Max Target Aoe, Zergs, and You
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
What really gets me is that Anet talks about people exploiting AOE without recognizing that the biggest exploit of all is running zerg balls to spread out and mitigate the damage.
Is that the game that Anet wants? 30+ people running around in tight balls impervious to AoE?
Solo & Roaming Group WvW Movies
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
You are so wrong. The reason that it’s turning into a zergfest is because AoE is too weak not because it is too strong.
Let’s take the following situation:
A group of 5 engages a group of 20 in a close quarters fight. The group of 5 has all of their AoE spread out and mitigated by the 20 since there is a max of 5 hit per AoE. The group of 5 takes ALL of the AoE from the group of 20.
Now make a change. Raise the cap such that 15 people can take AOE damage. The inc damage to the group of 5 remains the same while the group of twenty now takes much more damage overall.
The current AoE code encourages people to zerg it up.
Solo & Roaming Group WvW Movies
(edited by Oozo.7856)
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
You are so wrong. The reason that it’s turning into a zergfest is because AoE is too weak not because it is too strong.
The reason its a zergfest is because the map is not designed to make zergs ineffective. The map is designed to make zergs effective. A zerg running around like a lawn mower can effectively attack and defend Eternal Battlegrounds assuming thier home towers and keeps are fully upgraded.
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
You are so wrong. The reason that it’s turning into a zergfest is because AoE is too weak not because it is too strong.
The reason its a zergfest is because the map is not designed to make zergs ineffective. The map is designed to make zergs effective. A zerg running around like a lawn mower can effectively attack and defend Eternal Battlegrounds assuming thier home towers and keeps are fully upgraded.
Map design is also part of the problem as Dynnen mentioned.
Solo & Roaming Group WvW Movies
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
The zergs aren’t able to kill eachother quick enough, and the distance between defensive points is too short. This is causing build up of those ‘lemmings’.
Look at it this way. 2 groups of 30 players each have been grinding it out back and forth against each other for 20 minutes. Neither side gaining or losing ground. During this time, a group of 10 players is able to move around to the flank and hit it. Currently the 10 man group isn’t able to put much of a dent into the zerg due to not enough aoe. They can knock down a few, but have to back out leaving the zerg largely intact. Now imagine that the 10 man’s aoe damage doesn’t have a max target. That 10 man can eat a larger chunk out of the zerg, turning the tide of the fight and winning the engagement. Currently you have to have a flanking force of nearly equal size to push zergs around. They only fear equal sized groups, and that should never be the case. In small group fights there are classes than utilize aoe more than others. However in small group fights this damage can be mitigated by dodging, or NOT playing glass cannon.
I heard if AoE restriction were to remove, a single handled elementalist is going to be able to wipe a 50 men army…i didnt say it, i just heard it, that must be the reason…then i would assume something like cluster bomb is going even to make the 50 men army to crash their clients.
Culling…some people even believe is impossible for the devs to fix it, if even imba pcs have this problem…then beats me.
I dont even mind the map, perhaps is too small, in theory every map should be able to hold 500 people…which i cant believe it since seeing the numbers with queues and culling problem, but if it were really 500..yeah too small i guess
but theres more thing to look in wvw…lets wait to see the incoming changes/addition
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
The zergs aren’t able to kill eachother quick enough, and the distance between defensive points is too short. This is causing build up of those ‘lemmings’.
Look at it this way. 2 groups of 30 players each have been grinding it out back and forth against each other for 20 minutes. Neither side gaining or losing ground. During this time, a group of 10 players is able to move around to the flank and hit it. Currently the 10 man group isn’t able to put much of a dent into the zerg due to not enough aoe. They can knock down a few, but have to back out leaving the zerg largely intact. Now imagine that the 10 man’s aoe damage doesn’t have a max target. That 10 man can eat a larger chunk out of the zerg, turning the tide of the fight and winning the engagement. Currently you have to have a flanking force of nearly equal size to push zergs around. They only fear equal sized groups, and that should never be the case. In small group fights there are classes than utilize aoe more than others. However in small group fights this damage can be mitigated by dodging, or NOT playing glass cannon.
Are you proposing that a single player should be able to AoE an unlimited amout of players? It might work to take down zergs of 30+ players but, seige will have to be retooled. A player will become walking seige.
