So... is there ever going to be any plans in removing Damage Aura?

[Aplier.7829]

> @"Zenith.7301" said:

>

> The fact is, GW2's combat is way too binary because of the dodge system. Being able to completely negate damage through a single frequently available key press is rather stifling of how ranged vs melee DPS would be balanced. Ranged would be too safe unless encounter designers started operating like WoW and designing mechanics that target different specs.

>

> I mean, we might see a hint of this with Deimos and Sabetha. What if most fights had elements like these affecting multiple people so comps were forced to bring a mix of ranged and melee specs? It would have to definitely be more complex than just the "stand at range to drop a void zone here", but it would open up the design space for combat encounters.

>

> It might even make the job of the healer even more interactive as you would force them to reposition depending on which group needs healing.

>

> Matthias also has a sort of preview into what forcing players to adjust their range could feel like. They just need to take further advantage of it.

 

The only problem with this is that a game like WoW has very clearly defined specs that can be tagged as "tank" "healer" "ranged dps" "melee dps" and which only function in the way that they are tagged. Thus mechanics are able to be fine tuned to target specific specs based on their tags without causing any issues.

 

GW2's specs are much more fluid, and I'd really rather not see a hard trinity becoming enforced. In GW2 the only labels that the game can reliably apply to people in a raid group are "aggro-holder" and "not-aggro-holder", in terms of who random mechanics can or can't apply to.

Basing the labels off talent trees is straight up out of the question because of how much flexibility there is within each tree.

With weapon swaps, players can switch between melee and ranged "dps" at an instant's notice, would you want gameplay of "okay, everyone but X swap to your ranged weapon set at 6:30, 5:00, and 3:30" just to bait a mechanic onto one person?

Would you define "healer" as anyone with over 500 healing power? How would that apply to your water elementalist who doesn't stack any healing power because his base healing is enough? Or what about your new thief who is stuck running some zealots gear you pulled over from your druid, would they be counted as a healer even if they don't doing anything to support anyone else?

 

We as players are more than capable of assigning labels to our specs, but without some overly convoluted internal system or a forced trinity (like before a fight starts requiring 2 people to pick up a "tank" debuff, 2 people to pick up a "healer" debuff, 3 people to pick up a "ranged dps" debuff, and 3 people to pick up a "melee dps" debuff), raids in GW2 simply aren't going to function with labels more specific than "aggro-holder" and "not-aggro-holder" and mechanics that any player in the "not-aggro-holder" can take on mid-fight.

[Zenith.7301]

> @"Aplier.7829" said:

> > @"Zenith.7301" said:

> >

> > The fact is, GW2's combat is way too binary because of the dodge system. Being able to completely negate damage through a single frequently available key press is rather stifling of how ranged vs melee DPS would be balanced. Ranged would be too safe unless encounter designers started operating like WoW and designing mechanics that target different specs.

> >

> > I mean, we might see a hint of this with Deimos and Sabetha. What if most fights had elements like these affecting multiple people so comps were forced to bring a mix of ranged and melee specs? It would have to definitely be more complex than just the "stand at range to drop a void zone here", but it would open up the design space for combat encounters.

> >

> > It might even make the job of the healer even more interactive as you would force them to reposition depending on which group needs healing.

> >

> > Matthias also has a sort of preview into what forcing players to adjust their range could feel like. They just need to take further advantage of it.

>

> The only problem with this is that a game like WoW has very clearly defined specs that can be tagged as "tank" "healer" "ranged dps" "melee dps" and which only function in the way that they are tagged. Thus mechanics are able to be fine tuned to target specific specs based on their tags without causing any issues.

>

> GW2's specs are much more fluid, and I'd really rather not see a hard trinity becoming enforced. In GW2 the only labels that the game can reliably apply to people in a raid group are "aggro-holder" and "not-aggro-holder", in terms of who random mechanics can or can't apply to.

> Basing the labels off talent trees is straight up out of the question because of how much flexibility there is within each tree.

> With weapon swaps, players can switch between melee and ranged "dps" at an instant's notice, would you want gameplay of "okay, everyone but X swap to your ranged weapon set at 6:30, 5:00, and 3:30" just to bait a mechanic onto one person?

