The Madness That Is Ether Renewal

Guess what? If you grind norn up to r10 and proceed to Ursan FoW, DoA, UW, etc...YOU'RE NOT A CASUAL PLAYER!

Ursan doesn't help casual players, it helps BAD players, LAZY players, players who couldn't give a crap about the (formerly) innovative gameplay of GW and build-making, but just want all the shiny stuff that other players have. That's it! Stop defending Ursan as if it's the great equalizer between casuals and hardcore players; if anyone took the time spent grinding up norn rank and doing elite missions and dungeons in ursanway, and instead read up on good skill use and how to make a good build, and then followed the advice of experienced players, they could do anything any veteran can do. But no, no, let's just set our brains aside for a while and Ursan our way to the shinies, and then cower under the guise of "I'm just a poooooor casual player, this is the only way I can beat those big mean dungeons."

Actual casual players are playing and enjoying the storyline, the environment, the game, not wasting their few hours of enjoyment grinding away at a title.

I play an elementalist, and while at first it was neat being able to clear nearly any area by myself with the insane energy I got... its ridiculous, and needs to be nerfed.

Not as badly as last time though

Exactly and why do you think Anet/NCsoft is catering to US (the majority)?? As I said it's very simple to make things simple for those that want it and for you that want challenge "DON'T USE THE SKILL"....it's as simple as that as I stated before. Find people like yourself who hate UB and play with them or better yet play with your heroes/henchies. There are sooooooo many ways for you to play and find challenge vs nerfing UB which will do nothing for the way YOU play cause you don't use it RIGHT?

WRONG! It's can be reached by a casual player who plays 2 hours a day or even less. It will just take longer, but, it's not unreachable. So, to say a casual player who gets UB r10 is not a casual player is wrong, sorry!

You're just full of wrongs today. I know casual players in my own guild who are actually working toward their rank for UB. See, this just goes to show you have no clue what you are talking about when you speculate about others. Since you are not a casual player you have no clue how every casual player plays. Some do this, some do that, some try a little of everything. You just proved the reason YOU want UB nerfed is you think lazy gamers and bad gamers want it so they can get the shiney trinkets YOU are getting and YOU don't like it. hahah Too bad it's here and it's doing what Anet intended for those that use it an enjoy it for whatever reason they are using it and enjoying it.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say someone who plays 2 hours a day every day doing the same farming run isn't a casual player.

As has been mentioned before, good games will have challenge built into them, often with higher difficulty levels. This was why hard mode was created, not to be better drops mode. Ursan blessing, among numerous other imbalances in PvE works against this. What's more, since this is a multiplayer game, grave imbalances don't exist in a vacuum, they affect the gaming experience of other players. You don't see something even a *little* bit wrong with a multiplayer game in which the majority prefer to use AI rather than play with each other?

Look people, it's pretty simple.

Ursan is a skill that has no attributes, no profession, and no skillbar selection criteria. It is a skill that is in direct opposition to the design of Guild Wars. The antithesis, if you will.

ANet showed us clearly that they're willing to completely ignore their own game design to throw stuff in for the noobs. There is no longer, ever, a reason to be surprised when anything worse happens. The skill set a huge precedent that PvE was going to become a lot easier, and a lot more broken.

I actually prefer skills like Ether Renewal, at least they still function on the principles of build design. 8 imbalanced Guild Wars skills on one bar is better to me than 1 skill that pretty much sets up a character for you, with no Guild Wars mechanics really involved.

I expected you to close this by now, Avarre...

I mean, you've already won the thread, and there is no point in further discussion because all it does is come back to the same old argument over and over.

How many threads about imbalanced skills degenerate into Ursan threads, though? It's pointless to close them, as someone else will forget how to use search and ake another thread on the same subject. Might as well let it roll.

I'm telling ya, just make the blessings enchantments. Any necro or mesmer AI's will make it their bitch, and bye-bye skills.

