Guild Wars 2

Why do people think that removing the aoe cap promotes skillful play? What exactly is skillful about aoe?
So now 1 ele can wipe 20 people with a well placed nado bomb? Thats ridiculous.

Diminishing returns on all cc effects. After the max application of a condition, no more pushing it to max duration again with new incoming. Then have a coasting period where you’re immune to that effect for 3s. This could apply to damage conditions as well. That will reduce the OP-ness of +duration items.

katniss.6735:

Diminishing returns on all cc effects. After the max application of a condition, no more pushing it to max duration again with new incoming. Then have a coasting period where you’re immune to that effect for 3s. This could apply to damage conditions as well. That will reduce the OP-ness of +duration items.

CC is not OP. l2guardian. ok condies are OP but your proposal makes condi removal stupid OP.

as for wall. next time you are in your cute little zerg and you are standing in an AOE field not taking damage, you can thank anet for that because running with 5 people or less you dont have that luxury. AOEs are a zoning tool. if you need 5 aoes on 1 spot just to zone 25 guys there is something wrong with that. People should be encouraged to escape the AOE not stand in it like a moron and take no damage because their guardian buddy just happened to take the tick for them

Listen. Removing the aoe cap only benefits small team. In no way should a team of 5 be able to consistently wipe a team of 40. Why do you think the aoe cap was added in the first place?
I do believe, however, that it should be raised.

K&G: What are CSE’s plans to address the negatives associated with players Zerging?

CSE: We can’t stop Zerging (nor are we looking to do so), but if we can give players effective counters and, even more importantly, keep it from being or seeming the best way to succeed in Camelot Unchained, that will go a long way in this direction.

Mark Jacobs says:
January 21, 2014 at 8:41 am

@Gankatron – Some forms of CC have already been discussed and one of my stated goals is to make zerging the less attractive way to succeed. Many players love to min/max their playing time by finding the shortest route to success. If zerging isn’t that, many players will go a different route. I know we can’t eliminate zerging entirely but if we make it less attractive we should have enough of a balance between play styles that things will work out fine.

-Mark

http://www.keenandgraev.com/2014/01/20/exclusive-camelot-unchained-qa

with that, i’m finally and - once and for all - turning my back on guild wars 2 WvW and maybe gw2 entirely. i’d rather wait for a Camelot Unchained beta access and pay a kittenload of money (~280$) for it, than to get kittened every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of every decade of every century by a bunch of dev’s who forgot what MMO-gaming is all about.
So, may you all have fun in pointless bullkitten, ever repeating golem rushes and "sneak" attacks on keeps with no repercussions for losing a keep or fortress or who cares what. if i want to play WvW, in the future, i’ll roll a warrior and place a monkey in front of my keyboard and watch him eat a banana and fap. it’ll be more fun and definitely more interesting and rewarding, whilst maximizing my chances to win a 1v1 situation, than playing e.g an elementalist for myself.
It tells its own tale that Mythic Entertainment managed to balance 44 unmirrored professions with 40 skills (per profession) and ~30 realm abilities over 3 realms in DAoC, whilst YOU ARE NOT EVEN ABLE TO BALANCE 8 PROFESSIONS, of which 2 of every armor class are mirrored. Shame on you!
You are not even able to keep up with yourselves, balancing Guild Wars 1 PvP with four times as many skills .

Or the fact that after almost 1,5 years, you were not even able to provide more than ONE! LOUSY! STINKING! gamemode in PVP - What the hell?

I’ll stop the rant now. I could probably go on for quite a few hours, but it’s 5 a.m. by now, and I have far more important things to do than providing a bunch of untalented, arrogant, self-involved probably-republicans with my time.

Oh, feel free to ban my account and delete my post for expressing my criticism for the 5000000000th time. unheard, i might add, like all the other people in this thread, which will be erased, i guess, in the next couple o’ hours or days or weeks.

