Ursanway ... vanquish PUG annoyance?

I don't recall suggesting the opposite.

the same can be said to the kill ursan fanatics. again. and again. and again.
so lets just keep running in circles until you realize that nothing will happen to ursan.

Yes I have a very good idea about titles. And if you are going to be PvE specific you are correct; Norn and LB Titles are the most obvious Rank "reqs" in PvE.

I couldn't agree more that most (if not all) PvE titles are a result of a lot of grinding. Most of my guild and ingame friends know my position on (?most) titles and how they turned the game into a grind fest. From an Anet stand point though, it's a very cheap way of keeping ppl busy for a long time to come..

PUGS in general are stupid. Thats why any resurgence of PUGS created by Ursan shouldn't be considered a positive.

But why are PUGS so dumb? Simple.

Because bad players slip through. They make it to high end areas. They don't learn from mistakes.

Give bad players tools to overcome how bad they are and just bulldoze through, and the PUG quality continues to drop.

I've found that GOOD players do not PUG. Good players have good player friends, and guilds and alliances. Because they don't wanna deal with PUG scrubs.

You're right, a lot of classes and players (good and bad) wouldn't be in Elite areas in groups without Ursan.

But do they belong there?

Not all content in the game is designed for EVERYONE. Some content is for PvPers, Some is for farmers, some is for casual players, some is for good players, some is for bad players. Not all elite content is designed for all professions. This is the major design flaw in the game.

And instead of fixing that flaw, we get a generic build that anyone can use that strips their class identity and degenerates the game into C+space 1,2,3 regardless of how youve been playing for the past 3 chapters.

For many of the people who have played this game a long time (pve) the acquisition of titles has become their primary aim and a source of great pride. These people have worked hard to acquire these titles, it has taken time and effort to achieve these goals and they feel justifiably proud.

However, with the introduction of UB less skilled people have the fast track to those titles that they would otherwise be unable to get without learning how to play properly. (skill over time) That less skilled comment is obviously not aimed at everyone, but all of you without exception know what I'm talking about.

The whole argument can be distilled into 2 comments.

1. Against Ursan.
So you get noobs/lazy people racing up the KOABD track with titles that in all honesty they have not earned at all, now all people think I did the same and its made all my hard work feel like a waste of time because noobs can achieve the same as me by pressing c,1234,space as fast as they can, it's wrong, it needs a nerf and it needs a nerf now dammit!

2. For Ursan.
I ain't got time to learn all the skills and builds, I want the rewards and titles now - UB gives me that and it's fun to ALWAYS WIN so I use it and all you elitist fools that worked hard for your titles can shove your attitude where the sun don't shine! Hahaha11!

Summary - The idea of learning how to play at a progressive difficulty level was a constant throughout all 3 chapters, starting at pre searing, and either noob island on the 2 other chapters you learn skills and the game starts to up the ante at every new area and enemy. You start to get better and better as you "Learn" the game.

UB has removed this learning curve completely and introduced a wealth of bad players.
Its totally screwed the pve hierarchal title system.


Nerf it, Delete it, ffs do something and do it soon!

HM DoA, specifically Ravenheart Gloom, is the only area in the game where I would agree with this. Which is funny since Ursan is the best strategy for HM Gloom. Environmental effects are the only thing that will make one profession significantly better than another in any given area.

Troll moar pl0x.

Familiar with a straw man? Logical fallacy ftw!

I have been in a few PuG's of late and was happily surprised to find only 1 player using UB, and that was for the mission Blood washes Blood

People appear very willing to adjust builds and take advice, as long as its delivered with a bit of tact.

No. That's not all it's about. That's the least of our concerns. I won't bother listing the points again.... Just read a few pages of the thread.

I don't have much to add that hasn't been said other than Norgu was on my 6 Hero team in 3 of the 4 areas when I took 6 heroes through DoA - he wasn't only viable to run, he was the best choice for the slot. Mesmer's not being able to complete DoA is not an excuse for letting Ursan ruin the game.

Ok, so we have all the arguments what's "wrong" with Ursan. So what do we do about it to make things "right"?

