Curse

Ensign · May 15, 2007, 08:27 AM // 08:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by cookiemonkie

For the hexes I think it really boils down to there being a need the for buffing non elite (which are a fine target of signet of humility) hex removal skills. Start by reducing Monk's hex removal skills from 12 secs down to 10 seconds and see what happens. If thats inadequate.. move it down to 9, 8 seconds.

I honestly don't think it matters that much.

For everything that you put on or remove in Guild Wars, the magic number is two. Anything that goes on as a singleton is ephemeral, relatively easy and quick to be dealt with. Two, however, is consistently problematic. If I put a single condition on a target, it can and will be pulled off relatively quickly from the abundant, efficient removal. Put on two conditions, something nasty covered by anything else (commonly: Crippling Slash, "You're All Alone!", Broad Head Arrow or Crippling Shot + Apply Poison) and you have a nasty affliction that cannot be easily dealt with. Enchantment work in a similar fashion. Putting up a naked Attunement in PvP will, in several matchups, leave you at the mercy of whatever removal is available. A simple cover enchantment (such as the ever-present speed buffs), or even something simply like flashing Aegises, will make that Attunement stick consistently. Then, you have hexes. Single hexes can be adequately addressed by spot removals, Holy Veils or otherwise. Toss a simple Parabond into the mix, and spot removal becomes useless. You're stuck having to use cumbersome mass removals (Purge Signet), or specialized removal elites.

Removals that address two are incredibly powerful - look at Mending Touch. Hitting the problem and the cover is vital.

Every build that wants to use important enchantments, conditions, or hexes will cover those hexes and make single removals worthless. Without answers that can deal with two problems in one shot, and are *priced* to deal with two, you're going to continue to have the same problems with forcing status effects.

Peace,
-CxE

Patccmoi · May 15, 2007, 01:24 PM // 13:24

Alright, Ensign and Squidget make good points and i see how it wouldn't really change much. I was mostly thinking in terms not really of pressuring but like not going below 50% chance to hit to still have a chance with interrupts, etc. Clearly a warrior with 50% miss won't be able to do his job well, but he'd still have a chance to have some utility skill working. But your points are good and in the end it might really not have much.

For hex stack there's another solution suggestion someone made on gwo to tweak hex removal so that they're more powerful against hex stacking that i thought was a good idea. I don't remember his exact suggestions, but for example you could have:

Expel Hexes : remove 2 hexes, if target is still hexed recharge 50% faster.

Convert Hexes : 15/1/30, remove all hexes from target. For each hex removed, this skill recharges 5s faster (so for 2 hexes it'd be same as it is now, for 3+ it would recharge faster).

Smite Hex : deal x..x damage + x..x damage per hex remaining on target.

Remove Hex : Remove hex from target, for each hex remaining you gain 1E.

Etc. Ofc the specifics could be tweaked.

Do you think this kind of idea would help more? It wouldn't make hex removal more powerful against single hexes or even 2 hexes so hex + cover hex would still work well, but if a team just stack massive hexes on a target you'd have better tools to deal with it a bit more efficiently or punish them a bit. Kinda similar to the idea of Mend Ailment that heals for big amount if they stack conditions (but ofc you have RC that's better and most people just carry that).

Possibly along with some change to curses ofc.

pah01 · May 15, 2007, 02:39 PM // 14:39

maybe it is about time there would be a "draw hexes".

Draw conditions makes it pointless to stack conditions on melee in 8v8.

remmeh · May 15, 2007, 04:16 PM // 16:16

haha... Draw Hexes... that one made me giggle.

Not Prime Time · May 15, 2007, 05:59 PM // 17:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I love it when people say "Don't bring builds that are reliant on melee to kill" as if an alternative exists.

I'd rather do that than have the mechanics hacked. It's been proven over and over that we are better off if changes are not made to the game and especially the mechanics.

Sabe · May 15, 2007, 07:09 PM // 19:09

Reapers mark necros are the reason

Wasteland Squidget · May 15, 2007, 08:39 PM // 20:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sabe

Reapers mark necros are the reason

Reaper's Mark is a cool degen skill that gives that guy an offensive elite and sends him into overdrive when things start dying. However, degen skills don't kill people. Having your offense permanently shut down while a ranger, a mesmer, and two warriors destroy your backline is what kills people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Not Prime Time

I'd rather do that than have the mechanics hacked. It's been proven over and over that we are better off if changes are not made to the game and especially the mechanics.

