Curse

Yue · Jul 30, 2007, 05:30 AM // 05:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

A good ranger will hit the interrupts in the end. But not like a mesmer. On a mes you can really just twitch out stuff that you can't on ranger. With the ranger you end up hitting stuff through prediction and zoning out time periods you close off to the target where you think he will cast what you don't want him to cast. You can hit crazy interrupts this way, but it's a different way of interrupting and not quite as reliable.

The only things the mesmer can twitch that a ranger can't is really 3/4s from half range+

black_mischief · Jul 30, 2007, 06:57 AM // 06:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yue

The only things the mesmer can twitch that a ranger can't is really 3/4s from half range+

QFT. Everyone in this thread read this line several times. If you don't understand/agree with this statement, you don't know how to play ranger/mesmer to begin with.

Greedy Gus · Jul 30, 2007, 08:55 AM // 08:55

Or perhaps everyone should read the first page several times to remember the topic, the how2ranger derail isn't really relevant. Teams run a ranger in a balanced build because it's a very strong compromise between offense, interruption, and skirmish capability.

However, it only acts as a moderate counter to defense, that is 'mes effects' labelled by the OP. Most defensive cast times are short enough that actual airtight shutdown (through time/skill/energy denial) is much stronger than interruption, and these are the skills & mechanics that have been hammered steadily.

DreamWind · Jul 30, 2007, 08:59 AM // 08:59

Interesting Ensign points...I'm not sure buffing the Mesmer and gale in itself will fix the game, but I wouldn't mind seeing it happen to test the theory. I think Guild Wars might be at the point of no return when it comes to balance, because you know if they buffed the Mesmer it would probably be some huge overbuff that makes them overpowered.

Of course, this is from somebody who has given up basically all hope in Anet's ability to run a PvP game and balance skills, so take it with a grain of salt I guess.

Personally I would like to see Anet take the Magic the Gathering approach and make a Type 1 and Type 2 format....Type 2 being all chapter PvP and Type 1 being Prophecies only. Of course this will never happen as it would require Anet actually caring about PvP. I don't remember this many problems with Prophecies balance though.

LightningHell · Jul 30, 2007, 11:03 AM // 11:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

So it's basically a 2 sec cast time AND the meteor has to hit them AND I think there's a delay on that.

Correct me if I'm wrong since I haven't played for quite a bit literally, but I think the meteor hits on the third second. Once on the third, once on the sixth, and once on the ninth.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Engel the Fallen · Jul 30, 2007, 12:17 PM // 12:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

You could phrase it that way. More to the point, there has been a lot of power creep in raw offense (Mel's Dervishes, Conjures, Rit nukes, Searing Flames, Paragons, etc) and in defenses (Shield of Deflection, Shield of Regeneration, Light of Deliverance, Shield of Absorption, Blinding Surge). There has not been a corresponding power creep in effects that fight those skills, there has been a regression.

The net situation is that we have weaker tools to disable, strip, or otherwise fight a stronger set of basic threats than we did before.

This really hits right down at the problems we have in the game. Some key skills that are needed just are not here. The key skill that we need is prot against ele damage. We have a lot of anti-melee damage negation and stuff, but not much against casters, which means either you interrupt the casters or die. Skills to rival to the monk anti-warrior skills, should have been in place for elemental damage from the start, so spike teams would not so overpowered. Even one decent anti-elemental damage skill would allow balanced teams to fight against ele spikes and prevented a hoard of nerfs.

One issue with shutdown is if we use hex based shutdown people will complain it is too powerful when people go all out with it. Thus we are where we are now, where basic shutdown, or at least reduce damage hexes are worthless with the ease of removal for the common use of them outside of stacking.

The most problems I see come from changing classes or the game itself, while keeping skills that could help counter the current meta nerfed, or just not strong enough. In the past enchantment removal was too strong because people ran few enchantments, or could reapply the one or two they did use fast. Now people may run four enchantments deep, yet enchantment removal is still nerfed to some extent. Much like the necro class now. While they were hurt from the start in GvG by their primary being useless, with the change, not many skills were adjusted to deal with the lack of energy they get now.

