Expertise and Soul Reaping in PvP

this is true, but the allure of a shitty team making a splash in an mAT and getting that trim leads them to the gimmicks. the top teams have 8 players that all do their role. the confidence among each other stimulates success. are you saying at team of 7 very good players shouldnt be able to compete with them because of 1 players short comings? maybe they cant get that 8th player cuz they dont have the recognition or ladder rank. in a gimmick those 7 can make up for that 8th player by targeting a weakness or flaw in another teams tactics/skills. maybe then after this gimmick they will get that trim/that rank/that win in an mAT/that rating so they can pull that 8th player, the final piece away from another team.

QFT.

Exactly, if people wanted to play the current PvE, they would. As it happens, PvE isn't exactly flourishing anymore.


Ever play any of the virtua fighter games? Sarah is an easy to use character and good for beginners because you need to master the basics to win with her. However you don't see her at the upper levels as much. She is easy to use, but a harder to learn character like Akira can do so much more damage in the hands of someone who really knows how to use him. Most people start with the easier characters and once they start to level off, move on to a character that is harder to use, but they can get more out of.

As I see it, skill and ability balance in GW should sort of be like that. It's fine if there are skills or lines that ease the newer player into the game, but they can't be so powerful that they ruin the game.

Imagine if power spike or power drain were 1e, 1/8cast, 0recharge. That'd completely ruin the game. Right now, they are useful but you have to be good enough to pick your use of them to get the most out of those skills.

back to talking about soul reaping and expertise...
as for expertise, look at sins and dervs, they get 4 pips of regen while the ranger gets 3. expertise balances this. if you really think soul reaping and expertise are that big of a problem see atrophy (http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Atrophy) buff this skill so the duration is longer and then your problem is solved. easy fix

Soul Reaping is only good for Foul Feast in PvP. Expertise doesn't "balance" that, and it gives you the ability to roll your face across the keyboard because the energy management is so good, without even paying attention to your energy bar.

after reading the majority of Raul's and Upier's posts, i must say i agree more with Upier...even though he didnt reference a few of the really glaringly wrong points Raul made.

well is this thread going to become a war between the right and wrong, or actual suggestions. from here it could go either way.

@Jaximus' last post:
1 pip of regen is 1 energy every 3 seconds. expertise is obviously a lot better than that. to match that: it could be one 5e skill every 6(9) seconds, one 10e skill every 12(15) seconds.

a good comparison would be an ele. when do they ever leave home without an attunement? expertise is literally a passive attunement (but better when more than 9 points).

the comparison to elementalists' attunements is a good idea. although the nature of rangers and eles are entirely different. elementalists are used more in a pre-calculated role and long recharges on many skills dampen this, also glyths and attunes exist. rangers are responsive. many ranger skills have rather short recharges. rangers play a support/shutdown role. rangers need skills now, you cant tell the opposition to wait so you can be ready to interrupt them. expertise is fine.

And I was merely extending your example. Notice I agreed that RaO was broken… it needs to be made a stance or given a shorter duration or something.

But let me put it this way: we can agree that the skill Frenzy is balanced (merely an example again), correct? It provides a great boost to IAS potential, but it also comes with the cost of leaving the user very susceptible to being spiked. Because of this tradeoff it requires tactical sense as to when it can be activated safely as well as knowing when it needs to be canceled. All in all it’s a balanced concept.

Now look at gimmicky spike builds. Damage heavy ones supplement their damage output heavily (analogous to the IAS), but in doing so sacrifice some of their defensive potential (analogous to the double damage penalty). Again, there is a tradeoff, and adding 1 (or two or three) offensive skill in lieu of 1 (or two or three) defensive skill keeps this tradeoff relatively proportional. Furthermore, these builds are only successful in certain situations, which essentially means you have to deploy them tactically (much like choosing when to activate frenzy) in order to be successful. Running SF/SH Way against a ranger-heavy team is not going to turn out well 99% of the time. All in all there’s still the same tradeoffs that exist in a balanced state… it’s just a different means to the accomplish the same end goal.

Most of these ‘easy-to-run builds’ would not be nearly as strong if people were simply willing to adjust rather than hide behind the excuse that a straight balanced team is the single greatest invention of all time and cannot possibly be improved upon. There’s guides all over the place on how to beat the many incarnations of IWAY/Zergway/Smiteball/Heroway/Sway/Ritspike/Bloodspike and so on; all of them had or have key weaknesses that can be countered rather easily. The problem is not that these ‘degenerate’ builds are exceptionally good, it’s that people would just rather not have to change what they’ve been doing since they started.

Furthermore, there’s a difference between ‘easy-to-run’ and ‘easy to run effectively.’ Sure, any idiot can run sway or rpsike because it’s easy to count to 3 and push a button. Any idiot can run an ‘easy’ build and lose, but it takes an idiot with slightly more intelligence to actually win with it.


Yeah, sure, and let’s remove the aftercast delay, drop the energy requirement to 0, make it activate instantly like a stance and make the arrow fly 5x faster and provide an unblockable armor-ignoring damage boost like the original Sloth Hunter’s Shot had. Because clearly that’s what I’m calling for here.

There’s a difference between breaking a skill to make it overpowered (RaO) and breaking a skill to make it entirely useless (Smiter’s Boon). Nowhere have I encouraged more overpowering of skills, but rather I have argued that we should not break skills or attributes into uselessness (like, say Communing).

And

At 13 expertise you save 52% of the energy cost of a non-spell skill. At 13 Divine Favor you get an instant and free healing bonus of 42, which is 66% of what you would get if you used a 5 energy spell like Orison of Healing at 13 healing (compare it to the base heal on Dwayna’s Kiss and this percentage goes higher). Since most ranger skills are 10 energy or less (save Apply Poison, Concussion Shot, and RaO) it saves the ranger at most 5.2 energy per skill… divine favor saves the monk 3.3 energy per monk skill. Not really much of a difference given that monks have that extra pip of regen and a naturally larger energy pool; Divine Favor is essentially a passive attunement. The original attributes for the core professions were and still are balanced by themselves.

As an Ele you have an entire attribute line devoted solely to managing your already massive energy pool. Every other spellcasting class has access to energy management (even monks) skills and traits, too, even if they have to utilize their secondary. Warriors even get in on the action by having adrenaline to supplement their energy problems. Taking away the expertise from Rangers leaves them with prepared shot as the only viable energy management for PvP (Blowing your elite and prep on Scavenger's Focus and Marksman's Wager? Hell no given that rangers nowadays are primarily condition spreaders if they're not rangerspike). Plus, they're limited in terms of how they can use their secondaries for e-management, as mending tough is about the only spell a ranger ever takes; things like channeling and GoLE only apply to skills and are thus useless to a ranger.

Yes, but if

The ceiling is set so that nobody can ever progress. Good and bad are relative terms, so even when you’re pitting ‘shit’ teams against ‘bad’ teams, one is still ‘good’ when compared to the other. It becomes a paradox.

And when you mold the game to suit the elitists who already have their position solidified you still condemn the masses to mediocrity. The elite have a vested interest in remaining at the top, do they not? Catering to them is just a different means to the same end, really. Nobody other than the elite PvPers will like the state of PvP if they can't find success. Like it or not, the masses are what fuel the business side of things... bigger audience = bigger profits.

