Curse

I Angra I · Sep 25, 2009, 05:18 PM // 17:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Revelations

Not entirely sure I agree with this. A couple of years ago there was a very distinguished line between a good bsurge and a bad one.

Now you can just throw one of your baddies on the bsurge and watch him happyspam his way through a match. Ele's have so much energy management now that without dom in the meta you can afford to spam on recharge, and what's more - you get good results for it.

OT: I would like to see some sort of passive defense back in the meta - it made it actually fun to play the game on a disruption oriented template, rather than just mashing your tab and savage keys. Part of the balanced stance problem that no one has really mentioned is enraging charge. I don't think you can just kill balanced at this stage without toning that down a decent amount also.

Bsurges are definitely still powerful, but on their own they just aren't enough without something else like stances or aegis or other passive defense.

Against a competent team, on a lot of spikes called, the warriors will be cleaned right on time because of an easily spammed life sheath or RC. Most of the time even with a well timed bsurge, LS will just mop it up half a second after it's applied and the warrior won't miss his adrenaline skills often. It'll prevent some spikes, sure, but not nearly enough to solely rely on it as the only defense.

Also you have to consider things like rend, rip, drain enchant, etc being used on eles all game. It really does severely hurt on energy when you're getting your attunement/aura stripped all the time.

lutz · Sep 25, 2009, 07:45 PM // 19:45

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Originally Posted by Kaon

I don't understand what makes you say it's up 50% of the time. It isn't. In reality it's up like 30% of the time, but as scruffy mentioned, it's effectively up 80% of the time.

I hope you're not RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing serious with your switching target argument because that is direct proof of the stance being overpowered. A 5energy instant use always up skill that forces me to switch targets? Very balanced indeed. For your information lutz, hitting anything but the monk is completely pointless because it will just receive easy prots and heal. Yes it's possible to spike something out while the monk is knocked down, but that's precisly the goddamn problem. YOU CANT. Then there are the countless situations where the monk is the only character you want to kill, like when you're collapsing from a split. Seeing the monk holding up for 30seconds against a 6-7 offensive team is just a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing joke.

If this makes you say that actually RC, superprots, and WoH are the problem because they force us to hit the monks and the monks only, then you are completely right. They are the most overpowered skills in the game.

Oh, okay, so 50% is actually 80%. I mean, shit, teams should just bring Ward Against Melee then. At 9 Earth Spec it is up 14 seconds out of 30. This argument that "50% is really 80%" is absolutely absurd. Stop bringing it up, it makes you lose credibility (well, whatever is left of it anyway).

If you're collapsing and a single monk is holding up for 30 seconds against a 6-7 man offensive team, it's probably not because of the stance, but rather the fact that you have no enchantment removal. Or it could be that you're just terrible and not coordinating anything correctly.

And no, Balanced Stance doesn't make you invincible.
(well, unless you're against a Wastrel's Collapse sin. Then you get to just sit and laugh.)

urania · Sep 25, 2009, 09:16 PM // 21:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Rend, Strip, Rip, Drain are the most popular, Shatter and PoD still see a decent amount of play too.

The difference between stance removal and enchantment removal is that the former more or less defines your character build and is a hard counter that isn't very versatile whereas the latter is something you bring regardless because of the broad range of enchantments that see play it will always be useful.

so i suppose stances need to become as widely used as enchantments to make stance removal more versatile?

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Viewable? I assume you mean viable, I've never seen a Primal Rage warrior with Wild Blow, maybe it's how TA warriors choose to gimp their bars, in GvG however you'll have to cancel your Primal Rage before using Wild Blow or you'll simply get spiked without being able to cancel it, not to mention losing DChop/Agonising and having another energy skill with only 2 pips to fuel them.

I don't really care much about TA, apparently neither does Anet, you've got your Dolyak Signet to deal with knockdowns anyway, nerfing Balanced Stance wouldn't really make much of a difference for TA.

well, i can say from experience that prage with wild blow is the bane of lightning reflex rangers. And they still use both, d chop and agonizing.

