Guild Wars 2

phys.7689:

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

Mesmer still has a lot of stuff to help out the group. Sadly, due to various reasons they are less desired compared to guardians, but the options are still there.

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.

So you linked PvP traits and ones that destroy your phantasms, your only real damage source and wonder why they aren’t viable in PvE. Ahem. Let it sink down.
PvE is static, with a few exceptions the situation you have to deal with is always the same, so you need reliable tools to kill the enemy. That is the same reason (and the balance of course) that you can use active defenses very effectively instead of forced to use passive defenses to mitigate damage everytime. System works as intended.
And honestly you shouldn’t expect that everything work everywhere. This game has a lot of different type of content which requires different approaches. For example WvW roaming is completely different than wandering around a PvE map and leveling.

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.

You can stop with my insulting, thanks.
I guess than you have never encountered Shoggroth in Arah p1. That fight is exactly what you wish for and it isn’t challanging, isn’t fun (for me at least) nor interesting. It’s annoying. Before it get changed you could easily cheese the fight with a consumable called Underwater net, now you have to take 1-2 skills to cheese the fight. Hurray!

Wethospu.6437:

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

That would be a good start, but bosses needs more attacks that needs to be interrupted in the first place. Big nasty ones that worth the effort, whatever system we have for CC.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

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.

It wouldn’t be vastly different from the current system, it’s just less forgiving if you screw up and can’t do anything about it. Which is even more pug unfriendly.

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.

This is what we have now. You spam. You get punished. You keep CC for the right moment, hurray interrupt. Try to read what you write please. Look at the situation Otaur wrote.

Currently the defiant system doesn’t specifically punish spamming CC skills.

Kohler.

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.

You see spamming, i see coordinated effort. Pug less.
The current system discourage CC spamming too. Working as intended.
You can’t figure out a better system than we have now. Bad groups should be punished if they just spam their stuff mindlessly, HOWEVER and it’s a really big however, that most of the time it isn’t worth the effort, because sometimes you can just sidestep or other stupid reasons. That needs to change.

spoj.9672:

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.

Wouldn’t it be an overall improvement though? The bosses would have Defiant based on the amount of CC used against them. The more CC you spam, the more Defiant. And indeed an individual player would be able to land his CC effectively, without the entire group being required to bring CC too. Isn’t that exactly what is needed? You remove a layer of coordination, in favor of a more flexible system and rewarding system.

But, let me underline that we also need to have more CC requirements in boss fights. Better boss mechanics, combined with a more flexible Defiant, would still demand plenty of coordination. It’s the two that would make this work. If you just simplify Defiant, then yes, you’ve stripped the coordination element. But if you add better boss mechanics back on top of that, then you do have that coordination requirement that you’re afraid of losing.

As long as interrupted skills go on 4s cooldown (except few skills that go on full cooldown), what’s the incentive to interrupt? It’s much better to dodge/block than waste 6 skills. Only incentive right now is to use deep freeze and burst down the boss in 5 seconds.

Either there have to be attacks that need to be interrupted (like abomination but much more severe if you fail to do so) or mobs attacks have to go on longer cooldown. Plus, reducing defiance stacks by one would also be appreciated.

haviz.1340:

As long as interrupted skills go on 4s cooldown (except few skills that go on full cooldown), what’s the incentive to interrupt? It’s much better to dodge/block than waste 6 skills. Only incentive right now is to use deep freeze and burst down the boss in 5 seconds.

Exactly. Thats a lot more bigger issue than the system itself.

Either there have to be attacks that need to be interrupted (like abomination but much more severe if you fail to do so) or mobs attacks have to go on longer cooldown.

So much yes! Developers however shouldn’t overuse this overhauled system, but way more boss would be better than we have now. :/

Plus, reducing defiance stacks by one would also be appreciated.

So the minimum would be 2 and 4 in a full party? Wouldn’t be that a bit unnecessary? Thieves can handle Defiant too well now, reducing the stack by only 1 makes things so much easier. But it’s just an opinion.

heres how i think it should roll overall, bosses should attack more often and use more skills/good movement. enemy behavior should be closer to how pvp plays.

Some bosses should be changed to multiple enemy type encounters.

CC bar for bosses, it builds up based on how much CC/CC strength(amounts to duration) done to it, and it bleeds away. The closer the bar is to full, the less effective CC/effects will be. Shorter durations, cooldown for interupts are shorter. (some weaker CC effects will be ignored depending on how full the bar is) If the bar reaches full, boss gets full immunity, and some sort of CC rage mode behavior/skill changes. It wont be insanely overpowered but it will change the nature of the fight. Different bosses would react differently in this situation. It goes away after a certain time

You can break the boss out of this if you use enough CC/strong CC, or you can wait for it to wear off.

I feel this would make CC use more cerebral, and more about choice of tactics. It would not be completely unviable to keep spamming it, but it is something you would have to deal with/consider. If your party has a large CC power, you can power through it, but that itself will require planning and skill, and you will have to deal with the CC induced style changes.

