Curse

Brian the Gladiator · May 26, 2011, 03:53 PM // 15:53

So I was having a discussion in the most recent game update thread in the general game discussion section and I suggested an Aegis revert and I got a few replies, some pro some con. I replied to them all and my post was a super huge hijacking of the original thread so I decided I am going to delete that post and start fresh here. Here is how the conversation went down:

"Hopefully the next major skill update will be to Aegis... yep.... one skill that solves about half the problems we are seeing in PvP today and will probably be the most drastic skill balance of the past year.

Removing Aegis PvP split = guilds can no longer run stupid shit. Doing this will move all builds towards the center. No more Triple Melee. No more Dervish trains and brainless C-spacing. It forces people to communicate. It forces people to bring shutdown. Having additional shutdown Makes A/P spike and true spike less strong. It makes builds more diverse and splittable thus making Cake split less strong. It forces people to actually play the game.

Also, increase recharge on B-flash... kk"

I got some responses and this was my massive reply to them:

"So a number of people have commented on my comment regarding an Aegis revert. I figure I should probably respond to those comments with an opinion i.e. if any of you even care but whatever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by floor

I simply cannot see anet giving in and reverting aegis as much as i'd like to see it make a return. As you rightly said, it basically forces you to bring shutdown which then turns guild wars into ping based euro balance where its impossible to win off server - something im sure anet are not keen to implement.

I agree that psychologically A-Net will have a hard time accepting my philosophical views but that doesn't mean I shouldn't voice them, ya know? With regards to ping and off server players, I really don't see how Aegis makes the game based in ping. Aegis would be a 2 second, 15 energy cast, 30 sec recharge. You could have 500 ping and still get it, plus you still have mirror of disenchantment. What it forces you to do is think and keep track of time while trying to micro everything else on your bar. Interrupts like Aegis is what the mesmer was meant to do quite honestly. interrupting powerful, slow casting spells while letting the weaker faster casting spells go. If it were up to me, there wouldn't be a powerful skill in this game that had a faster casting time than one second, including WoH and RC....

Quote:

Originally Posted by floor

As a minimum, any passive defence skill introduced for monks, MUST BE IN DIVINE FAVOUR.

Actually, I was thinking an Aegis that had spec in both divine favor and prot similarly to lions comfort for the warrior (tactics and strength). Having the duration be protection and the % chance to block be based in divine favor. This weakens Aegis on Heal monks and raises it's power on the prot monk (where it is most vulnerable to P-Block). I think it balances the skill nicely. Overall, I agree with everything you said though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ErrantVenture

Reverting aegis makes for slow. stale matches. It slows down the pace of the game far more than other blocking skills because it hampers utility.

I actually completely agree with you on the premise, but not on the conclusion. You said that Aegis slows down the game and you gave a bunch of examples of why this happens. i completely agree with you. However, you said that this makes it stale. I completely disagree. Having a fast-paced game does not make for a better game. Guild Wars is based on the card game, "Magic: The Gathering". That is what makes it so fun. Is that game fast paced? Of course not. It required thinking and careful strategy. Thus too should Guild Wars. Don't get it twisted, I think the game should be active and reactive, but having melee go balls to the walls just makes monking twitchy and annoying and midline boring and brainless. Your conclusions are just simply not true. Slowing the game down a little, and making it more strategic from a micro-perspective is what the game needs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ErrantVenture

With the continual powercreep in monk skills since aegis was changed (healing burst, patient, shielding hands) and aegis revert would be a death sentence on GvG.

So let me get your argument straight. Because A-Net is implementing a powercreep bad for the game, the game should remain the way it is bad for the game. I have an idea. How about we just stop doing things that are bad for the game. Yes, that means revert Aegis and eliminate powercreep. I thought that was obvious. I know I didn't mention all of this in the original post but that's because I didn't want to write a huge giant comment like this one, thus hijacking somebody else's thread, where i would have been better off just writing my own. But obviously, A-Net should nerf 5e "on demand" monk spells that heal for 150hp.... that's just absurd.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ErrantVenture

there was a reason why passive defense skills have been systematically removed from the game since NF.

