Guild Wars 2

When I think of this it makes me think its completely inconsiderate to any combat that actually goes on in the BL. I mean think about roamers on small scale. How could this affect specific peoples builds like condi builds? Granted I hate condi builds a ton because the stats are OP in WvW but still they are roamers too and it invalidates their playstyle because of some gimmicky mechanic.

I’m hoping it’s just an immunity to the burning status which certain fires in the game gives you, and hopefully that the lava will inflict. If not, I don’t think it is a good idea.

You seem to have missed the part about being immune to burning only “When in or near the Fire Keep”.

This buff is also dependent on controlling all 3? of the fire shrines which are OUTSIDE the keep proper. Very contestable, very ninjable.

Saying this is targeted at classes with burning is like saying the air buff immunity to falling damage is targeted at classes with fear…

Immunity to any condition for any player in/near the keep is a bad mechanic. Make it tick for 75% damage or something like that. Plus this is not really necessary as lava has its own “burning” effect that is different from the burning condition.

nihasa.5067:

Immunity to any condition for any player in/near the keep is a bad mechanic. Make it tick for 75% damage or something like that. Plus this is not really necessary as lava has its own “burning” effect that is different from the burning condition.

Immunity to any condition is not just bad for players, it’s bad for NPC’s as well.

Imagine if destroyers became widely used NPC’s with their burning immunity.
Or imagine if earth elementals & golems were given bleeding immunity ( mean they don’t have blood right)

Really hope the burning immunity is reconsidered to just be “lava” immunity

GREAT addition, this means YOU GOTTA BRING A FRIEND TO DO IT QUICKLY.

brilliant way to promote teamwork while not totally shutting down a class.

Lopez.7369:

For the record, I play a necromancer and don’t use any burning. I just find this to be a really terrible design decision.

Hm, Why? Gaurdians don’t play condi builds and eles will only benefit from if alot if they’re cele/bunker because they hardly play condi too. Engis are probably the most affected but even then i don’t see the problem.

Send one person off to take the shrine, they’re soloable. Why is nobody even bothering to think about splitting up.

Also is it confirmed that it’s the player condition aswell as the standard “Standing on fire” burning?

They said you can remove this buff by simply taking the shrine.

I think they are talking about the lava alone not burns from the players them self.

Lopez.7369:

In today’s demo, they revealed that Fire Keep defenders will be able to gain immunity to burning (and lava) when they capture three shrines.

This is to the developers: Do you guys even consider the balance repercussions when you add stuff like this? Why would you make it so some classes, like guardians and elementalists, lose a bunch of their damage in a certain area of the map under certain circumstances? Is there any reason these classes need to be targeted by area-specific balance changes, even though none of the other objectives on the map target other specific classes?

Imagine if this buff was pitched in a developer meeting with only the effect, not the lore behind it, in mind: “Okay, guys, so when you get three shrines in this one area of the map, you make elementalists, guardians, and engineers less useful. Every other class remains unaffected. Also, no other map objective will affect specific classes like this one does.” Would that ever fly? I like to think not.

This concern applies to a bunch of the mobs in the PvE game too, but at least there burning damage isn’t too consequential.

For the record, I play a necromancer and don’t use any burning. I just find this to be a really terrible design decision.

+10 I am sorry but the Devs are going to hurt our gaming more than enhance it since even the lowly Ranger has no control over the weapon fields even if they do have control over “skills”. I will not give up my torch – good gravy Anet… what are you doing?

Lava Burning and Burning (condition) are two completely different sources of damage.
The shrine will mitigate only lava damage, not the condition.

I hate to say it but it is a terrible design to invalidate an entire damage type.
We kept hearing that they were planning to incentivize build and stat diversity.
Then… this.

The current metas even existing is due to stuff like this and the (unnecessary) caps on stacks.

1. I would only be ok with this if an entire area granted either immunity to direct damage or immunity to criticals. Would that upset people? It is the same thing, invalidating someones stats.

