Curse

Sab · Mar 11, 2008, 10:05 PM // 22:05

When Magebane came along, Necros just had to play a little smarter or bring Mantra of Conc. Teams still ran W/R/N/Mo pretty decently, long after the Magebane buff. Necros basically get owned by Motigons, which popped up sometime around Magebane. SoR/Ballad/Mending cleaned up all the degen from the Ranger and the Necro, leaving the Warrior to solo-spike guys at full health. A Necro can't shut down three physicals forever, so unless the W/R/N team plays extremely well, the W/R/P team is going to survive until the Necro gets bottomed out on energy, then proceed to own face. If people stopped running Necros before HC, that was probably it.

As for Rits, they get dominated by good teams, Magebane or not. Kill spirits - shut down Warmongers (or the guy with Warmongers). They eventually get pressured out because there's no efficient way of cleaning up degen or incidental damage. The only reason people ran Rits was for Warmongers, and now that it's been nerfed (slightly) and Guardian got a buff, Rits aren't as strong as they used to be. I'm pretty sure anyone with a decent grasp of TA stopped running Rits long before the Magebane buff.

urania · Mar 11, 2008, 10:40 PM // 22:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

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.

I dont know everything, but i do know a lot about TA =P.
If you do not want to make counter arguments (and i dont think u can make any decent ones, but i dare you), then u dont need to flame me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

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.

Thats why there are forums where posters can share their opinions with others and correct those that they believe are not precise enough =P.
(sab made a nice correction to my argument about why necs became obscure, for example, and i agree on it more or less too)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

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.

where did i flame...? i merely find ur opinion wrong in some points and gave u a taste of what i think is actually the case. its called (constructive) criticism.
YOU, however, resorted to childish flaming.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sab

You know which buff I'm talking about -.-

o_O

i only know the recharge got bumped up....someone enlighten me on this, please.

Sab · Mar 11, 2008, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

o_O

i only know the recharge got bumped up....someone enlighten me on this, please.

The duration increase/50% block, you don't remember? Maybe that was ages ago. Point is, Magebane wasn't the reason people stopped running Rits, they were just weak against good teams who knew how to stop Warmongers (interrupt, Guardian, use walls), kill spirits and spread degen.

Sun Fired Blank · Mar 12, 2008, 04:51 AM // 04:51

Jace, your best advocates are probably VegaObscura (of Goth, I believe; he is not Vega Gladiator), ArmondWarblade, Readem, and Shadetz X.. VegaObscura doesn't say much; he's very sporadic, and he speaks predominantly through Andrew Patrick's talk page about format changes rather than skill balances. I've never played versus him. Readem used to post rather frequently and most of his advice was fairly solid; he's not said anything in two weeks though. He's a fairly average TA player (in my opinion), but I don't mind him speaking for the format; he can be a touch abrasive, and as I mentioned, he's not very active as of late, although I don't know exactly why. ArmondWarblade's fairly acerbic and hostile, and he speaks more for GvG than any other format, I believe. I know nothing about his credentials, but I don't feel that he's someone you want advocating for the format, and given some of his advice (Holy Veil is underpowered, give us a 6 second recharge for it; Guardian deserves a 5 second recharge), I don't know that you want him to be our advocate anyways. Shadetz X is probably one of the higher ranking TA players to post on the wiki; if memory serves, he's glad 6, and his user contributions are promising, but he's not particularly "loud," if you understand me.

If you check over the wiki, you can see that even our "best" advocates are not particularly vocal on our behalf, and that a minority of idiots are speaking on the behalf of the majority. Some links that may interest you:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_talk:Andrew_Patrick - Despite being the PvP community manager, no one has posted to him about our problems.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_...iah_Cartwright - You can clearly see that no one is really advocating for the format; no one has yet posted explicitly about our format or serious problems like HC.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_...Update20080306 - It might help to see what people think of the most recent update, but your brain might hemhorrage.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:.../User_feedback - Check recent feedback on certain skills. Note that you are currently represented on the wiki by people that advise you improve Spotless Mind and nerf Eviscerate.

Wiki has quite frankly never been the best way to communicate a need for change, but as A-Net employees have no way to observe TA and (so far as I know) don't ever play TA, we're stuck with Wiki and Guru, so we have to make the most of it.

Shendaar: to be honest, I think that EDA is fairly marginal. You could argue that Rend Enchantments (updated October 2007) was a huge step in reducing its viability, but frankly, I think EDA could not survive in this meta, even with a pre-update sucktacular Rend. To be frank, also, Rend is powerful enough that I have no problem using it outside of the chance of encountering Ebon Dust Aura, but also has enough restrictions that I don't mind it being prevalent in the meta.