Are you proposing that a single player should be able to AoE an unlimited amout of players? It might work to take down zergs of 30+ players but, seige will have to be retooled. A player will become walking seige.
Yes he is going to one shot everyone….the whole 30 men army is going to stand there, in the void zone…the whole 30 men army isnt going to notice that single guy which will start casting…the aoe field will be so big which will catch up people even in the spawn point, i guess ill stop here.
see what i mean with my post
I propose we limit AoE for every profession considerably. 90% of every class abilities should be single target. Any AoE ability needs to be on a 10+ second cooldown.
A Greatsword autoattack for example could be retooled to strike the closest front target at 100% damage and cleave nearby targets at 10% damage.
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
The zergs aren’t able to kill eachother quick enough, and the distance between defensive points is too short. This is causing build up of those ‘lemmings’.
Look at it this way. 2 groups of 30 players each have been grinding it out back and forth against each other for 20 minutes. Neither side gaining or losing ground. During this time, a group of 10 players is able to move around to the flank and hit it. Currently the 10 man group isn’t able to put much of a dent into the zerg due to not enough aoe. They can knock down a few, but have to back out leaving the zerg largely intact. Now imagine that the 10 man’s aoe damage doesn’t have a max target. That 10 man can eat a larger chunk out of the zerg, turning the tide of the fight and winning the engagement. Currently you have to have a flanking force of nearly equal size to push zergs around. They only fear equal sized groups, and that should never be the case. In small group fights there are classes than utilize aoe more than others. However in small group fights this damage can be mitigated by dodging, or NOT playing glass cannon.
Are you proposing that a single player should be able to AoE an unlimited amout of players? It might work to take down zergs of 30+ players but, seige will have to be retooled. A player will become walking seige.
Yes, that is exactly what I’m proposing. 1 Player doesn’t survive very long in the middle of an enemy zerg. Also, siege has longer range, does a lot more damage than a player does, and can damage defensive positions. If an ele can somehow find a way to channel churning earth and detonate it in the middle of a large zerg before he gets…well zerged, he should be rewarded for that and the zerg should be punished for not having good situational awareness.
Uh Oh RvR happened
I have no problem going out the same way.
Ulhan Sturmfaust [TW]
wvw requires little to no skill and is getting old very quickly
wvw requires little to no skill and is getting old very quickly
Change wvw to zerging and u got a +1 from me. Knowing classes, dodging the right attacks, maximizing your damage, coordinating with your group is not only a lot of fun, but can actually affect the overall outcome of the fight for the week. Zerg surfing is fun in small doses and it is required to actually capture things, but actually monitoring the battlefield and responding to attacks/flanking/etc is a hell of a lot of fun.
A cap on AOE targets is proof that zergs are considered dumb and totally clueless as to what is happening around them to move away if the area is being bombarded.
HoT = WvW players forced to PVE
A cap on AOE targets is proof that zergs are considered dumb and totally clueless as to what is happening around them to move away if the area is being bombarded.
So I’m guessing you want AOE uncapped as well?
I think AoE doesn’t require much skill to execute and is uninteresting gameplay. Then again this is my opinion. I think seige equipment should be AoE. AoE on the move is total crap.
im not sure if increasing the aoe would change much tbh
i mean
when was the last time that your aoe actually caught more than 5 people in it?
I think AoE doesn’t require much skill to execute and is uninteresting gameplay. Then again this is my opinion. I think seige equipment should be AoE. AoE on the move is total crap.
Nor does single target if you are talking about just hitting buttons. However if you are talking about large groups focusing single targets down with single target damage, then thats a different story. However thats not much skill either.
The unfortunate thing is you are always going to have a button you press the most, and speaking from experience maximizing targets being hit by your cleave attacks requires a bit more than just clicking on someone and pressing a button. There is a lot of positioning and maneuvering around the target, as well as trying to actively dodge and stay behind them while maintaining proper direction on as many targets as possible. These things should be running through your head constantly in a fight, whether its aoe or single target.
im not sure if increasing the aoe would change much tbh
i mean
when was the last time that your aoe actually caught more than 5 people in it?
