Balance Suggestions for Ursan Blessing

We know that Ursan Blessing is an extremely powerful PvE elite. Reports of bear groups rampaging through the Domain of Anguish, Shards of Orr and the Underworld abound.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ursan_Blessing

At norn level 10 It offers +200 health, +20 armor and a 3 second recharge ranged dual attack doing 2x75=150 armor ignoring damage. Furthermore, it is unaffected by blindness and stances.

The other attacks add weakness, attack buffs and other kinds of crazy buffs and debuffs.


My balancing suggestions try to give this bear blessing more drawbacks, while letting it remain very strong. I do not want to make it disappear through the nerfhammer.



My ideas:

0.) Half the Health Bonus and the Armor bonus to +100 and +10 max, starting at +50 and +5 with low rank and progressing slowly.



1.) Ursan Strike, 1C, 3R
Skill. You deal +40...75 damage to your target twice.

Change to: Attack skill. You deal +40...66 physical damage to your target twice.

This attack will also require you to attack at close range, no longer being ranged. It will also take armor in account, and as an attack skill it will trigger e.g. Paragon Anthems and other skills while you will still be subject to blindness, evasive stances or 50% failure chance hexes. This is the "core" of the balancing idea.



2.) Ursan Rage, 1C, 10R
Skill. You deal 60...135 damage to all adjacent foes. Struck foes are also knocked down for 2 seconds.

Change to: You deal 50...100 physical damage to target foe and foes adjacent to your target. 15 seconds recharge. Change KD wording, a normal KD is 2 seconds after all, no need to mention that extra.

The idea here is to give this an attack and KD cone in front of the bear, you might have noticed that foe and adjacent foes is the wording of Hundred Blades. So imagine the bear pranks hitting all guys in front, but not those to the sides and behind.



3.) Ursan Roar, 15R
Shout. For 2...5 seconds, all enemies within earshot are Weakened and all allies deal +5...15 damage per attack

Weakness is incredibly powerful in hard mode, but at least this requires the bears to "chain" their shouts. Can be left like that, NO CHANGE.



4.) Ursan Force, 12 Recharge
Skill. For 8...14 seconds, you move 20...33% faster.

Could be changed to a stance, but no real need to change that.



Other things that could be changed:

a.) Bear Forms depends on your max energy and also takes advantage of soul reaping and zealous weapons. Also, energy regeneration does not go down if you use a dual +15/-1 high energy set, it is fixed -2.

Suggestions:
- disable primary attributes, like in the Junundu
- all professions start at a fixed 35 energy
- only gain energy when you deal damage, not on enemy damage
- zealous weapons should not give benefits either

b.) visual marker that the player is in bear form
Ideally it would transform into a bear or give you a ghostly bear shape, like the skills already do. But a blue glowing "boss aura" would already be enough.

Asking a pretty female elementalist "Are you still in bear form?" should not result in answers like "you think I am fat?", you should be able to see if someone is in bear form by yourself.

I'm all for changing ursan blessing to make PvE less generic and let the classes have more meaning, but I have a feeling the OP is going to get flamed. That's usually what happens when anyone suggests a nerf.

Don't worry about that; we'll be enforcing a strict "contribute positively or STFU" policy here. It'll be nice to have a decent discussion about what can be done with the skill for once, instead of a rant session between two brick walls.

Why Nerf it its making life easier for us i don't see your problem except ruining peoples favorite skill

So you also wouldn't see problems if AN introduced PissedOff Was ANet, 5e, 0r, shout, all mobs drop dead?

I am all for making it prone to shutdown, stoping being armor ignoring and giving player less of god mode.

Farming would be a lot easier.

/not signed

I haven't even reach that part yet. And I want to enjoy that power when I reach it. *edit: i alread have the skill, just don't actually need to use it.

In my humble opinion, I think this is ridiculous, on one side when ANet nerf necro's SR to be less powerful, people wants it back the way it is, when ANet nerf pets to have no corpese, players wants it back the way it is, why nerf something when you know people are going to complain. even before the neft people already complain. so why? And on the other side people wants title to be account base, basically making the game less grind, with ursan blessing you can grind less and achieve things faster, this is not making things balance. its just making the game as you wish it to be, and not base on what all the players wants. How is one player using ursan blessing going to unbalanced anyone other player's game? *edit cos I don't use Ursan Blessing. i like my skill bar.

I've state my opinion, if Anet still thinks they want to nerf it. then I have nothing to say.

Happy Days.

There's one problem with Ursan and other blessings.

