Balance on the Horizon.

Actually, I find what ANet has said about solo play is somewhat contradicted by some of the revisions to skills we've seen in some of their updates.

A good example is Dolyak Signet. Before, it was a rarely used skill, but it received a significant armor buff in the fall. Now, it is a staple to most solo PvE warriors, but still is rarely used in either PvP or group PvE play due to its devastating impact to movement speed.

I understand that solo play from a farming standpoint is discouraged, but I think that PvE play from a solo standpoint drives a good many of us to continue playing the game, which is why ANet is mindful to PvE players' opinions as well. There seems to be a growing rift between those skills that are almost exclusively used in PvE and not in PvP and vice versa, and this may be on purpose to avoid many of those "conflicts" between the two arenas.

Why does everyoen insist orders needs to be nerfed, i think orders is one of the few balanced skills heres why...

Cost, it is very difficult to ALLWAYS keep up BOTH orders, try it some time you have to be coordinated with the ranger spike group to use it in such a way that it will be in effect durign their spike, also you have to sacrifice life in order to use them limiting how much u ca ncast them even if u get energy recharge

Duration, duration to recharge ratio forces you to spam it bringing down your energy

Vulnerability, when focusing on orders and using heal party whenever u get the energy you are pretty distracted, and who knows, if some1 actually noticed there are only 7 guys attacking the team they might send a warrior to look for the nec...enfeeble isnt going to keep a war from killing you

that being said i think it is more beneficial to look at what will be buffed as opposed to nerfed, personally i would love to see water eles be boosted because that is my favorite character, i hate feeling like i'm being forced to play a ranger spiker orders nec or e-denial mesmer, they need to make it so more builds are viable besides cookie cutters like gale wars

I find it sad that the most learned, analytical posters here on these boards are quick to disregard PvE players as mindless, drooling, keg-holding morons whos opinons or preferences in gameplay are worth less than squat.

Not everyone holds a damned gear when they play PvE.

Ether Renewal was great before its widespread abuse at the hands of E/Mo smiters in PvP. Now it is a skill that I wouldn't dream of taking with me. It's my example of a skill that, because of abuse/overuse/exploitation in PvP, was killed for PvE.

I'm sure my opinion will be disregarded and I will be made to appear as if I'm an idiot gear-holding schmoe now, who plays only to "exploit AI" and "grind". Whatever. I could cook up clever, veiled insult generalizations about the mindset of competitive PvP players, but it's not really worth it.

Moving on,

I don't believe that any of the most-used skills in PvP should be changed simply because they're overused in PvP -- Offering of Blood, Boon/Reversal, Crippling Shot, Distortion, Eviscerate. They're fine skills as they are. They're most used because the math says that they're the best. (Naturally you can use other skills and still be competitive, but that isn't the nature of competitive play. If steroids were legalized in the NFL tomorrow, your team would be noobs for not using them, after all.)

I'll be truly upset if they reduce Offering of Blood's effectiveness, simply because it's overused in PvP.

I respect the difficult job that ANet has in balancing skills for both forms of gameplay. If a skill is abused in PvP, then naturally it must be adjusted, and sometimes it's difficult to adjust it in such a way that it does not end that skill's abililty to be used practically in PvE. Breaking eggs < Omlettes.

I don't think that a skill which is abused in PvE should be adjusted at all, I think that the environment in which that skill is most commonly used is the thing which should be adjusted. Adding healers and mesmers to commonly farmed areas would be a great start.

I will be most happy the day that ANet fixes the book/keg/gear/torch trick. At least then, Ensign will have to find another way to disqualify the opinions of PvE players, strategy will begin to mean more, Sorrow's Furnace will become challenging, and I won't ever have to argue for 10 minutes with my Fissure of Woe PUG that no, we don't have to use the damned book trick.

And in closing, IMHO, Protective Bond is far from useless.

I think SS was only like spells or skills before but Anet changed it to anything

Maybe nerfed now but i think it was Anet mistake at beginning

How come everyone keeps talking about Iway when there is another Fot.moment build.This build is the W/E with eviscrete,frenzy and gale.I prefer to be more creative in making up builds.These build are more like science they work where as no imagination.I guess I look at it in artistic in me where I prefer something that goes agaisnt the grain.

