Guild Wars 2

I think something that needs to be said is that there are a lot of players that have no idea how defiance works.

I can’t count how many times I’ve tried to explain it to other players. Sometimes they listen, other times they just keep spamming their skills because hey why not, clearly using a skill is better than not using it. Even though in a good number of situation the 1 skill on their weapon would be the best option.

The tooltip is there on the boss, but most don’t read it or can’t read it during combat. Then there are those that don’t even understand their own boons / conditions.

Whatever ends up happening with defiant I just hope it makes its way into the game in some sort of tutorial or something.

P.S.
The same thing can be said of combo fields….So many players just have no idea what triggers them or what effect comes from which combo.

DiogoSilva.7089:

rfdarko.4639:

But for 5 man content I think defiance works well.

I completely disagree with that. Just because in theory it “rewards organization”, it does not means that in practice it leads to good gameplay. Because it does not. Defiance is boring and mostly an uninteractive mechanic most of the time, even in the very few exceptions that you make use of it.

I think that any system that would replace defiance should give freedom of playing and tactical choice to the players, but with consequences and with defiance itself triggering at times as a means of keeping the challenge there. For this reason, I (partially) disagree with anthony’s idea of a cc window: although it’s interesting by itself, and should certainly exist in some fights (like the moa’s fight in Dry Top), it’s also a very restricting mechanic to be applied to the game as a whole.

Here’s how I would rework the defiant system:

PART 1
(Assuming that higher stacks = more danger)
Each time you CC a boss, it gains 3 stacks of X. If you successfully interrupt a boss with your CC, it only gains 2 stacks of X instead.

• This is meant to reward well-timed CCs;
• This allows players to choice if they wish to use a CC or not, and when they want to use it or not;

PART 2
The higher the stacks of X, the stronger the boss becomes (probably statistically) and the harder they become to interrupt (faster animations).

• This gives consequences to cc spamming and serves to make the battle more climatic and dangerous as they go on.

PART 3 – THE CLIMAX
When the boss has Y stacks of X, he gains Defiance for Z seconds, and then their stacks of X are reset to 0.

• If players spam CC too much, the boss will get an absurd amount of stats and become uninterruptible early OR more often in a fight. At this point, bosses become highly dangerous. This is the climax, the last trial that puts to test the player’s skill to survive a fight.
• At this point of battle, control builds become useless until the stacks are resetted, and emphasis is given at the existence of support builds! Blocks, evades, aegis, healing and the like will become of extreme importance here, because CC is temporarely locked.

CONCLUSION
A system that allows players to play how they want, by incentivating player’s skill (successful interrupts are less severe than mindless CC) and tactical decisions (weaker skills should not be interrupted so that the stacks don’t grow as fast), and incentivates both control and support builds instead of the current DPS-only meta: control builds to keep the bosses’ skills in check; support builds to sustain the party when the boss becomes a stacked nightmare.

So people would just avoid CC and keep boss at normal level?

Wethospu.6437:

So people would just avoid CC and keep boss at normal level?

Only if their skills are not worth interrupting. At which point, it’s a problem with balance more so than with design.

Let’s assume the boss skills would be reasonable strong and intense (as in, overpower the amount of support your group can bring), bring deadly conditions or cc burst combos, at a rate that is hard to accompany. Let’s assume bosses would also be effective at kiting as a bonus.

Using CC would not be merely a temptation, but a necessity. As long as support skills would not be enough to sustain the party the entire fight, they would have to be used alongside CC, usually inbetween it, or during the “highly stacked defiant phase”.

But if a boss is not worth interrupting, then, my friend, any defiant mechanic is useless because everyone can just DPS it anyway.

EDIT Basically, my idea is, that at “normal level”, the boss is highly dangerous (as in, downright killer) without CC, and the combat would be detemined by how much parties can balance support and CC, while slowing down the bosses’ increasing stacks as slowly as possible.

Wethospu.6437:

DiogoSilva.7089:

rfdarko.4639:

But for 5 man content I think defiance works well.

I completely disagree with that. Just because in theory it “rewards organization”, it does not means that in practice it leads to good gameplay. Because it does not. Defiance is boring and mostly an uninteractive mechanic most of the time, even in the very few exceptions that you make use of it.

I think that any system that would replace defiance should give freedom of playing and tactical choice to the players, but with consequences and with defiance itself triggering at times as a means of keeping the challenge there. For this reason, I (partially) disagree with anthony’s idea of a cc window: although it’s interesting by itself, and should certainly exist in some fights (like the moa’s fight in Dry Top), it’s also a very restricting mechanic to be applied to the game as a whole.

Here’s how I would rework the defiant system:

PART 1
(Assuming that higher stacks = more danger)
Each time you CC a boss, it gains 3 stacks of X. If you successfully interrupt a boss with your CC, it only gains 2 stacks of X instead.

• This is meant to reward well-timed CCs;
• This allows players to choice if they wish to use a CC or not, and when they want to use it or not;

PART 2
The higher the stacks of X, the stronger the boss becomes (probably statistically) and the harder they become to interrupt (faster animations).

• This gives consequences to cc spamming and serves to make the battle more climatic and dangerous as they go on.

PART 3 – THE CLIMAX
When the boss has Y stacks of X, he gains Defiance for Z seconds, and then their stacks of X are reset to 0.

• If players spam CC too much, the boss will get an absurd amount of stats and become uninterruptible early OR more often in a fight. At this point, bosses become highly dangerous. This is the climax, the last trial that puts to test the player’s skill to survive a fight.
• At this point of battle, control builds become useless until the stacks are resetted, and emphasis is given at the existence of support builds! Blocks, evades, aegis, healing and the like will become of extreme importance here, because CC is temporarely locked.

CONCLUSION
A system that allows players to play how they want, by incentivating player’s skill (successful interrupts are less severe than mindless CC) and tactical decisions (weaker skills should not be interrupted so that the stacks don’t grow as fast), and incentivates both control and support builds instead of the current DPS-only meta: control builds to keep the bosses’ skills in check; support builds to sustain the party when the boss becomes a stacked nightmare.

So people would just avoid CC and keep boss at normal level?

i had a similar idea, but i wouldnt go with statistical increase, i would go with a different/skill sets. The main advantage the boss would get is essentially the defiance buff.

For some groups, and some bosses, they may even try to force him to his different playstyle because it works to their advantage.

the other major difference i had is that the resistances/stacks would fade over time on their own. (so its not a case of never using CC to avoid anything)

the last major difference is that mines is a meter, and the more powerful control effects fill up the meter faster.

I think overall this is the right direction,
it allows use of Control, and advantages to control builds
it discourages CC spam, but doesnt make the skills useless most of the time.
real choices come into play, like whether you weaker CC mostly for the interupt, or longer CC for the control effect.

^The idea of a meter where stronger CC increases the meter faster is also cool. Like, a KD would increase more stacks than a stun, and stun more than a daze. However, because skills are already balanced under the idea that KDs > stuns > dazes, I’m not sure if this would be needed. It would fall under the responasbility of the skill & balance team, and not under pve’s content design team.

