Guild Wars 2

Hey there

While doing dungeons I noticed an interesting thing.
Bosses have “Defiance” so you cant CC then really. I can understand why that makes sense on bosses, they are big and heavy, you don’t just knockback a huge mob right? Makes sense to me.
Now I would be fine if that “Bosses are big and heavy” logic went all the way, but then these bosses do a 180 degree turn in a split second… That doesn’t make sense in my eyes and becomes annoying when you try to position yourself relative to a big boss but the boss outmaneuvers you.

I think that mobs that have “Defiance” on them should not be able to move or turn around fast. They should rather move like a heavy, bloated thing would… slowly.

What do you guys thing?

You can CC a boss, they just have around 5 stacks when you do any CC on them. I think the main reason for this is so you can’t just CC the boss to crap and pretty much maintain 0 DMG from the boss. I don’t think it’s intended to show that a boss is “heavy”

domness.6719:

You can CC a boss, they just have around 5 stacks when you do any CC on them. I think the main reason for this is so you can’t just CC the boss to crap and pretty much maintain 0 DMG from the boss. I don’t think it’s intended to show that a boss is “heavy”

Hehe ye I understand how “Defiance” works and what it’s purpose is but I think that for the purpose of immersion (or well, just to have the world make sense), game elements like this should have a meaning. And “Defiance” would make sense if it suggested that the boss is big and heavy and you cant CC it because you are small and weak compared to it But then, there’s the movement :/

It would be weird any way, since not all control skills are about launching the boss. For example, we also have Fear, which is also blocked by Defiant. So that would mean big heavy bosses would be immune to all control skills, except fear. It would be more logical, but not fair from a game mechanics point of view.

The real problem with Defiant, is that it scales to the number of players, not the number of players actually using control skills on the boss. This means that in a party of 5 players, if one player uses a control skill, the boss gets 5 defiant. Which is completely unfair.

A simple way to fix this would be to give the boss a temporary 1 defiant, for 3 seconds, per control effect. This would allow players to CC the boss every 3 seconds max, and spamming control skills would only prolong the effect, and add extra stacks that wear off naturally.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The real problem with Defiant, is that it scales to the number of players, not the number of players actually using control skills on the boss. This means that in a party of 5 players, if one player uses a control skill, the boss gets 5 defiant. Which is completely unfair.

A simple way to fix this would be to give the boss a temporary 1 defiant, for 3 seconds, per control effect. This would allow players to CC the boss every 3 seconds max, and spamming control skills would only prolong the effect, and add extra stacks that wear off naturally.

I was going to bring up the same issue. I also see the same problem, Defiant doesn’t reflect the real amount of control skills used against a boss and the current design (counting the number of players against it) sounds like a quick way for the devs to get away with it but have some problems against it (like zergs for example).

Your solution sounds fine, but it would increase the server load: Imagine a zerg fight, how many control skills are used against a champ? many… over and over again. Adding a max defiant cap would be a work around, but it would be the same as bleeding (for example) works and we already know how bad that design is for the server.

@OP
Sadly this isn’t Dark souls, where the mobs are big, slow and has well detailed attacks.
What about bosses that are human or small sized?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It would be weird any way, since not all control skills are about launching the boss. For example, we also have Fear, which is also blocked by Defiant. So that would mean big heavy bosses would be immune to all control skills, except fear. It would be more logical, but not fair from a game mechanics point of view.

Why would be more logical that you can’t knockback a giant, but it scares and run away from a tiny human when it says BOO? At least mechanics wise it works.

The real problem with Defiant, is that it scales to the number of players, not the number of players actually using control skills on the boss. This means that in a party of 5 players, if one player uses a control skill, the boss gets 5 defiant. Which is completely unfair.

Which is an intended and good thing. In a 5 man dungeon there is 5 player who can possibly use a CC. There are a lot of options in meta build almosts everytime ready to use by anyone. Mish-mash builds are fine that get punished.

A simple way to fix this would be to give the boss a temporary 1 defiant, for 3 seconds, per control effect. This would allow players to CC the boss every 3 seconds max, and spamming control skills would only prolong the effect, and add extra stacks that wear off naturally.

It’s not simple and not a fix. It’s just promotes dumb gameplay where anyone get rewarded when someone can find their CC skills.
The only problem with the current system, apart from players can’t understand it, that there aren’t enough encounters where you need to interrupt to ensure your party don’t get destroyed.

In small scale it encourages coordination and it prevents CC lock at large scale contents. Defiance is fine.

edit: OP, now i tought about it. Why you want apply real life logic in a fantasy based video game?

Bjarl in coe path 1 doesnt have defiance and you can CC him all day.

Solution? Change Unshakeable so that the mob only gains defiant stacks if he’s actually interrupted, not just when hit with an interrupt skill. Remove defiant stacks the same way (or add a 10 second or 15 second timer per stack or something), but few things suck more than trying to interrupt that boss’s OMG attack and failing because that warrior over there spammed his downed #2 skill just because.

OP: The problem with making every Defiant boss big and heavy is that it would become way too easy to cheese the fight with kiting. (Running away while shooting at range.) Kiting is a perfectly valid strategy, but we don’t want it to become so good that nobody ever does anything else.

Dakota.4591:

Solution? Change Unshakeable so that the mob only gains defiant stacks if he’s actually interrupted, not just when hit with an interrupt skill. Remove defiant stacks the same way (or add a 10 second or 15 second timer per stack or something), but few things suck more than trying to interrupt that boss’s OMG attack and failing because that warrior over there spammed his downed #2 skill just because.

So people can stunlock the boss as long as he does not start to attack?

Lalangamena.3694:

there is no logic in defiance, its just lazy dev work.

Care to elaborate even more this well tought feedback?

Dakota.4591:

Solution? Change Unshakeable so that the mob only gains defiant stacks if he’s actually interrupted, not just when hit with an interrupt skill. Remove defiant stacks the same way (or add a 10 second or 15 second timer per stack or something), but few things suck more than trying to interrupt that boss’s OMG attack and failing because that warrior over there spammed his downed #2 skill just because.

If i understand you, you would remove the option to preemptively CC the boss (Deep freeze, Fear me, etc.) and further reduce the control options with a internal cooldown? Later one of course can be balanced out with skill cooldowns, but let’s say the ICD is 10 seconds and bosses have attacks (with reasonable windup time to recognize) with 10-15 seconds cooldown, it would mean you always can CC them whenever you have a not brainded member in your paty who can use a CC skill. Do i understand your idea right? If this gets implemented, thieves would trivialize bossfights and no one ever need to bring CC skills anymore. I find this idea lazy.

Ascimator.6735:

So people can stunlock the boss as long as he does not start to attack?

Also this. If the CC applies to the boss (it should due to 0 defiance) you can keep it busy and it won’t attack ever until you have any CC skills, but as i above said, thieves would abuse this system too much and trivialize boss encounters. Not too well tought nor a solution. Or both Ascimator and i misunderstood your idea horribly.

