Guild Wars 2

Matt Witter.6982:

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.

Why not just up the single target damage on classes that fit this category? Why mess with AoEs? I don’t think a warrior with killshot that does 17k damage from a warrior wearing 0 berserker gear fits this picture. Nor does thief.

On top of that i bet that AoE build such as you are describing will have to be a glass canon and as such not being able to survive much at all unless his team watches his back. And even than can be oneshotted.

I’m a part of a bigger WvW guild from BG and i have never ever heard any guild member nor a host on our TS complain about any AoE in the sense that they think it should be nerfed. This is just kinda coming out of nowhere to us.

Nerfing AoE damage really has the potential to mess with WvW combat a bit too much and promote more zerg. Just my 2 cents. And btw thanks for a reply, it’s appreciated.

Matt Witter.6982:

There are a few different knobs we can turn in regards to AoE some of the bigger ones being:
Radius of the AoE
Frequency of the AoE Damage
Damage of the AoE
Max Targets of the AoE

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
In our balance discussions we always look at what these changes could do to PvE as well as PvP. Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team. It is important to understand that we are not doing a blanket nerf to all AE’s or a dramatic adjustment of the damage AoE’s can do. There may be some cases where players can build for AoE damage, but are just not viable or other cases where AoE is clearly the dominate way to build, and as such the other builds get left on the side lines. Its these classes/builds that we are concerned about.

Thank you for expanding our field of consideration. Dev input on forums is always appreciated.

Matt Witter.6982:

There are a few different knobs we can turn in regards to AoE some of the bigger ones being:
Radius of the AoE
Frequency of the AoE Damage
Damage of the AoE
Max Targets of the AoE

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
In our balance discussions we always look at what these changes could do to PvE as well as PvP. Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team. It is important to understand that we are not doing a blanket nerf to all AE’s or a dramatic adjustment of the damage AoE’s can do. There may be some cases where players can build for AoE damage, but are just not viable or other cases where AoE is clearly the dominate way to build, and as such the other builds get left on the side lines. Its these classes/builds that we are concerned about.

Sounds to me like you just need to adjust the damage those AoE cause to a single player to be equal to that of others. For example, if the AoE is doing more damage per tick or more ticks to a single person than it does to a group of people, then you need to fix a part of the calculation for damage so it’s equal to that for a single target as it is for a group or to make a set number of ticks for each person in the circle as long as they don’t go over it. For the second one, it sounds like either a while loop or an if/else statement is needed, possibly both. But knowing how code is, I’m betting it’s more complicated than that, correct?

Matt Witter.6982:

There are a few different knobs we can turn in regards to AoE some of the bigger ones being:
Radius of the AoE
Frequency of the AoE Damage
Damage of the AoE
Max Targets of the AoE

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
In our balance discussions we always look at what these changes could do to PvE as well as PvP. Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team. It is important to understand that we are not doing a blanket nerf to all AE’s or a dramatic adjustment of the damage AoE’s can do. There may be some cases where players can build for AoE damage, but are just not viable or other cases where AoE is clearly the dominate way to build, and as such the other builds get left on the side lines. Its these classes/builds that we are concerned about.

Sorry , but we know your Alpha test team and what it can do. The backstabs,, moa, f2 for tief, hb, bugs inside game and www issue. Ask more experienced players please

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage. ONLY IF THEY ARE DUMB ENOUGH TO STAND IN IT FOR THE FULL DURATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even then they would struggle to do a fraction of what a thief can do to you in less than a second whilst you can’t see them.

I read this as saying ‘thiefs can’t aoe effectively and might actually die to it if 5 or more players spam aoe everywhere, so we’re going to nerf aoe.’

One person’s aoe controls nothing. One thief can occupy 4-5 players and if good enough can kill each of them in turn- downed= dead as thief can stomp FROM STEALTH. Yet they decide to nerf aoe….

While your looking at aoe’s , boost barrage, cut the recharge time, make it castable whilst moving and cut the cast time so ranger’s ONE aoe skill actually makes them feel like they can contribute in a fight.

