Curse

soulraiden · Feb 11, 2009, 11:02 PM // 23:02

Assassin:
rework the skill synergy.
IMHO is better to change "This must follow a lead/off-hand/dual attack" in "if this attack follow a lead/off-hand/dual attack then".
Low recharge and low damage for every attack skill.

Ritualist:
Spawning Power must give bonus to ashes.

Monk:
Kill woh.

For the other class(ranger, monk, warrior, ipno, sometime necro and ele), limit the skill compression, or debuff the skill so when a skill do only a thing, it do much better of one that do more things.

Jeydra · Feb 11, 2009, 11:32 PM // 23:32

@Mitch -

Come up with a build. Right now build variety hardly exists, yes, but the changes you propose are simply going to make it worse, for example:

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTALMITCH

Mirror Of Ice and Pain of Disenchantment aren't build variety, they only support 1 specific type of build, now I have no problem with spiking as a playstyle, but it shouldn't be superior to every other playstyle, and skills like these, and other forms of damage compression and enchantment ignoring skills are what make them so powerful.

You say you have no problems with spiking as a playstyle. OK, personally I don't have any problems with it either. But by nerfing Mirror of Ice and Pain of Disenchantment, let me ask you - how do you propose to make a dedicated spike build that can still get spikes through? Since you say toning these skills down will increase the number of options available, then exhibit a spike build that would work after the nerfs. As far as I can tell you're simply nerfing dedicated spike builds to the ground.

Examples of some changes I would like to see, restricting myself to only changing the energy costs, cooldown and cast times (since Polly wrote elsewhere these things are easy to change):

Glimmering Mark cooldown 10 seconds -> 5 seconds
Corrupt Enchantment cooldown 10 seconds -> 8 seconds
Peace and Harmony cast time 1/4 seconds -> 3/4 seconds
Peace and Harmony recharge 7 seconds -> 10 seconds
Burning Arrow cooldown 5 seconds -> 7 seconds
Incendiary Arrows cooldown 5 seconds -> 4 seconds
Zealous Benediction cooldown 4 seconds -> 3 seconds
Price of Failure energy cost 15 -> 10
Rend Enchantments cast time 1 second -> 2 seconds
Foul Feast cooldown 2 seconds -> 6 seconds
Shield of Deflection cooldown 10 seconds -> 8 seconds
Chain Lightning cast time 3 seconds -> 2 seconds
Glimmer of Light cooldown 1 second -> 0 seconds

There're lots more changes I would like to see, and lots of things I can't tweak with energy / cooldown / cast time (eg. I think Glimmer of Light should heal the same as WoH with Healing Prayers, or 122 health @ 14 Healing Prayers; I would make Lightning Hammer cause Cracked Armor; I would make Peace and Harmony remove 3 hexes at most, etc). The changes I've listed leave turret Rangers almost unchanged, but then it's not a comprehensive list, so yeah. Hopefully changes along these lines will bring new and old skills back into play.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Feb 12, 2009, 12:11 AM // 00:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

@Mitch -

Come up with a build.

2 Warriors, Poison Ranger, Dom Mesmer, Bsurge
2 Warriors, Poison Ranger, Dom Mesmer, Water Ele
3 Warriors, Poison Ranger, Dom Mesmer
2 Warriors, Poison Ranger, Dom Mesmer, Paragon
2 Warriors, 2 Paragons, Dom Mesmer
2 Warriors, 2 split Eles, Poison ranger
Do I need to continue?

Plus all of these builds can pretty much run whatever flagger they want (Though it will most likely be a Rt/A, Mo/X, E/Mo or E/Rt)

Quote:

Right now build variety hardly exists, yes, but the changes you propose are simply going to make it worse

Build variety right now is basically limited to:
2 Warriors, 2 Rangers (either 2 turrets or 1 turret + 1 poison), Bsurge E/Rt, 2 Monks (Mo/W), Rit runner
2 Warriors, 1 Turret Ranger, Rt/N, 1 Mindshock Ele or Water Me/E, 2 Monks (Mo/W), Rit runner

Running anything else is pretty much gimping yourself.

