Curse

Jeydra · Jul 02, 2009, 06:05 AM // 06:05

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Originally Posted by Still Number One

there is a difference between spike builds and defensive web spike builds. Spike builds were good for build variety. Defensive web spike builds kill build variety because they become so much better than every other build that you have to run it or you gimp yourself. If you need an example just see rawr spike.

How do you have a spike build if you cannot stay alive long enough to spike?

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Originally Posted by Still Number One

Pretty sure the PZZZ vs KMD match was in an mAT. It wasn't in the playoffs, but every match in an mAT matters so I would consider it a serious game. The reson most people don't is probably because they don't feel comfortable doing it. You don't play a build in an mAT you have no practice running, no matter how powerful or brainless it may seem. PZZZ is a guild with some pretty funny guys who like to goof off every now and then. They more than likely had some experience running Bspam prior to that match.

Not every match in the mAT matters. If both guilds are already guaranteed a place in the playoffs, they can screw around if they want to. So can any guild that's guaranteed a bronze cape (3-2, for instance, with a bad tiebreaker). Which mAT is this that you're talking about?

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

And I just told you why that's not viable. Jesus tap-dancing Christ. Pay attention.

No, you pay attention. You've told me that it's not viable to not use a prot. Of course it's not! Bloodspike requires you to use a prot to work! It knows pretty much every team it faces will include a prot, and therefore it plays against this weakness! Now you're complaining that you have to run a prot, so you also have to expose this weakness for Bloodspike to exploit. True enough, but too bad. Why should you be able to create a build with no weaknesses anyway?

I'll say this as many times as I have to until you stop dodging the point. You are saying that "I want to run Prot + Heal with so-and-so bars, and anything that I cannot defend against I want nerfed". Your so-called "adaptatioin" is changing shields every match. Changing builds is something you can't comprehend. Small wonder Ensign once said contemporary players are immune to change.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

But I see we're back to this nonsense, since you apparently don't have any arguments left to fall back on. Again, antimelee is utility. Prot is necessity. Without it, you will lose to everything except possibly BSpike. This, if anything, proves my point all the more: a build should not be so powerful against the backline that you have to sacrifice winning versus everything else to be able to beat it.

You can't not have antimelee or you'll die in any prolonged 8v8. Without midline defense you lose to everything you 8v8 except a dedicated spike build with a long recharge. So using your line of reasoning we've proved that all builds that ignores midline defense should be nerfed. True / false?

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Imagine, if you will, a class-based FPS. Most class-based FPses have something resembling a "medic" class. Now imagine that there is a kit that allows a player to use a gun that disintegrates enemies (making enemy medics useless) and heals you at the same time (making it so that your team doesn't have to run them). You can still dodge his individual shots, or kill him before he fires, but you've essentially removed a portion of the enemy team from the game entirely not because of your skill or acumen, but because of the choices you made at the character selection screen.

You've given half of the case. What about the other half? I'll say right now that I don't play FPS, so I might not understand how it works. But even so, let's just say that suppose you have this gun that shoots, heals yourself and stops your target from being healed, but it is wildly inaccurate, has an incredibly long reload and requires close range. Will you still call this gun overpowered still?

Weaknesses balance out strengths. Bloodspike's ability to cut through almost all defense is a strength. Its inability to do almost anything else is a weakness. Weaknesses balance out strengths. Now if Vampiric Gaze did 106 damage ala Lightning Orb, then I would fully support it being nerfed because it deals way too much damage. That's what already happened: Vampiric Spirit and Vampiric Gaze both got nerfed not so long ago. Contemporary Bloodspike is hardly as overpowering. Weaknesses balance out strengths.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

I'm going to have to stop you right there (again). Why is "because everything else does" an illegitimate argument? Why is the idea of having uniform rules for damage/counters dismissed out of hand?

Exceptions to some or other rules are all well and good; it's what makes the game interesting. But to actually defend the idea that we should just go ahead and have one form of direct 'damage' ignore the rules more or less completely just doesn't make any sense. The onus isn't on me here, it's on you, actually, to explain to me why BSpike deserves an exception on these grounds. Why not have an inscription for it? Why not have a rune or some other piece of equipment that can marginalize life stealing?

Nice passing the buck. I'll pass it right back to you. Why shouldn't BSpike be unique? What is wrong with uniqueness anyway? Scythes have the unique ability to crit for a lot higher damage than they hit otherwise. They also have the unique ability to hit more than one target with autoattacks. Daggers have the unique ability to doublestrike. Avatar of Melandru has the unique ability to keep you immune to Cripple. BSpike has the unique ability to cut through almost every kind of defense in the game. What is wrong with uniqueness?

If you say it's the person who makes the negative statement that has to prove things, then I'll simply pose the statement in a way that you have to prove it. Uniqueness is good for the game. You're claiming it isn't, so the onus of proof is with you.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Yeah, and you'll lose to everything else. Again (man, I should really just copy that word and just ctrl+v it all over the place), no build should be so powerful that you have to basically accept losing to everything else in order to beat it.

Unless you are claiming Blood Magic is so powerful that you have to accept losing to everything else in order to beat it, I don't see why this is relevant.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Patently incorrect. As I've said (I should c/p that one too) it's not about prots/heals for me so much as it is about how goddamn damage works in this game. It's fine to have ways around prot (since, indeed, BSpike isn't the only way around prot); if the above were my premise I'd be asking to remove Shadow Shroud and PBlock from the game as well and I've already made it clear that this isn't necessary.

The difference between BSpike and those skills are pretty profound. PBlock and Shadow Shroud are both elites. They both require situational awareness prediction, and tactics just like most everything else in Guild Wars PvP. BSpike requires none of these things and also does not rely on the use of elite skills.

I am not saying that prot/heals+ antimelee should "keep up with all damage;" without ways to overpower them, no one would ever die if they had decent monks and the game would be even more boring than playing as or against BSpike. Way to miss the forest for the trees.

You are claiming that the way damage works in the game is to have a counter. As though this is a fact? Well I'll go ahead and claim that the way lifestealing works in the game is not to have a counter.

BSpike requires at least 6 Necros to work and relies on 16 Blood Magic. It requires snares or speedboosts to catch the other team when they try to split, and it. Both Power Block and Shadow Shroud do not. So what?

Yes you are saying that Prot + Heal + Antimelee should be able to keep up with all damage. That's because bloodspike is damage that Prot + Heal + Antimelee can't keep up with, and you want it nerfed, ostensibly because it cuts the Prot Monk out of the game, but the real reason is because you can't keep up with the damage. Just think: if you could keep up with bloodspike damage with only one Monk, would you still be complaining about the build here? Certainly not.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Patently incorrect. As I've said (I should c/p that one too) it's not about prots/heals for me so much as it is about how goddamn damage works in this game. It's fine to have ways around prot (since, indeed, BSpike isn't the only way around prot); if the above were my premise I'd be asking to remove Shadow Shroud and PBlock from the game as well and I've already made it clear that this isn't necessary.

The difference between BSpike and those skills are pretty profound. PBlock and Shadow Shroud are both elites. They both require situational awareness prediction, and tactics just like most everything else in Guild Wars PvP. BSpike requires none of these things and also does not rely on the use of elite skills.

I am not saying that prot/heals+ antimelee should "keep up with all damage;" without ways to overpower them, no one would ever die if they had decent monks and the game would be even more boring than playing as or against BSpike. Way to miss the forest for the trees.

Since you had the decency to post the same thing twice and make the thread harder to read than it already is, I'll do the same back to you.

You are claiming that the way damage works in the game is to have a counter. As though this is a fact? Well I'll go ahead and claim that the way lifestealing works in the game is not to have a counter.

BSpike requires at least 6 Necros to work and relies on 16 Blood Magic. It requires snares or speedboosts to catch the other team when they try to split, and it. Both Power Block and Shadow Shroud do not. So what?

Yes you are saying that Prot + Heal + Antimelee should be able to keep up with all damage. That's because bloodspike is damage that Prot + Heal + Antimelee can't keep up with, and you want it nerfed, ostensibly because it cuts the Prot Monk out of the game, but the real reason is because you can't keep up with the damage. Just think: if you could keep up with bloodspike damage with only one Monk, would you still be complaining about the build here? Certainly not.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

So it's an established game dynamic, that's what. ANet should shit or get off the pot. I don't see why lifestealing (especially when Necros have so many other nifty toys) deserves an exemption from this dynamic. You seem to, but have been unusually tight-lipped when it comes to explaining why.

I don't see why lifestealing should not be exempted from this dynamic. You seem to, but have been unusually tight-lipped when it comes to explaining why.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Wait, how do you go from "every other spike in the game is more deadly" to "If you give up all the defense you get with other builds, why shouldn't you get a more powerful spike somehow?" in the same paragraph?

Read "more powerful spike" as "a spike that cuts through all prot".

Made In Ascalon · Jul 02, 2009, 07:16 AM // 07:16

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Originally Posted by Jeydra

You are claiming that the way damage works in the game is to have a counter. As though this is a fact?

ROFL, are you serious? Do you really want to play a competitive game in which the meta revolves around completely uncounterable damage other than red-bar-goes-up reaction healing? If you don't even have the tools to counter a tactic, then you will get rolled over by it, no skill necessary. How is that at all healthy for competitive PvP in any game?

Nadia Roark · Jul 02, 2009, 07:28 AM // 07:28

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Originally Posted by Jeydra

No, you pay attention. You've told me that it's not viable to not use a prot. Of course it's not! Bloodspike requires you to use a prot to work! It knows pretty much every team it faces will include a prot, and therefore it plays against this weakness! Now you're complaining that you have to run a prot, so you also have to expose this weakness for Bloodspike to exploit. True enough, but too bad. Why should you be able to create a build with no weaknesses anyway?

I'm sorry, but "Too Bad" is not a legitimate argument. You're still not explaining why BSpike deserves to be exempt from the established damage/protection dynamics found everywhere else in the game.

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I'll say this as many times as I have to until you stop dodging the point. You are saying that "I want to run Prot + Heal with so-and-so bars, and anything that I cannot defend against I want nerfed". Your so-called "adaptatioin" is changing shields every match. Changing builds is something you can't comprehend. Small wonder Ensign once said contemporary players are immune to change.

Sigh... broken record time again/ Here we go with the c/p...

As I've said (4+ times now) it's not about prots/heals for me so much as it is about how damage works in this game. It's fine to have ways around prot (since, indeed, BSpike isn't the only way around prot); if the above were my premise I'd be asking to remove Shadow Shroud and PBlock from the game as well and I've already made it clear that this isn't necessary.

The difference between BSpike and those skills are pretty profound. PBlock and Shadow Shroud are both elites. They both require situational awareness, prediction, and tactics just like most everything else in Guild Wars PvP. BSpike requires none of these things and also does not rely on the use of elite skills.

I am not saying that prot/heals+ antimelee should "keep up with all damage;" without ways to overpower them, no one would ever die if they had decent monks and the game would be even more boring than playing as or against BSpike. Way to miss the forest for the trees.

WHY DON'T YOU GET IT?! I am not saying "I should be able to run what I want and counter everything." I am saying that Bspike flies in the face of an established game dynamic and that it is bad for gameplay because it removes the tactical and situational necessities required by every other build in the game. I suppose Prot doesn't have to counter BSpike, but it does need more than one counter.

