Game balance: Expertise

Lets take a look at profession primary abilities.

Warrior - Strength Does not effect other professions skills

Elementalist - Energy Storage Does not effect other profession skills

Monk - Divine Favor Does not effect other profession skills

Necromancer - Soul Reaping Does not effect other profession skills

Mesmer - Fast Casting Does not greatly effect other profession skills

Assassin - Critical Strikes Does not greatly effect other profession skills

Ritualist - Spawning Power Does not greatly effect other profession skills

Ranger - Expertise has a huge effect on other profession skills

Now the original description of Expertise stated "The Expertise attribute reduces the energy cost of Attack, Preparation, and Trap skills by 4 percent."
Back when the attribute was first developed and decided for the Ranger I wonder if they meant for it to only affect ranger based skills. During the Nightfall preview event there were a ton of people playing R/P, and lets not forget the rampaging R/N in RA and Alliance Battles. If it wasn't for the fact that Expertise greatly reduces the energy cost of skills, then hardly anyone would play a ranger primary other than for ranged attacks, interrupts, and traps (which the class was originally designed for).
Its time that Expertise was limited to only affecting Ranger based skills.

Don't nerf Expertise to only rangers just because some people created a cookiecutter build with it for a touchranger... Just make those touches SPELLS instead of skills if you want to nerf something.

Hi, Strength triggers on all attack skills, if I'm not gravely mistaken. It triggers on say, Ranger attack skills too... Bad argument, and I'm less than 20 words in...

/not signed

And now for the rest:

Ever see an E/Mo spamming Heal Party or Extinguish? Say, those are practicaly elementalist spells! Ether Prodigy powered spamming ftw? Yeah, sorry you're wrong here too, even if you argue that Ether Prodigy is a skill(that is linked to Energy Storage, and one that almost every elementalist brings), higher energy storage still effects how much you can spam somthing without energy managment.. So... Yeah...

You're right about Divine Favor. Of course, how many non-monk non-energy managment skills do monks use? Hmm... 0?

Soul Reaping effects energy levels. More energy = more skill usage. More skill usage = good. Those skills can be from your secondary. Although, for the most part Soul Reaping is entirely worthless.

Fast Casting... Hmm... You got me here... Wait, nope! It has the exact same effect on all spells, regardless of what attribute line they're from, and what class they belong to... Ever see Me/E fast cast air spike? What about Me/E shutdown guys run, say, Gale?

So, for the Assassin example, no one runes Assassin/X without daggars... No one seriously runs anything but a handful of assassins, and on each bar the skills are very simmilar... So... What's your point here? You're not using anything other than daggars and dagger skills/shadow stepping skills/1 utility skill as an assassin anyway, are you?

Yet.. What is the only thing Ritualists ever do? Spam spirits. Ritualist spirits. Oh, and this effects Ranger Spirits the same as Ritualist Spirits, and no other class has spirits. So, you're wrong here again...

Expertise only effects "Skills" and not spells. Want to count how many plain "Skills" there are that are actualy usable by Rangers in a non sub-par way? Oh, Touch rangers don't count by the way, they fall under the sub-par category. The only thing that's really entirely viable is Thumpers(and maybe one skill as a single utility skill, like hex breaker or CoP...)... And they just got a nerf with the Pet DP...

Why would anyone nerf touch rangers? It's not like they're actualy any good.

Let's take another look at other professions' primary skills.

Warrior - Strength - Does help other professions skills (attacks).
Ranger - Expertise - Does help other skills.
Mesmer - Fast Casting - Does help other skills (spells)
Elementalist - Energy Storage - Does help other skills (ones that need energy)
Necromancer - Soul Reaping - Does help other skills (ones that need energy)
Monk - Divine Favor - Doesn't help other skills
Assassin - Critical Strikes - Does help other skills (attacks)
Ritualist - Spawning Power - Does help some other skills (ranger spirits, necromancer minions)

So Divine Favor doesn't help the skills of your secondary profession at all, and Spawning Power only a bit. All the rest do.

Yeah Divine Favour is the most selfish primary attribute, but you can't change divine favour because its too useful for Monks.

Oh, and Ranger having a huge effect on all classes?

Healing Touch & CoP - two monk "skills" that a ranger will never use.
Blackout - one mesmer "skill"

Expertise is fine, you cannot "fix", that which is not broken.

