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Fluidity of Combat (Warrior Skills and Skill Based PvP)
Navac
Member Posts: 37
I wrote this in another thread but decided it would be better off as it's own thread, does anyone feel the same way as me?
I've played arena competitively in WoW for quite a few seasons and would consider myself a skilled pvper, I've played to 2500+ on my priest in 3's and 2400+ on my rogue in 3's. This game is skill based, but as it is in beta people who enjoy competitve e-sport games will not be able to take this seriously unless they fix a few things.
First off, the action is pretty slow paced and is slightly clunky in terms of fluidity. Playing a warrior, when I attempt to charge a character, I can't just charge someone while I'm running, first my character stops for a second, then charges, the games skills aren't smooth enough yet. Same applies with using skills that need to be used quickly at precise times, things just don't fire off fast enough to me and I think a lot of avid WoW pvpers will feel the same.
Here are a few other skills that feel clunky to me and just not smooth playing the warrior calss:
Earthshaker, Hammershock, Staggering Blow, Bull's Charge, Whilwind Attack, Rush
Keep in mind I use these skills quite often in order to kill someone or try and escape enemies. It really can be frustrating at times.
I'll go in depth with one other skill , earthshaker.
When I try and run and then leap at the target using my burst skill, my character stops for a second then jumps at the target, which in some cases the target has already moved out of the AoE zone. I know you can premtively use the skill but at the moment it is very clunky
If they can fix the fluidity of the animations and actually using the skills from a running point at least for melee, this game will feel much more smooth and skill based.
The reason I enjoy World of Warcraft is because everything is extremely smooth when using my skills, and is really twitch based hence the reason it has become an e-sport. Guild Wars doesn't exactly have this just yet, and I hope they can improve some of the skills I mentioned above, unfortunately I haven't played any other class and can't comment on them.
Also I forgot to add that the queueing of abilities isn't a great idea when people are trying to spam keys as quick as possible if this game is to be more skill based and twitchy
With that said I'm enjoying the game and really think it's already better then WoW or any other MMO out their right now, it could be just that every other game I've been playing is getting stale, but I could realistically see myself playing this game (even competitively) for a long time if the mentioned issues are fixed.
Comments
As far as how animations fire off in a kind of delayed and clunky fashion I think the reason its like that is to give the enemy time to react and dodge. I may be wrong but I'm guessing thats the case.
It would be nice if charge skills fired quicker though because right now playing melee is wayyyyy more difficult than playing a ranged guy (although u can swap to ranged with warriors so that helps). Really annoying how ranged charactars constantly run away and heal up easily and the only good counter is to swap weapons to ranged and pewpew them down as they run. Gonna need more snares and roots for melee or ranged classes will end up dominating this game and noone will play melee.
I'm not really having too much trouble staying on target with frequent weapon swaps between two handed sword and mace, but certain abilities need to fire quicker in order for them to be effective, the combat isn't responsive enough in terms of my charges/leaping abilities as there is a second delay where my character simply stands there before performing the action, and they cannot be performed while running at the same time.
I hope it isn't the case that I have to "charge" up my charge ability or my leaping ability as those skills need to be used quickly and efficiently in order for them to be effective in pvp combat
I agree with you, I do think it's made that way so people can dodge (I dodge warriors by watching their animations) but from the warrior's perspective it would feel clunky.
They should probably just speed up the animations, the window for dodging attacks is very long right now, and could be shorter.
Strange when i was trying warrior today i was like wow, at last a charge that is working properly, all the games i played had bugged charge with lag and delay, charge ending nowhere near the target because of some lag delay and so on (here it won't end only if you are too far), don't know what you are talking about, it trigger very well when running and i use dodge charge combo very well and very often since it do work in combat not like most charges from other games... Maybe its a question of performance, on my comp the combat is super fluid, maybe lower your graphic, you should first aim for performance, then and only then go up in graphism. And honestly if you take pvp seriously, well Wow pvp is kind of you know, ridiculous, i mean at least use better pvp games to explain your experience in pvp, i have nothing against wow per say, but well wow is a pve game with battlegrounds. Its not renewed as a pvp game outside of the wow players, don't take it personally...
