Curse

dargon · Feb 26, 2006, 03:41 PM // 15:41

Uhm, why is it idiotic? It makes no sense that a wound that literally reduces your life force by 20% would only do 5 actual damage to you. If you get your arm blow off by a shotgun, do you complain about the papercut you just received, or do you lay on the ground writhing in agony as you rather quickly bleed to death?

Symbol · Feb 26, 2006, 03:58 PM // 15:58

Quote:

Uhm, why is it idiotic? It makes no sense that a wound that literally reduces your life force by 20% would only do 5 actual damage to you. If you get your arm blow off by a shotgun, do you complain about the papercut you just received, or do you lay on the ground writhing in agony as you rather quickly bleed to death?

It's idiotic because it's blatantly overpowered. It's like adding an instant 80-100 points of damage to any attack that causes deep wound.

icemonkey · Feb 26, 2006, 06:02 PM // 18:02

ok as far as mantra of recall goes i think it should defintly be 5 energy. you could scale the energy gain back by 5 to make it pretty much at its current effect.

Every other elite energy management is 5 energy and mantra is a very fragile one so theres no reason to stack on the drwabacks to mantra of recall. I think it offers good variety in energy management and mesmers need a primary energy management since drain is bad

cookiemonkie · Feb 26, 2006, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Here's the description of Deep Wound:

Effect:

A Deep Wound is a condition that reduces the maximum health of a player by 20%. It also reduces healing used on that player by 20%. Currently there is no visual indicator for this condition.

Inflicting a Deep Wound lowers the target's current health by 20% of the target's maximum health (temporarily). This damage will never kill the target, but can bring the foe down to one Hit Point.

We all know that deep wound is ALWAYS accompanied by an attack or skill such as "shatter delusions". This damage stacks onto the deep wound condition. Which is why when you get hit and glace down at your health bar; You noticed that you've lost 170-230 health from a SINGLE attack.

Ensign · Feb 27, 2006, 02:03 AM // 02:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

.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.

I'm with you on the math, but I'm not getting that 13.35. 15*.81 = 12.15. Add .25 to that and you get a 12.4 second recycle time for 1.29 energy per second maximized.

It isn't terribly important though, even idealized models are only rough approximations of what actually happens in game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

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.

Oh, it's not a problem from a power standpoint, no question. The problem it creates is more subtle really. When a skill is effectively unconditional and good at what it does it ends up all over the place. Other options don't get used because they're conditional or less wieldly, so you end up with this environment that isn't overpowered per se, but everything ends up looking the same.

Hence if you want a more diverse game skills either need to have conditions under which their effectiveness fluctuates, or if a skill is going to be unconditional it needs to be rather weak. I don't think the complaint about Offering has anything to do with necros, and everything to do with monks and other classes. If you want energy you just take Offering because it doesn't have any sort of condition, it's just push button get energy. If it had some sort of condition people would at least have to weigh that. A raised health sacrifice is ideal because a blood guy has so much incidental self-healing coming in that paying a bit more there really doesn't matter, but for other professions taking the health hit becomes something to think about.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

I'll be happy if they just improve some of the other non-elite energy regain options.

Well one of the problems is that they can't improve non-elite energy management much because there are so few non-elite emanagement skills. But I agree that good non-elite energy options are crucial to the health of the game in the long run. Casters need to manage their energy somehow, and straight efficiency (ala Word) usually isn't enough. Having to run to your elite slot to make your energy work really puts a big crimp on the kinds of characters you can run, some non-elite options would really open up the game and the kinds of characters we could play.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

These things are relative.

What I mean is not comparing the effects of one energy management skill to another, but comparing what an emanagement skill does compared to having a non-energy elite. If you're playing an ele or necro and take that energy elite off your bar you're going to be hurting the vast majority of the time. You can kludge around it with some gimmicks (see the old rifts build) but it isn't pretty.

