21 Aug 2006 at 01:24 - 53
I don't think wild blow is broken, cannot be evaded and cannot be blocked are neccessities for Stance breaking techniques to work, and it is sad that all stance breaking techniques don't have this.
Many stances have massive evasion or blocking which gives them a powerful defensive advantage, and like all good skills, a counter is neccessary. A stance break that will suffer from the massive evasive or blocking stregths of a stance is a joke, which is why Wild Strike (Assassin) should also be unblockable/unevadable.
Likewise skills like Swift Chop and its sword counterpart are counters to Stances or enchantments which grant high evasion or blocking, saying these skills should be altered is an obvious mistake.
Warriors strengths are standard, so even without the use of skills they're base effectiveness is heavy, as well as having strong skills to overcome the weakness of melee range, this isn't broken, it is just a neccessity. The problem lies in that other classes don't meet the same standard of capability.
The Elementist has the worst armor grade, and requires massive energy storage + energy management skills just to maintain a steady offensive output. And if the Elementist is bringing all the skills neccessary to deal effective damage, then he is lacking the skill slots to cover himself thoughoughly with defensive or imparing techniques.
Elementist build allows him to get some effective use out of some other classe skills, but that doesn't make up for the lack of power in his skills, for the massive amount of energy elementist expends and long recast times on such costly spells, elementist can only slam on an enemy every couple of seconds, wile his natural attack and defense are little to be recognized.
Elementist needs more budget spells to be useful for general damage and effectiveness, not just for himself, but for other classes to utilize as well. And his exsisting low frequency (high recast) spells need to pack a punch that makes up for occupying a skill slot with something that you can only use once every 30-60 seconds. His Glyphs are a joke, the fact that they take up a skill slot and need to be activated before each skill is a major cost, the potency needs to be higher, and the cast time needs to be removed. The DoT spells are a mockery of realistic tactical function, many of them do not do enough damage fast enough, long enough, or often enough to be effective, or in an effective location, serving as a comical defensive tool against monsters who arn't realy being hurt, instead of tactically placing damage over significant periods of time, often enough to fortify and overturn situations.
I've hashed these skills over and over again, and the short of it is that a major redefinition effort needs to be done on elementist tactical effectiveness and skill cost (including significant factors like elementists low armor and weapon value, skill slot cost, and recast cost). The major improvement I think Ele skills could use is DoT usefulness, we should be able to place them on any location we can target, whether it be friend, foe, self or even on a selectable object (like a sign or a flag stand), enemies should not run from DoT damage unless it is causing added interruption (Meteor Shower and Maelstorm) mainly on casters, and conditions like blind and burning from skills like Searing Heat and Eruption need to either be applied in small amounts per hit, or applied in full at the begining of the cast (even if it is in smaller amounts). And DoT spells need to be steadily recastable, as if the cost, lack of damage, and evasive options are not weakness.... the least we should be able to do is put them down frequently.
I think the frequency of skill casting (recast time) is the biggest oversight on Elementist skills and some other classes skills, unlike attackers, casters do not have any passive damage and a minimum passive defense (least amount of armor), they have to use skills to compensate and the cost of the skills justify their effects. Because Casters do not have the passive output or resistance of an attacker class, they need to have (or the skills they do have) frequent skills to use in order to compensate, the damage an elementist can take or deal without skills is meaningless, his skills should show the tradeoff in effectiveness vs an attack class who does more without skills, and yeilds effective damage for his frequenly useable skills which often cost less as well.
I can't agree that warrior is broken, in fact I think some of his defensive skills should be improved, expecially in tactics, as well as adding unblockable and unevadable status to all stance breaking skills as a proper counter. Elementist is a far away from meeting that standard, and it isn't just a far way from warrior, it is a standard which holds true to mesmers, necromancers, Monks and Rangers, Elementist effectiveness is weak, Warrior is fine. I think Assassin and Ritualist also share many of these weaknesses too, not just elementist, the shear lack of capabilities and frequency Assassin suffers and the massive downtime Ritualist suffers makes their skills quite unusuable in many situations, bringing all classes and all skills to a reasonable standard of effectiveness is a strong balance issue, and just because each class can do something effective with some combinations of skills does not mean that they are overall balanced in power or usefulness as the par.
As for all this BS about what your friends say or what you "feel" is balanced based on your mindless claims, who gives a damn? Unless you have singificant insight or justification for you claims, which you can explain and defend, than you really just have an opinion which has no bearing or deniability against anyone elses opinion. I, for one, would appreciate if all this worthless bantering about who does or doesn't understand to cease, you have nothing more than an opinion til you can back it.
Since the introduction of Sentinal Armor Warrior can now net well into 116 defense (overall) which is a massive offset against elemental damage outmatching even Ranger (70 all, 30 element, 15 single element), as well as physical damage, and then physical damage reduction runes. Elemental damage reduction runes? they certainly don't belong on Warrior as if he needs it, a bold faced laugh with spittle on anyone who wants to complain about the miniscule amount of extra damage Warrior doesn't really suffer from elemental damage. Please stop this nonsense, really, it is making my cheeks hurt from excessive laughter.
