Curse

Grindwarrior · Jul 29, 2005, 08:45 PM // 20:45

Natures Renewal is the devs solution for a counter to mass enchantments (and hexes). The problem is that it also conveniently counters smaller amounts of these spells as well, so theres no point in using them at all. The skills that should have been the counter to mass enchanting is alredy in the game:

Desecrate Enchantments - Spell
Target foe and all nearby foes take 6-49 shadow damage and 4-17 shadow damage for each enchantment on them.

Melandru's Arrows {Elite} - Preparation
For 18 seconds, whenever your arrows hit, they cause Bleeding for 3-21 seconds and do +8-24 damage if they hit a target who is under an "Enchantment".

If only the devs would be smart enough to do the obvious and change Desecrate Enchantments to do no base dmg and 10-66dmg for each enchantment instead. Melandrus arrows to do 8-24 for EACH enchantment on the target. Then maybe change the numbers around a bit to balance it out.

Eet GnomeSmasher · Jul 29, 2005, 09:38 PM // 21:38

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Originally Posted by Grindwarrior

Natures Renewal is the devs solution for a counter to mass enchantments (and hexes). The problem is that it also conveniently counters smaller amounts of these spells as well, so theres no point in using them at all. The skills that should have been the counter to mass enchanting is alredy in the game:

Desecrate Enchantments - Spell
Target foe and all nearby foes take 6-49 shadow damage and 4-17 shadow damage for each enchantment on them.

Melandru's Arrows {Elite} - Preparation
For 18 seconds, whenever your arrows hit, they cause Bleeding for 3-21 seconds and do +8-24 damage if they hit a target who is under an "Enchantment".

If only the devs would be smart enough to do the obvious and change Desecrate Enchantments to do no base dmg and 10-66dmg for each enchantment instead. Melandrus arrows to do 8-24 for EACH enchantment on the target. Then maybe change the numbers around a bit to balance it out.

Hmmm I dont know if that would work out. What if I hit someone who had protective spirit, life bond, life barrier or any other enchantment that reduced damage done drastically? It would still render those two above skills useless. Or would have those skills completely ignore effects of enchantments on the target?

Jul 29, 2005, 09:57 PM // 21:57

Melandru's Arrows is ridiculously good but overlooked. The skill is fine.

Grindwarrior · Jul 29, 2005, 10:17 PM // 22:17

To clarify, i meant those 2 skills could be used to counter lots of enchantments but would be inneficient if there were only a few around. Protective spirit, healing seed, shielding hands etc to reduce or even negate the extra damage, not really sure how to balance that one out. I guess you could add in a mesmer spell draining energy for each enchantment on since you can't really defend agains energy drain. The point is to let you turn their huge number of enchants to your advantage instead of removing them all. Since just a "remove all enchants" (NR) spell ruins the game.

Yes melandrus arrows is a decent skill alredy, but do you think it is capable of cracking a healing ball? Not really, and why shouldn't it? Right now i think its just another "you may do decent damage IF" spell. Not a hard counter to enchanted enemies. I forgot about this skill that could be made more useful:

Melandru's Assault - Pet Attack
Your animal companion attempts a Melandru's Assault that deals +5-17 damage. If that attack strikes a foe "Enchantment" that foe and all adjacent foes takes additional +5-17 damage.

Adding to my thoughts on how you would get at them behind protective spirit + healing seed + shielding hands wich would both cut down on a big single dmg and many small bits of dmg, there could be one spell that disabled all skills 1s for every enchantment they have on. To crack a healing ball, you could use that to disable all their skills, then drain all their energy with the energy drain for each enchantment spell. Then they couldn't easily recast enchantments you strip with normal means. If they are not using huge amounts of enchants, these skills would be sub-par to the other energy draining and shutdown skills, of course. And it would be better to just use the "strategic" disenchants.

Jul 29, 2005, 10:58 PM // 22:58

Why should one skill alone crack a healing ball? If MA did massive damage per enchantment it'd just be another version of Nature's Renewal that instakills.

MA is good because no matter what it's auto bleeding. The benefit is that an opponent under an enchantment consistently gets hit with a ~50 damage attack affected by multiple speed buffs. So if Tiger's Fury, Favorable Winds, Conjures, Ji, and Orders all effect this thing with a long duration why does it need a buff?

