Curse

RhanoctJocosa · Jan 18, 2008, 10:07 PM // 22:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

It should be a mix, the game should be a battle of wits where someone with quick correct strategical responses to the situation wins.

Look at LuM vs WM on druids isle, there was a moment when one of the WM warriors got caught by a cripranger, now the long strategic decisions he has to make are:

- What way am i going? West or East?
- Can anyone back me up from either way?

Next to that he needs to actually survive. He galed opponent warriors running for him, faked his healing sig a million times and actually got it off, and slowly but surely survived. It was a mix of execution and swift tactical decisions, just like guild wars should be.

To me, Gw is a highpaced strategy game, where "execution" (such as reaction time) should play only a little role (of course it is vital on roles like monks, but it shouldnt be key on all roles). And skill should be key role.

Bars of old simply allowed much more different playstyles and possibilities. Which allowed good players to show themself more outside of their team. Again, because as i said before the game was very unforgiving.

I agree with everything you've said. QFTQFTQFT

Ensign · Jan 18, 2008, 11:07 PM // 23:07

The progression went something like this:

In the factions metagame teams dealt with heavy pressure, and other incidental damage, with Heal Party on an E/Mo. Monks were responsible for dealing with spikes / focused damage, and otherwise keeping people from dying so that Heal Party could do the rest of the work. Heal Party, and the base, were defended with snares and Blinding Flash. The damage a team could put out was sufficiently balanced against Heal Party that Monks could deal with cleaning and prot using normal skills; their elites were not essential. Typically, elites were used to make a character self-sufficient, via Blessed Light or emanagement to power Divine Boon, as Monks in this game were designed to have poor self sufficiency. Self sufficient Monks, with Heal Party to do most of the heavy lifting, was more than enough backline for a team.

Nightfall changed several things. First, it significantly increased the amount of mindless damage in the metagame, starting with Searing Flames, Rampage and One, and Steady Stance. Second, it introduced a significant amount of anti-blind that made the BFlash/Heal Party backbone of a team obsolete. Third, balance changes around that time destroyed most common forms of disruption, from the edenial/emanagement pairing to Gale/Blackout.

The combination of increased damage and the loss of the Heal Party character had a twofold effect. First, Monks no longer had flexible elites. They needed to use the new power elites to keep up with the huge increase in damage coming in. Second, Monks lost a lot of flexibility and self-sufficiency when they had to adjust their bars to deal with all the new threats. This loss of self-sufficiency was the beginning of the defensive web; a need for much more direct defense on your midline to protect your Monks and shore up their own defensive deficiencies. The Heal Party loss was largely mitigated by the addition of LoD.

The big consequence of those changes was how it re-targeted the disruption. While before the Monks were self sufficient and you needed to shut them down to score kills, now the Monks would just die to Warriors, being much more fragile; instead shutting down the midline defenses that kept the Monks safe became more important.

When LoD was nerfed, the game was essentially out of good options for party healing, but the mechanic is still essential for any extended fighting. Your runner still can't be a party bot - the same rules applied - so the midline again has to pick up the slack. In this case, Motigons are the only halfway attractive option still in the game (the other being midline eles which run and pump parties off GLE), so those become almost mandatory as well.

Essentially roles that used to be handled by 3 defensive characters have been nerfed repeatedly until it takes 4 or even 5 characters to realistically handle those jobs. People don't just start dying, they shore up their defenses, and their offense compresses into the room that has left. That means making splitting much more difficult (it was great when you were using 5 offensive guys to split up 3 defensive guys, but it's kinda shitty when you're using 3 offense to split up 5 defense), and puts a much higher premium on spikes, since those require a much smaller footprint.

