Curse

bungusmaximus · Jul 14, 2008, 05:52 AM // 05:52

My point solely is: don't nerf grasping earth.

Hundbert · Jul 14, 2008, 06:25 AM // 06:25

Signet of midnight hasn't been dealt with at all. Ever played vs dual som in ta?

Enraged lunge is pretty insane combined with Otyug's cry. 100+ damage every x seconds that you have to eat.

The whole shattering assasult sin is just stupid. One of the reasons monks started taking shieldbash.

Don't like the whole idea behind interrupt thru block and kd thru block (magebane/magehunter skills)

Grasping is kinda needed to keep rao in check. Imo this is one of the absolutely best skills in ta.

Frustration is kinda lame. 2 second casting time doesn't sound so wrong.
If a mesmer gets this on a target he can pretty much get everything the target tries to cast except 1/4 skills.

Wounding strike is a stupid skill i think most people have said it before.

Barbed arrows would see alot of play if foul feast wouldn't be so good.

Pin down is great. Very nice vs shove spike for example.

I know some warriors take mokele smash. It ain't so bad.

It would be pretty interesting if foul feast would be an elite skill.

The fact remains.. If the skills Sun Fired Blank mentioned would be changed to his desire ta would be a much better place no doubt. I wonder if some of you people posting here even play ta.

Funny that you moko say gimmicks fail when all i saw you play during this double glad weekend was dual som.

RhanoctJocosa · Jul 14, 2008, 06:28 AM // 06:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Fired Blank

That's a very clever response.

Draw is -5 E. Foul Feast is -2 to +infinite E. If they're inundating your entire group under conditions, you can use Foul Feast as a viable foil and tank it. If you are using Draw Conditions, you simply burn your energy reservoir to zero. You seriously can't argue they're identical.

Draw is perfectly able to control condi pressure and doesn't hurt your energy that much (considering you'd run it on a mes/ele, both of which are usually fine on energy)

But whatever, as long as the necro template, as it is, gets pushed out of TA I'm more than happy.

Grasping is perfectly fine btw.

DarkNecrid · Jul 14, 2008, 06:54 AM // 06:54

k heres my take:
[Wail of Doom]: Up recharge to 30s. If your target uses a skill within 1s of being hexed with Wail of Doom, its recharge time is halved.
[Defile Defenses]: Is fine.
[Rip Enchantment]: Is fine.
[Plague Sending]: You sacrifice an additional 10...5% Health for each Condition transferred.
[Foul Feast]: Remove energy gain.
[Signet of Midnight]: idk? Maybe Blinds you and target foe for 5 seconds if that foe is attacking. Up recharge to 20s, maybe?
[Signet of Humility]: Is either overpowered or underused depending on the meta. I'd give it a small recharge hit maybe.
[Mantra of Inscriptions]: Fine now.
[Soul Bind]: is fine.
[Defile Flesh]: LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
[Barbs]: No.
[Enraged Lunge]: I'd lower the damage. This thing can do a surprising amount of unblockable damage.
[Otyughs Cry]: However I don't think this skill needs nerfed.
The Assassin Chain: no.
[Wounding Strike]: Swap condition order.
[Rampage as One]: make Grenths Aura look like a minor nerf.
[Magebane Shot]: Up recharge.
[Strength of Honor]: Force your weapon to deal physical damage to prevent Conjure stacking.
[Spotless Mind]: I kind of like the Spotless skills as they are actually...
[Barbed Spear]: Up adrenaline, lower bleeding cost. It is way way way way too easy (read: near impossible) to not have this applied to at least 2 people at once at all times.
[Rigor Mortis]: Fine, take hex removal.
[Vigorous Spirit]: wtf? No.
[Grasping Earth]: Is a bit easy to keep on someone forever, but I don't think it's very problematic.
[Faintheartedness]: No.
[Augury of Death]: For 5...29 seconds, the next time damage drops a foes health below 50%, you inflict a Deep Wound for 5...10 seconds and Shadow Step to where you used this skill. (no longer half range) 5/1/30. (Maybe, if not just drop the Shadow Step part of it, keep the #'s, and keep it half ranged, idk.)
[Frustration]: is okay imo.
[Ebon Dust Aura]: Is rather annoying, but that's about it.
[Rending Touch]: Isn't the problem.
[Escape]: End on hit.

