Curse

erk · Feb 04, 2008, 12:31 AM // 00:31

With interrupts being fotm, for interest sake I did a quick count of the skills that have a 2sec or greater cast time in each professions:

56 Ranger
51 Necromancer
49 Elementalist
39 Ritualist
37 Monk
33 Mesmer
12 Paragon
6 Dervish
3 Assassin
1 Warrior

Rangers and Rits have a lot because of traps and spirts.

I would like to see the caster attacks and hexes that are 2sec. or more all be dropped to 1 sec to stop interrupt camping and promote a bit more dynamic play, recharge can take a hit to balance out any resulting spamablilty. The recent Magebane era has really pointed out how some classes can be totally shutdown due to slow casting. From a fun perspective that sux unless you are the Ranger.

Legends · Feb 04, 2008, 12:40 AM // 00:40

[skill]Savage Slash[/skill][skill]Distracting Blow[/skill][skill]Disrupting Chop[/skill][skill]Skull Crack[/skill]

You fail. I find these really helpful I forgot to mention.

C2K · Feb 04, 2008, 01:02 AM // 01:02

He wasn't referring to interrupts in his list, but rather skills with 2 or greater casting times each class has. Warrior only has 1 (Healing Signet)

Obama · Feb 04, 2008, 01:45 AM // 01:45

Yeah, I don't like this idea either. I play monk a lot and I can deal with Rangers. They deal pressure yes but if you think they are unbeatable you need to get better. Also if every skill that has 2sec or more reduced, how would one be able to interrupt? It would be pretty difficult. Kind of ironic, as your proposal would make everything suck unless you are the caster.

Son Of The Axe · Feb 04, 2008, 02:02 AM // 02:02

yar this done be fail

placebo overdose · Feb 04, 2008, 02:09 AM // 02:09

this game may be unbalanced at the moment but this is 53 steps backwards

erk · Feb 04, 2008, 02:10 AM // 02:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by yule

They are 2 second casts for a reason. Necros should be able to be interrupt camped, as should rits, and eles that are using powerful skills, and monks using aegis.

Stupid idea.

I guess you had better read my post again, I said caster attack skills like Lightning Orb, and hexes (that are similar to attack skills) eg. Blood Drinker, Life Siphon, I didn't say Aegis etc.

Learn to read before flaming.

The point being if other classes have far greater numbers fast attack skills, why do we have these imbalances? eg. A mesmer can spit out an armor ignoring shatter in under a second for 80+ damage a Rit, an Ele can do a Searing or liquid flame in a second, yet Orb which is avoidable takes 2sec!

Like I said, if it makes the attack skill over powered nerf the recharge or perhaps the energy to compensate. There are too many caster attack skills that are not on equal footing, they are all over the place, yet most of the physical attack skills be they ranged or melee are almost impossible to interrupt.

Obama · Feb 04, 2008, 02:26 AM // 02:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

I guess you had better read my post again, I said caster attack skills like Lightning Orb, and hexes (that are similar to attack skills) eg. Blood Drinker, Life Siphon, I didn't say Aegis etc.

Learn to read before flaming.

The point being if other classes have far greater numbers fast attack skills, why do we have these imbalances? eg. A mesmer can spit out an armor ignoring shatter in under a second for 80+ damage a Rit, an Ele can do a Searing or liquid flame in a second, yet Orb which is avoidable takes 2sec!

Like I said, if it makes the attack skill over powered nerf the recharge or perhaps the energy to compensate. There are too many caster attack skills that are not on equal footing, they are all over the place, yet most of the physical attack skills be they ranged or melee are almost impossible to interrupt.

Block, Blind, etc. You posted a specific example. Lightning Orb takes so long to cast because of the amount of damage in can do without and requirements (ie. Shatter needs the enemy to have an enchantment). If we were to nerf it's recharge time/energy, that would make it pretty overpowered, wouldn't it. Your theory would actually be acheiving what you are trying to avoid, imbalance.

If you wanted a more faster cast time without interruption, go make a mesmer.

erk · Feb 04, 2008, 03:34 AM // 03:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Obama

Block, Blind, etc. You posted a specific example. Lightning Orb takes so long to cast because of the amount of damage in can do without and requirements (ie. Shatter needs the enemy to have an enchantment). If we were to nerf it's recharge time/energy, that would make it pretty overpowered, wouldn't it. Your theory would actually be acheiving what you are trying to avoid, imbalance.

If you wanted a more faster cast time without interruption, go make a mesmer.

Many people do make the Mesmer/*, but then you loose the benefit of runes. Shatter was perhaps a bad example being conditional, I was just trying to point out there are already many 1 sec skills that do good damage, so it's not exactly setting a precedent.

