Balance on the Horizon.

I can see this point and its validity, but there is one problem. As someone else pointed out, there is a just as large (if not larger) group of GW consumers/participants that do not partake in any PvP, or very little, but are just as "hardcore" into PvE as those aforementioned are into to "PvP."

But yet, they get "punished" so to speak because of what is going on in arenas they do not frequent. All of us know here, that no matter what they "nerf", "buff", or alter, there will be another build that steps right into its place and becomes the "OMG OVERPOWERED! NERF IT!" flavor of the month.

So why do PvE'ers have to pay the cost? In my opinion, if Anet's main goal is to maintain equaltiy in PvP, and their plan is to consistently alter skills in order to achieve that, then seperate the skills in some way.

IWAY is so popular and overused that it screws the PvP part of this game. For all those who argue about pve issues, just take a minute and think that there was a PvP championship and not a pve one. So pvp is just as important if not more important as pve.

GW has 450 skills not only because of pve but also because of pvp, some buffs and nerfs are based on both pve and pvp issues.

There is no reason to flame about skills being nerfed because of pvp, because pvp players can flame about skills that are being nerfed/buffed because of pve issues.


One more thing. Let's say iway is nerfed. How does that affect most pve players? It's an elite that can be capped almost at the end of the Profecies campaign. The other thing is that if let's say it will be reduced to only party dead members, that won't make such a big diffrence in pve. I don't think that anywhere in pve you will go with the same party build as in pvp.

As far as IWAY goes, I'm indifferent. I don't use it, and I agree, it really would have no detrimental effect on PvE at all. What was starting to irk me were the multitudes of skills that were suddenly appearing as "overpowered" and the lack of thought as to effects changes would have on PvE.

If I came across as flaming, maybe I'm tired. I was merely trying to put a new perspective on the issue, as so many posters were adding skill after skill, labeling them as overpowered because of X build in HA, or because of something they saw in the playback of the GWWC.

As for your comment...
"There is no reason to flame about skills being nerfed because of pvp, because pvp players can flame about skills that are being nerfed/buffed because of pve issues."

This is why I suggested some sort of separation of the two. But I'm 99.999% sure that couldn't feasibly happen. Just a happy thought of a Utopian GW.

And for the record, I wasn't trying to purport that PvE>PvP. And umm..IWAY isn't an elite.

People are just nerf happy whenever they lose to a certain build... Just look at this thread or better yet, the one on GWOnline *shudder* and you'll see all kinds of skills being called out for a nerf.

Everyone thinks they know what's best for "balance" but they let their biases blind them. I'm not claiming that I know best either but I don't randomly call out for a nerf everytime I lose to a certain skill used by someone else.

So Mend Aliment, Mend Condition, Plague Touch, Plague Sending dont count as a condition removers?
Mend Aliment-5 energy-1 cast-2 recharge
Mend Condition(only casts on others)-5 energy-1 cast-2 recharge(I beleive)
Plauged Touch(trasfers to target foe)-5 energy-1/4 cast-Instand reload
Plague Sending(transfer to target foe and nearby foes)-10 energy-2 sec cast-2 reload I think Sacrafice 10% health

Personally I tihnk Plagued Touch and Mend Aliment are fine for PvP and Plague Sending is great for PvE(Like in SF)

Besides Marytr just transfer skills from party to caster.. so it isnt a removal from yourself.

The skill balance should be within a week or so, according to the Frog. I personally think many people in this thread have been correct in stating that IWAY will only work with party members now, instead of pets and minions. As to what else gets changed, we'll have to wait and see. I am personally hoping that someone from ANet read Ensign's wonderful post titled "Why Nuking Sucks" and gives some help to the Elementalists in some way.

And pardon me, but I have to say something about this:
First of all, it's not an elite skill. And secondly, you can obtain it from Captain Greywind in the Ascalon settlement, which is nowhere near the end of the campaign. Not that it will effect PvE all that much, but it had to be said.

I'm mostly expecting to see ANet buff unused skills to shake up the metagame. I hope that's what they do. If you whittle away too long at a piece of wood that's supposed to be a work of art, all you get is sawdust.

