Unbalanced

I'm talking about hexes and enchantment removal options.. their costs need to be updated so that they reflect the current state of the game. Seriously, the game is so lopsided towards defense right now it's a waste of energy to use them in pvp against any decent team.

There's a reason why the korean teams run Warrior heavy builds with power healing/enchants (and their builds look nearly identical since last winter when enchants and healing became all-powerful).

A single decent monk can get rid of any hexes in an instant for 5 energy, if he wants he can get rid of hex stacking with convert hexes. It doesn't matter that you've just wasted 25 energy and 10% life on Lingering curse, or 20% health and 10 energy on Defile Flesh, it'll be gone two seconds after you finish casting.

There aren't enough effective ways to get rid of enchants. Enchants can be spammed at low cost in both time and energy, yet there's no equivalent of a "Remove Hex" in the game. The enchantment removal options that are available cost entirely too much and have high recycle times.

If you play against any of the top korean teams, they rarely waste time with hexes since they know utter defense with a high constant dps is what wins games.

I agree somewhat. I think Rend Enchantments is a great skill and I always have it running. I do agree that the cost of running it seems a little steep to me. I've killed myself more than once by rending someone who had a ton more enchantments than I realized they were running.

I seriously hope that the W/Mo build dosent totally dominate this game. It would be nice if Necros were given some spells specifically to jack up Monks, since Necros arent very popular.

I couldn't agree with you more about enchantment removal. The problems with enchantment removal are a combination of long cooldowns coupled with popular 'spam' enchantments that end up being used as chaff for enchantment removal. Spending 10 energy on a skill with a 20 second cooldown in order to remove a 5 energy, 2 second recycle enchantment is a battle that you cannot win. Tactically you have to play around these spam enchantments, but with the cooldowns and costs associated with that it just isn't worth the effort.

I can't quite agree with you on hex removal, though - I think it's right around where it has to be to keep things in balance. Are there any hex removal options that jump right out as must haves? I don't see 'em.

Remove Hex would be outstanding if not for the two second cast time - that translates into 2.75 seconds being devoted to removing a single hex, and when the battle is raging hard time like that can be hard to spare. That also removes but a single hex, and while Remove Hex recycles reasonably fast (castable every 7 seconds) it isn't fast enough to fight off someone being targeted with multiple hexes. A cast time of two seconds is also fairly easy to pick off with an interrupt, and as a Monk you're going to be getting hit with a lot of those.

Inspired Hex is faster, but the cooldown is brutal. It'll be useful if your opponents just have some incidental hexes, but not if they're using it as part of their strategy in any meaningful way.

Convert Hexes is *expensive*. When you're a Monk who's already being taxed hard having to drop 15 energy on a Convert is brutal. Sometimes you absolutely have to if a teammate is being hit by 3-4 hexes, but you're never happy about it.

A dedicated hex strategy is going to get hit by Convert, certainly, and a couple incidental hexes are going to be knocked off by the incidental removal, but those are problems for every strategy. What a moderate dose of hexes do is tax their defenses even further - time spent removing hexes it time not spent healing. Think of hexing an opponent as buying yourself some time, some of it from them being shut down and even more time from someone trying to remove it.

You're absolutely right that the expensive, single target hexes aren't going to be viable. So what? There's nothing that can be done about that. If you make removal bad enough that it squeaks by as a counter to Lingering Curse, you're going to be stuck with a game where even midrange hexes like Backfire are effectively uncounterable. I'm not OK with that. Right now, hex removal is good enough to fight off power Mesmer hexes like Backfire and Arcane Conundrum - if you put the effort into it - but it isn't so good as to stop people from using those skills. You don't have 1 guy on a team with removal who shuts down hexes - you have 3-4 guys on a team working together to defend against hexes. That's an indication that things are pretty well balanced, methinks.

You see that balance, too - there aren't a lot of dedicated hexing builds out there, but Mesmers are perfectly happy to slam 2-3 hexes on someone and make them fight those off. That's how it should be.

