Guild Wars 2

Daecollo.9578:

Atherakhia.4086:

The Rooster.2615:

Atherakhia.4086:

A game should never need different rules for PvE and PvP. Especially a game like this where PvE is nothing more than a distraction to prepare you for PvP. Now as for AE CC and such, I’m very much in favor of this and I was shocked to find no real dispels, purges, controls, and heals in PvP in this game.

There’s just no depth to PvP in this game. And without any depth you limit the number of tactics and strategies players need to succeed. And when players don’t need tactics or strategy to succeed they clump up in a ball and play follow the leader all day.

Adding more depth to this game is never a bad thing. Adding unlimited AE or forcing 2 rulesets (1 for PvE and 1 for PvP) isn’t a solution.

Which game are you playing exactly? GW2 already has different rules for PvE and PvP.

Everybody is saying that AOE without a cap would be OP against the zerg. That’s the point. We’re talking about a way to discourage people bunching up into large groups which results in the uninteresting gameplay you mention. Don’t want to get murdered by AOE? Don’t all stand in the same spot. Be aware of your surroundings. Think and whatnot.

Of course AOE would be OP without a cap against the zerg. You know when it wouldn’t be? If 10 people weren’t standing in the same spot. Then it would be exactly the same as it is now The idea is to encourage people to spread out.

Listen, removing the aoe cap won’t even change the majority of combat situations. The only time it will make a difference is when you have more than 5 people standing in the middle of an aoe which is exactly what we’re trying to discourage. At all other times, there would be no difference in aoe.

Your reasoning is backwards. People don’t ball up into zergs because the game lacks depth and tactics. They ball up into zergs because it is the best tactic. People will always follow the path of least resistance. So until you make it dangerous for everyone to stand in the same spot, people will continue to do so.

The rule differences are subtle. Like not being able to use elite skills and things of that nature (which is ignored for various classes). They aren’t making a spell work entirely different depending on where you choose to play.

Zerging is the best tactic because it’s the only one to choose. I’ve played dozens of mmos and all used zerging. Only a few offered no real solution to it. None of which had limitless AE.

And I’ve already pointed out with the hunter scenario that 30 people in a courtyard spread out will still be covered with AE, aren’t balled up, and would all die without the ability to retaliate.

If you want ‘more AE’ then why not give it to more classes? Why should Rangers need to channel their barrage? Why can’t Guardians have a second ranged AE? Why can’t Warriors have a 1200 yard ranged AE? Why is thief AE travel time so slow? Why aren’t there classes that can drop AE spells that pulse AE knockbacks to dispurse zergs? Why aren’t doesn’t the mesmer spell that reflects spell reflect AE’s back onto the enemy zerg and damage them?

Dozens of better ways to ‘nerf zerging’ than just removing an AE cap that will do nothing but open up the door to even more abuse, further alienate classes, and ultimately not change anything when it comes to zerg play.

If they are spread out, then the 5 aoe limit does not even matter. What point are you trying to make? The current way it is, all 30 of them are balled up because it increases there survivability dramatically.

The 5 AE limit is still important because all 30 of them could still be under barrage’s circle but only 5 could be hit. Whereas without it, all 30 would be hit even though they aren’t balled up.. they’re spread out all over the courtyard to the keep. Only they can’t fire back due to the wall’s lip, the rangers have them all perma snared and bleeding, and barrage has a 100% chance to crit.

Removing the cap is a terrible idea because it opens up the game to this kind of abuse.

Frellin.6318:

Atherakhia.4086:

And this is why we desperately need more information on what exactly boon hate will be. Given the absolutely terrible state the majority of classes are in with their trait trees, introducing traits that give boon hate would be the absolute worst thing to do until they’ve fixed the trees themselves.

Take Warrior for example… I would presume boonhate was just a mechanic attached to their burst skills. This way they’re on cooldown, encourage burst use which many warriors ignore (because 99.9% of warriors use greatsword because of how awful the other weapons are and how the class lacks any form of mobility otherwise), and can’t be spammed easily. For thieves you would attach it to steal for example.

True, they could choose to give the boon hate to glass cannon builds and maybe lower burst damage some more. I am unsure which method I would prefer. I was just thinking giving boon hate to balanced builds could be a good way to help bring them up without bring burst and bunker builds down farther.

Right. My only concern with boon hate being a passive trait increase that makes X skills do Y% more damage per boon on the target is it doesn’t really solve anything. It just gives whichever class they decide to focus on this month a bandaid they can change on a whim to increase class A’s damage against class B. This is an awful thing to add to the game and doesn’t really improve the state of the game. It just means when it’s Ranger’s turn to have their class looked at and they decide Rangers don’t do enough damage to Guardians, they’ll simply give them boon hate and up the % until Rangers deal the right amount of damage to guardians. Who cares if boon hate for one class does 1.7% more damage and boon hate on another does 3.6% more damage.

I’d rather just see boon hate remove all boons on the target and put a 5 second debuff on the target so they can’t get new boons. I’m not even sure the skills should do X% more damage per boon removed, or if it does, it should be slight. Then if you find this change is too powerful THEN you can introduce traits for ALL classes that give their boons a XX% chance to resist being destroyed (since most classes have a boon duration trait).

But the ability to remove boons I think would be quite powerful and even if Warriors aren’t competetive in structured PvP still, they’ll still be brough for their ability to remove boons and help focus down bunkers. It will encourage other teams to focus on Warriors giving the opposite team room to focus on non-booned targets etc etc. It just makes the PvP environment have more depth and require more coordination and tactics. Something I feel PvP currently lacks in this game.

The Rooster.2615:

Atherakhia.4086:

A game should never need different rules for PvE and PvP. Especially a game like this where PvE is nothing more than a distraction to prepare you for PvP. Now as for AE CC and such, I’m very much in favor of this and I was shocked to find no real dispels, purges, controls, and heals in PvP in this game.

There’s just no depth to PvP in this game. And without any depth you limit the number of tactics and strategies players need to succeed. And when players don’t need tactics or strategy to succeed they clump up in a ball and play follow the leader all day.

