Curse

Frank Dudenstein · Jan 03, 2007, 03:28 PM // 15:28

You really don't want to mess with the skill much or you will kill it completely. As it stands now, though a Thumper is a really strong pressure threat, he adds absolutely nothing else to a team ... no defense, utility, nothing ... so it's hard for a good team to justify a slot. Not to mention the afformentioned counters (pet dp, stability, vod, etc).

The one thing I can't figure out about this mess ... why all the hubub over RaO and virtually none over Wild Blow? Here is a skill that is making stances obsolete ... and it's totally screwed up. A Warrior skill that is terrible on a Warrior and godly on a Dervish? WTF???

If Wild Blow is dealt with (fit in a strength requirement and you lose 4..2 adren), then you can make RaO a stance and that's all you need to do!

twicky_kid · Jan 03, 2007, 03:50 PM // 15:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

Sorry but this quote is too funny. If I'm reading it correctly, this is statement is made in order to refute the strength of a searing/thumps/cspacebarspamathon ftw build. But did you read what you typed? A guild ran this "heavily flawed" build the ENTIRE SEASON and finished in the top 32.

At the risk of stating the obvious, your statement actually proves the contrary.

Exactly how did Moa Birds do in the tournament? They finished 24th out of 32. When you rely on these type of builds to farm your way into the tournament you are going to get stomped every time.

Every season some guilds get to the tournament by running gimmicks then its game time they get beat by the teams that ran more balanced less gimmicky builds. This season being an exception as spike is usually considered a gimmick.

Moa Birds are not exactly bad players. They have been a top 50 presence in the game for a long time. Last season they ran the thump/death gimmick so its very easy to adjust that same strategy to the thump/SF. Getting into the tournament with this very flawed build does show their play skill but when it comes to tournament play anything with mesmers will dominate any gimmicks.

Back to RaO I think its fine the way it is. SF is outputing most of the dmg not the thumpers. Thumpers are more of a type of shutdown forcing you to kite and KD. Compared to the old thumper RaO is nothing. If it doesn't match the old one then don't mess with it.

Orange Milk · Jan 03, 2007, 04:10 PM // 16:10

Yup yup, PLENTY of stuff out there that can not be stripped/removed.

Rits have tons of em, Weapons spells and holding of an item, cant stop either one.

RaO is a good build, but if you don't know how to use it its worthless. It takes skill to time your KD and Beast Maul to get the Daze, unless earth bind is around.

SF, well yeah, "C" or "T"+ Spacebar, click "SF", OMG so hard to get the hang of.

There are ALOT of counters to a RaO build, its lack of a self heal and no defenses for one, pressure the monk, and the RaO can go down easy. Other counters have been mentioned.

Its fine the way it is. The Derv is already getting more playing time and I'm sure it will contiune.

Many, Many, Many other things need the nerf bat.

Xenex Xclame · Jan 03, 2007, 04:25 PM // 16:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by taxed

Maybe something like "you cannot gain Adrenaline while under the effects of RaO" or only gain 1/2 adrenaline....

Its Rampage as One not Rage as One

( i know typo)
I understand that you are just trying to get a middle line in the situtation but your idea ( in my opinion) doesnt make sense , if this would ever happen it would be something like "This skill ends if you use and adrenaline skill"

Skills that have those lines should only be for Classes that have use for adrenaline , so in other words only Warrior and Paragon,it doesnt make sense to do it on rangers, and to tell you the truth i dont find it fair either.

But typing this i got an idea, people find it being a skill without activation being too powerrfull cause you cant do anything to it ( or so they say , you can always use sig of humiliation)

If it were made a stance people think it woudnt be worth it cause it be too easy to wild blow it away.

Then why not make it a Shout?
Like all the other pet skills.
There are counters against a shout being made but it still would have its strong part of not being able to be stripped if put up,which seems to be why people dont want it to be a stance cause it could be to easy to remove.

