Curse

Wasteland Squidget · Nov 13, 2007, 12:31 AM // 00:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Yes you're right, i meant splinter weapon regarding to Npc farming at vod making split attempts sometimes near useless.

This is a myth that gets brought up a lot and it's true to a degree (teams do splinter-bomb NPCs at VoD, and it's an effective tactic.) However, the situation is more complicated than you make it sound. It works out like this.

I want to bring AoE. AoE is a great tool that allows me to win the match in a lot of different ways. I can use AoE to knock a blockway team out of their wards. I can play positioning games that catch other teams in chokepoints and blow them up. I can win at VoD, both because NPCs ball up, and because those momentary instances where players are near each other become a lot more important with the increased damage and decreased health.

Ritualists are, by far, the most balanced and flexible AoE template. They make a strong contribution to the split meta by allowing teams to split effectively without a third monk. They can play offensively or defensively at the stand, throwing wardings around or splinter-bombing as necessary. While the game doesn't lack for other AoE options, they are almost all degenerate, boring templates that don't fit into the flexible templates of a balanced build. Fire eles, trappers, death necros, and the like. They're all strong templates that have their place in various gimmicks, but they're not very interesting.

In this way, splinter rits promote balanced, flexible builds, and nerfing them would promote more gimmicky fire eles. The game needs more templates like the splinter rit, that combine a strong split presence with a powerful set of abilities at the stand. You're not going to get rid of NPC-bombing unless you take every AoE out of the game, but you can put AoE on flexible and interesting templates instead of boring ones.

I also don't think splinter-bombing defeats the purpose of splitting. In all the GvGs I've played recently, I don't remember ever seeing a team walk into a huge NPC advantage and winning through AoE. The 30 seconds it takes you to bomb the enemy NPCs is 30 seconds the enemy team has to wipe you, which is more than enough at VoD.

Good teams that are at a major NPC disadvantage don't fight at the stand at all. They push around back and aggro your guild lord, making your NPC advantage irrelevant and forcing a straight-up fight. If you want to complain about anything, complain about that.

Cirian · Nov 13, 2007, 12:47 AM // 00:47

Praise for rits! /swoon. Yeah, I like the way they're playing at the moment.

Now rather than being surprised to see them in games, I'm thinking more mechanical thoughts like:

Would WoR be better if it removed a condition when you cast it (say to cure a Pin Down), rather than when you next get hit?

Is Weapon of Warding a good skill in its 10e form? Would a 5e version be better, to make the setup cost of Boon and Grip less?

On the above question, having a useful 5e weapon spell to set up Boon/Grip, I wonder why Nightmare Weapon never sees play? Assuming 14Rest/13Chan, it's a 5e 135 point lifesteal you can cast on an ally or yourself, which will be around long enough to cast Boon/Grips on.

Nightmare just seems to serve so many roles - damage, healing over time, cheap platform to cast Boon/Grips on, good duration/recast and damage/cost ratios... and so versatile! Cast it on fighting archers that need a heal, use it in a split as both damage and healing, compliment Splinter with something better at killing a single target (a lone rit with Nightmare+Rage+WoR can play quite aggressively). C'mon, play Nightmare on your flagger, it's great

DIH49 · Nov 13, 2007, 06:31 AM // 06:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I also don't think splinter-bombing defeats the purpose of splitting. In all the GvGs I've played recently, I don't remember ever seeing a team walk into a huge NPC advantage and winning through AoE.

Maybe, but what splinter most certainly does is let you lose the whole game until VoD, and then in 20 seconds completely invalidate the previous 20min of work. If you're heavily DPed, out of sigs, but haven't managed to lose too many NPCs, then all of a sudden at VoD we're even because you have splinter. That's stupid. No single skill should levy so much power that it completely obviates the whole pre-VoD game. NPCs are only one important factor with morale, usable rez sigs, and energy being the other 3. Splinter says "forget morale, forget sigs, we can just blow your NPCs up." I can stomach the existence of fire eles because at least they have to stick a 60AL caster in your face. A splinter rit can buff up his warriors without ever being in danger and still do all the damage a fire ele has to take risks for. No risk game winning AoE is a stupid thing to keep around.

