Guild Wars 2

Can we talk about boons in WvW? You know, people running around in a train with all the boons, all of the time. Is this working as intended?

It’s not fun getting obliterated in WvW, and it seems like no matter what I do, where I go, sooner or later I end up getting steamrolled by groups with perma 25 might stacks, stability, protection, vigor…well you get the idea. It seems like the blob with the best boon stacking wins the fight. I’m not sure if this is promoting organized play, or simply the stacking of boon sharing classes? To be honest, I don’t even fully understand how so many people are getting so many boons.

But rather than nerf boons, could we maybe have a counter? It seems easier to get boons than it is to remove them from your opponent. I know necros and mesmers have AE boon strippers, but they are pulse based and the enemy simply runs across the pulse ignoring all but 1 or 2 ticks. And even then, they just reapply whatever boon they lost.

Could we change the mesmer null field skill to strip a bunch of boons all at once instead of over 5 seconds?

As a melee ele I would implode so fast, lol.

I dunno. I don’t think hyperbole is helping your case much.

Make cannons more radius and range and remove all boons with all of the cannon skills on hit. No mastery needed. And remove AoE cap so they can hit all targets, even more than 50.

Luthan.5236:

Make cannons more radius and range and remove all boons with all of the cannon skills on hit. No mastery needed.

That would negate the point of cannon mastery, unless we also want trebs to automatically remove supply, rams to automatically apply vulnerability etc.

You do bring up a point, though, that there is extra condi removal already available to everyone in cannons.

Rainshine.5493:

Luthan.5236:

Make cannons more radius and range and remove all boons with all of the cannon skills on hit. No mastery needed.

That would negate the point of cannon mastery, unless we also want trebs to automatically remove supply, rams to automatically apply vulnerability etc.

You do bring up a point, though, that there is extra condi removal already available to everyone in cannons.

So portable cannons?

aeroh.8930:

It’s not fun getting obliterated in WvW, and it seems like no matter what I do, where I go, sooner or later I end up getting steamrolled by groups with perma 25 might stacks, stability, protection, vigor…well you get the idea. It seems like the blob with the best boon stacking wins the fight. I’m not sure if this is promoting organized play, or simply the stacking of boon sharing classes? To be honest, I don’t even fully understand how so many people are getting so many boons.

The thing is, it does take at least some planning to get a high uptime on various boons, especially with the AoE cap. Things like using a Mesmer to copy boons to others, using blast finishers to stack high amounts of Might or using a Warrior to provide near-permanent Vigor.

Basically, the difference between an organized group and an unorganized group is exactly that: An organized group can provide its own members with high uptime on boons. An unorganized group would end up with boons that are not permanent and with different members having different boons.

But rather than nerf boons, could we maybe have a counter? It seems easier to get boons than it is to remove them from your opponent. I know necros and mesmers have AE boon strippers, but they are pulse based and the enemy simply runs across the pulse ignoring all but 1 or 2 ticks. And even then, they just reapply whatever boon they lost.

Could we change the mesmer null field skill to strip a bunch of boons all at once instead of over 5 seconds?

That’s not really going to work. Stripping a bunch of boons at once? Well, you just completely neutered a handful of professions that get their survivability from boons.

Also, WvW is a game of siege. And in case you missed it, cannons have boon stripping with Cannon Mastery. So rather than making changes to the classes, make changes to the siege. Give cannons more durability, maybe Iron Hide?

Are we really complaining about something fundamental to the game that everyone has access to? lol
This is how the game works. From the scenario you’ve mentioned, you would have been steamrolled either way.

Only allow combo’s to work while in combat.

The question is, what is the counter to mass boons?

It used to be people would stack on one spot and warriors would shout the pain away. That got fixed. Now people run around in melee pain trains with literally all boons for the duration of the fight, whilst also mass cleansing conditions. But what is the counter to this? Bring your own boons? Boons countering boons? That’s..silly. That is counter play, that’s just escalation.

