Curse

Evilsod · Sep 29, 2006, 01:07 AM // 01:07

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Originally Posted by Falconer

This thread has some poor analysis of the skill I've seen yet. And some very poor suggestions.

Your whole frigging post makes no sense!

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The skill right now is already linked intimately to expertise.

Are you sure your talking about the same skill? It looks directly linked to nothing to me. Just because expertise reduces its cost means nothing...

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Furthermore, if you're playing 'energy wars', have you accounted for the fact that the ranger has only 75% the energy regeneration of his target the vast majority of the time. So it's not just '4' energy, it's more like 5 1/3 compared to a monk or mesmer (your typical target). At 5 energy expertise, it's more like 6 2/3, at 6... it's 8 energy equivalent. That should very quickly show that the skill is not usable without extremely high expertise investment (at least 12). I don't feel this is a broken measure by comparing to other raw energy users, because rangers don't have adrenaline to fall back on.

Again, wtf? A ranger having 3 regen means nothing, a Paragon has 2 regen (i didn't even notice and i played one!) and practically NEVER run out of energy if played properly. Either i can't understand because i've had too much alcohol, this sentence makes no sense, or both.

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So given *14* expertise (surge/burn mesmers go for 14 domination I'll point out). You end up spending 4 energy to MAYBE get 10 of the targets. The damage is irrelevant, the skill adds no damage, that ranger will get the bows damage if he fires debil or just fires a normal arrow and saves the energy for something else such as a cripshot. The skill is a 'pure' skill in that aspect. The only purpose to spending energy on/bringing debilitating shot is to attack the targets energy.

If your gonna be comparing things, at least be realistic.... rangers don't run 14 expertise unless trapping.

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Surge/burn on the other hand are dual purpose skills. Much like life siphon and similar, they both debilitate AND damage. Some of the problems with mesmers domination is that they have so many domination skills to attack energy. 80 armor ignoring is not to be shrugged at, especially with surges large AOE. Then don't forget there is a 3rd skill in domination, signet of weariness w/ the same domination spec, AOE with no up front cost and undodgeable since it's a signet. Energy tap/drain suffer from the same problem, they're both denial and management tools, so they often get judged inadequate on both grounds.

Fair enough... domination mesmers run domination skills... what did you expect? A ranger to run pure Wilderness Survival? Its unlinked, course a rangers gonna have a more varied skill bar.

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To give an example of how easily the skill is currently countered. Consider shields up/aegis/guardian none of which are uncommon, blocks 50% of the arrows. If only every other shot is hitting, now you have a circumstance where the ranger with high expertise is spendig 8 for every 10 debilitating, which after regeneration differences are accounted for is more like, 10.67. Spectating iQ in the last tourney you'll notice their cripshot was blinded very quickly every time he tried to go after the enemy monks with debilitating shot. So while in terms of raw potential, yes it can be cause of concern, it's much easier to counter because it is an attack and subject to all the accompanying benefits and weaknesses.

8 and high expertise? Wha??

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Furthermore, we don't see surge/burn mesmers not showing up because this skill is too strong. That lends me to believe that debil rangers aren't out of balance with surge/burn mesmers in the current game. Yes they go do difference purposes in a build, but this is one aspect on which can accomplish similar goals by vastly different means.

Thats what blind is for... SB is a slightly extreme method of countering E-denial in comparison to Blinding Flash.

Bloodied Blade · Sep 29, 2006, 02:21 AM // 02:21

You can blind the ranger using DS and you can block/evade/obstruct. It's even interruptable. You can't block/evade/obstruct a surger, and blinding them is a waste of energy. There are very few ways (comparitively) to stop a surger.

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@Falconer, since it appears that you're replying to me (since I posted figures for pips of e-denial etc.)- You really overshot what I was saying. None of that was ranger energy management. It was all about the amount of e-denial done by spamming DS when it's up. It results in 3 pips exactly (negating travel time of the arrow and animation time). When combined with Oath Shot, it does almost 6 pips of e-denial, fluctuating between 6 and 3 (every 20 seconds it spikes breifly to 6e-denial pips, otherwise it's 3).