On a side note, I don't rly TA anymore, unless my RA team makes it into TA.

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Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Or you could deal with Primal Rage and Balanced Stance simultaeniously by nerfing both, no one in their right mind would defend Primal Rage to begin with and the nerf to it did very little to it's viability.

that would be too good to be true.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Wastrel's Collapse fair enough, I don't like the skill but as long as you keep a guardian or prot on you while in range of the sin and renew it before it runs out you should be relatively safe. It's not like the sin can actually pressure in between Wastrel's Collapses.

Death's Charge hammer warriors shouldn't really give you any problems, with the aftercasts to teleports it's quite easy to kite away and/or prot yourself before their attack actually hits.

isnt there 1 teleport that still has no after cast? i dont remember its name, but ithink they forgot to nerf it along with the rest.

anyhow, telling me to chain guardian and burn 5 energy every 6-7 seconds to prevent a _possible_ spike is rather weak. I'd be low on energy after 30 s.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Patient is a different issue, it heals too much and the alternatives are actually underpowered (not just in comparison), tone it down and buff skills like Dwayna's Kiss, Words of Comfort and possibly even Orison of Healing (to heal more, leave them at 1c).

one of the reasons why heal prayers spells werent used much in the past was also because if its dreadfully long cast times. u can powerblock (or disrupt in whatever way) a 1 s cast orison or dwayna's kiss blindfolded, unless they receive a fast cast.
kill patient and woh and there go 3/4 of the reasons for running only 2 healers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

How is this such a bad thing? Just make sure said forms of defense are actually counterable and there's no problem, wards and aegis were, after a few adjustments, perfectly fine skills. It's things like Watch Yourself, Shields Up, Partygon skills (mending refrain is), Stand Your Ground, old PwK that were a problem.

are you sure u wanna play vs a quadruple healer/defensive character team again?

it will be even harder to disrupt and create windows of opportunity, because defense will be scattered over more characters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

How does Shadowstepping relate in any way to stances? Wastrel's Collapse aside, how are any of the shadow stepping skills even problematic atm? Primal Rage is broken, this is obvious to everyone that isn't employed by Anet or a member of rawr, what 'similar' skills are you referring to? Cause that's really pretty much it.

scorpion wire is a pretty neat non-elite alternative to wastrels collapse, along with the aforementioned shadow step that avoided the nerf (unless they fixed it later on..)
maybe even augury of death? but if that one triggers ure very likely dead already anyway.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Sep 25, 2009, 09:43 PM // 21:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

Oh, okay, so 50% is actually 80%. I mean, shit, teams should just bring Ward Against Melee then. At 9 Earth Spec it is up 14 seconds out of 30. This argument that "50% is really 80%" is absolutely absurd. Stop bringing it up, it makes you lose credibility (well, whatever is left of it anyway).

It's 11 seconds at 9 earth spec, learn to pvp version.

Also you use the skills completely differently, BStance you use when needed, Ward you use as much as possible (if melee chars are present ofc).

80% is a very random number not really based on anything but fact is that if you attack a monk with BStance, it's very likely to be either up or ready to be used, monks don't start battles off with activating it like people did with Wards/Aegis.

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If you're collapsing and a single monk is holding up for 30 seconds against a 6-7 man offensive team, it's probably not because of the stance, but rather the fact that you have no enchantment removal. Or it could be that you're just terrible and not coordinating anything correctly.

Again, 30 seconds is an exaggaration, the fact that a single monk without defensive backup can survive for any length of time vs 3+ offensive characters is simply ludicrous, Balanced Stance is a part of the issue here (the most likely to get adressed) but the real problems are the strength of skills like WoH, Patient Spirit and the spammability of Guardian (the latter would be less problematic if the former two were dealt with).

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

so i suppose stances need to become as widely used as enchantments to make stance removal more versatile?

