Thw world after tommorow - bringing PvE into the balance equation.

Warning:
This ISN'T the thread to discuss specific skill changes.
This is meant to discuss ONE very specific idea (the bolded part).
I am also aware the the title is the biggest drama-queen title ever in Riverside. Well ... in the last 15 minutes at least ... Or maybe 5 ...
Please differentiate between the terms PvE/PvP AND PvE/PvE PLAYERS! I would seriously hate to see something this important (important because of the idea it discusses and NOT because it's MY thread )! to be closed because players are unable to keep their egos in check.

I feel that the statement above is one of the most interesting (and before anyone starts making a big deal out of the word "interesting" - it was chosen because I consider it a neutral word!) ideas EVER in GW. And that is why I feel it warrants a discussion.
I will also refrain from giving an opening statement about this subject because it might influence this is seems to be something that might shape the game as we know it - and it's seriously not worth bringing any kind of egos into this and possibly endangering the discussion.

It is nice to see they seem to realize PvE needs some more quality and care in both skill balancing and overall. It is where the largest part of the GW populations plays, after all.

So far it is only a lip confession, sounds good to appease the crowd that gets upset when PvP stuff related balancing affects PvE, too.


Now let's see if they take some time to think about Ursan stuff in future, the extremely uninspiried very basic faction farming grind and how all this is implemented. And much more.


Awareness is there, now let's see how much will happen till GW2. One could say it does not matter that much anymore in GW1.

As spoken from before in the PvP update thread in gladiator's arena, I think that this above statement is probably the worst, most incompetent, and striking announcements ever to come from Anet for awhile.

Why? It doesn't make any sense to me that Anet has resorted to making temporary changes to PvP and then reverting them while using PvE balance as an excuse. They are claiming their concern for PvE balance without even addressing one of the largest problems to ever exist in Guildwars PvE balance: Ursan Blessing.

The bottom line is that the backbone of PvE play revolves around one singular PvE skill that pretty much grants a party godmode and an easy hardmode zone wipe in less than an hour (42 min FoW run anyone?). As PvE is concerned, because of the existence of Ursan Blessing, any claims towards balance in PvE make NO SENSE, because there is no balance in PvE, everyone is a overpowered and a god.

Now what pisses me and many other players off about this statement, is that we get a half-assed skill balance that completely flips the meta, ruins a whole crapload of builds, pretty much destroys ritualists, etc... and Anet claims on reverting it on May 1st without giving us a permanent fix on many serious ongoing issues that have been plaguing PvP for the longest time.

The worst part is they are using PVE BALANCE (which is non existent because of Ursan) as an excuse not to give us skill balances with substance or to take serious effort in balancing the game (Dark Pact, what the hell?).

The truth of the matter is that these skill balances, the lost of real rewards in pvp, and the ongoing problems in GvG/HA/TA/RA are real problems that need attention. On top of that Anet is claiming to care about PvE balance, yet they make no effort to change the single biggest problem in PvE: which is Ursan.

Right now the big question is, what the heck is Anet thinking? Why is Guildwars being ruined by half-assed balances, and why is the above statement being used as a lame excuse with no substance to back it up for these proclamations and changes?

PvP balance needs help, classes are getting knocked out of the meta, and instead of getting balances with real substance, Izzy instead overbuffs skills and makes bad decisions that push entire classes out of the metagame; or promotes defensive play that results in long and boring matches that drag into VoD.

Balances that are going to be reverted May 1st because... oh boo hoo, PvE balance is suddenly so important and fragile....

And with all these claims and the above statement, no effort is being made to clear up the bullshit that is Ursan Blessing, the single factor that has been ruining the game since the release of EoTN...

Just... so much fail in that above statement. What ANET is doing is making no sense whatsoever, and it really feels like Guildwars is being abandoned. They are just tossing us a rain check and saying, oops sorry for screwing you all but we promise things will be better in Guildwars 2.

Well newsflash, Guildwars 2, according to you guys is a pretty long ways away. People are still playing THIS GAME, and now we feel as if alot of the serious work improve balances and the mechanics in this game are being abandoned. People are starting to feel like they are lacking downright serious effort from Anet into keeping this game fresh and interesting.

And to no surprise, people feel like they are getting half-assed and losing interest in Guildwars. Whats the point of putting so much emphasis in Gw2, if things in this game are going to be screwed up and ignored to the point where no one is going to have faith that Guildwars 2 is going to be worth their time anymore?

