Curse

carlos13 · Nov 09, 2010, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reformed

Warriors really aren't that much better with the scythe than Dervishes are and Sins are better at all weapons because of their primary. A Sin could beat a War in raw DPS with an axe too but nobody complains because of the Sin's squishiness vs. Warrior's general flexibility.

^That made me lol.

On the other hand nerfing Ap wont nerf two man discord way with 6 heroes, so the nerf might not mean to target discordway at all

ErrantVenture · Nov 09, 2010, 09:37 PM // 21:37

As far as party healing goes:
*Haven't hard any specifics on heal party other than it's going out the window
*Healing burst is supposed to be getting a minor buff (bumping up the single target & aoe heals to around 150 & 50-60 respectively)

Reformed · Nov 09, 2010, 10:00 PM // 22:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by carlos13

^That made me lol.

Why? Axe has the exact same problem that Scythe does, a large damage range. Landing critical hits takes the high end of that range and multiplies it by 1.414 giving you a much more consistent damage output. All the crying that goes on is about relative DPS, not intangibles or survivability.

Lanier · Nov 09, 2010, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Del

he meant not to comment on things you don't know shit about. It looks really stupid, and it's probably best for you follow that advice.

And like I stated, I was unaware that the proposed VoR and HP nerfs were only for PvP since it was not stated previous to my first post in this thread. Its probably best for you to not comment if you arnt going to read the entirety of my post. It looks really stupid, and its probably best for you to go back to my previous post and see that I already mentioned this beneath the section that you quoted.

Del · Nov 09, 2010, 10:12 PM // 22:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

And like I stated, I was unaware that the proposed VoR and HP nerfs were only for PvP since it was not stated previous to my first post in this thread. Its probably best for you to not comment if you arnt going to read the entirety of my post. It looks really stupid, and its probably best for you to go back to my previous post and see that I already mentioned this beneath the section that you quoted.

I was responding to you saying this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

Please excuse me if I choose not to follow this advice.

In response to lemming saying this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

This goes for the rest of this thread: don't post if you don't know what's going on.

You also seem extremely out of the loop on what this little argument is about, so you might want to quit before you get even farther behind.

drkn · Nov 09, 2010, 10:59 PM // 22:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reformed

Why? Axe has the exact same problem that Scythe does, a large damage range. Landing critical hits takes the high end of that range and multiplies it by 1.414 giving you a much more consistent damage output. All the crying that goes on is about relative DPS, not intangibles or survivability.

If talking about max damage transisting into criticals, please note that axe has max dmg of 28 and scythe max dmg of 41. I see a difference here.
But the biggest issue is that scythe hits three targets at once, making autoattack itself enough to have max energy all the time for critscythe sin, being able to maintain all the stances/enchantments he uses and spam attacks on recharge.
Also the general usefulness is different. Majority of axe skills that inflict condition are conditional themselves - inflict xyz if target has zaq (that's what irritates me the most in para's spear skills, by the way). Just compare Eviscerate and Wounding Strike or even Reaper's Sweep - include their spammability for a critscythe sin, keep in mind that they hit 3 targets, and so on.
And just take a look at Farmer's Scythe and what does it mean in PvE when used on a nicely balled up group.

Jaigoda · Nov 09, 2010, 11:22 PM // 23:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

The AP nerf might be targeted as well to kill N/A MoP spammers, not only Discordway. Even though i'm a Discordway-user for a long time now, i totally agree that AP should be nerfed. Not smitersbooned, not incinerated as SF should be, but definately made less powerful.

Talking about MoP spammers, the Manlyway - and MoP + 100b/Whirlwind in general - is stupidly overpowered meta in the current PvE. Providing the example of the current meta Raptor farm is enough in my opinion - ele, mes, sin, monk can't farm them effectively, whilst W/N and N/W with 100b + MoP can still get the top times.
It's of course only top of the iceberg. Manlyway, in general, is a problem, even without a dedicated N/A AP MoPer, with necro hero throwing in MoP instead. There's a thread in High-End PvE section where one guy cleared HM Deep with only three heroes - and kudos to him, congrats and the stuff, but it CLEARLY shows how a warrior on 100b, backed with MoP, is overpowered.

Wat? First off, 100b/MoP is the problem, not AP. You only need one MoP per mob, so something like Glyph of Renewal would work in the majority of areas. Second, Manlyway isn't even the most OP thing in GW. DwG, Keystone spike, even Fragway, would easily replace Manlyway, and in some areas (DoA) already have, if it were nerfed.