Jesus.

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You can't not have antimelee or you'll die in any prolonged 8v8. Without midline defense you lose to everything you 8v8 except a dedicated spike build with a long recharge. So using your line of reasoning we've proved that all builds that ignores midline defense should be nerfed. True / false?

False, as usual. That you're clinging to this ridiculous distortion must mean you're entirely out of other ideas.

The fact of the matter is, antimelee utility can still run other skills that keep the player in the game. BSurge eles, to use your own example, usually also tend to pack skills to help them out with the spike. Ritualists in HA will carry a weapon spell or two to gimp enemy melee, but they don't rely on them the way your team has to rely on other backline skills like prots and spot heals. Not being able to use a skill or two because the enemy team doesn't use the skills it exists to counter is one thing; taking an entire attribute line out of the game is much, much different

Given that you've patently and consistently failed to understand my line of reasoning, it comes as no surprise that this is a continuation of your favorite straw man; which is your continued insistence that midline utility should be viewed on equal footing balance-wise with backline necessity. I've said it before and I'll say it again: No single build in the history of Guild Wars has ever been nerfed because of its usefulness against situational utility. They have been nerfed on the grounds of overpowering enemy backlines, like with sandstorm spam or dual smite. Since every team needs heals of some type and prots of some type to stay on the board for any meaningful length of time, these roles therefore assume a more important role in class/skill balance. Midline utility is not subject to the same balance principles that backline is. You can run without $MIDLINE_UTILITY, whether it's anti-caster or anti-melee. That's why it's utility.

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You've given half of the case. What about the other half? I'll say right now that I don't play FPS, so I might not understand how it works. But even so, let's just say that suppose you have this gun that shoots, heals yourself and stops your target from being healed, but it is wildly inaccurate, has an incredibly long reload and requires close range. Will you still call this gun overpowered still?

Interestingly enough, you have pretty much described the gun, with the exception that it didn't have a reload but did have an overheat (which any sensible player could avoid by firing in bursts anyway. It did work more or less as you describe, and was still wildly overpowered. Not because of the gun itself so much, but because the people who happened to be on the only team who could use that gun could also heal themselves without medics. See what I'm getting at?

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Weaknesses balance out strengths. Bloodspike's ability to cut through almost all defense is a strength. Its inability to do almost anything else is a weakness. Weaknesses balance out strengths. Now if Vampiric Gaze did 106 damage ala Lightning Orb, then I would fully support it being nerfed because it deals way too much damage. That's what already happened: Vampiric Spirit and Vampiric Gaze both got nerfed not so long ago. Contemporary Bloodspike is hardly as overpowering. Weaknesses balance out strengths.

Except that BSpike's weaknesses are not commensurate with its strengths. An unprottable spike is a very powerful thing, especially since (as you've already explicitly acknowledged) one healer can't keep up with it. Sure, BSpike has a bunch of squishies; but other builds do too and they do not enjoy the advantages that BSpike enjoys.

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Nice passing the buck. I'll pass it right back to you. Why shouldn't BSpike be unique?

Already been over this (many, many times); because it flies in the face of the damage/protection dynamics as established everywhere else in the game by the developers. It can only be countered by spot heals and it removes the principles of prediction and situational awareness as required by every other build. Because, (everywhere else at least) the game seems to have been designed with an eye to these principles. Any time you want to recognize that I've explained myself and now it's your turn is fine by me. Tell me why this is wrong, please.

And I'm the one "dodging" questions. Right.

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What is wrong with uniqueness anyway? Scythes have the unique ability to crit for a lot higher damage than they hit otherwise. They also have the unique ability to hit more than one target with autoattacks. Daggers have the unique ability to doublestrike. Avatar of Melandru has the unique ability to keep you immune to Cripple. BSpike has the unique ability to cut through almost every kind of defense in the game. What is wrong with uniqueness?

I never said there was anything wrong with "uniqueness,"--in fact I've gone out of my way to point that out and make this exact distinction several times already-- but none of the above examples are effective on the same level that BSpike (unprottable, no equipment counters, can only be countered with spot heals, etc etc) is.

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If you say it's the person who makes the negative statement that has to prove things, then I'll simply pose the statement in a way that you have to prove it. Uniqueness is good for the game. You're claiming it isn't, so the onus of proof is with you.

And I'm the one "passing the buck?" Classic.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a skill/ability "being unique" as such; but it can be taken entirely too far, and exempting BSpike from all counters except for spot heals is a perfect example of this. Again, every other example of "unique skills" that you've furnished is at best halfway legitimate: they do things that other skills/builds can't do, but they still have to play by the same rules (or, in the case of AoM and other avatars, are subject to lenghty cooldowns) damage-wise that BSpike is apparently allowed to ignore.

It depends on the basis of said skill's uniqueness. Unique is good, but only up to a point (and if you disagree with that, let me point out that a skill that reads "Kill target player" would be very unique).

Dagger and Scythe strikes can be powerful, but can still be protted, and can also still be countered with slashing or piercing inscriptions. AoM makes you immune to conditions but can't be chained. It all has to do with the design philosophy of the game, which lifestealing ignores. These 'unique' skills are indeed unique, but still have a certain set of rules they play by (e.g. "having more than one counter"). If they remove a counter (like AoM does with conditions) the skills compensate by having some functional shortcoming. Like, say, a long recharge.

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Unless you are claiming Blood Magic is so powerful that you have to accept losing to everything else in order to beat it, I don't see why this is relevant.

I'll assume you mean BloodSpike, but yeah. I'm going off what you said here:

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You can certainly keep up with it if you have two heal Monks.

This seems to me to be an admission that one healer alone can't effectively counter BSpike, which is more or less true. Your suggestion of running 2 healers to counter BSpike is simply not viable in HA. I don't know whether or not this is the case in GvG, but if you run two healers you'll either lose too much utility (since there's so goddamn many objective maps) or you'll lose your prot, which will screw you over against any other build.

You simply can't get away with the reactionary "Push Red Bars Up" tactics against other builds that you have to rely on against BSpike, and if you had any experience backlining, you'd know this already. Bringing an extra healer will marginalize you against every other build in the game, and I'm sorry but no build deserves to single-handedly force that kind of profound disadvantage.

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You are claiming that the way damage works in the game is to have a counter. As though this is a fact? Well I'll go ahead and claim that the way lifestealing works in the game is not to have a counter.

lol? Whats better for balance then, counters or no counters?

Kinda painted yourself into a corner there, buddy.

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BSpike requires at least 6 Necros to work and relies on 16 Blood Magic. It requires snares or speedboosts to catch the other team when they try to split, and it. Both Power Block and Shadow Shroud do not. So what?

Another systematic refusal to understand my point. PB and Shadow Shroud were brought up as examples of how prot is countered in every other build. You retort with nonsense about attribute levels, snares/boosts and splits.

Let's try to stay focused here. I've said from the start that the particulars of usage from format to format are not my concern; what is my concern is how the lifestealing mechanic works when compared to the rest of PvP gameplay. Selecting a target and spamming skills on him does not require the situational/tactical awareness that the game is otherwise built to promote.

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Yes you are saying that Prot + Heal + Antimelee should be able to keep up with all damage.

I see you're resorting to putting words in my mouth again. Cute. This ought to be interesting...

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That's because bloodspike is damage that Prot + Heal + Antimelee can't keep up with, and you want it nerfed, ostensibly because it cuts the Prot Monk out of the game, but the real reason is because you can't keep up with the damage. Just think: if you could keep up with bloodspike damage with only one Monk, would you still be complaining about the build here? Certainly not.

See now here you're just changing the terms of the entire conversation. You're saying, in effect "If BSpike was LOLWEAK, you wouldn't be complaining about it." But it's not. Lets try to keep this discussion at least somewhat grounded in reality here. You can't just come in and say "Well, if things were completely different, you'd be okay with it."

My thesis has two parts: The first is that taking a player that you know every team has to carry out of the game with a metagame decision is bad for balance. The second is that lifestealing contradicts established game dynamics by only having one hard counter. If it were only one or the other, BSpike wouldn't be as high on my shit list as it is. But the combination of the two is not something that reasonable people should be expected to suffer without complaint.

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I don't see why lifestealing should not be exempted from this dynamic. You seem to, but have been unusually tight-lipped when it comes to explaining why.

*snrk* And you rag on me for "passing the buck."

This amounts to "I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you." Let's try to keep that crap on the playground, shall we? I (and others) have repeatedly explained why BSpike should operate on the same design principles as everything else. Tactical/situational awareness, general skill, prediction, and properly timed skill use will always be better for gameplay than button mashing.

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Read "more powerful spike" as "a spike that cuts through all prot".

There are other spikes that can cut through prot (that might use, say Shadow Shroud or PBlock zzzz) but they are subject to conditions that BSpike is (for some reason you've yet to explain aside form "it's unique") allowed to ignore.

Jeydra · Jul 02, 2009, 10:14 AM // 10:14

Bleagh, this is getting tiring.

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Originally Posted by Made In Ascalon

ROFL, are you serious? Do you really want to play a competitive game in which the meta revolves around completely uncounterable damage other than red-bar-goes-up reaction healing? If you don't even have the tools to counter a tactic, then you will get rolled over by it, no skill necessary. How is that at all healthy for competitive PvP in any game?

If there were only one kind of damage in the game and that is unprottable, then yes I'd agree the system needs to be looked at. That hasn't happened though. BSpike does show up, but it's fairly uncommon. Case in point: today I played ... I dunno, 6 GvG's on the ladder? without running into BSpike.

The challenge is to come up with a build that works against whatever you might face - see the thread on E/Me's - before you hit enter.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

As I've said (4+ times now) it's not about prots/heals for me so much as it is about how damage works in this game. It's fine to have ways around prot (since, indeed, BSpike isn't the only way around prot); if the above were my premise I'd be asking to remove Shadow Shroud and PBlock from the game as well and I've already made it clear that this isn't necessary.

The difference between BSpike and those skills are pretty profound. PBlock and Shadow Shroud are both elites. They both require situational awareness, prediction, and tactics just like most everything else in Guild Wars PvP. BSpike requires none of these things and also does not rely on the use of elite skills.

I am not saying that prot/heals+ antimelee should "keep up with all damage;" without ways to overpower them, no one would ever die if they had decent monks and the game would be even more boring than playing as or against BSpike. Way to miss the forest for the trees.

WHY DON'T YOU GET IT?! I am not saying "I should be able to run what I want and counter everything." I am saying that Bspike flies in the face of an established game dynamic and that it is bad for gameplay because it removes the tactical and situational necessities required by every other build in the game. I suppose Prot doesn't have to counter BSpike, but it does need more than one counter.