DaMunky.6302:

OP: The problem with making every Defiant boss big and heavy is that it would become way too easy to cheese the fight with kiting. (Running away while shooting at range.) Kiting is a perfectly valid strategy, but we don’t want it to become so good that nobody ever does anything else.

Agree. Now mobs check their script every 1-2 seconds, you can kite them endlessly with backpedaling especially if they have cripple / chill on them.

Dalanor.5387:

Why would be more logical that you can’t knockback a giant, but it scares and run away from a tiny human when it says BOO? At least mechanics wise it works.

Because the fear is a magical effect. It’s not related to how scary the caster is to the boss. This is different from literally trying to knockdown a creature 10-times your size.

Dalanor.5387:

Which is an intended and good thing. In a 5 man dungeon there is 5 player who can possibly use a CC. There are a lot of options in meta build almosts everytime ready to use by anyone. Mish-mash builds are fine that get punished.

POSSIBLY being the operative word here. A single player gets punished as if 5 players are hitting the boss with CC, even if they are not. The current implementation of Defiant completely eliminates the use of control skills against bosses. That is not what it should do. It should prevent stun-locking, not prevent the use of CC entirely.

Dalanor.5387:

It’s not simple and not a fix. It’s just promotes dumb gameplay where anyone get rewarded when someone can find their CC skills.

You should be able to CC a boss when you want to. What my suggestion changes, is that you can’t spam CC skills, or you’ll be punished. My suggestion directly counters stun-locking, which is exactly what Defiant should be doing.

Dalanor.5387:

The only problem with the current system, apart from players can’t understand it, that there aren’t enough encounters where you need to interrupt to ensure your party don’t get destroyed.

No, the problem with the current system is that when you want to interrupt a boss, you can’t, because he already has 5 stacks of defiant. And unless your entire party is committed to peeling off those stacks of Defiant, you are not interrupting that boss at all. Thus, it completely eliminates CC as a game mechanic during boss fights.

In the open world this problem is even worse. If one player hits a boss with one CC skill, the boss gains 30 stacks of Defiant, even if none of the other 29 players are using CC skills. By the time you’ve peeled down those 30 stacks, the boss is dead. Congratulations, you may have interrupted the boss once or twice during the entire fight. Was it worth it?

Control skills and interrupts could have a role in boss fights. Right now they don’t, because Defiant is badly designed.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

POSSIBLY being the operative word here. A single player gets punished as if 5 players are hitting the boss with CC, even if they are not. The current implementation of Defiant completely eliminates the use of control skills against bosses. That is not what it should do. It should prevent stun-locking, not prevent the use of CC entirely.

It doesnt prevent the use of CC entirely. If players dont want to make the effort to use cc and learn how to counter defiant stacks properly thats not the systems fault. Its either the players or the games teaching ability.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

You should be able to CC a boss when you want to. What my suggestion changes, is that you can’t spam CC skills, or you’ll be punished. My suggestion directly counters stun-locking, which is exactly what Defiant should be doing.

It achieves the exact same thing the current system does but also dumbs down the game and eliminates any need for coordination. The player base is dumb enough as it is, we dont need it to get easier.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

No, the problem with the current system is that when you want to interrupt a boss, you can’t, because he already has 5 stacks of defiant. And unless your entire party is committed to peeling off those stacks of Defiant, you are not interrupting that boss at all. Thus, it completely eliminates CC as a game mechanic during boss fights.

No it doesn’t. Stop pugging. Just because you cant use CC effectively in a group full of morons doesnt mean the system eliminates CC as a game mechanic.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

In the open world this problem is even worse. If one player hits a boss with one CC skill, the boss gains 30 stacks of Defiant, even if none of the other 29 players are using CC skills. By the time you’ve peeled down those 30 stacks, the boss is dead. Congratulations, you may have interrupted the boss once or twice during the entire fight. Was it worth it?

I agree that open world is the only place where its an issue. Three Toad Tootsie is a good alternative for open world stuff. But defiant should remain for dungeons and fractals because it encourages coordination and communication. Something that dungeons are designed for.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Control skills and interrupts could have a role in boss fights. Right now they don’t, because Defiant is badly designed.

They do have a role, although minor and only used to maintain dps uptime in organised groups. Defiant isnt badly designed unless you consider zergs. Interrupts are not as important as they should be. Its not defiant that is the issue its the lack of incentive to interrupt key attacks.

spoj.9672:

It doesnt prevent the use of CC entirely. If players dont want to make the effort to use cc and learn how to counter defiant stacks properly thats not the systems fault. Its either the players or the games teaching ability.

I disagree. In this case the system is convoluted, and the pay-off is not worth the effort of everyone coordinating the control skills. One of the most important things about any interrupt, is that you can land it when you need to. Currently that is exactly what is eliminated by Defiant.

spoj.9672:

It achieves the exact same thing the current system does but also dumbs down the game and eliminates any need for coordination. The player base is dumb enough as it is, we dont need it to get easier.

Well if you look at how often CC is used against bosses right now, which is never, I disagree entirely. I think the required coordination should be eliminated, in favor of a system that is more lenient, and makes less requirements on the builds of the party. Defiant is making bosses immune to control skills for much longer than is required.

spoj.9672:

No it doesn’t. Stop pugging. Just because you cant use CC effectively in a group full of morons doesnt mean the system eliminates CC as a game mechanic.

Does anyone use CC against bosses?

spoj.9672:

But defiant should remain for dungeons and fractals because it encourages coordination and communication. Something that dungeons are designed for.

Does it? Does it really encourage anything else, apart from not using control skills?

Funny how you fight for changing Defiant from the current system and when it is pointed out how it isn’t flawed you pull out the “but no one use it anyway” card, which is not true again. So before you rip eachother throat out for different opinions, reread what spoj said.

spoj.9672:

They do have a role, although minor and only used to maintain dps uptime in organised groups. Defiant isnt badly designed unless you consider zergs. Interrupts are not as important as they should be. Its not defiant that is the issue its the lack of incentive to interrupt key attacks.

The only problem with the system is this. Nothing more.
I hope we can agree with this, that there isn’t enough incentive to use CC, but if it does, you have to deal with others players inability to understand the concept of Unshakable and Defiance.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I disagree. In this case the system is convoluted, and the pay-off is not worth the effort of everyone coordinating the control skills. One of the most important things about any interrupt, is that you can land it when you need to. Currently that is exactly what is eliminated by Defiant.

Well going by this logic you can apply the same thing to dodges and say they are eliminated by endurance. “One of the most important things about dodging, is that you can do it whenever you need to. Currently that is exactly what is eliminated by endurance.” I honestly have a hard time taking you seriously when you dont understand the concept of control management. Or are you just being willfully ignorant?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Well if you look at how often CC is used against bosses right now, which is never, I disagree entirely. I think the required coordination should be eliminated, in favor of a system that is more lenient, and makes less requirements on the builds of the party. Defiant is making bosses immune to control skills for much longer than is required.

