Curse

Odd Sock · Sep 04, 2005, 12:36 PM // 12:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaylee Ann

I really don't understand what you don't get about my post. Even your own guild memeber posted the build. 48 * 7 = 336 dmg to a target before any other factors are included. Lets examine my post:

A standard run of the mill target running one superior rune and running superior vigor has 455 hps. 455 - 336 = 119 hps left. Like I said before, this is before any modifiers (ie wards, life barrier, ect ect). That is roughy 74% of a target's life gone when I am done karate chopping my keyboard. So I see 2 problems.

1. You either can't read, or you don't understand the definition of almost. Dictionary.com defines almost as:

al·most - Slightly short of; not quite; nearly:

Considering I can karate chop my keyboard and almost instantaneously knock off 74% of a targets life (like I said, before any modifiers), while using the definition of almost, I can make the statement that a mo/w can "almost insta kill" someone.

<*Snipped!* for flaming. Please do NOT flame on these boards. .. Aria>

I don't know if you're permanently banned or what but as one of my guildie's reminded me, you can't Karate Chop all the shouts at once since each one takes away one strike of adren. So you have to hit, then shout, hit and mix in a to the limit. The Mo/W is a build we developped about three months and there's a reason why it's not used anymore.

oh and by almost you should say not since one swing is 1.33 seconds interval and you need that hit for the next shout.

Next time try not to flame like a ranting moron

Ensign · Sep 04, 2005, 08:10 PM // 20:10

That's what To The Limit is for - one adrenal shout, TTL, second adrenal shout. C'mon man, before you start being a troll please be sure to get your facts straight.

Peace,
-CxE

Ollj · Sep 04, 2005, 10:38 PM // 22:38

Heres another build: http://www.zerolives.org/guildwars/i...miter_11_10_10

In case you didnt notice, smiting is a monk skill, just use it with a monk, (warrior or necrmancer): I had this argument in Hells percipiece with an Elementalist Ranger that used sword and shield (no clue how he came there that way) and I told him this is stupid, and he thought a monk that smites is stupid.
Especially zealots fire and smite hex are worth more than 12 smiting and smiting works nicely with divine favor and protection prayers.
On the other hand the Elementalist smiters in most teams dont think they have to care for protection or condition removing, what a WASTE of potential!

Rangers, Mesmers and elementalists just dont make THAT good smiters.
I still play with them bcause i seem to have no other coice.

Baltazars aura is not worth much more than 7 smiting prayers, if you will not follow this point i wont argue with you.

Zenoi X · Sep 04, 2005, 11:59 PM // 23:59

Monks, in my opinion, make better smiters. E/Mo smiters and Mo/ smiters both have their ups and downs, however. With an E/Mo, the point of it is obviously to have more energy and spam smite skills, therefore the elite is "wasted" on Ether Renewal. With a Mo/ smiter, you will be able to have more skillpoints on smiting skills and whatever other monk skills you want (smiting goes best with protection in my opinion though). Mo/ smiters can therefore deal more damage, and usually use Shield of Judgement or Sig of Judgement. Being a primary monk, you are attacked first, and you can cast Symbol of Wrath as they come to you, then Shield of Judgement, then Balthazar's Aura. In the PvP arenas (yes, I admit they were the Competition Arenas), I took out an entire group of warriors in less than 20 seconds by myself. I have also taken out many E/Mo smiters with my smite monk in the Team and Competition Arenas as well.

Vincent Draculov · Sep 05, 2005, 12:12 AM // 00:12

When I play the Mo/W Shouter/Smiter, I just hit 1-6 in rapid succession by sliding my finger across the keys... fast enough that all of the numbers pop over their heads at about the same time. As Ensign stated, since the two adrenaline shouts are separated by To the Limit, both adrenaline skills can be used at pretty much the same time.

Its not rocket science to play. Run up to target, position yourself where you will hit as many people as possible, press 123456 in rapid succession.

All of those numbers are fun, though. =)

White Designs · Sep 05, 2005, 12:47 AM // 00:47

To say that an elite is 'wasted' on Ether Renewal is just...astounding. Ether Renewal is the very reason why smiting is good, and is easily one of the, (and in my opinion the) most powerful skill in this game.