Phades · Jul 29, 2005, 11:01 PM // 23:01

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Originally Posted by Ensign

I don't think that Nature's Renewal is being used to fight hexes, at all. I always thought there was a decent balance between power hexes and removal anyway. Nature's Renewal came into builds to fight enchantments - that it viciously hates out hexes as well is just splash damage.

Not that the fact that it destroys hexes as well should be glossed over - the majority of good Warrior or Ranger hate is hex based and Nature's Renewal polarizes that battle further. But hex removal is a side effect, plain and simple.

What it is used for and what it is accomplishing are two different things. I mentioned spammable hexes specifically for the near snap casting and low recast time hexes being disrupted, opposed to being tottally removed. This is different from NR disrupting and removing the 0s refresh time, near permenant duration enchantments.

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Originally Posted by Ensign

Not neccessarily a nerf to enchantments, but it is calling for a re-examination of enchantment / enchantment removal balance. Players need to have tools available for cracking enchantment based builds besides having to pull out the sledgehammer.

My comments and suggestions mainly focus along the lines that the sledge hammer is currently needed and trying to have some foresight in what also would be needed in order to complete the balance. I believe that making the recast times of the long duration monk enchantments reflect their potential durations, but based more around average times within normal play, similar to how vengence and unyielding aura were balanced, then it would be alot closer to harmony in the long run for the game.

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Originally Posted by Ensign

Of course the problem is that I can run a power enchantment build that'll stack buffs ten deep and *laugh* at all of your "strategic" removal. Because "strategic" removal, while interesting in spot circumstances, isn't terribly efficient and certainly isn't powerful enough to get into a slugfest with a strong strategy. Strategic enchantments are countered by strategic spot removal, sure. But power enchantments need power removal, and the only skills even approaching that are Chilblains and Nature's Renewal. (Well of the Profane would be interesting if it could actually be cast over Putrid in situations where it would be called for). The other problem is that power enchantments is a fundamentally strong strategy, particularly for defensive or hall holding builds, making power removal something that every build is going to want to have available - and, right now, the options simply are not there.

Besides, you know, the sledgehammer.

Peace,
-CxE

That is the main reason why the enchantments need to get changed if any change comes to nature's renewal. Even with longer refresh times, it will still require many different efficient forms of removal and that does not exist currently. There is one overly efficient means and many sub-par means that really only work if there is only one character specializing in protective enchantments, much like instances found within pve. The difference is that pve can throw numbers at the group, while the group gets to focus on one or two unique characters that may use said enchantments.

Grindwarrior · Jul 29, 2005, 11:37 PM // 23:37

I'm not bringing up melandrus arrow becouse I think it is a weak skill that needs to be buffed. I'm more interested in the idea itself of a skill that doesn't remove enchantments, but turns the enchantment into a disadvantage for the user, in this case, more damage received. The devs just didn't take the concept far enough I think. The problem with healing ball is that it uses a bunch of enchantments that make you more or less invulnerable. Then put on 10 cover enchants so that no matter how much enchantment removal the other team brings they cant touch those enchantments. So if they take away NRs ability to counter this by removing all enchants, they need to do something like:

1-Nerf all enchants so they dont do much even if you can't remove them.
or
2-Remove all spammable enchants from the game. No more chaff enchants.
or
3-Make enchantment removal spammable.

They all just sound like decreasing the strategic depth of the game. Most people want nr 3 i guess. Spam removal to counter spamming extra layers of enchants. Under this system, if you don't run extra layers, forget about using enchants. I don't think it's any good, so:

4-Introduce skills that are effective against targets with lots of enchants so that there's a drawback to using too many.

Tuna · Jul 29, 2005, 11:48 PM // 23:48

Enchantments are going to have to be easier to put on than they are to remove. If it is the other way around (like is is now) almost nobody will use heavy enchantments because they will all be wisped away. Things like healing ball shouldn't be a factor in decide this but rather be a different discussion all together. You can't balance enchant removal and healing ball at the same time (easily). Nerf NR, buff other enchant removal, nerf healing ball is going to be the easiest way to get this game back in shape. I think the best way to nerf overpowered builds is to put limiters on them such as have healing seed only heal the 3 nearest instead of everyone people or only allow for X number of life bonds etc.

edit: I think this can be solved without introducing any new skills, just fix what we have.

Grindwarrior · Jul 30, 2005, 12:24 AM // 00:24

Yeah, nerf the enchants so they don't do much, sounds easy? How much should healing seed and bonds be nerfed so you can just brute force it? Any other skills? Balanced around the fact that you can't really remove them if the owner wants to keep them, since "Enchantments are going to have to be easier to put on than they are to remove."