I’m betting money that thief’s spinning elite skill gets no nerf and ends up getting a boost ‘to counter other classes aoe’.

So many problems with the game and wvw in general and they decide aoe needs to be looked at. Even d/d eles don’t do that much aoe damage- the problem with them is caused by boons and boon durations and boon on attunement swap, which is what you should look at along with thiefs in general.

Never heard anyone complain about aoe doing too much damage since the unnecessary 5 target nerf (which encouraged the build up of bigger zergs), and most decent teams can counter or move out of sustained aoe attacks. Burst single target damage is much more likely to annoy people as can be seem by the large number of threads complaining about your beloved thief class.

As of now we are left in limbo, the fact you were thinking of making changes should never have been made public until everything had been tested and then you could run a public test period of a week or so and get our feedback before tweaking changes.

Any changes to aoe need to be balanced by changes in other areas for all classes, and you really need to break the link between pve farmers exploits and wvw – just design pvp versions of the skills like happened in GW1 and you will have a much happier customer base.

As it is now, you are alienating people.

ajm.2931:

Matt Witter.6982:

snip…

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
…snip

Really, this is what is driving your concerns? If the AoE didn’t damage the person in the field, how would the AoE control a portion of the field?

I think he means they do more damage to a single target than a single target attack would AND they close off a portion of the field. So you have an AOE that’s a little OP compared to single target damage and a terrain take-away, all in one skill. That’s a little too powerful if so.

I still like the idea of a “damage pool” where the AOE does the same damage a single target attack would so in the same time frame, but spread over targets affected. Remove the AOE cap, if it hit’s 25 people in the coverage zone then they’d all take 4% of the total output over the DOT duration. One person would take 100%.

This balances the total damage for AOE vs. ST attacks, and if it takes 3 seconds to channel the AOE and the single attack takes .5 seconds, it would be single target X 6 for total AOE damage applied each tick.

Making this damage take effect each tick, would also solve some issues where condition type damage only takes effect on the last tick, not before.

Radius of AoE seems fine to me. Frequency only seems to matter with aoe that procs conditions. From my understanding once you start a dodge roll you are immune for the duration. Max targets is probably fine too. The necromancers staff #3 would be nasty if it could hit more than 5. Increasing max targets would in my opinion allow necromancers to dominate areas with conditions making them impassable. Damage of aoe probably needs to be reduced for elementist meteor shower, theifs dagger spin, elementists stone aoe. The aoe root ability probably needs to be removed altogether since that negates your most basic defense against aoes: dodge roll. No clue how to deal with mesmer illusions. You give them AoE resistance but they still take up one of the 5 possible targets. You give them no AoE resistance and they pop. Make AoE hit 5 players + 3 illusions/pets and give illusions/pets AoE resistance? Something like 75-80%.

probably tief is going to be invisible only for 1 person

This is pretty stupid.

If any measured should be taken with AoEs it would be to uncap the 5 man rule. And keep AoE damage as it is.

People could not huddle in masses if that were the case.

But yet for some reason has no clue why other mmos have succesful team pvp modes. It is because in other games you had to react in a more intelligent manner. In this game it is the opposite. You can play stupidly and be rewarded when AoE is capped and continually nerfed.

Matt Witter.6982:

There are a few different knobs we can turn in regards to AoE some of the bigger ones being:
Radius of the AoE
Frequency of the AoE Damage
Damage of the AoE
Max Targets of the AoE

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
In our balance discussions we always look at what these changes could do to PvE as well as PvP. Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team. It is important to understand that we are not doing a blanket nerf to all AE’s or a dramatic adjustment of the damage AoE’s can do. There may be some cases where players can build for AoE damage, but are just not viable or other cases where AoE is clearly the dominate way to build, and as such the other builds get left on the side lines. Its these classes/builds that we are concerned about.

Thanks for the response but I’d like to point out another knob.

Strong AoE was just half of the issue I pointed out. The other was the relative ease of rezzing/reviving, even when under attack or in combat. This is another knob that could use adjusting.

If it wasn’t so easy to constantly resurrect/revive players then AoE would be less important and could deal with a nerf.

