Curse

Beverly heals · Jan 06, 2010, 06:41 AM // 06:41

this is actually wrong....

Same spirit can be up by different person, as long as they are not in compass range, well actually 1/2 the compass. and i can even prove it if you want

.
As a matter of fact, barabrian coast, where there is the Dervish boss and the Ritu boss.
A friend and I farmed them at the same time in the same team, with the exact same build.

So yeah spirit can be duplicated in less than 1/2 compass.
So they need to be changed.

Giga_Gaia · Jan 06, 2010, 06:44 AM // 06:44

AmbientMelody, your post makes no sense. I'm sorry but I can tell that you have NO idea how some of the classes work.

Rits need another buff? They're already the second most powerful class in PvE, only behind the Necro as the best of the best. Their damage and flexibility is only hindered by their sub-par primary attribute. Channeling spells have no utility? What about Splinter Weapon, Nightmare weapon, access to near infinite energy, Ancester's Rage?

Warriors are not tanks. This isn't WoW or some generic MMO. Tanking is reserved for Sins and Eles. Wars are high armored front liners packing lots of damage and shouting at party members to save themselves.

Assassins are also one of the top PvE classes, even without SF. 1234-ing mobs to death with an 80+ AoE damage chain every 2 seconds is INSANE. Sins can survive just fine with Crit Agility, shadow stepping, and their many blocking skills. Also Deadly Arts is already being heavily abused.

Rangers are fine. They can still go pew-pew-pew in PvE. Barrage is good. Pets have also been buffed. While not the strongest class, they are nowhere near the bottom either.

Elementalists do not need every attribute to be like fire magic. Otherwise what's the point in having 4 elements? Some of your suggested changes are ridiculous. Ele skills need armor penetration, not that OP stuff that doesn't even make any sense being added to many of them.

Mesmers do suck but instead of splitting functionalities for pretty much all of their skills, it's better to just reduce the recharge on the more useful ones.

Necromancers need more buffs? No... The single most powerful class in all of GW PvE do not need to be made more godlike.

Paragons have only one viable build, and it's OP as hell. There's nothing wrong with that in your eyes but three of the best classes need to be buffed even more? Whaaat??

It's also interesting to note that a Monk is the class with the highest demand. So if they have no problem finding groups, why do they need to be buffed? I dont want to see more smite noobs who cast RoJ on moving targets tyvm.

Gennadios · Jan 06, 2010, 06:47 AM // 06:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Why do people want one of the most overpowered classes (the assassin) buffed?

B/C they couldn't play one to save their lives?

Turbo Ginsu · Jan 06, 2010, 07:10 AM // 07:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gennadios

B/C they couldn't play one to save their lives?

Shhhh! You aren't supposed to point out the blatantly obvious..

upier · Jan 06, 2010, 11:56 AM // 11:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by UnChosen

I did...got spiked in Kathrandrax and several other areas. Repeated with my warrior, brought dolyak signet + signet of stamina + endure pain + defense stance, breezed through same areas with no problem, and STILL have great DPS simply by auto attacking when not using tanking skills.

The problem with sins is that they don't have their own "tanking" skills that are reliable. All of the shadow arts defense skills + shadow sanctuary ALL have some sort of ridiculous condition attached to them like being blinded, or can't attack, etc. Then there's the fact that they don't have a single survival/healing skill in their primary attribute, while warrior have EIGHT to choose from (Defy pain, Endure pain, Signet of Stamina, shield bash, Dolyak signet, lion's comfort, "I will survive!", and IWAY)

Therefore wars can spec some sort of self defense without any extra investment, but if sins want to do the same they have to spec in a rather useless attribute. Instead of relying on critical agility, why don't I just use a Dagger WARRIOR instead using warrior's endurance and spamming jagged strike, fox fang, and death blossom. Then I can also bring along some superb self defense (and give monks a break), and a self heal. In exchange I only lose a tiny bit of damage, big whoop. All the damage lost would be counteracted by having armor penetration from strength instead of the far more useless critical strike in HM (higher level monsters = less chance of crit).

Its the same thing with dervishes...their defense skills require them to spread their stats into a 3rd stat. Hence the popularity of Scythe WARS instead. With warrior's endurance people realize that a class that has quite decent self defense while only needing to spec into two stats, has inherently higher armor, and infinite energy is by far superior.