And THANK YOU, ArenaNet, for wasting an entire YEAR! of my life (and ~100 bucks or so) and yes, mindless zombies, i will go play another game.

gl,hf & gj.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Listen. Removing the aoe cap only benefits small team. In no way should a team of 5 be able to consistently wipe a team of 40. Why do you think the aoe cap was added in the first place?
I do believe, however, that it should be raised.

wow. you really just said that didnt you. Can someone else please just read that out loud for me again… Yes us elitist 5 mans just get all the Anet perks how dare we demand AOEs to be actual AOEs… Maybe if a 40 man zerg died to 5 people it would convince them to get better at the game instead of spam 1 like they are so inclined to do. No organized 5 man could beat an ORGANIZED 40 man no matter the skill spread. Its the pugs that need to fear the zergbusters

sry as much as i dont like monsterblobs, zergs are part of such a game mode and there is nothing u can do about it. the problem is though with unbalanced matchups, so outnumbered servers do need some kind of help/ full servers that unbalance a tier should be locked. but yeah i know u guys dont like to hear it, but this game mode is about massive battles that can be a ton of fun if the servers have some sort of similar population.
if u remove aoe cap it will backfire and zergs will get even bigger.
debuffing will punish people for playing together, lets say a guild that has 36 people on. it will also have commanders yell at people for joining them, etc.
with 18-20 people u can take on those 40+ zergs if u are coordinated well enough. the problem with massive blobs is that they are tough to coordinate and the zergbusters can rally off your weakest links easily.
of course 5 people cant rush 30+ zergs, but thats not the zergs fault its the coverage problem.u cant punish the players for zerging it up. i personally prefer not running with the blob.

katniss.6735:

This “Epic” guy got mad stories, yo. MAD STORIES!

mad “hypotheticals” actually. But you know if you want to contribute anything meaningful to the discussion you are free to do so. until then run along back to gale and peeta

I did, and you started posting a bunch of stuff about gameplay contrived from your own imagination.

Conditions are out of control in this game, and only diminishing returns have any measure of counter to them in their current state. It works in other MMOs, it will work here, despite your reluctancy.

i want the old body block from gw1. collision ftw! real back and front lines, new tactics, useless stats become usefull. new builds, new posts etc <3

The aoe cap is an issue that will plague this game until death. They will not fix it. All you can hope for is that it stands as a lesson for future games attempting a similar form of pvp.

katniss.6735:

I did, and you started posting a bunch of stuff about gameplay contrived from your own imagination.

read it again. it was contrived from stand the walls imagination. Go back to your zergblob

plz dont remove aoe cap i love standing in red circles with 30 people beside me and pressing 1, it makes me feel a bad player if i dont do so.

Without aoe cap there would be far far more CC to deal with too.

Thats not fun.

I’d like my aoe to hit more too, but I get it.

Also AoE classes would be absolute god. I’d roll a zerk ele and utterly destroy zergs = a lot of crying = a lot of people quitting.

Kilger.5490:

Without aoe cap there would be far far more CC to deal with too.

Thats not fun.

I’d like my aoe to hit more too, but I get it.

Also AoE classes would be absolute god. I’d roll a zerk ele and utterly destroy zergs = a lot of crying = a lot of people quitting.

I know it’s scary the idea to get wipe by a small group while hiding in a zerg …

The only advantages you should get from getting into zerg is the number of players. Not the mitigation of the damage because the AoE cap is set at 5.

That mechanic will force people to think more then just stacking and running. They will need to SPLIT and start thinking that a small burster group could hurt the zerg.

Thoses who are against my suggestion are zerger or don’t know about WvW basic fundamentals.

Just remember, there was a time when there was no AOE cap early in the game or it was very large, both for AOE offensive abilities and boons.

It got scaled down to 5 due to technical limitations so its extremely unlikely they will scale it back up unless the hardware and internet as whole evolves overnight and becomes more efficient both in terms of data transfer and processing as well as the financial costs for it.

Also, most important, WvW is about large scale epic battles. Things such as roaming etc. while ok for some people, are not as exciting. For example I like wiping RET or AGG and other alike organized blobs while using inferior numbers. And you want to eliminate the best part of wvw and replace is with dinky small scale crap ?

Tongku.5326:

Just remember, there was a time when there was no AOE cap early in the game or it was very large, both for AOE offensive abilities and boons.

It got scaled down to 5 due to technical limitations so its extremely unlikely they will scale it back up unless the hardware and internet as whole evolves overnight and becomes more efficient both in terms of data transfer and processing as well as the financial costs for it.

Also, most important, WvW is about large scale epic battles. Things such as roaming etc. while ok for some people, are not as exciting. For example I like wiping RET or AGG and other alike organized blobs while using inferior numbers. And you want to eliminate the best part of wvw and replace is with dinky small scale crap ?

