Suggestion to Change Stability

[X T D.6458]

Anyone who has spent even a little time in WvW or any game mode for that matter should know how valuable the boon stability is. It has gone through a few changes to tweak its strength, but it remains such an important factor, especially in WvW. I believe changing the very mechanics would do a lot of good in promoting healthier game play.

 

The original form of stability provided total immunity from cc's and could only be removed by boon removal skills. Then it was changed to include a stack system, each stack would be removed when cc is applied to you. This however proved to be very unreliable because it made stability too easy to remove by just spamming cc's. This led to the beginning of the pirate ship meta. Then there was a second change, that added an internal cool down on stack removal, this helped bring stability more in line.

 

Now, I am all for more boon removal because I personally detest boon spam, but I also understand that stability plays a major factor in determining the direction of the game mode and therefore it can affect a player's level of satisfaction with that game mode.

 

My idea is to change Stability into an effect, kind of like alacrity, instead of a boon. Skills that provide stability to allies should still be able to do that. It should still use the stack system to provide counter play, so cc's can still remove it if hit enough times. Boon duration also would not affect it, it would just be a flat duration. This would allow stability to be used without fear of removal, allowing players to "push" but still providing counter play.

 

Another idea is to add one stack of stability, with a very short duration when using stun breaks successfully. This will prevent a player from being immediately cc'ed again when using a stun break and allow some breathing room. We all know how incredibly frustrating it is when you are being tossed around all over the place, and cannot rely on stun breaks or stability.

[Strider Pj.2193]

On the surface this sounds good. Not sure the internal issues would be within the coding, but mechanically sounds good.

 

If CCs would allow this effect to be stripped, would they also strip other 'effects'? Like alacrity?

 

I wonder if differentiation would be possible.

[vana.5467]

I would completely support this because of how uniquely necessary stability is in WvW.

Lowers the uptime (no +duration or share) but makes it more reliable. As it should be, in my opinion. Honestly wouldn't mind if this extended to resistance and quickness as well.

 

I'd prefer to see boon duration and corruption removed entirely from the game, but this is probably a more realistic idea.

[Strider Pj.2193]

> @vana.5467 said:

>

>

> I'd prefer to see boon duration and corruption removed entirely from the game, but this is probably a more realistic idea.

 

Corruption has been in the game with core necro. Removing that would be counter intuitive to what a large part of what necro is.

 

Now, I am not saying scourge is fine, but corruption as a whole is.

 

And boon duration could be dropped some too. I agree with that.

[apharma.3741]

I don’t agree, stability right now is in a good spot and has been since the cool down on stack removal was added. What isn’t in a good place is boon removal, more importantly corrupts as well as the diversity of boon removal where 2 out of the 4 classes with viable boon removal remove boons with nukes and the other 2 have careful targeted and more frequent removal.

 

Making stab a unique effect lowers the counterplay against to essentially CC only, sure the durations will be less but what’s to stop you just getting more stab to make up for the loss of boon duration? It might also have the undesired effect of homogenising the meta.

[vana.5467]

> @"Strider Pj.2193" said:

>

> Corruption has been in the game with core necro. Removing that would be counter intuitive to what a large part of what necro is.

>

> Now, I am not saying scourge is fine, but corruption as a whole is.

>

> And boon duration could be dropped some too. I agree with that.

 

Indeed, and that wasn't so much of an issue back when it was limited in scope and (more importantly) you could reliably cover boons. But since they changed corruption to be random, it's been a massive shitshow in WvW. It causes people to die through no fault of their own, which is endlessly frustrating. Sure, exempting stability from corruptable boons would fix this to some extent, but that honestly just feels like a workaround for poor design decisions.

 

You take away boon duration and sharing, uptime becomes much easier to balance, and there's no longer any need for corruption. Boons become temporary and reliable buffs rather than permanent features that can be hard-countered. I would prefer that.

[Strider Pj.2193]

> @vana.5467 said:

> > @"Strider Pj.2193" said:

> >

> > Corruption has been in the game with core necro. Removing that would be counter intuitive to what a large part of what necro is.

> >

> > Now, I am not saying scourge is fine, but corruption as a whole is.

> >

> > And boon duration could be dropped some too. I agree with that.