Peace,
-CxE

sh4ft3d · Feb 27, 2006, 02:55 AM // 02:55

IMO, Crippling shot needs no nerf. (i know this isnt the hot topic though). It may appear slightly over powered, but many other skill cant be blocked/evaded. Precision shot(which isnt even elite) even adds damage. Although it IS highly spammable, that seem to be the purpose. It cripples for a far shorter duration than Pin down, but has a much faster recharge. In pvp only is it slighly misunderstood. Poison shot is much more annoying imo. Although it can be blocked or evaded, it poisons for an extremely long duration
and can be used many times. Poison is extremely easy to counter though, as any degen is on a small scale. It only appears as pressure, dealing only 8 dps.
Pnly over a long period of time does it make a MAJOR difference

geminisaga · Feb 27, 2006, 03:46 AM // 03:46

IMO monkneed nerf

reboot · Feb 27, 2006, 04:54 AM // 04:54

I dont want to be mean, but are you baseing that opinion on experiance, shafted?

if so what kind?

Cause in GvG its preety well accepted that the skill is at least a little overpowered, among the top guilds.

Juicey Shake · Feb 27, 2006, 05:45 AM // 05:45

I miss my old crippling shot ;_;....

15s cripple duration, 8s recharge on crippling shot.

it was the elite version of pin down, bottom line >_>, the current one is a super-buffed too great elite version.. arr....

Ensign · Feb 27, 2006, 05:59 AM // 05:59

I don't want to touch buffs to skills because there are a hundred or so that could use one. Here are the ones that could afford to go down a notch, though:

"I Will Avenge You!" - My only problem with the skill right now is that it's bugged. A warrior with Frenzy or Tiger's Fury and IWAY up simultaneously attacks twice as fast as normal. Back in September a cap was put on attack speed buffs that was supposed to keep the two from stacking, but somewhere along the lines that was removed. Fix that oversight and I think the skill will be fine.

Eviscerate - Raise the adrenal cost to 9 strikes. It's the single most dangerous spike skill in the game, and there's no reason for it to be priced aggressively. It would still be deadly and worthy of elite status, it would just require a bit more investment to be put into every spike.

Crippling Shot - Raise the energy cost to 15. I think that being able to keep someone crippled is a perfectly valid use of an elite, but at 10 energy a ranger can consistently keep *two* people crippled without much trouble. That it's so hard to fight just makes the problem worse. At 15 energy a ranger will run into energy problems quickly if he spams it around, forcing him to pick his targets more carefully and making the skill much more reasonable.

Dual Shot - Double the recharge to 10 seconds. It's a fundamentally dangerous skill because it doubles every buff a ranger has, and has some truly frightening spike potential. Spike skills and builds are an important part of the game, but really fast spikes make the game one-dimensional and unfair. Slow them down just a bit, and they become something that more teams can reasonably handle.

Disrupting Lunge - Increase recharge to 10 seconds. Basically Disrupting Lunge is so good that it prevents all discussion of other pet attacks before they could even take place.

Edge of Extinction, Energizing Winds, Fertile Season, Nature's Renewal - Increase energy cost to 15 for Edge of Extinction and Nature's Renewal, 10 for the other two. These skills all cost 5 because of an old rule that all rituals cost 5. Now that Quickening Zephyr has taken an energy hit, and with all the ritualist rituals coming in with varied costs, that rule is obsolete and nature rituals can be priced appropriately for their effect. All of these rituals have significant impacts on nearly every game they're dropped in, and the character using them should pay a non-trivial energy cost for that impact.

Divine Boon - increase the cooldown to 10 seconds. Boon is a key skill in the game right now, giving monks a lot of durability and flexibility. It's a dangerous thing to be tampering with. My problem with Boon is that it's so reliable. Monks can be made to run with their Boon up exclusively, because an opponent can't deny you a Boon without Diversion or the like. A short cooldown would make fighting a Boon-dependent monk with enchantment removal more reasonable, requiring them to have some sort of backup plan for when they aren't being turbocharged by a boon.