Countless other things were introduced with few counters. Spirits, shouts, massive melee damage, massive ele damage, massive hex removal and others I may have missed. This leaves two options for most players. Exploit the holes and run heavy offense, or wait till the end of GvG and exploit chanting and the NPCs.

For me I like a variety builds, not polarization, so I would like to see necros in use as shutdown as well as memsers, and see many different builds in play. I would also like to see less nerfs and more counters. Go through all the old skills that see no use and look at why potential counters are not used, on a skill level and as part of the game itself as Ensign is suggesting people look at things.

However players themselves need to adapt as well. They know how the game is going now, so the old counters against two warriors will just not work now. Far too often balanced builds do not evolve and rely on the same core build that has been there for 2 years. More and more now since balances are few and far between [hopefully get a good one with GWEN but it may be the last] so creativity will need to come out to push these gimmick builds to the backlines.

Builds wars, yes it is. But given this game was heavily influenced by magic does this surprise anyone really? With hundreds of skills unlike many others I never thought this game should rely on the same builds. However for the balanced lovers there is an easy fix. Either 8 v 8 with set builds to pick from with a max of three of any class, or 8 v 8 where you pick the class and get 4 primary skills, 3 secondary skills and a rez, with the non rez skills being randomly picked. For people sick of build wars, these if implemented would require skill over build.

Then again Fury is in BETA, so if ANET refuses to adapt and give regular skill balances, I can see people leaving. It has been two years now, if they cannot fix the game, why stay.

Riotgear · Jul 30, 2007, 12:38 PM // 12:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skuld

MoI + SoH is click and win, BHA requires you run up to your target and press a button, neither of these require any skill. Gale requires skill - a bad player will spam gale and achieve little while heavily exhausting himself, and Blackout required careful positioning and timing. The former are maintainable, the latter require skilled play for them to be effective.

The point is that the mechanism being promoted for making the game more strategic (that is, hitting I WIN on someone's skill bar and then jackhammering them before they can recover) is not some sort of magic bullet that will fix the balance problems. There are plenty of ways to ruin somebody's plans, there's an entire class built around it, so saying the game needs more mez effects is kind of short-sighted.

Of course, I also like how BHA is being marginalized as "run up to your target and press a button" when Blackout also meets that description. :P

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

There has not been a corresponding power creep in effects that fight those skills, there has been a regression.

Numerous problems stem from things that never really had counters to begin with. Paragons have always been one of the worst things to balance because not only do none of the pre-Nightfall abilities work on their core mechanics, but the abilities that do work on their core mechanics are clunky and useless outside of hard-countering Paragons. Melandru is another massive offender, one which literally throws half of the counter list out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zaelen

The beauty of something like Blind or Dazed is that they effectively do the same as a 'hard' CC but don't come with the incredibly annoying side effect of losing character control. It's for that reason that I believe Gale and Blackout were targeted - they require skill to maximize and both come with hefty penalties for poor use - but losing complete control of your character is never fun.

Blind and Dazed are about as close to "hard" CC as you can get without being it since you're effectively useless for the duration (WoW has the same thing, it's called Counterspell, and it's also dumb).

Your first point though is actually what I've been kind of getting at: Hard lockdowns of players may require tactical execution, but the tactical payoff is huge, and given that offenses have been becoming much more cutthroat while defenses become more layered and systematic, I think the effects of such a thing would be more effective than ever if they were to buff them again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

I think Guild Wars might be at the point of no return when it comes to balance, because you know if they buffed the Mesmer it would probably be some huge overbuff that makes them overpowered.

It's past that point unless they start putting forward a real effort after EOTN's release. Izzy responded to concerns about HB balancing by basically saying they were focusing their efforts primarily on getting EOTN out, so you can be certain there aren't going to be any real balance changes until late August, and begs the question of how long it'll be before they drop balancing after that to focus on GW2. I'm less than optimistic even if they do give it attention, simply because the balancing of GW has just been one long streak of incompetence ever since Nightfall was released.

Melody Cross · Jul 30, 2007, 01:24 PM // 13:24

Balanced builds died in December 2006, when Anet basically forced this pressure meta playstyle on us. But…this is 100% player fault. I blame us. We asked them to (or didn’t scream down those players who were asking) and they finally did. We asked them to kill splits, and they are continueing to beat that down now.