>

> Indeed, and that wasn't so much of an issue back when it was limited in scope and (more importantly) you could reliably cover boons. But since they changed corruption to be random, it's been a massive shitshow in WvW. It causes people to die through no fault of their own, which is endlessly frustrating. Sure, exempting stability from corruptable boons would fix this to some extent, but that honestly just feels like a workaround for poor design decisions.

>

> You take away boon duration and sharing, uptime becomes much easier to balance, and there's no longer any need for corruption. Boons become temporary and reliable buffs rather than permanent features that can be hard-countered. I would prefer that.

 

The statement 'no fault of your own' would apply to boon sharing. Eliminate boon sharing, and boon corruption only affects those who choose to have boons, thus being, in essence, 'their own fault'

 

I think the kitten show comment is extremely accurate right now.,, it can get ugly out there lol.

[Haematic.4913]

I think stability is still fine.

 

The 'nilla WvW vet in me disagrees with my above comment, though.

[OriOri.8724]

I think the main issue here that OP is trying to fix is that a single corrupt or boon strip can remove all 25 stacks of stab on you, making them extremely overpowered against stab considering how important it is as a boon. While this would fix that issue, I think this would introduce many issues of its own (notably, making stab immune to strips and corrupts entirely).

 

I think that a healthier solution would be to first lower the amount of boon corruption in the game (and maybe boon strips/steals), but then change how they interact with boons that stack. Instead of 1 corruption removing all of your stacks of stab, maybe it only corrupts 1 stack? This would intrinsically remove 2 stacks of stab (1 that got corrupted, and another that gets stripped from the fear) unless you also had resistance. Or it could corrupt 2 stacks at once, so that its stronger than a CC in regards to removing stab (always removes at least 2 stacks, potentially can remove a third if they don't have resistance). Boon strips could similarly be changed into only stripping up to X stacks of stab (I would say 2-3 stacks to start with than adjust that number if needed) instead of all the stacks that you currently have on you. Boon steals could continue to take every stack, since they are significantly rarer.

 

Changes along these lines mean that corruptions and boon strips still work against stab, like they should, but they are no longer an instant removal of all of your stab, making you immediately vulnerable to a CC spike.

[Rayya.2591]

stability is fine

the meta is more pirateship cause less players want to play guardian since staf nerf

So if 50% play scourge 10-20% revenant 5% staff ele , 5% thieves /rangers /engi , you will have 20% of players on guardian and warrior

i rarely see 50 man squads with more than 7 fb

[Strider Pj.2193]

@"OriOri.8724" I do think that it should have a limited number of stacks. I would argue about the amount, and how it relates to the fear portion, but that then becomes logistical and semantics.

 

Finding some balance of 3-5 stacks per corruption maybe? I don't pretend to know how much.., But corruption is a core element to the necro class. I don't think it's a good idea to hit it too hard. But honestly, I am not sure what too little or too much is.

[OriOri.8724]

It could be 3-5 stacks per corruption. Its all a numbers game really. But a single corrupt being able to strip all 25 stacks of stab is probably too powerful. I've also thought about reducing the number of stacks to 15, but increasing the ICD on removing them to 1 sec.

[GDchiaScrub.3241]

I wanna say this has been suggested before where you turn stability into a **non-boon buff**. In general, I find ANET slow when it comes to adapting to balance, and I also find that a majority of player suggestions for balance can be disregarded (since some may only play a single class leaving their sight tunneled visioned around said class). That or player created balance threads devolve into back and forth bickering.

 

However, stability is fine if you have more minstrel firebrand (blegh) in your composition. This obviously doesn't apply to roaming, and I find this meta boring regardless. So I am all for turning stability into a **non-boon buff** in a similar respect that ANET _attempted_ with Soulbeast stance share.

 

 

[Strider Pj.2193]

> @OriOri.8724 said:

> It could be 3-5 stacks per corruption. Its all a numbers game really. But a single corrupt being able to strip all 25 stacks of stab is probably too powerful. I've also thought about reducing the number of stacks to 15, but increasing the ICD on removing them to 1 sec.

 

So.. all the maths are beyond me lol.. In principle though, the idea sounds good.

