Balancing PvE

As we all know, there are many things in PvE that are used to create insanely overpowerful builds that are able to roll through elite areas/hard mode in a very fast time. There are many arguments within the community on what to do with these things. Many people want them nerfed/balanced, many people want them the same. As a player since 2005, I find it ridiculous that ANet allowed such things to be added to the game. Hard mode is supposed to be a challenge, elite areas are supposed to be a challenge. However, these overpowered builds throw any challenge out the window.

Here are some of the things I'd like to see changed. This thread is to discuss the changes of skills/consumables. If you want to argue about whether the skills/consumables should be changed or not, how the skills aren't overpowered, etc, do not argue about it in this thread.

I'll start off with the three most powerful skills being used in PvE - shadow form, save yourselves, and cry of pain.

First off, shadow form. Makes you invincible, and can be easily kept up indefinitely. Mainly used to tank mobs without taking any damage. In my opinion, this should not be an option. It throws all strategy for protting/holding aggro out the window. This is what I'd like to see done to it.

Currently:

10e/1c/45r

Elite Enchantment Spell. For (5..21) seconds, all hostile Spells that target you fail and all attacks against you miss, but you deal 33% less damage. When Shadow Form ends, lose all but (5..50) Health.

My change:

15e/2c/45r

Elite Enchantment Spell. Lose your curent stance. For (5..25) seconds, all hostile Spells that target you fail and all attacks against you miss. When Shadow Form ends, lose all but (5..50) Health and all enchantments.

My first change was the energy and casting time. Both are fairly minor. The duration has been made slightly longer, but even with an enchantment mod, it cannot be maintained the old way.

My next change makes it so you cannot use deadly paradox to shorten the recharge, which was one of the things that made this enchantment maintainable. With glyph of swiftness, the skill recharges in ~34 seconds, which is quite fair.

I removed the deal less damage, which means you can go back to farming bosses easier.

I also added the lose all enchantments, to make it so you cannot prot your teammate who is about to lose shadow form.

Overall this change makes it impossible to maintain it the old way, and (hopefully) makes it impossible to maintain it with arcane echo. It also makes it harder to run with shadow form, but still possible. The skill is still a powerful farming skill, it just cannot be maintained.

Next up, the skill used in just about every 'balanced' party, "save yourselves!".

Currently:

8a

For (4..6) seconds, all other party members gain +100 armor.

My change:

5e/8a/3r

For (3..5) seconds, all other party members gain +(3..5) armor for each rank in Strength.

I've added a 5 energy cost to make it harder for a warrior to spam. I also added a 3 second recharge. I put this in place to stop warriors from instantly charging save yourselves with FGJ + dragon slash. They can still instantly charge it, but they'll have to wait 3 seconds, which means 2 things: it makes it harder to maintain, and if you do wait 3 seconds, you'll be losing damage output while FGJ is not active.

I've also changed the way your party gains additional armor - it's based on your primary attribute (just like "there's nothing to fear!" and critical agility). On a standard 2 attribute bar, this skill will give party members an additional 39-65 armor.

Overall this change makes it much harder to maintain (if it's even maintainable), only warriors can effectively use it, and it gives less armor. An additional 65 armor is a lot less powerful than an additional 100, but still powerful enough to see usage.

Now, the skill that makes rolling through elite areas a breeze and the backbone of the arguably biggest gimmick in PvE right now - cry of pain.

Currently:

10e/.25c/12r

Spell. Interrupt target foe's skill. If that foe was suffering from a Mesmer Hex, that foe and all foes in the area take (65..100) damage.

My change:

10e/.25c/15r

Spell. Interrupt target foe's skill. If that foe was suffering from a Mesmer Hex and you interrupted a spell, that foe and all foes in the area take (10..15) damage for each 2 ranks in Fast Casting.

I've increased the recharge time to make this skill less spammable.

