Curse

KamiCrazy · Mar 31, 2005, 12:33 PM // 12:33

Quote:

I'd like to point out that this particular combo relies heavily upon the target casting through Backfire multiple times to effectively kill themselves for you - Shatter and Energy Surge are just there to finish them off. I will grant you that such a strategy is an excellent n00b-devouring machine, but I wouldn't take any particular pride in devouring n00bs. Given the current non-level of competition, however, counting on such things is a perfectly reasonable assumption.

Please please do not assume what a set of skills is for without considering other uses for it. Your statement was not what I had in mind at all, in fact the combo is geared against good players.
Lets take a pretty simple enchantment casted by a monk, shield of deflection, I'm just using that enchantment for the sake of it being an example, it could be any non spammable enchantment.
During the primary casting animation, a mesmer with decent fast casting should be able to cast backfire on the monk and have it resolve before the monk's own enchantment resolves. If that monk doesn't interrupt themself by moving, the enchantment resolves and since it is a spell backfire's effect happens, monk takes damage. During the after cast animation of the spell which is .75 seconds long you follow up backfire with energy surge. The interrupt fails because the enchantment has already resolved by that stage but the secondary effect still takes place so a lot of energy burns resulting in lots of damage for the monk and anyone around him.
Lets assume at this stage that the monk casted the shield of deflection on himself. The mesmer now finishes the combo by casting shatter enchantment on the monk, removing the enchantment which was just casted (and therefore removing the benefit it provided) and also doing another wad of damage.

So backfire + surge + shatter = damage in the 300's in about 2-3 seconds. Very comparable to air elementalists. The monk loses a lot of mana from the cost of the enchant + surge and also loses the enchantment as well. Such a combo is extremely difficult to pull off and requires a very skilled mesmer.

Quote:

Contrast that with the current enchantment removal situation. I agree with you that techniques for working around enchantments, such as quickly switching targets and wearing down an opponent trying to keep up, are underutilized and should be given more attention. But that doesn't change the fact that fighting the enchantment war with the supposed counters is a losing battle - anything you're trying to hit is cheaper, faster, and recycles more quickly.

and

Quote:

However, it speaks volumes about the inherent problem with enchantment removal: It simply isn't a viable answer to enchantment stacking. When enchantments dominate the playing field the way they currently do, then the answer is obvious: Enchantment removal is ineffective.

Most primary counters are given to the monk. Counters are defensive in nature in Guild Wars and the monk is the defensive class. The developers have designed the game so that defense is better then offense. However in the case of enchantment removal things get a bit confusing. Enchantments are on the defensive class, the monk, and removals are on the offensive class the necro.
So the counter for this situation, enchantments, is on an offensive class. Now your current thinking is that because defence is supposed to be greater then offense, and counters are defensive then enchantment removal should be good vs enchantments. Which is why you think enchantment removals are too weak at the moment.

However this is not how the design decision was come to be. Enchantments are the defensive spell and the counters is the offensive one. Enchantments being so good and being mainly in the protection line of the defensive monk means that enchantments are considered the defensive element, it is a defense normally against damage. Most of the protection spells are damage mitigation. So the counter to enchantments, enchantment removal is by virtue an offensive class of spell because it removes defense. Which is why you see enchantment removal on the necro, rather than on the monk.

The thing which further complicates things is offensive and utility enchantments on a variety of classes. Obviously against these kinds of spells, enchantment removal is a defensive counter instead of an offensive counter. However because enchantment removal works equally on both offensive enchantments and defensive enchantments you have a conflicting paradigm.
The developers obviously chose a design direction. Even though there are offensive and utility enchantments, enchantments will be considered the defensive side of things and enchantment removal the offensive side.
Its interesting that the solution to retain balance amongst the power of offensive enchants vs defensive ones was to make offensive enchantments weaker and less efficient, which conforms to the design philosophy that defense is greater then offense. This is how we get the current enchantment metagame where it is more useful normally to save your enchantment removals to remove defensive enchantments.

I came up with more points after I wrote my post above.

