Next Skill Balance

So rather than nerfing Assassins only acceptable PUG build to the point where Sins are once again no longer wanted in general play, how about buffing other classes up?

Its long been acknowledged that Rangers, Mesmers, and now Dervishes and Paragons have few if ANY builds useable in general PvE, not to mention HM and elite areas.

If SF haters are genuinely worried about game balance and not excluding all but their pet classes, then they too would be calling for marginalized class BUFFING, not FotM farming/run builds being nerfed.

IF ANet handles things as usual with skill updates, Sins will be gone, again, Wars, Eles and Monks will have their "Big 3" status again, and every other profession in the game will still be a joke.

Regina's post more or less confirms that, as the most pressing issues are two farming builds and PvP, with additional issues being Hammers and Tactics? Meanwhile, scythesins and scythewars make Dervishes look like cruel jokes, and Mesmers might as well be hanging out at the pub with the Rangers.

Whether they want to admit it or not, PvE is the core of any MMORPG, even if it is instanced play like GW. When half the classes in your game are a joke, there's something wrong with worrying about farming builds, or BUFFING an attribute line on a class that already sees more play than the other half combined (i.e. Warriors and Hammer Mastery/Tactics).

[edit] And besides, speedclearing isn't even that big of a problem. How about making the other 95% of the game that isn't "endgame elite" content attractive again? Such as ALL of Prophecies? People wouldn't be trying to speedclear if rewards were boosted elsewhere in general areas. If you as a player could get an ecto drop from ANY mob in the game while in HM (albeit a much lower chance than in UW) then you'd be more inclined to try other areas, especially if ANet also decided to "rotate" drop rates. So HM UW mobs could have a 4% to 8% drop rate, while HM Ascalon mobs could have a .4% to .8% drop rate.

In all fairness, I realize there'd be a bunch of QQing about "my poor economy!" from elitists and such, but ANet really needs to reinvigorate their game, and not just focus on elite, end game areas.

Really? Is that why if you look on PvXWiki under "Great PvE" builds, you'll find precisely TWO Paragon builds that aren't a runner or farming build?

And you call that a STRONG profession? While you might try as usual to obfuscate the issue, the Paragon build that everyone knows about is based around "Save Yourselves!" a WARRIOR PvE skill.

Contrast that with the myriad of builds for other professions, including even Mesmer and Ranger, and you'll see that one overpowered build does not a class make. Which is exactly the point with the argument over skill balance and why in the SF thread the argument has gone on for so long.

In a game that had equivalent balance for all classes and utilized all skills (perhaps not equally, but at least situationally) you'd see a myriad of builds for each class for various areas and duties.

You don't see that in Guild Wars, and just to anticipate your lame argument, the culprit is NOT in fact Shadow Form. Its poor game balance combined with poor skill/profession planning and static monster placement and skill allotment.

Until you grasp this simple concept, you and others will never understand why builds like Shadow Form will be endemic to Guild Wars, you'll just QQ everytime they crop up. I realize the insanity of this next suggestion, but try becoming a research scientist in the biomedical field and you'll see why its a fool's endeavour to treat symptoms if its possible to cure the disease vector.

Your logic would have fought against the discovery of antibiotics like penicillin, instead claiming it was best to just let people die and give them plenty of morphine to ease their suffering. A heavy handed comparison I know, but you seem to be immune to rational thought.

[edit] I apologize for arguing with Yelling @ Cats, I don't know why my posts generate such ire from him, apart from there being a lot of words. As in the other thread, I'll just /ignore him from now on.

How about we all stop arguing about SF? If 53 pages (and counting) of arguing didn't change their minds, repeating those same arguments in a different thread won't change them either.

Are you serious?

Uh no...clearly overpowered shit should be nerfed. I don't care what class it is.

Half of the classes aren't a joke. PvE is easy. It is easily beatable with any class in the game. The problem is not that those classes are a joke...the problem is there is a SUPERIOR BUILD on other classes that makes people not want to play anything else. This doesn't mean those other classes are a joke. It means the superior builds are a joke.

