Lieutenants helm in Henge of Denravi Overpowered

Very well put. Too many people here seem to base their judgements on a few trips to arena.

Lol isn't that how it always starts? Someone gets beat in the arena and they think their build is the almighty can't be stopped uber template and then they whine about something being out of balance because they are no longer uber because someone figured out a way to put them back into "balance" or in some cases below balance, but, that's their problem. With 150 skills there's millions of combinations to be used in this game I dare say no one has even touched on an inkling of them yet.

I use a tanzit defender and this helm for PVP.
It helps not so much.
When I fight an SS necro, even with Judge's Insight against their tormentor armor I still loose. Because they cover their SS by P bond. So when they receive back their health from P bond they know it's time to recast SS.
P bond, used against this helm, assure them a complete heal every 10 secs superior from a word of healing (at 16 Curses). MAybe they can't shutdown the warrior as long as they could, but they are nearly invincible due to the fact that they heal twice as fast for minimal Cost in energy.
Seriously, Curses Necros know how to deal with these helms, once they catch a warrior wearing one, they spam him with PBond (and add Soul barbs before to add to their laugh). The necros heals himself better than a monk and still shutdown the warrior.
Empathy/hex mesmers should as well use WWorry to with their hexes. Personnally when I run my domination hex mesmer I do. And kill the poor HoD warriors so fast that they believe in an air spike.
And there are many ways to use a character, hexes are only a part of the available skills in the game. Mesmers can interrupt, E-deny really powerfully. Necros can order, steal life, make a minions factory, etc... The only really unfairly affected hexer I see is the water elementalist in this case.

Maybe a lessening from 50% to 33%, but otherwise, this helm with its drawbacks really seems fair to me.
And I speak for PVP, not PVE.

Correction, PvE players. Players with skill. No skill, go farm. The rest of us have to run.

Congratulations, good on you!

I still fail to see why PvE diversity has to suffer for your guild exploits. Good to hear you admit to your guild's shameful trickery here.

That's an odd generalization. Pretty many PvE players still farm, they need gold for their gear as well.

Or then I'm just missing the point bigtime

where can i find the helm, i went to hengi of denvail but could not find it coudl anyoen put a map or tell me were it is i want this helm thanxs leeky

The armor vendor sells it silly. (smile) Just look at the helms and read the descriptions, you'll see it.

Well personally I could never pwn OP wars as bad as some people are making out casters do and I think it stinks. I dont care if wastrels and some other spells are more effective. Fine, What if I dont have those skills in my bar at the time? If im running degen it basicly cuts my attribs by several points. For that matter where is my casters mask that gives me +100 armor v physical? Nerf please.

LOL i like this guy.

Godly timing o_O

Didn't read all posts, but couldn't this be easily solved by making it unable to switch armors outside outposts/during PvP?
PvP characters can't switch armor, so why should a PvE character be able to?
Although not being able to switch outside outposts might make a lot of PvE players angry *cough*55HP Monks*cough*
Yeah, the Helm is pretty overpowered, especially in higher level PvP. In CA and TA, it's not that bad because warriors tend to target warriors there a lot as well, making the Helm cause a bit more damage.
However, in Tombs and GvG, warriors are pretty much ignored through the game (unless it's IWAY or you're an anti-warrior build), which makes a anti-warriors mesmer/necro 's job a fair bit harder.
I think nerfing it to 20% reduction would be fair, 50% is too long.

I'm speaking as both a Warrior and an Anti-warrior Mesmer. My warrior job gets a lot easier and my mesmer's job harder.

Note to self: when I find an item that may seem overpowered, avoid making it public knowledge...

mhh 40%ì more enchacemend was considered overpowered by anet ...
-50% duration mhh i think they will nerf it.

get used to.

This seems to be the best solution for the helm - make it like other items by allowing you to reduce the length of the hex by 20%, and not 50%.

This would make the helm synch up with other items that lengthen spells, such as a staff enchantment wrapping.

"I hadn't heard about this helmet earlier, but, again FWIW, I tested it in CA yesterday, and yeah, it works as advertised. It seemed few used it in CA yet, but I expect that will change soon enough now that it's out in the open."


Out in the open???? Where have people BEEN!? Sheesh. This has been one of the most obvious pieces of armor in the game since inception.

Again - Chuck has made some excellent points and people need to listen to those, like IQ, with enough experience to see the impact of this particular piece of armor.

There may be an argument here for limiting the number or type of "special" pve items that can be used in pvp. I must say I would regret that, since I like the mmo pve aspect of GW and have always had fun taking unique items from my pve toon into pvp. But there are certainly arguments here worth considering.

By the way - you can take different weapon sets into pvp with a pvp toon. Once you "open" an item by getting the requirements high enough (usually 9 points), you can select it and then drop those points down and open up another item. Not much, but it adds a little flexibility.

