The Madness That Is Ether Renewal

Oh, so I suppose that ANet should have avoided fixing glitches such as the gate trick then. I mean, it doesn't affect "our" way of playing is it?

Infact, I think ANet should give all people like you a skill that gives you all titles, makes you deal as much damage as this: [[email protected] 52638523857758563256328] (Put the mouse over the skill), make it AoE in compass range and have 1 recharge, 0.000001 cast time and cost 1 energy. DON'T LIKE IT DON'T USE IT AMIRITE????!

Asp ; thing have gotten so much easier for your goal ; tomes & elite tomes .. almost every mission is runnable or you can be ran to it .

But it's nice to have someone beeing honest about things like this [ especially a high ranked player as you ] . I don't even believe all those ursans can finish fow ; uw ; doa etc without it anymore .. it has completly overtaken high - end PvE and Anet decided the way to counter this , was to make skills as powerfull as ursan , which is wrong ! xD

In my opinion ; Over-powered PvE skills should be usable in normal mode but should be banned in hard mode .

Which would lead to : hm -> better rewards because it's way harder
: nm -> same rewards as they are now ; to help / aid people with the same goal as Asppy .

The complaints of solo farmers who wanted to play the game a certain way made Anet change how they balance the skills of the game. So, we are now forced to care about how other people play the game because Anet wants to make sure the game adapts to EVERYONE's way of playing, and thats going to lead to alot of fail in the future.

You'd probably still get tons of people on this site defending it from 'elitists' saying it helps 'casual players'.

Ether renewal is fine, in PvP you're probably better with ele attunement anyways, seeing as how you have 24 seconds of downtime between castings (30 second recharge - 7 second duration + 1 second casting time)

As for people who keep complaining about how "rigged" Ursan is, there are really better builds out there. The sole reason Ursan is worth bringing is that it allows a PUG to quickly assemble and get started on the mission, farming, or w/e. For the people who want Ursan in PvP, and for those who disagree I have the same answer for both of you. I'm in full support of this idea, and look forward to absolutely annihilating you with a single energy burn.

because honestly, this doesnt help casual players. this helps mid level players the most. the casual gamer that logs in once or twice a week or so, and only puts in an hour here, 30 minutes there, isn't going to be benefited from this whole mess much. The medicore gamer, that doesn't wnt to constantly adjust their skillbars and doesn't probably have a lot of templates saved, or is just plain lazy and wants an easier way of doing things is who this whole seperation/overpoweredness was aimed towards.

The casual crowd isn't going to grind enough points to make Ursan useful, nor are they going to spend every night in Uw farming ectos at 10 a day....

But joe schmoe who has an hour or two to kill every night who is far enough along in the game to make use of all this, well this kind of bullshit is right up his alley...

Let's recap...

1) The game is released, late May 2005
2) First rounds of Skill Balances occur late August 2005, and late September 2005 (which included the Protective Bond Ether Renewal nerf)
3) With every round of buffs and nerfs, another handful of threads pop up including:
-Some PvE folks resentful of nerfs, and PvP folks trying to justify them
-Some PvP folks resentful of nerfs, because they liked their builds
-Some PvP folks unhappy with everything (from "you're not fixing the game right" to "leave things alone")
-Some PvE and PvP folks just calling for more buffs, because they aren't nerfs
-Some other folks who are pretty much content with any change Anet makes
4) Years pass, with dozens more skill balances, and the same cycle repeats. In the meantime, we get content additions, hard mode, tons of bug fixes, summing up to make GW a different game from when it was released.
5) PvE-only skills are introduced to reward title progression, and to help Anet's skill balances (eg: TNTF "forgives" nerfs to Song of Restoration, They're on Fire, and Incoming). Downsides include perturbed PvE players who don't like the reward for grind, and some believe that stronger skills remove challenge for the game.
6) Anet sets a precedence for balance in PvE by limited Soul Reaping, and nerfing a few PvE-only skills. Arguments grow from all sides.
7) Anet resolves to no longer "negatively impact" PvE play with PvP nerfs, so they split a handful of the skills to PvP and PvE versions.

Obviously, there is no possible way to make everyone happy.

In this specific case, I think that splitting Ether Prodigy wasn't necessary, that is, they could have buffed the skill for both PvP and PvE to something like:

10/1/30
For 5..20 seconds, every time you cast a spell, you gain 5..20 health and 1..2 energy for every enchantment on you (maximum 6 energy)

However, what is done is done, and reverting it is more work that could be invested elsewhere, including GW2. I guess I can use that argument, because it isn't the "don't like it, don't use it" argument.

What's important to acknowledge here is that, even if the most vocally hated skills were nerfed a bit, they would only be replaced, which really would not get the game closer to wherever you want the game to be. To help show this, I ask these questions:

-Can't I just as easily spam Heal Party with Ether Prodigy and the occasional Glyph of Lesser Energy, or use the PvE version of LoD?
-Why bond Vital Blessing on your party when you have a Grail of Might?
-What Elementalist-skill build could you not do with Dual Attunements instead?

I think Anet has learned plenty over the past 3 years, and while I think it's good for them to still learn with GW balance, I'd enjoy them to put that learning to test in GW2.

Sadly, Anet doesn't seem to realize this and tries to please everyone at once. As any lady of the night can tell you, this just doesn't work. If they were serious about balancing PvP, they should have bit the bullet and done it, consequences be damned. If they cared more about properly balancing PvE, they should have gone ahead and done it, not beat around the bush. Lastly, if they wanted to make a fragfest in which all the monsters fall over with little or no effort, they should have done it earlier so those of us who didn't want that could get out.

Sadly, Anet tried to do all three at once, and completely dropped the ball on all of them.

I'd disagree. I'd say Anet has done a pretty good job.

PvP is better than the opening days of Smites, Spirit Spam, and Air Spikes. Splitting PvE and PvP skills allows them to refine PvP more without upsetting the majority of PvE.

I know you're exaggerating, because if Anet had actually done those things you said, then a great deal less people would be happy with the game, overall.

It's a good game. The point I'm getting at is that Anet now knows how to have a thick skin. They know folks will be pissed off no matter what they do, or if they do nothing. It's good for them to try, and they succeed more often than they fail, from what I observe.

Soul Reaping was nerfed because of a PvP gimmick build tho.

finally a good argument to prove how wrong the fking dont like it dont use it is.

A build equally overpowered in PvE. People are still in love with N/Rt builds in PvE, even after SR took hits, which should show you how absurd the mechanic was.

i'm 99% positive that you are joking because this argument proves nothing and even if such skill exists it will not make "Don't like it ,dont use it" argument less valid.

yeah, but I think you & I both know it was nerfed because of PvP, even if it is a PvE build as well.

It was brought to attention from abuse in PvP, only because if it steamrolled through PvE, no one would really say anything about it other than its an awesome build. (see sabway that teaches people to exploit the still broken soul reaping mechanic)

This argument was invalidated some time ago. Search for the post, and realize how ridiculous and close minded it is to assume people talk about game balance from a character perspective.

How is it valid to begin with?

It's valid in gw like in every other situation when we have ability to choose doing something or not doing something without being forced and when our choice affects us alone.

I can choose wether or not to rob a bank too. But if I don't rob it, does that mean that the crime is not illegal?

This argument was invalidated some time ago. Search for the post, and realize how ridiculous and close minded it is to assume people talk about game balance from a character perspective.

Yeah, I just copypasted a post.