Originally Posted by Erk

I would like to see more defined Rock -> Paper ->Scissors type rolls rather than this unclear skill overlap situation we currently have with casters. eg. Make Mesmers great at anti-caster and Necros great for anti-melee, Eles for spike damage, Rits for utitlities.

At the moment Mesmers seem to beat Necros at both anti-melee and anti-caster.
There are some great anti-melee skills in the Necro bar but they are unsustainable beyond the first volley, the energy has been nerfed too far. I often play a Curses Necro in RA where there is no GvG on, and if I cast any anti-melee I immediately become the target of all the melee and I have nothing in reserve for a second round of anti-melee without going to a high set, even GoLE doesn't help that much, Price,Reckless, Insidious, Spiteful are all 15 energy, and some are two second cast! Why? It's not like any of them gets you a kill unless you are facing an idiot that keeps hitting through them, the melee just persist, you run out of energy and die because you were forced to choose an Ele secondary for GLoE and stoopid Hexers Vigor is a 2 sec cast. When you try and kite they crit you with Bulls and gg. BTW Bulls seems to have too large a range! The irony is if I go in as a Toxic Chill Death Necro the melee tend to leave me alone more and I get some kills! Perhaps that's another angle Necros a spike killing role, though that's usually the realm of the fire Ele, so I would prefer to see anti-melee buff.

Make Price shorter duration 1 sec cast same as Reckeless put both back to 10e, and make Reckless single target only not AoE. no caster should have 2 second cast skills that have nothing to do with spike damage or some form of AoE. There is nothing worse than 2sec. cast skills that are suppose to be part of dynamic play!



When I first started GvG I use to play an anti-melee necro midline and really enjoyed it. I tried an illusion Mes and it's not the same, a warrior will happily hit through clumsiness, so it's no shutdown, just a moderate damage source.

Originally Posted by bungus

Mesmers catch stuff, such as key skills with diversion, and key attack skills with clumsiness. If you happen to catch eviscerate you have a lot more mileage out of the skill. That's an example of skillful hex usage that should apply to necromancers too, but in a different form.

Originally Posted by Erk

You can't really predict when Eviscerate is going off, it has a zero cast time, most times you just catch an auto attack, so I am not so sure about that skillful use aspect. It works better against a Sin chain, but they are not so common in GvG.


BTW. I play in Australia and it's usually on US servers, that adds about 200ms to the ping time just crossing the pacific, the ping indicator is normally not green. So fast twitch catching isn't a real option, you have to try and predict and get it wrong a lot. Something like Clumsiness still takes 1sec even with fast cast when you factor in the ping.

Originally Posted by Greedy

Bleh, I personally find this 'anti-something' pigeon-holing very dull & uninteresting. It quite possibly is the initial characterization that Anet set out with for the mesmer & necro, but in time we should be able to learn what makes for interesting gameplay instead of trying to go back to RPS concepts. The mesmer isn't interesting because it's "anti-caster"; it's an integral part of a balanced team because it supports the actual (physical) damage well and can adapt to deal with the other team's defensive strategy. I say let the necro follow in the mesmer's footsteps for a successful offensive support caster, but design it to aid pressure instead of spiking and kill two birds with one stone (pressure as a viable killing strategy in balanced builds has been lacking for some time).

More than anything, I think individual skills should be balanced with fun, skillful character templates in mind; likewise bigger updates involving larger attribute line reworks should be done with fun, skillful, balanced teambuild templates in mind. If your scope is too far in (just comparing skills to each other, trying to even out the power of everything) or too far abstracted (this profession should be anti-melee, this attribute line doesn't get used enough), then the solutions tend to be less interesting and you miss opportunities to really enhance good gameplay.

Originally Posted by Erk

I can agree with that, causing or healing damage feels like you are having more of a direct impact on the game play, even if it s the slow damage we call pressure, which essentially just chews up healers energy. Trouble is there are so many professions that splitting them into two broad rolls would be a waste, so the anti/shutdown roles are there to add some game depth and strategy.

Originally Posted by DreamWind

None if you ask me. I'm pretty convinced that people asking for buffs have completely forgotten the history of Anet. Overbuffing skills has broken so many metagames.

I'd much rather see a system of only nerfing skills until every skill is similar power level and elites are slightly better power level as opposed to the random system the game has now.

