Guild Wars 2

What was the reason for the stab change? Serious answer please. To me it seems it ruined half the wvw populations time and created more lag. Was it nerfed because of pve?

Probably to fit in the Revenant next expac.

I would say it was simply because it was way too powerful before.

lordkrall.7241:

I would say it was simply because it was way too powerful before.

too powerful? has anyone ever complained about stability being too good?

FrownyClown.8402:

too powerful? has anyone ever complained about stability being too good?

Yes?

The fact that it could basically make a CC-based build completely useless without any downside or planning required (just pop all the stability before you engage) shows how powerful it was for one.

FrownyClown.8402:

lordkrall.7241:

I would say it was simply because it was way too powerful before.

too powerful? has anyone ever complained about stability being too good?

Just about everyone that didn’t main a warrior or a guardian, yeah.

Stab was changed because even BAD players stacked it and became good.. Now after the change they find out they are actually BAD at this game so they quit.. So they changed stab to get rid of BAD players.. Well done in my book.

stab was initially reworked for balancing in PVP in my opinion and it did need to change this is not being said that stacking stability duration in the previous sense meant that you were a bad player. I would simply say that it was the path of least resistance just as now you see a large increase in range classes a.k.a. “pirate ship” because with the new “stab balance” this now has become the path of least resistance. I cannot say that I’m particularly fond of the current stab change but it is necessary to alter it from its previous state for PvP and WvW. as can be seen again and again normally in gw2 balancing is done on the PVP and not the WvW side.

kagak.4230:

stab was initially reworked for balancing in PVP in my opinion and it did need to change this is not being said that stacking stability duration in the previous sense meant that you were a bad player. I would simply say that it was the path of least resistance just as now you see a large increase in range classes a.k.a. “pirate ship” because with the new “stab balance” this now has become the path of least resistance. I cannot say that I’m particularly fond of the current stab change but it is necessary to alter it from its previous state for PvP and WvW. as can be seen again and again normally in gw2 balancing is done on the PVP and not the WvW side.

what this guy said. The Stab change was not for WvW, it wasn’t done as a balancing for Anet’s precious esports, PvP. It was probably done so that three people could actually nuke down/CC lock a cele shoutbow warrior.

Stability never really chained the way that immobilize does. We still have guardians who are sequencing their stabilities. What people are having trouble adjusting to is the ranged meta. Melee classes are essentially shaking their butts at enemy casters in order to bait them into dropping AOE, and then they leap/dodge out of the bomb, and prepare to push as usual. Melee instead of pushing all the way through an enemy, are pushing in, and cleaving off a chunk of them to the side.

Hamster.4861:

kagak.4230:

stab was initially reworked for balancing in PVP in my opinion and it did need to change this is not being said that stacking stability duration in the previous sense meant that you were a bad player. I would simply say that it was the path of least resistance just as now you see a large increase in range classes a.k.a. “pirate ship” because with the new “stab balance” this now has become the path of least resistance. I cannot say that I’m particularly fond of the current stab change but it is necessary to alter it from its previous state for PvP and WvW. as can be seen again and again normally in gw2 balancing is done on the PVP and not the WvW side.

what this guy said. The Stab change was not for WvW, it wasn’t done as a balancing for Anet’s precious esports, PvP. It was probably done so that three people could actually nuke down/CC lock a cele shoutbow warrior.

Stability never really chained the way that immobilize does. We still have guardians who are sequencing their stabilities. What people are having trouble adjusting to is the ranged meta. Melee classes are essentially shaking their butts at enemy casters in order to bait them into dropping AOE, and then they leap/dodge out of the bomb, and prepare to push as usual. Melee instead of pushing all the way through an enemy, are pushing in, and cleaving off a chunk of them to the side.

great info thanks.

coglin.1867:

FrownyClown.8402:

lordkrall.7241:

I would say it was simply because it was way too powerful before.

too powerful? has anyone ever complained about stability being too good?

