Curse

twicky_kid · Dec 29, 2006, 05:04 PM // 17:04

I simply love this skill more than anything that came out of NF. It does sadden me that it spelled the death of pressure in real GvG. When I use SoA I feel like I have 2 elites on my monk.

So how do we fix it because the dmg prevention is just insane.

I have a feeling this will be over nerfed due to farmers rather than pvp.

Compare this to Shield of Deflection. I would take SoA any day. Speaking of SoD buff the thing. 10e for a 6 second effect is hardly worth my elite spot.

Divineshadows · Dec 29, 2006, 05:32 PM // 17:32

I would be very upset if this skill is nerfed if other damage skills such as rampage as one, searing flames, spiritual pain, etc. aren't nerfed as well.

If I were the skill balancer and looking to update shield of absorption, then I would either drop the duration on it by one second at each level of protection or increase the recharge by two seconds. Perhaps both of these changes are in order, but anything much beyond this would kill the skill.

Patccmoi · Dec 29, 2006, 06:22 PM // 18:22

Personally i'd like to see a cap on this. Atm it just prevents waaaay too much damage. It IS elite strength, or nearly!

I'd like to see something like :

Ends after 10 procs (this means that for 5E you prevented a total of up to 275 damage btw. For 5E, that's actually freaking good)

or

Damage reduction can't go above 30

or

Highest duration is 5s (but this kinda hurts it more imo)

Otherwise, it would have to be 10E. This thing just prevents any focus fire, it's nearly retarded. When you have 2 monks with it and they alternate the use well, you basically can't ever focus on someone without him having insane damage reduction. It's fine to have a skill countering Thumper damage well, but there's a margin between countering and making it vanish. After 2 hits from him and pet, a Thumper damage will be totally insignificant (his pets doing basically nothing but 0s). And that's if he's alone on target, 2 Thumpers will only do 0s after about 2s.

As for Searing Flames, Spirit Bond and Prot Spirit are kinda there for it. Prot Spirit + Shield of Absorp is something that shouldn't exist. Having anything do around 0 after 6-7 hits touched your target is just ridiculous.

I'd rather have the damage reduction capped in some way than having a recharge nerf. If it goes to 15+s recharge, it'll likely kill the skill. Just like Shielding Hands effect is great and all but on 25s recharge it's absolutely useless in most situations cause if they switch target you have too long before you can use it again.

But that being said, i expect RaO, Spiritual Pain and Searing Flames to all be nerfed in one way or another too.

kvndoom · Dec 31, 2006, 05:36 PM // 17:36

I dont' think 15s would kill it. That would make it a stop-gap, a decent anti-spike skill. As it is now it's a get out of jail free card. These days if a Monk is already speccing 14 into Prot to get 7s out of this skill, they're more than likely using Zealous Benediction for their elite. ZB by itself is fine and needs no adjustment whatsoever, but when comboed with SoA it's pretty retarded. A monstrous heal right before or after near invincibility is quite crazy. If I had a dollar for all the times I've beaten a monk down to less than 20% of full health just to have him back up above 75% in less than 2 seconds... ugh.

Anet has a mess on their hands right now. There are multiple builds that can kill you in a matter of seconds if left unchecked, so to compomise they have made Monks incredibly powerful as well. Before NF came out, I think we were slowly moving away from Build Wars; the PVP game felt a lot smoother (more versatile) than it does now. I'd like to see a lot less rock, paper, scissors and more "beat them with skill, not with the skills."

SoA will get nerfed equally because of farming as for being a little too strong in PVP. We can't forget our friends the gold sellers, who just love inventive ways to kill dozens of monsters without taking damage. Spirit Bond might not have gotten nerfed if the Shiro'ken farming hadn't taken prominence. Anet doesn't want people soloing level 24-28 monsters. At least not outside of Prophecies.