I wan't to have a system where you can choose between a balance of:

A: Add more cover enchantments if you wish, but risk getting more owned by a skill vs mass enchants.

B: Don't add covers, risk getting the precious enchant ripped by a disenchant. But the anti-mass enchant skills wont have much effect.

Anyone get this? I know it's not going to happen and that you would usually go for the easy answer. But I don't think that answer leads anywhere in this case.

Tellani Artini · Jul 30, 2005, 01:25 AM // 01:25

@GrindWarrior: I think Melandru's Arrows is a powerful skill and does not need to be made any more powerful. Melandru's Assault, though, I agree is pretty laughable. A whopping 17 damage AoE. You're better off letting the pet die and pressing the putrid button, will do more damage than about 8 of these attacks (which have a prohibitively high recharge time).

Hado · Jul 30, 2005, 04:31 AM // 04:31

Holy shit, I know I haven't been on in a long time.. but weren't these problems evident like back in November?

With that I mean completely lopsided enchantment stacking and the lack of removal.. and then we had all these alpha players come on saying everything was fine.

And in January/Feb or something (can't remember) we did some ritual spamming with like 8490214 spirits around the map and thought the alphas would catch it and the devs would fix it. WTF?

Zeru · Jul 30, 2005, 08:12 AM // 08:12

When NR is nerfed people will start cross stacking their monks left and right with enchants and heavily buffed Warrior or Ranger based offenses will be the way to go (especially rangers because they're so hard to counter).

Removal should be powerful enough to make significant punch but it should not be nearly so bad as to make enchant-heavy teams obselete. It was the former when NR was bugged and now it is the latter. Two opposite extremes with both being unpleasant situations. People should not have to resort to switching targets when enchants are placed on them, but should also have the option of removing them on command.

Single strip enchants still have too large of recharges to be of much use generally. They are not here for power removal but 'strategic use' as has been said but the current strategic use (before NR) is a joke. Shatter Enchant is 15/1/25. That's a heavy energy requirement and absurdly long recharge for a conditional nuke/single enchant strip. Recharge on all of these is pretty much too long.

Rend, Chillbains, Lingering Curse, and Well of the Profane are the mass enchant removal options. Two AoE based, two single target based. They should be able to break through any enchant based setup but with some cost and effort; Lingering being elite, Rend for the damage (may seem not much but when you rend someone with loads of chafe it can take out a good 60-80% of your life), Chillbains with energy/poison, and WotP for it's conditional nature.

Lingering Curse energy requirement is too high. The effect is powerful for it's elite tag but still too pricey so it's use is prohitibive at best. That cost needs to be lowered to perhaps 15.

Rend doesn't eat through enough enchants without heavy amounts of curses; 4 in curses for 4 broken is nice vs general teams but it wont cut it vs teams who are just layered in enchants. And of course the recharge is terrible. Even with a low recharge if you have to eat 200-300 damage when using it it's not some auto-enchant breaker and can be used against you (rather than interurpt it wait for it to finish and then spike); lower recharge does offer more freedom though which is the way it should be.

WotP seems okay except for the cast time. It gets beaten by too many things to matter. If it matched the rest of them besides Nec transveral at 1 s it would be solid.

Chillbains is the wierd one. Imo it should have a greater aoe to make it useful outside of dais maps but retain the cost/poison to make it's uses powerful but very sparingly.

That's one approach anyway. There are a number of good/optimal ones, just as long as we keep enchant vs enchant removal compared to hex vs hex removal before renewal: strong but not making one style completely prohitive like it is now and was before in the opposite way.

JackOften · Jul 30, 2005, 08:44 AM // 08:44

The one problem I don't agree on is Smite - I mean how bad is something with 22-37 damage a hit? Seeds almost completely negate it, and even if the seed is found and carefully stripped without NR (haha right, that'll happen these days), everybody in the vicinity is healed up already.

As someone mentioned, the only reason we use Elmos in the first place is because they can bring other helpful skills and run them with near infinite energy - even the teambonus that a dedicated drawconner brings is pretty hefty (who needs martyr ?).

Other than that, yeah Natures is to put it mildly, whack. I've been resorting to team arenas simply because the Natures spam is controllable there, and its an interesting alternate metagame (albeit choke full of scrubs even worse than me).

