How Arena Slowly Turns PvP and WvW Roaming Into a Stun Measuring Contest [GW2]

OST's featured in the video:
• Borislav Slavov | Sebi...
• Borislav Slavov | Ambe...
• Borislav Slavov | Rive...

[@dumbvids9161]

A couple things I noted on the video that don't really affect the point, but might be of import: Oppressive Collapse is AOE but only hits one target. It will only interro one person, though it will force a dodge on any uncoordinated group. Tides of Time, in addition to the defensive benefits you mentioned, also blocks projectiles.

[@captaincrapface7337]

That's super odd if I'm to be asked, Id swear its 5 target like everything else, and I'm certain that's what 80% of people think.

[@nitocris6349]

I just saw it and was about to point out the 1 target cap. i was beaten

[@Antondepadua]

great music selection. Dos2 music is underrated. Makes me a bit nostalgic even if it wasn't that long ago when I played it, tbh!

[@sephjvr5979]

So glad someone else pointed this out. I was in my final phase of Ascension when the meta changed and I went from 300 games a month to 0. Screw this new meta. I get so upset even thinking bwt the constant stun, interrupt, knockdown, fear then dead bullshit.

[@GW2Pseudo]

I said it at the time too, but: Shared Weapons was such a Balance Mistake given their slow balance cadence.

[@missk1697]

Na, it was a good decision. They just gotta up their balance game.

[@GW2Pseudo]

@@missk1697 Right but it's been a year and they didn't/clearly can't do that. 😆

[@petejp6189]

It difficult some outstanding in pvp wvw but completely death in pve for me they should remove Daze from Dagger mirage is pure broken like you got daze very 1-3sec then death

[@nielsjensen4185]

Because Stab is so strong, as it gives an absolute effect, stuns have to be extremely harsh to be worth anything. It's an eternal arms race and the only way to end it is to make Stab a relative effect and implement a proper Diminishing Returns effect.

[@jerod4036]

When people talk about off hand elementalist weapons in pvp, the choices are pretty much dagger or focus with focus being the most used. When people say why focus is used, the often point to obsidian flesh, but people forget how ridiculously strong gale (air focus 5) is. It's a 900 range, UNBLOCKABLE 3 second knock down. If an ele lands a gale on someone that doesn't have a stunbreak, it's pretty close to a guaranteed kill. With weaver specifically, landing gale is the main kill condition for almost all weaver builds (fire weaver, FA weaver, LR weaver).

[@mizumisa6620]

A lot of the dagger skills feel so lackluster and also have these weird restrictions like fire grab requiring the target to burn, or ride the lightning needing to hit a target to get less cooldown. I allways though that dagger should be the elementalists burst/mobile option for roamer builds. Buff Daggers, Buff firegrab, Water dagger 5 shouldnt be a support skill, just give it more solo cleans, we dont need stupid support skills on weapons that could be good choices for solo dmg builds (looking at you guardian torch 5 allied condi cleans.)

[@uniquename111]

WvW is Bubbles, boons, cc and condition blobs. WvW have never been as bad and unfun as it is now. And each "ballance" makes it worse and it feels like the people in charge have zero clue. I thought Roy would be a good addition and could add knowledge about WvW to Arena Net, but it seem i was wrong, because again it gets worse for each patch and large amount of gameplay gets nerfed and even removed.

[@Olvrin]

Both Roy and CMC are just insanely useless... every patch just makes it way easier for big blobs that just steamroll anything.

[@amethystcloud8515]

And no adding *Stability* just removes further combat interaction. It's not the answer.

[@farkas266]

I see the trend in most pvp games, CC feels like an easy solution to pretend you have complexity. All of my fav games slowly had more and more CC trickled in and now everyone can do everything. And you just sit there getting micro CC-ed constantly....very fun.

[@djdontgetcooked]

Leaving Cal a QA to be in charge of the balace and game design of the pvp mode is like letting my dog to drive me around

[@D942100]

Thinking of the cc to stunbreak/stab ratio, similar things can be said about pretty much every aspect of the game; condi to cleanse/resistance, and strike damage to defensives/healing, and pretty much every aspect has been power crept to such an insane degree that I'm not sure competitive modes will every be what I'd consider a "good" spot (ie fun to both play and play against).

[@captaincrapface7337]

Power creep in generall, is indeed a topic worth attention, however condis or damage don't instantly take away controll over your charcter from you, while CC does. Distance which power creep can go before making game borderline unplayable, is much larger for damage and conditions, than it is for CC, and therefore CC creep is on the forefront of this video.