Just putting that out there.

In other games large scale battles are fought with single target bursts and tab targeting. There is no area denial. It’s a tab target fest because the closest person to your group is the one that can be targeted by the most people in your group. Area denial shuts that down in this game.

Matt Witter.6982:

There are a few different knobs we can turn in regards to AoE some of the bigger ones being:
Radius of the AoE
Frequency of the AoE Damage
Damage of the AoE
Max Targets of the AoE

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
In our balance discussions we always look at what these changes could do to PvE as well as PvP. Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team. It is important to understand that we are not doing a blanket nerf to all AE’s or a dramatic adjustment of the damage AoE’s can do. There may be some cases where players can build for AoE damage, but are just not viable or other cases where AoE is clearly the dominate way to build, and as such the other builds get left on the side lines. Its these classes/builds that we are concerned about.

Thanks for the reply.

Though I myself, don’t feel comfortable playing GW2 with long term goals (Talking about years) after hearing the AOE nerf incoming.

Honestly I play a class that’s had it’s AOE’s nerfed for staff, over and over, since beta, and hearing AOE’s are being nerfed again makes me very uneasy to continue with the hopes of being able to enjoy my class. I mean I can’t go pure damage build due to single target classes hitting me for over 16k-20k when I do. While I might still hit a max of 6-8k on my aoe’s under the damage build.

In reality Arena net needs to really look at some of the single target skills and their damage output on a single player versus AOE skills on a single player. Many more of the single target skills hit for x2 if not x3 the damage of the AOE’s.

A lot of it might not really even be the AOE’s so to speak.

I mean before Arena net just puts out an idea to nerf AOE’s you guys should be looking at the larger picture. If in the field of WvW and holding a choke point with less numbers then the attackers then they deserve to have a fighting chance, without making everyone have to be on siege.

The other day we had 6-10 people, held 30 in 1 choke point because they stood in the AOE’s and those who died, others tried to ressurect. To me common sense would say it’s not the fault of those AOE’ing but those who were ressing, aren’t using skills correctly and combo’s to the full potential. Had the group attacking used light fields and blasts for retaliation the defenders would have killed themselves.

A lot isn’t so much a type of skill is used, but some people aren’t playing GW2 as a group, rather then trying to play by them self while “with” a group.

QuadJunky.2736:

Matt Witter.6982:

Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team.

sigh…. Public Test Server

Invest in one, your "trusted’ alpha team has missed how many bugs and glitches already? Time to let the players who found those bugs and glitches your alpha team “missed” test changes.

Public Test Server.

No argument here, you guys are loosing sight of your product and community, quite frankly it is ridiculous that we have to resort to third party websites and spreadsheets to make sense of your build system. What’s even worse is that we, the players, catch obvious bugs that your team misses frequently. The excuse that things change between live and your development servers doesn’t instil much faith in your ability to accurately balance your product.

A question Marz. Have you ever coded? If you make 1 mistake in the code, you could fix something but cause something else to go out of whack. Even with a small amount of code (10KB) it can take hours to figure out where you went wrong and how to fix it. Now imagine something the size of this game (over 2GB). It probably can take weeks to months to figure out where they went wrong.

Plus well, when they test the code they don’t have over several thousand players doing various random things they wouldn’t even think of trying in order to check it. So us finding bugs they miss can’t really be declared us them missing the obvious. For example, several classmates in the coding class I took last year found bugs in my coding project that I had never found because I had never even thought of doing the things they did.

Wait, why are you all not seeing the picture here? In WvW, it is not a war? And can you tell me when you see an enemy downed, what you do? 2 things, you “finished Him” or you continue attacking him until he dies. If their teammate came running and rezzing him, do we stop attacking him and let them rez? Do we show them mercy and run away? Why can’t I just cast an AoE to take them all out? Is this a WAR? or is this War but please show mercy and compassion? Tell me please. Because if this is not a war and we need to show mercy to the enemy, then why WvWvW? Why force us to fight against other players? We are not allowed to do this, do that. Just because we don’t want to use the “Finished Him” animation, you think this is a reason to nerf this, nerf that.