Who remembers this: “Spike is for Noobz! Any noob can 321 click buttons!”

Well, if there’s one thing we’ve all learned—to our general annoyance, I would hope—its that anyone can also live till VoD and waste 20 minutes of YOUR time doing it if they have a heavy enough defense and no solid way to break open a backline for a few seconds.

I hate these attrition matches. Waiting to see which backline burns out sooner. I miss the days when you had to watch a good mesmer because he would really mess you up on shutdown...BECAUSE HE WAS GOOD! Not because Diversion+MoR=skill pwnage. Not because Dazed=frenzy war interuptage. A good mes, with a quick finger and intelligent forethought could anticipate and break a backline up hard. They couldn't do it forever, but they made a great window.

I think that is the kind of shutdown the Ensign is talking about. One surge of careful planning; taking advantage of a mistake to get kills and actually starting to ROLL the other side. I do miss those types of games. They required intelligence and grit to survive.

But…I don’t think Gale and BO were nerfed because of mesmers. They were nerfed because of KD spike wars and BO wars. HA saw a lot of the later, and the original GvG meta was dominated by the former. I mean, why Gale on a spike when you can shatter+ESurge? Why run into a backline to Blackout when a warrior is already there and can still DPS?

If defense is everywhere now, the meta you describe had a sprinkling of shutdown scattered throughout.

As to energy management: blame the monks. If it was good enough to keep a mes casting, it was good enough to keep us casting...so Anet nerfed it.

I’m not sure that shutdown has been marginalized though. I think that the wrong types of shutdown have been improved. Players are greedy. We want heals that counter spike for 5 energy. We want skills that CAN spike for 5 energy…and virtually no recycle. And we want shutdown that…always shuts down. Windows aren’t enough; they require coordination and discipline to use well. It’s got to be up all the time (or for an excessively long time).

But I think the root of the mesmer problem lies in a mesmers spike potential. FC screams 321 Spike, imo. And players by and large have called spike tactics “nubish” since I’ve been ghosting these forums; longer than I’ve ever been posting on them to be sure. I strongly—vehemently—disagree. A good balanced build needs to be able to spike as well as split and pressure. Mesmers provide caster pressure by skill shutdown, and still can with interrupts, Diversion, Shatter, Shame and Guilt. But what they did really well was spike assist. See a mes on the other side, you were almost guaranteed to see a spike that match.

What Anet has done is to nerf spiking in mesmers. This makes them less suitable for balanced play, and that makes caster shutdown less of an issue because mesmers see less play. Due to that, players TAKE less caster shutdown (except Dazed, an overpowered condition that SHOULD be nerfed into the ground but can’t be because then any semblance of caster shutdown in this game would die completely) to combat mesmers on the other side, take more damage by putting more DPS up on the frontline, and…

Bigger backlines as a result; required to combat a metagame that can deal massive damage even before VoD if left unchecked. Midlines become blindbots and necros to combat the new threat. BHA gains acceptance in pressure play.

Utility is king. Pressure becomes god. Spike…an annoying footnote, still touted by all-Rit builds but largely avoided as a tactic in balanced play.

I don’t know how to fix mesmers. Buff their damage, people will QQ that spike is back and it’s too hard to infuse (apparently). Buff energy managers, monks will use them, keep casting and players will QQ that they HAVE to spike, that Anet has forced yet another meta—a spiking meta—on them. Well, maybe you could increase energy gain but also increase cast time to put mesmer energy managers out of reach for monks…but, I dunno.

So I guess the real question is this: are we annoyed enough by this pressure meta to ask Anet to buff spikable characters and skills. That’s what you get with lockdown skills like Gale and BO: spike windows. That’s how players will use such shutdown: to shutdown one monk (or both) and spike the other. And if mesmers can’t be effective in that, then they are no better than a BHA…which currently does the passive shutdown job better than they.

Off-topic: BHA rangers have very little spike assist beyond their shutdown, which I think adds to the pressure meta and VoD mentality. And their form of shutdown requires that someone—probably themselves—sits on the shut down monk while the rest of the team tries for a kill. BHA rangers make it harder to balanced spike because they can’t be IN on the spike (where mesmers could divert/Tab/shatter Eburn etc) thus making it harder to run balanced builds with a BHA in the first place. I’d take a good—old—Dom mes any day over the new BHA. They were more versatile and better suited to the role they were intended for.

