Curse

Odd Sock · Jul 25, 2005, 02:27 AM // 02:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morganas

A signet healer is a healer with divine favor, inspiration, and protection. He uses life bond on everyone else, balthazaars spirit on himself, signet of devotion, blessed signet, and those two mesmer signet stances. It's extremely powerful and hard to shutdown.

That build loses miserably to a NR. GG. The two mesmer signet stances ? You mean Mantra of Inscriptions and Mantra of Signets ? Stances don't stack. that build si destroyed by anythign out there: warriors, mesmers and rangers all have interrupts that destroy the concept. You're devoting one of your 8 slots, all that energy and effort to a simple Spirit that doesn't even need to be specced to be any good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morganas

Also, rust's effect on rez signets alone is good enough to justify it being in the game unchanged.

How do you know who is going to have the res sigs ? Are you suggesting to put Rust on all 8 or 7 players ? Rust has a 45 second cooldown. Anyways why would you bother putting down Rust when you can make yourself useful and interupt the res ? Show me one single situation where Rust is ANY good (not that cheezy build you posted since it's, well...) and I might slightly be convinced.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morganas

And my point about eruption was specifically that people would walk out of it, it can save your monk. And expecting all skills to be useful in pvp and pve both is asking too much, they're too different, so there's really no point in critizing pve skills.

Hmm either use a Ward that has a 1 second cast, potentially infinite duration and a 10 energy cost plus the fact that it's effect is immediate or use an Eruption that has a 3 second cast, 29 second cooldown (aftercasts and cast times) and a 25 energy cost as well as shit damage and an eventual effect. Which is the better option ? You just showed Eruption is an utter waste without even knowing it. Oh and by the way, GW was meant to be a PvP game. The only reason why there is PvE is for the sales part (don't want to lose those shareholders) So explain to me why skills should be balanced towards PvE ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

Just wondering, but is NR impossible to interrupt? It only removes everything when it is first cast, and it takes 5 seconds to cast. Is that not enough time for someone to interrupt it? Is it really that difficult. Can you not click on the enemy rangers and realize "Oh he is casting NR, get out of it's range" or "Quickly, run up and interrupt!". Surely by now everyone realizes that it may be used, so why not get your ranger to run distracting shot and SQ to get up there and stop him. There are plenty of ways for a mesmer to stop it are there not? 5 Seconds, you're telling me your party can't figure out how to counter it in 5 seconds? How about this, don't cast your enchantments right away? Kill the spirit, and watch the rangers for when it will be cast again.

You're not talking realistically. What happens in a fight is the following: while the timer expires, you put up your enchants. You meet your ennemy and in the far corner you see a ranger casting a spirit. By the time you notice him, the cue (that glowing stuff over his head that means it's an NR) is faded out and if you click on him you won't see what skill he uses. Next thing you know you see that green icon with a star in it and all those green arrows on your team go bye bye. You can't have someone permanently baby-sitting a ranger. You're taking resources off a monk to peg down a secondary or tertiary target. Of course a 5 second cast time is easy to interrupt but that's not the issue. btw there's ways to avoid interruption really easily and even if you do interrupt his NR he'll Oath Shot it right away and put up another one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

Im not sure whats going to happen with skill balance, but people have been leaving for a while now. No idea if thats a signal to Anet or not.

I think they stopped caring when they made their first lump of money. They'll feel the burn come the next expansion that's for sure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TelMarine

yeah i admit it doesn't completely counter it and yeah the recharge really sucks, but its way better than warrior's cunning and ive found it to be successful killing one target fast. Yeah it can easily be removed, but its the best "counter" ive seen so far.

You just described the problem right there. There's two skills to counter a ward: Warrior's Cunning and Rigor (well there's the attack skills but those won't do much since you'll miss 50% of all your other attacks). I agree Cunning is utter trash both in cost and in recharge. Total crap. What's left ? Rigor. Problem is it's cast time, recharge and it's a hex. Under NR it becomes a 4 second cast time and it's removed by a 5 energy remove or smite hex. Hurray you're offenses' DPS is hosed for another 19 seconds after which it's recast. Nothing can make a sane monk leave his ward, not even a Meteor Shower. That's why a balance is needed here. You even said ''counter'' by which I assume you mean it's not all that decent.

There's not just Rust, NR and Wards that need to be balanced. It also goes deeper in the fundamentals of the metagame. Why are elementalists so horrible and weak to everything ? Why are Necros so damned horrible ? Why is it a Ranger who wants to use a bow need Marksmanship and Expertise (compared to a warrior that only needs his weapon specced and strength as a dump point attribute)?

