Guild Wars 2

FIX OUR DOWNED SKILLS!

If you refuse to fix them, just remove them so we can respawn faster. Don’t make use endure the charade of pretending we will actually get back up. What the hell is wrong with you sadists anyway?

Engineer’s pull ability can be used to pull weak yellow mobs to your location. This is especially useful in WvW where you can rez yourself with the enemies damage. While I will agree our downed state is relatively weak we also have the only downstate that pulls things to us, and this can be advantageous (single out weak enemies for your allies to kill/etc.)

Stop with the Stockholm Syndrome dude. The one time in fifty it’s advantageous to yank someone to you does not counter the forty nine times it’s a death sentence.

I think we’re the only class next to Warrior that has one interrupt and then must lay there and take the stomp. If our #3 skill was a little shorter, so that we had a second interrupt, I’d be happier with what we have.

Most classes, after all, have a second interrupt up their sleeve if they pull off the first one, even in time of using their #2 skill immediately.

I’m not saying that our downed state is fantastic, but you guys are really over estimating what other classes can do. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_downed_skills#Skills_by_profession

There are two types of downed states: Interrupt (Guardian, Warrior, Ranger, Necro, Engineer) and Escape (Theif, Mesmer, Elementalist)

The only class capable of chaining two interrupts in a row is the engineer. Guardian has a single push, which is better than our grapple because it is AOE, and then they die. Rangers also have an AOE interrupt. They have a higher chance of survival because they can heal faster and use pets. They’re harder to kill than guardians. Warrior has a single interrupt, just like we do. After that they either die or use Vengeance, cause some havoc, and then die. Necros have a single interrupt. They use it and then they die.

Engineers have a single interrupt. Then, if our enemy is slow at stomping, tries to DPS us down, or gets distracted by allies, we have a second one, which is very effective at clearing an area and giving your allies time to help you. Then we die.

Engineers cannot counter stealth stomp. Neither can warriors, Rangers, or Necros. Engineers cannot counter invincibility/stability stomp. Neither can warriors, rangers, necros, or guardians. Engineers cannot counter blind stomp. Neither can warriors, necros, or guardians.

Engineers are just as good, or bad, in their downstate as any of the other 4 interrupt classes. The only one that pulls ahead is Ranger thanks to self rez.

Looking at the other three professions, they have no way to interrupt their opponents, instead they rely on moving themselves to a safer location. In some cases this is more effective (getting back into a keep as an Ele in WvW), in others it is less so (keeping a capture point contested in Spvp as a thief). Either way, all three are better at surviving than the interrupt based classes due to their immunity to Stealth, Stability, Invulnerability, and Blind stomps.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I think we’re the only class next to Warrior that has one interrupt and then must lay there and take the stomp. If our #3 skill was a little shorter, so that we had a second interrupt, I’d be happier with what we have.

Most classes, after all, have a second interrupt up their sleeve if they pull off the first one, even in time of using their #2 skill immediately.

I’d say that is the issue. Why not put 3 to 2 to have that AoE interrupt other professions have expect for warrior(who can stand up with with his 3 that we can not).
And maybe then give us a new 3..or give us something like SD/Static Shot that interrupts 3 enemies trying to stomp and call it “overcharge toolbelt” or something like that.
At least SOMETHING to help us survive 2 stompers so we can either get help of kill something. The way the pull is, it can’t really help us survive. Other then that I’m very happy with 3 if only we could use it earlier or as our new 2.

I’d like to see our 2 be an AoE pull + cripple, or a single target pull + KD (to ensure if they get hit we will get off our second interrupt)

Engineer downed state is fine.

The problem with the pull skill…is that it pulls. If you are in the situation of using it as it is available, you are guaranteeing the enemy a stomp after that due of the recharge time of the third skill. They don’t have to walk like a fear would do and neither it knockdowns them – something that gives you some precious seconds to charge up the third skill – and are instead already in place to stomp you.

