Curse

IMMORTAlMITCH · Nov 06, 2007, 04:28 PM // 16:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

we've moved pretty far off topic.

so um... what to do about bloodspike:

vamp gaze/whatever bloodspike skills:

change functionality to: hex spell: after 1 second, you steal x heal from target foe. reduce casting time for all of them down by 1 second to compensate. the onces already at 1 sec cast should be 1/4 sec cast.

ups, i kaeled bloodzpiek.

Bloodspike isnt a problem.

pah01 · Nov 06, 2007, 04:35 PM // 16:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Bloodspike isnt a problem.

Its not but it is one of those very gay builds that make you feel like teleporting to seattle to kill people

Legendary Shiz · Nov 06, 2007, 04:44 PM // 16:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

we've moved pretty far off topic.

so um... what to do about bloodspike:

vamp gaze/whatever bloodspike skills:

change functionality to: hex spell: after 1 second, you steal x heal from target foe. reduce casting time for all of them down by 1 second to compensate. the onces already at 1 sec cast should be 1/4 sec cast.

ups, i kaeled bloodzpiek.

Bloodspike doesn't need to be touched, it's pretty easy to handle.

I think the Mo/D runner should take a bit of a hit, and make a few other flagger templates viable. Same with monks, having a couple elites to chose from makes builds more diverse and game play more enjoyable.

Sinful Doom · Nov 06, 2007, 04:48 PM // 16:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by pah01

Its not but it is one of those very gay builds that make you feel like teleporting to seattle to kill people

R O F L

Riotgear · Nov 06, 2007, 04:57 PM // 16:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Bloodspike isnt a problem.

I think anything that you can run to beat a group of significantly better players with any degree of consistency is a problem. It's not like the game is going to be worse off if boring 321spike gets nerfed.

Angorodon's Gaze needs a hit regardless. Change it to suffering from a hex instead of a condition, gg.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Nov 06, 2007, 05:02 PM // 17:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

I think anything that you can run to beat a group of significantly better players with any degree of consistency is a problem.

Angorodon's Gaze needs a hit regardless. Change it to suffering from a hex instead of a condition, gg.

The last time I lost to bloodspike was when our infuser didnt load in, and since I've played at least 15 matches against bloodspike on several maps (mostly burning) with several builds (mostly balanced) and never lost to it once.

Bloodspike isn't a problem.

Riotgear · Nov 06, 2007, 05:07 PM // 17:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

The last time I lost to bloodspike was when our infuser didnt load in, and since I've played at least 15 matches against bloodspike on several maps (mostly burning) with several builds (mostly balanced) and never lost to it once.

Bloodspike isn't a problem.

It's not a problem for you, it's not a problem for most guilds at the top. The ladder's a bit bigger than that though. People wouldn't be running bloodspike if it wasn't scoring them more wins than whatever they used to run, and whatever they used to run probably took more effort and probably was less successful.

Bloodspike is not exactly making a positive contribution to the game.

moriz · Nov 06, 2007, 05:11 PM // 17:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

The last time I lost to bloodspike was when our infuser didnt load in, and since I've played at least 15 matches against bloodspike on several maps (mostly burning) with several builds (mostly balanced) and never lost to it once.

Bloodspike isn't a problem.

mostly irrelevant. bloodspike is being looked at, so it's safe to assume that it's gonna be nerfed in one form or another.

whether it will be eliminated is still questionable though.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Nov 06, 2007, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

It's not a problem for you, it's not a problem for most guilds at the top. The ladder's a bit bigger than that though. People wouldn't be running bloodspike if it wasn't scoring them more wins than whatever they used to run, and whatever they used to run probably took more effort and probably was less successful.

Bloodspike is not exactly making a positive contribution to the game.

Maybe so, but bspikes very rarely beat 'a group of considerably better players', definately not with high consistency...

Bankai · Nov 06, 2007, 05:14 PM // 17:14

The only problem with bloodspike is that it shows how badly designed a lot of the blood skills are.

