Nerf Nerfing

the mentality of increasing effectiveness by decreasing effectiveness is beyond me. i can understand for things that were obviously not intended to work in a specific manner (eg. signet of ghostly might, consume soul)

many argue that 'oh well blah blah is too powerful it needs nerf'
maybe instead of thinking about how to make the game less playable or less fun for people, think of ways to make it more fun/playable

maybe instead of reducing effectiveness you could buff other things that would prevent the easy exploitation of the portions of the game which you believe to be imba/op

dwg op? make the mobs not cluster
sos op? make the mobs attack the spirits more often
imbagon op? have npc use serious differences in armour rating as a determining factor of who to attack

where as my example suggestions would probably require more indepth thought to work out issues, they would be alternatives to simply making things less effective in other areas simply because you feel its too powerful

Those three examples you provided would certainly work. Unfortunately, they also happen to depend on monster AI being terrible.

AI is expensive, why would they spend money on it when they could just increase recharge or decrease + armor.

The problem isn't the AI, a 5 sec recharge dual drop ultrapot should never exist.

i agree, but complacency is no excuse, nor is an inability to improve/complete a product you wish to sell

To me, this seems like a valid discussion point that isn't really going to lead to any specific suggestion in particular. "Nerf less", if it is a suggestion, is a fairly vague one.

Moving this to Riverside for now.

You just picked 3 PvE-split skills. If the problem with these skills was simply a matter of AI, they wouldn't be split.

Make mobs not cluster, effectively nerfing all AoE's while only trying to fix one skill? Yeah, that sounds like something Anet might do.

SoS? If you're using your spirits as a wall, they do attack the spirits first... or you're doing it wrong. Armor of Unfeeling says hi.

Imbagon... Mobs do tend to target low armor targets, not that it matters when you have a melee front liner also packing Save Yourself.

Some times targeting the imbalanced skill for nerfing just makes more sense, sometimes tweaking the mobs in the area being abused makes sense... either way, players will adapt and overcome and there will be another FotM build on PvX to replace the nerfed skills in no time. Either way, whiners will whine no matter how Anet deals with skill balancing.

Nerf this thread please.

THIS was the best post on this thread so far

Although I agree with the "idea" behind what the OP started on this thread, it doesn't matter what Anet does, SOMEONE will always find a build that works better than Anet expected them to.

Good players find tweaks to beat the game, that simple.
all other players just follow (cut and paste) the builds that the good players have come up with.

the OP's point is that if you do it with their suggestion you don't diminish the fun of the skills as opposed to just nerfing a skill to the point you can't use it. Of course fun is relative, but my point to you in a language you will understand: Smiter's Boon says, "o hai".

yes, my point precisely

since i never play a monk, and dont use smiters boon anyway..... why would they want to nerf a skill so bad that peeps will stop using it?

"The developer update for this skill states that the PvP version was essentially made to remove it from use completely." ---

this i do not understand

Because they didn't know how to balance it and didn't want people using it in the upcoming tournament so they 'temporarily' removed it from PvP. Of course being Anet they never went back to fix it.

Time for my 50 cents worth .
Nerfing does several things to gw which ppl seems to forget about.
Each nerf/buff forces the community to change,adjust or even create new builds - which isnt a bad thing.
Bosses and foes also get affected and that changes how they are to be farmed/killed.
Nerfs also create new roles for diff professions - also a good thing.
Basically what im sayin is nerfs change a lot of things which does benefit the community otherwise im sure most players would complete gw then not play because there is no challenge to gameplay as nothing changes.
Balancing skills is anets problem which always outshines anything good they do.
But remember you cant please everyone all of the time.
Mesmers used to be used by quite a few players but in regards to getting in a team .. no1 really wanted them as they didnt have anything too great for the team.Now mesmers got a buff and now are usually welcome in most teams - and thats a result of nerf/buff and not a bad thing.
Anets some stage nerf/buffing dervs and half will cry and moan when details released and others will be happy and create new builds , dervs will get bk into teams easier.

