No downstate makes small-scale fight useful and enjoyable again

I know that this will not be a permanent feature and it's sad...it took years worth of waiting to enjoy small scale fight again, it has been more than 4 years since last time I enjoyed small scale/roaming in wvw. The lack of downstate brings back that skill factor which has been missing for years in wvw since th whole game mode became a condibomb zerging contest.

I truly believe that no downstate should be a permanent feature in wvw, at the very least it should be kept in consideration

That's my experience on reset as well. The meta has gotten so unfriendly to small groups biting at large groups with how durable groups have gotten and particularly this meta of scourges/fb's being insane as quickly ressing people. Tonight, picking was very rewarding. Constantly called targets of squishy specs and picked away until the group was routing. Better small man play making an impact on zerg fights hasn't been a thing since vanilla (and some in HoT with the Epidemic era)

100% agreement. This brings back the flavor the fear and the newness of w v w. It needs to be a permanent change

This week is going to be one of my favorite ones yet. I will definitely get around a hundred levels out of it too, getting me close to my third bonus pip :D

Either way, it's awesome that fights don't drag on forever, that you actually get to kill people if you down multiple when outnumbered etc..

I was also satisfied with my deaths. Previously, the pick experience vs a large organized group was:Get someone in downed state, they get ressedGet someone in downed state, they get ressed(repeat as much as you want)Die

Tonight, my experience was:Kill someoneKill someoneKill someonedieThe normal downstate experience leads to frustration that no impact at all was made with my efforts. Now, even when I died, I made a noticeable impact in the fight before I died. I think it's much better for the game, because this example gets extrapolated to a problem seen in zerg vs. zerg fights.

50 vs. 50 is almost always a stomp in one direction or another, EVEN IF THE FIGHT IS CLOSE. You often ended up with one side losing between 0-5 players to hard downed, and the other all dead. Now, if 50 vs 50 collide and it's a close fight, you could easily end up with a near tie in remaining numbers. Maybe both limp away with their last 10-15. Way more reflective of how close it actually was, and the losing side actually making an impact on the opponent's ability to ppt further without regrouping.

This means that servers that love defense can actually have an impact if they come out, fight, and LOSE. 50 vs 50, even if you're terrible, you could take out 10 of the better team's 50, then 15 the next time, etc. severely impacting their ability to push further into your structures. I think this change appears just as a pick-team buff right now because it's the first night, but if downstate was gone completely, people would start seeing the benefits this has on group play at all sizes.

I like how the overwhelming majority of supporters are talking about how this is good for small-scale fighting. It sucks for zerging, with everyone pirate-shipping and afraid to commit to any kind of push unless they have overwhelming numbers. It's boring as fuck dancing around back and fort pew-pewing at the perimeter until someone runs and hides on siege.

You small-scalers already have a small-scale fighting mode. WvW is the only large-scale mode we have, and this pirate-ship crap is no fun at all. Changes that make it better for small-scale at the expense of large-scale are going to leave us large-scalers with nothing to play. If it weren't for xp2 this week, I'd be awol for another week.

No downed state in WvW was the best changed they've ever made. I would like to see it continue being removed.

This is by far my favorite thing they've ever done.

I die a lot more but the fights feel so much more brutal and fast and it rewards smart aggressive behavior and well organized smaller units who can get their damage in one place. Now a good group of 20 can easily take on 50 bad zergboys.

I really really like it and I hope they consider making this a permanent change to the game mode.

+1 for No Downstate to be implemented permenantly.

I have been waiting for this for 2 years, it makes fights/ outnumbered fights more skill based, gotta focus more on positioning and map awareness rather than yolo taggin

This change is terrible, and there's no way I'd like it permanent, unless they drastically change the Meta, and the rewards.

If the 'revive ally' traits worked on downs it MIGHT be okay.. so that there's still the ability to rez, but you need to spec into it.

The Meta is WAY too fast for damage right now, and it's extremely unforgiving with no downstate.

I have totally opposite experience. No down state has the following effects on balance, which was already bad, now it is even slightly worse, just different:

• thoughness and vitality matter much less before (because if you get focus fired you will get downed anyways, good luck being a commander and fighting 10 vs 30+)
• invulnerabilities, evades, blocks and reflects, stealth and teleports are even more valuable (these were already too powerful and they are not evenly distributed)
• high ranged burst and ranged DPS is even more useful (we have already had 2+ years of pirate ship meta, want more? and oh yes, rangers were already the 2nd most common roamers, at least here in EU)
• group ganking from stealth is even more of an issue
• reseting fights with easy escape such as stealth, teleports even more of an issue
• every single trait related to reviving downed allies is useless, same for scrapper function gyro.
• Some ppl paid gems to get cool finishers, which are also useless

Since none of these issues have been issues has ever been addressed by WvWvW devs, who keep treating WvWvW like pve, then no down state should not be implemented.