That's the state the game is in now. Interrupt the midline's powerful defenses and blow up Monks, or spike your way through the cracks in heavy defense. This will likely only be further reinforced as the game progresses and defenses continue to be nerfed, driving people to run even more defensive skills to avoid dying.

zling · Jan 18, 2008, 11:46 PM // 23:46

what I dont understand is why hex teams are almost non existent.
splits arent very popular nowadays so it isnt such a major concern.
Rigor Mortis+Expose Defenses>Blockway
Golden Fox Strike+Wild Strike+Shattering Assault>Blockway
you can still have your 2 melee frontliners with 3 hexers, 2 monks and runner.
if 1 of the front liners is a sin than he's also a semi hexer.
as for the defense, instead of Blockway you use Shadow of Fear and its counterparts, Siphon Strength, etc...

Lorekeeper · Jan 18, 2008, 11:48 PM // 23:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cass

In this context I'll also react to your laughable statement, Dragons: You claimed that "knife-edge" interrupt play requires you to play "like a robot". an take *some* defense against most if not all type of threats, it has a hThere is nothing robot-like about interrupting. Not even reaction time to skill activation is a static factor. It relies heavily on presence of mind and tactical preparation (what skill is to come, what target am I looking for etc.). Twitching interrupts is only a fall-back method where no thought is required. it should not be used unless you're desperate.

twitching interrupts is all you can afford to do when you face casters who do not cast their stuff predictably... and if you are facing casters who dont fake aegis or ward melee after gole then you arent facing good casters. But thats besides the point. I dont think GvG gameplay discussions should be so focused on the execution of skills, nor do i like how peoples attitudes towards GvG and their success or failure boils down to the duel between interrupts and defense. There is far too much ''skill balance'' discussion rather than ''GvG tactics'' discussions. That was the point i was trying to make. Anet has had a big influence in focusing the meta this way, with skill balances that necessitate heavily defensive builds and encourages greater interdependencies within builds. Anet needs to perform a skill balance that reduces the dominance of execution style attitudes towards play... and increase the viability of strategical plays. And like ive said before, its not adequate for highly strategical play to be solely within the grasp of extremely experienced and capable guilds... it should be something that more guilds in the ladder should consider. Skill balance or GvG mechanics (including VoD) as it is just doesnt make mobile play that attractive to people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cass

In my view GW should not move more toward tactical play like in chess where you move pawns around and those pawns themselves have a clear role with no internal variance nor active imput. Yet, this is what you seem to long for: to execute a given strategy, sloppily perhaps (as you loathe the fact that losing concentration momentarily should cost you anything), and see if it works. I argue that's like playing a stupid cog in a bigger machine. I'd rather play your robot than that cog then.

GW is different to chess with regards to the execution of strategy because the 'pawns' you move in GW do not necessarily have the same ability to carry out their tasks to the utmost potential as other 'pawns'. Its one thing to know what tactical moves to make... its another thing to know when... and yet another thing to know HOW. Its not like playing like a stupid cog in a bigger machine... its all about being flexible... adaptable... tactically aware... Im pretty sure a rank 500 ranger will be far less effective in a game of mobility versus a rank 5 ranger. Their is a huge amount of player input required to effectively execute a strategy... and not many plans go as intended... which means there is a huge amount of variance in a players interpretation of their given roles in a skirmish situation...

Tactical play, like splitting actually places the game right into each players hands. Splits succeed or fail as a result of each players ability to make their own judgements on their position. Each player has far more influence on the outcome of the game in tactical play in tactical play, and they have far more control over that influence than they do at the stand.

its 8vs8 play that makes players become mere cogs in a machine... the total number of tactical considerations you need to make at the stand are minimal... and this allows players to focus on execution style gameplay. But what makes that unattractive gameplay currently is that forcing resolutions in a 8vs8 battle simply boilds down to who shuts down aegis and ward of melee first and with gole allowing infinite fake casting of these skills... 8vs8 execution gameplay just gets extremely tedious after a while. Its not that its that bad to play this way... but when you see and do it ALL the time, you start to wish things were different somehow.

And thats where proper skill balance and proper changes to VoD and NPCs would come in.

Ensign · Jan 19, 2008, 12:42 AM // 00:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by zling

what I dont understand is why hex teams are almost non existent.

