May (sigh) Skill Balance Thread

[Neo-LD]

Originally Posted by Ec]-[oMaN

I guess they missed the correlation between what makes bad skills/templates for the game, buff after buff, and nerf after nerf. They finally tone down the thing they buffed, yet leave other similarities alone on other characters/skills/templates.

I'n not surprised, given the dev update page. Anyone else read that? Apparently WE was nerfed to "encourage different types of weapons," and Koala was nerfed to "make other forms of party healing viable."

Hold on, need to go vomit again.

[Ec]-[oMaN]

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

I'n not surprised, given the dev update page. Anyone else read that? Apparently WE was nerfed to "encourage different types of weapons," and Koala was nerfed to "make other forms of party healing viable."

Hold on, need to go vomit again.

Yea I read it over, thankfully it was a small update as to continue reading the Dev reasons for skill changes encourages head smashing on keyboard.

"After changing Warrior's Endurance to be a skill last year, we have observed a trend towards Warriors using only one weapon type over their other options. We've changed the skill back to a stance to encourage a more diverse spread of viable builds in all three weapon types associated with Warriors"

Even though they mention weapons it still relates to build types as a whole, right now we have all three going cripslash, hammer builds, various axe templates...
Oh hey, I think they've stumbled upon something here after 4 years. You balance things to a power level that tries to make a "medium" among other skills, which hopefully promotes different templates to be utilized. Instead of buffing things to levels where if you don't run that template you will most likely lose. Maybe they should try that one out regarding Mind Blast... Or problematic skills as a whole. That way the playerbase can alter the meta if they choose, but all skills need to at least be close to this concept of power level.

[Vanquisher]

Honestly casters need to be looked at as a whole. Mesmers are defined by two roles - either hex dom thanks to VoR, that bypasses the other sort of Mesmer which focuses heavily on interrupts. There's the odd E-Surge floating around, but that's for spike damage, not disruption/denial, because Power Leak is that on crack. The insanely ridiculous power interrupts have at the moment thanks to shortening of recharge timers and just generally awesome effects has led to any 2 casts just being completely off the table (well, Mesmer and Ranger interrupts, both of which are just ridiculous).

I still don't agree with Diversions functionality after 4 years and its current state of balance. I'm not the biggest fan of fast cast/recharge sets because they put an awful lot down to luck and chance (cast especially, recharge wouldn't be anywhere near as bad in comparison) but that would require an entire item overhaul which I don't see happening.

Map specific builds are still as problematic as ever and honestly, the only way to fix this is a selection of 6 and random from there on in (would you really want to put it up to chance that you'll get through tournaments if you're in the better guilds?)

People complain about Blood spike but I really don't think it's that much of a problem. I'm more concerned (still) with stuff like Prot Strike that, as we've seen forever, fast activation followups lend themselves to spike.

Hammer quarterknocks are pretty silly too. The rate at which KD's can be thrown around is one of the reasons Gale was destroyed, and here the problem has manifested itself but only requiring one character. Cool.

Ele's need to be looked at, so do Necros, though Necros are pretty junky in general, knocking about between ridiculous and just not good enough.

I'm enjoying matches at the moment, but there are deep lying issues that really need to be addressed.

[InfestedHydralisk]

mind blast alone is not worth enough to nerf, the thing that makes distortion eles so power is actually all the +energy skills combined that give you an unlimited amount of energy

[Krill]

Originally Posted by Ec]-[oMaN

Maybe they should try that one out regarding Mind Blast... Or problematic skills as a whole.[/IMG]

I don't think the problem with PR / WE and Mind Blast are comparable. The strength elites overshadowed everything else making it pointless to run the usual axe / sword elites (which were perfectly fine), Mind Blast is really the only skill eles have for an offense oriented build. If it's nerfed, what do eles have to fall back on besides maybe a Shatterstone splitter?

The same argument could be made about sins and dervs which are basically limited to palm and wounding strike because all their other elites are terrible or have a very limited use. So the question is how to make a variety of builds viable...although I'm sure a lot of people are perfectly happy with sins / dervs / paras / rits out of the meta for the most part and don't ever want to see them forced back in with skill buffing.

[Ec]-[oMaN]

Arienrhode, I'm sure you've read Ensigns thread on why nuking sux, not so much any more, and it's only viable on that Mind Blast bar, oh how far we've come. You can make the argument about any other class, especially paragons/sins/dervs, the problems lye within their makeup as a whole each attribute actually has nothing balanced, and most of them share a few attributes lines where you stack certain things because really they're one dimensional overall, and the current skills they posses if buffed also just fuel and build upon their strength one dimension and become problematic. There is no clear definite role they play, besides providing abusive skill mechanics overall making GW faultier. Hell Anet still can't seem to balance Core professions nor see why and how they work, why dip into the others. Lots of work is needed.