Make them non-superior, and they join the long list of useless skills.

The only thing needed to permanently kill Ursan Blessing is to make damage dealt my attack not armor ignoring. Everything else can remain exactly the same, but the skill, and consequently ursanway become useless.

I've been in a few ursan groups. It's far from all the hype that's being tossed around. For many/most areas it's even vastly inferior to any semblance of balanced group. IMHO, nerf it, buff it, it doesn't really matter. Not anymore.

Ursan blessing is a great idea that lets void classes actually get groups.
I, as an assassin player, love it.

QFT.

You beat me to it. Me as a Dervish, find it very useful.

how about Anet buff assassins in order to be a clearcut VIABLE class in pve?

because atm, youre not playing sin, youre playing bear.

oh. wait, they cant do that can they. the universe would implode.

Ursan blessing is a PvE skill. So it's out of balance's jurisdiction.

PvE skills should only be fixed to prevent exploits...

In the case of Norn Blessings I'd change them so profession is not important, like making them all have 60 energy and disabling the first attribute (like inside a Junundu). Currently, Mesmer, Monk, Ritualist and Dervish has no advantages while Strenght, Expertise, Soul Reaping, Energy storage, Critical hits and Leadership work under the blessing.

I think that if someone enchants the Dervish, they will still gain the energy from Mysticism. I can't log on right now, but I think Mysticism still works under the blessing, anyone correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, it works, but I mean 'standalone'.

People aren't trying to deprive others of power. Its all about balance. Last week every time I went to ToA to get into a FoW group the place was filled to the brim with people who only wanted to use UB. I don't have GWEN and will not for a week or two and so now I can't get into a group because of it. UB isn't as good as you'd think. Not because it isn't powerful but because most people don't know how to coordinate their attacks and thats what you have to do to get the most out of UB. Alot of the better players have taken to UB farming and the rest of us are left with jerks and idiots. Just yesterday I finally got into a FoW group and our tank ragequitted because no one would sell him a key. I don't like dealing with foolish people but I refuse to farm using UB(when I finally get GWEN).

I don't want UB to be nerfed into uselessness b/c its a cool skill but its bonuses need to be adjusted a bit to give the rest of use non-UB people a chance.

i think a good way to achieve compromise with this skill is to let it keep its damage potential, but as others have said, let it get some drawbacks.

reducing the damage or making it physical could weaken it by itself a lot more than reducing the health or armor.

making the attack skill be a melee attack that requires to hit will help it be vulnerable to blind, stances and hexes, diminishing its efective raw power.

also other suggestion that sound good are:

to those i would like to add a third pipe of degen to the energy, so that even when in battle, the player cannot keep the blessing for as long as the battle lasts and the skill can help, but not do the entire job.

Perhaps a change of the skills is not in order, but the blessing itself. The energy degen keeps you from keeping it up while not attacking. Why not change the energy degen to a point where the blessing will end eventually no matter what and attacking/ using skills only postpones the end of it.

Where the energy degen is so much you cannot earn more energy than that which is being lost. Also increase the recharge time (I forget at the moment) of the skill to that of an avatar. thus making the sheer power relevant.
That I think would give a great balance while keeping fans of the skill happy.

If they were to increase the energy regen, I think the skill would only last 10-35s, depending on the battle situation. If they were to do that, don't you think that it would become a wasted Elite slot?

I think the energy setup for the skill now is fine because you have to constantly be in battle in order to keep it up, while having little to no time to rest, which is bad for casters if they have no decent e-management.

Ursan Blessing has given me and some people an option where they can play a certain area in which their profession is not an affective option.

Like MithranArkanere said: set all primary attributes to 0 while having the blessing.

On a side note: What about Volven Blessing? I find it to be pretty decent.

I would venture that Anet has already tried to control UB's power by making it an elite skill, and as for it ravaging through PvE areas, I fail to see how this raises concern when 55 monks have completely ruined the game economy beyond the point of recovery, remember when Sup Vigor wasn't buy one get one free and ectos were worth more than glittering dust. And since the bulk of the damage to PvE gameplay has already been done by the UB abusers, I fail to see how any skill balance no matter how drastic at this point would serve any purpose other than just punative enjoyment. Besides it's easy for us to sit in judgement of Anet since we have the luxury of only focusing on one skill or aspect of gameplay instead of monitoring every little thing that goes on in the game as a whole.

/notsigned

Ursanway is non-profession specific and PvE only. I tend to favor nerfs to avatars and massive earth-tanking over reasons concerning balance issues or what I think profession roles should be in combat, but UB doesn't really involve either of these.

