PvE Balance - Part 2

Perfecting balance in PvE content is a real challange, because you have only one side of equation: players and the fact that pve is meant and wanted to be completed. So it have to be both challanging and yet players should be able to go through it. Not to mention the orginal concept of gw: skill>time, so according to this in the ideal balanced pve content: team of skilled players with good builds should be able to complete all that devs have prepered. Such situation existed in prophecies where even hardest areas like FoW or UW can be finished be random group of skilled players in reasonable time. Of course players will come up with clever gimmick builds and find the way to go through it with ease using specific builds and then cry that game is too easy and they want more chalange. So we have place like DoA, which is way harder then UW or FoW and yet is atrocity to skill>time, because when you pick 8 skilled players with good skillbars: let's say: Rt h, mo,ele,ranger, necro, derv ,war,mesmer and such team will fail because area require gimmick build both in skills and profesion selection, so Anet try again to balance things in pve and introduce pve ss skills and they have imo rather positive impact, but seeing this Anet go all the way with this idea of balance and we have for exampple UB - gimmick build itself presented for each proffesion and tied to grind.

This is actually a relatively accurate analysis... except for your take on player skill level in this game. Unfortunately, even in Prophecies, the learning curve is rather steep; you're tromping through the Jungle with probably little problem other than getting lost in every mission, and then suddenly you're dropped in the Desert and asked to complete more complex objectives than you're used to, all while dealing with more troublesome enemies and time limits that make everything a little bit hard to take in at once. The ease with which players can be simply run past the entire first 2/3 (3/4?) of the game and immediately have the most powerful armor rating possible also did not help the overall player skill level, since many players do not even learn to play before they are ferried through to the end game content. Of course, few were complaining; the less hardcore loved the lack of unnecessary effort, and the more hardcore players enjoyed the ease with which they could avoid repetitive game play (or they were the ones doing the running... and making all the ectos, heh).

In Factions, this already spotty learning curve (which had originally been designed as a massive tutorial for players to learn how to PvP actually...) was completely abandoned; the level 20 content began basically as soon as you left pre-Searing. Again, many players were pleased, as this meant more for the veteran Prophecies player to sink his teeth into; in reality this left many players dropped onto a level 20 character without sufficient armor that they did not know how to play yet. Everything released or updated since then has only strengthened this as the status quo.

All of that said, I was really only interested in saying that you absolutely can play any area of the game with 8 skilled players in an assortment of professions (the ones you listed if you like, or any other basic collection of builds). The problem is that it's almost impossible to actually find 8 skilled players who all want to play the same thing at the same time; PUGs are typically horrid, for the reasons I just took the time to explain. Henchmen are really not very good, and heroes, while only ever exactly as good as the person controlling them, are impossible to constantly micro and thus do not equate to skilled players either. When you do actually have 8 skilled players, however, it is very much more grab-and-go than you might think.

ANet really had a good chance to help the learning and difficulty curve in Normal Mode with the introduction of Hard Mode. If you wanted things harder, you could go to HM. If you were still learning the ropes, you could play in NM. Unfortunately, the curves for the normal players are both still very erratic.

Boo-hoo. Warriors get 100 armor, which is both passive and doesn't take a skill slot. So, if a caster wants to match that he has to use up a 'valuable' skill slot. Clearly Warriors are IMBA. /end sarcasm

Obviously it's not a perfect analogy, but then again, neither is yours.

N/Rt doesn't have 'options', it has 8 heals on the bar. How many heals do you need? You'll never see the case where 7 skills are recharging and that 8th heal saves the day. It literally CAN'T happen due to the low recharge times on the whole bar. Nor does it depend on the elite. Weapon of Remedy is not crucial to the build, it's just on there because it's the best option AFTER the power-heals are added. Dropping WoR doesn't affect the power of the build in the least.

There's also the fact that if it had actual options, then heroes would use them at the wrong time and in the wrong way. It's a fail proof bar because it DOESN'T have options.

