Guild Wars 2

“Considering that PvE won’t allow resurrections …”

wooow thats not good for pve, it would kill fun side of pve-ing. maybe if they compensate with rare items in chests more often not like 1:100.000 chance (jormag 40 min fights and only blue items) otherwise it would make ppl to go play other games. only chinese farmers will play this game in the end. no more combat ress in pve or open world=failure from my perspective.

Some professions build for AoE because it is all they are good at. It is the only thing that gives them viability, not just in AoE situations, but any situations. Speaking as a Necromancer WvW player, you absolutely need your AoE if you want to have a chance in any single target fight. For example vs a thief, my 1v1 weapon is pretty much my scepter/dagger, though even there, 3 of 5 skills are AoE. You simply have no choice but to use it, short of auto-attacking over and over, which is a recipe for a comedic defeat.

I would never stand a chance against a competent thief only using this one weapon set. He is simply invisible too often during the fight, and the only recourse during this half of the fight is to try and hit him with Staff AoE, to discern his location and continue to weaken him so he cannot fully cleanse conditions and heal up in stealth. If AoE were nerfed to where it is useless to use in these kind of 1v1 engagements, and then also much less valuable in team and zerg battles by extension, you might as well throw this profession to the dogs, because its player base is going to dry up, more than it already is.

Anet talks about building up more viable specs for all professions, but lets put our money where the mouth is, and then actually get this done before or in tandem with any AoE adjustments. Not just kick the can down the road endlessly with more talk of balancing while the few viable existing specs for several professions are just nerfed into even more weak choices. It has already been far too long since the last balancing patch, when it is clear several professions are out of whack and very over represented in both sPVP and WvW.

What should not be discounted is that while AoE may be easy to splash around in large fights, in smaller fights, and down to 1v1, it can actually miss, unlike single target skills. Especially with stealth professions, clones, high mobility builds, culling problems, lag, etc, its entirely possible to mistarget a certain percentage of AoE abilities which then do zero damage, severely reducing expected DPS, which is something single target never suffers from, outside of natural counters like blind, weakness, etc.

This is less a problem in sPVP where AoE is less likely to miss as the battlefield is a small contested ring, and if your AoE forces them out of it, you are winning the contest. In WvW players are free to dodge around and avoid AoE with no penalty to losing the fight, unless sitting in a Lord NPC Ring.

Sorry, but I can’t believe that all the things that need to be worked on in this game and THIS is what you’re focusing on.

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.

I’d like to hear what builds and classes are being compared here – is the “single target” baseline a D/D thief, or a ranger close range longbow autoattack? What AoEs are so overpowered? Because all i can see now is single target damage completely overpowering any AoE i can think of.
Also, did you consider balancing such cases by increasing weak single target damage skills, instead of nerfing AoE’s?

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.

You know you left out the most important thing you should be looking at:

THE PEOPLE IN THIS THREAD THAT THINK AOE IS FINE. YOU KNOW THE ONES THAT PLAY WVW EVERYDAY AND LIKELY HAVE MORE EXPERIENCE THAN YOUR ENTIRE TESTING TEAM.

Maybe make the tanks more tanky? Every person in WvW has their roll.

I’m a squishy mesmer, and I think enemy AOE is fine. Just dodge out of the circles!! That is why you guys made it so we could dodge, to avoid enemy attacks!!

RyuDragnier.9476:

A question Marz. Have you ever coded?

I have coded my friend, and continue to do so, obviously not on the scale of what they’ve created. However the bugs I was alluding to are actual code fixes for class bugs that in fact do not address the issue, in most cases they then adjust the tooltips to match the error.

But let me ask you a question in return. Do you not think that the statements you made support the need for a public test server so that players are able to test changes before releasing to live?

MarzAttakz.9608:

RyuDragnier.9476:

A question Marz. Have you ever coded?

I have coded my friend, and continue to do so, obviously not on the scale of what they’ve created. However the bugs I was alluding to are actual code fixes for class bugs that in fact do not address the issue, in most cases they then adjust the tooltips to match the error.

But let me ask you a question in return. Do you not think that the statements you made support the need for a public test server so that players are able to test changes before releasing to live?

Surprised that they haven’t done this already.
I know of one game that does this already and they view and take head of player response to it, plus it helps them tweak any glitches, bug and exploits before release

How about the game stops being balanced for sPvP and instead get balanced for WvWvW PvP?
You know?
Where the majority of the players go for PvP end-game content?
The part of the game that keeps a larger portion of players entertained?

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 still don’t see where the pressing need comes from.