Biggest question I have is if all these issues were adressed two months ago (yea roll back you'll some of these topics were discussed) why aren't they fixed ? What's even scarier is that in order to get PvPers to buy the expansion they will most likely add new skills on top of the other bullshit that's there right now making the game even worse.

*Sigh, cmon ANet we're not just fans/customer's; we're also a knowledge pool. Use us to fix your gimped game (which in return will bring you in some dollar signs) We know your intentions but if you keep it up those little numbers in your Financial Statements are going to turn red.

Eonwe · Jul 25, 2005, 02:58 AM // 02:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morganas

A signet healer is a healer with divine favor, inspiration, and protection. He uses life bond on everyone else, balthazaars spirit on himself, signet of devotion, blessed signet, and those two mesmer signet stances. It's extremely powerful and hard to shutdown.

Hard to shutdown? Oh wait, until someone drops a Nature's renewal... then he's totally useless.

Rieselle · Jul 25, 2005, 04:51 AM // 04:51

Wow, I've opened quite a reservoir of discontent here.

For the person who said "People are quite content to do the same things over and over if the content is balanced." I'll just have to perk up and disagree partly. That's a matter of preference, I'm afraid. It's subtle, but it depends WHAT the content is. (I never liked Starcraft, btw. But I'll admit it has powerful attractions for certain types of people.) Blizzard games tend to be "balanced" via strongly structured and limited gameplay (at least that's my surface view of things.) Most of the games I've really enjoyed (Total Annihilation, King Of Fighters 97/98/02, C&C Generals+ZH) usually went for the "Balance via variety" philosophy. Put so many things in there, with so many counters, and make the game fun in many ways, so that people will have reason to choose things that might not be optimal, merely for the fun of it.

I understand that the hardcore pvper's motto is "Win at all costs", but my motto is "fun at all costs

"... I only partly care if I win or lose - if I play with style, get to see cool combos and big explosions, get to do crazy things that make the other guy go "WTF?!", score personal victories even if my team is losing, etc, then I'm enjoying myself.

My solution to the current imbalances? Add more skills, as soon as possible (ie. dont wait for the expansions.) Skills that are considered powerful, add skills to several classes that counter it, but are otherwise not very useful. (A dispel skill for spirits?) Skills that are considered pointless, add skills that complement them especially and make them useful.

Balance through variety.

Edit: Then again, since several of the supposed "unbalanced skills" can be fixed simply by tweaking some numbers in the code, I dont see why ANet cant do a little bit to keep the complainers happy. If they just make very minor changes, little by little, over a long period of time, until most people are satisfied, then I dont disagree with making dynamic changes to balance. (Since it will probably be so subtle as to not affect me anyway.)

Odd Sock · Jul 25, 2005, 05:19 AM // 05:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rieselle

Edit: Then again, since several of the supposed "unbalanced skills" can be fixed simply by tweaking some numbers in the code, I dont see why ANet cant do a little bit to keep the complainers happy. If they just make very minor changes, little by little, over a long period of time, until most people are satisfied, then I dont disagree with making dynamic changes to balance. (Since it will probably be so subtle as to not affect me anyway.)

I couldn't agree more. The thing is, there is variety. I'd be dumb to say otherwise, there's hundred of skills to use. The problem arises in those skills that the numbers aren't tweaked. They aren't tweaked at all. It makes me wonder what the hell was going in the alpha testing. No one told them Rodgort's Invocation is a piece of garbage ? Stone Daggers for the win ? What ? Something called Flare ? I don't even want to hit the necro skills. The way I see all skills can be made balanced. It's just that some have that cost that make them shit, others have bizarre cooldowns and others just have pointless durations. Instead of new skills being added, fix the ones that are trashy.

And still the solution ''balance through variety'' concept won't work with the dumb Nature's Renewal affecting the game the way it does.

Tuna · Jul 25, 2005, 07:12 AM // 07:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odd Sock

I couldn't agree more. The thing is, there is variety. I'd be dumb to say otherwise, there's hundred of skills to use. The problem arises in those skills that the numbers aren't tweaked. They aren't tweaked at all. It makes me wonder what the hell was going in the alpha testing. No one told them Rodgort's Invocation is a piece of garbage ? Stone Daggers for the win ? What ? Something called Flare ? I don't even want to hit the necro skills. The way I see all skills can be made balanced. It's just that some have that cost that make them shit, others have bizarre cooldowns and others just have pointless durations. Instead of new skills being added, fix the ones that are trashy.

