Originally Posted by Bankai

Just a quick thing since I'm too lazy to read the entire topic: What about making Agggressive refrain a Stance?

Originally Posted by Vaga

Gole - > needs a nerf which will probably mess a lot of stuff up since the game started to be balanced around it but overall this would be better for the game imo.

MoR -> this skill is stupid and should be nerfed a lot. There are a ton of good non elite skills balanced by recharge and this breaks the game. I don't understand how you can be so stupid to buff this skill so it sees play in the first place.

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Nerfing Gole will fix MoR. MoR has lots of energy problems. Without Gole Mor will not be able to spam everything on recharge.

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Nerfing Gole will fix MoR. MoR has lots of energy problems. Without Gole Mor will not be able to spam everything on recharge.

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Lol. MoR does not have energy problems. MoR has P Drain on a 12 second charge. MoR only has energy problems if you're using Diversion on charge like an idiot.

Originally Posted by d00m1n470r

Without GoLE people will take P-Drain and Drain Enchant instead.

.......................................

Originally Posted by Abnaxus

Aren't there already counters against sins, paragons, rangers or whatever?

For any spammer, maybe I'm wrong but there's a mesmer skill that disable spammable skills ... wait let me check on wiki ... diversion is that the name?
Oh sorry, diversion must be used ONLY on monks to prevent them from healing, sorry my bad ...

Against shouts ... mmm there was something in the curse line ... ops my memory fails please let me check on wiki ... yeah vocal minority and ulcerous lungs, I remember this, undead necromancers in PvE spammed as hell in NF.

Rangers with hammers? I agree, they cannot be blinded, blurred vision is not viable, even with soothing images they gain huge adrenaline to fuel their deadly attacks which hit hard even if they're weakened ...


But I agree, bringing counters against some skill is a REAL waste of space in the skillbar, the best solution is destroy the classes I don't play and buff instead MY skillbar I've been using in the latest 2 years without a single change ...


LOL I just read - Gale 3 seconds KD - muahahahaha now I understand where all those complains come from LOL again

Originally Posted by LifesRestorer

what about waste not want not?

Originally Posted by wuzzman

It cost 15 energy....you spending 1/3 of your energy pool to get 1/5 of your energy back....and you doing it every 10 secs???

Originally Posted by Twicky Kid

Hasn't been abused yet but will be eventually.

Originally Posted by wuzzman

It Still Sucks!!!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

By net gain I mean that you gain that over the cost of the skill. So you're gaining energy, not losing it.

No it wont. Waste Not is bad, due to the fact that Drain Ench and Power Drain have a positive effect other than energy gain, and give just as much, if not more net energy.

Lol? How does energy management and enchant removal on 10 charge suck?

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

My nerf lists are getting shorter and shorter. Which i think is a good sign.

Mantra of Recovery

- the problem with this skill is that it allows the mesmer to break limitations on skills imposed by their recharges. Recharges are a balancing mechanism which prevents potentially overpowered skills from becoming overpowered. Diversion is a potentially overpowered skill but its recharge is meant to balance its effectiveness to allow monks time enough to absorb and counter it. Imagine diversion with a 5 second recharge, holy veil cannot protect a monk against a mesmer spamming diversion every 5 seconds. Thankfully the natural recharge or diversion is in line with the recharge of holy veil. However, things chance with a Mantra of Recovery mesmer because they can 'break' the balance achieved by the setting of recharges.

I know the mesmer class was designed to be able to break the rules, but Mantra of recovery allows the mesmer class access to imbalances that really should not be allowed. A class that can break the rules is ok as a concept as long as its ability to break the rules has limitations and does not throw out balance in general.

suggestion 1

Mantra of Recovery: Enchantment spell. Target self becomes enchanted and for x seconds all spells you use recharge 50% faster. 5e 1s cast 20s recharge. 18 seconds duration at 14 fast cast.

suggestion 2

Mantra of Recovery: Stance. For x seconds all mesmer spells you cast recharge 50% faster but cost 25% more energy. All non-mesmer spells you cast recharge 25/33% faster but cost 25/33/50% more energy. 5e 20s recharge.
18 seconds duration at 14 fast cast.

suggestion 3

Mantra of Recovery: Stance. For x seconds all spells you cast recharge 50% faster. This stance ends prematurely when you use a non-mesmer spell. 5e 20s recharge.
18 seconds duration at 14 fast cast.

