Curse

Nexx · Jul 16, 2005, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Sounds awesome! Can we get a build? Sword/Axe/Hammer warrior?

Thom · Jul 16, 2005, 08:22 PM // 20:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by PieXags

The basis of "tactics" in this game's PvP right now are clicking 1, 2, 3, etc, all the way to 8 in the right combination. Big deal. You know it's a bad PvP system when one of the hardest BUILDS to beat is something like mass spirit spamming...if people can win by spamming something that...sucks.

Oh there is a way to beat such things...but it requires a different BUILD, all of which happens before the actual battle. Sure there are very subtle mostly senseless little changes that happen on the battle field, like "oh now blue team came over too" but then it's just more buildvsbuildvsbuild, instead of just buildvsbuild, and then it's the same old "alright, they'll kill eachother, then we'll do...what we always do". There isn't really a "Alright you do this I'll counter with this, while I then switch and react to what's going on behind me" It's "damnit I can't beat the build I'm hexed all to hell...I guess I'll try again next time I get here."

I've never lost a battle because their mid battle TACTICS were better than mine, always because we couldn't beat their BUILD with what we were using, simple as that. And since you have to wait for "countdown timer, blue team wins, repeat" over and over you can't really go out, switch skills and adapt, and then go in. And it's basically one team of 8 can't really pull of 2-3 builds all at once, so if you had two teams of like 20 you COULD pull this off, and that would require a lot more adaptation and teamwork than the current "build vs build" "build vs counterbuild = defeat" sort of thing.

Try and tell me that two teams of 20 going at it wouldn't be more interesting than what we have going right now, and say that the battle NEVER ended, that it actually kept going and you could then change your skill set if you died or something. That would be nice, not to mention immersive which would I've had to say dramatically increase the amount of people eager to PvP.

Two teams of 20 would be more chaotic than fun. Get back to me when you've mastered 8v8 play. If 20v20 means playing with more noobs, count me out. A team of 8 can counter much more than you realize. I have won and lost games due to tactical play (target selection, terrain, timing). Spirit spamming can done very well and very poorly depending on timing, terrain and target selection. Rangers are one of the most terrain reliant classes. I don't know what game you are playing, but maybe you should try out Guild Wars.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 16, 2005, 08:40 PM // 20:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zelc

Warriors suck, eh? Tell that to War Machine.

After reading that poster's quote on that matchup, I can now honestly say, once and for all, that all the assholes and buttpumps who keep saying "WILL ONLY ALLOW TS AND VENT PLAYERS" to sit down and stfu...

You don't NEED voice comm to win. All the people who have told me that communications is far more efficient via voice chat can now read that quote and I can sit back, smile, and say...

"I told ya so..."

I love it...

Kishin · Jul 16, 2005, 09:00 PM // 21:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yukito Kunisaki

After reading that poster's quote on that matchup, I can now honestly say, once and for all, that all the assholes and buttpumps who keep saying "WILL ONLY ALLOW TS AND VENT PLAYERS" to sit down and stfu...

You don't NEED voice comm to win. All the people who have told me that communications is far more efficient via voice chat can now read that quote and I can sit back, smile, and say...

"I told ya so..."

I love it...

Um, Voice comm is still significantly more efficient for adapting strategies on the fly, making quick decisions and manuevering in battle than typing. War Machine plays while in each other's physical presence. If someone is in ear shot of you, TS/Vent is pretty much a non issue. Plus, I gurantee you they knew there opponents would be totally unprepared for that strategy, so they had to do a minimum of communication during the match and could just stick to their original plan. So don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Addendum #2: You're not going to get that kind of familiarity and knowledge of your teammates in a PUG, so all those people who want only TS/Vent players aren't really wrong.

Zorrander · Jul 17, 2005, 07:46 PM // 19:46

The only problem I have with this game's PvP really is the broken power of monk healing. You can take two groups, one with a monk, one with out, and the group with the monk is almost always going to win. No other class has that kind of power. Knock that annoying caster down to half health? Easily fixed with one quick heal. Two warriors hacking and interrupting on a monk? Easily fixed again with a spell or two combined with an easy sprint around in a circle. Nobody can't outdamage the healing power of a monk. No other class has even close to that degree of survivability and broken power in a group. Now we're starting to see multi-monk groups that just run in small circles and heal each other when things get rough.

