Lieutenants helm in Henge of Denravi Overpowered

I am writing about the helm that is available for only warriors in Henge of Denravi from the armorer Alemeth. This helm shortens duration of hexes cast on you. Upon first inspection one might think this would be like all the other items which shorten duration (quick recovery) on an item. For example, when an item says quick recovery from deep wound, the deep wound is shortened by 33%. Likewise, when an item says lengthen duration, the duration is increased by 33%. So when thinking about the helm one would think that it reduces hex length by 33%. Very powerful even at that number. However, when we are talking about this helm, all hexes are reduced by 50%.


Why do other items that are accessible to other classes specify for one condition. As in shortens crippling duration, or shortens deep wound duration. There are only 9 conditions in the game. Why should it not be shortens duration for all conditions by 50%? Would that not be fair considering this helm reduces all hexes by 50%? But this item says ALL HEXES, this is 64 skills in the game. Elite skills included. When we look at hexes given out by certain classes there are no hexes from the warrior or ranger class, 4 hexes from the monk, and 14 from the elementalist. Furthermore mesmers and necros are the characters which provide most hex spells. Over both the mesmer and necromancer there is a total of 46 hexes, this combined is about 30% of their skills.


For example, lets say you are running a team with 2 W, 1 Me, 1 N and you are facing a team with 4 W. For sake of control lets say all the warriors playing in the battle have the Lieutenants helm on (reduces hex length). The warrior heavy team will have the advantage just by looking at character class because they do not have any hexes to cast and the hexes cast on them will last only 50% as long as they should. By having the necro and mesmer on the one team, with 30% of their skills being hexes, they are at a significant disadvantage. Lets point out another advantage of this helm.


Obviously, hexes will only last half as long if cast on a target with this helm which will make the hexes significantly less effective. Lets look at the skill conjure phantasm. Lets say you have it so this skill lasts for 10 seconds. At 5 pips of degeneration, this hex will last for 10 seconds and do 100 damage. However, if it was casted on a warrior with this helm, it will effectively last for only 5 seconds; therefore cutting the damage in half. Why does no other class in the game get a helm that can effectively cut damage in half? Lets look at the other warrior advantages, they have the best armor in the game, they are one of the best self sustainable characters in the game, and they are able to put out the most damage per second over any other character on average. So why give an already powerful character such an overpowered item? This helm promotes unproportionally heavy warrior teams, as u can see in the top guild teams of the ladder iQ and WM.



This is a problem with resounding consequences. The game play as a whole is significantly reduced when to be competitive teams are restricted to running certain builds or restricted to playing certain character classes. This is definitely a problem when an item, very easy to acquire at that, can devastate two character classes so that 30% of their skills are now not nearly as effective on warriors. This is a problem that needs to taken care of. Why not look at the HoD sword. This sword gives +5 energy and allows for any modifications. This sword cannot be attained anymore because it was deemed to powerful. Then tell me, why would an item that reduces the effectiveness of two character classes
as a whole not be too powerful?

Space Breaks Are your freind


it makes up for the ench by having only 60AL, which means a lot more damage (i belive all criticals are applied to head, could be wrong)

from Duplicate thread:

Space Breaks Are your freind


it makes up for the ench by having only 60AL, which means a lot more damage (i belive all criticals are applied to head, could be wrong)

simply cause warriors have no hex defense, and taking the helm

A: makes you more vunlerable to attacks as its armour is 40 points lowerer than say the glads helm vs physical when being clobbered in the head.

B: makes you sacrifice a +1 to stat reducing your dammage output/stance duration, etc etc.

C: It makes skills like parasitic bond and warstrels worry twice as effective

I like it during Droknar's Forge runs. You're constinantly getting hexes in your face, slowing you very much, and this way, it's less painful. During the parts you're not getting hexed constantly, you can always switch to something else, but it helps getting through the Ice Imps and Golems.

I haven't tested it but it would make Wastrel's Worry do damage quicker surely.

Plus when i am in a town with my warrior, i barely ever see anyone else with the helm.