Currently your foe only needs to have a mesmer hex on it to do the damage. With my change, your foe needs to have a mesmer hex and you need to interrupt your foes spell. This makes it so only 1 cry of pain can be cast on a single target - making it harder to spike. This change makes it so you need coordination to cast more than 1 cry of pain at once. Since only one enemy can be damaged by cry of pain, you and your teammate(s) will have to target different enemies.

I've also changed the damage. Much like my change for save yourselves, it requires your primary attribute, making it only effective on mesmers. At 10 fast casting (which is a fair amount), this skill does 50-75 AoE damage. At 16 fast casting this skill does 20 more damage than it currently does, but it requires you to waste health and attribute points.

Overall my change makes it less spammable, and impossible to cleanly spike a target foe with. However, like my previous two suggestions, it's still powerful. This skill was meant to be a more powerful cry of frustration, and with my changes, it still will be.

The next thing I would like to see changed is the necromancer. Currently people can roll through hard mode areas/missions easily with necro heroes. These builds do not in any way encourage playing with other players. In fact, these builds encourage you to play alone/with 1 person. I like that you have the option to play solo in Guild Wars, but when playing solo is more effective than playing with others, there's a problem. After all, Guild Wars is an online game.

Currently, the necromancer builds in PvE are balanced fine. But it's not the skills that are a problem, it's soul reaping. Necromancers have the best energy management in PvE. As long as things are dying, Necromancers have an insane amount of energy management, making it very easy for them to spam their skills.

Currently: For each point of Soul Reaping, you gain 1 Energy whenever a non-Spirit creature near you dies. You may only gain Energy in this way 3 times every 15 seconds.

My change:

For each point of Soul Reaping, you gain 1 Energy whenever a creature near you dies. You gain half of that energy when a spirit or minion dies. Your energy gain is divided by the number of necromancers in the party.

My change is a very simple change - remove the cap on how much energy a necromancer can gain, allow your necromancers to gain half energy from spirits and minions, but for each necromancer in the party, you get less energy.

My change makes solo necromancers more powerful, yes. But with such a powerful change to this common build, there's not much harm done. With 2 necromancers in your party, their energy gain is cut in half, but they still have good energy management. But once your party hits 3 necromancers (which is common for those who h/h), their energy management becomes quite poor.

Necromancers will still be a very powerful class in PvE, but you will no longer be able to effectively run more than 2 in a party.


Last on my list are consumables. With all 3 up, these are the bonuses your party gets:

- immunity to 50% of critical hits
- +10 armor
- +1 health regeneration
- 5 damage reduction
- 20% faster movement
- 20% faster attack speed
- 20% reduced recharge times
- +100 health
- +10 energy
- +1 attributes

Having all these bonuses together is clearly way too powerful. Having them on their own are still powerful. Now, there's no way I can see individually changing the consumables, so my suggestion is simple. Limit one or two consumables to be used at a time. They are still powerful, but all three cannot be used together.

That is all that is currently on my list. The reason I am making these suggestions is not only to promote team play, but to promote team work, strategy, and coordination. With these changes, elite areas and hard mode is going to be more of a challenge - just like they should be.

Feel free to constructively comment on my suggestions, and feel free to make suggestions. Remember, this is a thread to discuss changing skills and consumables, and only to discuss changing these skills and consumables. Don't go off topic.

Also, I'd like to thank Fenix for reading through and pointing out a few text errors. <3

Thank you for taking the time to read and comment.

Oh, so this is a "Let's kill PvE" thread...I see...I see....

Oh wait...it's already dead except for those gimmick team builds.

Let's also kill warrior's ability to PvE even though they're not accepted into FoW/UWSC PuGs unless with guildies/allies.

As for consumable sets, they're fine. You pay 6.5k-7k for the effects for a half hour. It's not overpowered, it's just smart.

Let's also kill necromancers even though they're already capped on Soul Reaping.