> Would you define "healer" as anyone with over 500 healing power? How would that apply to your water elementalist who doesn't stack any healing power because his base healing is enough? Or what about your new thief who is stuck running some zealots gear you pulled over from your druid, would they be counted as a healer even if they don't doing anything to support anyone else?

>

> We as players are more than capable of assigning labels to our specs, but without some overly convoluted internal system or a forced trinity (like before a fight starts requiring 2 people to pick up a "tank" debuff, 2 people to pick up a "healer" debuff, 3 people to pick up a "ranged dps" debuff, and 3 people to pick up a "melee dps" debuff), raids in GW2 simply aren't going to function with labels more specific than "aggro-holder" and "not-aggro-holder" and mechanics that any player in the "not-aggro-holder" can take on mid-fight.

 

The weaponswap I suggested wouldn't work because as I said it wouldn't be the simple "single person gets targeted by this at X time" but rather more robust, constant mechanics applied to a preset number of people that you need to fill in with ranged/melee dichotomy.

 

So just like in WoW where you would have a healer sit in melee when the game treats them as ranged, it would punish your raid by placing a ranged mechanic on melee.

 

It would basically force further demarcation in raid comp. It wouldn't be a trinity because we already have that (tank, healer, dps), but rather it would diversify the styles of DPS you have to bring.

 

I realize many people hate the comp building aspect of raids, but I feel if any format should force strategic team building aspects, it should be raids. Raids are not supposed to be convenient to PuG; fractals are there for that.

 

GW1 was not subject to this silly notion that any comp goes. You can have multiple classes occupying different roles, but at the end of the day you still had role niches in GW1 that needed to be fulfilled and not something as simplistic as "guy who holds aggro, healer keeps people alive, and DPS".

[Aplier.7829]

> @"Zenith.7301" said:

>

> The weaponswap I suggested wouldn't work because as I said it wouldn't be the simple "single person gets targeted by this at X time" but rather more robust, constant mechanics applied to a preset number of people that you need to fill in with ranged/melee dichotomy.

>

> So just like in WoW where you would have a healer sit in melee when the game treats them as ranged, it would punish your raid by placing a ranged mechanic on melee.

>

> It would basically force further demarcation in raid comp. It wouldn't be a trinity because we already have that (tank, healer, dps), but rather it would diversify the styles of DPS you have to bring.

>

> I realize many people hate the comp building aspect of raids, but I feel if any format should force strategic team building aspects, it should be raids. Raids are not supposed to be convenient to PuG; fractals are there for that.

>

> GW1 was not subject to this silly notion that any comp goes. You can have multiple classes occupying different roles, but at the end of the day you still had role niches in GW1 that needed to be fulfilled and not something as simplistic as "guy who holds aggro, healer keeps people alive, and DPS".

 

The point I'm trying to make is that WoW's fights can create a white list of what mechanics can target who, because every character is put into a clearly defined specialization with one role. GW2 specializations are much more fluid and thus the game can't apply mechanics to people in such a simple way.

 

Instead Anet has to make mechanics that either target players randomly, or that leave it up to the players to decide who handles that mechanic. Cairn is an elegant example of using this system to require ranged characters, by putting a pulsing AoE on the farthest out characters. However it still leaves it up to the players to decide which class of player they assign to that mechanic, be it their dedicated healer or a self-sufficient ranged dps, or even just letting it go onto whoever it hits and have that player stay just outside the stack for a minute.

 

Having played both, I'm more a fan of how Anet does it. The mechanics are all there, and we as minmaxing players can make distinctions on which are the best classes to handle any given mechanic. But there's still flexibility available so that less than perfectly built groups are still able to get the job done, just not as efficiently.

[Zenith.7301]

> @"Aplier.7829" said:

> > @"Zenith.7301" said:

> >

> > The weaponswap I suggested wouldn't work because as I said it wouldn't be the simple "single person gets targeted by this at X time" but rather more robust, constant mechanics applied to a preset number of people that you need to fill in with ranged/melee dichotomy.

> >

> > So just like in WoW where you would have a healer sit in melee when the game treats them as ranged, it would punish your raid by placing a ranged mechanic on melee.

> >

> > It would basically force further demarcation in raid comp. It wouldn't be a trinity because we already have that (tank, healer, dps), but rather it would diversify the styles of DPS you have to bring.

> >

> > I realize many people hate the comp building aspect of raids, but I feel if any format should force strategic team building aspects, it should be raids. Raids are not supposed to be convenient to PuG; fractals are there for that.