Enchantment removal is on the other side of things - the only piece of removal that gets played is Rend Enchantments - it's pricey as hell, as something with this power should be, but it gets the job done. Individual removal is too weak to try and fight with - the cooldowns just kill it. You can't make enchantment removal good enough to fight through spam skills - that's just going to cause problems - but it does need enough of a buff to make it a reasonable counter for 'standard' enchantments. Again you're going to have the same problem - 25 energy, long recast enchantments are never going to be playable if there's any removal around - but that's just a parameter of a game with counters.


While we're at it, I think condition removal is about where it should be. It's cheap and easy to throw around, but so are conditions. A lot of conditions are just incidentally tacked onto spam skills, so even if you want to use important conditions like Deep Wound or Silence you can bury those in spammables to gunk up the removal. Just expect any condition to be short lived (hell, most are anyway) and they'll do exactly what you want them to do - be another tax on the Monks.

Peace,
-CxE

Yep, I also think that the game still needs a cheap no-frills enchantment removal comparable to Remove Hex. Just a plain vanilla one enchanment removal that takes a little energy and recycle in several seconds would definitely help.

some of you are forgeting one thing about the war/monk and his/her enchantments.

a warrior only has 20 energy.

to effectively clense them of their enchantments you will need to drain their energy also. without the energy to recast them, then they cant do jack but prey to god a monk heals them

energy draining skills are very underrated imo. they can go so far when put to good use and good combos.

just casting shatter enchantment on a warrior isnt doing you very much, focus your powers and completely make him sufer from the inside out.
"with no energy for the mind, one cannot think'

I agree completely. One of the best way to take out W/Mo is with energy drains. One good mesmer could make many W/Mo's cry easily with help of those skills. Energy drains are both offensively and defensively helpful when you think about it.

Oh, I'm perfectly fine with the current Hex removal options. The last thing GW needs is more nerfs/Elites to slow things down even further.

The problem lies with the high cost, high recast hexes and enchantment removal options (such as Lingering Curse). They're simply trash, and I'd like to see them fixed to reflect high level gameplay.

Hexxing to divert healing and tax defenses is a flawed strategy from conception, and I think the korean teams realize this, which is why they rarely if ever waste their time on such things. The defender doesn't have to remove every hex, only the ones that matter (for example the person who's obviously being focused upon and just got hit with lingering curse). Against something like Conjure Phantasm, why bother when a simple heal does the trick anyway? Also, I've noticed the korean teams run with at least two people with hex removal.. Important Hexes drop the instant they're put in play (could be because they're all on lan). So while players were wasting all that time and energy on hexes, those resources could have been better used for disruption, healing and enchants. In the end, you're actually giving them more time to heal because you're depriving yourself of resources to actually do something that matters.

The problem is compounded when you realize that a lot of the skills that are direct counters to damage mitigation or damage enhancement (rigor mortis, barbs, etc ) and healing (lingering curse, defile flesh, malign intervention) which are only good for coordinated focus firing, have sickening costs and recharge. So much for diverting healing with hexes, eh? If it seems like I'm focusing a lot on Necro hexes, it's because they suck so badly in high end pvp.. although some hexes in other lines could use some work, too.

Holy non-sequitur Batman!


Hold up, when did we start giving half a shit about either a Warrior/Monk or their enchantments? I think you missed the memo about Warriors - no one cares about them. They just kinda run around through traps and get hexed out while everyone focuses on targets that matter.


Wait a second.

So you're telling me that all of these enchantments on the opposing Warriors that I'm supposed to be worried about are *defensive*?!?

What do you think this is, PvE?


Have you suffered a traumatic head injury lately?

The best way to kill a W/Mo is the kick the living hell out of the Monks keeping him alive. No Monks = no healing + random dude standing in the middle of my team with no support = /beg.


Wait, so you're trying to shut down a class with an adrenaline based offense with energy denial? Why would you do that?

Please, think about these things before you post them.


