Request for more Aggressive Balancing

I think this would be pretty tough since cry of frustration is an interrupt. You'd have to sneak it in within a normal attack time for a bow. Could be wrong though, don't really play a mesmer

The people that complained about Air Gank are part of the 95% of the GW population that you mention below (i.e., people that don't know they're doing). Nobody with a clue was complaining about air spike.

Just because 95% of teams don't know what they're doing doesn't mean the skills they are trying to abuse aren't broken.

Yeah ... Ensign and Zrave don't know how to play the game They probably know more about the game then most of the devs do.

No matter what you do, there is always going to be one skill, or a combination of skills that is going to be over powered. Every game is this way. Someone always finds a way to exploit something or a combination of stuff. If you don't believe me go play Diablo 2, L2, WoW, counterstrike, christ any game for that matter.

And, like in every game, the people who figure out how to counter those things win. Pank is probably my favorite example of this. Sick of stupid builds and everyone using the same damn thing constantly, screw it, we will just skip all of that crap and just go gank the GL right off the bat. A lot of good natures did for you there huh....

That's great that you consider other games to be unbalanced. Does that have anything to do with Guild Wars? No, it doesn't. But atleast now I know that if I want to go play Lineage 2 or Diablo 2 I can go abuse the hell out of it by using a combination of skills. Also, I'm not sure why on earth you'd throw Counter-Strike into that list but that's beyond the point.

Also, are you suggesting that everyone run gank in GvG due to the fact that the game has balance issues? Not to mention it's probably one of the easiest things to counter.

Actually it does, because no game design team in the world is going to be able to out-think the 100s of thousands of people playing their game trying to find any weird possible combination of things to gain an edge. No matter what you nerf, there is always going to be something better and more over powered. It is a big circle. Rangers are over powered, we will nerf them. Healing balls are over powered lets nerf it. Rangers using natures are once again over powered, lets nerf that now. It never ends.

Tell that to all the people they ganked with it, and the people they ganked with it multiple times. Which goes right back to what I was saying on how builds are made and played off of the inexperience of others, and once again goes back to the simple conclusion that people will always find something to abuse no matter what you nerf.

This is why it's a great thing that GW is so easily patched...

Obviously someone here got pank ganked multiple times, lacking the common sense it takes to counter it, and thinking it's one of the best tactics there is

Kaylee you have no clue what you're talking about. Those games you mentioned were never advertised as being a hardcore pvp game with consistant balancing. And no game design team will ever be able to make a balanced game? Have you played Starcraft? Sure, it took them 2 years to balance it, but that's exactly what this post is trying to achieve. Make sure your next post has just an inch of intelligence next time. Maybe then we can bring back the average IQ of this thread above room temperature.

[rant]

You have such a defeatist and negative attitude I'm not even sure why you're in this thread. If you have no interest in seeing a balanced game, go play any of the others on the list you mentioned. Seriously. Go. Now.

If you're still with us, trying to improve Guild Wars, then pay attention.
The purpose of this threads' creation was to highlight major balance issues in the game. It's obvious after a year long alpha test and through three months of release that the balance issues are not being addressed by the development team.
So you may be right that "no design team in the work can outthink hundreds of thousands of players" trying to abuse it.

However, what Zrave, many of the iQ members, EmperorTippy, Diomedes, Tellani Artini, Phades, Celes Tial, cpukilla, and others (sorry if I missed anyone) are doing is bringing their experience to the development team.

It's not enough to "sit back and let someone else fix it." The alpha testers caught some things most of us will never know about, but a lot slipped through, and I don't think Dark Syde's suggestion that we leave it to the Alphas is "good enough".

I don't want to play a game that's "good enough".

iQ is in Tombs nearly every night designing, countering, beating, and being beaten by the latest builds- so why are we in here? To promote a variety of strategies, because your "good enough" game is boring to play. I don't think I should have to run into the same degenerative builds every other match I play. Not a single person above is crying because their particular build is beaten by FOTM- in fact, FOTM was never even mentioned. The examples Zrave gave in his opening post were just that- examples.

The issue at hand is how the serious balancing issues are being handled.

So Kaylee, when you're done trolling, stop dragging your knuckles across the ground and discuss the issues. Otherwise you can go back to winning at games that are broken beyond relief. I'd rather work with the community on this one to better a game we think is worth improving.

