Proposal: Rebalance of CC/Stability

[Overedge.2435]

This post is solely from a WvW standpoint and doesn't take into account PvE or PvP any more than balance changes to those modes take WvW into account.

There are many facets of WvW's recent balance patches that significantly benefit numbers over skill, such as the heavy preference towards boonballing, but this post is specific towards CC and Stability. The simple math is that larger groups have more CC and more Stability, meaning that they will simply face-tank and overpower a smaller group's Stability while effortlessly shrugging off the smaller group's CC, before simply rolling over them with no resistance. Meanwhile, the smaller group has little choice but to sit there and watch themselves be rolled over because their ability to play has literally been taken away from them. I feel this, and any style of gaming that revolves around taking away another person's ability to play, is in poor taste and shouldn't be encouraged, or at least shouldn't be as easy as it is. I propose that CC and Stability should be looked at for a potential rebalance.

Stability is far too important of a boon for how restricted the access to it is in many cases. I mean yes, every class has some access, but most cannot realistically apply enough of it to withstand most CC bombs. If you break down attack types into strike, condi, and CC, Stability is the sole defense against CC, and needs to be as accessible as toughness and vitality are in order to mitigate incoming attacks. Sidenote: though it isn't exactly the same, access to Resistance also needs to be increased.

Aside from simply adding Stability sources to all classes, I propose a new effect, similar to the way that when you break Stealth you are unable to re-stealth for a few seconds (via automatic application of Revealed). This effect would trigger when you use a stun break, and basically make it to where you are unable to be affected by CCs for X amount of time after using a stun break ability. This rewards using a defensive ability actively and drastically reduces the chance of "wasting it" in the middle of a big CC bomb where you'll just be immediately hit by another CC after breaking the first one.

Another option, but one that would probably be far less popular, could be giving all player characters a small defiance bar. The strength of this bar could be tied into the Armor stat (determined by a mixture of toughness and vitality), and even the largest possible bar would only protect against like two, maybe three CCs. But, it would still allow players an opportunity to react instead of being immediately and permanently rendered helpless.

I also feel that the amount of AOE CCs should be reduced, but I'm less interested in nerfing things that are potentially too strong than I am in bringing weaker abilities up to match the current power levels.

Again, this is being proposed mainly as a way to get away from the ability of a larger group of players literally removing the ability of a smaller group of players to play the game by keeping them stunlocked. There are other aspects of WvW that also exponentially benefit larger groups to the detriment of people who don't like that style of gameplay, but that can wait for another post.

I'm interested in what others think in regards to this. I know that a lot of zerg players probably don't see as much of an issue with it, but my perspective is from that of a havoc player and occasional roamer who doesn't really enjoy zerg gameplay. I think that changes like these could actually make zerg vs zerg more exciting as well, since the two zergs would get to do more direct fighting.

[Sahne.6950]

10 hours ago, Overedge.2435 said:

Aside from simply adding Stability sources to all classes, I propose a new effect, similar to the way that when you break Stealth you are unable to re-stealth for a few seconds (via automatic application of Revealed). This effect would trigger when you use a stun break, and basically make it to where you are unable to be affected by CCs for X amount of time after using a stun break ability.

They call it "Diminishing returns" or DR.... some people are crying for it since forever....

 

I sadly have to tell you that even with DR, there will be no chance for havoc groups to zerbust.

 

nowadays even attempting a 15vs30 fights is considered nonsense and feeding. and there is a few reasons for that.

 

Slugdamage. The Damage is so incredibly low, that it is hard to make a dent in these minstrelfueld boonblobs.

Targetcaps. Even if you have enough damage to make a dent.... you only can hurt 5 players..... but what about the other 25?! It is simply not possible for a smaller group to produce enough damage to kill all the enemys at once. which leads to the next problem.

Downstate and rallyspam. Even if you managed to make a dent... even if you somehow managed to kill those 5 people.... THEY ARE NOT DEAD! they are on the ground....AAAAAAND they are up again. As long as the people in the zerg can just hit F r and instantly revive someone.... aslong as a elementalist can activate a glyph and revive 3 people at the same time.... a smaller group has no chance whatsoever. 

