Guild Wars 2

ANET devs talked in the chat/stream today (and in the recent past in blog posts) about nerfing Area of Effect abilities, which they see as a problem because there’s not a high enough opportunity cost to bring AoE, and it leads to weird things like players ignoring single target abilities even on single targets, choosing to use heavy AoE instead of stomping players in PvP, etc.

This doesn’t match my experience at all, except possibly in WvW. And I don’t see why any one should be able to safely rez a downed player in the midst of a massive zerg vs zerg, unless they take exceptional measures like popping invincibility and quickness, or having an “insta rez” utility equipped.

I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t really see this supposed problem at all. I see that the game has an incredibly large number of AoE abilities, and so they are basically unavoidable to use, but I don’t see people deferring on single target damage, because at the end of the day, 1v1 or killing bosses is really important to a lot of players, and even small damage advantages for single target abilities make them very attractive to use.

Am I alone on this? Are other people running into this problem of not feeling that single target abilities are not presenting a reasonable advantage in certain situations, and if so, can you provide some examples?

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

Who knows, some dev prolly got owned by some aoe class or something. Wouldn’t surprise me at all since there are no logical reasons to nerf an entire damage class and also state they need more single target damage. The statement itself is just…..I don’t have a pleasant word for it.

gains from aoe farming is probably one of the main reasons as well.

The only reason why (HB) Warrior is so strong, is because of the AI. Hundred Blades and other oftheir burst skills was meant to be easily dodged/ blocked, something that pve enemies can’t do. A Warrior is not even a top tier profession in pvp.

And yes, AoE is a problem. For events, AoE builds are much better at farming than other builds, regardless of the players’ skill level, which is unfair. For pvp, AoE spamming is very stronger against a coordinated team trying to rez their ally and against players defending points, weakening both strategies and making the format slightly more 2-dimensional. In WvW, there’s nothing to say: it’s an AoE fest by nature.

Maybe some of you never thought of this before, while you have been abusing AoE in this game, but just because you got used to it, does not means it was meant this way. That being said, I hope they nerf AoE VERY carefully. I want them to nerf AoE, but noone surely wants them to nerf entire builds, weapon sets or even entire professions because of that.

Voxdeus.1034:

ANET devs talked in the chat/stream today (and in the recent past in blog posts) about nerfing Area of Effect abilities, which they see as a problem because there’s not a high enough opportunity cost to bring AoE, and it leads to weird things like players ignoring single target abilities even on single targets, choosing to use heavy AoE instead of stomping players in PvP, etc.

This doesn’t match my experience at all, except possibly in WvW. And I don’t see why any one should be able to safely rez a downed player in the midst of a massive zerg vs zerg, unless they take exceptional measures like popping invincibility and quickness, or having an “insta rez” utility equipped.

Exactly and no, aoe is definitely not a problem in WvW.

Mr Crazy Moose.5760:

Standard skill balance approach is “If it’s not Warrior, it needs nerfing.”.

You forgot thief. Why is aoe a problem when a thief can kill from stealth before the target has any chance to react?

DiogoSilva.7089:

The only reason why (HB) Warrior is so strong, is because of the AI. Hundred Blades and other oftheir burst skills was meant to be easily dodged/ blocked, something that pve enemies can’t do. A Warrior is not even a top tier profession in pvp.

And yes, AoE is a problem. For events, AoE builds are much better at farming than other builds, regardless of the players’ skill level, which is unfair. For pvp, AoE spamming is very stronger against a coordinated team trying to rez their ally and against players defending points, weakening both strategies and making the format slightly more 2-dimensional. In WvW, there’s nothing to say: it’s an AoE fest by nature.

Maybe some of you never thought of this before, while you have been abusing AoE in this game, but just because you got used to it, does not means it was meant this way. That being said, I hope they nerf AoE VERY carefully. I want them to nerf AoE, but noone surely wants them to nerf entire builds, weapon sets or even entire professions because of that.

ever thought on having a guardian put down a healing ring? Ever asked a necro to do that? That’s an AoE. And that’s also the only skill that I was able to contribute to the team in dungeon runs. AoE is not OP. If you really think so start an Ele, Necro or a mesmer and try using the staff. Then switch to something else, like scepter and dagger that mostly targets single enemies. Compare the damage. They’re esentially killing some classes even. Tried playing an Engineer? Find a viable build that wouldn’t use AoE but would be able to kill mobs at PvE level 50…

AoE is fine. Anet should show some statistics to prove otherwise.

if they think aoe is op, why not just make everything single target. i mean kitten aoe; Area OF Effect … wth. (just pointing out the obvious). in my point of view it loses the term aoe when its limited to 3,5,6 or any numbers at all. because then it doesn’t effect all the entities inside the area. please, remove the 5 limit. everything that says its “AOE” should be what the spell say. otherwise please say “AOE, but can hit max 5 enemies/allies.”