PvE skills are meant to be a bit stronger than your average skills. And in keeping with Guild Wars trying to avoid emphasis on grind in gameplay, I think it makes sense that they are powerful even at lower ranks so players don't have to spend so much time farming a title in order to use it. As a result, just about any PvE skill you name is quite powerful at its max title rank. Then in the case of UB we just factor that elite slot, and I think it's no wonder it's as strong as it is.

That being said if you were to make Ursan Blessing non-elite, I'd say a nerf is definitely called for.

/notsigned

I like what this skill did for PvE, it made farming less like trying to get into a HA group, as in 8 attribute insted of 9 = kick. Doing it the "proper" way is still faster but this way you can get through these kind of areas without being one single build. The one problem i have that its title attached, its the new eliteism atm. Remove that and its all good ^^.

It deos what, about .00000040081% of the damage the 55 monk did to pve.

Yeah. Pain Inverter can kill in one casting almost many enemies in one sigle o their casts. But it can be learned by anyone. It's not (I have to be a monk to be able to use this build)

Anyone can use it. That's why the only change should be to make it very similar for all professions.

/notsigned

Cause you can take a break of your profession and be a Teddy Bear for a while

Like a Monk i love Ursan Blessing because i can play a ofensive class with a nice dps (smithing prayers suck).

I enjoy heal and protect but sometimes is funny play something diferent.

The bear form should be fun and strong, definitely.

Solely relying on one broken skill to have (questionable) "fun" is shortsighted and ruining the game.

The many Assassins and Mesmers posting here should realize that they are no longer Assassin and Mesmers, but their "diversity" and class characteristics get reduced to an abomination with 5 skills only that works everywhere and requires no coordination.

Toning down this skill so that it does not get killed, but making it less brainless and superior, this is my intention.

/signed

First of all, if you are grouping with people thinking assassins are bad... they need to wake up and smell the roses.

2nd of all, it does cause discrimination. Instead of having discrimination between classes, Ursan blessing discriminates against people who don't have GW:EN/don't have a high Norn rank. An outstanding player in DoA for instantance will be unable to join most groups if he doesn't have GW:EN now.

/notsigned

If you want a challenge, don't use it. It seems you're getting a bit jealous because now more people can do DoA and UW. And just so you're aware, a ton of people could do UW and DoA before this skill

Lol. People thinking doing UW is a challenge.

No... trust me we aren't jealous. If you want to play in elite areas, you should be good enough in this game to do so without having to rely on gimmicks.

How one player deal with other players isn't a balance question, hey I've been trying to HA forever, and because I started the game late, althought I am 100% sure, I am as good as any regular HA players, off course I am not comparing myself to the rank 12s, but do I get a group easily because I don't have rank? NO. Do I ask for a nerf to HA? NO.

Players should not have to be "good enough" to enjoy a game.

Again, being an assassin, this skill is very useful. The people in this game are extremely biased against the assassin, and are completely unaware of this ignorance. I have seen assassins tank. I HAVE tanked for a party omn an assassin. IN the FOW. Of course, I was using critical agility and critical defenses, but I was still tanking.
The Ursan and Volfen blessings help me get into groups and other harder missions/areas/dungeons. I like going with real peoplse more than I do henchmen, and the blessings have allowed it..

BTW what does QFT stand for again? I seem to have forgotten.

you mean the elitest that would not let the other characters go in without LB8? umm...ok? QQ

PERFECT! A solution to the removal of HA!!

No I mean the player who is good. Player skill > then grind. UB is a grind based skill that allows you to cruise control through areas where most players with good ability could do without it. LB r8 isn't required for DoA either by the way. For example... bonder monks in DoA are out of aggro range and don't deal any damage at all (thus gaining no benefit from the title). Several builds in DoA (like the tank) can get by without any LB rank at all... or like rank 2 which you get just by beating the game... which you need to do to do DoA anyways.

And yes, you should have to be "good enough" to enjoy the ELITE areas of a game. You don't just hit "start game" and win. When playing an NCCA football game as a dynasty, you won't win a national championship playing with Eastern Michgan your first time through on hard mode. You can still enjoy the game elsewhere. You can still play a large part of it. But to play tough areas, you should have some skill. Otherwise, the game doesn't become fun. When a game has no challenge and no possibility of failure, it becomes boring and stale. Ultimate challenges = Ultimate rewards and sense of fullfilment. No challenge, no reward.

