Warclaw Lance - Removes Too Much 1vX Potential - Not Healthy For Low Population

[RedShark.9548]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:I keep seeing several arguments about the idea that: "Kiting only happens while in combat." "When you are on Warclaw it is because you are out of combat, not in combat" "So therefore you cant be kiting while on a Warclaw, you are running away."

^ This is a ridiculous argument. First of all, kiting opponents is kiting opponents. If opponents are chasing you and you are moving away from them so that you can better position for a counter offnse, you are kiting opponents. I don't care if it technically is in combat or out of combat under GW2 terms, kiting opponents is kiting opponents, especially when they are moving faster than you in their own territory. I don't care if you OOC briefly enough to mount, if you plan on running the Warclaw up around a ledge and dismounting to bottleneck 2 opponents into a small area so you can damage both of them at the same time, it's still kiting according to game terminology definition, regardless of how in/out of combat works in GW2.

So if you want to keep bumping this thread, let's hit the nail on the head here and discuss the mechanical statistics of lance, rather than getting caught up on this "is it kiting if it's ooc?" that's like if a group of people started a discussion about how a car engine works, but then some guy shows up and starts injecting comments about why he thinks the car was painted red. It's off topic, it's irrelevant, it has nothing to do the mechanics behind the engine discussed.

Oof, if you think discussing the usage (when exactly its bad to be used against you) of lance is off topic, in a thread about nerfing the lance then im not sure about what to say anymore.

You are crying about the lance and not being able to burst down a zerg, but is that rly the lances fault? No, if anything, the whole mount is at fault, it adds a second lifebar to anyone, 3 dodges, stomp, way too much movementspeed. And it wont let you disengage after your "zergbusting"

If you nerf lance then you will again have ppl jumping around you on their mounts, without fear of dying, laughing in your face, oh hell yea, what a fun time to be a roamer.

Just remove the mount entirely. Smaller havoc groups that try to sneak objectives would benefit from that too, because the big blob couldnt react as fast as they do now with mount, when the small group gets spotted.

You didnt even get the point of my post, i asked you why you just want the lance nerfed, and not the entire mount, and you just rambled on about stuff, that its "offtopic" etc.

Also you didnt say anything to my post, the "offtopic" kiting thing was just one point i made lol

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@RedShark.9548 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:I keep seeing several arguments about the idea that: "Kiting only happens while in combat." "When you are on Warclaw it is because you are out of combat, not in combat" "So therefore you cant be kiting while on a Warclaw, you are running away."

^ This is a ridiculous argument. First of all, kiting opponents is kiting opponents. If opponents are chasing you and you are moving away from them so that you can better position for a counter offnse, you are kiting opponents. I don't care if it technically is in combat or out of combat under GW2 terms, kiting opponents is kiting opponents, especially when they are moving faster than you in their own territory. I don't care if you OOC briefly enough to mount, if you plan on running the Warclaw up around a ledge and dismounting to bottleneck 2 opponents into a small area so you can damage both of them at the same time, it's still kiting according to game terminology definition, regardless of how in/out of combat works in GW2.

So if you want to keep bumping this thread, let's hit the nail on the head here and discuss the mechanical statistics of lance, rather than getting caught up on this "is it kiting if it's ooc?" that's like if a group of people started a discussion about how a car engine works, but then some guy shows up and starts injecting comments about why he thinks the car was painted red. It's off topic, it's irrelevant, it has nothing to do the mechanics behind the engine discussed.

Oof, if you think discussing the usage (when exactly its bad to be used against you) of lance is off topic, in a thread about nerfing the lance then im not sure about what to say anymore.

You are crying about the lance and not being able to burst down a zerg, but is that rly the lances fault? No, if anything, the whole mount is at fault, it adds a second lifebar to anyone, 3 dodges, stomp, way too much movementspeed. And it wont let you disengage after your "zergbusting"

If you nerf lance then you will again have ppl jumping around you on their mounts, without fear of dying, laughing in your face, oh hell yea, what a fun time to be a roamer.

Just remove the mount entirely. Smaller havoc groups that try to sneak objectives would benefit from that too, because the big blob couldnt react as fast as they do now with mount, when the small group gets spotted.

You didnt even get the point of my post, i asked you why you just want the lance nerfed, and not the entire mount, and you just rambled on about stuff, that its "offtopic" etc.

