Balance Costume Brawl

if you would have read my post, they already did this last year.

If that turns out to be the case, then maybe the arena doesn't need touched at all.

On the other hand, they may have seen that as a bug, fixed it, and we're right back at square one.

Monk Bar... it's a smite/healer hybrid. Made like that to be an attacker as well as a mild support (while the rits play a better support). I suppose this was done as a hate to all those who go into RA groups as Monks thinking that because their team has a monk they would win (which is what happens in RA a lot, the team with the monk/better monk wins, no matter how good the others are).

Necro Bar... you're kidding right? Enfeeble? Decent? Maybe when fighting wars and dervs... nothing else, especially in that case. Life Siphon, Signet of Lost Souls, Reaper's Mark, and Strip Enchantments are all good for health and energy. No need for your "good skills" or barbed signet. (and yes, there are better skills then Reapers' Mark, but it's not suppose to have the most op builds)

Paragons don't need IAS, they don't always have to bring it either, I assume this was done to prove that point.

Warrior. Frenzy was not put in because idiots would die too fast, and with Tiger's Stance, is there really a need? Sure, get an IAS longer, but you'd have to pay more attention.


overall, the old versions were made for the not so good PvPers and monk (i assume) as a joke.

Rit, Ranger, Ele, and Mesmer builds all seems good, even for now. (That is, overall, not each individual skill).

But they could use some new builds (perhaps let us make our own, but with a limited set of skills, it'll bring more challenge because you cannot predict what exactly the other team has with their professions). Or, make the male/female builds different... idk, just some thoughts. (would like to see Talon instead of Lukas and Pyre instead of Aiden as well, new costumes plz!)

I don't follow!

It was a bug, the Costume Brawl specific skills were showing up in the Priest of Balthazar because some intern forgot to tag them to not show up there, so it was a bug, and they did fix it (for the Costume Brawl skills to not show up at the PoB, just like Ursan skills, Wurm skills, Roller Beetle skills, etc, do not.)..

There's no right back at square one, the Costume Brawl skills were never removed (still in the .dat), they were just tagged to not show up in the PoB. (although it was fun having 2 of the same skill on your bar legitly as a warr.)

The rebalances in the last year should make less of a difference than you might think.

The Monk bar is better than you think it is, given good play.

The Ranger bar was strong then. The Pin Down buff is somewhat threatening. The Antidote Signet change isn't a huge deal.

The Chilling Victory nerf is a problem.

The Sin bar was bad then. Too many Eles with Steam, and Sig Malice is only good if you have another character applying conditions handy.

The classes were imba then; a large enough pack of Eles will still just own all. Except maybe a pack of Dervs or a shutdown pack. (You run from a single Derv until form drops, and you hammer a single Ranger or Mesmer into the ground.)

Balancing Costume Brawl would imply making melee playable. This seems unlikely. Until that happens, expect to see more of last year's environment: tons of E's and R's, with the odd Mo, Me and D. The W and the A are just bad because conditions > them. The P is pretty blah, the Rt is solid on defense but bad at capping new shrines, and the N is playable but dominated by the Me's flexibility.

Sin bar was good. The ONLY thing that could beat it was the eles, or a warrior who is able to stack condtions on you faster then you could remove them with sig of malice.

Actually, there was a LOT of rock-paper-scissors game play that made it fun. That, and all the noobs playing good (for the most part) bars taught a lot of people about PvP.

Yes, and a Mending/Healing Breeze W/Mo is good too. Smite priority conditions or hexes off someone with Healing Breeze, Signet of Devotion and Divine Favour bonus. Divine Intervention is almost worse than Healing Breeze.


Oh my god, you are right what was I thinking?! Ofcourse they are, that's why they are called anti-melee skills.

Strip Enchantment is just basic enchantment removal. I won't bother not taking enchantment removal on a Necro anyway. Regeneration isn't going to save you, Reaper's Mark only works on enemy deaths and only does degeneration, which a Ranger does better. Life Siphon I won't even comment on.

That's my point?

Frenzy takes quite a bit of battlefield awareness to opperate properly. I would say there's lack of maintainable IMS too but meh.

I still stand by my point of the Ranger's bar being the top one.

this is a festival game lol you really think theres "balance" needed?


grind, balance, nerf are over used :P

That's just like saying "This Dervish deals 1, 000, 000 damage but this Warrior deals 200 damage on an attack chain. Let's leave it alone!"

Yes I do, because it's a game that a lot of PvErs will play and it's even doubly more frustrating for them when something is overpowered because they might not have the tools or knowledge to beat it, so they get frustrated and quit/inevitably play the imbalanced thing instead of what they want to play (which is annoying). The costume brawl was really successful last year, by the end of it there was PvErs pre-kiting and splitting in my games, and keeping it as balanced as possible is a good thing for both parties. PvErs can have a fun balanced PvP game that might make them more interested in PvP, and PvPers get a break from the horribly imbalanced and at times utterly broken (Spoil Victor on GL ftw!) metagame that plagues the high end of the mode. It's one of the few times where both sides can come together and do something fun, and it needs to be kept that way by being balanced so it doesn't get broken (and ergo less fun to both parties).

Strip enchantment is fine. There is only 6 enchantments in the entire minigame anyways.

Look, you are talking a LOT of theory craft, but it is very obvious that you didn't actually play costume brawl last year (and if you did, not a lot). In action, the team composition is fair, no matter what professions load in (which is kinda the point, they don't want team with monks to win).

Guardian would be RIDICULOUSLY overpowered as it would destroy all the physicals usefulness and recharge faster then the limited enchantment removal in the arena. The monk bar isn't "good." Its not supposed to be "good" but a good monk bar played correctly is overpowered in the sense that it would drag these fights out too much.

I'm just not going to respond to you again if you insist on posting about this areas "balance" since you clearly didn't play it.

Guardian comes once every 4 seconds, and there is something called "target switching" anyway. How do you expect pressure to be defended against if all that can be done is the pressure being Healing Breezed through?

You're not, the point of the Monk bars was to make a Monk & Rit bar that didn't become overpowered when tons of them were stacked, and not strong enough to hold off pressure or spike at all, just minor relief with added pressure damage.

They are crap out of necessity of the format.

All you people who are complaining. I mean, you know, they could have not added Costume Brawls at all. It was perfectly balanced, whether you all choose to believe it or not.

@Demonstar - The problem is that the skills used on the bars last year have been changed in skill updates. This has left last year's bars in bad shape for players' use this year.

We all enjoyed the Costume Brawl and the OP would like to make sure it is available again this year; not canceled due to last minute discovery of skill bar problems.

And unicorns exist, the sun is cold, and the earth is flat. It was close, and it was probably the most balanced thing they've done, but you could hardly call it perfectly balanced, especially with the weird attribute bugs on the default weapons that made no sense.

EDIT:
@Darcy plx read my previous posts, there isn't any problems because they already made seperate Costume Brawl skills.

Another thing they could do would be to give you a 'deck' of 15 skills per profession, and you can base your build around a combination of those. Sort of like what they do with the cards at the conventions.

Costume Brawl isn't meant to be Sealed Deck, it's entirely different!

It's not "sealed deck". It's "closed hand".

Twas just a small suggestion.