Balancing PvE

GWs was originally supposed to be a PvP team. I don't think their objective was to differentiate player skill in PvE.

GWs compared to games like WoW is a lot less grinding and a lot more tactical.

No, monsters shouldn't have the same rules as players. They need stronger skills to be a challenge. The thing you're forgetting is the monsters always stay the same. You always know what you're going against, so you can always spec against it.

Sorry for not being more specific. Decent inexperienced players, while accompanied by a couple of good players, will do good in an elite mission with gimmicks. After a run or two they'll most likely be able to roll through it, but by then they wouldn't be so much an 'inexperienced' player. And yes, pugs don't roll elite areas. But both types of players should not be able to complete these areas with the amount of ease they do using gimmick builds.

Now, before you attempt to say they don't do it easily, I mean it's a lot easier compared to a balanced build.

This is rather interesting, in regards to balancing the game.

Excerpt: Time Has No Meaning ... Online

"John Smedley remembers marveling at how fast players were getting through the content EverQuest's numerous designers had meticulously crafted. "Gamers were solving problems in ways we had never imagined," he chuckles. "We had this dragon Nagafen … a real tough challenge that was designed to be taken down by 20 people. But the first group that tackled the dragon was 50 adventurers strong, and they destroyed Nagafen in five minutes." This early deviation from the plan shook up EQ's design staff. "Our designers' jaws were dropping -- they couldn't believe their baby was being destroyed so easily!"

EQ's designers quickly fixed the problem by giving Nagafen more hit points, but the ordeal quickly pointed out that the design and play mechanics of these MMORPGs would have to take into account accelerated notions of time and an unknown "X" factor of regarding players' actions.

Part of this predicament is the fact that the very medium that created MMORPGs -- the Internet -- has also created an environment where players can solve a difficult quest and then immediately go online and post a full walkthrough for other players.

"In retrospect," Trost admits, laughing at his own naiveté, "It's like 'how did we not see this?'" Although EQ's design is flexible enough to allow rapid changes based on player exploits, when players exploit time via camping or move through quests in record time, their actions can unbalance the game. Additionally, extra pressure gets placed on the game's content designers.

One solution to this problem that the company is beginning to explore in the most recent EQ add-on, Lost Dungeons of Norrath, is the concept of randomization. By randomizing dungeons, monsters, and rewards, Internet walkthroughs will be less effective at allowing gamers to breeze through quests. "

Let me put it this way. I think that with some exceptions every player is able to get things done in PvE GW with only a few conditions (well, it's more complex but you understand where I'm heading):
1. Time
2. Some working brain cells
3. Advice from more experienced players

Time not so much as infinite time, more time to get the required braincells to absorb information and learn what works and what doesn't. And more important, why things work or don't work.
The advice from more experienced players is for speeding up the process.
Teaming up with them or getting information you didn't have will help someone. Most of the usefull advice is on game mechanics, why things work or don't work. One gets experience by doing things, this is where someone needs to invest some time.
This is briefly how (player) skill develops.

Given that GW was intended to be a PvP game would surgest that A-net would put a little effort into (player) skill development.
But with the PvE skills and consumables they did the opposite.
Learning from failure? Not this 1337 tanking CoP assassin, I'm invincible.
And I have this GWAMM title, so I'm just awesome.

Now we fast forward to GW2, which I mentioned on purpose.
We can have two situations there.
First the one where 1337 warrior is having a very good time, because he's still invincible and awesome.
Or the situation where he all of a sudden needs to develop a lot of skill, which he didn't need in the years he played GW1. And he keeps failing till he learned (if he ever does before he quits).
Both situations would leave a fair part of the community unsatisfied.

I really think A-net should start caring about player skill again instead of allowing mindless button smashing.
Why? Because if they don't they'd better make GW2 a solo, off-line game in my opinion. When playing together skill matters. And in my opinion that's something A-net made some mistakes with.
They focussed too much on the individual player and somewhat forgot that Guild Wars is supposed to be played as a team.
And I'm not talking about forcing people to play together, but they didn't even come up with something better than an enhanced party search window.
People have to resort on off-game resources to arrange events and such.

But let's not talk about the past anymore, let's get back to skill changes and how they can be debuffed without destroying them

First, Anet didn't need to care about player skill for PvP. Other humans will enforce it by destroying any player/team not up to the task.

Secondm GWs is a much more complex game than most. In most RPGs u are self sufficient. You have potions, everyone has decent self-heals or something like that.

In GWs u need dedicated players to those tasks.

Before the advent of Heroes, was a pain to find a team. Always short on monks. And could I convince those damn noobs that my N/Mo could heal and protect as good, if not better than monks?!!! Tsk

In Gws u need team. That team to be good need to fulfill a number of roles with 64 skill slots. Thats quite complex. Not many games cap out the number of skills or spells or whatever they call them.

I would also like to get rid of all stupid tank builds, that allow people to think that Fire eles are the leet on damage.

But this game has too much low-level content and some of the higher level is just mobs on consumables. Then people use their consumables too match.

Gwen mobs are awesome. Some of the nm dungeons are very nice and demanding if you don't use consumables and completely overpowered skills.

But has many say HM is crappy design. And NM after you learn it, its just a breeze. And no, you don't need any imba skills for that.

But that is why GW is target to death and to be replaced by GW2. To be designed from scratch with PvE in mind. I bet expansions won't be starter areas, but add-ons to experienced players. I bet the revenue to Anet will come from those add-ons and "Pay for perks" like more storage and such.

