Theory: What if Stability Did Not Exist?

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

Would the stacking meta remain as king and players just attempt to heal through it or would stacking potentially line players up to be cut down en masse? 

 

Further thought: Should current stability skills become stunbreaks that if a cc is broken grants 3-5 seconds of defiance so stunlocks aren't fully possible? 

 

What could either of these changes do for the game mode in single, small, medium, and zerg combat?

[Zyreva.1078]

It wouldn't change stacking at all because of aoe caps. Zergs would just pew pew each other from range and ganking/outnumbering would become even easier.

Edited July 19, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[iKeostuKen.2738]

Better. Now high mobility classes have access to stability.

[Xenesis.6389]

In order to remove or lower stability usage you would have to lower the amount of aoe cc's in the game, or introduce diminishing returns on cc's, or increase the movement uptimes to get around aoes, so massive superspeed buff. Also stealth pushing, maybe port plays, will become the only ones to make. Everyone is too scared to openly push even with the massive stability uptime as it is, imagine if they didn't have their security blanket with them.

 

Wouldn't say no to stun breakers have a mini stability on it, like one maybe two stacks at 1 or 2s or something.

 

Overall I don't have a problem with stability as it is, other than the limited group sources.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

At one time, Stability basically didn't exist. Because it didn't stack and there wasn't as many sources to apply it after it was removed, any boonstrip would remove all Stability from someone, and this resulted in a CC meta that lasted nearly 3-4(?) years in which Hammer Warrior was the main frontliner.

 

The Stability change to stack in intensity was made for a good reason., and even now you still end up in situations where players remain stunlocked until they die, especially in PvP.

 

The problem with zergs in WvW has nothing to do with Stability, its because defensive skills (like those that apply boons) affect the same number of allies as offensive skills (such as those that remove or corrupt boons) affect the same number of enemies, meaning they always cancel each other out resulting it becoming a pure numbers game.

 

For the smaller group to have the advantage, offensive skills must affect more targets.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Littlekenny.4196]

4 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

At one time, Stability basically didn't exist. Because it didn't stack, so any CC would remove all Stability from someone, and this resulted in a CC meta that lasted nearly 3-4(?) years in which Hammer Warrior was the main frontliner.

 

The Stability change to stack in intensity was made for a good reason., and even now you still end up in situations where players remain stunlocked until they die, especially in PvP.

 

The problem with zergs in WvW has nothing to do with Stability, its because defensive (like those that apply boons) skills affect the same number of allies as offensive skills affect the same number of enemies, meaning they always cancel each other out resulting it becoming a pure numbers game.

 

For the smaller group to have the advantage, offensive skills must affect more targets.

Original stability stacked duration and not intensity. It also did not get removed when you were hit by cc and there were far less strips in the game so maintaining stability was an intentionally controlled thing and getting cc'd almost always meant somebody made a mistake.

 

Directly after the change to stack intensity there was. I internal cooldown on a cc ripping the stab. During this period, zerg busting was dead since more cc meant you couldn't stab through it.

 

After the change to add a 0.75s internal cooldown, extreme scale zerg busting 20 Vs 80 (before player caps were reduced) was impossible and any form of zerg busting was significantly harder. This then caused a full move to pitateshit, which was already being toyed with by top GvG guilds before the stab change.

 

The game then continued in the direction of numbers being more important than skill.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

8 minutes ago, Littlekenny.4196 said:

Original stability stacked duration and not intensity. It also did not get removed when you were hit by cc and there were far less strips in the game so maintaining stability was an intentionally controlled thing and getting cc'd almost always meant somebody made a mistake.

 

Directly after the change to stack intensity there was. I internal cooldown on a cc ripping the stab. During this period, zerg busting was dead since more cc meant you couldn't stab through it.

 

After the change to add a 0.75s internal cooldown, extreme scale zerg busting 20 Vs 80 (before player caps were reduced) was impossible and any form of zerg busting was significantly harder. This then caused a full move to pitateshit, which was already being toyed with by top GvG guilds before the stab change.

 

The game then continued in the direction of numbers being more important than skill.

