PvE only skills ruined PVE for "builders"

PVE-only skills means no PVP usability, so that they don't get nerfed to death due to PVP gameplay abuse.

PVE-only skills are already limited to three slots.

If anything, they're a good help for all sorts of builds...

Umm... one takes up your elite slot and one does not?

Nerf all skills! NOW! DO IT. Clearly Withdraw Hexes is overpowered. Yet another QQ thread against PvE skills. Seriously... it's PvE... let's not take it so seriously. Actually, let's laugh at it.

PvE became a joke as soon as PvE skills were implemented. The game isn't balanced against them - you can't really lose with a human group. He's actually right - why bother designing inventive builds when you're more effective with attributeless pve skills?

Why should grinding make you more powerful? I guess having skill was too hard, so they added an easy path for people who think playing a lot = being good.

This isn't even solely with regards to Ursan, all of the PvE skills should have never been made. You can cry all you want about how you need it to PuG or H/H areas (I know some of you are saying that), but you used to have to do a thing called making an organized group, and finding people who were good, if you wanted to do something properly.

Grinding should not give anyone an edge over anyone else. That is why these skills are bad for the game.

Requires:
- grind
- 10 energy

Requires:
- Primary elementalist
- Elite slot
- 16 in water magic
- 75 health loss
- 15 energy

Yep, exactly the same.

Everything that goes on your skill bar is a skill.

Skills however are of different types, such as spells, preparations, attack skills, blessings, etc...

OMFG the plain question here is what kind of disadvantage do you have? You claimed to be solo...so you're not going to require being able to PuG. Use heroes/henchies. You claim to be casual...so you don't need to "farm", and you don't need to play the elite areas that require builds/skills like these.

Ursan is the only skill that people tend to require in group building. If that's the case, form a group of your own for these areas. I don't see anyone requiring Air of Superiority, or Save Yourselves!, or "I Am Unstoppable!"...pain inverter maybe but it's not exactly necessary, as only one pain inverter can kill pretty much anything it works best on.

I agree that PVE-only skills should've been dependent on attributes since day one. That was a huge drawback from Anet's initial premise.

But since they're here, I can't agree on the limits that the OP suggests. What's the point on having them then? What to do with all the players who grinded that far to maximize their skills?

How the skills were implemented is the real problem.
It's a really screwy situation, isn't it?...

The game is broken and fixing it would upset a lot of players. But isn't this all part of the grand plan? GW1 became a test subject since GW2 was announced. This is just one more reason why players in the future should migrate to a (supposedly) vastly improved, less-broken gameplay in GW2.

Well frankly, many of the problem PvE skills could simply be adjusted, (yes, that likely means a nerf), and things would, IMO, improve. Make the various blessings not grant a zealous effect w/ attacks, and you make them non-perma.

As to others, I can't really think of any that are as gamebreaking, an only the Norn blessings permit you to play and be effective by just taking that 1 skill...

Once all skills were dependent on how you'd distribute your attribute points, which was true to the premise "the skill you have" instead of the "time you spend" in the game.

Nowadays, there's grinding certain titles to maximize certain PVE skills. Attribute-dependent skills became redundant over those more powerful skills. What is broken here is how you now play PVE. If you stay true to "Skill over Time" and opt NOT to go for PVE-only skills, or choose not to maximize those skills with grinding, you're out of the good stuff that the game has to offer...

Ah.. point taken. TY.

GW is competitive(PvP)-cooperative(PvE).

Is someone gets a lof of titles, gold and stuff, it's not bad for you it does not affect you. I even may grant you minutes of favor to use.

PvE skills are just like elite skills. You can put a limited ammount of them in the bar, and thn 'full up', based on those you have choosed.

There are a lot of options, even if you use Ursan blessing, you may bring summons, spirits, echoes, stances...

I really wonder what the "organized group" you're talking about consist of. The usual fabulous five? Half of the class was never had room for them, unless as filler.

What's the state of PVP now, with all the "organized group" and "all the people who are good"? Has the PVP people come up with any radical "decent" build without relegating inventive build as "gimmick"? People always speak of sticking to "balanced" group at one hand, and speak of being "inventive" on another. Go figure.

Where is PVP now? Would it be right to say that if PVP is not a joke, at least, its struggling for its last gasp of breath?