While its ok for the do gooders and pvpers to applaud the upcoming nerfs i hope anet are ready for the backlash that will follow. You can say, stop whining or go play another game but the reality is, many will, infact too many will and then it'll be you guys back to complaining the games dying again.

From the majority of people i see in pve they actually enjoy alot of the SF 600/smite stuff. Hear that "ENJOY" that means we have fun with it. Unless these nerfs are replaced with something that is gonna blow us away and keep us entertained then the exodus will begin, which will be a shame, as our guild, 1000 or so 30+ members, has done a pretty good job at maintaining numbers with all the new games that came out in 2009.

The game is coming to the end of its shelf life now gearing up to GW2, things like SF and 600/smite etc give us old timers something to enjoy while we stick it out for the wait. The update to UW i applaud. I never bothered with the old UWSC but i really enjoy what you've done with it now. DO something similar to FoW and change the mobs around in dungeons and the other elite areas and you'll get a much better reaction that what your suggesting atm.

The game is far too big and spread out with way too much to do to think about going back to basics. I'd like to see more different ways of doing things like buffing up other chars, changes to dungeons and elite areas along with normal areas but obviously thats too much work, might aswell kop out and nerf what we have now.

Personally theres nothing you can do to the game to encourage me to get involved in pvp (the following people who are about to flame this post are the perfect example of why not). And i have no intention of going back 6 hour missions with half the team going afk and rage quitting.

In my eyes pve and farming is currently more FUN than its ever been and i'm a 4 year+ 10k hour+ and pretty well known for my farming abilities with every class (look me up on YT). Currently very pessimistic and disappointed at the suggestions i see so far and really hoping i'm proved wrong and you come up with something better than messing with hammers. Your far too concerned with "balancing" when the games at the point where your priorities should be security and holding onto us until GW2. I can survive without perma and 600 but its gonna take a large slice of my fun out of the game for me.

if SF is gonna get nerfed than so should 600/smite its only fair...also any news on nerfing res sig?

Yes.

"Clearly overpowered" relative to what? As I said, other classes like Rangers, Mesmers, Dervs and Paras are clearly "underpowered" when compared to an SF Sin, as well as the "Big 3" of War/Ele/Mo. Overpowered and underpowered are just relative measurements, so its just as easy to raise underpowered classes up as it is to bring overpowered classes down. Plus, you don't risk alienating the one used build for PvE Sins.

Assume for a moment that 95%+ of GW players don't religiously check GWGuru forums... oh wait, they don't.

Then factor in that newcomers to the game won't know from the Wiki which classes are vastly over or underpowered nor that there is one specific build on a heretofore unused class, and its not as if the population of the game will be uniformly the most powerful classes.

As is shown by all the Ranger and Derv GWAMMs I've seen.

None of the classes are a "joke" I was simply using that as a comparison to the overpowered builds. For purposes of FUN which is what games are about, its more FUn to have powerful characters than vastly weakened ones. That's the whole idea and concept behind consumables and PvE skills. I would have thought all of this was obvious.

What the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO am I reading?

Is there only one meaning of fun now? Mindless self indulgence? I thought this was Guild Wars, where skills and tactics were supposed to be the deciding factor. Where the players were not strong in comparison to the monsters and we would have to make up for it in strategy. Where brute force is for the Minotaurs.

The original concepts for this game are all gone. Skill, tactics, strategy... Why bother when you can take any of the 2-3 dozen meta builds and c+space every map? If you think that is "fun" then I suggest picking up Diablo. That's not how this game should be.

My fun is in overcoming challenge and increasing my capabilities.

im pretty sure "midline spikes" is for pvp only, did you read the note? "gvg" aka, caster spikes.

very op

gotta love em

And, I havn't read thru the previous 9 pages, so here's my suggestion:
Stop nerfing things to oblivion, BALANCE them. Example: Smiters boon. Basically removing skills from the game is what is killing it...
A good example of balancing is what you did to PnH

zzz

Since when was PvX the dictator of what professions are useful or good?

It's not.

And assassins accepted in PUGs as non-permas. They have many speedy SY dagger and crit scythe builds.

I'm not sure where you're going with this, your statements in your second paragraph directly contradict those of the first.