Stupid me Does this proove i never played IWAY ?

I seriously doubt nerfing IWAY will solve any of the PVP staleness problem. Just think about all the previous overpowered FOTM builds (dual smite, spirits, air spike), that just shows people will ALWAYS go to the easy to make, easy to use build, even though IWAY's effectiveness is crap compare to the previous FOTM. I can almost guarantee after IWAY is gone another stale and boring build is going to take over (one build I have in mind is blood spike).

The REAL reason for these problems is the increasing discrimination against lower ranked players, combined with the lack luster group forming system, force the low rank players to use the most powerful easy build they can find in an attempt to get enough rank just to play PvP normally.

The previous post was referring to skills that remove multiple conditions at a time, not single condition removal.
You can't combat something like Cripple from Crippling Shot quickly because people cover it with Apply Poison, which is what I think it was addressing. Or not. In any case, there's obviously a misunderstanding here.

i would really like to see called shot and quick shot switched in status. called shot becoming the elite and quick shot just becomes just a normal skill.

Nerfing the skill 'IWAY' isn't the solution. It's not that great of a skill, you can use Tigers Fury instead, and those 5 pips of health regen aren't great either. What make IWAY so 'great' is the use of 4 warriors, and the orders. You can easily run an IWAY team without the skill IWAY (well, that sounds a bit stupid, but whatever)

Those are single condition removers which do nothing when the deep wound is covered up and spammed over constantly. Deep wound is the first condition in the condition chains for axe and will be covered up instantly by axe rake or by a crip shot ranger. Soon as poison is reapplied it moves to the top of the chain being the first condition removed and then reapplied.

I did forget about restore conditions earlier because it sees very little play in GvG. Its almost never used alone as well due to energy cost. Usually used in combonation with martyr. I consider martyr condition removal because it does remove the conditions from your entire party for 5e. Compare that to draw conditions and that would have cost you 35e. Martyr will also get rid of any multiple copies of the same condition. It is condition removal just in a slightly different way.

The condition removal you are speaking of has very little affect on what conditions you remove. Conditions are always covered by a smart team. They work more in a sense of healing than removal. The condition you are most likely to remove is going to spammed so much you are not going to get to the condition that really matters.

No way should quick shot be reduced to normal skills status. Dual>quick>punishing would totally run this game if that were to happen. With 4 rangers doing Dual>punishing under dual orders is about 400+ dmg just from orders alone. Lets not add another 120 dmg to from orders alone to that chain.

IWAY shouldnt be nerfed cuz pet IS your ALLY
if pet isnt an ALLY then its your ENEMY !!

what should be nerfed is Dual Shot .. and make Water Ele have less recharge.

Same here. The AI update was great and all, but it really gimped a lot of the elementalist's best damage spells. I miss being able to rain down mass destruction with my fire ele. Now it seems like my ranger, running a barrage build, does better AoE damage.

The AI update had very little to do with what Ensign was talking about. If it had never happened the elementalist would still need help.

I could care less about all the "nerf!" cries but they always seem to make PvE skills suck afterwards. I am hardcore PvE and couldn't give a rat's a$$ about PvP but when is the last time someone in PvE cried for a nerf spell because it was to powerful? Never.

Anet needs to seperate the changes from PvE and PvP skills. Then people can cry "NERF" all they want for PvP and us PvE players can continue on without the headache of wondering whats going to suck for us next. I don't even need to go into detail about the AoE nerf.

Really? Where's this long list of skills that were nerfed therefore making them suck in PvE?

Anet buffs far more often than they nerf.

I'm still waiting for Stone Summit to stop:

1) Swinging through my Empathy, thus killing themselves
2) Casting through my Backfire, thus killing themselves.

I guess that seems perfectly fine for you, eh? It's ok, not everybody likes a challenge; Some of us do.

That's because the broken stuff never gets used *on you*, only *by you*.

You're also unconcerned with the difficulty of the game. The only problem PvE cares about is maximizing wealth per hour, so any adjustment to the broken stuff can only hurt PvE players.