The entire combat system favors ranged characters (or weapons).
Being able to dodge is like having blink with no cooldown. Melee can never close gaps because pretty much all abilities can be fired off while moving. So if I'm ranged, I just roll off to the side, strafe and pew pew.
While melee can reactively roll towards me as a soft charge, by the time they know which way I've gone I've already taken a few steps so they're left chasing me.
So they have to hope that one of their weapon sets has a ranged imobilize or stun skill or they better find a new target to be useful.
I also agree with the OP in that the animations are sluggish and clunky. Very few abilities operate on a 1:1 with a button press and melee feels like a close quarters caster. Worst of both worlds, I get a cast bar on everything and get to soak all the damage.
There's a reason why in nearly every other game, melee classes are known for instant hitting attacks, because they need to unload when they have the chance. While casters tend to have a standing still requirement to cast spells.
Yea I agree. Maybe this is one little thing Anet can do to help balance the Ranged vs Melee problem the game has. But then again I havnt heard this bought up before so I hope Anet gets a copy of this. I'll def bookmark this and hopefully the next time they have a Q & A I can ask.
Edit: I will add that Thiefs are a very fun melee class in stuctured PvP, plus they dont have all those stops before big attacks, the downside is if your a button smasher then you may run out of inititive rather quickly so on both sides of the spectrum its kinda balanced.
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Disagree. WoW Arena is very skilled and as a former S3 (Warrior with Stormherald lol) and S5 (lol not like most decent Death Knights that season wernt but I digress) Gladiator.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
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I just want to clear up a few things from the OP's post that I find a little misleading. If you care to check the following posts you will clearly see that WoW's PvP is NOT considered a legit/official E-sport outside perhaps what Blizzard promotes.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4366246863
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4768447313
I'd also like to note that both of those posts are from internal blizzard forums, not some outside hater posts.
I appreciate WoW PvP for what it is but to state that GW2's PvP is not up to snuff because it doesn't meet with WoW's e-sport status is just false. I'd also like to point out I am in no way shape or form a GW2 fanboy, in fact I haven't even played it. I just can't stand it when someone uses (what at least seems to be) personal prefence for a system as a defense to bash another's and then claims false facts as proof of such. I mean come on really? It's not hard to use the interwebz to check facts man.
I'll never understand why people get so defensive. He's played both games and gave an informative opinion about the comparison between warriors in both games. If you've played both and disagree that's one thing, just post that up, but to nitpick about the small stuff is not helpful.
I know that I liked the feel of the first GW PvP and I compare most other MMO's to it. I don't play a warrior so I don't know how that compares, but the responsiveness was one of the things I liked about most of the classes.
In GW the devs adjusted things as the game developed so that I felt almost all classes were viable in PvP. I think you can count on them to try and balance it. I didn't like the feel of some of the warrior skills in the original GW. Like you posted it may be that they put in a deliberate pause to give casters a chance, but it feels like lag or slop.
Asdar
There are a lot of things you can judge WoW about....but claiming it doesn't take skill in Arena is "ridiculous". I played it for years, and while I got far...there was always a bigger fish with a better strategy/skillset.
I agree with your review, posted a similar snippet myself about how things seem sluggish currently, and without some work it isn't going to work well for "serious" PVP.
I started out as a Warrior, am now playing an elementalist...and this game highly favors ranged professions. I feel as if I can kite things all day.
I know that arena are skilled, but you would need a bit more than arena to call it a pvp game imo, don't you think? Arena give only a glimps of what is pvp in mmo, its like saying, this game have awesome pvp, ye it only have duel, but you know you really need to be skilled to shine. Yes arena in Wow are good, but you know thats not enough to get a "pvp" tag, not for me at least. Wow is a pve game.
I think the OP is pulling someones leg by calling WoW twitch based.
OK i didn't use proper wording, saying wow is a pvp game is ridiulous.
Eh, I play Dota so I have no problem with GW2 combat system, you'll just have to get used to it, and when you have, you'll definitely find it to be much more engaging and deeper than WoW's combat system(which is more akin to LoL).
