An analysis of why many dislike skill balances

Most of the PvErs complain about the nerfs because they are nerfing balanced builds that the Ursan-haters use. I'd say the majority of the complaints are more about farming builds.

I tried that Ursan-wanna-be skill that one gets before actually obtaining Ursan - and it was FAB! Sure it pretty much only matched my damage output (without the other bonuses of my ritu build) - but it was funfunfun! Oh it's hella fun the first time you use it; but it's only downhill from there. After you get the skill, and try it out a little bit, realizing it makes areas you normally have trouble in a piece of cake... well... you can only eat so much cake till you want meat again. For me, it was about my third zone. Meat is so much better.

So after looking through most of Riverside, Sardelac, and Campfire, I noticed that a good 80% of the community is either crying about how Anet favors PvP more than PvE, how Anet loves to nerf everything, and how Anet doesn't care about the casual gamer. People usually react more strongly on nerfs than on buffs. Just like it hurts you more when I take something away from you than you are happy about getting something else in return. And it is typical for forums that things get dramatized, not always, but usually.

See "Watch Yourself" nerf, bugs me to no end. Why? Is there a reason in some forms of PvP where it was a problem? Were Paragons again doing something gay with a shout?
Now many people do not watch GvG finals on observer mode or play GvG, if they do not find a PvE reason why it has been nerfed, it must be PvP (anger +1, PvP becomes the evil enemy).
Again, even if you have an idea why this or that nerfed, does not mean you agree that this fixes or solves a problem. See Ancestor's Rage, many people still think it should cost 10 energy or have a longer cast or whatever. And they are not PvE players, who usually do not want anything nerfed and some would really love bows shooting nuclear warheads. This is a complaint by PvP players, who in general try to curb down stronger skills.

Even if you come to the conclusion that something must be done about it, you can still dislike the way the problem is solved. Too often skills are destroyed in the process to the point where nobody uses them. Problem solved, in a way I cannot agree to. And many other probably neither.


I also do not like the "Shields Up" change, but I might assume Izzy did not want non-removable blocking and so on.
Does not mean because I can understand it that I will be happy about it.


You make it sound as if it requires people to play some more PvP and then they automatically agree and understand why Izzy nerfed this or that skill.

This is not true! People, regardless if they play a lot of pvp or not, do not agree to everything he did and will do in future.


Let's say some 70-80 or even more % of GW players play PvP only on a very casual level, rarely, or even never at all.
They get skills changed and do not even know why. They cannot accept that and do not like that. Suddenly things changed, and they do not like it.

This is like Europeans getting less meat and potatoes and both being limited to very tiny amounts per day because Americans are getting too fat. You can switch around Euros and Americans, I do not want to insult americans, just trying to illustrate my point.


Then PvE and PvP are very different. PvE is a fight of a party of 8 versus huge, mindless masses of NPCs that have some extras to make up for their natural deficiencies. PvP is 8 vs 8 player parties fighting each other, in general. HA/AB/RA are of course different, but it is still players versus other players.

Some classes are advantage in the one or the other form of play, think of Assassins, Mesmers and Necros. The latter seem to be improved for PvP recently, while Mesmers and Assassins needed some PvE skills and some more additions to become more viable and more accepted in PvE, which did not really happen despite all tries (IMO). I intentionally do not name Paragons which can contribute and are still unpopular in PvE, especially since SY+TNTF. I do not know it and do not want to speculate about why.


PvP balance is the priority, and if you do not care strongly about one, you give a damn about reasons from "the other side".
Which is usually PvP, ANet does not care as much about PvE design/balancing, PvE "balance" (i.e. not too difficult, not too easy) is definitely not as important. Still, I wish they did take some more pains to make it more interesting. PvE got ever easier, and I blame it to the fact that it was not challenging enough to give people any incentive to get better, causing a downward spiral.


ANet has to change a lot of things, they wanted PvE to lead to PvP, not people sticking with PvE only for 3 years. PvP and PvE are so separate, but still PvP has more influence on PvE over skills. But PvE gets all the new content, and while PvP does not really need that much content, it suffers from this division ANet probably never wanted, too.