Curse

lutz · Jan 11, 2009, 10:51 AM // 10:51

I figured this was worth putting here. It starts off with Awowa's quote about people whining about defense, and a reply by me about what's wrong with this game: minimalist offense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by awowa

We (rawr) talk a lot about skills in guild chat; Palm Strike has never really come up except 'hey want a fun RA bar?' The biggest skill that we thought was out of line in comparison with the rest of guild wars skills was mark of insecurity. Although, many people from other guilds I've talked to had complaints about almost every skill that was buffed (LC, PS, MOI, hexes, etc) - which I think is pretty silly. They argue "the only way to survive is to change a few skills in our build and add DEFENSE, but only BAD PEOPLE like DEFENSE", yet fail to reemember that every top 10 game in the GWWC/GWFC had more defense than today, and also had heal party on 90%+ of matches. And spikes were still the only way to achieve kills back then as well. It's just people selectively forget that part.

.

The current meta is basically:
2 Warriors
1 BA Turret
1 Expel Hexes FC Water
1 Rend Rit
2 Monks
1 Flagger

This build is considered by many to be "really defensive", but it's actually really offensive as well - it can pressure well, and spike well. I don't mind the fact that there's a lot of defense in the build, but if you bring that much defense you should not be able to bring that much offense.

Single skills or small groups of skills together that are able to be run by defensive characters and can deal and/or pressure and spike damage are bad for the game. The perfect example for this is the old Ritspike which was a huge problem. It was both extremely defensive (8 ritualists with heals and wardings, etc.) and amazingly offensive in its spike. The past builds have all been that. [iQ]'s GWWFC build centered around nearly pure defense, but just enough offense to wipe the enemy team's NPCs at VoD and capitalize on the enemy monk's lack of energy management to win the game. The post-Nightfall meta was basically defense until VoD, where you had dervishes spike out NPCs, again exploiting game mechanics as [iQ] did. The same with the Ineptitude meta (waiting around until VoD, as defensive characters, then suddenly spiking with a burst of damage). This is why paragons were also bad for the game: able to dish out a lot of defense yet still be able to do significant (spike) damage - paragons perfectly embrace this game-killing behavior.

This is where you get your imbalanced, game-killing builds from. The idea of "minimalism". "Stack as high as possible on defense, and splash in just enough offense to score kills and utilize game mechanics to win the game."

This is the reason why this current meta is stale. The BA Turret is the center of this problem. The turret is one character, and is still able to deal intense spike and pressure on numerous targets. BA itself does around 70 damage base hit with a 7 second burning resulting in an additional 84 damage degen. In almost every way, this turret ranger does more damage than a warrior thanks to its unkitable arrows, similar attack speed (thanks to Flail), instant target switching ability, utility (Savage and DShot), survivability (Lightning Reflexes), and incredible range (Flatbow range). Putting one of these in a build, even in a very defensive build, can cause pressure and spike all on its own. Ranged attacks, for the most part, should be balanced with extreme care. Ranged damage allow for potentially higher-than-warrior damage, and increased utility. In addition, ranged attacks are the center of every single spike build in the game (Shockwave with a teleport is basically ranged). Damage compression on ranged characters should be kept to an absolute minimum because of their innate ability to exploit burst/spike damage. Burning Arrow -> Hunter's Shot -> Savage Shot is a problem, especially when it can be used once every 5 seconds.

This image -> http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/4992/gw027ce9.jpg shows
All three attacks within about a second. Damage compression combined with ranged attacking and high damage/pressure results in overpowered characters.

Rebalance this build. It's encouraging the minimalist standards of offense by being able to do too much damage and utility in one build.

And yes, in real situations, the turret ranger does much more damage than warriors.

There are other skills that encourage this kind of "minimalist offense" behavior as well:
Rend Enchantments - being able to bypass protection spells means all your damage will get through; you no longer need to bring more characters to pressure, because your spikes will always be clean. I understand you (Izzy) want a way to get rid of stacked enchantments (e.g. Strength of Honor, and the like), so make Rend Enchantments a skill that removes an enchantment every 7 seconds for 21 seconds, or something, so it doesn't encourage spike-y behavior).
Mark of Insecurity - "all we have to do is use all of our offense at once on one target and we'll kill it because it can't be protted. At the very worst we burn out the WoH monk's energy from trying to constantly heal it, at the best we get a kill and burn out energy on the WoH monk." This goes back to the idea of "One skill wonders". One skill should not be able to say "this person takes a ton of damage." This, again, encourages further defense, because all you need is one copy of Mark of Insecurity - it can even be put on a ritualist or a monk!