Also you didnt say anything to my post, the "offtopic" kiting thing was just one point i made lol

So

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

I'm trying to stray away from Warclaw or no Warclaw, because the fact of the matter is that Arenanet has given us Warclaw. And if it isn't apparent at this point, Arenanet is not going to remove Warclaw from the game.

The point of what I'm posting here, is to point out that Lance made it worse.

Nothing more, nothing less.

If you read both pages instead of just the OP post, you'll see that we've already covered all of this.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"Jayden Reese.9542" said:To him kiting is chasing the tail trying to kill one if they react and chase and lance him it's bad and game unfair. If he kills guy and runs and 5 chase him on his warclaw and 4 get bored run back to the zerg and he lances after kiting 4 a mile and kills that guy who kept casing everything perfect.

That's more misrepresentation in the worst way possible.

You're trying imply that I am speaking about chasing zerg tails around, which that scenario is absolutely nothing like the examples that I've given earlier in this thread. My examples are all detailing actual skirmishes where people are actively trying to kill each other. My examples are pointing out how now with Lance, during those moments when OOC happens briefly enough for players to mount, the Warclaw only matters for the 2 players who are chasing the single player. ThIs is because:

1. The 2 players can have 1 player maintain in-combat against who is kiting them, while the other guy staggers behind briefly enough to OOC to mount and keep chasing. The guy who is being chased, who is kiting, cannot use his Warclaw at all, and thus can never match the mobility of the superior number group who can afford to allow stragglers to OOC briefly enough to mount and gain superior mobility to the guy being chased, who is kiting. <- This means that the guy being chased who is kiting, can never match the mobility of a superior number group.
2. The problem thickens with Lance. Even when the guy who is being chased is able to temporarily OOC for a mount, which he needs for enough mobility to reach a certain chokepoint before he dismounts to make a better stand in better terrain, he can't realistically use his Warclaw if 2 or 3 people are chasing. If he is enemy territory, they all move faster than he does and one of those Lances is going to hit. You're also talking characters who will use teleports first to get very close to him, then mount, then use Lance to pull him off, making him enter combat so he is slow, so the other chasers can easily catch up.

Not sure what some of you guys aren't understanding about this.

1. Kiting off a Warclaw or on a Warclaw is the same thing, but implementing changes in sheer mobility factors and this confusing aspect of what it means to be in combat or out of combat, which really is completely negligent in the grand scheme of it all. All out of combat is doing, is allowing mount potential. And don't say that " being out of combat is not kiting it is running" because that's not true at all. When 2 people are chasing 1 person, and 1 of the chasers OOCs behind on purpose, so he can mount and then catch up with greater mobility, that isn't running away. That is flat out chasing someone. Enough with this argument of in-combat vs. out-of-combat.
2. But nevertheless you NEED the Warclaw's mobility to match other people who are on Warclaw. Because the Warclaw is allowing an enormous amount of mobility while not burning characters resources to benefit it. So when a group has superior numbers and can afford to straggle behind to OOC to mount, and then catch right back up to whatever they are chasing, that isn't fair. This is because what they are chasing is not able to OOC like that to benefit its Warclaw mobility vs. opponent Warclaw mobility. This all serves to make a patching where the outmanned smaller numbers aren't allowed to use their Warclaw so often during encounters, but the superior number groups are able to access and use Warclaw easily. <- That is about as ass backwards of a game mechanic as anything I've ever seen. The smaller groups who are outmanned are the ones who should be benefitting superior mobility so that they can actually attempt to find a way around superior combat power in numbers. The larger superior number groups should not be allowed to have not only superior combat prowess in numbers, but all superior mobility. Everything about this is wrong in terms of game balance.

^ This isn't the only reason why, but it is a big reason why many players have given up on the game mode. Roaming in outmanned maps is no longer an option unless you're some Plat + combat mechanically enabled veteran, and that right there eliminates 90% or more of potential player base from staying & playing in bad outmanned situations to keep our populations high.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"Jayden Reese.9542" said:Listen man if you are in opponents territory you should get lanced or caught but speed buff will be gone next wvw update. If you are on foot anywhere you should get caught up to by a mount but many classes can out run a mount on foot already and more will soon. Whether you like the mount or not it should easily catch unmounted players but it doesn't unless you see a necro or guard. Soon you will be able to save your leaps for lance cause Warclaw will be same speed everywhere. I'm not saying you are always chasing the tail but you seem to talk like 2 guys have unlimited lances and you can't get away when I only see mobile players not get away from 5 or 6. 2 guys shouldn't be enough to catch a mobile build which by you never saying what you play makes me guess and I guess ranger maybe sb and those should never get caught by only 2 anywhere