If this balance pass goes through, I will simply run my immunity to crit ele scepter/focus and hang out at this area 24/7. Prepare for this mechanic to be abused.
I can already 1v3 on such a build but I will be a god now in this new area.
List of stats nullified by my build in this area:

1. Precision (can’t crit in earth form)
2. Crit damage (see above)
3. Burning Condition.
4. crit proc effects IE their food heals, trait heals, trait crit mechanics, etc

Hurray, now you will have to have tons of bleeds and torment or you can just flip a table.

As fun as this sounds, I think it is a nightmare balance wise. A build that was previously balanced (or even easy to counter when facing experienced players) due to its strengths and weaknesses has now been transformed into a demigod due to thoughtless gimmicks.

2. Imagine my bleed warrior and a burning guardian (lets just say there were more people like this) enter this area. I would win by default because their burning condition would be nullified and my condition would still work fine. I want to win by skill and not a gimmick.
3. Conditions are already at a disadvantage for no good reason on structures.
Make structures able to be critically hit and also able to have conditions on them. It doesn’t have to make sense, it is mmo balance. Invalidating stats on some things but not others is frankly a dimwitted decision. Seeing as how Anet are intelligent, thinking people.. you guys are better than this! Does this not remind you of the stability problem from before?

^ Ways to have build diversity. I know I am not on your payroll but there yah go, a person who has done plenty of balance passes on other games advice without even having to pay them.

This heavily incentivizes guards that ignore vitality (main reason for vit is conditions and since they won’t have to deal with a burning condition, even if the enemy uses bleeds.. the condi removal will have one less stack to get rid of before it removes the bleed stack) and condi removal and just stack toughness instead. So this ALSO creates further imbalance between vit and toughness whilst in this area.

Everything else about this map sounds fine but you need to consider the repurcussions.

Alternatives: In the burning area, make stacks of immunity that can be removed like the new stability. These are gained by communing with a statue or something and they have a time out. These ARE usable outside the area and a zerg may choose to stop and stack these. This creates more play while also avoiding sweeping immunity which WE SORTA had the feeling you were trying to remove from this game with the stability change.

Implement a precision statue someplace else that gives a few stacks of crit damage immunity, etc as well.

Make it so fear removes the immunity to falling damage temporarily possibly.. I am not sure about this because it isn’t nearly as imbalanced since people technically didn’t have to trait or stat into killing someone with gravity. Fear is still useful without falling damage and can still do damage in other parts of the map. I hate being feared off of cliffs as much as the next girl. The thing is.. they had to invest resources and time into being able to do such a thing to me and I respect that. The problem with this is that a guardian with a hammer is just as entitled to the knock off kill as the fear necro. In order to balance this, think of the mechanic as terraforming the area for one team to have the same mechanics as a flat field. This balance is geographic not statistic. There is no stat for killing people with fall damage.

Still, try to be like a comedian. If you mess with one group, mess with the others.
I don’t like winning due to gimmicks or total immunity. Sweeping immunity to X already sucked with stability. Don’t revive a dead horse.

TLDR; Cyclical balance is good and that is what they are trying to achieve. However, cyclical balance requires a radial focus. If everything seems to single out one way of playing the game, you end up with no diversity which hurts the cyclical balance in big ways and causes people to get bored of the game faster because they have less room to experiment with new ways of playing. Just… watch Extra Credit.

If there is more build diversity I will enjoy fighting new people more and not automatically know if I will win or lose based on gimmicks. Many people feel this way in the competitive scene. A mechanic should aid gameplay – never overshadow it.

SoulSin.5682:

Lava Burning and Burning (condition) are two completely different sources of damage.
The shrine will mitigate only lava damage, not the condition.

In the stream it was explicitly mentioned that the shrine will protect against both lava damage and burning condition damage (just before the 14:00 minute point IIRC).

And even if it is so. Other professions are in a disadvantage in other situations. No1 cares for example that in sPvP the majority of my defensive Mesmer mechanics won’t work when carrying the orb of ascension for instance.