The Escape and Machinegun / Turret Rangers are painful but honestly not so much of a problem either, if you ask me. The Escape ranger is fairly low damage and now that you can't supercompress damage using Pious Assault, it's fairly easy to cope with. The machinegun rangers are a bit more problematic, as directional sources of damage are harder to catch, and the template can pump out a huge amount of damage into a relatively small amount of time. However, it's fairly predictable, gets mostly undone by a single reversal, and can't singlehandedly down a target. Also, it has almost no space for utility; it's very linear and unflexible template, and if you smartly use geometry and reversal, you should be fine. The damage is ultimately fairly low; 3,000 damage a minute is not insignificant but hardly gamebreaking pressure.

In terms of other notes, Jace is right. Some of the buffs to necromancer are potentially sickening, and in a healthy meta, you almost certainly would have to adjust a number of condition / wail-based templates. Foul Feast absolutely craps over any form of condition pressure. Headbutt probably also requires a reworking to prevent from covered the other team in half minute dazes. Contagion, Signet of Midnight, Plague Sending and Foul Feast abuse is fairly obnoxious.

I absolutely think that any changes must also understand the potential strength of the updated necromancer, the importance of condition pressure, and the decline of prot. The prevalence of HC is likely a determining factor that prevents a number of insane necro templates from exploding onto the scene.

Leo, Karla is right.

Ritualists drifted from the meta for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that lameway (spearchucker + warmonger's) could push fairly hard on the necromancer so long as they had 100% uptime for the weapon; but after the nerf, such a lock was harder than before, and most people didn't bother to use a ritualist outside of a lameway setup. At roughly the same time, cripanthems and motigons became more popular.

In the same respect, Necromancers remained a valuable flex option after the magebane update. To be frank, Magebane is paradoxically strong; it has enough power to clearly displace other elites and to perhaps encourage subtle development of HC monk, but despite (or in light of) its powerful nature, it also isn't strong enough to decisively push anything out of the meta. It was honestly not until the prevalence of Spotless Mind (before HC), Cripanthem and Motigons that you observed a sharp decline in the CE template. Also, versus certain templates, the necromancer was far weaker; Cripanthem or EDA were more unlikely to be dead options.

Sab, valence and Karla both explained it far stronger than I did, but I think understanding a timeline of development is crucial. Under your line of argument, simply nerfing magebane and HC would bring the old necromancer back, and even if you reverted magebane to its previous behavior, and reverted the recent necro buffs, that clearly would not be the case.

You underestimate the durability of HC. You can outheal any warrior (or even two warriors, for a time) in permafrenzy through patient spirit spam, and you can rely on vigorous spirit to stop even overwhelming amounts of degen. The rest of your bar can be solely dedicated to self-survival, silver bullet options and flex crap. That's an enormous advantage that contradicts every notion of monking. And if you direct your frontliners to linebacking, as Karla mentioned, you can dump a huge amount of damage on the other team and ultimately stop them from bashing your face in.

Squall, I wholeheartedly agree, but I think Vigorous Spirit is a very interesting option on .25 cast; my great concerns are the duration versus recharge. You simply can't fight Vigorous Spirit, and I'd honestly much rather have an option that you can punish through removal than something that relies on d-shot. As it stands, you can use Vig Spirit indefinitely on everyone, and reusing it five times before you have to legitimiately renew it on someone. It's a very powerful anti-pressure option, it's very hard to fight through removal, and it's completely insane as a cover enchantment due to reusability and power.

I don't know yet if the motivation nerfs brought the paragon into line, mostly because it's very hard to run a competitive setup using a paragon. I largely suspect after this crap blows over, it should remain okay, if necromancers are pre-emptively brought into line, but some of the options under command are still really potent, perhaps too much.

And it must have hurt a lot to say that about magebane. I'm sorry to put you through that.

