Whats your opinion on Skill balances?

I for one enjoy them, and nerfs I can enjoy in small doses. When I see an update I expect 1 nerf for each class to shuffle that skill out of the picture for awhile until it gets boosted months later to its former glory. When I don't see a nerf I think "Nothing to change? They must be really crappy right now".
However if nerfs are to constant the Idea switches to "Something is wrong".

I know many of us hate nerfs because it ruins a build we were running, but is it really bad to change things up a bit? It would be really...really boring if every assassin was still running BoA in arenas. The arenas wouldn't just be short breaks from competitive play, they'd be Sin Arenas (with the mix of mesmer/necro counters).

However some updates have brought peculiar changes that happened to fast. Soul Reaping change could of been changed gradually instead of sharply at once in order for players to get used to it. Paragon changes have yet to become "does not affect other paragons" (which could actually be a problem if a team is running a support and a pressire paragon) leads me to assume somethings are not in what the game can do.

Pve and Pvp always seem to chew at each other, but making every skill suddenly change its description and affects once you enter a pve/pvp zone would be time consuming wouldn't it and rather difficult. With Pve only skills its just a matter of making them always available but toggle off in pvp zones. Changing all the skills affects would be tiresome wouldn't it?

Some skills do get changed immediatly, if something gets abused then its a problem. Most skills wouldn't really need to much changing if every1 didnt or wasn't going to abuse it. Pve skills had to be changed because 1 they were strong and 2 A-net probably realised the players were going to abuse it

Anyways those are my thoughts on Skill Balances, whats yours?

Skill balance could be lax & just change stuff up every now and then, and I'd be ok with it. However, the main issue right now is that there are loads of degenerate skills & playstyles that still need to be fixed from the factions & nightfall additions. The skill balance division (izzy) seems to have taken a break prematurely, feeling they were finished with post-chapter balancing, and now they're back in the old "skill balance just means keeping things fresh" mindset.

What is this "balance" you speak of? lol

Also, people are still using the BoA build - they're just using Tiger Stance instead. It's still the exact same amount of effectiveness.

I want them to do some more buffing on forgotten skills.

I used to LOVE skill balances. I always thought they were a fun way to "shake up the game" and allow me to see new builds.

But now, it seems they like nerf pretty well. I don't mind when a build gets nerfed, I do however mind when a build gets nerfed, and there wasn't anything wrong with it.

I'd rather see some insane skill buffing, and making current powerful skills weaker than the newly buffed ones.

I wanna use Amity goddamit

Skills need to be changed MUCH more often, in bigger quantities. Unfortunately, ANet is catering to PvE players who shudder at each skill balance because *gasp* they have to think for new build. Against static monsters.

Anyway, each balance should make some skills weaker, but also make some skills PLAYABLE. There are a zillion of skills which are not used, anywhere. They either need to be reworked or buffed.

I like skill balances, even if I don't like the skill balances themselves. It's nice to have some change to the game every once in a while.

@Servant

You're right, its our fault Paras and Necros were changed.

They were so overpowered in PvE. -_-

Necro's were overpowered in Pve

Paragons...not so much, if I recall they werent even wanted.
1) because they just really weren't to useful
2) They are new, and people are class racist?

Paragons were wanted.

[skill]"Incoming!"[/skill]

Keyword quoted : (.

I'm the same. The prospect of new, refrshing builds is exciting.

I'm fed up with spirit spamming and it really needs to be re-worked. Is spamming a load of multi-functional turrets really that skillful? Rit spike is also too good to be true for fame farmers.

Those BoA/Tiger assassins are a pain in the backside too because if you go to the arenas, you have to fit your build around them because they can signle-handedly spike you down. Perhaps that's what assassins are meant for but it results in hyper-defensive opponents.

As others have said, there are too many unworthy skills not worth taking meaning that the selection of skills to pick from is narrower than you'd expect. Buffing them would display much more variety and enrich the PvP experience.

I'm tired of Build Wars.

In before the topic goes to hell in a PvE/PvP war.

I think there need to be better changes in each balance update. Too much attention on skills nobody will ever use, and too little attention given to skills people use too much 'cause of their overpoweredness. Nobody gives a shit about DBS, it sucks and always will. Stop buffing it, the other hammer elites will always outshine it.