It wont be necessary to have massive CC in order to win, but it can be beneficial for some teams. Some teams will prefer using less CC, for specific things, so as to reliably interupt key skills, some will use a lot for a burst. In either case it will be actively managed. It can also be altered for boss variety, with some with better CC defense, or some with longer CCrage modes etc.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/yinstro/ccrag_zps5c5b86de.gif
basically the advantage to this system is more, depth to work with, different CCs have different advantages/disadvantages
Only the people who actually use CC effect the outcomes
Stray CC has an effect, but doesnt destroy the whole mechanic.
you can land interupts, though their effectiveness decreases with the amount of wasted CC.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Wouldn’t it be an overall improvement though? The bosses would have Defiant based on the amount of CC used against them. The more CC you spam, the more Defiant. And indeed an individual player would be able to land his CC effectively, without the entire group being required to bring CC too. Isn’t that exactly what is needed? You remove a layer of coordination, in favor of a more flexible system and rewarding system.

One’s perspective on this issue is going to be very much determined by the capability of those one plays with. If playing with players who gravitate towards coordination, removing a layer of coordination is the last thing GW2 needs to do. If playing with players who gravitate towards chaos, then requirements for coordination become barriers.

The Champion Risen Lich and CR Wraith have been brought up in this thread. When the Life Transfer ability was added to this mob type during the Risen upgrade, there were a lot of complaints about this ability being OP. At that time, ANet made this particular ability easily interruptible (i.e., Defiant does not protect this particular skill from interruption).

After ANet made the change, I know I was able to interrupt this skill whether Defiant was up or not. Now, I haven’t fought one in a small group in a while, but I did Grenth over the weekend. A CRW spawns in the final event there, and its LT was interrupted. I’d be surprised if Anet changed this mob back, so I’m scratching my head over Otaur’s post.

What strikes me about open world herd bosses is that any mechanic that limits the amount of times one can CC is going to make interrupting problematic due to the chaotic nature of herd play. Perhaps providing some open world bosses with skills like Life Transfer which are both: easily interruptible; and really important to interrupt would be a middle ground. This would allow someone who plays intelligently in thierr use of CC to make that contribution without the herd being able to randomly CC every time a skill comes off CD.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Wouldn’t it be an overall improvement though? The bosses would have Defiant based on the amount of CC used against them. The more CC you spam, the more Defiant. And indeed an individual player would be able to land his CC effectively, without the entire group being required to bring CC too. Isn’t that exactly what is needed? You remove a layer of coordination, in favor of a more flexible system and rewarding system.

One’s perspective on this issue is going to be very much determined by the capability of those one plays with. If playing with players who gravitate towards coordination, removing a layer of coordination is the last thing GW2 needs to do. If playing with players who gravitate towards chaos, then requirements for coordination become barriers.

The Champion Risen Lich and CR Wraith have been brought up in this thread. When the Life Transfer ability was added to this mob type during the Risen upgrade, there were a lot of complaints about this ability being OP. At that time, ANet made this particular ability easily interruptible (i.e., Defiant does not protect this particular skill from interruption).

After ANet made the change, I know I was able to interrupt this skill whether Defiant was up or not. Now, I haven’t fought one in a small group in a while, but I did Grenth over the weekend. A CRW spawns in the final event there, and its LT was interrupted. I’d be surprised if Anet changed this mob back, so I’m scratching my head over Otaur’s post.

What strikes me about open world herd bosses is that any mechanic that limits the amount of times one can CC is going to make interrupting problematic due to the chaotic nature of herd play. Perhaps providing some open world bosses with skills like Life Transfer which are both: easily interruptible; and really important to interrupt would be a middle ground. This would allow someone who plays intelligently in thierr use of CC to make that contribution without the herd being able to randomly CC every time a skill comes off CD.

last time i fought a champion wrait, a few months ago, you needed to strip defiant to interupt him. I specifically remember this.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The Champion Risen Lich and CR Wraith have been brought up in this thread. When the Life Transfer ability was added to this mob type during the Risen upgrade, there were a lot of complaints about this ability being OP. At that time, ANet made this particular ability easily interruptible (i.e., Defiant does not protect this particular skill from interruption).

This is incorrect. Defiant worked correctly on both the wraith and champ spider at grenth before the recent change. However they didnt scale properly so they only recieved a maximum of 3 stacks of defiant. This meant it was very easy for the zerg to interrupt it them. It only required 4 people out of 50 to use CC to interrupt the attack. Now it scales properly, the number of defiant stacks goes out of whack just like it does everywhere else.

This raises an interesting observation. Even though the champions were bugged and had a max of 3 defiant stacks the zergs never stunlocked them. Which shows that they could actually quite safely remove defiant scaling in open world and have it capped at 5 and a lot of the open world CC problems would be avoided.

Dalanor.5387:

So the minimum would be 2 and 4 in a full party? Wouldn’t be that a bit unnecessary? Thieves can handle Defiant too well now, reducing the stack by only 1 makes things so much easier. But it’s just an opinion.

Right now you need to use 6 cc skills (after a previous cc) to interrupt a boss. That number should be 5 instead so even with full stack of defiance a team can interrupt crucial boss’ skill if every party member uses his cc skill.

How about if the defiance stacking is kept as is -multiple control attempts needed to remove stacks- and bosses are given an ability that consumes a number of defiance stacks (or all?), and for the next attack (or subsequent attacks?), gain a buff based on the number of stacks removed. It would make control skills more valuable, both in interrupting big attacks, and in keeping defiance stacks low so as to prevent those big attacks from becoming too powerful.

phys.7689:

last time i fought a champion wrait, a few months ago, you needed to strip defiant to interupt him. I specifically remember this.

spoj.9672:

This is incorrect. Defiant worked correctly on both the wraith and champ spider at grenth before the recent change. However they didnt scale properly so they only recieved a maximum of 3 stacks of defiant. This meant it was very easy for the zerg to interrupt it them. It only required 4 people out of 50 to use CC to interrupt the attack. Now it scales properly, the number of defiant stacks goes out of whack just like it does everywhere else.