Suffice to say, I'm not advocating mindless self indulgence as the only path to fun. In contrast to those for nerfing and exclusion, I am for ALL playstyles. You wanna permasin speedclear? Have at it. 600/Smite some dungeons? Go you. Setup a balanced team of players to conquer DoA in non-PvX gimmicky style? More power to you. Vanquish all three campaigns with Discordway? Let the fun begin.

I don't care how others play, which is why I'm for buffing underused classes to bring them up to the level of the War/Ele/Mo trinity, and if SF must be nerfed so be it, but the Sin needs some re-work then to be usable in PUG play.

And don't let the elitists fool you, PUG play is and SHOULD be an important part of any online cooperative game. It allows the casual gamers, the guys who log a couple of hours a week, to get online and accomplish something, which keeps them involved in the game, rather than spamming LFG of their under-appreciated build in any given outpost, mission or otherwise.

Meta builds exist because the game is horribly designed from the ground up. Its interesting you bring up Diablo. Diablo 2 for example will be ten years old next June, and yet I could log on right now and still find plenty of people playing. Its longevity, despite its small size in comparison to GW or WoW is due to being free to play, consistent updates over its lifetime, even into its "dog" years, and most importantly, randomization, especially in Hell difficulty.

You'd think ANet would take SOME inspiration away from that. Games that last offer replayability, which GW has none of. There's no difference in the campaigns regardless of what profession you roll through it with, each monster will always have the same mods, the same vulnerabilities, and there are no surprises.

Every time you play Diablo 1 or 2, especially on BNet, the game experience differs due to different enemies, relative power and mods, etc. Even drops are randomized by treasure class, rather than the set drops that high end mobs and chests give in GW.

While I am happy to see that ANet continues to take an interest in their flagship product, the ham-hands approach to it is disheartening, and does not bode well for the design of GW2. If they can't get ten base professions balanced, how will they possibly balance whatever number of professions across five different races? Even assuming that only the Warrior, Mage and Healer professions are the only ones introduced on launch for example, that's 15 separate possible combinations, not including any further customization such as secondary professions or cross-classing.

In the end equation, what will be, will be. Que sera sera and all that. Its just that I wish that this game, which held such promise on launch, has very much failed to ignite my imagination or hold my interest. My only reason for re-installing recently was to play with my brother who picked it up, had he not there's zero chance I would have gotten back into the game. As it is, I'm playing Oblivion again, and he's playing Supreme Commander. The "polish" of Guild Wars wears very thin when there's no substance beneath.

Do dervs/mesmers/etc need a buff to push them up to the level of the big 3? Hell yes. I fully agree that they need help.

Now, do sins need a buff to push them up to the level of the big 3? Hell no. They're already there, thanks to MSDB and critscythe. People just don't realize it, probably because the only assassins they've ever seen were SF sins and narutards. Buffing them even more would just make them overpowered.

It is to the multitude of weekend wammos out there who can't be bothered with sites like this or elitist jerks which use calculus to determine Gaming Theory 101. Its an extremely valuable resource for the casual gamers, which in most cases constitute the vast majority of the audience and marketing demographic.

The reason a site like PvXWiki exists is BECAUSE there are "meta" builds that stand the test of time (that interval being the period between skill nerfs). To say that those builds suck is foolhardy, if there were better builds out there that are NOT on PvXWiki, its because either they're still in testing or elitists keep their "secret" builds to themselves, a phenomenon I've witnessed on this very forum when it comes to farming builds and areas especially.

Yes they do. My 42 month old sin has a bible of builds that I found when I re-installed. Would any one of them be accepted in a group that didn't know my playstyle or whether I was effective or not? Almost assuredly no. In fact, when not running my bro through areas or helping with missions, the ONLY Sin build I've been asked to run is a Perma tank, scythesin or Crit Defenses are laughed at.

SY! is a saving grace for many PUGs, but its a warrior skill, and any non-warrior built around maintaining it, such as an Imbagon I don't consider to be a representative build. Effective, maybe, but there are arguments that show that WHEN you need SY! its most likely too late to save you.

