Curse

TheOneMephisto · Jul 08, 2007, 01:59 PM // 13:59

Mind shock does see some play. It's probably the strongest spike support skill in the game, along with being extremely strong in skirmish. I'd say the only reason it doesn't see more play is because bsurge is needed for the defense at the stand, and eles are weak split options against stuff like BAs, or if they do a 2-3 man split, shield is needed to keep people alive.

Phades · Jul 08, 2007, 05:15 PM // 17:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Mind shock does see some play. It's probably the strongest spike support skill in the game, along with being extremely strong in skirmish. I'd say the only reason it doesn't see more play is because bsurge is needed for the defense at the stand, and eles are weak split options against stuff like BAs, or if they do a 2-3 man split, shield is needed to keep people alive.

Eles needing to be pulled in more than one direction is no real surprise, but the problem with the mind skills has always been the interaction of exhaustion with the clause "must have more energy than the target".

If eles energy storage did something that offset the exhaustion aspect, all of the mind spells would be more usable outside of the 30s exhaustion recharge. Sure you can aruge to burn out the energy that is already spent, but in trying to play more than one role that the ele must do, you get split thinner attribute wise and invariably sacrifice passive traits like energy storage for greater effects on the active skills. Yeah, you already know all this i know.

I think the way to really look at it, would be to ask yourself if gale would have seen any use if it had the same clause as the mind spells in order to trigger its "useful" effect at all or if all water snares caused exhaustion if they would see use as well. The difference is trying to answer the question of, "how do we keep this from becomming the gale version of blinding surge?" I do not think that tweaking the skill directly will solve the issue of playablility versus balance and e-storage functionality is the underlying issue really. This has been discussed in length before about a year ago with some decent ideas comming from a few people.

TheOneMephisto · Jul 08, 2007, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Eles needing to be pulled in more than one direction is no real surprise, but the problem with the mind skills has always been the interaction of exhaustion with the clause "must have more energy than the target".

If eles energy storage did something that offset the exhaustion aspect, all of the mind spells would be more usable outside of the 30s exhaustion recharge. Sure you can aruge to burn out the energy that is already spent, but in trying to play more than one role that the ele must do, you get split thinner attribute wise and invariably sacrifice passive traits like energy storage for greater effects on the active skills. Yeah, you already know all this i know.

I think the way to really look at it, would be to ask yourself if gale would have seen any use if it had the same clause as the mind spells in order to trigger its "useful" effect at all or if all water snares caused exhaustion if they would see use as well. The difference is trying to answer the question of, "how do we keep this from becomming the gale version of blinding surge?" I do not think that tweaking the skill directly will solve the issue of playablility versus balance and e-storage functionality is the underlying issue really. This has been discussed in length before about a year ago with some decent ideas comming from a few people.

If gale was a 3-sec KD with the clause must have more energy than target, I would definitely use it. It wouldn't see use on secondary eles like dom mesmers, but on eles I would put it on almost every bar that I could.

Having more energy than the target isn't bad in itself, and ensures that the player must be fairly good at what they're doing (managing energy, +30 sets, keeping track of opponents).

And I actually really like the combination of exhaustion and needs more energy on the mind spells. It makes it so that you can spam them for when you really need to (skirmishes, pushes), but that you have to keep in mind that you're going to be paying the price later. If you want to spam it over and over for a push or skirmish, you can, you just need to keep in mind that you're going to be dealing with massive exhaustion and the need to recover energy before you can do it again.

I personally still think that mind shock is fine, it's just that a couple things overshadow it. Bsurge is just really needed for that defense slot. SoR is needed for base defense against gankers. BA is just a stronger split option and still good at spreading pressure and spike assists.

The only change I might want to see to this is to remove exhaustion if you don't get the secondary effect, in order to reduce the penalty for messing up. however, I think that issues with other skills make this unused, rather than the skill itself. It's a strong, pretty versatile skirmish and support skill.

Phades · Jul 08, 2007, 07:15 PM // 19:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

If gale was a 3-sec KD with the clause must have more energy than target, I would definitely use it. It wouldn't see use on secondary eles like dom mesmers, but on eles I would put it on almost every bar that I could.

Having more energy than the target isn't bad in itself, and ensures that the player must be fairly good at what they're doing (managing energy, +30 sets, keeping track of opponents).

True, but it also limits what else you are doing in a fight. If you are only manipulating the bar for spike assists, then fine whatever, but trying to push out other skills for utility and defense on recharge causes incompatability on top of crippling the character over time creating a dead player slot depending on the usage.

It is observing the application of skills over time and the weight of their effect. There are enough of spike assist skills out there and the addition of the k/d on mindshock plays into a utility aspect, much like the theoretical exhaustion inducing snares or conditional gale. You said it yourself with the viable need for that utility space with blinding surge, yet you could still use blinding flash on that same air character. The problem occurs with cost over time creating a situation similar to the glyph of sacrifice meteor shower at VoD for gvg or absent outgoing damage/utility/pressure from that key skill in every other format and creating a nearly dead skill slot the rest of the time spent waiting for that one moment where it shines.

I am not saying to remove the exhaustion from it either, but more along the lines of creating more synergy between exhaustion causing skills and the energy storage trait, by either pro-rating the exhaustion inflicted scaling via the energy storage skil or use ensign's idea to enchance exhaustion recovery through energy storage. I forget which thread the original discussion occured in and the search tools arent that hot on GWG anymore, so im not that interested in digging it up again.

