Curse

person a · Sep 21, 2007, 01:56 AM // 01:56

I was bored the other day and was checking up on my guild wars history, reading some of the earlier match reports written up on the official website. I wasn’t playing guild wars back then, so I never got to experience the metagame before factions. What surprised me was how much fun it sounded like it was to play pvp and more specifically, gvg’s. The battles were intense; they flowed to and from the flag stand and the bases. There where flag running chains, and fake spikes, and there were never 10 minute battles at the stand with two teams failing to kill each other because they were both running vodway.
The current metagame is vodway. Some may call it balanced, but in its purest roots this build is made to fight until vod, then wipe the opposing team’s npc’s with vod spike damage while the vodway team sits in their wards laughing. This build is not balanced, is not fun to play, and is even less fun to watch (try going in observer mode. Now try watching grass grow. It’s a safe bet that the grass is generally more entertaining.)
For those of you who don’t know, this build is said vodway build.
1. Shock axe warrior- Of all the player builds in vodway the warriors are the ones that I have the least problem with. They are versatile with knock downs, spikes, dps, a heal, and speed and damge buffs. I have no qualms with this build and would like the see it used more if anything.
2. shock axe/other warrior- Again, I like most of the current warrior build used in the meta. The main one I have a problem with is the steady stance fear me, but that got mildly nerfed and does not see as much play.
3. paragon- This is where we start to run into balance problems. The defensive anthem paragon has a nice ranged dps, and a spear attack or two to help in spikes. It has high armor, and can afford to be in the midline because it’s attacks are ranged, making it a very undesirable target. It also gets energy whenever it casts certain skills, and has no energy management problems. As if this wasn’t enough, it has several UNREMOVABLE party wide buffs. “watch yourself”, “go for the eyes” and “anthem of flame” are all spamablle skills from which paragons actually gain energy, and make give the entire party +20 armor level. This along with defensive athem and shields up finish off their bar.
I have several problems with paragons, I think the entire class needs to be fixed. What bothers me the most however, is how passive all of their overpowered skills are. Aside from attacking on spikes, you job is to click on a skill whenever it recharges. You would think such a simple style of play would be underpowered, and it deserves to be. Too bad it’s one of the most overpowered bars in pvp and a main contributor to the vodway meta we have today.
4. Mesmer- Let’s look at the skill diversion. Alone, it’s a good skill. 3 second casting time and long recharge make it not extraordinary. When you cut its casting time in half from fast casting you begin to be able to time it with spikes and it becomes a lot more effective, changing it into a great skill. It’s long recharge still holds it back from becoming unbalanced. Next factor in an Mor to the skill. It is now a spammable shutdown. Any skill needed to run diversion was gotten rid of, because now all you need to do is press it on recharge and you will eventually get something.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against diversion. I went on that tangent to show an example of mor ruining a perfectly balanced skill. This isn’t the only thing mor is good for however…it also works with wards. Ward’s are already overpowered. If you think of ward against melee, if you place it wright and you team stays in it it probably prevents 1000+ damage while it’s up, for 10 energy. Being a to spam a ward, is incredibly overpowered passive defense. It also ruins the purpose of movement in gameplay. If a team falls back, the other team should have to risk coming out of its wards exposed to try to keep pushing forwards. With a spamablle ward there is no risk in pushing forwards, you can just set up all over again at very little cost. I guess what I’m trying to get at is that mor is not good, and it promotes bad gameplay. Nerf mor, keep Mesmers using Mesmer skills (no wards) and their class should be fine.
5. Optional slot- This slot Is usually a second paragon, Mesmer, ranger, or elementalist. It almost always adds more defense then offense to the team and generally contributes to having a more vodway less balanced style of play. If this slot is a paragon then the build will usually be aggressive refrain along with the defense anthem, providing even more partywide un-strippable buffs and continuing to make a joke out of the class. If it’s a ranger then it will usually be a cripshot, because burning arrows aren’t much help when 75% of their attacks are blocked. Cripshot’s snare the opposing team’s warriors, putting even less pressure on the monks of their team. An elementalist will usually be a b-surge warder. The only good thing that can be in this slot (by good I mean not contributing insane amounts of defense to the team, choosing to put a little more pressure in their bar) would be a second Mesmer. This Mesmer will help more offensively then defensively, and I think a standard Mesmer without mor is always a good thing.
6. lod monk- lod needs a nerf. (activate ward against flames, sit behind my aegias taunting all of the trolls without actually needing to respond because of all my passive defense) in all seriousness though, lod is just more passive defense that the game does not need. It’s a 5 energy spammable 200+ health heal. I know a nerf is not going to happen but I really think it’s a tad bit overpowered. I’m not actually going to go into most of the monk skills because monks don’t need to do much these days, and its getting late and I don’t feel like it, monks /afk until vod ftl.
7. sod monk- I love protection monks. The class requires skill to use, and aside from aegias most of the skills are active, balanced defense. Sod might be a bit overpowered, but I’m fine with it simply because its active and not passive defense. Eliminate aegias from this monks bar and I think its perfect.
8. runner/other- the mere fact that I added an other section to the name of this slot reflects how screwed up the meta is right now. Flag running doesen’t matter anymore. No one puts in the flag, and no one ever leaves the main group. If a team gets wiped at the stand instead of trying to run the flag, get moral and work off there dp’s with spilts and tactics, they /resign. Even if they were to try this it woulden’t work, vod comes to early to work off the dp and capture moral. There needs to be a runner slot in the meta, doesn’t matter what it takes.