And still the solution ''balance through variety'' concept won't work with the dumb Nature's Renewal affecting the game the way it does.

In some cases the numbers on skills need to be reworked, but on others there needs to be more skills. The perfect example of the ladder are signets. There almost as many skills countering signets as there are signets themselves. As mentioned, some lines of skills have their own problems, most of which are ranger skills and their expertise dependancy.

As for natures renewal, realistically, it should probably be elite, remove enchantments or hexes, not have increased cast time, or a combination of the aforementioned changes possibly split into 2 skills.

I think ANet originally did a good job with the skill variety and balance, but there are certainly some quirks. As metagame develops these quirks are becoming more and more apparent. The lack of real specifics keeps many of these from being blatantly obvious and immediatley detected. The problem comes when these quirks have been around for quite a while with no attempt to fix them. It would also be pretty cool if you knew that skills would actually preform as the description says without having to test it yourself

Odd Sock · Jul 25, 2005, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tuna

As for natures renewal, realistically, it should probably be elite, remove enchantments or hexes, not have increased cast time, or a combination of the aforementioned changes possibly split into 2 skills

If you make it Elite, Blackace will do something harsh like organize a hunger strike or a violent protest (he loves Elite mechanic so much he says it without gettnig mad). Seriously though, the number of enchant/hexes removed should be linked to your wilderness as well as increase cast times.

Pharalon · Jul 26, 2005, 12:01 AM // 00:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by FluidFox

Personally I have the suspicion that the 6 bosses in Sorrow's Furnace and Grenth's Footprint will each feature a new skill for each class. Certainly they'll have an elite to capture, and since you can already capture all existing elites off of existing bosses.... and since they are holding contests to name new bosses... Just makes sense. I wouldn't be surprised at all.

All 6 bosses will camp the altar and spam Nature's Renewal and Fertile Season, and both skills will be made Elite so you can cap them

Mimi Miyagi · Jul 26, 2005, 12:29 AM // 00:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sagius Truthbarron

Personally, and I think I speak for alot of people, I would rather see more content in the game rather than:
The Idiot Savants have won the Hall of Heroes and keep the favor of the gods for America

The Idiot Savants have won the Hall of Heroes and keep the favor of the gods for America

The Idiot Savants have won the Hall of Heroes and keep the favor of the gods for America

The Idiot Savants have won the Hall of Heroes and keep the favor of the gods for America

The Idiot Savants have won the Hall of Heroes and keep the favor of the gods for America

The Idiot Savants have won the Hall of Heroes and keep the favor of the gods for America

The Idiot Savants have won the Hall of Heroes and keep the favor of the gods for America

ROFL - when do they ever do that? 3 AM? Because I don't recall EVER seeing that message once, much less that many in a row in prime time. And I play constantly. Even sB has slipped a bit and haven't been holding the HoH that often anymore. Too many roadblocks in the way now (IE good teams).

Jul 26, 2005, 12:31 AM // 00:31

or maybe because sB really doesnt care?

Soiled Egg Roll · Jul 26, 2005, 12:51 AM // 00:51

Or they have been playing GvG, they were ranked 3rd when I made this post.

kuramaroze · Jul 26, 2005, 01:01 AM // 01:01

I agree with the argument on nature's renewal. I would say that making it lower the time enchants last versus blasting them out right away would be more balanced, so that you had a chance in hell to counter it by killing it.

Tuna · Jul 26, 2005, 01:21 AM // 01:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odd Sock

If you make it Elite, Blackace will do something harsh like organize a hunger strike or a violent protest (he loves Elite mechanic so much he says it without gettnig mad). Seriously though, the number of enchant/hexes removed should be linked to your wilderness as well as increase cast times.

On second though, lets not make it an elite

Rieselle · Jul 26, 2005, 02:07 AM // 02:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odd Sock

Instead of new skills being added, fix the ones that are trashy.

And still the solution ''balance through variety'' concept won't work with the dumb Nature's Renewal affecting the game the way it does.

Well, it could, if you really, really, wanted it to. Say for instance, give necros some skills to instantly dispel spirits on the map. Or turn them to your side. Depending on the cooldown and cost of such skills, suddenly spirit-based strategies might become pretty risky to rely on. And necros become the new ranger :P

I must say tho, in random arena recently the opposing side brought NR with them... they probably didnt use it effectively, and their team was probably unlucky, but we beat them. So it's not an automatic we-win button, no matter how good it is. Then again, they didnt combine it with fertile...