I pick a target to Judge’s Intervention onto, then drop a ring of warding around them. Mighty blow then some auto attacks. Switch to GS, Binding blades (here’s where I would get 5) then whirling wrath.
All of this is assuming they don’t try to CC me or attack me. This happens rarely, but usually I get some of these attacks off. Sometimes I don’t get any because I get focused so fast and half to burn defensive cooldowns to survive, then re-engage.
In my opinion, some AoE does too much damage, i would rather have it hit more targets, like 7-8 maybe even 10 but with less damage, it would correct the fact that if you are unfortunate to be hit with 3-4 AoE in a zerg you would probaly die and don’t even see it. Major problem in zerg fights is by far culling thou. That is the thing that should be fixed asap if possible.
Fort Aspenwood
The highest aoe damage I’ve been hit with was around 2500, and it was churning earth. But then again I’ve got probably twice as much toughness as 90% of wvw players =P
Thats definitely something to look at though will.2105, and yes culling is a problem and if I remember correctly there is a team at Anet thats sole job is to work on that issue.
Honestly this whole nerfing AoE thing is not too weird in itself. AoE damage should very rarely be stronger than single-target. It’s the fact that AoE is already nerfed by the 5-target cap that causes the nerf to make no sense.
A reduction in AoE damage and an increase in the amount of targets you can hit would go a long way to improve WvWvW.
Devonas Rest 4 lyfe
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
You are so wrong. The reason that it’s turning into a zergfest is because AoE is too weak not because it is too strong.
Let’s take the following situation:
A group of 5 engages a group of 20 in a close quarters fight. The group of 5 has all of their AoE spread out and mitigated by the 20 since there is a max of 5 hit per AoE. The group of 5 takes ALL of the AoE from the group of 20.
Now make a change. Raise the cap such that 15 people can take AOE damage. The inc damage to the group of 5 remains the same while the group of twenty now takes much more damage overall.
The current AoE code encourages people to zerg it up.
Are you really saying that changing aoe will cause players to not gather en’mass under a commanders banner?
Is that really what will change this behaviour?
Great discussion so far. Time to hit the rack though, keep the ideas rolling people =D
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
You are so wrong. The reason that it’s turning into a zergfest is because AoE is too weak not because it is too strong.
Let’s take the following situation:
A group of 5 engages a group of 20 in a close quarters fight. The group of 5 has all of their AoE spread out and mitigated by the 20 since there is a max of 5 hit per AoE. The group of 5 takes ALL of the AoE from the group of 20.
Now make a change. Raise the cap such that 15 people can take AOE damage. The inc damage to the group of 5 remains the same while the group of twenty now takes much more damage overall.
The current AoE code encourages people to zerg it up.
Are you really saying that changing aoe will cause players to not gather en’mass under a commanders banner?
Is that really what will change this behaviour?
They’d still gather in big groups, but they’d have to spread out a bit.
I see the issue. You cut down someones flank and you might kill a few with single target spikes but then those out of position move to reinforce the flank and create a ball which effectively has no flanks. Not only that but they can better focus fire. But, the two seperate groups have two seperate ebbs and flows which pulls the single group apart. The ball can choose to pursue one group but their stragglers will get knocked out by the second group. Hence the ball will have ranged dps which are more vulnerable to single target attacks.
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
Nerfing AoE would promote zerging in WvW more.
- remove the 5target limit from AoE attacks
- increase Boon/heal range in defensive AoE skills (1st party then the rest)
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
Sadly, you have no idea what you are talking about. AoE in this game is the weakest implementation of any MMO I have played in any game in the last decade +. The exact reason why zergs and zerg balls are successful is because they can rush through enemy AoE with no consequence.
Nerfing AoE more than it already is will make the exact zerg problem you are complaining about far worse.
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
Sadly, you have no idea what you are talking about. AoE in this game is the weakest implementation of any MMO I have played in any game in the last decade +. The exact reason why zergs and zerg balls are successful is because they can rush through enemy AoE with no consequence.
Nerfing AoE more than it already is will make the exact zerg problem you are complaining about far worse.
A zerg doesn’t need to stomp anyone. They can just AoE downed players from a safe distance. You don’t even need range AoE. You could just have melee AoE.