Point is, PVE skills never made PVE a joke. It has given half the profession a fighting chance to be part of the group in a game where "meta-grouping" was limited to few classes. Maybe ANET should have stick to the core professions and never made the other professions so the PVE-skills should have never come out.

If PVE is a joke, PVP is a joke, what is there to play in GW?


NOTE: I dont truly believe PVP is a joke, as I don't believe people saying PVE is joke. Im just taking in their "version and perception of reality" of PVP-PVE, that, if everything in GW is a joke, why still bother with the game?

I rarely use the PvE only skills and I am in now way at a disadvantage.
Most of the skills suck really.

don't you take my pain inverter and assassin support

/notsigned

Ah... I love Mindbender. As an elementalists, feeling like a mesmer for some seconds is wonderful, XD.

Organization has to do with tactics, build structure, and communication. The classes you brought were less relevant.

Not sure why you wrote this, none of it is relevant to the topic.

I PUG'ed a good part of my FoW armor in 2005 and I play Mesmer. If you made your own groups, you could easily grab some other roles and walk through more of the areas of the game without trouble. I usually just grabbed 4-5 others for FoW.

I pugged through several areas of DoA on said Mesmer as well (for the others I just used people I knew).

Wouldn't be sad if there were no new professions. They don't tend to add any depth to gameplay thus far.

This is why I no longer play unless one of my friends wants to clear an area or feels like playing as well.

Through your wall of text with bad grammar, I'm going to assume this is a sentence. And the answer to that is YES! Several.

If rest of community decides that the only way to do something is having something like bear on you bar you can-NOT just ignore it.

Besides, "just ignore problem" argument is just sooo wrong.

Let us analyze this argument by translating it into an if-then statement: If the rest of the community decides that the only way to do something is using Ursan, then you cannot ignore it. The current state of PvE still consists of many meta builds and many other random builds, despite the existence of Ursan, and so, the condition, the rest of the community decides that the only way to do something is using Ursan is false. However, it does not make your if-then statement entirely false as you have not stated the condition otherwise; so what's your condition otherwise, so that we should not ignore Ursan?

Secondly, what we have here is a debate, neither you nor me will make the final decision on what will happen to Ursan. In other words, you do not hold the absolute power to decide that Ursan should be changed, nerfed or deleted, instead, you are merely here to state your opinion or trying to convince the rest of us not to use Ursan. However, from your argument, I see otherwise, and here's a breakdown of it. (The brackets are used to isolate the propositions you have assumed in your argument.)

(I don't like the skill Ursan Blessing.)
(I believe that everyone uses Ursan Blessing.)
If the rest of the community decides that the only way to do something is using Ursan Blessing, this skill should not be ignored.
(And so it should be nerfed.)

As we notice here, what you are saying is basically you do not like this skill, and you believe that everyone are using it, which has not been proven. Therefore, based on your belief, Ursan should be nerfed. In simple terms, as I have stated earlier that you do not have any powers into making this decision, you are not here to convince anyone the logical views to what Ursan applies to the game or stating your opinion, but instead, you are forcing your morals down to other people's throats as you believe it is the only correct way to play the game the way you believe is right. That, however, is not true.

Basically what we are saying here is that since we all have different instances, there is no way our gameplay can be affected by each other. Consequently, there is really no difference if person A chooses to play meta builds when person B chooses to play Ursan. Perhaps you may argue that Ursan has killed the economy, since so many people run it in DoA, but that was really just the exploit. Just a reminder, you do not set the rules Guild Wars players have to follow.
And here's a list to how Ursan Blessing is not violating the rules that are set to the game:
Ursan Blessing does not involve any third party programs.
Ursan Blessing is not an exploit to the game that was made accessible through hacking, etc.
My question here is, you have often stated that using Ursan Blessing is wrong and immoral, but those were merely your morals, and I believe only Anet's morals matter at this point. So which rules created by Anet have been violated by Ursan Blessing?
Perhaps you can argue that Ursan Blessing has ruined the competence of the game; let me put it this way, this is the 12th Ursan thread I can count to, and if Ursan is really killing the game and immoral as you believe, why hasn't anything been done at this point?
Which implies that your morals are not exactly the same as what Anet has, and so what people in the opposition are saying here is, we understand that you do not like Ursan Blessing to the extend that you will make 12 threads and rant about it, so we tell you this: you don't have to use it.

