PvE skill reversion, what do you want to see?

I don't think skills are fine in PvE right now, no not at all. Certain ones need to be buffed into use, so we're not running around using the same skills all the time cause everything else is less effective.

[skill]Feast of Corruption[/skill]

/fixplz - I'm tired of using [skill]Spiteful Spirit[/skill]

When you go fishing, do you use a fishing rod or a giant fishing net that sweeps the pond clean?

While PvE should not be extremely difficult, I would like it to retain some sort of challenge, and not be more of a steamroll-fest.

I'm more interested in creative buffs for lesser-used skills in PvE than re-buffs to skills that are still pretty damn strong and oft-used, even if already victim of a prior nerfbat. It would be pretty interesting to see increased demand for smiting for PvE (and not in a farming sense), as well as mesmers overall.

How about Balthazar's Aura? I remember this being a little bit cheaper to use back in the day.

I would like to see the "Watch Yourself" nerf removed, the 2-3 attacks limiter removed.
I would like to be able to use Blood Magic for more than just Spoil Victor in PvE.


On the other hand, I see no point in buffing skills even more. The game does not get better if my heroes can already wipe the floor with the mobs without me doing anything at all.


Ursan Blessing and other PvE skills plus consumables should not even exist.
Mobs should be stronger and be given more dangerous skill combos in normal mode and hard mode as well.

Ah well.
I wonder where this shall lead to. Barrage will probably shoot nuclear warheads and we will have threads about the fastest/most efficient way of picking up loot.


Agreed. But I am not optimist enough to believe this is going to happen!

Spirit Bond

Prot Bond

Gale

That would be a good start...

Meh i guess skills are just fine now.

You're wrong, even though you stated the answer yourself. SA and MR were nerfed to stop those "retarded builds" (terra tanking in AB and RA)
It was a griefing nerf, not a farming one. And as far as farm nerfs go, I can surely say there are only two skills that come to mind as a direct PvE update, [Protective bond] and [spirit bond], and the only other major farm updates have been AI/instanced related (AoE scatter, loot scaling, removing enemies, adding additional enemies) .

It is but it seems like one ursan isn't enough.

You miss the point, a reversion could attract other builds which might give UB a run for its money, in terms of efficiency and fun wise.

It is already evident that UB is not about to get any form of change. So since UB builds are already the end all PvE game stratetegy, why not allow for other non-UB efficiency like PvE builds then ? It is after all, variety.

From my point of view there are not that many skill reversions I'd like to see.
Reverting LoD would be nice, hardly ever used it anymore since the update.
For the rest I've adapted to new builds that are very playable in balanced teams.
Maybe not as efficient as they used to be but I play for fun and efficiency is only a very small part of the fun.

In my opinion, these changes should be at the top of the list.

IMO PvE in fine the way it is now, the only skill i want them to revert or improve is "Watch Yourself", because it had no reason to be nerfed for PvE, everybody knows that this skill was literaly killed after the last nerf, they could just erase this skill from their database now that it would have the same effect of the nerf, this is skill is only usefull with 12 points in tactics (something that no one will run) the recharge time is more than enough to hinder the skill spamming.

No you're wrong they were nerfed to make EleTank farming builds a bit harder than 1,2,3 repeat and to stop Mindless Inviciderv tanks and slow down Mo/D's .

Yes those builds were used in AB and RA but were only in the same league as a Healing Hands wammo and were never a threat because they were a joke, people that couldnt beat it were even bigger failures. Any PvPr with a clue brings an interupt or a knockdown anywhere.
If you believe they would nerf skills just to stop builds in AB and RA you have no clue about anything, those arenas are way way way way way down on the list of things Anet care about.

lykan they didnt nerf things cuz of pve unless it was ridiculous... this was about PvP not farming (which they have nothing against).
and unless they revert skills to over ursan lvl it wont matter much for most ppl
(im happy with new skills to exploit >.>)

Gogo infinite hit spirit bond 600hp Monk farming!

Actually, let me ask everyone, even if all the skills were reverted, would the builds associated with them be able to fully outweigh the power of an UB build ?

If not, does it really matter if they revert then ?

The point is variety...

I enjoyed Ursan. For a while.

But now the world is full of people who can't be bothered to max Ursan, and instead run HBoon Monks, and Ursan r10's which mean the Monks and Ursans require neither skill nor intelligence.