Hmm, I remember the dev post about this mob (but gl finding it, the search function returns “Found 0 results” to the word Champion) , and I remember interrupting LT time and time again irrespective of Defiant. I wonder why this was rolled back and when.

CureForLiving.5360:

…snip.

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)
…snip.

I can agree with applying Defiance if CC is used at wrong times, yes. But the Life Siphon spell (without being interrupted prior) adds 29 stacks of Defiant immediately upon starting the siphon. With say 5 – 10 people fighting these 2 champions, you cannot break 30 stacks of defiant before it siphons all the life from those around and basically re-heals to full.

I think they should reverse the way that Defiant works. The sort of cooperation it demands right now is barely feasible in a dungeon group, much less an open world zerg. The best you can hope for is that a decent percentage of people that have CCs know when the boss is going to pull something big and use them then.

As such, I think Defiant should work like this:

• The first 5 stacks only grant cumulative 20% resistance (e.g. at 3 stacks, any CC has a 40% chance to work, at 5 stacks, the boss is immune to CC)
• Stacks constantly accumulate over time, with the rate and cap based on the number of players accounted for in scaling (which should be indicated somewhere)
• Actually landing a CC doesn’t add any stacks, but durations for CCs like fear and immobilize are aggressively reduced (as with blind)
• The rate of accumulation should be steady enough that players don’t just pop a CC whenever the cooldown comes up, but must coordinate to spike through Defiance; by moving to constant accumulation but no triggered accumulation, groups don’t have to worry about overshooting and throwing up a full set of stacks.

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

last time i fought a champion wrait, a few months ago, you needed to strip defiant to interupt him. I specifically remember this.

spoj.9672:

This is incorrect. Defiant worked correctly on both the wraith and champ spider at grenth before the recent change. However they didnt scale properly so they only recieved a maximum of 3 stacks of defiant. This meant it was very easy for the zerg to interrupt it them. It only required 4 people out of 50 to use CC to interrupt the attack. Now it scales properly, the number of defiant stacks goes out of whack just like it does everywhere else.

Hmm, I remember the dev post about this mob (but gl finding it, the search function returns “Found 0 results” to the word Champion) , and I remember interrupting LT time and time again irrespective of Defiant. I wonder why this was rolled back and when.

I can assure you the defiant stacks worked correctly. My guild was doing solo/duo/small group temple clears back then so a lot of attention was paid to mechanics etc. Unfortunately that is no longer possible with megaservers and the end of Vabbi guesting.

Otaur.9268:

I can agree with applying Defiance if CC is used at wrong times, yes. But the Life Siphon spell (without being interrupted prior) adds 29 stacks of Defiant immediately upon starting the siphon. With say 5 – 10 people fighting these 2 champions, you cannot break 30 stacks of defiant before it siphons all the life from those around and basically re-heals to full.

If you have 5-10 people participating then you only get 5-10 defiance stacks.

I think defiance is a bit lazy tbh. It’s really an excuse to design boring boss fights. Taking away our ability to use controll skills during boss fights takes away half of the fun and strategy of combat.

An intelligently designed boss fight should promote proper CC usage, not attempt to make it almost useless. I think every dungeon boss would be far more fun if there were reasons to use CC on them.

For example:
Instead of having a boss who just stands in one spot throwing out attacks that we need to avoid, it should actively move around to different spots where it can activate additional buffs for itself, summon in more allies, or deal massive damage to players.
By allowing us to use CC abilities, we could then try to prevent it from activating these detriments, making the battle require more tactics than simply stacking and attacking. Allow us to pull it into areas where it becomes weaker and allows us to deal more damage, or make its attacks weaker.

Now defiance isn’t completely bad, so I’m not saying it should be removed, but don’t have it stay up constantly. Allow it to go off when we weaken the boss enough or meet certain demands, turn it on when the boss gets angry and needs to deal a series of attacks that need to be avoided.

It’s just really annoying when some of our most interesting skills are rendered useless so much in boss fights.

Raykon.7908:

An intelligently designed boss fight should promote proper CC usage, not attempt to make it almost useless. I think every dungeon boss would be far more fun if there were reasons to use CC on them.

The boss don’t use any projectiles so my teams reflect capabilities are meaningless. Such a bad design! See, everyone can alter facts to blame developers.

For example:
Instead of having a boss who just stands in one spot throwing out attacks that we need to avoid, it should actively move around to different spots where it can activate additional buffs for itself, summon in more allies, or deal massive damage to players.
By allowing us to use CC abilities, we could then try to prevent it from activating these detriments, making the battle require more tactics than simply stacking and attacking. Allow us to pull it into areas where it becomes weaker and allows us to deal more damage, or make its attacks weaker.

You aren’t familiar with Arah, aren’t you? Shoggroth does the same and it is annoying as skritt. I love when people make suggestions without know their game. =]

Now defiance isn’t completely bad, so I’m not saying it should be removed, but don’t have it stay up constantly. Allow it to go off when we weaken the boss enough or meet certain demands, turn it on when the boss gets angry and needs to deal a series of attacks that need to be avoided.