After the change GW2 feels more like FPS. Enemies die super rapid if focused and I don't enjoy it. Big group fights are often over in just a minute with the losing side fleeing for their side aka "the one who wins first push, always wins".

If I wanna play shooter, I will go play Overwatch or CS:GO, Battlefield or something else, however GW2 caters also to different audience. Imagine how horrible Counterstrike would be if the characters would have access to teleports and abundant stealth on demand. Yes, this is how GW2 feels now.

If Arenanet will make this feature permanent, I am sure they will lose a lot of players. Just look at spvp. Arenanet listened too much to the elite players and made the game non-beginner friendly. The high burst meta which has been there for long time has driven away players despite rewards have been significantly increased. WvWvW has much higher damage and consumables.

Maybe this weekend will finally make the devs notice the glaring balance issues. There is way too much damage, too much instant cast AoE effects, too many passives, too many evades, too much stealth, too powerful foods. Some of these are not related this weekend, but generic problems of this game mode, which is still the ONLY reason I play GW2.

Everyone will have different experiences because the TL;DR of no downstate is as follows.

It empower good players by allowing them to leverage their class and build.

It weakens bad players by not allowing them to play what they like.

It removes the ability for good players to help bad players.

I understand that many people will love this change. And they will most likely belong to the first group of people that doesnt have to help their friends to fight hard fights - or they simply dont care because they previously cried "rallybots" in every fight or because they are only there "for the fights" when they are winning. I dont have any problems to leverage my class and build in this no downed event - I main a mirage since PoF and I can cut down bad people like grass. But combat becomes incredibly selfish. I cant help anyone in the field now because if they die they die, there is zero skill level flex.

Anet should never encourage git gud or get out across the entire mode. We have enough of that already.

@"friggarn.5360" said:This change is terrible, and there's no way I'd like it permanent, unless they drastically change the Meta, and the rewards.

If the 'revive ally' traits worked on downs it MIGHT be okay.. so that there's still the ability to rez, but you need to spec into it.

The Meta is WAY too fast for damage right now, and it's extremely unforgiving with no downstate.

ironically here revive skills/traits used to work on defeated allies just as well as downed ones - they were limited to downed only due to big groups powerressing their killed in combat (in paralel to making ressing a defeated unable to initiate when in combat)

if they were to make no downed anyhow permament change they'd need to rollback this one, and probably give huge chunk of rebalancing to all the classes - as it is right now grand major pushes ends up with pushing group stripped of their DPSes leading to incredibly weird situation where you either play patience game to see whom get bored of this and push into other first or you get a "jump" on unsuspecting group and mop them up before they realise what have hit them. with no real middle ground.

@"Dawdler.8521" said:Everyone will have different experiences because the TL;DR of no downstate is as follows.

It empower good players by allowing them to leverage their class and build.

It weakens bad players by not allowing them to play what they like.

It removes the ability for good players to help bad players.

I understand that many people will love this change. And they will most likely belong to the first group of people that doesnt have to help their friends to fight hard fights - or they simply dont care because they previously cried "rallybots" in every fight or because they are only there "for the fights" when they are winning. I dont have any problems to leverage my class and build in this no downed event - I main a mirage since PoF and I can cut down bad people like grass. But combat becomes incredibly selfish. I cant help anyone in the field now because if they die they die, there is zero skill level flex.

Anet should never encourage git gud or get out across the entire mode. We have enough of that already.

You main a class that most people who do not like the no downstate complain about the most. Perhaps something good will come from the event for them and makes Anet take a look at the balance one more time. :)

@aspirine.5839 said:

@"Dawdler.8521" said:Everyone will have different experiences because the TL;DR of no downstate is as follows.

It

empower

good players by allowing them to leverage their class and build.

It

weakens

bad players by not allowing them to play what they like.

It

removes

the ability for good players to help bad players.

I understand that many people will

love

this change. And they will most likely belong to the first group of people that doesnt have to help their friends to fight hard fights - or they simply dont care because they previously cried "rallybots" in every fight or because they are only there "for the fights" when they are winning. I dont have any problems to leverage my class and build in this no downed event - I main a mirage since PoF and I can cut down bad people like grass. But combat becomes incredibly selfish. I cant help anyone in the field now because if they die they die, there is zero skill level flex.