The funny thing is...Anet is thinking of buffing tactics, as if warriors need any more help.

Stop bringing crappy support characters.

Tenebrae · Jan 06, 2010, 12:05 PM // 12:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turbo Ginsu

Shhhh! You aren't supposed to point out the blatantly obvious..

For some reason it isnt so obvious for some ppl ..... i guess those ppl used a sin for non-farming purposes about .... 20 mins or less ? :/

tealspikes · Jan 06, 2010, 07:58 PM // 19:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

A part of the problem is theme vs application. The inspiration of a class is based upon its perception, nor are we interested in changing our interpretations of the classes/names. Each class has a definition in the mind of the beholder that is based upon the history and language they speak.

Assassins = quick strike and escape - instead they are tanks.
Dervish = who knows what they were meant to be - instead Mid East monastics that wear a dress and dance badly. But hey, their skills work great for everyone else.
Elementalists = Mass artillery and flashy effects - instead they are better trappers and healers.
Mesmers = Illusionists and Mind Messers - Interrupters and degen, with little to show for it.
Monks = healers and undead smiters - functional but not superior.
Necromancers = MMs and nasty stuff - Hey! We got one that works.
Paragons = Front line and party support - instead skill bars dependent on other classes and very limited buffing/nerfing ability using their own skills.
Rangers = harriers and medium artillery - instead tanks and interupters.
Ritualists = spirit summoners and healers - We got another one working.
Warriors = Hold the line combatants - instead they are temperary meat shields accompanying summoned things.

Perhaps the classes don't need buffed per se. Maybe they just need to be able to function equitably according to what they are supposed to do. But they don't. Further, All elite players are only going to be interested in Dmg per Sec and Dmg Reduc/Prevent per Sec. So the fact will remain that unless every class can pump it out or shut it down the elite areas of the game will remain off limits to anyone not carrying one of the best 5-7 current, not yet nerfed to pieces, skill bars for DpS and DR/PpS in the game. This has always been a problem in GW used to exclude anyone who would be creative or attempt to express any kind of RP. (Which is why GW ceased years ago to be an MMORPG and became a bean counting farmland MMOG.) And frankly, it isn't the HH that elimianted interest in PUGing, it was shifting the game to being 75% farming in order to accomplish anything.

THIS.

Tweak the game to make these different styles of play more viable rather than homogenizing the classes around pure DPS or healing. For example if you favor damage spam or powerful nukes you shouldn't be playing a mesmer in the first place.

Also, should the game be balanced more for NM or HM?

drkn · Jan 06, 2010, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Quote:

Monks = healers and undead smiters - functional but not superior.

so how would you buff monks not to overbuff them now?

upier · Jan 06, 2010, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

so how would you buff monks not to overbuff them now?

Trash SR and ER?

reaper with no name · Jan 07, 2010, 06:00 AM // 06:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beverly heals

this is actually wrong....

Same spirit can be up by different person, as long as they are not in compass range, well actually 1/2 the compass. and i can even prove it if you want

.
As a matter of fact, barabrian coast, where there is the Dervish boss and the Ritu boss.
A friend and I farmed them at the same time in the same team, with the exact same build.

So yeah spirit can be duplicated in less than 1/2 compass.
So they need to be changed.

By the time you run far enough to get out of spirit range (the range at which the rule applies), the battle will probably be over.

For practical purposes, you can only have one spirit spammer at a time.

Shriketalon · Jan 07, 2010, 04:08 PM // 16:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

A part of the problem is theme vs application. The inspiration of a class is based upon its perception, nor are we interested in changing our interpretations of the classes/names. Each class has a definition in the mind of the beholder that is based upon the history and language they speak.[LIST=1]
Assassins = quick strike and escape - instead they are tanks.
Dervish = who knows what they were meant to be - instead Mid East monastics that wear a dress and dance badly. But hey, their skills work great for everyone else.
Elementalists = Mass artillery and flashy effects - instead they are better trappers and healers.
Mesmers = Illusionists and Mind Messers - Interrupters and degen, with little to show for it.
Monks = healers and undead smiters - functional but not superior.
Necromancers = MMs and nasty stuff - Hey! We got one that works.
Paragons = Front line and party support - instead skill bars dependent on other classes and very limited buffing/nerfing ability using their own skills.
Rangers = harriers and medium artillery - instead tanks and interupters.
Ritualists = spirit summoners and healers - We got another one working.
Warriors = Hold the line combatants - instead they are temperary meat shields accompanying summoned things.

