Has UB only really changed the prejudice?

If I were to ever PUG (HA! HAHA! Man I crack myself up), I'd have no problems taking mesmers, ritualists, paragons, anything. As long as they knew how to play their class! If you don't want an Ursan group, don't make one. You'd be surprised how quick and easy it would be to make your own group in some areas.

Yeah the pug mentality may have been flawed but it was a whole hell of a lot better than UB, for a start people played the professions how they were meant to played within a particular area.
The implementation of overpowerewd PvE skills has been, imho just another bad decision by the devs, the game is losing touch with what made it so damn good in the first place.
From a personal perspective, UB needs to be Norn area specific, but that probably will never happen.

In my general view there are two classes of people who do not like Ursan: ones that say it kills build variety and ones that say it allows any noob into their elite area. Further there is also the question of "elitism" in general

The first class - ones that say it kills build variety I would have to agree with. Personally I don't see that as either a plus or a negative, but it is hard to argue that it doesn't hurt variety as far as PUGs are concerned. From a personal point of view (having never really like the so called holy-trinity classes/role very much) Ursan is a good thing as it allows unwanted classes into places they couldn't go before. I think that a removal of build variety (you *know* UB skill bar, it is effective, and it is easy to play) is an integral part of it.

The second group well boo-hoo. The whole point of the PvE skills (and this is an Elite PvE skill) is that the noobs *can* do just that. Complaining that it does so means nothing.

In both those classes of people one can actually make them happy and UB is, specifically, an issue. The first group pretty much likes the holy trinity (true build variety never alive with regards to PUGs) so going back to that would make them happy. The second group could easily be made happy if all others were locked out of the content leaving them with absolute exclusive access - in fact for them this would make GW the perfect game. UB is the antithesis of that idea, at least the team builds they were running before took a decent level of team work (nor do they care about PUGs at all). I think the first group is *really* small and the second, while a little bigger, is also quite tiny. Plus what makes those two groups happy makes the vast majority of players out there unhappy so it is never going to happen.

As far as elitism goes - it's not going anywhere. For many UB is just the Topic De Jure and if it went away. PUGs want assurance that the others are good (even if they themselves aren't - well especially so then because *someone* has to carry the group) and anything that can seperate people out will do. Be it a title (Norn rank - though at least in this case it *does* affect the skill), armor, dyes, or anything they can see (and they have all been used in the past). The main thing that UB does is make it such that there are only two parts to said elitism: that you have the skill and are rank 9-10.

Heck, there is a certain amount of elitism in people who constantly blare that they do not use UB too - just a different kind. That's not to say that everyone who says this (or every one that complains) is doing so - far from it. However there is a large group that likes to complain about UB because in their anti-conformist peer group that is the cool thing to do (they are the ones who, after a rant, will not let a Mesmer or other "unwanted" class in the group).

Yeah and you end up with a game full of retarded nubs.......oh wait.

Those players who have been playing the game for 2/3 years at least, the majority of them have some idea of team synergy and know how to play thier charcter in its chosen profession, not 1234 ,1234 rinse repeat et al.

But obviously that wasn't the developers vision any longer Angelic. This is the new age of casual online gaming where one skill fits all and everybody can dance.

Yeah unfortunately that is true Red, it seems the game developers are trying to please everyone, by trying to make everything available to new players, is just dumbing the game down imo.

It increases discrimination because a lot of groups for HM/Elite Areas want R10 Ursans so anyone who doesn't have UB or GW:EN has a hard time finding a group. It decreases discrimination because it allows non-W/Mo/E/N classes to find groups for HM/Elite Areas easier.

QFT, this basically sums it up for me.

How is pleasing everyone dumbing the game down?

From my perspective the game has changed over the past two and a half years, which is good, evolve or die as some say.

But certain things like the implementation of PvE skills that are overpowered massively, the grind of certain aspects like titles and rank in order to get a certain skill to a level where it steam rollers every area in the game is hardly making it a challenge.

Also it seems from where i am sittng that Anet has tried to cater for the newer players, in terms of geting max dmg perfect weapoons at stupidly low prices compared to what they were, which has imo taken a lot of the fun out of geting a good gold drop, now its like ' oh another req 9 sephis axe' and it get merched where as before it would have been worth a lot more, and due to its rarity more sought after.

Basically what im trying to say is Anet have been trying to give players all the things that used to have to be, worked for, which has diminshed the value and prestige of nearly all the weapons drops.

