Guild Wars 2

This is quite an important issue we really need a dev response, mostly because the statement made about this was so undirected and without any detail, that its causing a lot of concern but also because no one who plays WvW see’s any issue with aoe in its current form, the only issues are from individuals classes looking at class balance.

I’ll say again aoe caps were very clever but whatever you do the hardcore wvw gamers will adjust and utilise the new system as well. what you have to do is make sure your systems don’t play into the hands of just gathering up massive numbers in one place.

I hope it may be different than straight damage nerf. Who knows, they may even allow it to hit more than 5 targets. What I think they mean by “effective” is how it racks up kill credit and gets bags. This is what they mean by “gaming the system in WvW”.

If they are adding a Prestige system they will want to be careful to make sure just zerging and spamming AoE isn’t the best way to gain it. They may just make it worse at getting kill credit and things like that, not necessarily worse in it’s damage effect.

For the Prestige system to be meaningful it has to award quality kills more than AoE spamming.

Isn’t this actually huge buff to Thieves who are the only professions that have high single target damage weapons and AoE damage being nerfed hurts our ability to kill them in stealth especially when they are reviving someone in stealth?

I don’t know whether the new rank system has anything to do with the pending nerf bat action, but I play a staff necro with wells for utility skills, see lots of numbers and rarely get drops. I have been keeping track via the WvW achievement and counting my badges, and I average 1 badge per ~30 kills (and 3 regular drops, mostly trophies). I am starting to think that the 5% dmg to a target to get credit doesn’t apply to condition damage, which is really all I do.

hidden thieves reviving someone can also be hit by single target attacks.

I realize that, but in large scale zergs it can be very difficult to pick out invisible targets with single target attacks. AoEs fixed that problem.

Also the way you have to tilt you camera up to throw/shoot projectiles forward with no target is fairly ridiculous. You pretty much have to be looking at the sky.

Get ready for thief wars 2!

Daendur.2357:

hidden thieves reviving someone can also be hit by single target attacks.

nop you cant. single target skills actually need a target. the majority of melee skills is cone aoe, not single target.

try to hit an invisible target e.g. with any rifle shot (warrior). its impossible.

teg.1340:

Daendur.2357:

hidden thieves reviving someone can also be hit by single target attacks.

nop you cant. single target skills actually need a target. the majority of melee skills is cone aoe, not single target.

try to hit an invisible target e.g. with any rifle shot (warrior). its impossible.

It’s not you have to angle up your camera or be very close. Thieves can hit other invisible thieves with their pistol#1 shot which is the same mechanic.

ANET PLEASE DON’T RUIN WvW… please?

AoE is fine…

Players in WvW shouldn’t e able to be rallied from PvE mobs in downed state and they need a 33 percent health nerf while downed. (25-35 percent is good)

Please stop giving zergs more advantages before all of my friends and guild quit.

How the heck are we going to kill thieves if we don’t have effective AoE? It’s not like you can see them to obtain a target. How about a fix on culling first and then i’m open to discuss AoE. You nerf AoE at this point and it’s zerg fest 2013.

TogoChubb.3984:

How the heck are we going to kill thieves if we don’t have effective AoE? It’s not like you can see them to obtain a target. How about a fix on culling first and then i’m open to discuss AoE. You nerf AoE at this point and it’s zerg fest 2013.

This ^^^^

Fix culling first. I do not understad how they can change AoE without fixing culling.

They really need to seup a PTR. These changes ar all being implemented with no testing???

After a quick look 99.9% of the players think Anet are kitten that should stay away from their own game.

I am with those, YOU ONLY MAKE THINGS WORSE!!!

Ruprect.7260:

TogoChubb.3984:

How the heck are we going to kill thieves if we don’t have effective AoE? It’s not like you can see them to obtain a target. How about a fix on culling first and then i’m open to discuss AoE. You nerf AoE at this point and it’s zerg fest 2013.

This ^^^^

Fix culling first. I do not understad how they can change AoE without fixing culling.

They really need to seup a PTR. These changes ar all being implemented with no testing???

