Guild Wars 2

Zeldain.5710:

Just as a random thought to the discussion, I feel the boon/condition system is poorly implemented, relying on too many random elements and not being long enough to use in a proper tactical manner.

Of course, changing that would mean re-balancing the whole game, so….

I agree. Especially the almost random separation between flat (de)buffs and intensity stacking (de)buffs.

It hits me that one potential interesting way to use boons and conditions would be in a manner similar to how some professions can convert one into the other. Say you could use a boon to directly cancel out a condition and vice versa.

That way you could allow them to be longer duration or quicker to apply as the opposition would be able to strip them away without specifically having on hand abilities that do so.

Then again, condition removers are already a must have for PVP. This then making intensity for the damaging conditions more valuable than duration.

Caelib.2497:

I think ArenaNet’s vision of end-game zones was very blue-sky/unrealistic — that somehow there would be hundreds of players per world on the farming treadmill for Karma and gathering. Obviously, it didn’t play out that way because it isn’t fun and the number of people willing to do it for Legendary is very low.

That, and possibly forming roving militias simply to keep the major routes and points open. Instead, honestly not surprising, was that people congregated around the waypoints for the events with the highest ROI, and left it at that.

When it comes to MMOs altruism is a very rare act indeed.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Tanking 101:

Stack as much toughness as you can, stay in melee range.
Should do the job for most mobs.

End result, get very very familiar with down state.

The closest to melee tanking in this game is a in melee circle strafe. Meaning that you can just as well do it using a ranged weapon to buy yourself some reaction time. Toughness means jack compared to your ability to stay out of the front arc.

Rieselle.5079:

= If someone is being targeted by the enemy, the other members should cast their defensive support on him whilst he kites and dodges.

Good luck with that, as anything that is not PBAOE is ground targeted and so needs to be lead in some fashion unless it happens to be a over time effect (and even they are so short that noticing and reaching before they fade is almost a matter of luck). Never mind that you can’t tell what effect they actually give with a glance, so the caster basically need to announce it all or have some kind of drilled sequence…

It is not about reinstating the trinity!

As for water, only 3 professions produce them, and only with 4 skills between them!

1 engineer (regenerating mist tool belt skill, when having healing turret equipped, PBAOE on the engineer. 60s cooldown), 1 ranger (Healing Spring PBAOE heal and regen 45s cooldown), and 2 elementalist (Geyser at 20s and Healing Rain at 45s, staff required).

Not that they matter much, at they at best (maxed out healing power) heal for 1/5 of the low health professions. Two of them require the profession to be in the heat of things, and only one of them has a cooldown below 40 seconds.

Sad thing is that this is about the only thing a high toughness stat is useful for, as once the hurt starts coming being high or low toughness means surviving one extra blow at most. So no matter the armor numbers, get used to circle strafe…

And so Anet caters to the percentage that can run a perfect circle in their sleep, so that they can make a grab for that coveted esport crown. At this point i wonder why they even bothered turning this game into a MMO.

Then again, give them their harder content (hello fractals). But make that content independent of any other PVE/PVP so that the rest of us can opt out. Giving the ascended gear even a small up tick from exotics were a potentially fatal flaw in Anet’s thinking.

Solori.6025:

Getting ride of dedicated healing( by dedicated healing I healing that is able to outheal burst dps or dps from multiple sources) it has forced people to play the game to survive.
Its forced people to be aware of boss situations ( dodges, healing, blocking, etc.)

If you make a build that has no defense.
Your going to die, often.
If you make a build that at least has some defensive utilities or weapon moves
You will do fine as long as you pay attention and play the game.

Nah, all that is needed 99% of the time is making sure your not the one standing in the mobs front arc for their pr second attack. Their AOEs are a different kettle of fish, tho mostly because Anet have managed to design maps that limit or counter the very movements that are supposed to keep us alive. AOEs that fill the whole platform people are standing on are but one example. Sure, that dodge makes you invulnerable. But if you dodge a bit too soon, and there is no real countdown for the duration between when the circles appear and the actual effect hits, and you find yourself getting out of the dodge the moment the effect actually hits.