Sun Fired Blank · Jul 14, 2008, 07:37 AM // 07:37

Draw Conditions cannot control condi pressure in the same respect as Foul Feast; it simply does not matter on which character you place it or how you use it, unless you have Melandru's Resilience. When people do run condi pressure in the modern meta (predominantly using packhunters and signet mesmers), it usually forces Foul Feast to go off nearly on recharge or your team risks collapse / zero progress. Even before this entirely shit meta when you could afford to suck and run Draw on an off-monk character, that character absolutely could struggle on energy versus Ebon Dust or Cripanthem, two older templates that don't hold even a slight flame to modern templates.

Grasping is ridiculously good, and I'm not asking for it to be nerfed to unusability. I'm asking for it, along with everything else I posted, to be scaled back slightly in power to adhere to a specific philosophical trend. Some part of this gets blatantly avoided in subsequent posts, which is really quite annoying.

I think most hexes should be along the lines of Insidious Parasite and Blurred Vision. I think most enchantments should be along the lines of Guardian and Shield of Absorption. I think most enchantment removal should be on par with the mesmer line. In short I think the meta should reflect my eight points (ten points) of consideration, and I think the meta today speaks against all of that. I know these skills circumvent every one of the points of consideration in some form. They are powerful and they empower bad play habits.

For example, I'd axe Vigorous Spirit for every monk that spams it over their team to counter degen rather than use a directed red bars skill. You can argue whether it's overpowered or not until you're blue in the face, but you can't argue it promotes bad play. In the same respect, you can't argue that an unblockable sin chain with an enchant removing, AL60 smashing dual attack is acceptable. But here you are doing just that.

Listening to some of you makes me wonder if you even play the same format as I do. It's really saddening to be honest.

the_deSKtructor · Jul 14, 2008, 07:41 AM // 07:41

[Wail of Doom]: I see this skill to be a problem only when you get the faster recharge bonus from items. Increase the recharge to 12 seconds and make the skill disable itself for 12 seconds on usage.
[Defile Defenses]: This skill is pretty much fine in my opinion, if anything reduce the damage by 10-15 points.
[Rip Enchantment], [Rending Touch]: Those and all the other enchantment removal that got buffed lately are necessary to deal with all the enchantments that Nightfall and the Dervish brought into the game. To nerf those you'd need to take a look to those enchantment first.
[Plague Sending]: Remove the aoe part, increase cost to 5.
[Foul Feast]: Cap the energy gain to 2-3 (regardless from the number of conditions you transfer).
[Signet of Midnight]: Reduce the blind duration to 7-8 seconds and maybe increase the recharge to 15 seconds.
[Signet of Humility], [Mantra of Inscriptions], [Strength of Honor]: Those skills are a problem in gvg too, let gvgers deal with those.
[Soul Bind]: Lasts way too long in my opinion, reduce the duration to 15-20 seconds.
[Defile Flesh]: Don't know what to say about this.
[Barbs]: Don't know what to say about this.
[Rampage As One], [Enraged Lunge], [Otyugh's Cry]: The problem i see with beastmasters is that they just bring pets and then "forget" they have one, meaning that even if those die it doesn't matter at all. To fix those skills i'd try to nerf the pet ressing skills so that, if they ress a pet at 60% dp, they take (30-60) seconds longer to recharge.
[Golden Fox Strike], [Wild Strike], [Shattering Assault]: This combo is a problem, it has everything you could ask for, but i don't know what to do with this, a part from reducing the damage from Shattering Assault. Maybe increase the recharge of the combo?
[Wounding Strike]: Way too spammable deep wound, increase the recharge to at least 5 seconds.
[Magebane Shot]: Fix all the other crap and then maybe take a look to ranger interrupts.
[Spotless Mind]: Don't know what to do with this.
[Barbed Spear]: Way too spammable, increase the adrenaline cost back to 3.
[Rigor Mortis]: This is an all or nothing skill, don't know what to do with this.
[Vigorous Spirit]: Increased recharge looks fine, 6 seconds maybe?
[Grasping Earth]: This is not really broken, if anything reduce the duration by 2-3 seconds.
[Faintheartedness]: Looks fine to me.
[Dark Aura]: Don't know what to do with this.
[Augury of Death]: Don't know what to do with this.
[Frustration]: Don't know what to do with this.
[Ebon Dust Aura]: The blind spam this build can provide is a problem. Make it end after the use of X attack skills (5-7?)
[Escape]: Retarded skill, make it end if you attack.