You are claiming that the way damage works in the game is to have a counter. As though this is a fact? You have said many many many many many times that BSpike flies in the face of an established game dynamic. I don't believe that. Yes it's unprottable but I don't call being able to prot damage an "established game dynamic". Your reasons why it's bad are based on skill. I don't accept reasons based on skill. As I've written elsewhere, skill is certainly a factor but not a deciding one. Given two otherwise equal options in a balance decision I'd pick the one that takes more skill. But if I were balancing the game I wouldn't nerf a skill because it "takes no skill to use". That's how Assassins ended up dead in the first place and I disagree with that.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

The fact of the matter is, antimelee utility can still run other skills that keep the player in the game. BSurge eles, to use your own example, usually also tend to pack skills to help them out with the spike. Ritualists in HA will carry a weapon spell or two to gimp enemy melee, but they don't rely on them the way your team has to rely on other backline skills like prots and spot heals. Not being able to use a skill or two because the enemy team doesn't use the skills it exists to counter is one thing; taking an entire attribute line out of the game is much, much different

BSurge Eles without BSurge are not useless, they still have a small amount of damage, utility and spike assist. But they certainly are operating at far below their max capacity. I think I said this earlier in the thread. In the same way Prot Monks going against BSpike are operating at far below their max capacity, but they're not useless either. RoF works on Dark Pact. Even if no Dark Pact you can cast to trigger Divine Favour. It's extremely inefficient. But it doesn't make you useless.

By the way there are spells that work in Protection Prayers against BSpike, and it's not just Aegis. What about Aura of Faith and Zealous Benediction?

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

I've said it before and I'll say it again: No single build in the history of Guild Wars has ever been nerfed because of its usefulness against situational utility. They have been nerfed on the grounds of overpowering enemy backlines, like with sandstorm spam or dual smite.

I can't comment on this because I wasn't into serious play when Sandstorm got nerfed, I'll just point out to you that WoH was nerfed recently, except it was hardly "overpowering enemy backlines".

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Interestingly enough, you have pretty much described the gun, with the exception that it didn't have a reload but did have an overheat (which any sensible player could avoid by firing in bursts anyway. It did work more or less as you describe, and was still wildly overpowered. Not because of the gun itself so much, but because the people who happened to be on the only team who could use that gun could also heal themselves without medics. See what I'm getting at?

Not quite, because I don't play the game you're thinking of so I can't be certain of what you say. But even so, you can always tweak the numbers. What if I tweaked the range on this gun so that it's only usable in melee[ range? Would that still be overpowered?

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Except that BSpike's weaknesses are not commensurate with its strengths. An unprottable spike is a very powerful thing, especially since (as you've already explicitly acknowledged) one healer can't keep up with it. Sure, BSpike has a bunch of squishies; but other builds do too and they do not enjoy the advantages that BSpike enjoys.

Are you arguing against the numbers on BSpike or the mechanics? I think you said earlier in this thread that you're against the mechanics, but the above implies the numbers. Also, BSpike weaknesses include:

1. Condition removal on only one character;
2. Hex removal on only one character;
3. Largely unable to defend each other;
4. You have to ball up at some point of the game, risking death if the other team has strong AoE (eg. VoR);
5. No hard res;
6. No snares outside of Iron Palm;
7. Everyone has to run Superior Blood;

And so on and so forth. BSpike has weaknesses, and a lot of them.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Already been over this (many, many times); because it flies in the face of the damage/protection dynamics as established everywhere else in the game by the developers. It can only be countered by spot heals and it removes the principles of prediction and situational awareness as required by every other build. Because, (everywhere else at least) the game seems to have been designed with an eye to these principles. Any time you want to recognize that I've explained myself and now it's your turn is fine by me. Tell me why this is wrong, please.

And I'm the one "dodging" questions. Right.

I'm not convinced the developers established damage / protection dynamics specifically the way it is without also allowing lifestealing to pass through all prot, specifically the way it is. If you're talking about the "damage / protection dynamics as established everywhere else in the game by the developers" then I'll say that lifestealing is fine because it's "damage that cuts through prot as established by the developers", and that lifestealing was designed "with an eye to this principle" (i.e. that it cuts through all prot).

So now I've answered the question. Anything else?

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

I never said there was anything wrong with "uniqueness,"--in fact I've gone out of my way to point that out and make this exact distinction several times already-- but none of the above examples are effective on the same level that BSpike (unprottable, no equipment counters, can only be countered with spot heals, etc etc) is.

What do you mean by "on the same level"?

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

There's nothing inherently wrong with a skill/ability "being unique" as such; but it can be taken entirely too far, and exempting BSpike from all counters except for spot heals is a perfect example of this. Again, every other example of "unique skills" that you've furnished is at best halfway legitimate: they do things that other skills/builds can't do, but they still have to play by the same rules (or, in the case of AoM and other avatars, are subject to lenghty cooldowns) damage-wise that BSpike is apparently allowed to ignore.

If they remove a counter (like AoM does with conditions) the skills compensate by having some functional shortcoming. Like, say, a long recharge.

BSpike has to play by the rules too you know - 0.75s aftercast after every spell, you can only use it within casting range (slightly larger than one aggro circle), you have to pay for the energy cost before you can use the skill, etc. You're stressing one rule that BSpike doesn't have to play by, but personally because BSpike doesn't follow that rule I'd sooner not consider that rule a "rule".

Blood Magic certainly has functional shortcomings. High energy cost for low damage would be the most glaring of them. As I said earlier in the thread, Immolate @ 14 Fire does more damage than Vampiric Gaze @ 16 Blood, and inflicts burning to boot. It also cools down 5s faster. Isn't that a functional shortcoming?

PS: Blood Magic isn't the only mechanic in the game which steals life. Are you suggesting that Vampiric weapons be removed too?

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

This seems to me to be an admission that one healer alone can't effectively counter BSpike, which is more or less true. Your suggestion of running 2 healers to counter BSpike is simply not viable in HA. I don't know whether or not this is the case in GvG, but if you run two healers you'll either lose too much utility (since there's so goddamn many objective maps) or you'll lose your prot, which will screw you over against any other build.

One healer cannot survive BSpike. Certainly. Running two healers might not screw you up against any other build (2x WoH is possible in GvG), but let's assume it does. So you could ... run Gift of Health on Prot Monk? Run Divine Healing? Run some extra heals on midliners? Run some anti-caster on midliners? Run Earthshaker?

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

lol? Whats better for balance then, counters or no counters?

Kinda painted yourself into a corner there, buddy.

I'm perfectly happy with lifestealing ignoring all counters except spot heals right now.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Let's try to stay focused here. I've said from the start that the particulars of usage from format to format are not my concern; what is my concern is how the lifestealing mechanic works when compared to the rest of PvP gameplay. Selecting a target and spamming skills on him does not require the situational/tactical awareness that the game is otherwise built to promote.

So are you unhappy with the numbers on lifestealing, or the mechanic? As for the skill-based argument, I don't agree with it. I wrote so why above.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

See now here you're just changing the terms of the entire conversation. You're saying, in effect "If BSpike was LOLWEAK, you wouldn't be complaining about it." But it's not. Lets try to keep this discussion at least somewhat grounded in reality here. You can't just come in and say "Well, if things were completely different, you'd be okay with it."

My thesis has two parts: The first is that taking a player that you know every team has to carry out of the game with a metagame decision is bad for balance. The second is that lifestealing contradicts established game dynamics by only having one hard counter. If it were only one or the other, BSpike wouldn't be as high on my shit list as it is. But the combination of the two is not something that reasonable people should be expected to suffer without complaint.

So are you unhappy with the numbers on BSpike or the mechanic?

As for your thesis, I responded to the first part above. BSpike takes the Prot Monk out of the game no more than not running melee takes the BSurge out of the game. Both cases reduce the effectiveness of said characters, but they don't eliminate them. The second you've said before, and I've answered before as well. You're claiming "established game dynamics" means to have some kind of counter other than spot heals. I see no proof for that statement. Sure, everything else has a counter, but then I could just as simply say that "established game dynamics" means lifestealing should be unprottable, and they are balanced around that.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Oh, and I just noticed Jeydra dropped the "can you find the prot spell that prots BSpike?" tease like a bad habit after I pointed out how shitty Aegis is.

Why am I not surprised? tl;dr I guess. Again, huge segments of my posts are being ignored even when they're direct answers to his/her questions, while not a single one of mine has been answered yet. Bravo.

Lol, I didn't see the part on Aegis. Your posts are getting very long. Pardon me about that. Aegis prots BSpike, so your statements that BSpike takes out an entire attribute line is patently wrong. It's wrong even without Aegis, because of Aura of Faith and Zealous Benediction (and Life Attunement, and Air of Enchantment, and I don't know what else, but I can't be bothered looking up right now). Maybe Aegis is terrible and so are the other skills mentioned here, but they exist, so don't say BSpike destroys an entire attribute line.

I'm ignoring huge segments of your posts mostly because I haven't anything more to say to them than I already said in response to elsewhere. That cuts down on the size of the post. Quoting something, and then saying the same thing to it that you've already done elsewhere, just makes your post longer for no gain. Otherwise, I think responding goes off-topic and loses focus. After all, do you want to get into a debate here whether to use +5 or +30 Spears against an armor-sensitive spike?

lord of all tyria · Jul 02, 2009, 11:10 AM // 11:10

Bspike lets bad people play at a level well above their skill level. Build diversity is not a reason to keep a build purely used for farming champ points in bought guilds.

Made In Ascalon · Jul 02, 2009, 03:13 PM // 15:13

Jeydra, you failed to answer my question.

How is completely uncounterable damage at all good for competitive PvP in any game? Stating that Bspike is uncommon due to anecdotal evidence is a red herring.

Nadia Roark · Jul 02, 2009, 04:37 PM // 16:37

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Originally Posted by Jeydra

Bleagh, this is getting tiring.

You can say that again.

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You are claiming that the way damage works in the game is to have a counter. As though this is a fact?

Yes. Because it is.

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You have said many many many many many times that BSpike flies in the face of an established game dynamic. I don't believe that. Yes it's unprottable but I don't call being able to prot damage an "established game dynamic".

This is so retarded I'm almost speechless. How can you not see that it's an "established game dynamic" when every other method of damage in the game is subject to prot? Sounds pretty established to me.

Again (zzz) I suppose there's nothing wrong with keeping BSpike immune to prot as long as it has some other skill/equipment counter like everything else does. You say I'm "dodging" questions but I've answered every one; you've answered none. I think Guild Wars should have uniform damage guidelines (e.g. damage should have more than one counter, whether those counters are equipment/ability based), and you've yet to tell me why BSpike deserves this exception. You've repeated (loudly) that it is exempt, and that you "don't see why it shouldn't be," but we already know that. Lets at least try to move into some new territory here.

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Your reasons why it's bad are based on skill. I don't accept reasons based on skill. As I've written elsewhere, skill is certainly a factor but not a deciding one. Given two otherwise equal options in a balance decision I'd pick the one that takes more skill. But if I were balancing the game I wouldn't nerf a skill because it "takes no skill to use". That's how Assassins ended up dead in the first place and I disagree with that.

That's not really what I'm saying; you're distorting my premise again, presumably in an effort to remove the necessity of answering the questions raised by it. There are plenty of builds out there (lets go with ES Hammer to name one at random) that don't take a tremendous amount of skill to play, but they still require tactical and situational awareness and reward player prediction/initiative. BSpike encourages neither. You don't have to be "skilled" to notice what's going on around you, you just have to have eyes and use them. With BSpike, you can almost turn your monitor off and just spam TAB + 123 TAB + 123.

That said, I think it's sad that you "don't agree" that skill-less builds should be nerfed. Maybe I'm an idealist, but I have this crazy idea that success should be skill's reward.