What is left from GW is playing with friends, finding one or 2 nice person out there, try to convince people that [[Resurrect] is complete crap and that eles do crappy damage.

Buffs and nerfs will shift game a bit, but the crappy "BIG NUMBER MOBS THAT BREAK THE RULES" are out there already...

I'll tell u what I will do do if arena net followed ur advice and nerfed builds I use. I would quit playing before I would play with retarded pugs. You might hate ppl like me, but I am part of a large population in GW players who has had enough. I am tired of advertising GLF elementilist only to get 3 warriors and assassins trying to join my group. If people can't even read, why should I be forced to play with them.

The game is done. Leave it alone. Let us play in peace. Quit trying to jumpstart the lemon. Just move onto a different car.

@above - it'd be a good idea to change 'You Will Die!' to 1 energy, 0 recharge, functionality = kill target monster, yes? Then you'd be able to not play with retarded PuGs yet solo all of the game's areas, you won't have to advertise GLF Elementalist and get 3 Warriors and Assassins, and you won't have to play with anyone you don't like because you can clear every area alone.

Pardon me, but I don't think that change will be good.

I back most changes mentioned in the original post, except Cry of Pain (interrupting in HM is hard enough, to be suffering from a Mesmer hex too is overkill - I'd say remove that condition). I'd also suggest further and nerf a few more skills. Right now PvP skills are all inferior to PvE skills, yet some skills are extremely good in PvE and weak in PvP. Assassin's Promise in particular springs to mind. I'd suggest a nerf to it, with a corresponding stronger version in PvP.

I think the objective of splitting the skills in PvE and PvP is to be able to have stronger PvE skills.

After all PvP is between lv 20 guys, with armors ranging from 60-80. PvE has guys a slighty higher level, that do slightly more damage and have more armor and health.

The completion of an "elite" area does not require you to be an "elitist". And those incapable of fulfilling that task aren't numpties unless they're inconsiderate arseheads who think everything should be catered to them, even if it means bending rules and definitions. Those "numpties" you speak of also have access - they're free to practice all they want.

Also, you calling those same people "numpties" is, at least in my opinion, a symbol of your own elitism coming into view. Quite elitist, am I right?

Have you ever considered the possibility that it's not just you who will be changed in terms of direction from H/H and Pugging?

Sorry, but when I bought Guild Wars, it was nothing like this. You joined the forum in 2008, so I'm assuming you didn't play Guild Wars in 2005. We bought the game before these overpowered gimmick builds were around.
Yeah it was, the gimmicks were just less obvious, and the mobs were much dumber, like the Sorrows gear tanks, the pet barrage teams, the scores of minions you could control before the death cap nerf, the invincimonks(which still exist) and the AI, could be exploited then just as it is now. They've nerfed some stuff and made some stuff stronger and for every challenge they introduce, they put in a tool you can use to beat it.

All that needs to happen to SY! is they give it a 3 second recharge and a limit to the number of times it's armor can count, just like watch yourself but with +100 instead of +20ish. I've never been in a CoP party so I don't know the mechanics but a recharge boost or energy increase should fix it.

Shadow Form is different, it's like 55/600 is to monks as terra is to eles/mesmers and SF is to assasins as dolyak stance tanks is to warriors, as VwK is to rits, as eternal aura+dwana is to dervs ect. Each class has the ability to tank, and farm, it's just that the SF sin has the ability to hit more stuff then the others but up against the wrong mob or position yourself wrong and it's your ass. They never really nerfed many of the other farming options hard(except the griffons, the prot bond zealots fire, the spirit bond and trappers' spirits were hit), and as it is now SF is much harder to maintain and farm with, it's on par with 55 monks which puts it right in line with the other classes' tanking/farming options.

The consumables are just fun, first wintersday, they threw in the candy, and since then I always wanted the ability to manufacture them year round instead of hoarding during holidays, and now I can, it's a gold sink, a place to spend leftover skillpoints, a nice bonus, completely unnecessary, but nice, and a commodity to trade. They could hit them so you can only have 1 effect up at once like with the summoning stones, but otherwise they equalize you with the hard mode mobs(which were poorly implemented, I like what that one guy said, they should have randomized their bars a little and made the party more divers, like each mob should be a self contained GvG team or at least as diverse ans the slaver's dwarves or EtoN charr)

It's like these guys say, if they hit one gimmick they'll invent a new one, run that, till they get bored with the game, you can't browbeat players to run balanced untill it's worth it to run balanced. Make it WORTH running a balanced build, balanced the mobs so they have contingencies to kill gimick enchants like SF, 600/55, terras or can hit through it, and all of a sudden the cash per hour of the gimmicks drops and the balance goes up. THEN and only then can you start talking about reworking SF into a decent skill(like maybe make it like the new ether prism, make it make you invincible for a short time, but you deal 0 damage for the duration)

That might be true, except that it really isn't. Under shadow form you're basically invincible. Unless you are going up against people with traps, smite monks (and your team brings a lot of hexes like dumbasses), or Illusionary Weaponry there's pretty much no way you can die. At least 55 and 600 monks's are vulnerable to enchantment stripping, but SF is way too imbalanced for PvE.

Hey all, I'm a noob because I'm fence sitting on this one.
It isn't that I don't think that the skills are OP. I'm pretty sure we can all agree that there are a LOT of OP skills out there. I'm fence sitting, like I did for a lot of the Ursan argument, because I don't believe that changing the skills will change the game 1) in the intended manner, or 2) in a good way.

