Curse

I Angra I · Nov 09, 2007, 10:16 AM // 10:16

So everyone always talks about how great the Prophecies days of GvG were and how we could return to them. How everything was all balanced and happy and nothing was overpowered, and it took skill to make kills.

Everyone also talks about the fact that Nightfall power creep is what made GvG as it is today, and how because of that, the meta is now nothing like pre-Nightfall days. How all the builds now have super-powered offense as well as defense.

Now obviously I'm not Ensign or Vanquisher so 90% of the people here will ignore this post and/or flame me, but I want to try and at least give an alternate view of what everyone else is screaming about with the new skill update.

Now let me ask you: What in a balanced GvG build today is really that much more powerful than it was pre-Nightfall?

Warrior bars? Nope, they're less powerful even, and are almost completely unchanged from pre-Factions days, minus the exception of skills such as Rending Touch. Mesmer bars? A case could be made for Hex Eater Vortex, but other than that, mesmer bars remain largely unchanged and even nerfed as well. Besides SoD, almost all skills on monk bars are exactly the same as they were pre-Nightfall as well, safe one. Paragons are another story, but I'll leave them for another discussion.

The reason builds have so much more offensive power nowadays is because LoD takes away the need for a lot of defense. Warriors can frenzy more often because LoD wipes away any damage they may have taken. Elementalists and Mesmers don't have to cancel Diversions and Lightning Orbs or kite away anymore because the damage they took while casting is taken away with LoD. Linebacking isn't needed anymore as LoD gets rid of most of that damage too. A substitute for skills like Distortion on a mesmer bar aren't needed because of LoD, allowing them to bring that extra offensive skill.

The reason why the blockway meta was so hard to kill wasn't only because of the passive defense used. It was because LoD wiped up any damage that actually did get through. When you remember back to the days of EvIL and Te's balanced builds, is it honestly that much different of defense than you see today? Wards were prevalent, as were blinds, gales, aegises, blurred vision, cripshots, and water snares. There was however no LoD to simply mop up the damage that got through.

LoD essentially reduced the need for mitigating damage as a whole, allowing for a much larger focus on purely offensive skills and tactics. Remember when you would see warriors use healsig at the flagstand? No longer needed with LoD.

Without LoD being a viable skill to bring in GvG, I think you may see a return of slower, more strategic games, rather than a game where if I disable your LoD and bash your face in first, I win. More defense will be needed on non-monks to make up for the lack of LoD, squishy targets will need to either mitigate more damage through kiting, or through bringing a defensive stance or skill. You might even see top guilds having to make kills through plays involving skills like Blackout and Gale again.
Right now on obs mode it looks as if a lot of teams are trying to exploit the fact that there is no LoD by running hyper offensive pressure builds. And maybe I'm dead wrong and builds like that actually will turn into the new meta. But I can also see a slower paced game coming back, where running absolutely no defense besides two monks isn't an option anymore if you want to survive for more than 30 seconds.

I'm not saying that LoD was bad for the game, or even overpowered. But it did create a meta all on its own because of how good of a skill it was. Not having it may not be that bad. Of course there are some other problem skills that do indeed promote the Nightfall power creep, but I think promoting a non-LoD meta is a good start.

At first I was really pissed that they nerfed LoD, but after talking about the stuff mentioned in this post to other people, I'm actually not that frustrated anymore. If anything I'm really eager to see what guilds come up with during the time that LoD isn't around and to shake things up a little with the meta. Eventually it will stabilize with or without LoD, there's no way it's not going to. It may be largely different from what it has been for the past while, but it's not like the game is going to blow up.

AlexGuildDrama · Nov 09, 2007, 10:45 AM // 10:45

I agree with you mostly, but you also have to consider the nerf on boon prot and ether prodigy.

I Angra I · Nov 09, 2007, 10:53 AM // 10:53

Monks don't necessarily have to go back to boon prots though, and the nerf to eprod does change things a bit, but in general it's still not THAT bad of an elite to use on an ele.

