Curse

Razz L Dazzle · Oct 17, 2007, 11:06 PM // 23:06

How can we moderate physical damge but promote skillful play? Here's my thoughts i'd hope to hear yours after. I'm not trying to do game balance hollistically as i realize there's other problems but i'm looking the power of physical damage builds

Problems with Physical damage and Attack buffs.

Part of the problem with physical damage at the moment is that their is no opportunity cost to IAS (Inscrease Attack Speed) boosts. Casters have no such option making physicals a more desirable way to kill. Physical damage dealers do a certain amount of damage through auto-attacking and attack skills but in order to kill things they need to do it at a faster rate. This is the reason why Frenzy is so good. In order to frenzy and kill things the warrior should be exposing himself to windows of vulnerability. Makes sense. If you wanna kill that monk by using frenzy to pump out more damage in less time then you take double damage during this time. Now the game should go that if the warrior is successful with team support he scores a kill, but if he Frenzies and does so at the wrong moment he is killed and receives DP. This rewards warriors who are keenly aware of the battlefield as well as knowing when to backline to kill overaggressive competitors. This is interesting gameplay but it really doesn't exist in the metagame(not to the level i think it should) because their really is no cost to Frenzy, Rampage as One, Flail, Aggressive refrain, dervish options.

Heres why and adding a few possible solutions to this problem.

RAO- The problem is simple: the 25 energy costs mean very little to a ranger using adenaline attacks. They can use a zealous hammer and pump out Hammer bash all day. To balance this the ranger should only be able to use it during certain windows of opportunity. If he is able to keep this up almost all match then of course ROA thumpers are gonna be a problem. Balance it by cutting down the duration even further. High energy cost and shorter duration will allow this to be more balanced. Less armor while attacking could be another route. Synergy issues with necros as a whole have made this a worse problem.

Frenzy- (the biggest one in today's GvG climate)
One of the most efficient warrior bars today includes: Frenzy, Eviscerate, and Executioners strike, Rush. Stand warriors can pump out frenzy and eviscerate repeatedly and when a warrior comes to backline they are easily able to cancel with rush. This makes the "stand warrior" strong and capable of high DPS. I know of one warrior that even brings a superior weapon rune into top 10 play because basically he knows he won't die and rush is an easy cancel and monks can prot the rest. The combination of Eviscerate, and Executioners does significant damage with no cost and requires only moderate 3,2,1 support to kill 60 armor targets. Those two skills having been overpowered since the game's inception. I'm convinced that their is very little skill in that combination. Warrior skill is usually displayed in the form of bull stike, choosing targets, switching around prot, use of shock, disruption skills such as d-chop, d-blow and good aggressive pushes towards flaggers or into enemy NPC's. When the Eviscerate warrior goes unchecked 3,2,1 spike meta and overpowered physical damage wins. Warriors using that combo with rend touch or getting a shatter enchant allows successful spiking without any selective targeting.

How would i try to change this to reward skill while turning down warrior pressure? I would nerf Eviscerate. I don't think its fully necessary to change the adrenaline cost, damage or deep wound feature though one skill that does all that is overpowered. I'd change this skill to read: Eviscerate causes the loss of all adrenaline. In essense, this really just forces the use of executioners first but it leaves the Eviscerate/ Frenzy warrior vulnerable to a buffed E-surge/E-burn and a backline warrior. The warrior can't quickly cancel Frenzy with rush because of the adrenaline clause. This would force more axe warriors to take sprint or enraging charge. If the stance isn't ready that warrior is very vulnerable. If the stance is ready but E-burn comes before the stance cancel then it would be more difficult for that warrior to get out as he will have lower energy after dumping his adrenaline. Warriors with sprint and enraging charge as a whole frenzy less, thus lowering DPS.

Other problems briefly:
Aggressive refrain: A permanent unremovable IAS with no drawback. Did receive one in the last patch, not sure that is the most effective change.

Flail: Drawback is in the reduction in movement. This isn't apparrent as hammer warriors can bring 3 stances.