You see I remember the original game too. I remember how "non-gimmicky" it was. How "balanced" every team I came accross was. I remember how I made good friends with the hench because no one ever wanted a mesmer in their team. My ranger too often had a hard time finding teams. In fact right at the beginning in PvE if you weren't a part of that holy trinity, you did everything with hench.

I'm sorry if it makes me a noob to say, I wasn't all that fond of the "good old days" but I really wasn't. Here was this great game and I could never find anyone to play with. With the exception of that team in Abaddon's who failed at Willa 3 times before they would take a mesmer along.

I'm sure there will be a 1001 replies to this post saying, "mesmers suck in PvE", "mesmers are PvP only", etc. But I rather enjoy playing my mesmer and the difficulty of getting into groups back in the "good old days" makes me sorry that anyone would wish that they would return.

I don't disagree that these skills are OP, in fact SoI is also OP and I abuse the hell out of it. But I do not see how changing these skills will made the game "better". It will not force people to group. It will not force people to run balanced. Every time an HA gimmick gets nerfed someone always says more balanced teams will play, but it NEVER happens. A new gimmick comes up, an old gimmick returns, balanced teams are still a rarity outside of GvG (and even then are they all that common?).

As it stands there are pug teams that I can get into if I want to do an elite area outside of a guild team. Pug teams that will at least know what they are doing, even if it is a crude team build. Change this, go back to the "good old days" and it will be tanks, and monks, and renewal nukers, and anything else is left out in the cold.

So I sit on the fence. Yes these skills are OP. But this late in the game I don't think changing them is going to do anything except push more players out of the game.

Re: bad players shouldn't be able to complete elite areas, I'd agree if "good" players were capable of making a distinction between "bad" and "inexperienced" players. Many "good" players play in guild teams and don't have the time of day for "inexperienced" players. "Inexperienced" players can't get experience if "experienced/good" players won't lend a hand.

^yeah lozza also brought up something I forgot to mention, the "balanced teams" that existed before the 'gimmicks' did mostly consist of their own 'gimmick', 2-3 tanks, 2-3 nukers and 2-3 healers with an occasional wild card thrown in if they couldn't find the third tank or nuker. The "balanced" groups the OP mentions would leave a lot of classes in the dust as far as PvE goes unless they can conform to one of these roles. If they balanced the mobs so that stuff like mesmers had something to do, or gave the mobs better threat assessment and agro AI things like midline melee, assassins, dervs and such, would be more viable.

As for SF, I went on a few tengu and raptor runs, maintaining SF in it's current state is about the same as maintaining a 55 in GoK or the first city. you have to be very careful wit the juice you dedicate towards killing stuff VS the amount you spend to maintain SF. As for them not being vunerable, It's not my fault 90% of PvE mobs have retarded builds. There's tons of stuff that could hurt a SF sin it's just nothing in the game uses it(or uses it wisely, like the inferno imps outside LA or the Kournan Scribes in the fortress of Jahai, they have PBAoE but if you stand just outside of their range they won't hurt you, they'll still try to spam it and it looks cool to see when it's not hiting you but they should be charging up on you before they try and use it, or have something that will let them do that like the Skeleton Wizards in Shards of Orr, or like the outcast cultists do with their swords, and the flame djin with their FDS). The problem isn't the skill, it's the environment you use the skill in. Like the Griffons they were a dumb mob, so they took them out and put in the scarab things. After you hit LA in NM and everywhere in HM mobs should look like Summit dwarves.

Also leave soul reaping alone, if they hit necroes any more they're going to be to PvE what mesmers once were....

I don't believe you understand what changes my soul reaping suggestion makes. The only thing it will be truly hurting is groups with 3+ necros. Single, and even dual necros are being buffed, if anything.

And what if I want to vanquish from Rankor's to Beacon's and cap FoC on the way, and bring along 2-3 of my necro buddies to cap it with me while also working on their vanquishing? They'll suffer because of your hatred for yet another fun build that removes some of the grind from GW.

Is this how you do irony? Anyhow.

Either Arkantos idea works and you would ... gasp ... have to use emanagement. [GOLE], [OOB] ... [signet of lost souls]

However, without cap on energy gains (he removes cap 3/15 cap, he adds energy gain to spirits), your three buddides would probably have at least same kind of energy than before, but i think they would be getting more than before.

Over all your post has very valid points and thoughtful consideration to what can be done to balance PVE.

While I agree that certain things need to be changed in PvE to make it more balanced I believe that some of the problems lye beyond fixing game issues.

First, the way guild wars is structured, it can be very difficult to offer incentives for many players to take on the elite areas. Take DOA for example, with the exception of armbraces, (which can now be bought and a relitivly low price) it is not a very profitable run anymore.

You take out say the pve skills that allow a large, (relitively speaking) amount of the players to accomplish this task, (high end area's) and then the area is a complete waste. To continue this point, even if you do have a team bar that you know can complete the area player skill is still involved, for better of for worse.

Now this is just my opnion, but we all know what happens when the HB monk does not know what he is doing or any other class for that matter. From what I observed, that is not how, say, WoW works. Once you get the best set of weapons and level up, there is not a ton of skill that is required to play your class. (not a burn on WoW just an observation, PvP also does not count here.)

Second, the guild wars player base is very spread out, so there may be enough decent people in GW to do Urgoz without pve skills but many have migrated to vs farming and dungeon running.