No, stances shouldn't be balanced around stance removal to begin with, both are stronger than they should be and stances more so than stance removal.

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well, i can say from experience that prage with wild blow is the bane of lightning reflex rangers. And they still use both, d chop and agonizing.

So what bars do these PRage warriors play then? I don't actually see how PRage is so problematic in a 4v4 setting as movement plays a lot smaller role than it does in GvG.

Wild Blow or not no Primal Rage warrior is gonna get anywhere near harming a dual stance ranger by himself, not unless the ranger screws up big time at least.

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On a side note, I don't rly TA anymore, unless my RA team makes it into TA.

So you base your arguments on your RA experiences instead? No offense but this isn't helping your credibility.

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isnt there 1 teleport that still has no after cast? i dont remember its name, but ithink they forgot to nerf it along with the rest.

Shadow Walk, outside of Shove spike it is completely unviable though.

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anyhow, telling me to chain guardian and burn 5 energy every 6-7 seconds to prevent a _possible_ spike is rather weak. I'd be low on energy after 30 s.

From all the pressure of an assassin not doing anything? Or getting half his chain through maybe?

Obviously you wouldn't do this vs a team that actually tries to pressure, fortunately those usually don't involve assassins.

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one of the reasons why heal prayers spells werent used much in the past was also because if its dreadfully long cast times. u can powerblock (or disrupt in whatever way) a 1 s cast orison or dwayna's kiss blindfolded, unless they receive a fast cast.
kill patient and woh and there go 3/4 of the reasons for running only 2 healers.

Power Block can be toned down once most of the power creep gets adressed, getting interrupted doesn't have to be a problem, besides, both monks run guardians and 1s hex removal skills anyway, Aegis was even a 2s cast and plenty of people ran it.

The interrupt thing is really exaggarated, the only interrupt that really screws you over badly is PBlock, repeated DShots can too but well, there are plenty of things you can do to avoid this.

Lord Damage aside (a problem on it's own) good luck scoring any kills with more than 2 monks.

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are you sure u wanna play vs a quadruple healer/defensive character team again?

If powerful, spammable, hard to shut down skills like WoH and Patient Spirit disappear, I'd be happy to.

You really overestimate the effectiveness of defensive builds when they can't cleanspike every 8 seconds.

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it will be even harder to disrupt and create windows of opportunity, because defense will be scattered over more characters.

It was doable before when a lot more defense was in play, the main reason it worked then was VoD (ask your guildies about it).

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scorpion wire is a pretty neat non-elite alternative to wastrels collapse, along with the aforementioned shadow step that avoided the nerf (unless they fixed it later on..)
maybe even augury of death? but if that one triggers ure very likely dead already anyway.

Well Augury of Death is problematic for other reasons than the shadow step (it's completely unreliable as shadow step), and how exactly is Scorpion Wire a problem? You can simply follow the user of it so he won't make the required distance, remove the hex or pre-prot yourself if you know the KD is coming (it's pretty well telegraphed after all).

urania · Sep 25, 2009, 11:00 PM // 23:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

So you base your arguments on your RA experiences instead? No offense but this isn't helping your credibility.

oh yeah, cuz ra is such a high-end place, you know. those wammos are srs business.
and cuz 3+years of TA exp cannot compare to a few minutes per week in RA.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Power Block can be toned down once most of the power creep gets adressed, getting interrupted doesn't have to be a problem, besides, both monks run guardians and 1s hex removal skills anyway, Aegis was even a 2s cast and plenty of people ran it.

The interrupt thing is really exaggarated, the only interrupt that really screws you over badly is PBlock, repeated DShots can too but well, there are plenty of things you can do to avoid this.

If powerful, spammable, hard to shut down skills like WoH and Patient Spirit disappear, I'd be happy to.

repeated pleak and plock are not harmless either.
do u think anyone would run patient if it had 1 s cast time?
or even 3/4.

on a side note, with all honesty, you know its a fairly Utopian dream to believe they will hit exactly prage, pblock, flail along with woh, patient and bstance.

but im always up for keeping the discussion going, its a good time killer sometimes.