Vaga · Nov 13, 2007, 08:17 AM // 08:17

Izzy's always said he's keeping aoe how it is and he's just going to fix how the npc's stand, clearly he isn't going to do this so aoe skills need to be balanced around the fact that come 18 minutes aoe is insanely good. It's not like 18 minutes is even a long time plenty of matches between equally skilled teams last that long without anyone having to fall back to base or anything.

Since that wont happen either, I'd like to see a lot of the archers removed so that npcs don't mean so much at vod. Having lots of NPC's just makes all the things wrong with gvg like aoe and passive defense stronger. Even dedicated splits are much more build wars than anything.

shoogi · Nov 13, 2007, 08:57 AM // 08:57

Anet's greatest sin, which caused all this trouble, was adding new professions after the initial six, and if that wasn't enough they also made hundreds of new skills. GW currently has 10 professions with 1235 skills! (PvE skills discluded of course). Now, how can a balance be possibly maintained with so many skills?
As I see it, the only step that will balance the game is removing at least the 2Nightfall professions and possibly the Factions ones too, along with most (if not all) the F, NF, and EN skills (Can someone please explain to me why mirror skills exist?). Since such action isn't possible Anet will have to deal with a constantly diminishing PvP community that leave because the PvP GW offers nowadays is a bad joke of what it used to offer. Happilly for them though they enjoy an increasing PvE community since they decided that PvE is more important than PvP (that's a different topic that we all talked too much about).

The quotes that you brought up show that the devs are displeased with the current meta, which should be good news. However, by boosting skills like Healer's Boon (the Monk equivelant to RaO, IWAY and so on) I can't understand their plan of changing it. The above skills, along with many other similiar skills, are broken and bad mechanics that simply make PvP easier without any player skill required. Maybe they want to make PvP more attractive for the PvE community, but lowering the level of PvP isn't the way to do that.

We just have to live with the fact that GW is not a PvP game anymore. Factions was OK, but the 2 expansions that followed (the mostly PvE NF and the entirely PvE EN) meant the destruction of the PvP that GW offered in its first year or so.

Riotgear · Nov 13, 2007, 11:03 AM // 11:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoogi

Anet's greatest sin, which caused all this trouble, was adding new professions after the initial six, and if that wasn't enough they also made hundreds of new skills. GW currently has 10 professions with 1235 skills! (PvE skills discluded of course). Now, how can a balance be possibly maintained with so many skills?
As I see it, the only step that will balance the game is removing at least the 2Nightfall professions and possibly the Factions ones too, along with most (if not all) the F, NF, and EN skills (Can someone please explain to me why mirror skills exist?). Since such action isn't possible Anet will have to deal with a constantly diminishing PvP community that leave because the PvP GW offers nowadays is a bad joke of what it used to offer. Happilly for them though they enjoy an increasing PvE community since they decided that PvE is more important than PvP (that's a different topic that we all talked too much about).

The meta didn't really crash and burn until Nightfall. GWFC was at a pretty damn stable point. It took time to iron out the initial mess from Factions, but it was ultimately the addition of assorted overpowered skills in Nightfall combined with overbuffing existing crap that led to the mess we have today.

Now that rits have had their most degenerate component (brainless spirit shitting) mostly wrecked and their most interesting component (weapon spells) buffed, they're starting to become a pretty tolerable and non-degenerate class. Paragons and Assassins are both idiot classes. Dervishes are basically warriors with more C-spacebar boredom.

Quote:

However, by boosting skills like Healer's Boon (the Monk equivelant to RaO, IWAY and so on) I can't understand their plan of changing it.

Anet seems to have been swept up in the community mentality, which is "nerf what's played most, buff the skills that nobody uses." As opposed to having an overarching vision of the game and making changes to meet that. Anet seems to have surrendered that vision to the community at large, and as a result, is now falling into a trap resembling design by committee.

Quote:

We just have to live with the fact that GW is not a PvP game anymore.

It's not much of a PvE game either. The problem isn't specifically lack of support for PvP, it's lack of long-term support in general.