Finally, there is one resorce that simply makes the game easier no matter what we do and that is called the internet, specifically, wiki. No matter how well you balance PvE the player base will find some sort of gimic. As mention before, unlike PvP, which is ever changing, PvE stays some what the same making is by its nature less difficult in many ways. (I pvp and pve)

My last point and many people disagree with me here, is that I think titles and PvE skills were a good idea. It is debatable how some should be balanced, but I really enjoyed what they did, and I thought it brought a new life to PvE. The titles also keept many people playing and created situtions were pugs or at least guild groups were more likly to form to do some sort of title hunting. (Though there still is not enough players to do everything.)

Over all I would like to see some balance, but at the same time I believe Anet will have to come out with some other way to breath life into pve with all the preposed nerfs.

I've a better mechanic. Restrict number of same profession in a party to 2 or 1...

That was just to kill triple necro hero, that is hardly a monstrous lightning fast unstoppable force, that could be easily achieved with other heroes if not for their completely crappy AI, and that any human groups can match and surpass.

@ Lady Lozza,

I played mesmer for most of my GW time and never had much problem finding a group to play with in the time my first guild was inactive (the first year I played).
There were some exceptions, mainly FoW and UW. But part of that was because many teams were not playing those, they were farming them.
Did you ever try to enter ToPK without a ranger, monk or necro in let's say 2006?
Almost impossible, not because it could not be done, but because every PUG group was farming it and not playing it.

The one thing I learned there is that something that really matters is a group of players you play with regular. Could be a guild, but till about a year ago my friendslist was packed with PUG players I had teamed up with a couple of times and thought were good.
And I know several of them did the same and put me on their FL.
This allowed me to do stuff in PUG teams with non-preferred professions.

I think this is something many players underestimate.
GW is partly about who know you and the way you play. If they don't know you they will take the 'proven' way, PUG builds.

I still take PUGs in a team once in a while, both HM and NM.
And I keep looking at their gameplay, a bad habit from when I was my guilds recruiter.
After one or two missions/quests/dungeons I know if they are good enough and they will get on my friendslist if they don't mind.
And that could lead to an invite in a guild team that wants to fill a spot.
Not as profession, but as role. I don't care if a nuker is mesmer, ele, necro or Rt or whatever.
As long as they know how to play and fit in the team I'm fine.
Experienced players still team up with random players once in a while.
Sometimes for fun, other times to scout for decent new players for their guild or friendslist. You never know who you run into.

I find your post both amusing and sad.

First off: how much is 6x7 = ?
How many people know that?

Read your description of the attribute. Then read it again. Then again. Do you get what it means? What it does?

So you complain about most people not being good at this game but you want to change an already complicate attribute to something that requires 3 conditions in its description and people to understand that the more necro you bring the worse they perform.

Hmmm... and currently people don't even get what "blind" means.

Most (all?) of the changes you suggest are over complicating the skills to the point that you need to have a PhD in GW to understand. "This skill will do this, if condition 1 and condition 2 or condition 3."

GW is far complicated already. It doesn't need more of that. But why is it that 90% of the people prefer these "good to go" builds?
- for once, it doesn't require 3h to form a team, and it doesn't require a team lead to know what builds each member to run and so on. Who has time to wait to fill the last party spot with a player that has the *exact* W build your team needs? And then just discover he has the build but no knowledge of how to use it and fail in the first 5 mins. Only to discover that by the time you get sent back to the outpost everybody left and you need to start forming your "precious perfect balanced team all over again".
- there is no need to argue/convince other people that your build actually works - there will always be people to know better than you what you need to bring
- there is no need to try forcing other people to run the build you want them to run - if you are one of those people I was talking about (that know better what the others should bring)

With these builds you can actually play. Everybody has their "homework" done and the "right" build. They ping, everybody sees and knows the build, there is no discussion over it, you get all party filled, you leave and play. It works.

Now you got bored and you want it to work differently. So whose problem is that? Is that your problem, the game's problem or of all the rest of the people playing this game? Always blame it on the rest of the world I guess: "It's not me, it's the entire world that is doing it wrong."

So your solution, let's nerf it so that all the rest of the world can't do what they do today and will be forced to play GW the way *you* want it. However *you* don't need the rest of the world to play it any different, all you need is to get 7 friends and play whatever way you like.

There is no one forcing you to use consumables, cryway, necros or any other thing. Then why would you want to force anyone out there *not* to use consumables, cryway, necros etc. Would that gain you anything? I doubt it.

Let the world be and play the game the way you want with the people you want. You will never be able to play the game the way *you* want by forcing everybody else to "not to this and that". If that was the case, than you would probably play this game alone or with just a couple of people more that shared your tastes.

I for one, like the options cons, pve skills, 3 necros etc give me. And I only use them when I (and the rest of my party) *choose* to. I don't know, I just like options, I'm kind of weird I know.

Remove all PVE only skills, remove consumables, allow 7 heroes per party, PVE = Fix'd.

No it won't be. Removing PvE-only skills and consumables is a good idea, no lie, but allowing 7 heroes into a party is just stupid and contradicting with removng PvE only skills / consumables - heroes would be even more "delightful" to have in your party compared to real players. As it currently stands it's already possible to complete PvE with heroes, but players are a lesser to take in PuGs. PuGs do suck, but leaving it so that heroes / henchmen is still possible in PvE while making the PuG option more outward would be better for the teamwork area of the game.

PvE won't make a full recovery to decency again, but bringing it as close to that point as possible would be the best thing to do.

Bhavv should know that heroes are more delightful to have in a party, because heroes don't walk out of his wards!

