Guild Wars 2

Kazuno.9218:

Maybe just like bleeding stack have a limit, hit of stacked gaoe should have one to.

That would destroy the game and make stopping zerg impossible in all situations. AoE as it is doesnt do enough damage to enough people, except for siege.

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.

Please keep in mind that the current cap on AoE has denigrated much combat to zergs balling up so no one takes any serious AoE damage. Lessening the effects of AoE will further encourage this. Now… this could be countered/balanced etc. with the introduction of ball-busters. For example, say fear didn’t have the 5 person limit on it so a zerg would see their balls scattering in all directions. Knock-backs would be another good one to take the limit off of. If you’re going to limit the effects of damage on balls of players then we should, I’d think, have more effective ways to bust their balls such that AoE doesn’t wind up completely marginalized.

I like this idea of ball-busting. Because my balls are getting busted by ANet if these changes go thru. I might just have to delete my Bifrost equipped Ele in favor of a #2 spamming Thief.

Jester.3928:

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

few months later……….

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

Lol, ye someone high in the development or his kid (as stated before) has a thief for main.

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.

Elementalists have something like 5 single target attacks out of the 100 available weapon attacks (5 weapon combinations x 4 attunements x 5 slots). So ~5% of our available options are single target … so what single target damage are you talking about that Elementalists are passing over in order to do AE damage? You didn’t exactly give us a choice in the matter.

If you nerf AE, all you are doing is nerfing ~95% of the elementalist class.

Papaj.9035:

Turn that glass Ele into a Thief or a Warrior, and guess what, bunker loses every time. Now, it might take 5-10 minutes, depending upon skill levels of the individuals, but the damage/sustainability of the glass cannon Thief/Warrior far exceeds the capabilities of the bunker Ele. And even if the Ele was REALLY good and managed to get the Thief/Warrior low, POOF! Vanish away/gap closer gap opener (sorry, I had to do it) and live to fight another day because poor play is NOT punished.

If you’re trying to out-fight a Warrior in melee using a squishy class then you’re doing it wrong.

Id just like to point out that arrow carts and catapults and cannons are things that exist.

There are large zerg guilds that already abuse this as is by standing on top of each other… please let’s not further this. large groups already mitigate the damage from aoe because it can only hit five people… why is ANET turning wvw into a giant zergfest I think that from the responses from your player base you would know that we DONT WANT THIS

two staff eles in the guild, very good players who loved to drop AoE one has quit the game already and the other is thinking about it due to the nature of further nerfing AoE

sure they already bought the game but you’ll be kitten if you think they’ll buy the expansions when you force players who have been playing for months and who only like to AoE to switch playstyle while some classes have these massive MASSIVE single target dmg abilities

uncap max aoe plz

I honestly don’t understand the issue people have with Meteor Shower and it’s damage with full beserker gear. Ooh ooh! 5k a tick, that is random…Compared to a warrior’s kill shot hitting for up to 20k or a thieves crazy 1-3 seconds your dead burst. You get hit by the shower..You move out of the shower..That simple. It’s the one problem I have when I roll staff. I throw down an AoE..You move out of it. AoE became pointless.

Granted AoE’s being used to cutoff enemy zergs and so forth is a great tactic. Which most of the time the zerg will just pick a different direction to come at you or even throw AoE back to try to push you away from the choke point. A-Net really shouldn’t be looking at AoE’s in the way they have stated considering WvW. It just makes WvW turn into a battle of who has the bigger zerg.

This somewhat miss placed trust in your “A-Team” disturbs me. Compared to many other mmo’s whom choose to have their player base test your going with a probably small select group. Whom have their own play styles, favorite classes, builds, etc. Do the testing for something that could potentially kill WvW and cause a large number of your player base to quit.

All I have to say to the “A-Team” is, “No pressure guys/gals. Just remeber WvW hangs in the balance.”

Kintari.4172:

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.

You can continue being wrong thats ok, yes it does bounce to 2 additional targets, but it is also a single target attack. If the first target blocks it, or you miss, it doesnt bounce to the additional targets.

It is not, under any form an ‘aoe’. It is not a ground target ability, and it doesnt do area damage around the target.

For example, 100b is capped at 3 targets, but isnt considered aoe. Most melee weapon first abilities are 3 target capped, although considered non-aoe abilities. So you can say it as much as you want, thats fine, but it doesn’t make it right or true.

Trick shot is not an aoe ability.

Taldren.7523:

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.

Elementalists have something like 5 single target attacks out of the 100 available weapon attacks (5 weapon combinations x 4 attunements x 5 slots). So ~5% of our available options are single target … so what single target damage are you talking about that Elementalists are passing over in order to do AE damage? You didn’t exactly give us a choice in the matter.

If you nerf AE, all you are doing is nerfing ~95% of the elementalist class.

He just said they arnt doing a blanket nerf. So why, in your reply are you assuming a blanket nerf to 95% of the elementalists abilities?

More worried about the rezzing actually. WvW at the moment is frankly just crap. Its really becoming zerg vs zerg 24/7. But no rezzing in combat? do you know how long it takes to run from spawn to durios when its on the enemies side?, try doing say coe with a rule like that, face a boss, half team down, no choice but to walk back to a fully regened boss? the golem bosses in dredge will be great fun won’t they. Anet you’re idiots, stop trying to fix non broken things and concentrate on the more important things like fixing culling. AoE hitting max of 5? yep, that’ll make people not zerg up for sure! idiocy.

ok well say it like this , why bring aoe down when it doesnt need it , and bring these said classes / possible builds that are single target up to par with thieves insane damage + perma stealth that heals (aka pretty good survivability) or warriors high damage with gap closers and Stability / defy pain? (note: not saying warriors cant be killed just saying theyre up their with thieves in regards to heavy hitters in WvW/SPvP). Why not bring some of the classes that feel incredibly weak aoe and single target skills up to par with the heavy hitters? theres no need to nerf aoe , as ive said in another post most of the time aoe kills me , thats from a mass focus fire from a group / zerg and NO amount of nerfing to aoe would fix that without breaking it to a useless state.(Example: WvW Enemy Zerg defends the east Keep in Borderlands (believe usual name for it is Hills) where they get pushed to the keep lord and just aoe the ONLY DOORWAY into it and have ballistas setup as well preventing a group from entering , the issue is theyre at a solid chokepoint thats easily defendable with heavy focus fire , solution? put more then 1 entrance rather then make aoe less effective , there are far more ways to make aoe not actually seem AS USEFULL for raw damage but rather just as a form of control and not tick off alot of the community)

AoE limited to 5 targets und the downstate in WvW… GW2 it just a game for kids..
They want fairness to the casualplayers but hit the hardcore RvR guilds into the face.

5 vs 100… when the 5 play well why aren’t they allowed to kill the enemy zerg? That would be fair but anet don’t want this.

It takes a couple of minutes to run anywhere on the map. That can hardly be an excuse for not addressing rezzing.

erza.2537:

Jester.3928:

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

few months later……….

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

Lol, ye someone high in the development or his kid (as stated before) has a thief for main.

QFT! even now the only time a thief dies to AoE is when he is stupid enough to rush into a zerg where the floor is covered in AoE.