Curse

Pericles · Jun 01, 2007, 07:55 AM // 07:55

I do not agree on the concussion/broad head arrow adjustment as daze is just so hard to apply and so easy to remove. I rlly like giving the 6 adrenaline cost to GFTE, WYS, and fear me as these skills make a big difference.

SaintGreg · Jun 01, 2007, 08:02 AM // 08:02

Nerfing the block chance of aegis down by 10% or so is certainly a good start, but in my opinion it isn't enough. Of particular importance is the interaction with Glyph of Lesser Energy. If you want a team build with aegis, pushing it to the monks has very few drawbacks, because monks already are specced fairly heavily into protection, at the expense of a couple skill slots. At least aegis on an ele for example requires a moderate redistribution of attributes that do nothing besides power aegis.

Nerf Glyph of Lesser Energy to reduce the energy gained to 7...15 or even further. It is too mindless and has too few drawbacks, especially compared with something like the conditional energy gain of the inspiration line that actually does require thought and precise timing.

Pretty much all the nerfs mentioned in the initial thread are in desperate need. I'd like to see mechanics of certain skills reworked rather than just straight number tweaking. A simple example of searing flames: The fact that one searing flames ele in a build is crap while 5 searing flames eles in a build is imbalanced makes it quite clear that the mechanic of the skill itself leads it to being abused. Instead of "if target foe is on fire do dmg, otherwise set target foe on fire" why not "set target foe on fire AND deal damage"? The damage and burning numbers can be tweaked, but it is quite clear that 5 searing flames ele's wont do much, while 1 searing flames ele has much more potential than it currently does. Maybe something on the order of 1...3 seconds burning, and 15...60 (ie immolate level).

I also like the idea of Mending touch requiring protection prayers and changed back to 4 recharge. I always thought draw should have required protection (something like pull 1...4 conditions), because it would have still been useful for blind removal, and with even a moderate redistribution of attributes, it would still be able to pull covered conditions like poison + crippled.

Riotgear · Jun 01, 2007, 08:14 AM // 08:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by manitoba1073

Odd seems to me that PvP skills are also PvE skills unless I missed some memo that they made all skills seperate. Thus some discusion of the PvE side is warrented. Unless you would like to tell the PvPers to stay outa any PvE discussions?

This post is probably going to scream "delete me!", but the thing to realize is that PvE "balance" is for the most part a joke. GW's skill set is simply too powerful and the monsters are too simple. That's why places like UW, one of the ultimate dungeons of the game, have been farmed bad by ridiculous builds like 55/SV.

PvE balance is easy. If monsters are too powerful after a skill tweak, you can just tweak their health points, or add or remove a couple spawns, and that's it. It tends to be made even easier by the fact that every fight is predictable, so there will always be some skill load-out that trumps it. Perhaps more importantly, there are numerous skills that only really bad players are affected by in PvP, but are the dominant factors in PvE balance if counter-balancing ever needs to be done. A good example would be Flashing Blades and Critical Defenses, which are of extremely questionable use in PvP, but are really the roots of Assassin viability in PvE.

PvE balance should be an afterthought, because it is EASY to just bolt PvE balance changes on top of whatever the PvP balance is at the time without conflict. If something is too powerful in PvE, nobody complains, because it just makes killing stuff easier. The reverse is not true. If an ability becomes too strong in PvP, it makes a mess of everything, and adding some overpowered counter to it is far from ideal

Anyway, as for Aegis, I really don't know what to make of it. It started getting out of control when Drain Enchantment stopped appearing on every other caster bar, and then started getting worse when GoLE made packing several copies of it even easier.

A single copy of Aegis has a nice tactical function of allowing a team that's going to get crushed to ease pressure long enough to recuperate. Once they can be chained back-to-back-to-back though, then it starts turning into a crutch. Personally, I'd rather see it stay as 50%, but have some sort of adjustment to the duration or recharge to keep it from being chained constantly.

I'm questioning the GFTE nerf suggestion though. GTFE is the kind of skill that's really balanced around being able to be pumped out at a specific rate, and increasing the cost by 50% really just kind of kills it just to keep it from being used as an energy battery. Would it be a bad suggestion to just reduce the energy gains from Leadership instead, and drop the costs of specific 10-15e Paragon skills a notch?