French Connections · Nov 09, 2007, 11:27 AM // 11:27

To a certain extent i agree, but what needs to changed is the spammability of LoD. Back in the day, the only option you had was a heal party e/mo who'd only be withing heal party range every 45seconds per 90seconds and thus kiting, snaring and spell cancelling were alot more important. Maybe a 8-10 recharge on the skill might dissuade people to running the standard LoD infuser.

Ensign · Nov 09, 2007, 11:37 AM // 11:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Angra I

Now let me ask you: What in a balanced GvG build today is really that much more powerful than it was pre-Nightfall?

Paragons. Blinding Surge. Mending Touch. Hex Eater Vortex. Enchantment removal in general. Mesmer interrupts. Glyph of Lesser Energy. Ranger elites. Light of Deliverance.

Plus a bunch of relevant metagame stuff like LOLsins that you need to prepare for even if they aren't part of a 'balanced' build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Angra I

The reason builds have so much more offensive power nowadays is because LoD takes away the need for a lot of defense.

Disagree completely. As far as raw defensive power in a backline goes the game really has a bit less now than it did pre-Nightfall; for the most part the roles have simply shifted around a bit. You used to have fairly split-friendly Monks with a hybrid Heal Party spamming runner. Now you have a Heal Party spamming Monk and a split friendly hybrid runner. The advantage that's been gained has been moving the Party to the stand where it needed to be all along - as splitting off your Party was always a liability - with the disadvantage of the defensive burden now being concentrated more on a single character (single point of failure vs. distributed defenses).

The main reason builds have more offensive power? Because they have less disruptive power. Before Nightfall Mesmers were a dominant force in the game for their ability to break down either offense or defense. As key tools used to do that have been removed (Gale, Blackout, EDenial), Mesmers now are largely reduced to removal and interrupts, and the difference in disruption has been made up in brute force.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Angra I

There was however no LoD to simply mop up the damage that got through.

It was an EProd / Heal Party instead, which healed for only slightly less than LoD does now (and proportionally more given the amount of damage that comes in now).

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Angra I

Without LoD being a viable skill to bring in GvG, I think you may see a return of slower, more strategic games, rather than a game where if I disable your LoD and bash your face in first, I win.

Not a chance. In fact from the games I've played since the update, the exact opposite is true - you cannot stop me from bashing your face in with party-wide degen pressure, and I'm going punch your face in with it. You cannot stop degen. Conditions don't care about block stances and you can't kite hexes. Without party-wide healing, which has balanced mass degen strategies throughout the history of the game, teams are going to melt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Angra I

where running absolutely no defense besides two monks isn't an option anymore if you want to survive for more than 30 seconds.

I agree entirely. In fact between mass degen strategies and LOLsins, my impression is that you cannot survive long enough to play the game against every opponent without 4 Monks. There is quite possibly a way to get down to 3 Monks, but I don't see it yet.

Let me tell you, in the most dripping sarcasm possible, how much I am looking forward to playing Guild Wars in the four Monk metagame.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Angra I

Of course there are some other problem skills that do indeed promote the Nightfall power creep, but I think promoting a non-LoD meta is a good start.

Oh, I don't disagree with that. LoD is possibly the dumbest skill in the game, the biggest stopgap, single point of failure available. I'd love to see it go away. But I'm not happy, at all, to have LoD taken out of the game without any other way to fill its role. Party healing is still an *essential* part of the game for fighting against party-wide degen strategies. Without good tools to deal with that we're pushed back into the old Heal Party bitch metagame.

Which, I might add, isn't even applicable because now we have LOLsins everywhere that we have to deal with too. It's that problem template that was responsible for pushing us into a three Monk metagame to begin with, and the repeated buffing to a template that needs the exact opposite continues to be one of the biggest mysteries, and failures, of balance in this game.