There are so many things wrong with this build. Instead of trying to put in offence it pours all it possibly can into defense. Then it heals it’s npc’s while they go and kill the other team, after standing around for 18 minutes waiting for vod. The more skill it takes to play a bar the more rewarding the results should be. Passive defense takes no skill, it should not be rewarding. On top of that, there is simply too much passive defense. People on both teams should die, by 5 minutes one team should either have gotten pushed back form the stand or have taken a couple deaths, they should not still both be standing there.

I think power creep also plays a role in this. Skils have gotten more and more powerful, dps has gotten higher and higher, and spikes hit for more damage in a smaller amount of time. There just isn’t enough active defense to prevent all of this, so passive defense was needed. And more of it. And some more passive defense, just to be safe. Teams went from poring all offense into all of there spare skill slots to defense, because the defense was so much more powerful. The result is so much defense that the purely offensive teams can’t get through all of it, and they get rolled at vod. Hence the name vod.

I feel like I’ve resorted to repeating myself and taking cheap shots at aegis, so I’m going to stop my rant. It’s not that I don’t like guild wars, I love it and I even like anet (gasp). I just feel like the game I love is slowly getting worse, and they aren’t doing anything to prevent it. I may not be the most experienced player out there, and I know I’m not a good writer, but I felt like something needed to be done. So there it is.

flame me all you want on how I’m wrong about all of this, these are really just my opinions on why the metagame is crap right now. But the metagame is crap, and something needs to change.

Teh [prefession]-zorz · Sep 21, 2007, 02:22 AM // 02:22

Id have to agree with the paragons needing some skills reworked, and agonizing chop needs to be either interruption or damage only...if wards are such a big problem, bring a fire ele hahah :P

Apok Omen · Sep 21, 2007, 02:48 AM // 02:48

Dude, you're not the first to realize this. Honestly, everyone has known this for over 3 months.

Jessyi · Sep 21, 2007, 04:09 AM // 04:09

Yeah, I agree. And incidentally, I went back to PvE 3 months ago. imo - make peace with death. It dawned on me a few months ago that I shouldn't give myself a coronary over something I was supposed to be having fun doing. I don't criticize or demand anything from ANet anymore. If they want to fix it, they'll fix it. Until then, I'm not losing any sleep. People should just boycott PvP instead of suffering through bullshit metas that the community could fix if it were given the chance. Things don't change unless people change. Tell them to stuff it with your actions.

-Jessyi

IMMORTAlMITCH · Sep 21, 2007, 02:51 PM // 14:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by person a

The only good thing that can be in this slot (by good I mean not contributing insane amounts of defense to the team, choosing to put a little more pressure in their bar) would be a second Mesmer. This Mesmer will help more offensively then defensively, and I think a standard Mesmer without mor is always a good thing.

Good post, too bad Anet doesn't seem to care about the state of PvP anymore.

