PvE Balance - Part 2

This thread is designed to be a "part 2" of sorts to my original thread, in order to address concerns regarding the balance of other aspects of PvE that my first post did not cover <first post can be found here.>. I'm fairly interested in the communities reaction to this segment of the two parts (as should be ANet...), so I'm posting this is Riverside in the hopes of spawning some civil discussion.

In the current PvE meta, I would estimate that there are 5 core issues that one must consider when suggesting a negative spectrum balance (from here on, I'll resign to using the term "nerf"). When I say that these are core issues, I am implying that these are problems that require a simultaneous fix to bring any sort of true shake up to the current game's stagnation. Should only one or a few of these 5 important factors be considered, those skills left untouched would only gain additional overall power level, thus decreasing overall skill balance rather than increasing it.

The five core overpowered problems in the current build of Guild Wars are as follows, to the best of my estimation:

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1. The "Imbagon" - The synergy of the following skills in conjunction with a Paragon's primary attribute and sheer base armor level and consumables is too perfect, and thus, too powerful: "Save Yourselves!", "There's Nothing to Fear!", Focused Anger {E}

2. Ursan - The bear skill is just too powerful; with consumables it's basically impossible to fail.

3. Sabway - The synergy of Soul Reaping's mechanic with minion death is simply too much as it is; since the game's inception, this has been abused, first (that is, the first time this was problematic) as Blood Spike, but this continues on with N/Rt and N/Mo healers with more power than Monk and Rit primaries, simply due to basically infinite energy; this, combined with simple Curses builds that most of the community has been familiar with for literally years now, and you have an unstoppable build that heroes can run perfectly. This does not promote creative or intelligent play, but rather allows the player to win on autopilot.

4. Tank and Spank - The Holy Trinity must also be addressed as an overly effective mechanic which has only recently been overshadowed by the much faster Imbagon teams, Sabway hero zergs and Ursan. The effectiveness of certain builds must be matched so that all classes are dealing an appropriately similar DPS level, or certain builds (and thus certain classes) will be simultaneously propelled into use or discarded aside and forgotten.

5. Minimal Man Farming Effectiveness - When it comes down to it, this is what has ruined the value of most things in Guild Wars. In the end, it never really matters what changes you make if it's really still much faster (and thus profitable) to farm alone in the most difficult parts of the game using builds based around blatant loop-holes in skill synergy.
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There you have, laid out for all to see, the core problems with the current build for Guild Wars PvE. I'm fairly sure that you must know this, and I'm sure that as a whole, these deep balancing problems are something the Devs and the community both are reluctantly attempting to avoid having to face directly due to the excitement of Guild Wars 2. In all fairness, I understand the eagerness to move on to something newer and potentially better, but I can only assure you that de-alienating some of your most die-hard Guild Wars fans will bring you nothing but additional profit in the end.

When considering solutions to each of these problems, all things must be considered as a whole. If only the top three problems are addressed, the community would fall back on #4 and #5 in a likely successful attempt at re-experiencing success with tried and true methods. Though this would appear to shake things up at first, the stagnation would only revert to an even deeper level, and a greater number of problems would arise.

After some consideration of all I know about this game, I have come up with potential solutions to the problems that ail it. Before I continue, I would like to say that I understand that ANet is probably not going to reallocate resources from Guild Wars 2 development to work on these proposed fixes, however I must state that I believe there to be very little programming leg work involved. That said, on with the solutions:

1. The "Imbagon"

Proposed changes tied to solving this problem:

"Save Yourselves!" - Armor gained now scales with Warrior's Strength attribute: 10...80...110

"Watch Yourself!" - Removed recharge.

"Stand Your Ground!" - Increased armor gain to +40.

Solution explained: "Save Yourselves!" is a Warrior skill; there is no reason for it to not be balanced the same way that "There's Nothing to Fear!" and Seed of Life were. Simultaneously, just nerfing "Save Yourselves!" with no other changes would ruin many Paragon's viability in groups needing that additional armor. "Watch Yourself!" and "Stand Your Ground!", buffed as I suggest, offer this utility without granting the party pure invincibility.

2. Ursan

Proposed changes tied to solving this problem:

Ursan Blessing {E} - Bonuses adjusted to "+100...200 maximum health and +1...4 health regeneration."

Wolven Blessing {E} - Bonuses adjusted to "+60...100 maximum health and Enchantments cast on you last 25...75% longer."

Raven Blessing {E} - Bonuses adjusted to "+60...100 maximum health and 10...50% chance to block."

General blessing mechanic adjustment: Increased energy degeneration while in-form to 3.

Solution explained: The changes I've outlined here would reduce the overwhelming power of the Bear skill by removing the base armor increase and replacing it with Wolven's health regeneration. Giving Wolven Blessing a new bonus (longer enchantment duration) would open up potential use for that skill, and increasing Raven Blessing's block rate makes it more attractive as well.

With these changes in place, all three Blessings still possess incredible power, and certain classes/skills may synergize with them too powerfully to preserve balance. To increase the difficulty of Blessing upkeep, I think it's reasonable to increase the energy degeneration it causes to 3. A creative or determined player could certainly still manage to meet this upkeep, but the extra effort required is a fair balancing affect on the power the Blessings afford.

3. Sabway

Proposed changes tied to solving this problem:

* Minion deaths no longer trigger Soul Reaping.
* Removed the Soul Reaping timer.
* Modified the functionality of Soul Reaping to include the additional effect "For each point in Soul Reaping, you experience 2% less effectiveness from skills attributed to your secondary profession."
* The maximum minions possible for a Necromancer to raise is still limited by their Death Magic attribute, however, Necromancers who achieve 16 Death Magic may raise an unlimited number of minions.
* Minions in PvE no longer experience accelerating health degeneration over time, nor any natural health degeneration of any kind.

*Maximum number of heroes allowed in party from one source increased to 7.

