Guild Wars 2

I have a suggestion, remove Toughness and Vitality. And make two new stats, Aggression and Denial.

Aggression is the stat that improves direct disable like stuns and daze(Side note: Knockback range would improve with aggression). Denial is the stat the improves slows like cripple and immobilize. Also, Aggression and denial will improve defiance bar damage.

To achieve this, every skill is nerfed to have a maximum of base 1 second duration for disables and slow. When you improve aggression and denial it will stun/cripple for a lot longer.

Why?

• Toughness and vitality are useless in PvE other than a few select raid bosses. There are no aggro management to justify tank stats.
• ANet can’t balance toughness and vitality in PvP. Bunker Amulets are being removed over it.
• There is too much CC in the game. CC should require a stat to improve them, especially in PvP.
• I can feel like a protective tank by denying the enemy the ability to hurt my party members rather than just standing and taking damage for my team.

What will happen to survivability? There is always traits. You can always equip these traits for sustain.

As a full Knight Necro, I disagree about Toughness being useless. When we have 3 frogs at octovine in AB and everyone is on the ground, I am still hitting the octo with 50%+ health… When people aggro mobs at towers in DS they get downed in seconds, I can have 15+ mobs on me and still manage to run in circles until forever. When people die in dungeons I am the person who revives them while mobs are tickling my back. So far I haven’t died and only got downed 3 times on HoT maps since the expansion came out and I’m actually proud of that. So yeah, I want to keep my Toughness, thanks.

Mea.5491:

As a full Knight Necro, I disagree about Toughness being useless. When we have 3 frogs at octovine in AB and everyone is on the ground, I am still hitting the octo with 50%+ health… When people aggro mobs at towers in DS they get downed in seconds, I can have 15+ mobs on me and still manage to run in circles until forever. When people die in dungeons I am the person who revives them while mobs are tickling my back. So far I haven’t died and only got downed 3 times on HoT maps since the expansion came out and I’m actually proud of that. So yeah, I want to keep my Toughness, thanks.

Agreed, for much the same reasons; I love toughness. I’m currently working on a Settler’s Ele that I have really high hopes for.

~EW

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Agreed, for much the same reasons; I love toughness. I’m currently working on a Settler’s Ele that I have really high hopes for.

~EW

-high five- Have fun with your Settler’s Ele!
It makes me sad when people underestimate Toughness.

Toughness is useless in WvW. Im at 2600 or so and still getting hit with 6k vaults and 4 to 5k heartseekers.

There’s a reason glass meta is still a thing. Why not go glass and let your profession mechanics do the work?

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Mea.5491:

As a full Knight Necro, I disagree about Toughness being useless. When we have 3 frogs at octovine in AB and everyone is on the ground, I am still hitting the octo with 50%+ health… When people aggro mobs at towers in DS they get downed in seconds, I can have 15+ mobs on me and still manage to run in circles until forever. When people die in dungeons I am the person who revives them while mobs are tickling my back. So far I haven’t died and only got downed 3 times on HoT maps since the expansion came out and I’m actually proud of that. So yeah, I want to keep my Toughness, thanks.

Agreed, for much the same reasons; I love toughness. I’m currently working on a Settler’s Ele that I have really high hopes for.

~EW

I used partial Settlers at one point – it can work. I’m currently ripping apart my ele for the third time to get him where I want him. He’s the only toon I can’t get sorted comfortably

You realise Pve is one of three game modes and is by far the most trivial game mode (who cares what you run unless you’re raiding).

Gotejjeken.1267:

Toughness is useless in WvW. Im at 2600 or so and still getting hit with 6k vaults and 4 to 5k heartseekers.

There’s a reason glass meta is still a thing. Why not go glass and let your profession mechanics do the work?

My Knight Necro build is pretty good in WvW. I’m not immortal but I rarely die (edit: actually, I only die when we get a squad wipe, lol). I use full defensive traits, utilities and ranged weapons so those help too. I’ve always played healer or tank in old MMOs so I just don’t find “glass” builds comfortable.