I Angra I · Nov 09, 2007, 11:50 AM // 11:50

Party wide healing is of course needed in some way, but how do you change skills around to still have it and yet have a meta that's different than how it is now? If you buff a skill to be as good as the old LoD was, it doesn't seem like much will change. But if you keep everything not as good as LoD was, then won't condition and degen pressure builds still run rampant? Do various Healing skills need to be buffed still, or what?

Kaon · Nov 09, 2007, 12:11 PM // 12:11

Removing lod would be good if there weren't any assassins that would RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO over your runner in an eyeblink.

DutchSmurf · Nov 09, 2007, 12:59 PM // 12:59

I don't think degen is more of a problem then it was before. All degen builds were bringing Signet of Humility anyway. And although you can interrupt the signet, a good team should be able to get it through often enough to roll the other team. Interrupting is a lot harder then avoiding interrupts after all. Blind ranger, cast signet, roll team. People rolled teams with condition pressure with LoD (see vZ in the September tournament), people still do that without LoD. I don't see any difference.
I also don't see the point of the Lacerate build. The only source of bleeding are Barbed Trap and Crippling Slash. Saving your elite and bringing Toxicity makes more sense to me. It does kill teams, but it killed teams before the update too.

Kaon · Nov 09, 2007, 01:11 PM // 13:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

I don't think degen is more of a problem then it was before. All degen builds were bringing Signet of Humility anyway. And although you can interrupt the signet, a good team should be able to get it through often enough to roll the other team. Interrupting is a lot harder then avoiding interrupts after all. Blind ranger, cast signet, roll team. People rolled teams with condition pressure with LoD (see vZ in the September tournament), people still do that without LoD. I don't see any difference.
I also don't see the point of the Lacerate build. The only source of bleeding are Barbed Trap and Crippling Slash. Saving your elite and bringing Toxicity makes more sense to me. It does kill teams, but it killed teams before the update too.

Yes, with humility, 2 dshots, and powerlock teams weren't getting lod's off anyway. You could argue people will now take party wide heals from long range (outside the battle) and those are harder to get because we'd have to force our cripranger to harass him.

-Pluto- · Nov 09, 2007, 01:29 PM // 13:29

Quote:

I also don't see the point of the Lacerate build. The only source of bleeding are Barbed Trap and Crippling Slash and Lacerate.

Fixed for accuracy.

And would like to parrot the statement that e-prod would be fine to replace LoD if he wasn't getting insta-jabbed by sins all the time.

Servant of Kali · Nov 09, 2007, 02:10 PM // 14:10

Protective was Khaolai!!

IMMORTAlMITCH · Nov 09, 2007, 02:24 PM // 14:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

I don't think degen is more of a problem then it was before. All degen builds were bringing Signet of Humility anyway. And although you can interrupt the signet, a good team should be able to get it through often enough to roll the other team. Interrupting is a lot harder then avoiding interrupts after all. Blind ranger, cast signet, roll team. People rolled teams with condition pressure with LoD (see vZ in the September tournament), people still do that without LoD. I don't see any difference.

Yeah cause you never get LoD of versus that build ever..

Quote:

I also don't see the point of the Lacerate build. The only source of bleeding are Barbed Trap and Crippling Slash. Saving your elite and bringing Toxicity makes more sense to me. It does kill teams, but it killed teams before the update too.

You're an idiot, lacerate causes bleeding if it dies to people below 90% health.

Kaon · Nov 09, 2007, 03:06 PM // 15:06

Could it be that izzy stimulated 3monk backlines as a wohrunner is incredibly powerful.

WoH>ZB in all ways. The skill is incredible.

Legendary Shiz · Nov 09, 2007, 03:33 PM // 15:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Could it be that izzy stimulated 3monk backlines as a wohrunner is incredibly powerful.

WoH>ZB in all ways. The skill is incredible.

Agreed, and I think a WoH runner > ZB/SoR runner.

Byron · Nov 09, 2007, 03:47 PM // 15:47

Some possible outcomes that come to mind, since party heals are pretty much necessary:

HB runners are the likely result.

