Curse

Nekretaal · Jun 01, 2007, 08:23 PM // 20:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

I think its more the combined power of Rift with Knockdowns/Snares. Rift isn't exactly weak... (see Ritualist Bosses). Unlike the other *after 3 second* skills its not hex, so theres no way of knowing immediately.

Theres an GIANT GLOWING ORB! This is not a subtle!! It is no difficulty to recognize the flashy graphic and move three feet in 3 seconds.

FoxBat · Jun 01, 2007, 08:40 PM // 20:40

An armor nerf is *exactly* what the paragon needs. All his motivation party-heals can then be pushed back up and have a chance of being used outside of all-paragon teams. (Well, as long as soldier's defense is also hit.) The only reason they got nerfed in the first place was that medicore party healing becomes pretty awesome with no 60-AL characters to keep up.

Evilsod, all your posts are about PvE because you both demonstrate complete lack of PvP knowledge and an unwillingness to actually read the posts by good players that you comment on. For example I'm not sure it has occurred to you yet that BHA is basically a touch skill in PvP, or that Ensign was actually proposing a buff to concussion shot.

master of cookies · Jun 01, 2007, 08:45 PM // 20:45

Quote:

*ADD*

Shout and Weapon Removal spells to the mesmer line

Thinking on a reality level here, u cant remove what someone has said thats quite impossible but maybe a skill to deafen people like 'deafening ears' or something to stop shouts being effective? afterall a paragons main counter is ulcerous lungs or well of silence so we take out necros first and try to interrupt them so a different counter would be to deafen others.

Evilsod · Jun 01, 2007, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nekretaal

Theres an GIANT GLOWING ORB! This is not a subtle!! It is no difficulty to recognize the flashy graphic and move three feet in 3 seconds.

Your knocked down and your monks are oblivious to that fact!

Quote:

Evilsod, all your posts are about PvE because you both demonstrate complete lack of PvP knowledge and an unwillingness to actually read the posts by good players that you comment on. For example I'm not sure it has occurred to you yet that BHA is basically a touch skill in PvP, or that Ensign was actually proposing a buff to concussion shot.

Funny, i remember seeing BHA distinctly been used at long range too while observing PnH once. And where the hell was the buff to Concussion Shot in reducing its duration by half? Sadly i didn't have time to read through every single post in the thread, so stfu, something tells me you may have skipped over every single post in a thread once or twice.

Priest Of Sin · Jun 01, 2007, 08:54 PM // 20:54

No energy from minions and spirits? Honestly, did you actually read that as you typed it? It would DESTROY necromancers! SR is one of their biggest strengths, and just because the PvP scene is abusing it doesn't mean that the PvE scene needs to be punished. Minion Masters, which once were unstoppable gods at the end of missions, are now merely support. 10 minion limit, 1/2 energy? It's insulting. If a person can control death, don't you think he'd be able to control more than 10 undead idiots? Anet doesn't take PvE into consideration when they do half the crap they do (see also: ele nerf), and it really makes this game frustrating.

To the PvP crowd: All your builds revolve around abusing skills.

l2p, /rant.

Ensign · Jun 01, 2007, 11:08 PM // 23:08

I'll reply to this in as much as I do PvE, and the PvE splash damage is worth talking about for any set of changes. Limited to the changes that will have any lasting impact:

The Searing Flames change breaks up Searing Flames packs. They'll still be good because AoE is good, but not a clear 'best build' anymore. Single and dual SF Eles are much more attractive.

The Soul Reaping bit I changed in the other thread because I didn't want to qualify it - put back to 'spirits and minions that aren't your own' to avoid controversy. In practice, I'd like to see it removed from spirits and minions entirely, and the costs of minion skills to drop a bit to compensate: 15 for Fiends, 5-10 for most others. That set of changes is more elegant, and smooths out the character a bit more by lowering startup costs, while making the energy tighter when maintaining at the cap. Either one is a clear buff to PvE Necros.

Most hex nerfs I expect to be a buff in PvE, as those skills are more commonly used on players than by them.