Just about everyone that didn’t main a warrior or a guardian, yeah.

how about changing condition damage so that armor and protection can mitigate that…conditions is 90% of the game but there is no way to stop it. same thing.

Zepher.7803:

how about changing condition damage so that armor and protection can mitigate that…conditions is 90% of the game but there is no way to stop it. same thing.

Except for the fact that there are way more condition cleansing than boon-clearing in the game.

Zepher.7803:

coglin.1867:

FrownyClown.8402:

lordkrall.7241:

I would say it was simply because it was way too powerful before.

too powerful? has anyone ever complained about stability being too good?

Just about everyone that didn’t main a warrior or a guardian, yeah.

how about changing condition damage so that armor and protection can mitigate that…conditions is 90% of the game but there is no way to stop it. same thing.

Out of curiosity, what does condition damage have to do with stability? Want to explain that so that it makes sense, or perhaps stop going off topic and make a thread elsewhere on your condi issue.

Reason? Because a lot of people asked for it. I just don’t think we bargained for all the issues that have come with the change

Condition dmg calculator ….

http://gw2.hazno.net/

Get learned on condi dmg, it’s dmg is already weak. Stupid people don’t cleanse, doesn’t mean something wrong with mechanic.

ITT: people act like everyone was running around with permanent stability.

If CC based builds were so useless, why was the standard warrior’s primary weapon hammer? It’s damage isn’t the highest of all warrior weapons and it has no team support other than CC.

Coldtart.4785:

ITT: people act like everyone was running around with permanent stability.

If CC based builds were so useless, why was the standard warrior’s primary weapon hammer? It’s damage isn’t the highest of all warrior weapons and it has no team support other than CC.

Because it has
- Good range leap that is ground targetable
- Blast finisher
- Slow attack speed, but high impact damage (take less damage from retaliation)
- Good AoE cone soft CC
- Weapon that forces the enemy force to constantly upkeep Stability or pay for the consequences

Good reasons to pick there already and the last for best
- IF someone happens to not have stability it will get stun locked for quite a while

If they had wanted to prevent stacking stability for 20+ seconds at a time, and force players to time it carefully rather than spamming, they could have just stopped the duration stacking (4s remaining + 6s from new = 6s rather than 10s)

Why was the intensity stacking also needed? I don’t think it was for the benefit of WvW.

Whilst changing duration-stacking makes players think more carefully, play with a little more skill and rewards good timing while punishing bad-timing, what benefit does the intensity stacking bring? All it does is give numbers an advantage?

Because any time a game introduces a new class they make them completely OP for several months to get people to buy them. Revanants will be giving out stability like Oprah and will be running around with a wall in front of them to block projectiles.

The New Strong Hold channel mechanic.
/thread

Puck.9612:

Because any time a game introduces a new class they make them completely OP for several months to get people to buy them. Revanants will be giving out stability like Oprah and will be running around with a wall in front of them to block projectiles.

Sad but true

Ragnar.4257:

If they had wanted to prevent stacking stability for 20+ seconds at a time, and force players to time it carefully rather than spamming, they could have just stopped the duration stacking (4s remaining + 6s from new = 6s rather than 10s)

Why was the intensity stacking also needed? I don’t think it was for the benefit of WvW.

Whilst changing duration-stacking makes players think more carefully, play with a little more skill and rewards good timing while punishing bad-timing, what benefit does the intensity stacking bring? All it does is give numbers an advantage?

You nailed it sir, those are exactly my thoughts… and stab was always rather easy to remove, just with necros corrupting boons into conditions for example…

Many of you might say: ‘but I used my CC and it did not stun anybody!’ …well, yeah thats sort of what stability is for… but I can give some advice: you should keep an eye on enemy and use CC when stab is off cd…

I don’t hear people complaining about missing when they had blind on them, or when enemy evaded, or got out of the range… but when you throw your CC into enemy and it does not work because players who use their brains also use stability on engage, its all gone wrong and everybody complains that the game is broken and that stab needs nerf :/

Stability stacks have nerfed melee classes in WvW significantly, even with precise stab timing and all the skill in the world any blob can remove all your stab stacks in second or two… now when I think about it and in relation to previous comments about BAD players, it would seem that if I wanted to slack in WvW now all I need to do is get range class and CC and pew pew enemy from 1200-1500 range. gg

Sorry for the long post.

