Curse

fowlero · Jun 11, 2011, 11:25 PM // 23:25

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Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

Every build in the current meta is entirely one-dimensional. That is not a great thing.

Define what you mean by one dimensional as i don't fully understand what that encompasses as i'm imagining shutdown is your other dimension?

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1) You never listed any "tone downs" in your other post. Go reread it. There is nothing in it even remotely similar to a list of "tone downs".

I said it, though fair enough i didn't make clear relevance to aegis in my first post, but with reference to putting back midline skill "it just needs a tone down on stuff like hammers/dervishes as a whole/ele's/hexes/domination straight damage/blood nec that took people into stupid playstyle build such as trip melee/quad ele (at the time)/quad nec. "

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2) You absolute said that there are skills that would need to be nerfed. I quoted you. I used your own language in context. Don't say things IN TEXT and then say you never said them.

If that's the case fair enough, i cba to reread it all.

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3. Aegis would be powerful enough in this meta to reward monks that bring it. Monks brought it before the Aegis nerf and the current meta is more melee-centric than it was back then, so the incentive to bring it would be even greater. There is absolutely nothing about the current meta that suggests monks wouldn't bring Aegis if it were reverted.

Frontline damage just was not as powerful then as it is now.

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Monks don't need stances if they are bringing aegis because when monks bring aegis, the game necessarily slows down enough where monks aren't required to have a "panic button" a.k.a. stance.

Weapon of Warding, Blinding Flash, Blurred Vision, water snares and kiting, two copies of Guardian, Shielding Hands, and RC... take your pick. Any time melee converges on targets, it becomes that much easier to defend if you are a midline support role. If an Aegis chain is being used, the game necessarily slows down allowing support characters and prot monks to follow damage easier and prot key targets. If the support defense is being shutdown, and warriors converge and train out a target, that is a good thing because it means that the team as a whole used skillful play to score kills.

Whilst i get your point that it'll slow the game down somewhat, all of these things exist in the current gamestate and stances are still required for those times when defense is stripped/shutdown. Hence the dual ele/mes spike doesn't stand up very well to trip derv at an equal skill level. Whilst the effectiveness of those skills will increase with Aegis i still don't them stopping kills.

I don't mean to say that it won't be run, that it won't be effective, i just believe stances will remain superior.

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1) Monk calls for blind/blurred on the ranger, monk casts Aegis.
2) Monk calls for KD on interrupter, monk casts Aegis.
3) Monk cancel casts using GoLE, monk casts Aegis.
4) Monk retreats further back where only its midline is in range, monk casts Aegis.

Too much theorycraft for me, you already stated in the other side of the argument yourself and i know you understand it yourself. But i will add, rangers can push up on monks easy enough on your 4) pretty much untouched with the power of LR. Also the bug on cancelling with GoLE was fixed so it's not that effective a counter.

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No... not at all. The dom mesmer was used for many things... not just mesmer wars. Plus, the rit didn't have much damage at all anyways. It was mainly used to keep people alive at stand.

Yes it was used for other things, stripping conjures, HEV to clean wars/spike and div etc (i recognise i said only used, i meant primarily, i took it you wouldn't take me literally and i'm shit at english), however rawr said themselves it was primarily taken as a counter for the opposing teams dom mes/diversion, prots were just rended and a monk KD'd. I don't know if you're serious on the rit comment, but ~150dmg from ARage and Caretakers potentially every spike as well as Splinter and Rend from what was essentially a support character is pretty big imo.

Hell, [rawr] among others even ran stances over of Aegis at times (http://www.gw-memorial.net/builds/mAT/2008/October/208/). Granted nearly everyone was spiking, but today nearly every build essentially has access to near the same amount of damage that spikes did then.

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2 second casts are not "pingwars". People need to stop saying this until somebody actually makes an argument that somehow adding one skill to the game that has a 2 second cast time can possibly result in the game being "pingwars" more-so than it already is today. Until that argument is made, I will not accept it as a valid opposition to an Aegis revert. It just doesn't make any sense. "Pingwars" is a result of 3/4 second casts spells... because those are the skills that people with good ping can interrupt and people with bad ping can not. Those skills are the ones that create the problem, not Aegis.

Sure, i agree it was pretty stupid to bring that up here, my bad. I just meant to say that turning the game more towards interupts in my eyes isn't necessarily a great thing.

I don't remember enjoying playing warrior hitting blocks/misses half my attacks all game because my shutdown was having an off day as being fun. As much as this was a result of less skilled play on team members part, i hated the fact that this then cancelled out any skill on the frontlines part.

I understand it's your opinion that this is the way things should be, but for me this balance was just too off. I'd much prefer a situation without passive defence, where individual skill levels obviously complement/detract from each other, but not to the level they did. I don't see a way round that with Aegis as it was.

As retarded as todays meta is, for me the game is funnest when things die a lot, not as a roll or be rolled situation, but just when things die a lot.