[/rant]

The idea would be to use cry of frustration on NR itself, not oath shot. They could keep recharging NR every 20 secs with oath shot, at which point you can interrupt NR again. That's why I mentioned that it wouldn't stop spirit spamming, but you could pick of a single spirit like NR.

-Diomedes

I don't think you're getting the point here. You still seem to be rambling on about crap that you think is somehow related to the balance issues in this game right now.

If there are balance issues with certain skills, which there are in the case of something like Nature's Renewal, why not fix it? Why not improve the game? Or we could just say something like you said and go with, "Hey, games aren't perfect, people are going to find out how to abuse everything, so let's leave Nature's renewal the way it is so that it effectively renders just about every enchantment, hex, and builds that are based around things like that completely useless!"

And if you can't interrupt NR with CoF, I apologize. I believe that you can since the skill reads, "interrupt a skill", but I've never actually tried it. I'm only mentioning it since people seem to be saying that if NR was more interruptible it wouldn't be so bad. My reply is that I think you can interrupt it, although as I actually haven't tried it, I may be wrong.

-Diomedes

I also want to add in that, if they nerf NR, then they should improve all enchantment removal in general. Enchantments in general overshadow enchantment removal by a wide margin right now... people are far too comfortable and reliant on them and so when something like NR comes along, they get upset....justified or not.

You can interrupt NR with Cry of Frustration, you were correct. However, right after you interrupt the person casting it, chances are he'll just use Oath Shot, recharge the spirit, and put it down before your interrupt becomes recharged. I think that's what Sarus was originally getting at when he was saying something about interrupting the ranger's bow attack. But interrupting the skill isn't the problem, it's the inherent effect that the skill has when it is cast.

Right, the idea would be to nab the spirit that goes up right after oath shot goes off. Of course if both are recharged to start with then NR -> oath shot -> NR wins for sure. You can always echo it, but 35 energy is pretty rough. However Echo -> CoF -> CoF will trump NR-> OS->NR in recharge time. So you could use to to take out NR.

I'm not saying it's a great idea, I was just saying it could be done.

-Diomedes


edit to follow up your edit


I couldn't agree more, I don't like NR either. I was simply trying to discuss the fix that was proposed around the #60-#70 posts where NR became a spell that was interruptible. My reply is that it already is interruptible. That's all (and I still think that making it a spell would actually make it worse, but that's a whole different argument )

-Diomedes

Nobody's asking to remove spirits from the game. Nobody's asking for Rangers to be stripped of all their skills or the damage of bows to be reduced to 8-13 damage. In fact, nobody is targetting Rangers specifically.

The biggest problem is Nature's Renewal. My only problem with it is the initial effect. As is, it destroys 80% of the builds. Without it, and enchantments run rampant. Last time I checked, there's more skills for enchant removal than Nature's Renewal, so why wouldn't those work...

...because there's a problem. Without NR, there is no effective enchant removal. So you've got to balance enchants and removal options. Keep Nature's Renewal in the game as "all hexes and enchantments take twice as long to cast." You could build teams around it to optimize it, and a team can still fight against it. Then look at enchantments; are enchantments too powerful, or is removal too weak? Is it both? How can we balance Healing Seed and enchant removal so that without NR in its current state the former can still be effectively dealt with?

We can help ArenaNet look at durations, effects, costs, cast times, skill types and try to make this game better.
We can sit on our asses, bitching to people on forums that they're wasting their time trying to make a game as perfect as can be, because everyone knows a company should never aim for the top.

I'll go the first way, you can go the second way. Just keep your "LEARN TO PLAY TEH GAME FIRST!" cry somewhere I won't ever have to read it.

Here's what a total ritualist shutdown player could look like, just for fun.

R/Me
Signet of Humility
Leech Signet
Distracting Shot
Savage Shot
Oath Shot {E}
Diversion
Serpent's Quickness
etc

Signet of Humility with oath shot+serpent's quickness will keep his oath shot locked down constantly and allow you to use your interrupts more often. If the target is using a stance to block/evade attacks (whirling defense, etc.), use leech signet to interrupt rituals and diversion when he's nearly finished casting rituals, then use bow attacks when the stance wears off (he can't use oath shot to recharge it). If they're using a stance to stop interrupts (mantra of resolve/concentration), hit them with savage shot then distracting shot, then leech signet if that didn't break the mantra.