See, gw2 combat is about counters. If someone has high toughness, you can get around it with conditions. You can counter conditions with cleanses and higher vitality. You can counter vitality with spikey dps. If someone wants to go heavy damage, you can make yourself a bunker. At least that’s what the goal is. It doesn’t always work in practice.

Now with boons, what do you do? You strip them off. And that is working great for small fights, and borderline OP in 1v1s. But it just doesn’t work in mass blob fights. People share so many boons that you can’t strip them off with current skills.

So what is the counter?

alanis.6094:

Only allow combo’s to work while in combat.

That would be a good start.

aeroh.8930:

Can we talk about boons in WvW? You know, people running around in a train with all the boons, all of the time. Is this working as intended?

It’s not fun getting obliterated in WvW, and it seems like no matter what I do, where I go, sooner or later I end up getting steamrolled by groups with perma 25 might stacks, stability, protection, vigor…well you get the idea. It seems like the blob with the best boon stacking wins the fight. I’m not sure if this is promoting organized play, or simply the stacking of boon sharing classes? To be honest, I don’t even fully understand how so many people are getting so many boons.

But rather than nerf boons, could we maybe have a counter? It seems easier to get boons than it is to remove them from your opponent. I know necros and mesmers have AE boon strippers, but they are pulse based and the enemy simply runs across the pulse ignoring all but 1 or 2 ticks. And even then, they just reapply whatever boon they lost.

Could we change the mesmer null field skill to strip a bunch of boons all at once instead of over 5 seconds?

Your angry that organized groups kill you in WvW? Thats all I got from this post.

@OP. What? You are upset that a large group kills you. You really think you’d survive as solo against a large group even if they had no boons? Gameplay tip: Do not enjoy when it is 20 against 1.

style.6173:

@OP. What? You are upset that a large group kills you. You really think you’d survive as solo against a large group even if they had no boons? Gameplay tip: Do not enjoy when it is 20 against 1.

When did I say I was solo?

I said no matter where I go, or what I do, sooner or later I end up getting steamrolled by a group with massive boons. I don’t roam solo 100% of the time in WvW. In fact, most of the time I’m in a group of 5-50+ people. But it’s just with random people usually, not a guild, so there isn’t always the coordinated boon generation meta going on. Sometimes there is. I’ll follow a guild blob, get all booned up myself, and steamroll other players. That will last for a while, but then commander/guild will log out leaving a total pug and we’ll roam around, try to take objectives, fight etc. But sooner or later, we’ll meet a boon stacking wrecking ball enemy force. At that point, we might have equal numbers, or even more people than them, but with the boons they’re immortal and we lose. It just all comes down to boons. And there’s no counter to boons but boons. That is my point. I’m not crying about getting 20 vs 1.

Stupid guilds play game wrong way. Right way to play is use zone blob and run around like headless chickens when fight start.

aeroh.8930:

perma 25 might stacks, stability, protection, vigor

I find that hard to believe, most buffs are always given right before an engage or right before they are needed. You cant have perma buffs on the entire zerg, thats nearly impossible, unless the entire zerg is dedicated to only buffing and not fighting.

Please make a video to prove it otherwise dont use exaggerations to state your point, that cant be fulfilled and are not even nearly true.

Ross Biddle.2367:

So portable cannons?

Dolyak Mastery. Tier 4. Dolyaks have cannons strapped to their backs that you can fire.

Omne.4603:

Your angry that organized groups kill you in WvW? Thats all I got from this post.

Comprehensive reading wasnt a thing where you went to school then, was it?

What i got from this post is that heavy boon stacking cannot be countered by boon removal. A valid point.

Abilities that remove multiple boons either pulse and need time, or are single target. Not to mention its fairly easy to stack boons, but boon removal abilities are much rarer, let alone AoE-boon removal.

