Can we make "soft" CC less useless against breakbars?

HOT introduced breakbars, maybe a bit too frequently, as even many regular enemies had them, making then frustrating to fight if your character depended on your enemies being crippled or chilled to properly kite them (what crowd control is).

Maybe worse is that because of how breakbars work, good pve builds should include at least a few hard CCs, since soft CC hardly does breakbar damage to bosses in large group events.

This brings a dilemma in open world play, since builds which work really well against hordes of "trash" enemies (for example, chill based mallyx revenant), may suddenly find themselves not contributing at all to breaking bars during metas.

The core of the issue is that soft CC does breakbar damage, and it's quite decent at it.... as long as the boss isn't scaled. The moment more players join and the breakbar starts scaling up, soft CC becomes moot, because it doesn't scale up at all (as it stacks in duration, not intensity), and thus it becomes irrelevant.

Could this be addressed somehow? For example, I would like it if soft CC would be consumed faster (and thus did more breakbar damage) the more the bar is scaled.

Any other ideas?

My idea:

Mega-weakness

• If you use a CC on an enemy with breakbar, It will reduce the enemy damage, like weakness.
• Only works on enemies with breakbar and only works when the enemy with breakbar is in the process of recovering breakbar(orange instead of blue) or cannot be broken(Breakbar is black and has a orange shield). All stacks is removed and the enemy is immune to mega-weakness when break bar is ready to be break(Breakbar is blue).
• Mega-weakness stacks intensity.

Mega-cripple

• If you use a soft cc/slow on an enemy with breakbar, it will slow the enemy, like cripple.
• Only works on enemies with breakbar and only works when the enemy with breakbar is in the process of recovering breakbar(orange instead of blue) or cannot be broken(Breakbar is black and has a orange shield). All stacks is removed and the enemy is immune to mega-cripple when break bar is ready to be break(Breakbar is blue).
• Mega-cripple stacks duration.

Enemies with breakbar are immune to Regular Weakness and cripple anyways.

Aggression and Denial stat

• Aggression buffs hard CC/disables like Stuns, daze, fear, etc. Denial buffs soft cc like cripple, chill, immobilize.
• Replaces Toughness and Vitality because they are broken in PvP and useless in PvE. It is necessary because this should be a core stat that everyone access. If necessary, toughness and vitality moves somewhere else as only endgame raids and WvW needs it. If not, it needs to be accessed by core players.
• These stats buffs can range from more duration of CC to more damage to breakbars, duration of mega-weakness and intensity of mega-cripple.

To balance this, all enemies with breakbar are buffed reasonably to offset the power creep. They may buff speed + damage of the enemy with breakbar. This will only be necessary to Fractals and Raids. ANet should not buff enemies in story instances nor open world.

I actually like the weakness idea that it stacks and reduces outgoing damage, like a reverse vulnerability (with a cap of 25 meaning -25% outgoing damage, a lot of one shot deaths would be prevented). Unfortunately, I just don't ANet reworking a condition to behave differently based on breakbar existence.

on the other hand, I wonder how useful it would be to slow down boss attack animations. Monsters already idle a lot between attacks, and general visual clutter would render such effects pointless. Not to mention that is also changes the effect of cripple into the realm of slow.

As for the rest, that's actually a more complicated rework than what I believe ANet would take on. :P

I wonder if it would be feasible to have soft CC conditions overwrite currently existing conditions of the same type present on the target and in the process deliver the currently remaining breakbar damage instantly?

@Skotlex.7580 said:I actually like the weakness idea that it stacks and reduces outgoing damage, like a reverse vulnerability (with a cap of 25 meaning -25% outgoing damage, a lot of one shot deaths would be prevented). Unfortunately, I just don't ANet reworking a condition to behave differently based on breakbar existence.

on the other hand, I wonder how useful it would be to slow down boss attack animations. Monsters already idle a lot between attacks, and general visual clutter would render such effects pointless. Not to mention that is also changes the effect of cripple into the realm of slow.

