Curse

Sun Fired Blank · Mar 07, 2008, 12:25 PM // 12:25

A lot of mid-to-high ranked gladiators idle in this forum (including our very own Mokone at glad 8), but very few of them give any voice on the state of the format beyond complaints and opinions in stray threads. There are no advocates on wiki.guildwars.com, there very rarely any clear indications from TA'ers about the state of the format, and there is no observe mode for Izzy to camp. This forum only represents a fraction of the people that play TA, even the high ranking players; but TA players don't congregate anywhere else, and this is probably the one best place to advocate for TA.

So if I asked you to advocate for the format rather than simply remark on the broken skill or build of the month, what would you say? Would you answer the questions presented to you in the topic? Would you answer other questions: is the format beyond repair? Is the distance from GvG unbridgeable? Is there a means to reconcile the GvG focus of balances and continue to maintain TA? If it helps, as a hypothetical, imagine that if you have the chance to influence one final update solely for TA. You have only one chance to voice the update that absolutely must push everything into balance. Note that you don't have to provide absolutes or quantify everything. "Maybe" or "I would consider" when referencing something is more than enough.

Given the overwhelming GvG focus of almost every balance to date and the not-so-distant release of GW2, this may even be fairly true, so if you could, please use this as a chance to say everything that you ever wanted to say about the format for the last half year, and hope that maybe someone important reads it, and understands our conviction for this format.

Also, you are clearly welcome to disagree or debate with anyone (as if that wasn't clear anyways). Anything that causes information to be generated is ideal; that's all I really want, but I would ask that we keep the thread absent of "learn 2 adjust," "just counter by doing this" and "that's easy to beat, you fail as a player" sniping. If you aren't prepared to give an in-depth opinion of some kind, then you really aren't going to contribute anything here, you're just going to nitpick and crap over people, and I'd quite frankly like for this thread to remain open.

Here are my opinions:

Magebane Overemphasizing the Ranger (as if that was doable)

Magebane, for the most part, has displaced every previous ranger template after the functionality update of November 13th, thus capturing the game-breaking potential of d-shot in an option that is completely unblockable and highly disposable. The problem is that a highly disposable option should not have absurd impact. The most similar option, Savage Shot, is designed from the ground up to be reuseable. You simply trade it for anything that you hit, and the consequent reusability factors in block chance versus mileage from successful disruption otherwise; the bonus damage is honestly a minor perk. Magebane Shot completely ignores the formula, slicing through block and crushing almost everything it strikes. This particularly has very serious ramifications for monks. Savage Shot on Guardian or Zealous Benediction is painful; Magebane Shot is a drastic problem that can quickly force a team into panic, and the unblockable clause means that defensive stancing is a non-option. Magebane Shot has consequences for everyone; the disable period is truly problematic for any caster, the ability to circumvent block virtually ensures a strike on longer options, and versus a high quality magebane, your only real options for casts over .75s are to fake on glyph (no longer viable) or slot a Mantra of Concentration. I frankly don't believe that either situation is ideal.

In my opinion, either the unblockable or disable (my choice) clause should be removed. Magebane has probably overemphasized the importance of the ranger in TA, and that's a problem given the already vast importance of a strong ranger for a balanced team. Even lacking one of these clauses, I think the skill would remain elite-worthy.

The Paragon (it's like GvG, you could train a monkey or write a macro to do it)

The motigon has evolved as one of the safest options in TA for a couple of reasons, but some of them are:

- Song of Restoration and Ballad of Restoration for party-wide healing
- "Make Haste!" or "Brace Yourself!" to prevent you from even scratching their monk
- Crippling Anthem and Anthem of Weariness to generate insane condition pressure and alleviate damage
- Mending Refrain / Never Surrender to compensate degen
- Watch Yourself! to solidify everyone versus damage
- Leadership engine for just about anything you desire

It's my opinion that paragons quite frankly make for boring matches. Standard gamebreakers are complete non-factors: the refrains prevent the match from sinking into frenetic desperation from the poison degen, Make Haste inhibits you from catching the monk, Brace Yourself! prevents a casual Shock or Bull's Strike, and once you catch the monk, you often have to get around a five or six second Soldier's Defense. Everything converges to forge a platform that generates a solid amount of pressure and forces you to rain a truly prohibitive amount of violence on the other team in order to create a breaking point.