Aegis - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit). Spells that have such a huge party-wide effect should require their user to at least be with the team they're affecting. Being able to hide a character in complete safety while he still can operate at full effectiveness is problematic. Spirit-wide range is large enough to encompass the entire team under normal circumstances, while putting a requirement on that character to remain in range where an opponent can interact with him.

Heal Party - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit), add a 5 second cooldown. Same argument on the range above, but magnified - that a team can hide such a powerful effect in complete safety while still getting the full benefit is a significant problem. The other problem with this skill right now is how effective it is against degeneration strategies. A single copy of the skill at even a moderate spec can be chain cast back to back to back to completely nullify an opponent's degen pressure. A short cooldown would maintain it's utility as a key weapon against degen, while requiring a team to do a bit more than stash a single powered copy somewhere.

Martyr - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit), increase cast time to one second. See the above arguments about full radar range skills. In addition Martyr should have a cast time to make it interruptable. Each cast of Martyr is so powerful than an opposing team should have an opportunity to stop it they put in the effort.

Mend Ailment - Increase cooldown to 5 seconds. It's the most flexible single removal, and the most powerful non-elite weapon against condition stacks. The other condition removal options are barely considered because Ailment is so reliable. A slightly longer cooldown should make the decisions non-trivial.

Protective Spirit - Reduce duration from 5...24 to 5...18 seconds. It's a strong reactive effect but it's a bit too cheap and easy to maintain it on individual characters. A slight duration nerf makes it more expensive to maintain as a static defense without hurting it's value as an anti-spike tool.

Dark Fury - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit). Same reasons as the above.

Order of Pain - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit), reduce damage from 3...17 to 3...13. Same problem on the radar range as everything else with that effect. Similarly the effect of an individual Order is incredibly dangerous and a bit too strong. Remember that buff stacks in general are dangerous, and this is a party-wide buff - the more attackers you have and the more buffed up they are, the grosser Orders become. Even without too much effort a single Order of Pain will dish out 150 armor-ignoring damage per cast, and with buff stacks and the right team that can increase to well over 300. At the same time Orders are dangerous spike tools as well, because they can be pre-cast to buff up for a spike, then the caster can assist on the spike itself with whatever other tools he wishes. In other words they're an incredibly dangerous tool on many different levels, and a slight adjustment to the damage they deal would help keep them from being as backbreaking.

Order of the Vampire - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit). Same reasons as the above. The damage is less of an issue on this version because it is elite, and I'm not as concerned about an elite being backbreaking as a normal skill.

Offering of Blood - Increase the health cost to 20%. This was designed as a health sacrifice skill but the cost is so low that it's laughable. Should have only a minimal effect upon the skill's power, but would require people to think twice about running it before splashing it into every build that needs an energy elite.

Blackout - Increase cooldown from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. The effect of Blackout is really strong but very difficult to use correctly - in addition the deadliest uses of the skill make its user rather vulnerable. It's a valuable skill and an important part of the game. At the same time I'm concerned about how it can be used to effectively perma-Blackout someone, particularly in conjunction with Gale. A slight increase to the cooldown wouldn't hurt the tactical utility of the skill at all, but would close off the abuses of a chain-Blackout.

Distortion - Increase the energy lost per hit from 3...1 to 4...1. It's a good skill and an important safety valve against physical attackers, but it comes at far too low of a price right now (-2 energy at level 4 Illusion Magic). A slight hit to the energy lost per block would require a higher investment in the skill, making adding it to a build less brainless.

Mantra of Concentration - Reduce duration to 10...42 seconds. The effect is important for casters, particularly those who use long cast time spells, but the duration of the Mantra is so long that might as well not even be linked to Inspiration. A pretty sizable hit to the duration won't hurt its utility at all, but would require someone to at least invest a few points in the attribute if they want it to shine.

Mantra of Resolve - Increase energy lost per interrupt to 10...3. Similar idea to Mantra of Concentration, it's a vital skill but people should be prepared to invest in it if they don't want it to hammer their energy.