Quote:

You say you have no problems with spiking as a playstyle. OK, personally I don't have any problems with it either. But by nerfing Mirror of Ice and Pain of Disenchantment, let me ask you - how do you propose to make a dedicated spike build that can still get spikes through? Since you say toning these skills down will increase the number of options available, then exhibit a spike build that would work after the nerfs. As far as I can tell you're simply nerfing dedicated spike builds to the ground.

People will have to bring more offensive skills and less defense skills in order to get kills, if there's a bunch of decent skills and 1 or 2 that completely outshine them, then the existence of those skills makes the decent skills less viable.

As much as it pains me to agree with him, I actually quite liked how samcobra put it on teamquitter forums. He wrote something like: If skills are very powerful, player skill will play a smaller role in the outcome of matches, if skills are weaker, player skill will be more important.

A.net even claimed on the box that Guild Wars was supposed to be about skill. Skills being so powerful is the main reason people can win with 'heroway'.

Quote:

Examples of some changes I would like to see, restricting myself to only changing the energy costs, cooldown and cast times (since Polly wrote elsewhere these things are easy to change):

I think you fail to realise that as long as a skill has a powerful enough effect, the recharge, and energy cost don't matter that much (burning arrow from your examples), conversely if a skill sucks (glimmering mark from your examples) no changes to the energy cost and recharge are going to bring it into play).

The problem is buffing is a lot harder than buffing, it's much easier to determine a skill is too strong than to predict wether a skill will become too strong in a new meta that you might not be able to accurately predict.

It's no surprise that after every huge elite buff izzy does, he spends the next few months cleaning up a lot of the mess the big elite update made. Now occassionally this leads to interesting, well rounded skills (Melandru's Shot is the only one that really comes to mind atm, and even that one is arguably overpowered) but usually it just leads to overpowered crap that begs to be abused (Lingering Curse, Mark of Insecurity, Expert's Dexterity, Primal Rage, Warrior's Endurance, etc.).

Jeydra · Feb 12, 2009, 12:53 AM // 00:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTALMITCH

2 Warriors, Poison Ranger, Dom Mesmer, Bsurge
2 Warriors, Poison Ranger, Dom Mesmer, Water Ele
3 Warriors, Poison Ranger, Dom Mesmer
2 Warriors, Poison Ranger, Dom Mesmer, Paragon
2 Warriors, 2 Paragons, Dom Mesmer
2 Warriors, 2 split Eles, Poison ranger
Do I need to continue?

2 Warriors, 1 Ranger, 1 Dom Mes and 1 defensive midline is pretty common right now, so I don't think you've changed anything. The builds with the Paragons would be (relatively) new, especially after the last mAT served up a grand total of 0 Paragon skills used. The ones with two split Elementalists relatively new as well. But look again at the builds you gave. All of them, bar the one with split Elementalists, are pressure-based builds capable of executing a spike. You've removed (or seriously limited) dedicated spike builds like the one [NOW] ran in the last mAT, Kappaspike, etc. I'm not convinced this is a good idea. Maybe you don't like defensive spike, but is there a reason why it should not exist at all?

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTALMITCH

I think you fail to realise that as long as a skill has a powerful enough effect, the recharge, and energy cost don't matter that much (burning arrow from your examples), conversely if a skill sucks (glimmering mark from your examples) no changes to the energy cost and recharge are going to bring it into play).

The problem is buffing is a lot harder than buffing, it's much easier to determine a skill is too strong than to predict wether a skill will become too strong in a new meta that you might not be able to accurately predict.

I disagree. If Burning Arrow gets nerfed from 5 second cooldown to 20 second, it would disappear entirely. if Glimmering Mark goes from 10 second cooldown to 0, it would suddenly see play (the skill does a couple of hundred damage for 10 energy). Therefore I think it is possible to balance skills, at least partially, using only the energy cost / cast time / recharge, although this seems rather out of the point.

