No Nerfs. Period.

I find nerfs do more harm then they solve. The charactors at release will, most likley, be balanced *enough* for fun/engaging play. Of course exploits should be fixed, but no charactor should be nerfed "because his ability, (used properly), is just to strong"

The Worst feeling I'v experienced in RPG's is when I log on one day and my Charactor sucks, all because some whiney little 12-year-old got killed by me too many times.

I say before major changes, hold a mini beta, balance, release, fix expoits, but NO nerfs.

I'm sorry if this subject is taboo on these forums or somthing.

Have you used Fertile Season?

I'm sorry, but that skill needs a nerfing. In a PvP/GvG battle it gives any team the ability to not-lose, as long as they have a monk, while extending the battle-time 5-times or more than it should have taken.

Two words:
Fertile Season

I know, I know. I'd call it a sadistic, hippophilic necrophile, but that would be beating a dead horse.

quite true.. to go from 400 hp which is what the balance is based on and raise it to 800+ throws off the balence just slightly enough to make problems. fertile season does need fixed for pvp.

Arguments against Fertile Season aside, nerfing does, if it's done, need to be done very carefully in a game like Guild Wars. With the way skills work here, it's altogether possible for something to seem impossible to beat until you find the right skills to counter it.

While some changes will always need to occur (there's no such thing as perfect balance) it really irritates me when, the moment someone finds a good strategy and begins using it effectively, people begin crying "Nerf!" without even attempting to figure out if there's a way to trump it in-game. In DAoC and WoW, the strategy for beating other classes isn't to actually figure out how to use your own abilities to defeat theirs it's to go to the boards and whine for the devs to start nerfing a class/skill the moment you find that you can't seem to take them down.

Much of what combat in Guild Wars is about, is playing the skills against each other. No matter how powerful you think something is, test it thoroughly before moaning that it needs to be nerfed. If there's anything that has the potential to ruin GW, it's people who'd rather badger the devs into changing the game the moment they start encountering obstacles, rather than winning by actually playing.

Also, a skill may not need nerfing, so much as another skill needs revision to more effectively serve as a counter, or the creation of a brand new skill to deal with it.

Exactly. It's my opinion that nerfing should be the last resort.

The fact is is that Fertile Season is beatable. There are accounts of how annoying it is, but there are also stories of how, after more time than should have been required, the team has won.

Anyone who has faced a team that stacks this spell will tell you that something needs to be done to prevent this from being abused. Just because it is defeatable does not mean that a technique is not disruptive to the game. I guess you could Counterspell a Time Spiral, but that's about it. Something that impacts the game so much needs a nerf.

I dunno, I always regarded nerfing as "rendering useless". Usually happens when something was "Uber"... so they nerf it...they go overboard on the reduction of power, instead of simply making it balanced with the other skills, they make it simply non-worth while to use. Since that is my definition of nerf...Nothing really needs a nerf.

P.S. I under stand that Fertile Season needs to balanced....

People complain Fertile Seasons is insanely powerful. You know how to beat it? You hit the little spirit a few times, then it dies. The recharge time is 60 seconds, so you have that long to kill the Ranger. I've killed Warriors that were being supported by Monks faster than 30 seconds, and Warriors have higher health than Rangers. With a whole team, just have one person to knocking down the Monk while everyone beats on the Ranger.

Unless the 'little spirit' is covered by a couple of other Fertile Season spirits, and has a whole lot of hitpoints for a 'little spirit' with redundancy in +HP buffs guaranteeing you won't bring it down. Multiple rangers taking along Fertile Season can take turns casting it, eliminating any issue the 60 second recharge could pose.
The full nature of the abuse is documented, read up on the issue before you easily dismiss it.

Fertile Season is a fine example of why balancing is a difficult issue - everyone was happy when the 5% death penalty on nature rituals was lifted, but at the same time it broke Fertile Season: now people can cast it without worrying they'll be stuck with 60% DP eventually. People cast it not to defeat the other team, but to force the other team to get bored and leave, thus getting a cheap win. Something like that needs to be addressed, it goes directly against the "is what I am doing now fun" mantra. Whether that is done through nerfing the skill or by introducing counters to it is up to ArenaNet, in this particular case nerfing seems a very sensible solution, since it will simply discourage people to attempt this abuse.

The problem is that with 7 of them up and a team of monk/rangers you'll have trouble doing the damage needed. I don't think it needs "nerfing" but an adjustment of some sort; it should not benefit from its own effects for example, so it should have fewer hitpoints than it has at present.

Recharge time is 30 seconds. Fertile Season effects OTHER spirits meaning it is not a few whacks it has 500+ health and 24+ more armor than it usually does so by they time you kill 3-4 the whole team can refresh this is assuming they aren't joking around and healing spirits....you can do that too.

The point is, nothing needs to be nerfed, they just need to be balanced. Give some class something that disrupts Fertile Season, or make it so it isn't as good. But don't eliminate something just because people whine about it. There are ways to beat it, or else everyone would be playing Mo/R or R/Mo, and I sure don't see that.

First of all, no classes have been "nerfed" in Guild Wars. Skill gets balanced all the time and changes sometimes need to be made. If a skill is "nerfed" it's because it needs to be. Rangers were a good example. Under certain circumstances, Rangers were far too powerful so they needed to be toned down, or in other words balanced.

EDIT: Having said all that, I agree that Fertile Season needs to be balanced.

I think 'nerfing' became prelavent in daoc because your realm didn't have access to that particular ability or combo.

with guildwars you can both be on the sending and recieving side and thereby be more receptive to balancing...

I like to think that at least

5 energy is nothing, even for a warrior. 30 second recharge time for a 60+ second skill is nothing, especialy if you have a skill to fast-charge.
For little resource loss and without any real weaknesses a person is able to severely slow down a fight. Killing a spirit is not the solution, with several rangers (primary or secondary) the spell can be recast every 15-20 seconds.

The solution is to double casting time, make energy cost 20 and recharge time 60 - or alternatively make the spell at least two times weaker then it is.

I don't see how this skill is balanced or has any natural enemies.

just make it so it doesn't stack, problem solved I would think...

Nerf ? no
Balance ? yes

that's my opinion.

There should always be a way to be beaten, there should not be a perfect built, thus everything should be balanced.
Just because you lose as one proffesion to another might just mean that the professions you have are utterly weak vs what you were up against.

If a skill is too outrageous it needs some serious balancing

It doesn't stack but 7 spirits you need to kill all 7.