To Nerf or Not to Nerf?

I am aware that the metagame in PvP in guildwars is a total mess. Some new nightfall skills are without a doubt grossly overpowered or abusable. I am going to list some of the most hotly debated skills and I want to see how the community feels about these. Vote nerf or no nerf next to what you want to see nerfed or if you feel that the skill is currently ok.

Rampage as One:
Reasons for nerf: Overpowered bunny thumpers with nearly unlimited IAS.
Effects: Warriors are extinct from PvP, and stragglers run around with wands and wards which is sad. I would argue against this skill, but come on aren't bunny thumpers powerful enough already?

~My 2 cents: Give the skill a 45 second recharge or have it end if the pet or player's life drops below 50%.

Searing Flames:
Reasons for nerf: Insane DPS damage, without a doubt the most powerful elementalist AoE nuke ever created. Capable of dealing hundreds of damage and constant burning on a wide array of targets forever.
Effects: Brought elementalists to the forefront as threatening damage dealers, but also is abused by heroway teams. Vitually all RC prots monks bring mantra of flame because of this skill, but new winter builds have cropped up. Without it there is the fear of the elementalist being pushed back to second rate utility characters.

~My 2 cents: This skill is the backbone of eles now, tampering it too hard can kill the class. I would say up the recharge to 4 seconds. DO NOT add exhaustion or up the casting time of the skill. Both of these would kill searing flames and push eles back to pre nightfall utility status. Eles need a good fast casting nuke that can deal pain. But in its current state, searing deals a tiny bit too much pain.

Energizing Finale
Reasons for nerf: Quite possibly the most broken skill ever created. When paired with zealous anthem and aria of zeal, along with spammable shouts; this skill can grant a character nearly limitless energy.
Effects: Paragon holdway has become the new metagame and 2 monk, 2 paragon teams are nearly impossible to kill. Monks backed by this skill can forever spam heals and prots. No other form of energy management can compare of finale. Without this skill, no one really knows what will happen to paragons.

~This skill is insane. The recharge needs to be upped, or the skill cost. Finale needs a nerf really bad.

Incoming
Reasons for nerf: Capable of preventing a huge amount of pressure damage. Decent recharge makes the skill easy to use and spikes even easier to stop. The recharge makes the skill kind of balanced, but when combined with other paragon shouts, the effects can be overbearing for pressure teams.
Effects: Ritualists are out of business.

~I dont think incoming is too bad. Personally upping the recharge time just a bit to prevent spammability may help.

Angelic Bond
Reasons for nerfs: Unremovable bond on the ghostly hero in altar battles can overpower the skill. With paragon holdway and an 80AL paragon sharing damage with the ghostly, one can say this skill has broken HA.
Effects: Bonders are out of business.

~This skill isnt normally bad, but its HA abuse is rediculous. Maybe it should end if the paragon's life drops below a certain percentage that is determined by leadership. That may balance the skill. Having it unstrippable and with paragons already impossible to kill with holdway, putting this on a hero is just plain cheating.

Leadership
Reasons for nerfs: Paragons gain insane energy with quick ending shouts like "watch yourself" with 0 tactics. Also feeds into the paragon holdway FoTM breaking PvP in guildwars.
Effects: Paragons overpower PvP.

~I dont feel leadership needs a nerf, I think paragon SKILLS need one badly.

I want to know your 2 cents on each of these debated skills and how you feel about their current usage. Post why you think these skills should be nerf or you may argue in defense of the skill on why it should say as it is. Suggestions to improve the skill may also be brought up in this discussion.

RaO is indeed a little overpowered, especially since pairing it with a high BM and Expertise, and you'll be able to keep it up indefinitely unless something happens =/ I think increasing the recharge would be a viable solution.

Searing Flames...I never had a problem with that 1v1, any decent team will be able to take on a SF....its just that when its on the altar and everyone is on the altar...SF wipes out....alot of health =/

Energizing Finale on the other hand....I rarely ever play with that as a monk...channeling is more than good enough if you know how to place yourself. The times that I have PvPed with Finale though....I had absolutely no problems with energy...even with QZ and edenial mezzies =/

Haven't really had much of a problem with the other 3 so I'm not gonna comment on em =P

Rampage as One:
This skill has a 25 energy requirement. That means, at best, a ranger can make it cost 9 energy. This, to me, seems like quite a large balancing aspect.

Searing Flames:
I have no problems with Eles being the best damage dealers in the game, like they're supposed to be.