Arah again. Abomination.

It’s just really annoying when some of our most interesting skills are rendered useless so much in boss fights.

See my snarky example above. Have a nice day!

My problem with the defiant is one person to ruin all. And there is always that one person. Happens so often in Mai trin.

Raykon.7908:

An intelligently designed boss fight should promote proper CC usage, not attempt to make it almost useless. I think every dungeon boss would be far more fun if there were reasons to use CC on them.

Exactly. But this problem has nothing to do with defiance. Defiant is the correct system to prevent stunlocking and encourage coordination and CC management. Bosses just need to be designed so CC is superior to just blocking or dodging some attacks. And they need mechanics and attacks which really encourage it (interrupt a big heal etc). Also all interrupted attacks should go on full or extended cooldown.

Dalanor.5387:

Raykon.7908:

An intelligently designed boss fight should promote proper CC usage, not attempt to make it almost useless. I think every dungeon boss would be far more fun if there were reasons to use CC on them.

The boss don’t use any projectiles so my teams reflect capabilities are meaningless. Such a bad design! See, everyone can alter facts to blame developers.

For example:
Instead of having a boss who just stands in one spot throwing out attacks that we need to avoid, it should actively move around to different spots where it can activate additional buffs for itself, summon in more allies, or deal massive damage to players.
By allowing us to use CC abilities, we could then try to prevent it from activating these detriments, making the battle require more tactics than simply stacking and attacking. Allow us to pull it into areas where it becomes weaker and allows us to deal more damage, or make its attacks weaker.

You aren’t familiar with Arah, aren’t you? Shoggroth does the same and it is annoying as skritt. I love when people make suggestions without know their game. =]

Now defiance isn’t completely bad, so I’m not saying it should be removed, but don’t have it stay up constantly. Allow it to go off when we weaken the boss enough or meet certain demands, turn it on when the boss gets angry and needs to deal a series of attacks that need to be avoided.

Arah again. Abomination.

It’s just really annoying when some of our most interesting skills are rendered useless so much in boss fights.

See my snarky example above. Have a nice day!

My, my, my. I’m not sure what i did to you to deserve such a rude response, but this is my opinion, not yours.

Yes, we have reflect skills, yes they work to reflect projectiles, but i don’t really consider that in the same vein at all. Reflect is basically just another attack, especially when the AI is dumb enough to just stand there and take it. I don’t consider it a true CC skill at all. Not to mention, it works regardless of defiant does it not? And defiant is supposed to prevent CC? By matter of dedudction, would you not conclude that according to the game rules, it isn’t really a CC?

We have skills that push, pull, fear, and knock enemies around; should those be almost useless? Should they not have some use?

Also, I’m sorry i want to try and come up with ideas to better the game, while you would rather it just stay stagnant and maintain a hold on lousy mechanics, at least I’m trying instead of just getting sarcastic and rude for no apparent reason.

Also, just because a boss moves around doesn’t mean it has to be annoying. There are numerous ways to implement movement and positioning to make a fight more fun, but apparently you would rather have boring boss fights where you can just stack in one spot and have your rewards handed to you on a silver platter. I would rather have a fight that relies on strategy than just pure outright dps.

There are ways to offer constructive criticism, and there are ways to make yourself look like a jerk, you succeeded at the latter.

And yes, I will have a nice day, thank you!

Raykon.7908:

Dalanor.5387:

Raykon.7908:

An intelligently designed boss fight should promote proper CC usage, not attempt to make it almost useless. I think every dungeon boss would be far more fun if there were reasons to use CC on them.

The boss don’t use any projectiles so my teams reflect capabilities are meaningless. Such a bad design! See, everyone can alter facts to blame developers.

For example:
Instead of having a boss who just stands in one spot throwing out attacks that we need to avoid, it should actively move around to different spots where it can activate additional buffs for itself, summon in more allies, or deal massive damage to players.
By allowing us to use CC abilities, we could then try to prevent it from activating these detriments, making the battle require more tactics than simply stacking and attacking. Allow us to pull it into areas where it becomes weaker and allows us to deal more damage, or make its attacks weaker.

You aren’t familiar with Arah, aren’t you? Shoggroth does the same and it is annoying as skritt. I love when people make suggestions without know their game. =]

Now defiance isn’t completely bad, so I’m not saying it should be removed, but don’t have it stay up constantly. Allow it to go off when we weaken the boss enough or meet certain demands, turn it on when the boss gets angry and needs to deal a series of attacks that need to be avoided.

Arah again. Abomination.

It’s just really annoying when some of our most interesting skills are rendered useless so much in boss fights.

See my snarky example above. Have a nice day!

My, my, my. I’m not sure what i did to you to deserve such a rude response, but this is my opinion, not yours.

Yes, we have reflect skills, yes they work to reflect projectiles, but i don’t really consider that in the same vein at all. Reflect is basically just another attack, especially when the AI is dumb enough to just stand there and take it. I don’t consider it a true CC skill at all. Not to mention, it works regardless of defiant does it not? And defiant is supposed to prevent CC? By matter of dedudction, would you not conclude that according to the game rules, it isn’t really a CC?

We have skills that push, pull, fear, and knock enemies around; should those be almost useless? Should they not have some use?

Also, I’m sorry i want to try and come up with ideas to better the game, while you would rather it just stay stagnant and maintain a hold on lousy mechanics, at least I’m trying instead of just getting sarcastic and rude for no apparent reason.

