Guild Wars 2

Cogbyrn.7283:

I personally never thought it was fun having to deal with the Unstoppable Force blob charge that you couldn’t seem to do anything about, other than split around. I always wanted to watch GvGs, but they always looked so boring.

Shouldn’t a group of players have to think twice before charging directly into another large group? Why should you be able to do that freely, again?

More importantly, what other group strategies have been tried so far? Or are people still trying to just force this style because it worked in the past?

The counter argument can be made, shouldn’t your backline/caster be smart enough not to blow everything on inc and then stand there like a deer in headlights while they get ran over ?

Movement and timing could and has stopped many of hammer trains, but the majority of players just start mashing keys and then panick when they realize they have nothing left to use as stability is wearing off. It wasn’t an ability issue it was a skill issue and because the bad players cried hard we now have this crap fest known as pirate ship meta which is a glorified Mexican stand off … yippee.

Not to mention if people took the time to form parties properly you also would have had the big bad stability monster to help you escape that nasty hammer train, unless of course you just stood there and took it prison style.

I havent read the entire thread like a good conscientious PvF’r should but I wanted throw out my idea rq…

gain stability from combos.

I think this would add a great dynamic to team fights

Cogbyrn.7283:

I personally never thought it was fun having to deal with the Unstoppable Force blob charge that you couldn’t seem to do anything about, other than split around. I always wanted to watch GvGs, but they always looked so boring.

Shouldn’t a group of players have to think twice before charging directly into another large group? Why should you be able to do that freely, again?

More importantly, what other group strategies have been tried so far? Or are people still trying to just force this style because it worked in the past?

My experience has been a lot different than yours I think. Back before stability was nerfed so hard, the vast majority of mindless pug blobs still never pushed well in my experience. A lot weren’t on teamspeak and so there usually wasn’t like some big blob that moved super well together. On the occasion that a blob would be on teamspeak, if the commander pushed, a lot weren’t in raid builds and would rally bot against a smaller, organized and synergzied guild group. That provided balance in the sense that if you were against a server way, way above you in population, you could, theoretically still put up a great fight. Zerg busting to me is the game (I do a lot more GvGs now though because of stability) but I still really miss that side of the game.

Zerg busting is pretty dead now considering it literally doesn’t matter what you run when you are in a blob of 50 versus a group of 15. Condi’s are super strong, rangers have all kinds of stuff, go down the list it just doesn’t matter, there is like no room for being significantly better than a pug blob. The most egregious example of this kind of thing though is stability. Since stability is so weak now, even if you could be better than a pug blob, you literally can’t move into the blob and try. It becomes who has more wells cause RIP you obviously can’t projectile block those and set up a rotation on projectile destroyers or anything like that.

I believe you should be able to win outnumbered if you have better players and work together better as a team build wise and otherwise. Because this isn’t the case anymore, roaming is dead, havoc’ing is dead and almost everyone just blobs. I 100% think blobbing drastically increased with the stability nerf.

My two cents… Its not that I want a play style to be better than anything else.. I just would like to be able to try against blobs without not being able to move at all. I don’t expect to be able to 15v50 but if I could move my toon that would help a bit.

coglin.1867:

Sviel.7493:

What if classes that are chiefly frontline (guard/war) had access to much more personal stability? It should be high stacks but low duration so that people could still play around it, but the frontline would have a window to act before getting pinballed.

There is no such thing as a “frontline class”. It doesn’t seem reasonable to me to make stability changes to professions you perceive as front line professions, while ignoring all the other professions.

Is it not the same as buffing a ranged or casters skills and not give the same buff to other professions?

Cogbyrn.7283:

I personally never thought it was fun having to deal with the Unstoppable Force blob charge that you couldn’t seem to do anything about, other than split around. I always wanted to watch GvGs, but they always looked so boring.

Shouldn’t a group of players have to think twice before charging directly into another large group? Why should you be able to do that freely, again?

More importantly, what other group strategies have been tried so far? Or are people still trying to just force this style because it worked in the past?

How is stab a hindrance, do they not still take damage and are subject to Condi damage?
Stab is hated by those who like to kite until melees blow their kooldown. Then here they come running. Take a trip to EOTM and watch all the long distant aoes and attacks at max ranged along with all the stealth users popping up near you.
If this type of game play is acceptable what problem can you possibly have with stability…. Except for some manufactured made up junk.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Shouldn’t a group of players have to think twice before charging directly into another large group? Why should you be able to do that freely, again?

the main cc source in wvw are static/earth 4 from ele and staff 5 from guard + necro staff 5 and fearwall

all these skills have short cast time and 1,2k range.

Only way to avoid getting thee skills castet direktly 0,5 meter ahead your way or inside you is stealth.
in 40v40+ even than than is often enough cc to spam random all area.
And with the new kitten map there will be even more choke fights than right know where a monkey can play ranged and it´s impossible to push until 1 side fall asleep from fakepushing.
boring as hell for most people.

in fights bigger than 20vs20 stab is way to weak and yes many many people like thee 40v40 pugfights or 20vs40 zerbusting with a guild playing better than the other blob

zergbusting wa a big part of the fun in wvw and if one side play a lot better than the other it should be posible to beat them heavy outnumberd.

before it was possible after stab change bigger zerg nearly always win.

this meta + the cancer new pve/ppt/no space to fight map will maybe let me ragequit gw. only reason i´m still playing and many people i ask from my guild/ex guilds is the combat system and the mising alternatives on the mmo market atm

Olli.9028:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Shouldn’t a group of players have to think twice before charging directly into another large group? Why should you be able to do that freely, again?

the main cc source in wvw are static/earth 4 from ele and staff 5 from guard + necro staff 5 and fearwall

all these skills have short cast time and 1,2k range.