It is used quite heavily in organised groups either to allow for safe burst or to interrupt a bit damage attack (kholer) or an enrage mechanic (risen abom). Like i said before its not defiant which is the issue. Its the lack of incentive to interrupt and manage your CC. CC is common in almost every build so there is no build requirement. It takes no time at all to remove all 5 stacks of defiant. If everyone has 1 control skill then they are all gone instantly, and most classes have multiple without even building for it (thief, mesmer, necro, ele). Removing coordination from our only end game content makes no sense.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Does anyone use CC against bosses?

Yes.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Does it? Does it really encourage anything else, apart from not using control skills?

Well it certainly encourages me to use control skills if its worthwhile to interrupt something. But like ive said theres not enough incentive to do so in many situations (not a defiant problem, its a boss design problem). Interrupting enrage mechanics or big heals should be something anet adds more of in the future.

I like how you ignored the rest of my points because you didnt have a counter arguement btw.

OH LOOK CONTROL

OH LOOK CONTROL

Besides, there are builds which can peel defiance off bosses quite heavily, such as daze mesmer.

Defiant doesn’t need any changes if they make use of some of the “newer” mechanics in the game.

1) Have some sort of mechanic in the fight that allows you to interrupt through Defiant. An example of this is the boss at the end of the dredge fractal with the superheated buff. This used to be the case anyway, no idea if it has been stealth patched.
2) Similarly Tootsie is normally immune but you can use CC on it when it is trying to run away.

Number 2 is more interesting than 1 since it would be hard to try to fit that kind of mechanic into every fight. You can make it so it is always possible to interrupt during skill use regardless of Defiant. That would allow interrupting when it matters but still prevent stunlocking. If that is too much then only apply it to the big telegraphed attacks while smaller attacks still require removing Defiant.

Instead of having to get through 5 stacks of defiance then one CC, I would rather all CC goes through, but only has 1/5 the effect (and their skills are not interrupted and go on cd, but only delayed).
It’s silly that something 10 times your size could resist being stunned, blinded, dazed, pulled, then will be easily shoved away like it was hit by a train.

Mystic.5934:

Instead of having to get through 5 stacks of defiance then one CC, I would rather all CC goes through, but only has 1/5 the effect (and their skills are not interrupted and go on cd, but only delayed).
It’s silly that something 10 times your size could resist being stunned, blinded, dazed, pulled, then will be easily shoved away like it was hit by a train.

Mind you the discussion is about Guild wars 2 where CC skills has short duration, unlike WoW with 20 second fears and such.
Apply real life logic doesn’t go well in a fantasy game anyway.

spoj.9672:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

POSSIBLY being the operative word here. A single player gets punished as if 5 players are hitting the boss with CC, even if they are not. The current implementation of Defiant completely eliminates the use of control skills against bosses. That is not what it should do. It should prevent stun-locking, not prevent the use of CC entirely.

It doesnt prevent the use of CC entirely. If players dont want to make the effort to use cc and learn how to counter defiant stacks properly thats not the systems fault. Its either the players or the games teaching ability.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

You should be able to CC a boss when you want to. What my suggestion changes, is that you can’t spam CC skills, or you’ll be punished. My suggestion directly counters stun-locking, which is exactly what Defiant should be doing.

It achieves the exact same thing the current system does but also dumbs down the game and eliminates any need for coordination. The player base is dumb enough as it is, we dont need it to get easier.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

No, the problem with the current system is that when you want to interrupt a boss, you can’t, because he already has 5 stacks of defiant. And unless your entire party is committed to peeling off those stacks of Defiant, you are not interrupting that boss at all. Thus, it completely eliminates CC as a game mechanic during boss fights.

No it doesn’t. Stop pugging. Just because you cant use CC effectively in a group full of morons doesnt mean the system eliminates CC as a game mechanic.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

In the open world this problem is even worse. If one player hits a boss with one CC skill, the boss gains 30 stacks of Defiant, even if none of the other 29 players are using CC skills. By the time you’ve peeled down those 30 stacks, the boss is dead. Congratulations, you may have interrupted the boss once or twice during the entire fight. Was it worth it?

I agree that open world is the only place where its an issue. Three Toad Tootsie is a good alternative for open world stuff. But defiant should remain for dungeons and fractals because it encourages coordination and communication. Something that dungeons are designed for.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Control skills and interrupts could have a role in boss fights. Right now they don’t, because Defiant is badly designed.

They do have a role, although minor and only used to maintain dps uptime in organised groups. Defiant isnt badly designed unless you consider zergs. Interrupts are not as important as they should be. Its not defiant that is the issue its the lack of incentive to interrupt key attacks.

sorry CC should not be something it takes 5 players to do. Or something that is easily rendered useless by 1 player. Its not useful enough to warrant that.
there is almost never a reason that 5 people should have to work together and not use many of their skills, for 1-3 seconds of CC.
sorry its just a really bad design.

i understand it perfectly, but it is nigh useless. and the price is seldom worth the gain.

Clearly OP has not fought Arah Berserker Abom or any other boss that can be completed negated simply by sidestepping him when he swings.

phys.7689:

sorry CC should not be something it takes 5 players to do. Or something that is easily rendered useless by 1 player. Its not useful enough to warrant that.
there is almost never a reason that 5 people should have to work together and not use many of their skills, for 1-3 seconds of CC.
sorry its just a really bad design.

i understand it perfectly, but it is nigh useless. and the price is seldom worth the gain.

Trolling too obvious.

spoj.9672:

Well going by this logic you can apply the same thing to dodges and say they are eliminated by endurance. “One of the most important things about dodging, is that you can do it whenever you need to. Currently that is exactly what is eliminated by endurance.” I honestly have a hard time taking you seriously when you dont understand the concept of control management. Or are you just being willfully ignorant?

There’s no reason to start being unpleasant. I assumed you wanted to have a polite discussion on this subject.

spoj.9672:

It is used quite heavily in organised groups either to allow for safe burst or to interrupt a bit damage attack (kholer) or an enrage mechanic (risen abom). Like i said before its not defiant which is the issue. Its the lack of incentive to interrupt and manage your CC. CC is common in almost every build so there is no build requirement. It takes no time at all to remove all 5 stacks of defiant. If everyone has 1 control skill then they are all gone instantly, and most classes have multiple without even building for it (thief, mesmer, necro, ele). Removing coordination from our only end game content makes no sense.

If everyone brings control skills, you can burn away Defiant, that is true. But why would you? It takes too much time, effort and coordination, and is easily ruined by 1 person landing his control skill at the wrong moment. I’d say it is so badly designed, it almost encourages players not to work together, rather than the opposite. And again, there’s the timing issue. First you have to burn through the stack, and then you have to land the interrupt at the right moment without another player ruining it. And all that to interrupt an attack that can usually just be ignored by stacking in a corner.

Yes, the boss designs also need to change. But so does Defiant. It’s bad design.

spoj.9672:

Interrupting enrage mechanics or big heals should be something anet adds more of in the future.

On that I agree, but preferably with better designed Defiant mechanics.

spoj.9672:

I like how you ignored the rest of my points because you didnt have a counter arguement btw.

Just because someone replies to part of your post, and doesn’t quote every line from it, is no reason to post unfriendly snarky comments. Please stay civil if you honestly wish to discuss this.

