Guild Wars 2

This game has the single worst multiplayer component of any game I have ever played. My analysis is based on general PvP principles which apply to MMO’s and FPS games etc. so it’s not specifics I’m getting into but rather general ideas.

1 – Downed mode. When a player kills another player, give them the freaking kill. The fight is over, stop dragging it on beyond necessary. X player killed Y, and that’s that. Not X player kills Y and then Y teleports a mile away and comes back to life only to have 10 more friends and all stack on player X. There’s no reason to have downed mode in the game.

2 – If I had a dollar for every stun ability in this game…I spend more time stunned than I do in control of my body. It’s extremely aggravating to have my character immobile for half my play session. Make combat smoother and more mobile, not based on annoying stun-locks.

3 – Mesmers/Rogues – It’s not hard to play this class in PvP. Spam abilities that make you invulnerable and teleport you around the enemy in sporadic and unpredictable ways. There is NO way for any other class to deal with these two classes and they’re hands down the only class worth playing in PvP if you want to have any fun.

4 – It just sucks. In general when I play a PvP game, MMO or FPS, I like there to be a skill component to the game. There is some skill element in GW2 but it doesn’t get to shine due to all the garbage. MMO’s in general are all about getting into groups and stacking on some poor individual. In GW2, this problem is worse because of the “downed” system. Even if some extremely skilled person manages to kill one of the many people ganging up on him, that person will soon come back to life. No credit is given for downing someone.

In addition, it’s far too easy to escape. I like that there’s a system that slows people down in combat, but there are too many ways to become invisible or teleport around and kitten out of a fight. If someone wants to, they can indefinitely pop moves to evade someone and keep healing and the fight doesn’t end until one player gets help from allies.

These features make the PvP feel really annoying and cheap, as I’m being robbed every third of the time I’m about to get a kill. Or when I do these moves, I have a little grin on my face (that shouldn’t be there) know that the other player is wanting to throw his keyboard at the wall.

It’s bad. Which is surprising since the rest of the game is so innovative and well made.

You really just need to play it more. My thoughts:

1. I like the down state. Why? It adds strategy. Strategy is good. Do you go for a stomp, do you try to prevent someone from resing, do you stay on the point? All situational items.
2. The skill comes from knowing when to do dodges. I personally have no issue with the number of stuns in this game. I do have issues with the amount of condis thrown around though.
3. I understand that stealth is hard for people. That said, you will soon wish stealth was the biggest issue in PvP. Wait until you start running into eles and engis.
4. If you feel that way, leave. That said, based on your comments, I just think you need to play more. You aren’t going to be good at first. That’s frustrating. Just practice.

Goliath.7546:

1 – Downed mode. When a player kills another player, give them the freaking kill. The fight is over, stop dragging it on beyond necessary. X player killed Y, and that’s that. Not X player kills Y and then Y teleports a mile away and comes back to life only to have 10 more friends and all stack on player X. There’s no reason to have downed mode in the game.

downed state is working as intended.
do remember that downed is not dead.
please do not complain if you are unable to finish what you started.

2 – If I had a dollar for every stun ability in this game…I spend more time stunned than I do in control of my body. It’s extremely aggravating to have my character immobile for half my play session. Make combat smoother and more mobile, not based on annoying stun-locks.

stun breakers exists in the game.
please do not blame the game if you refuse to use stun breakers.

3 – Mesmers/Rogues – It’s not hard to play this class in PvP. Spam abilities that make you invulnerable and teleport you around the enemy in sporadic and unpredictable ways. There is NO way for any other class to deal with these two classes and they’re hands down the only class worth playing in PvP if you want to have any fun.

this is a learn to play issue.

4 – It just sucks. In general when I play a PvP game, MMO or FPS, I like there to be a skill component to the game. There is some skill element in GW2 but it doesn’t get to shine due to all the garbage. MMO’s in general are all about getting into groups and stacking on some poor individual.

that’s just you.
the downed state is working well as intended.

In GW2, this problem is worse because of the “downed” system. Even if some extremely skilled person manages to kill one of the many people ganging up on him, that person will soon come back to life. No credit is given for downing someone.

of course there is no credit for downing someone since downed is not killed.

In addition, it’s far too easy to escape. I like that there’s a system that slows people down in combat, but there are too many ways to become invisible or teleport around and kitten out of a fight. If someone wants to, they can indefinitely pop moves to evade someone and keep healing and the fight doesn’t end until one player gets help from allies.

not true. not all professions have easy access to “escape” moves.

These features make the PvP feel really annoying and cheap, as I’m being robbed every third of the time I’m about to get a kill. Or when I do these moves, I have a little grin on my face (that shouldn’t be there) know that the other player is wanting to throw his keyboard at the wall.

this is why, structured player versus player only has conquest mode since launch.

if your opponent ran away, then the control point is yours for the taking.