Ok, seriously, what's up with the whole Korean worship? Last I checked the only Korean team that was worth the time of day was KOR, and it isn't like they're doing anything particularly revolutionary. Every other team I've run into was just some PUG that was about as easily dealt with as any other PUG.


What hexes are you talking about where a simple heal will do the trick? I'm talking about good hexes here. Backfire, Shame, Arcane Conundrum. Hexes that will shut someone down if they are not dealt with - how exactly is a simple heal going to help with that?


That's just coordination. If you're casting a single hex and hoping it'll stick you're delusional. If you want to shut someone down, you need to back it up.


Agreed, Necromancer hexes, particularly damage amplification, are pretty much trash. Which confuses me - why are you using bad hexes as a basis of comparison? The problem isn't with the hex/removal dynamic - which is pretty much where it needs to be - but with a particular subset of hexes that are pretty sad.

If the problem is with big, slow, klunky skills, that's unavoidable in a game with counters. The 25 energy enchantments have the same issues, as well as any skill with a 5 second cast time. They're extremely vulnerable and get countered by good teams. This is just a consequence of competitive games - better play becomes faster and tighter, and those slow plays no longer cut it. I'd just assume that skills like Weaken Armor are for PvE and other areas of the game - not everything is going to cut it in PvP but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its place.

Peace,
-CxE

Buddy are you for real... Im not giving any 100% reviewed strategies. Im saying that without energy W/Mos cant heal (obvious) . I never said it was the best way i said it was one of the best ways a class with this skill could make them cry.

Second, what class did I mention. Mesmers... okay, we know its not their job to kill monks or warriors anyways, so what can they do to stop them?


Thanks, ill tell the warriors, but in the meantime what I AM going to do (cause im a mesmer remember) is cast some energy drain spells on them, in addition to shuting down the healer. Last i checked i cant really do much offensively to warriors and im already doing regualar mesmer shutdown on the healer.

And by the way the best way to kill a W/Mo is to kick the living hell out of the caster AND make sure the W/Mo has no energy of his own. I dont like flaming but think about my post before you try to tear it up.

Peace

Oh yes, I'm for real. So very, very real.


I'm not asking for 100% reviewed strategies. I'm asking that you think about what you say before you say it.


Nuh-uh. No revisionist history here. You said, and I quote:

"One of the best way to take out W/Mo is with energy drains."

Period. You can look it up.



Actually, no, I don't remember that, since you didn't mention it before now.

But please, by all means, cast your energy denial spells on my Warriors. I like free rating points.


The healer? Singular?


And you care why?


Why not just assume you can shut down their entire team in the process?

Any effort spent trying to kill a WaMo is effort that is better spent on another target. There are very few exceptions to this rule.


Clearly.


Seriously, go back and re-read your post. Ignore everything you're thinking about it that you *didn't* say. Did you really mean 'well, I'm a mesmer, and I've already got the opposing teams Monks wrapped up, and I have this warrior in my face and hitting him with some energy denial will help.'? Sure, that makes sense, don't just sit there doing nothing.

But you didn't post that. If you meant to, please do so in the future. It saves everyone a lot of headache.

Peace,
-CxE

Not only is Ensign for real, he's the Stark Fist of Reality.

IF you're doing your job well, you shouldn't have any time to worry about the warriors. Shutting down healers is a full time job- if you're not hexing them, you're beating on them with your wand and waiting to power leak them. If you're not power leaking them, you're power draining them. If you're not using those skills, why the hell are you playing a mesmer?

The last thing I want a mesmer on my team worrying about is how to solo warriors. (Except IW builds, but even they have trouble after hundred blades was made elite.)

IF you have time to think about how to take down the warriors, that means the monks and other casters are already down, and now you're just mopping up whatever is left. Why are you worrying about that? Just do what brought you to the steps of victory, continuing to do so will get you through the door.

Let's all stop and think before we post.