And stop using PvP examples (I think the PvP rank system is busted too, it should be an ELO win/losses ranking system, not static as it is), they are unrelated examples to the topic.

I thought this is about balancing the game, but since you want to use "good enough" as the basis of this argument, am I correct to assume that basically you are just jealous because now all the players you deemed to be not "good enough" get to play in the area you think need to be "good enough" to play?

wanders if Original Poster and those who agrees to the nerf of Ursan Blessing still uses Ursan Blessing to Farm/play the game..

/signed for something, but not what you think.


Personally I think Ursans is fine, I have used it, Never liked it, and will never use it in my builds. Elites are to valuable to sacrifice for a spirit form (thats not a true spirit form but thats another subject).

But there are a few things that are logical to change. All attacks should be Melee range, weapons should become unusable while in Spirit form. And If your in spirit form you should not be able to pickup drops or interact with chests as a human would. While in spirit form your agro bubble should be smaller.

The Ursan elite should also not be as indefinite as it is atm. it should have a fixed effect time... and a MUCH longer recharge once back in human form.

These are nerfs that do not change the fundamental of the skill yet adds things to it that the nerf takes away. While maintaining a logical pattern for Melee Spirit skills for the future. IE GW2.


I want to add this however. A nerf is really Not needed for this or any other PvE skill. That was the point of making PvE skills in the first place... So that they would never again be subject to unjust targeting from PvP ranters about some balance issue that is inconsequential to PvE players to begin with. The only reason to nerf this at this point is 1 of 2 reasons...

1: anet just wants to screw with us yet again in which case the nerf will be so bad no one will ever use it again for any reason like Prot bond.

Or
2: The skill becomes the preferred build in PvE and only those that use it will get accepted into pugs.

Which in effect makes 12 classes become all the same thing... In such a case I have to agree a nerf would be needed to be sure the variety of classes and skills remain in the game and it does not just become Ursan or nothing for Pugs...

I dont want to see it nerfed to uselessness, but I think a Mild nerf may be in order to dull its over popularity atm... BEFORE the farm bots start over exploiting the skill and using it to farm gold for resell.

Perhaps a simple effect like that on spirits... only 1 ursan type spirit allowed in a group at a time. If someone else goes into bear form it makes the other a man instantly as it would if someone cast a 2nd Ritualist or ranger spirit of the same type...

just fyi you do not need to be a particular class for UW as long as you are part of a balanced team.

pre "nerf" DOA (although doa was incredibly broken imo an should have NEVER come out like that in the first place) required ultra specific team builds and resulting in an unbalanced team. Now however its at least possible to do it normally.

both are elite areas, and elite requires some kind of skill prerequisite, not some ultimate grind skill that bacteria could obtain.

/not signed

Because many people do not recognize the value of Assassin and Ritualist in PvE, so it's one of few ways that we can get in UW/FoW groups without waiting hours to find a non-ignorant group that understands our value.

That or give Assassin more durability-type skills and more AoE attacks like Death Blossom, and rework Ritualist Spirits to be much more like necromancer minions in movement and number and give us more AoE channeling as well as hex removal.

/notsigned but have a mitigation for Hard Mode if it's going to be changed anyway

I say that if someone is going to change it at all, change the game in a way that makes Ursan Blessing either less powerful or less useful in Hard Mode (only). Quit trying to mess with Easy Mode and let the skill be adjusted in Hard Mode (where people really do look for more challenge). Some people really just want to plow through things in Easy Mode after a day at work.

Understand that even by nerfing it, you are still going to be discriminated against. You may have to roll with an ObFlesh build instead. You are never, ever going to be able to join selective pugs with a build of your own choosing, for any class, for any reason. If you want to run with your own builds, you will have to find a casual pug that doesn't care about builds too much or else run with H/H. GW has been this way since the beginning.

What? How the hell do you think people will recognize the value of Assassins and Ritualists if you're not A or Rit anymore but a god damn bear like everyone else?

There is only one thing that is grossly out of proportion in comparison to other PvE mechanics: the cumulative bonuses from Norn and some other PvE title track like LB.

As I suggested earlier (and got swamped by yes/no rants) make a change to UB so that if you're not showing your Norn title, UB skills work as if you had zero ranks in Norn reputation. This way, you can have, e.g., the 40% Lightbringer bonus with crappy UB, or your current UB with no LB bonus.

Other than that, UB is not played because its so powerful, it's played because it's pretty effective and extremely simple (both to acquire and to play).

/signed

kill the bears plz, they make pve easier than it already is...