GGs

DreamWind · Jul 30, 2007, 02:02 PM // 14:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Engel the Fallen

Builds wars, yes it is. But given this game was heavily influenced by magic does this surprise anyone really? With hundreds of skills unlike many others I never thought this game should rely on the same builds.

Honestly, playing Guild Wars has given me a new found respect for M:TG designers. Those guys release 3-4 sets per year and manage to keep the game pretty damn balanced if you ask me. It is very rare that problem cards slip through nowadays, and every recent metagame has been balanced with WIDE numbers of decks being played.

Compare that to Guild Wars, where you have nearly all the top players complaining, and only 3 total skill releases in history, and I see a big difference there. In fact, when it comes to balance the 2 games aren't even close anymore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melody Cross

Snip

I disagree with some of your post, but I'll pick 2 things.

First, the comment that the players wanted to kill splits. Who said that?? If anything, I remember people saying that killing splits was a BAD THING (thus why original Burning/Jade isles were 2 of the most notable complaints in the history of GvG).

Second, the idea that players are somehow to blame for the crap metagame? No, the players simply find the builds that work given the skills they have. If something is overpowered, its going to be found and complained about. Just because the company that makes the game screws it up doesn't make it the players fault that problems were found...

v o i d · Jul 30, 2007, 11:36 PM // 23:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Actually I don't think that teams are scoring kills in either way right now, at least not in the balanced vs. balanced matches. I think that teams are killing through the natural holes in the defenses with huge spikes, not pressuring through them. I.E., fighting Aegis as well as possible (since that's the one you really can fight reasonably), then spiking during the downtime of Ward backed by a lot of enchantment removal from your Mesmer and condition removal from the Monks. Knocking out another part of that defense with Diversion makes things a bit easier, to be sure, but generally that's how it's going right now. Pressure really only comes after a couple people die, several key stabilizing elements are knocked out, and teams just systematically fail to stop a couple of melees from wrecking them.

When we played mirror matches with this build against strong opponents, we only suffered deaths when our monks were low on energy. Of course you need holes in the defenses to build pressure up (and it's your job to create these holes), but i disagree that you can only fight Aegis reasonably (see below). Already 20 - 30 secs without Ward and Aegis against three physicals are quite heavy pressure from my experience.

Quote:

I don't think the problem is with Aegis and Ward, or with BSurge and SoD, but with the combination of the two. Essentially, Ward and Aegis are great tools for fighting physical pressure most of the time and do a lot of the work, while BSurge and SoD are ridiculously effective at filling in the gaps. Warriors swing into Ward and/or Aegis most of the time, making them useless - if they fall back on someone outside of a Ward or knock off the Aegis, SoD and Blind comes in to wreck everything until the general defense comes back up. It's a nasty combination that has multiple points of failure that need to be hit to score a kill or inflict any pressure whatsoever.

Exactly, that's why i suggest to nerf SoD. Imo there is quite some killing going on in games nowadays, but with SoD gone it would be even better.

Quote:

On the thought of Mesmers shutting this stuff down, I can't disagree with you more. BSurge being Diverted or an important Ward being interrupted isn't a success of a good Mesmer, it's a failing of a bad Ele. BSurge being hit by Diversion is always a mistake on the part of the Ele. Ward being interrupted means you're being too predictable and don't know how to use Gale. You can point at the Mesmer as needing to be better at timing, but that simply makes the Ele's job disrupting timing.

Being a stand ele: You see two warriors going for a target and Diversion comes in. What do you do? Different situation: Your ward ended a few secs ago, you have to recast and know the mesmer is watching you. Will you gale him each time, building up exhaustion? What if he has two interrupts, like most modern mesmers have? Faking is a better option, but it's still time consuming and becomes expensive if your glyph isn't ready. That are actually the points were micro skill comes in. (When we fought NoT recently in scrimmage, you could observe stuff getting faked up to three times. Really funny to watch, though latency plays a quite important role on this level.)

Quote:

I will concede that the number of good Elementalists in this game pales in comparison with the number of good Mesmers.