Ensign · Jun 01, 2007, 08:54 AM // 08:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

Broad I would like to see its insane duration kept the same but add a condition -- This skill cannot be used on nearby foes (like the pve wurm elite). This would make the flight time relevant but will still be crushing if you landed it on a really stupid player.

That'd be a great nerf to it as well. As much as I hate long duration daze, a change to the skill that'd make it tricky to apply would be great too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

I disagree. Its still an unremovable, permanent IAS boost with no cost and no drawback. Para damage is lower than warriors only because of crit rate and role.

I don't buy the role argument for Paragons at all. You can't tell me that people would prefer a melee Warrior to a ranged Warrior all else being equal, and only run the melee ones because we're intractable and refuse to use Paragons for anything but support roles. A Paragon simply cannot match the offensive firepower of a Warrior, even if built to focus entirely upon that.

I've also found it to be more removable than you'd think. If Aegis is allowed to stick for any length of time, keeping even a high-spec Aggressive Refrain up becomes really sketchy. Anthem of Flame begins to fail as a reliable refresh when your attack skills don't hit consistently, and "Go for the Eyes!" isn't charging nearly as frequently. I think that the 6A hit to GftE would make it non-trivial to keep up against normal defenses, certainly not without a high (16-18 second) spec in Leadership.

If the skill did prove to be problematic, you have to hit the attack speed bonus on it. The last thing you want to do is make Aggressive Refrain a skill that can only be run when you have a bunch of shouters (AKA, Paragons) on the team - the profession should be encouraged to run as a singleton or in pairs, not in giant roving packs of GftE spammers.

However, I'm really, really wary of nerfing the skill, because I think that as soon as it becomes unplayable the profession becomes unplayable as anything other than a passive defense bot - and that's the part of the profession that is in most dire need of fixing. I'm sure removing them from the game entirely suit some people just fine, but I can't suggest that kind of nerf with the good of the game at heart.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

PoF/SoF likewise need a duration nerf, because they still wreck a toon for a long time and there is no reasonable chance of removing them against a hex spam team.

My opinion in the matter is that the problem with hex teams is more in the spam part of it than in there being strong hexes in the game. In particular, I have absolutely no problem with single, long lasting, but high cost, high recharge hexes being in the game. Taken on their own, I think that Price of Failure and Reckless Haste, for example, are perfectly reasonable hexes as is. What makes them problematic is the large amount of cheap, efficient garbage that floats around and gunks up all of your removal.

Do you think that a Necromancer with just Reckless Haste, Price of Failure, and Parasitic Bond is a problem? I don't think so, by a wide margin. He basically has two strong skills to use, that he can only really put on one person each (barring fast recharges). If those get pulled, the character is very weak. What makes the character too good is the number of super efficient, cheap shutdown and damage options available to it - namely, Faintheartedness and Reaper's Mark. Faintheartedness usually has three copies going concurrently, and the effect is insane - it's very efficient damage (close to 200 for 10 energy) plus a ton of damage mitigation from the slowdown. It's easily 2-3x as good as those other hexes. Reaper's Mark is similar, cheap, pretty spammable, does insanely efficient damage and like Faintheartedness, lasts forever and creates a sea of really efficient hexes out there to remove.

As big a mess as hexes have been, I don't think you need to rework them entirely - but I do think you need to really hammer the biggest problems on those hexers. On Necromancers, that means that Faintheartedness needs to get hammered hard, and Reaper's Mark along with it. I think I've suggested a thorough gutting of Faintheartedness, one that, even after the suggestions, is still really good. Reaper's Mark should probably go to 10 energy as well - that's not a skill that will be missed if it drops out of competitive play.

On the Mesmer side of things, I think that hammering Mantra of Persistence fixes the entire character. None of those Illusion hexes are problematic when they last for their natural durations.

Now, certainly, you could suggest going further and really reworking hexes and making them entirely unplayable. I'd rather not see that, but rather I'd like to see them made expensive and thin enough that you could reasonably cut through the sticky hexes. I think that hitting those three skills, along with some of the more spammable chaff, would largely accomplish that goal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lacasner

What about buffs, lets mention that since nerfs are only half the problem.

