Guild Wars 2

This was a pretty monumental change that happened a few months back, and while there was some rage about it at the time, there hasn’t been much discussion about it since. So let’s get some going:

What do you think, is allowing immobilize to stack duration instead of overwriting the previous application good or bad for the game?

Personally I don’t think the idea itself is awful, if immobilize were difficult to apply. Immobilize is massively powerful: it not only locks your target in place allowing you to more easily burst, but it prevents the target from using their dodge rolls. Right now it’s very easy to spam immobilize and cover condis across numerous classes, and condi cleanses are much less readily available than immobilize applicators. This makes immobilize cheesy; it doesn’t take a lot of talent to spam your immobilizes on recharge then beat your target’s face in while he can’t defend himself.

In my opinion there are two options to make immobilize a much more interesting mechanic: do a comprehensive balance of immobilize across the board causing it to be more difficult and less common to apply or allow players to dodge roll in place while immobilize. We’re seeing some of the former in the balance patch with nerfs to Warrior Longbow and Engineer Net Turret, which is good. The latter option, of course, would be much easier but would also remove a massive chunk of what makes immobilize so powerful.

What are your thoughts?

Is bad.

/15 chars

I wouldn’t mind if it broke on direct damage (not conditions).

Immobilize stacking is fine in concept.

First, fix the bug with removing immobilize sometimes not following the LIFO rules. Possibly make it last to apply for abilities that apply multiple conditions.

Then look at skills that apply immobilize and balance the duration and cooldown with how easy it is to avoid: how long or obvious is the telegraph, are youable to move out of projectile patch, etc. In WvW, address +condi duration food.

The only real problem build with this is MM Necromancer and Thieves in WvW.

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Leave immobilize stacking alone!!!! I can finally immobilize bosses in PvE!

you PvP’ers are soo spoil by Anet!! At least let us have this in PvE!

google.3709:

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Leave immobilize stacking alone!!!! I can finally immobilize bosses in PvE!

you PvP’ers are soo spoil by Anet!! At least let us have this in PvE!

Isn’t there a thing called skill splitting?

It is good overall, cause it one of few skillshots this games PVP has.
You need too coordinate good immob chain from one team and coordinate helping the immobilized person from other team to survive.
Things like these make PVP better and differentiate average teams from good teams.
Ofcourse with lack of competition we dont see such things yet and mostly teams just coordinate which point to take and which player to DPS.

Now as Exedore said they should look at skills separately, because some of ways to apply immob are almost impossible to avoid.

Leeto.1570:

It is good overall, cause it one of few skillshots this games PVP has.
You need too coordinate good immob chain from one team and coordinate helping the immobilized person from other team to survive.
Things like these make PVP better and differentiate average teams from good teams.
Ofcourse with lack of competition we dont see such things yet and mostly teams just coordinate which point to take and which player to DPS.

Now as Exedore said they should look at skills separately, because some of ways to apply immob are almost impossible to avoid.

This isn’t true at all… Before they introduced immob stacking it was possible to still stack immob, except you actually had to be careful about what immob you used and when since it would override it.

Now it’s all about throwing as much immobilize as humanly possible and kill the target.

It’s a horrendous change and has always been regarded as such. There is no point to it in PvP and there’s no legitimate reason for the change. It has been bad for the game since they added it and they should have removed it in PvP a LONG time ago…

Ostricheggs.3742:

Leeto.1570:

It is good overall, cause it one of few skillshots this games PVP has.
You need too coordinate good immob chain from one team and coordinate helping the immobilized person from other team to survive.
Things like these make PVP better and differentiate average teams from good teams.
Ofcourse with lack of competition we dont see such things yet and mostly teams just coordinate which point to take and which player to DPS.

Now as Exedore said they should look at skills separately, because some of ways to apply immob are almost impossible to avoid.

This isn’t true at all… Before they introduced immob stacking it was possible to still stack immob, except you actually had to be careful about what immob you used and when since it would override it.

Now it’s all about throwing as much immobilize as humanly possible and kill the target.