Also, the reason why people prefer to play solo with heroes instead of other people is because, face it, most players aren't competent enough to play with. They either complain or are plain bad. Heroes don't complain and most of the time aren't bad. That's the reason GW isn't dead yet, people aren't forced to play with terribads.

As for Shadow Form, yeah, the nerf was coming, it's easily the most exploited skill in all of GW and discourages the use of other types of tanks such as Terra tanks and Obsidian Tanks.

If by "kill PvE" you mean "Kill overpowered gimmicks to promote team work, strategy and coordination", then yes.

You're right, PvE is dead. Do you think these gimmicks are helping it?

As it is, there's no point in running balanced builds when everyone else is running overpowered gimmicks. People run these gimmicks which take no skill, farm the same thing over and over, get money, buy expensive stuff, get bored. Now everyone's farming the same areas with the same builds so they can buy the same expensive gear.

People are getting bored fast because they don't understand that rolling through areas with no challenge isn't fun. A game without challenge is a boring game. But they'll never know until they try running a balanced build and play in challenging areas. But oh wait, these people are so used to these mindless gimmick builds that they can't effectively play balanced anymore. Now we have idiots running around in FoW, chaos gloves, expensive weapons, ectos, who are bored of doing the same shit, but cannot play regularly. That's what the majority of the PvE community now is. Great, isn't it?

If you think a warrior needs save yourselves to be effective in PvE, you're just one of the many ignorant people who play with bad players and rely on overpowered skills. Play with players who have some skill, you'll see how the overpowered skills everyone is running aren't needed.

Guild Wars was based on skill > time, not time > skill. Consumables were a stupid idea and shouldn't have been created. It's just a way for the players who have money to make the game easier.

My suggestion wouldn't kill necromancers. It would kill groups with multiple necromancers, but make solo necromancers stronger.

You're right, many people do play with h/h because most players are bad. But I'm not talking about playing with bad players. I'm talking about how bringing 3 necromancer heroes is going to be more effective than bringing a skilled human player. Do you really think heroes should be more effective than skilled players?

Exactly. Leave the only builds that allow players to do HM with h/h, instead of complaining adapt. PUG's are dead, leave it at that. I wouldn't mind these 'changes' if they allowed 7 heroes, which would allow better teamwork etc. so it wouldn't be much of a problem. However without sabway there are many a thing people couldn't do in NM let alone HM, eg Slaver's Exile.

Nice one Arkantos. Can I post my thoughts too?
Shadow Form: same duration before the nerf , but it becomes a stance so it can't be kept up 24/7 and instead of losing health your skills are disabled. It can become one of those "Oh Shi!" skills for running away.

"Save Yourselves!": same duration , recharge , adrenaline cost. But only works on allies with hp lower than 50%. It would still be a powerful skill in case something doesn't go completely as planned , but it isn't as mindless and easy to use as it is now.

Cry of Pain: I agree completely with you on that one. But with the cast speed increase in HM it would be much more harder to use it than intented.

My suggestion: limit the number of identical pve skills a team can have to 3. Goodbye cryway even without the change and this would stop many other degenerate builds.

Do you even play warrior? Earth shaker , dragon slash spam , even the regular eviscerate bar are WTF!?PWN.

Soul Reaping is extremely powerful now. Arkantos' change only tones it down , and rewards those necromancers that kill shit instead of minions.

All in all /signed.

Hahaaaa, oh yes, because sabway > all. Please. I easily beat Slaver's exile in NM on my ranger, hero/hench with a monk, rit, and minion master hero as my heroes. Note the 1 necro in the party. I also beat it in hard mode with 2 players/6 heroes, still one necro. You don't need shittons of necros.

That's one of the problems. People are so dependable on overpowered builds that they don't think regular builds can get the job done. Hard mode is supposed to be hard, and when you roll through it easily with artificial intelligence, then there's a problem.

If there were less gimmick builds, people would be playing balanced builds. People get better at the game when running balanced builds, as long as they know game mechanics and can learn from mistakes. With gimmick builds they don't get better at all. They get used to gimmick builds and forget simple things in balanced builds.