So, you have 2 extra slots that don't make a significant difference, and an elite that doesn't make a significant difference. What's the combined effect? N/Rt is slighty stronger than Me/Rt, but that's only apparent in extremely contrived situations. E/Rt is flat-out superior, despite losing it's elite and an additional slot. It's not superior because it has MORE energy (which it does), it's superior because of the WAY the energy is delivered (which is better for a low cost spammable bar).

Your next post should not include the words "fail" or "bad" in reference to another poster. Your overuse of these words is clearly IMBA.

You missed the point, its not the locations of the mobs that I was changing but what the mobs were.

You set up your party expecting to deal with Scale and Mergoyls (hex heavy foes) and wind up fighting Tengu and Fire Imps.

The second part was to give each foe more than 1 build to choose from, so the Scale could be SS necro or Blood spikers, its a random selection.

This is not perfect, but its a fair sight better than what we currently have.


Another idea is to change the levels of monsters, within a set range, on each map. So outside of Lions Arch you might face anything from a lvl 8 to lvl 16(not counting bosses). They higher lvl monsters would be rarer and have slightly better drops.

It actually wasn't too specified, but now I understand better.

Now, would the mobs be entirely random, like having any monster from the game appear on the map? Or would it be from a set list of monsters? If it's the former, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. But if it's the latter then players will still be able to build around all the possibilities they may face.

But it's still a pretty good idea, since broader builds are usually harder to set up.

The point of a skillbar is to make the best use of every skill you possibly can. 2 skillslots IS a huge difference. One of those skills could've been a Res, which would mean another party member could drop their res for somethin useful. Necs get Foul Feast to keep the phys clean. Add WoR or Plague Sig and that nec alone can deal with pretty much all conditions, which means the rest of the team can drop their condition removal for even more skillspace.

Far from superior. With 14 SR, an N/Rt really shouldn't be running out of energy. Assuming you're getting stuff killed fast, you're getting about 42 energy every 15secs. That's more than enough for a Restor bar. As for the elite slot, WoR isn't the only option - Spirt Light Wep can do a 200+ heal.

Leave the Restoration to the Necs and overkill-prot-spamming to the Ele's.

You're right!
That's why we all have 2 pips of regen.
And rely on adrenaline.
And need to stand next to the foe to really hurt it.
That fits a casters description perfectly, right?

Cool view .... If it works NERF it. What a waste.

Am I the only one that feels Izzy might want to start talking to someone else? Past failed attempts and the fact that they are trying to also balance PvE now I would have believed that talking to a PvE guild would have been logical.

If anything maybe he should post his changes on wiki two weeks before they are implemented (kind of like an open beta).

Why?
They aren't balancing PvE. They are buffing everything in sight so that we finally shut up. I am pretty sure a brain-dead monkey could do that.

I'm pretty sure they aren't "buffing everything in sight". If anything its been nerfs to PvP varients of skills since the initial split. If they were only interested in buffs to PvE then why in the last update weren't shadowsteps nerfed for PvP only?

In nearly 2 months there have been a total of 14 buffs to PvE varient skills, with one of them being nerfed some weeks later. Not quite the buff-fest you describe.

PvE balance LOL
First of all those changes would be perfect in a perfect world... Ursan won't get a major nerf because when you're ursan it doesn't matter which prof are you. In that way mez can get into any group, sin have more survivability and people can acctually progress in the game... Instead of the regular setup Tank+Nukers+healers we now have Ursans+Healers and I support this way because now eveyone can join a group.
As far as para I only see one build that makes para good and wanted in groups... Why remove that? I'd be happy if mez had a good build cuz mez aren't really wanted in groups... people rather have Daze+Epidemic ranger in a group then mez... so instead of nerfing why not give ideas for upgrading mez... I don't have a mez so don't think it's some sort of selfish reason.

I say, every profession should have a great build that makes them wanted in a group... Peace

She was talking about PvP changes. Anet only talks to themselves for PvE changes.

Also just because he talks to them doesn't mean he listens though the patch last thursday was a result of him actually listening since there was absolutely 0 bad changes.

Mine wasn't an analogy, lol.

