Buff Sunspear/Kurzick skills to compete with Ursan Blessing?

yet another UB thread by the same crowd

i'm gonna keep saying this, UB is intended the way it is, its the consumables giving it its power

without even watching that video i'm going to assume they have consumables up, and i'm going to assume most people run consumables in high end areas.

when you run a set of EOTN consumables this is what you get:
+100 health
+10 energy
+10 armor
+1 attribute
+1 health regeneration
-5 dmg reduction
immunity to critical hits (the biggest bonus of all)
attack and move 25% faster
reduce and recharge skills 25% faster (where ursans power comes from)
+10 morale with increase health and energy

then you add cupcakes, pumpkin pies etc:
+100 health
+100 health
+100 health
+10 energy
25% reduce skill activation(yes it does stack with celerity)

its easy to get confused that UB is powerful, in reality its not, try running it without consumables, it will feel slow and compairable to say a SF nuker or other pve-only skills.

ontopic:
there are some other pve-only skills that need buffs like "winds"

Exactly, since we already have all those, do we really need UB on top of that?


But I really don't want this to turn into another "nerf UB" thread.


All I'm trying to propose is an alternative that would keep people using UB happy, all the while giving people who still wish to experiment with new builds the clearness of mind that we're being rewarded for "creativity" rather than simply turning into a bear and killing everything.

But in the end: meh. It doesn't even turn you into a bear.

Exactly. I cried when I realized I wouldn't be able to turn into a wolf. Shame on Anet.

Consumables are completely unneeded, ursan works fine with a single + recharge which can easily be provided through skills. The reason people use consumables for it is the same reason they use ursan in the first place: too lazy to think up a real method to do it and taking the easy way out. You should watch the video though, its good for a laugh.

Umm... what lol

Paragons are already imbalanced as it is... stop being so stupid..

There's nothing to fear
they're on fire
save yourselves
focused anger....

TA DA! Paragon = Invincibility

Interesting how Paragons can provide 70% reduction to the whole party with no consumables and this is BALANCED but yet some people use ursan blessing with CONSUMABLES and it is imbalanced? LOL at your logic

Dervish Mysticism worked as intended when introduced. The problem is that there is no definite correlation between 'Anet's intention' and 'quality game balance'.

I still believe removing all items and skills that have PvE-only restrictions, and properly designing PvE, would be the best solution.

That would be ideal. I hope they are working on this for GW2, but I think it is too late for GW with all the PvE-only stuff around. Considering all the whinging and moaning about the effect on PvE when skills are balanced for PvP, I can only imagine the outcry if all the PvE-only items/skills were removed.

Oh yeah... Mysticism is a great example of something that got nerfed because it was overpowerd. Freaking 50 health heals every time an enchantment ended on you. Gah... so invincible during that NF preview event with 8 man dervish teams owning in HA.

This is so true, although a large majority of PvE players laugh when I say that Paragons are overpowered.

But please, buff the Lux/Kurz skills.
Double the time for SY.

All those ridiculously overpowered PVE-only skills have been a step in the wrong direction from the very beginning. IMHO they should all be removed.

The place of PvE only skills should be to fill a niche that while not strictly superior to non-PvE skills, would be overpowered when placed in a PvP context.

An example of a well designed PvE skill is Eternal Aura. In a long running PvP battle, the downtime of an avatar serves the purpose of restricting the duration for which a dervish can pressure an opposing team before giving them a break. In PvE however, this downtime doesn't affect a dervishes power at all as the dervish is able to wait out the downtime between groups. Eternal Aura fills the role of making PvE exploring smoother for an avatar dervish without increasing their overall power level.

By contrast skills like Save Yourselves, There's nothing to fear, cry of pain and ursan blessing (amongst many others) do nothing except provide strictly superior skills that lead to unchallenging pve and destruction of the skill>time precept. The correct solution to the bad pve skills is not to bring the others up to their level, but to reign them in so that they are on an equal footing with non-pve skills.

My sense is that they're going exactly the opposite way with GW2 (towards the traditional MMO model, which these certainly fit). I hope I'm wrong, though...

In other words, you want PvE to rely on PvP skill balances. The reason for PvE-only skills is so that most of them would be exempt from PvP skill-balances. Removing PvE-only skills is not the same as releasing PvE-only skills that are in-line with however they want to the PvE game to be played. If they think UB is overpowered then they can modfiy it. The chances of PVE-only skills requiring a nerf are much lower than other skills requiring a pvp nerf.

