Curse

Living Parasite · Oct 09, 2007, 09:24 PM // 21:24

Really good post. Most people don't realize how much damage a simple warrior can do just hacking away at the closest target. The reason why wards, blind, and others are so engraved into the meta is because they are neccessary to survival. The only reason why teams don't get steamrolled in two minutes in this game is because of LoD, the backbone of any team, and anti-melee options like Ward against Melee and Blinding Surge provide teams with something that can keep their red bars up.

The arguement against passive defences needs to be more thought about. After hexes were nerfed, people realized that their monks couldn't keep up with the damage output of melee chars and placed anti-melee skills onto their bars. Undoubtably, these will be nerfed and then another option will have to be considered. Will teams soon have to take a 3rd non-flagger monk in order to survive the damage pace? Simply nerfing these "passive defences" skills blindly is what gets GW into stupid metas.

Another thing to consider is that while damage-dealers get new toys to play with such as Conjures and Agonizing Chop, healers are on the bad side of the deal and attempt to play catch-up game. One flaw of GW balance is the fact that offense is given new toys to play with in one update, usually the monks might receive something only in the next update to counter those new skills. The process repeats itself.

Make Healing Prayers mean something more than Light of Deliverance please.

Vanquisher · Oct 10, 2007, 12:13 AM // 00:13

Everyone who isn't an idiot realised offensive options were far too great and have been calling for nerfs to both sides for a long time.

Akaraxle · Oct 10, 2007, 08:55 AM // 08:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

trading an entire character to free up a Monk elite is awful.

My thoughtlessness led you to an incorrect assumption: I wanted to run HP in addition to LoD, as a backup solution for when LoD gets disabled. In other words, trade my elite + a skill slot + attribute spread for an anti-collapse safety valve, while still trying to mantain the current water runner template.

Nevertheless, your points still apply: the current skillset hardly permits it.

Thomas.knbk · Oct 10, 2007, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akaraxle

My thoughtlessness led you to an incorrect assumption: I wanted to run HP in addition to LoD, as a backup solution for when LoD gets disabled. In other words, trade my elite + a skill slot + attribute spread for an anti-collapse safety valve, while still trying to mantain the current water runner template.

Nevertheless, your points still apply: the current skillset hardly permits it.

why would you use a character for a backup LoD when you can use that same character for Bsurge+WaM??

Zabe · Oct 10, 2007, 05:05 PM // 17:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

why would you use a character for a backup LoD when you can use that same character for Bsurge+WaM??

I thought he was talking about flagger?

Thomas.knbk · Oct 10, 2007, 05:28 PM // 17:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zabe

I thought he was talking about flagger?

In that case, it's not viable. A flagger who can keep NPC's alive (which he has to) hasn't got the energy, skill slots or attributes to take a decent heal party.

Shmanka · Oct 10, 2007, 06:17 PM // 18:17

Mind Blast pretty much got me 400 fame last night...

Btw I do agree with you Ensign, but there is alot of detail missing out. The problem can even be rooted deeper into mechanics of most skills, not just passive defence.

adrifts · Oct 10, 2007, 06:29 PM // 18:29

i think the game is balanced to the point that there is no variation in builds. i was surprised to see vZ run something different. it just breaks down to who has the better shutdown while everyone else frenzy spams. lego is an awesome mes. so what is the point of a game balance? it is so balanced everyone just runs balanced.

the developers chosen to trust and listen to certain players instead of the community as a whole, which is why they have their own alliance. neither do they really have an established way of listening to the community as a whole. it's just "yeah yeah, go post on one of our dozens of fansites, and maybe we'll choose to listen to you." those certain players think that playing a certain is the only way to play due to the nature of social conformity. now the meta is that certain way.