Again: I don't mind defensive builds, but you shouldn't be able to put significant offense on a build that is extremely difficult to pressure.

DarkNecrid · Jan 11, 2009, 02:37 PM // 14:37

Good post & read!

Rangers really shouldn't have a viable IAS choice (on top of weakening the damage of their arrow attacks), and probably the simplest solution to that is to change Flail to only work while attacking with a melee weapon.

What Now · Jan 11, 2009, 04:14 PM // 16:14

Redoing my post it was too messy.

Lets start with why ask for a ranger nerf when you complain about defense.

The rangers will be how they are, if they focus on dps they won't get much utility done unless they die down the spam to interrupt. Why take them out of the meta when they can interrupt rends and such in big boom strong hold spikes like you seem to complain about? They are offensive characters or would you rather face an Inemp mesmer?

I don't think this is an issue of Guild Wars to be honest it is what the player base has led up to.

I think Izzy already stated he wanted it easier to kill than be killed on Guild Wars at some time so he's hesitant to buff monks and such yet is making more powerful skills.

Where we fit into this is we are bad. When people realized their 2 barpushing monks couldn't keep a team up they started to run 3, then 4, then put some damage on a few. Despite that people still wipe all the time. Is it Anets fault we migrated to more and more defense in the face of more and more pressure to hold up? No. It's simple MMO mechanics tbh. Energy supply and demand. If you have 4 monks making sure nothing gets through and they have 2 doing their best, those 2 are probably going to be easier to bypass and/or run out of energy before the defensive one even if it takes said 20 minutes. While not the most fun way to win it's the most effective.

Same in HB where you need nothing but teles, block, and heals to win to be honest. While it's tedious it does wins because annoying things few people wanna run and no one wants to face as they run in circles for 8 minutes win games.

Nerfing defense would only promote running more and more until it's Gothspike meta because that's how people like to play, they don't have to worry about taking a chance when they just wanna wear the enemy down or rely on a spike to eventually break through.

Balancing such a fragile system to rely on a certain number of healers and offense that promotes skill is nearly impossible for that reason. Some team is going to run more of what they lack and like I said limited energy either becomes a problem or a spike gets through. Not much Izzy can do because mechanics are as broken as the player philosophy.

So make your pick I guess, fight a backliner hammer warrior with a bsurge and water snare supported by a fortress monk in TA or fight smiteway/gothspike because this game was made so a monk cant do too well against a team alone.

Btw that change to rend would disregard any nerfs to SoH recharge and would take forever and a day to remove SoH and Conjure and any cover prot like Aegis.

Weapon of warding isn't affected by MoI.

What Now · Jan 11, 2009, 04:55 PM // 16:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

Good post & read!

Rangers really shouldn't have a viable IAS choice (on top of weakening the damage of their arrow attacks), and probably the simplest solution to that is to change Flail to only work while attacking with a melee weapon.

Or you can scale it with strength (and the same for shield bash :P ) to start at 1 second.

But then some will frenzy nat strike or think of some other IAS or whatnot. Ironic how people complain about rangers being weak xD they honestly could either lessen damage or increase recharge to the attack skills but meh why make it any harder to kill stuff.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Jan 11, 2009, 05:54 PM // 17:54

It's a common misconception that buffing offense leads to more offensive builds, it just means you need less offense to get kills, which in turn leads to more defensive builds.

I'd say nerf PwK (20r and remove (some) of the armor bonus while holding it) and Recuperation (This skill is about as brainless as it gets, either Smiter's Boon it or make it die in 1-2 hits) and revert LoD to what it was before (although perhaps make it earshot range). LoD although great party healing, is quite counterable and with the current WoH would even give heal monks more than 1 elite option and would make running pressure possible again.

Deal with some of the damage compression (Ancestor's Rage, Hunter's Shot, Conjure, SoH, etc) and deep strips (Rend Enchantments, Pain of Disenchantment, Gaze of Contempt, etc.) to tone spikes down a bit.

DarkNecrid · Jan 11, 2009, 06:23 PM // 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by What Now

words

Rangers are not meant to do damage, they were never meant to. They were always the pressure class, they do damage now because they have a viable IAS and have attack skills that break the mold of what they were designed to be (power creep).

If you nerf damage, people will take less defense because:
a) They don't need the defense to mitigate the damage.
b) They need more damage to attack the opposing defense.

Buffing offense only causes what happens now to happen: people take just as much offense as they need to score kills and the rest is defense. This just leads to 321 spike and repeat if you failed until it works.