Lets take another look at rend enchantments. Its ability is to remove many enchantments at once however it has an interesting side effect. For every monk enchantment removed you take 40 damage. This effect supports the idea that enchantment removal is offensive, they are penalising you for potentially stripping away many defensive enchantments on a character. Note however that non-monk enchantments do not cause damage, so there is an incentive to use it defensively against characters enchanted with offensive or utility type enchants.

If I was to buff enchantments this is what I would do. Necro's are the primary enchantment removal class, the one line which lacks a serious enchantment removal spell is blood.
Strip enchantment is not too hot. It casts fast and has an average timer but its secondary ability is worthless. Healing for 55 hp at around 10 blood is not very useful.
So I would add in another attributed effect. If the removed enchant is not a monk enchant, strip enchantment recharges X% faster. This provides a tangible benefit to removing non monk enchants and helps promote further non monk enchantment removal.

Hado · Mar 31, 2005, 10:13 PM // 22:13

Except that having a game that's completely skewed towards defense makes for bad competitive gameplay, not to mention boring to watch and play. You can equate it to turret creeping in SC, or camping the rocket launcher the whole match in Quake, or turtling in Street Fighter being the only effective strategy.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that any team that only cares about winning, eventually will be using the same carbon copy mass cross enchanting/power healing/mass hex removal builds that have been prevalent in the highest ranked teams since November . There's zero payoff in competitive play for running an offensive build or taking the initiative when defense is strictly better in every case. The game doesn't encourage you to risk anything because the reward isn't there.. just spam enchants, wards and healing, and if you turtle it up for long enough your opponent will eventually succumb to the lack of resources needed to fight. Do you really want to play a game where eventually every team consists three quarters of monk primary or secondaries?

If you, as an alpha tester are basically fine with the way enchantment removal works (and how the game is completely unbalanced towards defense in general), I don't see GW ever being a respected as a true competitive gaming platform.

KamiCrazy · Apr 01, 2005, 12:51 AM // 00:51

Quote:

Except that having a game that's completely skewed towards defense makes for bad competitive gameplay, not to mention boring to watch and play. You can equate it to turret creeping in SC, or camping the rocket launcher the whole match in Quake, or turtling in Street Fighter being the only effective strategy.

There is a good reason for this skew and that is simply because its a team game which relies on people in the team to assume roles in the group. If defence = offence you would need 1 defensive character for every 1 offensive character to achieve a workable balanced group. However its obvious that there is only 1 truly defensive character in the game the monk.
So if defence = offence, half the group needs to be monks. Note I used the word NEED.
In order to have more class diversity in balanced groups there needs to be a way to offset the loss in defence by having less monks. This was achieved by making defense more efficient and more powerful then offence. Now you only need 2 monks normally (some builds can get away with having 1) to get a desirable amount of defensive characteristics in a balanced group.
Another situation which promotes the design philosophy of defence being better then offence is when you 8 offensive characters vs a mixed group. If defence = offence in this situation there would be no way the mixed group could ever win, as their defence is never enough to hold back the offence, nor do they have the same potential offence to do more damage faster.

Quote:

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that any team that only cares about winning, eventually will be using the same carbon copy mass cross enchanting/power healing/mass hex removal builds that have been prevalent in the highest ranked teams since November . There's zero payoff in competitive play for running an offensive build or taking the initiative when defense is strictly better in every case. The game doesn't encourage you to risk anything because the reward isn't there.. just spam enchants, wards and healing, and if you turtle it up for long enough your opponent will eventually succumb to the lack of resources needed to fight. Do you really want to play a game where eventually every team consists three quarters of monk primary or secondaries?

Turtling rarely works in this game unless you have dedicated trappers on the turtling team who are able to take advantage of small critical paths on the map. Also the trend has not been cross enchanting/power healing/mass hex removal. Power healing comes at a significant cost in DPS, debuffs, interruptions and mana management (including regeneration and denial). If what you say was true then how come all monk teams rarely win? In fact the only one I have seen do well had 6 smiting monks, who didn't heal.