Dzan · Sep 11, 2005, 04:50 PM // 16:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

My point is that you have to look at Ether Renewal in the proper context- where does it rank among the energy management elites? Right at the top.

Wouldn't you agree that something always has to be the best? I mean, there has to be SOMETHING at the top, because if all skills are equal in power there will be nothing to distinguish a good build from a poor one.

I'm not saying ER isn't hyper-powerful, it is, but I'm having trouble understanding why it has to be nerfed purely because "its the best." If you are going to suggest nerfing it, do it for the same reason NR was nerfed: it creates a warped meta-game environment, no other arguement is worth considering.

Schorny · Sep 11, 2005, 05:04 PM // 17:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzan

Wouldn't you agree that something always has to be the best? I mean, there has to be SOMETHING at the top, because if all skills are equal in power there will be nothing to distinguish a good build from a poor one.

So you want all good builds be exactly the same. Because there are superior skills, every good build needs the exact same skills - because al other skills are inferior.

Your logic is flawed.

You see: all human are equal, but not everyone is the same. Same situation here. Skills have to be equal powerful. A good build will have a better combination than a bad build.

Quote:

I'm not saying ER isn't hyper-powerful, it is, but I'm having trouble understanding why it has to be nerfed purely because "its the best." If you are going to suggest nerfing it, do it for the same reason NR was nerfed: it creates a warped meta-game environment, no other arguement is worth considering.

Every skill that is 'the best' has to be changed. Because superior skills are unfair.

ER gives unlimited energy and that is unfair. It shall be powerfull by no doubts, but it shall be reasonable compared the ether prodigy, energy drain, offering of blood,... It has to be in line with them.

It's like a high damage skill that does unlimited damage to a target. Such a skill would be unfair.

As you can easily see: ER gives more energy than you can hold. If you use ER right, you are going to throw energy out by casting expensive skills just for fun. So much energy can't be right.

Fenix Swiftblade · Sep 11, 2005, 05:52 PM // 17:52

There is one thing I've noticed about Ether Renewal that isn't true for the rest of the energy management elites out that and that’s the fact that it can doesn't have to be interrupted while it's being cast. If you use Energy Drain, you cast it, get your energy back and then wait for it to recharge. If you use Ether Renewal you run the risk of something happening after you cast it. Blackout, Diversion, Lingering Curse, Rend Enchantments, and Well of the Profane will all nullify/significantly weaken Ether Renewal after it was cast, but not Energy Drain, or Offering of Blood.

The argument of a spell being easily countered is usually not an issue in whether a skill is broken, if the counter being used can counter everything. Saying you can just power spike a skill and therefore it's not broken is flawed, as you can power spike and spell in the same manner.

Now, because the aforementioned skills counter Ether Renewal and not any of the other energy management elites, in other words, Ether Renewal is weak against them, and the others are not, they do in fact have to be taken into account when determining if Ether Renewal is superior to the others.

There is also the requirement of having to use several skill slots on enchantments. Ether renewal only works in enchantment heavy builds, meaning there are limited options to use it with, and that you have to sacrifice 3-4 skills slots for those enchantments. Energy Drain and Offering of Blood will work as long as you can have Mesmer or necro as one of your two professions.

Lastly, because Ether Renewal is linked to energy storage you HAVE to be an ele primary to use it effectively. This one isn't as big seeing as you can make your secondary whatever you want, but combined with the other restrictions it does narrow down the usefulness of Ether Renewal somewhat.

As to whether or not this is enough to make Ether Renewal balanced, I would say no. But I think it's a lot closer to being balanced than most people here are claiming.

P.S. Can someone post all the calculations involved in showing that Ether Renewal gives 10 pips of energy regen? I keep doing it and only getting 5...
EDIT: Nevermind, I did it right this time and got 8 while under-estimating everything.

Dzan · Sep 11, 2005, 07:41 PM // 19:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schorny

So you want all good builds be exactly the same. Because there are superior skills, every good build needs the exact same skills - because al other skills are inferior.

Your logic is flawed.