Sometimes it's not really that the skills are overpowered, it's that the number of viable counters are extremely lacking. See: Hex removal. Though some would say that's a case of both, that the skills are overpowered and the amount of available viable counters is extremely low.

Also, we need less time on random interface changes that nobody really asked for, and more time spent on adjusting the skills and mechanics that used to make the game fun to play. It's supposed to be Guild Wars, not Build Wars, where build > skill.

I don't mind skill rebalancing, but one thing I absolutely can't stand is the temporary changes for testing purposes ANet's started doing a while back. Like they're doing this week.

I'm not a damn beta-tester or whatever.

Weeks like this make me not want to play. Logging in one day to find out my skills don't work like they used to anymore? Fine. I'll deal with it. I'll change my builds, whatever it takes. There's probably a good reason for it.

But don't tell me you're just testing, and liable to shuffle everything up again, one week later. I can play only a few hours a week lately, I don't want to spend half that time puzzling over minute numerical changes that mess up my game, day in day out. Get a few hundred people on a test server or whatever and test your stuff without bothering me. I'll see it when it's done. I didn't sign up for a beta, I don't want to be playing one.

Case in point: this week I spent 5 platinum on some Sunspear skills that I don't want anymore three days later.

I don't think there's anything that can be done about the build>skill aspect over the game. It's just the way it's built, and yes it can get irritating, but hey. Oh well.

Regarding buffing/changing a large number of "useless" skills...I don't have a whole lot of confidence in ANet being able to pull that off without turning even more skills useless. I'd rather they didn't make so many skills in the first place.

I enjoy them, kinda fun, lets you play around with some different skills usually. Im quite impressed that so far most of the posters have said that they like them, going by the usual posts in this forum i'd expect people to hate them lol.

People who use the skill > build argument must remember that its extremely difficult to balance all over 1000 skills so that no matter which set of 8 skills a player used within a team of 8 players, it would give no advantage over another 8 players with 8 random skills each.

And for those who would then say that its Arena Nets fault that there are so many skills to balance and therefore they should put in the effort to do it they must remember that we, the players, wanted these extra skills in the first place.

Not every skill needs to be viable in pvp though.

Some work only well in pve and some only in pvp.

....I'm still hoping for a large skill update ,this minor stuff bores me

ANet needs to change how they do skill balances. IMO, they should be doing weekly changes. Every week overpowered stuff should be tweaked by small amounts (a sec or 2 here, a couple damage here, etc) until it's fine. Underpowered stuff should also slowly be buffed, but only if it's a good concept and only if they keep careful control of it (rit channeling anyone?).

Big changes should only come when they really need to change the entire concept of a skill or something (like SR).

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i have played this game religously for the past yr and im getting tired of the constant nerfing of skills to please the pvp ppl .then when the pve ppl complain all we see is the pvp ppl sayin we complain. i havent seen 1 month when the skills werent nerfed. why do the pvp ppl get to dictate the skills? isnt my money just as valuable? please return some of the skills and tell the pvpers to go lay down. we have been pushed aside constantly and consistantly. heck show me 1 good skill that hasnt been nerfed for these whiners. its getting to where we have to spend 3 hrs to complete vanquishing 1 area with 8 real people. whos got that kind of time? now you have made it worse. and its only to make these pvpers happy. again they complain and you nerf to please them. is it possible to separate the pvp skills from the pve skills to where we are not hurt by their crying. we are faceing level 30 bosses they arent.i have never complained until now but i have had enough. this is quickly changing from the game i love to i long grinding path to nowhere. i have 17 titles and over 2000 hrs in the past year logged on. and like i said i have never complained before. but where does it end? i really feel that you are taking the game i love from me. i also feel that i have been slapped and i paid for this.

The simple difference is that in pvp there arent as many viable skills to use. Many skills in the game just completely suck as far as pvp goes. When a few of them are imbalanced it can pretty much make pvp suck. But in pve there are many many many more viable skills/builds you can use and still be successful with.

Personally I would be happy to split pve and pvp skills but Anet doesnt really seem to want to.

Back to the topic:

I'd like to see skill balances much more often than we have had. At least every other week would be good in my opinion. It keeps the game fresh and interesting. Thinking up new builds is fun. When you go months without updates eventually all the viable builds will have already been made.

I think they are much needed, and should be faced as a process, not as a one time or another episode. I'm glad they do this, but I wish the gaps between each skill change would be smaller; imo, would make easier to get to what we insist calling "game balance".