It’s bad. Which is surprising since the rest of the game is so innovative and well made.

guild wars 2’s structured player versus player may be bad in certain areas, but not the downed state.

Seriously, I’ve never heard of anyone complaining about the downed state, of all the things to complain about, I thought that was pretty good.

I smell a lot of PvE. If it’s really this difficult for you to grasp simple concepts such as stunbreaks I would recommend going back to killing mobs.

1. Downed mode, like someone above me said, is all strategy really and can create really really intresting gameplay. If you down someone off a point, you can leave them taking a person out of the fight for 30 seconds to a minute, which can turn a match in higher tiers of play.
2. What pvp game doesn’t have stuns or cc’s? Stability? Dodge? Invuln? Tele? Stun-Break? Try playing a game like WoW and playing against a 2v2 comp with a Mage and a Warlock and then come back and complain to me about stun locking -_-.
3. Mesmers, after they run out of invis’s they are soooo easy to kill, really even if they have invis’s still up. Thieves with their teleporting are really not difficult to kill either. Force the fight around where their port is if you can and the issue with them going invisible… Once you play enough you can kind of guess where they are going to go based on where you last saw them, and just stun lock them to the ground till their invis runs out.
4. The skill component in pvp is overcoming your enemy and learning quickly how they roll their rotations so that you can beat them every time you see them. When you get beat by that engi 3 or 4 times in a row you usually see a pattern with how they do their rotations and you should eventually be able to outwit your opponent fairly easily. Also, rotations in tpvp is a BIG part of skill in pvp. If you don’t know how to 1+ someone at the right time, or place, you arent going to be successful at all.

Really just sounds like you just keep getting beat by Mesmers, and thieves and you are just mad really. Learn to play better, by obviously, well…. playing more

GL

PvP just takes time to learn. Some of those issues can be annoying, but you’ll learn to overcome a lot of that with just practice. I still have trouble with some skills or classes, but that’s more on me than them. If you’re doing a lot of hotjoin pvp, that is often unbalanced simply because of one side having more players. But dont let it discourage you. Ranked matches usually dont have number imbalances.

i’ll just be honest in my answers, as trollish as they probably are.

1. I lol’d a little.

2. I lol’d a bit more

3. I stopped reading, was laughing too hard.

About stealth/mesmers: it’s not hard. I played a rogue. LoL I don’t call something OP until I actually use it, and having used it I concluded that it was nonsense and far easier and more beneficial to use in PvP than any other class will ever be.

There are far more stuns than stun breaks.

About the downed state: there are too many things that should not be in the game that are possible in the downed state. Even if the downed state should stay (it should not) it shouldn’t be possible to teleport away or come back to life. That is just straight up robbing the person who killed the player.

Why? It brings an element of randomness and takes away an element of skill. If during this process even one other enemy shows up, that player that downed the other player first has no chance to survive. The person he downed will come back to life, and it will be a 2v1. If he tries to finish off the player, the other enemy will kill him while trying to go through the stupidly long finishing move which for some reason takes longer than it does to charge up an ability to knock someone over while downed.

Again, bigger problem is that this gets worse when facing multiple enemies. Stacking is bad enough in MMO games’ PvP, it’s worst I’ve found in GW2. In GW2 a 2v1 situation is impossible if the other two are halfway decent (if you’re a thief or mesmer and the other two are warriors then it’s easy, of course).

Goliath.7546:

Besides the first and 6th reply, I have concluded that the rest are immature fanboyism and defending the game without real reasons. Saying something is working as intended without giving a reason is useless.

About stealth/mesmers: it’s not hard. I played a rogue. LoL I don’t call something OP until I actually use it, and having used it I concluded that it was nonsense and far easier and more beneficial to use in PvP than any other class will ever be.

There are far more stuns than stun breaks.

About the downed state: there are too many things that should not be in the game that are possible in the downed state. Even if the downed state should stay (it should not) it shouldn’t be possible to teleport away or come back to life. That is just straight up robbing the person who killed the player.

Why? It brings an element of randomness and takes away an element of skill. If during this process even one other enemy shows up, that player that downed the other player first has no chance to survive. The person he downed will come back to life, and it will be a 2v1. If he tries to finish off the player, the other enemy will kill him while trying to go through the stupidly long finishing move which for some reason takes longer than it does to charge up an ability to knock someone over while downed.

Let’s break this down for you:
I main a guardian, although I play mesmer somewhat in pvp, and stealth against my guardian has never been too much of a problem. I play against it vastly more than a use it, and it doesn’t bother me. But I can understand your mode of thinking since stealth doesn’t really appear in pve, very few mobs have stealth and if they do they become fairly predictable.