Imagine a ball of players running around spamming melee autoattacks. 1 commander and 30+ players just mindlessly following the commander where ever he goes spamming thier autoattacks. They have basically turned themselves into anti-player seige. I call it the lawn mower.
If you propose higher AoE damage and unlimited target AoE; the strongest tacic in the game will be lawn mowers. The larger the group, the more effective it will be. Just run around and cut the grass. No need to stomp.
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard….
Sadly, you have no idea what you are talking about. AoE in this game is the weakest implementation of any MMO I have played in any game in the last decade +. The exact reason why zergs and zerg balls are successful is because they can rush through enemy AoE with no consequence.
Nerfing AoE more than it already is will make the exact zerg problem you are complaining about far worse.
I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with Covenn before, but he is 100% correct here. AOE being capped at 5 targets is the problem.
Calae, you have recognized the issue correctly, but your proposed solution is the opposite of what it should be. Uncapping (or drastically raising the cap) of AOE would punish zergs to the point of hilarity.
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
Sadly, you have no idea what you are talking about. AoE in this game is the weakest implementation of any MMO I have played in any game in the last decade +. The exact reason why zergs and zerg balls are successful is because they can rush through enemy AoE with no consequence.
Nerfing AoE more than it already is will make the exact zerg problem you are complaining about far worse.
A zerg doesn’t need to stomp anyone. They can just AoE downed players from a safe distance. You don’t even need range AoE. You could just have melee AoE.
Imagine a ball of players running around spamming melee autoattacks. 1 commander and 30+ players just mindlessly following the commander where ever he goes spamming thier autoattacks. They have basically turned themselves into anti-player seige. I call it the lawn mower.
If you propose higher AoE damage and unlimited target AoE; the strongest tacic in the game will be lawn mowers. The larger the group, the more effective it will be. Just run around and cut the grass. No need to stomp.
I am not trying to be disrespectful here, but your reasoning shows lack of experience playing MMOs in this kind of environment. Simply put, you are completely wrong.
When you have 30 people balled up, a single AOE spell hits 5 of them. Given that most AOE spells on average will do 1/8th to 1/10th of a persons life per hit, basic math alone will show you the problem when it comes to stopping a zerg ball. Simply put, it requires a mass amount of people AOEing on top of the zerg ball at the exact same time to even put a dent in it, and because the damage to the people in the ball is distributed and random, they will typically just roll right over anyone.
Now imaging that AoE wasn’t capped at 5 targets. 30 people try to do the same zerg ball and roll through you, but this time, they are -all- getting hit by each AOE spell. Standing balled up in a zerg ball now has gone from being an overwhelming advantage to being a death sentence. The very nature of this will make zerg balls a thing of the past, because they will be forced to spread out to minimize AoE because it is actually meaningful. They will have to actually pay attention to circles on the ground, use dodges, and counter abilities instead of zerg balling through it while hardly even noticing the AOE.
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard….
Sadly, you have no idea what you are talking about. AoE in this game is the weakest implementation of any MMO I have played in any game in the last decade +. The exact reason why zergs and zerg balls are successful is because they can rush through enemy AoE with no consequence.
Nerfing AoE more than it already is will make the exact zerg problem you are complaining about far worse.
I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with Covenn before, but he is 100% correct here. AOE being capped at 5 targets is the problem.
Calae, you have recognized the issue correctly, but your proposed solution is the opposite of what it should be. Uncapping (or drastically raising the cap) of AOE would punish zergs to the point of hilarity.
I’m not against trying it out if. Lets ask Arenanet to remove the AoE cap for kittens and giggles and see what happens.
I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with Covenn before, but he is 100% correct here. AOE being capped at 5 targets is the problem.
Calae, you have recognized the issue correctly, but your proposed solution is the opposite of what it should be. Uncapping (or drastically raising the cap) of AOE would punish zergs to the point of hilarity.
I’m not against trying it out if. Lets ask Arenanet to remove the AoE cap for kittens and giggles and see what happens.
That would be the greatest reset night ever…
I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with Covenn before, but he is 100% correct here. AOE being capped at 5 targets is the problem.
Calae, you have recognized the issue correctly, but your proposed solution is the opposite of what it should be. Uncapping (or drastically raising the cap) of AOE would punish zergs to the point of hilarity.
