Curse

twicky_kid · Jul 29, 2007, 06:05 PM // 18:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Just plain wrong. Even if there were 8000 defensive skills and 40 offensive skills (half of which can be nerfed to uselessness), the only reason to run heavy defense is because offense in the meta is strong enough to warrant it.

Not true at all. You run defensive skills so you can protect your base and flag stand longer to hold out till vod. More defensive skills were also increased after the nerf to divine favor and boon prot. Monks used to be able to handle what ever you threw at them. Now they are designed more as spike prevention. Monks are not as good vs pressure as they used to be. Heal party, LoD, draw conditions, bsurge, and aegis are the main anti pressure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Your scope is too limited if you can't see any power creep, it's mostly from new skills & mechanics introduced into the game, with the addition of some overbuffs thrown in. Balanced teams are bringing shitloads of defense, and people still make kills before VoD with very efficient offenses that pack more punch per skill.

The reason those new skills and mechanics are so powerful is because everything thing that came before it got nerfed to crap. How often were those skills buffed back to orginal form or better?

Since its new it doesn't have as many defensive skills or tactics to use against them compared to the old skills. Like weapon spells, shouts, and chants have no removal. Paragons have 3 skills that can stop shout and chants but all are very conditional and the hexes are easy to remove.

Dervish are 1 trick ponies. There is Mel and there is Mel. Once that gets nerfed (and it will be nerfed) what else is left?

VoD needs to be reevaluated. Too often it promotes hyper defensive builds instead of strategy. Most games are about who makes a mistake first or VoD. Sorry but that screams boring!!!!

Sinful Doom · Jul 29, 2007, 06:44 PM // 18:44

TBH this game will never be of the PvP quality it once was. Yes there have always been broken skills, even from day one, but their problem was minimial compared to 4 new and completely broken classes. A little over two years ago Anet gave us a BMW to play with but over time as it wore down and needed fixed they chose to do it with YUGO parts. I honestly hope they learn something from all their mistakes and make GW2 the game that GW could have been.

Thomas.knbk · Jul 29, 2007, 08:10 PM // 20:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_deSKtructor

Personally, i don't enjoy playing broken builds.
If anet promotes unbalanced skills, people may also stop playing gws, don't u think?

Very noble to not enjoy broken builds. Too bad you're going to LOSE if you pick the second option.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Not true at all. You run defensive skills so you can protect your base and flag stand longer to hold out till vod. More defensive skills were also increased after the nerf to divine favor and boon prot. Monks used to be able to handle what ever you threw at them. Now they are designed more as spike prevention. Monks are not as good vs pressure as they used to be. Heal party, LoD, draw conditions, bsurge, and aegis are the main anti pressure.

I'm sorry, but Gus is right on this. There's no reason to run 48 defensive skills if 1) the metagame's offense is not strong enough to break through your defense if you took less defensive skills and 2) the remaining 16 skills in your build, naturally used for offense, aren't strong enough to break through the commonly used defense in the metagame. I don't really see how you can deny that.

Does VoD actually need fixing? And if so, what? Simply removing it is not an option if anyone remembers the 3 hour matches back when VoD did not exist. I remember Dorm from EW (think it was him) suggesting an increasing VoD effect when asked about it on WoC: That would mean at 20 minutes a VoD effect with 10% would activate, which would slowly increase to a certain limit, Or to let the NPC's come in waves instead of all at once (this would remove the ball-up-and-nuke-strategy, but it would favor teams that spike the NPC's down one by one).

I personally think Anet needs to make the meta more split-friendly. Nerfing SoR would be quite a good start. Let's start with simpler solutions before we go messing around with game mechanics.

Skuld · Jul 29, 2007, 08:54 PM // 20:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

I'd completely disagree with Ensign's post, and I find it very ironic that hard-shutdowns are being promoted at the same time that BHA and Signet of Humility are so commonly complained-about.

MoI + SoH is click and win, BHA requires you run up to your target and press a button, neither of these require any skill. Gale requires skill - a bad player will spam gale and achieve little while heavily exhausting himself, and Blackout required careful positioning and timing. The former are maintainable, the latter require skilled play for them to be effective.

(Apologies if this has already been said, i'm not reading the rest of the thread..)

Ensign · Jul 29, 2007, 09:51 PM // 21:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

The real problem is power creep.