Don't know what to say about the other skills you suggested to buff.

EDIT:

Also

[Holy Strike], [Stonesoul Strike]: Merge the damage if target is knocked down.

RhanoctJocosa · Jul 14, 2008, 07:53 AM // 07:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun_Fired_Blank

Draw Conditions cannot control condi pressure in the same respect as Foul Feast; it simply does not matter on which character you place it or how you use it, unless you have Melandru's Resilience. When people do run condi pressure in the modern meta (predominantly using packhunters and signet mesmers), it usually forces Foul Feast to go off nearly on recharge or your team risks collapse / zero progress. Even before this entirely shit meta when you could afford to suck and run Draw on an off-monk character, that character absolutely could struggle on energy versus Ebon Dust or Cripanthem, two older templates that don't hold even a slight flame to modern templates.

I'm talking about even before that, but I guess you didn't play. Anyway, you countered EDA with enchant removal and CA certainly didn't force you to struggle with energy.

Once the shit of TA gets nerfed you're going to find FF to just be another draw. Hell, necros probably won't even be run.

the_deSKtructor · Jul 14, 2008, 08:09 AM // 08:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by RhanoctJocosa

Anyway, you countered EDA with enchant removal

back then you couldn't really do that since eda was usually covered and rend enchantments took 30 seconds to recharge, unless u wanted to run Rending Touch and Corrupt enchantment.

Quote:

and CA certainly didn't force you to struggle with energy.

you are right here, CA alone didn't force you to struggle with energy. Tho they usually run 1/2 Steady Stance warriors along with it, and that was the real problem.

Quote:

Once the shit of TA gets nerfed you're going to find FF to just be another draw. Hell, necros probably won't even be run.

I don't really think so, because before all the major shit of TA was introduced you still runned necros (CE necros).

Sun Fired Blank · Jul 14, 2008, 08:18 AM // 08:18

How far back are you talking? You mean when rend was a three second cast, people ran EDA on paragons and you had to rely on someone else to cover it so that single target removal wouldn't strip it? Or are you referring even further back? If you want to play the age game that's fine. Do you want to play the rank game also?

Cripanthem was easily one of the most boring developments ever, basically designed to condition overload the other team by consta spearing the other team's frontliner on anthems, spreading those conditions using bow spam, spreading those conditions using your frontliner. I lost plenty of games because we simply burned out of energy in the long haul. Why? Conditions.

Quote:

Once the shit of TA gets nerfed you're going to find FF to just be another draw. Hell, necros probably won't even be run.

50 z-keys, payable in either keys or the key price in gold, exactly fourteen days after any update that, by relative consensus, addresses the vast majority of problems in TA, and improves the overall environment, that you're wrong.

RhanoctJocosa · Jul 14, 2008, 10:39 AM // 10:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_deSKtructor

back then you couldn't really do that since eda was usually covered and rend enchantments took 30 seconds to recharge, unless u wanted to run Rending Touch and Corrupt enchantment.

You could, and it worked fine. While mesmers weren't really run that much they were more than able to keep EDA down long enough to allow your melee to kill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_deSKtructor

you are right here, CA alone didn't force you to struggle with energy. Tho they usually run 1/2 Steady Stance warriors along with it, and that was the real problem.

Let's not go there, very dark times. But yeah, I was talking about when CA was popular for a while in a R/ W/ Mo/ template... wasn't really too hard to play against.

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_deSKtructor

I don't really think so, because before all the major shit of TA was introduced you still runned necros (CE necros).

CE necros aren't too bad... 1-2 enchant removal skills, perhaps an off condi/hex removal and some anti melee. What I'm really trying to get across is that FF isn't as imba as the OP thinks (with a serious hit on PS).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Fired Blank

If you want to play the age game that's fine. Do you want to play the rank game also?

TA's been bad for so long the rank game is invalid.