I am not really interested in spamming attack skills that are totally un-interruptible eg. under 1sec. I just want to make less reason for caster camping style of play by B-grade Rangers, who hopefully won't bother if it gets slightly harder for them particularly in 4v4 where it seems to be worst.

Also some of the 2sec cast attack skills don't feel very good to play, and it would be nicer if the extra second was added to the recharge not the cast time. It's sorta like waiting too long for a web page to load.

Dominator1370 · Feb 04, 2008, 04:50 AM // 04:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

Many people do make the Mesmer/*, but then you loose the benefit of runes. Shatter was perhaps a bad example being conditional, I was just trying to point out there are already many 1 sec skills that do good damage, so it's not exactly setting a precedent.

I am not really interested in spamming attack skills that are totally un-interruptible eg. under 1sec. I just want to make less reason for caster camping style of play by B-grade Rangers, who hopefully won't bother if it gets slightly harder for them particularly in 4v4 where it seems to be worst.

Also some of the 2sec cast attack skills don't feel very good to play, and it would be nicer if the extra second was added to the recharge not the cast time. It's sorta like waiting too long for a web page to load.

I'm not trying to flame you. I'm really not. However, I want you to think long and hard about what you just said. You can make a Mesmer primary to take advantage of fast-cast. You countered by saying that you can't use the right runes by doing that. I just want to know if you ever considered that there was a reason for that? I mean, could the fact that you can only run Lightning Orb at 12 on a Mesmer with fast cast be an intentional mechanic to, you know, balance the game?

Look, casters fail at damage. We know that. I'm not sure I'd want it to change, even if we could find a way to change it and make it balanced. Caster spike shouldn't be promoted.

Casters just aren't meant to be DPS machines. They're utility characters that can chip in for an extra push. Get used to it, because it makes the game work pretty well. The problems with the game are pretty unrelated to how fast Lightning Orb is. It's an interesting thought, it really is. I mean, caster damage could get around blockway and maybe produce a drastic meta shift, but again, I don't think a caster-spike meta would be worth it. We'd have to rethink the way casters work from the ground up, and that just isn't going to happen. I mean, amid more than a thousand skills, there's really one sustainable DPS ele build that sees play, and it's pretty fragile. It would take some serious work, and that's just not going to happen with GW2 in production.

Thom Bangalter · Feb 04, 2008, 05:02 AM // 05:02

The problem with interrupts is that they reward good ping and twitch based gaming moreso than strategic play. This itself is not that problematic; the problem lies in how powerful the interrupts actually are, particularly pleak. I'm far more interested in shutdown bars that rely on smart play (the closest thing being Doji's glyph mes atm) instead of twitch play.

It's probably not as bad as the old MoR bar though.

Riotgear · Feb 04, 2008, 05:34 AM // 05:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

the problem lies in how powerful the interrupts actually are, particularly pleak.

The other major part of the problem is the heavy dependence on Aegis, which has interruption as its key vulnerability. The dependence on it is a problem in itself, but right now its' been sort of an arms race, with uber-pleak being dealt with via absurd Glyphed cancel-cast spam.

Things need to be addressed on both sides.

Neo-LD · Feb 04, 2008, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Cast time is a perfectly legitimate drawback for powerful spells. If they get interrupted, thats just because the other team is doing its job.

In particular, caster "attack spells" generally see play only as spike assists. In that situation, long cast times are desirable (for the game), to allow/reward opposing disruption and discourage purely 321-based styles of gameplay. Thus, I submit that spells like Ancestor's Rage need to become more disruptable, rather than spells like Lightning Orb becoming less so.

erk · Feb 04, 2008, 05:46 AM // 05:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dominator1370

I'm not trying to flame you. I'm really not. However, I want you to think long and hard about what you just said. You can make a Mesmer primary to take advantage of fast-cast. You countered by saying that you can't use the right runes by doing that. I just want to know if you ever considered that there was a reason for that? I mean, could the fact that you can only run Lightning Orb at 12 on a Mesmer with fast cast be an intentional mechanic to, you know, balance the game?

I appreciate that secondaries are of limited potency to offset the benefit gained by the primary attribute, Orb with a 1.32 second cast (FC=9) on a Mesmer is not show stopping, in a GvG it would mean little other than you spike at a different number in the countdown, in 4v4 it might just save you a Ranger interrupt, but the damage output would be lower and you would have to fiddle with energy management. I have seen it played but not often. It is a work around, but so is a non-interrupt glyph. I don't see the harm in lower attack cast speeds, of all the attributes it seem the least one to upset balance. Now if it was recharge time lowering that would be another story!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dominator1370

Look, casters fail at damage. We know that. I'm not sure I'd want it to change, even if we could find a way to change it and make it balanced. Caster spike shouldn't be promoted.

