Curse

Siver · Jul 19, 2011, 06:52 PM // 18:52

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Swingline · Jul 19, 2011, 07:09 PM // 19:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siver

Any large numbers of any profession is overpowered... i don't think than can be fixed, as its a fundamental truth (strength in numbers). As an example my alliance runs 6 Invoke Spikers in HA. When a target is pinged, no amount of healing or protection will save them from dying. Trying to "avoid" the strength in numbers theory.. is pure folly. The same holds true in real life.

I am saying they were incredibly overpowered when there was a team of them. I remember when signet of mystic wrath was rolling the meta and it wasn't pretty. What was really plaguing the meta were the skills from the other monk trees like P&H. 8 monks wielding tremendous spike,pressure and support all rolled into one still makes me shudder.

Siver · Jul 19, 2011, 07:13 PM // 19:13

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FengShuiDove · Jul 19, 2011, 08:06 PM // 20:06

I've played for a long time with the idea of buffing the worthless smiting elites first and then playing off of them for the rest of the line. I think the important aspect is making them do damage in a less direct way and instead having it be a more tactical, defensive damage condition.

Balthazar's Pendulum (5e, 1/4s, 8r): Elite Enchantment Spell. For 5 second, the next time target ally is attacked, that foe is knocked down and takes 5...85 damage.

Now we have a sort of elite Reversal of Damage with added functionality, similar to how Life Sheath relates to Reversal of Fortune. All three of these are very good skills, and set a great precedent for the functionality comparison between elite and common skills. Notice the recharge is upped as a balancer for the extra damage and knockdown. Also notice the "protective" aspect rather than direct damage.

Defender's Zeal (5e, 1s, 10r): Elite Hex Spell. For 8 seconds, target and adjacent foes are hexed with Defender's Zeal. The next time each foe attacks or casts a spell, you gain 0...2 energy and the attack deals 5...25 less damage.

DZ now has a one-shot usefulness that is more effective than a maintained hex in today's high-damage, spike heavy meta game. It also has a defensive aspect in the damage debuff. The recharge is adjusted slightly to prevent this from being infinite energy. 12 or 15 seconds would probably still be an acceptable recharge time, perhaps paired with more damage negation.

Shield of Judgment (10e, 1s, 20r): Elite Enchantment Spell. For 1...6 seconds, anyone striking target ally with an attack is knocked down and suffers 5...35 holy damage.

Shield of Judgment is actually a really fun skill to throw on a Smite Monk in PvE as-is, but the recharge makes a poor placement very painful, and again, the long-duration plus long-recharge is not suited to the meta. This version cannot be maintained indefinitely with Arcane Echo and an enchanting mod, and has a little less damage, but is far more useful in general PvE with a lower cost and recharge. As my other suggestions, it offers a protective aspect that includes damage rather than just raw damage. The damage value is really insignificant for everything but farmers, as the knockdown is the main defensive element anyway.

Signet of Judgment (0e, 1s, 15r): Target foe and all adjacent foes are knocked down and take 15...63 holy damage.

This one's pretty easy I think. Being a signet, it's a great energy management/utility skill by default. Its downfall is an absurd recharge for little damage and little utility in the single knockdown. Consider PI as an example. Yes, it's partially balanced by energy cost and requiring a spell interrupt, but the knockdown/disability/utility is FAR better and with Fast Casting it recharges in under 10s. In fact, leaving the recharge at 15s and the cast time at 1s could probably justify more damage, considering Unnatural Signet's functionality, but I think this version is most definitely not OVER powered and would get this skill some hero play.

Word of Censure (10e, 1s, 8r): Target foe takes 15...63 holy damage. If your target was below 33% health, that foe and all adjacent foes take 10...50 holy damage and are set on fire for 1...4 seconds.

Word of Censure is an interesting skill. Healing Prayers has Word of Healing, which rewards tactical play with a big additional healing packet. Protection Prayers has Zealous Benediction, which rewards tactical play with a big energy regain. This skill, however, PUNISHES well-timed play without rewarding it at all. Also, considering those other two precedent skills have their bonuses enacted under 50%, WoC's bonus should be just that much more rewarding for having a more stringent requirement. It remains a very subpar skill when used poorly, but becomes incredibly powerful when used properly.