Nonetheless, skillful interrupting should be more rewarding than spamming “wasted” CC, so interrupts should increase the meter slightly more slowly than non-interrupting CC.

Just an idea that popped in my mind, and I wanted to share: What if Defiant stays same, except that when the stacks go to zero, it’s not, only a single stun that can get true, but a more then one. By making it a timed ‘vulnerable to CC’ window. This can range from 1 second to 5 wathever, you think is balanced in the grand scheme of things. This would still prevent stunlocking bosses (world bosses will still have 50-80 stacks of defiance), but once the stacks are down, a flashing icon, could alarm ppl, ’now’s the time, Land that specific CC on him that would help the battle, like scorpion wire to pull him to a better spot. All i’m saying is, that it would give more opportunity for people to time the CC, then now, where it’s a ‘chance game’ to get your CC to go off, instead of it being absorbed by Defiance stacks. Just a thought. What you guys think? Would this be an improvement, any downsides?

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Lots of nice comments here. I, too, have a strong dislike for the Defiant/Unshakable system. Internally we’ve kicked around a lot of ideas about how to change it. The problem is that making large sweeping changes to the game is a bit like moving a table that you built a Jenga™ tower on—it takes time, planning, and a lot of care to do it.

We’ve made big changes before, though. This one is on our list to address.
In the mean time it’s great to see some discussion over alternatives as well as some specific examples where existing alternatives work.

Personally (by which I mean not representing the entire development team) I’d like to see at least one boss with a sort of reverse defiance. Generally immune to CC except in windows during one or two keys attacks with a long warmup. I think the theory behind Defiance would work well if everyone knew exactly when to interrupt. This is a troublesome prospect for the ad-hoc groups that GW2 promotes in various settings, so maybe shifting the responsibility to the boss (which everyone is already paying attention to) would work out a little better. “He’s winding up for super-mega-attack, everyone stun now!”

Discuss?

Hi Anthony,

I just wanted to give you some feedback to your post.
I dont play too much pve, i spend most of my time in wvw or on the tp and I am a frequent forum user.
I have seen this topic about defiance on the general discussions several times and never bothered to read it because i dont really care about defiance as I dont play pve content much.
I only read your post because i regularly check the dev tracker.
First of all I would like to say that it is a very well written post. Its awesome feedback towards the community. Its very personal but you make good points in also highlighting corporate/professional views.
I wouldnt mind seing posts like that more often on the forums. And i think you also realized that you can get some awesome feedback from the community as well.
I couldnt recall to read a post of yours before, so i actually checked your post history and realized that you dont post that often. I dont want to moan about that but instead would like to encourage you to do so more often.
I think that Dev Feedback like this goes a long way in the community.

To get a little bit on topic:
Even though I stated that PvE isnt my favourite content , I still do it. I commanded trains in EotM, WvW, LS, for world bosses and farm trains for certain materials/events, so i know a bit about Defiance.
I still havent read the whole thread, or the OP, but i guess its a boss mechanic you are looking into. And from my experience, you add and try out quite alot of new boss mechanics with every new update.
I only played (and commanded) Dry Top for 2 days after release but I have ot say that I really liked the moa boss mechanic. Its not hard to figure out but is still challenging, if you have to explain it as a commander to some people on the map that have never done it before and are used to press 111. Its also a great fight for an organized party of 5 as it is not harder than the regular dungeno boss.

I propably wont check into this topic again, unless i see a post of yours in the dev tracker, so thanks again for the great feedback.

I think it ultimately depends on the context.

A world boss with Anthony’s CC window is excellent. I would very much enjoy calling across TS to “CC NOW!” and burn it down to break the boss out of a mega-smash-planet-killer attack. There are other unique mechanics that could be investigated as well.

Defiant is bad in open world because:

• Too many stacks due to scaling that CC is completely removed from the equation, reducing the complexity of gameplay
• Bosses are only susceptible in a limited way to CC because their skills go on a mere 4 second cooldown; dodging / blocking is far superior
• Bosses are very hard to see due to scale and particle effects, so players often don’t even know when to CC
• Coordinating a specific number of CC skills in a very very large group is unfeasible
• Every non-structure world boss having the same CC mechanics is boring

As for dungeons, a lot of people are correct that players are in full control of CC now because they can clear defiant stacks and so forth, but it’s just not practical. It’s easy to have a coordinated guild and manage your defiant stacks and so forth. There was a lot of it in the recent PvE dungeon tournament, for example. Still, this isn’t a mechanic that is conducive of coordination in random pug groups, and the one person who messes it up messes it all up.

Defiant is bad in dungeons because:

• All it takes is one player to mess up a boss CC, punishing players hard for mistakes
• Bosses are only susceptible in a limited way to CC because their skills go on a mere 4 second cooldown; dodging / blocking is far superior
• Every dungeon boss having the same CC mechanics is boring

Here’s an idea I’ve floated that I enjoy. Some, not all, dungeon bosses might use this. The boss has no defiant, but whenever it is CC’d, it gains Stability and some other buff, like Quickness, for 12 seconds. This sort of enrage mechanic means that you would only use CC when it mattered, and would otherwise not waste them or try to stunlock the boss (not that you could). You could change up the buff or what happens on CC per boss; some might not even get a buff if you think they’re easy enough.

Maybe the AC Spider boss spawns a new group of 12 spider hatchlings every time it is CC’d, for instance.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

…snip“He’s winding up for super-mega-attack, everyone stun now!”

Discuss?

And here is my problem, with the amount of particle effects being bandied about on the battlefield I can usually not tell when that “mega attack” is about to happen, or even see him do his wind up.

I know many players here will say they don’t want to dumb down the game by giving a visual queue, but as you have already made some compensation in the form of easier to see red areas where would be the harm?

Making the boss say flash when winding up this “mega attack” (pause 1 second then CC) would go a long way to making the large scale fights easier for me (an I am sure others) to read.

Tommyknocker.6089:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

…snip“He’s winding up for super-mega-attack, everyone stun now!”

Discuss?

And here is my problem, with the amount of particle effects being bandied about on the battlefield I can usually not tell when that “mega attack” is about to happen, or even see him do his wind up.

I know many players here will say they don’t want to dumb down the game by giving a visual queue, but as you have already made some compensation in the form of easier to see red areas where would be the harm?

Making the boss say flash when winding up this “mega attack” (pause 1 second then CC) would go a long way to making the large scale fights easier for me (an I am sure others) to read.

To be honest, even though Anet didn’t originally design the game to rely on skill activation bars that pop up bellow the enemy’s health bars, I think they’re becoming more and more a necessity, not only for this issue at hand, but for their attempts to push for a mesmer’s interrupt build, or for any other interrupt traits/ runes.

The moa event in Dry Top made this more evident. If no one pointed it out to me, I would have no idea of the interrupt window bar that popped up on the right of my screen. It’s way too hidden at that corner.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Maybe the AC Spider boss spawns a new group of 12 spider hatchlings every time it is CC’d, for instance.

