Guild Wars 2

So when you’re stuck in a giant clustered mess on a control point where everyone is taking lots of AoE damage, classes who can just become effectively immune to all damage for an extended period of time have a huge advantage.

General survivability (protection, toughness, armor, weakness, etc) scales in effectiveness with the quantity of damage you’re taking. Total immunity to all damage is equally powerful whether 10 guys are attacking you or just one. It’s absurdly strong in teamfights.

I’ve noticed that, almost invariably, teams running the most guardians (probably the greatest offenders of this) always tend to control the most heavily contested centers of the map and usually win as a result. It’s completely because while AoE is chewing down all the thieves, necros, rangers, and eles…some classes just take no damage for 10-15 seconds. If your class doesn’t have access to 10+ seconds of immunity/block and you’re melee, you’re going to have a bad time if you try to fight on point.

In general, these extended periods of immunity are also incredibly unsatisfying. To go that long in a fight and literally be unable to land a single attack is really starting to seem like a bit much. I’m not saying it’s overpowered in a 1v1 or 2v2 scenario, but overall I think the meta would benefit from seeing this toned back.

My advice is to limit these “no damage taken” stances and replace them with things like extended protection and more self-healing so their 1v1 effectiveness isn’t compromised but they aren’t auto-win in teamfights. Matches are won or lost by team focus, and I’m tired of having some classes be essentially immune to focus.

Maybe this won’t seem as bad once burning is brought down a bit, but as it stands teamfights are very predictable and seem to always follow this trend.

I agree that invuln is way to common.
But overall damage is too high too. Adjust both.

Condition damage still ticks while people are invulnerable…

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Condition damage still ticks while people are invulnerable…

But new ones aren’t applied you can simply walk through ring of fire ,eat a judges intervention,… and take no extra conditions.

As a Necro I love blocks. I have Wells, Marks, DS2, and Warhorn 4 that all go through them. It is time they are spending not attacking me, which means im less likely to be interrupted in a Heal and I can still damage them in that time.

Invulns on the other hand, are much shorter durations for Guardian. Engie, Ele, Mesmer all have more access to Invulns than guards do but your arguments dont seem to be about them. In fact, Engies have the best access to Invulns and blocks, but they are considered to be below Guardians in usefulness for some reason. Since the Invuln doesn’t count for capping a poing they can be exploited a little bit.

I disagree.

Many immunities, like guardian’s Renewed Focus, are fine. They have drawbacks to balance the full immunity, such as not being able to do anything besides move while the ability is active/channeling. Most also prevent you from holding a node in conquest. They typically have longer cooldowns and if you don’t time their use well, they’re not all that effective.

The problematic immunities fall into two categories. First, the ones which no drawbacks. Players can keep attacking while under immunity and they can’t be stopped from doing it. Second is Rune of Vampirism because it gives extra automatic immunity to high damage builds.

Rune of Vampirism simply needs to be removed or changed. It’s such a free-get-out-of-jail-card it’s ridiculous.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Rune of Vampirism simply needs to be removed or changed. It’s such a free-get-out-of-jail-card it’s ridiculous.

There’s one problem with that.

Currently, Rune of Vampirism is the only thing stopping damage builds from being insta-gibbed by other damage builds. Removing it may turn PvP into lol insta-gib.

Exedore.6320:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Rune of Vampirism simply needs to be removed or changed. It’s such a free-get-out-of-jail-card it’s ridiculous.

There’s one problem with that.

Currently, Rune of Vampirism is the only thing stopping damage builds from being insta-gibbed by other damage builds. Removing it may turn PvP into lol insta-gib.

Quoted for biblical accuracy.

Isn’t it your team’s job to peel/defend you if you’re the one in charge of bursting people down? If you’re a glasscannon and you get caught off-guard, you should be punished for it; if you get focused down, it’s either bad positioning, too much enemy control or too little friendly control.