I’m not against trying it out if. Lets ask Arenanet to remove the AoE cap for kittens and giggles and see what happens.
That would be the greatest reset night ever…
Maybe for a day or two.
WvW will eventually degenerate into AoE spam. Your average gamer will be bored to tears very quickly I can assure you.
Just remove AoE cap for AoE attacks and heals (or anything positive). Thus a more catastrophic battle can begin.
You obviously have never been at the receiving end of a melee assist train in other RvR based games. If you think AoE in this game is a lawnmover, melee trains in DaoC etc. are 18 wheelers.
And no, they don’t take any more skill.
Nerfing AoE would just result in huge blobs of warriors and guardians slashing everything down in milliseconds.
You obviously have never been at the receiving end of a melee assist train in other RvR based games. If you think AoE in this game is a lawnmover, melee trains in DaoC etc. are 18 wheelers.
And no, they don’t take any more skill.
Nerfing AoE would just result in huge blobs of warriors and guardians slashing everything down in milliseconds.
Knockbacks, immobilize, cripples, fear, chills and knockdowns will make quick work of a “melee assist train”.
The greatest disadvantage of a melee assist train is they attack 1 target at a time. This tactic would work in the presence of single target “healers”. Healers can easily heal unfocused damage because they are given enough time to react. In the absense of healers, players behave differently knowing that they don’t have someone babysitting thier health bars. When a players health reaches critical levels, they will naturally break formation to seek shelter from incoming attacks or use skills that make them invulnerable for those few precious seconds.
(edited by Calae.1738)
I think they have to make rezzing a really dead character not possible or very slow while in combat because that is one main issue of neverending fights between zergs.
Unfortunately I think most people fear aoe since it is effective in group fights. Things like 2-5 on most of D/D ele attacks are aoe, Hammer/GS warriors and guards, mesmer sword, are quite effective. I’m only going to speak for guards since thats what I play mostly in wvw, but looking at torch skills on that class it has one of the strongest single target hits in the game. High damage and I think a 2.25 damage coefficient, in my toughness gear it crits for 4500+ in pve and 3-4k in wvw. My whirling wrath doesn’t hit anywhere near that.
In group fights you want to hit as many people as possible. With melee weapons, for the most part, you need to be facing the enemy (whirling wrath doesn’t, but if I dodge during the channel it goes on full CD, so there a cost effectiveness to it). With other aoe skills that don’t require facing, the game shows you where that damage is coming from.
AoE needs to be nerfed hard. Really hard.
All you need is 1 commander and a bunch of lemmings following the commander closely. Everyone in the group is required to use weapon sets that deals AoE damage on the move. What this creates is a lawn mower. You know what a lawn mower is right? You know that device with rotating blades on 4 wheels that you push around that cuts grass? Yea that.
WvW is a pathetic zerg fest. A bunch of skilless lemmings spamming their auto attacks running around like a swarm of bees.
Sadly, you have no idea what you are talking about. AoE in this game is the weakest implementation of any MMO I have played in any game in the last decade +. The exact reason why zergs and zerg balls are successful is because they can rush through enemy AoE with no consequence.
Nerfing AoE more than it already is will make the exact zerg problem you are complaining about far worse.
A zerg doesn’t need to stomp anyone. They can just AoE downed players from a safe distance. You don’t even need range AoE. You could just have melee AoE.
Imagine a ball of players running around spamming melee autoattacks. 1 commander and 30+ players just mindlessly following the commander where ever he goes spamming thier autoattacks. They have basically turned themselves into anti-player seige. I call it the lawn mower.
If you propose higher AoE damage and unlimited target AoE; the strongest tacic in the game will be lawn mowers. The larger the group, the more effective it will be. Just run around and cut the grass. No need to stomp.
I am not trying to be disrespectful here, but your reasoning shows lack of experience playing MMOs in this kind of environment. Simply put, you are completely wrong.
When you have 30 people balled up, a single AOE spell hits 5 of them. Given that most AOE spells on average will do 1/8th to 1/10th of a persons life per hit, basic math alone will show you the problem when it comes to stopping a zerg ball. Simply put, it requires a mass amount of people AOEing on top of the zerg ball at the exact same time to even put a dent in it, and because the damage to the people in the ball is distributed and random, they will typically just roll right over anyone.