Adding more depth to this game is never a bad thing. Adding unlimited AE or forcing 2 rulesets (1 for PvE and 1 for PvP) isn’t a solution.

Which game are you playing exactly? GW2 already has different rules for PvE and PvP.

Everybody is saying that AOE without a cap would be OP against the zerg. That’s the point. We’re talking about a way to discourage people bunching up into large groups which results in the uninteresting gameplay you mention. Don’t want to get murdered by AOE? Don’t all stand in the same spot. Be aware of your surroundings. Think and whatnot.

Of course AOE would be OP without a cap against the zerg. You know when it wouldn’t be? If 10 people weren’t standing in the same spot. Then it would be exactly the same as it is now The idea is to encourage people to spread out.

Listen, removing the aoe cap won’t even change the majority of combat situations. The only time it will make a difference is when you have more than 5 people standing in the middle of an aoe which is exactly what we’re trying to discourage. At all other times, there would be no difference in aoe.

Your reasoning is backwards. People don’t ball up into zergs because the game lacks depth and tactics. They ball up into zergs because it is the best tactic. People will always follow the path of least resistance. So until you make it dangerous for everyone to stand in the same spot, people will continue to do so.

The rule differences are subtle. Like not being able to use elite skills and things of that nature (which is ignored for various classes). They aren’t making a spell work entirely different depending on where you choose to play.

Zerging is the best tactic because it’s the only one to choose. I’ve played dozens of mmos and all used zerging. Only a few offered no real solution to it. None of which had limitless AE.

And I’ve already pointed out with the hunter scenario that 30 people in a courtyard spread out will still be covered with AE, aren’t balled up, and would all die without the ability to retaliate.

If you want ‘more AE’ then why not give it to more classes? Why should Rangers need to channel their barrage? Why can’t Guardians have a second ranged AE? Why can’t Warriors have a 1200 yard ranged AE? Why is thief AE travel time so slow? Why aren’t there classes that can drop AE spells that pulse AE knockbacks to dispurse zergs? Why aren’t doesn’t the mesmer spell that reflects spell reflect AE’s back onto the enemy zerg and damage them?

Dozens of better ways to ‘nerf zerging’ than just removing an AE cap that will do nothing but open up the door to even more abuse, further alienate classes, and ultimately not change anything when it comes to zerg play.

Med.6150:

Kavia.8249:

I think using the NPCs on the battlefield to shield you from attacks is an intentional design decision judging from the minion master necro. A lot of what makes things like that viable at all are the defense you get from hiding behind your minions.

Also, I’ve often intentionally stood behind a clone while stomping a warrior or something to avoid their downed interrupt projectile.

I don’t think the mechanic needs to be changed – just learn how to adapt to it, use it to your benefit, etc.

It’s the random factor that is the problem. There’s no way for me to tell when one of the npcs decides to move between me and my target with so many of them and their movement skills.

That’s exactly the reason for the recent changes to some single target attacks that have now become piercing attacks. It’s almost impossible to hit your intended target, unless there are no npcs around.

Then don’t push your luck and attack from the other side. I can’t think of a single scenario where I’ve had 10 NPC’s completely surround someone. The only scenario that made sense for this was with mesmer clones, and that’s clearly intentional for them to get in the way.

Frellin.6318:

Makato.3517:

So I have been reading the forums alot for a while and seeing the mutial issues that people are having in spvp. Thieve,Warrior underated and Ele op-ness. I read one thread with one of the Treads talking about “BoonHate”. This is a nice concept but i could see the result in two ways:

1. Thieves and warrior will trample over Gaurdans and Eles and there will be nothing but Eles and Gaurdians complain on forums.

2. Necros and Mesmers will be come useless since the converting boons ability will be trashed. Not saying that they will not be in groups but saying that this will restrict them to only using Condition builds and not use the converting skill.

I like the concept of this new talked about skill but how it is implemented needs to be consider wisely. Quickness being reduces of speed raised alot of concerns. ( alot to the thieves and warriors and some to rangers and engn. )

What are other thoughs on this “Boon Hate” idea.

I would be surprised if only warriors and thieves had boon hate and not necros. This is just my opinion but I think the devs are talking more about warriors and thieves because of all the talk after the march patch. I am unsure if mesmers would get this boon hate love but it is possible.

Going forward this is how I view a direction GW2 could take:

1) Bunkers – Can live for extended amounts of time and typically require two players to take down. A players/class traited for boon hate can bring them down alone but it will not happen quickly. This will give time for teammates to come back and support.

2) Glass Cannon – Will be able to put quick pressure on a bunker but since the fight will last longer they will ulimately be forced to retreat or die. The glass cannon builds will be best used to fight balanced builds or quickly 2 vs 1 someone down.

3) Boon Hate – This is not a glass cannon build. This is a balanced build that gives players the ability to defeat bunkers 1 vs 1. The fight will not be over quickly and so they must be aware of enemy players returning to support bunkers. The boon hate builds need to be weary of glass cannons as they are at a bigger disadvantage compared to other balanced builds. It is not guaranteed this build will beat bunkers. If the bunker player is a better player than you can still fail to kill them.

4) Other Balanced builds – Will have an advantage over boon hate builds in all respects except for fighting bunkers. Compared to boon hate builds they will have an easier time against glass cannons but will still be put under early pressure and need to fight their way back to win the fight.

As an example of my thinking I will take the thief into account (my most played class). I can see more boon hate being applied to the S/D weapon set either through updates to the weapons or through new traits. The new boon hate traits can even be put deep into Acrobatics and/or Trickery so as to keep them away from pure glass cannon builds. This would mean daggers would be more about glass cannon burst damage and swords could be more about sustained damage and longer fights.

They could still choose to bring down burst damage by lowering the damage on Mug. They can work on stealth changes that eliminate the ability to chain Cloak and Dagger (CnD). At the same time they can help bring sword builds back up for more sustained lasting fights and with some boon hate.

The main logic I am using is that glass cannon builds do not get the boon hate.

And this is why we desperately need more information on what exactly boon hate will be. Given the absolutely terrible state the majority of classes are in with their trait trees, introducing traits that give boon hate would be the absolute worst thing to do until they’ve fixed the trees themselves.

