Guild Wars 2

Sooo, what’s going on with the balance of downed state and stomping ability between classes?

I’m sorry but in the 2 years this game has been out since release there has been little to no balance attention paid to these two aspects.

I refuse to believe that the downed state is balanced between the all classes perfectly since release. That’s near impossible for such a game changing feature.

Stomping state isn’t as big of a deal as downed state, but again not been addressed a lot.

So what is going on with this feature? Is it something that is just so bad for competitive pvp that its been abandoned balance wise because any way of balancing it would effect the other game modes too greatly?

I mean personally I believe that every class should be equal once downed. You want to give them a teleport, give them all one teleport. One self rezzing? All get self rezzing. Why should some classes be able to revive themselves better? Or some classes be able to stop stomping/survivng on the ground better? All the while the things that make these classes unique, different, and balance when alive don’t exist once they go downed?

I mean personally I think the downed state is the worst feature to have in a pvp game and I personally think it attributes to this game not being taken seriously in the esport scene, but I’ve given up on hoping it would get disabled. However at least balance it or attempt to. Right now it’s just this horrific mess where some classes are HUGELY situational and some classes are not.

Deified.7520:

I mean personally I think the downed state is the worst feature to have in a pvp game and I personally think it attributes to this game not being taken seriously in the esport scene, but I’ve given up on hoping it would get disabled. However at least balance it or attempt to. Right now it’s just this horrific mess where some classes are HUGELY situational and some classes are not.

Downed state (DS) has been complained about since beta. My highly unscientific guesstimation of those that PVP based on forum responses would be that roughly 25% hate it, 25% like it, and 50% don’t like it but have learned to live with it. I certainly know of PVPing friends of mine who don’t play this game because of how much downed state turned them off.

For me personally, i’m in the hate category. I would otherwise describe myself as a hardcore PVPer but I don’t PVP in this game at all (only WVW) because I hate downed state so much I can’t stand PVP in this game.

I hate how it plays, hate how it looks, hate how it breaks the flow of the action, and especially hate how it totally ruins 1v2s and heavily favours the side with the greater numbers (the opposite of what well-designed game mechanics should be aiming for).

How anyone thought that being forced into a 4-skill mini-game when you die would be more fun/engaging than the main combat is beyond me. From my perspective it’s one of the clear reasons why competitive PVP has bombed hard in this game over the past 2 years and a core reason of why it will never be good, because DS is just not fun.

IMO instead of kittening around and essentially bribing players to play PVP with handouts (and I note, PVP is still very unpopular), Anet should seriously consider making DS optional (eg: in custom arenas) and seeing how players react.

scerevisiae.1972:

Deified.7520:

I mean personally I think the downed state is the worst feature to have in a pvp game and I personally think it attributes to this game not being taken seriously in the esport scene, but I’ve given up on hoping it would get disabled. However at least balance it or attempt to. Right now it’s just this horrific mess where some classes are HUGELY situational and some classes are not.

Downed state (DS) has been complained about since beta. My highly unscientific guesstimation of those that PVP based on forum responses would be that roughly 25% hate it, 25% like it, and 50% don’t like it but have learned to live with it. I certainly know of PVPing friends of mine who don’t play this game because of how much downed state turned them off.

For me personally, i’m in the hate category. I would otherwise describe myself as a hardcore PVPer but I don’t PVP in this game at all (only WVW) because I hate downed state so much I can’t stand PVP in this game.

I hate how it plays, hate how it looks, hate how it breaks the flow of the action, and especially hate how it totally ruins 1v2s and heavily favours the side with the greater numbers (the opposite of what well-designed game mechanics should be aiming for).

How anyone thought that being forced into a 4-skill mini-game when you die would be more fun/engaging than the main combat is beyond me. From my perspective it’s one of the clear reasons why competitive PVP has bombed hard in this game over the past 2 years and a core reason of why it will never be good, because DS is just not fun.