Falconer · Sep 29, 2006, 06:38 AM // 06:38

Evilsod: I don't see what you're getting all huffy about... the comment about poor suggestions was directly aimed at the 3..8 marksmanship scrapheap level nerf someone stated w/ no argumentation, no rationale why it should be changed.

During the BWE's long ago, debilitating shot in it's current form was listed as an expertise skill. Dual shot IIRC was listed as marksmanship at the time. The only thing about the skill which has changed since then was it took big huge nerf in recharge (5->10s) and disappeared from common use for a long time. I'll leave it for you to puzzle out why it's attributeless now. (Hint: a lot of prophecies skills were changed to attributeless between the BWE's and release w/o changes to the skill/spell themselves!).

Just because the skill doesn't have a X..Y field does not mean it is not intricately tied to the primary attribute. The skill could read. Pay 10..4 energy to fire an arrow which will remove 10 energy from the target if hits (expertise). The effect would be exactly the same.

Of energy and classes:
Right now there are two common models for energy. 4 pips straight which is what other energy only casters have. And what I like to refer to as the split rail (2 pips plus adrenaline).
Rangers do not have adrenaline and they're the only class which doesn't fit this mold, so you need to compare their costs directly to the 4 pip classes to get a good idea of their balance. Simplified, a 15 energy ranger skill is roughly equivalent to a 10 energy spell after expertise reductions and energy normalization for balance purposes. Normalized most ranger skills are roughly 3-4, 6-7, 10'ish, or 15'ish cost compared to other energy only classes.

Of expertise and domination:
14 is fairly common breakpoint for rangers packing 10 energy skills. Not only trappers. If you have a cripshot running 15.. he's still over that breakpoint, just as a dom mesmer running 15 has invested more in the attribute than he needs to get the maximum effect out of surge/burn/SoW. The point is it illustrates roughly equivalent levels of attribute investment.

Of domination:
Debilitating shot does one thing and one thing only. You spend energy to maybe remove more energy from the target, you get the damage no matter what you do provided you fire an arrow any arrow. Current domination skills are 'half' skills in comparison. Half of their effect is the energy denial, the other halve is something extra. If we had a domination skill which was in effect, spend X energy, remove Y energy from target foe and that's it. Then it better be roughly equivalent to the mold of savage shot/power leak.

Actually here we do, signet of weariness (often paired with mantra of inscriptions). Which is a spend 0 to remove 8 from foe and nearby unavoidable (net 8 to net 6 for debil). It's on a 30s recharge, which makes sense... if you consider nearby to hit 3 people (2 AOE grades over single target)... that's 24 energy lost, for 0 energy cost.. every 30s. Even at only two targets hit, they're roughly equivalent (16net every 32s, vs. 12net every 24s)

Surge/burners don't simply hit a target with surge/burn to debilitate their energy, they do it for damage as well. Sometimes surge/burners hit a target not to debilitate it, but to spike it for the kill (they're after the armor ignoring damage). Sometimes they hit the target to debilitate it, knowing the damage is inconsequential and will simply be mopped up by heal party. Sometimes, they can use the skill for both reasons at the same time. It's a half skill. The arguments I'm seeing for nerfs are based on the balancing of the half skills, the reason I feel it necessary to point this out. Not only that they simply can't be blocked/evaded/blinded... but because they are fundamentally different skills.

Bloodied Blade:
No not quite. It's actually less than 3 pips. Because lets say we have a shortbow, 2s firing time, 10s recharge. The actual cycle time is more like 12s. At 12s, it's only 2.5 pips denial roughly provided you never miss and hit it religiously. This puts the skill not too far above other skills such as malaise.