You see: all human are equal, but not everyone is the same. Same situation here. Skills have to be equal powerful. A good build will have a better combination than a bad build.

My suggestion to you is to play chess then if thats what you believe. Coming from an M:tG background having "good" cards and "bad" cards are something I recognize as good. Bad players use bad cards because they don't know any better. Average players use good cards but still lose to good players because of play skill. Good players use good cards and win because they are good. Identifying and utilizing the good skills while avoiding the bad ones is part of what makes a good player good.

I see your logic as skewed, since you are under the false impression that when ER is gone everyone will go back to playing 100% original builds and the good players will have good builds and the bad will have bad. That is NOT what will happen. ER will be nered, a new FotM will emerge, and the bad players will copy that one too. Nothing will have changed but the name of the skill you want nerfed.

I don't think you can argue that ER skews the metagame the same way NR did, to be perfectly honest. I mean, its powerful in a particular build and that build is the "best" right now. Do you think the next FotM will be any less common in the Tombs? The next FotM will be just as prevelant and the counters to it will be just as prevelant, thats the way it works.

Zeru · Sep 11, 2005, 08:54 PM // 20:54

Sorry but that's wrong.

There's a gigantic difference between something being really good like fear me or energy drain and something being broken beyond belief (3-5x stronger than the next best, yeah that's right

). Ether Renewal is just way beyond the strength of offering it's stupid.

Mind Wallaby · Sep 11, 2005, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzan

Do you think the next FotM will be any less common in the Tombs? The next FotM will be just as prevelant and the counters to it will be just as prevelant, thats the way it works.

Why bother feeding yourself if you're just going to get hungry again?... that's the way it works.

Just because there might be a new broken skill doesn't mean we shouldn't fix this one (and Ether Renewal is undoubtedly broken). To think otherwise is a fatalistic view that leads to no progress. The game may never be perfect but we can certainly make it better, don't you agree?

Dzan · Sep 11, 2005, 11:17 PM // 23:17

I agree, and I've agreed since the beginning that it is very powerful. The problem is, nerf it for the right reason. Nerfing it simply because its popular is, I hope you agree, foolish for the reason I described being that there is always going to be something popular. Half the people cry nerf because they think its "boring" and "too common" in the Tombs. Thats the worst justification for nerfing something, and any arguement which is based upon that is just plain dumb.

The best arguement is that not only is the best skill, but that its the best skill by way too much a margin. Really, there is nothing wrong with it being good or even being the best. But there is something wrong with it being orders of magnitude better. The simplest suggestion is to keep the mechanics the same but reduce the benefits by 50%. That would keep it playable, but keep it from being unquestionably better than other energy skills.

Somewhat unrelated, I'd like to go on a tangent and suggest to A-net that since Energy is the most valuable commodity in the game by far that they do a complete review of all energy management skills. Like I said weeks ago, once they nerf Nature Renewal the game would become a battle over energy management and it has, especially moreso when ER gets nerfed.

Moskel · Sep 12, 2005, 01:00 PM // 13:00

And the Mo/W shouting smiter was fixed this patch. The Draw/Boon spamming ones were slowed down as well. This indirectly impacts the power of Ether Renewal (though still probably not enough). ER is a tricky skill to balance without making it obsolete in most cases.

The amount of energy regen from ER is directly porportional to the amount of spamable spells you have to cast while its up and the number of enchantments on you. As the casting or recharge time is raised on key skills used in an ER build it lowers its benefit.

In order to get maximum energy recovery from Energy Drain {E} it doesn't dictate other slots on your bar or slots on your team members bars (to potentially cast enchantments on you). It also doesn't cost energy to get energy (those enchantments weren't free and not always needed, ok yes it costs 5 to cast but that isn't significant next to the cost to really fuel ER).

So under ideal circumstances ER gives +7 to energy regen. This assumes that you have high energy storage, that you have near 0 energy when you cast it, that you managed to fill yourself up during it.

After the addition of the 1s recharge to both Draw and Boon I'm not sure ER is really that out of whack anymore. It is much harder to play now (you can't just pound '1' on your keyboard for 12 seconds now like a wannabe pre-patch Putrid necro to Draw your energy full) and still has the weaknesses.