Very much agree though that buffing skills can lead to changes in the meta that are unpredictable. Doesn't mean skills shouldn't be buffed though, yes?

scruffy · Feb 12, 2009, 01:13 AM // 01:13

obviously mitch wasnt talking about burning arrow, but if you need an example look at meteor shower, coupled with glyph sac its long cast time doesnt matter

also there are things like 40/40 sets that turn skills like diversion + shame into monsters

if a skill is strong enough people will find a way to use and abuse it

if turret rangers get nerfed, and ancestors rage finally gets sorted out i feel like GW could be in a really nice spot with some decent builds becoming the meta, and actually having a few choices.

oh and youre retarded for saying pure spike builds wont exist just because some imba shit gets balanced, all you need is 5 casters with high damage spells to all press their skills at the same time and then play defense in between and bam you have a pure defense spike

off the top of my head i can think of 6 rits holding pot was kaolai, warding, channeled strike + caretakers charge

Le Just · Feb 12, 2009, 01:15 AM // 01:15

Agreed on most of the changes Mitch suggested, though i think the task becomes rly tricky when it comes down to pary healing and more generally dealing with pressure.

If pwk was the only source of party healing in the game then it would probably be not that much an issue.

The pb is that you can build up so many skills that will just make pressure-based types of play inefficient. When you have life, recup, 2 copies of kaolai/wow, aegises and/or stances everywhere and a busrge/water mesmer in a build, there is no way the pressure you put will eventually overcome so much defense -unless you use broken skills like lingering curse.

Tbh, i think there are just too many skills in GW1 to find a relevant solution. Nerf something, and ppl will just come up with another build that stacks as much defense and/or compress dmg.

Besides, given the frequency of the updates, i dont see how you can even come close to something balanced. It would require small but regular adjustments -like every week or so- to balance the game. And certainly not some random buffings then tiny nerfs once a month...

Jeydra · Feb 12, 2009, 02:05 AM // 02:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by scruffy

obviously mitch wasnt talking about burning arrow, but if you need an example look at meteor shower, coupled with glyph sac its long cast time doesnt matter

also there are things like 40/40 sets that turn skills like diversion + shame into monsters

if a skill is strong enough people will find a way to use and abuse it

if turret rangers get nerfed, and ancestors rage finally gets sorted out i feel like GW could be in a really nice spot with some decent builds becoming the meta, and actually having a few choices.

oh and youre retarded for saying pure spike builds wont exist just because some imba shit gets balanced, all you need is 5 casters with high damage spells to all press their skills at the same time and then play defense in between and bam you have a pure defense spike

off the top of my head i can think of 6 rits holding pot was kaolai, warding, channeled strike + caretakers charge

Glyph Sac + Meteor Shower in GvG is a VoD farm build. I haven't seen it since VoD was removed. Glyph Sac + Meteor Shower doesn't show up in any other kind of PvP except AB, when it is entirely reliant on landing Assassin's Promise to be useful. So of course casting time matters. Would you use WoH if it were 3-second cast? Heck, Rend Enchants used to be 3-second cast. Nobody used it then, even though you could always Glyph Sac + Rend Enchants. Why? I think Mitch was talking about recharge as well, which also matters for obvious reasons. Would you use Burning Arrow if it had 20-second recharge? What about WoH? LoD was overpowered at 5 recharge but now it is 10 and nobody uses it. Of course recharge matters.

As for the 6-Rit spike, I haven't seen anything remotely close to that on Obs lately. The last time I saw something similar was when Worst Prepared Team In Guild [Wars] ran it, and their spike was based off Spirit Rift + Gust. Still the spike is quite managable without splitting (Lightning shields, watch for Spirit Rift animation, interrupt Spirit Rift's 2-second cast, etc). Caster spike is pretty dead the last time I looked, if you saw something I haven't then do tell.

scruffy · Feb 12, 2009, 02:37 AM // 02:37

Jeydra isn't too awfully bright is he?

Ec]-[oMaN · Feb 12, 2009, 05:50 AM // 05:50

Two months left till this game seriously turns into vaporware. I admire the thread, although previous attempts fall on deaf ears. Ideally you'd want to actually get some of the player base working on the remainder of GW's balance, have a team of current GW players balancing, vote for skills changes, and work from Summer 07' ish skills.

