Guild Wars 2

Will crowd control skills be adjusted to remove a certain quantity of stability stacks. For example, will a skill with a long internal cool down and/or high investment cost be able to remove more than one stack of stability?

Question for Karl,

Are there any other changes to compensate for this one, such as longer stability times or more stacks for certain skills?

Thanks

Khal Drogo.9631:

Who complained about Stability being OP please stand up and be counted.

Not necessarily OP, but in wvw it has been the single most powerful boon since launch and it’s not necessarily a bad thing to tone it down.

I enjoy my melee train as much as my roaming or backline zerging, and i think that change will probably make things interesting over the couple months it’ll take for everyone to adjust.

cafard.8953:

Khal Drogo.9631:

Who complained about Stability being OP please stand up and be counted.

Not necessarily OP, but in wvw it has been the single most powerful boon since launch and it’s not necessarily a bad thing to tone it down.

I enjoy my melee train as much as my roaming or backline zerging, and i think that change will probably make things interesting over the couple months it’ll take for everyone to adjust.

Stab alone is why we had a major boon duration nerf well gen. boon duration having near 100% stab up time solo was way too much and make things like nikely wars unstoppable and there should be nothing in the game that is unstoppable. Once they “fix” stab to be more then just a paper and rock counter system as in having only hard counters no real soft counters (this is what effectively they are adding in with the stab changes a means to soft counter the stab effect though spending hard cc to burn it a way) and the one hard center of simply boon removable that not all classes can use effectively.

These classes that will be hit the hardest by the stab changes will be at the same time the classes who will benfit from the stab changes though other means. War will be a real threat in the other teams zerg by removing stacks of stab and doing dmg , guraidens will have some of the strongest stab removal at a melee and ranges (lines).

As for the other classes they already simply play with out real stab yes there is support stab but often they do not get it in fight effectively due to ranges of skills ele as things stand tend to run mist form over AoE necro mostly run these eites as a means of “real” stab ranger runs the long lasting stab but more as a get away free card thf cant stay in a high cc zone and often would not be found there same with mez and eng. If any thing these classes are going to start getting weaker to gurads and wars due to there already lowish stab up times over all.

Will there be any adjustments for boon durations classes such as Guards and Eles!!! (My guess they will never answer this question and the answer is no…)

Well thanks for making Guardians useless and powerless in A LOT of the game well pretty much everywhere nowadays. WvW will be a joke, let the range battles beginning Guardians get your staff and medi builds cause melee has been retired from the game. Not surprisingly they have not released any information about stand your ground, based on Dolyak Signet, it will be 3 stacks for 24 seconds that is nothing especially if it can now be taken off. Not to mention if you were a class with a lot invested in boon duration then it is useless. They nerfed retaliation, then might and now stability while all other dps classes receive upgrades but wait I forgot Guards have Spirit Weapons LOL LOL LOL when did any of you see someone use them and for good reasons…

For the people complaining about 10 stacks well its for 8 SECONDS then you are free to spam fear, immo, freeze, cripple and all other stuns on the melee class that you are going to own. Oh by the way, the cooldown for the signet is 60 seconds so you got PLENTY of time to throw a few extra shots cause your cooldowns will be done sooner. Have fun…

Again GW2/ANET making me want to leave/quit the game after another round of nerfs which will this time not only make my class for difficult to play and less competitive but will DESTROY gameplays. I guess they are really trying to sell the heavy armor no condition range attack god mode class with the new GvG. Who will want to WvW after these changes. Cant run up a choke point without whipping… Will start playing on my necro too bad I cant transfer my ascended heavy to him. Fear groups on the way. Welcome to WoW 2.1 Warlocks are back!!! fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear fear and win!!!

Anyways waste a lot of my time already on this crappy dev work and they never listen to any of my complaint or remarks, the ANET way is there way….