[Apok Omen]

Originally Posted by Vanquisher

Honestly casters need to be looked at as a whole. Mesmers are defined by two roles - either hex dom thanks to VoR, that bypasses the other sort of Mesmer which focuses heavily on interrupts. There's the odd E-Surge floating around, but that's for spike damage, not disruption/denial, because Power Leak is that on crack. The insanely ridiculous power interrupts have at the moment thanks to shortening of recharge timers and just generally awesome effects has led to any 2 casts just being completely off the table (well, Mesmer and Ranger interrupts, both of which are just ridiculous).

The interrupt thing is ironic. Anet wanted interrupts to better reward those who used them correctly, but reducing the recharge just made them more spammable. I never had a problem with interrupt recharges; in fact, the long recharge made the reward that much more rare and skill-based.

I still don't agree with Diversions functionality after 4 years and its current state of balance. I'm not the biggest fan of fast cast/recharge sets because they put an awful lot down to luck and chance (cast especially, recharge wouldn't be anywhere near as bad in comparison) but that would require an entire item overhaul which I don't see happening.

I have a problem with both. Again, recharge is put there in order to balance the power of the skill. When that resriction is tampered with, skill level goes down. Also, it wouldn't be that hard to get rid of the inscriptions.

Map specific builds are still as problematic as ever and honestly, the only way to fix this is a selection of 6 and random from there on in (would you really want to put it up to chance that you'll get through tournaments if you're in the better guilds?)

So, you would tell the competitors the 6 maps that they will have to play on but not tell them which ones they will be matched with?

People complain about Blood spike but I really don't think it's that much of a problem. I'm more concerned (still) with stuff like Prot Strike that, as we've seen forever, fast activation followups lend themselves to spike.

Bspike was never a problem (except for when Dpact was buffed) Bad players that had terrible interrupters complained and got their way.

Hammer quarterknocks are pretty silly too. The rate at which KD's can be thrown around is one of the reasons Gale was destroyed, and here the problem has manifested itself but only requiring one character. Cool.

At least Ham KD's rely on if you hit the target or not. Gale was nerfed because of the fact that Wars could spam it for free and never worry about their energy dropping below 10

Ele's need to be looked at, so do Necros, though Necros are pretty junky in general, knocking about between ridiculous and just not good enough.

Necros should never have been a possibility for balanced builds. Their court is Hexway. As for ele's, the only skill I have a problem with is MB.

I'm enjoying matches at the moment, but there are deep lying issues that really need to be addressed.

I agree. Matches are more balanced and the variety is aplenty, but there are still plenty of problems that should be touched.

I love how they never really gave a reason for reworking Aegis. All they said was how much of a problem it was, but never explained why. I'm not complaining bout the reworking tho; It's amazing in HA now and would've been completely unnecessary in GvG.

[Jeydra]

Originally Posted by Vanquisher

As for Lingering - it's still spammable, it still lasts a long time, it's still a pretty large AE, it's still low cost, and the only change that happened was lowering its healing reduction from 33% -> 20%, while also nerfing the recharge of a form of party healing, and increasing the recharge of the only hex removal that can even hope to try and keep up with it. While PnH remains ridiculously balanced, it doesn't change the fact that Lingering is still out of whack.

If something can outpressure balance, it must be overpowered.

True / false?

[Ec]-[oMaN]

Originally Posted by Apok Omen

I love how they never really gave a reason for reworking Aegis. All they said was how much of a problem it was, but never explained why. I'm not complaining bout the reworking tho; It's amazing in HA now and would've been completely unnecessary in GvG.

Thing is DF nor any other guild in the top20 at that time had problems with;
aegis
ward melee
lod
d anthem
b surge
shields up when it blocked everything

Hell the guild I was in was top15 at that time with the most defense GW has ever seen. It was simply another meta of the times. All I've seen recently is a ridiculous buff to power, and then a toning down to defence while power is relatively the same, disregarding WOH.
Things died, people split, games were won, before 28mins.... so what's the problem? Sry kiddies the amount of shutdown compared to a year and a half a ago has dwendled into 25% at best.