Solution explained: The Necromancer's ability to out-do many other professions at their own jobs due to his unlimited supply of energy must be curtailed to ensure a balanced play environment. Preventing minions from generating Soul Reaping stops the infinite energy engine that powers the majority of truly overpowered Necro builds. With this engine halted, power must be restored to certain game elements that were previously gimped in an attempt to balance without attacking the root problem. For this reason, I believe it would be safe to remove the Soul Reaping timer.

Even without infinite energy, Soul Reaping still offers free energy, and if combinations are found to be powerful enough to be worth providing the energy for, imbalances could be again formed. To prevent this, an increased investment in Soul Reaping deteriorates the effectiveness of skills from the Necromancer's secondary profession. A large debuff is not necessary; the variables I've provided are what I believe provide the best overall balance.

Once I made these changes, a re-evaluation of the situation showed that Necromancers had lost a little bit too much of their power. Curses and Blood untouched, it made sense to give some of that power back to Minion Masters. In PvP, the idea of unlimited minions and minions that never naturally decay is a bad one, but in PvE, where gameplay is slower paced and frequently interrupted by player-proposed breaks, minions dropping dead purely due to their age is slightly unreasonable. Removing the minion cap and removing minion decay are fair balancing measures to assure that all classes remain viably powerful in the meta.

All of this done, I looked over my changes and discovered that without further adjustment to this problem area of the game, I would be disregarding, disrespecting, and discarding a whole segment of the gameplay community which must value both the synergy of their hero's bars and also their ability to complete difficult challenges using this power. To award these players something to make up for the loss of the incredible Sabway (and to prevent these players from subsequently rage-quitting the game due to complete loss of power), I suggest increasing the maximum number of heroes that a player may add to a party to 7.

A correctly balanced PvE would allow these players to complete areas using 7 heroes running a concise team build rather than forcing them to compact all of their synergetic power into only their bar and 3 additional hero ones. The players who prefer to play in this way are already avoiding PUGs and other players by using three heroes and four henchmen; it's time to expand these player's potential by allowing them to fill all 7 of those NPC slots with heroes of their own design.

4. Tank and Spank

Proposed changes tied to solving this problem:

Detailed in my first post, which is here: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10303079

Solution explained: Once the top three ailments plaguing PvE have been tended to, we have successfully returned ourselves to the level of balance we had grown accustomed to before PvE skills and before heroes. This alone would be a huge step in the right direction, but stopping here, as I said, would be a mistake.

In my first post, I listed a good deal of changes that can be made to existing skills that will increase their potential effectiveness in PvE situations; increase enough of a class' skills, and the class will see an increased overall effectiveness also. A perfect Guild Wars would be a game where all of the classes are essentially balanced (and thus all approximately equally effective); groups would search for roles they needed filled rather than for people running specifically predetermined builds.

The suggestions I outlined in my first post would bring a great deal more range of power to the PvE side of the game. Keeping power spread accross a range of skills and abilities helps avoid stagnation caused by singularly powerful skills or skill combinations (builds). The balance method employed so far has been nothing short of an endless exersise of "wack-a-mole", in which overpowered builds are developed, overtake the meta, and then are subsequently destroyed by a nerf. As this method of balance always leaves a power gap in it's wake, this method of balance always has the unfortunate side effect of something else worse coming up to take the place of the nerfed method/skill/build. This method of balance also weakens the overall structure of the game's skills, and on an unlimited timeline, all skills eventually become completely ineffective.

As you're now attempting to shift focus from Guild Wars 1 to work on other projects, it would perhaps be best to bring your skill list's power level all up to one place before you abandon it completely, or balance will never be achieved.

5. Minimal Man Farming Effectiveness

Proposed changes tied to solving this problem:

*Drops now scale depending on the number of human players in your party; more human players means more drops total in any given zone.

Solution explained: Solo farming, duo farming, small group runs for higher difficulty instances, groups comprised of heroes, and groups comprised of henchmen are simply things that are unavoidable; if a solution is offered to a player, you must assume that at least some percentage of your playerbase will take that solution. It is unwise to attempt to destroy builds that allow players to do things alone (when it is so truly difficult to invent such a build; that is, difficult to invent, but easy to copy...), and your skill balancing decisions show us that you have this wisdom already.

The only imbalance remaining from my perspective, if you were to make the adjustments I've already suggested or something similar, is really simply the incredibly increased effeciency of solo play over group play. If you want to really balance PvE, you're going to have to adjust the way that loot is rewarded, and it really must be at least partially connected to the number of human players in the party. Until this is done, there will never be a reason to make larger groups to farm things that smaller groups recieve better rewards for.
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I believe that making the changes outlined here, or changes similar, is a step required in achieving anything resembling a balanced PvE environment. Without putting any effort toward the restoration of this environment, I believe many veteren players will continue to feel too alienated to put trust into your future endeavours, in particular, Guild Wars 2.

Sincerely,
A loyal and concerned player,
Sha Noran

Haha nice one Sha. I very much like your change ideas

PvE balance is something I can only dream of - and hopefully with Anet answering the concerns of SF and acknowledging the imbalance of Ursan this Thursday will be a step in the right direction.

<3 Sha

I personally don't agree with nerfing Sabway. Its not so powerful that it needs to be nerfed, its just very effective. A normal player could still fail while using it, especially while in a harder area. And quite frankly, Anet shouldn't start nerfing Hero builds until they fix heroes' super retarded AI. Sabway is one of the few builds that heroes can use correctly with out babysitting. Heroes were implemented as a substitute for real players, not something that required 1 player to uber micro 4.

Everything else looks great (^_^)--b

If those changes took place, there might be fun to have in GW PvE again.

The reason Anet gave us PVE skills and seperated PVE from PVP in the first place is because of ruining the game experience for a lot of us through nerfing, so you are proposing to attempt to get anet to further ruin our game by nerfing more PVE skills? The only thing that would do besides piss off a lot of people, is give even more people a reason to leave GW and never look back. Can't you eliteists simply alter your skill bars so that your true godliness will shine through, instead of destroying the way we enjoy playing GW? In case you have not noticed, there are a lot of people that enjoy using some of these skills and builds, why try and take that away from us when all you need to do is adjust your skills....Pick weaker skills, which will further prove your superiority over the rest of us!
I would however trade a few PVE skills for 7 heroes anyday, I actually like that idea.

