Guild Wars 2

I think nerfing aoe would make WvW stale. All of it would make WvW stale. I predict it would turn WvW into an arrow cart/trebuchet match.

dreztina.4820:

If anet handles this poorly, which is fairly likely, this change could very well be the end of competitive play in wvw. All hail the zerg.

This is my estimation as well. The idea is completely counter to what makes WvW enjoyable. If smaller well coordinated groups can no longer use terrain and choke points to utilize AoE and outplay larger groups, it will just be a god awful zerg trainfest.

So, thieves get away with their 5-6k burst damage, but 500-1000 DPS aoe is too strong? WTF!?!? Can’t be serious!

I like where this is going, good job anet. I only see greatness in this next upcoming patch.

Saweth You Him.9047:

I think nerfing aoe would make WvW stale. All of it would make WvW stale. I predict it would turn WvW into an arrow cart/trebuchet match.

It’s close to that already too. People may wax on about the great open field fights they have, but for the purpose of WvW, trebs and carts already reign supreme. Too many battles are decided simply by which side has the richer players carrying or willing to plop down siege.

Trying to defend on a wall with your actual character is already a joke as you can’t target for crap, and if you jump up on a ledge, you get pulled down into a zerg in seconds. Sure lets make AOE even weaker so we can have 20 ppl manning siege outside vs 20 manning siege inside… Everyone just standing stuck to a prop while they push the same 2 buttons over and over.

Exarthious.5792:

There is no reason any AoE ability should do more to a single target, than a single target ability. You shouldn’t even argue that, ever.

What you should be trying to get them to do, is make it so that our AEs hit MORE targets, say 15, instead of 5.

But like all MMOs, the majority who play the classes who’re getting changed will fight tooth, and nail against the change, without offering up better alternatives, that are more reasonable.

Many classes have only a handful of single target skills. This isn’t WoW where you pick and choose based on the target or situation. You use the handful of skills you have as they come off cooldown and that’s it.

For instance, and elementalist doesn’t use an AoE skill against a single target because it does good damage (in fact most of their AoE skills do mediocre single target damage), they use an AoE because that’s is literally what 90% of their arsenal consists of.

I wonder if Arena Net is reading this thread and taking what people say as something to check into, think about, or if its being ignored.

Funny thing that amuses me is:

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.*

Well when 1 class, has 1 non AOE skill…
Of course AOE’s are used a lot. Im just saying.

Also too much damage? Take alook at your single target skills.
Also realize if you nerf AOE’s you’re taking out small groups vs large groups.

It’ll turn into zerg vs zerging.

Reducing AoE effectiveness to bring them in line with the single target damage skills.

My question is why have AOE’s if you want them to be the same as Single target skills?
Also most AOE’s deal less damage then single target skills.
Plus is Anet willing to Increase survive-ability or something comparable to their AOE nerfing, or will certain classes/build become useless and no playable after the AOE nerfing?

We want every single class to feel like they have multiple options to deal with every situations, this doesn’t mean every class will have the exact same options.

Well by nerfing AOE damage, you’re killing over half the skills of a few classes.
So what will be done to offset it?

Exarthious.5792:

Oozo.7856:

Exarthious.5792:

Intigo.1653:

…what…

Exarthious, you’re full of it. Please do provide proof of you killing ~55 players with your 1 group.

Neves.2905:

Intigo.1653:

…what…

Exarthious, you’re full of it. Please do provide proof of you killing ~55 players with your 1 group.

Ya, I gotta kinda call BS on this one, too. I can see 1:3 odds, so if you had a group of like 15-20, you could take down a ball that big, if you and your team are so dang good or have mad siege up.

We don’t make videos, but we do fight against these guys once in awhile.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Video-7vs50

AoEs in this game are stronger than single target damage, against a single target. That is absurd brother.

But if I have to, I’ll talk the gang into making videos, so you can see the full potential of AEs in this game.

Those people died to AOEs because they were being idiots, not because AOE is too strong.

Oh noes, you might not be able to blindly throw AEs and win, and might have to actually think, and put up a fight?

The horror. hah……..

When our AE group runs around it is like shooting fish in a barrel. There is no logical sense that any AE ability should ever do more damage to a single target, than a single target ability does.