If I had to agree with your argument of keeping the game being challenging, I believe your argument must be consistent. In all fairness, despite how powerful Ursan Blessing is, players will be able to learn the basic mechanics such as aggro and energy management; after all, Ursan Blessing isn't god mode, right? However, it seems that Ursan Blessing does not fit your criteria to make the game challenging.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/f...play.php?f=211

This is the service section of this forum. There are players who have been offering services from vanquish to hard mode missions. A number of these services allow buyers to be away from keyboard. Previously, I have stated that Ursan Blessing allows players to learn the basic mechanics, but in contrast, being away from keyboard will not allow players learn anything. In related business, the game is even less challenging, after all, the player isn't even playing the game. Like I previously stated, if we were asked to follow your argument of keeping the game challenging, we need to be consistent. Seeing how the services offered by players have degraded the game to an extent even beyond the degration caused by Ursan Blessing, I would say we should close down the service section of this forum. Even so, we probably need to close down the party system between players to ensure that no services are offered; ultimately, we can ensure that the game is challenging, don't you agree?

There is still a number of weapons that has a very expensive price tag to them. Although the price for some weapons has decreased over time, it is not Anet's fault for that to happen. After all, players are the ones who farmed these items, and related to this, players are the ones who supplied the market with these items. Of course, the increase in number of the player base also increased the number of farmers, which led to an increase in supply to these items. Of course, Anet does not hand out these items. Consequently, shouldn't you blame the players who farmed these items and the fact that the player base has increased in numbers?

That is a good point, however regarding Ursan Blessing from a personal perspective, i choose not to use it, but that doesent mean i look down on the people who do, in fact they have more staying power than i do ingame atm to max the Norn title track.
I just think the skill itself doesent really fit the game, given my experience of GW, but i digress.



Actually i do concede the point, good insight





The use of 'blame' may be a little strong, i think 'contribute' may fit better. But again i agree with what you are saying here, because when SF was at its height i used to farm that remorselessly, and other areas where the latest must have weapon were found, as they were all good sources of income, but then at that time in the game i was still looking for FoW armour, etc and farming was a means to an end.

With all due respect, I wouldn't know since I play midline and monk most of the time and I don't ursan on my warrior. I do know that just about every single PUG asks for ursan though and that is why I don't bother PUGing for the most part.

Then again I'm odd because I would rather invite paragons over eles.

Ursan has only changed the prejudice for the better. My main character used to be my Ranger, and my old guild used to exclude me from DoA groups because of that... until someone created a R/E obsidian flesh tank that I could use. These days, any Ursan group would be willing to take my Ranger... wait, I haven't gotten him to Eye of the North yet, hold that thought.

I would much rather there be prejudice based on something you can attain with a bit of grinding, instead of something that is hardcoded into your character.

My main character is my Warrior now. I could easily get into both a "Holy Trinity" group as well as an Ursan group with her... but here's the problem - I hate tanking, and I get bored after playing Ursan for more than 20 minutes. I mostly play a pet warrior (much to the chagrin of my alliance) or a damage build.

There are also some places where class elitism still exists... Tomb of the Primeval Kings and Urgoz's Warren. In both of those places, guess which class is abhorred? That's right - the warrior, and my alliance pretty much does all they can to make that known to me... which is why I'm never going back to those two areas again.

IMO no one should be stuck with an "unwanted" character as their main. Every class should have a special spot in a group, instead of "damage" "healing" or "tanking."

Unfortunately with the mentality of most, the "tank-nuke-heal" trinity will prevail. Thankfully there is Ursan Blessing to give all those assassins, mesmers, rits, dervishes, and paras a chance.

I think many people are starting to realize that any form of degen and armor ignoring damage wipes the floor with hard mode, and in some cases if you have the right setup, faster that ursan groups. Eles generally are pretty bad at hard mode, since every enemy has really high armor thier 100+ damage spells do 40-60. I usually only take a single SF ele for the burning. AoE degen thats easy to apply means I usually dont have to bother with proper aggro, I can just rush into the group, apply degen and defensive hexes, and try to wand something a couple times before it dies.

I dont know how well the tank nuke heal mentality holds up in most non-ursan pugs today, I just know most people prefer to play those classes because they are stupid easy to understand.
TAKE NO DAMAGE
MAKE BIG YELLOW NUMBERS
MAKE RED BARS NOT GO DOWN

can sum up the basis of those three classes. Ursan, unfortunatly, takes both the first two, if you dont have a better setup than ursan for your area, your pretty retarded if your not running ursan.