And it swings the other way as well, because the constant movement makes non-burst AOEs from the players side pointless unless they are in the very death trap rooms that i mentioned before because the mob can’t be pulled out of the AOE constantly.

The difference between full armor and no armor in this game comes down to surviving maybe one extra blow (if the attacker do not crit). Not worth it when you can dump the same gear and trait points into crit related numbers and bring the mob down faster.

Imo the problem with combos are twofold.

1. they bring nothing new that you can’t already bring with other skills. This in that the effects they output are nothing more than AOE boons and conditions, the very same boons and conditions that other skills produce.

2. they are static objects in what is supposed to be a dynamic fight. When you drop a field, it stays in that location. Except that with the defensive side of the combat mechanics focusing on movement rather than heals and armoring, there is no way to hold a mob in place long enough to actually make practical use of that field. Especially as the fields are short lived, can be overwritten by other fields, and can vanish in the visual spectacle that is the particle field of GW2 combat.

Never mind that most of the non-damage conditions are basically a waste (1-2s fear are not going to buy much time, blind making the next attack miss but can’t stack in intensity, that sort of thing) and the damaging ones are hard capped (25 stacks of bleed and confusion, 1 stack of poison and burning) and the fields become very very meh.

Basically nothing in the game allows players to control the battle, the battle is always a reaction to what the mobs do.

Some may find that fun, i find it a frustration.

It seems we are talking about two different issues. One is that you need xyz slots filled with certain roles, another is a want for the game to allow for more than variations on DPS to be meaningful in the game. I can see the issues with the former, and is not one i argue for.

What i want is for the anything other than DPS DPS DPS to have a impact from the toon side. That i can honestly trade DPS for some other ability and still feel that the build works. Right now, for me at least, it does not. I am not looking for some rubber stamp on each profession to be one of the corners, more that i can shift my position between either of the 3 by changing up the build (or land somewhere in the middle).

But as it stands i feel that anything i trade the DPS points for ends up meaning less than my ability to running in circles.

And i wonder now if that is the main issue. Because anything that will make a stationary defense work will potentially make those that can maintain that perfect circle godlike…

Ah yes. Had a go at that giant today. Found myself alone at first and apparently didn’t do enough damage (or something is wonky about how engineer grenades interact with aggro) so it was just pounding at the gate. Then a necro came by and started adding to the hurt and the giant turned around and started attacking us. After getting it to about 50% is suddenly turned back towards the gate and i discovered it had reset to full health, so i abandoned the fight.

Anyways, what i really came here to rant about was my experience with two skill challenges around the same area. In either case the actual point is either guarded by or based on defeating a veteran. In both cases the area available to move on was narrow and filled with mobs, meaning that trying to actually use movement to avoid damage (never mind that said veterans loved laying down AOE, potentially even knockdown AOE) was not a option from the word go. End result is a no win fight because Anet in their wisdom has designed the game so that heals do not matter. If you can’t avoid the DPS of the mob you will not win no matter what.

The few damage blockers available, mostly via shield, will stop you from doing damage fully, and are on long enough cooldowns that there are no point in timing them as the mob is more likely to have their massive back up before you get your blocker back up.

Basically my issue is that Anet has designed the combat system to be movement focused on the defensive side, yet at the same time has designed a PVE world that seems to negate said defensive option more often than not. Trying to actually use movement to your advantage is likely to draw in more hurt from surrounding mobs if there is enough room to move at all.

MistyMountains.3751:

Hoping they release the Monk profession, maybe with some better aoe healing options, but im not very familar with the monk mechanics of GW1 so idk

Or simply make Healing Power actually make a difference, so that trading power or other damage related stats for do not feel like a self imposed nerf.

Why does it have to be an either or issue?