I like your proposals, nice ideas and very well thought out.

Ah you are back. I remember your old epic thread.

Basically I agree with all the problems, but disagree with the solutions. Of course, this is coming from somebody who would simply remove all the crap from the game if I had the choice.

I am basically at the point where I am like ok, Anet broke this game completely. Any attempt at fixes to the additions that made the game broken are just patches in my eyes. The real solution is undoing everything that caused the problems to begin with.

Of course...this will never happen. Thus in my eyes there are no realistic solutions.

I kind of quit this game when they split pve/pvp skills. But I do pop on these forums every now and then. I do agree with your points. However the large issue with pve is the AI. ive played this game since release - skill seperation day, and have about 7100 hours logged into this game.

The BIGGEST problem this game has is terrible AI, the smaller problem (and easier to fix) is just the power level of the game, which is accomplished by toning down all that crap you mentioned, like ursan, paragons, and hopefully you mentioned in your other post, consumables.

Guild Wars suffers from the same problem that every single online RPG game suffers from (including my new favorite, age of conan). Terrible AI design. It is indeed possible to get what we want from pve, but the approach is wrong. All of the AI has always been designed for solo mob against world. WHat we want as players, is group mob against world.

We should expect a mob thats in a group to be behaving different, even coordinating different than a mob all by himself. Yet they do not. I will be buying guild wars 2, and I am hopeful that they will address this, but right now, if Im rushing into a big group of mobs, I can just treat it like im rushing into 1 really powerful mob.

Please design the AI in gw2 to be different for mobs in groups than mobs that are solo. Please dont make the last 3 years of my gaming a waste

Um no, no, no, and um, no. Minions don't count for soul reaping... You try raising 25e bone fiends and see how your energy is doing after a battle. A 2% less effectiveness from skills for each soul reaping point? You have got to be kidding me. This won't just kill necro healers, it will kill any secondary profession for necros. While you're at it, nerf touchers because they should be effective with a secondary profession either. Nerf down secondary professions for everyone to make it fair (No I'm being sarcastic). No health degen on minions? Well without that I can easily raise an army of 100+ minions with the cap off.

If your "solution" to Sabway is done that way, we would have a solo game. No thanks. It's a social game and it's played as a team, thus synergy is neccessesary between team builds.

Ursan won't get fixed, ever. Don't you realize that's why people buy EotN? To get into the Ursan groups that do al the hard and elite areas.

SY! is one of the few things that gives a Paragon a job, without it it's just a hybrid of too many professions without excelling at something.

Since it's a team game, each class has different habilities and contributes to the party in a different way. Monks won't do big damage because that's not their job, warriors won't heal because that's not their job. If you don't like to have specifically one job with your current char, then do another toon of the desired profession.

And sins are the only thing that should be nerfed.

Poor design choices led to the current state of affairs, and they cannot be fixed without removing certain things, which wont happen.

We know they are done with Guild Wars and all focus is on the new product.

I dont expect them to roll out any kind of big "pve skill balance". The skill split provides more advantage to the PvP side of things, now that skills can be changed without worrying about PvE. Dont place bets on them suddenly rolling back all previous skill changes.

oh i know! how about all classes get one skill. how about this:

QQ Signet: R-0.25s CT: 0.25s (Non Attribute)
Signet. Hits target foe and all foes within earshot with 999 damage. After effect: Heals non-hostile targets within earshot with 999 health.

There. no more monks. no more warriors. no more paragons. no more necromancers.

Even with one skill on a bar, people on this forum will still QQ about something.

I don't think that Sabway needs to be nerfed at all. The Soul Reaping attribute has been nerfed so much already. Its really not all that powerful. People bitching about necros and there effectiveness is one thing that really angers me because, its there primary attribute...there giving up the Monk or Rit primary attribute. So your losing your ability to rune yourself for that attribute (1-4 attrib points) and your access to Divine Favor,Spawning Power etc. This build is built around the necro's primary attribute. And th 2% effectivness is a bit overboard i think. Many other professions run builds that have a utility skill in it. The Timer for soul reaping is very effective imo. And the unlimited minions idea made me lol forget jagged we can keep 20 up at all times easy! I do agree with other things that need fixed, just not your solutions.

First of all, N/Mo and N/Rt are not better than Mo/x for a player. They only are for heroes because heroes cannot manage their energy properly on a primary Monk. A GOOD player-controlled Mo/x will outdo N/Rt's and N/Mo's anyday. So I don't see a problem with those.

"SY!" will still be abused by Warriors. Make "FGJ!" not give double adrenaline from skill effects.

The minion ideas are quite nice; however, don't kill the energy gain completely. Maybe 1/4 of regular energy gain for minions and spirits would suffice. The soul reaping timer should really go, though; that was always an unelegant and desperate measure.

I really hope 7 heroes will be implemented someday; it would open up a whole new world of opportunities to explore that can't be done with other players. But I doubt that.

Your ideas for nerfing Sabway are... odd. I can understand why you do them, but looking at the whole picture, I can't see it happening. I do understand your point, however, of wanting to move from doing strong 3-man synergy to an 8-man build that still synergizes while not placing all power in a small few.

Great points on Imbagon, Ursan, and farming. I didn't quite understand your point on Tank&Spank, but I think it has something to do with doing a giant balance of skills, which doesn't tell me how the problem is solved.