0.o

dooo eeeet!!!!!

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Lots of nice comments here. I, too, have a strong dislike for the Defiant/Unshakable system. Internally we’ve kicked around a lot of ideas about how to change it. The problem is that making large sweeping changes to the game is a bit like moving a table that you built a Jenga™ tower on—it takes time, planning, and a lot of care to do it.

We’ve made big changes before, though. This one is on our list to address.
In the mean time it’s great to see some discussion over alternatives as well as some specific examples where existing alternatives work.

Personally (by which I mean not representing the entire development team) I’d like to see at least one boss with a sort of reverse defiance. Generally immune to CC except in windows during one or two keys attacks with a long warmup. I think the theory behind Defiance would work well if everyone knew exactly when to interrupt. This is a troublesome prospect for the ad-hoc groups that GW2 promotes in various settings, so maybe shifting the responsibility to the boss (which everyone is already paying attention to) would work out a little better. “He’s winding up for super-mega-attack, everyone stun now!”

Discuss?

Isn’t that the fight we had in COE with the robot? See the spin start and lay down a stun. I know my team use to rotate CCs to prevent that attack from ever going out. Then he was changed to move around and have defiance

Yeah it’s still more of a instanced content issue, not open world one.
Let’s assume we need to CC a boss to prevent its big attack. Okay.
We have a window where we need to take action.
1. How we handle different type and longevity of CC skills?
2. Should we need to create our opportunity window on our own or the game just should give it us one as Anthony said in his example.

+1: If we make it on a bigger scale, would be on player enough for the succes or more would be better?

munkiman.3068:

The Three Toed Moa fight is a nice change, being able to see when he’s about to run off via the UI is a pretty nice feature. I’d much rather see more of this than “fixing” defiant.

I’ve already said it here, but i think it has a lame design. Let me explain.
The thing that it has a notification when it prepares to run, so you need to stun it nice. However you can spam CC on him 24/7, making his mechanic kinda pointless, except if you are alone, but if the cooldown of his ability is low enough it won’t be an issue.

rfdarko.4639:

too much win

Again we turned back to the old topic which was mentioned at the possible changes of combo fields. “our playerbase is dumb we need to make the game dumberrer”
How about to teach them instead?! Blasphemy, i know. But a proper tutorial would be SO good i would adopt hundreds of kittens for it. Make a CDI about the topic pretty please!

And thanks for bringing the Abomination into another perspective for me. I still forget ANet prefers the give an equal field of all type of players, which isn’t a bad thing afterall, but let me take a little note on that fight.
Why implement it? Every class has access to control. Some of them have almost infinite amount (thieves), so it’s kinda cheese the whole fight. It’s not like the bomb run in dredge fractal or anywhere in that whole instance for that matter, where thieves are just too good to pass, so they became mandatory. Anyway, the benefit you gain by pressing a CC button or pressing interract and then another button to CC is … i dunno … does it really matter? I mean it needs a little coordination or at least just stop at 0 defiant stacks and the result is the same if you stop it with the gun. Do we need multiple options when classes can already deal with the situation with multiple skills?

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

snip

CoE p1, Bjarl the rampager. Decide it yourself that it’s a improvement or not. That guy being an exception, it’s interesting. Change every single encounter like him, nooooooo, please don’t do it.

Rising Dusk.2408:

A world boss with Anthony’s CC window is excellent. I would very much enjoy calling across TS to “CC NOW!” and burn it down to break the boss out of a mega-smash-planet-killer attack. There are other unique mechanics that could be investigated as well.

Read the discussion previously about the wrath at the Grenth event. The mob does a big attack, damaging everyone in sight and has a huuuuuge duration, making it obvious that it literrally screams at your monitor to stop it. But what happens? No one does a single thing. How would it better without Defiant? If only one player is enough for the job is … lame.

list

Multiple tools are given, people are not dealing with the situation with given tools are learn to play issue, lazyness and ignorance. Or choose more. You get it.

list

Dealing with 5 stacks or Defiant isn’t much harder than learning how to stack might and pugs tend to do it. Sometimes.
But the problem is the same at both cases, there is no or not enough incentive to do it. The game isn’t punish you for not doing it. Well sometimes it happens of course, when you didn’t prebuffed and the burst fails, but you get it.

Dalanor.5387:

Read the discussion previously about the wrath at the Grenth event. The mob does a big attack, damaging everyone in sight and has a huuuuuge duration, making it obvious that it literrally screams at your monitor to stop it. But what happens? No one does a single thing. How would it better without Defiant? If only one player is enough for the job is … lame.

The idea is that it could have a fixed number of defiant stacks, say 20, and you can only reduce those defiant stacks during the window where it is channeling its big skill. Then, once it happens, you call it out and bam, people coordinate and do it to interrupt it. Calling it out on the event interface would also be a good improvement… or perhaps go the route of the Triple Trouble wurm and have yellow ‘announcements’ for participating players telling them about the windup (or even more awesome, audio cues!)

The other big issue with that event is that Grenth’s event currently is a major clusterkitten and also has numerous other issues beyond just Defiant.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Maybe the AC Spider boss spawns a new group of 12 spider hatchlings every time it is CC’d, for instance.

Kanaxai approves.

When the game first came out and most didn’t understand Defiance, I learned quickly that you could only stun it if it had zero Defiant. With every boss I encountered, I always thought that defiance was supposed to have strategic use. By that I mean the boss had some sort of attack that, if allowed to use, would instantly kill every one, regardless of dodge, blocks, immunity, etc, unless it had zero defiant stacks and could be interrupted. I was always afraid of that when doing dungeons for the first time. It never happened, and all this time I’ve talked about it with friends about how it should have been a mechanic to be used like that. Most considered it a good idea, add a little extra to certain bosses.

Rising Dusk.2408:

The idea is that it could have a fixed number of defiant stacks, say 20, and you can only reduce those defiant stacks during the window where it is channeling its big skill. Then, once it happens, you call it out and bam, people coordinate and do it to interrupt it. Calling it out on the event interface would also be a good improvement… or perhaps go the route of the Triple Trouble wurm and have yellow ‘announcements’ for participating players telling them about the windup (or even more awesome, audio cues!)

It’s already fixed, assuming on the fact that every person is able to bring at least 1 CC skill. Going into a fight where you need CC and you don’t bring it … Thats a bit of a shame.
The mob itself is big enough to see the animation even if it’s covered in particle effects and if you don’t pay attention to it, the periodic damage is a good sign for something going on.
Calling out to interrupt isn’t a rare thing and still see failed attempts to do it. I know it’s only anecdotal evidence. You shouldn’t need that kind of “announcement” for a regular champion. For THW, yeah, sure. It’s a raid kind of thing anyway. Audio not neccessary a good idea either, due to it’s a common thing that players turn of ingame sounds.

The other big issue with that event is that Grenth’s event currently is a major clusterkitten and also has numerous other issues beyond just Defiant.