And that's the biggest point: There is SO MUCH that is broken in PvE, it would literally take an overhaul to get it back to being somewhat balanced. Obviously, considering ANet is dragging their feet so much about an honestly very easy buff to Dervs, there is no way in hell that will happen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

Speaking of meta OP builds, i hope DwG gets nerfed as well. It's cheap, has pretty much no recharge and deals insane AoE damage in team builds. Adding exhaustion to it should do the trick just fine.

Yup.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

ER ele infuser/bonder should have been nailed down a long time ago as well, back when SF got nerfed or even earlier. Despite it's sheer defensive/healing power, it's plainly ridiculous that an elementalist can easily outheal a dedicated monk and ritualist in their main party role.

Here's the thing: ER ele's don't break the game. Sure, they have stronger potential support abilities than monks, but you don't see them in any farming builds at all, which means they're basically only reserved to pugs and such. It's great on paper, but the fact that it's not breaking anything in the game (i.e. hurting others' profits, like farming is doing), means they will not and should not nerf it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

Remember that if something gets nerfed in PvE, the monsters are getting nerfed as well, so that nerfing PvE skills doesn't always mean increasing the game's general difficulty.

Except monsters rarely actually have good builds, and most skills are only OP in combination with others. Nerfing all but a very certain few skills would do little to make monsters easier, and probably a lot more to make players worse.

Reformed · Nov 09, 2010, 11:24 PM // 23:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

If talking about max damage transisting into criticals, please note that axe has max dmg of 28 and scythe max dmg of 41. I see a difference here.
But the biggest issue is that scythe hits three targets at once, making autoattack itself enough to have max energy all the time for critscythe sin, being able to maintain all the stances/enchantments he uses and spam attacks on recharge.
Also the general usefulness is different. Majority of axe skills that inflict condition are conditional themselves - inflict xyz if target has zaq (that's what irritates me the most in para's spear skills, by the way). Just compare Eviscerate and Wounding Strike or even Reaper's Sweep - include their spammability for a critscythe sin, keep in mind that they hit 3 targets, and so on.
And just take a look at Farmer's Scythe and what does it mean in PvE when used on a nicely balled up group.

No, I'm simply noting how inflated a weapon with a wide damage range can be if you are landing ~60% critical hits and not comparing Scythe to Axe. Hitting multiple targets with Scythe is inconsistent especially over 2 targets. That's why for practical use in an attack spammer build for DPS they do not run Farmer's Scythe. It's basically restricted to the fastest activating attack skills and/or the shortest recharges. In other words, it's not an accident that Mystic/Eremites are run in the Scythe bars. If you were to do the same thing with Axe it would probably feature Cyclone/Swift (Power Attack on War).

Lishy · Nov 10, 2010, 12:28 AM // 00:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karate Jesus

I'm not going to host any of the leaks I've seen

Now I'm curious. You imply there is a leaker? Because as you may know, ANET cracks down on these kinds of things

Zodiac Meteor · Nov 10, 2010, 12:33 AM // 00:33

Wasn't this thread about PvP skill changes? Stated by the OP?

Anyways

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaigoda

It's great on paper, but the fact that it's not breaking anything in the game (i.e. hurting others' profits, like farming is doing), means they will not and should not nerf it.

Exactly, ER is like a 'better' monk and nothing more. Other nerfs were don't because players were not allowed into groups/guilds/etc because of XXX skill.

ER isn't exactly a super easy build to run either, only a handful of players can play it amazingly while others completely suck at it. Requiring a lot of skill.

It's not hurting other players, it's just overpowered. Ironic huh?

__________________________________________________ ___________

The main problem here is, wtf are we going to do about hexway? Limit amount of hexes on a single person? This here, seems really hard to nerf.

Xenomortis · Nov 10, 2010, 12:53 AM // 00:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by FengShuiDove

But an equally important strength lies in the sheer amount of defense and support the build offers. This is because damage is dealt with a handful of skills and the rest can be thrown into support lines like Prot and Resto.

Without the player bar being what it is, the setup is pathetic compared to what you could otherwise run.
The defense and offense isn't amazing. What it is, is compressed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reformed

Warriors really aren't that much better with the scythe than Dervishes are and Sins are better at all weapons because of their primary. A Sin could beat a War in raw DPS with an axe too but nobody complains because of the Sin's squishiness vs. Warrior's general flexibility. Neutering secondary weapon mastery isn't going to fix anything but it will limit build diversity.