Iif a necro had vocal minority and saw when the thumper used RaO he would know that it would be ready to use in 20 seconds and the thumper wanting RaO up all the time is likely to use it as soon as its ready, so the Necro Vocal minority the Thumper, bang thumper cant shout,but heres the sweet part , vocal has a 1 sec cast so a interupt ranger or mesmer could catch it , so its fair game for both sides.

So what you think of that idea?

taxed · Jan 03, 2007, 04:45 PM // 16:45

Limiting Adrenaline gain would put the skill where it belongs, with Beast Masters. As you said, why does a Ranger need Adrenaline anyway?

IMHO a Ranger should not be better at being a Hammer Warrior than a Hammer Warrior. RaO accomplishes this. This build runs faster, attacks faster and has no downtime. There is no way a Hammer Warrior can apply pressure in this way. Not only that but because of the restrictive energy cost, a Warrior cannot use this skill to better himself. The lowly warrior is stuck with Sprint or Rush, and for IAS...they well kinda suck for warriors. RaO grants the same boost as Frenzy, without the drawback of taking double damage. A-net seems to think so as well because recent Ranger nerfs have directly targeted Thumpers.

Another thought: Add some clauses to abused Ranger skills that goes like this: This skill is not effected by Expertise.

Or use the clause: Lose All Energy on activation.

rezabm · Jan 03, 2007, 04:56 PM // 16:56

Make it last shorter duration but refresh it when pet hits by Pet Attack. Kill or blind pet and RaO is gone sooner.

Divineshadows · Jan 03, 2007, 05:11 PM // 17:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank Dudenstein

As it stands now, though a Thumper is a really strong pressure threat, he adds absolutely nothing else to a team ... no defense, utility, nothing ... so it's hard for a good team to justify a slot. Not to mention the afformentioned counters (pet dp, stability, vod, etc).

Rampage thumpers using disrupting lunge and distracting blow provide a lot of utility to the team and can bolster your defense if the interrupts are used to attack in the right areas. Rampage thumpers running beastial mauling and irresistable blow are more about pressure and damage and have little utility toward the defense aside from being able to force one of their offensive characters to kite (which I think you have highly undervalued).

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Back to RaO I think its fine the way it is. SF is outputing most of the dmg not the thumpers. Thumpers are more of a type of shutdown forcing you to kite and KD. Compared to the old thumper RaO is nothing. If it doesn't match the old one then don't mess with it.

I'm sorry, but this statement is just patently wrong. The ferocious strike and enraged lunge thumpers using tiger's fury and irresistible blow before they were nerfed certainly had a better spiking ability than a rampage as one thumper, but keep in mind that the pet did not have an increased attack space unless you used call of haste which those thumpers did not have room on their bar to use. To non-kiting targets, the extra DPS from ferocious or enraged lunge and more damage from irresistible blow in its pre-nerf form breaks about even with the extra DPS from additional pet auto-attacks on the non-kiting target.

So while the DPS is about the same to non-kiting targets, the pre-Nightfall thumpers had a much better spiking ability. In reality, though, you do not face non-kiting targets against good teams. The old thumpers got absolutely destroyed by good kiters unless they used run as one or bull's strike, which meant their spike ability went down cause they would have to drop the skill in their only free slot which was something like irresistible blow or disrupting lunge to include run as one or bull's strike. Also, run as one's duration and recharge pale in comparison to rampage as one.

Rampage thumpers are not merely a form of shutdown that forces you to kite and even then they will still get hits in on you while kiting. Their DPS to a non-kiter is about the same as the searing flames ele that are behind them in a GvG match. You view it as shutdown because they get you kiting and then blast you with multiple copies of searing flames. I feel the only reason that you believe that the pre-Nightfall thumpers were more powerful is because there was no blinding surge and no shield of absorption.

As for the adjustment to make to rampage as one, I think that the best suggestion offered so far is to have the skill end whenever your pet dies. Also, shaving about 3 seconds off the duration would help reduce its power a bit without killing the skill.

Meatloaf_man · Jan 03, 2007, 08:26 PM // 20:26

i say the skill should have an activation time of a second or two. that way it is possible to interupt, and leaves time to the target to kite a bit.