That becomes relevant after the garbage has been cleared out. Rebalancing deep skills is important, but doesn't matter when you have to run it into Searingway or Paraway or some other buttonmash build.

I'll make another thread on that once I'm satisfied that I understand what the current problems are completely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by selber

Aegis: Simple solution - blockchance should scale with Protection Prayers from 10..42..48%.

Not to say that isn't a good change (you'd probably match Guardian's 20...50 with it), but I'll disagree with it as a priority nerf for two reasons. First, because we're discussing a lot of significant defensive nerfs here, and particularly defense against the 8v8, Warrior-based pressure that is so popular at the top of the ladder. Aegis is particularly good against that type of build, but surprisingly weak in a number of other situations, such as whenever you're split heavily, when you're facing a spike team, or against more caster heavy teams. So while it's really good against the best teams in general, it's disproportionately good there.

Second, the tools for dealing with Aegis are there, and people are used to fighting that war now. Most teams have a Ranger and often a Mesmer as well who spend time hunting Aegis. Mirror of Disenchantment is now an aggressively priced counter to Aegises that slip through (with some other uses as well). When there's so much uncounterable defense out there, the defenses with established counters aren't a priority.

That said, if that nerf was listed I'd nod my head and move on without any argument.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mokone

also, i want a MTouch fix.

It was fixed by the extra 2 seconds on the recharge. Reworking the skill to be useless below 8 Prot, but the old, too good version when at 8 prot, isn't fixing the skill, it's re-breaking the skill.

Mending Touch is better for the game as is - the more multiple removals that are available and playable, the better. I'd like to see more skills like Mending Touch in the game, until Restore Condition isn't nearly as essential as it is now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

Burning Arrow is not overpowered... its just the best thing a Ranger has going for it in competitive matches.

I wouldn't say that it's the best thing a Ranger has going for it, by a longshot. That's still reserved for Distracting Shot. What Burning Arrow is, however, is the only elite that allows a Ranger with an otherwise robust skill bar to deal a respectable amount of damage. All other Rangers are (strong) utility characters that rely on their teammates to actually kill anything. Burning Arrow Rangers, though weaker in a support role, can kill things with the use of that elite.

It's overpowered in as much as Rangers being able to kill things is overpowered.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaintGreg

Nerfing the block chance of aegis down by 10% or so is certainly a good start, but in my opinion it isn't enough. Of particular importance is the interaction with Glyph of Lesser Energy. If you want a team build with aegis, pushing it to the monks has very few drawbacks, because monks already are specced fairly heavily into protection, at the expense of a couple skill slots. At least aegis on an ele for example requires a moderate redistribution of attributes that do nothing besides power aegis.

You actually have this backwards. GLE/Aegis is a huge cost on most Monks, not just in terms of energy but time as well. GLE -> Aegis takes four and a half seconds to cast (barring a fast cast), and *still costs 10 energy* to put up with the new GLE. The time and energy spent putting up Aegis can be well worth it when a team is not under pressure, but quickly becomes a bad deal when you start being pressed. Similarly the skill slots are not trivial at all. Monk bars have always been some of the most pressed for space, even moreso now with all the different types of threats coming in.

Aegis on an Elementalist on the other hand is awesome. You have a super GLE on your bar anyway, and when pressure starts to mount your Aegis becomes the best one in the build. Unlike the Monks, who have to weigh the benefits of putting up Aegis against other, more pressing concerns, you get to put up Aegis on recharge without any troubles. A Monk is making choices between different types of defense with Aegis, and honestly Aegis doesn't compare terribly favorably to more active defenses under a lot of situations. On a midline caster, Aegis is a low attention ability that contributes directly and easily to the team defense, freeing up energy for your Monks to do other things.

I don't think that Aegis on Monks is a problem, at all. If you put pressure on the Monks, the Aegis stops and your physical offense gets amplified. It's a hard choice for a Monk to make. Aegis on midline characters on the other hand very likely is too good, and could use a bit of a nerf. Hence, the suggestion to make the block percentage scale works out perfectly. It does very little to affect the Aegis on a Monk, which is fine, but causes issues for the low specced Aegises that are distributed on a team.