Tell me if you have enemies in front of you, do you say ‘Oh, they are saving their comrades, let’s show some mercy."

So, when you are downed, will they show you any mercy and just let your teammates revive you before attacking back?

this whole reason about casting AoE on downed players is like forcing you into using that stupid “Finished Him” animation.

I find that using that “Finished Him” animation most of the time is useless. I rather continue hitting a downed player with auto-attack. It gets the job done only slower. Because most of the time, you have to “finished Him” at least twice before you can actually land it, by that time, other teammates would have already swamped you.

Matt Witter.6982:

There are a few different knobs we can turn in regards to AoE some of the bigger ones being:
Radius of the AoE
Frequency of the AoE Damage
Damage of the AoE
Max Targets of the AoE

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
In our balance discussions we always look at what these changes could do to PvE as well as PvP. Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team. It is important to understand that we are not doing a blanket nerf to all AE’s or a dramatic adjustment of the damage AoE’s can do. There may be some cases where players can build for AoE damage, but are just not viable or other cases where AoE is clearly the dominate way to build, and as such the other builds get left on the side lines. Its these classes/builds that we are concerned about.

I agree with bold, holding a choke point by having small numbers stack their AoEs and not let the larger numbers get to them is a problem. (I know you can have guards block and other stability/invincibility skills to get past stacked red circles but is it even fair the small number does not have to waste a utility)
Also id like to add that having a smaller number spam AoE on entrances and not allow people in is not skill in the least bit.
And I really hope the italicized means that other builds may get a boost to make them as useful as AoE builds! Looking forward to what they come up with.

If Anet wants to nerf AOE which is i am against, they better have a system that will prevent zerging, AOE is necessary for killing enemies that outnumber you.

Off topic, doesn’t this Anet approach to AOE remind you of Mythic 1.3 patch to Warhammer? and how they destroyed some classes with their blanket nerf? i hope Anet is extremely cautious about their nerfs or else they would end up like Mythic ;-)

Isnt Aoe the main thing gw2 is baised on ? target picking is worse duo to ( invisible, line of sight, culling, target tapping, indentying your opponent, memser illusions, pets, speed of the game/damage spikes)

Every class has skills that hits multiple targets.
Every class can hit targets and use skills without having a target selected.

That all sounds to me like building a complete new game.

As jalmood already mentioned. Warhammer online is a good balanced singel target game that also included AOE, PBAOE and Cone AE damage, but you dont automaticaly hit your opponets just because your in range. That where just a few skills that could do so. But that is a completly diffrent game with seperated classes (support, dps, tank).

Causic.3798:

holding a choke point by having small numbers stack their AoEs and not let the larger numbers get to them is a problem.

No, it’s a good thing.
It’s an example of intelligent play beating a giant moronic zerg.

Mif.3471:

Causic.3798:

holding a choke point by having small numbers stack their AoEs and not let the larger numbers get to them is a problem.

No, it’s a good thing.
It’s an example of intelligent play beating a giant moronic zerg.

It may be intelligent but it isn’t skillful or fair to those with less AoE skills.
Still doesn’t show how its a good thing?

Mif.3471:

Causic.3798:

holding a choke point by having small numbers stack their AoEs and not let the larger numbers get to them is a problem.

No, it’s a good thing.
It’s an example of intelligent play beating a giant moronic zerg.

I agree that it’s a good thing,
But I also think AOE still needs to be adjusted somewhat.

More targets and less damage, I would really welcome that change.
It would make AOE more effective against a large zerg (So people couldn’t just stack in numbers and be essentially immune to aoe), but the lesser damage would stop one or two elementalists from being able to stop a whole zerg.

I sure hope there is a corresponding nerf/balance for thieves because the only way anet thinks people should be able to kill them is through Aoe. Oh wait… aoe is being nerfed so thieves are even more invincible.

Heh, I love the fact that High burst hits of 10k damage and 17k damage aren’t being looked at, But 2k-3k AOE hits are…

I imagine Anet wants this game to be one giant zerg fest …

I support the nerf, but also don’t like it either.

