Guild Wars 2

I cannot fathom why ANet is targeting AoE and, by virtue of this, the elementalist and engineer, which are underpowered in PVE. I hope that they restrict their nerfs to PvP, though I suspect that the changes will affect all areas of game play. Why is it that they keep implementing dramatic nerfs for caster classes in this game? I do not want to play a warrior, guardian, or thief, yet these are apparently ANet’s favored professions. Are they not aware of the capabilities of a thief relative to an elementalist (let alone an engineer)? Why am I being incentivized to play classes that I never want to play in any MMO?

“If your skil does 10 damage to a single target, if you have another skill that have the same opportunity cost but deals 8 damage to 5 targets, the AoE skill is better – we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs.”

So basically Anet didn’t want us to use AoE skills on single targets, sad thing is, they forgot to give us ANY single target spells. :o Silly Anet, why you so silly?

At the moment, the D/D build (which is more single target orientated) deals about twice the damage of a staff build (which is mostly AoE).

This is what the intended effect of the nerf will be. Hence, if the nerf is applied, it’ll be as if it were applied twice on the staff elementalist.

And that’s not even considering the fact that the AoEs have a balancing mechanism already. They take longer to cast, and (for the ele), way longer to land. So if the damage is nerfed any further, those other balancing mechanisms have to go. Single target attacks are instant, especially after they’ve been cast. You don’t see heartseeker taking 2 seconds before it deals damage after it’s been cast.

I.e. the staff AoE’s need to become instant cast, instant hits.

ThiBash.5634:

And that’s not even considering the fact that the AoEs have a balancing mechanism already. They take longer to cast, and (for the ele), way longer to land. So if the damage is nerfed any further, those other balancing mechanisms have to go. Single target attacks are instant, especially after they’ve been cast. You don’t see heartseeker taking 2 seconds before it deals damage after it’s been cast.

For example, Dragon’s Tooth is doing so much AoE damage it’s funny, they really need to nerf it! [/sarcasm]

I really hope the AoE nerf was a joke and they won’t actually implement it

It’s not even April’s Fool, how do you think it is just a joke? They are definitely doing to nerf AoEs.

I really don’t want to use my thief because it is boring as hell to play one. Might as well use my warrior to hack and slash all the way through. And I thought I already uninstall Diablo 3 from my computer……

Where did you hear they may do this, or is it speculation?

This is unfortunate if true, I play a glass cannon staff ele and
the majority of times the enemy is on the move, and not
standing in your AOE. A nerf to it kinda surprises me, unless they
are doing this to nerf the power of 5 eles in WvW stacking.

Thunderbrew.7034:

Where did you hear they may do this, or is it speculation?

This is unfortunate if true, I play a glass cannon staff ele and
the majority of times the enemy is on the move, and not
standing in your AOE. A nerf to it kinda surprises me, unless they
are doing this to nerf the power of 5 eles in WvW stacking.

You must have missed the Livestream interview on upcoming patches…

They never said “nerf”, they said the AoE in the game will receive an update to how it works.

They could go a dozen different ways about this, and yet people assume they will just lower AoE damage?

What if they replace some AoE skills with single target high damage ones? Would that be a nerf?
What if they reduce the AoE radius, but keep the damage? What if they reduce splash damage only but keep or buff target damage? Is that a nerf?

This game is too AoE centric. It needs to be addressed. Doesn’t automatically mean that they will do it so that some classes are pummeled into the ground… elementalists ARE AoE class. Just doing a blanket nerf on AoE damage is not a nerf, it would be a class murder, and I think the devs are not that dumb.

This is the first (proposed) change that left me wondering if ArenaNet really knows what they are doing with their game. Or if they are even playing the same game I am.

I am really not looking forward to seeing what this means for staff. The staff single target spells are so lackluster, if the AoE’s get nerfed down to the point where the single target spells are higher damage, it won’t be a viable weapon anymore.

The only issue I have with AoE in this game is that in WvW it is far too easy to clear the siege off of enemy keep/tower walls with AoE spam, but this is more an issue of the design of the structures themselves than with AoE in general. And it doesn’t sound like this is the driving force behind the changes anyway.