Yes, fix culling first please! Really we should help people that can’t see a red ring on the ground and evade the attack and reward people that can’t be targeted. Sounds like text book uncommon sense to me.

its great isnt it, we are all useing AoE because we cant see the enemy so we cant target them, so AoE is bad? no culling is.

Reducing damage is fine if the number of targets get increased past 5. If the target limit remains the same, there is no reason to reduce AOE period. The big hitting area of effect abilities are small radius, can easily be dodged, and some prompt you to move out of the way in plenty of time before the hit with ground circles/animations. Not only that, the AOE abilities dont even hit that hard for the most part unless the person using them is glass cannon. If they are glass cannon, they get two shot by anyone anyways.

Ubi.4136:

I don’t know whether the new rank system has anything to do with the pending nerf bat action, but I play a staff necro with wells for utility skills, see lots of numbers and rarely get drops. I have been keeping track via the WvW achievement and counting my badges, and I average 1 badge per ~30 kills (and 3 regular drops, mostly trophies). I am starting to think that the 5% dmg to a target to get credit doesn’t apply to condition damage, which is really all I do.

This. I have a lot of “kills” in my WvW achievement tab, but for every 200 kills, I have less than 20 badges. AOE is not the quick way to fame and fortune, I can tell you. It helps my team out, because I can target healing and condition removal and fields where it’s needed, but I don’t push out nearly enough damage to be a threat to anyone who’s not an idiot that stands in the circle.

The whole point of cloth wearing caster classes is that they ARE not up-close, face-rolling, melee classes. Taking AOE from casters would be like telling warriors they could only equip wooden spoons, and that their primary shout would now scold their opponents. It’s absurd.

That said; that comment in the livestream has started to set off a firestorm; and were I in charge of Anet’s messaging, I would get someone out in front of this before it causes players to just move on to the next thing, rather than waiting for the nerf bat. From a public relations standpoint; that was a singularly stupid thing to say if they weren’t going to have specifics to hand to the community to keep the rage and panic at bay.

Stiv.1820:

I hope it may be different than straight damage nerf. Who knows, they may even allow it to hit more than 5 targets. What I think they mean by “effective” is how it racks up kill credit and gets bags. This is what they mean by “gaming the system in WvW”.

If they are adding a Prestige system they will want to be careful to make sure just zerging and spamming AoE isn’t the best way to gain it. They may just make it worse at getting kill credit and things like that, not necessarily worse in it’s damage effect.

For the Prestige system to be meaningful it has to award quality kills more than AoE spamming.

Or just give more credit to those that do more kind of like what DAOC tried to do. If you splashed someone with minor damage you got minimal points for them, but if you wrecked them through heavy damage, you got a ton.

Basing the prestige system purely or mainly on damage done will be terrible. ‘quality kills’ – by this do you mean thiefs will get no credit for their ‘steal/mug, one skill, cnd you’re downed and thief used a macro to do it in under 1 second’ type kills? Killing people with aoe without dying yourself takes a lot more ‘skill’ than instakills while not being able to even SEE what killed you then stomping whilst in stealth…

Base it on damage dealt and you will make all support classes disappear and everyone will run glass cannon to maximise their chances of gaining ‘prestige’. Add that to an aoe nerf and you’ll see piles of thiefs and d/d eles running around and not much else.

They need to have thought out very carefully the Prestige system so that it includes defensive actions, support classes, etc and not just ‘burst single target class wins’.

oooooooookkkkkkk. Note to self Leave WvW and never return*. Nope-Don’t like this, and don’t trust anet at all. This balancing act will likely be made by a chimp or a monkey.

First off. They told us way earlier that the Only way we can handle a theif is through heavy Aoe……Sooooooooo now you just are going to do a 75% damage reduction across the board and tell us “Well-you can still beat a theif, if you have 1000+ players”. No thats absolutly kitten!

No really-It is!

After anet did the Ele Damge-across-the-board reduction, This screams “Were not going to actually design the skills better at all. Were are just going to go across and take 50% damage out of all of them”. Cause that’s what anet does. Big Sweepign damage reductions and then later(up to 4 years) come back and say “Maybe we should have balanced better”.

Also we all know they will do this, and not increase the Aoe Limit one bit. Becuase that would be giving aoe an advantage over single-target! How dare Aoe does it’s job and actually hits anything in it’s area of effect.