I’m sorry you’re getting stunlocked, but that’s not a problem for most of us either. That may be because guardians have a good variety of stun breakers, but more likely it might just be because you hit a certain point where you’re able to dodge/avoid these stuns. You just have to know how to. On my mesmer I never really have this problem either. Pve doesn’t really have too many places where you could get stunlocked either, so once again I can see the confusion here.

I commented on this thread earlier expressing my confusion regarding your problem with downed state, but I think I understand it now. See, in pve, mobs die when their health goes down to 0, very VERY few of them go into a downed state. So when you see your enemy’s health bar hit 0 and they’re still fighting, that probably frustrates you. I’ll segment this explanation for you in response to what you said:

“About the downed state: there are too many things that should not be in the game that are possible in the downed state. Even if the downed state should stay (it should not) it shouldn’t be possible to teleport away or come back to life. That is just straight up robbing the person who killed the player.”

You seem to be under the assumption that being downed is the equivalent to player death. You see, you’re not robbing someone who killed the player, because the player isn’t dead. They’re downed. This creates an interesting dynamic where you have to choose whether you’re going to stomp or cleave them down, but you have to act fast because, as you said, an ally could come revive this teammate and then you’re stuck fighting two players. It’s about strategy, a strategy that’s prevalent in pvp but almost completely absent in pve.

“Why? It brings an element of randomness and takes away an element of skill. If during this process even one other enemy shows up, that player that downed the other player first has no chance to survive. The person he downed will come back to life, and it will be a 2v1. If he tries to finish off the player, the other enemy will kill him while trying to go through the stupidly long finishing move which for some reason takes longer than it does to charge up an ability to knock someone over while downed.”

And this is the core of your issue of downed state. You want it all to be a 1v1. If you 1v1 somebody, their’s more time for an ally to come help because of the downed state. I’m here to break some unfortunate news to you: It’s a 5v5 team game. You have to deal with the fact that there are multiple members of the enemy team who are going to be there to back their allies up. Instead of trying to force a 1v1, you should try playing the game instead. I promise you that capturing points and taking objectives will take up all your time, and you won’t have any time for 1v1’s at all. I think you’ll see downed state to be less of a problem after that.

Capitol City.4856:

Seriously, I’ve never heard of anyone complaining about the downed state, of all the things to complain about, I thought that was pretty good.

It was complained about the most at the start of the game, less so now. People seem to have accepted it for the most part.

I don’t mind it existing, but I wish it was better balanced.

The ele can always prevent the first stomp from any number of players. Thief/mes can prevent the first stomp from any number of players unless teleported to/stealth stomped (respectively). Guard/Ranger have aoe stomp prevention, but both fail to blind/stability. Necro/Eng/War can only prevent the first stomp from one player and fail to blind/stability. Eng/War use a projectile as their means to do so which causes more issues.

I don’t want all downed states to be the same by any means… but that’s quite a difference in effectiveness.

Aberrant.6749:

Capitol City.4856:

Seriously, I’ve never heard of anyone complaining about the downed state, of all the things to complain about, I thought that was pretty good.

I don’t mind it existing, but I wish it was better balanced.

The ele can always prevent the first stomp from any number of players. Thief/mes can prevent the first stomp from any number of players unless teleported to/stealth stomped (respectively). Guard/Ranger have aoe stomp prevention, but both fail to blind/stability. Necro/Eng/War can only prevent the first stomp from one player and fail to blind/stability. Eng/War use a projectile as their means to do so which causes more issues.

I don’t want all downed states to be the same by any means… but that’s quite a difference in effectiveness.

I can get behind this, I think downed state is a really interesting mechanic but it’s true even when I’m playing there are some classes I’d much rather stomp than others. but don’t forget a lot of these are compensated. The warrior, for instance, has by far the best 3 skill of all the downed states, being able to jump back into the fight, maybe permanently, without needing a full heal. I think that’s why they made the warrior’s 2 less effective (it’s the worst, imo), because the warrior already has a pretty easy time getting back up. All this being said, I hope they do tune downed state a little bit, as it’s extremely frustrating to watch an ele literally walk away from you in the middle of a stomp, among other examples.

Capitol City.4856:

Aberrant.6749:

Capitol City.4856:

Seriously, I’ve never heard of anyone complaining about the downed state, of all the things to complain about, I thought that was pretty good.

I don’t mind it existing, but I wish it was better balanced.

The ele can always prevent the first stomp from any number of players. Thief/mes can prevent the first stomp from any number of players unless teleported to/stealth stomped (respectively). Guard/Ranger have aoe stomp prevention, but both fail to blind/stability. Necro/Eng/War can only prevent the first stomp from one player and fail to blind/stability. Eng/War use a projectile as their means to do so which causes more issues.

I don’t want all downed states to be the same by any means… but that’s quite a difference in effectiveness.

