Curse

Theli · Oct 05, 2007, 01:08 AM // 01:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by SurareVaera

I'm pretty annoyed with all the people calling for monk nerfs, especially LoD. Chances are none of those people are even capable of playing monk, and probably spend their time raging in vent for the mesmer to diversion spam b/surge or LoD. Its even more likely that those people are simply bad at the game, and are too stupid to think of ways to beat the current meta without whining to the developers for skill nerfs. If you don't like wards, DA, Aegis, play golden fox strike, wild strike, shattering assault, impale w/ conjure. If you don't like all the blocking, any amount of time spent on obs mode shows that meta builds lack adequate hex removal. Be Team and vZ roll blockway repeatedly with condi pressure. There are skills available for use already that trump the meta, but you'd rather nerf current builds rather than evolve past the meta by actually using your brain.

Instead of complaining, why don't people actually design their own counters? People bring all the blocking and LoD because physical damage is extremely strong. When I say strong, I don't mean in need of a nerf. E-managment for a 2 monk backline takes skill even in the current meta. It's just appalling that people are calling for more stress in the backline, a position which no one wants to play anyways. If you can't kill things, your team is uncoordinated, poor at adapting to situations in game, and probably clueless as to what your midline needs to do to shutdown blockway. Anyone that has spent time playing GvG competently in the last few months knows exactly what has to get shutdown to win against blockway, so complaining for nerfs just tells everyone that you're bad at the game and should uninstall guild wars or stick to alliance battles / dungeons.

OMG, not another "If u have problem with that skill, use diversion" post.
example: Wards isn't overpower, you just can power leak or diversion on it.
and not another "Use Griffons Sweep in a war", " use Rigor Mortis" post
Please.

s w o r d y · Oct 05, 2007, 03:43 AM // 03:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Shields Up used to be an expensive skill that was hard to justify putting on a midliner that was only used as a ranger-spike cockblock, Paragons make it a cheap skill that's easy to put on a midliner that just happens to work well because of other teams bringing Paragons a lot and the fact that the main vulnerability of stuff like Aegis has been interrupts. Since this isn't the only thing Leadership is breaking (i.e. it already took WY as a casualty, and people are arguing that WY is still overpowered), I view it as a problem with Leadership.

surely if that is the case then leadership should only trigger off paragon skills. Maybe. Still, I dunno, people been playing guild wars for nearly 3 years in some cases and still don't think it's more fun to try and out-build the meta. man, GW is more fun like that.

Jaen · Oct 05, 2007, 04:01 AM // 04:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by MistressYichi

Yes because this is all agressive refrain is used for...

Please stop posting. Youre giving everyone a headache.

/thirded

I also notice that not once have you volunteered the name of the guild you are in, which may be important to retain your credibility, certaintly more effective I think than claiming several top players who don't agree with you will never "get it".

Riotgear · Oct 05, 2007, 04:20 AM // 04:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by s w o r d y

surely if that is the case then leadership should only trigger off paragon skills.

Proof that Leadership is out of whack is largely within the Paragon abilities themselves, which all have rather ridiculous costs. I'd like to see Command and Motivation able to be run to some extent or other on a secondary, which they currently aren't. I wouldn't mind seeing Leadership turned into what Strength is: A crappy attribute with good skills under it. Leadership already has several staple abilities already, so this isn't far off from possibility.

TheHaxor · Oct 05, 2007, 05:10 AM // 05:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Obviously you don't the real power of LoD so let me explain.

At 4 pips of energy regen you gain 1.3 energy/sec. LoD is 5e cost with a 5/sec recharge. So by the time its recharged you gained 6.5 energy. In essence its free!!! That's my real problem with LoD. E denial has no real affect on LoD. You can spam LoD forever and not run out of energy.

Compare it to heal party. 15 energy to 5 energy. 1 second cast to 2 second cast. 5 recharge to 2 recharge. 55 heal to 75 heal. Heal party is only viable on E prodigy (which has a lot of backlash), 2 sec cast is easily interruptible by any and everything.

LoD needs to take a huge hit.

