Guild Wars 2

I’d like to have a civilized discussion here about what I think is a major balance issue in WvW, which are certain effects that trigger when targets cross a line. Balancing the potential impact Area of Effect skills was obviously taken into consideration and the 5 target cap was implemented to limit them. However, skills/trait that trigger when crossing a line seem to bypass this AoE limit because its highly unlikely that more than 5 people cross the line at the same time. As a result, these “line” skills become extremely valuable in Zerg vs Zerg combat. A well placed Line of Warding or Static Field can quickly change the outcome of a fight.

Recently there’s been a lot of complaints about confusion in WvW. As a mesmer, I don’t feel that the confusion damage is the real issue, but rather the fact that the Confusing Enchantment trait doesn’t seem to have a limit on the number of targets it can affect. If an entire zerg crosses the line, then the entire zerg gets confusion. I could be wrong about that though as it’s incredibly hard to test (can any dev comment on this?). The problem is that not having a limit on the number of targets affected means that this one trait arguably has a higher potential damage than any other effect in the game.

On the other-hand, I can kind of see how putting a limit on all of these “line” skills would nerf them into oblivion. For example, Feedback and Wall of Reflection would be rendered nearly useless in WvW if they only reflected projectiles from the first 5 targets. Given that these skills are already easily countered by Dark Path, it would seem unfair to nerf them further.

These line skills present a tough game balance decision, and one that I’m glad I’m not responsible for making. Do you guys feel that these line-crossing skills are balanced as is? Or are some changes needed to bring them in line with other AoE effects?

healing and shout is already limited to 5, you limit line and rings to 5 and the guardian becomes nothing but meat shield damage soakers

It needs to be done. Ring and lines are far too strong as a result, and is the real reason confusion mesmer is so strong in wvw atm. I don’t see how they could do it without putting charges on the skills like portal, and that’s a bit too much of a nerf.

I think they’re fine as is. It’s just something to look out for and deal with as you see them.

I thought stability beats a line?

TogoChubb.3984:

I thought stability beats a line?

It will break a guardian’s Line of Warding, but it won’t do anything against a mesmer’s Confusing Enchantments.

It’s an interesting point, looking at it from both sides.

From the side of those utilising those lines (for example, veil, necro protection line, etc) those lines are incredibly useful and offer up an entire new dimension to the game play. The line durations are short, and the effects are also limited in duration, but they give enough to build a good strategy on the fly.

From the side of being affected by those lines, again, the durations are low, but they can make things very awkward. They certainly do have an effect on a battles outcome.

I play, primarily in WvW a ranger and a guardian. As a ranger, I have to take high care to make sure im not charging blindly through/into offensive lines, however as a guardian they have very little effect.

From the point of view of playing the guardian, line of warding is nice, but it doesnt have a huge effect. It will give a slight delay to a portion of an enemy group, enough to cause minor disruption, but should the effect be limited, it would become nigh on pointless.

From the point of view of ranger where I have no form of stability as part of my build and very little condition removal, lines, rings etc are just something I can usually just avoid, and if I get caught in one, its rarely the end of the world.

Personally, from my experience, they are efficient enough to add a new level of strategy to battles, but in their pure form taking into account duration and effect, they aren’t game breakingly good.

I made another topic to ask, but does anyone know a full list of skills that work like this?

Line of warding only stops 5 people, unless it was changed recently. The first time I put it up as a tower door went down I thought “wtf” as the first few people hit it, but everyone behind just ran through while it was still up. Tested it a couple more times after that to watch for stability and even without stability, everyone after the first 5 hit it go right through.

Imagine if things like veil, temporal curtain and symbol of swiftness only affected 5 people.

Or, better yet, imagine if “area of effect” skills actually hit an “AREA” and not just 5 people. Personally, I’m hoping the talks about them separating WvW and PvE from each other means that they can remove the cap while not making bots even more efficient at farming.