I see no need for a split either, but I also see no need for these core professions to be changed. In no way am I intending to argue that either should be buffed, just that they shouldn’t be nerfed. The attributes of the core professions (why I didn’t mention Paras, Dervs, Sins or Rits previously) are still fine from what I can tell; the interactions with the subsequent additions are the problem; they are the ones that need to be fixed. Soul Reaping wasn’t changed until N/Rt healers abused the hell out of it… prior to Rits there was no problem with it (in PvP at least, where full MM’s are not common and spirit spammers did not yet exist in the modern sense, and I don’t recall anyone in PvE complaining). Expertise was not a problem until people starting using scythes with it. Someone puts together the original Sway team and suddenly the entire attribute needs to be reworked? I disagree. The attribute isn’t allowing the attack skills to be abused in a way different from an other 5 energy skill rangers use; the problem is simply that people don’t want to adapt.

Oh, and I haven’t said it until now, but maybe it will help clarify (especially for the tl;dr crowd out there:
/notsigned for a PvE-PvP split for Expertise and/or Soul Reaping
/notsigned for a buff to either
/notsigned for a nerf to either

DF is not a good comparison. since in my examples with expertise im using 9, i will use the same for DF. with WoH (+180), DF(+30) adds 16% healing. i can throw percentages for heals around too, it doesnt mean much. its really not that great of an attribute, and using healing prayers (especially orison) as an example just shows ignorance to proper monk play.

wait, what? which one, im confused, eles dont have inspiration? unless you mean the horrible options in estorage, im lost. except for GoLE.


theres a huge difference between using a skill slot to have a measly GoLE (1.5 pips) than compared to a *passive* attunement which should give a lot more than 1.5pips. GoLE also takes your secondary, like many emanagement options. rangers dont NEED a 2ndary for energy when they have expertise, unless youre doing something VERY wrong. also i never suggested taking away expertise, dont make baseless accusations.

DF is not a good comparison. since in my examples with expertise im using 9, i will use the same for DF. with WoH (+180), DF(+30) adds 16% healing. i can throw percentages for heals around too, it doesnt mean much. its really not that great of an attribute, and using healing prayers (especially orison) as an example just shows ignorance to proper monk play.

wait, what? which one, im confused, eles dont have inspiration? unless you mean the horrible options in estorage, im lost. except for GoLE.


theres a huge difference between using a skill slot to have a measly GoLE (1.5 pips) than compared to a *passive* attunement which should give a lot more than 1.5pips. GoLE also takes your secondary, like many emanagement options. rangers dont NEED a 2ndary for energy when they have expertise, unless youre doing something VERY wrong. also i never suggested taking away expertise, dont make baseless accusations.

There's a reason WoH is elite: it's better than the comparable non-elites. Also, the base heal on WoH is not 180... that's counting the bonus conditional heal. There are no bonuses to Expertise or Divine Favor that reflect health levels or any other condition other than the number of attribute points invested in them, so including bonuses that have no analogous function to the other is completely useless. The base is 105 at 12 healing, which still equates a 27.6% bonus (29/105), or a savings of 1.4 energy per cast. That's 1.4 energy per second if you cast nonstop (again, theoretically... not that you would) which is greater than the 1.5 pips of regen you hold so dear.

Also there's no difference between the divine favor bonus for healing and the divine favor bonus for protting, so saying using healing as the example makes it irrelevant is itself irrelevant. If you're protting you're simply saving the healer this energy, so the aggregate effect is exactly the same. As for using Orison as the example (also mentioned D-kiss, btw), I chose that because it was an instant 5 energy cast spell that does not require any further stipulation (like a half cast range) and it leaves out all other conditional bonuses. It's simply the purest (from an example standpoint) 5 energy heal out there... as we're dealing with Rangers abusing attack skills (or toucher ones) from other classes that more often than not cost 5 base energy to activate puts it on an even level.

You get a specific attunement skill for each element that returns more energy with even 0 points invested in that line (not that you ever would), which outclasses expertise until r8. Then, the attribute itself provides you a massive pool of energy. GoLE is a great non-elite skill from that line, and prior to the fast-casting Icy Shackles, Elemental Attunement, Ether Renewal, and Ether Prodigy all saw play in non-water spikes or utility healing roles. And yes, there is always the option to use secondary classes to manage energy, but as I pointed out this is not the case for rangers. Which leads to this:

Uhh.... duh? I'm saying that rangers would require secondary profession energy management if expertise is taken away, not that they need it now... that is the upside to choosing a ranger primary. I have no idea where you got that that I meant anything to the contrary. Also at no point did I say "Trylo, you specifically called for the complete (or even partial) removal of expertise." At no point did I even imply that you specifically said anything along those lines, nor even comment indirectly on whether or not you were in favor of changing anything or not. I'll continue to not make baseless accusations so long as you continue to not take baseless offense to imagined allegations.

Raul, your attempting to compare DF to expertise is a little weak considering DF only works on monk skills and then only on ones that affect allies. DF doesn't work with Rit or Derv heals. Expertise on the other hand works on all attacks as well as touch skills, rituals, and every ranger skill. DF is much more limited in use compared to expertise.

No way. Fast casting and energy storage are very limited past a certain investment. FC has use if a mes uses a secondary caster prof, ES much less. However more energy is not the answer and FC doesn't make spells cheaper to cast or give you back a ton of energy. Strength is kind of bad because it only works with attack skills; the extra damage from attack skills ignore armor anyways so the bonus it provides is more or less useless. When you look at all of them Soul Reaping and Expertise seem like the best in terms of what they give you and the conditions on which you get them.


One glyph that takes forever to recharge and a few elite spells hardly count. I mean rangers aren't forced to use any elite slots on their skill bar in order to reduce their energy use.


A few things.
1. Elemental attument spells are easily stripped and take forever to recharge. Thus you can deal with that pretty easily if you are expecting an el. There are only a few skills that can lower the bonus to expertise.
2. Attuments only work with el spells. Expertise works with a lot of junk.
3. Attunements require a slot on your bar to use, expretise doesn't.
4. That massive pool of energy takes time to recharge and can be e-denied. Also it isn't energy management. Expertise works all the time.




Which should hint to you how powerful expertise is and why it needs to be reworked.

Why wouldn't they be able to progress?
If you have a shitty team going against a godly one - the shitty team loses. Hard and fast.
If on the other hand you have a good team going against a godly team - the good team should still lose.
Just not that hard and not that fast. And that extra time should give them the ability to actually learn something.
And the better one gets - the more time you have to learn.

Yes, the masses should be catered to.
But catering the masses isn't the same thing as handing them everything on a plate.
If we are dealing with a competitive game - then some NEED to be worse then others.


The issue is that you have energy-based classes which pretty much aren't limited by their energy bar or aren't limited to the extent that they should be. While SR pretty much has no downside - rangers with their inability to play spellcasters aren't hurt enough to justify the superb e-management that E offers for skills that it has an effect on.
You know there is an issue when the passive effect of a selected line outshines GOOD elites that have the same purpose.

I agree that Expertise is a problem as it encourages degenerate builds, but i still don't see that Soul Reaping is a problem in PvP.
Things don't die often enough that you get infinite energy in PvP with SR (like Sabway/Discordway do in PvE thanks to minions).

For necros in PvP I'd say it's easier, and more reliable, to gain energy through skills which provide energy when used (like Angorodons Gaze, Foul Feast, or even Mesmer Inspiration skills) than the Soul Reaping energy gain.

Also, necros on BOTH teams gain energy when something dies.