Good suggestions, it'd be nice to see some action taken on a few of those.

while i dislike tanknspank as much as anybody else, i wouldn't really call it overpowered - or even as effective as some other non-ursan-esque playstyles.
tanknspank, from my experience, is exceptionally slow and boring. sure, everyone has their assigned roles and it might be a more primitive version of the "pug-in-a-box" solution offered by ursanway, but in terms of effectiveness tanknspank is simply not on par with ursan as a problem in pve.
the real problem with tanknspank is in players' ways of thinking about how gw was designed to be played. a surprising number of people still seriously think that warriors are most effective as tanks and that eles are the ultimate kings in terms of damage-dealing. unfortunately, this problem isn't so easily remedied by a series of skill nerfs and/or buffs - in fact, it's my opinion that the current skill balance already favors more skillful (or in less offensive terms more "gvg-like") play over tanknspank. instead, the player-base would have to become more interested in skillful, efficient play, which would of course require that they read forums, wikis, etc. and generally become more knowledgeable about the game. as most players tend to be casual - in the sense that they are generally less interested in playing as skillfully as possible than more hardcore gamers - this is unlikely to happen, so tanknspank is probably here to stay.

I can agree with nerfing Ursan and SY builds, but sabway isn't nearly overpowered. It just happens to be a build heroes can use rather well. There are plenty of more powerful builds a player can run on their heroes. Some of the necro changes are really stupid as well. MM is already one of the most powerful builds a necro can run in PvE, does it need a buff? No, blood and the non-mm (meaning worthless) death magic skills need a buff.

Before you nerf tank and spank, fix DoA HM already so other builds can actually beat it. With ursan and SY gone there is pretty much no alternative unless this area is made less retardedly difficult and more intelligently difficult.

Who gives a crap about Solo farming? This is PvE balance were talking about, not economy and epeen balance. The economy is meaningless anyway.

Ursan is still way undernerfed as you describe, and SY retained full effectiveness in D-Slash builds. Needs a much harder hit with the nerf bat.

Even with all my complaints about the OP, if it was implemented as is it would be 10x better then anything Anet has done in the past 2 years. We all know they are busy making Grind Wars 2.

Bone fiends are not the only type of minion.

Not sure why you want an attribute to have a negative effect. Removing the minions or some other downscaling of returns is probably enough.

The problem and solution aren't in the player builds but in the AI's. If you create AI that doesn't encourage steamrolling, tank and spank goes away along with other problems like N/x.

Increase rewards for completing dungeons, vanquishes, etc. and make them more challenging. People are more than willing to farm in large groups if it still guarantees good drops for easy kills.

Alright, so I'll pretty much be evaluating all of your suggestions as I've got nothing better to do.
This DOES nerf Imbagons, but it would lead to increased usage of "Dragon Slash lulzmobile of infinite adrenaline and "Save Yourselves!"", to quote yourself from part 1. This change would merely shift SY! to be used with Warriors instead, essentially losing a Paragon's position in a party, even with the Watch Yourself! and Stand Your Ground! buffs.

It may be better to simply add "This blessing ends in 90....900 seconds" or something, scaled with Norn rank, or simply "This blessing ends in 5 minutes." and removing the energy degen, as even with the increased degeneration, a Necromancer with high Soul Reaping or a Paragon with high Leadership could still infinitely maintain the blessings with no sweat. Your change would bring an interesting shift to the generic "Warrior Ursans Only!" PuG requirement, as it would make people choose between higher armor or lengthened blessing time for their profession discriminations. Even with your suggestions, Ursan would still be used a lot, but in conjunction with the other two. I'm not sure if this is what you were aiming for, as in your post, you made it seem like you wanted to nerf this skill pretty hard, in which case, you should nerf the variables of each skill.

*Note: My suggestions in this following section may be biased since I mainly play a Necromancer.*
This is a step in the right direction for getting rid of Sabway, but it kind of lowers the effectiveness of human MMs. I'm not sure how to change it in any other way to avoid hurting human players. Maybe just make it so you gain one energy for every four ranks in Soul Reaping when a minion dies, as opposed to the current one energy per rank for all creatures. Or, better yet, you can only gain energy when a minion under your control dies.

[bias]No opposition here! :P [/bias] On second thought, removing the timer seems to provide what you want to avoid: An infinite energy source for Necromancers. Maybe just increase the maximum triggers to 5 times per 10-15 seconds.

Without the ability to use runes from your secondary profession, this would slaughter most builds using skills from secondary professions, and would promote the normal MM or SS cookie cutter builds you see in PvE. So, I say no to this. An alternative would be something like "For every three ranks in Soul Reaping, you lose an additional 2 energy for each skill you use from your secondary profession."

At first glance, this doesn't seem like it's cause many problems as long as this is only in PvE, other than making MMs more IMBA than they already are, though the Soul Reaping changes may balance this out. I'd have to see this in practice to evaluate it.

Don't see a problem here, either, though it makes some of the Minion healing skills less useful.

This change would be wonderful.


I agree wholeheartedly, especially with your explanation.

To me, it seems that you're saying that they should simply expand Loot Scaling to encompass everything, instead of the few items it already affects. If so, from a selfish farmer's point of view, I'd have to say no. But, when looking at the grand scheme of things, for the game's sake, I'll (very reluctantly) say yes.

Well, those are my opinions. When reading through my post, I've found that your suggestions all balance eachother out, while my counter-suggestions tackled each one of your suggestions one at a time instead of trying to balance with eachother, so mine are probably extremely flawed.

Edit:

Only if they make a monster skill which disables all signets for foes within radar range and stick it in every single mob in GW. And no, I'm not kidding.

Look, let's be honest- the reason the skillsets were split PvP/PvE is so PvPers can achieve balanced builds. PvE was never meant to be entirely balanced- think about it- if PvE was balanced, there would be far more skill synergy between enemy mobs, and normal mode would have been far more challenging. PvE was designed with the idea that the players have to win. That's the point of PvE- to beat the game. I merely make that as an observation.

As for your ideas, you are echoing almost every other angry or frustrated PvE'er in the game- but your soloutions, as others have pointed out, are extremely flawed.