Sorry, I mistyped when I said CC, and I meant strip. And unlike now, strips were taken in many builds because there wasn't a bunch of competing utilities. The original boon punishment update was heralded for "saving" the game, and everything leading up to it was almost as bad as it is now.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[CrimsonRise.7650]

Basically, they are describing what happened pre-HoT and post HoT, which was not fun at all to play against or with, effectively making Stability pretty much useless, as they rework stability just before HoT, with much worse results.

So it isn't a 'solution' at all, unless you enjoy pirate shipping or clouding, the latter which is still a thing that can be effective and annoying to fight against for Guild groups and smaller squads, especially inside structures with lots of siege and can actually be effective against blobs, unless you are heavily outnumbered or only a  map queue cloud of rangers and thieves..

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by CrimsonNeonite.1048

[RlyOsim.2497]

4 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

For the smaller group to have the advantage, offensive skills must affect more targets

you are correct but also, and more importantly imo, the dps nerf in 2020 or whenever it was (the cc nerf) ruined small vs large as now large can just out heal.

 

same as the general balance, they just make the game easier for bad players and worse for everyone

Edited July 20, 2022 by RlyOsim.2497

[Littlekenny.4196]

10 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Sorry, I mistyped when I said CC, and I meant strip. And unlike now, strips were taken in many builds because there wasn't a bunch of competing utilities. The original boon punishment update was heralded for "saving" the game, and everything leading up to it was almost as bad as it is now.

Strips were taken on necro and mesmer but I don't remember any other class taking or even having them. I'm very confused at what you mean by "The original boon punishment update was heralded for "saving" the game, and everything leading up to it was almost as bad as it is now.".

 

There was no excess of boons that needed to be punished pre HoT and the herald came in with 1 hammer skill hitting harder than an entire guild pre HoT and was a big negative to the game (also pumping out boons and other weapons pumping out conditions). Also druid came about in that expansion making the start of the dedicated healer role. I think the game was in a much better state pre HoT and an even better state pre stability rework.

[Junkpile.7439]

I play core necro and won't join squad so removing stability wouldn't affect me at all. 🤓

[Arolandis.8360]

Something something ping pong and bowling.

[Bias.4306]

No, there is already enough stunlock in this game that removal of stability would be a bad move.

 

Loss of control of a character is one of the dumbest and most frustrating things you can do in a game.

[coro.3176]

On 7/19/2022 at 3:06 PM, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

The problem with zergs in WvW has nothing to do with Stability, its because defensive skills (like those that apply boons) affect the same number of allies as offensive skills (such as those that remove or corrupt boons) affect the same number of enemies, meaning they always cancel each other out resulting it becoming a pure numbers game.

 

For the smaller group to have the advantage, offensive skills must affect more targets.

Actually, it's even worse than that! There are many defensive skills that affect more targets than offensive skills.

• Example: anti-projectile bubbles. These cancel all incoming projectile attacks within an area. Chain a few of these, and you've now got 100% anti-projectile uptime. Projectiles BTFO!
• Example: cleanse. This isn't as bad, but it's still scaling defense. A single cleanse removes all stacks of a given condition, effectively negating the damage/CC of all opponents that applied that condition.

As far as I know, no offensive abilities (CC or damage) scale like this.

[Dawdler.8521]

7 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

As far as I know, no offensive abilities (CC or damage) scale like this.

Doesnt the guard line in practice have infinite targets for its duration (its unlikely that >10 get stuck at once since people go past it while new go in it)?

[Jski.6180]

The gurd dev would ball up and cry in a corner.

I like the ideal of giving classes more self stab and make support stab weaker over all. Kind of the opposite that anet went so 30 sec cd on self stab and 1 min cd on support stab not the 1 min self stab and 30 sec support stab (it was always a very confusing chose anet made because support stab is also a form of self stab for the caster.)

[Kozumi.5816]

superspeed stability and aegis need to be deleted from the game

[Chips.7968]

Quote

Theory: What if Stability Did Not Exist?

So a bit like playing thief then...

The issues of the game aren't stability.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Chips.7968

[MaLong.2079]

It would be better if we did not need stab. Even with permanent stab most of my deaths come from not being allowed to play the game.

Reminds me of the old days when friends would unplug my SNES controller mid fight to win in Street Fighter 2. 😁