I found the part from a transcript:

AoE abilities balancing
One of the issues brought up a lot in WvW./sPvP is AoE (Area of Effect). We feel like they are too strong at the moment and a lot of people in WvW are gaming the system using AoEs.
For people that don’t know – max targets for siege weapons is 50 while max targets for AoE is 5.
Reducing AoE effectiveness to bring them in line with the single target damage skills.
Major update coming to all the AoE skills – make classes that are good at single target damage stand out a bit more.
Same thing with dungeons – right now if you have a lot of AoE you can past encounters by just spamming AoE which is not what we want.

No matter how you cut it, still clearly states “reducing the effectiveness.”
Considering that the cap is already 5, I can be certain the only other way
to nerf it is damage.

The driving force is probably that overabundant AoE skills that do comparable single target damage as single target skills push the game into spammage territory.

The ONLY problem is that some classes currently are too dependent on AoE skills and just doing a blanket damage reduction would ruin them utterly, while leaving other classes that much more powerful in comparison.

This does not mean that the upcoming change will be a blanket damage nerf. It more than likely means that skills will be reshuffled so that there are fewer AoE ones. I expect upping of main target damage, reduction in splash and area radius and individual buffs of single target damage skills depending on class.

Alilinke.7690:

“If your skil does 10 damage to a single target, if you have another skill that have the same opportunity cost but deals 8 damage to 5 targets, the AoE skill is better – we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs.”

So basically Anet didn’t want us to use AoE skills on single targets, sad thing is, they forgot to give us ANY single target spells. :o Silly Anet, why you so silly?

What are you talking about? The elementalist’s staff has…um…well…yeah, we’re boned.

Honestly, if they (just shooting of the hip here) were to buff, dunno, Fire #1 and nerf Fire #5 (make it a constant channel or a root), so that players are encouraged to use #5 only when there really is a case that warrants carpet bombing, I’d be fine with that.

There are lots of ways to reduce dependency on AoE. I just hope they pick a good one.

The more I think about this, the less it makes sense. For two reasons:

1) AOE deters zergs in WvW from clumping up, which happens allot

2) I run GC staff ele, and have around 10500 HP and I can honestly say
I dont think I have ever died to AOE damage, outside of siege. Which
says allot considering how squishy I am. How? Easy. Map awareness
and not standing in AOE.

If people dont have the sense to avoid or dodge out of AOE, that shouldnt
mean a nerf on AOE needs to happen. If anything, nerf the siege AOE not
the professions.

Thunderbrew.7034:

The more I think about this, the less it makes sense. For two reasons:

1) AOE deters zergs in WvW from clumping up, which happens allot

2) I run GC staff ele, and have around 10500 HP and I can honestly say
I dont think I have ever died to AOE damage, outside of siege. Which
says allot considering how squishy I am. How? Easy. Map awareness
and not standing in AOE.

If people dont have the sense to avoid or dodge out of AOE, that shouldnt
mean a nerf on AOE needs to happen. If anything, nerf the siege AOE not
the professions.

1. NOTHING deters zergs. People like to zerg. The only way to prevent the zerg from forming is to give each player an indiscriminate damage aura so that they kill anyone coming too close to them.
And even then you’ll just end up with a lower density zerg. We humans like to do it and have been doing it ever since one tribe of smart monkeys zerged another.

2. I have seen videos of ele teams absolutely melting entire groups of people with Flash + Dagger Earth #5 synced up. I have seen concentrated AoE used as killing fields when defending gates or when enemy players are ressing mates, making it impossible for players to actually do anything about it. Good luck dodging when your actual goal is in the killing field and you don’t have invuln. skills to rely on.

Just because YOU don’t have any bad experiences with AoE, doesn’t mean anything. Statistics say otherwise. And also, AoE requires far less skill and player coordination than single target skills. AoE is a shotgun. Just point in the general direction and squeeze the trigger. You’ll hit someone. You don’t have to think about who you are attacking, who is the greatest priority… just drop an AoE on them all and pray for the best.

Obviously ANet doesn’t want a “spray and pray” game. The only dumb thing on their part is why they designed so many classes to use nothing BUT AoE.

Gaudrath.6725:

The driving force is probably that overabundant AoE skills that do comparable single target damage as single target skills push the game into spammage territory.

The ONLY problem is that some classes currently are too dependent on AoE skills and just doing a blanket damage reduction would ruin them utterly, while leaving other classes that much more powerful in comparison.

