Curse

Thom Bangalter · Feb 09, 2007, 12:25 AM // 00:25

I actually think grenth is fairly balanced now, the problem is how they balanced it. Izzy forced his hand on the meta, buffing water eles and rits to give teams an answer to the character. Unfortunately, this means you kinda need to take water eles and rits now. I think it makes more sense to nerf one problematic skill than to buff 10 other skills to counter one character, but that's just me. Additionally, the buffs hurt all melee classes to the point that caster spike looks really tempting now, and helps out split builds even more. Not that I dislike either one of those options, they just get real stale real fast. Especially split, I'm sick of 25+ minute games.

Riotgear · Feb 09, 2007, 02:55 AM // 02:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by s w o r d y

I get the feeling that people still think that 2 wars, 2 mes, ranger, e/mo, 2 monks should be able to beat everything......

Balanced builds being dominant generally signals that game balance has reached a point where gimmicky crap isn't viable against a good team. How is that a problem?

Patccmoi · Feb 09, 2007, 04:47 AM // 04:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Balanced builds being dominant generally signals that game balance has reached a point where gimmicky crap isn't viable against a good team. How is that a problem?

Problem is mostly why would a build made of 5 classes out of 10 be considered the 'pinacle of balance'? There's a lot of new skills, a lot of new skill types, a lot of new counters, i don't see why 2 wars - 2 mes should be the be-all-end-all of balanced setup. What is wrong with having 1 War, 1 Derv, 1 Mes and 1 Rt instead?

ensoriki · Feb 09, 2007, 07:43 AM // 07:43

Grenth isnt that bad people,
the problem is people have relied on enchants for so long when something like grenth comes it doesnt seem right with older mindsets. The only problem I have with grenth is...
Look at Dark apostasy, its virtually the same thing as grenth in retrospect but theres 2 conditions to it... crit and energy loss
Grenth should have 1 condition or 2 proposed as.
Whenever you use an attack skill that skill has an additional 20...5...4 recharge and there are ways to lower recharge making it if someone synergizes with their secondary they can lower their recharge penalty.

Anyhow I still think the problem is in the scythe skills.

I can get a sin to do the exact same thing as grenth only 2 differences
energy loss/no energy gain
can be stripped/evaded
Why is it that mesmers dont have such potent enchantremovals?

And please explain how derv form is any different from sin cripple lead to exhausting assault to assault enchantments, except sin cripples on lead and then can exhaust a monks energy -_-. while still doing damage.

hyper · Feb 09, 2007, 08:29 AM // 08:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by ensoriki

And please explain how derv form is any different from sin cripple lead to exhausting assault to assault enchantments, except sin cripples on lead and then can exhaust a monks energy -_-. while still doing damage.

have you ever pvp'd before in your life?

Red_Dragon56 · Feb 10, 2007, 11:57 PM // 23:57

I'm a little confused on how Grenth is that big of deal. What PvP build relies on having a load of enchantments to keep itself alive? The only classes I can think of are dervish, monk and maybe elementalist. having dervish enchants removed are a good thing for dervishes, most monk enchants have a fairly good recast time but it could be more annoying to have to waste energy to recast a spell. The only other class I see are Elementalists with their added speed/defence/energy magement to be just taken away from them instantly would be troubled alot from being stripped of all thier enchantments.

This could be because I don't HA or GvG, but if you could tell me what build or class that has grenth avatar making them shake in thier boots.

Wasteland Squidget · Feb 11, 2007, 12:24 AM // 00:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red_Dragon56

I'm a little confused on how Grenth is that big of deal. What PvP build relies on having a load of enchantments to keep itself alive? The only classes I can think of are dervish, monk and maybe elementalist. having dervish enchants removed are a good thing for dervishes, most monk enchants have a fairly good recast time but it could be more annoying to have to waste energy to recast a spell. The only other class I see are Elementalists with their added speed/defence/energy magement to be just taken away from them instantly would be troubled alot from being stripped of all thier enchantments.

This could be because I don't HA or GvG, but if you could tell me what build or class that has grenth avatar making them shake in thier boots.

1v1 is irrelevant to Guild wars. What's relevant is teamplay.

In TEAMS, monks use enchantments in order to stop the other team from just putting 3 warriors on a single guy. 3 warriors will kill through 2 monks' healing easily, but enchantments force the warriors to switch targets and stay ahead of the prot.