Take Warrior for example… I would presume boonhate was just a mechanic attached to their burst skills. This way they’re on cooldown, encourage burst use which many warriors ignore (because 99.9% of warriors use greatsword because of how awful the other weapons are and how the class lacks any form of mobility otherwise), and can’t be spammed easily. For thieves you would attach it to steal for example.

Pyroatheist.9031:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Xavi.6591:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

I disagree with removing the AOE cap unless there is a very large reduction in damage or serious modification in how those abilities work. If you remove the cap, a team of elementalists would be able to wipe a zerg, or any other class with strong AOE would be able to wipe a zerg and it would just make them way too powerful.

I understand and agree with the arguments that AOE should hit more people but I disagree that this would be a good idea to implement without serious modification of AOE abilities and I like how they work now.

Learn to move out of AoE. It’s that simple. Right now with the current 5-man AoE limitation, you are safer running ikittenerg.

No, it puts way too much power in a few small classes.

Remove AOE and why bring any class at all other than a class that has ranged AOE?

You cannot give a class this kind of power. You’d be able to take 2 elementalist teams and descimate both zergs. No other class needed. That is a problem with removing the cap. You cannot invalidate other classes just to force other players to split up.

Stupid idea is stupid.

2 ele teams wouldn’t kill a zerg, because they’d kill themselves. Eles have the lowest base health of any class. Just a single lava font dropped in the middle of a large zerg could kill them from retaliation.

When I drop feedback ikittenerg, I will often lose upwards of 14k damage during its duration, and that’s purely from people attacking into it and gettin retal from the reflects. With no cap, any aoe into a zerg with retaliation would be instant suicide.

Who cares if it’s suicide if you take out the enemy zerg when you do it? Lava Font with blasted staff is a fairly large AE that ticks for a large amount every second. 10 ele’s dropping this would take out everyone who didn’t get out (anyone without 2 dodges up) in 3 seconds. RTL bombs of 10 eles into a zerg and they’d probably die, but they’d take out everyone.

Hunters could probably take 3 ticks of retaliation hitting 20-30 people. They only need that for their AE to have launched completely and finish its full duration unchanneled.

Removing the AE cap solves nothing and just creates even more exploitable scenarios. And the only reason for removing the AE cap is apparently to discourage zerg use, but it will likely have no real impact on zergs to begin with

Nah. This is a skill issue and doesn’t need a clunky solution like this. Just be more situationally aware and/or ask for something like projectile speed to be increased.

Zikory.6871:

Frenk.5917:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

I disagree with removing the AOE cap unless there is a very large reduction in damage or serious modification in how those abilities work. If you remove the cap, a team of elementalists would be able to wipe a zerg, or any other class with strong AOE would be able to wipe a zerg and it would just make them way too powerful.

If you didn’t get it, that’s exactly why people want the aoe cap to be removed: to allow small parties to wipe entire zergs, in order to incourage people to not to zerg anymore.

It will not discourage zergs. safety in numbers. 5 people can now wipe 30? Well we want 60 and everyone has to be a Necro ele or ranger built for AoE. Oh your a theif or warrior? can you out AoE a necro or ele? Nope your dead wait in WvW…

I suggested that eons ago for Warrior. A shout called marching orders. Gives a 25% movement buff to everyone for 30 seconds on a 20 second cooldown. A Ranger aura like in WoW would have also been great. Worst part about being a Warrior or Guardian is no real movement buff for treking across those large empty spaces of land between towers.

Zikory.6871:

Atherakhia.4086:

Zikory.6871:

I think removing the AoE cap fully would be a bad idea but I do feel they need to either increase it to 10 (10 for sometime then go from there, doing extreme changes is normally bad and can brake part of the game) Also it will promote AoE based classes. Just one that jumps out to be is epidemic. This skill alone would be unbelievably to overpowered if the AoE cap was removed.

I just don’t think its going to be so cut and dry as “just remove the whole cap”

Pretty much.

Increasing just harmful AE (things that do damage and apply conditions) to 10 while leaving the boons and heals at 5 means that offense will scale past defense. This in conjunction with the boon hate mechanic (assuming it actually removes boons and puts debuffs on targets so they can’t get a new boon for 5 seconds or so and it isn’t just a passive damage increase) will encourage a more in-your-face style of play instead of the whole 1200 yard mexican stand off styles of play we have now.

When I run epidemic I use corrupt boon and normally find a guardian to target because they tend to have the most boons. Spam scepter to get a ton of bleeds and bam 5 people start melting. If the cap was removed and I was able to put ~25 stacks of bleeds plus all the other conditions on everyone (not even including all the other AoE) very small numbers would be able to wipe very large numbers.

Anyways IF they were to remove or increase the cap they would really need to take a good look at all AoE skills and adjusts them accordingly, not just nerf the damage to the ground.

That’s not even half of it.

Imagine a handful of elementalists for example. RTL crits for about 2-4k. Has 1200 range. You move at 200% movement speed. Imagine a handful of those diving into a zerg without a cap.

Imagine a handful of Rangers with longbows. You have an area the size of an arrow cart’s reticule that ticks for 1k a second, applies a snare, auto crits, and applies a bleed. Imagine this x10. I wouldn’t even consider 30 people standing around in an area this size being ikittenerg ball. A few rangers could completely defend the inside of any tower indefinitely safe from the walls.

And despite these things, removing the AE cap won’t have the smallest impact on zergs. It would just reinforce their need because stragglers will be picked off by the classes that don’t have AE’s and the zerg will be even more needed to ensure buffs are spread around, heals are kept up, and what few bottlenecks exist in this game are properly defended.

First of all, Mesmers and Guardians will never become useless. These 2 are the most powerful classes in the game currently (guardian a very distant second to mesmers). Secondly, your talking about increasing the value of 2 of the least represented classes in the game right now where PvP is concerned. There’s nothing wrong with seeing an additional thief or warrior along the way past the entry level areas and hot joins.