Dervish 3/4 second attacks. Dervishes should not really have access to 3/4 and their IAS buff Heart of Fury doesn't have any real cost either. The 3/4's become powerful finishing skills, see Agonizing chop. Make them 1 second activations and nerf emerites synergy with VoD and mystics synergy with Judges' Insight/strength of honor. Wearying strike has some of the same problems as eviscerate, lots of damage and a deep wound to boot. Its more spammable as well.

Feel free to make better suggestions or add more to the discussion of how to change physical damage. My goal is the same as others. I want to make the game more skill based and enjoyable and promote balance.

I'd also suggest a buff in Heal signet to -24 amor while activating and a buff to sprint (maybe 50% chance to block projectile attacks) to give him better split survivability.

cheers

-razz

pah01 · Oct 17, 2007, 11:30 PM // 23:30

That warrior who brings the sup rune into high end play gets killed repeatedly.

And because he keeps getting resed with death pact signet, well you get the picture.

However I have been informed by someone who knows him, second hand the reason for it and i think its a cheeky reason, providing we are referring to the same guy - i only know one in the top 10 that does this.

Joe

yum · Oct 17, 2007, 11:38 PM // 23:38

Your change to evi just makes it far worse than [skill]Decapitate[/skill]
And I don't see why you want to buff AR again?
Healing sig and Sprint are fine as they are. We don't need a version of Dodge for warrior. That kind of skill is for the 70AL ranger.
Solution? Delelte NF

Ensign · Oct 17, 2007, 11:42 PM // 23:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by pah01

However I have been informed by someone who knows him, second hand the reason for it and i think its a cheeky reason, providing we are referring to the same guy - i only know one in the top 10 that does this.

Polly runs a Superior Axe Mastery and a Major Strength rune. I'm sure lots of Warriors play fast and loose with their health totals; in the current environment with tons of block there really isn't too much reason not to. If you don't split aggressively and play with huge block webs it really isn't much of a liability.

Robster Lobster · Oct 17, 2007, 11:53 PM // 23:53

I don't think there's a problem with Frenzy by itself, the problem is more likely due to block webs as Ensign pointed out. Frenzy definitely has its drawbacks, and not using it well can be a liability. The drawback also means that if you really need to you can stop (or at least limit) a warrior from using Frenzy by linebacking or something, which isn't an option with the other IAS's you mentioned.

Div · Oct 18, 2007, 12:00 AM // 00:00

Frenzy's one of those interesting skills that's going to be hard to change (and I don't think it should be changed). A good warrior can use it at opportune times to make their pressure much stronger, while a bad one will use it at bad times (aka when they think they're safe to frenzy and pressure) and die or burn the monks' energy as a result. The way to get sprint to be used more is higher duration!

Dervishes are already powerful at VoD, and with their 3/4 attacks, they're even better. Making them 1 second would be interesting, but I don't know enough about those classes to really comment much on them...

Razz L Dazzle · Oct 18, 2007, 12:08 AM // 00:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robster Lobster

I don't think there's a problem with Frenzy by itself, the problem is more likely due to block webs as Ensign pointed out. Frenzy definitely has its drawbacks, and not using it well can be a liability. The drawback also means that if you really need to you can stop (or at least limit) a warrior from using Frenzy by linebacking or something, which isn't an option with the other IAS's you mentioned.

Warriors really aren't protected by the block web. Mostly their armor and ability to cancel Frenzy or have low cost IAS like flail. D-Anthem would be canceled during a spike. The warrior won't be in a ward. The warrior may be overextended to far for Aegis or a simple shatter removes this. SoD has taken a hit for spammability. They have much more vulnerability than other targets who camp in a ward under DA, but they can still Frenzy and take sup runes.