Grenth changed all that by headshotting enchantments. Before Grenth, pressure with warriors was about constant target switching, sudden spikes, and avoiding the prot. After Grenth it was about hitting T and then Space.

It's largely irrelevant now though. With the new duration, Grenth isn't particularly scary compared to other options.

Zuranthium · Feb 11, 2007, 03:12 PM // 15:12

Yeah, I'm not liking the new change. They should have changed the mechanic of the skill a bit, not the duration.

~Z

Thomas.knbk · Feb 11, 2007, 03:28 PM // 15:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Yeah, I'm not liking the new change. They should have changed the mechanic of the skill a bit, not the duration.

~Z

/agree. I'm still for a health sac of 25-9%(1-15) or 'your attack skills cost an additional 5-2(1-15) energy' (as you can see I changed my opinion a but since the OP regarding health sac)

heroajax1 · Feb 12, 2007, 05:01 AM // 05:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Yeah, I'm not liking the new change. They should have changed the mechanic of the skill a bit, not the duration.

~Z

/agree also

I read a little bit of this thread and another. I think I have a decent solution to the skill. The time of this skill should be the same as the other avatars. This god isn't worshiped any less than the others, so your prayer to the god asking to take the form should last just as long. The broken part of the skill is that it removes an enchantment every single time you use a skill. Having been on both the receiving end and delivering end, I feel that's the part that's overpowered. As a dervish, that basically guarantees that my attacks are going to get in and most likely get the kill. As a monk, it pretty much means I'm going to die. There are many hexes and curses that can easily counter a grenth dervish. No need to go into that.

I think the way they can change the mechanics is to create a chance that the enchantment will be removed. So, instead of shortening the time of the form, reduce it's guarantee of an enchant removal.

So, instead of this: For 10...34 seconds, whenever you use an attack Skill, you also remove 1 Enchantment from your target, and your attacks deal cold damage. This Skill is disabled for 120 seconds.

Change it to this: For 10...58 seconds, whenever you use an attack Skill, you also have a 75% chance to remove 1 Enchantment from your target, and your attacks deal cold damage. This Skill is disabled for 120 seconds.

That, I feel is a more reasonable balance of the skill. Reducing the time was just ridiculous. This is an elite skill and should be powerful, but now, it's basically useless. Reworking the mechanics of this form is what needs to happen. The duration should be as long as the others.

Riotgear · Feb 12, 2007, 06:30 AM // 06:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by heroajax1

This god isn't worshiped any less than the others, so your prayer to the god asking to take the form should last just as long.

Balance first, concept second.

Quote:

I think the way they can change the mechanics is to create a chance that the enchantment will be removed.

I don't think this is the best way to go. GW in general tends to lean away from making powerful effects luck-based, which is probably a good thing. Things that introduce luck into the equasion are generally negative effects (blind, miss rate hexes) or defensive abilities (stances).

Which is as much the reason I think random enchant removal is a bad idea as why I think the duration nerf is bad too. It's now extremely risky. You might plow a monk with it, you might get spammed with water hexes and water trident and waste the whole thing and be stuck without an elite for a long-ass time.

Situational abilities tend to suck, and Grenth has turned too situational, because the devs would apparently rather tweak numbers on a poorly-designed skill than just overhaul it with something good.

The reason I've generally suggested MECHANICAL drawbacks is because things like health sac and even energy loss can be worked around if the effect is powerful enough, which it is. Things like longer skill recharges are much harder to work around, because there's nothing anyone can really do to compensate for it. Or they can just scrap the enchant removal idea altogether, and give it a secondary effect that isn't blatantly broken.

heroajax1 · Feb 12, 2007, 08:11 PM // 20:11

I gotta disagree Riotgear. GW is heavy into powerful magic/skill effects which are luck based. Short list: blurred vision, whirling defense, guardian, aegis, price of failure, spirit of failure, distortion, oath shot, sliver armor, "shields up!," bonetti's defense, defensive stance, disciplined stance, critical defenses, locust's fury, way of the assassin, flashing blades, displacement, weapon of warding, even blind condition is actually luck based. So, that proves to me that every single profession has at least one luck based skill. Some obviously more than others, but still GW is heavily luck based.