IMO instead of kittening around and essentially bribing players to play PVP with handouts (and I note, PVP is still very unpopular), Anet should seriously consider making DS optional (eg: in custom arenas) and seeing how players react.

Are you serious? Every time there is a downstate thread the op is essentially told to stop. DS is amazing and an integral part of this game. Esports is not a thing because anet has not put much effort into it. The idea of being 1shot by a thief does not fun at all, please dun give anet bad ideas.

Thief is the most powerful stomper by far:

• stealth stomp
• blind stomp
• stability stomp
• teleport stomp

Thief is also the hardest to stomp:

• stealth (100% chance of success)
• teleport (100% chance of success)

Elementalist has the best WvW downed skill:

• invulnerability + movement
  (can even move into towers/keeps while downed)

Deified.7520:

Sooo, what’s going on with the balance of downed state and stomping ability between classes?

it is balanced and working as intended. nothing wrong there.

I’m sorry but in the 2 years this game has been out since release there has been little to no balance attention paid to these two aspects.

because there is no need to fix what is not broken.

I refuse to believe that the downed state is balanced between the all classes perfectly since release. That’s near impossible for such a game changing feature.

that is entirely your problem.
the 8 professions are meant to have different downed abilities.

Stomping state isn’t as big of a deal as downed state, but again not been addressed a lot.

stomping is fine, same as downed state.

So what is going on with this feature? Is it something that is just so bad for competitive pvp that its been abandoned balance wise because any way of balancing it would effect the other game modes too greatly?

nothing is wrong, all is well and working as intended.

I mean personally I believe that every class should be equal once downed. You want to give them a teleport, give them all one teleport. One self rezzing? All get self rezzing. Why should some classes be able to revive themselves better? Or some classes be able to stop stomping/survivng on the ground better? All the while the things that make these classes unique, different, and balance when alive don’t exist once they go downed?

again, this is just you, alone.
again, different professions have different abilities, before they go down, and while they are down.

I mean personally I think the downed state is the worst feature to have in a pvp game and I personally think it attributes to this game not being taken seriously in the esport scene, but I’ve given up on hoping it would get disabled. However at least balance it or attempt to. Right now it’s just this horrific mess where some classes are HUGELY situational and some classes are not.

finally, this is just yourself, and a few in this matter.

gw2 sPvP failed in the esports scene not due to downed state stomping but due to ncsoft anet not arranging enough resources (manpower) in the sPvP section.

gw2 sPvP failed because ncsoft anet failed terribly in monetizing sPvP.

as for the people complaining about downed state and stomping, well, that is clearly a learn to play issue.

What I’ve come to understand is that, the balance of downstate correlates with how low/high the different health pools are.
The classes with lower health pools have tougher downed states but the classes with higher health pools have easier downed states.

It attempts to level the playing field in a situation where it would be quite easy to drop the thief or mesmer or Ele.

Holland.9351:

Thief is the most powerful stomper by far:

• stealth stomp
• blind stomp
• stability stomp
• teleport stomp

Thief is also the hardest to stomp:

• stealth (100% chance of success)
• teleport (100% chance of success)

Elementalist has the best WvW downed skill:

• invulnerability + movement
  (can even move into towers/keeps while downed)

Wrong in many aspects.
The 100% chance of escaping a stomp is unique only to Elementalist (and Mesmers, provided there is at least a targetable object around). Thieves can stomp other thieves easily thanks to Steal or Infiltrator Signet.

Also, thieves lack the most reliable stomp in this game, which is the invulnerability stomp (which Eles, Engis and Mesmers have access to). Mesmers have access to stealth, blind, stability and teleport stomp too.

Lastly, thieves should not always stomp, as the amount of AoE being dropped on a downed player is usually enough to scare the thief off, and if there is another thief around, there’s no way the thief is going to complete the stomping.

Downed state has been in the game for 2 years now. Either learn to live with it and stop crying on the forums. It makes sense for every class to have different abilities.

