Guild Wars 2

There are 3 factors affecting stomps, stability, stealth, quickness.

Stability
Offensive: Stomp 5 classes (provided that they are not stealthed or ressed up)
Defensive: Allows active player to res the downed player uninterrupted
Stealth
Offensive: Stomp classes with targeted interrupts and mesmers (4)
Defensive: Protect the downed player from being stomped
Quickness
Offensive: reduces cast time of stomp, from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds
Defensive: doubles res channel speed

I could dwell deeper into the balance between these factors, but this isn’t the focus

CLICK THE TABLE
http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/659/classtable.jpg

From the table you can see that necros and engineers are the only classes that can be both stability and stealth stomped, and are unable to provide res assistance for allies.

I’ll be comparing the 3 classes in their respective groups, avoiding stomps and interrupting stomps.

Elementalist
When dealing with classes that can avoid a stomp, the most effective way is to damage the corpse. Due to the net time being faster than attempting the stomp twice (in most cases), also the damage makes it harder for opposing team to res the player.

However when it comes to the elementalist, mist form resets the ele to original downed health, rendering the damage useless. This is the crucial balance between classes that are able to avoid stomps instead of interrupting them, being able to damage them with significance keeps them balanced. Also, mist form allows the ele to move in downstate. This could be used to move onto a point, closer to allies, into a Aoe res, etc.

Thieves and mesmers do more damage (quite a bit more, dem air runes) in their down states, yet in no way does the damage compensate for the self healing and movement capability of mistform. Where being able to res a player up from down state, will change the outcome of the fight.

Necros and Engineers
Comparing necros and engineers within their group, warriors are the only other class with a single target interrupt. Rangers and guardians both have an AOE interrupt, and a delayed res assist. Warriors have vengeance, the strongest downed state skill in the game. Providing the warrior 15 secs of freedom to res/stomp/warbanner, not to mention a chance to rally if you stomp someone.

Engineers are able to semi chain interrupts on one target, only if the stomper wastes 2+seconds before each stomp, which all can be nullified by stability. Necros are the same, the only arguable benefit the aoe poison gives is the healing reduction. The lack of res assist, stomp avoidance, aoe interrupts, results in the two classes that are absolutely underpowered in down state.

Suggestions
Elementalist’s health does not reset during downstate mistform
Necro’s fear is aoe
Necro’s poison removes 1 random boon as well ??? (op? rng not good for game?)
Engineer’s 2nd and 3rd skill are swapped
Engineer’s 1st skill only applies bleeding, poison, burning, confusion?

Engineer’s 2nd skill is a very strong spell, as it is able to interrupt resses by blasting the downed state player away, or out of the point (securing a cap or neutralizing a point). Engineer’s auto attack currently applies random conditions on foes, it would really help the class’s 1v1 downstate by only applying damaging conditions on foes.

Necros being given the ability to remove 1 boon from enemies could be too good (if they remove stability obviously), but everyone normally has more than 1 boon, when they activate stability.

?
Why do you think warrior’s vengeance doesn’t need a nerf?
In the current “metagame” warriors aren’t that strong due to lack of condition removal, no ranged support, a thief can do just about everything and more. I would complain however, if they are stronger in the scene

Since necro’s #3 ability starts with a 20second cooldown, I don’t see how the ability to strip a boon would help them. An instant suicide button with no cooldown would be better then being on the ground for 20+ seconds.

When you say necros and engies "cannot provide rez assistance to thier allies, you could not be more wrong. Necromancer has a signet called Signet of Undeath which can be very powerful and rez multiple team mates. The Engineer has Elixir R, when thrown at the right time, can even let the engi self rez as well as assist his allies.

@Dibrom if everyone had that ablity, no one will be able to give 20second respawns

@Mindlessruff im talking about during the downstate, where the class only has 4 skills

Necro is very weak in downed state, but does well with stomping and reviving if you have mark of revival and stability via deathshroud. Also, there are a lot of other factors involved such as abilities that give you block or blind enemies.

For example, when I can’t deathshroud for stability on my necro to stomp I will put down a blind field on top of the downed player (when appropriate). On my guardian, when my stability was down I’d pop block to help secure stomps or revives.

Good start to discussing downed state balance, however.

As an engineer, I would not really classify our downstate as weak. Yes the #2 is weaker than some other classes, but our #3 is pretty strong, and the combo of #2 and #3 is stronger than most other classes abilities to stop stomps.