You fail to see the point ren is trying to make. You are free to zerg all you like but just know that you are not invincible. Why do you all believe you are superior because you are “playing the way it was meant to be played” if ren had 5 of the most skilled players synergized to perfection and wipes a 40 man blob who is to say a 40 man synergized group couldnt wipe him? it doesnt nerf zergs it just makes it an even playing field for however you wish to play the game.

Ren I would upvote you about 100k times if I could…

Rendolphe.5086:

I know it’s scary the idea to get wipe by a small group while hiding in a zerg …

The only advantages you should get from getting into zerg is the number of players. Not the mitigation of the damage because the AoE cap is set at 5.

That mechanic will force people to think more then just stacking and running. They will need to SPLIT and start thinking that a small burster group could hurt the zerg.

Thoses who are against my suggestion are zerger or don’t know about WvW basic fundamentals.

You seem to “know” a lot dont you? Dont look down, your maturity is showing…

Well I derived my comment from your imagination that completely removing the aoe cap is a good thing for the game.
5 skilled, well positioned eles would have no problem wiping groups much larger then them with the nado bomb. That isnt skilled play, its just stupid.
Last time, I think we would all benefit from raising the aoe cap, not completely removing it. Stop being so defensive and realize I’m not completely against your point of view.

People will go where the best (as small as they are in WvW) rewards are. Zergs have their uses and purposes in WvW, it’s meant for large scale battle, plus they provide the best lootbag per second when you kill them

The problem is the absence of rewards for anything else than capping objectives and a zerg will always be best to cap stuff, with or without aoe limits. The only way to make things change is not changing something like aoe limit. It might make fighting a zerg easier for aoe strong class but it will make the other class obsolete.

What I think would be a good idea is to change the reward system for WvW. First we need more event reward for more stuff than capping a tower/keep/camp and it needs to come as an event chest so you don’t HAVE to tag the lord to get it. Some rewards should also be attributed for defending, again through reward chest (in that matter, something will have to be done to make sure no one exploit like wasting keep supply on a wall that is being trebbed just for the reward).

Then make reward brackets depending on how many are participating in the event. For example, if 1-20 participate, each gets reward X, if 21-40, each get reward Y, if 41-60 reward W and so on, given that X>Y>W>…
That way there is some reward vs risk involved. Numbers will still be important, after all it makes sense, but making the reward descale with numbers will probably help bringing more variety to WvW fighting tactics and behaviors.

IMO the easiest way to spread people in the zone more is….. wait for it… actually have a grouping system with more than a zerg option. Zerging is the ONLY in-game grouping system we have for more than 5 people. Sure multiple groups can try and run together using voice and bulls-eye marking. Flocking to the pin is less frustrating then trying to create an ad-hoc force of more than 5 people that doesn’t show a pin to everyone in the zone.

Private / guild only squads to create medium size forces is the easiest way to reduce zergs. We need an IN-GAME system with more flexibility for WvW.

Remove AOE cap and everyone rebuilds to AOE + crowd control. Totally new meta for weapons, skills, runes etc. Game balance goes down the toilet. ANet has to re-balance the entire game.

How is this an easy solution?

And bringing up DAOC and WAR as examples of great WvW. Seriously? Where are those games? CC + AOE basically destroyed game balance in WAR and caused a mass exodus of players. And DAOC was never popular.

Why not just argue that communism was a great success?

Didn’t even read it all but I can say one thing, it’s really really bad idea.

Wanderer.3248:

Remove AOE cap and everyone rebuilds to AOE + crowd control. Totally new meta for weapons, skills, runes etc. Game balance goes down the toilet. ANet has to re-balance the entire game.

How is this an easy solution?

And bringing up DAOC and WAR as examples of great WvW. Seriously? Where are those games? CC + AOE basically destroyed game balance in WAR and caused a mass exodus of players. And DAOC was never popular.

Why not just argue that communism was a great success?

Meta in WvW is Zerg. Most zerger focus in AoE. Single target in zerg isn’t effective.

The best build in WvW ’’meta’’ are still the AoEs.

GvG use almost all AoEs.

People will still use AoEs build with this change.

The only difference is you will give the opportunity to smaller group to do some zergbreaking.

Most people that are irritating from the AoE cap removal are thoses who zerg in group of 40+ and now see a danger in their WvW routine. OMG I will need to pay attention to red circle on ground, because the mass couldn’t mitigate this AoE anymore. OMG I can’t imagine we will split.