I would like to see some better skills especially those in the sword and hammer line get some buffs as axe is over used in both PvE and PvP.It would be nice if 100 blades,hamstring,pure strike and seeking blade were like the Rangers Kindle Arrow and Melandru's Arrows.When it come to solo farming maybe when chapter 2 comes out maybe Anet can make some place in Tyria soloable.I don't think many would go along with LFG to farm with in outposts.

If they also fix that for minions, then I'll be the one laughing!

Yea, I'm getting that vibe also, especially when then problem isn't with the PvE community, but the environment. If the mobs changed every instance, if the gear trick didn't work, if the AI was smarter, if....

PvEers are getting criticized for exploiting the environment, when the environment is clearly setup to be exploited. Hell, even rotating the mobs would make it impossible to run an over-powered monster-specific build, and require larger more balanced squads.

Here's one back at ya: I think catapults should be nerfed in PvP. They take no skill to use, and any R1 noobs can pull the lever.

I'll be upset also. The problem is this: The 10% sacrifice is nothing to a Monk primary, plus they are using lots of fast 5en spells. Do you see how they are doubly-attuned to OoB? So Offering is quite overpowered for Mo/N, although they DO have to put points into Blood.

Ensign suggests raising the sacrifice to 17-20% And that increase is covered (from a necro pov) by the Vampiric spells. But that's more sacrifice than using OoB under Awaken! Try it, it hurts, but it's not ruinous.

Most blood spiker variations run Awaken for the extra spike damage. So, blood spikers (both PvE and PvP) would now have to deal with double the normal sacrifice. That's 30% every pop, under AtB.

If they raise the sac for OoB, they need to buff lifesteal/vampiric spells by an equal percentage (they supposedly compensate each other). This is a proposed 70-100% increase in the OoB sacrifice, so just buff Vamp Gaze and Shadow Strike by 70-100% and I won't complain.

Even without AtB, 17-20% is a painful sac for every other class. And it really doesn't affect Mo/N besides high-pressure situations.

Thats just to stop Mo/N abusing OoB.

About the whole "PvE players are just evil abusers of the AI" thing...

... don't we even HAVE to "abuse" the AI in order to succeed against mobs which are three times as powerful as the human party is? Isn't the fact that humans are smarter than computers the very reason we have to fight level 29 Ataxes instead of level 20 ones?

well, this can be simply fixed by adding 50% failure if marksmanship is lower than X

I said it in my first post - the dev team is in a much better position to discuss skill balancing than players. Players in of themselves have way too much tunnel vision in their grasp of what is balanced or not, to be a fair judge of what needs to be done. Players provide input (too much most of the time) as
it is.

This isn't just a phenomena only in GW - it happens in every single online/multiplayer game. I've seen this same argument dozens of times in different gaming communities, and while there may or may not be some agreement between the development houses and the player base, it's the devs who have to make the changes work.

Once, Orders reached ALL THE MAP! Now it only affects the allies you can see on your radar. So no, a nerf of orders is very unlikely, as they have already nerfed that aspect of it.

_Zexion

The catapult adds another dimension of strategy to the game, makes it so you cant just run around without considering whats going on with that catapult. Also may be there to help break stalemates earlier than VOD. its not about skill its about strategy.


I will not dignify that with a response, that is complete nonsense. What is wrong with you? You use elite for energy management in PvE???? I'll do you a favor: stop immediatly and put a few points into soul reap...you will never have energy problems. And don't even bring up Battery necros cuz that is for feeding multiple high output ele's. PvE does not need the elite energy management.

Hmm why are we only concerned about PvP when we talk about skill balances? This is for several reasons that are abundantly clear to people who are experienced with PvP and PvE
-PvE is outrageously easy, as ensign has said, you never get abused by skills you abuse the computer with them
-PvP is the Fountainhead of this game PvE is an afterthought, theres a reason the cap is at 20 and you get only 8 skills and only 200 att points its for balance...in PVP
-the goals in PvP are different from PvE, in PvP you have to do things, cap altars, run objects or flags ect. sure you do this OCASIONALLY in PvE but not under pressure from a real human team. Therefore skills that are broken in PvP dont have the same effect in PvE, and since PVP is the goal of this game PvE loses in a conflict of interest
-In PvE there is no loser, you pretty much always win in PvP some, many in fact, have to lose for there to be a winner, therefore balance is more important in PvP. the environment doesnt complain when they get screwed people do.

if you only play PvE you have totally missed the boat with this game do yourself a favor stop playing there are WAAAAAAAAAY better rpg games that you fight a computer enemy. But you wont do that cuz you want to sit and abuse a stupid enemy with other people for no challenge.