I hesitate to say the motigon is a bad influence on TA per se, but I think the development of such a platform speaks very poorly of the format. The Song of Restoration, Mending Refrain and Watch Yourself nerfs are problematic for a dedicated motigon, but Cripanthem remains overly viable, and in a healthy meta, I think Cripanthem would get a variety of slight nerfs to everything; duration on "Make Haste!" and "Brace Yourself!," duration on the conditions from the Anthems, maybe adrenaline costs on the Cripanthem.

Healer's Covenant and HCway (mash the button again, I dare you)

If gothspike pushes the boundaries of the format, Healer's Covenant and HCway pushes against everything that defines it. HC is very powerful because it counters our understanding of balanced. It largely counters party degen from poison; it almost entirely cirvumvents traditional problems like daze, interrupts, condition stacks, and caster shutdown hexes; it pushes out enough red bars up to stymie a single frontliner; it clears entire stacks of conditions and hexes from other party members; and everything comes on a bar that almost can't be screwed up. HCway is everything that you might desire: a pair of high damage templates (most often Wounding Strike and Shattering Assault) providing spam DW and enchantment removal, augmented by extra smite-related healing, damage and removal. Given the relative vulnerability of prot and hybrid templates in conventional matchups, HC is unfortunately a premiere monk bar. And the solution is very simple: HC requires a nerf, and some of the options that HCway enables require a nerf also. I don't believe that HCway is not something that you can fight with a simple nerf to HC; the very template is a convergance of many factors and the synergies of numerous options.

Healer's Covenant obviously should have some kind of nerf, and six options come to mind: Increased energy (10E), Increased recharge (10S), Enchantment healing is reduced by 25%, Enchantment duration is reduced by 25%, energy costs are reduced by -1... -2, and if Healer's Covenant is removed, X penalty. I don't know exactly how many of these are required to move HC back into line, but I think several are required. I don't want to remove HC as a viable template, but I don't want something quite so clearly overwhelming.

In particular, Spotless Mind and Spotless Soul can't remove a hex / condition upon ending. I think Patient Spirit is a touch strong in the meta. I would probably consider a recharge (+1-3 seconds), healing (-10-20%) or cast time (+.25-.50 seconds) nerf. Pick one to very softly bump. Vigorous Spirit might deserve a recharge (+2-4 seconds) or duration (-10 seconds) nerf given the ability of using it for a cover enchantment and party-wide healing, but I don't know it's likely to be a problem if HC gets nerfed.

Shattering Assault should probably be +damage rather than base damage. A lot of people used to say "just heal through SA," but SA is quite honestly a pile of unprottable damage on squishies and fairly negligible on hard targets. My math says a +20 damage on SA at DM: 14 would be roughly ideal. The other problem is that SA removes an enchantment for each strike. Removing the unblockable clause would help also, but even then, you still have a strong chance of tearing a guardian or some other prot away. Maybe increasing the recharge (+4 seconds) or the cost (+5E) is a good idea.

Strength of Honor is a bit overwhelming, it's not entirely required, but I might consider a minor damage reduction. Oh, and the Reversal of Damage update is a problem. Please revert it.

