Guild Wars 2

Draygo.9473:

1Terra, stop pointless overacting and give specific feedback.

2This 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)

3So 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.

1. My “pointless overreaction” (and only ~1/8 of my post that you stopped reading after the first 3 sentences) was just me expressing concern that they (arenanet) are going to nerf all aoes that “hit too hard” (which is basically what their post implies), essentially rendering thieves unkillable and zergs unstoppable in WvW. As someone who barely plays any element of the game besides WvW, the potential nullification of any factor besides sheer numbers in WvW is of concern to me.

2. I’m not sure what makes a shortbow thief qualify as having the option of single target damage when the other 2 on your list don’t (their only single target skill is disabling shot). Little confused by this example. Would also like to add (again) that elementalists in general don’t really qualify as having the option of single target damage. Doesn’t matter what weapon set they have on.

3. EVERY profession is better off attacking a downed player to death (preferably from range) rather than stomping them in WvW unless they have quickness. It’s safer, if enough people are doing it (there usually are) it’s faster, and it’s a hell of a lot harder for them to interrupt you. I’m not sure I understand why cluster bomb was singled out when it’s really not that different from every other profession’s ranged aoe options.

What arenanet needs to do is fix culling and the excessive particle effects obstructing view, and see how AoE plays out when we can actually see what’s hitting us. THEN if it’s STILL a problem worry about a nerf to AoE.

Draygo.9473:

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

I’ll say it again, Trick Shot is not single target damage. It hits up to 3 targets. The only single target damaging ability on shortbow is #3, which is your ranged snare, high ini cost and low damage. The short bow is an AoE weapon.

Draygo.9473:

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)

I don’t ‘underestimate’ the damage that cluster bomb does, because I played shortbow spec thief in WvW for the first 3-4 months of the game, and I know first hand what kind of damage it does — there’s no estimation involved. I was crit Cluster Bombing people for 8-9k pre-nerf while most other thieves were still oohing and aahing over Jinzu’s burst backstab build, or sword/pistol + haste cheese builds.

I’m not really interested in getting dragged into yet another Cluster Bomb debate, that topic can go on just fine without further input from me, but when the devs in their livestream say this:

“We feel like right now AoE, in World v World as well as in PvP, it probably is a little bit too strong across the board. So we’ll be doing a major update to all the AoE skills to kind of bring them back in line a little bit”

… It’s pretty ignorant to interpret that as “Oh hey we’re going to nerf Cluster Bomb, and maybe some other stuff too”. And just because they come out and issue vague and contradictory ‘clarification’ on the matter, doesn’t un-say what was said initially.

No, I don’t feel like any elementalist staff skills need a damage reduction, which is precisely why I would object to a developer saying or implying that they do. Or maybe you believe that the expressions “all the AoE skills” or “across the board” don’t include staff?

Why should I believe that what they want to do is different from what they say they want to do? Unlike you, I will take what they say at face value. I am not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and say “They can’t possibly be that stupid”, having played enough games to know that it is in fact possible for developers to make huge screwups.

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.

Seriously Anet, time to join the big boys of the MMO world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing

EnoLive.2367:

I ask you how many ele’s have you seen or read about ever use dagger/dagger let along be a close combat fighter.

I would have to answer…most of them, including myself.

As said already this “trusted alpha team” is obviously pretty crappy and don’t really know what their doing with all these mistakes before the game came out and how it’s been changed since

Just a funny observation.

Thieves have been a nightmare, and they run around ganking people all over wvw and if they are losing they just run away. Nothing you can do, and working as intented apparently since it never got adressed, infact Thieves escapes just got buffed.

But since a few weeks they got competition in this special department. d/d Eles are now running around ganking people aswell, and being impossible to kill with their numerous escapes.

And now, ANet is gona crack down on aoe. Which would affect d/d Ele and not Thief.

Just an observation. You figure it out.

Cloud.7613:

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.

The forums is not an adequate representation of the player base. Important fact, almost no-one I know or play with comes on the forums. When mentioning “did you see on the forums” I usually get snide remarks about why I would spend any time reading that dribble. The outrage and en masse complaints in this thread is exactly why. A few here are dicussing their opinions and view, but most are just complaining, making rash assumptions, and climing to speak for everyone.

No-one complains about aoe on the forums…here…The abundance of AOE based abilities (whether pbaoe, gtaoe, conical aoe, or bouncing aoe), and the relative strength of those abilities in regards to its damage capability and utility effectiveness against 1 enemy in comparison to other single target abilities is one of the major reasons why this game is coming up short as a skill based esport machine.

It is ridiculous that soo many classes and abilities do not even have to so much as target their intended victim and yet has strong effect of either crowd control or damage. Hey I will press tab and fire no-matter who it targets I will get him. The guy behind me is almost dead and I need some incoming damage off of me, let me swing my sword at the guy in front of me so I can kill the guy behind me. There may be someone hiding in our tower, should we leave people here to stand guard…nah, lets just run a couple circles spamming whatever button will fire off then leave this tower completely unguarded.

Please do not assume that you are speaking for the masses. My post is my opinion, your post is your opinion. Too many posts here seem to claim they know no one is upset about, no one dislikes, you are not doing anything, etcetcetc.

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.

What AoE does more to a single target than single target attacks?

Backstab takes less than 1 second to channel, can be used repeatedly by re-stealthing every few seconds and can easily hit over 10k on anything but a full bunker build. Churning earth, on the other hand, has a 3 second channel time during which the caster is unable to move and is easily interrupted/blinded/etc, has a 30 second cooldown and still hits individual targets for less than one backstab.

On the time/cost/opportunity front, thief wins every category.

How about meteor shower? Probably the most showy AoE in the game. Takes 3 seconds to channel. Perhaps if someone didn’t notice the meteors hitting their head, or forgot they have a HP meter to watch, or forgot that some keys on the keyboard make your avatar move, or that moving out of a meteor storm might keep their avatar upright, or that being upright is desirable, they might soak up the full duration and get downed. Meanwhile a thief or warrior can oneshot that silly elementalist, then simplay walk out of the meteors.

There are so many counters to AoE in this game it’s strange to me that anyone would think they are a problem.