Now that said, we still don’t know how boon hate works. If it’s just a passive increase in damage based off the number of boons the target has nothing will change. Warrior damage could probably be doubled and they still couldn’t kill a guardian or mesmer the way things are right now. And this goes for most of the classes in the game unfortunately. This could be the absolute worst approach they could possibly take.

Instead, if Boon Hate dispels boons and puts a debuff on the target so they can’t reboon immediately it magically makes mesmers and guardians among the ranks of mortals instead of gods like they are now. And if you give boon hate to only a few classes you do 2 things:

1.) You ensure represenation of said classes increases.
2.) You add a new layer of tactics and strategy to an already 1 note PvP system.

Anything that encourages more cooperation (ie. calling out the gaurdian for burst because your warrior/thief is about to use his boon consuming ability) and depth to PvP is a benefit to this game.

Zikory.6871:

I think removing the AoE cap fully would be a bad idea but I do feel they need to either increase it to 10 (10 for sometime then go from there, doing extreme changes is normally bad and can brake part of the game) Also it will promote AoE based classes. Just one that jumps out to be is epidemic. This skill alone would be unbelievably to overpowered if the AoE cap was removed.

I just don’t think its going to be so cut and dry as “just remove the whole cap”

Pretty much.

Increasing just harmful AE (things that do damage and apply conditions) to 10 while leaving the boons and heals at 5 means that offense will scale past defense. This in conjunction with the boon hate mechanic (assuming it actually removes boons and puts debuffs on targets so they can’t get a new boon for 5 seconds or so and it isn’t just a passive damage increase) will encourage a more in-your-face style of play instead of the whole 1200 yard mexican stand off styles of play we have now.

Removal of the AE ca kitten illy and opens the door for immense amounts of abuse. The idea that it will stop zerg play isn’t true. It will just reinforce it.

Zerg play is more a result of poor class design, poor environment design, and a lack of depth in PvP in general.

Will boon hate be a mechanic introduced in this month’s patch? Can you go into more detail on how boon hate will work because there’s nothing known about it other than its name and the basic idea to increase damage against someone with boons.

Will boon hate dispell all boons on the target, deal x% damage per boon destroyed? If so, what’s to stop boons from going back on? Will you also put a boon hate debuff on the target for like 5 seconds so they can’t just put boons back on and we’re back at square one?

Or will it just be a passive damage increase? This seems like a very bad way to do it as it’s just a bandaid you’ll adjust on a class by class basis and never really solve the problem.

But we have no idea how this will work, how it will be implemeneted for the thief class, and if it will work the same way from class to class?

declan.3968:

I posted this on the WvW thread but will post it here as well.

What it needs is two things:

1) remove AOE cap
2) split AOE abilities for PVE/WvW . Lower the damage coefficients for AOE skills in WvW but give them control elements, like Daze, Knockdown … For instance, Ele Staff Meteor Shower could give 50% chance to Knockdown on hit, but damage is reduced by around 50% – this means that AOE is used more as a control element to funnel rather than a big damage skill to wipe.

In doing so you don’t give an AOE heavy squad the means to wipe a zerg, but you give them control tools to keep a blob in place while your ground crew moves in to mop up.

A game should never need different rules for PvE and PvP. Especially a game like this where PvE is nothing more than a distraction to prepare you for PvP. Now as for AE CC and such, I’m very much in favor of this and I was shocked to find no real dispels, purges, controls, and heals in PvP in this game.

There’s just no depth to PvP in this game. And without any depth you limit the number of tactics and strategies players need to succeed. And when players don’t need tactics or strategy to succeed they clump up in a ball and play follow the leader all day.

Adding more depth to this game is never a bad thing. Adding unlimited AE or forcing 2 rulesets (1 for PvE and 1 for PvP) isn’t a solution.

Zorion.7504:

It seems as the biggest fears are that zergs Will be destroyed with aoe cap gone.., well would that be a bad thing?
If 10 anything suicide squad could kill a zerg, wouldn’t that just automaticly change how zergs plays?
If a zerg wants to take a keep it would be forced to higher tactics then stack on the door…

In either way I can’t see aoe cap removal as a bad thing for www.

It wouldn’t though. Things like Guardian barriers and bubbles for example or the simple fact that blast heals can heal for the same amount as some of the higher damage AE and be blasted for 15 seconds straight. Or are you honestly trying to pretend that removing caps on AE won’t also come with the removal of caps on buffs? Because I don’t think this game can handle the flood of guardian and mesmer tears.

And we also have to have a real discussion on what constitutes a zerg ball…. because I would argue that 30 people in a general area the size of an arrow cart’s reticule not to be a zerg ball… and yet 10 hunters could decimate this area with impunity at 1200 yards with 5 stacks of bleed, 1k a second damage, and an AE snare for each ranger.

A solution to the zerg balls needs to be found, but removing AE caps is hardly the way to approach it. Especially in this game where it’s clearly not capable of handling it given the current environment.

Things like a better designed WvW map where we aren’t just running loops around the zone all day but rather are encouraged (forced) to siege keeps in a progressive manner.
Keeps far enough away so siege in one can’t be used to siege another.
Allowing siege to be used regardless of the side who made it so people had to clean up after sieging a keep.
Arrow Carts having longer range when placed on walls or provided a damage bonus when used for defense instead of offense.
Controllable waves of elite NPC’s to help defend and repell attackers.

Anyone remember when Alterac Valley first came out and you actually had to gather resources to train guards and you could send out waves of guards to help you push enemies out of bottle neck positions? Why not have rectangular shaped WvW maps with a series of towers and keeps and you can’t take the keep unless you have all 3 towers. The keeps have progressively stronger guards in them that can be sent out in waves to help take towers back. If you manage to take the map all the way to the other teams main borderland entrance, those guards should be able to repel pretty much anything to regain their keep. Especially with a siege breaker assisting. And bottlenecks… a couple of those wouldn’t hurt WvW. It’s like someone used their 5 year olds maze they got in kindergarten class that day to design the layout for these maps.

I know I know… PvE in muh PvPz wut! But that’s why we have 4 different border lands to choose from.