Sab, I honestly didn't much notice the earlier Guardian buff. The flat pre-update (6 seconds w/ enchanting) versus post-update scaling (7 to 8 seconds w/ enchanting) duration always felt like a relative nonfactor versus good players, and you got a 48% block rate at 14 prot prayers. But I definitely felt the four second recharge nerf, and as one of the few people left who runs ZB almost exclusively, I'm still frustrated about it.

urania · Mar 12, 2008, 07:18 AM // 07:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sab

The duration increase/50% block, you don't remember? Maybe that was ages ago. Point is, Magebane wasn't the reason people stopped running Rits, they were just weak against good teams who knew how to stop Warmongers (interrupt, Guardian, use walls), kill spirits and spread degen.

haha, ofcourse, now i remember. I used to find it so bad that i never ran it, but i completely forgot about that by now. ><

anyhow, the recharge nerf on guardian hurts quite a bit, yeah. One can no longer maintain it on 2 targets and smart target switching can own it lot more than before too - unless one is sitting on their 40/40 set most of the time and hoping they get lucky with halfed recharge.

plol at the request to IMPROVE spotless mind.
double plol at the wish to NERF evisc.
Made a few comments on guardian and Reversal of Damage in the topics that Sun Fired Blank linked in his/her last post. Tho i think asking izzy for TA would do more good than anything else.

@squall, I'd gladly name a few other builds i consider overpowered (or at least too strong considering the amount of skill the build itself takes to play) and tbh, there is a few new ones that are pretty strong thanks to the buffed foul feast, for example, but I dont wanna give ideas for another abuse, so yeah...

as far as the w/p/r/mo against w/n/r/mo matches are concerned, i think they posed a high challenge exactly cuz of the crazy counter to degen that is one of the main attributes of the latter build to keep pressure up and score kills. and to say it frankly, only either mend refrain or never surrender were needed for a successful nullyfing of the degen, both of them on the same bar are overkill. however, i believe that the necro is not only a lot more fun to play (especially now with the buff to enfeeble's cast time and grapsing eath's aftercast) but a lot more versatile too.
nevertheless, i think it also takes more skill to play the template

the_deSKtructor · Mar 12, 2008, 08:46 AM // 08:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barkeep

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.

That's kinda true, but i'd rather see an HC that lowers your heal rank by 5 while you are under the effects of it (heal on spells remains the same than how it is now but it will also affect the enchantments properly) along with the spotless skills fix.

Quote:

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".

That's the problem with most of the refrains, they just last forever and u can't do anything to them, but this is not only a problem in TA but it is also a problem in all the other formats imo.

Quote:

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

Making those skills hard prottable would be nice aswell.

Quote:

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.

I have to agree with this. You basically want magebane to be either the elite dshot or the elite savage shot. Having 2 dshots on the same bar is just dumb, so the best way for this skill would be to make it like the elite savage shot. So yeah, removing the disable while keeping the unblockable clause would be the best way to balance the skill.

Teh Jace · Mar 12, 2008, 09:26 AM // 09:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

however, i believe that the necro is not only a lot more fun to play (especially now with the buff to enfeeble's cast time and grapsing eath's aftercast) but a lot more versatile too.
nevertheless, i think it also takes more skill to play the template

Oh yeah sure. Press 1 for ultimate energy management and huge amount of heal, press 2 for weakness on demand. We are facing another HC, wake up.

Yday we ran dual warrs and met karla with foul feast spammer... no chance.
BTW : tell ur pr0 ranger to turn off caps and stop flaming with ppl whose build lost at build wars. Its sad.

the_deSKtructor · Mar 12, 2008, 10:21 AM // 10:21

Yeah, foul fest as emanagment is just insane (cap the energy return to 2 or so) and enfeeble was already fine as it was. Once again i think anet buffed a bit too much some skills, but i gotta say that apart from that the changes are in the right direction.

I June I · Mar 12, 2008, 12:48 PM // 12:48

I dont think TA is as broken as you say, does any good team actually have troubles with HC/smite teams? or just teams running HC's.... our guild consistently runs balance or dual war, we certainly have no problems with either mentioned, (altho Dual war vs R/D escapers is ><). Also were/are motigons ever as popular as a necro?

Id have to agree mirror matches are usualy the most demanding and the most fun to play, which ofc means theres something wrong with ta...

Un-Nerf guardian!

(squall and 1 sec casts -_-")

zling · Mar 12, 2008, 02:33 PM // 14:33

the main problem in TA at the moment is not the overpowered skills, those will always be, just with different names...
the problem is infact the title...
achieving the title for whatever reason causes farming mentality. put that in a PvP format and you get PvE players who bring gimmicky builds to PvP.
think of all the great farming builds nowadays: paraway, ursanway, 55ing, 600ing, terra tanking, shadow form, etc
all of those builds are gimmicks, easy to use and very effective, which is why their used in the first place...

so those PvErs come to PvP(TA) to farm glad points instead of cash, golds or whatever they farm in PvE, and bring all those gimmicks with them. you wont see many 55ers and shadowforms(although you see some which is very sad and proves my point) but you see other gimmicks(shoveway, rit spike, goth spike, etc) which work for the current "farming area" or in its more common name, TA.