[scruffy]

getting rid of aegis like that may have been a bit clunky but it did improve monks imo, instead of having a skill thats a 1 skill wonder to deal with everything but splits they have to choose what they want to be strong against now which leads to more build variation, strategies and fun

[Vanquisher]

Originally Posted by Jeydra

If something can outpressure balance, it must be overpowered.

True / false?

Stupid assumption of the point that is being made. Lingering is still ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Ec]-[oman

Thing is DF nor any other guild in the top20 at that time had problems with;
aegis
ward melee
lod
d anthem
b surge
shields up when it blocked everything

Hell the guild I was in was top15 at that time with the most defense GW has ever seen. It was simply another meta of the times. All I've seen recently is a ridiculous buff to power, and then a toning down to defence while power is relatively the same, disregarding WOH.
Things died, people split, games were won, before 28mins.... so what's the problem? Sry kiddies the amount of shutdown compared to a year and a half a ago has dwendled into 25% at best.

Aegis, Ward Melee, D-Anthem, and Shield's Up in tandem were incredibly problematic. Especially coupled with armour buffs from Watch Yourself, Stand Your Ground, or whatever else. However, the bigger problem was the lack of split effectiveness that has resulted ever since Nightfall came out. Unremovable weapon spells/Shield of Regen and non-active base turtling, as opposed to someone with a very interruptable Blind prior to Nightfall, brought this on more than anything. All the skills listed above have problems with their range and that should be the way to go about beating them. Another problem they had (particularly Ward) was their effect on Allies, rather than just party members, but that was always a simple fix.

But back then healing wasn't as ridiculous as it is now either.

Originally Posted by feanor

getting rid of aegis like that may have been a bit clunky but it did improve monks imo, instead of having a skill thats a 1 skill wonder to deal with everything but splits they have to choose what they want to be strong against now which leads to more build variation, strategies and fun

The Aegis change was bad and not needed in the slightest. It's just another change that promotes slugfests.

[Burton2000]

Originally Posted by Vanquisher

However, the bigger problem was the lack of split effectiveness that has resulted ever since Nightfall came out.

I dunno with nightfall came a huge power increase to many split skills like natural stride and mending touch so I think generally the power of defence and attack on split has stayed reasonably balanced (except sin split meta).

But because of the power creep splitting is alot different from what it used to be like in factions/prophecies. Base defenders need skills like weapon of warding/shield of regen to deal with the huge power that split has now instead of taking blinding flash and snares .

What it all boils down to is the power creep of nightfall and this point has been made many times before but theres nothing we can do about it.

[Vanquisher]

Originally Posted by Burton2000

What it all boils down to is the power creep of nightfall and this point has been made many times before but theres nothing we can do about it.

I'd contest that. You're right it all boils down to the power creep that's been cited so many times it's ridiculous, but what we can do is continue to shout about it and hope it gets changed.

In terms of Mind Blast the problem is that Ele's are now in a position where they can actually output a decent amount of damage. While that could be viewed as a good thing, it's just too good. It's one of the issues that casters in this game just have. Ease of shutdown, predominantly via interrupts (in the case of Ele's) as their damage and effects are balance more by cost and cast time than anything else, have directed them away from use at the Flag Stand. The fact that you can't run anything with a 2 cast without running something like Resolve or having Fast Cast surely demonstrates a problem area.

Likewise the consistent reduction in terms of defensive measures (Ward Melee, Aegis) without real attention being paid towards the effectiveness Warriors have in terms of damage output just screams that something's wrong.

[Jeydra]

Originally Posted by Vanquisher

Stupid assumption of the point that is being made. Lingering is still ridiculous.

It's meant to be "ridiculous" because it's part of a pressure build. In return it neither spikes well nor splits well, and compared to its pre-nerf version it is no longer a huge amount of pressure coming from one character. What's your point?

You are claiming Lingering ridiculous because PnH and co. can no longer keep up with it. But then again, if PnH could keep up with Lingering, where then is pressure? You can't pressure out the other team anymore because their Monks / removal are supercharged and can remove all your Lingerings npnp. And that's with a dedicated pressure skill.

If you want to convince me that Lingering is still overpowered, you'll have to advance other arguments. Based only on this one, it seems to me that your answer to the question I posed is "true", you just don't want to admit it.

[Tamuril elansar]

i'd like monk bars to chance.
imo patient spirit is overpowered, it gives a very big heal for only 5 energy and its 1/4 cast time.

[Snow Bunny]

Originally Posted by Tamuril elansar

i'd like monk bars to chance.
imo patient spirit is overpowered, it gives a very big heal for only 5 energy and its 1/4 cast time.

