Balance on the Horizon.

Bah! If mesmers get Spiteful Spirit, then necromancers should get Energy Drain. Hearken back to your D&D roots and remember wraiths, spectres, vampires, and dozens of other nasty undead had Energy Drain. This ability was the domain of the damned, not the drama club! Elite for elite, I say! Don't like the idea of that too much do ya? ;-)


(though "vengeance" should totally be a necromancer skill... and rather than a bright glowy aura, it should give the target a limp, the appearance of rotting flesh, and the penchant to pop a word balloon that says "Braaainnnnss..." from time to time. And it should be called "Animate Dead Friend". Gosu.)

Come on people theres this much choas and the nerf hasn't even come.

Anet knows what they're doing. Just let do their job and stop argueing.

Gaile did say a change to IWAY probably will come. I'm personally wondering if she is tired of dealing with all "NERRRFF IWAY PLZZZZZ GAAALIEEE GRYA!!!!111" in LA.....

The death of IWAY is soon. The rise of Paliway is soon.

Otyugh's Cry needs the biggest buff in history. Imagine the fun if OC worked on enemy pets and minions?

HA!

There is nothing wrong with the IWAY skills, the problem is it is used on pets. So I read somewhere that pets will be taken off the skill, so that only human players register for IWAY.

It is their responsibility to maintain an equal playing field. Part of their responsibility also comes in freshening things up when the player-base's imagination has hit a monumental stale point. We are at that point.

As mentioned before, in Hero's Ascent there are IWAY teams, and teams built to punish IWAY. Maybe that's balanced to you, but 450 skills all being looked at to see how they can help or hurt an individual skill, "I Will Avenge You!" means that the playerbase has RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed up in keeping things fresh. Note, it is not everybody's choice that Hero Ascent simply be "whoever beats the most IWAY teams", yet the flock of people with little skill, and absolutely 0 imagination and creativity, have turned it into that.

As mentioned before, in GvG, there are specific builds. Rangers will primarily be using Apply Poison and spamming Crippling Shot, and if it's a R/Me it's a guarantee they'll be using Blackout . Considering more than half the Rangers I see in observer mode ARE R/Me's, there's your stale Ranger. Ele's, generally: Ether Prodigy, Lightning Strike, Lightning Orb, Enervating Charge, Blinding Flash, Heal party are almost guaranteed. Just about every single Warrior who doesn't run "I Will Avenge You", is carrying Gale. Any other magic? No, just Gale. And EVERYBODY who plays a Mesmer primary or secondary WILL be using Distortion. 100% Guaranteed! Mesmers and Monks pretty much have their specific skills, but hopefully you're getting the point.

The above is what happens when everything is left up to the players and there is no stepping in by ArenaNet. Out of 450 skills used, about 50 actually are. I understand that a lot of skills suck in comparison to those 50, but rather than elevate 400 skills to the level of 50, lowering the 50 to the level of 400:

1. Brings Balance
2. Takes less time, thus giving them more time to fix other bugs, tidy everything up for Factions, generate new events/contests for the players to enjoy, etc.
3. Encourages creativity in skillset building.

ArenaNet has always maintained 2 things about Guild Wars.

1. You wouldn't have to be an avid hardcore player to be able to be competitive.
2. PvP would be based on skill rather than who has what skills.

My comments on each:

1. They've kept this to be true.
2. How do we know? We can't tell if skill really determines the winner, because almost nobody really runs anything BUT those 50 skills.


Hopefully you can see why even "nerfing" 50 skills is a benefit to the Guild Wars community as a whole. So what if you have to adjust and wait for someone else to think up a build for you? If you had been thinking builds up yourself, and the majority of people had as well, we wouldn't NEED something like this.

But you don't, and they don't, so we do. You bought it on yourself.




edit: said "Ether Renewal" when I meant "Ether Prodigy." Edited to fix my mistake.