skills not being balanced isn't the reason for the declining popularity. it's the social nature of the game and how it transforms players which causes the decrease in interest. if you want to succeed on the guild wars ladder you will generally have to tolerate some jack asses that need to be kicked in the head. it's pretty much embedded in the culture of guild wars that you need to be a prick if you're good at the game and anybody with self-respect can not deal with that over a certain period of time. that's why the top 100 are just the same 100 people that always troll the qq forums, when technically it should be about 800-1000 different people. eventually every guild will break up and combine into one guild and they just farm themselves for champion points. it used to be exciting when a certain point there many different upcoming guilds nobody ever heard of becoming top 100 playing many different ways.

there is also not an easy way for people to get together. recruit on qq forums, yeah right. iq forums are gone, and they ran a pretty respectable forum. spamming in tombs for people that only play spiritway? i'm sure there are at least 7 people out there as me who have the same attitude towards the game, level of commitment, and experience. how do i even find those players? just about all the friends i've made in gw don't play anymore, or play seldomly.

DIH49 · Oct 10, 2007, 07:33 PM // 19:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

why would you use a character for a backup LoD when you can use that same character for Bsurge+WaM??

If HP were reduced to 10e then it would be quite viable to run on a Bsurge in the draw spot. It would also be viable on a monk with a different elite, which has its own advantages and concerns. All I know is that I want to play GW again, I'm somewhat tired of lodwars.

Ensign · Oct 10, 2007, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akaraxle

My thoughtlessness led you to an incorrect assumption: I wanted to run HP in addition to LoD, as a backup solution for when LoD gets disabled. In other words, trade my elite + a skill slot + attribute spread for an anti-collapse safety valve, while still trying to mantain the current water runner template.

Ah, I've tried to do stuff like that months ago; the general worthlessness of Healing Prayers, combined with the low utility of that slot in general (you don't use it very often, as LoD does the job whenever it is active) keep it from being viable. If you have a character in the build with a ton of spare attribute points you could think about fitting it in, but I haven't seen one of those in a long time TBH.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIH49

If HP were reduced to 10e then it would be quite viable to run on a Bsurge in the draw spot. It would also be viable on a monk with a different elite, which has its own advantages and concerns. All I know is that I want to play GW again, I'm somewhat tired of lodwars.

It would need to get the Aegis treatment (10e, 1c, earshot) to be viable. Which I would support; anything that would break the single point of failure on LoD against any sort of pressure team.

romO · Oct 10, 2007, 07:42 PM // 19:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by adrifts

there is also not an easy way for people to get together. recruit on qq forums, yeah right.

If you have suggestions for improvement, I'm very willing to listen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by adrifts

it used to be exciting when a certain point there many different upcoming guilds nobody ever heard of becoming top 100 playing many different ways.

Well, as far as the "playing many different ways" comment, it's hard to disagree with you. However, there are still an abundance of guilds that people have never heard of with players that nobody had ever heard of reaching the top of the ladder or at least the top 100. Looking at the ladder.guildwars.com page, and including only American guilds (sorry to the Euros, but I really don't know who has been up there for a while and which guilds are inactive), I see rawr, Call, pT, Uni, and CR. rawr consists of unknown or previously low-level players who have simply meshed in recent months. Call and CR had been around for quite some time, but had never been able to break into the very top until now. And I honestly have no idea where Uni and pT came from, but each of them have been able to secure a top 100 position.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIH49

If HP were reduced to 10e it would also be viable on a monk with a different elite, which has its own advantages and concerns. All I know is that I want to play GW again, I'm somewhat tired of lodwars.

1. You would still need to spec 13-14 into healing.
2. The mass quantities of interrupts would likely disallow a single HP, or at least a respectable quantity, from being cast, resulting in a 10 energy loss every time you even tried.
3. What elite would you run? You're specced in at least 3 different attribute lines, with healing as your highest and every healing elite being trash. Any alternative elite would be not have many stat points, and the options are not overly thrilling.

Now that said, there might be some kind of way to make a 10e HP on a monk work, but it surely wouldn't be immediately viable, as the character would be very vulnerable and not necessarily efficient at all.

moriz · Oct 10, 2007, 07:58 PM // 19:58

the only time when HP can replace LoD at the stand is if we reduce HP energy to 10 and cast time to 1 second. otherwise, there's no way for it to ever come close to LoD.

as for speccing into 3 attributes... i guess running RC would be a good choice, since it will function perfectly at 9 prot. you are correct though, there are currently no other attractive options.