Hey, I've been proven wrong before, and I enjoy it when it happens - means I learned something. It just requires a few things, namely a well supported argument that I can logically follow. People have done it before, and will certainly do it again.

I'm interested in discussion, not debate, after all.


Eh maybe, but I think that'd destroy the skills (at least Orders). You want the skills to still affect your group provided that you're all together in the group. Thing is that, at least in PvP, a team is often fighting 8 on 8 but they aren't all clustered up nicely within an aggro bubble. Part of what makes those skills good is that they're fire and forget, you don't have to jump through positioning hoops to make them work. Of course right now the AoEs are so huge that they lead to exploits.

I don't know what the right range on the skills should be, but I'm sure that radar is too big, and I'm pretty sure that aggro bubble is too small. Maybe spirit is too big as well. In any case there's some point in there where the skills still maintain their usefulness when playing with the team while losing their 'across the map' exploitability. Testing would be needed to find it.


Well I think that sigs recharging on morale is absolutely key. But I agree that something's a little off when you want to let the other team kill your Ghostly Hero early because it denies them more Ressigs. I think that's the difference between an environment supported by Ressigs and one dominated by them. I don't think that the Ressig discussion has been had in a terrible amount of depth yet though and it's one that I'd enjoy having.


iWay has two big things going for it. The first is that it's not a build that requires a lot of coordination. Each character acts independently doing his own thing, and while some communication is useful it isn't going to cripple the team if it doesn't happen. The second is that it's a fast paced build that wins and loses quickly, making it more appealing to a player with less time on his hands.

The net of those two things is that an iWay player can get a group quickly, can just play without having to discuss builds or strategy, and have some amount of success with it. Builds that put emphesis on player skill instead of teamwork will always have that advantage.

The problem with iWay, of course, is that it's a ridiculously powerful offense that's abusing as many broken skills as any other build in the game - not just four warriors, the best damage dealers in the game, but warriors stacking IAS buffs, plus undercosted, ridiculously powerful game altering spirits, plus radar range spammables that dominate the game. Easy to get started with plus overpowered mechanics gives you the mess you're looking at now.


That's why you use two necros, one with each Order, if you really want to abuse the things. A single Order is strong enough to justify a character slot. If it's a spike group, each necro can put up his Order, then spike with the rest of the group with an enchantment removal or a Vampiric Gaze. If you're not spiking you can just spam the Order whenever you have the energy, no coordination required. A character with both Orders is just poor in my experience, he cannot afford to have more than one up with any consistency.


Sure, but the Cripshot ranger who noticed you making that move certainly can. If there's one thing I've learned from playing against iWay, it's that rushing that guy in the back is one of the fastest ways to wipe your party. He can just run away with a huge head start while the rest of their team rages your backs...it never ends well.


Of course not, only the warrior does.

I'm not trying to disqualify discussions about PvE balance, but I'm trying to focus it onto the points of it that are most important. Sure, I know that not everyone plays with a gear, but if you're not playing with a gear should you really be talking about what's overpowered or not in PvE? Balance starts at the top. When talking about PvP balance you look at what's dominating the Hall of Heroes, or what the top guilds are dominating with. You don't look at what people are losing with in Dark Chambers, or what the ~1000 ranked guilds are beating each other with. If it's not dominating how can you call it overpowered?

The same goes for PvE. You don't start a discussion about PvE balance by looking at pugs and casual players. Not that they don't have a concern, but that their concern is pretty minimal because they aren't abusing the broken stuff. No, if you want to talk about PvE balance you start at the top - gear tanks, Protective Spirit / 55 monking, Spiteful Spirit abuse. Those are the dominant strategies in PvE, and if there's an imbalance that's where you need to look.


Well of course it was, I was bitching about that skill back in January 2005. It was an infinite energy engine for anyone with half a brain. Cast Ether Renewal, toss 3-4 spells in, and you're at full energy. The amount of energy you could get out of the thing was limited only by your Energy Storage attribute, and how expensive you could make the spells you cast during Renewal itself.