Nexx · Jul 17, 2005, 10:40 PM // 22:40

Can we get a video up? All this warrior ownage and mad team work deserves a look!

Scaphism · Jul 17, 2005, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zorrander

The only problem I have with this game's PvP really is the broken power of monk healing....Nobody can't outdamage the healing power of a monk.

From a design perspective, that's how it's supposed to be.
If damage was more efficient then available healing, then there would be absolutely no reason to play a healer. Every team would be geared to deal as much front-loaded damage as possible, because you have no hope of "outlasting" your opponent through good healing.

By nature, a monks healing power has to be more efficient than the damage from a single source.

Let's take a simplistic example:
You are an attacker who can deal 25 DPS.
I am a monk who can heal 25 DPS.
If we play without mistakes, we will always reach a stalemate.

Now let's say my healing is 30 DPS. We will still reach a stalemate if we fight, but now I have a little breathing room to mess up.

Now let's say you do 26 DPS and I heal 25 DPS. The different is slight, but even if both of us play perfectly, I never have any hope of winning. It will take a while, but you are guaranteed to win. Any effort I put into healing myself is essentially wasted effort.

The problem is compounded when you bring in multiple characters and more advanced tactics, but it's still the same fundamental problem. A monk has to be more efficient than an attacker, or there's no reason to play one (and the duration of matches would shorten immensely.)

Malchiel · Jul 18, 2005, 01:53 AM // 01:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zorrander
The only problem I have with this game's PvP really is the broken power of monk healing....Nobody can't outdamage the healing power of a monk.

This is a sign of stupidity and lack of imagination.

Why do you always think that you need to outdamage healing?

There're other ways to kill a monk's healing besides damage. In a whole lot more effective manner.

Have you grouped a mesmer or a necro?

Those two underused classes actually can kill a monk's healing very effectively.

Mhydrian · Jul 18, 2005, 03:43 AM // 03:43

Ive played plenty of PVP. I know how to play, and how to win. You cant simply ignoring the fact that casters have equal if not better DPS ranged then a warrior does point blank, then there is a serious problem. Add the many ways to stop or mostly stop melee damage and you have warriors who cam do nothing. In general Hexes are too hard to remove or counter.

Ive played 4 characters to 20. Ive made R/me, R/W(melee build), W/N, and a Monk,N. What gets me, is that casters are the ANTI tank class, yet Rangers, espcially a R/me can basically only shutdown a caster. Necros and mesmers as far as 4 on 4 arena play is concerned are the worst. If a N/me can kill my tank in under 10 seconds, then when the warrior closes melee range he should at the very least be able to return the favor. But many times you will find casters who will sit in melee range and take down a warrior with ease.

I play primarily in 4vs4 arenas and some GvG. Warriors simply do not have the damage output to make up for the fact that they rely on being next to a target who does not move, and that same warrior cannot be, slowed, weakened, blinded, have Empathy, or the other numerous conditions that destroy warrior DPS. THEN that same warrior depends on the target not having any stances or spells, abilites that mitigate melee DPS. OK this is melee......

Compare to a ELE, Necro, Mesmer. What stops a fireball? Air blasts? DOTs? and hexes in general. Hexes are so hard to remove you are better off letting the DOT do its damage then try to cast a remove hex, you are likely to get 3 more put on you by the time you remove one. Necro disease DOTs, do damage fast with low durations usually. Removing them is easier, but using plague signet to totally wipe off all conditions usually does not save me, from taking 80% damage off these things.

I know my way around the arena. Usually a key player on my team. I bring my rez, know group tactics well. I choose to play 4 vs 4 matches, just what I like. But there are serious issues with casters having so much ranged damage, having this damage impossible to mitigate, casters having too many defense, very good armor versus melee attacks....I dont mind casters being powerful from range, but in melee they need to die fast, just as fast as they are able to kill a war at range.

ZING · Jul 18, 2005, 04:06 AM // 04:06

-Mhydrian

Don't go wasting ur time trying to make sense of anything that could possibly add up to some kind of dissadvantage for a Warrior.