The armor nerf on Paragons is mostly fluff, they aren't tanks and never grab aggro that breaks. They'll take a bit more damage from AoE hits but that's it. SYG is a meaningful nerf (from 33% damage reduction to 25%) but the skill is still awesome in PvE where nothing moves. GftE hurts energy but not damage. The rest don't matter, Defensive Anthem isn't used in PvE and the Finales are only good in Paragon packs.

Broadhead is still ridiculous against enemies that don't ever dodge it.

Ritualists get a net buff from spike skills turning into pressure skills, as spike isn't exactly relevant in PvE.

The Watch Yourself nerf is mostly cosmetic for a PvE Warrior. You charge adrenaline fast enough and it lasts long enough at high Tactics that you weren't hitting it on recharge anyway. It hurts the low spec WY by dropping the uptime. The armor reduction is similarly trivial at high spec, but significant at low spec.

Overall the only big changes to PvE from this are to Searing Flames (nerf to packs, buff to singles) and the big Soul Reaping restoration. Everything else is noise that doesn't really matter.

Peace,
-CxE

Evilsod · Jun 02, 2007, 12:27 AM // 00:27

They don't try to dodge it, that doesn't mean to say it still manages to happen sometimes, especially with the speed boost in HM. If it can't be up constantly i really don't see how its worthy of been an elite and theres no way in hell either would be worth there energy costs if that happened. i'd much rather have BHA changed to the nearby thing and have the duration on both left alone.

Diddy bow · Jun 02, 2007, 12:27 AM // 00:27

I Dont see why shadow prison needs any more nerfage or Bls, its just other skills need buffs.

dunno about derv

Rust nerf? why?

Remove SR from spirits yes but not minions may as well just delete any minion spells.

Nerfing the paragons few good skills is bad imo. I dont agree with any of those nerfs...

The Ranger nefs are just uneccecary imo

/agree with rit nerfage

Dunno about warrior but fear me isnt that bad and nerfing Watch yourself just because its to good for paragons cant be right.

For the most part i do see where the nerfs are coming from. But just because somthing warretns alot of usage deosnt mean its needs a nerf i think. Lets face it if anything creative is good, sooner or later its the metagame (Like Roa and even using pets for iway :S).

Dutch Masterr · Jun 02, 2007, 01:11 AM // 01:11

Ehhh....in my opinion most of your nerf ideas are kind of pointless.

I think Shadow Prison should be changed to a half-ranged spell, other than that...im fine with the skills.

Im definatley against changing Steady Stance to 10 second recharge...it would be a complete waste of a skill slot then.

And, why may i ask should paragon armor be reduced....of all things?

placebo overdose · Jun 02, 2007, 01:42 AM // 01:42

ok as far as wars i agree with the fear me it is too strong now but with WY why not make it so paras only get nrg from para shouts/chants(WY is the only shout i can think of they could use as well)
as for para armor maybe 70 al +10 vrs physical like wars

clawofcrimson · Jun 02, 2007, 06:58 AM // 06:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The armor nerf on Paragons is mostly fluff, they aren't tanks and never grab aggro that breaks. They'll take a bit more damage from AoE hits but that's it. SYG is a meaningful nerf (from 33% damage reduction to 25%) but the skill is still awesome in PvE where nothing moves. GftE hurts energy but not damage. The rest don't matter, Defensive Anthem isn't used in PvE and the Finales are only good in Paragon packs.

The Watch Yourself nerf is mostly cosmetic for a PvE Warrior. You charge adrenaline fast enough and it lasts long enough at high Tactics that you weren't hitting it on recharge anyway. It hurts the low spec WY by dropping the uptime. The armor reduction is similarly trivial at high spec, but significant at low spec.

Overall the only big changes to PvE from this are to Searing Flames (nerf to packs, buff to singles) and the big Soul Reaping restoration. Everything else is noise that doesn't really matter.

Peace,
-CxE

Most pve'ers will not advocate 'any' nerfing to any skills. so explaining why the changes are needed would be nice.

I dont mind the paragon armour change so much, but I like placebos variation..making it vs. phys- I think diddy bow hit it right on... the class only has a miniscule percentage of skills that actually work well. And many of those skills (Aggressive refrain, Gfte, SyG) were subject to your adjusting.