Some of the weaker single target attacks might need a small buff, but if AoE damage (or radius, or duration, or frequency, etc) is nerfed, it will just turn into even more Blob Wars 2 than it already is.

sPvP should get it’s own balancing. If anything, AoE is too weak in WvW as it is currently. In sPvP you can’t rez the defeated, there are a max of 8 enemies to deal with ever, and cap points are so small they can be soaked in AoE easily. In WvW cap points are huge and giant globs of players can chain heal/rez each other faster than AoE can damage them even when defeated. The game modes are so different that no balance changes to one should impact the other without serious consideration.

Pendragon.8735:

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.

Some professions build for AoE because it is all they are good at: This a problem that should be addressed. It would be nice if all professions could pick ST/AOE/Support/Bunker.

Speaking as a Necromancer WvW player, you absolutely need your AoE if you want to have a chance in any single target fight.: That is the heart of the problem. A single target person is a challenge for you as an aoe class. However you have a good chance using AOEs. The single target person/skill only effects 1 person while an aoe specced class is damaging/controlling multiple people simultaneously. If an AOE person can defeat single target specs in 1v1 without some divine intervention, and then can have the same effect vs 5 targets at 1 time that is an issue. In fact that is THE issue they are talking about.

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. : Well said.

Anet talks about building up more viable specs for all professions, but lets put our money where the mouth is: That would make me soo happy.

Thank you for your post good sir/maam.

Josh Mitchell.1596:

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.

Wow, this is an awesome concept.

Meteor Shower takes 4.25 seconds to channel actually…just saying…Also, it’s a 30 second cooldown that takes 15 seconds for its full damage output to be done. Sure, there are a lot of meteors but how many of them honestly hit you? I’m a Norn (super big hitbox) and I’ll eat maybe 3 meteors out of an entire cast. If anything a lot of AoE needs to be buffed. Not necessarily in damage, but at least a reduction in the time it takes for the abilities to land. Examples:

Dragon’s Tooth…not even a ground targeted AoE takes 3 seconds to land. Ice Spike…2.5 seconds. Lava Font…takes 1 second after it appears to deal its first tick of damage (which by the way still has a bugged tooltip, the durations says 6 seconds but if definitely is only 4). Eruption…don’t even get me started on this one…3.5 seconds with a very visible graphic, little damage, and easily cleansed conditions.

AoEs are meant to punish those too stupid to move out of them as well as to punish stacking up in tight balls. The 5 player cap already makes stacking up semi-effective…except against siege and melee trains. The fact that non-melee AoEs (exception being Earthshaker, the Warrior Hammer burst ability) are more than amply animated, plus give the red circle, plus do kitten for damage compared to a lot of the melee ‘AoEs’ (they’re really cleaves) makes you wonder why you roll would roll ranged.

The damage disparity between melee and ranged weapons is already astronomical, and I get can understand why some might think this is a good idea. 1200 range vs 200 range, getting up close is typically a chore and more risky. But, in this game, staying in melee range is easier than cutting thru butter with a hot knife. Couple that with the fact that melee auto attacks are easily 33-40% faster than 75% of the ranged attacks, and you have a severe damage disparity where the caster has less tools to open the gap than the melee class have to close the gap. Obviously if you’re a bad build and didn’t get any mobility a ranged class is going to kite you, but whose fault is that? It sure as hell isn’t the caster’s fault you’re bad at the game or refused to carry a ranged weapon.

Another game I played had this issue, Rift. Warriors got a 20m teleport every time they crit a target (max range for casters was something like 30m). Did I mention that their teleport broke stun and movement impairing effects AND rooted the target they ported too? Rogues had more teleports (also that broke crowd control effects) and immunities to magical effects that if one got on you as a Mage, you were screwed. Between them immuning and constantly breaking your limited CC, you having 1 whimpy kitten 20m teleport, and the oh so important DIMINISHING RETURNS it was impossible to every get range enough to do anything useful.

Speaking of diminishing returns, YOUR GAME BLOODY NEEDS IT. Getting tired of having 20 seconds of stability, 4 ways to cleanse stuns, immobilizes, and cripple/chill and still the end result is my corpse on the floor as a full bunker spec to a measly 3 people who have way more CC and gap closers than what is necessary.

morrolan.9608:

Attic.1562:

dulfy.1493:

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

transcript

We are encourage people […] to break away from large mass mentality of zerging

transcript

WvW is about large scale massive battle mentality where individual players are not as important

Anyone else think these statements are hilariously contradictory?

Course they are and reducing the effectiveness of aoe will make zerging even more prominent. They state there have been complaints about aoe spamming. Well I haven’t seen 1. If its in SPVP then change the balance for SPVP only, they can do that.

I dunno about it making zergs more prominent. I am a Ranger and I can basically not do much when im in a keep or tower being sieged.

It goes like this. I slowly creep up to the edge of keep/tower and look to see if i can spot any Mesmers. As carefully as I can i try to hop on on the ledge that is not even as high as my kneecaps because if I dont then I cant hit anything even though my kitten bow is hanging over the bloody wall. Finally I get on the ledge after falling off/being pulled off a few times and im dead in 2 secs or less from AOE by a toon/toons i cant even see because they are not even in LoS.

Nerf Aoe but let it hit double the players sounds good. Seriously soo many players HAVE to hang onto being able to kill a ranger in less than 3 secs that it clouds their judgement. If there is not some better balance put into the game far more players will be lost than those who ragequit because they cant stand outta LoS and clean off keep walls in a couple secs.

Anyway I am sure other classes can be used in my example instead of Ranger but its my only 80 so is what I know. I will point out that I never never never even try to stomp anyone any more I just use my one aoe. Which does hit downed players kitten hard. I just got sick of chasing every class but ranger around the field even after they are downed lol.

To those that say do not stand in the red circles. Well when an objective is being sieged if you want to even try and defend it then you are standing in a red circle. At least I am because I am not even able to shoot over a 2×4

Stoneslammer.3650:

morrolan.9608:

Attic.1562:

dulfy.1493:

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

transcript

We are encourage people […] to break away from large mass mentality of zerging

transcript

WvW is about large scale massive battle mentality where individual players are not as important

Anyone else think these statements are hilariously contradictory?

Course they are and reducing the effectiveness of aoe will make zerging even more prominent. They state there have been complaints about aoe spamming. Well I haven’t seen 1. If its in SPVP then change the balance for SPVP only, they can do that.

I dunno about it making zergs more prominent. I am a Ranger and I can basically not do much when im in a keep or tower being sieged.