The reason for this is because some classes are easier to kill than others, so they just want to delay their death for 3 seconds. Do you honestly think 3 seconds makes a difference when they’re already practically dead?

Well it is hardly balanced but, on the other hand, it makes combat more fun.

Holland.9351:

Thief is the most powerful stomper by far:

• stealth stomp
• blind stomp
• stability stomp
• teleport stomp

Thief is also the hardest to stomp:

• stealth (100% chance of success)
• teleport (100% chance of success)

Elementalist has the best WvW downed skill:

• invulnerability + movement
  (can even move into towers/keeps while downed)

Easier you are to down, the better your down state is, it seems.

Except in the case of elementalists in WVW. Which may have been an oversight. Don’t stomp an ele outside of tower, burst them down.

thieves have stupid op stomp assist though, vs heavy classes. I guess that’s the prize for overcoming such a massive health pool, so I can deal.

scerevisiae.1972:

Anet should seriously consider making DS optional (eg: in custom arenas) and seeing how players react.

I agree with this, have the option to disable it for tpvp servers, everybody wins. You don’t like it disabled? Don’t play on that server.

PhDusk.2590:

The idea of being 1shot by a thief does not fun at all, please dun give anet bad ideas.

Downed state is the reason why thieves can have high burst — downed state is intended to be a second chance. Removing downed state would necessarily involve increasing HP and/or reducing burst across the board to achieve roughly the same time-to-kill.

In wvw this highly favor the ones with more numbers, It should be so you can’t res when in combat, and ressing speed slightly nerfed it shouldn’t be possible to res faster than you can use 1 finisher. And when you’re dead you get ported back to automatically. Down state class balance is good. Except for ele mist form in towers.
There is some easy hotfixes to make the game less braindead.
Rally system can stay the way it is.

Deified.7520:

I mean personally I believe that every class should be equal once downed. You want to give them a teleport, give them all one teleport. One self rezzing? All get self rezzing. Why should some classes be able to revive themselves better? Or some classes be able to stop stomping/survivng on the ground better?

Such equality is toxic. To be honest, in most cases forced equality is toxic.

ugh, not this topic again.

tom.7468:

In wvw this highly favor the ones with more numbers, It should be so you can’t res when in combat, and ressing speed slightly nerfed it shouldn’t be possible to res faster than you can use 1 finisher. And when you’re dead you get ported back to automatically. Down state class balance is good. Except for ele mist form in towers.
There is some easy hotfixes to make the game less braindead.
Rally system can stay the way it is.

Seems extremely irrational to cry about how 5 people can rez a player faster then a single 1 can stomp them. It makes perfect sense to me.

All of the skills are reasonably thematic. The only problem I see, is in WvW that ele’s mist form should not allow them to enter a keep.

coglin.1867:

Seems extremely irrational to cry about how 5 people can rez a player faster then a single 1 can stomp them. It makes perfect sense to me.

Agree 5 people should be faster than 1, but it should be far slower than it is currently – rez time should always be longer than a standard stomp IMO.

This would also fix the (pretty ridiculous) situation where 1 person can rez another while standing in a lava font.

Have to say that downed state revival is too fast and the health pool is too large. If you down someone and immediately attempt to stability stomp while their ally immediately starts resing, the res is faster making 2v1’s so lopsided. Another nice option would be speeding up the stomp animation to take about 1/2 the time.

^ and the really silly thing is if you’re on a class that either has no interrupts or you burnt your interrupt and it’s on CD there’s not a kitten thing you can do to prevent the rez, as the health regain rate while rezzing is > rate you an apply damage.

There is nothing more annoying in this game than fighting 1v2, getting one of your opponents downed, and then being unable to do jack kitten while the other casually rezzes his friend and there’s not a kitten thing you can do other than AOE and hope for the best.

scerevisiae.1972:

There is nothing more annoying in this game than fighting 1v2, getting one of your opponents downed, and then being unable to do jack kitten while the other casually rezzes his friend and there’s not a kitten thing you can do other than AOE and hope for the best.