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BSurge Eles without BSurge are not useless, they still have a small amount of damage, utility and spike assist. But they certainly are operating at far below their max capacity. I think I said this earlier in the thread. In the same way Prot Monks going against BSpike are operating at far below their max capacity, but they're not useless either. RoF works on Dark Pact. Even if no Dark Pact you can cast to trigger Divine Favour. It's extremely inefficient. But it doesn't make you useless.

Try it sometime. It really does make you useless. Honest.

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By the way there are spells that work in Protection Prayers against BSpike, and it's not just Aegis. What about Aura of Faith and Zealous Benediction?

Another new song and dance, I see. You said:

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...the Protection Prayers skill that prots BSpike (have you found it yet?)

Aura of Faith and ZB do not prot BSpike, they react to it. We've already established (many times) that pushing bars up is the only counter to BSpike and not only are both of these skills elite, but they're just more of the same bar pushing that makes BSpike stupid and stagnant.

Your wording obviously implies that you were talking about Aegis since it's the only protection prayers skill that "prots" BSpike. Except that it only lasts for three seconds. And takes 30 to recharge. If I were playing BSpike and saw the enemy prot try to use Aegis, I'd LOLROFL. It's just bad, and now you're trying to change your tune because you put about as much thought into this as you have any other of your tissue-paper arguments.

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I can't comment on this because I wasn't into serious play when Sandstorm got nerfed, I'll just point out to you that WoH was nerfed recently, except it was hardly "overpowering enemy backlines".

Read what I said. WoH isn't a build, it's a skill. Skills are nerfed all the time fo various and sundry reasons. I said no build has ever been nerfed because it could counter situational utility. They have been nerfed because they overpowered enemy backlines. That's what makes them overpowered.

Dual Smite is probably a better example of this than Sandstorm spam was, if only because Sandstorm spam relied on one skill being spammed by everyone, whereas Dual Smite received a much more intensive nerf (since they didn't just nerf Air of Enchantment, but also Zealot's Fire and Aura of Balthazar at the same time).

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Not quite, because I don't play the game you're thinking of so I can't be certain of what you say. But even so, you can always tweak the numbers. What if I tweaked the range on this gun so that it's only usable in melee[ range? Would that still be overpowered?

Do you see what you've done here? You've changed the properties of the gun to make it legitimately balanced and given it a disadvantage that it didn't originally have. This is exactly what I want to do to BSpike for reasons similar to why you'd nerf a gun like that in a FPS.

Thank you for proving the analogy.

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Are you arguing against the numbers on BSpike or the mechanics? I think you said earlier in this thread that you're against the mechanics, but the above implies the numbers. Also, BSpike weaknesses include:

sigh...

I would bet the words "BSpike" or "lifestealing" and "mechanic" appear in the same sentence at least a dozen times over the course of my last handful of posts, but I see you haven't picked up on that either. There's no reason, I guess, to tone down the numbers as long as life stealing skills are made to play by the same rules everything else already does.

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1. Condition removal on only one character;
2. Hex removal on only one character;
3. Largely unable to defend each other;
4. You have to ball up at some point of the game, risking death if the other team has strong AoE (eg. VoR);
5. No hard res;
6. No snares outside of Iron Palm;
7. Everyone has to run Superior Blood;

And so on and so forth. BSpike has weaknesses, and a lot of them.

Every time you're confronted with hard facts about why BSpike is bad and should die, you resort to GvG-build specifics while ignoring the fact that I've said at least three times now that I don't care how its run or where; the lifestealing mechanic is still bad for gameplay.

I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. Get it through your goddamn head already.

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I'm not convinced the developers established damage / protection dynamics specifically the way it is without also allowing lifestealing to pass through all prot, specifically the way it is. If you're talking about the "damage / protection dynamics as established everywhere else in the game by the developers" then I'll say that lifestealing is fine because it's "damage that cuts through prot as established by the developers", and that lifestealing was designed "with an eye to this principle" (i.e. that it cuts through all prot).

You're not saying anything here that we don't already know. Yes BSpike is an exception to the rules the devs have established anywhere. You don't win credibility in arguments by repeating facts that have already been stated. You have to tell me why this is justified because everything else (even if it ignores prot) can still be countered/mitigated in other ways than "push red bars up," with the possible exception of Ghotly Heroes standing in Well of Profane on an altar. But that's such a specific, game-and-tactics-dependent circumstance that it fits. BSpike does not fit.

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So now I've answered the question. Anything else?

No, you haven't. All you've done is (well, it's a start at least) finally acknowledge the fact that BSpike sits outside the mechanical parameters the devs had put in place elsewhere in the game.

Again (*holds up Shadow Shroud and PBlock one more time*) the issue here isn't about "cutting through prot" the issue is maintaining gameplay variety by having multiple counters to all problems. Or, if you are going to cut through prot with the skills I mentioned above, you have to rely on specific usage and tactics rather than blind spam.

And yes, there's about a dozen others you've happily ignored. Go back and read my posts again; they're all still there.

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What do you mean by "on the same level"?

Answering this question without openly assaulting your intelligence/reading comprehension skills will be tricky, but I"m up for a challenge....

The examples you gave were higher crits on scythes, doublestrike with daggers, and AoM being immune to conditions. You postulated that since these skills were "unique," BSpike also deserved to be "unique." I, in turn, pointed out that none of those three examples is legitimate because while they are indeed unique, they are still subject to multiple counters while BSpike is not. Scythe and dagger strikes can still be protted. You can still wear shield insignias to protect against them. You can kite the player. AoM makes you immune to conditions, but it can't be chained. You can still be hexed. You can still prot his target or cast IMS skills on him to get him out of attack range.

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BSpike has to play by the rules too you know - 0.75s aftercast after every spell, you can only use it within casting range (slightly larger than one aggro circle), you have to pay for the energy cost before you can use the skill, etc. You're stressing one rule that BSpike doesn't have to play by, but personally because BSpike doesn't follow that rule I'd sooner not consider that rule a "rule".

I didn't say they weren't still spells. I'm quite aware of the properties of offensive spellcasting. The fact that these are still spells doesn't change the effect that the spells' results have on gameplay. What's next? Are you gonna tell me "Well BSpikers have to play by the rules by having characters on the board?" Please.

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Blood Magic certainly has functional shortcomings. High energy cost for low damage would be the most glaring of them. As I said earlier in the thread, Immolate @ 14 Fire does more damage than Vampiric Gaze @ 16 Blood, and inflicts burning to boot. It also cools down 5s faster. Isn't that a functional shortcoming?

Again, it's not a functional shortcoming (especially when you have 6+ people spamming it repeatedly) commensurate with the advantages it gains. To use your example from earlier, AoM gives you a tremendous advantage against conditions, but has a proportional shortcoming with its hellishly long recharge. On the other hand 60 energy for 378 points of unprottable lifestealing with only one counter is a pretty sweet deal.

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PS: Blood Magic isn't the only mechanic in the game which steals life. Are you suggesting that Vampiric weapons be removed too?

Nope.Vamp weapons are at least subject to the same rules that melee in general is; it can be countered with block/blind and kiting.

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One healer cannot survive BSpike. Certainly. Running two healers might not screw you up against any other build (2x WoH is possible in GvG), but let's assume it does. So you could ... run Gift of Health on Prot Monk? Run Divine Healing? Run some extra heals on midliners? Run some anti-caster on midliners? Run Earthshaker?

We've already established that you can Build Wars BSpike, and I believe I already said (if you weren't tl;dr-ing all my posts) that Gift is an option, but it's also not necessary as much because BSpike has become more of a pressure build than a proper spike these days. You used to carry Gift to heal the infuser after spikes, especially since teams could fake spike someone, and pile the rest of their damage on the infuser after he pushes the target's bar back up. These days, Gift just isn't that useful against the sustained pressure.

Divine Healing just sucks. Heals on midliners means you lose utility. Anticaster midline will only shut down a spiker or two and might help a little, but not much more than Gift would. The counters you'd have to run for BSpike are too wide-reaching and build-specific because of the fact that its only counter is pushing red bars up. Almost every example you've furnished above amounts to "why not just bring more skills to push red bars up?" when that fails to address the underlying problem of BSpike only being able to be countered that way. It's just bad. Earthshaker can be useful against HA Bspike, but commonly you can't use it often enough ane effectively enough to defuse the pressure the way all other builds are defused by the options players have to counter them.

We've already established that you can Build Wars BSpike. What I'm after, from you, is why BSpike deserves to be the only build in the game that you can only meaningfully counter by pushing red bars up.

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I'm perfectly happy with lifestealing ignoring all counters except spot heals right now.

Obviously. Why?

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As for your thesis, I responded to the first part above. BSpike takes the Prot Monk out of the game no more than not running melee takes the BSurge out of the game. Both cases reduce the effectiveness of said characters, but they don't eliminate them.

No, you answered a distorted version of my thesis. As I said before (zzz) you have wiggle room in antimelee utility bars that you simply do not have on Prot bars. This is still a straw man, just like it was when you first posted it, and it's not becoming any stronger an argument by your continued deployment of it. Antimelee = utility. Prot = necessity. Get it through your head.

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The second you've said before, and I've answered before as well. You're claiming "established game dynamics" means to have some kind of counter other than spot heals. I see no proof for that statement.

Then I feel sorry for you. It's a fact. Every other method of making red bars go down has more than one way of dealing with it. Period. If you can't see this, your head is in the sand.

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Sure, everything else has a counter, but then I could just as simply say that "established game dynamics" means lifestealing should be unprottable, and they are balanced around that.

See how you've gone from "everything else has a counter" to "lifestealing should be unprottable?" It's subtle, but this is another evasion of my thesis. I'm not saying (necessarily) that lifestealing needs to be prottable, it's just the easiest example. I'm saying it needs to have more than one counter.

I've been waiting for you to bring up Spellbreaker, but the fact that you haven't is yet another testament to the fact that you're looking at this whole thing with blinders on.

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Lol, I didn't see the part on Aegis. Your posts are getting very long.

They're long because I answer everything you say, because it's all garbage. If my arguments are so weak, it should be easy for you to do the same. Leaving out enormous chunks of my posts--especially when they're direct answers to your points/questions lost you every shred of credibility a long time ago.P

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Pardon me about that. Aegis prots BSpike, so your statements that BSpike takes out an entire attribute line is patently wrong.

I'd normally be stunned that someone would be so stupid as to actually say this, but I stopped being surprised with you a long time ago.

Aegis prevents attacks and skills from being used on a player for all of three seconds at 14 prot, which is about as useful as spamming prot spells for the Divine Favor bonus. Sorry, but saying that prot is "in the game" because it has a skill that has a fleeting, piddling effect on the pressure being poured on your team like Gatorade on a victorious coach is just ridiculous.

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It's wrong even without Aegis, because of Aura of Faith and Zealous Benediction (and Life Attunement, and Air of Enchantment, and I don't know what else, but I can't be bothered looking up right now). Maybe Aegis is terrible and so are the other skills mentioned here, but they exist, so don't say BSpike destroys an entire attribute line.

Again, these spells don't prot BSpike, they react to it. But honestly, Air of Enchantment? You're really grasping for straws here.