Whilst I disagree with the change I would ask that if you go ahead with this change that you buff the classes affected in another area so as not to make the change in isolation. Classes likely to be affected by it like staff ele and engineers are already near the bottom of the classes in terms of overall strength any such change would only weaken them further.

I don’t understand this, no one and I repeat no one has complained about AoE on the forums. One of the big things people have complained about is thieves and this is an indirect buff to them because AoE is one of the only things that can counter the culling/invis issue, not to mention some classes like elementalist is forced to use AoE.

I just don’t understand it, I just dont.

I just say nerf dagger storm, ppl will stop qq’q then.

/trolling

Srsly, as Matt said they arent going to just change things. They will test. At least the devs made the time to add their 2 cents into the discussion, just be grateful for that.

edit: spelling

Tala.7638:

I just say nerf dagger storm, ppl will stop qq’q then.

/trolling

Srsly, as Matt said they arent going to just change things. They will test. At least the devs made the time to add their 2 cents into the discussion, just be grateful for that.

edit: spelling

Yes, they said they will test.

But apparently it’s testing things the majority of active people IN GAME and ON the FORUMS don’t agree with change wise.

So the point to testing something people don’t agree with is what? Anger them? Make them quit? Waste time? Not care about their player base?

I mean what would they be testing in reality since you can see the majority of those who wish to speak up about the “Aoe change” are against it?

Personally, I like the change.

Currently just using AoEs in the middle of an enemy zerg lacks skill everywhere, and that considering you have to aim your AoE. The offensive part of a WvW fight is meaningless, the defensive is mostly avoiding AoEs.

Anyways if you saw it in a test session, maybe they were just testing?.

Lol.. i just heard about this nonsense.. and i hope i’m wrong.. ok my 2 cents.. it was like a few days ago our comander said: wtf where are all the casters ? 20 wars and guardians only tonight ? so i changed to my ranged unit (that personally i don’t really like ..kind of boring XD ) only to help my guild ..
1.) how are we supposed to defend a tower from inside if 80% will be melee ??
2.) how bout those thieves ? only thing stopping them seems to be AoE
3.) will this game really end up being a confusionary BS Game of whirling guardians and Warriors ?
4.) when siegeing a tower or whatever, how will it be possible to cover the walls (oil cannons etc etc ) ?? and how will it be possible to put nice red rings on the walls that will avoid that a zerg of foes just jumps down on your head ?
In Oscure, everybody has a precise role and knows what to do and when to do it (most of the time xD ) , as i am sure other guilds do as well .. i feel if AN changes AoE , i will most likely stop playing wvw at all because i love to use other characters as well.. if they make me only use my supermegawarmachineguardian just the idea bores me..
So if i won’t play wvw anymore, if i’m already on a high level fractal, if i discovered almost all the map.. what is there left for me ??
My advice, if you feel AoE to be excessive, just make other classes dodge more xD
I repeat.. we already see zergs full of melees crashing on eachother.. it will get only worse..
Ok let me correct this.. there will always be Ranged Units in zergs.. only difference will be, they will just sit there and watch hand in hand with the other borders while in the middle the action takes place. And AOE please dont forget you promised that in 2013 this game would focus on making people play together and support each other.. i don’t think you come a lot on wvw cause else you would see how we help eachother in different occasions .. Please don’t screw this game up.. you already did too many mistakes .. this might be one a lot of people (and i mean a lot ) won’t forget…

5 person limit + long casting time + upcomming damage nerf, PLEASE ANET don’t do it. You are killing the whole game.

Every nerf, deserves a boost in another way, or you’ll destroy many professions ‘usefullness’.

I can bring a thousand viable reason, why this could (if you boost in another way like remove 5 person limit, i’m ok with it) potentially destroy a lot of fun in the game.

MarzAttakz.9608:

RyuDragnier.9476:

A question Marz. Have you ever coded?

I have coded my friend, and continue to do so, obviously not on the scale of what they’ve created. However the bugs I was alluding to are actual code fixes for class bugs that in fact do not address the issue, in most cases they then adjust the tooltips to match the error.

But let me ask you a question in return. Do you not think that the statements you made support the need for a public test server so that players are able to test changes before releasing to live?

I hadn’t thought of this. QUICK! WE MUST MAKE THIS A SUGGESTION!

Black Ice Spain.9753:

Personally, I like the change.

Currently just using AoEs in the middle of an enemy zerg lacks skill everywhere, and that considering you have to aim your AoE. The offensive part of a WvW fight is meaningless, the defensive is mostly avoiding AoEs.

Fine.

