Curse

Esrever · Feb 24, 2006, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

No, the answer is to make the other energy regain skills better and to leave OOB alone.

Agreed, but I think OoB should still come out slightly on top for pure energy gain, simply because Necro secondary doesn't offer any other utility like the Mesmer secondary does.

Ensign · Feb 24, 2006, 12:21 AM // 00:21

Wild Blow actually does counter Distortion pretty readily, and it isn't obvious on inspection. First off you can't use adrenal skills, but you wouldn't be able to anyway because of the blocks. Being 'Wild Blow Man' is more effective if they have Distortion. Second you're not going to stay on the guy indefinitely, he's either going to die or get enough prot that you're going to want to switch targets. No one stays on the same target forever, you're looking at maybe 3 wild blows on a single target and that's only on a really long pressurespike. Third, the other warriors on your team are so much better when Wild Blow Man is there doing his job because the stance basically doesn't exist. It's another situation where more warriors makes each of them better. Wild Blow doesn't punish someone for relying upon Distortion for defense by putting it into a long cooldown or anything, but it does work around it well enough to get a kill, and that's what you really wanted out of it, no?

The only advantage of Shadow of Fear is that it works at a low attribute spec. If you have a necromancer that's pumping up his curses Faintheartedness is just a stronger option because of the degen. The AoE on Shadow of Fear is pretty small, you'll rarely get more than two guys with it unless they're doing some gross training. Right now it's a solid splash skill for someone who wants some curses without investing heavily, and I'm happy with that role.

The only problem with Offering of Blood is that it doesn't cost anything. Every other energy management skill is conditional, provides energy at some other cost, or gives it in a particular way that makes it strategic. Offering of Blood is supposed to provide energy at a cost of health, but right now that cost of health is negligible. The skill doesn't need a big nerf to effectiveness, it just needs to cost something, hence raising the sacrifice cost. If the intention is to sacrifice some health for a pile of energy, the user needs to notice the health loss.

Peace,
-CxE

reboot · Feb 24, 2006, 12:44 AM // 00:44

Wild blow will work that way on any stance, it dosen't mean that distorsion shouldn't be looked at.

Why people announce possible counters to a skill as a reason to leave a skill alone is beyond me. Following that logic spirit spam should never have been nerfed, because it was easy to shut down with sig of humility or any interupt like Spinal Shivers, choking gass, etc...

How can you discount the insane duration of SoF by saying the low attribute cost is the only advantage?

we will never agree on anything except OOB i guess.

Senator Tom · Feb 24, 2006, 12:44 AM // 00:44

'i will avenge you' doesnt need a nerf, just dont kill the pets :O
if you wanna nerf iway the only thing you can really do is to nerf trappers, nerf orders, and make it so only 2 warriors can be in the same party at once.

Symbol · Feb 24, 2006, 01:06 AM // 01:06

Quote:

The only problem with Offering of Blood is that it doesn't cost anything. Every other energy management skill is conditional, provides energy at some other cost, or gives it in a particular way that makes it strategic. Offering of Blood is supposed to provide energy at a cost of health, but right now that cost of health is negligible. The skill doesn't need a big nerf to effectiveness, it just needs to cost something, hence raising the sacrifice cost. If the intention is to sacrifice some health for a pile of energy, the user needs to notice the health loss.

Mantra of recall and energy drain are two elite energy management skills that are fairly non-conditional and have few drawbacks (though current energy drain blows in general).

Ether prodigy has a fair number of drawbacks, but gives a consequently higher amount of energy (~6 pips vs OOB's ~3 pips).

IMO OOB should be the baseline for elite energy management. If a skill gives more it should have noticeable drawbacks. If it gives less-well it shouldn't actually.

I would love it if mantra of recall gave back more energy than OOB. But I don't think offering needs a nerf.

Former Ruling · Feb 24, 2006, 01:12 AM // 01:12

The Frog said some stuff recently. The parts concerned with "Nerfing":
1) Major IWAY build hate...something is going to happen to it.
2) Gale isn't seen as a problem by Anet. Probably little nerfage, if any.
3) Both Pvp AND Pve are considered in their changes.
4) The list seems to Buff underused skills more than "Nerfing" overused ones.
5) The list is quite long the frog said. I'm guessing like the major August Skill overhaul update.

icemonkey · Feb 24, 2006, 06:51 AM // 06:51

someone earlier mentioned how crip shot isnt too big a deal cuz theres a lot of condition removal skills(2 monk elites)

this is misleading however, This game is full of ways to mitigate negative affects. you can use a stance/enchant ot block or evade attacks. you can prot spirit or healing hands a spike. you can increase yer armor against certian sources. you can avoid interupts or knockdown, even hexes with hex breaker or holy veil.