Sure Guildwars 2 might be great, but your community and player base is HERE in this game. They deserve some attention as far as keeping interest goes, or Gw2 is going to be a massive failure.

Balancers have been hiding under the Ursan rug in PvE for way to long now, allowing the game to stagnate. PvP players are breaking guilds and losing interest because of these temporary fixes, waiting for a great update with substance to freshen the game and remove alot of the turtle play in griefing thats been going on.

People are starting lose faith in Anet's ability to provide a fun atmosphere anymore. Not saying all the updates are bad, but there has been an increasing amount of neglect being shown to major issues that are downright pissing players off, like Ursan.

That above statement; throwing a sudden concern for PvE at us as an excuse to impose temporary half assed skill balance out to appease us, to lose PvP rewards, and to claim PvE balance is sooo important without even addressing Ursan Blessing and continuing to neglect and run away from the problem.

Just what the heck happened to this game?

Lordhelmos, its not for PvE balance at all, the temporary "balance to PvP" is so that it will not impact the "PvE game play"

Wow, I didnt see that statement. I was like.. nooooooooooooooooooo when i saw how thye hit Ancestors' Rage, Splinter, Ballad of Restoration etc as Id just got a good FoW build set up and it was using a lot of the skills that were hit.

Ah well, I dont mind too much, as always you just have to adapt. I wouldnt mind that much if they were permanent, as it keeps the PvE build makers on their toes.

PvE balance to ANet simply means supplying overpowered skills which make farming easy.

Unfortunately that's what PvE balance means to the most vocal members of the PvE community too.

I still think the worst idea in GW history was the PvE only skills. They broke the game.
I also still think uncoupling PvE and PvP is a fundamentally idiotic idea.

The writing is on the wall, though - PvE and PvP will be separated, fundamentally idiotic though it is. I don't see what the OP's point is, this is well known since a long time.

Its a controversial subject and probably difficult to achieve a result that would please both sides of the equation.

I admit to being a pve only player that part of the game satisfies me and I can get my player v player fix in other games.
That said pvp is where the need to rebalance skills comes from it will always happen and its great because it means that part of the game is very active.


I considered that the way forward was for the rebalancing to be done by altering the pvp environment, so that skills work one way in the pve environment and a different way in pvp rooms.

The problem then would be people learning and remembering skills with the same name working differently, it would be like the snowball skills of winterfest but covering hundreds more skills.

I don't know the balance of players between pvp and pve but pvp certainly means more to anet because pvp has contests and contests means publicity in the real world, and helps sell the game.
Its only common sense that this would continue into gw2.

Oki - I PvE pretty much exclusively.
The only PvP I do is the PvP that doesn't matter.
Having said that - I can now continue by saying that PvE and PvP are two completely different games.
And - at this point in time - "balance" is a PvP EXCLUSIVE term. Or better yet - the search for balance is.
So - if PvE is to be considered in ANY way when it comes to balance - there are pretty much only two options:
1. the complete destruction and the subsequent rebuilding of PvE so that it fits the PvP rules
2. the end of the search for balance in PvP

And out of those two options - I feel that one is much more realistic then the other.

Or what my interpretation of the word "interesting" is ...

I'm intrigued by this sentence: "For future tournaments, we aim to focus on changes that will not impact PvE play at all".

So Anet's is going to introduce PvP-only skills or what?

That is the heart of the stupidity... it doesn't matter what they do to PvE skills, as long as Ursan Blessing is left untouched "PvE Game Play" WILL NOT CHANGE. I'm saying it's a freaking retarded statement.

They are not giving us any real PvP updates, fixing major issues like Shadowform or Escape, N/rt spiritway, Mo/A spikes, etc. And what do they use as an excuse?

"We are concerned about PvE gameplay?"

What the heck? Ursan Blessing IS pve gameplay. PvE gameplay in the high end areas, is not the least bit affected by skillbalances because Ursan Blessing is so freaking stupid.

Yet they throw us this excuse, and claim their concern about PvE balance... but what have they done about PvE balance to make it batter? Did they even look at Ursan? Hell no... this is just a full of crap statement.

Lordhelmos I'm curious, is your frustration aimed at the lack of pvp balance, the fact that the changes being made are only temporary or that you hate Ursan Blessing and that it's ruined the game for you?