I can get behind this, I think downed state is a really interesting mechanic but it’s true even when I’m playing there are some classes I’d much rather stomp than others. but don’t forget a lot of these are compensated. The warrior, for instance, has by far the best 3 skill of all the downed states, being able to jump back into the fight, maybe permanently, without needing a full heal. I think that’s why they made the warrior’s 2 less effective (it’s the worst, imo), because the warrior already has a pretty easy time getting back up. All this being said, I hope they do tune downed state a little bit, as it’s extremely frustrating to watch an ele literally walk away from you in the middle of a stomp, among other examples.

The problem I have with the 3 skill trying to make up for the 2 skill is that it often doesn’t matter because you’re dead due to the rubbish 2 not preventing the stomp and thus the 3 skill doesn’t even come into play. That’s why ele had their 2 and 3 downed skills swapped.

I’ve also heard people say that it balances out with the classes themselves as a whole, but I don’t agree with that either since class balances have changed a lot, but the downed states have not. Like my personal theory behind eng’s downed state being less effective is that at the start elixir R was far stronger with the stun break and the eng could get himself back up using the toss that which I would agree was reasonable at the time. Now you’re just left with the less effective downed state since R isn’t worth taking.

IMO it’s just been overlooked for too long and could use a pass.

About the mesmers just taking getting used to: if they’re balanced why are 90% of players I see mes/thief/necro? There’s the odd rebel engi/elementalist. And once in a blue moon I’ll see some poor soul using warrior (usually getting trolled by a mesmer).

I don’t see mesmers nearly as much as rangers. Rangers are pure evil. I like the balance of most classes, but rangers are just a tier above everyone else right now.

My main question for PVP design has always been: “Are the classes as fun to fight as they are to play?”

If not, then you’ve gone wrong in the design, and that should go for /any/ match up of any kind.

Swish.2463:

i’ll just be honest in my answers, as trollish as they probably are.

1. I lol’d a little.

2. I lol’d a bit more

3. I stopped reading, was laughing too hard.

^ this

Capitol City.4856:

Seriously, I’ve never heard of anyone complaining about the downed state, of all the things to complain about, I thought that was pretty good.

Maybe you weren’t here at the start of this game. There were quite a few people who didn’t like the downed state.

Since this thread is useless anyway, i’ m just coming to say you can stomp an ele at the first try if you have a teleport. It just requires a good timing.

An elementalist can time his downstate skill as well. He can even uses his skill 0,1s before your stomp is completly casted.
So actually no.

dominik.9721:

An elementalist can time his downstate skill as well. He can even uses his skill 0,1s before your stomp is completly casted.
So actually no.

you can =/= it happens all the time.

Goliath.7546:

About the mesmers just taking getting used to: if they’re balanced why are 90% of players I see mes/thief/necro? There’s the odd rebel engi/elementalist. And once in a blue moon I’ll see some poor soul using warrior (usually getting trolled by a mesmer).

As I said, you can’t judge how balanced something is based on how many you see at a particular time or times, as that’s more of coincidence and just randomness. The reason we can’t is because people play the classes they like despite how balanced it is. Case in point, I remember seeing a number of rangers before the patch, despite them not being as strong as many other metas. And if we were to balance like this, warriors would be in the top, ele second, just because of the raw population percentage they take up.

Downed state has three problems to me.

The first problem is how it interacts with GW2’s aoe/ cleave-driven combat. In the middle of a teamfight, any player can “randomly” rally everytime any opposing foe is killed. Why? Usually by spamming aoes and tagging all foes. You often see characters entering the downed state and rallying right after two or three times within seconds. And it’s ridiculous.

The second problem is how unsatisfying/ unfair it feels like, after outplaying your opponent and taking their health to 0, when a random opposing player just comes in, rallies their ally, outnumber you, and you didn’t get credit for anything. Some people call it “tactical” and “team-driven”. I’d rather say it simply “doesn’t feels good”.

The third problem is similar. It occurs when, after downing their health to 0, they spam their downed state skills to you and put you down as well, before managing to win out of it. This is not just a balance problem (some professions have better downed states than others), it can also be used to delay/ stretch the duel until a random team members pops at either side. So luck can ultimately determine which one of them gets the kill.

Also, how many pvp games offer that exciting moment where you barely get out of a fight alive, but have managed to beat your opponent? It’s epic and exciting, but the problem number #2 and #3 cripple that feeling.

Ultimately, and in my opinion, downed state is an example of how innovation for innovation sake’s does not makes for good gameplay.

oxtred.7658:

Since this thread is useless anyway, i’ m just coming to say you can stomp an ele at the first try if you have a teleport. It just requires a good timing.

For this to work you need the ele to have very bad timing or the stomp will finish before vapor form does. It’s like a thief using their shadow escape to a place that’s still in range to where they get stomped. If the player is even somewhat decent it’s not going to happen.