You actually had the nerve to tell me I gave junk advise in another thread, then you post this gem. AHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Your logic fails. When you have four pips of energy regeneration, you essentially are getting 80 energy per minute (1 1/3 energy per second). Every time you cast a skill for that minute, you are using up some of that 80 energy. If you use more than 80 energy in that minute, you will have a net loss in energy. Since you start out with 42 on a 40/40 set, using 90 energy in a minute will leave you at 32 energy at the end of that minute. Therefore, any cast you are making is never free (unless under the effect of a skill like GoLE). From an efficiency standpoint, you would like to have a net loss/gain of 0 over the course of a match (or a slight net loss since you do start with some energy at your disposal).

Basically, the energy is not the problem with LoD. I believe that LoD is only a real problem when combined with a bunch of passive defense. If you remove the passive defense factor, you will probably find that LoD is fairly balanced (I would say adjust the amount it heals to balance it if anything, and that would probably only end up being a slight hit). The reason it is so widely used is because it is so effective at what it does. There aren't too many skills as effective as LoD is for a specific task. I'm sure most of the old flag runners are glad LoD exists =P (freed up at least one skill slot and attributes for their bars, and allow them to function more effectively).

Thom Bangalter · Oct 05, 2007, 05:31 AM // 05:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheHaxor

I'm sure most of the old flag runners are glad LoD exists =P (freed up at least one skill slot and attributes for their bars, and allow them to function more effectively).

It freed up 2-4 and made the bar less fragile on splits. Some would argue that it made single character split defense too strong, which is largely true, but I don't have to slam the heal party button ever again.

erk · Oct 05, 2007, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burton2000

Shields and to a lesser extent ward melee are the 2 most imba skills atm. In my opinion just because they are unstripble and the effects are very great. Shield up especially.

Yeah right, that's why Assassins jump right through with Expose and kill you anyway!

RhanoctJocosa · Oct 05, 2007, 09:48 AM // 09:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

Yeah right, that's why Assassins jump right through with Expose and kill you anyway!

Why the hell aren't our warriors carrying expose?!

TheHaxor · Oct 05, 2007, 12:23 PM // 12:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

It freed up 2-4 and made the bar less fragile on splits. Some would argue that it made single character split defense too strong, which is largely true, but I don't have to slam the heal party button ever again.

Yes, most flaggers I have spoken to about this are extremely happy they don't have to HP spam anymore =). It has made split less interesting (because, as you said, single character split defense is pretty strong atm), but it has made the flagger something more than just a spambot, which I think is better overall.

Greedy Gus · Oct 05, 2007, 01:01 PM // 13:01

Flaggers not having to make important risk/reward decisions about when to run, when to heal party, how to defend a base, and what to run is better overall than having interesting split play?

Lorekeeper · Oct 05, 2007, 01:39 PM // 13:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Flaggers not having to make important risk/reward decisions about when to run, when to heal party, how to defend a base, and what to run is better overall than having interesting split play?

apparently in order to make GvG or even GW PvP as a whole more accessible to casual players *cough* bad players *cough* what made the game harder/interesting/deep/diverse was made easier/boring/shallow/narrowminded.

eg.

RaO - warrior-like KD melee pressure for dummies (not necessarily better than a hammer war but much easier to do)
AoD/Shadow of haste - split mobility for dummies
LoD - anti-pressure for dummies (freeing up flag runner responsibilities as quoted above)
Bsurge - anti melee for dummies (something is wrong when you dont see ANY other air elite used EVER)
Shadow prison - cloaked adren spike for dummies + 1234567 assa button mash kill anything you want bars (no need for good warriors who know how to hide their spikes)
Soul reaping (not new) - energy management for dummies.

im sure there are several other examples but i rather not spend too much time making this rather old point.

as much as id like to blame many things on LoD. I wont. Anyone running a good pressure build will have LoD squarely in their sights for shutdown, i actually think that the absence of the heal party spammer has made teams far more vulnerable to hex or condition pressure than they were before; simply because you no longer can rely on a hp spammer sitting out of harms way.

i think pressure builds should have it easy, with aegis chains gone, hp spammers gone, flag runners who are generally helpless against hex or condition pressure, teams dependant on 1 skill to survive against pressure (LoD).

unfortunately, everyone turned their backs to proper pressure builds because of the awful defensive metas that have plagued the game for almost a year now. The defensive metas turned everyone towards shutdown/spike orientated builds like the current ones we hate to love and love to hate.