...I still think mechanic changes (like limiting the number of proff. on a gvg/ha team) would be a better option for adjusting.

I think WyS might be an acceptable change.. all things considered.

SF looks like it may need a toning up.

Dr Strangelove · Jun 02, 2007, 07:23 AM // 07:23

In terms of PvE, the only thing that seems to do much is the BHA nerf. A lot of people rely on BHA hero rangers in hard mode, since heroes kinda suck at prioritizing interrupts and other shutdown skill.

Paragons are a sticky situation. Personally, I love the crap out of them in PvE. It's like splashing a half monk into the team from the added prot, or like tossing half an orders necro into a build. The other half conveniently kills things. I think their lack of popularity stems from builds in PvE being made on an individual basis.Thus, a class that's based on syngergizing with other classes has trouble finding a niche, unless you're running the insanely overpowered passive protection stuff.

Everything else doesn't matter, although you might want to expand the SR nerf to include pets just so we don't have to see IWAY coming back in any way, shape, or form.

Perfected Shadow · Jun 02, 2007, 07:58 AM // 07:58

/disagree with ALL nerfs... Just buff the crappy skills, so there'd be useful alternatives to the skills that you want nerfed. Buffing creates less disagreements and complaints.

Honestly, if you've been using something that worked really well and it got nerfed, you would be pissed. Imagine that it happened to you multiple times...
It's how A-Net acquired the title 'A-Nerf'.

*casts [skill=text]Frigid Armor[/skill]

Hyper Cutter · Jun 02, 2007, 09:56 PM // 21:56

I agree with whoever said make BHA like Junundu Seige and not work at close range. The huge arc on it does the rest...

Ensign · Jun 02, 2007, 11:08 PM // 23:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

In terms of PvE, the only thing that seems to do much is the BHA nerf. A lot of people rely on BHA hero rangers in hard mode, since heroes kinda suck at prioritizing interrupts and other shutdown skill.

They're terrible with BHA too. I think the heroes think it's +damage or something, they fire it at pretty much anything in sight. Oooh, Warrior charging, BHA! OH YEAH BABY!

But at least you can bulldog them onto whatever caster you want with BHA and get pretty hard shutdown.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perfected Shadow

/disagree with ALL nerfs... Just buff the crappy skills

This argument is very common from the PvE side of things, where all people are really concerned about is power creep...namely, their power creep. It's worth explaining why 'buff everything' isn't a valid mechanism for achieving real game balance.

There are two really fundamental concerns.

First is that there defining game parameters that you have no control over whatsoever - the players themselves. Human beings have limits on reaction time and awareness, amongst other things. On top of that you have some technological barriers, like network ping. In short, things aren't infinitely scalable. You can only have so much going on in a game before it becomes impossible for players to understand what is going on and make reasonable decisions. Similarly, your game can only go so fast before it becomes impossible for players to react to events in game. You can design with those in mind to an extent, to have events go down that can't be reacted to, or situations that are too overwhelming to understand while they're going on and descend into chaos. But those are design decisions. When certain effects make the game move too quickly, or become too large scale, those need to be toned down to make the game something people can process again.

The other, and perhaps more central to why you can't just buff everything, is because there are concepts of pacing and magnitude. Essentially, every game is made up of a series of plays, of varying lengths and importance, and the sum of those plays over the course of the game determines the winner or loser. In general, the lower the power level of individual plays, the slower the game tends to play (as each player gets to make more plays before a critical mass is achieved), the less important each individual play ends up being (which tends to even out overall skilled play over the course of a game), the less swingy the game is, and the more interesting the game ends up being as a competitive strategy medium overall.

That means that regardless of overall balance, there is an idea of 'this *game* is too powerful' - meaning that the power level is sufficiently high that the game is swingy, individual plays are too important, and there isn't enough time to really explore strategy. The game starts to play more like RPS than RTS, and people lose interest. It is impossible to buff and buff skills to achieve this sort of balance when the problem is each individual skill choice carrying more weight than its application once in game. The entire system needs to be slowed down in those cases, the weight of each skill choice and usage lowered, so that execution can reassert itself as the main determinant of wins and losses.