Mine was facts...SR is > than both e-management skills in pips, and is on equal footing (or better than, depending on your enchants and attribute spec) with ER.

SR doesn't use skill slots.
ER does. (and it takes an elite slot)
E-management skills do.

Your analogy fails because if you're a caster and you need (and I mean, absolutely 100% need) +armor skills, you are probably doing something wrong or solo farming.

oic

[Flesh of my Flesh]
[Ghostmirror Light]
[mend body and soul]
[mending grip]
[protective was kaolai]
[resilient weapon]
[soothing memories]
[spirit light]
[spirit light weapon]
[vengeful weapon]
[weapon of warding]
[weapon of remedy]

nop no options there at all. Yeah they are heals (all cept fomf) but you'd have to be pretty dumb if you don't consider those options and consider them all the same. They all have a different utility and all are used rather differently. (unless if you're bad and just spam shit when red bars go down without thinking about it)

Whether you like it or not [Ether Renewal] is sucking up either [Spirit Light Weapon] or [Weapon of Remedy] which are both rather strong utility skills and strong options for a skill to keep your energy high so you can be more spam friendly, or you're using [Leech Signet] and [Power Drain] to replace [Flesh of My Flesh], [Ghostmirror Light], [mend body and soul], [mending grip], [protective was kaolai], [resilient weapon], [soothing memories], [spirit light], [vengeful weapon], [weapon of warding]. Yes, you can very well say that oh well you're just down 2 heals with various utilities, but you're missing the point. Those 2 heals are heals that are going to keep the party alive or provide various other functions, which all keep pressure off of the HB/LoD Monks, which last time I checked don't use skills or have an attribute which give them the equivalent of 40+ pips of e-regen. Can you make by with 2 less skills to keep your blue bar up? Yeah sure, but those 2 skills aren't nearly as effective as ER/SR. Can you make by with just ER to keep your blue bar up? Yeah sure but it still has its weaknesses. Can you make by without any of them? If your entire party is skilled and doesn't suck, yeah sure, of course you can (it's PvE) but you're Monks are going to have to mop up a lot more, and they might not have the energy for that if your team starts blowing up or getting heavily pressured. SR is a lot more consistent and guaranteed than [Leech Signet] [Power Drain] or [Ether Renewal], because all 3 have weaknesses or require something. Soul Reapings only weakness is stuff dying, which means if by chance someone on your team dies, you're still gaining energy to keep the rest of the team alive anyways. (this isn't very much of a weakness, it is always on)

There are other problematic primary attributes fyi so don't think I'm just wanting SR nerfed. No primary should outdo a skill in similar function (or in the case of Soul Reaping, 108 skills (and 1 it is equal to in raw energy gain)) on its own. Strength doesn't (no skill has its exact function of just attack skills), Expertise doesn't (no skill has the same range of energy cost reduction to compare), Divine Favor doesn't (nothing has the same effect skill wise), E-Storage doesn't (the only things that can raise your energy max are items, and yes I'm including item spells in here.), Fast Casting doesn't (nothing has the same effect really, in the same widespreadness), Leadership doesn't (though it is broken by effect really.), Crit Strikes and Spawning Power don't.... Soul Reaping and Mysticism both outdo skills tho. [Pious Renewal] is the exact same effect as Mysticism, and Mysticism blows it away always. That's lame. Primarys should benefit the primary, and yet Soul Reaping and Mysticism are the only attributes that really benefit a secondary more. Mysticism can combo really well with Orders since they are fast ending Enchantments, and Soul Reaping combos well with anything caster. The other primaries do have some boons for secondaries, but you will almost never see them used that way in any good way. You don't see Warrior / Assassin's with Assassin skills abusing Strength, or really see Elementalists abusing secondary skills with high e-storage anymore. etc.

Also skills are options anyways.

Yes it does? It drops the power of the build because now it is down one less heal, which also adds some (armor ignoring) pressure, and frees up your Monks energy pressure by also removing some conditions too.

so I guess a Shock Axe has no options because heroes know how to use Bulls Strike to land a shock axe unload combo and double knockdown? well okay then.

