Curse

fenix · Jun 28, 2008, 08:32 AM // 08:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by A Leprechaun

I have to say that I think a lot of these changes would be pretty poor. I agree that people need to be able to use a wider range of skills without being mocked or kicked but you seem to have changed skills which are fine already as well as badly changing other skills.
I was mostly looking at the warrior skills but skimmed through the rest.

/notsigned

~A Leprechaun~

*edit* I'm not knocking all of it, there are a few good changes in there.

Therein lies your problem, you skipped through. I recommend next time you get a bit of time, read through the changes, the reasons why, and then have a read of my post. It'll give you more of an idea of what Sha is trying to do.

A Leprechaun · Jun 28, 2008, 08:34 AM // 08:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenix

Therein lies your problem, you skipped through. I recommend next time you get a bit of time, read through the changes, the reasons why, and then have a read of my post. It'll give you more of an idea of what Sha is trying to do.

I read all text concerning the warrior proffesion, I also read about half of the other text, most of this I disagreed with.

~A Leprechaun~

Sha Noran · Jun 28, 2008, 08:36 AM // 08:36

I commonly refrain from wall-of-text replying to people's posts piece by piece, but that's usually out of a sense of the futility of it all. Strangely, it seems that people really would prefer civil discussion to pissing contests. Awesome, I'd love to really generate some active discussion about this very new issue in the Guild Wars 1 universe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

3. One thing that struck me as painfully absent from your list was removing that #$%@* timer from Soul Reaping. For reasons I've posted far too many times now, it really has to go. It's alright if it comes with an elegant counteracting nerf, but the timer has to go. (What nerf you ask? Probably remove SR triggering on minions + drastically reduce the cost of minion spells. That would break the overpowered synergy that powers Sabway.)

....

4. The other major necromancer issue is the minion cap. It was put in place at Faction's release to limit the effectiveness of minion builds in AB, so the PvE/PvP split robs it of its purpose. The #1 reason for such a buff is simply the fun factor. If you ever got a chance to play a MM before the nerf, you know what I'm talking about -- it was fun as all hell. Also, I'm kind of interested to see how the interplay between unlimited minions and BotM's and OoU's scaling life sacs works out.

Those two issues (that is, the Soul Reaping timer and the Minion cap) were two things I put a lot of thought into while writing this article up. I certainly understand that those two things are probably in the forefront of every PvE player Necro-primary's mind. This was partially why I added the bit regarding minion targeting, which is basically impossible in the current build... however if it is impossible to balance the PvE half of the game without addressing this issue to the community's satisfaction then I can't just skirt these topics without giving my full opinion in the form of suggestion.

Allow me a few days to collect my thoughts on this topic as well, and I'll include my suggestions for fixing that mess when I post the Part 2 of this topic, which I mentioned a few posts back.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

5. One thing that strikes me generally about your suggestions is that they share a-net's tendency to buff gawd-awful-crappy skills into merely crappy skills. If a buff doesn't make something viable that wasn't before, it's not really a buff in any meaningful sense.

The only skill change ideas that I had that made the cut of the final post here were ones that I thought out theoretical build concepts for. You're correct, there is no point in making something slightly less crappy if it's still crappy overall, and I share your frustration with some of ANet's futile buffing attempts of the past.

That said, I tried to look at things from a lot of different perspectives while hammering out these skill changes. While I may not personally play as a Beast Mastery very often, I'm still perfectly aware of just how badly those minor changes need to be made to help improve the viability of Beast Mastery. I probably wouldn't ever equip those skills in their changed form either, but I'm sure thousands of players would be quite pleased to see that their pet cat can now come along, and it's less of a burden skill-wise.

Greedy Gus · Jun 28, 2008, 08:48 AM // 08:48

Laundry lists of random skill tweaks are rarely if ever interesting.

Hint for future forum skill balancers: Keep skill suggestions relatively minimal in number and focus more on overriding goals/themes; then it looks more like valid suggestions to be weighed thoughtfully by Anet for their game and less like how you would tweak every skill if you were hired instead of Izzy. The spray & pray method is just uninspiring.

fenix · Jun 28, 2008, 09:03 AM // 09:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Laundry lists of random skill tweaks are rarely if ever interesting.

Hint for future forum skill balancers: Keep skill suggestions relatively minimal in number and focus more on overriding goals/themes; then it looks more like valid suggestions to be weighed thoughtfully by Anet for their game and less like how you would tweak every skill if you were hired instead of Izzy. The spray & pray method is just uninspiring.

Because you've had such a valid contribution to the PvE and PvP community, amirite?

PvE balance is a LOT different to PvP balance, in that PvP balance you cannot just suggest a bunch of changes and expect them to flow. PvE is the opposite, you can buff a heap of skills and not worry about overriding changes, as it is PvE.

