Curse

Epinephrine · Apr 07, 2007, 04:38 AM // 04:38

Speed buffs are in poor shape at the moment, ranging from very good to useless. Among the top contenders in the "useless" category would be Run as One - it provides only a 25% speed boost with no other benefit, lasts 5..13 seconds (with 25 second recharge) and is in an unflattering attribute to begin with. Contrast this with a stance like Dash, which requires no attribute investment at all and provides more speed - to catch up with Dash over a long haul you'd need a 21 Beast mastery. Another dedicated speed buff stance (speed and nothing else) is Sprint, which provides 8..13 seconds of speed, with a 20 second recharge. This clearly falls behind Dash - despite again being a dedicated running skill with an attribute tied to it. Sprint is a bit better off, thanks in part to its higher base duration and shorter recharge - it only requires a 17 Strength to maintain the same average speed as Dash provides. Even Sprint with no points in strength is as fast as Run as One with 8 levels of Beastmastery.

Worse in a way are the dual purpose speed buffs - I'll stick with stances for the moment, for comparison.

Enraging Charge and Harrier's Haste, as well as Dark Escape for example provide similar durations and ahave similar costs - all are 5..13 second stances with 25% speed buff, costing 5 energy. Dark Escape is actually a tiny bit slower overall, with a 30 second recharge, but has a powerful effect of halving all incoming damge - while the other two are strictly superior to Run as One, having lower recharge times (and thus higher speed) as well as providing either an adrenaline bonus or a damage bonus.

Enchantments are in another league entirely, providing great speeds, much higher than stances can reach, as well as useful effects such as armour, doubling as a damage spell, halving the duration of conditions or other benefits.

I feel that the orignal speed buffs (dodge, sprint and so on) fall far short of the new standards, and that even newer skills like Run as One are hopelessly ineffective. Dash is a very nice skill as is and I'd hate to see it nerfed - it does what it does at a price energy-wise, and provides a reasonable degree of speed for getting around - it's a nice level to shoot for, though perhaps a bit over powered at an 18.75% average speed increase for no investment.

Skills that require investment should provide generally larger benefits, while skills with substantial side benefits (such as bonus damage, doubling as a PBAoE fire spell or the like) should generally be less effective than those designed simply for speed. The elementalist speed buffs in particular seem ludicrously fast compared to what can be achieved by the other classes.

Is this the most important issue out there? No, certainly not - but it is as good a place as any to start looking critically at balancing a class of skills. Don't even get me started on snares - how pathetic is it that illusion mesmers are worse at snaring than water elementalists, assassins and so on? I mean Shared Burden just got a buff, and it's still worse than a Deep Freeze, having a longer recharge, less speed reduction, longer recharge, smaller area of effect, doesn't deal damage and using up your elite slot - granted, it costs a little less, but if your elite slot were free you wouldn't care anyway. Anyway, speed buffs are important, they are involved in tactics and movement, the flag race as well as general stuff like PvE (whether it's getting away from enemies, getting to a new town or whatever) and it's a simpler topic than many others. Show us that you can handle it, ANet - balance the run skills for a start, then tackle the next category, rather than taking hodge-podge shots at the skill listings.

Realm of Fiery Doom · Apr 07, 2007, 11:24 AM // 11:24

I resign.

Tis true. I have seen the error of my ways.

(I was negative and started going on about enchantment stripping because it took me ages to run my little brother to eetletun and Bergen Hot Springs with all of the Caromi Tengu Wilds stripping my Illusion of Haste and my Armor of Mist, and also because Burning Speed sticks in my mind as one of the worst skills I have ever used. I have even made a topic about it, and also noted Flame Djinn's Haste's overpoweredness : http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?p=2693058.)

I shalt take no further action in thine honourable thread, dear Epinephrine. May you fare well.

Wilt thou forgive me?

Diddy bow · Apr 07, 2007, 11:34 AM // 11:34

run as one boosts your pet i suppose

And sprint is a much better chase skill than dash, in pvp you can chase with sprint and get off lots of attacks and mabay only one or two with dash(untill it needs to be reacivated which is heavy on a warr energy)

Evilsod · Apr 07, 2007, 11:39 AM // 11:39

Its sorta irrelevant that Dodge/Zojuns/Escape can be kept up permanently. It takes 3 skills slots AND your elite slot to do so. Specially considering that Escape/Dodge alone could give you 29seconds of 30 with a speed/evasion boost.

Dash is more to catch up to people, hence the 50%. Catch up and hit em with a cripple or hex, spamming it costs alot of energy.

Pious Haste... is stupid. Fair enough it removes an enchantment when it ends but its a CONSTANT 33% running skill no matter what your primary is. It also activates the helpful part of Watchful Spirit and Vital Boon instantly. A completely useless skill to a Dervish mid-battle, since going /A and taking Dash is more useful. For running in general its extremely overpowered.