This, right here, is right on the money. Classes need tweaks that let them Do Their Job. This can help the game tremendously, and not just for players.

Remember when the ritualist update came out? Aside from the chorus of cheers from everyone who actually played a rit, there was another effect, one that was mighty interesting.

Rit monsters got tougher.

Not dramatically so, but still noticeable. Spiritspeak, the dredge with Signet of Binding, actually became a fair combatant (not ridiculously or anything, but he held his own). Mobs with rits in them suddenly had spirits popping up more often, causing more trouble. The entire game adjusted itself, just a little bit, because suddenly PvE ritualist skills worked better for EVERYONE, monsters included.

If we want to change PvE and make it less of a DPS/HPS/Tank, we need to change the entire thing, not just the human side. Monsters actually have to perform their jobs; people should care about shutting down that artillery, or taking out that one mesmer who is shutting things down and making a mess, or snaring that skirmisher to prevent him from tap dancing all over the monk. Part of that might be AI, but a major portion of it is simply skills. They have to work, and they have to work effectively.

Tweaks aren't good enough, because the number of monsters using the tweaked skills are rather low. The larger scale balances are the ones that actually improve the overall scope of PvE because they change and improve the roles that many monsters occupy.

drkn · Jan 07, 2010, 04:13 PM // 16:13

stronger monsters = harder gameplay, what is good. alongside with buffs to classes, the monsters get buffed, so we can say that the difficulty is similar in the outcome. still, i prefer to have stronger mobs out there but i'd like to be able to do something else than wanding while playing my mes.

Skye Marin · Jan 08, 2010, 04:22 AM // 04:22

Mesmers need the most love, Paragons could use another build or two, and I feel Rangers could use an extra skill buff or two to help sustain pew-pew a bit better.

Mesmer love is simple. Three main PvE changes:

1) Do great mesmer only damage:

Aneurysm - Increase damage to 0..10, max 150
Mind Wrack - Hexes adjacent foes, also triggers damage if a foe is interrupted while using a skill.
Price of Pride - Also causes 30..120 damage.
Visions of Regret - Lower recharge to 10, revert to old functionality.

2) Strong team buffs via inspiration:

Energy Tap / Drain - Gives up to 0..4 allies in earshot energy equal to 10..50% of that stolen.
Channeling - Also, if you interrupt a foe's skill with a Mesmer spell, all allies in earshot gain 0..8 energy.
Lyssa's Aura - Also, spells for allies in earshot cost 5..15% less energy.

3) Some fast-cast buffs

Arcane Languor - Also causes dazed for 1..6 seconds whenever target foe casts a spell.
Stolen Speed - Changed to 1/4 cast. Interrupt target foe. If you interrupt a spell, that foe casts spells 100..300% longer for 5..20 seconds.

Paragons are little simpler, more focus on party-wide damage than defense:

Anthem of Envy - For 10 seconds, the next time each party member uses a skill against a foe with more health than that party member, that foe takes 2..50 damage.
"Find Their Weakness!" - Gives target ally +5..20 damage to attacks for 5..20 seconds, and critical strikes cause Deep Wound for 5..10 seconds. Cannot self-target. Lower recharge to 5.

Cuilan · Jan 08, 2010, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skye Marin

Aneurysm - Increase damage to 0..10, max 150

Not too bad. It's not like you're rolling over enemies like assassins and warriors, but still nice since you can use the skill better with Energy Surge (less energy regain required) and skills people might actually use.

One thing that should be better considered is the skill of the players. May have said this before, but one mesmer may get around the retarded idiotic recharge times better than others. Does that mean Anet should cater to those who are less experienced or those who exploit areas of the game?

People keep mentioning how great increasing your attack rate is for melee, but then casting faster means...you're doing less...or something. My guess the recharge and poor energy management is someone's way of keeping mesmers balanced. Fast casting is pointless with AP bars that near endlessly keep Mindbender up.