Look at the GWWC meta, all you had for damage was:
-2 Warriors (Hammer and Sword usually, Hammer doesn't have as strong armor ignoring damage as Axe and Sword is mostly pressure, so not as high damage as you'd have now and days.)
-A Cripshot blackout ranger or two that would apply degen through [Apply Poison]. Had no +damage skills or IAS because both of those sucked on Rangers. (for a reason)
-A Mesmer, usually applied degen through [Conjure Phantasm] and [Migraine]. Occasionally would deal light damage through [Energy Burn][Energy Surge].
-A necro, only damage was degen through [Faintheartedness] and [Life Siphon] & [Malaise].

Defense included:
-Ele runner. Supported party with [Blinding Flash], gave weakness to enemy War (not buffed back then either), and applied light pressure with attacks. Also threw up wards and could remove light packets of damage through [Heal Party].
-2 [Offering of Blood] Boon Prots.

You'll notice that the offense/defensive split is 5/3, in some cases it was 6/2. This is because the offenses only direct damage come from the Warriors, with the rest of the damage being degen or the occasional Energy Surge. 2 Monks could out heal that and a EProd could help out pretty decently. You didn't need any more defense because that was enough to last you as long as you didn't run out of energy, which is how games usually ended. Not because of 321 spike but because eventually the enemy monks would eventually give out to the pressure.

Compare this to now where the split is the exact opposite, 3/5. This is largely because Warrior's have even more damage (being Hammer & Axe, and Hammer has a way to get in through blocking enchants now), the Ranger does more damage than 1 of the Wars at long range very fast like on top of being survivable and being able to interrupt, and on top of this the defense now has some offensive options too and use skills that support the offense in making their kills. Damage compression skills and supportive spike skills run rampant in the backline now, and all they do is create hyperdefensive builds.

Offense definitely needs to be hit, especially the mid and backline's options of adding to it, if you want stuff to die you need to create a situation where there is more offense than there is defense. Stuff doesn't even die now, you just attempt to rape some guy over and over until someone makes a mistake and then they eventually die.

EDIT:
"The best defense is a good offense" comes to mind, because the GWWC offense also carried defensive tools but they were more offensive oriented. Now and days its the exact opposite, the defense is carrying offensive tools.

Also, agree w/ Mitch on hitting things.

Skyy High · Jan 11, 2009, 08:27 PM // 20:27

The entire thread gets a big fat, "Duh?" from me. Of course people are running "minimalist" offense; a kill is a kill, whether or not you did 1 more damage than necessary or 1000. There is zero incentive to run additional offense once you are able to kill. This isn't an unnatural state of affairs, it's just the smartest way to play, and apart from nerfing all classes' damage dealing capabilities into the ground I can't see how it could be avoided. Maybe if you rewarded high offense kills more than kills that were barely accomplished or something (ie, temporary frozen soil effect on anyone who gets "overkilled" or somesuch) people would change their tactics to be more offensive.

dies like fish · Jan 11, 2009, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

(ie, temporary frozen soil effect on anyone who gets "overkilled" or somesuch)

You can't do damage to a dead target.

Jaden Stone · Jan 11, 2009, 09:04 PM // 21:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

It's a common misconception that buffing offense leads to more offensive builds, it just means you need less offense to get kills, which in turn leads to more defensive builds.

I'd say nerf PwK (20r and remove (some) of the armor bonus while holding it) and Recuperation (This skill is about as brainless as it gets, either Smiter's Boon it or make it die in 1-2 hits) and revert LoD to what it was before (although perhaps make it earshot range). LoD although great party healing, is quite counterable and with the current WoH would even give heal monks more than 1 elite option and would make running pressure possible again.

Deal with some of the damage compression (Ancestor's Rage, Hunter's Shot, Conjure, SoH, etc) and deep strips (Rend Enchantments, Pain of Disenchantment, Gaze of Contempt, etc.) to tone spikes down a bit.

Pretty much agree with all of this. Distribution of party healing really hurt pressure as it's just not feasable to stop it all. The 1 second ranger attacks and IAS from flail are broken damage compression. A-Rage to caretakers is rarely brought up, but it's the reason the spikes are so clean and compressed. I really think once the damage compression issues is dealt with rend wont be such an issue, but it can be nerfed anyway just in case. PoD was a silly skill to begin with and has only one purpose, needs a rework.

Xasew · Jan 11, 2009, 09:57 PM // 21:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

The entire thread gets a big fat, "Duh?" from me. Of course people are running "minimalist" offense; a kill is a kill, whether or not you did 1 more damage than necessary or 1000. There is zero incentive to run additional offense once you are able to kill. This isn't an unnatural state of affairs, it's just the smartest way to play, and apart from nerfing all classes' damage dealing capabilities into the ground I can't see how it could be avoided.