Hmm, although I am somewhat of a PvP noob, nicely said. Although I do like PvP, I am sometimes dissuaded (if that's even a word :S) from playing it, since the only builds that people seem to want to play are IWAY and other specific builds. No one seems to use new ideas anymore...or at least that is how I see it, of course, I maybe wrong ^^ People seem more concentrated on the idea that you can only win if you know how to play a specific build, rather than thinking up new builds that make use of other skills. When people do think up new builds, they generally seem to be a slight deviation from the normal skill set up used. But once again, that's just how it seems to a PvP noob, I am probably wrong.

^^

Thanks,
Optime

To the abover poster:

I've played Magic the Gathering semi-professionaly for 10 years. Even Anet said that GWs is somewhat inspired in Magic.
I've also played some other games online which also went down the "instead of buffing 400 skills to the 50skills used, nerf the 50 skills to the lvl of the other 400 skills" attitude. Also called "nerf-bat" attitude.


Thing is, when you start nerfing the most used skills/spells just because they are the most used that path will soon turn into an snow-ball.
First you nerf the skills that are most used but then there will be some skills that will me more used than the others (cause they weren't nerfed...yet). So these too will get the nerf bat.
Then a "3rd" generation of skills will start being used more than the others if only due to the fact that they weren't nerfed (yet). So Anet would have to nerf these skills too....
...and so on and so on.



See, what I've learned through all these years is that in the end there will always be some skills/spells/abilities used more often than others.
THe only way to prevent this would be having only 1 skill.
If you think carefully you'll see that no matter how many skills you have to choose from, whether it's 10 or 100 or 1000 there will ALWAYS be some skills that will be better than the others if only for the fact that they "work" "better" against real humans.


That's the way things are. There's always going to be a skill that's better than the others. When you "nerf" things, yes for a while skills will be more diversed untill people evolve and adapt but soon the builds will be "finished" and skills will start to be the same.


It's the famous metagame. For those of you who don't know metagame means, basically and generally choosing a specific build that works best against the enviorment you're expecting.
Sounds complicated but it isn't.
Say you're playing the Rock-Scissors-papper game. Suppose that everyone you know plays Rock (p.e: IWAY builds). If you went to play against people you KNEW were going to use Rock...what would you do? You'd use Papper (p.e:Anti-IWAY) and win against everyone.
Now comes the nice part: IF you knew that ROCK (IWAY) is predicted to be used alot, you can also predict that PAPPER (anti-IWAY) is going to be used by the "top-notch" players. So, you could try to be one step ahead of them and use SCISSORs (an anti - anti-IWAY build) to beat the best players.
Basically, Rock beats scissors which beats Papper which beats Rock.


What does that mean? It means that in Competions in which you can build your character (like GWs, Magic and most TCGs), there will always be "the best thing", no matter what.
So naturally , clever players will use anti-"best thing" builds... and some players will go one step further and use anti- "anti-best thing" builds.
Aren't there any more builds? Sure there are but you have to remember that "the best build" will probably eat them all for breakfast (like IWAY sometimes does).



What's my point then?
My point is that in all human competions there's always someone/something better than the others and naturally the other players will try to compensate.
Now, if you want to "nerf" the better player/build/thing just because it's "the most used" build.... it's plain wrong.
It's like coming into a baskeball court and say :

"Hey, you guys all jump before throwing the ball to the basket! I know what, from now on you can't jump anymore"!

or

"Hey, you golfers always aim before doing your shot. I know what, you can't aim anymore".


And so on and so on.
Things shouldn't be nerfed just because most people use them. THat's wrong.


Things SHOULD be nerfed when there's some sort of exploit around them (like IWAY and pets) or when they are so MUCH more powerfull that the "ROCK-SCISSORS-PAPPER" turns only into "ROCK".
Other then these scenarios, things shouldn't be nerfed or in the end you'll end up having gimped, weak characters that aren't any fun to play with.
Be careful with what you wish to be nerfed guys. Once a game starts on the nerf path, sooner or later it will degenerate into a snowball.
In GWs, that might mean all characters having the same power as a Water mage. lol. Not pretty.



That's my view on the subject, on a theoretical basis that is.
As for actual skills to be balanced, that's not the point of my post.



Bio-FLame

That, or just make the stupid BSB work. or Both!

I think you mean Ether Prodigy.