I'm all in favor of doing something about Expertise, although I don't know what one could do without completely breaking it, but I really see no reason to do anything about Soul Reaping.

prove this. and what do you mean by degenerate?
touchers, expert daggers, thumpers, rao with an axe, escape/scythe are you what mean, correct?
touchers-> diversion, degen, snare. theyve been around for so long if you dont know how to beat them, uninstall
expert dags-> hi im crit strikes, i do the exact same thing!
thumpers-> its RaO thats broken, not expertise, also, no defense, please anti melee hex me. also, everyone complains about how dumb pets are in pvp. pets attack through ss/empathy and when they die, adrenaline is gone, and if they spend time rezzing pets, they arent hurting you.(pets get dp you know) you cant activate RaO if youre pet is dead, and with no pet, theres no daze
RaO with an axe-> see thumper
escape/scythe-> uses broken derv skills, also what about sin crit scythe? same energy management, but higher damage
i do not see expertise as a problem, if you want to complain about attack spam then what about experts dexterity/rtw and the power/sunder/penetrating attacks? is that degenerative also? didnt anet just change that skill? i think so...

Basically, yeah.
I do know how to beat them, even though it's not always easy to pull off. That they can be beat doesn't change anything - they're still builds based on exploiting the way expertise works.

Ok, then I’ll compare it to the other primary attributes. Fast Casting works on every spell and signet that belongs to any class. Strength applies to attack skills with any martial weapon regardless it’s native class. The larger energy pool you get from Energy Storage can be used for any skill regardless of class. Soul Reaping triggers when anything dies, not just something Necro based. Spawning power applies to any summoned creature, regardless of whether it is Rit, Ranger or Necro based. Critical Strikes (just like strength) applies to any martial weapon. Mysticism triggers on any enchantment regardless of the class line that it comes from. Even leadership triggers on shouts that don’t originate in the Paragon line. The fact that expertise applies to non-Ranger skills puts it at the same level as everything else in that regard. Based on this the argument should be to buff Divine Favor rather than to nerf Expertise.

So does everything else. They’re called break points.

Put it on a weapon with a ridiculous critical range like a scythe and then what? Not to mention that it cancels out most or all of a shield set on casters on those all important 1-2-3 spike of Evis-executioner-disrupting chop.

The long recharges on the expensive spells (the ones you actually use the glyph for as an ele) are longer than the recharge on the glyph making that not matter.

Name one class that deals physical damage that does have to use energy management skills, elite or not. Warriors have adrenaline so they don’t have to worry about their energy management. Assassins have critical strikes (not to mention using a zealous set on one with an IAS for even a few seconds fills the bar up) so they don’t have to worry about taking along a secondary energy management; even Deadly Arts ones have plenty of sigs to play with so energy isn’t an issue. Dervishes don’t need secondary energy management because mysticism kicks back plenty and their attack skills are so strong they don’t need sustained energy control anyway. Paragons get to use adrenaline, too, but then get the overpowered benefit of being able to convert that directly to huge amounts of energy. All of the other non-caster professions don’t have to actively worry about their energy management, so why should rangers?

1. Oh, so you actually have to pay attention to what’s going on around you to know if you’re in danger of having it stripped? And tactically employ a cheap cover enchant?

2. Expertise only works with non-spells. There’s a limited number of those, too. Only a few skills can lower the benefits of an attunement that's active, too.

3. The ability to use adrenaline or have a base armor penetration rating does not require a skill slot. That much larger energy pool does not require a skill slot. The ability to use fast casting does not require a skill slot. The divine favor bonus does not require a skill slot. In fact none of the primary attributes (or even basic attributes) require skill slots. Thus the reason they’re attributes.

4. If you keep a ranger’s energy at 0 Expertise won’t do anything for the ranger either; it doesn't make them free, just cheaper. Also, it's much easier to drain an energy pool of 25 with no e-management skills than it is to drain a pools of 90+ with e-management skills and a wide array of energy manipulating wands/offhands/staves. Long spell recharges mean you don’t need a full pool all the time as an ele. And again, that’s where battlefield awareness and whatnot are important, as you'll know when to hide some energy and swap weapons.

Well then the fact that warriors aren’t spellcasters doesn’t justify the superb energy management that warriors have in adrenaline. A warrior with 0 energy can still use plenty of skills; a ranger with 0 energy cannot. Also, this:

^^ Why Soul Reaping does not require adjustment. It is a two-way street as both teams have an equal opportunity to benefit in any instance of something dying.

Broken skills are what encourage degenerate builds. Expertise did not encourage BB sins, a ridiculous KD time with 0 investment in Hammer Mastery did. Expertise did not encourage those scythe assassins, a broken Way Of The Assassin did. Expertise did not encourage the broken RaO builds, RaO did. Expertise did not encourage touchers, the fact that Vamp Bite and Vamp Touch are skills instead of spells did. The problem is the skills, not the attribute.

This is nothing more than another incarnation for the pro-ursan argument: “I know how to clear the elite areas, but it’s not always easy.” By making it easier for people who don’t want to beat gimmicks you’re dumbing the game down for everyone, even them. The good teams won't get any better, either, if you take these things away and make everything easier for them.

1. Fast casting makes things cast faster, not cheaper or more powerful. Also there are enough mesmer skills which delay cast time if you have an interrupter in the group.
2. Energy storage has its limits or else e/rits would be as common as n/rits. They aren't for a reason.
3. If you read this thread, people have asked for SR to be changed as well.
4. More health for summoned creatures is kind of weak. Giving a minion that is hard to aquire in pvp and quick to die a little more HP is worse than having extra energy. Rit minion bombers don't exist in pvp for a reason and I don't think you can run sabway with two rits replacing two of the necros.
5. CS usually requires at least one skill to buff it to get extra critical hits, the energy gain is random, and there are plenty of skills to keep an assassin from hitting others.
6. Mysticism only triggers on enchanments applied to you, you have to either wait until they end or use a skill to end them, and if you aren't enchanted, it's useless. If you recast something before the enchantment ends, no energy for you.
7. Strength buffs the non bonus damage from an attack skill by a little. If you want to use non-warrior energy skills, you essentially have to give up your one elite slot to do so. Rangers don't have to give up an elite.
8. Paragons are called imbagons for a reason. Some warrior skills were nerfed becaue leadership was either poorly thought out or poorly implemented. Paragons got a fair number of nerfs as well because of it.

Criticals can't be counted on happening and even for non-crits the caster comes out ahead than he would if he didn't have the shield.

That still doesn't account for the fact that the ranger doesn't have to waste a slot like the el does.


Warriors have to use an elite slot if they are going dagger or scythe for warrior's endurance. Assassins at least have to use critical eye for more crits, WotM if they are using something besides daggers. Unless the monk is constantly putting enchantments on a derv, they have to use a slot on their bar for an enchantment and get a portion of it back later. Now I don't think 3e from that one or two enchantments are going to cover for 3 or 4 attack skills. Paragons are problems in their own right.


All of the other caster professions besides necros have to actively manage their energy so why shouldn't necros (and rangers)?

In case you didn't realise, in PvP warriors just had FGJ nerfed on them because of BB sins. Thus it is harder for them to gain ade now. They can use frenzy, but then they have to take a cancel stance along with it. Rangers don't have to take both a stance and a cancel stance to use expertise.


Rangers don't have to waste a slot on their skill bar for "a cheap enchant" in order to keep another one in. As you are suggesting, els should be forced to have 2 spots on their bar wasted. And guess what? There are some skills that can strip more than one enchantment.