I want some way for my warrior to go through the no man’s land and be able to kill other players with a sword instead of hiding in the back with the zerg or dying before I can make a significant mark.

Who has ever complained about AOE being OP?

No one.

Don’t stand in the red circle. It’s that easy.

Or if you are stunned in a circle, for the love of god, carry a stun breaker on your bar. If you stand in red circles and DON’T carry some sort of a cleansing ability, you deserve to die.

Dee Jay.2460:

During the live stream today ANet announced they will be reviewing a lot of the AoE damage skills as they are considered too powerful.

That in itself is fine. However AoE was one of the few effective ways to deny enemies revives during Zerg vs. Zerg clashes in WvW. Without any additional changes it will be very hard to stop people from reviving people constantly, which is already a big issue in WvW combat.

Are there any additional measures being taken to limit the abundance/relative ease of reviving/resurrections especially in WvW?

Considering that PvE won’t allow resurrections in combat any more maybe that rule should be applied to WvW as well?

w8 you cant revive in PvE?!!?!

Matt Witter.6982:

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person

Compared to what? A thief can put a truckload more damage on a single target than an ele ever will using Meteor Shower. A thief also has no wind up for his big damage spam whereas an ele can be burst down from full to nothing in the time it takes to do the wind up for Meter Shower. To top it all off, a thief can do this while basically being untouchable.

Hell, a warrior with the stun, knock down, haste, hundred blades combo can do comparable dmg in 2-3 seconds (with the only difference being they are vulnerable to dmg while doing it).

Matt Witter.6982:

There are a few different knobs we can turn in regards to AoE some of the bigger ones being:
Radius of the AoE
Frequency of the AoE Damage
Damage of the AoE
Max Targets of the AoE

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
In our balance discussions we always look at what these changes could do to PvE as well as PvP. Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team. It is important to understand that we are not doing a blanket nerf to all AE’s or a dramatic adjustment of the damage AoE’s can do. There may be some cases where players can build for AoE damage, but are just not viable or other cases where AoE is clearly the dominate way to build, and as such the other builds get left on the side lines. Its these classes/builds that we are concerned about.

Matt, if AOE is going to be weakened please consider doing something about the ‘obstructed’ and line of site issues in WvW, particularly when attacking/defending towers. It is near impossible to hit targets on walls with some ranged weapons, even if you are in range and have proper LOS. Also when defending the LOS seems prevent you hitting targets with clear visibility at times. The obvious way around these sort of issues is to use AOE based attacks, but if these are reduced in effectiveness it will have side effects in these sort of situations.

Saweth You Him.9047:

Damage of aoe probably needs to be reduced for elementist meteor shower, theifs dagger spin, elementists stone aoe.

Nah, you need to read up on those elementalist ablities.

Meteor shower has a long cool down, cast, and isn’t reliable damage because who it hits and when inside the area is random.

If the stone aoe you are referring to is churning earth. Yeah it hits hard, but the cast time is prohibitive on the channel. You can literally walk out of the AoE before it fires even if you are crippled. Not only that, it telegraphs itself so obviously that all you have to do is wait a couple of seconds after the animation and dodge. You take 0 damage and 0 bleed stacks. In fact, most elementalists have to resort to using the lightning flash cantrip to even hit someone with it because it is so easy to avoid (and can still be easily dodged with the lightning flash)

Lanthrudar.1437:

ajm.2931:

Matt Witter.6982:

snip…

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
…snip

Really, this is what is driving your concerns? If the AoE didn’t damage the person in the field, how would the AoE control a portion of the field?

Remove the AOE cap, if it hit’s 25 people in the coverage zone then they’d all take 4% of the total output over the DOT duration. One person would take 100%.

Sounds like it would be very easy to heal through and motivate even more turtling in WvW. Atleast now 5 players take 100% of the damage, then the 30 people would all take 3.33% of the damage. Cutting the total damage from that AoE down to 20% of what it was before.
Effectively an 80% damage nerf when 5 or more targets are present. But even with just 2 players it means a nerf of 50%. You’d never clear a group of anything ever again and the point of aoe damage would be dead. As its easier to singletarget burst through someones defenses then you could ever do with half as much damage, scaling down as more targets are present.
Which very quickly becomes outhealable, meaning professions that have a lot of aoe will never be able to so much as tickle 2+ of anything.

