Gale thoughts

Quote: Originally Posted by angshuman

I am willing to bet chapter 2 going to have quite a few ways to punish exhaustion, we had already seen a few skill that punishes it with this preview event.

That can also mean... Ouch for ele.

Gale = 4s knockdown with Stonefist Gauntlets, no?

Quote: Originally Posted by Cirian

Those arguing that gale isn't overpowered don't understand the game. There are numerous problems with Gale. I will quote Ensign on this subject, as he is both eloquent and an accurate assessor of the metagame.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ensign The thing about Gale Warriors is that the more of them you have, the better each of them becomes. Using Gale on your own target is kinda blah, honestly. He gets to run while you cast, then you have to catch up, plus aftercast...it's decent, but nothing to get excited about. When you're using it for someone else, though, it starts to become sexy - you Gale, another Warrior gets to beat on the target for 3 seconds with no interruption, then he Gales while you beat. When you have a pack of Gale Warriors things start to get ugly, with targets being perma-knocklocked while all the Warriors keep beating on the stunned target. So that's one issue, the constant shutdown that 2 warriors can bring, at little cost (5 energy) or attribute investment (4 in air).

Quote: Originally Posted by Ensign The problems with this lie beyond the lack of counters. One of the big issues is that Exhaustion never goes negative. You can Gale as soon as you hit 5 energy, and you'll start working that off immediately. The next Gale will come 15 seconds later, not 30, because 5 of the exhaustion was nullified by the cap. You can see War Machine and other Korean teams exploiting the hell out of this with focus swapping - switch to a shield or -5 energy weapon, Gale, switch back, Frenzy or use whatever energy skill, switch back to your -energy set to Gale, repeat. Yet another problem with Gale - the limiting factor for recasts doesn't affect it much, since exhaustion doesn't go negative. In addition while there are numerous counters to being interrupted (obstacles for vs rangers, evading them, spellbreaker, glyph of concentration, Mantra of Resolve, quick casting times) there is only one feasible option for anti-knockdown, and it is a warrior skill.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ensign

Gale should not be nerfed, because it's not Gale's fault. if you're nerfing Gale, you're only hurting other classes using Gale. Axe warriors are still free to use whatever high-energy skills out there to hurt or annoy casters. Then people will yell "nerf those" again, not realizing where the problem really is.

You don't see many sword/hammer warriors using Gale because exhaustion will reduce their damage output a lot by preventing them from using their favorite spammable skills (irresistable blow, seeking blade etc.). But axe warriors are in the unique position because their high damage skills don't use energy, so exhaustion means nothing to them. So solution should be making some axe skills costing energy instead of adrenaline, then they will have to think twice before using skills that cause exhaustion and limit their damage output.

While making warrior skills cost energy does address some of the issue, I doubt that'll happen - and it would weaken warriors horribly.

Warriors can work quite effectively on little/no energy, so they are one of the few that can afford to run Gale. One major issue with Gale is that it ignores half the exhaustion penalty - since it is a 5 cost skill the loss of 10 max energy doesn't matter if you can't go negative in terms of maximum energy. Simply changing that would halve the rate with which warriors could use this, once they bottom their energy out, while leaving it untouched for others.

Quote: Originally Posted by Epinephrine

So as you all sumerized - the cause of the "bad effect" is 2+ warrior gale combo. I doubt anyone minds other than warrior classes to use gale, I mean eles, mesmers, even monks can use it, but they will "feel" exhaustion effect.

If exhaustion does not go negative, then when going to 0 mana, it will begin restoring 1 per sec, the spell recharge is 5, so at the 7-8 sec (with 2 mana regen) you can cast again. Of course this is the little problem. The big one is like the buddy stated - item equip/uneqip abuse for removing 5 pts of exhaustion - enough to cast it again.

Short - gale on axe 2+ wars is extreamly effective. Making exhaustion work on negative number will hinder this but will hinder even more normal casters which depend only on mana. The solution must be somethink that will stop the warriors from abusing it, but will not "nerf" the spell or the casters.

Quote: Originally Posted by Arcador

One skill that prevents knockdown:
Balanced Stance

Two skills that prevent you from being the target of spells:
Spellbreaker and obsidian flesh.

So instead of 100% it's 99%. Wow.

Quote: Originally Posted by Symbol

Dolyak Signet also prevents knockdown. But it is worth noting that the only 2 ways of preventing knockdown are both in the Warrior line.

Here's my radical idea to balance Gale on warriors (which may not be technically feasible):

Modify the effects of the Exhaustion condition so that while exhausted adrenaline gain is reduced/nullified.

Or... how about this fix for Gale?

Just have the knockdown time relative to the amount of Air Magic invested.

That could allow Air Ele's more of a benefit from the skill, but warriors less so. Not that Gale War's are badly overpowered. But, in the event a change is made, I like the idea of tieing the skill more closely to its attribute line.

you can run no poor strenght and get 12 air, so you'd still get a decent gale

best counter i've seen is just ignore it and let your teammates say you're galed

Quote: Originally Posted by kvndoom

Quote: Originally Posted by dawnrain

Seriously guys, gale is just a skill, that people were able to use to it's fullest advantage. It allows warriors to actually gain an upper hand on monks. But i could see the arguement for it's overuse, but again, there's always more then one monk on a team, thus unless they can synch gales on the three or two monks, countering isn't that hard. Also, with axes, i agree, it does seem unfair how it has more adren spike attacks compared to sword and hammer. For any ideas to lessen the use of gale would be like everytime you cast gale, you get knocked down or something to that affect,but..i guess you could just get another warrior to attack the target.

The problem isint that Gale is an over-powered skill initself, but its just that it making other types of warrs useless. With 16 Axe, Evis, Frenzy, Sprint and Gale you have a char with an interrupt, decent spike , highest dps, (almost) cannot be kited and a knockdown. Some of these elements overlap but they are still true. And thus we are stuck again with a "best" build-template.