Signet of Weariness - Reduce AoE to 240. It's the best energy denial skill in the game, it's free, and it has a huge AoE. Reducing the AoE slightly puts it more in line with what a signet should be outputting.

Gale - clean up exhaustion to always cost 10 max energy, raise energy cost to 10 energy. The exhaustion bug is a huge part of the problem with the skill since it lets you get around the cost, but exhaustion skills are inherently really strong on warriors because they don't a significant energy capacity. Raising it to 10 energy makes it hurt to put it on a warrior, allowing some variation in that class again.

Blinding Flash - Increase the cooldown to 8 seconds. I think it's comparable to Crippling Shot, in that it's problematic when it can keep two people shut down pretty hard by only using one skill. Remove that capability and it remains a valuable tool, without being so stupidly dominant.

Ward Against Melee - Increase energy cost to 15. This sort of skill scares me, because once it's cast you simply can't remove it. I'd like for it to be more easily interrupted but I don't believe that's possible without destroying a lot of the utility of the skill. So at least make the skill as expensive as the other wards, if you want something strong and uncounterable at least make it a bit spendy.

Resurrection Signet - Reduce the amount of health restored to only half of normal. Ressig is the skill that makes the game fast paced and fun, and things like the cast time or restoration on morale shouldn't even be looked at. The health it gives back is a bit much though, since it isn't just a res but a full heal as well. In some ways the sig has de-emphesised healing and keeping people up, instead favoring the one time insane efficiency of the ressig. A hit to the health restored would make death only slightly more painful, but would put a higher premium on healing and keeping people alive in the first place.

Peace,
-CxE

Eet GnomeSmasher · Feb 27, 2006, 07:41 AM // 07:41

I agree with some of your list Ensign but I took note of Disrupting Lunge. It IS a bit too good but doubling the recharge on it would hurt it too bad...

Pet attacks are pretty tricky to time, especially when the target is kiting. Sometimes the interrupts will come instantly... but often they come 1 or 2 seconds later while the pet is getting into position.

Melee and bow interrupts are far easier to time. Maybe increase the energy cost for Disrupting instead. Until they fix pet AI and add some sort of pet commands, I think it's a fair trade to be able to spam these pet attacks to compensate for the erratic pet timing.

Soul Shaker · Feb 27, 2006, 08:09 AM // 08:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I don't want to touch buffs to skills because there are a hundred or so that could use one. Here are the ones that could afford to go down a notch, though:

"I Will Avenge You!" - My only problem with the skill right now is that it's bugged. A warrior with Frenzy or Tiger's Fury and IWAY up simultaneously attacks twice as fast as normal. Back in September a cap was put on attack speed buffs that was supposed to keep the two from stacking, but somewhere along the lines that was removed. Fix that oversight and I think the skill will be fine.

Eviscerate - Raise the adrenal cost to 9 strikes. It's the single most dangerous spike skill in the game, and there's no reason for it to be priced aggressively. It would still be deadly and worthy of elite status, it would just require a bit more investment to be put into every spike.

Crippling Shot - Raise the energy cost to 15. I think that being able to keep someone crippled is a perfectly valid use of an elite, but at 10 energy a ranger can consistently keep *two* people crippled without much trouble. That it's so hard to fight just makes the problem worse. At 15 energy a ranger will run into energy problems quickly if he spams it around, forcing him to pick his targets more carefully and making the skill much more reasonable.

Dual Shot - Double the recharge to 10 seconds. It's a fundamentally dangerous skill because it doubles every buff a ranger has, and has some truly frightening spike potential. Spike skills and builds are an important part of the game, but really fast spikes make the game one-dimensional and unfair. Slow them down just a bit, and they become something that more teams can reasonably handle.

Disrupting Lunge - Increase recharge to 10 seconds. Basically Disrupting Lunge is so good that it prevents all discussion of other pet attacks before they could even take place.