In end dicussion

Every primary attribute gives each class something unique. No two primary attributes behave the same way.

Expertise is designed to synergize with energy based skills that include:
Attacks, Skills, Shouts, Stances, Traps, Preparation, Spirits

The ranger provides a great primary to synergize with a secondary profession that uses these type of skills. That being: Warrior, Assassin, Dervish, Paragon

All attack classes.

This is a limited synergy because it does not affect SPELLS.
Spells being: Hexes, Enchantments and Spells

Lets take a quick look at exactly what does expertise affect core professions only?

R/W: This is a great combo, it allows the ranger to spam low energy cost warrior attacks.

Cyclone Axe, Swift Chop, Belly smash, crude smash, Crushing Blow, Irresistable Blow, Renewing Smash, Hamstring, Hundred Blades, eeking blade, pure strike, savage slash, deadly riposte
All energy basedshouts, all energy based stances
Wild Blow, Desperate Blow, distracting blow(insert innuendo here), Thrill of Victory, Protector's Defense


R/Mo: Touch skills: Holy Strike, Smite
skill: Contemplation of Purity

R/E: Touch skills: Lightning Touch, Shock...um thats it really...i dont recall of glyphs are affected by expertise

R/Me: Stances: Blackout, Hex breaker, Distortion, the various Mantras (except recall), elemental and physical resistance.

R/N: Touch of Agony, Vampiric Touch and its copy, Wallow's Bite, Enfeebling Touch, Vile touch, Plague Touch


-----------------

Ok...so are those really that over powered?

the R/P is going to be basically the same as a R/W in terms of the types of skills it can use. Attacks. The adrenal based skills will require Ferocious strike to be really effective. The R/P pre-build is basically a bunny thumper with a spear and a shield.

Each primary allows it to do something others cannot.

Ranger's expertise allows it to use those skills i listed from its secondary with just the same "expertise" as its own ranger skills.

Why do people have a problem with synergy?

A Ranger primary will never deal as much straight damage as the X/ Primary, because they lack runes and headgear that add to the attributes. Rangers are just a little better at spreading damage around, that's their niche, and nerfing would remove a very large and enjoyable part of the game.

meh i say send in the dervishes agaisnt the touchies ...

Touch rangers are good only against melee attackers. Others can do hit and run strategy where touchers fall quite nicely.

As other have already said all the primarys attributes have there uses - except monks divine favor - if the reason u posted this is because of touch rangers and it seems like that, there are very easy to take out just outkite them using speed buffs thus making there touch skills useless - after a bit of chasing theyll give up goin after u, i usully then just turn around and hit em w/ massive degen

but yea next time u post dont be so biased...

This thread has been debated and answered already, so I won't bring up what has already been said. All I really want to say is that Expertise should not be nerfed- Rangers have a small amount of energy and only 3 regen. All of the abilities in the game (with the exception of adrenaline) require energy to use. If Expertise is nerfed and only effects ranger skills, they would run out of energy in 3-5 attacks and useful secondaries would no longer be used.

Quoted for accuracy.

actually, useless or not, devine favor also affects assassin enchantments with blessed signet. so it isnt completely class specific.

Critical Strikes carries over to other attacks perfectly, and Strength carries over to other attack skills perfectly, Energy Storage increases the Elementist energy available with any classes spells, not just Elemental, and Soul Reaping grants added energy when enemeis die, reguardless of whether or not you are using it for death magic. Ritualist Spawning Power increases the health of their own summoned units as well as Necromancer summoned units. Mesmers Fast cast improves cast speed for any classes spells.

The only class in the game who has a primary attribute which only works for their own skills is Monk, and it works great, it may be a bit powerful, but if they didn't have it, they couldn't compeate as healers with their own skills, so it is neccessary.

Ranger is one of the 7 classes with an attribute which is useful for other classes skills, just because it is the most effective form of energy management doesn't mean it is broken. I would argue that some other classes have primaries which lack luster, but that's not what this tread is about, the point is that Rangers Primary isn't broken because it grants effective combinations with other classes skills.

Honestly, I don't know why there arn't more Blood Elementist, they can certainly spam some of those skills with ether prodigy, with a full line of life stealing skills they could spam a hurt on someone.