To nerf Sabway by changing Soul Reaping (again) is to kill what is by far the best method of hero energy management to date. We all know Monks are superior healers, but N/Rt or N/Mo Heros can be highly effective- not overpowered- highly effective. Sabway means someone took the time to create a killer skill synergy that promotes defense (minions) cheap heals (Rit spells with SR for e-management) and damage (Curses N/Rt). That is what PvP is all about- it's about time someone brought it PvE side, and props to whoever made the original.

Reworking the paragon's (let's be honest) few decent skills would kill a class that is already threatening to be cut from GW2 due to its utter uselessness in PvE play.

As for Ursanway.... Anet had OP in mind when they created it- it was designed specifically to do exactly what people are doing with it- grinding their titles for the HoM using 8-man teams of LIVE players. Wow, what a concept- an online game where 8 people, live people, get together and go kill stuff... Ursan is doing exactly what the Dev team had dreamed, maybe slightly better than they had hoped. The odds of this getting nerfed, IMO, are extremely low, and thats fine- no one is saying you have to run it- but it provides hundreds or thousands of players easy access to their 30 max titles they are seeking, and ANet needs that interest right now- it's clear just by looking over these forums that public support is low- by nerfing a popular group build like that, you threaten to make a great deal of players give up on their HoM title farming, or perhaps give up GW entirely.

All in all, I highly doubt many PvE skill changes will come about in the next update- maybe, maybe a Shadow Form nerf, and a few other minor hic-ups, but aside from that, I would expect that the majority of the skill balances- now, and in the future- to be PvP oriented.

In Hard Mode, I'd rather play Searing Flames than a Flare monk. Wanting to do so doesn't mean that Searing Flames is overpowered, or a flare monk is underpowered. There will always be a strongest build, or most effective strategy for certain areas, and no amount of proposed changes will ever fix that. The next most powerful builds will take their place.

If your case, if WY is moved to warriors, then what? Now we have imba-wars. If the effects of Ursan are tweaked so non-casters can't use them as well as they could, how does that make the game more fun?

Similarly, no amount of skill changes can solve "player elitism". If you want to PuG in a high end area, you have to give in to the PuG's needs. If you don't want to do that, then you can find a PuG that doesn't mind failing, or you can solo with your heroes/hench. If you don't want to do that, you'll have to convince your guild to help you along any way you can. Helping them too will increase your chances of enjoying yourself, and getting help back.

If you've beat the last mission of a campaign in NM, congratulations, you've beaten Guild Wars. Anything more than that (PvP, hard mode, etc...) needs to be driven by your own desire to play the game. If the game isn't fun for you anymore, then put it on the shelf and pick it up again when the mood hits.

One more thing...

I might not understand you correctly here, but I read it as you want to remove any advantages of solo farming? If so, I'd have to disagree with it completely. Folks who want nice things should be able to earn them. With loot scaling, the most reliable way to earn cash is to farm things that can be sold to others, not the merchant. This means selling tomes, rare materials, gold weapons, or whatever else isn't affected by loot scaling. Gold inflation is no longer a problem, and the cost of the higher-end upgrades and materials have reduced, meaning more people have access to them. This is a good thing for many people, and a bad thing for not so many people. A 2k +30HP mod is better than a 30k +30HP mod for a lot of people, and in the same way, 3.5k ecto is better than 12k ecto.

Sorry, but that just made me laugh. +1 on humor .
I like these ideas. Doesn't ruin the Paragon, but it removes the Imbagon aspect of it. At least, so it seems, I'm sure people would find another Imbagon build though .
I have one thing to say about it. I'll miss my Volfen (not Wolven) Blessing giving me healing . That was my favorite part about the blessing that is based on my favorite animal. But overall, the blessing changes are good and reasonable.
I'm a bit iffy on this one. Mainly the infinant minions and no degeneration. Making just one of those seems to be enough to me. Also, the 7 heroes may be a little too big of a jump, I would suggest 5 heroes, then maybe 7 in a later update, depending on the feedback on the 5 heroes. Also, I have a different suggestion for your SR changes. Instead of no timer and no energy from minions, why not make the timer shorter and only affect minions deaths. In other words, Monster/player deaths give normal energy, minions give normal energy 3 times in, say, every 25 seconds. That should do just as much damage to the Sabway as no energy from minions and no timer, at least enough to make sabway not as imba but still allows minion bombers. I won't say I like or dislike the secondary change as well for necromancers. It's a good way to limit Necros, but I think it goes a little too far. Overall, good suggestions, and good backing up, but could use a little revising after listening to other's ideas.
This section lost me, so I won't comment... for now.
Reasonable, I concur, enough said.
And criticized/commented by a loyal and concerned player too

These suggestions, overall, I pretty much agree with. Combining these suggestions with your Part 1 suggestions, can't see much of a problem. Also, would like to apologize if I sounded like a jerk on your last thread, wasn't my intention, I think fenix got that impression though -now to look at responses that came up while reading through your post and commenting on it-
I don't think you read his first thread. In that thread, just about every skill change suggestion was a BUFF. He doesn't seem like an elitist to me, he seems like someone who is trying to make the game DIFFICULT BUT FUN for EVERYONE. People enjoy such gimmick builds because it gets results. Some nerfs and some buffs will still provide results, people will just have to change. You seem like a person who just hates change, which are the type of people I hate, because without change NOTHING WILL GET DONE.The first time I read it, thats what it sounded like to me. It wasn't till the third time I actually got what he was... attempting to say. I think they are doing this actually. It's called GW2. GW1 development has NOT ceased. I repeat, GW1 development has NOT ceased. Stop trying to spread rumors.

.... screw commenting on all the other trolls in this thread. I'm sorry you couldn't get the civilized discussion you wanted . Unlike the possibility of getting the balance fixed, the trolls and flames will never be fixed.

Edit: looks like page 2 has the civilized discussion you wanted . But I'm too lazy to read through all the posts that are that big. Although I think it is unanimous, your Sabway changes won't do as is for the human MMs, nerfs the hero build, but kills human MMs. I think a variation of my suggestions on your suggestions may work though, lets wait for non-troll community output?