Edge of Extinction, Energizing Winds, Fertile Season, Nature's Renewal - Increase energy cost to 15 for Edge of Extinction and Nature's Renewal, 10 for the other two. These skills all cost 5 because of an old rule that all rituals cost 5. Now that Quickening Zephyr has taken an energy hit, and with all the ritualist rituals coming in with varied costs, that rule is obsolete and nature rituals can be priced appropriately for their effect. All of these rituals have significant impacts on nearly every game they're dropped in, and the character using them should pay a non-trivial energy cost for that impact.

Divine Boon - increase the cooldown to 10 seconds. Boon is a key skill in the game right now, giving monks a lot of durability and flexibility. It's a dangerous thing to be tampering with. My problem with Boon is that it's so reliable. Monks can be made to run with their Boon up exclusively, because an opponent can't deny you a Boon without Diversion or the like. A short cooldown would make fighting a Boon-dependent monk with enchantment removal more reasonable, requiring them to have some sort of backup plan for when they aren't being turbocharged by a boon.

Aegis - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit). Spells that have such a huge party-wide effect should require their user to at least be with the team they're affecting. Being able to hide a character in complete safety while he still can operate at full effectiveness is problematic. Spirit-wide range is large enough to encompass the entire team under normal circumstances, while putting a requirement on that character to remain in range where an opponent can interact with him.

Heal Party - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit), add a 5 second cooldown. Same argument on the range above, but magnified - that a team can hide such a powerful effect in complete safety while still getting the full benefit is a significant problem. The other problem with this skill right now is how effective it is against degeneration strategies. A single copy of the skill at even a moderate spec can be chain cast back to back to back to completely nullify an opponent's degen pressure. A short cooldown would maintain it's utility as a key weapon against degen, while requiring a team to do a bit more than stash a single powered copy somewhere.

Martyr - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit), increase cast time to one second. See the above arguments about full radar range skills. In addition Martyr should have a cast time to make it interruptable. Each cast of Martyr is so powerful than an opposing team should have an opportunity to stop it they put in the effort.

Mend Ailment - Increase cooldown to 5 seconds. It's the most flexible single removal, and the most powerful non-elite weapon against condition stacks. The other condition removal options are barely considered because Ailment is so reliable. A slightly longer cooldown should make the decisions non-trivial.

Protective Spirit - Reduce duration from 5...24 to 5...18 seconds. It's a strong reactive effect but it's a bit too cheap and easy to maintain it on individual characters. A slight duration nerf makes it more expensive to maintain as a static defense without hurting it's value as an anti-spike tool.

Dark Fury - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit). Same reasons as the above.

Order of Pain - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit), reduce damage from 3...17 to 3...13. Same problem on the radar range as everything else with that effect. Similarly the effect of an individual Order is incredibly dangerous and a bit too strong. Remember that buff stacks in general are dangerous, and this is a party-wide buff - the more attackers you have and the more buffed up they are, the grosser Orders become. Even without too much effort a single Order of Pain will dish out 150 armor-ignoring damage per cast, and with buff stacks and the right team that can increase to well over 300. At the same time Orders are dangerous spike tools as well, because they can be pre-cast to buff up for a spike, then the caster can assist on the spike itself with whatever other tools he wishes. In other words they're an incredibly dangerous tool on many different levels, and a slight adjustment to the damage they deal would help keep them from being as backbreaking.

Order of the Vampire - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit). Same reasons as the above. The damage is less of an issue on this version because it is elite, and I'm not as concerned about an elite being backbreaking as a normal skill.

Offering of Blood - Increase the health cost to 20%. This was designed as a health sacrifice skill but the cost is so low that it's laughable. Should have only a minimal effect upon the skill's power, but would require people to think twice about running it before splashing it into every build that needs an energy elite.

Blackout - Increase cooldown from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. The effect of Blackout is really strong but very difficult to use correctly - in addition the deadliest uses of the skill make its user rather vulnerable. It's a valuable skill and an important part of the game. At the same time I'm concerned about how it can be used to effectively perma-Blackout someone, particularly in conjunction with Gale. A slight increase to the cooldown wouldn't hurt the tactical utility of the skill at all, but would close off the abuses of a chain-Blackout.