Wasteland Squidget · Jan 03, 2007, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by taxed

Back to Rage Against One for a second...
What if the skill was nerfed with relation to Adrenaline, rather than Energy? Keep the skill viable for Beast Master Rangers, and kill it for thumpers.

Except that beast mastery rangers aren't viable to begin with. I don't know what you think 'normal' use of this skill is, but nobody has seriously used it on anything but a thumper.

This mostly stems back to bows being a horrible weapon with a few really powerful tricks like Distracting Shot. Beast mastery is obviously designed to support weapon autoattacks, but the rangers' primary weapon isn't at all viable for killing things, so you have to go into /W and the rest is history.

Seltack · Jan 03, 2007, 11:09 PM // 23:09

It's pretty effective with a R/P pack hunter from playing/facing it a fair amount in HvH, but no in real pvp it hasn't been used for anything but thumpers.

And conceptually R/P spear chuckers with RaO are just as bad as R/W with hammers, they aren't pure BMs.

Wasteland Squidget · Jan 04, 2007, 01:26 AM // 01:26

The idea that every skill should be viable only on a character entirely focused around the skill's attribute line goes against everything I know about Guild Wars. A lot of lines are obviously built as support - you can't make a Shadow Arts character or an Inspiration character anymore than you can make a pure beastmaster. The line just isn't built to stand on its own, as evidenced by skills like Tiger's Fury and Rampage as One.

If bows are ever made decent as damage tools, you'll probably see rangers with bows and pets, which I guess is what some of you want. Until then, you'll see rangers using beastmastery with the weapons that are actually good.

twicky_kid · Jan 04, 2007, 03:14 AM // 03:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

I'm sorry, but this statement is just patently wrong. The ferocious strike and enraged lunge thumpers using tiger's fury and irresistible blow before they were nerfed certainly had a better spiking ability than a rampage as one thumper, but keep in mind that the pet did not have an increased attack space unless you used call of haste which those thumpers did not have room on their bar to use. To non-kiting targets, the extra DPS from ferocious or enraged lunge and more damage from irresistible blow in its pre-nerf form breaks about even with the extra DPS from additional pet auto-attacks on the non-kiting target.

No its not wrong at all. The old thumpers had snares to back them up. Even without the pet IAS the old thumper would rock the new one. The old thumper had plenty of energy to spam IB all day long, charged adren faster, and never had a down time.

RaO runs out of energy, cannot spam IB constantly, and is still subject to snares just like the old thumper was.

Because of the run boost on RaO most teams do not bring snares which would really increase their DPS. The snare ele and blind bot were turned into SF spammers.

When the game shifts back towards pressure thumpers will have to compete with the dervish for that offensive spot. Dervish will win that battle hands down. Not as many weaknesses and is very adaptable. Any change to RaO would only hasten this shift.

Nemesis of the Void · Jan 04, 2007, 08:37 AM // 08:37

the skill has too many obvious counters. ppl will soon catch on soon if not already like they did with sf. 1 good mesmer can make all the difference

Patccmoi · Jan 04, 2007, 07:34 PM // 19:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

When the game shifts back towards pressure thumpers will have to compete with the dervish for that offensive spot. Dervish will win that battle hands down. Not as many weaknesses and is very adaptable

Is it actually bad that a melee class designed for pressure is more versatile at it than a class using its secondary weapons and all (which always limits your skill bar usually)?

Thumpers honestly aren't that much of a problem in GvG, but in TA, HA and the rest pet DP isn't much of a problem, you don't have THAT much time to DP pets, and Thumpers against weaker backlines are simply devastating atm. And even if it wasn't a Thumper, RaO is just a really crazy skill and it doesn't make much sense to be able to keep it up permanently and have it unstrippable (directly if it's a stance or indirectly if it ended on pet dead).