You could phrase it that way. More to the point, there has been a lot of power creep in raw offense (Mel's Dervishes, Conjures, Rit nukes, Searing Flames, Paragons, etc) and in defenses (Shield of Deflection, Shield of Regeneration, Light of Deliverance, Shield of Absorption, Blinding Surge). There has not been a corresponding power creep in effects that fight those skills, there has been a regression.

The net situation is that we have weaker tools to disable, strip, or otherwise fight a stronger set of basic threats than we did before.

Quote:

Originally Posted by selber

Looking back at the guilds who won tournaments or championships, i had my finger on the trigger as it seems.

For the GWWC, it was definitely about killing the other team. Dom Mesmers won that tournament and the game was all about wrecking people with your Warriors and Rangers. Games did not go to VoD very often, someone just got blown up and it was over.

By the GWFC it was more or less understood that the high-level game was about advantages at VoD, since matches between good teams almost always last that long. Part of that was understanding the shift in valuation between offense and defense when VoD hits. Offense gets a huge boost, and you gain a ton of attackers from all the NPCs, making defense in general that much more valuable.

It's still about killing the other team, though the mechanism has changed. On most maps, it's now about killing their NPCs first, then using your NPCs to break through their defense and crush the other team.

Quote:

Originally Posted by v o i d

In Guild Wars you have two primary ways to kill in an 8vs8 scenario (ofc you can combine them)

Actually I don't think that teams are scoring kills in either way right now, at least not in the balanced vs. balanced matches. I think that teams are killing through the natural holes in the defenses with huge spikes, not pressuring through them. I.E., fighting Aegis as well as possible (since that's the one you really can fight reasonably), then spiking during the downtime of Ward backed by a lot of enchantment removal from your Mesmer and condition removal from the Monks. Knocking out another part of that defense with Diversion makes things a bit easier, to be sure, but generally that's how it's going right now. Pressure really only comes after a couple people die, several key stabilizing elements are knocked out, and teams just systematically fail to stop a couple of melees from wrecking them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by v o i d

Everyone seems to hate these two and screams for nerfs, but if they get hit, builds with lots of physical chars will go rampant. It's a mesmer's job to shut this stuff down, the problem: there are next to no good mesmers who can actually time in this game.

I don't think the problem is with Aegis and Ward, or with BSurge and SoD, but with the combination of the two. Essentially, Ward and Aegis are great tools for fighting physical pressure most of the time and do a lot of the work, while BSurge and SoD are ridiculously effective at filling in the gaps. Warriors swing into Ward and/or Aegis most of the time, making them useless - if they fall back on someone outside of a Ward or knock off the Aegis, SoD and Blind comes in to wreck everything until the general defense comes back up. It's a nasty combination that has multiple points of failure that need to be hit to score a kill or inflict any pressure whatsoever.

On the thought of Mesmers shutting this stuff down, I can't disagree with you more. BSurge being Diverted or an important Ward being interrupted isn't a success of a good Mesmer, it's a failing of a bad Ele. BSurge being hit by Diversion is always a mistake on the part of the Ele. Ward being interrupted means you're being too predictable and don't know how to use Gale. You can point at the Mesmer as needing to be better at timing, but that simply makes the Ele's job disrupting timing.

I will concede that the number of good Elementalists in this game pales in comparison with the number of good Mesmers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by black_mischief

I also think the OP completely neglects the value of rangers as shutdowns.

Rangers pale in comparison to Mesmers in shutdown capability, even in the current state of things where interrupts are far and away the best shutdown tools available. They have a ton of value tactically and in skirmish which justifies their inclusion in builds. DShot is a great skill, but am wary of interrupts being the only mechanism of shutdown remaining as critical skills continue to become harder and faster. Even in high level play DShot has turned into a 'camp this character and twitch interrupt the 1s cast' or 'throw this at someone every 10s and hope to get lucky' skill in a lot of situations, which isn't exactly more skill intensive or dynamic than any of the old shutdown models.

black_mischief · Jul 29, 2007, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Rangers pale in comparison to Mesmers in shutdown capability, even in the current state of things where interrupts are far and away the best shutdown tools available. They have a ton of value tactically and in skirmish which justifies their inclusion in builds. DShot is a great skill, but am wary of interrupts being the only mechanism of shutdown remaining as critical skills continue to become harder and faster. Even in high level play DShot has turned into a 'camp this character and twitch interrupt the 1s cast' or 'throw this at someone every 10s and hope to get lucky' skill in a lot of situations, which isn't exactly more skill intensive or dynamic than any of the old shutdown models.