Energizing Finale:
First off, this is one of the only non-elites that people don't like. I don't really have an option on this skill, since I've never used it, or had is used against me.

Incoming
This skill seems fine to me. It lasts a max of 7 seconds, and has a 20 second recharge. You need to time your use of this skill very well, otherwise the spikers can just call off the spike, wait 7 seconds, then spike.

Angelic Bond
I don't think this skill needs to be changed. It's an elite skill, it redirects damage, but it doesn't reduce the damage that is redirected like Life Bond does. I don't think this build has put "Bonders are out of business" since bonders can reduce the damage to about 25%, whereas Angelic Bond can only reduce damage to 50%.

Leadership
This is a perfectly legitimate ability. Just look at Expertise.

dont post this here man, most of the ppl dont know when a skill is overpowered
no offense

/notsigned

i dont think any of these skills are overpowered.

we're already seeing the decline of SF elementalists in HA, that's just proof that the skill is not overpowered.

As much as people like to think that a constant IAS is a good thing, take it from a mesmer and a necromancer, the skill is fine.

I don't think any of them need nerfing.

Post this in the pvp section, as everyone who reads this forum are pve folk who make concept characters with little or no care for balance. For the record : RaO and Energizing Finale are the only ones i see as broken.

Searing Flames, in my opinion, is FAR too overpowering. The one thing that it NEEDS is a higher recharge time. 10-15 seconds should balance it out, OR exhaustion. The energy cost is of no significance with its back up skills, Glowing Gaze and Fire Attunement.

I don't see any real problems with Incoming, considering it's an elite and even at max command, lasts only 7 seconds with a 20 second recharge time.

The Leadership attribute is perfectly fine I feel. Most of the shouts require energy. At around 10 leadership, you can negate the energy cost of some shouts while reducing the energy cost of others. Although with adrenaline shouts like Watch Yourself and the low adrenaline charge from it, it WOULD seem like a good supply of energy. Yet with a paragon spending most of their time chanting and shouting, they USUALLY don't get much time to be attacking to RAISE adrenaline.

Rampage As One IS quite powerful, yet at the energy cost it's at, it'd probably take a few exceptions to make it efficient, like mainly adrenaline hammer skills. I believe the best way to balance it IS to make it 45 second recharge, as you've suggested.

Energizing Finale would seem a little over abused. I admit, when I'm monking in the Halls, it's a great skill to have on me. I'm just surprised it's not an elite. I don't think it needs nerfed. Probably just made an elite.

As for Angelic Bond, that is insane to keep on the Ghostly Hero. The only way to counter that is to take out the paragon. Of course there's not always time for that in a King of the Hill style game. I think this is one of the ones needing some tweaks too. A necro can always try to disable the chants of the paragon, but a good monk will always cover hexes.

Rampage as One is 25 energy, that means only rangers can use it with ease/efficiently.

It's a good skill. Like Eviscerate to Warriors or Zealous Benediction to monks. Overpowered? I don't know. Maybe you dont kite enough and do take damage like a 55 monk.

No. That would destroy SF completely. They should maybe increase the recharge to say 5 secs, but NO MORE.

This skill seems fine to me. I don't see whats the big deal about it.

I agree that this skill gets abused. Needs some tweaking.

Being set on fire eternally AND taking around 100 damage every 2 seconds by ONE elementalist is just far too overpowering. Now I said ONE elementalist. How many elementalists are in a Searing Flames Halls team?

Anet will check data on championshps and nerf skills as needed.

Let that to them.

There's no harm in discussion and debate though. Of course no matter our argument here, they'll nerf what ever they want in the end.

A lot of these skills arent broken, theyre just made to change up the game. Anet does this every season, they change a TON of skills so that we dont have the SAME championship builds EVERY year. allthough Energizing Finale may need a tweak or two, it was made powerful so people will see the point of the paragon and use it. IMO, Anets trying to boost their newest professions so people will play them and see that even in future chapters, they can still come up with USEFUL professions.

If you dont like the builds Anet is pushing you towards, then wait till next ladder, skills will change and the metagame will be COMPLETELY different. untill then, unless somethings truly broken, its gonna stay. Anets trying to make you think.

Just my 2 cents

SF: The most you can add the recharge to SF is 4-5 seconds. If it was 15 seconds, why would you even add the second part of the skill decsription in. Otherwise I think this skill is fine as it is. Not many teams use SF anymore but heroway and PuGway.

