Curse

Wasteland Squidget · Mar 05, 2008, 11:48 PM // 23:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Good point. The spike situation is probably the biggest factor in me preferring getting gale back on warriors instead of strengthening it on mesmers & eles. Although I do think 10e 3s gale would still be better than what we have now, to reintroduce more proactive disruption (assuming GoE doesn't become the de-facto elite), and the skills to be tweaked should be the problematic casterspike stuff.

Nerfing the caster spike stuff is an odd situation though. While old gale makes 1s caster spikes too powerful, I don't think 2s caster spike skills are viable anymore.

Interrupters have gotten better. Not necessarily on the mechanical level - mesmers are improved overall, but d-shot + savage is still the interrupt combo of choice and its relatively unchanged since Prophecies. The difference is in the skill you can expect from an interrupter playing at a decent level. The standard has gone from reflexing 1s casts to reflexing .75s and fc wards. On a player level, pverall battlefield awareness is much higher than it was in the Prophecies days. Without GoLE letting you cancel-cast, I think you can reasonably expect 2s casts to phase almost entirely out of the metagame.

You can go the other way and nerf the damage of the caster damage skills, but again, I'm not sure they would be viable that way.

Almighty Zi · Mar 06, 2008, 12:50 AM // 00:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Popo

Figure out how to make [the new classes] balanced so they don't have to be a broken template.

Assassins weren't really broken in Factions. As already said before, remove their reliance on spike-based skills and encourage other factors such as high movement and utility that Warriors lack in comparison.

Warriors are the benchmark when it comes to melee combat. They do everything exceptionally well and no particular aspect of what they do is overpowered. Now add 2 more melee classes (derv and assasin) and they either have to a) fill a niche role and do something that a warrior doesn't or b) do something better than a warrior.

Point (a) is moot since a warrior has done EVERYTHING that you have ever needed from a melee class since day 1. There never has been a niche to fill - if you can think of one let me know.

Regarding point (b), last time I checked warriors were not lacking, in fact, they do EVERYTHING exceptionally well without being overpowered. If you create a new melee class and you want it to be better than a warrior in 1 aspect (mobility, spike power, utility/disruption etc.) then they are obviously going to be too good at it (i.e. overpowered).

The only solution would be to nerf the benchmark class in 1 or more particular aspects (narrow the class down) and then let the other classes fill the niche. NO-ONE WANTS THIS because we all prefer to have a well rounded balanced melee class that is versatile rather than having to chose a class based on a narrow role.

Is this really too hard to understand?

Popo · Mar 06, 2008, 01:53 AM // 01:53

Quote:

Warriors are the benchmark when it comes to melee combat. They do everything exceptionally well and no particular aspect of what they do is overpowered. Now add 2 more melee classes (derv and assasin) and they either have to a) fill a niche role and do something that a warrior doesn't or b) do something better than a warrior.

Point (a) is moot since a warrior has done EVERYTHING that you have ever needed from a melee class since day 1. There never has been a niche to fill - if you can think of one let me know.

Regarding point (b), last time I checked warriors were not lacking, in fact, they do EVERYTHING exceptionally well without being overpowered. If you create a new melee class and you want it to be better than a warrior in 1 aspect (mobility, spike power, utility/disruption etc.) then they are obviously going to be too good at it (i.e. overpowered).

The only solution would be to nerf the benchmark class in 1 or more particular aspects (narrow the class down) and then let the other classes fill the niche. NO-ONE WANTS THIS because we all prefer to have a well rounded balanced melee class that is versatile rather than having to chose a class based on a narrow role.

Is this really too hard to understand?

This ignores the main motif of this thread which is to buff Gale enough so that Warriors (and degenerate teams) can use it more effectively. You already claim the Warrior is the perfect all around fronliner and I agree. So why buff 'em more is my point.