Originally Posted by Winstar

Buffing unused skills for the sole reason that they are unused is not a good reason to buff them. Any change should be made with the idea of improving the game and that doesn't mean making every skill really good. The more important question than unused crappy skills is to see what the current metagame is lacking in terms of balance that a buff or nerf could fix. For example, if hexes are too good look at improving the hex removal options and reducing the effectiveness of hexes. Buffing for the sake of buffing doesn't address this at all.

Originally Posted by Dominator1370

No one said anything about buffing skills for the hell of it. At least, that's not the way I read it.

Defy Pain should be left alone (for PvP, at least), unless we're going to rework it in a way where it does more than keep you alive. I don't have any ideas as to how to accomplish that and keep the "spirit" of the skill, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. Also, while most people here don't care (I don't really, either), buffing Defy Pain could be useful to PvP'ers.

I've also said (in another thread) I thought the buff to Overload was stupid. The problem with Overload wasn't the damage, it was that there are other things people would rather do to someone casting a spell, like, I dunno, interrupt it? That doesn't mean Overload is useless, though. Unless you're facing an exceptionally bad RA team or the damage is buffed until it's way imbalanced, it's probably just going to be healed, basically negating the usefulness of the skill. That doesn't mean that Overload is useless, though. What if it was changed to cause exhaustion to someone casting a spell? It still fits the motif of an effect while casting that isn't an interrupt, but it could actually work for something, some kind of new approach on e-denial, especially if you buffed some other skills (like the Inspiration skills, maybe) accordingly.

Any skill should, in theory, be capable of being buffed into usefulness. It might require some redesign, and that usefulness might be outside of traditional PvP, but that doesn't mean it's not there. I agree that random buffs don't work particularly well, but if you look at a skill and say "wow, that skill reallysucks. But wait, if we tweaked it like this, you might be able to use it with that", there could be some value. Guild Wars is all about synergy. A lot of skills aren't really synergistic with anything. Redesign them to be synergistic with something at least and suddenly they should at least fall into that category of "could be useful if...", where if is usually a tweaking of some numbers. There's no need to give up on a skill.

In this thread, I've actually seen people suggest that "we shouldn't be buffing skills, we should just nerf everything until everything is about equal". That's just dumb. Sorry, but it is.

There are three "categories" of skills: overpowered, balanced, and underpowered. We have a lot of skills that are fairly balanced with each other. We've had a lot of work put in by Anet to get them that way. Now, the overpowered skills should probably be nerfed, that's true. But why the heck shouldn't we try to buff up the underpowered skills? Can you honestly imagine how long it would take to even find playability if we had to nerf everything down to be on the level of Amity as an elite? It's absurd. And really, why should I have to scroll through 1000 useless skills? If they're not actually going to be useful, please, delete them. I could do without the clutter.

In short, what I'm trying to say is this:
1) Any skill can be usable with something if you're willing to redesign it a little. Defy Pain probably still won't show up in PvP, but it could be viable in PvE.

2) Redesigning skills should always be done with synergy in mind. It's easy to tweak numbers if they're off, but there's only so much people can do with a skill if there's no reason you'd ever slot it on a bar because the concept is just stupid.

3) Buffs are necessary. We can't just nerf the shit out of everything until 3 pips of health regen actually looks useful on my Mending Wammo. It would take forever, and what fun would that be anyway?

Originally Posted by DreamWind

I disagree. The only way we are judging skills is relative to other skills. Skills don't have inherent power in themselves. We only call certain skills good or bad because they are better or worse than the alternatives.

We shouldn't buff underpowered skills because Anet has a history. If I could trust Anet with buffing skills I would say go for it, but I can't, we shouldn't, and thus skills should rarely if ever be buffed.

Also, you can't delete the useless skills because people want variety. Ideally there would be many deep builds with similar power levels. The current balance system does not promote this idea.

Synergy is definately a factor in balance. I think it would be nice to have certain stupid skills actually be not stupid by making them work with other skills to make decent viable builds.

You wouldn't nerf skills permenantly. You would do it until we get to a point where almost nobody complains about balance anymore.

Originally Posted by WinStar

I don't disagree, but it was implied that there should be no useless skills. Of course you don't want to make it so that everything is nerfed to a low power level I don't think anyone could take that seriously.

The question is then how do we decide which skills to buff. I'm just suggesting that the approach should not be to first look at weak skills and think of ways to make them better. It should be to look at the game as it is being played right now and notice the problems. At that point it becomes useful to look at underpowered skills that may be relevant to the problems and look at improving them to help address the problem. This might leave certain skills out in the cold, why does that matter? Should making defy pain good be a priority? Not really unless its going to address some deficiency. And as you said, some skills are just conceptually might not be useful.