I have better ideas:
- Disable cons and PvE skills for Hard Mode. If you want to 'have fun' playing with broken things, you can do so in normal mode - where you belong. This fixes Ursan and Imbagon.
- Adjust monster skillbars in more areas to punish minionmancers and spammy spellcasters in general. Throwing a lot of enemies with hexes like Backfire in there, and more Dervishes with Banishing Strike, will make builds like Sabway more dangerous to run. The problem with Sabway isn't so much Soul Reaping, but the synergy you get from Soul Reaping + MM + 2 other necros all benefiting from essentially limitless energy. You don't need to destroy Soul Reaping - make MMs riskier to run and you've nerfed the whole build without touching either the skills or the attribute.
- Tank and spank can be handled in a similar fashion. Make tanking impossible by tweaking the AI. Make every fight more like HA or GvG, where positioning and field awareness always matter.
- I don't think Farming needs fixing but again, you can nerf it just by adjusting monster builds and AI to counter whatever the current farming build is. Solo farming is extremely easy to break in most instances. Even the SF farm can be destroyed by adding in enemies that can strip SF, or adding in enemies that use IW.

My point is that PvE can be shaken up without nerfing skills - you can simply adjust the monsters, or randomize them more. One of the problems with PvE has always been that you know exactly what to expect, and this pretty much hasn't changed at all throughout the game's history. Randomizing the area - or simply changing areas every month or so - would force refreshes of popular builds. It won't happen in GW1 because they're not going to put in the effort, but this would have been the optimal solution, way back when.

Excellent post, Sha, a great deal of thought has obviously been put in there.

7 heros
Whilst I agree with most things you've proposed I think the idea of allowing 7 heros in a team will lead to even more impressive team synergies being developed that could put sabway to shame and that could see this come full cirlce and back to the point of imbalance.

I suspect that 7 heroes would enable a far wider choice of 8-man team builds that would do an excessively good job, rather than the handful of superior builds that currently exist.

That's the main reason I want 7 heros... to tinker with skills to my hearts content and develop killer team builds but, as already posted, the hero AI would need to be up to the job beforehand.

Loot
Where I would take issue with you is in the loot changes. I enjoy playing solo sometimes and do so because I want the loot. The loot scaling in place now is bad enough, but I think it pretty much does what you're asking for, doesn't it (aside from rare drops and rare materials)? The way I see it, if a map contains 24 mobs with rare drops for a full 8-man human party, for example, then the same 24 mobs should drop rares for the solo player. The solo player has every right to them for accomplishing the task using 8 skills compared to the 64 skills available to the full party. Some people will cry at this, but the fact is that the game makes soloing possible so it is not unfair or unwanted from Anet's perspective. ANet tweak skills based on farming habits, for better or worse, and I think that that should be the control method used instead of loot changes.

Big picture
I think ANet already knows what it is doing, and the current meta (aside from SF) is all in their great scheme of things. At this time ANet are making it easier for players to fulfill those ridiculous titles in order to stock their HoM. This gives such people the desire to see things through to GW2 to get whatever benefit the HoM will bestow. So while I would like to see most of your suggestions implemented, I don't hold much faith in it happening.

To all you people holding onto Shadow Form, please GTFO. The reason the 55 and hell, just about any good build has been nerfd is due to it's unfair advantage over monsters or an area allowing one to successfully farm for items and weapons. SF has ruined the ecto market in just a week! The UW is an elite area yet any noob with the right skills can now clear it on their own. There have been some bad imbalances in the game but PVE SF has to go. The sooner the better.

But what about my Critical Agility Assassin? That fixes Ursan and Imbagon, but harms too many other builds from HM.
This suggestion has the same problem as Sha's suggestion. You kill Human MMs.

Except for your PvP comments, this is probably the better idea, however, I didn't really read through that section, so don't take my word.
That is one suggestion, Sha's was another. Either one will really work, however, Sha's suggestion is more long term while the one you bring up is more short term.

Although your point is true, it is also a very short term solution. But one that should be made every now and then. Skills update once a week, why not some monster spawn changes once a month? Can even add the expansion professions to the older campaigns, and core areas. I really don't see why not, I mean, you can't make a assassin or ritualist in Nightfall, but you still fight them(although mainly just bosses that give Elites).

And I say, that if they never introduced the idea of getting benefits in GW2 via HoM, or at least never announced such a thing, then they wouldn't need to do such things that upset more people then help. As I see it, most people like challenges, and that is what GW should stay at. A challenge that is still possible to beat, but with effort. Make things as easy as killing monsters in the old DOOM and Quake games, then it just isn't that fun, as GW is not that kind of game. If you want a modern game like that, which is what ANet said people want, then they should just wait for D3 and not GW2. Harsh for ANet, but true, they are trying to go from something new to a diablo clone.

If the HoM had no tangible reward (in this game or the next) then would so many players still be here? I fully agree with you but players wanted a reason to stay and this has become their end-game.

And it turns out that the reward for a fully completed HoM is that you don't need to pay the Xunlai 50g to open your box. Maybe.

Sha, I am impressed by your dedication to making GW a better game. I really hope that the devs are paying attention. I promised a comprehensive post addressing PvE balance. This isn't it. It's coming, but I haven't had the time to put my thoughts to paper just yet. I would however, like to briefly address necromancers and Sabway.

Let me start by saying that I agree that Sabway is overpowered and deserves a nerf. Let me immediately add to this that individuals necros outside of the soul-reaping-sharing scenario of team builds are NOT overpowered. In fact, with the timer nerf in place, they struggle for energy when the randomness inherent in the timer goes against them (or, at least, people who know how to make good builds that take advantage of SR struggle for energy) and have significantly less energy gain than E.Renewal builds. We need a way to nerf the soul-reaping-sharing that powers Sabway WITHOUT further hurting the individual necro -- if anything, we need to buff the individual necro's SR.

It's ironic that I am constantly accused of advocating overbuffing necros, while you are accused of overnerfing them, yet what you suggest makes them much more powerful than my suggestions. (For those who can't stand to read a long post, you can skip to the bottom for my suggestions.)