The lower armor is probably what puts most people off, personally i use it all the time, but then i don't play PvP were it probably would be the most use.

That's because

A) It looks like a knight's helm and
B) A lot of people make it invisible

If this were a book nobody would read it. There are paragraphs, it makes reading something INCREDIBLY easier.

Anyways, I think you have some interesting thoughts going on here, but you will lose most of your audience because of your one giant paragraph.

Edit it into something more readable and you should get more discussion.

Wastrel's hurts idd hard when using the helmet

But seriously, it IS 60 AL. Nevertheless, it comes from the city of nerfed weapons so get the helmet while you still can

I think the Lieutenant's helm is fair on all accounts.

Not only is it lower than maximum, it also does not have any modifiers to any attributes. You are taking that extra point out of your attributes that you could use for weapon mastery or something just to have shorter hex duration, which is not always a good thing (Wastrel's Worry = DEATH)

i just love that thing....solo the mesmer things in desert...forgot their names ATM

Half duration of hexes is simply too good. By taking away +1 attribute and 20 armor on the head piece, LT helm warrior effectively reduced many anti-warrior hexes from the effect of a lvl 12 spell to level 1 or 2.

As for time-triggered hexes, WW and incendiary bond triggers in half of the time, but I believe lightning surge is still bugged and would just disappear with no damage. I wouldn't count on these hexes to help reset the balance, because any warrior with a sense of self-preservation would simply swap head piece in battle when facing a WW spammer.

The helm does not ELIMINATE hexes, nor provide PROTECTION against hexes. It simply shortens their duration. Most of the recharge times on both necro and mesmer hexes will allow that hex to be recast BEFORE the hex expires. Yes, it drains their energy faster, but at the same time this is compensated for by the warrior's reduction in armor (one of his main characteristics).

It's all about balance, and to me the helm doesn't create any imbalances - if anything, it equalizes a portion of the game to make both hexes and armor a bit more vulnerable when these two face each other.

This helm is fair.
You loose 1 mastery point , 40 armor Vs physical, and hexes still hurt you, they are only lessened.
This added to the fact that the warrior painly lack of any condition/hex removal, and this is balanced.
In addition, some spells typically hurt head, like meteor, so when you take one, you feel it (used it against Flesh golems, but Hydras killed me in no time).
Again, you are stronger against hexes, but loose a lot on the other hand.
If it would be nerfed, lower it from 50% to 33% but give it 80 armor and fit its price on Droks ones.

The denravi helmet has to go, I figure the only reason it hasn't already is that its been available since the start of the ladder season and it would be disruptive to the GWWC to remove it now.

First of all, unless they fixed it, the Denravi helmet makes you invulnerable to Lightning Surge and Incendiary Bonds.

Second, its only available to PvE characters, creating a huge equipment imbalance.

Third, hexes are balanced considering their full duration against removal. With the helmet effect, it is usually not worthwhile to remove these hexes, and therefore not worthwhile to even cast them in the first place.

The loss of armor is mostly irrelevant, you'll take only 5% or so more damage.

I think the armor loss results in a lot more damage. We're talking 40 AL here, compared to max vs. physical helmets.

And youi forgot:

Fourth, it's an unfair item because only warriors get to use an item like this.

Seems to me like yet another cry nerf Thread. I mean come on people. Its not overpowered, it dosn't need removal. It hits you 20 Armor points and a Mastery skill.

I just don't get it, when things frustrate people they cry get rid of it, instead of how can I beat it. Then magincially once they get the nerf they cry about something else. Whats the point already ? Why don't we just get rid of armor all together then no one has to complain about nerfs, oh wait ..... Wed have to get rid of that handy dandy skill bar toi wouldn't we ?

Big deal 30% now, is there any body on this forum that has fore sight, they are going to be adding 2 new perfessions per expansion, just becuase its 30% now dosn't mean it won't be 60% later. People are crying nef bat everywhere, and they'll be crying about it later once the expansions come out and they want everything back the way it was, thats my 2 cents.