I love how in Orr people yell at you to INTERRUPT the Champion Wrath during life siphon, but it cannot be interrupted during its life drain due to 29 stacks of Defiance… Then they yell at everyone saying NOOBS LEARN TO INTERRUPT. GG Anet, you made an AoE Life Stealing Champion who downs everyone during this channel unless the mob is being interrupted by 30 people at once. Same as the Champion Lich in Sparkfly Fen.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

If everyone brings control skills, you can burn away Defiant, that is true. But why would you? It takes too much time, effort and coordination, and is easily ruined by 1 person landing his control skill at the wrong moment. I’d say it is so badly designed, it almost encourages players not to work together, rather than the opposite. And again, there’s the timing issue. First you have to burn through the stack, and then you have to land the interrupt at the right moment without another player ruining it. And all that to interrupt an attack that can usually just be ignored by stacking in a corner.

Yes, the boss designs also need to change. But so does Defiant. It’s bad design.

I disagree. It’s good design. It encourages coordination and discourages spamming CC. And like I said most classes and builds have atleast one CC without even building for it. So there is no excuse in building for it.

And lets be honest for a second. Its standard forum practise to be snarky. It grabs your attention and makes you more likely to remember the post and re-read the points made. Ive made countless polite arguements in the past and they all get ignored with no response. But whenever you make a personal dig or two its hard for people to ignore and at least that way you know they have read the post. I call it tactical snark. Its nothing personal.

I’m confused. What are we complaining about?

CC against high level creatures would normally result in completely cheesing every boss out there. It’s not difficult to set up a perma-stun party with a handful of Warriors with hammers.

The normal course of action that most developers take is “These creatures are immune to status effects”. Pretty much every RPG where you have stuff like stuns, slows, or silences, every single boss is plainly immune to them.

GW2 took a different approach, and rather than completely neutering CC skills against the only battles that matter, they gave the creatures stacks of defiance. It makes sense, lore wise. How did you knock down this giant?! Well, we had 10 people using knock down effects!

Defiance is a way to make CC abilities somewhat useful against high level creatures. Be glad you have that at all. Yes, it does take some coordination, but it’s like the only thing that takes any coordination in the entire game. I never thought anyone would think that people working together intelligently is bad design.

spoj.9672:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

If everyone brings control skills, you can burn away Defiant, that is true. But why would you? It takes too much time, effort and coordination, and is easily ruined by 1 person landing his control skill at the wrong moment. I’d say it is so badly designed, it almost encourages players not to work together, rather than the opposite. And again, there’s the timing issue. First you have to burn through the stack, and then you have to land the interrupt at the right moment without another player ruining it. And all that to interrupt an attack that can usually just be ignored by stacking in a corner.

Yes, the boss designs also need to change. But so does Defiant. It’s bad design.

I disagree. It’s good design. It encourages coordination and discourages spamming CC. And like I said most classes and builds have atleast one CC without even building for it. So there is no excuse in building for it.

And lets be honest for a second. Its standard forum practise to be snarky. It grabs your attention and makes you more likely to remember the post and re-read the points made. Ive made countless polite arguements in the past and they all get ignored with no response. But whenever you make a personal dig or two its hard for people to ignore and at least you know they read the post. I call it tactical snark. Its nothing personal.

anet loads skills with multiple uses, CCs are often a waste of space, or have other purposes, like
pistol whip (evasion/damage)
stomp (blast finisher)
overcharged shot (removes immobilize cripple chilled)
big old bomb, (large damage single attack blast finisher)
counterattack (defense and damage)

the list goes on. Point is holding back use of these multiple use skills, all to get 1-3 crappy seconds of control, is essentially not worth the effort at all. it really is a bad design.

Katai.6240:

I’m confused. What are we complaining about?

CC against high level creatures would normally result in completely cheesing every boss out there. It’s not difficult to set up a perma-stun party with a handful of Warriors with hammers.

The normal course of action that most developers take is “These creatures are immune to status effects”. Pretty much every RPG where you have stuff like stuns, slows, or silences, every single boss is plainly immune to them.

GW2 took a different approach, and rather than completely neutering CC skills against the only battles that matter, they gave the creatures stacks of defiance. It makes sense, lore wise. How did you knock down this giant?! Well, we had 10 people using knock down effects!

Defiance is a way to make CC abilities somewhat useful against high level creatures. Be glad you have that at all. Yes, it does take some coordination, but it’s like the only thing that takes any coordination in the entire game. I never thought anyone would think that people working together intelligently is bad design.

+1 to you sir!

phys.7689:

anet loads skills with multiple uses, CCs are often a waste of space, or have other purposes, like
pistol whip (evasion/damage)
stomp (blast finisher)
overcharged shot (removes immobilize cripple chilled)
big old bomb, (large damage single attack blast finisher)
counterattack (defense and damage)

the list goes on. Point is holding back use of these multiple use skills, all to get 1-3 crappy seconds of control, is essentially not worth the effort at all. it really is a bad design.

This is a skills issue. Not a defiant issue.

Katai.6240:

I’m confused. What are we complaining about?

CC against high level creatures would normally result in completely cheesing every boss out there. It’s not difficult to set up a perma-stun party with a handful of Warriors with hammers.

The normal course of action that most developers take is “These creatures are immune to status effects”. Pretty much every RPG where you have stuff like stuns, slows, or silences, every single boss is plainly immune to them.

GW2 took a different approach, and rather than completely neutering CC skills against the only battles that matter, they gave the creatures stacks of defiance. It makes sense, lore wise. How did you knock down this giant?! Well, we had 10 people using knock down effects!

Defiance is a way to make CC abilities somewhat useful against high level creatures. Be glad you have that at all. Yes, it does take some coordination, but it’s like the only thing that takes any coordination in the entire game. I never thought anyone would think that people working together intelligently is bad design.

actually there is more things than to just make people immune. And working together should be to achieve greater effect, not to achieve a weak effect.

working together for a 2 second stun, is not something you will generally convince most people matters.
hey everyone, dont use any skill with a stun/knockback/push/daze/knockup until i say so, we can delay him from doing 1 attack for 3 seconds.

yeah, its stupid.

spoj.9672:

Katai.6240:

I’m confused. What are we complaining about?

CC against high level creatures would normally result in completely cheesing every boss out there. It’s not difficult to set up a perma-stun party with a handful of Warriors with hammers.

The normal course of action that most developers take is “These creatures are immune to status effects”. Pretty much every RPG where you have stuff like stuns, slows, or silences, every single boss is plainly immune to them.

GW2 took a different approach, and rather than completely neutering CC skills against the only battles that matter, they gave the creatures stacks of defiance. It makes sense, lore wise. How did you knock down this giant?! Well, we had 10 people using knock down effects!

Defiance is a way to make CC abilities somewhat useful against high level creatures. Be glad you have that at all. Yes, it does take some coordination, but it’s like the only thing that takes any coordination in the entire game. I never thought anyone would think that people working together intelligently is bad design.

