Stability

When corrupted, it would simply convert 1 stack into fear, which would then remove another stack. This puts corrupts in line with other cc but makes it twice as punishing, while allowing the boonholder some cc protection still.

This would of course require a standard duration of applied stability for, say 4 seconds and the appropriate cooldown reduction for the skills giving it to compensate. Concentration would still be able to increase this value by 100%.

This would also require skills that give stability to atleast give 2 stacks minimum, and since this would give massive defense against corrupts it would only be fair to reduce the "big stacks" of stab to a maximum of 3, while allowing every utility/elite that grants it affect 10 allies instead.

As you can already see this would lead to:

• Fewer stacks of stability throughout a fight, but more uptime in general.
• It allows for precise cc-bombs to more easily create openings, with corrupts still being nr.1 contributor.
• Since most stability skills give 5 seconds, 4 seconds wouldn't nerf it to the ground. The standardization of duration would also create more windows of opportunity for counterpressure, and the group coverage would now be alot more dependant on coordination (1st stab, 2nd stab) than spamming it.
• Guardian would still be the goto for stability because it has more ways to apply it
• This would give room for other professions to share the boon (basically add more stacks to the group or cover downtimes, in worst case reaching the amount of stab we have today) without making the group cc-immune.

I truly believe this would make fights more enjoyable because less stacks of stab on shorter duration = more windows of opportunity and really rewards the group that uses it at the right moment. It would shake up the comp meta a bit (tempest, soulbeast, scrapper f.ex) to give some specs a little boost. A solid cc bomb would be twice as deadly as it is today, and the now nerfed warrior bubble would severly hamper the opposing group if it causes them to not get their limited stability off or removes several stacks so that your group can more easily counterpressure.

What do you guys think?

Edit: This would even bring in line some of the stability bunkers in PvP, seeing as there's not enough cc there to remove too many stacks

Edit 2: Let me explain why it's a stability nerf: Let's use two guardians "Stand Your Ground" with an assumed 100% uptime. With todays mechanic this gives 10 stacks of stability for 10 seconds to 10 people.With mine it would give 6 stacks of stability for 8 seconds to 10 people.Or you can say they time it and it's 5 stacks/20 seconds/10 people as opposed to 3 stacks/16 seconds/10 people. Which is why I would like other professions to be able to cover this downtime (but also making all 1 stack skills become 2 stack and affecting 10 people would counteract this, although require more coordination. Other stability givers should only have 1 way give give group stability though, pregerably only 2 stacks max)

Im not sure if it would really go your intended way, right now pushing through a fullbomb will kill you most of the time because everything will be ripped immediately, you get stuck and die. Not getting all your stab ripped at once (assuming it works like other cc with 0.5 or 0.75sec, dont remember exactly, after a cc to not be able to be cc'ed again) would mean that you could move through a bom without getting stuck.

This may even lead to more melee gameplay (which i would rly rly welcome), but nor rly to more ways to kill someone...

I like your idea tho, but more because i think it leads to less pirateshipping

@RedShark.9548 said:Im not sure if it would really go your intended way, right now pushing through a fullbomb will kill you most of the time because everything will be ripped immediately, you get stuck and die. Not getting all your stab ripped at once (assuming it works like other cc with 0.5 or 0.75sec, dont remember exactly, after a cc to not be able to be cc'ed again) would mean that you could move through a bom without getting stuck.

This may even lead to more melee gameplay (which i would rly rly welcome), but nor rly to more ways to kill someone...

I like your idea tho, but more because i think it leads to less pirateshipping

Yeah the instarips would be gone, yet 2-3 necros could burn through your fewer stacks in seconds still. I just think it should require more than 1 misstep and it's over, plus this would give immobilize a much more important aspect since CC alone wouldn't be enough unless followed up. The engangement should be enjoyable for both sides.

As for killing someone, this is why I set a standard duration so there will be forced windows that 1 support can't cover alone when it comes to stability uptime, so coordination and additional sources are needed. I though about the cc-immunity delay, and came to the conclusion that it most likely, from a game mechanic perspective, that the conversion would not invoke the cooldown but the fear would. This means the 1 stack conversions would bypass the icd, which seems only fair to me to allow corrupts an advantage still.

It would be a good point of balancing as corruption are soo much stronger then boon strips. I am not if they can program the game to work that way though.

@"Jski.6180" said:It would be a good point of balancing as corruption are soo much stronger then boon strips. I am not if they can program the game to work that way though.

Since cc's already work that way on stability I don't see why not, as f.ex a spellbreaker can differentiate whether or not the opponent has stab while performing an interrupt, and act accordingly (either remove 1 stack of stab or 1 boon). But I see your issue since no boonrips allow you to just affect 1 stack, except for cc on stability.