Fix culling and targeting issues and give Necro, Engineer, Ele viable single target options first.

Once that happened, we can talk about nerfing AoE.

blurps.2340:

Black Ice Spain.9753:

Personally, I like the change.

Currently just using AoEs in the middle of an enemy zerg lacks skill everywhere, and that considering you have to aim your AoE. The offensive part of a WvW fight is meaningless, the defensive is mostly avoiding AoEs.

Fine.

Fix culling and targeting issues and give Necro, Engineer, Ele viable single target options first.

Once that happened, we can talk about nerfing AoE.

You don’t know the type of nerf, maybe they just give AoEs negative scaling with the number of targets affected

Plus ele is the most ridiculous thing in the world currently, if played correctly you are immortal.

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.
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’m trying to keep myself rational here (not going in a rage) but it’s very hard. Atm Elementalist is punished with lowest hp in game, lowest armor ingame. And many skills are not viable at all (like staff air 2+3 super bad). Having some of the best aoe’s in game is the ONLY way to compensate. And now you are taking it away. Balance? Haha. So this means Elementalist will now have to do single target damage in future (or crappy aoe damage, so nobody will use it)? The squishiest ingame profession, with relative BAD AUTO-ATTACKS, is FORCED to use it anyway, and still live with the existing penalties? No thanks.

Secondly, in wvw a wel balanced build (armor, damage) Can survive most aoe’s if you know whare you are doing. Against a 40+ zerg, even 10+ meteor showers barely control the battlefield. The moment they are up, ppl run out, no harm done. OR they pop a heal and just retreat for a while. I rarely killed ppl with meteor shower. I almost have to WAIT TO USE IT, until someone is like half or 25% of his max hp. Then it may kill them before they can respond.

And pve well what about it? If 15 monsters are hitting you, you are not allowed to put an aoe field? that still maximum damages 5 of them? Holy ****. So when in fractals, many veterans attack you at the same time, you are only allowed to do weak aoe damage or viable single target damage? while does monster can kill you in 4 hits (so if they all hit (and crit) you at once, you are dead (even with 2400+ armor).

Unless you have a crazy idea to compensate, this is just bad bad bad.

I thought you guys finally learned ’don’t nerf, stuff that is fun don’t change it to much, only do minor tweaks, so players can still have a thrill with their magical wonderfull skills’. You didn’t. You are making the same fail again. AOE damage is part of every fantasy game. Take it or leave it. And you have just decided to make that core design of magic, ‘not viable’. Why do I keep saying ‘not viable’ when I don’t know the update yet? Because I don’t know a single aoe skill (not even meteor shower, churning earth, 100b), that atm is not well balanced. They all have big penalties. If you nerf them more, it make them not viable. There, I said it. I just almost completed my 5th lvl 80 char. Ive used almost every single skill in the game. Aoe’ing is one of the things I like, and all my chars have at least one build based on it.

If you nerf aoe’ing, i’ll jump again on my mesmer. And this is not a good thing. Mesmer single target damage is kitten good compared to necro, ele, etc. So basically you are boosting mesmer here. OR your will nerf mesmer, also, wich aint a good thing. Basically balancing aoe’s like you want, will destroy other things in game, wether you do your best to mitigate it or not.

Now lets defend aoe’s:

Churning earth, superior long casting time, a single move, stun or daze, Knockdown, screws the skill. Secondly a high damage melee profession, can dish out a lot of damage in those 3 secs casting time. That alone is balance. Nerf it, destroy it.

Meteor shower. Long cast time, roots. If player forces you do move or dodge, bye bye meteor shower. I used meteor shower a lot, and its only viable when fully cast (not interrupted early). That is quite hard both in wvw and in pve. Sometimes in wvw i really want to finish the cast and my hp drops from 17k to 3k. Then I must go out very fast or die. The funny thing is, this risky action I just performed, killed nobody. They all just backed out of meteor shower because it’s so obvious. Or they got a ress in downed. PVE meteor shower is a gamble. Sometimes only 3 meteors hit (bad damage). Sometimes a lot of them hit. Even when a lot hit, i think elementalist deserves a unique aoe capable (still with lot of gamble in it, and risk) skill like this. You can nerf it again (after beta nerf). But you will also destroy the skill usefullness.