Kaon · Nov 13, 2007, 12:06 PM // 12:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

*Wall of text about rits being a good thing.*

Yes actually you're right, I guess all the idiots complaining about splinter weapon brought me to their level

.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIH49

Maybe, but what splinter most certainly does is let you lose the whole game until VoD, and then in 20 seconds completely invalidate the previous 20min of work. If you're heavily DPed, out of sigs, but haven't managed to lose too many NPCs, then all of a sudden at VoD we're even because you have splinter. That's stupid. No single skill should levy so much power that it completely obviates the whole pre-VoD game. NPCs are only one important factor with morale, usable rez sigs, and energy being the other 3. Splinter says "forget morale, forget sigs, we can just blow your NPCs up." I can stomach the existence of fire eles because at least they have to stick a 60AL caster in your face. A splinter rit can buff up his warriors without ever being in danger and still do all the damage a fire ele has to take risks for. No risk game winning AoE is a stupid thing to keep around.

Yes it is annoying when you have finally gained a slight upperhand before vod (like getting a bit of dp on them, or killing some npcs) only to be swept away by splinter weapon. But one of the best things to do in such a situation is go 5-3 split, and chances are big they'll send their rit back to their base, meaning there's no splinter at the stand and NPCs count much more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MITCH

Pretty sure we beat you guys. ;d

You did, but i wasn't playing

Sleeper Service · Nov 13, 2007, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoogi

Anet's greatest sin, which caused all this trouble, was adding new professions after the initial six, and if that wasn't enough they also made hundreds of new skills. GW currently has 10 professions with 1235 skills! (PvE skills discluded of course). Now, how can a balance be possibly maintained with so many skills?

and yet balance is maintained.

weird huh.

DIH49 · Nov 13, 2007, 05:10 PM // 17:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Yes it is annoying when you have finally gained a slight upperhand before vod (like getting a bit of dp on them, or killing some npcs) only to be swept away by splinter weapon. But one of the best things to do in such a situation is go 5-3 split, and chances are big they'll send their rit back to their base, meaning there's no splinter at the stand and NPCs count much more.

I think you may have missed the point of my post. I'm not saying that there aren't manuevers you can use to mitigate the situation, I am saying that it is stupid that the whole game essentially revolves around if someone has a single skill or not. It was stupid with LoD, and it's still stupid with Splinter. Single skills should not be the be all end all of games, at least not with such commonality.

Captain Robo · Nov 13, 2007, 05:15 PM // 17:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sleeper Service

and yet balance is maintained.

weird huh.

I was about to bring up that very point

. Balance can be achieved if you care enough. That's all it comes down to.

Kaon · Nov 13, 2007, 05:48 PM // 17:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIH49

I think you may have missed the point of my post. I'm not saying that there aren't manuevers you can use to mitigate the situation, I am saying that it is stupid that the whole game essentially revolves around if someone has a single skill or not. It was stupid with LoD, and it's still stupid with Splinter. Single skills should not be the be all end all of games, at least not with such commonality.

But that's how the game has always been. Builds relying heavily on bsurge, ward, tainted or any other skill. And there's many mechanics that allow you to destroy that reliance. That's also the reason why people died so fast before the update, take out lod and its gg.

shoogi · Nov 13, 2007, 06:45 PM // 18:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sleeper Service

and yet balance is maintained.

weird huh.

I have no idea what that MOTL is (I would appreciate if you / somebody pm and tell me) but I guess that it is very different from GvG. It's like saying that FIFA is balanced although it has many teams with many players.
My point is that there are too many skills in the game that aren't used. I doubt that if a player will observe GvG and HoH for an entire day, s/he will see more than 30% of the skills. GW doesn't need all those skills. A GvG/HoH build includes 64 skills maximum (we all know that stupid 10 year old WoW kids that say "u can only use 8 skills ur game sucks we can JUMP and SWIM"). And since Anet naturally doesn't want to see a fotm meta where everybody uses the same 200 skills and 1000 skills are not used, there is tons of balancing to do which is impossible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Robo

I was about to bring up that very point . Balance can be achieved if you care enough. That's all it comes down to.

A 100% balance isn't possible in any game. There will always be some over/underpowered stuff (especailly with 1235 skills). "Caring enough" means a skill balance very frequently, and too frequent skill balances will make the game too unstable (well, some type of meta IS required).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Now that rits have had their most degenerate component (brainless spirit shitting) mostly wrecked and their most interesting component (weapon spells) buffed, they're starting to become a pretty tolerable and non-degenerate class. Paragons and Assassins are both idiot classes. Dervishes are basically warriors with more C-spacebar boredom.