Jeydra · Feb 12, 2009, 06:08 AM // 06:08

Thought I'll make a more comprehensive list of things I'd like to see next balance update since I have some time. As Mitch pointed out buffing stuff tends to lead to unpredictable consequences, so lots of these changes probably need to be fine-tuned.

Peace and Harmony - way too strong hex removal at the moment, I'm of opinion that if someone spends the time and energy to strongly cover his hexes then at least some of them should stick. Also impossible to interrupt, and therefore cast time 1/4s -> 3/4s, recharge 7s -> 10s, removes 3 hexes at most.

Glimmering Mark - if this skill had less recharge it would be viable as a pressure tool. A unique kind of pressure tool too, since you can't attack someone you're pressuring. And therefore recharge 10s -> 5s.

Smiter's Boon - this skill was utterly obliterated some time ago, which was rather depressing since you can't heal semi-effectively as a Smiter anymore in RA or AB, although it was necessary for GvG. Still no reason to leave it completely in the dark, and therefore energy 25 -> 10, cast time 1/4s -> 1s, recharge 90s -> 60s. Might still be too weak to use, I dunno.

Incendiary Arrows - at 5 recharge few people used it; at 3 recharge it dominated all other Ranger elites, so why not put it at the obvious in-between of 4 recharge? Recharge 5s -> 4s.

Burning Arrow - currently too strong, although it is possible to argue that the core of the problem lies with Read The Wind or Hunter's Shot. I'd prefer some changes to all three skills instead of nerfing one of them into oblivion, and so recharge 5s -> 7s.

Hunter's Shot - big part of the reason why turret Rangers output so much damage, so cast time 1s -> normal cast times.

Light of Deliverance - currently mostly extinct, overshadowed by Kaolai on the runner. Problem is obviously with the recharge. Overpowered at 5s recharge, underpowered at 10s, why not try somewhere in between? Recharge 10s -> 8s. Might have to add earshot range or something as well.

Rend Enchantments - too powerful an enchantment removal that leaves spike targets naked, and incidentally works to kill off any build that relies on heavy enchantment stacking, especially the long-recharge ones (dual Attunements, Critical Defenses, etc). Nobody used it at 3s cast but everyone does at 1s, so put it in between: cast time 1s -> 2s. Might have to slightly increase the cooldown as well.

Glimmer of Light - single-target heal that is almost completely outshone by Word of Healing right now, it just doesn't have enough of the red-bar push. Obvious buff would be to increase the health healed, and so: Health healed follows WoH / Healing Burst progression, failing which recharge 1s -> 0s. Hopefully this would give heal Monks an alternative to WoH.

Lightning Hammer - strong single-target nuke, never misses, easy to interrupt and a 25 energy cost that makes it hard to use unless you can 1) keep your Attunement(s) up and 2) not get interrupted. Since it is difficult to support constant use of Lightning Hammer I think we can get away with this skill now causes Cracked Armor, unlike Lightning Orb (which is fairly spammable with GoLE + Air Attunement).

Chain Lightning - long dead relic from ages past, why not give it some purpose? Damage now follows Invoke Lightning progression. Might be good to have cast time reduced to 2s as well, although that would kinda overlap Invoke Lightning (but then, who uses Invoke Lightning anyway?).

Zealous Benediction - with WoH so much stronger a red-bar pusher (not to mention less vulnerable to interrupts), ZB has rather fallen into the shadow, even in RA and AB, and therefore recharge 4s -> 3s.

Ether Prodigy - long dead relic from ages past, why not revive it so more defensive midline builds become viable? Especially since anyone relying on Ether Prodigy is an easy Shatter Enchantment spike target. Health loss from 3 / energy to 2 / energy. This might lead to E/Mo flaggers once again, I can't predict the consequences from that.

Ward Against Melee - another almost-dead relic from the past, might be good to revive it it's possible to pack enough AoE to force teams not to crowd in the Ward too much. Merge PvP skill with PvE version.

Chilling Victory - nerfed to prevent Dervspike, except hardly anybody uses Dervishes anymore so why not revert it. Merge PvP skill with PvE version.