Goliath.7546:

2 – If I had a dollar for every stun ability in this game…I spend more time stunned than I do in control of my body. It’s extremely aggravating to have my character immobile for half my play session. Make combat smoother and more mobile, not based on annoying stun-locks.

wait a minute here????

In addition, it’s far too easy to escape. I like that there’s a system that slows people down in combat, but there are too many ways to become invisible or teleport around and kitten out of a fight. If someone wants to, they can indefinitely pop moves to evade someone and keep healing and the fight doesn’t end until one player gets help from allies.

if its so easy to escape then why do you spend so much time stunned?

Pretty much everything posted here is a L2P issue. If OP is interested in actually fixing these problems, post your class/build, and what enemies give you the most trouble (thief/mesmer?), then people can explain how to deal with it.

I don’t think it’s a L2P issue. Seems more in the line of wanting a PvP completely based on killing enemy players, while in the current conquest mode killing is just one thing among many others.

If you aren’t going to post meaningful comments with reasoning behind your statements, leave. I don’t care for your opinion and whether you think it’s a L2P issue unless you provide good reasoning to back it up.

It’s not a L2P issue. I admit when I simply need to get more skilled, such as when I first started playing Counter Strike. Yes, it’s a FPS, but it’s a PvP game with online interactions and combat. General PvP flaws is mainly what I’m talking about here. In CS, it was clear that some people are just really skilled at nailing headshots and moving tactically and what not. In this game, the people that succeed are not skilled, they just know how to abuse the most over-powered and broken mesmer/thief moves. I played a thief char in PvP and found it very easy to use.

Goliath.7546:

Even if the downed state should stay (it should not) it shouldn’t be possible to teleport away or come back to life. That is just straight up robbing the person who killed the player.

please learn to play the game.
again, downed is not dead.
please do not say things such as:
“That is just straight up robbing the person who killed the player.”
this is not true because the person did not kill the player.
the person merely dealt enough damage to the player, causing the player to enter the downed state.

Why? It brings an element of randomness and takes away an element of skill. If during this process even one other enemy shows up, that player that downed the other player first has no chance to survive.

this is called team work, as it is important to rotate properly in order to assist team mates who needs help. also, if the player is truly skilled and has a build that hard counters the other 2, that player will be able to down the 2nd opponent.

The person he downed will come back to life, and it will be a 2v1. If he tries to finish off the player, the other enemy will kill him while trying to go through the stupidly long finishing move which for some reason takes longer than it does to charge up an ability to knock someone over while downed.

it will only become a 2 vs 1 provided if the 2nd opponent manages to revive the 1st opponent who was downed earlier. also, it is also possible to prevent / discourage / delay the 2nd opponent from reviving the 1st opponent with good damage and cc skills.

finally, downed state is an important core game play mechanic of guild wars 2.
asking for it to be removed is a ridiculous request and will not be entertained at all.

Goliath.7546:

If you aren’t going to post meaningful comments with reasoning behind your statements, leave. I don’t care for your opinion and whether you think it’s a L2P issue unless you provide good reasoning to back it up.

It’s not a L2P issue. I admit when I simply need to get more skilled, such as when I first started playing Counter Strike. Yes, it’s a FPS, but it’s a PvP game with online interactions and combat. General PvP flaws is mainly what I’m talking about here. In CS, it was clear that some people are just really skilled at nailing headshots and moving tactically and what not. In this game, the people that succeed are not skilled, they just know how to abuse the most over-powered and broken mesmer/thief moves. I played a thief char in PvP and found it very easy to use.

I don’t like this mesmer/thief racism, so I’ll just say that I’m a mesmer, a decent one and I don’t “abuse” any overpowered moves. If you want to claim that mesmer and thief are OP, please give examples as to what specific builds and/or skills you’re talking about.

when you say that theif and mesmer is the only thing that is good to play i will just say that is not true condion damged is the thing that is killing pvp in my eyes. Why should i play a dmg build when i am 2xtwice the tank same burst dmg and more movement and more suveriablity when i play condi as ex. theif or engi or mesmer or neco. It is so much harder to play an dmg build than a condi build because you always get kittened on by the condi-builds. there is no class in this game that can remove condi’s faster than applyed to them. ppl with condi builds can shoot once then runs and just rund around in cirkels to the foe is down. that is why i think pvp is brocken crap like the rest of the game. and A-net is to poor to do any thing about it. i dont have any solution to this but maybe you do

I have to say, that they have lots of potential since they have a downed state. However they don’t take advantage of what they have with the downed state.

The downed state is like the “FINISH HIM” state.

Rather than some stupid pool or some stupid random animation, they need to have racial finishers like I said in another thread. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/PvP-needs-racial-finishers/first#post4522114

You should be able to choke slam, or go the mortal combat route and just decapitate them.