Razz L Dazzle · Nov 06, 2007, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Saying blood spike doesn't beat better players is fine and all, an arrogant argument rather than a sensible one. Most gimicks and their suiters don't have the experience and playing skill so they should lose quickly but the fact is that this isn't always the case. The addition of these two new blood skills has brought it back. Angorodon's Gaze is an essentially free vamp gaze, and a gimmick in any build it receives play. Giving blood spike more spike options was a bad idea. Splitting it is still easy, which was a problem with Rit spike. Playing blood spike 8v8 is a problem if they are able to capitalize and kill your infuser because he isn't likely to get much heals from his prot partner. If you ball them up with splinter weapon or keep down aegis' and put them in defensive mode then B-spike is as easy as before. Current balances do have interupts to handle b-spike but it seems as though their energy from Angorodon's sustains them long enough to spike more times than they could afford to before.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Nov 06, 2007, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razz L Dazzle

Saying blood spike doesn't beat better players is fine and all, an arrogant argument rather than a sensible one. Most gimicks and their suiters don't have the experience and playing skill so they should lose quickly but the fact is that this isn't always the case. The addition of these two new blood skills has brought it back. Angorodon's Gaze is an essentially free vamp gaze, and a gimmick in any build it receives play. Giving blood spike more spike options was a bad idea. Splitting it is still easy, which was a problem with Rit spike. Playing blood spike 8v8 is a problem if they are able to capitalize and kill your infuser because he isn't likely to get much heals from his prot partner. If you ball them up with splinter weapon or keep down aegis' and put them in defensive mode then B-spike is as easy as before. Current balances do have interupts to handle b-spike but it seems as though their energy from Angorodon's sustains them long enough to spike more times than they could afford to before.

BSpike doesnt really benefit from experience and skill, they press their skills on 1 and wether or not their spike kills depends on wether the other team is doing their jobs or not.

It doesn't matter how 'skilled' their players are a bloodspike can't survive long vs pressure, they either have kill quickly or pull out, once they are in 'healing mode' it's almost impossible for them to get a well timed spike through.

I wouldn't mind bspike getting nerfed (though I do like the free champ points I get from beating bspike) but I'd rather Anet spend their time fixing actual problem skills like ancestor's rage and clumsiness.

Riotgear · Nov 06, 2007, 05:56 PM // 17:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Maybe so, but bspikes very rarely beat 'a group of considerably better players', definately not with high consistency...

Gimmicks by definition are characterized by being overly successful for the amount of skill it takes to run them. In a game that pitches itself as emphasizing skill as the driving force in success, this isn't good, it gets bad players wins they probably don't deserve, and that's why gimmicks keep getting hammered.

The fact that it hits a glass ceiling in effectiveness is no different than any other gimmick, but as you drop down the rungs you start getting teams that are coordinated but not exactly stellar getting beat by a build that a monkey could play as long as that monkey had Ventrilo and knows what the word "three!" sounds like.

Quote:

I wouldn't mind bspike getting nerfed (though I do like the free champ points I get from beating bspike) but I'd rather Anet spend their time fixing actual problem skills like ancestor's rage and clumsiness.

Oh I agree, except just tapping Angorodon's Gaze is 90% of the fix, so it's not like this is a complicated problem.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Nov 06, 2007, 06:07 PM // 18:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Oh I agree, except just tapping Angorodon's Gaze is 90% of the fix, so it's not like this is a complicated problem.

Then they will just go back to the old shadow strike gaze spike, and that one might be a little heavier on energy but it's just as hard/easy to deal with.

I don't think guilds like SoG are considerably higher rank now than they used to be pre-angorodons gaze, NoT and XoO are different because they were bought.

Yue · Nov 06, 2007, 06:34 PM // 18:34

It's not really a problem for anyone at the top either. Occasionally someone screws up, but it's not a difficult build to beat. Survive the first couple spikes and they're pretty much dead.

Captain Robo · Nov 06, 2007, 07:38 PM // 19:38

The problems with Guild Wars are too deep and well-rooted to be fixed with just a simple skill balance or update. The game requires a complete overhaul of its pvp system.

The key to balance in this game is to identify a "gold standard" against which to test the power of a build. Consider the way Challenge Ratings are calculated in D&D: if I recall correctly, a Challenge Rating is determined by the difficulty a balanced party (fighter, cleric, wizard, rogue) experiences in killing a monster of their same level four times in a row.

Likewise, in terms of player skill, a balanced Guild Wars build, when played correctly, should be able to hold its own in a variety of situations without losing strictly due to a build disadvantage.