Range classes will now have the total advantage. How can a melee class beat a range class that they cant reach especially if it is a group of both of them.

micmartin.7465:

Will there be any adjustments for boon durations classes such as Guards and Eles!!! (My guess they will never answer this question and the answer is no…)

Well thanks for making Guardians useless and powerless in A LOT of the game well pretty much everywhere nowadays. WvW will be a joke, let the range battles beginning Guardians get your staff and medi builds cause melee has been retired from the game. Not surprisingly they have not released any information about stand your ground, based on Dolyak Signet, it will be 3 stacks for 24 seconds that is nothing especially if it can now be taken off. Not to mention if you were a class with a lot invested in boon duration then it is useless. They nerfed retaliation, then might and now stability while all other dps classes receive upgrades but wait I forgot Guards have Spirit Weapons LOL LOL LOL when did any of you see someone use them and for good reasons…

For the people complaining about 10 stacks well its for 8 SECONDS then you are free to spam fear, immo, freeze, cripple and all other stuns on the melee class that you are going to own. Oh by the way, the cooldown for the signet is 60 seconds so you got PLENTY of time to throw a few extra shots cause your cooldowns will be done sooner. Have fun…

….

Even Ranger with Knockback Shot with penetrate is going to remove a lot of stacks of stability. On the plus side lots more necros in WvW.

No one really complained about nerfs to retaliation and might; the former was unbalanced in many ppl’s opinions and the latter a minor nerf which doesnt really affect anyone except for ppl chasing records in speedruns.

Khal Drogo.9631:

micmartin.7465:

Will there be any adjustments for boon durations classes such as Guards and Eles!!! (My guess they will never answer this question and the answer is no…)

Well thanks for making Guardians useless and powerless in A LOT of the game well pretty much everywhere nowadays. WvW will be a joke, let the range battles beginning Guardians get your staff and medi builds cause melee has been retired from the game. Not surprisingly they have not released any information about stand your ground, based on Dolyak Signet, it will be 3 stacks for 24 seconds that is nothing especially if it can now be taken off. Not to mention if you were a class with a lot invested in boon duration then it is useless. They nerfed retaliation, then might and now stability while all other dps classes receive upgrades but wait I forgot Guards have Spirit Weapons LOL LOL LOL when did any of you see someone use them and for good reasons…

For the people complaining about 10 stacks well its for 8 SECONDS then you are free to spam fear, immo, freeze, cripple and all other stuns on the melee class that you are going to own. Oh by the way, the cooldown for the signet is 60 seconds so you got PLENTY of time to throw a few extra shots cause your cooldowns will be done sooner. Have fun…

….

Even Ranger with Knockback Shot with penetrate is going to remove a lot of stacks of stability. On the plus side lots more necros in WvW.

No one really complained about nerfs to retaliation and might; the former was unbalanced in many ppl’s opinions and the latter a minor nerf which doesnt really affect anyone except for ppl chasing records in speedruns.

No ranger hold back on the knock-back shot they spame it with out any regards what is going on in a fight. If your losing all your stab stacks to that you deserve to be knocked back and killed.

Jski.6180:

No ranger hold back on the knock-back shot they spame it with out any regards what is going on in a fight.

Nope.

Our goal is to continue to encourage organized large groups while giving small, tactical groups the necessary tools to put a dent into larger mobs of less-skilled players

Devon Carver, WvW design lead, 5 June 2013

I think you’re doing good, at least for the “encourage large groups” part.

(for those of you that care about WvW, I suggest not to follow that link: you’ll find only pain there)

07:30
Heart of ragdolls

Did any one look in the demo on the stab changes? Where they even there if so did any one look into how much stab charges say guraid shots gives etc..?

just make sure to increase engie cc cd’s bigtime…cele engi is alrdy in a league of its own. making life even more easy for engi will perma ruin pvp for sure…im not even joking

Karl McLain.5604:

Hello all!

You may ask: “But what about my boon removal skills? Will they only corrupt one instance of stability now?” To which we say: Your corruptions and boon removals will clear the boon completely, unless otherwise noted.

I hope that’s cleared things up a bit. Thanks for reading!

-Karl

considering this, are you going to fix thief’s steal (traited with bountiful thief), which removes only one single stack of stability now?

you guys forgot bountiful steal….. tnks for another nerf :/
why are you lying to us?
why not just delete thieves at this point?