now, for the main question: is the format beyond repair?
probably so as gw2 is coming up and the devs and everyone else is more concentrated on that than anything else on gw(1)...
but lets assume for a moment that the devs and everyone else still cares about gw(1) instead of the forthcoming gw2, it is repairable.
what needs to be fixed is not the title itself, as it's still something that distinguishes good players from bad, or at least used to until all the gimmicks started dominating. what really needs fixed is the format itself. the format should punish bunker builds(too much defense, too low offense) and gimmicks while favouring offensive builds and more importantly good old balanced builds. I'm not really sure how to punish gimmick users and favour balanced users, perhaps something to do with the shrine mentality, maps, kill count, I dont know... hell even give penalties for passive play like in american football, that will help vs those shoveways shadowform griefers(not such a huge problem but still...) and their sort, spike run for almost a full minute and spike again...

oh and,

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_deSKtructor

I have to agree with this. You basically want magebane to be either the elite dshot or the elite savage shot. Having 2 dshots on the same bar is just dumb, so the best way for this skill would be to make it like the elite savage shot. So yeah, removing the disable while keeping the unblockable clause would be the best way to balance the skill.

incase you forgot Punishing Shot is already the elite Savage Shot... yeah that long obselete elite that was used in a all those R-Spike teams when Rangers didnt have any other elites worth running...
so I guess you want it as an elite Distracting Shot?

as I said earlier in my post I dont think that any single skill is the problem, and neither is Magebane Shot as it is now... but yeah I can see where you come from saying it and many other skills are overpowered. just keep in mind that if you only nerf Magebane than other skills that got toned down because of it will suddenly break lose and rain hell down on us... and thus we go back to the endless cycle of "balancing" [sarcasm]cause A-Net is just doing such a poor job at it everytime we never achieve true balance[/sarcasm]
although many of you will say that it is true I will say this: gimmicks always were, always are and always will be, A-Net will never be able to stop them, whether you guys like it or not... the human mind will always find ways to exploit the system, whichever system that may be, and thus its a losing battle on A-Nets side if you actually think or it as "balancing" or just a spice flavour if you see it the only way it can really be, changing the meta once in a while...

the_deSKtructor · Mar 12, 2008, 04:08 PM // 16:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_deSKtructor

I have to agree with this. You basically want magebane to be either the elite dshot or the elite savage shot. Having 2 dshots on the same bar is just dumb, so the best way for this skill would be to make it like the elite savage shot. So yeah, removing the disable while keeping the unblockable clause would be the best way to balance the skill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zling

oh and,

incase you forgot Punishing Shot is already the elite Savage Shot... yeah that long obselete elite that was used in a all those R-Spike teams when Rangers didnt have any other elites worth running...
so I guess you want it as an elite Distracting Shot?

Where did i say that I want it to be the elite dshot? If u read my quote u can see that i clearly said that i'd remove the 10 seconds disable clause while keeping it unblockable. Also, who says that there should be only 1 elite savage shot.

bhavv · Mar 12, 2008, 06:20 PM // 18:20

I didnt realise that there were good players in TA.

Normally when I get a good RA group through to TA, we get up to 15-20 wins. A couple of days ago after a 16 win streak from RA, I stayed in TA on my monk while AFK. Over a half hour period I had the same group begging me to join them, during which I just ran around /fame spiking and telling then 'no unless you gimme 100 ecto' for a little laugh, but they were so desperate and persistant so I thought I would join them.

Leader was a W/E with Flare and Firestorm. The ranger had Hundred Blades.

No freaking kidding. I went completely barmy at exploded at them and the leader gives it 'Durr, I'm a W/E'.

I know that blind invites are usually a recipe for disaster, but this has to be the worst random TA group ever. Even just pressing the enter battle button when I'm alone in TA gets me a somewhat Ok group.

And about Healers Covenent - It is only overpowered and being used now because everything else has been nerfed. They nerfed Boon Prot ages ago, then LoD, then SoR, so now the only two valid elites monks really had in arenas were WoH and ZB. Whoever invented the HC build is a genious. It used to be a skill that monks shunned because of the -25% healing, but it now works so damn good.

Obviously it will get nerfed because so many people use it. Then what will monks be left with as viable PVP elites? WoH and ZB? Oh great.

the_deSKtructor · Mar 12, 2008, 06:41 PM // 18:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

And about Healers Covenent - It is only overpowered and being used now because everything else has been nerfed. They nerfed Boon Prot ages ago, then LoD, then SoR, so now the only two valid elites monks really had in arenas were WoH and ZB.