And this will hurt my Condi shatter build too, for a big part of the damage comes from burning. But WvW is a cooperative game mode. Simply decap that shrine and all is fine (uh, that rimes^^). The shrine has a limited Area of Effect anyway.

Pretty sure what they were referring to is
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lava

and

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Burning_, which is different to
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Burning

Walking on Lava and on the torches in Cliffside fractal will set you on fire that you can’t cleanse.

Lopez.7369:

So why do guardians, elementalists, and engineers deserve to be worse than anyone else in one part of the map, while no one else is made worse on any other part of the map?

What is the justification behind randomly nerfing a class in one part of the game? If the class is overpowered — or burning is overpowered — shouldn’t it be nerfed everywhere?

This is a list of some classes, that have a free rain in almost all setups. Granted, engineers are not that present in Zergs, but still do well in PUG Zergs and are amazing at roaming. The other two don’t need explanation.

So what is so bad, that they might be limited in a certain part of the map under certain conditions, that can be circumvented even? WvW is unfair by design.

As I see it, even if it turns out those professions would be… well… a bit hindered, it is nothing compared to what other professions had to deal with since release.

Conditions aren’t important only for condi builds. There are a lot of burst build traits in this game that rely on conditions. For roaming mediguards Fiery Wrath isn’t a bad pick for well timed bursts following a burn to on the enemy for example. It boosts your raw damage by 10% on foes that have been inflicted with the condition.
Nerfing burning is not only a nerf to condition builds from engineers, dhuum necro or cele ele. It’s a nerf on a lot of more offensive builds.

Conditions in this game are not only used for their own damage, they can also just be enhancing the rest of your build through other means.

So ultimately, under specific conditions that can be influenced by both defenders and attackers, defenders when inside their own area of the map will gain a significant advantage against a large number of builds.

This sounds like it’s balanced quite perfectly actually. If your team can’t be bothered to go take out the lava shrines, then you pay the price by allowing them a strong defensive advantage. Conversely, if they can’t be bothered to control their lava shrines, they don’t gain access to that defensive advantage.

I really don’t understand the complaints here. This just means you can’t blindfold yourself and roll your face across the keyboard hoping to accomplish things in wvw. You’ll actually have to use your head and figure out how to tactically assault various keeps.

Fay.2357:

So ultimately, under specific conditions that can be influenced by both defenders and attackers, defenders when inside their own area of the map will gain a significant advantage against a large number of builds.

This sounds like it’s balanced quite perfectly actually. If your team can’t be bothered to go take out the lava shrines, then you pay the price by allowing them a strong defensive advantage. Conversely, if they can’t be bothered to control their lava shrines, they don’t gain access to that defensive advantage.

I really don’t understand the complaints here. This just means you can’t blindfold yourself and roll your face across the keyboard hoping to accomplish things in wvw. You’ll actually have to use your head and figure out how to tactically assault various keeps.

If this quote sums the new system up, I don’t see an issue what so ever with it. If they’re immune to burning whilst in their area (fire keep), I dont see a problem with the other side having to send a havoc squad/second group round to defeat the fire temple or whatever it is.

rainbowstylin.1358:

Fay.2357:

So ultimately, under specific conditions that can be influenced by both defenders and attackers, defenders when inside their own area of the map will gain a significant advantage against a large number of builds.

This sounds like it’s balanced quite perfectly actually. If your team can’t be bothered to go take out the lava shrines, then you pay the price by allowing them a strong defensive advantage. Conversely, if they can’t be bothered to control their lava shrines, they don’t gain access to that defensive advantage.

I really don’t understand the complaints here. This just means you can’t blindfold yourself and roll your face across the keyboard hoping to accomplish things in wvw. You’ll actually have to use your head and figure out how to tactically assault various keeps.

If this quote sums the new system up, I don’t see an issue what so ever with it. If they’re immune to burning whilst in their area (fire keep), I dont see a problem with the other side having to send a havoc squad/second group round to defeat the fire temple or whatever it is.