Well, anet going to ruin wvw. Especialy for us tiny servers who have so little in the way of populations when we get stuck up against massive 50+ zergs and we barely can field 20.

Ha-were doomed! If they were to make it so Aoe hits all in the area of effect, Im completly fine with even a 75% damage reduction. But this is not going to happen. Ill just quite wvw now and save myself grief!

covenn.7165:

Stiv.1820:

I hope it may be different than straight damage nerf. Who knows, they may even allow it to hit more than 5 targets. What I think they mean by “effective” is how it racks up kill credit and gets bags. This is what they mean by “gaming the system in WvW”.

If they are adding a Prestige system they will want to be careful to make sure just zerging and spamming AoE isn’t the best way to gain it. They may just make it worse at getting kill credit and things like that, not necessarily worse in it’s damage effect.

For the Prestige system to be meaningful it has to award quality kills more than AoE spamming.

Or just give more credit to those that do more kind of like what DAOC tried to do. If you splashed someone with minor damage you got minimal points for them, but if you wrecked them through heavy damage, you got a ton.

Yea exactly, that would be perfect but no idea how they plan on doling out prestige. Also the way DAOC split points evenly with the group. That would encourage actual grouping for support types.

Honestly I am hoping Anet has a x-mythic dev (or players) and they more or less rip off the RP/RA system but not going to get my hopes up.

Victory.2879:

Basing the prestige system purely or mainly on damage done will be terrible. ‘quality kills’ – by this do you mean thiefs will get no credit for their ‘steal/mug, one skill, cnd you’re downed and thief used a macro to do it in under 1 second’ type kills? Killing people with aoe without dying yourself takes a lot more ‘skill’ than instakills while not being able to even SEE what killed you then stomping whilst in stealth…

Base it on damage dealt and you will make all support classes disappear and everyone will run glass cannon to maximise their chances of gaining ‘prestige’. Add that to an aoe nerf and you’ll see piles of thiefs and d/d eles running around and not much else.

They need to have thought out very carefully the Prestige system so that it includes defensive actions, support classes, etc and not just ‘burst single target class wins’.

Basing it on damage done is fine as long as it’s split evenly with your group. I’m not sure if it works this way now, but does Guardian group Aegis for instance prioritize your group over other people nearby? That would also be needed.

Another option is to give a portion of the credit to anyone who has applied boons to the people doing damage or done knock downs or applied debuffs to people getting killed.

“We don’t want people to use AoEs on a single target.” *
I want me to use AoEs on a single target. 4 regularly used skills and an autoattack isn’t much and now ANet said they want the AoE ones to sit in valuable slots doing nothing. What I really liked about the game when I started playing, is that (on weapons I like) all the skills are useful in all or most situations, including AoE ones on a single target. And since skill use is regulated by cooldowns (also I wonder how they’re gonna pull it off on AoE autoattack weapnos) instead of resources on most classes, there’s no spamming of AoEs like there would be in WoW if AoEs did good single target damage there.

In addition to that, the AoE nerf isn’t gonna help areas like Orr with those densely packed mobs that get pulled 4 at once (in the middle northern part of the coast in Malchor’s Leap for instance) or personal story missions and I’m fairly certain the need for players to travel in groups won’t actually make more players go to Orr to form those groups. At least for me, the 5 target maximum is pretty close to ideal, since I mostly can’t handle more than 6 normal mobs at once and any nerf from here is pretty harmful, especially considering the fact that the announcement likely means it won’t just be a 10% reduction in damage.

*I wonder if pistol engineers are going to be expected to swap to a single target weapon for a single target (not to mention elementalists). Although I don’t know how they could nerf Explosive Shot, because the prerequisite for a damage nerf is that damage exists in the first place.

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.

So let me make sure I understand this. IF it were true, its soley due to AOE?
Sorry, I dont buy it. Number 1, if you are a team of 5 killing 35 people in the same
battle, they are certainly not skilled people. No offense, but I dont beleive
the number.

Secondly, its their fault for standing in your AOE. I have zero sympathy for
people who take a shower in AOE than wonder how they die. There is a limit
of people on AOE and most battles are moving battles. Ive yet to see 5 targets
stand in my AOE for the duration unless at a gate.

