Curse

Zabe · Oct 06, 2007, 11:31 AM // 11:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

Very good list here.

Perhaps add that a concept which doesn't work. In idea, it was huge news that you could have game without monthly fees, huge tournaments, great PvP etc. But, as someone (was it vanquisher or who?) said, biggest problem for PvP is that there are no monthly fees. The expansion kind of funding works a lot better for a PvE than PvP game. One which we can see, there is no we say, huge tournaments like GWWC and GWFC anymore, because in just one tournament you had prizes of like 100k USD + all the money spent to the event itself.

But yes, perhaps we will see something that they will try to save the game from being huge epic failure to just a minor one. And, perhaps they will think something of this in GW2.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 06, 2007, 11:35 AM // 11:35

I'm leaving the above posts intact so people know what I mean, but discussion of GW's general problem as a PvP game, or hopes for GW2, don't belong in this thread. This thread is about the current balance state of GW, and how the balance of healing and damage should be changed. Keep future posts on that topic.

Seamus Finn · Oct 06, 2007, 07:07 PM // 19:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

More specifically, there need to be alternative party wide heals that can be taken alongside LoD without sacrificing too much of a build.
.......In other words, just creating better single target heals isn't enough. Robust, party-wide healing is also necessary for the kind of balance being discussed here.

There are actaully a fair amount of decent party heals around:
Heal Party, Life, Mending Refrain, Song of Restoration, Protective was Kaolai

Some of which -- prot was kaolai -- are very good. But I don't see a future without LoD in a build unless the skill is nerfed heavily and I suppose teams just aren't worried enough to bring alternatives in the build(perhaps they don't like rits?). At this point, the taint builds are still in the minority(at least the times I play).

Phades · Oct 06, 2007, 07:26 PM // 19:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

More specifically, there need to be alternative party wide heals that can be taken alongside LoD without sacrificing too much of a build. Alternately, degen and AoE need to be changed such that they take a longer time to wipe a team.

There can't be an alternative to LoD and Heal party until those get changed specifically, because they are potentially far too efficient at what they do. Simply the range and targets involved really should only be relegated to spirits given the mechanics associated with them. Something along the lines of the earshot range would begin to allow for more "meaningful" comparisons to the other multi target healing options and make actual positioning more important and timing of use more important as well.

Ever since the days of apply posion and the disease mechanic, degen has always been too easy to apply and spread throughout the team. As a consequence removal options kept getting stronger and stronger in order to compensate, while not touching the actual means to apply or the old stand bye of party wide healing to counter it. Then was introduced the hex bombs as a more "final" way to approach the party wide degen style destruction, since hex removal was far more pathetic by comparison, yet party wide healing still stays the same to allow for the similar parity that used to exist back with the apply posion and disease clouds. However hexes had more than "just degen" involved with them making them a far stronger option overal. Of course the problem with apply posion could also be pointed at as a problem with basic bow damage in general, so making changes in this direction would require several rather "low level" changes which would create many sweeping effects.

Thomas.knbk · Oct 06, 2007, 10:06 PM // 22:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

Some of which -- prot was kaolai -- are very good.

Protective Was Kaolei doesn't come close to LoD. It's really killed by it's recharge. The only thing that does come close is Heal Party but that requires Eprod to use effectively. I don't know about Mending Refrain. I guess it's potentially OK. If you can reliably stick it on everyone it's a decent amount of HP/s even compared to HP/LoD, but that's not easy, and it requires you to spec 13+ in motivation, which is pretty bad.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 06, 2007, 10:20 PM // 22:20

Some posts deleted. I say again, this thread is for discussion of a specific aspect of GW game balance. Keep your pointless bitching about GW's general problems and your discussion of other games out of this thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

There can't be an alternative to LoD and Heal party until those get changed specifically, because they are potentially far too efficient at what they do. Simply the range and targets involved really should only be relegated to spirits given the mechanics associated with them. Something along the lines of the earshot range would begin to allow for more "meaningful" comparisons to the other multi target healing options and make actual positioning more important and timing of use more important as well.

