Why the Conjure nerf was a bad idea.

I'm a little lost here, but what would be the advantage to using Ebon weapons as a ranger? Also, could someone explain the Dragon Sword loophole because I'm missing that as well.

Ebon weapons do earth damage. Almost no one has armor that gives extra resistance to earth damage. Elementalist Geomancer armor is one of the rare sets of armor that does- but they are horribly unpopular. In an envinronment where we have many fanboys claiming how superior flare is, and where searing heat and rodgorts invocation are two of the most popular PVP spells, despite being worse in every case to the alternatives, which would you pick? Armor that gives resistance for fire, or armor with resistance to earth?

That's why a ranger (and warriors) want to use weapons with earth damage.

Dragon Sword Loophole:
Standard weapons have 2 possible upgrade slots.
Swords have an upgradable hilt and upgradable pommel.
Hilt pieces include the elemental modifications and zealous upgrade.

Dragon swords come with 2 upgrade slots, but they already have inherent fire damage, which means you can put a zealous upgrade in the hilt, giving you a fiery zealous weapon. That's impossible to do on a normal sword because they occupy the same upgrade slot. Therefore you can have a weapon capable of benefitting from conjure flame and at the same time giving you the benefit of +energy on hit; that's the loophole, on a weapon that's already absurdly popular on looks alone.

I'm a bit confused as to what the actual nerf was. I remember casting Conjure FIRST then everything else to stack my buffs. What exactly was different again, sorry if i missed it. You just came out with a complaint about nerfing but didn't really show what it was previously. (Outside a small damage reduction)

Read Scaphism's post again. Regular weapons (swords) can only be upgraded with either elemental upgrade (adds elemental damage) or zealous upgrade (add +energy per attack). The current conjure can only be used on weapons with elemental damage, so you can only use conjure on weapons with elemental upgrade. Gone are the days where you can use conjure on weapons with zealous upgrade.

Except for the dragon sword, which already have fire damage even without any upgrades...

I agree with you that the Conjure nerfs were a step backwards in gameplay.

People were using them not because they were uber, it was because the alternatives were just so bad (take Weaken Armor and Barbs for example, with 30 second recasts they are virtually unplayable in PVP). In general, Enchantment stacking is fine, especially with skills like Conjure Element that take an eternity to recast once removed. There aren't enough good ways to deal damage, anyway. In higher levels of play, purely offensive teams will always lose out to a team that focuses all their resources on high defense (which includes mass monk healing enchants, damage mitigating enchants etc) and I don't think that's balance.

In case you're wondering, my problem lies with removing all the low recast, low cost enchants..there just aren't any effective enchantment removal options to counter a team based on that.

We discussed the thought that enchantment removal was not up to par yet on your other thread (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ead.php?t=1600). But yea, that is why I suggested that we need some kind of an enchantment removal similar to Remove Hex.

i kinda like the change. it does balance things out with warriors and rangers for the most part.

there are other ways to control your energy with both of these charater types.

its all about build preference to me. you can sacrifise the zealous mod just to use conjure skill. if you dont want the sacrifise then keep the zealous sword or bow. thats the balance. you cant have your cake and eat it too.
hehe.

as a warrior lets remeber your role as a teammate, your not there to be the killer on the team, your there as a nusance. somebody who can stand there and take some blows for your casters so they can do the killing while you look like your killing something. with a warrior, go into battle with some defensive skills to keep some pressure off your monks. the less they have to heal you the warrior the more sucess your team can have. you will get your heavy blows in when your target begins to fallback, give it patience.

or, just get a dragon sword. and the only way to do that is to quit your pvp only character and make a pve character.

I agree with Ensign, in my opinion this was a way to fight the buff.. example: the Order of the XXXX spells now only work with non-elemental weapons... so you can't have Order and Conjure working at the same time...

Oh, I understand now. If they remove the fire damage from the Dragon Sword then I think the Conjures will be fine. However its bad to give one particular weapon a distinct advantage.

My suggestion is equally effective at countering that. And I'd have to say I think mine is better.