Niche roles are not overpowered by nature. The niche role the Assassin plays now is. Learn the difference and then we can move on.

ax mastery · Mar 06, 2008, 02:02 AM // 02:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Popo

This ignores the main motif of this thread which is to buff Gale enough so that Warriors (and degenerate teams) can use it more effectively. You already claim the Warrior is the perfect all around fronliner and I agree. So why buff 'em more is my point.

Niche roles are not overpowered by nature. The niche role the Assassin plays now is. Learn the difference and then we can move on.

THAT IS IN NO WAY THE MAIN MOTIF OF THIS THREAD. That is one small bullet point in a list of proposed changes.

Also, his point was that there was no niche role to fill. Therefore anything the assassin does will require it to be overpowered, or everyone will choose the more well rounded warrior to do that job. Get it?

Popo · Mar 06, 2008, 02:10 AM // 02:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by ax mastery

THAT IS IN NO WAY THE MAIN MOTIF OF THIS THREAD. That is one small bullet point in a list of proposed changes.

Also, his point was that there was no niche role to fill. Therefore anything the assassin does will require it to be overpowered, or everyone will choose the more well rounded warrior to do that job. Get it?

Yes, one "small bullet point" that has resulted in how many pages worth of discussion? That's the very definition of a motif, bud.

I'm keep having to repeat myself because you guys keep changing the arguments and instead of looking at all my posts you look at the response I make to one person.

If Assassins are balanced yet fill a niche role that Warriors are less effective at (split) then it won't by overpowered because that is the definition of balanced. Their advantage (or niche) that they fullfill could be extra utility, mobility, and lack of reliance on adrenaline.

ax mastery · Mar 06, 2008, 02:27 AM // 02:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Popo

Yes, one "small bullet point" that has resulted in how many pages worth of discussion? That's the very definition of a motif, bud.

If Assassins are balanced yet fill a niche role that Warriors are less effective at (split) then it won't by overpowered because that is the definition of balanced. Their advantage (or niche) that they fullfill could be extra utility, mobility, and lack of reliance on adrenaline.

It wasn't intended to turn into a wtfgaleoverpowered!!1! thread, and several people have tried to end it.

As far as your assassin thing, assassins have no utility to speak of. 4-5 attack skills on a bar forbids that. Offensive mobility is generally a moot point for anything unless it can follow up with a kill, and any defensive mobility stuff like snaring flaggers is going to be better accomplished by the more skill-rewarding cripshot or water ele builds.

So that leaves us with lack of reliance on adrenaline as the reason . To what point and purpose should we strive for this? So an LOLsin can instagib? Instagibbing (along with the move of party healing to the stand) has forced flaggers to become tanks, which is in part what made warriors ineffective when splitting.

So, if the instagibbing is removed, the offensive mobility of a sin is useless, and since utility and defensive mobility roles are much better performed by other characters, what reason could i possibly want to take a sin in a game?

In short, if you remove the overpoweredness and uselessness of an assassin, you have nothing left, and this leaves me unmotivated to try to fix it.

Popo · Mar 06, 2008, 02:36 AM // 02:36

Quote:

It wasn't intended to turn into a wtfgaleoverpowered!!1! thread, and several people have tried to end it.

It's a point of discussion. Who cares.

Your view on Assassins is terrible.

Quote:

As far as your assassin thing, assassins have no utility to speak of. 4-5 attack skills on a bar forbids that.

That's why 4-5 attack skill bars need to be balanced out. This has been hinted at since 4-5 attack skill bars have been in existence.

Quote:

Offensive mobility is generally a moot point for anything unless it can follow up with a kill, and any defensive mobility stuff like snaring flaggers is going to be better accomplished by the more skill-rewarding cripshot or water ele builds.