Peace,
-CxE

sir lockt · Jun 01, 2007, 08:57 AM // 08:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

This post is probably going to scream "delete me!", but the thing to realize is that PvE "balance" is for the most part a joke. GW's skill set is simply too powerful and the monsters are too simple. That's why places like UW, one of the ultimate dungeons of the game, have been farmed bad by ridiculous builds like 55/SV.

PvE balance is easy. If monsters are too powerful after a skill tweak, you can just tweak their health points, or add or remove a couple spawns, and that's it. It tends to be made even easier by the fact that every fight is predictable, so there will always be some skill load-out that trumps it. Perhaps more importantly, there are numerous skills that only really bad players are affected by in PvP, but are the dominant factors in PvE balance if counter-balancing ever needs to be done. A good example would be Flashing Blades and Critical Defenses, which are of extremely questionable use in PvP, but are really the roots of Assassin viability in PvE.

PvE balance should be an afterthought, because it is EASY to just bolt PvE balance changes on top of whatever the PvP balance is at the time without conflict. If something is too powerful in PvE, nobody complains, because it just makes killing stuff easier. The reverse is not true. If an ability becomes too strong in PvP, it makes a mess of everything, and adding some overpowered counter to it is far from ideal

I agree with you on this. "nerfing" skills only increase the challenge you find in PvE. I would say that is a good thing. When things become unbeatable, adjust the environment.

On the aegis: Is a skill you require 2-3 copies of AND 1-2 copies of GoLE realy overpowered? Yes it is strong, but you have "wasted" 3-5 skill slots AND your secondary of a monk for it. While there are plenty of interupts and removals for it.

Ensign gives some very good balancing options. I believe they are worth it to be considered at least and a lot of them can be implemented right away.

Still i am not sure weather it is the skills that apply or if it is the condition Daze itself which is overpowered... any thoughts on that?

Zuranthium · Jun 01, 2007, 09:00 AM // 09:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

The problem is that ANet is going to wind up having to play whack-a-mole with IAS skills if they're not going to just kill the problem at the source.. Some are running Flurry because the base damage is so irrelevant anyway, some are running Flail because no one cares about a move debuff when your target has an even worse one, and even if you nerf all of the Strength IAS skills, they'll have Tiger's Fury and Whirling Charge.

Just kick Shadow Prison in the groin and get it over with.

All of the IAS skills could be fixed quite easily. You'll see more details about that when I post my listing of every single skill in the game that should be changed. Shadow Prison is a good skill that lets you make a LOT of different plays

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

When a class is given a huge amount of utility and offensive power under the assumption that they're going to be tethered by melee range, giving them the ability to do their thing from caster range breaks things very easily.

They can't totally do their thing from a range...they are still a melee class and time not spent attacking is pressure lost.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

The whole concept of a "solo-spiker" with the ability to engage from earshot range is ridiculous.

Well that's sorta what Assassins do. And this IS an RPG based game. I don't feel it's a game mechanic that is unworkable. Some things need to be tweaked, obviously.

~Z

Div · Jun 01, 2007, 09:12 AM // 09:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by manitoba1073

As I had said. They are good for the PvP and not so good for the PvE. And yes there is an impact. Lets see PvP is lvl 20 vs lvl 20 where as PvE in HM is lvl 20 vs lvl 24+ that is doing 50%+ faster attacks and everything.

Odd seems to me that PvP skills are also PvE skills unless I missed some memo that they made all skills seperate. Thus some discusion of the PvE side is warrented. Unless you would like to tell the PvPers to stay outa any PvE discussions?

Not only is your post off topic, it really doesn't do anything to back you up. My proposed change to scale block rate to 16...40...48% or 18...42...50% would actually not affect PvE play at all. Anyone who carries aegis is a prot monk, and they're more than likely going to have 15-16 protection prayers, meaning a 46-50% block rate depending on which scale you use.

And yes, most pure PvP'ers don't bother posting in PvE discussions because most of those "discussions" are so mindless and idiotic. The ones that do post generally play a high level of both PvE and PvP. What the mod wants is for people who have little to no idea of the whole picture of PvP to stay out of this argument because they aren't going to add anything insightful for fixing this badly balanced game.

See here for examples of some of the mindless discussions/ideas for PvE:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10163380
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10163086
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10163379

In fact, some of those ideas are so bad that even their fellow PvE'rs are mocking them!

oonly · Jun 01, 2007, 09:20 AM // 09:20

Assasin:

- Less energy gain form black lotus
- Black Spider Strike cost 10energy.