I use aoe not because it hits hard, or because it hits several people. I use it because almost everything is AoE.

I have no singletarget attacks with my grenadekit, bombkit, flamethrower. Even Rifle can inflicts damage on more then one enemy with all the damage abilities. Pistol/Pistol has 4 damage abilities, 3 are aoe.
Elixirgun is mostly a support kit, but it has 4 abilities that deal some damage and again 3 of those are aoe.
Toolkit is perhaps the only “singletarget” kit i have. It also only has 2 damage abilities and is more a defensive/utility kit. And 1 is a melee cleave for 2 out of the 3 strikes in the chain.

So, how do i do singletarget damage? And is this just going to result in all my stuff getting nerfed, leaving my singletarget damage completely gimped because i need aoe abilities for single-target fights?

I think a Animation Bug will be found for all AOE skills in this game kind of like Shortbow for Rangers ;o)

AoE in this game “too strong” is laughable. Anyone remember Hib bomb groups in another unmentionable game?

If they do a blanket nerf of AoE dmg .. fine. But they better compensate the classes that have 90% aoe attacks. Im perfectly fine with having a significantly stronger auto attack on my ele in exchange for less aoe dmg.

Although it would make playing it VERY boring.

ANET and most of the people in this thread need to understand that AOE is NOT the problem.

Culling and AOE is the problem.

Pretty easy to sneak in, then AOE an enemy zerg and win due to culling.

Fix culling and leave AOE alone. AOE spiking should be a viable tactic with flanking and portals. There are counters.

Let the battles happen and let superior tactics and skill win, how about we make that happen by fixing culling and not patching something that is fine.

Is anything really a problem? You stand in red you’re going to die. Whats insulting is that if enough people stand in the red everyone lives!

*This post brought to you by the society for the nerfing of over-the-top spell effects (LagHammerz)

Acelerion.6820:

Is anything really a problem? You stand in red you’re going to die. Whats insulting is that if enough people stand in the red everyone lives!

This times 1000. Someone please forward this to the devs.

Ubi.4136:

Acelerion.6820:

Is anything really a problem? You stand in red you’re going to die. Whats insulting is that if enough people stand in the red everyone lives!

This times 1000. Someone please forward this to the devs.

Ditto!

Victory.2879:

Add that to an aoe nerf and you’ll see piles of thiefs and d/d eles running around and not much else.

Doubtful, most D/D ele skills are AE

First off I am in the AoE is to weak camp so i don’t want to see them nerfed. I would like to see damage lowered but AoE’s being able to hit more targets. I don’t like the 5 player limit.

That being said, isn’t Anet planning on giving us some WvW only skills, items, etc ? If so nerfing AoE’s might not be as bad as it seems and part of a larger attempt to balance the classes / WvW.

I do hope they test any changes in all possible areas. Consider this scenario and it has happened. The supply camp by Dreaming Bay, Greenvale Workshop (on my current map anyways) has 2 entry points. The home team from the front through the gate, the opposing team over the back through their spawn point. The enemy team can capture that camp and set up trebuchets inside the camp that will hit the DB walls. Arrow carts, and ballistas on the ground inside will hold the gate and arrow carts on the camp side of the roof above the gate will decimate anyone trying to get through that gate. Currently AOEs are the only possible way of removing the arrow carts on the back side of that roof. Direct shots will not reach them as you get the “obstructed” message. Lowering the effectiveness of AOEs would make that camp impossible to take as one team has to pass through the choke point while the other team, the enemy, has the option of remaining in the camp or coming up from behind to destroy any field laid siege capable of taking out the siege they have set up in that camp. Any ac’s that get destroyed could be rebuilt quickly if the AOE effectiveness is lowered so that supply in camp keeps up to the demand for ac’s.

Add to that their concern over in-combat rezzing being disrupted/denied by area effects. Battles are currently won or lost by attrition, that is, which zerg or force loses the most people and how far their waypoint is from the battle. By allowing more people to be resurrected in combat because they lowered AOE effectiveness would be akin to building a waypoint in every tower and camp, not just keeps and actually better than a waypoint as it would still be useable while under attack. Battles would last forever as neither side would lose people to attrition, they can just be resurrected. The line of sight issues make it difficult to stop a rezz without AoE and forcing people to rely on single person attacks. I can see the person up on the wall or on the ground but my single target skill is blocked from hitting that person.