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I'm ignoring huge segments of your posts mostly because I haven't anything more to say to them than I already said in response to elsewhere. That cuts down on the size of the post. Quoting something, and then saying the same thing to it that you've already done elsewhere, just makes your post longer for no gain. Otherwise, I think responding goes off-topic and loses focus. After all, do you want to get into a debate here whether to use +5 or +30 Spears against an armor-sensitive spike?

You've managed to ignore some pretty important points, but I don't suppose that comes as a surprise to anyone at this point. I've left irrelevant bits out here and there too, but I think the fact that I'm responding to all of your arguments and you're ignoring or misrepresenting just about all of mine is pretty telling.

God_Hand · Jul 02, 2009, 09:24 PM // 21:24

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Originally Posted by Jeydra

Words

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Words

Christ, you could take your posts and fit them in a novel.

Either way, Jeydra has no idea what s/he is talking about.

BSpike is bad for the game. I don't play high-end PVP, but I can see why Life-Stealing is so abusable.

You can block physicals, you can increase your armor against them, etc.
You can use skills to lower elemental damage, armor helps here too, etc.
The problem is that you cannot do a goddamn thing to stop a life stealing spike killing you, other than healing VERY quickly.

As with all of my posts concerning game balance, I'm obligated to say:
But hey, what the hell do I know?

Ex Death · Jul 02, 2009, 09:27 PM // 21:27

Jeydra, what exactly is the issue with nerfing on the grounds of lack of skill required for proportionally effective results ie bloodspam? As far as I can tell, your main priority is to uphold as much build diversity as possible even at the expense of detracting from skill intensity. Build diversity (in the sense of the rock, paper, scissors equilibrium) and skill requirements are the two key elements of what comprises game balance. The fact that bloodspam requires absolutely no skill whatsoever is reason enough to nerf it since this extremity overrides what build diversity will be lost from its disappearance. And I think we can all agree that bloodspam is an extremity.

On the topic of actually nerfing bloodspam the main skill that needs changing is Angorodon's Gaze (or perhaps even removing the bleeding 'drawback' of Signet of Agony). The reasons are exactly the same as for a mindblast nerf. Being able to spam a 10 energy 50-100 dmg skill on recharge should not occur due to energy constraints yet Angorodon's Gaze bypasses this much the same way that mindblast does (with Immolate). Vampiric Spirit poses a similar problem since it bypasses the drawback which is supposed to occur with the health sacrifice 'cost' of the 1 energy skills like Dark Pact. Many people have argued that the aoe skills like Unholy Feast + Signet of Agony are overpowered, however I disagree, in a similar vein to Jeydra's argument since it punishes a team's reluctance to not run 2 warriors in order to not get countered by it.

As a sidenote, I find it quite funny how so many of the skill functionality changes serve to make matters worse. Angorodon's Gaze has easily been one of the worst in the history of the game, however, another almost equally as terrible one is the Incoming change. It served before as a fairly weak yet direct counter to spike teams but then it gets changed so that the skill is ONLY useful to spike teams/bloodspam. A split team will never benefit from a partywide speed boost like a spike team will and the skill now makes spike teams far more resilient to split teams. It's just really quite retarded.

Jeydra · Jul 03, 2009, 01:11 AM // 01:11

At least the feeling is mutual.

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

This is so retarded I'm almost speechless. How can you not see that it's an "established game dynamic" when every other method of damage in the game is subject to prot? Sounds pretty established to me.

Again (zzz) I suppose there's nothing wrong with keeping BSpike immune to prot as long as it has some other skill/equipment counter like everything else does. You say I'm "dodging" questions but I've answered every one; you've answered none. I think Guild Wars should have uniform damage guidelines (e.g. damage should have more than one counter, whether those counters are equipment/ability based), and you've yet to tell me why BSpike deserves this exception. You've repeated (loudly) that it is exempt, and that you "don't see why it shouldn't be," but we already know that. Lets at least try to move into some new territory here.

Don't give me the "this is retarded" argument because I'll just tell you that the game was carefully designed to have no skill that prots BSpike (outside of skills that make spells fail). It was carefully designed to go through Prot Spirit, to have no insignias to counter it and essentially be the way it is now.

Do you see what the problem is with your argument yet? No? I'll tell you then. It is a tautology. It cannot be argued against, just like the one I wrote above. But it cannot be argued against not because it's a flawless argument. It cannot be argued against because it is a heavily flawed argument. You cannot argue against it because you've claimed that damage was meant to be prottable. Unless you can read the developers' minds, this claim is completely impossible to verify or disprove. The only way to verify your statement is if someone from ANet comes here and say "we've meant lifestealing to be prottable, but we made this giant mistake for 4 years". The only way to disprove your statement is if someone from ANet comes here and says "we've not meant lifestealing to be prottable, the fact that every other kind of damage is prottable is mere coincidence". In exactly the same way, what I wrote in the above paragraph is unrefutable.

See?

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

That's not really what I'm saying; you're distorting my premise again, presumably in an effort to remove the necessity of answering the questions raised by it. There are plenty of builds out there (lets go with ES Hammer to name one at random) that don't take a tremendous amount of skill to play, but they still require tactical and situational awareness and reward player prediction/initiative. BSpike encourages neither. You don't have to be "skilled" to notice what's going on around you, you just have to have eyes and use them. With BSpike, you can almost turn your monitor off and just spam TAB + 123 TAB + 123.

That said, I think it's sad that you "don't agree" that skill-less builds should be nerfed. Maybe I'm an idealist, but I have this crazy idea that success should be skill's reward.

If this is your problem with it, would you agree with a nerf to BSpam (which is what it is in GvG) and a buff to BSpike (Oppressive Gaze, Shadow Strike / Lifebane Strike, etc)?

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Try it sometime. It really does make you useless. Honest.

I have tried it. It makes me really weak. But it doesn't make you useless. Have you?

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Aura of Faith and ZB do not prot BSpike, they react to it. We've already established (many times) that pushing bars up is the only counter to BSpike and not only are both of these skills elite, but they're just more of the same bar pushing that makes BSpike stupid and stagnant.

Your wording obviously implies that you were talking about Aegis since it's the only protection prayers skill that "prots" BSpike. Except that it only lasts for three seconds. And takes 30 to recharge. If I were playing BSpike and saw the enemy prot try to use Aegis, I'd LOLROFL. It's just bad, and now you're trying to change your tune because you put about as much thought into this as you have any other of your tissue-paper arguments.

Here, allow me to find you your quote. You said the following on post #54.

"Because, to put it as simply as I possibly can, Protection Prayers are an entire attribute line while BSurge is just an elite skill. Not having Melee doesn't make all Air Magic skills useless; BSpike does however accomplish this against Protection Prayers."

The fact that Aegis prots BSpike and that it lies in Protection Prayers runs directly contrary to what you said. The fact that Aura of Faith and Zealous Benediction lie in Protection Prayers and are both useful against BSpike also runs directly contrary to what you said. Ready to concede that you were wrong now?

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Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Read what I said. WoH isn't a build, it's a skill. Skills are nerfed all the time fo various and sundry reasons. I said no build has ever been nerfed because it could counter situational utility. They have been nerfed because they overpowered enemy backlines. That's what makes them overpowered.

What would you do if I show you a build that was nerfed not because it overpowered enemy backlines?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

I would bet the words "BSpike" or "lifestealing" and "mechanic" appear in the same sentence at least a dozen times over the course of my last handful of posts, but I see you haven't picked up on that either. There's no reason, I guess, to tone down the numbers as long as life stealing skills are made to play by the same rules everything else already does.

They already play by the same rules as everything else. Do you want examples? I gave you some. The specific "rule" you're referring to is cutting through prot, and because lifestealing ignores prot I'd call "ability to be protted" not a rule at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Every time you're confronted with hard facts about why BSpike is bad and should die, you resort to GvG-build specifics while ignoring the fact that I've said at least three times now that I don't care how its run or where; the lifestealing mechanic is still bad for gameplay.

I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG.I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. I don't play GvG. Get it through your goddamn head already.

I said the following on post #47.

"Bloodspike certainly didn't show up in the mAT (at least not the matches that are on obs). I have no idea about HA - I don't do the format - but last I heard all sorts of weird builds show up in HA. Still I have no experience with it so if you're going to claim that Bloodspike should be nerfed because it is too effective in HA, I'd accept that if I saw it more when I obs HA."

If your argument for nerfing Bloodspike is HA-based then I won't argue with you. I agree HA deserves balance, but I don't really care because it's not a format I play in, so I'll leave it for HA players to argue it out. Make it a point to say in big bold letters though that your argument for nerfing Bloodspike is HA-based, because I'm pretty confident the OP referred to GvG when he made his post, and in fact most people in this thread assumed the GvG format.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

No, you haven't. All you've done is (well, it's a start at least) finally acknowledge the fact that BSpike sits outside the mechanical parameters the devs had put in place elsewhere in the game.

Again (*holds up Shadow Shroud and PBlock one more time*) the issue here isn't about "cutting through prot" the issue is maintaining gameplay variety by having multiple counters to all problems. Or, if you are going to cut through prot with the skills I mentioned above, you have to rely on specific usage and tactics rather than blind spam.

And yes, there's about a dozen others you've happily ignored. Go back and read my posts again; they're all still there.

Lol, I never denied that BSpike cuts through prot (well, all prot bar two skills). Bad accusation there.

I don't see why Shadow Shroud and Power Block are relevant. They might make it impossible to prot, but they're not lifestealing. Lifestealing ignores prot after it goes on, Shadow Shroud and Power Block stops prot from going on in the first place. What does that have to do with the issue at hand?

As far as I can tell I've responded to and countered every point you made. If you have one in particular that you think I haven't, please write it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Answering this question without openly assaulting your intelligence/reading comprehension skills will be tricky, but I"m up for a challenge....

The examples you gave were higher crits on scythes, doublestrike with daggers, and AoM being immune to conditions. You postulated that since these skills were "unique," BSpike also deserved to be "unique." I, in turn, pointed out that none of those three examples is legitimate because while they are indeed unique, they are still subject to multiple counters while BSpike is not. Scythe and dagger strikes can still be protted. You can still wear shield insignias to protect against them. You can kite the player. AoM makes you immune to conditions, but it can't be chained. You can still be hexed. You can still prot his target or cast IMS skills on him to get him out of attack range.

Let's see ... you gave three counters to Scythe and Dagger attacks, so if I give you three counters to BSpike will you be satisfied? Here's your three then:

1. Anything that makes spells fail;
2. Interrupts;
3. Anti-caster (eg. Migraine).

I'll actually add a couple more since I can.

4. Running out of his range;
5. Switch your +5 / +7 Spear for +30;
6. Run one or two Fire Eles (yes this is a GvG argument - if you are going to argue HA, as I said above, I won't argue you).

And so on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

I didn't say they weren't still spells. I'm quite aware of the properties of offensive spellcasting. The fact that these are still spells doesn't change the effect that the spells' results have on gameplay. What's next? Are you gonna tell me "Well BSpikers have to play by the rules by having characters on the board?" Please.