Engineer downed skill #2 can miss if the engineer died on uneven ground, where as e.g. guardian’s #2 seems to be a guaranteed interrupt (unless enemy has stability, which would prevent those interrupt down skills enemy case).

In big WvWvW zergy situations guardians #2 is light years better as it is AoE and engineer’s downed #2 is single target, just like warrior’s #2. Engineer won’t survive long enough to use #3.

In my honest opinion engineer and warrior have the worst set of downed skills in the game. But warrior is heavy armor with higher hit pool.

Ya’ll are pretty narrow minded on the reality of the method of stomping. There are three scenarios:

1) Your enemy downs you from melee, stomps you
2) Your enemy downs you from range, DPS you
3) Your enemy downs you from range, runs in to stomp you

What happens after:
1) No profession can survive this for long. Most professions have a single interrupt and then they’re down. Most cannot get their third skill in.
2) This is where we really shine. The enemy is not going to come in for a stomp, giving your number 3 a good chance of coming up. Pull him, then use number 3. You might get another pull in to interrupt him once again.
3) Similar situation to number two, but now you have to time it properly. Can still get number three if you interrupt at the right time.

Down skills are stalling tactics, not a real reliable way to get up. Downed skills are there to give your team mates a better chance to get you up; it’s not really meant to get you up solo. The only profession I know of that has a chance of Rallying from an enemy is Mesmer; with Warrior coming in second because of the trait.

OP it totally right, who needs a skill that pulls in the enemy to a perfect position to finish us ? Ohhh wait, let me help you get here, dont work too hard to finish me off!
Not to mention that kitten skill works only 1 out of 5 times, ever pressed that skill PRETTY FAST right after you went down? yeah right, all it does is “pooofff” and you have a cooldown running on 2. So its in line with the turret overcharge skills lol, “works 25% of the time, if you are lucky”, live with it.

as often as this was discussed already, I also would rather ahve some fancy fireworks on 2 and 3, at least I could die with some style then ;D

Saki Asakura.6479:

Engineers are just as good, or bad, in their downstate as any of the other 4 interrupt classes. The only one that pulls ahead is Ranger thanks to self rez.

No, its not. Engineer and Warrior are the two worst.

Necro doesnt require LoS. Meaning a pet, or other player, or “terrain feature” cannot block his interupt.
A Ranger has an AoE interupt. Meaning he can directly prevent 5 players from stomping. And indrectly, even deal with Stealth stomps as long as there is a target to splash off. Certain pets also do a CC, interupting again.

The only difference between a Guardian and Ranger interupt is that the Ranger needs a target to do his interupt.

Saying these two are on equal ground with Warrior and Engineer doesnt do it justice. The difference with Necro might not be groundbreaking. But when Downed State is just 3 skills there should not be any inbalance at all.

Thief, Mesmer and Elementalist are on a whole different level. They can interupt regardless of Stability, number of enemies, LoS, being Blinded, Stealth, Aegis, anything really. Especially Elementalist is just silly because he can go through portals and wipes Conditions twice.
Mesmer just needs anything as a target, so it can be possible to be Stealth Stomped, but if there is so much as a critter nearby, not even Stealth matters.
Thief can teleport away, avoiding stomps and then has a 2nd Stomp Stopper by going into Stealth, which actually has a low enough charge up time to be reliable and available.

Downed State in GW2 is utterly unbalanced. And that while it comes down to just 3 skills, thats just silly…

The engineer downed skill is not visually impressive like a thief/mes/ele but it is actually quite dangerous. If you’ve ever tried to down an engineer when it’s not perfectly safe to stomp then you’d notice. If you don’t finish it in 20 secs (which happens a lot in crowded fights) be prepared to see something drastic happen, such as everyone on your team flying off from ground zero. Doesn’t happen often but you can see this sometimes on capture points. Your team members that are low on health might even go straight down.