I admit that my favorite and most played PvE character is a rit. However, I don't believe that rits filled in a spot that didn't exist before Factions got released. The same thing goes for Assas and especially the Dervs and Assas which are both completely pointless professions that offer nothing new except some 200 more skills that require balancing. Here you have 4 new professions that caused more damage than good.

DIH49 · Nov 13, 2007, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

But that's how the game has always been. Builds relying heavily on bsurge, ward, tainted or any other skill. And there's many mechanics that allow you to destroy that reliance. That's also the reason why people died so fast before the update, take out lod and its gg.

None of the skills you mention completely change the face of the game in the way the ones I mention do. LoD, as has been established by myself and others on numerous occasions, was the complete focus of the game pre-change. It was both the single strongest skill in the game and the single most essential. As such, games came down essentially to controlling the LoD. That was stupid as it defeats the whole purpose of a dynamic game. Splinter does much the same but in a different way. It controls the whole game by making the previous 18minutes negligible. I gave the example earlier of a team who was heavily DPed, out of rezsigs, and still used splinter to secure the win as if the whole game until VoD was meaningless. If we're going to allow teams to obviate everything but VoD, why not make VoD start at 0:00? After all, that is essentially what you and your fellow advocates are suggesting when you say that we should ignore this aspect of the skill.

Bsurge, ward, tainted, the skills you suggest just don't function in this way. Killing a team requires you to shut down ward sometimes, sure (although if Ensign's statistic about 10% shutdown on ward in the last AT is true, it doesn't seem that ward really counts so much as people think), but the whole game doesn't revolve around it. The same is true of Bsurge or tainted. The game is not decided on those skills alone, they are merely tools that help decide the game. That is an important distinction, the difference between a skill being necessarily controled to control the game and a skill being sufficient in that, if you control the skill you control the game.

My position is that the game occurs before VoD, VoD just ensures a closure. The game should be balanced around this position on the relative importance of times in GvG. The full 18min should not go one way only to have the new conditions of the last 2 make certain skills act in certain ways to go entirely the other way, and have that 2 minute portion take precedence.

Wasteland Squidget · Nov 13, 2007, 08:30 PM // 20:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIH49

None of the skills you mention completely change the face of the game in the way the ones I mention do. LoD, as has been established by myself and others on numerous occasions, was the complete focus of the game pre-change. It was both the single strongest skill in the game and the single most essential. As such, games came down essentially to controlling the LoD. That was stupid as it defeats the whole purpose of a dynamic game. Splinter does much the same but in a different way. It controls the whole game by making the previous 18minutes negligible. I gave the example earlier of a team who was heavily DPed, out of rezsigs, and still used splinter to secure the win as if the whole game until VoD was meaningless.

I can say that in all the games I have played with splinter weapon since I got back, I have yet to see this happen between two good teams. While you may have played games where it happened, it is outside the realm of my experience.

Remember that splinter-bombing the NPCs requires pushing up far enough to aggro them into a ball, and holding that position until the 'important' NPCs (ie: the boat) walk out. With the current VoD mechanics, that takes well over a minute. In the meantime, you have to tank both the enemy team and their NPCs, while they don't have to aggro that many of yours. If a team really is DPed and out of sigs, how are they holding up under pressure for that long? I've seen it happen against two teams that were relatively equal, or where one was a little behind, but I don't remember a team ever holding up under that pressure with heavy DP.

When we've played teams with splinter, our counter has been to play offensively and wipe them before they have a chance to use it on balled NPCs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by David The Sexy

If we're going to allow teams to obviate everything but VoD, why not make VoD start at 0:00? After all, that is essentially what you and your fellow advocates are suggesting when you say that we should ignore this aspect of the skill.

VoD has always offered several ways to invalidate the pre-VoD game. Guild lord ganking is the most obvious - you can be behind the entire game, lose all your NPCs and still win due to a single bad play on your opponent's part. Aggroing the enemy guild lord so neither walks into the center has a similar effect, invalidating a team's NPC advantage.

It feels like your issue is with VoD, rather than with splinter weapon itself.