To be honest, if I want to do something fast and failsafe and don't have a guildie to team up with most of the time I grab a bunch of heroes and hench and do whatever I want. No cons involved, no or hardly no PvE skills involved.

If the goal of the changes is to make team play in (semi)random groups more attractive we shouldn't look at heroes, consumables or PvE skills, but at things like the very limited party window and the fact that we need to resort on external resources like guild and alliance websites to organise stuff.

For example, I might be interested in playing Glaya NM (masters), Vloxen HM, Hell's bonus NM and GoM HM. And some FoW randomway for fun. Others might be stupid enough to be willing to team up with me (remember, I walk out of Bhavv's wards). But I can't really tell them I'm interested and they also don't know that. Sure, I can go to guru and post in the PUG thread, but many players don't use guru.

The only reason I support the debuff of PvE skills and consumables is not because it makes teaming with other humans better or more efficient, it's because I think they create bad players.

A couple of months ago I refused to help a guildie and told him to find another guild. Not because I'm not willing to help, my main reason was that he used our guild as a way to get to DoA as fast as possible. He was hardly in Vabbi and did just all the wrong things, not willing to listen to any reasoning. And he was determined to get to DoA that same day.
Remember, this player will arrive in DoA sooner or later and PvE skills and consumables would be a huge aid to achieving this goal. And then what?
You team up with him and surprise, surprise, he still can't play and does all the things wrong. Wasting the time for grouping and probably the first set of consumables.
Because, unlike regular NM PvE, DoA isn't very forgiving for mistakes. Sure, little mistakes but not the kind he made.

And I know those players will arrive in DoA someday.
But I'd like them to struggle at least a little for it, not because I hate them but because they might learn something along the way. They might be less of a burden in the 'hard' areas of the game by the time they arrive there.

I'd like to see more teaming and overpowered (human-only) PvE skills and consumables help to achieve that.
But I think the price of the bad gameplay that's possible with those in the current state isn't worth it.

The only change that was mentioned in the OP I still am not sure about is the soul reaping one.
Not because of the change, but because the necro-team is kind of a swiss army knife. It can do a lot, but other tools are superior in many situations.

A more reasonable change I can think off is that for every 3 points in SR the effect of non-necromancer skills is decreased by 10%.
That way abuse of SR for the secondary profession is limited.

Yes, because with solo quests on festivities like x-mas ANet is promoting play with other people....

I can have 6 heroes with 2 accounts, which are better than 3 heroes+4 badly built not equipped/runned henchies.

@ the_jos

Leave soul reaping alone. That nerf by the OP was intent at nerfing heroes, MY GOD HEROES!!!!

GWs need henchies/heroes, because getting all the roles filled is time consuming.

Imagine that if every time u wanted to play u had to get a 8 person party... Also don't see why if u are alone u should be playing crappy builds on half of ur team...

When I hear the word gimmick build I think of HA eg IWAY and RitSpike just to name a few.

Getting back on topic. I would suggest there need to be bigger reward for getting back into grouping agian.I would say with full team free passage to as it now to the UW and FoW.You won't need to gods blessing either.Then there are missions some type of reward for doing those with full real party maybe better drops or 1000g for completing it with full party.

I agree with you that GW needs heroes and henchies.
There are just too many empty outposts and players are spread all over 3 continents and an expansion.

But now let's look at what the OP stated about them: "when playing solo is more effective than playing with others, there's a problem."

Let's see why heroes are more effective and where they are less effective.
To start with the latter, heroes can't read the battlefield, can't predict anything (though I've had some healer hench pre-prot me several times), can't split, stand in AoE damage. In general, they are 'stupid'. But with some micromanagement this ain't that bad. And one more disadvantage, heroes seem to like being on low energy. They keep spamming spells and skills.
Now let's see what heroes are good at. They don't leave your party, they don't complain, they follow orders (and you), they don't draw unintended aggro without the player's mistake, they are very good at reacting on situations meaning that they will pump red bars up and use conditional skills when the condition is met.
Furtermore, as you mentioned, heroes cut a lot of time from teaming.

Now as the op stated, playing solo is more effective than playing with others.
I don't fully agree on that, the most effective would be 2 humans + 6 heroes (and not 1 human, 3 heroes and 4 henchies) or a full human organised and experienced team. Why? The human team would be about as effective as heroes on the thing heroes are good at, doesn't have the disadvantages that heroes have and are far better on prioritizing their skill usage.
The two human + 6 heroes is most optimal because it gives the benefit of full control over the team (assuming both players have unlocked all skills and can use the best runes/weapons available). And compared to the time it takes to organise a 'random' human party this combination is far superior.

So my problem isn't exactly the OP's problem. 2 humans + heroes is more effective than true soloplay, so changing SR to achieve more people playing together isn't really making things better.
However, I do think that SR gives both necro humans and necro heroes an unfair advantage at them moment.
They have access to an unlimited pool of energy, which isn't bad for the necro skills, but allows spamming of non-necro skills that the class from which the skill originates can't spam.
For example, if I want to run Heal Party in my team I can put it on a monk and he's drained after 3 casts. Put it on a necro and as long as stuff is dieing the necro will be able to spam. The same is true for many expensive monk spells. A couple of months ago I tried a very energy intense N/E build, because of stuff dieing all over the place the hero was almost allways able to cast on reload. Try that on an ele...