RaO: It is a little overpowered atm. Increasing the recharge or decreasing the length would balance it out fairly well.

EF: Yeah, it is quite the overpowered support skill. I just was playing a SoR paragon and wow. I never even had to look at my energy and the monks hardly ever had problems either. Combined with Aria of Zeal and no more energy management worries. Personally I would inscrease the cost time and recharge, and even make it last shorter, so a paragon cant put it on all/most of his team.

Incoming: Yeah, I think Anet's idea for this skill was so it would nerf spikes, as spikes were the whole metagame not too long ago . They could decrease it a little bit since most spikes dont last long, but really people just need to find a spike that recharges before 20 seconds .

Angelic Bond: I haven't had any problems with it. I think its fine.

Leadership: Yeah, from playing a Paragon, I have hardly ever needed to look at my energy. But I dont think Anet will nerf it because if it goes a lot lower it will be near useless. And as someone said, look at expertise .

agree on nerfs...but not the way u said it.

ROA-end when your pet dies. recharge and duration is fine... do keep in mind that this is a elite.. and should be pritty deadly.

EF- omg nerf this to hell!! lol jkjk.. ad a longer recharge(5secs?) that will do it

EnrF-make it 10e.rest is fine

incoming-ITS ELITE! elites are SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD! 20 secs is PERFECT!

anngelic bond-you got it rite on the $$$$

leadership-cry me a river build me a bridge then jump off of it. this is perfectly fine. its 1 enrgy every 2 ranks. so max 6 energy. good as it is. and paragons dont over power pvp, you can shut em down ez w/ well of silence or VM

As a general note about Rampage as One:

This skill is not overpowered. In order to simply use the skill, you need to take up 3 of your skills slots. To use the skill you need, Charm Animal, Comfort Animal (you need to keep your pet alive) otherwise it won't work. I don't really see how a skill that requires you to invest in two other skills is overpowered.

Why is noone complaining about Enraged Lunge ? Oh yea, because you need a pet.

/signed for Searing, Leadership and EF. Increase Leadership to 1 energy every 3 rank will solve problems with all of the "overpowered" shouts/chants/echo. EF should be a bit more energy like 10. Any more than this will break Paragon.

The reason I picked on RaO so hard is because look what it did to the warrior community. I believe that having one skill put an entire class out of the metagame is not something that can be overlooked so easily. Remember this is a game about balance. When we see the core melee class running around with wands and wards because they are being overpowered by IAS rangers, me thinks there is a problem. Maybe making warrior skills stronger might help the balance, but I do believe RaO has warped the metagame pretty hard. I can say the same for paragons and ritualists. Currently a paragon is pretty much superior to a ritualist in all aspects of party protection, which I see as another imbalance. You not only have to take into account the power of the skill by itself but also its effect on other classes and their usage. Searing Flames completely changed the elementalists role in PvP because now they can deal damage.

Personally I think a red flag goes up when the power of a skill completely nueters the role of another class. Energizing Finale, Incoming, and RaO are what I see as the biggest game breakers not because they are just good skills, but because they completely shut other classes (Warriors and Rits) out of the game. Searing Flames I hate on less because it hasn't forced any classes out of the loop but instead simply changed the elementalist's role. Now people bring things like mantra of flame to defend against SF because they point their fingers at the ele and say "oh shit that guy can kill me."

When speaking about damage and threats, Ensign posted on his earlier thread about why nuking sucks, he said:

"You would be insane not to bring an anti-warrior skill as a caster, because without one the warrior will simply bash your face in."

In the prime age of warrior power with eviscerate, everyone had some sort of melee protection (Distortion, Blinding Flash, Ineptitude, Wards, Guardian) to protect against the warrior because of the damage dishing abilities. In fact, the old metagame was 50% comprised of warrior shutdown skills before the skill balances. At that point elementalist were simply support characters without a good role.

Now with elementalists actually dealing damage with sandstorm and SF, warriors are the new black sheep simply because they are outdamaged by Eles and IAS thumpers. When you think about it, Rangers can interrupt, Melee, Spirit Spam, Spike.... so many roles. Perhaps its time to think about balance and how these other roles should be played by other classes in order to maintain the integrity of the game. With one single class to widespread in roles, another class is bound to suffer from shortcomings.