Secondly, if you are going to claim that someone's argument is invalid or wrong, is it possible for you to actually provide reasons to your claim?

And lastly, I have a question: do we really need all these PvE skills are killing the game threads just because a few people here and there disagree with a decision Anet made?

1.you dont need ursan maxed,
2.The people that dont have ursan are back with the in days of pugs, you know the time when "people used real builds" - i'll get the right quote in a while
3. Most people are uncreative because they tried to make a build and there one was surpassed by a wiki build or wiki builds are already there with approval

I couldnt remember the last time i had fun with a pug until i DoA ursan, ye can call it noob and all that but really, i'd much rather have fun, high success rate and be fast then do some lame hiding behind a wall for 2 hours nuking.

btw Build Making isn't dead, jsut slowing down, 1 year with nf skills and it slows down i guess,

What?

I have to grant you, you are awesome at making non-sequitor slash strawman arguments.

Now seriously, how did you come come to that bracketed statements? Wishfull thinking?

lets break it down:

(I don't like the skill Ursan Blessing.)

Wrong, I see UB as harmfull to gameplay. Something that was not supposed to be viable in GW: manifestation of "Rewarding the grind". Reason for buying this game and not generic mmo in first place. Not only does it rewards grind, it makes challeging content not challeging at all, removing point of it being in game.

(I believe that everyone uses Ursan Blessing.)

Wrong. I does not matter if 1 person uses it, 10 , 100 or 1000. It will always be wrong. Regardless of that, people DO use UB for certain things exclusivelly ("only way to do something"), hugely limiting PUG options to the point when not-using it means being cut of content/HoM statues/etc...

So i am NOT basically saying "i dont like it, everyone is is using it.". Stop putting word in my mouth, thank you very much

---

Another WTF is that people are supposed to make logical statements when it is inherently impossible as we are discussing enjoyment of game. Feelings. OFC, if you dont share someone wiews it is easy to force him to make logical statements that can be shattered by illogical retorts regardless of their valitidy (any man which argued with woman can tell you that): your "implied bracketed arugments" are fine example of it. "ou are forcing your morals down to other people's throats as you believe it is the only correct way" How logical is that?

You are quite hung out on "you are not anet, mkkay, you just share your views". Well, isnt that obvious? Message for anet is "9 months ago you broke game, 6 months ago you broke it even more. Fix it." See, not a mention of "The only proper way to play game".

What i am foccing down your throat is gameplay that was *ALWAYS* in GW. Probalby stuff you enjoyed and which got you hooked when you first got game otherwise you would not be here posting on guru. Was it that bad that you have to flame people who want game restored to that state?

1) When people were unhappy with inability to have huge character development/or with having to be good player to get certain content, they could leave GW for myriads of other MMOs.
2) When you look for skillbased PvE MMO with no character power progression, you are out of luck.

If PvE is reverted to skill based gameplay, players who liked mindless destruction have tons of option. If it stays like it is, there is NO option, because no other game exists with mindset of early prophecies.

Are you claiming that anet is supposed to be liable to their own rules that they made for players? They are not, and they do wield power that would scream of ban if used by ordianry (Gailes "teleport anywhere" ability for example, if players could do it, it was fixed asap.)

And besides that, Yes, i claim that anet viollated their rules by making ursan: Basic design rules for ballancing skills, Prophecies-age rules of not rewarging grind with power, Factions & NF age rules on how hard elite mission should be for average population.

What you see is anet disagreeing with itself. With what they based game upon at the very begining.

The opp is making a problem of something which is no problem at all. He is talking about his "well balanced solo pve builds" and being forced to use overpowerd pve-only skills now. How so? Your solo builds still work don't they? And since its solo no one will ask you to use bear skills or consumables; its your own decission! So continue to have fun by balancing your good solo builds and let others have fun in using pve-only stuff.

I don't care if the OPs post is dumb, I'll /sign anything and anyone who wants to nerf or remove the PvE skills: they're insulting, dull to play, and contrary to the stated goal of "skill over time".

/SIGNED!

/signed I dont like the skills i dont use them and i never will. i totally sign this Only For Eotn/dungeons

Possibly one of the best signs how bad the PvE skills are, is that it's the PvP people who love them, because they allow them to farm without effort.