Mirta.5029:

AoE is not OP. If you really think so start an Ele, Necro or a mesmer and try using the staff. Then switch to something else, like scepter and dagger that mostly targets single enemies. Compare the damage.

I main an Elementalist with near 70% map explored and some pvp tournaments done with him. I’ve also played a little bit of WvW. Out of my experience, AoE is crazy against any group of stationary mobs. Points, events, zergs. The damage it deals is huge.

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.

Of course D/D is stronger against individual opponents. It’s more risky, it has a very restricted range, and the aoe radius is also (usually but not always) smaller.

That’s why any aoe nerf must be done carefully. In myopnion, aoe’s damage should scale down only if it hits more than 1 opponent and, depending on the skills, always deal full damage to the targetted enemy. This way, Dragon’s Tooth or Fire Grab would still spike the target, and only dealless damage against any other opponent. And skills like staff’s fire field would only deal less damage if more than one enemy was around – as long as the damage decrease isn’t too big, it should keep them balanced.

IMO, that’s the best way I can think of to nerf AoE without ruining the elementalist (and other classes?).

I agree that scaling an AoE damage vs the number affected is probably the best way to go about this. In return AoEs should be allowed to hit slightly more targets.

The Guardian is a heavy armor class who relies on boons to make up for their low levels of innate health. “They focus on area control and punishing enemies for the position on the battlefield.” We want them to feel very powerful when their boons are active, but if those boons are removed, they will start to feel pressure. They can remove conditions more easily than the Warrior, but share the Warrior’s need to be in melee range to dole out maximum damage.

LOL well with the aoe nerf, good bye guardian. Most of guardian’s arsenal besides 1h sword is aoe. So I’m going to guess that hammer, great sword, scepter and staff will be weakened by a bit. Sounds about right given Anet’s track record for nerfing stuff.

Sometimes I wonder if we’re even playing the same game as the devs.

Didn’t they already nerf aoe healing and buffs? so now they’re going to ruin aoe damage? just brilliant.

So are you going to ruin ranger aoe too?

What’s funny, this is going to ruin mob tagging (something anet claims doesn’t exist in gw2 yet anyone who has played in any of the orr maps knows that is so far from the truth it’s not even funny anymore) prepare to have even worse drops in group events.

i’d like to go with the opinion that some dev got owned by AoE and is kitten about it that he cannot sleep at night and having nightmares if he does get his sleep about him getting owned by AoE and now decided to nerf AoE.

Is this a PvP only change, or do we not know? I certainly hope it isn’t across the board… that would make no sense at all.

It’s not enough problem that they should be focusing on it , they are playing with fire as some of their class designs are almost entirely AoE centric and have really poor single target options; and they are liable to make a lot of folks extremely upset.

I know a more important aspect to much of the community is actually overbearing single target burst damage, (aka thiefs). I don’t quite get how Anet has keyed in on AoE as being a bigger problem when almost nobody actually complains about it.

It just doesn’t seem like a smart change to me. I don’t see very many people coming away from that update without having a really bad taste in their mouth.

seriously, probably this is because of youtube videos that show 7 people killing 30 people in WvWvW via AoEs at chokepoint.

(which i think is not far from military tactic of nuking or something like that. and Spartans, anyone?)

Arsenic Touch.7960:

What’s funny, this is going to ruin mob tagging (something anet claims doesn’t exist in gw2 yet anyone who has played in any of the orr maps knows that is so far from the truth it’s not even funny anymore) prepare to have even worse drops in group events.

I’m actually rather convinced that’s the idea, actually. There’s really no other reason to hammer AoE in general as a bad thing unless you’re trying to make it harder for AoE-heavy players to tag targets.

I use this to great effect in WvW, for example. It’s one of the few things my ranger can do for the zerg: help soften up the incoming enemies and cripple them with a solid Barrage so that the harder hitting players can bring them down before they can recover and flee, and because I dealt damage and such, I receive credit for contributing in the kill. It’s one of the few ways that I can legitimately tag enemies in large groups before the zerg just cleans their clocks….and if they significantly reduce my damage output, that method of tagging is completely gone, and many rangers will just be out of luck when it comes to getting kills in the WvW system, unless they stick to smaller brawls between a handful of players. And rangers are hardly the only class in the game relying on AoE tactics to help them tag enemies, necromancers tend to use staff AoE a lot as well.