Think about it. Mesmer contend with rangers in interrupting, now warriors in melee. One can say perhaps Anet overstepped the bounds of a ranger's capabilities by giving it skills that outpower other classes in fields that the other class should be more prevalent in. Having a wide array of jobs to choose from with one class is great, but when a single class overpowers others classes in so many different jobs you think about it and say "Why the hell should I play a warrior when a RaO thumper is BETTER."

I think Anet has to be more careful in defining the roles of the classes in future balances. Right now, warriors and rits are in the dark pvp wise because of the overbearing presence of rangers and paragons. People will naturally flock to the class that is more effecient. Its fine to have a class that is well rounded, hell rangers are a damn good class but maybe too good. Some of that presence maybe should go to other classes. I should say the same about paragons. Because of the overbearing presence of these two classes, people playing a warrior and rit are scratching their heads wondering just what the hell they are good for.

Just some food for thought.

the reason why there's always a class/skill that becomes useless coz of nerfs (duh). people complain about an "overpowered" skill/builds and force a.net to nerf it to near uselessness. what nails it to total uselessness are the chapters that introduce more counters to the nerfed skill/builds.

say soulbarbs spike. many whined bout it, a.net did balancing and nightfall came and and gave us lots of hex removals. another one is spirit spamming. now we got spiritual pain, unnatural signet, rit skills and there is no point of summoning spirits. and yea, a.net nerfed warriors (attack, armor wise) and now we got blinding surge, paragons, new elementalist skills that can tear the warrior down to pieces etc. and others.


about Rampage As One, just read Curse You's post and convince yourself that it is not what you think it is.

not another one....

/not signed.

Rangers have always been powerful at doing the job of another professions. Mostly due to Expertise (which they have reduced the effectiveness of), which enables them to spam another profession's skill, and thus use it to better effect.

Just look at Touch Rangers, Bunny Thumpers (pre-Nightfall), Shut-down Rangers, Ranger/Assassins, and even Ranger/Paragons.

*Hears Anti Ranger Sentiment*
Hiss Hiss!!! No!!!

Anyway...
Remember when people said "If they Dont nerf Touch Rangers Right now im leaving and Blah Blah Blah" The Game didnt end there. New builds will appear and everything will eventually balance itself.

Guild Wars is in a Constant state of Rebalancing. If a Incredible Powerful Mesmer build appears, Sure enough a Necro will Come along and Smash it. Remember those Touch Ranger? Mesmers Used 1 skill (Crippling Anguish) and Smacked them.

For all we know, next month somebody will create the new "55" and of course these same people are gonna scream at the top of their lungs about it.

Oh yea, this its all wts this game is about, bringing an ELITE skill just stop ONE of the MANY character possibilities.
Seriously, some ppl hero dont have any idea of wt pvp is.

We are not complaining because we cant beat it, or because we dont like to play with that class... we complain because IT IS overpowering, and because of that we dont like it.
This is just like the old IWAY issue, ppl like you said "its not overpowering, its just a good build". And THANK GOD we "forced a.net to nerf it to near uselessness". What was the point of using a monk to heal some of your party, if you could get a warrior that gets 12 poits of hp per second, attack 33% faster, and whenever hits STEALS over 15 health ?! That was an absurd!!! Still, most of the people (who played iway or had no notion of pvp) called us crazy or "n00bs".
Today we see Rangers playing as Warriors, Rangers playing as Assassins, Rangers playing as Necros, Rangers playing as Ritualists, Rangers playing as Paragons and Rangers playing as Rangers doing what Rangers should do (using bows and arrows). Now i ask you, people who say "n00b", whta is the point of making any other class if i can make a Ranger?

What is really pissing me off it that we have to explain all this at every post and you still wont accept the fact that you could be wrong.

Lordhelmos is right, unfotrunatelly. I dont see more Ritualists at Guild Battles or at Heroes Ascent. This is because Paragons can protect constantly AND give a massive ammount of energy to the monks/casters AND heal the whole party, when Ritualists can only protect for a limited time OR heal like any other monk.
So whats the point of using a Ritualist anyway?

I've said it once and I'll probly have to say it a hundred more times.

There is never a good reason to nerf!

What we need are new skills to offset those that maybe unbalanced.

Never take away, always add to the whole!

Only Energizing needs a bit of a minor nerf. That skill is pretty much the reason why 2 Monk + 2 Para holdways are so powerful atm. Everything else is just decoration.

