Guild Wars 2

Stability was changed from duration to intensity stacking with March 16 2015 update.

It’s been one year with the new stability mechanics and I was wondering what people thought about it? I also created a similar thread over at reddit with lots of great feedback and input:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4ae5jv/its_been_one_year_since_stability_mechanics_were

The stability changes impact all three game types, so I wondering what people liked or disliked about it!

I personally think it needs some improvement. From my experience it’s had minimal impact on PvE, a medium one on PvP and huge one on WvW.

What are your thoughts?

I hate Pirate Ship. I sincerely hope this had a positive impact on PvP, because it blows chunks otherwise.

With the amount of boon corruption and crazy CC going around, stability feels very useless since this change was applied.

Whether you strip old stability or new stability… There is still the same amount of boon strip. Boon strip will do the same thing vs any type of stability.

Warcry.1596:

Whether you strip old stability or new stability… There is still the same amount of boon strip. Boon strip will do the same thing vs any type of stability.

I’m fine with boon strip and corruption

But together with the amount of CC everyobe got now your 12 stacks of stability is gone within less than a second.

WvW point of view.

with the new classes – there were A LOT of new CCs, but we did not get the same number of stability sources. that’s why most people view stability as useless….

PvE needs lots of CC to deal with defiance. Not sure if there’s a good way to balance as long as the related mechanics work the same in all three game modes.

Maybe it could work similar to stealth removal: if stability is stripped, you still can’t be CC’d for a tiny period of time. Alternatively, you can only strip stacks above X (where X probably = 1). Either possibility would still prevent perma-stability, but also prevent knock-locks (well, depending on how it got implemented).

^wont work, cause the reason you get stability is to not get CC-ed… so in that tiny period you’re immune to CC, it just defeats the purpose of CC getting rid of Stability stacks. Might as well make it duration-based like before.

Chiccotot.7296:

Might as well make it duration-based like before.

This is the correct answer.

Yeah. WvW became much less enjoyable after this change.

I still very much hate the stability change

I like how it is now, because I don’t do giant fights. I like knowing how much CC they are immune to and can counter effectively. I understand the frustration of it in large scale stuff but I can’t comment on that =/

People can’t simply run at you without worrying about cc anymore. I think that is a worthy change.

One of the biggest nails in the coffin for WvW.

personally i think we could use a buff to stab, some other classes besides guardian need to be able to supply it.

in PvE stability is the same as before the change, fear and CC breaks. For PVP, IMHO, its pretty useless now. You pop it for the same reasons for PvE, to stun break/CC break.

WvW is where its a huge train wreck. But really, WvW is pretty much dead now anyway so changing stability back to a duration isn’t going to fix this cluster ****.

also, I feel that stability over all is boring as a boon. It needs to be more interesting then just an anti-CC ‘easy button’. Back before the change you could find warriors with max stability duration and just rip it away and burn them to the ground. Where is the fun in that?

Stand The Wall.6987:

personally i think we could use a buff to stab, some other classes besides guardian need to be able to supply it.

Guard, Mesmer, Ele, and Necro all can give other players stability.

I can’t speak for WvW since I don’t play it anymore – but PvP-wise it’s added a bit more counterplay.

Before you could only tackle a stability player if you had boon rips – right now with enough coordination and focus you can just punch through it.

sirsquishy.8531:

Stand The Wall.6987:

personally i think we could use a buff to stab, some other classes besides guardian need to be able to supply it.

Guard, Mesmer, Ele, and Necro all can give other players stability.

Necro can give other players Stab since when? Necro can barely give itself Stab and never more than one stack for a second or three, with the exception of Reaper’s CttB.

Harper.4173:

I can’t speak for WvW since I don’t play it anymore – but PvP-wise it’s added a bit more counterplay.

Before you could only tackle a stability player if you had boon rips – right now with enough coordination and focus you can just punch through it.

Before you only had that issue if your team wasnt setup correctly, or someone on your team was not setup for Boon Rip.

The change was to fix it to allow for more dynamic playstyles in PVP.

The changes forced me to play a different class for comwnding in WvW. Warriors were incredible in WvW, but now if you don’t have a ranged weapon you’re pretty much worthless in large fights.

We lost a huge number of players when this change came. Fun was happening then suddenly it wasn’t

For many, it confirmed where WvW was on the list of developer priorities. It didn’t seem to be on the list AT ALL!

This was hands down the worst thing to happen to this game in it’s entire lifespan.

Except some boon removal only removes one stack of stability even now. Its behavior is very inconsistent, and frankly, a lot of skills that supply stability need to be buffed for the PvP formats due to the massive increase in CC made available with HoT.

It got nerfed because of boon removal and boon theft punishing it too much and CC being effectively useless otherwise.