This is a good thread, many of the skills listed are in dire need of changes. Let's not derail it.

urania · Jul 14, 2008, 11:32 AM // 11:32

the king of TA is grasping earth and the CE necro with that skill was the best necro or in general, the best all-rounded anti melee template there is and that actually took skill to play.

at Rhacont, only a bo+div mesmer could efficiently keep an EDA derv down, that is, if there was no ranger in his team.

the old CA paragon+ranger+cripslash war is a very strong template, but it would get owned by a single skill now. Guess which one

.

anyhow, i think wod, ff, plague sending, som, rao and d lunge need to die. Badly.
i also agree with the rest of no mas's list. skills like soul bind, shattering sin combo, spotless skills need tweaking. just look how they killed that prot skill that prevents KDs

.

moreover, I agree that TA has been bad for months now...the biggest and longest downfall started right after the wail/ff buff and continued with the several-months time of 2 monk 2 sin abuse that was never taken care off, but rather let alone till a better gimmick replaced it.

on a side note, I've met a farily faggish build today...a thumper, a pacman r/w and a Necro with arcane echo for wail. fun times monking with wail on you almost all the time...grasping won the game for us, pretty much. and a few well-timed interrupts on the monk. this just confirms that grasping must NOT be nerfed, since its pretty much the only way of dealing with those rao trains effectively atm .

C2K · Jul 14, 2008, 11:36 AM // 11:36

Nerf Wounding Strike
Nerf SoM
Nerf FF
Nerf Expertise

Nerfing Wounding Strike and Expertise would make PvP on a whole better.

the_deSKtructor · Jul 14, 2008, 02:08 PM // 14:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

moreover, I agree that TA has been bad for months now...the biggest and longest downfall started right after the wail/ff buff and continued with the several-months time of 2 monk 2 sin abuse that was never taken care off, but rather let alone till a better gimmick replaced it.

you are wrong, there were 1st the 2 monks 2 sins abuse and then the buff to the necro skills

moko · Jul 14, 2008, 02:54 PM // 14:54

sure some of these skills might be insane in this meta .. but look at it.

nerf the few main ones you listed, and the meta is improved. then people can run normal stuff again, and many of these skills will lose power. you simply don't need to change all in order to have a better meta.

by the way, the stonesoul thing is a nice point. it needs to be die, either due to the shadowsteps even more, or just make it one huge amount of damage. xD shovespike is dumb, not exactly really powerful, but the running is dumb.

and yes, grasping is powerful, but let's face it, vs really good teams, how often will you end up snaring more than one? it's needed to keep gimmicks under control, and is a powerful snare which is even used in HA. it doesn't need a change at all.

and magehunters should die for the only reason of prots returning. i want to be able to prot again. :/ magebane wasn't such a huge problem..

Quote:

Funny that you moko say gimmicks fail when all i saw you play during this double glad weekend was dual som.

quote be where i said gimmicks fail, i said they're dumb. it's a double weekend, i didn't have many good balance teams. let's face it, expect me to win something vs all these gimmicks? you can be a wannabe defender of "balance" (which aren't even balanced in this meta!) builds..but just don't do it on double weekends when everyone is farming, it's simple as that.

(btw, i also ran dual sind and thumpway!!

and a bit balance, but ssh) :>

RhanoctJocosa · Jul 14, 2008, 03:43 PM // 15:43

agree with mh getting hit... anything to bring back prot. dev has a cooler animation anyway!

urania · Jul 14, 2008, 03:57 PM // 15:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by moko

quote be where i said gimmicks fail, i said they're dumb.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moko

dark aura, uh, dunno, don't care. gimmicks fail anyways. augury? nah, it's pretty dead anyways.

i remembered that since its unfortunately not true xD

moko · Jul 14, 2008, 04:07 PM // 16:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

i remembered that since its unfortunately not true xD

got me!

fine then, any gimmicks that base on death magic. ;< but you should get what i mean anyways.

Quote:

dev has a cooler animation anyway!

yarly.

also i wonder, if those changes would happen, we assume prot returns -- could we do something with shieldbash? :P nerfing shieldbash and patient .. the healing currently is way too insane, and dumb. don't like it. :< if these would be gone (and disciplined after) then rangers would have a chance on shutting monks again (wail will be gone too).

DarkNecrid · Jul 14, 2008, 04:27 PM // 16:27

If you're gonna nerf Shield Bash, I'd make it like 1...2 seconds, so that you have to actually use it at an opportune time and make it more active/skillbase (welp, no ones using that skill...), that sound good? (should prolly do it anyways...:P)

I don't really get what is wrong with Patient. Maybe it's just because I like the skill, but I don't really see what is very wrong with it. It's about the only delayed healing skill viable in the game, so maybe I just like it for that. idk.