Siphon Speed maybe recharge 10s?

Luna Star · Jun 01, 2007, 12:17 PM // 12:17

BHA is like an infinite blackout once it sticks, forcing to bring a counter only encourages luck and build wars, making it's duration less doesn't affect it in pve in anyway, 10sec is more than enough.
As for aegis, scaling it is good, makes it usable on protect monks and less effective on non protect just like it should be.

Neo-LD · Jun 01, 2007, 12:44 PM // 12:44

@ Melody

I think you assumed that I would be against buffing other monk skills? Hardly. Minor buffs many monk skills, including almost every single-target protection spell in the game would make me very happy, especially coupled with the destruction of Aegis

Guardian --> 60%, SoA --> scaling by 8s instead of 5s, SH --> 25 damage prevented, and Spell Shield --> 5e, 12r, 1/4c, "for the next 3 seconds, target ally cannot take damage from spells," sound like good fixes to me.

@ Ensign

Sure, Aegis is counterable, but then again so is almost everything on your list. The simple fact is that the game would be much better if Aegis didnt exist. Monks would have to rely on single target prot spells which become steadily more powerful with better timing, awareness, and placement - rewarding player skill at its finest.

Patccmoi · Jun 01, 2007, 12:57 PM // 12:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

If you gave Aegis a scaling block rate you would make it effectively worthless at lower levels. Maybe the duration needs rescaling, like from 3-11 instead of 5-11 so at lower levels its not quite as long, but scaling block rate and its really not worth the 15e if its used at below 12 Prot.

I can understand keeping PvE in mind when balancing skills, though i agree that it should still not be a priority at all cause in PvE you always have tons of viable options.

But are you suggesting that it should be balanced around PRE LEVEL 20 PvE? Seriously this is ridiculous, there isn't a single pre-level 20 area that has any kind of challenge at all and you can clear them with about absolutely anything on your bar.

I also like the 'No Nearby range' on BHA. It's a pretty nice idea.

And Zuranthium, it doesn't matter that they're called Assassins or Ninja or Dagger Dude. If the solo spiking concept sucks and hurts the game more than it does good, it should go. Personally i'm fine with Assassins doing something like up to 80% damage on a target (the rest can go away through degen + auto-attack if there's no healing), but i really dislike the whole solo spiking concept. I'd MUCH rather see Assassins having a mix of high damage combos, but still not able to do 100% on normal health target (say make the bar at 500), but instead being given powerful shutdown abilities. Make Shroud of Silence usable for example. Maybe rework Wastrel's Collapse in a form of shutdown skill (if you don't use a skill you're knocked, if you use a skill X bad thing happens). Give them something to apply short duration daze at a good rate (Beguiling Haze could've been that instead of the kinda clumsy skill it is now that is overpriced but would be overpowered at a lower cost). For example Beguiling Haze could've been a 5-10E .25s touch interrupt on any skill with 10s recharge but causing 2..6s daze if it's a spell.

Strong, short duration shutdown with combos doing 50-80% of target's health would make an infinitely more interesting class than press 1 to 6 every 20s. With a significative buff to the Lead-Offhand-Dual combos (lots of decent suggestions are around) and a nerf to offhand-dual-offhand-dual (i think that just the nerfs Ensign suggested are enough) you could have something nice. BLS wouldn't be that required if other dagger skills were interesting and lead-dual-offhands were viable.

Give them a very basic shadowstep with a better recharge in Crit Strike (you know something like 'Shadowstep, 5/.25/15, teleport to target foe, 50% fail if Crit Strike < 5. A shadowstep skill could always be changed to that too) just so they can get to their target more efficiently for their touch shutdowns.

And note that all i asked for is mostly a bunch of buffs with only a slight nerf to the current SP sin setup. That and maybe kill Recall =p

And as for 'RPG' lore, Assassins can just as well be someone that disables his target and kills it in the meantime than a 'solo spike' guy. All that 'Assassin' implies is that they should be good at killing a target 1 on 1. But really i don't want to argue about that part as it's entirely secondary.

pah01 · Jun 01, 2007, 01:38 PM // 13:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

My opinion in the matter is that the problem with hex teams is more in the spam part of it than in there being strong hexes in the game. In particular, I have absolutely no problem with single, long lasting, but high cost, high recharge hexes being in the game. Taken on their own, I think that Price of Failure and Reckless Haste, for example, are perfectly reasonable hexes as is. What makes them problematic is the large amount of cheap, efficient garbage that floats around and gunks up all of your removal.