Again, I just disagree. Rangers have the cheapest fastest recharging interrupts in the game. They can shutdown most major defensive skills like wards/aegis, etc. Mesmer utility is more about strips (HEV/shatter enchant/mirror) and shutdown (diversion/shame) rather than heavy interrupts.

Bad rangers camp a character. Good ones spread poison, count the timer for the next ward in 20 seconds and then interrupt when appropriate.

moko · Jul 29, 2007, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by black_mischief

Bad rangers camp a character. Good ones spread poison, count the timer for the next ward in 20 seconds and then interrupt when appropriate.

Quote:

Ward being interrupted means you're being too predictable and don't know how to use Gale.

same in this case.

Ensign · Jul 29, 2007, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mokone

same in this case.

Not quite, you BSurge a Ranger in your face, you don't Gale him. It's actually so incredibly obvious that I can't remember the last time I saw a Ranger looking for Ward, it is always the PLeak. Rangers usually chase after Aegis (because they're a harder target and can extend for it better, not to mention that their character becomes crap if it's up), and after that either Diversion or LoD. For the important interrupts on 1s cast times, people consistently use Mesmers.

Greedy Gus · Jul 29, 2007, 11:45 PM // 23:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Not true at all. You run defensive skills so you can protect your base and flag stand longer to hold out till vod.

Protect from what? Oh yeah, the heavy offense that teams are able (and willing) to bring.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Monks used to be able to handle what ever you threw at them. Now they are designed more as spike prevention. Monks are not as good vs pressure as they used to be. Heal party, LoD, draw conditions, bsurge, and aegis are the main anti pressure.

Yet again, you're somehow seeing this different from reality. I don't care what percentage of monk skills can be used against pressure, the fact of the matter is that every single team runs LoD as one of their backline elites, and most bring aegis, so claiming that monks are spike prevention and not as good vs. pressure is, again, just plain wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

VoD needs to be reevaluated. Too often it promotes hyper defensive builds instead of strategy. Most games are about who makes a mistake first or VoD. Sorry but that screams boring!!!!

VoD is an issue, but what it promotes is bringing (offensive) skills that abuse that mechanic well, being lots of direct damage and properly directable aoe. Now to be sure, it is possible to run a defensive build in order to get to VoD, that also happens to include loads of (or just the correct) tools to abuse bad NPC AI and the shout mechanic. Guess what that is called: strategy. Your logic is poor, peole need to stop regurgitating these weak talking points that lack any interesting depth.

Seamus Finn · Jul 30, 2007, 02:13 AM // 02:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by black_mischief

Again, I just disagree. Rangers have the cheapest fastest recharging interrupts in the game.

Psychic Distraction? Given expertise it isn't cheaper, but it is certainly faster recharging and a "better interrupt". Of course almost no one slots it. Basically Mesmer interrupts are way more reliable than ranger interrupts. Ranger interrupts are good because you can spam them, use them for pressure, or twitch them out, and they are part of THE ranger build, which is the epitome of versatility in Guild Wars at the moment. 1/2 cast time + flight time makes for a rather slow interrupt. Unless the cast is slow you have to do some predicting to hit stuff. Mes interrupts just own for hitting quicker casts.

black_mischief · Jul 30, 2007, 02:32 AM // 02:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

Psychic Distraction? Given expertise it isn't cheaper, but it is certainly faster recharging and a "better interrupt". Of course almost no one slots it. Basically Mesmer interrupts are way more reliable than ranger interrupts. Ranger interrupts are good because you can spam them, use them for pressure, or twitch them out, and they are part of THE ranger build, which is the epitome of versatility in Guild Wars at the moment. 1/2 cast time + flight time makes for a rather slow interrupt. Unless the cast is slow you have to do some predicting to hit stuff. Mes interrupts just own for hitting quicker casts.

Few things:

1. As long as we are on stupid, niche skills that no one uses... how about Magebane shot?

2. PD is not cheap.

3. Ranger interrupts are more versatile because they stop signets, skills, spirits, and all other non-spell skills like Glyphs, etc.