Thomas.knbk · Dec 31, 2006, 06:26 PM // 18:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

I'd like to see something like :

Ends after 10 procs (this means that for 5E you prevented a total of up to 275 damage btw. For 5E, that's actually freaking good)

What if 5 of them are wand attacks? then you just prevented shite. GG I think this would make it too conditional.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

or

Damage reduction can't go above 30

I like this one best.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

or

Highest duration is 5s (but this kinda hurts it more imo)

Yes, definitely. In fact I think this would kill it.
What I would prefer is a dmg cap of 30. Maybe make it 10-35 based on your prot attribute (something like 40 with 16 prot), and a 12 sec recharge. Keep the duration as it is. Then buff Shielding Hands to a 5sec duration and a 10 sec recharge to get it on par.

nephilim · Dec 31, 2006, 06:56 PM // 18:56

Shielding Hands atm is 10sec duration and 25r, which is utterly useless heh. 5sec duration would be a nerf however with 10r it might be doable... all I know is Shielding Hands is grossly underpowered atm and SoA outclasses it by ridiculous amounts.

Unless my thinking is off. capping the reduc to 30 might be a little harsh.
Currently this is the skill:
"For 3...6 seconds, damage received by target ally is reduced by 5 each time that ally is hit while under the effects of this enchantment."

Here's what I have in mind:
"For 3...6 seconds, damage received by target ally is reduced by 5 each time that ally is hit while under the effects of this enchantment (Minimum: 15 damage)."

Basically, you cant be hit for more than 15 damage (number up for grabs), so it wont be like seeing 0's and 50s together, it'll be consistently at 15 (or a different minimum).

The only problem with this skill is when it turns someone into godmode for the duration cuz every hit does 0. Choosing the right number for the cap will be key if thats the way you want to balance it.

kvndoom · Jan 01, 2007, 02:41 AM // 02:41

I don't think Shielding Hands should get buffed as a trade-off. If you're able to chain SoA and SH without a pause, then we're right back where we started. Stoneflesh Aura for Monks.

Truthfully I wish they had just buffed SH to 20 second recharge (maybe 15) and not even put SoA into the game, but I guess it's too late for that.

Zoo X · Jan 01, 2007, 03:44 AM // 03:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

I simply love this skill more than anything that came out of NF. It does sadden me that it spelled the death of pressure in real GvG. When I use SoA I feel like I have 2 elites on my monk.

So how do we fix it because the dmg prevention is just insane.
.

there is lot of pressure that doesn't come from axe or swords or hammers, blame SoA for the death of real pressure at GvG makes no sense at all, if you think you using SoA makes all those warriors around useless, maybe u should look at the mez right behind you spamming as crazy B Surge.
there is not need to "fix " a skill that is not overpowered.

twicky_kid · Jan 01, 2007, 05:50 AM // 05:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zoo X

there is lot of pressure that doesn't come from axe or swords or hammers, blame SoA for the death of real pressure at GvG makes no sense at all, if you think you using SoA makes all those warriors around useless, maybe u should look at the mez right behind you spamming as crazy B Surge.
there is not need to "fix " a skill that is not overpowered.

Wars and thumpers were the main pressure killers last season. Even with out b surge in the game SoA prevents that strategy. After 3-4 hits you deal basicly no dmg. It also prevents you from being able to wand a target for added pressure as that just fuels SoA even more.

Say you nerf b surge to oblivion and leave SoA alone that would not merit enough for pressure builds to return.

SoA, B Surge, and LoD = no more pressure. Any combination of two skills in their current form is enough to quash pressure.

I expect the balance this time to bridge that gap between pressure and spike. For that to happen some anti-pressure skills are going to get nerfed. I'd rather have some suggestions from players for changes rather than have some one else decide for us.

Btw, a skill that makes you invincible for 6-7 seconds is in fact overpowered.

I do like the dmg prevention cap idea. Though I think 40 dmg would be max. That will prevent most normal hits and most of normal crits.

I have a feeling that the recharge will get kicked to 15 because of farmers.

