Curse

Kaylee Ann · Jul 26, 2005, 06:35 AM // 06:35

I just don't see why people can't adapt. Sick of natures, run a dedicated warder instead of a prot monk. Sick of rangers, you would be surprised what ward against harm does to their attacks.

And I really don't see how smite is so over powered. If anything smite has to be one of the easiest things in the game to counter. One healing seed almost completely nullifies it. Diversion draw conditions and it is also gg... It isn't like these are uncommon spells that no one has to go out of their way to bring too (infact I wouldn't even play with a monk that didn't bring seed).

My entire guild moved on to other games because of certain aspects in this game that they did not like. But, you didn't see a single one of them come on these forums and ever cry about it. Grow up....

Frost_ · Jul 26, 2005, 06:36 AM // 06:36

true natures renewal is a great skill, but think if they did nerf it we would have nothing againsted smite builds

EmperorTippy · Jul 26, 2005, 06:39 AM // 06:39

Who's crying? We love these skills. They make it horrible easy to win HoH and GvG if used properly which isn't that hard. I can get a group together that can win HoH at least once 70% of the time in less than 30 miniutes. Our complaint is that... (read the thread). Read what the iQ people have said they freely admit that they use these builds to win, but at the same time we all know that they remove a lot of stragetic depth from the game.

Darc.Syde · Jul 26, 2005, 06:43 AM // 06:43

Quote:

I just don't see why people can't adapt.

people have...

look at the current meta game. its either smite or spirit spam with a few rogues here and there.

that is what nature's renewal has done. you dont see hex heavy builds, no enchantment heavy builds. you killed 60% of elementalist, necro, and mesmer skill lines. i mean, how much more do you need to see that NR is utterly broken.

450 skills and so little variety in builds.

Quintus · Jul 26, 2005, 06:46 AM // 06:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frost_

true natures renewal is a great skill, but think if they did nerf it we would have nothing againsted smite builds

Yeah! Because if they remove some of the effetiveness of Nature's Renewal, they obviously can't make any of the other enchantment and/or hex removal skills in the game any stronger! That would just be way too much work.

[/sarcasm]

Zeru · Jul 26, 2005, 07:20 AM // 07:20

Quote:

In regards to Anet's position on skill balancing, I think they know what skills are broken. However, they are cautious about changing them because they don't want to upset the balance of any tournaments currently going on. I think they figure as long as everyone knows it's broken it doesn't really matter for the time being.

They can't maintain this stance for very long without experiencing some bad effects. The gameplay is just degenerating quickly; tombs is pretty pitiful at the moment and anyone with half a brain can see that if this keeps up the future for the pvp community and the longetivity factor for gw (anet cannot produce enough new content faster than the pvers will chew through it at the current rate of grind; pvp offers best longetivity at least amount of effort) is very bleak.

About changing them, well personally I think everyone decent is using a build or some sort to adapt to NR spam etc (by adapting I mean trashing things like water eles in one's team build) and if it is nerfed not a big deal, everyone is on even grounds. On other imbalanced skills, teams who abuse them are going to get hit hard yes, but they should be able to form a new build that works unless they are one trick ponies who don't deserve to win anything anyway. This was more of a big issue in the bwes because people would find out their skills got nerfed and have only 3 days to change their build, test it, and compete with it; that's no longer an issue.

If anet does make significant balance changes, even very good ones, people will still complain. Though those who would complain about balance for the better are going to be the stupid ones who shouldn't be listened to anyway about changes like this so that hopefully is not an issue at all.

I honestly don't have any idea why anet is ignoring balance issues like this (renewal and fertile affecting spirits seem to be the worst); granted implementing some way of reducing pve grind would be a very high priority in order to keep more people from leaving but that crisis seems to be over.

As for suggesting that Zrave and the other iq members backing him, are doing this to improve the builds iq uses, good lord, before you put on your troll costume you should actually do some research on it. The iq folks are among the most helpful people on this forum for advanced pvp advice. I've seen countless posts by them about how certain things are broken (enchants vs removal for example) and when they advocate things to hurt the builds that they openly say that they use it's really nigh impossible to believe that people actually think these suggestions are selfish.

