Guild Wars 2

So, as I’m sure all of you are aware, the amount of pets on screen is a point of contention for a lot of players. They clutter up the screen, make the action hard to watch, are excellent at body blocking ranged attacks/big attacks like BS, etc etc etc.

My question is, should pets count toward the AoE limit? Maybe all AoE should hit pets regardless, and only players should count toward the 5 target limit. As it stands, a single Ranger, Necro or Mesmer can bring (or generate) enough pets by themselves to overwhelm the AoE limit.

It’s a bit tricky, because pets strenghts aren’t universal – Ranger pets and Elite summons are being lumped together with Rock dogs and clones in my suggestion, which may cause a problem. This could be circumvented by adjusting pet health pools (if we assume pets are now always hit by AoE and do not count toward the target limit).

What do you guys think?

Maybe ANet should simply remove the AoE limit in sPvP?

stof.9341:

Maybe ANet should simply remove the AoE limit in sPvP?

Thinking about it, my suggestion and yours are basically the same (if pets don’t count, you’ll never have a team bigger than 5 players in TPvP or 5v5 SPvP, so.. yeah).

Perhaps pets should not count toward the limit, except for Ranger pets (Since they’re supposed to be half of a rangers overall power), and elite summons (Since they should be considered powerful with their long CD)

But why make something so complex? Why have just the ranger pets and the elite summons count? I don’t like much that AoE limit in the game. It adds a weird RNG factor in sPvP. I remember in Aion that my team didn’t like me having my pet out in some situations because one of our Priest AoE healing skill could select it as a target and it meant the poor guy that didn’t get it was dead. Same offensively. If we get all 5 players in an AoE, why would some random player not get hit by the effect just because there was a pet there that took the slot?

The best solution is to plainly uncap it. Or make the AoE select the real players in priority.

stof.9341:

Or make the AoE select the real players in priority.

This part I disagree with.

Uncap, possibly. But there are times when I want to clear at least some of those low-HP pets asap, and dropping a bunch of AEs is the most effective/least dangerous way of doing so. Having to individually target and kill a bunch of mesmer pets to cripple a shatter build before it destroys me would be nightmarish.

(*Disclaimer: playing a thief, so AE damage to players is rarely my overall objective. More often I just want to clear the clusterf___ of pets, so I can actually see and track individual targets and reduce the amount of passive damage I’ll be taking in the process.)

Summoning a pet and/or keeping a pet alive should steal life from you imo. There’s not real cost to having them given that your class’s weapon sets are already enough to handle most situations w/o the need of essential utilities.

Yay another nerf demand for pet classes. Don’t want the pet being useful at absorbing aoe for allies. That’s about all they’re good for now, might as well nerf that too.

Chopps.5047:

Yay another nerf demand for pet classes. Don’t want the pet being useful at absorbing aoe for allies. That’s about all they’re good for now, might as well nerf that too.

When 1 Player can field enough pets to fill the AoE limit, there’s an issue.

You’ll also note I made no demands. It was a question, looking for opinions, not whiny BS.

evilapprentice.6379:

Chopps.5047:

Yay another nerf demand for pet classes. Don’t want the pet being useful at absorbing aoe for allies. That’s about all they’re good for now, might as well nerf that too.

When 1 Player can field enough pets to fill the AoE limit, there’s an issue.

You’ll also note I made no demands. It was a question, looking for opinions, not whiny BS.

Ok ok it’s not a demand. But seriously, stop asking for spirit nerfs. If we can’t even absorb aoe for allies might as well get rid of spirits altogether.

Chopps.5047:

evilapprentice.6379:

Chopps.5047:

Yay another nerf demand for pet classes. Don’t want the pet being useful at absorbing aoe for allies. That’s about all they’re good for now, might as well nerf that too.

When 1 Player can field enough pets to fill the AoE limit, there’s an issue.

You’ll also note I made no demands. It was a question, looking for opinions, not whiny BS.

Ok ok it’s not a demand. But seriously, stop asking for spirit nerfs. If we can’t even absorb aoe for allies might as well get rid of spirits altogether.

You’re still not getting it. My suggestion would affect Engineers (They all run supply crate), some Necro’s, All Mesmers, and some Rangers and the occasional thief (ambush Trap + thieves guild). This isn’t a spirit ranger discussion, its a “Wave of pets” discussion. If you don’t have anything constructive to post, just don’t bother.

I do have something constructive to post: I disagree. Short and simple. Fair?

Chopps.5047:

I do have something constructive to post: I disagree. Short and simple. Fair?

You’re free to disagree, but your argument would carry much more weight if you could explain why.

I can’t see any good reason not to remove the AoE target limit in sPvP alltogether.

If it turns out to be necessary pet health could be raised a bit afterwards.

changes to pet helath and name plates, and adding a 2nd ‘tab’ target functionality which only selects players would also be a big help, and may make pet builds much less annoying to play against (mesmer clones, but not phantasams, would proabably need to be an exception)

evilapprentice.6379:

Chopps.5047:

I do have something constructive to post: I disagree. Short and simple. Fair?

You’re free to disagree, but your argument would carry much more weight if you could explain why.

All pets are good for is absorbing aoe. That’s my argument. Happy?

Chopps.5047:

evilapprentice.6379:

Chopps.5047:

I do have something constructive to post: I disagree. Short and simple. Fair?

You’re free to disagree, but your argument would carry much more weight if you could explain why.

All pets are good for is absorbing aoe. That’s my argument. Happy?

Yes, because I can actually discuss that.

