make boon buff raid wide

[Lighter.5631]

make boon buff raid area size, so ranged can actually be ranged

and melee can actually be melee

instead of every one stacking together

 

so ranged can actually be more safe and consistent output

while melee being less consistent with higher output.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Sooooo..... Ranged specs , who already are better because the can be effectiv at range and melee are getting buffed?

Sounds like an awesome idea.

[Kalthea.4326]

I agree that the stacking meta is not really all that fun. It's stale and asi agree boring, and also frustrating to have to just move around in a blob. However, before we can consider this to be an option, we would first need melee damage to actually have higher damage potential than it currently does, as currently it barely is able to keep up with some of the high damage ranged builds.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

On 10/10/2022 at 8:59 AM, Lighter.5631 said:

make boon buff raid area size, so ranged can actually be ranged

and melee can actually be melee

instead of every one stacking together

 

so ranged can actually be more safe and consistent output

while melee being less consistent with higher output.

No lol, this is a bad idea. Then heals would also need to be made arena wide and not to mention the fact that it would be broken in WvW / PvP.

[Asum.4960]

Boon radii are far from the only reason people stack. It's simply the most efficient tactic to control boss movement, tackle mechanics and maximise DPS uptime. 

 

I doubt you'd appreciate it much if you stood at 1200 range to pew pew even with boons, when suddenly Samarog decides to jump on you to pummel you to death outside of the reach of most of your group to CC in time, or having to quickly stack with someone for Inevitable Betrayal who is on the opposite end of the Arena, Mai Trin constantly teleporting to the furthest target out of your damaging AoE's/range, or no ally being nearby to share Tidal Bargain with in Sunqua because everybody is doing their own thing running around at range, etc. 

 

Also maybe most crucially, I think something you'd notice very quickly is how few players actually know what they are doing or the fights, and can barely keep up just by the accessibility provided by being able to simply stack on group. 

Without that I think instanced content would become far more niche still.

 

I do agree a lot of support radii, especially the 240 radius stuff, could use some boost for a bit more freedom in positioning, 340-450-600, are just more fun to play with.

But I don't think getting rid of ranges altogether would lead to the fun and dynamic gameplay that you may imagine in your head - more than just being an exercise in frustration in chasing teleporting bosses, losing damage to boss movement, and chasing clueless players for mechanics. 

 

Not to even think of the (re-)balance nightmare. Anet already struggles to make melee specs worthwhile in this melee stack meta. They would require massive buffs to still compete especially then - which would then in turn break the balance for ranged specs on more static encounters where their DPS uptime advantage is small.

Especially given Anet's pace, this would take easily over a decade to implement decently in terms of profession and encounter reworks.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Nash.2681]

So.... essentially you want a tank holding the boss in place, a healer to keep the tank alive and eight other players stacking 1200 units away pew-pew'ing the boss. How does that change anything besides slightly lowering the stack size?

[Kozumi.5816]

On 10/10/2022 at 11:59 AM, Lighter.5631 said:

make boon buff raid area size, so ranged can actually be ranged

and melee can actually be melee

instead of every one stacking together

 

so ranged can actually be more safe and consistent output

while melee being less consistent with higher output.

Stacking and having 0 positional awareness is the developers vision of this games action combat.

[felix.2386]

11 hours ago, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

No lol, this is a bad idea. Then heals would also need to be made arena wide and not to mention the fact that it would be broken in WvW / PvP.

Just make targeted heal like they are now implementing, or ranged aoe heal.

also don't you worry about wvw/pvp when the radius of skills can be easily split between modes.

also you are not thinking it through, even without split, it wouldnt be broken in either wvw or pvp

Edited October 19, 2022 by felix.2386

[felix.2386]

1 hour ago, Nash.2681 said:

So.... essentially you want a tank holding the boss in place, a healer to keep the tank alive and eight other players stacking 1200 units away pew-pew'ing the boss. How does that change anything besides slightly lowering the stack size?

Tank still needs to move boss when mechanics demand. Which is exactly the same as now.

 

And they can then introduce range mechanic and melee mechanic. And some people can now play melee build that's supposed to be higher damage.

And introduce more diversity.

 

And people can actually start playing the game with their own skill and interpretation instead of just stacking to tag all game with 0 different between range and melee build

[Cuks.8241]

You would need to change healing, cleansing and boons. Possibly also some stun breaks. 

I dont have anything against the idea, I wouldnt mind increased range on boons, it would probably benefit the game. 

I do hate targeted healing in games. From the bottom of my hearth. Constantly changing targets all the time as a group healer and being a heal bot. I prefer the GW2 way  where you dont need to focus on specific targets all the time and can actually look at the game and you know support in other ways and even do some dps. But hey if others like that kind of game play style thats also fine for me, Ill  manage without playing a healer.