Only way to avoid getting thee skills castet direktly 0,5 meter ahead your way or inside you is stealth.
in 40v40+ even than than is often enough cc to spam random all area.
And with the new kitten map there will be even more choke fights than right know where a monkey can play ranged and it´s impossible to push until 1 side fall asleep from fakepushing.
boring as hell for most people.

in fights bigger than 20vs20 stab is way to weak and yes many many people like thee 40v40 pugfights or 20vs40 zerbusting with a guild playing better than the other blob

zergbusting wa a big part of the fun in wvw and if one side play a lot better than the other it should be posible to beat them heavy outnumberd.

before it was possible after stab change bigger zerg nearly always win.

this meta + the cancer new pve/ppt/no space to fight map will maybe let me ragequit gw. only reason i´m still playing and many people i ask from my guild/ex guilds is the combat system and the mising alternatives on the mmo market atm

Thank you.. that is all. Could not have summed it up better.

Pardon me if im wrong, im more of a roaming person, but doesn’t a lot of this boil down to static field and similar unlimited target ccs?

Its a decent range aoe trap that can not be dodged through, the problem being that it can be very hard to avoid it when its spawned on top of you in large quantities.

What could be considered is making this (or other similarly problematic skills) into very fast projectiles, meaning their deployment is no longer unconditional and that a melee train can cover up their charge by maintaining aoe projectile blocks like the guardians shield (which you can now move when channeling if im not mistaken?). Lightning fields can then still be deployed but will have to be placed in front of the charge in order to halt it, allowing for the frontline to avoid it, putting emphasis on redirection and division.

A lot of the ranged combat in this game is projectile less, projectiles feeling almost like the exemption than the rule in some cases.

miriforst.1290:

Pardon me if im wrong, im more of a roaming person, but doesn’t a lot of this boil down to static field and similar unlimited target ccs?

Its a decent range aoe trap that can not be dodged through, the problem being that it can be very hard to avoid it when its spawned on top of you in large quantities.

What could be considered is making this (or other similarly problematic skills) into very fast projectiles, meaning their deployment is no longer unconditional and that a melee train can cover up their charge by maintaining aoe projectile blocks like the guardians shield (which you can now move when channeling if im not mistaken?). Lightning fields can then still be deployed but will have to be placed in front of the charge in order to halt it, allowing for the frontline to avoid it, putting emphasis on redirection and division.

A lot of the ranged combat in this game is projectile less, projectiles feeling almost like the exemption than the rule in some cases.

Yeah you have a real good point here. And that would definitely be a solution to at least some of my complaints here. If the frontline could use a skill for instance to block CCs other than using stability, that sounds like a good idea.

I will say though that statics weren’t the only problem, that was just one example.

Until GW2 follows suit with other MMOs and provides diminishing returns on hard CC, this will always be an issue of Stab either too up or too down in large player encounters.

The fact that Stab abilities have to give more than 1-2 stacks at a time to be useful clearly shows that. The other problem with Stab stacks is all hard CC is treated equal (a 1/2s daze is the same as a 3s stun) when in logic, it should prevent "x"s of hard CC.

Honestly, I don’t know what you guys are complaining about. Before the stab change the “control” aspect of the game was next to useless 95% of the time because nothing in the game would ever be affected by it because: stab, RI, invul, defiance etc.

Now it’s “possible” for cc to not be utterly useless in some part of the game in front of hammer trains and it’s a bad news? I’m sorry but I too have to deal with cc too and if you can’t, you do something seriously wrong with all the tools you have and the wave of “stab 1, 2, 3, 4” ppl call upon in larger fights. I mean how much total immunity do you need?

What’s next? Remove “control” from the “damage, support control” triad the game is supposedly based on? The control aspect in this game is already super crippled.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Honestly, I don’t know what you guys are complaining about. Before the stab change the “control” aspect of the game was next to useless 95% of the time because nothing in the game would ever be affected by it because: stab, RI, invul, defiance etc.

Now it’s “possible” for cc to not be utterly useless in some part of the game in front of hammer trains and it’s a bad news? I’m sorry but I too have to deal with cc too and if you can’t, you do something seriously wrong with all the tools you have and the wave of “stab 1, 2, 3, 4” ppl call upon in larger fights. I mean how much total immunity do you need?

What’s next? Remove “control” from the “damage, support control” triad the game is supposedly based on? The control aspect in this game is already super crippled.

Stability was to easy to mantain, now is the other way, CC’ seasilly overrun stability, there isnt a midle term to it.

Aeolus.3615:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Honestly, I don’t know what you guys are complaining about. Before the stab change the “control” aspect of the game was next to useless 95% of the time because nothing in the game would ever be affected by it because: stab, RI, invul, defiance etc.

Now it’s “possible” for cc to not be utterly useless in some part of the game in front of hammer trains and it’s a bad news? I’m sorry but I too have to deal with cc too and if you can’t, you do something seriously wrong with all the tools you have and the wave of “stab 1, 2, 3, 4” ppl call upon in larger fights. I mean how much total immunity do you need?

What’s next? Remove “control” from the “damage, support control” triad the game is supposedly based on? The control aspect in this game is already super crippled.