+1 to you sir!

phys.7689:

anet loads skills with multiple uses, CCs are often a waste of space, or have other purposes, like
pistol whip (evasion/damage)
stomp (blast finisher)
overcharged shot (removes immobilize cripple chilled)
big old bomb, (large damage single attack blast finisher)
counterattack (defense and damage)

the list goes on. Point is holding back use of these multiple use skills, all to get 1-3 crappy seconds of control, is essentially not worth the effort at all. it really is a bad design.

This is a skills issue. Not a defiant issue.

there is no solution for this, weapon skills need to serve multiple purposes because you only have 5 skills, and each weapon must work for multiple specialties. Also, these skills make sense to have CC tied to them, often the CC attached is appropriate. which is another problem CC skills are balanced for their effect, but defiant treats them all the same.

Giant 5 second 45 cooldown CC is treated the same as a .25 second stun.
defiant is illogical

Phys, i feel offended by your trolling.
pistol whip (evasion/damage) – which is great for strip off defiant while not lose too much dps
stomp (blast finisher) – a skill you won’t ever use due to better options for CC
overcharged shot (removes immobilize cripple chilled) – it’s more tuned to PvP, not sure you would use it in your DPS rotation or use rifle at all
big old bomb, (large damage single attack blast finisher) – used at might stacking before the fight and great for defiant stripping too
counterattack (defense and damage) – channeled block or great for block a single attack while strip of defiant

phys.7689:

there is no solution for this, weapon skills need to serve multiple purposes because you only have 5 skills, and each weapon must work for multiple specialties. Also, these skills make sense to have CC tied to them, often the CC attached is appropriate. which is another problem CC skills are balanced for their effect, but defiant treats them all the same.

I see multiple use for certain skills which i find great, but you complain. Why? You make a problem from a non-existing problem.

Giant 5 second 45 cooldown CC is treated the same as a .25 second stun.
defiant is illogical

Hard to grasp what we are talking about, right? Thats why you need coordination and you don’t want to waste a 1/4 second long interrupt, instead use a 5 second freeze on the boss.

phys.7689:

actually there is more things than to just make people immune. And working together should be to achieve greater effect, not to achieve a weak effect.

See above.

working together for a 2 second stun, is not something you will generally convince most people matters.
hey everyone, dont use any skill with a stun/knockback/push/daze/knockup until i say so, we can delay him from doing 1 attack for 3 seconds.

yeah, its stupid.

Indeed, but it’s an encounter issue, it has nothing to do with Defiance.

Instead of making pointless complaint about skills that has no issue just to troll people, please provide better feedback or leave the discussion.

Dalanor.5387:

Phys, i feel offended by your trolling.
pistol whip (evasion/damage) – which is great for strip off defiant while not lose too much dps
stomp (blast finisher) – a skill you won’t ever use due to better options for CC
overcharged shot (removes immobilize cripple chilled) – it’s more tuned to PvP, not sure you would use it in your DPS rotation or use rifle at all
big old bomb, (large damage single attack blast finisher) – used at might stacking before the fight and great for defiant stripping too
counterattack (defense and damage) – channeled block or great for block a single attack while strip of defiant

phys.7689:

there is no solution for this, weapon skills need to serve multiple purposes because you only have 5 skills, and each weapon must work for multiple specialties. Also, these skills make sense to have CC tied to them, often the CC attached is appropriate. which is another problem CC skills are balanced for their effect, but defiant treats them all the same.

I see multiple use for certain skills which i find great, but you complain. Why? You make a problem from a non-existing problem.

Giant 5 second 45 cooldown CC is treated the same as a .25 second stun.
defiant is illogical

Hard to grasp what we are talking about, right? Thats why you need coordination and you don’t want to waste a 1/4 second long interrupt, instead use a 5 second freeze on the boss.

phys.7689:

actually there is more things than to just make people immune. And working together should be to achieve greater effect, not to achieve a weak effect.

See above.

working together for a 2 second stun, is not something you will generally convince most people matters.
hey everyone, dont use any skill with a stun/knockback/push/daze/knockup until i say so, we can delay him from doing 1 attack for 3 seconds.

yeah, its stupid.

Indeed, but it’s an encounter issue, it has nothing to do with Defiance.

Instead of making pointless complaint about skills that has no issue just to troll people, please provide better feedback or leave the discussion.

heres the best way to make use of defiant.
you strip all of it away, then you have one person with a useful CC ready to use it at the best time.
so this means once the skills are stripped
you cant use pistol whip to do good dmg while also evading attacks
you cant use counterattack to defend against a powerful attack
you cant use stomp to do damage while also giving extra might stacks on a fire field.
big old bomb is a huge dmg skill, if you combine it with might stacks and a guaranteed critical on next hit swap, you are giving up large dmg

the point is, working together well, is actually better served by NOT trying to remove defiant.
me stopping the theif from being able to stay in melee and do dmg, thats not teamwork, stopping a ranger from using a dmg negating attack without running is not teamwork. Not using blast finishers because im waiting on 2 second CC is not teamwork.

you see? the theif is giving up 3 seconds of safe dps, to get 2 seconds of safe dps. warrior is giving up 20 seconds of multiple people with 3 stacks of might for 2 seconds of effect.
ele mesmer reflect boon combo? giving up 10 seconds of swiftness reflected to all players for 2 seconds of CC.

and sucessfully using CC put a skill on what, 5 seconds cool down? congrats guys we stopped him from doing his big attack! for 5 seconds.
yeah, its simply not worth it at all.

Oh boy, i shouldn’t do it, but i’ll bite it.

phys.7689:

heres the best way to make use of defiant.
you strip all of it away, then you have one person with a useful CC ready to use it at the best time.

Yeah, thats what we have now, i got it.

so this means once the skills are stripped
you cant use pistol whip to do good dmg while also evading attacks
you cant use counterattack to defend against a powerful attack
you cant use stomp to do damage while also giving extra might stacks on a fire field.
big old bomb is a huge dmg skill, if you combine it with might stacks and a guaranteed critical on next hit swap, you are giving up large dmg

The problem with these, that aren’t realistic examples.
As a thief, your single target weapon set is D/D, which refills endurance for you, but if you use S/P possibly because your party relies on you to remove defiant and you swap back later to D/D.
The block portion of Counter attack can be used without triggering the knockback if you step back a little.
As i said, you wouldn’t even use Stomp as a warrior. It’s not good for blasting, nor for a stunbreaker nor as a CC.
Big ol’ bomb is still a good blast finisher to use before the fight and mid way if you need to stack might again.