1). Necros are bad and you can't stop Warriors from wrecking you without defensive hexes sticking on Warriors.

2). Hex Eater Vortex

xhappy feetx · Jan 19, 2008, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The progression went something like this:

In the factions metagame teams dealt with heavy pressure, and other incidental damage, with Heal Party on an E/Mo. Monks were responsible for dealing with spikes / focused damage, and otherwise keeping people from dying so that Heal Party could do the rest of the work. Heal Party, and the base, were defended with snares and Blinding Flash. The damage a team could put out was sufficiently balanced against Heal Party that Monks could deal with cleaning and prot using normal skills; their elites were not essential. Typically, elites were used to make a character self-sufficient, via Blessed Light or emanagement to power Divine Boon, as Monks in this game were designed to have poor self sufficiency. Self sufficient Monks, with Heal Party to do most of the heavy lifting, was more than enough backline for a team.

Nightfall changed several things. First, it significantly increased the amount of mindless damage in the metagame, starting with Searing Flames, Rampage and One, and Steady Stance. Second, it introduced a significant amount of anti-blind that made the BFlash/Heal Party backbone of a team obsolete. Third, balance changes around that time destroyed most common forms of disruption, from the edenial/emanagement pairing to Gale/Blackout.

The combination of increased damage and the loss of the Heal Party character had a twofold effect. First, Monks no longer had flexible elites. They needed to use the new power elites to keep up with the huge increase in damage coming in. Second, Monks lost a lot of flexibility and self-sufficiency when they had to adjust their bars to deal with all the new threats. This loss of self-sufficiency was the beginning of the defensive web; a need for much more direct defense on your midline to protect your Monks and shore up their own defensive deficiencies. The Heal Party loss was largely mitigated by the addition of LoD.

The big consequence of those changes was how it re-targeted the disruption. While before the Monks were self sufficient and you needed to shut them down to score kills, now the Monks would just die to Warriors, being much more fragile; instead shutting down the midline defenses that kept the Monks safe became more important.

When LoD was nerfed, the game was essentially out of good options for party healing, but the mechanic is still essential for any extended fighting. Your runner still can't be a party bot - the same rules applied - so the midline again has to pick up the slack. In this case, Motigons are the only halfway attractive option still in the game (the other being midline eles which run and pump parties off GLE), so those become almost mandatory as well.

Essentially roles that used to be handled by 3 defensive characters have been nerfed repeatedly until it takes 4 or even 5 characters to realistically handle those jobs. People don't just start dying, they shore up their defenses, and their offense compresses into the room that has left. That means making splitting much more difficult (it was great when you were using 5 offensive guys to split up 3 defensive guys, but it's kinda shitty when you're using 3 offense to split up 5 defense), and puts a much higher premium on spikes, since those require a much smaller footprint.

That's the state the game is in now. Interrupt the midline's powerful defenses and blow up Monks, or spike your way through the cracks in heavy defense. This will likely only be further reinforced as the game progresses and defenses continue to be nerfed, driving people to run even more defensive skills to avoid dying.

Ensign unleashes... I wish he did this on QQ more.....

Lordhelmos · Jan 19, 2008, 02:24 AM // 02:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The progression went something like this:

In the factions metagame teams dealt with heavy pressure, and other incidental damage, with Heal Party on an E/Mo. Monks were responsible for dealing with spikes / focused damage, and otherwise keeping people from dying so that Heal Party could do the rest of the work. Heal Party, and the base, were defended with snares and Blinding Flash. The damage a team could put out was sufficiently balanced against Heal Party that Monks could deal with cleaning and prot using normal skills; their elites were not essential. Typically, elites were used to make a character self-sufficient, via Blessed Light or emanagement to power Divine Boon, as Monks in this game were designed to have poor self sufficiency. Self sufficient Monks, with Heal Party to do most of the heavy lifting, was more than enough backline for a team.