I dont think many warriors in pvp will lose much sleep over losing 20AL, 50% hex duration makes them vulnerable to wrastels, but mesmers dont often pack wrastels in just incase they run into a warr with the helm.

The helmet also helps on relic runs a lot, as its usually the warr thats got to do the running they tend to take slow down hex's alot.

I've not tried it in the PvP arenas yet for my warrior. Given this, the PvE aspect of this helm vs mursaat in the final missions is quite nice. If you're a warrior, don't think about Ring of Fire or Abbadon's Mouth without this helm. Also, vs Ice Imps this helm is critical for IDS runs as a swap.

An additional comment on the plus side for this helm - It's only available at the Henge, which is quite the trek for the ordinary runner that usually skips the entire jungle.

A lot of players I know have made PvE warriors to PvP with, mainly because of this helm. That's serious grind to get a warrior PvP ready,but the fact that the helm is so powerfull makes it worth it.

As with the henge sword, the henge axe, the 20% rockmoulder... It needs to go.

Like any mursaat really hex you besides life transfer. Spectral agony isn't affected.

if it's making certain skills nolonger work rather than just shorter, thats a bug that nees to be fixed but it's not the helms fault. The helm is perfectly balanced for what it does. For the record, I don't run a warrior, my current pve characters are a ranger, ele and a necro.

Nah, I think this gives a whole new level to Warrior solo'ing, and in my opinion, the Warrior should always stay the profession with the most solo skills. Warriors are mostly not the hex target in PVP though, the thing that bugs me is that you need to make a PVE character just for this helmet.

By the way: Craft one of these helmets. It might get nerfed (which I doubt), and you can't buy this if it does get nerfed, unlike nerfed items.

That sounds like its the Mesmer's fault, not the Warrior's. I don't think I'd really nerf something because it would require another class to carry a skill that they don't want to :-) If it becomes popular, then mesmers can either carry Worry or not. It's not like this is Burger King. You adapt.

Person 1: That build is unbalanced because of..so and so..
Person 2: Well, you can take these skills/spells to tear them a new one.
Person 1: But I don't want to carry those skills/spells and shouldn't have to, so please nerf it.

Besides, with a few exceptions, ANet doesn't nerf things that COULD be unbalanced (exceptions of course like the double mod axe, a no-brainer), but rather makes corrections after they see play involving unbalanced teams/builds. After all, how many warrior heavy builds have dominated PvP other than IWAY (which has other implications to it being the way it is)? When and if we see a Lt's build winning all the team (outside of IWAY) then I imagine they will look into it.

As for me, when I wear it I seem to die faster in pve if I get anywhere near something that's going to hit me. I personally would like to play with my PvE pet in something other than IWAY in pvp, but I know it'd be a waste. I'm not going to ask for everyone else to be nerfed so that I can play the way I want to in PvP though. I just adapt and play what needs to be played to win (or I play with my pet in PvE). Because of those reasons, I never use my PvE chars in PvP anymore. I just create a pvp-only char that has access to all the good stuff (my PvE chars don't even have sup vigs/sup aborb).

yea i picked up a few on my warrior so that i can put different runes on them for different builds in pvp. then i was pvping with it. and it doesnt help much when you get like spiteful spirit and empathy and stuff like that stacked on you. you still die just as fast. warriors neeeeed a better hex defense. right now so many necro/mesmers are doing warrior shut down. THAT is imbalanced. not this helm.

It's amazing how people can come up with all these idiotic reasons to oppose all this blatantly obvious conclusion. Just more evidence of why the quality at gwguru is at an all time low.

The loss of armor is not a factor at all. The weakness to wastrels is but that is countered by fast helmet switching and top level warriors are quite good at doing this. The head gets hit 12.5% of the time, so trying to spike someone out just because they have a lt. helm on is simply stupid.

When running a warrior heavy build in gvg you practically don't have to care about hex removal for the warriors since the hex helmet is just going to make their hexes so inefficient which is utterly absurd and is one of the reasons why warriors are so powerful at the present moment (think back to what teams used in the playoffs if you doubt this).