I agree. Right now, you have one very strong party-healing skill that will hold a team up alone, so long as you can keep casting it. This encourages teams to only bring one skill to do the job, which makes defenses vulnerable to simple "shut down the LoD" plays.

One solution would be to nerf the healing from LoD a bit, while giving Heal Party the Aegis treatment. Weaken the healing, but reduce the cast time and energy cost so it's actually feasable on a character who will be doing other things too. With how good disruption has gotten, you can't expect a character to be chain-casting a 15e skill with a 2s cast time, and also accomplishing something else.

Basically, you want to encourage teams to bring some kind of non-elite party healing that will provide another point of failure for a degen build to deal with. This forces such builds to spread their shutdown and disruption, rather than focusing multiple disruptive characters on the LoD and breaking a team when they manage to disrupt it.

Seamus Finn · Oct 06, 2007, 11:46 PM // 23:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

Protective Was Kaolei doesn't come close to LoD. It's really killed by it's recharge. The only thing that does come close is Heal Party but that requires Eprod to use effectively. I don't know about Mending Refrain. I guess it's potentially OK. If you can reliably stick it on everyone it's a decent amount of HP/s even compared to HP/LoD, but that's not easy, and it requires you to spec 13+ in motivation, which is pretty bad.

True enough, but prot was kaolai can be double cast, which gives its recharge more flexibility than one might think. Also the resto rit can bring Life as well, which can pop for over 100 health every 20 seconds. THe two won't stack up to an LoD, but they come qutie close, and I would say very close to heal party e prod without using an elite.

pah01 · Oct 07, 2007, 01:13 AM // 01:13

If you bring one copy of PwK and one copy of Life, you will end up with say 170 every twenty secs. That is about half as good as lod.

Ether Prodigy powered HP can heal for a lot more than LOD if he wants to due to recharge.

EDIT: I agree mostly with what ensign said but i think the start of the power creep was Factions. It wasnt so bad but it started with things like aod sins and gift of health allowing monks to not run emanagment but to bring things like blessed light and fark escape on their bars for self survival.

Joe

Vaga · Oct 07, 2007, 01:31 AM // 01:31

When was the heal party guy ever chain casting it and doing something else at the same time?

I'd rather see them tone back the types of disruption that have been buffed as well as some other offense than keep buffing defensive stuff to deal with it. In addition to that party wide healing actually needs to take some skill before buffing it a lot, anyone in the game can LoD the whole game. The treatment aegis got was bad, now its a cheap spell that takes 0 skill to use but is still very effective.

Something needs to be done in relation to new VoD times. Defense needs to be made harder to play so that the best option isn't just to hold up until 18 minutes and then win with a big build advantage.

Seamus Finn · Oct 07, 2007, 02:08 AM // 02:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by pah01

Ether Prodigy powered HP can heal for a lot more than LOD if he wants to due to recharge.

I believe the ele is limited by exhaustion. Not a number cruncher, but I am pretty sure LoD outclasses Eprod heal party. Was a long time since i ran one though, so I could be mistaken.

Also, at 14 resto the ashes are 80 and life is 140, so you could actually get 220 every 20 seconds with fast recharges. LoD, if meeting the requirement in 20 seconds could be cast 4 times which would equal 240. Of course you are more likely to get the fast recharges on the lods, but I think its more that LoD is more flexible in when it can be used...

Riotgear · Oct 07, 2007, 02:54 AM // 02:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

One solution would be to nerf the healing from LoD a bit, while giving Heal Party the Aegis treatment. Weaken the healing, but reduce the cast time and energy cost so it's actually feasable on a character who will be doing other things too.