I disagree with this point though, there's nothing inherently wrong with a second mesmer but the way it's played at the moment is just camp in wards while trying to spike and blow stuff up at vod with esurge/hev.

Quote:

6. lod monk- lod needs a nerf. (activate ward against flames, sit behind my aegias taunting all of the trolls without actually needing to respond because of all my passive defense) in all seriousness though, lod is just more passive defense that the game does not need. It’s also 5 energy spammable 200+ health heal. I know its not going to happen, and I know most of you are only still reading to flame me, but I really think it’s a tad bit overpowered. I’m not actually going to go into most of the monk skills because monks don’t need to do much these days, and its getting late and I don’t feel like it, monks /afk until vod ftl.

LoD is NOT overpowered, the only reason it's so incredibly strong is because of all the passive defense, when (most of) that is gone it's a really fragile skill, 1s cast leaves it open to interrupts and it's really the only party healing that's viable at the moment. Nerf passive defense and LoD and everyone will start running heavy physical builds (not neccesarily a bad thing but it will limit the amount of viable builds)

Quote:

7. sod monk- I love protection monks. The class requires skill to use, and aside from aegias most of the skills are active, balanced defense. Sod might be a bit overpowered, but I’m fine with it simply because its active and not passive defense. Eliminate aegias from this monks bar and I think its perfect.

There's nothing wrong with active prot, it improves active gameplay which rewards skill, however SoD at the moment is far too effective, cut the recharge down a little bit and it will be fine.

Basically what needs to happen to make GW (GvG) fun again:

-Push VoD back to 20/25 (or even better 30/35)
-Nerf partywide defense (Aegis, Shields Up, wards)
-Remove shadowstepping or at the very least nerf it
-Tone down paragons (mainly aggressive refrain)
-Slightly nerf skills like MoR and SoD

Neo-LD · Sep 21, 2007, 03:33 PM // 15:33

@ OP

I dont know why you are so nervous about getting flamed. You're basically just saying the same thing that everyone else has been saying about blockway for the past few weeks, and the same thing that I've been saying about rewarding player skill for about a year. Thank you for taking the time to write up a decent summarization/declaration of principles, though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

-Push VoD back to 20/25 (or even better 30/35)
-Nerf partywide defense (Aegis, Shields Up, wards)
-Remove shadowstepping or at the very least nerf it
-Tone down paragons (mainly aggressive refrain)
-Slightly nerf skills like MoR and SoD

Agreed, but I think you have LoD and SoD reversed. Once its partners in crime (passive defense) are gone, SoD wont be anything special, just a good, playerskill-rewarding active prot. However, LoD will still be a powerful 'press-this-button-as-often-as-possible' kind of spell, which is not a desirable skill to keep around, which is why I think it needs to be toned down.

A buff to several direct heals and minor prots would also be in order, so that defense would still be possible, and after all of those changes the overall state of how defense is played would be much better.

Burton2000 · Sep 21, 2007, 03:42 PM // 15:42

LoD is only overpowered in the fact that you have a hp in your main team and not on the runner like pre NF. This means your runner can defend the base while you main can push as much as they like with a hp main team.

Besides that nothing overpowered with it imo.

Razz L Dazzle · Sep 21, 2007, 04:53 PM // 16:53

At first when pT ran 2 Wars/conjures or one with rend touch, DA para, and 2 mesmers one with ward, LoD, SoD and SoR we had no problems winning most our matches under ten minutes. We could defend against a split with SoR or a strong split with War, mes and Sor. We figured that 3 physicals should be able to slice through most balance builds as long as the mesmers shutdown the monks and defense. We were able to pressure with the 3 physicals and E-surge verse teams balling up. Dual E-surge would help us at VoD had the match gone that long.

Then we began to run into a lot more teams running essentially the same build maybe even a B-surge and LoD with hex breaker. Our mesmers could not keep up with all the opposing team's passive defense and counters so we had to rely purely on spiking downs opponents during windows of availability because we were unable to pressure.

The culprits most to blame with this archaetype i believe are:

SoR - allows non-splittable characters to play in the split. Easy base defense and heal at the stand.