Hexes (they stack, you lose, GG)

Hexes are somewhat infrequent right now due to HC's robust nature versus them, but in the past, hexes have always forced teams to detonate. The problem is more structural than anything else, I think, but in a quick nutshell; by design, hexes are essentially unique, costly and extended conditions. Spot hex removal is designed with this caveat, given recharges that largely match to significant hex recharges. The problem is that cover hexes defeat spot hex removal, whereas condition spot removal is mostly adequate to remove a cover and problem condition. And if everything else fails, you simply use a Mending Touch or Draw Conditions. In GvG, the raw power of hexes gets mitigated somewhat by the size of the format, but in TA, you can (or used to be able to) squarely overload / RPS a team using them. Anticipating an HC nerf, it would be nice for some non-elite hex removals to get minor bumps, not only in the form of recharges but in secondary effects; for example, holy veil tied to divine favor giving a minor healing bonus on removal. A handful of hexes could also use a minor nerfs: Barbs and Rigor Mortis come to mind, but several other non-cover hexes that have obscene recharge versus duration ratios could likely use a minor bump.

Enchantment Removal (your prot is a non-factor)

One reason that prot and elementalists aren't popular in TA is because of the definitive strength of magebane and the relative strength of certain healing skills versus meta options. The other problem is the simple fact your enchantments don't stick. A lot of enchantment removal skills are quick and / or powerful. Some of the most notorious options are Corrupt Enchantment, Rip Enchantment, Rending Touch, Rend Enchantments, and Shattering Assault, along with some other options like Gaze of Contempt. In a healthy meta, you'd likely also see Strip Enchantment.

In line with these facts, Guardian became central for every decent WoH or ZB monk. Despite fair vulnerability to d-shot, Guardian was the only option that mitigates the bulk of pressure and also keeps pace with rapid target switching, enchantment removal, and / or multiple sources of physical damage. Most other prots are comparatively disposable, in my view: Guardian was largely interchangeable with Shield of Absorption for most pressure (which is 10R), Shielding Hands is nice but has an obscene recharge, and Spirit Bond and Prot Spirit are very expensive and for the most part unrequired. One thing is for sure; prot strikes me as fairly fragile and inadequate in the meta, and the recharge nerf to Guardian doesn't help. I don't know that prot requires much, if any augmenting; but I do quite frankly wish that Guardian was back to 2r, and I think that most of the removal that I cited should get slightly increased recharges (2 to 5 seconds) and / or cost bumps.

Almost as an afterthought, it would also be fairly significant, in my thoughts, for an elementalist build other than b-surge (now questionable) to have viability in TA outside of spiking, which probably requires a (likely deserved) attunement overhaul.

Some Afterthoughts

R/D is kind of obnoxious even after the Pious Assault nerf, I could use a recharge nerf to Escape. Signet of Humility is comparatively significant, but maybe not deserving of a tweak. Wail of Doom is probably too strong after everything else is done. I'd like to see something done about the Contagion build that's cropped up every now and again, but I think that if everything else was put into place, Contagionway Lite would probably vanish. And I have no idea what could be nerfed to do that anyways. But I could be wrong, and it could need addressing.

Gothspike remains obnoxious, and a nerf to magebane would make it harder versus teams that are smart preprot their caller, but you like never encounter that. I think the problem could be fixed by a 1s activation for Stonesoul / Holy Strike and maybe Shove. I don't actually think incorporating the damage into one packet solves anything; most people don't run Spirit Bond or Protective Spirit anymore.

So, what is my amateur vision of an ideal TA?

1) Magebane would not so firmly displace other amazing elites on a ranger; it should be a viable alternative, not a strictly superior option. Other than the infrequent BHA for the potential of daze overload, you don't really find anything else.
2) The reintroduction of the domination mesmer. As it stands, the tactical value of the domination mesmer is diminished by its relative fragility and the robust nature of many teams. You don't have the luxury of taking it.
3) Quite frankly, other templates outside of unidimensional brute force gimmicks and standard balanced.. Part of the reason that TA has very limited diversity is because of the raw power of certain skills in a 4v4 format.

Is TA beyond repair? Is TA beyond the reasonable purview of updates?

In a short answer: no.