Yeah, there's only all of the weapon skills from warriors, dervs, assassins, paragons, and rangers that require energy...


1. Ade takes awhile to build up and is useless except for some warrior and paragon skills. Rangers can use it too if they take the right skill.
2. Managing an el's larger pool generally requires an attuement, GolE, and maybe mind blast. In fact because that pool is so large you need to pay a little more attention to keep it up.
3. Fast casting doesn't allow you to use a lot more spells than you would otherwise.
4. DF only gives a minor heal and it only works with some monk skills. It doesn't allow you to use WoH more often without using up your energy. It doesn't reduce the e-cost of heal party or aegis. If you have around 600 health like most people say you should, that 32 hp heal is about 5% of your total, compared to saving 60% of the energy cost of some attack.

To quote myself:
Is warrior a full-on energy class?
(But I guess your quote already answered that - so I don't see why you even brought it up.)

1. I thought mesmers had this amazing inspiration line with which to manage their energy, too? And reducing a 1 second cast spell into a half second cast doesn’t make those skills more powerful and harder to interrupt? Or even a longer spell like diversion or backfire… making those cast in half the time doesn’t make them much easier to deploy and more dangerous (read: powerful) against a caster?

2. E/Mo’s used to be pretty common (with copies of aegis most of the time). N/Rt’s replaced them because A) rit healing spells heal for more to compensate for the lack of any Divine Favor-esque bonus, B) things like Spirit Light and some of the ashes that require the occasional health sacking naturally lend themselves to Necros, and C) the presence of spirits benefits them. Steps were already taken to mitigate this, though, and since only rit skills are abused in this way the problem is in that line rather the in Soul Reaping.

3. And reading my posts shows that I’ve included my thoughts on that, too. I’ve focused on Expertise more, but Soul Reaping has come up.

4. The point of the argument was that Spawning Power has several applications outside of the Ritualist line, just as any primary attribute not named Divine Favor… whether or not it is actually a decent attribute line is a different matter. If someone has an issue with how Spawning Power is set up I suggest they go to one of the numerous threads on that and talk about it there. As was just said above, this is about changing Expertise and Soul Reaping. I’ve not seriously advocated changing the other ones here, simply mentioned them as an example.

5. Alright, if the essentially 1 in 3 chance of criticalling one has with 12 CS and 12 weapon mastery isn’t enough (which is far better than any other class has, especially considering the chances of double-striking on non-attack skills) take one of those other skills that buff this chance further and consider the assassin version of an attunement skill. Plus, those skills that keep assassins from hitting people are the exact same ones that can be used to prevent a warrior or ranger or paragon or dervish or any other melee/ranged attack from hitting.

6. Yes, the enchants do have to end… wow, could it be that that’s why so many of the dervish attack skills cause the person to lose an enchantment? Or the self heal skills? Or the IAS or speed of movement buffs? Then if there's a monk there's Patient Spirit and/or Reversal of Fortune floating around constantly… too bad those last forever... Also it’s not like Expertise applies to all skills used by any members of your party, only skills that that person uses his/herself, so arguing that mysticism is weaker because only enchants on the dervish count is frivolous.

7. Alright, if someone insists on running a caster build with that tiny energy pool and two pips of regen then they deserve to sacrifice their elite… and I’d say the exact same thing for a Ranger. Plus I don’t see how they could possibly make room on a skill bar for a 10 energy skill when they have to spend so much of your energy fueling that Eviscerate -> Executioner’s Chop -> Disrupting Chop spike that’s so prevalent… oh wait, it requires 5 energy by itself and 5 more if frenzy is used to load it up (costs only 5 if they choose flail).

8. Again, if my posts are actually read I came out and said Leadership is overpowered, but (yet again) this thread is about changing Expertise and Soul Reaping so elaborating on the problems with Leadership is an issue for another time and place. Even so, despite the nerfs they’re clearly still intended (just like any other class that uses martial weapons) to not require energy management from the casting professions. Making rangers the sole exception to this simply because people don’t like Sway or RaO is even poorer implementation than caused Leadership to turn out as it did.

Two separate thoughts there, but I’ll go with it. Who needs a critical every time when they’re pumping out a base damage (pre-attack skill bonus) 60+ on a not crit with a customized scythe? Still hurts plenty without a crit every time. Sure the caster comes out better than he would if he didn’t have the shield, but the warrior also comes out ahead compared to where he’d be if he didn’t have the extra penetration.

Nor does it account for the fact that no other martial weapon wielding class does.

Again, RoF and Patient Spirit are pretty common these days. If a derv is actually fighting something he or she is going to take some damage that the monks are going to have to mitigate. Also, since the dervish enchantments all have bonuses when they’re casted and when they expire (and many for their duration as well) going into a fight as a dervish without one of you damage buffers (whether it makes you deal different damage, attack/move faster, apply extra conditions, protect you from conditions/foes with conditions, etc.) is pretty non-sensical.

And yet the 3 energy a ranger saves on one or two skills (with 13 Expertise) is going to cover 3 or 4 attack skills? And dervishes even get an extra pip of regen to help compensate.

As it was already pointed out something has to die in order for Soul Reaping to kick in. Prolonged periods of time where nothing dies require Necros to manage their energy like everyone else. Also, I fail to see how Rangers qualify as a caster profession.

Oh noes, I have to adapt! Plenty of warrior skills out there provide adrenaline bonuses upon strike, as do furious weapons. Any good warrior on a serious team takes frenzy and a cancel stance anyway, this is not at all a new development. Rangers don’t require taking multiple stances for adrenaline management, but they also don’t naturally have a use for adrenaline. Also, since most rangers take a stance or two anyway (natural stride or something similar for blocking and typically an IAS… like any other martial weapon wielding class) and don’t have the option of paying for them with adrenaline unless they’re a warrior secondary I fail to see how that’s relevant.

By that logic hex builds are at a disadvantage because they have to bring cheap covers in order to make their’s stick, since there are skills that can remove more than one of those, too. Plus, with something as simple as Blinding Flash you force rangers to ‘waste’ a slot on a condition removal if they want any split capability. Put something like Blurred Vision on them and see how far they get in a split without ‘wasting’ a slot on some hex removal. Ele’s aren’t the only class that have to adjust what they do because of something the other team might do.

Yeah, and those poor Mesmers only get to access all of those spells from the monk/ele/necro/rit/assassin (spells)/dervish (spells) line, plus the signets from the monk/necro/rit/assassin/warrior/paragon/dervish/ranger lines for use with FC.

1. Expertise only comes in handy when Rangers are actually using skills. Adrenaline can be built up simply by pressing C + Spacebar. Sure, rangers can use adrenaline if they take a warrior secondary, but so can any other class.

2. Any caster class has the same issue in that they have to actually manage their pools of energy… it’s part of the tactical aspects. Yes you have to pay attention, but you also get to manipulate your pool size plenty during battle. You can swap out a 15% -5e weapon and a shield to hide 5 energy, then switch to a +15e –1 regen wand/offhand set for a sudden swing of 47 energy (assuming you had the -5 out and assuming you req the offhand and get the +12 bonus from that, too). Since rangers are martial weapon based the most they can manipulate their pool is 10 energy (15% -5e to +5e with no modifier). It’s much harder to use e-denial to completely shut down a good caster than it is to completely shut down a ranger (again Expertise makes things cheaper, not free).