If AOEs get less damage and more people get hit, how’s that any different in zerg vs whatever? Unless they massively nerf the damage and only raise cap by few people.

Talking about logic: If for example I get burned from one side (ST) or I get burned from flames all around me (AOE)… or a bullet in your leg (ST – may or may not cripple you) vs a grenade in front of your leg (AOE – bye legs and possibly part of your torso). But yeah, for games it is a bit silly perhaps.

And if your group gets killed 5v5 in sPVP that means there are people that can stand up to your “we kill 55 with 5 lol group”, you’re just not meeting them in WvW, and having vids of you killing some zerg that doesn’t even know how to zerg (l2zerg dudes – don’t stand still and get killed 1 by 1) as an example how broken everything is…yeah.
So if a good sPVP player went to hotjoin and kitten randoms you’d still call for changes? I don’t think so.

They also mention they want to discourage the zerg mentality… and they plan on doing that by nerfing more the main counter to it? I’m rather curious as to what else they plan to do because in itself it seems pretty counterproductive.

Fantastic! Finally we see where ANet are taking the game- THIEF WARS 2, with JUMP PUZZLE 2 for afters. The devs obviously play thief. Anything that can affect a thief will be nerfed.

Nerfing aoe damage whilst leaving thiefs able to burst down players in under a second will lead to two things: a lot more thiefs running around, and even BIGGER zergs.

The only thing that slows down zergs atm is aoe, nerf that and how does it then become anything other than who can ball up and out heal damage better.

Picture the scene post nerf: 10 of us run up to your gate (you can’t hit us with any meaningful siege- arrow carts just make people laugh), plant a couple of rams and the other 8 all use their healing skills, boons etc to keep each other alive. Quick! AOE them! Sorry, we nerfed it. Twenty people on walls, all throwing down as much aoe as they can, and 8 of us will be laughing at you. Break down gate, turtle our way to lord room, area deny you and capture keep/tower.

40-50 man zerg would literally be impossible to stop out on the open field, so it then becomes a game of ‘who can go around capping the most towers’ in a big merry go round.

ANet, you need a PLAYER from each class sitting down with your dev team before they come up with any more stupid ideas and drive away the rest of the population.

I was under the impression zergs (or people in them) used Area Of Effect skills as their primary way of fighting since they can hit more people at once.
Wouldn’t nerfing AOE also nerf zergs since they are less productive with AOE? And since they are more productive through close ranged fighting wouldn’t it help small scale fighting?
Understood it is less skill based (If standing on top of a ramp and spamming AOE skills is really considered skill, and I personally do not think it is) since a smaller number can pigeon-hole a larger number and scare them not to advance (through red circles of substantial damage from an “organized” group of stacked elementalist).

Can anyone explain to me (quote me please so its easier to find) how lowering the damage of AOE actually makes Zergs stronger? (Serious question, i’m only looking at it from one side and id really like to see the other side of it.)

AoE nerf would benefit large zergs. Side benefits include stealth thieves and clone mesmers. It really blows my mind how Anet concluded that “bigger zergs” needs more help, and already overpowered classes like thieves and mesmers needs more help.

I had been saying for ages that Anet need to sent game testers to “losing” wvw servers. They got to go see their suffering and frustration, and make the game fun for these losing servers too. As it is, more and more people will quit wvw b/c it aren’t fun at all for their server, not to mention all those monetary losses. Do not see things just from top teams like SoS or JQ’s point of view b/c that’s not the norm that the average servers are facing.

Same thing for underpowered classes. How about spent a day as an engineer, necromancer and ranger in wvw and see how that feel?

Causic: Because in zergs you can place boons and heals, and if you nerf aoe then the zerg becomes unstoppable, hence you will see MORE zergs. Nerfing aoes will mean a zerg becomes an even better tactic.

Nerf aoes and defenders will be able to bunch up on top of wall and ignore aoes- not that it will do them much good unless they are planning a portal bomb or a stealth rush…

Stacked elementalist AOE’s are not what affect zergs anyway unless they are of the ‘back up there is some enemies’ variety of pug who are not organised and not on TS. The only thing that needs a nerf on d/d eles is the boon generation.