Who says they only have to follow up with a kill? That's the closemindedness I'm speaking of . How about follow up with a more balanced version of pressure and shutdown

Quote:

So that leaves us with lack of reliance on adrenaline as the reason . To what point and purpose should we strive for this? So an LOLsin can instagib? Instagibbing (along with the move of party healing to the stand) has forced flaggers to become tanks, which is in part what made warriors ineffective when splitting

Why do you always resort to throwing around terms like "instagib?" Lack of reliance on adrenaline means they have more constant damage which means they have the advantage over Warrior in the beginning of the small skirmish and could walk away from battle with no penalty to their use of attack skills. I care less about solo spiking.

Quote:

In short, if you remove the overpoweredness and uselessness of an assassin, you have nothing left, and this leaves me unmotivated to try to fix it.

More evidence that people here are lazy. I've already called people out on this in earlier parts of the thread.

ax mastery · Mar 06, 2008, 02:53 AM // 02:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Popo

That's why 4-5 attack skill bars need to be balanced out. This has been hinted at since 4-5 attack skill bars have been in existence.

Who says they only have to follow up with a kill? That's the closemindedness I'm speaking of . How about follow up with a more balanced version of pressure and shutdown

Why do you always resort to throwing around terms like "instagib?" Lack of reliance on adrenaline means they have more constant damage which means they have the advantage over Warrior in the beginning of the small skirmish and could walk away from battle with no penalty to their use of attack skills. I care less about solo spiking.

More evidence that people here are lazy. I've already called people out on this in earlier parts of the thread.

The problem you don't see is that they would have to be faarrr better than a warrior at splitting to be worth sacrificing stand power.

A warrior can pressure and shutdown on a split AND it can kill things in a stand fight. A sin that can pressure and shutdown when splitting, but can't do anything at the stand would be inferior to a warrior, and thus unplayable. It's not closemindedness (which is a word you seem to like to throw around), but a simple truth. Something that specializes has to much better at its task than something that is generally good.

Any change that would remove the need for 4-5 attack skills would require a *complete* overhaul of the class, and it would end up looking more like a class that already exists.

About half your arguement was spent labeling me btw, which doesn't prove your point or make you look good, so try to stick to reasoning please.

Popo · Mar 06, 2008, 02:59 AM // 02:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by ax mastery

The problem you don't see is that they would have to be faarrr better than a warrior at splitting to be worth sacrificing stand power.

A warrior can pressure and shutdown on a split AND it can kill things in a stand fight. A sin that can pressure and shutdown when splitting, but can't do anything at the stand would be inferior to a warrior, and thus unplayable. It's not closemindedness (which is a word you seem to like to throw around), but a simple truth. Something that specializes has to much better at its task than something that is generally good.

Any change that would remove the need for 4-5 attack skills would require a *complete* overhaul of the class, and it would end up looking more like a class that already exists.

About half your arguement was spent labeling me btw, which doesn't prove your point or make you look good, so try to stick to reasoning please.

None of my arguments rely solely on labeling people. I just chose to point out some of your flaws in hopes you realize the errors of your closemindedness.

Of course Sins need some sort of overhaul. That's the whole point. And you already admitted you're too lazy to do anything but nerf them out of existence. Why do you even bother posting then?

ax mastery · Mar 06, 2008, 03:09 AM // 03:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Popo

None of my arguments rely solely on labeling people. I just chose to point out some of your flaws in hopes you realize the errors of your closemindedness.

Of course Sins need some sort of overhaul. That's the whole point. And you already admitted you're too lazy to do anything but nerf them out of existence. Why do you even bother posting then?

This is getting rediculous.

I'm not too lazy, i find nothing worth trying to fix. Imo, there is no non-imba aspect of the profession that can't be done more healthily by something else.

Also, i am not closeminded (check back to my post on necro ideas on page3 if you want some proof), but rather, you are too dull to find any substancial support for your argument, and resort to calling me closeminded because of it. (Some name calling of my own

)

Post practical specific ideas or stop posting.

Razz L Dazzle · Mar 06, 2008, 03:26 AM // 03:26

moderation please ..

Or is everyone to close minded and lazy.