I'd honestly prefer Ursan to be nerfed now...purely because I'm so bored with it.

Infact lets just remove EotN from the game :/

nerf prot spirit for pve.

I think most professions are just fine that PVE versions of skills aren't needed for their effectiveness in PVE. Rather than a mindset of additional skills as powerful as PVE specific skills so that everybody uses the same builds (how many P's don't carry TNTF and SY?), I think this would be a great opportunity to boost some professions so that they're better equipped for PVE situations while promoting a variety of build creations.

Me- Better AOE option, better recharge, and reduced energy cost to allow easier build creation that are more accepted in a wider variety of situations. Many of the areas an Me excels at... aren't that useful in PVE. Some examples:

Chaos Storm - 5e, 15 recharge
Diversion - Affect adjacent foes. Increase duration to 10 seconds. 5e and 10 recharge.
Backfire - 10e, 1 casting time, 15 recharge
Empathy - 1 casting time
Energy Burn - 5e, 15 recharge
Clumsiness/Wandering Eye - Increase duration to 10 seconds. 5e, 1 casting time
Images of Remorse - Allow unconditional damage. 1 casting time

Allow all slow down hexes to affect adjacent foes.
Allow all interrupts to affect all skills, not just spells.
Allow most degen hexes to affect adjacent foes.

These would still place Me's as shut down classes, but it will make them more viable in PVE situations. And with more PVE options, maybe... some day... we will see a day where not every single Me carries Cry of Pain.

P - Boost Motivation so that P's make every bit as good a healer as Mo and Rt. Healers are already hard to come by in PVE so any help would be great. P's would still be a different type of healer than Mo or Rt since P's are more about AOE healing. Also boost the Command line and nerf TNTF and SY so that not every defensive support P carries the same build. In addition, increase the damage of spear attack skills.

R - Slightly increase the damage of bow attack skills.

Nerf Ursan.

I'd like them to look at incoming again, change AR from not applying cracked armor to -20 while attacking (or just remove the -20 from pve). LoD they're reverting that so thats good. Look at motivation again. For rest it seems fine, maybe ward against melee?

If you do then, then alot of Monk users will pounce on you like rabid hungry dogs on a feeding frenzy

PvE is too easy to be buffing skills. Mass nerf on PvE-versions please, and remove PvE-only skills or nerf them equally.

Except it's too easy because there are so many skills that can be combined to create ultra-powerful builds now. I think just nerfing things would just make the game frustrating. The whole problem here is that there wasn't any significant thought given to how the new profession's skills would change existing content. Just running around hitting things with a nerf bat without thinking would just make things even more annoying.

You are asking a tall order.

Do you actually noe, what is the cut off point to be fair for how much a nerf is needed for any particular skill ?

Do you know that to assess such a cut off point, that alot of money is needed ?

And that to be really fair, views from alot of players, throughout the GW spectrum would have to consulted. Even just listening to players within the forums itself, is not a fair way, because, the players who come by here, could be just a drop of water in the ocean of GW players.

Do you think they will risk spending even more money attempting to balance fairness in a game which is at the end of it's product life cycle ?

They might even intentionally buff a majority of the PvE rule Skill system, to hasten the death of GW's product life cycle.

Ideally, GW's life cycle end should be just about when GW 2's life cycle start. In which case, they would probably see a large proportion of GW's original players coming to GW 2. This translates into greater active revenue.

Plus, from their perspective, it is ideal that when GW 2 starts, GW can be shut off permenently to cut bandwidth costs, but of course, Anet will never admit that publically.

Take a global perspective for what a company should to do survive, in this lucrative but cutthroat world of mmos, and its not so hard to deduce what their final objective is.

Not as tall as redesigning a mass number of skills.

Yep. Playing the game teaches that. Worst case, they can always make tweaks to settle things - and since ANet has made it clear keeping players is less important than getting new ones, they should be pretty comfortable with completely sending PvE into upheaval. Might be fun.

You mean, the money being paid to the people working there to do their jobs? Or maybe they could ask the experienced members of the community who would help ANet improve their game because they want to see the game improved.

Not really. That's why I'm suggesting it.

It's more likely they'll waste money on making their game shallower and less intricate so that they can appeal to an even broader audience, so they have more money.