 

For real.. when the enemy zerg is taking your Hills with 30 people and your zerg has 20.... most commanders dont even bother to defend, cuz they cant. Just having 1/3 more players makes a victory for the smaller group near impossible.

WvW is Numbers over everything. And sadly alot more than Stability has to change for this to change.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Dawdler.8521]

37 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

For real.. when the enemy zerg is taking your Hills with 30 people and your zerg has 20.... most commanders dont even bother to defend, cuz they cant. Just having 1/3 more players makes a victory for the smaller group near impossible.

Except if the 30 people are a loosely organized zerg going up against a highly organized 20 man meta guild the 20 man will absolutely demolish the 30 man in one push from stealth. So for real, its not really that simple.

The exponential gains of numbers is an issue but I dont really see a way to fix it magically. Taking small steps forward is probably the best approach, unlike people running around flailing their arms wanting to delete everything.

I would start with making stability unstackable and changing absorb/block/reflect to a percentage reduction of damage rather than full.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[Dayra.7405]

22 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

I would start with making stability unstackable

Unstackable really? I guess this would make WvW-Zerg Flamethrower (for it's renewing stability)  Engies & Healer only.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Dayra.7405

[Sahne.6950]

1 minute ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Except if the 30 people are a loosely organized zerg going up against a highly organized 20 man meta guild the 20 man will absolutely demolish the 30 man in one push from stealth. So for real, its not really that simple.

The exponential gains of numbers is an issue but I dont really see a way to fix it magically. Taking small steps forward is probably the best approach, unlike people running around flailing their arms wanting to delete everything.

I would start with removing rally, making stability unstackable and changing absorb/block/reflect to a percentage reduction of damage rather than full.

removing rally is nice.

changing Stability... i dont really know...   on paper it might look nice... but we all know the WvW community...

people will simply shout YARRRR!!!! and continue to throw ranged aoes without ever pushing.. you know.. pirateship meta...

i would get rid of Minstrels.... just get rid of it... change it to something else...    being the ultimate Boon and Healingsupport while being the ultimate tank.... makes this combat awfulslow, especially when 40% of people in zergs are using this stat.

Then they have to increse the targetcap for all meele skills. cuz right now alot of them are stuck at a targetcap of 3. Raise them to 5 or even 7, to incentivize meelepushes.

[Dawdler.8521]

27 minutes ago, Dayra.7405 said:

Unstackable really? I guess this would make WvW-Zerg Flamethrower (for it's renewing stability)  Engies & Healer only.

... would that be bad? 😐

 

[pikalovr.4613]

just put diminishing returns on CC and turn stability (WVW only) into a percentage CC time decreaser. altogether if you reach max stab and max CC DR it would be complete immunity. it would promote actually having to time and space out CCs to prevent you from getting nearly no effect off of them while not making CCs or stab completely useless cause rn it's hilarious how quickly i can burn through a stack of like 10 stabs against a group of players so instead of losing stabs per CC if i have 10 stab plus diminishing returns those 10 CCs would basically make me immune to them once i stun break them

would it need some balancing and prolly some really fine tuned number adjustments? sure. could you make an argument for it to never reach full immunity? sure. but i feel like this is the most logical solution rn

[Overedge.2435]

Maybe Stability itself could be changed from a boon into an either-you-have-it-or-you-don't effect. That could be the post-stunbreak effect I mentioned in my original post, plus classes would have additional ways to apply it to themselves for short periods (like the current stab-giving abilities). That also prevents your stability from getting stripped or corrupted (which is another problem when trying to defend against CC, since multiple other effects remove it as well).

[TheGrimm.5624]

I won't speak for others, and have guildmates that would like to see CC immunity after being CC'd, but when talking boonballs I am not sure I would want to reduce CC's impact on them. Now I say this from a Havoc view point, CC is sometimes the only way to get players out of the boonball so you can drop them. Nerfing it increases the strength of boonballs because they can keep their side together so that they continue to gain the defensive value that all those boons grant. There are some interesting ideas here but I think reducing the use of CC strengthens a boonballs advantage more than it impacts the boonball dropping the hammer on a smaller group. They would already be dropped by all those people right on them. Will agree, on the side that I think boonballs are an issue here, so lets keep the conversations going.