3. Expertise doesn’t allow you to take more than 8 skills last I checked. Fast casters do not have to worry about blocking stances or being blinded, rangers using expertise do; rangers can use all the skills they want but if they get blocked or miss nothing comes of it. Mesmers don’t have to worry about their opponent’s armor mitigating their damage (unless it comes from the ele or rit line) and rangers with expertise do. Fast casting also has skills that make signets recharge faster, so in that sense it can allow them to use things more often than other classes; rangers have Serpeants Quickness and spirits, but those don’t req to expertise anyway, and in the case of the spirits have the same effect universally to all classes. In short, mesmer skills are much more likely to get through and have their desired effect (unless a ranger 'wastes' a skill slot to make himself unblockable, in which case see the section about cover enchants again).

4. Based on this argument DF should be buffed somehow to compensate for the fact that it only applies to some monk spells and put it in line with every other primary attribute that do have applications towards secondary professions, but once again, that is a matter for another discussion. Either way, in a sustained battle DF absolutely does allow you to cast targeted spells less often, especially against steady pressure/degen heavy teams; every 4 times you cast who the divine favor bonus adds up to the base cost of casting it a fifth time without you actually having to do so. What intelligent monk casts Heal Party or Aegis without using GoLE first? None, because that’s how caster energy management works; martial weapon classes are different. If Divine Favor lags behind the other primary attributes in it’s usefulness than adjust it to be in line with the rest; martyring another class and making two (or three if Soul Reaping gets euthanized, too) underpowered ones is not the answer.


@upier... I'm not sure where you are going with that. You said that rangers do not have to worry about the limitations that are supposed to be imposed by their energy pool, and I responded by providing an instance in which they are. Full e-denial on a ranger makes it unable to use skill regardless of much expertise he or she has. Then I proceeded to give an example as to how the other martial weapon classes have inherent fallbacks to guard against this. Being completely impotent with 0 energy and having fewer pool manipulation tools than casters seems like quite the limitation to me given that related classes do not face this same restriction; essentially that's hanging a ranger out to dry in a way that no other class is.

So the fact that a ranger with high E will only need to regen about half the cost of the skill before being able to use it isn't a fallback?
If you are to e-deny an assassin they either need to wait 4 secs to regen the energy before using a 5 energy skill or need to get lucky and critical.
If a dervy wants to use a 5 energy skill - they need to again wait and regen or get lucky and have an ench end on them.
If a ranger wants to use a 5 energy skill - they need to wait 2 secs to regen the energy.
On one side you have the option of scoring high with something non-predictable combined with a long wait if you do not get lucky - on the other side you have something predictable but without the possible highs NOR lows.

The big issue here though is - what happens when a class isn't e-denied.
Let's take a ranger being played bad and let's take an assassin being played bad. Are you seriously suggesting that an assassin that doesn't watch his energy will be able to perform on the same level as a ranger that doesn't watch his energy? Or will the ranger have an easier task?
That's the problem of E - it allows bad players that should have failed - to not fail at all or fail considerably later. Just as SR.

The assassins and dervs have extra regen so it's not exactly half the wait for the ranger, but this is more of a detail.

1 in 3 chance of scoring a critical with a 12-12 split... higher with runes. Add in zealous daggers (which every assassin should carry for these exact situations) and there's seriously something wrong if they're waiting 4 seconds.

Alright, unless there's multiple enemies bunched together (like a bodyblocked team or a spirit nest) and that derv has a zealous scythe it'll take him/her a little longer to recoup than the assassin. One swing in that situation and they should be fine, but that's probably too conditional to be taken seriously. Swinging at a single target with a zealous scythe will still make it take less than 4 seconds, though.

Again, the extra pip of regen makes the gap a little less (making it take a little over 2 seconds to recoup), but rangers have zealous weapons, too, so 2 seconds might be about right. Still, the gap between the sin and derv and ranger recoup time should end up being fairly comparable.

With the assassins you can't necessarily say exactly which attack a critical will occur on, but you can safely assume that, say, over the course of 10 seconds you can count on criticalling twice and getting the energy return from that. Seems fairly predictable to me, and like I said above the waits aren't that long (especially compared to the waits ele's and necros and mesmers have on their skills should they be interrupted). Throwing some blocking stances at them may mess this reliability up some, but it would do the same to a dervish or ranger.

A bad assassin? Surely you jest. But alright.

Well even though assassins and rangers are designed with different purposes in mind I would say no, the outcomes should be pretty comparable. Assassins should be a hit-and-run type weapon; go in, go through their attack chain once and then get out. If the assassin cannot design his/her attack chain to fit within their available energy pool, they fail. If they are capable of going through their chain multiple times they may be good at energy management, but they still fail in that they are not meant to overstay their welcome (as all bad assassins do)... with the low AL at close range prolonged combat = death, and they're additionally putting undue stress (assuming they don't overextend, which is a dangerous assumption I guess) on the team's healers/protters. As long as an assassin can get in, complete the chain with the resources they went in with, and escape alive it is successful; if not they die, and dead people don't have to worry about energy.

Rangers are somewhat more durable in prolonged combat (which is their intent if they're wielding a bow) but that won't make them last forever in close quarters (which seems to be where most of these problems stem from... the melee rangers). All the expertise in the world doesn't provide extra health or armor, so (just like an assassin) a crappy melee ranger who (inevitably) overstays his/her welcome and (again, assuming he/she even stays within range) put extra stress on the healers is going to end up dead in a hurry, too, and not have any energy problems at all.

Bad players are going to fail hard and fast regardless of the class they choose. A terrible warrior will probably live the longest (assuming nothing like frenzy is active) since it has the highest AL, and each subsequent class will die progressively faster depending on it's AL. From a defensive standpoint expertise does not make a person more durable, so the energy they save on attack skills won't get them far in that department... they're going to die just as fast regardless of whether Mystic Sweep cost 5 energy or 3. Maybe I'm wrong, but being dead seems like a failure to me.

From an offensive standpoint a ranger with high expertise may be able to pump out some damage for a little longer, but if it's really that much of a nuisance to the opposing team the ranger is going to become a priority target and be taken down just the same. Again, to me, being dead is not what I would consider a success.

Soul Reaping triggers on deaths, which if you take player deaths into consideration this is much much more random than the critical striking chances of an assassin (unless you're suiciding, but that's probably counter-productive in most situations now). This is exactly the type of win-big/lose-hard scenario mentioned above.

And in that sense, I guess necros on bad teams actually do get the most benefit from SR, as those are the situations where deaths are the most common and most predictable. All the energy in the world from dead teammates won't save a necro from an 8-1 beatdown for more than a few seconds, though, and I wouldn't advocate changing it simply for that.

This is the whole point.
And it's the same thing with SR.
The skill of the player does not change - yet the player ends up being more effective.

This is the issue I am arguing and it's because of this that E and SR need to die.