Touch Ranger just underscores the value of good interruption and spell spamming counters, a powerful Backfire and Soul Leach as well as some disabling could make a touch ranger a sitting duck or a kamakazi, just because effective counters are not a bread and butter part of most builds doesn't mean that there isn't sufficient balance available.

your argument is crap, really it is.

Here is the way I see it

Necro, Ranger, Elementalist - Primary attribute affects all classes and increases overall effectiveneess through energy management
Warrior, Mesmer, Ritualist, Assassin - Primary attribute affects some and increases overall effectiveness through efficiency of skills used (more powerful, faster, more health, etc)
Monk - Primary attribute affects monk skills only (thereby affecting all other classes) and increases effectiveness through increased monk skill efficiency (more health for the same energy)

I think that the beauty of Expertise is that it does work with more than just ranger skills (I don't use a touch ranger). I think the beauty of fast casting is that it works with other spells (Fast cast ressurection spells FTW). The beauty of...I hope you get the point.

Leave Expertise the way it is.
Leave Vamp Touch/bite the way it is.

Instead try harder to find a way around the "problem."

Let people paly R/W, R/N, R/P, R/Mo (Smite=attack skill), and whatever else they want. They will get all the benefits of expertise and all the drawbacks of not having 16 in their other attributes (the BIG problem with a Me/E FC nuker).

/thread closed

Expertise should have energy cost reduction penalities for non-ranger skills.

Instead of the full ammount of cost reduction, you get loss reduction for non-ranger skills.

Not all, but some.

Leave them the way they are, as it's been said, every other primary attribute other than Divine Favor works with other classes spells/skills/attacks, and it would be dumb to nerf expertise and not nerf every other primary attribute...

Ever been playing a monk then get hit by broad headed arrow+ a large spike? if you havn't go see what its like and then come back and tell me rangers ARNT good

by that same rationale, fast casting shouldn't cast ele, monk, nec, rit spells as fast as it lets you cast mes spells...you shouldn't be able to cast monk, mes, nec, rit spells with you energy from energy storage...you shouldn only be able to cast necro spells with energy earned from soul reaping...do you see where this is going?

I know that you said cost reduction, but how would you balace that across all classes? How could you make a similar setup with energy storage or soul reaping (all three being e-mgmt attributes). I guess you could only cast other profession spells/skills using some of your soul reaping/e-storage energy, but that is just stupid.

I realize that I am taking this much farther than you were suggesting, but I just wanted to point out where your suggestion fails, especially in that it was made to combat 1 supposedly overpowered build.

There are any number of good builds that can be used effectively against touch rangers and other types of enemies.

A personal example:

When I first started this game, I played a mesmer (still do acutally ). I played in TA quite a bit and always got demolished by warriors and rangers, but I could destroy elementalists and monks. So I decided that I need to do something about Warrios and rangers. I started bringing things like Distortion, Clumsiness, Ineptitude, Empathy, Phys Resistance, Blackout, Crippling Anguish, Ethereal Burden, Soothing Images, Sympathetic Visage, Sig of Midnight, Spirit Shackles, Drain enchantment, Shatter enchantment...not all at the same time, obviously. I still did god damage against caster types, but now I could also stand up to warriors and rangers.

My point is that it is easy to find a way to beat touvchies and still be effective against other types of classes. Btw, Distracting shot and Diversion are great against a touchy. Black out is good too, but I don't like being shutdown for that long.

Edit:

@ Ulivious

The poster you quoted was talking about TOUCH rangers, not rangers in general

The way that A-Net and NC-soft have the skill system set up can be quite selfish . If you know how to properly use your attribute points any profession can become quite deadly. As far as nerfing the primary attribute for any one class that will be unfair because it will then create a void that cannot be filled. I say keep the Primary attributes the way they are. I run a variety of classes and find the best combo for each, so I can attest to the fact that several do have an unfair advantage over others. But over time I have learned how to set my attribute points for the maximum effect for the build i am using at the moment. This game is based on skill and how you can utilize what A-Net and NC-Soft have given us. They nerfed several professions already(Minion Master the worst) so they just need to leave the main attributes alone.

Mega Mouse

Wow...

1) I play monk 95+% of the time, in PvP. I play PvP 95+% of the time I'm playing Guild Wars.