To counter smiting...consider having your Monks pack Drain Enchantment, they get energy and remove the BA on the Warriors chasing them.

To counter the E/Mo consider packing a Backbreaker Hammer Warrior, you see ER go off, put them on the ground for 5 seconds

If you want to go to the extreme....

W/Me - Hammer 16 (12+1+3) / Strength 13 (10+3) / Inspiration 8
Furious Hammer of [X]
Backbreaker {E}
Staggering Blow
Heavy Blow
Drain Enchantment
Inspired Enchantment
Sprint
Frenzy
Res Sig

You now eat E/Mo for lunch, you can charge up adrenaline and knock them down for almost the entire ER, you can remove their precious ER after knocking them down even if somebody else throws a cover enchantment over their precious

Bugeater · Sep 12, 2005, 06:56 PM // 18:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moskel

The Draw/Boon spamming ones were slowed down as well.

What's Draw/Boon spamming? you can't cast Draw on yourself. If you meant Draw/RoF spamming, then it wasn't slowed down at all. If you meant Boon/RoF spamming then yeah, that was slowed down, but there weren't that many doing that anyway (a soft target needing to be point-blank isn't ideal)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moskel

under ideal circumstances ER gives +7 to energy regen.

Here's my math: with 2 already present enchantments (Zealot's Fire and Aura of Restoration), 14 in Energy Storage, 90 max energy, and a 20/20 Energy Storage focus. Casting Ether Renewal at around 15 energy leaves you with 5 energy and 3 enchantments. Since spamming Draw/Rof gives more than your max energy, you can substitute a slightly longer cast spell (Zealot's Fire or Balthazar's Aura) and still fill your energy bar. Assuming you throw in a BA (25 energy cost) and get off 9 spam spells, you've not only gained 80 energy on your bar, you've also cast 70 energy worth of spells which was recouped. Given 31 seconds from start to start of ER (actually slightly less on average with the 20/20 focus), that's 4.8 energy per second or 14.5 pips of regen sustained. Since 4 pips are already there, ER is adding 10.5 pips.

I don't know if you would consider those ideal circumstances, but they're the ones I find myself in regularly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moskel

After the addition of the 1s recharge to both Draw and Boon I'm not sure ER is really that out of whack anymore.

Since all spells have a .75 second aftercast (which is consumed by the recharge if there is one) the addition of a 1s recharge to those skills was a net addition of .25 seconds. Since the above calculations were using 2 spam skills under the current system, I'd still say it's out of whack.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moskel

To counter the E/Mo consider packing a Backbreaker Hammer Warrior, you see ER go off, put them on the ground for 5 seconds

This isn't a bad strategy, but you really need more than 1 warrior to pull it off. If the ElMo's getting beaten on, you can bet you'll be looking at a Guardian, Aegis, and/or Ward vs. Melee. A single warrior won't be hitting often enough to be effective. Sure a Backbreaker might land, but you'll only cut the energy regen down to 4 or 5 pips with ER - still on par with other elite energy skills. But if my ElMo sees 2 or 3 hammers coming at him, he's definately going to need some help - likely going to bite it.

Moskel · Sep 12, 2005, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bugeater

What's Draw/Boon spamming? you can't cast Draw on yourself. If you meant Draw/RoF spamming, then it wasn't slowed down at all. If you meant Boon/RoF spamming then yeah, that was slowed down, but there weren't that many doing that anyway (a soft target needing to be point-blank isn't ideal)

I meant Draw/Boon spamming, you spam Draw on others, Boon on yourself, there are plenty of times where the E/Mo may want to be point blank. This let you pound out without having to switch keys wasting more time/making it harder to play or devoting more of your bar to it. You can't activate Zealots spamming stuff on yourself at all anymore so now its just down to "pet" smiting off of somebody else completely eliminating one of the main ways it was being used (the E/Mo can't defend themselves worth a damn anymore).