I agree with this.
Work as a team, succeed as a team.
Why is this going to be bad?

Didn’t we want to promote small roaming groups and not death balls?

Ruining the viability of certain builds should never be an effect in WVW.
Winning/Losing fights due to ridiculous damage handicaps applied on your enemy/yourself is boring as hell.
Anet should focus more on tempering the extremes not on amplifying them.

If this isn’t such a bad thing as people are saying why not let the third earth shrine give immunity to physical damage dealt from between 900 to 700 range to the target when in proximity.

rainbowstylin.1358:

Fay.2357:

So ultimately, under specific conditions that can be influenced by both defenders and attackers, defenders when inside their own area of the map will gain a significant advantage against a large number of builds.

This sounds like it’s balanced quite perfectly actually. If your team can’t be bothered to go take out the lava shrines, then you pay the price by allowing them a strong defensive advantage. Conversely, if they can’t be bothered to control their lava shrines, they don’t gain access to that defensive advantage.

I really don’t understand the complaints here. This just means you can’t blindfold yourself and roll your face across the keyboard hoping to accomplish things in wvw. You’ll actually have to use your head and figure out how to tactically assault various keeps.

If this quote sums the new system up, I don’t see an issue what so ever with it. If they’re immune to burning whilst in their area (fire keep), I dont see a problem with the other side having to send a havoc squad/second group round to defeat the fire temple or whatever it is.

Tactically speaking, the fire keep defenders (unless they are hugely outnumbered) can set up some defensive siege and defend the shrines, keeping their bonuses and nerfing the attackers damage.

Blanket immunity to a condition, or blanket causing of an effect (like stupid fractals burning that can’t be removed..but can be ignored by players that have a healing signet on, but uses other classes heal skill..) is bad design for a pvp area.

It looks more and more like a casual pve area with incidental pvp in it, affected by cap mechanics that most of us don’t want to play (look at BL bloodlust, see how many are held/defended, only time most are capped are when it’s in the daily rotation..) and that seems to have come from a pvp 3 cap map.

I agree with the fact in the beta bleed now caps at 100 and can go past but gets a ! sign according to people. However, this just means the rift is even more huge between burning and bleed while in a group setting. This is interesting.

I’m not letting this post die, I run a condi-guardian all the time in WvW in my attempt to make it work and if the ENTIRE premise of my build is going to be completely nullified because some kitten berserker groups come in and cap a few points and literally DESTROY my one condition. Then I won’t be playing on these BL’s very often

Ppl make more out of this, that it actually is, imo. The immunity only applies under certain conditions and only to the owners of the keep. It’s not like you won’t be able to do anything anywhere else.

Solo-heroes, relying on burning, will be hurt, if the shrine is in the keep-owners hands. But the question is, what will a solo-heroe accomplish anyway there?

If you leave all three shrines to the defenders then it is your tactical fault and you will receive a punishment for this. You have to split and conquer the shrines. It is very simple.

Fact 1:
shrine bonuses only do apply to defenders (attackers only can deactivate these bonuses, but will still receive the temporary stat-boosts from claiming a shrine) in the close vicinity or inside the respective keep. fall-dmg immunity does not work in/around the earth keep. there is no sandstorm around the fire-keep, a.s.o.

Fact 2:
all shrines are placed outside the keeps vicinity, allowing for equal fights on and around these shrines. Even if your burn-heavy condi-build (or dmg-proc) is useless around the fire-keep to a specific moment, you always have the option to deactivate/ fight for a shrine on equal footing with everyone else.

Fact 3:
The point of shrines is to give keep-defenders a imbalanced advantage over attackers as long as they hold these shrines. Attackers therefore must spend time and effort to take out these shrines first, or deal with environments that heavily favor the defenders.
Stillness and tranquility are similar mechanics, already present in the silent storm map, which is still perceived as one of the best-balanced maps for PvP.

Fact 4:
this thread is stupid. Why? Because we are no wizzards and havn’t played it yet.

