Using Ursan in a tactical way?

Surprised no one's mentioned the mantras yet....

[mantra of frost][mantra of flame][mantra of earth][mantra of lightning]

Maybe make it so that when you go into Ursan, you not only loose any enchants but stances too?

Which is why I hope ANet doesn't stop at Ursan. I suggested an idea quite a few times already in which when one member of the party aggroes a mob, the mob is aware of the presence of *all* the players, not just the tank.

@Nightow: Good point, but at least they're usable by everybody.

Ursans can only really be used tactically as tanks. 3-4 Ursans can hold mobs pretty well for all the reasons why Ursan is OP. They can be useful in places like Urgoz/Deep where you have many other spots that can fulfill other roles (damage-dealing, healing, support, etc.). Not that it is really tactical, but they make logical tanks and are easier and more flexible than the old OF tanks.

My suggestions for an Ursan nerf (for kicks, really):
1. Change the attack skills to slashing damage.
2. Make the energy degen -3 or -4. (For all forms, not just Ursan) With a zealous weapon, it is easy to maintain the forms. Make it harder. EDIT: Also, make zealous-ness contribute to energy degen.
3. Add monster skills that remove forms, but not so much that it is impossible for 5 people not to maintain them at all.

ursan can be used in a small tactical way
most people just bash 1 2 3
for the times i roll ursan i keep my [ursan rage] for when they're activating an important skill like, just a small example [earthquake] or [resurrection chant] to interupt them
just to make sure the team doesn't get more pressure on them

I lol'd. Seriously, nerf or it didn't happen.

Make it operate under the rules of enchantments. That would be easier than adjusting and fine-tuning numbers, and make Mallyx a REAL byatch for an Ursan team.

When I read the Dev comments for tactical usage, it made me laugh and curious at the same time. So I looked up the precise definition of tactical:
1. of or pertaining to tactics, esp. military or naval tactics.
2. characterized by skillful tactics or adroit maneuvering or procedure: tactical movements.
3. of or pertaining to a maneuver or plan of action designed as an expedient toward gaining a desired end or temporary advantage

On the surface, tactical changes sound fun. But how the heck are they going to make an elite PVE skill tactical without trashing the whole skill? A buff to the other blessings sounds cool with some potential synergies, I guess that could be tactical. But those are still dependenton rank, which is overrated in my opinion. So many ppl only take r10, please, the skill is plenty powerful at r5.

To the ideas of changing armor, energy, etc whats the point? The skill is pretty well balanced across professions now, warriors have higher armor, casters have more energy, para's get a shout buff, etc. There are tradeoffs for each so whatever, thought that was the point. Any changes (although unneeded) need to consider each profession.

So the question I have for the Dev's why a change? Less title grind (make skill even less dependent on rank)? More fun (mix in other blessings)-doubtful this is the reason? Or is it to nerf the FOW and DOA runs so that the elite areas are dead again and even more people leave the game? Believe me, I have been on plenty of failed DOA, FOW and UW runs, the skill is not the godmode some griefers make it to be. Pugs are so unpredictable as it is with leechers, leavers, afkers and just plain stupid play. Not sure any tactical change to Ursan is gonna fix that.

What about if when you used Totem of a Man, all of your skills are disabled for 8..5 seconds. This would make it a bit less tactical because people having ursan running out in the middle of the battle couldn't simply use ether signet and start attacking with other skills. It would promote the use of turning ursan on and off in between battles to not risk having all of your skills disabled during a fight.

Comments?

EDIT: reading back I like the idea of having a set armour level in ursan for all the classes. There would be no more terms used like "squishy ursan" or anything like that. It would just be a skill that turns you into a bear and all bears have a set 100 armour with health and damage bonus' going up as you get higher in the norn reputation title.

Your kidding yeah?

Meh best way would be remove Ursan from other campaings then eotn, ye this thread is ursan qq thread now

Then there will be 4 classes. (Ursan, Volfen, Raven, Monk)

4 classes are easier than 10.

They would have to somehow work the skill so, one persona could choose to run it on their bar if it appealed to them, but at the same time, having 6 in one party be completely impractical.

I'm not sure how possible this is, I'm sure we'll just see a major nerf of it and it will be more useless than Volfen Blessing.