Cynz.9437:

you guys forgot bountiful steal….. tnks for another nerf :/
why are you lying to us?
why not just delete thieves at this point?

it’s not so bad, just imagine, your main could’ve been a Mesmer…

fumcheg.1936:

Karl McLain.5604:

Hello all!

You may ask: “But what about my boon removal skills? Will they only corrupt one instance of stability now?” To which we say: Your corruptions and boon removals will clear the boon completely, unless otherwise noted.

I hope that’s cleared things up a bit. Thanks for reading!

-Karl

considering this, are you going to fix thief’s steal (traited with bountiful thief), which removes only one single stack of stability now?

Well 1 cc remove 1 stack of stabillity, that is fair for meele whichc have only 5 stacks form 11 sec duration skill which recharge in 40 sec

WHat i saw today at wvw was a horror, anet give us more stckas or meele at wvw die. U can’t get even close to blob cos u lose all stacks of stabil before reaching leap range. Also if u want to avoid blobing why u buffed it?( now it is easier to bob up and have 3x more ccs than a 20 man zerg so ppl around the whole map run in even bigger numbers)

Kasteros.9847:

WHat i saw today at wvw was a horror, anet give us more stckas or meele at wvw die. U can’t get even close to blob cos u lose all stacks of stabil before reaching leap range. Also if u want to avoid blobing why u buffed it?( now it is easier to bob up and have 3x more ccs than a 20 man zerg so ppl around the whole map run in even bigger numbers)

What I saw today was kinda fun. When I was doing WvW before, it was melee fest, Getting passed all the raging warriors and guardians, my guild was saying this is the most fun WvW been in a long time.

Seems like they are on the right track for some people.

My question is what constitutes a CC? CC to me always meant crowd control. Immobilize, a crowd control skill was never defeated by stability in the past, will it now remove a stack when applied?

What are the various affects that will strip a stack of stability? I haven’t found a list of which ones will and which won’t strip stability with the new change.

Thanks.

It’s a huge nerf plain and simple.

This change is NOT good in it’s current iteration. Combat was balanced around stability being a binary boon, and there were already PLENTY of ways to deal with it, including boon rips, and soft cc.
If this change was meant for the Revenant, it should have been packaged with HoT, instead of now.
In wvw, all this does is promote more blob play, and less skilled play.
You say “use stability in opportune times”, but failed to realize that 25 stacks of stability can be broken in less than a second in wvw.

I am noticing some runes, traits, skills are now pointless, like this one giving only one stack of stability every 60 seconds?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Sanctuary

What about this one? a Grandmaster trait giving one stack of 3 seconds?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Foot_in_the_Grave

So my favorite game is broken. I can totally see how this change would be good in small scale fights, 5v5 or less maybe. However not a lot of people roam or havoc anymore (except those who just run away as soon as there’s danger). Some people argue about how zerg battles were just blob fest auto attack nonsense, those people are horrible at zerg fights. I’m sorry if that’s harsh sounding but I’m trying to back up my opinion with facts.

Before you’d have to hold stability until the right moment, use boon strips on the right people, use ccs on the right people at the right time, etc, etc. Now, half the zerg grab power necro, everyone else get rangers or necros, get like two guardians for boons and all faceroll your build. Reason being stability wasn’t painfully hard to strip before but now it’s gone the very second you push. So we went from skilled organized play, to crap mmo nonsense that you’d expect from a retro mmo.

I’m not saying go all rage quit uninstall, but this doesn’t work. If it works really well elsewhere then fine keep it there. If you disagree just go play WvW. That’s pretty much my trump card…

As a necro I now have 0 ways to stomp my kill or res an ally when 5-10 people are immediately knocking off my paltry 3 cc blocks. Sure more will tick later but it’s useless if i’ve been interrupted mid action.
We almost always fight 3-5 v 5-10 or more and there is no such thing as stomping without being focused hard. With no invuln or reliable stability i have no way ensure i rally my teammates.
glad to see once again blobspam > small skilled group.