Lorekeeper · Nov 13, 2007, 09:10 PM // 21:10

i think the complaint is more about VoD than the skills used to exploit VoD mechanics... because the exploitation of NPCs at VoD is not a new thing attributed to teams with splinter weapon... im thinking of glyph sac meteor shower.

The adjacent condition on splinter weapon is at best times quite a strong limitation of its power, if the enemy team makes the mistake of balling that close when they know they are facing someone with splinter weapon... it wiping them says far more about their mistake than the imbalancedness of splinter weapon itself.

I think the same goes for splinter weapons effectiveness at wiping NPCs at VoD... that it does such a good job of wiping out that many NPCs says more about the inadequate NPC AI more than anything else in my opinion. Some flag stand areas are quite large, with plenty of room for archers to spread out in. But more often than not they get aggrod and ball in the most stupid of positions resulting in them being easily wiped.

I dont know what AI pathfinding coding they have... but is it really the case that nothing can be done to improve the NPC AI at VoD? Why dont they spread out when they get attacked by significant AoE pressure? Why dont they kite when being attacked by a melee character? Why do they chase targets halfway across the map and get isolated for no good reason?

Solution to splinter weapon being the magic ticket to victory in the jaws of certin defeat? Improve NPC AI at VoD.

smrandom · Nov 13, 2007, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Question: what if Splinter was target self only? Would you change your frontline to carry a W/Rt or D/Rt just for Splinter (or, change the secondary of any attacker to /Rt for that matter)?

Ensign · Nov 13, 2007, 09:36 PM // 21:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I also don't think splinter-bombing defeats the purpose of splitting. In all the GvGs I've played recently, I don't remember ever seeing a team walk into a huge NPC advantage and winning through AoE.

Fixing that was actually the biggest benefit of the SoD nerf in my estimation. The old tactic of 'send in the melee with SoD to soak up all the aggro' doesn't work anymore; sure "Shields Up!" and Defensive Anthem still work but it's not nearly the same. The old blockways used to be able to tank the NPC ball, but I haven't seen one manage to pull that off since then.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Yes it is annoying when you have finally gained a slight upperhand before vod (like getting a bit of dp on them, or killing some npcs) only to be swept away by splinter weapon. But one of the best things to do in such a situation is go 5-3 split, and chances are big they'll send their rit back to their base, meaning there's no splinter at the stand and NPCs count much more.

^^^

Wasteland Squidget · Nov 13, 2007, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by smrandom

Question: what if Splinter was target self only? Would you change your frontline to carry a W/Rt or D/Rt just for Splinter (or, change the secondary of any attacker to /Rt for that matter)?

The result of that change would be no one using splinter, or rits.

Kaon · Nov 13, 2007, 10:02 PM // 22:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

The result of that change would be no one using splinter, or rits.

Actually, there's quite a lot of warriors who go w/rt for deathpact, and they could swap in splinter weapon. Of course it's pointless to think in such a direction but it's quite hilarious

.

DIH49 · Nov 13, 2007, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Squidget

While you may have played games where it happened, it is outside the realm of my experience.

It's happened ever since Mr Ensign over here blew up all of QQ's NPCs, obviating the inital 30min of gameplay. You've never made a build or played on a team that's designed to "play for VoD"? Those teams all have the same idea: obviate the inital 18minutes by superpowering some skill in the last 2. Don't get me wrong, I like AoE skills that punish people for wards. What I don't like are AoE skills that have no risk associated with them. In that regard I like Fire eles. They pack in lots of AoE and pay for it by having to come cast it in your face. A rit however can buff up his fellows from way back without ever having to get in range of anything (also the reason GSac + Metshower was a problem). Splinter is bad for the same reason Frenzy is good.

Quote:

I've seen it happen against two teams that were relatively equal, or where one was a little behind, but I don't remember a team ever holding up under that pressure with heavy DP.

First off, killing the inital Archer wave is enough to put VoD heavily in your favor if your opponents can't kill your first Archer wave as quickly. Second, to do that you really only need one unDPed warrior to go blast them. Even in relatively worn down teams that's a common occurence.

Quote:

VoD has always offered several ways to invalidate the pre-VoD game.

Agreed, and they are all stupid. I definitely have problems with VoD, but I have problems with Splinter too. Far more so than I have with Ancestors, which at least requires you to get up there and cast it.