If your team can handle it, use quickening zephyr to make signet of humility easier to manage.

If you really hate spirit spam, give this build a shot

way off topic, but statistically, about 60% of all kills in CS and more specifically, CS:S are made either either the AK47 or M4. The rest are primarily the AWP sniper rifle which is basically a golden gun with a scope duck taped to it, the pump shotgun which seems to have rediculously good accuracy at a range, and the Deagle. Unquestionably the best pistol. No one cries imbalance in CS, though, because in a couple rounds, you can save up the cash to quickly buy the same thing. And they do. But if you expect to go off owning with your sub-par scout (which I swear by as a no scope shotty), or with the UMP, you've got another thing coming.


As to anyone who doesn't PvP regularly and doesn't understand what the hell they're talking about. Don't post until you go see it for yourself. This isn't a matter to be taken lightly.

As for those who say "games are always imperfect". So you accept imperfection, even with nothing is being done to achieve a better game? Wow. You have a really low standard for games.

A.Net needs to drop this Sorrow's Furnace crap and get to what really matters. We don't need another EA that will be explored and dominated in 5 minutes as much as we need fun PvP back. It's long gone.


edit: to above post, Oath Shot has a 0 cast time. It takes very little time to fire. Unless you're a phsycic, even if you fire your distracting shot the instant you see him using Oath Shot, you've got no chance of disrupting him because of your arrow's flight time.

Thanks for putting words into my mouth. I never said it was the best tactic out there, I just said it was one of my favorites for proving my point. And, I never got ganked by Pank because if you would have read the entire post and making a comment instead of being an elitist punk like the rest of your guild you would have saw that my guild has been long gone from the game.

And yes, I have played Starcraft, thank you for adding another perfect example to what I was talking about. How many years has that game been out, with how many patches, and no matter what they did, after each one the map hacks and disconnect hacks ran rampid. If you actually played the game when it first came out you would have saw how balanced it really was not. They still release patches to this day tweaking things in that game here and there.

I mean, do you iQ guys honestly think that you are original or special in any way? I mean you guys act like you are the only ones who have ever played in a beta of a game and know absolutely everything about it, whereas everyone else is just flat out wrong. I am sorry, beta/alpha testers or not, if I had the choice between of asking some advice about lets say a GvG match from iQ, or asking from a top5 team, I can almost promise it wouldn't be from an iQ person.

But, that is alright. I appologize if I got anyone skirt ruffled, I was just putting my 2 cents in like everyone else on these forums. I may have not been an aplha tester, but I have been playing games my whole life. I can still remember the days when online gaming was dialing into a board being ran out of someones house and playing blackjack for virtual points. Maybe some day you will realize that there are various trends in games, especially online ones that are unavoidable, and must be taken into account before jumping into the 'LETS NERF IT BECAUSE IT IS OBVIOUSLY WAY TOO OVERPOWERED." See you guys in 2 weeks when x, y, and z skills need to get nerfed next.

Um sissy boys is in the top 5 and one of their people posted agreeing with what iQ has said. I don't belong to iQ and before I went to a friends guild I was in one steadily ranked in the top 20 without creating fake guilds to kill. I know of aa few other people who I run tombs with who could easily be in any of the top 50 guilds if they ever wanted to join but they hate the capes and only join when someone needs them for a GvG match. (Join play the match quit the guild)

here are the win percentages for both sB and iQ
iQ= 90.90% = 10(the number of wins)/11(the number of total matches played)
sB= 82.67% = 229 (the number of wins)/277 (the number of total matches played)

sB is ranked 3rd and iQ is ranked 284th

Not improving game balancing because the game will never be perfectly balanced has to be the worst logic I have ever heard in my life

Or go with blackout for those seconds when signet of humilty isn't working (that way you don't have to sink attrib points into WS and you can put points towards Dom to make diversion work better)

As I mentioned in another post, I don't think that a counter is the answer, but for fun I might try and toy around with the build [your idea may still be better than mine, turning off your own character is never fun. I'd have to scratch my head for a while]

-Diomedes

Signet of humility disables oath shot permanently when supported by other skills (mantra of inscription, quickening zephyr). You don't have to distracting shot his oath shot. I agree, distracting an oath shot would be nearly impossible. I wouldn't recommend trying it.

