Wow, just wow. The massive number of posts that show responses from people who clearly can’t read is amazing. I’ve seen several responses along the lines of “removing caps makes AoE classes uber powerful.” Seriously? Is everyone high?
Removing the AoE caps introduces a choice, much like a Mesmer’s Confusion in sPvP. That choice is to ball up in a big zerg and be very vulnerable to AoE, or spread out into smaller spread out groups who by the nature of being spread out and small are less vulnerable to big AoEs.
It seems exceedingly simple to me, yet I can’t fathom how so many people seem to keep missing the point. Removing the AoE cap isn’t going to make AoE-centric professions super god awesome, its simply going to force everyone into the choice mentioned above, which means logically people will spread out to avoid AoE.
As to those who argue that removing the cap would mean AoE would have to be nerfed, why? A player who doesn’t stand in a Meteor Shower, Barrage or is dodging through Wells takes zero damage. Lava Font could do a gajillion damage, but effectively does zero if no players are dumb enough to stand in it.
And that’s the main problem with people arguing against cap removal. They don’t see the issue, they just see numbers on skills that in their arguments assumes an automatic hit. GW2 combat is much more mobile and twitchy than most MMOs, which means part of the game balance must be on player reaction time and skill, which ANet can account for but should not put training wheels on.
Ironically, unlimited AoE would make melee professions more powerful. Why you ask? Its simple, now the hard hitting single target professions become the hard counter to the AoE professions. A Meteor Storm can hurt a big group, but a Warrior can knockdown the Ele and crush him, eliminating the AoE threat entirely. Where melee becomes powerful is in their ability to quickly remove the threat. A small roving band of Thieves and Warriors can function as an assassin squad, taking out the artillery barrage being conducted by squishy casters.
In this way, removing the AoE cap gives professions a more defined role in WvWvW, makes the map and mode more interesting, and probably makes the whole thing a lot more fun. At the very least it would cut back on the mindless zerging. But it would require the players to re-think their roles, strategies and tactics, you would of course have the obligatory whining about needing to nerf AoE from players who kept standing in red circles expecting lame game mechanics to save their stupid hides, but they would probably be the minority as the rest of the playerbase would get used to the much more dynamic and challenging WvWvW combat.