Nobody complains because Warriors and Assassins don't generally use an Axe in PvE. The Warrior has the advantage of having access to three weapon masteries and an inherent 3 second duration on knockdowns (making running a hammer bar on anything but a Warrior questionable).
A smaller point is the narrower damage ranges on the other weapons, which weaken the lead extra crits give.

Axel Zinfandel · Nov 10, 2010, 02:04 AM // 02:04

Wait.. AoHM needs buffed? this is news haha

looks interesting though

Chthon · Nov 10, 2010, 02:57 AM // 02:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel

Wait.. AoHM needs buffed? this is news haha

looks interesting though

Just remove the damage type conversion so that it doesn't anti-synergize with the party support from Blood and Curses.

On the topic of AP, I'd rather not see it nerfed. A large part of the mess that is GW skill balance is the result of a history of Izzy trying to nerf things indirectly and causing collateral damage worse than the problem he "fixed." If you see manlyway as a problem, nerf perma (for real this time). If you see discordway as a problem, nerf discord. Always go for the root cause, otherwise you just make a worse mess.

Jaigoda · Nov 10, 2010, 03:50 AM // 03:50

Just some random stuff, I'm not going to quote people because it'd take too long.

Axes on a 'Sin are bad because the only thing axes really have going for them is through using Warrior's Endurance to fuel Cyclone + Whirlwind + Power Attack spam. Sure, you could use crits for energy management, but it wouldn't be as consistent. Plus, the 40 armor-affected damage you get from a crit really is not that great, and armor penetration plus 14-16 Axe Mastery will probably make up for it. And people hardly even run WE Axe in the first place, because it's outclassed by, you guessed it, scythes.

People don't use Farmer's Scythe partly because it is conditional, but mostly because Mystic/Eremites provides a built-in IAS, which is crucial for the slow attack speed of scythes.

That buff looks good, except probably a lot overkill. I have a feeling it's gonna get abused to hell by farming and such, because scythes will definitely be rediculously OP if even half of that stuff is done. Should be interesting...

Zodiac, about 99.5% of the nerfs in PvE have been because they affected people from getting into farming groups, or just created a broken method of farming. ER has little to no effect on farming, thus under ANet's current PvE balance policy, it's not gonna get a nerf. And besides, it's still a lot more fragile than a regular monk, and like you've said, it does require a decent amount of skill to play. You also hardly ever seen anyone playing an ER, like, ever. If ANet sends a nerf to ER, I'll be damn pissed because there are so many more broken things than that (Panic, daggers, scythes, SPIRITS, soul reaping, DwG, etc. etc.).

If AoHM stops converting to holy damage, and scythes get any kind of buff whatsoever, scythes will easily surpass daggers (if they hadn't already) as being the most broken weapon ever in GW, by a huge margin.

Oh, and when are we getting our 7-hero teams?

Zodiac Meteor · Nov 10, 2010, 05:52 AM // 05:52

Quote:

Zodiac, about 99.5% of the nerfs in PvE have been because they affected people from getting into farming groups, or just created a broken method of farming. ER has little to no effect on farming, thus under ANet's current PvE balance policy, it's not gonna get a nerf. And besides, it's still a lot more fragile than a regular monk, and like you've said, it does require a decent amount of skill to play. You also hardly ever seen anyone playing an ER, like, ever. If ANet sends a nerf to ER, I'll be damn pissed because there are so many more broken things than that (Panic, daggers, scythes, SPIRITS, soul reaping, DwG, etc. etc.).

Agreed.
Panic is pretty OP as well, mobs love to patrol in a ball, 1 panic on an unsuspecting mob = GG. Most freaking powerful... skill, stopping skills plus attacks, non-scatter AoE interrupts and AoE hex.

Quote:

Oh, and when are we getting our 7-hero teams?

I have no clue... Hey Anet, here is how to change the line of coding!

Old line:
If X amount of player heroes = 3 -> Disable Add to party Button
New line:
If X amount of player heroes = party size limit -> Disable Add to party Button

Done it for you Anet, no charge, except for max hero, glad, gamer, commander, codex and Zaishen titles, my own tonic, mini pet plus access to Guild Wars 2 alpha testing and Guild Wars 2 beta testing.

reaper with no name · Nov 10, 2010, 06:02 AM // 06:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

I don't care about that though. The power level of the profession is fine, it's just that the Scythe is broken and Mysticism sucks.
You certainly don't buff something just because broken shit beats it.