Casters just aren't meant to be DPS machines. They're utility characters that can chip in for an extra push. Get used to it, because it makes the game work pretty well. The problems with the game are pretty unrelated to how fast Lightning Orb is. It's an interesting thought, it really is. I mean, caster damage could get around blockway and maybe produce a drastic meta shift, but again, I don't think a caster-spike meta would be worth it. We'd have to rethink the way casters work from the ground up, and that just isn't going to happen. I mean, amid more than a thousand skills, there's really one sustainable DPS ele build that sees play, and it's pretty fragile. It would take some serious work, and that's just not going to happen with GW2 in production.

Agreed, at this stage in GW it's too late to correct casters into main DPS attacks other than over powered spikes. eg. Obsidian, Blood, etc. mostly used in HA. Those spikes don't care much about cast time other than it's co-ordinated to all hit the same target at once, as there is no easy way to interrupt all 8 of them effectively. 8 of anything hitting the same target at once, caster or physical, is going to do some serious damage!

GW2 is a long way off, and we still have to enjoy play until then, hence my desire to make 4v4 a bit less interrupt driven, the Magebane nerf didn't really help much. I know the camping problem doesn't happen as much in GvG as the Ranger has more targets to deal with, and other things to do.

Elean · Feb 04, 2008, 08:53 AM // 08:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

...yet most of the physical attack skills be they ranged or melee are almost impossible to interrupt.

This is simply not true. Let's take a look at physical attacks' activation times.

As the official wiki says:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Official GW Wiki

The activation time of an attack skill is equal to the attack speed, except when the attack skill has an activation time listed. Attack speeds are measured in seconds between attacks.

So, the skills which don't list an activation time in the description, for example [skill=text]Eviscerate[/skill], take the ammount of time to activate that the weapon's base attack speed is. In the case of Eviscerate, the activation would be 1.33 seconds, which is actually slower than, for example, [skill=text]Lightning Strike[/skill] and many other 1 second cast time offensive spells.

It is true, though, that when IAS stances come into play, the activation time for most attack skills is faster than that 1 second (0.89 seconds on Axe and Sword, with a 33% IAS Stance (Frenzy)). But you won't see IAS stances on any serious ranger, so the activation time of [skill=text]Crippling Shot[/skill] (or [skill=text]Broad Head Arrow[/skill], an often used 4v4 template) stays at that, rather easily interruptable, normal attack rate. Plus, the predicatability of when a melee character will use an attack skill (a warrior is running towards you -> interrupt the attack skill he probably will unleash shortly after catching you?) makes interrupting melee attacks even on an IAS a bit easier, too.

I agree though, that there are some imbalances between certain offensive spells. The most notable one would most likely be between Ancestors' Rage and Lightning Orb. At 14 spec, Ancestors' (5e, 1/4c, 8r) does 123 lightning damage to all adjacent foes of the target ally (this is hardly a drawback, considering Ancestors' will likely be used on a warrior who has just knocked someone down) and Lightning Orb (15e, 2c, 5r) does 94 lightning damage with a 25% armor penetration, and can be dodged. This, however, should not be seen as Orb being underpowered, but rather as Ancestors' being massively overpowered. But again, we all know that Ancestors' is imba, and that's why we all use it. And most likely things will stay this way.

Elean

EDIT: After checking some numbers, I find it rather hard to believe that a Crippling Shot fired with a Recurve Bow would actually take 2.4 seconds to activate (like it should, according to wiki). I also am not on my own computer at the moment, so I can't test this in the game. But the fact is that the activation still does take longer than that one second, and thus is rather easily interruptable by a decent ranger, considering a decent ranger should be able to land an interrupt on a 1 second cast time most of the time.

Div · Feb 04, 2008, 09:25 AM // 09:25

There's a reason why some skills have longer than 1 second cast. I'd like to see 1s meteor showers...or 1s bspikes....or not

Riotgear · Feb 04, 2008, 09:27 AM // 09:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

Agreed, at this stage in GW it's too late to correct casters into main DPS attacks other than over powered spikes.

Go check the "why nuking sucks" thread.

My $0.02 though is that if skill-rewarding gameplay is to be maintained, something as simplistic as "select someone within earshot and push a button" should not be a particularly rewarding way of dealing damage out. Melee being the gold standard of damage is good for the game not only because melee takes more skill to play, but because melee gives away a large amount of information via their movement that makes it possible to deal with them through skillful play.

Melee isn't just threatening because it deals out decent DPS, but because when given the opportunity, it's able to compress it down into very small timeframes and beat faces in. Every time casters have been able to do that, it's led to 321spike.