Quintus · Jul 26, 2005, 02:16 AM // 02:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rieselle

Well, it could, if you really, really, wanted it to. Say for instance, give necros some skills to instantly dispel spirits on the map. Or turn them to your side. Depending on the cooldown and cost of such skills, suddenly spirit-based strategies might become pretty risky to rely on. And necros become the new ranger :P

I must say tho, in random arena recently the opposing side brought NR with them... they probably didnt use it effectively, and their team was probably unlucky, but we beat them. So it's not an automatic we-win button, no matter how good it is. Then again, they didnt combine it with fertile...

First: Spirits effect both sides equally regardless of which side casted the spirit. So bringing a spirit to your side would do nothing.

Second: NR works because the side that casted it is based around having no enchantments or hexes to begin with. So if an enchantment heavy team meets a NR team, most of the enchantment team's skills would be rendered useless.

Third: For an NR build to work, the team has to be built around the NR. So your example with the random arena doesn't hold weight, because the NRers team (which can't be built around the NR, because of the random nature of the random arenas) is just as disadvantaged as your team.

Rieselle · Jul 26, 2005, 02:42 AM // 02:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quintus

First: Spirits effect both sides equally regardless of which side casted the spirit. So bringing a spirit to your side would do nothing.

Second: NR works because the side that casted it is based around having no enchantments or hexes to begin with. So if an enchantment heavy team meets a NR team, most of the enchantment team's skills would be rendered useless.

Third: For an NR build to work, the team has to be built around the NR. So your example with the random arena doesn't hold weight, because the NRers team (which can't be built around the NR, because of the random nature of the random arenas) is just as disadvantaged as your team.

Whups, I forgot about that :P

But my general point is, it -is- possible to leave NR behaving as it is, and add more stuff to counter it.

One argument in support of this approach is that it might be a good idea to leave skills that arent bugged (ie. working as stated) alone so that people dont have to keep track of "how skills have changed". Instead, you change the nature of the meta-game by adding new skills, which people will have to learn to use and abuse anyway.

But once again, it seems easier and safer just to gradually tweak the existing stuff until things get better, as a general rule, rather than run around adding new stuff that might make things worse. So I'm not necessarily advocating the "add new stuff" approach.

See my sanitarium post, "Meta Meta Game?" for some musings on this.

Celes Tial · Jul 26, 2005, 07:36 AM // 07:36

Purely for balancing reasons, I would like to see one skill added as soon as possible, and before any expansions.

Spirit: When it comes into play, it does nothing except remove all other spirits from the area.

Hexes can be mass stripped, enchantments can be mass stripped, but spirits? Ugh.

Go figure why everyone and their mother is getting to the HoH with spirit spamming builds. Houston, we have a balancing issue.

Mimi Miyagi · Jul 26, 2005, 08:01 AM // 08:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

or maybe because sB really doesnt care?

Perhaps - or perhaps they just can't hold it like they used to. Spiker Groups aren't the end all be all anymore.

And the GvG ladder is all hosed anyway. Anyone that considers that a true validation of how good a guild is based on their W/L record, or position, doesn't know how a proper ladder should function. A-Net didn't institute it very well, guilds at the top can simply refuse matches whenever they want, and not allow better teams to fight them. And playing scrub teams to simply boost your guild rating isn't very kosher either, is it?

Legitimately winning the HoH during peak hours, where you have to fight 6-7 matches just to get there is a much better display of how good a guild is, not waiting until everyone is asleep, or trying to skip right to the hall directly and if not able to skip, quitting and retrying over and over.

Shrug. I'm not saying either are good or bad, just stating the truth. I've seen plenty of teams that are very very good in the HoH. Thinking the HoH is just owned by the same teams based purely on reputation isn't the smartest thing I've ever read.

Phades · Jul 26, 2005, 11:24 AM // 11:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celes Tial

Purely for balancing reasons, I would like to see one skill added as soon as possible, and before any expansions.

Spirit: When it comes into play, it does nothing except remove all other spirits from the area.

Hexes can be mass stripped, enchantments can be mass stripped, but spirits? Ugh.

Go figure why everyone and their mother is getting to the HoH with spirit spamming builds. Houston, we have a balancing issue.

That doesnt fix nature's renewal.

Celes Tial · Jul 26, 2005, 12:19 PM // 12:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

That doesnt fix nature's renewal.

You have a point. Lets fix NR as well.

FeuerFrei · Jul 26, 2005, 12:22 PM // 12:22

I really do hope that they have a skill like the Amazon's strafe in D2 for rangers...would be cool