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Ignorant comment. Shutdown stopped being useful when all passive defense was systematically eradicated from the game. That is what shutdown was useful for. People didn't use shutdown just for the sake of shutdown. It has never been that way. People have always brought shutdown to stop people from using passive defense i.e. Ward against Melee, Aegis, B-Surge, and party healing. Since Ward against Melee and Aegis were killed, teams decided to bring draw conditions on their monk to counter blinds and then trade in their shutdown for more damage instead. That is the only explanation.

Except that's not entirely true at all. The PBlock eurobalance meta ran for months (maybe even a year+ my memory doesn't serve), without passive defence. Granted it was with an arguably OP PBlock, but to say shutdown disappeared with passive defence is just wrong.

Builds without shutdown such as trip melee did not come into play until some skills were stupidly buffed, prage, strength and honor and smiters boon standout (as i remember) and consequently hammer/blood necro/derv etc.

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Honestly, damage doesn't need nerfing, just skills that enable damage to be more powerful than it should. Things like flail + enraging charge, anything that allows Dervishes to maintain IAS + IMS, Av of Balth (adrenaline gain), Invoke Lightning + B-Flash (bar compression), MOI (armor ignoring), Mind Wrack + E-Surge + Shatter Delusions (armor ignoring), etc. It's not the fact that skills do a certain amount of damage. It's the fact that there are skills that enable people to use those skills more frequently, or use those skills without sacrificing anything in doing so.

I meant to encompass skills that enable to do more damage (as you mention) as a whole when i said damage, i didn't mean auto attacks or staples like eviscerate etc be nerfed. I entirely agree on this.

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Monk skills got buffed tremendously to account for the lack of passive defense and the additional damage people take since shutdown is now useless. Ultimately, the reverting of Aegis would lead to the nerfing of the 5e heal skills and the "fire and forget" active prots. When you have some passive defense in the game, you have to create a situation where monks are punished for misusing thier active prots (by increasing their energy cost or recharge time). Without passive defense, monks are punished for misusing prots by being crushed with a wall of DPS. This DPS exists because, if it didn't, the good monks would be unbeatable. Don't you see! Without passive defense, there is no alternative to this. It's either "roll or be rolled" or "lord race at 28". When you have a balance between active and passive defense, the game becomes much more dynamic.

If i had the confidence in Anet being able to do this all at the same time then i'd perhaps agree with you that it might be fun to have that playstyle come back. However i don't believe they'd be able to get that right.

There was an alternative to it after they nerfed passive defence, before they buffed damage. I hate to keep referencing it but i can only think of the PBlock meta as my memory isn't great and i'm not gonna go look stuff up. That meta existed without passive defence, and was far from roll/be rolled or lord racing, the game definitely still had dynamics. To me it was the random 40 elite buff and consequent buffs that really did the damage.

In any case, i don't see us agreeing anytime soon so i'll back out of this now as i've made my opinion, and it won't affect balance posting here anyway.

(I'm not entirely sure what i just wrote as i'm pretty tired so i may edit this)

Brian the Gladiator · Jun 12, 2011, 04:16 PM // 16:16

Your opinion: all damage and all healing/protecting needs to be nerfed

My opinion: inject a small amount of passive defense in the game

The net result of both of these solutions is exactly the same but one solution is far more expedient. Do you really think A-Net should nerf every popular skill combination in the entire game just to accomplish the same goal that reverting one skill (Aegis) would also accomplish? I would love if A-Net did as you suggest, however not only is it impractical, it may be impossible. That really is the fundamental flaw in your argument and I don't think I need to say anything further. My suggestion is something that A-Net can actually do, whereas yours is a pipe dream. My suggestion is something A-Net can do to make the game better right now whereas yours is something that could take years to accomplish.

fowlero · Jun 12, 2011, 05:40 PM // 17:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

Your opinion: all damage and all healing/protecting needs to be nerfed

My opinion: inject a small amount of passive defense in the game

The net result of both of these solutions is exactly the same but one solution is far more expedient. Do you really think A-Net should nerf every popular skill combination in the entire game just to accomplish the same goal that reverting one skill (Aegis) would also accomplish? I would love if A-Net did as you suggest, however not only is it impractical, it may be impossible. That really is the fundamental flaw in your argument and I don't think I need to say anything further. My suggestion is something that A-Net can actually do, whereas yours is a pipe dream. My suggestion is something A-Net can do to make the game better right now whereas yours is something that could take years to accomplish.

Agreed, i do recognise that most/if not all the things i've posted will likely never happen to the game, and that as you say it's a bit of a pipe dream.

I just don't see Aegis making a big difference, so felt to post what i'd really love to see happen to everything i believe is wrong in the game. However, sadly, unrealistic it is.

The sad thing is Anet have been told over and over again exactly which problem skills they've needed to nerf/buff to accomplish the things i've described, but they just go a different direction nearly everytime.

Some form of middle ground would be nice but who knows.