Pet’s already do a bunch of things – grant passive effects, have active effects, body block, etc. Do they really need absorb AoE in addition?

The conversation is further complicated by the fact that there are different classes of pets – Ranger pets and elites sit on top, spirits, phantasms, necro summons, and ambush trap in the middle, and crap like Rock Dog and Clones sit on the bottom. Should they all be treated the same? It’s kinda BS that clones and rock dogs absorb powerful AoE, but perhaps everything from the mid-tier up should count?

Most All skills prioritize Players do they not?….
working as intended as far as I can tell…

If pets didn’t count toward the AE limit, why should they be hit by AE? Pick and choose. I’d be fine with either outcome.

Pets don’t count toward the AE limit when players are in the AOE…

No that’d be ridiculous.. pets not effected by aoe? lol

Darnis.4056:

Most All skills prioritize Players do they not?….
working as intended as far as I can tell…

I was under the impression that was not the case – perhaps I am wrong there.

evilapprentice.6379:

My question is, should pets count toward the AoE limit? Maybe all AoE should hit pets regardless, and only players should count toward the 5 target limit. As it stands, a single Ranger, Necro or Mesmer can bring (or generate) enough pets by themselves to overwhelm the AoE limit.

If they do then they need to have AoE resistance on summons. I main MM necros in PvP, and the only reason I can justify even showing up to team fights is the bit of tankiness that 6+ bodies being in the fight does with the current AoE spam, along with the strong control and decent downed pressure I get. As is minions are already too weak to AoE, and thats with them soaking up the AoE limits and not all getting affected.

Eliminate the AoE limit soaking that the minions give, and suddenly I have minions dying even faster to AoE (hard to believe, I know), and even with minions up I’m a bunker with subpar sustainability, tankiness, and control, with a bit more DPS… until the minions die, then I’m more like a Moa’d Guardian.

Bhawb.7408:

I main MM necros in PvP, and the only reason I can justify even showing up to team fights is the bit of tankiness that 6+ bodies being in the fight does with the current AoE spam, along with the strong control and decent downed pressure I get.

You also get to one-shot the treb on Khylo with the Flesh Golem.
That’s never a bad thing.

Pet AI that doesn’t count towards the AoE limit would make Hammer of Wisdom incredibly overpowered in a team fight, or are you seriously going to argue that players need to actively chase a passive AI?

I’m assuming he means that Pets will be hit by AoE regardless if they don’t count towards the limit, which would make AoE spam even stronger against builds it is already great against.

And yes I can one-shot treb on Khylo (as well as the walls on Foefire) but that hardly makes up for the treb one-shotting my entire build when its up.

i’ll spare ANet the time to explain the issue:

the AoE limit is not a balance choice, or a strategical choice. it’s a computing choice. they have to limit the AoE because the amount of calculations required would grow exponentially, and the server load would be immense, causing a ton of lag.

so they keep the limit on 5, which is more than enough in most situations (rarely will you get more than 5 targets inside a single AoE at the same time outside WvW). they won’t increase the limit because they can’t increase the limit, not because they don’t want to.

of course, they do factor in this technical limitation into the balance.

AoE limit is not about mechanical computations, it is flat a balance problem (although limitations might have been a consideration). Epidemic used to have no AoE limit, and it was complete BS to be able to turn one bleed of 140 DPS into 30 bleeds for 4200 DPS every 15 seconds.

Bhawb.7408:

AoE limit is not about mechanical computations, it is flat a balance problem (although limitations might have been a consideration). Epidemic used to have no AoE limit, and it was complete BS to be able to turn one bleed of 140 DPS into 30 bleeds for 4200 DPS every 15 seconds.

tell that to the WvW devs, who say every other day that AoE limit is a technical problem that can’t be fixed without exponentially increasing the lag.

though i’m pretty sure they know more than you.

Maybe you didn’t notice yet but, there’s never more than 5 hostile/friendly players sPvP compared to WvW.

Also, heals and many buffs didn’t have AoE limits in WvW before and they were nerfed for balance reasons, not for performance.

stof.9341:

Maybe you didn’t notice yet but, there’s never more than 5 hostile/friendly players sPvP compared to WvW.

Also, heals and many buffs didn’t have AoE limits in WvW before and they were nerfed for balance reasons, not for performance.

sigh

link number 1

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I have no desire to argue with why the keep it, but it is still a fact that a lot of skills had no AoE limit at launch, those were added in later for BALANCE reasons. I cite Epidemic because it is the one I know of, where at launch it didn’t require LoS, was a guaranteed successful cast after start unless you were interrupted, and had no AoE limit. It was insanely OP, and they changed it. But it remains that AoE limits have not always been there.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Bhawb.7408:

AoE limit is not about mechanical computations, it is flat a balance problem (although limitations might have been a consideration). Epidemic used to have no AoE limit, and it was complete BS to be able to turn one bleed of 140 DPS into 30 bleeds for 4200 DPS every 15 seconds.

tell that to the WvW devs, who say every other day that AoE limit is a technical problem that can’t be fixed without exponentially increasing the lag.

though i’m pretty sure they know more than you.

Yeah, devs have stated more times than I can count that the AoE cap is, indeed, a technical limitation.

There were a few skills earlier in the game that were more cleave than gtaoe that were unaffected by the 5 target limit; I believe those have all been patched to observe the limit since then.

Bhawb.7408:

But it remains that AoE limits have not always been there.

And yes it has, this is just straight false. It just wasn’t on every single skill that could hit multiple targets at launch.