Curse

HolyHawk · Dec 21, 2006, 07:19 PM // 19:19

E-drain was reworked before, you used to get all that you had stolen. This past skill change made inspiration not usable, even primary mesmers need to invest a lot of points on it. I do believe it should be restored now that there are options.

tomcruisejr · Dec 21, 2006, 07:43 PM // 19:43

GoLE makes it possible for other characters with less energy pool or pips to take costly energy spells. in other words, it paves way for experimentation and limiting of reusing cookie cutter character builds.

just buff inspiration.

Bankai · Dec 21, 2006, 08:57 PM // 20:57

Would 40 or 60 armor instead of 80 hit Feigned neutrality too hard, not enough, or just perfectly right in the face?

Thom · Dec 21, 2006, 10:37 PM // 22:37

The idea of balancing, is to bring skills as closely as possible to the same level. It really doen't matter whether you are buffing or nerfing (except for the pace of the game), but it is easiest to combine the two.

GoLE is slightly strong and can be reduced in stregth while still being playable.

Inspiration skills can be buffed slightly (but not to their former glory) so that they are a playable option without dominating the metagame.

This seems like the reasonable option to me, but I would happily look at the other options. We could buff inspiration so it is comparable to GoLE. This would enforce a spike dominant PvP environment for two reasons: pressure builds could not out last monks with buffed energy management forcing teams to rely on spike more than they do (if that's possible); spike teams will have more energy allowing them to use more energy intensive spells more often. Uber energy-management means longer games and more reliance on spike. Weaker energy-management balances are pressure oriented and players use more mitigation and energy efficient attacks/heals.

You're going to get cookie cutter builds regardless of the type of balance. If you buff inspiration, you'll get cookie cutters that have many charcters exploiting high energy combos and people won't bother worrying about efficient skills. If you nerf GoLE, you have a cookie cutters which value energy efficiency a bit more.

Dragannia · Dec 21, 2006, 11:26 PM // 23:26

Buff Inspiration a bit, IMO, and give Inspired Hex and stuff back its old energy-gain. A 2 second cast time for Drain Enchantment would probably sufficiently deter Monks, or at least make it more vulnerable. Then give Boon back its 1 second recharge. I want boonprots back

Maybe a slight nerf to GoLE is in order? Maybe reduce it to -10 energy, or -15 energy with a minimum cost 5 energy.

tomcruisejr · Dec 22, 2006, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom

.... Uber energy-management means longer games and more reliance on spike. Weaker energy-management balances are pressure oriented and players use more mitigation and energy efficient attacks/heals...

/signed

123

twicky_kid · Dec 22, 2006, 01:50 AM // 01:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

First off, your numbers are off. It used to have a 25 recharge. It used to net 7 energy at 9 inspiration, now it nets 4. There is no level of inspiration where it used to net 8 and now nets 3.

Second, its former 7 net every 25 seconds is 0.28e/sec.

Glyph of Lesser Energy on two 10e spells is 0.5e/sec. Using it on a 10e and a 5e is 0.33. Plus you're more efficient at something or other because you have more attribute points.

It used to be 20 recharge before it was changed to 25. Most players ran 10 inspiration back then so it was an 18 energy gain with a 8 energy net.

More energy does mean longer games but it does not promote more spike. Even during the height of energy gain pressure was still king. What killed pressure is the paragon, SoA, and LoD.

Sorry,

Now that it takes 10 minutes to pressure out 1 target and vod is at 20 minutes why the hell will you use pressure over spike? I can spike a target during the first 30 seconds of a match and keep doing so every 10 seconds or so.

The balance needs to bring pressure and spike closer together instead of completely polarized.

If they change GoLE to -10 energy it will be crap. A 5 energy net every 30 seconds and I have to cast it + another spell for it to trigger is junk. If they change the energy cost its ruined. Same goes for the energy reduction. The need to leave it alone and fix inspiration.

Symbol · Dec 22, 2006, 01:58 AM // 01:58

Quote:

This seems like the reasonable option to me, but I would happily look at the other options. We could buff inspiration so it is comparable to GoLE. This would enforce a spike dominant PvP environment for two reasons: pressure builds could not out last monks with buffed energy management forcing teams to rely on spike more than they do (if that's possible); spike teams will have more energy allowing them to use more energy intensive spells more often. Uber energy-management means longer games and more reliance on spike. Weaker energy-management balances are pressure oriented and players use more mitigation and energy efficient attacks/heals.