It goes like this. I slowly creep up to the edge of keep/tower and look to see if i can spot any Mesmers. As carefully as I can i try to hop on on the ledge that is not even as high as my kneecaps because if I dont then I cant hit anything even though my kitten bow is hanging over the bloody wall. Finally I get on the ledge after falling off/being pulled off a few times and im dead in 2 secs or less from AOE by a toon/toons i cant even see because they are not even in LoS.

Nerf Aoe but let it hit double the players sounds good. Seriously soo many players HAVE to hang onto being able to kill a ranger in less than 3 secs that it clouds their judgement. If there is not some better balance put into the game far more players will be lost than those who ragequit because they cant stand outta LoS and clean off keep walls in a couple secs.

Anyway I am sure other classes can be used in my example instead of Ranger but its my only 80 so is what I know. I will point out that I never never never even try to stomp anyone any more I just use my one aoe. Which does hit downed players kitten hard. I just got sick of chasing every class but ranger around the field even after they are downed lol.

ive seen what your describing happen , and never seen someone get killed by AoE , ive used the one kit the engineer has to yank someone off , prior to that i let ppl know i was about to do it. what you saw was Focus Fire of single target skills , NOT aoe.

Stoneslammer.3650:

To those that say do not stand in the red circles. Well when an objective is being sieged if you want to even try and defend it then you are standing in a red circle. At least I am because I am not even able to shoot over a 2×4

ive never had an issue like that unless i stop trying to move away from the circles. most of the time im just not paying attention though tbh XD never been killed by an aoe. ive had to get focused down by a rangers longbow before i get dropped (thats aoe AND single target attacks mind you). AoE is not the issue here , we all know it.

Edit for Joke : Atleast AoE is not an issue for those of us that cant stealth ;-)

dunnberry.2964:

As said already this “trusted alpha team” is obviously pretty crappy and don’t really know what their doing with all these mistakes before the game came out and how it’s been changed since

The making off guild wars 2 book doens’t mention alpha team at all. It always talks as how great (and important) guild wars 2 community is as a whole. They say our opinion is incredible important in the design of the game.

Well here we go, i’m 100% against alpha team. Since beta they have given wrong advice. If they are responsible for the D/D 4th thief skill (dont remember name you trow dagger to hit multiple enemies), then they are just plain ignorant. The alpha team seems to settled in, without deserving their spot. Working for an organisation that relies on volunteers, i know how easely, some people get freebies, even though they dont deserve it, simply because their daddy/mom does important stuff for the organization. No offense, but it seems, friends/family of Anet team is involved here. And again no offense, but those ppl are to close to guild wars 2 themself, to be open enough to talk about serious stuff. Like they will be honest against their Anet staff daddy, when they hate something he made.

That aside, A specified alpha team is to small to reflect the community. I know for a fact (again, just like last time their were forum complaints), many people agree with the complaints in this topic, and I know again you will ignore it Anet. Where are we going with this? Anet + alpha team ignores the real (million people) community? Sorry but this bad decisions imply it.

Papaj.9035:

Meteor Shower takes 4.25 seconds to channel actually…just saying…Also, it’s a 30 second cooldown that takes 15 seconds for its full damage output to be done. Sure, there are a lot of meteors but how many of them honestly hit you? I’m a Norn (super big hitbox) and I’ll eat maybe 3 meteors out of an entire cast. If anything a lot of AoE needs to be buffed. Not necessarily in damage, but at least a reduction in the time it takes for the abilities to land. Examples:

Dragon’s Tooth…not even a ground targeted AoE takes 3 seconds to land. Ice Spike…2.5 seconds. Lava Font…takes 1 second after it appears to deal its first tick of damage (which by the way still has a bugged tooltip, the durations says 6 seconds but if definitely is only 4). Eruption…don’t even get me started on this one…3.5 seconds with a very visible graphic, little damage, and easily cleansed conditions.

AoEs are meant to punish those too stupid to move out of them as well as to punish stacking up in tight balls. The 5 player cap already makes stacking up semi-effective…except against siege and melee trains. The fact that non-melee AoEs (exception being Earthshaker, the Warrior Hammer burst ability) are more than amply animated, plus give the red circle, plus do kitten for damage compared to a lot of the melee ‘AoEs’ (they’re really cleaves) makes you wonder why you roll would roll ranged.

The damage disparity between melee and ranged weapons is already astronomical, and I get can understand why some might think this is a good idea. 1200 range vs 200 range, getting up close is typically a chore and more risky. But, in this game, staying in melee range is easier than cutting thru butter with a hot knife. Couple that with the fact that melee auto attacks are easily 33-40% faster than 75% of the ranged attacks, and you have a severe damage disparity where the caster has less tools to open the gap than the melee class have to close the gap. Obviously if you’re a bad build and didn’t get any mobility a ranged class is going to kite you, but whose fault is that? It sure as hell isn’t the caster’s fault you’re bad at the game or refused to carry a ranged weapon.

Another game I played had this issue, Rift. Warriors got a 20m teleport every time they crit a target (max range for casters was something like 30m). Did I mention that their teleport broke stun and movement impairing effects AND rooted the target they ported too? Rogues had more teleports (also that broke crowd control effects) and immunities to magical effects that if one got on you as a Mage, you were screwed. Between them immuning and constantly breaking your limited CC, you having 1 whimpy kitten 20m teleport, and the oh so important DIMINISHING RETURNS it was impossible to every get range enough to do anything useful.

Speaking of diminishing returns, YOUR GAME BLOODY NEEDS IT. Getting tired of having 20 seconds of stability, 4 ways to cleanse stuns, immobilizes, and cripple/chill and still the end result is my corpse on the floor as a full bunker spec to a measly 3 people who have way more CC and gap closers than what is necessary.

Not sure if you are trolling or not but if not are you complaining about not being able to take on 3 players at once?

But I do agreed with you there is a huge disparity between range and melee. At least for me being a Ranger the only other player I am able to kill unless they are just plain bad is another Ranger. I will admit I am prolly not the most skilled player either but i am typically dead in 2 maybe 3 hits max and I only have mostly exotic with a couple rares for armor and it dont matter if i stack Vit/toughness or not. I may survive one more hit against any but a thief. A thief kills me usually 2 or 3 hits or sometimes before he is even out of stealth. I dunno maybe I just suck but i did well enough in DaoC/EQ/WOW/LotR etc.

