Guild Wars 2

I am expanding on my idea posted in another thread about simple ideas A-Net should talk into consideration. I would like to start this by saying I have not participated in WvW in this game in a long time. I quit this game shortly after release over the state of WvW and how my class Necromancer was just getting rammed with every patch.

My big complaint then and my big complaint now about WvW is the Downed State… in fact three years ago that is what most of us were complaining about… it didn’t allow roamers to roam because they couldn’t secure kills, it made pre-made 5-mans incapable of performing their job of zerg stomping… etc… Basically it was zerg vs. zerg and the way the meta has evolved has been deeply affected by the downed state itself…

I think removing it would a great deal of good for shifting the meta, how players approach the mode, team composition, spec variety, roaming and 5-maning will come probably come back. From there we can see what kind of tweaks would be needed to compensate for the lack of the downed system. More healing utility and the like.

There is more to way the downed state harms WvW and the benefits and cons – due the game being deigned around having it – to the downed system in WvW. But I think it will be a necessary change in the right direction if A-Net wants to keep its primarily WvW players playing when Camelot Unchained or Eternal Crusade come out.

(Alternatively they could double down on instanced PvP and make GW2 have the best Instanced PvP on the market in which case you could build that niche).

I agree. Downstate was a terrible idea. It just doesn’t work in WvW.

But it’ll never go away. The entire game is based around it. Unfortunately a lot of things the game is based around don’t work in WvW. That’s why WvW is the red-headed step child of GW2.

I think the best we could do is convince them to remove Rally in WvW.

Plus how would they sell those finishers in the Gem Store? That’s what its all really about anyway.

I disagree 100%. Playing on CD where we only have small groups most of the time. It gives us a chance for team play. 1 friend runs MM necro with the teleport downed state skill and a thief runs the shadow refuge so we can teleport people to us for rezzes.

This is huge when were a 3-8 man group always fighting bigger zergs and we slowing pick off stragglers in the back before engaging in a big fight at a camp/tower/keep. To me it adds another level of game play and lastly i disagree with the Necro comment simply cause its always had at least 1 good build good enough for WvW and PvP.

OP, do you realize that some time ago it was discovered that Necros had considerably less health in downstate then every other profession?

Did you leave before this was fixed?

Schurge.5194:

it made pre-made 5-mans incapable of performing their job of zerg stomping…

I don’t think it’s the ‘job’ of 5-man premades to stop zergs. I can see premades taking on larger groups than themselves, but not 5 man killing zerg (50+). In fact the down state helps premade groups out because of the required teamplay for it. If you get someone to down, make sure you AoE and cleave them while having one player use invuln, stealth, stability to stop them. In the case one of yours goes down, get on them and pick them up quickly. Unorganized groups just kinda run around and spam one, they don’t focus downed, and they don’t pick up allies (they do sometimes but not as effectivly as a premade group).

If you are concerned with the fighting larger organized groups and they keep picking people up. Try to focus the same people down, eventually they won’t receive a down state and will just die instantly. I think it takes about 4 or 5 downs, each time they get less health in down state so it’s easier to cleave them down.

The rallying off of random mobs is being tweaked so that the mob has to be a veteran or higher (I believe) for players to rally.

Suggestion: get better at managing downs.

I don’t see why they can’t remove it from WvW just for a week to see it’s effect and impact. I mean they ran a ridiculous golem event that had a pretty heavy impact, why not remove downed state for a week to see how big of a difference it makes?

What’s the worst that can happen? Players get mad as they get killed to much so they leave WvW for a week? No biggy, just do it as a trial.

I love the downed state and see no reason to remove it. I do see need to balance some of the skills a little bit, but no need to aleviate it.

Downed state could be ok if just to remove the instant rally of all downed after killing just 1 target, or make it withing a range or limited by number of rallied maybe

I really see nothing wrong with the downed state in WvW.
You just have to learn how to cleave downies/stomp instead of letting the enemy team get a rally off of one of your allies.

But if they would limit it , small groups would have higher chances when really highly outnumbered by foes and it would open new tactical gameplays.

I dont really mind downed state, i dont need to learn how to cleave/stomp etc i just try to look in bigger picture and what ways it can open.
Currently downed state is in favour of blobs – meta changed blobs developed from 15-man raids to 70+

All people have different definition of fun , so open mind for larger picture ! ;d

Down state is fine, there is play – counter play to be had around downed state. Having said that, going into downed state and being revived should incur more of a penalty than it does.

You get back up with skills off cool down and ready to fire with no loss of DPS, seems way too forgiving to me. A debuff with a loss of DPS would be great, say 10 seconds 30%-40%-50%(4th down is dead) loss of DPS unless you break combat(debuff instantly clears). This hands a bit of initiative to the pro active players getting people down, even if the opposing group manually get them back up. There will still be the play – counterplay over the downed player and the same 2 sides of the coin for bursty zerkers.

For hard rezzing from fully dead extend the debuff to 15 seconds, using abilities such as banners and such to get people up incurs no debuff penalty at all. Some runes and foods could have certain utilities added to them whereby the debuff is lessened or removed.