TheOneMephisto · Oct 18, 2007, 12:28 AM // 00:28

I think that even the skillful use of frenzy has decreased recently. The prevalence of rush over sprint has made it so that stance-canceling is much easier and available more often, making the risk of using frenzy much less. Sprint could only be used so often to frenzy-cancel, and often it was preferable to save that sprint for those situations where you really needed it. That gave rise to warriors that really knew when to frenzy and more importantly, when not to, making it possible for even things like cancel-less warriors to exist (albeit in small numbers).

However, I think that the main problem would be with rush. Any other cancel stance is either limited by recharge (sprint, enraging) or energy (have fun spamming dash or pious on a warrior's energy). However, Rush is almost cost-less, is available almost all of the time, and still happens to be probably the best speed-boost for stand use.

I don't know if a buffing of sprint or a nerfing of rush would really remedy this. I think that the main culprit would be the lack of the need for energy-based speedboosts allowing warriors to take the less versatile but stronger rush. Without the need to really aggressively split and collapse, many times solo or with improvised splits (also explains the lack of a need for healsig), without the need to often escape from collapsing enemies without major healing support, the once-necessary energy based speedboosts simply aren't needed.

Dzan · Oct 18, 2007, 01:23 AM // 01:23

I think Pandora's box has been opened as far as physical damage is concerned, you'd have to nerf literally dozens of skills to make caster pressure or spike optimal, and even then you would have to nerf block webs or people would still run them.

The best answer in my mind is to buff aggressive, but intelligent, split skills since I dont think we can undo the power creep in stand offense and defense. Weapon of Warding has to go back to its old power level, and Shadow Prison and Recall have to finally die for starters. I would suggest Healing Signet get switched to 1sec cast time as well, and maybe even bring Crip Shot's cool down back a bit. The list goes on and on.

If 50% of the teams you face are aggressive splitting teams, you will look foolish with your triple aegis stand defense.

Hyper Cutter · Oct 18, 2007, 01:40 AM // 01:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by yum

Healing sig and Sprint are fine as they are.

Sprint could probably use some sort of secondary effect, since Enraging Charge (with the same cost, recharge, and nearly the same duration) outclasses it as it is

Symbol · Oct 18, 2007, 03:05 AM // 03:05

Repeatedly canceling into rush does hurt your adrenal build up quite a bit since you lose a hit from your attack skills every time you do so. You're also wasting energy if you're constantly canceling out of frenzy, which can matter if you have more energy skills than just bull's on your bar.

Captain Robo · Oct 18, 2007, 05:09 AM // 05:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razz L Dazzle

Part of the problem with physical damage at the moment is that their is no opportunity cost to IAS (Inscrease Attack Speed) boosts. Casters have no such option making physicals a more desirable way to kill. Physical damage dealers do a certain amount of damage through auto-attacking and attack skills but in order to kill things they need to do it at a faster rate. This is the reason why Frenzy is so good. In order to frenzy and kill things the warrior should be exposing himself to windows of vulnerability. Makes sense. If you wanna kill that monk by using frenzy to pump out more damage in less time then you take double damage during this time. Now the game should go that if the warrior is successful with team support he scores a kill, but if he Frenzies and does so at the wrong moment he is killed and receives DP. This rewards warriors who are keenly aware of the battlefield as well as knowing when to backline to kill overaggressive competitors. This is interesting gameplay but it really doesn't exist in the metagame(not to the level i think it should) because their really is no cost to Frenzy, Rampage as One, Flail, Aggressive refrain, dervish options.

Being able to compensate for the drawbacks of frenzy is what separates the chaff from the wheat in this respect. Besides, the skill has been unchanged since the game's release. If it has never been degenerate before, it is certainly not degenerate now.

The key to getting around this issue is by possibly putting a global cooldown on all stances once one has been triggered. For instance, you're forced to take three seconds of frenzy before you can switch to another stance.

(Not to toot my own horn here, but that actually seems like a really good idea.)