[@D942100]

@@captaincrapface7337 100% agree, cc creep is by far the worst. I think what I was trying to get at, (its 4am so i probably sound dumb), is that i think anet is using cc as a shortcut to deal with other problems, ie it doesnt matter if a build has infinite sustain or damage if they're cc'd. I'll go to bed now before I just make both myself and anyone reading this more confused.

[@captaincrapface7337]

@@D942100 you actually explained what you think very straight-forward and clearly.

[@rahzaelfoe3288]

As someone coming from a genre where every attack in the games stuns the opponent, and it's not uncommon for stun locks to last upwards of 10s or more (fighting games), maybe I'm biased, but I don't necessarily see prevalent hard CC being a problem so long as there are sufficient counters in amount and proportion to the prevalence of it, and the distribution of CC and counters is balanced well. I think having skills that are impactful to the game state are fun to use, and without hard CC everything feels kinda floaty, bland, and non-interactive (ironic, I know). You kinda just end up with two people wailing on each other at the same time until one of you keels over from exhaustion. Perhaps some of the skills you listed are overtuned, and don't need to have CC in addition to everything else they do, or do everything else in addition to CC, and perhaps distribution of CC and counters needs to be looked at. Perhaps the length and severity of CC also needs to be dependent on its cast time (i.e. how telegraphed it is and thus how much opportunity an opponent has to react to it and deploy a preemptive counter). I think this might be what you were referring to when you mentioned the revenant hammer buffs. However, I don't think hard CC, on its own, is toxic or bad for the game, so long as the rest of the game is balanced accordingly.

[@captaincrapface7337]

Indeed hard cc can be balanced and a positive addition to the game, however there's just too much of it in GW2, and too much of that is also AoE. There are builds out there like hammer Spb, Fear necro, dazebot druid etc that specialise in not letting the opponent play the game and unfortunatly the amount of spammable AoE cc is continuusly rising troughout years. the "one of us doesn't get to move for the rest of the fight" desighn is just poor desighn. In a fighting game you can just block in a corner and wait for your turn, in GW2 if you have less CC countermesures than enemy has CC you don;t get your turn ever, and some classes have very poor CC countermeasures.

[@mementomori4166]

that moment when warrior main is not happy because other classes can CC as well 😢

[@captaincrapface7337]

I also pointed out hammer and mace - skullgrinder specifically as issues troughout this video. In the past i aslo made videos on hammer and maces specifically, calling them "dogshit that shouldn't be in the game" repeatatly. That's why i didn't gave them a dedicated segment in this very video. I just trash talked them enough in the past, and are planning to do so in the future, on the occasion of rewieving Spellbreaker specialisation.

[@nielsjensen4185]

The entire performance system needs a rework. All Specs should have their Professions Skill slots expanded to five. Their base ones and then empty ones for the rest that they could slot skills into as wanted. All Utility Skills get broken up so they only provide utility and the damage components are moved to the Skills that can be put into the SProfession Skill slots. No more mutually exclusive offence or defence on skills. Stab only reduces the duration of CC rather than negating it fully. It's no longer a staking count, it just lasts for the entire duration. In return, a Diminishing Return is created so that each CC up to the fourth has a reduced duration (Stacks with Stability). After that the DR is in effect and the player is immune to all further CC for XX seconds. No categories of CC, all CC is the same for the DR. Having different categories creates the possibilities for some truly impressive BS as anyone who has been chain-CCd by a Rogue in WoW can attest. Going into Stealth or Teleporting will give a Grace Period where no further Stealth or Teleport is possible while the Grace Period is in effect. Different things give different amounts of Grace Periods. In return, Thieves gets more default Health since Stealth is no longer the ultimate defence that does little in PvE. Revealed is removed as a game mechanic. In WvW nothing gives Revealed anymore. In return, all Professions gets a Utility Skill that gives a Grace Period to a player during which they're unable to Stealth or Teleport. Stacking Duration. Boons are reduced by 75% in power. Alacrity and Quickness are completely removed from the game completely. In return, all Skills have their Cast Time reduced by 15% and their CD by 2-3-seconds. Duration of Boons still stacks when applied. Since Boons provide less power Boon Removal can become more common. Barrier is changed to a Boon that's affected by Boon Removal rather than being ablative Health. Anything outside the support that actually grants a Boon is incredibly rare, instead, they all extend the duration of said Boon. Support Traits make the Profession generate those Boons instead. This way there'll be a clear differentiator between support traits and DPS traits.