If you're out to debilitate a target heavily... then there's always oath*-echo*/debil/SQ which used to be common. In fact, that combo would commonly also include Signet of Weariness back when pure energy denial was running rampant. Oath shot, took a signficant nerf in terms of using it to fast cycle already faster cycling skills when it recently had it's recharge changed from 20->25s.

To me the real question for many skills and not just Debil Shot is this. How much of a premium do they recieve for being piggybacked on 'attacks'. Because attacks are some of the easiest to counter. Right now the game is predominated with warrior hate (which by extension is also largely ranger hate), just how effective is debil shot going to be when you have a me/elly tossing blinding surge every 3-4s and zapping anyone wielding a melee/bow/spear he can see? Lets put this in another vein, why can I savage shot every 5.5s, but only power spike every 12.25?

some guy · Sep 29, 2006, 08:37 AM // 08:37

4 rangers shooting at you=basicaly you are dead.

lennymon · Sep 29, 2006, 05:53 PM // 17:53

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Originally Posted by Evilsod

If your gonna be comparing things, at least be realistic.... rangers don't run 14 expertise unless trapping.

I do it frequently, I run 16 for cripshot as well as my standard pve build (spike/interrupt) ...and touch... but admittedly thats not 14. And someday I promise to run 14 expertise instead of 12 on my trapper build

oh by the way, your post was very lucid Evilsod, so Im gonna have to go with, its not the alcohol, its the sentence

MelechRic · Sep 29, 2006, 09:52 PM // 21:52

Ah... I pine for the days of the 5 energy DS. I used to spam that bugger in RA all the time. Every caster I met either ended up cursing me or crying for a nerf.

Anyway... I don't see a need for a change. Sure, it's potent when 4 rangers use it on a single target, but the same can be said for a lot of other skills.

Evilsod · Sep 29, 2006, 10:13 PM // 22:13

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Originally Posted by lennymon

I do it frequently, I run 16 for cripshot as well as my standard pve build (spike/interrupt) ...and touch... but admittedly thats not 14. And someday I promise to run 14 expertise instead of 12 on my trapper build

oh by the way, your post was very lucid Evilsod, so Im gonna have to go with, its not the alcohol, its the sentence

Now ask yourself, why do you run 16 Expertise? Running 16 Expertise means you MUST use a major along with the sup expertise just to reach the 8second breakpoint in Cripshot. If you don't have 8 seconds... why are you using it? You may aswell play like a Snarling Driftwood (and how would ever want that.... they suck!) with the awesome 2/3 second cripple. If your gonna run Cripshot as elite... you might aswell at least make it the highest it could be.

Just because it costs less to spam doesn't mean you'll be in range all the time or even need to reuse it. Apply Poison covers it for a reason. Running 16 expertise just limits you doing anything else. Running 11 expertise 14 marks (think its 12 WS) has been working fine for me, no need to overly spam Cripshot.

And i'm pretty sure it was the alcohol...

mathijn · Sep 29, 2006, 11:46 PM // 23:46

16 expertise rocks^^

DS+echo is also very funny with 16 expertise

Linkusmax · Sep 30, 2006, 01:47 AM // 01:47

Cripshots usually 13-14 expertise.

dgb · Sep 30, 2006, 02:58 AM // 02:58

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Originally Posted by Evilsod

You do realise if they put this skill on a sliding scale with Marksmanship you'd only end up with rangers running 16 Marksmanship and Seeking Arrows maybe with Practiced Stance, so you'd be even more screwed than before since now you can't block/evade the arrow either.

And that's exactly the point. If they want to do that they can, good for them. Then they can't afford to do everything else. That's a perfectly acceptible solution to me, rangers can do energy denial but they actually have to sacrifice something for it.

Black Ops Ranger · Sep 30, 2006, 03:41 AM // 03:41

Its an good skill, the reason it isn't nerfed is b/c not many people use it

dgb · Sep 30, 2006, 03:59 AM // 03:59

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Originally Posted by Black Ops Ranger

Its an good skill, the reason it isn't nerfed is b/c not many people use it

Watch observer mode much? Every ranger in GVG has it.