EDIT - Here's version 2 of ritualist shutdown.

R/Me
Spike Trap {E}
Mantra of Inscription
Signet of Humility
Leech Signet
Distracting Shot
Savage Shot
Diversion
etc

Now with knockdown power and guaranteed constant oath shot shutdown.

This is quite true, but the incompetence of copycatters has little to do with the effectiveness of Nature's Renewal, which works its magic whether used by Einstein or a spider monkey, and since its dropped at the beginning of the match, before you come in range of the other team, you can't do a damn thing about it.

Does Nature's Renewal gurantee a win? No. Is it savagely overpowered? Obviously. It's one skill that kills two entire categories of spells instantly. But the main irritant to me is that it sucks so much depth out of the game. No hex heavy builds, no enchantment heavy builds (Although with the aforementioned brokenness of Healing Ball...), no water elementalists... As someone pointed out (I believe it was Odd Sock, I could be wrong), it pares down the number of usable skills quite significantly.

Enchantment/Hex Removal in GW has always been a dicey thing, and its without a doubt a hard thing to balance. In balancing Nature's Renewal, the whole mess of it needs looking at.

Pretty sure he's only using Signet of Humility for Oath Shot.

I'm just reposting this because no one has commented on it as a possible fix to NR and I think it deserves some thought.


Interesting. I think that this could be looked at and may work.

I'm just throwing this out there but maybe NR could be made so that when it ENDS normaly (not killed but time runs out on it's life) the enchant/hex stripping effect takes effect. That would be at least 30 seconds to deal with the spirit or get the effect of your already used enchants/hexes somewhat.

I've yet to see a team effectively babysit a renewal spammer. Aegis spamming alone can help signifigantly against NR, simply by giving Oath shot a 50% chance to miss(I know a smart Ranger will use Oath on the other teams spirits, if they have them). Imagine Diverting an oath shot, and having it miss. There you go, owned the spirit spammer for 40+ seconds. Quickening Zephyr and Blackout shuts down anything, yet hardly anyone runs a Me/W with this combo. Level 15 Blackout alone, prevents all spirit spamming by a target. I still think there is some discovery to be done, even by the elite guilds. I know in the thick of battle it is hard to get some of these combo's off but if you do, your Healing Seeds, Life Bonds, and Smiting E/Mos will have a field day on a NR reliant team.

If in another month or so NR is still as popular, I can see making it a spell a valid option. As it is now, I still think the more skillful team and not the omg noobs spamming NR build is winning more often than not.

^^
*does mpost of it*
but as NR wipes Aegis and the cast time is doubled it is very iffy to use it to make the ranger miss. (its a race between a 2 second cast and a 0 second cast+arrow flight time)

About the number of enchantments removed by NR. What if you leave the radius for an instant then go back inside? What if they set up multiple NR's in a wide area so that during the fight you're bound to enter/exit them a few times? It seems kind of sketchy and I'm not sure it would fix anything, really. The NR users will just boost their wilderness survival and keep on happily oath shot spamming with quickening zephyr to pop one out every 10 seconds or so, removing x enchantments at a time.

The two best solutions I've heard for NR that don't involve global changes to all rituals are as follows:

- Make it not strip enchantments or hexes, but keep the double cast time effect
- Make it elite

Sure, and good teams that hope to have success taking the Hall of Heroes do bring characters that can shut down a Fertile spammer. The problem with this is that a team defending the Hall of Heroes does not need to go after kills at all. Their entire offense and disruptive elements are used to shut down opposing offenses and disruption, and that usually means putting multiple guys on whoever is trying to shut down the Fertile Season spammer. The tools for shutting down a Fertile spammer are limited enough as is - when your shutdown guy is getting focused by the majority of the other team's disruptive elements, there's little you can do. You do have to still kill their Monks and take the dais, after all.

Basically holding the hall is a game of 'Fertile Season or bust', and when all your team has to do is protect a Fertile spammer, you're in for an easy ride unless both teams trying to kick you off the dais know what they are doing.