This change alone eliminated one key way to play a E/Mo. And a E/Mo running 12 ES (10+1+1), 9 Earth (8+1), 12 Smiting with Armor of Earth is hardly a "soft target". Its a come hit me please target especially under QZ where you almost always have ER up and running. You can't do this at all anymore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bugeater

Here's my math: with 2 already present enchantments (Zealot's Fire and Aura of Restoration), 14 in Energy Storage, 90 max energy, and a 20/20 Energy Storage focus. Casting Ether Renewal at around 15 energy leaves you with 5 energy and 3 enchantments. Since spamming Draw/Rof gives more than your max energy, you can substitute a slightly longer cast spell (Zealot's Fire or Balthazar's Aura) and still fill your energy bar. Assuming you throw in a BA (25 energy cost) and get off 9 spam spells, you've not only gained 80 energy on your bar, you've also cast 70 energy worth of spells which was recouped. Given 31 seconds from start to start of ER (actually slightly less on average with the 20/20 focus), that's 4.8 energy per second or 14.5 pips of regen sustained. Since 4 pips are already there, ER is adding 10.5 pips.

I don't know if you would consider those ideal circumstances, but they're the ones I find myself in regularly.

What is the point of Aura of Restoration other than being a cover enchantment? The healing provided by it is pretty much useless in PvP, if you are getting hit you probably aren't standing still casting spells, if you are standing still casting spells while getting hit you're probably dying anyways. So now to fuel your ER {E} you've devoted 4 slots to it, ER {E} + Draw + RoF + Aura of Restoration. Being able to stand still the entire ER period I would consider ideal circumstances especially without having anything stripped on you. Did you put a cover enchantment on that ER or are you just spamming straight away? How much time did you waste putting that cover on yourself and then targetting your "pet" before you could start spamming?

I'll not count the Zealot's Fire since it actually does something. 99% of the time you cast Draw or RoF on somebody else all it is doing is spending energy to activate Zealot's Fire. I'll say that using 5 energy for 37 fire damage is pretty poor (Flare does 40 and you can cast it on anything and thats at 12 fire, it does 48 at 16) for that energy (and I don't think you see too many people using Flare in PvP effectively).

Most of the smiting damage is really coming from the Balthazar's Aura which has the benefit of being Holy damage. This is also much less effective now that you can't really be running under QZ most of the time like any good pre-patch E/Mo smiting team did. This means half as much ER, half as much BA so what 1 E/Mo could do before it now takes 2 (and actually more than 2 because of the other slowdowns).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bugeater

Since all spells have a .75 second aftercast (which is consumed by the recharge if there is one) the addition of a 1s recharge to those skills was a net addition of .25 seconds. Since the above calculations were using 2 spam skills under the current system, I'd still say it's out of whack.

16 spells in 12 seconds at 0.75 down to 12 spells in 12 seconds now, really it was more like 15 and 11 in most best cases. That by itself is 25% slowdown in offensive power.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bugeater

This isn't a bad strategy, but you really need more than 1 warrior to pull it off. If the ElMo's getting beaten on, you can bet you'll be looking at a Guardian, Aegis, and/or Ward vs. Melee. A single warrior won't be hitting often enough to be effective. Sure a Backbreaker might land, but you'll only cut the energy regen down to 4 or 5 pips with ER - still on par with other elite energy skills. But if my ElMo sees 2 or 3 hammers coming at him, he's definately going to need some help - likely going to bite it.

If you don't have a N/x x/N on your team with Rigor your Warrior should probably be packing Warrior's Cunning, every one of those hammer attacks will be hitting

So, in a single one trick pony setup ER offers by far the best energy recovery (basically when its not stripped, you run an enchantment heavy build, and that build has spammable skills in it). Energy Drain allows you to obtain very good energy recovery while providing energy denial. Even only devoting 8 points to Inspiration in a secondary nets you 10 energy every 20 seconds and drains 15 from the enemy team. A net gain of 25 per 20 seconds. While this isn't 130 energy from ER you choose when, where and how you use it. If you go up to 14 in Inspiration where you have Energy Storage at it nets you 15 energy every 20 seconds while draining 20 from the enemy for a net gain of 35.

Countering E/Mo also doesn't break your build to bring counters to it. You want enchantment stripping on your team, you want some anti-cast (like a Diversion someplace), you want knockdown. Even if you run into a team without an E/Mo the other team will probably have some casting (ok, yes there are IWAY teams, lets not go on that tangent) and those skills won't go wasted.