Now imaging that AoE wasn’t capped at 5 targets. 30 people try to do the same zerg ball and roll through you, but this time, they are -all- getting hit by each AOE spell. Standing balled up in a zerg ball now has gone from being an overwhelming advantage to being a death sentence. The very nature of this will make zerg balls a thing of the past, because they will be forced to spread out to minimize AoE because it is actually meaningful. They will have to actually pay attention to circles on the ground, use dodges, and counter abilities instead of zerg balling through it while hardly even noticing the AOE.
Excellent points.
From an organised small group perspective we actually find the aoe cap of 5 gives us an advantage and makes wvw a better working model than in other games. By capping it at 5 you give yourself a quantifiable number to balance around a maximum damage for that skill. by not capping it you end up having several very powerful aoe abilities that rule the lakes (Warhammer online).
In terms of 60+ zergs running around firing off aoe, imagine the ammount of death they will bring without an aoe cap of 5 they would be able to instantly kill anyone with that much overlapping aoe. a 60 + zerg can obviously already bring this kind of fiery death but the zerg nature makes them uncoordinate to stack that aoe so you will often find the cap of 5 helping you more than you’d think with inferior numbers.
There are some very good guilds out there that beat 60+ with small groups of about 15-20 day in day out and they do it by adjusting to the design of wvw not playing what they want and wearing what gear they want.
distance between defence points and siege range i agree with the OP siege should be an open field solution that draws open field fights to its location not a sit behind the walls and spam 1 eventuality. this is a bigger problem in EB over the borderlands though where you get a bit more room.
culling is pants we’ve learnt to allow for it somewhat now, but yup also right its pants.
Hand of Blood [HoB]
EU – Aurora Glade
(edited by Kyus.3812)
removing aoe limit would break the game entirely. It would make culling far more powerful, encourage random spreaded out pugs instead of coordinated movement, using combo fields and healing.
Wiping keep door sieges single handledly vs tens of players…
Most people talking in this thread have no idea how actually organised raid works. 15 people of actually organised people rolls over 30 from a average, decent guild.
Being in same TS does not make you actually coordinated. There is long way to go from that.
GET ORGANISED. 50 pugs in a server TS blobbing together aka using somekind of “tactic” no matter how lame it is. Hell yea it should require you to actually get organised aswell and realise how sitting ducks they are stacking like that. Instead of crying “why i dont kill them alone or with my 5 man when they sit in my red circles”.
You obviously have never been at the receiving end of a melee assist train in other RvR based games. If you think AoE in this game is a lawnmover, melee trains in DaoC etc. are 18 wheelers.
And no, they don’t take any more skill.
Nerfing AoE would just result in huge blobs of warriors and guardians slashing everything down in milliseconds.
Knockbacks, immobilize, cripples, fear, chills and knockdowns will make quick work of a “melee assist train”.
The greatest disadvantage of a melee assist train is they attack 1 target at a time. This tactic would work in the presence of single target “healers”. Healers can easily heal unfocused damage because they are given enough time to react. In the absense of healers, players behave differently knowing that they don’t have someone babysitting thier health bars. When a players health reaches critical levels, they will naturally break formation to seek shelter from incoming attacks or use skills that make them invulnerable for those few precious seconds.
Excellent point, single target, but excessively high damage. When our guild runs in wvw with our friends from BSty/NoQQ/LARP, I typically have 1-2 thieves with me. These guys are extremely focused and brutal with their assisting and if you watch the videos you can just how effective they are. Its all single target, and they are the ones that are doing all the damage. While dealing with initiate/CC/support, the melee closes ground and deals the damage quickly and backs off so we can absorb damage for them. Our guard/warrior/ele aoe damage is not only easy to avoid, but impossible to focus against large groups. We have to rely on the damage output of our single target players, which makes us effective against small groups, but not effective against zergs. We have to bite off chunks of the zerg the best we can and turn them into small groups. This doesn’t really change the outcome of the battle because we can’t eliminate the enemy force with a well executed flank for two reasons. First we can’t deal enough aoe damage to knock down enough to turn the tide, and the ones we do kill just sit there and get spam revived (another issue, but they said they are resolving it).