Quote:

My entire guild moved on to other games because of certain aspects in this game that they did not like. But, you didn't see a single one of them come on these forums and ever cry about it. Grow up....

So basically your guild didn't care about making the game better or didn't trust the devs to do so and gave up. That's nice. What you said is simply dumb and either don't understand the core issue here (it's not about adapting its about degenerative gameplay) or don't care; and yes, if you would read people's posts it quite obvious that they don't have trouble adapting. With balth aura being fixed I don't think smiting is that much of a problem but you have to be stupider than Marie Antoinette to see that fertile, enchants, and renewal are way out of control.

Ensign · Jul 26, 2005, 08:07 AM // 08:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darc.Syde

the general public dont know how to balance skills, best leave it to the alpha testers; they will know how to abuse it if it is still abusable.

Alpha testers are simply a cross section of the gaming public - a given alpha tester understands about as much about balance as a random member of the player community. I find it rather disturbing to see such alpha arrogance continue in the face of their own failure to catch serious gameplay imbalances.

I raise bloody hell about the state of enchantment removal for months. Alpha testers defend the enchantment removal as 'good enough'. I proceed to work with my guild to sit in an enchantment stacked, buff-busting abuse of a build for several hours every night, making KOR and WAR quit in disgust after they can't break it despite their aggressive use of 'good enough' removal.

Or energy denial. I remember clearly people singing the praises of Backfire, or even utter trash like Mind Wrack and Shatter Delusions as the peak of Mesmer builds and play. Mentioning that energy denial was perhaps a *touch* overpowered was met with utter contempt. Alpha testers even demonstrated conclusively how out of touch they were with the game by greeting a ridiculous buff to Energy Drain with complete indifference.

Ask me again how many copies of Energy Drain are run in a typical GvG build.

No, I think I can say with authority now that the vast majority of alpha testers have absolutely no clue what they're talking about. The only difference between a typical tester and a forum random is that an alpha tester spews his ignorance with an air of authority. Should we expect alpha testers to identify and abuse the most broken of skills? Look at their track record, from Ether Renewal to Energy Drain to Oath Shot to Quickening Zephyr, and tell me.

Peace,
-CxE

Ollj · Jul 26, 2005, 09:52 AM // 09:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zrave

x)...

1) Nature's Renewal:

There are some enchantments and hexes that are GOOD whenever they get removed.
Its not impossible to counter!
Sadly they require intelligence and more than basic skill understanding.

And still , i agree with the rest, natures is boring because it kills half of the games strategies while pushing the other half up.

2) E/Mo Smiter (Zealot's Fire, Ether Renewal)

Zealots fire and ether renewal is best for primary ele, nothing wrong with that.
strip it and see the ele suicide!

3) Ritual Spammer (Fertile Season, Oath Shot)

You dont interrupt rangers, you disease, malestorm, metheor and knock down them (or something like that).

4) Balance between different types of armors (warriors in particular)

There are reasonable strategies for armor types.
find them outyourself.
Its basically stone paper scissors between one classes skills/weapons and another classes armor.
Necros can have highest melee defense for a reason, because their (blood) skills ignore armor.

Shinsei · Jul 26, 2005, 10:17 AM // 10:17

I think Ollj's above post qualifies for this suggestion:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

Just ban anyone who either doesn't understand anything about game balance or wants to act like a tard on purpose.

Eonwe · Jul 26, 2005, 10:32 AM // 10:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ollj

1) Nature's Renewal:

There are some enchantments and hexes that are GOOD whenever they get removed.
Its not impossible to counter!
Sadly they require intelligence and more than basic skill understanding.

What are you trying to say here? Certainly having all of your enchantments stripped by NR is not "GOOD."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ollj

2) E/Mo Smiter (Zealot's Fire, Ether Renewal)

Zealots fire and ether renewal is best for primary ele, nothing wrong with that.
strip it and see the ele suicide!

Again, what the hell are you saying? Watch him suicide? What?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ollj

3) Ritual Spammer (Fertile Season, Oath Shot)

You dont interrupt rangers, you disease, malestorm, metheor and knock down them (or something like that).