Hamster.4861:

kagak.4230:

stab was initially reworked for balancing in PVP in my opinion and it did need to change this is not being said that stacking stability duration in the previous sense meant that you were a bad player. I would simply say that it was the path of least resistance just as now you see a large increase in range classes a.k.a. “pirate ship” because with the new “stab balance” this now has become the path of least resistance. I cannot say that I’m particularly fond of the current stab change but it is necessary to alter it from its previous state for PvP and WvW. as can be seen again and again normally in gw2 balancing is done on the PVP and not the WvW side.

what this guy said. The Stab change was not for WvW, it wasn’t done as a balancing for Anet’s precious esports, PvP. It was probably done so that three people could actually nuke down/CC lock a cele shoutbow warrior.

Stability never really chained the way that immobilize does. We still have guardians who are sequencing their stabilities. What people are having trouble adjusting to is the ranged meta. Melee classes are essentially shaking their butts at enemy casters in order to bait them into dropping AOE, and then they leap/dodge out of the bomb, and prepare to push as usual. Melee instead of pushing all the way through an enemy, are pushing in, and cleaving off a chunk of them to the side.

Did you mean to say that it “was” done as a balancing for Anet’s precious esports, PvP?

Because I’ve read in the PvP forum that a change was needed in PvP. And the change works in PvP.

I seriously doubt Anet would ever change something like this for WvW. So if people are arguing that they should change it back for WvW that is not going to happen. I don’t think they don’t really make balancing changes to classes or skills, etc with WvW in mind at all.

one boon change make you crap player ?

Puck.9612:

Because any time a game introduces a new class they make them completely OP for several months to get people to buy them. Revanants will be giving out stability like Oprah and will be running around with a wall in front of them to block projectiles.

QFT
With the range meta, nerfing the stab just hits the frontline in the nutts confirming the actual meta. Some players complain about random stab spam was OP but now we have random AoE CC spam and i really don’t see the difference.

azizul.8469:

one boon change make you crap player ?

No, because if they were a weak player, they still were before the change. The problem for those players now, is that their overly powered crutch has been adjusted so that they can no longer depend on it so entirely. When you can stack it with others to a degree that your immune to CC for a vast majority of a fight, by far made it the strongest boon by leaps and bounds in my opinion.

Silverthorn.8576:

With the range meta, nerfing the stab just hits the frontline in the nutts confirming the actual meta. Some players complain about random stab spam was OP but now we have random AoE CC spam and i really don’t see the difference.

CC was always used. Entire utility sets and weapons skills are based around CC and were allowed to be totally ignored because of the extreme value of stability. Little has changed as far as stability use goes. The difference is now, the hammer train, no longer gets pure immunity why all of the other profession were susceptible to the CC of the immune hammer train. Now, in terms of CC there is a more level footing, although the tank style profession still have a great advantage with the ability to negate and ignore a level of CC with impunity.

I have been playing a lot now with the new changes, we can still go very deep with the stability nerfed and i dont mean that we are blobbing, we cannot win extremely outnumbered fights, but are still able to win fights if we are in lesser numbers by timing stuff better.
Another thing we are using against the many ranged spamming is having REFLECT ready on some of our raiders or if open tagging pugs.
This still helps out a lot more then people think and our melees can just still run right through it like they normally did. In my eyes the stab thing is no problem at all.
and yes with 30 guys you can still win from 60, just play it smart and play as an team. (all on ts though can help a lot or else you cant win against those numbers ofc ^^ ).