Why make stability weaker? It was the one thing that actually allowed zergs to fight in wvw. Now it’s just a bounce fest as everyone is throwing down 10x more walls and wards.

I think it’s just a prelude of something bigger.
Maybe they will change whole boons system for some reason.

For me it is not a big problem, as I’m new in gw.
But for many experienced players it’s either something awful either new challenge .

For those bringing up WvW zerg clashes and how this is such a detriment to that kind of play style, I promise you, that kind of fighting will get stale for you too, just like it does for mostly anyone who has done it for a good long time. It may be fun and exciting when you are still a (relatively) new player (e.g., if you’ve done it for less than 1000 hours), but be fair to yourselves, it is not much skill involved in it. And saying otherwise is fooling yourself and somewhat deceiving others.

Try doing it for about 4000 hours without getting ridiculously tired of the lack of thought process to the actual combat there is in these big large clashes.—Everyone balls up, stacks up Stability, Might and Swiftness.. then they run in a combined blob into the other enemy blob, throwing down fields and pressing mainly 1. It boils down to pressing a few random skills with very little thought behind it. Oh, maybe there’s a “tactical” Veil used before the clash, as if that actually fools anyone.. nobody has any idea where that blob disappeared to, it’s not predictable at all. Nope. Genius play there.

If anything, these changes should be an incentive to shake things up a bit in WvW, which has gotten so dreadfully stale with its main venue being blob vs blob vs blob. The use of Stability, is not skilled play. Skilled play is to use your dodges and skills to avoid damage and crowd control, to use your Stun Breaks and Condition removal, to spread out to avoid the damage and force the enemy to spread out as well, to use your skills effectively—not blob as to make it so that the AoE cap is in effect and only a few is being hit by damage at a time. Seriously, how can you even try to say a thing such as that is skilled gameplay? Taking advantage of a flaw in the game mechanics is a show of skill now?

Why aren’t these clashes more spread out? Why do players blob up in the 40+ zergs that just roams mindlessly around, following that one guy/girl who actually pays attention to what is going on (read: “Commander”)? Why are they just balls of players running through other balls of players when they actually fight? Why are there practically no tactical thought to these clashes? Why aren’t we using all our skills? Because it’s the easy way out. Stability and exploiting the AoE cap. If anything, I hope these changes can revitalize the WvW scene. It’s gotten terrible.

The only skilled play in WvW (as I see it), comes from roamers (that does it solo or at most as a group of five), and/or the harass/focus squads in the clashes who tactically select individual targets to take out, as they are seen as a threat, and who plays together as a team to accomplish this goal. The otherwise large majority of WvW players are rather terrible at PvP, and gets destroyed as soon as they are without their huge blob fortress of bodies. A roamer knows that, as do anyone from sPvP. You should rather ask yourself this; Why are you having issues with your Stability being stripped so quickly? Has it occured to you, that you may be doing something wrong?

Edit: Stability has been a cheap Boon for way too long. In all game modes. Just look at how MAGpie below me (Note: I am sorry if it feels like I am picking on you, I am not doing that, but I am using your complaint as an example. My apologies if you find this provocative.) are complaining about a spinning golem stripping Stability in a short time. Instead of moving out of its way when it does that, he seemingly just stands there and takes it. I mean, he has to be doing that. A golem’s spinning attack has a fairly obvious, albeit short, windup animation. And people complain about PvE being too easy. As soon as they do something to make it require a wee bit more skill, people cry bloody murder. I applaud ArenaNet for this change. Good job on whoever finally sorted out this ridiculous easy mode Boon.

I am sorry, but these changes were not thought though the entire game. Stability, PvE side, is effectively rendered useless. Spinning golem… yeah, cheers every stack of my 5 seconds worth of stability in .01 seconds. Should I list more?
I wont even go into how its effecting my enjoyability of the game in WvW…

I am getting sick and tired of Anet making decisions for the whole game, based on only ONE part of the game.

Not cool.

ToSatellite.8295:

You say “use stability in opportune times”, but failed to realize that 25 stacks of stability can be broken in less than a second in wvw.