I think you don't know who a causal player is or your definition of "Causal" is off. Casual players who do this and that won't have time to spend get to R10 norn.

Most people are upset because like Avarre said its totally against the style of the old GW.

I wish i had pony for each time someone told people "Don't Like it, don't do it."

It. Does. Not. Work. That. Way. Seriously, someone should made sticky about how its logical fallacy and nonargument of highest grade.

totally agree with avarre.

I say they make one balance medium, and focus it on PvP and nerf Soul Reaping, Paragons, Bear, SY!, TNTF!, etc etc etc.



Don't like it? Don't use em.

EDIT: Using logical fallacies against people using logical fallacies is oddly amusing.

"Don't like it don't do it" is not a logical fallacy.

Nobody can dictate to you what skills you use. They may apply pressure to use a particular build in a particular group, but if you disagree, you are free to find another group or go down the H/H route.

I say this a a Legendary Vanquisher who never once needed to use Ursan.

Ursan may make the game easier, but that does not make the game better.

Infinite energy for heals/prots? Get better instead.
Maintain infinite Life Bonds? "Save Yourselves!"/Enfeebling Blood is better.
Mash your damage spells away? Warriors/Paragons/Dervs/Sins/Ursan/Splinter Weapon are still better.

Ether Renewal doesn't add anything new to the PvE game that we didn't already have. It's not that big a deal.

If you don't like the argument, don't use it.

The game isn't balanced on that specific skill.
You have your own instance.
The game isn't competitive.

Now please share with me - WHY can't you NOT use it?

In the current PvE - the argument "If you don't like - don't use it." is a completely valid one.

The majority never had any idea what they wanted.
People just kept complaining because things were too hard

It's an absolutely retarded and closeminded argument, because 95% of the time the argument against overpowered skills stems from an analysis of the consequences on overall game design and balance, not from the perspective of the player.

Whether I use Ursan or not doesn't change the fact it shows a violation of the original game design. Whether I use SY and ER or not doesn't change the fact they remove challenge and depth from the game.

Whether you use them or not doesn't matter to me, what matters is that someone in ANet who has the power to create the game thought these were a good idea, and that doesn't give me confidence in the future - because these kind of gimmicks are not maintainable development, and just tell me that ANet will degrade what they make to squeeze some money out of it.

Ether Renewal seems like one of those skills that takes a while to figure out. I'm guessing someone will eventually find a way to exploit it, or a future update will buff another skill that'll synergize with ER.

You think that if I won't use it, it won't be overpowered? No, it still is overpowered. You're just not using it. The idiotic "dun like dun use it lawl" might've been used to defend bugged Signet of Ghostly Might.
Avarre, you forgot that ursan lets you ignore most conditions and hexes

im sure the original game design had us all doing pvp bye now

That is pretty sweet. But... [Mirror of Disenchantment] will own it, making it useless in margonite and destroyer areas. General enchantment stripping will make it difficult to rebond. You'll have to be really good at knowing who to bond again, etc...

Sorry, I just stopped reading the thread when I got to your post--which is why I quoted yours.

Just because one can maintain a X amount of bonds in a party does not mean ether renewal is the new 'leet, god-like, [insert word here]' spell. I've seen some very good monks bonders in the past and some very horrible ones. A bonder, no matter what the profession needs to be skilled at his/her job.

However, bonding, in my opinion is not a very good way to monk, but it can be fun when you play with guildies.

As far as Ele's being the new monks... why should that happen? Infinite energy does not make one a good monk. It helps, and gives more leeway, but by no means makes a person a better monk.

Infinite energy for offensive puposes? Sure, that could be a lot of fun. But non elite skills such as the attunements coupled with [Glyph of Lesser Energy] can keep your energy up for quite a long time.

My conclusion: I don't think the buff has made Ether Renewal as powerful as people think. If anything, ANet has given us the chance to experiment and have fun with a spell. And there's nothing wrong with having fun. It's just that people don't see that in this game, and I'm assuming in the majority of games.