2) This thread is about Touch Rangers. I was talking about Touch Rangers - Read what you quoted. It's always very important to read, and understand, before saying anything, because posts like the one you just made make you sound like a total idiot. (I'm not saying you are an Idiot... I'm just saying you certainly sound like one from the post you just made)

3) I was not saying rangers are bad. Infact, rangers with proper skills, played well, are very good. Touch Rangers though, are a silly gimmick, that are unplayable outside of the absolute lowest levels of PvP.

4) Your example with Broad Head Arrow, and a spike is absolutly pathetic. You see, good teams have secondary condition removal, and good monks are likely going to be running Contemplation of Purity as a Boonprot(Removes Dazed, and not a Spell), or as a Blessed Light, or Word Healer, will be running Distortion. So, 75% chance to not get it on you, or instant removal, or removal in less than 1 second. Hmm, not bad. But wait, our final option! Proper usage of the WASD keys, it's not like you can Strafe Broad Head arrow 90+% of the time because it moves much slower than normal arrows, if you're paying attention, and your team has proper postitioning...

In short, the type of Ranger you're saying is good, infact sucks hardcore. Which is why you never see them run seriously by any descent teams in Team Arenas, or Guilds, in Guild versus Guild.

Have you actually played against a touch ranger?

The thing with touch rangers is that the build only _needs_ three skills, so you're free to fill the other five with whatever you like - say, Zojouns Haste (to chase down people trying to kite; Plague Touch or Antidote Signet (to get rid of Cripple); a defensive stance; Life Siphon (to heal over distance); and hey, let's throw in a Rez sig.

The only three things which a touch necro can not defend against is a) hexes, b) energy stealing and c) knocklock. If not someone on your team can hex a touchie (and make the hex stick, so you better hope he hasn't brought a competent monk), keep him on his ass permanently, or steal his energy, you will lose to him.

That's why they're so bad in organized PvP, and why they're so good in disorganized PvP.


EDIT: The OP is wrong, though. The necro Soul Reaping attribute affects all skills & spells which cost energy, while ranger Expertise only affects skills (not spells). The difference is that soul reaping is conditional, and gives a smaller total addition to energy than expertise does.

Your argument falls on its face when a ele with prodigy is less efficicent than a ranger with 14 expertise. This is ignoring the drawbacks associated with the skill and spending a skill slot.

Passive energy management useless, especially when spirits can be killed off at will and enmass. You must be kidding.

The energy management took a hit in the gut for the me/e damage dealers. Fast casting does little for many of the mesmer skills and it is the most useful for hexes and elementalist skills in general. Turning gale into a pseudo distracting shot is useful, but then you have exhaustion. Are you trying to argue that mesmers make better elementalists than elementalists? If anything you are only serving to support other arguments made here.

But they get affected by morale, so all is well.

I suppose at the end of the day its not expertise people are so beefed about. Its about getting your butt whooped by a boring cookie cutter build, which mostly require a finger flitting between 2 buttons.
Some people will be boring. Some people like to experiment.

My suggestion from earlier WASN't just about touch rangers. It is a universal thing. ANOTHER good example to go with earlier is the pack hunter. These teams were *VERY* quickly becoming the new IWAY in HA during that weekend.

I tried it for information sake.

EoE bomb? Demolished them with us 1 man down
IWAY? Dead they be

The only thing that really stopped us was the INSANE D/Mo spike builds which I assume is going to be responsible for a CoP nerf.

Another good example. R/A with daggers.

This combo is just sickening with the ammount of dagger attacks they can let off. Mobeius Strike is just begging to be taken with this profression combo. For even MORE insanity you got Tiger's Fury.......

R/N

Balls are touching..........that's all I'm going to say :P

Expertise just ties in a bit TOO well with some other classes. More so than other primary attributes (In particular, Divine favor and Strength to an extent, but can Devrish change that?)

ahh it's late. make of it what you will. If I remember this post in the morning I'll add to it

expertise is fine - learn 2 play.

DOnt nerf expertise, nerf vamp touch/bite.

To th OP: Sorry, but next time try to think things out more throughroly before proposing such a stupid nerf idea.

So 2/3 of the GW population have a touch ranger. Last I checked they aren't hard to shutdown with a mesmer or destroy with a elemental. They aren't invincible. While I hate touch rangers I just focus on using builds that can effectively counter them.