On the other hand, that is probably the point of the system: Enforce the effect of numerical superiority.

Usually in MMOs this isn’t immediately obvious because players die “too” fast. Same in GW2, you can get downed really really fast in most situations. To counteract that, the downed system allows the team with the numerical advantage to recover their injured from the surprise attack.

There is nothing wrong with 5 people ressing faster than a normal stomp. Taking 5 of your manpower vs the one should be more effective. Quickness is an effective tool to increase your stomp speed.

Not stomping and letting someone bleed out slowly is also part of the game. While some believe that dps someone down is better, it takes 3 seconds to stomp. The average attack is about one second. I dout you will dps them in 3 attack unless your a thief or you have help.

Some say that down states should be balance. Well I think they are, too the classes as a whole not just the down state itself. I mean really unless you want to take out the inherent diffences in hp and toughness between the classes.

Deciding which target to kill first in a 2 v 1 situation, one should also consider their downstate. That is one of the things that people who don’t understand ds fail to grasp.

As far as balancing the downed states go, people are too quick to compare 1v1 or sPvP situations only.

For example in any group stand-off, Engineer 2 on a target without stability will most likely result in a near-instant rally as a result of pulling a lone enemy target into range of your entire zerg’s ranged attackers. Yes, outside of that situation in WvW and PvE it’s very weak, but it’s not quite as useless as players make it out to be from the perspective of delaying a stomp in a smallest-scale situation.

I don’t mind the downed state in PVE, but I dislike how horribly unbalanced the down states of the various classes are. Some classes are deadmeat, while others can teleport away.

I think they balanced ok for each class and require people to employ tactics on how to finish an opponent off either kill outright or stomp plus gives reason for people carry revive skills around to get people back in the fight fast or use skills to protect downed allies. yes some people use easy stomp skills and easy evade stomp skills but it all tactics an a level of strategy. but I am against the necro getting revive and stomp while in ds thou but I guess it makes sense as that foot in grave trait be of use now. (but I can see issues in pvp with this added)

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I don’t mind the downed state in PVE, but I dislike how horribly unbalanced the down states of the various classes are. Some classes are deadmeat, while others can teleport away.

Yes they are, but I don’t feel they should all be balanced for the same situation.

I can readily think of 4 different defining mechanics which influence what to balance for in a downed state:

1. How easily the class can avoid stomping from one~multiple enemies.
2. How well they can survive someone trying to simply kill them.
3. Whether they can positively influence the fight despite being downed, working towards simply getting back via an early rally.
4. Hard difficult it is to push the class into downed state in the first place.

And that’s just 4. I really don’t think a 1-to-1 balance would work. At all. It’d just make the downed state of classes which can have lots of lingering effects stacked onto high durability and good on-downed traits overpowered, due to the strong environment they need to be balanced against.

OTOH, Eles would lose all heckling around towers and keeps with how insanely fragile they are. They rely on that 2-skill to do something meaningful without feeding the enemy rallies.

I do wish they would change the downed state in WvWvW. It is annoying when a smaller group outplays a larger one, but simply can’t wipe the other group out because the numbers advantage allows them to consistently rez.

In PvE it’s fine, and in sPVP it works because of balanced numbers on each team, but yah in WvW it could use a tweak.

My suggestion would be to double the rate of health loss in downed state in WvW and also no hard rez at all. If you die you die. Respawn.

dandamanno.4136:

I do wish they would change the downed state in WvWvW. It is annoying when a smaller group outplays a larger one, but simply can’t wipe the other group out because the numbers advantage allows them to consistently rez.

In PvE it’s fine, and in sPVP it works because of balanced numbers on each team, but yah in WvW it could use a tweak.

My suggestion would be to double the rate of health loss in downed state in WvW and also no hard rez at all. If you die you die. Respawn.