You sound more like a PvP player that is upset PvE players have something you don't. There is absolutely NO reason to remove PvE-only skills, except spite. If they are 'unbalanced' they can be balanced just like any other skill.

Even if UB and Ursanway is overpowered, you've got to look at the way it's effecting the PVE side of the game and then decide whether or not the skill should be nerfed.

Personally, I run with a regular Ursan group each weekend. We've accomplished the following:

UW Clearing
FoW Clearing
Full DoA Runs
Urgoz
Vanquishing

Everything I've listed above are very time consuming tasks. With Ursanway, we've been able to reduce the time it takes to complete these tasks. For example, we can do a 3 hour full DoA run (including Mallyx). As far as Fow, UW, Urgoz, and Vanquishing, these are things we are not doing over and over. Fow, UW clearing and Urgoz are something that we did for the HoM Statues, and Vanquishing was done for the title only.

Ursanway is not having a negative effect on the economy either. It has revived a dead DoA and has allowed many players to get gems and torment weapons that they otherwise would not have had an opportunity to get.

Ursanway has allowed PLAYERS, not PROFESSIONS to participate in elite areas of the game. Sins, Para's, Derv's, Ranger's, Mezzie's.... they all get in.

UB is just another skill out of 100's. If you choose not to use it, then equip some other elite on your skill bar.

What is this "balance" in PvE you're speaking of?

Ursan Blessing is PvE Touch Ranger. Literally.

Let's praise touch rangers as a fun PvP build, and glorify the PvP-ers that use it.

And yes, some people have been LFMAO over it, but quickly disappeared when NF was ZB was added.

This is also very true. Without consumables, UB becomes quite a chore. The very least you need is essence. Other two help a bit as well.

You nerf UB and you will make the quests that require it quite hard.

The only logic behind PvE-restricted skills is because they are better than the rest. If they were, they wouldn't need restrictions. This is the primary reason for making skills restricted - so that massively powerful one-dimensional skills can be introduced. If they were balanced, they would have no reason to be restricted at all - or to even exist separately.

If PvE was properly designed, with enemy groups that were designed around synergy rather than mass stats, then PvP balance would cease to be called such. It would simply become game balance, because the closer together the mechanics and group structure of PvE and PvP are, the less crossover effects of balances exist. Read that, and then read it again until you understand it. By introducing monster skills, area effects, PvE skills and so on, the game become split mechanically but still bound on levels which results in player dissatisfaction when skills are balanced. Either the game is completely split, or remains close together.

A purely PvE version of Guild Wars would be attractive to some people, but if I wanted a purely PvE game there are plenty of better options. Guild Wars' original appeal was in that it was a game built on skill, with both the PvE and PvP requiring group tactics, understanding, solid builds, and so on. There is not one PvE skill in this game that requires player skill for success. There is no understanding needed in a Paragon SY group. There is no need for a solid build when running Ursanway. By allowing these skills in the game, not only is the community split but one of the most unique factors of the game thrown away.

glyph of renewal, Ether nightmare, aneurysm, ether nightmare, MOUHAHAHA

you got it wrong, it should be:

Overnerf Usran blessing and nerf Sunspear/Kurzick skills to compete with PvX skills.

Actually,thats questionable.

Considering that the Ursan Blessing you get from the Bear Spirit differs from the Elite you get from the quest.

True, what balance?

The whole topic about Ursan (nerf or not nerf) is so funny.

Your suggestion for the Ether Nightmare skill is....insane. If you did that, Mesmers would outclass every other class in PvE. I am all for buffing PvE Mesmer skills and making them Mesmer only, but what you suggested would make UB look like a joke. Oh hi thar Mr. Mallyx, no skills for you. PHAIL.

Mesmerway? Try Mesmerrape.