Nightfall changed several things. First, it significantly increased the amount of mindless damage in the metagame, starting with Searing Flames, Rampage and One, and Steady Stance. Second, it introduced a significant amount of anti-blind that made the BFlash/Heal Party backbone of a team obsolete. Third, balance changes around that time destroyed most common forms of disruption, from the edenial/emanagement pairing to Gale/Blackout.

The combination of increased damage and the loss of the Heal Party character had a twofold effect. First, Monks no longer had flexible elites. They needed to use the new power elites to keep up with the huge increase in damage coming in. Second, Monks lost a lot of flexibility and self-sufficiency when they had to adjust their bars to deal with all the new threats. This loss of self-sufficiency was the beginning of the defensive web; a need for much more direct defense on your midline to protect your Monks and shore up their own defensive deficiencies. The Heal Party loss was largely mitigated by the addition of LoD.

The big consequence of those changes was how it re-targeted the disruption. While before the Monks were self sufficient and you needed to shut them down to score kills, now the Monks would just die to Warriors, being much more fragile; instead shutting down the midline defenses that kept the Monks safe became more important.

When LoD was nerfed, the game was essentially out of good options for party healing, but the mechanic is still essential for any extended fighting. Your runner still can't be a party bot - the same rules applied - so the midline again has to pick up the slack. In this case, Motigons are the only halfway attractive option still in the game (the other being midline eles which run and pump parties off GLE), so those become almost mandatory as well.

Essentially roles that used to be handled by 3 defensive characters have been nerfed repeatedly until it takes 4 or even 5 characters to realistically handle those jobs. People don't just start dying, they shore up their defenses, and their offense compresses into the room that has left. That means making splitting much more difficult (it was great when you were using 5 offensive guys to split up 3 defensive guys, but it's kinda shitty when you're using 3 offense to split up 5 defense), and puts a much higher premium on spikes, since those require a much smaller footprint.

That's the state the game is in now. Interrupt the midline's powerful defenses and blow up Monks, or spike your way through the cracks in heavy defense. This will likely only be further reinforced as the game progresses and defenses continue to be nerfed, driving people to run even more defensive skills to avoid dying.

Epic, as usual from Ensign. This was everything I wanted to have addressed when I made this topic and more. Right now, ensign is absolutely right with the state that party healing is in and the absurd amount of defense people are bringing to upkeep with the waterfall of damage. In this recent skill balance, not too much has changed to pull teams away from this heavy reliance on a safety net of defensive skills -all of which are being brought in order to stop the onslaught of damage pouring from mouth foaming warriors trying to claw into your backline.

I agree that a split is alot harder to achieve in a balanced team. Now teams that want to split are completely building for it. It's sad now, that the second you see an assassin or a ineptitude mez on the other side, you pretty much know that there are 3 with a guild thief on their way to the back gate to gank your base. A balanced team has so much trouble splitting because so many party defense skills are crammed across 4-5 characters in order to upkeep survival.

Teams in GvG have alot less flexibility due to the overwhelming amount of support that needs to be crammed into the midline. Without wards, an aegis chain, and a motigon or midline party heal spammer, theres just no way you will survive the onslaught of physical damage. I can say that on vent, half the complaining comes from the midline, and when they break the monks go down so fast its not even funny.

With sight beyond sight buffed to be used by warriors, there are slightly more options for warriors to pressure balanced teams. If this gets run more, the Bsurge ele might get dropped and motivation paras might become manditory. I really don't think divine healing/heavenly delight is going to cut it against a team putting constant pressure on you.

Playing a midline in this meta is like being a court jester and juggling 20 glass balls. The second you drop something, the defensive web cracks and then a party wipe is probably imminent. I think too much emphasis is placed on the midliners for this meta, emphasis to the point where the entire team is surviving on their picture perfect performance, due to the low survivability of the rest of the team.

In any event, im glad the issue is being debated by high level players and that this discussion is actually going somewhere.

