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[Aaron]

I was recently looking through all the spells available to do CC and I realized that an organized system of dropping CC can actually lock an area down almost indefinitely. In certain areas, and in certain chokes this would be similar to early AE stun in DAOC.

One example. A group with 3 elementalists.

We need to test the mechanics of lightning hammer, but assuming that you can summon a hammer and swap out the utility skill without losing the summoned hammer, this should be ok to use without messing up anyone's utility skills.


If each Ele summons a hammer for a melee to use during the beginning of the fight, that gives each melee access to Static Field. This is a lightning field (lasts for 4 seconds) that will stun anyone in it for 3 seconds. Each elementalist that has staff equipped also has access to a static field. That group now has 6 X 4 seconds of lightning fields that can be applied.

In a choke point that could mean near perma stun for all enemies in the area for almost 30 seconds. The cooldown on the Lightning Hammer's Static field is 25 seconds, the Elementalists is 40. So one or two melee could not drop the hammer after dropping their first lightning field, and follow up with another, extending the period to over 30 seconds. Or a larger area can be locked down for 12-16 seconds.


Leap finishers inside of Lightning fields cause Daze.

We need to test the AE range of the Daze effect in this situation

Daze locks out abilities so you can't use them. The Lightning Hammer has a 600 range Leap finisher on a 6 second cooldown. So for example, if the Daze lasts 2 seconds from the finisher, that means 3 melees with Lightning Hammers can keep Daze up 100% of the time in a lightning field. Of course, that is dependent on the radius of the Daze caused by the leap finisher, and also by the duration of the Daze. If its a 1 seconds, you'd need 6 melee cycling the finisher.

But even with 3 cycling a 1 second daze, that's 50% of the time daze is up. With the Lightning Fields kept up as long as they are, that is a huge force multiplier for the melee.

And if the choke is in the right spot, we can avoid a lot of the ranged dmg from LoS as well.



I will be playing an Elementalist quite a bit next BWE so I plan on testing the Lightning Hammer mechanics. It may even by that an ele can have a Lightning Hammer equipped, Drop a Static Field, then drop it to go back to Staff and drop another Static Field.

If so, a lightning field could be kept up for even longer, or more lightning fields could be sustained at once.

[Ogien]

sounds interesting

That combined with cannon fire or arrow chart will be devastating

[Bloodwyne]

its definately worth a try though i think every class has several profession skills that will make them invulnerable to any kind of cc, and as u said there will be ranged attackers and people that simply avoid the circles. It could be a lot of fun against a mindless zerg though...

also it shows that if correctly used there can be pretty powerful CC in GW2, thanks for the research!

[Ateron]

We should try that theory cc and heavy aoe damage sounds great as far as i know eles can summon one for themselves and some quantity on the ground which can be picked up for multiple allies, but dunno about if they can swap utility skill without losing the hammer.

[Aaron]

Getting into a bit more detail about what exactly is possible for CC, I took a look at +condition duration templates.

There is a rune with +33% stun duration, and you can trait for another +30% condition duration. That brings the stun from a lightning field up to around 5 seconds. The stun would actually be longer than the field itself. A 5 second AOE stun is no joke. Of course, that requires level 60+ runes, probably lvl 80 runes. The Elementalist can also trait for a 15% cooldown reduction on their static field.


Looking at Immobilize now, it seems that the Ranger and Engineer have the best AoE Immobilize skills.

The Engineer has access to two AOE immobilizes from what I see. One being Glue Shot (offhand pistol can trait for 20% faster cooldown 30s->24s), and the other being a Glue Bomb (pbae in the bomb kit, can trait for 10% faster cooldown 25s->22.5s). They are both 1 second duration. However, the engineer has access to a turret which can single target immobilize for 3 seconds (unsure on duration). I don't believe that gear and trait bonuses transfer to turrets, so I do think that is limited to 3 seconds. By running +10% condition runes, and +30% condition duration from traits, the engineer can get their immobilize from Glue Shot and Glue Bomb up to 1.4 seconds. It is also worth noting that the engineer has an elite skill which has a side function of applying a 2 second AE stun.