You're talking about one of the most boring possibilities of PvE I've ever heard. Anyone that's ever play CRPGs or even real RPGs in the line of table-top knows that you don't want every encounter to be balanced and synergistic. You want them to be unique. Barring some super form of AI that ANet develops, you can't do that with mobs. they will play the same. You need things like the fire imps that just spew fire all over you and ice imps that freeze you. There's nothingwrong with PvE and PvP together in its base form, the problem is the arena PvP that ArenaNet does. GvG and Heroe's Ascent. World PvP can work really well with PvE because they aren't isolated. In arena-based PvP you never have to worry about running into another team that will start attacking you. In arena-based PvP you never have to worry about a surprise mob popping up out of the ground right as you throw an arrow at a mob, or a mob's monk running and aggroing other mobs. You don't have to worry about a minion running over and hitting the wrong thing. You may say that if you're good you don't have to worry about that in PvE either. Well guess what. Guild Wars wasn't made for 'good' players. It was made for the casual player that has fun smashing stuff up (at least PvE, I realize they wanted PvP to go pro).

Arena-based PvP is absolutely nothing like PvE. It's a closed 1 team vs 1 team (or in some cases in HA multiple teams in a structured format). Their main failure in PvE is getting rid of random spawns from Prophecies in the later chapters.

EDIT: On a side note, there are extreme cases in the game - in particular prophecies. Cases such as mobs of minotaurs that are pure mobs of melee critters with no variation in their defense. Those are extreme cases. I think of them being there as targets for those that blow steam by doing nothing but slaughtering them.

There's a common theme in GW to crush anything that's overly popular. These are people having fun. If you're jealous of them having fun or jealous of the fact that you can't find fun in what they are doing, then leave the game. An alternative for those that feel they need some form of leetness in the game would be to go into Sardelac and try to convince ANet to introduce a diablo-style perma-death mode above and beyond Hard Mode. No matter how good you think UB is, it won't make someone without skill invincible. They'll eventually die and there's nothing consumables will be able to do to take away that death.

I think UB would be almost completely fixed if they made Ursan Strike a touch skill, like it is in the non-elite blessing. I would wager that the spell range of Ursan Strike is a game bug.

So you're saying mobs need to be unique, like mobs that are all the same and do the same thing.

You then proceed to say synergistic, balanced groups are bad and boring, and at the same time the game suffered from the removal of random spawns.

I have no idea what you're talking about anymore, but it's pretty clear you shouldn't be anywhere near game discussion. Your post contradicts itself more than it raises points.

It was made to reward skill. Hence, having more skill should propel you further. That's basic logic. Guild Wars was made simple for anyone to get into and play at the same level, not to complete everything without effort. You don't have to be good to get max gear and play in any area. Completing an elite area should require more effort and dedication to the game, and I don't mean grinding a title track, but becoming a decent player.

I think you're right there. I know when I was playing through GW:EN, when I found that out I was rather surprised. Being a warrior I was always going into melee range anyhow (habit), but I suspect that it isn't supposed to be a spell. I could understand them fixing that if it's the case. I also think you should go into bear/wolf/raven form, but thats another story :-) whether it would appease the whiners, I have no idea. I know it will not satisfy the PvP have-nots because it's still something they're deprived of.

I love how we are arguing about balance in...lolz...PvE. Does anyone else find this gut wrenchingly hilarious? *explodes from laughter*

You have no idea what an encounter is? Are you that dense or are you that new to RPGs? Maybe I'm just mixing table-top and CRPG and it may be my fault for the terminology. An encounter is an old RPG term meaning just that an encounter between the players and something else (an entire monster group, a trap, an npc, etc). An encounter being unique is not the same as everything within that encounter being unique. I can tell you're not a normal RPG player. A mob of fire imps is completely unique to a mob of ice imps. If they did what you were saying then we'd be fighting mobs that are within a very narrow window of variation in order to keep them balanced.

As far as skill, if you throw everyone in the game into a group and make them all pay UB, not everyone is going to succeed at the same level. You're not talking about no skill, you're talking about how you don't like the curve that UB gives to people. You're one of those guys that runs around saying 'well we had to do it the hard way so everyone else should as well'. If you're better than person B, then you'l be better than person B still with UB.

Truthfully, how does it affect you one single bit. It's about choice. You can choose not to play it. By leaving it in, you have that choice. The people that play it have the choice to play it or not. If you nerf it or take it out, you basically make your choice the only choice and take away their choice. EDITED OUT: Sorry that was not called for.

EDIT: I could be off and these people are not selfish but merely control freaks.

