Guild Wars 2

In this thread, I’ll be making lots of comparisons between GW1 and GW2. This isn’t because I want GW2 to be like GW1 (we all know that’s impossible), but because I think GW2 took some concepts from GW1 without putting them to good use. What I want to talk about is GW2’s lack of interesting support/crowd control skills.

GW1 players are familiar with skills like

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ward_Against_Foes
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Clumsiness
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ineptitude
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Weapon_of_Warding
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Cry_of_Frustration
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blackout
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Broad_Head_Arrow

or even

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Animate_Bone_Minions

GW1 didn’t have real tanks, either. Some groups put a tanky character in front and hoped for enemies to target him, but generally you avoided damage by using a mix of crowd control skills and protective buffs. GW2 has some protective buffs, too, such as Aegis and Protection, but they are… well, boring, somehow. Aegis can be a life-saver sometimes, but those times are few and far between, especially because many special abilities flurry.

The Defiant effect is one of the problems. I know why it’s there, but there should be a better way to handle CC skills. Bosses should be able to survive CC spikes because they’re badpuppies and have a nasty team of minions, not because of an arbitrary immunity. Give them blocking skills, dodges, companions with CC, etc. Let them be smart instead of stupid AoE spammers.

Removal of interrupts as a skill type is a problem when combined with Defiant. GW2 clearly has some interrupt-like skills (such as Magic Bullet, Diversion and Headshot), but they’re technically dazes and stuns. As such, they’re affected by Defiant and practically useless against bosses. In GW1, a good interrupter could keep a boss from using its most powerful abilities quite well. That was fun and unique. In GW2, the only reliable way to interact with a boss is bashing its skull in, especially in open world events, where Defiant stays off for a whole second if you’re lucky. It feels like a step backwards.

Moving on, auto-attacking and spammable skills are too important in GW2 IMO. Well-timed, unique utility skills like Clumsiness should play a bigger role. Mobs should have “casting bars” or vastly improved tells for the players to identify those skills easily and be able to prevent them. I know you can dodge, but you can only dodge offensive skills (unless you’re fighting a Mesmer), so it’s not a good enough solution to everything.

In comparison, GW1 was too reactive. In end-game PvE, you just had to put some hexes on a mob and watch it kill itself. GW2 is too proactive. The only notable form of punishment (Confusion) sucks, you can’t effectively prevent bosses from doing their thing and PvE feels like a game of “whack it until it dies”.

It’s a whole bunch of issues that make GW2 a bit lacking when it comes to tactics and variety. Not because it’s not a Trinity game, but because it has too few interesting utility skills for both players and monsters. Skills like Feedback. Skills that have unique consequences instead of simply applying condition X for Y seconds with a Y*10s recharge. Of course, “normal” skills are needed, too, but having too many of them makes combat boring and simplistic.

So, in your opinion…
….am I just having a L2P issue and don’t understand PvE well enough?
…are GW2’s crowd control and support skills varied enough?
…does Defiant work well?
…should unique monster skills and interrupting them play a bigger role in PvE?

1. No
2. Yes

A combination of 3. and 4. seem to be the issue. Boss fights are more interesting when major abilities can, or must, be countered with the use of CC interrupts. With Defiant, however, it is difficult to plan for this. Not impossible, especially with a built group using voice chat, but difficult. Difficult to the point that as long as Defiant exists, most pick-up groups would not be able to handle these abilities. That is where the issue lies, in my opinion.

i miss: play good → kill boss fast else you die
they should make bosses have less HP, but more DMG (not with 1 spell, but just more dmg over time).
example: bosses puts major load of conditions on everyone, your team needs to group up and AoE clean conditions, if you don’t, you die. simple. And that’s teamwork.

CoRtex.2157:

i miss: play good -> kill boss fast else you die
they should make bosses have less HP, but more DMG (not with 1 spell, but just more dmg over time).
example: bosses puts major load of conditions on everyone, your team needs to group up and AoE clean conditions, if you don’t, you die. simple. And that’s teamwork.

Sooooo High level Fractals?

UnderdogSMO.9428:

CoRtex.2157:

i miss: play good -> kill boss fast else you die
they should make bosses have less HP, but more DMG (not with 1 spell, but just more dmg over time).
example: bosses puts major load of conditions on everyone, your team needs to group up and AoE clean conditions, if you don’t, you die. simple. And that’s teamwork.

Sooooo High level Fractals?

I haven’t been playing much, i just started again, i did some fractals, it’s better than normal dungeons. I didn’t have the time yet to level up my fractals level. i was kinda talking about normal dungeons, i mean yesterday, i did cof expl. because i just started playing again after months, i had no idea what to do. Still it was soooo easy, i just ran around and we did the dungeon in like 15min. I was like.. what.. how can we do this.. i don’t even know what to do, i just guesse.. does this require actually any skill or brain to complete =/ it made me sad

UnderdogSMO.9428:

CoRtex.2157:

i miss: play good -> kill boss fast else you die
they should make bosses have less HP, but more DMG (not with 1 spell, but just more dmg over time).
example: bosses puts major load of conditions on everyone, your team needs to group up and AoE clean conditions, if you don’t, you die. simple. And that’s teamwork.

Sooooo High level Fractals?

I haven’t been playing much, i just started again, i did some fractals, it’s better than normal dungeons. I didn’t have the time yet to level up my fractals level. i was kinda talking about normal dungeons, i mean yesterday, i did cof expl. because i just started playing again after months, i had no idea what to do. Still it was soooo easy, i just ran around and we did the dungeon in like 15min. I was like.. what.. how can we do this.. i don’t even know what to do, i just guesse.. does this require actually any skill or brain to complete =/ it made me sad

Toxyn.9608:

1. No
2. Yes

A combination of 3. and 4. seem to be the issue. Boss fights are more interesting when major abilities can, or must, be countered with the use of CC interrupts. With Defiant, however, it is difficult to plan for this. Not impossible, especially with a built group using voice chat, but difficult. Difficult to the point that as long as Defiant exists, most pick-up groups would not be able to handle these abilities. That is where the issue lies, in my opinion.

It’s also annoying because many professions have Defiant-causing abilities in their DPS “rotation”. For example, my Warrior uses Shield Bash quite often to combo. If our group is trying to keep a boss clean from Defiant, I can’t use that ability while the boss is targeted.

However, I think these issue are more annoying in the open world content. I honestly can’t remember a single open world boss that wasn’t about avoiding red circles and smacking as hard as possible. They’re the ones who could really use a casting progress bar, because noticing their tells is impossible in the middle of a highly populated DE.

Gah, How did this thread get all the way down here? You higlighted all the problems I have with GW2 combat so long ago and I basicly reposted the same kitten thread (Though not as well written as yours) a week ago.
anyway…
1. It’s not a l2P issue and the current META confrims that. You were just wise to these problems LONG before the META dominated PvE.
2. I think they are varied enough, But defiance makes them useless. Luach skills could be so great for putting a boss in the right place.
3. NO.
4. I’d like to say yes but we’ve always got the dodge mechanic and I think that is why they don’t. Though a skill with a big windup and fired off severale attacks (so you couldn’t dodge them all) would mandate an interupt.

Sometimes posts back from the dead are a good thing like this one.

Answer – No. Pretty much spot on…..

Also in my opinion I think they got ranging mobs backwards (well rifle users anyways) they fire too fast, when you have a group of them it’s a very tricky situation. They should fire slower but more powerful imo….

Wow, thanks for the compliments. I’m actually a bit surprised how little my opinion on the matter has changed. Mesmers have some really nice utility skills, but most professions are very lacking in that respect.