Well positioned siege in fact would make the jump puzzle impossible to do if you cannot AoE that siege quickly, especially with the line of sight issues. Again, that has happened.

The problem that I see arising therefore is by lowering the effectiveness of AoEs against players is that it would also lower the effectiveness against placed siege which gives the team that is entrenched with siege an overwhelming advantage, no matter what size the attacking army is. A small group of 20 enemy as in the first scenario above could hold off 100 people indefinately. It would lower the advantage of a large zerg but the only option for balance would be to allow more entry points into such areas.

My thoughts on the matter.

I see all the discussion about ranged aoe. But how about melee (axe, sword, hammer, gs, mace) AOE? Plus, I think the real OP aoe are the ‘line/dome’ aoe that affects the entire zergs rather than those crappy 5-target limit ones. I didn’t see the official post so maybe I’m missing something. I’ll just have to wait until they release this ‘change’!

For those who haven’t seen it, please view Jonathan Sharp’s latest response regarding AoE changes: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-AoE-actually-a-problem-Discussion-Thread/page/4#post1237623

No prob. Some classes have a ton of AOE, while others don’t have as much. So we’re not just going to do a blanket nerf to all AOE – that’s not fair to all classes. We’ll go on a class by class, weapon by weapon basis.

And as I’ve said, we may need to tone something down in one area of the game, but it may be totally fine in another area.

For some weapon sets, the AOE options may be too strong compared to the single target options, which is what we aim to address.

What really concerns me is that they are surprised/may not like that we AoE downed players to also get the people rezzing them. Is AoE’ing the downed an unintended counter? I thought it was a legit strategy and one of the few that effective counters combat rezzing. If they make AoE’ing downed players to get combat rezzers less effective, I imagine there’d be even less incentive to use skills that rally allies (as if the tremendous cooldown, cast time, and buggy nature isn’t enough).

I’m definitely curious about how these changes are going to affect play and what changes they’re actually going to make. It should be an interesting few months, to say the least.

Kaleden.9386:

For those who haven’t seen it, please view Jonathan Sharp’s latest response regarding AoE changes: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-AoE-actually-a-problem-Discussion-Thread/page/4#post1237623

No prob. Some classes have a ton of AOE, while others don’t have as much. So we’re not just going to do a blanket nerf to all AOE – that’s not fair to all classes. We’ll go on a class by class, weapon by weapon basis.

There can be only one conclusion: Nerf Engineers.

how can AoE be unbalanced if everyone is capable to use AoE?

The worst thing is that we do not even know what started this. Its not like there were hundreds of posts demanding it. I think the devs needs to clear things up a bit because for most players this decision was totally unexpected.
This types of changes cannot be healthy for the game, especially now with a lot of people being on the edge about quitting.

I actually read that as Nerf Clusterbomb.

Matt Witter.6982:

There are a few different knobs we can turn in regards to AoE some of the bigger ones being:
Radius of the AoE
Frequency of the AoE Damage
Damage of the AoE
Max Targets of the AoE

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
In our balance discussions we always look at what these changes could do to PvE as well as PvP. Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team. It is important to understand that we are not doing a blanket nerf to all AE’s or a dramatic adjustment of the damage AoE’s can do. There may be some cases where players can build for AoE damage, but are just not viable or other cases where AoE is clearly the dominate way to build, and as such the other builds get left on the side lines. Its these classes/builds that we are concerned about.

I think the biggest one you should be looking at is the duration of the AoEs, if anything. Sustained pressure is always going to be more worrisome than burst or control.

I really hope that you’ve put duration and sustained pressure on the radar instead of doing something that would cripple the usage of some abilities. It would be a bone-headed move to limit the number of things aoe’s could affect to a small number such as 5. I’d be embarrassed if I was responsible for that one. Yeah, I sure would hope that one never comes to pass or flows through the wire.