Matt Witter.6982:

There are a few different knobs we can turn in regards to AoE some of the bigger ones being:
Radius of the AoE
Frequency of the AoE Damage
Damage of the AoE
Max Targets of the AoE

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
In our balance discussions we always look at what these changes could do to PvE as well as PvP. Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team. It is important to understand that we are not doing a blanket nerf to all AE’s or a dramatic adjustment of the damage AoE’s can do. There may be some cases where players can build for AoE damage, but are just not viable or other cases where AoE is clearly the dominate way to build, and as such the other builds get left on the side lines. Its these classes/builds that we are concerned about.

I know that when you say this, you mean it to be true, but I hope that you can understand that from our perspective, we have little reason to trust in the testing team to only turn out well balanced changes to the game. Too often overthe past few months, “overpowered” options been nerfed, leaving a barren wasteland in their place, breaking that build entirely, in some cases the entire class, without any positive changes to make up for the loss.

If there was a better track record of making nerfs only once the counterbalancing buff was ready to maintain the class’s effectiveness then we, as players, would have more reason to have faith that these AoE changes would be for the best. Given the current situation, however, you guys seem to be taking aim at something that we do not view to be a problem, and which numerous classes and builds depend upon, which gives us perfectly solid justification to fear that you would be perfectly willing to decimate certain classes in the game of “game balance,” rather than waiting until a truly balanced solution could be found, and then it could be months before positive changes go in to clean up the devastation left in the wake.

I would recommend involving the players in the decision process here. Suggest the nerfs you’re intending to make well before patching them into the live game, take in feedback, and be prepared to go back to the drawing board if the players do not agree with your proposals. Don’t just spring them on the players and force us to live with the changes until the next major patch, whether they destroy our characters or not.

All I can say is have they had a brainfart moment here or what.
If they go down this route they might as well fully remove the Ele staff class as well as see nearly all the ele players bin their toons.
The staff is really the only option for range an ele has, so why take make something that is so fundamental to the class redundant.
I ask you how many ele’s have you seen or read about ever use dagger/dagger let along be a close combat fighter.

What about making AoE have a small delay before it starts doing damage, similar to most mob AoEs? It would mean bigger focus on tactics for both the caster and the target, the caster need to plan more on where to use the AoE and try to predict the target’s movements while the target needs to pay more attention to his/her surroundings. For PvE I don’t think AoE is a big problem, almost all melee attacks hit more than one enemy anyway.

I do however think this might be a case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, there are tons of threads complaining about single target damage attacks being too high (backstab, killshot, etc) but I’d never seen anyone complain about AoEs. One big reason us probably that there are enough self healing available that dealing higher (X) damage to one target can kill it or make self healing only give back a bit but doing lower (0,75X) to multiple enemies will only mean they can heal back up from it.

arenta.2953:

w8 you cant revive in PvE?!!?!

Yes you can. The “no rez in combat” refers only to not being able to respawn at a waypoint if someone in the party is in combat. (I hope they limit this to dungeons or e.g. Dragon fights will always be done without a group)

Some people, some where, some time, to someone else. Enough with the double talk already. Give an example please. Be clear and concise like you ask the player base to be when we give bug reports or file tickets.

Matt Witter.6982:

Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team.

aaaaaaaaand that’s where you lost me.

covenn.7165:

Saweth You Him.9047:

Damage of aoe probably needs to be reduced for elementist meteor shower, theifs dagger spin, elementists stone aoe.

Nah, you need to read up on those elementalist ablities.

Meteor shower has a long cool down, cast, and isn’t reliable damage because who it hits and when inside the area is random.