> >

> > GW1 was not subject to this silly notion that any comp goes. You can have multiple classes occupying different roles, but at the end of the day you still had role niches in GW1 that needed to be fulfilled and not something as simplistic as "guy who holds aggro, healer keeps people alive, and DPS".

>

> The point I'm trying to make is that WoW's fights can create a white list of what mechanics can target who, because every character is put into a clearly defined specialization with one role. GW2 specializations are much more fluid and thus the game can't apply mechanics to people in such a simple way.

>

> Instead Anet has to make mechanics that either target players randomly, or that leave it up to the players to decide who handles that mechanic. Cairn is an elegant example of using this system to require ranged characters, by putting a pulsing AoE on the farthest out characters. However it still leaves it up to the players to decide which class of player they assign to that mechanic, be it their dedicated healer or a self-sufficient ranged dps, or even just letting it go onto whoever it hits and have that player stay just outside the stack for a minute.

>

> Having played both, I'm more a fan of how Anet does it. The mechanics are all there, and we as minmaxing players can make distinctions on which are the best classes to handle any given mechanic. But there's still flexibility available so that less than perfectly built groups are still able to get the job done, just not as efficiently.

 

Not really. It's a simple check of "this player has a weapon equipped with 600+ range; the ranged mechanic will be assigned to 3-4 players who meet this criteria; otherwise, it will assign to whoever meets the criteria plus a random selection of missing players who fail this check".

 

Cairn does nothing of pushing ranged requirements, because you have a special action key that basically lets you do your thing until the very last moment where you use it to reposition and then quickly run back in.

 

In most boss fights you are simply going to blob around the boss, and often where there are mechanics few players will be selected to perform disparate tasks simultaneously. GW2 raid encounters are really simplistic for the very reason that there's little degree in role specialization.

 

There are cases such as Arkk where you can overlap the bomb with the green circle mechanics, but it's really rudimentary.

[Aplier.7829]

> @"Zenith.7301" said:

> Not really. It's a simple check of "this player has a weapon equipped with 600+ range; the ranged mechanic will be assigned to 3-4 players who meet this criteria; otherwise, it will assign to whoever meets the criteria plus a random selection of missing players who fail this check".

>

> Cairn does nothing of pushing ranged requirements, because you have a special action key that basically lets you do your thing until the very last moment where you use it to reposition and then quickly run back in.

>

> In most boss fights you are simply going to blob around the boss, and often where there are mechanics few players will be selected to perform disparate tasks simultaneously. GW2 raid encounters are really simplistic for the very reason that there's little degree in role specialization.

>

> There are cases such as Arkk where you can overlap the bomb with the green circle mechanics, but it's really rudimentary.

 

And what if I were a thief with dagger/pistol? That would meet the criteria of "this player has a weapon equipped with 600+ range" but you sure as hell can't call that a ranged spec.

How about a P/P daredevil? It's definitely a "ranged" spec in terms of weapon skills, but the rotation itself still has you staying next to the boss to capitalize on 7% damage buff, bounding dodge damage, and melee utility skills.

Or a power Ranger or Dragonhunter who just happens to be in the longbow part of their rotation at the time the mechanic goes out.

Which skill would you use to determine if a spec is "ranged" or not? Just having any weapon skill with a range of 600? A lot of "melee" weapon sets still have one or two abilities with long range. Or is it just the autoattack range, and healers like a ventari revenant with melee autoattacks just don't count while healers like druid have to decide if they want to be a target for extra mechanics or gimp their healing output.

 

In WoW the "ranged" specs have a 40 yard (equivalent of about 900 unit) range on their attacks, and are designed to have their rotation function at full output anywhere within that range, with only utility spells like stuns or knockbacks having less range. There is no switching between ranged and melee mid-fight, no "half of my rotation is ranged but if I'm not sitting on the boss I lose a bunch of damage". GW2 specs just are not that simple. And nor would I ever want to see them become that simple.

 

And I have to disagree about Cairn. Yes, it's special action key lets you zoom around the place, but that's there to get yourself to a green circle to live or get to safety after getting knocked back/teleported out, it has nothing to do with being ranged or melee. If you try to blob everyone on top of each other like you do with, say, Gorseval, then the people with Shared Agony are gonna absolutely shred your group. Who knows, maybe you could put together a composition entirely of barrier and healing and survive it all stacked up, but it's a mechanic that in general is best handled by using people who can function outside the melee blob (aka your ranged players) without having to make the game engine artificially attempt to decide who is a "ranged" and force a mechanic onto them.