I'd like to point out that the E/Mo smiter wasn't just good in PvP. It was downright retarded in PvE. Smiting off of a gear tank against monsters who never fled out of your power-spammed AoEs? Yes please. Renewal was hardly neccessary because you cut through every mob in the game in less than 10 seconds with dual smite in PvE. An Ele couldn't even cast Meteor Shower because the monsters would be dead before the first meteor hit.

Sure there were some players doing 'fair' things with Ether Renewal, like casting Flare over and over again to refill energy with an Attunement up or something. Yes, they suffered some splash damage from the nerf. That's unfortunate but unavoidable. You can't hold a game hostage, balance-wise, because some scrub somewhere might have his pet build nerfed.


Agreed entirely. Most of the problems in PvE are a consequence of poor mob design and bad AI tricks. If a problem can be addressed that way it should be. Only in rare cases where the skill itself is a problem (ala Protective Bond) should a skill see the nerf stick.


I'll give you half of that argument. The developers are in a much better position to decide what's a good change and what is not for the good of the game, because, well, it's their game. They have a vision of how they want the game to be played, of how it's supposed to feel, and ultimately any decisions along those lines need to be made by them. However I will argue that that is less applicible to fine-tuning of skills than bigger issues.

I had the opportunity to speak with arena.net's founders about different design decisions while in Taipei and I was really impressed by how they answered some of the questions I had. For instance, I asked if leveling was actually an important part of the game, or if it was something that was put in because of some pressure to conform to what was expected. The answer is that leveling is important because of the learning process. If a new player comes into the game and encounters something difficult that he can't pass he'll get frustrated and quit after a few tries. But with leveling in the game, even if he fails at passing that barrier he'll have still accomplished something, and eventually he'll gain a level or two and have enough power to overcome that obstacle regardless. So even in a game like this one the leveling process is really important because it keeps new players involved long enough to learn what they'll need to learn to succeed once they hit the level cap.

But while they understand the big design decisions that shape the game they just don't focus on the details. I ribbed Jeff Strain at one point for letting Gaile play over him on the 4v4 arena team and he said it was because he's awful at PvP and Gaile's better. I'll let that one sit for a moment. Now despite that he has made a great PvP game, and I'm sure he has a lot of ideas about how he wants the game to ultimately play out, a vision of Guild Wars PvP as it were.

That's why A.Net hired people like Izzy, why they maintain a QA team and have a closed test. They have ideas about how they want things to be, but actually doing the fine tuning to actualize that visualization is really, really hard (just look at all the other MMOs that have failed at that). So why is Izzy good at his job? Because he's a competitive PvP player. He does break things, hell he's really good at breaking the limits of the game. He understands not only that things are overpowered, but *why* they are. Because of that he can work with the rest of the development team to implement the fixes that are ultimately best for the game.

So in a way you're right, the people on the inside are in the best position to make balance decisions. But for the most part they aren't the best people to be making those decisions, because their skills and talents lie elsewhere. The best decisions are made by competitive players who have been hired onto the development team for exactly those reasons, to put the right people in the right position to make these decisions.

As I'm on the outside I can't pretend that I'm in a good position to decide what's best for the game. Hell there are people who are a lot better at that than me anyway. What I can do from the outside is use my experience and understanding of the game to try and explain *why* things are working the way they are, so that they can ultimately make better decisions about where they want to go with the game.

Peace,
-CxE

About Spiteful Spirit, it will be quite broken when they change the HoD helm, and even more so when Assassins start coming into the mix with Factions. I really love the skill but I think there's a 70% chance something's going to be done about it. SS Necros are vulnerable to hex removal and interrupts, but they've got plenty of room on the bar for cover hexes, anti-intterupt skills and energy management skills. If you're bringing Arcane Echo on a PvP SS Necro, you're doing something wrong.

Another thing I've heard few people talk about are advantages PvE characters/items get over PvP ones:

HoD helm, obviously
-5 energy swords let you more effectively hide energy and abuse Purge Signet
When rolling a PvP character you've only got two weapons to pick. I'd like to have three on a warrior: one physical damage weapon, one elemental damage weapon and a wand for building adrenaline at range.

Basically, the concept of being able to roll up a PvP character that is as competitive as any PvE character is in jeapordy. I don't want to have to scrounge for obscure items in PvE and swap them in and out from PvP characters all the while being careful that they don't get deleted along with the PvP character, which happens several times a day. I especially don't want to have to play as a PvE character, due to the grind involved to get the right gear and possibility that you simply don't have the right character to play as that profession.