Stability was to easy to mantain, now is the other way, CC seasilly overrun stability, there isnt a midle term to it.

I’m honestly not convinced that it is overran at all. That it will eventually take effect is kinda supposed to happen because otherwise why even implement that kind of skill? True, you can have many cc in a large fight but you also have many stab sources mobilized by a lot of your forces too. I know of almost no Necro, for example, not associated with Guard in parties just for THAT reason.

You can even argue that several skills were buffed regarding stab and boon ripping. Now many skill pulse stab instead of just giving it one time as before which ensure you will regain stab very shortly as opposed to before.

Anyway, IMHO, your not exactly showing “skill” either when you mindlessly charge into a fray while being immune to cc, condi and damage anyway. My grandmother too can survive with all that without any problem even vs 100000000000000 opponents. I guess people miss the feeling of being unstoppable is what happened.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Honestly, I don’t know what you guys are complaining about. Before the stab change the “control” aspect of the game was next to useless 95% of the time because nothing in the game would ever be affected by it because: stab, RI, invul, defiance etc.

Now it’s “possible” for cc to not be utterly useless in some part of the game in front of hammer trains and it’s a bad news? I’m sorry but I too have to deal with cc too and if you can’t, you do something seriously wrong with all the tools you have and the wave of “stab 1, 2, 3, 4” ppl call upon in larger fights. I mean how much total immunity do you need?

What’s next? Remove “control” from the “damage, support control” triad the game is supposedly based on? The control aspect in this game is already super crippled.

The problem is there is way to much CC, CC was useless before because once again players just blew everything on Inc. Go watch a video of any organized guild fighting, they timed their CC’s for full effectiveness. The hammer train running everyone over is a kitten poor excuse as well, if stability was so frequent and easy to come by then you should have never had a problem with a hammer train. My guess is just like CC everyone was just mashing their keys blowing all their stability and everything that would help in an unorganized cluster kitten and therefore Stab is OP.

Most players are bad, that was the biggest problem with stability. Now the sheer number of CC’s in the game have made it so even when cycling stab it’s pretty much a waste of time.

Dont worry im sure there wont be as much cc in HoT….

Did i do it with a straight face?

Wryscher.1432:

Dont worry im sure there wont be as much cc in HoT….

Did i do it with a straight face?

The straight face is an art form and you sir are an artist !

Random.4691:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Honestly, I don’t know what you guys are complaining about. Before the stab change the “control” aspect of the game was next to useless 95% of the time because nothing in the game would ever be affected by it because: stab, RI, invul, defiance etc.

Now it’s “possible” for cc to not be utterly useless in some part of the game in front of hammer trains and it’s a bad news? I’m sorry but I too have to deal with cc too and if you can’t, you do something seriously wrong with all the tools you have and the wave of “stab 1, 2, 3, 4” ppl call upon in larger fights. I mean how much total immunity do you need?

What’s next? Remove “control” from the “damage, support control” triad the game is supposedly based on? The control aspect in this game is already super crippled.

The problem is there is way to much CC, CC was useless before because once again players just blew everything on Inc. Go watch a video of any organized guild fighting, they timed their CC’s for full effectiveness. The hammer train running everyone over is a kitten poor excuse as well, if stability was so frequent and easy to come by then you should have never had a problem with a hammer train. My guess is just like CC everyone was just mashing their keys blowing all their stability and everything that would help in an unorganized cluster kitten and therefore Stab is OP.

Most players are bad, that was the biggest problem with stability. Now the sheer number of CC’s in the game have made it so even when cycling stab it’s pretty much a waste of time.

What you bring is valid but in the end I do really think we have enough stab and stun breaks to deal with the cc we have now. You just have to prioritize a bit and it shouldn’t be that problematic.

im sure the way many blobfights r will drastically change with HoT. if u then take like 1-2 chronomancer in pt for well of precognition then u also get tons of stealth for ur blob and can just gank enemy blobs, appearing inside of em with tons of cc+ dmg + invuln

A simple reason to increase stability….the pirate ship meta…

So they changed Stab so it was no longer a “binary” totally-immune or totally-not-immune.

But what they’ve introduced instead is a new binary which hard-codes into the game the number of enemies you can fight as melee.

You have 5 stacks of stab.

Lets say 1 in 4 enemies drop CC on a push (push every 10 seconds, CC cooldown average 40s, so fair assumption).

4 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
8 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
12 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
16 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
20 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
24 Enemies -> Even with stab, you still get CC’d -> might as well not use stab at all.
28 Enemies -> Even with stab, you still get CC’d -> might as well not use stab at all.
32 Enemies -> Even with stab, you still get CC’d -> might as well not use stab at all.
36……. etc.

You can nit-pick on my exact numbers if you want, but the conclusion is the same:

There is now hard-coded into the game a number above which stability is worthless, and below which stability is the same as it was before.

This simply encourages blobbing up.

There is a reason why the stability changes have hardly affected sPvP or GvG or roaming, but have had a huge impact on large-scale WvW. There is also a reason why “zerg-busting” has basically disappeared from WvW. The reason is what I have posted above.

The only thing I would argue is your 1 in 4, I would say now it’s closer to 3 out of 4 with the new meta being mostly caster and very few frontline.

Widebody.5071:

coglin.1867:

Sviel.7493:

What if classes that are chiefly frontline (guard/war) had access to much more personal stability? It should be high stacks but low duration so that people could still play around it, but the frontline would have a window to act before getting pinballed.