Guys, ladies, offer some solutions and not more arguments, for the arguments are just going in circles. I counter you, you counter me, I counter back, and we are back in square one. The argument whats "wrong" had been said, now lets see how we can make it "right".

For all those arguments, very few really offered a concrete, workable solution.

If your solution is completely taking ursan out of the game, then the vaunted claim of "intelligence and creative" would not aptly describe you. That is like swatting a mosquito with a hydrgen bomb, an easy solution but not exactly intelligent and creative.

If your solution is making Ursan "unusable", not exactly creative but a lazy man's way of solving things.

What Im really interested, is the middle ground, where "Ursan" be relegated to an "alternative" skill or meta-build and not die the slow death of nerfing.

Of course, that is, if ANET is still open and considering changing Ursan in any way. If not, all suggestion of solution is meaningless, and we would be dancing in circles all through the months until GW2 comes out. And its a long and tiring dance, and we can just continue arguing ourselves to exhaustion.

My take.

What does Anet have to say for the ongoing, consistent dissatisfaction with Ursan?

These were my suggestions from another thread, in all cases the degenerate "replaces your skillbar" mechanic has been removed. These are different skills to the ones used in the missions which remain unchanged.

Reason: The +10-15 damage always is somewhat in line with avatar of lyssa's +45 while activating. The +100hp is equivilent to Lyssa's +20e (survivor vs radiant insigs). The knockdown is gravy on the top because people will compliain if their pve skills aren't overpowered.

Avatar Model: Norns bear form

This is a Mantra of recovery with slightly lower coverage, but available without any attribute investments. The anti-knockdown and condition causesing are flavour based bonuses that won't cause major imbalances.

Avatar Model: Tengu with black feathers.

This is the AoB that everyone has been asking for but would break PvP. In PvE having long lasting, unremovable speed and ias buffs is useful without being gamebreaking.

Avatar Model: Wendigo .

just did a pug ursan for norn points clearing, first time i have ever done a ursan pug ...

.. i wont do it again.. home of the most immature people i have ever met.

not fun.

I still don't get why people are STILL QQing about UB...

TBH, I don't care if people do whatever faster than I do. Why? Because I do the stuff I want, and not to compete. I play Ursan in DoA because that's a fast way to make cash and ATM, that's what I need. I don't use it much elsewhere, because alone it gets really boring for me and I want to play as my profession.

There's always been discrimination about builds, ranks, professions, name it, there is. I've dealt with it. How? I play with my friends. If I want to PUG and succeed, I'll use Ursan because it doesn't take a masters degree to do it (and some still suck at it... yes, you can suck at Ursan, it's pretty ****ing hard to but I've seen it). So what if I play mesmer in PvE or don't feel like running a warrior for such mission? So what if I want to HA but I don't have a high rank (44 fame in nearly 3 years)? So what if I have a friend who wants to play Ursan and I don't feel like it? Fine, everything goes.

About UB itself, let's face it, it's not gonna get nerfed. It's made to be broken. I think it's GW in easy mode... but if it ends up being nerfed, TBH I wouldn't mind. Why? I've always moved on... why not this.

They say to post about it on forums. For all the good that does. It can hardly be discussed.

Probably the same for the ongoing, consistent, satisfaction with Ursan.


"Good, good."

I really do like Cellardweller's ideas for UB. It could turn the skills more into "fun alternatives" rather than "most preferable" alternatives.

So wait. Ursan Blessing doesn't really help anything? Unless you're saying we agree on one certain, particular aspect?

How is Ursan Blessing "good," unless ANet wants to damage their game?

Im saying Ursan helped the less appraciated professions get into pugs in places like DoA, but at the same time made it harder for the once highly desireable prefessions to get into teams unless they are running UB.

How is it good? Here was thinking I'd get a hard question. You guys claim that there are nothing but Ursan groups pugging so obviously it's good for those people who choose to play it. A vocal minority does not represent the views of the whole, nor does it imply in any way that the game is damaged. You'd need harder evidence than your opinions to convince me. Believe me, I welcome the hard evidence.

How is it good for me? It's neither good nor bad, since I don't use it and don't care what's going on in someone else's instance. I am completely indifferent about Ursan or whatever skill Anet has put into the game for use, unless it comes down to what I and my team are doing in my(our) instance. Well that and I don't even play the game anymore.