Basically the PvE community wouldn't care about instakill spells or invincible characters or any other sort of ridiculousness as long as they could spend days grinding for some piece of uberlewt to lord over everyone else in game.

Peace,
-CxE

ensign I resent that statement, it would be the same as stating that all the pvp crowd would be interested in is some sort of xxxxmeasuring. And use all the cheap ways out there, like air spike, ranger spirit spam, IWAY, etc... to be able to reach it, just to get that rank 12 emote. See me flash it, so start bowing you xxx since we are 'tha bomb' and everybody else is a big 'noob'. Which is imho applicable to some but not to all.

So i would really expect a retreatment of that statement ensign since it bemeans all your efforts in some of the other threads like for example the nukage one, the eviscerate/cleave thread, etc...

And once more most of us pve people don't really care about how much gold we are raking in, but how we can improve our toon and have fun with it by solving quests and missions, and just keep on doing this over and over. But if there is no replayability in the missions then why bother redoing them contineously, you'll get bored of them fast...

Mavrik didn't need to include the second half of his statement, he could've just said, I'm a hardcore PvE, so whatever they change is cool with me. Instead he tried to attack PvP players, and got what he deserved, attack right back.

there is no replay value to the PvE part of this game. And with a stagnant meta game there is much less replay value to Pvp/

GVG is not a FOTM build arena its a game of strategy. And people play GvG for the competition because you dont get fame for GvG.

you play PvE for the absence of competition. You need to realize that PvP has more going on and is where things that can be abused get abused thats why it needs a balance and thats why PvE doesnt count as much, AI doesnt abuse skills

Oh I disagree my friend, the Avicara in mineral springs DEFINATELY abuse their skills.

One of the things I want to see balanced most of all is the elite status on skills. There're still a lot of skills out there that're only marginally, or not even, better than normal skills that have an elite tag on them. [Cough: Mind spells] Some have ridiculous prices, cast times, or cool downs [Cough: Lingering Curse/Life Transfer], and some just need a marginal buff to see some use [Marksman's Wager/Virulence (post frag bomb nerf)].

Every elite should be a worthwhile skill choice on your bar, that you take because they're GOOD, not because you don't have many other choices. As it is now, each profession has maybe 5, if even that, elites that people run, because all of the rest just can't compare.

Also, as a mostly unrelated note, they need to pull off, "Lose all enchantments" from the Conjures. The days when Conjure [Element] triggered regardless of your weapon's element are over; You can't stack them regardless. There's no use in having that effect other than being mildly annoying.

Also on my list of buff desires would be Elementalist profession in general, Mesmer Inspiration line [trim/combine a handful of the stances and fill in the blanks with REAL skills please?], and the Monk smiting line. [Let's Smite! Wait, I'm facing obscenely long recharge times. My Flare equivalent, Banish, takes 10 seconds alone. La di da... Oh, I know, I'll cast a Signet of Judgment and wait 30 seconds instead... Edit: Don't even get me started on Retribution and Holy Wrath =\]

What Warrior Elites do you think need nerfing or buffing Mercury Angel?

I think Skull Crack needs buffing, currently nobody uses it- even in PvE where it's slighly easier to get away with substandard builds. At the very least, give it a half second swing time, and perhaps lower the adrenaline charge needed one or two swings. Ten swings for a 1.33 second casting time interrupt is just ridiculous, especially if they have a blocking stance/enchantment up.

I made a mistake in attributing that last statement to 'the PvE community' instead of to Marvik and other 'hardcore' PvErs who post in balance threads. For that I apologize.

The PvE crowd falls into 3 distinct groups for the most part.

The first is your typical, casual, PvE gamer. He spends a lot of time and energy on picking out hairstyles and making his character look cool, and plays a toon that he thinks is fun. He doesn't ever min/max, instead he just feels his way through the game, picks up a few things along the way, and generally just wants to enjoy having some amount of success with his toon. This is the vast, vast majority of the PvE market. It is also, for the most part, a *silent* majority. This segment of the population is, for the most part, unaffected by balance changes. His character wasn't designed for peak effectiveness, so he'll go up and down a bit with the tweaks but the concept is still the same.

