Curse

Reverend Dr · May 24, 2009, 09:02 PM // 21:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

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

Tourney play has never been a bastion of 'balanced.' Ladder play often saw balanced being used on non-smurf as the safety card; though with the very common smurf guild running non-'balanced', person preference may dictate whether one would regard that as a 'balance' dominated meta or a non-'balanced' dominated meta.

The large complaint about the high variance builds is the combination of high effective cap and low skill requirement. This boils down to the increased lethality and speed of the game leaving much less room for error in trying to topple one of these builds. Losing in a game is never fun, but it is much easier to accept if you felt you had a 'fighting chance.' Mostly due to the speed that the game went back then, but against QZ/Panic denial, searing thump, old B-spikes, r-spikes, rifts spike we always had the feeling of a fighting chance; we could make small mistakes and it wouldn't cost the game immediately. At which point I am not sure (sometime around Nightfall I suppose), this feeling changed and the high variance builds stopped giving people the thought of a fighting chance.

This isn't an argument from a 'game balance' standpoint, but from a game standpoint. The game has to be fun for everyone, not just those on top. When these types of high variance builds dominate the entire middle of the ladder (everyone just below the competitive level), the entire middle of the ladder disappears (which it did). Now I'm not trying to justify all of the bitching about high variance that has occurred over the years, as some of it has been just people trying to shape the game to their desires, but the loss of the feeling of 'we could have won that' or 'if we had just' or 'if we go again' makes the game frustrating and leads to more complaining.

DreamWind · May 24, 2009, 09:41 PM // 21:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

The large complaint about the high variance builds is the combination of high effective cap and low skill requirement.

Unfortunately that is the way the game has to work. It is designed that way. A lot of people want Guild Wars to be like chess, when it can never be like that. It can be like Magic the Gathering though. Unfortunately in MTG there are decks that require more skill to play and others that require less, but everybody still goes to the tournament, and the better players inevitably still end up winning (usually with the harder to play decks).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

The game has to be fun for everyone, not just those on top. When these types of high variance builds dominate the entire middle of the ladder (everyone just below the competitive level), the entire middle of the ladder disappears (which it did).

I think the high varience builds ARE what make it fun for everyone. If everybody had to use "balanced" builds, nobody would play this game. There needs to be a healthy metagame for a healthy game. The game is currently very shallow.

Also, the middle of the ladder did mostly disappear, but I believe it is for reasons other than you are suggesting.

FoxBat · May 24, 2009, 09:56 PM // 21:56

The middle of the ladder disappeared around ATs, not nightfall.

Jeydra · May 25, 2009, 11:25 AM // 11:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by xDementia

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?

Two things ...

I think some ~75% of Lingering Curse's effectiveness comes from the -20% health healed clause. Without that it is almost just a glorified Suffering. What's more, its damage abilities as you outlined them cloud the fact that that damage is dealt in degen, which is patently inferior to straight out damage. Compare Rotting Flesh: if you get everyone with this skill you're going to deal more than Lingering, but it doesn't make Rotting Flesh overpowered.

The other thing is that the nerf to Lingering wasn't insignificant at all. 33% -> 20% is very major. 13% of the health healed from Patient Spirit is, what, 15++? If that is minor then you can reasonably argue you don't need 14 Healing Prayers because the 18-point difference between 11-spec Patient and 9-spec Patient is insignificant. Although it is a good point that two of the most important tools that reduced Lingering's effectiveness have been nerfed (PnH, Kaolai).

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

Well if you're going to spike, Lingering as an elite is patently inferior to Pain of Disenchantment (that's why pre-nerf A/P spike ran that right?), while if you're going to split then Lingering is inferior to Weaken Knees (more degen, opponent can't simply run away). So I think it's fair to say that Lingering Curse is inferior when it comes to anything other than pressure, when it is wicked.

I agree the Lingering Curse bar is very strong, I'm just not convinced it is fully overpowered. Reading what you write, it seems more reasonable that the overpowered skill is Defile Defenses, if it is overpowered at all.

I think yours is a lot better an argument for why Lingering is overpowered (the template, anyway) than what Vanq wrote, but I'm still not convinced.

aubray1741 · May 25, 2009, 11:09 PM // 23:09

I want Bloodspam to vanish.

Also, every Nature Ritual besides Favorable Winds is useless outside of gimmicky builds like RTLspike or IWAY. They need a complete overhaul.

Seraphim of Chaos · May 26, 2009, 01:55 AM // 01:55

i think that they should buff IW even moar so that it does 60 damage a hit and procs on sundering

JR · May 26, 2009, 01:43 PM // 13:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by aubray1741

Also, every Nature Ritual besides Favorable Winds is useless outside of gimmicky builds like RTLspike or IWAY. They need a complete overhaul.

...and Favorable Winds is useless outside of Ranger Spike.

I Angra I · May 26, 2009, 06:03 PM // 18:03

someone should start a betting pool for which 1/3 of problem skills are going to be completely avoided for the next update, like what happened in this one.

Xyon the Greatest · May 26, 2009, 11:52 PM // 23:52

I wanna see some more variety in builds, because commonly if you go to RA and you see a certain profession, you sometimes instantly know what they are running.

ensoriki · May 31, 2009, 11:26 AM // 11:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xyon the Greatest

I wanna see some more variety in builds, because commonly if you go to RA and you see a certain profession, you sometimes instantly know what they are running.

That would require more work than the balance team is willing to do at this moment (or the boss is allowing them to do, I dunno).
It would also require more than 5 skills being buffed/nerfed so that psychologically people think theres a lot more stuff to try out (even if the skillsn't haven't been changed a lot), which lead's to a temporary (unless it's done really well) spike in variety.