BUT HTERE IS NO WAY TO MITIGATE CONDITIONS. if someone wants a condition on you, done. theres no way to stop it only mend it afterwards. its a huge energy drain, tehre needs to be a skill to help you avoid conditions. it is severely lacking.

for example, a boon prot cleaning blind off of a war from dual attune ele goes like this. 4 energy for ele to apply 7 energy for monk to remove. Monk loses its not fair need mitigation for conditions not just removal

Timofmars · Feb 24, 2006, 04:37 PM // 16:37

Distortion is fine. It definitely has it's drawbacks, such as energy cost, that it takes you out of any other stance you might be using, that it only helps vs attacks, and the fact that it only helps 1 person. Compare that to Ward against Melee or Aegis or Guardian...

If you want to get past it, use warriors cunning or rigor mortis. Let me ask you this... Is it so bad that maybe you need to become an Ele damage dealer? I didn't think so...

As for conditions, they only need to be removed if they cause a problem. It's great that boon prot isn't the best way to remove a blind due to the extra energy cost and wasted healing. More power to the teams that realize that. If they use a lot more conditions, then the counters become even more efficient. But if a team wants to use very few conditions selectively just to cause such problems, that's smart for them to not depend on conditions.

reboot · Feb 24, 2006, 07:05 PM // 19:05

dont look at distorsion and aegis or ward mele? That makes no sense. Look at something like gladiators defense or any other stance, and you see how it has clear advantages.

Gladiators defense takes about 9 attribute points to use with any effectiveness, last for about 9 seconds and takes 30 seconds to recharge, adds dammage and its an elite.

Distorsion works at 4 attribute points with effectiveness(-2 per evade), lasts 5 seconds, and recharges fast enough to use over and over.
-2 per evade is nothing to a caster and 4 attributes is also nothing for such a strongg effect.

Karmaniac · Feb 24, 2006, 08:07 PM // 20:07

Well we have to be careful here not going overboard.

Take Gale for example. With hasty logics one could say something like "make it so that KD is affected by the amounts of points in the skill line 4 secs KD at 16" Yea, sounds great right? It would make it completely unusable tho. The skill is fine, it has great synergy with warrior profession but is maybe too effective with such minimal investment. So make it effective with say 6 or 7 points in attribute line? No longer can you have your cake and eat it. (and something about the energy whatnotdohickywhine too)

My worst case scenario: they probably "fix" it so that SS makes monsters go dance macabre. Power farm while you still can.

reboot · Feb 24, 2006, 11:11 PM // 23:11

what does farming have to do with pvp skill ballance?

Ensign · Feb 24, 2006, 11:44 PM // 23:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by reboot

Wild blow will work that way on any stance, it dosen't mean that distorsion shouldn't be looked at.

Oh, of course not. Distortion has some minor issues that should be addressed. I'm just saying that Wild Blow chews through Distortion just fine if that's what you're after.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reboot

Why people announce possible counters to a skill as a reason to leave a skill alone is beyond me.

People really don't understand threat/response. Sure you can counter just about anything. You can't counter everything. Questions win games, not answers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reboot

How can you discount the insane duration of SoF by saying the low attribute cost is the only advantage?

Insane duration? Are we looking at the same skill here? The base duration is 20 seconds, and it only scales up to a perfectly reasonable 46. That's not exactly out of proportion, Faintheartedness lasts 37 seconds at 16, Suffering lasts 32, etc. There are a ton of hexes in the line with a base duration of 30 seconds, non-scaling. It is a longish lasting hex but certainly nothing outlandish.

Is the argument that it's a reasonably effective skill even at low attribute? I don't see how that's a problem, lots of skills function perfectly well at a low attribute spec or with no attribute points at all. Hell there are skills without linked attributes that are perfectly splashable no matter what. From the Curses line alone, Defile Flesh, Parasitic Bond, Rend Enchantments, Rigor Mortis, and Shadow of Fear are all reasonable skills to use with a minimal attribute point investment. Some skills scale more strongly than others. I don't think that's a balance problem.

The complaint has to be about Shadow of Fear being effective at a lowish spec. For all of its effectiveness at low spec it does not scale particularly well - at high spec it's almost universally worse than Faintheartedness.

Is it really so bad that a character can pick up a necromancer secondary, drop a few points into curses, and get a decent but unspectacular disruptive hex to use? I can see why you might think so, it's a valid concern (particularly when looking at a skill like Distortion), but I just don't think Shadow of Fear is a big deal. Slowing attack speed is annoying, but it really isn't a money hex. The bigger problem, at least to me, is that it's the kind of hex that gets used without a lot of support, and that makes it a gamble. Sure sometimes they won't have removal and it'll be good, but more often than not you're just powering their Inspired Hexes. I used to be pretty high on the skill, but honestly I don't think it has a very big place anymore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Senator Tom

'i will avenge you' doesnt need a nerf, just dont kill the pets

The skill is stacking with other attack speed buffs to dish out some unreal damage. They said they fixed that back in September but I guess they goofed.