I agree with you. However, where in my post did I say that the only solution is a dervish buff? Honestly, I think a nerf to other scythe users would be a better solution, but we all know that's never going to happen.

Also, just because you don't care about something doesn't make it unimportant. I don't care about GvG, for example, but that doesn't mean I don't think Anet shouldn't devote resources to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

I think the point he was trying to make is that Dervs are still good at what they do even if scythe-sins outclass them. Dervs can still pump out a lot of damage. Still, it would be easy enough for anet to fix both of these with a simple change. Fix eles by adjusting the HM properties of creatures so that rather than having increased armor, they have even more health. Fix dervs (at least scythe dps dervs) by making strength and crit strikes only apply to warrior attack skills and daggers respectively.

Well, "good" is a relative term. Dervishes are better at their job than elementalists are at theirs, but by that logic the paragon needs buffs more than either of them. And if you ignore all other nukers, elementalists become good at their job (just like dervs). Both classes are in the same boat, except the elementalist has a fallback position in ER. The dervish has no such backup role. How easy or difficult these things are to remedy is beyond the scope of my previous post on the matter.

For the record, I agree that your ideas would do a world of good; in fact, I once suggested that exact same HM change, and still have the burn scars to prove it.

Scary · Nov 10, 2010, 06:50 AM // 06:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Everything in PvE is tied together because the market value of drops relies on the input of the intire community.

If you have 5 people who farm ectos at a rate of 10/hour because they use broken builds (pve skills or not) and 50 people who farm at 1 ecto/hour because they use balanced builds, the 5 people are going to have the same marketweight as the 50 people and eventually push prices down if they need to get rid of their ectos fast.

This is a gross overexaggeration, but this is essentially how it works. For you, Shadowform or all these imbalanced builds might seem like a fun way to play, but for alot of other people these builds serve the means to farm 6 hours a day, and massively sell their loot at an everlasting declining price because of the massive input people like these create.

This (and to a far less extend people needing less ectos) is the cause why ectos have gone down from 10+K to 3.5K, and now recently back up to 7K as the result of the nerfs to the solo farm builds.

Wel you might be right with this, I never think this far couse I just play a game.
I hate SC's so I'm one of those 1 of 50 people that has just 1 ecto every two
weeks

But as you clear out. SF is still the centre of everything. So ok get a other fix
on this one. And sure there wil be other builds, but probably not that
strong/fast as they would use SF. Isn't it SF that is being used to ball the
foe's for the Glaive builds and what ive heard with the MoP, if this is still around.

But as I cleard out. I'm not in for SC's and there for I do like my PvE only skills as they are.
With random builds they are so much fun cous you can create all sorts of builds which otherwise wouldn't be possible.
For example, I run a bow build on my Necro with 3 ranger hero companions.
This I can make rather strong and is a fun thing to see. sure you can say
Hey but that was not intended when they started GW. but than again we are
over 5 years away now.
Must we care so much about overrated skills in the PvE world. And I think
whenever the ecto price will be hammerd. There will follow a other material
that will be not that easy farmable. (maybe ruby's)

Nop. balance PvP, leave PvE alone

reaper with no name · Nov 10, 2010, 07:05 AM // 07:05

Your argument is basically the same one farmers used to defend SF pre-nerf. They essentially said "if I want to play that way, who cares?"

The problem is, it's not all about you.

Even if we ignore the economy (wanna know why nothing that drops has any value? It's because they've all been farmed into worthlessness by overpowered builds!), the fact remains that overpowered builds remove all purpose in playing underpowered ones (we can ignore the "because it's fun" argument because that can be used to justify anything, including builds that outright grief your own team). If the only practical difference between build A and build B is that build A does 50 more dps, then why ever play build B? After all, any build can be "fun", so why not just always use build A when you want to win? There is no reason. Build A's overpoweredness lowers the effective build diversity of the game and makes build B worthless by comparison.

Ensign · Nov 10, 2010, 08:48 AM // 08:48

RE: PvP (from the little I've played in the last 6 months, plus obs, plus knowing what I was talking about at one point):

Sins get destroyed by midline, but midline got nerfed into the ground, so now sins get roll their face on the keyboard and train someone for 28 minutes. Not that I particularly like sins, but isn't the problem that X physical can train your Monks for 28 minutes without anything you can do about it? Would it be any better if it was a thumper or cripslash or whatever other nonsense people can train Monks with?