This does not mean that the upcoming change will be a blanket damage nerf. It more than likely means that skills will be reshuffled so that there are fewer AoE ones. I expect upping of main target damage, reduction in splash and area radius and individual buffs of single target damage skills depending on class.

It may not be a blanket damage nerf, but I think “reducing the effectiveness of AoE” is a pretty clear indication of what kind of changes to expect. I would love to think that the changes will be more rework than nerf, but there’s literally nothing in what was said to support this idea.

I think we can both agree that taking what was said at face value would mean that staff builds would be “ruined” — we just differ on whether or not this is a possible outcome. You seem to think they can’t possibly be this stupid, I’m not so sure (don’t forget that we are talking about the same people who are only just now 5 months in closing off free server transfers).

As for single target damage and ‘spammage’, it isn’t like I can run around gibbing people with Ice Spike / Eruption spam, but from the kind of discussion I see on the forums (and from the devs) that’s exactly how they make it sound. Guess what? I still use staff autos a lot, even though they mostly suck. Know why? Because it’s possible to put all AoE damaging abilities on cooldown. If staff users were actually overperforming in 1v1, then I’d say OK, it’s fair to look at their single target damage, but that just isn’t the case.

The whole “AoE shouldn’t hit harder than single target” thing only holds true when you talk about all abilities across all classes. There is nothing wrong with having a class / weapon set which is relatively weak at single target compared to its AoE potential, and it’s troubling that ArenaNet seems to maybe not understand this.

Gaudrath.6725:

1. NOTHING deters zergs. People like to zerg. The only way to prevent the zerg from forming is to give each player an indiscriminate damage aura so that they kill anyone coming too close to them.

Off topic but still: once I went out of a keep that was being sieged, I pop my Wall of Reflection (Guardian) and watched as the zerg dropped like flies. It’s true people form zergs for the “safety in numbers” and the fact that they can shutdown their brain and just use 11111111 and take the rewards.
I think what Thunderbrew meant was with AoE (and some other skills, like my example above) you can actually hurt a mindless zerg, so people will have to adapt and bring counter skills, or simply start using their brain. Remove that AoE “threat” and zergs will continue being dominant.
Besides, if a small group of adventurers knows perfectly how to play their profs, why shouldn’t they be allowed to dominate zergs?

ThiBash.5634:

At the moment, the D/D build (which is more single target orientated) deals about twice the damage of a staff build (which is mostly AoE).

This is what the intended effect of the nerf will be. Hence, if the nerf is applied, it’ll be as if it were applied twice on the staff elementalist.

yes and less than half than a warrior.

Note a difference

D/D melee
Staff ranged

There is a reason if you rarely see a D/D ele in higher fractals….and if you see, it will change weapon on many bosses.

Gaudrath.6725:

2. I have seen videos of ele teams absolutely melting entire groups of people with Flash + Dagger Earth #5 synced up.

Yeah, you’re talking about churn bombs. I happen to think Churning Earth is poorly designed and in need of a change. In theory it’s balanced out by the ridiculously long cast time and self-root, but in reality having stability and lightning flash makes those a lot less of an issue. I don’t take it as an indication that AoE in general needs a nerf.

Gaudrath.6725:

I have seen concentrated AoE used as killing fields when defending gates or when enemy players are ressing mates, making it impossible for players to actually do anything about it. Good luck dodging when your actual goal is in the killing field and you don’t have invuln. skills to rely on. Just because YOU don’t have any bad experiences with AoE, doesn’t mean anything. Statistics say otherwise.

That’s sort of the point, to give bad experiences to the people with red names. Is it your belief that AoE should be ineffective at holding chokes, or preventing rezzes?

Gaudrath.6725:

And also, AoE requires far less skill and player coordination than single target skills. AoE is a shotgun. Just point in the general direction and squeeze the trigger. You’ll hit someone. You don’t have to think about who you are attacking, who is the greatest priority… just drop an AoE on them all and pray for the best.

This certainly isn’t true of staff ele. Given how long it takes for staff abilities to actually deal damage, there’s a lot more to playing staff ele than just “spray and pray”, and it mostly comes down to finding ways to keep people in your fields as long as possible.

Well, they can’t dominate a zerg, because a zerg will instagib them. I’m not talking about those zombie zergs, they’re basically point farms and will be regardless of any changes.