Do you really consider pre-nerf LoD and SoR good arenas elites? :/

urania · Mar 12, 2008, 07:17 PM // 19:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teh Jace

Oh yeah sure. Press 1 for ultimate energy management and huge amount of heal, press 2 for weakness on demand. We are facing another HC, wake up.

Yday we ran dual warrs and met karla with foul feast spammer... no chance.
BTW : tell ur pr0 ranger to turn off caps and stop flaming with ppl whose build lost at build wars. Its sad.

jace, im reffering to CE necro.

when we play with vD we ONLY run that nec bar, its our favourite necro bar and always will be, i dare say.
when we faced u yesterday i, as well as void, T (who played the nec) and rok, can asure you I am telling the truth. If ur mes would be an expeller they'd be far more useful.
and dont take rok too seriously, he never flames for real.

at bhav, whoever invented hc crap should be shot.
it works far too well and has no downfalls whatsoever. it should get nerfed, but not because many ppl use it, but because it relies on mindless spam (though that has to do with why so many ppl use it then, i guess...a sad fact) - the amount of skill u put into it is highly disproportionate considering how powerful it is and that it has no negative sides to it (well, avoids them).

Orange Milk · Mar 12, 2008, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Quote:

at bhav, whoever invented hc crap should be shot.
it works far too well

Yeah, that douche that invented the wheel should be shot too, I'd much rather be walking everywhere.

Hate the game not the player.

@bhavv - You can't judge the quality of players in TA by your imput from joining a random PUG. I could go to HA, join a random PUG, and come back here and say the same thing about that place.

Yes, if you got rid of HC your stuck with WoH and ZB as your only choices again, but those 2 made for a much better balance to the arena. Besides I feel 1 HC monk is not a problem, it's when you combine the Smitter in that have issues with the whole thing.

bhavv · Mar 12, 2008, 08:21 PM // 20:21

Wernt LoD prot and SoR bonder like standard builds in arenas?

They got me planty of glads when I used them.

the_deSKtructor · Mar 12, 2008, 09:02 PM // 21:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

Wernt LoD prot and SoR bonder like standard builds in arenas?

They got me planty of glads when I used them.

Oh yeah, in random arenas, were nobody has enchantment removal and stuff.

Teh Jace · Mar 12, 2008, 10:43 PM // 22:43

From a ranger point of view : back in time if I wanted to help my warrior to kill smth I hit guardian with dshot. If I wanted to keep him clean I hit faint, insidious, whatever. Now I cant do anything. Im simply not that pro to hit 1/4s patient or 1/4s enfeeble with my reflexes. I have to fire x interrupts and maybe one of them will hit.

From a monk point of view : I decide to run ZB cuz Im not a zombie but wtf... that HC guy keeps them on 100% most of the time while I have to rely on dangerous 50%HP mark. I have to dodge deb shots I have to switch sets to catch fast casting I have to watch their warriors I have to...

From a nec point of view : LOL FOUL FEAST OWNZZZZ U N00BS!

TA needs to be repaired... srsly.

I June I · Mar 12, 2008, 11:17 PM // 23:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teh Jace

From a ranger point of view : back in time if I wanted to help my warrior to kill smth I hit guardian with dshot. If I wanted to keep him clean I hit faint, insidious, whatever. Now I cant do anything. Im simply not that pro to hit 1/4s patient or 1/4s enfeeble with my reflexes. I have to fire x interrupts and maybe one of them will hit.

From a monk point of view : I decide to run ZB cuz Im not a zombie but wtf... that HC guy keeps them on 100% most of the time while I have to rely on dangerous 50%HP mark. I have to dodge deb shots I have to switch sets to catch fast casting I have to watch their warriors I have to...

From a nec point of view : LOL FOUL FEAST OWNZZZZ U N00BS!

TA needs to be repaired... srsly.

Patient isnt a necesary rupt, its not gonna save any1 from an adrenaline spike... and as for enfeeble its hardly viable anti melee, sure weakness is great but faint and insidious are still more concerning, especially with foul feast active atm

from monk perspective, if your team cant kill a HC before there team can kill you,, u should reconsider your dmg output..., they really cant stand up to any kind of gank,

bhavv · Mar 13, 2008, 12:41 AM // 00:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_deSKtructor

Oh yeah, in random arenas, were nobody has enchantment removal and stuff.

And you cant counter HC with enchant removal because?

Also anyone tried using E denial mesmers ftw?