The Ranger has access to one normal AOE Immobilize skill, Muddy Terrain, which is a utility skill (30 second cooldown can be traited 20% faster to 24 seconds). They can also trait to apply muddy terrain when taking fall damage but this is highly situational (dropping off keep walls into zerg seems like most common). Muddy Terrain lasts 2 seconds, but with 10% condition duration sigil and +30% condition duration from traits it gets up to 2.8 seconds. The ranger also has access to an AE immobilize as their elite skill, which will root enemies in place with attackable roots which can be killed to free the player. If they don't attack them, they can be rooted for up to 20 seconds, however the roots die in 1 AoE.



That still leaves Knockback, Cripple, and Chill to look over. Right now it seems apparent that static field is the most promising CC in the game, but that isn't to say other CC won't be crucial. A ranger/engineer team could lockdown quite a few players for some time, especially with one of those hammers.

[Bloodwyne]

btw what is the different between daze root and stun in gw2? i mean stun is clear..not able to do anything for the period of time.. root doesnt break on hit here right? but ur able to act, just cant move.. what does daze do? for me it sounds like a root + not being able to use abilitys..but that would be a stun then

enlighten me please aaron

[Aaron]

Daze = you can move but not use any of your skills, if you are hit with a Daze while "channeling" a skill that skill is also interrupted. That's something I didn't realize at first, there are interrupts in GW2, they are just on certain CC spells, but they work on more than just "spells." One of my favorite moves with daze in a 1vX was to pop my daze right when someone was about to heal. They lose their time starting the channeling of the heal, the daze lockout time, and then the time it takes to recast. Often that's enough to kill.

Important to remember though that daze isn't just an interrupt tool, it actually locks out all abilities for its duration, as well as interrupting anything you may have been in the middle of channeling/casting.

Stability prevents and over rides Daze


Stun = You can not move and can not use any skills except for "stun breaker" abilities (for example Elementalist's Lightning Flash which breaks stun and teleports the Elementalist to a ground target). Stun is also an interrupter. Daze + stun locks out (self) stun breakers.

Stability always prevents stuns and can override stuns when activated on a skill which is a "stun breaker"


Immobilize = You can not move, you can not turn, you can not dodge but you can use certain skills (I believe ones that don't require any movement). I noticed that Immobilize seems to be an interrupter of certain skills. So for example I noticed this actually when I was about to kill Juvez in the zombie event. He went to hit an ability that I believe was a Leaping Knockback, but my Forrest Spider pet landed an immobilize on him right as he was activating this. His animation of jumping into the air was interrupted and he was immobilized in place. Stun breakers do not break immobilize. Stability will not prevent immobilize

There are certain skills which will clear immobilize. Such as the Elementalist skill "Windborne Speed"




There are also CC called Launch (dramatic knockback i guess), pull (scorpion wire), push (knockback without the knockdown?), float (havent seen, forceful zephyr?), sink (also havent seen), and fear (seems limited only saw on necro).

EDIT: Launch "launches" someone in the air, interrupting their skills and moving them back. Pull interrupts skills and brings them to you (or closer). Push is the same as knockback which moves someone away from you and interrupts them. Knockdown is like a push but it prevents the use of skills or moving for a short duration, almost like a combination daze+stun+push with animation showing you hit the ground. Fear is an interrupt which makes you run away from the caster.

Stability prevents all of those.


There is also Cripple and Chill. Cripple is a 50% snare. Chilled is a 66% snare that also makes skills take 66% longer to come off cooldown.

Stability does not prevent Cripple or Chill



I believe that if Stability prevents it, it interrupts. And then certain things that stability won't prevent, like immobilize only interrupt certain skills, but of that I am not sure, more testing required.




---I wanted to add this to the Immobilize section above, but didn't want it to get lost, since its actually a really awesome immobilize spell I totally missed.

The Elementalist summoned Magnetic Shield has a PBAE radius 600 Pull with a 2 second immobilize

http://www.gw2db.com/data/skills/11177-magnetic-shield

Amazing stack/root tool.

[Jadene]

I don't really have alot of experience from the pvp in the game as yet, is there any immunity timers or some such too? Though as written above perhaps not with the ability to break out of CC.

[Aaron]

No immunity timers.

[Ragnar]

i really hope they bring back guild island, or at least a guild hall but with all the possibilities of guild wars 1. I used to train a lot with guild mates, as our leader made a calendar of trainings for all guild members, at that was actually cool because you can do 1 vs 1/2/3 tests, or test your build against a friend so you can see all pro and cons of a build, or to do guild matches or GvG friendly matches. And because of all combos and stuff of GW 2 it would be really nice to have that back, so we can make experiments alone
Btw Aaron really good post i found it very interesting!