It’s single target burst damage that needs addressing, not scratching annoying aoe that only kills you if you are dumb enough to stand in it for it’s full duration without anyone capable of throwing a heal around.

It’s already hard enough to kill a well organised ball- nerf aoe any more and it will become impossible. Imagine a ball of 20 players all with some sort of aoe heal ability- hell I might even start using healing spring if they nerf aoe any more than they already did, 3-4 of them running side by side and with a couple of guardians, ele running water and a necro using healing well and skills all moving as a bunch and we can turtle all the way across the map and your aoe’s wouldn’t scratch us. Throw in 30 pugs tagging along and we’ll waltz across the map and you will find it impossible to stop.

Causic.3798:

Can anyone explain to me (quote me please so its easier to find) how lowering the damage of AOE actually makes Zergs stronger? (Serious question, i’m only looking at it from one side and id really like to see the other side of it.)

Class-based AoE skills (as opposed to siege engines) have a (stupid imho) upper limit of 5 targets. So if you’re in a small group of 5 that is being hit by an AoE attack, you’ll get hit. If you stand in a group of 10, well, you suddenly only have a 50/50 chance to take damage since only 5 people out of 10 will be randomly picked as a target. Get 20 people in the AoE (a stretch, very unlikely) and you only have 1 chance in 4 to be hit.

The main point of the compact zerging (or rather melee train) in this game is that if you have enough people in a compact area, the enemy’s AoE is rather ineffective, rarely damaging the same target twice. The more people you stack, the less AoE damage they take.

Offensively, if you stack something like 20 people dishing out AoE randomly, even nerfing the damage of those attacks, it’ll still be more than enough to fast kill any non-zerging opponent since they won’t be protected by the number of targets upper limit and will take the 20 AoE in full.

A Berserker Ele’s AoE isn’t scary to me, he is an easy target.

Dagger storm is not scary to me, that’s what dodge is for.

100blades is not scary, that’s what stun breakers and dodge is for.

Kill shot is annoying, but won’t one-shot me and gun warriors are easy targets.

Wells are annoying, I try to avoid those.

Arrow carts aren’t scary, superior ones hurt.

Earthshaker is telegraphed and has to be manually aimed and is instant, if a hammer warrior is charging me then I have dodge for that.

If there was something to change, it would be permanent stealth and not being CC’d during dagger storm, and Great Sword warrior’s mobility. I’ve seen people mention armor being useless, but I shrug most AoE’s and glass builds off (though tanky warrior has a large HP pool). AoE should definitely be stronger and hit more targets. Solid groups should be able to take on larger ones if they control dominant terrain and execute solid tactics. If a zerg wants to run in the low ground and head uphill towards a small group, they should pay for their stupidity. If a zerg wants to come into a cave with 2 narrow openings, they should pay.

EnRohbi.2187:

transtemporal.2158:

This is all part of ANets plan to make us all play thieves. AoE was one of the tools you could use against thieves, but now that we won’t have it, theres no point in playing anything else! Yay!

So “we’re going to bring aoe in line with other skills” (Very close to their exact wording) translates to you as “We’re taking away all your aoe, this is a single target only game”?

Well, you never know. “Bringing into line” may mean “increasing to be comparable with a 10k spammable backstab”… but I doubt it. They will probably nerf AoE dmg into the ground so that whichever kitten executive has the thief won’t need to worry about it anymore.

lettucemode.3789:

Now I want to play a game where classes are named because of the weapons they use. “Daggerist”, “Sworder”, “Axer”, “Spearist”, etc.

And of course, Burninator.

Causic.3798:

I was under the impression zergs (or people in them) used Area Of Effect skills as their primary way of fighting since they can hit more people at once.
Wouldn’t nerfing AOE also nerf zergs since they are less productive with AOE? And since they are more productive through close ranged fighting wouldn’t it help small scale fighting?
Understood it is less skill based (If standing on top of a ramp and spamming AOE skills is really considered skill, and I personally do not think it is) since a smaller number can pigeon-hole a larger number and scare them not to advance (through red circles of substantial damage from an “organized” group of stacked elementalist).