As for the rest, that's actually a more complicated rework than what I believe ANet would take on. :P

Making CC and slows work on breakbar enemies will fundamentally change how GW2 combat works. Making CC work needs to be designed well and be tested over and over again. This should never be a band-aid that to be added lightly and actually require ANet to work on it. The fact that break bar enemies are immune to CC and slows is a band-aid by itself.

Chill, Cripple and Blind all do breakbar damage over time. Chill isn't half bad, in fact. The problem is they don't stack, so once it's on the boss other players adding more does nothing.

Solution IMO is to add a small insta-damage effect to those conditions that only applies if the target already has the condition on it.

@Skotlex.7580 said:The core of the issue is that soft CC does breakbar damage, and it's quite decent at it.... as long as the boss isn't scaled. The moment more players join and the breakbar starts scaling up, soft CC becomes moot, because it doesn't scale up at all (as it stacks in duration, not intensity), and thus it becomes irrelevant.

There are so few bosses that scale up that much. What's the problem with adjusting one's build for those few to add more hard CC?

I'm not against an adjustment; I just don't think it's necessary.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:There are so few bosses that scale up that much. What's the problem with adjusting one's build for those few to add more hard CC?

It may be that players don't actually like doing this. I am reminded of the several threads complaining about serpent's ire meta. :D considering that GW2 is generally seen as a casual-friendly mmo, it would make sense that people should be able to stick to generally fine builds and use that everywhere, except for hardcore content (triple wurm, tier-4 fractals, raids).

As such, having all soft CCs become pointless for group events is somewhat... not fair? It makes building for pve more of a chore as now you have builds which are more effective against breakbars and others which are best for those without. :/

if at least most bosses had several adds where your cc would help manage... except that if they aren't champions, they'll die too fast for your CC to matter at all anyway. :/

Not fair? That people can just run full damage zerk with no consideration of mechanics?

Smh.

@Strider Pj.2193 said:Not fair? That people can just run full damage zerk with no consideration of mechanics?

Smh.That's also not fair, but not the point of the topic. :P for better or for worse, how events scale only keeps the challenge up to a certain level, beyond that it becomes a zerg-rush spam-1 fiesta, and we need to look no farther than the Istan meta for proof. :/

Perhaps that's why there hasn't been much need to look at this specific issue, as the content is already trivial enough at large scale that soft cc application doesn't matter (perhaps with a few notable exceptions such as vinetooth prime and serpent's ire).

@Skotlex.7580 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:Not fair? That people can just run full damage zerk with no consideration of mechanics?

Smh.That's also not fair, but not the point of the topic. :P for better or for worse, how events scale only keeps the challenge up to a certain level, beyond that it becomes a zerg-rush spam-1 fiesta, and we need to look no farther than the Istan meta for proof. :/

But it is the inevitable point of the thread.

Soft CC needs to be just that. For many other reasons. And let’s face it, some of the break bars move differently: ie it takes more CC period whether 5 or 50 people hitting it.

Things SHOULD be able to fail.

If they can’t, what’s really the point?

Just give out the loot chests for showing up?

I don't get the issue. Soft cc isn't meant to break any bar, it's there to prevent bar regeneration - meaning less hard cc is needed in order to break it. This is why it doesn't matter whether it scales or stacks in intensity. It seems intended that on lesser bosses soft cc can be degenerative in order to enhance explorative play.

@rng.1024 said:I don't get the issue. Soft cc isn't meant to break any bar, it's there to prevent bar regeneration - meaning less hard cc is needed in order to break it. This is why it doesn't matter whether it scales or stacks in intensity. It seems intended that on lesser bosses soft cc can be degenerative in order to enhance explorative play.

That really depends on the CC. Immobilize, slow, fear, and taunt actually deal quite significant amounts of breakbar damage, especially if you're playing a build with a lot of increased condi duration. For instance, I often use arcane thievery for the CC (Slow) when I'm playing my condi mirage because it can deal up to 400 breakbar damage - equivalent to 4 seconds of stun! I think it's a legitimate question to ask why such a strong CC is essentially worthless when many other players are present fighting a boss.