The problem really ends up being a range so huge, with a good spammer you can't even walk in and hope to keep an enchant up - that alone is a bit annoying, but the fact that it for no good reason hits hexes and their cast time too is just queer and seems to remove alot of skills from viability, simply because you can't monkey around casting for 4 seconds.

Guess thats the main problem. Natures Renewal does it all in one - Hex removal, enchant removal and Migraines for everyone using them. Its more like 2 or 3 skills in one.

Xellos · Jul 30, 2005, 01:18 PM // 13:18

Colour Commentary: Skip if you hate long stuff.

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Originally Posted by JasonJLore

ironic isn't it. a couple of months ago rangers were the most worthless professions in GW. . . now they're the most envied because of their ability to spam spirits. i see more rangers now in PvP then ever before. so of course, what's the new prevailing attitude among the envious? why nerf, and nerf some more. next, we will see that the exhaustion times for air eles are increased. or maybe whenever a warrior knocks down a caster he gets penalized 10 dp. oh yes, the days of orwellian nerfing are around the corner - beware if you have the slightest advantage over another.

No they weren't, people just didn't use them in tombs because of all the "abusive" strategies like Air Gank, Smite, a bit of Aftershock, and at the very beginning Warrior Monks.

Personally, I think none of the examples listed even NR is invincible, even including halls. I believe 1v1, 2 equally skilled teams will have equal chance to win, BUT the attacking team vs spirit holding team must be done in such a way that it significantly hinders it vs any other team, which then loses holding power, which then makes it rather useless other then by teams who go "ok I'm tired of xxx noobs holding halls for so long cuz of spirits".

But back on topic, I agree that Anet is very slow on these things, and while I'm not going to upright complain because after all, this game is free, and their probably trying to make an expansion to get more cash, so whatever. But, it'd be very assuring plus markettably effective to show that they understand how to balance out huge issues within a smaller time frame, or at least give some Gaile Gray messages that go "yeah we know NR is teh sux and no one likes 10 min HoH matches where no one dies, and yes we know gvg is the only thing thats worth playing in pvp", I mean, the PVE updates are nice and all, but even then, that's not saying much. From a gamers POV, I see "look kiddies, two more areas too explore, it took the whole damn summer, but we made two more areas for you to underworld/fow again!, not that its suitable for casual players or caters to more then one type of audience!"

But hey, like I said, the great thing about this game, is that ultimately, no one can say they didn't get their bang for their buck. If you stop looking at it like a game that's suppose to entertain you for years and years, it's a damn good deal. Coupled with the fact that you can play it anytime you want, come back to it anytime you want, and you got a better version of D2 and a game a league behind Starcrafts status. Not too shabby for games these days.

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Every time I see a complain it seen to be comming from PvP players

You want me to complain about PVE? Because as a player who plays both and cares about both, I can make a rant thread big enough to fill at least 2 pages alone with 1 post if it's allowed. But hey, my rants would be so insane, they'd have to make a new engine for this already flawed game, because after all, Anet lied during their hypes about guild wars completely. Instance advantages? Where are they? I thought one of the advantages they were going to do is make the world interactable, and since it's instanced, any big changes won't affect other players. So how come my meteor doesn't destroy a wall or even make a crater? Where do I chop down trees and use them as a bridge in case my own bridge falls? This and that, blah blah blah, you realize PVE has PHAILED so badly even PVE players think it sux? Not even suck, like SUX, EBONICS STYLE. That's right folks, even the noobs at GAMEFAQS can figure this one out, and their still using war monks for tombs.

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Alpha testers are simply a cross section of the gaming public - a given alpha tester understands about as much about balance as a random member of the player community. I find it rather disturbing to see such alpha arrogance continue in the face of their own failure to catch serious gameplay imbalances.

Liez, look at how much Alpha guilds dominate GvG......

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making KOR and WAR quit

Ok, WAR, their sorta still around, but I can understand how you killed their core guys, but KOR? Man this is worse then that Bridget thing couple weeks ago Ensign, respect -8 >=(

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What he was saying is that there is really no reason for using anything other than Gladiator's armor for pvp.

Wrong, yeah I know crazy but even I got caught when I fell behind and didn't realize they fixed Knights and now it stacks with Runes (That's if your actually right Ensign). So no, it's the weapon helmet, gladiators everything but knights boots =p ho ho ho.

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Oh, for the record, do you try using Maelstrom to interrupt Stances, too? Winning strategy right there!