Ok:

1. I am aware that speed differences are being removed. It will help the problem a bit but it wont be enough.
2. Some rare build structures can outrun a mount yes, but none of that is practical to use for actual combat. Remember, we are talking about kiting for combat purposes here, like everyone keeps bring up, not simply running away. For example, a Core Mesmer running PU who has a lot of stealth, Mimic & Blink for double Blink, and Master of Manipulation trait for near permanent Super Speed, can escape any possible situation presented to it. But could this build realistically engage 1v2 and win? Could it even engage 1v1 and win against other general roaming builds? Maybe, but if he messes up his burst at all while getting close enough to utilize it, he will explode on impact the moment he is revealed against capable roamers that are actually designed to engage direct combat. That's how it'll go if he has enough DPS to be dangerous = he'll be glass cannon. The kinds of builds you are referencing, that have enough mobility to outrun Warclaw, are not primary engagement builds. In SPvP terms they're called +1s. These kinds of builds are not good at actually 1v1ing or 1v2ing. The purpose of these builds are to sneak in when someone else is already 1v1ing and the opponent is distracted. In this scenario, the highly mobile + can get in and has realistic chances to land a gimmick burst and down an opponent and leave. But in direct 1v1 engagement when an opponent has focus on the + build, the + builds don't work out so well. This is mainly because mobility dedication means nothing when you get close enough to engage. Mobility is not evading or blocking, it is only the ability to move quickly. So attribute allocation towards high mobility = a lot less actual defensive mechanics while engaging the combat. That PU Core Mes may be great at stealthing and disengaging 4000 range away when it needs to, but it isn't going to realistically be approaching 2+ players and revealing itself for combat, it's way too squishy for that. Upon this, the classes you reference are only Mesmer and Thief. That's the only 2 classes capable of front loading enough mobility & stealth to actually outrun a pack of Warclaws. So we can INB4 acting like there is some plethora of builds that can outrun Warclaws, as if this were a thing, because it isn't.
3. So again, we aren't talking about builds like that ^ . We are talking about roam classes/builds who are pushing objectives and actually attempting to combat everything they come across, who are designed to do so, because they have to, because they don't have 50% uptime of stealth teleports and super speed. I mean were' talking everything else in the game that isn't a Mesmer or Thief. And for every other class in the game, it is virtually impossible to shake and escape even 2 players who are on Warclaws who are chasing them, for the reasons I've already explained several times over now in this thread. Lance makes it much worse than it needs to be. Still confused as to why? Reread what I've already wrote. I'm getting tired of repeating it.
4. "Whether you like the mount or not it should easily catch unmounted players but it doesn't unless you see a necro or guard." No, what an understatement. Remember we are talking about outmanned situations in this thread, not 1v1. So when you 2+ players are chasing a single player, or when 10 players are chasing 3 or 4 players, the larger number group is able to dedicate some players to keep the small number group in combat while stragglers OOC on purpose just to mount, which allows them great mobility to catch back up to the small number group they are chasing while not having to burn character resource while doing it. And even if the small number group manages a short stealth and shakes the larger group briefly enough to mount, now we're talking builds like that PU Core Mesmer who definitely can outrun mounts, who can just teleport stealth super speed in while still OOC, then mount, and then use Lance to immediately pull a player down off his Warclaw. If several players in the larger group are able to do this, straggle behind purposely to OOC, then use character resources to catch up real fast but stay OOC, then mount, and then abuse Lance, you're talking an enormous amount of snowball mechanic going on here, that rewards the larger group in ways that should not be happening. I don't know what you guys aren't understanding here, how you're not "seeing this" but Lance alone, with how in-combat and out-of-combat works in regards to larger groups vs. small, Lance is a broken snowball mechanic that rewards an already superior numbered winning group, rather than rewarding the smaller numbered losing group. <- This is not good design. What we want are mechanics that reward smaller groups who are losing, so they see viable incentive to stay & play. We want comeback mechanics, not mechanics that make a winning side win even harder. Snowball mechanics tear a game apart man. Not only does not give incentive to stay through difficult situations, but it actually encourages people to just bail and go find something else to do. It is neither fun or rewarding to face grind against a game mode in a 5 v 15 on a map, where it is virtually impossible to work around the larger group to launch any sort of strategy at all.
5. "you never saying what you play makes me guess and I guess ranger maybe sb and those should never get caught by only 2 anywhere" It's no secret that I am a long time Ranger main. What you're saying about "Soulbeast shouldn't be caught by packs of Warclaws is bologna." If I don't ever engage the opponent, and just run away like the PU Core Mesmer, yeah I normally never ever get caught. But let's say I engage a 1v1 at a north supply. I'm about to down the guy but then a 2nd guy comes out of his keep on his Warclaw and pushing the supply as quickly as he can. Now I'm in a 1v2, and let's say the 1v2 is a bad 1v2 for me. A good example of this would be if 1 was a tanky Condi Mirage, and the other was something with heavy chase potential like a Power Herald. Both of those classes are considered counters to Soulbeast and if both of those players were actually good, I would need to be able to 1v1 them to meet them on even ground so 1v2ing them is out of the question. Here is the heart of the problem, I can't believe I have to explain this again: I go to disengage, but I cannot disengage because the Herald has Unrelenting Assault and Phase Traversal which sticks to you like glue. While he keeps me in combat as I kite away while fighting him nearly almost downing him, keep in mind he has to use character resource to keep up with me unmounted like this, which is why I can fight him this way. But then the Condi Mirage straggles and OOCs on purpose so he can mount. Now he can chase me while not using any of his character resources, while I am still in combat with a movement penalty. When the Mirage catches up, he can dismount and engage me at full resources because of the Warclaw. Now I use a LB #3 to stealth and duck & dive in a weird direction 180 degrees where I was running, and I am able to catch a brief OOC to mount. But due to the Mirage utilizing Warclaw mobility and keeping pace with me while not burning his resources, he can now just teleport to me while OOC, mount, and use Lance to immediately knock be back off of my mount and now we're back to stage 1 again. Now if the mounts weren't even present, none of that would be happening at all, because the Mirage would have had to have been using his teleports and resources to keep up with me to begin with, and neither of them could have been OOCing for that free mobility and life bar shield on the Warclaw. I could have had a chance to actually 1v2 these players with no Warclaw at all. But Warclaw is a thing and it isn't going away. Even with Warclaw in play, without Lance, the Condi Mirage couldn't just teleport in at me OOC and then mount for a free immediate dismount. At the best he could teleport in at me and attempt a damage burst to dismount me, if it fails, then mount and keep chasing.