Distortion - Increase the energy lost per hit from 3...1 to 4...1. It's a good skill and an important safety valve against physical attackers, but it comes at far too low of a price right now (-2 energy at level 4 Illusion Magic). A slight hit to the energy lost per block would require a higher investment in the skill, making adding it to a build less brainless.

Mantra of Concentration - Reduce duration to 10...42 seconds. The effect is important for casters, particularly those who use long cast time spells, but the duration of the Mantra is so long that might as well not even be linked to Inspiration. A pretty sizable hit to the duration won't hurt its utility at all, but would require someone to at least invest a few points in the attribute if they want it to shine.

Mantra of Resolve - Increase energy lost per interrupt to 10...3. Similar idea to Mantra of Concentration, it's a vital skill but people should be prepared to invest in it if they don't want it to hammer their energy.

Signet of Weariness - Reduce AoE to 240. It's the best energy denial skill in the game, it's free, and it has a huge AoE. Reducing the AoE slightly puts it more in line with what a signet should be outputting.

Gale - clean up exhaustion to always cost 10 max energy, raise energy cost to 10 energy. The exhaustion bug is a huge part of the problem with the skill since it lets you get around the cost, but exhaustion skills are inherently really strong on warriors because they don't a significant energy capacity. Raising it to 10 energy makes it hurt to put it on a warrior, allowing some variation in that class again.

Blinding Flash - Increase the cooldown to 8 seconds. I think it's comparable to Crippling Shot, in that it's problematic when it can keep two people shut down pretty hard by only using one skill. Remove that capability and it remains a valuable tool, without being so stupidly dominant.

Ward Against Melee - Increase energy cost to 15. This sort of skill scares me, because once it's cast you simply can't remove it. I'd like for it to be more easily interrupted but I don't believe that's possible without destroying a lot of the utility of the skill. So at least make the skill as expensive as the other wards, if you want something strong and uncounterable at least make it a bit spendy.

Resurrection Signet - Reduce the amount of health restored to only half of normal. Ressig is the skill that makes the game fast paced and fun, and things like the cast time or restoration on morale shouldn't even be looked at. The health it gives back is a bit much though, since it isn't just a res but a full heal as well. In some ways the sig has de-emphesised healing and keeping people up, instead favoring the one time insane efficiency of the ressig. A hit to the health restored would make death only slightly more painful, but would put a higher premium on healing and keeping people alive in the first place.

Peace,
-CxE

Actually, i don't agree with many of your nerfs. Let's start from the top-

IWAY-well, either that, or we could make it how it was before, maybe increase the range to nearby instead of in the area.

Crippling Shot-and make it like pin down? It's supposed to be better than pin down...this will make the elite pretty useless. It'll die out soon.

Aegis-Not usually a problem in the 4v4 arenas, maybe in the larger arenas, but it does add a new element to the game of weeding out the hidden monk

Heal Party-same as above, a good game of hide and go seek. (maybe the recharge time)

Martyr-as above

Mend ailment-No. It's powerful, yes, but that's no reason to nerf it. Mend condition is it's brother. So, it'll just make monks softer in that respect, cos mend condition is target other ally, but has a heal for a condition removed. Maybe take down the heal bonus a little? I'd rather not touch it.

Protective Spirit-So? Spikes need a counter.

Offering of Blood-maybe not 20%, i'd say maybe 15% or just leave it.

Signet of weariness-duh, it's elite.

Res sig-it's a great skill. If you don't have a res, it's a pain in the arse cos if the only person left alive doesn't have it, oh YOU'RE SCREWED. It's utility encourages intelligence. Without it, I think half the community would just be a bunch of mindless idiots.

Nightwish · Feb 27, 2006, 08:25 AM // 08:25

I dont really agree with any nerfs unless the skill really brings outright advantage to winning.