Randulf.7614:

I used partial Settlers at one point – it can work. I’m currently ripping apart my ele for the third time to get him where I want him. He’s the only toon I can’t get sorted comfortably

Ever tried Celestial? Fun stuff! XD

Mea.5491:

Randulf.7614:

I used partial Settlers at one point – it can work. I’m currently ripping apart my ele for the third time to get him where I want him. He’s the only toon I can’t get sorted comfortably

Ever tried Celestial? Fun stuff! XD

I have thought about it. I may make a full set sometime and try it. Just takes too long to make

Mea.5491:

Randulf.7614:

I used partial Settlers at one point – it can work. I’m currently ripping apart my ele for the third time to get him where I want him. He’s the only toon I can’t get sorted comfortably

Ever tried Celestial? Fun stuff! XD

I haven’t. I do have a young elementalist that I may try that on.

Gotejjeken.1267:

Toughness is useless in WvW. Im at 2600 or so and still getting hit with 6k vaults and 4 to 5k heartseekers.

I’m assuming you mean your total AC is 2600… if that’s the case, then that’s not enough to be very useful against full berserk/glass-cannon builds.

The Settler’s Ele I’m working on will have an AC of around 3.7k and be immune to crits… effectively shutting down any glass-cannon builds… I’m designing it specifically for WvW shenanigans (deciding on traits is where my hitch currently is).

Randulf.7614:

Mea.5491:

Randulf.7614:

I used partial Settlers at one point – it can work. I’m currently ripping apart my ele for the third time to get him where I want him. He’s the only toon I can’t get sorted comfortably

Ever tried Celestial? Fun stuff! XD

I have thought about it. I may make a full set sometime and try it. Just takes too long to make

It’s a big investment, true, but I love running around PvE with my warrior in ascended celestial everything… You get a pretty comfortable amount of all stats, including enough toughness/vitality to feel the difference

~EW

My warrior is full pvt, with mace and shield for general use. He may not be a dps machine, but he is a walking breakbar smashing brickwall of a norn. Toughness is something I am well sold on on a few of my toons when properly stacked.

I notice no one is discussing the OPs idea. Cant say im sold on the need for such an overhaul tbh.

I play chronomancer and i use toughness a lot ,and guess what im sick of rev dead full glass-cannons in 75+fractals. (i do not insult them its just that since fractals like chaos and swamp are now in the game, running around in full 1000000% dps makes you die in 2 sec) .
As for dungeons and the rest of pve , it took me the same time as the metazerker took to finish one, using the heavy builds (i actually tested this with my guild).

Running the same idea that was before HOT , is boring letting people play diverse build and having fun its what a game is all about. And saying that vitality and toughness is pointless ….go on go full dps no heavy build no heal no sustain go and meet the Bloomhunger on 77 or 86.) he loves kicking dps builds kitten .

And why pot so much pressure on pvp and call out pve?
If more change the topic in >your idea as a good way of making a better pvp style, that i agree

In the end i see your point but its not true , i say Anet will and must build events and bosses and fractals that force people to divert from only dps in to => lets work together using all the skills on our bar not only 111111 and take this sucker down)

As for pvp , your idea can work, i see the way that the fight will speedup and promote skill over ovp builds or it will make patching more easy. (but never forget a game that is perfectly balanced is boring and from pvp will become strategy: who can position better and who can press that skill faster).

Cheers Mate ^^/

I think some may be missing the point. Why not just add Aggression and Denial stats without removing toughness and vitality from the game? I also made a suggestion earlier to add a control stat that increases the “damage” characters do to broker bars. I believe this would help give some classes more dedicated, specific roles in raids. I also wanted to add Precaution: decreases the damage done by conditions. Conditions would need to be slightly rebalanced. However, if done right, this should help so your not totally reliant on a form of condition removal in your skill bar or trait line-opening up more build variety in the game. Also, Destroyer stats would be Amazing to have in PvE as well.

Gotejjeken.1267:

Toughness is useless in WvW. Im at 2600 or so and still getting hit with 6k vaults and 4 to 5k heartseekers.

There’s a reason glass meta is still a thing. Why not go glass and let your profession mechanics do the work?

That’s pretty good … I aim for higher, but I play on a heavy armor class (usually aim for about 3k-3.2 depending on my role)), and by looking at your post history I’m thinking you play a ranger? medium armor class? For mediums i try to get up to 2700 for WvW for a little more durability but that could just be traits, runes etc difference from me to you.

Toughness means nothing in endgame content, but it should. Dodge or die mechanics are so pervasive in this game that every encounter boils down to killing things as quickly as possible before you’re dead.

Really is that so ? why not show me that dodge or die mechanic in swamp where the boss is most of the time inv and has all of his abilities one hit KO for glass-cannons.
Or show me that killing power when in chaos ?