The second is your stereotypical powergamer. He's interested in chasing that carrot and catching it as efficiently as possible. He'll use every trick available to 'get ahead' in the game and come out with more money, more items, or even fame. This is, in my experience, the vast majority of the forum population. They violently oppose change because it screws up their advantages and their place in the pecking order. This is who I was addressing in my previous post, the PvE powerfarmers who infest these threads. They don't want balance, they want to keep 55ing their griffons, to keep forgerunning, or otherwise maintain the status quo because they have it figured out well enough.

The third group is harder to pin down, because they're an offshoot of powergamers. The difference is the motive. They aren't nearly as interested in maximizing GP per hour as finding out their limits. They want to know if they can solo a certain mission, or if they can run to a new location, or farm some obscure mob. They might have figured out how to farm griffons but they got bored of it pretty quickly. The big difference in these discussions is that this group is more likely to embrace change than oppose it, as it opens up new horizons for them to try out. I don't think this is a big group by any means, but there are a few prominent forumgoers that I'd stick into it.

Again, the very vocal second group has been doing a disservice to the rest of the PvE crowd and I stereotyped because of it. My apologies.


Sure, but my argument is that players like 'most of you' really don't have any place in balance discussions. They don't really affect you one way or another, and you never cared about the finer details before, so why start now?

Peace,
-CxE

Kind of like when the top 20 guilds got to make a pre-made build. Would have been great except for the public gets to vote on them. Which means pve players that don't have a clue or care at all about pvp will be voting on them.

If it screws up your farming then oh well. There is more money in running since 2nd month of game. If you haven't changed by now you are far behind the times anyways.

Icemonkey in my view gvg is not real strategy, you don't plan out every single move ahead of time. You just start out with a general idea of what you will do and wing it afterwards, meaning creativity and quick thinking or just plain luck but not real strategy like in strategy games. And yes gvg suffers as much from fotm builds as any other pvp metagame. The only difference is that it is noticed way less because of a lesser amount of people being involved in it then in either ra, ha or tombs. Although it might be because i consider pvp to be boring, uneventfull, disorganised and just plain irritating.

And ensign you forgot a fourth group, namely the pve crowd that maximize the power of their character with the items they find throughout their journey not caring for really bling bling but the sociability of others and the ability to function as a group in defeating the challenges that pve bring. That will be silent for the most part and just adapt to the changes done by the devs since it murks up/reinvigorates their part of the game as well but still consider that some spells/skills needs to be changed either by buffing or nerfing. Just like the AI update changed up their game and made the usage of fire magic dots way less usefull. Or the lack of real usefullness of watermagic. The lack of use of most smitingmagic with the exception of solomonks. The lack of the damageline with warriors and their solefocus on stances and damagespunges, the silliness of 55 monks/necros, spitefull spirit even gale (seeing as its abetter alternative then an elite warriorknockdown for a line completely dominated with them), the solobility of certain places(it ain't skill to be able to solo a zone, thats just abusal of weaknesses within the AI) etc...

So just as much you ensign might think that we pve-players don't have a room in a skill rebalance we will disagree since in the end it affects our game as well. If you really want us to have no influence on your part of the game, namely pvp, then I suggest you go and plead and suggest with Anet that they seperate the pve and pvp skillorientation completely.

Although a discussion like this is so outside of the scope of the intention of this thread... for which i will apologies altough this is posted

That's group one in the words of a group one player.


...

See this is the whole problem in a nutshell. You're trying to argue that 'PvE players' should be listened to when talking about game balance, but in those very same posts you make it abundantly clear that you have absolutely no clue what the current state of balance in your own part of the game is.

How am I supposed to read any balance suggestion that you'd make for anything other than comedy value when you're feeding me gems like this?