But… then how would numerical advantage be important? One of the key concepts of warfare, have better numbers and deploy so that at each individual engagement you got superior numbers despite in total not having more (same map cap!).

That’s how army tactics work. Superior local force. I mean, that’s quite obviously what the escalating rally/rezz mechanics are there to implement. They give a serious advantage to whoever can have the better local deployment. Now, how to consistently do that despite having the same team size in total, yeah, that’s difficult.

Hey, just passing by, but eles mist form isn’t a guaranted stomp escape, nor mesmers. If you start the stomp animation right as they mistform, you’ll get the stomp successfully by blinking to them. Mesmer is the same, except that there’s a cast time for their 2 abilities so you can just cancel your previous stomp, start again, and get it.

For the actual topic, it does make outnumbered fights harder, but I like the mechanic in itself, it’s something different from other MMOs. I don’t want it removed.

Carighan.6758:

dandamanno.4136:

I do wish they would change the downed state in WvWvW. It is annoying when a smaller group outplays a larger one, but simply can’t wipe the other group out because the numbers advantage allows them to consistently rez.

In PvE it’s fine, and in sPVP it works because of balanced numbers on each team, but yah in WvW it could use a tweak.

My suggestion would be to double the rate of health loss in downed state in WvW and also no hard rez at all. If you die you die. Respawn.

But… then how would numerical advantage be important? One of the key concepts of warfare, have better numbers and deploy so that at each individual engagement you got superior numbers despite in total not having more (same map cap!).

That’s how army tactics work. Superior local force. I mean, that’s quite obviously what the escalating rally/rezz mechanics are there to implement. They give a serious advantage to whoever can have the better local deployment. Now, how to consistently do that despite having the same team size in total, yeah, that’s difficult.

Numerical advantage would still work exactly as it does now. You have 40 guys, they have 10 guys. You have the advantage. My point is if the 40 are outplayed by the 10 and end up having 10 players downed, while the other team only loses 1, that should count for something.

As it is now the team with 40 can simply, easily res the 10 downed players and be back at 40 no problem, but the 10 will probably be working too hard to res the 1 they lost. So in the end the 40 “bad players” will win even though they are outplayed BECAUSE of the downed state.

Without the downed state they very well may lose.

If you ask me, I’d rather they make it more like, when youre down, you cant attack or anything, but you can crawl away, but all and all, down state is pretty finnicky in pvp and wvw, but seems okay in pve

I would be fine with the downed state being removed entirely. 0 hp should mean dead, gone, obliterated.

All this hand holding is the very reason why deaths in the game don’t feel meaningful, and why there’s instakill spamming all over PVE. If the game was less forgiving, players would be more careful, and defense would matter more. And you wouldn’t need all those one-hit kill attacks everywhere.

scerevisiae.1972:

There is nothing more annoying in this game than fighting 1v2, getting one of your opponents downed, and then being unable to do jack kitten while the other casually rezzes his friend and there’s not a kitten thing you can do other than AOE and hope for the best.

On the other hand, that is probably the point of the system: Enforce the effect of numerical superiority.

Usually in MMOs this isn’t immediately obvious because players die “too” fast. Same in GW2, you can get downed really really fast in most situations. To counteract that, the downed system allows the team with the numerical advantage to recover their injured from the surprise attack.

That is pretty much the opposite of what a well-designed game should be aiming for. A smaller, more skilful force should always be able to overcome a larger, disorganised force. DS in this respect is very much an anti-skill feature.

scerevisiae.1972:

That is pretty much the opposite of what a well-designed game should be aiming for. A smaller, more skilful force should always be able to overcome a larger, disorganised force. DS in this respect is very much an anti-skill feature.

No that’s actually a very important design-decision to make.

Do you want your game’s large-scale combat to focus on top-end balance? The higher your balance pivot point, the more personal performance should be able to trump numbers or classes or specs. At the very highest point your “game” should no longer even matter. The player has “a class”, “a spec” and “a context”, but none of these have any impact whats-o-ever on the outcome of a fight. Even if it’s that one player versus 30 other players. Only skill matters, if the one player can fight well he can kill 30 players one-by-one.