However I will explain some of the weird ideas you have brought up. Cross enchanting is something which hasn't been truly explored yet. The main build which has promoted cross enchanting are the life barrier builds, which in alpha have been run by LOTD, aG and n0. These builds truly abuse maintainable enchantments and signets, cross casting enchantments which last indefinitely in a complicated structure which provides maximum synergies while working around mana regeneration problems by avoiding mana usage.
However from our experience of playing with and against life barrier builds, although the initial encounter in battle is very difficult to manage and overcome, you can beat these builds if you use some key skills in the right way (no you do not have to take uncommon counters). Once you take down a character in it, things really unravel, as synergies are lost which affects the build enourmously.

Power healing has been an interesting metagame development, it seems to be a reactive measure to the increasingly powerful and more efficient DPS strategies teams are now fielding. To meet this increase in DPS you need more healing of course, so teams have explored options which increases their healing efficiency as a response. Some teams regularly run with 3 monks now.

I've already explained the reasoning behind mass hex removal. Again it was a metagame response to the mass hex builds of the past. No one wants to be defeated by such a build again so mass hex removal continues to be a part of current build design.

Quote:

If you, as an alpha tester are basically fine with the way enchantment removal works (and how the game is completely unbalanced towards defense in general), I don't see GW ever being a respected as a true competitive gaming platform.

My own reasoning for a very cautious look into the balancing of enchantment removal is that there hasn't been an unbeatable build which abuses enchantments heavily. Sure there are some very good builds which uses enchantments but the enchantments make up 1 part of those builds. It due to a combination of factors which make those builds good, not because of the enchantments. One enchantment which has concerned me of late is protective spirit, to me it seems a bit overpowered at the moment and its spammability defeats enchantment removal, however I realise that its due to the current metagame which is making it such a good skill.

Xellos · Apr 01, 2005, 03:48 AM // 03:48

Just a side note: I don't think any other RPG-type game has this much serious discussion about their metagame. In fact, I don't think there's alot of RPG-type or MMORPG type game that would have this type of discussion :P so at least it's alot higher in the competitive game scale then anything the RPG world has seen.

These discussions are so cool

I hope it keeps going.

Apr 01, 2005, 04:04 AM // 04:04

You play Starcraft Xellos?

Xellos · Apr 01, 2005, 04:14 AM // 04:14

Ummm not really, but that's a RTS.

Apr 01, 2005, 05:38 AM // 05:38

Just asking since Xellos is the name of one of the top Starcraft progamers.

Xellos · Apr 01, 2005, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Not sure if he still programs starcraft though, he hasn't even been a part of the modding community, nor has he made a presence there for a long time. Even Shadowflare hasn't been around. Most of the modding community/programming community is probably busy with WoW.

Ellestar · Apr 01, 2005, 05:57 AM // 05:57

To make enchantment removal more powerful we should see enemy enchantments (for example, like in WoW).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xellos

Just a side note: I don't think any other RPG-type game has this much serious discussion about their metagame.

DnD 3.0-3.5 Character Optimization forum
http://boards1.wizards.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=339

whiskas · Apr 01, 2005, 06:26 AM // 06:26

Giving each profession a greater selection of healing or defensive skills would help skew the need for plenty of monks. Each player would have more control of their health without putting their lives into the hands of another player. The strategy, or more accurately, the necessity of focus fire exists simply because healing spells are so powerful that they require several people attacking a target to outdo the healing output of the enemy monk(s).

When someone said offence = defense, it all comes down to enemy team's dmg/sec = your team's healing/sec, and vice versa, the battle essentially being decided by whichever side is the strongest. Limiting half of the battle (healing/sec) to be decided by a single profession is completely unbalanced.

Xellos · Apr 01, 2005, 07:05 AM // 07:05

Uhh ellestar your wrong. DnD has nearly no form of balance nor variety in competitive play. The ruleset isn't even solid, and is applied to many different things, there are way too many factors to consider, and none of them lead to competitive playing even near Guild Wars. You will NEVER see DnD applied to any game that will make it to World Cyber Games, at least not in this decade. I don't think we should stray from topic, but the point is, DnD is worst then gameboy RPGs, the only reason DnD is even popular is because of the openness of how it's just a ruleset, and can be applied to various games, and roleplay in general. It is by no means a competitive tool.