Similarly if you don’t down a warrior in 20 secs he’s gonna get up and hit you some more, no question asked. The warrior is probably the most rallied class I see around, even more in PvE.

Comparatively, thief/ele/mes can be annoying to kill/stomp but their downed skills generally pose no threat to you or your team whatsoever. Even if you suck at finding them, as long as you still find them in the end and keep up the shooting they’ll never rally.

I can’t believe people are comparing Engineer 3 with Warrior…which can be traited to 100% chance to rally if you kill someone in vengeance. If you have a close fight and you both go down…engineer loses.

Conan.8046:

If you have a close fight and you both go down…engineer loses.

This applies to Engineer vs Anything.

Aswell as Anything vs Warrior.

One of a bunch of pretty clear examples of how unbalanced Downed State is. When 1 profession in a Downed fight is guarenteed to win 100% of the time.

I have only 1 time managed to use my downed skills effectively. 1v1 I used the pull to interupt a finisher, then the bomb to do it again, then my pull again for a 3rd interupt. It was hilarious…until he walked back to me for a 4th time and finished me. Admittedly, I’m thinking he wasn’t very good.

Conan.8046:

I can’t believe people are comparing Engineer 3 with Warrior…which can be traited to 100% chance to rally if you kill someone in vengeance. If you have a close fight and you both go down…engineer loses.

Terrahero.9358:

Conan.8046:

If you have a close fight and you both go down…engineer loses.

This applies to Engineer vs Anything.

Aswell as Anything vs Warrior.

One of a bunch of pretty clear examples of how unbalanced Downed State is. When 1 profession in a Downed fight is guarenteed to win 100% of the time.

Amazingly we still got people even in this thread saying warrior is the worst together with engineer. Anyway I did not intend to compare engineer with warrior. I’m just arguing in favor of the supposedly two worst. Too many people are considering downed skills from just the # of interrupts.

And anyway I did say warriors rallied the most.

Lol, OP you make me laugh. I agree with your frustration, but your reaction is just hilarious. XD

funny story from a couple of days ago:

me and a buddy were skirmishing a zerg, at some point we got chased by 6-7 guys and we decided to focus the commander down and risk everything for a stomp. I get the stomp with elixir S at 300hp and I immediatly die. Some random guy comes for the stomp as my buddy tries to ress me, I use my perfectly timed #2 skill and what happens? nothing. turns out one of our opponents was a guardian with that ress bubble trait which absorbs projectiles, triggered when he tried to ress their commander. So my #2 skill got absorbed. And I got stomped.
the end!

Maskaganda.2043:

funny story from a couple of days ago:

Just another average day for an engineer

I think engineer has some of the best downed abilities in the game. Particularly awesome was the situation where I was downed near a ledge, interrupted the stomp with the pull, he went for another, and I blew him off the ledge with #3 and rallied.

I have an idea:

Remove downed state in sPvP.

down state if fine. l2p, etc etc

I don’t get the problems with the downed state. 2 interrupts, easy to get a mob close to a rally, can alternatively knock mobs away to clear a rezzing area.

Really, the only downside is that #2 doesn’t feel much Engineer-y, I’d prefer spawning a turret which fires harpoons, throwing down a magnetic bomb or something like that.

I think they can fix it by switching #2 to smoke bomb from the bomb kit.
It should be simple since the ability already exists, not need to be reworked and only the cooldown needs to be changed to 15s.

It has counterplay since the enemy can fight from range, wait it out or knock the engi out of the field.
It combo’s w/ #3 and many skills from other classes. Doesn’t need a target and can’t be reflect-able although the condition can be transferred back

As for PvE it can stay as a pull since its probably more beneficial to be able to pull weak enemy close to rally off of them

It won’t be perfect but would help more vs other players

The problem with the 2 skill for eng (and war) is that it’s far too easily countered. If that first skill doesn’t succeed… you’re toast. At least with the other classes it’s not so stupidly easy to counter. The 3 skill isn’t bad (middle of the pack) but the CD on it is too long and it’s also not as powerful as other classes 3 skills.

