Curse

shoogi · Feb 09, 2008, 01:31 PM // 13:31

The one thing I fail to understand is why does Izzy wish to promote npc farm even more? pre-vod fights are gonna be even more boring, teams will Tom&Jerry each other until some assassin manages to gank an archer, and then have an unstoppable damage boost at vod.
For crying out loud, vod builds were supposed to be discouraged and nerfed. NPCs shouldn't be so important in gvgs.

Concerning Skill updates, the nerfs to clumsiness, ineptitude and power leak are good. Party heal buffs were pretty much needed, though HP+HB synergy will now have a crazy,interrupt-proof 0.5 sec cast time. A bit overpowered.
Ranger, assa and warrior self heals- why?
SOR buff- don't like.
GoE is interesting.
1 ene cost necro skills? that one's dangerous. OoB is now kickass, and a monk-supported bipper can now bip the entire team constantly. Though those skills indeed could use a buff, this is too much.

Vaga · Feb 09, 2008, 02:38 PM // 14:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Double Pact

What exactly should/shouldn't work? This is a forum, where people exchange opinions. That anet doesn't really do anything about it, is clear anyway -.-

iirc morello got banned from talking in irc about GW balance (or something to that effect) because someone posted logs of conversations he had in gwp.

Ensign · Feb 09, 2008, 11:19 PM // 23:19

I've had a chance to go over the skill changes and play with 'em a bit; I've drawn the following conclusions.

Power Leak: before this update I badly underestimated how shallow a Mesmer's skillset actually is. Between the environment tightening and a year of nerfs, Domination Mesmers had essentially been reduced to Diversion, Shatter Enchantment, Power Leak, and if you swing that way Blackout and/or Mirror of Disenchantment. Drain Enchantment was once the epitome of what a Mesmer did, and now it's unrecognizable, while Surge and Burn have taken a series of hits between nerfs and the environment becoming much more hostile to spot edenial and 2 second casts. Taking away Power Leak under those conditions is insane. Yes, the skill was way too good; how could it not be when it had received two huge, unnecessary buffs that continued to linger in the game? But the skill, despite being grossly overpowered, was good for the game, as an interrupt that had some lasting disruptive effect on the caster beyond the interrupted skill. Taking it away has removed the best weapon against spam casters (and to avoid any confusion that means hexers 90% of the time) and left a big hole in the skillset.

Talking about it at length, the numbers that make the most sense are to put the recharge back up at 20, and to change the maximum energy destroyed to 4...10. That would address the two biggest problems with the skill, its always available, spammable nature, and its tendency to force a wipe by clearing out a Monk's high set. That's still a scary skill, but leaves room for Power Lock, Power Spike, and Cry of Frustration, which had been pushed out by the ridiculous Power Leak.

Party Healing: Giving a lot of options for such an essential mechanic is a great step forward - but it's dangerous because of it's potential to be overloaded on to completely hedge out any pressure damage. What's kept this in check in the past has been hard restrictions on the mechanic - LoD didn't stack with anything and Prodigy / Party was kept in check by having to run around and hide it. With everything stacking, every party heal needs to carry a significant opportunity cost, forcing significant sacrifices in order to do so. Looking at the different options in that light:

Song of Restoration / Mending Refrain: I liked these at first but have quickly come to dislike them, for reasons just mentioned. They're strong party heals that are positioned very well in a team, and the opportunity costs of running them have been lowered drastically. The old Motigons had to spec 13 into Motivation to get a good set of heals, pulling points off of his other jobs; now Motivation represents an 8 spec splash in a build that has abundant points for other jobs. Mending Refrain got even better; dropping from 10 energy to 5 has eliminated the energy strain of the skill, and made it much more difficult to counter with movement because you no longer care all that much if it drops. A decent idea that didn't work out well, these should be reverted, with Mending Refrain dropping to 1...3 health regeneration as well.

Protective Was Kaolai: Before the update I felt like Kaolai was just enough to keep the team going; a lot of the time I'd be waiting for it to recharge or hoping for a fast cast. Now it feels a bit too good; it's always available for a cheap, fast, big heal, with the potential to double pump as well. After testing my impression is that party heals shouldn't feel strong, but should feel like they're just on the edge of playability. To that end, this change should be reverted as well.

Divine Healing / Heaven's Delight: I was concerned that these were going to be a bit too weak, but with a lot of testing they're just on the edge of playability. You have to shuffle your attributes around to make them work and it puts some strain on your bar, but if you do you get skills that are worth using. These are perfect as is.