100 blades, only hits 3 ppl. Here the nerf is there already. 100b is a 100% root, in super dangerous melee range, where aoe’s might kill you in a few seconds. (it is known mobs focus on closest enemies thus the warrior most of time, and then spam both melee + aoe attacks on them. in fracts this mean super heavy agony damage + aoe + condition + melee damage). That alone make this skill balanced. The only reason the perception is there this skill is to strong is because the attacks add damage, in one number, making it look like a huge damage strike. A meteor shower or some auto attacks, almost do the same damage in the same lifespan. Hell a thief can do a 30k strike in 4 secs. So again perfectly balanced. Even with the very high damage of this skill, gravelings in AC die super slow, i think i would need 4x 100b (fully going off), to kill one single graveling (the bigger ones, not the smallest). Why would you punish us to even worse, almost certainly die a few times, scenario’s in dungeons, by nerfing skills like this?

AOE damage of mobs is hilarous powerfull at times. While i know it’s part of the ’it’s a boss so it’s a challenge’ philosophy, if you nerf player aoe, mob aoe got to be nerf accordingly, cause we kill them slower thus take more damage in the added time.

In wvw this means siege is only viable weapon? But that cant be cause you LIMIT space for arrow carts. So basically when Seafarers rest/Vizunah square (super focussed zerg servers), comes at your tower, you are lost (as you have to few arrow carts to hold them off, and aoe’s are not viable. Single target damage from defense position is stupid, ppl just run out (heal again), come back, (or get a ress). And the small stones at the defense position edge, make a lot of attacks ‘obstructed’. Fail. We cant use auto attacks while our hands/face have a straight line to enemy? fail. That’s why aoe’s are popular. You jump on the stone edge, you risk (mesmer temporal curtain pull), you do aoe (that at least gives viable pressure), then you are forced to retreat or you will die (you took a lot of damage while standing so much in the open). Remove the stone lets (or the obstruction it causes) if you want single target viabilty!!

And a lot of testing? Sorry no offense but i don’t believe you. 1-10 hours in mmo landscape is hardly testing. I played 1200 hours, And playing a char 100-300 hours, rather then 10-40 hours, gives a lot of other conclusions.

Part of reason I have 5x lvl 80 is because the limited amount of skills ingame (and thus fast boredom. Mesmer for instance, all a very fun profession, but (imo) the sceptor sucks, so it’s useless, offhand torch sucks. That leave very very very few viable weapons left. Now with aoe nerf, even more weapons, will not be viable in my opinion. Now i’ll prolly have to make again another profession.

Maybe you guys focus only on pvp (I’ve never done this yet). Last time you balanced, you must know it killed part of the thrill of pve/wvw. What may be tru in pvp, may not be tru in pve. If you guys only play pvp (superior small, irrelevant part of game imo, although some will disagree), the most, and then balance the game, you are doing it very wrong. If you want to balance pvp, leave other part of game out of it. I don’t know when you guys (after gw1 split skill system pve/pvp), suddenly though you can balance pve and pvp with the same skillset. You broke your own rule already with boon duration runes, and Safe Yourself! shout, yet for other stuff you will make the obvious mistake again. In the making off book, it says the community is very important for Anet and they will always listen. Well lets see if you listen now, i think I formulated a long enough post for a good argument. But with only 80 people in the office (and most ppl busy with software coding, (and the few response in forums proving it), i think you guys don’t read posts like this. And that’s very sad. Of course other opinions count too, i’ve seen many good posts in this thread.

I really dislike max target limits, the cutoff is so arbitrary. Its better to scale things progressively.

In another mmo that failed on many parts, still they had a nice implementation of aoe’s. The more targets you hit, the fewer damage. And it scaled pretty well. Above 3 targets, damage went down significant. Above 5 though it was to hard (10k damage becomes 100 damage). If little more progressively, and you might have the perfect system (if they remove the 5 cap).

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

In another mmo that failed on many parts, still they had a nice implementation of aoe’s. The more targets you hit, the fewer damage. And it scaled pretty well. Above 3 targets, damage went down significant. Above 5 though it was to hard (10k damage becomes 100 damage). If little more progressively, and you might have the perfect system (if they remove the 5 cap).

Actually, with the 5 target cap it kind of works like that except the damage numbers don’t go down. But you can effectively mitigate player AoE skills by running into them with a large group because damage from multiple AoE ticks/skill uses will be spread out. Especially if your group moves through a ground targeted AoE, because they hit the targets closest to the center.

5 people run into AoE = all will be hit for full damage while they’re in the AoE field.

20 people run through Aoe = on average each player will be hit for 25% damage.

20 people with pets and clones etc. … you get the idea.

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.