So eng has an easily countered 2 skill (worst in the game along with war for this slot) and a mid range 3 skill (in terms of power/usefulness). This is why eng’s downed needs a fix

Carighan.6758:

I don’t get the problems with the downed state. 2 interrupts, easy to get a mob close to a rally, can alternatively knock mobs away to clear a rezzing area.

Really, the only downside is that #2 doesn’t feel much Engineer-y, I’d prefer spawning a turret which fires harpoons, throwing down a magnetic bomb or something like that.

It isnt about PvE. Downed State is a gimmick for PvE and really all of them are usefull and you can actually use all your skills because mobs dont stomp you.

Downed State in PvP, any kind of PvP, is utterly unbalanced. Because stomping is a factor. And certain professions have a vastly superior means to avoid getting stomped then other professions.

I mainly play WvW. And in WvW it comes down to this, when you get downed staying alive for as long as possible is vital. The longer you are alive the bigger the chance someone gets killed and you get a rally. Just, stay alive.
For an Engineer, forget it. One interupt with a whole list of counters to prevent you from interupting, and staying put in whatever clusterkitten you went down. But, as an Elementalist. lololol ill just stroll into a nearby tower, or walk away to allies, and while i do this I AM IMMUNE TO STOMPS NO MATTER WHAT. My Ele’s interupt cannot fail.

That is where this becomes an issue. Some professions have an undeniably superior downed state. And as a result, they get to survive the downed state just that much more often, and come back to fight again. While the professions that had a crappy downed state, serve just to feed the enemy a wave of rallies.

So? Then the superior PvP downed state can be balanced out with better or worse staying power when on their feet.

And hrm… I play a lot of WvW, and no one ever stomps in the Aurora Glade bracket. Just damage them to death. Sure Elementalists can be annoying when they hump towers, but a single Elementalist’s damage is so negligible, it hardly matters in the bigger picture. And I only once saw multiple eles do a coordinated death rush.

In short:
Yes, it’s unbalanced. And yes, more balance would be good. However, I don’t see how they can be balanced due to very very deep functional differences. Without removing those differences, which I think would be worse than the current imbalances, which can always be accounted for in the overall class balance.

Carighan.6758:

So? Then the superior PvP downed state can be balanced out with better or worse staying power when on their feet.

And hrm… I play a lot of WvW, and no one ever stomps in the Aurora Glade bracket. Just damage them to death. Sure Elementalists can be annoying when they hump towers, but a single Elementalist’s damage is so negligible, it hardly matters in the bigger picture. And I only once saw multiple eles do a coordinated death rush.

In short:
Yes, it’s unbalanced. And yes, more balance would be good. However, I don’t see how they can be balanced due to very very deep functional differences. Without removing those differences, which I think would be worse than the current imbalances, which can always be accounted for in the overall class balance.

Balancing someone’s state where he isnt downed just because he has a better downed state is just frankly an idiotic idea.

And how couldnt you see it balanced? Its the most simplistic combat system i GW2, and most simplistic ive seen in a long time.

1) You damage your enemy
2) You interupt an enemy, preventing a Stomp
3) You do a gimmick
4) Heal

1 and 2 are very, VERY, easy to balance. But right now its for some profession 2) works on only 1 enemy, if that enemy has stability, aegis or stealth, it will not work. It will not work if you are blinded, and its a projectile that can be bodyblocked.
For others, 2 works. Guarenteed. No matter what.

Thats about the furtest you can get from balance. Damage isnt balanced either. But if we cannot trust ANet to balance out 3 downed skills then what does that say about balancing the game in general?

George Steel.1804:

I think engineer has some of the best downed abilities in the game. Particularly awesome was the situation where I was downed near a ledge, interrupted the stomp with the pull, he went for another, and I blew him off the ledge with #3 and rallied.