I can see why other classed dont like the helm, but I dont see why it should be nerfed. Like people have pointed out it has its ups and downs, but thats just the way it is. Wars have the least amount of energy in the game. Sure they get the gladiators armor but that still doesnt let them compete with other classes. They also dont get any kind of way to maximize their use of energy, whether its fast casting, or lower costs, or even the monks divine favor (I know that doesnt deal with energy directly).

It makes sense to me that wars have something like this. At least they dont have any condition based armor items. Besides you dont see very many warriors running around complaining about spiteful spirit or all the other nasty hexes that get used on them. Wars were designed to stay alive and yet the only thing that really stands between a war and a quick death by hex is an item like this or monk skills because armor does nothing when you health is at - 8 degen.

Did you watch the World Championship playoffs at all? Did you notice that the Warriors on the winning teams were exclusively PvE characters? Did you notice that they all had their helms hidden? Care to guess what percentage of them had hex helms in their inventories to put on if the other team was foolish enough to run anti-Warrior hexes?

I don't understand this 'oh, it seems ok to me, but they might look into it if it becomes a problem' attitude. It *is* a problem. They *know* it's a problem. They almost certainly already know how they're going to fix it, and just haven't rolled out the change yet because of the World Championships.

This isn't a trivial item like the HoD Sword or Axe (which give minor boosts that'll likely be mirrored in expensions anyway). This helm fundamentally breaks an important aspect of the game - hexes as a means of punishing Warriors. The sooner it is removed, the better off the game will be.

Peace,
-CxE

The HoD Helm is in no way overpowered. Sure, it helps against hexes and that makes it good in PvP. I've even seen r9 IWAY switch to it against a blood necro degen group (we still owned them). Moving on: it's low armor and lack of any other bonus balances it out. It's good, maybe to the limit of balance, but not overpowered. Though I think there should be more armor pieces like it... we need more options!

Every character in this game can be shutdown, why is a warrior shutdown imba?
Monks can remove the hex's, or you can pack hex breaker.

Please read other posts in the thread, not just the first.

Ensign, I wholeheartedly disagree. It's true that hexes are a way of punishing warriors. But the HoD helm allows warriors a defense to reduce the effect of those - it is NOT a way to eliminate those.

Casters have the same sort of protections against warriors. From physical resistance to armor of earth to just plain running around in a circle, casters have a way to counter the physical spike damage that warriors create.

Why it would it NOT be fair that warriors have the opportunity to defend against hexes at the cost of lower armor?

The game as it stands, is balanced. I'm fairly sure you agree on that.

Now, you have warriors with the highest sustainable DPS going, and they are also hard targets. Why are they allowed to be so effective? Because two things shut them down so easily. Hexes and Conditions. They are just about the sole two reasons why people don't run 6 warriors and 2 monks in GvG. Then you throw the henge helm into the mix, which suddenly makes one of those two forms of shutdown useles. And you don't think that somehow imbalances it?

I also believe this helm is way overpowered.

Warrior's weakness = they easily debuffed (hex or condition)

With a good monk, condition is out in a few sec.
With this helm, hex are out in half of the time.

the less armor was mentioned before, irrelevant. You still got a caster armor for the head, and does that drop the caster in 1 hit? 2 hits? 3 hits? That is really depended on your monk anyway (and maybe your own healing). If the helm also make head armor being hit 100% of the time, yes, it would be fair. Actually, why don't Anet give all the caster warrior armor with a little set back?

So what is there to stop a warrior?

The funny thing is that warrior seem to get so many favor in terms of equipment, how come other class don't have anywhere close to this?

How are they going to fix this anyway? Is it in their policy to delete item inside a player's inventory? Or are they going to pray that the older day players quit soon? If they do nerf it now, wouldn't it make a very unfair advantage for the later competetitors (as the earlier player was able to get a hold of this)?

Also, one equipment make the entire society to go domination + W'sW? That seem very unbalanced there.

JR - I'm confused - how does the HoD make hexes useless? Because it will cost a caster more to maintain a hex on a warrior?