But that might be just me. I don’t like traited ‘passive’ saves either, like free Defy Pain/Balanced Stance, free Elixir S, free Shadowstep, Shared Anguish, Mirror of Anguish, etc. no matter how long their CDs are and what that class has to give up to trait it.

EDIT: This whole post was concerning Rune of Vampirism. As for the blocks/invulns, the first can be bypassed via unblockable CC or damaging through them; the second generally have the drawback of preventing actions or CPoint contribution.

Except for that thing where you can stomp people in mist form and Elix S.. Way to go with counterplay on that one. Start your stomp but you’re invuln and he’s guarenteed dead unless you have like… a transfusion necro to port your downed body. Again same with rune of the Vamp if you can time it right its a free win.

Belarorn.9062:

Except for that thing where you can stomp people in mist form and Elix S.. Way to go with counterplay on that one. Start your stomp but you’re invuln and he’s guarenteed dead unless you have like… a transfusion necro to port your downed body. Again same with rune of the Vamp if you can time it right its a free win.

Mistform and Elixir S stomp doesn’t work against thieves and mesmers’ downstates #2. There’s your counterplay.

IgnisVulpesXI.3015:

If you’re a glasscannon and you get caught off-guard, you should be punished for it; if you get focused down, it’s either bad positioning, too much enemy control or too little friendly control.

Or you got hit from someone in stealth for 10k+. Kinda hard to dodge what you can’t see coming. Stuff like that is why vampirism runes are so common.

A big problem is the crappy amulet system; you can’t DPS unless you’re a glass cannon. A few hundred toughness would go a long way toward making burst not ridiculous, but that’s impossible in the current system.

Guardians invul is fine. High cd plus prone to condi dmg. Nowdays issue with game is high burst dmg and great condi dmg.

Exedore.6320:

IgnisVulpesXI.3015:

If you’re a glasscannon and you get caught off-guard, you should be punished for it; if you get focused down, it’s either bad positioning, too much enemy control or too little friendly control.

Or you got hit from someone in stealth for 10k+. Kinda hard to dodge what you can’t see coming. Stuff like that is why vampirism runes are so common..

I consider that as being caught off-guard. Chances are a Thief/Mesmer/Engi won’t be throwing Stealth around every corner just in case they find another glasscannon and burst them uncontested, so you should be able to see them entering stealth (since they saw you) or you were busy fighting something else (so you got caught off-guard or that fight lasted longer than you, a glasscannon, would’ve wanted and got +1’d).

A lot of people are mentioning drawbacks to specific immunities and kind of missing the big picture.

Basically, if your class has access to a large number of these, you have a tremendous advantage in a teamfight over classes that don’t.

And honestly, I’ll say necros are kind of the worst off in this department. Even a tanky necro with two healthbars will drop much faster under focus than guardians, engis, warriors, etc who are actually built for damage.

Immunities (invuln, block, sustained evade, etc) don’t require you to commit to them with stats, but will give you comparable survivability to classes/builds that have to earn it through stats and dodges alone. So if I want to start to approach even a DPS guardian’s resistance to focus, I have to give up a lot of damage. They do not.

Additionally, I think the moment burning gets toned down (inevitable) guardians specifically may become less of an issue, but these skills will become even stronger as the meta becomes more inclusive of the direct damage these skills counter.

This is a very odd subject, because this is again about the broken holy trinity.

GW2, compared to others game, have the same amount of damages (and maybe more aoe), at least as much cc, but no healer role. In such situation, you obviously need to give powerful defensives abilities to balance the whole. Everyone have dodges, most have protection and stability (OP buffs), there is also stunbreaks/dispells everywhere, and immunities/stealth/such complete the picture.

The whole balance isn’t so bad when you consider all this. But still delicate, WvW proved it when the meta changed : more burst aoe damages totally broke this mode, the lack of healers there was a lot more sensitive.

Maybe one day they will also redesign combo system because for now fire/water/smoke blast make it very simplistic, when it could contribute a lot more to the whole balance in a less random/fool way.