Shout/Chant removal skills

Summary: Give paragons shout/chant/echo removal skills, then buff shouts/chants/echos. They will then keep each other in line.
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I was thinking the other day about what classes counter each other well. And I came to the sudden realization that every class has some built in counters to itself, except for paragons.

Take, for example, warriors. The warrior skill lines are packed full of anti warrior goodies like blocking, stance removal, weakness, even blind. For another example, even monks have scourge healing and scourge enchantment to counter each other (not that they ever do). Mesmers counter mesmers well enough, certain elements counter others, dervishes can rip through each others enchantments, rits can steal or destroy each others spirits, assassins have plenty of anti-melee skills, necros can at least steal each others minions, and rangers at least have plenty of blocking and some blind (also interrupts to counter long casting preps, rituals, and troll unguent).

Paragons, however, lack decent counters to each other. I would like to posit the theory that the reason paragons originally stacked so well and became over-powered, was not simply due to the power/unstrippability of their skills, but to the fact that they can't run counter paragon. If they could, then the more paragons permeated the meta, the faster they'd weed each other out. This may have been suggested before, and if so I apologize.

Classic argument is "paragons are OP" vs "bring vocal minority." However, it [I]is[I] hard to fit such skills into an already crowded bar. Adding chants to mesmer interrupts helped a bit more, but that didn't affect shouts at all.

I would like to suggest that all/most of the useless skills in the paragon line be buffed into anti-shout/chant/echo skills. And not just a couple removal skills, a number of skills could add in punishments if a foe uses or is effected by a shout or chant. I could make up a whole list of suggested buffs, but that's not really my job, nor do I think anyone would pay attention to it. I will say that if shouts and chants become removable, then I think they would then warrant buffs like recharge reduction, and overall the paragon class would benefit.

ally paragon uses "Watch youself"
enemy paragon: "stop watching yourself"
ally paragon: what? i cant watch myself anymore how did he do that?
in other words, /notsigned

use the silencing hexes.

/notsigned

I think you forgot Teh Elementalist?

Yeah and where are the ward removal , and the traps removal ? nah ..... only conditions , hexes and ench should be removed , rest is fine. Not so powerful and have enough counter measures , therefore .......
/notsigned

well if your gonna remove shouts your gonna have to remove quite a bit of other things, like wards and traps and weapon spells(rits) and such.

/notsigned

Use anti-shout curses and wards to defend against shouts. I didn't realize shouts were such a problem anyway...

Shouts are a problem? When did this happen?

And how do you know a target would have a shout on them? Not needed, would cause major balance issues with the current shouts/chants, and there are already skills to prevent shouts/chants from occurring, and damage the user if they do.

/unsigned

I lol'd. I think right idea, but this isn't really needed.
/Notsigned.

I see where you're coming from.

But rarely do you counter a class with the same class.

You counter a monk with everything except a monk
You counter a ele with everything except a monk

etc.

fixed. but still not true.

It's a nice concept, but I don't think it'd make sense. Besides, the game is balanced without shout removal, so this would just pile on lot of unnecessary work.

On a related strain, I've always wondered why Dulled Weapon wasn't some sort of negative weapon spell.

I think it may have been a good idea if skills had been balanced around it from the beginning. However, it wouldn't be worthwhile/effective with the way the game has balanced shouts/chants/wards/weapon spells, etc.

That wasn't a typo, you can kill an ele with an ele, never do you see someone using a monk to kill one.

Granted a necro can't out damage one, it can still degen and what not. Doesn't apply to everything, but does to most.

The thing about shouts is that they can be prevented, but not removed. That's the thing about Shouts.

What would be next? Removing Forms or plain Skill-type effects like critical eye?

Please...


Oh, and any profession can kill any other. If they bring the correct build, even if all the skills belong to their primary profession only.

It's builds what can't counter anything. The same build won't work against anything else. Never. That's why GW is not a game for 1vs1 of any kind, that would be a pointless simplistic in which no one never wins like tic-tac-toe or it's all about luck rock paper scissors.

necro can't out damage an ele? when did this happen...

Lol PvE, keep in mind this is with assistance from 4 other members.

2 warrs, splinter, and tank.

I was talking about PvP, if you need to remove shouts in PvE ur doin it wrong.

You can barbs in PvP and have 4 Melees pounce, but a necro normally can't out damage a Ele in PvP

Dull Weapon used to be a weapon spell, but I suppose they realized that it wasn't consistent with all other weapon spells in that it isn't a buff but like a hex which can't be removed.

Not true that it is the only uncounterable thing.

Life stealing = irreduceable armor-ignoring damage and unpreventable life gain
Weapon spells = irremovable enchantments
Glyph effects = irremovable enchantments
Wards/Wells = uncounterable area of effect buff or hex
Blood Renewal/Patient Spirit = uncounterable heal effect on end
Web of disruption = uncounterable interrupts from beginning to end

Of course you could get into spell-casting counters, but even chants can be countered.

I believe you already explained why this idea is bad, but let me add to this: putting in more hard counters to things is bad for a game where builds are static.

Paras are fine the way they are no shouts of that need to be buffed much.
Change all the concepts of the skills before guildwars 2 comes out wouldnt be worth the time.
Also if u change 1 thing u have to change alot of other things to balance it out.