In short, in PUGs, professions running non-meta builds are generally laughed out. It could be said they're not worth playing with but then you cut out a huge chunk of the playerbase, and most would rather run a meta build and play, rather than sit in an outpost spamming LFG of their unique build.

PvX is far better now than it used to be and doesn't deserve the slating now that it used to get, a little credit to the contributions people share instead of constant belittling by people like yourself would be nice. Especially as many of the builds on there start out here on guru and make there way to pvx after being tried, tested and refined.

Either way, whatever you think of it, his quote in comparing Para builds to other prof was spot on, pvx can atleast act as a gauge in that respect and the lack of builds and para's in teams is clear for all to see

I'm just glad that a dead attribute like tactics is going to get some love. It's not great but it's a start.

Leave 600/smite alone

*raises hand*

I've been doing that (mostly for the dervish, since that's the one I know the best) ever since I joined this forum.

Problem is, SF isn't just for farming. It also rapes general pve. That's why I want to see it die a horrible, horrible death. I couldn't care less about the economy.

For this reason, too, I don't mind the 600/Smite nerf. It isn't nearly as powerful as SF, but it is still definitely overpowered.

Now, the 55 monk, on the other hand...I wouldn't want to see that touched. That is a true farming build. You can farm with it in some places, but not everywhere.

But yes, it is amusing to see people whine about 600/Smite being nerfed, isn't it? Especially the ones who give the same arguments as SF-supporters, or (even better) the people who just say "don't nerf it" and give no explanation.

It does demonstrate that there is a lot of selfishness on both sides of the table when it comes to the SF debate. But it also highlights those who actually do have good reasons for supporting one side of it or another (ie, overpowered vs grind too extreme otherwise, as an example).

Good for you!

I would contend that general PvE, beyond campaign missions and such (where its nearly impossible to use SF anyway) is basically farming, since these areas yield no benefit unless they are repetitively worked over. How many times must a man run Kathandrax before it becomes "farming?" There are many builds that are highly effective in general PvE, do they also deserve to die horribly?

I would contend that it is more powerful, it has more redundancy, more survivability, and rez capability, which is invaluable in areas like UW or FoW. Its also designed generally to kill everything in an instance, which yields more drops than running to bosses/chests, and economically speaking is much more valuable, especially when you consider things like Voltaic spears and such.

Why? Farming is farming, whether its farming random undead mobs or dungeons, who are you to differentiate and tell others how and what to farm? If I want to farm for Elite Tomes on my Permasin, why shouldn't I be allowed to? Why must I be forced to use a build I don't like? It will end up the ONLY reason is because SF was not the "pet" build of a vocal minority of players, who for whatever reason ANet sees fit to cater to.

It is amusing to see the hypocrisy, which only confirms what I've been saying about the SF haters from the beginning. If ANet were smart, they'd alter mob makeup in instances, or just randomize it, but they won't, because they're not.

I'd wholeheartedly agree. Unfortunately too many people can't see the forest for the trees, including ANet and their test "krewes" lol. The problem with skill balancing in a game with hundreds of skills is not to balance them against the mobs, but against each other. Each profession's relative power and importance to a group should be roughly balanced, such that for any given area, a party leader making a choice between a healing/prot monk and an interrupt/dom-hex mesmer would face a tough, not obvious decision.

It doesn't matter in terms of gameplay if all the classes get insta-gibbed by mobs or insta-gib said mobs, as long as all contribute relatively equally. Once you balance THAT (party composition and relative skill power) THEN you go about slowly increasing the difficulty of areas until a equilibrium of sorts is achieved. But as long as you maintain skill balance between classes, there would be no threads such as the SF debate/debacle.

Admittedly, at this point in time, ANet is unlikely to change their methods, and GW will continue to devolve to the point where it is the very antithesis of what ANet set out to create, a "skill is more important than grind or time game." I just hope for their sake and the players that they take a hard look at their balance process for GW2 and make appropriate adjustments, because if GW2 is done along the same lines, it will lose its luster much more quickly than GW, and suffer from abysmal retention.