Corrupt Enchantment - hexes have hardly seen much play with the exception of theLingering Curse template in recent times, so why not buff this? Recharge 10s -> 8s.

Foul Feast - way overpowered in TA, where everybody runs one. The 2s recharge + energy returned + 1/4s cast makes it too strong a skill there. Recharge 2s -> 6s.

Price of Failure - see Corrupt Enchantment, nobody uses this anymore and it is overshadowed by Faintheartedness. Energy cost 15e -> 10e.

Reaper's Mark - see Corrupt Enchantment. Buffing this too much though might not be a good idea; I remember from personal experience just how much pressure Reaper's Mark spam @ 10 cooldown was in RA. Recharge 15s -> 12s.

Weaken Knees - see Corrupt Enchantment. This skill is seeing a little amount of play at the moment, buff it a little more and maybe it'll see the mainstream? Duration increased by 2s across all levels.

Windborne Speed - expensive speedboost that can target allies, might see some use in split builds if duration increased by 2s across all levels.

Lingering Curse - original version of this skill was way too strong; it allowed a single character to add so much pressure it's a bit insane. Balanced out only because Peace and Harmony is an overpowered hex remover. Still having overpowered removers countering overpowered hexes is no good, and so together with the PnH nerf let's healing reduction reduced 33% -> 25%. I would favour the degen going back to pre-nerf values, but I'm not sure how the meta would turn out so it's too early to say.

Shield of Deflection - hard case. At 5 energy this would obviously be overpowered, yet at its current form it is hard to use. So either go into functionality changes, or recharge 10s -> 8s. Not likely to affect the skill much, but better than nothing.

Melandru's Shot - this skill has overshadowed Crippling Shot, which I take as a standard of balance, so to bring it closer to balance let's have recharge 8s -> 9s. Small change, but then the skill isn't far from overall balance.

Assassin's Promise - almost useless skill in PvP, way too good in PvE, and so PvP cooldown 45s -> 30s, PvE cooldown 45s -> 60s. Would be the first skill whose PvE version is actually weaker than the PvP version, but it's only fair considering how broken this skill is in PvE.

Horns of the Ox - this skill is critical to Assassin chains, and in its current form they can't deal enough damage quickly anymore to seriously pose a threat, and so at the risk of getting involved in the 'Sins should stay dead' argument I propose damage increased by +2 across all levels (so instead of +1 ... +9 it would be +3 ... +11).

Trampling Ox - see above. Damage increased by +2 across all levels. It's a small buff, and not likely to unbalance the game. Might find somewhere a compromise between what it used to be and what it is now.

Crippling Anguish - powerful hex that's hard to use. Maybe too hard ... aside from the brave and strong 8-Mesmer build [zero] ran recently, I've not seen it at all. Energy cost 15e -> 10e.

Blessed Light - tough case. At 5 energy it is way too strong, unless the health it heals is similarly toned down (a lot). At 10 energy it is too energy intensive. I personally favour Divine's idea to make this spell cost 5 energy, but an additional 5 energy if it removes a hex. Still that would be pretty major a functionality change ... and so no change. Sorry Tommy.

All maintained enchantments (except Strength of Honor, Holy Veil, Holy Wrath and possibly Purifying Veil + Divine Boon) - problem with the maintained enchantments is that aside from the exceptions listed, none of them are viable. They're all bad, nobody uses them except in highly gimmicky builds. An easy way to make them more viable then would be to have all energy costs -> 5e, all cast times -> 1s, all cooldowns -> 2s. A few select skills (Holy Wrath, Retribution, Balthazar's Spirit, etc) should not change for PvE, where they do see play.

Protective Was Kaolai - personally I'm of opinion that party heals should be available, but costly, and so energy cost 10e -> 15e.

There are a lot more skills I'm sure that need work (eg. Withdraw Hexes), but it's probably not a good idea to change all skills at the same time. It would lead to chaos ... although hey, if there aren't any brutally overpowered skills, it would make Guild Wars a lot more interesting.

Crunk N Monkey · Feb 12, 2009, 08:14 AM // 08:14

yea i dont know where it says there is gonna be a big skill update in april, its a storage update along with titles and HoM, but i guess people hear BIG update they naturally think its a skills balance update. I do think skills will be redone, but not a massive one like back in August.

