The Sundering of the Community - UB Anet's Double-Edged Sword

[Cobalt]

Originally Posted by Kyp Jade

Imbalances in pve are worse for the game actually than in pvp, since the community for pve is so much larger, and dont even try to kid yourself that imbalances anywhere dont have a negative effect.

Only when the imbalance is toward the monster/area not the Human player otherwise it hurts absolutely nothing!

I do not understand why anyone would want this skill nerfed it is like demanding to shoot yourself in the foot, it makes no sense!

In PVE we all have to same goal; to win, finish the quest, kill the main boss etc... who in the hell gives a rats-ass how we do it or what advantages we come up with to do it?

If you were to have any complaints at all about this skill it would only have to be the fact that Necros, Eles, Assn's and Paragons have a little more of an advantage than the rest of the classes using it. So if anything it should be buffed NOT nerft to give all classess maximum advantage.

[Big_Iron]

I love the Bear and don't find it all all boring to rip through the enemy. But it seems that the vocal minority always wins out. I better enjoy my UB while I still can.

Save the Bear!!
Save the Bear!!
Save the Bear!!

[Whiskeyjack]

Ursan blessing is a horrible departure from what Anet is supposedly going for.

A game of skill? UB is so overpowered that players can just spam the same one or two skills and kill just about anything very quickly.

A game of strategy through builds and team composition? UB is the same build, all the time. For everyone.

QFT.

How long will it be before all "cookie cutter" teams consist of 6 UB warriors and 2 monk's. This skill should never have been introduced in its current fom imo, it's the biggest dumbing down GW has ever seen.

[bungusmaximus]

Zomg theyre gonna nurf me I'm gonna get drunk and I dont care :P

[cebalrai]

Originally Posted by SotiCoto

From what I can tell.... A-Net unfortunately agrees with you.

On the flipside, I believe people should basically be allowed to play as they want to play as long as it doesn't directly influence the experience of other people.
And no... it doesn't. What you need to remember is that just because most people doing a particular mission or quest end up being Ursan Blessing users doesn't mean they'd still be there trying to do it with ordinary skills otherwise. You're not necessarily losing anything NOR gaining anything by their presence.

But then people like you come along and QQ about the way OTHER people play the game because you don't want to play that way..... and A-Net make changes.

Unjust? I think so.



And therefore the only remaining difference between Guild Wars and the real world is that Guild Wars gives you the choice. In the real world it isn't always an option to betray your principles and get rich from it....
If your Guildies are using it too extensively.... perhaps you should ask them whether they'd be willing to do a few things with you WITHOUT bringing Ursan Blessing.


And for what it is worth.... I don't use Ursan Blessing, and there are still plenty of others likewise who don't use it out there.

Okay, fine... Using your logic if there was a skill that instantly killed all enemies in your aggro bubble it would be okay. Because I don't have to use it and I don't have to group with people that use it.

[cebalrai]

Originally Posted by WoodyDotNet

I love the Bear and don't find it all all boring to rip through the enemy. But it seems that the vocal minority always wins out. I better enjoy my UB while I still can.

Save the Bear!!
Save the Bear!!
Save the Bear!!

You love the fact that you...

1) Don't have to think
2) Don't have to make a build
3) Don't have to be challenged
4) Don't have to play intelligently
5) Don't have to have (or use) any skill - in a game that Anet says is about skill
6) Are more powerful than anyone in the game, even those who are more skilled/experienced
7) Play the same exact build that half the game plays

Really?

[aapo]

Originally Posted by Karyuu

Why can't those two parties be left alone to play however they wish, without trying to change the other's style of play? If you want tactics, go with tactics. If you want to relax by bashing things, go with bashing. No one's forcing you to group with someone who doesn't share your desires.

- Quoted for truth.

[natural sugar]

Why do people moan so much about a skill that actually allows lesser used professions into high end areas? Balanced teams are still superior to any amount of UB in a party, in terms of speed and efficiency.

[bungusmaximus]

Originally Posted by natural sugar

Why do people moan so much about a skill that actually allows lesser used professions into high end areas? Balanced teams are still superior to any amount of UB in a party, in terms of speed and efficiency.

I would rather have seen certain areas designed better to begin with. Adding bears on steroids is a bad fix for a bad design flaw that turns stuff from bad to worse imho. But that's just me, and indeed, I don't use PvE only skills, I use an average of 5 builds/character because I find it fun to puzzle with builds. I'm glad there's GW:EN dungeons that are accessible to all professions.

[cebalrai]

Originally Posted by natural sugar

Why do people moan so much about a skill that actually allows lesser used professions into high end areas? Balanced teams are still superior to any amount of UB in a party, in terms of speed and efficiency.