Quote:

Frenzy- (the biggest one in today's GvG climate)
One of the most efficient warrior bars today includes: Frenzy, Eviscerate, and Executioners strike, Rush. Stand warriors can pump out frenzy and eviscerate repeatedly and when a warrior comes to backline they are easily able to cancel with rush. This makes the "stand warrior" strong and capable of high DPS. I know of one warrior that even brings a superior weapon rune into top 10 play because basically he knows he won't die and rush is an easy cancel and monks can prot the rest. The combination of Eviscerate, and Executioners does significant damage with no cost and requires only moderate 3,2,1 support to kill 60 armor targets. Those two skills having been overpowered since the game's inception. I'm convinced that their is very little skill in that combination. Warrior skill is usually displayed in the form of bull stike, choosing targets, switching around prot, use of shock, disruption skills such as d-chop, d-blow and good aggressive pushes towards flaggers or into enemy NPC's. When the Eviscerate warrior goes unchecked 3,2,1 spike meta and overpowered physical damage wins. Warriors using that combo with rend touch or getting a shatter enchant allows successful spiking without any selective targeting.

The only thing separating Eviscerate from its non-elite translation: Dismember, is the addition of +damage to the skill. If Eviscerate stops being good, people swap to the non-elite version to maintain the deep wound, and then bring another elite skill. It doesn't fix the problem, it just changes it.

The way to fix this situation would be to increase the number of viable COUNTERS to melee damage, rather than decreasing the effectiveness of certain skills.

Quote:

How would i try to change this to reward skill while turning down warrior pressure? I would nerf Eviscerate. I don't think its fully necessary to change the adrenaline cost, damage or deep wound feature though one skill that does all that is overpowered. I'd change this skill to read: Eviscerate causes the loss of all adrenaline.

I already said I'm against nerfing eviscerate, but this is the wrong way to go about doing it.

Look at Decapitate: the only thing stopping this skill from being used is the fact that it depletes adrenaline AND energy. If you say that Frenzy is the problem with warriors these days (which it isn't, but to illustrate this example I'll agree for the moment), then lack of energy would hurt a warrior more than depletion of adrenaline.

Then Eviscerate nerf you're looking for is depletion of energy. This disables the ability of the warrior to switch out of frenzy at will, as each activation costs five energy, which is a steep price when you're at 0.

Quote:

In essense, this really just forces the use of executioners first but it leaves the Eviscerate/ Frenzy warrior vulnerable to a buffed E-surge/E-burn and a backline warrior. The warrior can't quickly cancel Frenzy with rush because of the adrenaline clause. This would force more axe warriors to take sprint or enraging charge. If the stance isn't ready that warrior is very vulnerable. If the stance is ready but E-burn comes before the stance cancel then it would be more difficult for that warrior to get out as he will have lower energy after dumping his adrenaline. Warriors with sprint and enraging charge as a whole frenzy less, thus lowering DPS.

Mesmers should never, ever be wasting Esurge or Eburn on a warrior unless it's a sure kill. Denying that energy to a midliner is infintely more important. Being forced to stay in Frenzy longer would be fixed by a global stance cooldown, without harming additional skills further.

Quote:

Other problems briefly:
Aggressive refrain: A permanent unremovable IAS with no drawback. Did receive one in the last patch, not sure that is the most effective change.

You might as well be an ele who chucks spears. The cracked armor is renewable so even if it gets removed, you're not entirely safe. I support this balance, there's no reason that any ranged dps class should have an armor class this high and permanent, irrevocable IAS without a drawback.

Quote:

Flail: Drawback is in the reduction in movement. This isn't apparrent as hammer warriors can bring 3 stances.

Read my above suggestion for stance global cooldown.

Quote:

Dervish 3/4 second attacks. Dervishes should not really have access to 3/4 and their IAS buff Heart of Fury doesn't have any real cost either. The 3/4's become powerful finishing skills, see Agonizing chop. Make them 1 second activations and nerf emerites synergy with VoD and mystics synergy with Judges' Insight/strength of honor. Wearying strike has some of the same problems as eviscerate, lots of damage and a deep wound to boot. Its more spammable as well.