Peace,
-CxE

Coloneh · Jun 03, 2007, 01:21 AM // 01:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Priest Of Sin

No energy from minions and spirits? Honestly, did you actually read that as you typed it? It would DESTROY necromancers! SR is one of their biggest strengths, and just because the PvP scene is abusing it doesn't mean that the PvE scene needs to be punished. Minion Masters, which once were unstoppable gods at the end of missions, are now merely support. 10 minion limit, 1/2 energy? It's insulting. If a person can control death, don't you think he'd be able to control more than 10 undead idiots? Anet doesn't take PvE into consideration when they do half the crap they do (see also: ele nerf), and it really makes this game frustrating.

To the PvP crowd: All your builds revolve around abusing skills.

l2p, /rant.

do you know what soul reaping does now? this change would be great. gaining energy every 5 seconds is useless. MMs arent the only build necros can play, its one of the weaker builds actually. idiotic MMs constantly getting soul reaping nerfed for the entire class hurts every necro that wasnt causing unbalance. Nerfing it to only effect MMs is an excellent idea.

Turbobusa · Jun 03, 2007, 09:36 AM // 09:36

on the soul reaping note, i'd say that this is a good change if its "no energy from minions and spirits you aren't controlling", with the removal of the timer.

hexes duration should be capped at 20secs, it wouldn't hurt pve much and its a big issue in pvp, so why not?

Paragon, I don't know.
Searing flames, hell yeah!! nerf, this make pve so easy it ain't fun.
About WY and GFTE, why not 5, then 6 if paragons continue to have unlimited energy?
I agree with the previous posters who said you can move away from the rifts, it works the same as AOEs like tenai's heat, should we nerf it too? I dont think its necessary.

Div · Jun 03, 2007, 02:37 PM // 14:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

...Because paragons need to be made more useless in PvE...

Is there actually a point at which ANet would ever think "ok, balancing this class for PvP made this class completely unplayable in PvE, perhaps we should try to fix it for PvE?"...I'm thinking not somehow...just seems like a shame.

I note, however, that then a PvPer comes to troll a PvE thread no mods ever furiously delete PvP related posts.

Paragons are "useless" in PvE because it doesn't fit into the cookie cutter builds of pure tanking, heal/prot, or massive damage. Similar to the hundreds of threads that say how mesmers are really good but underrated in PvE, paragons are the same way. Even after nerfs to their skills, they are still very powerful and viable in PvE, just underrated.

Anet does think about the PvE side of things. If it weren't for their considerations of PvE'rs complaining about nerfs because everyone likes power creeping, they probably would've already balanced some of these skills.

If you're referring to me or Ensign or something coming over to "troll" a PvE thread, then you should learn the definition of trolling. We're merely trying to explain things from the PvE point of view too. And I heard Ensign recently did hard mode Deep (upper-tier PvE), making him super-qualified to talk about PvE

I'm sure if PvE'rs have qualifications like being respectable in GvG/HA/HB/TA and post in the PvP forums, their posts wouldn't be deleted either. What the mods don't want is a bunch of fact-less accusations from PvE'rs who understand very little about how PvP works. Similarly, if PvP'rs have little experience in PvE and post here, I'm sure those posts will be heavily moderated too.

And before anyone posts, I suggest they read all of Ensign's comments and replies, because he answers a lot of the silly questions in a pretty clear manner.

Tiyuri · Jun 03, 2007, 02:52 PM // 14:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Priest Of Sin

l2p

You are bad at Guild Wars.

leeky baby · Jun 03, 2007, 03:01 PM // 15:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vermilion K

The weapons spells advantage is that they can't be removed. Why ruin it?
As for the Shouts removal, there are Necro hexes that just don't let Shouts happen.

I think there should be a removal for everything, vital weapon is stupid that they can run around with 150+ health and not be able to be removed...

Ino vocal minority, well of silance but, these dont remove the shouts which are alrdy on the target...