Why not change certain AoE skills so you can use your mouse wheel to scroll up or down the radius and give each skill a min-max radius, a min-max number of targets, and a fixed amount of damage that dynamically changes based on how many people are standing in it?
Would work something like:
-Less targets, smaller AoE radius, more damage in that area [Ex: single target getting hit by AoE for 1500 damage/tick, easier to dodge out of; two players in same AoE hit for 750/tick])
-More targets, larger AoE radius, less damage to individual targets, but overall the same amount of damage [Ex: three targets hit by AoE for 500 damage, five targets hit by AoE for 300 damage/tick, larger radius to dodge out of])

Having radial AoE scale up or down based on the amount of enemies inside of the AoE at a given time might be viable. Perhaps that may work to allow it to hit more than 5 targets? Then again it might be a giant cluster and simpler to just tweak numbers. Just a thought.

Rainu.6871:

What about making AoE have a small delay before it starts doing damage, similar to most mob AoEs?

Most of them do, at least the elementalist ones do in staff. Also, one of the ones being complained about in the forums is the d/d ability that has a 4 second channel that you can run out of easily before it fires to do any damage. lol

Lanthrudar.1437:

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%.

No, that would never work. It would make it even more pointless to use AE abilities. Just think about it for a second.

Black Ice Spain.9753:

Plus ele is the most ridiculous thing in the world currently, if played correctly you are immortal.

No. Eles that immortal are d/d bunker eles that do absolutely no damage.

Any ele that is hitting you hard is extremely easy to kill. Even more so if they have a staff out. In fact, a staff ele is probably the easy class/weapon combo in the game to kill.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I hadn’t thought of this. QUICK! WE MUST MAKE THIS A SUGGESTION!

Nice and snarky, good contribution, +1 to your reputation.

But who cares what we say or suggest because ArenaNet can never be at fault, the opinions of thousands of people who collectively have played man years means absolutely nothing.

I don’t understand the argument that AoE shouldn’t do more damage than a single-target attack. Single target attacks home in, they automatically hit. This isn’t Call of Duty: Guild Ops, you don’t have to aim your single target attacks. Whereas AoE attacks have to be aimed, placed, and often channelled. And all the target has to do to avoid it is step to the side. You can’t step to the side of a single target attack.

If either an enemy is stupid enough, or you play well enough to force him, to stand in an AoE attack for its full duration and take every hit of it, then kitten right he deserves to take at least as much damage as a single target attack.

Meteor shower is perhaps a little overpowered when targeting the top of a hostile wall. But it is next to useless in 1 on 1 situations. If I manage to maneuver an enemy into a position where I can fully cast meteor shower and it hits several times, I don’t just deserve to do significant damage; I deserve a kittening medal.

Black Ice Spain.9753:

Plus ele is the most ridiculous thing in the world currently, if played correctly you are immortal.

Mobility and escape options on Daggerx2 Eles need to be looked at and probably require a severe nerf ( same goes for Thief of course ). That’s an entirely different issue from what we’re discussing here though.

Ive been playing a 100% Glass Cannon staff ele for the past month,
and let me share some insight into that:

1) Yes, I have seen 6k hits on Meteor Shower and Ice Spike, but against
most players, its not even doing half of that. Is Anet talking about AOE
being too powerful to undegeared players? If so, I could care less. This damage
is traded for NO DEFENSE. An Ele built like that has to watch out for the leaves
falling from trees. AOE is not like a Kill Shot, and even if it was, a Thief can
drop every Ele in the back line in under 30 seconds.

2) If a player is at least AVERAGE, they know to avoid AOE. For those of you
who raided in past MMOs, it was always amazing how many people stand
in AOE. Look at AOE against a geared and player who has SOME knowledge
of gaming, and dont make comparisons based on undergeared, low skilled
players who will complain that they died to any attack.

3) Many, many battles are zergfests outside of towers. They are static, moving
battles (many times going back and forth gaining ground). In light of this,
AOE is missing many times unless you plan ahead where the people are moving.
Even if you drop a good one, people are passing through it for a second or two
and not the full duration.

So now everyone will play thief and all ele will use daggers.. this will become a zerg game more than already is.. AOE damage is fine you just have to move out of the way

If they nerf this it will be imposibble to take a reinforced tower or keep with decent siege on it..

Problem is, we don’t know the details and what abilities they are exactly changing. Also anet doesn’t know at this point either so were in a pointless speculation cycle assuming the worst. Were not giving any valuable feedback to arenanet here, just pointless crying and public worry that my aoe class is going to get the nerfbat in some way.

Just chill out.

So instead of doing pointless worst case scenario, ill bring up one aoe ability that seems to break all of anets guidelines.

Clusterbomb.