Also, just because a boss moves around doesn’t mean it has to be annoying. There are numerous ways to implement movement and positioning to make a fight more fun, but apparently you would rather have boring boss fights where you can just stack in one spot and have your rewards handed to you on a silver platter. I would rather have a fight that relies on strategy than just pure outright dps.

And yes, I will have a nice day, thank you!

yep, if having to move is always “annoying” they basically are saying they want every boss to be a turret, pretty lame imo.

Instead of Defiant, bosses should have anti-CC skills they are programmed to pop in the event of CC. Give a boss “Stand Your Ground!” so it can stunbreak and stability. We can counterplay that by boon stripping. Balance it so that the boss can use anti-CC roughly 5 times more often than players, because 5x players applying CC should = 5x anti-CC skills for the boss.

Right now bosses are boring meat bags that you punch until dead. Give them some more skills!

Edit: Basically give the boss the same stunbreaks and stability skills that players have, and change Defiant to read: “This mob’s stunbreakers recharge 5 times faster than normal.”

spoj.9672:

Raykon.7908:

An intelligently designed boss fight should promote proper CC usage, not attempt to make it almost useless. I think every dungeon boss would be far more fun if there were reasons to use CC on them.

Exactly. But this problem has nothing to do with defiance. Defiant is the correct system to prevent stunlocking and encourage coordination and CC management. Bosses just need to be designed so CC is superior to just blocking or dodging some attacks. And they need mechanics and attacks which really encourage it (interrupt a big heal etc). Also all interrupted attacks should go on full or extended cooldown.

Well, to be fair i did mention that there wasn’t really a problem with defiant itself, just the fact that it is up so much that it makes it almost pointless to bother with skills like push, pull, fear, etc. i understand that, to an extent, it is necessary, but it should cycle between being on and off, or let us do something to disable it for a short amount of time in order to better make use of those other Cc skills.

Blocking and dodging is great, but it would be nice being able to make use of those other skills in a more important manner, which is what i tried to give an example of.

Xenon.4537:

Instead of Defiant, bosses should have anti-CC skills they are programmed to pop in the event of CC. Give a boss “Stand Your Ground!” so it can stunbreak and stability. We can counterplay that by boon stripping. Balance it so that the boss can use anti-CC roughly 5 times more often than players, because 5x players applying CC should = 5x anti-CC skills for the boss.

Right now bosses are boring meat bags that you punch until dead. Give them some more skills!

Edit: Basically give the boss the same stunbreaks and stability skills that players have, and change Defiant to read: “This mob’s stunbreakers recharge 5 times faster than normal.”

hmmm nice

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

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?

Not a perfect solution but better than what we have now. Although it means that all the different forms of hard-cc (knockdown, knockback, stun) will turn into a simple stun.

I don’t know if anyone said that already but how about soft-cc (cripple, chilled) would also reduce defiant (and only reduce, new stacks still come only after hard-cc is used). This way all forms off cc would be more effective and you still couldnt cc a boss to death.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

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

Discuss?

This somewhat irks me. Most of the time in open world content pertaining a “boss” fight I’m not even able to see the boss within the colourful mesmerizing bubble, let alone tell what he’s doing.

Sorry, not trying to be negative, I like reading comments such as yours right now and it’s otherwise a nice idea, especially if it would not be a back and white scenario – basically he could be only 70% stunned and damage, area of effect decreased etc.

Imho, the main problem with defiance is in its concept.
Let’s say that any boss is shielded for X hits, and you can damage it a single time before the shield comes up again. Sounds fun? No, it is an hassle that would make many skills useless. And that’s basically a damage-based Defiant.
Albeit, Defiant is even worse. Cause everyone can deal damage, but not everyone will eventually have hard-CC skills. And a player with some control skill has their effect highly reduced, and nothing as a tradeoff. Skills are, after all, balanced over their effects. And having to deal X hard-CC skills to inflict a single one means you’ve got X skills that end up doing a single one of their supposed effects.
While the idea of a boss with a sort of reverse Defiant is nice, it still doesn’t solve the problem. Imho, the best suggestion is Xenon’s one, that is, give bosses stunbreakers and stability skills with faster recharges.

I believe that reverse defiance isn’t really different from what we currently have. The basic idea of the defiance system is that a team creates those windows of opportunity (by stripping stacks of defiance), not an enemy. It gives much more freedom.

There is however a major issue and that is a lack of incentive to actually CC a boss because there are no enrage attacks and most of the attacks goes on 4 seconds cooldown while interrupted (with a few exceptions). Currently, only reason people strip defiance stack is to use deep freeze to stun a boss for 5 seconds.

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?

Boss fights like the Dredge Fractal end boss where if you don’t get either boss underneath the lava dumper in time need to be interrupted to stop their heal. I think these bosses should have no defiance without the debuff. That way you can properly time an interrupt.

I would love to see CC be a needed thing in open world boss fights too, but the skill effects are too strong to see the telegraph you need to interrupt with open world fights. These would need to be toned down.

More fights should be added where interrupting is a key mechanic. The way it is now, control classes are only really viable in Player vs. Player fights. It’s disappointing.

Iason Evan.3806:

More fights should be added where interrupting is a key mechanic. The way it is now, control classes are only really viable in Player vs. Player fights. It’s disappointing.