TA is probably in the most decrepit and unfun state in a while; I can hardly think of a time that you had more uniformity and a harder time, but a vast scaling of many options (that are, in my opinion, largely unrelated to GvG) could restore the format to playability.

urania · Mar 07, 2008, 03:43 PM // 15:43

My ideal vision of TA is more or less the TA before factions came out.
Typical balanced consisted of:
Axe prenerf (d'oh) evisc warrior or thumper (the latter being more frequent)
Dual attunements ele with draw (sometimes)
Expell shutdown domination mesmer with BO (they still work fairly well now too..)
MoMe mor boons with cop (therefore there was no or hardly any daze/migr teams in TA at that time, unless it was hex overload).

thats my ideal for a build taking skill to play. funny as it is, rangers were a pretty obscure profession at that time.

For the time being, my ideal is
plague touch evisc warr
magebane ranger with purge
CE necro with grasping
MoW ZB monk

the past mesmer role of shutting down a monk or another caster shifted to the ranger and the blindbot's task shifted onto the necro template, with only the warr and monk templates more or less retaining their function.

Mirror matches are always very demanding and highly exciting because often wise use of prot and especially good hex removal (on the monk as well as the ranger) are called for. Often, matches are decided by 1 single skill - insidious. Quick response and quick reaction along with preprotting and good preveiling are called for, not some mindless spammity spam spam, as the case with spotless spells as well as the whole of 2 monk+2 melee builds is. And all the other crap in TA atm.

To be honest, TA is no longer repairable. Too many skills allow build wars and even if there are instances why TA is (well, was) worth playing with balanced they are, more or less, gone now. The frustration of being forced to resort to a make-red-bars-go-up-cuz-ur-prots-are-useless mentality is not sth i will ever support nor adjust to, no matter what some ppl might say. Thats not how GW is supposed to be, not to mention that such method of playing should be punished heavily (and in the old days it would be, too).

I dont think i have the patience to comment on all of the broken gimmicks again, did it so many times already and even QQ'ing loses its charm sooner or later =p.

valence · Mar 07, 2008, 03:57 PM // 15:57

Fix: Limited skill list.

Done. No sarcasm.

Teh Jace · Mar 07, 2008, 04:35 PM // 16:35

People want points not fun. They are willing to spend insane amount of time by buttonmashing to grind their desired titles. Ideal gw state should be something like e-sport u know... limited skill options, maybe draft as an interresting and challenging choice.

Anyways when gw2 comes up I will laugh at all those champion5 bspikers, heroway r9 noobs and gladiator10 shitheads. GG guys, u spent years by playing pacman (pressing 1 2 3 4 is not gw but pacman) to get reskinned prince rurik (or whatever the bonus for titles will be).

I would like to ask dedicated gimmickers if they rly enjoy playing their builds. Maybe they just wanna see ppl whinning or dunno.

TA is beyond repair if u ask me. Some skills are way too powerful for 4vs4 format and noone cares. So it depends on TA players if they wanna have good matches or shitty farming trips.

It has been always about people.

Sun Fired Blank · Mar 10, 2008, 09:20 PM // 21:20

So you honestly have no opinion whatsoever? Are you honestly content with the state of the format? Are you simply not enthused to craft an extended response? Do you truly believe the format is dead? Come on. Over 200 views on the thread, and only Jace and Karla responded (and valence, to a point).

To be frank, I know very honestly that most of you are unsatisfied with A-Net's response to the format. I know that most of you are unsatisfied with the meta. I know that most of you think the format could be improved, even given the disparity of GvG and TA. I know this. I play with most of you daily and I speak with many of you daily. Heck, I know that many of you read this very post, and chose to not respond. This more than anything else puzzles me.

If our presence and thoughts are not made clear in organized fashion -- through an outburst on Wiki, an extended forum thread, or a direct advocate -- then we are largely stuck with the result of silence, hoping that some higher format change improves TA. Or worse, you are stuck with the output of Wiki'ers that probably can't balance a pitcher on a dinner table.