Zorion.7504:

Atherakhia.4086:

Okaishi.8320:

You keep saying this, But dont you realize that removing aoe cap would insta kill all ellies in your exampels due to retaliation.
Ellies with 9k HP that hit anything from 10+ players Will just insta kill themself.
If removing aoe cap would Do anything för ellies it would be using them för support more, cause glass cannon aoe ellies would never exist Long if the cap got removed.

Try to understand the concept of a suicide hitsquad hiding ikittenerg ball. 10 eles for example. They could be in any gear you want, I presume if they’re hiding ikittenerg ball with the intent to be a suicide squad they’d be in full serkers and knights. Their RTL will crit for 2-4k. With 10 of them that’s 20-40k damage. This damage can’t be stopped or damaged. They’re coming at you at 200% movement speed. They come from 1200 yards away. They have a radius of 600 on the AE. Do you think they care if they die? Do you think you can react to this fast enough to stop them? I’m confident some out there could. But then again they’re eles…. they’ll mist form back to their ball, wait 20 seconds, and do it again.

And that’s just Eles using a pointless skill. By the time the ele’s have died to your example of retaliation, they’ve already got Meteor Shower to the point where it will continue its auto cast given its randomized nature. Lava font as I mentioned has a very large AE when traited, hits for a tone in power gear, and can be left on the ground.

And to my knowledge, retaliation won’t pierce mist form so if the ele is in trouble, they’ll pop a cooldown. And this is of course ignoring that the removal of AE caps now allows Necros to consume all boons on every target.

/shrug.

Okaishi.8320:

Did you think this through? Every single example you use involved the zerg in a cute tight pack formation that would make them vulnerable to that very AoE. 10 elementalists casting Meteor Shower and some of those meteors would hit you indeed, if you stand still in that area long enough. And there’s no excuse for anyone to take more than 1 tick of damage from Lava Font, because that’s one of the most obvious AoEs in the game.

D/D eles can deal a fair amount of damage, but unless the sacrifice survivability for it it’s not going to be the stuff that instakills entire groups of people. And again, this is only in the case zergs stick to the stupid zergball mentality after removing the AoE cap. Please stop using the current ‘brainless’ zergball meta as an example as to why removing the AoE limit would be broken.

The only way you’re going to stop zerg balls from being out there is by turning on collision detection (I’ve played several with this too). The very fact that this is a sieging game forces you to be ikittenerg ball because you can’t spread out in keep courtyard or when knocking down a door for example. And most AE’s are large enough to cover 3/4 of the total courtyard.

I’d be more concerned you’ll see what the above poster mentioned and people will zerg vs zerg, but the only counter to AE is going to be retaliation which isn’t nearly as effective as he pretends and is only viable if your zergs agree to stand at 1200 range using Meteor showers on each other. Run a suicide train and it’s over. And coming from Shadowbane, I know all about Druid+Wizard suicide bombs.

People need to stack for buffs. They need to stack to get through doors. They need to stack to get heals. No my friend, the zerg ball will be here to stay in every MMO past, present, and future unless you turn on collision detection.

And when you don’t have AE caps you don’t need to go in berserkers gear as a 2k rtl isn’t hard to get. And do you honestly think it will be difficult for 10 eles to communicate RTL into a zerg at the same time and then pivot 180 degrees and use firebrab? Even if these spells hit for half what I mentioned they’re going to kill everyone.

I use it all the time regardless of what spec I’m running at the time. Now I never use it with greatsword, even if I don’t have fury up at the time. It’s just a waste of time and energy. But I always have some other weapon on and I swap weapons all the time in PvP regardless if it’s sword for the root+bleed+dmg, axe for a finisher, hammer for a stun, or longbow for insane ignite ticks.

Okaishi.8320:

In response to Atherakhia, GW2 classes are different from WoW and as such it will be difficult to compare. I don’t know any classes capable of instantly blowing up people with AoE. Meteor Shower has a 5 second cast time, long cooldown, random meteor impacts and as such is unreliable, moreover it’s easy to avoid. Lava fonts are even easier to avoid. Zergs with almost exclusively squishy mages (which you will say will happen without AoE limit) will get completely destroyed by zergs who actually have a good frontline that can charge in.

Having a lot of elementalists is only useful in sieges, and if they are good enough to keep areas under constant AoE lockdown then going with catapults or trebs would be a good alternative. As soon as they don’t have a wall to hide behind, they won’t be able to stop a good zerg utilizing stuff like mesmer portals to get through choke points like a destroyed wall. They should remove swirling winds’ interaction with siege shots though, because it’s a silly mechanic imho giving elementalists more defensive power than is neccessary.

People shouldn’t be playing in zergballs, they should spread out to counter AoE. No zerg will have enough AoE to make entire battlefields instant death traps. And even they have enough elementalists to put down lots of AoE, those squishy mages are susceptible to direct attack and will fall easily. I think people are greatly exaggerating AoE without a limit, because the only thing that will really notice a difference will be that zergball that stands with more than 5 people in the same spot.

Classes aren’t as different as you seem to think. And lets not forget that eople complain to this day that Elementalists can out tank warriors. And while Meteor Shower has randomized damage, 10 eles casting it and you can count on at least 2 of them hitting you. Lava Font doesn’t have randomized damage and with the staff trait has a fairly large AE impact. And these are the non-suicidal spells.

What about 10 Eles Rain of Lightning into a zerg at 2k damage each? Didn’t know RTL does damage? do you realize that 10 eles flying into a zerg can’t be stopped or killed and that this alone would kill half the classes out there? What about these same eles after they RTL into the zerg using Fire Grab at upwards of 10k damage? Didn’t remember this is a dagger skill which 9 out of 10 eles have? What about mesmer berserkers that hit for insane damage? Shatter clones?

Hell! Ranger longbow isn’t random, hits for about 1k, has an enormous AE, AND snares! Hell with the ele trains, lets get some ranger trains out there!

I’m sorry, but I really don’t think you guys have thought this stuff through.

Again, it really seems you guys haven’t played games with loose AE rules and found out just how poorly things work out when not implemented well. Just removing the AE limit on this game would be absolutely disastrous.