Blind stomp
Teleport stomp
Aegis stomp

Vayyy.5420

@Mindlessruff im talking about during the downstate, where the class only has 4 skills

Not sure what you mean by that with resepect to rez assistance. You can’t stability or quickness from downed state. However, it is possible to give nearby teammates those buffs right before you get downed.

What do you mean by rez assistance? I’m sure he thought you were talking about what people can do to help rez OTHER players, as did I.

You’re neglecting that once elementalists have used their mist form, theyre out, next stomp cant be stopped and its game over. Other classes have more hope on reaching #3. Theres a lot more variables than youre choosing to see.

I don’t think it’s a necessity that all downstates are (equally) balanced. I’d even consider it to be ‘fun’. As long as in the big picture classes are balanced it’s all good. I don’t have many gripes with the current downed abilities, except that ele’s effectively get healed when they use mistform. No random kitten buffs needed.

@Marduh, these aren’t reliable methods to ensure a stomp, even a signet/instant cast blind can fail

@Oozo, by res assistance i mean that it would be easier to res guardians with their 3 spell, and rangers with their 3 spell, as these are able to heal them without channeling 4.

@Weapon X, regardless of double down state, mist form is still too strong. Im not whining about how hard pvp is, im just pointing out how overpowered mistform is….

@Kilger, yes thats true, but being able to avoid the first stomp, resetting your health and moving next to your allies, is enough to be op

@Doctor Orderly MD PhD DDS, i think the downstate have to have variety, but they definitely have to be balanced

The only way blind stomping fails is when they auto attack instead of interrupting.

Necro fear gives you 2 seconds to get your blind off, vs the fraction of a second for ranger, and the 1 second for engineer.

So I agree necro needs a boost; either a faster fear or fear that ignores (corrupts) stability.

it’s not necessary or even desirable to have equivalent down states. just like it’s not necessary to have equivalent dps or healing or whatever. (let’s give every class a portal ability!)

the classes all need to be generally viable and usable, beyond that it’s not good to make them equivalent.

although perhaps I would support the ability to customize your down state a bit more with traits and stuff. maybe every class has 8 or so possible down state skills, that they can choose 4 from? or slot 2&3 has 3 alternatives to pick from.

Vapor Form makes the downed state health drop faster. It usually doesn’t do much other than delaying (a single time) you from stomping them. Vapor Form only becomes truly strong with allies around.

@Rieselle, not equivalent, but you need to achieve both variety and balance. By being able to customize your down state, first it’ll be too much information for new players, and secondly everyone will just spec for vengeance

@DiogoSIlva, that single delay is good enough to mess up the whole team fight. In high level play, players will be next to the ele when his mist form ends, and instantly get him up

Dibrom.6408:

Since necro’s #3 ability starts with a 20second cooldown, I don’t see how the ability to strip a boon would help them. An instant suicide button with no cooldown would be better then being on the ground for 20+ seconds.

Lol 500 hours of Necro and I approve this user 100% haha suicide !

On a more serious note. Why the kitten did they make such obviously broken imbalanced down states to people ?

Suicide button would prevent the enemy from downing you and just chilaxin beside your downed state, holding you out of the fight for 20 seconds till you die or try to heal (which they interrupt).

@TGSlasher being able to timer (giving a 20second respawn) someone is part of the game, the suicide button will just make that useless. Assuming that everyone knows the spawn timers 18/38/58

Not every class has to do everything the same well.
I could care less about the lil specifics of the downed state, you typically only go there after kittening up and it rarely tends to change the course of a fight.
(short of a warrior living for 11~ seconds to vengeance, but meh I think its kinda nifty having some threat from it on occasion)

TGSlasher.1458:

Suicide button would prevent the enemy from downing you and just chilaxin beside your downed state, holding you out of the fight for 20 seconds till you die or try to heal (which they interrupt).

That would be pretty powerful in competitive play.
But terrible in pug.
Allot of people in tournies wait for the rez timer to just pass before finishing someone off (so its the longest respawn possible).

Assuming “high skill level” (read: ability to click your interact key as soon as the enemy is downed), it’s evident that some downed states allow greater survability from the moment the player is downed. For example, an engineer cannot survive against more than 1 player trying to stomp them as soon as they are downed. Some professions however can immediately evade or travel to avoid multi-stomping.

Vayyy "Marduh, these aren’t reliable methods to ensure a stomp, even a signet/instant cast blind can fail"
There is no sure fire way of getting a stomp off, other than a mist form stomp (perhaps some other uniques)
Stability can be converted to fear, stealth can be aoe knockback’d, quickness just needs quicker reactions.
Also, you’ve said that theif and mesmer can avoid their first stomp, which is untrue. The only class in the game that can 100% avoid the initial stomp from any class, is elementalist.

