Guild Wars 2

I actually enjoy downed state. It adds an extra layer of drama in fights. Every class does have access to a res ability, except you need to be quick and attentive to use it correctly. Some of them have too long of cast time though, maybe that can be addressed.

The downed state is fine in pve for it’s more casual style of play, but in pvp zones? The downed state is heavily imbalanced and favors larger numbers. Going down just after beating a warrior is a loss, same for ranger, and depending on the situation an ele can even zip off to get someones attention and come back in time to finish the job or simply turn god mode in front of a base. The amount of time that has to be wasted stomping thieves and mesmers has me in a position where im better off blowing cd’s and attacking them to death.

In grand scale battles it draws it out to ridiculous levels and favors dumb strategies like stacking. Combine the down state with an aoe limit and close ranged buffing and im not surprised we got angry swarms of bee’s melting things until they run into an even bigger angrier swarm.

Now I spend my days sitting atop mountains watching these blob v blob battles play out and I honestly think to myself how this is not how I imagined wvw would be when I first started playing.

without downed state, ele would disappear from the game and maybe other low-mid HP/armor….

As stated rally is the issue, or to be more fair the AoE limit that as we know is related to server performance.

LordByron.8369:

without downed state, ele would disappear from the game and maybe other low-mid HP/armor….

As stated rally is the issue, or to be more fair the AoE limit that as we know is related to server performance.

or dont die? Like any good player will tell you they dont rely on res tactics to win, they just dont go down

I think the downstate is fine, it adds another level of strategy, plus spiking ppl is so much fun, but I think once you’re dead dead you should auto respawn in 15 seconds.

Jaysin X.6740:

I think the downstate is fine, it adds another level of strategy, plus spiking ppl is so much fun, but I think once you’re dead dead you should auto respawn in 15 seconds.

no strategy in standing there for 3 seconds completely vulnerable because you had the misfortune of winning an outnumbered fight. they might as well bloody change utilities to only be castable on stomp channels -_- cause thats what it feels like you need to do.

Lets face it… downed state isnt going anywhere… rally mechanics isnt going anywhere, cause thats what makes gw2 what it is. Thee only thing that should and MUST be changed is the ressing speed of downed players by a lot (allso multipple ppl ressing shouldnt increase its speed). Cause now its much faster then a stomp, even if single person is ressing. Spamming ress to prevent someone from getting stomped or even damaged down shouldnt be viable tactic, cc to prevent the stomp alltogether or damage pressure on attacker to make him go into defensive should be.

Cynz.9437:

Aberrant.6749:

Eng is among the bottom 3 downed states… if not the worst. The single target pull (#2) is a projectile and very easily countered and cc’s for the shortest period of time. #3 is an aoe knockback and blast finisher (‘cause that’s useful when you’re downed) and does decent damage but it’s otherwise just on par with guards #2 but on a cooldown that’s too long and you’ll rarely get to use it due to the rubbish that is #2.

Elixir R isn’t what it used to be… not by a longshot ->http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toss_Elixir_R. The utility skill used to be a stunbreak as well as and endurance recover, but that got nuked-> http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elixir_R It’s really not worth taking anymore.

I agree that the knockbacks/aoe on eng are nice though ^^

I don’t have a problem with the downed state itself, just the redic healing you can do while ressing downed and the ressing from defeated (makes chipping away at a larger force nearly impossible).

i think this person would disagree lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrKg_TSP47E

yes this happens all the time and is class defining.

Cynz.9437:

Aberrant.6749:

Eng is among the bottom 3 downed states… if not the worst. The single target pull (#2) is a projectile and very easily countered and cc’s for the shortest period of time. #3 is an aoe knockback and blast finisher (‘cause that’s useful when you’re downed) and does decent damage but it’s otherwise just on par with guards #2 but on a cooldown that’s too long and you’ll rarely get to use it due to the rubbish that is #2.

Elixir R isn’t what it used to be… not by a longshot ->http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toss_Elixir_R. The utility skill used to be a stunbreak as well as and endurance recover, but that got nuked-> http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elixir_R It’s really not worth taking anymore.

I agree that the knockbacks/aoe on eng are nice though ^^

I don’t have a problem with the downed state itself, just the redic healing you can do while ressing downed and the ressing from defeated (makes chipping away at a larger force nearly impossible).

i think this person would disagree lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrKg_TSP47E

All it would have taken to secure a stomp on him from the start would have been a blind, block, stability, stealth, a body block (two people standing in a line, rear one stomps) or just two people stomping at the same time. Basically they were bad or were using him to secure other downs… which they did.