And dont tell me that people are playing so well that all the rolls are in synergy with boss abilities?

If your endgame is world bosses and dungeons then i see your point. If by endgame you say T4 fractals and raids, then sorry Toughness is more than welcome

i don’t believe arguing from pve is the best way to go about this.
anyone who is in group pvp or wvw regularly knows how pointless of a stat it is, even those who swear by it like myself.

This is my final post on this topic

As i see that the only people that have a prob with vitality and toughness are only pvp players or old metazerk lovers (no insult as i was part of that group 2 ).

Change the topic in PVP discussion and ignore PVE as the arguments against this stats in PVE are not strong enough to change.

And Mr Lightsbane the same can be said about your sentence : i don’t believe arguing from pvp/wvw is the best way to go about this. The game its not only about pvp, for that type of content, is better focused in MOBA games.

My Mesmer is a Condition/Chronomancer with full Trailblazer’s gear. She has incredible condition damage, 100% condition duration, and tons of hitpoints and armor. Never down in Pve, and very rarely down in fractals. A lot of fun to play. I’m a big fan of Vit/Toughness.

For PVE Exploration, events, world bosses and storyline some toughness makes it a lot easier… I have mostly glass characters, but I also have some with -above average toughness,- e.g. trailblazer necro, commanders/cleric guardian and some other nice “non-meta achievement runners.”

I’ve used healers and semi bunkers in quite some cases cause I liked to try it, of because the zerker meta was unavble to stay alive. due to whatever rreason (bad play, bad comp, whatever…) and as you all should know by now raids are not that difficult (at least wing1 is pretty ok…) and you can bring some toughness if needed for some added survivability.

Thomas.4208:

If by endgame you say T4 fractals and raids, then sorry Toughness is more than welcome

Not really. Well, really not when it comes to Raids. There’s a lot of tanking mechanisms in Raids. If everybody uses toughness in their builds you’d have to figure out who has the highest toughness to make sure the tank roll doesn’t get screwed over. In reality, only one person should have toughness in Raids, and that’s the tank. And it doesn’t even have to be that much, as long as it’s the highest toughness rating in the squad. Any dps you sacrifice for the sake of toughness means you’d have to perform perfect rotations all the time to kill the bosses within the enrage timer limit. It makes the margin for mistakes even smaller than it already is.

Read the topic pls

Thomas.4208:

Read the topic pls

I don’t know if that’s meant for me or people in general in this thread, but I wasn’t replying to the topic, just the one sentence I quoted from you. And my reply to that is still 100% correct. As a main berserker player (with the exception of a few condition classes) I feel or see no need for toughness. At least not for me personally. And if I can survive without toughness, not being the best player in the game (I’m nowhere near qT levels of playing skill, but I feel confident in saying I’m above the average player’s skill), I’d say toughness is not needed in either Fractals, and definitely not Raids.

Mea.5491:

As a full Knight Necro, I disagree about Toughness being useless. When we have 3 frogs at octovine in AB and everyone is on the ground, I am still hitting the octo with 50%+ health… When people aggro mobs at towers in DS they get downed in seconds, I can have 15+ mobs on me and still manage to run in circles until forever. When people die in dungeons I am the person who revives them while mobs are tickling my back. So far I haven’t died and only got downed 3 times on HoT maps since the expansion came out and I’m actually proud of that. So yeah, I want to keep my Toughness, thanks.

That sort of misses Runeblade’s point. Bunker builds in PvP are difficult to balance with PvE and aggro management in GW2 is aweful.

Edit
By aweful, I mean the only person who can use toughness in a group is the designated tank, if it can be called that, to manage boss positioning. Also, damage and heals have an insignificant effect on aggro. It is too simple.

Not a fan, for one, this could allow for greater CC chaining, already a problem everywhere but PvE, and used to be a problem there before the defiance bar.

And second, tanky and tough characters fulfill a fantasy.

What is the point of a role playing game that removes every role you could possibly pursue but one? There isn’t, in fact such a game doesn’t even qualify as an RPG.

The solution to the worthlessness of the majority of the games stats has been obvious since day one, but I fear the developers are never going to do it, for nothing but pride of all things.

Marry the stat system with the active defense system just like it is already married with the active sustain system and the active damage system. Or, in laymans terms, make the effectiveness of defense abilities, including dodge or whatever it would be replaced with in a full system overhaul, based on investment in defensive stats.