Heart of Fury isn't broken when you consider it can be removed, feeds Blinding Surge, and has a 12-15 second downtime. The problem with Dervishes is Avatar of Melandru, not their scythe attacks. I wouldn't mind having less damage on scythes if it was more consistent, like 15-38.

Quote:

I'd also suggest a buff in Heal signet to -24 amor while activating and a buff to sprint (maybe 50% chance to block projectile attacks) to give him better split survivability.

Both of these skills need a buff. Healing Signet makes you take double damage, it should be changed to only 50% more damage (I forget how armor points work... I know that -40 is double, so you might be right with 24), and Sprint is just plain obsolete in the face of Enraging Charge; but giving warriors another block stance is not good. Lower the recharge to something manageable, like 12-15 seconds; that would be cool.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 18, 2007, 05:14 AM // 05:14

Heal Sig should have its cast time halved and its recharge time increased by a few seconds. Expecting people to regularly get off a 2s cast in skirmish is laughable these days. Right now, the skill only exists as a means to take NPC pressure when the other team isn't defending their base.

As for the OP, I stopped reading once he said that Eviscerate needed a nerf.

Greedy Gus · Oct 18, 2007, 06:51 AM // 06:51

In my opinion, the threat of the 16 spear mastery cruel spear paragon as a midliner is one of the central issues for this subject. I think it's seen as less degenerate, way more fun to play, and more vigorously defended (as more active playstyle) than DA, but unfortunately I think it has to go away for this physical vs. defense web issue to start getting resolved.

For a balanced build with a reasonable amount of active defense and self-defensive options, they just get spread too thin when faced with 3 heavy damage physical characters. And a paragon is stronger than a 3rd melee in this regard, based on having less weakness to kiting, aoe snares, and extreme ease of target swapping. In addition, he can add extra defensive & offensive utility, like you want from a midliner, so the character slots extremely easily into a balanced build archetype. The combined ease-of-use as a midliner and heavy pressure as the 3rd physical, makes passive/party defense nearly a necessity.

Some may point out that only rarely was a cruel spear seen at the highest level in this recent meta. I think clearly that running the DA para was the dominant play, but only due to still doing a fair amount of damage while adding to the blockway style defense necessary to counter the heavy physicals. If the threat of coming up against the heavy damage cruel spear guys was greatly reduced, I think the dominant blockway style becomes considerably less needed, and then those passive defenses can be tweaked further.

I'm unsure of how the aggressive refrain nerf will play into paragon balance, but I imagine that the cruel spear guys won't be greatly affected and their threat still poses an issue in any upcoming balance directions.

edit: Re-reading this, I should point out that I'm not trying to say that cruel spear, the skill, is the main problem. Balancing it alone will likely miss the point. I just think that the cruel spear guys embody the idea of the huge damage paras. I'm not sure how to properly address it without removing the class from viable play completely (I think it's that fundamentally bad for the way balanced builds work in GvG) by slashing the attack skills or preferably spear damage.

Thom Bangalter · Oct 18, 2007, 06:58 AM // 06:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Heal Sig should have its cast time halved and its recharge time increased by a few seconds. Expecting people to regularly get off a 2s cast in skirmish is laughable these days. Right now, the skill only exists as a means to take NPC pressure when the other team isn't defending their base.

As for the OP, I stopped reading once he said that Eviscerate needed a nerf.

I stopped reading when he basically said frenzy had no drawback.

Thomas.knbk · Oct 18, 2007, 07:52 AM // 07:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Robo

The way to fix this situation would be to increase the number of viable COUNTERS to melee damage, rather than decreasing the effectiveness of certain skills.

No, NO, NO. I can't believe how wrong you are. Overpowered offense with overpowered defense to compensate for it is exactly where we are now. More of that is the last thing we need. On the contrary, both need to be toned down.