Anyway these are my suggestions. In PvE, the Smiter's Boon buffer is amazing for support, both offensively and defensively, and I think these elites could be paired with that build to tweak it to certain areas or for people who don't like any of the standard elites it's run with (RoJ, Tease, Signet of Removal/Empathic Removal). Plus, these are more fun and effective for the player in several instances, making a human Monk capable of dealing respectable damage with more than one skill. Lastly, it serves as a good start for the kind of functionality the other smiting skills should have if they were to be reworked afterwards.

Reformed · Jul 19, 2011, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siver

U cant (do to energy problems) run a pure RoJ build.

Think it's strange? RoJ nukers with a blood necro for e-management were the bread and butter of VSF when Cry of Pain got nerfed. Their energy is so good this way in fact that with multiples they carry Arcane Mimicry for an additional copy to chain.

Siver · Jul 19, 2011, 08:37 PM // 20:37

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drkn · Jul 19, 2011, 09:37 PM // 21:37

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When running a pve RoJ build a good bar will have more mesmer skill than actual smiting skills.

Fun fact - in most situations, especially when there are several people running it, RoJ is one of the most overpowered skills in the game. In terms of dps, especially.
When i RoJed on my monk i found NO NEED of using any other monk skills, save an occasional res. Arcane Echo + RoJ were more than enough.
If you want to buff any smiting skills, go ahead, but please don't forget about the other side of the balance - if other skills are buffed, RoJ has to be nerfed.

More so, it reminds me of a necromancer whining that if he wants to heal, he has to go /Mo or /Rt secondary. I mean, come on, monks - and healers in general - are not usually designed to dish out holy AoE damage. RoJ build, and some other useful smiting skills, is a nice gesture from ANet, realising that healers sometimes would like to wreak havoc, too. You want to do something your profession ain't really cut for, you have to rely on your secondary. Would it really change much if you could go /N (well, BiP, hi...) or /Rt (hi there, Spirit Siphon and Life on Razah) for e-management, instead of being limited to Mo/Me?

The brutal truth is: you can't think about your char in terms of its primary profession, only. The way GW is designed, it's the primary + possible secondaries that has to be taken into account when balancing stuff. If there were no secondaries, however, it would be another topic... but there they are, and (a) the ultimate balance is impossible to achieve in GW, and (b) you can't expect every profession to be great at everything without using secondary skills, thus monk shouldn't have extensive e-management nor dps.

Siver · Jul 19, 2011, 10:09 PM // 22:09

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Vazze · Jul 19, 2011, 11:38 PM // 23:38

[QUOTE=Siver;5531324]

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I don't expect the monk to out damage any profession, but they should be able to deal damage with there primary profession, without relying on a secondary profession to do so. No OTHER profession has this limitation.

Monks easily out damage paragons, rangers and depending on armor lvls: elementalists as well.

Xiaquin · Jul 19, 2011, 11:45 PM // 23:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siver

I think you missed the point completely. U can(and many have) run a pure barrage build.(it was META)

U cant (do to energy problems) run a pure RoJ build.

I can only assume this pure build is implying Arcane Echo. In this case, it means energy management is a necessity because of that skill and its subsequent uses of RoJ, not RoJ itself. It's 10e/20s recharge, that's not breaking any monk's energy.

Pure Barrage builds actually use secondaries/PvE skills, not because they need energy, but because without them Barrage is pretty underwhelming.

Siver · Jul 20, 2011, 12:15 AM // 00:15

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Vazze · Jul 20, 2011, 12:41 AM // 00:41

[QUOTE=Siver;5531402]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vazze

Take RoJ out of the equation...reevaluate the damage...

AP builds are still there (monks are ok with AP, rangers and paras are terrible). SoH is incredibly OP and it is not even elite. Balt Aura (that you wanted to nerf) is pretty good nuke, the touch skills are nasty. I use (d to use) teh wrath spells to farm vaettirs and UW, they are strong skills.

Smiting IS cluttered with completely useless skills: word of censure is probably teh worst elite of the whole game, anybody taking Judge's Intervention should uninstall, but every attrib line has trash.

Xenomortis · Jul 20, 2011, 02:33 AM // 02:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

I was unaware of this......