Say something. Anything. Most of you that read this forum and spend any time in TA often spend hours in TA. Use one of those hours to post a response here. Heck, even if you think this thread is a dumb, badly written, poorly intentioned vomit of words from a PvP troglodyte, grace me with that and give some kind of an explanation. It's the very least you can do, I think.

Drink Ice Tea · Mar 10, 2008, 10:13 PM // 22:13

I completely agree with the Magebane part.

Kk.

the_deSKtructor · Mar 10, 2008, 10:13 PM // 22:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teh Jace

TA is beyond repair if u ask me. Some skills are way too powerful for 4vs4 format and noone cares. So it depends on TA players if they wanna have good matches or shitty farming trips.

This is the point. The game is balanced around gvg, and that's fine. Nobody really cares about balancing TA,tho i can't really understand why skills that are abused in this format and are not are not used in the other formats can't be changed.

urania · Mar 11, 2008, 09:47 AM // 09:47

maybe we'll at least see a fix to both bugged spotless skills, since apparently izzy wasnt even aware up to now that there were such bugs to begin with.
at least, hexing the melee will have a point then...more or less

Shendaar · Mar 11, 2008, 01:02 PM // 13:02

EDA and Magebane are the two skills I kind of have a problem with in TA. Magebane's effect is just too good for how easy it is to spam and EDA(d/p) is just a stupid brainless skill that almost forces you to bring Rend in the event that you run into one.

The R/D template is bad for the game as well, as it takes no skill whatsoever to just c+space and spam your attacks on recharge while sitting behind a wall of block.

Prepshot rangers are dump too.

Teh Jace · Mar 11, 2008, 01:54 PM // 13:54

The recent skill balance is shifting rangers slowly out of meta :/

In a common balanced template nec has become enfeeble spambot (since hexes dont work anymore), monk mindless patient spirit spambot (hail to the few true monks left). There is simply nothing to interrupt.

As for EDA. EDA is simply dead. Every decent team has rend ench + several other options how to deal with enchs. So having EDA is like having one char down.

Foul feast is terribly overpowered (yday I tried nec with plague signet, MoC and foul feast... pure ownage)... it owns every cond based build (the majority of TA builds are cond based).

Imo get rid of ranger, bring dom mesmer with mantra of conc and PD as an elite. Spam diversions, shames and other crap on HC monk (lets abuse these noobs dont have veil) and lock res sigs with PD.

So the new balanced build might look like this :

W/E - shock axe
Me/E - PD, MoC, shame, diversion, blackout, ench removal, grasping earth maybe
N/Me - plague signet, foul feast, MoC, enfeeble spammer, rend ench
Mo - ZB for ppl with self-confidence, HC for the rest

Shendaar · Mar 11, 2008, 03:19 PM // 15:19

EDA is dead because of Rend(and now Foul Feast), but to be honest, the only reason why I would bring rend is to deal with EDA should one team be running it. Rend as other uses of course, but we decided to include it in our build to deal with EDA and nothing else.

If it wasn't for rend and the new Foul Feast+Plague Signet, EDA would likely be a much bigger problem.

Orange Milk · Mar 11, 2008, 05:12 PM // 17:12

EDA has never been a problem for us, I can't remember the last time I was on a team NOT equipt with Rend.

TA now reminds me of 6 man HA. There is one objective and a limited skill set so you can not prepare for everything. Hence the reason Gimicks work so well, but instead of farming fame on the first 2-3 maps over and over you can win 10, 15, 20 matches or so until someone comes along built to stop you with another gimick.

It's a product of it's self though, The Magebane arrived and the Necro and Rits left becuase they were useless due to Interupts,(though the Necro is back, but yeah, not in the same roll) The Paragon appeared with His heal support/condition spreading, But he's gone now with the recent Mending Refrain nerf.

Enchants and Prots useless becuase they are TOO easy to remove, add in the new Rip Enchants buff and a bar with Corrupt Enchant + Rip Enchant is uber leet. However stances on Monks are here on a much higher scale than used to be.

