When I first got into GW2 I was really exited about the PvP because from the outside it looked like skill was a huge factor. I thought that unlike in other mmos, if I was really good, I could take on several people at once and still win. I thought that with enough skill, I would be able to even take on three people at once and still win.
Well now that I’ve gotten pretty good at PvPing I’ve realized that I was completely dead kittening wrong. Just in a two vs one scenario, unless both of your enemies are complete and utter dip kittens, you cannot 2v1. Now why is that? The answer is the downed state.
If the down state was simply a state at which you were able to be revived by a teamate and nothing else, I would be fine with that. However Anet doesn’t stop at just that. They decided that it was a good idea to not only give everyone extremely strong abilities in the down state, but even decent damage. We’ll take the most extreme case of the Revenant as an example. This class can hit for 1k damage per attack (which is quite fast) and also permanently slows you while doing so. On top of this, when you manage to get close to stomping him, he can knock you incredibly far away while putting 5 stacks of torment. Don’t get me started on their 3rd ability. Now imagine trying to stomp this opponent while any other class in riding your butt with massive damage and cc (because you’re not dodging).
Yes there are some gimiky ways to down someone such as invuln and stability, but not everyone has these abilities and more than likely they will be on cooldown from fighting the opponent you’re now trying to stomp. However, even with this gimiky stomp, several classes such as thief, mesmer, and elementalist, can say “kitten you” with their 2 abilites and foil your stomp.
I love this game’s PvP and I love having good team play, but the down state just feels WAY too strong for a downed state. I mean come on…if someone lost all of their HP, give them some consequences for crying out loud. In the case of the Revenent I swear he is stronger while DOWNED than while he is up (although Rev is pretty broken if played right while up).
I don’t care about PvE all that much to be honest, so keep the downstate if people like it in PvE, but it needs to be changed in PvP. The way it is now, you cannot 2v1 unless you are just fighting really really awful players.
TL : DR – Downed state is too strong and makes 2v1’s nearly impossible against somewhat competent players. This diminishes the value of skill. Players need to be a lot more helpless in downed state.
Disagree with me? Give me some feedback on why you think being so powerful while downed is a good thing? Just in a non-flaming manner please