Curse

erk · Mar 18, 2008, 10:13 PM // 22:13

To help combat HC they could reduce the cast on Well of the Profane to 1 sec like most others. 3 sec is crazy for a well.

Kyp Jade · Mar 18, 2008, 10:28 PM // 22:28

Or we could increase cast time to 5 seconds, that sounds a lot more reasonable than a 1s well v profane

Riotgear · Mar 18, 2008, 11:49 PM // 23:49

To cast WoP you need a corpse near the monk, and even if you cast it, the HC monk will just walk out of it and recast. WoP only really works when people are forced to stand in it (read: shrines).

wuzzman · Mar 19, 2008, 01:01 AM // 01:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_deSKtructor

Ok, i understand u never faced healer's covenant. If it is too hard for u to see it, i'll just say u that HC recharges in 5 secs, the bar has a lot covers for it so enchantment removal isn't a viable way to deal with HC monks.

nerfing a half decent TA monk build doesn't sound too intelligent. HC is a poor mans boon/prot, please call me when 80% of all TA teams are simply RA teams coming off glad points...

erk · Mar 19, 2008, 01:44 AM // 01:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

To cast WoP you need a corpse near the monk, and even if you cast it, the HC monk will just walk out of it and recast. WoP only really works when people are forced to stand in it (read: shrines).

It's not something you spam like a Ward, you use it when an opportunity crops up like just after a spike when your team has scored a kill to add extra pressure. Dead footmen are a good one if you can push the opposition near them. With some 30 NPCs in the average GvG a corpse pops up quite often. I wouldn't mind seeing WoP moved to the curses tree, as Death Magic is less popular in GvG. And they don't have to camp in it to loose an enchant, just a kite through will do.

Lordhelmos · Mar 19, 2008, 08:24 AM // 08:24

Escape Rangers and Prepshot + Sundering Attack machine gunners give me more problems that HC monks. Granted the HC monk is powerful, but can be victimized by spells like corrupt and rip enchantment. One diversion will also ruin a HC monk if he casts through it, so if you constantly chain shame and diversion on an HC, even if he CoP's it off you can still keep him diversioned because of CoP's recharge and his need for enchants.

Rangers in this meta are ridiculously imbalanced. The new R/D scythe IWAY puts the old build to shame and a the one second recharge on sundering shots + prep shot gives a ranger the ability to deal 80 DPS(yeah go test it on master of damage if you don't believe me) to a target consistently, which is ridiculous compared to the 60-70 a shockaxe deals.

Sundering Attack and its counter part need to take recharge hits. Escape is just a retarded skill that should get ether renewaled since rangers already have great block skills like natural stride, making escape is just a griefer skill.

As far as HC monks go, the recharge time on HC could get hit to prevent reapplication quickly. Everything on that bar is a .25 second cast, making it near immune to any sort of caster shutdown short of diversion. Another good way to stop that build is to energy degen the hell out of that monk. I found skills like malaise/ether phantom/panic along with some energy drains really ruin that build if monk can't CoP them off fast enough.

Because the monk is depending on a maintained enchant for energy, if you start hitting his energy and forcing him to CoP + cast without HC, you can burn him out of energy extremely fast.

Another thing you can do is spread hexes and degen around the entire enemy team. With only spotless mind and soul, the monk's ability to save other teammates from overloads is quite limited. Spiking other targets aside from the monk works too because you can easily overpower the monk's Dkiss and Patient spirit with enough DPS.

Of course the issue is that he is constantly being able to spam heals because of HC, so if you keep rending him and damaging other of his team members. He will eventually fold.

Boonprot didn't have that problem, so yeah HC is a weaker boonprot. I think HC is a good build, I don't want to see it nerfed to oblivion because it's an interesting build that gives a lot of value to healing prayers.

I'd wait a bit and watch how players react to it as a meta, because theres more than tools in the game that can effectively used brutalize a HC. People just haven't adjusted yet.

Advice to ANET is that people complain faster than they learn, so I don't blame them for taking extra time on skill balances. However, I do agree that some "balances" have been questionable.

the_deSKtructor · Mar 19, 2008, 11:20 AM // 11:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lordhelmos

Granted the HC monk is powerful, but can be victimized by spells like corrupt and rip enchantment.

