Guild Wars 2

Consider requiring eg. three (or more) knockdown-attacks in relatively quick succession for a knockdown to be triggered and then trigger a period of immunity to that specific condition. Same for dazed, stunned and feared.

Instead of “defiance” this could be called “resilience” or something else that offers a glimmer of hope to condition-loving players who want to play together with everyone else.

For lesser conditions that stack up to 25, consider giving one stack of might and one stack of either fury or retribution for every stack over 25 of any given lesser condition.

People claim that, due to Defiance, CC is "useless in GW2 boss fights because it’s too difficult for any but organized groups to generate a control effect at the “right” time. With Defiance, groups can use any control effect to strip a stack, then one person needs to time the actual control effect. You want people to have to carry the same control effect and use that in a coordinated fashion. Further, you want the boss to then be immune with no chance to CC, for an unspecified time. Immunity is less interactive than stripping Defiance stacks. That doesn’t seem like an improvement.

Glad someone’s thinking about options. I outlined a bunch of thoughts on a separate post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-Improving-champ-mechanics/

Right now, boss-level mechanics are very limiting on character builds, so I’m hoping to get some good ideas to reach the devs.

I disagree that this is the way to go.

I suggest replacing defiant stacks with enrage stacks.

The more CC there is, the more the boss is enraged and will make a unstoppable death move. It does not count how CC there are but the skill usage. Pet CC will not increase a enrage stack so a MM with a Flesh golem can knock down the enemies as many time as it wants or a dog can knockdown without worry.

Another way is to not do anything with defiant. But add the same group wipe move but it can be interrupted. Players will have to coordinate interrupts to wipe the boss. Otherwise, someone has to prepare to remove all stacks of defiant so then the next interrupt will take it down.

IndigoSundown.5419:

With Defiance, groups can use any control effect to strip a stack, then one person needs to time the actual control effect. You want people to have to carry the same control effect and use that in a coordinated fashion.

I find this objection puzzling! Each control-/interrupt-effect has several skills associated with it spread out over several classes and I’m not sure why it would be very unlikely for some of these skills to be brought to a large boss-battle, or why it would be much more difficult to semi-coordinate the kind of attack suggested in the OP. There are at least 15 skills that cause knockdown, for example, spread out over 6 professions, and at least some of those skills seem to be generally useful even outside boss-battles

Such attacks could be partly self-coordinating, in that everyone would simultaneously see that the target is getting closer to eg. getting knocked on its kitten , and each player would on his own be able to react to that information eg. by choosing to add the final push for that specific condition. Some players would choose to hold off for a while, and others might choose to focus on trying to cause another condition.

One lucky player would get the visceral satisfaction of seeing his attack temporarily drop the target, while other players would get the lesser satisfaction of seeing their efforts play a part in accomplishing that dramatic goal (rather than seeing their efforts as a completely mindless grinding down of defenses).

Further, you want the boss to then be immune with no chance to CC, for an unspecified time.

No, that is not what I said. That is literally the opposite of what I said! The temporary immunity would be for the specific condition and its purpose is to keep bosses from being neutralized too easily by one single condition type while keeping other options open. After a knockdown you might have to aim for fear, or daze or launch, or stun or whatever. This is the relevant sentence from the OP:

… and then trigger a period of immunity to that specific condition

1. While control effects do occur on multiple professions, you point out in your example that only 6 professions have knockdown. Under your system, might it not be that if a group were to select KD as “their” CC, players of those other two professions might be less welcome? I realize we have some amount of deselection by professions now, but is adding to the reasons for that a good idea?
2. In your latest post, I can see that your intent for successive use of the same CC skill sounds rather less simultaneous than I first pictured.
3. I did not in fact read your point about immunity correctly. Apologies.
4. I don’t find the current system to be mindless, and derive the same satisfaction from stripping Defiance as you describe for the “lesser” contributors in your example.
5. While, theoretically, a group could use 3 KD skills, then three dazes, then 3 something else, would carrying that much CC be worth the cost? More control skills are weapon-bound than are in utility skills, and only certain weapons even have two CC skills.

It seems like one possible advantage to your proposal would be consistently needing “only” 3 (of the same) CC skills to generate one control effect. The current system gives the first successful control effect to the first skill used, then requires a minimum of 3 strips (usually more) to then be able to gain a subsequent CC effect. The other advantage I can see would be that your system sounds more engaging to you. Since it doesn’t to me, I suggest that this advantage is subjective.