Agreed. PvE skills and PvE/PvP skill division are one of the worst ideas ever implemented in GW.

yarly, having PvE skills AND separating the two, come on now...that's just overkill. If Anet BUFF any skills after separating them, then they're being dumb, because there are already imba PvE skills, there's no need to make ALL skills OP in PvE.

Within the next few weeks, we'll introduce PvP versions for a handful of skills

They will start it slow, god knows where it will end.

But the will probably focus on a few skills that are popular in PvE or PvP and cause problems in the other mode.

So the hottest candidates would be...

1.) Splinter Weapon
2.) Watch Yourself
3.) Mending Refrain
4.) Song of Restoration
5.) Oppressive Gaze
6.) Augury of Death*
7.) Siphon Speed*
8.) Grenth's Aura *.... stop

* was supposed to mean that these skills got seriously nerfed for PvP reasons, but were never that much used in PvE at all.

So introducing new PvE versions of them would not do any good either.
Hum, let's see...

Currently many skills are fit for parties of 4, 6 or 8 allies and to fight against 4, 6 or 8 enemies.
They should be reworked to fit 4,6,8,12(lvl20)vs3..24(lvl..30) fights that we can face in PvE.

And maybe allow a bit more of spiking-

Everything else is quite fine even if they make changes.

Just the skills that became quite useless because they were too powerful in PvP should come back.

At this point, if you are talking about the newly added PvE skills in EotN, then yes, but that is already been done, and they made users pay with it by forcing users to buy EotN.

If you are just talking about at this point in time, whereby they just create 2 skill set rules, then you are incorrect. They mentioned reversion of skills for PvE. Under no circumstance is it redesigning, as they already have the data for that skill. Just reversion to its previous form is no different from copying data over.

If they do any form of balancing now, it is pointless because, it costs both manpower and money, both of which for them, is probably better utilized in creating GW 2.

Everyone has a different learning curve, and has a different levels of play adpation. You cannot truely expect others to follow what you do, can you ?

How would you like it, if someone else tells you, that intercourse with your girlfriend should be done in a particular way, cause its not sexy enough ?

While the above is of course offensive, but apply that logic upon what you are expecting of other players, and you will see.

Let me get this straight, since its going to be a upheaval already, it is much more beneficial to anger the majority bunch of average skill players with drastic changes rather then make drastic changes that piss off the minority bunch of extensive skill players ?

Which customer base do you think they will try to cater to in GW 2 ? Which customer base do you think they want to target to keep a minimum critical base for server survival ? Which customer base would the changes be aimed at and customised for in achieving this ?

Once again, asking experienced members is actually a poor way to collect information, as such information can often be biased, self opinionated, and does come from a perspective with a limited sphere of influence.

You cannot expect even 100 of such members to be representative of the entire spectrum of guild war players. No matter what type of advice they can give, there can be no concrete evidence of the predicted future, which can only be effective assessed once global server data is collected and analyzed resulting from the changes.


I nearly choked to death when I read this, SERIOUSLY. This product is at the end of its life cycle.

The GW 2 skill set, would be different from the GW skill set, as possibly many skill sets as well as the entire game mechanics might differ greatly as a result.

They cannot properly assess the balance skill set changes in GW 1 to be effective in GW 2 as such.

If so, any attempts would be like trying to save a 95 year old patient suffering from an expensive, yet treatable, potential disease.

( This is is a referential point, please don't throw human ethics upon on me. The GW world is NOT a live patient, so human ethics DO NOT apply )


This is the only point I agree with you. But I believe, that survival is the top priority of Anet itself when development and initial take off of GW 2 occurs.

If they cannot even achieve a critical mass of players, they can forget about keeping GW 2's servers active.

It is imperative that survival is 1st secured, before you try experimentation. Else, if survival is not even achieved, then the worst case scenario would be the death of GW 2 and Anet.

Do you seriously they will risk all that at launch of GW 2 ? Remember, before you say anything, Anet is still a business organisation first and foremost.

If you cannot even feed your employees or keep your shareholders happy, forget about talking about changes of any sort.

Welcome to the realities of the non-virtual world. They are linked to the way development takes place. No matter how you cut it, gaming is not always just raw fun, when you move behind the cyber borders.