[Kiroshima.8497]

I'd personally prefer for more boonstrip/boon corruption be available to all classes, but also change the rip/corrupt mechanics. At the moment, I'm pretty sure there's no order to removal except for Bountiful Theft. I propose that all moves that randomly remove boons be nerfed by either their number of boons stolen (-1), or changed so that they all target specific boons first.

 

Thus, instead of a necro making it so stability is worthless, make it so his generic corruptions (path of corruption) instead go in reverse order. Then add new boon removal that target specific boons.

 

We can also add some support effects to interact with boons as well.

 

EXAMPLE CHANGES:

~Necromancer~

Path of Corruption: Only removes 1 stack of 2 boons.

Corrupt Boon: Corrupts all stacks of 3 boons.

Well of Corruption: Corrupts all stacks of 1 boon per target.

[scourge]

Sand Savant added baseline but reduced by 50%.

NEW TRAIT: Barrier w/e: Boons on allies with barrier granted by you cannot be removed. F2 converts conditions into barrier, F5 pulses barrier instead of torment.

 

~Warrior~ [berserker]

Wild Blow: Destroys all stacks of stability on all targets hit. (Punch one guy into other guys to destroy their stability).

Fear Me: Destroys all stacks of Might and Fury on targets hit.

 

~Thief~

Bountiful Theft: Steals all stacks of 2 boons.

 

Just for some ideas.

[OriOri.8724]

> @"Strider Pj.2193" said:

> > @OriOri.8724 said:

> > It could be 3-5 stacks per corruption. Its all a numbers game really. But a single corrupt being able to strip all 25 stacks of stab is probably too powerful. I've also thought about reducing the number of stacks to 15, but increasing the ICD on removing them to 1 sec.

>

> So.. all the maths are beyond me lol.. In principle though, the idea sounds good.

 

So, assuming that you are only taking hard CCs and no boon strips or corrupts, right now it takes 18.75 seconds to strip 25 stacks of stab due to the ICD of .75 sec. If it was changed to 15 stacks, but with a 1s ICD, you would need hard CC coming at you for 15 seconds to strip it all. With max stacks its a nerf, but not a huge one, to the amount of time you can ignore hard CC. With a small number of stacks, its a buff to your ability to ignore hardCC. Problem with balancing this though, with how fast some builds can pump out stab, you could be at or near max stacks for a long time even when taking hardCC, which means that you would be significantly more immune to them.

[X T D.6458]

> @apharma.3741 said:

> I don’t agree, stability right now is in a good spot and has been since the cool down on stack removal was added. What isn’t in a good place is boon removal, more importantly corrupts as well as the diversity of boon removal where 2 out of the 4 classes with viable boon removal remove boons with nukes and the other 2 have careful targeted and more frequent removal.

>

 

I don't have an issue with the current version of Stability, I think its better then the original version. The problem is how it fits into the current meta. I am all for more boon removal/corruption personally, but stability is just too important to promoting better gameplay.

 

[X T D.6458]

> @OriOri.8724 said:

> > @"Strider Pj.2193" said:

> > > @OriOri.8724 said:

> > > It could be 3-5 stacks per corruption. Its all a numbers game really. But a single corrupt being able to strip all 25 stacks of stab is probably too powerful. I've also thought about reducing the number of stacks to 15, but increasing the ICD on removing them to 1 sec.

> >

> > So.. all the maths are beyond me lol.. In principle though, the idea sounds good.

>

> So, assuming that you are only taking hard CCs and no boon strips or corrupts, right now it takes 18.75 seconds to strip 25 stacks of stab due to the ICD of .75 sec. If it was changed to 15 stacks, but with a 1s ICD, you would need hard CC coming at you for 15 seconds to strip it all. With max stacks its a nerf, but not a huge one, to the amount of time you can ignore hard CC. With a small number of stacks, its a buff to your ability to ignore hardCC. Problem with balancing this though, with how fast some builds can pump out stab, you could be at or near max stacks for a long time even when taking hardCC, which means that you would be significantly more immune to them.

 

My idea would see stab with a flat duration, and small number of stacks.

[atheria.2837]

> @"X T D.6458" said:

> Anyone who has spent even a little time in WvW or any game mode for that matter should know how valuable the boon stability is. It has gone through a few changes to tweak its strength, but it remains such an important factor, especially in WvW. I believe changing the very mechanics would do a lot of good in promoting healthier game play.