In the other thread someone mentioned DAoC as an example of a game without an AE limit and mentioned how that game worked out perfectly. I have no idea what server he played on, but DAoC had one of the worst PvP mechanics known to man and is the originator of the zerg and train mentality. DAoC had nothing but suicidal AE trains ripping through the frontiers. The only time they were stopped was when you could lock them down from range and attack them from range. You can’t do that in this game due to no real ranged lockdown but you most certainly would adopt the suicidal AE trains given how Ele’s work.

Next up was WoW. When that game first came out, AE was uncapped and the whole game was completely dominated by Arcane Mages with Arcane Explosion (you had to trait into at the time to make it instant). They would run through all of Azeroth both PvE and PvP alike killing everything in their path. It took a year before the cap was put in and it took a year before anyone bothered trying to do Alterac Valley because of how out of whack things were.

The one MMO that I’ve played that actually did AE right was Shadowbane. It had a cap (10 I believe), almost every class had some form of AE option, it was all high damage, and it most of it was easy to use. The way they offset it was one of the greatest spell resist systems ever used in an MMO. Something this game doesn’t have.

The way this game is right now, there is absolutely no way removing the AE limit could ever work. The WvW maps are designed horribly removing the ability to ever counter AE bombs. The siege system here doesn’t provide enough benefit to defenders so even trying to defend a keep isn’t going to stop the AE zerg. Classes are horribly designed so you wouldn’t see anything but Eles in a weeks time. And there’s no effective way to shut down AE other than not standing on it (which we know won’t matter if 2 out of every 5 players in WvW is an ele as each tick of lava font will hit for 2-3k, trigger after a second, have large circles due to blasting staff, x10 because no one will have fewer than 10 eles in a ball).

All removing the AE cap will do is replace mixed zergs of today into suicidal Ele balls tomorrow. If people here had more MMO experience than WoW, or they could actually remember the state WoW was in at launch, they’d know how difficult changing the AE system in this game is going to be.

A single tick of meteor shower can tick for upwards of 5k. That means a single wave from just 5 eles could kill everything except Warriors and Necros before you factor in toughness. Toughness would only make it so you would add Rangers and Mesmers to the list. The rest of the classes would be killed in a second. This isn’t even considering the second tick of the spell. And that’s just your basic GTAOE. What about fire grab that hits for 10k? the game would quickly turn from zerg on zerg to suicidal ele bombs. This isn’t what this game needs.

You know what games with less strict AE caps offer that this game doesn’t? Real resist. If players could put on resist gear to reduce Fire damage by 75% like some other PvP centric MMO’s have offered it wouldn’t be a big deal. But then once you introduce resists, you need to introduce elemental vulnerability to offset it. Then you need to introduce a much more realistic cleansing system. And what would a more robust cleansing system need? Well a more robust purging system.

You’re never going to fix the zerg mentality. The only thing you can do is design the environment to not reinforce it. But so long as WvW in this game amounts to nothing but running in circles until 2 zergs catch up to one another, it will never change.

WvW is supposed to be a game of keep defense. Problem #1 is the extreme lack of choke points that favor the defenders. Problem #2 is how every keep is little more than a giant empty box with a lord in the middle of a giant empty room. Problem #3 is this game doesn’t have robust keep defender NPC’s. Problem #4 is how there is no defensive focus and it’s all just siege walls, cap point, and leave it for someone to recap it later.

Every MMO that’s focused on PvP has had zerg balls. They’re only a problem in games with no real depth to their PvP system where tactics and strategic gameplay take a back seat to numbers. Look at how involved PvP was in games like DAOC, Lineage or Shadowbane and compare it to what this game offers. And even they had caps on AE.

Trusting in a process means nothing ever gets accomplished because the problems aren’t adequately voiced, unique ways of handling issues aren’t found, and things never change.

I certainly understand where the OP is coming from, and I certainly find hyper critical (crying) unproductive, but harsh criticism is often times the most valuable.

9 hours sleep? 8 hours sleep? I haven’t had those hours since highschool. More like 3 or 4 hours of sleep! Stop being a casual!

Their paths have been discovered as well as the direction on that path.

I’d sooner encourage people to come out with a map overlay that can be used ingame than worry about timers and coords on these guys.

This whole game is casual. There isn’t anything in this game that relates to what I would consider hardcore in any other MMO.

No player run cities that can be burned to the ground? Casual.
Nothing but scripted boss encounters? Casual.
No gear checks? Casual.
No PvP depth? Casual.
No PvE depth? Casual.

Thank god casual and hardcore don’t relate to having fun though as I’m very much a hardcore gamer and I’m having a blast with this game (sometimes). I can only imagine how much more fun I’d be having if I weren’t a Ranger and Warrior :/

FateZero.8536:

Notice that the ones who oppose this idea are all about Zerg?

Actually it seems those who oppose it are the ones with experience playing other MMO’s that didn’t have AE caps and know what can go wrong if it’s not done right.

Map design has a very large impact on zerg play. Did DAoC have zergs? Absolutely. Was it only zergs? No. It’s because the WvW map wasn’t a giant circle devoid of any choke points and keeps weren’t just empty square boxes with a king inside.

Sylvari have pointy ears.
Female Sylvari have a pretty face option.
2 of the Sylvari hair styles actually look like anime inspired hair as opposed to leaves.
Sylvari can be black skinned, gold skinned, blue skinned, pink skinned, green skinned, and copper skinned to cover all genres of elves.

Just make a sylvari like the rest of us did because if they introduce real elves (or dwarves) in an expansion I’m going to be very annoyed rerolling all my characters.

Hopefully by then full ascended gear (armor and weapons) will be out and it will all be account bound instead of soulbound.

But a single tick of meteor shower can tick for upwards of 5k. That means a single wave from just 5 eles could kill everything except Warriors and Necros before you factor in toughness. Toughness would only make it so you would add Rangers and Mesmers to the list. The rest of the classes would be killed in a a second. This isn’t even considering the second tick of the spell. And that’s just your basic GTAOE. What about fire grab that hits for 10k? the game would quickly turn from zerg on zerg to suicidal ele bombs. This isn’t what this game needs.