HC can't handle a spike or massive face bashing, it will stay though, but hey it used to just be "Hey are you a ZB or a WoH Monk?" Now htere is a third option, lol. An HC needs a bit of support to be effective, Necros job now.

As for the R/D's, the Necro is back, and with it is Defile Defenses, The Ranger pushed the Necro out with Magebane, now the Necro will push the Ranger out with Defile + Foul Feast.

Still the Dev Hammer + Crip Slash + Balts Smiter + HC, is awful powerful, They always say "A 3 Monk backline in HA is playing with training wheels" So is 2 Monks in TA, bad part is too many teams that don't need to play with training wheels are.

Every man is the same, "Kill Everyone", even if you mix it up and add a few HoH like maps nothing will change, still 4 people and just 32 skills.

People say a ladder would be good, but eh, the gimicks just get more popular that way. I don't know what needs done to TA to fix/save it, I DO know I was against the Glad point title track change, and still am, However the arena is alot more popular now than it was then. I still say remove Glad points from RA, but RA farmers would be the best candidates for copying gimicks so who knows.

There ya go Joe, I responded, can I go back to figuring out where all this exhaustion is coming from now?

Teh Jace · Mar 11, 2008, 06:20 PM // 18:20

Srsly... The question should be : "Are u HC? No? then GTFO noob."

HC is totally broken bar and we dont have to talk about it. Its fact and everyone knows it. Every build which allows u to spam skills on recharge is broken.

Hit HC and similar spamming builds and TA will become challenging arena where only skillful ppl stand chance once again. If u remove glad pts from RA all these wammos will learn these HC gimmicks and it will be even worse imo.

Everything was allright before HC arrival. The current state of TA is something like : WTF ARE U JOKING US ANET? GIMME MY MONEY BACK OR FIX THIS CRAP!

at milk : BTW ur guild tag sounds familiar. There is a hardcore gimmick farmer I eats Noobsssss[rsn] playing this build daily. Just out of curiosity... is he in ur guild?

urania · Mar 11, 2008, 06:38 PM // 18:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

It's a product of it's self though, The Magebane arrived and the Necro and Rits left becuase they were useless due to Interupts,(though the Necro is back, but yeah, not in the same roll)

correction, rits are still here (guess which monk build they normally serve to complement

) and so are the necs. the reason why CE necs have become rarer is the HC spammer, or to be more exact,. the bugged spotless mind, not magebane ranger...=P

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

Enchants and Prots useless becuase they are TOO easy to remove, add in the new Rip Enchants buff and a bar with Corrupt Enchant + Rip Enchant is uber leet. However stances on Monks are here on a much higher scale than used to be.

correction #2, enchants are still very popular. HC bar anyone..? prots, or better to say, monk bars using any kind of prot, are becoming less common, again because of the HC and balth pendulum builds, but also because of the abudance of shatter sins, rend touch r/d's, rend ench warrs (not so much of a problem tho against normal monk).

CE AND Rip are overkill. stances were always on a high scale in TA, not sure where u were playing till now...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

HC can't handle a spike or massive face bashing, it will stay though, but hey it used to just be "Hey are you a ZB or a WoH Monk?" Now htere is a third option, lol. An HC needs a bit of support to be effective, Necros job now.

actually, HC can handle it fairly easy because spiking a target is kinda hard if u have a disarm warr up ur ass all the time and if none of the targets even get under 80% hp thanks to vig spirit and patient spirit. Tho it is worth mentioning that it works especially well in 2 warr+ranger teams (for obvious reasons).
No, HC does NOT need support, they're spamming tank-monks and only a domi mesmer can shut them down efficiently. which is again hard if u're getting linebacked by a hammer warr.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

As for the R/D's, the Necro is back, and with it is Defile Defenses, The Ranger pushed the Necro out with Magebane, now the Necro will push the Ranger out with Defile + Foul Feast.

once again, rangers did NOT push necs out of the game. already said, why. It was more the mesmers that were pushed out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

Still the Dev Hammer + Crip Slash + Balts Smiter + HC, is awful powerful, They always say "A 3 Monk backline in HA is playing with training wheels" So is 2 Monks in TA, bad part is too many teams that don't need to play with training wheels are.

it was too powerful mainly cuz of HC spammer. however, with buffed Reversal of Damage its even worse now .