Not really, smart HC monks will just cover HC with Vigorous Spirit or Patient Spirit.

Quote:

One diversion will also ruin a HC monk if he casts through it, so if you constantly chain shame and diversion on an HC, even if he CoP's it off you can still keep him diversioned because of CoP's recharge and his need for enchants.

Oh yeah, i bet that the other team will let ur mesmer doing whatever he wants if they know that it is so painful for their monk

Quote:

Rangers in this meta are ridiculously imbalanced. The new R/D scythe IWAY puts the old build to shame and a the one second recharge on sundering shots + prep shot gives a ranger the ability to deal 80 DPS(yeah go test it on master of damage if you don't believe me) to a target consistently, which is ridiculous compared to the 60-70 a shockaxe deals.
Sundering Attack and its counter part need to take recharge hits. Escape is just a retarded skill that should get ether renewaled since rangers already have great block skills like natural stride, making escape is just a griefer skill.

Agreed, was thinking about Escape ending if u attack or something like that. I don't know what to do with turret rangers.

Quote:

As far as HC monks go, the recharge time on HC could get hit to prevent reapplication quickly. Everything on that bar is a .25 second cast, making it near immune to any sort of caster shutdown short of diversion. Another good way to stop that build is to energy degen the hell out of that monk. I found skills like malaise/ether phantom/panic along with some energy drains really ruin that build if monk can't CoP them off fast enough.

Because the monk is depending on a maintained enchant for energy, if you start hitting his energy and forcing him to CoP + cast without HC, you can burn him out of energy extremely fast.

Yeah, energy denial is something that works. Tho most of the HC monks are not smart enough to hide their energy.

Quote:

Another thing you can do is spread hexes and degen around the entire enemy team. With only spotless mind and soul,

u forgot patient and vigorous, that are excellent counters to degen

Quote:

the monk's ability to save other teammates from overloads is quite limited. Spiking other targets aside from the monk works too because you can easily overpower the monk's Dkiss and Patient spirit with enough DPS.

Don't forget that there's a team behind the HC monk. If they see that u can pump out enough DPS then they will just do sth to it (taking care of your meeles in general).

Quote:

Of course the issue is that he is constantly being able to spam heals because of HC, so if you keep rending him and damaging other of his team members. He will eventually fold.

Boonprot didn't have that problem, so yeah HC is a weaker boonprot. I think HC is a good build, I don't want to see it nerfed to oblivion because it's an interesting build that gives a lot of value to healing prayers.

I'd wait a bit and watch how players react to it as a meta, because theres more than tools in the game that can effectively used brutalize a HC. People just haven't adjusted yet.

Advice to ANET is that people complain faster than they learn, so I don't blame them for taking extra time on skill balances. However, I do agree that some "balances" have been questionable.

I'm kinda sick of first timer monks running HC and dragging ur team to 8 minutes matches. It is just dumb. The HC monk has been around for more than 1 month already, people adapted to it by running other gimmicks or running HC monks themselves. It killed most of the balanced builds in the arenas. Also, comparing the HC bar with sth that is dead atm is not smart. Compare it with the viable options that we have now. If u want to "nerf" the HC template by buffing the other templates it's fine by me.

erk · Mar 19, 2008, 11:54 AM // 11:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_deSKtructor

N
I'm kinda sick of first timer monks running HC and dragging ur team to 8 minutes matches. It is just dumb. The HC monk has been around for more than 1 month already, people adapted to it by running other gimmicks or running HC monks themselves. It killed most of the balanced builds in the arenas. Also, comparing the HC bar with sth that is dead atm is not smart. Compare it with the viable options that we have now. If u want to "nerf" the HC template by buffing the other templates it's fine by me.

The main issue I have with HC Monks is that they spam enchants only multiple targets faster than you can remove them. The recent buffs to Necro enchant removal skill's have helped, but more is needed. Strip Enchantment, Gaze of Contempt, and Rend Enchantments, which are the main multi enchant removal tools in the game, take too long to recharge. If you consider Vigorous Spirit, Patient Spirit, Healer's Covenant, are like 3-5sec recharge, then there should be a dual enchant removal skill or two with a recharge of 10sec. at least for half a chance to keep up.