It’s far too easy to counter war/eng/necro downed states. At least war gets to vengeance (making war’s downed state the highest damage downed state) and has a longer cc… and necro gets a fear that makes them run away (even longer delay on that first stomp) and can’t just be body blocked.

Most classes have some way of stopping an initial stomp from multiple people… not eng/war/necro though.

Then there is ele/mes/thief downed state. Yea… eng isn’t winning when it comes to downed states.

There can’t be no downed state. They sell finishers in the gem store.

That being said, the rally mechanic is what is broken, not the downed state. The number of times you can rally needs to be reduced to ONE and no rallying off of NPCs. This is the one thing that bothers me most about PvP (including WvW) is that players can rally off of NPCs in what should be a strictly player vs. player situation.

Reduce amount of rallies off of players dying around you that you’ve done significant damage to to 1 or 2, remove mob rallying, no rezzing in combat, and we are good.

Epic.3950:

LordByron.8369:

without downed state, ele would disappear from the game and maybe other low-mid HP/armor….

As stated rally is the issue, or to be more fair the AoE limit that as we know is related to server performance.

or dont die? Like any good player will tell you they dont rely on res tactics to win, they just dont go down

I strongly doubt any good player would tell me such thing..
He would start to consider the HP and armor difference and then realize www would turn into guardians and warriors only instead than 80% warriors + guardians like its today.

A player’s death should not be able to rally more than 3 players from the other team. Not this “one player dies and rallys 15” garbage.

I would PREFER that it be 1-for-1. One player dying saves just one player.

Downstate will NEVER be taken out of this game. People need to just stop talking about that possibility. It will NEVER happen. It’s a core combat mechanic, and they sell finishers on the gem store. If nothing else, the fact that they’re making money on finishers will keep them from ever getting rid of downstate. I think downstate adds another level to combat that makes this game special.

They just need to fix the ridiculous rally mechanics.

Caedmon.6798:

I think downed state is one of the worst mechanics ive seen in an mmo so far

I like the idea of Downstate, i just think typical to good old Anet, the implementation has been VERY poor, Stealth classes simply 100% chance will kill you without you being able to do ANYTHING about it.

Others can be easily countered with Stability, not to bad except for the fact not every class has easy access to it, or simply not enough, like Necro 1.25seconds on a 50 second cool down OR spending 30trait points and having to “bug”/“trick” way to get the stomp done…

Playing a zerker ele would be a bummer while sieging but the improvement in zergbusting would offset it plenty for me.

I hate the down state but even with that being said I think the logical thing to do would be to start off small.

1st step would be to put a cooldown on rally of 30 seconds and see how that changes the game.
Or if you get down for a second time/ third time within 2 minutes you just die and have to wp or be manually ressed.

Assumption: People just die when reaching 0 health.

WvW – Zerging itself won’t go anywhere but survival will become even more important than ever. But without rallying at least Berserkers wouldn’t be a liability to their own team. Overall however it will strengthen the ability of well-coordinated teams to take out larger groups. This applies to guild vs. zergs as well as coordinated defense efforts.

Larger zergs wouldn’t just be able to constantly revive each other all the time making it easier to break them.

It would also increase the popularity of small-scale roaming since the downed-state is currently the biggest culprit for solo-roamers.

While I don’t think it would change WvW on a fundamental level or even discourage zerging a lot, it would emphasize skillful play and make defending more rewarding.

In PvE it would put in end to the “zerker or gtfo” attitude so prevalent today as again, survivability would matter. Playing Zerker would be something left to the truly skillful as even a simple mistake can take you out completely.

However it would also make many fights extremely frustrating because of their poorly telegraphed attacks.

However, as much as I despise the downed-state personally I think there are a few intermediate steps that can be taken to mitigate its frustrating and game-breaking nature.

