Guild Wars 2

I know that it happened, it’s just not really clear to me ‘why’ it was implemented?

When someone asks me at work, “How hard would it be to…”, I always respond with, “What problem are you trying to solve?”

What was the problem that was solved?

Were fights lasting too long?

On a related note, wasn’t there some weird bug or something with area effect spells that did damage only affecting 5 random people in a given area, and so people were stacking to spread the damage or somehow disrupt it? And then they fixed it, or something? I thought I heard someone saying something about that, though I admittedly wasn’t tracking, but it begs the question: How do area damage spells work?

When I’m attuned to fire, and I have a staff and do my big number 5 move (I forget what it’s called), does that hit everyone in the area? Or is that limited to 5 people as well? If it is, why? If it isn’t, well the next question is obvious?

Thanks.

Because in WvW 100 people could stand on a spot and be kept invulnerable by a few heals.

I think the 5 heal is only limited to ‘small’ heals. Something that is not necessarily a heal. Like vigorous shouts, or whatever the warrior trait that allows Shouts to heal. That would be limited to 5 heals. But, Healing Rain is not limited to 5, nor is the blast finisher of Arcane Wave with a water spell. I don’t have screen shots but I definitely saw a number of heals during the Ancient Karka fight when I laid down some Healing Rain. The number 3 though… not sure on that one, since it is so small I only saw a couple every time as there were only a couple in the area of the spell.

@Clark – I guess that went with my question of whether fights were lasting too long then? If one group of 100 people could stand in a spot and be kept alive longer (I’d debate indefinitely), then could the other side? So a fight that now takes 5 minutes used to take 15? And that was too long?

And then what about damage spells, how do those work? Do those only hit 5 people?

@nacho – I hope that’s at least true of the big heal. Would be a shame on the little once, especially since I have the Arcane ability to make my areas bigger, and of course, it’s a faster regenerating heal.

And what about the auto-attack? That’s a random 5 people? What about the auto-attack on the staff for fire? Does that fire damage only splash to 5 people?

Still seems like an odd change to me, especially since it’s then further hindered by things you “don’t” now want to count, like pets, turrets, plants, crawly things and other things that aren’t players.

Thanks though.

I am not sure how it works with pets/minions or clones. If they are counted in the 5, it can be a problem in dungeons. I hope they don’t count pet/minions/clone as that five. Might as well make the restriction work in WvW only because it is supposed to counter the turtle strategy in WvW.

The reason it was changed is that things like damaging effects and boon applications apply to only 5 people, so in a massive zerg in wvw, the enemy’s aoe will only be hitting 5 people, while heals from within the zerg are healing everyone in the area, not just 5 people. So, they changed it for the sake of balancing healing and damage. (At least, to the extent of my knowledge).

The basic farming method in any game is to gather lots of enemies, then kill them all at the same time.

Reduce number of targets to 5, and if you get more than that, no matter what you do you’ll get thrashed by them.

In WvW, this is actually counter-productive with offensive skills, since it makes numbers matter way more. Gather enough allies, and damage will get spread evenly among them. If the cap was raised for offensive skills in WvW, wise use of siege and tactics would matter more on assaults that sheer numbers.
But for healing, it’s fine for WvW, since it prevents a few support players healing tons.

Hologramx.6402:

I am not sure how it works with pets/minions or clones. If they are counted in the 5, it can be a problem in dungeons. I hope they don’t count pet/minions/clone as that five. Might as well make the restriction work in WvW only because it is supposed to counter the turtle strategy in WvW.

Sadly pets, costume brawl pets, companions, minions, clones, mistfire wolf, 2 hounds of balthazar each, all summons, invulnerable NPCs and so on – they all steal buffs and heals.

nachodragon.8159:

Healing Rain is not limited to 5, nor is the blast finisher of Arcane Wave with a water spell. I don’t have screen shots but I definitely saw a number of heals during the Ancient Karka fight when I laid down some Healing Rain.

Can someone confirm whether this is correct or not?

Thanks for the replies. The balancing the healing affects against damage which only hits 5 targets makes sense, though I didn’t know ‘that’ was in place either (which is what I get for missing meetings).

Were the damaging spells always that way, or did that spawn out of a need to balance that against something else? Melee vs casting maybe? I thought there was something about the 5 person and AoE damage that made them change that. I had till now assumed it was to undo that restriction, but was the issue something else?

Side question for both damage and healing. Does it pick the 5 targets at the beginning of the spell, if it has a duration, and stick with those 5 targets for the duration? So if I rain down fire in an area, does it register the first 5 targets, and stick with those targets for the duration, even if they move out of the area and someone else moves in? Same with healing (assuming it turns out that the big area heal of an Elementalist on the staff – I forget the name – also follows the same rules), does it pick the 5 at the start, pick a new 5 per tick? If it’s per tick, I’m starting to see why there might be an issue with stacking to ‘disperse’ the impact of an area attack.

Each tick it’ll pick targets again if there’s more than 5 targets and anyone moves inside it or leaves them.

For skills that affect allies, the caster will always be a target if they are inside the area.

This is actually funny, cause me and one of my guild mates had argument yesterday talking about this.

I was never aware of this, not even that my damage/snare/slow spells only effect 5 mobs in the area. So if I pull 10 mobs only 5 of them i will be able to kite. I think this is beyond stupid but well, as my guildie told me (and they always end argument like this), this is GW2 its different, deal with it.

In addition to that, no spell really in GW2 can be called AOE. Its a multi target (5 in particular) spell. Real AOE spell would effect everything in the area, not just selected targets.

Dont even get me started on what happens when you have 10 players moving inside some area, someone drops damage “AOE” on them and one puts “AOE” heal there. Ppl keep moving, some are getting healed, some are dont, those who are getting dmg might not necessarily getting healed…its a bad design.

My solution would be, if there are more than 5 mobs in the area, the damage per mob would be decreased to still match the same overall spell damage output but all mobs would be affected by it, not just selected 5.

Someone said healing rain is not limited to 5

I would really like to know if that is true

It doesn’t affect PvE at all so this change most likely was for WvW.

Considering that damaging AoE and buffs/boons only hit 5 people, the healing change makes sense. It was probably not intended to to unlimited healing.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

It doesn’t affect PvE at all so this change most likely was for WvW.

Considering that damaging AoE and buffs/boons only hit 5 people, the healing change makes sense. It was probably not intended to to unlimited healing.

How does this not effect PvE at all? Elaborate please.
Its not AOE then its multitarget heal. This is effecting PvE as much as it does any other aspect of the game. And not in a good way.