I’m worried that their plans to reduce AoE will end up making it effectively worthless and incapable of having any real punch behind it.

critickitten.1498:

Arsenic Touch.7960:

What’s funny, this is going to ruin mob tagging (something anet claims doesn’t exist in gw2 yet anyone who has played in any of the orr maps knows that is so far from the truth it’s not even funny anymore) prepare to have even worse drops in group events.

I’m actually rather convinced that’s the idea, actually. There’s really no other reason to hammer AoE in general as a bad thing unless you’re trying to make it harder for AoE-heavy players to tag targets.

I use this to great effect in WvW, for example. It’s one of the few things my ranger can do for the zerg: help soften up the incoming enemies and cripple them with a solid Barrage so that the harder hitting players can bring them down before they can recover and flee, and because I dealt damage and such, I receive credit for contributing in the kill. It’s one of the few ways that I can legitimately tag enemies in large groups before the zerg just cleans their clocks….and if they significantly reduce my damage output, that method of tagging is completely gone, and many rangers will just be out of luck when it comes to getting kills in the WvW system, unless they stick to smaller brawls between a handful of players. And rangers are hardly the only class in the game relying on AoE tactics to help them tag enemies, necromancers tend to use staff AoE a lot as well.

I’m worried that their plans to reduce AoE will end up making it effectively worthless and incapable of having any real punch behind it.

I didn’t even think about it it but this is going to kill badges of honor drops as well as other www drops.

They already nerfed engineer AoE where it is less effective, and not they want to nerf AoE even more?

First of all, AoE is not as strong as single target skills as it is. For instance the AoE ele skills do no-where near as much damage as single target skills, but because AoE is a targeted skill (most times) ele’s use AoE to hit targets that they cannot normally target directly such as people up on walls …

Arsenic Touch.7960:

I didn’t even think about it it but this is going to kill badges of honor drops as well as other www drops.

Yep, and they’re bad enough as it is. I truly do not understand why they don’t just award 1 BoH per kill, seriously, this RNG nonsense is ridiculous. My ranger, over the course of a handful of WvW outings, has racked up 600 kills in WvW….and only 100 BoHs to show for it. That’s truly, completely terrible. It makes me feel like my time in WvW is a complete waste because I’m basically getting nothing to show for it. Only Porous Bones, junk items, a handful of BoHs, and occasionally a blue or green. I get more from the open world PvE, and that’s a sad statement.

But that’s off-topic. Point is, for some classes, this could potentially ruin WvW for them, as they’ll be forced to either run single-target specs or else just give up on WvW (or worse, the game itself). I don’t see any reason whatsoever for this broad paintbrushing of “AoE is all bad”. It’s got limitations built into it already, don’t cripple it!

So he talks about balance in WvW and PvP:

“One of the issues that’s brought up alotta times is the AoE.”

Then he goes on to talk about PvE content:

“Right now especially in dungeons too, if you have a lot of AoE you get through encounters just by spamming AoE, which is not something we obviously want. So that’s something you guys have mentioned, and we definitely know it’s an issue so we’ll definitely be looking at that.”

There’s a couple things I don’t understand:

1. Did people REALLY complain about AoE in PvP/WvW? If so, then could someone please fetch me 5 threads about it prior to the livestream? Shouldn’t be too hard to do since it seems to be a hot topic. I mean, they even mentioned it in the livestream… Sadly I couldn’t find any myself.

2. People whined about balance issues in WvW/PvP. Nothing was said about PvE, so why is he talking about PvE balance?

I dont understand Anet. Isnt the staff ele already kitten enough? If you reduce the effectiveness of AoEs, elementalists will become obsolete in dungeons. Right now single target classes such as guardian and warrior dominate PvE dungeons such as FoTM. I see no sense in nerfing AoEs at all.

And when you look at wvw, the only thing that is OP is the thief. I really have no idea what these devs are thinking.

How can they say AoE is overpowered, game breaking, destroy WvWvW or w/e the reason they said when you have thieves doing exactly the same with their stupid damage and 100% stealth ? Nerf them both at least -.-

I’m curious about what do they mean when they say “AoE damage”. Skills that can hit more than one target? If so, this is going to be a massive nerf, considering how many melee skills can hit more than one target if you position yourself correctly. Nerfing those would also make the game considerably less fun to me, for the records – it’s fun to always be planning on how to position yourself so your melee attacks hit more than one enemy, and then watch as your plan succeeds by being able to deal with more than one enemy at a time.