But really, it's clear that Izzy or the people higher up, do not know how to balance. Sha is simply telling them what would work.

mafia cyborg · Jun 28, 2008, 09:13 AM // 09:13

theres a suggestion forum!
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/f...splay.php?f=19
anyway the best thing for pve would be to have balanced pvp skills.

graverobber2 · Jun 28, 2008, 09:17 AM // 09:17

/signed

"Fear me!" is useless in pve, btw
monsters seem te have an unlimited amount of energy

Lagg · Jun 28, 2008, 09:21 AM // 09:21

While I would balance the Warrior differently (the only profession I'm interested in), any change at this point is more interesting than no change at all.

graverobber2 · Jun 28, 2008, 09:21 AM // 09:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riceboi

Nerf shadowform? No thanks!

you can still keep it up as long as you want
21 secs @ 16 SA, +4 sec (20% enchant weapon)
recharge = 45 sec / 50% (glyph + Deadly paradox, recharge capped @ 50%) = 22.5 sec

i would like to see deadly paradox energy cost reverted back to 5 in pve (since it also has other uses than shadowform)

Greedy Gus · Jun 28, 2008, 09:24 AM // 09:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenix

PvE balance is a LOT different to PvP balance, in that PvP balance you cannot just suggest a bunch of changes and expect them to flow. PvE is the opposite, you can buff a heap of skills and not worry about overriding changes, as it is PvE.

But really, it's clear that Izzy or the people higher up, do not know how to balance. Sha is simply telling them what would work.

You can't write in one paragraph that PvE balance is easy because anything works (buff heaps of skills, who cares, it's PvE) and then follow it with a paragraph saying Izzy doesn't know how to balance PvE.

Regardless, that doesn't matter. My point was that if Izzy wanted to buff 155 skills, he could do it just fine. In this "Part 1", Sha has gone through the entire skill list and picked out more than 1 in every 8 skills to tweak. The problem here is that it just becomes chaff--it's too much of a multitude to sift through.

The OP states "it must be daunting to re-evaluate balancing decisions accross three years, three games, and an expansion", to which he is willing to help Izzy out. However even if some of the suggestions are really intuitive, great ideas that cut to the core of issues, they don't save time or avoid any daunting task. That's because he proceeds to go through every attribute for every class and post tons of small tweaks, which is exactly how anyone would take on the challenge if they agreed on the goal. It lacks the time-saving insight that a short list with a lot of depth can provide. It's the same problem with the way zuranthium makes suggestions.

Again, I'm not arguing the merit of any individual suggestions here, simply the presentation.

Skye Marin · Jun 28, 2008, 09:25 AM // 09:25

I know the OP has good intentions, but there are a handful of balances that just don't make any sense to me:

"Fear Me!" - What good is e-denial in any PvE? All Creatures have significantly larger energy pools, and and extra pip of energy degen.
Spirit Shackles - Same logic; it doesn't make any sense to spend resources to buff energy denial skills in PvE.
Illusionary Weaponry - So they're going to change the type and game test it so it will work, and then localize it in several languages, and break standard class conventions, for what? So that it can't be stripped?
"The Power is Yours!" - This change doesn't fix what's bad about this skill.

Anet has limited resources, so it's important to look at what specific skills for what classes would give the most benefit for PvE. For example:

Aneurysm - Increased damage to 2..8..9 per energy point restored.

That change right there would dramatically increase the Mesmer's damage ability for a single target through Energy Burn/Surge, Spirit Shackles, Sympathetic Visage, or whatever else. It seeds ideas, brainstorming, and fun, unique builds.

Making some Mesmer hexes AoE might be good for PvE, but it could also make it very frustrating to play against as well. Try tangling against a mob of 6 Wind Riders, each with AoE Shame, and you'll see what I mean.

zwei2stein · Jun 28, 2008, 09:33 AM // 09:33

You should revise that list and remove buffs that are pointless as skill is already ok and not to buff skills that are simply bad without major rework.

Limit yourself to ~5 changes (not necesarily buffs) per class. Result should be much more coherent.

fenix · Jun 28, 2008, 09:45 AM // 09:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skye Marin

I know the OP has good intentions, but there are a handful of balances that just don't make any sense to me:

"Fear Me!" - What good is e-denial in any PvE? All Creatures have significantly larger energy pools, and and extra pip of energy degen.
Spirit Shackles - Same logic; it doesn't make any sense to spend resources to buff energy denial skills in PvE.
Illusionary Weaponry - So they're going to change the type and game test it so it will work, and then localize it in several languages, and break standard class conventions, for what? So that it can't be stripped?
"The Power is Yours!" - This change doesn't fix what's bad about this skill.

Anet has limited resources, so it's important to look at what specific skills for what classes would give the most benefit for PvE. For example:

Aneurysm - Increased damage to 2..8..9 per energy point restored.

That change right there would dramatically increase the Mesmer's damage ability for a single target through Energy Burn/Surge, Spirit Shackles, Sympathetic Visage, or whatever else. It seeds ideas, brainstorming, and fun, unique builds.

Making some Mesmer hexes AoE might be good for PvE, but it could also make it very frustrating to play against as well. Try tangling against a mob of 6 Wind Riders, each with AoE Shame, and you'll see what I mean.