Why can’t the game allow those that want to tank to tank, those that want to heal to heal, and those that want to survive by dodge to continue doing that?

Right now tho two of those are virtually impossible and likely a liability.

Ah yes, team work. Without any effective in game means of doing just that. Because the only in game means of coordinating it all is via the chat. Except that the game is designed to always keep us moving, so the chat becomes unworkable. Meaning that the only ones that really can do teamwork are dedicated parties/guilds with third party voice chats and similar.

Alternatively, that is what builds are for. Except at present they are not.

AnemoneMeer.7182:

You can already heal like mad as a shout warrior, water specced ele, mace focus guardian, bomb engi, or mantra mesmer. 5/8 healer classes is greater than most MMO’s in fact.

You can? Can’t say i have noticed. The numbers just don’t add up for that. Perhaps they can if the player runs in circles all the time, but then it is the circle running, not the healing, that is the deciding factor.

Likewise, there’s plenty of ways to pseudo tank if you understand how aggro works in the game.

Do anyone actually know how the aggro works? Sure, we have some vague pointers in the wiki. But the mobs seems apt at violating those points over the slightest change in group setup.

Here is what i would like to see:

dumping points and gear into toughness, vitality and healing power (compassion?) actually matter.

Right now i feel they do not, at least not compared to dodge, aegis, blindness or simply staying outside of the front arc of the mob. For example the other day i did much better with my engineer by simply putting flamethrower on auto attack and running circles than i did trying to be fancy with grenades or bombs.

Given the trait system and the dodge mechanic i should be free to bunker up and “tank/heal and spank”, if i so choose to. Just like someone with better reflexes can opt to dump everything into crit chance and damage multiplier and go full on glass cannon.

That would imo be the proper way to go “no trinity”. But instead we have the tank and healer corners being scorched earth and the DPS (with greater or lesser defense) being the only true option to play.

Only reason i can think off that landed us in this is that Anet didn’t want to make two different games for sPVP and PVE. End result is that everything is tilted towards sPVP, and there the “tank and spank” build would be better known as bunker. And bunkers lead to static sPVP play and slow games for what supposedly going to be a spectator esport.

So what i propose is that Anet put in a PVE multiplier for the defensive trait lines so that they actually make a visible difference and may at the upper end allow someone to be an unyielding barrier if they so opt to. The “you shall not pass” is after all a literary classic.

Heh, the game already have more than your average share of fridge horrors so it would not surprise me if they channel Burton.

The big issue is how to understand a slogan like “no trinity”.

It can be read both as everyone for themselves (the current game mode by far), and as saying that any profession can fill any role within the trinity.

I suspect more than a few came to this game thinking it would be the former, that they would not have to pick a specific class to be able to stand firm in face of danger or heal the injured.

But what they find instead is that everyone has to fight, while they may sideline in defensive or healing activity.

IMO, the game plays too much as a action game right now. The healing slot goes virtually untouched if i keep running circles around that mob. but if i stop and try to use my more targeted abilities (lines and circles on the ground) i find myself in down state very quickly because the heals have so long a cooldown that they at best buy me a few more second on my feet.

And that’s the main problem. I have all these nifty abilities i want to use, but most of them are placement locked. And it takes time to properly target them. But with the game forcing constant movement, these abilities are wasted as the mobs keep moving out of them unless i am playing solo and stand in the middle of it.

So why bother? I can instead just hit autoattack and run in circles all day…

Zaxares.5419:

because the classes are designed to be able to fulfill multiple roles

Not quite, imo.

Thing is that even if you go all in with healing or defensive abilities, you can’t really “keep up”. Even at full exotic cleric regen gets maybe 120 extra pr second. That is 1200 over 10 seconds. meaning that it will take 100 seconds, or nearly two minutes of constant regen to refill even the lowest health pool.

And just about every healing skill in the game orbits around 150-200 health pr second.

The combat system is basically designed to force us to use position and movement as the primary defensive mechanism. In other words, the game is focused around kiting!