Basically, direct damage in a gvg build is now about 2 times as strong as it was before nightfall: Your warrior spike has increased from 150+DW to 260+dw, and you've got one extra slot for a paragon, which is like a 3rd warrior without losing too much midline defense. People take 2 times as much defense because of that and the only way to change it it to tone down both. I think conjures need to die in a fire. It was fun hitting people with 60dmg auto attacks and 260+DW spikes, but really, it's rediculous. Now alongside of that nerf Wearying to +15 dmg and a 10s recharge, change melandru to lose one condition each hit/attack skill, let agressive refrain only last 12 seconds so one interrupt on Anthem of Flame and one diversion can force a paragon to reapply (not sure if that's enough) and uuuhm, do something about sin spikes.

But whatever you do, do not touch eviscerate. Eviscerate is the golden standard of warrior builds, like RoF is for monks. Pretty much what everything is balanced around because everyone takes it, and has for the past 2 years.

masta_yoda · Oct 18, 2007, 07:54 AM // 07:54

eviscerate has already been hit before, because of igay i guess, the skills fine, it just looks overpowered cause none of the other war skills get used because this is the most efficient.

By efficient i mean axe is instant deepwound followed by executioners instantly halving casters

Sword is sever gash, and you will be lucky if you manage to deepwound with block meta.

Hammer better then sword atm, still cant compare with eviscerate.

You see, its not eviscerate, its probably because pressure builds dont work anymore cause lod cleans its up ontop of block, the only way to kill is 321, making eviscerate better then others.

your idea of nerfing eviscerate to lose andrenline makes it worse then decapitate, even disember would be better then the two since you can follow up

Surena · Oct 18, 2007, 08:03 AM // 08:03

More or stronger offensive counters would lead back to everlasting anti-melee hexes, conditions and much more passive play.

You could lessen current durations (faintheartedness is still way too long), but reduce energy costs appropriately, so nobody will be tempted to /sit.

The melee problems were already mentioned. Melandru needs a serious overhaul.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 18, 2007, 08:29 AM // 08:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

Basically, direct damage in a gvg build is now about 2 times as strong as it was before nightfall: Your warrior spike has increased from 150+DW to 260+dw

I'm not sure where you're getting 260 + dw with the current numbers. Since the Agonizing and Conjure nerfs, GvG warrior spikes right now are the same as they've been since Prophecies. Eviscerate + Executioners under Frenzy with various support coming from midline characters. Eviscerate is actually a lot weaker now than it was at release. I haven't seen any decent teams running Conjures since the update either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

and you've got one extra slot for a paragon, which is like a 3rd warrior without losing too much midline defense.

We've heard this a lot recently, and if you look at just the spike and the DPS numbers, it seems fairly accurate. A paragon puts out significant DPS through spear-chucking, and Cruel Spear + Harriers on a KDed target is quite a powerful spike contribution. In practice though, the DPS a paragon puts out mostly gets eaten up by LoD, and his spike isn't anything to cheer about compared to other characters. Many of the warrior's most powerful tools (3-second knockdowns, versatility, split survivability) aren't available to the paragon.

I'm not saying the paragon is a bad character. He provides a lot of strong utility and, with the skill changes, he's a great place to put your interrupts. But he isn't a frontline replacement by any means, and his DPS isn't nearly as relevant in the grand scheme of things as many players claim.

The major damage increase these days comes in the form of AoE - specifically, Splinter Weapon. Splinter Weapon adds a huge amount of damage to a frontline and which team gets caught by Splinters is a huge factor in who breaks first. I happen to think Splinter Weapon leads to an interesting positioning game that is good for Guild Wars, but it's a large part of why teams break so quickly without LoD.

In any case, the solution here is to make direct healing and mes a little stronger, not to weaken damage. A game where teams can blow up quickly is a game where mistakes matter, and mistakes need to matter for gameplay to be interesting and competitive.

bungusmaximus · Oct 18, 2007, 09:51 AM // 09:51

Moderate physical damage? Promote skillful play?

Easy, nerf sins and walking trees

.

Don't touch warrior attack skills it's blasphemy really.