There are some skills which might deserve some attention than those two:
- Healing Ribbon has potential to be an interesting multi-target heal, but it needs its target selection revised.
- "Never Surrender!", Rejuvenation, and Recuperation are all skills capable of dealing with undirected pressure to some degree. Recuperation's too expensive, Never Surrender and Rejuvenation have ridiculous recharges.

Quote:

Not a number cruncher, but I am pretty sure LoD outclasses Eprod heal party. Was a long time since i ran one though, so I could be mistaken.

Essentially yes. That and Mending Touch kicked Blinding Flash in the nuts.

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Ether Prodigy powered HP can heal for a lot more than LOD if he wants to due to recharge.

It's about the same when you factor energy depletion in, then worse once you factor exhaustion in. HP is also a 2-second cast which is a liability at the stand and better placed on a runner, but eprod builds are not nearly as capable of defending now, while SoR is significantly better. The weakening and increased counterability of the eprod runner, in addition to the increased need of a party heal at the stand to deal with the ridiculous offense, has done a lot to force party healing to LoD.

I still largely agree with Ensign though: Offense needs to come down, but VOD abuse needs to be addressed as well. All of the major defensive skills being run right now existed in their current form before, some were even stronger, the major introduction was really the GoLE buff which is singlehandedly responsible for the chain-Aegis, WaM, and the SoR runner. A tap to GoLE alone would probably solve most of the defensive problems.

SoR does a lot to damage the viability of splitting, although the fact that NPCs can be wiped with Splinter Weapon and scythe attacks further damages the actual effect of one. Packing this much defense used to be a major liability on a split, and should be even more of one when all of the major components are all range-limited now, the problem is largely that splits have been damaged heavily in effectiveness by the current mechanics.

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Buffing Conjures looks good on paper, but they benefit secondaries far more than they will ever benefit Ele's.

Eles are never going to benefit from abilities that require them to wand. Conjure has always been a secondary-benefiting ability and always will be.

I'll consider things balanced when they think it's OK to buff Gale back to 3 seconds again.

Blame the Monks · Oct 07, 2007, 03:36 AM // 03:36

The issue is not heal party/LOD. If heal party/LOD is nerfed, EVEN MORE defense will be absolutely required to make up for the loss of your workhorse heal and the meta will be even more defensive and vodcentric. Accordingly, nerfing LoD is one of the worst things Izzy could do.

The problem started when Izzy wanted to make the game "more deadly" by buffing offense. To do this, he buffed raw damage and cut back recharge times on a lot of skills. This created tons of gimmickspikes as well as tons of overload strategies (overload with meat, overload with hexes, overload with aoe, overload with physical, etc). This power creep also rewarded button smashing at the expense of skillful use of mesmer effects to create a window to make plays. These two things have combined to force guilds to bring more and more defense to blunt the more effective offenses and cover all the overload strategies (people didn't simply magically become more willing to die, they just had to devote more slots to solving the problems). Because they have to use so many slots to solve the power creep and overload problems, they have less to fit in utility and damage, and this leaves us with a very defensive meta.

To make the meta more offensive, improve generalized defense to the point that you can adjust to and adequately defend against all the overload crap teams with 2 monks and 1-2 flexible utility toons. To keep defense from getting out of hand, increase the power of mesmer effects to allow skillful players to create opportunities to make plays. IE, increase the interplay between defense and mesmer -- make it less about overload and more about skillfully disabling. Likewise, make defense less about having the specific skill to hard counter the tactic and more about reacting intelligently to make it work less well. And above all, make it generalized and active (preprotting), not passive and narrow (shield's up).

To make the game more tactical, give players more meaningful tactical objectives and more time to do it. The increased NPCs is a good thing in this regard, because a team that controls movement and morale has more chance to win than when there are only a couple of NPCs. The lord walking after 1 minute is horrid. No time to gank, little time to execute a flagstand strategy. The early vod is horrid. Less time to do anything, more incentive to simply play for vod from the start and not try to win by creating an opportunity with your offense before vod. Something could probably be done with morale to make the flagstand even more important, but this probably isn't needed.