Do you take me for a newbie? Obviously it doesn't interrupt stances, it ENDS them =D

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I am going to let you all in on a little secret: The reason why you see the same FoTMs and people running the same thing over and over is because the builds take advantage of people basically not knowing how to play the game. It really is that simple. If you run one of these builds 75% of the people you come up against are going to lose before the match ever even started because they have no idea what to do from the start. Lets look at some examples:

That is a lie, all your examples besides spirits were countered by any real team. Air Gank? Sorry, I can confidently say that I know Air Gank almost like the back of my hand, and even I know there were counters when we started abusing it 2 weeks before the mid-card players started using it. The most important part about Air Gank is the team's skill, when used by very skilled teamwork, it'll be amazing, and it still is to a point. Just that 90% of the players can't be in a team that "clicks".

Smite? No sir, I've seen rangers beat it back when it was unpopular a fair amount of times, the almighty chilblains, and well, sadly, the good Air Gankers never lost to smite teams

, heck, guys like Union can use their GvG build and whoop Smiters in Hoh.

Spirits though? Not so sure. Unlike the other two, no one has figured out a real counter to it in a fairly long time. I said it before but, I think it's counterable, but it has a much higher requirement to beat, and that's just too much advantage in the spirit holders courtyard. You don't want this game to turn "balanced" like Warcraft 3 do you? Where every god damn UD uses fiends, every Hu uses Roffles, Every Orc solo BMs, every NE rushing? That game is basically what GW will look like if this is allowed to continue, instead of a open varietied legend like Starcraft, you get the failed child called Warcraft 3. It's not about "can it be beat" it's about how much it affects meta-game, balance wise, variety wise, everything wise. That is true balance.

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IIRC, cry of frustration has a recharge time that matches oath shot, hence you could keep NR down with it

You know how gimped you'd be as a mesmer staying purely on one target? You can't exactly have that many shutdowners and be considered a well balanced team. Specific teams can beat any "overpowered' strat so far, but that's it. Specific teams. Purely made to whoop that one team off the Dias, provided they can even get there.

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Yeah ... Ensign and Zrave don't know how to play the game They probably know more about the game then most of the devs do.

Not enough to predict the Druids/Gladiator 15k set graphics....err wait..off topic...

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No matter what you do, there is always going to be one skill, or a combination of skills that is going to be over powered. Every game is this way.

I'm being lame, and repetitive, but, Starcraft. Even Boxer can't beat "everyone".

Secondly, some games, well sadly, strive on "lameless" and "overpoweredness". But that's because their goal, their audience, their catered aim, is fueled by that. Lineage 2? WoW? All about character status, you go up to any brainwashed WoW player and ask for PVP balance? Pssh, everyone just brings up times where they "pwn" noobs. No one can even dare say they won organized battle with two nearly equalled teams with one wearing merchant crap while the other has epic crap. Lineage 2? All about graphics baby, and it literally caters to the grind. It's about being lame, about PK, but hey, that has it's satisfactions too, despite what you think.

Guild Wars? Sorry, this game's core design was relatively interpreted by many to be the refined "magic:the gathering" game. Oh wait, it clicks to me now, seeing as how Magic sucks now with all these crazy cards just overlapping each other and making the old ones useless. No wait, Guild Wars didn't even have an expansion, does that mean the game itself makes it's own original "card deck" void before new ones even come out? Woah My God, HAX.

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Obviously someone here got pank ganked multiple times, lacking the common sense it takes to counter it, and thinking it's one of the best tactics there is

I dunno man, PANK seems to still get some wins with ganking...seems to........maybe War Machine fell for it a 5th time?

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way off topic, but statistically, about 60% of all kills in CS and more specifically, CS:S are made either either the AK47 or M4. The rest are primarily the AWP sniper rifle which is basically a golden gun with a scope duck taped to it, the pump shotgun which seems to have rediculously good accuracy at a range, and the Deagle. Unquestionably the best pistol. No one cries imbalance in CS, though, because in a couple rounds, you can save up the cash to quickly buy the same thing. And they do. But if you expect to go off owning with your sub-par scout (which I swear by as a no scope shotty), or with the UMP, you've got another thing coming.

Another thing that differentiates that game from GW is the amount of micro factor or twitch factor involved in that game compared to GW. Does GW have micro/twitch factor? Hell yeah, enough to seperate top 10 to top 20 to top etc etc, but enough to compare with a shooter? Please.