Light of Deliverance: On the other hand, I was concerned that this was going to be too weak and it definitely is. Taking a Monk elite is a significant cost still with all the other options available, and this needs to be a legitimate option for partywide healing. I'd suggest dropping the recharge to 8, to see if that's enough; if it isn't, 7 almost certainly will be.

Heal Party: The skill as is has two main uses, on an E/Mo and with Healer's Boon; value on a non-Booned Monk dropped significantly. The change for a Healer's Boon Monk is ridiculous; it loses a little bit of healing power off the top in exchange for the skill being nigh-unstoppable under Boon, and still decent without the Boon; it went from balanced to a problem. On an E/Mo, the only effect of the change now is that I can make my team immune to pressure without significant cost. Before if I wanted to pump parties I had to run away from the Ranger who would be looking to DShot it; now I can cast it in his face for the most part without worry. I don't think the shorter cast time adds anything interesting to the skill, but adds problematic robustness to such a powerful, spammable effect. The 2 second cast time was important here, and everything else should have been balanced around that.

A lot of good ideas for the different party healing options; I'd like to see a bunch of changes to the ones that didn't quite hit and see how the next iteration plays out.

One Energy Blood skills: I think the concept here is really strong, but the changes weren't nearly extensive enough to give it a good test. The way I envision this is a lot of skills for all attributes having their energy costs coming down significantly while picking up a health sacrifice. Supplementing this would be buffs to the blood line's health stealing and regeneration skills. The overall effect would be to drastically lower the energy burden of a Necromancer, and instead shifting it into a health sacrifice burden - a cost that would be made up by the health management skills in the blood line - making blood the Necros equivalent of what Inspiration should be. This would require an extensive reworking of the profession however, and without that rework these changes are going to cause more problems long term than any benefit they are going to add. Still, this is the most promising mechanical change since exhaustion spirits.

Miscellaneous: The Clumsiness / Wandering Eye changes effectively took them out of PvP, which is an improvement to be sure. However I heard an alternative suggestion from Mika to change the skills from triggering on an attack to triggering on an attack *skill*. This suggestion is brilliant and should get serious consideration. Making Hex Breaker Warriors an option is a good idea. All of the Dervish changes are really good; Grenth might need a bit more oomph but this is a great direction for it, Mystic Regeneration is still a strong self heal without powering +20 health regeneration enchantment tanks, and Pious Assault, while scary, still hasn't broken anything and has singlehandedly added more diversity to Dervish bars than any other change too date. All good changes across the board. The only one I don't understand is the big nerf to Shadow Refuge; all of the rest of the self heals received minor buffs while this one was hammered. Is there something I don't know or is that simply a mistake that should be reverted?

My opinion on the new VoD has already been made, and has only been reinforced by experience.

jayce · Feb 10, 2008, 02:22 AM // 02:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I've had a chance to go over the skill changes and play with 'em a bit; I've drawn the following conclusions.

One Energy Blood skills: I think the concept here is really strong, but the changes weren't nearly extensive enough to give it a good test. The way I envision this is a lot of skills for all attributes having their energy costs coming down significantly while picking up a health sacrifice. Supplementing this would be buffs to the blood line's health stealing and regeneration skills. The overall effect would be to drastically lower the energy burden of a Necromancer, and instead shifting it into a health sacrifice burden - a cost that would be made up by the health management skills in the blood line - making blood the Necros equivalent of what Inspiration should be. This would require an extensive reworking of the profession however, and without that rework these changes are going to cause more problems long term than any benefit they are going to add. Still, this is the most promising mechanical change since exhaustion spirits.

this would prove to be interesting, but i have my reservations about it. if the focus of the necromancer was to shift more towards sacrificing across the board instead of the current energy cost system when it comes to skill usage, then they must do away with the maximum health sacrifice and change it to current health sacrifice for most, if not all, sacrifice cost skills. sacrifice skills should not kill, or restrict the usage from, a necromancer when they are low on health. but, like you mentioned, without serious buffs to blood or health sustaining skills, this would all be a mute point. if a change like your suggestion was to go through, would the necromancer support skills in their current form be enough to get the class back into high-end PvP?

Jayce Of Underworld

Syntonic · Feb 10, 2008, 06:53 AM // 06:53

Unfortunately, balancing out those life stealing skills so it doesn't lead into further 3-2-1 blood spikes might be a rather huge undertaking unless you are looking at spells like life siphon as your guide.

Ensign · Feb 10, 2008, 07:43 AM // 07:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syntonic

Unfortunately, balancing out those life stealing skills so it doesn't lead into further 3-2-1 blood spikes might be a rather huge undertaking unless you are looking at spells like life siphon as your guide.