Does anyone here think clusterbomb spam is currently fine as is? I certainly think its the most overused and overpowered skill on a sb thiefs bar, so much so that the other abilities on the shortbow are hardly worth using, just skills 1 and 5, and not even 1 most of the time.

I think everyones overreacting.
Without details I don’t see why everyone is worried about little things like auto attacks, i’m sure those are not the AoEs they are referring to. They may nerf just certain skills, they may nerf everything (and if they do im sure they will make some other builds more viable for those classes in compensation, which may make us even better off)

Elementalists: If you nerf all of our AoEs to the point of uselessness (what usually happens when you nerf things), what are we supposed to do besides reroll? Our closest weapon set to a single target damage set is scepter/focus, and even then 7 of 20 (35%) of the skills are AoEs. I understand we’re not the only profession affected, but we literally have zero true single target options when picking a weapon set.

Thieves: There goes the only counter to perma stealth. Guess that’s what all of the displaced elementalists will reroll to, because lord knows that more glass cannon thieves 2-shotting each other from stealth is what we need in WvW.

WvW in general: Well placed aoes with good positioning can allow a smaller force to hold off (and possibly even rout) a larger force that just blindly runs facefirst into a choke point. If you force everyone into using single target damage, it’s just a matter of time before the mindless horde spikes the smaller, but organized, guild into the ground 1 by 1. Essentially turning it into a case of “the biggest zerg always wins”, which is already a problem (a group of 20 stands no chance against a group of 60. Mainly because the AoE cap of 5 and its seemingly random target selection makes it so the group of 60 can meander aimlessly into a chokepoint guarded by the group of 20 and 40+ of them will make it through unscathed [and most of the other 20 will still be alive] and trample the smaller group.)

This is a terrible design choice if you go through with it, and would shake (if not destroy) my faith in arenanet. Instant loss of respect for any developer who guts strategy from pvp because a very, very, very small minority (I’ve seen zero, so I don’t even know where this idea came from) is whining that they have to think too hard.

“Dodge roll out of the red circle that gives me a 3 second warning? Change target to the light armor class with incredibly low base hp standing on top of me and make them run away to live? No! Nerf aoes so I don’t have to, and can remain stationary while spiking down 1 person with my 1337 glass cannon build instead!”

The only AoE that needs to be nerfed is arrow carts, and I’m starting to wonder if that’s the only AoE you’re not going to “fix”.

Lol i feel sad for my ele. Not only we’re the squishiest and we’re forced to run bunker builds with a kittenton of toughness and vit and healing power in PvP to not be roflstomped in 5 seconds but over 90% of our skills are AoE which are so flashy only a kitten would stay in them and get hit, our single targets suck and for some reason we get nerfed again and again.
Other professions do easier what we do with too much effort to bother and yet there are still people who cry eles are op. I guess ele’s gonna be an exclusive profession for a selected few pro masochists who play ele well but obviously would play other classes 2 or 3 times better.

You know what changes battle outcomes more than AOE? Culling issues
after Mesmer bombing. Fix that, then worry about AOE.

Terra, stop pointless overacting and give specific feedback.

This is the problem: People using aoes effectively against single targets when they have the OPTION of single target attacks. (staff ele does not qualify, staff necro does not qualify, thief shortbow qualifies)

So Terra, do you think clusterbombs usefulness compared to other shortbow abilities should be addressed? Right now its more efficient for the thief to clusterbomb a downed enemy than it is to attempt a finish as a shortbow thief, while doing large amounts of damage to anyone attempting a res.

iriyabran.6218:

Lol i feel sad for my ele. Not only we’re the squishiest and we’re forced to run bunker builds with a kittenton of toughness and vit and healing power in PvP to not be roflstomped in 5 seconds but over 90% of our skills are AoE which are so flashy only a kitten would stay in them and get hit, our single targets suck and for some reason we get nerfed again and again.
Other professions do easier what we do with too much effort to bother and yet there are still people who cry eles are op. I guess ele’s gonna be an exclusive profession for a selected few pro masochists who play ele well but obviously would play other classes 2 or 3 times better.

No one said only bunker will be viable after adjustments, stop overreacting, make an honest assesmet on where the skill balance is wrong instead of assuming the worst.

Thunderbrew.7034:

You know what changes battle outcomes more than AOE? Culling issues
after Mesmer bombing. Fix that, then worry about AOE.

They should worry about AOE or the balance of all abilities in relation with each other. There is as separate team working on culling. They shouldn’t stop work just because culling isn’t fixed yet. Besides there in the next update they are addressing one concern, slow loading of models out of invis and culling.