Good organization, wonderfully coordinated. Seriously though, I really dont want to continue an argument which is obviously not going anywhere, so for the record: I was suggesting something that works on W/Mo's. And yes it is possible to sneak in energy drains on warriors because it will replenish your energy so its win-win. Remember there's more than one way to play as a mesmer, and I doubt so early in the game you've mastered it. However... you do have more raw knowledge of the game than I do, so I will finish by saying excellent points, thx for the ADVICE and yeah I will probably use some of the info myself. Cheers

Sure, but why are you trying to sneak in an Energy Drain on a Warrior, who has a pitiful max energy, and not an Elementalist or Mesmer, who you can almost always hit for full? Energy Draining a Warrior rarely hits for anywhere near max, and remember that Warriors are the least energy-dependent class due to adrenal skills.


Definitely true, it's a deep class with a lot of tactical depth. But not every way to play a Mesmer is an effective way to play a Mesmer. I'm sure that in the long run even what I understand now is just novice-level material, and that there's a whole lot more to be learned. Figuring everything out is going to be a long process that I'm looking forward to - but we have to set a foundation before we can begin to understand the more advanced tactics, no?

Peace,
-CxE

i definitely disagree with this.. a lot of enchantments(esp elementalist) are 30-60 secs recharge and having an ER which recycle in several seconds would make them useless.

i'm not in favour of any spammable enchantment or hex removal, like remove hex for eg.. it would just make hex/enchantment builds useless. think about it.. you're only using ONE spell slot to counter ALL the enchantment/hexes that your enemy has.

I also agree, best to energy drain someone using enchantments. I would like to really see a spell similar to the old Magic The Gathering card, Power Leak.



I'd only recommend doubling the energy lost via each enchantment though.

Btw, in reply to the above poster, I wouldn't want it to be spamable either. If it worked say through the Mezzmer line, I'd rather see a 5-20 second usage, 40 seconds or more recharge.

Not entirely true - it'd mean that you couldn't use those enchantments on a low-enchantment team without protection.

But remember that if you can't counter an enchantment with a 60 second cooldown, you basically can't counter enchantments at all. I'm not exactly comfortable with a world where you can't counter enchantments after the fact, but clearly some people are.


Not at all - you'd just have to protect your enchantments if you wanted to rely upon them. Remove Hex doesn't make Backfire useless in the slightest, even though Remove Hex is cheaper, casts faster, and recycles more quickly - we could have a lively debate about whether it is even worth it to cast Remove Hex on a Backfire!

In a world where enchantments could be countered, you'd just need to play smart - only use long term enchantments on low priority targets where they won't be noticed, or be prepared to protect your enchantments. Or, a bit more relevantly, don't expect your enchantments to stay up too long, instead plan around them giving you a burst of power until your opponent removes them.


That's hyperbole in the opposite direction. Right now you can't counter enchantments outside of Rend. Making it so that a single player could shut down opposing enchantments is equally bad (if not moreso). But a balance point where a team with 3-4 different enchantment removal options can fight off a fairly typical assortment of enchantments? That's about what we want, and we're nowhere near there.

Should we really have a game where running around with a naked enchantment, with no expectation that it'll ever be removed, is considered the norm?

Peace,
-CxE

I kind of like the setup. Where conditions are easy to apply, and almost take no energy or casting time, enchantments and hexes are different. Most enchantments and hexes have a longer casting time, and cost more energy. So it makes a bit of sense that the counters to these should either: A - cost more energy; or B - have a longer casting time(or longer recharge).

Ive noticed that hex and enchantment removal have been nerfed a lot through alpha testing, and to me it makes sense. If you have a build based around hexes and enchantments, you shouldnt be hindered by another build that is all utility. I think the setup now still allows people to kill their targets, but also gives them "balanced" methods to save their allies.

My thought exactly. Right now the only viable enchantment removal is Rend Enchantment, and although it is powerful you definitely pay the price with the high recharge time.

For the other posters:
Like Charles said, if you have a long recharge important enchantment that you wish to keep, you better protect that investment. Either stack some buffers to protect it or prevent the enemy from removing it. Hexes work that way, why shouldn't enchantment?

Yes hehe ... but only cause I always play an IW memser. If enchantment removals ever gets balanced then there goes my livelihood.