Using Ursan in a tactical way?

The thing is UB is a PvE only Elite skill, not a whole lot of those in the game. So you kinda expect it to be overpowered. I think some kinda buff for the other belssings to make them more popular in certain situations might put an end to "GLF 5 Ursans and 2 monks".

There is already a good example of the tactical use of Ursan Blessing, namely Blood Washes Blood.

They can run with it, add some other explosive effects to Ursan Force (eg. knock down barriers, breakable pillars and adjacent targets while moving), reduce its duration so it can't be kept up permanently, remove knockdown from Ursan Rage, and presto -- tactical Ursan.

If the nerf is as affective as some other nerfs have been in the pass those that do not like Ursan Blessing may have an even bigger problem.

Sounds like the number of R10 Ursan in elite areas is about to go up to me.

I am guessing they will make the effectiveness of PvE skills in general not as dependant on grinding. [ursan blessing] and [save yourselves] maybe the obvious examples. This way you wouldnt really care what rank norn or kurzik your ursan or imbagon is.

I feel like this gets at the problem ANet might have in hitting Ursan hard with the nerf bat. There used to be all kinds of sadness about classes being excluded from higher-end areas, as they couldn't fit a certain role. Well, ANet responded to that whining: you play a mesmer? Can't get into DoA groups? Become a bear, then, and you too can experience the monochromatic landscape of DoA! .

So, in a way, some population of GW kinda asked for Ursan. And if the above scenario is the case, then ANet's heart was kind of in the right place--the mind, the execution, however.....

I have no idea what "tactical" usage might be. I was intrigued when I read those updates, and just as puzzled as the OP. My best guess...Skills may become "conditional," instead of straight-up mashing... By that, I mean, they'll need to be used in a certain order, or in conjunction with the other blessings somehow, to achieve the greatest effect. Mithran's suggestion--needing to combine the conditions that all the blessings bring--might work in an interesting way.

Maybe skills would be disabled if no healer was within earshot? (At least no Ursan Leeroys, then!!!).

Unfortunately, I have no idea. The likely nerf will be increasing recharge time of skills or disabling them for a few extra seconds....then, the phrase "tactical use" will mean "coordinating your party so that skills are used in an order, instead of all at once." It would be fabulous if THIS was tied to number of Ursans in party--i.e. have one Ursan? No disabled time. 6 ursans? 20-second disable.

Any way, I'm curious, and a little excited. Might get some peeps back to experimenting with builds.

"I wanna be an Ursan!"
"Nuh-uh, I was here first!"

Giving a 1-2 sec longer recharge to all damage skills , more conditional damage to the skills , enabling e-degeneration beyond -2 while disabling anything more than -2 degen and give a chance to the mobs to drain them of energy. Limit the energy gained from taking damage will make ursan harder to maintain too. Removing all effects (positive and negative) and giving equal health and armor to all classes (650hp and 90armor for example) will put all professions on equal grounds.
I don't really care about ursan anymore , but I'm interested what will A.net do about it.

Unless you nerf [skill]Signet of stamina[/skill], the professions will never be on "equal ground".

Hrrmn...

Well, the first thing I'd do is, since they make your own skillbar redundant, is make it so that everyone really is equal under Ursan. Everyone has the same armour, health, and Energy under Ursan, has a common basic attack, and all attributes are reduced to 0.

Second, to promote more tactical use: Make it so that it's harder to keep up permanently or near-permanently. The one for Blood Washes Blood should be left unchanged (might be frustrating for solo players otherwise) but for the actual skill, I'd probably consider the following changes:

1) If you ever haven't inflicted or received damage for enough time to lose adrenaline, you drop out of bear form regardless of remaining energy.

2) On returning to human form, Ursan Blessing is disabled for a not inconsiderable length of time - say, 3 minutes.

The idea is to make it something you save for emergencies or particularly tough battles, not something you use all the time. 'Course, people might still just wait out the time, but that should have a similar effect to the SF nerf - slows them down and makes the run less efficient in general.

That is such a stupid thing to use. You basically take away all your auto attack damage and energy, which is a decent amount under Ursan Roar. And why do you need all that health? You should already have around 850 health from Ursan Blessing. 950 with a Grail of Might. Do you really need 1150 health???



Anyway,
Ursan Blessing
Put Ursan Strike at a 20s recharge.
Add an effect: If target struck foe dies within 2 seconds, all of your skills instantly recharge.

Put Ursan Rage at 30s recharge and make it:
All foes in the area are struck for 10...100 damage and knocked down for 4 seconds.

Make Ursan Roar: for 5...10 seconds, you deal 33% more damage with attacks. Foes struck by your attacks are weakened for 5 seconds.

Raven Blessing
Raven Swoop: put it at 20s recharge
If this skill hits a knocked down foe, all foes in the area take 10...100 damage and are dazed and, this skill and recharges 75% faster.

Raven Talons: make it ranged
If target foe is suffering from 4 or more conditions, that foe takes 10...100 damage and is knocked down. Otherwise, that foe suffers from bleeding and crippled for 10 seconds.

Volfen Blessing
Volfen Claw: 20s recharge
Add effect:
Add an effect: If target struck foe dies within 2 seconds, all of your skills instantly recharge.

Volfen Pounce: make it knockdown, up recharge to 20.


This should hopefully encourage people to actually coordinate instead of button mashing. Of course the numbers probably aren't perfect.

Maybe limit the number of people who can use the blessing at one time in a party. Say instead of using ursan in groups of 6 to simply decimate mobs you would have 1-2 ursans who's job is to kd foes, deal high ammounts of damage to high armor foes, spread weakness while buffing the party's physical damage.

One or another way, result should be hilarious.

That wouldn't work because a lot of people would want to be the Ursan.

Yup.

It would also limit the skill to tanks.

Still pretty "insta-win" if they know anything about holding aggro.

Ursan and tactical in the same sentence made me giggle.

A better way would be to make the whole game soloable then no one will be discriminated against and cheat codes wont be needed to overcome discrimination. A way to do that is get rid of ursan and bring in 7 heroes. But as long as you have teams youll always have discrimination no matter what you do, only way to fix that is get rid of teams or allow for teams that dont discriminate - HEROS.

Without auto-attacking, Ursan is still maintainable thanks to the skills. If it starts to look iffy, as in you're about to lose the blessing. just auto-attack. Your build and effectiveness isn't compromised.

In regards to "do you really need 1150 health": As much as you "need" to be R10 Norn. So yes.

You need to be a good player in order to make the best use out of heroes.

But that aside, this is pretty much why GW2 will be soloable.

So? You decide one the person/people who will be the ursans and the others have their own builds. Using Ursan is not more fun to use than any other build, in fact I find it quite boring (I only used it during the norn farm though).

How it's determined would have to be one a first-come-first-serve basis. In which case people would have more of a reason to favor warriors for being the Bears.

Or it wont have to be determined at all.

If you limit ursan, it is safe to expect people to fallback to tank-n-spank as they would be unable to continue in fast'n'furious gameplay without actuall skill and knowledge. (And if that have that skill and knowledge ... well, ursan can't be buffed to heavens like physicals...)

Agreed.

I can't see that scenario changing anything but the addition of a monk or two and possibly better awareness of tank/aggro priority.

Best way to handle it is still a nerf to the actual skill imo.