Maybe most people don’t use combo fields to their full effect but I’ve never considered AoE to be unbalanced. It’s predictable and easy to avoid or dodge through.

Draygo.9473:

Terra, stop pointless overacting and give specific feedback.

This is the problem: People using aoes effectively against single targets when they have the OPTION of single target attacks. (staff ele does not qualify, staff necro does not qualify, thief shortbow qualifies)

So Terra, do you think clusterbombs usefulness compared to other shortbow abilities should be addressed? Right now its more efficient for the thief to clusterbomb a downed enemy than it is to attempt a finish as a shortbow thief, while doing large amounts of damage to anyone attempting a res.

This is not correct. First off, since Trick Shot bounces, in the case of 1 rezzer it is often better to just Trick Shot spam the rezzer, since they will get hit twice.

Second, the frequency with which you can fire Cluster Bomb depends on how far away you are, the closer you are to the target the quicker you can spam it. So if you’re going to stop someone from getting a downed player up, you really need to be pretty close to them, or your Cluster Bomb dps will be laughable. This gives them the option of, you know, hitting you back.

Third, shortbow Thieves often choose dpsing the downed player to finish them not because it’s quicker (it’s actually slower in most cases), but because it’s safer, and more reliable than attempting a stomp as shortbow Thief — if you’re built around shortbow, you’re not very good at stomps, and your options for interrupting revives are limited at best. Your survivability is built around mobility, meaning it goes out the window when you self-root for a stomp. Meanwhile, a backstab Thief has the option of either stealth-stomping the downed player, or just insta-gibbing the rezzer. The shortbow is undeniably better at AoEing down groups of players trying to rez a downed player, but it’s often the case that you can’t actually do enough damage and they all just get up and walk away. Anyway, the idea that we’d need to nerf a weapon built for AoE because it is good at AoEing groups of players down is strange to say the least.

Finally, if the problem were with Cluster Bomb, the solution should be to fix Cluster Bomb. Nothing the devs have said indicates that they believe this is specific to Cluster Bomb, and everything they have said points toward AoE in general.

TERA have thier aoe damage spread to all that hit. the damage go lower the more it hit

blurps.2340:

Mobility and escape options on Daggerx2 Eles need to be looked at and probably require a severe nerf ( same goes for Thief of course ). That’s an entirely different issue from what we’re discussing here though.

Mobility is not a reason for a nerf. The reason why many ele’s go d/d and run bunker is due to the fact that it is the only viable build. If you don’t run that as an ele, you are free points to anyone attacking you. Even so, while those ele’s may be annoying to kill, they do garbage damage compared to everyone else. If they switch to a more damage oriented build you can typically just 3 shot them.

covenn.7165:

blurps.2340:

Mobility and escape options on Daggerx2 Eles need to be looked at and probably require a severe nerf ( same goes for Thief of course ). That’s an entirely different issue from what we’re discussing here though.

Mobility is not a reason for a nerf. The reason why many ele’s go d/d and run bunker is due to the fact that it is the only viable build. If you don’t run that as an ele, you are free points to anyone attacking you. Even so, while those ele’s may be annoying to kill, they do garbage damage compared to everyone else. If they switch to a more damage oriented build you can typically just 3 shot them.

Wrong,
Staff and S/D are both viable on the Ele.

Kintari.4172:

Draygo.9473:

Terra, stop pointless overacting and give specific feedback.

This is the problem: People using aoes effectively against single targets when they have the OPTION of single target attacks. (staff ele does not qualify, staff necro does not qualify, thief shortbow qualifies)

So Terra, do you think clusterbombs usefulness compared to other shortbow abilities should be addressed? Right now its more efficient for the thief to clusterbomb a downed enemy than it is to attempt a finish as a shortbow thief, while doing large amounts of damage to anyone attempting a res.

This is not correct. First off, since Trick Shot bounces, in the case of 1 rezzer it is often better to just Trick Shot spam the rezzer, since they will get hit twice.

Second, the frequency with which you can fire Cluster Bomb depends on how far away you are, the closer you are to the target the quicker you can spam it. So if you’re going to stop someone from getting a downed player up, you really need to be pretty close to them, or your Cluster Bomb dps will be laughable. This gives them the option of, you know, hitting you back.

Third, shortbow Thieves often choose dpsing the downed player to finish them not because it’s quicker (it’s actually slower in most cases), but because it’s safer, and more reliable than attempting a stomp as shortbow Thief — if you’re built around shortbow, you’re not very good at stomps, and your options for interrupting revives are limited at best. Your survivability is built around mobility, meaning it goes out the window when you self-root for a stomp. Meanwhile, a backstab Thief has the option of either stealth-stomping the downed player, or just insta-gibbing the rezzer. The shortbow is undeniably better at AoEing down groups of players trying to rez a downed player, but it’s often the case that you can’t actually do enough damage and they all just get up and walk away. Anyway, the idea that we’d need to nerf a weapon built for AoE because it is good at AoEing groups of players down is strange to say the least.