My personal opinion:
I don’t mind the addition of shrines or the oasis event, since I’ve not played it myself so far and need to see which situations I’ll actually end in on this new map. So far it looks exiting, even tho I’m a bit worried about the oasis event dealing too much dmg to gates. On the other hand we will get t3-gates for towers on this map, defending dollies will be easier, and the one in the latest stream was actually running quite fast (which indicates new upgrades for camps as well), so I’ll sit back and wait for HoT to be released and come back with an educated opinion about these new mechanics and how they interact with my preferences.

Abe Kleine.3568:

I’m not letting this post die, I run a condi-guardian all the time in WvW in my attempt to make it work and if the ENTIRE premise of my build is going to be completely nullified because some kitten berserker groups come in and cap a few points and literally DESTROY my one condition.

So then take your build with its entire premise and go be useful and take out the shrine that you’re complaining about so much. The shrine bonus isn’t active at the shrine itself, so if you just throw your hands up in the air and declare yourself completely useless because their havoks got the shrine bonus, you’re completely ignoring the facts of how this mechanic works.

Abe Kleine.3568:

Then I won’t be playing on these BL’s very often

Your team will probably appreciate this, usually I like to have people that at least try to play well on my team.

Fay.2357:

Abe Kleine.3568:

I’m not letting this post die, I run a condi-guardian all the time in WvW in my attempt to make it work and if the ENTIRE premise of my build is going to be completely nullified because some kitten berserker groups come in and cap a few points and literally DESTROY my one condition.

So then take your build with its entire premise and go be useful and take out the shrine that you’re complaining about so much. The shrine bonus isn’t active at the shrine itself, so if you just throw your hands up in the air and declare yourself completely useless because their havoks got the shrine bonus, you’re completely ignoring the facts of how this mechanic works.

Abe Kleine.3568:

Then I won’t be playing on these BL’s very often

Your team will probably appreciate this, usually I like to have people that at least try to play well on my team.

If anything goes as long as it can be nullified by taking out a shine, why not let the third earth shrine make you immune to damage dealth from within 0-150 range? and hmm third air shrine make you immune to CC? That’d be fun

Zetsumei.4975:

Fay.2357:

Abe Kleine.3568:

I’m not letting this post die, I run a condi-guardian all the time in WvW in my attempt to make it work and if the ENTIRE premise of my build is going to be completely nullified because some kitten berserker groups come in and cap a few points and literally DESTROY my one condition.

So then take your build with its entire premise and go be useful and take out the shrine that you’re complaining about so much. The shrine bonus isn’t active at the shrine itself, so if you just throw your hands up in the air and declare yourself completely useless because their havoks got the shrine bonus, you’re completely ignoring the facts of how this mechanic works.

Abe Kleine.3568:

Then I won’t be playing on these BL’s very often

Your team will probably appreciate this, usually I like to have people that at least try to play well on my team.

If anything goes as long as it can be nullified by taking out a shine, why not let the third earth shrine make you immune to damage dealth from within 0-150 range? and hmm third air shrine make you immune to CC? That’d be fun

Even if you try to be sarcastic, I would not mind these bonuses either.
Defenders just get more reasons to hold shrines.
Attackers just get more reasons to take them out.
Headless chicken get even more punished for ignoring them.
Shrines are still solo-able objectives, not giving any bonuses for defenders around themselves.

Arantheal.7396:

Fact 1:
shrine bonuses only do apply to defenders (attackers only can deactivate these bonuses, but will still receive the temporary stat-boosts from claiming a shrine) in the close vicinity or inside the respective keep. fall-dmg immunity does not work in/around the earth keep. there is no sandstorm around the fire-keep, a.s.o.

Fact 2:
all shrines are placed outside the keeps vicinity, allowing for equal fights on and around these shrines. Even if your burn-heavy condi-build (or dmg-proc) is useless around the fire-keep to a specific moment, you always have the option to deactivate/ fight for a shrine on equal footing with everyone else.