BigTeeHunter.4913:

Also, you’ve said that theif and mesmer can avoid their first stomp, which is untrue. The only class in the game that can 100% avoid the initial stomp from any class, is elementalist.

The situations where a thief or mesmer are unable to avoid a first stomp are very rare. Technically, their stomp avoiding abilities are worse than that of elementalists, but it’s not unreasonable to put them on the same tier when considering practical use.

BigTeeHunter.4913:

@Vayyy
Stability can be converted to fear, stealth can be aoe knockback’d, quickness just needs quicker reactions.
Also, you’ve said that theif and mesmer can avoid their first stomp, which is untrue. The only class in the game that can 100% avoid the initial stomp from any class, is elementalist.

Having boons stripped while stomping from things like ‘corrupt boons’ and ‘null field’ isn’t common at all.
Quickness resurrects people exceedingly fast and finishes people in a number of cases before a rez can get off.
Mesmers always avoid the first stomp because of stealth.
Thieves avoid about 90% of the first stomps.

@Bigtee no even mistform stomp isn’t surefire, as the corpse can be blown away by one of your teammates (Big ol bomb), but the exmaples i listed are the optimal ways that the stomp will happen.

@garethh you can stomp mesmers in stealth (can’t use their 2nd skill with no target) and you are able to “delay stomp” the mesmer, so the stomp goes through right when the mesmer pops out from stealth (difficult to do/avoidable).

Dejh.5971:

BigTeeHunter.4913:

Also, you’ve said that theif and mesmer can avoid their first stomp, which is untrue. The only class in the game that can 100% avoid the initial stomp from any class, is elementalist.

The situations where a thief or mesmer are unable to avoid a first stomp are very rare. Technically, their stomp avoiding abilities are worse than that of elementalists, but it’s not unreasonable to put them on the same tier when considering practical use.

Thieves: Teleport
Mesmer: Stagger

Elementalists, even if you get a perfect stagger, will still not be down by the time it finishes. Staggering can be done by all professions. Teleports, off the top of my head, are available to at least the four most played professions in tPvP. Please, tell me more about how rare these situations are.

On another note I don’t think was covered, Elementalists have the only downed state that bother counters stability and contributes to capping the point with 100% reliability. That is where the true imbalance lies. If their form didn’t contribute to the point like stealth or even vengeance does, then Elementalists would have at most a minor annoyance rather than have a potentially game changing impact.

@larynx, tbh its extremely rare that i would waste a teleport/blink skill for a stomp on a thief, becasue that skill is usually so important for me to survive. Regardless, dpsing thieves in downstate is the most effective way to kill them.

“delayed stomp” for mesmers is a not something you can pull off consistently, sometimes they just teleport too far away.

Larynx.2453:

Dejh.5971:

BigTeeHunter.4913:

Also, you’ve said that theif and mesmer can avoid their first stomp, which is untrue. The only class in the game that can 100% avoid the initial stomp from any class, is elementalist.

The situations where a thief or mesmer are unable to avoid a first stomp are very rare. Technically, their stomp avoiding abilities are worse than that of elementalists, but it’s not unreasonable to put them on the same tier when considering practical use.

Thieves: Teleport
Mesmer: Stagger

Elementalists, even if you get a perfect stagger, will still not be down by the time it finishes. Staggering can be done by all professions. Teleports, off the top of my head, are available to at least the four most played professions in tPvP. Please, tell me more about how rare these situations are.

On another note I don’t think was covered, Elementalists have the only downed state that bother counters stability and contributes to capping the point with 100% reliability. That is where the true imbalance lies. If their form didn’t contribute to the point like stealth or even vengeance does, then Elementalists would have at most a minor annoyance rather than have a potentially game changing impact.

No, the counter to mesmer downed state is stealth. If there are NO available targets, the mesmer is unable to stealth. Essentially the only time this will occur is when fighting a solo thief. Trying to time your stomp until they leave stealth is very unreliable, as you don’t know where they will be.

To stomp a thief on your first try, you need a teleport that brings you to the target, and can be used without interrupting an action. Only thief can do this without the use of a utility slot, and there is a good chance that their steal will not be ready for a stomp, as the majority use it in the spike. Guardian can do it easily, but at the cost of a utility slot. Unless the guardian is building for meditations, it’s usually not used. You’re far more likely to see 2 shouts+<consecration/spirit weapon/third shout>.