IE, the same things we all said a year ago. =(

EDIT: Various typos; no doubt there are still more.

Phades · Oct 07, 2007, 08:14 AM // 08:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

The issue is not heal party/LOD. If heal party/LOD is nerfed, EVEN MORE defense will be absolutely required to make up for the loss of your workhorse heal and the meta will be even more defensive and vodcentric. Accordingly, nerfing LoD is one of the worst things Izzy could do.

It would have to be done in tandem with other things like adjusting base weapon damage and other methods for spreading and countering party wide damage. This would be while concurrently buffing other methods for damage clean up, such as the non-monk self heals, mild touches to the party wide rit options, and the other area limited monk multi target heals.

Suggesting that maintaining the status quo is effectivly pushing for more passive defense and continuing the trend of improved defense leads to improved offense power creep, while skipping over entirely control effects typically generated from mesmers and at times rangers and elementalists.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

To make the meta more offensive, improve generalized defense to the point that you can adjust to and adequately defend against all the overload crap teams with 2 monks and 1-2 flexible utility toons. To keep defense from getting out of hand, increase the power of mesmer effects to allow skillful players to create opportunities to make plays. IE, increase the interplay between defense and mesmer -- make it less about overload and more about skillfully disabling.

In order for plays to be meaningful within windows, the pressure has to exist in order to threaten more than one player at a time. However, to move away from the "arms race" that exists now, there needs to be a tuning back of the basic numbers that make the red bars go up and down before the windows can become more meaningful. Passive defense options will have to get touched as well, but really the wide spread and efficient methods for applying or removing that damage would have to get trimmed back first.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

The lord walking after 1 minute is horrid. No time to gank, little time to execute a flagstand strategy. The early vod is horrid. Less time to do anything, more incentive to simply play for vod from the start and not try to win by creating an opportunity with your offense before vod. Something could probably be done with morale to make the flagstand even more important, but this probably isn't needed.

That is more of a failing on a limited map style to try and push faster games out in order to break through the longer stale mates created through the power creep that existed mainly with nightfall, but can be traced further back with the various buffs and nerfs along the way. The sight beyond sight grenth's dervish was idiotic, but forced faster games. Now the game is left in the vaccume it created and there has been no real compensation to fill the void.

Of course if GvG had more varation within map objectives, the actual tuning of when VoD occurs would be less important, but would highlight other "issues" with the "normal" ladder play and map selection that was more prevelant when things like spike setups were popular on a select few maps.

v o i d · Oct 07, 2007, 09:27 AM // 09:27

I agree with pretty much everything of the op, but i mainly blame Paragons who offer tons of ranged damage but also shitloads of defense. Conjures and Agonizing Chop are overpowered as well and deserve a slight hit. Though it's very strong, I would be extremely careful with nerfing Wearying Strike - or you won't see any Dervishes in GvG anymore.

Riotgear · Oct 07, 2007, 09:41 AM // 09:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by v o i d

Though it's very strong, I would be extremely careful with nerfing Wearying Strike - or you won't see any Dervishes in GvG anymore.

This begs the question of whether or not Dervishes are making a positive contribution to GvG as well. Wearying isn't really the problem anyway, the DW, Blind, and Cripple-immune tree is.

DIH49 · Oct 07, 2007, 10:43 AM // 10:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

The problem started when Izzy wanted to make the game "more deadly" by buffing offense.

I do not understand this position. How can you make the game more deadly without making deaths less powerful? If deaths remain so powerful that they change the game with every one, then they naturally become the focus of the game. When deaths mean a lot, you have to do a lot to prevent them. Take a look at Alliance Battles where deaths mean nothing. People basically don't pack defense on half the characters (of course about a quarter of the characters pack only defense, but that's a separate phenomenon). All this defense in builds then comes from trying to stop deaths. If you really want a "more deadly" game, then balance needs to go towards making deaths matter less than game objectives.

