Feedback:User/Raine Valen/Improve Random Arenas: Party Formation and Matchmaking

tl;dr
There are several ways to make RA stop feeling like eating bees 90% of the time:
 * 1) Make shutdown skills conditional with universal counters (like Bull's Strike can be countered by anyone by simply not moving),
 * 2) Weaken them to the point that those counters are not vital for success (like most interrupts will not eliminate a character on their own every time they are applied),
 * 3) Or don't play teams against each other unless those necessary counters are present.

Preface
With the removal of TA, the death of Codex, the map lock of AB, and the general "meh" that is FA and JQ, Random Arenas has become the casual PvP format.

Sadly, this is not because RA is particularly great, but rather because the alternatives are even less spectacular, generally speaking. RA, by nature, will never be perfect, but there are a few small things that could be done to make it much more fun than it currently is.

These changes are all independent, but any combination of them could be used.

Sources of Unfun
There are a couple of things in RA that are simply not fun:

Shutdown
In other formats where you pick your own teams, you are expected to bring a means of coping with certain kinds and amounts of shutdown, and that keeps certain strong shutdown skills from becoming imbalanced. Conversely, in RA, you're not guaranteed those means, and so these same strong shutdown skills become ridiculous. Take one of my personal favorites, Empathy, for example.
 * In HA, if the other team has Empathy, it either (1) gets interrupted, (2) gets removed, (3) gets protted, (4) gets power-healed through, (5) causes a warrior to do almost nothing for the duration, or (6) soloes someone.
 * If you're in RA, you're not guaranteed interrupts, hex removal, or prots unless you bring them. Needless to say, we can't reasonably expect everyone to bring all of these things (and, if we could, would that be fun?).  So, because of this, a warrior confronted with Empathy either (5) stands around and waits for it to wear off (if it ever does; it's more than maintainable) or (6) dies.  Which one's fun?

To this end, I suggest changing the functionalities of some shutdown skills so that they are not inherently imbalanced when a certain element is not present in the opposing team. For example, any one of these changes would balance Empathy across formats:

Any of these changes allows the skill to work without a healer or interrupter being present. There are other ways to make this skill workable; this is just one.
 * Casting time increased to 3 seconds; duration decreased to seconds.
 * Energy cost increased to 15.
 * Functionality changed to: Hex Spell. ( seconds.) Target foe takes damage whenever it uses an attack skill.
 * Functionality changed to: Hex Spell. ( seconds.) The next time target foe attacks, that foe takes damage and this hex is reapplied.
 * Damage decreased to.
 * Added the following clause:
 * Added the following clause:
 * Added the following clause:

However, Empathy-like hexes are just one aspect of shutdown that makes RA unfun; there are others: And this list is hardly inclusive. Just ask yourself: "If someone used this skill on me, would it be fun? Is there anything I could do to change that?"
 * Hammer warriors. The amount of shutdown they can produce unhindered is insane, and you may/may not be given means to hinder them in your party.
 * Shame and Diversion. Their duration is way too long for 4v4; teams can easily score kills with impunity with the entirety of a team's backline shut down for 6 seconds.
 * Faintheartedness. This skill literally turns a physical into half a physical.  It's a nonelite that's stronger than Migraine.
 * Blind. Unless every physical runs condition removal, maintainable blind essentially equates to "you don't exist".
 * Daze. Daze has always been kept relatively weak; this should be changed if casters are going to continue to be as strong as they are.

Bull's Strike is interesting because you can do something about it - it's one of the strongest skills in the game, and I don't believe I've ever heard a complaint about it. The reason for this is that anyone can counter Bull's Strike with a press of the Escape key or by activating any non-instant skill.

Shutdown without a universal counter, on the other hand, will always be imbalanced in Random Arenas unless it has a drawback proportional to its potential benefit. Keep in mind that any shutdown skill's potential benefit is enormous: in a best-case scenario, a well-timed Diversion or Hammer Bash on a monk means that someone dies.

Bad Matchups
This largely stems from the above.

Imagine you're a warrior and you load into a match to find that your team consists of four melee characters and the other team has a bsurge ele, a Curses necro, a VoR mesmer, and a monk: you know that there's almost literally nothing you can do to change the outcome of the match, regardless of your ability as a player, or that of your teammates.

If skills were balanced for a format like RA, this would be a non-issue. However, since they aren't, there needs to be another alternative; for this, I recommend a system that measures what teams can and cannot deal with and does not play them against teams containing elements that they cannot counter.

Though it sounds complex, it could be relatively simple. Simply put, skills with a specific counters should never be played against characters that do not have those counters present in their team composition. Let's look at a simple example:



When used against an enemy physical, this skill single-handedly reduces them to almost nothing. What stops this skill from being broken when used against enemy physicals?


 * Block.
 * Effects that cause Miss.
 * Adrenaline denial.
 * Condition removal.
 * Hard shutdown:
 * Interrupts.
 * Unconditional knockdowns.

Unless every physical on a given team has a means of obtaining one or more of these counters, they should never play against a team with Devastating Hammer. If they do, they will not have fun.

Further, a team should not play matches where that team has fewer means to counter something than the opposing team has means to inflict that thing. For example, a team with Faintheartedness, Insidious Parasite, Empathy, and Visions of Regret should not play against a team with one hex removal and zero interrupts; there are more hexes than can be dealt with, so the match will not be fun.

In Conclusion
Balance every skill or balance every match where skills are present; this will make RA several times more fun.