Not that I would know, I micro my heroes anyways.

They make a difference on your Monks.

E/Rt has weaknesses that N/Rt doesn't. Granted, the wait on ER isn't much with GoS, but it's still a weakness, and it is still a lost utility slot (and I think a 200+ heal is pretty good but idk?).

N/Rt has 2 extra slots, gains energy when things die, and gains more energy passively than a Me/Rt will from both energy skills on recharge (assuming an enemy uses 2 skills on recharge too) combined. I'd say the N/Rt is way way stronger than the Me/Rt.

Fail. Backseat moddin' is totally against the rules of the forum man!

You need to stop thinking in 8 skill mode, and think in 64 skill mode. Potentially the E/Rt and the N/Rt and the Me/Rt can all keep the party alive, but the N/Rt is going to be superior (yes, even 1 skill superior) at keeping the pressure off the Monks, which is going to give them more energy to throw around in general, and in a good fight that is going to save lives that might have otherwise died.

Is the E/Rt still a good build that can keep the party alive, and should Ether Renewal be re Ether Renewaled in PvE?

Duh.

But is the N/Rt better and should Soul Reaping be nerfed too?

Yes.

I wouldn't nerf Soul Reaping without nerfing Ether Renewal because that would be RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing stupid and it doesn't take a genius to figure out all the N/Rt's would go E/Rt. They are both bad and both need to be fixed.

Because no one uses Shadowsteps in PvE? It was a buff for PvE anyways, since now all the monsters that do use them are going to have an aftercast.

Wait til next month.

Hur hur i see what you did there, very good. So a theoretical 'nerf' to Searing Flames and Savannah Heat taking them to say 10 damage per hit would have the community celebrating as they can really sock it to those ruby djinn now?

People actually use Searing Flames and Savannah Heat in PvE.

You do realize that the 2 things Shadowsteps try to accomplish (making your opponent's kiting useless and surprising him) have no purpose in PvE right.

Even the developers said they didn't make separate PvE versions because no one uses them in PvE.

So yea, maybe you had just a slightly bad example there.

I hope mesmers don't get such a build , I sincerely do.
PvE can't be balanced just by changing the skills of the players and their builds. General pve is balanced since a good player can succeed with any profession , a decent build for him and his heroes and hench. Elite areas are created in a way that goes against that , fixing that would at least bring some balance among the professions.

I would think that each map should have a set list of foes, maybe take the current foes on each map +2 from maps adjacent to them.

I would even go one step further and add in a single High Level foe from any possible region of that chapter. The idea being "look what wandered down from the mountain top!". It would be either in a very large patrol route or a pop up.

At the very least this would force players out of the current "load template X for map Y and roll it" play style.

Using your slightly bad logic

It wasn't bad logic at all.

It is a buff in PvE, because players don't use them, monsters do, and monsters will have the drawback. Maybe it isn't a buff in the traditional sense of skills being improved, but it is a buff for the players.

Nerfing SF or SH would be nerfing the skills, the monsters, and the players. Shadowsteps only accomplished 2 of those 3.

I use shadow step in pve all the time, just switched to [Shadow Fang] so no big deal for me, learned to roll with it.

The AI will shadow step to the first agro which usually means the player in an H/H or a melee character in a group. So the Assassin just shadow stepped to the strongest player in the group and is now standing there frozen, wow I am impressed. The AI has enough problems do we really need more stuff stacked against it?

I can see buffing stuff related to farming since it would eliminate some of the grind involved in getting high price stuff but buffing stuff to face any AI just doesn't seem necessary to me.

I understand where you're coming from but players do use them. Claiming that no PvE Assassin in GW ever uses shadow steps is just making sweeping statements. Simmilarly why did Signet of Mystic Speed get nerfed (or buffed as you may see it ) in both PvP and PvE rather than PvP only if they were only interested in PvE buffs?

Thats twice in two posts you've used bad!

heh, i'm just messing with you .

Its silly to argue over such petty points really. Everyone here wants a more ballanced PvE but the length of this thread and variety of suggestions shows that just toning down Ursan is only going to paper over the cracks.