I think the guardian lines are fine but combine confusion with epidemic and watch a zerg fall in sync.

Don’t do anything. I love putting down a well placed static field and cutting a zerg in half. I also like feeling that one person can have a big effect on a fight.

NO THX.Guardian line of warding/ring of warding and shield of absorbtion are already useless since everyone and they dog has stability 90% of the time up(at least in decently competitive tiers) and will turn the already only situational with huge 40 sec cd skills tottaly worthless.Not even worth about talking that mesmers that they don’t even do any damage in the 1st place.

About mesmer veil i see no problem whatsoever in it being used by multiple people.The stealth time is very short and now that culling is removed it works perfectly as intended.All these skill give the game a more tactical aproach and removing them will only empower even more the zerg in a huge disadvantage to smaller groups even with more skilled players.Dont break the game even more.

About the mesmer confusion ,it is already a tremendously broke skill.It has 50% less damage in spvp for a reason and if you consider all the extra stats combination/consumables/huge aditional condition duration you can use in WvW it makes it not double but 3 or 4 times more powerfull than in spvp scenarious.Add to that no control over removing it and you get the perfect op win button with zero effort invested.

TogoChubb.3984:

I think the guardian lines are fine but combine confusion with epidemic and watch a zerg fall in sync.

Not sure your point. Epidemic is capped at 5. The “OP” in that scenario is the glamour fields from the mesmer that cause 1 confusion everytime someone walks in or out of them, with no cap.

Also, epidemic is signficantly harder to pull off now as a result of the last patch, which took it from a guaranteed hit, to missing as a result of LOS/Block/Blind/Dodge/Invuln. Not to mention if they go down during your cast time, you get no spread either, as all the conditions are gone and the target is immune.

Epidemic hate should be directed at release date epidemic that had infinite range, infinite target cap (in range), no LOS requirement, could not be avoided in any way. This skill is far worse now than ever before, and still retains its irksome cast-time.

Hold on. You want to make it easier for a zerg to wash over smaller forces by limited line of warding, static field, etc.?

I see.

no, the aoe cap needs to be removed entirely to discourage zergballing.

Cameirus.8407:

no, the aoe cap needs to be removed entirely to discourage zergballing.

Resumes power lvl’ing ele

EvilSardine.9635:

Hold on. You want to make it easier for a zerg to wash over smaller forces by limited line of warding, static field, etc.?

I see.

I’m not saying I want these skills to be capped. I’m just pointing out the inconsistency in how these AoE skills are handled. I’d hate to see confusion nerfed across the board just because one trait that applies it is imbalanced.

I agree that some of these line skills are a small groups only defense against a larger, and play an important strategic role. However, I also think there’s a legitimate argument that these line skills make mesmers, guardians and elementalists too important in WvW relative to the other 5 professions. Why take a profession that is AoE capped at 5 targets when you can take one that is not? On the other hand, limiting the targets could destroy the utility of those professions. It’s a very difficult issue to balance and merits further discussion.

Necromancers have one of these too: Spectral Wall has no target cap.

Its very inconsistent with AoE in this game.
My personal opinion all AoE should work the same in a pvp environment:

1. AoE dps & heal not capped
Even not capping boons/condis shouldnt be that problematic as there would be counters. See 3.

2. AoEs dps reduced
Some AoEs dps is a bit too high (playing ele…). Maybe high dps in center area and lower dps at Aoe border?

3. single target attacks => small-scale AoEs
To counter heal blobs and stacking players even a single target attack should hit other players if they are ontop each other.

This would greatly change combat meta and behaviour. Blobbing only possible for very well coordinated groups. “Fast turtle” in for heals and fast spreading out again to not risked being nuked alltogether by some focused attacks.
Small groups and positioning would be emphasized and tactic/strategic and more “spread-out” gameplay enhanced.
The more a zerg has to spread out its forces, the more options for a single player or small groups to be able to successfully start attacks.