I'm not even going to go into the player-based luck of removing enchantments, interupting or how many skills are dependent on a player having a condition, hex or enchantment on them. GW is heavily luck based. Even the skills Dark Apostacy and Order of Apostacy are similar to the Grenth Dervish. Weapon mods are even luck based. The bottom line is that yes, this skill was a bit too overpowered. Now, it's useless. The duration is simply not enough to warrant keeping on a PvP team.

The suggesions people have made of health degen and energy degen are pretty much useless for dervish as every enchantment gives all of that back. The best way to change this skill and not rape it to hell is to change the enchant removal to a luck based system. That was the true benefit of a Grenth Dervish. All of the monk enchantments were useless when in the face of a dervish.

The concept of the worship of the gods in GW is extremely relevant. There is absolutely no reason why this particular god should grant the form for a less time than the others.

Acidic Won · Feb 12, 2007, 08:27 PM // 20:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by heroajax1

The concept of the worship of the gods in GW is extremely relevant. There is absolutely no reason why this particular god should grant the form for a less time than the others.

Except for the fact that one single skill changed the whole face of this game? This is PvP I don't care about praying to a god. Grenth could have been better changed IMO, but if they wanted to shorten the duration, then so be it.

Divineshadows · Feb 12, 2007, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by heroajax1

I gotta disagree Riotgear. GW is heavy into powerful magic/skill effects which are luck based.

Riotgear clearly stated that most of the luck based effects in the game are on the defensive side (blind, chance to miss hexes, stances, shouts, etc.). Almost all the luck on the offensive side of the game though has to do with chance to critical (24% at 16 weapon mastery and -1.5% per each level stepped down) and skills that cause certain effects on critical (crit chop, vicious attack, dark apostacy, etc.).

Thomas.knbk · Feb 12, 2007, 08:53 PM // 20:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by heroajax1

The bottom line is that yes, this skill was a bit too overpowered. Now, it's useless. The duration is simply not enough to warrant keeping on a PvP team.

.........

The concept of the worship of the gods in GW is extremely relevant. There is absolutely no reason why this particular god should grant the form for a less time than the others.

Yes, it was overpowered. It's still a skill that allows you to ignore protection for 30 seconds. That's more than enough time to make an offensive push and score a kill or two.

heroajax1 · Feb 12, 2007, 09:48 PM // 21:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acidic Won

Except for the fact that one single skill changed the whole face of this game?

Ya, and? What you're really saying is that people can't learn to deal with a particular skill? There are many ways to completely shut down a grenth dervish. Several curses exist in the necro, mesmer and elementalist line to make a grenth derivsh useless. Blind and cripple also severely limit a dervish's (any melee character really) usefulness.

Divine shadows, I'm not sure what your point is, if there was one. What Riotgear said was that GW tends to stay away from luck. When the fact is that luck is a huge part of the game. Whether it's offense or defense is irrelevant. Luck plays a part in this game. So, why should luck not be on both sides? Really, it depends on how you look at it. Look at Guardian for example. Monks think "I have xx% chance to not get hit." Warriors think "I have xx% chance to hit." It's all about perspective. There are many offensive enchantments as well. I just didn't list them.

Imo, shortening the duration was the dubmest thing they could have done. That's my point. There are other ways to reduce the overpower of this skill without making it useless. Which is where it is now.

Acidic, well, god worship is part of the richness of this game that we all obviously love. It's part of pvp whether or not you think about it. The fact is that this god now no longer grants a form as long as the other ones do. That's not fair either. In reality, this skill was only a bit overpowered before. Now, it's not effective and unfortunately needs yet another reworking.

TheOneMephisto · Feb 12, 2007, 11:14 PM // 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by heroajax1

Acidic, well, god worship is part of the richness of this game that we all obviously love. It's part of pvp whether or not you think about it. The fact is that this god now no longer grants a form as long as the other ones do. That's not fair either. In reality, this skill was only a bit overpowered before. Now, it's not effective and unfortunately needs yet another reworking.

1: Overpowered skills are a problem, underpowered skills are not. Case in point, noone complains about belly smash, almost everyone complained about blinding surge. In balance terms, underpowered skills are simply not used, no problem, overpowered skills are overused in a bad way, which can be a problem.