[Zenith.7301]

> @"Aplier.7829" said:

> > @"Zenith.7301" said:

> > Not really. It's a simple check of "this player has a weapon equipped with 600+ range; the ranged mechanic will be assigned to 3-4 players who meet this criteria; otherwise, it will assign to whoever meets the criteria plus a random selection of missing players who fail this check".

> >

> > Cairn does nothing of pushing ranged requirements, because you have a special action key that basically lets you do your thing until the very last moment where you use it to reposition and then quickly run back in.

> >

> > In most boss fights you are simply going to blob around the boss, and often where there are mechanics few players will be selected to perform disparate tasks simultaneously. GW2 raid encounters are really simplistic for the very reason that there's little degree in role specialization.

> >

> > There are cases such as Arkk where you can overlap the bomb with the green circle mechanics, but it's really rudimentary.

>

> And what if I were a thief with dagger/pistol? That would meet the criteria of "this player has a weapon equipped with 600+ range" but you sure as hell can't call that a ranged spec.

> How about a P/P daredevil? It's definitely a "ranged" spec in terms of weapon skills, but the rotation itself still has you staying next to the boss to capitalize on 7% damage buff, bounding dodge damage, and melee utility skills.

> Or a power Ranger or Dragonhunter who just happens to be in the longbow part of their rotation at the time the mechanic goes out.

> Which skill would you use to determine if a spec is "ranged" or not? Just having any weapon skill with a range of 600? A lot of "melee" weapon sets still have one or two abilities with long range. Or is it just the autoattack range, and healers like a ventari revenant with melee autoattacks just don't count while healers like druid have to decide if they want to be a target for extra mechanics or kitten their healing output.

>

> In WoW the "ranged" specs have a 40 yard (equivalent of about 900 unit) range on their attacks, and are designed to have their rotation function at full output anywhere within that range, with only utility spells like stuns or knockbacks having less range. There is no switching between ranged and melee mid-fight, no "half of my rotation is ranged but if I'm not sitting on the boss I lose a bunch of damage". GW2 specs just are not that simple. And nor would I ever want to see them become that simple.

>

> And I have to disagree about Cairn. Yes, it's special action key lets you zoom around the place, but that's there to get yourself to a green circle to live or get to safety after getting knocked back/teleported out, it has nothing to do with being ranged or melee. If you try to blob everyone on top of each other like you do with, say, Gorseval, then the people with Shared Agony are gonna absolutely shred your group. Who knows, maybe you could put together a composition entirely of barrier and healing and survive it all stacked up, but it's a mechanic that in general is best handled by using people who can function outside the melee blob (aka your ranged players) without having to make the game engine artificially attempt to decide who is a "ranged" and force a mechanic onto them.

 

Stacking doesn't mean on top of each other. You can have the agony people take 1-2 sidesteps and be virtually still in range of melee boon provision from the group. Blobbing Cairn is incredibly simple.

 

And you're starting to split hairs here. Obviously D/P thief would qualify as melee by virtue of a mainhand melee weapon. A melee weapon having a 600 range gap closer doesn't immediately make it a ranged weapon, it's a matter of common sense.

 

P/P thief and power greatsword ranger play as they do because of a consequence of their poor balancing. They simply do not do good damage in their ranged rotations like an elementalist or necromancer or dragonhunter can with their ranged weapons. That's why they have to incorporate melee gimmicks.

 

That's not a strike against ranged mechanics, that's a strike against the balancing of ranged weapons and playstyles.

 

I don't buy for one second the claim that WoW is somehow simple (btw, survival hunters have to alternate between melee and ranged attacks, and arcane mages have their aoe tied to melee range, as an example; demonology warlocks used to have their aoe tied to hellfire and immolation aura as a ranged spec as well). WoW and FFXIV have far more advanced raid encounter mechanisms than GW2 has by virtue of its current class balancing and combat limitations (won't even mention how utterly obsolete combo fields/finishers are for the vast majority of them when they were trumpeted as a defining aspect of GW2 combat in vanilla's marketing).