However this game lets kiddy experience ruin the game for the masses, lets all face it, vast majority of this game is played by people 18 years or older. Let’s also face it, kids will play games where you shoot people’s heads off and they are highly successful games. Grand Theft Auto.

GW2 marketing team needs to identify the real target market, and then focus on the real target market, and not let tiny markets overrule decisions for the real target market.

One bad apple ruins it for the masses, cool finishers that does stuff that they don’t want there kids to see, while 99 other people would just love it and it would make the game a lot better. GW2 goes with the 1 guy over the 99 others.

Goliath.7546:

If you aren’t going to post meaningful comments with reasoning behind your statements, leave. I don’t care for your opinion and whether you think it’s a L2P issue unless you provide good reasoning to back it up.

It’s not a L2P issue. I admit when I simply need to get more skilled, such as when I first started playing Counter Strike. Yes, it’s a FPS, but it’s a PvP game with online interactions and combat. General PvP flaws is mainly what I’m talking about here. In CS, it was clear that some people are just really skilled at nailing headshots and moving tactically and what not. In this game, the people that succeed are not skilled, they just know how to abuse the most over-powered and broken mesmer/thief moves. I played a thief char in PvP and found it very easy to use.

It’s not a question of skill, just knowledge. Look, I remember getting into pvp here, and it is overwhelming because lots of classes have crazy abilities that seem OP until you really understand what they’re doing. If you want to improve, you have to start learning what’s going on.

It’s difficult to respond to your original post because it’s so general. The best I can do is give examples of things related to what you mention, but really you need to post what classes you think have too good of a downed state, or stuns, or escapes, to tell you how to deal with it.

Downed state – Necro, warrior, ranger, guardian, and engineer all have a down state cc, that can be countered by doing blind, aegis, stability, stealth, or invulnerability. Thief, mesmer, and ele can all move once in downed state, so they will be able to escape your first stomp. Some classes can counter that with teleport stomps, but in general you need to choose to just kill them with damage, or to get the kill with the 2nd stomp. Those three are all squishy classes, which means they take a lot of downed damage.

Stuns- Countered by stability and stunbreaks, and knowing what the class can do. The most frustrating CCers right now are warrior, necro, and engineer. Warrior stuns can all be dodged, and are all melee so they can also be kited when using hammer. Necro fears are difficult to deal with, but the fears are fairly long cd, and the necro has few escape moves if you apply pressure. Still though, only fight them if you have stunbreaks or stability ready. Engineers typically have a pull and a melee knockback, and will try to chain those. The pull is dodgeable, the knockback can be avoided by kiting, but you should stunbreak it if they catch you.

There’s already been some talk about mesmers and thieves so I’ll stop here for now, but I can add more later.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Downed state has three problems to me.

The first problem is how it interacts with GW2’s aoe/ cleave-driven combat. In the middle of a teamfight, any player can “randomly” rally everytime any opposing foe is killed. Why? Usually by spamming aoes and tagging all foes. You often see characters entering the downed state and rallying right after two or three times within seconds. And it’s ridiculous.

The second problem is how unsatisfying/ unfair it feels like, after outplaying your opponent and taking their health to 0, when a random opposing player just comes in, rallies their ally, outnumber you, and you didn’t get credit for anything. Some people call it “tactical” and “team-driven”. I’d rather say it simply “doesn’t feels good”.

The third problem is similar. It occurs when, after downing their health to 0, they spam their downed state skills to you and put you down as well, before managing to win out of it. This is not just a balance problem (some professions have better downed states than others), it can also be used to delay/ stretch the duel until a random team members pops at either side. So luck can ultimately determine which one of them gets the kill.

Also, how many pvp games offer that exciting moment where you barely get out of a fight alive, but have managed to beat your opponent? It’s epic and exciting, but the problem number #2 and #3 cripple that feeling.

Ultimately, and in my opinion, downed state is an example of how innovation for innovation sake’s does not makes for good gameplay.

You and OP are falling under the same false assumption: That downed is like dying. It isn’t. Going down is a unique mechanic in and of itself, don’t compare it to dying.

Indeed, if you removed down-state, all classes would have to get more health/armor to compensate. This is really a problem of people who come into PvP to “gank” people, instead of enjoying the strategies and tactics. BTW, these also count as skill imo. It’s not just all in the execution of burst chains you know.

Capitol City.4856:

You and OP are falling under the same false assumption: That downed is like dying. It isn’t. Going down is a unique mechanic in and of itself, don’t compare it to dying.

Being “unique” does not automatically makes it “good”. You might enjoy it, I don’t. My reasons remain valid regardless if I’m comparing it to dying or not.