Life Siphon and cheap, spammable lifesteals in all likelihood yes.

Akaraxle · Feb 10, 2008, 02:37 PM // 14:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by langola

The balance has been insanely shifted to the base. I would trade morale for one archer. GG 40% damage.

^
What this guy posted is not a joke. I guested as ranger (lolz) for a guild on Druid's, we more or less sucked for the whole match, gave them perma boosts. At VoD, I had killed the 2 archers near the vine bridge while their sin had only killed one: thanks to ViO, we raped them without even having to cap.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

Personal attacks aside, Izzy and I have been talking to a number of top 10 players for well over an hour on vent.

Do you speak Japanese? Because I honestly can't see top10 players wanting to promote PvE over GvG...

IMMORTAlMITCH · Feb 10, 2008, 02:42 PM // 14:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Talking about it at length, the numbers that make the most sense are to put the recharge back up at 20, and to change the maximum energy destroyed to 4...10.

I think this a bit too weak still, 20r 5..15 or 15r 3..12 would probably be better.

Quote:

That's still a scary skill, but leaves room for Power Lock, Power Spike, and Cry of Frustration, which had been pushed out by the ridiculous Power Leak.

As long as PLeak is playable I doubt I'd ever run any of the above mentioned skills in place of it, in their current form at least, I'd like to see a mor spammable PSpike that deals a bit less damage, a slight recharge decrease on PLock and at the very least reduce Cry's energy cost to 10e.

Quote:

Song of Restoration / Mending Refrain: A decent idea that didn't work out well, these should be reverted, with Mending Refrain dropping to 1...3 health regeneration as well.

I agree with your stance on these, however I think it'd be more interesting to have mending refrain that doesnt renew itsself but lasts for say 30-35 seconds, at 5 energy and only gives regen while your affected by a shout/chant.

Either that or change SoR to 10r and tweak the healing accordingly, so you dont need an additional shout (anthem of flame) to keep up the mendings, and you get a slot that could be used for a 2nd attack skill or utility like Mirror, Pspike/Preturn (I guess this kind of goes against your argument but I think it would make the template a lot more versatile without being overpowered).

Quote:

Protective Was Kaolai: After testing my impression is that party heals shouldn't feel strong, but should feel like they're just on the edge of playability. To that end, this change should be reverted as well.

I think the PwK buff by itsself is fine, but the problem with it is that it's one of those skills that really dont require that much investment (just a skillslot on a flagger) and with all the other party healing options available it becomes too much, I agree with reverting this or tweaking the numbers (less healing, 15r, 5e).

Quote:

Divine Healing / Heaven's Delight: I was concerned that these were going to be a bit too weak, but with a lot of testing they're just on the edge of playability. You have to shuffle your attributes around to make them work and it puts some strain on your bar, but if you do you get skills that are worth using. These are perfect as is.

I'm not sure about these, I like the idea and was very much for it initially, but I'm really worried about party healing overload basically making pressure builds near impossible to run. Would like to play around some more with these before really saying something about it.

My biggest problem with these atm is the fact that there's 2 copies of it, that makes them a lot easier to run on a bar attribute wise at the cost of another skill slot.

Quote:

Light of Deliverance: On the other hand, I was concerned that this was going to be too weak and it definitely is. Taking a Monk elite is a significant cost still with all the other options available, and this needs to be a legitimate option for partywide healing. I'd suggest dropping the recharge to 8, to see if that's enough; if it isn't, 7 almost certainly will be.

Agreed, LoD is easy enough to shut down to warrant being better than it currently is, 8r will probably be fine.

Quote:

Heal Party: The skill as is has two main uses, on an E/Mo and with Healer's Boon; value on a non-Booned Monk dropped significantly. The change for a Healer's Boon Monk is ridiculous; it loses a little bit of healing power off the top in exchange for the skill being nigh-unstoppable under Boon, and still decent without the Boon; it went from balanced to a problem. On an E/Mo, the only effect of the change now is that I can make my team immune to pressure without significant cost. Before if I wanted to pump parties I had to run away from the Ranger who would be looking to DShot it; now I can cast it in his face for the most part without worry. I don't think the shorter cast time adds anything interesting to the skill, but adds problematic robustness to such a powerful, spammable effect. The 2 second cast time was important here, and everything else should have been balanced around that.

I agree completely, I'd much rather see this get tweaked to 10 energy with the healing changed accordingly and a 2 second cast.