As in pretty much all matches there is no need for eles to actually fake stuff, we don't really know.

Dzan · Jul 30, 2007, 11:37 PM // 23:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

Honestly, playing Guild Wars has given me a new found respect for M:TG designers. Those guys release 3-4 sets per year and manage to keep the game pretty damn balanced if you ask me. It is very rare that problem cards slip through nowadays, and every recent metagame has been balanced with WIDE numbers of decks being played.

Compare that to Guild Wars, where you have nearly all the top players complaining, and only 3 total skill releases in history, and I see a big difference there. In fact, when it comes to balance the 2 games aren't even close anymore.

Magic the Gathering hired the best players and deck designers in the game to balance the game for them and make sure new cards were balanced. Therein lies the difference.

Lodurr · Jul 31, 2007, 01:57 AM // 01:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Of course, I also like how BHA is being marginalized as "run up to your target and press a button" when Blackout also meets that description. :P

QFT

There's a lot of direct contradiction going on in this thread. Example:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I think that teams are killing through the natural holes in the defenses with huge spikes, not pressuring through them.

versus:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melody Cross

So I guess the real question is this: are we annoyed enough by this pressure meta to ask Anet to buff spikable characters and skills. That’s what you get with lockdown skills like Gale and BO: spike windows.

I've heard the argument, "People run so much defense these days because the new offensive skills are too powerful." I totally disagree. If you nerfed some of the more common offensive tools out there, people wouldn't just stop using defensive builds in favor of something else. They'd keep running those same builds and be even more effective than before.

The answer to this is either nerfing the over-powered defensive skills, or buffing disruption skills. The latter is what Ensign is suggesting, but I think the problem isn't that those skills aren't powerful enough--it's that there aren't enough of them in the game. Neither Nightfall nor Factions introduced any must-bring disruption skills to any class. It's an aspect of the game that simply slipped Izzy's mind as he was making the new skills, or he had no idea how to balance them out. But at least he should've given us a real counter to shouts/chants and weapon spells.

I believe it was Riotgear that mentioned how the era of Grenth sucked. Isn't that closer to the ideal metagame than what we have currently? At least games were more exciting, evenly matched teams could actually end the game before VoD. Offense beat defense every time, it was just a question of who went down first. Grenth in the frontline is much more interesting than Melandru because at least you can do something to him--blind him, cripple him, or spike him because he doesn't have +100 HP and Deep Wound immunity.

lacasner · Jul 31, 2007, 02:11 AM // 02:11

Idk who wants to bring back that can of worms again lodurr, grenth would have to be modified before he is brought back to 70 or 80 sec duration.

twicky_kid · Jul 31, 2007, 02:48 AM // 02:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Protect from what? Oh yeah, the heavy offense that teams are able (and willing) to bring.

About the only thing right now that is overpowered in offense is Mel dervish because of......its defense. The immunity to conditions is in fact a defense in my view. Mel will be nerfed to crap and probably all the other avatars because it will keep going on otherwise. Once that's fixed what we are left with is a lot of high powered defensive skills that have been upped because of Mel and paragons. Wars are not stronger so they aren't the reason for the buffs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Yet again, you're somehow seeing this different from reality. I don't care what percentage of monk skills can be used against pressure, the fact of the matter is that every single team runs LoD as one of their backline elites, and most bring aegis, so claiming that monks are spike prevention and not as good vs. pressure is, again, just plain wrong.

Oh really? Ok, then take out the LoD and aegis from your build and see how long your 2 monks stand up to pressure. You'll be out of energy in less than 2 minutes into the game. LoD is usually not on a main monk. Aegis can be but doesn't have to be. These party wide skills heal/prevent much more dmg than a big single target heal monk can every hope to achieve and for less energy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

VoD is an issue, but what it promotes is bringing (offensive) skills that abuse that mechanic well, being lots of direct damage and properly directable aoe. Now to be sure, it is possible to run a defensive build in order to get to VoD, that also happens to include loads of (or just the correct) tools to abuse bad NPC AI and the shout mechanic. Guess what that is called: strategy. Your logic is poor, peole need to stop regurgitating these weak talking points that lack any interesting depth.