There is a reason why GvG has been systematically dying to the point where nobody is playing anymore since NF... Of course this is all moot because I'm not arguing to revert everything back to how it was in NF, but honestly, it was a lot better then than it is now. That is indisputable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Triple Melee back during the worst of the triple aegis, dual defensive anthem, ward against melee, hyper-defense web meta was the most fun I've had since 2006.

When I said, "No more triple melee" all I meant was that it wouldn't be imbalanced like today. I think it would be brought back to the center like everything else. But what I found most interresting about your comment is that you feel the same way as I do regarding the state of GvG. People keep saying that how A-Net nerfed all passive defense for a reason, but what is that reason? To make the game less fun? Like you said, GvG was most fun when? When there was some passive defense. Again, I'm not advocating for defense webs. I'm advocating for balance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still Number One

I think an Aegis revert is an interesting idea, but it won't be enough all by itself. Mesmers with disruption ability already exist and they can just drop a skill for mirror of disenchantment to deal with multiple copies of Aegis.

That is what I want. Right now mesmers aren't even in the current meta at all (outside of PI cake split which is irrelevant). No shutdown actually exists. Aegis forces (or makes it useful for) people to bring builds devoted to shutdown. We need monks to depend on midline support as well. I haven't worked out exactly how to do this but probably eliminating the "fire and forget" heals to a certain extent would do this too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still Number One

(Aegis) only seemed so powerful because it was the main focus in builds that had layer after layer of team defense.

I think that is the point. I don't want Aegis to be "so powerful". I want it to be balanced. I want it to be a skill that makes people say, "We need some form of shutdown in this team build". Right now, people don't need to consider it. Shutdown has become irrelevant."

So this is where I left off and hopefully we can get some discussion in here. I really want to see this implemented (more than anything else in the whole game) so if you like the idea, please say so and attract attention to it. If you don't like the idea, please state why an aegis revert would be bad for the game. Thanks!

melissa b · May 26, 2011, 04:09 PM // 16:09

Na, leave Aegis as is, there's enough melee hate.

/1 Star (Pass on your idea)

Brian the Gladiator · May 26, 2011, 04:38 PM // 16:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by melissa b

Na, leave Aegis as is, there's enough melee hate.

/1 Star (Pass on your idea)

The idea is to buff aegis and slightly tone down some of the non-elite, cheap, active prots (such as healing hands and guardian) as well as patient spirit. I also called for B-flash being nerfed. I don't think you really took the time to read the OP.

Wielder Of Magic · May 26, 2011, 04:44 PM // 16:44

I like the idea of reverting aegis just a bit, but I would hate to see it becoming one of those fire and forget skills.
It should promote skillfull play.
I am not sure how to do that yet, but several options are possible, tweaks to duration/recharge/energy cost, or perhaps even more/less block chance when certain condition are met/not met.

Still Number One · May 26, 2011, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wielder Of Magic

I like the idea of reverting aegis just a bit, but I would hate to see it becoming one of those fire and forget skills.
It should promote skillfull play.
I am not sure how to do that yet, but several options are possible, tweaks to duration/recharge/energy cost, or perhaps even more/less block chance when certain condition are met/not met.

The thing is, while the effect of Aegis may not seem like it, the skill actually does promote skillfull play. When Aegis was in its old form, if you couldn't get it up but the other team was chaining it, you would lose the game. It required the players to properly weapon swap and even cancel cast to try and get a Half cast in order to not get interrupted. It required the team to be extremely vocal and observant on who used Aegis when, and to count the duration and recharges to make sure you can stop the next one from getting up. It made monks think about pre-positioning themselves in order to block a rangers line of sight so they could freely get the skill off.

There was a whole lot going on just to stop one single skill from going off. So that is the whole point of the OP, to bring that style of play back. My original concern with his idea was simply that I don't think the effect an Aegis revert will have will be enough all by itself to promote this kind of play. I believe people will simply just continue playing triple melee builds and will just bring a dom mes with mirror of disenchant and instead of spending time focusing on shutting down aegis, they will just tear it off and continue facerolling. So while there will be an increase focus in shutdown a little bit, I don't see it being big enough and other changes will obviously have to come along with it.

That said, I like the idea, and was against the Aegis change in the first place.

NerfHerder · May 26, 2011, 05:33 PM // 17:33

I dont see much harm in reverting Aegis. Mirror of disenchantment is basically unlinked. And every physical profession has its own share of unblockable skills.