Did you miss the point on purpose? Or even read the thread?

First post:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

The BA Turret is the center of this problem. The turret is one character, and is still able to deal intense spike and pressure on numerous targets. BA itself does around 70 damage base hit with a 7 second burning resulting in an additional 84 damage degen. In almost every way, this turret ranger does more damage than a warrior thanks to its unkitable arrows, similar attack speed (thanks to Flail), instant target switching ability, utility (Savage and DShot), survivability (Lightning Reflexes), and incredible range (Flatbow range). Putting one of these in a build, even in a very defensive build, can cause pressure and spike all on its own. Ranged attacks, for the most part, should be balanced with extreme care. Ranged damage allow for potentially higher-than-warrior damage, and increased utility. In addition, ranged attacks are the center of every single spike build in the game (Shockwave with a teleport is basically ranged). Damage compression on ranged characters should be kept to an absolute minimum because of their innate ability to exploit burst/spike damage. Burning Arrow -> Hunter's Shot -> Savage Shot is a problem, especially when it can be used once every 5 seconds.

No, you do not need to "nerf all classes' damage dealing capabilities into the ground" to solve the problem.

I really can't see why BA was ever buffed. The way that skill is now, the +damage part should be removed alltogether. Same thing with Melandru's and Hunter's. At least the +damage should be brought down. Same thing with RtW. Flail to last 1 second at 0 Strenght sounds good too.

MoI is completely idiotic. Primal Rage is easy mode for warriors and the IMS should be brought down to 15-25%. Lingering should be moved to Soul Reaping or nerfed.

Fril Estelin · Jan 11, 2009, 10:57 PM // 22:57

Very interesting thread, even for PvP newbies ;P. A few comments remind me of the difference in fun people can have, fun from "purely" winning (I'll do what it takes to win, no philosophy of gameplay) side of things to a "skill" winning (we can win in a pure fashion but we're not here for that, we want a challenging game with varied play, complex buildsets, the skill of player are more important than build wars) side of things. I still haven't determined what "skill" exactly is, but I'm starting to see this big divide in PvP. (it seems skilled players can almost always adapt, but may not want to, while others will come and go depending on where the meta takes the community and their team...?)

<3 these threads, sorry for the off-topic

lutz · Jan 12, 2009, 12:05 AM // 00:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xasew

I really can't see why BA was ever buffed. The way that skill is now, the +damage part should be removed alltogether. Same thing with Melandru's and Hunter's. At least the +damage should be brought down. Same thing with RtW. Flail to last 1 second at 0 Strenght sounds good too.

MoI is completely idiotic. Primal Rage is easy mode for warriors and the IMS should be brought down to 15-25%. Lingering should be moved to Soul Reaping or nerfed.

Primal Rage isn't really too big of a problem - it really becomes more advantageous on splits than at stand. Becoming the fastest (feasible) flag runner in the game, and being able to outrun anyone provided that you aren't snared is what makes the bar so powerful. Normally, you don't see this kind of behavior on warriors - I don't see a big issue with Primal Rage since it costs you an elite, and warrior elites are pretty powerful as it is.

Lingering Curse is one of those "one skill wonders" I was talking about, though it's not a top-tier concern because it actually requires a decent spec to make it worthwhile (whereas Rend and Mark can flourish even at low specs, making it available to basically anybody who chooses necromancer or assassin as a secondary). You'd need to run a dedicated hex character to actually make good use of Lingering Curse, which, at this point in the game, isn't too big of a problem since this skill is all that's left that can actually cause somewhat decent pressure.

Krill · Jan 12, 2009, 12:14 AM // 00:14

What about the power creep in passive hexing for pressure builds? Soul bind, LC and VoR are all ridiculously punishing skills under pressure, the former two fitting right in with the much loved FC mes with hum sig template. Also, wouldn't it would make more sense to buff Healing Burst than bring back LoD?

Not saying I'm thrilled with spike builds but I hope a major change in the game is thought our rather than just nerfing rend, the turret ranger, maybe MHS and shock, adding in some more wowzers pressure skills and then seeing what happens...the results should be obvious.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Jan 12, 2009, 12:36 AM // 00:36

Primal Rage is definitely overpowered, it's nowhere near the biggest issue however, I'd like to see the IMS reduced to 25% for starters and possibly reduce the duration to match that of frenzy at a decent strength spec (10-12 str).