• For starter, use Rally – Dodgeball rules: I.e. One rally per kill. Whoever was the last person to damage the victim is the person to be rallied.
• Reduce the revive speed – 2 people need approximately 1.5 seconds to revive a downed team-mate. That is way too fast to be considered fair. Add diminishing returns to the healing-speed. So if 1 person can revive a team-mate in 3 seconds, 2 people need 2 seconds (not 1.5) and 3 people need 1.5 seconds, not 1.
• Accelerate finishers – Currently stomping exposes the finisher to so much danger in team-fights making it impossible for some glassy builds to pull off due to excessive AoE and splash damage. Reducing the cast-time to 2 seconds (down from 3) would go a long way towards fixing this problem.
• Make Elementalist (and maybe Mesmer) downed-state counterable. Currently all downed-state deniers have counters that allow for an immediate stomp. All except Elementalists and (to a lesser extent) Mesmers. Elementalists have the most overpowered downed-state as it allows them to pass gates into safety, making them virtually immortal in siege situations. Mesmers can be countered, but require a recast of the stomp which just further exposes the finisher. Both need to be changed.
• No more resurrection of defeated players on combat. Simply put an end to people constantly resurrecting each other. Resurrections of defeated players should be limited to “out of combat”.

Those changes would fix the vast majority of problems I have with downed-state without ruining it for other aspects of the game.

Dee Jay.2460:

Snip

I agree on pretty much everything you said. However, Anet is known for changing too much at a time, so I would say add the dodgeball mechanic and limit resurrecting a dead player to “out of combat”. It would add much more depth to the game and promote more medium sized groups.

Guys you missing the root cause of the issue.

Downed state is fine, MASS RALLY IS NOT

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Caedmon.6798:

I think downed state is one of the worst mechanics ive seen in an mmo so far

I like the idea of Downstate, i just think typical to good old Anet, the implementation has been VERY poor, Stealth classes simply 100% chance will kill you without you being able to do ANYTHING about it.

Others can be easily countered with Stability, not to bad except for the fact not every class has easy access to it, or simply not enough, like Necro 1.25seconds on a 50 second cool down OR spending 30trait points and having to “bug”/“trick” way to get the stomp done…

Lol about the stealth stomps. I cant remember when i actually had a sucessfull stealth stomp in any situation besides 1×1. Or are u the person who freeze up when u see thief entering stealth at your downed mate ? Personally from my experience, once i attempt a stealth stomp in multiple targets situation, most of the time i get pulled/pushed/knocked around and forced to go into defensive. Unless there are no enemies with descent IQ around. So stop blaming stealth stomps cause that stoped being effective long time back. Invulnerability/shadowstep stomps > stealth stomps.

Skady.5916:

Guys you missing the root cause of the issue.

Downed state is fine, MASS RALLY IS NOT

Rally of any kind is wrong atm. Rally from mobs must go, rally from other players must go, group ressing downed/dead players must go, ress speed must be at least 2x slower.

I agree… I shouldn’t be able to rally off of some doe…

Dee Jay.2460:

• For starter, use Rally – Dodgeball rules: I.e. One rally per kill. Whoever was the last person to damage the victim is the person to be rallied.
• Reduce the revive speed – 2 people need approximately 1.5 seconds to revive a downed team-mate. That is way too fast to be considered fair. Add diminishing returns to the healing-speed. So if 1 person can revive a team-mate in 3 seconds, 2 people need 2 seconds (not 1.5) and 3 people need 1.5 seconds, not 1.
• Accelerate finishers – Currently stomping exposes the finisher to so much danger in team-fights making it impossible for some glassy builds to pull off due to excessive AoE and splash damage. Reducing the cast-time to 2 seconds (down from 3) would go a long way towards fixing this problem.
• Make Elementalist (and maybe Mesmer) downed-state counterable. Currently all downed-state deniers have counters that allow for an immediate stomp. All except Elementalists and (to a lesser extent) Mesmers. Elementalists have the most overpowered downed-state as it allows them to pass gates into safety, making them virtually immortal in siege situations. Mesmers can be countered, but require a recast of the stomp which just further exposes the finisher. Both need to be changed.
• No more resurrection of defeated players on combat. Simply put an end to people constantly resurrecting each other. Resurrections of defeated players should be limited to “out of combat”.

Those changes would fix the vast majority of problems I have with downed-state without ruining it for other aspects of the game.

#1, #2 and #3 would benefit zergs and hurt small-scale roaming. No thanks.

#4: Both mesmer and elementalist down state are fine. Mesmer is easily counterable, and elementalist displaces you from allies just as much as enemies in most cases. I agree that you shouldn’t be able to enter structures with it though, which seems to be an oversight from ArenaNet in the first place anyway.

#5: Don’t know why people keep suggesting this. Any massive zerg is bound to have people trailing behind who are not in combat.