Sure, they have more levels, but that doesn't mean that AI mobs don't have significant disadvantages. Mobs don't have the support of a second profession, nor do most have any defensive skills (barring the occasional stance). When was the last time you fought a Bonded mob?

I think saying "three times as powerful" is a bit of a stretch. They have higher levels, greater numbers, and in rare instances unbalancing skills (Fingers of Chaos, Spectral Agony, twin elites, etc.). However, they lack something very fundamental -- a survival instinct. Even the Zaishen, who are supposed to be a simulation of PvP opponents, lack the sense not to charge a heavily trapped spirit (which is why a solo ranger can complete the Zaishen Challenge).

Read up to here, this just offended me.

Have you EVER Been gale locked, 2-3 warriors bashing over you in a 2 monk backline while your fellow monks are desperately trying to save you but noooo you cant heal yourself because you're consistently KD'd easily and for long enough for you to die in usually one lock(6-9 seconds), Ever tried to infuse but you were galed? Ever try to retreat but they gale-locked you? Most warriors in the metagame use it, it needs to be balanced, preferably through hightened recharge and (maybe) destroying the exhaustion because at a high recharge that seems excessive, raising the requirement for gale is purely superflous because a lot* of w/e's run 9 air magic to benefit from the focus item available.

on another note:

IWAY - sure nerf it, blow your mind out, go Crazy, see if anyone* cares.

Ranger spike - have fun, it won't die because it'll just be amplified more.

in truth anet can't KILL Builds, they can render them to be harder to play, take dual smite for example, E prodigy was nerfed but i still see MANY Smite Eleys/Necros/monks running around with Judge's and B Auror, sure dual smite was hurt* but come on.

2nd Example: Spirit spamming, oh noes where did it go! Are you aware of the terms oath-shot trapper/interrupt/spiker. Spirit spamming in its finest, just on a one-man scale

Crippling Shot is a 'meh' i mean sure it does a nice cripple and whatnot but I can't neccessarily call it 'game-breaking', it disables warriors for a little bit but it was buffed recently to make* it spammable, im not sure anet would nerf it so hastily after making it nicer

SS - I have sympathy for dual UW , its un-needed

Exhaustion focus-swapping glitches would be nice to be rebalanced, as in how they apply, negative exhaustion etc.

raising the bar on distortion slightly wouldn't be too catatonic, 4..1 would be ok, even though i'm against it >:|

Blackout will most likely be nerfed :'( because it'll become the next chain-gale =\

what i read out of most of this is alot of complaining by PvP warriors about stuff that annoys them... and casters for crazy things like IWay. Point is that it goes both way peeps. fighters vs casters, and PvP vs PvE

this game shouldnt be determined by the needs of either PvP or PvE players, but balanced for both. taking away an annoyance for PvP could very well toss a good PvE skill under the buss and make it worthless

restraint is in order here to maintain the balance for both genres and both should be considered

I see sarcasm is lost on you.

And yet you did...

A) That's a rather large blanket statement, which pretty much automatically invalidates it. And it's NOT ridiculous to run OoB in PvE.
B) Besides Blood Spike, I didn't mention any build, so you don't KNOW if it's needed or not. Blood Spike and Minion Master run OoB for sure, because you need energy on the front-end. Having energy after the enemy's dead only lets you move on to the next mob faster.
C) I said PvP and PvE.
D) Battery Necros are NOT there to recharge Elementalists, they are there to recharge MONKS. Come to think of it, why is there an Ele there at all?? and why can't he manage his own energy, with his own Elites??

If Offering gets an increased sacrifice just because of Mo/N overuse that's going to have a proportionately larger impact on all the other classes. This is because Mo/N is, by it's very nature, able to efficiently deal with a sacrifice better than any other class. The short of it, in my opinion, is that increasing the sacrifice of OoB won't affect monks AT ALL, unless they are being pressured at the EXACT same time that they need to use OoB. Pop OoB and if necessary, an Orison (5 energy) and the monk's done, with energy to spare.

On the other hand, it WILL affect everyone else who uses it, in a significant way. Even fully Vampiric necros will have a difficult time mitigating the sacrifice, even if they aren't using Awaken. Plus, the life stealing effectively no longer mitigates any damage the necro might be taking.