Lol, the other day, I was helping a couple guys who helped me get my Guardian Title with the mission Gate of Madness on Hard Mode. I was playing a boon hybrid build. The warrior was running a W/N Dragonslash build with Rigor Mortis and Plague Touch. The ranger, which suprised me the most was running a Ranger Touch Build with SS! The rest were heroes. Now, before we started, I was aware of all the builds and was very curious as to how this will go. Zero deaths until Shiro. The ranger died a couple of times when Impossible Odds went off and the warrior died once. After that, capping the shrines was no problem.

I didn't mean this to be a lecture, or to tell you how to play. But please, try and have fun with your fellow GW players. Try new things. You never know, you can have a lot of fun. If the build doesn't work, then tweak it. It's not hard.

Cheers.

Edit: Spelling

Wouldn't you think that if a skill like Ursan can pass though the watchful eye of the balance team (/rolleyes) that the argument:
"against overpowered skills stems from an analysis of the consequences on overall game design and balance"
does NOT apply in PvE?

And even if it should apply a state of the game would need to be defined. Because on that state one would then base the balance process.
And with all the moronic ideas they have implemented into PvE - even IF they actually could define the state of the game - the state of the game would have so many exceptions that it simply would NOT be usable.
I mean look at something as easy as a knock-down.
In PvP the definition is - target foe is knocked down.
In PvE - the definition is something like - target foe is knocked down UNLESS the target is:

* All Giants EXCEPT Awakened Gray Giants.
* All Dolyak-riding Stone Summit units:
o Dolyak Master
o Dolyak Rider
o Stone Summit Heretic
* All beast-riding Stone Summit units:
o Summit Beastmaster
o Stone Summit Herder
* The large- and medium-sized Titans:
o Burning Titan
o Frost Titan
o Risen Ashen Hulk
o Rotting Titan
o Wild Growth
* Some Trees.
* All Wurms.
* Dragon Liches.
* Glint the dragon.
* All Hydras
* Siege Ice Golems
* Stone Crushers
* Zhu Hanuku
* Shiro Tagachi
* Sandstorm Crag
* Shambling Mesa
* Abaddon
* Berserking Bison
* All Jotun
(source: wiki)


IMO there is simply nothing in PvE that would signal that balance is an factor when PvE is being modified.
And it's because of that - that the usage of the word "overpowered" is simply wrong in a serious discussion. Because overpowered would mean that something is not balanced - and we can't even define what balanced is in PvE.

IF balance is an objective term.

And then there is the possibility that balance is a subjective term.
Balance is whatever A.Net says it is.
And at any given time - the game is balanced. Otherwise it would be changed.
So Ursan and ER are balanced. Because A.Net says they are.

So which is it?
Objective balance which I simply don't see being achieved, which also means that nothing can ever be overpowered or subjective balance - where the only thing that matter is that we aren't A.Net. And because of that - our views on what we feel is overpowered don't matter.

(for veterns only) How about we make some smites teams at HOH again? Odd that they would change this back after all this time I loved E/MO halls with Balthazars Aura LOL. The way people screamed (keep away from the wooriiorsz!!!, they got AOE!!!)

uh...it's PvE only?

Balance exists in PvE, there's just a lot more tolerance for imbalanced skills. This largely stems from bad design (buffed mob stats, exploitable AI), but also from PvErs' general indifference when it comes to balance discussions ("don't like it, don't use it").

SY and Ursan are objectively overpowered because they outclass all alternatives for the majority of the game. That is, if you're looking to complete a difficult area as effectively as possible, you'd build around either of these two skills. This makes for a stale game, as you'd essentially gimp yourself by running anything else.