So no. Anet didn’t allow all professions to fill all the roles of the trinity, because they broke the back on “tanks” and “healers”. Leaving the only effective role being DPS, and relying on the players “skill” (mostly low reaction time and the focus to maintain a pattern for several minutes without fail) for anything else.

Not that healing abilities do much as it is. A full set of cleric will grant you maybe 120 extra health pr second on a regen boon, meaning 1200 for 10 seconds of regen. Sounds like much on first glance, but even our lowest health pools come in at around 15000, and a couple of mobs can reduce that to zero in seconds.

The main think Anet did was to strip away the common means to tank, effective aggro control and effective healing.

With effective aggro control i mean the ability to predict who the mob targets and provides to make the mob change said target if need be. Instead we have some vague list of conditions that a mob supposedly checks to see who it will target at any moment, leading to two groups getting very different behavior out of the mob.

Effective healing means the ability to keep someone standing while being chewed on by one or more mobs. This is not possible as having that ability in PVE would lead to unbreakable bunkers in sPVP. And that leads to static, boring play in a game mode that aims to be used for esport.

End result is that the only way to stay alive is to try and stay out of the mobs front arc by constantly running around them.

Nismu.4019:

necromancers can only use plague, which i guess is decent for blind spam for 20 seconds..
but as minion master it is annoying how my flesh golem dies instantly when i touch water.

Never mind that plague, being a transform, makes our minions vanish. And minions are our main damage utilities under water…

If mesmer and guardian skills can turn into bubbles under water, why can’t wells?

Sollith.3502:

I think most enemies should just all be given a heal skill that they use every 15-20 seconds or so, and can only regain health that way even if a player just runs off (then they could also use the healing in combat). They would incrementally heal themselves back to full hp over time.

Indeed. The mob abilities in general seem shallow.

Rather than a heal or regeneration boon similar to our own (not that they help that much unless you keep circle strafing to avoid their forward arc the whole fight!) they get invulnerability and a rapid health recovery.

Rather than getting aegis and/or stability they get Unshakable:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unshakable

End result is that maybe as much as half the clever tricks players could attempt when taking down a mob are denied by fiat.

Yes and no. It is quite easy to fall into the groove described, i know as i was in it for the longest time. But during Lost shores final marathon i found that my Dagger necro was unplayable thanks to culling and such. So in the middle of the event i ended up reworking what i had for staff and minions.

In that i learned that you are better off picking How you want to play and pick trait lines that has attributes the provide for that. Only after that do you start picking traits that match whatever weapons and utilities you want to be using.

So if you want to be in melee often you pick toughness and vitality lines, and figure out later what kind of traits in there that mesh with you preferred weapon. Going more ranged afford you more reaction time so you can go into power a bit more and so on.

Well Time Warp is nuts thanks to being one of two sources of AOE quickness (other being Guardian Tome of Wrath).

Meh, the main issue with PVE was that they didn’t go far enough with the drops system. They partially alleviated that with the Lost Shores patch, in that it provides the same drops for level 80s even in level 55-60 ca zones. But at the same time they introduced fractals, acended gear and managed to make acended about more than simply agony. End result is that everyone is level grinding fractals in LA, or feel they need to in order to keep up.

Do wonder if giving event chain bosses a chance to drop acended would give reason for 80s to go back to other zones. Or if they would simply chain camp Orr again…

Or perhaps they should drop the whole acended thinking and instead introduce a way to put the whole infusion thingy on existing armor (or introduce a whole new infusion slot on the armor page).

Not like heals mean much in the game in the first place. This because Anet has been very heavy handed in having us use mobility (not simply speed, but dodges and circle strafing) to stay alive.

This, along side the trinity dismantling, means that even a fully pumped compassion/healing power build can’t really stay alive using his heals.

This because strong healing would lead to strong bunkering in sPVP and that would make for static and boring fights for both players and future viewers.

In essence the whole game is tuned around fast, intense point fights in sPVP, with the rest being there simply to keep people entertained until Anet can get their esport dream come true.