Lets assume a character has 485 health:

Offering is currently a 10% sac, or 48.5hp and recharges every 15 seconds.
The suggestion is to double that to 20% or 97hp, under Awaken that's 146hp.

Even without AtB, a Blood nec has to spend all the energy he gained (plus some) to regain that health, either via:

VG, wait, VG
VG, SS (conditionally)
Blood Renewal (but now he's down 45% for a time)
Rely on a secondary to self heal (not dealing damage)
Rely on a (possibly non-existent) Monk to heal
Other

See what I mean? Increasing the sacrifice on OoB to discourage Mo/N has a significantly larger impact on Necro's vs Monks. And Necro's are the next best at mitigating sacrifices, all other classes are hurt even worse.

I was being somewhat sarcastic when I suggested boosting life stealing spells 70-100%, but they could use a small buff already, and with that change they'll really need one. Increasing the OoB sac puts more strain on every other class than it puts on Monks, who are the very reason the suggestion was made. Buffing the other energy management spells is a MUCH more palatable suggestion.

Just stop. This is your opinion, and even if it's true, you're just fanning the flames of the PvP vs PvE debate and it's not helping.

Exactly. Until there is some sort of understanding from those that focus on PvP that skill "balancing" impacts certain aspects of PvE (especially soloing), and that ANet actually CARES what the impact is to PvE as well, it's pretty hard to have any sort of meaningful debate on an issue.

I belive thats known as "tactical use" , all of those warriors have sacrificed a secondary, now being locked into being an ele, they have pathetic energy (exaustion)

if you dont like being galed when casting, dont come near my mesmer..

I am going to make an attempt to sum this up fairly comprehensively, to end the quite shocking amount of bull flying around. However much fun Ensign is having with it.

This game has two sides to it. PvP, and PvE. I would personally argue that the PvP side is more important, as it is ever changing and will keep players interested for a long time. The PvE experience on the other hand is short, repetitive, and not very challenging or rewarding. However, this really has very little to do with which side we think is more important, because evidently they both are to some people.

Now for an example, lets wind it back to the Dust Trap bug (because I love that one so much). At the time of the bug, Dust Trap was doing double the amount of damage it should have been.

What happened in PvP? It was noticed within a few hours, and dozens of groups went and held halls with trappers. The number snowballed as more people found out about it and went in to try and win some nice shiny sigils. For a couple of weeks afterwards people were still trying trapper groups and variations. Infact I am fairly sure it led to "ViMway" coming about.

What happened in PvE? ...Nothing much. A few UW trappers may have realised they were maybe doing a bit more damage than they should, and farmed a bit harder untill it was fixed.

You see, the problem is that PvP is competitive. The entire PvP game revolves largely around finding the most powerfull skill combinations. It's what we call a metagame. People are always looking for the next skill change, and how they might use it to their advantage, or if it weakens their current build at all. Skills that are imbalanced in PvP just ruin the diversity of the game. Like now for example, just about every single guild I can think of runs Gale axe warriors. Most people don't know how to use gale to it's best ability, and will never get the most out of it, but still they do. You put a small tweak on Gale and suddenly other types of warriors are viable again.

Does that small tweak effect PvE much? Nope. Infact... Does any skill change *really* effect PvE? ...Nope. So you suddenly can't kill a mursaat monk boss in under seven seconds anymore? Thats hardly making the game worse is it. To be honest I am fairly sure I could hench my way through PvE with my monk, using an empty skillbar and just wanding things.

Skill balance has a near tectonic effect on PvP, and next to no effect on PvE in comparison. That is not "the opinion of a PvP player", that is just the cold hard truth of the matter. I have played through the PvE side of this game seven times across two accounts, and I can not remember a single skill balance effecting any of my characters in their PvE lives. Nor would I care if it did.

Now this IS a PvP thread, about balance changes for the PvP side of the game. Keep it that way.

Sorry Ensign.

There are a few skills that I think are perfectly balanced for what their role is suppose to be, but no one ever uses them. I don't know if these skills should be buffed or tweaked to fit the metagame.