Does anyone not find it strange that they simply dont separate the skillset into 2 (pve/pvp) for good?

One of the main arguments against that was the fact that people would have difficulty remembering what particular skills would do in each format. Not that i agree with that, one does not need to be a genius to differentiate between say "blue", "dark blue" or even "red"...but this is GW after all so huh...we shall see.

Perhaps the rollback method makes it easier on the balance team however.
They at least get a stable base upon which to build on, it becomes simpler to inject a particular flavour into PVP meta this way, they will no longer find themselves reacting to the meta machine but will in fact recover absolute control over it (its already artificial meta anyways...just poorly tweaked and always in a panicky way).

Now this has me wondering if there will be any permanent changes to certain skills in an attempt to bring back build diversity in pve, such diversity has steadily been reduced since the first pvp influenced skill change with the killer blow being ursan.

Yes this is certainly an interesting turn of events.

and oh yeah. i was right what....2 years ago? shame most of the flamers, insulting jerks and others have left the game...victims of their own elitist attitudes.

Besides, it's not like EVERYONE uses Ursan, there are a ton of people who don't even HAVE it.

You don't have to use it, and you don't have to play with others who do.

Complaints about godmode always make it seem like it's compulsory, which is stupid: the fact that there IS an overpowered skill that makes others irrelevant IN NO WAY forces you to use it, and similarly IN NO WAY makes a balance of all the non-ursan skills less necessary or desirable. (Note, "PvE balance", for the most part, would be a state where any character class was equally desirable in PvE play).

Btw - just to go on the record - as long as we have PvE in it's current form - I don't have the slightest issue with Ursan.
The PvE game is so broken that something like Ursan isn't even an issue.
The issue here is EVERYTHING that enabled the existence of Ursan.

(Plus the point isn't to make this into an Ursan - love/hate thread. There is enough of those already.)

Lordhelmos
I don't believe they say anything about balancing PvE. How do you balance PvE, please tell me, monitor how (insert numbers of players here) players play and what they do daily and how it affect each other's faming outcome?

I do not think they desire to control how PvE players play the game as long as copies of Guild Wars keep selling, and players abide by the rules of not buying in game gold with real money bla bla (read the term and conditions).

My 2 cents on this are the 2 things go hand in hand. Ursan is a definite problem, because it removes variation from the game. You see, what Ursan Blessing really is, is the answer to PvE balance. Its the universal entry card that allows any class, regardless of how much it sucks in PvE, to join a party and have a godmode button. The problem with Ursan is that in hard mode areas, you pretty much HAVE to play ursan to get in a pick up group or get anything done, because the community is so slanted towards abusing it.

From this viewpoint, I believe is sort of like this. Say you have a first person shooter that has a selection of 12 guns, each with their own functions. Yet the game designers decide to make one gun so powerful that it totally dwarfs the other guns.

So what happens is the game turns into the kind of shooting spree where everyone uses the same gun, thus making the game stagnant and boring. Thats the exact effect Ursan has had on Guildwars. We create unique classes in order to differentiate our characters, to have our own unique abilities we can lend to the party.

Ursan destroys all of that by forcing everyone to run the same set of superior skills. Thus PvE has turned into a one gun crock of crap.

However, ArenaNet, since the outing of Eye of the North, has refused to see Ursan as a problem in game diversity. Instead they seem to be hiding under the skill, using it as an excuse to ignore inter-class imbalances that plague PvE.

Now, with this latest skill update. We all know there have been major issues in PvP, and Anet has proclaimed the lost of real world rewards in PvP. There have been numerous problems concerning griefer builds in arenas, like escape rangers; class imbalances in PvP such as Ranger superiority in interrupting in comparison to Mesmers, who are dangling on to the metagame by the thin strands of diversion, shatter enchantment, and shame. The retardedness of Paragon leadership mechanics, Ritualists now getting booted out of the meta because of recent nerfs....

We all know both fields, PvE and PvP need help. But with this recent skill balance, Anet throws us a TEMPORARY fix. Saying oh, just for the MAT's we are going to shuffle up the skills, intentionally overpower skills like dark pact, and ultimately fail to give you all a skill balance of true substance.

And so people are left scratching their heads, wondering why their favorite skill bars are going from golden to suck every month. And ArenaNet's official reply is.