I don’t agree with your point on aoe being boring though. The guardian is my favorite class because I make it have decent damage, high survivability, and great utility. Even though I am technically spamming aoe, using the right attacks at the right time and crunching all that information in the middle of a fight is what I find extremely enjoyable.
From an organised small group perspective we actually find the aoe cap of 5 gives us an advantage and makes wvw a better working model than in other games. By capping it at 5 you give yourself a quantifiable number to balance around a maximum damage for that skill. by not capping it you end up having several very powerful aoe abilities that rule the lakes (Warhammer online).
In terms of 60+ zergs running around firing off aoe, imagine the ammount of death they will bring without an aoe cap of 5 they would be able to instantly kill anyone with that much overlapping aoe. a 60 + zerg can obviously already bring this kind of fiery death but the zerg nature makes them uncoordinate to stag that aoe so you will often find the cap of 5 helping you more than you’d think with inferior numbers.
There are some very good guilds out there that beat 60+ with small groups of about 15-20 day in day out and they do it by adjusting to the design of wvw not playing what they want and wearing what gear they want.
distance between defence points and siege range i agree with the OP siege should be an open field solution that draws open field fights to its location not a sit behind the walls and spam 1 eventuality. this is a bigger problem in EB over the borderlands though where you get a bit more room.
culling is pants we’ve learnt to allow for it somewhat now, but yup also right its pants.
If a 30 player zerg runs into another 30 player zerg, both groups can output high amounts of aoe. This will make large field engagements more fluid because one group can’t just run in all ‘durrrrrrrrrrrrp’ style. If they did this they would be punished for it because of the aoe output of the other zerg. The damage of both groups is equal and therefor forces the zergs to think about how to attack each other and maneuver.
We have done quite a bit of damage to large groups of players, but that wasn’t because we were able to reliably attack the zerg. We would chop off smaller chunks of the zerg into more manageable bites.
removing aoe limit would break the game entirely. It would make culling far more powerful, encourage random spreaded out pugs instead of coordinated movement, using combo fields and healing.
Wiping keep door sieges single handledly vs tens of players…
Yes uncapping AoE as it stands would be a bad idea. Likewise nerfing AoE in its present form is a bad one as well.
I’m guessing a lot of people here haven’t tried fighting a guild zergball of 30-40 people while being outnumbered before. Who gives a crap about unorganized zergs. The problem are the organized zergs that exploit the weakness of AoE.
These zergballs are the future (and the death) of WvW if Anet doesn’t get a handle on things and quickly.
Solo & Roaming Group WvW Movies
removing aoe limit would break the game entirely. It would make culling far more powerful, encourage random spreaded out pugs instead of coordinated movement, using combo fields and healing.
Wiping keep door sieges single handledly vs tens of players…Most people talking in this thread have no idea how actually organised raid works. 15 people of actually organised people rolls over 30 from a average, decent guild.
Being in same TS does not make you actually coordinated. There is long way to go from that.GET ORGANISED. 50 pugs in a server TS blobbing together aka using somekind of “tactic” no matter how lame it is. Hell yea it should require you to actually get organised aswell and realise how sitting ducks they are stacking like that. Instead of crying “why i dont kill them alone or with my 5 man when they sit in my red circles”.
We are organized, and I guess we are crying a bit. But its because small groups aren’t balanced with the large groups atm. Look at it like this. 20 people are in a small area outside of a tower attacking it. 5, lets just say guardians since I know the class, run in behind them and catch them unawares. If all guardians we running hammer, and even if they spread their mighty blows across a small section of it to maximize their aoe damage, they would still only knock down about 3-4 of them. This would leave the 17 others to turn around and attack, heal up, zerg res, etc.
Now even though the 5 man, maneuvered into a great position, organized their initial assault, they are still being punished and not as effective as the zerg. The point is that uncapping AOE damage would not only balance out small group play vs large group play, but make everyone have to pay attention more; even in small groups. Large groups would have to ‘keep their head on a swivel’ otherwise they will get flanked by a small group, and small groups would also have to do that otherwise they will get run over by a zerg (which is the current situation for small groups anyway).