Can anyone explain to me (quote me please so its easier to find) how lowering the damage of AOE actually makes Zergs stronger? (Serious question, i’m only looking at it from one side and id really like to see the other side of it.)

Let’s say the 10 of you are holding back a zerg of 30 at a choke point. In the past you can AoE that choke point to prevent the zerg from getting though. With AoE nerfed, now there is no chance that your team can hold that zerg back.

So like many others had said, the bigger zerg is now stronger the ever. The smaller zerg is now useless. There is no tactical advantage or creative thinking that can save you. As long as the enemy has more people there is absolutely nothing you can do. Notice that this is ALREADY sort of true in wvw. With the AoE nerf it would become the absolute truth.

Exarthious.5792:

People actually have issues killing others in WvW? O.O

I have never had any issues in any situation, be it 1v2, 1v3, Group vs Group, Zerg vs Zerg.

But then again, I’m a Thief, so maybe other professions havn’t found out how to effectively kill the other players yet? I’ll give some friendly advice, instead of wasting itme to stomp someone, just burn them down. While in the downed state, they take more damage than they would if they were up, and if anyone is trying to rez them, they become free kills to you as well.

Happy hunting.

And of course thieves got no problem with the AoE nerf. ^^

JonathanSharp.7094:

Class balance philosophies

Thief

Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.

Looks like now they’ll just have the burst without the fragility.

The solution to the AOE Problem is soo easy:

A: Limit AOE to one per “Spot”. So you cant stack it anymore and do insane damage in short time.

B: Lower the AOE per Caster on same spot. That means when someone casts AOE on Spot A then he does full Damage, Next one on same spot in same timerange (that means a AOE from someone else is still running on that spot) makes half damage. Next 25% and so on.

A or B would solve the problem. The Elitists can spam their AOE in their ubber skilled group on same spot BUT they are not supposed to wipe huge amounts of foes

And to the guy who said: use dodge. Dodge is limited through endurance and 2 times dodged and its gone. That means as ele you die very fast.

Yesterday i had the fun to go through a area with spot stackers and guess what? i died in 2 seconds without a chance (my dodges were already gone..). AOE as it is atm is a tad too much when stacked. I would prefer B

Add: About culling→ if you cull you should never be able to stealth. Thats definetly not the way it should work

AoE is not the zerg counter. AoE is the zerg way to play because when you are in a zerg you have to hit the more ppl you can in order to get your reward. Also AoE doesn’t require any skill nor tactic, just spam aoe in the middle…
Single target to be successful needs assist and player coordination.
So AoE nerf will be more than welcome!

“Incoming AoE ability balancing (nerf) – they are too effective right now”
“Q: Expain what you mean by progress in WvW
We are encourage people to defend, to get involved, to break away from large mass mentality of zerging”

I’m still laughing.
It is your first wvwvw game Devs without doubt

This is one of ridiculous plan coming from “people” who had experience in MMORPG (and had learnt much from them).

AoE become lethal in PvP because PvP arena in GW2 is so small. Lot of choke points everywhere. In addition area around of capture point and circle of capture point are small. All of these will eventually limit player movement. What they need to do is redesign all of this arena to giving more open area, make circle for capturing point a bit bigger, etc. (Compare it to WvW, where your movement is almost limitless). Or if Anet want to nerf AoE ability, they only nerf it in PvP, not in PvE or WvW (currently AoE in PvE or WvW (especially long range AoE) is almost not useful).

Another ridiculous change: only can res people when you are out of combat. Really ? Res-ing people in combat has been a hard choice for people (if they res their team, they will undefended), just imagine if you fighting a boss and you cannot res your teammate. Your team will eventually wiped out (this is clearly shown in Fractal). What Anet needs to change is to reduce the speed of player to revive people (by making it 1/5 or 1/10 from now is enough), limit resurrector to 4-5, and make stomping progress faster.

Enhancing a single damage output is more than welcome (but if I remember, almost all skills are AoE, the only one without AoE is thief and GS mesmer(1 skill only) (ninja buff for them ?)). But again if it is not taken care, it will become ridiculous. (imagine killshot can have damage 20k, backstab 20k, etc).