Deadly Paradox

This is another example of allowing a class to break the rules. And in this case, the assassin can break the balance inherent in its skills due to their recharge.

suggestion

remove skill from game AND lower recharge times of other skills that were meant to be used in conjunction with DP. Dancing daggers...disrupting dagger, crippling dagger, iron palm, entangling asp, mantis touch, mark of death, siphon speed. Otherwise those skills just dont and wont see any real use.

Signet of toxic shock, expunge enchantments, shadow prison and augury of death are the skills that cause the most problems in combination with DP, however, outside the combination they really arent as problematic. No amount of tweaking to DP will prevent this, short of ether renewalling it. Which is why i say take it out of the game. Or you could just increase its energy cost to 10 energy, increase the attribute requirement for longer durations, reduce recharge buff to 25% and maybe turn it into an enchantment with a 1-2 second casting time. Im not sure exactly what can be done, but from the complaints ive heard about DP/SoJ sins in TA something might need to be done.

Rampage as One

I have mixed feelings about this skill now. The introduction of aura of stability has made fighting RaO teams even more easy than it was before. Dont forget, RaO costs 25 energy and requires at least 9 BM to be kept up 24/7. But using a 25e cost skill every 10 seconds is not easy, even for rangers with their expertise (it still costs from 13-12 energy). With aura of stability analysing the RaO skill is not even necessary, AoS prevents them from KDing, so even if they have +50% IAS and +50% Speed buff, the amount of pressure they inflict will never be as good as the pressure they inflict when they can constantly KD, daze and deep wound their targets. Of course +50% is an exaggeration and would never happen but it serves to make my point, RaO thumpers who cannot KD, are like dogs with no teeth, a whole load of barking but no bite.

Shadow Prison Sins

I dont believe SP sins are in need of any more nerfs. They are still great at skirmish/solo situations away from the stand, but i think that ties in well with the concept of the assassin. It really is not my fault that people are not running blind in their defense, since blind is generally the best way to counter a sin who is out on its own. A sin backed up with a monk is a different matter of course, but i think the inability of teams to deal with dedicated split builds is more a symptom of guilds running builds built for 8vs8 encounters rather than splits. You no longer see mendtouch heal sig gank warriors for example.

It is a great shame that ever since the introduction of Shadow prison and the offhand skills that allow sins to skip the need for lead attacks, we rarely see other sin builds in use (apart from DP sins but they really go against the whole concept of the sin i think). There are other builds available but for some reason noone is yet to use them effectively or regularly. Anti-block combos are now possible and Death blossom/Moebius strike/fear me has always been a great pressure machine. i think that most guilds have a preference of running warriors (due to high armour) and melandrus dervishes (due to immunity to conditions and wearying strike spam), the frontline flag stand sin just doesnt get a look in (due to low armour and limited ability to 'tank' at vod)

Paragons

I am not entirely convinced that the paragon needs the nerfs that some people cry out for. In the current meta, i think the major defensive wall that teams face is the MoR+ward against melee mesmer. The additional defense provided by Defensive Anthem+Shields up i think is just an additional layer that becomes all the more effective because of the other layers already in place. DA can be interrupted. Easily. Shields up only lasts 9 seconds in most cases. 9 out of 30. And it only works against projectiles so its not like in those 9 seconds you are unable to do ANY dmg at all.

In terms of the high armour and the DPS of the paragon. I can see where this might need a little tweaking. The great thing about the paragon is that it can almost match the DPS of a warrior, but without the drawbacks of needing to be in melee range or using frenzy stance. At least with warriors you have the opportunity to spike them or punish them if they extend out of the range of their monks or if they spam frenzy without cancel. Those 2 alone help keep warriors DPS in line. The paragon generally cannot be spiked. Since they usually are well within range of their monks, and have such high armour. If anything needs to be done, its to make it possible to spike a paragon. Reduce their armour somehow, maybe by adding -armour condition to aggressive refrain. Or adding the following to the primary attribute.

leadership suggestion
For every 1 point of energy gained through leadership you lose 2.5 armour for 1 second. So at 12 leadership, you gain 6 energy if you reach 6 allies with your shout. You also lose 6x2.5 =15 armour for 6 seconds everytime you use a shout.

defensive meta

I want to see what happens when ward against melee no longer dominates. We might see dual Defensive Anthems (which can be interrupted by a mesmer easily). Shields up will still be used. But as long as teams are not benefitting from constant 50% block i think the defensive meta will not be as boring as it is now.

