Curse

Keithark · Mar 13, 2008, 12:43 PM // 12:43

They were not talking about shields up...they were talking about WY...and the old WY was great for a paragon not bad for them, it was just free energy to fuel their ability to spam high energy skills.

JR · Mar 13, 2008, 01:02 PM // 13:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keithark

They were not talking about shields up...they were talking about WY...and the old WY was great for a paragon not bad for them, it was just free energy to fuel their ability to spam high energy skills.

I think my brain automatically replaced it with Shields Up because it couldn't comprehend someone not being able to see how dumb the old form of WY was.

Layers of passive defense = not good for the game.

Riotgear · Mar 13, 2008, 01:13 PM // 13:13

Basically the question came up because most people can look far enough back and see a point where WY! and Shields Up were both pretty fair skills, which only became drastically overpowered when Leadership broke them.

JR · Mar 13, 2008, 01:17 PM // 13:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Basically the question came up because most people can look far enough back and see a point where WY! and Shields Up were both pretty fair skills, which only became drastically overpowered when Leadership broke them.

On a slightly different note that's my biggest gripe about Dervishes; because of them the AoE smiter had to be nerfed. Before the last round of monster punches that template recieved it was quite a nice addition to a balanced build.

Riotgear · Mar 13, 2008, 01:25 PM // 13:25

I thought Zealot's Fire was nerfed primarily because triple-smite was the current ladder-farming gimmick at the time?

Of course, I think Paragons are a larger offender mainly because.... well.... if you think about it, the Tactics shouts were probably the primary inspiration for Paragons, and now the two best ones have been nerfed to oblivion because of them.

JR · Mar 13, 2008, 01:35 PM // 13:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

I thought Zealot's Fire was nerfed primarily because triple-smite was the current ladder-farming gimmick at the time?

The template was nerfed in about 3 or 4 consecutive balance updates, one of which had weakened it enough that triple smite went away. The last one was just an uneccesary kick in the nuts because it would have gone back to being crazy good when used in conjunction with Dervishes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Of course, I think Paragons are a larger offender mainly because.... well.... if you think about it, the Tactics shouts were probably the primary inspiration for Paragons, and now the two best ones have been nerfed to oblivion because of them.

Yep. Badly designed classes ftl. That said, I would still argue that Shields Up was in need of a change anyway due to how much of a one slot counter it was.

bungusmaximus · Mar 13, 2008, 01:40 PM // 13:40

Why not just make leadership work on paragon-only shouts then I ask myself? Nuking GOOD classes in favor of BAD ones doesn't sound like the way to go.

Moloch Vein · Mar 13, 2008, 02:08 PM // 14:08

^ That's an excellent idea.

Turbobusa · Mar 13, 2008, 03:16 PM // 15:16

Or give it a timer hahaha

Killed u man · Mar 13, 2008, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turbobusa

Or give it a timer hahaha

Or simply remove Paragons from the game?

(Threadwin)

~ Dan ~ · Mar 13, 2008, 05:44 PM // 17:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Or simply remove Paragons from the game?

(Threadwin)

Remove everything. The game would be going in the right direction then.

wuzzman · Mar 13, 2008, 05:46 PM // 17:46

while you guys are debating the epic lameness of leadership (and I say that with the most sarcasm you can emit through the internet), I'm running my 4 turrent ranger build ^-^

Saider maul · Mar 13, 2008, 05:53 PM // 17:53

if you nerf leadership to paragon shouts only then you should nerf expertise to ranger skills only.

Ec]-[oMaN · Mar 13, 2008, 06:07 PM // 18:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

if you nerf leadership to paragon shouts only then you should nerf expertise to ranger skills only.

Something that should have been done ages ago...

Riotgear · Mar 13, 2008, 06:54 PM // 18:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

if you nerf leadership to paragon shouts only then you should nerf expertise to ranger skills only.

The problem with Paragons isn't even so much Leadership being overpowered, the problem is the entire class is utterly ridiculous design-wise. It's a combination of the class having a very strong offensive and defensive presence, having a skill selection that is 99% trash, forgetting to create a practical counter to anything they do, and revolving around a spam-and-spike playstyle that is so passive that I could write a script to play one.

Two aspects of that have been addressed to a degree, namely interrupting chants and the cracked armor addition to Aggressive Refrain (which has been bittersweet with everyone carrying RC), it's still by far the safest and most boring character slotted in any format. Dervishes have enough good ideas that they can be salvaged, as do Rits, Paragons just look like they didn't even try. Even the skill icons are bad.

Not to say Leadership isn't a problem, but the class is designed to spam shouts, so P/W is more of a fulfillment of design intention than it is a case of "oops, this works too well together!"

la_cabra_de_vida · Mar 13, 2008, 08:03 PM // 20:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ec]-[oMaN

Something that should have been done ages ago...

QFT

As for the post above, I highly doubt Dervishes can be saved, besides the recent pious assault fiasco, dervs have only been "good in pvp" for mel and stupid scythe crits, which is why everyone uses A/D's. I definatly think Rits can be salvaged enough without spiritspam or some caster spike. That said I've always thought that Sins and Dervs as frontliners should've had 80al and paras 70al and all skills should be adjusted otherwise.

Ensign · Mar 14, 2008, 02:27 AM // 02:27

"Shields Up!" and "Watch Yourself!" weren't broken by synergy with Paragons - though, of course, that helped. They were broken when Paragons were introduced because they were buffed to earshot range, which made them party-wide passive defenses.

The new "Watch Yourself!" is fine in the paradigm of Paragons and earshot range; "Shields Up!" is just weird now and I'm still not sure what to make of it.

Master Ketsu · Mar 14, 2008, 02:49 AM // 02:49

Both classes from Nightfall were poorly designed. Which was really a letdown.

Paragon's introduced alot of crap that allowed builds to become too easy to run, which goes against the definition of game balance from a Pro gamer standpoint. mass partywide effect's just don't mesh well with the GW design as a whole. They tend to either be stupidly overpowered/simple to run or almost worthless.

Dervishes on the other hand were not a bad Idea. The problem comes in the execution- namely scythes. 9-40 was a terrible idea for base damage and has doomed the dervish into an awkward role.

erk · Mar 14, 2008, 04:38 AM // 04:38

I don't really like what they did to "Watch Yourself" I can't think of too many other +AL skills that have a finite hit count, it's inconsistent, and probably pointless for a skill that does modest damage reduction. "Shields Up!" I think the idea was to reduce damage from say 5 Paragon spear spike teams etc. but not block hits that would cause interrupts and spread conditions.

Kyp Jade · Mar 14, 2008, 03:35 PM // 15:35

I've mentioned this somewhere before.

Shields Up, 50% block attack SKILLS
Weapon of Warding, ends when you use an attack skill.