The issue is complicated by the fact that you'll have to grind with a PvE char to get a perfect Dragon sword + the mods you require for a specific build, then trade it with your PvP char. I'd be happy with the situation if they just didn't allow PvP chars to trade at all, but as it is, you're combining the rewards of grind with the ease of making a PvP char with a perfect setup.

Vampiric is +5/-1 for hammers, +3/-1 for axes and swords

Currently not in the game. People may still have IAS mods, but they don't drop anymore.

Doesn't exist as far as I know. You can get +damage vs hexed foe, but not +hex duration.

Here is a list of modifiers from GW Online.

http://www.gwonline.net/page.php?p=125

Lengthens Hex would be a ridiculous mod. Think about a extra long Backfire. You could really sway a battle if you can keep Backfire on a monk without using an Echo or Quickening Zephyr as well.

Well, PvP equipment is a work in progress anyway - I like being able to just out and make characters like that but their equipment is just so much better than what most people will find in a reasonable timeframe. We're not just talking good rares, but good rares with upgrade space, and low requirements to boot. Most of the 16 AL shields I saw had a 12-13 attribute requirement - why is that the case when a PvP shield comes with a 9 req?

The new PvP character system is clearly a step in the right direction, but this is one of those issues they need to iron out. People shouldn't feel like their PvE characters are just bad versions of a ready-made PvP character with the same skills.


Excellent change. Where do bows fit?


It looks like they've cut down on the number of modifiers in the game something fierce. I can't argue with that. I still have to wonder what 'plantslaying' is doing in there, but I guess they have to give some nod to the PvP side of things. =)

Peace,
-CxE

Definately. An RP character with a decent number of hours pumped into it (say a toon that's run the entire campaign + a majority of explorable areas) should be at a slight advantage equipment-wise to a PvP char. They need that to make up for how resitriced they are in other areas, like skill availability, difficulty in retooling attribute and equipment wise, etc.

The Dragon Sword is a good example of something that should be available to RP characters but not PvP characters. You're essentially giving that toon an extra mod for free to compensate for the fact that they can't just completely retool between rounds, with new armor, runes, mods and so on, and it's really one of the few ways you can stop RP chars being totally sub-standard in PvP under the new system.

+5/-1

Right, there need to be little perks to RP characters to make up for the fact that they can't be re-rolled at a moment's notice. Things like the Dragon Sword are one thing - modifiers or weapon mod combinations that aren't available on PvP characters are another. I also noticed that you couldn't unlock Major/Superior Vigor runes, which is also a plus.

In order for any of this to matter, RP characters need to have access to these items, though. Sure, a RP character can build up an advantage by actually using all 4 of his weapon groups, but that doesn't mean anything if he can't find a weapon as good as what they give a PvP character.

It's a careful balance - they want PvP characters to be competitive, but they don't want people to feel like their RP characters are gimped for PvP. What we saw during the BWE was a fresh system, though, I'm sure the kinks are still being ironed out.

Peace,
-CxE

Absolutely wrong. If there is ANY advantage of RP char over PvP char, then it means that you need to gring RP chars to be competitive. So it kills all idea of using PvP chars to PvP without a constant grinding.

I recall hex duration mods some bwes ago, I guess they were removed. They were for weapons just like enchants mod.

So RP characters should always be at a disadvantage? I'm 100% certain that is not what the devs want. They're trying to develop a system that appeases both camp and yet does not result in a wholely segregated community.

Besides, people aren't going to grind 100-200 hours, to get 1 extra mod on a weapon, only to have their build become obsolete a week later. I doubt you'll ever see an RP character in top tier PvP, even if you let them have a "free" mod on a weapon. The returns just aren't there for the time invested, and the returns are too easily nullified by changes in the metagame.

I want to see a situation where a good RP toon is competitive in your average casual PvP matchup. For that to happen, they need to have some advantages to combat their inherintly static nature.

Ummm... sure? I remember that the last beta weekend, i unlocked a major vigor rune which was usable for my pvp created character. I'm pretty sure it was the major one and not the minor rune as i had 551 health on my caster after the creation. I used a wand that added some 30 health too. Didn't find any superior runes so don't really know about those though. Is being able to use a major rune a bug then?