~Ursan Blessing and balance~

Warriors are the best because of the health and armour, rangers after that. Let's look at it deeper.

Signet of Stamina: Now because your attributes simply don't matter in bear form you might as well pump strength to 12 with a +1 cap and rune to get 14 strength. Activate Signet of Stamina for a boost of 283 health. None of the Ursan skills are considered attack skills so that bonus of 283 never goes away as long as you use it prior to bear-forming.

Runes: Drop your weapon rune and tactics rune for Vitaes. +30 health from weapon, +30 health from shield, +20 from Vitaes, +50 from superior vigor, -3 damage reduction from superior absorption, +1 strength from minor rune in the hat so it becomes +2.

Insignias: Stonefist in one spot for a 3 second Ursan Rage, rest sentinals for 100 base armor level.

What does it add to? In thoery this puts your typical ursan warrior to 480 + 100...200 (based on ursan rank) + 283 + 150 = 1013...1113 health with 126 to 136 AL. Let's also not forget that you still have 6 other slots on your non-bear form to abuse. This can include Charm and Comfort Animal, Call of Protection and Symbiotic Bond as these two skills have a massive duration allowing them (like Signet of Stamina) to be used prior to Ursaning and maintaining their effects. Why not give my pet a 17 base damage reduction, 3 health regen and redirecting half it's damage to me which would allow my non-ursan monks to drop a Seed of Life or Healing Seed on me to heal all of my fellow nearby bears?

Rangers are just as good as they have 100 AL against elemental damage (boosted to 126 to 136 as they can go /w or /p for a shield), and since Ursan Roar inflicts weakness the additional armour against physical is not as necessary. They can also spec 14 to beastmastery and have a stronger pet. They may not have as high health as the warrior but their pet's extra auto-attacks will give it the most damage, and they can equip a spear to maintain their energy more easily.

Is the extra damage from a pet significant? Maybe, maybe not. But the blessing skills allow you to expand your skillbar beyond 8 skills which is just absurd. I see your point there Racthoh, but then, if you're using Signet of Stamina, how do you maintain the form? You have to actually attack to gain energy, and if you attack SoSt ends, so there goes that. Like you said, Ursan skills don't count as "attacks" so you don't gain energy when you use them. Now, without that skill to hamper things up, the only thing a paragon or warrior has is the plus armor.

Any class can rune up the same way, and class can go Ranger secondary and bring a pet. You say the Blessings extend your skillbar beyond 8 skills which techinically is true, however only 4 are skills really relevant, Strike, Rage, and Roar. Force is a weak movement buff, not even a weak IAS. So there's really three skills a person would be using with regularity.

So you take your class and go Ranger to bring your pet. Let's say you bring Call of Protection and Symbiotic as you suggested. You use those two right before the first battle and go Ursan. Those effects will wear off, and to get them back, you have to stop the team so that you can go back to regular bar, regen, cast the skills again then cast Ursan again. I won't say it wouldn't work, but that might be a little tedious for most pugs who want to get the thing done now. Even then, that's only 3 skills you are using with regularity and 2 semi-regularly.

You'll want a rez of course, should something go wrong, so that takes another skill slot in which the skill won't be used on a regular basis. You're gonna want Comfort, for when your pet dies, that's another load of time used waiting on degen, then regen, using Comfort, then CoP and Symbiotic then Ursan again. So again that's another rez on your bar that you hope you won't have to use often, which leaves room for one more skill. You choose, but you're still using only 5-7 skills with any regularity. All that for a measly +10 or so damage per second (yeah I know the math is wrong) from the pet?

So yes, while it's true that Ursan extends your bar, Anet designed it that way, and when you break it down, you're not really using more than 8 skills.


Hell, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense that it's slightly overpowered. You only get to use the 3 skills, unless you're trying that ranger set up the extra 10 or so damage.

Like you said, Ursan skills don't count as "attacks" so you don't gain energy when you use them. Now, without that skill to hamper things up, the only thing a paragon or warrior has is the plus armor. In addition to taking damage, the strike returns energy on both hits.

My pet example is just one of many I'm sure and it's not entirely tedious at all. You can end the blessing well before combat ends when the fight is ensured victory, get the skills going again before the 30 seconds (assuming you're not using QZ or Essence of Celerity either) have passed for the blessing to recharge before the next group.

EDIT:@ Natural sugar, you responded while i was typing.

I meant actual builds, not 1 skill gimmicks(i admit i could hae been clearer than that).
Re OF Tanks/nukers- Decent DoA groups do not have that configuration so what exactly is your point? I figured you weren't talking about the standard OF-tank build, but my post was to indicate that nerfing UB will encourage more build diversity. Several of the posts in this thread seemed to indicate that UB will "eliminate" variety and creativity, but nearly all that variety was lost when MOST people gave up on anything but the Trinity.

Of course this isn't meant towards those people that run varied builds, etc (which is quite uncommon nowadays).

In addition to taking damage, the strike returns energy on both hits.

My pet example is just one of many I'm sure and it's not entirely tedious at all. You can end the blessing well before combat ends when the fight is ensured victory, get the skills going again before the 30 seconds (assuming you're not using QZ or Essence of Celerity either) have passed for the blessing to recharge before the next group. Not entirely tedious and Not tedious are two different things though. I didn't say it couldn't be run, just seems like something most people would want to get into. It also kinda negates your argument about UB not requiring skill. Also, even with Symbiotic, SoSt, CoP, you're still not really extending your bar. You have a rez, pet rez, plus Ursan on your regular bar so that's three. Symbiotic, SoSt Cop make six. You hope you won't have to use the rezzes much so there's no buff there. The Ursan speed buff is useless since you want to stay in one spot taking AoE damage. You can only use the pet prot outside of Ursan, and while you're in Ursan you're depending on everyone being able to take constant AoE damage for energy while hoping the monks can stay alive, while hoping the enemies don't kite. It seems very tedious to me and more trouble than it's worth.