But the problem with AoE is that you can:

a) create killing fields
b) focus fire without actually focusing

For example, in EvE Online, a game famous for its zergs, one common tactic is to focus fire targets. Basically you have 50-100 people on teamspeak and the commander calls out primary and secondary targets one by one until they’re all gone. It requires cooperation, tactics and good understanding on what is important and what isn’t on the part of the commander.

The only true AoE in that game are bombs, PBAoE devices and doomsday devices. Bombs can be delivered only by ships made of soggy tissue paper, PBAoE have a really, really crappy range and doomsday devices make your wallet cry.
EVERYTHING else is single target. Why? Because if most weapons were AoE, like in GW2, then zerg fights would quickly be reduced to who has the most people and is faster on setting up their killing fields.

AoE, as others have said, is not a problem, the problem is AoE + multiple players. You can’t do anything about that sort of thing, people will stack up whenever they can. So the only thing you can do is make that stacking up be costly or situation-specific enough not to warrant its use in every single fight.

Thunderbrew.7034:

I found the part from a transcript:

AoE abilities balancing
One of the issues brought up a lot in WvW./sPvP is AoE (Area of Effect). We feel like they are too strong at the moment and a lot of people in WvW are gaming the system using AoEs.
For people that don’t know – max targets for siege weapons is 50 while max targets for AoE is 5.
Reducing AoE effectiveness to bring them in line with the single target damage skills.
Major update coming to all the AoE skills – make classes that are good at single target damage stand out a bit more.
Same thing with dungeons – right now if you have a lot of AoE you can past encounters by just spamming AoE which is not what we want.

No matter how you cut it, still clearly states “reducing the effectiveness.”
Considering that the cap is already 5, I can be certain the only other way
to nerf it is damage.

I watched the live stream, but somehow missed the part about making single target damage “stand out more”. This is absolutely horrible, not just from an Ele’s point of view. When you think single target, thief and warrior comes to mind with insane single target bursts. They aim to make that stand out even more?!

AoE is the only thing some classes have going for them. On my Necro, I mainly use a staff with Wells for my utilities, all AoE. I do this because our single target is terrible, unless you go conditions, and we have no other long range power options. If they nerf AoE across the board, my Necro just became useless to me.

AoE has always been weaker than single target. It has to be, because it hits multiple players. But even if an AoE does manage to hit a lot of damage, it requires the enemy to stand still in a glowing/flaming red/purple/black circle, which nobody ever does. So the damage actually done is a small fraction of its potential. The only way I could see making these changes work is to see AoE damage reduced, but make the damage dealt instantly, as soon as you place the marker.

That’s not a transcript. That’s just a bunch of bullet points someone unofficial wrote. I wouldn’t be surprised if the “single target classes stand out more” was just added on top of what was actually said.

Gaudrath.6725:

That’s not a transcript. That’s just a bunch of bullet points someone unofficial wrote. I wouldn’t be surprised if the “single target classes stand out more” was just added on top of what was actually said.

Then I recommend that you actually watch the video, because it’s basically verbatim what was said about 12:40 in.

“The AoE skills themselves, the damage ratios we feel like can be tweaked a little bit to get more play, such that they’re not as strong when juxtaposed with the single target damage skills. We feel like right now AoE, in World v World as well as in PvP, it probably is a little bit too strong across the board. So we’ll be doing a major update to all the AoE skills to kind of bring them back in line a little bit, which then lets those classes who are really strong at killing a single target, they kind of stand out a little bit more …”

Still think this is going to be some grand redesign of class abilities?

EDIT: For extra hilarity, watch the part right before what I quoted, where one of the designers asks the other for an example of an AoE ability. The response: “Fireball. Fire Blast. Things that actually do … that type of damage.” You can’t make this stuff up folks.

Lol, where is my standard issue Picard facepalm….

No wonder everyone is panicking, it does sound like they want thieves to “stand out a little bit more”… XD

Ah well, we will see if their actual balancing decisions are better than their PR talks. I am still hoping that they realize most of their classes are based around AoE. The only class I can think of that is almost exclusively single target is Thief. Everyone else… elementalists, engineers, necros, mesmers with their shatters, even guardian skills are over 50% AoE. Warriors have AoE too.

So they better know what they’re doing or the forum rage will truly be of epic proportions.