On the flipside, do you want your game to feel meaningful to more casual players? You’re designing a RPG, use its inherent system to make players feel viable even when they aren’t experience or simply aren’t good at it (you may disagree, but these players want to play video games and feel viable doing so, and usually they are aware they’re bad players so there’s no reason to rub it in). Classes can counter each other, so a lesser player on the right class against the right class will have a serious advantage, securing them wins against players they should normally not be able to best.
Or maybe you support a larger scale of warfare, where players can band together and despite weaker individual performance down their enemy with sheer numerical superiority.

This is in no way inherently negative. It may seem to from yours or mine perspective because we’re good at what we do and we want our games to reward our personal play performance, but as a developer it’s not an easy decision to make, and depending on game you’re working on it is very important to be more inclusive with your design.

Carighan.6758:

scerevisiae.1972:

That is pretty much the opposite of what a well-designed game should be aiming for. A smaller, more skilful force should always be able to overcome a larger, disorganised force. DS in this respect is very much an anti-skill feature.

No that’s actually a very important design-decision to make.

Do you want your game’s large-scale combat to focus on top-end balance? The higher your balance pivot point, the more personal performance should be able to trump numbers or classes or specs. At the very highest point your “game” should no longer even matter. The player has “a class”, “a spec” and “a context”, but none of these have any impact whats-o-ever on the outcome of a fight. Even if it’s that one player versus 30 other players. Only skill matters, if the one player can fight well he can kill 30 players one-by-one.

On the flipside, do you want your game to feel meaningful to more casual players? You’re designing a RPG, use its inherent system to make players feel viable even when they aren’t experience or simply aren’t good at it (you may disagree, but these players want to play video games and feel viable doing so, and usually they are aware they’re bad players so there’s no reason to rub it in). Classes can counter each other, so a lesser player on the right class against the right class will have a serious advantage, securing them wins against players they should normally not be able to best.
Or maybe you support a larger scale of warfare, where players can band together and despite weaker individual performance down their enemy with sheer numerical superiority.

This is in no way inherently negative. It may seem to from yours or mine perspective because we’re good at what we do and we want our games to reward our personal play performance, but as a developer it’s not an easy decision to make, and depending on game you’re working on it is very important to be more inclusive with your design.

So are you saying that ANET implemented DS in part so that a larger force will have an insurmountable advantage over a smaller force? I dont’ think so. I think it is just a by product of how DS works and is an unintended side effect they don’t wish/don’t care to change.

Shouldn’t a numbers advantage be enough? Why does the larger force also get to have an additional advantage in DS rez time?

I agree that new players should feel helpful, but TBH it doesn’t take much to hop on your GWEN character find the commander tag and spam your skills. You ARE contributing and being helpful.

But part of the fun in playing the game is to learn how to be the most effective, so you can get better, and that getting better will MATTER in future encounters.

Otherwise the game truly is only about greater numbers, not performance or class knowledge, which is sad, boring and drive people away from the game mode.

scerevisiae.1972:

scerevisiae.1972:

There is nothing more annoying in this game than fighting 1v2, getting one of your opponents downed, and then being unable to do jack kitten while the other casually rezzes his friend and there’s not a kitten thing you can do other than AOE and hope for the best.

On the other hand, that is probably the point of the system: Enforce the effect of numerical superiority.

Usually in MMOs this isn’t immediately obvious because players die “too” fast. Same in GW2, you can get downed really really fast in most situations. To counteract that, the downed system allows the team with the numerical advantage to recover their injured from the surprise attack.

That is pretty much the opposite of what a well-designed game should be aiming for. A smaller, more skilful force should always be able to overcome a larger, disorganised force. DS in this respect is very much an anti-skill feature.

This seems like a load of cow patties to me.