Atm people are only seeing Thumpers and nothing else when looking at the skill, but keep in mind that as more skills are added (or balanced so that skills previously weak become strong), maybe classes, etc. a skill as powerful as RaO will ALWAYS have the potential of being problematic. And it will either make the other skills balanced to be sub-par without it (which is horrible for build variety) or lead to problematic builds that are borderline (or flatout) overpowered. I think it's better to fix RaO than to have everything else eventually balanced around it and likely hurt tons of other skills that way.

Divineshadows · Jan 04, 2007, 08:32 PM // 20:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

No its not wrong at all. The old thumpers had snares to back them up. Even without the pet IAS the old thumper would rock the new one. The old thumper had plenty of energy to spam IB all day long, charged adren faster, and never had a down time.

This is not a fair comparison at all. To say the old thumpers are more effective than the new thumpers simply because teams used snares to back the old ones but don't use snares to back the new ones is ludicrous. Gale is a very powerful snare and is very commonly used in TA to increase the damage output of rampage thumpers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

RaO runs out of energy, cannot spam IB constantly, and is still subject to snares just like the old thumper was.

IB on a rampage thumper sucks anyway and ever since the nerf to damage and recharge is of questionable use on a hammer warrior. The rampage thumper can afford to pack utility in 2 slots that were freed up from not having to take tiger's fury and irresistible blow. Distracting blow and disrupting lunge make for excellent utility.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Because of the run boost on RaO most teams do not bring snares which would really increase their DPS. The snare ele and blind bot were turned into SF spammers.

The snare/blind ele was only turned into SF spammers because teams were more interested in winning or losing matches fast rather than running a control build that could win them a higher percentage of matches.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

When the game shifts back towards pressure thumpers will have to compete with the dervish for that offensive spot. Dervish will win that battle hands down. Not as many weaknesses and is very adaptable. Any change to RaO would only hasten this shift.

As much as I like using dervishes, nothing comes close to rampage as one in terms of damage output in a 4v4 environment. Reaper's sweep and dragon slash are the closest options in terms of DPS and offer a better spike, but both lost to RaO in terms of sheer pressure. While RaO may not be that big of an issue in the 8v8 GvG format, it is king in TA and hero battles. Hero battles even more so since pets do not get DP there. I have a feeling that A-net will, at some time, be doing skill balances based off of both GvG and Hero battles since they have decided to commit a ladder to Hero battles. If that is the case, then RaO will be touched. If not in the skill balance that should be happening any day now, then in some later skill balance. In fact, if A-net does intend to balance skills for 4v4 and 8v8, then they are taking on quite a task. Certain skills such as RaO and ZB are clearly overpowered in TA, so I suspect they are also clearly overpowered in Hero battles. For 8v8, you seem to think that RaO is fine and I suspect that ZB is actually slightly underpowered for 8v8 or at the very least balanced properly. In other cases, certain skills lose power when examined in 4v4 and comparing them to 8v8. Shouts are a good example of this. You simply have less players on your team to benefit from the shouts. The whole concept of leadership as energy management for paragons doesn't work too well either in 4v4. The max return you can get in TA from shouts is +4 energy, so unless you are using leadership for the scaling on some important skill there is absolutely no reason to go beyond 8 leadership in TA. It is not coincidence that paragons are practically never seen in TA.

twicky_kid · Jan 05, 2007, 02:13 AM // 02:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

As much as I like using dervishes, nothing comes close to rampage as one in terms of damage output in a 4v4 environment. Reaper's sweep and dragon slash are the closest options in terms of DPS and offer a better spike, but both lost to RaO in terms of sheer pressure. While RaO may not be that big of an issue in the 8v8 GvG format, it is king in TA and hero battles. Hero battles even more so since pets do not get DP there. I have a feeling that A-net will, at some time, be doing skill balances based off of both GvG and Hero battles since they have decided to commit a ladder to Hero battles. If that is the case, then RaO will be touched. If not in the skill balance that should be happening any day now, then in some later skill balance. In fact, if A-net does intend to balance skills for 4v4 and 8v8, then they are taking on quite a task. Certain skills such as RaO and ZB are clearly overpowered in TA, so I suspect they are also clearly overpowered in Hero battles. For 8v8, you seem to think that RaO is fine and I suspect that ZB is actually slightly underpowered for 8v8 or at the very least balanced properly. In other cases, certain skills lose power when examined in 4v4 and comparing them to 8v8. Shouts are a good example of this. You simply have less players on your team to benefit from the shouts. The whole concept of leadership as energy management for paragons doesn't work too well either in 4v4. The max return you can get in TA from shouts is +4 energy, so unless you are using leadership for the scaling on some important skill there is absolutely no reason to go beyond 8 leadership in TA. It is not coincidence that paragons are practically never seen in TA.