As usual, its a balance made around sPvP. In 5v5 boon removal can keep up, and boonstacking doesnt have the same potential to run wild like in WvW. Its also a gamemode where you fight on limited size areas, so AoE boon removal is far more effective even if its pulse-based.
Either they lose a multitude of boons or they step of the capture point. Not so in WvW where zergs, especially melee trains, are constantly moving.

If the OP’s claim was true, everyone would be running boon duration runes.

aeroh.8930:

The question is, what is the counter to mass boons? […]

The counter to mass boons (stability being the one that really matters) is primarily necros, and they work quite well. Buff is not needed. If you’re asking for a skill that instantly strips all boons, that’s ridiculous and ironic. Because what would be the counter to that?

The fact that you’re claiming the blob with more boons wins just shows how little you understand about why you really lost. Because every group can and will use boons. If the enemy zerg is stacking might in front of you then how about:
a: take the opportunity to nuke their blob that they’ve so nicely stacked in one spot.
b: stack your own might.
c: be ready to kite back so their stacks wear off.

The fact that they used the right skills and combo fields at the right time and beat you, doesn’t mean you can legitimately claim boons (in general) are OP. It means they played better. Because the whole premise that more boons=win is false.

Terrahero.9358:

As usual, its a balance made around sPvP. In 5v5 boon removal can keep up, and boonstacking doesnt have the same potential to run wild like in WvW. Its also a gamemode where you fight on limited size areas, so AoE boon removal is far more effective even if its pulse-based.
Either they lose a multitude of boons or they step of the capture point. Not so in WvW where zergs, especially melee trains, are constantly moving.

sPvP isn’t about boon removal (or stacking) at all… Boons are ubiquitous like dodge rolls. Everyone has access to some of them and they’re part of class’s combat mechanics. Or do you think eles and guardians are overpowered 1v1 because they have the most boons and uptime? If you think that, sorry, you’re bad. Boons are not something that can or need to be countered ‘in general’. First, they’re all different and unrelated, each with a separate context for use. So talking about boons ‘in general’ is meaningless.

The issue with melee trains being overpowered (if they actually are…) is their tankiness combined with anti-cc abilities like AoE condition removal as well as stability uptime that makes them hard to stop. A nerf to 1 or 2 of the skills that power the train would have a huge impact on the balance of this comp. Boons ‘in general’ have nothing to do with it.

Some Ideas:
1) introduce some “wall type” boon strippers. Everyone passing through gets some boons stripped.
Candidates:
-Spectral Wall, aka wall of gtfo strips boons instead of fearing
-Give it to the thieves. They need a buff for zerg play anyway. Give Smoke screen or some trap these properties(trap creates a boon stripping wall for 3 seconds when triggered)
-Null field would be a bad choice here, because it would make the cond removal borderline useless and the boon removal borderline op
-Veil and Temporal Curtain: Honestly, I don’t like it. Maybe on veil, but let’s face it, mesmers are overloaded on group support anyway. In fact, they are overloaded on group support so hard, hardly anyone wants to play them, because there is just no freedom when running mesmer in a zerg.
-Elementalists Flame Wall(Focus, yes, that skill/weapon set exists, believe me xD) burns boons on enemies passing through

2) Introduce some sort of boon stripping combo fields. For example blasting a dark field could strip boons. They are rarely used for blind spam anyway.

3) Introduce some sort of “Boon Berserker’s Stance” as an effect or condition, which reduces boon duration on affected entities by 100%.

I agree with the OP, boon removal right now isn’t strong enough to make a difference. You can bring 10 Nekros and 10 Mesmers and create an area where no boon stays but the enemy just needs to leave that area and after 10 secondes they just buff themself again. Counters to boon removal? Buff yourself again! Removal isn’t like an autoattack, after you did it most of the time you have a cd.

If you think only organized groups buff themself before they engage you’re wrong. Even public commanders use it, small scalers use it, everyone uses it. That’s really nothing special to organized guild raids.