EFWinters.5421:

#1, #2 and #3 would benefit zergs and hurt small-scale roaming. No thanks.

#4: Both mesmer and elementalist down state are fine. Mesmer is easily counterable, and elementalist displaces you from allies just as much as enemies in most cases. I agree that you shouldn’t be able to enter structures with it though, which seems to be an oversight from ArenaNet in the first place anyway.

#5: Don’t know why people keep suggesting this. Any massive zerg is bound to have people trailing behind who are not in combat.

How would 1,2,3 benefit zergs more?

Currently, the more people you have, the more people that can rally off of one person.

The more people you have, the faster they can res up downed without any DR on the number of ressers.

The faster the finisher the less time you’re taking damage/cc from more people.

How does ele downed state seperate you from your allies O.o? You would have to move yourself in the wrong direction for that to happen.

You could just put people ressing the dead into combat (a single field would do it).

Aberrant.6749:

How would 1,2,3 benefit zergs more?

Currently, the more people you have, the more people that can rally off of one person.

Focused damage is key to roaming. (And read the next section)

Aberrant.6749:

The more people you have, the faster they can res up downed without any DR on the number of ressers.

The faster the finisher the less time you’re taking damage/cc from more people.

Your arguments are based around a world where roamers are on an equal skill level to zerglings. In reality though, good roamers will have a lot more knowledge on how to secure stomps as well as preventing them, and a lot higher coordination to make it happen. As I have stated in earlier posts the downed state is just another layer of the game where skilled people can outplay unskilled people.

Aberrant.6749:

How does ele downed state seperate you from your allies O.o? You would have to move yourself in the wrong direction for that to happen.

You are most likely moving away from the people currently trying to revive you as they would be on the same spot as the people trying to stomp you. It would be naive to believe that a group of random zerglings would be coordinated enough to gather up at some spot to where the elementalist can Mist Form to. In the case of Mist Forming to someone on the edge of battle, I get the stomp in most cases anyway because I am more on top of the situtation than some far away guy who most likely don’t even notice the elementalist coming.

Contrarily, I can immediately leap + blink away to a remote location and have my elementalist duo partner Mist Form to me, letting me get the revive in almost all cases.

There comes a point where it doesn’t matter how much skill you have, sheer numbers and the current rally/res systems outstrip skill differences… unless you’re playing against totally mindless afk players.

Sure you might down/kill a few, but lose just one person from your small group and bam… 10 rally. Compare that to if you down a zergling with your small group… one or two might get rallied.

If you focus fire one person at a time, the mass of people can just shove bodies at it and mass res the downed/dead and keep their numbers up far more easily than a small group.

In a zerg you’ll have a people over a decently large area. You’ll just be moving away from some people and towards others. Even in a small group you’ll have front/mid/back liners to be able to move to. You would have to choose to move away from everyone.

EFWinters.5421:

Dee Jay.2460:

• For starter, use Rally – Dodgeball rules: I.e. One rally per kill. Whoever was the last person to damage the victim is the person to be rallied.
• Reduce the revive speed – 2 people need approximately 1.5 seconds to revive a downed team-mate. That is way too fast to be considered fair. Add diminishing returns to the healing-speed. So if 1 person can revive a team-mate in 3 seconds, 2 people need 2 seconds (not 1.5) and 3 people need 1.5 seconds, not 1.
• Accelerate finishers – Currently stomping exposes the finisher to so much danger in team-fights making it impossible for some glassy builds to pull off due to excessive AoE and splash damage. Reducing the cast-time to 2 seconds (down from 3) would go a long way towards fixing this problem.
• Make Elementalist (and maybe Mesmer) downed-state counterable. Currently all downed-state deniers have counters that allow for an immediate stomp. All except Elementalists and (to a lesser extent) Mesmers. Elementalists have the most overpowered downed-state as it allows them to pass gates into safety, making them virtually immortal in siege situations. Mesmers can be countered, but require a recast of the stomp which just further exposes the finisher. Both need to be changed.
• No more resurrection of defeated players on combat. Simply put an end to people constantly resurrecting each other. Resurrections of defeated players should be limited to “out of combat”.

Those changes would fix the vast majority of problems I have with downed-state without ruining it for other aspects of the game.

#1, #2 and #3 would benefit zergs and hurt small-scale roaming. No thanks.