One of the limitations of a warrior is that he has to focus on ONE enemy at a time and attempt to take out that enemy. One of the benefits of a caster is that you can attack multiple targets at the same time.

What the HoD helm does is require that, if one wants to shutdown a warrior, a caster must focus his attention on them and apply the hexes more consistently. Yes, it will result in the caster not being able to spread their attacks over multiple enemies, but in the end that levels the playing field.

If you disagree, ask yourself this - when a mesmer or a necro matches up 1v1 on a warrior wearing a HoD helm, who would normally win? Unless you can say "the warrior would win more than 75% of the time", then the game remains balanced, IMO.

when i get home im going to HoD to get me one of these. Is the armor guy or some1 else?

Well we can also limit the number of monks to one or two in the team arenas to make that more fair for a warrior team. We can also ban invinci-monks somehow from the arenas when a warrior team is involved to make that more fair. We can ban a ranger team from going up against an elementalist team since they like to counter all the slow-casting spells. We can make the warriors walk instead of run so they don't unfairly run outside of AoE spells like the mobs now do. We can stop a team of elementalist from being able to renew kinetic armor against warriors. There's always someone that's going to bother people.

Hex or no hex, take a party of warriors against a party of monks and the warriors will not win unless the monk players are monkeys. This just means groups have to switch a skill (oh no, change) to counter the helm such as Wastrel's Worry, which triggers earlier now. Even in PvE, warriors have been relegated to runners, ettin farmers, and gear/book holders because of the impression that they aren't good for much else. I'll be happy when they fix the gear/book issue btw.

Everything can be countered with something else. Take the monk/warrior dilemma. The warriors can take a ranger secondary or a full ranger and use the spirit that prevents rezzes (assuming they can still do enough damage to get around the constant heals). VS Warriors? Take Wastrel's Worry instead of one of your normal spells. Take more mesmers than normal. Cast shatter hex whenever a hex is about to wear off instead of leaving it on the full duration.

Besides, a mesmer/elementalist can sit there (once he/she gets kinetic armor off) and wear the warrior down, I imagine (disclaimer: haven't tried this yet), or ele/mes. Between kinetic armor and physical resistance, he/she shouldn't have a problem. Use aura of restoration (I think it is) and health will not be an issue either. In fact, I may try this build and see how it does :-)..

I personally find it frustrating to be a caster and not be able to get anything off because a ranger has me in his/her sights. That's just the way it goes though. I take someone to hit the ranger with something so I can cast.

Er, k.

Because key anti-warrior hexes that are being put on your warriors are only going to stick for half as long. Try maintaining Spitefull on 2-3 warriors when it is only lasting 10 seconds. Not to mention by having to keep your anti-warrior hexer focused on renewing hexes that are ending prematurely, it makes that character a whole lot more flexible.

Elementalists in pvp tend to be focusing on one person, Mesmers and Necros will generally stack one person... Yes you can use a curses nec or illu mes to spread degen, but that is just spreading out your DPS. Equally a warrior could run around hacking at different people, it's just easier not to.

So you are saying that the henge helm somehow makes casters balanced? What?

You can't talk about 1 vs 1's in this game. Comparing single character builds is like playing rock paper scissors.

Going man to man with a front line offensive character designed to destroy suport characters like either of the above is not a wise decision, especially when you must commit a substantial portion of the build in order to be able to "solo" a warrior. However, once you throw monk healing into the mix for the warrior, that whole instance goes out the window, because the war will eventually wear down the support character(s).

This is why your argument is dismissed so easily. Shutdown is designed to make a difficult to control character more manage-able. This comes in two flavors, stop damage or stop healing. The method to do either is irrelevant. Considering most of the crowd control hex skills aoe size is not huge, have a fair energy cost and do not last an exceptionally long time, its not hard to see how an item like the helm will tilt the favor towards the warrior. It becomes more of a question of what other means are possesed aside from just hexes preventing the damage accrual from the warrior. Most of them lie within removable enchantments.

Yes.. We must use this when taking over the world with HoD swords; but we will have to use the Force to make sure nobody gets hit in the head! Great idea..