One of the things I like about my pve monk is that it is instantly ready to play any role in pvp - prot, bonder, healer, martyr, you name it. I HATE having to delete and reroll pvp toons and keep the whole group waiting just because I need to change my spec a little. I think there ahould be some options for pvp toons to be able to do this in-game, without always rerolling.

But I'm diverging a little. :-)

The helm has its ups and downs - as mentioned. Shorter hex time isn't always a good thing.

How about instead of complaining about the helmet - you make a PvE warrior and get one yourself?
Honestly there is nothing remotely unfair about it - it's not like a limited edition +15% damage sword with no penalties or a HoD sword/axe that is not obtainable any more.

It's an item open to every warrior.

Anti-PvE and think it's not fair that you have to grind to get one?
How about PvE players that participate in PvP and have to grind to get "perfect" weapons/offhands in order to compete on a "fair playing ground"?

I think it's safe to say that the majority of PvE players who PvP do not have sup vigor runes and the like, but probably close to all PvP players do

PvP players already have an obvious advantage in PvP over PvE (immediate access to all unlocked equipment with perfect mods) and now they are complaining about a little advantage that PvEers have.
The only things that should be disallowed in PvP are perhaps HoD swords and flame spitters, but even those are balanced, IMO.

So instead of b**ching and moaning about how the helm makes the game unfair, realize that you too, can have one This is a trait that defines fairness.

Because it should be the players choice whether or not they want to PvE or not? There are loads of people who don't PvP, so are you surprised that there are people who don't PvE?

And yet every top PvP guild runs warriors with them... For a good reason. And no, its not because they just love PvE.

Every PvE Warrior.

You mean the perfect weapons and offhands that are available straight away when you create a PvP character? Yeah. Thats grind.

...Because they only cost a few thousand faction to a PvP character, not 70 plat or whatever the price is at right now.

You are missing the point entirely. This thread has absolutely NOTHING to do with PvE vs PvP. It is NOT talking about PvE players having any kind of advantage

So you think HoD swords and Flame Spitters are MORE imbalanced that a helmet that halves hex duration? Wow.

Again, you miss the point of this thread entirely. It has NOTHING to do with PvP players moaning that they can't get this helmet, but PvE players can. It is about an item that is game breaking. Whether it was a PvE item or a PvP item would make no difference what so ever.

fact: almost 100% of the people who want the helm kept are warriors who use the helm.

I say, let them keep the helm, and provide all caster classes with a helm that reduces all conditions by 50%, or cuts physical damage by 25%.

When I first saw the Helm I ruminated on these issues and I suspect that it is pretty balanced "meta-wise".



Now I am not willing to do a SonofRah thing here, but I know there are others that can do something like this (and I am not even trying to say that I looked all these things up....just go with me conceptually here):

Getting hit on the head is 12.5% of all hits. So 12.5% of the time, the head is protected at 60AL instead of 80AL which means that a Hammer Strike of 100pts is reduced to X instead of Y.


Now, lets say that a W/Mo with Denravi helm goes up against a Hammer/Me warrior. Let's say the W/ME uses Conjure Phantasm for 12 seconds of duration, which is now 6 seconds (I always thought the Helm was 33% reduction like every other mod in game, but hey if you say it's 50%).....so.....

Out of 10 Hammer hits lets say the Hammer hits the head twice (you have a bigger sample obviously) and so has a "bonus" of that damage....vs.... Two conjure phants and their -DPS total damage amount.......

What would be the damage compared to a Normal Helm?


Now Meta that out......sometimes you face an IWAY tombs build.......so all those warriors are getting that "bonus" damage to your head....that probably translates to quite a bit more damage over a match. Sure you can swap....but I have a 2 off hand curses foci, one that reduces bleeding...and another that reduces poison....as a caster I have swapped meself...so swapping is a fact of life (darn those monks who meet my Mes and deny my energy denial etc.)

Now how many all Hex Teams are their in Tombs? I see a lot of Direct Damage spells and not a huge amount of hexing unless it consists of covering hexes....(not debating that though)....

So against a balanced build.....how much Damage did the Helm actually reduce damage vs how many times did you get bonked on the head by their two W/Es?

Sorry I was up late so not the best prose here......


Anyway, point being....I am not so sure that you would find out (if you did a fair test) that the DHelm was UBER....but...prove me wrong.

we're not just talking tombs, here. Let's discuss GVG.

Also, if you're fighting an IWAY team, you're not getting hexed. People don't use the helm 100% of the time, they use it when they realize they're facing hexers.

That's why it's broken. You can selectively decide when you want to halve hex damage. If you fight hexers, equip the helm. If not, remove it and replace it with a high AC one. It's that "on the fly"ness that breaks it.

Otherwise... yes. It would be fine.