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A.Net needs to drop this Sorrow's Furnace crap and get to what really matters. We don't need another EA that will be explored and dominated in 5 minutes as much as we need fun PvP back. It's long gone.

Silly Weezer, their catering to their PVE/Farmer crowd. It's supposedly much easier then PVP crowd.

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And yes, I have played Starcraft, thank you for adding another perfect example to what I was talking about. How many years has that game been out, with how many patches, and no matter what they did, after each one the map hacks and disconnect hacks ran rampid. If you actually played the game when it first came out you would have saw how balanced it really was not. They still release patches to this day tweaking things in that game here and there.

Hacks have nothing to do with game balance. It's outside interference. That's like saying a Sport is imbalanced because some people take Steroids. WTF?

If you can even read those patches, you'd see almost all the patches since 1.07 or so have no data tweakage. No number adjust. What does this mean? All bug/hack problems, meaning the balance itself is perfect. And it damn sure is. There's a reason the games nearly a decade old and still lives in WCG as a top draw. The game was near balanced within 4 patches, and while that's unrealistic in todays world, it sure is still doable. The only REAL excuse is because Anet seperated from Bnet and also the other seperate group of Flagship Studios. The dream team would come back if all 3 would just get off their asses with get rich quick schemes and make Starcraft 2 for god sakes. But alas, not even they have the balls to try it out, because screwing it up would be like Armageddon.

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I mean, do you iQ guys honestly think that you are original or special in any way? I mean you guys act like you are the only ones who have ever played in a beta of a game and know absolutely everything about it, whereas everyone else is just flat out wrong. I am sorry, beta/alpha testers or not, if I had the choice between of asking some advice about lets say a GvG match from iQ, or asking from a top5 team, I can almost promise it wouldn't be from an iQ person.

Yeah, go ask the top 5 if they still actively play tombs, oh wait no, the first one doesn't even play, Union doesn't play tombs, Sissy Boys has played about one GvG these past weeks and heck even they agree, and uh War Machine knows the two words "Spirit Spam". Sorry, you phailed.

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Signet of humility disables oath shot permanently when supported by other skills (mantra of inscription, quickening zephyr). You don't have to distracting shot his oath shot. I agree, distracting an oath shot would be nearly impossible. I wouldn't recommend trying it.

Doesn't work, debil+more shutdown+Primal Echos > All signets. Course, you can HOPE the spirit teams suck, because hey, let's face it, most of them do, but you'll cry if you face a spirit team that knows what their doing. But meh, most of the players capable either quit or got bored of the game because of it. So sure! The strategy works!

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I've yet to see a team effectively babysit a renewal spammer.

Because none of the players capable want to win in such a boring fashion. Most of them have at least that much integrity.

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Aegis spamming alone can help signifigantly against NR,

Aegis spamming vs Natures Renewel? What? Secondly, you do realize that the build is not meant to kill you, but to stall. Most matches end with a sigil digit number of people dieing. Heck, even if you somehow get past the noobs defenses, they can gank with EoE if your unsuspecting. I mean no ones going to put it down right from the get go unless their so dumb, they don't deserve it what so ever, but yeah. Point being, the thing gives way too big of an advantage.

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If in another month or so NR is still as popular, I can see making it a spell a valid option. As it is now, I still think the more skillful team and not the omg noobs spamming NR build is winning more often than not.

Skill not spell, and yes, I agree, though I already made up my mind, it's still fair to wait half a month to a month. It's definately counterable, but the aftermath of the match will be so pathetic, a 8 man air ele team can whoop you.

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Countering NR does not lead to variety. It leads to mirror matches.

You mean ZPZG vs Union? Their practically the same last I fought em.

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Ensign: I think you're missing the point. The reason the metagame is stagnant is precisely because it isn't moving toward a monoculture. It is precisely the existence of a significant proportion unhardened, non-NR builds that prevent builds from abandoning NR. It is precisely because the metagame is not perfectly efficient that the marginal utility of extra copies of NR exceeds that of extra damage skills in the same slot. As you mentioned, in a hypothetical metagame where every other team runs NR, you'd be best off running an identical build but with damage elements in the skill slots where NR is normally placed. It is precisely the existence of less robust but more powerful builds that retards the advancement of the environment, even though there's really no reason to run these builds over NR builds. From what I've seen and expect, the metagame at any of the ongoing or upcoming tournaments, especially beyond the preliminary rounds, is reflected only poorly in general GvG.