In the 5-6 years of these updates, I know it's late but I'm already tired of seeing nothing but skills getting butchered every time they try to re-balance things. Some of us want to put those old skills/builds back to use with at least some functionality towards what they were originally useful for. If the idea is to continue limiting options, then it will just cause the game to get stagnated, which isn't going to do anything towards bringing people in our community back.

Something really has to give at this point or it's never going to get any better. Also screw hype for GW2, this game remains your priority, don't forget what got us here.

you can alter game play without taking things away, which was my point

Or you can silmply dont change nothing from begin..in other games the skills never be changed...or in GW case,change and balance just pvp skills...

i like this idea, specially since i really dont PvP thus would never notice the difference

You forgot that nerfs and skill change made an army of players quit.

Also improving one class skill(s) when that class was already overpowered (rits) it's completly stupid, and surprise it happened.
Improving a skill in such a way that it becomes better to use even for secondary then any of the primary skills it's totaly unbalanced (see doa dwg situation now).

Look at the ele situation now in HM. What supposed and ele play now? ER bonder? Lol, you don't need the ER bonder in hm in most cases. Earth wards? Lol, an paragon is a way better options and anyway wards are really bad when you are facing monsters with area efect skills. Water? Water is doing extremely low damage. Air? Well you can see how people reacted on a air build proposed for HM in gwpvx (just read the comments).
When they changed invoke and chain light they should had split those 2 skill for pve/pvp, decrease cooldown in pve for both of them to 5s and to prevent players concern about the devastating damage that can be caused by air mob use on the air mob eles the pvp version of those skills (pvp version of those 2 skills should had been close to waht is now,still a bit worst then it's now)...

The funny part is that are working for months to dervish skill update. It's funny cause the dervish is not the worst class atm, actually the paragon is the worst.

Anyway my bet is that after they will finish the dervish skill update there will be not other major skills changes, maybe some minor skill changes caused by gvg not by something else (like it already happened).

We can go also on the market side. What's the easiest way to promote indirect GW2? Nerf skills in GW1.

But then again noone will listen to this, cause they didn't listen when they changed both paragon skills that increase attack speed in pve... (Funny to see and Rt/P with spear doing more damage then a P with spear...). And don't tell me that P are support, cause I will tell you to look at roj.

They were talking about quality skills in GW2 and not an army of skills? Aren't they the ones that designed the army of skills in GW? Aren't they the one that design the useless skills in GW?

Several skill updates caused more inbalacements then it was before.

Personally I dont mind nerfs too much, its the price we pay for such a complex skill system. People will always find ways to create certain circumstances for a skill to become particularly powerfull, and in PvP that could become game breaking.
In PvE skill balancing would just be a waste of time.
If ANET would nerf DWG(which I do not hope) something else takes its place.
DWG is only powerfull if the DWG's properly aggro and hold it, otherwise its just a mediocre skill set at best.

If there would be an un-nerf that I would like to see, it would be that physical damage professions once again become viable options for HM areas as damage dealers. Physical damage is a laugh in HM. isnt it wierd that DWG dervish is consired better for doing damage in DoA then a scythe dervish? or any other non caster profession for that matter?
It's not because DWG is too powerfull, its because melee or even elemental damage gets totally descimated by the very high armor of HM mobs.
I would like to see armor ignoring prefixes (doing dark damage for instance) All mellee characters could become descent damage dealers once again. making mellee characters not being forced into a TANK and spank role by definition in HM.
I also would love slayer mods to become something people would like to use and to become available for Derv, sinn, para.

I'm in my beach house at Sanctum Cay with 50/50 in my HoM, half of mil in my bank, feeling happy, thinking of gw2.

How insignificant this thread will be when they silence you for few months with 7 heroes and gw beyond content.

Nerf is just a negative connotation to change. People who QQ re nerfing just really hate change. Personally this stale ole game that I love would have died ages ago without the small level of change that is provided. My view is that change is a new challenge to find a new meta. The QQers just can't be ar sed to take 3 days out and wait for the someone to post the new meta on pvxwiki and roll a new character or buy new equipment.

Vive da Nerfs - more of them, more often I say - gogo more frequent skill updates plox.

Physicals are capable of immense damage in HM you clearly just forgot about just how many viable physical buffs exist.