[Xenesis.6389]

Only scenario I see happening here is cc's skills getting nerfed again, they already had damage taken away. No one wants to see stability nerfed or changed and no one cares about diminishing returns (it's been brought up like a dozen times over the years). A reverse break bar for players could be interesting, but no, anet will not put in the work for any drastic changes as such, they would just buff stability with more stacks and spam and call it a day.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Xenesis.6389

[Avion Blade.4869]

Simple fix if stability is really too much and that boon-strips are not doing their job, is to adjust stability to have a maximum stack of three, but any additional boon support application (whether self or from allies/to allies) will then increase the duration instead of the stacks.

Example; skill A provides 3 stacks of stability for 8 seconds, but skill B also provides 2 stacks of stability for 5 seconds; because the stacks are capped at 3 for balance, the duration would increase rather than the stack for a total of 3 stacks and 13 seconds of stability.

 

With concentration, perhaps 16 seconds or even 18 seconds of length. Good time to have a defense against cc, but not too much where the opponent's don't waste their ccs on one player that soaks it all up while also being tanky.

 

Or, because the 2 stacks are ignored, it is then converted to an additional 2 seconds of stability length, so it could be 15 before concentration is applied, and now you have 20 or even 22 seconds length of 3 stacks of stability by using two skills.

 

I believe this would be fair because sometimes stability can be easily reapplied based on certain rotations or group combos. 

 

Capping it at 3 stacks will buff boon strips/trades/flips etc. 

Stability is important for tanks and also burst-players, so this will really make their timings less forgiving if they don't do it right. 3 stacks of stab sounds about right because a good roamer can fight up to 3 players, and of course the pros can handle about 5 (I'm slightly above average, maybe 1v2 is my best, 1v3 I'd have to kite).

Edited August 30, 2022 by Avion Blade.4869

[Dawdler.8521]

4 hours ago, Avion Blade.4869 said:

Simple fix if stability is really too much and that boon-strips are not doing their job, is to adjust stability to have a maximum stack of three, but any additional boon support application (whether self or from allies/to allies) will then increase the duration instead of the stacks.

Example; skill A provides 3 stacks of stability for 8 seconds, but skill B also provides 2 stacks of stability for 5 seconds; because the stacks are capped at 3 for balance, the duration would increase rather than the stack for a total of 3 stacks and 13 seconds of stability.

 

With concentration, perhaps 16 seconds or even 18 seconds of length. Good time to have a defense against cc, but not too much where the opponent's don't waste their ccs on one player that soaks it all up while also being tanky.

 

Or, because the 2 stacks are ignored, it is then converted to an additional 2 seconds of stability length, so it could be 15 before concentration is applied, and now you have 20 or even 22 seconds length of 3 stacks of stability by using two skills.

 

I believe this would be fair because sometimes stability can be easily reapplied based on certain rotations or group combos. 

 

Capping it at 3 stacks will buff boon strips/trades/flips etc. 

Stability is important for tanks and also burst-players, so this will really make their timings less forgiving if they don't do it right. 3 stacks of stab sounds about right because a good roamer can fight up to 3 players, and of course the pros can handle about 5 (I'm slightly above average, maybe 1v2 is my best, 1v3 I'd have to kite).

Or just do something that GW2 already does in a similar fashion to certain boons that dont stack.

You use skill A and get 3 stacks of stability for 8 seconds.

1 second later you use skill B because you are a pro stacker.

You now have 2 stacks of stability for 5 seconds, because stab dont stack and you wasted the skill.

Yep, its that simple. The "cap" is built into the skills themselves (ie you shouldnt have any skill that apply 15 stacks for 30s, because thats stupid).

Edited August 30, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

No downstate, no target caps. Do it.

[Dawdler.8521]

8 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

No downstate, no target caps. Do it.

You forgot friendly fire and player collisions.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

41 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

You forgot friendly fire and player collisions.

Lets do it.

[oscuro.9720]

22 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

You forgot friendly fire and player collisions.

Might as well bring back the symbolic avenger bug while we’re at it. Maximum chaos.

[Kulvar.1239]

I would like to see what would happen if after a CC end you got a 1.5s CC immunity.

OR while CC, your endurance refill faster.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Kulvar.1239