DIH49 · Oct 10, 2007, 08:50 PM // 20:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by romO

1. You would still need to spec 13-14 into healing.

Only somewhat true. If you had it on an off monk, you could get away with having less raw healing power that was made up for by the addition of a new monk elite in your build (ex: dropping LoD for ZB). If you ran it on a monk, he would be healing anyways and so already have a reasonably high Healing Prayers investment. And, of course, if you ran it as an LoD safety net then you wouldn't need too many points in it at all.

Quote:

2. The mass quantities of interrupts would likely disallow a single HP, or at least a respectable quantity, from being cast, resulting in a 10 energy loss every time you even tried.

This is a telling point, of course, but the advantage of it being 10e is that GoLE can be used effectively with it. This should do something to combat that. I am however entirely open to proposals that change the skill in such a way as to get around this difficulty.

Quote:

3. What elite would you run? You're specced in at least 3 different attribute lines, with healing as your highest and every healing elite being trash. Any alternative elite would be not have many stat points, and the options are not overly thrilling.

With a 10e HP Healer's Boon may become viable again. Also, I do not propose the 10e HP in isolation, it just so happened to come up that way in this thread. A number of healing elites I think could be effectively buffed to see use, with specific emphasis on Healer's Boon and Word of Healing (my current paper theorizing leading me to push for a +1e regen on Boon and a 1/4 cast on WoH). I'm certainly not done with my analysis and conclusions though and would welcome any thoughts you might have.

adrifts · Oct 10, 2007, 10:42 PM // 22:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by romO

If you have suggestions for improvement, I'm very willing to listen.

the qq forums are just the way it's supposed to be and how most conceive how it should be. a humorous place. there is nothing to improve. although once in awhile there are meaningful posts such as your post on answering questions about monking.

erk · Oct 10, 2007, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIH49

If HP were reduced to 10e then it would be quite viable to run on a Bsurge in the draw spot. It would also be viable on a monk with a different elite, which has its own advantages and concerns. All I know is that I want to play GW again, I'm somewhat tired of lodwars.

If you reduced HP energy requirement by 33% then it's recharge time would have to be increased by 33% to maintain the heal/min so it wasn't superior to LoD which is an elite after all. Currently LoD is more sustainable due to it's longer recharge giving time to recover the energy.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Oct 10, 2007, 11:33 PM // 23:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

If you reduced HP energy requirement by 33% then it's recharge time would have to be increased by 33% to maintain the heal/min so it wasn't superior to LoD which is an elite after all. Currently LoD is more sustainable due to it's longer recharge giving time to recover the energy.

You dont change the recharge if you make HP 10e, you change the amount it heals.

And yeah we know, LoD is free! Lol..

erk · Oct 10, 2007, 11:42 PM // 23:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

You dont change the recharge if you make HP 10e, you change the amount it heals.

And yeah we know, LoD is free! Lol..

Either way the objective is to keep the heal/min less than LoD, you can do it with a heal nerf , a recharge time increase, or making the energy requirement per min greater.

Lews · Oct 11, 2007, 12:44 AM // 00:44

Nicely said, Ensign.

Zuranthium · Oct 11, 2007, 12:46 AM // 00:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIH49

If HP were reduced to 10e then it would be quite viable to run on a Bsurge in the draw spot.

The Ward spot, really. You need to spec as high as possible into Healing...no room left for Earth Magic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

Either way the objective is to keep the heal/min less than LoD, you can do it with a heal nerf , a recharge time increase, or making the energy requirement per min greater.

Why would the heal/min need to be less than LoD? It's not that way already. I like the earshot range suggestion a lot; that way there is a functional difference between the two skills.

~Z

Greedy Gus · Oct 11, 2007, 12:50 AM // 00:50

I don't think you really have to be so worried about pure healing per minute, that's hardly the standard for efficiency any more that should determine cost & elite status.