Do you know why the majority of people are bad? Do you know why there are almost no good balanced PvE guilds anymore? Because people began running these overpowered skills, made overpowered gimmick builds, and just played that. They're so used to mindlessly going through PvE that when there's an actual challenge, they have no clue what to do and usually fail.

Pugs have never been perfect, but since NF/PvE skills pugs have gone downhill, fast. Now pugs are absolutely horrible. If ANet did something about this back in NF, pugs would still be a viable option. That's no longer possible.

You say you can't do NM Slavers' h/h without an overpowered gimmick. This only proves that gimmicks are making the PvE players worse. NM Slavers' is possible without a gimmick build, you just need to be a skilled player. It is an elite area after all.


If it were to stay at +100 armor, I'd say below 25% health. That way it's used as an emergency +armor for an ally.

Yes, it does get harder to use in hard mode. But there's nothing wrong with that, hard mode is supposed to be harder than normal mode.

I'd love to see this.

This is pretty much the best post to ever hit Sardelac. Your ideas get rid of retarded gimmicks, and fixes them in a sensible and usable fashion. Well, Shadow Form might not get used, but who cares.

If there was still challenge in the game for elite areas, or HM, just anything in general, either people would play it for the challenge or the crappy people would leave - both are fine by me. People claim that PvE is dead - I claim that things like this are why. I was about to explain why, but Arky just did right above me in the response to Xsiriss.

WTB Arky for skill balancer (and kostolomac's 3 copy idea)

That's exactly what I was aiming for. These skills should not remain in their current state, but killing them would mean ANet wasted their time for nothing.

As for shadow form, it will still be used to farm bosses and run (just like before the big buff).

I agree whole-heartedly with just about everything, but why does CoP require a hex at all? Would it not be fine to say that target foe and all nearby foes take X damage upon interrupting?

I just kept it in there because almost all mesmers already have at least one mesmer hex. Removing the hex function wouldn't make much of a difference.

Do you think without gimmicks, PvE would come back to life? I hope you're joking.

Cause there ever was a community aside from UWSC/FoW/Cryway in PvE.

When was the last time you saw a warrior get accepted into a FoW PuG or UWSC without having to tank? Never? Save Yourselves is the strongest PvE skill on a warrior.

As well as making the game easier, it's also making the game more fun rather than a struggle. It's not like you're forced to use them, am I right?

So, if you're limiting the amount of necromancers to 2 per group, people will just run 2 Necromancer/Rit or 2 Necromancer/Monk combinations. That was hard to think off, am I right?

Not many skilled players PuG, therefore heroes are better than bad players.

Most people in the game don't know what a hammer warrior can do. People run Dragon Slash to fuel Save Yourselves. And you just said eviscerate was good in PvE, stop talking.

A WE bar with Dismember will out-DPS an Eviscerate bar any day of the week.

So the main complaint is, that these skills/builds/professions are killing the game and stopping people using builds that the small minority deem skillfull and constantly making attempts to make the playerbase form to their thinking?

This game can never be 100% about individual skill, when you make up 1/8th of the total party.

Give me a Break! This is just another QQ session about how Elite areas aren't Elite. Lets face it, people will find the fastest and most efficient way of doing something until it is nerfed. Then when it is nerfed they will find the next fastest way of doing the area and exploit it as well.
I have an idea, lets just give everyone 3 skills, Attack, Heal & Resurrect. Then you would never have to worry about over powered skills ever again and it will all be fair for everyone and we can live happily beyond the rainbows with peace and understanding for all............. granted no one would ever play the game.
SHEESH.... quit whining if Anet believes a skill or erea is being over farmed they have and will again change the skills to make it more of a challenge and to "Balance" the PVE.
I remember when a Sin could not get in a group, my main character is a Sin so being able to get in PUG is kinda fun for me since I have had to play most of the game with henchies and heros.
Oh and by the way this is not Trolling, Im just sick of seeing crybaby threads about how Shadow Form is so overpowered. It's discusting really.