I can end this whole Post by saying my guild (FG) was defending against ViZ zerg in T1 we were with 20-25 people and they were with 50+ at start. This was at the tower Cragtop where you have 3 chokepoints (gate/stairs up/bridge) we used them all wiping alot of them and in that movie 7vs50 we would kitten that zerg a million times but ViZ zerg arent scared they rush in with everyone….why?? becus they can……only counter is ranger(entangle) only way to keep them away with that kitten stability. Now it was AOE that kept us alive that long……..THIS IS WVW not spvp kitten the single target it is useless against zerg…what you go attack 1 target while 49 overrun you?? wtf guys aoe was allrdy downed NO MORE ARENANET i dont mind that they limited to 5 people i can life with that but please dont down the aoe damage unless you drop the limit on aoe………..zergs of 50+ with atleast a little brain just run into a group of 20+ remember this you zerg people I pref unlimted target and damage get downed a little….. like Intigo said make guilds go up against zergs… and make wvw more competitive.

/Peace

Another ridiculous change: only can res people when you are out of combat.

o.O That will absolutely kill small teams.

The mindless zerg doesn’t bother about ressing as long as they have more people than the enemy. But for the coordinated team, every member is valuable and not being able to ress him/her is a huge hit.

I look forward to finding out what they consider AOE. Because several classes auto atttack with certain weapons are AOE.

On my guardian I AOE all over downed people with my Greatsword Autoattack, it is a sure way to get one or two more people downed.

Kaleygh.1524:

Obvious thief troll. I hope anet “balances” your lame class into the ground. Maybe then the class will attract less bads and trolls. Some Aoe`s dont even do full damage anyways since people just dodge out of the red circle and are always limited to 5 targets. If you`re a thief and you`ve been playing wvw then you should probably be aware that you`ve been abusing what is basically a bug (culling) to kill people. How much skill or tactic does that take ?

how much anger, dear friend. Let me ask you why, if someone has an opinion different from yours, you have to attack him instead of try to discuss.
Maybe you did a wrong choice, picking up the necromancer, but wishing bad things on others is a miserable act

“WvW is about large scale massive battle mentality where individual players are not as important.”

Quoted from their live stream. Obviously the devs in charge of wvw love the zerg mentality. For me, it’s another nail in the coffin that is GW2.

They change aoe, but don’t fix the much larger issue that is downed state. Yeah awesome job A-net. You won’t be supprised when all the main wvw hardcore guilds leave your game.

At the start of gw2, wvw looked promising, but they love zergs. Not skilled gameplay. Hence, this relationship simply won’t work in the end unless something changes.

If they nerf my dancing daggers, I’m quitting GW2.

Daendur.2357:

Kaleygh.1524:

Obvious thief troll. I hope anet “balances” your lame class into the ground. Maybe then the class will attract less bads and trolls. Some Aoe`s dont even do full damage anyways since people just dodge out of the red circle and are always limited to 5 targets. If you`re a thief and you`ve been playing wvw then you should probably be aware that you`ve been abusing what is basically a bug (culling) to kill people. How much skill or tactic does that take ?

how much anger, dear friend. Let me ask you why, if someone has an opinion different from yours, you have to attack him instead of try to discuss.
Maybe you did a wrong choice, picking up the necromancer, but wishing bad things on others is a miserable act

Not angry, just disappointed with the direction in which the game is heading. You guys had it waaay too easy for quite a while now, is it wrong to expect some kind of fixes ? Can you honestly tell me how nerfing aoe`s would benefit wvw atm ? I can clearly see how nerfing thieves on the other hand would benefit it. The game was supposed to be fun, where is the fun when you get ganked by 2 thieves outside your spawnpoint without even having the chance to press one button, on a character with 25k hp and 2.8 k armor? Quite often you cant even see them until it is too late because of the horrible rendering issues. What should i do ? dodge randomly ?
I`m not wishing bad things for others, i just wish that before other classes complain they should see the state engineers and necromancers are in. They dont seem to care what people think, look at the necro forums and see when the last dev posted there. The mods lock or delete most of the negative opinions, it doenst really seem like we can speak our minds around here and yes, people are angry.