Mesmer and elementalist are more likely to have a teleport equipped and ready to use. However, these are ground targeted. If the thief waits until the last moment before teleporting away (as they should), it’s often difficult to aim the skills in time. It can be done, but takes either a good prediction, or very fast reflexes.

So yes, I would say that it’s rare to see a thief or mesmer stomped on the first try.

You’re absolutely right that vapor form should not contribute to point captures, though. Other invulnerabilities (besides runes of Svanir) don’t, so I would assume that property to be a bug.

You forgot to mention that mist form is instant cast and cannot be interrupted. All classes bar the thief can be forced into a stomp with no resistance by launching them and then instantly starting the stomp. With the elementalist, he has an instant cast that lets him move and heals him to original downed state.

Mist form was obviously designed as a 3 skill. Please rebalance it to be on par with a 2 skill. Give it a casting time, and don’t have it change health.

Necromancers and Engineers definitely have the most underpowered down states. You can be blinded, blocked, double stomped, or stability stomped, and we have no downed state mobility to avoid people just spamming damaging skills on us while we’re down. Not to mention that the 3 skill on necromancer is absolutely horrendous. The poison duration is rather lengthy, but how the hell is that going to help me or my team? Unless the 1 skill was modified to do something special to poisoned opponents.

necros can be pretty powerful ressers made a movie about it

if you want to see it for yourself

By self-rez, the OP means the 3 skill on downed state, not a utility slot rez. Please read the entire post first.

ah ok my bad then necros are indeed in a ship of their own then yea.. altho having played necro for quite a bit there s barely any down battle i loose vs any class tho when im specced power that is once the poison field is there it beats most downed state vs battles.. except ofc the warriors..

so it isnt all that bad.

Downed state vs. Downed state, Necromancer is definitely in a good place. The only autoattack which actually heals, and a poison field to deal with enemies that can heal themselves in downed, such as ranger and guardian.

But personally, I think downed v. downed is less of a problem than just downed v. player right now.

It’s my hope that Anet just streamlines downed state abilities to work similarly to each other rather than spending too much time balancing a minigame.

Just to throw this in there, you can put immobilize on an ele and it will solve the movement problem. I agree that health should not reset though.

Don’t stomp them. It’s more fun to interrupt them everytime they try to heal. Just interrupt them, walk away. 10 secs later, interrupt them walk away. When you get an entire team to downstate you have won the match =)

And it makes good lulz

@barti, yea im talking about the down state comparison, although the skills must also be balanced around the class and its theme, thats why im not complaining about warriors atm

@Aegael, yea basically the only use of the poison duration is to reduce the healing/ressing that can be done on players. This does contribute to the stomping/ressing game, but certainly not enough. Mistform being able to become invulnerable is a good enough defensive, the heal back really just makes it ridiculously overpowered.

@tOss, with even an immobilize, you would need a perfect delayed stomp (assuming your immobilize lasts for more than 3 seconds), in an extremely hectic teamfight it would be hard to get the stomp off.

@tOss, with even an immobilize, you would need a perfect delayed stomp (assuming your immobilize lasts for more than 3 seconds), in an extremely hectic teamfight it would be hard to get the stomp off.

It is much more troublesome to re locate a mesmer or a thief if the teleport/delay misses or is on CD than to sit and wait for a helpless ele to fall back under your feet. We aren’t even a threat on the ground as opposed to many other classes.

Vayyy.5420:

@TGSlasher being able to timer (giving a 20second respawn) someone is part of the game, the suicide button will just make that useless. Assuming that everyone knows the spawn timers 18/38/58

And

garethh.3518:

TGSlasher.1458:

Suicide button would prevent the enemy from downing you and just chilaxin beside your downed state, holding you out of the fight for 20 seconds till you die or try to heal (which they interrupt).

That would be pretty powerful in competitive play.
But terrible in pug.
Allot of people in tournies wait for the rez timer to just pass before finishing someone off (so its the longest respawn possible).

Not sure if either of you read past the “suicide button”, but this is basically what I was saying, suicide button would be bad for tpvp.

Upon re-reading my post, it sounds like I’m for the suicide button, that’s not the case. Now to get those silly people in pug tourneys to stop finishing foes

Its not about how much a threat you are on the ground, its about how easy it is to get you up in a teamfight, which generally happens in a tourney game.

IMO you should take into account haste/frenzy revive. I find that to be the most effective.