As for storage, i think the main reason why we are getting more storage is because the more consumables and handbooks that are now available in the game. I think we need atleast two more slots for our account based storage, and a increase in either our belt pouch (10 spots) or bags (20 spots) for our character based storage. I also feel that weaponsmiths should be able to hold weapons for you, and armorers should be able to hold armor for you, but they should only be able to hold the armor that they were allowed to craft. That would atleast make life a little bit easier. thoughts?

scruffy · Feb 12, 2009, 09:11 AM // 09:11

the problem about anet is when they make skill changes its just complete random bullshit designed to shake things up, rather than actually balance things

if they would just RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing fix the problem skills, instead of buffing skills like grenths balance or some shit like that, the game would be fine by now

Jatt · Feb 12, 2009, 09:57 AM // 09:57

Quote:

the problem about anet is when they make skill changes its just complete random bullshit designed to shake things up, rather than actually balance things

This depends on how you want to approach the balance of 1,235 skills.

Yes, you can make 1100 of them irrelevant and people can play with the remaining 135 (which seems to be what people want)

For some reason I don't think that's what Arena Net is/was going for.

whether that's a "problem" or not is a completely subjective view which can't really be solved within the context of a forum debate

scruffy · Feb 12, 2009, 10:08 AM // 10:08

theres a difference between achieving a balance and then tweaking skills that are sucky that no one would ever use, and shoving an entire skillbar/teambuild down your throat and saying here use this or lose, suckers

Crunk N Monkey · Feb 12, 2009, 10:17 AM // 10:17

yea whoever suggested that firestorm be buffed is retarded.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Feb 12, 2009, 10:58 AM // 10:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jatt

This depends on how you want to approach the balance of 1,235 skills.

Yes, you can make 1100 of them irrelevant and people can play with the remaining 135 (which seems to be what people want)

For some reason I don't think that's what Arena Net is/was going for.

Yet that's exactly what they achieved by brute-forcing skills into play with ridiculous buffs.

Greedy Gus · Feb 12, 2009, 12:56 PM // 12:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crunk N Monkey

yea whoever suggested that firestorm be buffed is retarded.

Nah I thought that was one of the more interesting buff suggestions. Maybe eventually we can have some wicked ian boyd firestorm strategies.

distilledwill · Feb 12, 2009, 01:21 PM // 13:21

Main want:

Palm Strike - Increase Recharge to 8. (or maybe even more - its powerful enough without its stupidly short recharge)

Zabe · Feb 12, 2009, 03:23 PM // 15:23

Dear Sant... oshi remove that.

Dear Isaiah

Please make such a build viable which Vroom Rulez was running to partywipe rawr in one rending gaze (c wut I did thar) from Kaon. Same time please fix servers to not cause errors to such a team.

With this fabulous update, we would have Polly's Soldiers [rawr] running fortressbuild against Mitch's Honor Squad [KMD] going around with this kind of omegapressure (SEE WHAT I DID THERE? NO MORE OMEGASPIKE, BUT OMEGAPRESSURE WUHU!).

Thanks!

On more serious note on this thread, please let the suggestions fly, amuses me while scrolling thru forums. And I remember the day I thought it would be still possible to change the way this train was going, well, only thing that saddens me more than that is the fact that there are people who have been longer in game and will be in game longer than me and still think something would change.

Still Number One · Feb 12, 2009, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Smiter's Boon - this skill was utterly obliterated some time ago, which was rather depressing since you can't heal semi-effectively as a Smiter anymore

Nor should you be able to. It is called smiting for a reason. Being able to remove a condition or hex, deal damage to all adjacent foes, and heal your ally for 60+ health is retarded. Smiter's Boon being nerfed to hell was great because the skill simply should not have existed in the first place.

Smiting is a damage concept, not a healing one. You wanna heal people, be a heal monk, not a smiter.

I'll probably be flammed for this but I even think It should be implemented that divine favor doesn't even effect smiting skills period. A team of smiters should not be able to keep people alive. They should be able to do damage and that is it.