What would disease possibly do to counter NR? Maelstrom won't interrupt NR. Meteor is.... one interrupt that causes exhaustion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ollj

Balance between different types of armors (warriors in particular)
There are reasonable strategies for armor types.
find them outyourself.

What he was saying is that there is really no reason for using anything other than Gladiator's armor for pvp.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ollj

Its basically stone paper scissors between one classes skills/weapons and another classes armor.

Again, what are you trying to say.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ollj

Necros can have highest melee defense for a reason, because their (blood) skills ignore armor.

No, they can't.

Eet GnomeSmasher · Jul 26, 2005, 10:50 AM // 10:50

Wow. Lots of angry pissed off IQ people....as usual.

Anyway, Isn't the problem with NR and other spirit spamming just in the fact that they're spammed constantly? Maybe making Oath Shot not work on spirits? Because I think nerfing any spirit would make them useless for anyone that isnt using skills like Oath Shot or Serpent's Quickness to spam them.

Fix the "loophole" not nerf the skill itself.

Weezer_Blue · Jul 26, 2005, 10:56 AM // 10:56

it's not really a loophole either. it's just annoying. I think the best fix would be, as someone stated, to only allow 2 or 3 copies on the field at once. Meaning you couldn't cast more than 1 extra spirit in the radius of another spirit. However, that sounds like a complicated solution to me. Nerfing Oath Shot, and nerfing the spirits themselves are not good ideas, however. Neither of these skills, when used in normal play (although, spirit spam has become normal) are abusive.

Phades · Jul 26, 2005, 10:58 AM // 10:58

Oath definatly needs to get adjusted as well, but there is also a problem with the enchantments in general. Nature's renewal is a reflection upon that problem. Sadly the majority of problem enchantments also happen to lie within the monk lines, but that's probably swinging a bit wide off the topic of the nature's renewal issue. Sure you can fix serpents quickness as well, but then you would also have to fix quickening zephyr.

There is only one other example that can manipulate the skill bar to the extent that a ranger is able and that is a combination mesmer using signets.

Weezer_Blue · Jul 26, 2005, 11:09 AM // 11:09

Well, if you nerf renewal, you either have to nerf all enchantments and hexes, or buff enchantment and hex removal.

Phades · Jul 26, 2005, 11:13 AM // 11:13

Well, if you removed the enchantment removal portion of nature's renewal and made it so that the enchantments werent as spammable as they are, then you would be alot closer to where it would need to be for the current enchantment removal options to work properly. Without adjusting serpents, oath, and zephyr, you would still risk ranger and monk combinations working around the adjustment to spamability.

Weezer_Blue · Jul 26, 2005, 11:21 AM // 11:21

Agreed. But there's a ripple effect. If you make enchantments like Protective Spirit un-spammable, then you just made Air Spike builds own again. And this time, it's not just people that don't know how to make a counter complaining, it would be ownage with no way to stop it - in other words, another thing that should get nerfed. But if you nerf them, then Air Ele's aren't all that useful when not grouping together and spike spamming.

Phades · Jul 26, 2005, 11:26 AM // 11:26

Well, if ways to mitigate were more univeral rather than to one class, then it wouldnt be as much of an issue. Also more aggresive forms of damage prevention come into play as a byproduct. People seem to frown on the idea of being more self reliant, but meh whatever. The current model is a chicken and egg scenario which is comming to a close.

Celes Tial · Jul 26, 2005, 01:23 PM // 13:23

Signed.

I'm tired of seeing the same two build types all over the Tombs these days.

Vanquisher · Jul 26, 2005, 01:58 PM // 13:58

I love seeing people who understand nothing of game mechanics criticising those who understand a lot more, saying they're narrow minded, can't think up decent counters, or don't know how skills work, and then proceed to make themselves look utterly retarded, a la "use Maelstrom to interrupt Spirit casting."

Oh, for the record, do you try using Maelstrom to interrupt Stances, too? Winning strategy right there!

Aniewiel · Jul 26, 2005, 02:01 PM // 14:01

Vanquisher, as I said last night, TRY to stick to topic without name-calling. It IS possible, you know.