The build itself, though, doesn't need any huge, direct nerfs - it should be getting a lot of smaller ones, though. For all the grief it gets, iWay has one of the highest concentrations of overpowered skills and abilities in the game and it straight-up punishes people with them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Mantra of recall and energy drain are two elite energy management skills that are fairly non-conditional and have few drawbacks (though current energy drain blows in general).

EDrain is pretty conditional, and it isn't strong as energy management alone, you need to get some use out of the edenial as well to make it effective. Of course it's also underpowered right now and needs a slight buff. It's certainly not 'push button get energy' like the current Offering is.

Mantra of Recall has all sorts of issues with it, it's incredibly fragile and turns into junk pretty quickly under disruption. It's complete garbage if you die, and even a Drain Enchantment thrown your way can make the skill significantly underperform. I'm seriously unimpressed with the skill and will only run it if there are no better options.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Ether prodigy has a fair number of drawbacks, but gives a consequently higher amount of energy (~6 pips vs OOB's ~3 pips).

I count Ether Prodigy as 4.5 pips, actually. First off you lose the exhaustion pip right off the bat, which is certainly non-trivial, and the skill does slowly build up exhaustion. Second the skill does have an energy cost, and while it's only 5 per cast that's still 12 per minute at 16 spec, or 10% of the energy returned through the regen. That's still not considering any of the other drawbacks of the skill. I'm not saying it's bad, hell I think it's a solid elite by a bunch of metrics, but it isn't as insane as '6 pips' looks at first glance.

Peace,
-CxE

Symbol · Feb 25, 2006, 11:16 AM // 11:16

Quote:

Mantra of Recall has all sorts of issues with it, it's incredibly fragile and turns into junk pretty quickly under disruption. It's complete garbage if you die, and even a Drain Enchantment thrown your way can make the skill significantly underperform. I'm seriously unimpressed with the skill and will only run it if there are no better options.

So drop the energy cost to 5 and the casting time to 1/4 sec to start.

Quote:

I count Ether Prodigy as 4.5 pips, actually. First off you lose the exhaustion pip right off the bat, which is certainly non-trivial, and the skill does slowly build up exhaustion. Second the skill does have an energy cost, and while it's only 5 per cast that's still 12 per minute at 16 spec, or 10% of the energy returned through the regen.

That's ignoring enchant length modifiers isn't it? Although to be fair we have to consider fast recharge for OOB.

So without further ado:
Ether Prodigy at 16 ES: Returns a net 1.8E/sec counting initial casting cost
OOB at 16 Blood: 17 net E every 13.35 seconds (two 20% chances of 50% faster recharge). ~1.27E/sec.

Ether prodigy is ~42% more efficient in terms of energy regained, but with attendant drawbacks (slow exhaustion buildup, self damage, no enchants, requires investment in ES). I think that's reasonably fair.

My perspective is simply that, considering the costs of spells, OOB and EP are not overpowered. I could call them adequate, or maybe good, but nothing more. If Mantra of Recall or Energy Drain are underpowered in comparison (as it seems they are), then they should be buffed.

Theus · Feb 25, 2006, 12:06 PM // 12:06

As of right now,I cant really see any other skills for a warrior to effectively fight boon prot,sine they:

A:Remove Conditions with Mend ailment
B:Remove Hexes with Contemplation of Purity
C:Can constantly spam guardian without much trouble.
D:Can constantly spam Reversal of Fortune without much trouble
E:Then add in the fact that Divine Boon adds an additional bonus to healing to RoF,Mend Ailment,CoP and Gaurdian.

I can only neccesarily see one way to fix this in terms for a warrior,

And thats to buff a skill that I wanted to see buffed since the very beginning of this game.

Warriors Cunning

Ensign · Feb 25, 2006, 11:48 PM // 23:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

So drop the energy cost to 5 and the casting time to 1/4 sec to start.

No comment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

That's ignoring enchant length modifiers isn't it?

Nah I always assume 20% enchanting when talking about enchants. Level 16 Prodigy lasts 25 seconds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

OOB at 16 Blood: 17 net E every 13.35 seconds (two 20% chances of 50% faster recharge). ~1.27E/sec.

Er, Offering only nets 16 energy at 16 spec. I also have absolutely no clue how you got that recycle time.

Yeah.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

My perspective is simply that, considering the costs of spells, OOB and EP are not overpowered.