Skyy High · May 26, 2011, 08:37 PM // 20:37

At this point, this makes the most sense to me. Passive defenses were so boring for so long that we flung the pendulum the other way, and this is no good either.

melissa b · May 26, 2011, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

The idea is to buff aegis and slightly tone down some of the non-elite, cheap, active prots (such as healing hands and guardian) as well as patient spirit. I also called for B-flash being nerfed. I don't think you really took the time to read the OP.

Also, Aegis was if I remember correctly being abused in HA with ghostly hero and claim resources. Its been so long.

Brian the Gladiator · May 27, 2011, 12:51 AM // 00:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still Number One

The thing is, while the effect of Aegis may not seem like it, the skill actually does promote skillfull play. When Aegis was in its old form, if you couldn't get it up but the other team was chaining it, you would lose the game. It required the players to properly weapon swap and even cancel cast to try and get a Half cast in order to not get interrupted. It required the team to be extremely vocal and observant on who used Aegis when, and to count the duration and recharges to make sure you can stop the next one from getting up. It made monks think about pre-positioning themselves in order to block a rangers line of sight so they could freely get the skill off. There was a whole lot going on just to stop one single skill from going off. So that is the whole point of the OP, to bring that style of play back.

Yes. This is perfectly and eloquently stated. Thank you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still Number One

My original concern with his idea was simply that I don't think the effect an Aegis revert will have will be enough all by itself to promote this kind of play. I believe people will simply just continue playing triple melee builds and will just bring a dom mes with mirror of disenchant and instead of spending time focusing on shutting down aegis, they will just tear it off and continue facerolling. So while there will be an increase focus in shutdown a little bit, I don't see it being big enough and other changes will obviously have to come along with it.

You may be right but if you bring two copies of Aegis on each monk, then you will need 2 copies of mirror just to shut it down. Mirror and Aegis would both be 15 energy casts so it would be balanced at that point. The way you can make Aegis worth your time in shutting down is if you bring interrupts (presumably p-leak). That way you spend way less energy to shut down a skill that costs significantly more. Even if people run 3 melee with a dom mesmer, that still makes their build significantly less powerful because they lose the SoS Necro or the Apply Poison spread. I don't want triple melee to disappear. I just want it to be balanced with other builds.

Brian the Gladiator · May 29, 2011, 08:17 AM // 08:17

I was talking with a guy on the test crew regarding an Aegis revert and he had a few things to say about it.

1) They have been discussing it for a while now and they are mixed regarding those who think it is a good idea and those who do not.

2) He agreed with the reasons that were brought up in this thread of why it is a good idea to revert Aegis.

3) Those opposing the idea say that the old Aegis reduces build diversity, in so much that teams are forced to spec against that one skill. Basically, any one skill that forcibly changes the viability of an entire team build is inherently overpowered.

for that last point, I really have no defense. Is it overpowered? Yes... it is. Aegis would basically be the most powerful monk skill in the game. The only thing I could possibly respond with is that this overpowered skill promotes fun play styles that people enjoy. Every profession becomes instantly more fun to play (assuming active prots take a small hit in their efficiency).

NOTE:

What if Aegis' skill description read, "Enchantment Spell. For 5...10...11 seconds, all party members within earshot have a 50% chance to gain _____ health when hit with an attack."?

Artisan Archer · May 29, 2011, 08:34 AM // 08:34

Well, aegis was good & bad imo. The chance part inherent in the skill is really bad for competitive pvp, specially if it's so (party)-widely active. You can switch off a guardianed target, but aegis is global so you just have to roll the dice till someone gets it down.

It's good because it kept builds that are now meta in check. Three frontliners should not be a good build without sacrificing 'something' (utility, splitablity, etc), they have too much armor, making for a really strong team, even without defensive skills.

Should Aegis come back, I would definitely prefer a more party-wide shielding hands like skill then a party wide guardian, just because of the randomness in 50% block...

It can't be hard to come up with a concept that punishes melee and ranged attacks like block does but doesn't have the random factor.

Sk8tborderx · May 29, 2011, 05:02 PM // 17:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Artisan Archer

Well, aegis was good & bad imo. The chance part inherent in the skill is really bad for competitive pvp, specially if it's so (party)-widely active. You can switch off a guardianed target, but aegis is global so you just have to roll the dice till someone gets it down.