It takes one skill slot on a N/x or x/N with only 3 points in Curses to competely neuter your build. That N if any good, watches you use ER, fires off Rend and you sit there for 30 seconds doing nothing because well you used ER because you were out of energy, now you have no enchantments and not enough energy to recast them all. They can then go back to doing anything else they want. They just watch the clock and 30 seconds later swap back to you and repeat the process (they really don't need to even watch the clock, Rend resets exactly the same time your ER will). I'd like to see you counter Energy Drain like this.

Its great "under ideal circumstances" and it can also be useless in a big hurry. Energy Drain is always going to provide you energy and almost always really mess up somebody on the opposing team at the same time.

I'm done posting on this thread. Keep running your E/Mo, keep thinking smiting is the best thing since sliced bread and please keep bringing your 2 W/x 2 E/Mo 1 N/x Tainted 3 Mo teams into GvG.

Phades · Sep 12, 2005, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moskel

I'll not count the Zealot's Fire since it actually does something. 99% of the time you cast Draw or RoF on somebody else all it is doing is spending energy to activate Zealot's Fire. I'll say that using 5 energy for 37 fire damage is pretty poor (Flare does 40 and you can cast it on anything and thats at 12 fire, it does 48 at 16) for that energy (and I don't think you see too many people using Flare in PvP effectively).

First off flare is not AOE damage. Secondly zealots fire ramps up to that high at 16 skill. Also you are completely forgetting that you are comparing 1.75s to 1.0s and discrediting a projectile versus a non-projectile attack. A better comparison would be fireball with 5e 1s 0 recharge. More importantly though, is that you are creating synergy with melee removing one of their biggest weaknesses, that being conditions and providing a cover enchantment for balthazar's aura via reversal of fortune spam.

Compared to other methods of attack, there is no "effective" use for flare. That would be like saying there are effective ways to use other crap skills like mind wrack, blood renewal, i will survive, succor, call of protection, and others. This is also discounting the second rate skills that have superior alternatives.

stumpy · Sep 12, 2005, 11:53 PM // 23:53

Dzan's statements above are not entirely wrong ... to a certain extent he is right. Similar to Mt:G you will obviously have some better cards than others. Here to ... just look at the skill lineup and you will see ... though call of protection may be good somewhere ... in a pvp discussion it just wont hold its own versus something like tiger fury, or hamstring. Maybe while posting this we should also keep in mind that there are 2 faces to this game ... and the pve skills dont always work as well in pvp ... some skills do, but some are situational. I think what he means is there are some better skills for pvp, then others. Which is true.

Moskel · Sep 13, 2005, 12:44 AM // 00:44

Ok, I lied I'll post on the thread again

I can't exactly let this go.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

First off flare is not AOE damage. Secondly zealots fire ramps up to that high at 16 skill. Also you are completely forgetting that you are comparing 1.75s to 1.0s and discrediting a projectile versus a non-projectile attack. A better comparison would be fireball with 5e 1s 0 recharge. More importantly though, is that you are creating synergy with melee removing one of their biggest weaknesses, that being conditions and providing a cover enchantment for balthazar's aura via reversal of fortune spam.

Unless I'm missing something Flare is 5/1/0 and the AoE from Zealot's Fire is only going to hit (a) a bad team or (b) a healing ball (which wants you to spam a bunch of crud damage attacks like Zealot's Fire). You also can't ramp Zealot's Fire up to 16 and use Ether Renewal so for this debate its stuck at 12 (and if you are talking about a Prot/Smite Mo/x Hybrid Protection Monk you probably don't want to be running a Superior Smiting rune on him in PvP unless he's the 4th Monk on your team and then I'd argue in most cases you can get better damage out of his energy than burning it on Zealot's Fire and a bunch of RoF/Draw spam).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Compared to other methods of attack, there is no "effective" use for flare. That would be like saying there are effective ways to use other crap skills like mind wrack, blood renewal, i will survive, succor, call of protection, and others. This is also discounting the second rate skills that have superior alternatives.