Anet should never encourage git gud or get out across the entire mode. We have enough of that already.

Yeah nothing good will come of it. We've known that the extremes - everything from condi dmg from bunker gear to critdmg from zerker gear in combination with skill dmg modifiers has been over the top since HoT (and before that). We know it in particular because of sPvP. Having no downed state doesnt change anything for the core balance issues. I will still be against it even if I have everything to gain from it being in effect.

@Dawdler.8521 said:It weakens bad players by not allowing them to play what they like.It also makes it impossible for bad players to be a liability for their more organized and experienced allied players. Many guild groups understandably shoo randoms away because they pose a high risk of swinging their fights rallybotting. Now that player just dies, may have done nothing useful, but at least didn't help the enemy.

@Dawdler.8521 said:It removes the ability for good players to help bad players.It also makes it impossible for bad players to fall for the "I got to res my ally" trap. Downed players are often bait that lures inexperienced players into cleave.

So yes, there are less fail saves for bad players, but they also can't do anything wrong / harmful to their own side anymore. Which is what I would probably have preferred when I started running with a group as new player.

Its fun so it will be removed. Having fun is not allowed unless its sold on the gem store.

Good change for myself maybe. If this were to be a permanent change I think a lot of support players would re-think just how much support they'd give and how well they're protected. I would also miss stomp animation and finisher utilities like Impact Strike, unless those animations or effects had a % chance to pop off a kill strike. A Malicious Backstab with a spectral finisher would be awesome. I had liked to tie up support or squirrelers by leaving a down or two a like a quarter health but people are peeling around to the back of the blob now when their health takes a dip so it's kind of the same thing except sometimes I'd want the down to be a certain spot.

if downstate was removed, they have to still show our finishers on killing people so we still have a reason to buy em :Dbut i think its more realistic that we get a middle ground like 2 times downed within a minute = full down ( instead of current 4 times) this allows you to grant an ally a second chance but not endless ressurects.

Highly agree, there shouldn't be a downstate reinstated!

@"friggarn.5360" said:This change is terrible, and there's no way I'd like it permanent, unless they drastically change the Meta, and the rewards.

If the 'revive ally' traits worked on downs it MIGHT be okay.. so that there's still the ability to rez, but you need to spec into it.

The Meta is WAY too fast for damage right now, and it's extremely unforgiving with no downstate.

If it was permanent, the meta would change. Thats the point of Meta...any changes to the game (nerfs/buffs/mechanics...etc) will obv change what "works best" in any given environment.

Personally I hope its not permanent, however I would def like to see this event more.

u know the one complaining just want to get rallied and Carried. They want to W key and spam aoe before going down and get rallied now they cant.

Title says small scale is useful now? How was it useless before? What is "small scale?"

D:

I have been enjoying this event and hope it stays in rotation and also allows anet to fine tune down state (since they won't remove it). I would also be all for a no rally week event.

Removing the invuln period after downing and removing and putting a time limit on down state should be a good balance for this. My recommendation is the length of two finishers. This way most people who die for horrible positioning will still be bursted down. You don't need your hand held to learn don't stand in the fire.

I would also say ele downed mist needs its time reduced. If you are over extending you should not be carried by down state rezzing. Use utils and weapon skills to get back or coordinate proper sustain or cover vs a Rez.

Playing glass weaver I've only really noticed an increase in roamers playing burst builds when catching up to a group, in the engagements proper positioning normally is enough. I have seen a lot of scourges and other weavers getting wiped easily though. I think it's more of a learn to play issue Vs lack of downstate to blame. You have less barriers and less circles of death protecting you with less scourges running. Soulbest hype also reduced the scourge numbers further this week, and now no rally function. So rip a decent portion of uncoordinated sustain zergs had.

I play with a casual group that often lacks support and has a low ratio of scourges in raid, so this isn't anything new to me. Anyone from the prehot fight guild days who played ele should not be having issues. It's still the same you live by positioning properly and using your utilities but you still can die easily if the pick team focuses you.

If you are noticing your group dying slowly, don't log into the forums to yell change it back, do something more proactive, play support. A single support class can tip the scales. I always carry a full set for healbot ele, and right now it's actually fun to play.

Everytime I see someone posts that no down state creates pirate ship meta I laugh.It's been the worst pirate ship meta ever since pof. Now zergs engage and fights flow, no fear of jumping in only to have downs be ressed. Are people saying this even playing the same game because pirate ship meta died instantly?