Thats another topic, but visual feedback is still a problem with Defiant and interruptable boss skills.

[BRAINSTORM ABOUT DEFIANT STACKS: DIMINISHING RETURNS]

(a) a more script intensive idea would be to give diminishing returns to successive uses of successful control effects with specific time periods.

examples: once you knockback a boss, the next knockback within 10 seconds is only half the distance, et cetera… until the full 10 seconds expires without knockbock. another example would be immobilize the boss for 4 seconds, but then if any other immobilize skill is used against the boss within 10 seconds, whatever the immobilize would have been, is cut in half. if immobilized a 3rd time before resetting, then halved, and the result would be halved again.

(b) there would have to be an additional rule that any effect lasting less than 1/4 second is just plain ignored.

example: boss gets stunned for 4 seconds, 5 seconds later, a 2 second stun hits the boss, so it’s halved, so it’s a 1 second stun. 3 seconds later, a 3 second stun hits the boss, but it’s halved, and then halved again (diminishing returns diminish per stack), so 3/4 second stun. 9 seconds later a 2 second stun hits boss. gets halved, halved and then halved again, so it’s a 1/4 second stun. 4 seconds later a 4 second stun hits the boss, gets halved 4 times. so 1/4 second stun. if the diminishing returns aren’t reset at this point, the stun duration will be less than 1/4 second and won’t stun the boss.

(3) now, the diminishing returns would be exclusive and independent to each control effect, not a global diminishing return for ALL control effects.

examples: so if diminishing returns affected stun duration, and nobody dazed the boss yet, then diminishing returns would not apply to daze yet. and since each control effect has it’s own independent diminishing return, daze could be at level 3, stun could be at level 6, knockback could be at level 2, immobilize could be at level 9, all at the same time.

but that would require a LOT more scripting than simple defiant stacks. and this doesn’t address any of the “build up to large attack at x stacks of y” mechanics

[RELATED UI SUGGESTION]
as a side note: UI could be better customizable for me to relocate my target’s healthbar to a place on my screen where i can actually pay attention to defiant stacks and such. i have a 30 inch monitor. my target’s healthbar is always at the top of the screen, where i never look during combat. allow me to move it somewhere i can monitor it better please.

if players can’t even see the target’s buffs / debuffs during combat due to UI restrictions, of course they won’t be actively thinking about things like defiant. and if they’re new to the game, they won’t even KNOW about defiant unless tutored on it.

[TUTORIALS BOOKS AND IMMERSION]

i agree that in game tutorials would be a huge benefit. the most frustrating thing about GW2 is that outside resources are practically required. open world boss fight timers (not in game), mystic forge recipes (have to look in wiki because there’s no MF recipes in game in books or anything), combo effects (have to look up on wiki what a blast finisher does in a smoke field, because there is no in-game mention of combos, not even in books)

one way to add immersion and help solve this issue, is to add more BOOKS into the world. books that talk about combo fields, mystic forge recipes, and mob bestieries. could possibly even be added to the Hero panel as additional journals. like:

a~ bestiery journal, including notes on every mob encountered by the player in game, including bosses. journal entries would also be added by reading about mobs / bosses in books. would include more detailed info about strengths and weaknesses of mobs and bosses. the boss section would also include information about defiant stacks and big attack stacks

b~ mystic forge journal: including recipes discovered by using the mystic forge, and recipes taught to the player by NPCs or by reading books in Tyria

c~ combat journal: mainly to list combo results, learned by reading books or discovering on the battlefield, but should also contain entries about conditions and control effects.

these extra journals could be added as new tabs in the hero panel

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

On the other hand, defiance allows for some CC, but having to break though the stacks gets boring? Frustrating? Old. Because it’s on every boss. They all work the same way. Blah.

Give this lady a cookie. Sameness is a major issue with Defiance. Maybe part of the design issue with regard to bosses is to come up with a variety of mechanics that relate to the use of CC, and choose which of these to put on each boss.

1. Uses Defiance as it is now
2. Immune to CC except during certain windows when a big-hitting skill can be and ought to be CC’d.
3. Vulnerable to soft CC but immune to hard CC
4. Vulnerable to soft CC but only a certain skill can be hard CC’d
5. Can be CC’d only if attacker is using a ranged skill
6. Can be CC’d only if attacker using a melee skill
7. Can be CC’d, but has short CD stability
8. Over-use of CC stacks a berserk buff
9. Can be CC’d, but each successful CC procs at 10 second immunity (does not stack)

None of these mechanics may be perfect, but the likelihood of finding a perfect mechanic that would both be engaging and which would prevent stun-lock across all bosses approaches nil. So, why not provide workable mechanics in variety?

Note: if one or more of these options is too problematic, use a different one. There’s no shortage of ideas.
Note 2: I take no credit for any of the individual ideas. I’m sure they’ve already all been suggested.

IndigoSundown.5419:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

On the other hand, defiance allows for some CC, but having to break though the stacks gets boring? Frustrating? Old. Because it’s on every boss. They all work the same way. Blah.

Give this lady a cookie. Sameness is a major issue with Defiance. Maybe part of the design issue with regard to bosses is to come up with a variety of mechanics that relate to the use of CC, and choose which of these to put on each boss.

1. Uses Defiance as it is now
2. Immune to CC except during certain windows when a big-hitting skill can be and ought to be CC’d.
3. Vulnerable to soft CC but immune to hard CC
4. Vulnerable to soft CC but only a certain skill can be hard CC’d
5. Can be CC’d only if attacker is using a ranged skill
6. Can be CC’d only if attacker using a melee skill
7. Can be CC’d, but has short CD stability
8. Over-use of CC stacks a berserk buff
9. Can be CC’d, but each successful CC procs at 10 second immunity (does not stack)

None of these mechanics may be perfect, but the likelihood of finding a perfect mechanic that would both be engaging and which would prevent stun-lock across all bosses approaches nil. So, why not provide workable mechanics in variety?

Note: if one or more of these options is too problematic, use a different one. There’s no shortage of ideas.
Note 2: I take no credit for any of the individual ideas. I’m sure they’ve already all been suggested.

Nice ideas, and I definitely agree that it should be multiple possibilities tailored for each boss, and got a few more I’d like to add (I also take no credit for these ideas)

1. Boss is vulnerable to a condition, and will loss stacks of defiance with each application/tick of that condition.
2. Boss is vulnerable to a specific hard CC effect, and loses more stacks of defiance when hit with that effect as oppose to other hard CCs.
3. CCs (hard or soft) have unique effects when used at a certain moment/location, i.e. a charging attack might do less damage if the boss is crippled (can’t get up to full speed) or the boss will take damage if hard CC’d during a major attack.

One issue with Defiant that I’ve seen a few of you bring up, is the fact that currently if you drop a CC skill at the wrong time, the effects last the whole fight. This is something that I would love to see changed. The act of burning through these gigantic stacks of Defiant is what kills it for me. I think it’s reasonable that the boss becomes immune for a while, if he’s spammed with CC skills. But the effect of that should NOT last the entire fight. It should wear off naturally.