It's good because it kept builds that are now meta in check. Three frontliners should not be a good build without sacrificing 'something' (utility, splitablity, etc), they have too much armor, making for a really strong team, even without defensive skills.

Should Aegis come back, I would definitely prefer a more party-wide shielding hands like skill then a party wide guardian, just because of the randomness in 50% block...

It can't be hard to come up with a concept that punishes melee and ranged attacks like block does but doesn't have the random factor.

I like that suggestion best with the insanely high damage that casters can dish out now.

Mike Jack · May 29, 2011, 07:50 PM // 19:50

Aegis:

Enchantment Spell. Enchants all party members within earshot (5...10...11 seconds). 50% less damage from attacks.

Seems a bit overpowered too.

Coast · May 29, 2011, 07:56 PM // 19:56

would be op, its like the old incoming

Artisan Archer · May 29, 2011, 10:00 PM // 22:00

I think Aegis should only affect melee attacks and ranged physical attacks. Casters should not be affected by Aegis as it would be too effective in defensive builds.
Could probably get away with affecting only melee attacks since paragons and rangers aren't that much of an OP dmg threat atm.

Mike Jack · May 29, 2011, 10:07 PM // 22:07

Would be kind of hard to implement though. Only way I can think of it is like...

Aegis:

Enchantment Spell. Enchants all party members within earshot (insert duration). (Insert defensive buff). No effect if that party member doesn't have (an) (1 or 2?) attack skill(s).

Artisan Archer · May 29, 2011, 10:48 PM // 22:48

I ment it this way;

Enchantment Spell. Enchants all party members within earshot (insert duration). Take # (probably around 15 at max spec) less damage or life steal from melee attacks.

Another option would be to make it a melee attack only party wide prot spirit

Enchantment Spell. Enchants all party members within earshot (insert duration). Incoming melee attack damage is reduced to 10% of target ally's maximum Health.

Fun/not serious option, combined with removal of dervishes from the game;

Enchantment Spell. Enchants all party members within earshot (insert duration). Whenever target ally takes damage while knocked down, the damage is negated and hits the source for that same amount.

/notserious

Anyway yes, it very much has to be in Divine Favor. Preferably add a disables your Smiting Prayers for 20 seconds clause aswell. Facing 4 monks is not fun.

Note; coincidentally this buffs Paragons in (high-end) PvP. It might just be enough for them to see some play again. (Mirror of Disenchantment is easy to bring on a Paragon and Paragon damage is not affected by Aegis.)

tealspikes · May 29, 2011, 11:48 PM // 23:48

Have you considered making Wards viable instead of Aegis as a solution? Wards are bound to a location so they are much easier to counter implicitly (positioning, splitting, AoE), but leave enough room for direct shutdown to work wonders.

However if you're idea is to make dom mesmers a necessity, then an Aegis revert would be the better solution. As much as I love dom mesmers, I just don't think teams should be forced to bring one so they can be competitive.

Brian the Gladiator · May 30, 2011, 04:50 AM // 04:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by tealspikes

Have you considered making Wards viable instead of Aegis as a solution? Wards are bound to a location so they are much easier to counter implicitly (positioning, splitting, AoE), but leave enough room for direct shutdown to work wonders.

However if you're idea is to make dom mesmers a necessity, then an Aegis revert would be the better solution. As much as I love dom mesmers, I just don't think teams should be forced to bring one so they can be competitive.

You don't need a dom mesmer in Aegis meta. People brought Cruel Spear P/Me and a ranger to shut down chains too. All it did was force teams to bring two people with shutdown capabilities honestly.

I'm not against buffing Ward Against Melee either...

Sk8tborderx · May 30, 2011, 11:59 AM // 11:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Artisan Archer

I think Aegis should only affect melee attacks and ranged physical attacks. Casters should not be affected by Aegis as it would be too effective in defensive builds.
Could probably get away with affecting only melee attacks since paragons and rangers aren't that much of an OP dmg threat atm.

With the retarded amount of damage casters are able to put out right now, I think earshot range shielding hands would go a long way towards balancing it out a bit. If you want block then it should just go back to how it was, no reason at all to make it only affect melee.