There are reasons why guards, warriors and eles are so important in the actual meta. One of them is the ability to stack many boons in a short time.

Much of erma-boon stacking comes from conversions. Vulnerability goes right into protection, burns turn to aegis, bleeds turn to regen etc…

Zephyrus.9680:

Terrahero.9358:

As usual, its a balance made around sPvP. In 5v5 boon removal can keep up, and boonstacking doesnt have the same potential to run wild like in WvW. Its also a gamemode where you fight on limited size areas, so AoE boon removal is far more effective even if its pulse-based.
Either they lose a multitude of boons or they step of the capture point. Not so in WvW where zergs, especially melee trains, are constantly moving.

sPvP isn’t about boon removal (or stacking) at all… Boons are ubiquitous like dodge rolls. Everyone has access to some of them and they’re part of class’s combat mechanics. Or do you think eles and guardians are overpowered 1v1 because they have the most boons and uptime? If you think that, sorry, you’re bad. Boons are not something that can or need to be countered ‘in general’. First, they’re all different and unrelated, each with a separate context for use. So talking about boons ‘in general’ is meaningless.

The issue with melee trains being overpowered (if they actually are…) is their tankiness combined with anti-cc abilities like AoE condition removal as well as stability uptime that makes them hard to stop. A nerf to 1 or 2 of the skills that power the train would have a huge impact on the balance of this comp. Boons ‘in general’ have nothing to do with it.

Maybe you should actually bother to read what you quote.

I merely commented that arenanet balances around spvp, not wvw, and in spvp you dont have a ton of combofield+blast finishers or stacking of duration boons from several professions as you do in wvw, and fighting happens in considerably more confined areas.
As a result aoe boonstacking isnt as dominant, prevelant or hard to counter as it is in wvw.

At no point did i say boonstacking professions are overpowered, where you got that leap from is beyond me.

alanis.6094:

Only allow combo’s to work while in combat.

That would be interesting.

Terrahero.9358:

Zephyrus.9680:

Terrahero.9358:

As usual, its a balance made around sPvP. In 5v5 boon removal can keep up, and boonstacking doesnt have the same potential to run wild like in WvW. Its also a gamemode where you fight on limited size areas, so AoE boon removal is far more effective even if its pulse-based.
Either they lose a multitude of boons or they step of the capture point. Not so in WvW where zergs, especially melee trains, are constantly moving.

sPvP isn’t about boon removal (or stacking) at all… Boons are ubiquitous like dodge rolls. Everyone has access to some of them and they’re part of class’s combat mechanics. Or do you think eles and guardians are overpowered 1v1 because they have the most boons and uptime? If you think that, sorry, you’re bad. Boons are not something that can or need to be countered ‘in general’. First, they’re all different and unrelated, each with a separate context for use. So talking about boons ‘in general’ is meaningless.

The issue with melee trains being overpowered (if they actually are…) is their tankiness combined with anti-cc abilities like AoE condition removal as well as stability uptime that makes them hard to stop. A nerf to 1 or 2 of the skills that power the train would have a huge impact on the balance of this comp. Boons ‘in general’ have nothing to do with it.

Maybe you should actually bother to read what you quote.

I merely commented that arenanet balances around spvp, not wvw, and in spvp you dont have a ton of combofield+blast finishers or stacking of duration boons from several professions as you do in wvw, and fighting happens in considerably more confined areas.
As a result aoe boonstacking isnt as dominant, prevelant or hard to counter as it is in wvw.

At no point did i say boonstacking professions are overpowered, where you got that leap from is beyond me.

Yes. I did read, and not only do I think you’re wrong, I don’t even think you’re consistent. You’re saying boon stacking is OP, and boon stacking professions are not OP…

Over powered implies one side/comp/profession is getting an excessively large advantage. But you’re not talking about 1 or 2 boon where this might be true, you seem to be referring to ALL boons which all classes have at least some of. That’s why its a meaningless claim unless you’re saying certain boon-heavy classes are OP.