No skill balance has ever been done because it was overpowered in a 4v4 format. Skill balances are only done when they affect GvG, HA, and farming.

I wouldn't hold my breath to get a skill balance based on its use in TA.

As for hero battles that will never be balanced because that is all a relationshiip between the AI and skills. I use Rao in HvH battles and most of the time I have to use it manually on my heroes as it is not a high priority skills due the high energy cost. The AI will choose a lower energy cost skill over the higher cost more often.

Agyar · Jan 05, 2007, 07:11 AM // 07:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

Competitive RaO Thumper builds do not use Whirling Defense.

Changing it to a stance would either destroy it as a skill (have your Dervish Wild Blow them every time they put it up), or would require a complete rework of cost/duration.

Simply: Have it end when your pet dies.

This hit the nail on the head. Quoted for truth and all that.

TheOneMephisto · Jan 05, 2007, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

No skill balance has ever been done because it was overpowered in a 4v4 format. Skill balances are only done when they affect GvG, HA, and farming.

I wouldn't hold my breath to get a skill balance based on its use in TA.

I don't think there's ever been an example of a skill that's outrageously imbalanced in TA and relatively fine in GvG either.

twicky_kid · Jan 05, 2007, 10:38 PM // 22:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

I don't think there's ever been an example of a skill that's outrageously imbalanced in TA and relatively fine in GvG either.

Well....lets see....

ZB
Temple strike
SS and SV
Corrupt enchantment
Remedy weapon
Offensive rit spirits
Blackout
Frag + Virulence

and the list goes on.....

There are many skills that are way overpowered in a 4v4 format because they are designed to be used in a 8v8 format vs 2 monk + support backlines. In 4v4 format you have 1 monk with support skills on the other 3 teammates.

I 4v4 the same weakness to RaO is still there. Kill the pet and half the pressure is gone.

Patccmoi · Jan 05, 2007, 11:20 PM // 23:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Well....lets see....

ZB
Temple strike
SS and SV
Corrupt enchantment
Remedy weapon
Offensive rit spirits
Blackout
Frag + Virulence

and the list goes on.....

There are many skills that are way overpowered in a 4v4 format because they are designed to be used in a 8v8 format vs 2 monk + support backlines. In 4v4 format you have 1 monk with support skills on the other 3 teammates.

I 4v4 the same weakness to RaO is still there. Kill the pet and half the pressure is gone.

Honestly, out of SV, and Rt spirits to some extent (depends if the other team is really gay about it and doesn't care to wait 5 min in spirits and how much you have in terms of interrupts and nukes, but in general you have some way in any build to deal with that one way or another), i wouldn't agree with any of these being outrageously (or in any way) overpowered in TA. Frag + Virulence doesn't even kill anyone in RA anymore... and when it was too powerful in RA/TA before it WAS nerfed even though it was actually rarely used in GvG (not talking about hypochondria bug, that was a beta).

And notice that Blackout was nerfed about 5 times. Mostly because of GvG likely, but it's not like it wasn't nerfed a lot.

Corrupt Enchantment i gotta say i don't understand at all, it removes 1 enchant and does 160 damage over 10s with a 10s recharge, that's overpowered? Decent, ok, but overpowered hell no.

And in 4v4 killing pet is just not an option to RaO nearly all the time. Pets tank similar to warriors, and you don't have huge offensive power to take them down with 3 players (assuming a monk).