I have two problems with your suggested changes:

1. Unlimited minions + No natural degen + minion healing spells = Ut Oh here comes the infinite minion army.

Actually, this isn't as bad as it looks at first glance, but it's still bad. I say it's not as bad as it looks at first glance because most of the minion heals won't support an infinite army against the monster damage it's going to incur. Verata's Sacrifice is garbage in its current state and couldn't hope to offset the incoming monster damage. BotM has a scaling life sac that's going to stop sane people from going over 17 or 18 minions at max (double that with AotL). JB still fails at maintaining mass minions because of its slow cycle time, but this change would mean that it can never be unnerfed. Then there's Feast for the Dead. As things stand right now, this spell is junk because it can't keep up with max degen, which all minions head toward pretty quickly. But, if that degen is removed, it might prove adequate at offsetting monster damage, and that would be a problem.

One option is to nerf Feast for the Dead to make sure that doesn't happen. Another is to scrap the idea of removing the degen.

2. The -2% effectiveness/SR rank on secondary profession skills is a real kick in the balls. Sure, it stops secondary-abuse builds, but it also kills builds that use one or two skills from the secondary that are vital to the build, but don't rise to the level of secondary abuse.

I think Sora of the Divine has a better idea for how to prevent secondary abuse -- increase the cost of secondary profession skills along with your SR rank. The impact on people who use one or two secondary skills is pretty slight, but the impact on secondary abusers is crippling. In essence, this is making SR work at 100% effectiveness if you want to spend it on necro skills, but some lesser effectiveness (I suggest 50%) if you spend it on secondary skills.

A few points raised by other people that I'd like to discuss:

In Sha's proposal, the increased energy load is offset by the fact that you don't have to replace minions as often because they don't degen. Only being able to raise one or two fiends per battle isn't a problem if they survive multiple battles.

However, let's be quick to point out that, IF we scrap the no-degen idea, THEN we must do something about minion costs.

Not really. Despite the common parlance, energy gain based on monster kills is not "infinite." It's limited by the number of monsters, and how quickly you can kill them. It's not a real problem, and it never was. By contrast, energy gain based on deaths that you can "manufacture" has consistently been problematic. JB spam was a problem. Spirit spam was a problem. Sabway-style feeding off the minion bomber is a problem now. I think Burst Cancel puts it exactly right:

Unfortunately, Burst Cancel also gets this part exactly wrong:

1. Backfire is generally ineffective in the hands of monsters because of their poor target selection and the ease of removal. At most, that would force parties to bring a little bit more hex removal (which would be good for mesmers seeking parties I guess). I might also add that I have some MM builds using vamp horrors + OoU where I would go ahead and cast right through backfire without fear (though it would stop the Sabway MB cold).

2. Dervishes with Banishing Strike would actually help the Sabway MB. A minion bomber wants his minions to die. He generates his damage through death nova and gives his teammates energy though minion deaths. The greater the frequency he can turn minions over at, the better he becomes at both of those tasks. Making the monsters good at killing minions only makes him stronger.


So, what do I think we should do? I suggest the following:

• Remove the timer.
• Remove SR triggers from minions.
• Drastically reduce the cost of minion spells. (Down to 5's and 10's and maybe 15 for bone fiend (maybe just 10).)
• Small increase to the cost of secondary profession skills scaling with SR. (Maybe 1e for every 2 ranks.)
• Unlimited minions (either with 16 death magic, or without restriction)

The cost of the minions are there for a purpose. You remove the limit at 16, and the health degen, you can't just be popping up minions. That's also the reason why the SR timer would be removed from them.

Good post Sha, I agree with most things, even the solo farming. Because really if we're getting more money with a group then it doesn't matter.

It certainly kills it on the paragon. I'd personally like to see the +armor scale depending on how close you are to the shouter. Adjacent: +100, Nearby: +75, In The Area: +50, Earshot: +25. Forces the players to learn positioning to get the full effectiveness of the skill rather than c + space -> hit SY! button.

Never been a fan of it really. I'd rather teach people that kiting is a good way to mitigate damage, not standing still.

That makes it better, remember what the con sets do that every Ursan group will use. Armor of Salvation makes you immune to criticals, gives +10 towards the +25 AL cap already, while the ursans are chaining weakness and KDs. Ursan Strike is still a Power Attack with +100 damage that ignores every hex except Diversion and Tease, can't be blocked, ignores blind, but doesn't cost 5 energy. Make the strike an attack skill, force the ursan group monks to bring something besides Healer's Boon, 6 heals, and Rebirth. The KD needs a conditional too; above or below 50% health works.

I agree, but I still think Shadow Form is stupid. If SY is going to be touched then the build that offers even more protection than it should be as well. Give it something like 50% reduction in damage since sins have low AL anyway. As is it's just as guilty as Ursan in terms of actual ways it can be shutdown.

It doesn't address the issue with Hard Mode not being fun though. The chance of scroll, tomes, and slightly better chances of getting gold drops is not my definition of enjoyment. Especially not when the challenge is level 24 enemies becoming 26 with a fast casting 20 specced Word of Healing. Last I checked Broad Head Arrow makes that enemy die just as easily in either mode.

Disabling cons and PvE skills feels like the same approach that was taken with the realm of torment, DoA specifically. Environmental effects being put into place to limit which strategies/professions can be used to overcome the area. A physical heavy team is never going to beat Ravenheart Gloom on Hard Mode because they're all missing 50% of the time on top of the hex stack breaking through their monitor. Personally, restrictions don't make a game fun and neither does gimping myself to create any sort of challenge. I don't see the point of learning how to play the game, knowing which skill combinations are good and which are bad, just to ignore it all so I can try to have fun.

We all know it would take far too much effort to make PvE difficult because it needs a complete overhaul. If we can't even get PvP balanced, which for the most part just requires the tweaking of skills, we really can't expect PvE to get the treatment it needs either. Especially when every person has a different view on what PvE should be.

