Curse

Lanier · Nov 19, 2011, 03:38 AM // 03:38

Or just buff paragon's normally and give other profs more counters to shouts and chants. Every class has some useless skills - some of these skills could be made useful by being shout/chant removal skills.

Also, I should probably point out that rit weapon spells are unstrippable and are not OP for the most part. In fact, many are well balanced.

Kunder · Nov 19, 2011, 03:48 AM // 03:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

"Stand Your Ground!"/"Fall Back!"/"Incoming!"/"Never Surrender!"/"Never Give Up!"/"Can't Touch This!"
"GFTE!"

That wouldn't work because they aren't the problem, the echoes/finales/chants were. If you're on Fall Back! you aren't stationary, so you don't get the SYG bonus. We saw this with Invoke spike E/Ps that only used SYG+FB.

Finales/echoes I already said remove completely, and Chants are included under the "only 1 party-wide effect rule" to begin with. So yeah, it would work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

Or just buff paragon's normally and give other profs more counters to shouts and chants. Every class has some useless skills - some of these skills could be made useful by being shout/chant removal skills.

Also, I should probably point out that rit weapon spells are unstrippable and are not OP for the most part. In fact, many are well balanced.

Hard counters to specific classes are dumb. All it does is encourage build wars where players are gambling skill slots to risk automatic wins.

As for Weapon Spells vs Shouts...

Rit weapon spells:

- Have a cast time (= interruptable)
- Generally have a higher cost or lower effect than other strippable protection.
- Can only have 1 at a time.
- Are single target.

Paragon shouts:

- Have 0 cast time in the majority of powerful ones.
- Have either adren cost or a fairly low energy cost (and paragons have infinite energy generation).
- Can stack as many as you like.
- Are mostly party-wide.

Don't try to compare the two.

HigherMinion · Nov 19, 2011, 04:26 AM // 04:26

here you go, update vocal minority: hexed foe cannot shout/chant or be the target of a shout/chant. yw

Well of Silence already exists, anyway.

EDIT: New suggestion; make Dazed condition give shouts and chants a +1s casting time!

LifeInfusion · Nov 19, 2011, 04:56 AM // 04:56

It wouldn't work because shouts aren't the problem:i.e. you're making paragons weaker than they have to be.

Make daze+ spell interrupts work on chants ala power drain. There's a start

Beguiling Haze/Skull crack could disable all paragon shouts/chants/echoes if it hits a shouting/chanting/echo-ing target.

Shroud of Silence could make shouts and chants shut up.

Or tweak bleeding to work with ulcerous lungs... bleed = shouts have a cast time.

Otyugh's Cry could be useful and remove shouts.

Primal Echoes could work on echoes.

Screaming Shot could remove chants/echoes.

Lanier · Nov 19, 2011, 05:20 AM // 05:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

Hard counters to specific classes are dumb. All it does is encourage build wars where players are gambling skill slots to risk automatic wins.

As for Weapon Spells vs Shouts...

Rit weapon spells:

- Have a cast time (= interruptable)
- Generally have a higher cost or lower effect than other strippable protection.
- Can only have 1 at a time.
- Are single target.

Paragon shouts:

- Have 0 cast time in the majority of powerful ones.
- Have either adren cost or a fairly low energy cost (and paragons have infinite energy generation).
- Can stack as many as you like.
- Are mostly party-wide.

Don't try to compare the two.

Hard counters to specific classes are just fine. There's nothing "dumb" about it, and it would allow anet to buff shouts/chants without everyone whining about then being OP due to their unstripability.

Para chants can also be interrupted. While shouts can't be, I don't see why anet can't start adding casting times to them. Also, there are some shouts that are single-target, and iv been arguing for awhile that more shouts should be turned into targeted shouts. Same goes for chants. So yes, I will compare the two of them. I'm not talking about how chants/shouts are now, i'm talking about how they would be in an ideal update. An ideal update imo would be one in which chants/shouts were made to be more similar to weapon spells/enchantments, particularly chants which already have a casting time anyway.

HigherMinion · Nov 19, 2011, 05:22 AM // 05:22

to be honest i think all shouts should affect everyone. they're not called "whispers". elite shouts should even affect enemies in a negative way.

Lanier · Nov 19, 2011, 06:01 AM // 06:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

to be honest i think all shouts should affect everyone. they're not called "whispers". elite shouts should even affect enemies in a negative way.

While this would make sense from a realistic or practical standpoint, it also makes balancing very tough. I would be fully in support of this normally... but I'm afraid it will lead to more bitching by the pvpers, complaining about another update that overpowers another prof. Balance is much easier if shouts/chants are made more similar to enchantments/weapon spells, except with their own counters and their own skills that are designed to synergize with them (echos).

