Curse

Divineshadows · Dec 12, 2006, 12:44 AM // 00:44

Several skills released in Nightfall are quite clearly better than previously existing skills. This was not so much the case when Factions was released. Sure factions added great skills like gift of health, but that skill served a function that was previously lacking from monk bars pre-factions.

Here are some examples of obvious power creep introduced through Nightfall:

- Spiritual pain is strictly better than energy burn. While the recharge is a little higher, the damage is not conditional upon your target's energy, has the potential for area of effect, does more damage, and casts in less time. For the role of armor ignoring spike assist that energy burn was being used just before Nightfall was released, spiritual pain outclasses it.

- Shield of absorption is strictly better than shielding hands. While the duration is not quite as long, the damage prevented on a focused target ends up being much more during the life of the enchantment and the recharge makes it useable (unlike shielding hands) when the target under focus changes. For the role of damage prevention on focused targets, shield of absorption outclasses shielding hands.

- Critical chop is strictly better than protector's strike on axe warriors. While the recharge on crit chop is higher, the bonus damage is not conditional for crit chop, crit chop gives a chance to interrupt foe's action, and the bonus damage is equivalent (cause it's in a line you're specced high in already). For the purpose of compacted spike on axe warriors, critical chop outclasses protector's strike.

- Blood of the aggressor is strictly better than dark pact. This one is perhaps one of the worst cases of skill obsolescence. Blood of aggressor has half the sacrafice, does more damage for the same energy cost and cast time, and has the chance to steal health to help cover the sacrafice cost. The only "downside" is a one second longer recharge. Seriously, anyone specced into blood that chooses dark pact over blood of the aggressor as an armor ignoring spike assist or as an armor ignoring finisher for targets low on health is simply not playing to win.

- Rampage as one is strictly better than any other elite for a melee ranger with pet. Not only is it a skill and hence cannot be removed (like a stance or enchant), it save you skill slots by not having to bring tiger's fury, call of haste, and run as one. Also, the effect is more powerful than tiger's fury and call of haste and run as one combined, because it beats the attack speed buff for both you and your pet (33% vs 25% increase) and allows for 100% uptime. Rampage as one makes every other elite obsolete for thumpers by accomplishing what would take 3 skills to accomplish otherwise allowing them to maximize DPS though fast movement and attack rate.

- Freezing gust is strictly better than shard storm. The snare lasts just as long, recharges twice as fast, has the same energy cost and cast time, and is not a projectile that can miss. Although the damage is conditional, shard storm was never used for damage but rather as a single target hex snare (and thus tougher to remove than crippled). Lastly, in cases where freezing gust is used for damage (i.e. in some matches where the ele has no opposing melee to snare) it exceeds the damage of shard storm. For the purpose of single target hex snaring, freezing gust outclasses shard storm.

- Feigned Neutrality is strictly better than shadow refuge. It casts faster, costs the same energy, lasts longer, has the same level of regen at low shadow arts (5-7), and has a much better secondary effect of +80 armor as opposed to health gained while attacking (which by its nature is a really stupid clause for a self heal). The downsides of feigned neutrality when compared to shadow refuge are inconsequential to an assassin. You're waiting on attack skills to recharge anway so being forced to not attack or use skills is not an issue and the longer recharge on the skill itself is easily offset by its much longer duration than shadow refuge.

- Rune of vitae is strictly better than minor rune of attribute line X I could care less about for given build Y.

I am sure there are plenty of other examples of PvP skills/runes that became obselete, but this felt like plenty of examples already. Basically, A-net's latest chapter is forced upon anyone wishing to remain competetive in a much stronger way than Factions was. While I do own the chapter, I do not think that enough effort was put into skill design to come up with skills that were different in enough ways from existing skills to avoid direct comparisons of two skills that serve the same function when looked at side by side and having one being clearly better than the other. In these cases, the skills need to be distinguished enough that they serve different functions or, if this is not possible, balanced (by buffing the weaker one or nerfing the stronger one) to make the choice not so obvious.

Please feel free to list other cases of power creep from Nightfall and any possible solutions such as modifying a skill's function to distinguish it or proposed buffs or nerfs.

Drewfense · Dec 12, 2006, 12:58 AM // 00:58

I think it is a combination of 2 things. First, there are skills in the game designed for presearing. Example, Shielding Hands (versus SoA) is given out in both Prophecies and Nightfall presear/noob island. These spells are very effective at low levels, but fall off rather rapidly. Its hard to really call them non-elite spells...rather they are uber non-elite spells. Consequentially direct comparisons are hard to make. Dark Pact -> Blood of the Aggressor is a nother good example.