Wards on a Mesmer- overall i play the Me/E E-surge warder in pT and hate bringing a ward but it helps us live so whatever. Melee up to 15 energy and a 30 second recharge would pretty much kill it on my bar. (maybe 25 second recharge). Wards on an Ele aren't as problematic as good teams will interrupt them but Melee on a mesmer with 40/40 Earth set is silly. I remember the problems when i could take B-surge and melee on my mesmer bar and spike with spiritual and WD.

Watch yourself- the skill is really too good. Needs a nerf. Higher adren cost and changed duration/lower armor. I'd recommend nerfs to Aggressive refrain as well, armor penalty would be nice. The paragon in general is OP ,, B-surge with ward and hex breaker on top of the rest of the defense is probably worse, as now the build is purely spike relying on Gale and Orb. Paragon at least adds damage outside of pure spike.

--Be A Star D

Vanquisher · Sep 21, 2007, 05:35 PM // 17:35

LoD does need to get nerfed, in the same way Heal Party should have been hit harder than it was. Nothing to huge, but it could be tweaked somewhat.

Also, saying "good teams will interrupt" is a dumb argument because it forgets so many factors that should always be taken into consideration. It's the same as saying "that is fine because it can be diversioned". If you're going to argue for balance please actually argue objectively.

Razz L Dazzle · Sep 21, 2007, 11:20 PM // 23:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanquisher

Also, saying "good teams will interrupt" is a dumb argument because it forgets so many factors that should always be taken into consideration. It's the same as saying "that is fine because it can be diversioned". If you're going to argue for balance please actually argue objectively.

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. Therefore a nerf to it should take it off mesmers bars. I also advocated for a longer recharge and higher energy cost. I'm advocating balance but trying to leave this skill viable just not on a mesmer. I'm addressing the passive defense ball balance by parts i notice to be the biggest problems. I'm being objective and i have a lot of experience playing with and against this meta. I've noticed many of the skills you've noted to be problems and largely agree with you, i just believe Melee on a mesmer is one of the bigger problems, not the only problem. I'm taking other balance problems into consideration but choosing to write more about pT's version than the entire block mechanic and its flaws.

"good teams will interrupt" i'm not using it as an argument or implying lern2counte or lern2playbetter. Just commenting that good teams will be able keep it down more and with it scaled down this build would lose some of its holding power, and decrease some of the block, block ,block...of course decreasing other passive defenses would also be needed. I noted some of those as well in my previous post. Learn to read posts hollistically rather than pulling out one part of it and comment that i'm advocating "learn to interrupt" verse this style of build, because i'm not. I'm only suggesting that an interruptable less effective ward would improve the meta.

Theli · Sep 21, 2007, 11:28 PM // 23:28

mm this post is the number 10 about the same issue, but is good. Now Andrew, Izzy, read all this post and DO SOMETHING.

There is a lot of problem with the new "meta".
And there is a lot of skills that need a NERF:

Wars: Currently warrs are OK just war skills used by paragons are bad!
Shields Up: cast time??? or just only the more armor not the 50%chance block
Watch Yourself: more adren, less armor.
Or just move those skills to strenght

Paragon: Paragon are bad!!!!!!
Aggresive Refrain: -XX armor while attacking. (10 is nothing, at least 20AL cause remember thei use shields!!!!! 96al base)
GFTE: more adren
Leadership: Tone down Leadership. now with 12lead u can Aggresive Refrain + Anthem Of Flame and win 1 energy.

Mesmer: Mesmers are Ok, Diversion is Ok the problem is MoR
MoR: make Mantra of Recovery like Mantra of Recall, a Enchantment!!!

Ele: Big issue is Ward against Melee
Wards against Melee: Make ward useless for a mesmer but ok for a ele. 15e
GoLE: for 15secs Next 1..3 skills cost 8...20e less.... will be useful just for a ele. any other char will have: 15 secs 1 skill 8e less. so no wards (at 15e) for mesmers and no Aegis (at 15e) for monk

Monk:
Aegis: 15e!!!
SoD: more rech and/or make 50..75% chance block

.....

Also like IMMORTAlMITCH said:

Vod back to 20...30 mins
Remove or do something with Shadow step
and Bring Back the old ladder...remove AT....more ladder reset, fun seasons

Drinky · Sep 21, 2007, 11:29 PM // 23:29

We know, everybody knows. Anet knows, they dont care, last real skill balance was in early august, then it was like only a ritspike nerf. They didnt even nerf aegis, they made it cheaper, and "In Earshout" is not really a small distance. gg on killing the fun in the game.