EDIT: This is really sick. Guild Wars was designed to be instanced in order to minimize the impact one player has on another when they're playing so that they could accomadate multiple paying styles. Only in towns (where interaction is limited to chatting and trading) do people mingle. PvP was made completely optional i order to minimize the effect of PvP on PvE and vice versa. PvE-only skills were created solely to allow skills that many PvE'ers may enjoy without impacting PvP whatsoever. YET, with all of this effort, there are still people whining and trying to affect people doing things that most of them admit they do not do themselves (in effect stuff that more or less does not affect them should they play with like-minded friends, guildies, or H/H). If there no end? Do you people want an observer mode in PvE so that you can monitor other players' instances and make sure they are 'playing the game the way you think they should'?

PvE only skills make this game so F@(&ing boring....

No, that would be you getting tired of the game and choosing to use them.

You win. I don't care if you're for or against UB and pve-skills, you hit the target on the mark. If people don't like playing with UB and yet they still can't keep them from doing so then they are either addicted to the game, have no willpower, or really, really should move on to another game.

Thank you, Rahja. You are absolutely correct on this, and I hope others take a look at your post.

I, personally have not gone Ursan very much in groups or H/H. However, I want to keep the option, the choice for someday when I just wanna log on and kill shit without any difficulty and blow of steam. Sometimes after a long day of reverse engineering malware at work I don't want to think, but just escape into GW and kill shit. Something like that gives me that option. Every time something changes, me and people like me have to break out of our stupor to learn how to do something we did previously differently. I don't mind doing that on the weekends at all. Who knows, maybe the game's wrong for me at this point, but I don't think so because I'm not trying to affect changes onto other people..

As this poster said, you ALWAYS have the choice to say NO to UB. Your decision may mean you have to go with guildies or H/H, but then again the rest of us aren't here to provide you company and play the way you want.

- Exactly. PvE skills exist, because

1) Playerbase generally needs something to do after reaching level 20 and getting max armor. You can't really sell new chapters with zero achievement for player characters.

2) PvE and PvP are separate... and on the other hand they're meshed together. Resulting abomination is what we have here. Much easier to add arbitrary global environmental effects than even attempting to design more intelligent AI. PvE skills work as intended by balancing the game between human teams and AI.

- It just shows that ANET has no idea how to design PvE. After all, Guild Wars is the first and only game ANET has released to date. Try-out, test. That's why they're seeking player input on every issue.

Ho and make necrosis cast in 1/4 and have no recharge, and remove the requirements.

Pardon me while I interject yet again. Why are we discussing this? They are PvE only skills people, not PvP oriented. The only realm that balance applies is in PvP. While I may disagree about grind associated PvE skills (Ursan Blessing def included), I find PvE skills to be fun to tinker with. If people want to exploit them, fine, whatever. Seriously, it is PvE. The economy isn't going to suffer from the exploits. If anything, deflation is occuring, and things are cheaper then ever to get. So pardon me while I get a perfect Elemental Sword for 100k or less. Bye.

Seriously, the complaint-fest that is Riverside has to end. Ok, so the PvE only skills are overpowered, well DUH. They are PVE ONLY. If you nerf them, just allow them to be used in PvP and call it a day. I mean, Ursanway in Halls would just be amusing wouldn't it? Oh wait...

Here is the proposed nerf, at least I think.

Ursan Blessing: 25 energy, 10 sec cast, 300 sec recharge
For 120 sec, your skill bar is replaced with the following skills.

Ursan Strike- You strike for -10 damage. If this attack hits, you die.

Ursan Roar- You roar like the spirit of Bear. Your teammates die.

Ursan Rage- You move 300% faster. If you move, this skill ends.

Ursan Ursanism- You sacrifice 100% Health. All creatures of the same type within earshot lose 40 energy.

Mending- See wiki.

I know I would use it. At least it would be balanced. /endrant

Only in terms of aesthetics. The actual combat tactics to deal with them are largely identical. The purely offensive nature of both groups is also identical, resulting in one-dimensional play as the best method to deal with them. This is Guild Wars, not whatever old RPG you want to reference.

A synergized group has a near-infinite number of possible setups built around a certain framework. Prophecies has an incredible number of them, with great variation. Examples include Skeleton Packs in FoW, Avicara groups in Mineral Springs, and Stone Summit patrols.

Any sort of well-designed group, in whatever form it took, would result in a slightly better level of play at endgame areas rather than simply giving mobs 'Enraged' and ridiculous stat boosts in order to create a semblance of difficulty. If one-dimensional PvE (direct skill power against skill power) didn't exist, there would be less need for PvE-only skills and mechanics because the monsters would be on the same balance level as you, with the same skills - the skills being balanced for play.