The ones saying it was OP are the ones that were bad. These are the people that usually blobbed it up and even though they had more stability available to them due to sheer numbers, they didn’t coordinate it. When you had two organized guilds fighting each other, the better guild usually won, not because of stability it was usually because one of them made a vital mistake along the way.

People were mad because tbh they didn’t know how to play, Ele would blow static and everything they had on inc and of course the stability would roll over that, maybe they should have timed their CC a little better instead of blowing their load on inc. CC still had its place, the primary reason Warrior had hammer was the CC, not all the reason the other poster listed. A well timed static or line could change the tide of a fight, but people wanted to be able to stand still and nuke away without having to think on their feet or kite damage. It amazes me that the top guilds had Ele’s and Necro’s whom did just fine before the patch, again it was a L2P issue.

The new meta is boring as hell, its also promoting laziness, those ranged players will QQ even more when a heavy manages to break through to them because how is it possible and why can’t they stand there unmolested and nuke to their hearts content ?

If people would have used their brains they wouldn’t have stood there like a deer in headlights while a hammer train runs them over. When I played Ele for my guild, I had to move, I had to use proper placement, I had to read the fight and think what the next move was so I didn’t get ran over.

Its a terrible change, but whats done is done, good players are adapting (even if the new meta is mind numbingly boring) and bad ones will find something new to QQ about while getting progressively worse at their ranged classes.

The most powerful CC’s in the game weren’t and still aren’t negated by stability, and yet it seems very few were smart enough to realize this, they were to concerned about their poorly timed static fields.

Nuzt.7894:

Ele would blow static and everything they had on inc and of course the stability would roll over that, maybe they should have timed their CC a little better instead of blowing their load on inc.

That!
The stab issue was a l2p issue, due to poorly cc and debuff timing.
Now the stab issue is a l2p issue due to a poor stab timing.
Before players were spamming stab now they are spamming CC; it is exactly the same thing. Bad player are still bad player only the meta changes (to a boring one sadly).

Ballads.2509:

The New Strong Hold channel mechanic.
/thread

This is exactly what I was thinking yesterday when I was channelling. i can see why they did it.

lordkrall.7241:

Zepher.7803:

how about changing condition damage so that armor and protection can mitigate that…conditions is 90% of the game but there is no way to stop it. same thing.

Except for the fact that there are way more condition cleansing than boon-clearing in the game.

Just like damage was still taken with stab up or not.

The previos stability only had condition removal as a counter.

This version also has CC team coordination as an extra counter.

Coldtart.4785:

If CC based builds were so useless, why was the standard warrior’s primary weapon hammer? It’s damage isn’t the highest of all warrior weapons and it has no team support other than CC.

Standard WvW warriors are very close to full-on noodles that are used for the shouts and condition clears from the horn. It really doesn’t matter which weapon they use as they aren’t doing much damage anyway (making it up in focus fire).

You ran a hammer as your main set because its auto damage is actually quite good (and isn’t totally backloaded, like axe, or dependent on a channeled attack that roots you, like greatsword) and because 20 seconds after the first push people’s cooldowns were burnt, and at that point your CC started working. There’s an argument for running longbow instead, but it has poor cleave and the fields don’t add nearly as much when pushes depend on burst damage to down people.

Nuzt.7894:

The ones saying it was OP are the ones that were bad. These are the people that usually blobbed it up and even though they had more stability available to them due to sheer numbers, they didn’t coordinate it. When you had two organized guilds fighting each other, the better guild usually won, not because of stability it was usually because one of them made a vital mistake along the way.

People were mad because tbh they didn’t know how to play, Ele would blow static and everything they had on inc and of course the stability would roll over that, maybe they should have timed their CC a little better instead of blowing their load on inc. CC still had its place, the primary reason Warrior had hammer was the CC, not all the reason the other poster listed. A well timed static or line could change the tide of a fight, but people wanted to be able to stand still and nuke away without having to think on their feet or kite damage. It amazes me that the top guilds had Ele’s and Necro’s whom did just fine before the patch, again it was a L2P issue.