Part of that is also how shutdown and party pressure defense has been removed in favor of spike defense, particularly in the stances (short durations, short cooldowns); there isn't anything you need to stop before you can just pressure a team down now, while the things that stop classical spikes are more or less unstoppable now.

Hexes have always been this ugly beast that'll rear its head to punish metagames that can't threaten legitimate 5/3 or 4/4 splits. A lot of this is on the current specialized backline; the only Monk that operates reasonably well independently is the Word Monk, which makes it really hard if not impossible to be strong in more than one place. Monks are built this way because the skillset demands it; Patient and Word do not play well with others, and as awful as the Healer's Boon Monk is you simply have no choice but to run it, or die.

Of course hexes have changed to make the problem worse; in particular the damage hexes are vicious. In old hex builds the hexes tended to junk everyone up so that no one did anything ever, while degen gradually ground down the backline; now the hexes just straight up kill you, significantly shortening the clock.

The Healer's Boon Monk is awful. Simply an awful character. It's utterly helpless, needs to be babysat all the time, and honestly can't even run a flag much if things get ugly because it destroys his energy. But I don't think you have any choice but to run it, because there are no alternatives and if you don't have something that can pump parties like mad you'll just die.

I don't even think the character needs to be nerfed; it's a terrible character that you don't want to run. What you do need is some sort of non-terrible character that can provide enough party healing that you don't autolose to all the garbage that you can't stop from dealing damage now. But I don't know what that looks like; there just aren't a lot of party heals to make some other Monk do it, and Ritualists were very dependent upon the old Victory or Death to be a powerful character; that and pretty much every single Rit skill that did anything got hammered.

At the same time, if you wreck the Healer's Boon guy and don't provide an adequate replacement, I would not be surprised if the metagame slid back to 4 Monks to stay alive. Which is a really dangerous place to be; because as soon as it stops being 'we need 3.5 Monks so we need to hybridize something' and starts being 'we need 4 Monks', then the equilibrium flips over and everyone just starts running iway. Not to mention that the metagame sucks in the meantime because everyone has 4 Monks, so it's very difficult to use disruption and everyone is pushed into pumping damage because of it.

Re: PvE

The PvP/PvE split was taken as an excuse to flood PvE with absurdly broken skills, an excuse that was not wasted. Fixing it would be a huge undertaking and would likely piss off a huge portion of the remaining player base. I'd suggest just adding some more hideously broken stuff so that no one feels left out of the party.

Shadow Form is comical. I can't really put it any other way. Take a step back, no, take several steps back from the little details and take a wide angle view. Is this really what you had in mind?

Dervish is kinda a funny case. I think it's clearly the 3rd best profession in the game, but the two ahead of it are strictly better and can do everything that it can do plus a whole lot more. So it feels like an inferior class, even though it's still miles ahead of everything else. The other classes do fill valuable support roles, after all, that Dervishes can't.

Sirius Bsns · Nov 10, 2010, 08:59 AM // 08:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by ErrantVenture

As far as party healing goes:
*Haven't hard any specifics on heal party other than it's going out the window
*Healing burst is supposed to be getting a minor buff (bumping up the single target & aoe heals to around 150 & 50-60 respectively)

Healing Burst will probably suffer the same fate as that of many over-buffed skills that later get "Smiter's Boon'd" if it proves too good [sadly]. E.Surge needs to be nerfed, and possibly E.Burn. Mind Wrack could also use a slight nerf [skill recharge-wise at least]. I think Overload should be reverted, and the base damage should be low while the conditional damage should be higher to reward skillful usage. Same thing for Unnatural Signet and Spiritual Pain. B.Surge and B.Flash should also be nerfed to the point where only skillful timing is rewarded [i.e.: blind lasts 0...3 seconds *by default*, and --->If target was attacking, blind duration is doubled]. Recharge on Whirlwind/Teinai should be extended to 12 seconds, and Lightning Javelin's recharge should also be extended to at least 8 seconds. I know these skills aren't currently seeing usage in the meta, but they have so much potential, and if players wake up and actually start to use these spells, they can become super-irksome later down the road because of their OP'd utility and potential.

I hope they buff Dervishes well, but not too well as to invoke another Smiter's Booning", thus making them far worse-off than they were before their buffages.