End result is that anything that grants vigor will be more helpful for staying alive than anything able to heal.

ZaiTh.6378:

Dungeons are about zerging. There is no real form of controlling or maintaining any sort of taunt. Know when to roll and you will be ok. Learn the simple strats and dungeons are cake and unchallenging.

Yea the aggro/hate system is opaque to the extreme.

First is the issue that different groups get very different behavior out of the same mobs. Sometimes they will bounce between whoever is doing the most damage or get close, other times they will focus on one member in particular, even to the point of dropping everything else if the member walks back into the room after a waypoint rez.

Second is that there is no way to at least temporarily make the mob shift his focus elsewhere. This so that group members can take a breather and heal up, or simply tag teaming. Especially annoying with the CC immunity they put in on larger mobs. Yes, you can still interrupt that one attack. But you can’t say fear him off the downed party member unless you happen to hit him when the immunity stack is at its lowest.

End result is a repeating mix of dog pile and chicken run.

In essence, there are very few ways to control the flow of the fight no matter how experienced and coordinated the party is. The best may simply be to always run with the same party setup and perform rote memorization of mob behaviors to it.

Yea, the ground targeted AOE seems oddly at odds with the action focused combat design.

Never mind that if you happen to mouse over the mob info graphics up top, the target area jump to your toons feet. Do wonder how many Necro staff marks i have wasted that way when sitting on the back row.

DigitalKirin.9714:

AerictheBoss.9172:

Of course those warriors are pulling all the hate from mobs. If you pulled more dps you would be going down instead.

Hate is generated for a variety of things. Also, some bosses/monsters have different hate mechanics.

Hate is usually generated by (in no particular order, since people haven’t figured out the specifics yet):
-Toughness
-distance from the mob
-Wearing a Shield
-Dealing damage

And this may be the real issue.

The hate/aggro mechanic is virtually random, meaning there is no surefire suggestion you can give or action you can take to tag team a mob.

Sometimes you will get a mob that ping pong between toon, other times you get one that will jump into lava to snuff out one specific toon. And often you find that the very same mob changes behavior between runs and there is no way to nail down what changed parameter triggered the different pattern.

So end result is that unless your dealing with some gimmick boss the basic solution becomes to pile on the hurt and hope you are the one left standing.

the weapon change should result in barely a point increase in healing power (depending on rounding direction), but a 30 point increase in power.

first off, 1 shot kills are no fun unless they happen rarely enough that you can charge up a dodge between them even without vigor.

Never mind that a lot of champs and higher pack normal attacks that force you to be on your move constantly unless your bunkered up with aegis on top.

As for mob CC, hello Orr. Didn’t see much of it outside of the odd bruiser types that ground slammed or centaurs that would run me over until i hit that place. Then i found myself pulled and launched all over the place. Especially annoying when the pull comes from behind because a mob respawned while i was trying to take down another that was barely outside of aggro range before (meaning i have found myself making no progress what so ever towards my destination).

The games problem seems to be that while it can put the fear of deity into a solo act, it becomes a pushover if you can stack some AOE heals or boon dispensers in a tight group.

JonPeters.5630:

1) it seems to be failing because of a rounding error which we are working on fixing right now.

Meaning that it is supposed to turn 3% into 3.15% and so on, not 8%.

A reminder that the game is tuned around sPVP, where everyone is L80s in exotics?

Gehenna.3625:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Well, No offense but if you where doing dungoens with me and all you did was auto attk, I wouldnt be partying with you. =( Cause I actually use all my skills when I need them to contribute. I dont use them just because “im bored”.

You are contributing less if all you do is spam skills and auto attk.
You are right that movement and dodging is key but if you are not contributing in coordination of Control & Support then replacement might be in consideration. =(

No offence taken, since I know you are just assuming things here. The GS auto attack for mesmer does more damage reliably then any other skill in a GS/Staff build. I just drop a couple of clones and go auto attack. It’s the best I can do for damage.