PvE skills aren't 'giving players more choice'. If anything they're creating less choice by providing definitively better skills that don't rely on synergy, making the importance and freedom of build design less noticeable overall. These skills weren't needed in Prophecies, which was arguably the better game. The Desert wasn't hard for new players because of stat-boosted mobs, but because it was a learning curve of displaying proper tactics.

Yes. That's the problem - any semblance of balance in the game is a joke now. PvE as a whole becomes more of a joke with every chapter released. At this point I don't see why all skins aren't craftable in gold, or why there are even attribute limits or a level cap. The mechanics of PvE from what they were are so violated it hardly matters anyway, and wouldn't having the ability to solo every area give more options?

Maybe, but changes like this are a good encouragement to stop playing, since there's not even a challenge.

FPS come to mind. Not even the slightest hint of separation - down-to-last-bullet identical environments.

But once players no longer find the challenge, they can either ramp up the difficulty, or play PvP.

Same skill sets, same environments.

Anet opted out for WoW audience. Simple as that. After all, look how many people are paying for WoW. If they are willing to put up with that nonsense - why not take their money. Put a few shinies in game, add 500 levels, and watch the $$$ rain.

GW's take on PvE was unique, but was ultimately killed by chapters. Rather than focus on good mission and quest design and adding challenge, they had to spend all the time on new designing art for continents. As always, quantity over quality.

GW's PvE problems come simply from delivery - not method. They had to make 20-ish new missions and an entire continent every 6 months. So they wasted 90% of effort on this, which left no time for improvements to gameplay.

MMOs cannot have separate PvE and PvP. But why try something new, when you can copy WoW, and go with grind. Cheap, and millions of people pay for it. Why not take their money.

The casual player isn't going to have the time to grind out their Norn title to use UB (or any PvE skill) to its full extent.

Oh well, god forbid. While grinding is retarded, people do it. And, I guess (sadly), to them go the rewards right?

and yet PvE is what people still seem to be playing. PvE has gotten an expansion and a bonus pack. It has been PvP that has been the topic of discussion lately as to how to fix/inject new life into it. It's a matter of PvP is screwed up so let's go screw up PvE as well.

You are right, though about options. Again, many games introduce cheats and God Mode to give players that option. That doesn't mean that everyone is forced to use them. In fact, most people don't care whether other people use them when they're playing by themselves (like instances). They only care when there is some form of competitive Player vs Player play, which usually has a mechanism to disable cheats and god mode.

Maybe some people do need to move on then. I admit this isn't the game I first started playing either. It was pretty funny to sit there and watch mobs die because of meteors and fire. It sucked when my henchies stood there, but this is entertainment. I want to have and eat my cake at the same time.

When I want real challenge I play ShadowBane/Diablo HM (where dying actually has consequences) or one of the Halos on Legendary mode or God of War on God/Titan mode. OR (big key word here), I play an elite area in Guild Wars with a more difficult build. Wow, look at what I just did. I just made a choice. I CHOSE not to use an easy build. CHOICE. I used the thing on top of my shoulders to force myself to not give in to taking the easy way out without making other people have to make the same choice as me. Sometimes I choose to take a build I'm comfortable with (that word again), and sometimes I MAY choose to go into stupor-filled auto-pilot mode and just kill everything with a multi-necro or UB build. CHOICE. I've always loved the argument that more choice gives less choice that you are throwing at me. Thanks. You are basically making people choose something else. You're also trying to compensate for some people not having enough willpower to make choices.


This is very similar to what WoW is going through with the introduction of increasing leveling speeds in the low-to-median levels. Many people have been complaining about that. One person even admitted that he didn't like it because he had to do it the long/hard way when he went through it. It's tru that some things in this game promote people not having as much skill as some other people. Note: You don't have to play with them. The game si called Guild Wars. Build a guild or join one. Quit PUGing if it's that much of a bother.

EDIT: This stuff is definitely not unique to GW. Terms like Monty Haul, Munchkin, and Hack'n'Slash have been around for years. Some people really do prefer those types of play while many do not. What you think is screwing up the game is purely subjective. People need to quit trying to be everyone's savior by 'fixing' the game for them and making them better players.