If the stone aoe you are referring to is churning earth. Yeah it hits hard, but the cast time is prohibitive on the channel. You can literally walk out of the AoE before it fires even if you are crippled. Not only that, it telegraphs itself so obviously that all you have to do is wait a couple of seconds after the animation and dodge. You take 0 damage and 0 bleed stacks. In fact, most elementalists have to resort to using the lightning flash cantrip to even hit someone with it because it is so easy to avoid (and can still be easily dodged with the lightning flash)

I’ve seen two beserker elementists completely dominate walls with meteor shower hitting for 5k a pop. They are easy to kill but it was bay keep inner and even if you did kill them they’d use their run while dead ability into the water and heal back to life there. The stone ability I am refering to is the same one when gargoyles fly upwards. Don’t know what it’s called but I’ve seen half my hp dissapear because of it. I’ve seen most my hp disappear to the theifs spinning dagger attack. I run a balanced build so 5k a hit on meteor shower seems like a lot for something that covers such a large area. Those are the only 3 aoes I find overpowered. Most other aoes can probably be countered with retaliation. You know every guardian is going to spam “Stand Your Ground”.

Grumpdogg.6910:

Matt Witter.6982:

Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team.

aaaaaaaaand that’s where you lost me.

This is actually a very good point.

When most developers talk about ‘alpha teams’ they usually picture them like this or like this …

But when gamers hear developers talking about ‘alpha teams’ they usually picture them like this or like this .

It would be really nice to actually know something about the people testing things out. What do they play? What is their play style? How old are they? What are their hobbies? What games have they played in the past?

Having a faceless ‘alpha team’ doesn’t work because what they think ‘feels’ good is usually not in concert with what the audience thinks ‘feels’ good. I’m not going to point to Star Wars Galaxies, but I’m going to point to Star Wars Galaxies.

Maybe there has to be a limit how many AOEs can be active in one area. The Aoe is really strong if there is only one small path where you have to go through. For example if you got the Southwall down at Klovan Gully, and there is only one Stair left to get to the Towerlord, it becomes almost impossible to get there if the defender casts heavy Aoe in the upper corner of the Stair. You would die within seconds if if try to go upstairs, even if you charge in with a group.
Maybe a large coordinated guild could get through, but the truth is most of the time the zergs are just small groups of people.

I’ve seen two beserker elementists completely dominate walls with meteor shower hitting for 5k a pop. They are easy to kill but it was bay keep inner and even if you did kill them they’d use their run while dead ability into the water and heal back to life there. The stone ability I am refering to is the same one when gargoyles fly upwards. Don’t know what it’s called but I’ve seen half my hp dissapear because of it. I’ve seen most my hp disappear to the theifs spinning dagger attack. I run a balanced build so 5k a hit on meteor shower seems like a lot for something that covers such a large area. Those are the only 3 aoes I find overpowered. Most other aoes can probably be countered with retaliation. You know every guardian is going to spam “Stand Your Ground”.

I do have to say, I am not a fan of Meteor Shower. Not “AoE,” just that one ability, Meteor Shower. It may or may not be overpowered, but the duration and random damage ticks of it do bother me when I’m caught in one. Not a fun time.

Now, if their comments had been “we’re looking at Meteor Shower, [ability X], and [ability Y], and maybe a couple others for minor tweaking,” then I’d have been fine with them poking around a bit and seeing what might work, but when they say “we’re nerfing AoEs,” and about half the abilities in the game are AoE in some fashion, including every ability in some weapon sets, then I have trust issues with that sort of sweeping statement.

If you nerf AoE, you encourage more zergling style method, just stack the people in a paintrain and win. AoE make them use more brain not to stand in fire or in AoE, make Meta game better for WvW.

If you nerf the kitten out of AoE, this game is kittened. (And my elementalist staff is kittened as well since all she has is AoE spell… and im already deal kitten dmg compared to a theif who can crit me 20k…)

ok lets just go ahead and say it , WHAT ABOUT ENGINEER? arent virtually most of the kits aoe? turrets already feel useless , grenade / bomb kits are aoe , flamethrower kit is cone dmg / control , elixir gun = lol in damage? so what happens to engineers in general here if aoes are being toned down? ive already made suggestions to remove one of the engineer kits (preferrably bomb kit since its a close range clone of grenade kit) and replace it with a experimental rifle kit for single target damage. so if were seeing an aoe nerf here , does that mean if engineers want a solid form of damage theyre going to be pidgeon holed into a rifle glass cannon build? sorry but i have had no issue with AoE killing me so much as running into a massive zerg. AoE is more so used as a form of control , never seen it outright kill scores of enemies.