I don't think PvE skills are necessarily unfair; personally I'm glad Eternal Aura, for instance, is available in PvE - and grinding makes no difference to its utility.

I think my account and the accounts of all my friends should have infinite platinum and material reserves, as well as ten stacks of armbraces.

We should also be able to dupe freely and teleport to any outpost regardless of having visited it before, and any boss regardless of preresiquite quests.

It doesn't affect you so you have no reason to say no to my idea.

I personally think certain skills should be renamed, like "You move like a Drawf!" Good solution to the problem, srsly.

/signed

On my alliance chat, I ALWAYS see ,,DoA Group Forming 6x Ursan + 2x Monk!'' or other variations, like 5x ursan + 3x monk.

I think Ursan was meant to give people a choise over the warrior-monk-elementalist trio, but it just made everything worse. Before people had to play as warrior, monk, elementalist, necro or make something that will replace them (like instead of N/R battery, I used my R/N battery, or instead of N/Mo I used Rt/N Minion Master). Now we have ONLY (!!!!) URSANWAY!!

What's even worse? People want me to use ursan as a PARAGON. It's a crime against nature, worse than running Mo/E nuker! If I can enable a god-mode for at least 2/3 of the time, why they want another stupid ursan? It's just sick and disgusts me.

Cool, but not using them will reject us from 95% of pve groups. Why not just make one game for normal players, and one for ursaners?

I agree.

But I have to raise the issue of PVP because "organization" is big part of this side of the game. PVP has ta bigger portion of organized group than unorganized ones. Yet with all these organization, build structure, communication - PVP is now in state where many people view as in "disarray", even some ardent PVP'ers hold this view.

But I have to disagree that "classes" are irrelevent in the issue of build strucure. Why does people prefer N/Rt rather than Rt/N in some meta team build? Why Mo/Me than Rt/Mo or Me/Mo or E/mo for healers? Why W/A than A/W for tank? Build structure and team synergy largely rely on primary profession, and common sense dictates that.


Back in 2005, we were all new, feeling our way to the game. Everyone just accept everyone. Then more builds came up, and these builds dictates the meta-synergy team on certain area simply because it was the most efficient.

You asked if it would be sad if no other class was added. And I agree, if no classes was added, it would be sad. Yet, on many elite "profitable" mission area, like DoA, it seems it only has a place for original 6 core professions (atrually, 5 since mesmer is another discriminated class in PVE). People still build team synergy as if the other newer profession doesn't exist.

I can play the popular professions to avoid being discriminated, and I can. In fact, I have all 10. It just happens that my favorite professions happens to be "unpopular". Sad is if these professions were not created. But far more saddening is, after being created by ANET, they seem to have no place.

PVE-skills are class-less skill. Any profession can use it or not use it. It is a solution to give the discriminated class a fighting chance in game dominated by narrow-minded meta-team build, organized or unorganized, that has taken deep roots in almost 3 years.

It is not the most efficient solution, I agree. But it is an equalizer of some sort. We seem to be arguing over a tree, forgetting the forest. PVE-skills is not the problem, it is a symptom, brought about by limitation of the underlying structure of the game itself and a culture of player's mind-set and bias built over the years, which cannot be solved by stop-gap quackery of whines.

Maybe ANET feel the same way too. So ANET came up with the ultimate solution: GW2.

So, Im presuming, ANET is now between a rock (GW1) and a hard place (GW2), with few months in between. Even if the PVE-skills are resolved in GW1, will the effect carry over to GW2?

Would having an update patch on Warcraft I and Warcraft II, solve the issue of Warcraft III? Would such action would even be relevant? Would anyone care if blizzard made a a grand and sweeping update on Starcraft with Starcraft II on the horizon?

I may seem rambling. But Im just fascinated by the fervent "moral/intellectual" attachment - calling people dumb and stupid - for using a skill in a game, which will fade into oblivion few months from now.

My take.

I'd be real interested in hearing ArenaNets take on Ursan and the other PvE skills.

Is Guildwars still about "skill over time"?
If it is, how do ArenaNet justify the PvE skills in general, and Ursan Blessing in particular? I mean, they're the exact opposite of "skill over time".

So - has ArenaNet abandoned "skill over time" as guiding principle, or are the PvE skills merely unfortunate mistakes?