I understand that the theory behind Lance sounds great, but in actual application it has removed realistic counter play for outmanned situations like 5 vs 15 maps. I don't care what anyone says, I'm telling you right now, that if those 5 players had more realistic capability to run from those 15 players and actually get around the map, shaking them, granting them opportunity to get something done, they'd stay and play. But when 5 people essentially have their Warclaw mobility neutralized to 15 other Warclaw riders due to how Lance works, and then the superior numbers are rewarded for being allowed to use their Warclaws while neutralizing the inferior numbers Warclaws so easily, that sucks man. That is not only busted and mechanically ill, granting no incentive for a losing team to even try, but most importantly there just isn't anything fun about any of that. And then server population plummets.

[Zexanima.7851]

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:I swear you attempt to win by wall of text tactics. You also always pick examples of classes that give you issues in 2 v 1 cause never is it 2 necros it's always a 2 perfect combo that can chase you down. You should lose 2 v 1s of equal skill or 10 v 5s of equal skill but there are so many casuals so we win alot of those then when you die you like that's unfair and blame lance instead of you lost to decent players maybe? I know you get away way more often then you get caught. You also seem to never fight by anything you own and are always at a disadvantage. All your examples are a small percent of what actual happens but you focus on that. I hate lance but it's a non issue 95 percent of the mode. I hate they nerfing warclaw speed because it will benefit the already mobile classes. Superior numbers favors superior numbers with warclaw w/o warclaw because theres more or them. It's easier to finish or rez or heal or buff or everything. Sure if players organised they can beat an unorganized group but 2 unorganized or 2 organised vs each other superior numbers win almost every time and should. I'm outnumbered all the time and it's way more fun and challenging then having 50 vs 30 all day.