Anyway sorry not trying to derail anything. just seems a few builds are able to wtfpwn whereas others are only able to wtfdie. A balance needs be struck.

Oh yea my Ranger totally owns in PvE though. I regularly take on 4 karkas or 4 of most any of the mobs in Orr at same time with very little deaths. Go figure. I can do the event at Karka camp soloing everything including the Karka egglayer but i get two shotted by thiefs i rarely even see until im dead.

Enundr.9305:

Stoneslammer.3650:

morrolan.9608:

Attic.1562:

dulfy.1493:

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

transcript

We are encourage people […] to break away from large mass mentality of zerging

transcript

WvW is about large scale massive battle mentality where individual players are not as important

Anyone else think these statements are hilariously contradictory?

Course they are and reducing the effectiveness of aoe will make zerging even more prominent. They state there have been complaints about aoe spamming. Well I haven’t seen 1. If its in SPVP then change the balance for SPVP only, they can do that.

I dunno about it making zergs more prominent. I am a Ranger and I can basically not do much when im in a keep or tower being sieged.

It goes like this. I slowly creep up to the edge of keep/tower and look to see if i can spot any Mesmers. As carefully as I can i try to hop on on the ledge that is not even as high as my kneecaps because if I dont then I cant hit anything even though my kitten bow is hanging over the bloody wall. Finally I get on the ledge after falling off/being pulled off a few times and im dead in 2 secs or less from AOE by a toon/toons i cant even see because they are not even in LoS.

Nerf Aoe but let it hit double the players sounds good. Seriously soo many players HAVE to hang onto being able to kill a ranger in less than 3 secs that it clouds their judgement. If there is not some better balance put into the game far more players will be lost than those who ragequit because they cant stand outta LoS and clean off keep walls in a couple secs.

Anyway I am sure other classes can be used in my example instead of Ranger but its my only 80 so is what I know. I will point out that I never never never even try to stomp anyone any more I just use my one aoe. Which does hit downed players kitten hard. I just got sick of chasing every class but ranger around the field even after they are downed lol.

ive seen what your describing happen , and never seen someone get killed by AoE , ive used the one kit the engineer has to yank someone off , prior to that i let ppl know i was about to do it. what you saw was Focus Fire of single target skills , NOT aoe.

Oh really? Well what classes can focus fire single target me down without being in LoS and not using AOE? Not trying to be rude because i very well maybe missing something and if so I wanna know.

Papaj.9035:

Speaking of diminishing returns, YOUR GAME BLOODY NEEDS IT. Getting tired of having 20 seconds of stability, 4 ways to cleanse stuns, immobilizes, and cripple/chill and still the end result is my corpse on the floor as a full bunker spec to a measly 3 people who have way more CC and gap closers than what is necessary.

So you’re complaining that you die 1v3?

Stiv.1820:

If they are adding a Prestige system they will want to be careful to make sure just zerging and spamming AoE isn’t the best way to gain it. They may just make it worse at getting kill credit and things like that, not necessarily worse in it’s damage effect.

Nice thinking. Having played a f2p mmo that basically had to make similar decision as Anet (and failed horrible at most), i know very well, this to be possible. They are already punishing real farmers, because otherwise bots would get to much loot, with diminishing returns, wich means they don’t favor the honest crowd of farmers. This means with the new ‘wvw reward system’, they basically nerf, aoe’s just for the sake of nerving loot.

If I may say so, as a semi-glass canon ele (15k hp only, nice – but not amazing, crit rate + damage), my aoe’s rarely proc multiple kills (and exp/drops). My best way to get badges of honor is going to another profession. I won’t tell the details (everything you tell that is good for you might get nerfed later by Anet). I wanted to think better of Anet, but thinking back again about ’Slaver’s Exile’, guild wars 1, they have proven they can be stubborn at nerving succesfull ways of beating the content. (they nerfed/fixed almost all the viable ways to do that dungoen, until hours and hours of suidice stomping was the only possible attempt (not garanteed succes), to win that dungeon. Imagine this in gw2 (kinda already exists in some dungeons, story mode, just not as harsh), you will have to pay 100’s of silver to repair (no repair cost in gw1).

Anet keeps saying how good they are for their community, in their marketing stuff. I’m starting to believe the opposite.

Stoneslammer.3650:

Enundr.9305:

Stoneslammer.3650:

morrolan.9608:

Attic.1562:

dulfy.1493:

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

transcript

We are encourage people […] to break away from large mass mentality of zerging

transcript

WvW is about large scale massive battle mentality where individual players are not as important

Anyone else think these statements are hilariously contradictory?

Course they are and reducing the effectiveness of aoe will make zerging even more prominent. They state there have been complaints about aoe spamming. Well I haven’t seen 1. If its in SPVP then change the balance for SPVP only, they can do that.

I dunno about it making zergs more prominent. I am a Ranger and I can basically not do much when im in a keep or tower being sieged.

It goes like this. I slowly creep up to the edge of keep/tower and look to see if i can spot any Mesmers. As carefully as I can i try to hop on on the ledge that is not even as high as my kneecaps because if I dont then I cant hit anything even though my kitten bow is hanging over the bloody wall. Finally I get on the ledge after falling off/being pulled off a few times and im dead in 2 secs or less from AOE by a toon/toons i cant even see because they are not even in LoS.

Nerf Aoe but let it hit double the players sounds good. Seriously soo many players HAVE to hang onto being able to kill a ranger in less than 3 secs that it clouds their judgement. If there is not some better balance put into the game far more players will be lost than those who ragequit because they cant stand outta LoS and clean off keep walls in a couple secs.

Anyway I am sure other classes can be used in my example instead of Ranger but its my only 80 so is what I know. I will point out that I never never never even try to stomp anyone any more I just use my one aoe. Which does hit downed players kitten hard. I just got sick of chasing every class but ranger around the field even after they are downed lol.

ive seen what your describing happen , and never seen someone get killed by AoE , ive used the one kit the engineer has to yank someone off , prior to that i let ppl know i was about to do it. what you saw was Focus Fire of single target skills , NOT aoe.

Oh really? Well what classes can focus fire single target me down without being in LoS and not using AOE? Not trying to be rude because i very well maybe missing something and if so I wanna know.

believe you said you got pulled / fell off then dead in 2 seconds? that in how it is said might make it sound you got yanked Outside to where invaders are coming from therefore right into their grasp LoS not being an issue. or you meant your still ON the ledge and you possibly got pelted with siege weapons all arrayed against your keep/tower.