Matt Witter.6982:

snip…

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
…snip

Really, this is what is driving your concerns? If the AoE didn’t damage the person in the field, how would the AoE control a portion of the field?

In any case, what I am most uncomfortable with is that we really do not have much choice to “build around” the nerfs, with weapon skills locked together as they are.
In this setup, nerfing any single skill also nerfs the weapon as a whole, and currently, some skills already feel like “dead weight” on the skillbar, but we can’t do much about it because we want a particular skill in our build regardless…
Thus, I would advocate more choice for the skills on existing weapons instead of new weapons that only replicate the problem. Of course I realize this is more of a long term strategy and you probably want to do something right now, but nonetheless I think the idea holds some merit.

edit:

I really hope that you’ve put duration and sustained pressure on the radar instead of doing something that would cripple the usage of some abilities. It would be a bone-headed move to limit the number of things aoe’s could affect to a small number such as 5. I’d be embarrassed if I was responsible for that one. Yeah, I sure would hope that one never comes to pass or flows through the wire.

I see what you did there. And I agree, such awkward balancing would probably end up with giving all the power to the mindless zwerg, while preventing any actually effective anti-zerg tactics, such as holding them in choke points etc. Wow, that would be truly gruesome.

Anfauglith.6715:

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

A and B are interesting alternatives on paper. I had the luxury of playing WAR when they decided to implement similar systems to repair their AOE fest. The result was if there was another of your class around, 1 of the 2 of you may as well log out because you are completely useless. If WvWvW is intended to be hundreds vs hundreds vs hundreds that approach…dunno, doesn’t work in my brain.

Same goes for immune buffs after being cc’d. The game became “you may have alot of ccs, but please do not use them, i need to have mine just in case”. Anything that makes player abilities just strait up not work, or significantly weaker, because an ally used an ability has no place in a social game in my mind.

As an engineer, a large majority of my skills are AoE, and even some of the single-target abilities tend to have AoE benefits (rifle piercing, pistol shot’s explosions, etc).

Needless to say I am very concerned with any addressments to AoE as a group effect. I’ve already pretty much given up on grenades in WvW as their effects just don’t match the crazy button spam they require, and I’d sure as hate to see even my bomb kit become less useful to boot. Toolkit is fun to use on thieves who aren’t prepared and wind up killing themselves, but it only takes me so far…

deviller.9135:

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 am still on the fence about the no in combat rezing idea.

The good WvW: it hurts the zerg way more then the small party. In a small party (or several small parties) vs zerg encounter, the likelyhood of the zerg being able to rez an ally is far greater then the small party. One of my tactics within a zerg is to watch for enemies to go down and then shift to their position to prevent rezing.

The good PvE: Whilst some boss fights are challenging in this game, the fact that you can respawn and run back in is the most hello kitty thing I have ever seen in a game. Are we sure they were not clumping respawn and rez together?

GS Mesmer has only 1 single target ability, #5 is a player based cone, #4 is an enemy based mobile aoe, #3 is a ground based aoe, and #2 is an enemy based bounce attack. #1 is single target.

Bombul.2506:

A and B are interesting alternatives on paper. I had the luxury of playing WAR when they decided to implement similar systems to repair their AOE fest. The result was if there was another of your class around, 1 of the 2 of you may as well log out because you are completely useless. If WvWvW is intended to be hundreds vs hundreds vs hundreds that approach…dunno, doesn’t work in my brain.

Yup, this would create the condition damage dilemma we still have again, and now look at how many condition builds are typically used in dungeons…

No one said that rezzing at the middle of a combat will be removed, I think. After all, what would be the point of the downed state, F revive and the rez utility mechanics? What was stated is that you won’t be able to warp back to a point while in combat, preventing the mindless graveyard/ rez rushing.

Matt Witter.6982:

Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team.

sigh…. Public Test Server

Invest in one, your "trusted’ alpha team has missed how many bugs and glitches already? Time to let the players who found those bugs and glitches your alpha team “missed” test changes.

Public Test Server.

Ubi.4136:

Acelerion.6820:

Is anything really a problem? You stand in red you’re going to die. Whats insulting is that if enough people stand in the red everyone lives!

This times 1000. Someone please forward this to the devs.