Conncept.7638:

Not a fan, for one, this could allow for greater CC chaining, already a problem everywhere but PvE, and used to be a problem there before the defiance bar.

CC was only a problem in PvE before defiance bar in that it was mostly useless …

I do still like the Toughness stat. Sadly tho even in PVE now it is starting to lose its shine. With the Cond improvements Toughness is starting to lose its use. Condis (yes even from mobs!) are just hitting you through all that toughness. So without a good HP pool and plenty of cleanse/regen/heals Toughness is even less useful now than it used to be on it’s own.

Don’t get me wrong my main always used PVT until just recently (3 days ago he finally finished his zerk ascended to go along side his PVT ascended) and I do still like to feel tanky by being able to survive vs mobs of enemies. But like I said, if you go up against mobs with a lot of condis (which we are starting to see more and more of in the newer maps) it is starting to lose it’s shine.

I certainly do not agree that the OPs suggestions are the answer for that. But I do think the system can be looked at more. In the past I was thinking perhaps it could give you an extra dodge if you had xx amount of toughness. However I don’t think that’s a good idea either but perhaps something like that, maybe toughness and stability could/should be related? Say you have xx amount of toughness – BOOM you get a stability stack similar to Engi’s trait from Flamethrower.

I like that idea as these new mobs not only are getting a lot more conds but they also are getting a lot more control skills. Not only that our control skills are starting to be less effective what with break bars and mobs that are totally immune to them.

Mea.5491:

As a full Knight Necro, I disagree about Toughness being useless. When we have 3 frogs at octovine in AB and everyone is on the ground, I am still hitting the octo with 50%+ health… When people aggro mobs at towers in DS they get downed in seconds, I can have 15+ mobs on me and still manage to run in circles until forever. When people die in dungeons I am the person who revives them while mobs are tickling my back. So far I haven’t died and only got downed 3 times on HoT maps since the expansion came out and I’m actually proud of that. So yeah, I want to keep my Toughness, thanks.

All I see is that you’re using toughness to give yourself more forgiving mistakes. If there were more skilled players in that group, they would be able to dodge those frogs without the need of knight gear.

You could have 15+ mobs on you, but if someone walks in, 14 of those mobs could deaggro and fight the second player and killing him. What would be the point of toughness if you couldn’t keep it all together? There are no aggro mechanics do so.

Now, if there was aggression/denial as a stat, instead of tons of downed players, then the necro could just fear/chill the defiance bar down to stun the frogs, thus saving all the poorly skilled player alive.

Xstein.2187:

I think some may be missing the point. Why not just add Aggression and Denial stats without removing toughness and vitality from the game? I also made a suggestion earlier to add a control stat that increases the “damage” characters do to broker bars. I believe this would help give some classes more dedicated, specific roles in raids. I also wanted to add Precaution: decreases the damage done by conditions. Conditions would need to be slightly rebalanced. However, if done right, this should help so your not totally reliant on a form of condition removal in your skill bar or trait line-opening up more build variety in the game. Also, Destroyer stats would be Amazing to have in PvE as well.

Toughness and vitality makes a boring gameplay. Especially in PvP, you can find youtube duels that last forever with no one winning. I don’t want to just add Aggression and Denial because there is just too much CC in the game. If Aggression and Denial have to be in the game, the game would have to be built around CC + Aggression and Denial.

Hexinx.1872:

Gotejjeken.1267:

Toughness is useless in WvW. Im at 2600 or so and still getting hit with 6k vaults and 4 to 5k heartseekers.

There’s a reason glass meta is still a thing. Why not go glass and let your profession mechanics do the work?

That’s pretty good … I aim for higher, but I play on a heavy armor class (usually aim for about 3k-3.2 depending on my role)), and by looking at your post history I’m thinking you play a ranger? medium armor class? For mediums i try to get up to 2700 for WvW for a little more durability but that could just be traits, runes etc difference from me to you.

Yeah I play Ranger. My build is running full apothecary gear with emerald / chrysicola trinkets. I do have a few berserker in there which is why it’s at 2.5k (and yes, that is total armor rating…toughness itself is 1.5k).

Which is why it seems profession mechanics to me are better at negating than actual stats. I get way more mileage out of stealth or evades then stacking defense.