An additional way of doing it could be "if rip = stability, apply 0 sec daze" (given the icd procs on anything above 0,1 sec or similar since we can't know how it's programmed) or something since the source of the rip doesn't matter. We already know conversions follow the first in first out principle, so if this calculation can be done en mass then the stability one shouldn't cause any stress either.

Same with boon duration and sources - they could set the longest duration to 0 when stability was affected since they do differentiate and have limited applications. Like they did with regen, it suggests they have the opportunity.

Much of what is being said here is too complicated and seems aimed at reinventing the wheel within the wheel (instead of making sure the wheel is a wheel or using something else). With that, if Anet can't rebalance the boon- and condition spam back to reasonable levels (akin to vanilla) they should scrap stability as a boon and reintroduce it as an affect (akin to superspeed). It is far too important for the fundamental gameplay of this game to be fiddled with in overcomplicated balance. If, between life and death (and effective combat positioning), you spend more time controlled than in control the balance is fundamentally broken.

While I would love to see a vanilla-esque balance and layering of soft/hard boon/effects and rips again, I believe we are in too deep for that in any timely fashion and it is much easier to counter-balance the hard-CC effects (stun etc.) with a hard-CC counter that once again have less proactive sources and uptime, less group-supportive proactive sources and uptime (ie., shorter uptimes, more scarcity in access over classes etc.) and some additional reactive sources and group-supportive sources (ie., tacking the stability effects to various stun-breaks). That would lead to more engaging gameplay overall again and it would be more reminiscent of vanilla's gameplay flow and management.

@subversiontwo.7501 said:snipsI really really like this idea.

@subversiontwo.7501 said:Much of what is being said here is too complicated and seems aimed at reinventing the wheel within the wheel (instead of making sure the wheel is a wheel or using something else). With that, if Anet can't rebalance the boon- and condition spam back to reasonable levels (akin to vanilla) they should scrap stability as a boon and reintroduce it as an affect (akin to superspeed). It is far too important for the fundamental gameplay of this game to be fiddled with in overcomplicated balance. If, between life and death (and effective combat positioning), you spend more time controlled than in control the balance is fundamentally broken.

While I would love to see a vanilla-esque balance and layering of soft/hard boon/effects and rips again, I believe we are in too deep for that in any timely fashion and it is much easier to counter-balance the hard-CC effects (stun etc.) with a hard-CC counter that once again have less proactive sources and uptime, less group-supportive proactive sources and uptime (ie., shorter uptimes, more scarcity in access over classes etc.) and some additional reactive sources and group-supportive sources (ie., tacking the stability effects to various stun-breaks). That would lead to more engaging gameplay overall again and it would be more reminiscent of vanilla's gameplay flow and management.

Your last paragraph is exactly what I'm suggesting. Shorter uptime and scarcity in terms of stacks and specific professions that can share them.

Reinventing the wheel within the wheel is balance. Anything else is changing it to something different, and I don't think making it an effect is the way to go as it removes teamplay, counterplay, buildcraft and skill/timing. I'm not suggesting we change all mechanics - only 1 which are conversions, on a single boon. We are talking 1 line of code with an if condition, that's all it would take to make everything alot more dynamic and enjoyable for everyone. This is alot more than changing a duration boon to stack, change what condi a boon turns into or even adding a boon to the list.

But if you are happy with how it is or dream of the old duration-only days, nothing wrong with that.

Get rid of stacks and bring back old stab

Stab is fine at the moment. I dunno what game you're playing. range damage is what keeps everything pirateship not stab

@Optimator.3589 said:Get rid of stacks and bring back old stab

That would be ripped instantly aswell and you couldnt push anyway. Old stab never had tgis problem because back then boonrips were almost nonexisting.Then they introduced an overflow of boons and instead of fixing that back down they introduced a ton of rips and corrupts... And now we have this kitten

@hunkamania.7561 said:Stab is fine at the moment. I dunno what game you're playing. range damage is what keeps everything pirateship not stab

Which is exactly why ranged cc bombs chipping away on an enemy group is meta. This would no longer be possible to do. With all the reflects, boons and raw healing we have today, no way you will get a single down in a meleeball without cc, maybe if you start adding siege.

@rng.1024 said:

@hunkamania.7561 said:Stab is fine at the moment. I dunno what game you're playing. range damage is what keeps everything pirateship not stab

There's no such thing.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@hunkamania.7561 said:Stab is fine at the moment. I dunno what game you're playing. range damage is what keeps everything pirateship not stab

There are indeed guilds that know how to stick together - which is where these changes matter most. The effect this would have splatters ofc onto more uncoordinated groups since it now require more active support I don't argue that. I would be happy to do a gvg with your guild where you are not allowed to cc while I am just to show the importance of it in a best out of 10 ;)

anything that leads to or attempts to lead to less hammer rev and scourge and more damage in the frontline, i'm all for. the ability for frontline to make plays has been completely taken away. and that sucks.