How is it good for you? Well only you can answer that question which you have. You say it's boring (solution: don't use it), then you say it's unbalanced (yeah, so are a lot of things), then you say it hurts the economy (lower prices for items only hurt the greedy minority who like to hoard gold, the majority of buyers are happy with lowered prices). The funniest one by far though is the one where you say it doesn't make players better (well guess what, not everyone has to live up your expectations!!). I'll tell you one thing though, you folks should really stop fronting on this whole crusade tip about making other players better. Your argument ultimately comes down to "bad" players seeming to be as "good" as you. Whether that is by the titles they sport, the armor they wear, or the weapons they use. You can go in that newly made Armbraces thread and see that.

If you can list one solid fact on why Ursan should be done away with I might be inclined to take the whining seriously. Hell, if you could give me one reason that does not ultimately lead to your own selfish motivations on how you think the game should be played I'll give you a cookie.

I'd type more but that should have answered your question. I digressed into a rant there at the end. Apologies.

-Stagnation and staleness and gameplay is a result of lack of diversity in gameplay. Thats a FACT.

-It is imbalanced. Thats a FACT.

-It is bad for the economy. With everyone farming high level areas, expensive items are dropping in prices. As such, nothing retains value and theres less and less buying power no matter how much you do. Meaning you can keep spending hours farming, but your money is worth less and less. Thats a FACT also.

-Quality of PUGs have gotten worse and worse and worse since the game has gotten easier and less focused on skill. This is my opinion, but Im sure a lot of people feel the same.

How can anyone here deny what is a blantantly BAD move by Anet thats killing the game as we speak.

It's supposed to be about skill. PvE skills are one of the many things removing this, by creating skills that are by nature better than the rest. When all skills are balanced against each other, then there can be a situation, where in your example, Prepared shot and Barrage both have uses to which they succeed equally in overall play.

However, to carry on the metaphor, ANet then introduced a skill that deals every condition and +50 damage on one arrow shot (hyberbolic analogy). Suddenly every player, rather than learn the best ways to use Prepared shot and Barrage, can just run that skill and fire it at the closest monster in sight and win because of how strong it is.

Then the argument between people who think the skill is ridiculous and needs to be removed as the game is balanced around skills like Barrage / Prepshot versus those who think superubershot is a good thing because it lets them blast through areas begins.

Aw you edited before I could reply to the funny response.

-The game became stagnant and stale for me because I'd done everything I wanted to do. I can't blame Ursan for it, therefore I can't say "Nerf Ursan because they will get bored too." You can use that argument if you like, but it fails on the basic premise that if you decide to stop playing tomorrow, Anet will not care, even if they did notice. They have your money. Stagnation and staleness is a part of every game. That's a fact.

-It is overpowered, yes that is a fact. But if it should be removed simply because of that (never mind that it's not usable in Anet's true arena for display of "skills" i.e. PvP) then you'd have to removed every single skill that gives a group a decided advantage when used within the framework of a team...in PvE. There are a lot of them. So no, I'm still waiting.

-With expensive items dropping in prices, those people who do not have the in game welath of others are more able to afford them. I do not see that as a bad thing and it goes back to personal greed. "Ursan makes X cheaper so now I can't get as much by selling it." It's not bad for the majority, it's inconvenient for the greedy few. Boo hoo. No cookie for you.

Considering items offer no advantage in the game, there's no need to make vanity items readily available. PvE was a good deal more fun when there was something to actually earn, rather than just being a game of steamrolling monsters. One of the reasons I quit PvE was because there really wasn't a purpose - nothing was really challenging, and there was no reward.

First off, saying "everybody uses it" is currently an exaggeration. However, I'll note that "ursanway is all you ever see in DoA" was at one time an exaggeration, as well. Time will tell in this case. I'll also start off by saying that I don't have a very large concern with titles, economy, and rare weapons.

What I *do* care about is the general quality and experience of the game, and that was my original question: How is Ursan Blessing good for Guild Wars? To that I've found little support.