4. The original argument was about Mesmers being weak and not delivering enough shutdown, especially interrupts. My point was that Rangers (as a class) were strong interrupters. You can complain about flight time, but I don't see any good ranger players ever bitching about that, and I've never had a problem w/ it when I've rangered.

And stop taking this discussion off-track... w/ nonsense.

Seamus Finn · Jul 30, 2007, 02:45 AM // 02:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by black_mischief

Few things:

1. As long as we are on stupid, niche skills that no one uses... how about Magebane shot?

2. PD is not cheap.

3. Ranger interrupts are more versatile because they stop signets, skills, spirits, and all other non-spell skills like Glyphs, etc.

4. The original argument was about Mesmers being weak and not delivering enough shutdown, especially interrupts. My point was that Rangers (as a class) were strong interrupters. You can complain about flight time, but I don't see any good ranger players ever bitching about that, and I've never had a problem w/ it when I've rangered.

And stop taking this discussion off-track... w/ nonsense.

Wow. I pointed out that PD is more expensive than ranger interrupts. PD is actually a good skill, it's jsut no one runs it. And all good rangers will "complain" about flight time because it is vital to interrupting on Rangers. If you interrupt on a mes and a ranger you will know that it take 3/4 of a second from the time you hit your skill to have a shot at interrupting anything and that is assuming you aren't right up in your target's face, which means your target will know what youa re trying to do and if he lets you interrupt him he is terrible, and a mes is using a 1/4 cast - FC and it's on target. Mesmer interrupts are much faster and more reliable and the majority of the stuff you want to hit with a faster interrupt is a spell anyways. The big hitters for nonspells are like Res Sigs, Sig of Return, Humility, etc. You can get a Gole, but a mes could hit the next casts easier anyhow. That is my point, which is not off-track nonsense unless you consider yourself as derailing the thread.

Shmanka · Jul 30, 2007, 02:52 AM // 02:52

Greedy pretty much nailed it, Twicky I have never seen you post anything logical. You will have a better time trying to convince me that 2 multiplied by 2 equals 15342

Zaelen · Jul 30, 2007, 03:03 AM // 03:03

The biggest problem with Gale and Blackout is the complete loss of control on a character, versus something more specific and tactical (being D-shotted or even diverted). The last thing this game needs is to have broken CC mechanics like WoW-style Fear or Sheep.

The beauty of something like Blind or Dazed is that they effectively do the same as a 'hard' CC but don't come with the incredibly annoying side effect of losing character control. It's for that reason that I believe Gale and Blackout were targeted - they require skill to maximize and both come with hefty penalties for poor use - but losing complete control of your character is never fun.

black_mischief · Jul 30, 2007, 03:03 AM // 03:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Black Mischief

4. The original argument was about Mesmers being weak and not delivering enough shutdown, especially interrupts. My point was that Rangers (as a class) were strong interrupters.

This is the discussion. Shutdown is key, particularly Interrupts re: Mesmers. My point was that rangers are strong interrupters, too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

Wow. I pointed out that PD is more expensive than ranger interrupts. PD is actually a good skill, it's jsut no one runs it. And all good rangers will "complain" about flight time because it is vital to interrupting on Rangers. If you interrupt on a mes and a ranger you will know that it take 3/4 of a second from the time you hit your skill to have a shot at interrupting anything and that is assuming you aren't right up in your target's face, which means your target will know what youa re trying to do and if he lets you interrupt him he is terrible, and a mes is using a 1/4 cast - FC and it's on target. Mesmer interrupts are much faster and more reliable and the majority of the stuff you want to hit with a faster interrupt is a spell anyways. The big hitters for nonspells are like Res Sigs, Sig of Return, Humility, etc. You can get a Gole, but a mes could hit the next casts easier anyhow. That is my point, which is not off-track nonsense unless you consider yourself as derailing the thread.

You must suck at ranger if you honestly think flight time is the downfall of that class. And I'm not even going to get into the 5-10 obvious reasons why that doesn't matter that much. What matters more is BLOCK (Aegis/shields up) and MISS (blind/blurred). NOT FLIGHT TIME.

You also bring up some hairbrain argument about PD specifically. We are talking about game design and classes as a whole, not 1 specific skill. You know what is also a good interrupt? Glyph Sac/Meteor shower. It ownzzzzzzzzzz. Let's derail the thread and talk about Met Shower KD's now.