I don't think there is any need to delete less powerful skills either. In the game as a whole (pve and pvp) people like to mess around with stuff. There might be a more effective way to do X, but some players might find it fun to do X by using some underpowered skill because its different. PvP tends obviously more towards doing something in the most effective way possible, but PvE shouldn't have to (though obviously PvE also has an element of wanting to accomplish something in the most efficient way possible).

It doesn't hurt you (apart from clutter) to have less powerful skills kicking around and if it helps to buff something then it should be buffed.

Originally Posted by shoogi

About Lagg, you seem to misunderstand me. There is a difference between over and under powered skills when it comes to skill balancing. Overpowered skills have to be nerfed because they hurt the game. However, underpowered skills don't have to be buffed, because they don't hurt the game by being underpowered. Therefore, there is no reason to buff them just because they are underpowered. Skills should be buffed when it is needed for the metagame to improve. As examples I will bring my own buffing suggestions, Lingering Curse and the Illusion Magic snare hexes. I believe that with the Healer's Boon buff bringing a +% healing mechanic, a -% healing should be brought as a counter. With it comes the wish to bring necors back to pvp play outside degenerate builds. Concerning mesmer snares, currently snaring is the kingdom of water elementalists, and this kinda limits builds. An alternative is needed. Here are two suggested buffs that imo will improve the metagame.
Now, how will buffing Defy Pain will do any good to the pvp in gw? Is there a real reason behind this suggestion, beside "this skill is crappy let's buff it"? Do you believe that making Defy Pain better is needed to balance the skills? I can't think of any way buffing Defy Pain is needed, I would like to hear your idea if you have one.
I hope I made myself clearer this time.

Originally Posted by Riotgear

How should skills be updated?

- Find skills with potential for creating interesting play that doesn't break the difficulty-versus-reward model, bring them up.
- Find skills that are producing far too much effect for their ease of use, and bring them down.
- Find skills that are capable of fulfilling limited roles, adhering to the first rule, and bring them up.
- Find skills that are smothering other options by being too good, and bring them down.
- Give players several ways to fill any given role.

Things should NEVER, EVER be buffed based on how bad they are, they should be buffed on their potential to make the game more interesting or synergize with other things to create an interesting template, and provide alternate ways to satisfy proven roles.

Randomly buffing trash skills produces more trash as soon as it becomes viable. Garbage in, garbage out. See: Augury of Death, Discord, Keystone Signet.

Originally Posted by ensoriki

If skills that bring variety being underpowered, handicaps the game in a way, as it becomes stagnant. Theres probably a better way to express this.

Originally Posted by pah01

You need to pull the finger out and construct your thoughts and sentences better.Then I might know wtf you mean here.

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

I keep saying this!

There is more than 1 way to buff a skill, and changing its functionality so it fits in is one way.

Originally Posted by Mokone

right -- there you got it all. i don't dare to move, it tends to create a lot of mess. i'm REALLY sorry for this awfully long post, but yeah. ~

Originally Posted by Relambrien

I think he's trying to say that not making skills as good as they can be inherently damages the game. Meaning, a skill which could really help game play if it was buffed inherently damages the game due to the wasted potential of the skill.

This "damage" comes in the form of a stagnant metagame.

I'm pretty sure that's what he was trying to say, though I fail to see how a stagnant metagame relates to wasted potential of a skill...so I may have the second part wrong.

Originally Posted by ensoriki

You pretty much just explained it for me. Hmm, whats a good example I suppose for this.
Lets say you have 8 gifted children, 3 of them are given great education and become great people, well educated people. Two of these children receive decent education, and look even better because the education (or what they bring to the table) supports those 3 children (like how skills can support other skills...like Glowing Gaze supporting Searing Flames).
3 of those children we're left on there own, they have the potential there to bring something to the table, but they were never given the chance.

You will only see what those 5 kids have done/can bring, but you will never see what those other 3 could of done.

Perhaps I'm still not clear.

It doesn't really "damage" the game, but hurts it in a way.

Originally Posted by ensoriki

I don't mean new skills, I meant old skills.

Originally Posted by wuzzman

When you nerf enough bad builds start looking good. Which in many cases is happening now.

Originally Posted by wuzzman

When you nerf enough bad builds start looking good. Which in many cases is happening now.