My reasoning for which you criticize (and also turn into the wrong idea, interestingly enough) is not that "people are as good as me" - in fact, if they were as good as me they wouldn't need to resort to UB in the first place - but rather they're playing an entirely different game. Ursan Blessing lacks a need for build set up - the core Guild Wars element that's won it much acclaim, that made it different from other RPGs, and the only area in Guild Wars where you could show your skill and experience in the game in both PvE and /P.

This would be different, and my concerns nonexistent, if Ursan wasn't as powerful as it is. When you're taking into consideration who and what you want to bring in as your team (this applies to other games as well) you want to not only be powerful and successful, but efficient as well. This is where UB does best. Not only is it strong and with little counters and concerns, the party set up is easy as hell: You only need two professions, Bears and Monks. And that's it.

You could look at my view in one of two ways: It's "selfish" because I want people to play the "original Guild Wars experience" - but as I stated that was one of the many reasons that made Guild Wars as great as it was. I myself can still play Guild Wars in such a manner, of course, but I can't determine the mindset of others. I just want people to have as much fun as I had. Of course, people are entitled to play as they will. I have no problem with someone lowering the difficulty slider. The difference is that they know what they're doing, that they know they're taking the less traditional and more simpler route. Sadly, I don't think many will be able to realize this with Ursan.

~

So, what do I want with Ursan Blessing? I don't want it removed, that's for sure. I just don't want it to be the most simple and successful solution, bar-none. It's like the IWAY of PvE, but in this instance the IWAY is actually successful.

Yes, the gameplay is stagnant to you because you have done a lot things. Thats great. But you missed the point completely.

Lets breakdown Guild Wars. We have:

PvP. PvP breaks down into. RA, TA, HA, GvG, Hero Battles, AB.

Within PvP, and within the subcategories of PvP, theres multiple types of builds you can run.

PvE. We have: Missions, Quests, Farming, Vanquishing, Elite areas, Running.

Within PvE and the various subcategories theres lots of different builds and such to do.

In a game that has THOUSANDS of skill combinations and many player combinations, as well as team combinations, why are we allowing 1 SKILL to dominate what is designed to be the HARDEST areas of the PvE game?

A new player coming into the game will enter these elite areas and will meet only PUGS who demand Ursan.

Now the player has 2 choices. Get with Ursan, or dont get with Ursan.

To get ursan effectively maxed is very very repetitive. Its very very boring. And when you have it maxed out, its a boring skill to use. Slash, KD, roar, repeat. Monk goes Heal Seed, Heal Seed...


Does Ursan make the game boring for everyone? No.

Why is it damaging then? Because it turns the ELITE AREAS, the fun areas, the hardest areas, the areas supposed to reward you after playing through the game, into a simple button mashing slugfest.

It turns DOA, Deep, Urgoz, FoW, UW and high end dungeons into 1 thing. Ursan only maps. Theres no longer any need for the areas to have any diversity, or variety, since everyone is using the same thing, everywhere.


Theres lots of overpowered skills in the game. And they ALL should be nerfed. Ursan is not alone in this.


There are items in the game with FIXED prices. Items like 15k armor for example will NEVER drop in price.

I do not buy low/sell high. I do not ursan farm. I very rarely buy anything from other players.

Ursan players are clearing DOA to MAKE MONEY. Theres so many of them, that they will no longer be able to make any money since they are filling the economy with lots of excess armbraces and gems.

The very thing they came to get to make money is now worthless THANKS to them using Ursan.

Give it a few weeks, Armbraces will be 50k tops.

And then Ursan will be useless since theres nothing worth value to farm for.

Nothing worth left to strive for. Nothing left to do.

Or you could, IDK, hero/hench it.

Hero/hench is better than 99.5% of players anyway.

Now read what you have written. Read again, again and again, until you understand why you failed.

It's imbalanced because the majority off players can find very few other builds other than the cookie cutter builds to do DoA. It's certainly possible to do DoA with other builds as well but you would need to be lucky enough to be in a skilled enough guild or have enough skilled friends. That would probably leave at least 75% of the other people out. The game shouldn't just be about luck either.

This is the point I was trying to make.