The l33t ones here will surely set you straight soon enough

Phades · Jul 18, 2005, 04:17 AM // 04:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

From a design perspective, that's how it's supposed to be.
If damage was more efficient then available healing, then there would be absolutely no reason to play a healer. Every team would be geared to deal as much front-loaded damage as possible, because you have no hope of "outlasting" your opponent through good healing.

By nature, a monks healing power has to be more efficient than the damage from a single source.

Let's take a simplistic example:
You are an attacker who can deal 25 DPS.
I am a monk who can heal 25 DPS.
If we play without mistakes, we will always reach a stalemate.

Now let's say my healing is 30 DPS. We will still reach a stalemate if we fight, but now I have a little breathing room to mess up.

Now let's say you do 26 DPS and I heal 25 DPS. The different is slight, but even if both of us play perfectly, I never have any hope of winning. It will take a while, but you are guaranteed to win. Any effort I put into healing myself is essentially wasted effort.

The problem is compounded when you bring in multiple characters and more advanced tactics, but it's still the same fundamental problem. A monk has to be more efficient than an attacker, or there's no reason to play one (and the duration of matches would shorten immensely.)

The problem is scale. Where do you set the standard for scale in an encounter? Do you set the scale for a 4v4 encounter, an 8v8, or a 8v? encounter where the npcs win through raw force. Given the dynamics of the protection line or the possibility for spirit spam, i dont really see how its neccacary for a single monk to have the heal potential to offset the pve environment with no real tradeoff in terms of spell casting potentcy per spell, like you see in other spell lines. Typically the stronger the spell, the longer the cast time, higher the energy, or other drawbacks are present and they do scale up according to power opposed to hiting some imaginary ceiling.

I think it also falls back to an older thread where people were questioning if the monk healing needed to be diffused throughout the other jobs more than it is currently. If every job had more of a share in the healing weight then it didnt need to be as potent within the monk profession. Sure people could overstack the damage, but there are many ways to still deflect, absorb, and redirect the damage. The difference would be that the monk healing with the self healing could equal the current scheme, forcing a ltitle more diversity instead of just more damage or disruption to achieve the goal. Allowing it to exist in more parts would also allow for longer use over time if one part of the group is disabled over an extended period, instead of just falling apart.

Thom · Jul 18, 2005, 06:31 AM // 06:31

From a monks point of view. If a team is focus firing, I can identify the target and break the focus fire before the target dies. If I know, I'm dealing with 5 air/elems it is almost easier since the approach used is so obvious. If I can beat your spike with spell breaker, protective or the like I can have my energy up to beat the next spike. Now if an opponent has a warrior on each of the monks and is spamming Necro DOT, I'm getting interrupted and self-healing while my team is hurting from DOT. If the opponents healing can survive my teams initial attack, than we are doomed to be picked off 1 by 1.

Kishin · Jul 18, 2005, 06:58 AM // 06:58

Ah, I understand your complaint now. It basically stems entirely from 4v4 arena.

Hexes are only hard to remove in 4v4 arena because no one brings hex removals. They get removed A lot quicker in GvG and Tombs if the team you're on has any idea of what they're doing. This isn't a problem with Warriors, its a problem with how people approach 4v4.

A smart Warrior brings their own removals, of course.

Scaphism · Jul 18, 2005, 07:59 AM // 07:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Where do you set the standard for scale in an encounter? Do you set the scale for a 4v4 encounter, an 8v8, or a 8v? encounter where the npcs win through raw force.

I don't set the standard; I'm just a mod here. However, it should be balanced for an 8v8 matchup. That's how the game was designed. You play football(soccer) with 11 people per side, basketball with 5 per side, hockey with 6 per side, baseball 9 per side, and Guild Wars has 8 per side. The game is funamentally altered when you change that number.

Scale really isn't relevant though. As I said originally, monk healing by nature must be more efficient than damage, or it's a pointless excercise to put your effort into it. Instead of healing we'd all race to do as much damage as possible, since you have no hope of outhealing what the other team is dishing out. Is anyone here seriously advocating that we need 3 monks to deal with the damage output from 2 attackers? (Or 5 monks for 4 attackers?)