True, but a majority of players in PvE do not use it because there is no need to really.

(btw, Shadow Walk is better. Especially if you use Critical Agility to make up for the fact that you don't have an IAS stance. )

No[e, but oh well.

Yeah well obviously it's going to happen. If they are going to change Ursan, they know they have to buff shit to make up for it. If you read the dev update, they said they were gonna buff "underused elites". Now, if an elite is underused it is because of two reasons:
a) it sucks, because it got nerfed in PvP because it was overpowered
or
b) it sucks, because other stuff is better than it that is overpowered.

There is a lot more of a than there is of b.

Now when you buff either guess what happens.

I'll let ya figure that 1 out.

(though you don't have to look far...just look at Ether Renewal and Shadow Form to figure out what happens.)

100% agreed on everything !!! Ursan has ruined PvE !!!

when anet announced the other day that they might be nerfing Ursan in 1 month... A guy in my alliance actually siad !!! Oh no that gives me 1 month to get Legendary VQ and Guardian !!! :L:L:L


I dont see why he couldnt just learn to play guid wars after that month or even now !!

Colm,

*wince* Maybe he H/Hs and is backline? I wouldn't know. I do know that with a good guildie, you can get Legendary Guardian without having to use consumables or ursan - pretty much a matter of adapting.

I bet there are people thinking that about Legendary Master of the North more than Legendary VQ and Guardian, though. I got most of my GWEN vq done during the GWEN reputation points weekend, and there was nothing except ursan teams around.

More on topic: I'm mostly for nerfing ursanway. I think having ursan when you actually do find that you might need a tank or damage soak is handy - but it shouldn't be so pervasive to the point that if you want to PuG, you're stuck with ursan teams all the time (and for monks, classic cookiecutter you-must-play-HB.)

Very sensible post.

To all those asking for nerfs: PvE is for fun. If you want competition, go PvP.

People at A.net are not so stupid.
They put in game UB and permasin intentionally and with specific purposes.

As the quoted poster said, before Ursan elitism was everywhere.
Idiot elite players, those that now remember the "good old times" of Prophecies, where everything was perfectly "balanced", have always ruined the game to others.

In Sorrow Furnace, PUGs where only looking for the standard 5 man build.
Everyone not compliant was rejected as junk.

In the period of ToPK, B/P was the only teambuild played.
I used to play in that period, having both a ranger and a necro, and saw hundred times warriors begging to be invited, and ignored as if they were the most unuseful people in game. I felt bad for them.

With Deep, only tanks-nukers-healers and maybe a BiP necro were able to be accepted in pugs. All others were considered a waste.

And the list of players' abuses is very very long.


From A.net's point of view, all players have the same rights.
A self-claiming "elite" player has paid 50$ for the game as every other player.

So they have intentionally introduced UB to put all players on the same level, thus eliminating the abuses.
VERY GOOD MOVE. The best since the beginning of the game.
A slap to the face of the elitists and abusers, which considered themselves superior just because they had the luck to have the right class equipped with a skillbar which was the "ursan blessing" for some specific area or dungeon.

And for the same reason, they buffed Shadow Form.
I don't think that A.net devs decided to do so without knowing about the possibility of the permasin and the related farming builds in the UW.
The SF buff was not requested by anyone, none said "hey SF is too weak, buff it", on the opposite it was considered too strong in PvP and nerfed.

A.net wanted permasins, wanted massive influx of ectos in game and price reduction, so more and more players could get a FoW armor, and not only those who farmed with some specialized builds and already had stacks of ectos.
All A.net customers have paid the same bucks for the game, those with 10k in the storage as well as those with 100 stacks of ectos.

The more players are able to enjoy every aspect of the game, including titles and FoW armors, the more potential customers for GW2 A.net will have.

An "uber elite" player, proud of his uberness in a world of noobs, will maybe buy 1 copy of GW2 for 50$.
One thousand "noobs" who enjoyed GW1, maybe will buy a copy of GW2 each.