#4: Both mesmer and elementalist down state are fine. Mesmer is easily counterable, and elementalist displaces you from allies just as much as enemies in most cases. I agree that you shouldn’t be able to enter structures with it though, which seems to be an oversight from ArenaNet in the first place anyway.

#5: Don’t know why people keep suggesting this. Any massive zerg is bound to have people trailing behind who are not in combat.

Your logic is flawed.

1. 1 Rally per Kill does not help the zerg, it helps the roamers. If your 5 man group runs into a 20 man zerg and downs a few people, currently all they need to do is instant gib one of your fellows (which isn’t that hard with 20 ppl) and they’re all back up.

But with Dodgeball rules only one person rallies giving you a fairer chance to win the fight. In contrast, if one of your team goes down and rallies, a single rally is worth 20% of your team, as opposed to 5% of the zerg.

2. Reduced revive speed is in the favor of roamers too since a zerg has far more people available for reviving. Currently it’s near impossible to finish someone with a standard 3 second channel if he has 2-3 friends about. This change would help mitigate that.

3. Same applies to faster finishers which again would allow you to stomp more reliably. And that’s often the most difficult part when fighting against larger groups.

In fact your entire logic seems to assume that somehow the roamers are worse, that they’d be the first to die instead of the first to score kills. I’m surprised how you can reach the exact opposite conclusion to what common sense and experience dictates.

Aberrant.6749:

There comes a point where it doesn’t matter how much skill you have…

And that point should exist in a game like this.

Dee Jay.2460:

1. 1 Rally per Kill does not help the zerg, it helps the roamers. If your 5 man group runs into a 20 man zerg and downs a few people, currently all they need to do is instant gib one of your fellows (which isn’t that hard with 20 ppl) and they’re all back up.

My point is that if your 5-man fails to secure a stomp before the enemy even though you downed people before the enemy did, you are in over your head and deserve to lose.

Dee Jay.2460:

2. Reduced revive speed is in the favor of roamers too since a zerg has far more people available for reviving. Currently it’s near impossible to finish someone with a standard 3 second channel if he has 2-3 friends about. This change would help mitigate that.

No, if your enemy is coordinated enough to have 2-3 people instantly start reviving when someone goes down, they are coordinated enough to be awarded that revive. If your team fails to interrupt them reviving, doubly so.

Dee Jay.2460:

In fact your entire logic seems to assume that somehow the roamers are worse, that they’d be the first to die instead of the first to score kills. I’m surprised how you can reach the exact opposite conclusion to what common sense and experience dictates.

I’d love to know your “experience” of small man roaming. You are saying you always have trouble securing stomps and revives, while I am claiming the opposite. Clearly it seems I am more experienced in the matter.

I think you have a warped perception of what’s going on.

Reviving a team-mate is an intuitive reaction for every player. It’s not something that needs coordination. And even a Pug Guardians is smart enough to use Stability and Block to ensure he can safely rezz. The fact that you didn’t stop a 1 second revivive doesn’t make you bad. At times it’s inevitable.

Your just don’t make ANY sense. Reviving isn’t skillful play. It’s pressing F while standing next to your mate. Killing people takes skill and that’s what should be rewarded. No stacking enough friends for instant revives.

You are figuratively staring at a white wall and calling it black.

Pick any solo/small group roaming video you like and I will show you how my changes would have made things easier for them.

EFWinters.5421:

Aberrant.6749:

There comes a point where it doesn’t matter how much skill you have…

And that point should exist in a game like this.

It sure as kitten doesn’t need the current res/rally system to help zergs reach that point in addition to having more damage/cc/cleansing/aoe healing/etc. you get when you have more players though. It just promotes blobbing and mindless zergplay.

MFWIC.6091:

EFWinters.5421:

Removing downstate would completely break this game.

The very notion of it is silly.

what exactly would be broken? Only groups that benefit from downstate are blobs that consist mostly of unskilled players, skilled players would be nothing but rewarded by It.
map blobs would think twice before engaging skilled guild group.

how about roamers that rally of rondom deer that Just happens to be there, do you find It amusing to kill same Player twice; or he might run away bacause he killed a deer before you could Get the stomp off.

It can stay in pvp but wvw would be better without it

Skilled well geared small groups equally benefits too. In that blob, there is most likely to be a level 10 player that is either new or just there to level up.

im fine with downstate, what im not okay with is one person can rally 20, i always thought it should b a min of 3-5players that can rally just off 1 person