I`m one of the few staff elementalists left. These days, almost all elementalists seem to be running twin daggers. They move faster than me, they kill people quickly and with large amounts of damage.

My role, the only role i have in this game, is AOE in WvW and i`m a commander. If i am caught alone, i`m an easy target. My attacks are slow, low damage and i am reliant on others for protection, though i am relatively tough when not focused upon. Mainly, i clear walls and i control field battles with area denial, i also stop rezzers.

If i lose this, there is nothing left for me. I run full toughness and yet i can be two and three shot by a thief if i dont see it coming and even then, sometimes when i do. My class has no option to weapon swap and on several of my staff options only 2 of the 5 powers even do damage and their control is limited at best.

Ah yes and my AOE spells only hit five people at most, so even if i do target a big mass of players, chances are the best i get is that a few pull back to heal, they dont die unless they are not paying attention.

The logic of all this escapes me really. I have a limited role, one that most people wouldnt accept or enjoy…and now i am going to lose even that?

Enundr.9305:

Stoneslammer.3650:

To those that say do not stand in the red circles. Well when an objective is being sieged if you want to even try and defend it then you are standing in a red circle. At least I am because I am not even able to shoot over a 2×4

ive never had an issue like that unless i stop trying to move away from the circles. most of the time im just not paying attention though tbh XD never been killed by an aoe. ive had to get focused down by a rangers longbow before i get dropped (thats aoe AND single target attacks mind you). AoE is not the issue here , we all know it.

Edit for Joke : At least AoE is not an issue for those of us that cant stealth ;-)

Just wondering are you a Ranger? Reason I am asking is i am getting quite frustrated at how useless I feel in certain situations. Like the one I mentioned. I am not able to hit anyone from a keep wall unless i jump on a tiny little ledge or use my ONE AOE ability which really does not cover much than the top of the wall and maybe a foot or two past it because for some reason the game feels I can not shoot or maybe it’s see over a ledge about half a foot high. By having to get on that stupid little ledge, to get off a shot or two I am in red circle the whole time if the enemy is not completely incompetent that is.

Also are you saying you have not seen players die all the time in just this manner? Because I have just started to revive players in this very situation instead of even trying to engage the enemy and it happens all the time. ALL the time.

Now I am not saying players should not die to aoe or anything like that and i really feel there are way more important issues to be “fixed” cough “PETS F2 abilities” “PETS being little more than useless outside of PVE” “Not being able to stable a pet and having it constantly appear if i drop more than five feet in a jumping puzzle” COUGH and maybe some other classes have issues lol.

But as others have said in this thread regarding AOE. AOE should not be doing more single target damage than single target skills. Couple that with many AOEs not needing to have LoS to be able to hit targets and they really really should not do more damage than single target skills that need LoS to use or that cant be used because of some stinking little ledge i keep stubbing my big toe on.

Enundr.9305:

Stoneslammer.3650:

Enundr.9305:

Stoneslammer.3650:

morrolan.9608:

Attic.1562:

dulfy.1493:

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

transcript

We are encourage people […] to break away from large mass mentality of zerging

transcript

WvW is about large scale massive battle mentality where individual players are not as important

Anyone else think these statements are hilariously contradictory?

Course they are and reducing the effectiveness of aoe will make zerging even more prominent. They state there have been complaints about aoe spamming. Well I haven’t seen 1. If its in SPVP then change the balance for SPVP only, they can do that.

I dunno about it making zergs more prominent. I am a Ranger and I can basically not do much when im in a keep or tower being sieged.

It goes like this. I slowly creep up to the edge of keep/tower and look to see if i can spot any Mesmers. As carefully as I can i try to hop on on the ledge that is not even as high as my kneecaps because if I dont then I cant hit anything even though my kitten bow is hanging over the bloody wall. Finally I get on the ledge after falling off/being pulled off a few times and im dead in 2 secs or less from AOE by a toon/toons i cant even see because they are not even in LoS.

Nerf Aoe but let it hit double the players sounds good. Seriously soo many players HAVE to hang onto being able to kill a ranger in less than 3 secs that it clouds their judgement. If there is not some better balance put into the game far more players will be lost than those who ragequit because they cant stand outta LoS and clean off keep walls in a couple secs.

Anyway I am sure other classes can be used in my example instead of Ranger but its my only 80 so is what I know. I will point out that I never never never even try to stomp anyone any more I just use my one aoe. Which does hit downed players kitten hard. I just got sick of chasing every class but ranger around the field even after they are downed lol.

ive seen what your describing happen , and never seen someone get killed by AoE , ive used the one kit the engineer has to yank someone off , prior to that i let ppl know i was about to do it. what you saw was Focus Fire of single target skills , NOT aoe.

Oh really? Well what classes can focus fire single target me down without being in LoS and not using AOE? Not trying to be rude because i very well maybe missing something and if so I wanna know.

believe you said you got pulled / fell off then dead in 2 seconds? that in how it is said might make it sound you got yanked Outside to where invaders are coming from therefore right into their grasp LoS not being an issue. or you meant your still ON the ledge and you possibly got pelted with siege weapons all arrayed against your keep/tower.

Read slower :P This is what i said.

Finally I get on the ledge after falling off/being pulled off a few times and im dead in 2 secs or less from AOE by a toon/toons i cant even see because they are not even in LoS.

I guess I should point out by LoS and “see” I mean be able to “Target”

Guys, guys, guys…

It’s all my fault, I’m that SB thief spamming Cluster Bomb and Choking Gas in WvW.

I’ll reroll.

nobody really understand that. save the zerg!
-.-

stinkypants.8419:

Guys, guys, guys…

It’s all my fault, I’m that SB thief spamming Cluster Bomb and Choking Gas in WvW.

I’ll reroll.

Well get on it I wont be the one to talk you out of it

Wow after these changes Thieves will be total god-mode. The only way to deal with them at all is by guessing where they are and Aoe’ing. If Aoe is nerfed they will be totally unkillable.

Aoe is where it should be atm. Why fix something that is not broken?

We are talking about nerfing AoE because ArenaNet stated its a problem. I mean wth, lets not listen to the community.

We are only talking about AoE because ArenaNet talked about it.