Essence Snow · Nov 19, 2011, 04:22 PM // 16:22

To all that say shouts are OP b/c they are uninteruptable and unstrippable. They are simply different not OP. One only needs to prep for them via anti shout/chant measures....ie...vocal minority...well of silence...cacaophony...heck blind/blurred vison will shut down a para. It's not hard to counter these things. One just needs to take premptive action instead of reactive measures. Anyone that plays a para knows how badly these shut paras down. I am more of the opinion that ppl simply do not want to bring said skills in their bars.

Lanier · Nov 19, 2011, 05:55 PM // 17:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

I am more of the opinion that ppl simply do not want to bring said skills in their bars.

Maybe thats the case. I was only suggesting chant/shout removal to shut up those people who were whining that shouts/chants shouldnt be buffed because they would be OP due to being unstrippable.

Kelvin Greyheart · Nov 19, 2011, 05:55 PM // 17:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

To all that say shouts are OP b/c they are uninteruptable and unstrippable. They are simply different not OP. One only needs to prep for them via anti shout/chant measures....ie...vocal minority...well of silence...cacaophony...heck blind/blurred vison will shut down a para. It's not hard to counter these things. One just needs to take premptive action instead of reactive measures. Anyone that plays a para knows how badly these shut paras down. I am more of the opinion that ppl simply do not want to bring said skills in their bars.

People don't want to bring them because they are completely useless otherwise. If the other team is not running shouts, you then may as well have dead skills on your bar.

A game like Magic The Gathering can get away with effects that practically require a specific hard counter, or set of counters, because you have a sideboard and can tweak your deck between matches to prevent metagaming. You can also get away with having some cards, like Torpor Orb, that have extremely limited uses because you aren't forced to throw them in the deck for every matchup. Guild wars cannot because there isn't anything like a sideboard mechanic. As such it has dozens of effects that must be useless by necessity.

Any time you are FORCED to bring a skill to counteract some other effect, especially when that skill has next to zero use otherwise, you run into problems. Either you end up running sub optimal builds much of the time, or you end up playing an enormous game of rock paper scissors where the winner is largely favored before the match even starts.

The problem with shouts isn't that they cannot be countered, it's that the counters for them are so narrow in focus that they essentially have no other use, and as such you take a big risk bringing them. Furthermore, many of the counters are hard counters, meaning that if you do have them shouts are next to useless. It is far easier to just make shouts suck from a balance perspective than it is to bring them to any appreciable power level. You can simply make it so they do not see play, or you can try to balance them, and make counters actually have some use if you aren't facing shouts.

Remember, the best skills are seldom the ones that specifically ruin a particular strategy or excel in one area, but rather the ones that are universally useful, even when they are eclipsed by other, more limited, skills in specific areas.

OT, awaiting paragon rework. Put the imba out of it's misery already.

LifeInfusion · Nov 19, 2011, 06:07 PM // 18:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

To all that say shouts are OP b/c they are uninteruptable and unstrippable. They are simply different not OP. One only needs to prep for them via anti shout/chant measures....ie...vocal minority...well of silence...cacaophony...heck blind/blurred vison will shut down a para. It's not hard to counter these things. One just needs to take premptive action instead of reactive measures. Anyone that plays a para knows how badly these shut paras down. I am more of the opinion that ppl simply do not want to bring said skills in their bars.

Blurred/blind do nothing to energy based shouts/chants. All it does is reduce spear DPS and adrenaline for GFTE/Anthem of Envy/"The Power Is Yours!". Chorus of Restoration/Energizing Chorus was only used in multi-paragon teams.

Vocal minority is ridiculously niche and easily countered by hex removal. Well of silence needs a kill so you can't reliably use it in PvP. Cacophony is garbage in PvE and nearly useless against shouts/chants that aren't spammed such as SYG , Defensive Anthem, Zealous Anthem, Song of Restoration, or FallBack!. It'd be like using Backfire on a Dervish.

There's a ton of things that make spells easy to interrupt: daze, migraine, arcane conundrum, Confusing Images, Frustration, etc.

The question we have to ponder is this: what makes shouts so imbalanced? They existed before Paragons. Fall Back/Incoming = Charge. Never surrender/never give up aren't that powerful.

So SYG+GFTE is to blame? I think it's more echoes/finales/chants (defensive anthem comes to mind along with Chorus of Restoration+Finale of restoration multi-paragon teams). If SYG is to blame, nerf it like WY!, make it end after 10 attacks (or if more generous, 10 attack skills).

I think chants need to have no aftercast regardless. Motivation is plain stupid on a paragon, with aftercast on chants.

Essence Snow · Nov 19, 2011, 06:30 PM // 18:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Blurred/blind do nothing to energy based shouts/chants. All it does is reduce spear DPS and adrenaline for GFTE/Anthem of Envy/"The Power Is Yours!". Chorus of Restoration/Energizing Chorus was only used in multi-paragon teams.

Vocal minority is ridiculously niche and easily countered by hex removal. Well of silence needs a kill so you can't reliably use it in PvP. Cacophony is garbage in PvE and nearly useless against shouts/chants that aren't spammed such as SYG , Defensive Anthem, Zealous Anthem, Song of Restoration, or FallBack!. It'd be like using Backfire on a Dervish.

