing, and there is no weirdness about damage like in the meteor shower.. also the cooldowns are not crippling on the necro marks.

Mind you, meteor showers, chaos storms, and the like are ok, but i think they might make better suited utility skills like the glyph of storms, and I would ask that if aoe takes an unrecoverable spanking from the nerf paddle… there need to be far more bouncing attacks circa mesmer GS skill 2, or ele staff, air magic skill 1.

And to the thing about tagging mobs for loot in zerg farms… the only classes who i would say outright are nerf at such things are the guard and elementalist… guard’s staff doesnt hit hard enough to trigger, and the ele’s aoes are way too slow casting and way too long to recharge if you don’t have the spawn locations committed perfectly to memory… Thief shortbow skill #2, cluster bombs, engi grenades or mine kits (flame thrower needs dps buff, but w/e), warrior longbow and GS or dw axe, ranger traps, longbows, torch skill 5, mesmers staff skill 5, and GS skills (ground target aoe, phantasm and cone/wave attack) and necro wells and staff marks are all great for just tagging in for some loot (and helping mow that group of ravenous undead and all)… so only 2 classes imo suffer from lack of ability to hit large numbers of mobs at once and repeat it fairly quick

AOE should not do more damage than single target abiltiies.

Likewise, weapon attacks that cleave (GS, Hammer, etc) should do less damage than non cleave weapon. (Warrior’s GS auto vs Thief’s Dagger auto; damage is similar yet the Warrior’s GS cleave up to 3 targets.)

So, at the end, no changes to AOE?
Too much noise for nothing.

Sifu.6527:

AOE should not do more damage than single target abiltiies.

Likewise, weapon attacks that cleave (GS, Hammer, etc) should do less damage than non cleave weapon. (Warrior’s GS auto vs Thief’s Dagger auto; damage is similar yet the Warrior’s GS cleave up to 3 targets.)

I disagree, I think it should be situational. A strong poison AOE should cause more damage than a direct attack for those susceptible to poison, while it should have no effect on, say, the undead or robots. You need poison resistance or condition removal to get rid of it if infected. Much like you need armor to stave off direct damage, magic/poison/fire resistance is basic fair in many RPGs. I think GW2 missed the boat a bit on some of this stuff.

For weapons, I also thing GW2 missed the mark at bit. It’s logical that 2-handed weapons should cause more damage than one handed and that a crushing weapon (Mace, Hammer, Maul, morning star, etc) will be more effective against certain enemies just as a blade will be more effective against others. Blades should take a lot of damage and have little effect on, say, skeletons, where a mace will smash right through them. Even the original Diablo had this basic concept.

Fox Soul.4809:

So, at the end, no changes to AOE?
Too much noise for nothing.

ColinJohanson.2394:

As discussed in the Gw2 in 2013 blog post this is really just the ground work for the systems coming down the road.

Just because it wasn’t in the 28 Jan patch doesn’t mean it’s not planned.

I have to quote this here because Devs need to see this, it’s dead on accurate in the way the vast majority of the community sees this.
You complain about AOE stomping in zergs but subject alpha in your own dungeons does this, and it’s definitely an L2P issue, not an AOE issue.

Nerfing AoE (not just on the ele), shows a clear disconnect in how the game plays and how the devs see things. Their disconnect with reality is doubled down when they talk about AoEing downed players as a problem. If a bunch of horribles want to run up and try to revive people under heavy AoE , that is a massive L2P issue, not a game balance issue. Use a rez signet like a halfway intelligent person. Push enemies back or suppress them with counter fire before you attempt to revive.
It’s not just their conclusion that is terrible, it’s the incredibly ignorant and nonsensical logic that they use to validated it. ANet has shown repeatedly that they don’t understand how to balance the game. When they come out and say that they plan to make a shockingly bad gameplay adjustment like this, everyone should be up in arms. They’re clearly not going to reach a good decision on their own.

I have to admit, I’m also a bit worried about the upcoming changes. I have been playing many different classes now and all together the balancing between all of them isn’t that bad at all, but I’m afraid some classes are goining to have some serious problems in case of an AOE nerf.

Some class specific problems that I have to think about when reading this thread:
- Ele is going to have some serious disadvantages – at least with the staff equipped, since the staff is already borderline to useless and everybody uses D/D builds, the time you need to summon the fire aoe (staff – skill 5) without being killed in a serious fight
- Necro is affected even more, I personally won’t play it anymore when the change is too intense
- Ragnger – won’t be affected as much, but it’s very hard for him to survive in Orr or other high level areas anyway
- Thief – won’t give a s***, cause he’s stealthing throug enemies, spamming heardseeker 2-3 times to down the enemy, finish him invisible, run a few secounds and repead the procedure without any nerfed aoes
- Guardien – all classes that have to stand in front of the enemie are dependend on a strong attack and aoe is the only effective possibility aganinst invisible enemies in PvP, but he is probably only experiencing disadvantages in PvE while farming, except for the invisible enemy problem

Some possible consquences the Devs should be aware of:
- After the nerf, Thiefes are probably the class you want to chose for PvP/WvW since they are even harder to kill after an AOE nerf, because that was the only possibility aganinst stealthed thiefes.
Mesmers are also going to benefit from this change.
So the next step would be nerfing these classes what might lead to some other balancing issues.
- Please notice that some players don’t want to play in 50+ Zergs and it’s already hard enough to find players that want do do something with you at certain times. So the game is going to be even harder when playing alone and thus more frustrating.
- Groups of less people are supposed to win against more people when the group with more people is just as stupid, to run thoug a wall out of AOE with barriers inside!
So I’m afraid you could decrease the tactical feature in the game. I really liked being able to deal with bigger groups through well planed and coordinated gameplay.
- I don’t care that when I’m following a huge group of players, we can wipe when we play bad. Please don’t let the game go towards the direction taht the player’s abilities won’t matter as much since every attack hites only 2 or 3 people and it doesn’t matter anymore what attack you use.

A much bigger balancing problem I see in WvW is the huge difference between Exo-Equip and the new better stuff. I don’t remember it’s name. But the players that are better anyway are pushed even more, so I as casual gamer, (even trough I have been with GW2 since release) doesn’t stand a chance because I would need months or just more friends willing to do fractals to farm Equip so I’m on the same level as the hardcore gamers and stand a chance against them again.

Inwould love to see a true AoE in this game. The area should not have a target limit; however, the AoE should have a diminishing return system. The current system is fine for AoE cc but for the damage aspect we should have a diminishing return system.