Let me know if I haven't explained the concept clearly enough. Ensign is quite good at this sort of explanation.

Schorny · Jul 18, 2005, 09:45 AM // 09:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mhydrian

You cant simply ignoring the fact that casters have equal if not better DPS ranged then a warrior does point blank, then there is a serious problem. Add the many ways to stop or mostly stop melee damage and you have warriors who cam do nothing.

That is true, to a point, but not the entire truth.

If you play against an energy denial team, warriors shine. Sure, they need to be close to the target, but 2 hammer warriors can keep a monk down all the time. Haven't see much axes lately but I (as a monk) died countless times to a 'Final Thrust'.

Currently only hammer warriors are needed, but sword and axe will come back, I'm pretty sure. Sword and Axe don't need energy for a lot of damage.

There are also some other roles a warrior can fill:
W/Me - Blackout
W/Mo - can run some enchants on the monk
W/E - knockdown + aftershock
W/* - energy denial with "Fear Me", support with "watch yourself" - I normally don't see it - why?? +20 armor for the whole team for free...
W/N - chillblains

It is just that a warrior in PvP is normally better in doing support stuff than doing high damage. Most people don't understand that :/

Phades · Jul 18, 2005, 01:04 PM // 13:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

I don't set the standard; I'm just a mod here. However, it should be balanced for an 8v8 matchup. That's how the game was designed. You play football(soccer) with 11 people per side, basketball with 5 per side, hockey with 6 per side, baseball 9 per side, and Guild Wars has 8 per side. The game is funamentally altered when you change that number.

Scale really isn't relevant though. As I said originally, monk healing by nature must be more efficient than damage, or it's a pointless excercise to put your effort into it. Instead of healing we'd all race to do as much damage as possible, since you have no hope of outhealing what the other team is dishing out. Is anyone here seriously advocating that we need 3 monks to deal with the damage output from 2 attackers? (Or 5 monks for 4 attackers?)

Let me know if I haven't explained the concept clearly enough. Ensign is quite good at this sort of explanation.

Well if the standard is 8v8 with no job combination restrictions, then doesnt it cause concern that there are more locations for the 4v4 venue for pvp. Is pvp only to be balanced around the end game? It also doesnt leave much room for growth in size as the amount of healing available would vastly outdistance any damage possibility. In other words, no room for variation in battle size between two forces.

Perhaps im a little jaded, but i find it strange that people think that its fine for 1 character to be able to fend off 3-4 assailants indefinatly based solely around the concepts of healing and protection versus damage. When i see situations like that it reminds me more of a pve balance situation opposed to a pvp balance situation. Thats why i really dont think that all of the skills are intended for the basic pvp situations. Many of them arent all that useful, but on the flipside there are many skills and combination of skills that id say are probably too useful for a pvp venu. While conversly, just like how many skills are good, but too limited for use enmass in pve.

A better interdependancy situation, especially for pvp, would involve 2-3 people and different job combinations to create a similar situation while working in tandem opposed to 1-2 job combinations and 1-2 people defending against 4-6 individuals. Situations like that are more along the lines of a force multiplier lying within one person. I wouldnt see it being different from a mesmer being able to do aoe blackout for 5-10 mana a piece or a ranger with a global enchantment that prevented all non attack skills as the effect would be about the same magnitude.

But as i said before, it is more a question of scale and where it should be. In the same breath it could also be a questioning of should teams have class restrictions or minimum requirements set prior to a match starting, which could follow a very similar pattern to the henchmen options while progressing through the pve.

Schorny · Jul 18, 2005, 01:23 PM // 13:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Perhaps im a little jaded, but i find it strange that people think that its fine for 1 character to be able to fend off 3-4 assailants indefinatly based solely around the concepts of healing and protection versus damage.

lol, never played a monk, right?

Quote:

Thats why i really dont think that all of the skills are intended for the basic pvp situations. Many of them arent all that useful, but on the flipside there are many skills and combination of skills that id say are probably too useful for a pvp venu.

Name some and we can discuss about it. Of course, some skills are only usefull for a specific combination/build.