You know what games with less strict AE caps offer that this game doesn’t? Real resist. If players could put on resist gear to reduce Fire damage by 75% like some other PvP centric MMO’s have offered it wouldn’t be a big deal. But then once you introduce resists, you need to introduce elemental vulnerability to offset it. Then you need to introduce a much more realistic cleansing system. And what would a more robust cleansing system need? Well a more robust purging system.

Perhaps this bane hate mechanic will turn things around. Imagine a Warrior whirwinding into a zerg with banehate on dealing 10% more damage per boon * 25 stacks of might giving +250% more damage or some such nonsense. Or zergs making better use of Necros to strip boons.

You’re never going to fix the zerg mentality. The only thing you can do is design the environment to not reinforce it. But so long as WvW in this game amounts to nothing but running in circles until 2 zergs catch up to one another, it will never change.

Someone did the math and found that over a set period of time (1m), a Ranger (the class, not just the ranger itself) did the same damage as a greatsword warrior in the same gear. If the worst PvE class is doing the same damage as the best PvE class, I’m confident all these % modifiers are doing the job they’re supposed to.

You know what’s sad about this post? I’m in the same boat. I just can’t stomache leveling another alt the traditional way. But when I look at the map completion, I think I have 40% on my main, 20% on my second 80, and about 15% on my main who is my third 80. Still not sure I’ve found the class I want to play either.

Not sure this class needs another 2 handed weapon. A flail/whip with a shield would be fun.

I’ve found I can’t funciton without the mobility of the greatsword in any form of PvP be it WvW or structured. The off-hand I’m still not settled on. I use axe+shield right now for the defense and burst move. I use longbow sometimes for the root and AE value. I use hammer sometimes for the utility. I use sword and horn for the mobility and condition removal. But one thing I can’t live without is greatsword.

As for PvE, I use whatever I’m in the mood for. Since I can’t stand PvE content in this game it tends to just be 100b spam with a rifle offhand. If I wanted to try it would be the axe/mace+gs combo probably.

When you guys took the time to respond to this thread, it was already in the Warrior forum. It doesn’t make much sense to expect much in-depth ranger discussion in the Warrior forum, does it?

I feel like I started this by bringing up Ranger spirits, but the only reason I said that was because I feel spending time an energy to improve banners, something most people feel are fine, when another class which has effectively the same exact mechanic can’t use theirs at all is a waste of time. If they wanted Warriors to realistically use banners, they should improve the Warrior to the point where they could realistically consider their use. The way things work right now, no one will ever use banners for anything more than a novelty — “HeHeHar lookit me regens!”.

Now as for the Rangers plight, I could talk at great length on that subject too as I feel this game has the worst representation of the ranger archetype I’ve ever seen. Even games that don’t have Rangers have implemented them better!

But you dying to 100b is on you. You claim the damage is too high, but you play a class with a legitimate and viable bunker option. That’s strike one against you. You play a class with high stamina regen, a move that breaks stun and gives you full regen, multiple disengages, multiple snares, roots, and dazes. Every single one of these things would have had to been on cooldown for you to legitimately have an excuse to dying to 100b.

Don’t want to play bunker? Don’t want to run full apothecary gear? Don’t feel you should need lightning reflexes and effectively the 5 dodges in a row it allows? That’s fine, but that’s an issue you have to bring up with Rangers on the Ranger forum with a pretty good excuse with why you’re attempting to PvP without a PvP build.

The reason this is an issue on the Warrior forum and you’re being mocked is because unlike Rangers and every class in the game, the Warrior doesn’t have a real spec to fall back on anymore. They don’t have a bunker option to choose.

This is the Warrior forum. This post has been on the Warrior forum since I first commented on it. If you have gripes or need assistance in avoiding 100b or specing your Ranger, you’re not going to get very far talking about it on the Warrior forum.

Are you folks running the typical 0/0/30/30/10 or 0/0/20/30/20 builds for these setups?

I was under the impression all three had the same stats on their gear and it was just looks?

Either way though, I’d go something different as you’ll have the flags on your character selection screen light up for have each of the 3.

JonathanSharp.7094:

We’re going to be working on a lot of Warrior stuff in the coming patches. But will we be changing things, in the OP’s words, “in a few days”? Nope. We have to wait for patches to move through the system of developing content, refining it, iterating on it, getting it tested, and then getting pushed to live.

Warriors are very strong in PvE, and they’re struggling in PvP – we know this. Contrary to popular belief, we play our game, in all formats, and we talk to player experts in all formats. We also read the forums.

But that doesn’t mean we’re going to throw knee-jerk/reactive changes based on any piece of feedback we receive. As we’ve said NUMEROUS times, we’re doing slow tweaks so that we don’t have to do whack-a-mole balance.

Just because things don’t happen “in a few days” doesn’t mean they’re not happening!

Jon, the problem is the complaints are piling up, the issues are blatantly obvious, and not once have I ever read a single person complain about banners. And for 3 patches now, the improvements were all related to banners. Not on mobility. Not on bunker builds. Not on conditions. And not on defensive options.

And what’s funny, seeing as I play(ed) a Ranger, is you’re making all these banner changes when your time and effort really should have been spent revising ranger spirits as they’re infinitely worse than banners and yet their functional use to the class and group are almost identical to those of banners for warriors.

I’m no novice to MMO’s so I know I’m probably not being fair in my criticism, but it really does seem like nothing of substance is ever changing in the right direction for Warriors (and Rangers…).

I don’t know if I’m just understating all the issues with this class or what, but I feel like the problems this class has are so blatantly obvious and esay to fix that the fact they haven’t done anything about it now has left me dumbfounded.

I find the largest problem with this class just skill normalization. Why do things work one way for every other class in the game, but for the Warrior things are different? Why don’t skills like Bull’s Charge and rush work the same as Swoop and Ride the Lightning? Why are Warrior skills the only ones impact by movement impairing abilities?

The next big issue is poor healing coefficients which limits the value of the entire tactics line. Why can’t a Warrior build a defensive spec with this class and expect it to perform as well as a bunker as other classes do? You have classes like elementalists that can heal for 10k+ health before they even use their heal. But the Warrior has to use 3 shouts on a 15-20 second cooldown just to heal for 6k?