Shendaar · Mar 19, 2008, 02:08 PM // 14:08

If enchantment removal ever gets good enough to beat a HC monk spamming on recharge, we will have another problem on our hands and a serious one too.

Imo, the problem with the HC monk is the part where they can spam. Spamming is brainless and bad for the game. You can try to "balance" the build, but it won't be any less retarted.

urania · Mar 19, 2008, 03:22 PM // 15:22

first off, at wuzzman, hc bar is not decent, its plain broken.

at desktructor, u cant rly e deny them with panic or malasie, they'll just cop it off on recharge and since their spam doesnt cost anything, they can CoP forever.

to be honest, i actually like pew pew rangers (not saying they're not mindless spam, but as long as u can prot vs them effectively, its still better than shattering sin crap or r/d blockway), not only u can prot against them, but the animation of attacking is funny as hell and the best thing of all, they own HC+smite thingie since that dual monk build only makes red bars go up and has no smart prot on their bars. (:

now let me sum up (once again) my view on HC and the reason why i think the build is bad.

I am sure that since GW came out, mindless spam was one of the things that were undesired and disencouraged, not only because it only created unskilled players, but also because a spammer was often punished severely for mashing buttons without actually using their brains. That, most of all, went for monks, because in the past shutdown domination mesmers demanded a boon prot to be highly observant of the field as well as being well skillled in smart usage of preveil and good preprot.

Now, the mesmer's role of shutdown has shifted onto the ranger and along the way attained a few new tasks, as for example interrupting the rezzes and so on and so fort. Taking a domination mesmer merely to shutdown mindless spam that one can well observe on HC bar is sth that can one can hardly afford.

The meta today is loaded with physical pressure and interupts and that leaves the mesmer that hardly deals any damage and is highly vulnerable to interrupt a proff that is hardly used or wanted, no matter how good it may be. Most of all, a good prot monk that can preveil decently and cover the veils is hard to shutdown (even though there's hardly any left now) - couple that with a ranger on the enemies' team and you get to see the whole picture. Therefore, the mesmer is close to useless in most other matches simply because the lack of damage and because smart play cannot be owned as easily as spam can be. Not to mention i havent seen good mesmers for a while now.

Also, by taking the mesmer one has to kick either the necro or the ranger (speaking of a past typical balanced build in ta), so either sacrifice more shutdown (the ranger) or sacrifice your defense (hardly doable vs the current builds roaming about in TA).
Anyway, to go back to the HC, a bar that can be so efficient with such a low or practically none skill demand whatsoever is not only bad for the game but also bad for its players, since it will not motivate them to learn how to play using their brains, if they can be just as effective with mindless spam. Moreoever, some of you may not be aware of this, but the 2 main skills they use for hex and cond removal, spotless mind and spotless soul, are horribly bugged, which completely erased the standard shutdown necro from the ta balanced meta, replacing them with either another warr, a turrent ranger, or taking out the ranger and switching it with a mes for hex overload. The problem is that both of the skills "cannot" be removed, and by that i mean that even if u remove them with whatever ench removal the skills still function as if they had never been removed on the first place. This says enough that a necro with insidious and faint cannot hold a shatter sin or a derv 8the most common combination of offensive in 2 monk build) shutdown for longer then 3 seconds after spotless skills have been applied onto the hexed team mate or a team mate sufferring from a condition. That fact alone makes the whole concept of using a necro and to a lesser extent, of a blinder, a mere joke. And that is sth that should have never been allowed to foster for more than few days, let alone months now.
However, i hardly believe that fixing those 2 skills will solve the major problem with HC, namely the horribly dispproportionate skill req/effectiveness ratio.

Tyla · Mar 19, 2008, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_deSKtructor

I don't know what to do with turret rangers.

Remove the 1second casts imo.