KamiCrazy · Apr 01, 2005, 08:36 AM // 08:36

Quote:

When someone said offence = defense, it all comes down to enemy team's dmg/sec = your team's healing/sec, and vice versa, the battle essentially being decided by whichever side is the strongest. Limiting half of the battle (healing/sec) to be decided by a single profession is completely unbalanced.

Actually when I said defence = offence I meant the overall game balance between offensive power and defensive power. DPS vs healing is a subset of that.
The monk profession was designed that way to make it interesting and fun to play. It would be very boring and narrow if the class only healed, or only removed hexes, or only casted enchantments. So it's understandable that they lumped a lot of primary defensive measures onto the monk.
Ask anyone who has played DAoC what playing a primary healing class is like. Its not very interesting.

Barkam · Apr 01, 2005, 09:36 PM // 21:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by KamiCrazy

If I was to buff enchantments this is what I would do. Necro's are the primary enchantment removal class, the one line which lacks a serious enchantment removal spell is blood.
Strip enchantment is not too hot. It casts fast and has an average timer but its secondary ability is worthless. Healing for 55 hp at around 10 blood is not very useful.
So I would add in another attributed effect. If the removed enchant is not a monk enchant, strip enchantment recharges X% faster. This provides a tangible benefit to removing non monk enchants and helps promote further non monk enchantment removal.

I like this idea a lot. But if the dev's would apply this idea, they need to make it so that there is no ONE skill that every build out there takes, an example is to have multiple versions of this on multiple professions.

Sin · Apr 02, 2005, 04:07 PM // 16:07

I don't think Hado knew what he was getting into asking this, maybe he did.

You all are PVP/GVG players and I can say I learnt so much about how far I must go, in my way of thinking in battle, what to look at the skills I am buying, etc. to be anywhere from being a total noob even though the game hasn't been released and I played the last 5 BWEs.

I been PVE 99 percent of the time and right now, with all that I just read and with a genunine admiration of your sense of detail, the game's nomenclature, and your ability to articulate it so well, I am sooooooooo glad I stuck to missions and explorable areas and doubt I will ever delve into GVG battles.

So thank you all so much for the depth and intensity of your explanations. I almost don't have to play the game anymore it was so perfectly belittling to the rest of us, I mean, it's clear to me I could learn nothing you all don't already know and have perfectly measured to the Nth degree. I guess that could be sad considering the game hasn't even been released yet but that's not how I meant it.

Greentongue · Apr 02, 2005, 09:28 PM // 21:28

I for one am glad of the discussion and non-flaming rationalizations for each opinion. Though it is all theoretical until release and the skills are finalized, highlighting aspects of the game that are not always obvious to the casual observer is a worthwhile endeavor.

As with the role of the "Healer", a game that makes secondary characters important is a rare gem. Few games that have "Healers" make it a profession that is actually fun to play.
From this discussion, by release, the role of "Debuffer" will be just as important.

wongba · Apr 21, 2005, 08:25 PM // 20:25

in light of the dominating run by KOR, do those that support disenchant buffing feel vindicated? would buffing skills like inspired, drain, strip, and shatter (and the inclusion of a remove enchant or perhaps a convert enchant?) basically break KOR's build?

tektonik · Apr 21, 2005, 08:32 PM // 20:32

no what broke KOR was relying on soley melee damage to beat the other team. Instead of changing that when they lost they merely destroyed the other team's means of employing those defences

wongba · Apr 21, 2005, 08:46 PM // 20:46

i realize that it was ward specifically that allowed Fi their sole win against KOR. what i'm saying is that if single disenchants were considered viable skills, would KOR still have won so many matches?

tektonik · Apr 21, 2005, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by wongba

i realize that it was ward specifically that allowed Fi their sole win against KOR. what i'm saying is that if single disenchants were considered viable skills, would KOR still have won so many matches?

yes because their tactics are superior then 98% of all guilds.

sama · Apr 21, 2005, 10:47 PM // 22:47

we've played matches against KOR...not this past beta, but a previous ones.

what people really need to understand is that it's not just their builds that are making them so tough, they're some of the best players in the world. they never made any mistakes when they played us, they always seem to have the right strategies against us, they do an incredible job of moving in a formation, they always protect their monks...the list goes on.