Oh and the rallying off random mobs, that should go in WvW.

at the moment downed is bs….cause you cant use it at all against mesmers thieves …so Why have the downed skills at all…they can just finish you in stealth ..its LAME

A No downed state event would be nice. For like a week or 2 to see how it changes gameplay.

Downed state is just as much part of the GW2 combat mechanics as dodging is. It should most definetly not be removed. Its one of the main thing that make people in GW2 actually help each other, instead of being another kittenty generic WoW MMO clone where all that matter is you and your deeps.

It could do with some tweaking for WvW though, in particular rallying off kills could be very well excluded, while still keeping ressing an important factor. A short debuff upon reviving as mentioned above is also an excellent idea.

It’s not the down state that is the problem, it’s the rally mechanics. Having all those players rally off of one kill and rallying off of mobs.

At least the mob rallies will be curtailed in HoT, being limited to veterans or higher.

The thing that should be removed is hardressing dead players while in combat.

Iavra.8510:

The thing that should be removed is hardressing dead players while in combat.

you won a fight, and you want to rez your homie-G to save a dawg a walk?

coo.

you in da middle of a fight where ya vastly out numba da otha’ dawgs an’ you like, hold-up, lemmie make this mo’ diculous by rezzin’ dis dude who done got capped, ray-movin’ da possibill-ty of da smaller crew winnin’ by ‘ttrition an’ skill? No.

No.

meltdown.5870:

at the moment downed is bs….cause you cant use it at all against mesmers thieves …so Why have the downed skills at all…they can just finish you in stealth ..its LAME

Or the interrupts get countered by blind, block, stability, or invuln.

Iavra.8510:

The thing that should be removed is hardressing dead players while in combat.

Use your aoes and remove it yourself.

The downed state is one of the most unique thing GW2 offers, and I wouldn’t want it removed, even though I almost exclusively roam solo. To be honest, it wouldn’t seem very fair if I were able to kill a 4-man group on my own: I like the “strength in numbers” feeling you have in WvW.

That being said, it could be cool to have it removed in WvW for a special 1-week event, just like they removed the white crosses during the “sneak attack” event. I know these events usually cause an uproar in the forums, but I’m convinced that occasional WvW players like them: it spices things up a bit.

haha
downed stat killed me sometimes
downed stat rezzed me sometimes
i think its 50 / 50
But as Elementalist player i like my mistform downstat
so 6/4 do not remove it

Downstate is fine, what’s annoying though rallying of random pve mobs. And some skills will become redundant like battle standard for example

Coldtart.4785:

Iavra.8510:

The thing that should be removed is hardressing dead players while in combat.

Use your aoes and remove it yourself.

In equal fights, this is fine and works, but when fighting against a bigger group this makes it harder for the small group to win.

VladR.9827:

Downed state could be ok if just to remove the instant rally of all downed after killing just 1 target, or make it withing a range or limited by number of rallied maybe

smithkt.8062:

It’s not the down state that is the problem, it’s the rally mechanics. Having all those players rally off of one kill and rallying off of mobs.

At least the mob rallies will be curtailed in HoT, being limited to veterans or higher.

They should really just make it so you can only rally off a target you attacked only from downed state rather than any target you’ve previously attacked. This would tone down 90% of insta rallies and make reviving allies more important. Honestly, this would probably even be a good change for the other game modes as well. Downed state is fine-ish but the rally mechanic has always been too easy to get back up.

Iavra.8510:

In equal fights, this is fine and works, but when fighting against a bigger group this makes it harder for the small group to win.

Anyone trying to hard ress is removing themselves from the fight for the duration of the ress, mitigating their own numbers advantage while also making themselves an incredibly easy target.

Coldtart.4785:

Iavra.8510:

In equal fights, this is fine and works, but when fighting against a bigger group this makes it harder for the small group to win.

Anyone trying to hard ress is removing themselves from the fight for the duration of the ress, mitigating their own numbers advantage while also making themselves an incredibly easy target.

that doesnt hold up in reality unless the groups are of near equal size. in out numbered situations, the smaller group doesn’t have much surplus aoe pressure. progress towards reviving a dead player doesnt decay. so 1-2 people can just take turns standing in the aoe and keep rezzing the dead guy.

another option that might work: as soon as you stop rezzing an all the way dead guy, you lose all your progress. But not rezzing the dead-dead in combat makes way more sense.

Doesn’t hold up in reality? Back during t2 gvg heaven I got plenty of chances to win outnumbered fights against zergs in ETA. It mostly happened exactly how I said unless we were against groups good enough to not get many double downed anyway.

This would never work. We dont have healers in this game to keep us from getting 1-2 shot by the unbalanced powersnipers. Simply put, this game isn’t balanced enough to make it so we can survive a 100% – 0% in .5 second flat build.