Weaker energy management also means maintaining the same old warrior/monk dominance status quo, the former because warriors are the only class that can pressure efficiently without using ridiculous amounts of energy, and the latter because they use energy incredibly efficiently.

I vote for stronger energy management that requires sacrifices to take (obviously not something retarded like pre-nerf EF but strong nonetheless). I wouldn't mind if GoLE is linked to energy storage in some way, but the scaling should be s.t you get it's current strength at low attribute investment.

Riotgear · Dec 22, 2006, 02:36 AM // 02:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Weaker energy management also means maintaining the same old warrior/monk dominance status quo

Monks will always be dominant. Warrior dominance is a separate phenomenon. There are plenty of ways to allow other classes to be more effective (such as reducing spell costs or increasing effects) that will have no effect on monk energy management.

Quote:

If they change GoLE to -10 energy it will be crap. A 5 energy net every 30 seconds and I have to cast it + another spell for it to trigger is junk. If they change the energy cost its ruined.

You can use GoLE on TWO spells. Even if it's reduced to -10, it'll still be better than inspiration used to be, see the e/sec ratios in my previous post.

Patccmoi · Dec 22, 2006, 02:38 AM // 02:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Weaker energy management also means maintaining the same old warrior/monk dominance status quo, the former because warriors are the only class that can pressure efficiently without using ridiculous amounts of energy, and the latter because they use energy incredibly efficiently.

I totally agree with that. In a low emanagement meta, the only pressure viable is warrior because everything else just can't keep up after a little while. This has dominated for so long because emanagement of everything else is bad compared to warriors and the energy efficiency of monks.

And since monks are so energy efficient and are always greedy for more energy, if they have access to good energy management from other classes it doesn't actually help the other offensive casters unless they have even BETTER energy management than monks. Because otherwise monks will negate their damage anyway and after a short while offensive casters will start to run dry and all that's left is warriors and monks.

Imo, if you buff emanagement for NON monks, for example buff inspiration but raise cast time by 1s on those spells so that it's risky for monks to use them but mostly fine for Mesmers, buff ele emanagement but link it to ele spells (like atunements are) or EStorage, etc. you can promote a pressure environment where casters can play a bigger part as something else than warrior support/counter because they will have the energy required for it without monks having infinite energy.

Relatively bad emanagement has shown for over a year that all it does is promote mass warriors and monks because they're the 2 most energy efficient classes in the game.

Wasteland Squidget · Dec 22, 2006, 03:12 AM // 03:12

Better energy management doesn't make pressure less viable. Indeed, when inspiration was nerfed the metagame was already shifting towards Mo/As. It turned out that having an E/Mo in the back spamming Heal Party was all you really needed energywise, and the greatest risk was your monks getting paintrained and KDed such that the other monk couldn't keep them up. The shift from Boon Prot to B-light put monk's primary heals on a much longer recharge, and it became possible for pressure teams to drop targets while the monks still had energy simply by beating on them with a large enough burst of damage that the other monk couldn't keep up even while spamming every skill.

Look at the meta right now - everything in 8v8 is about spike, and if you want to try to pressure you have to run retarded inflexible pure damage characters like RaO thumpers and Searing Flames guys. Those are all characters that get worse as your opponents get better, and they're completely lacking in the ability to make the kind of tactical plays a good team wants to. However, monks are almost all Mo/A or Mo/W, and you don't see BiPers or paragons buffing their energy supplies at all.

What killed pressure wasn't monks having more energy, it was paragons giving teams +40 AL, powerful skirmish templates pulling offense off the stand and never paying for it, and most importantly Blinding Surge. As off-monk defense gets more powerful and more versatile, 321spike becomes much more viable because it can afford to pack so much defense and still force kills. Add in some incredibly powerful spiking tools and you have the current meta.

In fact, weaker monk bars will force teams to bring more off-monk defense so they don't just blow up at the stand against pure offense teams. This further encourages 321spike, since bringing more defense forces you to bring less offense, which makes it harder to pressure out the other team.