(That 2/3 thing isn't a real stat its just random guess.)

lol touche, actually to be honest i only use broad head in fort aspenwood, with Read the wind+ Favorable i hit for pretty high with that followed by savage, pinned down= dead monk at that place, but to be honest you're right, and i'm wrong i sorry


EDIT: and be truthful, most monks<maybe acasters in general> are no good at understanding when to run from a ranger when they're playing there but you have to admit, rangers are deadly in their own right mind

Did I perhaps mention Heal Party and Extinguish? Last time I checked, expertise did not effect Spells, and last time I checked, Heal Party and Extinguish were spells!

I think your argument falls flat on its face. You see, I also mentioned somthing like 'even without Ether Prodigy, energy storage directly effects how many skills you can spam before you run out of energy, as a higher energy pool allows you spam more, before you eventualy run dry.' Just not in so many words.

Now, it might just be me, but I think I was responding to the OPs post, and directly his point that "Energy Storage Does not effect other profession skills."

Since my whole 'argument' is based on the OPs false classification

"Although, for the most part Soul Reaping is entirely worthless."

I think that was in the section you quoted. Perhaps you should read what you quote.


Oh, and Soul Reaping still gives descent energy-mangement in enviroments such as Heroes' Ascent, even with the nerf to Soul Reaping, and the nerf to Oath Shot.

As for killing spirits, doesn't that trigger the Soul Reaping? No one is going to set spirits up in a fashion so they're all bunched up, and no team is going to devote multiple players just to hunting down spirits to kill them all at once so the Necromancers get less energy by trying to flood their energy pool(especaily with the 1/2e from SR nerf).

Oh, and what about spirits being deep in someones backline, like Ritualist spirits in GvG?...

Soul Reaping is not entirely worthless for energy-mangment, but without constant deaths of spirits or players, it is going to be worthless. Making it unusable for energy-managment outside of a few select builds.



Either way, my point was that the OP was wrong by saying that "Soul Reaping Does not effect other profession skills"... Not that Soul Reaping is the best for energy-managment.

Me/Es running elementalist spells for damage got a nerf. Was it a huge nerf? Not really, since FC air spike for example is still viable, it just takes alot more skill to pull it off. Either way, this build was *only* viable due to fast casting, and that is still the *only* reason it is viable. If you could pull the same thing off without Fast Casting, you'd see E/??s running around and Galing healers, and then Orb -> Striking people durring those 3s while the healers are knocked down. Especialy since primary Elementalists would deal more damage, due to higher Air Magic.

Sorry, I fail to understand how it does little by reducing the casting time of 2-3s mesmer hexes. It's not like less casting is more kiting, and more kiting is more damage mitigated...

Gale is not anywhere near Distracting Shot in any way. Gale is short term shutdown and a short term snare on a player, Distracting Shot is long-term shutdown on a single skill, assuming Distracting Shot hits a skill.

By no means am I trying to argue that mesmers are better elementalists than elementaliasts. If you actualy understood what I was saying, you would have understood this. Maybe next time I'll use Me/Mos running Remove Hex with fast casting pre-factions as an example next time.


Yet again, the OP argued that "Fast Casting Does not greatly effect other profession skills." My point is you still get the same % reduction on spells regardless of the class they come from.

Sure, pets get Morale. But they're insanely easy to DP out. Much more so than players. You see, Elder pets have 480 health. Most people don't make a PvE for a thumper, so they have Elder pets... Less health than a player without DP. Easier to DP because of poor AI, mainly failure to disengage or switch targets. Sure, they get Morale, but do you think a 2% or even a 10% boost at 60dp is going to matter much? Since you can practicaly wand-spike them to death even at 50% DP.


Either way, my comment, yet again, ties directly into the OPs post. This is probably because I was responding to the OP, and to fully understand what I'm saying you need to read, and understand the OP, in addition to reading, and understanding my post.



I love responding to posts like yours. But I'm going to ask you to not post again, unless you actualy understand what you're posting about.

P.S. Make sure to read what you're quoting, and keep it in context. I know using your brain to understand a discussion is a hard skill, but it's 100% worth it; It saves other people the time of replying to you.