But in all honesty i think pressure builds could be in for a comeback, and from what im seeing in the past few weeks more and more people are starting to give them another chance.

Byron · Oct 05, 2007, 02:33 PM // 14:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by RhanoctJocosa

Why the hell aren't our warriors carrying expose?!

I herd expose wus gud.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gud

Flaggers not having to make important risk/reward decisions about when to run, when to heal party, how to defend a base, and what to run is better overall than having interesting split play?

Flagging is much more interesting since Eprod HP left the template. And pro-active and reactive splitting has become much more refined, certainly in higher gameplay. Very few games go 7v7 the whole match.

TheHaxor · Oct 05, 2007, 02:51 PM // 14:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Flaggers not having to make important risk/reward decisions about when to run, when to heal party, how to defend a base, and what to run is better overall than having interesting split play?

By less interesting, I mean lacking variability (seeing the same stuff over and over again disinterests me). How is giving someone more jobs going to make them more effective? Reducing the number of jobs a flagger has to do makes them more effective at the jobs that remain for them to do. Having the flagger be more effective at countering splits is the benefit, the cost of course then is losing eprod+HP. In this case the benefit outweighs the cost. Losing that one job doesn't mean that flaggers don't still have to make important risk/reward decisions, the types of decisions just change.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Flagging is much more interesting since Eprod HP left the template. And pro-active and reactive splitting has become much more refined, certainly in higher gameplay. Very few games go 7v7 the whole match.

Truth.

RhanoctJocosa · Oct 05, 2007, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

I herd expose wus gud.

inorite, expose = counter to blockway meta! tell your friends

Greedy Gus · Oct 05, 2007, 03:48 PM // 15:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheHaxor

By less interesting, I mean lacking variability (seeing the same stuff over and over again disinterests me). How is giving someone more jobs going to make them more effective? Reducing the number of jobs a flagger has to do makes them more effective at the jobs that remain for them to do. Having the flagger be more effective at countering splits is the benefit, the cost of course then is losing eprod+HP. In this case the benefit outweighs the cost. Losing that one job doesn't mean that flaggers don't still have to make important risk/reward decisions, the types of decisions just change.

Did I ever imply that current flaggers are less effective than the old e.prod guys? What you just wrote is exactly in line with my thinking, but somehow you drew completely opposite conclusions. Losing one job doesn't change the types of decisions they have to make, it decreases the number of decisions needing to be made. It makes the flagger role much better at the other jobs it performs, which makes playing that role easier and less dynamic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Flagging is much more interesting since Eprod HP left the template. And pro-active and reactive splitting has become much more refined, certainly in higher gameplay. Very few games go 7v7 the whole match.

No. You're just wrong. What experience are you drawing from here? Have you even been in a guild since BWE failed to break top 500? Did you watch any of the monthly games?

Offensive splitting has become refined specifically to this one type that is the dominant strategy right now. That is, defending vs. 1 or 2 players with a tank Ele or Rit hiding in NPCs, or dropping back a cripshot to hold people in place, and then routing them by dropping back a bunch of extra offense. People don't run skirmish skills on any characters than the ranger & ele, because they don't need to. When is the last time you saw a healsig? It's a simple manpower advantage, enabled by a tank Ele that can keep anyone up while they push damage. The decision making is just easy. No one needs their flagger anywhere near the battle because they have LoD. There is no substantial drawback to camping a flagger in the base.

Splitting is done more now than in the past in spite of tank flaggers, not because of them. People have gotten better the longer the game has been out (EvIL used to win loads of games before GWWC just by opening with a 4/4 split that people couldn't handle). It's just a plain fact that splitting around a bit (whether pushing a flagger, taking out a few NPCs, etc.) is often a good tactical play. But that doesn't change the fact that the decision-making in skirmish play has gotten much easier. It's another by-product of power creep allowing roles to be min-maxed extremely efficiently, which is often (especially in this case) counter-productive to promoting individual player skill and decision-making.