Oh we are doing this, and ruining PvP balance because we care about PvE and don't want PvP balance to interfere with PvE. So im sitting there listening to this trash and going...

...Ok so your telling me you going to gimp my favorite builds every month, and the excuse your going to give me for this crap is that because it ruins PvE balance?

Well how the hell can you claim that these balances are ruining PvE balance, when the one true thing ruining PvE isn't PvP shuffles, but Ursan Blessing?

How the hell are you going to tell me that you care so much about PvE and that PvE balance is so fragile, yet you completely turn a blind eye to the crock of bullcrap that is Ursan Blessing, and instead blame all the problems of PvE on PvP balances.

Now not just PvE gets crapped on, both PvE and PvP are getting shanked. Because serious skill balances in PvP are being ignored, and the Ursan Blessing is being ignored....

What the hell? Doesn't anyone else see a problem with this?

Sadly, then this thread fails, because this is the biggest problem of PVE "balance"...

Settle down a bit Lordhelmos. I agree with what everything you are saying, but let me sum up everything quickly.

Anet is doing this because they don't want to make the PvE players angry in any way. We all know Ursan is overpowered, but if they nerfed it there would be a PvE backlash beyond anything we can possibly imagine.

On the other hand, they have decided they can sacrifice PvP to avoid these backlashes in the future, which is in my mind, the sickest thing they've ever done.

No - the issue are monster skills, the bad monster formations and their builds, double damage, half activation time, natural resistance, silly AI, ....
And it's because of those rules - that PvE is so fundamentally different to PvP.
PvE only skills were added much later and to think that PvE was even remotely balanced before them is just lunacy!

Actually it seems to me that they sacrificed PvE to Ursan Blessing, and used PvP as a scapegoat to take the fall of PvE's problems.

rofl, this is at least a step in the right direction.

and since i am now more pve oriented than i previously was, i'm glad the nerfs to rits are temporary, they are the most fun class to play in pve!

The balance of pve doesn't mean that you have to play a full "HA" match against every group of pve monsters, nor you should be able to steamroll them.

Now, we have only steamroll pve teams, and that is a problem. (80% of the teams are ursan users)

You can look at it that way too I suppose. Personally I think they made these recent statements for the same reason they won't nerf Ursan...to make PvErs happy (or avoid PvErs being unhappy). I'm fine with them making people happy, but I can't put into words how sick it is that they will sacrifice PvP to do it.

Well, change PvE to PvP and that's exactly what usually happens on a regular basis.

So hey: at least they're gimping everyone equally, right? :P


I can't quite work out where you're coming from, here: the thrust of your argument is "I hate PvE because it destroys my PvP experience" and ALSO "I hate Ursan".

The two don't really coincide in any way at all.

Also, to reiterate: don't like ursan? Don't use it. Don't like other people using it? Don't play with those people.

Remember, if idiots "who can't do it any other way" are using ursan in elite missions, you probably don't want to play with those people: not because they're using ursan, but because they're idiots who can't do it any other way. All ursan has done is made it a lot easier for you to spot that they're idiots in advance, so really you should be grateful.

Lordhelmos I can see where your frustration is coming from but you have to undestand (and I'm sure you do) that pve has always been controlled by pvp balance. While I understand the importance of pvp balance I can see and understand the frustration of pve players and the fact that they get kicked in the teeth repeatedly and basicly are told to just suck it up and accept it. It's the majority of players who are taking those hits for a minority and it's not right.

With the introduction of pve only skills we saw for the first time that skills players like to use in pve won't be altered by the need for balance in pvp. Balance in pve to me isn't even close the it's necessity in pvp. In pve we have monsters who go above and beyond players in health, and dmg ability and on top of that you increase it in HM. Then add the lack of player growth in pve after level 20 and you'll see the dilemma of Anet in trying to create interest and keep players playing. So throw in grind and make the grind worthwhile. It's not a perfect solution but it seems to work.

The issue is that in PvP skills (aka non-PvE skills) are balanced on PvP rules.
And in PvE those rules are non-existent or broken to the edge of recognition.

So removing the overpowered PvE skills (not just Ursan - because ALL PvE skills ARE completely unbalanced!) - you achieve a very little positive effect which is negated by the void of the loss of such skills.

It's like trying to fix a house that is falling apart - and starting with the roof.