We're running circles around semantics here. What is a "rule"? You're saying that all damage (except lifestealing) being prottable makes it a "rule". I think that since an exception exists, it's not a "rule". That's the source of confusion. Can you define what a "rule" is?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Again, it's not a functional shortcoming (especially when you have 6+ people spamming it repeatedly) commensurate with the advantages it gains. To use your example from earlier, AoM gives you a tremendous advantage against conditions, but has a proportional shortcoming with its hellishly long recharge. On the other hand 60 energy for 378 points of unprottable lifestealing with only one counter is a pretty sweet deal.

And you weaken yourself to a variety of problems. I gave you some above. You need to run 16 Blood Magic, meaning you have less HP on an AL 60 target. You need to run Blood Magic, which is a pretty bad line (no utility). You have to accept that you cannot defend one another. 60 energy for 378 points of damage is a bad ratio. And so on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

We've already established that you can Build Wars BSpike, and I believe I already said (if you weren't tl;dr-ing all my posts) that Gift is an option, but it's also not necessary as much because BSpike has become more of a pressure build than a proper spike these days. You used to carry Gift to heal the infuser after spikes, especially since teams could fake spike someone, and pile the rest of their damage on the infuser after he pushes the target's bar back up. These days, Gift just isn't that useful against the sustained pressure.

Divine Healing just sucks. Heals on midliners means you lose utility. Anticaster midline will only shut down a spiker or two and might help a little, but not much more than Gift would. The counters you'd have to run for BSpike are too wide-reaching and build-specific because of the fact that its only counter is pushing red bars up. Almost every example you've furnished above amounts to "why not just bring more skills to push red bars up?" when that fails to address the underlying problem of BSpike only being able to be countered that way. It's just bad. Earthshaker can be useful against HA Bspike, but commonly you can't use it often enough ane effectively enough to defuse the pressure the way all other builds are defused by the options players have to counter them.

We've already established that you can Build Wars BSpike. What I'm after, from you, is why BSpike deserves to be the only build in the game that you can only meaningfully counter by pushing red bars up.

Of course Gift of Health, Divine Healing, heals on midliners, etc aren't perfect solutions. If they were perfect solutions you would be running them already. But if you want to beat BSpike, then of course you have to change your build to get around it. I've given you options to beat BSpike without having to completely gimp yourself against every other build. That's what matters isn't it?

Once again you seem to indicate that you want to run a given build - a build that does not include Gift, Divine healing, heals on midliners, etc - and then want it to be able to beat BSpike.

You ask why BSpike deserves to be the only build in the game that you can only meaningfully counter by pushing red bars up. I'll give you the response, why not? I don't see a good reason why not, and in the absence of good reasons not to have it, then we keep it by the build variety argument

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

No, you answered a distorted version of my thesis. As I said before (zzz) you have wiggle room in antimelee utility bars that you simply do not have on Prot bars. This is still a straw man, just like it was when you first posted it, and it's not becoming any stronger an argument by your continued deployment of it. Antimelee = utility. Prot = necessity. Get it through your head.

Antimelee = necessity. I challenge you to exhibit a successful build that does not include it on midliners, unless you are 1) dedicated split build that dies if it gets caught in a prolonged 8v8 or 2) running a 3 Monk backline (or something).

PS: I'm using "necessity" the same way you are. Antimelee is in the absolute sense certainly not a necessity. It's useless against any build that doesn't include melee. But in that same absolute sense prot isn't a necessity either, because it's useless against BSpike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

See how you've gone from "everything else has a counter" to "lifestealing should be unprottable?" It's subtle, but this is another evasion of my thesis. I'm not saying (necessarily) that lifestealing needs to be prottable, it's just the easiest example. I'm saying it needs to have more than one counter.

I've been waiting for you to bring up Spellbreaker, but the fact that you haven't is yet another testament to the fact that you're looking at this whole thing with blinders on.

I wrote down six counters above, and seeing this quote might mean you need more.

7. Run a Monk flagger;
8. Skills that prot Dark Pact;
9. Diversion and Guilt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

They're long because I answer everything you say, because it's all garbage. If my arguments are so weak, it should be easy for you to do the same. Leaving out enormous chunks of my posts--especially when they're direct answers to your points/questions lost you every shred of credibility a long time ago.P

You do find that you're repeating enormous chunks of your posts right? I'm surprised that didn't ring an alarm bell.

Let me say this - if you find you're repeating a lot of your post multiple times in that same post, save everyone some time and just write it once. If you insist on repeating the same thing many times in the same post, then you simply make the post longer and harder to read. You might think that's an achievement, I think that's silly.

If there's something I ignored that you think is particularly important and want a response, feel free to point it out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ex Death

Jeydra, what exactly is the issue with nerfing on the grounds of lack of skill required for proportionally effective results ie bloodspam? As far as I can tell, your main priority is to uphold as much build diversity as possible even at the expense of detracting from skill intensity. Build diversity (in the sense of the rock, paper, scissors equilibrium) and skill requirements are the two key elements of what comprises game balance. The fact that bloodspam requires absolutely no skill whatsoever is reason enough to nerf it since this extremity overrides what build diversity will be lost from its disappearance. And I think we can all agree that bloodspam is an extremity.

Given two otherwise-equal choices, I pick the one that requires more skill; given two otherwise-unequal choices, skill doesn't play a part in my conclusions.

I see the two options "destroy bloodspike" and "keep bloodspike" as distinctly unequal, and so I don't think skill matters. You can have a different two options though. I wrote one above: to have the two options being "keep bloodspike the way it is" and "change bloodspike to require some coordination" [aka. nerf the current version, buff Vampiric Swarm / Oppressive Gaze / etc]. Then I see the two options as fairly equal, and I'll go with the second.

Phe Belladona · Jul 03, 2009, 02:01 AM // 02:01

ok this is a joke, both of you stop posting, bspike needs to be destroyed but nadia your essays are bad and jeydra you seem to be unable to grasp game mechanics and what makes gw a good game.

nadia your arguement that the designers meant all damage to be prottable is wrong because clearly they made lifesteal.

jeydra the designers have made many errors and they need to be corrected, allowing bspike/bspam to exist in the game for as long as they have is one of the most stupidly unaddressed problems.

everyone who has a worthwhile brain (im obviously discounting you entirely here jeydra) wants bspam destroyed, its bad for the game and scrubby as hell. ppl have been asking for its destruction for a long time now and it couldnt come quick enough when it happens.

please both of you stop posting your long and utterly stupid "counter points" that you think make you look intelligent. also please lock thread - bspam should be nerf'd to death. end of discussion.

Nadia Roark · Jul 03, 2009, 02:15 AM // 02:15

Phe, that's not what I'm saying at all, but I imagine Jeydra is at least glad to have some company in sharing this misconception with you. I'm saying that BSpike should have a counter other than pushing up red bars. Prot is a convenient example, but I'm not married to the idea.

I don't particularly want to keep posting the same thing over and over again, but I decided a long time ago that I'm not letting Jeydra's nonsense get the last word here. If it's that bothersome, jsut stop reading the thread. No one is forcing you.

Nadia Roark · Jul 03, 2009, 06:07 AM // 06:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Don't give me the "this is retarded" argument because I'll just tell you that the game was carefully designed to have no skill that prots BSpike (outside of skills that make spells fail). It was carefully designed to go through Prot Spirit, to have no insignias to counter it and essentially be the way it is now.

Right. And I'm advancing the hypothesis (and just about everyone seems to agree with me in principle) that this is f*cking stupid.

Like Phe, you're assuming that I'm saying "BSpike has to be protted." While it's true I've a great deal of time talking about Prot, I've also made it abundantly clear a number of times that this doesn't have to be the only counter, as long as something else can work as a viable alternative. I still won't like twiddling my thumbs while playing against BSpike (ZB and Aura of Faith just suck, sorry. So does Aegis, and no one runs Dark Pact that I've seen) but knowing my team can do something about it other than mindless "push red bars up" would be something to work with at least.

Quote:

Do you see what the problem is with your argument yet? No? I'll tell you then. It is a tautology. It cannot be argued against, just like the one I wrote above. But it cannot be argued against not because it's a flawless argument. It cannot be argued against because it is a heavily flawed argument. You cannot argue against it because you've claimed that damage was meant to be prottable.

Read my posts again zzzz

I'm not saying everything has to be prottable, I'm saying everything except BSpike/BSpam has counters other than "push red bars up."

It's all there in plain text. Several times. I promise.

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If this is your problem with it, would you agree with a nerf to BSpam (which is what it is in GvG) and a buff to BSpike (Oppressive Gaze, Shadow Strike / Lifebane Strike, etc)?

I'm not sure; I'd have to see how it works in meta first. Oldschool BSpike made a little more sense to me gameplay-wise than the current incarnation does, but so many other things have changed since it was run that I can't rightly say whether it would be IMBA or not.

It used to be that teams would run Spellbreaker on the Infuser, since BSpike actually had to call spikes back in the day rather than just slopping their damage all over the place (hence the transition from "BSpike," as I've been referring to it as all this time, and "BSPam," which is what it really is. Old habits die hard ><). Migraine worked too, but isn't as effective against BSpam since spikes aren't the order of the day (more on that below).

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I have tried it. It makes me really weak. But it doesn't make you useless. Have you?

I've tried it, yes, and (as I said before zzzz) my casting is entirely immaterial to whether my team wins or loses. I don't honestly believe even you can maintain a straight face while suggesting that spamming spells for the DF bonus alone is anywhere near meaningful.

Quote:

Here, allow me to find you your quote. You said the following on post #54.

"Because, to put it as simply as I possibly can, Protection Prayers are an entire attribute line while BSurge is just an elite skill. Not having Melee doesn't make all Air Magic skills useless; BSpike does however accomplish this against Protection Prayers."

Fine, I'll give you that; Prot has some "push red bars up" skills (zzzzz) that can be used against BSpike. The Protection line isn't taken out of the game entirely, but those skills are pretty awful anyway and again; they're just "push bars up" skills. I'll say it again; zzzzz. Okay, actually, ZB is kinda okay but got hit with the nerf bat in the energy gain department. But if you're going to run an elite just to counter BSpike, it might as well be Spellbreaker.

Quote:

The fact that Aegis prots BSpike and that it lies in Protection Prayers runs directly contrary to what you said. The fact that Aura of Faith and Zealous Benediction lie in Protection Prayers and are both useful against BSpike also runs directly contrary to what you said. Ready to concede that you were wrong now?

A bit. But since those function more like healing skills than anything else, we're still at square one in the "BSpike can only be countered by pushing red bars up" department.

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What would you do if I show you a build that was nerfed not because it overpowered enemy backlines?

Ugh. I didn't say "Builds are only nerfed because they overpower backlines," I'm just saying that it has happened. Reading comprehension ftw. Oh wait...

Quote:

They already play by the same rules as everything else. Do you want examples? I gave you some. The specific "rule" you're referring to is cutting through prot, and because lifestealing ignores prot I'd call "ability to be protted" not a rule at all.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Again. The "rule" I'm referring to is having more than one equipment/skill based counters.

I've noticed this happens a lot during internet debates. I'll make a point, give an example, and my opponent ignores the point and spends the next 10+ posts arguing about the example. I admit that early on, I expressed dismay that a build could so thoroughly remove a character class (the prot) from the game and while I still don't much like it, I at least acknowledge that there can be other BSpike counters aside from prot. I've been saying this for quite a while now.