Patrick Smit · Mar 19, 2008, 03:31 PM // 15:31

I tried spotless mind on the isle and when it has ended (by means of CoP) it does not function anymore, maybe removes only one hex.

on the HC healers, I typically use a KD war in RA and they cant beat the spike, even when they have stances to counter you. You just count untill stance has ended and unleash spike. Also "spiking" on other targets is quite doable. But in TA when he is backe by a BP smiter it is/seems impossible and u become obsolete as hammer war

the_deSKtructor · Mar 19, 2008, 04:40 PM // 16:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick Smit

I tried spotless mind on the isle and when it has ended (by means of CoP) it does not function anymore, maybe removes only one hex.

on the HC healers, I typically use a KD war in RA and they cant beat the spike, even when they have stances to counter you. You just count untill stance has ended and unleash spike. Also "spiking" on other targets is quite doable. But in TA when he is backe by a BP smiter it is/seems impossible and u become obsolete as hammer war

they didn't fix the bug yet, tried it right now and both the spotless skills still work if they get removed

urania · Mar 19, 2008, 07:08 PM // 19:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick Smit

I tried spotless mind on the isle and when it has ended (by means of CoP) it does not function anymore, maybe removes only one hex.

on the HC healers, I typically use a KD war in RA and they cant beat the spike, even when they have stances to counter you. You just count untill stance has ended and unleash spike. Also "spiking" on other targets is quite doable. But in TA when he is backe by a BP smiter it is/seems impossible and u become obsolete as hammer war

you know...spotless skills are not selftargettable, so unless u casted it on another monk with cop... =P
and if it "maybe" removes 1 hex after being removed, it will definately remove 2 more

balth pendulum smite>anything that is based on knockdowns, which is pretty much any axe/hammer warr pressure.

at rikio...read my post as to why bringing in a shutdown mesmer is highly disadvantageous, even if they can effectively keep the hc spammer shutdown.

erk · Mar 19, 2008, 09:41 PM // 21:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shendaar

If enchantment removal ever gets good enough to beat a HC monk spamming on recharge, we will have another problem on our hands and a serious one too.

Imo, the problem with the HC monk is the part where they can spam. Spamming is brainless and bad for the game. You can try to "balance" the build, but it won't be any less retarted.

There are way more sources of enchants then just a single HC monk to deal with so buffing removals is not silly. HC itself, if you are lucky to strip it before it's buried, recharges too fast so you don't make enough of a dent in their energy, remembering they get one pip back when HC is down. I would like to see the recharge on HC go from 5 to 10 sec.

wuzzman · Mar 19, 2008, 09:53 PM // 21:53

if you want to bring HC to the level of moderate enchantment removal I wouldn't mind it going up to 20 sec

Patrick Smit · Mar 19, 2008, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

you know...spotless skills are not selftargettable, so unless u casted it on another monk with cop... =P
and if it "maybe" removes 1 hex after being removed, it will definately remove 2 more

balth pendulum smite>anything that is based on knockdowns, which is pretty much any axe/hammer warr pressure.

at rikio...read my post as to why bringing in a shutdown mesmer is highly disadvantageous, even if they can effectively keep the hc spammer shutdown.

its exactly what i did, near the master of hexes, and i didnt see additional hexes dissappear. Ill try again to ensure, maybe i didnt set attributes right.

about balth pendulum, just kill it ^^

[EDIT]
AFter checking again and watch it more carefull I have to agree with other players that stated that spotless skill is stil bugged.
[/EDIT]

urania · Mar 20, 2008, 01:43 PM // 13:43

its not that easy to kill sth that cant rly be snared efficiently (for a sufficient amount of time, at least) and can own ur knockdowns, not to mention the fact it even deals back damage when u're attacking, which makes frenzy a suicide move (unless they're completely retarded). =P

RiKio · Mar 20, 2008, 03:02 PM // 15:02

Ok, but I still think that Shutdown Mesmers are the only viable solution. The spells of the HC monk ( who I´ve played with) has lower recharge and a Fast Casting time, so It is nearly impossible for interrupting. So, the only way to stop them is to bring a mesmah with the typical Shutdown skills like Diversion and Shame. Also, I think [skill]Arcane Languor[/skill] would be a nice addition, considerating the fact that those HC monks has a mindless, non stopping casting.

The problem is, as urania said, the difficults for adding a mesmer in this new meta. But I think a Shutdown Hex Overloader mesmer would be nice.

urania · Mar 20, 2008, 03:19 PM // 15:19

CoP>arcane langour, same goes for shame, unless u manage to keep them unenchanted, which is doable to a certain degree...if they dont have a smiter in the team, that is.
otherwise, a mes doesnt rly need an elite to shutdown a hc, so it can remain an utility skill (i like taking expell hexes when playing a shutdown, for example).