Besides, like Ensign said - theres hundred of skills needing buffs, but why do most of the threads in this forum only crying out for nerfs?

Giving food to a few out of a hundred hungry people is better than starving a few better off ones, no?

Heal sig doesnt need to be nerfed..its already a questionable skill for a warrior to take as of the moment.

Lady Lozza · Feb 27, 2006, 09:04 AM // 09:04

I will NEVER understand why people want to nerf res sig. All classes have access to it, all classes should have it on their skill bar in pvp. All non-monk classes should have it on their skill bar in pve. So why on earth do people want it nerfed? Because they want and excuse not to birng it and have one extra skill slot? How would you feel if your monks decided not to bring res? What if your monks die? Call them noobs and rage quit? Is there are particular reason people here want to make a monk's job so much harder than it already is?

There is absolutely no reason why the skill needs nerfing. You get it back with a morale boost, therefore giving an advantage to keeping or getting what it takes to get that boost. There is nothing wrong with this.

Ensign · Feb 27, 2006, 09:15 AM // 09:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eet GnomeSmasher

I agree with some of your list Ensign but I took note of Disrupting Lunge.

Yeah, isn't that skill maddening? Talking about a re-adjustment on it seems kinda uncalled for, given how rarely you see people use any beastmaster skills. And really there needs to be some debate on beastmaster classes in general, because you so rarely see a pet brought for any reason other than a mobile corpse or to clog up the battlefield.

I'm interested in pet attacks and in particular how poorly balanced they are. With the exception of the elite Ferocious Strike there is no reason to ever run any pet attack other than Disrupting Lunge. It has the strongest effect, decent damage for a pet attack, and is cheap and spammable. If it weren't dependent upon the horrendous pet AI for its effectiveness it'd be on everyone's bar.

But you know what? You're right, it probably doesn't need to be nerfed. With all the regular Ranger interrupts around, spamming it with a pet is strong, but not that much better than tossing around Distracting Shots or Savage Shots. But what's interesting about that conclusion is its implications for every other skill in the line. How terrible are these 'average' pet attacks when something with the power of Disrupting Lunge is just ok?

I tossed that one in there to get some discussion on some less talked about skills or combinations. If Disrupting Lunge is the standard, and maybe it should be, how do you even start buffing up the other pet skills to be on par with it? Because I honestly have no clue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady Lozza

I will NEVER understand why people want to nerf res sig. All classes have access to it, all classes should have it on their skill bar in pvp.

You answered the question in your first sentence with your second one. If a particular skill is so critical that every character in a build should be running that skill, that's a pretty good sign that something's a tad off. What's more disturbing is that it's not just being run as a utility slot on several characters, but that builds are actually being made around the skill - ala iWay.

That said I think it's a sensitive issue because Ressig is one of those skills that makes PvP fun instead of boring attrition battles where everyone's afraid of taking a death. It's important for Ressig to be good. At the same time though there are clearly limits to how good you want to make it, it's still subject to balance constraints. It would be ludicrous to buff the skill, for instance. It's a hard skill to talk about, because you want it to affect the environment, but I currently feel that it's warping things in ways that are not healthy, and it needs a slight nerf to counteract that.

It's a judgement call, basically, and I'm more interested in understanding the ramifications of any change, or the decision not to change it, than anything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightwish

Besides, like Ensign said - theres hundred of skills needing buffs, but why do most of the threads in this forum only crying out for nerfs?

A couple of reasons. First because skills that suck don't affect the game, they might as well not even exist. They don't ruin the game experience for anyone by sucking, so it's really not an important issue for anyone. Perhaps bigger is how boring a post about the moderately bad skills would be. How many people are really interested in whether or not Fevered Dreams needs a buff? How about Ignorance? Sure in a couple truly hideous cases it's funny to talk about a bad skill. But for every one of those there are a dozen vanilla bad skills that no one really wants to devote any thought to.