A secondary reason is that they make certain parts of playing the game obsolete. Ursanway doesn't require any utility outside of the AoE KD/weakness - the Monks merely have to push bars up. SY, while often needing a team to assist in pumping it out on recharge, the party-wide effect of the skill means you can ditch more "interesting" modes of defense, like targeted Prot or defensive shutdown, as most damage taken by the party is reduced into easily manageable amounts.

A tertiary reason is that these two skills reward too much for mashing buttons on recharge. However, looking at ANet's track record, I don't think this is a concern of theirs anymore, assuming it ever was.

In an ideal balanced PvE, there should be variety, and build that kill variety should be toned down. The two main candidates are again, Ursan, which dominates PUGs for the most part, and SY, for basically anything else. While the list of overpowered skills doesn't end with Ursan/SY, they're on the top of the list, and any sensible balance update has to start by dealing with these.

Balance is a huge grey area in PvE, but you cannot simply pull the subjective card and dismiss it entirely. Nor is saying ANet is the master of all balance any more convincing. ANet can choose whether or not balance is enforced, that's it. Stale builds remain stale, and nothing ANet says is going to change the fact that there is a very small variety of builds that see play in the majority of players.

Actually, the game is competitive - but in those areas that the actual competition takes place, [[Ursan Blessing] and all other PvE skills cannot be used, and the seemingly overpowered ones like [[Ether Renewal] & [[Shadow Form] (which take specific builds to get their overpowered use out of, builds which tend to leave very little room for error) have lesser stats there as well.

Therefore, I'll join the crowd of "If you don't like them, don't use them. They do not affect you in any way beyond maybe having a bit of trouble finding a PUG in a very few areas and when monsters use them against you."

You are restoring my faith in humanity.

To others:

Short and simple: If X causes problem, ignoring it does not help. Problem is still there.

If you want people to shut up ("don't use ..." argument is basically that - nicely said GFTO & Shut Up) you have to convince them that there is no problem or that what seems to be problem is not really one.

/signed

123456789101112

If Ether Renewal healing is simply excessive, then it frees you up to bring less healing/defense in your team build. Monks taking more skill to play does not necessarily make them the optimal choice; nor does them being "good enough" for a strong team.

This....is... PVE!!!!

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Guild Wars is dead. Ursan has killed it.

See, ANet wants to make the game seem hard, without it actually being hard, which would scare away all the lazy/busy/casual people. Izzy's got them pegged as the people who want to "feel epic," and there's no better way to "feel epic" in an MMO than to thoroughly pwn something, regardless of whether it is the AI or another player, and get some feeling of accomplishment out of it.

The second part - "accomplishment" - is why we now have title tracks; the first part - "pwnage" - is why we have PvE skills.

On the surface, everyone wants a challenge, which is precisely why there's always such a demand for "high-end PvE." To cater to its customers, ANet has to introduce progressively harder PvE areas, so that existing users (who already know how the game works and have certain builds they can rely on) still feel the need to purchase the newest product. But people don't just want a challenge; they want to "pwn" said challenge as quickly and efficiently as possible. To cater to its customers, ANet has steadily increased the power of "regular" skills across the board, resulting in the "power creep" that has caused many people frustration in PvP.

(To see what I mean, compare the lone Fire Magic Elementalist elite from Prophecies, [skill]Mind Burn[/skill], with its Nightfall brethren: [skill]Mind Blast[/skill], [skill]Savannah Heat[/skill], [skill]Searing Flames[/skill].)

The problem with the power creep in PvP is easy enough to fix: nerf it for "balance." Sure, by nerfing something after it's been released you're effectively admitting you messed up in releasing the content in the first place, but at least you'll get all the lazy/busy/casual people - the ones who don't want the metagame to stabilize on its own, and would rather see a popular/functioning build nerfed - to agree with the "balance" assessment. Sure, there's a possibility that you might piss off some customers if you nerf what they're using into oblivion (see: Paragon), but those are the people playing the meta rather than complaining about it. They're either inventive enough to find new "broken" things to pwn with, or uninventive enough to be incapacitated by nerd rage until a new "broken" build shows up (see: PvXwiki build user).