A.net needs their 50.000 bucks to develop the game, with the measly 50 of the elitists they can clean their a$$e$ in the best case.

Well, the Jade Brotherhood are (in)famous for being a heck of a lot harder than other mobs of the same level.

Another difficulty is that even a good build could be ruined by balance changes that actually change the functionality of the skill - in fact, I seem to remember an assassin mob losing its chain due to one of the skills being reclassified at one point.

In Anet's defense, it would be pretty hard to come up with a good build for every monster in the game, since you're basically expecting the designers to outthink the entire player base. Limiting themselves by leaving out secondary professions until the very end and having skillbars that are only ever seen on bosses probably didn't help either . Still, what they could have done is made a bunch of skillbars, seperated them into good, bad and mediocre bars, and used that to set the difficulty - using the weaker bars for the early level 20 areas and progressively stronger bars later on.

Behaving like the typical hero, you mean?

I'd say Expertise behaves a LOT like an attunement, actually. The attunements are worse, in fact, since Expertise provides its benefit even if the skill fails. Or do you mean that it doesn't count because you can't use the two on the same skills?

It's an energy management attribute just like SR, isn't it? (In fact, it's cited as being the reason Watch Yourselves! and GftE got a cooldown. That's right, a Warrior skill got nerfed because of the Paragon primary attribute...

Maybe we would if Soul Reaping was nerfed and the other side of the only build that is considered to be broken wasn't.

As I've said, I don't care if N/Rts are more powerful than E/Rts. All I care about is whether they're comparable.

Except that the N/Rt isn't carrying around two interrupts that can reduce the damage taken by your party in the first place.

So we actually do agree here. But might looking at making Restoration a little less secondary-friendly not present the possibility of being able to fix both without knock-on effects? SR is an obvious target, I know, but might that push innocent Necromancer builds over the edge into nonviability?

*cough*

Admittedly, not often, but sometimes it can be fun to send Koss or Melonni in to distract the enemy so you can jump the monk and proceed to take apart their backline.

Heroes actually won't use heals until they are needed and rarely spam shit. In most cases they won't use a heal unless if it brings you to as close to 100% as it possible can. ie if you take 50 damage they will use the lowest heal that they have that will heal you for it. This is something that can make Monk heroes good, is they always use their energy the best that they can given their AI. That isn't to say they can't break this (like say if the 50 hp heal gets diverted and all they got is WoH or something for example), but in most cases it's true. They just don't understand the concept of holding out, and try to mop all damage always, but they rarely RANDOMLY SPAM stuff on you.

EDIT:
Though IDK if they act differently in PvE. I only PvE with players now really, I only use heroes when I'm PvPing (hero battles is srs bsns)

There is no skill that does what Experitse does (lowers the cost of what it does), so it is comparatively, not better than anything, because there is nothing that does what it does. Attunements don't lower the cost of something, they make you gain energy when you use something. There are skills that can lower the base cost of something, but there is no skill that lowers the cost of Ranger skills etc by a %.

Yes, and that is why it is broken by effect and not by comparison. (Soul Reaping is rather broken by both but...). Skills get nerfed because of other classes all the time, it happens because of the dual classing. Burst of Aggression got nerfed because of Assassins, for example.

This is a balance thread. N/Rts are slightly more powerful than E/Rts. Both are broken, and comparable (slightly). Both need to be balanced. This thread is moot anyways, since Anet won't actually balance PvE by the definition of balance, I'm just humoring them.

Apt point, but both only interrupt spells, and in PvE you'll be swarmed by spells, and they have fairly long cooldowns whereas a lot of the dangerous spells in PvE have low recharge times. You're not going to be reducing the damage that much over time, and with the N/Rt's vast energy pool and shit, it doesn't matter if you slow the damage coming in or not, he'll keep up anyways.