There is no such thing as a “frontline class”. It doesn’t seem reasonable to me to make stability changes to professions you perceive as front line professions, while ignoring all the other professions.

Is it not the same as buffing a ranged or casters skills and not give the same buff to other professions?

No not in the least. There might be an argument to be made if some ranged builds received some buff that others didn’t get, but that isn’t the case. Melee builds have as much CC available to them.

As a commander who leads an all the professions with a frontline build at one time or another (just for the fun of it because I can), I think looking at it as a caster vs melee perspective is an archaic view that doesn’t apply to this game.

Ragnar.4257:

So they changed Stab so it was no longer a “binary” totally-immune or totally-not-immune.

But what they’ve introduced instead is a new binary which hard-codes into the game the number of enemies you can fight as melee.

You have 5 stacks of stab.

Lets say 1 in 4 enemies drop CC on a push (push every 10 seconds, CC cooldown average 40s, so fair assumption).

4 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
8 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
12 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
16 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
20 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
24 Enemies -> Even with stab, you still get CC’d -> might as well not use stab at all.
28 Enemies -> Even with stab, you still get CC’d -> might as well not use stab at all.
32 Enemies -> Even with stab, you still get CC’d -> might as well not use stab at all.
36……. etc.

You can nit-pick on my exact numbers if you want, but the conclusion is the same:

There is now hard-coded into the game a number above which stability is worthless, and below which stability is the same as it was before.

This simply encourages blobbing up.

There is a reason why the stability changes have hardly affected sPvP or GvG or roaming, but have had a huge impact on large-scale WvW. There is also a reason why “zerg-busting” has basically disappeared from WvW. The reason is what I have posted above.

This !!!!

Stab changes never had any impact on pvp and smal scale fights under 20vs20 cause there is not enough cc to kill all stacks.
but it totally broke the game in fights where one ide is 40 + cause you have twice the cc but not any more stab.

this meta is boring as hell !!!!!

dancingmonkey.4902:

So it seems to me the entire complaint is that some cannot succeed after they took the ability away to completely ignore 1/4 of the skills of your enemies in the game.

Stability was OP. Those who cannot function without it, as 6 out of 8 professions have since release, are a shining example of how they did not develop the skill to play without it.

Personally I’ve hated the stab change because it changed WvW from a hectic melee smashfest into a cautious pirateshipy tippytoe-dance.

From a balance perspective I won’t argue against it. One stab used to counter an infinite number of CCs and now it is more balanced.

The problem is we’ve only shifted what was OP because CCs like static field can CC an infinite number of players. That’s just as unbalanced as the old stab was.

Artaz.3819:

Until GW2 follows suit with other MMOs and provides diminishing returns on hard CC, this will always be an issue of Stab either too up or too down in large player encounters.

Like which ones?

My experience suggest very few use this bad mechanic because most players dislike having the value of their skills diminished for random arbitrary reasons.

GreyWraith.8394:

Personally I’ve hated the stab change because it changed WvW from a hectic melee smashfest into a cautious pirateshipy tippytoe-dance.

I do not see that. At least it is not the experience I have on my servers. I feel you are likely over exaggerating and assuming your experiences in this are the case on the other 72+ servers

GreyWraith.8394:

From a balance perspective I won’t argue against it. One stab used to counter an infinite number of CCs and now it is more balanced.

Yeah, that is where it was a problem for me. Personally, I see logic in making changes to large AoE CCs when stab was changed.

GreyWraith.8394:

The problem is we’ve only shifted what was OP because CCs like static field can CC an infinite number of players. That’s just as unbalanced as the old stab was.

Yeah, as I said above, I must restate here, personally, I see logic in making changes to large AoE CCs when stab was changed.

Okay okay okay, what if:

Static Field, Line of Warding, etc had a maximum of 5 targets. After hitting the target cap they disappear.

A well timed CC-bomb can still be quite effective, but now it takes into account the target cap and you can’t take down 25 stacks of stability on 80 people, just by having enough Guardians and Elementalists.

Thoughts?

mexay.3902:

25 stacks of stability on 80 people

Thoughts?

never seen 25 stacks on 80 people.
i think with the chronomancer well that grants aoe evade u can just walk through all that cc

mexay.3902:

Okay okay okay, what if:

Static Field, Line of Warding, etc had a maximum of 5 targets. After hitting the target cap they disappear.

A well timed CC-bomb can still be quite effective, but now it takes into account the target cap and you can’t take down 25 stacks of stability on 80 people, just by having enough Guardians and Elementalists.

Thoughts?

While this is an interesting idea, I would not vote this to be the solution. Biggest reason is I feel as though all that would do is split ur zerg up awkwardly as some get hit by tons of CCs and some then won’t. I’d prefer a more static solution.

Every time when i go normal wvw i wonder why players are stupid enough to follow commander trough all cc. You could just go around it.

Dano.5298:

Just wondering if people think w/ Revenants if stab will work again or not.

Have to say, I tried to put up with the change (I’m a returning player) and the game is about 100x less fun the way it is now.

More than the revenant, I really hope that the new borderlands will make monoblobbing useless (because you can’t cover the whole map with a single blob)… if the fights get smaller, it’ll probably be easier to survive with the current amount of stability…

Menaka.5092:

Dano.5298:

Just wondering if people think w/ Revenants if stab will work again or not.

Have to say, I tried to put up with the change (I’m a returning player) and the game is about 100x less fun the way it is now.