.

Sure, but you're assuming that each build uses the same structure of primary classes. A build needs a certain amount of damage, healing, prot, and defense - there are a lot of ways to get that, and certain parts, especially the midline, are extremely variable.

My PuGing method hasn't really changed. I ask for the role I want - if their bar is decent enough, I take them. If I want full efficiency on a mission, I'll bring people I know.

Well, largely that's because of roles. Factions classes add no real depth to the game and thus won't see play in place of Core classes. NF classes were slightly better, and you'll see quite a few Paragons, for instance.

Again, this can be attributed to ANet not seeming to have a clear design plan with some of the classes, and not developing PvE parallel to the developments to the classes and skills etc.

The best PvE skills are, interestingly enough, most effective on the most effective PvE classes (Warriors, Paragons, etc). If PvE skills were meant to give other classes a 'fighting chance', then why are their skills not comparable to TNTF and Save Yourselves?

PvE skills are a bandaid fix to much larger problems with PvE development as a whole. But we know that's not going to get fixed, because...

ANet decided it would be better to scrap what was becoming overly complicated and rebuild from the start, hopefully learning from their mistakes on their accidental success.

People aren't dumb for using the skill. It's a good skill for the players. They're dumb if they think it's good for the game overall.

Lol nothing changed for you. Just dont max them. If you say that it was fun without them why would people using them bother you. Just dont use them.

God bless ursan cause it made DoA, slavers, master dungeons be a part of a game rather then a scientific experiment of cookie making. Lol how many of you had fun with doa. Only people with hard-core pve guilds that had many people interested in elite areas. But now you can find parties more easy. Well why would you bothered from people who use ursan anyway. Because it made the game easier? Then dont use that skill?

Exactly what I mean, the problem is the underlying structure of the game, And this structure and development of the game created a mind-set of bias, which players carry in their mind without knowing its in their head. So we cannot blame specific player or group from the problem of discrimination.

We seem to agree on deeper problem of guildwars, not just the symptoms.

But we seem to separate on the idea that the "problem" can be solve. Your post seem to imply, correct me if Im wrong, that these underlying problems can be solved in due time and would be relevant.



My contention is:

1. the PVE-skill changes would be superficial, would not solve the underlying structure and developmental mistakes of the past, nor change the culture of bias against some professions,

2. time is working against ANET,

3. and the changes, whatever they are, would always be cosmetics and would be irrelevant when GW2 comes.



By creating GW2, ANET just acknowledge their mistakes that had accumulated over the years. GW2 is an acknowledgement that GW1 is hopeless and beyond acceptable cure, on deeper level.

If ANET gives considerable resources, time, and attention for all the problem that besets GW1, it is less resources, less time, and less attention to GW2 development. From such unconcentrated, unfocus action, GW2 might be affected. After all, ANET is really not earning anything at the moment with their kind of business model.

If ANET will simply give cosmetic changes, then such changes would be meaningless, and might compound the problem even more, as past actions by ANET indicated.

Give ANET some leeway as they worked on GW2. I'll take any changes ANET can spare on GW1, even taking out the PVE-skills. But, I sure hope to hell, ANET had learned their lessons and make GW2 much better, as all of us wants it to be.

My take.

So we're agreed then?

Exactly. Exploiting bugs in the game design and playing the game as designed are exactly the same thing so.....

Oh... wait... never mind. I stumbled into a wall of common sense.

Maybe you should try changing your guild before you argue that the entire game should be changed.

Well, sortof. Cookie-cutter builds are due to the opposition being 100% predictable: you know when and where they'll be, and you know what skills they'll use. Hence, you can use that knowledge to create a single optimal build for that area. That isn't something that is a "mind-set" of the players, it's simply so: there does exist a single most optimal build for the area.

If mob placement, type of mob, and mob capability were pseudo-random, however, there could not be a single optimal build for any given area, and players would need to create all-round builds capable of dealing with a wide range of situations.

Which is why people have wanted pseudo-random mobs from the day GW was released, and why leetists and farmers are dead-set against pseudo-random mobs: it'd kill the cookie-cutters.

The single exception is Ursan: as it has no weakness and synergizes with itself it would still be optimal in all areas.
And that is yet another reason Ursan is broken and needs to be fixed/removed.

I don't know anyone that bothers to use it now!