Hyper Cutter · Mar 06, 2008, 03:35 AM // 03:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uetzcayotl

As suggested before, remove the IAS and Cracked Armor from Aggressive Refrain, and give it +25% adrenaline instead.

So you want an inferior copy of [skill]Focused Anger[/skill]?

Lorekeeper · Mar 06, 2008, 03:49 AM // 03:49

i dont understand how this thread can become so narrowly focused on such a microscopic issue, the OP condenses 3 years of highly complex balance evolution into 1 simple to understand post, yet for how many pages now we seem to only be discussing gale?

There are much deeper rooted problems with balance than having a 10e or a 5e gale. Solve those first, discuss the multitude of changes that have contributed to powercreep, discuss whats happened to VoD, what direction should party healing take, should mesmers be a twitchy shutdown class with spike ability or a edenial/cast denial class with some twitch shutdown, are rangers too robust on the split, do prot elites need a buff? Kudos to those trying to discuss issues surrounding the new classes, but i think this discussion lacks the same depth and breadth that the OP represents by becoming far too focused on gale being viable on warriors again.

Its narrowminded to focus such a discussion in this way, im sure it will be nice for warriors to have, but i dont think for 1 second that warriors not having access to gale is the reason why they have lost their versatility or threat level in the skirmish game. It might be 1 reason among many others, and i think its wiser to discuss them all in unison rather than only on 1 of them, just like the OP attempts to unify lessons from three years of skill balance into a single vision.

There are plenty of other skills that a warrior has access to that could be candidate for buffs that might allow better skirmish capable templates, like coward or Yaa, the latter seeing heavy amounts of play during the eurosplit era before its nerf. Mending touch nailed the coffin in that skill. Switch Coward to energy cost and move to strength with a fail mechanism like gale (warrior equivalent with no exhaustion but elite). Revert the nearby nerf to YAA back to adjacent. Changing mending touch to scale conditions removed with protection prayers might allow Yaa to come back into play. If its more tactical versatility thats desired for warriors in skirmish situations surely there are far more things you can discuss instead of focusing so much on gale?

But just look at the comments on party healing and eprod runners in the OP. Look at whats happened to the relationship between the flagger and the stand as a result of those changes. Look at flagger templates and the apparent loss of threat that warriors have become in skirmishes (specially without the ranger there to help). Look at the rit template and compare it to the flagger templates before it came popular.

There are so many different things that have happened to the game that has changed the face of balance for you guys to focus this discussion so heavily on gale.

If everyone came into the thread to discuss something they wanted to see in the game, this thread will lose all value. If everyone bands together somehow to discuss the central issues that plague the game, the thread will echo the vision and value of the OP and have huge value to Anet if they can see that we can at least agree on something for once. A divided game community is not one that is easy to balance for.

Edit - error with coward

Uetzcayotl · Mar 06, 2008, 05:02 AM // 05:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyper Cutter

So you want an inferior copy of [skill]Focused Anger[/skill]?

There are differences between the two. A permanent IAS without any drawback is not a good thing on any profession, even more so on one with (ranged) pressure similar to a warrior.

For assassins, aftercast after shadowstepping seems like an OK idea. All attack skills that skip leads should be changed so that it is not possible to have two dual attacks in the same chain - with the exception of Moebius Strike possibly, but you'd be giving up other elites to do so.

C2K · Mar 06, 2008, 05:38 AM // 05:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

Coward could perhaps use a 2s KD

Coward is a 2 second KD, as all normal KDs are 2 seconds. So in the hands of a Warrior with Stonefist, its a 3 second KD.

Other than that, I agree with your post, the problems in current meta should be handled first.

Vaga · Mar 06, 2008, 08:35 AM // 08:35

Well I think the main reason why 5e 2s kd gale was suggested opposed to yaa buff etc... is that it takes more skill to use gale than it does to spam yaa on someone or coward someone. Exhaustion on warrior isn't especially easy to deal with, when gale was imba it was because people abused the fact you couldn't get negative exhaustion so you could spam gale a lot more. Mesmers and Ele's will barely notice the difference in energy cost, except maybe on an eprod ele, it's not going to promote any gimmick apart from adren spike w/ gale warriors which wouldn't even be that hard to counter nowadays.