And while the change the OP proposed would solve this, it does it the wrong way. If someone wants three of more necro's in his/her team, they should be fully effective as necro. But it shouldn't be that they are more effective filling the roles other classes were intended to, something that's currently the case. Furtermore, in most necro teams the more necro's you add, the less efficient the necro line will become. It's far better to use some necro skills your team needs and spec the rest on their secondary profession.
It's easy to make an Icy Veins necro that is full Rt healing for the rest of the skills. And the team will benefit from both IV as the healing.

This problem is mainly a heroes problem. Most human necro players will feel they are more efficient as necro as they are as hibrid or full specced secondary. Playing a N/Rt or N/Mo isn't the kind of play people play necro for.
And it's exactly what hero necro's love to do. Move red bars up and use skills when conditions are met. And they can spam their skills, since they have unlimited energy.

I think it's fair to at least consider a change to SR combined with the secondary profession. Someone else surgested capping the secondary on 9 for all professions (other thread), that's also a solution.

And remember, when Sabway was invented people didn't have EotN PvE skills, so the build was powerfull back then and very able to do the job, but it's is far more powerfull today when the human player uses the right PvE skills.

I agree that 2 players + 6 heroes is very good. That's the way I play most of the time, and I bet its quite easy for anyone to have a real life friend, a brother/sister/cousin or parents and kids, to play in that way. And most of the game is balanced in that way.

Yes, necro heroes (but paragon heroes are amazing too, it is just a pitty you only have four of them with 2 players, stupid mox had to be a dervish ) are very very powerful, and Necromancer always had been the most powerful PvE profession with their SR that basically is equivalent or better than any Elite energy management skill.


But human players, can and will match the necromancer ability to spam skills, even if only because they know they don't need to remove blind from a mesmer.

Along with that, the most powerful advantage humans have is the ability to split in to small teams to eliminate different targets. And melee professions can kill quite fast with deep wound and or splinter weapon.

In my opinion, you either nerf soul reaping because it is too powerful or you don't. Nerfing it to destroy necromancer heroes only is just stupid.

I am so amazed that people are still crying for PvE nerfs this late in the game's life. I don't understand why anyone would want a PvE nerf of any sort at this point. The game is on the way downhill. I would seriously estimate that we have lost 1/3 of the player base that we had 1 year ago. Why? Because of the age of the game and nerfing. To say that PvE needs "balancing" is just a load of bull. Why does it need nerfing? Because you feel someone is getting away with something? Well if it was pvp I would agree with you. But, PvE isnt meant to be balaced in the manner that your all complaining about it. People here wanting another soul reaping nerf. Why dont we just remove the necro from the game. That might solve your inadequacy issues about necros. You want to kill "cry of pain", sure thats what I would do, I remember when mesmers were the most underplayed class in the game.....for a long time.
You want to promote teamplay in GW? Give an IQ test to all new players, that might help. And it may do alot of you some good to keep in mind that you have been playing for 3+ years and alot of the people now in the game are new. Making judgement calls on new players and the way they play is easy from the viewpoint of someone playing this long.
You want to make a difference in the game? Try logging onto it and forming parties with new players and helping them learn how to play instead of sitting on a forum whinning and complaining that they dont play like you do.

It's not because of the nerfing as a main area, it's because of the implimentations that got nerfed. If something wasn't there in the first place it doesn't need changing.

That, and quitting the game because of nerfed skills is retarded (it's an online game which is/(was) competetive and nerfs only hurt PvE directly when there's barely any viabilities in said class) unless they totally kill the design scheme of a class.

Also, you say nerfing Soul Reaping is equivilant to removing Necros from the game. How does this even compare to removing them from the game?

Might wanna read what i wrote before saying that i compared this. I said instead of nerfing them just remove them. It has been an issue for everyone playing the game so it seems, so remove them. Skill nerfing is one of the causes of these "glitch" builds anyway. I remember when everyone complained about B/P groups, so they got nerfed. expertise nerf followed by pets can't be used for minions, followed by nerfing down barrage. Such examples can be sighted for any class in the game. For players who find enjoyment with a particular build or style of play, this is annoying. I am talking about casual players,not the farmers in DoA,UW,FoW etc... The ranger for instance is only useful for its spirits it seems in most players opinions, and then only as a secondary class. The best you can do with them now is the role of interupter, and with the long past nerf to expertise thats not always an option either. Some people like to h/h their way through the game. They get tired of trying missions with any number of idiots that can be expected with pug groups. As I stated before, maybe some of you who sit here and complain day after day should try logging into the game and helping those noobs that you all complain about. Help them learn to play. If your not part of the solution then you are part of the problem, and suggesting nerfs as being part of the solution is just not getting anywhere. And truthfully other than nerfing to be nerfing, what is the real point of nerfing in PvE?
If you feel that the present popular mode of play is not for you, then do it your way. It like saying "I" like soccer so football should either be done away with or make it more like soccer. Does that really make sense to you? It is a
rudimentary form of what you all are asking for.

The 'help them learn to play' part is the part where nerfing comes in.
A player does not learn to play when using overpowered builds in PUG farming groups.
Back to something I said earlier somewhere on the forum, I have seen players who were very good at a specific farm (UWSC or VS for example) but failed big time at anything regular.
Now I don't mind players farming, for some reason it seems to be the best thing to do to achieve titles (also cause of the problem).
However, if they would stuck with farming I would not mind but sooner or later they want Guardian or Vanquisher and some prefer to do that with a guild. And guess what, they can't do it in a team and are a burden to those who joined them for the mission or vq.
Why? Because they never learned to play.