Maybe go back to healer's boon/SoD backline. Or, if condition presure is going to dominate, HB/RC.

Two WoH/guardian monks seem okay, imo, given a HP on the runner.

Motivation paragons. Yes.

LoD gets un-nerfed.

Pyro maniac · Nov 09, 2007, 03:49 PM // 15:49

I agree somehow to OP.
Without LoD alot of defense is gone.
Running frontline into own backline and get more heal and defense on midline will make up the changes to LoD. With those changes the offense will change, (more skills devoted to defense = less for offense). I can't remember a build we recently played that had more heal or even defense then just on the 3-monk backline.
With those changes to the offense, there is no need to the 4-monk backline. I guess there will be more utility. Flag runners with both offense and defense, ritualists with defense and somehow damage, etc.
Don't think that is that bad.

X Cytherea X · Nov 09, 2007, 04:10 PM // 16:10

or you could, i dunno, blow them up faster than they can blow you up

Captain Robo · Nov 09, 2007, 04:55 PM // 16:55

If LoD does not get reverted within two more days it's not going to be reverted.

The gap left by LoD simply cannot be filled by any other skill. Being forced to run it now with Holy Haste, or Healer's Boon it up with Heal Party lacks the bar compression that LoD formerly offered. Monk bars are drastically tight as it is, and now that there's no effective way to mop up damage, teams will be much more vulnerable to massive pressure.

If energy management on monks wasn't bad enough, there are now no more efficient mass-heals in the game. To keep people alive, you have to spend a heal on each person; and when warriors can dance from person to person, make good use of frenzy canceling and beat your backline into a pulp, single-target heals aren't going to cut it.

I don't like being FORCED to run a Heal Party-Extinguish spamming runner again. Those builds got phased out for a reason: Ether Prodigy got slammed a year ago! One Shatter Enchantment is all it takes to shut up an Ether Prodigy runner. SoR / ZB Runners filled a valid, and viable role in supporting teammates on splits, snaring enemies, keeping NPC's alive. Heal Part-Extinguish spammers cannot do any of those things as well, especially with the repercussions of bringing Ether Prodigy.

Everything that was wrong with this game has remained unchanged, while the only element keeping those things in check took a serious nerf.

Quote:

Running frontline into own backline and get more heal and defense on midline will make up the changes to LoD. With those changes the offense will change, (more skills devoted to defense = less for offense).

Have you watched observer in the past two months? Blockway has been everywhere. Massive bulkheads of team defense used to be the only way to survive for an extended period of time.

Quote:

I can't remember a build we recently played that had more heal or even defense then just on the 3-monk backline.
With those changes to the offense, there is no need to the 4-monk backline. I guess there will be more utility. Flag runners with both offense and defense, ritualists with defense and somehow damage, etc.
Don't think that is that bad.

There won't be more utility, but there will be 3-4 monk backlines.
Flag runners will have too many skills devoted to Heal Party, Extinguish, Ether Prodigy to carry offensive skills (What you were thinking of was the favored E/Rt runner making a comeback).

Ritualists will not provide both defense and damage. Ritualists may not even see much play anymore.

And it is a very bad thing.

kvndoom · Nov 09, 2007, 05:13 PM // 17:13

How's this...

Light Of Deliverance: Elite Signet. 3/4c 5r All party members within earshot and below 80% health are healed for xxx health. For each party member healed this way, you lose 1 energy.

Slightly lower than original cast time, but unaffected by 40/40 sets. Its cost is proportional to how much healing it does. GoLE will not negate energy used.

This is a lesser nerf than what it just got, and a buff in a different sense.

Miriandel · Nov 09, 2007, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Angra I

What in a balanced GvG build today is really that much more powerful than it was pre-Nightfall?

I write pages to show you how wrong this statement is.

Not only were most core skills altered, but just have a look at skills people use nowadays (even those altered) and count the core skills...