More than the revenant, I really hope that the new borderlands will make monoblobbing useless (because you can’t cover the whole map with a single blob)… if the fights get smaller, it’ll probably be easier to survive with the current amount of stability…

IF this is the case then it wouldn’t be as bad, there is still to much CC/AoE and all that crap available but at least without omni blobs it will be somewhat manageable. Call me a cynic but I just don’t have faith that the omni blobs will disappear, first time a pug zerg dies they will merge with the other pug blob and it will continue until we’re back to square 1. Yet somehow it will still be stabilities fault that they died to begin with, it will have nothing to do with being bad, running around in pure zerk, not positioning and trying to face tank as a caster.

Stab nerf killed WvW for me. Pirate ship WvW lacks skill. Lets all zerg and throw AoEs from 1200 range until one team pulls away.

I play ranged, I play melee. This new mode has no interest for me. I’ll love checking out the new maps, but after the novelty wears off, WvW will be dead again, at least to me.

Dano.5298:

miriforst.1290:

Pardon me if im wrong, im more of a roaming person, but doesn’t a lot of this boil down to static field and similar unlimited target ccs?

Its a decent range aoe trap that can not be dodged through, the problem being that it can be very hard to avoid it when its spawned on top of you in large quantities.

What could be considered is making this (or other similarly problematic skills) into very fast projectiles, meaning their deployment is no longer unconditional and that a melee train can cover up their charge by maintaining aoe projectile blocks like the guardians shield (which you can now move when channeling if im not mistaken?). Lightning fields can then still be deployed but will have to be placed in front of the charge in order to halt it, allowing for the frontline to avoid it, putting emphasis on redirection and division.

A lot of the ranged combat in this game is projectile less, projectiles feeling almost like the exemption than the rule in some cases.

Yeah you have a real good point here. And that would definitely be a solution to at least some of my complaints here. If the frontline could use a skill for instance to block CCs other than using stability, that sounds like a good idea.

I will say though that statics weren’t the only problem, that was just one example.

My suggestion goes for other crowd controls that functions similarly as well (unlimited cap+ ranged placement without setup first). Things like PBAOE CC and target capped CC is probably not the main villain here.

Dano.5298:

mexay.3902:

Okay okay okay, what if:

Static Field, Line of Warding, etc had a maximum of 5 targets. After hitting the target cap they disappear.

A well timed CC-bomb can still be quite effective, but now it takes into account the target cap and you can’t take down 25 stacks of stability on 80 people, just by having enough Guardians and Elementalists.

Thoughts?

While this is an interesting idea, I would not vote this to be the solution. Biggest reason is I feel as though all that would do is split ur zerg up awkwardly as some get hit by tons of CCs and some then won’t. I’d prefer a more static solution.

Uhm… isnt that how it supposed to work? Melee clear the cc by eating it, backline can move… Unless the backline is the target of course.

IMO that would be pretty decent way to reduce some of the infinite cc, but at the same time one need to rebalance cooldowns on these skills as well (lower cd but burn out fast).

Due to the Stability change, it’s simply impossible for small groups to be rewarded for skilled gameplay.
Everything is tipping in favour of the zerg, despite the claims of Anet to try and step away from that…

Vornollo.5182:

Due to the Stability change, it’s simply impossible for small groups to be rewarded for skilled gameplay.
Everything is tipping in favour of the zerg, despite the claims of Anet to try and step away from that…

We’re they particularly that skilled, if they were that dependent on a single specific boon?

coglin.1867:

Vornollo.5182:

Due to the Stability change, it’s simply impossible for small groups to be rewarded for skilled gameplay.
Everything is tipping in favour of the zerg, despite the claims of Anet to try and step away from that…

We’re they particularly that skilled, if they were that dependent on a single specific boon?

Not really, no. It makes me smile when I hear this “skilled play is dead” non-sense. It wasn’t anymore “skilled” to play the way we were than it is now. It is just a bit different depending on pop involved.

I’m all for a balance but reverting back to cc being useless is a huge no-no for me. If you are that skilled, you have found ways to deal with this like so many of us did and it is not only by pewpewing afar only. We do have plenty of clashes at close range. We are just a lot more cautious because now it’s possible to literally run into a wall as oppose to just ignore it.

Dawdler.8521:

Dano.5298:

mexay.3902:

Okay okay okay, what if:

Static Field, Line of Warding, etc had a maximum of 5 targets. After hitting the target cap they disappear.

A well timed CC-bomb can still be quite effective, but now it takes into account the target cap and you can’t take down 25 stacks of stability on 80 people, just by having enough Guardians and Elementalists.

Thoughts?

While this is an interesting idea, I would not vote this to be the solution. Biggest reason is I feel as though all that would do is split ur zerg up awkwardly as some get hit by tons of CCs and some then won’t. I’d prefer a more static solution.

Uhm… isnt that how it supposed to work? Melee clear the cc by eating it, backline can move… Unless the backline is the target of course.

IMO that would be pretty decent way to reduce some of the infinite cc, but at the same time one need to rebalance cooldowns on these skills as well (lower cd but burn out fast).

No because your melee isn’t just 5 people. So like perhaps the first 5 clear the CC and so after the third or fourth push, one chunk of your melee doesn’t have stab while the rest does. Wouldn’t be the worst thing though, I just prefer groups to be able to move in a zerg.