The bigger issue, though, is that skills that just aren't used also aren't very well understood by anyone. When a skill is overpowered, what it can and can't do is generally pretty well established and witnessed by lots of people. But what about a blah skill like Signet of Agony? Is that good? Bad? Do you even know what it does? How can you use it? Before you could have any sort of balance discussion about the skill you'd have to even agree on why it's useful or why it's bad. Repeat that for a hundred skills, and you have a nightmare of a discussion that really isn't going to go anywhere.

Just as an example of what a mess it would be, I don't feel that Signet of Agony or Fevered Dreams needs any sort of buff, but Ignorance does. Discuss.

Peace,
-CxE

JR · Feb 27, 2006, 09:34 AM // 09:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Protective Spirit - Reduce duration from 5...24 to 5...18 seconds. It's a strong reactive effect but it's a bit too cheap and easy to maintain it on individual characters. A slight duration nerf makes it more expensive to maintain as a static defense without hurting it's value as an anti-spike tool.

Peace,
-CxE

Damnit Ensign, ANOTHER anet farming nerf to my 55hp monk! *shakes fist*

I do agree with your suggestions, however.

(Although should they change the range of Aegis/Orders etc, I would like to see a new circle drawn on the radar, to help you keep track of who is in range and who isn't.)

Ensign · Feb 27, 2006, 10:16 AM // 10:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

Damnit Ensign, ANOTHER anet farming nerf to my 55hp monk! *shakes fist*

Oh, right, PvE. If you take that into account Protective Spirit looks like this:

Protective Spirit (Enchantment Spell) For 5...18 seconds, target ally cannot lose more than 10% max Health due to damage from a single attack or Spell (minimum of 30...14 damage per attack).

Slap AoE fear on Spiteful Spirit and start warming yourself by the hatemail fires.

Peace,
-CxE

Patrograd · Feb 27, 2006, 11:29 AM // 11:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Heal Party - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit), add a 5 second cooldown. Same argument on the range above, but magnified - that a team can hide such a powerful effect in complete safety while still getting the full benefit is a significant problem. The other problem with this skill right now is how effective it is against degeneration strategies. A single copy of the skill at even a moderate spec can be chain cast back to back to back to completely nullify an opponent's degen pressure. A short cooldown would maintain it's utility as a key weapon against degen, while requiring a team to do a bit more than stash a single powered copy somewhere.

Martyr - Reduce range from full radar to half radar (spirit), increase cast time to one second. See the above arguments about full radar range skills. In addition Martyr should have a cast time to make it interruptable. Each cast of Martyr is so powerful than an opposing team should have an opportunity to stop it they put in the effort.

Mend Ailment - Increase cooldown to 5 seconds. It's the most flexible single removal, and the most powerful non-elite weapon against condition stacks. The other condition removal options are barely considered because Ailment is so reliable. A slightly longer cooldown should make the decisions non-trivial.

I would be very happy with all of these suggestions. Heal Party plus ether prodigy on a character hidden like you say is just daft and kills any degen build, and in conjunction with martyr on another character like the runner makes condition stacking very difficult to pull off.

Lady Lozza · Feb 27, 2006, 01:53 PM // 13:53

Quote:

You answered the question in your first sentence with your second one. If a particular skill is so critical that every character in a build should be running that skill, that's a pretty good sign that something's a tad off. What's more disturbing is that it's not just being run as a utility slot on several characters, but that builds are actually being made around the skill - ala iWay.

All members of a pvp or gvg should have res sig. Period. Why? Because all other resurrection spells take too long and are too easily interrupted, unless you have a resmer and then you will have players building teams around one single character.
If people are that worried about it, they should be thinking along the lines of buffing all the other res spells before worrying about nerfing res sig.

Patrograd · Feb 27, 2006, 02:11 PM // 14:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady Lozza

All members of a pvp or gvg should have res sig. Period. .

I'm not sure this is true. Most teams seem to only bring 4 or 5 rez sigs in my experience.

I would say, looking (briefly) at the range of ritualist resurrects, that some kind of nerf to rez sig is coming.