Kaon · Sep 26, 2009, 01:05 AM // 01:05

Now on to something else here. I'm going to make a bold statement. A lot of people here agree with the balanced stance nerf but say aegis and ward need to go back. This train of thought is definately not wrong and I agree with some part. But please explain to me this:

What's wrong with balance stance being nerfed and aegis/ward not being buffed. Monks would possibly blow up (i dont think so because of return/dark escape). But what would be wrong with that. I doubt it will make the game less skillfull or less fun. Please explain your reasoning.

scruffy · Sep 26, 2009, 01:10 AM // 01:10

i only think ward should be buffed because its an interesting skill that got nerfed for reasons that arent an issue anymore

edit: yes 80% is just an arbitrary number I made up to explain that balanced stance is in essence available more than 50% of the time. If you read my first post you will see that I said some characters need faster recharging stances than others do, and the ones that don't can afford the longer duration stances despite the longer recharge. the prot monk gets knocked down more than other characters so of course it makes sense that balanced stance isn't 100% coverage for him, but for every other character on the team who carries it and gets knocked down less than or equal to once per 30 seconds, it's effectively 100% coverage. This also applies for split situation where 15 seconds of coverage is often all you need to get to a safer position, and for pressure situations where 15 seconds is all you need to recover.

lutz · Sep 26, 2009, 01:20 AM // 01:20

Quote:

Now on to something else here. I'm going to make a bold statement. A lot of people here agree with the balanced stance nerf but say aegis and ward need to go back. This train of thought is definately not wrong and I agree with some part. But please explain to me this:

What's wrong with balance stance being nerfed and aegis/ward not being buffed. Monks would possibly blow up (i dont think so because of return/dark escape). But what would be wrong with that. I doubt it will make the game less skillfull or less fun. Please explain your reasoning.

If you want to discuss that "Balanced Stance is up around 80% of the time or has almost no downtime", please go talk to a mirror because it seems like you don't offer any arguments outside of "I'm right, shut up". Everything you've stated is a literal repetition of your previous (nonsensical) statements. If it takes 15 seconds to build up adrenaline, go knock someone else down, build up your adrenaline, and come back 15 seconds later. Of course, your rebuttal will be "he'll just Guardian himself", which has no relevance to this discussion whatsoever. I mean, Ward Melee has a 10 second uptime. After that ends, the monk will just Guardian himself for 20 seconds and they just can not be beat!

"Monks would possibly blow up" leads to more midline defense so they don't blow up. Cool, let's all go back to super defensive builds and defense fortresses that have just enough offense to spike 600 damage, and that's about it. The concept is game balance, not game aggressiveness. There will always be a counter to aggressiveness, but if you have game balance, you won't get all this defense fortress nonsense. Monks need to fulfill a role of being able to keep a decent team up and not explode within minutes of engagement (unless you're both running some kind of hyperoffensive build).

Greedy Gus · Sep 26, 2009, 05:19 AM // 05:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

"Monks would possibly blow up" leads to more midline defense so they don't blow up. Cool, let's all go back to super defensive builds and defense fortresses that have just enough offense to spike 600 damage, and that's about it.

Decreased defense efficacy -> leads to increases elsewhere to make up for the loss, reaching the previous equilibrium defense efficacy -> results in super defensive gameplay? Better check that logic.

Apok Omen · Sep 26, 2009, 05:19 AM // 05:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

"Monks would possibly blow up" leads to more midline defense so they don't blow up. Cool, let's all go back to super defensive builds and defense fortresses that have just enough offense to spike 600 damage, and that's about it. The concept is game balance, not game aggressiveness. There will always be a counter to aggressiveness, but if you have game balance, you won't get all this defense fortress nonsense. Monks need to fulfill a role of being able to keep a decent team up and not explode within minutes of engagement (unless you're both running some kind of hyperoffensive build).