Or do by “AoE damage” ArenaNet mean the skills that cast a circle on the ground? If so, nerfing those would cause an even bigger difference between professions that are already regarded as very powerful – example, warrior – and professions that are seen as weak – example, necromancer.

I can’t help but to think that there are better ways to deal with the WvW issue than making a nerf this big. It risks fundamentally changing combat in this game – if instead of being able to take on a small group of enemies we need to hit one enemy at a time, always, well… It would not be as fun to me.

Erasculio.2914:

I’m curious about what do they mean when they say “AoE damage”. Skills that can hit more than one target? If so, this is going to be a massive nerf, considering how many melee skills can hit more than one target if you position yourself correctly. Nerfing those would also make the game considerably less fun to me, for the records – it’s fun to always be planning on how to position yourself so your melee attacks hit more than one enemy, and then watch as your plan succeeds by being able to deal with more than one enemy at a time.

Or do by “AoE damage” ArenaNet mean the skills that cast a circle on the ground? If so, nerfing those would cause an even bigger difference between professions that are already regarded as very powerful – example, warrior – and professions that are seen as weak – example, necromancer.

I can’t help but to think that there are better ways to deal with the WvW issue than making a nerf this big. It risks fundamentally changing combat in this game – if instead of being able to take on a small group of enemies we need to hit one enemy at a time, always, well… It would not be as fun to me.

This is the big one to me. It’ll hit a lot of professions and just in general make the game less fun. They need to consider just changing their mind and not going through with this period.

GoZero.9708:

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

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

I main a staff ele glass cannon. I have 10.5k hp and have to be really good at observing surroundings and dodging in order to not get killed in 2-3 hits in dungeons and FotM. I take all these hits in survivability in order to deal out good damage. Can I 1v1 a target, yes but it takes some time because the majority of my skills are channeling skills or low damage spam skills. What I bring to the party is GROUP SUPPORT in that I make it easier for others to kill.

If they nerf aoe I will be so kittening kitten since that is how I WANT TO PLAY and how I like to play. I don’t want to have to take up a d/d build, I don’t find it as fun. They just better tread very lightly…..

Back up the statements you make. If people are calling for aoe nerfs, cite the sources, link the threads….if it’s a problem because everyone is doing it, post some statistics….don’t just throw this crap out without backing it up since it will have such a huge effect on how a large portion of the player base plays.

Mr Crazy Moose.5760:

Standard skill balance approach is “If it’s not Warrior, it needs nerfing.”.

You know what, Warriors got ground-targeting Aoe’s too. In Zerg vs Zerg- Combat the Longbow is a the most useful weapon. If you try to melee as a warrior vs a zerg, most of the time, you will have a full condition bar and be low on health before you can even hit a target and be lucky to get out of combat alive.

And it’s now only in WvW. In Pve, if you fight against a large number of Mobs, you will get more loot and do more damage with Longbow / axe-axe, then with Greatsword / Rifle.

Aoe’s don’t need a nerf, i like it how it is now.

Taikanaru.5746:

AoE is fine. Anet should show some statistics to prove otherwise.

It’s not about statistics.

I never saw one long or viable thread where people were ever complaining about AOE.

I also see entire professions based on AOE. (elementalist, for instance).

I see entire weapon sets built around aoe (pretty much every weapon with decent aoe has nearly ALL aoe on that weapon).

So what they’re saying is: they are now removing several weapon sets and professions from the game.

Tip for ANET: Nodoby likes feeling less powerful for no reason, and nobody likes being told how to play (So don’t do it unless it’s consistently ruining the days of the vast majority of the player base).

From open world, DE, dungeon, the mobs are usually in groups, and with the current tagging mechanism, AoE gives out significant advantage over single target attack for looting.

Even for dungeon bosses, most of them comes with adds, which needs to be dispatched quickly. Usually you can’t 1 shot those adds with a single target attack, so in a given time, AoE can kill a grouped mobs faster and minimize damage done to the group.
My concern is will the environment be tuned to adapt a more single-target focused mechanism? It seems that without overhaul the existing bosses and environment, the nerf of AoE damage will simply elongate the fight.

Elongating the fight is probably what ANet wants to achieve. Lazy way to implement a challenge.