Additionally, I’m in favor of seeing mechanics that make bosses more like regular players. Give them stability skills and stun breakers. Rather than constantly breaking the rules of their own combat system, I wish Anet’s designers would try and make the boss fights work within the established rules. Stunbreakers and stability skills make more sense. And how often these skills are available could scale with the number of players, or with the amount of CC the boss receives.

There could be also 2 systems implanted :
1) the boss cannot be effected by the same condition in a row (evades the condition+ counterattack by doing an aoe attack to the group , or attack the second player that tried to do the same condition , while Yelling ‘’YOU THINK I AM GONNA GET TRICKED AGAIN?’‘)
2) the boss ’’remembers’’ each player’s CC and if they where used while the boss was ’’facing’’ the player or if the spells was casted on the boss ’’back’’- you have to use the same CC once in his back> after that you have to use the same in front of him> then repeat(if the boss switch aggro/target every few sec , you will fail some times . and you have to use some Mind Muscle to remember which CC to use in front of him or his back) .
(Same ’’backfire’’ as the 1st case , if you failed)

Honestly some of you should take a step back and look what you are actually suggesting.

With your system, would players even understand what’s happening? Average player is, well, really an average. If people can’t figure out how current very simple system works how do you expect them to understand something more complicated?

Also you shouldn’t expect miracles. Look at what kind of encounters developers have done and look what your idea is assuming. There suddenly won’t be encounters which are deeply intriguing, challenging, fun, dynamic and fluffy. And even if there was, that would be too hard for most of the playerbase.

Yeah some of these suggestions are far too complex lol. And inconsistancy is never a good thing especially for new players. Variety is cool but if you have defiant work differently on different bosses its going to completely confuse some people.

I would suggest keep defiant as it is. Use it for instanced content. Give some new bosses in instances some other form of anti CC but give it a different name and icon (the perma stability one is clearly different so it avoids some confusion). And for open world it should be changed completely to either cap the defiant stacks at around 5-10 or just go with what Three Toed Tootsie does.

And for the most important thing. Give bosses enrage abilities and heals and big damage attacks that are worth interrupting. Also fix all boss skills to go on full cool down when interrupted. Otherwise interrupting will always be pointless when you will still just have to dodge 4 seconds later. I interrupted Alphards dagger storm the other day and she just started using it again immediately, which is just stupid.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Lots of nice comments here. I, too, have a strong dislike for the Defiant/Unshakable system. Internally we’ve kicked around a lot of ideas about how to change it. The problem is that making large sweeping changes to the game is a bit like moving a table that you built a Jenga™ tower on—it takes time, planning, and a lot of care to do it.

We’ve made big changes before, though. This one is on our list to address.
In the mean time it’s great to see some discussion over alternatives as well as some specific examples where existing alternatives work.

Personally (by which I mean not representing the entire development team) I’d like to see at least one boss with a sort of reverse defiance. Generally immune to CC except in windows during one or two keys attacks with a long warmup. I think the theory behind Defiance would work well if everyone knew exactly when to interrupt. This is a troublesome prospect for the ad-hoc groups that GW2 promotes in various settings, so maybe shifting the responsibility to the boss (which everyone is already paying attention to) would work out a little better. “He’s winding up for super-mega-attack, everyone stun now!”

Discuss?

why not starting by reverting mesmer power block?

I like the idea that the downside of using CC, is that the aggro switches to the one who hit the boss with it. There generally aren’t a lot of aggro-control mechanics at the moment any way. It’s all a bit of a confusing mess. But I agree that what ever changes are made to Defiant, it should be easy for players to grasp. That is why I prefer that existing mechanics are used. Maybe the boss could simply have a lot of access to stability, which can be stripped of course, and stun breakers, which have cooldowns.

The only NPC’s I enjoy fighting in this game are the Practice NPC’s in the mists lobby. They don’t have defiance. They have lots of skills to help make them tougher to fight. How you would scale that to cope with more players I do not know, but if you want to make a boss fun and interesting to fight, and more importantly more dynamic, you need to give them more capabilities. Defience is an easy way to make the boss tougher to kill, but is not as fun.

Give them stun breaks, stability, protection, knockbacks, you name it. Give them the same tools we have and the same amount, if not more. Most bosses have a very limited skill set and have to rely on special mechanics to make the more interesting to fight, but most of the time, because they are limited (in skills and special mechanics) they quickly get boring once you learn their routine.

But by giving them the same or more skills and traits as we have access to, and give them the AI to use them, fighting bosses will be much more dynamic and more fun. They will react to players and therefore have a good chance in being different each time you fight them, depending on player group make up.

I know this may be a difficult thing to achieve, but I feel the reward will be worth it.

Khisanth.2948:

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.

Yep #1 still works, we’ve done it this week.

And I do think that it’s one of the good ways to do it. Keep the defiance stack up, so you can CC when there’s no more stack, and time it to get him knocked down under the lava pot. and give him a window to CC skills like his heals.

Other bosses, I’d imagine you could CC one of their big attacks, that If you don’t it basically kills everyone. so oyu need to time it right.

I agree that some suggestions, no matter how well thought they might be at first glance, are a bit too complex when put in a real case scenario.

I’ll simplify my suggestion to the following:

Everytime a boss is CC’d, he gains stacks. At X stacks, he gains defiant for Y seconds.

There. Basically, a temporary and cycling defiant buff after getting CC’d several times.

Now that I think of it, my intentions to reward skill and create more climatic situations still exist in this simplified solution. Gaining less stacks on successful interrupts is a cool idea, but an interrupt is already, by itself, a reward. In such mechanic, where players will probably want to slow down the stacks as much as possible, a non-interrupting CC can be… well, suboptimal, and that will have an impact on more unforgiving fights. Likewise, my intention to make each stack give a buff to the boss for a rising climax within the fight is not needed: if the boss is already strong enough to be worth interrupting, it is expected for said boss to be crazy dangerous when he can’t be interrupted.

In the end, less stacks on interrupts and buffs on stacks are just redudant. They might still exist, as slight variants for specific (and less forgiving) fights, but ultimately, my idea can still function as it was intended to be in a simpler manner. To repeat it:

Everytime a boss is CC’d, he gains stacks. At X stacks, he gains defiant for Y seconds.

And finally, as I’ve said before, for this to work, the boss will require a very diverse skill set, so that for every interrupted skill, they can reply back with another skill. And of course, some strippable stability here and then (or other punishing boons), some stun breaking here and then, but ultimately, it needs to be designed so that support builds, by themselves, are not enough to sustain the party. And, if the boss is meant to be this dangerous while interrupting, then he’ll become a crazy beast when he can no longer be CC’d, at which time… players will wish that their support skills are not under a cooldown!

Auto-attacks are another good way to make sure the boss remains dangerous during the CC window. Interrupted AAs do not go under a cooldown, and if they’re persistent and frequent enough (toughness needs to be useful in pve!), wasting all CCs on them should be deadly for every time the boss uses a much stronger attack.