Secondly, it seems with Factions and much much more so in Nightfall, anet not only created a lot of random skills, but they created skills specifically designed to fit current builds or counter current builds. In doing so they are by definition forcing current strategies to a higher level and at times creating imbalances. For example, do you think anet made Tiger's Fury with Thumpers in mind? What about Rampage as One? It isn't really a bad thing that anet does this, but there is always a risk of over doing it; reducing the number of viable strategies and making the game suck.

kvndoom · Dec 12, 2006, 02:06 AM // 02:06

Job security. Hey, make better and more powerful skills (and nerf old ones to hell and back right before the new chapter is released, like they have done), and people have to either adapt (by spending 50$) or fall miserably behind. A person with n chapters will always have a clear advantage over someone with 1 to (n-1) chapters. The latest will always be the greatest, and that's really the only way to keep a steady cash flow without charging by the month.

Ensign · Dec 12, 2006, 05:26 AM // 05:26

Most of those skills aren't strictly better, they're functionally different but much stronger, both overall and for specific situations.

In any set of skills there is going to be a subset of the 'best' skills. How much better they are than the competition and how deep that set is fluctuates, but some skills simply end up being better than others. When new chapters are added, the set gets bigger and some of the new skills end up in the subset of the 'best' skills. That's inevitible unless the new chapters introduce much weaker skills than what's available, even at the same power level some of the new skills will fill new roles or replace skills that were imperfectly fitting their jobs with better fits.

So yes, a certain amount of power creep is inevitible, even if all the new skills are appropriately balanced. The bigger skill set to select from directly leads to that.

Peace,
-CxE

Wasteland Squidget · Dec 12, 2006, 06:15 AM // 06:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

So yes, a certain amount of power creep is inevitible, even if all the new skills are appropriately balanced. The bigger skill set to select from directly leads to that.

Definitely. The alternative is a situation where all the new options are strictly worse than their existing counterparts and never see play, which is pretty much what happened with Factions. I still couldn't tell you what a lot of the Factions skills do, simply because they're too weak to ever see play in any area of the game.

You can create versatility without power creep by adding new niches rather than new means to fill old ones, but eventually that gets curtailed by the gametype. Factions added the assassin, which introduced a host of base ganking characters, templates, and strategies. We haven't seen anything like that since, and I'm not sure that there are any undiscovered niches left to fill without new gametypes.

Thom Bangalter · Dec 12, 2006, 06:27 AM // 06:27

Squidget, you forgot god mode at the stand; i.e. paragon.

Too bad they nerfed that.

But to add to something drew started to touch on, does it feel like Anet is forcing it's hand in the metagame, dictating which skills should be used (at least at this point, with 3 chapters out)?

Thomas.knbk · Dec 12, 2006, 06:54 AM // 06:54

I don't think the OP is correct actually. For example: he forgets to mention the energy denial on Energy Burn. (just says 'the damage is not conditional upon your target's energy'), and the 25sec recharge on FN. You can reduce this to 12 with DP, but that costs another skill slot which is a downside that should be mentioned if you want to look at power creep.
I also disagree that vitae is better than a minor rune.
Also, you give us one situation for every skill in which it's better than the other one. Saying RaO is strictly the best elite for a melee ranger is right, but that doesn't mean it's overpowered. in fact, it's the only good elite for a melee ranger. Let's go back to before nightfall. Back then, Blessed Light was strictly the best elite for a prot/heal hybrid monk. Does that mean it's overpowered? No. It just means there are no other options.
I don't think Protector's strike was really created with axe spikes in mind. And again, 3 second recharge vs. 10 second recharge is quite a big difference.
Also, 1 second extra recharge is quite big when the difference is 2 and 3. That's 25% less dmg.

Dragannia · Dec 12, 2006, 06:58 AM // 06:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

I also disagree that vitae is better than a minor rune.

I think he means that before, if you had a spare slot on your armour, you couldn't take advantage of it. Now there are Vitaes and Attunements you can just plug in.

Patrograd · Dec 12, 2006, 07:03 AM // 07:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

I don't think the OP is correct actually. For example: he forgets to mention the energy denial on Energy Burn. (just says 'the damage is not conditional upon your target's energy'), .

The usual use for energy burn was as a spike skill rather than an edenial skill. Spiritual pain is clearly a stronger skill in this role

Thom Bangalter · Dec 12, 2006, 07:04 AM // 07:04

I'll run a vitae rune before I'll run minor fast casting, minor strength (unless I'm trying to hit 13 strength for sentinels), minor spawning, minor energy storage (unless I can't hit at least 8 for whatever reason), minor expertise (again, breakpoint dependent), and anything else where I don't really need +1 for any meaningful boost.

Bankai · Dec 12, 2006, 07:16 AM // 07:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

The usual use for energy burn was as a spike skill rather than an edenial skill. Spiritual pain is clearly a stronger skill in this role

But was it intended to use as a spike skill?

Wasteland Squidget · Dec 12, 2006, 07:32 AM // 07:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bankai

But was it intended to use as a spike skill?