Nature's Renewal is more of a systemic problem, from the builds that it destroys because it exists. You can shut down a Nature's Renewal spammer as strategy has changed and their offense and disruptive elements have to get kills, so you can play around it if that's what they're doing. If they're smart and running several distributed copies of Nature's Renewal, though, they can force it down your throat. But none of that is the problem, really. It's that Nature's Renewal becomes the singular focus of any match that it's a part of. You can either dedicate a huge part of your build to trying to shut down Nature's Renewal, and *still* get smashed by it once a mistake is made, or you can just play around Nature's Renewal and ignore a huge segment of the game. Option two is preferable.


Is it going to balance it? Of course not, but it's the only effective recourse. Fertile Season has an entire team defending it, and Nature's Renewal gets distributed / doesn't need to stay up to smash people. Those are the only problematic rituals. The other rituals are far too easy to kill to become serious problems - Quickening Zephyr is insanely powerful, but it goes down in a couple hits under focused fire. Greater Conflagration / Winter can create some solid defenses, but without Fertile Season the defense crumbles.


Well the problem then is that rituals (besides the two mentioned) need to be spammed to be reliable - they're too fragile to rely on single copies. So if you want to do something about spammability (which I do believe should be addressed) you need to also address the durability of spirits, so that they would remain effective for legitimate strategies despite not being able to clog up the battlefield with them.


Couldn't agree more. Quarter-second cast spells with no recharge are just asking to be used as abusive combo pieces.


Well the 60 (72) second duration, meshed with a 30 second cooldown, is a bit of a problem. It makes enchantment removal an impractical solution as the Zealot's Fire is often recharged and ready to be cast again even while the smiter is going crazy. That's what lets you run smiters against or even alongside Nature's Renewal - you just keep smiting, wait for the NR, then promptly put the Zealot's Fire back up. It's a bit of a speedbump but an acceptable one unless you have someone Oath Shotting / Quickening Zephyring out Nature's Renewal every 10-15 seconds.


Cry is an effective counter to particular spirits, if you're willing to devote a character to babysitting a particular ritual. This works except in the case of Fertile Season, where your interrupter is going to have two Hammer Warriors knocklocking him or a Mesmer on permanent energy lockdown or whatever, and Nature's Renewal, where you can't babysit all the Rangers and the real damage was done during the build design phase anyway. But for Greater Conflagration, Quickening Zephyr, or anything else annoying you want to knock out of commission, Cry works great.


Exactly. I'd rather be shoving Nature's Renewal down someone's throat and making them react to it in often inconvenient ways than being the one trying to shut down the various Nature's Renewal offenses out there. It's a lose strategy.


Oh, it's not a single build. You have Hammer knocklocks with Nature's Renewal, Ranger focus spikes with Nature's Renewal, power energy denial with Nature's Renewal, DoT spreading with Nature's Renewal, the power offense of your choice with Nature's Renewal. Nature's Renewal *destroys* defenses, both reactive (enchantments) and proactive (hexes). Every build should be running it until everyone is running it, then you have the option of not running it to gamble that your opponent isn't.


Good idea! Please teach me how to play a Nature's Renewal build!

You want to know the entire problem with Nature's Renewal?

Design a build to be robust in the face of Nature's Renewal spam. We know that interrupting every copy of a ritual that can and will be run on several characters is unreliable. So you have to harden your defense. Run skills that aren't destroyed by Nature's Renewal, find techniques to be proactive against Nature's Renewal so that even when it does come down you're in good shape to win.

Now ask yourself why you aren't running Nature's Renewal yourself.

Counters to air spike pull you in directions away from spike damage and towards winning a longer battle - from Fertile Season to defensive Mesmers to aggressive usage of Prot Spirit with hard targets. Counters to smiting work in a similar fashion, requiring different sorts of characters to be effective. Nature's Renewal is pervasive, it affects every character in your build. It adjusts them to not be hosed by NR. Once you're hardened to NR, you toss in your own copies to smash anyone who hasn't prepared as much as you have.

Countering NR does not lead to variety. It leads to mirror matches.


Peace,
-CxE

Heh, everyone is acting as though it's easy to shutdown a ritual spammer. Yes, you can make an anti-ritual spammer to shutdown that one person with oath shot but is there a rule that a team must only have 1 person with fertile or renewal? Even if they have multiple people who can potentially shut down a renewal spammer they aren't going to run an enchant build because one mistake and the renewal will be down and your whole build is screwed (plus with multiple people designed to shut down renewal spammers your build will suck vs anything else).