PvE is where it gets trickier. There's no way to nerf the environment for "balance." Anything that makes the monsters weaker will be taken as an admission of guilt unless the change can be conclusively shown to fix an unintended consequence of skill interaction or area design. The only variable left is the power of the player, which, while cranked up due to the power creep, is still limited by PvP "balance" changes due to the brilliant design decision on ANet's part.

Given this, is it any wonder that ANet would introduce PvE-only skills? PvE skills are supposed to be overpowered by design, because their function is to speed up progress through harder PvE areas without influencing the "balance" in PvP. Sure, they go against the initial brilliant design decision of combining two games into one, but - most importantly, from the business standpoint - PvE skills free up dev time, which is ANet's chief concern at the moment.

Right now, Guild Wars is a financially dead game. With no more chapters or expansions planned, there is absolutely no financial reason to develop more PvE content, or even attempt to "balance" existing PvE content. A "nice" game company - which is how ANet initially marketed itself - would do this just to be "nice" to the customer base, in the hope that the customer base remembers how nice ANet was when Guild Wars 2 comes out. A "good" (or "financially successful," if you prefer) game company - which is what ANet is trying to be now, what with all the GW2 changes aimed at breaking into the "general" MMO market - will not waste its resources on a "doomed" product. What we're seeing right now is ANet's attempt to back away from just such a product - which, sadly, Guild Wars has become - and focus its manpower on Guild Wars 2, which, due to the business model ANet has elected to follow, needs to succeed if ANet wishes to continue its operations.

But what does this mean for us, who are still stuck in Guild Wars *1*?

Don't expect "balance" changes. In PvE, you'll get skill tweaks to make things easier so that people can fill their Hall of Monuments and have an incentive to buy GW2. In PvP, you'll get skill tweaks to "shake things up," but these will more likely than not be done at a whim, just so that "underused" skills see play. Since its impact on the Hall of Monuments is much smaller by comparison, there's technically absolutely no reason to tweak anything about PvP, but any change, no matter how minuscule, will keep people interested, and by extension keep them playing and grinding towards a full HoM and a GW2 purchase, which is what ANet wants.

Call me a pessimist and a cynic, if you must, but do not call me a liar, because everything I've said is true.

Guild Wars is dead. Long live Guild Wars 2.

The only thing worse than living in a dead world is living in a dying one.

Long live Fury. Oh, wait.

But /agree on everything else.

Prophecies = hard pve, challenging, FUN.
Factions = super hard pve, a bit too challenging, still fun (but a bit more frustrating)
Nightfall = beginning of easy pve, heroes, imba skills (Sandstorm, Searing Flames, Zealous Benediction, LoD, stoneflesh aura), not that big challenge.
between Nightfall and EotN there was DoA = super hard, frustrating, too challeging and not fun (until it was nerfed - then SOME people completed it...)
Eye of the North = mega easy pve (20 level content my ass), imbalanced pve-only skills, fun for grinders, no fun for people looking for challenge. They find nothing, actually.

What we need is : removal of ursan . the thing of "if you don't like it , don't use it " is rubbish because its frustrating to know your better and you accualy work harder for a game to only get less rewarded than the ursan scrubs .

The PvE / PvP split is as bad as hell . If one person [ aka assasin ] can solo one of the hardest dungeons [ aka ragars menagrie ] its to imbalanced .

If Anet really cared about it's game it would remove ursan .

Its hard to still have some fun with this game ; and becides its summer .. computer time is over & welcome nice weather time ..

I just fail completely to understand the reasoning, for buffing Ether Renewal back into an uberskill. I mean...WHY Ether Renewal, of all things? Eles needed a buff? o.o

I often wonder if Anet is just messing with us now, to see the community reaction to it. >_>

By Jones, I think we've got it!