I think you didn't read the argument about Offering of Blood. It wasn't that the skill was doing too much. The argument was that it didn't have any sort of drawback at all, no gimmick. When you use an energy skill you're going through some process to get more energy, or make things more efficient, or whatever. They all have some trick to them, some cost. Offering of Blood's is pretty obvious, you're trading some health for an infusion of energy. At least in theory.

The problem with the skill is that the health sacrifice is so low that you don't even notice it. Hell when counting the skill and its efficiency no one talks about the health because it's a joke. It's like 'oh yeah, I guess I'm losing a bit of health when I cast this. I never really noticed it before.' Hence the skill needs a change that makes that health sac something that you feel, a boost to the 17-20% range. When you use Offering it should feel like you just sacrificed some health.

I agree entirely that Offering of Blood gives as much energy as it should, and the cast time and all that is perfectly reasonable. It just needs to cost *something*, and right now it doesn't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

I could call them adequate, or maybe good, but nothing more.

Well I'd argue that you don't appreciate emanagement enough then. They're pretty damn good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Theus

As of right now,I cant really see any other skills for a warrior to effectively fight boon prot

Warriors aren't supposed to have tools to fight boonprots. I mean what do you want a warrior to do against any monk? He gets in his face and smashes it with damage, tossing in a few interrupts or knockdowns along the way. Boonprots aren't doing anything special to hose warriors, so I don't really see the problem. If you want to disable a monk, use a mesmer, that's his job.

Peace,
-CxE

Symbol · Feb 26, 2006, 01:17 AM // 01:17

Quote:

Er, Offering only nets 16 energy at 16 spec. I also have absolutely no clue how you got that recycle time.

Sorry for some reason I assumed 18 blood. It should be 16 net. It's also fairly trivial to esimate the average recharge.

.2^2 * .5^2 + 2*.2*.8 *.5 + .8^2 * 1 = .81. Two fast recharge items reduce recharge by a factor of .81 on average. 15 * .81 + .25 = 13.35 sec recycle time.

So offering is ~1.2E/sec, my bad.

Quote:

I think you didn't read the argument about Offering of Blood. It wasn't that the skill was doing too much. The argument was that it didn't have any sort of drawback at all, no gimmick. When you use an energy skill you're going through some process to get more energy, or make things more efficient, or whatever. They all have some trick to them, some cost. Offering of Blood's is pretty obvious, you're trading some health for an infusion of energy. At least in theory.

I read the argument. I don't agree with it. It presumes that there needs to be some sort of drawback or condition. When you can easily consume upwards of 3E/sec spamming spells (blood nuking for example) I don't see an elite that gives you back 1.2E/sec unconditionally as a problem.

That said I don't particularly care if they raise the sac on offering. I'll be happy if they just improve some of the other non-elite energy regain options.

Quote:

Well I'd argue that you don't appreciate emanagement enough then. They're pretty damn good.

These things are relative. Offering is very good compared to other energy management. But most other energy management is kinda lame. So I don't count that as particularly impressive.

But then I'm biased. I like to play characters that dish out damage. To get casters to do damage requires an energy outflow that they simply cannot keep up with even with elite energy management.

cookiemonkie · Feb 26, 2006, 05:42 AM // 05:42

On the subject of the original topic, I would like the see the following changes or considerations:

- Reduction of deep wound from 20% to 15%
- Removal of the HoD Helm
- Decrease on all 15 and 25 energy cost ele skills; Decrease Ele Water cycle time skills; Increase burning duration and buff some skills such as lightening javalin to make it useful. Scale up / Increase the effectiveness of ele skills when attribute levels are set beyond 12 so fast cast Me/E don't have a higher overall damage output than Ele primaries. Make attunements useful, reduce the skill cycle time and cast time.
- IWAY should apply to party members only
- Orders should be reduced to caster range instead of radar range; or increase the cycle time
- Increase the energy cost of cripping shot... or remove "unblockable / un-evadable"

Symbol · Feb 26, 2006, 01:32 PM // 13:32

Why not just make deep wound reduce current health by 20% rather than the retarded mechanism it uses right now?

Patrograd · Feb 26, 2006, 03:01 PM // 15:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Why not just make deep wound reduce current health by 20% rather than the retarded mechanism it uses right now?

I always thought it reduced both maximum and current health by 20%.

I believe it may be slightly bugged, as I read somewhere that the 20% off current doesnt come until the *next* damage is inflicted. I'm sure I read that somewhere, probably in a discussion on PP/shatter. Might be wrong I guess

Symbol · Feb 26, 2006, 03:27 PM // 15:27

Quote:

I always thought it reduced both maximum and current health by 20%.

No see, that would actually make sense. What it does is reduce you current heath by 20% of your maximum health. I.e if you have 100 health out of a max of 500 and you get deep wounded, you maximum is reduced by a 100, but your current is also reduced by 100. I believe this can actually kill you, though I'm not sure.

It's idiotic.