Alternatively, you may be failing to realize that when you dump 26 CC skills into someone in the space of a second SOMETHING OUGHT TO HAPPEN to the target…

Absconditus.6804:

The only skilled play in WvW (as I see it), comes from roamers (that does it solo or at most as a group of five), and/or the harass/focus squads in the clashes who tactically select individual targets to take out, as they are seen as a threat, and who plays together as a team to accomplish this goal. The otherwise large majority of WvW players are rather terrible at PvP, and gets destroyed as soon as they are without their huge blob fortress of bodies. A roamer knows that, as do anyone from sPvP.

I’m agreed with what you are saying, but in all MMOs are many players that “run in a combined blob into the other enemy blob, throwing down fields and pressing mainly 1”. But there are players that already get used to new system. I think it’s just a matter of time for other players (no offence, I even couldn’t make more than 2 kills in WvW).

Question for Arenanet: Is this stability change your way of saying “buy the expansion for Revenant if you want to continue raiding in WvW like you enjoy”?

hedix.1986:

Question for Arenanet: Is this stability change your way of saying “buy the expansion for Revenant if you want to continue raiding in WvW like you enjoy”?

hear hear…

Question for hedix.1986: Is this Stability change in any way making it impossible for you to continue raiding in WvW, like you say that you enjoy, although with a slightly different approach to your engagements? E.g., you can spread out more, flank your enemies, use positional tactics such as higher ground and line of sight, focus your kills, clear your enemies Boons and use your crowd control on them after you bait out their Stun Breaks and defensive skills such as dodges—because you know, if you are spread out, their blob can only hit a small part of you, and that small part will likely fall, but meanwhile the rest of you get free pokes at them. And if you focus those pokes, you can bet they will see players fall, and fast. If you want no-thought PvP, why not just go to EotM? That’s practically a PvE map anyways.

I used to like WvW a whole lot. Then it turned into blob city. I fail to see what is fun with that way of playing, when you hardly feel like you contribute to anything but exploiting the AoE cap and helping to avoid damage by taking advantage of that flaw.

I don’t know… WvW is very unbalanced now. For me it doesn’t change anything, I’m solo roamer(sometimes with friends), but I saw what is happening in big fights, almost no cooperation (vary rare), everyone just lunch themselves into the fight to get kills. I do not know how it was before patch(don’t like zergs and lags), but know it is like an arcade phase of the game.

Absconditus.6804:

The only skilled play in WvW (as I see it), comes from roamers (that does it solo or at most as a group of five), and/or the harass/focus squads in the clashes who tactically select individual targets to take out, as they are seen as a threat, and who plays together as a team to accomplish this goal. The otherwise large majority of WvW players are rather terrible at PvP, and gets destroyed as soon as they are without their huge blob fortress of bodies. A roamer knows that, as do anyone from sPvP. You should rather ask yourself this; Why are you having issues with your Stability being stripped so quickly? Has it occured to you, that you may be doing something wrong?

That’s a fairly one-sided view you have. Roamers are generally prepared for being solo, or in small groups, while the “terrible WvW players” you’re refering to are usually speced for large groups. The fact that you kill people with your build that is going to be speced for more focus fire when compared to a person who will have their build tailored to be more group efficient means absolutely nothing on their skill level. Beyond that, generally the people that get in a situation where they are separated from their blob is because they died and are running back — indicating that individual might not be that good at the game or have a bad connection — or because they aren’t paying attention — indicating they may be preoccupied with something irl — .

Absconditus.6804:

Question for hedix.1986: Is this Stability change in any way making it impossible for you to continue raiding in WvW, like you say that you enjoy, although with a slightly different approach to your engagements? E.g., you can spread out more, flank your enemies, use positional tactics such as higher ground and line of sight, focus your kills, clear your enemies Boons and use your crowd control on them after you bait out their Stun Breaks and defensive skills such as dodges—because you know, if you are spread out, their blob can only hit a small part of you, and that small part will likely fall, but meanwhile the rest of you get free pokes at them. And if you focus those pokes, you can bet they will see players fall, and fast. If you want no-thought PvP, why not just go to EotM? That’s practically a PvE map anyways.