There are several builds out there I can't use because I haven't bothered pushing all my characters through Nightfall so this statement is blatantly false (i.e. I can't be a permanent Shadow Form A/Me because I don't have the skill that makes assassin skills recharge faster and there is NO alternative for it).

It's an utopian thought to think bad players will eventually get better. The reality is that most bad players will stay bad, so it's better to give them a tool so that they are atleast somewhat usefull to good players than completely wasting the good player's time by using some horrible build.

An important question I'd still like to see answered by the people who want UB to be nerfed is: Why do you care about UB so much? Since it hardly affects your game play? Yes, there is slight (I say slight because there is always a cookie cutter build for every area, so prices for items will always go down for every item found in area over time, as well as the fact that a large amount of people have just changed from cookie cutter build A to cookie cutter build B and hence do not impact the economy much more than they did before) economic impact because it's slightly faster, but not too big of an impact (i.e. duping item's and the Mallyx outpost if left unchecked). As well as the fact that there are many other builds played along side Ursanway.

If people want to take the easy way of doing something why shouldn't they be able to? People generally don't use 8 man teams to get ectos either they usually use a solo/duo build because it's easier shouldn't they nerf those builds as well then? And why oh why should everyone live up to the standards you set for yourself? Why aren't they allowed to make their own standards? It's a game afterall and people should be allowed to have fun anyway they want as long as it doesn't negatively impact the other players. Even if that means using a skill that requires less skill than other builds. If you really have a need to feel better than everyone else play PvP where you actually get titles because of your skill. None of the PvE titles make me think that person has much skill since there are a lot of easy ways of getting titles like vanquishing, survivor, ...

Make UB area specific, that way you can only use it in Norn areas.
Problem solved.

Luck exists only in gambling and %'s. You are thinking about ,,skill''. And game should be in 90% about skill, not it's in 95% about time.

That skill is in nightfall. You can't afford 300g for assassin tome or 1 hero skill point to buy it from Hoju at Gate of Torment? Wow.

We already said that FEW TIMES DAMN IT!! How many times must we repeat?
1. It eliminates the challenge from game.
2. If we don't use it, we don't get to 96% of PuGs.
3. There are no alternatives, as every single build is inferior to UB.
4. It's overpowered and even single Ursan Blessing skill is better than any other 8 skills on the bar.
5. It's breaking the economy like a hammer breakin little child's head. Look at the Armbraces thread if you need proof.
6. Requires at least r10 norn/r8 lightbringer, pugs won't take anyone with anything lower than this.
7. ^ requires people to grind...
8. Supports the philosophy of time > skill.
9. Titles that were worth anything (Vanquisher, all FoW/UW etc. titles, Protector, Defender) are now worth less than Survivor or money sink items.
10. It can destroy anything, everywhere and anytime.

If someone wants, please add more, but I think that 10 points are enough.

Falseee. 123456

I'm not sure what can match the firepower, resilience, or capability of an Ursan/SY group.

I asked few times for a build as good or better than Ursan. Nobody posted one.

Most regular Ursancarebears are pretty bad. Now while I am not the toughest player myself, I am astonished on how pretty bad people either ARE or BECAME through Ursan.

I helped several r8+ Ursans (mainly) to the Forgemaster to get their armor and noticed how they even failed to keep away from aggroing the whole map, how they unloaded Dchops (I suggested to them - they didn't even knew the benefits of an IAS) at nothing (off-blessing), how happily they ignored SS which becomes a pain to remove with 10+ Nightmares, Shadow Mesmers etc.., how bad they chose their targets. AoE is hard to grasp, and that was normal mode.

This skill is probably as brain-damaging as repetitive farming, besides that it spreads an epidemic form of lazyness throughout all the ranks, making GW even more pathetic. Now you can call Pve "piss easy and doable with an emtpy skillbar" but this bear goes beyond retardation. Shoot it.

Then Anet would have to make all the PVE Skills only usable in there specific areas = New complaint's.

I'm curious to see what Anet's going to do, give in to the complaint's has usual or just let it go...

If that was the case it wouldnt bother me, i think pve skills are just another nail in GW's coffin tbh

It's a skill found solely in Nightfall which disallows me to use a build since there is no other way to make that build work, therefor it is campagne discrimination.