It has become deeply rooted into gw2 game mechanics. There is nothing really we can do about it but make it easier to double down foes

I see no problem with it. If anything it can distract one or more potential damage dealers to get one player up. Also, just bomb the downed player and watch his buddies join him:)

We can’t really comment until we see what Arenanet’s “#1 live development feature priority” is revealed.

I’m an advocate for keeping downed state, but I do understand frustrations with rallying (but it’s your own fault if you let your allies die).

Svarty.8019:

I’m an advocate for keeping downed state, but I do understand frustrations with rallying (but it’s your own fault if you let your allies die).

I can live with rallies off of my dead allies (though I’d like to see it limited in some way.) It’s the rallies off of trash mobs that bother me. Odd are that any enemy feeling the pressure is going to make it’s way into range of the griffins, moas, minotaurs, or raptors looking for a cheap rally. I was glad to hear that HoT will limit those to Vet’s or better.

I don’t really mind the downed state as much as I mind the idea of someone rallying dozens of people. I just think there could be some degree of moderation. And trash mob rallies are being gradually removed.

In practice though, poison on the downed is very useful. Just saying.

Adula.3698:

This would never work. We dont have healers in this game to keep us from getting 1-2 shot by the unbalanced powersnipers. Simply put, this game isn’t balanced enough to make it so we can survive a 100% – 0% in .5 second flat build.

That is my primary issue as well, to some degree; IMO instadeath would lead to even more pirate shipping where people are just not going to engage and wait until someone slips out of line.

Instadeath would make wvw much less fun, as you will find even more ranged players running backwards in every fight and afraid they might scratch their armor if they push.

My issue with downed state is being able to stomp while in stealth- this just shouldn’t be possible, as it completely negates all down state skills. But then again, stealthy people shouldn’t be able to run like a boss whilst in stealth either…and we all know how likely either of these problems are to be fixed.

No more hard-rez’n while in combat.

Downed state is fine, rally is busted. I would also add if we are going to remove something, remove rez from dead inside and outside of combat. This would allow smaller skilled groups to engage larger zerg ones and whittle them down. Currently a larger group needs only survive to reconstitute its numbers.

• Require the downed person to have done significant damage to dead player in order to rally

• Require a player to be out of combat to hard res another

• Increase the AoE cap (honestly why even make WvWvW knowing your combat doesn’t even support it properly Anet?)

gennyt.3428:

• Increase the AoE cap (honestly why even make WvWvW knowing your combat doesn’t even support it properly Anet?)

Changing the AoE cap only makes sense if they can significantly reduce the number of AoE skills. Unfortunately ANet created entire classes/builds that output far too much AoE and rely on it for its core damage. Most damage in an MMO should be targeted or positional (helps the performance of the gaming engine, less lag and vastly easier to balance). If this were the case, AoE could truly be AoE without limits which would have the desired effect against stacking.

Unfortunately that ship has sailed so to balance small scale AoE delivery with large scale AoE delivery we land on caps. I would wager if they could do it all again, AoE skills would be a fraction of what they are today and likely something each class has limited access to on fairly large cool downs.

Straegen.2938:

gennyt.3428:

• Increase the AoE cap (honestly why even make WvWvW knowing your combat doesn’t even support it properly Anet?)

Changing the AoE cap only makes sense if they can significantly reduce the number of AoE skills. Unfortunately ANet created entire classes/builds that output far too much AoE and rely on it for its core damage. Most damage in an MMO should be targeted or positional (helps the performance of the gaming engine, less lag and vastly easier to balance). If this were the case, AoE could truly be AoE without limits which would have the desired effect against stacking.

Unfortunately that ship has sailed so to balance small scale AoE delivery with large scale AoE delivery we land on caps. I would wager if they could do it all again, AoE skills would be a fraction of what they are today and likely something each class has limited access to on fairly large cool downs.

I get what you’re saying about too much AoE, specially those of the circular variety. Line and cone AoEs require a bit more thought and you can’t easily just blanket the ground with them. The problem is compounded by no diminishing returns on hard CC and an extremely forgiving rally system tbh. In the end, GW2’s combat scales up really poorly (which is why I rarely enjoy blobby fights).

gennyt.3428:

I get what you’re saying about too much AoE, specially those of the circular variety. Line and cone AoEs require a bit more thought and you can’t easily just blanket the ground with them. The problem is compounded by no diminishing returns on hard CC and an extremely forgiving rally system tbh. In the end, GW2’s combat scales up really poorly (which is why I rarely enjoy blobby fights).

When you think about how much is going on, GW2 is actually a pretty impressive engine processing all those AoEs, positional, direct, conditional, etc items going on. I don’t think they thought out WvW very much when they designed their skill system. They were clearly building a PvE game with small scale PvP and their design works very well in those environments. As soon as AoE had to scale to 50, 100 or more targets and was being used by most of the players in a fight, engine problems along with the problems of dialing in skills that utterly can dwarf the effectiveness of any single target skill became obvious. Like most development though getting a cat back in the bag is almost impossible and requires logical limits to manage the issues rather than solve them.

I’m fine with downstate, they just need to prevent rally from kill in WvW.