2: As others have said, balance first, concept second. Role-playing is really a secondary concern to most PvPers, as most of us don't give a rats ass about whether Grenth gets equal worshiping time as the other gods, we care about balance, playing, and winning. The PvEers can go on and on about how roleplaying and "god worship" is important, but when it comes to balancing things on the PvP side, who cares.

IMO, I wouldn't mind if they just utterly destroyed this skill, as I really don't like the concept of pressure for dummies. Reducing pressure to picking a target, loading a bunch of mellee on that target, and killing the target is just retarded. Even with counters, the only real counters are a water ele, a weapon rit, and a hex build. I don't really want to be forced to run those templates, so instead of forcing me to run counters, why not just nerf an overpowered skill?

If they decide that they have to keep it competitive, I prefer the making attack skills cost 2-3 more energy, along with having the avatar cost 20-25 energy. This would make using grenth's a very energy-heavy thing to do, and would have to devote an entire teambuild to it.

wolfy3455 · Feb 12, 2007, 11:32 PM // 23:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by heroajax1

Acidic, well, god worship is part of the richness of this game that we all obviously love. It's part of pvp whether or not you think about it. The fact is that this god now no longer grants a form as long as the other ones do. That's not fair either. In reality, this skill was only a bit overpowered before. Now, it's not effective and unfortunately needs yet another reworking.

Believe it or not, it was a massively overpowered skill that would have been abused just as much(possibly even more so) if it was called Avatar of the Tooth Fairy. RP should have absolutely nothing to do with skill balance. The stupidest thing they could have done was leaving it in its original form.

Its still not even useless. I wouldn't bring it now with water being so common, but its still up long enough to score kills against unprepared teams. I agree it would have been better to change the functionality rather than just hitting the duration, but chained 5 energy mellee range shatters could not have stayed in the game, so I'd rather see it permanently out of the meta than in the center of it in its original form.

heroajax1 · Feb 12, 2007, 11:49 PM // 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

1: Overpowered skills are a problem, underpowered skills are not. Case in point, noone complains about belly smash, almost everyone complained about blinding surge. In balance terms, underpowered skills are simply not used, no problem, overpowered skills are overused in a bad way, which can be a problem.

2: As others have said, balance first, concept second. Role-playing is really a secondary concern to most PvPers, as most of us don't give a rats ass about whether Grenth gets equal worshiping time as the other gods, we care about balance, playing, and winning. The PvEers can go on and on about how roleplaying and "god worship" is important, but when it comes to balancing things on the PvP side, who cares.

IMO, I wouldn't mind if they just utterly destroyed this skill, as I really don't like the concept of pressure for dummies. Reducing pressure to picking a target, loading a bunch of mellee on that target, and killing the target is just retarded. Even with counters, the only real counters are a water ele, a weapon rit, and a hex build. I don't really want to be forced to run those templates, so instead of forcing me to run counters, why not just nerf an overpowered skill?

If they decide that they have to keep it competitive, I prefer the making attack skills cost 2-3 more energy, along with having the avatar cost 20-25 energy. This would make using grenth's a very energy-heavy thing to do, and would have to devote an entire teambuild to it.

1. Underpowered skills are just as much of a problem as overpowered ones are in terms of game balance. Overpowered skills can hurt the game and underpowered ones are wasted space. Scribe's Insight, Healer's Covenant, Peace and Harmony? Please. Does anyone use these?

2. Concept and balance go hand in hand. You just haven't figured it out yet. BTW, I am looking at this from a PvP perspective. It's not really overpowered, you simply don't want to change to deal with it. So, I guess complaining was a better way to go. Good job. Great idea about getting rid of the skill completely, that way you don't have to make any changes at all. Should we bring spirit spamming and IWAY back too?

3. Part of the point of a pressure team is burst damage to overload the monks. Not exclusively, but a part of it is. Keep weakening a target then a focused assault for a kill. That's what pressure teams do, well good ones anyway.

4. There are many ways to counter a grenth derv. Bottom line is, even in it's original form, most teams with slight modification could easily deal with the melee pressure. People didn't want to change, so they whined until they got their way. Reducing the duration of the form was not the way to go. Period.

TheOneMephisto · Feb 13, 2007, 12:37 AM // 00:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by heroajax1

1. Underpowered skills are just as much of a problem as overpowered ones are in terms of game balance. Overpowered skills can hurt the game and underpowered ones are wasted space. Scribe's Insight, Healer's Covenant, Peace and Harmony? Please. Does anyone use these?