It's cool, no hard feelings

nerfing expertise is just a way to nerf touch rangers that people can't seem to deal with in lower end pvp.

soul reaping is insanely powerful. The cool new build which no one has really posted on is a team of n/e, n/mo, rits, and a ranger spammer spamming spirits so that the necros have basically unlimited energy to heal/nuke things in ha.

also, to quote others, don't nerf expertise. learn 2 play.

The comparison was towards the strength of expertise. The fact that many people direct it towards the touch ranger build specifically is irrelevant as it affects the balance of every class that uses "skills" and has cross class potential with a ranger. Look at the alterations within the assassin lines with twisting fangs and temple strike as an easy example.

But since you are still have something to say regarding ether prodigy specifically, id personally like to know where all the e/w, e/r, e/a, e/p, e/n secondary skill spamming builds are at since ether prodigy is good for everything. Personally i thought it was rather sad seeing more r/p during the pvp event than any combination involving the paragon as a primary.

Just because those 2 are spells does not justify a passive skill being remarkably better in every possible way. Conversely, if divine favor and boon affected those skills, it is likely that a elementalist would never be brought for those skills as it would have the same gross efficiency that the directed monk spells enjoy. A party wide heal for ~190 or a 54-63pt party wide heal. Hmm hard choice there. The parity for your argument existed during beta when divine favor didn’t exist as it does now. No amount of energy recovery alone is going to replace the monk. Though, for skills like extinguish and heal party, it does become necessary to limit bonuses for the sake of overall balance. This is similar to pointing out flaws in things like expertise and what was (and hopefully wont return as it was) mysticism.

Gee, you don’t play an elementalist at all do you. The actual quantity of energy doesn’t matter, because you are required to have an exponentially faster way to recover that energy than everyone else passively to just make it keep up with the rest of the professions. Eles are not creating party wide altering effects that justify their cost, which are also scaled due to the existence of energy storage. The only thing energy storage really helps with, is creating a buffer for exhaustion.

Erm, just use the ritualist to wipe out their own team's spirits when convent. Prior to the release of factions though, soul reaping was a easy energy management for corpse exploitation skills, which is unique to necromancers. Afterwards it was engineered into energy management that allowed necros to perform in any capacity, which was slightly nerfed. If I recall correctly the change went from 19 pips of regeneration to 11, though i forget if the innate regeneration rate was included or not. Like the FC energy management nerf, this was also incomplete due to the nature of how spike builds operate most likely. Though from personal experience in using dual attunements, the enemy tends to not wait for the enchantments to be reapplied and elementalist skill user is rather vulnerable during that period. Any natural holes from the attunement use makes for dead weight of the character regardless of total energy pool available. I also seriously doubt you are about to come back and state that you can guarantee victory with that build in under 36s regularly.

Depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the necro, you don’t even "need" it for the energy recovery. Since you like to throw around the heal party spam as some kind of logic for something being required to suck, you can do the same with a necro using cultists fervor in a well tuned setup. Of course the necro ends up in the far backlines, but the ele wasn’t in that much different of a position to begin with. Then again the dervish was also capable of spamming 2 skills you seem to equate out to overall cross class abuse balance.

Point out synergies before attempting to continue your argument, because that is the whole point of cross class observations. The actual skill use involved is not always the only relevant issue.

Ah good, so mesmers are better at using elementalist skills than elementalists. I am glad you cleared that up. This would be similar to saying rangers are better at using touch skills than the primary necromancer, given the current options.

Then again the nerf to the energy management portion of the build seems to be the status quo. Similar happened to eles being better smiters than monks, although this nerf was somewhat incomplete, probably due to the nature of spike builds versus pressure based builds. Personally id rather not see expertise hampered so that rangers are required to bring something like archer's signet to use their own skills normally, like eles are required to bring ether prodigy to operate at a adequate level.

Go by volume. Reducing a 1s cast time doesn’t mean much, given the existence of the after cast. The bonus is only really notable at spells over 1s. Considering there are not many hexes worth bringing that do have longer cast times, its fairly simple to point to specific examples of making a difference, like diversion, while the majority the difference is negligible even when referencing kiting situations.

It is a similar argument to older conversations regarding glyph activation times in conjunction with the spell follow-up. This is not to suggest that the glyphs are worth bringing of course.

As is said, pseudo. A blackout style mes effect is fairly universal and the only difference in activation time makes is to interrupt. A better parity would be power block though.