I disagree with only certain classes being suitable for sPvP matches. Each class has their own strengths. All of which can be a lethal when combined with other classes that learn to work as a team. I believe sPvP is broken however. Some LOVE steamrolling the map in zergs to win. You are screwed unless you are lucky enough to have a team that constructively communicates to one another. You are more likely to have a whiney child in chat instead. I too hate when players wrongly judge others based on their rank, gear and weapon skins. This only proves the individual does NOT know how sPvP works. They decide early on to give up or leave like a coward. This is backwards logic. I am not going to whine in chat like a titty baby because I am losing. The person whining needs to realize they are the reason why the team is losing. Thanks for adding another loss to my roster jerk. Trolls are plentiful in sPvP.

hero mcb.8165:

when you say that theif and mesmer is the only thing that is good to play i will just say that is not true condion damged is the thing that is killing pvp in my eyes. Why should i play a dmg build when i am 2xtwice the tank same burst dmg and more movement and more suveriablity when i play condi as ex. theif or engi or mesmer or neco. It is so much harder to play an dmg build than a condi build because you always get kittened on by the condi-builds. there is no class in this game that can remove condi’s faster than applyed to them. ppl with condi builds can shoot once then runs and just rund around in cirkels to the foe is down. that is why i think pvp is brocken crap like the rest of the game. and A-net is to poor to do any thing about it. i dont have any solution to this but maybe you do

…and a person can’t outheal direct damage either. People are dying in PvP. Please fix? >.>

Here is a prime example of why the downed state is unbalanced:

My Warrior character vs a Ranger.

We fight. I kill. I he goes into a downed state, and since I had low health and it takes a decade to finish players, he downs me in the downed state. My options: knock an already knocked down player down, throw rocks, or come back to life for a few seconds.

His options: too much.

What happens: we throw rocks at each other until I come back to life, and this since it takes a decade to finish enemies off, he can stun me (while in a downed state…what was ANet smoking?) at which point now he can come back to life. Then my character dies.

I won the fight, but his downed state abilities were far better.

Goliath.7546:

Here is a prime example of why the downed state is unbalanced:

My Warrior character vs a Ranger.

We fight. I kill. I he goes into a downed state, and since I had low health and it takes a decade to finish players, he downs me in the downed state. My options: knock an already knocked down player down, throw rocks, or come back to life for a few seconds.

His options: too much.

What happens: we throw rocks at each other until I come back to life, and this since it takes a decade to finish enemies off, he can stun me (while in a downed state…what was ANet smoking?) at which point now he can come back to life. Then my character dies.

I won the fight, but his downed state abilities were far better.

downed state is balanced, because
warrior has high health, heavy armor
ranger has medium health, medium armor

and you are wording it wrongly. it should be:

you fight, you dealt enough damage to the ranger, causing the ranger to enter the downed state. on the other hand, you also took enough damage to enter the downed state as well.

dealing enough damage to someone for them to enter the downed state is NOT a kill.

it is only a kill when a stomp is secured or when their downed state health is fully depleted.

also, guild wars 2 is a team game, not 1 vs 1.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Goliath.7546:

Here is a prime example of why the downed state is unbalanced:

My Warrior character vs a Ranger.

We fight. I kill. I he goes into a downed state, and since I had low health and it takes a decade to finish players, he downs me in the downed state. My options: knock an already knocked down player down, throw rocks, or come back to life for a few seconds.

His options: too much.

What happens: we throw rocks at each other until I come back to life, and this since it takes a decade to finish enemies off, he can stun me (while in a downed state…what was ANet smoking?) at which point now he can come back to life. Then my character dies.

I won the fight, but his downed state abilities were far better.

downed state is balanced, because
warrior has high health, heavy armor
ranger has medium health, medium armor

and you are wording it wrongly. it should be:

you fight, you dealt enough damage to the ranger, causing the ranger to enter the downed state. on the other hand, you also took enough damage to enter the downed state as well.

dealing enough damage to someone for them to enter the downed state is NOT a kill.

it is only a kill when a stomp is secured or when their downed state health is fully depleted.

also, guild wars 2 is a team game, not 1 vs 1.

No the downed states are not balanced.

The downed states are not balanced by hp/armor. That’s balanced between the classes in their non-downed states. If this was not the case we would see far more balance changes to the downed state when a class gets buffed/nerfed in their non-downed state. The downed state skills seem mostly done for “flavor” rather than balance.

In a group fight the ranger still has the advantage when downed. The war can only prevent a single stomper at most and his #2 is countered by more things. The ranger can stop multiple stompers and has fewer things that counter his #2.

If both sides are able to keep the downed from getting stomped, the war has to be ressed by a team mate. The ranger does not because his pet will res him. A war in veng is not hard to deal with/control.

Downed state is balanced, don’t make them waste there time with silly stuff like fixing something that’s perfectly fine to make it worse.