I'd hit Restoration a bit too fyi since Ritualists are viable in PvE for other reasons that they aren't in PvP. Necromancer builds that are balanced don't really rely on Soul Reaping. MM's would be hit the worst if anything, but for Soul Reaping I'd like it to be this: "For every 3 (maybe 2. MAYBE.) ranks in Soul Reaping you gain 1 energy whenever a creature dies." in PvE only

At 15 (i know right?) you're getting 5 energy. Most of the time you'll be getting 4 if you run a dual attribute build. This isn't enough to make stuff free, and it is less overpowering compared to other e-management skills (though better than most, I'm sure.) It also removes the clock and such, so this wouldn't hit MM's as hard with a change like this because they are getting minion powered if needed. Factor in FF and SoLS and that'd be pretty okay.

A lot of people want the clock removed and for it to affect everything equally and to be 1 per rank.

Which makes me lol pretty hard. Then again some people want the minion limit removed so...

This is cool and all but with the way PvE is now its highly unneeded.

I agree with a lot of what you say Abnaxus but I think the players who demand a high skill level in high-end areas also have a valid point regardless of the fact they maybe outnumbered by the majority rolling HM with UB.

If what you say is true their opinion here is as valid as anyones.

I also agree that players should be able to enjoy every aspect of the game.I disagree with giving them an "insta-win" skill to do so.

It's a lazy answer to a broken game.

MMORPG's are judged, in part, by the challenge and skill level required to complete them and/or play high-end content.In this regard Anet looks the fool by having UB in the game.If it happened in any other MMORPG the result from much of the core fanbase would be exactly the same.

You can't put an "insta-win" skill into a MMORPG and expect people not to complain about it.Never happen.

To conclude games should be about more than just making cash and giving every player easy-access to all areas.They should be a challenge and rewarding and while I agree PvE was severely broken UB really makes the whole thing a joke.

Each to their own though.

Probably, for the way the class system in GW is designed, it's the only possible answer.

If you have a mesmer, your possibilities to join whatever PUG have always been close to zero. So you're practically obliged play alone, or if you're lucky to find a guild, but forget about PUGs.
Cookie cutter builds have always ruined the game.
Let's imagine that one day someone finds a teambuild with 8 mesmers capable of doing DoA in 1 hour. From then on, everyone would run that build, and every non-mesmer would be rejected.

The only way to change this could be only a radical change to the class system.

We should have "universal" characters, able to play every class, and the attributes should not be related to the class but to the armor for instance.

So, if you want to join a PUG that requires let's say a ranger, you should be able to wear a ranger armor and have all the attributes of a ranger.
In this way you could play with the same character in every situation.
And only in this case the real deciding factor would be the skill of the player.
That's for instance what happens with PvP characters, which can be deleted and rerolled according to the need of the team.

But GW1 is designed in a different way, so once you have chosen the class for a character, you have determined the destiny of that character.

Ursan Blessing is a solution that puts every class on the same level, and probably is the only one possible without a total re-design of the whole game.

Nopppe. There are people who would not run them simply because they think the Holy Trinity is UBER GDLK PWNS.

You know, every monster not having 200+ energy and 4-10+ pips of energy regen would probably be a start.

The only mesmer elite worth taking in PvE is [Hex Eater Vortex], and only in EOTN areas.

=/

lol

If ANet truly wanted Ursan/Raven/Volfen to make all professions equal, then all primary attributes should be set to 0 while under the effects of them. Also, Ursan doesn't put everyone on the same level unless everyone has the same norn rank; title discrimination now dominates profession/build discrimination. As long as different professions with primary attributes exist, build/profession discrimination is acceptable and understandable.

Equality doesn't equal balanced.

If it was ment to put everyone on the same level, it wouldn't have grind attached to its power. It also diverts the choices needed to make for your skill bar and attribution, aswell as not rewarding minimally decent play.

Also, I wouldn't want to play a paper mache Warrior. People just want Ursan because they steamroll everything with minimal difficulty. As for putting every class on the same level, not giving them absurd stats would be a good start.

Precisely, and it's only just because of a few skills. But unfortunately, they've also been the only exception. And once you identify how much of a threat they present, they're no longer troubling.