Lingering Curse I think is a very big problem because it forces everyone to bring a lot of hex removal, an insane amount of party healing, or a combination of both. The only thing that sort of keeps this in check atm is Peace and Harmony, which is equally broken if you really look at the skill. (This is why I don't like the skill vs counter thing as it forces you to bring very specific skills, ofc PnH is quite versatile regardless, it just kills build variety)

Healing Burst would be an ok option too, the problem is being a 3/4 cast it's not an easy thing to shut down when playing on non-native servers, whereas LoD, being a 1s cast, is.

Fast casting of course is an issue that also needs to be adressed, Izzy has been very reluctant to deal with this sofar an has chosen the approach of nerfing the /X skills (e.g. Icy Shackles, Glowing Ice etc.) this has sofar resulted in making E/X even more unviable and not bothering Me/E that much at all.

moriz · Jan 12, 2009, 01:07 AM // 01:07

i can't really comment on the state of gvg, since i haven't been playing nearly enough these days, but i will comment on the turret ranger.

take your "old" standard ranger template:
[burning [email protected]]/[crippling [email protected]]
[apply [email protected]]
[distracting [email protected]]
[savage [email protected]]
[mending [email protected]]
[natural [email protected]]
[troll [email protected]]/[lightning [email protected]]
[resurrection signet]/any

by simply going down that list, you'll see an astounding four "elite" skills. yes, i know BA/cripshot is the only official elite skill there, but skills like dshot, mending touch, and natural stride are so powerful that they might as well be elites. you might think that it made rangers hugely overpowered, but that's generally not the case. this is because, despite the sheer number of awesomeness a ranger has at any given time, that ranger did no damage. they were purely disruption characters with some supplemental damage and overall team utility, and had the tools needed to perform that role. a BA ranger going all out damage, could muster up a pathetic 25 DPS over a minute.

this is no longer the case with the turret ranger. the standard turret ranger has two of the "elite" skills (burning arrow and dshot), but now comes with pretty significant damage. they are no longer limited by poor damage, but still have most of their awesomeness. i don't even want to know how much damage they can deal now; i've been hit by them hard enough to know that its not insignificant.

the turret ranger, if anything else, is the best example of unchecked power creep we have. it simply needs to disappear.

Yoshikuni Mahsu · Jan 12, 2009, 01:14 AM // 01:14

Another problem is the correlation between offense/defense of skills and the static meta;Armor, HP, cast/recharge speed etc. (IE: runes and the basic 60, 70, 80 AL template guildwars follows)

Izzy has always been pretty good at keeping things in-line between skills and runes, but I think some of these more complex problems that confront guildwars could be fixed (or at least alleviated) by buffing/nerfing runes and armor in combination with skill buffs/nerfs. Whether or not that is a viable option I really cant say, obviously not worldwide, but it may be possible just in terms of PvP characters only.

minor · Jan 12, 2009, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

I still haven't determined what "skill" exactly is, but I'm starting to see this big divide in PvP. (it seems skilled players can almost always adapt, but may not want to, while others will come and go depending on where the meta takes the community and their team...?)

<3 these threads, sorry for the off-topic

my 2cents on skill vs build
take a shock axe vs SP sin when

Shock axe nearly every skill requires some thought.
You can't use shock all the time.
You have to use bulls at the right time.
don't get caught in frenzy.
dchop when you see something you can interupt.
get in postion for a spikes.
and so on

Sp sin?
press1234567 hope target dies
wait until skills and energy recharges try again

sp sin was smarter to run to win but wasn't a skilled build.

edit yes it was nightfall congrats
I forgot that factions gave use the giant screwup called a rit

moriz · Jan 12, 2009, 02:16 AM // 02:16

pretty sure sp sins came out with nightfall. shadow prison is, after, a nightfall skill.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Jan 12, 2009, 06:46 AM // 06:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

but skills like dshot, mending touch, and natural stride are so powerful that they might as well be elites.

Uhhhhhhhh? DShot arguably, Stride and Mend touch? Not even close.

Medion · Jan 12, 2009, 03:22 PM // 15:22

Quote:

This just leads to 321 spike and repeat if you failed until it works.

What about reducing the time a GvG lasts? Basically reduce the amount of attempts a team can make to wipe the enemy.
Back when VoD was still around, I always thought 18 minutes was a little too quick (till VoD arrived, basically takes away tactical options such as split), but now that VoD is gone I see no reason for GvG to take 28 minutes.
Not sure how much it should be (or if it's a good idea, I'll leave the top-players + Izzy to decide

), but I guess starting off with 25 minutes might be a start, although making it 24 might be better for tactical reasons (timekilling just after the last autores would keep them down for 2 minutes then instead of 1, just as it is now).