There's a ton of things that make spells easy to interrupt: daze, migraine, arcane conundrum, Confusing Images, Frustration, etc.

Blind/blurred hinder a para's e-management...thus do affect energy based shouts/chants to an extent.

Any hex is easily countered by hex removal...that's why ppl use cover hexes.

Basically.....there's a chance that you might face anything....ie....blind wont help if your facing casters.....daze won't hinder physicals...a blocking skill is useless unless someone is hitting you. Everything is situational.

There are also plenty of anti-interupt preperation skills so that spells wont be interrupted.

Kunder · Nov 19, 2011, 07:46 PM // 19:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Blind/blurred hinder a para's e-management...thus do affect energy based shouts/chants to an extent.

Only inasmuch as infinite energy / 2 is less than infinite energy. Paragons can still easily spam energy shouts no problem in most cases.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Any hex is easily countered by hex removal...that's why ppl use cover hexes.

So if we make it so paragons HAVE to be hexed to not be godmode, then we also FORCE every team to play hexway? Yeah that makes for great build diversity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Basically.....there's a chance that you might face anything....ie....blind wont help if your facing casters.....daze won't hinder physicals...a blocking skill is useless unless someone is hitting you. Everything is situational.

Blind and daze both work against a full half of the professions. Anti shout is essentially useless against 9/10.

Essence Snow · Nov 19, 2011, 08:18 PM // 20:18

lol para=godmode unless vs hexway? really?

anti-shout=1 skill out of many...is it really that horrid to take 1 skill? It's not like one has to devote an entire bar to counter shout/chants.

Xenomortis · Nov 19, 2011, 08:31 PM // 20:31

A single hex like Vocal Minority is trivial to remove. To get long hexes like that to stick you need to overload the enemy's removal and a single character isn't going to accomplish that.
And promoting the hard counter concept isn't exactly great.

HigherMinion · Nov 19, 2011, 09:19 PM // 21:19

Vocal Minority is also AoE, and large AoE range at that. It's not going to be easy to remove them all without some lolwtf hex removal.

Kunder · Nov 19, 2011, 10:30 PM // 22:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Vocal Minority is also AoE, and large AoE range at that. It's not going to be easy to remove them all without some lolwtf hex removal.

Mid AoE range, and since when was it hard for paragons to spread out?

Xenomortis · Nov 19, 2011, 10:36 PM // 22:36

The AoE counts for nothing.

Flame A · Dec 18, 2011, 08:50 PM // 20:50

I had this funny idea about a leadership fix.
The problem is that paras get energy the more people are effected by their shouts. So big party= OP paragon small party=useless paragon. Thats the main problem. Thats why Anet doesnt buff them because paraway would be OP.

Solution:simple. Paragons get MORE powerful the more people they effect. Its really exponential, they get more energy back AND more allies benefit.The beneficial effect of more allies is EXPONENTIAL. So INVERT the leadership mechanic. Make paragons LOSE more energy the more allies are effected. Then the leadership trait would lessen the extra energy lost per ally. So when para is soloing, shouts get super cheap and para is not useless, and when para goes paraway, shouts cost so much they cant spam and are not OP.

Ive been playing with a paragon Main since NF came out. And the paragon issue really bugs me its so annoying to have your 20+ titlemaxed main as a broken class, I wanna max HoM so I gotta keep playing with it.

Swingline · Dec 19, 2011, 09:03 AM // 09:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flame A

I had this funny idea about a leadership fix.
The problem is that paras get energy the more people are effected by their shouts. So big party= OP paragon small party=useless paragon. Thats the main problem. Thats why Anet doesnt buff them because paraway would be OP.

Solution:simple. Paragons get MORE powerful the more people they effect. Its really exponential, they get more energy back AND more allies benefit.The beneficial effect of more allies is EXPONENTIAL. So INVERT the leadership mechanic. Make paragons LOSE more energy the more allies are effected. Then the leadership trait would lessen the extra energy lost per ally. So when para is soloing, shouts get super cheap and para is not useless, and when para goes paraway, shouts cost so much they cant spam and are not OP.

Ive been playing with a paragon Main since NF came out. And the paragon issue really bugs me its so annoying to have your 20+ titlemaxed main as a broken class, I wanna max HoM so I gotta keep playing with it.

Leadership has to give something to Paragons, not take it away. Having 1 professions primary negative while all the others are positive would take consistency away from the professions. The Paragon is highly dependent upon leadership since it only has 2 pips of energy regeneration so the best thing to do is switch how it gives energy. Here are a couple of deas...

Leadership: For every 5 ranks in Leadership you gain +1 energy regeneration(5 seconds) and +1 energy when an ally is affected by one of your shouts or chants. 5 Second cooldown

Leadership: For every rank in Leadership your shouts and chants base energy cost is reduced by 4%. For every 8 ranks you get +1 energy regeneration.