Most people in pugs are idiots.

It's like Arkantos walked up to my door and gave me a million dollars, that's basically how this topic makes me feel.

/signed for all eternity.

^ This is the reason people h/h over PuG.

The problem with PvE isn't the skills, its the players. Always have been and always will be.

Taking away one gimmic just sets them off looking for the next gimmic build to run. It doesn't make them take the time to become better players or learn how to work with a team.

One of the largest factors about GW is that it is a Team game, this means you need to spend some time setting up not just your build but your parties as well. The gimmic builds allow players to very quickly adapt a "plug and play" mentality so they can set up a team and go almost instantly.

Changing skills at this point will have little or no effect upon GW. The mentality of the players is fixed in stone and that can NOT be shifted by a few skill tweeks.

No, it's way too late for that. Doesn't mean there's no point to change it, though.

When did I say anything about FoW/UWSC? Yes, save yourselves is the strongest PvE skill on a warrior, but you don't need it to be effective. Besides, you're acting like my suggestion is going to kill save yourselves.

You are right. It doesn't mean they're not overpowered, and it doesn't mean they shouldn't get changed.

Is that as powerful as 3+ necromancers? No? Am I suggesting that necromancers need to be toned down in PvE? Yes?

Well then, I think you're smart enought o put one and one together.

Did you read what you quoted here, good sir?

Notice how I never said 'PuG', but 'skilled player'.

QQing? Whining? Crybaby? Please, show me where I'm QQing, show me where I'm whining. I'll give you a constructive reply when you learn the difference between QQing and constructive suggestions.

Eviscerate is still a good skill. And thanks for showing another great build without SY!.

Cry of pain is powerful and overpowered.

All the rest is just the same elitist crap - kill necros cause necro heroes rule and allow people to do stuff in hm with h/h, kill "save yourselves" cause it allows for mixed human/heroes teams to do elite areas, blah blah.

What is important in PvE is rate of killing. The faster you kill the faster items/gold/drops are generated.

Any skill that allows drops to be generated in such a rate that nothing else can be compared, it either has to be nerfed or other skills need to be buffed to make for it. All the rest doesn't matter.

Who said anything about killing necros and SY? If you bothered to read my suggestions and have knowledge of the game, you'd clearly see nothing is being killed here.

SY! is overpowered , buy Arkantos' suggestion wont' kill it, just make it harder to use.

So it's a useless change?

Your suggestion won't kill it but it'll become near extinction on warrior bars. No, you don't need Save Yourselves to be effective however to get into a decent PuG, the morons have no clue how warriors usually work and ask for SY! to be brought. Am I right or am I right?


The nerf to con sets would be the death of UWSC which, for some people, is the only reason they play.

I used an SS curses necro, Jagged bomber, and WoH monk with 4 henchies to do Vloxen. It's definitely on par with Sabway.


Did you read where I said skilled players don't PuG?

Personally, I hate SY!, I only run it when I need it otherwise I keep my bars free of it. Even if I hate it, I do know it's a strong skill that's fine.

The only reason it should be nerfed is due to the abuse of Imbagons who can keep it up alot better than a Warrior can. Am I right?

Make your own group then.

It should be nerfed because it reduces all non armor-ignoring damage by 82.5% (I think that's the number) and it can be kept up 24/7.

Or leave the nerf to necromancers alone so I can just h/h in peace?

However, it's only useful in Hard Mode (If you need SY! in NM, you're bad). Not to mention it can be shut down very easily. I'll agree with the nerf if Miss hexes and Blind are nerfed.

Why nerf soul reaping again?

Will you take necromancer human players over elementalist human players saying "Sorry necros are the shit cause of soul reaping and will dominate much faster, so u get the boot!!!!" or will u refuse a human channeling/resto hybrid rit and take a necro/rit instead?