[@dawidstepien72]

Yea, while we got stunned all the time there is this burning build which hit me last time for 80k burning.

[@captaincrapface7337]

that happens with condis. They won't kill you out right so you end up just healing, and taking damage, and healing again, which just inflates numbers. Personaly saw 77k bleeding damage on death recap after a long 1v1 on a side.

[@mizumisa6620]

A lot of the time it looks like to me arenanet isn't nerfing these expansions weapons/specilisations accordingly, even when things are blatantly more powerful than core options, Just look at the weapons and compare them to core counterparts. If you have a good game people will want to buy your additional content.

[@petejp6189]

This is why I want they should make a split core game between pvp and pve it very difficult some weapons is very shine in one or another mode and leave it to other mode like it never exist. Or they should make 2 balance team between PVE and PVP nows day they barely handle all the broken balance in 2 game mode becuase lots of work to be done in 2 mode spliting balance as 2 team may fix this a bit

[@duncanrobertson6472]

I think there may be a point to be made about the amount of stuns in the game, but I kept noticing something in your footage. You're often blowing stunbreaks for no reason 0:36 3:04 almost no reason 2:39 using both when you need one 8:30 or stunbreaking when you're about to be hit by another stun anyway 4:13 . You'd probably feel better about stuns if you managed them a bit better. To give an argument in defense of stuns, I think they're relevant to the feeling of weight and impact in the game, and create satisfying inflection moments where you can land otherwise clumsy skills like hundred blades. Nobody likes getting stunned in the same way nobody likes losing. Losing sucks, but boy does it feel good to win.

[@captaincrapface7337]

Yes, i have taken that into my consideration, loong before even conceptualizing this video, and double checking myself, to make sure my complaints aren't just a skill issue delayed it by roughly three months. In footage provided, both my stunbreaks have secondary purpouses. [Stomp] is a mobility tool and a CC itself, while ["Shake It off"] cleanses, heals and stunbreaks for me, and for teammates in 600 radious (which i attempted to do at 0:36 thinking necro was CC'd, it turns out he just stood still becouse noone pressured him. lol). But Yeah, 4:13 i was certain his torch 5 is on CD, and in rest of examples you pointed out i just fat fingered. I love being factually correct regardless of my stellar (garbage) in-game performance. Me being trash (which isn't something new) aside, CC centric builds are just unhealthy for the game, especally in high quantities. The more fun a game is, the more unfun, frequent forced breaks from playing are, especialy when every single one, can lead to your death.

[@duncanrobertson6472]

@@captaincrapface7337 Totally fair. I should say, I agree with the gist of your video, and points like how weaponmaster training is problematic for pvp. In the end, even if "getting good" ameliorates a problem, the game should be fun to play at all levels.

[@mizumisa6620]

Too many people I've heard ingame just don't care and allways just say "get gud" while no one cares about how core design choices have influences the game state for many years

[@gkoogz9877]

This is how GW1 died. Mesmer interrupts became standard and unbeatable and all PvE teams became a few supports and 5 mesmers.

[@Olvrin]

Remember, the enemy can't push the point if you disable their hand. kzbin.info/www/bejne/eGOTZKetrsaAnK8

[@ocean_bat]

Baffling why Anet hasn't implemented any from of dimishing returns on CC at all

[@marshal8358]

Remove stability from several sources and have the defiant effect on players last for like 2 seconds after a CC skill has been used on them, making it impossible to get CC'd again period. Aka comba chain stunlocking. Iirc there is an ICD already but it is so small that it's nonexistent.

[@duncanrobertson6472]

The better solution is just to not have too many stuns. DR complicates the game in a way that isn't natural or intuitive.

[@blastmanutz7798]

We all know arenanet is pushing the cc meta just so they can promote their beloved firebrand stab spamming fiesta. All the while nerfing revenant to shits with their stab spam, leaving revs basically at the mercy of cc spammers. Unless you play vindi. Then you better bunny hop like a madman.