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

People say a ladder would be good, but eh, the gimicks just get more popular that way. I don't know what needs done to TA to fix/save it, I DO know I was against the Glad point title track change, and still am, However the arena is alot more popular now than it was then. I still say remove Glad points from RA, but RA farmers would be the best candidates for copying gimicks so who knows.

what ta and the rest of this game needs is a thorough, precise and efficient as well as useful update. It is hard though, if the ppl responsible for that are not familiar with all of the problems or better to say, hear about them from others only.

Indeed, glad point change was completely unneeded for.
Id split both of the arenas, but anet refuse to do so.

the_deSKtructor · Mar 11, 2008, 06:39 PM // 18:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

EDA has never been a problem for us, I can't remember the last time I was on a team NOT equipt with Rend.

Back then rend didn't have the 20 secs recharge so it was actually a problem

Quote:

It's a product of it's self though, The Magebane arrived and the Necro and Rits left becuase they were useless due to Interupts,(though the Necro is back, but yeah, not in the same roll).

That's not true, only bad necs got owned by the magebane ranger so the nec template was still viable. What really killed the necromancer is the bugged spotless mind that has no counters atm (but it's prolly gonna get fixed soon). Spirit poopers rits didn't do anything in the past aswell, unless u brought at least 2 or 3 of them.

Quote:

HC can't handle a spike or massive face bashing, it will stay though, but hey it used to just be "Hey are you a ZB or a WoH Monk?" Now htere is a third option, lol. An HC needs a bit of support to be effective, Necros job now.

The HC can actually handle massive face bashing.

EDIT: urania was faster than me

Teh Jace · Mar 11, 2008, 06:56 PM // 18:56

Anyways... who represents the TA community? Cuz I know izzy has his talkpage on wiki and some ppl comment on the skills he wants to adjust somehow. Or does TA have any kind of representation?

Cuz if retarded wammos keep telling izzy what to buff and what nerf.
As far as I remember there was some nub who was calling himself the gothspike creator and he was posting terrible shit there.

Maybe its time to stop whinning here cuz noone reads obviously. Karla said she was playing with izzy so lets exploit her valuable contact

Orange Milk · Mar 11, 2008, 07:23 PM // 19:23

Yeah, I refuse to run with Noobsssss when he runs it, or anyone else for that matter, see my comment about good people useing unneeded training wheels. Just like I refused to run Goth Spike after I tried it once. It saddens me that when people ask me to TA and I have to reply "No HC/Smite + 2 war" and they reply "aww man"

Urania I won't argue with you because you simply just like to run your mouth and pretend you know everything so there is really no point.

Besides I was speaking from the builds I play and the builds I face, (i.e. we stopped running a Necro or a Rit most of the time and always ran a magebane, also witnessed a decline in Necros/Rits BEFORE HC became popular) I don't know you nor do I team with so you would see differently than I do, also I'm not sure what arena you are in.

A guy asked people to post their opinion and all you do is flame because they don't agree with you 100%, yeah, that should encourage more posting you close-minded moron.

the_deSKtructor · Mar 11, 2008, 07:34 PM // 19:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

It's a product of it's self though, The Magebane arrived and the Necro and Rits left becuase they were useless due to Interupts,(though the Necro is back, but yeah, not in the same roll).

Quote:

Besides I was speaking from the builds I play and the builds I face, (i.e. we stopped running a Necro or a Rit most of the time and always ran a magebane, also witnessed a decline in Necros/Rits BEFORE HC became popular) I don't know you nor do I team with so you would see differently than I do, also I'm not sure what arena you are in.