Hey Kaon, why are you still discussing balance on a game you don't play anymore?

Um, I thought that fortressway actually promoted key interrupts, precise spikes, good positioning, faking out, and finding/creating gaps in defense. Hell, back in proph days, if both wars managed to get full adrenaline, they would be more than able to kill both monks.

What you desire is supermonks that can never be taken down by pressure and don't need to rely on midline to keep everything up. You also seem to be missing the point: Monks (or any other prof) should never be able to have a chance to correct every single one of their mistakes with one stance.

Monks back in proph days could only do a few things: pre-guardian targets, keep targets clean, and red-bar. And they lost 7 energy when doing it. Now they can do that, plus prevent KD's and gain armor and block when getting spiked.

Back in fortressway, monks had to waste three seconds to give their whole team a 10 second guardian, only red bar really pressured targets, and stay all the hell back just to avoid collapsing. Why? cuz they didn't have a slightly less OP version of Eprism on their bars. They get knocked down and their partner is shamed, they are dead.

Midline has to be the ones to prevent the enemy wars from building adrenaline, and Monks have to be the ones to only slightly fix up the broken gaps in defense and redbar. Oh, and keeping their wars clean. Kaon is right: Monks nowadays are too sturdy and more brainless because of it. And he does still play, just in BYOBmode.

lutz · Sep 26, 2009, 05:51 AM // 05:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Decreased defense efficacy -> leads to increases elsewhere to make up for the loss, reaching the previous equilibrium defense efficacy -> results in super defensive gameplay? Better check that logic.

Increasing defense on midline leads to less offense on midline.
Less offense + equal defense = less deaths.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apok Omen

Back in fortressway, monks had to waste three seconds to give their whole team a 10 second guardian, only red bar really pressured targets, and stay all the hell back just to avoid collapsing. Why? cuz they didn't have a slightly less OP version of Eprism on their bars. They get knocked down and their partner is shamed, they are dead.

...only if every offense wasn't blind and every defense standing in a ward with a Warding on them.

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What you desire is supermonks that can never be taken down by pressure and don't need to rely on midline to keep everything up. You also seem to be missing the point: Monks (or any other prof) should never be able to have a chance to correct every single one of their mistakes with one stance.

Pressure very much so works on monks in this meta.

deathy · Sep 26, 2009, 06:05 AM // 06:05

I think the fact that balanced stance hasn't been changed in years, and is only now an issue, indicates that other imbalances are causing it to be an issue. Redbarring is gay.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Sep 26, 2009, 07:56 AM // 07:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

oh yeah, cuz ra is such a high-end place, you know. those wammos are srs business.
and cuz 3+years of TA exp cannot compare to a few minutes per week in RA.

No TA experience compares to high end GvG experience tbh.

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repeated pleak and plock are not harmless either.
do u think anyone would run patient if it had 1 s cast time?
or even 3/4.

PLeak doesn't hurt much right now as 5e is all you need to stop someone from dying, and yes, I'm quite sure people would still run Patient Spirit at 3/4c for the very simple fact that there's no alternatives.

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on a side note, with all honesty, you know its a fairly Utopian dream to believe they will hit exactly prage, pblock, flail along with woh, patient and bstance.

I realise that, I don't care THAT much about specific changes they'll make, I just want the game to be more fun and actually require some finesse again. :/

Byron · Sep 26, 2009, 01:11 PM // 13:11

Power creep is here to stay, and nostalgia is really another matter.

Furthermore, I'm having trouble understanding how WoH and patient spirit are overpowered. If they are so powerful as some people in this thread seem to think, wouldn't we see much more direct shutdown as a result? For instance, when LoD was all the rage, it became almost common for mesmers to run glyph of essence in order to divert LoD. There has been no such action towards WoH since it was buffed.

You'll say that's because patient is also overpowered. But is it? Sure, it offers a pretty big heal for 5 energy, but things still die in this meta. No super skill is keeping people alive. Even with the alleged overpowered heals, most games end before 28 minutes. Therefore, I invoke the "get better" argument. I think some people are complaining just for the sake of complaining.