No one is discounting mesmers and their fc+interrupt skills, but I think ignoring Rangers and what they bring to the game in shutdown/interrupts is foolish. This thread's original argument suggested that Mesmers needed buffing cuz they don't offer enough shutdown/interrupts, and from a game design standpoint I do not agree.

Seamus Finn · Jul 30, 2007, 03:51 AM // 03:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by black_mischief

This is the discussion. Shutdown is key, particularly Interrupts re: Mesmers. My point was that rangers are strong interrupters, too.

You must suck at ranger if you honestly think flight time is the downfall of that class. And I'm not even going to get into the 5-10 obvious reasons why that doesn't matter that much. What matters more is BLOCK (Aegis/shields up) and MISS (blind/blurred). NOT FLIGHT TIME.

You also bring up some hairbrain argument about PD specifically. We are talking about game design and classes as a whole, not 1 specific skill. You know what is also a good interrupt? Glyph Sac/Meteor shower. It ownzzzzzzzzzz. Let's derail the thread and talk about Met Shower KD's now.

No one is discounting mesmers and their fc+interrupt skills, but I think ignoring Rangers and what they bring to the game in shutdown/interrupts is foolish. This thread's original argument suggested that Mesmers needed buffing cuz they don't offer enough shutdown/interrupts, and from a game design standpoint I do not agree.

Well since you insist. Glyph Sac Meteor shower is actually a very bad interrupt. First there's the 1 sec glyph, I think there's a 3/4 aftercast(not positive on Glyphs to be honest). Then, a lot of people don't know this, but the Met Shower is not actually instant. Judging from the cast time animation, it's probably around 1/4(since a mes int. that triggers weapon FC has no animation). So it's basically a 2 sec cast time AND the meteor has to hit them AND I think there's a delay on that.

Read some more, I never said it was the downfall of Rangers. I play Ranger a lot lately in gvgs and I think I have a pretty good understanding of the class actually. Knowing about flight time lets you decide which is better for you to interrupt and what to leave to the mesmers. Furthermore, no one if "ignoring" the class. The people who disagree with you just realize that the ranger is more of a swiss army knife guy: good at a lot of stuff, but it is the package that's great, not so much any single aspect of it. I suggest you calm down, and if you don't understand something you read take a deep breath and try again. If you still don't get it, hold your breath instead until you blackout.

P.S. Please post the those reasons why flight time means nothing. If anything else it will give people a better understanding of how seriously they should take your posts.

Yue · Jul 30, 2007, 04:23 AM // 04:23

Flight time is really a nonissue, and becomes an unconcious calculation after you've played ranger for a while. Whiles yes it AFFECTS the accuracy of interrupts, it's not something a good ranger complains about. Again, after playing ranger for extended periods of time, the flight calculation is unconcious and in some ways assists in predicting skills for interrupts.

just rude · Jul 30, 2007, 04:33 AM // 04:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yue

, the flight calculation is unconcious and in some ways assists in predicting skills for interrupts.

thats cause u RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing spam nublet

Seamus Finn · Jul 30, 2007, 04:58 AM // 04:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yue

Flight time is really a nonissue, and becomes an unconcious calculation after you've played ranger for a while. Whiles yes it AFFECTS the accuracy of interrupts, it's not something a good ranger complains about. Again, after playing ranger for extended periods of time, the flight calculation is unconcious and in some ways assists in predicting skills for interrupts.

A good ranger will hit the interrupts in the end. But not like a mesmer. On a mes you can really just twitch out stuff that you can't on ranger. With the ranger you end up hitting stuff through prediction and zoning out time periods you close off to the target where you think he will cast what you don't want him to cast. You can hit crazy interrupts this way, but it's a different way of interrupting and not quite as reliable.

just rude · Jul 30, 2007, 05:30 AM // 05:30

There are unbalanced skills in the games, yes. However, I think the current crap ass meta comes from substandard players that wanna find some imbalanced skill and exploit it only to scream and yell about sirlin.

You can make a balanced to deal with w/e shitway your gonna face today. There is no reason for a team who has played together for months to lose to thumper necroway OR SHITWAY, maybe the first time u see the build but...

SHITWAY, new term, put it in the dictionary. Definition: Any build that can be run by poor players and overwhelm mediocre players.