[@bornathepicek]

Did you just criticize Tides of Time as doing too much? The weapon didn't change and its badly requiring a change to be anything near a viable option in PvP, the cast time is horrendous, hitting people with it requires luck than skill as the skill is telegraphed and you send a damn wall towards people(pretty indicative to dodge out if it even if you're a new player), and on top of that you don't receive a flat increase in might but you get it in two intervals . The only reason a mesmer player would take shield is for the defensive utility it brings with the block, but thats also a niche pick as many abilities are unblock-able thus making it quite a bad pick for most match ups in pvp. Most of the time you're better of with a torch as it brings you invisibility and a badly needed cc dispel, and also gives you a chance to run away once shit hits the fan(and it quite often does when you're playing a squishy mesmer).

[@captaincrapface7337]

guess what, [Backbreaker] has longer cast time than [Tides of Time] is single target, mele, and very telegraphed, yet noone argues we should buff hammer Spb. Please tell me what makes you think that a massive wall that eats projectilles, swipes a large area twice, grants boons, and restores its own cooldown is doing less than [Backbreaker]. Im genuenly interested.

[@bornathepicek]

@@captaincrapface7337 Yeah but spb has multiple stun abilities(both weapon and utility), while mesmer gun stun(which is horrible in its own right) and signed of domination which is never picked in pvp. Yes Tides of time is a massive wall but you're forgetting that after the cast time the wall still needs to travel towards the target. Its so easily countered. Backbreaker is just one of the many stuns a warrior posses... It's not a fair comparison. I'm not coming from a place of hate(I co-main warrior/mesmer), im just telling you that Tides of time sounds good, but it aint! Not even closely!

[@captaincrapface7337]

@@bornathepicekI understand the point you are trying to make. Used as a offensive cc, [Tides of Time] is indeed, garbage, however it can be used to controll space, and used in thendem with other tools, such as teleports, mobility etc. On top of which Mesmer's speck mechanics like [Distortion] and to seome extent even clones, conceal your casting animetions, while mirage dodge just turns you invoulnerable for a while, during which you can cast your skill. Further, combined with Wells and/or Glamours some of which slow enemies in range, this can in fact land reliably, and you can take advantage of terrain, sending it trough choak points on the map. Not to mention, projectile block, makes it a solid option to cover your approach. And finally as a seventh AoE thrown in general direction of a temfight, ti is destined to hit something. As you mentioned, hammer5 isnt only skill Spb has, neither shieald 5 is an only skill Mesmer has. Put it on Dagger Mirage, and the thing becomes a nightmare to deal with. I understand why you think [Tides of Time] is a bad skill, becouse of the situations it doesn't work well in, however I also want to point out situations it does work well in.

[@kattokattowskyj7019]

Yea its incredibly fun to play on nodes agaist hammer mace/shield spellbreaker. It has infinite cc chain loop so u cannot do a shit against it and it was here since spellbreaker now tunned by relic of midnight king and warrior "balanced" Stalwart Strength trait its just impossible to win against. Compare to this is all u mentioned in video joke.

[@captaincrapface7337]

I guess you weren't here when i stated that [Stalwart Strength] is a mistake, and i guess you weren't here when i published a video shitting on warrior's hammer desighn. If that's what you think of hammer SPB, just know we're standing on this hill together. What this video was higlighting, is that we got two diet hammer Spb's and we'd rather have less than more of that.

[@mizumisa6620]

Just looking at mesmer offhands, it's like none of them even have a specific role that they are supposed to be good for sword, torch, pistol,focus and shield all have cc abilities on the offhands. Each offhand should have its own role: Shield for support, sword for melee dmg, pistol for control/dmg, torch for stealth/condi, focus is kind of support/utility too I guess. Arenanet has been throwing too much cc on weapons since when..? Heart of Thorns, then they tuned it back, now they're tuning it up again? Not all weapons should have access to such powerfull CC. Otherwise you won't create tradeoffs in weapon/trait choice, that's the whole point in options.Why does shield have a toggleable daze skill? it doesn't need that, it just needs more raw power and applyable damage. Chrono shield should have been nerfed a long time ago, just look at how shit some of the core offhands are in comparison, It's absurd how powerful the block+stun is. At this point I can only imagine it's deliberate, because they think it'll boost their expansion sales.

[@YouTubeChillZone]

lol pvp in mmo xDDDDD

[@user-hp9oo6ib5t]

warrior brain issue. play a class with a ranged weapon for once and you'll see how much easier it is to avoid cc when you're not an annoying point capture bot that enemies see constantly

[@captaincrapface7337]

Yes, start a comment with an insult, then follow up with a statement boiling down to "Not my problem, therefore fuck you. continuue to suffer". That behaviour is why certain groups are seen in negative light.