Quote:

One Energy Blood skills: I think the concept here is really strong, but the changes weren't nearly extensive enough to give it a good test. The way I envision this is a lot of skills for all attributes having their energy costs coming down significantly while picking up a health sacrifice. Supplementing this would be buffs to the blood line's health stealing and regeneration skills. The overall effect would be to drastically lower the energy burden of a Necromancer, and instead shifting it into a health sacrifice burden - a cost that would be made up by the health management skills in the blood line - making blood the Necros equivalent of what Inspiration should be. This would require an extensive reworking of the profession however, and without that rework these changes are going to cause more problems long term than any benefit they are going to add. Still, this is the most promising mechanical change since exhaustion spirits.

I like the concept but I'm not sure if the bloodline has the potential to really be useful for anything but spiking, life siphon, br and BiP aside there really isn't much in there that's potentially useful in an adaptable balanced build.

It would require a complete overhaul of the attribute and tbh I think that time could be better spend elsewhere (properly fixing VoD, splinter/ancestors etc.)

l Teh Mighty Warrior l · Feb 10, 2008, 04:11 PM // 16:11

ViO is stupid. Whoever came up with this atrocious idea needs to be killed. Losing a match because one team has 1 more archer than you is so frustrating I cannot even begin to explain. Remove it in the next update please no one wants to deal with this shit.

This game was so close to being balanced but you had to implement something that no one wants. How about you do your job for once and listen to the community.

Dominator1370 · Feb 10, 2008, 04:17 PM // 16:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

I like the concept but I'm not sure if the bloodline has the potential to really be useful for anything but spiking, life siphon, br and BiP aside there really isn't much in there that's potentially useful in an adaptable balanced build.

It would require a complete overhaul of the attribute and tbh I think that time could be better spend elsewhere (properly fixing VoD, splinter/ancestors etc.)

That's like saying you're not sure if the Inspiration line has the potential to be used for much more than e-management, and aside from that there isn't much that's potentially useful in an adaptable balanced build. It's one line. You have enough skill points to spec into two lines at the very least. You don't say you're not going to use Strength because it's only got Bulls Strike, Rush, and it gives you a little bit of Armor Penetration. These blood skills can help make a self-sustainable Necro build viable. Of course, we've still got to find something for the Necro to do, but...

red orc · Feb 10, 2008, 04:18 PM // 16:18

Im looking at the rules of the game and I found, what I think is the ultimate winning strategy. There is an important rule at VOD that enables you to deal infinit amount of damage. The buff the NPCS get each minute, simply states that I can inflict any amount of damage to the other team, given I wait long enough and keep my NPCs alive. At a certain damage level, the other team monks will break and therefore my team will win.
So all I need to do to win this game is come with 8 monks, base camp untill VOD and keep the NPCs alive post VOD. It is a boring game, but a winning one.
The second step is to realize that a game that has a one winning strategy is not interesting to play. Why would I continue to play GW from now on ?

Answer: I dont think I will until this unlimited NPC buff is removed !

Can anybody show me the flaw in my reasoning, so I can continue to play ?

Dominator1370 · Feb 10, 2008, 04:44 PM // 16:44

Quote:

Im looking at the rules of the game and I found, what I think is the ultimate winning strategy. There is an important rule at VOD that enables you to deal infinit amount of damage. The buff the NPCS get each minute, simply states that I can inflict any amount of damage to the other team, given I wait long enough and keep my NPCs alive. At a certain damage level, the other team monks will break and therefore my team will win.
So all I need to do to win this game is come with 8 monks, base camp untill VOD and keep the NPCs alive post VOD. It is a boring game, but a winning one.
The second step is to realize that a game that has a one winning strategy is not interesting to play. Why would I continue to play GW from now on ?

Answer: I dont think I will until this unlimited NPC buff is removed !

Can anybody show me the flaw in my reasoning, so I can continue to play ?

Sure. Have you ever played RA? If so, why is it that a team that has 2 monks is often beaten by a team that only has one (assuming the one monk isn't a total scrub)? Answer: because you shouldn't need 2 monks to keep a RA team up, especially when there are only two players on the other team capable of dealing damage (yes, monks can wand, but come on... if you're a monk and you can't deal with wanding...). By having 3 players capable of doing damage, you increase your chances of pushing a kill through without taking away from your ability to keep your team alive. If you can push one kill, the whole thing crumbles. The same would be even more true for an 8 monk team vs. a balanced team. The balanced team has 18 minutes to try and push a kill on one of your NPC's. You're virtually incapable of killing one of theirs. If they succeed, they get ViO, and you're screwed. If not, come VoD, they can combine their own damage with NPC damage to start blowing out your monks, and all your monks can do is try not to crack. Of course, there's still not much of a reason not to run Splinter/Ancestors, so the other team has NPC's doing just as much damage as yours, access to damage buffs, and access to additional damage characters. Maybe you'd win some games, but I have a feeling against a strong team you'd get slowly and methodically ground into the ground. This, of course, is way before we talk about things like how horrendous overhealing is going to be with 8 freaking monks out there.