I play pvp some times,so i dont care too, but when you are fightning players you need balance skill and dont make skill more powerfull than other...this is what programmers done for ages in mmorpg games, but to be honest GW is the first game i played with nerf or buff IN PVE SKILLS O.o..And we cant say that nerf or buffs are minimal,sometimes they change the entire functionality...really wth?

Actually the way Anet nerfs skills is a reason for NOT buying GW2. If they have fewer skills available then the impact of a single nerf could be devastating. It's kind of a pain to go away for a while due to "real life" responsibilities and come back to find things are totally different and builds that used to work crash and burn. All that means is that I have to spend more time looking at PVXwiki for builds instead of playing GW.

I mostly agree with the OP. I have suggested the same thing myself. Buffing skills in PvE is two fold, monsters use mostly the same skills we do. So it has an added benefit of making PvE more challenging. And, it keeps the game fresh with new builds. Where as nerfing skills in general has the opposite effect. Even without buffing skills, buffing high end content, AI, and monster skill bars is something ANet should do for GW. Overall, buffing areas to deal with OP skills is a more dynamic way balance PvE while still allowing players to use those skills in other areas that arent that big of a deal.

However, buffing skills requires a PvP/PvE skill split and that degradates the GW client. I'm not even 100% sure what that means, but apparently Anet doesnt like this. Buffing underused skills, AI, and monsters is also alot more work than simple nerfs. And considering its taken over 8 months to fix the dervish, thats a tall order.

With the community seemingly split on whats OP and whats not(judging by WiK survey and Guru posts) and the rediculously small skeleton crew on GW1's staff. I wouldnt want to be in Anets position. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Nice!


+1 before this tread gets closed

Hahahahahahaha! Good joke, bro. Moving on...

I agree that at this stage in the game, nerfs are pretty unnecessary. People make a lot of fun, but I think dartboard buffs are fun and shake things up. In most instances, you're not going to create the next imba build, you might just give more options.

Here's hoping the Derv update breaks the heck out of that class and they can steamroll with smiley 8D teams.

Amen to the OP's nerf nerfing.

@ the pro-nerf crowd, the ONLY reason to nerf a skill in PVE is because the skill can only be best used by one profession, and it causes a single profession to be used to the exclusion of all others, such that it negatively affects the game for people who like to play other professions, i.e., Ursanway and Shadow Form; or the skill basically causes everyone to use nothing but that skill (for example, warriors have Hundred Blades, Dragon Slash, and the Warrior's Endurance Scythe build. Now, from what I have seen, those are the 3 most commonly used Warrior elites being used right now, but that is still at least a variety of 3, and each of those builds works for different situations. Whereas Ursan Blessing was best used by warrior's and it became the primary skill used for awhile).

And EVEN THEN, it is better to buff other professions to where they can have a skill that enables them to be roughly as good as a specific overpowered skill.


Basically, right now I think people complain because the Assassin, Warrior, Ritualist and Necromancer can do so much damage and have so much utility (and the Mesmer might be one of the good classes now), whereas the other 5-6 professions are underpowered and/or are more difficult/annoying/frustrating to use.

The Elementalist and the Ranger are weaksauce/too situational compared to the damage an Assassin or Warrior can dish out; the Dervish does less damage with a scythe than the Assassin and Warrior and requires more stopping to upkeep enchantments etc, which pisses Dervish players off. With the nerf of Mantra of Inscriptions, the Monk pretty much only has Ray of Judgment for offense, or it has to run Discordway. And the Paragon has only 1 effective build, but it does not need a nerf because it requires a party and it is the only effective build the Paragon has (Imbagon).

Whereas the ability to utilize your secondary profession's skills was one of the really cool things about Guild Wars, now it has become so hated because for certain professions you practically have to use secondary profession skills (Ether Renewal Protter for Elementalist, Scythes for Assassin, Warrior and Ranger in order to do the most damage, Assassin's Promise for Discord on the Monk and Mesmer, etc). That is what is pissing people off, not being able to be competitive with their primary profession skills.