Obviously the ranger is best in 1v1 scenario but to each there own, they all have balanced strengths and weaknesses.

uberkingkong.8041:

Downed state is balanced, don’t make them waste there time with silly stuff like fixing something that’s perfectly fine to make it worse.

Obviously the ranger is best in 1v1 scenario but to each there own, they all have balanced strengths and weaknesses.

So you find War/Eng/Necro’s downed states to be on par with Ele/Thief/Mes’s downed states? Well… I disagree.

Aberrant.6749:

uberkingkong.8041:

Downed state is balanced, don’t make them waste there time with silly stuff like fixing something that’s perfectly fine to make it worse.

Obviously the ranger is best in 1v1 scenario but to each there own, they all have balanced strengths and weaknesses.

So you find War/Eng/Necro’s downed states to be on par with Ele/Thief/Mes’s downed states? Well… I disagree.

Warrior pop up, before being finished, 100b some people finish the people in the team fight and survive.
Engineer grabs you and blows you off the map or node. AE blast, very severe.
Necromancer fear you off a cliff on skyhammer and pops back up.

Ele just mist form off a cliff and die faster, while thief pretty much stuck with taking longer to die and cant really do anything but move to a different spot and hide.
At least a Mesmer has a berserker clone which deals huge damage.

uberkingkong.8041:

Aberrant.6749:

uberkingkong.8041:

Downed state is balanced, don’t make them waste there time with silly stuff like fixing something that’s perfectly fine to make it worse.

Obviously the ranger is best in 1v1 scenario but to each there own, they all have balanced strengths and weaknesses.

So you find War/Eng/Necro’s downed states to be on par with Ele/Thief/Mes’s downed states? Well… I disagree.

Warrior pop up, before being finished, 100b some people finish the people in the team fight and survive.
Engineer grabs you and blows you off the map or node. AE blast, very severe.
Necromancer fear you off a cliff on skyhammer and pops back up.

Ele just mist form off a cliff and die faster, while thief pretty much stuck with taking longer to die and cant really do anything but move to a different spot and hide.
At least a Mesmer has a berserker clone which deals huge damage.

I lol-ed

I would agree with most of the condition damage complaints, but swords should keep them. They’re terribad otherwise. Necros should lose them considering how OP their other stun-type abilities are.

Rangers: lol I don’t even…

Mesmer: make clones different very slightly from the original player.

Thief: don’t make them invulnerable when using skills. I play a thief in PvP and just spam 2-3-4 and I’m invulnerable half the time as my character does backflips in the air.

Goliath.7546:

I would agree with most of the condition damage complaints, but swords should keep them. They’re terribad otherwise. Necros should lose them considering how OP their other stun-type abilities are.

Rangers: lol I don’t even…

Mesmer: make clones different very slightly from the original player.

Thief: don’t make them invulnerable when using skills. I play a thief in PvP and just spam 2-3-4 and I’m invulnerable half the time as my character does backflips in the air.

Clones have quite a few differences with the original player. Firstly, they don’t move unless chasing or shattering, and secondly they only use the auto attack. When you target a clone, they probably won’t have as many buffs as the player and won’t have things like signets or mantra charges.

How different do you want them, because anything too obvious will just make clones… not clones, y’know?

Goliath.7546:

Here is a prime example of why the downed state is unbalanced:

My Warrior character vs a Ranger.

We fight. I kill. I he goes into a downed state, and since I had low health and it takes a decade to finish players, he downs me in the downed state. My options: knock an already knocked down player down, throw rocks, or come back to life for a few seconds.

His options: too much.

What happens: we throw rocks at each other until I come back to life, and this since it takes a decade to finish enemies off, he can stun me (while in a downed state…what was ANet smoking?) at which point now he can come back to life. Then my character dies.

I won the fight, but his downed state abilities were far better.

No, you didn’t win the fight, you downed him, that’s not winning the fight. Killing him is winning the fight. If he dies you’ve won the fight. Downed state is not dead. He’s not dead if he’s downed. You lost the fight because he killed you first, not because he downed you first. Downed is not dead. You did not win the fight simply by downing him. Downed. Is. Not. Dead. If you’re downed you’re STILL IN THE FIGHT.

I would think that’s a good point to make if downed states weren’t so horribly unbalanced…

By the way complete stuns are a horrible game mechanic in any style of game. GW2 is the worst of all MMO’s I’ve ever played in this sense. Stop freezing my freakin screen Anet. Please. When I spend 30% of my play time with my character immobilized there is a very big issue with your game.

There are one or two stun break abilities available but considering one in 5 abilities is somewhat stun related this game is a disastrous freezefest.

Another reason why downed needs to go: it’s far more beneficial to revive a downed teammate than to try to kill whoever killed him because reviving is stupidly fast.

What class has too many stuns?