red orc · Feb 10, 2008, 04:56 PM // 16:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dominator1370

Sure. Have you ever played RA? If so, why is it that a team that has 2 monks is often beaten by a team that only has one (assuming the one monk isn't a total scrub)? Answer: because you shouldn't need 2 monks to keep a RA team up, especially when there are only two players on the other team capable of dealing damage (yes, monks can wand, but come on... if you're a monk and you can't deal with wanding...). By having 3 players capable of doing damage, you increase your chances of pushing a kill through without taking away from your ability to keep your team alive. If you can push one kill, the whole thing crumbles. The same would be even more true for an 8 monk team vs. a balanced team. The balanced team has 18 minutes to try and push a kill on one of your NPC's. You're virtually incapable of killing one of theirs. If they succeed, they get ViO, and you're screwed. If not, come VoD, they can combine their own damage with NPC damage to start blowing out your monks, and all your monks can do is try not to crack. Of course, there's still not much of a reason not to run Splinter/Ancestors, so the other team has NPC's doing just as much damage as yours, access to damage buffs, and access to additional damage characters. Maybe you'd win some games, but I have a feeling against a strong team you'd get slowly and methodically ground into the ground. This, of course, is way before we talk about things like how horrendous overhealing is going to be with 8 freaking monks out there.

I dont even care for VIO. The thing is, NPC damage is mounting. As long as I can outheal them, there will come a time when my NPC will outdamage what they can heal and they will crack first.

dies like fish · Feb 10, 2008, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by red orc

I dont even care for VIO. The thing is, NPC damage is mounting. As long as I can outheal them, there will come a time when my NPC will outdamage what they can heal and they will crack first.

[skill]Protective Spirit[/skill]

Hi

Burton2000 · Feb 10, 2008, 05:43 PM // 17:43

Also theres the fact that you can still spike down 8 monks even if you cant pressure them.

Riotgear · Feb 10, 2008, 05:55 PM // 17:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Life Siphon and cheap, spammable lifesteals in all likelihood yes.

I'd question that largely because lifesteal comes down to a combination of a heal and mild caster DDs, when mild caster DDs are already one of the most insignificant things you can get outside of a spike assist.

Strip Enchantment would be an exception to the rule, Life Siphon on a hex build, but I'd have to ask if people would actually take that route, or if they'd just go N/Rt since Soul Reaping's use in GvG is somewhat limited anyway.

Oh, and my favorite part of the update has to be Wandering Eye vs. Clumsiness. First time I've ever seen a pair of skills in the same attribute line where one is better than the other in literally every way.

Symbol · Feb 10, 2008, 05:56 PM // 17:56

I'd like to see Cry of Frustration go down to 15e 10r or 10e 12r so that this becomes less of a hard counter to spike teams and something that would compete for a spot on your bar in "normal" circumstances.

Along similar lines, web of disruption could use a recharge drop, maybe 8-10r.

Power spike's effect is kinda lame, because randomly punching someone in the face for 114 damage isn't that useful. Don't know how to make this work...lower recharge maybe?

Power lock is fine now that the bug is fixed, I think.

Riotgear · Feb 10, 2008, 06:02 PM // 18:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Power spike's effect is kinda lame, because randomly punching someone in the face for 114 damage isn't that useful.

It's seeing use already, mainly on P/Me. It's either that or Power Return, which basically means you either punch them in the face, or you feed them energy but you do it more often. I think it's fine.

Shuuda · Feb 10, 2008, 06:16 PM // 18:16

Power Spike is good for a Cheap, decent recharge interruption, it's decent in low-end PvP and good on Paragons in General, it is fine how it is.

I like Enisign's idea for Power Leak, but I'd also like to see other form of Energy denial improved, since Power Leak was the only skill that really excelled well at it.

C2K · Feb 10, 2008, 09:12 PM // 21:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Power spike's effect is kinda lame, because randomly punching someone in the face for 114 damage isn't that useful. Don't know how to make this work...lower recharge maybe?

While it may lack punch in HA/GvG that power leak has had, in smaller team play Power Spike is brutal. In the RA/TA environment, Power spike can trigger Augury of Death or halt a monk's last chance to recover from a spike. If you buff it anymore than it is now, it would be too strong.