I just hope there isnt something else that can replace fast cast wards.

*Fast cast aegis? (can be removed)
*Multiple blinders? (can be diverted, drawn on spikes, but in general 2 blinders is a pain to fight against)
*Warder with anti-interrupt skills like mantra conc/glyph conc/mantra resolve? (would require dedicated warder builds with little to no flexibility go go split against them).
*Multiple warders - keep ward on mesmer for emergencies and have ward on flag stand ele (means flag stand team is very limited on utility again, dedicating build to ward camping limits mobility).

anyone else can think of another form of passive defense that can replace fast cast ward melee like it replaced the aegis chains before it?

if so, we need those nerfed too otherwise this defensive meta will just go on forever.

Ward against Melee

suggestion above^ - increase recharge to 30 seconds.

I dont like the fact MoR mesmers are better at using wards than Elementalists are. I like the previous suggestion to increase its recharge to 30 seconds. But if this is done i hope elementalists still have the ability to keep it up 24/7 at high attributes like 15-16. At least an MoR mes with 9 earth will only be able to have the ward up on recharge (every 15 seconds) which may make it easier to diversion and easier to predict for a ranger, but interrupting the cast on reflex will still be pretty impossible.

i dont think increasing recharge to 30 seconds will be enough, but i wouldnt mind testing this out to see what happens. I wonder if Anet would.

Glyph of lesser energy

i cant see how this needs changing. I think Gole currently acts and is meant to act like an enabling skill. It enables elementalists the ability to use their high energy skills easier than they would without. Perhaps it could be buffed so that elementalists could access 25e skills like deep freeze and rodgorts invocation more often without relying on dual attunements. In the case of eles i would think it needed buffing rather than nerfing. In the case of other primaries taking advantage of Gole i dont really see how gole is at the center of any overpowered builds. The necro hexers still use gole but their hexes are no longer as effective as they were before. Mes/eles with wards use gole but the gole is not the culprit behind the problems with that build. SoD monks use gole but even they struggle for energy when the other layers of passive defense have been stripped away. The SoD prot bar with gole still rewards highly experienced/skilled monks and in the hands of inexperienced monks, even gole will not be enough, an experienced frontline team will make it extremely hard for your average SoD monk even powered with Gole to keep energy levels up while protting. What else uses gole in the current meta that demands a nerf of gole? i honestly cannot find them.

If what you are saying is that the SoD bar with Gole is extremely effective in the hands of an extremely good prot monk... i dont see the problem. Its not like having that bar will automatically make any monk a good prot monk.

i think we need to see what happens to the meta, how GvGs pan out if ward against melee is dealt with. If passive defense gets hit where it needs to be hit without being ether renewaled, i think hitting other forms of defense will be too much. We will shift from an overly defensive meta to an overly offensive one. Without some form of reliable defense, people will just start complaining that we cannot stay alive anymore.

Its like the complaints over RA. First people compained about leaving in RA, now they complain that they cant leave.

Anet needs to find the middleground when it deals with these problems. It needs to stop doing things in extremes.

Defense is not inherently BAD. Its bad when it becomes almost impossible to counter directly (ie fast cast wards, aegis chains cast on other side of compass, SoR kept on 3 people etc etc). Defense is fine as long as there are viable ways to counter it (ie interrupt DA, interrupt wards, remove enchants).

Leaving is not inherently a BAD thing. Its bad when people leave for the wrong reasons (ie needing a 'perfect' RA team to farm glad points). Its fine if you have legitimate reasons (ie emergency at home, stalemates with multiple monks on both teams, other people leaving team already etc etc).

Lorekeeper

Originally Posted by Qual

Hands down we have a winner. I can't belive how right you are.
It's clearly that you are a better player than most the people posting here imo. I mean people wants DA nerfed. IT'S 2 secs cast time. If you can't interrupt that, well...