Or do you mean combo fields exclusively? Might and swiftness are the only significant combo field boons. Might has to be done just before a fight, meaning it’s a tactical commitment. Might stacking isn’t OP because it’s obvious and happens right in front of you. Both teams can do it the same, just the better team will take better advantage of the situation because might stacking makes the zerg vulnerable.

I don’t know about you but more often than not, I see might stacking zergs exploding from AoE dps + cc bombs. Their boon stacking was their weakness.

Boons ‘in general’ are not overpowered in WvW. The mechanics are not any different from a team of 5 working together, because the AoE limit is still 5 in WvW.

AoE stability might be a little overpowered but that’s 1 boon and from very limited skills. Therefore, it’s the skills, not the boon itself.

Zephyrus.9680:

Terrahero.9358:

Zephyrus.9680:

Terrahero.9358:

As usual, its a balance made around sPvP. In 5v5 boon removal can keep up, and boonstacking doesnt have the same potential to run wild like in WvW. Its also a gamemode where you fight on limited size areas, so AoE boon removal is far more effective even if its pulse-based.
Either they lose a multitude of boons or they step of the capture point. Not so in WvW where zergs, especially melee trains, are constantly moving.

sPvP isn’t about boon removal (or stacking) at all… Boons are ubiquitous like dodge rolls. Everyone has access to some of them and they’re part of class’s combat mechanics. Or do you think eles and guardians are overpowered 1v1 because they have the most boons and uptime? If you think that, sorry, you’re bad. Boons are not something that can or need to be countered ‘in general’. First, they’re all different and unrelated, each with a separate context for use. So talking about boons ‘in general’ is meaningless.

The issue with melee trains being overpowered (if they actually are…) is their tankiness combined with anti-cc abilities like AoE condition removal as well as stability uptime that makes them hard to stop. A nerf to 1 or 2 of the skills that power the train would have a huge impact on the balance of this comp. Boons ‘in general’ have nothing to do with it.

Maybe you should actually bother to read what you quote.

I merely commented that arenanet balances around spvp, not wvw, and in spvp you dont have a ton of combofield+blast finishers or stacking of duration boons from several professions as you do in wvw, and fighting happens in considerably more confined areas.
As a result aoe boonstacking isnt as dominant, prevelant or hard to counter as it is in wvw.

At no point did i say boonstacking professions are overpowered, where you got that leap from is beyond me.

Yes. I did read, and not only do I think you’re wrong, I don’t even think you’re consistent. You’re saying boon stacking is OP, and boon stacking professions are not OP…

Over powered implies one side/comp/profession is getting an excessively large advantage. But you’re not talking about 1 or 2 boon where this might be true, you seem to be referring to ALL boons which all classes have at least some of. That’s why its a meaningless claim unless you’re saying certain boon-heavy classes are OP.

Or do you mean combo fields exclusively? Might and swiftness are the only significant combo field boons. Might has to be done just before a fight, meaning it’s a tactical commitment. Might stacking isn’t OP because it’s obvious and happens right in front of you. Both teams can do it the same, just the better team will take better advantage of the situation because might stacking makes the zerg vulnerable.

I don’t know about you but more often than not, I see might stacking zergs exploding from AoE dps + cc bombs. Their boon stacking was their weakness.

Boons ‘in general’ are not overpowered in WvW. The mechanics are not any different from a team of 5 working together, because the AoE limit is still 5 in WvW.

AoE stability might be a little overpowered but that’s 1 boon and from very limited skills. Therefore, it’s the skills, not the boon itself.

Neither boons as such, nor the boon mechanic is op.
The thing is not about being op or not and it’s not about any boon in particular, there are plenty classes which can stack up boons on allies. Yes, there are only a few, which can stack up prot and stabi, so these ones are preferred over others in the current meta, but the main problem with boons is not the fact, that they give either side an unfair advantage, so op is the wrong word for it.

Broken hits the nail, tho.

