Update: 13 Nov. 07

I think you missed the point lulz, the whole point was all of those were imbalanced so they got nerfed.

/FAIL

or that team just couldn't play their balanced build as well as they thought they could against anything that isn't predictable (like another build). there's something to be said about overcoming a challenge (yes, a challenge) when you're the underdog.

You know whats funny about the Soul Reaping nerf? Exactly... What does Soul Reaping means? Spirits have souls, and yet Soul Reaping does not apply to them. It just doesn't make sense... Pretty pathetic I must say.

You seem to be forgetting the most important thing about a balanced build: That it's not actually defined. A balanced build is something that has equal chance against everything or strengths against some, weaknesses in others, but both really depend on player skill. A balanced build is undefined because there is no ultimate build guaranteed to defeat anything that crosses its path. If there was, it wouldn't be balanced.

It's heading into gimmick territory that's killing the game. This is the reason for the call for nerfs. The reasoning behind a nerf 'because I keep dying to it' is bullshit being spouted. The reasoning behind one 'because the only way to effectively counter it is to run a specific build for that which gimps my own build against anything else' is a damn good one.

PvPers aren't calling for nerfs in order to obtain a flat game with a single build which they will face the same thing day in day out. They're calling for nerfs to avoid that fate. They're calling for nerfs to bring all skills of the game to such a level where while your build may be radically different from your opponents, and while you may or may not have the advantage, depending on both of you, your build is not what will decide the match ultimately.

I get hit by a meteor and live. Buff elementalist please.

Pets no longer leave exploitable corpses puts the hurts to b/p teams, sadly I have always wondered why they didn't get wacked with the nerf bat sooner. You use five rangers, one monk, two necros and roll through "elite" areas.

But, why oh why hit energizing winds with that huge a nerf? Do they not want people to trap underworld? I can think of no other way that this is even remotely used. Make every skill/spell cost 10 energy and 33% longer skill recharge made most people shy away from it, unless there is some build that uses it in pvp which would make no sense to me.

If you have all of those builds together (if it's possible), then they really wouldn't be unbalanced against each other. They were unbalanced because they were being compared to the 'balanced class composition build' and the other ones were either already nerfed or hadn't been thought of yet. At that point, what you're calling balanced (not balanaced builds, but rather balanced in the composition of classes on the team) would be a weak an inefficient build.

Umm... GW isn't pay to play. Once you buy it, that's all the money a.net is ever going to get. If anything, they want everybody gone to keep server prices cheaper.


Anyway, on topic. I can't believe how many people are whinning over like 4 skills changed. God, I hate the guru community sometimes.

Sin
Anyway, Black Lotus was an interesting way to nerf SP sins. I like it. Trampling, Impale, and Expose all needed some reworking. Now, the Horns nerf hurts a bit, and ruins my current FA AoD build, but it was pretty commonly used. Forcing a meta shift is fine by me. I'm not going to cry over spilt milk. I'll just adapt. All this "causal player being screwed" stuff is BS too. It isn't elitest to have to force people to buy 10-24 skills per character and change their build around every once in a while. God. Bitch less please, because true casual players are the ones using W/E with flare, not the ones who actually understand why a -12 damage reduction in a dual attack hurts. True casual players won't care about nerfs because they won't even notice them.

Monk
Good. Was getting kinda annoying in RA/TA.

Necro
Finally. The N/Rt build will die.

Ranger
Barrage buff? This along with SF a while ago makes me think a-net wants more C-Spaceing in PvE (and thus helps the "casual player" <see above>).
Good, Magebane now makes sense and is actually better then distracting shot. A.net listened to my comments on last weeks thread. Huzzah. I feel famous. *blows kisses to the crowd*

Pets.... eh. B/P groups still work. You can make a nice minon army by just killing the enemies. I've played MM in enough of the Tombs/Urgoz groups to know that pets are useful more as meat shields along with the minions then as actual minion factories (really, when I play in BP groups, the pets don't usually die that often since your team should roll through the PvE groups so quickly).

and so if people bring counters to that "gimmick" build what happens?

what happens to the meta? it changes. people stop using THAT particular "gimmick" build and move onto something different.

and THAT. is META.

Teams in TA have lost because of a 55er. They whine, and someone says, "Well, you should have brought a counter for that."

55ing is still allowed in TA, just like perma SF if I'm not mistaken. One, ONE single skill, can be a direct counter that helps against more than just what is trying to be countered. What's is the issue? Note: I'm not talking about group builds, but single builds.

So it's much more fun knowing exactly what you are going to face in your opponent? "Hey that build beat our balanced build, nerf it so they have to run balanced. Then we'll know exactly what they'll have for bars and skill will prevail."