Quote:

I don't see why Shadow Shroud and Power Block are relevant. They might make it impossible to prot, but they're not lifestealing. Lifestealing ignores prot after it goes on, Shadow Shroud and Power Block stops prot from going on in the first place. What does that have to do with the issue at hand?

They were meant to be examples of how situational usage/tactics were required to bypass prot (not to mention the use of elite skills, which BSpike does not rely on) in all other instances. But if we want to accept that BSpike should bypass prot (which I have acknowledged is a viable option for god knows how many posts now) it should at least have other hard counters aside from spot heals.

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As far as I can tell I've responded to and countered every point you made. If you have one in particular that you think I haven't, please write it.

I'm sorry, but that's not my responsibility. If you want a reasoned debate (which I doubt), it's yours. They're all still there, and can mostly be found in the sections of my responses that you've left out. But, to name the biggest one, it's the same straw man that Phe brought up; namely that I'm saying "all damage should be prottable" when in fact I'm saying that "All damage should have multiple counters." I'm simply furnishing Prot as an example because it's the most convenient, but have (numerous times) mentioned the possibility of equipment/hard skill counters to lifestealing.

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Let's see ... you gave three counters to Scythe and Dagger attacks, so if I give you three counters to BSpike will you be satisfied? Here's your three then:

This ought to be good.

Quote:

1. Anything that makes spells fail;

Aegis sucks so hard it's not an option, and SpellBreaker was only an option against old-school BSpike. The new build, since it is more of a pressure build than a spike build (I really need to start calling it "BSpam" ><) would just laugh at SpellBreaker and just pick a new target for the 45 seconds it will take your monk to cooldown SB. Next!

Quote:

2. Interrupts;
3. Anti-caster (eg. Migraine).

Again, these are effective against called spikes, but largely irrelevant against the pressure build that BSpam has become.

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4. Running out of his range;

Only effective if you have IMS. As soon as you run out of range, they can just switch to someone who isn't, since they haven't used the energy yet.

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5. Switch your +5 / +7 Spear for +30;

Which you should have done when the match started. I would tend to guess that people in matches against BSpam do this anyway, but they still die.

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6. Run one or two Fire Eles (yes this is a GvG argument - if you are going to argue HA, as I said above, I won't argue you).

Build Wars.

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We're running circles around semantics here. What is a "rule"? You're saying that all damage (except lifestealing) being prottable makes it a "rule". I think that since an exception exists, it's not a "rule". That's the source of confusion. Can you define what a "rule" is?

Rules have exceptions ("I before E except after "C;" "Damage can be protted) but for the sake of quality gameplay and build diversity some rules ("damage should have more than one counter") just shouldn't be broken.

Again (zzz), it doesn't have to be prot. It can be an equipment counter, like a rune or insignia or inscription. It can be a skill, or it can be a functional limitation like the OP proposes. I'm just using prot because it's the most accessible example and I have the most experience with it.

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And you weaken yourself to a variety of problems. I gave you some above. You need to run 16 Blood Magic, meaning you have less HP on an AL 60 target. You need to run Blood Magic, which is a pretty bad line (no utility).

Again, lots of builds (e.g. "anything that runs without melee and paragons") run with 60 AL squishies, but they don't all enjoy the luxury of being able to spam skills that you can only counter by pushing bars back up.

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You have to accept that you cannot defend one another. 60 energy for 378 points of damage is a bad ratio. And so on.

Not damage. Lifestealing. 60 Energy for 378 damage is indeed nothing special. But since it ignores prot and the target is essentially powerless against it form an equipment/skill standpoint, it's actually a pretty sweet deal. That's why people run it.

Quote:

Of course Gift of Health, Divine Healing, heals on midliners, etc aren't perfect solutions. If they were perfect solutions you would be running them already. But if you want to beat BSpike, then of course you have to change your build to get around it. I've given you options to beat BSpike without having to completely gimp yourself against every other build. That's what matters isn't it?

Again, these are "push bars up" skills and even though they can be run on prots easily enough, that doesn't answer the fundamental problems encountered when a build only has one practical counter.

Quote:

Once again you seem to indicate that you want to run a given build - a build that does not include Gift, Divine healing, heals on midliners, etc - and then want it to be able to beat BSpike.

zzzzzz. I'll say it again, so maybe it gets through this time. Prot doesn't have to be the counter, but more than one would be nice.

Quote:

You ask why BSpike deserves to be the only build in the game that you can only meaningfully counter by pushing red bars up. I'll give you the response, why not?

I'm sorry, but "why not?" is not a legitimate answer, especially in the face of this:

Quote:

I don't see a good reason why not, and in the absence of good reasons not to have it, then we keep it by the build variety argument

Hearing you talk about "build variety" in this context makes me want to plunge dirty forks into my eyes. How can you seriously suggest that ONLY HAVING ONE COUNTER IS GOOD FOR BUILD DIVERSITY?.

And you call my argument a tautology?

Quote:

Antimelee = necessity. I challenge you to exhibit a successful build that does not include it on midliners, unless you are 1) dedicated split build that dies if it gets caught in a prolonged 8v8 or 2) running a 3 Monk backline (or something).

I hate to channel Bill Clinton here, but it depends on what you classify as "Antimelee." Snares, for example, can be used in both offensive and defensive capacities. Some builds will have players "lineback" (e.g. "slow down enemy melee") with cripple or hex snares, and when the other team doesn't happen to be running melee, they'll switch to a more offensive role and snare spike targets so they can't kite their warriors.

I also hate to use IWAY as an example, but it doesn't have any dedicated antimelee skills aside from Shadow Weapon, Weapon of Warding, and "Make Haste!" But encountering a team without melee doesn't actually gimp the E/Rt or Mo/P; it just means they don't have to use those skills. They have enough other spells to cast that it simply means they can spend their energy elsewhere.

Quote:

PS: I'm using "necessity" the same way you are. Antimelee is in the absolute sense certainly not a necessity. It's useless against any build that doesn't include melee. But in that same absolute sense prot isn't a necessity either, because it's useless against BSpike.

I just don't understand what logcial part of your brain thinks this makes any sense. Even if a prot runs a couple "push red bars up" skills like ZB or Gift, antimelee utility characters usually only bring a couple antimelee skills too.

Lets say the prot brings ZB and Gift(which he won't because they're not that great anyway). Against BSpam he can use these two skills, but he needs the rest of his bar to counter other builds.

Antimelee casters, on the other hand, usually only run a couple antimelee skills because that's generally all you need since most teams only run 1-2 melee characters. Lets say BSurge and Blinding Flash. The prot has 2 skills to use against BSpike, while the Antimelee has 5 or 6 (depending on whether or not he's running rez) skills that are still viable against teams without melee.

That said, I should point out again (since Christ knows I have to say it about thirty cocking times before you'll finally pay attention to it) that it'd be okay to keep BSpam immune from prot as long as there's a way to deal with it other than "push red bars up." Depending on what that counter is, I might still just read a book or something when we play BSpam but for balance's sake it'd at least be a start to give the game some kind of build diversity by bringing the BSpam into the "more than one counter" category.

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7. Run a Monk flagger;

GvG specific; I guess you didn't catch the "I don't play GvG" that I spammed like thirty times in my last post

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8. Skills that prot Dark Pact;

Also GvG specific, I suspect, or you're just pulling stuff out of your ass. I've never seen a BSpam run Dark Pact.

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9. Diversion and Guilt.

Only effective against called spikes, which BSpam is not.

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You do find that you're repeating enormous chunks of your posts right? I'm surprised that didn't ring an alarm bell.

And I will continue to until you realize what I'm saying.

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Let me say this - if you find you're repeating a lot of your post multiple times in that same post, save everyone some time and just write it once. If you insist on repeating the same thing many times in the same post, then you simply make the post longer and harder to read. You might think that's an achievement, I think that's silly.

I don't think it's an "achievement;" I'm trying to make sure you read and pay attention to what I'm writing but it's obviously not working. I've spent the last few posts repeating the idea that "red bars going down should have more than one counter" but you've consistently read that as "BSpike should be prottable" because I'm using prot as an example of countering red-bars-going-down elsewhere in the game.

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If there's something I ignored that you think is particularly important and want a response, feel free to point it out.

See above.

Sun Fired Blank · Jul 03, 2009, 09:10 AM // 09:10

I'd considered just deleting the thread altogether but it's really funny. Quality stuff. Clearly the pinnacle of Guild Wars discussion.

That said, I'll sort through this later today (all five pages) and see if I can salvage some good talking points aside from the obvious "nerf b-spam." I wouldn't refer to this shit as b-spike; the face to keyboard is magnitudes greater.

Also, stop the quote wars. Believe it or not, you can respond to another person and their points without quoting every individual point you're responding to, and it's much easier to read.

Jeydra · Jul 03, 2009, 09:37 AM // 09:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phe Belladona

everyone who has a worthwhile brain (im obviously discounting you entirely here jeydra) wants bspam destroyed, its bad for the game and scrubby as hell. ppl have been asking for its destruction for a long time now and it couldnt come quick enough when it happens.

If you'll agree with nerfing Blood SPAM and buffing Blood SPIKE then we're done.

Anyway apologies for continuing to argue with Nadia.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Like Phe, you're assuming that I'm saying "BSpike has to be protted." While it's true I've a great deal of time talking about Prot, I've also made it abundantly clear a number of times that this doesn't have to be the only counter, as long as something else can work as a viable alternative. I still won't like twiddling my thumbs while playing against BSpike (ZB and Aura of Faith just suck, sorry. So does Aegis, and no one runs Dark Pact that I've seen) but knowing my team can do something about it other than mindless "push red bars up" would be something to work with at least.

Lol ... suppose ANet creates this insignia that prevents some of the damage from lifestealing. Something you've wanted all throughout the thread. Magically, problem resolved, you're happy. Right? BUT! You're still twiddling your thumps while playing against BSpike, and knowing that your team can't do anything other than mindless "push red bars up". Yet for some reason you're happy. Why?

And I'll refer you back to the BSurge example. If you claim Prot Monk vs. BSpike to be "twiddling his thumbs" (although he certainly shouldn't be) then BSurge against a build with no melee is also "twiddling his thumbs". Sure the BSurge isn't completely useless, he still has Shell Shock / Lightning Bolt / whatever for spike assist. But he's a lot weaker, just like the Prot Monk is.

I'll stress. BSurge against a build with no melee isn't completely useless, but he is a lot weaker. Prot Monk against BSpike isn't completely useless, but he is a lot weaker. Therefore by your logic any build that does not include melee should be nerfed so the BSurge can feel more useful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

I'm not saying everything has to be prottable, I'm saying everything except BSpike/BSpam has counters other than "push red bars up."

Explain why BSpike / BSpam should have counters other than "push red bars up".

By the way you did say that everything should be prottable; you essentially argued that Blood Magic should not be exempt from the damage / protection dynamics as established everywhere else - see what you wrote on post #78:

"Already been over this (many, many times); because it flies in the face of the damage/protection dynamics as established everywhere else in the game by the developers. It can only be countered by spot heals and it removes the principles of prediction and situational awareness as required by every other build. Because, (everywhere else at least) the game seems to have been designed with an eye to these principles. Any time you want to recognize that I've explained myself and now it's your turn is fine by me. Tell me why this is wrong, please."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

I've tried it, yes, and (as I said before zzzz) my casting is entirely immaterial to whether my team wins or loses. I don't honestly believe even you can maintain a straight face while suggesting that spamming spells for the DF bonus alone is anywhere near meaningful.