I also specifically talk about boss encounters and not the whole dungeon. That’s another mistake in your reasoning. Some thrash mobs are tougher fights than bosses. Also an interesting point. But still I believe that dodging damage and ressing quickly is far more efficient than any control/support skills you might add.

This is because most boss fights have very simply mechanics and are imbalanced due to one shot skills and a gazillion hp/toughness rating making boss fights boring.

It’s just the way it works. And trust me, I did fine in dungeons. Runs were generally very smooth. But it’s the set up that makes most of the skills unneeded. I could cast a skill that makes everybody in the area attack faster for 10 seconds but then the cooldown is over 3 minutes. It barely makes a dent in the bosses hp. So why bother?

I can cast it. I can use it, but it doesn’t really make a noticeable difference. That’s the point. At least half of the skills hardly make a difference because they are not needed. Just move, dodge and ress.

This brings to my mind that the game is tuned around sPVP, not WvW/PVE. And to compensate for that in PVE Anet chose the simple way and upped the body count or bulk of the encounters, rather than attempt to do an AI that could mimic a PVP encounter.

And when i say tuned around sPVP i mean that everything is set up so that encounters are quick, and the tide of the fight can flip in an instant. This to produce exiting, always on the edge experiences for onlookers in a esport setting.

So in the end, kite kite kite til the cows come home…

After going minions in the Lost Shores event (only way to do some kind of damage while in the middle of that mess) i found myself wondering if the issue if related to having minions out before a fight vs summoning them in the fight.

That is, summon minions outside of a fight. Then initiate a fight (longer range may be more likely to trigger the issue) and observe if they engage or not.

Then redo by swapping skills around to get rid of any survivors, pick a fight with a mob and then summon and see if there is any difference in behavior.

Zonghui.4570:

SpyderArachnid.5619

What gloves are those?

Twilight Arbor.

Volomon.9147:

rchu.8945:

Debsylvania.7396:

rchu.8945:

why are ascended gears tie to PvE contents only?

According to Chris Whiteside’s response to this question during yesterday’s Reddit MMA, they regret having introduced ascended gear to only one facet of the game. He said this was “a mistake” and that they will be adding access to this gear to other venues ASAP.

didnt they also sold us that GW2 will have not a gear grind during the initial release the game, I guess he must be speaking the truth. Oh wait…

Personally I don’t think it has grinding for gear. First off Legendaries are a luxury item they provide no benefit. So you don’t HAVE to grind for them. In fact you never have to ever have one. Ascended as they said will be opening up in other ways with more easily obtainable than just running a dungeon or at least that’s what they say.

I don’t understand why everyone says you HAVE to grind for a legendary. No you don’t. It’s not something required or needed. It’s a want and if you WANT it ya your going to have to put in some effort.

It turned into a grind when people wanted to be the first to get legend X. We humans can create races out of the strangest of activities. Me, i am quite happy just ignoring the whole thing. I just wish Anet would make it easier to track and organize weapon and armor skins. But then i suspect DCUO has spoiled me there…

Could be the target spot is auto calculated based on the shape of the model, using a formula that would place it roughly chest height on a human. End result is that tall targets, unless manually relocated, get their spot placed overly high and so on.

Almost like the engine was built for PVP with roughly humanoid models first, and then extended to do open world PVE later…

Or rethink benefits for clearing the waypoints in Orr.

Something like the WvW benefits perhaps, but tied to each PVE order?

GrapeGatsby.6937:

digiowl.9620:

Yukishiro.8792:

Shanna.4762:

It’s not really brilliant, this was unpopular in LOTRO, so much so that they removed it and I think effectively the same system was tried in other games and removed because it was annoying and unpopular.

The problem is it is TOO brilliant. It exposes the lie at the heart of vertical progression schemes too obviously.