Only thing i will say:

Why The F. Are Those Changes Being Rolled Back.

(look, i hate what they are doing to motiv paragon; but i also love what they are doing to mesmers for example.)

PvE benefited for long time from PvP ballances: it prevented major prower creep, it killed off trully imba stuff that needed to be filled.

May i remind everyone that:

Splinter as we know it (imba damage buff) is result of PvP-related buff. Yes, buff. It got some nerfs too but check out pre-buff version, you don't want it. Its but one example (exmaple where i show you how we got imba skill, other are usually not like this but equally beneficial) how PvP balance benefited PvE.

Getting your favorite skill nerfed sucks, bad, but if you see that majority of your skillbar got nerfed, you just got confirmation by izzy: you have clue how to play, now find some more ways how to pew pew pew, because you can...

Unless all you do is to grab PvX build, nerfs help you.

Please don't hijack this thread into another whinefest about Ursan.

The problem with PvE imbalance is that some classes are just better than others in terms of PvE effectiveness. The fact that assassin shadow steps drag aggro and their survival is less than that of mouse in a snake pit is an issue. The fact that Ritualist Spirits spirits slow down the party and freeze mobility, risking times for Hard Mode challenges is a problem, The fact that Necromancer Soul Reaping is so freaking retarded it allows necromancers to pretty much steamroll any mob with an infinite supply of energy is a problem. The fact that Mesmers are so single target oriented and have long recharge interrupts that suck when monster spells are sped up by 50% in Hard Mode is a problem.

See the classes of Guildwars are actually brilliantly designed and the whole motif of the game is DIVERSITY. If Guildwars isn't hell bent on having so many playable options as one of its key elements, why are there over 90+ combinations of professions. The problem is only about 20 or so of those professions are worth a shit in PvE. I mean think about the design of the deep, and how specific of a party you need to beat it outside of Ursan?

Class diversity is awesome in Guildwars, but PvE by design is just full of flaws. See Guildwars in it's current state is like a phantom that fakes you into thinking that you have so many options and great skills, that you can play so many different roles. But in reality, the game actually limits you with what you can play because of faulty mechanics.

In a balanced and enjoyable game, every single primary class should have a purpose or something they can contribute to the party that cannot be overshadowed by any other class type. However, Guildwars totally failed at this. Namely Assassins, Mesmers, and Ritualists; who are all completely overshadowed by the effectiveness of Warriors, Rangers, and Monks in PvE.

So in order to provide a lazy fix to the party, they added Ursan. The killer of all diversity. See Ursan shows you what guildwars really is, and dispels the illusion the game gives of the 10000 different roles you can play. It really shows that some classes are so difficult to utilize in PvE that they must rely on Ursan Blessing to get in a party.

Most Sins, Mesmers, and Ritualists in the game are solo players unless they ursan. How hard is it for these characters to even get into a party?

Anet designed Guildwars based on a cooperative playing system that forces each player to have a role in the the party. However, some character classes don't have a role that fit the requirements of PvE play, thus some classes "Suck" more than others in PvE areas. So you end up with unwanted classes that are deadweight, that players don't want to invite because of the limited contribution they can give to the team's success.

A flaw by design. So the game becomes ruled by the diversity killer, the skill that makes all equal: Ursan.

I think there are alot of players that wanted to believe that their class would be balanced, that some day sins, mesmers, etc. would get something unique and amazing that would make them worthwhile to the party. However, that never happened, instead we have Ursan. So imbalance and class discrimination continues, and now people are probably just fed up with the way guildwars works. They are tired of making a crappy character that is shadowed by other classes work in PvE without having to abuse Ursan.

Players don't feel unique or privileged for choosing a specific class, and so they end up not enjoying the game because their character feels useless.

Thats the problem with PvE balance. Is there a way to fix that? Maybe, but with the recent announcement, Anet has shown us just how far they are willing to go in order to preserve Ursan Blessing as a balancing token between classes.

They went as far as to completely turn a blind eye to it, ignore inter-class balances, and now they want to blame all of these PvE based problems on PvP skill balances. So now the whole game becomes a scapegoat for the one skill that totally ruins what Guildwars promises the player: A game of diversity where each class has a unique role and interesting skills they can lend the party.