Here’s a basic boss template for this mechanic to work: Persistent auto attacks, and a diverse skillset loaded with strong skills (meant to be interrupted or reacted to) AND with skills that give counterplay to the boss itself (stun breaks, stability, retaliation, confusion, stealth, clones, teleport, leaps, etc, etc). This trio of AAs/ strong skills/ counterplay skills should keep the boss engaging enough while defiant isn’t up, while also promote more build diversity beyond control builds. Healing skills, confusion, retaliation, “tank” pets, toughness, protection and the like will be a lot more valued when the boss can have persistent DPS through AAs.

And like I’ve said before, this mechanic is intended to create a dance between preserving support skills while CC skills work, and frontloading support skills while CCs do not work (most of the time). The boss will have to be designed to be incredibly strong even when CC’d, so by the very nature of it, sturdy support will be demanded every time defiant triggers to nullify CC.

EDIT: I’m also against any idea that suggests that defiant should stay as it is. It’s a very boring mechanic even when you make use of it. That’s why my suggestion is thought around the idea that defiant is only temporary and triggered at times: so that at any other time, you are free to use your CCs how you want and when you want.

I think Defiance works pretty well in instanced content. When fighting bosses it’s pretty much always 5v1 so it makes sense that you need more interrupts for the same effect (just like boss has 5x health). It’s also pretty flexible as people can take down stacks anytime. Only change I think they should do is reducing stacks from 5 to 4 so that 5 interrupts would be enough.

But I don’t think Defiance has to be an interesting or fun mechanic. I wouldn’t even call it a mechanic. It’s just there to keep control balanced. If control feels too weak they can lower stacks to 3 or even 2.

Also I don’t think using it really needs much coordination. Only real issue I see is 2 or more players trying to burn the last stack causing it to go over. However this can be mostly avoided by leaving him at one stack. Then just use 1-2 interrupts when you want to interrupt something. If you used 1 and no one helped then boss has 0 stacks and you can interrupt it easily next time.

Of course it’s very easy to mess up if people have no idea what they are doing. But are your ideas any better? If people randomly spam interrupts they would just give boss Stability / enrage / immunity / etc.

In my opinion the bigger issue is that interrupts have barely any effect (because of 4 s cooldown) and that there is barely anything worth of interrupting. Tweaking with Defiance won’t help with that.

However, open world is a different case because there are always free riders. Can’t really expect everyone to do their share of interrupting even when requested. That’s why I would cap max stacks at 20% of the amount of players. So with 20 players you would need 5 interrupts.

That is pretty small amount (susceptible to stunlock) so I would make stacks refresh at start (or end) of an each attack. This would basically make control only effective against big attacks with long cast times. But at least it would be effective against something.

DiogoSilva.7089:

EDIT: I’m also against any idea that suggests that defiant should stay as it is. It’s a very boring mechanic even when you make use of it. That’s why my suggestion is thought around the idea that defiant is only temporary and triggered at times: so that at any other time, you are free to use your CCs how you want and when you want.

Its only boring because theres no need to use it. If bosses were designed to really encourage interrupts and players actually learned how to coordinate it then I can be sure you would not find it boring. Anyway defiant is not supposed to be something that is interesting. Its a balance mechanic to prevent stunlocking and create some coordination in a group. The interesting parts of bosses should come from their own unique design not defiant itself.

As people have said. Some bosses could simply have certain attacks which are interruptible through defiant stacks. But defiant can still be in place to prevent stunlocking while providing the opportunity for regular stuns and interrupts of weaker attacks etc.

The biggest issue, that needs to be resolved before any changes are made, is boss attacks not going on full cooldown when interrupted. I would really like to see a devs response to this issue/bug? Is there a reason for it or is it an oversight? Because currently CC cannot be used reliably as an alternative to active defence. Which really has a negative impact on the use for CC.

spoj.9672:

DiogoSilva.7089:

EDIT: I’m also against any idea that suggests that defiant should stay as it is. It’s a very boring mechanic even when you make use of it. That’s why my suggestion is thought around the idea that defiant is only temporary and triggered at times: so that at any other time, you are free to use your CCs how you want and when you want.

Its only boring because theres no need to use it. If bosses were designed to really encourage interrupts and players actually learned how to coordinate it then I can be sure you would not find it boring. Anyway defiant is not supposed to be something that is interesting. Its a balance mechanic to prevent stunlocking and create some coordination in a group. The interesting parts of bosses should come from their own unique design not defiant itself.

As people have said. Some bosses could simply have certain attacks which are interruptible through defiant stacks. But defiant can still be in place to prevent stunlocking while providing the opportunity for regular stuns and interrupts of weaker attacks etc.

The biggest issue, that needs to be resolved before any changes are made, is boss attacks not going on full cooldown when interrupted. I would really like to see a devs response to this issue/bug? Is there a reason for it or is it an oversight? Because currently CC cannot be used reliably as an alternative to active defence. Which really has a negative impact on the use for CC.

Champion wraith in cursed shore. No interrupt = gg.

Afya.5842:

spoj.9672:

DiogoSilva.7089:

EDIT: I’m also against any idea that suggests that defiant should stay as it is. It’s a very boring mechanic even when you make use of it. That’s why my suggestion is thought around the idea that defiant is only temporary and triggered at times: so that at any other time, you are free to use your CCs how you want and when you want.

Its only boring because theres no need to use it. If bosses were designed to really encourage interrupts and players actually learned how to coordinate it then I can be sure you would not find it boring. Anyway defiant is not supposed to be something that is interesting. Its a balance mechanic to prevent stunlocking and create some coordination in a group. The interesting parts of bosses should come from their own unique design not defiant itself.

As people have said. Some bosses could simply have certain attacks which are interruptible through defiant stacks. But defiant can still be in place to prevent stunlocking while providing the opportunity for regular stuns and interrupts of weaker attacks etc.

The biggest issue, that needs to be resolved before any changes are made, is boss attacks not going on full cooldown when interrupted. I would really like to see a devs response to this issue/bug? Is there a reason for it or is it an oversight? Because currently CC cannot be used reliably as an alternative to active defence. Which really has a negative impact on the use for CC.

Champion wraith in cursed shore. No interrupt = gg.

Yeah. It was fine when he only had 3 defiant stacks though.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I agree that some suggestions, no matter how well thought they might be at first glance, are a bit too complex when put in a real case scenario.

I’ll simplify my suggestion to the following:

Everytime a boss is CC’d, he gains stacks. At X stacks, he gains defiant for Y seconds.

There. Basically, a temporary and cycling defiant buff after getting CC’d several times.

Now that I think of it, my intentions to reward skill and create more climatic situations still exist in this simplified solution. Gaining less stacks on successful interrupts is a cool idea, but an interrupt is already, by itself, a reward. In such mechanic, where players will probably want to slow down the stacks as much as possible, a non-interrupting CC can be… well, suboptimal, and that will have an impact on more unforgiving fights. Likewise, my intention to make each stack give a buff to the boss for a rising climax within the fight is not needed: if the boss is already strong enough to be worth interrupting, it is expected for said boss to be crazy dangerous when he can’t be interrupted.