Quote:

a mesmer being able to do aoe blackout for 5-10 mana a piece

lol, blackout is really bad. 2 blackouts keeps one guy about 12-14 seconds useless. Lets say you could spam it on the whole team. In 10 seconds you can kill a few people.

Quote:

or a ranger with a global enchantment that prevented all non attack skills as the effect would be about the same magnitude

Spike teams will win 100% of the time.
Just block all healing for 12 seconds and kill 3-4 guys within this timeframe. now the second ranger will cast ist again and you kill the next 4 guys.

Great.

How much PvP do you have played?
A mesmer will shutdown a monk without problems. A decend team can disable 2 monks very effectively. It just costs them offensive power (mesmer don't do much direct damage). So it needs strategy. An all Mesmer team will shut down the complete healing of the enemy, but will have no offensive power... If you mix, you can shutdown half the healing and do decend damage. You can also just outdamage the healing... There are many ways. There may not be a perfect balance, and I do believe there are a few tweaks that would benefit PvP great, but all in all everything is working and balanced.

Just explain a few situations/skills/builds that you think are unbalanced. We can discuss it.

Phades · Jul 18, 2005, 02:32 PM // 14:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schorny

lol, blackout is really bad. 2 blackouts keeps one guy about 12-14 seconds useless. Lets say you could spam it on the whole team. In 10 seconds you can kill a few people.

Spike teams will win 100% of the time.
Just block all healing for 12 seconds and kill 3-4 guys within this timeframe. now the second ranger will cast ist again and you kill the next 4 guys.

Great.

How much PvP do you have played?
A mesmer will shutdown a monk without problems. A decend team can disable 2 monks very effectively. It just costs them offensive power (mesmer don't do much direct damage). So it needs strategy. An all Mesmer team will shut down the complete healing of the enemy, but will have no offensive power... If you mix, you can shutdown half the healing and do decend damage. You can also just outdamage the healing... There are many ways. There may not be a perfect balance, and I do believe there are a few tweaks that would benefit PvP great, but all in all everything is working and balanced.

Just explain a few situations/skills/builds that you think are unbalanced. We can discuss it.

First off unless it has something to do with a melee or bow attack, then its not an attack skill. Play with flourish sometime, the implication isnt always as clear as the wording used.

Secondly ive seen monks handle 3-4 guys at the same time that werent mesmers. Ive also seen monks go from near no visibile health to full health in one cast. Yes they didnt die and yes no one else was healing, ie no one capable of healing others standing or in range. I am not denying that mesmers can accomplish something unique, but what im saying is that perhaps the focus could stand to shift where instead of needing a mesmer to kill a monk, needing a mesmer as another source of damage diffusal balancing the equasion differently. I used the blackout and ranger examples as something perhaps a little over the top, but it would convey the sentiment.

As far as how much pvp ive done. Hmm hours or faction? I havent done GvG, as most of the guys im with moved on from the game until the next expansion, if they come back at all, and for the most part and im not too interested in trying to schmooze my way into a top competitive guild. Ive built up over 10k from random instances within tombs, team and regular arenas since the patch. So as you are attempting to color me as someone unintellegent, you can take whatever perception you have regarding my total versus performance and figure actual hours logged achiving that. I spent a fair bit before then, but i didnt do much pvp in the preview event weekends.

Imbalanced monk combinations? The only thing that comes to mind, comes from what i can see as i havent had the time to build up a monk primary. What comes to mind is healing touch should be target touched other ally, instead of ally, but there are others available that are potent as well. Most likely im seeing it in conjuction with aura of faith, which would probably explain why its healing ~50% or more of the health bar in a cast. Im sure 2 monks could come up with better using word of healing and aura of faith, but whatever.

I could ramble on for pages about the deturrants to warriors and the implications for time devoted between characters for and against interdependancy with them. I also think that air is a bit out of place in terms of cost, cast time and recast and should more closely resemble fire, but i serously doubt any changes are going to happen. As a result ive just settled in on playing an ele and mesmer for the time being as they are a bit more interesting to play and far less frustrating in general. Also as a consequence ive seen a few friends leave the game because of issues like those causing a lack of faith in ANET. Most of my play experience in pvp initially was ele or wariror and i had issues with why air just seems better for offense and the general effective application of the wariror, but ive since shifted to drop the wariror entirely as i havent seen it do something that cant be reproduced elsewhere. Sure you might argue spirit builds and damage over time, but if i was really interested in slugging it out over the course of an hour, then id just go back to playing planetside where i could accomplish alot more in much less time, as a result of tactical choices and skill versus strategy, and actually have an impact on a completely different scale than what is found within this guildwars.