Stacking can be countered by encounter design. There are plenty of good encounters that require spreading out or splitting. But yeah wider boon range sounds good to me.

[Bunny.9834]

Range in this game is more of an RP aspect at this point. 

The whole system is based on stacking closely and doesnt allow any other type of gameplay besides that. 

Moving forward, they just need to include mechanics that would be beneficial for a range class or even a high dps soloist to be valuable in a high end group content. idk. 

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

On 10/19/2022 at 5:10 AM, Asum.4960 said:

Boon radii are far from the only reason people stack. It's simply the most efficient tactic to control boss movement, tackle mechanics and maximise DPS uptime. 

 

I doubt you'd appreciate it much if you stood at 1200 range to pew pew even with boons, when suddenly Samarog decides to jump on you to pummel you to death outside of the reach of most of your group to CC in time, or having to quickly stack with someone for Inevitable Betrayal who is on the opposite end of the Arena, Mai Trin constantly teleporting to the furthest target out of your damaging AoE's/range, or no ally being nearby to share Tidal Bargain with in Sunqua because everybody is doing their own thing running around at range, etc. 

 

Also maybe most crucially, I think something you'd notice very quickly is how few players actually know what they are doing or the fights, and can barely keep up just by the accessibility provided by being able to simply stack on group. 

Without that I think instanced content would become far more niche still.

 

I do agree a lot of support radii, especially the 240 radius stuff, could use some boost for a bit more freedom in positioning, 340-450-600, are just more fun to play with.

But I don't think getting rid of ranges altogether would lead to the fun and dynamic gameplay that you may imagine in your head - more than just being an exercise in frustration in chasing teleporting bosses, losing damage to boss movement, and chasing clueless players for mechanics. 

 

Not to even think of the (re-)balance nightmare. Anet already struggles to make melee specs worthwhile in this melee stack meta. They would require massive buffs to still compete especially then - which would then in turn break the balance for ranged specs on more static encounters where their DPS uptime advantage is small.

Especially given Anet's pace, this would take easily over a decade to implement decently in terms of profession and encounter reworks.

Well said.

On 10/19/2022 at 6:36 AM, felix.2386 said:

Tank still needs to move boss when mechanics demand. Which is exactly the same as now.

 

And they can then introduce range mechanic and melee mechanic. And some people can now play melee build that's supposed to be higher damage.

And introduce more diversity.

 

And people can actually start playing the game with their own skill and interpretation instead of just stacking to tag all game with 0 different between range and melee build

No, actually it is quite the opposite. I had put a lot of thought into it. I did not articulate all of my thoughts though.

1. Raid areas are all shapes and sizes, not to mention the fact that they are usually part of a bigger map. The idea 'make boon buff raid wide' would mean that boons would be across the whole map if the idea were taken as it were written. This could cause unintended consequences I would imagine.

2. What would this mean for open world? Even if some sort of size were defined to be the size of a raid boss fight some of them are quite large. Would raids and open world have different settings?

3. Lastly the point I was getting at was I was imagining how annoying it would be to have a bunch of boon providers locked away in the center of a tower providing boons/heals for up to 4 allies outside of a WvW tower. That would be very frustrating to play against.

4. Some mechanics are triggered randomly on players such as the firewall in sabatha and there are other roles for distance etc. Having everyone NOT stack for such fights would make those fights inherently worse or more chaotic.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Players have complained about the stacking meta since the game's inception. For a few years, even the hardcore players were constantly upset about it, but eventually we got used to it and don't complain anymore, and now its expected of everyone to join the stacking meta and never play truly-ranged builds.

 

Yes, it sucks that support in this game is melee-only, when in many MMOs its raid-wide, usually up to the size of an arena, which would be about 1500 range in this game I think judging by Boneskinner.

 

No one knows why they made this decision, but they did and we have to live with it. If you're playing a support, just accept that your skills will never hit anyone fighting even at mid-range, and that you'll always have to put yourself in the most danger to help allies, just because its how the game was designed.

 

(This is especially vexxing with the meta of running glass even on supports..)

 

---

Btw to other posters, raid-wide means "party-wide" or "arena-sized", not covering the whole map. It seems some people commenting here haven't played other games and don't understand the terms. Raid is an umbrella term used to refer to the party, the encounter and the map in raid-based MMOs. Because this game didn't initially have raids, only dungeons and Fractals, it came to refer only to the map itself here.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Angesombre.4630]

I would say that the players have resigned themselves to not having certain things than to wait for a change.

[Sobx.1758]

I don't think ranged dps needs to be made stronger than it already is.