If I recall correctly, weren't there some video gaming critics who bashed Anet for making RoT/DoA super hard and not fun? Anyways, why make an area if not everyone could enjoy it? It's like dangling a piece of cheese (loot) in front of a mouse (playerbase) just to taunt them.

The unhappiest bunch of fans of anything I've ever seen.

I love Ether Renewal. It was my first elite, and I had great fun with it, both in PvE (where I used it to walk the jungle, alone, without henchies) and in PvP (RA people who didn't understand why I wouldn't die were funny ). That was in 2005, before the nerf. I was sad to see ER go, but - having used it - I understood how powerful it was, and that it needed to go away for the good of the game.

On one hand, I'm happy to have my first elite back. I've player an Ether Prodigy monk for too long (and too well ) to pass up this gift from ANet. I'm looking forward to Life Bonding my party, whether H/H or PC, in NM or HM, and keeping them alive to let us roll the area with greater ease. ANet has given me yet another way to prove that an Elementalist can do anything, and I'll be damned if I pass this up

On the other hand, I can't help but be saddened by the fact that ANet has gone back on its decisions once again. This isn't just "hats are only available for the duration of the festival," this is something embedded in the very core of Guild Wars. PvE skills annoy me enough on their own ("Why do the monsters need environmental effects, and why do I need special skills to effectively nullify those effects? Couldn't we just get rid of both?"), but breaking a previously existing spell in two is, to me, like breaking Guild Wars in two. I believe the marriage of PvE and PvP is what made Guild Wars as huge a success as it was, and splitting the two up is a mistake on ANet's part brought on by the people who whine without understanding that PvE and PvP are together by design.

I'd say it's another sign of Guild Wars dying, but I'm just a cynic and a pessimist. Right?

Check out some history books for the Roman Catholic Church, and what its "unhappy fans" did (and what the Church did to the "fans") when the "fans" didn't think what the Church was doing was right

Dear Avarre,

Please, for the love of Jebus, let me sig the hell out of this.

Yours truly,

-Bryant Again

The problem was more a huge spike in difficulty. Here you are, in the Desolation, using holywtfimba Junundu Wurms - than all of a sudden you have to start hitting things yourself (plus the desert wasn't too hard in itself to begin with). It wasn't particularly difficult, per se, but that the areas leading up to it did little to prepare you for what to expect.

I don't mind making content more accessible for everyone. I do mind, however, providing a higher level of difficulty (HM) and then providing tools to make the higher level of difficulty feel like the easier setting. An example would be playing Doom on Nightmare and then having the game provide you with 200% regenerating health and shooting twice as fast. Or putting Diablo on the highest difficultly setting, and then being given double the health, double the armor, and dealing double the damage.

Regarding "gimping yourself": I don't mind doing that for a challenge. The only problem is that after I'm done "gimping myself" is that I'd want to look forward to a level of difficulty that now challenges my newly acquired skill. Why "gimp yourself" to become better when you can already complete all of the game's challenges? That's why I was so bummed about Halo 3 on Legendary: Frankly, it was easy as shit, and felt like Normal mode Halo 2.

I can live with powerful skills , but eles don't really need that , maybe some other classes. I would love to see A-net change the skills the monsters use in elite areas like FoW and DoA. I mean , have the skills that the monsters there use changed? If you want a balanced game , change the "builds"(if we can call them that) the monsters use , right now their only advantage is more hp and attribute levels. I love pve because the monsters use skills just like us , only they don't change them.
If A-net removes ursan because it's "too powerful" , i demand that they remove each and every farming build , since most of them require little to no skill and take as much time to learn to play as ursan.

Actually, they require skill knowledge and nice reflex. Spirit bonding (not the old-school one) requires some skill in Hard Mode when farming DoA. Same could be said about W/Me - screw up running/pulling and you are screwed.

And those that didn't require skill are either dead (oldschool SoA 55 or mo/d undead farmer) or too imba (perma shadow form), but mostly dead.