(Slightly off:
If you have a 1 in 3 chance to score a critical hit - that's not predictable. Over an infinite number of times a third out of those hits WILL be criticals - but a single hit still only has a 1/3 chance of being a critical. It still boils down to luck.
EDIT:
I completely forgot about another issue here.
You know why E is also predictable?
Because the ranger needs to be alive and in 2ish secs he'll have enough energy to fire out that 5 energy skill.
And why CS aren't?
Because the assassin not only needs to be alive - he also needs to be able to attack at the time of being completely e-denied. Blind or other attack miss chance modifiers, attack speed reduction, movement speed reduction ... - that everything influences being able to regain energy for a 5 energy attack. IF the guy gets lucky and has the odds in his favor - he'll regain the energy much faster then the ranger. And that's the high I was telling you about. But if the world suddenly turns his back on him - he'll have to wait a bit longer.
And it's the same thing with Mysticism. If you don't have an ench ending at that particular moment when you NEED it to end - you will end up waiting a bit.)

i see what youre getting at here, but as a ranger, these things effect you every bit as much. so you can get your 5e d-shot off while blinded for 2-3 energy. but it misses, not very useful.

lets look at this in terms of VoR. warriors can build adren during with no harm to themselves, sins can crit during, again no harm, dervs can have enchants end during, no issues. expertise only comes into play when activating skills. so rangers have no benefit while hexed. (more later, class time now)

No, no, no.
Don't mistake obtaining the energy for the skill WITH activating the skill.
Everything that I listed there affects the ranger (the same way that it affects all martial weapon classes) when USING the skill.
BUT that doesn't affect that ranger in the slightest when it comes to gaining the energy to use that skill!
As long as the ranger is alive for those 2ish secs - he will gain enough energy to use a 5 energy skill.
An assassin on the other hand needs to attack to be able to gain energy faster then through his normal regen rate! Otherwise he will only have enough energy after 4ish secs!
That's why E is predictable and CS aren't!

im confused about your point here. obtaining the energy for a skill and activation are exactly what expertise is about. until you activate a skill, a ranger would still need 5 energy since expertise is applied during activation. until the ranger uses a skill, they have the equivalent of 0 expertise. yes you can activate a 5e skill for 2-3 but that requires you to use skills. many skills are out there to counter using skills. a sin has crit strikes all the time.

as for the cyclic abuse of attack skills ala escape/scythe, until nf the only energy based short recharge/timered attacks were based in str where a secondary could not abuse them and the limitations of warriors energy limited their use. when the scythe line was introduced with 'melee' attacks scaling on the scythe attribute came along, it allowed for slow attack speed weapons to abuse the timers along with the obvious reason to use with a scythe for the high damage. so because of nf overpowered skills and weapons, one of the core attributes should be changed. no, simply no.

Imagine that both the assassin and the ranger sitting on 0 energy.
Both guys want to use an energy skill.
So the question arises how does one obtain that energy?
The ranger just needs to sit it out. Wait 2ish secs - and the ranger can use a 5 energy skill. It doesn't matter if he is blinded, of slowed down or ... He will still gain enough energy in 2ish secs to fire off that 5 energy skill.
What about the assassin?
If the assassin waits it out - he needs to wait 4ish secs. And here CS come into play. He can obtain that energy faster - but he needs to attack to achieve that. If he is blinded, if he doesn't achieve a critical strike, if he is blocked, if his attack speed is slowed-down, if he needs to reach the target, ... - his CS primary isn't doing him any favors. Now - he might get lucky and actually score a double strike and a critical hit - all in his first attack, he might even be under an IAS - and that will speed up his e-gain.
But that's too many "IF"s to speak of anything else other then luck here. You simply can't say that when you'll be in a match and sitting on 0 energy that you will have a target that you will be able to attack, that you won't be blinded or slowed-down, ...
That's why CS aren't predictable and E is.

What happens after they gain enough energy to activate a skill though, has nothing to do with e-gain any longer.

the scenario where they both have 0 energy=

1. ranger spamming interrupts on recharge/attack skills with broken timers
2. sin activating and failing on an entire chain
3. e-denial skills used against them??
(please help with further scenarios where this occurs)

for option 1, you either arent hitting key skills as you should be or you are abusing the problem with the game that isnt due to expertise.

for option 2, you should know the skills you have, the order they should be activated in, and if they block one, you should cancel. no sin should wind up at zero energy after a successful attack chain.

for option 3, if the opposing team is using e denial against a ranger/sin and is also blinding/anti-whatever hexing them, lol?

as for CS being unpredictable and E being predictable, thats due to the nature of the beast. it goes back to roles of classes. rangers need to be responsive to adapt to the opposition. therefore they need to know that over time they will be able to continue this with predictable E. CS is unpredictable because an assassin should (a good one anyway) picks a time to attack when they are ready and opportunity presents itself (internally predictable). they make sure they are able to pull off the required damage and then once that requirement is met, they pounce. then they wait for another opportunity when they meet their own needs. proper execution of an attack chain should replenish some of this spent energy so the wait time is reduced.

I’d respond, but…

…the win in jaximus’ statement renders anything I can add unnecessary (note: I added the part in parenthesis for clarification).

Then any signet in existence is incredibly OP since any character can activate them without ever having to recoup the energy needed to use a 5 energy skill. Since when does merely activating a skill amount to anything if it does not produce any result?

And how does a ranger being able to activate a skill that gets blocked or misses because he is blinded come out ahead because of his primary? The only difference between an assassin with 3 energy that can’t use a skill and a ranger with 3 energy who uses a skill and has it miss or be blocked is that the ranger gets an animation… and the other team gets to watch him activate a skill that does nothing and laugh. If that’s what is considered overpowered why don’t hammer warriors equip sword skills without taking a sword along? As merely activating them is enough to be worthwhile there is no need to ever bother putting points into something or put any thought whatsoever into a build.

If you cannot simply say that an assassin will have a target to attack then how is it possible to justify saying that the ranger will have a target to attack and ‘abuse’ expertise? Did I miss an update that changed things so that assassins can only target specific classes? If there is a target for one then there has to be a target for the other, and if there are no targets for one there can’t be for the other, either; there is no gray area.

Then why is it not overpowered that caster classes get 4 pips of regen when warriors and paragons do not? Casters can recoup energy much faster than a warrior or paragon, and since what is done with that energy has no bearing whatsoever because the only thing that matters is how fast they get it back. Adrenaline cannot matter either, then, as the one and only issue is apparently how long it takes for each class to collect enough energy to activate a 5 energy skill. If rangers are overpowered because they get it back faster than an assassin (which they don’t necessarily), then assassins, dervishes, monks, elementalists, mesmers, necromancers, and ritualists are all overpowered because they get it back faster than a warrior.

If this is the case then monks shouldn’t be allowed activate skills that heal themselves, as simply using this allows them to live longer (without being more skilled) than they would otherwise (meaning they fail later than they would have if they didn’t). Block stances should be removed because they do the same, as do spells and skills that buff armor and health. Even speed boosts allow players to run from situations where they would otherwise fail sooner. And who cares that all of these are skill based rather than attribute based? Clearly activating the skill is the important part, not the effects of it.

Thumpers will have crushing blow and often dstrike, and making them pay the full energy cost for those skills will slow them down to a less lame level. Axe rangers would only get affected if they bring dstrike, so obviously if it's still a problem something else has to be done. Most pack hunters run maiming spear and/or disrupting throw, and that's going to be a lot more energy if they're using it on recharge.

I obviously wasn't clear enough.
Like I said - there are 2 processes here.
Process 1: gaining enough energy to activate a skill.
Process 2: activating a skill.
Now let's consider that both the assassin and ranger are blinded.
And let's for a moment leave the process of gaining enough energy aside. Let's say that both the ranger and the assassin have enough energy to activate the skill.
What happens next?
Blind enters into the equation. The same random event.
Both are having the exactly same issue.
And that is why I am NOT discussing this.
This isn't an issue connected with E - it's an issue connected with the effectiveness of blind!
Blind affects both guys in the same way when when activating a skill so there is absolutely NO reason to discuss this process.