Mind Wrack - There are plenty of good uses for this in an energy denial focused team. I've played top 50 guilds that ran pure drain oriented teams and killed you with nothing but a few plinking wands and Mind Wrack. It has to be the most frustrating death you'll ever suffer.

Blood Renewal - I guess you've never played a OoP/OoV spam N/x before running a few superior runes?

"I will survive!" - Ok I'll give you this, not a good skill unless you're trying to run from Bergen Hot Springs to the Temple of the Ages.

Succor - Hmm lets see, W/Mo with a Zealous Axe and a bar full of adrenaline skills. Cast Succor on a team member Monk and go to town. As long as you can swing your Axe as fast as they can cast you never run out of energy and they get an extra pip of regen. Seems like an ok skill to me?

Call of Protection - This could come in handy on a pet focused team build. Only one person needs to bring it to buff all of the pets and its a shout so it can't be removed. It costs a whopping 2-5 energy, lasts 2 minutes and has a 115s recharge so its always up.

Dzan · Sep 13, 2005, 01:34 AM // 01:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeru

Sorry but that's wrong.

There's a gigantic difference between something being really good like fear me or energy drain and something being broken beyond belief (3-5x stronger than the next best, yeah that's right

). Ether Renewal is just way beyond the strength of offering it's stupid.

Somewhat true, which I recognized in my last post, but I still have a bone to pick.

There is almost no caster based build that wouldn't use E-Drain if there was an E-drain clone available in their skill line. I'm having trouble thinking of a caster build that wouldn't use E-drain if it was available to them, besides e/mo smiters.

ER, by comparison is even better, but only in certain situations. AFAIK, there are only 2 or 3 playable builds using ER. However, in those builds its better than anything else could ever be.

So when the designers of M:tG or A-net sit down to ban a card or nerf a skill, they have to think about multiple contexts.

First, is the subject very powerful in and of itself. ER certainly qualifies as very powerful, no doubts about that.

Second, does a deck or build exist which abuses it to the extent that little else can compete with it in terms of raw power? Two weeks ago, people would have said ER certainly fits thats description too. But I think metagame adjustments have occured which has shown how fragile smite groups are. I think that it's legitimate to say that e/mo smite teams are no better now than air spikers were 2 weeks after they were revealed to be FotM. How many good teams were losing to air spikers 2 weeks after they rose to popularity? How many good teams are losing to smiters now?

Third, does the skill warp the metagame to the point where its very existence eliminates normally viable choices? Nature's Renewal did this. You could not play enchantments or hexes except very specific exceptions. Thus every decent build, even ones that didn't use NR ran enchant and hex light. On the macro level, ER does not do the same thing. The counters to ER are the same skills people would play if ER didn't exist. When ER is nerfed will anyone take Diversion out of their HoH builds? Me neither.
On the micro level, does the existence of ER prevent you from playing other skills that you would normally play? Clearly, E-Drain and Offering of Blood are very powerful energy gainers. Do people leave these skills at home because ER is so clearly better? Nope, because ER is only good in a particular build. Here is an example, lets say you are a primary Mesmer. You could easily fit E-Drain into your build. Will you take minor Ele just to play ER? Doubt it. Lets say you are an Ele/Mes, you run no enchantments besides your elemental attunement, do you take ER unconditionally? Very, very doubtful. All in all, I'm not convinced ER fits this category.

Fourth and finally, does the prescence of this skill or card make the game as a whole less fun? Very subjective, we can all agree. Some people would say its untolerable. I would say that its no more or less fun to play against than any other FotM. I had about as much fun beating up smite teams as I did beating air spikers. I think the average person is more or less the same.

So really, it only fails the first critera, and honestly, thats the only position I've heard articulated well on this whole forum. Few people have even been concerned with it for the other reasons, and those that have really haven't expressed themselves well.

Do I think A-net should nerf it? Nope. I don't think its really in the same ballpark as Natures Renewal in terms of damage to the pvp experience, or even a damage at all. Do I think A-net will nerf it? Yup, and they will probably nerf whatever the next FotM is afterwards: they just dont have the same amount of experience as Wizards of the Coast when it comes to competitive game balance.