Greedy Gus · Sep 26, 2009, 04:09 PM // 16:09

Power creep is here to stay because of all these people who inundate every balance thread and paralyze it by saying that you can't change x without changing everything else, which is tempting to credit as pragmatism until you better understand how changes affect actual play. This concept is probably worth its own thread by now and not being buried within random discussions.

Reverend Dr · Sep 26, 2009, 10:11 PM // 22:11

Word is 3/4 sec LoD was 1. That extra 1/4 sec really does have a huge effect. The best mesmers will be able to reliably hit 3/4 second casts, but even very good mesmers are just not going to be able to reliably hit 3/4 when they could hit 1 second.

Also Hum sig isn't exactly uncommon.

The issue with overpowered redbarring is that it allows for many mistakes to go unpunished. You say people need to get better, well you are right, they do need to get better and as long as getting someone to 15% health is irrelevant because they can quickly be redbarred back up, then more mistakes can go unpunished an people won't get better. While I am aware that power creep of offense has made this much easier, but getting someone that low used to be a huge issue. Why play better and mitigate more damage through effective protting, warrior shutdown, and kiting when you can just redbar everything back.

Kaon · Sep 27, 2009, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

Increasing defense on midline leads to less offense on midline.
Less offense + equal defense = less deaths.

What are you saying? A MoI ele is going to drop MoI for icy shackles if word gets nerfed? Don't shit me like that, MoI is just better. A bsurge is going to take weapon of warding over shellshock? You might not have noticed, but midliners practically already have 8 defensive skills on their bar.

Really some skills are just better than others, if defense get nerfed it obviously doesn't always lead to more defense being run. The other way around it might for instance actually give way to 3 warrior builds. But I guess you're too tunnelvisioned to understand this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Power creep is here to stay, and nostalgia is really another matter.

Furthermore, I'm having trouble understanding how WoH and patient spirit are overpowered. If they are so powerful as some people in this thread seem to think, wouldn't we see much more direct shutdown as a result? For instance, when LoD was all the rage, it became almost common for mesmers to run glyph of essence in order to divert LoD. There has been no such action towards WoH since it was buffed.

You'll say that's because patient is also overpowered. But is it? Sure, it offers a pretty big heal for 5 energy, but things still die in this meta. No super skill is keeping people alive. Even with the alleged overpowered heals, most games end before 28 minutes. Therefore, I invoke the "get better" argument. I think some people are complaining just for the sake of complaining.

Well it was quickly realized everyone relied on their elites to stay alive, so there were large periods in the game where everyone ran signet of humility. But because everyone suddenly relied on their elites to stay alive, signet of humility was considered overpowered and nerfed multiple times. Currently it's just a better idea to take a paragon or ele over a mesmer, because they're better and more effective. Word monks used to be like 20% effective once word was taken down, now they're still 50%ish effective because of patient spirit. It's a very big gap.

lutz · Sep 27, 2009, 01:15 AM // 01:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

What are you saying? A MoI ele is going to drop MoI for icy shackles if word gets nerfed? Don't shit me like that, MoI is just better. A bsurge is going to take weapon of warding over shellshock? You might not have noticed, but midliners practically already have 8 defensive skills on their bar.

Really some skills are just better than others, if defense get nerfed it obviously doesn't always lead to more defense being run. The other way around it might for instance actually give way to 3 warrior builds. But I guess you're too tunnelvisioned to understand this.

If defense gets nerfed via removing stances as viable play, or severely hitting stances, I seriously doubt people are going to run more offense.

Reverend Dr · Sep 27, 2009, 04:16 AM // 04:16

In general no, but blow them up builds (in the style of cow) would see some comback. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Marxon Aurion · Sep 27, 2009, 09:09 AM // 09:09

There's about 76,4% chance that Kaon uses another percentage in his next post.