Bah im rambling, but your questions/comments werent very specific.

Schorny · Jul 18, 2005, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

First off unless it has something to do with a melee or bow attack, then its not an attack skill. Play with flourish sometime, the implication isnt always as clear as the wording used.

It doesn't change much. So not the eles are nuking you, but the Rangers or warriors and all you can do is stand and watch yourself die.

Doesn't really matter who is nuking, as long as someone can nuke a defenseless enemy.

Quote:

Secondly ive seen monks handle 3-4 guys at the same time that werent mesmers.

Of course. I can handly even 5 or 6 guys, but only if the enemy team dumb.
If I get a backfire, I'm out of the way for 10 seconds. Now someone needs to take backfire off me - so it is about 5 seconds that I'm completely useless. It is easy to shut down a monk.

And I have also not unlimited energy.

Quote:

Ive also seen monks go from near no visibile health to full health in one cast.

So what? I can't do it forever. For example an 'heal other' costs 10 energy. I have 51 energy. So guess how long I as only monk can stand against 3 eles.

Quote:

I am not denying that mesmers can accomplish something unique, but what im saying is that perhaps the focus could stand to shift where instead of needing a mesmer to kill a monk, needing a mesmer as another source of damage diffusal balancing the equasion differently.

You don't _need_ to shutdown a monk - you can outdamage him. But shutting down is often easier. You can also drain his energy by quick target switching, so you can render a protection monk nearly useless, because he can't buff the target (he don't know who you will attack).

Quote:

As far as how much pvp ive done. Hmm hours or faction?

I'm just interested how much experience you have. In 4v4 and 8v8

Because it looks like you played 4v4 mostly.

Quote:

So as you are attempting to color me as someone unintellegent, you can take whatever perception you have regarding my total versus performance and figure actual hours logged achiving that. I spent a fair bit before then, but i didnt do much pvp in the preview event weekends.

I never said nor meant that. It just seems that you have not enough experience with 8v8 PvP, because you would know that a team with 4 or 5 healer is no threat. So a monk can't be overpowered

Quote:

What comes to mind is healing touch should be target touched other ally, instead of ally, but there are others available that are potent as well.

Healing Touch is the only reliable self heal of a monk. Just 'Diversion' it, and the monk can't heal himself. If he's using Healing Breeze -> shatter enchantment and look at a dead monk

Quote:

Most likely im seeing it in conjuction with aura of faith, which would probably explain why its healing ~50% or more of the health bar in a cast.

Looks like arena PvP. A monk designed to stay alive, can stay alive pretty long. But he can't heal his mates that good. In 4v4 - a monk should focus on staying alive. And if he doesn't go down, you need to target someone else - drain his energy and then spike one guy at a time.

Quote:

Im sure 2 monks could come up with better using word of healing and aura of faith, but whatever.

2 monks in 4v4 is bad. It doesn't really work, because your offense is too bad.

Quote:

but ive since shifted to drop the wariror entirely as i havent seen it do something that cant be reproduced elsewhere.

Every class can be replaced by another. A warrior is not useless. Look at the top guilds. Most of the time they take 2-3 warriors with them... They hurt really bad.

Quote:

Bah im rambling, but your questions/comments werent very specific.

My question is very specific:
What exactly is unbalanced and why?
I suggest we can talk about it. But statements like "a warrior is useless, because every role he can play, can also be played by someone else" doesn't sound very experienced to me.

For me it seems, you played 4v4 and wondering why a team with a monk always beats one without a monk.

Third Quarter · Jul 18, 2005, 03:12 PM // 15:12

Something that's very important to recognize is that a single monk will have little trouble hardening a single target against any amount of damage.

Monks have a much harder time coping with many targets taking sustained damage.

Try playing a monk. You'll learn a lot.