I mean lets not mention what seems like 100’s of threads about what people DON’T LIKE ABOUT THIEVES.

Yes lets ignore that topic.

Pendragon.8735:

Saweth You Him.9047:

I think nerfing aoe would make WvW stale. All of it would make WvW stale. I predict it would turn WvW into an arrow cart/trebuchet match.

It’s close to that already too. People may wax on about the great open field fights they have, but for the purpose of WvW, trebs and carts already reign supreme. Too many battles are decided simply by which side has the richer players carrying or willing to plop down siege.

Trying to defend on a wall with your actual character is already a joke as you can’t target for crap, and if you jump up on a ledge, you get pulled down into a zerg in seconds. Sure lets make AOE even weaker so we can have 20 ppl manning siege outside vs 20 manning siege inside… Everyone just standing stuck to a prop while they push the same 2 buttons over and over.

Very good point. Although i do think AoE or maybe only a few AoE skills could have damage toned down a bit and allow them to hit more targets. I also think that the only red circles we should see are from siege. It might be my old age but i dont remember having to telegraph to the enemy where ima gonna lay down fire in any other game I have played. I do see a need for the circle to appear for arrow carts and such though.

With targets not being told ahead of time an aoe attack is imminent then even if the skill does less single target damage you will be doing more damage overall if that makes sense.

Just listened to the initial developer session where the topic of this thread was first mentioned. The only specific problem I recall being discussed is that players were getting through some dungeon encounters by spamming AoEs. The fellow charged with discussing changes to WvW was not the one who brought the AoE issue up. If players can avoid red circles, the AI should be able to as well.

Debois Guilbert.6413:

Just listened to the initial developer session where the topic of this thread was first mentioned. The only specific problem I recall being discussed is that players were getting through some dungeon encounters by spamming AoEs. The fellow charged with discussing changes to WvW was not the one who brought the AoE issue up. If players can avoid red circles, the AI should be able to as well.

well when talking about AI , alot of the hostile ones end up having a significant amount of health and good dmg , sad when its in an escort event that theyre paper thin in health and no damage ;-D

Ok heres the point of AoE (besides the only decent way to get a thief stealth spamming that is somehow not broken / op beyond all belief?) , AoE is the thing we have to prevent Zergs from bull rushing keeps / towers , actually making fights Last Long rather it just be something that goes by in mere seconds. If it went by in mere seconds it would be extremely boring , AoE is there to try to hold back a bigger force then what you have at your tower/keep (and trust me ive seen CD outnumber us at FA for ALONG time till recently so it ends up being a big help). nerfing aoe at this point would only be helping the zerg and not ppl defending. This possible nerf to aoes is only catering to Zergs and Stealth spamming Thieves.

Edit: its a form of control with damage that is sub-par as it is.

I haven’t read the full thread, but I have one thing to say.

4v30?

D/D Ele, Ride the Lightning + Earthquake. Four defeated players. GG.

Any Thief, Shadowstep + Daggerstorm. Four defeated players. GG.

Any Mesmer, Mass Invisibility. Four defeated players. GG.

Etc.

AOE is not the problem in those videos.

Stoneslammer.3650:

Enundr.9305:

Stoneslammer.3650:

To those that say do not stand in the red circles. Well when an objective is being sieged if you want to even try and defend it then you are standing in a red circle. At least I am because I am not even able to shoot over a 2×4

ive never had an issue like that unless i stop trying to move away from the circles. most of the time im just not paying attention though tbh XD never been killed by an aoe. ive had to get focused down by a rangers longbow before i get dropped (thats aoe AND single target attacks mind you). AoE is not the issue here , we all know it.

Edit for Joke : At least AoE is not an issue for those of us that cant stealth ;-)

Just wondering are you a Ranger? Reason I am asking is i am getting quite frustrated at how useless I feel in certain situations. Like the one I mentioned. I am not able to hit anyone from a keep wall unless i jump on a tiny little ledge or use my ONE AOE ability which really does not cover much than the top of the wall and maybe a foot or two past it because for some reason the game feels I can not shoot or maybe it’s see over a ledge about half a foot high. By having to get on that stupid little ledge, to get off a shot or two I am in red circle the whole time if the enemy is not completely incompetent that is.

Also are you saying you have not seen players die all the time in just this manner? Because I have just started to revive players in this very situation instead of even trying to engage the enemy and it happens all the time. ALL the time.

Now I am not saying players should not die to aoe or anything like that and i really feel there are way more important issues to be “fixed” cough “PETS F2 abilities” “PETS being little more than useless outside of PVE” “Not being able to stable a pet and having it constantly appear if i drop more than five feet in a jumping puzzle” COUGH and maybe some other classes have issues lol.

But as others have said in this thread regarding AOE. AOE should not be doing more single target damage than single target skills. Couple that with many AOEs not needing to have LoS to be able to hit targets and they really really should not do more damage than single target skills that need LoS to use or that cant be used because of some stinking little ledge i keep stubbing my big toe on.

no havent really worked on my ranger yet , so far ive been doing Necro , Engineer , Warrior and Gaurdian (gaurdian is more there for support and reflecting things back when on wall defense).

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)

I’m sorry, what single target does Thief SB have? We have the auto-attack, which is a chaining AoE, and even so does almost no damage. We have the retreat attack which causes you to go flying (whcih isn’t always a good idea) and does almost no damage. Then we have the Shadowstep, which literally does zero damage. If we aren’t using AoE, we aren’t doing anything at all.

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.

As well it should be. Finishing moves are stupid show-off stuff and should be avoided at all cost, no matter what you’re playing. You should always be damaging downed layers, rather than grandstanding over them.

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.

I can’t imagine Cluster Bomb being the problem. It is literally the ONLY move Thieves have that can target people on walls or from walls down to a target, if they nerfed it then Thieves would be pretty useless in siege warfare.

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

They said they were “nerfing AoE.” We have to assume that they mean ALL AoE until they come back with more specific concerns.

Cluster bomb does a very high amount of damage, its an offender. For shortbow thieves skills 2-4 hardly get used.