TheHaxor · Oct 05, 2007, 04:15 PM // 16:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Did I ever imply that current flaggers are less effective than the old e.prod guys? What you just wrote is exactly in line with my thinking, but somehow you drew completely opposite conclusions. Losing one job doesn't change the types of decisions they have to make, it decreases the number of decisions needing to be made. It makes the flagger role much better at the other jobs it performs, which makes playing that role easier and less dynamic.

I felt you possibly were implying that flagging takes less skill. I mostly felt you were implying that since flaggers being more effective in split play causes it to be less interesting, that it is worse overall that flaggers are more effective at dealing with splits. In fact, I'm pretty sure you meant that. I was just explaining why I felt it was better overall.

I don't possibly see how you could get to the conclusion that flagging now takes less skill than in the past if flaggers now focus more on countering split effectively than they did in the past. The fact of the matter is, if you go into ele tank mode, then the other team should be doing something at the stand to take advantage of that (like running flags hard to get a morale advantage).

Lorekeeper · Oct 05, 2007, 04:26 PM // 16:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Splitting is done more now than in the past in spite of tank flaggers, not because of them. People have gotten better the longer the game has been out (EvIL used to win loads of games before GWWC just by opening with a 4/4 split that people couldn't handle). It's just a plain fact that splitting around a bit (whether pushing a flagger, taking out a few NPCs, etc.) is often a good tactical play. But that doesn't change the fact that the decision-making in skirmish play has gotten much easier. It's another by-product of power creep allowing roles to be min-maxed extremely efficiently, which is often (especially in this case) counter-productive to promoting individual player skill and decision-making.

sorry i dont agree with your assertion that splitting is done more now than in the past. I also dont agree that people are better now purely as a product of the length of time the game has been out. But those are issues of perception rather than logic.

i do agree with your assertion that decision making in skirmish play has gotten much easier.

I also agree that powercreep has allowed individual builds to become more focused. LoD at the stand has allowed flag runner bars to focus on base defense. Having a flagger build built into this role means less reliance need for the mainteam to send anyone back except in reaction to more aggressive splits. Its also meant that the mainteam builds can focus on mainteam duties rather than being more flexible, it was once necessary for 1 frontliner to be 'splittable'' now the only character capable of surviving well on splits without support is the ranger.

Because of the flagger bar being so strong in skirmish situations, decision making in skirmish play has become easier that i agree with too. With the old eprod flaggers, skirmish play was a whole lot more risky. A trio made up of eprod flagger with flash and breeze/ ranger with trolls distortion/and warrior with heal sig had to be alot more careful in their engagement with an enemy gank/defense team, because of the lack of any real heals like SoR and mend touch. With a the SoR flaggers of today, skirmish teams have alot more security to engage with the aim to kill rather with the aim to hold off or to scare away.

it is this reason why i think splitting is so much easier now, especially with all the splitting for dummies skills that we have. But even while splitting is easier, it is also harder. Dont forget, what makes it easy to split offensively also makes it easy to defend against splits. Although SoR gives skirmish teams more security to make strong pushes into a base, it also gives opposing skirmish teams an easier job of defending, mirror match skirmishes tend to be stalemates, even more so when both teams are of equal experience.

in the old times, skirmishes depended much less on the skills on the split, but more on the relative experience/skill levels of those splitting. A mirror match in a skirmish would be a dangerous affair, allowing great rangers and great warriors to really shine in their ability to finish off opponents before they were killed themselves, with such little survivability compared to now, the parity in terms of experience and skill proved extremely telling, there was little to no room for mistakes and they could not rely on strong healing to keep them alive if they allowed the enemy split to get a good grip on them. Even a small difference in experience was enough to force a conclusion. Small differences in experience count little today where the powercreep has filled in the gaps.

i think as the game moves more towards buildwars with powercreep, it has losts the ability to reward real skill in the hands of the player. This is where splitting really shined in the past, as it was on the split where truly good players were rewarded.

With splitting the way it is now, the risks far outweigh the rewards. Only the truly good guilds are comfortable with splitting proactively to force real conclusions , and the rest would only ever split reactively to defend their bases.

because i think the meta is going to be challenged now with hex and condition builds, people might turn their heads away from the flag stand and seek success elsewhere.