All of these are more likely learn to play issues how to handle your class and skills.

the point is, working together well, is actually better served by NOT trying to remove defiant

Why? If there is an attack which need to be interrupted, than it’s wiser to cooperate and remove Defiant.

me stopping the theif from being able to stay in melee and do dmg, thats not teamwork, stopping a ranger from using a dmg negating attack without running is not teamwork. Not using blast finishers because im waiting on 2 second CC is not teamwork

Read above why your examples weren’t good.

you see? the theif is giving up 3 seconds of safe dps, to get 2 seconds of safe dps

Use real encounter examples please. Pistol whip is good for strip defiant and has good enough damage output compared to the auto that it’s worthwhile to use. The evade is just an added bonus while you do your job, so you don’t need to dodge and lower your damage output. Also it’s OP againt trash mobs, especially against dredge where you can’t use blind.

warrior is giving up 20 seconds of multiple people with 3 stacks of might for 2 seconds of effect

Read above why Stomp is a bad example.

ele mesmer reflect boon combo? giving up 10 seconds of swiftness reflected to all players for 2 seconds of CC

Reflects aren’t boons and have nothing to do with Defiant. And what about this swiftness thing? Please explain this sentence, because it has no real meaning.

and sucessfully using CC put a skill on what, 5 seconds cool down? congrats guys we stopped him from doing his big attack! for 5 seconds.
yeah, its simply not worth it at all.

That depends on the fight, but i admit it there are / were situations were it is pointless.
Pre-patch golem boss in CoE is a good example. When it did the spinning knockback attack, you can easily step behind it, avoiding the whole attack without any CC. However post patch it’s not a bad idea to CC it to prevent it running around.
The worst case scenario here is that the boss aren’t reflected properly, it uses his static field, starts to spin and knockbacks you into the field which can be pretty lethal to certain classes.

This is where we can agree, that GW2 doesn’t utilize well the need of CC, so yeah, thats kinda sad, but i’m not sure how this cooldown thingy works at every situation where interrupts (stuns, knockdowns, freeze, etc. not short duration daze) are worthwhile.

mesmer has a skill which reflects boons, giving everything they have to the whole party.
so when people are holding back from using certain skills, they are holding back from giving the mesmer more boons to reflect to the whole party. delaying the use of these skills for 10 seconds, is 10 seconds more they could have been using these skills.

D/D doesnt have a good evade while doing dmg, the timing of deathblossom is slow, and it has an aftercast, this means the theif has to stop doing dmg, and dodge, or use a dodge cool down skill, s/p allows them to create an evade while doing dmg, at will. as opposed to doing dmg, then dodging, then coming back (slightly reduced by wall dodging, but that may or may not be a soft exploit)

So everyone is reducing their utility, and adaptability, and refraining from using their chosen combos, so they can get interupt this one skill, that probably wasnt that big deal to begin with, and interrupting it only puts it on cooldown for 5 seconds.

Its almost never useful. Im not saying they shouldnt have teamwork, or have some defenses to CC, but this is not a good execution, especially when the game was supposed to be about control, support and dps, the best control skill on a boss, is probably the immobilize condition.

Im not saying they should let people stun lock bosses, but right now, defiance is fairly unbalanced, and there is very little benefit to any charachter trying to focus on CCing bosses. They do have some uses with multiple enemy non defiance encounters though. But more often than not, its not worth what you could be giving up.

I also think if they didnt have defiance the way it is now, they would build more active enemies, with faster skills, and more intellegient movement. More depth, of course, not to mention bosses are largely immune to most on interupt effects, they would need to design the encounters/ai better no matter what they do or do not do.

You’re not meant to have a character focused on CC’ing bosses, you’re meant to be doing damage, support and control at the same time.

So there being very little benefit to someone focusing on CC is a good thing, it means it punishes inefficient playstyles.

phys.7689:

mesmer has a skill which reflects boons, giving everything they have to the whole party.
so when people are holding back from using certain skills, they are holding back from giving the mesmer more boons to reflect to the whole party. delaying the use of these skills for 10 seconds, is 10 seconds more they could have been using these skills.

Ahh, Signet of Inspiration. With a proper group you wouldn’t need that. With a bad group you have nothing to share. Again, bad example.

D/D doesnt have a good evade while doing dmg, the timing of deathblossom is slow, and it has an aftercast, this means the theif has to stop doing dmg, and dodge, or use a dodge cool down skill, s/p allows them to create an evade while doing dmg, at will. as opposed to doing dmg, then dodging, then coming back (slightly reduced by wall dodging, but that may or may not be a soft exploit)

The second part of the auto-attack chain called Wild strike gives 10 endurance with each hit, thus enables you to dodge more and thieves can dodge as every other class to avoid attacks. Due to the above mentioned issues and the bad damage, Death blossom not worth to use. Dodging against a wall isn’t an exploit.

So everyone is reducing their utility, and adaptability, and refraining from using their chosen combos, so they can get interupt this one skill, that probably wasnt that big deal to begin with, and interrupting it only puts it on cooldown for 5 seconds.

Thats why a lot of us use meta builds, to not make compromise decisions. Everything you need is in one pack, only PHIW players refuse to use it and try to do stuff differently. As i said, your examples are bad and inaccurate. If you play that way, i’m not wondering you have issues with Defiant. Can i offer you a dungeon run with friends in EU?

Its almost never useful. Im not saying they shouldnt have teamwork, or have some defenses to CC, but this is not a good execution, especially when the game was supposed to be about control, support and dps, the best control skill on a boss, is probably the immobilize condition.

Almost. Thats the point. There are a lot of bosses who are already stationary or simply don’t move around trough the fight, but immobilize is a really handy condition as other soft CC’s (chill, cripple, etc.).

Im not saying they should let people stun lock bosses, but right now, defiance is fairly unbalanced, and there is very little benefit to any charachter trying to focus on CCing bosses. They do have some uses with multiple enemy non defiance encounters though. But more often than not, its not worth what you could be giving up.

Again, it depends on the fight. For example everyones beloved spider queen is worthwhile to CC when it starts to poison the party OR you can preemptively freeze it and quickly burst it down. Of course that don’t always works in pug situations, but i rarely have issues post patch and if i do it’s due to PHIW reasons or bad pulling.

I also think if they didnt have defiance the way it is now, they would build more active enemies, with faster skills, and more intellegient movement. More depth, of course, not to mention bosses are largely immune to most on interupt effects, they would need to design the encounters/ai better no matter what they do or do not do.

Faster attacks just promotes the use of passive defenses via toughness and vitality and further encourage discrimination between “elitists” and “casuals”.
Care to give examples which bosses are immune to them? I can only think of Lupi right now.
Indeed, encounters need to be better in the future, but i’m not sure better AI would solve that. Btw what would you call “better AI”? Moving out from aoe and dodging mindlessly isn’t better than now, just annoying in my opinion.

spoj.9672:

the games teaching ability.

It’s just horrible in this game. In GW1 we have the noob islands and especially faction we have those teacher/trainer giving small quest teaching player to effectively heal, interrupt etc depends on the class.

GW2 newbie area is such a joke compare to that. No guide to dodge big attack nor teach any class characteristics.

maha.7902:

You’re not meant to have a character focused on CC’ing bosses, you’re meant to be doing damage, support and control at the same time.