Good luck buffing Tactics. Besides the fact that most of the skills suck for a Warrior primary, Tactics suffers because a W/ who actually intends to kill stuff with a weapon has to spec highly into weapon mastery and strength, leaving only a few points for utility. And there's no utility in the tactics line for a damage dealer. The few good skills the line ever had were nerfed because of Paragons anyway.

What are so many people farming gw pve for this many years into the game?

Pathetic. If you knew how to read you'd know that I'm in favour of nerfing both SF and 600 smite and I'm not even hiding it. But apparently the fact that I have "A" next to my profession on guru profile makes you rage, see red and can't think.
So go ahead, rage so more.

Please, do quote me on the part where I stated that you were not in favor of nerfing both SF and 600/Smite. If you know how to read you can not quote anything. Calling Guru users who don't want to see 600/smite nerfed in the exact same way without dignity, could even be classed as trolling, since you haven't provided any valid arguments to support your statement. Simply stating "fair treatment" isn't a valid argument.

Appearantly, you have a have a hard time recognizing the symptoms of raging, and make false statements about my state of mind. If this was an attempt of you to troll, it has been rather unsuccesful. Until you have provided a valid reason in terms of game balance why you think 600/Smite should be nerfed, your opinion will be dismissed as a simple way of revenge for having your favorite farm skill nerfed. Again, you haven't simply given any reason on why.

At least support your opinion with arguments for crying out loud.

Armors, I guess.

Bolded to better express my anger

I guess you smart-butt comment was just for show? Here, let me quote it for you.
And that's after I made fun of people who want to nerf sf but not 600.
I guess that wasn't neutral enough for you, huh?
Are you insane? You dismiss my opinion because it's "not based on any argument" and you try to tell me that my favourite farm skill is SF? Or that I even have favourite farm skill?
Oh wow, that's mighty dumb but it looks like I might have some fun with you.
Until you have provided a valid reason and proof as to why do you think that I do in fact have a favourite farm skill and that it's Shadow Form, your opinion will be dismissed as a simple way of revenge for showing you can't comprehend written text.
It looks like pages and pages of reasons in this thread and in many earlier ones aren't enough.
http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Category:G...farming_builds
# Build:Team - 600/Smite Raven's Point
# Build:Team - 600/Smite Rragar's Menagerie
# Build:Team - 600/Smite SoO
# Build:Team - 600/Smite UW
# Build:Team - 600/Smite Vloxen
Build:Team - MQSC Luxon FFF
# Build:Team - 600 Rit/Smite
# Build:Team - 600/Smite Catacombs Of Kathandrax
# Build:Team - 600/Smite CoF
# Build:Team - 600/Smite FoW
# Build:Team - 600/Smite Heart of the Shiverpeaks
# Build:Team - 600/Smite Oola's Lab
# Build:Team - 600/Smite Ooze Pit

It's all fine!

Dont forget u can still...

Farm UW
DTSC
vanquish pretty much everywhere

but yeah its not as OP as perma...MY ARSE!

I dont mind the nerfs because im out of PvE mostly... BUT... If you nerfed R/A's for PvP... That would be great.

ANet SHOULD be jumping for joy that there is this much outcry on just one forum over a skill nerf that affects easy farming.

It means there's a significant portion of people either still playing PvE (edit - this was supposed to be PvE, I just type too fast lol), or there's still "new blood" in terms of GW sales, people are still picking up the game and playing PvE.

Just because many people here have been around since 2005/2006 doesn't mean there aren't new people to the game. My brother for example just picked up Nightfall and EoTN last week.

In any case, catering to the minority (hardcore PvP) and sacrificing the majority (casual PvE) is a surefire way to lose business. Which is why the news posted by Regina seems so bass ackward, nerfing of popular PvE farming builds while worrying about high end PvP (GvG). As well, the buffing of underused attribute lines on the Warrior seems rather foolish when taken in the light of Mesmers, Rangers, Paragons and Dervishes all being massively underpowered and underused.

For many, ANet's direction is confounding any sense of logical direction, and generates a lot of worry over the future of the game and its sequel.