I like the analogy of communist. Here I offer something different, where people can split and create new group to counter zerg. But the current mechanic offer big advantages to stack together. Don’t need to think, just stack like everyone and follow the orders and commanders …

Brutal Augus.5917:

Dynnen.6405:

Aeonblade.8709:

Dynnen.6405:

Aeonblade.8709:

Karolis.4261:

Aeonblade.8709:

I do not think they should remove zerg combat, but it would be nice if the AoE cap was removed and 10-15 had a chance against 20-25.

WvW was meant for large scale combat, and they already have stated they won’t be changing that. However, I would not be adverse to doubling the AoE cap from 5 to 10 to give superior players a chance against more numbers.

Zerg =/= blob. Gw2 doesn’t have issues with zerging, Gw2 has issues with blobing. In every other mmorpg i played, players were directly punished for stacking up. Take “Rift” conquest for example- total zerg fest: but players that were stacking up was getting totally wiped by groups that spread out in the field, circle them up and fry their blob with aoes till the y get nice and crispy and thats how it should be.

I agree with you. The thread topic said Remove Zergs, but I think blobbing is the bigger issue. DAoC made you strategically move around in a zerg, far enough apart to not be AoE bombed, but close enough together to keep large scale fights going. The AoE cap cripples WvW in this game, and promotes the blob mentality.

EDIT: To the poster above, several heal effects on Guardian effect the entire zerg, not just 5 people.

Name them please.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_guardian_skills

Read through them, several of the ones that heal an area, unless specified to a limit of 5 people, heal everyone in the target area. Not just 5 people in the target area.

Also, as it is not quite the same but I feel worth mentioning, some of the shouts that add the Regen boon affect everyone around you, not just 5 people as well.

I am aware however, that boons =/= straight healing, so take that as you may.

I am also aware that some of the abilities that DO only heal 5 allies do not state so, such as Empower in the staff skill set. However, there are others, such as heal area, that I have seen heal more than 5 people myself using the ability.

Virtues: 5 targets
Weapon skills: 5 targets
Symbols: 5 targets
Utilites: 5 targets

Which ones specifically were u referring to?

Guardian staff skill 4 (empower)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empower

Its 5 targets, and the Guardian…so technically yes…more than 5. But we were talking about more than that. So heres the nit-picky award of the week to you!

AOE won’t stop zergs forming. It’ll just spread them out more. WAR still had zergs, even with totally OP AOE. The Zergs just spread out so that they wouldn’t all be caught in a single bomb group. The bombs groups had no real skill, they just relied on an OP mechanic and a FoTM build (which became a flavor of forever build because it never got nerfed).

And the meta was all about mitigating CC and fire damage (which was the main AOE damage type). Ironically the fire resistance meta it tended to render the OP wizard classes less useful against even numbers (so they cried and got buffed).

If you buff AOE youll have the same problem in GW2, you’ll have DD ele bomb groups doing what bright wizards did to WAR.

The thing about DAoC and WAR is that PBAoE did MORE damage at the center of the target area and tapered off from there. Instead of forcing the game engine/mechanics to balance the game it was balanced with “Are you dumb enough to stand in the center of the AOE?” PBAoE in this game means the 5 people closest to the center take the damage…which is dumb

Also there was a huge difference in single target an aoe damage. Single target damage was drastically higher than aoe. In this game aoe abilities compete with single target damage…which is dumb

Next is map sizes. These things are too kitten small…period…which is dumb

And who can forget diminishing returns on CC? There were stuns, roots (immobilize), mesmerize. Stuns went full duration unless you purged it, then you gained complete immunity for a short period of time. Roots could break on damage and would give you a short immunity. Mesmerize were long duration ‘stuns’ that broke on damage, and once they broke you got immunity. This made CC critical, because if you hit it at the wrong time you might lose the fight. There was a risk-vs-reward aspect to CC in DAoC that we really haven’t seen since =/

Lastly there were mechanics in DAoC that helped break up the zergs as well. Darkness Falls was a PVE/PVP dungeon that had great gear, but you could only control it if you had control of a majority of the keeps. So once your server got enough control, you could get into Darkness Falls. This pulled a portion of your zerg out of PVP and into PVE/PVP. The relic keeps function in the same way and weren’t as ridiculous as they have been in this game, plus they were hard to get. If your faction was pushing a relic keep, enemy forces could back-cap keeps regaining their shield on the relic keep.