PS-I apologise if my grammer or verb usage might be incorrect or badly done at some point. My mind barks faster then what I can type.

Which is why I mentioned 'experienced players'.

Asking experienced players is a better source of information than anywhere else - especially since they're seemingly taking suggestions from inexperienced members.

Considering most of the ANet crew aren't experienced players by any definition, the best thing they could do is get suggestions from players that have a clue, from a range of backgrounds, and take them into account.

Why do you think that is? Could it have anything to do with atrocious changes being thrown at the game to squeeze money out while hastening it's decent to irrelevance?

You're conveniently ignoring the fact that the biggest area for ANet to get money out of Guild Wars for an extended period of time it to put it on the competitive stage. They've decided to go for milking the lowest common denominator instead, and now have to keep throwing their game down that direction to keep it profitable.

Guild Wars was stable enough after the first year to keep moving. The only reason the game is gaining more stability now is for the same reason a dead person is stable. There's literally nothing happening in the game to put what's left of it at risk.

Long story short, ANet wouldn't need laughable ideas if they hadn't started implementing PvE-centric changes in the first place.

I got tired of running DB + MS in PvE so I'm running Assassin's Promise now just to make things different. If we're going to allow a split between PvE and PvP I figure we could at least make Assassins more fun in PvE.

Honestly with this new split of PvE and PvP, the box for GW should just have a sticker on it that says "TWO GAMES IN ONE BOX!", but that's a different debate.

There is a vast growing population of the GW player base who would like to be free from using PvE skill based builds. The point of the separation is to undo the harm caused to the PvE experience from PvP nerfs, and would allow for more non PvE only build possibilities.

For example, the Ritual Lord build when factions was released was a great way of party bonding not unlike a Monk Bonder but was easier to manage for new players. Because of the impact of this unstripable effect upon PvP play the entire build and line of skills was nerfed and it never recovered. The entire line of communing was made almost pointless for PvE play yet balanced for PvP play. (NOT TO SAY THAT IT COULD NOT BE COUNTERED NOW)

As for Paragons many PvE players would like to use more diverse skill sets. As it is Paragons are powerful but not the over stated "GODS" some people seem to think they are. These "GOD" builds are limited in scope and it would be nice to see them with more diverse play builds. You simply cannot deny that Aggressive Refrain nerf has had a dramatic effect of Paragon play in PvE. The cracked armor condition causes issues with both HERO's and henchmen when clearing areas in PvE. This is a must revert for Paragon PvE play.

Do any of you remember Stance Tank days of early prophecies? I have not done a Stance Tank in over two years because of nerfs to the Tactics line. Stance Tanks became almost pointless because of other options available in other class lines. A return of the Stance Tank would be a welcome sight IMO where Warriors in PvE are not forced to take over powered PvE skills that someone must grind for.

How about the old BP builds? Seriously this was rediculous to get rid of because of PvP concerns.

Play your own style but make skills (all skills) useful again for PvE. As it is not all skills are useful for PvE because of PvP nerfs. You might not like it but it is a fact.

Once again please keep comments about PvE skills (URSAN) out of this discussion unless it's actually relevant. This is not about separating PvE ONLY skills from PvP skills. That already exists.

Lets remove the playerbase!

so, IMO:

Kill ursan.
Nerf SY
Nerf TNTF
Nerf AR
Nerf Shadow Form
Buff Tactics line(WY,..)

Does anyone even use regular skills any more? I don't .. why would anyone?

Even if you don't run Ursan ... your elite + your 3 pve skills are so far and away better than anything else that why waste time with regular skills.

OK, sometimes I bring a couple of energy management skils so I can power out my PvE skills. FGJ and Enraging Charge works great to power out adrenaline based PvE skills. But other than that...

But other than that.. regular skills are just too weak .. I'd rather bring 4 res sigs.

Todays players are just bad. If you need PvE skills to win, you suck.

You have a good point Avarre, I have 4445 hours 18 minutes on my Primary PvE account across 10 characters one of each class. I also have 1515 hours and 32 minutes on my Secondary PvP account across my PvP character of the month. I would say that I'm experienced enough to give my opinion on skills related to PvE and PvP separation. What In your opinion would be experienced enough to give an experienced opinion? OR does someone just have to agree with you for their opinion to count?