Castigation Signet
Defenders Zeal
Balth Spirit
Essence Bond
Healer's Covenant
Blessed Signet
Air of Enchantment
Healing Light
Scribes Insight
Selfless Spirit
Zealous Benediction

And they're almost all terrible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siver

I like all your suggestions except this one....If I was picking out a smite bar..I would consider this a bad elite spell. In 6 seconds that person would get hit once.. maybe twice? Seems worse than currant version. Maybe either boost the damage or lower recharge.

Do you think Shield of Absorption is a bad spell? Of course when a person is only being attacked by one enemy then it's going to activate only a couple of times but what if they're being attacked by 5 enemies?
I'd be careful with the duration on that suggestion, in fact I might even go so far as to suggest it were turned into a Skill, not an Enchantment Spell.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siver

Look up Rit.. who can do MAJOR damage, Can heal, And Prot better than a monk can(ST says Hi). Then tell me about why healers that "ain't really cut for" for dealing damage (All the while having energy management that does not need a 2nd profession)

Rits are broken and stupidly overpowered; this is hardly news.

Remember that Smiting Prayers is not primarily a damage line. It may have initially been designed that way, but a lot of the good skills are actually in a sort of support role and it's that sort of trend you want to focus on. Turning Monks into the new best nuker isn't progress.
On that note:

Quote:

Originally Posted by FengShuiDove

Balthazar's Pendulum (5e, 1/4s, 8r): Elite Enchantment Spell. For 5 second, the next time target ally is attacked, that foe is knocked down and takes 5...85 damage.

I'm not certain on the numbers but I think this is a pretty good suggestion.

I'm not too fond of making Signet of Judgment an AoE knock down though.

Note: Just clarifying that this is all for PvE only. The last thing we need is a massive buff to Smiting Prayers in PvP.

FengShuiDove · Jul 20, 2011, 03:32 AM // 03:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

I'm not certain on the numbers but I think this is a pretty good suggestion.

I'm not too fond of making Signet of Judgment an AoE knock down though.

Note: Just clarifying that this is all for PvE only. The last thing we need is a massive buff to Smiting Prayers in PvP.

Certainly agreed. I forgot to mention that those changes were intended for PvE. Although some may be appropriate in PvP with tweaking. The numbers are far from perfect, but I really like the functions of them.

Siver · Jul 20, 2011, 04:00 AM // 04:00

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Lanier · Jul 20, 2011, 04:14 AM // 04:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siver

MONK-1 or 2 AOE Smite skills

Elementist-A PvE only skill that adds armor penetration to only they're spells

Ranger- Change functionality of traps (pre-casting traps, than add a skill that will lay all traps you have pre-casted at a desired location)

Paragon-Revert all skills to original functionality...(Shouts and chants a Paragon uses will not affect other Paragons)

Assassin-NERF THE DAMN SKILL ALL READY!!

Dervish-nothing

Necromancer-nothing

mesmer-(see Elementist)

Rituialist-(see Elementist)

Warrior-nothing

While those might not "balence" the game... It would shut everyone up.

Skills shouldn't be changed to "shut everyone up". They should be changed to increase balance, ideally while keeping power creep from increasing.

If balance is going to be attempted, mesmers, rits and necros need nerfs. If balance is achieved, and mesmer/rit/necro damage isn't nerfed, PvE will be even more of a large-damage fest than it already is.

Coming from someone who has played paragons since nightfall's release, merely reverting the paragon's skills to their original functionality will not be enough. Ritualist and Necromancer support options are too powerful for the paragon's support options, even with their original functionality to compete. Anet did say that they were doing no more profession overhauls but paragons don't need a 9 month profession overhaul like the dervs got - they need a 3 month large-scale skill update like what the mesmers got prior to the dervs.

Your suggestion for eles is spot on though. It would be a quick and easy fix and would allow eles to do what they should be able to do anyway without making them too OP.

Honestly, shadow form isn't the biggest problem with assassins. Balance should be focused on general PvE, and shadow form is used in not used in general PvE. While I'm all for a shadow form nerf, I think that the more pressing issue is nerfing the DB spam build. Giving it a 6 sec recharge, like the PvP version, would be nice. Upping fox fang's recharge to match wild strike's recharge would also be a good tweak.

FengShuiDove · Jul 20, 2011, 04:43 AM // 04:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

-snip-

The problem with Paragons is that their quality skills can simply be thrown on another character's secondary at nearly full effect. Personally, I use a primary Paragon in most hero builds because I like Command for offensive and defensive support (SYG! mostly), and it adds another physical attack. But it's far from essential or even preferred.