In the end, less stacks on interrupts and buffs on stacks are just redudant. They might still exist, as slight variants for specific (and less forgiving) fights, but ultimately, my idea can still function as it was intended to be in a simpler manner. To repeat it:

Everytime a boss is CC’d, he gains stacks. At X stacks, he gains defiant for Y seconds.

And finally, as I’ve said before, for this to work, the boss will require a very diverse skill set, so that for every interrupted skill, they can reply back with another skill. And of course, some strippable stability here and then (or other punishing boons), some stun breaking here and then, but ultimately, it needs to be designed so that support builds, by themselves, are not enough to sustain the party. And, if the boss is meant to be this dangerous while interrupting, then he’ll become a crazy beast when he can no longer be CC’d, at which time… players will wish that their support skills are not under a cooldown!

Auto-attacks are another good way to make sure the boss remains dangerous during the CC window. Interrupted AAs do not go under a cooldown, and if they’re persistent and frequent enough (toughness needs to be useful in pve!), wasting all CCs on them should be deadly for every time the boss uses a much stronger attack.

Here’s a basic boss template for this mechanic to work: Persistent auto attacks, and a diverse skillset loaded with strong skills (meant to be interrupted or reacted to) AND with skills that give counterplay to the boss itself (stun breaks, stability, retaliation, confusion, stealth, clones, teleport, leaps, etc, etc). This trio of AAs/ strong skills/ counterplay skills should keep the boss engaging enough while defiant isn’t up, while also promote more build diversity beyond control builds. Healing skills, confusion, retaliation, “tank” pets, toughness, protection and the like will be a lot more valued when the boss can have persistent DPS through AAs.

And like I’ve said before, this mechanic is intended to create a dance between preserving support skills while CC skills work, and frontloading support skills while CCs do not work (most of the time). The boss will have to be designed to be incredibly strong even when CC’d, so by the very nature of it, sturdy support will be demanded every time defiant triggers to nullify CC.

EDIT: I’m also against any idea that suggests that defiant should stay as it is. It’s a very boring mechanic even when you make use of it. That’s why my suggestion is thought around the idea that defiant is only temporary and triggered at times: so that at any other time, you are free to use your CCs how you want and when you want.

some things are hard to explain but easy to see.
http://jsfiddle.net/phyicus/N3WCk/

is mockup of what i was talking about,
you can click the buttons to see how it effects the meter progression.
the speed of drain could be adjusted, and values for different strength Cc could be adjusted, this is just to give an idea
major thing its missing is the flat cc reduction, essentially making them immune to short duration CC the higher they go.
Also when it hits 100, they would have full defiant, and different behavior

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Just an idea that popped in my mind, and I wanted to share: What if Defiant stays same, except that when the stacks go to zero, it’s not, only a single stun that can get true, but a more then one. By making it a timed ‘vulnerable to CC’ window. This can range from 1 second to 5 wathever, you think is balanced in the grand scheme of things. This would still prevent stunlocking bosses (world bosses will still have 50-80 stacks of defiance), but once the stacks are down, a flashing icon, could alarm ppl, ’now’s the time, Land that specific CC on him that would help the battle, like scorpion wire to pull him to a better spot. All i’m saying is, that it would give more opportunity for people to time the CC, then now, where it’s a ‘chance game’ to get your CC to go off, instead of it being absorbed by Defiance stacks. Just a thought. What you guys think? Would this be an improvement, any downsides?

This definitely works more than the current system. Tack on a more ‘metered’ approach, like someone identified earlier, and we might have something solid to work with.

Example: The number of stacks/CC-points/whatev required to ‘break’ a boss’s Defiant status scales to the players. If hard-CC isn’t used, the stacks slowly go down.
Basically, Defiant converts hard CC into a separate stacking status similar to how Bleeding works (including the player’s Condition Duration bonuses ). It doesn’t do anything until it hits the required number, but spacing out hard-CC use would give it time to recover.
When that number hits, the Defiant is broken, and it can be CC’d for a few seconds. (Out of my personal bitterness, I recommend 5 seconds, but maybe 3 instead. :P) After that broken period, it gains a Defiant-provided buff that is similar to Stability but can’t be removed by the players. And the cycle continues from there.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Lots of nice comments here. I, too, have a strong dislike for the Defiant/Unshakable system. Internally we’ve kicked around a lot of ideas about how to change it. The problem is that making large sweeping changes to the game is a bit like moving a table that you built a Jenga™ tower on—it takes time, planning, and a lot of care to do it.

We’ve made big changes before, though. This one is on our list to address.
In the mean time it’s great to see some discussion over alternatives as well as some specific examples where existing alternatives work.

Personally (by which I mean not representing the entire development team) I’d like to see at least one boss with a sort of reverse defiance. Generally immune to CC except in windows during one or two keys attacks with a long warmup. I think the theory behind Defiance would work well if everyone knew exactly when to interrupt. This is a troublesome prospect for the ad-hoc groups that GW2 promotes in various settings, so maybe shifting the responsibility to the boss (which everyone is already paying attention to) would work out a little better. “He’s winding up for super-mega-attack, everyone stun now!”

Discuss?

In all honesty, the bosses should be more visible with better telegraphs… The big orange circles at a lot of the lower level bosses = incredible. So many effects flying around that we cannot even see the boss. Also, as someone who hates having green names everywhere, I turn All Player Names Off… Which means a LOT of INVISIBLE players running around me with the Megaserver. So I am seeing more Effects than I see players.

Maybe make the Monsters size Scale to the amount of players as well? For example, Dwayna statue would grow giant size to make reading telegraphs easier. Or possibly give players an Effects Slider, so we can choose “Only our Effects”, “Friendly Effects”, “Enemy Effects”, “Party Effects”, “No Effects”… You get the point. Less particles = more visibility. I have played MMORPGs in the past with 0 Spell effects, sure you do not see whats hitting you, but you can still play. It also helps with slower computers.

Comedy!

OP makes a suggestion, a couple snarky kittens come along and call him/her stupid and rip everything s/he writes to shreds.

ANet dev comes along and makes a red post pretty much entirely agreeing with OP.

Snark twins suddenly become awfully respectful.

If you’re going to be a kittenhole, at least be consistent about it.

Prince Rogers Nelson.7652:

Comedy!

OP makes a suggestion, a couple snarky kittens come along and call him/her stupid and rip everything s/he writes to shreds.

ANet dev comes along and makes a red post pretty much entirely agreeing with OP.

Snark twins suddenly become awfully respectful.

If you’re going to be a kittenhole, at least be consistent about it.

the op rarely comments on his own thread. Only the first few post is kinda trolling. The rest is defiant makes cc pointless. Why strip 5-10 stacks when you can dps and focus on killing the boss earlier.