No it doesn't...far from it in fact. The PvP community is dead. If you notice, 99% of the people talking about skill balances now are whiners about farming builds. It has almost nothing to do with PvP anymore, because the majority of real PvPers gave up any hope of balance since Nightfall.

LoL. Which is why the PvP community is dead and the farming community is thriving? Please think this through.

PvP players have been saying this for years. Welcome to the club.

PvE is very, very srs bsns.

Yessssssssssssssssssss stompage of Shadow Form and 600 Smite cometh. I just might come back and play once they nerf these never should have been allowed builds in the first place. Bravo for Anet seeing the light. )

Unlike SF; 600/smite takes skill, and is fun.

=] that's exactly how I feel- guess let the lowbies do their 2+ hour clears XD failboats always win in the end because of their numbers.. gaming has gone downhill last few years anyways

That pretty much sums up all of the whiny ass ppl. If you reverted all the nerfs, then alot of classes can tank instead of trying to come up with another tank and have it nerfed. All classes can be killed in one way or another, and time and time again, its the players that dont have the ability to farm that complain; and last time i checked, thats called "learning how to do it" or buy the right campaign and get with the program.


If SF nerf, need to increase the running game (Dash need 7 second recharge, and need to lower the recharge on dark escape. if you're gonna balance, need to balance the WHOLE equation) to make things still manageable. the assassin is supposed to be fast and hit hard.

With a SF team i managed to run SoO in about 20 minute, i don't think 600 can do in less then 50( a good one)

600 Overpowered? yes, it will nerfed? yes
But on the same level of SF, don't lie to yourself.

I don't see how they are contradicting.

I don't care how others play, but at the same time, certain things should not be. There has to be a determined value of ideal balance. Lots of people look at a profession and say that it should be as good as this other profession. You can't use that relation. You need to compare them all to the ideal location of balance, not each other. Addition and subtraction coexist. You can't just buff weak classes up to the others.

The way this game turned out, most classes are above that. This game was never designed for good PvE. Then they found out that most players wanted PvE. Panic time. Now they have to keep lining up a wall of bricks on an uneven surface and hope that it will eventually even out. It never did. In fact, 3/4ths of the wall is twice as high as the rest!

It's true that this game is far too exploitable. You can effectively beat anything before you even start it just because of preexisting static knowledge. Factor that with how much stronger the players are now and you have poorly designed PvE.

First contradiction.

Channeling Plato are we?

Sorry, but that is what balance IS. Balance is such that the utility of one class's skills are just as much as any other, given the right situation. Where the problem lies is that the situation in GW is always composed in such a way that the onle necessary classes are nuking, tanking and heal/prot. Which eliminates more or less half the available classes in the game as potential candidates, when compared to the likes of the Warrior, Ele and Monk.

The game does not exist in a vacuum. There is no Plato's Form of "balance" from which all else is derived. Balance is relative to each class, a Warrior is terribly underpowered in healing, which is made up for by the Monk. Conversely, hybrid or utility classes like Rangers and Dervishes are underpowered in both respects, because of the skill and party system requiring specialized roles, and penalizing "jack of all trades" types.

Why not? This is often said but never explained. If the end result is class balance, then why does it matter how they are balanced, as long as they are?

Frivolous comparisons. ANet knew very well that PvE would be a huge component, which is why when the game was released there was this large patch of real estate called Tyria, with a long and involved campaign and gradual leveling system. By comparison, the PvP areas are minute. Fail argument fails. Hard.

Again, how is this the fault of Shadowform or 600/Smite? Or could it be that the culprit is poorly designed EoTN skills along with consumables and other additions which were poorly designed, tested and implemented?

Nerfing skills which appear overpowered only when used in cooperation with other skills goes against the whole idea of building effective builds, which is what GW is BASED UPON! If everytime an effective build is discovered, a bunch of whiny emo babies cries about it and ANet nerfs it to Oblivion, then what are you left with? Auto-attack.

Lame.

Nerfing 600 smite will alienate more players than the Soul Reaping Nerf or the Loot Scaling system...Bad idea! 600 is NOT invincability and does take some skill to use.

Recent example. I just died while 600ing, because I went into dream mode for like 3 seconds. Spirit Bond down, I'm dead.