I've seen some people lament that players are lazy when it comes to using CCs against break bars on big bosses. I think there is some level of 'I'll let someone else take care of it' going on, but I think part of it is how surprisingly easy it is to have a build that just doesn't have any hard CCs. It doesn't help that it doesn't matter for most PvE, and you can have a build that's great for everything else, but suddenly becomes useless against a break bar (and you better hope it's not an enemy where that's their main weakness). I'm not saying there shouldn't be strategy in builds, or builds that are better at one thing more than another, but it's about the extreme nature of it. Sometimes I'm running around doing something else and happen to pass by one of these enemies and go to help others, only to feel completely helpless once the break phase starts. This is definitely something that's going to be a hurdle for new players as well, since it's not that obvious, especially since some of the things that do affect the break bar, don't affect it in any meaningful way.

In other words, I agree with the topic. I'd like to see the weaker things be brought up just a tad, enough to make break bars less of an 'all or nothing' situation that I feel like they are right now. I don't even think it would have to change the balance that much. Honestly, I feel like there are a lot of enemies that are intended to be broken more often than I ever see them.

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@rng.1024 said:I don't get the issue. Soft cc isn't meant to break any bar, it's there to prevent bar regeneration - meaning less hard cc is needed in order to break it. This is why it doesn't matter whether it scales or stacks in intensity. It seems intended that on lesser bosses soft cc can be degenerative in order to enhance explorative play.

They do exactly the same damage whether scaled or not. But the % of damage differ since now the boss has more hitpoints and more rapid regeneration. Whenever a boss scales like this it's assumes different professions are present, requiring more unique conditions in order to reach the same rate of degeneration. Not to mention conditions are disabled randomly. Why is your condition worthless? Basically it's a question of how scaled bosses bar regeneration outperforms your damaging soft cc's rate of degeneration. How is that any different from the group not bringing enough hard cc to break it? We can't start giving everyone the power to insta break any breakbar, and expect it's working when 100 people are doing the same. At some point the mechanic has to exceed the individual player in order for it to work - and they chose to do that by rewarding unique applications of conditions. If more professions use their powerful soft cc like you then the effect will be exactly the same as when not scaled, since the random disable require uptime on different condis in order to keep the bar from regenerating.

@rng.1024 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@rng.1024 said:I don't get the issue. Soft cc isn't meant to break any bar, it's there to prevent bar regeneration - meaning less hard cc is needed in order to break it. This is why it doesn't matter whether it scales or stacks in intensity. It seems intended that on lesser bosses soft cc can be degenerative in order to enhance explorative play.

The game doesn't ask for unique applications of hard CC to do breakbar damage. Could you explain that inconsistency? Is there a good reason for that inconsistency?

@rng.1024 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@rng.1024 said:I don't get the issue. Soft cc isn't meant to break any bar, it's there to prevent bar regeneration - meaning less hard cc is needed in order to break it. This is why it doesn't matter whether it scales or stacks in intensity. It seems intended that on lesser bosses soft cc can be degenerative in order to enhance explorative play.

It's worthless because it doesn't stack intensity. Adding 4 seconds of slow to a pile of slow that never drops off the target doesn't increase the amount of breakbar damage dealt. In essence, all breakbar damage from soft CC beyond the amount required to keep it applied continuously is wasted. In large groups, this means that most soft CC is essentially wasted.

So, a condition like arcane thievery which deals up to 400 breakbar damage for a solo player could potentially add 0 damage to the breakbar of a scaled up boss in a large group. Perhaps that's intended? But it seems a little bit off to me if scaling does what we expect scaling to do.

Yeah, when a boss is not scaled, your soft CC does notable damage to the break bar, when the event becomes sufficiently scaled, it doesn't even prevent the bar from regenerating.

Thus, a build that relies on mostly soft CC CAN deal with break bars, but once scaled, they do "nothing" and depend on others on being hard CC to break it.

The problem is.... if the group has a significant number of players relying on soft CC to disable bosses, suddenly their contribution is void once the boss scales up enough, a situation that does no apply to hard CC builds, thus making them significantly better for metas (if break bars are impactful).