Riotgear · Sep 21, 2007, 11:46 PM // 23:46

LoD has done a lot to kill pressure, right now it's possible to get extremely sloppy and not really have to worry about it, because as long as you don't get spiked down, it's okay because LoD will fix your mistakes.

Aegis and wards I have repeatedly been against nerfing because they help discourage extreme physical builds. MoR on the other hand, which is responsible for MoR ward, needs to die. Nuking stuff out of wards WOULD be somewhat viable, but that just gets fixed by LoD.

LoD --> Lose 1 energy for each ally healed.
MoR --> 33%
Limit 1 active shout or chant at a time.
Aggressive Refrain --> Remove auto-reapply, change stats to resemble Heart of Fury.
Aegis --> 15 energy
GoLE --> 7..17..20

Some of the offense options need to die too, especially Conjure and Avatar of Melandru. If Aegis and wards are ridiculous because they let you push a button and it makes melee a lot less effective for a long time with minimal sacrifice, Conjure/AoM are ridiculous because they let you push a button and make your melee a lot more effective for a long time with minimal sacrifice.

Razz L Dazzle · Sep 22, 2007, 12:19 AM // 00:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Aegis and wards I have repeatedly been against nerfing because they help discourage extreme physical builds. MoR on the other hand, which is responsible for MoR ward, needs to die. Nuking stuff out of wards WOULD be somewhat viable, but that just gets fixed by LoD.

Nerf MoR and an E-surge mesmer can still keep up melee with the same efficacy. This is possible because of glyph of lesser and p-drain fueling energy for the ward. With a 40/40 set you keep it up all game.

twicky_kid · Sep 22, 2007, 01:10 AM // 01:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

LoD is NOT overpowered, the only reason it's so incredibly strong is because of all the passive defense, when (most of) that is gone it's a really fragile skill, 1s cast leaves it open to interrupts and it's really the only party healing that's viable at the moment. Nerf passive defense and LoD and everyone will start running heavy physical builds (not neccesarily a bad thing but it will limit the amount of viable builds)

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.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Sep 22, 2007, 01:54 AM // 01:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by some guy

Agreed, but I think you have LoD and SoD reversed. Once its partners in crime (passive defense) are gone, SoD wont be anything special, just a good, playerskill-rewarding active prot. However, LoD will still be a powerful 'press-this-button-as-often-as-possible' kind of spell, which is not a desirable skill to keep around, which is why I think it needs to be toned down.

A buff to several direct heals and minor prots would also be in order, so that defense would still be possible, and after all of those changes the overall state of how defense is played would be much better.

LoD is fine, sure it's really powerful but it's easily interruptible and a dshot or diversion can really hurt a team whereas SoD basically makes a target invincible for the duration (or until it gets stripped) it's also .25c so interrupts arent a viable counter, I have no problem with SoD inherently but it's too spammable at 5r.

I'd be very weary of buffing small prots however some healing skill could receive minor buffs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vanq

LoD does need to get nerfed, in the same way Heal Party should have been hit harder than it was. Nothing to huge, but it could be tweaked somewhat.

Also, saying "good teams will interrupt" is a dumb argument because it forgets so many factors that should always be taken into consideration. It's the same as saying "that is fine because it can be diversioned". If you're going to argue for balance please actually argue objectively.

Give an example of how you would nerf it..

Quote:

Originally Posted by some other guy

LoD has done a lot to kill pressure, right now it's possible to get extremely sloppy and not really have to worry about it, because as long as you don't get spiked down, it's okay because LoD will fix your mistakes.

Aegis and wards I have repeatedly been against nerfing because they help discourage extreme physical builds. MoR on the other hand, which is responsible for MoR ward, needs to die. Nuking stuff out of wards WOULD be somewhat viable, but that just gets fixed by LoD.