So either Soul Reaping is so powerful that will deny other human casters over necros or its fine and u nerfing soul reaping to stop over use of necro heroes.

I wont. I take a N/Rt over a Rit hero or a Necro hero over an Ele hero, but that is because heroes suck.

What about "save yourselves"?

Does it make possible to an area that is otherwise undo able? Does the use of "save yourselves" make any area considerable faster in a full human party than in full human party without it?

The fastest clearing builds I see out there use consumables, tanks and CoP, not Imbagons.

What "save yourselves" does is, a) make mixed human/heroes parties go smother in elite areas and b) make aggro mistakes in hm less painful.

It doesn't make u invincible (well it does in nm, but if u need it for nm non elite areas TT ), it can be bypassed and can be shut downed/slowed.

While powerful, "Save yourselves" never created any build that overshadowed other builds, unlike ursan or cop.

Even with Imbagon available, the choice for clearing DoA and Duncan has been tank/spank groups, so again this seem targeted at players that use some heroes to complement a small core of 2-4 human players.

The only build that can keep it up constantly is Imbagon (prolly some ranger builds can too). Additionally bringing it on warriors and other melees works a lot worse, as the SY! wont catch the back line, unless the back line is where the mid line should be.

Arkantos' suggestion is designed to kill its use on Paragons and then he decided to add a 5 energy requirement to warriors because with an order support there might be a change of being kept permanently.

In DoA, for example, you basically have to bring a Divert hexes and then some 2-4 copies more of hex removal to keep the Imbagon clear of nasty hexes. This in NM. HM is a lot more spammier.

And of course HM DoA is fun with permanent 50% miss or 2 energy down for the use of a skill.

More the damage SY! stop is auto attack damage and elemental damage. It does nothing to attack skill damage, spell damage and degeneration.

If you want to nerf it, increase the adrenaline cost or reduce amount of armor.

I can't believe someone is arguing against a nerf because of the power of "Save Yourselves!" and Soul Reaping.

I don't mind making cry of pain less powerful, BUT being a main mesmer, I am worried about HOW its done.

ditch the mesmer hex part of it if you want to interrupt a skill or make it interrupt ANY type of skill.

OR make it where you dont need to interrupt a skill if more then 5 fast casting, so mesmers will still be wanted in groups. Lets face it, before CoP, only friends/guildies would voluntarily take mesmers into groups.

But honestly, Overall. I don't really care if GW is SUPER hard or not. I don't complain when I play pokemon because its predictible and easy, I play it because its fun. My idea of fun is where I dont have to sit in a chair for 2 hours trying to do an elite mission where most of the time the rewards aren't THAT good unless you get a good drop or two. I always thought the PvE aspect of GW was supposed to be open to everyone and the PvP part was the REAL challenge, and THAT is where skill>Time was supposed to take place.

But Like i said, I don't really care... cept for Cry of pain.

Oh yeah, also, When (if) SF and cry of pain is nerfed, I bet that the next farm will be A warrior/dervish tank with a bonder and everyone else is a monk with RoJ with 16 smiting. Even if scatter with RoJ is fixed, tanks will bring grasping earth and mobs will be dead fast anyways.

Every good farm revolves around a tank, and 1 or 2 things to keep it alive, and then LOADS of damage.

One nerf leads to another and another, Until there are no tanks, there are no bonders, there is no damage, and it becomes almost IMPOSSIBLE to do anything at all....but thats just my opinion. Just something to think about methinks. I really dont want to go back to mending warriors lol.

Is GWs broken because of soul reaping and SY! ? Did you heard me complain against a CoP nerf?

Will you not get a party because you not playing Soul reaping or SY! ? Will you get a party just because you play SY! or have Soul reaping?

SR and SY! aren't the PvE problems.

PvE is screwed because of campaign design and AI.

We are using NF and EoTn against mobs with prophecies only skills. But if you give them NF and EoTN skills + 2 or more professions, prophecies only players will be screwed.