If people run less of them doesn't mean that they are useless. I never had problems playing the old nec template vs Magebane ranger, yet it started to be a problem when ppl started to use spotless mind.

valence · Mar 11, 2008, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

Besides I was speaking from the builds I play and the builds I face, (i.e. we stopped running a Necro or a Rit most of the time and always ran a magebane, also witnessed a decline in Necros/Rits BEFORE HC became popular) I don't know you nor do I team with so you would see differently than I do, also I'm not sure what arena you are in.

A guy asked people to post their opinion and all you do is flame because they don't agree with you 100%, yeah, that should encourage more posting you close-minded moron.

The decline of the necro was due to the increase of the para. The para isn't as imba as some people call it, as a dshot on the chants make the bar terribad. Most teams however didnt played against the para as it was a necro giving some free wins. The shouts keeps the team alive, dshot it and it becomes useless. Having Mending Refrains plus gfte/wy is the only way to keep the refrains up, most teams running the para didnt use this. However I do find the nec bar more interesting to play with and against then the para. Also the nec was better at handling interrupts (faintheardness) then a para is. I would also consider the nec more balanced then the para mainly due there are more answers vs the nec.

Rits never saw much play outside warmonger gimmicks, and those builds where often kept in check by other bad skills in the rit template. You basically took the rit solely for the warmonger. The main issue on the rit template with monger is e-manage, which forces you to take a channel elite emanage or glyph of lesser. The first option makes you dependant of spirits and the latter means you need to spot hex removal in other slots (often dh monk). Thankfully not many teams took dh monks in that build. Warmonger is for me a prime example how RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed up the meta is, it creates instant 3/4 battles, and was solely kept in check due the nature of the rit bar. Currently a rit can support the hc monk, the main reason I think people would do this is wep of warding, as the smiter doesnt usually take some blocks with him.

I agree, lets not make it a flamefest. However urania just pointed out a few things that I think are correct.

Barkeep · Mar 11, 2008, 10:00 PM // 22:00

Well, I think the warrior/para/ranger 'balanced' that became popular the last months was only a reaction to the succes of warrior/ranger/necro.

These paragon teams were basically impossible to kill with pressure because of mending refrain/never surrender combined with shouts that cannot be interrupted. For me, this resulted in several boring matches where both teams were unable to kill anything for 8 minutes.

Skills that should be nerfed

But back to the state of TA. I would not want to say that TA cannot be fixed anymore. TA is simply more vulnerable to overpowered builds because it's 4 vs 4 and not 8 vs 8. And looking at the current state of TA. The only skill that really bothers me is spotless. The skill is simply bugged, so this WILL be fixed. And if Izzy really wants to make me happy he just makes vigorous spirit a 1 sec cast again so I can interrupt it and even HC monks will die to pressure.

To be fair, I cannot really think of many other gimmick builds that annoy me much at the moment. dual melee/ranger/HC, dual assa/smiter/HC, assa/derv/smiter/HC. They all rely on the bugged spotless to keep the team clean while vigorous heals them up.

Paragons.. well, it's gay, for sure, but the mending refrain nerf helps. Although I still think it is not enough. I think the skill in general is too powerful for a non-elite that you cannot actually remove. I'd prefer to see, "target ally gets 1-4 health regeneration for 20 seconds".

Shovespike.. 1 sec on the stonesoul/holy strike would be nice. it would prevent them from hitting during the same KD twice.

then last but not least.. magebane rangers. I love em. So it would hurt my heart if they got nerfed again, but I suppose they are a bit overpowered at the moment. Remove the unblockable part from the skill and you got a conditional less effective elite d-shot. Not worthy of using in my opinion. Remove the 10 second additional shutdown and you got an unblockable interrupt. I'd still use it then.

Ideal, blabla

In a perfect state of the game there will not be one ideal build. In a perfect state of the game the old balanced War/Ele/Mes, would have equal chance against War/Ranger/Nec. And balanced would always be able to beat gimmicks by playing properly and shutting down the right skills. And rangers would never have orange ping vs shovespike.