Clusterbomb IS skill 2. Do you even know what those other abilities are? They are mostly highly situational and a SB Thief should NOT be using them very often. They are are using them then they are wasting everyone’s time, like activating a heal when you have full health and there’s no perk for using it, or activating a stun-breaker when you aren’t stunned. I run D/D and SB, and when using my bow, I tend to drop poison fields first (but only because I’m specced to make poison damage particularly good, many thief builds would gain almost no benefit from using this one), and then it’s almost entirely Cluster Bomb until I run out of ini. I use 3 if I need to escape a bad situation, 5 if I’m trying to travel asap or if I need to avoid trouble, and 1 if absolutely necessary, but 2 really is the bread and butter. If they were to nerf it, they would need to completely overhaul what the other attacks do, because nerfing clusterbomb alone would destroy the SB as a functional weapon.

Note that I say this as someone with a Thief main, but with alts of every other class, so I’m well aware of what they each can and cannot do.

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.

Yes, I don’t think it’s overpowered, but it is overly annoying to be on the wrong end of, since it’s so scary.

No-one complains about aoe on the forums…here…The abundance of AOE based abilities (whether pbaoe, gtaoe, conical aoe, or bouncing aoe), and the relative strength of those abilities in regards to its damage capability and utility effectiveness against 1 enemy in comparison to other single target abilities is one of the major reasons why this game is coming up short as a skill based esport machine.

Who cares? I have zero interest in this MMO becoming an esport machine. I want it to be a fun game.

Benjamin.7893:

Against a zerg you’re not going to do kitten with how the aoe currently is anyway, so why complain about a much needed change.

“AOE is too weak to be relevant as it is, so why do you care about them making it even weaker?”

Um…

Never knew there was a problem with aoe until Anet brought it up. Myself and many have complained for ages how OP thieves are in pvp. No mention of thieves, but in addition to aoe nerf Anet also say bunker eles are on their watchlist! Really? Why aren’t thieves on their watchlist.

Intigo.1653:

Every single change ArenaNet introduces only caters further and further to the zerg playstyle. They don’t want guilds or smaller groups trying to take on higher numbers, they want massively culled zergs fighting blindly.

What about the change that capped aoe heals and boons to only five people?
Or the cap to portals??
o.0
“Every single” means “Most”?

Enundr.9305:

Ok heres the point of AoE (besides the only decent way to get a thief stealth spamming that is somehow not broken / op beyond all belief?) , AoE is the thing we have to prevent Zergs from bull rushing keeps / towers , actually making fights Last Long rather it just be something that goes by in mere seconds. If it went by in mere seconds it would be extremely boring , AoE is there to try to hold back a bigger force then what you have at your tower/keep (and trust me ive seen CD outnumber us at FA for ALONG time till recently so it ends up being a big help). nerfing aoe at this point would only be helping the zerg and not ppl defending. This possible nerf to aoes is only catering to Zergs and Stealth spamming Thieves.

Edit: its a form of control with damage that is sub-par as it is.

I agree with all these points but i would assume they are not going to get rid of AOE just make some adjustments. Lets just hope they dont “adjust” too much. If the problem is how fast it burns down a downed player they should be able to just have it not be as effective on downed players as it normally is. As for PvE I may be mistaken but when i did the last part of my personal story in Arah i would swear some of those mobs were purposely moving out of my AoE radius so im not sure what they were talking about there.

But we are all sorta jumping the gun here cause we dont really know anything. A good point put forth is to have a PTR to test future changes. Anet really should think heavy about that because as a Ranger i can safely say whoever they have doing their testing for them sure missed one helluva lot of bugs. Unless of course the bugs are getting reported and Anet is just saying fudge it and releasing buggy stuff anyway.

I will say i hope whatever they do they get it right being one of my favourite longbow skills may be getting tampered with and as far as I know it aint buggy.

Enundr.9305:

Stoneslammer.3650:

Enundr.9305:

Stoneslammer.3650:

To those that say do not stand in the red circles. Well when an objective is being sieged if you want to even try and defend it then you are standing in a red circle. At least I am because I am not even able to shoot over a 2×4

ive never had an issue like that unless i stop trying to move away from the circles. most of the time im just not paying attention though tbh XD never been killed by an aoe. ive had to get focused down by a rangers longbow before i get dropped (thats aoe AND single target attacks mind you). AoE is not the issue here , we all know it.

Edit for Joke : At least AoE is not an issue for those of us that cant stealth ;-)

Just wondering are you a Ranger? Reason I am asking is i am getting quite frustrated at how useless I feel in certain situations. Like the one I mentioned. I am not able to hit anyone from a keep wall unless i jump on a tiny little ledge or use my ONE AOE ability which really does not cover much than the top of the wall and maybe a foot or two past it because for some reason the game feels I can not shoot or maybe it’s see over a ledge about half a foot high. By having to get on that stupid little ledge, to get off a shot or two I am in red circle the whole time if the enemy is not completely incompetent that is.

Also are you saying you have not seen players die all the time in just this manner? Because I have just started to revive players in this very situation instead of even trying to engage the enemy and it happens all the time. ALL the time.

Now I am not saying players should not die to aoe or anything like that and i really feel there are way more important issues to be “fixed” cough “PETS F2 abilities” “PETS being little more than useless outside of PVE” “Not being able to stable a pet and having it constantly appear if i drop more than five feet in a jumping puzzle” COUGH and maybe some other classes have issues lol.

But as others have said in this thread regarding AOE. AOE should not be doing more single target damage than single target skills. Couple that with many AOEs not needing to have LoS to be able to hit targets and they really really should not do more damage than single target skills that need LoS to use or that cant be used because of some stinking little ledge i keep stubbing my big toe on.

no havent really worked on my ranger yet , so far ive been doing Necro , Engineer , Warrior and Gaurdian (gaurdian is more there for support and reflecting things back when on wall defense).

I am currently trying out a few other classes but I have always loved the bow. I was a Sniper main in DaoC and a Hunter main in WOW as well as a High ranked Blackarrow Creep named “Snipburz” in LotR as well as a Hunter freep. The Ranger in it’s current state is just not where i feel it should be. The class should be weak up close but have better ranged damage IMO I can plink away with the best bow i can find on the Traders and the only classes I feel I have a good chance of beating is another Ranger. My pets actually getting off an F2 skill before it gets killed is 50/50 on a lucky day and that is in PvE also. As well playing a few other classes it is strange that a class i usually think of as highly mobile is not really any more mobile than other classes. I have to use an elite skill to MAYBE have a chance at catching a player i was lucky enough to get their health down far enough to scare em into running. Having situational skills or bonus for hitting a target from the side or behind is useless with this class because except for very rare occasions no one runs from us. They run right at us even light armor wearers lol. So what good is a skill or bonus that adds damage if we hit a target from behind when we are almost never in a position to do that. I think they mixed up some thief and ranger skills to be honest. Thief has way better SB skills than a Ranger. Why is that?