If you're going to take Jagged Fox Blossom, you'll have to take other physicals down a peg too, and not just effective bars or skill chains. Assassins may have the best single target damage (always hotly debated) but Dervishes since the rework are excellent and Warriors have always had ways to produce quality physical damage. I realize it's power creep, but considering the freshness of the Mesmer and Ritualist buffs, I don't see them being nerfed any time soon.

Paragon, Elementalist, and Ranger are the laggards right now. Eles just need a way to get around ridiculous HM armor. Paragons need a niche functionality that makes them necessary or highly beneficial as a primary. Rangers have promise as physical damage, but so many of their preparations are worthless, and beyond that, their traps, spirits, and pets suck.

Ranger is the hardest rework in my opinion. Elementalist is the easiest.

At any rate, I'd like to see some attribute lines see some love. I think a good bit of progress could be made to Smiting, Deadly Arts, and the other oft-mentioned underpowered lines.

Siver · Jul 20, 2011, 06:27 AM // 06:27

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Elfblade · Jul 20, 2011, 11:39 AM // 11:39

Anet ruined the original class intentions for the most part. Giving AOE to certain professions (Death blossom and HB) and Mesmers getting better Single target and AOE damage as a support profession. Power creep just made it worsened the previous. This should be known.

Ritualist is actually one of the only professions where the original intentions are uphold ( they were supposed to be able deal damage, summon spirits, protect and heal) but power creep let it become OP and it didn't balance to what 1 ritualist can do by itself (SoS bar is the best example)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siver

For instance, many swear that Warriors were meant to be "the damage dealers" in the game.. and all other professions where here to support them to do that. I look it like this.... Then why the high armor? Warriors don't need high armor to deal damage!

I disagree, warriors should have higher armor but their damage should scale towards it. as you say assassins are glass cannons but warriors are sturdy front liners who should pack a punch (that is how Anet intended them).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siver

That's imbalanced, Now whether the damage keeps going up or scaled down is completely irrelevant, as They can always increase or decrease the mobs health and armor, with 2 lines of code.
So before you try to balance things from becoming too powerful, balance
the difference between the classes. Then no matter how powerful everyone ends up being, Its still allot easier to balance the foes afterwards.

adjusting mobs health and armor doesn't work as it is something that affects all professions and not a certain attribute line or build you want to balance (also adjusting mobs health and armor would only work if there was near perfect balance, which is near impossible to achieve).

Xenomortis · Jul 20, 2011, 11:43 AM // 11:43

Comparing the 100B and VoS bars to the standard Assassin bar in a vacuum is going to lead to skewed results. The power of 100B and VoS is only realised once you start stacking it with Mark of Pain.
A DSlash bar would be more appropriate for the Warrior, or even an Axe bar. Similarly a Pious Renewal bar would be a better comparison for the Derv.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siver

For instance, many swear that Warriors were meant to be "the damage dealers" in the game.. and all other professions where here to support them to do that. I look it like this.... Then why the high armor? Warriors don't need high armor to deal damage! Why are there Sins? They do more damage than a warrior (as they should) but are not meant to take the damage like a warrior can. Thus Sins where designed to deal the most single target DPS in the game.

This betrays your lack of understanding.
First of all, the historical standard of balance across the entirety of Guild Wars was GvG but a lot of what will follow relates to PvE as well.

The Warrior has high armour precisely because he does a lot of damage. If he didn't, he would be unable to do his job. You see, a Warrior aims to threaten the other team and that means he will, at times, be required to push very deep into enemy ranks, sometimes beyond the range of his own Monks. This makes it very easy for the enemy to collapse onto him and pour a lot of damage onto him; if he wants to threaten the other team he needs to be able to withstand this that bit longer than anyone else. If you still don't understand this concept then consider why a real-life tank is so heavily armoured.
The Assassin wasn't designed with this role in mind; they're much more mobile; able to move around the battlefield quickly with their shadowsteps. An Assassin is much more vulnerable but they are not trying to do the job of a Warrior. We do note however that Assassins have always been a balance problem.

Now in PvE we simply get three professions all doing the job of the Warrior, but that's because PvE is very simple.