Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet introduced the damage/control/support spectrum as a replacement system for the holy trinity. Every character is able to spec towards one of these three or a hybrid between two or all components.
In practice I feel like it’s not possible to make a full control character. It’s just not useful. If you’re full damage or full support you can be incredibly helpful in a team situation. But we don’t really see control characters, and support characters aren’t that abundant either. Why?
What is a control character?
A control character would focus on control effects and conditions that hamper opponents: Stun, Daze, Launch, Cripple, Chill, Poison, Weakness, Blind, Fear, Immobilize and Retribution.
So what stats would a Support Character need to invest trait points in? Condition Duration. Power helps with Retribution damage, but that’s it. That’s all we can do. Damage characters can invest in power, precision, critical damage, condition damage, and to a lesser degree boon and condition duration. Support Characters can invest in boon duration and healing power, and to a lesser degree condition duration (vulnerability is support).

So it’s not really a Damage//Control//Support spectrum. It’s a Control << Damage >> Support pyramid. And even then, support is easier to build than control.
What do you guys think? Suggestions on possible changes to remedy this?

remove defiant from PvE !!!

Removing Defiant from PvE would be a decent start, but even doing that wouldn’t work out all too well… Someone who goes for “Full Control” should deal with Diminishing Returns, both in PvE and PvP… Or else it would be obvious that it would become -too- powerful… Maybe make Defiant vs a Specific Form of Control only after that form of control has been used more than twice on the boss in the last 10-15 seconds, then the boss gains a stack of Defiant that isn’t removed via other Crowd Control, but has a 15-20 second duration.

defiant timer (short) or even better a % resist.

But having things with 10+ defiant stakcs means you can kill them before even considering of cc them

Can we keep it constructive? By which I mean, if you feel like giving a statement followed by three exclamation marks, could you also add some explanation?

What would removing defiant do in PvE to the balance? Would bosses be permastunned even without control characters around? (yes, they would) And if so, how can that be fixed? What would be a good alternative to defiant?

I think the main problem with the control component is stat distribution (in PvP and PvE). While specific traits do encourage control play, attributes don’t, with the exception condition duration.
Because I don’t like critical damage in the traitline attributes (it’s statistically dependent on precision, I ranted about this once but nobody cared) I propose to replace critical damage with a stat that increases control effectiveness: Stun/Daze duration, launch distance, movement reduction on cripple, etc. Not 1% per trait point, that would be insane, but like .33% or something. At 30 points that would make your control effects 10% more effective.

you are wrong.

we were indeed promised Damage//Control//Support types of traits, but were delivered only the damage, and in the damage only the direct damage (condition damage in PVE also not viable).

there is no healing available, except one class – guardian and even this class is better as damage class.

in order to solve this situation , it has to be addressed from both sides, the player side and the environment side.

from player side two things at least must happen
1) let healing, including regen and combo fields be affected from perception and crit%, this will make healing builds actually viable.
2) in PVE all non damaging conditions AKA “the CC” i.e. cripple, chill, immobilize, blind, stun, and daze should be doubled in base duration. condition duration armor should be introduced and condition duration cap of 100% should be removed completely.
smart groups should be able to chill and immobilize packs of mobs for 20-30 seconds strait.

from NPC side two things at leas should happen:
1) rework defiant or remove it completely. we should be able to CC bosses and champions. [for example when defiant stacks are removed the boss is vulnerable to CC for 10 seconds, or each defiant stack tied to potency of unshakable and with each stack removed the CC works little better etc]
2) encounters should be reworked toward smart use of CC and not just DPS zerg.
in current state of the game, even if condition duration was viable, still going full berserker is the smart way to go, this was addressed in the temporary weapon facility dungeon but to little, too late and for two weeks…

if these points will not be addressed GW2 playerbase will drop as soon as newer major MMO will go live (it can be elder scrolls, everquest next or whatever… ) because since PVE is boring , PVP imbalanced and WWW stale there is no incentive to stick to GW2 and I would hate to leave it because it have so much potential and I like the game and the team….

EDIT:
this will ofc will lead to more creative work from dev team, more mobs who use block/aegis. or mobs who can remove condition or mobs who CC you back when you CC them etc.
more mobs who use retaliation and confusion etc, smart boss mechanix, for example the last encounter in the dredge fractal is the best boss encounter in the game, (IMHO better than lupicus) too bad it is in the most hated fractal that people ditch when they see it…

Support isn’t healing, especially not in this game. Support is applying boons, stacking vulnerability, and healing among others. In dungeons and general PvE you can get by with your own healing skills if you time your dodges and get your positioning right to avoid the big bursts of damage NPC put out.

I like the idea of healing being affected by more than Healing Power, but having precision affect it would be incredibly powerful, and leave room for incredible powerful jack-of-all-trades characters that have both burst damage and burst healing. I truly believe for balance purposes no stat should be able to push both damage and healing//defense.
I don’t know about double condition duration, i don’t feel like it’s necessary, but I do like the idea of removing/increasing some of the caps. Alternatively, hitting a duration/stack cap should have some additional powerful effect.

I’m going to ignore that statement about playerbase, as that is pure speculation and completely off-topic.