Really thats my major complaint. I think people should be able to move in a zerg… and if that means two guardians, fine but even thats lame since its absolutely required to have at least 2.. Doesn’t spell diversity nor does that figure in well for trying out new specializations.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

coglin.1867:

Vornollo.5182:

Due to the Stability change, it’s simply impossible for small groups to be rewarded for skilled gameplay.
Everything is tipping in favour of the zerg, despite the claims of Anet to try and step away from that…

We’re they particularly that skilled, if they were that dependent on a single specific boon?

Not really, no. It makes me smile when I hear this “skilled play is dead” non-sense. It wasn’t anymore “skilled” to play the way we were than it is now. It is just a bit different depending on pop involved.

I’m all for a balance but reverting back to cc being useless is a huge no-no for me. If you are that skilled, you have found ways to deal with this like so many of us did and it is not only by pewpewing afar only. We do have plenty of clashes at close range. We are just a lot more cautious because now it’s possible to literally run into a wall as oppose to just ignore it.

I 100% disagree. with the way stab is working (essentially not at all) you don’t even have the opportunity to play skilled. You can’t fight zergs, you can kite them, but you can’t fight them. The game went from guild groups wanting to stay under 15 to apparently every guild tagging up, blobbing with necros and venoms.

Dano.5298:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

coglin.1867:

Vornollo.5182:

Due to the Stability change, it’s simply impossible for small groups to be rewarded for skilled gameplay.
Everything is tipping in favour of the zerg, despite the claims of Anet to try and step away from that…

We’re they particularly that skilled, if they were that dependent on a single specific boon?

Not really, no. It makes me smile when I hear this “skilled play is dead” non-sense. It wasn’t anymore “skilled” to play the way we were than it is now. It is just a bit different depending on pop involved.

I’m all for a balance but reverting back to cc being useless is a huge no-no for me. If you are that skilled, you have found ways to deal with this like so many of us did and it is not only by pewpewing afar only. We do have plenty of clashes at close range. We are just a lot more cautious because now it’s possible to literally run into a wall as oppose to just ignore it.

I 100% disagree. with the way stab is working (essentially not at all) you don’t even have the opportunity to play skilled. You can’t fight zergs, you can kite them, but you can’t fight them. The game went from guild groups wanting to stay under 15 to apparently every guild tagging up, blobbing with necros and venoms.

It is your right to disagree but that doesn’t make it any more valid. What happened to baiting those static fields and using the stun breakers and stab really when needed rather than just be done with all cc for a ridiculously long time?

I have to deal with these rat wells too and believe me I also hate them a lot. That being said, having CC being useful for a change is well worth even rat wells to me. It let other kind of players a chance to feel more relevant while not preventing ppl from popping their stab at crucial moment.

I personally find immob a lot more problematic than hard CC are to be honest and warriors are way better equipped than many to deal with that since any movement skill just get rid of it.

The biggest issue with Stability is two fold:

1. They don’t introduce enough sources of AOE stability into the game. Every front line group is bottlenecked by needing 2 Guardians to remain functional. They added all these front line specializations with Herald, Scrapper, Reaper, Tempest and none of them can give the kind of stability a Guardian can. ANet seems entirely oblivious to what makes “good” stability and that’s 3-5 stacks, with a 20-40s recast with a 3-5s duration AOE. Combos like Armor of Earth + Heat Sync are too long recast and new sources like Inspiring Reinforcements in Revenant Jalis are too static to be useful to a group for WvW.

2. Too many CC types have unlimited number of affected targets. A single Unyielding Earth can strip infinite stability off an infinite number of players for it’s duration. These kinds of line abilities need maximum charges like every other ability in the game and only effect a maximum of 5 targets before they wear out and their effects disappear. This doesn’t affect modes like SPvP because the chances of someone hitting 5 uses in a smaller competitive area would be tiny. CC effects are still strong because they will either strip Stability and catch people without Stability just no longer an entire 40+ group. This also brings it in line with every other AOE in the game by limiting it’s total targets which just makes sense.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

It is your right to disagree but that doesn’t make it any more valid. What happened to baiting those static fields and using the stun breakers and stab really when needed rather than just be done with all cc for a ridiculously long time?

Baiting Static Fields? Because any proper zerg doesn’t have 4-8 in waiting to throw theirs down if the first one doesn’t stick? I mean get real, Elementalists are absurdly common now and everyone of them knows Static → Earth → Unyielding Earth is the staple combo now for WvW because with only a handful of them doing this on top of other CCs (Spectral Wall, Line of Warding, etc) it’ll strip Stab faster than it could ever be reapplied. I mean baiting is all well and good as far as tactics go but lets not pretend like CC is anything but overly abundant after the stability change.

Kodiak.3281:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

It is your right to disagree but that doesn’t make it any more valid. What happened to baiting those static fields and using the stun breakers and stab really when needed rather than just be done with all cc for a ridiculously long time?

Baiting Static Fields? Because any proper zerg doesn’t have 4-8 in waiting to throw theirs down if the first one doesn’t stick? I mean get real, Elementalists are absurdly common now and everyone of them knows Static -> Earth -> Unyielding Earth is the staple combo now for WvW because with only a handful of them doing this on top of other CCs (Spectral Wall, Line of Warding, etc) it’ll strip Stab faster than it could ever be reapplied. I mean baiting is all well and good as far as tactics go but lets not pretend like CC is anything but overly abundant after the stability change.