>Edit:

In any event, I began trying to trace this meta back according to Ensign's explanation of why people are slotting so many defensive skills. I'm personally seeing that the heavy nerfs to the monk backline is what's really shaping the meta. Party defense and survivability is built from the backline up. The flexibility of your team has its foundations in just how much pressure your monk backline is able to take and then moves to how well the midline is able to pick up the slack that the monks are unable to cover.

Prophecies: Boon-Prot Age

Probably hailed as the golden age of Guildwars competitive play. This was thanks to the one king build of the pre-expansion meta: Boon-Prot. Boon prot was simply the most powerful and self-sufficient monk build ever to show up in Guildwars. At this point in time, the monk class was at the peak of it's survivability. Because of contemplation of purity, strong energy management, and strong heals via divine boon, as Ensign said before; boon-prots needed to be shut down in order to be killed. However, because of this survivability, the party had the freedom to build offensively without having to put up 100 blocks in order to ensure their monk's survival. The strength of the monks during this time gave the main party the freedom to build with less restrictions, namely because there was less slack that the midline had to cover for the monks. The only function of party survival that needed to be passed down to the midline was the party healing, which was done through the Eprod flag runner. So aside from monks covering the entire defensive spectrum of the team, the midline only needed to slot TWO skills to cover the gap; heal party and ether prodigy. At this point Wards were also run, but foes was the popular choice. Ward against Melee was common as well, but not nearly as de facto as it is in the current meta.

Also aside from allowing the party to have a solid and self sufficient backline, boon-prots were also extremely flexible during a split. Because of this, any balanced team was capable of a split because one boonprot could easily handle keeping a 3-4 man team alive on its own while sustaining itself at the same time.

This was when many of the first PvP guilds started playing competitively, guild like War Machine, The Last Pride, and Ensign's old iQ. Then people thought the boonprot was too overpowered, and things went to hell.

Death of the Boon Prot:

The entire inspiration line pretty much had a giant nuclear bomb dropped on it before the release of factions. Maybe Anet was hoping that the party support from the ritualist class would cover the loss of the single most powerful monk backline ever made in gw existence. At this time monks started shifted towards blessed light builds and relying on gimmicky ritual lords to provide party protection. Because of this, passive defense began rearing its ugly head. The introduction of spirit mechanics began to limit party mobility and alot of HA-esque builds such as dual smite started appearing in GvG. Without boon prot, monks became more susceptible to pressure rolls and new gimmicks, such as assassin spikes; thus monks started becoming me dependent on the midline for survival, and those midline casters found themselves having to slot more wards and melee hate. Also because of assassins, running a heal party flagger was no longer possible. At this point I took quite a long haitus from the game, so I couldn't really say what kind of crap was being run in GvG between the fall of boon prot and the release of nightfall. I just know that after boonprot died, alot of ranked guilds just stopped playing.

Nightfall: Pressure and LoD

Nightfall did several things to the meta, the first raising melee damage to an all new level of insanity. This is namely because of heavy scythe damage introduced through the dervish class, Rampage as One making bunny thumpers DPS monsters, and the introduction of skills like Agonizing Chop to spike assist. However, monks recieved the best counterskill to heavy pressure since the fall of boonprot. This was of course, Light of Deliverance. Now that monks had a strong form of partywide healing, flag runners could be slotted more offensively and splits began to return to balanced teams. However, the survival of the LoD monk was still not on par with survival of the boon prot. LoD simply helped to reduce pressure on the party as a whole. Monks with LoD were still dependent on infusion, block webs, and spirit bond in order to survive.

Because of LoD the monk backline was made partially stronger and pressure games began making a return. However, monks were so overly dependent on LoD to push red bars back up, a simple diversion on it could easily result in a team being forced off the flag stand or even party wiping. At this time, mesmers even ran glyph of essense + diversion just to attempt a catch on LoD and shift the tide of the game. The LoD monk actually became so important to the heart of the party, that some teams started bringing SoD just to cover the LoD so he wouldn't be brought down by a heavy spike. Other teams just brought a dual LoD backline to ensure the party's solid defensive foundation. Of course people would run LoD for survival, because at this point everything else was crap in comparison as far as raw healing and survival power goes.