I have played a staff ele in wvw since launch on the top tier servers with a top guild and I can say that aoe does not need a nerf. aoe is strong in wvw because it helps fight culling issues. This is because most times when fighting a zerg for every 2 that you see there are probably another 3 or 4 you don’t see, so throwing down aoes makes your dmg more effective.

During the live stream they mentioned a scenario where when an ally was downed and players would just aoe the downed player instead of stomping. Aoeing the downed player is the solution to the problem that stomping somebody in wvw most of the time can be very costly.

An example is if you are defending a garrison and are up on a wall why would you jump off the wall into the enemy forces to finish 1 guy if you aren’t instantly killed by the enemy since you are right in there face. This is why most guilds just push out into the enemy since staying behind the wall can be rather ineffective at defending. This also applies to most fights in wvw with zergs because nobody has time to finish a downed player until the majority of the enemies are running or dead. Especially true when 3-4 players can almost insta revive a recently downed player making any attempt at finishing a downed player a waste of time.

As far as aoe not having a enough opportunity cost that is also not exactly true. The entire opportunity cost comes from players being able to avoid the little red circles on the ground. And playing as a staff ele there were times in wvw fighting a 1v1 that i felt spamming 1 on fire was a far better use of my time rather than trying to kite the enemy through all my aoes that they would either use a gap closer or dodge roll to evade.

what i can accept is they reduce aoe to 5 targets…
What i won t accept is reducing damage…..

You want an issue anet?

look at gw2lfg…

LFguardian
LFwarrior
LF heavy

That IS an issue….

Look as in game a warrior alone can do more damage than 2 other players while facetanking a boss……

Look at guardian soloing bosses without even rolling….

Those are gamebreaking issues to the point those classes are required for most activities…

While nobody says
LF ele ….
LF eng
LF ranger

LordByron.8369:

Look as in game a warrior alone can do more damage than 2 other players while facetanking a boss……

What Game are you playing? In most Dungeons and Fractals, Warriors use the rifle most of the time. Show me some Videos of Warriors at Fractal lvl 30+, who are “facetanking” Bosses besides exploited Mossman.

Besides almost all your posts are against warriors…

Pixelninja.6971:

LordByron.8369:

Look as in game a warrior alone can do more damage than 2 other players while facetanking a boss……

What Game are you playing? In most Dungeons and Fractals, Warriors use the rifle most of the time. Show me some Videos of Warriors at Fractal lvl 30+, who are “facetanking” Bosses besides exploited Mossman.

There are actually more dungeons than just fractals. There have been a few vids of warriors soloing various explorable modes.

Is there some elusive group of 5 eles out there steam rolling all the dungeons? I can’t think of anywhere besides ac burrows that an AOE field is better than hundred blades, I dont play ele myself but there is a lot on my guild and they are just confused over these statements.

Pixelninja.6971:

LordByron.8369:

Look as in game a warrior alone can do more damage than 2 other players while facetanking a boss……

What Game are you playing? In most Dungeons and Fractals, Warriors use the rifle most of the time. Show me some Videos of Warriors at Fractal lvl 30+, who are “facetanking” Bosses besides exploited Mossman.

possibly a game you are not playing….i know that nowadays even many “beginners” have managed to be taken to lvl 30 fotm, that doesn t mean you cannot just open gw2lfg and read…..

Obviously if you want to deny something we all know…..because for other ppl is not even necessary…

And yes i know FEW bosses in high lvl fotm requires you to stay ranged….if that was a problem i couldn’t even play fotm.

Jay.3284:

GoZero.9708:

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

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

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

Mass AE from large groups is the problem.

AE should be used for CC or mass low damage annoyance.

AE is skilless

Start grouping in a 5 man and roam instead of zerging.

Theres been orders of magnitude more complaints about downed state, instagibbing, and across-the-board lack of viable builds yet all those things are not being
addressed.

They aren’t listening and they clealy dont give a kitten.

I currently play thief and some aoe is pretty silly. Somtimes its much easier to shotgun chain cluster bomb killing the downed person and the person ressing him. Wasnt it the first podcast thing where they talked to Tpvpers where they said its much better to aoe people down instead of casting finishers.

IComeInPeace.1768:

Mass AE from large groups is the problem.

AE should be used for CC or mass low damage annoyance.

AE is skilless

Start grouping in a 5 man and roam instead of zerging.

AOE should be used for point control and punishing people who can’t coordinate.

AOE demonstrates the ability to use strategy in W2 and W3.