However, we experience widespread metagame problems when a degenerate build arises that can lay waste to just about everything with little regard to player skill. People are always going to play to win, so naturally they will use the most powerful builds available without honor or humanity. But just because people are going to play broken characters doesn't mean that we should just throw balancing issues to the wind (look at a game like Guilty Gear: incredibly balanced game, with character disparities only visible at high-end play). Anet has allowed "Build wars" to take precedence over player skill.

Recall just a few gimmick builds, utilizing overpowered skills, which have arisen to complete notoriety over the past year:
SFway, Paraway, Thumpers with SF, Hex overload with Thumpers, Eurospike, Bloodspike, Meldervs with anything, or for a more current example:

Dual SP Sin overload

2 SP Sins
2 Mesmers sporting general anti-everyone toolbox
1 Melandru derv for the lulz
3 Monk backline

By all standards, this build is amazing: incredible split pressure, incredible 8v8 pressure, great defense vs just about anything from the mesmers and triple monk backline.

However, I call bullshit on this build. It's lame, bland, and overpowered. In order to beat it, I need to have a build tailored to beat it; which entails bringing tools that would be useless in any other match.

Because the Guild Wars metagame is wholly driven by the player base, Anet is forced to balance the game only after something has been revealed to be degenerate. Moreover, half the time they nerf the wrong thing, or they nerf something completely into oblivion.

While I like having a player-driven metagame, Guild Wars has been little else than the rise of one overpowered build after the next, and there has to be a stopping point.

I believe that the game itself needs to be balanced around the competitiveness of a general balanced build. In this way, if you ensure the competitiveness, (but not dominance) of the most well-rounded build in the metagame, offshoots and permutations of that build should make for equally viable competitors.

In my opinion, build design should be wholly related to three philosophies:

Split- A team that can split into highly mobile groups in order to spread apart the opposing team and win.

Pressure- A team that focuses on overloading enemy defenses over time through hexes, conditions, knockdowns, etc.

Spike- A team whose objective is to score kills by throwing a large amount of damage at target as fast as possible. Often incorporated as part of a pressure build, or can be completely build-centric, as in Bloodspike.

None of these strategies are strictly superior to the other, and the aforementioned "Balanced Build" should be able to incorporate all three strategies in adequate measure, without being clearly superior in one aspect to a team that focuses on on (Balanced teams should not be superior on a split to teams that focus solely on splitting, and should therefore employ other strategies in order to win).

A single team should not be exceptionally good at all three of these strategies (see the Dual SP sins build posted above), or else degeneracy occurs.

On a completely different note, there is a massive amount of skill redundancy inherent in the game, with some choices being obviously superior to others.

For instance:

I am an E/Mo flag runner. I'm mobile, I have snares, blurred vision, Shield of Regeneration, and condition removal to help myself, base npcs, and allies on splits.

Compare to:

Hey, I'm an Mo/D flag runner. I've got a stupidly good snare and speed boost, and I'm also packing ZB, Guardian, Holy Veil, Dismiss Conditions, RoF, and Purifying Veil/Prot Spirit. I can provide endless snaring with Pious Restraint, and I can keep npcs and splitting allies alive no problem, because I'm also a legitimate monk! I can even deal with hexes. Your move E/Mo.

The Mo/D does everything the E/Mo can do, and then some. This is because the Mo/D brings better skills to the table.

Signet of Pious Restraint is an obviously broken skill because it obsoletes every other hex based snare, it is easily supported with enchantments, and even though the condition can be easily removed, the instant recharge of the skill makes this negligible. Pious Restraint is almost as good as Cripshot, and that's saying something.

I'll elaborate later, because I have class now.

Razz L Dazzle · Nov 06, 2007, 08:02 PM // 20:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

BSpike doesnt really benefit from experience and skill, they press their skills on 1 and wether or not their spike kills depends on wether the other team is doing their jobs or not.

It doesn't matter how 'skilled' their players are a bloodspike can't survive long vs pressure, they either have kill quickly or pull out, once they are in 'healing mode' it's almost impossible for them to get a well timed spike through.

I wouldn't mind bspike getting nerfed (though I do like the free champ points I get from beating bspike) but I'd rather Anet spend their time fixing actual problem skills like ancestor's rage and clumsiness.

You're misinterpreting my post. I'm on the side that those playing blood spike lack any real GvG experience and skill. So if they win at all verse an experienced team this is one time too many, in my oppinion. The A-net wasting their time fixing blood spike isn't much of an argument. Really, it just takes hitting Agorodon's Gaze, then its at the same position it was before the release of the new skills. No other changes are needed to address blood spike. One skill thats it. Their energy will be more fragile and any pressure will wipe them.