/fingers crossed

Byron · Oct 05, 2007, 04:57 PM // 16:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

It's another by-product of power creep allowing roles to be min-maxed extremely efficiently, which is often (especially in this case) counter-productive to promoting individual player skill and decision-making.

Quote:

It's just a plain fact that splitting around a bit (whether pushing a flagger, taking out a few NPCs, etc.) is often a good tactical play.

That's what I wanted to say. The "interesting" was a statement of opinion. No need to get defensive.

Chilly Ress · Oct 05, 2007, 07:07 PM // 19:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razz L Dazzle

Merely saying that Melee on an Ele is a part of the passive defense that can be interrupted. Ward of Melee on a mesmer can not.

Most mesmers that run ward are running 14 dom, 9 ins, 9 fc, 7 earth. Possibly lower or no ins at all if they run glyph. Either way, ward melee on the mesmer is completely possible to interrupt, just people in the game are generally pretty bad now.

ksalanpang · Oct 05, 2007, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zabe

The problem in metagame is all about that how most of the guilds think that its good game when everyone runs same 64 skills. Thats the huge problem, another aspect ofcourse comes from the ANet side, and their lazy reacts to problems in GvG and anything else, ohh yes, PvE fixes come fast.

The most biggest problem comes from that most of people think that balanced is only build that will take skill, etc. Every build takes some sort of skill to run in its own level. GW has been build wars from ever since the release of the game, there is over 9000 skills, okay over 1000, but what ever, you can use. Over a half of them are ofcourse a kind of rubbish to use but still, that leaves a huge skillpool to use.

You can flame me or what ever, i don't really care. This is just ridicilous that people who should be skilled in the game, say that only a one build will take skill, everything else is shit.

To make observer more comfortable to watch, or anything in this game, shake the metagame somehow. Really, some people claim that balanced is coolest build to play, its a matter of taste. I really do like recall ganks etc. Balanced is the safeway build, it can counter decently nearly anything. Some people like the safe way, i like alot from splits, especially recall ganks, its just cool build to run imo.

Basicly the thing thats wrong in metagame, as I already stated. Is that fact that everyone runs the same build. There are no guilds to run anything different. Good GvG battles can be and mostly are boring as hell, nearly every skill is same, nothing happens before VoD, ofcourse, this is the ANet part, VoD is too close, push to the 25 min could be something good. But still, the biggest problem in metagame is the players itself.

Totally agreed with what you wrote. I don't understand why people think that balanced is the only team build that should be honored. I think those people who created builds that could kill and support the team are the winners. Again, I'm saying those creators of the builds not the copies/followers. No matter how much I hate the spiritway/heroway...etc., I give 3 thumbs up to the creators/contributors out there. Spike builds are little different imo, not 100% sure if I'd give credits to those overpowered spike builds creators (especially ritspikes).

It gets really boring when you and your guildmates play the same ol balanced build, at least in HA. Not too sure about the feeling of playing same build in gvg since I'm not an expert in gvg. I always love those guilds like old Spearman and QuCo making new builds that work in HA once in a while.

Spiritway is just really a balanced team when you think of it. Got frontline thumpers, multi-line trappers, backline necros and rits. Think of this way, people ran 2 DA paras before, once it got popular by winning. Poeple follow the build. That made everyone ran that build without thinking. People start to add the word 'Way' to whatever build that everyone runs. Often people defines the word 'Way' as follow, "I'm XXXXing sick and tired of people running that build, you scrubs go play something else kthx"

Heroway is another story it's just not human.

================================================== ======

Back to topic, many of you have concluded that there's no other choice but to run lod and prot monk. The fact is really with more and more hexes, more degen, more pressure that's generated by all champaigns/expansion. You got no choice but to take LoD. It's not because it's 5 energy cost. It's also because it takes care of the entire team. How many of the monk elites would actually take care of the entire party with no drawback? Alright, what about non-elites? Lastly, which of those non-elites are practical/efficient? A lot of us know the answers.

Unless you accommodate changes to other skills. It's just silly to nerf skills one by one to make it look balanced or not that uber...

MoR is a little too much as for now. Sad thing is it works for other 2nd professions too

I don't understand why many of you just want to -X armor when aggressive refrain is up/while attacking. It's a mistake that GW has such high armored midliner. I think they should just lower the armor lvl for paras.