For the benefit of those like me who don't have that big of a vocabularly and do not want to process all that K-D and Mac and get a heart attack, can you simplify it? All I read is that no one's looking for a counter or something among those lines, or that your looking at it from a Rock Paper Scissors effect, where Mirror vs Adapted Mirror and eventually Adapted Mirror takes over then Adapted Adapted Mirror takes over and then Mirror wins again. No man, we don't want to play the meta-game known as Pokemon, where a few teams and builds work simply because there's no way some worm is ever going to beat a overpowered alien even if the type class is in the advantage of the worm. The thing you aren't getting, is that while it doesn't break down balance "you cant beat me" wise, it breaks down balance variety wise, aka "yeah, if you dont use fire, you cant win biatch" I mean come on, even Pokemon has more counters to it's rigged stuff then Guild Wars has to Natures Renewel. POKEMON DAMNIT.

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Wow ... I just read that like 3 times and I'm still not sure what you're trying to say . You should be a politician.

Technically Bush is a politician, and he won based on pure cluelessness and thick-headedness or something. I mean come on, "YOUR EITHER WITH US OR YOUR A TERRORIST"? The man's a saint to get away with that.

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Mmmm. I'm sure they've done nothing else in that time, like all of the stuff they've announced they are working on.

They've announced Grenths basement and Frowny Furnace for about a month. They promised it in summer time for god sakes, summers almost over. Hell it is over sun wise. Fact is, a whole summer nearly dedicated to 2 EAs which probably will give you some puney satisfaction and probably won't create drawing power to casual masses is a dumb idea over balancing PVP or PVE.

Let me be very blunt with this example. If your friends quit guild wars for the reasons this forum has given so far, would you realistically be able to make him play again by going "HEY DUDE, 2 EAS OUT, THEIR SO COOL, LETS GO PLAY AGAIN!"...uhhh NO? I can play WoW or Lineage 2 or something.

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Dont look at balancing as everything is a "nerf or buff". That just skews perception and ultimately makes everything look negative. Look at it as does doing this preserve the diversity of the game(options) while still keeping skills relative to each other in a power check?

I still don't know how you can use a small paragraph to express a couple of pages worth of posts. Your obviously overpowered. Nerf please.

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Someone else also suggested making Nature's Renewal affect enchantments/hexes when it has run full-term (so you can kill it first to avoid that effect), rather than when it is created.

I won't get into suggestion posts because their suggestions, and are technically off topic, but that's a bit silly, you'd need to change NRs duration properties in the first place, or else no ones going to pump wilderness survival, and while it'll help balance it out in a way a bit ( HoHish, but even then..not by much ) so it'll work faster.

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Putrid is an interesting case. iQ started running Putrid Explosion back in the healing ball days as a way to fight Well of the Profane, as it's a fast, no cooldown solution to corpses. Just hit Putrid as soon as something dies, and the corpse will explode before it even hits the ground - no need to worry about Wells or anything else potentially dangerous.

The thing about Putrid, is that while it is broken, it's broken in a smaller extent. It doesn't insta-kill you, nor can 1 necro effectively kill if your not bunched up ( that is not overpowered, since after all you chose to bunch up ), and while it cuts down most skills and completely makes them void like the necrotics and wells, that's a small small selection of skills which only come from necro, while uh, Natures cuts down a giant fat selection of skills.

But, if your getting specific, Putrid is indeed "broken" a bit. Teamed up with EoE, this makes the whole "griefing" strat in HoH very popular, though that is still not broken completely since after all, you can always have the perma rezer fall back with the ghost. It just makes the meta-game at halls fun, and is a very cool "last minute" strategy that can be countered.

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Perhaps you should ask yourself why an iQ tag carries weight to begin with.

Because it's solid gold?

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This is a short video of none other than Charles Ensign himself playing a necro with putrid in a typical iQ tombs run. (It's very short so even slow internet connections should have no problem).

Pssh, No Turbo Key like the SNes? Your joking right? You call yourself a Guild Wars PLAYER? =p

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Putrid Explosion and Fertile Season are only really problems in Tombs and particularly the Hall of Heroes, to be sure. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be addressed. The Hall of Heroes, despite its random nature, is still an incredibly important map - it's the only area of the game that isn't instanced, it's the only source of Celestial Sigils in the game, and success there announces your guild to the entire world. It's not something that should be swept under the rug, balance-wise.

Should be, would be, hey lets look at reality, oh wait, 3rd rate teams can now win HoH, heck, I really think Holy Buddhas gonna win it this time, just needs 3 other people then leave on him, and he'll be fine. Just gotta wait for that golden moment baby.