Now let's return to process 1.
Gaining energy to activate the skill.
Scenario 1:
1. Both the ranger and the assassin are in top form.
Nothing is holding them back. No hexes, no blind, ..
The ranger will obtain enough energy to activate a skill in 2ish secs.
The assassin needs a a target to attack. And since he does (they are in top form!) he might lucky with a double strike, critical strike or he'll just have to wait it out until he regens enough energy.
Scenario 2:
2. Both the ranger and the assassin are NOT in top form.
Blind, hexes, ...
The ranger will obtain enough energy to activate a skill in 2ish secs.
The assassin needs to have a target to attack. He might not have it.
He needs to hit a target. He might not be able to.
He wants a critical hit. He might not get it.
He wants a double strike. He might not get it.
He can regen the energy.

Do you see what the only predictable thing when it comes to CS is?
Waiting to regen the energy.
Everything else is a gamble.

Am I clear now?


And the ONLY reason why this is even being discussed is because you stated that:
Expertise provides a fallback and CS aren't predictable.
That's the whole point of this post up to this point.
So if you chose to quote it - please disagree with the statement:
"Expertise provides a fallback and CS aren't predictable."
Otherwise we are done with this part of the discussion.


And let's focus on the REAL issue:
To quote you again:
What we have here is a player that has a skill level of X.
Yet, when that players plays a ranger his output is bigger then that of level X. He himself can only produce the output of X.
So there must be an outside influence that raises his output for level X.
And that's what E and SR do. If E was balanced - the player player wouldn't be able "to pump out some damage for a little longer". He'd pump out as much damage as his skill level (X) allows.
They allow a player to perform better then they should.
That's why they are bad.

i said this before

as for CS being unpredictable and E being predictable, thats due to the nature of the beast. it goes back to roles of classes. rangers need to be responsive to adapt to the opposition. therefore they need to know that over time they will be able to continue this with predictable E. CS is unpredictable because an assassin should (a good one anyway) picks a time to attack when they are ready and opportunity presents itself (internally predictable). they make sure they are able to pull off the required damage and then once that requirement is met, they pounce. then they wait for another opportunity when they meet their own needs. proper execution of an attack chain should replenish some of this spent energy so the wait time is reduced.

and

the only situation where i see the need to activate a 5e skill when i have no energy would be for a self heal? so the sin would wait 2(?) more seconds to activate the skill but it takes 1s for shadow refuge, 1/4 sec for feigned neutrality. so the ranger would use troll i would assume 2(?) seconds before the sin could, but with the activation time, they are equal no?

but

because troll is a skill that says PLEASE INTERRUPT ME, you need to cover with natty stride/blocking stance. so then youd need more energy correct?

also as either a sin or ranger, you are wielding a 2 handed weapon. if you are in a situation of blind/hex/low energy, a good player would manipulate the situation likely with a shield/wep combo for +60hp and if you encounter 0 energy often times, a +5e martial wep. although we are not discussing good players here, so this is merely an example.

as for interruption/removal the the healing possibilities, we are looking at activation because this is where expertise comes into play. there are fewer skills where you can interrupt a skill vs. a spell, but thats why the activation time is so much greater for troll over a spell based skill.

Then why bring it up? I’m pretty sure this:

is what started it. Bringing blind into the argument worked well until it backfired.

Scenario 1: Both of them are in top form. The assassin goes through his chain and the ranger does his thing. Now let’s say they’ve both managed to exhaust their energy pools entirely. Yes, the ranger has to wait less time than the assassin to activate a single 5 energy skill. But now let’s look at how each class is designed. As jaximus has said so many times already, rangers need to be able to react at a moment’s notice; assassins do not. What, pray tell, is this assassin going to do with merely a single 5 energy skill? Death’s charge into the enemy formation and then twiddle his thumbs while he gets enough energy to go through a chain?… oh, right, we’re talking about bad ones, so scratch that. The point is that assassins go through lots of energy fast and then need to recoup… this is why they have such amazing spike ability. If they never had to wait for energy nobody would ever play any other class. Rangers, on the other hand, are designed for pressure, meaning they need the ability to use skills throughout, just as a warrior does. In this scenario, who does more damage in the short term? The assassin, as his chain allows him to (all other things being equal) spike a single target to death (or very near it) in 3-4 seconds; the ranger, on the other hand, will come nowhere near the damage output of that assassin during the same time period.

Scenario 2: The ranger will be able to loft arrows from his attack skills or swing his melee attacks into nothingness until his/her arms fall off (and flaunting his skill activation animation while they’re at it), and will have accomplished the exact same damage output of the assassin regardless of whether the assassin attempts to attack or not. In fact, if the ranger continues to attack through anti-melee hexes he’s going to die in a hurry, regardless of whether his attacks hit or not… the fact that he can activate skills sooner only accelerates his death! How’s THAT for overpowered? That same assassin with 0 energy and the same hexes is much better off by not attacking than the ranger who is. And once again, if the assassin does not have a target to attack then the ranger cannot either. As for the predictability is concerned, being blinded (again if it’s not relevant why keep bringing it back up?) ensures essentially a 100% chance of not criticalling, but a probability of 100% is no less predictable than a probability of 33% (more on this below). How this is unclear I is beyond my comprehension.

If the ability to use a skill for defensive purposes is desired (which is really all a blinded and hexed and e-denied melee/ranged attack character should be doing), then this:

…this. Using 2 skills as a ranger to accomplish the same thing an assassin can with 1 is a form of balance. Also, he neglected to mention that all the blocking stances in the world aren’t going to stop a mesmer with PD or Leech Signet or the like from interrupting Troll Unguent (or Mending Touch); nor will it stop a KD from something like Shock or Gale (read: spell-based KD) or one of the numerous warrior skills touch skills or attack ones that cause one if blocked. Interrupting the 1 second assassin self heals it a heck of a lot harder than hitting a 3 second activation time on a skill.

And I’m just going to go out on a limb here and assume another rebuttal will be forthcoming… so in light of that I’m going to assume you’re going to feel that you were still not clear enough.

So – if you choose to quote my statements – please read what is being said. I already did disagree with it, and even in the section of mine which you quoted yourself:

Being able to predict a percentage of the success rate (even over a given period of time) is, by definition, predictable; statistics and probability have been showing this for centuries. Naturally the rate changes depending on how many points the player puts into the attribute and what measures the opponent takes, but this is in no way different than how expertise works and is in no way less predictable. Perhaps then you are arguing that we should nerf (or make a PvE/PvP split) the definition of predictable?

Perhaps I should revisit my original statement:

See what I did there? I bolded something important. Assuming that A) the ranger is not blinded, B) the target has no blocking capabilities, C) the ranger is not hexed with something like Reckless Haste, D) the ranger has not been hurting himself by attacking through Empathy/Spiteful Spirit/Price of Failure/Visions of Regret/Spoil Victor/etc., E) the ranger has been receiving healing in the case of condition D being true, and F) the other team is not attempting to kill him or cause conditions A-D to be met, then yes, he will be able to do more damage than he would with 0 expertise. If any of the conditions are met, though, the ranger will die and have not done any more damage than he would have had he had maxed expertise (which, for some reason, is proving to be entirely impossible to comprehend). And again, especially for condition D expertise only accelerates his downfall. Poor players will rely on expertise to continue attacking in situations where it would be much wiser to retreat and regroup, too; is that to be considered a crutch as well?