Strong AOE discourages “packing up” and “zerging” by punishing people for standing together in big red circles.

the cap of 5 should be removed in AOE to force the playerbase into being more intelligent than night of the living dead (now with swiftness!). — for the record, the cap of 5 on healing is fine.. it helps to prevent “immortal zerging”--

When talking aoe i think either devs fell of the horse or had bad case of elementalist. I have a guardian and a necro and i don’t see any “OP aoe” on them. Staff sucks bigtime for both jobs if it’s damage we’re after. AoE on necromancer is sooooo powerful…that i use dagger/dagger (which is 1v1) build to do pve…

as for guardian, only two real offensively meaningful aoe i know of are greatsword 5 skill (thanks to range and damage over time) and torch skill 5 (which is sweet, but hits only in front of you, like engineer’s flametrower). Rest is either too small of an area to mention, healing, or just shooting bolts in random directions with no guarantees of hitting monsters in range at all.

I think much smarter move is implementing a defense vs aoe. Melee attacks i can avoid by staying out of range/blocking. Projectiles i can block or reflect. Aoe i guess walk outta red circle…or a dozen!

Basically what this is about if you ask me, is not that AoE are too powerful (save maybe elementalist), but that they need to be punishable. Given their range and inability to be reflected back, retalliation seems an answer but that’s not a buff many have access too. But perhabs a form of absorption? Instead of taking damage form aoe i could cancel/reduce it’s damage and get buffed from it or reflect damage back. Ofc in form of a skill, with cd. So i can’t defend all the time, but i have some bite vs aoe.

Anet lives in its own little bubble, like most software companies and politicans, haven’t got a clue what there players want.

Nerfing AoE, really, how many players want that? Like 0, zero, nought, no one…

Nerfing anything is a bad move you always upset a % of your player base…better to buff skills that are weak / not used instead. Makes people happy, rather than upset/annoyed.

Nerfings so…NEGATIVE!

Meglobob.8620:

Nerfing AoE, really, how many players want that? Like 0, zero, nought, no one…

I want it. Provided they’re talking about melee cleave AoE. What is there right now to punish warriors and guardians from walking into a crowd of mobs and autoattacking with greatsword? Nothing. Absoloutely zilch. And there’s no way other classes without melee cleave can get aoe melee damage.

Honestly you don’t even know how they’re nerfing AoE yet, you’re the one living in your own little bubble if you read two words and overreact like this without anet even detailing what “aoe” they’re talking about. You don’t even know a single thing yet.

Writetyper.1985:

Meglobob.8620:

Nerfing AoE, really, how many players want that? Like 0, zero, nought, no one…

I want it. Provided they’re talking about melee cleave AoE. What is there right now to punish warriors and guardians from walking into a crowd of mobs and autoattacking with greatsword? Nothing. Absoloutely zilch. And there’s no way other classes without melee cleave can get aoe melee damage.

Honestly you don’t even know how they’re nerfing AoE yet, you’re the one living in your own little bubble if you read two words and overreact like this without anet even detailing what “aoe” they’re talking about. You don’t even know a single thing yet.

The thing about waiting is this: " Well no one said anything about it, so we figured it would be just fine"GW2 dev

Mobs in GW2 are more hp heavy than in GW1. This means it takes longer to kill individual mobs. This gets annoying, so people will tend to want to get the whole group and aoe the crap out of them.

If people use aoe all the time even when not needed, it is a sign also of how uninteresting the skill set is. Nerfing aoe is one way of dealing it. Another is making other skills more useful…..but oh noes PvP will be affected.

PvP balance is a big problem for PvE.

Writetyper.1985:

Honestly you don’t even know how they’re nerfing AoE yet, you’re the one living in your own little bubble if you read two words and overreact like this without anet even detailing what “aoe” they’re talking about. You don’t even know a single thing yet.

Major update coming to all the AoE skills

I don’t remember what the word “all” means, want to define it for me?
Given anet’s track record with class balance, any complaints before it goes live are completely warranted.

Gehenna.3625:

Mobs in GW2 are more hp heavy than in GW1. This means it takes longer to kill individual mobs. This gets annoying, so people will tend to want to get the whole group and aoe the crap out of them.

If people use aoe all the time even when not needed, it is a sign also of how uninteresting the skill set is. Nerfing aoe is one way of dealing it. Another is making other skills more useful…..but oh noes PvP will be affected.

PvP balance is a big problem for PvE.

If they improve the AI they can make it more difficult to use AOE where they don’t want it used.

I’ve seen some pulls where the npc’s had great coordination to lock down my toon. They’re capable of doing this more often instead of being lazy and nerfing aoe.