Wanderer.3248:

Remove AOE cap and everyone rebuilds to AOE + crowd control. Totally new meta for weapons, skills, runes etc. Game balance goes down the toilet. ANet has to re-balance the entire game.

How is this an easy solution?

And bringing up DAOC and WAR as examples of great WvW. Seriously? Where are those games? CC + AOE basically destroyed game balance in WAR and caused a mass exodus of players. And DAOC was never popular.

Why not just argue that communism was a great success?

WAR destroyed itself due to bugs and EA/Paul Barnett/Jeff Hickman promising a bunch of stuff and not delivering (sounds familiar?). Yes there were some cheesy things in the game, but nothing like what we have here. DAoC never popular? Look at the number of people that played that game and remember, this is pre-wow. So PC gaming wasn’t as easy to get into at that time. DAoC had 8 expansions from its launch in ’01 to ’07.

A few things to take away from this:

WvW is based on DAoC’s system, but missing some key features and mechanics.
DAoC’s balance patching schedule was every 1-3 weeks instead of 3-6 months.
Meta is just an excuse on how unbalanced things are.
Lastly, theres a reason people are still talking about how DAoC did things right.

Wanderer.3248:

And bringing up DAOC and WAR as examples of great WvW. Seriously? Where are those games? CC + AOE basically destroyed game balance in WAR and caused a mass exodus of players. And DAOC was never popular.

Why not just argue that communism was a great success?

Have to disagree on some points there. DAOC was a great game, and is still running today using a $15 a month subscription fee system in the days of free to play MMO’s. It’s simply an outdated engine with no new development.

Warhammer is another matter, bad design and being released to early contributed to it’s defeat. They ignored the things they did right in DAOC. Mythic choose not to
renew the Warhammer licensing deal when it expired with games workshop…. simply wasn’t profitable, otherwise it would still be running as free to play.

People keep bringing these up as Warhammer still had the BEST grouping system I’ve ever used for a large scale PvP MMO. And DAOC is still the best overall WvW (RvR) system I’ve ever used. Gw2 could eventually be better, but it’s not there yet and won’t be until Anet starts making it a priority.

Wanderer.3248:

. And DAOC was never popular.

Only the best WvW implementation ever, had a good reign of 10 years or so, its kind of like arguing the Roman empire was never successful.

Ive played WAR, Rift, Aion, AoC and now GW2 and im sorry none of them do PvP as well as DAoC did so many years ago.

DAoC did a lot of things wrong, like no CC immunity to begin with. Was pretty funny watching the perma AoE stun from Healers and Thane hammers reign down on people. But over time they adjusted the classes to achieve a good balance and they realised numbers infer their own advantage. So they put in to play mechanics to aid structured and organised play. The zergs had access to these mechanics just as the smaller groups but it was the more well communicated and co-ordinated group that could draw the most advantage from these mechanics. Rewarding them for co-ordinated well organised team play.

Remove rallying and somehow nerf chain ressing (Someone goes down in a zerg people just get him straight back up).

So you think removing the AoE cap is going to fix zerging?

You do realize that would allow a hammer stun to stun the ENTIRE zerg just like a static field does right now.

Vermillion.4061:

So you think removing the AoE cap is going to fix zerging?

You do realize that would allow a hammer stun to stun the ENTIRE zerg just like a static field does right now.

Well people would be a lot more spread out no? As the advantage of standing in a massive ball is gone?

If they didn’t cap the targets they’d have to cap the damage. Balance matters.

No caps. They may need to tone down damage, but capping thing’s(damage, AE cap) are terrible ideas, and are just taking the easy way out to fix real issues.

Anyone played Dark ages of Camelot? or Dark ages of Cast a lot in its final years?
2 groups standing opposite each other in lines. No melee crazy enough to charge in.
Even a group of melee will get cast down very fast because of all the casters hit them at the same time. So only casters standing at max range sometimes doing a step forward cast their aoe and step back…. So booring.

There are much better ways to decourage zerging.. or karma train..
Why do people karma train… because its the best and most rewarding tactic in game.
Change both and people will stop zerging.
So only reward a few people for taking an objective.. and make zergs split up by making it easier for small groups to take poor defended/undefended objectives and hold them when the zerg comes (keeps towers just taken will be tier 3 fully upgraded.. and will downgrade every 15 minutes if not enough supplies brought to it)

Dutchares.6084:

Anyone played Dark ages of Camelot? or Dark ages of Cast a lot in its final years?
2 groups standing opposite each other in lines. No melee crazy enough to charge in.
Even a group of melee will get cast down very fast because of all the casters hit them at the same time. So only casters standing at max range sometimes doing a step forward cast their aoe and step back…. So booring.