Ensign · Oct 07, 2007, 10:54 AM // 10:54

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Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Without buffing single-target heals to ridiculous levels, it should never be feasable to heal team-wide degen or AoE damage through single target heals alone.

Over a long period of time. For short intervals, I think it should be viable to deal with party heal problems with single target heals - for large energy and time costs. The current issue is that without an active party heal source everyone dies; you can't cover up for the loss by using your other skills more or somehow playing differently. A couple of DShots or Humsigs put you in full retreat mode. No other skill or mechanic in the game is anywhere near that critical.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

A team needs both strong single target heals and strong party-wide heals to survive.

Disagree (and you alluded to it as well) - teams need strong party-wide healing to survive; there are no strong single target heals in Guild Wars. Teams bury their characters in prot and passive defense, and use weak single target heals to stabilize long enough for the party heals to clean up damage. There really is no choice to use strong single target heals as part of your defensive startegy; the only way to get anything even resembling a good single target heal is to play a spirit-dependent Restoration Ritualist, and that's not exactly viable in high end GvG.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

The reason so many builds in the current meta target LoD is because it represents a single point of failure.

Many other aspects of the game are the same way now, such as Aegis and Ward. The biggest shift in the last year has been away from general purpose skills that performed more general effects and built up small advantages, into a metagame that emphasizes very swingy effects, with a lot of weight on a few critical plays. In general I think that's for the better, adding a lot more potential to make stellar plays. However in most cases there are backup plans in case something goes down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

This means that not only do single target heals and spikes need to be modified, but the mechanics of party-wide heals as well. More specifically, there need to be alternative party wide heals that can be taken alongside LoD without sacrificing too much of a build.

I don't think that's necessarily the case. I've played around with backup party healing options, and none of them are really worth it; they generally aren't sufficient if LoD is shut down, and are completely worthless otherwise. I do think that regular, single target heals should be able to refill the bars in an otherwise stable situation in the absence of LoD. It would probably be expensive and time intensive, but it would be possible to do - similar to how, for instance, if Ward or Aegis aren't up, a team has to really work its active defenses and that takes a toll. If LoD stays down for a long time, sure, there's a problem; similarly, a team in bad shape losing the skill should still bury them. But right now your team can be in relatively good shape, but if you lose LoD you're going to be in trouble in 10-15 seconds. Without LoD the bars really don't move, period.

Sure, alternatives to LoD would be nice to have. But right now I don't think that's nearly as critical as the game having viable 'Plan B' heals available. Because Gift of Health and Dwayna's Kiss aren't doing a damn thing if LoD isn't doing all of the heavy lifting.

v o i d · Oct 07, 2007, 10:56 AM // 10:56

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Originally Posted by Riotgear

This begs the question of whether or not Dervishes are making a positive contribution to GvG as well.

They offer another option, which is okay.

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Wearying isn't really the problem anyway, the DW, Blind, and Cripple-immune tree is.

I really doubt condition immunity and +100 hp half of the time for 25 energy on a class with 70 armor is that overpowered. Without DW spam, noone would give a shit about this character.

If ANet would have been smart instead of original, we'd have Dervishes with 80 and Paragons with 70 armor.

pah01 · Oct 07, 2007, 10:36 PM // 22:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by v o i d

I really doubt condition immunity and +100 hp half of the time for 25 energy on a class with 70 armor is that overpowered. Without DW spam, noone would give a shit about this character.

Well I always knew that there was something really shit about the dervish.

Shendaar · Oct 08, 2007, 01:49 AM // 01:49

LoD is problematic. The amount of damage it can heal up makes it borderline overpowered, but if you nerf it everyone is gonna crumble in less than 1-2 minutes as there really isn't any viable alternative to dealing with party wide pressure.

Unless someone feels like designing a new heal party bot.