Remember that it is not difficult to make a solid build that won't get screwed by renewal. But the whole point that a lot of people are missing is that renewal spam kills off so many options and destroys the atmosphere of pvp by severely limiting the number of viable builds and skills. The 'it's easy to interrupt' ability is not enough; remember the broken fertile season right after release where people had many thousands of hp because it stacked? That got fixed pretty fast; this needs the same attention.

However, renewal is only the surface issue. There is still the core problem of enchants vs enchant removal, without renewal enchants are so absurdly overpowering because your best anti-enchant weapon (rend) has a 30 second recharge. Renewal as of now is bad for good solid gameplay but a game where people just layer enchants on each other is not very good either; it will take longer to be known than just plain renewal spam but at that point pvp will be simply dumb with everyone cross-stacking enchants and chafe like mad; defense>offense is one thing but enchants are way out of line.

As for fixing renewal, making it heavily attribute based isn't going to be enough. It's still too destructive to half the builds in the game and people will crank it up to whatever attribute is needed.

The remove enchants/hexes needs to be off entirely. The double casting time should still be there but should be attribute based, perhaps 1.5 casting time of enchant/hexes at 6 and 2x at 12 because that is a very powerful bonus.

Why do you bother talking about things which you have no clue? The only right thing you said was that it was imbalanced in the beginning which is definitely true. Mutas were absurdly overpowered for quite awhile until BW came out. As for new balance changes that's so much bs. The last balance change was in 1.08 which happened lets see...4 years ago. Every patch since has been fixing minor, generally insignificant bugs and ruining replays. Odd Sock brought up SC as an example of an extremely good game that achieved very good balance which is entirely true; claiming otherwise just shows that you don't have a clue. Boxer and Nada don't go out on TV matches and abuse broken game mechanics and messed up units don't ruin the gameplay. SC is the example we should be striving for; a game that offers many strategic possibilities and one where imbalance is a limited issue.

Ensign: I think you're missing the point. The reason the metagame is stagnant is precisely because it isn't moving toward a monoculture. It is precisely the existence of a significant proportion unhardened, non-NR builds that prevent builds from abandoning NR. It is precisely because the metagame is not perfectly efficient that the marginal utility of extra copies of NR exceeds that of extra damage skills in the same slot. As you mentioned, in a hypothetical metagame where every other team runs NR, you'd be best off running an identical build but with damage elements in the skill slots where NR is normally placed. It is precisely the existence of less robust but more powerful builds that retards the advancement of the environment, even though there's really no reason to run these builds over NR builds. From what I've seen and expect, the metagame at any of the ongoing or upcoming tournaments, especially beyond the preliminary rounds, is reflected only poorly in general GvG.

Natures Renewal is definately one of the most powerful skills in the game. 1 skill should not have the ability to remove every enchantment and hex. Thats just rediculous, if a build that doesnt focus on enchants or hexes uses that against a build that does, that one skill can be devastating to that entire build, thats rediculous. Especially when Enchantments make up a big part of the skills available in GW. Because of this skill, people are not using enchantments as much as they used to, heck its forbiddon to use enchantments as part of your strategy now-a-days.

NR is virtually uncounterable. With that said, it's uncounterable due to the fact it's spam-ability.

I've heard some ideas for fixes so far which are atleast reasonable. This being the rough conclusion to all those ideas.

-Stop its spamability. Allow only 1 nature ritual of its kind on the field at anyone time.

You could also create it so all spirits on the field of the same type are linked. Almost like a EoE of sorts. Kill one and they all go down, it'll effectivly have the same balance factor as only having 1 on the field at any given time, but allow the Ranger to 1. Dis-enchant again. 2. Increase the spirits AoE.

Ever since i've had a ranger, i've looked at how you might defeat spirits. They are basically enchantments which no one can remove from themselves.. and the rangers more prepared for these enchantments than you.. The obvious plan is to attack the spirits, and then you suddenly realize they have 3+ spirits all well spread out.. by the time you kill one they'll have another down and 2-3 attacks in on you.

Currently as many people have said and will continue to say: It simply pigeon holes the effective skills in the game, taking any potential heavy hex or enchantment builds completly out of the fold.