There are many skills needing tweaks in competitive play but nerfing some of the farming garbage like spiritway and blood spike should go along with them. Make the game more enjoyable for those not at the top of the ladder is good for the game. Look at the game from their perspective. They are trying to learn 8v8 and keep getting beat by heroes and blood spike, this ruins their enjoyment. So some of them join into these gimmicks in order to win, while others quit and do something else. Either way its a lose-lose for the pvp community. I think these issues for mid level GvGers are important and should coincide with some of the other problems.

The next balance should address those problems as well as: Ancestor's rage, Dual clumsiness, SP instagib sins. Once some of this trash is cleared up we can go back to discussing good changes like improving healing prayers, healing signet, troll unguent, E/rt runners, mesmer elites, and reliance on LoD.

Lorekeeper · Nov 06, 2007, 08:11 PM // 20:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razz L Dazzle

You're misinterpreting my post. I'm on the side that those playing blood spike lack any real GvG experience and skill. So if they win at all verse an experienced team this is one time too many, in my oppinion. The A-net wasting their time fixing blood spike isn't much of an argument. Really, it just takes hitting Agorodon's Gaze, then its at the same position it was before the release of the new skills. No other changes are needed to address blood spike. One skill thats it. Their energy will be more fragile and any pressure will wipe them.

There are many skills needing tweaks in competitive play but nerfing some of the farming garbage like spiritway and blood spike should go along with them. Make the game more enjoyable for those not at the top of the ladder is good for the game. Look at the game from their perspective. They are trying to learn 8v8 and keep getting beat by heroes and blood spike, this ruins their enjoyment. So some of them join into these gimmicks in order to win, while others quit and do something else. Either way its a lose-lose for the pvp community. I think these issues for mid level GvGers are important and should coincide with some of the other problems.

The next balance should address those problems as well as: Ancestor's rage, Dual clumsiness, SP instagib sins. Once some of this trash is cleared up we can go back to discussing good changes like improving healing prayers, healing signet, troll unguent, E/rt runners, mesmer elites, and reliance on LoD.

nicely said

was just about to say the same myself, its very narrow minded to think that balancing should only ever be done in relation to the top tiers of play... there are other people to think about. Numerous gimmick builds would never have been balanced if all it took was for a few good teams to claim they had no problems with it. Did all top 50 guilds have problems with heroway in GvG? Probably not but it got hit anyway... what about rit spike? Im sure some top guilds beat that consistently does that mean it shouldnt have got nerfed?

It doesnt help to take such a narrowminded view on skill balance, this isnt about blowing off your egos and making out as if everyone else is a noob, that achieves nothing constructive. Its on the list... and the game would be better off with changes made to angorodons gaze than without... its really as simple as that.

Yue · Nov 06, 2007, 10:46 PM // 22:46

lol you're a joke. Just because a team can beat a build means it can't be overpowered? People like you shouldn't be involved in balance discussions at all. Balance doesn't mean that a build that can be beaten means it can't be overpowered. It takes alot more skill to beat ritspike than it does for ritspike to beat anything else. Plenty of top teams have gotten beaten by ritspike.

On another note, balancing should only be done in regards to top tier play. If not that, what are you using as a reference? RA? TA? What a joke. Any game that involves skill balances must have their balancing scaled to the highest level of play, or it doesn't mean anything at all. Understand that concept, then come back to this thread.

Shuuda · Nov 06, 2007, 11:27 PM // 23:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yue

lol you're a joke. Just because a team can beat a build means it can't be overpowered? People like you shouldn't be involved in balance discussions at all. Balance doesn't mean that a build that can be beaten means it can't be overpowered. It takes alot more skill to beat ritspike than it does for ritspike to beat anything else. Plenty of top teams have gotten beaten by ritspike.

On another note, balancing should only be done in regards to top tier play. If not that, what are you using as a reference? RA? TA? What a joke. Any game that involves skill balances must have their balancing scaled to the highest level of play, or it doesn't mean anything at all. Understand that concept, then come back to this thread.

Well, TA should actually have a voice, since it is an organised form of PvP. RA/AB/FA don't matter as they are random, but TA should get some consideration.