Touch Ranger Nerf Idea

If you want to be technical, the in-game description for Expertise doesn't say anything about "Skill"s. It says it will reduce the cost of X, Y and Z, but says nothing about the cost of W, P and Q (for some values of X, Y, Z, W, P and Q). Reducing the cost of Shouts, for example, is consistent with the in-game description of Expertise.

Now it turns out (derived by experimentation) that the precise and complete description would be "reduce the cost of all skills that are not spells". But there is no requirement for the description of attributes to be precise and complete. For instance, the description of Expertise gives no indication of the odd breakpoints that arise as a result of rounding. Neither does the description of Fast Casting give any indication of the exponential decay function it uses. Neither do weapon mastery attributes give any indication of the probabilities of critical hits. The list goes on. These descriptions are meant as a quick and rough guide, not a detailed users' manual.

As for nerfing touch rangers, they're only "overpowered" in RA, where people rarely have the appropriate counters. I should point out that there are far fewer counters to touchers than there are for other classes - caster shutdown doesn't work, warrior shutdown does little, conditions will be Plague Touched back, and any form of direct damage will just be outhealed.

I'm guessing the touch skills may be nerfed simply on that basis - that they are technically harder to counter than other classes. Personally I don't mind either way, they seem to enjoy touching through my Diversion.

That's, um, not actually true. Smite requires a weapon.

Guys...

1) Noone has suggested that touch rangers are overpowered.
2) It is _completely irrelevant_ that touch rangers can be countered.
3) The whole issue is if...
-- hitting someone with your hand or biting someone is either easier than hitting someone with a sword, and
-- hitting someone with your hand or biting someone is an attack or not.

The OP is simply stating that he feels that it's no easier to bite/hit someone when you're blind than it is to hit someone with a sword while blind, and that he feels that hitting someone with your hand or biting someone is an attack.

Ahh my mistake, confused it with Holy Strike.

He is entitled to his opinion, but he is simply wrong when he (and his allies) claim that this is a bug in the game. In point of fact there are no life-stealing attack skills in the game. He is proposing a change in the game mechanics, not a correction of some bug.

Incidentally, I am curious what he thinks about Palm Strike. It is a skill that counts as an Off-Hand Attack and ignores blindness.

Yes, actually, they have.

And isn't proposing a nerf in itself an implicit accusation of overpoweredness? I mean, if something is balanced, why on earth would anyone want to make it weaker?

pshh, touch NECROS for the win. They pwn touch rangers in the FACE.

That aside, I do not believe that this is overpowered. It is only overpowered in 12v12 when there are two teams of touch rangers are holding a spot. But then you just get the ele to do some hardcore nuking and kiting.

I think Palm Strike should be affected by blindness. Note: It is not currently listed as an "elite attack skill" it's a "elite skill".

Side thought: You could then add poison to your bite ...adding more variation to the touch ranger builds

Nerf? no

Fix? Yes and i think expertise is bugged not "Touch skills"

Second, Necro Touch skills are unconditional damage, which means they bypass the armor and other Dmg reduce attributes. This is the main issue arises because a ranger with a fairly high expertise and SQ up can spam these skill much more then a necro can.

Third: Touch skills are not Melee/Ranged/Attack Skills thus should be treated out of Rangers Expertise attribute.

Enough with the nerf already, let them be. Whats next, nerf all Faction content just coz "some" people thinks its to hard? Come on guys. AoE was enough. Play the game and be happy with it or change.

For the Nth freaking time: life stealing is not damage!

Does it get reduced by Prot Spirit?

No?

Then it ain't damage.

Wrap your brain around this simple concept please.

Ive dealt with touch rangers in PvP.

In alliance battle, i met a whole team (4) of them. They were quite a pain for my interrupt ranger to deal with.

Stop with the nerfing.

StrongBow: Its a GOOD combo. Its great synergy between two different professions and a perfect example of how a good build can become more powerful with copy skills (Vamp Bite/Touch).

Making touch skills Non-expertise affected would not NERF, it would effectively DESTROY this build completely. They didn't even do that to IWAY. They weakened it, but they didnt kill it like what you are proposing to the Touch Rangers.

Please, people(nanii) lets talk about the ideas in the thread rather than the word nerf...