Phades · Jan 01, 2007, 10:14 AM // 10:14

Part of the problem with many different individuals' analysis of the defensive skills and blaming them on a shift to spike has a lot to do with the fact that physical based pressure is also capable of spike damage. This has more to do with blinding surge comments rather than angelic bond-> shield of absorption situations, but its effectivly the same considering a similar situation was occuring with the ramped up armor levels created by watch yourself and stand your ground that would cause only the bonus damage to be effective for all intensive purposes.

Personally, i think the game needs to be re-evaluated in how AL interacts with the different damage forms. Currently you have elemental based damage and wand damage kicked in the jimmy by AL and all other forms of mitigation. Then you have phys damage doing well on its own, in addition to having AL bypassing traits in the form of damage agument skills and the attack skills themselves, provided that there is not prolific blindness without any removal is occuring (which is kinda odd since 1 character with draw conditions/mend condition would alleviate 2 characters being blinded on recharge or 4 with its just a flesh wound or the phys attacker having plauge touch, mending touch, avatar of melandru, keeping themselves clean). Then you have mesmers and necros playing by their own rule set, pretty much ignoring AL and in the case of life stealing ignoring other defensive measures as well.

Perhaps making wand damage behave more like life stealing and have the damage skills scale, in terms of DoT, to the adjusted wand damage would be a step in the right direction. Perhaps reversing the AL scale with elemental damage would help as well(caster armor behaving like warrior armor and vice versa). The light of deliverance thing though just crushing degen and other spread out damage is a bit more difficult. Part of the problem is that the regen/degen situation is rather out of whack by comparison. Virtually every form of direct healing outclasses regen by a large margin, yet if regen skills were more viable, then you would invriably end up back in a spike only environment as only "focused" pressure would overcome it.

I just think that the many of the individual skills, even when used in tandem with each other, is not the only problem occuring and merely just highlights other underlying issues that people have come to accept over time. Because some of the skills being highlighted as issues are just skills being compressed together and made viable outside of the e-prod engine, which really did need to occur to attempt to create more variety. Unfortunatly there is no game logic in place to deny certain skill stacking combinations. There are only hints of it with the IAS and run speed modifications, but others like the maximum damage reduction cap could be useful for overal balance on a more basic level.

Saider maul · Jan 12, 2007, 10:04 PM // 22:04

Honestly I'd love to see this skills duration buffed. yes it can seriously reduce pressure on someone but it doesn't do a whole lot for spikes.

I know it sounds kinda odd to say buff its duration but something like
10e/ 1/2sec cast/15sec recharge/3-10sec duration.

This makes it expensive and unable to spam but better benefit for focused prot rather then overall pressure reduction.

I do like the skill. its kinda great on a boon prot to where your looking for any cheap skill to throw as a heal.

1 idea for future expansions. Have a Smite version of this where each attack deals +5dmg to attacking foe for each hit while under the enchantment.lol Caped at like 120-130 of course.

Just a thought.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 12, 2007, 10:21 PM // 22:21

People still run boon prots?
I can't say I really like the 10e/1/2c/15r option. After some testing I think cutting down the duration by 1 over the board would actually be enough.

Wasteland Squidget · Jan 13, 2007, 12:17 AM // 00:17

Adding a few seconds to the recharge or reducing the damage reduction gained per hit would both go a long way towards balancing this skill. Its power as an anti-training measure is largely invisible when Avatar of Grenth is making prot invisible, but having this skill in existence without Grenth means mass damage on a single target isn't a threat at all.

Patccmoi · Jan 13, 2007, 12:42 AM // 00:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Adding a few seconds to the recharge or reducing the damage reduction gained per hit would both go a long way towards balancing this skill. Its power as an anti-training measure is largely invisible when Avatar of Grenth is making prot invisible, but having this skill in existence without Grenth means mass damage on a single target isn't a threat at all.

I agree that Grenth atm makes people greatly undervalue the skill, because Grenth can actually remove that.

But run SoA on 2 monks in GvG and if they're relatively well coordinated (so they don't both use it on same) any kind of focused damage is gonna be negated if you can't remove it constantly. With 2 monks with that you can basically heavily prot someone for 6-8s (with 20%) every 5s.