Sure, but if enough of them are wasted you then will have enough stab for what remains.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Dano.5298:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

coglin.1867:

Vornollo.5182:

Due to the Stability change, it’s simply impossible for small groups to be rewarded for skilled gameplay.
Everything is tipping in favour of the zerg, despite the claims of Anet to try and step away from that…

We’re they particularly that skilled, if they were that dependent on a single specific boon?

Not really, no. It makes me smile when I hear this “skilled play is dead” non-sense. It wasn’t anymore “skilled” to play the way we were than it is now. It is just a bit different depending on pop involved.

I’m all for a balance but reverting back to cc being useless is a huge no-no for me. If you are that skilled, you have found ways to deal with this like so many of us did and it is not only by pewpewing afar only. We do have plenty of clashes at close range. We are just a lot more cautious because now it’s possible to literally run into a wall as oppose to just ignore it.

I 100% disagree. with the way stab is working (essentially not at all) you don’t even have the opportunity to play skilled. You can’t fight zergs, you can kite them, but you can’t fight them. The game went from guild groups wanting to stay under 15 to apparently every guild tagging up, blobbing with necros and venoms.

It is your right to disagree but that doesn’t make it any more valid. What happened to baiting those static fields and using the stun breakers and stab really when needed rather than just be done with all cc for a ridiculously long time?

I have to deal with these rat wells too and believe me I also hate them a lot. That being said, having CC being useful for a change is well worth even rat wells to me. It let other kind of players a chance to feel more relevant while not preventing ppl from popping their stab at crucial moment.

I personally find immob a lot more problematic than hard CC are to be honest and warriors are way better equipped than many to deal with that since any movement skill just get rid of it.

I def appreciate that you want CCs to be a part of the game. Hey, I do too.

I just think right now they are unbelievably too strong. Or stability is way too weak. I bait stuff out all the time but theres nothing like baiting 4-5 statics just to get hit with 4-5 more statics on top of all kinds of other hard CC. Its just a blob thing.

Dano.5298:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

coglin.1867:

Vornollo.5182:

Due to the Stability change, it’s simply impossible for small groups to be rewarded for skilled gameplay.
Everything is tipping in favour of the zerg, despite the claims of Anet to try and step away from that…

We’re they particularly that skilled, if they were that dependent on a single specific boon?

Not really, no. It makes me smile when I hear this “skilled play is dead” non-sense. It wasn’t anymore “skilled” to play the way we were than it is now. It is just a bit different depending on pop involved.

I’m all for a balance but reverting back to cc being useless is a huge no-no for me. If you are that skilled, you have found ways to deal with this like so many of us did and it is not only by pewpewing afar only. We do have plenty of clashes at close range. We are just a lot more cautious because now it’s possible to literally run into a wall as oppose to just ignore it.

I 100% disagree. with the way stab is working (essentially not at all) you don’t even have the opportunity to play skilled. You can’t fight zergs, you can kite them, but you can’t fight them. The game went from guild groups wanting to stay under 15 to apparently every guild tagging up, blobbing with necros and venoms.

I appreciate what your trying to say, but frankly, you lost me when you began to try to tell us what all the guilds are doing or thinking, because it isn’t true. That may be what you see in the guilds on your match up. That doesn’t make it true. I will not speak for most guilds, but my experience is different. So perhaps it is best if we speak for ourselves and our guilds, and not others in general. For one, my guild often has more then 15 on. Often we desire to run together.

Contrary to what your stating, we often have many guilds running 15 to 30 with thier own pins. Nothing about stability causes us to desire to run in larger groups. I generally see the same in our competitors. Because if they do not, then they are sending a blob after a smaller group, while the other groups take everythingg else.

The other issue iI see, is that it appears as if your suggesting it was different before. My experience suggest otherwise. As well, I have seen far to many videos of pre stab changes, from other servers with large blobs. There wouldn’t be thousands of videos of large blobs, pre stab changes, if it wasn’t equally as valuable to do so then. Thus, there is entirely too much video evidence to support this notion that stability being changed somehow made people start blobbing up. There is absolutely no evidence to support the idea that there are more blobs now then before.

Ragnar.4257:

So they changed Stab so it was no longer a “binary” totally-immune or totally-not-immune.

But what they’ve introduced instead is a new binary which hard-codes into the game the number of enemies you can fight as melee.

You have 5 stacks of stab.

Lets say 1 in 4 enemies drop CC on a push (push every 10 seconds, CC cooldown average 40s, so fair assumption).

4 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
8 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
12 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
16 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
20 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
24 Enemies -> Even with stab, you still get CC’d -> might as well not use stab at all.
28 Enemies -> Even with stab, you still get CC’d -> might as well not use stab at all.
32 Enemies -> Even with stab, you still get CC’d -> might as well not use stab at all.
36……. etc.

You can nit-pick on my exact numbers if you want, but the conclusion is the same:

There is now hard-coded into the game a number above which stability is worthless, and below which stability is the same as it was before.

This simply encourages blobbing up.

There is a reason why the stability changes have hardly affected sPvP or GvG or roaming, but have had a huge impact on large-scale WvW. There is also a reason why “zerg-busting” has basically disappeared from WvW. The reason is what I have posted above.

Yeah after the change my old raiding guild broke up and I haven’t played WvW since. All we did was zerg busting… Those were some of the best moments I had in WvW.

Aeolus.3615:

Stability was to easy to mantain, now is the other way, CC’ seasilly overrun stability, there isnt a midle term to it.