Do you think that a Necromancer with just Reckless Haste, Price of Failure, and Parasitic Bond is a problem? I don't think so, by a wide margin. He basically has two strong skills to use, that he can only really put on one person each (barring fast recharges). If those get pulled, the character is very weak. What makes the character too good is the number of super efficient, cheap shutdown and damage options available to it - namely, Faintheartedness and Reaper's Mark. Faintheartedness usually has three copies going concurrently, and the effect is insane - it's very efficient damage (close to 200 for 10 energy) plus a ton of damage mitigation from the slowdown. It's easily 2-3x as good as those other hexes. Reaper's Mark is similar, cheap, pretty spammable, does insanely efficient damage and like Faintheartedness, lasts forever and creates a sea of really efficient hexes out there to remove.

Single long lasting hexes just promotes passive play. If your hex is going to last 30 seconds you are just going to fire it off, cover it up and wait to reapply it.

Those hexes like price/spirit/reckless are usless without covers and as you put it - the large amount of "cheap, efficient garbage that gunks up your removal".

If you are going to nerf and rightly so the crap that is spammed on a hex team then those hexes will not stay on targets which makes them redundant. Long lasting long recharge hexes are useless if they are going to be reasonable to remove because the covering spam of hexes is removed.

You want hexes to have strong effects untill they are inevitably removed as are the blind/cripple conditions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

As big a mess as hexes have been, I don't think you need to rework them entirely - but I do think you need to really hammer the biggest problems on those hexers. On Necromancers, that means that Faintheartedness needs to get hammered hard, and Reaper's Mark along with it. I think I've suggested a thorough gutting of Faintheartedness, one that, even after the suggestions, is still really good. Reaper's Mark should probably go to 10 energy as well - that's not a skill that will be missed if it drops out of competitive play.

On the Mesmer side of things, I think that hammering Mantra of Persistence fixes the entire character. None of those Illusion hexes are problematic when they last for their natural durations.

Now, certainly, you could suggest going further and really reworking hexes and making them entirely unplayable. I'd rather not see that, but rather I'd like to see them made expensive and thin enough that you could reasonably cut through the sticky hexes. I think that hitting those three skills, along with some of the more spammable chaff, would largely accomplish that goal.

Blame and others are not suggesting the reworking of hexes to make them unplayable. What we are doing is trying to make them reward active play more, to make passive spamming pointless.

Joe

Blame the Monks · Jun 01, 2007, 03:09 PM // 15:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I don't buy the role argument for Paragons at all. ... A Paragon simply cannot match the offensive firepower of a Warrior, even if built to focus entirely upon that.

As I said before, I think critical hit rate is the main reason paragon DPS can't match a warrior. A secondary reason is that people don't try to make max DPS paragons because of role. Other than the crit rate, the DPS is similar -- flight time and slower attack speed is somewhat mitigated by less time chasing targets. And Paragon DPS SHOULD be lower than a warrior as there is less skill involved (less risk of a frenzy death, less risk of overextension, less skill in target switching) and more potential utility (hex remove, mirror, team buffs, etc). But in any event, my problem isn't comparing para to war, its comparing para to other midline.

Paragon DPS (and agg refrain) should be more comparable to other midline type toons, and atm I think it is too high. Of the equivalent midline that add teamwide buffs and utility (such as a weapon rit, a smiter, some eles) only the paragon can add significant DPS, can spike, and can still add lots of utility.

IMO, agg refrain should be priced to reflect this, and right now it is effectively free. I don't think your 6a is enough to make this hard to maintain. Anthem of flame alone is enough to have a permanent agg ref even if you never use an attack skill or land a hit. The fact that your eman (gfte or wy) also refreshes this gives you even more certain refresh makes it permanent and free. I can't think of a time I have ever lost agg ref in a gvg barring vocal, even with one para. FYI, we would usually run 12 leadership, which is a ~20 second aggref. But even at anything over 10 seconds, anthem spam should be adequate.