I assume the reason @Trevor Boyer.6524 writes lengthy walls of text is to try to clearly and precisely explain their point as not to be misunderstood. In WvW most fights are not of equal skill so that point is kind of moot. Maybe 2:10 fights I have a night I find challenging. If the skill gap is enough you should be able to fight outnumbered and win no problem. Think one pro NBA player vs 5 average dudes who barely know what basketball is, they gonna lose. Same goes for GW2. Also I assume they use that example as to stress their point, there are a variety of situations that could be used as an example as to why lance causes problems like these for roamers. I do agree with you it's not the biggest issue WvW has but with how much it seems roaming is kind of 'discouraged' , every thing to hinder it feels like a big problem for those who do enjoy roaming.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"Jayden Reese.9542" said:I swear you attempt to win by wall of text tactics.

It's not about winning. It's about getting other people to "see" what I am explaining. There are too many WvW players who have kind of a weird bias vs. mechanics that would empower individuals or smaller groups of players to be able to wield their higher skill caps. This is well exampled during no downstate weekends, which veteran roamers absolutely love because it enables strong 1vX play, but zergers generally dislike because it means 10 players can actually be beaten by 3 players. The pumping blood & guts of this discussion is not really about Lance, but rather players who would see high skill cap mechanics nerfed vs. those who would see them empowered.

Anyway, If you had simply tossed a factual point of view such as this:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:Yes, let's make a poll and ask if people quit WvW because of Warclaw or because of Lance. If more quit because of Lance, I'll give your OP a thumbs up. As I already said, your problems with Lance seem to actually be more related to Warclaw in general, which enable low-mobility players to catch up to the enemy. What's a Necro going to do that is left in the dust by a running Thief if the Warclaw is slower and has less dodges (which increase overall speed)? Lance from 2000 range and have it fail while continuing to lose distance? The Warclaw is the vehicle that allows for your problems with Lance. Lance is easily dodgeable, LoSable, has a 30s cooldown, and you can completely nullify it if you maneuver around your enemies and cause too great of a sudden shift in direction for the lance to follow.

I won't argue with that ^ because he isn't throwing misinformation or tossing misrepresentation into my statements, and he isn't trying discredit anyone.

But when a person goes deep on a response aiming to discredit the OP statement or user, through sheer means of misdirection & misrepresentation, without ever even making a solid factual statement on the OP discussion at all, and begins derailing the topic into every place except the OP discussion, yeah I have to keep writing. This is to correct the misinformation & misdirection that the thread is taking, so every user reading it, including Arenanet devs, can see which users know what they're saying, and which users aren't really sure of what they're saying at all.

If a user can't drop a factual argument with supporting statements, are they even really sure of what they're saying at all? Do they even believe in, have they even convinced themselves of their own opinion? If they were to stop and seriously consider the opposing side of the argument rather than toss blind disdain towards anything different, they may begin to understand it, and see that it is a good argument.

[RedShark.9548]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@RedShark.9548 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:I keep seeing several arguments about the idea that: "Kiting only happens while in combat." "When you are on Warclaw it is because you are out of combat, not in combat" "So therefore you cant be kiting while on a Warclaw, you are running away."

^ This is a ridiculous argument. First of all, kiting opponents is kiting opponents. If opponents are chasing you and you are moving away from them so that you can better position for a counter offnse, you are kiting opponents. I don't care if it technically is in combat or out of combat under GW2 terms, kiting opponents is kiting opponents, especially when they are moving faster than you in their own territory. I don't care if you OOC briefly enough to mount, if you plan on running the Warclaw up around a ledge and dismounting to bottleneck 2 opponents into a small area so you can damage both of them at the same time, it's still kiting according to game terminology definition, regardless of how in/out of combat works in GW2.

So if you want to keep bumping this thread, let's hit the nail on the head here and discuss the mechanical statistics of lance, rather than getting caught up on this "is it kiting if it's ooc?" that's like if a group of people started a discussion about how a car engine works, but then some guy shows up and starts injecting comments about why he thinks the car was painted red. It's off topic, it's irrelevant, it has nothing to do the mechanics behind the engine discussed.

Oof, if you think discussing the usage (when exactly its bad to be used against you) of lance is off topic, in a thread about nerfing the lance then im not sure about what to say anymore.

You are crying about the lance and not being able to burst down a zerg, but is that rly the lances fault? No, if anything, the whole mount is at fault, it adds a second lifebar to anyone, 3 dodges, stomp, way too much movementspeed. And it wont let you disengage after your "zergbusting"

If you nerf lance then you will again have ppl jumping around you on their mounts, without fear of dying, laughing in your face, oh hell yea, what a fun time to be a roamer.

Just remove the mount entirely. Smaller havoc groups that try to sneak objectives would benefit from that too, because the big blob couldnt react as fast as they do now with mount, when the small group gets spotted.