Don't nerf healing right now. If you're going to nerf something, nerf Para buffs or Lingering Curse, but the PnH nerf coupled with the WoH nerf means that hex pressure is pretty strong.

[xDementia]

Originally Posted by Jeydra

It's meant to be "ridiculous" because it's part of a pressure build. In return it neither spikes well nor splits well, and compared to its pre-nerf version it is no longer a huge amount of pressure coming from one character. What's your point?

You are claiming Lingering ridiculous because PnH and co. can no longer keep up with it. But then again, if PnH could keep up with Lingering, where then is pressure? You can't pressure out the other team anymore because their Monks / removal are supercharged and can remove all your Lingerings npnp. And that's with a dedicated pressure skill.

If you want to convince me that Lingering is still overpowered, you'll have to advance other arguments. Based only on this one, it seems to me that your answer to the question I posed is "true", you just don't want to admit it.

You only need to have a look at it to figure out how overpowered it is:

5e 1s 10r

For something that has a huge aoe, lasts too long, does 168 dmg to a single target for only 5 energy if it isn't removed... it has the potential to deal over 1300 dmg to a full team. Of course if it was just pure damage people would think about it twice before sacrificing their elite for something with no utility but it's not the case as it still causes 20% healing reduction... 20% + 20% from deep wound and you reach the cap of 40% reduction anyway.

If you can admit it was overpowered before when people had a lot more party healing than they do now and with old aegis, how can't you admit it is not overpowered after an insignificant nerf when everything that was reducing its effectiveness has been toned down?

[Ensign]

Bickering over individual skills misses the point. Fundamentally the issue boils down to the game being sufficiently shallow that there isn't much room for reaction to high variance characters, and that the lethality / speed of the game, combined with tactics maturing and skill power creep, have really locked the game into 8 people going to the stand and beating each other up, with the team that wins there winning the match.

Lack of tactics gives robust, low variance builds less tools to deal with high variance fragile builds; lack of depth keeps high variance builds from blowing each other up. All high variance builds end up getting nerfed because they upset the people who want to play 'balanced', and the cycle becomes self-perpetuating.

'balanced' being the dominant build is a sign of an unhealthy metagame.

[Phe Belladona]

why would you think LC cant split well? faint and lingering is excellent when facing either a few melee or pressuring their defense wile you can send a ranger away. also defile allows it to contribute to a spiked target for 114 damage assuming the conditions are met and with many stance monks around thats usually the case, not to mention plague sending a deep wound after the initial dw has been removed can kill the low target.

the LC bar is very strong why would you say otherwise?

oh and the damage that was just mentioned isnt even taking into account the -20% on heals which is effectively causing damage as the bars arent going up as high as they should.

[Shmanka]

Originally Posted by arienrhode

I don't think the problem with PR / WE and Mind Blast are comparable. The strength elites overshadowed everything else making it pointless to run the usual axe / sword elites (which were perfectly fine), Mind Blast is really the only skill eles have for an offense oriented build. If it's nerfed, what do eles have to fall back on besides maybe a Shatterstone splitter?

Explain to me why elementalists should deal massive amounts of damage?

This is a cross class problem that has creeped up from every additional game being applied. For some reason in NF, Mesmers were allowed to deal massive damage, along with rangers, and 2 brand new professions that made others look like jokes.

Why? The utility of the character in certain areas just died. Who wanted to run good midline when you can spam Searing Flames? Does anyone remember all these kinds of problems until Factions came out?

Everyone thinks the problems we currently face have simple solutions, here is the fact: These problems have been rooting underneath our feet since Factions was implemented.

I've debated this on these forums, and others since the day that game came out, and ruined the stable methods which all the guild halls, and abilities of all the characters were outclassed by another profession.

ANet juts has to keep slapping band-aids on every single little problem until they realize that something super dramatic has to be done in order to save whatever is left of the pvp world.

Like honestly, what was ANet thinking when they introduce campaigns with more skills then the previous? More skills the better? Really? It's like extending the Chess board to have 30+ pieces, this isn't gonna make anything better or exciting, it was just horrible, absolutely horrible marketing gimmicks that made this game get flushed down the toilet.

The only way I see some kind of balance at this stage of the game is to just make every single Assasin, Ritualist, Dervish, and Paragon skills bad beyond belief in pvp so no one would ever run it. Then derive back to the kind of balance between warriors dealing damage, rangers being utility, mesmers being shutdown, elementalists being control, necromancers casting hate, and monks red bars up. Which the game was originally balanced on...