Gaudrath.6725:

For example, in EvE Online, a game famous for its zergs, one common tactic is to focus fire targets. Basically you have 50-100 people on teamspeak and the commander calls out primary and secondary targets one by one until they’re all gone. It requires cooperation, tactics and good understanding on what is important and what isn’t on the part of the commander

The difference is you had the interface to support focus firing, had counters to it (dampening, ecm, range limits) and it required pretty kitten good situational awareness across the board.

Gaudrath.6725:

The only true AoE in that game are bombs, PBAoE devices and doomsday devices. Bombs can be delivered only by ships made of soggy tissue paper, PBAoE have a really, really crappy range and doomsday devices make your wallet cry.

I would equate smartbombs and bomber fleets with daggerstorm thieves and churning earth ele’s, both niche uses of AOE.

Gaudrath.6725:

AoE, as others have said, is not a problem, the problem is AoE + multiple players. You can’t do anything about that sort of thing, people will stack up whenever they can.

I would adapt that statement to say that the problem is AoE + stupid players. What the hell is wrong with using a time-proven tactic of creating killing fields and using choke points?

Yeah humanity in the form of guild wars 2 zergs, the only other mammals besides sheep and lemmings that flock up and run INTO danger. If only we could nerf stupidity (not directed at the OP in this case).

Arenanet pretty much saw the mistake they made with all those AoE abilities. Guild Wars 2 is literally an AoE fest. Nothing screams “skilless noob” more than AoE does.

Single target combo that require precision, timing and setup are fun to execute and requires skill. Targeting the ground from a distance is not only boring but deals more damage than single target; which is completely kitten

Moonrabbit.1543:

I cannot fathom why ANet is targeting AoE and, by virtue of this, the elementalist and engineer, which are underpowered in PVE. I hope that they restrict their nerfs to PvP, though I suspect that the changes will affect all areas of game play. Why is it that they keep implementing dramatic nerfs for caster classes in this game? I do not want to play a warrior, guardian, or thief, yet these are apparently ANet’s favored professions. Are they not aware of the capabilities of a thief relative to an elementalist (let alone an engineer)? Why am I being incentivized to play classes that I never want to play in any MMO?

I understand you want to know why Anet is targeting AE, well lets look at this clip shall we:

Gaudrath.6725:

Lol, where is my standard issue Picard facepalm….

No wonder everyone is panicking, it does sound like they want thieves to “stand out a little bit more”… XD

Ah well, we will see if their actual balancing decisions are better than their PR talks. I am still hoping that they realize most of their classes are based around AoE. The only class I can think of that is almost exclusively single target is Thief. Everyone else… elementalists, engineers, necros, mesmers with their shatters, even guardian skills are over 50% AoE. Warriors have AoE too.

So they better know what they’re doing or the forum rage will truly be of epic proportions.

Agree 100%. It just a strange thing to go after in a game like this. Here’s to hoping they don’t royally screw it up.

MarzAttakz.9608:

I would adapt that statement to say that the problem is AoE + stupid players. What the hell is wrong with using a time-proven tactic of creating killing fields and using choke points?

The problem is when you have designed the game so that those chokepoints become unavoidable. If you want to rez a downed player = suicide with AoE stacking. If you want to bust down a gate = suicide with AoE stacking. Terrain chokepoint = impassable with dedicated AoE team.

So yes, there are other ways. As you mentioned, if we had effective defensive skills that would work against AoE attacks, that would be great, and also a great way to neuter AoE skills without actually punishing classes that use them… they would just have to be more creative and skilled with them. Unfortunately, in this game defensive skills are rather lacking, and very few protect against AoE type attacks.
And of course, then you have the issue of defense stacking.

I think it was a mistake to create so many AoE skills in the first place. I remember my days in WoW back a few years, and AoE damage skills were both quite rare and difficult to pull off. And nobody had a problem with that. What is it with modern MMOs and the need to blast a gazillion mobs/players at the same time…

Calae.1738:

Arenanet pretty much saw the mistake they made with all those AoE abilities. Guild Wars 2 is literally an AoE fest. Nothing screams “skilless noob” more than AoE does.