So there being very little benefit to someone focusing on CC is a good thing, it means it punishes inefficient playstyles.

no, it means their encounter design punishes the diversity they wanted to create, mesmer has

Mesmer tango icon 20px.png Bountiful Interruption – Gain might when you interrupt a foe, then gain another boon randomly.
Mesmer tango icon 20px.png Chaotic Interruption – Immobilize your target when you interrupt them and randomly apply blind, cripple, or chill.
Mesmer tango icon 20px.png Furious Interruption – Gain quickness when you interrupt a foe.
Mesmer tango icon 20px.png Illusion of Vulnerability – Inflict vulnerability when you interrupt a foe.
Mesmer tango icon 20px.png Halting Strike – Deal damage when interrupting a foe.
Mesmer tango icon 20px.png Power Block – Enemy skills that you interrupt have an increased cooldown.
Mesmer tango icon 20px.png Disruptor’s Sustainment – Gain bonus healing power when interrupting a foe.

swaths of traits and skills, fairly useless for any important fight.

As far as dalanor saying that a lot of these skills arent useful, having one static answer for every situation, is not imo a good idea as far as building diversity and entertainment go. Even if it is the case that all these skills are useless, and best not existing(which i am not saying is true) that isnt the way they should be, thats a flaw in the skills.

also as to movement, enemies should move around. I know you guys hate moving enemies because they slow down your dps, but when well executed, enemies that move make the fight much more entertaining. See most games outside of mmos, where an enemy is expected to move.
if handled well, movement can make a fight very interesting.

I kind of agree with Mad Queen. Even in some of my organized runs, people mostly ignore CC skills, but I can sometimes get a good window of opportunity and interrupt something good.

Also, it’s not called tactical snark. It’s called being a rude kitten. (I censored myself )

spoj.9672:

I disagree. It’s good design. It encourages coordination and discourages spamming CC.

There are other ways to prevent the spamming of CC, without neutering CC completely. I’m in favor of a Defiant mechanic that works not just through voice communication, but also with pugs. Something that players can grasp naturally, and flows naturally in the combat.

spoj.9672:

And like I said most classes and builds have atleast one CC without even building for it. So there is no excuse in building for it.

I don’t think building for it, or not building for it, should even be an issue. The real issue I see, is landing that interrupt when it matters, without having to burn through stacks of defiant preemptively. It negates the whole concept of seeing an attack, and instantly interrupting it.

spoj.9672:

And lets be honest for a second. Its standard forum practise to be snarky. It grabs your attention and makes you more likely to remember the post and re-read the points made.

You already got my attention, I’m replying.
Anyway, what I’m trying to get across is, I see two problems here:

-There are no attacks that need to be interrupted. This is indeed a boss design issue. In GW1 for example, Glint’s Crystal Hibernation needed to be interrupted. If players didn’t at least bring one or two interrupts, they couldn’t beat the boss.

-It takes too long to remove all the defiant. Interrupts should be instantaneous, because they require timing. Much like they were in GW1.

-Defiant scales to the number of players around the boss, not the amount of players WITH CC skills. This is especially a problem in large scale battles where Defiant is propelled up to 30. It unfairly makes using CC harder than it should be.

-Bosses should have some form of defense against stun-locking, but not so much that it’s more effective to just DPS the boss, and negate the entire CC mechanic.

-The effect of a CC skill against a boss is so short, that it is practically worthless. Not enough pay off for a lot of effort.

Here’s one idea, what if they changed it so rather than defiant, bosses get a kind of interrupt armour. If you interrupt the boss the interrupt goes through, but if you miss an interrupt, the boss becomes immune to CC for 10 seconds? This would reward skillful CC and punish sloppy CC.

That would still have the main problem with Defiance. Random people wasting interrupts. Also that would put a very low hard cap for interrupts. Lots of professions can easily interrupt every 10 – 20 seconds.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

—
-Defiant scales to the number of players around the boss, not the amount of players WITH CC skills. This is especially a problem in large scale battles where Defiant is propelled up to 30. It unfairly makes using CC harder than it should be.
—

Rest I can agree with but no this. Should bosses also lose health if people are not doing much damage? Or start dealing more damage if people use tanky gear? Point is, your choices should have a consequence. If your zerg doesn’t bring interrupts then you shouldn’t be able to interrupt anything.

However, I haven’t been able to think of a simple solution to replace Defiance. It has a very reasonable idea. For example in dungeons it’s often 5v1 so makes sense that you need ~5 interrupts to get something done. Problem is that this requires some coordination (and that some skills interrupt even when not wanted).

Interrupting could give Defiance stacks to the player so everyone could control when they want to interrupt. However this would allow a party to interrupt multiple times in a row. With current short encounters this would be pretty close to a stun locking (especially when using long interrupts).

Interrupting could give Stability / time based immunity instead. However this would basically render any surplus control useless without even fixing the coordination problem.

Defiance could also be removed completely but this would require serious encounter reworks. 5v1 would have to be changed to something more reasonable like 5v5 and/or bosses would need to have frequent stun breaks. It is doable to some extent but not every boss should have similar mechanics.

Perhaps simplest fix would add very powerful attacks to bosses which would remove Defiance stacks (basically screaming for interrupts) or have a very long cast time (3+) to give people time to use multiple control skills.

Some good ideas Wethospu, and I do agree that bosses shouldn’t just make themselves easier based on what the players are bringing. However, the opposite is also a problem, when bosses make them selves harder based on what the players are not bringing.

I think what they’d need to do, is to add actual behavior and phases to bosses. To add phases where they are vulnerable to CC, and phases where they are not.

Similarly, what they should do is add phases where bosses are vulnerable to DPS, and when they are not. In fact, Mai Trin already does this, which makes her a much better boss than a lot of other dungeon filler in the game.

domness.6719:

You can CC a boss, they just have around 5 stacks when you do any CC on them. I think the main reason for this is so you can’t just CC the boss to crap and pretty much maintain 0 DMG from the boss. I don’t think it’s intended to show that a boss is “heavy”

In small group encounters where it’s possible to more or less manage deviance you’re technically able to more tactically use your CCs (remove the stacks, wait for boss to use power ability A and then hit him with a CC etc). However in pugs people randomly use their CC abilities and there’s no real strategy. But I don’t think Defiance is a bad idea or broken in dungeons. Players simply manage to get through encounters without taking it in consideration.

I do however strongly feel that when it come to zerg content the CC model is completely broken. In zergs it’s near impossible to manage and tactically plan around deviance.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Control skills and interrupts could have a role in boss fights. Right now they don’t, because Defiant is badly designed.

May it not being because it’s badly designed that is has no role but because it simply isn’t crucial. You don’t have to tactics like stacking are aimed at limiting the need for more complicated tactics than stacking boons and wailing away.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I disagree. In this case the system is convoluted, and the pay-off is not worth the effort of everyone coordinating the control skills. One of the most important things about any interrupt, is that you can land it when you need to. Currently that is exactly what is eliminated by Defiant.

Again a lack of an imperative to do so. You don’t have to, it’s complicated and needs coordination and heck why not just spam away at a boss and hope for the best. Redesigning boss mechanics to require CC would resolve this issue, but would also make dungeons very pug unfriendly. Possibly the introduction of a hard mode into dungeons were CC-ing is crucial, where managing stacks is the only way to survive is possibility.