I used to like WvW a whole lot. Then it turned into blob city. I fail to see what is fun with that way of playing, when you hardly feel like you contribute to anything but exploiting the AoE cap and helping to avoid damage by taking advantage of that flaw.

That is exactly what I don’t get about your whole argument.

“E.g., you can spread out more, flank your enemies, use positional tactics such as higher ground and line of sight, focus your kills, clear your enemies Boons and use your crowd control on them after you bait out their Stun Breaks and defensive skills such as dodges—because you know, if you are spread out, their blob can only hit a small part of you, and that small part will likely fall, but meanwhile the rest of you get free pokes at them. And if you focus those pokes, you can bet they will see players fall, and fast.”
^^^^^^
This, all of it was in WvW before. This stabo change has not brought this. In fact, what this has done has caused this to happen less. Melee can not sustain. All they are there for now is purely to soak up damage and chuck out buffs/cleanses for range. The pre stability nerf combat was fast paced and more changing, while this is usually just pew pew range battles that favor the side with the more cc.

Se WvW aside. Go run Orr.

EVERYTHING there pulls, push stun or knock down, one way or the other. So try and fight four things taking turns to CC you.

Simply put, this is an UN-FUN change.

Please revert back the stability changes, at least in WvW.

Otherwise, there is nothing left for me in this game.

Ultimaistanza.4793:

“E.g., you can spread out more, flank your enemies, use positional tactics such as higher ground and line of sight, focus your kills, clear your enemies Boons and use your crowd control on them after you bait out their Stun Breaks and defensive skills such as dodges—because you know, if you are spread out, their blob can only hit a small part of you, and that small part will likely fall, but meanwhile the rest of you get free pokes at them. And if you focus those pokes, you can bet they will see players fall, and fast.”
^^^^^^
This, all of it was in WvW before. This stabo change has not brought this. In fact, what this has done has caused this to happen less. Melee can not sustain. All they are there for now is purely to soak up damage and chuck out buffs/cleanses for range. The pre stability nerf combat was fast paced and more changing, while this is usually just pew pew range battles that favor the side with the more cc.

This.

fast paced melee (even hammertrain) >>> pirateship meta

Just did the ice fractal. Oh, what fun when we got to the ele…

storm.9471:

Please revert back the stability changes, at least in WvW.

Otherwise, there is nothing left for me in this game.

WvW zerg fights is now reduced to a boring mess of range spamming..Such fun on my Double Melee warrr.

Go Reroll..? No get kittened.

Never had much love for the hammer train, but it seems that the pirateship is worse.

Pirate-ships as you call them are far from being optimal.
Stop complaining and try to adapt. Your crutch is gone.

Those saying that WvW used to be mindless and now require tactics have clearly never done it. I’m sorry but if all your zerg did was stack might and stability then veil and auto attack you were doing everything so wrong. Not only that but I can guarentee you never beat my server in zvz and certainley not my guild. That crap just didn’t work. NOW the meta is stack might and auto attack enemy zerg. Now we do nothing but pirate ship over chokes. There is no more skill in this game. It’s just a matter of impatient zerg dies first. Melee is actually outright useless in zergs now. Warriors are gone. We still have guards but just for boons. They cant really do anything else. I thought the small scale would be ok but its not. The amount of cc in this game was only offset by the strength of stability. Which wasn’t as insanley strong as some people imply because you can strip it, but you’d have to do more than auto attack to know about that. Amazing what those other 9 skills bring to the table. Now we are playing world of warcraft with actual artwork. I thought it was bad but it is so much worse than I thought. Seriously, Arche Age was a let down so PLEASE fix this. The only players who say they like it are ones who clearly couldn’t tell what was working before. Again not trying to sound mean but holy crap this is broken.

Now I get the impression that devs don’t play WvW simply because no one sees devs in WvW lol. But seriously if you doubt that WvW needed to be a well oiled machiene please let me know. I can walk you through how a skilled group of 30 could take out a 75 man noob blob. Those who never have seen such a thing in thier thosands of hours of WvW were probably just running away.