Sounds a lot like what pvp'ers are constantly laughing at pve'ers for. "haha, fighting opponents with set skill bars that do exactly the same thing every time."

This is a joke, how can anyone complain about PvE being 'hard' when the best skill has not been touched (aka a certain elite skill from the Norns that blesses you with the powers of a large four-legged carnivorous mammal)? If Ursanway can tear the buttocks out of HM Mallyx through C-spacing then the Darkness and some silly little Grasps are just toothpicks behind it

How do you lose to a 55er in TA are they dumb or something, I mean if they have NOTHING to stop the 55 just kill his teamates and go afk for 10 minutes until the timer goes out and you win due to moral.

Yes, there are some people that whine for nerfs just because they were pile-driven into the ground by a clearly better team. It's not really the same when you have the entire top tier PvP community screaming for balance.

Ranger spike isn't just arrows doing the damage and it isn't all about the damage. You had 3-4 Rangers doing the damage while there was 4-5 other players supporting them in various ways to make sure the spike went down. Shields Up alone will not counter it.

The answer would never be HotO, unless they buff a new skill or add new 1s
nerfing HoTO will never at this current age in time be the smart thing to do.

Really, I liked the OLD OLD impale, back when it was a hex (anyone else love that?)
when Impale was a hex, since did not use IAS, so monks had clearly enough time to remove it since everyone complains how a sin without an IAS is slow.
but if it didnt it boosted your damage by about 70.
Using with boS (back when it was what 50 damage)
was great because you got a 170 damage spike then, with twisting fangs for 300 damage + bleeding,
I was to new at sin to know if the old impale was imbalanced...so I'll say nothing more about it.

The reason for Hoto is not just the knockdown.

if it was just for knock down >impale.

Since impale would knock them out at the very beginning.
mark of instability> also as you can get higher damage output by using it (proven, ive tested it...warrior went wtf hit me)

hoto's use was

moderate damage + knock down in 1 skill. Making it a Good skill (not imbalanced)
thats why before Nightfall, Horns was SO common.

Yanman can probably tell you how common it was to see

Unsuspecting strike fox fangs, horns FS twisting

or Palm strike, FF,horns FS twisting.

In todays age in pvp, that combo wouldn't be ground breaking (wasn't even back then).

So know, horns use is not JUST to get knock down.

and thus this buff makes it crap.

Horns would work better on a hammer warrior

They have the second highest base damage in the game , and it was the highest damage in the game until 1 year ago.

Your the next Bill Cosby man, ever thought of being a comedian? Those builds were nerfed for a reason, because they completely overshadowed the other skills. When a skill is sooooo good, that you're willing to sacrifice entire team builds to help exploit that skill, then its obvious theres a problem.

They upped the damage of barrage and you're complaining?

It's obvious that +3 damage completely ruins the barrage build.

You're right, they ARE two different things, a SKILL is everything on your bar, INCLUDING spells. therefore, distracting shot can disable a wider variety of things. It has exactly twice the recharge, with exactly twice the disable time (compared to magebane). therefore, if youre targeting a specific spell to disable, you have to hit it TWICE with magebane, to get the same effect as once with distracting. The only thing its got going for it now, is the unblockable status. which is nice, but i still think it could use a bit of a buff...since its essentialy the same thing as an unblockable distracting shot that can't disable as many skills. where as before it was an infinite spell interrupt if you were a capable interrupter.

If you're correct, then it's lack of player skill bringing these nerfs and not the builds themselves. Back during the infamous IWAY days, when IWAY seemed to be everywhere, there were periods when a good group or guild got together (a few in fact) and completely dominated Halls without an IWAY build. IWAY didn't stand a chance against some of them. IWAY wasn't as overpowered, it's just that most PvPers might have sucked (this may include some of you, go figure with 4 million copies sold, someone's got to suck at PvP) to the point that they COULD NOT overcome IWAY. I remember talking with people sitting in halls laughing at IWAYers coming in and getting their asses handed to them. Eventually another team build would come in a beat them or would eventually come across a really good group that was in fact playing IWAY. When non-IWAY players (that were good) wanted to take Halls, they usually could. If you couldn't, then maybe you weren't good enough to take it in the first place as opposed to the other build being uber.

Lack of player skill and/or laziness. There are still people that play without using cookie cutter builds that can at least win a few matches against said 'overpowered' builds. Either Izzy or Ensign (maybe Gaile) was talking the other day about how so many guild teams sit until Victory or Death before even doing anything. How friggin lame is that. That is pure unadulterated laziness. Even if you lose or it takes a considerable amount of effort to go on the offensive, at least you would be playing and trying.