Now LoD was nerfed and monks have been reduced to the weakest state they have ever been in. Now they are almost completely dependent on the midline's blockweb due to the fact they are now only capable of singular heals. Now the responsibility of the party's overall survival falls more on the role of the midline than even the monks. Namely because monks of the current meta are so gimped they can barely even keep themselves alive.

What I'm basically trying to say is the obvious: monks will and always shall be the core of the party's survival. The biggest and most destructive metagame shifts to Guildwars have all resulted from the constant nerfing of a SOLD BACKLINE FOR THE PARTY TO RELIABLY DEPEND ON. The more Anet nerfs monks survival and their ability to keep everyone alive, the more defensive components other members of the party (namely the midline) will be forced to slot in order to cover the weakness of monks. A perfect example is the amount of party flexibility that was shown during the boonprot age of guild wars.

BLOCKWAY IS A DIRECT RESULT OF MONK GIMPAGE DURING THE HISTORY OF GUILDWARS SKILL BALANCES. This is why people were so upset about the loss of boonprot, this is why people are upset about the loss of LoD. Reducing the effectiveness of the monk backline will force defensive play and reduce the ability of teams to build flexibly. What people are asking for in a skill balance is a return of a strong and solid monk backline, this way the rest of the team will not be forced to shoulder all the crap that their monks are incapable of doing.

The shouldering of party defense/survival by the midline and the use gimmicky midline support skills like motigons needs to stop, because it promotes stagnant defensive play in which both teams turtle in block webs. This happens because monks of the current meta do not have the survivability to allow a balanced team to independently split, nor do they have the healing/protection power to allow their team to bring enough offensive power to force their way through enemy defenses. Now the game has become a sniper match between interrupters to see who can take down the block web and kill the famished monks on the other side first.

I hope this shines some light on the problem with current skill balances, the rise of blockway, and why GvG has become so damn defensive and boring.

langola · Jan 19, 2008, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Medion

That's actually quite an interesting idea I think. I'm not sure if you meant it this way but perhaps a good solution would be to lower the importance of the flagstand compared to the base instead of making the base as important as the flagstand.

Possibly instead of a moral bonus of 10% make it 5% without recharge of skills? Thing is, right now if you let the enemy get a morale boost it's almost impossible to take the down as their health is upped by another 48 HP (I think?) and they get a recharge of skills (res sig, e-management skills etc).

Reducing the flagstands importance would kill splitbuilds.

Medion · Jan 19, 2008, 08:56 PM // 20:56

Why would it kill splitbuilds? It would perhaps the splitbuilds which are dedicated to split (though I don't think that's such a bad thing), but it would allow for more freedom for the teams. Instead of forcing yourself through the flagstand you could at least try a 4-4 split or something. Besides, the flagstand itself may actually be something fought over by small squads.

ensoriki · Jan 19, 2008, 08:59 PM // 20:59

You say that buffing up skills for monk backline means player's don't need to play as defensively.
What if people decide to keep the current setup but give their monk these stronger skills and keep their defense high?

Ensign · Jan 19, 2008, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Same thing that happened when people ran way too much defense and not enough offense in the past. The team with more offense ran roughshod over the team with too much defense since their opponent posed no threat.

It's a symmetrical situation, the Monks on both teams would be stronger. If one team wanted to keep their bare-bones offense, that's good enough to kill through current Monks, against buffed up Monks, they're going to have a drop-off in how much they actually get done. It would certainly be possible for both teams to run super defense and not kill each other for stretches, just as they have in the past. If you buff up the Monks, which pretty much everyone has, you end up buffing up the defenses of the teams with less distributed defense, pound for pound, than the teams with more distributed defense. It'd be equivalent from an arithmetic standpoint, but a bigger gain percentage-wise for the team that started with less.