Not trying to dodge your interest in the different version of gale i was suggesting, but still gale isnt eliete either and i do agree that the 3s combination with the more conditional knockdown would have its uses, but even mindshock doesnt do 3s either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

I personally still think that mind shock is fine, it's just that a couple things overshadow it. Bsurge is just really needed for that defense slot. SoR is needed for base defense against gankers. BA is just a stronger split option and still good at spreading pressure and spike assists.

In a world without factions or nightfall and a reduced effect gale, sure i tend to agree with you, but all of the mind skills suffer from the same drawback combination which is what needs to be addressed rather than tuning the individual skills themselves. If the ele is able to manage his energy and punch people in the face with the mind spells for a short period of time, he should be able to recover from that period in a more realistic time frame instead of being delegated into flag running by default or suggesting that the rest of his allies in a split or the stand fall back with him, in order to not be down 1 man in the process. Yes that is only observing a GvG situation, while overlooking other formats where falling back is less, if not an option at all given the mechanics involved.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

The only change I might want to see to this is to remove exhaustion if you don't get the secondary effect, in order to reduce the penalty for messing up. however, I think that issues with other skills make this unused, rather than the skill itself. It's a strong, pretty versatile skirmish and support skill.

That is not a terrible change for this one specific skill, but all the mind skills need small tuning and i think that having an overpriced lightning strike, flare, or ice spear in the event of misuse is not the answer.

Symbol · Jul 08, 2007, 08:55 PM // 20:55

Mind burn is the only mind spell that needs major tuning. Namely the effect (fireball class damage + burning) is too weak to warrant exhaustion. I'd make it 5/1/8 without exhaustion.

Siva arwen · Jul 16, 2007, 05:30 AM // 05:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

In an RPG game things have to make a certain amount of sense. Do Warriors have any spells? Should they have to cast Frenzy? Can Mesmers wear Plate Armor? Do Rangers have skills that allow them to exploit corpses? The Critical Strikes line consists of Assassin fighting styles and attacks the character has learned. Not spells. All of these abilities need to be more reliable to work anyway, so it all works out perfectly.

LoL, maybe u r the only one who is able to say something that i want to see. I really love your idea Lunging and Shurikens. But i would suggest something for Lunging to work fine for assassin is to required some Critical Strikes points to work instead of abusing from other profession. And your idead of Shurikens is work fine with me. But there is one question, will Anet ever even bother to recreated their profession just by listen to ur comment? To me, im really appreciate u by wasting ur time and posted these things up. You know what, the first time when ppl heard that max dmg of dagger is 7-17 then they said what a crap profession because they forgot that assassin has Critical Strikes BUT when Anet was creating assassin they forgot to make it completely an Assassin profession.

Absolute Eminence · Jul 17, 2007, 11:00 AM // 11:00

The thread starter makes anet devs look like people who have lots of ideas, but don't understand the frustration of a player. PvP at the highest levels are too complex. Making more skills playable would be nice.

lacasner · Jul 17, 2007, 01:53 PM // 13:53

Quote:

in conclusion, there are overpowered skills. u suggest to strenghen all the non-overpowered skills so they match the level of the overpowered ones. u make everything overpowered. if ur balance will be implemented, and all skills will be weakened by 10-20%, maybe it would be good.

If everything is overpowered..doesn't it actual set the new standard of balanced? Which is what we want to achieve?

Patccmoi · Jul 17, 2007, 03:09 PM // 15:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by lacasner

If everything is overpowered..doesn't it actual set the new standard of balanced? Which is what we want to achieve?

If you played games like WoW, Dota in WC3, etc. you'd see that while it's true you can have something mostly balanced with everything overpowered, it's often a lot less interesting PvP-wise.

TheOneMephisto · Jul 17, 2007, 07:24 PM // 19:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by lacasner

If everything is overpowered..doesn't it actual set the new standard of balanced? Which is what we want to achieve?

It also tends to make gameplay faster and faster until it gets too fast for human reactions and/or any fun to remain. You also aren't guaranteed that everything is overpowered to the same level, and if you keep powering up stuff to try and balance, you get this ridiculously fast game that noone can keep up with and it loses all of its strategic depth because people don't have time to think.

Zuranthium · Aug 09, 2007, 02:06 AM // 02:06

Bumping to save from being erased before I have time to update with the upcoming skill balance and new expansion skills.

~Z

IMMORTAlMITCH · Aug 22, 2007, 01:26 PM // 13:26

The title of this thread is not only arrogant, it's also misleading.

Most of the suggested changes posted are in no way 'desirable' to anyone BUT Zuranthium.

What IS desirable is to stop him from posting or for people to stop reading/replying to his threads.

Leave discussing skillbalance to people that have an idea of what they are talking about or at the very least be less 'forceful' with your suggestions, because the last thing we need is people to actually believe the trash your posting is true.

Nurse With Wound · Aug 22, 2007, 04:16 PM // 16:16

Yeah, I have to agree with Alexa, and judging from the replies of posters they also share that point of view. I don't know Zuranthium, maybe it would be better if you would just do something more productive than analyzing every skill in game and giving in your own "balancing".

I don't know man, I think the forums aren't ready for the next part of this failed thread. Also, bumping isn't allowed in gladiator's arena, this isn't sell forum. I'm closing this thread. Feel free to discuss individual skills/ skill balances in the appropriate threads, but please don't make another tl;dr list.