Boons in their current state are like some really broken rock, paper, scissors game with wet paper, where the only way to beat rock is to throw rock harder, because paper can manage a draw at most and only, if you try really hard. It’s not rock, paper, shotgun, but it’s not straight up balanced out either. There is not much counterplay to boons and the AoE boon stripers are few and far between. The only way to beat a stacked up zerg with full boons is to stack up on boons too.

Adding some stronger counterplay to group boons, which are not necessarily all that dangerous in duels/small fights is all that’s needed to introduce a paper to the game, which can beat the massed rock.

Organization and not random zerging OP, please nerf. If you have issues with losing fights become more organised and boonstrip if you think thats your issue.

aeroh.8930:

style.6173:

@OP. What? You are upset that a large group kills you. You really think you’d survive as solo against a large group even if they had no boons? Gameplay tip: Do not enjoy when it is 20 against 1.

When did I say I was solo?

I said no matter where I go, or what I do, sooner or later I end up getting steamrolled by a group with massive boons. I don’t roam solo 100% of the time in WvW. In fact, most of the time I’m in a group of 5-50+ people. But it’s just with random people usually, not a guild, so there isn’t always the coordinated boon generation meta going on. Sometimes there is. I’ll follow a guild blob, get all booned up myself, and steamroll other players. That will last for a while, but then commander/guild will log out leaving a total pug and we’ll roam around, try to take objectives, fight etc. But sooner or later, we’ll meet a boon stacking wrecking ball enemy force. At that point, we might have equal numbers, or even more people than them, but with the boons they’re immortal and we lose. It just all comes down to boons. And there’s no counter to boons but boons. That is my point. I’m not crying about getting 20 vs 1.

Well stacked boons is a sign of an organised group, and it sounds like you’re getting wrecked by one of those. However, it’s not the boons that are wrecking you, it’s the fact that they are ORGANISED. An organised group will be running heavy bunker front-line classes (warrs and guardians) which will absorb all your ccs and damage with stability, protection and retal, and if flanked properly, split you up where you will be weaker. The peripheral players (ele, mes, necro) drops DPS and condis on top of you while you’re disoriented and cc’d, and then water field blast everyone back to full health.

What you’re trying to counter here isn’t the boons specifically, you’re trying to counter the organised group meta. You can do that with your own organised group, in which case it just becomes a game of who can manoeuvre better and take out the other group’s peripheral players first, while managing your own restacks and water heals. The idea is to NOT try and head butt your way through the heavy bunkers who WILL have a ton of boons and ccs.

To destroy those bunkers though, it’s a matter of kiting, and then “bombing” them at an appropriate moment with as many boon rips and condis as possible, and then immediately chucking a static field or some other form of aoe cc which will disable the majority of them, prevent a heal up, and allow a good chunk of raw DPS to get through.

tl;dr to counter an organised group, you actually need to be organised as well. They’re designed to wreck zergs who don’t know how to position themselves.

naphack.9346:

[..]
Adding some stronger counterplay to group boons, which are not necessarily all that dangerous in duels/small fights is all that’s needed to introduce a paper to the game, which can beat the massed rock.

If by group boons you mean stability than I agree. Condition CC (freeze cripple immobilize) should be a stronger counter but warriors are almost immune to cc conditions which is what makes melee (warrior/guardian) frontline trains so hard to stop.

Opc.4718:

Well stacked boons is a sign of an organised group, and it sounds like you’re getting wrecked by one of those. However, it’s not the boons that are wrecking you, it’s the fact that they are ORGANISED. An organised group will be running heavy bunker front-line classes (warrs and guardians) which will absorb all your ccs and damage with stability, protection and retal, and if flanked properly, split you up where you will be weaker. The peripheral players (ele, mes, necro) drops DPS and condis on top of you while you’re disoriented and cc’d, and then water field blast everyone back to full health.