Something like 12s recharge and max 30 damage reduction would really help a lot.

As for Shielding Hands, it should be 15s recharge. The damage absorbed is nothing huge and doesn't justify 25s recharge at all. More or less any single target prot spell that doesn't have a massive effect is just never gonna be used if the recharge is big (>15-20s) because people can just switch target and you don't want a useless skill slot too often.

Saider maul · Jan 13, 2007, 03:41 AM // 03:41

aww come on live a little. just make it harder to spam and make it last a few seconds longer. but seriously i think its fine where it is. great for focus dmg.
I think atm there are several other unbalanced skills to attend to.

twicky_kid · Jan 13, 2007, 06:55 PM // 18:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saider maul

aww come on live a little. just make it harder to spam and make it last a few seconds longer. but seriously i think its fine where it is. great for focus dmg.
I think atm there are several other unbalanced skills to attend to.

With the nerfs to drain enchant enchantments have become too strong in general. The reason we are forced into a spike metagame is because the def is too much to break through with pressure. We spike between the enchantment cast and Shatter any prot on the target.

The only thing that makes pressure possible atm is grenth's which might take a hit with the nerf stick. What is pressure left with then?

Any skill that allows you to prevent about 40% of the dmg your team takes for the duration of the match imo is too strong. Imagine trying to fight though a never ending "incoming!"

Etrik · Jan 13, 2007, 07:18 PM // 19:18

It's even more imba on an angelic bonder in HA, who has the whole team angelic bonded.. particularly against Zergway with Balth's Spirit on.. lots of 0's!

Wasteland Squidget · Jan 13, 2007, 10:15 PM // 22:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

With the nerfs to drain enchant enchantments have become too strong in general.

Yes and no. The only enchants DE really made unviable were the long-duration long-recharge stuff like Fire Attunement and Harrier's Grasp. Firing Drain Enchant into protstacks was usually pretty pointless, and the skill would have been almost completely useless against SoA. SoA 10 recharge, Drain 25, go?

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

The only thing that makes pressure possible atm is grenth's which might take a hit with the nerf stick. What is pressure left with then?

The reason why so many teams are running Grenth in 'pressure' builds is because it makes pressure easy and lethal. You sit on the target you want to see die and cut through any prot while Grenth is up (usually securing a morale boost and some enemy monk DP), then keep the damage coming and 321spike people while Grenth is down. It's stronger than standard pressure builds while simultaneously being easier to run. Why would you run a standard pressure build when Grenth is in the picture?

The reason why pressure prior to the Grenth takeover was reduced to Thumpers and SF is largely Blinding Surge. The ability to run several copies of that skill really walked all over most standard pressure teams, and combined with the buff to spike skills most teams just ran spike + defense.

SoA is individually too strong, but it simply doesn't compare to a lot of the other stuff out there at the moment. I'm all in favor of nerfing it, but there's no need to overstate the problems this skill causes.

platnium_playa · Jan 15, 2007, 04:07 AM // 04:07

personally i love and hate this skill...

monking with it is just to much fun.

And then when on a melee fighting it just blows...the 50 dmg..45..38..30..24...19...14..9..3...0..0..0.. so depending on the damage you are doing it would take a good 8 hits to reduct damage to 0 if your average damage is 50...

and thats only if you are attacking that target, if someone on your team is targeting the person as well, you get to 0 a hell of a lot faster.

HolyHawk · Jan 15, 2007, 12:10 PM // 12:10

Possibly capping the dmg reduction at 60 or something. Grenth is not an excuse for this (I do believe it's broken though, but it doesn't justify alone), because it kills every kind of protection. Pay attention to shielding hands, the dark cousin of shield of absorption, who uses that. If you also look, global dmg reduction skills are not as good as this one can be. Life Barrier is an elite, and you must be ^50% health; life bond can still inflict you dmg; both have upkeep; angelic bond is an elite and just splits dmg; incoming is an elite and has longer recharge; all mantras are stances and can be broken. Of course this is an enchantment, but it's almost spammable.