>

> The original form of stability provided total immunity from cc's and could only be removed by boon removal skills. Then it was changed to include a stack system, each stack would be removed when cc is applied to you. This however proved to be very unreliable because it made stability too easy to remove by just spamming cc's. This led to the beginning of the pirate ship meta. Then there was a second change, that added an internal cool down on stack removal, this helped bring stability more in line.

>

> Now, I am all for more boon removal because I personally detest boon spam, but I also understand that stability plays a major factor in determining the direction of the game mode and therefore it can affect a player's level of satisfaction with that game mode.

>

> My idea is to change Stability into an effect, kind of like alacrity, instead of a boon. Skills that provide stability to allies should still be able to do that. It should still use the stack system to provide counter play, so cc's can still remove it if hit enough times. Boon duration also would not affect it, it would just be a flat duration. This would allow stability to be used without fear of removal, allowing players to "push" but still providing counter play.

>

> Another idea is to add one stack of stability, with a very short duration when using stun breaks successfully. This will prevent a player from being immediately cc'ed again when using a stun break and allow some breathing room. We all know how incredibly frustrating it is when you are being tossed around all over the place, and cannot rely on stun breaks or stability.

 

How about making stability equal for all toons?

 

As it is Anet removed many skills that had stability in the last major update - so how is asking for any change to their pullback going to be 'heard'?

[Kovu.7560]

[i agree.](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/231053#Comment_231053 "https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/231053#Comment_231053")

 

~ Kovu

[ArchonWing.9480]

Wow. Actually one of the best balance suggestions I have heard of.

 

I'll be honest. I saw the topic was about stability and was about to come in and tell you how terrible your idea was, as with almost all topics on the matter, but this is actually quite novel and might actually work. I like how you balanced a number of factors instead of just focusing on a singular aspect; it shows that you actually play the game.

[X T D.6458]

> @ArchonWing.9480 said:

> Wow. Actually one of the best balance suggestions I have heard of.

>

> I'll be honest. I saw the topic was about stability and was about to come in and tell you how terrible your idea was, as with almost all topics on the matter, but this is actually quite novel and might actually work. I like how you balanced a number of factors instead of just focusing on a singular aspect; it shows that you actually play the game.

 

Heh TY. Think I should change the title?

[X T D.6458]

> @atheria.2837 said:

> > @"X T D.6458" said:

> > Anyone who has spent even a little time in WvW or any game mode for that matter should know how valuable the boon stability is. It has gone through a few changes to tweak its strength, but it remains such an important factor, especially in WvW. I believe changing the very mechanics would do a lot of good in promoting healthier game play.

> >

> > The original form of stability provided total immunity from cc's and could only be removed by boon removal skills. Then it was changed to include a stack system, each stack would be removed when cc is applied to you. This however proved to be very unreliable because it made stability too easy to remove by just spamming cc's. This led to the beginning of the pirate ship meta. Then there was a second change, that added an internal cool down on stack removal, this helped bring stability more in line.

> >

> > Now, I am all for more boon removal because I personally detest boon spam, but I also understand that stability plays a major factor in determining the direction of the game mode and therefore it can affect a player's level of satisfaction with that game mode.

> >

> > My idea is to change Stability into an effect, kind of like alacrity, instead of a boon. Skills that provide stability to allies should still be able to do that. It should still use the stack system to provide counter play, so cc's can still remove it if hit enough times. Boon duration also would not affect it, it would just be a flat duration. This would allow stability to be used without fear of removal, allowing players to "push" but still providing counter play.

> >

> > Another idea is to add one stack of stability, with a very short duration when using stun breaks successfully. This will prevent a player from being immediately cc'ed again when using a stun break and allow some breathing room. We all know how incredibly frustrating it is when you are being tossed around all over the place, and cannot rely on stun breaks or stability.

>

> How about making stability equal for all toons?

>

> As it is Anet removed many skills that had stability in the last major update - so how is asking for any change to their pullback going to be 'heard'?

 

Well that is a different issue, and falls more in line with general class balance. While it would definitely be nice to always have reliable access to stability on whatever class we play, the lack of it is intended by design to encourage counterplay.

 

It's always nice to discuss ideas.