No, UB teams beat anything in PvE. Run 7 bears and a single monk and the high-end areas play like presearing.

Not saying FoW is uber challenging, but with just 5 bears almost every battle was over in seconds. I don't think anyone in our party even dropped to 50% health. The monks were bored silly. I was actually having a hard time getting skills off because the bears were killing my targets so unbelievably fast.

Besides the insane damage the bears were doing, five people running cheap AoE knockdown was a TOTAL JOKE. It felt like we were just running around outside old ascalon killing level 6 grawl. Except maybe easier.

And keep in mind that as time goes on, people's Norn levels are going up and the bears are getting even more powerful.

I'd love to hear from Gaile or someone about Anet's position on this.

[Big_Iron]

Originally Posted by bungusmaximus

Zomg theyre gonna nurf me I'm gonna get drunk and I dont care :P

ROFL!! You win!!

Back on topic. Maybe it's my background in sports, but when I have a tool that will help me crush my foe and it's legal, I will take full advantage of it. Does anyone think for a second that Bill Belichick considered not playing Tom Brady against the Redskins because he thought it wasn't fair?* Believe me, I'm a Skins fan and I wish he hadn't. And it sure looked to me like the Patriots were having a lot of fun. As it's been said before (again and again), if you don't like the skill or want to be "challenged," don't take it with you. But don't judge others because they do like it. And don't demand that it be nerfed just because it's your opinion that the skill is overpowered.

*For those that don't follow American Football, I'm talking about the New England Patriots spanking the Washington Redskins 52-7 last Sunday.

[Amon Warrior]

Don't nerf the bear!

They did mention ways of expanding your character beyond level 20. I guess this it it.

Besides, Ursan Blessing in not the answer for everything. Get yourself with a bunch of baddies with energy drain and see how far you go with that skill...

[cebalrai]

Originally Posted by WoodyDotNet

ROFL!! You win!!

Back on topic. Maybe it's my background in sports, but when I have a tool that will help me crush my foe and it's legal, I will take full advantage of it. Does anyone think for a second that Bill Belichick considered not playing Tom Brady against the Redskins because he thought it wasn't fair?* Believe me, I'm a Skins fan and I wish he hadn't. And it sure looked to me like the Patriots were having a lot of fun. As it's been said before (again and again), if you don't like the skill or want to be "challenged," don't take it with you. But don't judge others because they do like it. And don't demand that it be nerfed just because it's your opinion that the skill is overpowered.

*For those that don't follow American Football, I'm talking about the New England Patriots spanking the Washington Redskins 52-7 last Sunday.

I don't understand your analogy at all. Did the Patriots choose to use the NFL equivalent of UB while the 'Skins didn't? I don't see your point at all.

And it's not just "my opinion" that the skill is overpowered. Anyone can eyeball it and see that it's true. If you want to experience this for yourself, play a mission/dungeon with a handful of bears. Why do you think people are using this skill so much? Why are there bear-only groups being advertised? Because it's better than using a build.

[Horseman Of War]

Originally Posted by Ciladis

Before UB the game was fully a game of skill. People had to think up skill bars/builds and employ them to varying degrees of success. Naturally some people were better than others at it. This would especially be most prevalent in the “Elite” areas in particular DoA where for the vast majority of time “The Holy Trinity” was only way to do them. Although other people thought out of the box and used other builds.

Anet, obviously aware of this problem had to come up with a solution and this appears to UB. This enables any person of any profession or skill ability to complete DoA and have fun doing it.

- only one person has to think up of a build, there is no skill for the rest. DoA for example: OB tank, freeze, burn, repeat? THAT is a build designed so anyone (given you play one of 4 classes) can kill mallyx. Sab's Necros? OK if i run in to a pack of Stone Stomach Dwarves, draw aggro like mad, kill them all, get elite dungeon chest in 15 minutes..... then how does that mean i have any skill?

- "...to complete DoA and have fun doing it." Yes, youre right. DoA should ever remain a boring wasteland of aggro drawing eles, lame OB tanks, and afk necros. Nobody should ever have fun doing DoA. :/


/cheers to Ursan. My Paragon is almost ready to kill Mallyx.

[cebalrai]

Originally Posted by Amon Warrior

Don't nerf the bear!

They did mention ways of expanding your character beyond level 20. I guess this it it.

Besides, Ursan Blessing in not the answer for everything. Get yourself with a bunch of baddies with energy drain and see how far you go with that skill...

Lol yeah this is how to get past level 20 I guess...

A bunch of baddies with energy drain.. That's like 3% of things you face. And the ones that drain through sympathetic visage are bypassed by the bear anyway, so maybe we're talking 1% of things. Regardless, most builds don't work very well with 0 energy so it's a moot point.