You didnt even get the point of my post, i asked you why you just want the lance nerfed, and not the entire mount, and you just rambled on about stuff, that its "offtopic" etc.

Also you didnt say anything to my post, the "offtopic" kiting thing was just one point i made lol

So

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

I'm trying to stray away from Warclaw or no Warclaw, because the fact of the matter is that Arenanet has given us Warclaw. And if it isn't apparent at this point, Arenanet is not going to remove Warclaw from the game.

The point of what I'm posting here, is to point out that Lance made it worse.

Nothing more, nothing less.

If you read both pages instead of just the OP post, you'll see that we've already covered all of this.

It doesnt matter to me on what you want to stay away from.You will NEVER balance the warclaw, no change to any of its skills will fix that abomination for wvw. And i still dont see how nerfing the lance would make your situation any better.I know that anet wont remove it, but still, i can say my honest opinion on that thing.Whatever, keep thinking you could balance warclaw in wvw, good luck.

[Anput.4620]

I'd rather be able to get any fights at all ty.

Ironically removing mounts and downstate would resolve all your problems.

[Anput.4620]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Clownmug.8357 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Clownmug.8357 said:How can a player be capable of "kiting" until they break combat and remount, but not capable enough to dodge the lance skill?

Because you can't kite & dodge 5 players lancing you with various other unmounted damage also incoming, with 3 dodges. Even 2 players who are in pursuit, is a lot to deal with when you only have 3 dodges vs. 2 lances and whatever DPS comes in when the OOCs get close, dismount and burst.

So the same opponents that you "kited" suddenly become more competent when you're mounted?

What do you guys not understand about the mechanics of this game mode? It really is like I'm speaking to a bunch of people who either:

1. Only hide & play in zergs.
2. Refuse to use the Warclaw.
3. Just aren't paying attention to any game mechanics in general.

Pay very close attention to what I am explaining to you, as it is inarguable and this is how the game works:

A SCENARIO BEFORE WARCLAW WAS INTRODUCED AS A MOUNT:

1. A typical roam class such as Mesmer, Thief, Ranger, Warrior gets himself caught out in a field in a 1v2 situation.
2. Any of those 4 classes could potentially win a 1v2 situation against any combination of those 4 classes, with wise kiting, LOSing, proper use of resources available. This is because the intra-class balance of mobility for kiting vs. power for engagement was relatively balanced before the introduction of Warclaw. And with the absence of Warclaw, there was no way for something like a slow & powerful Dragonhunter to keep pace with something like a Thief, which the Dragonhunter is a direct engagement counter to the Thief. This is how things are supposed to be. Very fast things are less potent at staying engaged for very long. Very powerful things that can stay engaged for long durations of time with relatively low risk are supposed to be slow. When the game works this way, things are balanced. A very fast roamer may have a strong burst, but if he messes up at all and gets caught by something like a Reaper, it generally results in the Thief being swiftly KO'd.
3. In these days, A good Warrior let's say, could kite around the outskirts of a tower or under bridges and around objects to create LOS advantage against the 2 opponents chasing him. Whenever they get too close to him, he lands some damage, burns some defensive CDs and then quickly heads to the next LOS so he can recover CDs while kiting. The opponents only have normal CCs to land against him. So with wise use of stability & stun breaks, he can ensure that he is never caught flat footed and completely out-mobilized. They may be able to slightly out-mobilize him, let's say it is a Thief and a Mesmer chasing him, but they can't completely out-mobilize him in the way that Warclaw play with Lance works, which we'll get into soon enough. The point being is that the kiting was manageable in these days. It made playing in outmanned situations FUN to do, because these situations were realistic to win in, if a player possessed the skill & knowledge to do so.

A SCENARIO AFTER WARCLAW WAS INTRODUCED, BEFORE LANCE WAS IMPLEMENTED:

1. The very same thing is happening. Now we have a Spellbreaker who is 1v2ing a Mirage and a Deadeye. Obviously he must kite & LOS to pull this off.
2. The difference here, is that in the previous scenario, if the Mirage & Deadeye wanted to keep pace or out-mobilize the Spellbreaker, they actually had to use their skill cool downs to do so, things like Blink & Shadowstep, regardless of if they were in combat or OOC. In the previous scenario, even if the Deadeye were to get OOC, he would still need to burn init on Rifle#4 and burn CD on Shadowstep to realistically catch up. In the previous scenario, everyone was being forced to rotate resources to do what they do, and as such it was balanced. But now with Warclaw, if the Deadeye straggles behind on purpose to OOC, while the Mirage keeps the Spellbreaker in combat,
   the Deadeye can mount and now very very easily catch up while not burning any character resources to do so.
   Are you paying here? I don't understand why I have to explain this to players who supposedly play this game mode.
   Now the Spellbreaker cannot OOC because 1 player is keeping him in combat. But any other players who are wise enough to straggle just long enough to OOC for that mount, are able to easily catch the Spellbreaker while using no resources, and then dismount while directly next to him, with full resources. This made it easier to catch roamers to begin with, if it was a 1vX situation or say a party of 5 vs. a squad of 10.
3. BUT AT LEAST if the Spellbreaker could manage to close a gap for a fast OOC, he could at least mount to match the mobility of the other players on mounts, and keep his disengage. Even if he was in enemy territory and moving more slowly, without Lance he could wisely use 3 dodges against even Power Mirage and DE damage output, to potentially keep moving. And each time they would attempt to dismount to burst him, they run the risk of going in combat and allowing him a large lead in disengage because he is still mounted. But with 2 people on him like that, he had better head to the next tower that his server owns or WP when he gets a chance, because with his decreased movement speed, they will be able to keep following him and attempting those bursts to dismount him, which realistically is not hard to do when you're pumping out 10k - 15k strikes from builds like Power Mirage or Rifle Deadeye.
4. Best case scenario, the quick Warclaw mount allows the Spellbreaker to get somewhere while his health resets, so he can continue the 1v2 and potentially win while under better environmental circumstances. A good example would be Alpine Borderlands North Supply Camps. Between all of the little buildings and the Vista jump, there is a lot of 1vX potential in that environment.

A SCENARIO WITH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF LANCE 1500 RANGE AND INSTANT DISMOUNT:

1. The very same scenario is being used here again. A Spellbreaker is 1v2ing a Mirage and a Deadeye.
2. Because of 1 opponent keeping the Spellbreaker in combat, while 1 OOCs to mount with Lance, even if the Spellbreaker manages a quick mount, because he is in enemy territory and moving a bit slower than the opponents, it is likely that he will not stay mounted long. The reason is simple: He cannot preserve his 3 dodge rolls for counter play vs. Lance because the dodge rolls must be used for speed boost. If he does not use them for speed boost, the opponents surely will use their dodges for speed boosts upon the fact that they are already moving more quickly. If he preserves his speed boost dodges only for counter play vs. Lance, it will be easy for the opponents to get ahead of him actually and flank him. So now he is forced to either (A) preserve dodges for counter play vs. Lance, in this case he runs the risk of two burst classes easily flanking him, dismounting and bursting as normal, which will dismount him coming from 2x DPS classes. And keep in mind that preserving those dodges is not a guarantee for dodging the Lance at all. He very well and probably will get hit with it anyway. Or (B) Use his speed boosts to make relative pace and run a greater risk of being hit by Lance, which is worse than if the opponents dismounted to burst the mount, because then they will still have their bursts when he dismounts, to instantly kill him. And the reason why the 1v2 is now imbalanced, is because in the first scenario, if they wanted to keep up with him, they had to burn character resources to do it. But now they preserve their resources while chasing him, and in fact have a super CC to instant dismount him upon that, and enter engagement with full resources.
3. The fact of the matter is that Lance is too much pressure for the outmanned. Warclaw in general was a lot of added pressure to the outmanned, but Lance is just too much. I'm not talking 1v1s, I'm talking about being outmanned. The problem comes in two phases: The first is mentioned about how Warclaw allows strong chase potential while not needing to use character resources to create that chase potential. The second is with Lance, which tactfully puts an escaping roamer into a situation where it is unrealistic to chose a counter play measure to actually ensure that the disengage has a realistic chance of working. Because of Lance, it is now much more likely that the roamer will always be caught. <- Again, this is making people not want to try during outmanned situations, because it is not fun to not be able to play around larger groups that are chasing you, whether it's 1vX or 5 vs 10, it's the same thing. People want to be able to KNOW that if they are smart about positioning, that it is possible to move around a map, avoid larger numbers, and get something done. But the way it stands now, if you are outmanned and they chase, you're going to get caught if you don't WP or run into an objective that you own, which leads to a ton of stagnation, no rewards, nothing is getting done, boring game mode. <- This is why the old roamers are disappearing, and maps are so barren because roamers are disappearing. It is not fun to grind against superior numbers when little to nothing can be achieved from it.
4. The other aspect that tips this issue towards large imbalance, is that literally anyone who is mounted can chase a roamer and do this now. Minstrel Firebrands, slow Necromancers, slow & low damage everything. At first I thought this was a good thing. But in the long haul I am seeing that this is removing the role of roamer, which was largely the bulk of WvW population for years, whether you want to admit that or not. The bulk of WvW population was people joining and sort of going around and doing what they wanted at the time. Maybe follow a PIN for awhile, but then veer off and run some supply camps, then maybe havoc around and target guys trying to take your supply camps. But now people join a map and don't want to try if they are outnumbered, because it's too easy to get clapped when 2 people are chasing you on Warclaws with Lance. So with a much lower influx of roamer play, our maps become empty, and there is nothing to work with even if you wanted to PIN up.