And hell no, WoW's definitely not twitch-based, GW2 is, I don't think the OP understand what "twitch-based" mean.
Nice analisys.
I didn't really feel that way in my warrior but i can see your point, i will pay much more attention to this today.
Overall some animations need work and it's one of the things i already submited as a problem in game.
On topic of WoW Arena vs GW2, i do believe you can't compare them, WoW has dedicated healers and a gear treadmill in pvp, GW2 hasn't, they won't ever be played in the same way.
I agree that the combat system does take a little getting used to but that's just a learning curve like all games really. I wouldn't say that GW2 is twitch based though because it is still tab targeting just a little more involved then usual. TERA or Dragon Nest are twitch based MMOs.
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Uh actually I'd say GW2 is semi twitch-based, GW2 while still has tab targeting it's only there so you can target your enemies easier, your attack animations/projectiles/spells has to actually connect to the target's hitboxes to do damage. For example, try shooting an enemy right behind another enemy, your attack will hit the one in the front instead. Think GW2 tab -targeting as "lock-on" in some action games, it's there, but you don't have to use it. I actually never use tab-targeting when I use skills that have slow moving projectiles.
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Tbh i didn't liked much the theif animation, it make a long line that strike whatever is on you path back an forth since you come back at your initial point after you jump with the theif, but the warrior charge aim at your oponent and you are there where you are aiming, imo 2 very different animations and skill effects. Theif is quicker but a lot harder to use, especially in pvp, for me at least.
Glad to see people commenting on this
Let me clear up what I mean by twitch based. When I play a rogue in arena in world of warcraft, I need to be aware of everything that's going on in the match, and I need to essentially control the flow of combat with my skills, that may include taking pressure off my healer if he's taking damage, so that may mean I stun one guy, then shadowstep to a ranged class and disarm him. If you're not quick and precise with your abilities, you'll lose.
I saw people commenting that it was my computer possibly, it's more than capable of playing this game on high settings
The charge is actually delayed a long with a few other skills.
This is the problem I'm having with the warrior class currently, with clunky abilities that don't fire off sooner in order take out targets. I know this isn't WoW, but in WoW Arenas the skills don't fire off with delay and you have to know what your opponent is going to do BEFORE he uses his ability, it may make it harder to dodge attacks for people, but would make the game much more skill based. Don't get me wrong I'm having no problems slaying people as it is :P but the fluidity would definitely help and make it more enjoyable.
I'm in no way comparing this to WoW PvE, which to me seems a bit braindead in terms of simply standing in front of a mob and smashing 1 button numerous times till a creature is dead, which isn't my cup of tea. But to each his own I guess heh heh
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Nice thanks for that! Would love to hear their response on the issue
Like I've said many times before, if a melee character catches a ranged character, it's all over. Their lives get halved in seconds (unless you specced crappily and lack damage). I've played a Guardian for the better part of this weekend and I have made many a ranged char cry for help but again that's probably because of the way I specced my char.
This is not a game.
I'm not bashing anything and never used false facts. Have you played WoW Arena? All I'm asking is if people have noticed the same thing. I used World of Warcraft as an example to help people understand what I'm getting at. I could have chosen any game as long as that games abilities weren't delayed. Many people play World of Warcraft and I thought it was the best choice to use as an example.. You missed the point completely, it doesn't matter whether it's an official e-sport or not. It's has to do with being able to use abilities quickly and effectively as a melee class and you just can't do that with some skills right now.
Also you not playing the game makes your post completely irrelevant, as it has to do with playing the game to even have an opinion on the matter.
Hmm. It is interesting that you bring this up. SWTOR had a similar issue and it was called combat delay. Combat delay is basically when combat animation takes precedence over the actual ability triggering. Now I have yet to play GW2 so I do not know if this is the actual case or not, but it sounds similar to what you are describing and what happened in SWTOR.
Example of combat delay (made up spell name)
Ice Beam cast time 1.5
Ice Beam animation 2.0
Cast first Ice Beam. Spamming spell to cast second Ice Beam. Wait .5 seconds because animation from first Ice Beam isn't finished yet.