Anyway I am digressing but my point here is although AoE may need to be looked at in general I think there are way more important issues than that. But them I am not Anet and my enjoyment is paramount to me. It may very well not be all that high on Anets list of what needs fixing sooner rather than later.

I’ll continue to say the only three aoes I mentioned are the only ones which need to be nerfed. You need aoe to destroy enemy arrow carts. You need aoe to disturb the enemy front line enough for your melee to close in(Otherwise they get tab targeted and focused down). You need aoe to suppress your flanks. In my opinion aoe in WvW shouldn’t be nerfed because it can be used to dominate a capping circle in sPvP or ai in dungoens, both of which I could care less about. Maybe it’s time to partition abilities amongst the different areas of the game to preserve the fun in each one: Dungeons, sPvP, WvW, mindless farming. I have probably taken more damage from cannons/catapults/arrowcarts than any player aoe. The only aoe that has ever completely dominated me from a player is the theifs dagger spin. And group retaliation counters most channeled aoe.

So while an aoe nerf is being discussed armies of 20 golems are still being portaled to reinforced gates and destroying them in 3 seconds with time warp and capping a tower or keep much faster than the waypoint resets so no oppurtunity for resistance can be made. And then the golems are waypointed to safety. 2000 supply worth of siege portaled to a gate then waypointed away.

Saweth You Him.9047:

I’ll continue to say the only three aoes I mentioned are the only ones which need to be nerfed. You need aoe to destroy enemy arrow carts. You need aoe to disturb the enemy front line enough for your melee to close in(Otherwise they get tab targeted and focused down). You need aoe to suppress your flanks. In my opinion aoe in WvW shouldn’t be nerfed because it can be used to dominate a capping circle in sPvP or ai in dungoens, both of which I could care less about. Maybe it’s time to partition abilities amongst the different areas of the game to preserve the fun in each one: Dungeons, sPvP, WvW, mindless farming. I have probably taken more damage from cannons/catapults/arrowcarts than any player aoe. The only aoe that has ever completely dominated me from a player is the theifs dagger spin. And group retaliation counters most channeled aoe.

So while an aoe nerf is being discussed armies of 20 golems are still being portaled to reinforced gates and destroying them in 3 seconds with time warp and capping a tower or keep much faster than the waypoint resets so no oppurtunity for resistance can be made. And then the golems are waypointed to safety. 2000 supply worth of siege portaled to a gate then waypointed away.

Thats one expensive army there. But yes what is the use of wasting the time gold and supplies to reinforce a keep up to have the defences negated that fast. On paper towers no Biggy but WP holding Keeps should take some effort to capture. A question though, is there not a cap on how much siege a side can have? If not i think it sorta lame some rich kids can just buy gems trade for gold and raise a huge army of Golems in not much time at all.

Very good example of another issue that should be looked at before AOE damage imo. I noticed a thread in the Ranger section that is a stickied “Bugs” thread that was started 4 months ago and from what i can tell almost all the problems reported then still exist with the class today. I imagine there are similar threads in other classes forums as well. Sorta sucky we dont even get updates on those issues or a rough timetable to when or if they will be fixed. Seems pretty clear the focus is on Spvp at the moment. Maybe when they get that area settled we can get some love too.

If they nerf AoE damage to the point where it is only as effective on a single target as a single target attack, then it only makes sense to increase the cap of 5 as well. Otherwise, what is the point of even having AoE in the game at all?

Saweth You Him.9047:

I’ll continue to say the only three aoes I mentioned are the only ones which need to be nerfed. You need aoe to destroy enemy arrow carts. You need aoe to disturb the enemy front line enough for your melee to close in(Otherwise they get tab targeted and focused down). You need aoe to suppress your flanks. In my opinion aoe in WvW shouldn’t be nerfed because it can be used to dominate a capping circle in sPvP or ai in dungoens, both of which I could care less about. Maybe it’s time to partition abilities amongst the different areas of the game to preserve the fun in each one: Dungeons, sPvP, WvW, mindless farming. I have probably taken more damage from cannons/catapults/arrowcarts than any player aoe. The only aoe that has ever completely dominated me from a player is the theifs dagger spin. And group retaliation counters most channeled aoe.

So while an aoe nerf is being discussed armies of 20 golems are still being portaled to reinforced gates and destroying them in 3 seconds with time warp and capping a tower or keep much faster than the waypoint resets so no oppurtunity for resistance can be made. And then the golems are waypointed to safety. 2000 supply worth of siege portaled to a gate then waypointed away.

LOL. Couldn’t have said it better.

StugLyfe.2134:

dreztina.4820:

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.

You call 10 ele’s spamming 1 key competitive? AOE’s with masive damage feed the zerg just like bads like you. ANET is trying to fix something that’s ridiculas and causes much lagg, okay

Where are these 10 Ele’s spamming 1 key?

Zerg on zerg is all about cullbombing, using (and abusing) faults in the game engine to overwhelm the enemy. Making your zerg invisible and causing massive delay in the enemy team, because they spend a lot of resources just trying to render your zerg.

And then you get smashed to bits, not by Ele’s spamming 1 button but by melee cleaves. Hammer Warriors and Guardians.

In all seriousness… a few weeks ago the devs told us that one of the key ways to defeat thieves is AoE…and now they want to nerf it? Are they serious?

So give with one hand when you take with the other. For those skills that you reduce their power, expand their max targets. They’ll be more effective against zergs, not less and will address the issue that the dev actually mentioned, hurting one person more than a single target skill does.

Although I must say that bouncing attacks that hit the same target twice certainly fit this definition more than meteor shower does. Maybe fix that instead.

Honestly, even after extensive WvW I never really had a problem with AoE. Sure damage can be on the high-end but it isn’t near anywhere as broken as the…

…rapid revives.

If you want to fix one thing, then fix the bloody revives.

Parsee Komeiji.2049:

D/D Ele, Ride the Lightning + Earthquake. Four defeated players. GG.

Sorry not reality. That is like 4k worth of damage if they crit.