Considering how spike builds actually work, I believe you illustrated my point well enough. This is also a similar premise with regards to expertise effecting skill sets outside of the ranger profession.


Diminishing returns on spells with low cast times due to after cast.



Actually that’s exactly the same amount of health as a character without any runes at level 20.

Then again pets are also faster than base run speed of players, but the AI could use some improvement as well. Even so, players have to wait through the same 2% process to become fully functional again. This change was a long time in the coming, unless you are suggesting that henchmen shouldn’t receive DP because they are AI controlled. Not that a serious pvp setup would include them anyway. However, having a permanent and free boost to damage that assisted with party wide pressure similar to degen builds, with virtually no drawback was a little out of place.

What are you going to complain about next, the fact that there are not doggy mauling runes of pwn to put on their flea-collars of invulnerability? Personally I’d be thankful that the ranger pets do not even follow half of the restrictions necromancer minions follow. Things like level restricted by attribute investment, being required to summon and re-summon over time even if the pet is not killed by other players, spending fairly significant time and energy investments in just keeping the pet on the playing field initially and over the course of the match.


The direction of what I’m talking about is more directed towards expertise in general. I don’t really care that the op didn’t cover all aspects of his original outline. Your commentaries though had points that were lacking as well. I especially enjoyed how you contradicted yourself in regard towards the Mesmer versus elementalist use in spike setups, as clearly you did not understand what you were typing at the time.

Cross classing is defined as using a primary attribute, usually maxed, of one profession to benefit off its affects for that of another profession. An elementalist spamming heal party and extinguish, while using air spells is not cross classing. A ranger who uses hammer and a pet in place of a hammer warrior is cross classing. Arguments on blackout, mesmer stances, or any skills used for utility while still keep true to the ranger's main uses is irrelevant to the argument at hand which is expertise is so useful that it can be used to cross numerous classes. Skills that are obviously trashy for rangers to run like healing touch is meaningless since no one in their right mind would ever think about using it.

If a ranger can out dps any other type of hammer build out there or out spam assassin and paragon attack skills than the primary professions could, then something is seriously wrong. No other primary attribute allows the player to class cross as effectively as expertise and fast casting. However, the only real reason to cross class with mesmer would be to use the resurrection spells and to spike with elementalist. But with the nerf of elemental attunement, the frequency of the spike is reduced significantly.

If anyone really considered cross classing with strength, they should remember how gimped the build would be considering the energy problems warriors have to deal with. The other physical attack classes are far more energy intensive than a typical warrior can handle.

Soul reaping is one of the trashiest attributes alive considering how it's so conditional to even use. The only time you see a necro cross class is in pve or when you have spirit spammers fueling your energy which is highly limited to blood spike. Whereas, other energy management classes are far less conditional. Soul reaping is basically a throwaway attribute line where you spend the last remaining skill points on.

Energy storage is no doubt the worst attribute line alive considering all it does is increase your energy pool. It really shouldn't be considered energy management since you don't gain back any energy unless you spend your elite slot on ether prodigy. It can be hardly considered cross classing when all the elementalist is limited to being party and extinguish spammers, while using some air spells as well. After all, it only serves to place less pressure on the monks; they aren't really doing the monks job of spike healing.

Why in the world would a ritualist cross class to use ranger spirits or minions? It only gives spawned creature more life which is better put to use on ritualist spirits. Only fools use minions in serious pvp where there is a lack of bodies, and ranger spirits are better left to the rangers for more effective world effects.

Both divine favor and critical strikes have been generally accepted as incapable of being cross classed. The only reason an assassin or a monk would cross class is when they screw around in RA and pve: assassin and monks with bows, swords, hammers, sythes, axes, and daggers are just ludicrous builds. Honestly why use anything other than daggers on a assassin? The energy benefit is too small for a hammer or ranger build, while the increased chance of critical strikes is not going to have a warrior give up their ias, far superior armor, and healing sig for that small benefit.

As we can see the only primary attributes to even consider cross classing with is fast cast and expertise. Every other attribute is either far too conditional, limited, not worth the trouble, or useless for the use of other professions.

I really dont think it matters much- if you can find a way to make a build that works, even if it is a touchie, use it. Personally, i hate touchies and have found several ways to kill them, but its freedom of choice.