Otaur.9268:

I love how in Orr people yell at you to INTERRUPT the Champion Wrath during life siphon, but it cannot be interrupted during its life drain due to 29 stacks of Defiance… Then they yell at everyone saying NOOBS LEARN TO INTERRUPT. GG Anet, you made an AoE Life Stealing Champion who downs everyone during this channel unless the mob is being interrupted by 30 people at once. Same as the Champion Lich in Sparkfly Fen.

This really does seem more like a, functioning as intended situation. Stacks grow out of control if you randomly CC, so the goal is to know your profession and know the fight and as a group burn defiance and then hit a CC when need be. Pugs obviously can’t do this, they use their CC abilities indiscriminately, stacks grow too large and the fight becomes next to impossible to win. But this is more a discussion about how difficult a dungeon should be (in terms of pugs vs organised groups)

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

-It takes too long to remove all the defiant. Interrupts should be instantaneous, because they require timing. Much like they were in GW1.

I’ll agree with the former, in small encounters the stacks shouldn’t grow out of bounds. In terms of the later I think bosses should be designed to give enough time to strip defiance away before a interrupt is needed. I’m unsure about instant interrupts via CC since it opens up the door to CC spamming and boss stun locking. If we remove the CC effect and include interrupts on only specific abilities (the 1 shots or more damage heavy attacks) then perhaps it could work to have a instant interrupt.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

-Defiant scales to the number of players around the boss, not the amount of players WITH CC skills. This is especially a problem in large scale battles where Defiant is propelled up to 30. It unfairly makes using CC harder than it should be.

In the case of zerg content deviance simply doesn’t scale well or work well really. CC in general fits very poorly in a encounter that could have tens of players with CC. In the case of zerg content I’m all for implementing a different system (although what I can’t imagine). In large groups tactical usage of CC flies out the window. Another system that might require multiple CCs to interrupt a well telegraphed attack might work (say you have 5 seconds to hit the boss with X amounts of CCs before he releases Ultimate Damage Attack Omega). Making the boss permanently uninterrupted able except for that short period so that you get to use your CC at least. Although the tactical usage flies out the window as well in such a scenario since it’s ‘oh look the boss is glowing lets CC away’. For a small number of bosses this could work, as a global mechanic probably not.

LumAnth.5124:

Also, it’s not called tactical snark. It’s called being a rude kitten. (I censored myself )

Well it obviously worked and it wasnt even directed at you.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

There are other ways to prevent the spamming of CC, without neutering CC completely. I’m in favor of a Defiant mechanic that works not just through voice communication, but also with pugs. Something that players can grasp naturally, and flows naturally in the combat.

It doesnt neuter CC completely. It punishes uncoordinated play. The game needs more of this. And it does work with pugs. You can say in party chat that you want them to remove defiant stacks. My group sets up CC’s and removes defiant stacks fine without being on teamspeak. We dont even need to speak in party chat most of the time. I just link icebow 5 and they will all remove defiant so i set up a freeze. Pugs just dont make the effort to learn this because they arent forced or incentivised to do so.

If interrupts were more important and pugs actually made more effort to coordinate CC with each other like people do instinctively in organised groups then you wouldnt be saying defiant is poorly designed. Its a pug issue not a design issue. Dungeons and fractals arent intended for pugs anyway, they are just old content so pugs can get by. Open world stuff should use a different system though. Or have defiant scale differently.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I don’t think building for it, or not building for it, should even be an issue. The real issue I see, is landing that interrupt when it matters, without having to burn through stacks of defiant preemptively. It negates the whole concept of seeing an attack, and instantly interrupting it.

Boss attacks have cooldowns and bosses start off with 0 defiant stacks. You interrupt the first important attack and then you know you need to remove the stacks before it comes off cooldown. If you could interrupt whenever you wanted it would allow serious cheesing of bosses. No coordination would be required and the game would be far too easy to completely disable a boss. If you add cooldowns or durations of stability, you punish extra CC and coordinated stack removal and prevent chain interrupts in organised high CC groups. Theres no perfect system for both pugs and organised groups. And you cant balance around pugs.

I dont know if you know this but all rooted bosses and bosses without defiant can be cheesed heavily (Bjarl). For rooted bosses placing something like sanctuary on their head permanently knocks them down even when they have defiant stacks. And im sure you are aware of the spiky fruit spam abuse that used to go on at Bjarl before it got fixed. Now groups just have to use their own CC to stunlock him, or use one of the other no cd consumables.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

-There are no attacks that need to be interrupted. This is indeed a boss design issue. In GW1 for example, Glint’s Crystal Hibernation needed to be interrupted. If players didn’t at least bring one or two interrupts, they couldn’t beat the boss.

-Defiant scales to the number of players around the boss, not the amount of players WITH CC skills. This is especially a problem in large scale battles where Defiant is propelled up to 30. It unfairly makes using CC harder than it should be.

Agree with these. Except defiant should remain at 5 stacks in instances. If you dont take enough CC in your group there are consequences. Completely agree for open world.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

-It takes too long to remove all the defiant. Interrupts should be instantaneous, because they require timing. Much like they were in GW1.

It doesnt take too long to remove defiant if people know what they are doing. This is a good system. It forces you to make a decision between taking more CC to reliably interrupt or to not worry about it and go for extra DPS.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

-Bosses should have some form of defense against stun-locking, but not so much that it’s more effective to just DPS the boss, and negate the entire CC mechanic.

The current system solves this fine. Bosses just need more abilities that really favour being interrupted so you actually do consider coordinating CC more often instead of just using it to setup burst.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

-The effect of a CC skill against a boss is so short, that it is practically worthless. Not enough pay off for a lot of effort.

Bosses are CC’ed for the exact same duration as regular mobs. But even if they werent i feel this is intended. You shouldnt be able to disable bosses for long durations. CC should be used purely for interrupting key attacks or giving a brief pause to emergency res someone. It should also punish you for using CC too early, which it does.

Anyways, the biggest and simplest change they could do is to make PvE monster skills go on full cooldown when interrupted.

What if… and this is just a simple suggestion, we didn’t have constant defiant uptime? What if, what we had instead, was a small time window in which key-skills on bosses could be interrupted with CC. If your timing was off, that’s when he would start to gain temporary stacks of Defiant. These stacks could naturally wear off, but the more stacks he got, the longer it would take.

Or: Bosses only gained temporary defiant as soon as they got hit by any CC skill, which would wear off naturally. This would stop players from just spamming it, because spamming CC would only cause higher stacks.

Currently the defiant system doesn’t specifically punish spamming CC skills. In fact, it encourages spamming CC skills to peel off the stacks of Defiant, while demanding players to do so before they want to land their interrupt. But what this system would do is give bosses defiant stacks based on the number of CC skills hitting them within a few seconds time. It would discourage CC spamming.

The second suggestion would work better than your first suggestion. But it would also remove the consequences of having little overall CC in the group. Theres no opportunity cost with that suggestion. It also once again reduces the need for coordination unless the temporary stacks last for a considerable amount of time. In which case we are back to the original system.