HAHAHAHAHA LOLWUT?
Rangers have BHA, the most powerful source of Daze in PvE.
Paragons have Imbagon, the most powerful defensive build.
Mesmers have Cry of Pain for a decent damage output and usage as interrupt.
Cry of Frustration for an AoE interrupt.
'Sins have Crit Agility Moebius/DB and Scythesin.

And for the record, people don't usually play Mesmer to be a pure damage high armour guy.
People don't play Rangers for pure all-out damage.
People don't play Paragon for pure damage.

I feel the same way, PvP has renewed my interest in the game
Grind is far too boring, a game is supposed to be fun .. lol

Ok, I understand the to need to make these so-called "elite" areas challenging, but doesn't Anet perhaps deserve a little blame for making them *so* challenging that the situation developed that only these trinity groups (+ maybe a nec) could effectively play them or, to be more precise, a mentality developed that became convinced that only trinity groups could play them?

So, to make it up to the people who play profs that got excluded, they put in Ursan. Now, every prof can play but only if they have a high level of Ursan. If you don't have UB, you're SOL. (And, as others have pointed out, in using Ursan, you're not even playing your prof - you're playing a bear.)

What ever happened to the concept of getting a diverse group of professions together to play the game - to play any area in the game, including the elites? What's the point of having 6 (then 8, then 10) professions and then putting in "elite" areas where only 4 or 5 of the profs are effective and the people who play the others profs are shut out?

I rarely ever went to these areas due to this whole situation. I did do UW and FoW a few times with guildies, just to have some fun and be sociable. Never had any interest in getting Obsidan armor (too expensive and too ugly IMO, but to each his own).

I only tried the DoA quests a couple of times back when NF was new and, then only to try and get Razha but quickly gave up on that. Fortunately, Anet changed how you get him so I never had to try that again - you can get him with H&H without too much difficulty.

But I'd kind of like a Tormented Shield so I hop over to see if I can get in a group to start working on "earning" it, even though I can easily afford to just buy one. I'm SOL, though - no Ursan (and no desire to grind for it) nor are the profs I enjoy playing welcome in non-Ursan groups.

But, hey, it's not like I cry myself to sleep because I can't (or choose not to do what's seemingly required to) play those areas - there's plenty of other fun stuff to do in the game.

Yeah but if someone's main is a mes, para, ranger, etc. and they had a really hard time getting a team with the old system but wanted to experience more with their main, UB lets them bypass that restriction. Yeah, they're no longer their orig. profession but at least they get the experience of playing in certain areas that they would not otherwise.


Wait... didn't I just say that a few posts ago? /Doh

This is goin' in circles folks.

As does Ursan, so they're identical in terms of elitism. Only difference is, a ranger can be R10 ursan whereas a ranger will never be a w/mo/e, now will they?

EDIT: I rarely use Ursan (though I am R10), since my main is a ranger and I h/h almost everything. Ursan is nice because I can get statues in my HOM for areas I previously couldn't get a group for, using PUGS.

Anet devs don't read guru threads. If you want to complain about UB, do it directly at the wiki talk pages (which also they mostly ignore). Learn to live with UB or quit the game already.

Lol Esan that's such a positive attitude you bring the the forums.

When Ursan became mainstream some 6 months ago, I ran UW and FoW. 1h completion times and end chest are all fun and that....

About the same time, our entire guild found themselves playing WoW, where we all still are. Not a /ragequit or anything like it, GW just got boring for everyone at the same time.

UB is the anti-thesis of what held me in GW. If you remove skill bar, conditions, hexes, positioning, range, classes, agro management and builds from GW, there isn't all that much left. Actually, the only thing that remains is a bunch of pointless titles.

Then again, I haven't been in a group with obsidian tank or an echo nuker for at least a year before then, nor did the groups contain more than 1 para.

Sure, it's still possible to play that way. But why do it, when there's a way to do everything 3 times as fast?

Elitism? Nope, minimum, and at same time, only requirements. It really shouldn't take anyone more than a few minutes to realize that UB is completely superior to anything PvE.

Not all change is good, sometimes it's better to remain unchanged.

I would consider UB superior to anything when looking from a PUG perspective.
From an experienced guild/friends group things would be very different, while some areas do favor UB it's very possible to clear in similar times using non-Ursan builds.
Just take a look at the times guilds like [agro] and [sms] set in elite areas.

The only difference might be DoA but even there I'm not sure how much the difference will be between PUG UB and guild/friends non-UB.
It's easy to forget that DoA NM was toned down a couple of months ago, already making it easier to complete. It regained interest because of UB but I'm not sure how many people tried playing the area with a regular team after that update.

Agreed, but change is sometimes necessary, thats when adaption comes into play.