For PVP players, one thing you have to remember as an engineer is that we own in skyhammer control room, even when downed. If you use mines, and have knockback traited on turrets, or you make use of shield #4 or FT #3, or use any of our great Crowd Control options in the control room, you will be sending some professions packing for a long trip down town. Even with your downed state skills. Rallying right before a stability stomp because an enemy’s teammate got blown off the ledge by engineer downed skill 3 is kinda priceless.

Terrahero.9358:

1 and 2 are very, VERY, easy to balance. But right now its for some profession 2) works on only 1 enemy, if that enemy has stability, aegis or stealth, it will not work. It will not work if you are blinded, and its a projectile that can be bodyblocked.
For others, 2 works. Guarenteed. No matter what.

Thats about the furtest you can get from balance. Damage isnt balanced either. But if we cannot trust ANet to balance out 3 downed skills then what does that say about balancing the game in general?

I think we are just looking for something very very different in this MMORPG we play.

You seem to be looking for an arena-type game, hence you want balance as tight as possible, right? The ideal net result is that player skill is always the deciding factor in who wins, assuming both characters are the same level.

I look for an atmospheric RPG, even in PvP. Hence the last thing I want is homogenization, I want classes to feel meaningfully different. Part of this is that I accept that difference will necessitate imbalance, as you cannot make RPGs properly balanced (in the small scale, like 1 class vs 1 class) without homogenization in concept, form or implementation.

In other words, the imbalance doesn’t bother me simply because I hate the alternative even more. And WoW nicely showed what homogenization does over it’s now 9 years of existence. We used to have classes insanely better at interrupting than others, nowadays melee classes have an expected “level” of interrupt. Likewise tanks have a common “level” of timer abilities, instead of the DK being a timer-based tank vs the Druid being a sponge vs the Paladin having superior threat (and so on).

Yes, all of these changes improved balance.
They also steadily made classes less meaningful to play. Ultimately it didn’t matter any more whether I played my DK Tank or my Paladin Tank because there was no longer a situation where I was an inherently superior – or inferior! – tank.

And that last bit is important, really.
Class uniqueness requires areas of power and weakness. It requires that a class is different by more than just graphical effects. And as soon as such a difference exist, there’ll be someone over- and someone underpowered, by virtue of classes being too complex to be balanced on the small scale.

Does that mean downed skills should never be tweaked? No.
But we shouldn’t be thinking that all downed skills need to be equally useful, as that’d require all to be target-less and self-rezzing to keep up with Ele #2 and Warrior #3. And that would make for a very very boring RPG class setup.

@Carighan.6758

You can have things be balanced and still have that eng thematic atmosphere to the abilities used. I don’t feel like eng tossing scorpion wire is very eng in the first place. Say if #2 was a short magnet pull instead… that would be far better for the downed state balance and would also be more eng like.

As far as wanting classes to be unbalanced… I think you’re in a world of your own there. I like that classes can be stronger in some ways but an overall balance is required for a game which they wish to be an e-sport some day. Downed states need some work to get up to that standard.

Carighan.6758:

Terrahero.9358:

1 and 2 are very, VERY, easy to balance. But right now its for some profession 2) works on only 1 enemy, if that enemy has stability, aegis or stealth, it will not work. It will not work if you are blinded, and its a projectile that can be bodyblocked.
For others, 2 works. Guarenteed. No matter what.

Thats about the furtest you can get from balance. Damage isnt balanced either. But if we cannot trust ANet to balance out 3 downed skills then what does that say about balancing the game in general?

I think we are just looking for something very very different in this MMORPG we play.

You seem to be looking for an arena-type game, hence you want balance as tight as possible, right? The ideal net result is that player skill is always the deciding factor in who wins, assuming both characters are the same level.

Im not looking for a perfectly symetric arena based mmo.