And finally, I agree with you 100% about discouraging defensive shouter packs. The echo mechanic encourages degenerate play and defensive shouters should be completely obliterated. At least Aegis is reasonably counterable with broad skills like mirror and interrupts. Defensive anthem, watch yourself, and shields up are just trash.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Do you think that a Necromancer with just Reckless Haste, Price of Failure, and Parasitic Bond is a problem? ... What makes the character too good is the number of super efficient, cheap shutdown and damage options available to it - namely, Faintheartedness and Reaper's Mark.

I see it differently. The damage of hexes is acceptable to me -- I have no problem with reaper, persistent phantasm, and so on. I don't think a team trying to degen a team out while making plays on the heal party spammer is imba at all. I don't see this as any more of a problem than the KGYU style teams were/are.

I think the problem is that current hexes can completely destroy a toon (specifically water spam, faint/reck/sof/pof, migraine), last forever, and can be buried so deep and spammed so fast they are unremoveable. The damage on top of that is great, but the real killer is the fact you can't do anything while the hexes are on you but you can't reasonably stop the spam or remove the spam. Plus I am generally against skills that are still effective even with spamming and not by intelligent use.

The damage hexes basically must be highly spammable and last forever to do any real damage. I can live with that, given the reality of hex removal as it currently exists. But what I think is a problem is long term shutdown in that mix as well -- the best solution imo is to hit the shutdown hexes -- specifically pof/sof/blur/water and to a lesser extent migraine and faint. These skills are fine as a short window shutdown, but not permanent. I would rather see skills like pof/sof/blur used like water/blinds used to be used -- precision shutdown that was largely wasted if spammed mindlessly. I think water needs a nerf as well, to prevent icelock, as I mentioned in other threads.

If that means scale up the effect of a sof/pof type skill, fine. I would rather see a short term, powerful hex that was used intelligently than a long term, reasonably low effect hex that is virtually unremovable and spammed.

Wasteland Squidget · Jun 01, 2007, 03:25 PM // 15:25

Paragon DPS can definitely be comparable to a warrior, and it's much easier to apply in some cases. However, that doesn't mean you can drop your warriors and dervishes for paragons, because you aren't bringing your warriors and dervishes for DPS alone.

Understand that it's very rarely DPS that causes a team to break. The things a melee character does to kill people - knockdowns, reliable spikes, and unconditional Deep Wounds - are all things a paragon is notoriously bad at.

Paragon DPS certainly has its place. It's great for supporting your warriors if you plan to play an agressive game, in much the same way the old KGYU build supported warriors with mass ranger degen. However, paragons will need a lot more than DPS before you can think about replacing your melees with them. Reasonably strong disruption and skirmish capability would both be a requirement, and the skills to make that happen just don't exist right now.

lacasner · Jun 01, 2007, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Siphon Speed maybe recharge 10s?

signed, this thing is overpowered.

Quote:

I think the problem is that current hexes can completely destroy a toon (specifically water spam, faint/reck/sof/pof, migraine), last forever, and can be buried so deep and spammed so fast they are unremoveable. The damage on top of that is great, but the real killer is the fact you can't do anything while the hexes are on you but you can't reasonably stop the spam or remove the spam. Plus I am generally against skills that are still effective even with spamming and not by intelligent use.

I agree, that's why deny and divert hexes needs to become 1337 with the next update. Maybe even we can see a return of blight....

lacasner · Jun 01, 2007, 03:56 PM // 15:56

Corrupt enchantment I think is too strong..combine this with web of disruption..plus cover hexes..It may need some toning down. Also, cripslash I think is a bit too spammable, maybe to change the order of bleed+cripple conditions. Any thoughts on these skills?