 

Simple is when most of the boss encounters consist of loosely blobbling the boss to death because the boon provision system forces melee range, as does the bad balancing of ranged weapons because encounter mechanics can't be bothered to be varied enough to properly challenge ranged weapon users, so players have absorbed this ridiculous mantra that ranged weapons must remain obsolete due to their lack of risk but seem at the same time to overlook the mantra when it comes to their precious elementalist staff or dragonhunter scepter or reaper scepter happening to be the anomaly.

 

Weapon and spec variety in a class including ranged weapons would only serve to expand raid encounters, not limit them. People just don't want to be assed with team comps; they want their one size glove fits all spec.

[FrostDraco.8306]

> @"Aplier.7829" said:

 

> Or a power Ranger or Dragonhunter who just happens to be in the longbow part of their rotation at the time the mechanic goes out.

 

Well I found the problem. Using longbow on DH or ranger in any rotation is terrible, and you are causing your own issues. There is a reason scepter is used instead of longbow, it's simply better. There is a reason sword is better than ranger longbow.

 

It's not ranged weapons as a whole that are the problem, its the goal of the weapon. Most ranged weapons are utility or have some sort of utility. This requires that they are given less damage. In addition to less damage for the range. But some ranged weapons are good. It just depends on the class and build in question.

 

As for p/p theif? It has more issues than just range.

 

 

And shared agone is NOT best handled by 'ranged' characters. Its best handled by people that can sustain it. IE, the druids, or a chrono, and the kiter, if you have one. Most ranged dps builds cant take a lot of shared agony damage without substantial healing. And you made the mistake of claiming shared agony is somehow 'random' on Cairn. It's not. It's always put on the farthest players from Cairn and can affect up to 3 players at a time. It's incredibly easy to control when the people in the stack arent bad and get ported all over the place.

[CptAurellian.9537]

> @"Zenith.7301" said:

> I don't buy for one second the claim that WoW is somehow simple (btw, survival hunters have to alternate between melee and ranged attacks, and arcane mages have their aoe tied to melee range, as an example; demonology warlocks used to have their aoe tied to hellfire and immolation aura as a ranged spec as well). WoW and FFXIV have far more advanced raid encounter mechanisms than GW2 has by virtue of its current class balancing and combat limitations (won't even mention how utterly obsolete combo fields/finishers are for the vast majority of them when they were trumpeted as a defining aspect of GW2 combat in vanilla's marketing).

Indeed. Haven't played WoW in this decade, but it's probably a safe bet that they haven't gone backwards in their general encounter and gameplay design since TBC. GW2 raids are nice stuff, but myriad small things make you notice that they are a late addition to the game, which has not been developed with properly challenging group content in mind*. The entire buff&boon system, class designs, aggro non-mechanics, healing mechanics and a crapton of other things produce a pretty big obstacle to advanced raid encounters.

 

*Yes, I know dungeons were supposed to be this. However, imo they were a spectacular failure in this aspect, with very few exceptions.

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

Honestly, there's quite a bit Anet could have done to make GW2's raids more unique to the game, instead of making them generic and comparable. For example instead of focusing so heavily on the group, add a strong focus to the individual and force them to actually KNOW their professions.

 

My favorite raids were always the ones that were escorts, or had the players running around the map rather than fighting the bosses.

 

Make a map where players are encouraged to spread out to conquered objectives, make this more apparent by starting them off forcefully spread out so they are isolated or in tiny random groups. Make it so each profession is capable of taking unique paths, but only if players actually pushed it to the limits.

 

For example, PvPers may know that Professions like Mesmer, Thief, and Engineer are completely capable of crossing large gaps. The thief and mesmer are even able to climb onto walls, or teleport across large gaps as long as there's a walkable path to it. Why not make it so that these specs are rewarded for pushing themselves in such away by enforcing unique paths?

 

A Ranger can easily attack two targets at once, so let a ranger be able to open paths.

 

A warrior, and an elementalist are incredibly capable at cleaving. Make paths filled with low health enemies with insane damage to make it risky for other specs to charge through this area, but not these professions. Those with cloaking abilities are able to run through this place ignored. Same with those with access to fear.

 

Necromancers can corrupt boons or dump conditions very easily.

 

The list goes on.

 

Not only would you put the player's knowledge to the test, but you'd also make it so players used gear that they're more comfortable with and put speed clearing times on how well they know the map.