Single target they're perfectly fine. In giant blobs of players it is irrelevant either way. No need to change anything. Keep in mind that only 20% of a zerg contribute to 80% of the work :) Rest is 1 1 1 1 spammers.

So the only time this would matter is a low man run with a champion that has a big breakbar. Even then, having slows etc. on him does quite a bit. They don't last forever either, but OBVIOUSLY they cannot reach level of dedicated CC skills. Again, I fail to see the issue at hand even there. Rarely is a breakbar ever a problem. Even Serpent's Ire is a joke. The mechanic simply weeds out all those people who refuse to do anything

@DaFishBob.6518 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@rng.1024 said:I don't get the issue. Soft cc isn't meant to break any bar, it's there to prevent bar regeneration - meaning less hard cc is needed in order to break it. This is why it doesn't matter whether it scales or stacks in intensity. It seems intended that on lesser bosses soft cc can be degenerative in order to enhance explorative play.

Yes, because access to cc's are distributed among professions. Which means some professions can bring way more hard cc than others. Some hard cc lasts longer, some shorter. Some cc effects do little breakbar damage, some do more. As the boss scales the % of total damage also decreases on hard cc since more is required to break the bar. Access to hard cc is way more unique than access to soft cc. The reason is to not allow everyone to oneshot the bar with their hard cc skill, again because when scaled up it assumes more professions are present and therefore that they can bring a wider range of cc.

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@rng.1024 said:I don't get the issue. Soft cc isn't meant to break any bar, it's there to prevent bar regeneration - meaning less hard cc is needed in order to break it. This is why it doesn't matter whether it scales or stacks in intensity. It seems intended that on lesser bosses soft cc can be degenerative in order to enhance explorative play.

Let me give you a riddle. How many professions in this game has access to slow? If you add up the base durations of these, how many seconds is it? Lastly does this combined duration exceed any cooldowns on slow-giving skills?

Arcane Thievery still does 400 damage whether upscaled or not. But instead of it being 10% on a 4000 hp boss it's now 1% of a 40000 hp upscaled boss. Also the boss goes from regenerating 1% every second in the first case, when upscaled it's 5%. Sure in the 1st case you prevented regeneration and damaged his bar by 9%. But in the second you only lowered his regeneration from 5% to 4%. The reason is simple, if we add more players but keep the boss downscaled the bar will break in less than a second by 1 single player - how is that fun for anyone? So instead of giving any single player that power when upscaled, it goes from empowering a single players cobtribution to empowering group play. Meaning soft cc's are now there to stop bar regeneration and hard cc from multiple professions are now needed in order to break it. Furthermore it disables conditions randomly in order to encourage uptimes on different ones. The higher profession wide access we have on a condi and it's base durations are long, the less damage they do. This is, again, to encourage each profession to bring their unique "strong" soft cc. You waste your skills in no way other than someone else using hard cc when the bar is broken.

@Blocki.4931 said: Again, I fail to see the issue at hand even there. Rarely is a breakbar ever a problem. Even Serpent's Ire is a joke. The mechanic simply weeds out all those people who refuse to do anythingperhaps you've missed what the issue actually is. You do mention what 20% do most of the job, what if part of it is because there are plenty of people whose builds rely on soft CC to manage crowds, and thus their contribution to breaking bars is invalidated in larger groups?

My suggestion is that soft CC damage to break bars should scale up to keep the damage ratio per second despite the amount of players, but that also means that duration needs be scaled in like. For example, a boss that has their break bar scaled to 200% the base value, would have soft CC do double damage, but also have their duration reduced by half.

So basically asking to do everything.

You can't have top DPS and also be able to do such things like Hard CC etc. There's always a trade off.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Skotlex.7580 said:The core of the issue is that soft CC does breakbar damage, and it's quite decent at it.... as long as the boss isn't scaled. The moment more players join and the breakbar starts scaling up, soft CC becomes moot, because it doesn't scale up at all (as it stacks in duration, not intensity), and thus it becomes irrelevant.

CC is good as it is.Imagine the horror of Mordremoth if these changes came to pass....