If the down state is keeping what you are claiming as a “more skilled” force from winning a battle, then you are not as skilled as you think you are.

DS is something that’s a core part of this game because it’s what people in the gaming industry call a “skill gap compressor” – a mechanic that allows casual/bad players to not be “stomped on” so hard by hardcore and very good players.

It makes PVE much more forgiving – allowing people to survive much more and groups to perform better.

It makes WvW more numbers-oriented.

It makes sPvP much more forgiving for players that die.

The lack of such a mechanic in a game that’s very much based on twitch reflex and skill would alienate “slower” and less twitchy players since they would be constantly dying.

Now considering how the game is catering to a “casual majority” you can see how alienating them can be bad.
Less players – less gem store transactions.

In the simplest terms – you’d lose more people if you didn’t have it than they did by having it in the game.

i dont mind it unless i get in a downed vs downed against a ranger lol, or ranger underwater. Easy stomping most nub eles, start stomp, pause and break it, start stomp, and blink to where they mistformed. Doesnt work vs about 60% of eles i fight and is kinda a hassle, but super fun.

lol just down everyone. cant rez if you’re on the floor

Harper.4173:

It makes PVE much more forgiving – allowing people to survive much more and groups to perform better.

In the simplest terms – you’d lose more people if you didn’t have it than they did by having it in the game.

That’s exactly my point though – it’s a PVE feature that does not belong in PVP. You only need to look at how hard PVP has failed in this game to see why diluting skill levels down to the lowest common denominator doesn’t work.

I truly dislike the downed state and I hope it will be gone.

This will never happen though because of the finishers being sold.

Nah, I like Downed state and think it should stay. It adds an additional level of complexity to PvP fights where you need to learn the common strategies used by downed players to try and survive, and sometimes the counter strategies around that.

For example, I’m a Ranger and I just downed another Ranger. I use Hunter’s Shot to stealth myself before beginning the stomp, but I know that, if the downed Ranger is also experienced, he will simply use Thunderclap on my PET to interrupt my stomp, even in stealth.

So. I stealth myself, then I run to the opposite side of my victim where I’m out of range of Thunderclap should he use it on my pet. Sure enough, he zaps my dog, but I’m unaffected and carry out the stomp unhindered.

2 downed Rangers being licked by their pets is hilarious too.

Holland.9351:

Thief is the most powerful stomper by far:

• stealth stomp
• blind stomp
• stability stomp
• teleport stomp

Thief is also the hardest to stomp:

• stealth (100% chance of success)
• teleport (100% chance of success)

Elementalist has the best WvW downed skill:

• invulnerability + movement
  (can even move into towers/keeps while downed)

Necro here, if I get downed in WvW I usually just open the map (if not 1v1) and wait till I can port. Even if I can somehow revive, I still won’t get away from a group. Saves me from seeing the finisher at least.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Holland.9351:

Thief is the most powerful stomper by far:

• stealth stomp
• blind stomp
• stability stomp
• teleport stomp

Thief is also the hardest to stomp:

• stealth (100% chance of success)
• teleport (100% chance of success)

Elementalist has the best WvW downed skill:

• invulnerability + movement
  (can even move into towers/keeps while downed)

Necro here, if I get downed in WvW I usually just open the map (if not 1v1) and wait till I can port. Even if I can somehow revive, I still won’t get away from a group. Saves me from seeing the finisher at least.

You will watch me drop a cow on you and you’re going to like it!

Just kidding, but Necros need some way to retreat, as I’ve said before. The above is depressing. ^

this is a thread again

I have said it before and I will say it again.

Downed state is an essential part of combat in Gw2. It forces players to choose between a larger number of options while in combat. You are fighting a 2v2, your teammate drops and you must try and res, or continue on fighting hoping to down one or both of the enemies. Which do you pick? Are you squishy? Do the enemies have single target spike or AoE? Is there poison on your teammate? Are the enemies low? There are many and more questions that we, as players, must answer in split seconds.