Ec]-[oMaN · Jan 19, 2008, 09:43 PM // 21:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by ensoriki

You say that buffing up skills for monk backline means player's don't need to play as defensively.
What if people decide to keep the current setup but give their monk these stronger skills and keep their defense high?

We have already covered that aspect. Let's just say for example that monks were buffed, therefor you would probably need more overall dmg to punch through and score kills, thus builds would have to drop slots for either timed shutdown utility skills like more gale blackout or more raw dmg into builds. Right now people are packing as much defense as needed but still having enough dmg to score kills.

Lordhelmos · Jan 19, 2008, 10:14 PM // 22:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by ensoriki

You say that buffing up skills for monk backline means player's don't need to play as defensively.
What if people decide to keep the current setup but give their monk these stronger skills and keep their defense high?

There should be a shift in responsibilities. If the backline is going to be buffed, which it should; then mid-line defenses need to be toned down in order promote more offense and less turtling.

I'm saying wards, aegis, and motigons should be balanced so that the shift in power towards party defense falls largely on the backline and not the mid.

Examples of these kind of balances have been suggested in the Skill Balance thread:

Think of it like this: You buff the raw healing power and survivability of monks (allowing potent healing/prot builds on the level of LoD and Boonprot to once again thrive). In return, tone down mid-line defenses by doing things like this:

~Make aegis function so that it only prevents X number of blocks for each party member before it ends.
~Change ward functionality so that each time a ward blocks or prevents damage is slowly shrinks in size.
~Buff paragon hate and make shouts take longer to cast so that they are victims to disruption. The whole class concept is stupid IMO, it's one of the worst mechanics in guild wars next to spirits.

Make it so party survival falls mainly on the backline builds while allowing a little room for other defensive options on the midline without overkilling it (it might be too late for that *cough* paragons and rits *cough*).

If a team wants to build overly defensive they can pay for it by not being able to deal any damage until VoD. In this case, the functionality of certain turtling skills change during VoD, such as block skills being reduced to half effectiveness or simply upping VoD damage to what it used to be. There are great skill suggestion for VoD in the update thread, so I won't get detailed.

Stronger backlines will force teams to build more disruptive and offensive in order to score kills. Shutting down monks over the midline will be more important, instead of playing force field, the midline can instead use more skill slots for spiking skills and interrupts. If a team wants to play overly defensive, they will find themselves out-pressured by the extra disruption, attack skills, and spiking power of the other team.

I mean if they slot all their midliners with defensive skills, as they are doing now, how are they going to push a pressure game? Are they going to sit there and throw pillows at the other team until VoD? At the same time they run the risk of being out pressured if midline defenses are toned down. The game should be balanced to promote more offensive play and to consolidate party survival, healing, and defense into the backline where it belongs. This way eles can actually bring damage spells, mesmers can bring more interrupts without worrying about being ward bearers, etc.

I'm not saying all party survival should fall on the backline, but I'm saying that such consolidation should be an option for teams that want to play pressure.

Also with that consolidation, splits and losing monks to kills become more risky. With more of an emphasis on shutting down the backline, when a monk goes down, a team will lose an immense amount of survivability.

Getting back on my response to the comment, there is a reason why a mending wammo sucks right? Because it has no damage output in comparison to a shockaxe, which brings relatively few survival skills. The same could be set for a team that plays overly defensive. A team can only bring so many skills, and slotting those skills with either offensive or defensive skill shapes the style in which the team will operate.

What good will building overly defensive do if the other team brings more rending and disruption than you have? What's going to stop them from breaking through cracks in your defense with extra attack skills and interrupts if you can't push them back?

VoD should also work to punish those overly defensive teams, since VoD is suppose to be a sudden death rock breaker that forces both teams into confrontation.

The difference between how things were during boonprot and how things were now is that boonprot was an active build. Boonprot required energy mangement, using boon at the right time, and constant casting. It gave mesmers and diversion an important role in gvg and made the booners stoppable.