Orphan Anthem · Jun 01, 2007, 04:44 PM // 16:44

My thots on aegis is Mirrior of Disenchantment and other interupts were created aswell as a GoLE nerf, leave aegis alone. On the other hand Defensive Anthem, generally we find if we can't deal with it in a timly manner it becomes a really big problem. No nerf to Soldier's Defense? for shame the recharge too fast for the number of viable counters there is. i dislike the whole daze mechanic all together, its too powerful. maybe something like 50% chance to inteurpt on hit would be much better then ballancing out the cost/recharge/duration

Zuranthium · Jun 01, 2007, 04:59 PM // 16:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

And Zuranthium, it doesn't matter that they're called Assassins or Ninja or Dagger Dude. If the solo spiking concept sucks and hurts the game more than it does good, it should go. Personally i'm fine with Assassins doing something like up to 80% damage on a target (the rest can go away through degen + auto-attack if there's no healing), but i really dislike the whole solo spiking concept. I'd MUCH rather see Assassins having a mix of high damage combos, but still not able to do 100% on normal health target (say make the bar at 500)

An Assassin combo DOES already do about 80% damage (unless you use black spider, horns, black lotus, blades of steel, impale). You shouldn't have 500 Health if you've got no DP and are at 100%

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

And note that all i asked for is mostly a bunch of buffs with only a slight nerf to the current SP sin setup.

I'm in agreeance with this. I've been tired of seeing nothing but that build for quite some time. I'd only say it's overpowered, however, when you bring Recall as a full radar teleport on certain maps into consideration. To make things less stale, though, definitely kill the IAS stances for Assassins and change Black Lotus Strike so that it's a bit less damage and +energy from a single hit, but has an 8 second recharge. It shouldn't be killed as energy management utility.

~Z

Evilsod · Jun 01, 2007, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I wouldn't say that it's the best thing a Ranger has going for it, by a longshot. That's still reserved for Distracting Shot. What Burning Arrow is, however, is the only elite that allows a Ranger with an otherwise robust skill bar to deal a respectable amount of damage. All other Rangers are (strong) utility characters that rely on their teammates to actually kill anything. Burning Arrow Rangers, though weaker in a support role, can kill things with the use of that elite.

It's overpowered in as much as Rangers being able to kill things is overpowered.

I was talking about elites and builds in general not individual skills.

Burning Arrow gives +31 damage. A generous amount when compared with other Marksmanship skills. It then relies entirely on its degen and Apply Poison. The problem is more often than not i see the BA Gankers chaining it with Distracting Shot to interrupt the innevitable Mending Touch. What gets me is why people don't time the Mending Touch to activate at almost the instant BA hits, reducing it to nothing and avoiding the Distracting Shot. Simple things like that and BA loses its damage output almost completely.

Rangers are been completely shunned out of PvP. At least Bow Rangers are anyway. My last look at HA. Several RaO Thumpers. Several RaO Scythe. Several Spirit Spammers. Several Trappers. Other than for spiking nobody gives a shit about Bow Rangers in HA. Yet you seem to think that just because Burning Arrow gives Rangers a decent method of killing it deserves to be nerfed? I expected a little more from you Ensign... BA doesn't need nerfing. The rest of the damn line needs buffing. The only reason people don't like BA is because its the only decent skill for damage Rangers have available. Paragons have a higher DPS than Rangers without even trying, along with a much better teamwide utlity base. The entire bow line is in desperate need of a buff so it will actually cause damage outside of spiking with Glass/Conjure. Half of the skills are completely useless compared to the ones from Nightfall and half have always been useless. Conditions are the only thing a Ranger has going for it thanks to poor +damage and an even poorer refire.

Xioden · Jun 01, 2007, 05:14 PM // 17:14

Aegis nerf I have to sortof raise an eyebrow at. Sure it's an "easy" skill, but its far from stoppable as many people have pointed out.

BHA/Concussion: Do people only run a single condition removal? Really should have a non-mending touch Condition removal anyway to help for nasty conditions (ie. dazed). Not to mention if you happen to run into a mesmer with Either diversion or Signet of humility your in some trouble from the condtions that will be thrown around anyway.

For Soul reaping, I think I'd prefer a modified of the current version. For example at 10 soul reaping you could now get 10 energy every 5 seconds. But instead of having a solid 5 second rule, and having something dieing 4 seconds after the last one yield no energy at all, have it yield a percentage.
0 seconds = kill for 10 energy
1 second later = kill worth 2 energy
2 seconds later = kill worth 4 energy
5 seconds later kill worth full 10 energy again
etc.
Possibly also adding a minimum of 1 damage per kill (for the event multiples die at once). A change like this fixes it so that energy comes from anything that dies, and also doesn't have an artificial time limitation.