So you tell me that your HA Monks run 12 Prot, 12 Inspiration because DF bonus alone isn't anywhere near meaningful?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Again. The "rule" I'm referring to is having more than one equipment/skill based counters.

I've noticed this happens a lot during internet debates. I'll make a point, give an example, and my opponent ignores the point and spends the next 10+ posts arguing about the example. I admit that early on, I expressed dismay that a build could so thoroughly remove a character class (the prot) from the game and while I still don't much like it, I at least acknowledge that there can be other BSpike counters aside from prot. I've been saying this for quite a while now.

If the rule as you define it is "having more than one equipment / skill based counters then BSpike certainly does obey the rule - Arcane Conundrum, Migraine, Guilt and Mistrust, that's four skills already and there're still a lot more I haven't mentioned.

I gave you a counterexample to your "removes the prot" argument. I'll repeat it here again for your benefit. Not running melee "removes the BSurge". BSurge against a build with no melee isn't completely useless, but he is a lot weaker the same way Prot Monk against BSpike isn't completely useless, but he is a lot weaker. By your logic then we need to nerf any build that does not include a melee, because it "removes the BSurge from the game".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Aegis sucks so hard it's not an option, and SpellBreaker was only an option against old-school BSpike. The new build, since it is more of a pressure build than a spike build (I really need to start calling it "BSpam" ><) would just laugh at SpellBreaker and just pick a new target for the 45 seconds it will take your monk to cooldown SB. Next!

Sure the options are bad, but it's a counter. You asked for counters, I just gave you one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Again, these are effective against called spikes, but largely irrelevant against the pressure build that BSpam has become.

Successfully DShot'ing Vamp Gaze / Vamp Spirit / Dark Pact can significantly reduce the pressure your team takes, as can increasing the cast time via Migraine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Only effective if you have IMS. As soon as you run out of range, they can just switch to someone who isn't, since they haven't used the energy yet.

In the same way, "countering" melee by running out of his range is only effective if you have an IMS, and he can always switch to someone else since he hasn't used his adrenaline yet. So why did you say kiting is a counter to melee?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Which you should have done when the match started. I would tend to guess that people in matches against BSpam do this anyway, but they still die.

People swap to piercing shields against Rangerspike, but they still die. But you're apparently happy with that. Why?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Build Wars.

Build wars indeed. What's wrong?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Rules have exceptions ("I before E except after "C;" "Damage can be protted) but for the sake of quality gameplay and build diversity some rules ("damage should have more than one counter") just shouldn't be broken.

Again (zzz), it doesn't have to be prot. It can be an equipment counter, like a rune or insignia or inscription. It can be a skill, or it can be a functional limitation like the OP proposes. I'm just using prot because it's the most accessible example and I have the most experience with it.

What gives you the right to call "damage should have more than one counter" a rule? See what I wrote about the tautology.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Again, lots of builds (e.g. "anything that runs without melee and paragons") run with 60 AL squishies, but they don't all enjoy the luxury of being able to spam skills that you can only counter by pushing bars back up.

Most builds do not have 8 AL 60 squishies. You'd recognize this at once if you obs'ed more. You would be hard-pressed to find a game in which one side doesn't run a Warrior. In fact almost all teams right now include two Warriors and a Ranger.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Hearing you talk about "build variety" in this context makes me want to plunge dirty forks into my eyes. How can you seriously suggest that ONLY HAVING ONE COUNTER IS GOOD FOR BUILD DIVERSITY?.

And you call my argument a tautology?

Well why isn't it?

Right now most guilds are running Prot + Heal, so if some team elects to run two WoH hybrids instead of RC / PnH + WoH, won't we have more diversity in the backline?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

I hate to channel Bill Clinton here, but it depends on what you classify as "Antimelee." Snares, for example, can be used in both offensive and defensive capacities. Some builds will have players "lineback" (e.g. "slow down enemy melee") with cripple or hex snares, and when the other team doesn't happen to be running melee, they'll switch to a more offensive role and snare spike targets so they can't kite their warriors.

I also hate to use IWAY as an example, but it doesn't have any dedicated antimelee skills aside from Shadow Weapon, Weapon of Warding, and "Make Haste!" But encountering a team without melee doesn't actually gimp the E/Rt or Mo/P; it just means they don't have to use those skills. They have enough other spells to cast that it simply means they can spend their energy elsewhere.

Let's define antimelee as anything that works to counter the other team's frontline - which puts snares under that category (certainly pre-nerf Me/E FC Water was an antimelee character).

The E/Rt and Mo/P can just elect not to use those skills because they haven't specialized their bars to only be able to do one thing. You've done that with the Prot Monk and are reluctant to change out of it; that's your problem right there. I'll point you to another one of the examples I gave earlier in the thread. I create a Mesmer build with Ineptitude, Wandering Eye, Clumsiness, Distortion, Price of Failure, Spirit of Failure, Reckless Haste and Res Sig. I go into RA only to find my opponents consisting of two Elementalists, a Monk and a Necro, none of which are stupid enough to wand with all the hexes on them. I'm useless. Tell me now, is it:

1. Elementalists, Monks and Necros should all be nerfed since they've "taken me out of play", or
2. I'm a retard?

Compare:

I create a Monk build with RC, Spirit Bond, Reversal, Aura of Stability, Guardian, Holy Veil, Shield of Absorption and Channeling. I go into HA and find my opponents are playing BSpike. I'm useless. Tell me now, is it:

1. BSpike should be nerfed since they've "taken me out of play", or
2. I'm a retard?

The comparison isn't perfect because the Monk build is pretty effective against almost all builds, just not against BSpike. But the essence is the same. The Mesmer build accepts a weakness if the other team has no physicals; the Monk build accepts a weakness if the other team is running BSpike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

I just don't understand what logcial part of your brain thinks this makes any sense. Even if a prot runs a couple "push red bars up" skills like ZB or Gift, antimelee utility characters usually only bring a couple antimelee skills too.

Lets say the prot brings ZB and Gift(which he won't because they're not that great anyway). Against BSpam he can use these two skills, but he needs the rest of his bar to counter other builds.

Antimelee casters, on the other hand, usually only run a couple antimelee skills because that's generally all you need since most teams only run 1-2 melee characters. Lets say BSurge and Blinding Flash. The prot has 2 skills to use against BSpike, while the Antimelee has 5 or 6 (depending on whether or not he's running rez) skills that are still viable against teams without melee.

That said, I should point out again (since Christ knows I have to say it about thirty cocking times before you'll finally pay attention to it) that it'd be okay to keep BSpam immune from prot as long as there's a way to deal with it other than "push red bars up." Depending on what that counter is, I might still just read a book or something when we play BSpam but for balance's sake it'd at least be a start to give the game some kind of build diversity by bringing the BSpam into the "more than one counter" category.

So your argument now is that what separates antimelee casters from Prot Monks is that the Prot Monk, even if he runs some heals, has only a few skills to use vs. the antimelee caster?

Well then, ask you this question. Suppose the Prot Monk using the bar I gave above runs into Rangerspike. Which skills on his bar matter now? Hex removal doesn't matter anymore. There's no time to cast Guardian or SoA. Aura of Stability is irrelevant since there's no KD. Channeling is rather dangerous to use. Reversal of Fortune gets pretty weak since priority becomes Spirit Bond -> RC. Agree?

So simply by build choice we've removed 6/8 skills from the Prot Monk's bar. Are you happy with Rangerspike then?

If you run into a build with no hexes, you don't use hex removal. If you run into a build where everything hits under 60 damage, you don't use Spirit Bond. If you run into a build without physicals, you don't use Guardian. If you run into BSpike and you have Gift on your bar, your priority is to 40/40 Gift as much as you can. That's using your bar properly.

PS: You can always change bars other than the Prot Monk alone (see run Earthshaker, run heals on midliners, etc).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

GvG specific; I guess you didn't catch the "I don't play GvG" that I spammed like thirty times in my last post

I guess you also didn't see then that I don't play HA and don't really care about the format, and that if your problem with BSpike is HA-based then you should write so in big bold letters and I'll stop arguing with you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Also GvG specific, I suspect, or you're just pulling stuff out of your ass. I've never seen a BSpam run Dark Pact.

It's not my fault you don't obs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Only effective against called spikes, which BSpam is not.

They're effective against all builds that spam.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

I don't think it's an "achievement;" I'm trying to make sure you read and pay attention to what I'm writing but it's obviously not working. I've spent the last few posts repeating the idea that "red bars going down should have more than one counter" but you've consistently read that as "BSpike should be prottable" because I'm using prot as an example of countering red-bars-going-down elsewhere in the game.

There's only one counter to red bars going down, which is "put red bars back up", but I know that's not what you mean. I've already responded to this above, but since you asked, I'll give you another more detailed version.

Why should "red bars going down" have more than one counter? You assume that it should, for some reason. Exactly why should it though? The only reason you can argue is "skill" - that it promotes tactical awareness, etc. I've stated that I do not accept that. Given two otherwise equal choices, I'll go with the one that takes more skill, but given two otherwise unequal choices skill doesn't play a part in my conclusions.

You might ask, why not? I don't plan to argue this here; it's been argued many times over already, primarily over the "Assassins should stay dead" line. But you might not have read that, so I'll give you a summary. Different professions take different kinds of skill. Predicting movement is a skill Warriors need to know to land Bull's Strike, but is irrelevant to a Monk; knowing when to run flags is a skill necessary to flaggers, but takes a back seat for everyone else. If we accept the "all builds that take no skill should be nerfed" stance then we ought also nerf everything except Dom Mesmers out of play, since (by common consensus anyway) Dom Mes is hard to play. Since that obviously shouldn't happen, I don't accept the "takes skill" argument either. And with skill out of the picture, I argue that we keep Blood Magic viable by the build variety argument.

You have said in this thread that you're against the functionality of Blood Magic, not the numbers on it. In other words, your two choices are either "destroy bloodspike" or "keep bloodspike". I see this choice as distinctly unequal, and so accordingly skill goes out the window. If you want to argue for destroying bloodspike you'll have to come up with something other than "it doesn't take skill".

I'll say again that if the choice is between "keep bloodspike the way it is" and "destroy bloodSPAM, buff bloodSPIKE", I'll go with the latter. But if it is between "destroy bloodspike" and "keep bloodspike", I'd rather choose to keep it.

@Sun Fired Blank - you can respond to people without having to rely on quote tags, but when a post is as long as this one, it's rather ... difficult.

Sun Fired Blank · Jul 03, 2009, 10:43 AM // 10:43

You didn't have to quote anything, and if you continue doing it, the thread will become even more unreadable than it already is, at which point I won't even bother to salvage what has become a stupid thread. They're replies for a reason. You don't have to quote the original post because you're obviously replying to it.

This is no longer a thread about proposed life stealing changes. It's a thread of you and Nadia block-quoting each other like quarreling lovers nitpicking each other over stupid little things. So stop it.