It's not that there's no room for PvE concerns to be aired in a rebalance thread. It's that the vast, vast majority of PvE players don't know the first thing about skill balance or what's breaks the game. A sizable majority of those who do have some idea of what's broken will violently oppose the broken things being fixed because they're likely exploiting them as much as they can.

What I feel is lost in this discussion, though, is that PvE is so easy, and so imbalanced, and most importantly that most player like it that way, that talking about micro-changes to skills in the context of PvE is all but meaningless. For example a death-specced necromancer is so much more powerful than virtually any other character in a team environment but no one seems to care. Power levels fluctuate wildly, but that's just part of the game.

Powergaming PvE isn't about skill power as much as exploits, about AI abuse, or careful mob selection to give you an overwhelming, unfailing advantage over your opponents. It is about gear tanks that do nothing but cycle stances, about prot spirit against carefully selected mobs that can't remove or work around it, about herding mobs into tiny little AoEs and using skills that the AI is too dumb to break. How much individual skills cost is virtually irrelevant, as long as their effect is something that the chosen monsters cannot deal with. The rest of the build will make it work.

E.G. - the AI update that made it so monsters would no longer stand in a Firestorm like a mushroom. There might have been some sane voices in there talking about how the change was good for the game, but it was drowned out completely by the incessant bitching, whining, and threats to quit the game. Once Spiteful Spirit causes AoE flight you'll see the whole episode all over again.


Hell, I'll spell it out. Every time this 'separate PvP and PvE completely' argument is made, I interpret it as follows: 'I've made my character and invested time in him and I don't want anything to change about him that I don't change myself, regardless of the effects of that stance on the rest of the game. I am willing to embrace patently retarded positions like making skills act differently in PvP and PvE, as long as I never have to change the way I play or think about the game.'

I'm not going to argue that there are not PvE-centered players who know what they're talking about, because there are and I enjoy talking to them. But we're not talking about them. We're talking about those group one players, who don't understand the first thing about the game and desperately holding onto the little insights they have found, making outright retarded arguments that derail threads like this one. Players that make the entire PvE community look like a pack of fools.

Sure you're going to be opposed to not being listened to. But you have nothing to say. It might not be evident to you, but it is to the rest of us.

Peace,
-CxE

Euhm no, group one would be the person who just goes with the flow. I still punk out my char to make sure it is the most effective with what i have for the group. Not with what i could ever reach since that would be like saying give me everything at the start so i can make my char uberized. It would just be UAS all over.

Sigh, I know that in pvp warriors are one of the best damagedealers over time... But I was talking about pve where people only consider you as the front line tank and you actually have to only do the job of tanking. And any attackinclined warrior gets goggled at. Just try to be one in the new tombs and you will know what i mean. Or in fow or sf where all a warrior is used for is as bookcarrier.

SS is unbalanced in comparison to all the other aoe, but it has only been massused after the ai change. Firestorm/searing heat is a skill that is useless unless you want an expesnive bugspray. Even in combination with water hexes most Firedots are still not worth it. Just check most of the pvp build and look how many times it involves a spell other then meteorshower to counter healingballs staying in their wards. The only skill i would maybe ever consider in pvp is meteor for the fire line, so all one time hitters since otherwise they will just scatter anyway and reduce the rest of the power anyway.

The outcry was logical seeing as people where set in their way, just as people are set in their way with iway in pvp, or galechains, or... And the outcries you will hear when that gets deuberized. This is human behaviour, it has nothing to do with pve or pvp... it is just taking away the candy of the little kids wanting to have fast successess and have it all now.


The reason why people do contineue on coming forward with it is that every change in skills in favour of pvp is that some changes in favour of pvp make them nearly unusuable in pve. I haven't seen iway being used in any pve areas, while its 'godly' in pvp. So please stop with the selfrightiousness of your so called spell it out type of behaviour...

The derailing doesn't come from only one side. If other people don't make the same rash statements these derailments wouldn't happen. Your way of thinking isn't the only valid one, neither is mine. But at least I respect what other people have to say, you just state you are ignorant... it is the same behaviour as how some of us pve-type players presume the pvp people to be like. All full of themselves since they treat everybody as noobs that don't have the same opinion as them.