The new meta is boring as hell, its also promoting laziness, those ranged players will QQ even more when a heavy manages to break through to them because how is it possible and why can’t they stand there unmolested and nuke to their hearts content ?

If people would have used their brains they wouldn’t have stood there like a deer in headlights while a hammer train runs them over. When I played Ele for my guild, I had to move, I had to use proper placement, I had to read the fight and think what the next move was so I didn’t get ran over.

Its a terrible change, but whats done is done, good players are adapting (even if the new meta is mind numbingly boring) and bad ones will find something new to QQ about while getting progressively worse at their ranged classes.

The most powerful CC’s in the game weren’t and still aren’t negated by stability, and yet it seems very few were smart enough to realize this, they were to concerned about their poorly timed static fields.

+1
Yeah stab was extrem strong and when both guards in party timing the stab well you always had stabi while engaging the enemy. Is this op? in a game where cc is a high cd skill like maybe elite in gw yes, but in gw nearly everbody can simply spam cc every 10-30sec WITHOUT TARGET LIMIT in a game where all other skills have a 5 target limit. You just need such a strong stabi too counter the (in big-scale) broken cc mechanic. either you reroll old Stab in wvw(for me best way) or after nerv stab plz nerf cc to same lvl in wvw which means get target limit on all cc skills.

Atm wvw frontline is pain in the kitten . i play nearly all of my 4k played in wvw 3k+ as a frontliner in guildraids and we have so much fun and no decent wvw player ever complains about op stab.

The extrem boring pirate ship meta isn´t any fun for me and the most player i talk with

The standard double stab guard could produce a total of 60% stab uptime if you ran 2 per party, which was standard amongst good guilds. That means that 40% of the time a single cast of line of warding or static field could stop an entire group of even the best players in the game in their tracks.

Stab vs lines used to depend purely on coordination and not even slightly on numbers. Now it’s just a crutch for the bigger group. Why play intelligently when spamming lines is just as good?

That also means that 60% of the time, a large amount of entire utility lines and sets, weapons skills, and elites, were at least partially negated, and often fully negated completely.

“Why play intelligently”, as you said, when you can double stack a single profession for a single boon.

In my opinion, when you are stacking multiples of one profession, simply to stack a single boon, is about as clear an indication as possible as to how over powered it was.

ok but now players are spamming CC without AoE cap making the stab really easy to rip, confirming a meta which is boring as hell.

The previous meta was not perfect but players still had control of their char and even if the hammer train ignored the cc the ranged player could avoid the impact. Now ranged player spam AoE CC preventing the frontline to do any move so fight are really static and boring.

Silverthorn.8576:

ok but now players are spamming CC without AoE cap making the stab really easy to rip, confirming a meta which is boring as hell.

It is funny, when ever someone talks about what they claim another is doing they cry “spam” when they do something they call it strategic game play. Stability till has the ability to negate a good deal of CC.

As well, just because you feel it is boring, does not mean that applies to others.

Silverthorn.8576:

The previous meta was not perfect but players still had control of their char and even if the hammer train ignored the cc the ranged player could avoid the impact. Now ranged player spam AoE CC preventing the frontline to do any move so fight are really static and boring.

No, the duel profession stacked hammer train had control over their characters. The old meta favored 2 professions and left all the other hanging in the wind. I am sorry you preferred a meta set around 2 professions. I for one prefer more value given to others and especially those outside the GWEN. AoE CC is no more or less spammed then stability. You can cry spam all you like, they are either strategic to game play or not.

Silverthorn.8576:

ok but now players are spamming CC without AoE cap making the stab really easy to rip, confirming a meta which is boring as hell.

The previous meta was not perfect but players still had control of their char and even if the hammer train ignored the cc the ranged player could avoid the impact. Now ranged player spam AoE CC preventing the frontline to do any move so fight are really static and boring.