Finally, if the problem were with Cluster Bomb, the solution should be to fix Cluster Bomb. Nothing the devs have said indicates that they believe this is specific to Cluster Bomb, and everything they have said points toward AoE in general.

Where did the devs specifically say they would nerf an aoe weapon that only does aoe?

While they are talking in general terms about aoe abilities vs single target, clusterbomb falls into that category.

I also think you underestimate the damage clusterbomb does. The thieves in my guild use it point blank, and its the go to ability for dealing with any situation where your enemy is likely to take the hit. If they want to mash a group of people its cb, cb, cb, cb, daggerstorm to let init recharge, cb, cb, cb while running lifesteal food to maintain survivability while your doing that. Cluster bomb does a very high amount of damage, its an offender. For shortbow thieves skills 2-4 hardly get used.

The reason I bring it up is because I think its a skill the devs are likely going to change based on their criteria. It wont be the only skill, but its far better than whining on the forums about how staff eles are going to get nerfed to oblivion.

Do you think any ability on the staff ele bar needs a damage reduction? I don’t really see it.

But I see other classes when they have aoe options vs single target options where they are preferring to spam the aoe over and over with no consideration to tactical play. AOE skills with channels might not be changed at all, as it locks you into casting it, but the fire and forget or fire and spam aoes might be changed. (I do see staff 5 being changed to you have to continue the channel for it to continue to drop, right now it seems unintended you can cancel the channel early and still get the damage)

Smitten.3076:

Wrong,
Staff and S/D are both viable on the Ele.

Staff is viable in siege or in the middle of a zerg. Thats it… pretty sure I said that before but you have missed my posts out of the dozens here. Outside of that situation, they are the weakest weapon/class combination in the game in regards to survival and overall ability.

Any elementalist running S/D is fooling himself because he is not even remotely close to being as effective as other builds.

They are treating the symptom rather than the disease. There is nothing inherently wrong with AoE and its use. I have yet to see any compelling evidence that AoE itself is the issue or in fact that it is an issue at all…we only have a few anecdotal comments that don’t hold water when looked at closely.

People use AoE because it is the most effective tool they have available…and that is the key. The availability of other forms of attack are so poor/bugged/restricted that the only option is to use whatever abilities that work. In this case the answer is NOT TO NERF AOE but to FIX UP/BUFF ALTERNATIVE ATTACKS.

The other main symptom is players are whining about the AoE but refuse to get out of the red circles. The answer is NOT TO NERF AOE but to give the players BETTER WAYS TO AVOID IT which can be a combination of L2P and maybe better dodging ability or something.

Don’t forget that some players have unavoidably high pings (yes I am an Oceanic player) which need to be considered in addressing reflex-type actions and that in itself can be an issue in AoE heavy fights….not the AoE itself.

AoE Stacking can be an issue but can be easily addressed by limiting the number of simultaneous AoEs on any one particular target area. For example if a necro lays down a well then only one or two other AoEs can be placed in the same spot simultaneously.

Then we come to the impacts of treating the symptom rather than the real underlying issues. Those professions that are designed around attrition and condition damage will need serious reevaluation/design changes/player skill upheaval. Is that fair rather than treating the real issues surrounding AoE.

Nerfing it is an easy partial way to quell some whining but it will NOT fix the underlying issues.

These are just some of my own thoughts and many more experienced players will undoubtedly be able to identify more of the underlying issues that affect AoE.

Draygo.9473:

Do you think any ability on the staff ele bar needs a damage reduction? I don’t really see it.

But I see other classes when they have aoe options vs single target options where they are preferring to spam the aoe over and over with no consideration to tactical play. AOE skills with channels might not be changed at all, as it locks you into casting it, but the fire and forget or fire and spam aoes might be changed. (I do see staff 5 being changed to you have to continue the channel for it to continue to drop, right now it seems unintended you can cancel the channel early and still get the damage)

In all fairness to meteor… the damage is unreliable. Who you hit and when you hit with it is completely random, and considering that, the damage is rather underwhelming. Even if it had no cool down, I would never consider sitting there spamming it because you would do far more, and far more reliable damage other ways. I only use it when I cant switch attunements (waiting for cycle timers) and lava is on cool down.