Verti progressional people WANT power creep. They WANT to be able to lord it over the plebs. This is what keeps them going, not being able to do the same dungeon with a higher level of agony so they can farm more agony gear so they can do the same dungeon with higher tuned numbers.

And this is why i don’t bother with PVP. Too many monkeys wanting to wave their e-jewels around…

And you think the people that go afk in LA for half the day with their legendaries aren’t waving their e-jewels around?

Think more family jewels (alpha ape male style)

Yukishiro.8792:

Shanna.4762:

It’s not really brilliant, this was unpopular in LOTRO, so much so that they removed it and I think effectively the same system was tried in other games and removed because it was annoying and unpopular.

The problem is it is TOO brilliant. It exposes the lie at the heart of vertical progression schemes too obviously.

Verti progressional people WANT power creep. They WANT to be able to lord it over the plebs. This is what keeps them going, not being able to do the same dungeon with a higher level of agony so they can farm more agony gear so they can do the same dungeon with higher tuned numbers.

And this is why i don’t bother with PVP. Too many monkeys wanting to wave their e-jewels around…

Do wonder how many hours of being curb stomped hide behind those 5 min glory run videos of the toon one shot some unsuspecting foe that happens to pass by.

More specifically, separate how they work from Champs and other mobs likely to gather a crowd. They already have a special case for them in the Unshakeable code.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

There is also the Vigil Leggings (if you joined the Vigil of course, though I think there is a work-around to get them without joining the Vigil). That is if you want something skimpy.

http://www.xionsphere.com/share/Guild%20Wars%202/Screenshot126188.jpg

now that’s good looking. Dunno why, but i have always liked that hairstyle.

The more i think about the subject the more i suspect this is a carryover from PVP tuning, where they didn’t want to see someone get a ton of conditions dumped on him quickly and melt before he could respond.

but champions and worldbosses are a different story. Thanks to how crit heavy the game can be, and that direct damage scales with the number of people without any hard cap present, i suggest borrowing a page from their anti-CC feature for champs.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unshakable

This scales with the number of people present, so that the more people there are, the more CCs are needed for one of them to bite.

What i am suggesting is the inverse of this. That with large groups, given that the overall encounter scales with the numbers present, the bleed cap (the major issue here) is raised.

As it stands, at 25 the bleed is likely to do as much DPS as perhaps 2-3 people doing direct damage, depending on the latter’s crit chance and damage multiplier.

So once we start to see 10+ people the cap can readily be raised to match, especially as the mob will be scaled to the group anyways.

Well the main bug is that these “trigger on X health” effects (even our locust swarm trait) trigger because they think we are at zero health when we go DS. But if Anet took inspiration from Moa on how to deal with it, any time we go DS we would be booted right back out again…

Druitt.7629:

sorrow.2364:

PvP of course. There is not so much point to talk about balance in a non-competitive gamemode.

Yes there is. Half of the whines in this forum are about “No one invites me to dungeons because every other profession does everything I do, except better.” Balance matters there. Also, PvP is broken up into several aspects, including WvW. If you’re talking about sPvP, you should state that clearly.

Indeed. One of the selling points was that they broke the trinity, meaning that you could slot any profession into any position and in theory gain the same results.

Thing is that Anet went a step further and more or less eradicated tank and healer in the process.

Tank in that there is no consistent aggro behavior. This again mean that there is no consistent way for one or more toon to act as designated tank.

Healer in that there is no reliable way to put a heal on a single toon or group without walking in the middle of them with a PBAOE.

End result is that everyone either bunker up, or go out and out damage hoping they can use self heals and dodge/mobility as a way to outlast the mobs.

Would this be a bad time to mention that mesmer warlocks get a 10% damage increase pr condition on target, and they share power and precision stats with the mesmer?

Mega Skeleton.8259:

Personally besides minion AI, my major complaint is that I wish Death Shroud wasn’t such an obstructive/intrusive interface.

Yep. Had it behaved more like engineer kits than a modified down state (inherited from the beta days where it actually was a down state), it may be easier to get into the flow of things.