SF doesn't need a nerf. Its a very inflexible skill and offers the Ele no protection against against anything that would normally kill it.
Fireline has no, snares, blinds or wards. And since its elite and a spammed spell, it has many weaknesses to shutdown.

RaO: Fixed perfectly now... Kill the pet, a pet with 60 DP will die to about 2-3 hammer blows. Dead pet = Blackout for Ranger and no Speedbuff or IAS for 7 seconds + recharge.

Incoming: I think the effects are pretty much perfect the way it is. Its not broken. Like I said earlier, EF was the reason why Dual Para holding was a problem. This does help a lot. But then it is an elite.

Leadership: its very powerful, and makes the paragon almost invunerable to energy denial. Doesn't quite deserve that kind of a nerf though. Just make the energy return for non Para shouts a bit less, then its fixes.

Rampage as One:
This skill has a 25 energy requirement.

Searing Flames:
Recharge needs to be toned down a bit to about 4- 5 seconds. Cast and damage are in line with PBAOE though.

Energizing Finale:
Should work only on others or lose energy if that person uses a shout/chant or adrenaline skill, since it basically buffs paragons to have caster-like energy regen. Right now there is no disadvantage to this other than the use of a skill slot. Perhaps it should be like battle rage, draining all adrenaline after it ends?

Incoming
This skill seems fine to me. It lasts a max of 7 seconds, and has a 20 second recharge. You need to time your use of this skill very well, otherwise the spikers can just call off the spike, wait 7 seconds, then spike.

Angelic Bond
It's an elite skill, it redirects damage. Recharge is extremly low, that's the problem. It cannot be maintained on a few people without killing yourself from the ARMOR IGNORING damage TRANSFER.

Leadership
Fine. Without it paragons are ranged warriors with no physical damage reduction.

Let Anet handle the balancing, don't freak out and start screaming for the nerf patrol when you encounter a new skill that you feel is over powered. I love how everyone says "Ele does too much damage" with Searing Flames. Elementalists were reduced to flag runners and warders, they had no damage aspect in the metagame (and the OP aknowledges this). Paragons are often the subject of much debate, they are utterly worthless without the right team build, a Paragon by themselves has very few builds that can sustain it in a one on one fight with anything other than a healing monk, in which case they can beat on each other until one err=7s if they have the right build. But you put a Paragon into a situation where you've got a good team minded player and a coordinated team and they become viable, quite useful, and indeed currently something that no serious HA team should be without. However llike I mentioned at the begining of my post, I think we should let Anet handle the balancing instead of hollaring about one particular skill, or a few skills you believe are over powered.

Either that or lets just nerf everything, like I think the radar is too far to shadowstep, how about one quarter of earshot (I.E. already on top of the target, roflmfao) [/sarcasm]

. . . ok ill take that as a joke...

Honestly I hate the fact things get nerfed. There is nothing more aggravating then watching a toon you build up get nerfed. I'm not much into the P vs P of the game simply because of the general attitudes one usually runs into in those games. Honestly let me spend my time working up my toons in the P vs E side of the game and then have them get spanked because it over balances some part of P vs P in the game !!!!!!!!

I guess if ANET wants to keeps up that to keep the P vs P players happy then perhaps the P vs E community needs to start screaming as well. If I continually have to adjust my P vs E playing because of what transpires in P vs P then the hell with ANET !!!!

In another arguement against RaO, take into consideration that expertise cuts alot of the cost from Rampage as One. Rampage as One is a SKILL as is affected by high expertise. Come on now, you don't those rangers are really paying 25E for RaO do you? By itself, I think RaO is a good skill... I just have a problem with it enabling a Ranger to do a better job than a warrior.

The warrior, the CORE PRIMARY MELEE CLASS of guildwars doesn't even have an IAS to match a ranger skill? Are you kidding me? Warriors are sucking down damage with frenzy, which pretty much throws the meaning of "tank" out the window. They also suffer with long recharge IAS skills (Berzerker Stance), or skills that cut damage or movement like flurry or flail and are useless in PVP (I mean who is going to flail in heated pvp when the monk will just kite you anyway?).

RaO cannot be exploited by other melee classes coz of 25 energy and it needs 2 more useless skill for it to become useful.

Flail is best used against knocked down targets. Burst of Aggression is good if you got energy based attacks. Berserker stance should be buffed imo.

The warrior got a good IAS before without any ffin drawbacks. Tiger's Fury and IWAY. 33% IAS baby now reduced to 25% thanks to whining.