Downstate works as intended. It gives professions that might not otherwise be effective team players a role in even or outnumbered fights. Sure, you got someone down in a 2v1, congratulations. But can you finish them? Maybe you aren’t actually Jesus at this game. Just food for thought.

IMO people that complain about downstate also are people that complain about everything else in this game/their lives.

dandamanno.4136:

So are you saying that ANET implemented DS in part so that a larger force will have an insurmountable advantage over a smaller force? I dont’ think so. I think it is just a by product of how DS works and is an unintended side effect they don’t wish/don’t care to change.

Shouldn’t a numbers advantage be enough? Why does the larger force also get to have an additional advantage in DS rez time?

Well not necessarily implemented because of it. Rather I think they noticed the side effect and realized it works towards their balancing goal for quality vs quantity, so they kept it that way.

And come to think of it, that’s all it does. It shifts a very important portion of the power onto quantity. But in theory, quality (of deployment!) is still highly important because each realm in a map caps at the same amount of players.

So while your enemy might have 100 players in a force and you have 50, what are your other 50 players doing? Sure, due to downed state no matter how well you play you won’t win against the 100 (which is probably well intended to make sure the numerical advantage cannot be circumvented easily!), but the other 50 could be taking 2-3 things in the meantime depending on how well you drag out your loss.

So instead of quality of per-character-play – which is intentionally de-emphasized in this specific regard – quality of player-organization is now important. You want to make sure that in each individual fight you have more players than your enemy. The rally-chain gives you a fairly dependable chance of success if you do that. Only, how do you create an overall strategy so that you always have a superior local force despite having the same total force? That’s not easy at all any more.

My least favorite part about the downed state is how classes that need to connect with an attack to deny a non-stability(and on all but Guard, stealth) stomp (Warrior, Ranger, Engi, Guard, Necro) are much easier to stomp than those with the ability to stealth/teleport/move (Ele, Mes, Thief). The ability to more frequently deny the stomp is way more powerful than something that can be easily countered by popping a Blind/Stealth/Aegis/Stability.

If all downed states were dependent on connecting with something to deny the stomp that would be fine, but they aren’t. Also, why are there some that have the ability to interrupt multiple enemies but Warrior, Necro, and Engi can only stop one with their 2 skill? The inequality there doesn’t make sense. Rangers can use their pets to interrupt a group of targets twice with fear on their pets and the 2 skill. If it’s only one stomper then they could even do it 3 times if the pet has a knock down (of course Rangers are still pretty weak atm so it’s not like it makes them OP).

I don’t expect perfect equality but some consistency would be appreciated. The 2 skill should always be some kind of interrupt and either all be AoE or all single target. I like the mechanic but it’s another case of a good idea that was poorly implemented.

Would be nice to see some effort put into balancing downed state than removing it. As someone mentioned, it does create a very interesting mechanic in the smaller-scale which in many regards is preferable and requires even smarter gameplay decisions.

It has its merits even when outnumbered, though. Reconsider that 10v50. One of the ten gets focused as does one of them fifty, but the group of ten is a little more organized and finishes the downed person forcing a rally on 10% of their group. That said, I often dislike complaints about these situations, because they’re more about the 50 being of extremely low-skill rather than the 10 deserving the win due to being so incredibly skilled. A 5:1 with half-decent players should ALWAYS win. Skipping downed state might allow for some of these oddball situations to happen every now and then, but people shouldn’t be expecting to be able to consistently perform like that. The only time quality > quantity is relevant in warfare should be if the physical discrepancies are so vast to the point where those elite forces have quite literally no counter, in which case the battlefield is just blatantly unfair since those could only be the spawn of immense resources.

Downstate is fine, whenever people go down in a team fight you get plenty of choices, options and gameplay. The balancing is also pretty decent, yes some classes can teleport out and stall, but at the same time thiefs/mesmers/eles are the most easy to burst down while downstated.