Tbh though the 1 that really needs balancing is Avatar of Balthazaar. A max of 95 seconds of 33% and +40 armour. It really should be nerfed to 25%, 33% is just too strong, nothing can escape it without a snare. Then again its almost useless in PvP so...

Lydz · Apr 07, 2007, 11:39 AM // 11:39

Erm...the elemental speed buffs kinda suck. The only good one is Flame Djinn's (if that's how you spell it) Haste. Burning Speed and Windborne Speed are kind of useless because they take time to cast, in which you'll probably be killed or caught up to before you can get anywhere...

Sk8tborderx · Apr 07, 2007, 11:39 AM // 11:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Realm of Fiery Doom

[skill]Burning Speed[/skill]

Agreed. You like being set on fire?

The fact is, all of the elementalist speed buffs are enchantments.That means that they are easily strippable and take time to cast.

Very few skills can get you out of a stance (Wild Blow is the only one I can think of right now) and stances can be activated on the fly. Escape-Dodge-Zojun's Haste gives a constant speed boost + constant chance to dodge projectiles, and sometimes a chance to dodge melee attacks as well. With enough points in Expertise which is all you need for these skills, they can be kept up indefinetly. The closest I, as an elementalist, can come to that is by using Arcane Echo-Armor of Mist-Echoed Armor of Mist-Arcane Echo-Armor of Mist etc, and is a very poor option at that with Armor of Mist and Arcane Echo both having a 2 second cast time.

I rest my case.

[skill]Wild Blow[/skill]
[skill]Escape[/skill][skill]Dodge[/skill][skill]Zojun's Haste[/skill]
[skill]Armor of Mist[/skill][skill]Arcane Echo[/skill]

I have yet to get stripped of any enchantment speed buffs while flag running, so that is not really a good argument, the same can be said about your ranger setup, who would ever waste their elite for a speed buff? On top of that, you have 2 other speed buffs, and add rez sig to that, so now you are only left with 4 skills to do any damage, which gimps your character.

The examples you listed are not likely to be used since there are much better options out there, and I agree with the OP, the speed buffs need to get looked at because there are imbalanced with them right now.

Quote:

Erm...the elemental speed buffs kinda suck. The only good one is Flame Djinn's (if that's how you spell it) Haste. Burning Speed and Windborne Speed are kind of useless because they take time to cast, in which you'll probably be killed or caught up to before you can get anywhere...

Storm Djinns haste is a great speed buff for flag runners, the only downside is that you lose 1 energy a second while moving, which you more than make up for from natural energy regen.

Epinephrine · Apr 07, 2007, 11:52 AM // 11:52

Obviously somebody doesn't understand what "fast" is. Try the Flame Djinn's Haste for example if you don't like being set on fire.

at 33% speed boost it's faster than most stances, and in fact because it can be maintained easily (10 second recharge, duration of up to 21 seconds at 16 Fire, 25 seconds with an enchantment wrapping, doubles as a PBAoE attack with no PBAoE after cast.

A skill like Sprint, maxed out (which you won't see, since Strength isn't a good choice to max out anyway) provides its speed boost 70% of the time, giving an overall speed boost of 17.5% bonus speed.

Flame Djinn's Haste gives nearly full time coverage (you have to stop to cast and after cast, so 25/26.5 seconds at max with enchanting boost) giving 31% overall speed boost - that's a huge difference - and the attribute line is better.

In addition, since you want to bring up silly points like stance activation time and such, you can only have one stance at a time, while you can stack enchants as much as you want. And the bonuses with a skill like Flame Djinn's Haste are insane - it's a full fledged PBAoE skill while ALSO being a better speed buff than the best dedicated stances. And as Sk8teborderx mentions, it's unlikely that your speed buff enchant is getting stripped in an environment like GvG as a flag runner (where it actually matters - I don't care a bit about running a bit slower from Charr in PvE, it's inconsequential).

Fact is that speed buffs need to be looked at, regardless if clueless elementalists think they do. And new stances that provide speed and additional effects are simply much stronger than their old counterparts (think Natural Stride, Whirling Charge, Enraged Charge and so on).

TheOneMephisto · Apr 08, 2007, 09:58 PM // 21:58

Balance things based on how they should be balanced, not based on their shitty counterparts.

That being said, most of the better speedbuffs are pretty balanced, if they want to buff some of the weaker ones, go ahead, but dual-purpose ones are almost always going to be used more simply because versatility is king.

Epinephrine · Apr 11, 2007, 01:37 PM // 13:37

Agreed - they just nerfed Natural Stride a bit, which given its dual purpose makes some sense (though I'm sad, it's got major weaknesses in that a hex or enchant ends it, so I don't see it as necessary) but given that many of the newer skills can maintain 100% coverage either the old ones need a buff or the new ones need a nerf.