Actually Energy Denial does have its uses in certain areas. Look at Destructions Depths for an example, the Disc of Chaos can easily be beaten by bringing some edenial. Monsters don't have as much energy as you think, they just regen faster.

Abedeus · Jun 28, 2008, 10:08 AM // 10:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skye Marin

I know the OP has good intentions, but there are a handful of balances that just don't make any sense to me:

"Fear Me!" - What good is e-denial in any PvE? All Creatures have significantly larger energy pools, and and extra pip of energy degen.
Spirit Shackles - Same logic; it doesn't make any sense to spend resources to buff energy denial skills in PvE.
Illusionary Weaponry - So they're going to change the type and game test it so it will work, and then localize it in several languages, and break standard class conventions, for what? So that it can't be stripped?

Imo:

Fear Me! - enemies suffering from Weakness, Blind or Crippled loose an Enchantment or 10...70 health. Make it a 10 adrenaline skill with 5 seconds of recharge.

Spirit Shackles - AoE, make it ,,whenever target foe attacks or uses a skill, he looses 1...5 energy and 3 Health for every energy point lost. Ends when target has 0 energy. When this hex ends, you steal the amount of health equivalent to Energy lost during the duration of the hex''. A bit stronger Malaise.

Illusionary - remove the part about Melee weapons, so it can be used with bows?

Gneppe · Jun 28, 2008, 10:25 AM // 10:25

And when Izzy said PvE'ers wanted overpowered skills to blow Sh*t up people whined but look at your skill suggestion.
PvE takes a small amount of skill in HM but with these updates wouldnt you just make it all a walk in the park?
I understand you try to make some stuff more attractive to use in PvE but tbh there must be other ways than just buffing everything.
I guess that is why i mostly thought off it as a joke.
I respect the time you took doing that but there really must be other ways

By the way why would you remove Symbolic Strikes maximum amount of damage. As far as i remember its +70 or something like that and you cant have more than 7 other signets on your bar.

Phoenix Tears · Jun 28, 2008, 10:55 AM // 10:55

Quote:

Barrage {E} - No longer removes Preperations.

This had me stopped reading further. Readign that lets me believe, that you must be either a complete retard or that you had absolutely no clue, over what you write.

Changing this on Barrage would mean, that the Skill would become completely imba³

Just imagine a R16 Marksmanship Ranger, that gets buffed through a r16 ritu with Splinter Weapon to receive the optimal Damage Power and that Ranger uses then following Skills

Barrage + Expert Focus = Super Cheap spammable empowered Barrage, with that you could easily reach an Energy cost for Barrage of like 1-2 Energy with high Expertise -.-

Barrage + Arcane Mimikry + Glass Arrows = Imba Damage + Mass Bleeding -.-

Barrage + Arcane Mimikry + Marksman's Wager = Imba Energy Management in large enemy groups. Tanking build together and et voila , a new imba tnak is born that will never have energy problems >.>

Barrage + Apply Poison = Imba Mass Poison Pressure

Barrage + Arcane Echo + Choking Gas = Imba Mass Interruption

Barrage + Inite Arrows + Splinter Weapon = Imba Mass Damage³ = most imba Combo of all

Barrage + Arcane Mimikry + Arcane Echo + Incendiary Arrows = again imba Mass Interruption + Imba Mass Burning

Barrage + Arcane Mimikry + Melandru's Arrows = Imba Mass Damage + imba conditional Mass Bleeding

I think, this is really enough Imba Stuff to show you, how retarded that idea is to remove the "No preparations with Barrage"-Thing

Pandora's box · Jun 28, 2008, 11:02 AM // 11:02

I agree with the opp that its time for un-nerfing a lot of skills, and add some buffs. As for the list, so many people, so many opinions. But it's a good start for a discussion!

jiggles · Jun 28, 2008, 11:17 AM // 11:17

25e for FoC? are you shitting me about this not being a joke?

upier · Jun 28, 2008, 11:28 AM // 11:28

Now THIS is funny!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phoenix Tears

This had me stopped reading further. Readign that lets me believe, that you must be either a complete retard or that you had absolutely no clue, over what you write.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phoenix Tears

Barrage + Arcane Echo + Choking Gas = Imba Mass Interruption
Barrage + Arcane Mimikry + Arcane Echo + Incendiary Arrows = again imba Mass Interruption + Imba Mass Burning

Let me guess - you're one of those people that uses Backfire and then Epidemic and then loses it because WTF!??!?! it's bugged!1!!

kostolomac · Jun 28, 2008, 11:32 AM // 11:32

The mes changes , while with good intentions wouldn't do much for player mesmers rather than the monsters. The 10 sec recharge on backfire would be an energy eater , maybe a 15 sec duration and a 20 sec recharge? Visions of Regret and tease would still be useless. If Shame and guilt got AoE , would the caster steal energy from every foe , and even then it would benefit the monsters more than the players.
Abedeus' idea about IW , if applied to wands and/or spears would be very nice.
Aneurysm and calculated risk need a buff.
The barrage buff is beyond insane.
The nerf on FoC is just pointless.