For instance, when was the last time you saw someone use Rust? Ignorance? Verata's Gaze? Deflect Arrows? Magnetic Aura? How many of you even have these skills unlocked? I'm not just talking about PvP either. These skills aren't getting used AT ALL for both PvE AND PvP. These skills all have a purpose, and they serve that purpose well, but the thing is, those purposes have no place whatsoever in the current metagame - hence they're not getting used. At all.

I phrased my original comment totally wrong - my bad. I'd just read the thread and most the points had been backed up with incorrectness - and that some people needed to stop because they were digging their hole deeper and deeper.

On Res Sigs: My problems normally relate to the heroes ascent res reactivations. I think holding a flag stand for 2 minutes in gvg is fine since you really need to fight for that, and more often than not it actually creates for entertaining and tense battles.

With the ghost it calls for what I consider to be pretty dodgey strategies - Things like:

On Scarred Earth: Standing him next to an enemy obelisk in scarred earth to get him killed.
On Scarred Earth: Letting the last guy in a team kill your ghost so that the other team can't get res sigs off him.
On Burial Mounds: The fact that your ghost ressing because of the priest is a disadvantage (allows the enemy to get multiple morale boosts and resses).

Hm, all this said, tombs is a real chaotic environment anyway, you can play shit but have a huge bit of luck and win. and can play excellent and can be destroyed because of some unlucky gank - obviously this can happen in the 3 way matches. I think someone on iq forums mentioned that keeping your ghost alive for a period of time could be a way to perhaps get reactivation - that's a bit more similar to the flag morale boost - and it actually makes killing the enemy ghost a good objective early on - although I could still see problems with this

Perhaps aggro bubble is to short for orders and party and the likes - I wonder though, if they were to reduce the range of such skills would other similar skills have theirs reduced. The likes of martyr maybe, which is probably ok as is.

I do have a problem with orders in that a large amount of the damage from say ranger spikes can stay _way_ in the back. And same goes for the heal party spammers, they counter so much degen and other minor damage way too effectively considering how they can remain in very hard to reach positions.

I think the range of spirits is ok personally (despite my strong hate for natures), though I'd like to see Edge of Extinctions chain reaction disappear

Rust = Worst ele skill, ever.

Ignorance = Signet spammers aren't usually top priority, but I ssuppose it does have it's use with them becoming more common.

Verata's Gaze = I use it in PvE and if Minion Masters were viable aside from specialized builds, I'd use it in PvP, too.

Deflect Arrows = Worst warrior skill, ever.

Magnetic Aura = Hideous recharge for a simple skill that's effect is already common. But then again, it's an elementalist skill - shouldn't it be crap just like 90 percent of their skills?

And yes,many people (myself included) have unlocked all skills, including these.

Says it all really

Crippling shot is in no need of a nerf; the major problem is that expertise is overpowered. At a high enough expertise, one is able to reduce the recharge and energy cost of many skills by half. Notice in the Faction Preview Weekend that the premade R/Ass could spam all his skills indefinably without much energy loss. In fact, rangers can be better at being an assassin than an assassin can. Notice how most R/Me bring blackout. Notice how R/N touchers are a viable option in CA/TA. The major issue at hand is that expertise is a broken attribute.

wow

never actually played one but i'd assume a crappy minion factory would run verata's gaze right? it isn't run in pve because in pve because well.... you dont really need to plan on your mm dying

I laughed at rust - and I was so used to it doing nothing to me in most situations that i died to it when trying to cast a signet of devotion once and not realising it was taking forever - i agree though in general it's not going to be used much

how does one reduce the recharge of a skill by expertise? or am i missing something here?

Rust isn't good because it has a low AoE and too high recharge; otherwise it'd be great in the res sig dominated game we have now. In the arenas it also hilariously owns most warriors, who will try to use Healing Signet anyway.

Ignorance is a reasonable skill, it's just that there aren't enough signet builds and it isn't worth devoting a skill slot for a build you will encounter so infrequently.

Deflect Arrows just plain sucks.

I don't play MM, so can't comment on Verata's Gaze.

Magnetic Aura is underrated. Compare it to Warrior/Ranger evasion stances and with the exception of being an enchantment instead of a stance it blows many of them out of the water. In PvE it's only used in solo builds because in any other situation you probably have someone else to absorb damage and Magnetic Aura is target self. In random arenas it's insanely good against the huge numbers of warriors when you don't have a monk to save you, and it has great synergy with Glyph of Renewal which will make you nearly invulnerable to half the enemies you'll face. The only change I'd make to this spell is make it target ally instead of target self.