Rather than balancing classes that have problems in party contribution, they decided it would be easier to make everyone the same. So here they are sacrificing the entire game in order to fulfill that ideal. And yeah, people are pissed off because they feel jipped. They waited all this time for their characters to become unique and special, to finally have a promised role in a co-op party, and instead the only solution Anet gives us is to play the same skills as everyone else.

A grand disappointment.

The whole game fails, get over it.

I agree with Helmos here.

Ursan has pretty much been the dominant force in the game these days.
The thing is, they simply don't give a shit about what they are doing to PvE.
They seem to know that these skills they are changing do affect PvE players of the game, ( Splinter, Ancestors are a main part of pretty much all PvE rits these days) yet they somehow haven't been to DoA or ToA or the Deep or Duncan or Urgoz or any goddamn area which requires HM in this game.
Everywhere you go it goes along the lines of :

"GLF 2 More Ursans 10/8 bring conset"
"GLF HB monk HM FoW"
"r10 ursan lfg HM UW"

The thing is, the hardest areas in the game are being turned into a joke. What happened to the days where PvE used to provide a challenge?
What happened to the days where to do Thunderhead Keep with the bonus made you insanely awesome?
Where a precise party was required with perfect skills in order to even think about going to the UW?

Now, Ursan has been good in some ways, such as allowing Mesmers, who struggled to find groups in PvE, a chance to finally do places such as UW, FoW etc. (I'm not saying that they never could, just that players were very picky about who came into their party, which made it hard.)

But it is not right to have the answer to all of PvE's challenges and problems in one freaking skill. There are several hundred skills in this game. Some are obviously good, some are obviously not so good. But there isn't that much difference between these two classes of skills. However, Ursan is off the Richter scale in terms of power and survivablity. We all know how good it is. And it makes the average Warrior go, why would I wan't to bring 8 skills that do mediocre damage, when I could have just 5 skills, which weaken, knockdown, do shitloads of damage and can run fast? And practically everyone has realized this too. Everywhere is ursan, and all the other skills the game provides are slowly going to waste.

How about this Anet?

Rather than providing updates for PvP and then reverting them, giving PvE players a false sense that you actually give a shit about balance, why don't you get Izzy off his goddamn ass, put him to work and nerf ursan, buff other skills. Izzy has a problem of buffing some skills and then just leaving them alone after that, rotting in the bin of former good skills. Go through every skill in the game, and whilst give some that advantage, bring back the other 200 skills that have been long forgotten by the game. Give players some more thought into their builds. Make them think, wow, maybe that skill would be FUN to play. You only update once or twice a month, so you have plenty of time. I say get to work on giving all of us players back what we had before. I don't want to have to play this game using one skill, I want to be able to experiment and play around with my bar, finding new things that work well , rather than the same old builds, and goddamn ursan.

Def. Agreed. The point of having so many different classes is so that they all would have a unique role or ability to lend to the party right? Why would you want to kill that with just one skill that makes everyone's skillbar the same? Doesn't that contradict the entire point of the Guildwars skill system?

Overpowered skills sometimes can be good, but you want to make something as retardedly powerful as Ursan, it should be specific to each class. Rather than making one insanely retarded skill, there should be several insanely powerful skills split up and balanced between each class.

This way no matter what role you have to play, everyone has their own unique ability that they can contribute to the party.

~

Also in terms of what you see in Ursan Party formations, as powerful as Ursan is, it still fails at equality between classes because it favors melee classes. More often than not there are parties who refuse to accept Assassins, Eles, and Mesmers as Ursan frontliners.

Instead they favor higher armor classes like warrriors and rangers, who can tank more damage with Ursan Blessing active. So even with Ursan, classes are still being discriminated against as far as party formation.

Lordhelmos I feel you've missed the problem altogether. I will agree with you that Ursan Blessing is a skill that pretty much promotes equality and balances out the ability for any class to play in elite areas. Pretty much that's where 99% of all complaints are stemming from. Before that Mesmers were pretty much left out of any party so it was the same problem then as it is now. You traded one type of discrimination for another. And balancing out classes for pve to make them all equally effective in your eyes will mean that pvp must accept the balances too. Do you honestly think that'll work? So what would the solution be?