Care to elab?

SurareVaera · Jul 14, 2008, 04:39 PM // 16:39

I agree with most of the OP's and moko's balance tweaks. Though i think [Wail of Doom], [Ebon Dust Aura], [Signet of Midnight], [Frustration] all need increases in cast time. Frustration isn't as bad as the others, but paired with migraine, monks can't even cast Patient Spirit.

Wail of Doom functions similar to Diversion or Shame but even on a fast casting mesmer those two powerful shutdown hexes take at least 1-2 seconds to cast. Being able to 'interrupt' Word of Healing for a 5 health heal in a tight spot is just degenerate, especially at zero energy cost and a HSR40% weapon set. For non-interruptable 1/4 sec elites like Wail of Doom, your only options are Diversion and Sig of Humility. Spot hex removal is ineffective (especially vs. hex teams) and veil just gets ripped. With Ebon Dust Aura at least you can strip the enchantment, but there really should be more options for dealing with Wail of Doom, Ebon Dust Aura, and Sig of Midnight.

Other random comments:
[Backbreaker] should fail if you're below a certain attribute level in hammer mastery. Stuff like Plague Signet and Gale fail unless at 5 curses/air or above, but I think that number is too low for Backbreaker. I'd say 9 or 10 Hammer Mastery.

I think this might involve to much programming effort, but I wish there was a way to interrupt pet attacks like Enraged Lunge. Probably easier to tweak the damage on Enraged Lunge and nerf Otyugh's Cry.

I also think Patient Spirit and the Monk Stances / Shield Bash shouldn't be touched, at least until other offensive skills are toned down. For the main healer, there is really only one or two viable arena templates at the moment. Patient Spirit is at least something you can get off when you're being shit on (dazed, camped by a ranger, about to be KD'd, actively anticipating a spike). Patient is like the Healing Prayers equivalent of Reversal of Fortune, and I imagine you would get a lot of complaints if RoF was nerfed. Without heavy prots or effective soft prots, the energy management from Mo/W stance monks with WoH, Patient and Veil spam is far from infinite, and is rather vulnerable to e-denial (debilitating) or heavy pressure. This might sound stupid but I'd prefer to see a monk skill with energy management i.e. make draw conditions on par with foul feast. Maybe if you did that I wouldn't mind a Patient Spirit nerf. That's probably not a healthy solution though considering Melandru's Resilience + Divine Boon (at least that bar has prots though xD).

idk, skill balance is tricky - all the GvG centric buffs have dramatic effects in arena play. I think the OP has listed the biggest problem areas though, and it's a decent place to start.

Divine Slaya · Jul 14, 2008, 06:48 PM // 18:48

[Wail of Doom] - Increase recharge time to 30 seconds.

[Signet of Midnight] - Increase recharge to 15 seconds. Decrease blind duration to 10 seconds. Increase activation time to 1 second.

[Otyugh's Cry] - Increase energy cost to 15. Decrease duration of the shout by 7 seconds. Decrease recharge time to 20 seconds.
Reason: Higher energy cost along with lower duration and recharge times will require the skill to be used more often and at a higher cost. Has more of an impact with enraged lunge now.

[Foul Feast] - Remove health and energy gain. Increase recharge time to 5 seconds.
Reason: Why was the health and energy gain implemented in the first place?

[Wounding Strike] - No idea but this skill needs changed (for all aspects of PvP)

[Barbed Spear] - Increase adrenaline cost to 3.
Reason: Can be spammed too easily now

[Plague Sending] - Increase recharge time to 10 seconds. Increase cost to 5 energy.

[Disrupting Lunge] - Skill no longer disables opponents interupted skills.
Reason: This is a mindless spam skill. Players should not be rewarded for being dumb.

[Escape] - Ends if character hits with melee weapon.

[Spotless Mind] - Increase activation time to 1 second.
Reason: 1/4 cast time is too short for the energy cost and the outcome of the skill.

[Spotless Soul] - Increase activation time to 1 second.
Reason: 1/4 cast time is too short for the energy cost and the outcome of the skill.

[Ebon Dust Aura] - Increase activation time to 3/4 second.
Reason: Not a huge change but at least gives a small opportunity for an interrupt.