This.

Whatever argument are made, fact is they have created a far more defensive and hesitant combat where being very aggressive will simply get you killed. Personally I don’t find that very fun /shrug.

coglin.1867:

No, the duel profession stacked hammer train had control over their characters. The old meta favored 2 professions and left all the other hanging in the wind. I am sorry you preferred a meta set around 2 professions. I for one prefer more value given to others and especially those outside the GWEN. AoE CC is no more or less spammed then stability. You can cry spam all you like, they are either strategic to game play or not.

Right now, thanks to this meta, ranged are able to totally shut down melee’s moves and abilities. In the old one, ranged just had to get a good positionning and awereness and melee was just shuting down the bad ranged.

Silverthorn.8576:

coglin.1867:

No, the duel profession stacked hammer train had control over their characters. The old meta favored 2 professions and left all the other hanging in the wind. I am sorry you preferred a meta set around 2 professions. I for one prefer more value given to others and especially those outside the GWEN. AoE CC is no more or less spammed then stability. You can cry spam all you like, they are either strategic to game play or not.

Right now, thanks to this meta, ranged are able to totally shut down melee’s moves and abilities. In the old one, ranged just had to get a good positionning and awereness and melee was just shuting down the bad ranged.

Your experience seems different then mine. We do not fell out melee are disadvantaged (at least that how I took what you are saying, correct me if I am mistaken). They simply can no longer call stab 1 and charge in freely, then call for stab 2 when stab 1 is almost up. There is now some strategy around CC instead of blindly ignoring it. We still have a healthy melee aspect.

yep the melee who waits for the ranged being off cd.

Silverthorn.8576:

yep the melee who waits for the ranged being off cd.

Didn’t we do that already before the stab change.

The stab change has just made everyone more hesitant. The aggressor has been nullified, which personally speaking, sucks. There’s no longer a “fake push” ok most necros/eles are on cooldown, now lets go. Instead it’s fake push, fake push, fake push, fake push, ok, fake push, and lets range some more, ok, lets have the melee go take out the tail, ok fake push, fake push, umm… hmm what should we do? ohh I know, fake push!

I enjoyed the old gameplay there was strategy, now gather a big enough force and stagger your CC’s and you can lock people down indefinitely. Just seems to be a silly meta to me. /shrug

I play mainly necro in WvW, avoiding CC’s was the norm outside of guard groups, playing defensively was a required thing. Now I just can’t get a guard group and go on the offensive and be aggressive… hardly more fun.

I think its funny when people think that because they toss out hard CC that its supposed to net chunks of players more often than not. CCs still worked if you put some thought into it. Stab wasn’t a problem as much as the laughable 5 target AoE cap in a mode that features large scale combat.

coglin.1867:

No, the duel profession stacked hammer train had control over their characters. The old meta favored 2 professions and left all the other hanging in the wind. I am sorry you preferred a meta set around 2 professions. I for one prefer more value given to others and especially those outside the GWEN. AoE CC is no more or less spammed then stability. You can cry spam all you like, they are either strategic to game play or not.

Look, I have no idea where people get the impressions that certain classes are OP in wvw or are more preferred than others… the only two classes that people are not too keen on seeing in the zerg are perhaps (and now keep an open mind here folks) rangers and maybe engis… but this has nothing to do with players or playstyles, its due to game mechanics…
all of the remaining 6 classes are very useful in wvw because they can bring something to the table that no other class can – there was never ‘stacking of one/two classes’
what I see now though is almost no frontline warriors and I don’t blame them, I would be bored as hell playing war right now…
the only reason for standardized duo of guards in parties was cuz they were the only class that had a reliable source of stab for 5 ppl… and with every class having dozens of CCs on almost every weapon set I do not think that 60% stab upkeep was ‘too much’ and it had to be nerfed…

Stability change was introduced so that it can be removed with expansion and miraculously fix the lag in WvW