ForgottenAccount · Jan 09, 2010, 10:29 AM // 10:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skye Marin

2) Strong team buffs via inspiration:

Energy Tap / Drain - Gives up to 0..4 allies in earshot energy equal to 10..50% of that stolen.
Channeling - Also, if you interrupt a foe's skill with a Mesmer spell, all allies in earshot gain 0..8 energy.
Lyssa's Aura - Also, spells for allies in earshot cost 5..15% less energy.

Kind of interesting you mention this, as one of the primary reasons my first character was a Mesmer was because they were described as having team-supportive abilities via the Inspiration line. As it turns out, the Inspiration line is more like "Mesmer energy management" than "Team Support." Kind of a shame, as I actually enjoy playing support roles. I view improving that aspect of the Mesmer as kind of secondary though. At this stage in the game I don't really hope for anything more than a few damage buffs, even though the class really kind of needs a total reworking.

maxxfury · Jan 10, 2010, 12:07 AM // 00:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

One thing that should be better considered is the skill of the players. May have said this before, but one mesmer may get around the retarded idiotic recharge times better than others. Does that mean Anet should cater to those who are less experienced or those who exploit areas of the game?

Fast casting is pointless with AP bars that near endlessly keep Mindbender up.

Deffo cut the nerfed recharge times down!! And for inspiration buff the effects and link the ones that would be OP on a secendary to fc or increase the cast times of them to prevent abuse. Thing like Esurge, revert the Aoe and cut the recharge, spiritual pain revert the Aoe but leave the recharge, revert Vor for pve, give inept a damage nerf but add a clumsiness style aoe, simple stuff

thats not too op for a mes or the mobs you face.

Better skills to take than mindbender for an APmes...ymlad!, evas, fh!, technobabble all out do mindbender. Also you can easily keep it up 100% for what ever reason you did bring it over the better options in the first place. If your not gettin a proc every few seconds then your doin it wrong.

used to love running ap as my elite back in the old days pre=pve skills too

EternalTempest · Jan 11, 2010, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Ele's... suppose to be one of the strongest dmg dealers, not the case.

Zahr Dalsk · Jan 11, 2010, 10:20 PM // 22:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Giga_Gaia

Rits need another buff? They're already the second most powerful class in PvE, only behind the Necro as the best of the best.

>necro
>best class

>ritualist
>second best class

You best be trollin'.

Shriketalon · Jan 11, 2010, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Another way to approach things that need buffing are concepts that don't work.

-Energy Loss, a prime Mesmer schtick, is useless against monsters, especially in hard mode. It needs a complete rework.

-Snaring isn't very important due to monster AI (they don't run much, nor do they slip around the frontline). Attributes that focus on it (okay, we all know I'm talking about Water) need to shift a bit, or have a condition alongside snaring.

-Shadow Stepping is hampered by absurd targeting (can we merge "to target foe", "to target ally", and the ridiculous "to target summon/spirit" into a simple and elegant "to target" already?) and lousy recharge times, prohibiting hit and run tactics.

-The 1 preparation, 1 stance cap is hampering the Ranger. The cap should stay, but a lot of his buff skills, especially in the Expertise line should be shifted to Skills so they can work alongside his dodging/IAS/condition preps, rather than negating them.

-A lot of Single Target Attack skills just....fail. When people say the Ranger and Assassin are doing fine, for example, they point to Barrage or Death Blossom, AoE skills. All the normal attacks like Arcing Shot or Jagged Strike are simply not worth the slot. They either need a simple boost or additional effects, hopefully contingent on prime attributes, to make them worthwhile.

Etc.

Zahr Dalsk · Jan 11, 2010, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shriketalon

All the normal attacks like Arcing Shot or Jagged Strike are simply not worth the slot.

Every class has a massive pile of skills that are seldom worth taking.

They serve four purposes.

1 - To give new players skills to experiment with and learn.
2 - To maintain vast diversity in Guild Wars, such that even a rarely used skill can sometimes come in handy for an unconventional build.
3 - In some cases, they're there so when someone pings a build and that skill is in it, we know to immediately kick that person.
4 - Hostile NPC bars.