Why not just nerf it, then it would definitely be used tactically.

how about.... nerf it so real skills can be used? We don't need ursan changed only to continue with the 6 ursan 2 monk groups.

Ways to Balance Ursan

1. Time Limit
2. Lower Dmg
3. Lower Armor while in Ursan
4. Have a set amount of energy while in ursan
5. Have a set amount of armor while in ursan
6. Both 5 and 4
7. No Ursan Skills just 10-100% more Dmg.
8. Take out KD in Ursan Roar

Well there many ways to balance Ursan. But really why? it helps people with lives just to get it done faster and not take hours just to do something. If you want ursan to be nerfed? Then theres no point really just don't use ursan.

Yea, exactly if you don't like ursan then don't use it...simple as that. Anet says that they like their games to be less of a grind, well this is what ursan has helped to do, it has made elite areas not a 2 and a half hour commitment, though for the people that like spending that much time grinding to finish a dungeon, then they can just use normal skills.

I think you need to look up the definition of "grind" again. Grind is doing repetitive tasks over and over to level up, it has nothing to do with areas taking a long time to complete. The definition of grind more fits the leveling of the norn title. BTW no one can really find a real group anymore without ursan, seriously with or without a guild.

and thats any better than the days of the holy trinity

Because ignoring problems doesn't solve them.

And also: People with lives don't have a whole lot of time to grind and max out Norn. If UB was supposed to help people with little time it wouldn't require a title.

The numerous groups in TOA and DOA don't think it's a problem.

UB doesn't need to be r10 to be effective. The difference from r5 (finish UB quest and turn in 1 NM quest book) is minimal. That's no grind. Rank and title mentality (prevalent in PvP) are what drives people to make high rank groups, not a significant benefit. r10 adds +5 armor from r5, and +19 damagex2 from ursan strike. Not worth the grind imo.

Better link the effectiveness of the skill to the advancement of the story ,who does all the main quests in NM and HM will have the max effect on the pve skills of that faction , while the titles will only do good to the title hunters.
There are 2 things I don't like about UB : 1. The grind and 2. 1,2,3 buttonmash. At least let us rearrange the skills A.net.

They don't think it's a problem because they are happily abusing it.

Changes needed to UB:

1. They should nerf skills 1-4 in Ursan Blessing.
2. Change position of skill 5 to to skill 8.
3. Insert 3 new profession dependent skills in slots 5-7 (or allow use of exisiting PvE skills).

That Regina, what a joker

Or, make it a stance or something able to be stripped.

I think a timer will be brought in, so maybe instead of all rushing in, they take it in turns, which would mean 6 ursan, 2 monk team will need some form of nuke and backup tank. However as some has pointed out, that turns ursan into more of a tank an melee based chars would be favoured. Unless at the same time it makes all proffesions equal, so it would not matter.

Another adjustment they could do, is change the way the skills work slightly. Perhaps taking out the KD will provide enough difference to make some areas a lot more awkward. Or even make a downside to using ursan, perhaps for every ursan in a group, non ursan forms will have so much degeneration, or collectivly the more ursan in the group the less damage output for each ursan as a whole.

Tbh, no matter what Anet do there will always be a few people to complain about it lol

I am interested to see what they come up with, who knows mybe if they do something a little different it could make it just that lil bit more interesting.

I cant believe sumone put Ursan and Tactical in the same sentence!

Maybe they could possibly limit the users of the blessings in the group party that your currently in. It would help with alot of stuff in farming DoA/UW/FoW/

However people don't realize that ArenaNet overly imbalanced Ursan Blessing for people to gain titles/money for their gains and speical weapons in GuildWars 2.

I'd laugh even harder if you'd have called her Reggy.

Hey - how did you get the transcript of my chat-log?!?!
(Love, love, LOVE it btw!)

they should turn it into a temporary party wide buff that doesn't eat the rest of your bar, that way having multiple ursans wouldn't be an advantage assuming the buff doesn't stack. If something like that were to happen you would only use it when you really need it (somewhat tactical i guess?) but there would be the same problem we saw with incoming where people chain it if its too powerful or lasts too long. Best thing I could come up with I also liked the avatar idea but it still seems vulnerable to the problem of having 6 of it in a group.

tactical ursan eh

oh you mean now it can only be used during that blood washes blood mission where its accquired?

sounds good to me