There are much better ways to decourage zerging.. or karma train..
Why do people karma train… because its the best and most rewarding tactic in game.
Change both and people will stop zerging.
So only reward a few people for taking an objective.. and make zergs split up by making it easier for small groups to take poor defended/undefended objectives and hold them when the zerg comes (keeps towers just taken will be tier 3 fully upgraded.. and will downgrade every 15 minutes if not enough supplies brought to it)

I haven’t played DaoC in about 5 years. But I did RvR in 8man groups for many years. What changes were made that casters were made #1 in 8man? For the longest time it was all about melee. There were always caster extend groups, but they weren’t invincible like you’re implying here.

God I want to play DaoC PvP so bad. Please, I am begging some developer, make a good PvP MMO and I will give you lots of money!! Please!!!!!! qqqqqqqqq

Agree about the topic. Need to remove offencive cap. Big zerg already has advantage because it is just BIG. Why need to give them another advantage with 5 target offencive limit?

AOE for the small group is only the way to defeat mindless stacking zerg. Like 300 ppl from Sparta
But healing shoul has the 5 ppl cap.

Just imagine huge zerg stacked in 1 point and 3 Elementalist casting AOE to the center of this zerg and most will die
Unfortunately at this moment this is not possible due to AOE cap and NO WAY for smaller group to stay against huge zerg. That’s very bad.

Just a few things to keep in mind:

-Towers and keeps can be a pain to defend just because of trebs, you can shoot from one tower to the other, and there is little to be done, whoever has more supplies, or trebs wins.
-Defending isn’t profitable, you can say whatever you want, but people want rewards, some people want them as fast as posible, or as big as posible, defending a keep for an hour isn’t nearly as profitable as taking 2 undefended towers(unless your maybe on an AC and are able to just nuke a zerg the whole time)

- It’s player mentality not Anet, keep in mind that players decide to zerg, if a zerg were to split up in 4 groups a zerg, no matter it’s size, cannot defend 4 places at the same time and would have to split up.

More examples can be mentioned, i doubt zergs are gonna stop any time soon

zerg itself is not a problem, the problem is: smaller group have not even any chances against zerg due to offencive AOE cap (does not matter if smaller group skilled or not)
because damage receiving from AOE reduced on bigger group.
Bigger group received less damage. This is unfair.

Lich King.1524:

AOE for the small group is only the way to defeat mindless stacking zerg. Like 300 ppl from Sparta
But healing shoul has the 5 ppl cap.

It was more like 1000 people holding the line (of which Sparta had 300). They where against an estimated 70-300K Persians. Lets say 200K for arguments sake.

That is a 1:200 ratio in terms of manpower.

Your “limited” 5 men – still offering full boons to each other – should in other words be able to stand against 1000 players if you wish to compare with the battle of Thermopylae. Since that is unlikely to happen ingame, they actually have a huuuuuuge advantage compared to what the Spartans and their allies faced.

Next if we compare the reported losses from the battle, all the Greek rear guard died (more than 1000 if we include earlier losses) while the Persians lost ~20K. 20K out of 200K is a fairly low 10% casualties. The Persians still won the battle.

Translating these numbers isnt exact, but your 5 Spartan defenders would still die horribly to 30 attackers that loose a couple of players tops.

Which happen to be exactly what happen during most GW2 fights. There’s always some rallybot in the zerg.

So I fail to see your point.

Dawdler.8521:

Lich King.1524:

AOE for the small group is only the way to defeat mindless stacking zerg. Like 300 ppl from Sparta
But healing shoul has the 5 ppl cap.

It was more like 1000 people holding the line (of which Sparta had 300). They where against an estimated 70-300K Persians. Lets say 200K for arguments sake.

That is a 1:200 ratio in terms of manpower.

Your “limited” 5 men – still offering full boons to each other – should in other words be able to stand against 1000 players if you wish to compare with the battle of Thermopylae. Since that is unlikely to happen ingame, they actually have a huuuuuuge advantage compared to what the Spartans and their allies faced.

Next if we compare the reported losses from the battle, all the Greek rear guard died (more than 1000 if we include earlier losses) while the Persians lost ~20K. 20K out of 200K is a fairly low 10% casualties. The Persians still won the battle.

