Guild Wars 2

Currently it’s like this: You have a bar that displays your stamina. One dodge takes like almost half of the bar away. That way, you can dodge twice in a row without any investment in stamina regeneration. Stamina regeneration right now allows you to regenerate stamina faster so you can dodge earlier. Personally, I don’t know anyone who has ever invested anything in stamina regeneration in PvE. I don’t know about PvP or WvW but I assume that’s where it is effective to some extend.

My suggestion is the following: Make a player be able to dodge only once in a row, not twice. The default cooldown would be around 3-5 seconds, so you would be able to dodge only once and you would then have to wait for the cooldown to expire. In this regard, skilling on stamina regeneration would allow you to dodge earlier as well, but only once here.

I think this system would encourage more mobility during longer fights, taking Kholer for example: When stacking, you are able to dodge twice into the wall and therefore completely avoid his twisting attack. You could also argue to make dodging into walls impossible and trigger a bumping animation, but I guess that would require much more effort than we as non-devs could imagine.

Tell me what you think!

This is a bad idea. You going to make thieves riot because of the fact they used to be able to dodge 3-4 times in a row (RIP Feline’s Grace). And no, most classes can’t dodge 3-4 times in a row. The max is 2.

Regardless, dodging ONCE is a very bad idea. Not only does it punish players for not dodging properly, and also it punishes players who dodge when they didn’t mean to. Sometimes, it’s easy to double tap the keyboard keys and dodge when you didn’t mean to.

The current system is fine the way it is. Leave it that way.

Thanks for your response.

What do you mean by “not dodging properly”?
And as for your argument that people who mistakenly dodge are being punished – that is not the problem of the dodge mechanic but of the player specific hotkeys for dodging. That would also be all the more a reason to proceed with caution in fights instead of mindlessly stacking in a corner. At this point I see a little defensive investment to be a good choice. It would make dodging properly harder, but from another perspective it would also mean that it would require much more skills in terms of timing and positioning.

And how will you balance the game accordingly? Our skills and health bars and everything are set up in accordance with everything else related to combat. If you nerf dodging, what should be buffed in return? Considering players are supposed to avoiding damage and not healing through it.

Vanitas.2871:

Thanks for your response.

What do you mean by “not dodging properly”?
And as for your argument that people who mistakenly dodge are being punished – that is not the problem of the dodge mechanic but of the player specific hotkeys for dodging. That would also be all the more a reason to proceed with caution in fights instead of mindlessly stacking in a corner. At this point I see a little defensive investment to be a good choice. It would make dodging properly harder, but from another perspective it would also mean that it would require much more skills in terms of timing and positioning.

Did you just answer your own question? :P

I meant by you’d have to dodge at the exact moment, or get hit/get downed/die. That’s not fair to players, and I do not see how one dodge would stop the stacking. If anything, players would stack more often in order to avoid having to use the single-use dodge. It’s just not a good idea.

Isn’t the whole combat layed out for avoiding damage rather than healing through it? As a matter of fact, healing power seems to be as weak as it is right now just because of that.
I don’t know, what would you consider the opposite pole of dodging? I disagree with absolutely having to buff something else when nerfing a certain mechanic. If you had to, what would you buff?

Edit: I just realized I actually did answer my own question. :p
But again, if you knew you’d die even faster, wouldn’t that be a reason for you to compensate this lack of mobility through skills, like the staff 4 skill of the ele, or other utilities?

Vanitas.2871:

Isn’t the whole combat layed out for avoiding damage rather than healing through it? As a matter of fact, healing power seems to be as weak as it is right now just because of that.
I don’t know, what would you consider the opposite pole of dodging? I disagree with absolutely having to buff something else when nerfing a certain mechanic. If you had to, what would you buff?

I don’t understand what you’re saying. Since healing power is nerfed, that would make nerfing dodging all the worse for survival. If it’s laid out for avoiding damage, then why do you want to remove half of the mechanic that allows for avoiding damage?

Well, you just answered my question: you would buff healing power, wouldn’t you?
The system does not encourage you to put any investments into dodging, and I find that a little paradox in a combat system that is based all upon just that. The default number of dodges right now (2x) is completely sufficuent for all the content in PvE (again, I dunno about PvP and WvW). I’d really rather give away some DPS and invest it into dodging rather than have full DPS and be even glassier. It’s all personal preference, I realize that, but that’s the reason why I’m here discussing it with you guys.

You’re confusing a base line mechanic as a build option, when given how EVERY class uses dodge as their primary defensive strategies. Adventurer classes (Med armor), being decidedly more mobile as mid liners and flankers, make more use of, and have more traits relating to endurance.

If they hurt that base line, the entire combat system would have to redesigned to compensate for it. Given the rough state of PvE mob scaling, and the polar opposite nature of PvP combat being burst oriented, taking away that evasion destroys the staying power of pretty much every single class.

There have been plenty of times where I’d dodged out of an AOE only to find myself in the middle of another one (the cannons during the Mai Trinn fractal come to mind). I would be very sad if we dropped it to one dodge.

pretty much all pve content and probably a lot of player skills (because of wvw) would require a total rework to accommodate this. Even if there were some benefit to it (i don’t see any?) i can’t see it happening

AegisRunestone.8672:

This is a bad idea. You going to make thieves riot because of the fact they used to be able to dodge 3-4 times in a row (RIP Feline’s Grace). And no, most classes can’t dodge 3-4 times in a row. The max is 2.

Regardless, dodging ONCE is a very bad idea. Not only does it punish players for not dodging properly, and also it punishes players who dodge when they didn’t mean to. Sometimes, it’s easy to double tap the keyboard keys and dodge when you didn’t mean to.

The current system is fine the way it is. Leave it that way.

lol. Brb picking up my sides from Mars.

Anyway OP, the whole idea isn’t really good as the game is built around having those two dodges. Would need rebalancing everywhere.
By the way, yes you’re right, this game is about damage mitigation/active defense, not passive defense.

I figured that it would need quite extensive rebalancing as it would make content for casuals even harder. So, basically the shift from the current system to my suggestion would require all other content to be adapted to some extend, which is not exactly what I had in mind.^^
Thanks for the discussion anyway.