I ask AGAIN, which skill changes for PvP made skills unusuable in PvE?

firestorm, searing heat, all the dot fire magic ones made them near useless in pve, as they are near useless in pvp. Just because pvp complained about the lack of resemblences of pvp to pve. They need a change to make them valuable again. Ignite arrow, you hit them once and see them immediately running around. Even some regular players would keep attacking a target in stead of starting to run as soon as they get hit with it. Grenths balance got used only for ganking the guild lord, still useless in pve. Natures renewal, hardly have seen a use in pve due to its disadvantage of making echantments and hexes so much longer to cast while before it was a decent way to lose the excessive hexes. Although the excessive misuse in pvp made it get altered so hard. Which cripples your necros, mesmers and monks just as well as it helps you.

There will prolly be more. Although I understand the reason for its 'nerfage', but in the end it did also influence the pve game, by in most cases not using them at all.

No, they're the best damage dealer over time in PvE, too. Who's fault is it that they are never used that way in PvE?

You want to know why warriors aren't used to deal damage in PvE? Because you can't abuse the AI with melee attacks. AI abuse trumps everything in PvE.


See: PvE is stupid.

How can balance even be discussed when a vast majority of options are thrown out before being considered? Why do warriors tank? Because they do in every other game.

Balance is irrelevant if people are too stupid to exploit it.


It is unbalanced simply because it is the only mass AoE that is still useful for widespread AI abuse. Pound for pound on its own merits the skill is pretty mediocre.


No, we're doing PvE balancing here. Firestorm was uber because monsters stood in it, but now it's garbage because they do not.

See: my last post.


You have a startling ability to ignore that which does not fit in with your own prejudices. If you take a couple minutes to look around these forums, you'll see that iWay is reviled by the community, not celebrated. Arguments are easier to digest when they have some basis in reality.


Name one skill that has been changed solely because of it's abuse in PvP that has had a significant impact on the PvE game.


Non sequitur


There is absolutely no reason for me to respect what someone says just because they are able to run their mouth. Respect is something people have to earn. Posting unsubstantiated garbage is one of the fastest ways to lose respect on the internet. If you're going to set off my bullshit detector I'm going to call you on it, and if you're going to press the issue I'll rub it in your face.

I pointed out your ignorance, and you respond by calling me an asshole. I'm not going to argue your point, but please return with evidence refuting mine.

Peace,
-CxE

No need for damagedealer over time in pve if any skirmish last less then 10 secs.

Reason why warriors aren't used in pve as damagedealers is because in pvp warriors aren't eagerly targetted. While in pve as long as you watch aggro properly you can make them go for you completely in stead of watching outside of aggrorange. If the view in pvp was only limited to your aggrobubble then warriors would have been used more as tanks as well. Sinc epeople could bo invisible to the other person by stepping outside of the bubbledistance.

That is an opinion. PvP can be considered to be just as dumb. Why do warriors attack in pvp in stead of tank? Because they aren't the ones that die the fastest due to their higher armor. Or because mesmers are to annoying to leave alive. Or that monks/medics keep my opponents alive while I'm wailing on them. Or because eles unleesh those big balls that drop on my head. Balance hasn't anything to do with being to stupid to exploit, but with having fun finding efficient builds and then getting it shaken up again to find another build. Since whatever you try perfect balance is never to be found, people will always gravitate to the point that is unbalanced to abuse. It is also human behaviour.

Heh, it is actually quite decent, just as empathy is quite decent but won't stop you from attacking if you smell my blood. But like any AoE the effect with people is that after noting it, people will adapt. Rendering AoE useless. If they want to make it even usefull in pvp and pve then they should have made it into a hefty first time effect and a degrading secundary effect.

My point was that you in stead of pleeding for a usefull spell have asked for it to be a useless spell since it was useless in pvp as well. In stead of asking for a spell that was usefull in pvp and pve and not a waste of the elementals energy.