Stabber, i guess i dont understand where you are comming from... you are pointing out that protective spirit has no effect in balancing these skills. This seems to be more of a reason to limit the touch ranger / damage skills. while you are right about how the game currently deals with this damage(a rose by any other name...) i am suggesting a change.

you are suggesting a change that is a complete waste of effort.

the game mechanics work like so. there is really only one reason to change them and that is balance.

since touch rangers are not in need of balance I see no reaosn to waste developer effort to modify wha tis essentiallly a rules technicality based on your very particular interpretation of the wording of things


this is made even more amusing by the fact that almsot no descriptions of skill effects or attribute effects in GW really tell you what they do or what they effect.

this game is so poorly descirbed that testing is th eonly way we know that life stealing isn't dmg etc etc.

how the engine handles htings is the final word and descriptions on skills have little to no relevance.

if anyhting you might argue that the descriptions should be more precise.


or if you really want to pursue such literalmindedness then why is it when you run away sometimes my touch triggers on you when there is a 2 or 3 foot gap between my opponent and I? I mean really how dare they clearly it should not work as it is only touch range!

if this is all you have to complain about then the game is in good shape.

Lifestealing is not a form of damage. Things that prevent damage do not prevent life stealing. If you change this - 55 monks would be waaaay overpowered.

Is it? Shouts are neither traps, preparations or attack skills.

Fast casting reduces the casting speed of spells, therefore Backfire (spell) will be reduced where as Troll Unguent (skill) will remain at three seconds to cast.

Anyway the subject being disscussed is about which skills are affected by the benefits of the expertise, not the actual effect it has. For example (let's say Fast Casting) reduces the casting time of spells - its a black or white situation. If its a spell, it will be activated quicker, if its not a spell, Fast Casting won't affect it whatsoever. Expertise reduces the energy cost of traps, preparations and attack skills - those vampiric touches aren't classified as 'attack skills' therefore the touch ranger idea is an exploitation because they are gaining a benefit where they are not supposed to be. Again, looking at fast casting: suppose a Me/W with an axe was receiving the Fast Cast benefit from axe attacks. They'd be spamming extremely fast axe attacks and dicing up whatever came across them.

Touch rangers are easy to kill. I laugh everytime i kill a team of 4 in team arenas. The humorous part is when they all curse out the team that beats them so fast ppl just aren't original anymore

Cryil, i am going to quote your entire post and respond to all of it as i think you are missing my points... please read my previous posts.

Yes, this may be true... but i am not the only one posting in this thread.

balance is what im looking for...

Balance is what this thread is all about... im looking for reasons for why you think necros should be able to touch you when they are blind... i really dont care about the wording as much as i would like to see these skills to be affected by things like empathy (which i think is reasonable as these skills do lower your health).

yes i must agree with you here the game can be difficult to understand... but that is another thread.

ok i want this "damage" stuphs out of this thread now. i dont care what you call life stealing... it lowers your health and is damage of some sort. (duck, rose, spade, whatever) Protective Spirit is a red herring. It don't matter what kind of damage is being done with touch skills -- it matters that blind should stop it.

true, words don't matter... what really counts is how the game works.

yes but like you said the words dont really matter... i was suggesting that they be considered "attack skills" so that things like blind would stop them... i am not trying to clarify the wording of the skills as well i dont care... i am not good with words... and that would be a different thread.

well for the most part i dont care about this...

BTW: i have noticed this as well... it seems to happen as when a person is in range you can trigger your skill to start casting.... however in the casting time people can move - but its to late as the skill was already triggered - i notice this alot when i play a spell caster - i can start casting backfire for example while sombody is in range - 3 sec cast - no matter how far away they run i still get the hex on them.

i have and do complain about lots of stuphs... but it dont belong here. and yes i think GW for the most part is in good shape.

seriously, its not in need of nerf, sure its a sort of cheap build if you're dumb enough to let someone kill you with it. but its so energy demanding its called countering. = energy denial = cripple = AoE = knockdowns = plain out spike.

you can only touch so fast and so much you know. with 70 armor vs phy you WILL die.

builds all have counters, its the matter of fairness in a RANDOM arena that your complaining about. random is random, unless i see touch builds plowing HoH i don't see a problem.