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Energy denial is the other problem. Thematically it's the strongest disruption in the game, and it's priced far too aggressively compared to the other options available. Granted most other options have been rendered obsolete by Nature's Renewal, but it is something to keep an eye on.

Yeah, even the "elite" mantra of recall is not even in league with Energy Denial. I mean, the supposed elite counter is pathetic vs energy denial, you know that's got to be sad.

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I remember complaining a billion times about it, and the devs kept saying to prove it. Prove how Enchantments are broken and how ER isnt enough. Said something about ER should be used "strategically". This was in the face of iQ and other guilds holding the hall with massive enchantment chains and shutting everything down when NR was bugged. It was after lots of detailed posts on how ER cant counter what its supposed to counter. To this day I have never heard them admit to trying to fix it. So I'm not sure if they really feel like balancing this shit sometimes, if they are just too stubborn and dont want to admit they are wrong, or if they just dont know wtf they are doing. Telling someone to prove something when a quick trip to Tombs or GvG from the beginning of the WPE all the way to the day NR was fixed would have shown anyone what we were talking about was true. Whatever, the balance in this game has gone to shit and I could care less if they are scared of balancing before a major tournament. They've had more than enough time to fix this shit.

Personal interest, was this on the alpha board then or something? If not restricted, link would make my day, I need a good laugh =)

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Melandru's Arrows is ridiculously good but overlooked. The skill is fine.

Yeah, too bad aegis and prot spirit and guardian and all those other enchantments that mostly work by reducing damage doesn't exactly help out the move. Rather, it's not worth the elite slot IMO. Most enchantments are protective, and stuff like Prot Spirit basically negates your power to spike with Melandrus in the first place while Aegis and Guardian force you to Rigor Mortis. Is it a good skill? Yep. Worthy of Elite? Yep. Good enough to be taken over Poison Arrow, Quick Shot, Oath Shot, and some other great ones? Eh, not really. Plus it's a preperation, I'd rather go QS/Kindle for damage over that thing. Not versatile enough for an elite, but too powerful individually to not be. Another tweener. I mean, most enchantments are monk, gotta admit that, so..........................

Anyways end of the gigantic commentary. Hope this doesn't get deleted, or an hour of reading/typing just got keeled >=( over little jokes that didn't intentionally lash out at anyone.

Jul 30, 2005, 07:14 PM // 19:14

MA beats Poison Arrow out badly. For damage it'll break QS if the target is under an enchantment since it can combine with the same buffs except other Preps, and no other prep gives a higher damage bonus than MA.

Guardian and Aegis effect all arrows except Ignite and maybe CG, so it doesnt really make a difference in Ranger Elite bow attacks.

Orochim4ru · Jul 30, 2005, 07:22 PM // 19:22

To everyone who keeps saying healball is invincible, one chillblains topples it.

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I mean, the supposed elite counter is pathetic vs energy denial, you know that's got to be sad.

Its not an elite counter to E denial. Its just a battery of energy for hex flinging mesmers. Illusion/Inspiration in particular will enjoy its added energy. If you're specced in inspiration and are getting E drained, why not use energy drain instead?

I've used it plenty, and its a very useful skill in pve or in pvp when you aren't using anything else from the inspiration line. Signets are counters to E denial. Trying to drop my enegy? oh well, i'll stay with signet of devotion and retain some of my usefulness.

Jul 30, 2005, 07:30 PM // 19:30

Chilblains doesnt beat a healing ball for the 1 millionth time. Their are loads of chaff enchantments and the chances of you pulling off a bond is low.

Phades · Jul 30, 2005, 07:32 PM // 19:32

1 chillblains, no, but 8-16 chillblains every 10s maybe, just like in PvE.

Of course dying like the scarabs that use that strategy wouldnt be the most fun thing ever though.

Orochim4ru · Jul 30, 2005, 07:37 PM // 19:37

Chillblains works VERY well. if you're dropping chaff enchants on each player that means everyone is running some form of chaff to cover up their bonds, because the prot can't drop 16 enchants; if that's the case, their dmg output is severely reduced, and you can still punch a hole in their def by using e-denial to strip ~4 bonds by dropping the prot to 0, or by just linger/spiking him.

Silmor · Jul 30, 2005, 08:12 PM // 20:12

The purpose of a healing ball isn't exactly optimal damage output, now is it?