I have played this game for more hours than I care to mention. Even when we get a guild event going with people the real lack of healers is a major pain. I started the game in Prophecies even though I had Factions. Nightfall had not been introduced yet. I would join PuG to do missions but would generally quest with henchman if one of my friends were not available (most of the time). I really do prefer playing with one other person rather than more, mainly due to the fact that you want to balance a party and its easier without odd people. I had a Warrior and a Mesmer and I was playing with a Necro or a Ranger friend. I really appreciated the introduction of heroes as this suddenly gave me the ability to have "henchmen" with better builds. Still the pain of doing missions and trying to get decent Monks was irritating, and there was an elitism that heroes were bad. These days most of the people I have got involved with in a PuG situation still do not set up their heroes properly, but they are glad to get hero support. Hero healers are reliable even if the AI is not as optimal as some people would have it. When they introduced PvE skills, which give you a reason to increase your reputation/faction, Lightbringers Gaze the first one it was great. I would love to be able to play more than 3 heroes at a time, but the mechanic of that requires too much reprogramming for the micro management of the heroes. I think that PvE skills and the added set in EOTN are absolutely great. Consumables are also really nice and are very good for doing Elite areas as I cannot afford to play the game 24x7 and do it all the hard way. I think hard mode was badly implemented, some missions are very simple and others you fail because the NPC's get killed before you can get to them. Having hard mode and the ability to farm "Kurzick" or "Luxon" faction is great. I seldom would use consets here and quite like doing it with 2 peeps and good heroes. Crying because there is an ability to get synergy from different build combinations is a sad indictment to the elitists of this game. If you want to go and do hard mode elite areas with utter pain, please feel free to stop influencing my enjoyment with comments like Ursanway is unfair to the monsters in DoA. I have been to the DoA area and it is sparsely supported as it is elitism that stop people accepting that a Dervish or a Mesmer would like to do it. We are never going to be able to get groups of 8 people to play universally throughout the community, so stop trying to get it by interefering with other peoples enjoyment. I like Cry of Pain. I like Discord. I wish they had not nerfed soul reaping they way they did. Why should I not get energy back from killing a pet or killing a spirit. Those things were "alive" and attacking me. Maybe the energy I get back should be related to their level and not blanket. Balancing PvP is a joke as synergy builds will always come to the surface. Balancing PvE is ludicrous as it is totally unimportant.

Any mention of SF, Cry of Pain, SY and similar and the same argument occurs.

Cryway emerged about 9 months ago and people used it happily for at least 6 months in Deep and DoA without being belittled. So why did it become like this? There's two issues here - GWGuru's view of cryway and the introduction of perma-SF

For 6 months there was no word of cryway on GWGuru; The Deep build appeared on PvXwiki and was congratulated for its innovation in a game that was more ursan/physical based. More recently, on the face of things, Cryway seemed to suddenly be taking over and crushing all elite areas - with all speed records slowly being claimed by cryway teams, guru claiming pugs and inexperiened people were shitting over the achievements of elitists who swore by a "superior" SY-dependant physicalway.

For those with a keen eye, the records show a very different story. Namely that most of them are from the same group of people, so suddenly what guru sees as PuGs and inexperiened people steaming through elite missions turns into a single group of hardcore players, who have a knack for coordination and tactics, working over the elite missions one by one and getting results. People who are capable, no doubt, of being just as successful in elite areas with a physical-way team.

I'm fully aware that cryway is a PuGs first choice in an elite areas, but how many of those PuGs are actually successful? You just need to look at DoA or the price of Obsidian Shards and realise these areas are still dying. I have yet to see a PuG steam flawlessly through an elite mission using cryway.

I agree SF shouldn't be maintainable but - like CoP and SY - all of these things already have just slightly inferior alturnatives. UWSC tactics were already being derived far before SF was maintainable. CoP could easily be replaced by other AoE armor ignoring damage (RoJ, FoC, E-Surge - just to name a few) - does this mean all these skills need nerfing also?

PvE isn't meant to be entirely balanced - why else would skills be PvE only?

interesting suggestions, but i think it's a little too much...you would totally kill PvE with these changes.

shadow form - leave it as it is now. it's only invinci-mode in certain areas, and in DOA especially, you need a bonder monk in order for it to work properly. this is called teamwork.

SY - i'm ok with the energy/adren/recharge requirements that you suggested, but decreasing the armor and making it only useable by a warrior would be the nail in the coffin for paragons. i understand that a group of 8 paras can steamroll PvE, but 95% of GW players (excluding the ones that come to these forums) don't know this. it's hard enough to get in a group as a para. with this change, para's would become even more of a solo class than they already are.

CoP - again, overkill. this skill would no longer be useable in PUGs. as many have said before, most PUGs have at least a few terribad players who struggle to lock on to the same target as everyone else. making this so you have to interrupt different targets (while also being a mesmer specced high enough in FC) is just downright cruel. besides, as it is now most PUGs have trouble holding aggro anyway.

the soul reaping change is absurd - why in the world would you want to punish groups consisting of multiple necros? a necro wanting to join a PUG that already had 2 others would get snubbed because his and every other necro's primary attribute would be complete crap. i understand that you want to limit the power of triple necro hero builds, but i think there are better ways of doing it. for example, limiting the number of heroes we have - 2 of each profession is sufficient.

as far as consumables are concerned, i could care less whether they stacked, were useable at the same time, etc. I think these are more gimmicky than the skills you listed.

bottom line is - PvE mobs (in HM anyway) have ridiculous casting times, energy pools, HP, and attribute point allocations. it only makes sense to give players a few tools to help combat the overwhelming odds against them.

and for the record, I am talking about PUGs only - i realize that an organized group of guildies or w/e can tackle HM easily, but i'm talking about the average GW player who would be missing out on essential parts/areas of the game. this is the main reason i've quit other MMO's, because certain areas of the game were just TOO elite.