LoD --> Lose 1 energy for each ally healed.
MoR --> 33%
Limit 1 active shout or chant at a time.
Aggressive Refrain --> Remove auto-reapply, change stats to resemble Heart of Fury.
Aegis --> 15 energy
GoLE --> 7..17..20

Passive defense allows you to be sloppy, LoD + passive defense works nicely but without it it's really not the skill you make it out to be.

No, this would destroy the skill.
Yes, not sure if this is the best way to fix it though.
No, shouts and chants are weird, but this is not the right way to fix them.
No, I like the -20 armor while attacking idea better.
No, aegis is fine imo
Yes, glyph is still pretty insane with 10e spells.

TimeToGetIntense · Sep 22, 2007, 02:04 AM // 02:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Go to temple of balthazar and spam only LoD on every recharge. Now come back and tell me when you run out of energy.

While spamming LoD, you gain that much less energy over time. So technically, it's not free.

twicky_kid · Sep 22, 2007, 02:24 AM // 02:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimeToGetIntense

While spamming LoD, you gain that much less energy over time. So technically, it's not free.

Ok, I give up. If people can't do simple math there is no hope. This is grade school stuff.

You use 5 energy but over 5 seconds (recharge) you gain 6.5 from regen. You net 1.5 energy even if you spam LoD on recharge. The only time you truly use energy is spells in quick succession or spam a skill on recharge that uses more energy than its recharge compared to your energy regen.

I don't update my info on Guru.

TimeToGetIntense · Sep 22, 2007, 02:32 AM // 02:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Ok, I give up. If people can't do simple math there is no hope. This is grade school stuff.

You use 5 energy but over 5 seconds (recharge) you gain 6.5 from regen. You net 1.5 energy even if you spam LoD on recharge. The only time you truly use energy is spells in quick succession or spam a skill on recharge that uses more energy than its recharge compared to your energy regen.

I don't update my info on Guru.

LoD Monks still run out of energy. They use other skills aside from LoD because LoD only eats up pressure damage. They need to remove conditions and prot people because mitigating damage is still worth it (hell, it's necessary) even if you have LoD.

Anyway, don't call it "Free" because it's not, it's just really, really cheap.

Riotgear · Sep 22, 2007, 02:38 AM // 02:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razz L Dazzle

This is possible because of glyph of lesser and p-drain fueling energy for the ward. With a 40/40 set you keep it up all game.

I suggested nerfing Glyph as well. Dropping it to 7 at zero would be a pretty sigificant hit. Hitting MoR indirectly makes p-drain less effective as an energy source.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Passive defense allows you to be sloppy, LoD + passive defense works nicely but without it it's really not the skill you make it out to be.

Passive defense makes it hard to pack in enough damage to kill anyone even with proper tactics, LoD means that anything you do deliver that fails to score a kill is severely diminished in value, because it's going to get cleaned up just by coincidence.

Heal Party was more interrupt-prone, required Prodigy which came with problems of its own, and wasn't always available at the stand. While the options for party healing are pretty limited right now, LoD is doing its job a little too well.

Quote:

Yes, not sure if this is the best way to fix it though.

Better way might be a shorter duration and longer recharge, but it becomes a question of whether it's supposed to be a nearly-always-up pace-setter for the class, or a way to temporarily ratchet up pressure.

Quote:

No, shouts and chants are weird, but this is not the right way to fix them.

The right way to fix them would have been giving them a practical counter that was in line with things that already existed, the problem is that they're not prone to interruption or removal, and the only things that stop them are completely worthless aside from cockblocking Paragons.

Since there's not really a reasonable counter to them (aside from Shields Up, which I shouldn't need to explain the stupidity of), especially since Curses took a major hit, the effects need to be addressed. Paragons either need to be capable of being dealt with, or shouts need a real counter that doesn't require a curses necro.

Quote:

No, I like the -20 armor while attacking idea better.

Harassing them is still going to be a chore, because they'll still have 86 armor even while attacking, more with WY, and as soon as they start kiting, they become an even harder target. What exactly is -20 while attacking supposed to do?

Auto-reapply on shout end is extremely clunky. When it does matter (i.e. in PvE), it requires micromanaging buff times in a completely counter-intuitive matter (i.e. in PvE, try to figure out when you should or shouldn't do your job so you can have Anthem of Flame ready to cast when the fighting stops). Having something with that lack of control give you a drawback is even worse.