To those who say a skill should be nerfed because it seems to be in everyones skillbars..

Nerf Res Signet.

Its not that great, if you ask me. I think Aegis is more overpowered. Its been that way for awhile. Not many balance teams don't take 3 way Aegis spam (in the Tournament, atleast).

You must be kidding....

Predictions:

IWAY: Most likely changed so its party member instead of allys to stop pet abuse. However the IWAY build itself probably might change the secondary profession of the warrriors to survive the nerf.

O ya before I forget the IWAY build did get nerfed becuase now you have to be in reasonable length in order for 'party' effects to last. Before you could go far away and still cast.

Bio:I think it's very similar to the way that tourney M:TG works, but except it's completly different. Let me explain.

In a CCG, you're pretty much limited to the physical object at the time of printing. The strength of the card, the cost, all those other aspects are fairly stable. It's hard to change them. (I know about errata, but that's more about rules clarification than actual changes)

In Guild Wars, being an online game, the power of the skills can be tweaked. You don't have to destroy IWAY or ban it. You can simply bring it back into line with other skills. You gain the ability to tweak.

This ability to tweak SHOULD be used. In fact, if I was a designer, I'd be using it fairly often, at least every 3 months or so.

Trouble is, next update, IWAY gets the shaft just because ANet thinks we should be playing another builds. That's NOT ANet decision... at least it shouldn't be IMHO.

If we are stucked on the same builds, give us the tools to change them or improve them ... don't force us to stop playing them... that's not the right way to face the issue!

Improve, innovate, rethink, review... everything! Let IWAYers IWAY if they want... if they are happy running the same build over and over let it be so. Concentrate on making them desire to play another build, make other skills-professions desirable for them to run on a different build.

ANet: You can hear our different opinions daily on this forum... about IWAY and pretty much everything regarding the game, but you make a statement that has an important influence on PvP gameplay and we can't know why you think that way... we can only guess, unless you explain yourselves your point of view.

What is it really?

Variety in gameplay? That's for us to decide with our unlocked skills and items... yours is the ability to provide us the skills, professions, and items to decide what kind of variety (Factions would be great on this i think).

Is it to freshen up HA? Maybe we don't want it... maybe we want to run a just plain fun good old Minion Factory... heck, we won't get to HoH but we have fun running it... maybe after the MF run will do some balanced, or a wacky Iway with the guildies (We once made a 1-Hammer Warrior IWAY with ex-guildies and believe me it was fun!).

I do understand that nowadays mostly everything in PvP is IWAY or Anti-IWAY builds... but, like someone said before, if we agree this kind of nerf, next one will nerf another build, and another, and another... that's not empowering people to play, but not to choose something.

Solution then is not nerfing, but providing the ways to more interesting choices than current ones: takes a lot more thinking (And spending) but it's the best...

Absolutely.

Aegis is interruptable (that's why they made it 2 seconds) and removable if you really need to. Distortion isn't either (except for Wild Blow, which is only remotely good because you don't have any other option)

He meant Ether Prodigy, not Ether Renewal. The rest is true - if you see an E/Mo on a team, they're almost always running those skills.

bah, I did. -.-

Yes, I agree that on the contrary to Magic, they can tweak the powers instead of banning.
But my point was the reason for tweaks/nerfs should me more than just "it's the most used skill".
A skill should be tweaked/nerfed only if it's overpowering to a degree in which the metagame isn't healthy and/or if it has a clear exploit on it (like IWAY does).


Also nerfs should be done very sporadically otherwise in some months you might have a game that's completely different from GWs as it is now.
If you were a dev and changed powers every month all you would accomplish in the end would be alienating your fan-base.
That's a thing I learned from MMOs.

Nerf Res Sig? You've got to be joking, people.

Speaking of the good 'ol Res Sig .... when did they change the wording on it to read "Ressurection signet is only recharged whenever your team gains a morale boost", or has it always been worded that way and i'm just a blathering idiot?

It was changed a bit back, though I don't think it was actually mentioned. It's functioned like that for quite a while, of course, but even so, it's a bit annoying that anet is sneaking in these subtle description changes to skills, Swirling Aura as well.