What you’re trying to counter here isn’t the boons specifically, you’re trying to counter the organised group meta. You can do that with your own organised group, in which case it just becomes a game of who can manoeuvre better and take out the other group’s peripheral players first, while managing your own restacks and water heals. The idea is to NOT try and head butt your way through the heavy bunkers who WILL have a ton of boons and ccs.

To destroy those bunkers though, it’s a matter of kiting, and then “bombing” them at an appropriate moment with as many boon rips and condis as possible, and then immediately chucking a static field or some other form of aoe cc which will disable the majority of them, prevent a heal up, and allow a good chunk of raw DPS to get through.

tl;dr to counter an organised group, you actually need to be organised as well. They’re designed to wreck zergs who don’t know how to position themselves.

Yes, I agree 100% wholeheartedly that an organized group using sound tactics should prevail against a disorganized rabble. But the organized group already enjoys better communication, morale, cooperation and all of the ingredients you need to pull off crazy feints, flanks, and ambushes. When you further skew the fights with mass boon, it becomes a little much. I mean, Jon Peters wanted to add a boon hate trait that would increase outgoing damage to buffed up bunkers because boons were screwing up SvP balance. Instead he just nerfed Save Yourself and some other abilities (but not in WvW. Hnnnnnng..) And that is just 5v5 pvp. When it’s 50 v 50? Forget about it. You get the defense of a bunker guardian whilst being able to roll around as a dps monkey. So please, nobody say boons don’t matter that much. Because they do.

Support builds should have a role in WvWvW. If someone wants to build around sharing boons, I want to give them a hug. But if we’re going to have buff builds, we also need debuff builds. And we’re just not there. We need better boon removal options for big fights, and better condition uptime, too.

If your suggestions were implemented i think half the WvW /sPvP players would quit Gw2.

The problem in my mind is that it has become rather boring that every guild plays the same way for the last year(there are some variations for gvg) and anet in no way cares to try to add more options.
They nerfed confusion/glamours and buffed the builds that were almost exclusively played in large scale anyway.
The new party system made it a lot easier to provide very high stability uptime for the melee train.

Boons are mostly fine, although:
- Boon conversion is a bad mechanic considering the abundance of warhorns/pure of voice. It would help quite a bit to allow condition builds back into gvg meta to change it to condition removal.
- Combo finishers only in combat wouldn’t change much since prebuffing (except for swiftness) is mostly a waste of time.
- Maybe think about diminishing returns for boons, e.g. 1/2s less per additional target affected by a shout.

Instead of destroying the cc train (which actually is fun to play, but after a year is without alternative), i’d like to see ui options to enable a more spread out playstyle.

From past experience the issue with not running control t on commander with everybody stacked tightly on him is that the damage won’t be focused and there is no way to harm pvt melees. I believe that an option to call target on any point on screen (instead of being limited to players) would help.

I don’t really see the point. Boons aren’t really boons if both sides have them. If your side isn’t buffing, then that’s your problem.

Another thing is that this doesn’t affect sPvP as much, so ANet will probably never enact a change.

So organised group co-ordinating their boons beats disorganised group of randoms with no co-ordination.

And this is a problem why?

Ragnar.4257:

So organised group co-ordinating their boons beats disorganised group of randoms with no co-ordination.

And this is a problem why?

Because a coordinated group would beat a non-coordinated group anyway. regardless of having that extra mileage out of boons.
Also, adding counterplay to boons would also open up possibilities for coordinated groups to bust sizeable zergs by ripping/corrupting their boons before jumping in.
No matter, what you implement, coordinated groups will always have a better standing than unorganised blobs. The question is, whether you need to forcibly give coordinated groups an edge over uncoordinated ones by having stuff, with no counterplay.

Same mechanics doesn’t apply same way in small scale and large scale encounters. Trying to think of a way to strip boon from entire zerg of 50+ ppl is silly. It means that in ZvZ both zergs would strip eachothers boon and were back to square one. What would be point of boons then anyway?