Translating these numbers isnt exact, but your 5 Spartan defenders would still die horribly to 30 attackers that loose a couple of players tops.

Which happen to be exactly what happen during most GW2 fights. There’s always some rallybot in the zerg.

So I fail to see your point.

you do not understand, read please above.

I do not argue about offence. Bigger group always has more power.

BUT! Today bigger group has huge unfair advantage in defence, because AOE splitted randomly to whole big group due to AOE cap.

Bassically if the group big enough most ppl will receive no damage even not press to any skill.
And vice versa: small group will receive all damage.

Is it fair?

Lich King.1524:

Is it fair?

Depends. Is it fair that a 50 man necro zerker blob absolutely crush a 20 man guardian/warrior/necro/ele/etc balanced guild group in a second due to uncapped AoE?

If you say yes…

Then I also say yes.

Rendolphe.5086:

[Same old stuff that Anet have already said they can’t or won’t do.]

No.

When you remove the aoe cap it just benefits the zerg more. I know you all think that a 5 man ground of zerker eles can dominate but consider this: a 40man zerg with 15 warriors would be able to heal 30k hp instantly just by the use of 1 shout, most hammer warriors run 2/3 shouts so you are looking at doing 60-90k hp regen just from the wars. Even assuming you poisoned them all, thats still 40k healing in 2 instant cast shouts, and this doesn’t even include the guards or eles.

They would have 100% protection uptime and almost unlimited condi cleanse so to down that 40 man zerg you would have to hit them with almost 45k direct damage in less than 1 second and make sure you down them all, because if you dont, they will instantly heal back to full hp.

The removal of the aoe cap would make spike damage the meta. It would encourage the instant kill classes that every mmo has discouraged because theres no real flow to combat or time to make any decisions to react. To remove the aoe cap, you would have to seriously redesign every class’s game mechanics from scratch, which we all know a net will not do.

dodgycookies.4562:

When you remove the aoe cap it just benefits the zerg more. I know you all think that a 5 man ground of zerker eles can dominate but consider this: a 40man zerg with 15 warriors would be able to heal 30k hp instantly just by the use of 1 shout, most hammer warriors run 2/3 shouts so you are looking at doing 60-90k hp regen just from the wars. Even assuming you poisoned them all, thats still 40k healing in 2 instant cast shouts, and this doesn’t even include the guards or eles.

They would have 100% protection uptime and almost unlimited condi cleanse so to down that 40 man zerg you would have to hit them with almost 45k direct damage in less than 1 second and make sure you down them all, because if you dont, they will instantly heal back to full hp.

The removal of the aoe cap would make spike damage the meta. It would encourage the instant kill classes that every mmo has discouraged because theres no real flow to combat or time to make any decisions to react. To remove the aoe cap, you would have to seriously redesign every class’s game mechanics from scratch, which we all know a net will not do.

no it wont.

aoe damage cap and aoe healing cap are not the same.

aoe damage cap should be removed.
two/three spreaded parties of 5 will be the new standard group.
boon stripping vs retaliation will be the new zerg meta on larger objectives.

There is one change we can do that would be at the disadvantage of zergs.

Give Retaliation an icd.

Blobs stack Retaliation like crazy, especially with every other player being a guardian its much harder to run a blob that has no retaliation because of how mindlessly simple it is applied in such large groups.
Retaliation returns massive amounts of damage back to people who throw AoE into such blobs. The very attacks that should counter stacking up, are being countered by stacking up. As a result, the AoE user takes more damage from retaliation then he deals to the zerg in AoE.

And with much less retaliation procs needing to be processed by the server it will actually be a slight performance increase.

Nearly every aoe-cap-removal thread, of which there have been many, is an expression of the misguided frustration that an individual, or group of uncoordinated individuals, cannot effectively combat a coordinated enemy team. An individual’s single meteor shower is not enough to wipe that team when it stands in a ball, and they think it should be.

But depsite the cap, AoE is still the single most powerful and important type of damage source in the game. Every team relies on it to combat other teams – not with single meteors, but with “bombs.” Dozens of wells, marks, null fields, meteors, static fields, earthshakers, mighty blows, etc, all in the same place at the same time. That is how a blob is wiped.

The simple fact is that you do need a critical mass of coordinated players to compete in this game. 5v40 will never work, but there are many guilds that can accomplish 20v40+.