Khisanth.2948:

Conncept.7638:

Not a fan, for one, this could allow for greater CC chaining, already a problem everywhere but PvE, and used to be a problem there before the defiance bar.

CC was only a problem in PvE before defiance bar in that it was mostly useless …

Yeah… and? That it was as incredibly valuable in one mode as it was completely useless in another is just about the worst case scenario so far as balance is concerned.

If it’s equally terrible or great in each mode, they can just buff or nerf an entire mechanic like they did with might stacking, not so if it is terrible in one mode and great in another.

i dont think this will come to anything. we could suggest all we want but i dont think anet will do such a drastic overhaul. gw2 is not an all PVP or an all WVW or even an all PVE rpg. toughness and vitality has its uses in all three. we might not see it or we might be so brain washed by the meta builds posted in some sites, that we all forget that this is an rpg game, created so people could do what they want with their character. if a person wants to run toughness and vitality to the max in pvp or wvw or even in pve, that is his right to do so. the only problem i see with that is he would have trouble looking for a raid group. unless he is the tank. and some speed runs in fractals. other than that i see no problem at all.

Not in favor of lowering the capabilities or duration of existing abilities to justify the existence of new stats.

Vitality and toughness make a huge difference in WvW. If you ever played that game mode more than one hour you would understand

runeblade.7514:

Xstein.2187:

I think some may be missing the point. Why not just add Aggression and Denial stats without removing toughness and vitality from the game? I also made a suggestion earlier to add a control stat that increases the “damage” characters do to broker bars. I believe this would help give some classes more dedicated, specific roles in raids. I also wanted to add Precaution: decreases the damage done by conditions. Conditions would need to be slightly rebalanced. However, if done right, this should help so your not totally reliant on a form of condition removal in your skill bar or trait line-opening up more build variety in the game. Also, Destroyer stats would be Amazing to have in PvE as well.

Toughness and vitality makes a boring gameplay. Especially in PvP, you can find youtube duels that last forever with no one winning. I don’t want to just add Aggression and Denial because there is just too much CC in the game. If Aggression and Denial have to be in the game, the game would have to be built around CC + Aggression and Denial.

Hmm, I don’t exactly know how removing Toughness and Vitality would help with too much CC if a stat that increases CC would be added to the game, but oh well. One of the easiest ways to solve this issue would be to just add the stats to pve only. Keep pvp out of it. You could also potentially make it so that the stat only works against braker bars. Finally, there is always the option to slightly balance some of the cc skills after the stat is introduced. Same with precaution, there is always the option to rebalance some skill after new stats are introduced. However, right now there is just not very much build variety. Almost everyone in pve is wearing Zerk, Vipers, or Commanders. If a stat that increased braker bar damage was added to the game, it would just add another option to the kitten nal. I’m not looking at the short term future, I’m looking at the long term future. Just looking for a way to add more “useful” stat and build variety to a game that has always been a little low in that department.

I think there is an underlying issue here. This issue is the point that defensive stats are considered undesireable because they lower your dps output. The glass cannon has a downside of course as you can die quickly….but….we have dodge and ress. and those two general abilities do make a mockery of the defensive stats like vitality and toughness.

Also abilities that nullify incoming hits completely completely bypass the value of vitality and toughness. It’s not a problem to have some of that but when there are a good number of them combined with dodging, then the value of those two stats is very much under pressure.

And there is another dimension to that. A lot of bosses have effects that kill players instantly. This is of course in line with the dodge mechanic but this also nullifies the effects of toughness and vitality.

Lastly there is the lack of class roles known as the trinity. Now, not everybody is a fan of that trinity and I do understand that, but stepping away from that does have consequences. Without these roles the stats also don’t have the same importance. The combat system of GW2 does actually have some depth but the lack of role definition, makes it a futile exercise in a lot of cases.

In essence all classes can use the same gear stats and most players will say they should use those. There are differences between leveling zones, dungeons, fractals, wvw and raids of course, but in the end there usually are no more than 3 configurations across all classes from what I understand and only viable for some of those classes.

So I understand the op, but I really don’t think there is an answer unless ArenaNet find a way to make defensive stats more important but considering the above, even if you ignore the trinity item, the problem comes from the core set up of the combat system and I don’t see that changing.

Luckily as a more casual player I’m ok because I mostly spend my time in the leveling zones and occasionally in some dungeons just for armour skins. So I don’t have to bother too much about which stats I have and then exotic armour is pretty cheap.