At start it was celebrated because it made the less skilled have some form of success but not be impossible to beat by the skilled people. But seeing that now everybody was using it, it started to work on peoples nerves since they are getting ranks which they wouldn't deserve if they ever changed profession. But that resentment hasn't showed up untill quite some time later on. Just as spirit spam was a novelty at start and skillfull for coming up with it untill every jack and joe used it. As any other FoTM build.

see previous post

No you pointed out points you consider ingnorant sine they don't stroke to your opinion. And do so by insulting people that think differently from you in stead of respecting someone elses opinion which is a basic right and not a priviledge. When people then point that out you then immediately start insulting them again. Nor did i ever state that you were an asshole, i stated that you were full of yourself which means something completely different.

You know it would be super if you actually read what I was asking. The AoE change had nothing to do with PvP. It was a change targetted towards PvE only (DUH).

Again, name a change made for PvP that significantly affected the PvE game.


Huh? Grenth's balance was buffed and if it isn't used in PvE then it could hardly change anything, now could it?

Since almost no one used NR in PvE anyway I don't see how the nerf changed anything.

If I had to, I'd definitely stick myself into this group. I await every skill balance with anticipation. Hell, as I mentioned earlier, I'm STILL waiting for the AI update that makes them stop kamikaze'ing through my Empathy and Backfire. I want the challenge, and I want the necessity to adapt.

Having skills tweaked does not immediately make them useless. Less effective? Probably, but there are 450 total skills, and your char gets 150. And you're going to sit there and tell me that in PvE, only 8 certain skills are effective, and not a single one of the remaining 142 skills? I'd call anybody who said that a fool, if it mattered.

Another note... the AoE "nerf", wasn't even a skill rebalance! They didn't touch the skills at ALL. All they did was update the AI!

So while you look at it and say "they nerfed my AoE", I look at it and say "They buffed my enemy AI." And I can't wait for them to do it again. Quit crying over Firestorm ffs, and be creative.


note: this thread is not in response to Ensign, just wanted to quote that paragraph as a basis for my post. I also agree with 98% of what he's said. The other 2%, I might have missed since I just woke up.

I used to use NR in pve. It was quite effective in countering hexes. But then some people started abusing it in pvp by combining it with oath shot to make it spammable and it got altered in such a way that it is nearly inefficient to carry in a ballanced enchant and hexusing group.

Grenths balance got used to get the dragon glint down easy which maybe lead to the idea to use it for ganking on the guild lord. Haven't really seen it getting used afterwards.

And once more, if the pvp crowd asks for the ai to be updated so that it runs out of firestorms range just to mimick pvp then pvp had something to do with it. But they should at least have offered a way to make aoe usuable also in pvp in stead of just taking its use away of pve. For example changing the dot effects in a degrading effect. So that the orignial damage was a certain percentage (eg:30%) and the remaining dmg came ove rtime contineously reducing in magnitude.

And I tried being creative by adding snares to it, either by letting the warrior carry some snares or a ward of foe, or by letting another ele (primary/secundary) go water and slow them down or by carrying a water snare by the ele that uses firestorm and specking partly in water. It still gets outperformed by standard other tactics. Like barrage, SS, even the point blank ele damage spells like phoenix, etc.

In any case calamity, stopping them to kamikaze is ok, but they should at least attack or cast a couple times through it, sinc eotherwise it would end up in even more abusal. Imagine a couple of mesmers just casting an empathy on all warriortype mobs or a backfire and them just not attacking while getting hit by damage. It would be an air spîkers wet dream.

In any case, i put down my opinion and leave it at that if you wanna discuss some more concernign this lets take it to pms and leave this thread for balancing suggestions.

cheers

QFT

As I wrote in Sardelac Sanitarium:

PvE simply doesn't encourage strategyor tactics becauseof it's lack of difficulty. There are plenty of PvP strategies that can be used in PvE, but why would you? PvE simply isn't difficult enough to require strategy or planning in the same sense as PvP. Your Warriors don't have to overextend and snipe the monks, your rangers don't have to cripple, and your necromancers don't have to spike. Not because it's inefficient, but because it'd be overkill with PvE's lack of difficulty.