Single target combo that require precision, timing and setup are fun to execute and requires skill. Targeting the ground from a distance is not only boring but deals more damage than single target; which is completely kitten

What the heck are you talking about? You say all of the above like Elementalists have a choice on whether or not to roll with single-target or aoe weapon skills. Some of you guys…

/smh

darkace.8925:

Calae.1738:

Arenanet pretty much saw the mistake they made with all those AoE abilities. Guild Wars 2 is literally an AoE fest. Nothing screams “skilless noob” more than AoE does.

Single target combo that require precision, timing and setup are fun to execute and requires skill. Targeting the ground from a distance is not only boring but deals more damage than single target; which is completely kitten

What the heck are you talking about? You say all of the above like Elementalists have a choice on whether or not to roll with single-target or aoe weapon skills. Some of you guys…

/smh

To be honest, if they nerfed our AoE to hell but gave us decent single target burst damage skills with multiple build options, I’d be fine with that. Sniper elementalist? Hell yeah.

Still hoping they will do just that… we will see. Should be entertaining in either case.

Cempa.5619:

Moonrabbit.1543:

I cannot fathom why ANet is targeting AoE and, by virtue of this, the elementalist and engineer, which are underpowered in PVE. I hope that they restrict their nerfs to PvP, though I suspect that the changes will affect all areas of game play. Why is it that they keep implementing dramatic nerfs for caster classes in this game? I do not want to play a warrior, guardian, or thief, yet these are apparently ANet’s favored professions. Are they not aware of the capabilities of a thief relative to an elementalist (let alone an engineer)? Why am I being incentivized to play classes that I never want to play in any MMO?

I understand you want to know why Anet is targeting AE, well lets look at this clip shall we:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-919RMwyfnk

These players are on voice, communicate well, pick the ideal location to fight, and make good use of combo fields, cc, and cleansing one another. The fight lasts for over 3 minutes, looks like a complete riot for both sides, and almost resulted in members of ‘the 4’ getting downed at multiple points, which probably would have been a wipe for them.

You take 4 random pugs and put them against ‘30’ in that same scenario and watch them get melted 1000 times out of 1000.

An example of teamwork > sheer numbers. What exactly is the problem here again?

One of the things that bother me is the following sentence:

If your skil does 10 damage to a single target, if you have another skill that have the same opportunity cost but deals 8 damage to 5 targets, the AoE skill is better – we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs.

I don’t know which skill they are referring to but I sure as hell don’t have any skills that do that. All highly damaging AoE skills have something to counterbalance them: they are either slower to cast (nearly all elementalist AoEs), have significantly lower damage (all necro AoEs) or generally have difficulties hitting single foes (meteor shower).

Also if they don’t want us to use AoEs against single targets they are basically saying that they don’t want us to use certain weapons at all.

I really dropped WvW because of all the thieves but last time I checked that was pretty much the only PvP related place where you would see staff necros and eles. No one really does team or mostly single target PvP with a staff ele or necro to my knowledge, and that’s because people know AoEs are significantly weaker vs single target. Especially against target who knows how to dodge.

Same thing with dungeons – right now if you have a lot of AoE you can past encounters by just spamming AoE which is not what we want.

Again this feels like a weird statement. Current enemy design in dungeons seems to favor foes that either:

a) spawn in swarms until you destroy the thing that spawns them in which case yes. I want AoEs to damage the swarm while simultaneously damaging the spawner. I thought this was exactly what AoEs are for. Why do a swarm encounter if you expect us to fight them one at a time?

b) trash mobs that have ungodly amount of hp so in fact abilities that allow you to do more damage certainly won’t hurt. I have never heard anyone complaining that for example staff ele is too powerful in a dungeon as opposed to for example a thief.

What exactly do they want? We already skip all mobs we can. Forcing us to fight every trash mob one by one certainly won’t make at least me want to fight them any more than now. I mean stating “now if you have a lot of AoE you can past encounters by just spamming AoE” is not true in my experience. That’s now how you get past them. You get past them by stealthing…

When playing ele I use staff when in teams because I know I’m squishy and fighting from range is much safer than showing your squishy self against massively damaging enemies in melee. 14k hp and enemy that does 8k hp damage with a few hits certainly does not encourage me to be in melee. I never D/D dungeons because it’s a suicide.

Hello,

There is already a dedicated thread about the AoE here: Is AoE actually a problem? – Discussion Thread.

Therefore this one is now closed to avoid duplicates.

Thank you for your understanding.