Perhaps the worst thing Anet has done has been failing to segregate PvE from PvP (in the past), and nerfing PvE skills when they nerf PvP skills now. Anet needs to completely stop nerfing PvE skills whenever they nerf PvP skills.


Assuming that "over and even well-over 100 dps" is here to stay (that is, Anet is going to keep Assassins and Warriors capable of dishing out over 100 dps consistently using Scythes), then I think that Anet should buff the dmg-dealing ability of Dervishes, Rangers, and Elementalists to the same level or close to it, without having to use Scythes. Basically, buff Marksmanship, Axe Mastery, Swordsmanship, Hammer mastery, Spear Mastery, and the Elemental lines to be able to do the same damage that can be done with the scythe.

There are limitations in the AI.
That's why there are areas with such a bad desing like the Anguish.
There's no skill needed there, just numbers.
Get your numbers higher than theirs, and you win, and that's all, there's no more to it.

On the other hand, you have enemies that do need some skill and tactics, like the WiK enemies and some EotN foes.

But unlike those, Most enemies in campaigns are limited to skills of that campaign, so they can't make better builds that would require skill instead just big numbers.

Physical damage itself is laughable, yes, when you rely only in hitting without your weapon and you pretend to C-Space the game, but you forget that most physical damage comes from skills, and that bonus damage from most attack skills ignores armor.

Bonus damage from attack skills, untyped damage, shadow damage, holy damage, health loss, life steal... all of those ignore armor.
And, of course, skills that directly say that they ignore armor ignore armor too.

But elemental damage? That's the one hit hardest by HM.

With my ranger I can deal hits of +100 damage with a bow to foes in HM.
With my assassin I can use a 10-10 dagger in HM and still keep constant hits over 60 damage to several foes with dagger mastery 13.
With my mesmer I can deal over 200 damage with a single hit and over 120 to several foes at the same time, and keep that up for a long time.

With my elementalist, a hit that would deal around 45 damage is reduced to under 11, unless I'm using air magic skills with 25% armor penetration, and even in that case the damage is greatly reduced compared to the other forms of damage.

So if you want to cry about a type of damage, cry about elemental damage in skills that do not have armor penetration or ignore armor, because most of those can't be changed. If you increase the damage, they become OK in HM, but too much in NM, and in hands of enemies (and specially bosses) they become WAY too much.
And if you don't touch them, they do little damage, and you must use them mostly (if not only) for their effects, like snare, knockdown, blindess, weakness, burning, wards, making those with no extra effects such as Fire Ball or Flare, pretty much useless in HM.

Good skill balances offer buffs and nerfs. they shift the meta in pve and pvp around or we'd all be running the same 8 skill bars for 5 years. It gives the game a new coat of paint and adds challenge. if you don't like making builds, you have pvxwiki or you're running poor builds and no nerfs will affect your skills, but buffs may which is nothing to whine about.

This thread.

Some metas are so powerful they make much of the skills and mechanics of professions obsolete and pointless. I can't speak for the entire "nerf crowd" (I don't always agree with them anyway) but while I'm for nerfing a lot of things, I also lobby for professions to be reworked.

The ranger, elementalist, paragon and (for now) the dervish are outclassed in PvE and need reworking. The necro has many terrible skills and needs help, and so too would the ritualist once its spirits+buffs come back down to earth.

A lot needs to happen and many professions need a hand up. Honestly, the "fun killing" logic is old and misses half the argument.

Also, I'd like to point out that changing how the AI works is not a concrete idea, simply because it is still AI and people will ALWAYS find a way to get around them. This is another reason that nerfing skills is better; because you, the player, are being hindered instead of the enemy just getting upgraded.

Have you...played HM as a physical profession? Because unless you're doing nothing but spacebar-ing at enemies, no, it isn't. My main is a Dervish - generally considered the weakest of the melee professions. And yet I have no problems whatsoever in most of HM. DwG Dervs are preferred in DoA over scythe-wielders because it's brainless.

Elemental damage is what's laughable in HM, not physical damage.

The AI will not be improved.