I found this funny.

1. Where did anybody who's talking in a decent manner bring up achievements? It's the fact that areas that are known as "elite" become as easy as pre-searing because of several skills and items.

2. A heavy physical party isn't "dependant" on "Save Yourselves!", as it just needs someone subbing out - it's physical, not SYway or something. Cryway, on the other hand, has Cry took out and it's absolute crap. Note: This was not an argument about Cry vs. Physical, I'm merely stating that it's pretty stupid saying that a balanced build, with a certain layer of defense that it's "dependant" on to be successful. It's a balanced build, which means it doesn't rely on a single skill or mechanic to work.

Because ANet are so bad at implimenting things that they have to completely abolish it or go against the main design from a full gametype to be a nerf candidate?

Sure, PvE isn't meant to be entirely balanced, but does that mean you should get "iwin!" buttons?

You completely missed my point.

Powering something down is in no way comparable to removing it from the game. Just because they are failing to power something down on numerous occasions doesn't mean they should just remove it, it means they're slipping up.

Believe it or not, saying "instead of X just Y" is in a way, comparison. Hit someone or shoot them in the head? Compare, one is less drastic and the other is just on the top of the scale for stupidity. Nerf it or delete it? Nerfing is less drastic than a deletion.

Read through the OP and several pages and all I am seeing is "QQ - I want my holy trinity back."

You Nerf Assassin (so you can get into UW Groups).
You Nerf Paragon (so you can get into Anguish).
You Nerf Mesmer (so you can get into Slaver's).

You people complained about Ursan Blessing until it was nerfed into oblivion. The farmers adapted (within hours of the nerf going live), the casual players suffered, and you accomplished nothing.

The only thing these nerfs would accomplished is keeping the casual player from getting anything nice which results in a unhappy customer. ANET might wish to keep their casual players happy since they are the majority of players (meaning we are the minority).

Instead of driving ANET customer away how about,

1. Find a PvE guild that runs a balance team.
2. Get a second account - 1 Player 6 heroes

Holy trinity is Tank 'N' Spank. Tank 'N' Spank is bad, and should be nerfed solely because of the fact that it's immensely easy to do - tank grab aggro, monks mash heals, eles mash aoe, hey luk i can do eet wit no braine!

The only casual player who would grind to r10 before actually being able to play the game (the game for a skill which goes against 3 principals of the game), would be a casual player who isn't casual.

One is basically impossible because of major imbalances which allow gimmicks to dominate, the other goes against one of the things mentioned in this suggestion. Try again.

I know my posts are slightly longer than what you're capable of reading Tyla, but I did go on to explain that both SY and CoP has suitable alturnatives. "CoP could easily be replaced by other AoE armor ignoring damage (RoJ, FoC, E-Surge - just to name a few)". I know it's hard for you to comment sensibly on the matter because of your lack of experience using caster-based builds (a lack of experience which you've quite effectively shown in many similar debates around guru).

The idea behind the post was explaining that guru grief about cryway is not true to its actual ingame presence - how can something be deemed so gimmicky when there is only proof of a few people doing so well with it. Another point I made was that if CoP was an "insta-win" button, then why did it take over 6 months for anyone to pay attention?

Why is "tank and spank" bad? What part of Obsidian Flesh tank + nukers made DoA easy? Anet invited us to use AoE damage and aggro control the moment they made elite mission mobs huge. Its seems illogical and stupid to kill them messily and 1 by 1, but to each their own I suppose.

I wasn't actually provoking you (so much for commenting sensibly), and how could you call Cryway "Cryway" without Cry of Pain?

If something is dependant, it's not going to run without. Cryway won't be Cryway without Cry of Pain. Balanced will always be balanced with multiple game elements. IWAY wouldn't be called IWAY without IWAY. Spiritway wouldn't be called Spiritway if it wasn't so bent on taking advantage of additional allies and Soul Reaping. Hexway wouldn't be called Hexway without hexes, and so on. Balanced is often a lot more versatile than the above - hence not gimmicky, whereas all the others rely on a certain skill or mechanic to be effective.


Oh, and now who's the one who is incapable of reading? Spare me your taunts, I wish for this discussion to actually be civilised.

Or to elaborate on that, a gimmick build will rely on minimum areas of mechanics and skills, whereas a balanced build will rely on a multiple amount of skills and mechanics.

Tank 'N' Spank, outside of Cryway is absolutely terrible in comparison to other means - hence, bad. DoA is easy so long as you know what you're doing. Killing things 1-by-1 is showing that you don't know how to take advantage of enemy positioning and skills that inherit possible AoE damage on a physical the same way I apparently don't know how caster groups operate - Splinter Weapon, Crude Swing and all that other crap - I don't feel like elaborating that because I shouldn't have to.

Well said. Even without all those god-like skills PVE still won't be balanced (at least not for all). There always would be 'the best' build for each area and majority of players would use this build (if your character's class would be different from classes in this build then you won't be able to participate in such mission even if you're pro in playing your class). Like old Oro-farm - be monk, warrior, necro, ele or get lost.

I think that making monster skill bar more variable and enemy group more class-random (five doylaks in HM) would make elite missions & HM bit more challenging (until then there always would be build against each area).