Now, Swirling Aura on the other hand is like Magnetic Aura minus the good parts...

You're thinking of Verata's Aura. There are three Verata spells:

Verata's Aura - recover lost unbound minions, used when MM dies
Verata's Gaze - unbind an enemy minion, or bind an unbound minion
Verata's Sacrifice - regen allied minions


VS is used by all MMs.
VA is used by MF to recover minions if the MM is ganked.
Verata's Gaze is never used.

Yeah I was thinking of aura - and yeah.. I wouldn't touch Verata's Gaze

So is divine favor broken because the boon prot exists? Is Fast Casting broken because FC Air Spike exists?... No. Expertise is a usefull primary attribute, unlike Strength and Energy Storage which are in a word... pants. (Barring a very select few skills in those lines).

Cripshot does take advantage of Expertise through being so damned spammable, thats the simple fact. It is the only skill I can think of that is quite so effective on a high Expertise ranger. It does not break expertise by any definition.

Its used against runner for droks.. only useful to monsters

Deflect arrows is used by quite a few FoW chest runners.

There are skills that affect PvE since the AoE update Firestorm,Balthazar Aura,Zealots Fire and Yes Protective Bond are useless.I wouldn't say the game is stricky PvP why would Monks get a smiting attribute and considering the AI update I doubt that you can hench your way through the whole game with a blank skill bar.Don't forget about the SoCs.I mostly beta tested PvP in Tomps and CA not much in PvE although today I mostly play PvE.

I garuntee that if the energy cost was brought down to 10, then rust would see quite a bit of use in CA. Of course, the bigger problem is that it's a water skill. Still, there need to be skills that can be brought in depending on the metagame. I used to play competitive Magic, and there were many cards that people thought were crap, but then a new build would come around, and all of the sudden everyone's running 4x of the card (or 3 with one that they can bring in after the first game) as their only way to counter the new build.
Similarly, you would NEVER see a mes running both shatter and drain enchantment, (probably neither) if it weren't for divine boon being run on almost every single monk build in gvg.

Pretty much the same answer as before, although I would like to see it have a larger range so it could be used as a counter for res sig.

Both of these skills are used. Just because they aren't used in pvp doesn't mean anything. Some skills are created for use in pve and suck in pvp and vice versa. Some skills are hiding in the back waiting for a change in metagame. And of course no one can deny that some skills just plain suck or are too powerful. Those are the ones that need to be tweaked.

And yes,many people (myself included) have unlocked all skills, including these.[/QUOTE]

Edit: Mixed up Rust and Ignorance there.. you know what I meant to say.

I find that unlikely... since the energy cost is currently 5. The spell simply doesn't hit enough and takes too long to recharge to be much use even in the arenas.

Whoops, switched around Rust and Ignorance.

Not necessarily true, sure it revolves around IWAY, but many PvE'ers are hoping that the skill rebalance will add a few buffs to skills to make professions, such as the Elementalist, a little more balanced.

The AI update way back when was for the PvE side, so that AoE wasn't exploited.

The skill rebalance willl affect the PvP side more drastically than PvE, but I would hardly consider this a PvP-skill-rebalance only thread. PvE players are looking forward to/ dreading the skill rebalance just as much.

PvE is balanced by the AI. You are never going to run into trouble there with a team that knows what they are doing. As long as it doesn't make farming easier then its fine by me.

PvE players may not look at the skill rebalance the same way as PvP players do. There has been a mention of skills that were not normally used, changed, so that their use becomes more frequent. Which has probably gotten most of the PvE attention.

PvE groups hardly ever go as a specific build, except for places like FoW, UW, or Tombs. A monk, a warrior, and whatever else you want, and not necessarily the first two mentioned.

I enjoy testing out different skill combinations in PvE, because the AI are predictable, so you know you'll get conclusive results. Those results may or may not translate well to PvP.

That's why I consider the skill rebalance something that concerns both sides of the game. And I don't remember ANET saying 'PvP skill rebalance', it may just look that way because they waited until after the GWWC and before the new contest started.

Pve is as affective as the AI and professions of groups. Skills are not going to change that.

People might use different skills for pve after update but that doesn't really affect how the AI responds to those skills which is what really matters.