Interesting idea, horrible implementation. Remember how people would joke about people complaining about "class imbalance" and saying "hay make everybody a penguin and then it's balanced LOL"? Well UB does just that, except you have fur. It also fails largely because of rank requirement and the fact that every class is *not* on an equal level (warriors are still the most effective UBers).

However, it's still overlooking what should've been done: to balance the other classes. But then again, would that even do anything, as evidenced by Paragons still being looked at the weakest class in PvE (lawl)?

Also, a few other interesting tidbits:

Okay, but why does a player feel that he should be able to complete Hard Mode if he's not good enough? Shouldn't he just stay in Normal Mode?

And you do that by appealing to both crowds, both the inexperienced and the bad. Instead, ANet has appealed only to the bad and to people with a lot of time on their hands (i.e. not the majority).

It would be a dream come true.

maybe, but you never know for sure though. Personally i am not so sure that players who weren't vanquishing or completing elites areas in HM before introducing for example UB were bad or unskilled players. Some were for sure, but imo it's greater picture then that. Let's say WoW elite areas are not for skilled but for hard core and dedicated players but that was how Blizzard design it. In Anet case skill>time concept was suppose to be speciality of GW and actually both devs and players belived it but yet don't really know how it should work in pve as GW progressed. Let see : UB - is suppose to help all profesions to complete pve content but it's forcing players to grind to required norn rank.
Same goes with community: players cherish skill>time idea and yet at the sime time would happily accept situation in pve where not players skills are promoted but build and profesion discrimination.

If I don’t like .75 seconds there is no way I am going to like 1 second. I do wish that the duration of the shadow step could be adjusted in [Shadow Fang] using the Deadly Arts attribute. I really don’t need 10 seconds and once the primary target is gone, unless a secondary target is next to me, I am usually swarmed and unable to get to the secondary target, thus all I am doing is wasting my Hero monks heals. I do use Critical Agility but I also like to add [Drunken Master] for the increased attack speed and to chase down targets.



This kind of has me looking forward to the update. Who uses these skills most of the time? The answer is the AI, not only does it buff it for the player it also buffs it for the AI. ANET just has to walk a fine line to determine where to stop on buffs and nerfs (since I have no faith in Izzy or his top guilds to buff or nerf anything this could be bad thing too, great so much for the good part).


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I don’t feel ursan blessing [Ursan Blessing] was intended as the great equalizer. I think it was more intended to be used to ease the title grind. I hate grind but I wanted Asura and Vanguard armor for my assassin, the most effective way to get to rank 5 is to turn in a book. So I completed 2 books (one for each title). I have ten character, all of them will have at least one GW:EN armor, some two. To accomplish this goal I have to grind 14 Hero’s Books out. Since I would be considered a hardcore player grinding books would not be that much of a deal but for the casual player grinding that many titles for whatever reason ursan blessing [ursan blessing] may be there to help them. If they fix the grind they may also remove the reason for ursan blessing.

As for ursan blessing [Ursan Blessing] fixing the party aspect, didn’t work that way. Before ursan blessing [Ursan Blessing] when you went to accomplish an elite mission there has always been the meta party builds. The only way to gurantee you’re going to get your Mesmer in a group for one of these missions is to H/H the elite mission (currently not possible in some elite mission). If you think nerfing ursan blessing is going to fix this problem you really are out of touch with the game.

Yet builds and professions play a major part in skill level still. Without a decent build you would be severely less effective, and some professions don't fit in for some groups. You can run a sub-par variant if you want.

but where is balance and skill>time in this ?

In balanced pve: skilled players for example who own only prophecies and Eotn or only nightfall shouldn't be sub-par to those who own all chapters.

my point exactly but i think that's exactly how things shouldn't be.

Leave the damn game be, it is fine. It is just a game! The game is supposed to be fun. If they wanted to make a game that was not enjoyable there would be no sense making a game in the first place. Stop cryin about making changes and enjoy the game. It is people like this that ruin the game and cause people to leave GW.

Personally, I am really tired of seeing people trying to come up with changes that will ruin the game. Anet has created the game, let them figure things out for themselves... If the game is fine in their own eyes, than the game is fine and they won't want to change something they already agreed on.