@Xterra.6172 said:anything that leads to or attempts to lead to less hammer rev and scourge and more damage in the frontline, i'm all for. the ability for frontline to make plays has been completely taken away. and that sucks.

I think you're onto something.

Imagine if we:

• Make rev have to choose between damage and the herald spec (opening for Renegade)
• Shades got minion mechanics that granted you lifeforce on use but had a finite healthpool

These 2 simple changes would most likely end the pirateshipping because it would reward smart placements of shades and make revs choose damage over sustain leading to a less punishing deadzone between groups - but still deadly if properly used.

@rng.1024 said:

@Xterra.6172 said:anything that leads to or attempts to lead to less hammer rev and scourge and more damage in the frontline, i'm all for. the ability for frontline to make plays has been completely taken away. and that sucks.

• Make rev have to choose between damage and the herald spec (opening for Renegade)
• Shades got minion mechanics that granted you lifeforce on use but had a finite healthpool

sign me up dawg

@rng.1024 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@hunkamania.7561 said:Stab is fine at the moment. I dunno what game you're playing. range damage is what keeps everything pirateship not stab

But if you want to do a melee ball GvG with my guild sure, just keep in mind we are usually 1-2 people online (with 2 more sporadically available), none of us play melee classes and yesterday I ran a minion master blood necro while roaming just for laughs.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@hunkamania.7561 said:Stab is fine at the moment. I dunno what game you're playing. range damage is what keeps everything pirateship not stab

The melee ball doesn't have to be perfect since most resses can go through unless cc'ed. Clouding is an issue, and most groups tend to just stay in the open instead of utilizing chokes/portals and covering their backs. If the dps, which is mainly ranged these days stick on tag those 90% will be moot - unless the amount of damage becomes more than a firebrand's cooldowns can cover - so when you are outnumbered of course you will have a harder time keeping your party up. And what is clouding? CC'ing and downing lonely opponents that get caught too far from their group. Again my suggestion would allow these people a few extra seconds not locked down able to get back on tag.

In a gvg however the comps will be more or less mirrored and therefore damage and healing approximately the same, so the argument doesn't apply since even clouding will not have enough damage if the meleeball sticks together and pushes together - I might not have a source but looking at any gvg shows clouding with equal numbers is an unfortunate tactic.

Even in a 2v2, not being able to cc will make you hard pressed to win the fight, even if you choose to cloud.

Anyways I never said the meleball had to be completely perfect, only that if it wins more than 5 out of 10 fights consistently, cc'ing can be proven to be the better tactic - which in my experience it is. The rest of your points I totally agree with so no issue there. But in the opinion stated in my first post, I was indeed referencing a perfect meleeball so you're not wrong either. So if you have different experiences I'll respect that, because of course I can't say something with 100% certainty and already took a bold risk making that statement. But it led to you expanding on your opinion which I appreciate!

The changes wouldn't guarantee everyone stayed up - just hopefully a bit longer than they do today, both when clouded or charged upon by a melee ball :)

The point is to make corruption an effect for condi dmg and soft cc and boon strip a hard counter to all boons. It would fix a lot of the balancing in this game as corruption dose boon strips jobs but a lot better.

So corruption will only eat 1 stacks of stab and maybe other number stacking boons and give its condi effect (fear for stab removing 2 stacks from its full effect) where boon strip will simply remove the boons stacks and all in one tick.

Then we can start to deviating all the classes into condi counter to boon / healing or simple boon hard counters. No class should be with out one of these 2 effects. Its needed for real counter play in pvp AND it seems pve on some high level content.

Or just give corruption and boonstrip a shared internal cooldown like CC of 0.75s before the target being able to affected again? That seems much easier to implement.

@Artaz.3819 said:Or just give corruption and boonstrip a shared internal cooldown like CC of 0.75s before the target being able to affected again? That seems much easier to implement.

This would mean 2 boons affected every 1,5 seconds - which is alot of time to react. On one hand it would dial down the instant boonrips, but on the other it would lead to your high value skills doing absolutely nothing. I would imagine this would bring back the boonball meta to about HoT levels, meaning drawn out fights and therefore a greater need for pirateshipping before engaging.

Not to mention it would directly conflict with the spellbreaker grandmaster trait, and I have a hard time seeing how it would identify a number of strips as one skill application, because as far as I can tell boons are simply standalone secondary mechanics that do not consider why they are removed (first in first out).

The idea is interesting though, but would be a very hefty nerf all across the board. Would lead to alot more room for mistakes and unlucky timing, resulting in a much more forgiving meta. Maybe this is exactly what we need to give groups the incentive to actually push?