The monk backline should be balanced to be strong, since those 2 guys are going to be supporting 6 others. They should be strong, because if they aren't you are gonna see gimped teams ward camping because their monks don't have the power to push the party forward (like now). But they should also be active, have many strong single target skills with low recharges and fast cast times, while also having the option of big defensive skills and heals that are tricky to cast and could cost the team if they whiff.

Also as ensign pointed out, it is an equation. You might not even have to gimp midline defense that badly, because teams that play overly defensive will start to realize they can't win if they fail to deal pressure against a solid opposing backline. People will once again realize that they have to fight and kill if they want to win, and thats how it should be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ec]-[oMaN

We have already covered that aspect. Let's just say for example that monks were buffed, therefor you would probably need more overall dmg to punch through and score kills, thus builds would have to drop slots for either timed shutdown utility skills like more gale blackout or more raw dmg into builds. Right now people are packing as much defense as needed but still having enough dmg to score kills.

Exactly right, and thats the kind of direction I'd like to see the next balance take Guild Wars. Promoting more active shutdown and damage skills while providing a solid backline. With the amount of defense forced on to supporting casters and the midline, the current state of GvG is getting closer and closer to two rival kings staring each other down on a chessboard; and that is very uncool.

Kaon · Jan 19, 2008, 11:23 PM // 23:23

Ehm, actually the midline of these days is very offensive.

You have a ranger that interrupts
You have a shutdown mesmer with ward
You a superoverpowered paragon that deals a crapload of damage while adding a lot of defense.

If they'd suddenly buff monks self sustainability i wouldn't change build at all. Besides, the game is near-perfect balance wise right now, stuff dies really quickly and tactical play is rewarded.

Yue · Jan 20, 2008, 12:59 AM // 00:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Ehm, actually the midline of these days is very offensive.

You have a ranger that interrupts
You have a shutdown mesmer with ward
You a superoverpowered paragon that deals a crapload of damage while adding a lot of defense.

If they'd suddenly buff monks self sustainability i wouldn't change build at all. Besides, the game is near-perfect balance wise right now, stuff dies really quickly and tactical play is rewarded.

That a joke?

erk · Jan 20, 2008, 01:01 AM // 01:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Ehm, actually the midline of these days is very offensive.

You have a ranger that interrupts
You have a shutdown mesmer with ward
You a superoverpowered paragon that deals a crapload of damage while adding a lot of defense.

If they'd suddenly buff monks self sustainability i wouldn't change build at all. Besides, the game is near-perfect balance wise right now, stuff dies really quickly and tactical play is rewarded.

If you actually test the common builds for the 3 midlines you mentioned above, you will see that there damage output (DPS) is pretty ordinary and can hardly be called offensive.

Double Pact · Jan 20, 2008, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yue

That a joke?

Either the post or the "Vroom Rulez" on the left must be a joke...
Especially the "stuff dies really quickly" part is so much fun

He probably meant stuff=archers and really quickly=at vod...

Lordhelmos · Jan 20, 2008, 04:11 AM // 04:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

If you actually test the common builds for the 3 midlines you mentioned above, you will see that there damage output (DPS) is pretty ordinary and can hardly be called offensive.

Agreed, a motigon with 9 spear mastery, a ranger with 10-11 marksmanship + only sloth hunters shot as a bonus damage skill, and a mesmer choking on energy and ramming GolE to setup a clunky ward is hardly what I would call "offensive play."

Master of Damage Lolz at such a puny onslaught.

Farin · Jan 20, 2008, 04:41 AM // 04:41

P/Me. Be brave.

TaCktiX · Jan 20, 2008, 04:42 AM // 04:42

In a support to how sad and pathetic monk healing capability is right now, consider the standard HA meta. If you run only 2 monks in HA, you are committing suicide. HA is a hard-core amount of frontloaded damage, with a large emphasis on the spike. Without a third monk (your typical backline is RC/prot, WoH/Infuse, HB/Heal Party), you die from pressure very easily. When you think about it, being forced to carry three monks or build like GvG is rather ridiculous. Before the LoD nerf, 3 monks was considered overkill.