Its not hard to run a defensive build. The point of a defensive build is to spike when you can and gank NPCs. You need to get yourself in position for VoD. If they couldn't break you before VoD you'll have that much more advantage. Its all about your play style. If you want to go balls to wall offense go ahead. Both work well you just need to know how to do it as a team.

VoD is needed because I don't want to go back to 2-3 hour games. I would have different VoD affects for every map. That way 1 build isn't overpowered at VoD than another one. You might find yourself on the disadvantage on that map and push hard early in game to finish before VoD or vice versa. That takes VoD out of something to consider when you are making a build.

Melody Cross · Jul 31, 2007, 04:17 AM // 04:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lodurr

QFT

There's a lot of direct contradiction going on in this thread. Example:

versus:

I've heard the argument, "People run so much defense these days because the new offensive skills are too powerful." I totally disagree. If you nerfed some of the more common offensive tools out there, people wouldn't just stop using defensive builds in favor of something else. They'd keep running those same builds and be even more effective than before.

The answer to this is either nerfing the over-powered defensive skills, or buffing disruption skills. The latter is what Ensign is suggesting, but I think the problem isn't that those skills aren't powerful enough--it's that there aren't enough of them in the game. Neither Nightfall nor Factions introduced any must-bring disruption skills to any class. It's an aspect of the game that simply slipped Izzy's mind as he was making the new skills, or he had no idea how to balance them out. But at least he should've given us a real counter to shouts/chants and weapon spells.

I believe it was Riotgear that mentioned how the era of Grenth sucked. Isn't that closer to the ideal metagame than what we have currently? At least games were more exciting, evenly matched teams could actually end the game before VoD. Offense beat defense every time, it was just a question of who went down first. Grenth in the frontline is much more interesting than Melandru because at least you can do something to him--blind him, cripple him, or spike him because he doesn't have +100 HP and Deep Wound immunity.

I disagree with the idea that the current meta has spike potential. Its a pressure meta, imo. There are some--few--builds that are designed to spike, but very few balanced builds geared toward using it regularly. Fewer still use it significantly.

I did not mean to make it sound as though i agree completely with Ensign. He has some very insightful views and i respect his points, but (lol) I am not a parrot

I agree that the spike builds--a good example being the Rit builds--are much stronger than what we used to have. But I was trying to speak towards balanced play in my post. And balanced is geared toward pressure more than it is toward...balanced now. That we have bigger spikes--in the spike builds--than we used to is a result of this pressure mentality and this increased damage mentality. Its less about a clean, precise spike. The game itself is less about a clean, precise ANYTHING than it used to be. Damage is overpowered because shutdown--the lockdown part of it--is marginalized. that part, i do agree with.

Frontlines are bigger. 3 melee frontlines--2 wars and a derv, or a war, a derv and a sin--are a common sight these days. Or they're inundated with DPS increase skills like conjure enchantments. And bigger frontlines mean more DPS, more damage over time, than the old 2-2-2-2 balanced builds we used to run a year or more ago. Caster take a smaller definition as the midline. Blame paragons for that, blurring the lines that were once so rigid.

And...I do blame us. At least, I blame myself for it. I dunno. I've always felt that Anet is much better at listening to me than any other MMO game design team. Since i think they do listen--and make decisions and changes to the game based on what players ask for--when I start seeing a meta out of control I begin to wonder if the inmates have in fact taken over the asylum.

About splits: maybe people are not so much calling for a direct kill to splits in forum, but there are grumblings (vent, chat, in-game stuff I hear). Most players prefer a straight 8v8 in my experience. While we don't exactly call for a nerf to splitting, we have and continue to call for nerfs to skills that make splitting easier, make split builds more powerful.

About heavy defense: Run all the defense you want. if you have a solid lockdown mesmer, he will disrupt enough of it to create a window. That opportunity--the spike window that mesmers create so well--is one of their greatest assets to balanced play. Thats something I think everyone here (thats ever run a Dom mes, or faced one as a utility backline) can agree with.

In the end, I may just be plain wrong. I'm rusty on the GvG front and trying to get my head around this from the perspective of someone who is out of the game more than they used to be. Its lost its appeal for me as a player and I avoid playing it as a result.