Neither of those sentences made a bit of sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

For hex stack there's another solution suggestion someone made on gwo to tweak hex removal so that they're more powerful against hex stacking that i thought was a good idea. I don't remember his exact suggestions, but for example you could have:

Expel Hexes : remove 2 hexes, if target is still hexed recharge 50% faster.

Convert Hexes : 15/1/30, remove all hexes from target. For each hex removed, this skill recharges 5s faster (so for 2 hexes it'd be same as it is now, for 3+ it would recharge faster).

Smite Hex : deal x..x damage + x..x damage per hex remaining on target.

Remove Hex : Remove hex from target, for each hex remaining you gain 1E.

Etc. Ofc the specifics could be tweaked.

Do you think this kind of idea would help more?

All that's doing is adding some neat secondary effects to hex removals. You might gain some energy or deal some extra damage, but only Expel and Convert actually get any better at removing hexes. Since hexes still need to come off before you can threaten the enemy team, this change wouldn't have that much of an effect.

Understand that massive hex stacks aren't usually the problem, even when you're fighting hex builds. Ideally, a hex build doesn't want to stack more than 2-3 hexes on a target at any given time. If they stack 6 hexes on one guy, they lose a huge amount of resources when you Convert, but if it's just Faint + Parabond the hexers come out ahead. You had to use your mass removal, and they still have tons of energy to spam out another debilitating shutdown hex.

I don't think you can fix hexes by messing around with the removal skills. The problem with hexes is in the hex skills themselves, mainly inequality of effects combined with long-duration shutdown. Hex removal has always been a bandaid over the problem, and now that hexes are powerful enough to see serious play, all of their inherent design problems have come to light.

TheOneMephisto · May 15, 2007, 08:43 PM // 20:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

For hex stack there's another solution suggestion someone made on gwo to tweak hex removal so that they're more powerful against hex stacking that i thought was a good idea. I don't remember his exact suggestions, but for example you could have:

Expel Hexes : remove 2 hexes, if target is still hexed recharge 50% faster.

Convert Hexes : 15/1/30, remove all hexes from target. For each hex removed, this skill recharges 5s faster (so for 2 hexes it'd be same as it is now, for 3+ it would recharge faster).

Smite Hex : deal x..x damage + x..x damage per hex remaining on target.

Remove Hex : Remove hex from target, for each hex remaining you gain 1E.

Etc. Ofc the specifics could be tweaked.

Do you think this kind of idea would help more? It wouldn't make hex removal more powerful against single hexes or even 2 hexes so hex + cover hex would still work well, but if a team just stack massive hexes on a target you'd have better tools to deal with it a bit more efficiently or punish them a bit. Kinda similar to the idea of Mend Ailment that heals for big amount if they stack conditions (but ofc you have RC that's better and most people just carry that).

Possibly along with some change to curses ofc.

The thing is that most good teams don't make huge monster stacks of hexes. I'd say 3 hexes is usually the max amount of hexes on a character, as most of the time spreading around your hexes combined with a lot of covers makes mass removal less effective, making life in general harder on the other team.

EDIT: Squidget beat me. However, I'd like to emphasize that you don't beat hexes by trying to remove them. You beat hexes by actively disrupting/interrupting them, by splitting, by making sure that they can't get the hexes off in the first place. You generally only want to rely on removal for whatever leaks through and the stuff that isn't worth getting covered (diversion, ice snares).

Phades · May 16, 2007, 01:01 AM // 01:01

Heh, it would be nice if they had skills that did removals for the "oldest" condition/hex/enchantment, instead of forcing us to only have the choice of brute force through mass removal from the top and cause the user to choose where to lie the bait giving more depth to the whole stacking issue.

Of course this doesnt solve the "overloading" problem at all really, but it would add depth in an area that previously did not exist. Months back i was considering a write up of similar changes, but somehwere along the line i lost interest.

cookiemonkie · May 16, 2007, 04:01 AM // 04:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I honestly don't think it matters that much.