In practice, it really doesn't matter how Arenanet intended for skills to be used. What matters is the niches they actually fill.

shardfenix · Dec 12, 2006, 10:28 AM // 10:28

Put simply:

Anet wanted to add wtfhaxxorbroken skills so pve players would be attracted. Yes, old skills suck now. They will get fixed in the next skill "balance."

If they don't, at least 30% of the pvp population will rage.

Riotgear · Dec 12, 2006, 11:51 AM // 11:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bankai

But was it intended to use as a spike skill?

Anything that does over 75 damage may as well be a spike skill. :P

I'd go as far to say that the power creep isn't deliberate, it's just a side-effect of adding tons of new skills and not really having the ability to predict every single interaction they're going to have, or predicting how they're going to be used.

Some things were just poorly-thought-out (i.e. EF), some were just clever insight by players (i.e. SS/DB/Fear Me), some brought along a negative aspect that was too easily ignored (i.e. RaO). But they were all inevitable.

Factions suffered from this problem less because the NF team, also known as the Prophecies team, knew what they were doing. Factions' skill list is full of mind-bogglingly awful crap, a good number of them only became useful after being buffed in the patch right before the NF release.

Quote:

shard storm was never used for damage

I can't really call it power creep as much as a response to the actual use of water. Water's damage is so awful that there's really no point in bothering. The damage becomes almost a hindrance because it gives them an excuse to jack up energy costs and recharge times. So instead they just add a skill which reliably gives the only thing anyone really wanted out of water anyway, without the gimp recharge.

Don't nerf freezing gust. Buff shard storm.

Thom Bangalter · Dec 12, 2006, 12:35 PM // 12:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Don't nerf freezing gust. Buff shard storm.

seconded.

people want to nerf this? I've guaranteed morale boosts after snaring someone for a full 40 seconds as they tried to ninja a flag out of the front of warriors isle while the rest of the team was busy at the side door.

Div · Dec 12, 2006, 01:03 PM // 13:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

The usual use for energy burn was as a spike skill rather than an edenial skill. Spiritual pain is clearly a stronger skill in this role

Eburn has more uses outside of being a mere spike skill. Spiritual pain, on the other hand, is now reduced to merely a spike skill since ritualists are out of the picture...

Also I agree with the fact that some skills like shielding hands are meant as a skill to ease players into the game, similar to something like flare. I still maintain anyone who uses flare is crazy and should put the energy to better use.

One last thing to note is that anet probably did not have as much time or ability as needed to fully balance the skills. Watch what they do during the skill balancing before any conclusions.

Zuranthium · Dec 12, 2006, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

We haven't seen anything like that since, and I'm not sure that there are any undiscovered niches left to fill without new gametypes.

SUMMONERS.

Creating portals and teleporting opponents right to you could definitely open up vastly different play styles and strategies.

~Z

Byron · Dec 12, 2006, 05:26 PM // 17:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

SUMMONERS.

Creating portals and teleporting opponents right to you could definitely open up vastly different play styles and strategies.

CLERICS. Buff attribute points and call down deities. Make allies enormously huge.

Dnd ftw.

**EDIT: also, a true monk alternative.

Divineshadows · Dec 12, 2006, 06:07 PM // 18:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

Also I agree with the fact that some skills like shielding hands are meant as a skill to ease players into the game, similar to something like flare. I still maintain anyone who uses flare is crazy and should put the energy to better use.

No, the difference is flare sucks and has always sucked. When offering of blood (10% sacrafice) boon prots ruled the metagame, shielding hands was often used as the boon prot had 7 slots to play with since only one was needed for energy management. Shielding hands has a good effect, it just needs its recharge changed to somewhere around 10 to 12 seconds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drewfense

For example, do you think anet made Tiger's Fury with Thumpers in mind?

No, I think that when Tiger's Fury was designed two years ago, they had bow rangers with pets in mind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drewfense

What about Rampage as One?

Of course they had thumpers in mind when designing this skill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Anything that does over 75 damage may as well be a spike skill

Damage below 75 can skill easily make for a spike skill, especially if it is armor ignoring. Wastrel's demise is a great example of a really attractive spike skill that does less than 75 damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

I also disagree that vitae is better than a minor rune.

Hmm...do I want a minor smite rune or a vitae rune on my prot monk with gift of health? Hmm...do I want minor blood and minor death or would I rather have two vitae runes on my curses reaper's mark necro? Man, why does a-net have to make these choices so tough?

Thomas.knbk · Dec 12, 2006, 06:21 PM // 18:21

Saying any skill that does over 75 dmg is essentially a spike skill implies in no way that any skill that does under 75 dmg is not one.
Shielding Hands: would a 10-12 sec recharge really be balanced? I can already see the monks with a permanent 15 dmg reduction (after they nerf Avatar of G' that is)