Pretty sure the main reason gale and the other classes are being discussed is because all these people who don't even gvg and have no idea what they're talking about started crying about warriors being overpowered and how the classes that take no skill to play should be made so that they're viable in gvg...not coming up with any ideas themselves but just spitting out what they think will be imba and how everyone is lazy for not being able to come up with suggestions to balance the new classes.

But yeah not sure why there's no moderation, it's pretty easy to see who is posting nothing of substance and just cluttering the thread.

DreamWind · Mar 06, 2008, 08:49 AM // 08:49

In my opinion, it is nearly impossible to post anything of substance when it comes to Assassin, Ritualist, Dervish, and Paragon. There hasn't EVER been a suggestion for these classes that made me think "hmm that class would be balanced and good for Guild Wars".

deathy · Mar 06, 2008, 12:04 PM // 12:04

Assassin combos are very easy to shut down. Any interrupt, block or blind, which are very prevalent in any meta, cause the assassin to be useless against even a mediocre in a balanced build. This leads them to be 1-2-3 classes, with incredible combos if they complete to make up for the fact that they are hard to complete. This makes them very one dimensional and inflexible. However, taking away the combo mechanic altogether (lead->offhand->dual), is simply too big of a jump to ever truly be considered.

Maybe a compromise, of combos, but with more flexibility are needed, for example skill ‘x’ does ‘y’ if following a lead, ‘z’ if following an offhand, etc. Let the skills go in any order, and even if the lead misses, gets blocked etc, then it still counts as though the target gets hit by the lead, allowing the appropriate follow up that you wanted. Then rework some skills to have a viable balanced collection or bleeding, poison, deep wound, blind, daze, cripple, disease, energy denial, skill disable, knockdowns etc, while turning done the instagib damage output, and maybe upping the base weapon damage. Tjis along with strong teleport skills and movement skills should allow them to be versatile split characters, while also not useless at the stand. They are less one dimensional, and reward adapting to the opponent, by switching up the order of your combo, so your offhand inflict blind to be defensive, instead of a deep wound for example.
Also make an after cast on all teleports, to stop degenerate spiking and instagibbing.
I agree with the vast majority of the OP’s post.

ensoriki · Mar 06, 2008, 12:30 PM // 12:30

meh saying sins are easy to shutdown cause of blind shouldn't even be an arguement, everyone knows that, but who cares?
Good monks keep block off their spikers.
Block is a bit better of an arguement imo.
Interruption effects everything.

pfft 123 not a problem, people arent dying from 123 generally... its when it goes up to 4 or 5 that causes death.

Quote:

All attack skills that skip leads should be changed so that it is not possible to have two dual attacks in the same chain - with the exception of Moebius Strike possibly, but you'd be giving up other elites to do so.

You keep it possible but you make lead skips weaker, but keep their recharge short so they remain in use, in sense lead skips should (maybe excuse moebius) be dramatically weaker than leads or normal offhands.

you do something with leads,weaken lead skips, bring up utility, do something with shadow steps, and make double strikes more consistent,and change some things>.> theoretically.|
oooh... and change wastrels collapse with extend conditions >.>

deathy · Mar 06, 2008, 12:45 PM // 12:45

My point was that if 3 attack skills were viable instead of 5, due to the way that they interchange with eachother, and provide different utility depending on how you use them, then we would see more interesting bars as the other two slots could allow for a more well rounded assassin.
The point I was making with the shutdown, was that if a warrior gets his eviscerate interrupted then he can still do executioners, an assassin cant use an offhand after his lead is interrupted, which stops his combo dead.
Assassins are very much "shadowstep->click 1-5", which doesn't reward skill at all, they are very one dimensional. That is what I'm trying to get at with my suggestions.