Ursan blessing has become the ultimate farmers tool. So for the record I care very little about the needs of a player who's looking to fill their storage with gems/ectos/shards or whatever. But the issue here is with the players. It's their mindset that keeps people out of groups. An open minded player will allow any class into his party because as far as I'm concerned every class has somethnig to contribute. Someone already said it. If a player needs Ursan Blessing to achieve their goal then is that really a player you wanted to play with anyway? A lot of players who use the skill are longtime farmers who know the game inside and out. They now just have a better tool to get the job done. Going into elite areas over and over and over and over. Yeah I'd probably want the fastest most reliable build too. Which is what people were doing before Ursan blessing. Wouldn't you agree?

There is no doubt that under Ursan Blessing is a bad system. But there are reasons that specific classes like mesmers are left out of groups. What Anet should be doing is working on PvE-only skills that will give those classes something that will make them valuable in a group. PvE skills should be class specific skills that offer a unique ability on the level of importance of Ursan Blessing. This way, you wont destroy PvP because you are using PvE specific skills.

However, with Ursan Anet went about this the wrong way. Instead of preserving the uniqueness of each class, they made a super powered skill that makes everyone the same.

And yes some classes in the game are obviously better tailored to fit PvE areas than others (warrior vs. mesmer for example). However, PvE skills should be being used to bridge the gap between classes in terms of PvE play, not make everyone a bear clone.

Yes jayson, but you must remember that there are always the new players trying out these harder things of the game all the time. Whilst alot of players do use ursan because it is quicker, many of the newer players will struggle to understand the trials and builds we had to go through prior to ursan. They'll arrive at DoA with a group and go wow this is easy, not knowing what that it was rather hard to get through a DoA group when it first arrived in nightfall.

And as I previously mentioned, the age old problem of providing mesmers usefulness in PvE has yet to be solved, and really should be.

I always let mezmers and assassins into my parties. Because i play for fun, not to win. Unfortunately, the only way to get into a HM party as a non-ursan is to ask guildies. Wich brings me to the most difficult aspect of the GW experience: Finding a good guild. Anet can't do anything to help you with this, you have to talk to people yourself. and most people who play mmo's all day are NOT socially skilled.

Well.... I dont post much here on the forums, but this is the only way ANET can seperate the two aspects(PvP & PvE) of the game. Otherwise you will just see one side always QQ about the change in this skill or that skill.

Begins Short Rant

Yes All PvE skills are overpowering, but how many of you dont use any of the PvE only skills in your skill bars on any of the chars that you play? From Ursan's Blessing, Seed of Life, There is Nothing to Fear, Pain Inverter, etc... Heck some of the farming builds include the PvE only skills and as well you could not finish Nightfall with out using PvE only skills. To prove a point since most will say yes I would have been able to. Here is the list of PvE only Skills .

To me any of the PvE skills are over powering in thier different aspect of the game. If you want to use them, then use them, if you don't want to then don't. I don't look at one's playstyle over another just because someone elects to use the PvE skill of Choice...

Now all you see in the PvP areas on these boards, as well as others is nerf this **way build or that **way build because its boring, its overpowered, QQ this or that.

Does it sound familiar? PvP complaining about "way" groups winning halls, PvE complain about mashing 1,2,3,1,1 for Ursan. Both are boring to some, others its fun. So until ANET does that, I say quit B#$%#ing and get on with killing either each other or red dots in the game.

Skills that are overpowered should be nerfed, skills that are underpowered should be buffed. These are absolutes, and quite frankly this latest move from anet stinks.

Splinter for example, is clearly overpowered in PvE and from what I hear is causes significant problems in PvP - why should it not be brought back into line with other skills? Imbalanced skills leave players with 2 choices - use them or deliberately gimp yourself and be left in the dust. Climbing a mountain is fun, hacking off your arms and legs and rolling up a small hill while everyone else walks past you is not.

how about they make PvP only skill updates? like, if your in a PvP area/match your skills are different then they would be in a PvE environment

"In order to reduce the possible negative impact on PvE play, we will be reverting the changes on May 1st. For future tournaments, we aim to focus on changes that will not impact PvE play at all."

Ok. So they know these changes could have a negative impact on PvE. They make that statement to quiet the whiners (though they should have realized that most of the whiners don't bother taking the time to read things like that before posting, lol).

What has me scratching my head, though....does this mean that for every single tournament, these skill changes and/or others, will be made, then reverted, again and again? Also, what changes could be made, that would not affect PvErs at all, but still keep the PvPers happy? :S