[email protected]% less effectiveness sh*t change. Seriously how random is that? People complain when Izzy does tricky changes to fix something, this is even worse, you're blowing an entire attribute...

To explain how dumb it is, I'll just propose we do the same with every character. Just to see you know. There goes:

Thumpers, R/Ds
A/Ds
Signet mesmers/monks
x/A AoD spikers
Defensive stances
Signet of illusion partially

and so on. I know most of them are hated but they keep the game from being so boring.

Ho and no to removing minion cap, no to removing the timer, no to removing the minions degeneration, no to removing minions from triggering SR.

-If you want to have a supa big arrrrrrmy go play something else.
-The timer is iffy but we can perfectly manage with it.
-Minions are undead, their chair is rotting but they are not dying?
-Last one is less of a problem if the cost is greatly reduced

I don't mind the nerf on SY! although paras are already unfavored and that would piss paragon players. Not that it is not needed to tone it down.
Edit: I prefer Racthoh's suggestion, but it kills the DS spammer

To cons being disabled in HM, I'd say no to that. Noone in their right mind would use a con in NM, it is already super easy. I agree that cons make the rest a walk, but you can choose not to use them right? It's not like it is going to improve players level, not after the ursan brain washing. Let the kids have fun

Just the 2 things that I semi-care for:
1. I actually don't see the problem in Ursan THE SKILL. What I see the problem in is a FULL PARTY of Ursans with consumables.
I've ran Ursan on my ritualist to vanquish a HM area - and the boy was less useful then when I AP 3 PvE skills + Warmonger + Splinter.
The only reason why I use Ursan these days with heroes is if I want to have some fun. It doesn't cut it otherwise.
And that brings us to the problem - in a dying game - do we want to removal ALL initiative for players to party? How do we kill off the insanity that is exponentially better Ursan without killing off human parties?

2. SR needs to die.
It needs to get worse.
And you don't achieve that by buffing anything.

Plus an additional thing you failed to mention:
3. Spirits need to be improved.
They have (next to) NO HP, (next to) NO armour, they are immobile, they are insanely stupid, you can only have one of a kind present on the field at any given time, they take ages to put up, have insane recharges and all that because you don't need a corpse to summon them?
In PvE?
Buff that shit!

I will always stand by this, and say that nothing in this game has ever been "overpowered" That term is a figment of your imagination.

What has happened is that AI, skills, and area's have become weaker, thus making certain skills seem more powerful.

Nerfing anythin will not work, first we need to restore everything that was nerfed do to PvP, then we need to work on monster AI and enviremental effects.

So please stop with the Balance bullshit, you do not need balance in PvE, balance destroys the game, because the monsters use the same skills as we do, and if you nerf them, then they become weaker, and they do not have the option to change their skills bars like we do.

BEST.IDEA.EVER.

Hmmmm....

Why do people want other people to play the way they do? If you do not want to use a skill, do not use it, if you think it is overpowered and too easy for you, then do not use cons, sabway, ursan but please let Anet work on GW2.

Really, if you want hardcore the choice is yours, go naked into HM. Just do not try to 'force' your style of play with 'balance' issues because you believe that is right, there are lots of others players who really lack any skill, any tactics and any level of common sense, they do fail with these skills, repeatedly (especially when you have no choice except to pug).

Remember you see the small picture, Anet sees the BIG picture and whilst your feed back is interesting and is limited to a small minority of players I really do feel it has no place in the direction GW1 and GW2 may go.

By the way I am not taking away anything from the skillful players who have time to painstaking go through each skill, there are many who do not have the time to do this, cannot spend hours trying to do things when they have other things to do.

Just play it your way, and let others play it their way.

BE HAPPY

Silver

Unfortunately some classes 'need' PvE only skills to be able to perform in HM, as proved in this thread where even with these skills, mesmers are still inferior to every class in PvE. To use an example, would you use Norgu in your HM missions / Vanquishes if he had the reflexes of a human?

PvE only skills were designed to give PvP orientated classes a more viable option in PvE without breaking PvP. They were implemented a year ago, yet i don't think many people claimed it was the end of Guild Wars at the time. The only reason people have begun to complain about overpoweredness is because of ursan teams.

Now we have a PvP and a PvE split, what is the point of title based PvE skills? If Anet had gone ahead with a PvP and PvE split instead of going down the title based skill route last year then they would've had more control over PvE ballance than introducing 'quick fix' skills that they are stuck with now.

Pretty much too late.

Does the OP really think they change Death Magic and Soul Reaping that much by now? Or any other mechanics, like Expertise or general gameplay.

Some interesting ideas, better put in the suggestion forums. Or do you want more people to read them, then you are right in Riverside.

I do not like the OP's solutions to the mentioned issues either tbh.

Us Mesmers are still waiting to be fixed up in pve like they promised. I don't think any of the devs have even played a Mesmer before. We need more healing and defensive skills, not to mention ones that have the fast casting attribute. Only 7 skills in that one, half of which are elites anyway. Put back Energy Surge to the way it was as well, you made it essentially useless alongside its non elite counter part energy burn.

MAKE US USEFUL IN PVE! I'm tired of having to whip out my mesmers fow armor in order to get pugs to pick me up.

Sha Noran , the change to ursan will do the same as removing it , promote class discrimination , the armor and health buff was trying to bring classes on the same level. Other blessings are ok The change to SY! is just killing paragons , and not warriors. Other changes are ok with me.
it's possible , trust me.

I like to run Finish him and CoP on my mesmers bar. And cons are not needed in NM , it's just too easy. Disabling ursan for HM is just like giving a thirsty man a bottle of water and then stopping him to drink from it. Ursan us created for HM play.

I agree with Raccoon , mesmers need a buff. But FC is an awesome attribute.

One more thing , I bought GW because they advertised it that with minimal skill you can get through pve , but PvP is where the real action happens (a guy on a TV show about games said that). Right now it seems that people want the opposite.