Where has there been allot of complaints about AoE? Haven’t really seen much complaints on the WvW forums and this is where AoE has the most use/effect.
I don’t get how they say this is a priority that the moderators pointed out…

Exarthious.5792:

People actually have issues killing others in WvW? O.O

I have never had any issues in any situation, be it 1v2, 1v3, Group vs Group, Zerg vs Zerg.

But then again, I’m a Thief, so maybe other professions havn’t found out how to effectively kill the other players yet? I’ll give some friendly advice, instead of wasting itme to stomp someone, just burn them down. While in the downed state, they take more damage than they would if they were up, and if anyone is trying to rez them, they become free kills to you as well.

Happy hunting.

or just stealth spike them?

instead of nerf always why dont cut 3 4 finger to all WvW guild so the zerg can play too?
every game kid cry and every game Dev nerf all and in every game who want play leave it.
Better nerf so the zerg can easy kill 10 ppl instead of learn how play?

Nerfing AOE Dmg will mean i’m even more resiliant…yes sweet [Gift Of The Kitten]

When I heard about the 5 person AOE cap I thought BRILLIANT! Anet you genius’s by doing so you give yourself a fixed limit to work out the effectiveness between aoe and single target.

AOE at present is pretty well rounded. some classes have worse aoe than others and should be brought in line with those but in a manner that doesn’t mimic another classes playstyle (we don’t want mesmers becoming like staff ele’s blasting big rings of confusion based death everywhere)

I can’t see what the problem is how the balance should work. if you are fighting 1-2 people single target should be considered the best option (in most builds it probably is) if you fight 3 then you should make a judgement call between single target and aoe. If there are 4-5 then aoe should be the definite best choice in that scenario.

The rezzing issue does need to be looked at, it plays into the ahnds of these ridiculous sized 50-100 guilds. if your full downed you should either have to respawn or make res from perma down only available out of combat. 3rd option i just thought of make res interuptable on damage iwth a cool down. the latter two let you at least res 1 part member out in the field if he gets ganked whilst your guild is running from A-B.

Anet use your heads they are probably looking at the metric of weapon usage in wvw and just seeing aoe weapons, but when people run in large groups as wvw is intended to be about, then what did you expect. 1v1 still happens later in the evenings roaming and single target still has a place but don’t destroy aoe to compensate and play into the hands of the larger population.

Daendur.2357:

how much anger, dear friend. Let me ask you why, if someone has an opinion different from yours, you have to attack him instead of try to discuss. Maybe you did a wrong choice, picking up the necromancer, but wishing bad things on others is a miserable act.

Say’s the guy who spent the last week trolling the Ele forums, but I guess you got what you wanted and are now feeling very smug hmmm?

Kaleygh.1524:

Not angry, just disappointed with the direction in which the game is heading. You guys had it waaay too easy for quite a while now, is it wrong to expect some kind of fixes ? Can you honestly tell me how nerfing aoe`s would benefit wvw atm ? I can clearly see how nerfing thieves on the other hand would benefit it. The game was supposed to be fun, where is the fun when you get ganked by 2 thieves outside your spawnpoint without even having the chance to press one button, on a character with 25k hp and 2.8 k armor? Quite often you cant even see them until it is too late because of the horrible rendering issues. What should i do ? dodge randomly ?
I`m not wishing bad things for others, i just wish that before other classes complain they should see the state engineers and necromancers are in. They dont seem to care what people think, look at the necro forums and see when the last dev posted there. The mods lock or delete most of the negative opinions, it doenst really seem like we can speak our minds around here and yes, people are angry.

You and a lot of other ppl don’t understand that culling issue is not related to thieves but to “displaying characters” … you think you die from thieves because of culling, maybe when there is no other players in the area. lol
The real culling abuser are mesmers
Mass invisibility and mesmer’s portals are used to force the system to load a lot of people in the same time; people that are AoEing in the middle of their opponents.

Btw Anet is working on culling issue and they are making progress, so your concern about it is not justified because they don’t think it’s fine… it’s only hard to be solved.

Exarthious.5792:

morrolan.9608:

On the face of it this proposed change is just utterly ridiculous especially for specs like staff eles that are nothing but aoe. Like the poster above me stated the effect on WvW will just be greater zerging, as it is the restriction of damage to only 5 people leads to more zerging this will just make it worst.