But the current Downed State is a joke. This isnt “atmoshpereic”, this is blatently favoring certain professions. Giving out pretty big advantages just for playing A instead of B.

That does not gel with any form of competitive play. Of which GW2 actually has plenty of. I have no illusions that PvP will be perfectly balanced, it never will be. But for the love of Grenth. When some professions have to deal with kitten damage and a kitten poor interupt.
Then you give other professions the ability to basicly disregard their life because they are guarenteed safety from death. YOU kittenED UP.

No excuses, none. There is nothing fun about downing an Elementalist and knowing “He’s just going to run into the tower, no point in even trying to kill him”. Or having such a kittenty downed state that you just get up for a drink when you get downed because there is just no way.
And these are far from the only issues with the downed state. Yet it seems to get pretty much zero attention from the devs.

So when people try and get it through to the devs that this stuff warrents a long hard look, i fully support that.

Terrahero.9358:

No excuses, none. There is nothing fun about downing an Elementalist and knowing “He’s just going to run into the tower, no point in even trying to kill him”. Or having such a kittenty downed state that you just get up for a drink when you get downed because there is just no way.

On the other hand, downed Elementalist will never ever interupt you ressing/downing another player, nor will he knock you of of the gun platform in Skyhammer and he certainly will not be able to pull you of the capture point.

You seem to assume, that every time the Elementalist uses Vaporform, he is guaranteed to heal up and rally without anyone interupting.

Quick Fix For Engineer Downed State With Minimal Time To Implement:

Remove the downed state bar and replace it with Alt + F4.

Fortunately we can do this now, but it’d be a nice Quality of Life addition to clear up the bug that allows an Engineer to be able to do something while downed. On extremely rare occasions I’ve encountered a bug where it will allow the Engineer to negate a stomp and judging by the design of it that is clearly not functioning as intended.

I never cared much about the downed state for Engi…usually when I’m downed I’m dead, and I haven’t played the other professions in PvP enough to compare. But now I’m starting to understand what folks are talking about. Me an a buddy were on a point and both of us were downed within 10 seconds of each other. A bad guy started to stomp my buddy so I #2’d the enemy. He then proceeded to stomp me instead! Not cool man, not cool!

Naab.4301:

Terrahero.9358:

No excuses, none. There is nothing fun about downing an Elementalist and knowing “He’s just going to run into the tower, no point in even trying to kill him”. Or having such a kittenty downed state that you just get up for a drink when you get downed because there is just no way.

On the other hand, downed Elementalist will never ever interupt you ressing/downing another player, nor will he knock you of of the gun platform in Skyhammer and he certainly will not be able to pull you of the capture point.

You seem to assume, that every time the Elementalist uses Vaporform, he is guaranteed to heal up and rally without anyone interupting.

In WvW that is exactly what happens.

As for the Engineer. The bomb on 3# has such a long wind up before its ready, why is the Engineer still downed when this becomes available? And 2# is countered by just about everything, Blind, Aegis, Stability, LoS, Stealth, reflect projectile. Plenty of ways to avoid that pull. Besides the obvious “dont stand somewhere he can pull you down” or just dodge the super obvious animation and projectile.

And that is just 1 sPvP map where this might be an issue. None of this applies to PvE, WvW or any of other other PvP maps.
Abnd still there are plenty of ways to counter my stomp interupt. How many counters are there for an Elementalists stomp interupt? Exactly zero.

Naab.4301:

On the other hand, downed Elementalist will never ever interupt you ressing/downing another player, nor will he knock you of of the gun platform in Skyhammer and he certainly will not be able to pull you of the capture point.

Nor does her #2 ever help the Ele in the open field unless there’s locked zerg frontlines she can flee behind.

Yes, it’s really strong around towers. And for getting out of non-moving AEs in PvE. It’s really weak in open field combat and in situations where mobs follow you in PvE or AEs are targeted on players.

And? Isn’t that ok?
Stronger in some situations, weaker in others.