For everything that you put on or remove in Guild Wars, the magic number is two. Anything that goes on as a singleton is ephemeral, relatively easy and quick to be dealt with. Two, however, is consistently problematic. If I put a single condition on a target, it can and will be pulled off relatively quickly from the abundant, efficient removal. Put on two conditions, something nasty covered by anything else (commonly: Crippling Slash, "You're All Alone!", Broad Head Arrow or Crippling Shot + Apply Poison) and you have a nasty affliction that cannot be easily dealt with. Enchantment work in a similar fashion. Putting up a naked Attunement in PvP will, in several matchups, leave you at the mercy of whatever removal is available. A simple cover enchantment (such as the ever-present speed buffs), or even something simply like flashing Aegises, will make that Attunement stick consistently. Then, you have hexes. Single hexes can be adequately addressed by spot removals, Holy Veils or otherwise. Toss a simple Parabond into the mix, and spot removal becomes useless. You're stuck having to use cumbersome mass removals (Purge Signet), or specialized removal elites.

Removals that address two are incredibly powerful - look at Mending Touch. Hitting the problem and the cover is vital.

Every build that wants to use important enchantments, conditions, or hexes will cover those hexes and make single removals worthless. Without answers that can deal with two problems in one shot, and are *priced* to deal with two, you're going to continue to have the same problems with forcing status effects.

Peace,
-CxE

Great point, currently the only non-elite tools in the monk line is purge signet and deny hexes. As an alternative to removing multiple hexes at a higher energy cost. Perhaps ANet should buff Remove Hex to remove 2 hexes since it has a 2 second cast and increase the recharge time, keeping the energy cost at 5. Deny Hexes along with other hex removal skills get a slightly faster recharge. This would mean teams would be running the skill on fast cast mesmers instead, which is better than having Expel Hexes disabled by Signet of Humility.

Riotgear · May 16, 2007, 05:25 AM // 05:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I love it when people say "Don't bring builds that are reliant on melee to kill" as if an alternative exists.

Sounds like the Grenth argument all over again.

EDIT -- Maybe I'm an idiot, but why didn't this sort of stuff appear before? Faint, Reckless, Price, Blurred and their ilk haven't seen any changes, using spirit spam to keep curses necros powering out crap has always been a possibility, so.... what changed?

cookiemonkie · May 16, 2007, 07:58 AM // 07:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Sounds like the Grenth argument all over again.

EDIT -- Maybe I'm an idiot, but why didn't this sort of stuff appear before? Faint, Reckless, Price, Blurred and their ilk haven't seen any changes, using spirit spam to keep curses necros powering out crap has always been a possibility, so.... what changed?

It namely because the water and fire eles have more spammable hexes at lower cost now. Mark of Rodgart, Freezing Gust, Frozen Burst, Icy Shackles. Hex Removals have always been weak, its at the breaking point now. As mentioned above, I really think ANET could rework Remove Hex to be usable again and reduce the cycle times to allow hex removals to be in line with the additional hex pressure from the water eles.

TheOneMephisto · May 16, 2007, 08:54 PM // 20:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

EDIT -- Maybe I'm an idiot, but why didn't this sort of stuff appear before? Faint, Reckless, Price, Blurred and their ilk haven't seen any changes, using spirit spam to keep curses necros powering out crap has always been a possibility, so.... what changed?

Hexes overall have also become more powerful. Reaper's mark and the such is such a powerful build, and much better than the old-school OoB powered blood spammer.

However, I think the main thing is the ability to incorporate really good split templates into a hex build. It use to be that against a hex build you could just split 4-4 and GG, but now that 4-4 splits don't really work, and hex builds usually have a runner/BA ranger/warrior combo that can effectively defend against any split you send their way, splits don't counter hexes nearly as effectively as they use to.

Oh, and LoD is so much easier to counter than prodigy-powered HPs.

Sol Is Pyrrhus · May 16, 2007, 11:19 PM // 23:19

In my opinion, nothing changed. New skills came out, professions got reworked, and wala, imabalanced skills come to light. Spearmen were running hexes back in October, and as bad as we were at GvG, we managed to beat [tag] and a few other top guilds, and that was just bringing the build we were using in HA directly to GvG.