It’s a horrendous change and has always been regarded as such. There is no point to it in PvP and there’s no legitimate reason for the change. It has been bad for the game since they added it and they should have removed it in PvP a LONG time ago…

Someone spamming immobilize is much easier to fight than someone timing it, which they should do even with the stacking.

Ostricheggs.3742:

Leeto.1570:

It is good overall, cause it one of few skillshots this games PVP has.
You need too coordinate good immob chain from one team and coordinate helping the immobilized person from other team to survive.
Things like these make PVP better and differentiate average teams from good teams.
Ofcourse with lack of competition we dont see such things yet and mostly teams just coordinate which point to take and which player to DPS.

Now as Exedore said they should look at skills separately, because some of ways to apply immob are almost impossible to avoid.

This isn’t true at all… Before they introduced immob stacking it was possible to still stack immob, except you actually had to be careful about what immob you used and when since it would override it.

Now it’s all about throwing as much immobilize as humanly possible and kill the target.

It’s a horrendous change and has always been regarded as such. There is no point to it in PvP and there’s no legitimate reason for the change. It has been bad for the game since they added it and they should have removed it in PvP a LONG time ago…

100% agree

I think anet already said they think about majority of players, and majority of players dont coordinate CC, so of course they changed immobilize stacking so majority of players can do it and not only those who us teamspeak.

If i have 4 second immobilize then i actually expect to get off 4 second immobilize and dont want some clumsy player replace it with 2 second immobilize.

And its not like applying next immobilize as late as possible isnt better than dropping them all at start and risk the whole stack beeing removed.

If immobilize wasn’t always the last condition to be removed, I wouldn’t mind so much. However it’s always cleansed as the lowest priority which makes it very annoying and strong.

I feel like it would be better if immobilze overrode itself, but only if the new immobilize duration is longer than the remaining duration, otherwise leave the duration of the existing immobilize.

Thief sword 2 for example could actually be harmful to use because it’s a 1 second immobilize, and if there’s 2 seconds remaining, you would potentially shoot yourself in the foot by applying it.

Added:
This behavior for PvP only, as other have pointed out in PvE some monsters reduce immobilize duration, and it’d be helpful to continue allowing it to stack there.

Bad

Leeto.1570:

I think anet already said they think about majority of players, and majority of players dont coordinate CC, so of course they changed immobilize stacking so majority of players can do it and not only those who us teamspeak.

What makes you think they did it for PvP

In PvE champs and bosses reduce immobalize duration by 50%, and without stacking. It’s pretty an uselessness condition! Not even a coordinated zerg could keep a boss immobilized without stacking!

google.3709:

Leeto.1570:

I think anet already said they think about majority of players, and majority of players dont coordinate CC, so of course they changed immobilize stacking so majority of players can do it and not only those who us teamspeak.

What makes you think they did it for PvP

In PvE champs and bosses reduce immobalize duration by 50%, and without stacking. It’s pretty an uselessness condition! Not even a coordinated zerg could keep a boss immobilized without stacking!

I dont know man i dont play PVE that much but so far havent had any encounter where you stack something else beside players.
But i sure remember reading people crying about override immobs on pvp forums.

Acandis.3250:

What LIFO rules? condi cleanse doesn’t work like that. never has, [probably] never will.

From my experience, the condition(s) removed are the ones that most recently had a stack applied. That’s why bleeding is removed so reliably. It doesn’t seem to work properly with immobilize some of the time.

I’ll grab sometime to test it later today.

stack immobilization is best change in the last year

Evilek.5690:

stack immobilization is best change in the last year

Care to elaborate?

Immob stacking is bad because it takes less skill and coordination to spam them on top of each other compared to timing them. Also, there’s too many issues with removing it. Can’t reliably remove it unless you have full cleanse or specialty skills such as rocket boots.

I try to run skills that allow me to either break immobilize or go invulnerable to deal with punishment when I’m immobilized. do y’all feel like having defensive skills to combat immobilize stacks is a burden to certain builds?

“New” immobilize stacking is horrible.

It was one of the countless reasons I got frustrated and quit. Old way was working and no one was really seeing anything wrong with it but somehow devs had this bright idea to change it. There was some skills which had too long and some too short durations but otherwise it was actually working much better than this new kittycat thing.