GGs

Yue · Jul 31, 2007, 04:31 AM // 04:31

Quote:

I believe it was Riotgear that mentioned how the era of Grenth sucked. Isn't that closer to the ideal metagame than what we have currently? At least games were more exciting, evenly matched teams could actually end the game before VoD. Offense beat defense every time, it was just a question of who went down first. Grenth in the frontline is much more interesting than Melandru because at least you can do something to him--blind him, cripple him, or spike him because he doesn't have +100 HP and Deep Wound immunity.

Are you kidding? What the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO have you been playing? Anyone that thinks the Grenth meta was close to ideal needs to uninstall.

pork soldier · Jul 31, 2007, 05:09 AM // 05:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

Wow. I pointed out that PD is more expensive than ranger interrupts. PD is actually a good skill, it's jsut no one runs it. And all good rangers will "complain" about flight time because it is vital to interrupting on Rangers.

I'm going to call bullshit here, as long as you're in reasonable range with a recurve bow flight time isn't ever an issue.

... rofl, unless it's .75sec at 1/2 range+, which afaic, is out of reasonable range.

Lodurr · Jul 31, 2007, 05:24 AM // 05:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melody Cross

I disagree with the idea that the current meta has spike potential. Its a pressure meta, imo. There are some--few--builds that are designed to spike, but very few balanced builds geared toward using it regularly. Fewer still use it significantly.

That goes against the idea that the current meta is very defensive. When defensive skills are too strong, all you can do is spike because your pressure can never, ever cause the other team's backline to collapse until, as mentioned here, one or two of the pieces of a team's defensive web are taken out and the rest of it crumbles.

Quote:

when I start seeing a meta out of control I begin to wonder if the inmates have in fact taken over the asylum.

That's why I brought up the much-hated Grenth meta, to show that pushing the devs too far towards one style of play can lead to something you don't want. The OP is on the right track but it may be too late already. There just aren't enough disruption skills out there, and GWEN's new skills won't help either. In fact, it will make things worse with garbage like Aura of Stability, which makes people immune to KDs for up to 20 seconds at a time. Our library of disruption skills will get even smaller.

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About splits: maybe people are not so much calling for a direct kill to splits in forum, but there are grumblings (vent, chat, in-game stuff I hear). Most players prefer a straight 8v8 in my experience.

I remember this pretty well. When high-ranked teams ran bunny thumper hump builds and expected to win in 2 minutes, they bitched endlessly in local chat when you split on them. This mentality did exist after Factions came out, and who knows, maybe that's partially why the early NF meta was so pressure-oriented with Searing Flames and derv trains.

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While we don't exactly call for a nerf to splitting, we have and continue to call for nerfs to skills that make splitting easier, make split builds more powerful.

The split skills that need nerfs are the defensive ones--Blurred (already got its nerf), Mending Touch, Natural Stride, SoR (maybe).

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About heavy defense: Run all the defense you want. if you have a solid lockdown mesmer, he will disrupt enough of it to create a window.

There's truth to that, and some have said that there just aren't as many great mesmers out there. But one mesmer can only counter so many defensive skills, and good monks and eles will be harder to disrupt.

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Its lost its appeal for me as a player and I avoid playing it as a result.

That's happening to a lot of people.

Zaelen · Jul 31, 2007, 06:31 AM // 06:31

The real difference when comparing Blind and Dazed to Gale/Blackout is the universal quality of the shutdown.

While it's been brought up, Counterspell is more like P-Block than it is like a condition or Gale/Blackout and I find it a far more interesting disruption mechanic than say an unconditional stun/knockdown. Not that Gale doesn't have it's place, but with all the wicked offense you can put out these days, unnerfed Gale would turn GvG into a shooting gallery.

I think there are many ways to incorporate disruption into skill sets that operate outside of strict interruption or denial (think Weapon of Remedy that removed an attacking foes enchant?). Id also like to see something like Magebane Shot gain a secondary effect because just like Ensign says in the OP, the counters need to be stronger and a skill that "only allows you to interrupt another may not be worth the slot in the current power-inflated game balance.

Patccmoi · Jul 31, 2007, 06:48 AM // 06:48

Not gonna start on the debate, too late, but this just struck me:

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Originally Posted by twicky_kid

LoD is usually not on a main monk

Credibility ------> Window