The Live Team seems to be mostly concerned with building monetary interest in GW2. They're trying to tie the two games together, so their players don't feel abandoned and get buyer's remorse (or premorse....since they may not buy GW2. And yes, I know that's not a word).

discussing nerfs? don't you need a skill update first? lol i remember those.

If there are fewer skills, it's easier to test the skills for balance and it will not devastate the game. They won't need to Smiter's Boon anything. Also they, like any other company, learned from how they programmed GW1, making a devastating nerf even less likely.

I saw in other games strange market decision to increase the $ income... Strange cause I have no idea what they had in mind when they took those decisions cause while some players pushed more $ (a low number) others decided not to buy anything from them (a higher number) or even quited the game. So it will not be a surprise for me to see some strange market decisions that will finally have the contrary effect then it was intended.

Regarding concerns to high damage in nm caused by a potential elementalist skills buff. Well the armour penetration (in case of ele skills only) can be changed a bit in such a way that will not activate if the monster has 60 or less armour (something similar with cracked armor). Something like this: "Target foe and up to two other foes near your target are struck for 10...82...100 lightning damage. This Spell has 25% armor penetration. Armour penetration does not apply to monsters with less then 60 armour. If you are not under the effects of an Enchantment, this spell causes Exhaustion."

There is also the option to change one glyph or ench to change the ele damage in armour ignoring damage for the next 0..3 spells with a decent cooldown (you can't keep the ench or the glyph always on, ench ends if u you use a non elementalist skill, ends after 0..3 spells).

Smiter's Boon (PvP) to this day is still the single best skill change A.Net has ever done in the game. The only thing better would have been to have never introduced the skill in the first place. It was a mechanic that had absolutely no place in the game and needed to be removed in PvP. It also had no business being reworked because smiter's were still OP even without it. So you either rework it into a decent skill that sees play and makes smiters even more OP (which was the whole reason the skill was nerfed in the first place) or you make a completely useless change that has no role and never sees play. There wasn't and still isn't a middle ground with that skill and the smiting attribute line in general. It is either OP, or useless. It was rightfully deemed better to be useless.

And on-topic: the whole reason nerfing is required is because the game overall is in a state of extreme power creep. The power creep as a whole needs to be eliminated because it promotes skill-less degenerate play, and this is supposed to be a skill-based game. This isn't fixed by buffing random skills to the same power level as everything else, and fixing the AI seems to be an unrealistic request. It is done by nerfing the power of the power creep and bringing it down to a level where skilled-based play is dominant. The power creep is so bad in the games current state that even skills that see absolutely no use currently are still OP, and you see that whenever skill changes happen. Something gets nerfed and another OP skill takes it place. Continuous nerfs until the power creep is finally eliminated will bring the game back to skill-based play and will reward people for actually being good at the game and not roll their head on a keyboard and do anything with a sandwich in one hand and a beer in the other. But hey, I guess this discussion is PvE focused and the majority of people seem to like the fact that their heros can beat the game for them and they literally don't have to do anything but move.

Nerfs, properly done, are a vital part of achieving balance. When a skill proves to be just out-and-out superior to any other skill with a similar function, the correct solution is usually to knock that skill down a little bit so that it comes into line with the others.

The problem, and the reason that so many GW players have come to absolutely dread nerfs, is that for a long time we had Izzy doing it wrong. The three biggest problems with his approach were:
(1) Skills were not nerfed into line with their alternatives; they were nerfed into complete uselessness.
(2) He often nerfed the wrong skill. In a misguided attempt to nerf broken gimmick builds without completely killing them, he'd destroy a peripheral skill instead of going after the heart of the gimmick.
(3) He made nerfs for PvP balance without even the slightest consideration of what would happen to PvE.

The approach to balance updates, including nerfs, was greatly improved once Lindsey took over. If anything, the post-Izzy balances have tilted too far towards buffs.

---

And, overall, yes, it would be best if the monsters were all reworked to be harder because they were smarter and had better builds without any ridiculous numerical stats, and, at the same time, most of the players' OP PvE skills were nerfed too. But that would require resources that a-net just doesn't have. So let's set our sights on a reasonable semblance of balance that assumes monsters with ridiculous stats and OP PvE skills to match that advantage.