This is something which should be especially easy in this game because every profession has skills for interuption; so that even if you make interuption mandatory, you wouldn’t exclude any profession (like for example with reflection being mendatory, which only a few classes have).

Iason Evan.3806:

Boss fights like the Dredge Fractal end boss where if you don’t get either boss underneath the lava dumper in time need to be interrupted to stop their heal. I think these bosses should have no defiance without the debuff. That way you can properly time an interrupt.

I would love to see CC be a needed thing in open world boss fights too, but the skill effects are too strong to see the telegraph you need to interrupt with open world fights. These would need to be toned down.

More fights should be added where interrupting is a key mechanic. The way it is now, control classes are only really viable in Player vs. Player fights. It’s disappointing.

Well, anet is experimenting lots of ideas in living world.

The moa in dry top needs to be cc every once in awhile or it would flee. I wonder how people will feel about mandatory cc baseline

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 there a fractal boss that already has a “reverse defiance” mechanic? I mean, you have to use a stun/knockback/CC effect to stop the final boss of the Dredge fractal (whichever one you get) to stop them from healing to full, even if they have defiance stacks on.

Still, I kinda like the idea of bosses have periods where they are vulnerable to CC, regardless of their Defiance stacks. I’d also like to see bosses and boss mechanics that promote the use of “soft” CC (cripple, immobilized, weakness, chilled) as well as hard CC.

So, I’m popping in a little late to this party, but still going to ramble off my thoughts on the topic.

I can understand the principle, the idea behind defiance. I don’t like it’s implementation, but I sort of understand the logic. Generally speaking, the object is to make it so that a “boss” fight (which my its definition should be ‘important’ and/or ‘hard’) cannot be trivialized by simply ccing the boss into submission. I mean, how fun is the fight if it’s completely one sided? (Bully much?)

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.

I’ve some of this in other threads, but I’ll reiterate here. I think we could keep defiance on some bosses, but we need variety as well. In Pavilion, different bosses had immunity to different CCs (like blind or cripple), pass that out into open world bosses. As the dev said, some type of reverse defiance could be interesting – ie, during certain windows the boss reflects your cc back to its caster. They could reuse some of the condition reflect that the LA Knights had to control the use of CC. They could set it up so that some bosses get stronger the more cc you use. Make it so that some of them require a cc ‘combo’ to control them. Hell, make some bosses only beatable if you can keep them cced the whole time. They could re-introduce versions of skills like ‘healing hands’ where different types of damage/control would be absorbed and heal the boss instead of harming it.

Lots of ideas to play with out there.

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).

Or maybe something like that:

• Each stack of Defiance gives you a 1/x chance of your CC to succeed.
• If the skill fails, 1 stack of Defiance is removed.
• If the skill succeeds, the stacks of Defiance are reset to the initial value.
• The base amount of stacks may need to be increased (like, not 1+N of players, but 3 or 5+N of players, or N*coefficient+N).
• Skills which cause bosses to move (pull, push, fear) may be turned into pure interrupts… but that’s a very tricky matter of balancing between disallowing rangers to knock bosses out of AoEs and allowing smart boss pulls.

PROs:

• When all your team members use interrupts at the correct time, you have a good chance of interrupting. If all party members save multiple CC skills till the right moment, the interrupt is almost guaranteed.
• Eliminates the punishment to the whole team when just 1 member spams a CC skill too soon and resets stacks to a huge number (Leech at Grenth as a good example).
• It makes sense logically: “He may or may not be stunned if I’m lucky enough”.

CONs:

• May be hard to find a spot where it works but not breaks and results in stunlocking.
• Randomness is usually bad as it replaces coordination for a certain result with mindless spam for a chance of a result.

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?

This is a great idea. When the game was in beta and we were just getting to try dungeons for the first time (AC story) everything was about the boss’s wind-up animation. I want to see more of that. Less of the giant orange swatches, and less of these bosses that get ENGULFED in particle effects. Remove the particles and make the bosses a bit taller. There’s no real reason to engulf a character model in blue guardian fire. We can tell it’s burning by the damage tick and the icon on the UI. That thing Kholer does with his sword right before he pulls everyone in, do more of that. The way ogres lean back before slamming their club on your head, do more of that. Make them immune to CC except during those animations.

I don’t think that would be a problem for ad hock groups. Everyone is already familiar with the current form of defiant, and they are naturally forced to learn how to dodge big hits. Give the players more credit. We can figure out how to stun at the right time. :P

Also, I still say having bosses use stunbreaks and stability instead of defiant is a good way to go. Even if it would be too difficult to implement on old content, you could try developing new content around it instead. That way you wont have to “move the table” as it were. It would be like building a second Jenga tower next to the old one.

I love analogies. :P

Havent played much PvE , but an Enrage mechanic replacing the defiance maybe ?

1) Each time you cc (not interupt) a boss , the boss Enrage meter scales up dramatically closer to 100% .
2) If the bar reach 100% then the boss goes frenzy and his all , ‘’big attacks’’ have 0,25 sec cast time , rather than the normal 1.25 sec .
3) If you interupt an boss (between the 0.15-0.7 cast time) while he does a ‘’big attack’’ , you stop his attacks but he gains 5% Enrage meter .
4) If you interupt the boss between the 0.8-1,4 sec , you stop his attack and he ’’looses’’ 3% Enrage meter .
5) Bosses somes times can fake cast-stop his attack at the 0,7-1,1 sec and do a normal attack instead ? And he get cc-ed while get a normal attacks , his Enrage meter scales up dramatically (part 1) ?