Isnt almost all damage some sort of AoE in this game?

Would be fun if they nerfed damage, radius and number of people meteor shower hit and still keep the kittenty damage our main attacks use.

Same with DD ele. Nerf the AoE effects from us being in melee range and damage and attackspeed on autoattacks still being close to useless

How about warrior autoattack. This is sort of AoE? or their spin. Or hundurdblaedz when hitting more than one person?

Guardians symbols and weaponswings. Also AoE?

The already nerfed Engineers. All their attacks are AoE?

Organized WvW groups uses melees with swings and spins all the time to wipe out mindless zergs. You never see them stand on edges using meteor shower to break zergs or other large groups?

I am not sure Anet knows what they are doing on this matter.

I play staff ele, and I get completely demolished all the time. We are nothing compared to warriors or thieves. And yet Anet wants to nerf us some more? I’m pure 3,270 power without food and I still do close to no damage compared to other classes, and not to mention only being able to hit 5 targets. =/

They may as well let Ele’s use a sword if they’re going to do this.

@I run a balanced build so 5k a hit on meteor shower seems like a lot for something that covers such a large area.

Don’t stand in it then, learn to move around and counter the casting of the eles, or better yet jump down there with some friends and 3 shot them if they are class cannons. Or roll a thief and 2 shot them then run back in without ever being seen.

How do you get ‘caught’ in a meteor shower- after the first tick you are either through the other side of it or you have dodged out of it, or if your near a decent group you’re ignoring it as it’s not hurting anyway.

Invisible burst class is much more annoying and drives people away from the game, but they won’t address that (CnD, 6 second recharge really?), nor the fact that one thief can run rings around 5-6 aoe’rs if the thief has even half the skill level of the other players and murder dolyaks at will.

No way of detecting an invisible player, able to stomp in stealth, pets lose the target etc and they decide to look at aoe..I’m convinced the head of development’s son plays backstab glass cannon thief and moans to his father every time aoe kills him which is why they are now looking at this whole thing backwards.

If anet handles this poorly, which is fairly likely, this change could very well be the end of competitive play in wvw. All hail the zerg.

Competitive play never started…

Matt Witter.6982:

…both internal and by our trusted alpha team

That fantastic internal testing and trusted alpha team deserves a pay cut, I don’t know how many times the forums lit up with concerns about one thing or another during those 3 BWEs, but look what happened at launch….it was ALMOST as bad as TOR’s. And that is an impressive feat.

Lol this is just going to make more people reroll to a thief or mesmer. They probably thought the people in the “7v X amount of people” videos were OP because they used their combo fields and AoE’s well. Have you ever seen an Ele actually land meteor shower on you? I haven’t.

I’m already re-rolling to a thief, point being….

Ele is a glass cannon, AoE I cast, enemy dodge, no detrimental effect as 75% miss target. the only 100% AoE effect is on siege weaponry as it dont move. So you have 5 trying to hold a place and you got a zerg of 30 bashing in the gate, then AoE is needed to disperse and save the place you are guarding. Toning down the AoE means the ele will be as useless as an engineer in WvW.

But a thief can stay invis whilst hitting you and then can still stick a flag in you whilst invis is this really what ANET wants??

When there are 90% objection, perhaps they should reconsider?

Alpha Team 1. “Ok guys we all seem to be playing thief, how can we make it better?”
Alpha Team 2. " Give it almost perma stealth and high single target damage, then tell the community to use AoE’s to kill em, lol"

few months later……….

AT1 “Ok we need to nerf AoEs i keep getting killed by some big red circle on the floor”
AT2 “How will we tell players to kill thieves after the nerf?”
AT1 “Who cares”