The thing is that wasted space isn't a problem in terms of balance. You obviously don't understand game balance, but skills that aren't used don't affect the meta and don't cause headaches for everyone. Skills that are imbalanced are used a lot and do cause headaches for everyone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by heroajax1

2. Concept and balance go hand in hand. You just haven't figured it out yet. BTW, I am looking at this from a PvP perspective. It's not really overpowered, you simply don't want to change to deal with it. So, I guess complaining was a better way to go. Good job. Great idea about getting rid of the skill completely, that way you don't have to make any changes at all. Should we bring spirit spamming and IWAY back too?

I don't care about roleplaying and I doubt that you could find many serious PvPers that do. I wouldn't mind if there was no real storyline, and the skill names were unimaginative, as long as they were a) easily remembered and b) balanced. I don't really care about the gods and their worship and Rodgort and Galrath, I just care about the skill affects.

How can you say that grenth's is not overpowered? First, it makes prot entirely useless. Healing is terribly inefficient, so prot is the only possible way that a team has to keep up with damage. Prot is gone, guess what, things die. Guess why everyone and their dog was using grenth's before the nerf? It's not just me complaining that it is overpowered, ask almost anyone in a top guild and they will agree.

If Anet can't figure out how to efficiently balance a skill due to just how the skill is designed, then I would rather them kill it than have it rape the metagame.

And I simply don't understand your comment about IWAY and spirit spamming... I had no problem with IWAY, simply because it was easy to beat with a good team. It was more a problem with the community, because the fact that everyone resorted to IWAY for fame-farming made me sad, oh, and a problem with the HA mechanics. And I really don't get your spirit-spamming comment, of course we shouldn't bring it back, because it was RIDICULOUSLY OVERPOWERED. Spirit spamming was worse than Grenth's by a long shot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by heroajax1

3. Part of the point of a pressure team is burst damage to overload the monks. Not exclusively, but a part of it is. Keep weakening a target then a focused assault for a kill. That's what pressure teams do, well good ones anyway.

I know how to play pressure. The thing is that Grenth's reduced pressure into a game that anyone can play. Before nightfall, pressure consisted of having warriors constantly switching targets in order to try and force the monks to waste energy on protting targets, and then do mini-spikes in attempts to catch the monks off guards. Pressure took a lot of skill to play, because you had to stay ahead of the enemy monk's protection enchantments.

After Grenth's came along, those prots disappeared. Therefore, playing pressure was reduced to having your grenth's pick a target, having all your melee focusing on that target, and killing the target because it is physically impossible for your monks to save it without burning their entire energy load. This form of pressure took little-no skill, unlike pre-nightfall pressure, which took huge amounts of skill to maximize damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by heroajax1

4. There are many ways to counter a grenth derv. Bottom line is, even in it's original form, most teams with slight modification could easily deal with the melee pressure. People didn't want to change, so they whined until they got their way. Reducing the duration of the form was not the way to go. Period.

The thing is that counters to Grenth's make your team weaker vs. other teams since they aren't as effective, are pretty limited, can be countered themselves, and simply aren't versatile enough. The counters to grenth's are basically Wards, hexes, weapon of warding, cripple, and maybe a couple more that I missed (before the recent balance update). Blind can't be used since most grenth's run sight beyond sight. Wards can be used effectively, but simply isn't enough most of the time, and are very vulnerable to interruptions and diversion. Hexes require a dedicated teambuild to run. Weapon of warding is a pretty ineffective prot when compared to monk prots and requires you to bring a rit specced into Resto. Cripple is easily removed.

I hate it when people use the argument that there are counters to say that something isn't overpowered, when it simply is overpowered. If they made a skill that had a 10 sec cast time and did 999 damage to every enemy in radar range, you'd still have people saying "JUST GO DSHOT IT" or "PROT SPIRIT SPAM DUH". Even if there was also a skill that made everyone invulnerable to the first skill, the first skill is still overpowered, even though there are counters. If there were 50 different skills that each reduced the damage or increased the cast time to 50 sec or auto-killed the person using it or interrupted it from anywhere on the map, it is still overpowered because it is forcing every other team to bring counters to it or to lose. In addition, the counters that you are forced to bring are not general counters that work against a variety of builds like gale or diversion, they are specific counters that work against the game and reduce variety.