Edit: Or maybe bosses have 3 ‘’super attacks’’ – differend Enrage Bars , and by interupting the one the other scales up ? So you can choose which attacks to avoid ? and follow your attack pattern you wish ?

Derom.1205:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

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?

Not a perfect solution but better than what we have now. Although it means that all the different forms of hard-cc (knockdown, knockback, stun) will turn into a simple stun.

I don’t know if anyone said that already but how about soft-cc (cripple, chilled) would also reduce defiant (and only reduce, new stacks still come only after hard-cc is used). This way all forms off cc would be more effective and you still couldnt cc a boss to death.

Some boss fights could work like that.. but not all boss fights need to be the same. CC doesn’t need to be watered down to simple stuns.. they could each be used in unique ways to make a fight different. A boss fight that took into account all forms of CC and had ways to use them to expedite the fight would be pretty cool.

Imagine a fight where a boss can be interrupted or knocked back (but knock back does not interrupt him). The area the boss is in is a cave where the ceiling falls in chunks which can harm the boss or the players. During his skill windup you can either interrupt him and attack for a moment while he’s stunned and can’t fight back or you can knock him into an area that the ceiling is about to fall on. You could actually combine these tactics too, if it doesn’t look like anything is falling at the moment, interrupt and burn him down.. otherwise knockback.. or if you don’t want to use CC, just dodge as usual.

Really, that’s all I’d like to see, fights where multiple ways to get to the end goal (a dead boss) are well thought out. I like the idea of there being multiple strategies to kill a boss especially when it comes to using your skills with the environment… although I think that the traditional dodge and fight should work too of course.

Anyways, it’s cool to see this get some attention, I can’t wait to see if anything comes of it down the road.

Defiant is fine the way it is – we just need there to be attacks worth interrupting (and which can not be dealt with any other way) for it to be worthwhile. Take for example Mai Trin and the undodgeable pistol shot or the unblockable fields from Horrik, apply something like that to a boss with a clear choreograph (so you have enough time to react) and which can’t be blocked or dodged. Interrupting it sets the skill on say, a 40 second cooldown or something – and in order to make it appropriate risk/reward, maybe it one-shots most glass cannons to downed state (make it an amount of damage rather than percentage) but tankier characters can survive it if they mess up.

I don’t understand this whole post, if you don’t use CC then you don’t have to worry about it!

if you don’t like the boss having defiant control your toon to stop using CC ya?

so many times I’ve seen the stacks stripped and people just ignore the Unshakable mechanic and just keep using the CC skills to start Defiant.

I think it’s just a L2P thing or I’m missing something

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiant
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unshakable

it amazes me how can you (anet ) went from a good AI in Gw1,where mobs used same skills as players (+monster specifically skills),and team compositions and team builds(specially interesting in hard mode) to GW2 and the enemy meatsacks with ,unshakable and desafiance.
Not to talk how mobs in GW1 scatter to aoe damage,and how full kitten mode are npcs in Gw2.

Why can,t Gw2 mobs , use the same mechanics as players ,give them acces to same skills ,give them team builds and compostion ,acces to boons,sctter to aoe,this will probably end with zerker or gto,and things like control and support will be more welcome.

Seriously ,defiance and unshakeble are relly very cheap.

Still remember the first time doing Slavers Exile in Hardmode where the kittening stone summit dwarves keep resing and healing each other,and you were forced to use frozen soil to stop them from doin so…..fun times dungeoning.

Cant AI from gw1 be imported to gw2 ?.(copy paste it ) :P(just kiding ,total programming ignorant here).

Oh my god a red a post. -screams like a little girl-
While haviz and maha explained the real problems Anthony, there are a lot more going on with this problem. Let’s see your example.

First of all with removing Defiant stacks and make the boss completely immune to CC for the entire fight you remove …

• the need of coordination
• team work
• the need of a learning curve
• punishment
• opportunity cost

And maybe a few others, but i now i can’t think of more. If we simplify the situation it’s not vastly different from the current one when Defiant stacks are already stripped, but exactly thats a point. You have to work for to make a CC action possible. And with your idea, it’s completely irrevelant that you used a 1/4 second daze on the boss to interrupt or used a 5 second long freeze to stop it. Also it would remove the option to preemptively CC the boss for a initial burst (the good old Deep freeze + FGS combo).
However, as others already said, there is little to no incentive to do so, because either it’s useless due to skills not going to full cooldown or the skill itself does neglighible effect. I would ad gimmicky fights too, where you negate stuff with enviromental effects (Abomination in Arah P2, both endbosses in dredge fractal, etc.), making CC almost completely irrevelant. But it’s more of a encounter design issue.

The other crucial thing which is just slightly off-topic and got said already is the visibility. Bosses either aren’t big enough to see their animations everytime or covered under a gazillion of particle effects (cough guardian burning cough). Or both.

The third problem is accesibility. Do we need big, interruptable attacks on world bosses or other open world events which gets zerged down with 50,100 or even 150 people? Well, sure, it would make them more interesting than timed loot pinatas, but how a good mechanic can be implemented, i have no idea.

Make CC worthwhile, than we can speak about Defiant again.

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.

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?

To me, the biggest issue is that players have no individual control over when their interrupts will work.

