Veerdin
New Member
First up, this is gonna be a long thread, so buckle up.
I've been playing Archeage in some incarnation since the retail pre-launch headstart event, and in all my time playing, I've always noticed one thing that seems to come out on top - mostly in PvP, which matters because a huge portion of this game is centered on (or at least takes place in) PvP or PvP zones:
Crowd Control, or more accurately, any ability which takes control away from the opponent. Stun, sleep, shackle, impale, trip, snare, silence, ect... They're everywhere! I'm pretty sure every single skill tree has at least one, with a few trees being almost totally composed of them.
Just to punch some numbers, we have about 151 usable skills in the game, and of those skills, around 39 of them can inflict some kind of CC on an opponent - that's almost a third of all the skills being some kind of CC, and that includes non-combat skills like heals and buffs.
There are, if my memory serves me correctly, 23 or so status effects you can inflict on other players. Of those 24, 13 of them (more than half!) are a kind of CC effect, with the rest being either damage over time or nearly useless when not used for a combo. Of the 13 CC effects, 7 of them (stun, sleep, fear, impale, deep freeze, trip and immobilize) render the opponent totally unable to react. While a further 2 of them (shackle and silence) prevent the use of many skills.
In contrast, only 9 of the 151 or so skills can counter CC effects, and of those 9, 3 of them (one third!) are in the Auramancy skill tree. And none of these abilities will allow you to counter all 7 forms of CC, each counter ability only being capable of countering one or two CC forms at a time. I'm not sure it's even possible to run a build that is totally CC immune, but I suspect that doing so would leave you very weak in other areas as you'd be pouring points into anti-CC abilities which are situational at best.
There don't seem to be any form of diminishing returns for CC spam in PvP, either. Sure, most CC skills don't last as long in PvP, but that hardly matters when most builds just chain CC ability after CC ability! And it's much easier to stack these effects on somebody than it is to reliably counter them.
In my experience, PvP tends to boil down into a game of "Who can trigger their stunlock combo first?" with the winner essentially immobilizing the loser, rendering them totally unable to react, move, or defend themselves while they get pummeled by burst damage.
Hell, my own build is literally half comprised of CC abilities! Because if I don't use them, I literally have no chance at all in PvP. But even though my opening attack is literally a stun that chains into a fear, I often end up losing fights because my CC ability was too slow to hit, or didn't last as long as my opponents.
Having said all that, all I can say is this: CC is, if not overpowered, then totally oversaturated. It's one thing for stuns and CC to be a valid strategy in PvP, that's fine. But right now? They're pretty much the only strategy! Stunlocking trumps damage and defense because it doesn't matter how hard your opponent hits you, or how much punishment they can take, if they can't actually react to you.
I know the current plan for AR is to leave the game at patch 3.0b, which means we won't be getting the Ancestral skill tree or the skill overhaul from 4.5 (I never played retail past 3.0 so I don't know if the overhaul fixed anything. But looking at the new skill descriptions, there seem to be just as many CC moves, if not more.) But I have to ask... Should the dev team for AR look at making CC abilities a bit less powerful?
I don't want to see them removed, obviously. But it'd be nice if a fight against another player actually, y'know, felt like a fight for once, instead of just being a race to see who can stop the other player from playing fastest.
That, and quite frankly, taking control away from the player just isn't fun. I don't mind losing a PvP fight because I was genuinely out-skilled by my opponent. But losing because I literally had no way of fighting back? That never feels good...
Nobody else seems to talk about this, so maybe it's just me. But personally, I feel it's a waste of potential. This game has 120 classes, for crying out loud! 120 classes and 151-odd skills, with 24 status effects! And yet, if you try to run a build in PvP that doesn't stack CC abilities, you're almost guaranteed to fail miserably.
---------
TL;DR: There are too many CC skills, and not enough ways to counter them. CC is either overpowered, oversaturated, or both. Maybe we could get some balance for them in future?
Sorry for the wall of text, it's late and I just wanted to air some grievances. I know there are some tentative plans to balance the PvP meta a little in future, but from what I can tell, the current status-quo of "CC is king" doesn't seem likely to change without some major overhauls.