As for the scenario involving player X that we keep returning to, I see no need to do anything other than point to the first section of text you quoted of mine in that section. It simply extends the player X scenario to the other classes. I do however fail to see how an inherent benefit to a ranger (expertise) can be classified as an ‘outside influence.’ Also, I fail to see how a ranger being able to activate a 5 energy skill for 3 energy causes soul reaping to be overpowered, regardless of how many times that argument is presented. Just sayin’.

another problem i now have with pet abusers is the skill scavenger's strike. this would take care of a lot of energy management issues even if expertise is scaled back. obviously this could be changed quite easily, but knowing izzy... it wouldnt get changed or something would be buffed to some obscene level. also minor tweaks to the builds could heighten the energy usage (switch disrupting anything for bestial pounce, etc.)

in short im afraid were already too deep into the game to change this aspect.



@Raul:
edit: im bored so im going to argue it anyways.

why do i need to have something comparable to a sub par heal skill? the only thing i understood you were comparing was the fact they both cost 5 energy. on my bar, my only heal might be WoH. so im going to use it. why would i use a worse heal, and why would i use it on someone over 50% health unnecessarily? i obviously didnt make my point clear.

say i use shield of absorption. it blocks 500+ damage since i placed it right as a target started to get trained. what happens to the measly DF bonus now? it didnt help me reduce any energy spent, good playing helped me stay energy efficient. expertise allows players to recklessly use energy, and still stay efficient while still doing something useful.

youre comparing apples to some inorganic, unspherical, inedible, thing. in what manner do heals and attacks have anything to do with each other? youre trying to compare a really energy inefficient heal+DF to expertise. just because a spell and an attack both cost 5 energy does not make them even on any level. i can stop hundreds of damage from a 5 energy guardian, SoA, and close to a thousand from SB, and even more from a PS. sure DF is effective percentage-wise on some 5e healing prayers, but it gets less and less useful with 10 and 15 energy spells, while expertise's percentages never change.

none of that changes the fact that rangers get a passive, unstrippable, skill slot less, attunement for their attribute points. and its not like those are wasted points, rangers still get loads of skills in the expertise attribute.

which inherently makes them better than many other classes, which is bad.

and as for (what i assume) your argument will be, "warriors dont need emanagement because of adr." this is somewhat true. they either need to spend energy to make adrenaline (IAS), or adrenaline to make more adrenaline (Lions comfort, flail, etc.). also remember that one attack skill is always +1 adr., while one adr. skill is always +0 adr. warriors' 5e skills were also made with the idea that a warrior would not be able to spam them, such as distracting blow/strike, crushing blow, etc as a ranger can. this also ties in with the idea that moebius strike and death blossom spam shouldnt be spammed, as well as the idea that spear attacks (maiming, disrupting, vicious, etc) shouldnt be spammed for little to no energy management thought on the player's part.

i assume since it was right under a quote of something i said...

...you assumed i thought that. sorry you were unclear if thats not what you meant.

the biggest problem with primaries have been using the primary mainly for their secondary.

Upon creation of skills, they are kept in check for their primary. This means that diversion under fast cast is reasonable, but a necro casting diversion is twice as hard to pull off. This is all reasonable.

A ranger 'spamming' ranger skills under Expertise is exactly how the class is suppose to be (every ranger skill is balanced with expertise in mind), using scythe attacks not.

Soul Reaping is plain broken if it triggers. It's one of those designs where you put an huge drawback on something (investing attribute points on something maybe not worthwhile) but giving great benefits if it does trigger in the right time. By buffing sr (ff/wod) you remove a part of the drawback, that while sr didn't had that much of a drawback in the right gimmick.

fast casting on secondaries makes it basically impossible to interrupt. old example was the me/e with ward, now we got the water mesmers. ward was changed so it couldn't be abused by mesmers, though ward wasn't the issue.

A crit hit with a dagger is all reasonable (they got a low max dmg for a reason), an assassing using dagger expensive dagger chains get a bit of extra damage, not much but energy to keep using their chains. Exactly the idea of Critical Strikes. 100% crit hits with a scythe is asking for gimmick shit, with energy to boost.

I stick with my standpoint I had months ago, when a topic like this was made about expertise. A primary should never accomplish the goal better then the secondary they take, in which case you took the wrong primary. Secondaries give you utility, not a proffesion.

/clap

i think this says it all

Yes, I agree. And once again it seems to me that this problem shows up with both Soul Reaping and Expertise in PvE, but only with Expertise in PvP due to the fact that less things die in PvP.

Actually, using this criterium (that a secondary should be worse than a primary) we see that there's also problems with Assassin critical hits and Mesmer illusion and inspiration. Which seems about right to me.

Thanks for quoting me there and saving me from having to go back and find it:
That should make it clear I was NEVER talking about the process of activating the skill but ALWAYS about the process of e-gain.
If you misunderstood me - sorry, I should have worded it better.
But don't make an argument out of something I never said.

What you can say is that the player has a X percent chance of scoring a critical hit on every hit.
What you can NOT safely say is that in the course of 10 seconds he will score critical twice.
The only thing predictable about CS, like you said, is that you have a given percentage of the chance to critical. And based on that the statement "CS aren't predictable" really is wrong.
That's I want to modify it the way I actually thought it - but never thought I worded it wrong. It should actually ready that it's not the attribute that is not predictable - it's achieving a critical strike that isn't - thus gaining energy.

The issue isn't a ranger with high E vs a ranger with no E.
The issue is the ranger class as an energy based class vs. other energy (weapon mastery) based classes. Expertise allows a bad player to play as the ranger class better the he should be able to perform at this game. Simply because the guy rarely (or pretty much never) has to worry about energy.

(And hopefully I didn't state that SR is overpowered because you can use a 5 energy skill with 3 because of E. Hopefully I stated that SR, just like E, is broken because it allows for players to perform above their skill level.)

i agree that this would be the more logical idea, however Izzy has decided that using a primary attribute with 2ndary skills is "innovative" and shouldnt be nerfed. this can be seen throughout the life of GW and is a flaw that has never been quickly fixed.

@Numa:
if things arent dying in PvP youre doing it wrong.

you also said something about SR being OK because both teams benefit. what if one team had 2 necros while the other had 1? what if one team has 7 necros so that they can all use this mechanic? wouldnt that make one class inherently superior to every other class?

personally i think thats bad but apparently you dont.

the second part sorta makes sense but, no. first off, the first part. good teams kill stuff. therefore SR would trigger. if SR was better than other primary attributes at a level which people say, wouldnt good teams use n/e to do ele things, n/me for mesmers, and so on? they dont, the reason is that other primaries make more sense with the skills and usages. every team has access to 8 necros if they want, but they choose not to.

the reason you see rangers and necros on teams together with the less experienced teams is because they feel that the benefits of SR and E help them more than the other primaries. they may use spirits to accentuate this fact, natures renewal for example, energizing wind also, perhaps quickening zephyr. so they not only are bringing certain skills to help them, they are also RESTRICTING themselves to these two professions. since shock axe is a very effective and common build, well use this for an example. a ranger could run evis and such, but no shock, which is a very important part of the bar. a ranger could run shock, but wait, no more evis, and shock with a bow? nah.

people forget that to 'abuse' expertise and soul reaping which are so 'broken,' they have to limit themselves to skill choices/secondary combinations. this inherently balances them, no?

QFT inside-out. This post made my day.
Spikes don't always go through, and depending on how good both teams are Soul Reaping gets its efficiency. If the team on the other side is terribad, SR is "broken", if the team is fairly decent, it heaily loses efficiency.