Compared to an actual build, Ursan Blessing IS the answer for (almost) anything. You ignore armor, knockdown, interrupt, get a speed boost, gain a lot of armor, gain a TON of max HPs, gain a ranged attack, do INSANE damage, weaken enemies, boost your allies' damage... Wow, how is that not the answer for just about anything in GW?

And hey, have a BiP necro on your team and you can stay in bear form permanently.

[Snow Bunny]

Originally Posted by garethporlest18

That's possible? HAHAHAHA.

I never even seen anyone using Ursan Blessing.. I thought it was a crap skill. Must have missed something.

Same. It was a pve only skill, and not SY/TNTF, or Seed of Life, and being PvE-only and not those 3, I just ignored it.

Especially being a primary monk H/Hing the whole game pretty much, there wasn't much opportunity to use it.

I just regarded it as garbage.

[Kusandaa]

Meh. I don't mind Ursan teams... I play with my alliance anyways, and so far we haven't shown a lot of interest into it. I think we had someone use UB once for fun... that kinda thing. Else I prefer good ol' builds. Why?

'Cause I like CHALLENGE. Geez, am I the only person alive who doesn't mind wiping in a dungeon, or taking an hour to get to the Forgemaster? Of actually thinking outside the "let's find something invincible and exploit it to no end so we can do everything fast enough to have nothing to do?" box? A game gets boring quite fast when you have no challenge.

So what do I do? I let 'em play UB if they want, I'm not in their team, I don'T care... I'll just run normal builds and I'll be happy with it .

[cebalrai]

Originally Posted by Horseman Of War

- only one person has to think up of a build, there is no skill for the rest. DoA for example: OB tank, freeze, burn, repeat? THAT is a build designed so anyone (given you play one of 4 classes) can kill mallyx. Sab's Necros? OK if i run in to a pack of Stone Stomach Dwarves, draw aggro like mad, kill them all, get elite dungeon chest in 15 minutes..... then how does that mean i have any skill?

- "...to complete DoA and have fun doing it." Yes, youre right. DoA should ever remain a boring wasteland of aggro drawing eles, lame OB tanks, and afk necros. Nobody should ever have fun doing DoA. :/


/cheers to Ursan. My Paragon is almost ready to kill Mallyx.

Yeah okay, nothing should be a challenge anymore. Nothing should be dangerous. Nothing should be a test. Nothing should be able to threaten your party.

Seriously... a team with 6 bears is going to do 750 armor-ignoring damage to a targed (at range!) and then do it again 3 seconds later. Since there's nothing in pve that can stand that, game over...

Because I guarantee nothing in PvE is at all challenging with a bear team.

I'm not saying get rid of UB or make it useless. I'm just saying that it's too over the top.

[tmakinen]

Originally Posted by cebalrai

Not saying FoW is uber challenging, but with just 5 bears almost every battle was over in seconds. I don't think anyone in our party even dropped to 50% health. The monks were bored silly. I was actually having a hard time getting skills off because the bears were killing my targets so unbelievably fast.

The funny thing is, last time when I was monking for an alliance party during a total FoW wipeout, we didn't have anybody running ursan and we steamrolled the place like presearing. It was boring for me as a monk because most of the time everybody in the party had more than 90% of health (save for one hilarious incident when our ranger instakilled himself by using Barrage while hexed with SS and Empathy ) I think that a SMS party completed all the quests in little over an hour and they weren't using UB either. FoW may have been challenging back in 2005 with less experienced players and a more limited skill set but these days it's full of pushovers, so you can't measure the efficiency of UB through its performance in FoW (or UW).

[cebalrai]

Originally Posted by tmakinen

The funny thing is, last time when I was monking for an alliance party during a total FoW wipeout, we didn't have anybody running ursan and we steamrolled the place like presearing. It was boring for me as a monk because most of the time everybody in the party had more than 90% of health (save for one hilarious incident when our ranger instakilled himself by using Barrage while hexed with SS and Empathy ) I think that a SMS party completed all the quests in little over an hour and they weren't using UB either. FoW may have been challenging back in 2005 with less experienced players and a more limited skill set but these days it's full of pushovers, so you can't measure the efficiency of UB through its performance in FoW (or UW).

Thanks! Your post proves my point excellently! FoW is easy for experienced, skilled players like you. It's hard as hell for new/bad players.

But now we have the Ursan Blessing and it's easy sauce for everyone.

I don't think you understand what it was like running 5 bears. Red dots on the radar - *poof* *poof* *poof* *poof* - all gone in seconds. Picking up loot took about as long as killing the monsters, that dropped it (slight exaggeration, but not by much). Most things could barely even attack our party due to the constant spamming of AoE knockdown.