My potential solution:

I know it may be problematic technically, but what if defiance stacks were unique to the player rather than global. Instead of 50 stacks of defiance with a huge zerg of players, every player has 4 (it could be an uncleansable debuff on the player). Essentially, players know that every 4th interrupt they execute will work so they need to plan accordingly.

This gives players control over when and how often they can interrupt – and still accomplishes the goal of limiting interrupts in major encounters.

I also really like the idea of “windows for interrupts” like you describe (and like you’ve used on Three Toed Tootsie).

What?

Players have 100% control over when their interrupts will work, people just misuse their CC all the time by just spamming all of their skills off cooldown.

maha.7902:

What?

Players have 100% control over when their interrupts will work, people just misuse their CC all the time by just spamming all of their skills off cooldown.

Technically, yes they do, but not in practice.

Realistically, in open world zergs, it is too easy for other players to instantly restack 50 stacks of defiance.

Giving players control over when their interrupts will work, without the reliance on 70 other players paying attention, is the key to making interrupts valid in the open game world.

This is far less of an issue in instanced 5-man content where groups that communicate well can coordinate interrupts much easier.

Blaeys.3102:

maha.7902:

What?

Players have 100% control over when their interrupts will work, people just misuse their CC all the time by just spamming all of their skills off cooldown.

Technically, yes they do, but not in practice.

Realistically, in open world zergs, it is too easy for other players to instantly restack 50 stacks of defiance.

Giving players control over when their interrupts will work, without the reliance on 70 other players paying attention, is the key to making interrupts valid in the open game world.

This is far less of an issue in instanced 5-man content where groups that communicate well can coordinate interrupts much easier.

I didn’t realize we were discussing open world. I assumed we were talking about dungeon bosses. Yeah, I would be in favor of Anthony’s “CC window” for open world, but I recommend my idea for dungeon bosses. I think stunbreaks and stability would work for 5 man dungeons, not open world.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

In the mean time it’s great to see some discussion over alternatives as well as some specific examples where existing alternatives work.

I’m going to give an alternative and creative idea to tone down this issue. At first glance, it might have nothing to do with defiance, but it would make a big difference in 5-man content (not so much in zergs, though).

Usually, interrupts work better (= are less abusagle) when there’s more than one foe. For example, when fighting against two or three opponents at the same time, you can’t have your entire party “spam” their CC at a single target and infinitely lock him down without suffering from the consequences of the remaining foes being free to do whatever they wish.

But what about single-foe bosses? That’s where my idea comes from:

Have all big bosses have different targettable parts of their bodies that can be individually interrupted.

For example, a dragon. Players would be able to target: their head, their body and their tail. Each of those body parts would “count” as different characters in the sense that they would trigger different skills, sometimes simultaneously, but all of them would share the same HP pool. The tail would have a massive tail sweep, the head would breath flame, the body would claw its targets or regenerate health. We can even add a forth part: the wings, which would give evasion/ movement skills to the dragon.

In a 5-man dungeon, that would require at least 4 cc characters to keep the boss “instant locked” (and then, there would probably still exist a mini defiant system to keep it challenging).

The best thing about this situation, is that it would have have another benefit: condition builds would not need to worry with the stack limit as long as each condition player targetted different body parts.

The worst thing about this idea, is that it would not be enough in a zerg. Thus, it would still require the support of a defiant-like system to a certain extent. But, certainly, it would be much better for condition builds to fight a bosses with, say, 5 parts during a zerg, than a single, global condition stacking pool.

Thoughts?

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

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!”

Honestly, I find this sentiment saddening. If there is one thing I think we need more of in GW2, it’s a higher skill ceiling in pve content. Defiance is one of the few systems in the game that truly rewards organization, and I don’t see why that should change. If stripping defiant and interrupting a skill was a requirement for an encounter, I could understand the complaints to a degree. But this is not the case, pugs are always able to complete an encounter without interrupting the boss at all.

The abomination in arah p2 is an excellent example of defiance as a positive mechanic. In organized groups, a thief or a mesmer can keep the defiance stripped from the boss. The animation for his enrage has 2 parts- a damaging kick and his transformation. This means if the interrupter times his cc in-between the kick and the transform, the skill will go on a very long cool down. Long enough that defiance can be easily re-stripped, and the skill consistently interrupted. This is the preferable method for dealing with the boss, it is clean and efficient. However, pugs are given an alternative – the tranquilizer darts. It is a reactive solution, and one that does not require coordination (if multiple people shoot, the only loss is guns which will respawn in the form of inquest adds before the next phase). This, to me, is ideal design – organized groups are rewarded for their coordination and skill, but pug groups are not excluded from the content.

This was mentioned above, but I definitely agree – defiance gives players a lot more freedom in their approach of the fight then boss-dictated windows would. Defiance is an opportunity to make the fight easier – if you work together with your party – while pugs make do with reactive defense. Boss-dictated windows further narrows what organized groups are able to achieve beyond pug tactics.

All of that is not to say defiance is perfect. However, I think changing it for the sake of pugs, when pugs can already easily complete the most difficult pve content in the game, is misguided. I would say that in zerg events, defiance is basically a non-existant mechanic. The boss might as well be immune to cc. Perhaps a new system could be created to deal with mega-bosses. But for 5 man content I think defiance works well. GW2’s combat could use more complex challenges, not more neon signs like, “He’s winding up for super-mega-attack, everyone stun now!”

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.