That said, all of this discussion is irrelevant to Glyph of Lesser Energy. That skill's use on monks is debateable at best - its primary use has been allowing mesmers to see play despite serious nerfs to their best energy management with the release of Nightfall.

twicky_kid · Dec 22, 2006, 03:28 AM // 03:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Monks will always be dominant. Warrior dominance is a separate phenomenon. There are plenty of ways to allow other classes to be more effective (such as reducing spell costs or increasing effects) that will have no effect on monk energy management.

You can use GoLE on TWO spells. Even if it's reduced to -10, it'll still be better than inspiration used to be, see the e/sec ratios in my previous post.

At -10 reduction that's a 5 energy net because you pay 5e to cast GoLE. That is not better than the old inspiration. That is barely better than the old inspired/revealed hex which was the weakest.

Old inspire line net gain at 10 inspire:

Drain enchant 18e gain. 8 energy net.

Inspired/revealed hex 8 energy gain. 3 energy net

MoR 23 energy gain. 13 energy net.

I don't know where you are getting your numbers from. The only reason its getting so much attention now is because inspire was nerfed while GoLE was left unchanged.

Anet needs to decide how much energy per minute they want energy gain at. Players are always going to use what ever provides the highest energy net. They balance some energy gain but then leave others. If you are going to "balance" something you need to balance the other skills that are similar in function.

Totally agree with you squidget. More non monk def = more spike. We have gone from tug of war pressure battles to spike or gank. Even without the armor buffs from the paragon angelic bond will just about single handedly kill pressure. Angelic bond makes dumb monks smart.

Riotgear · Dec 22, 2006, 03:43 AM // 03:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Old inspire line net gain at 10 inspire:

Drain enchant 18e gain. 8 energy net.

New at 10 inspire: 15 gain, 5 net. Not three. Like I said, there is no point where DE used to give 8 that it now gives 3. Your numbers are wrong.

Quote:

At -10 reduction that's a 5 energy net because you pay 5e to cast GoLE.

GoLE works on the next TWO SPELLS. You only get 5e net if you cast two 5e spells, if you cast a 10 and a 5, you net 10 because you paid 5 energy where you would have paid 15. That is better than inspiration used to be short of MOR, and MOR was an elite. The effect is amplified on mesmers which tend to pack a hefty load of 10+ energy spells anyway, resulting in a consistent 15 net or higher. On monks, it means being able to afford another Aegis copy, though as Squidget points out, that's largely irrelevant when backlines were shifting away from Mo/Me anyway.

[skill]Glyph of Lesser Energy[/skill]

Quote:

The only reason its getting so much attention now is because inspire was nerfed while GoLE was left unchanged.

http://www.guildwars.com/support/gam...ve-2006-10.php

GoLE was buffed in the same patch that inspiration was nerfed.

twicky_kid · Dec 22, 2006, 03:50 AM // 03:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Read it. GoLE was buffed in the same patch that inspiration was nerfed.

I didn't even notice that. Ya, needs to be changed back to the next 1 spell and leave it alone. I was thinking it was still at the next 1 spell.

30 energy for 5e every 30 seconds is crazy. That's almost 3 pips of energy regen for 0 attribute point investment. That's better than all the elite energy skills.

These kind of changes make me wonder what the dev team is smokin.

Patccmoi · Dec 22, 2006, 04:13 AM // 04:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

I didn't even notice that. Ya, needs to be changed back to the next 1 spell and leave it alone. I was thinking it was still at the next 1 spell.

30 energy for 5e every 30 seconds is crazy. That's almost 3 pips of energy regen for 0 attribute point investment. That's better than all the elite energy skills.

These kind of changes make me wonder what the dev team is smokin.

They wanted to make ele non-elite emanagement viable. And now it is, before it just wasn't.

The problem is how good GoLE is now on /E.

That's why personally i'd rather see it in EStorage and be next 1..2 spells cost 15 less energy. This way it remains at 1 spell for non-eles, and eles who have the artificially buffed energy cost have it for next 2 spells. Along with a buff to some inspiration spells but in a way that will favor Mesmers more than monks.

