Core problem with Burst

Core problem with Burst

in PvP

Posted by: lordhelmos.7623

lordhelmos.7623

The problem is compounded by the lack of punishment for failing a burst and the ability to burst through active defense.

In order games bursts are either:

1.) Highly telegraphed or only executable when the player has primed the enemy with a strong set of pre-requisites (such as pre-stacking high vulnerability, getting them to a health threshold, hitting with a hard to land chain of skills, baiting them into an obvious but strong cc or trap, long wind-up skill, etc.)
2.) Come with tradeoffs for missing or failing to kill the target (such as WoW thief losing stealth and not being able to apply it in combat without burning a long recharge CD)
3.) Burst classes usually must trade active defense for high burst

This is not a new problem. This game has been plagued by problems like these since day 1:

1.) Idiotic burst with no penalty (ability to burst from stealth, non-telegraphed bursts based on auto-procs that take no skill to setup such as homing missing/fire sigil/air sigil).
2.) Ability to use burst abilities while in an active defense (WoW paladin bubble reduces outgoing damage when invul but dumb stuff happens in this game like rangers shooting off rapid fire while in signet of stone for 9k).

Burst should always be high risk high reward. There is no issue with burst builds, they are a healthy part of any competitive game. The problem is the ability to burst with no risk and not pay for it when you mess up.

So this leads us to this problem of players going full glass because why not? There’s no penalty for bursting through active defense. Players can go glass and stack so much active defense or stealth that they can burst and still have strong survival.

Players should be forced to make intelligent decisions on when to defend and when to attack. They should be rewarded for bursting through key windows of weakness in the enemy, not going invul/stealth and just bursting whenever they want through short CDs or chained active defenses until one hits.

Examples of better designed bursts are things like killshot, which is highly telegraphed and puts the warrior in huge risk by forcing them to be stationary. Moving can interrupt the burst so if pressured the warrior is forced off the offense.

Examples of bad bursts are things like stealth burst in general, with stealth being on such low CD there is no risk. You can screw up and just try over and over until the enemy dies. Even worse if you really mess up you can just rest the whole fight.

Examples of good active defense is Renewed Focus, which grants the guardian invul but they are stuck in an animation and can’t attack. They trade offense for defense, which is a cornerstone of balance 101. Any ability that lets you do high damage from the safety of impenetrable defense is inherently broken. Other games have figured this out, which is why you don’t see shield lancers in TERA blocking and striking with high damage at the same time.

BRAINSTORMED IDEAS ON HOW TO FIX THIS:

1.) Invulnerability skills reduce outgoing damage or have some sort of attached penalty. The only exceptions are auto proc invuls such as defy pain where the player can’t control the trigger. I don’t have a problem with autoproc defenses at low health thresholds because these moreover act as a indicator that says hey your in to deep you need to either GTFO or go all in. These should be few and far between, majority of active defense should be player controlled and force the player to choose between attack and defense to promote skillful play.

2.) Transformations such as Lich and Rampage drain all endurance. You give up your dodge for temporary godmode, so you can be focused and killed.

3.) Autoproc high damage skills (homing rocket, sigils of air/fire) get a heavy handed nerf or have their effects changed to put them more in line with pressure damage. High damage burst should be something player controlled, not a compilation of RNG based skills that blow up players when the planets align. This is not skillful play.

4.) Stealth used defensively is fine, there needs to be some sort of punishment or control that prevents players from constantly re-stealthing and bursting over and over. By nature stealth should be a defensive tool. I don’t want to nerf the defensive properties of stealth because thieves and mesmers need it for survival, but they should not be able to abused it a high number of times in a fight as an offensive tool with no counter. Some smart guy at Anet has to fix it because I can’t think of a solution and anything I say would just incite pages of forum rage.

(edited by lordhelmos.7623)

Core problem with Burst

in PvP

Posted by: P Fun Daddy.1208

P Fun Daddy.1208

I would say, for conversation’s sake, that a good example of a balanced burst spec would be old fresh air ele (not certain about the new one).
If they didn’t all-in you they were a vulnerable glass cannon with acceptable sustained damage and mediocre utility. If they did all-in, they could down pretty much anyone instantly, but then had no disengage or sustained damage potential, so the best they could do was pick off targets with bad positioning. On the flipside, if someone mitigated their burst, they were done, and that was their biggest risk.
And now you have the copy-pasted mesmer build that everyone’s running, with huge baseline active defenses (distortion) and extremely low cooldowns on their burst (unless you happened to go mimic, but that’s blatant overkill for pretty much anything), in addition to high cc and stealth.
Usually, the point of tanky builds in a teamfight is the synergy between them and squishy builds, in that they have at least some capacity for shoring up the inherent weaknesses of a team-oriented damage dealer, but current burst classes completely remove that synergy by easily removing squishies without that interference.