Roamers need to be able to 1vX again. Some of you may claim that no one should be able to win 1vXs, whatever. But they do need to be able to

SURVIVE

because when they can't, the game mode becomes unfun and then people don't stay & play.

Wrong, scenario post mount pre lance is the other player not engaging you and walking past you while you literally can't touch them as they go to their ktrain to PvE.

[Caliboom.3218]

Honestly, the lance should just be removed completely, it encourages ganking and forces people to fight against their will.

[Cuks.8241]

@Caliboom.3218 said:Honestly, the lance should just be removed completely, it encourages ganking and forces people to fight against their will.

Then they should play fashion wars and not a pvp mode.

[Infusion.7149]

@"Caliboom.3218" said:Honestly, the lance should just be removed completely, it encourages ganking and forces people to fight against their will.People were asking for a way to dismount other players since warclaw was introduced and lance was Arenanet's solution.When warclaw was launched, it basically was super broken to the point that people were not "fighting" but getting 25+ people on mounts and jumping on other groups such that non-mounted players were insta-downed AND finished at the same time. Exciting gameplay, right? The Superior Battle Maw still affects 3 players right now instead of 10 players but the damage hasn't been cut down any further than 25% ; triple leap is still available with the WvW mastery.

Warclaw was said to be added as a way for people "to get back into the fight" primarily on low mobility classes such as necros or guardians but was introduced with damage.The lance was added because people were literally just jumping around on mounts instead of fighting and making it a staring + boredom contest. I could understand removing the damage from the mount stomp such that it only affects downed players, but removing lance is not a solution to any real problem. I honestly believe warclaw should be completely removed on Alpine BL , but if it stays as is then there really isn't a reason to remove lance. Let's not forget new players in WvW don't get access to warclaw so the WvW leveling process will be brutal : gliding isn't necessary on EBG or Alpine BL for the most part.

Also you can dodge while mounted, the lance doesn't track very well. Escaping with triple leap on mount or waypointing out isn't that difficult if you are that against engaging in combat against other players.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

i'm personally also in team #nomounts, but it would be probably better if instead of the range-demount lance, the'd enhance the jump range of the engaging (1) attack of the warclaw and make that one into a demount instead.

a difference between pre mounts and now is also that the engage (if anyone wrote that, i missed it) leaves u stunned for few seconds if you get demounted, and the opponent can straight pull off a movement engaging skill.

a really important point imo is that they had to use their movement skills before to catch u and burn their cooldowns; barely changed much for thieves and mesmer, but for other classes this was surely important.

they could really make the warclaw more optical, and prevent abuse of the mount-run by making the cooldown of mounting up significantly longer. the fast respawn of killed zerg players isn't exactly good for the format i think.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@kamikharzeeh.8016 said:a difference between pre mounts and now is also that the engage (if anyone wrote that, i missed it) leaves u stunned for few seconds if you get demounted, and the opponent can straight pull off a movement engaging skill.

Yeah that's a good point. When you get dismounted you're screwed due to this, if your chaser has any DPS burst at all.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

you can react, but you have to have 1) same or better web speed than them 2) to use either dodge or a skillso surely u can win that, but there's a risk to get a hit in any case.

[Bingus.4236]

Judging by how many times I've been lanced, it's not something most people have (it needs a crazy amount of levels) and it's always been as a precursor to being jumped on by a zerg. Not against having a way to dismount people, it just would be way better if it something like a spear bound to the special action key which would be used on foot rather than mounted and available at a much lower level.