A hybrid approach would be nice; stability should remain a stacking buff, but only should be removed via boon corruption or removal, one stack at a time. In doing so, stability stacks would need to be reduced on a majority of skills which supply it, the pulsing-application skills see an increased increment timer, durations made slightly shorter to enable better counterplay and prevent instances of “lol I’m immune to your build”, but see reduced cooldowns in turn as to prevent boon theft/strips from being too strong.

Tman.6349:

sirsquishy.8531:

Stand The Wall.6987:

personally i think we could use a buff to stab, some other classes besides guardian need to be able to supply it.

Guard, Mesmer, Ele, and Necro all can give other players stability.

Necro can give other players Stab since when? Necro can barely give itself Stab and never more than one stack for a second or three, with the exception of Reaper’s CttB.

1 stack for 1s from Well of Power. I am not sure that counts for anything

Khisanth.2948:

Tman.6349:

sirsquishy.8531:

Stand The Wall.6987:

personally i think we could use a buff to stab, some other classes besides guardian need to be able to supply it.

Guard, Mesmer, Ele, and Necro all can give other players stability.

Necro can give other players Stab since when? Necro can barely give itself Stab and never more than one stack for a second or three, with the exception of Reaper’s CttB.

1 stack for 1s from Well of Power. I am not sure that counts for anything

Boon duration% and yes it counts as Necro gives it to other players. Even if the default is 1s.

the problem with duration based , was that it allowed builds to be immune for x amount of seconds while combined with other immunitiy/ direct damage immunity skills for stomping or Cleaving downed.

atleast with the stacked methord , it gives you a chance to team regroup and Counter with CC before the stomp is finished , pretty much 50/50 rather than the old methord of duration stability where it was 90/10 the only chance of counter was to HARD damage / kill no other options.

grifflyman.8102:

The changes forced me to play a different class for comwnding in WvW. Warriors were incredible in WvW, but now if you don’t have a ranged weapon you’re pretty much worthless in large fights.

Boy, it sure is a shame warriors don’t have ranged weapons, then.

Summery of the recent AMA on Reddit: http://dulfy.net/2016/03/05/gw2-reddit-developer-ama-summary/#DungeonsFractals

Instabilities are one of the things we’re working on. We’re absolutely working on new Instabilities. We agree than many of the ones live right now are more frustrating than anything else. We really want Instabilities to be something that mixes up gameplay at higher scales and become something players need to interact or react to, and not just something which passively makes the Fractal harder.

As we develop new, better Instabilities we do plan on phasing out the old ones. We’ll likely end up with a mix of new and old Instabilities for a period though, at least until we develop enough new ones.
We are currently reworking Fractal instabilities, though we’re still in the very early stages of development on those.

Hammer train was boring – I adapted.
Pirate ship is boring – I’ve adapted.
Something in between would be nice.

My opinion, albeit brief.

Stability change was for the better in pvp. It is nice to have other means than boon strip to counter low stacks of stability. And adds interesting gameplay.

Stability change did not work well in wvw, where the number of players casting cc can vary greatly.

This is my truth on the stability change. I know a-net doesn’t like to see different skills in wvw/pvp/pve, but I’d like to see the stability change only take effect in pvp, with wvw and pve going back to the old model. (perhaps just wvw even)

Khisanth.2948:

Tman.6349:

sirsquishy.8531:

Stand The Wall.6987:

personally i think we could use a buff to stab, some other classes besides guardian need to be able to supply it.

Guard, Mesmer, Ele, and Necro all can give other players stability.

Necro can give other players Stab since when? Necro can barely give itself Stab and never more than one stack for a second or three, with the exception of Reaper’s CttB.

1 stack for 1s from Well of Power. I am not sure that counts for anything

The stability and stunbreak are only applied to the necro. The only way we can give allies stability is indirectly by converting their fear into stability with the well.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

grifflyman.8102:

The changes forced me to play a different class for comwnding in WvW. Warriors were incredible in WvW, but now if you don’t have a ranged weapon you’re pretty much worthless in large fights.

Boy, it sure is a shame warriors don’t have ranged weapons, then.

The warrior profession brings a lot more to the party fighting in melee, and its ranged options are pretty anemic by comparison. If someone is optimizing, warrior is not the best choice for the ranged WvW meta.

Loboling.5293:

My opinion, albeit brief.

Stability change was for the better in pvp. It is nice to have other means than boon strip to counter low stacks of stability. And adds interesting gameplay.

Stability change did not work well in wvw, where the number of players casting cc can vary greatly.

This is my truth on the stability change. I know a-net doesn’t like to see different skills in wvw/pvp/pve, but I’d like to see the stability change only take effect in pvp, with wvw and pve going back to the old model. (perhaps just wvw even)

HoT in particular has mob groups in herd events with lots of CC’s. PvE stability should be more like WvW than PvP if there is to be a difference.