1. False, people can choose to use the skill or not hence allowing them to choose their own difficulty. Instead of having a certain difficulty dictated to them by you.
2. False, there are enough other groups that do not use Ursanway.
3. False, 600hp/Smite builds can do virtually anything Ursanway can do.
4. True, UB is overpowered compared to other skills however the game has many imbalances which are overcome with UB. UB also hardly affects other players and is not allowed in areas where skill actually matters i.e. PvP. PvE is about fun and not so much about skill (especially compared to PvP).
5. False, it does not have a significant impact on the economy as a whole. Any item's value will deminish over time.
6. False, if not very false, rank 6 norn and up will easily get you into an Ursanwaygroup. UB has absolutly nothing to do with LB unless you want to use it in DoA. Either way both titles do not require a large amount of grind to get to a level that is effective.
7. True, yet it's kind of the same point as your previous point. And you are not forced to use UB you can play most of the game without ever using it. It's not a must have skill and you don't have to grind 1 minute if you do not want to. Yet, all RPGs revolve around grind in one way or another whether it's grinding to level up (although not necessarily) or farming for a specific item you want which is basicly also grinding. You can't play these kinds of games without expecting some sort of grind.
8. True, it requires less skill than most builds and requires some grinding. But again you do not have to use the skill at all. Why won't you let other people decides for themselves whether they want to grind and use easier skills? It's a game!
9. False, these things hardly ever meant anything other than being fortunate enough to be in a good guild whose intrest it was to do UW/FoW mostly with some gimmick of their own. Vanquishing just requires a lot of time and Protector/Defender titles are virtually give away titles.
10. False, UB doesn't make you invincible, it's not just an insta-win button. You can't take on an infinite amount of enemies, ursans do die/wipe. But even if it was an instant victory why do you care so much about how other people play? It's their choice to do so and it hardly affects you. Most of these points are elitists points where you are basically trying to force people to play by your standards. Who are you to say how people should or shouldn't play?

1. It still eliminates. You can't deny it that with Ursan everything is harder.
2. I think I posted somewhere a screen where 96% of pugs were about ursan, 4% were in other builds.
3. They can't do whole Urgoz/FoW/UW/DoA/Deep without changing a skill.
5. Yes, but with Ursan it diminishes a lot faster than normally. Why? More people farm them, even if without UB they wouldn't make it.
6. GAAGGAaGAhahahAhahahaHhAHahaHAH OHOHOOHOHO AHAHAHH YHYHYYA ZHZHZHHZH! Good one.
7. What? GW WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT GRIND! It was supposed to be skill > time, no? It was. Thanks to GWN and then GWEN and pve-only skills it's time > skill. Even UBers say so.
8. It requires NO skill. Even an ape can mash 1-2-3 (and maybe 4 if he misses in frenzy), press C and hit space with palm.
9. Being fortunate in being skilled? No. Someone can be talented, but skill will die without practice. Vanquishing with 3x hench + w/mo is NOT possible, even if you have 10 hours. Protector is not that easy, not mentioning hard defender.
10. No, but you can easily overaggro and survive thanks to 200 hp more and +20 armor. Plus you knock down all enemies each few seconds.

And you are forgetting that this is an MMORPG. Ever played a private server of any game? Donation items can ruin the game. What's the difference between Ursan ($40 for a game, where one of the attractions is UB) and donation item, giving you 30 times more damage than the best weapon in game for non-donators.

Everything you do is affecting people you may not know. When you spend 50k on new weapon, someone else is spending that cash on items. People buy those items and get money. It's like a huge ecosystem - one piece is broken and everything will start to suffer.

If you can't find people that are willing to play the game with you the way you wish to play it then I am sorry for you.

However forcing people to play the game the way you wish to play it is never the correct option.

Elite zones will always and have always been areas of this game where people are forced to use a build that others deamand of them. You can't tell me that forcing a player to run an Obsidian Flesh tank is better than forcing them to run Ursan Blessing???

If you do not like the skill do not use it, if you do not wish those in your party to use it let them know.

This is a game and people are having fun using this skill, so let them use it!