Fact 3:
The point of shrines is to give keep-defenders a imbalanced advantage over attackers as long as they hold these shrines. Attackers therefore must spend time and effort to take out these shrines first, or deal with environments that heavily favor the defenders.
Stillness and tranquility are similar mechanics, already present in the silent storm map, which is still perceived as one of the best-balanced maps for PvP.

Fact 4:
this thread is stupid. Why? Because we are no wizzards and havn’t played it yet.

My personal opinion:
I don’t mind the addition of shrines or the oasis event, since I’ve not played it myself so far and need to see which situations I’ll actually end in on this new map. So far it looks exiting, even tho I’m a bit worried about the oasis event dealing too much dmg to gates. On the other hand we will get t3-gates for towers on this map, defending dollies will be easier, and the one in the latest stream was actually running quite fast (which indicates new upgrades for camps as well), so I’ll sit back and wait for HoT to be released and come back with an educated opinion about these new mechanics and how they interact with my preferences.

fact 5:

You can’t defend the shrines unless you have superior numbers, in which case you won’t be defending, you’ll be attacking to repel the attackers, with the bonuses on.

fact 6:

there is no such thing as an even fight in wvw, adding in environmental bonuses just makes it even easier for the more numbers server to win.

Dunno about your tier, but in t7 the zone-blobb usually runs without a head and TS.
So even if they deactivate the shrines first, they only have a time-window of 3min (current buff-time) to rush the keep.
Since none of them is decently organized they all just run into a keep, completely leaving the shrines alone, since everybody wants the loot, and no one of the attackers likes to sit their kitten flat for 3min.
Meanwhile defenders sit behind t3 walls / gates (since we don’t have 24h coverage in t7, therefore morning and early afternoon is easily enough time to upgrade for prime), spam the blobb with siege on all these small bottlenecks, and then send 3 guildies (since usually our guilds actually defend) to synchro-cap all 3 shrines again.

From personal experience: I’ve defended every tower/keep in the maps from superior numbers, even the most annoying ones like anza and briar. Sometimes even completely on my own. Mostly together with 4-5 friends. It is completely possible to hold off the zone-blobb for several hours if you have the slightest grasp about siege-placement and defending in general.

having the bigger bloob =/= guaranteed win.

Also, since I’m playing in T7, I don’t care about completely deserted or over-stacked servers. All I can tell is how this new map looks for me personally, and so far I’m looking forward to it.

Baldrick.8967:

fact 5:

You can’t defend the shrines unless you have superior numbers, in which case you won’t be defending, you’ll be attacking to repel the attackers, with the bonuses on.

A theoretical scenario ain’t a fact.

Jan.4830:

You seem to have missed the part about being immune to burning only “When in or near the Fire Keep”.

This buff is also dependent on controlling all 3? of the fire shrines which are OUTSIDE the keep proper. Very contestable, very ninjable.

Saying this is targeted at classes with burning is like saying the air buff immunity to falling damage is targeted at classes with fear…

Both sound like they are nice on paper, but in the end terrible in a player vs player environment.

Any commander worth their salt would ensure that their group would engage all of the shrines at once, or as near to at once as possible, and take them down before making the final assault. I’d say this would make for more tactical play than just zergburgers

Dondagora.9645:

I’m hoping it’s just an immunity to the burning status which certain fires in the game gives you, and hopefully that the lava will inflict. If not, I don’t think it is a good idea.

i agree . i hope it is immune from sieges burning and only .

Reborn.2934:

Dondagora.9645:

I’m hoping it’s just an immunity to the burning status which certain fires in the game gives you, and hopefully that the lava will inflict. If not, I don’t think it is a good idea.

i agree . i hope it is immune from sieges burning and only .

From what they said, it rang clear to me, that they meant that players would be immune to the fire damage from the lava associated with the keep. I took it to mean that players could run through the lava while enemies could not. Emphasizing their point about the natural aspects of a keep offering a specific advantage to the side that controls it.