No not the Avatars...

Thus far I love the Dervish and Paragon, perhaps a bit overpowered at the start and now getting cut down in the classic rock, paper, scissors, glass balance type, but the one thing I would dislike even were I actually using them currently, are the Avatar skills. I've yet to look through the Paragon so I am unsure of any similar long disabled skill sets.

One thing that has frustrated me through so many MMOs with regards to their PvP game are cooldowns, so called because they have long cooldowns that cannot be used more than once a fight if even every fight for some. 2 minutes is not a long time, especially not for a cooldown in other games, but for Guild Wars, it just does not seem right, especially when the balance is on that timer entirely. If you played the older worlds of Everquest and ever had a SK HT for almost all of your health then you understand, or if you were ever a WoW rogue waiting for Adrenaline Rush to come back up before your next fight then you know what I mean.

What I always enjoyed was the fact that those fifteen seconds for an ability to recharge were nailbiting constantly, trying to get my next ability out just as they got weakened enough or right before they could turn the tides on me, it was not burning cooldowns and then running until the next fight. Over 30 seconds is too long for most timers, and the only reason for them to go over is bonuses involving low energy cost, short casting time, or some special condition they have, not that they are merely a powerful spell.

Avatars at 2 minutes disabled need to be reworked to be under 1 minute of recharge, with an ability that is somewhat more managable. It is a great idea to have these forms, but I am very wary about where it could go to get any kind of cooldown skills.

The only problem is, most of those Avatar's are overpowered. Having a long cool-down time is for the better. I don't think a ViM Team would like a Paragon spamming Avatar Of Melandru so s/he wouldn't be able to take conditions rendering that team nearly useless.

Are you kidding me, those avatars are by far the strongest elites ever. They last a long time, have incredible powers and the look is an elite alone. You are soo wrong with making it like thirty second spammable.

If you read some of the discriptions, it makes perfect sense. The skills are cheap, add great bonuses and have no obvious downsides. If the form elites were to have their recharge time reduced, there would be no reason for a Mystic Dervish to not be in their "god" form at all times, which would be very unbalanced.

what's an avatar?

An Avatar is one of the Elite Skills that the Dervish have. It makes them into one of the gods. This has earned it's name amoung many RA's and TA's as God Mode (Pun was obviously intended). There is more information in some of the threads here so use the Search Button next time

I think you all missed the point of "need to be reworked to be under 1 minute of recharge, with an ability that is somewhat more managable" I do not want these to be 30 second recharges at their current abilities, I want them to be more in line with what they should have for a 30 second recharge ability because they are quite powerful and Guild Wars should not contain cool down abilities which are essentially overpowered as long as you have yours up.

These are Timmy skills which are powerful and uncounterable. The only balance to this type of skill is significant usage restrictions. If you don't like long recharges, you are hardly required to play these skills. I really doubt they will see extensive high level play.

At full mysticism, you can have the avatar up about half the time without removal worries. The total down time for the skill is about 70 seconds. If you can't wait a minute for some uber effects, then you should look at other elites. There are plenty of spammmables with weaker effects in the game.

If they halved the recharge they would have to cut down duration to a third or so. That way it wouldn't become too convenient. One way to couterbalance it without mesing with duration/recharge would be to increase its energy cost and/or make it cause exhaustion. That or make the forms less powerful, which I guess cuts on the uniqueness of it and will make it feel like just another stance, not a godly transformation.

You see, the only bad aspect of the forms is that if you transform and the fight you are involved in end in, say, the next ten seconds, most of the benefits went to waste, and you have to wait a very long time to activate it again.

Is it just me or is Arcane echo + avatar elite overpowerd? :P
You can even use arcane thievery (or whatever that "lend an elite from a teammate" is called) to lend a copy of echo to maintain it for a WAY to long period?

No it isn't Arcane Echo on works on spells. Only Echo {E} works on other skill types (Elite Form in this case). And since Echo is an Elite Spell, you can't bring both. Also the reason they made the forms unaffected by Arcane Mimicry.

_Zexion

No archane won't work, for 2 reasons... one it's not a spell and 2 it already lasts longer then the recharge/duration of the avatar (60 secs). best you might be able todo is 75-80 secs.

And I'm sorry, the avatars are not overpowered at all. As a matter of fact the are way too underpowered for the extra long cool down time the require.

*Avatar of blaths is dolyak with movement increase instead. (good for a runner though)
*Melandru is endure pain + condition control, not superduper powerful though
*Lyssa is just a joke +50 while activating a skill? wtf???...
*Grenth might have various uses, but I can think of better leet's instead of that.
*Dwayna's is prolly the best of them all though, lose a hex and be healed for 50 evertime you use a skill, thats nice

Really though, how powerful do those sound? Not very IMO... I think they should be more leet or lower the cool down time.

wait you just said you think Dervs are overpowered....

but you want lower recharge on the Avatars?

What ?????

Avatars are perfect... you get to use it once a fight... makes for a strategic surprise. Plus, they DO recharge when you get the morale bonus... same as any other skill...

Plus they look FREAKIN AWESOME OMG

(ive unlocked Grenth Avatar- its good anti-enchantment, and Id bet youll see Spinal Shivers+Grenths pretty soon)

Guys dont forget about Vow Of Silence

The avatars are basically "super stances" that are unstrippable.

The lyssa avatar is obviously a shutdown vs slow casting skills. Its really cute too ^^

I really wish they had elites other than just for Mystism though. Really seem's to limit your options should you choose not to do much into mystism.

why did my post get deleted???

I am really sick and tired of people saying to use the search feature when the search feature does not work.

I suggest that GwG remove the search feature because it never works.

They should lower the duration and recharge. 2 Minute recharge skills really have no place in Guild Wars.

Edit: err a bit confused on the wording on the skills.

So its 2 minute disable, 1 minute recharge, meaning once you use it, you have to wait 2 minutes to use it again?

I agree with the poster who said Avatars are underpowered. Try playing in RA with no monk; the other team can still take you down mighty fast even if you have an Avatar up. Hardly "godlike" power as the principle of the skills suggest it would be.

Avatars should definitely not have their abilities or durations nerfed. That would take away all the coolness of them and make using them be frustrating & boring.

couldn't you use Arcane Mimicry to steal Echo from another mes?

wouldn't get a full 2 mins of it, but it would atleast be longer considering you hit it before it reverted back.

it has a 5 sec recharge (so if you interrupted while using it, its no big deal), but once u use it, its disabled for 2 minutes, starting when you 1st transform. so with the ~1 min duration, it has a ~1 min cooldown.

Why do you think it got deleted? All caps, rofl, noob.

Seriously, I've seen way way way nicer ways to say "I can't use search because its down a lot." If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all, or if you do, I'm going to delete it.

Avatars aren't overpowered but they definetly aren't udnerpowered. Infact I think they are perfect as they are.

If you can't kill your enemy in the 1 minute you are in god form then you probably need to rework your strategy.

Right now I think Dervishes should be left alone and examined later. The Paragons have way more going on right now.

From what I have seen, avatars are not worth it. I just started pvp today, having never tried it before, and I was taking out the Dervish who transformed easily, with my regular dervish. It can be argued that they didn't know what they were doing, but then again neither do I.