There are definitely useful uses for defiance removal, the Abomination Boss in Arah p2 becomes really easy this way, because you can interrupt his enrage-mode…

Another possibility for a small tweak to Defiance would be throwing up stacks of defiant not based on CC, but on health loss (whether that means full stacks in large increments, or 1 stack for each small increment). It would be less likely to have one guy with a mistimed CC screw things up for everyone, and force sort of a natural balance between CC and DPS, assuming there was some good reason to interrupt or move the boss instead of just going straight DPS.

CC boosting traits? I’d love that. I wonder how they’d do it. Maybe make it as the secondary effect of another trait so they aren’t useless in PvP?

Were I to change Defiant:

Option 1 would be to give bosses stability and stun breakers like players do, and have bosses (and other mobs) act closer to players in general. Having defined healing skills, or large windups for painful skills (painful via conditions, or painful via damage), it would give players incentive to interrupt, or strip stability and then interrupt key skills, much like pvp formats have.

Option 2 is not quite as good, but the better of the solutions I’ve considered. Defiant stacks now represent a chance your CC will fail. Each time you use a CC, whether successful or not, it increases Defiant by another stack. Stacks fall off over time. For example, you interrupt a key skill at 0 Defiance. The boss has one stack of Defiant that makes the next CC have a 3.9% chance to fail. At max 25 stacks (due to spamming CC) you only have a 2.5% chance to actually have an effect. You probably don’t want 100%, because a few lame people in a zerg could make a boss CC immune. The number of stacks you add can scale to the amount of players. A dungeon group might add 5 stacks per CC, while a zerg would only provide 1.

Along with giving mobs skills that scream “interrupt me!”, I suggest we also increase their chip damage to compensate for increased interruption effectiveness, but that’s just me (in order to homogenize the game).

Pros for Option 1: Homogenizes the game

Cons for Option 1: Reduces the abnegation the devs like in PvE

Pros for Option 2: Allows CC to be useful when not spammed. Doesn’t terribly punish mistakes in popping CC. Still allows some interruption chance if people are being outright trolling. Can easily be ported to PvP formats if it ever needs to be (it shouldn’t).

Cons for Option 2: Has RNG, which is like, polio or something. (I’m having trouble thinking of cons to this that aren’t also reliant on the encounter design. Feel free to provide your own, just make sure that it applies to any potential format).

im gonna kind rant aimlessly for a bit

okay so we have like
stacks
and we have things we need to interrupt

and sometimes in a coordinated group at the moment, you will use certain low-CD crowd control abilities like Head Shot to knock down Defiant stacks, so that you’re able to use another crowd control of some kind that you actually want to apply

the most obvious example i can think of is the dude who hides in barrels in Gendarran and you knock down his stacks and then use a knockback/fear/pull to get him out of his puddles so that he’s no longer immune

and that’s pretty cool; you have to break down those defiant stacks so that you can defeat the boss, adding a new demand (in the economic sense) to the fight. instead of just needing damage, you now need damage and enough CC effects to chew through those stacks of defiant

the problem comes in when we add scrubs to the pile and they ruin your perfect defiant churn by going “hi guys do you like fear i am going to ruin your strat by fearing the boss and reapplying those defiant stacks!” and that super sucks

so yeah, defiant would be cool if the open world nature of the content didn’t screw it up

so imho make it so that, in world content, effects will only apply when they’re needed. if you’re fighting the dude in the barrels, and he has no defiant stacks, he’s still immune to controlling effects(and will not generate defiant stacks on CC attempts) BUT if he’s standing in a puddle he’s vulnerable to the appropriate effects. you still have to knock down defiant stacks after successfully pulling him out, and you still need to seal the deal with a good CC, but someone spamming CC will not screw you over completely.

i think control and interrupts are part of a healthy pve ecosphere

How about implementing a stun system that should be implemented to players as well?

That is, if you receive too many stuns at once, you gain stun immunity for like 5 seconds with a 7 second cooldown. It would be an inherent skill available in the background, like the aggro you get from WvW Veterans who switch targets (which I have still yet to figure out what the AI is doing in the background to switch targets)

The reason I say this is because most professions have access to at least 1 CC type skill on their main weapon without the need for Utility skills; defiant adds so many doggone stacks that drain so quickly that this system would make things much more interesting, because you could still time interrupts.

Idk, just a suggestion.

The PvE encounters in this game aren’t particularly well thought out for the most part. Hopefully over time we get to see better boss mechanics and AI so things like turn times aren’t necessary, although I’d love to see some sort of turn times on lupi, that guy is just too big to turn on a dime

I have to agree that one of the reasons content is so stale is because of things like this. You can coordinate interrupts, but most of the time they are useless and there is little incentive when you are in a PUG.

Best ideas I have seen glancing over the thread are things like specific CC knocking off more stacks. I want to add to this, but I may have missed a similar post so I apologize if it was brought up.

Lets say that your group knocks the opponent down to 1 stack and the next CC adds a general and specific debuff to the boss based on the type of CC. Maybe the general debuff is something like disoriented and the bosses attacks slow or do reduced damage and the boss takes reduced damage during this time, or additional CC’s interrupt and cause mini stuns for a certain amount of time before defiance goes back up. These effects could even be based on the boss specifically, like Alpha can’t use a certain attack during the debuff.

Then you could add bonus debuffs for specific types of CC. That way players have a better reason to coordinate CC in the first place. Right now most people could care less because of the ease of the content. If you add things in like a damage bonus for a period of time while the boss is stunned you have a reason to at least actively be trying to CC a boss.

Examples of specific debuffs based on type would be: Knockdown, boss takes additional damage while the debuff is inactive. Stun, boss is disoriented and deals 50% less damage for 5-10 seconds.

The idea is to grant these effects for a significant enough of duration that CC isn’t rendered useless when uncoordinated, but is more effective when players coordinate the final stun. Maybe the group is low on HP and needs a moment to catch their breath, so they stun and disorient the boss, reducing the damage while they heal. Maybe everyone is dodging well and the want to pour on more damage because they have plenty of HP, so they knock the boss down and pour on the dps.

To prevent this from being too effective there would be a cooldown period after the stacks were removed where the boss couldn’t be effected by cc before the defiance stacks could be removed again.

This also encourages more interesting mechanics from the AI. Maybe encounters can be built around effectively countering a mobs abilities with the debuffs. Also the debuffs aren’t as unforgiving as landing that single stun at the right time. Maybe any stun reduces damage from a major attack by 20% for the next 10 seconds, but the right stun disables it or reduces damage by 50%. Then the mob could have a tell that the next attack will occur soon rather than just painting giant circles everywhere for you to dodge.

I’d really like more reasons to play this game, but the combat is boring and stale. Rewarding weapon sets and abilities that bring CC should introduce more interesting gameplay choices and builds.

My opinion about heavy limitation on CC:
Instead of ranks, there should be more mob variety. Mobs that require to be controlled and mobs that require support to improve general survivability

Could also have a few changes on Unshakable buff on Champs.
Perhaps hard cap for the Defiance stacks or set duration until the stack disappears, but I dunno.