I've been playing Archeage in some incarnation since the retail pre-launch headstart event, and in all my time playing, I've always noticed one thing that seems to come out on top - mostly in PvP, which matters because a huge portion of this game is centered on (or at least takes place in) PvP or PvP zones:
Crowd Control, or more accurately, any ability which takes control away from the opponent. Stun, sleep, shackle, impale, trip, snare, silence, ect... They're everywhere! I'm pretty sure every single skill tree has at least one, with a few trees being almost totally composed of them.
Just to punch some numbers, we have about 151 usable skills in the game, and of those skills, around 39 of them can inflict some kind of CC on an opponent - that's almost a third of all the skills being some kind of CC, and that includes non-combat skills like heals and buffs.
There are, if my memory serves me correctly, 23 or so status effects you can inflict on other players. Of those 24, 13 of them (more than half!) are a kind of CC effect, with the rest being either damage over time or nearly useless when not used for a combo. Of the 13 CC effects, 7 of them (stun, sleep, fear, impale, deep freeze, trip and immobilize) render the opponent totally unable to react. While a further 2 of them (shackle and silence) prevent the use of many skills.
In contrast, only 9 of the 151 or so skills can counter CC effects, and of those 9, 3 of them (one third!) are in the Auramancy skill tree. And none of these abilities will allow you to counter all 7 forms of CC, each counter ability only being capable of countering one or two CC forms at a time. I'm not sure it's even possible to run a build that is totally CC immune, but I suspect that doing so would leave you very weak in other areas as you'd be pouring points into anti-CC abilities which are situational at best.
There don't seem to be any form of diminishing returns for CC spam in PvP, either. Sure, most CC skills don't last as long in PvP, but that hardly matters when most builds just chain CC ability after CC ability! And it's much easier to stack these effects on somebody than it is to reliably counter them.
In my experience, PvP tends to boil down into a game of "Who can trigger their stunlock combo first?" with the winner essentially immobilizing the loser, rendering them totally unable to react, move, or defend themselves while they get pummeled by burst damage.
Hell, my own build is literally half comprised of CC abilities! Because if I don't use them, I literally have no chance at all in PvP. But even though my opening attack is literally a stun that chains into a fear, I often end up losing fights because my CC ability was too slow to hit, or didn't last as long as my opponents.
Having said all that, all I can say is this: CC is, if not overpowered, then totally oversaturated. It's one thing for stuns and CC to be a valid strategy in PvP, that's fine. But right now? They're pretty much the only strategy! Stunlocking trumps damage and defense because it doesn't matter how hard your opponent hits you, or how much punishment they can take, if they can't actually react to you.
I know the current plan for AR is to leave the game at patch 3.0b, which means we won't be getting the Ancestral skill tree or the skill overhaul from 4.5 (I never played retail past 3.0 so I don't know if the overhaul fixed anything. But looking at the new skill descriptions, there seem to be just as many CC moves, if not more.) But I have to ask... Should the dev team for AR look at making CC abilities a bit less powerful?
I don't want to see them removed, obviously. But it'd be nice if a fight against another player actually, y'know, felt like a fight for once, instead of just being a race to see who can stop the other player from playing fastest.
That, and quite frankly, taking control away from the player just isn't fun. I don't mind losing a PvP fight because I was genuinely out-skilled by my opponent. But losing because I literally had no way of fighting back? That never feels good...
Nobody else seems to talk about this, so maybe it's just me. But personally, I feel it's a waste of potential. This game has 120 classes, for crying out loud! 120 classes and 151-odd skills, with 24 status effects! And yet, if you try to run a build in PvP that doesn't stack CC abilities, you're almost guaranteed to fail miserably.
---------
TL;DR: There are too many CC skills, and not enough ways to counter them. CC is either overpowered, oversaturated, or both. Maybe we could get some balance for them in future?
Sorry for the wall of text, it's late and I just wanted to air some grievances. I know there are some tentative plans to balance the PvP meta a little in future, but from what I can tell, the current status-quo of "CC is king" doesn't seem likely to change without some major overhauls.