It should have never stacked.

Yep horrible and since it’s a condition often you get that and a stun on you in the same time = dead.

IF and ONLY IF, all immobilized were “skill shot” that the player needs to aim at the ground and you for some reason stay in for over the duration of the first pulse it should be reapplied. pretty much how stuns work, static field for example.
Or at least aim the projectile in the direction.

But hot target click a button and then another to auto lock on some is very lame.
been playing a warrior in the last few days that isn’t even a 80 yet in wvw. i was able to kill / get players killed just by immobilizing them and stunning. and if it wasn’t another warrior / guard = auto dead.

Plus the amazing immobilize the downed ele just before he used mist from and “oh still rooted in place”.

P.S. i don’t really get what you would make them change some of the core abilities that some classes abuse, but they trying to fix it by changing cds and timers which won’t change anything besides if you would get a stack of defiance for few secs after you had “control effect” so you will be able to have the condition removal abilities picked to use.

Bad.

Individual applications of Immobilize and Fear should “overlap” instead “stack”.

Remember how each separate instance of bleed or vulnerability has their own duration in a stack?

They should work like that, but without getting increased intensity and the number that comes with it.

• Each application of these conditions would last for its full individual duration.
• They all would be removed together.
• So there would be no benefit from applying them all at the same time. Teams, parties and squads would have to time themselves to avoid wasting them by applying them at the same time, and instead do it consecutively.

Something similar should happen with dazes and stuns. Remember how sometimes dazes will replace stuns? Instead, they should overlap too, giving priority to stuns, so when a stun ends and there was a daze “under” it, the daze does its thing fir the remainder of its duration.

Oh, and NPCs can turn around while immobilized. That should not happen, PvP or not. NPCs should follow the same basic mechanics as players. That’s also why unshakable should be replaced with an universal anti-spam autobalance mechanic that scales with creature rank and also works on players.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Bad.

Individual applications of Immobilize and Fear should “overlap” instead “stack”.

Remember how each separate instance of bleed or vulnerability has their own duration in a stack?

Because vulnerability and bleed is on 5-15+sec and stack effect and Immobilized is only on 1-3 sec and not stack effect ? Immobilization has only 3x stack, vulnerability and bleed 25x stack

They should work like that, but without getting increased intensity and the number that comes with it.

• Each would last for their full individual duration.
• They all would be removed together.
• But there would be no benefit from applying them all at the same time. Teams, parties and squads would have to time themselves to avoid wasting them by applying them at the same time, and instead do it consecutively.

---

Something similar should happen with dazes and stuns. Remember how sometimes dazes will replace stuns? Instead, they should overlap too, giving priority to stuns, so when a stun ends and there was a daze “under” it, the daze does its thing fir the remainder of its duration.

---

Oh, and NPCs can turn around while immobilized. That should not happen, PvP or not. NPCs should follow the same basic mechanics as players. That’s also why unshakable should be replaced with an universal anti-spam autobalance mechanic that scales with creature rank and also works on players.

B.A.D.

nine chars.

Every condition either stacks in intensity or duration. Immobilise is a condition, therefore it should apply to the laws and rules that govern all conditions in game. It cannot be stacked in intensity, therefore it has to be duration. It makes perfect sense..even if at times it becomes annoying and ugly to have to deal with.

For Pve good, for PVP among the worst ideas ever.

I think it was good. I find that it adds play. Do I stack and take the risk of both being cleansed or separate them so that if one gets cleared I still have one?

Personally, I think it’s a bit of a L2P issue, I think it adds some flavor to combat. Now, I don’t REALLY think it should stack more than say… 6-8 seconds at a time, but you should really have enough condi removal to cover that and clear immobs faster before they get too covered up.

I’m completely against it in PvP/WvW - it should at most refresh the stack with the highest duration condition (so not overwrite a 4s with a 1s), as folks have said above.

The sheer amount of condi flying around any battlefield, along with the inability to dodge while immobilised, make it an incredibly powerful condition that will usually last its full duration anyway. It’s difficult enough to deal with and easy enough to apply that it doesn’t need any stacking to be very effective.