Anet if this is a change for sPVP please do it for sPVP only and I’d want to see iron clad justifications for making the change in PvE and WvW.

This isn’t true, and you know it. When my group kills 35-55 players, because we’re made up primarily of Area Effect builds, all wrapped up in a single group of five, there is an issue. We usually run Elementalist, Elementalist, Necromancer, Confusion AE Mesmer, and me Thief (my primary roll is to finish people off, and make sure they’re not rezzed), while adding Cluster Bomb damage. We slaughter countless groups much larger than us, thanks to the AE damage we can put out.

I will give you one thing though, if they lower the damage, they need to increase the number of targets hit.

Keep in mind most AE abilities do far, far more damage to a single target, than most single target abilities.

LOL, you must play against some pretty fail zergs if 5 of you are killing 35+ people. If you have 5 you are at most hitting 25 ppl with AoE. What do the other 10-30 ppl do? Just stand there while you kill them? I can stand in a glass cannon ele meteor shower for the extent of it and survive. If 2 are hitting me I MOVE LOL. AoE is weak unless you are playing aginst idiots.

I am not sure why they don’t fix culling and then look at AoE?

Oh man, I didn’t see any post about it being an issue? Why does it have to hit us like that?

Seriously, I’m maining an engineer, and alting a necromancer. Both AoE heavy class.

My engineer grenade just got damage nerfed for 30%, and now you will nerf it even more?

Engineer DON’T have single target damage skills! 75% of their skill are AoE! If they nerf it, engineer are gone even further in the balance.

And it’s only gonna buff 100b warrior and bs thief.

Nice move.

It’s time to Anet to understand WvW isn’t PVE…

Kyosji.8961:

If they nerf my dancing daggers, I’m quitting GW2.

Or, as an alternative, maybe not depend on only one skill to be effective?

I’m even more amused by their silence on this whole thread. I’d say 95% of the posts in this thread are against this, yet apparently according to ANet, this was a widespread complaint? Ummmmm…..

Will be interested to see how much of a nerf they go for. As AoE is anything with an area effect. Think of how many classes use a sword (which hits multiple targets), by their definition, those are overpowered and should be nerfed as well. No reason that a sword attack (or thief shortbow attack) should hit multiple targets, because according to A-net, this is the only thing wrong with their game.

I went ahead and redownloaded DAoC last night. I was surprised that it was still $15 a month, so $30 if I want my buff bot druid back. But I am seriously considering some Molvik time with the horrible ideas they are coming up with.

I do get the impression that the person in charge of “balance” either plays, or has a kid that plays a thief. Kid gets mad because he can’t avoid AoE to 7k backstab people, so now everyone must suffer.

Victory.2879:

Nerfing aoe damage whilst leaving thiefs able to burst down players in under a second…

Relatedly, they mentioned too much AOE on players trying to rez, um, yeah, how else are we supposed to stop a thief stealth rezzing or stomping your ally… by trying to tap on his head with a single target skill while he is invisible?

You have to put out enough AOE damage to drive them out of spot, or kill them, or this ability to stealth rez and stomp becomes far too great, they already have a huge advantage at this.

Pendragon.8735:

Victory.2879:

Nerfing aoe damage whilst leaving thiefs able to burst down players in under a second…

Relatedly, they mentioned too much AOE on players trying to rez, um, yeah, how else are we supposed to stop a thief stealth rezzing or stomping your ally… by trying to tap on his head with a single target skill while he is invisible?

You have to put out enough AOE damage to drive them out of spot, or kill them, or this ability to stealth rez and stomp becomes far too great, they already have a huge advantage at this.

exactly AOE ON THE RES POOL! is the main chant in our TS. what the hell do they want us to do 20 against 60+ how is that going to work with single target damage.

Once again I ask, is any Arena Net Developer for WvW even reading this thread?

Anet should hire someone to play the game fulltime, this way you will know what are real issues WvW face and not just decisions on some “complaints” about aoe from a dying spvp scene.

Oh ok I see now, people may be able to out-heal AOE if they nerf it. So a bigger force becomes unstoppable. Thanks guys