This. There is no middle ground between cc and stab. All we have done is shifted from one extreme to the other in LARGE (zerg) fights. This change made zero sense to me…

blakdoxa.7520:

Yeah after the change my old raiding guild broke up and I haven’t played WvW since. All we did was zerg busting… Those were some of the best moments I had in WvW.

This. There is no middle ground between cc and stab. All we have done is shifted from one extreme to the other in LARGE (zerg) fights. This change made zero sense to me…

I enjoy zerg busting, if you had a skilled team, you could take on larger numbers of random blobs and gave counter play, because if you speced and give up other options/builds for stab, you could mitigate the bulk of the CC, which is counter play, if you did not build or have well timed stab, you would run out and get CCed to death. Now however, requires even more skill and proper stab calls, but gives a MASSIVE advantage to random CC usage, to the point calling CC doesn’t even matter because there is so much of it that it strips stacks down to nothing. There is also so much speced CC because of this new issue because after a given point it becomes so effective because of how easy stacks are removed. If CC only hit for one stack and anything else for an “immune” time was ignored it would require the CC side to call and have skillful use of CC or it would be wasted, your eles would need to call and stagger static just like guards etc have to call and stagger stab, why is the skillful play limited to one side?

Before the stab nerf, we never had an issue with CCing other zergs, so we never had issue with it, they either speced for it WHICH IS COUNTER PLAY, or they didn’t, if your build or comp depends on CC to win, but the other team is speced to stab, why should you not lose? This is counter play, just like some class builds have hard counters, if you devote to much into something you become weak to something else.

Before we had front line, mid line dmg dealers, back line casters for pure aoe dmg and a few gank, now you see 80% back line casters, you see HUGE groups come to a choke and the fight will stagnate for minutes at a time because the comp is so backline/caster heavy that no one is pushing in. Its become laughable.

I miss the days when you had stab calls, eles calling static fields for people to burst on etc etc, now it’s just throw every CC you have at once on the front line, how is that skillful counter play? It’s not, its face roll.

I think that guilds should win against blobs if they have lot’s of guardians and they know how to spam 1.

Junkpile.7439:

I think that guilds should win against blobs if they have lot’s of guardians and they know how to spam 1.

I disagree. Blobs should win against guilds if they have lots of people and know how to spam 1.

TinkTinkPOOF.9201:

blakdoxa.7520:

Yeah after the change my old raiding guild broke up and I haven’t played WvW since. All we did was zerg busting… Those were some of the best moments I had in WvW.

This. There is no middle ground between cc and stab. All we have done is shifted from one extreme to the other in LARGE (zerg) fights. This change made zero sense to me…

I enjoy zerg busting, if you had a skilled team, you could take on larger numbers of random blobs and gave counter play, because if you speced and give up other options/builds for stab, you could mitigate the bulk of the CC, which is counter play, if you did not build or have well timed stab, you would run out and get CCed to death. Now however, requires even more skill and proper stab calls, but gives a MASSIVE advantage to random CC usage, to the point calling CC doesn’t even matter because there is so much of it that it strips stacks down to nothing. There is also so much speced CC because of this new issue because after a given point it becomes so effective because of how easy stacks are removed. If CC only hit for one stack and anything else for an “immune” time was ignored it would require the CC side to call and have skillful use of CC or it would be wasted, your eles would need to call and stagger static just like guards etc have to call and stagger stab, why is the skillful play limited to one side?

Before the stab nerf, we never had an issue with CCing other zergs, so we never had issue with it, they either speced for it WHICH IS COUNTER PLAY, or they didn’t, if your build or comp depends on CC to win, but the other team is speced to stab, why should you not lose? This is counter play, just like some class builds have hard counters, if you devote to much into something you become weak to something else.

Before we had front line, mid line dmg dealers, back line casters for pure aoe dmg and a few gank, now you see 80% back line casters, you see HUGE groups come to a choke and the fight will stagnate for minutes at a time because the comp is so backline/caster heavy that no one is pushing in. Its become laughable.

I miss the days when you had stab calls, eles calling static fields for people to burst on etc etc, now it’s just throw every CC you have at once on the front line, how is that skillful counter play? It’s not, its face roll.

IDK for you but here we still call for stab and cc… and waters etc. I’m all for a balance but not going back to the ultimate reign of lazy stab and cc uselessness. NOBODY was playing without stab. NOBODY. It wasn’t ‘counter play’, it was ’let’s make an entire pan of the game irrelevant’. And frankly, ‘control’ is still by far the most crippled member of the damage/support/control triad.

Maybe putting a limit on some cc might be a way to balance things. I’m open to suggestions but going back is not an option for me. Yes, we do have more backlines than before but how is it surprising considering just how many wars and guards were dominating before in the boring hammer train meta?

As a side note, some ppl also seem to mix ‘skill’ with ‘build’ when they call on past glory days. Having a good build, or comp, doesn’t make you ‘skillful’ (specially when the build isn’t even from you and you merely obey the command of the doritos). It makes you better positioned for the battle ahead and maybe more disciplined. If you were playing in a hammer train with ppl you were used to, and all on your side were on voice com in the past while facing a non hammer train of random pugs, you weren’t winning BECAUSE of your awesome skills, you were winning first and foremost because of the builds and coordination you were enjoying and the enemy couldn’t.

A zerk war managing to hold his ground with just his shield equipped vs a cele d/d ele OTOH surely requires no small amount of skill. You aren’t carried by your build/comp for sure. In my book, skillful players do good even when they are at a clear distinct disadvantage, not when they win while surfing their cheese vs players who are not.