Both topics are nothing new, but people tend to notice them more after major balance updates whether it is a major change to a build or for w/e reason they ignored it before because build X wasn’t as strong before even with such powers.
Lets start with each boon and its problem.
[Might]
(Impact on gameplay) 99.9999% of encounters involve the defeat of another enemy, so dps is always a must. Since day 1, the idea of killing them before killing you has been around and guild wars 2 is no stranger to this. However might currently is something gained far to easily on some builds and it makes those without its access fall behind and become obsolete. Basically, why bring a glass cannon when you can bring a tank that hits like a truck?
(Issue) I don’t remember 100% for all professions but from what I remember back when I played wvw, might was invaluable and always gained from stacking up and forming parties that each had their solid source of might for those stacks to blast fire fields and anything else to add to it. Now it feels more like a perma 20+ stack effect that is without a doubt, very strong and a rather obvious problem.
(Solution) Increase might’s effects from 30 to ~70 (old value), and drastically reduce all sources of self might gain to make the upkeep incredibly short or non-existent (this is the most important part). Lastly, review all sources of AoE might gain (shouts, auras, elixirs, etc) to be stronger in duration and if the role fits, add might gain to support effects. The goal here is to turn might gain into more of a quick burst combo or a group effort to rush the enemy and not something that gives tanks the tools to out-dps their enemy. This also gives support via might more thought and become meaningful to teamwork. Some AoE might skills already are doing well so like I suggested, review them and decide if it needs any adjusting.
[Crowd Controls]
(Impact on gameplay) Nothing secures a kill more than locking an enemy down from taking action. The thought of stun breaking and stability isn’t something new, however neither is the thought of an overwhelming amount of cc preventing any action at all to be taken which for some only a few seconds means defeat.
(Issue) Some crowd control effects are far to easy to pull off either in execution or from low cooldowns and it makes their, shall I say “skill” level, rather pitiful. This becomes painfully obvious when a profession doesn’t have stability or a movement based stun breaker and is simply kept in the disabled status until they are defeated from multiple sources. Basically what is seen is a guaranteed kill because that player cannot take any action what so ever to recover or escape due to either 1 cc heavy build or multiple builds simply throwing everything at the enemy until they die which is rather dull of an experience.
(Solution) Its nothing other games haven’t done and its an effective solution, grant immunity to disables after X amount are received (for a short duration). Now with guild wars 2 there are a wide range of disables from fear, stun, knockdown, launch, and many more. So for this to still promote healthy teamwork and communication they should limit this to unique disable effects as well as duration.
This would be a “reverse defiance bar” for pvp encounters. Basically depending on the type of disable and its duration would determine how much of the bar gets filled up. Upon filling the defiance bar up (this bar would only be visible on your personal UI and not at all to the enemies) you would gain 2 seconds of 3 stacks of stability(just a suggested amount, this does not break you out of the last cc effect). This effect would have no ICD since it is based on the defiance bar filling up. Once the bar fills up it automatically resets to 0%. A general idea of how much it would take to activate this effect on someone:
-Launch fills up 30%
-Knockdown fills up 20% for every full second it applies.
-Knockback fills up 15%.
-Daze fills up 5% for every .25 seconds it lasts
-Fear fills up 10% for every second it lasts
-Pull fills up 15%
-Taunt fills up 20% for every full second it applies
-Stun fills up 20% for every full second it applies
And for reducing the bar.
-Stun breaking removes 20%
-Everytime a disable effect is overridden by another effect, if it is a different effect it applies 50% less to the defiance bar.
-You naturally lose 10% every 3 seconds.
I know its a lot to program, and adds a lot more for the game client to keep track of which puts more strain on the servers. But imho that’s the cost needed to balance cc to be less faceroll and more coordinated.
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”