And that thing about Angelic Bonds Paragon killing pressure doesn't make much sense imo. Angelic Bond Paragons kill spike. They reduce 0 damage with it, they just spread it, and it the pressure is high it's not all that useful. If the other team has high pressure and you have Angelic Bond on 2-3 people, your Paragon is in real danger cause monks will have to work on saving the targets + having the paragon dying at the same time, and it takes them more energy to spread the prot/healing than to heavily prot 1 target so that the damage taken is lower and they can spend energy more efficiently

twicky_kid · Dec 22, 2006, 05:57 AM // 05:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

And that thing about Angelic Bonds Paragon killing pressure doesn't make much sense imo. Angelic Bond Paragons kill spike. They reduce 0 damage with it, they just spread it, and it the pressure is high it's not all that useful. If the other team has high pressure and you have Angelic Bond on 2-3 people, your Paragon is in real danger cause monks will have to work on saving the targets + having the paragon dying at the same time, and it takes them more energy to spread the prot/healing than to heavily prot 1 target so that the damage taken is lower and they can spend energy more efficiently

Angelic Bond halfs the dmg between the paragon and who ever has angelic bond. That means the target you are trying to pressure out will take dmg half as slow giving the monk plently of time to heal between its spell recharges.

Angelic Bond also synergizes with ZB very well. Since the dmg is being diverted to the paragon that means catching a target at half life is not as risky as them taking full dmg at half life.

SoA on the paragon will basically nullify Angelic bond completely. It cost a monk more energy for him to prot a target then you switch targets immediately. Now the monk has to throw out more energy for prot and healing. Angelic bond creates a funnel where you know where half of all the parties dmg intake is going to.

Remember you have 2 monks. ZB monk on the Paragon the other monk on the target that is taking dmg. It makes monking a breeze.

Wasteland Squidget · Dec 22, 2006, 06:04 AM // 06:04

Angelic Bond didn't kill pressure teams. What killed pressure teams was trying to power through 100 AL targets while permanently blind.

Riotgear · Dec 22, 2006, 06:12 AM // 06:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

In fact, weaker monk bars will force teams to bring more off-monk defense so they don't just blow up at the stand against pure offense teams. This further encourages 321spike, since bringing more defense forces you to bring less offense, which makes it harder to pressure out the other team.

I doubt the strength of monk bars is even the problem right now, since the traditional b-light bars with SoA are stronger than they were before Nightfall.

The problem sounds like a sort of interrelation of what you've described. Basically, defensive options got a huge boost, spike got a huge boost, pressure got a really brainless boost that didn't bring it up to par with the new defense.

A lot of it is power creep, and it could probably be controlled simply by bringing some of the new options down to sane levels again. The simplest solution to the current meta would probably be toning down the defensive options (including shutdown like b-surge), then fixing some of the more insane pressure options like RaO to compensate.

Blinding surge is a problem all to itself. I still think making the blind duration conditional would be the best solution, but I also think if they buff other offense options properly, that may not be neccessary. It's also hard to say what'll happen when it's no longer viable to run a team of 5 mesmers.

Wasteland Squidget · Dec 22, 2006, 07:02 AM // 07:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

A lot of it is power creep, and it could probably be controlled simply by bringing some of the new options down to sane levels again. The simplest solution to the current meta would probably be toning down the defensive options (including shutdown like b-surge), then fixing some of the more insane pressure options like RaO to compensate.

That's pretty much it, yes.

Anti-pressure options need to be balanced so that you don't just explode at the stand when you face a bunch of C-spacing melee guys a la IWAY. At the same time, the templates that apply the most pressure also need to have strong utility. The RaO thumper fails on both fronts - they're very good at applying pressure when the defenses aren't ridiculous, but they also suck at anything but C-spacing the flagstand.

A good example of where pressure needs to go is the old KGYU build. That build applied strong flagstand pressure using Bull's Charge/plague touch warriors and degen rangers. Those are powerful templates that are strong at the flagstand, and they can also defend the base, overextend freely, gank, and disrupt the enemy team with great effectiveness. There was a lot of possible tactics and plays that could be executed with that build, but it still applied more pressure than most other builds at the time. A wide variety of templates that combine damage and utility are key to a pressure metagame, not to mention nerfs to some of the more ridiculous defense still present.

twicky_kid · Dec 22, 2006, 07:53 AM // 07:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Angelic Bond didn't kill pressure teams. What killed pressure teams was trying to power through 100 AL targets while permanently blind.

Yes but the permanent 100 AL isn't viable though watch yourself anymore. Stand your ground + angelic bond is.

At least stand your ground needs some thought put into it unlike watch yourself.