And even then in some amount of time people would be complaining again. PvE mobs are static. They always play the same. Once you defeat them, u can defeat them over and over.

Its like DoA. I went there with my girl and our heroes. First we got slaughtered and was hard as shit. Now we slaughter everything there. Then was mallyx. Same crap. Then was duncan same story.

Shadow form is annoying. Although was more before.

CoP is too strong.

But lets face it, none is even close to what ursan was.

Basically all of you agreeing with Arkantos boguht the wrong game, GW1 is nearign the end of its life and the shit you lot are coming up with would just cause mighty upheavel, good thign anet don't pay attention to QQers.

imo, if you want to balance PvE, remove PvE Skills, skill splits, and cons.
But keep summoning stones. Those are badass.

If PvE was intended to be balanced, these three things would not have existed. It makes no sense to have skills that are way too stupidly strong for PvP, and then try to balance them.

Do whatever you want to Shadow Form though.
It needs to go away.

This. Short and to the point.

/signed


And a bit off-topic remark: Did anyone else noticed how big majority of people advocating overpowered skills are relatively new on this forum?

OK, I'm getting my-antiflame suit now...

I disagree.

SF needs major repurporsing and keeping its gimmicky features just so that they can still be abused in one instance (boss farm) and useless everywhere else is pointless. Restrictions you added look like typical "Don't use this. Ever." ballances people hate.

Repurporse 1, hidden damage buff, survivability at cost of elite skill, designed to be abused with scythe:

15e/1c/60r

Elite Enchantment Spell. For 60 seconds, you recieve 8..26% less damage and you deal shaddow damage. (armor ignoring version of shaddow damage)

Or, if you want to keep gimmicky feature:

5e, 1/4c, 15r

For 2 seconds, all Spells that target you fail and all attacks against you miss. When Shaddow Form ends, you loose all adrenaline and all but 1..8..10 energy.

That would allow it to be used in nongimicky and nonsuicidal way to either make mobs waste their first volley of spells in pve and to ensure spike is connects in pvp.

I disagree. Again, overcomplicating skill. Just make it in image of original pre-pre-pre-nerf [Watch Yourself]. That was pretty neat usefull buff that did not mean that PvE was won.

If you really want to do it this way, what about making it scalable with tactics rather than strength? That would require heavy sacrifices for anyone desiring to abuse it as secondary, but not disable its usage.

Removing hex on cast would be much better way to prevent coordinated spike instead on requring interrupt. That would require group to actually prepare, coordinate their hexes and whatnot, it would also make echoing cop much slower.

You seriously underestimate amount of energy that Discordway would get from minions, spirits and spiked foes without timer.

Anyhow, People don't play with people because of other reasons. MMO does not necesarily mean that game is played with people. Vanquishes are mirror image of typical MMOs "kill 10 x" quests, that people don't group for either because it is not worth it.

If you want improve partying with humans in PvE look into theese missions:

* Eternal Grove
* Aurora Glade
* Dzagonur Bastilion

Hellishly hard with H/H, but doable with humans. Why? Most PvE Can be won by damage that H/H will deliver regardless of what you nerf. Not theese, because they can not be bruteforced as they require splits, positioning and whatnot.

One conset is powerfull enough.

Those things were introduced with HM though...

Sometimes people talk as if since day 1 there was HM and then suddenly PvE skills were introduced and the game got a lot easier.

I never use cons, but I use PvE skills. Doing HM without those and with heroes and henchies only would be loads fun (gogogo jamei, cast healing breeze while I get hit by that 300 damage mind burn).

Getting an 8 player team can be quite time taxing. If I had one every time I wanted I would be doing GvG instead, which is much more challenging.

/signed only if all overpowered crap is removed AKA enviromental effects and retarded monster skills along with all you said.

Dunno about soul reaping , but of if SY! was a pinch more powerful it would change it's name to ursan blessing.

LOLWUT!?

I agree with that.

SY! is.