Next is poor inner-tree balance. Take the defense line for example. We have merciless hammer that needs near impossible levels of APM to ever make use of the trait in a realistic scenario because the disabling effects this class has only last 1 or 2 seconds at most. Can’t even get an auto attack in sometimes!

I mean this class has only one real primary weapon option because this class can’t function as it is without the mobility greatsword provides. Can you imagine playing without it? Add to that we don’t really much diversity in how we trait the class becase so few traits have any meaingful impact on the class. And then the obvious issues of condition removal, lack of a real bunker option, and no flexibility in skill choice?

If it weren’t for the PvE and WvW performance of this class, it would be almost as terrible as Rangers, Engineers, and Necromancers.

If boon hate is implemented that way it will be a complete failure and proof that the designers haven’t a clue what they’re doing. A passive damage increase that class A gets to help against class B is a bandaid and no way to balance a game.

Now on the otherhand, say they worked as follows:

Attached to your burst skills.
Dispelled all boons off the target dealing +X/Y/Z% damage per boon destroyed.
Put a debuff on the target making that target unable to gain new boons for 5 seconds.

Now all of a sudden you add a very unique element to the PvP meta that encourages more diverse class representation.

Yup. The way they should work is you cast the banner and it replaces your F1 burst skill. If you use your F1 burst skill it plants the banner and does an AE heal, cleanse, swiftness, and quickness buff around it and puts your burst on cooldown. Only a Warrior can pick it up. Otherwise they’re attached to your back.

They’re also all exploitation mechanics.

All depends how things are done.

If it’s a passive X% damage per boon on the target increase then yea, it’s awful.

If it’s a dispel all boons and deal +x% damage per boon removed and put a debuff on the target making it so they can’t reapply boons for 5 seconds, then it’s a great addition to the game.

Most games have more ways to remove buffs than they have ways to put them on. A real dispel mechanic and counter to buffs adds more depth to the PvP environment and more depth to PvP is never a bad thing.

It’s all going to come down to how things are implemented.

wauwi.9162:

before this patch: ranger —> zephyr --> longbow skill #2 + #5 —> gg
ranger --> zephyr —> revives downed mate instantly
ranger --> friendly mesmer does time warp —> ownownownownown --> zephyr —> ownownownownown
a little bit OP, no?

i, a lv80 DMG+Survival hybrid Ranger named Aerrith, approve this balancing.

once, an “instant death”-button got fixed, everybody screams “NERFED!”.
why?

Instant death? Hardly.

And a nerf to longbow is the absolute last thing that weapon needed for the ranger class as it’s by and large the weakest weapon option available to the class. The only reason to ever use the weapon was always sharpening stones and barrage with opening strike. Thankfully that’s still intact.

The only saving grace is the fact that the nerf was a global change and not ranger specific because if you want to talk extreme then look at the Warrior’s volley kill shot.

If your plan is PvP, Warrior would be a very bad idea. And while the warrior does a better job at being a ranger from a damage standpoint, I will admit that the Ranger is more fun to play.

If you want mobile gameplay with effective PvP I strongly suggest a Thief over the Warrior. Much better damage, great mobility, better melee options, and a lot of overlap between abilities and traits with the ranger class. PvE on a Thief is an absolute pain though. Especially having to wait so long to get the movement signet.

I’m not sure what the patch did to this ability. Does it no longer go through targets or something? I’m at work so can’t test it out.

Any sites with just the pictures? I’m at work so can’t view youtube

I trust this whole thread is strictly speaking of PvE because the PvP side of things are laughable.

In the talk they did kind of imply this was an idea in progress and not something we would see coming any time soon. Given how little information they had on the topic I’m not surprised to see it missing from the patch notes.

I mean we still don’t know if it’s a passive increase to damage or a boon strip for example. That alone would be the difference between boon hate being a useless bandaid to a larger problem and adding something very cool and dynamic to the PvP meta.

Of course given what we’ve seen so far, I’m worried it will just be passive and something they’ll just update every month until Warriors do just the right amount of damage to Guardians and Mesmers.

Very disappointed. So now with the quickness change, why are warriors left with a 50% increased damage while using the ability?

Why are all of the Warrior’s movement abilities the only ones in the game affected by movement impairing effects (Rumor is leap for Guardian is also affected, though I can’t verify).

We’re still waiting for the supposed AE debuff with much trepedition.

Nothing on boon hate, which is fine, as the video did imply it was something they’re considering for the future and all. But nothing for Warriors when they’ve acknowledged they’re awful other than nerfs and PvE boosts they obviously didn’t need to begin with?

Come on… I’m not convinced they play the same game or they cater only to the classes they themselves play.

I don’t believe for an instant an ele is doing anywhere near warrior level damage regardless of spec. their damage is all over the place because, regardless of weapon, they need to stack condition and power for various skills at the same time. While Lava Font and shower are amazing damage and combined can do about what 100b does, their auto attack is dreadful.

But as numerous people have said in this thread, simply don’t join with them. This is why guilds were created. Join a guild group or join a different guild that runs these places. Or get a berserker’s set if need be.

I think the problem comes from you wanting to be part of a speed run group while not tailoring yourself to best compliment the group. This isn’t the group’s problem, it’s yours.

When all is said and done, we’re talking mere minutes of difference between a 4x serkers + mesmer group and a 4 rangers + guardian group. Our time was 8 minutes as the warriors (record being 7.5?) and with the ranger group (mine was in magic find….) was only 12minutes.

If you don’t want to play the part, don’t try to join the group. It’s that simple.

My biggest problem is the lack of normalization between the classes and that’s just uncalled for.

They should review every class and write down the traits and skills each has and compare them. Why would a tier1 trait be so good for another class to warrant being a 25 pt trait? Why would the same skill work the same for 3 classes, but different for one other? Why would every movement skill in the game work one way, but Warrior movement skills work another?

I realize each class is supposed to be different, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have something in common every once inawhile.

Normalize the traits and skills across the classes and see how things are. Then they can start improving them one class at a time or whatever method they so desire.