With my Engi #2 I can pull someone closer. This seems entirely useless until you have locked battlefronts in WvW or group combat in PvE, where pulling an enemy in is virtually equivalent to an immediate rally because they enter the no-go zone where you get blown up instantly.

Sure, in turn it can be blocked and can only stop one person from interrupting. But it’s hardly useless.

Terrahero.9358:

The bomb on 3# has such a long wind up before its ready, why is the Engineer still downed when this becomes available?

Maybe the enemy was focused on something else (like caping/defending a point, fighting with your teammates, etc.), or maybe he got interupted by #2 when stomping, because he wasted all his “stomp skills” (Elixir S, Mistform, etc.) on defence during the fight (with you or your teammates).

Terrahero.9358:

And 2# is countered by just about everything, Blind, Aegis, Stability, LoS, Stealth, reflect projectile. Plenty of ways to avoid that pull. Besides the obvious “dont stand somewhere he can pull you down” or just dodge the super obvious animation and projectile.

Guess what… plenty of things you wrote counter #2 downed skills of most classes (except Ele, Mesmer and Thief, obviously…). On top of that, Necro’s Fear can be cleansed (it is a condition after all) – it still interupts the stomp, but I am sure you get what I mean.

True, some skills are very hard to dodge, but if you are dodging , you are certainly not finishing that stomp.

Terrahero.9358:

And that is just 1 sPvP map where this might be an issue. None of this applies to PvE, WvW or any of other other PvP maps.

One map, huh?

Battle of Kyhlo, mid point, you can easily knock enemies down from the platform(even better if you manage to knock them down the stairs). You can also knock enemies from the “Trebuchet” hill (this one prolly only works on unaware/bad players, or if they are focused on one of your teammates).

Spirit Watch, any one of the bridges/ledges work well, especialy if you manage to get the Orb carrier.

Temple of the Silent Storm, midle of the map (near the mid rune thingy), you can easily knock enemies to the underground cave (and it is looong walk from there). The Bridge near Altar and the Stairs near Temple work too.

Sure, none of these are as deadly as the one on Skyhammer, but in tPvP, every second they are running back to the point you have just knocked them of, they are not stomping you, they are not interupting your teammates trying to ress you, they are not capping the point and they are not killing someone else.

The main reason this doesnt work nearly as well in WvW is because people generaly dont stomp, they DPS cleave the downed players, so they are obviously not in range (Guardian’s #2 suffers from this aswell]. This and the map design.

Terrahero.9358:

Abnd still there are plenty of ways to counter my stomp interupt. How many counters are there for an Elementalists stomp interupt? Exactly zero.

Thats the advantage of Ele/Mesmer/Thief downed skills, they guarantee the stomp delay and they only help you. They cannot be used to help someone else (unless you count repositioning yourself so you are easier to ress/harder to stomp as help…), or to delay something (other than your own death).

From your reasoning, Guardians should be complaining about their downed skills too, since Vaporform is clearly the best skill for any situation and their #2 has plenty of counters too (Blind/Block/Invulnereability/Stability/etc.) and the Ele’s does not.
Hell, players of every other class that does not have Invul/Stealth/Teleport downed skill should be creating multiple QQ threads on the forums right about now….

Balancing downed states is easy, and has been tackled by a game I feel ANet drew it’s inspiration and was done extremely well: Left 4 Dead. When you go down in Left 4 Dead you draw a side arm and start fighting for your life with just a side arm. You don’t get back up if you kill something, you stay on the floor until someone comes to get you or you bleed out and die. Period.

So there’s the fix right there. Everyone gets to keep just their existing #1 downed skill, but can crawl at a speed equal to being chilled. Maybe keep the #4 skill around as well since its also pretty decent to be able to fix yourself up. Otherwise no more rally on kills, no overpowered/underpowered skills and everyone is permitted to suck equally while downed as it should be.

Problem solved.