Q:
Area Denial?
The main issue with control abilities in dungeon runs is that the areas which would benefit from them the most tend to be filled with mobs that have stability ( and can therefore just walk right through your wards ).
There are definitely places where you can use a line or ring of warding to great effect, but it’s certainly not “everywhere”. This differs from WvW and sPvP where they can be both aggressively and defensively employed practically all of the time.
Ah. In that case, the problem does indeed lie with ANet. I mean, if they want “control” to be a key feature of their anti-Trinity, but then they go and nerf the bejeezus out of it in the parts where you would really WANT it… I mean, I can’t be the only one who went, “wow, dungeons have a LOT of mobs that need to be killed one-by-one, wouldn’t it be neat if there was some way to make sure that we COULD take them down one-by-one?” GW1 was much more rewarding of actually planning stuff out in that regards. GW2 seems, to me, to be pure, twitch-based action. Kill it before it kills you, nothing fancy, DPS is king…
I dislike playing DPS. I’m sure some people love watching the big numbers tick away, or enjoy making sure everyone has those little buff boxes next to their portrait, but for me, controlling movement and the flow of combat is much more interesting. Until ANet makes that a real feature in PvE, I’m unlikely to play much GW2 at all.
The problem with a lot of the control is most bosses carry this Defiant
I imagine that there’s enough control between a party to keep a boss shut down for a while (nevermind in the open world).
In dungeons, other than DPS, you can still provide a lot of boon support/heals. Control stuff still works on non-boss folk.
Area Control for WvW & PvP = Wardings, Bubbles, Fields.
Area Control in PvE = more AOE Dmg.
Area denial doesn’t exist unless there’s a specific area that needs defending, and unless you’re talking about PvP that basically doesn’t ever happen. Guardians in SPvP are great because they can single handedly hold points for extended durations due to their easy access to stability, retaliation, and so on. But even in WvW that starts to fall apart, because the areas you have to defend are vast and too much for you to control by yourself. So unless you’re into SPvP (which is what a lot of GA was anyway) and WvW you’ll probably want to focus on some other aspect.
Painbow.6059: Ignore what anyone else who doesn’t agree with me has said because its wrong.
Control in PvE is more about peeling mobs off of your squishier party members, which you can do primarily by just doing more damage, or pulling them with your GS #5 skill, or dropping walls in front of them or something.
But yeah, area denial isn’t a big deal in PvE. WvW on the other hand…