Guild Wars 2

TL;DR: This is a well thought-out crowd control solution featuring resistance rather than denial. Please read the whole thing.

I’m sure many others will agree with me here; the current crowd control mechanics for bosses doesn’t work as well as it probably should.

For those who aren’t fully aware, currently bosses keep from being stunlocked by having an ability called Unshakable. When players apply a crowd control (CC) effect to a boss, that boss gains three or more stacks of Defiance. Each stack renders it completely immune to one CC application. Once all the stacks are gone, the boss is vulnerable to CC but instantly gains more stacks as soon as it is hit by one of these effects.

This system is problematic, especially for open world fights and LFG dungeon groups. If dungeon runners carefully group up and communicate thoroughly it typically isn’t a large problem, but it still makes CC feel ineffective overall. In open world fights, there can be dozens of people spamming crowd control constantly, so the instant a boss loses all Defiance stacks it usually gets hit and gains tons of Defiance again. This can result in ineffective use of CC, as the boss is extremely likely to be immune to interrupt at key moments.

Instead of complete immunity from the start, I suggest that Defiance stacks become a diminishing returns effect that can fall off over time. These stacks should build quickly to still be a challenge in small dungeon groups, but have a cap (let’s say 25) so that the boss can’t be completely immune when under fire from a large open world pack. Each stack should also fall off after some time (let’s say 45 seconds, for an off-the-top-of-my-head example). For every stack of Defiance, crowd control effects on the boss should have their duration reduced to a point (example: a 3 second stun might become a .25 second stun at 25 stacks), as well as the boss becoming immune to CC for a few seconds after the effect ends (let’s say 1 to 10 seconds over the course of 25 stacks).

For bonus points, each type of crowd control could receive its own Defiance; this would prevent Slows from making the boss immune to a stun at a key moment, for example.

With this new system, you’d still have bosses heavily resistant to crowd control against mass groups of players without total immunity. Players could feel like their CC means something rather than just being a thing to get rid of stacks. In dungeons, if Defiance stacks decently quickly, players could CC the boss at key moments to interrupt massive hits and dangerous attacks, and carefully wait for stacks to fall off before coordinating their attack to (very briefly, because these stacks build fast) lock down the boss and burn their health. It also creates an interesting set of choices for dungeon groups, who would now have to decide between saving their CC for a burn or using it to keep from taking too much damage.

I really think such a system would take a good bit of effort to get the balance right, but overall would be a huge improvement, and would make PvE content much more fun for everybody involved.

I would very much appreciate feedback, and I’d love for an arenanet dev to see this.

There has already been at least one good idea about changing defiance brought up on the forums. It hasn’t been reworked yet, so doubtful it will change anytime soon.

Defiance: Gains bonus power momentarily.
Stacks Intensity (Similar to Lupicus Grubs minus the Toughness boost).
24 hour duration.

Upon reaching 25 stacks, gains Unshakeable Stacks (aka current Defiance) based on how many players are fighting the boss (1:1 scaling with a min and a max) and Defiance starts to decay at a rate of 1/second.

No offense to your idea, but it sounds prone to abuse. The issue is not just stun-locking, it’s constant interrupts. A .25 second stun is as much an interrupt as a 3 second one.

ANet should just copy the Interrupt Armor mechanic from WildStar. Essentially, each mob above normal ones has an Interrupt Armor number, based on how many players they are designed to challenge. If Interrupt Armor is 2, then the 3rd interrupt in a short time works. The interrupt armor restores quickly, so timing is key. This would be ideal for small group play, and could work in larger events. If there is sufficient coordination among a portion of those doing the event, then the skill-spamming herd would not matter because the threshold never goes over the Interrupt Armor number.

I even think it’s OK for ANet to copy. After all, Carbine is also published by NCSoft, and they essentially stole a cultural peculiarity from quaggan (referring to self by the name of the race, as in, “Quaggan is a pain in the kitten.” and another from Skritt (Shinies!) and combined them in one race. Copying a mechanic in return seems fair.

Gameplay mechanics themselves are fair game and can’t be copyrighted anyway. And I do see the point, and I like that idea too. My idea came from my experiences in Diablo 3, and the fact that me and my friends could keep the boss mostly on lockdown without eliminating its ability to kill us in a second. I feel this opens the door to do something other than “punch the monster, dodge the monster, win.” If balanced correctly, the idea of locking down a boss could be something that happens extremely rarely and ultimately not last very long, and in many cases it might not even be the ideal way to win. I think the longest I’ve ever locked down a boss was 8 seconds by spamming tons of frozen, and in order to be able to do that I had to sacrifice half my damage overall compared to other builds.

As far as constant interrupts, that’s why I suggested timed immunity as their defiant stacks rise. It’s also not even a little far-fetched to have the boss be immune to stun/interrupt during some or many special attacks. Look at world of warcraft bosses (I know, I know, just hear me out): Many of them have devastating attacks or effects that can put the party in severe danger, but are also given a chance to be interrupted without requiring some kind of gimmick from the dungeon. Aside from those, though, they have plenty of other nasty skills that need to be avoided and cannot be interrupted. Players can often tell these attacks apart because the boss has tells and visual cues indicating whether they can be interrupted or not.

No matter what you change about a system, there are always workarounds to prevent things from being abused while still improving the depth of an encounter.

I’m all for improving PvE encounters, but I don’t see how simply addressing the defiance mechanic will do anything to forward that goal. I think champs just need a total redesign; they’re too easy. To my knowledge, no mob requires skillful interrupts to defeat. You say that defiance is problematic, but the only reason you gave is that it “makes CC feel ineffective”. I’d agree, but if they just addressed defiance without reworking encounters altogether then CC would still seem ineffective because it would still be totally unnecessary. Frankly, I wish most champs were entirely immune to CC, it would make all the rangers and mesmers spamming 12345 less irritating – they wouldn’t be able to knock mobs out of AoE.

xev.9476:

I’m all for improving PvE encounters, but I don’t see how simply addressing the defiance mechanic will do anything to forward that goal. I think champs just need a total redesign; they’re too easy. To my knowledge, no mob requires skillful interrupts to defeat. You say that defiance is problematic, but the only reason you gave is that it “makes CC feel ineffective”. I’d agree, but if they just addressed defiance without reworking encounters altogether then CC would still seem ineffective because it would still be totally unnecessary. Frankly, I wish most champs were entirely immune to CC, it would make all the rangers and mesmers spamming 12345 less irritating – they wouldn’t be able to knock mobs out of AoE.

lol you want mobs to be harder but complain when they don’t stand in AoE and catch all the damage with their face?

Substance E.4852:

lol you want mobs to be harder but complain when they don’t stand in AoE and catch all the damage with their face?

I do want more difficult encounters, but I’ll continue to complain when players perform mindless actions that make already boring, easy encounters last a bit longer.