Boon stripping and stealing are mostly exclusive mechanics available to few classes, while boons are common thing for all classes. If you want to be able to strip boons from zergs get your own zerg with 20 mes/nec in it, there you go.

kRiza krimos.1637:

Same mechanics doesn’t apply same way in small scale and large scale encounters. Trying to think of a way to strip boon from entire zerg of 50+ ppl is silly. It means that in ZvZ both zergs would strip eachothers boon and were back to square one. What would be point of boons then anyway?

Boon stripping and stealing are mostly exclusive mechanics available to few classes, while boons are common thing for all classes. If you want to be able to strip boons from zergs get your own zerg with 20 mes/nec in it, there you go.

The point is that gw2 is balanced around counter play: you thrust, I parry. Mass boons have no effective counter but boons of your own. Then it becomes who can get the most boons to win, an escalation. Now its not you thrust, I parry; its we both stab each other and whoever stabs hardest wins.

aeroh.8930:

kRiza krimos.1637:

Same mechanics doesn’t apply same way in small scale and large scale encounters. Trying to think of a way to strip boon from entire zerg of 50+ ppl is silly. It means that in ZvZ both zergs would strip eachothers boon and were back to square one. What would be point of boons then anyway?

Boon stripping and stealing are mostly exclusive mechanics available to few classes, while boons are common thing for all classes. If you want to be able to strip boons from zergs get your own zerg with 20 mes/nec in it, there you go.

The point is that gw2 is balanced around counter play: you thrust, I parry. Mass boons have no effective counter but boons of your own. Then it becomes who can get the most boons to win, an escalation. Now its not you thrust, I parry; its we both stab each other and whoever stabs hardest wins.

Then how can i kill guardian with at least 5 boons up all time, with thief that has none?

This is just crude example. gw2 is not balanced only around boons. Not every class should have acsess to boon striping by itself, since not all classes have acsess to alot of boons, especially perma boons.

In zerg play there is alot of boons because there is alot of ppl. Only way to strip boons from alot of ppl is to have alot of ppl capable to strip those boons. If boons were only thing that determine ZvZ victor im sure zergs would be full of boon stripers, but its not which tells me that boons are not issue.

On other hand, some classes rely heavly on boons. So imagine you pick traits and runes to improve your boons and then anybody and their mothers can come and strip them from you. You become a ranger.
It would hurt you alot, but it wouldnt hurt that thief with no boons at all. Would that be fair?

aeroh.8930:

The question is, what is the counter to mass boons?

It used to be people would stack on one spot and warriors would shout the pain away. That got fixed. Now people run around in melee pain trains with literally all boons for the duration of the fight, whilst also mass cleansing conditions. But what is the counter to this? Bring your own boons? Boons countering boons? That’s..silly. That is counter play, that’s just escalation.

See, gw2 combat is about counters. If someone has high toughness, you can get around it with conditions. You can counter conditions with cleanses and higher vitality. You can counter vitality with spikey dps. If someone wants to go heavy damage, you can make yourself a bunker. At least that’s what the goal is. It doesn’t always work in practice.

Now with boons, what do you do? You strip them off. And that is working great for small fights, and borderline OP in 1v1s. But it just doesn’t work in mass blob fights. People share so many boons that you can’t strip them off with current skills.

So what is the counter?

alanis.6094:

Only allow combo’s to work while in combat.

That would be a good start.

Null Field by the tons would do the trick. But having an army of mesmers vs the army of anything else would end up with lots of dead mesmers.

A counter to boons would be good kiting. You see a group stack might, don’t just stand there, move back and allow for that might to run out. You’re asking to nerf something that does not need to be nerfed at all. Learn the proper counter plays. If you expect an unorganized group to oll iover an organized group you’re mistaken. And that argument that the organized group would roll over you regardless is just false. You put my guilds 25 people up against your blob, we aren’t rolling over you. We actually do think about everything we do unlike most blobbers..