It needs a fix but to 'nerf' somthing means you remove somthing from it. I suggest they add what i proposed above a 'Spirit Link' Killing all spirits if one of the same type goes down on the map.

I am by no means claiming this is the only problem in the game. I am showing a theory which could potentially balance the Spirits. I am not claiming spirits are the only problem, dont take this 'focused' post as such, i simply dont have any theories or fixes for the others

Wow ... I just read that like 3 times and I'm still not sure what you're trying to say . You should be a politician. They talk forever and in the end get nothing across. Could you rephrase this into a few concise and easy to understand sentences for us laymen?

(I'm not being sarcastic at all either ... I really want to know what your opinion is as it seems like you have something interesting to get across. I apologize for my subpar english comprehension)

OKay ... Here's what I think you're saying.

"NR is a problem because everyone isn't running it yet. Once everyone starts running it then people will be able to stop running it and take more offensive skills in it's place."

Hope that's correct

The problem with Nature's Renewal is not that it is absolutely counterless, for those of you proposing counters. It is the fact that it takes more effort and skill slots (and player skill, I might add) to counter it.

Precise timing, specialized skill slots, and actively observing for Nature's Renewal is necessary to counter it. For the ranger casting Nature's Renewal, it is necessary to press the skill slot button for it. It is a disparity between a great deal of effort and very little.

The imbalance comes from the fact that:


1) A build is decimated if it totally does not account for Nature's Renewal.
2) A build is rendered far less effective if it is attempting to counter Nature's Renewal as the time, skill slots, and effort put into doing so could be used for other purposes (which the team casting Nature's Renewal does not have a problem with, as their side's execution takes far less of all three).
3) And finally, builds that are designed to run completely under Nature's Renewal are extremely limited and eventually lead to monotony in PvP.


Much of this has already been stated in other ways by other posters, though I believe it doesn't hurt to have it stated a different way for those who did not understand it the way the other posters phrased it.

The bottom line is, Nature's Renewal certainly isn't invincible, but it is overly effective for the effort and resources devoted to it. In other words, "overpowered".



Of course, my own experience in PvP is limited as I personally have not found a guild that I am interested in joining on a permanent basis, thus has no experience in GvG battles. However, from what I've seen outside of GvG, I do believe that Nature's Renewal at this point has a detrimental effect on gameplay.

"Healing Balls" are (or should I say, were) a problem, as stated, with no truly effective counter except for Rend Enchantments and the like that could, again, be countered more easily by the Healing Ball than the other team. Perhaps enchantment removal can be multi-layered with different attributes, as Luggage suggested.


My own suggestion? As said, my experience is limited in scope so I apologize if it seems foolish:

One of the reasons that Nature Rituals are as they are is for the reason of diversity in gameplay. Besides a basic spell, Rituals were meant to have long range and broad effects.

My proposition is to keep it that way. In fact, even keep the enchantment and hex stripping effects of Nature's Renewal.

Instead:

1) Make Nature's Renewal easily interruptable.
2) Lengthen Nature's Renewal's casting time slightly (even as little as one more second)
3) Make the symbol above the character when casting Nature's Renewal more prominant and easily noticed.


My reasoning is this addresses the problem of Nature's Renewal being too hard to counter with too powerful an effect for the effort involved.

The reasons for each:

1) Nature's Renewal has too few counters. Why is this not TOO detrimental to Nature's Renewal? The range of the spirit is VERY large.
2) Because the range is very large, it is often that when it is noticed that it is being cast, it is too far away to effectively do anything about it. However, this is more optional, as one single casting of Nature's Renewal is not the problem--it is its continual use, which 1) should amend. This is mainly because oath shot allows it to be used again almost immediately--an effect I believe should remain.
3) Nature's Renewal's effect is very powerful. It should be noticed, especially with its very large range. Also, I personally believe observant teams should have benefit.


The reason I support this type of modification is because Nature's Renewal, if a team truly wishes to use it, should still be viable. Right now, as everyone says, the effect is very powerful. My belief is, since the range is so large, it should be usable, even if easily interruptable, as not many might notice it being cast. If a team wishes to take fertile season, healing, and various buffs to keep the spirit well off (and use oath shot to recharge and cast it again discretely) then it is enough effort, I believe, to make up for the effect.

I think extreme and broad modifications should be avoided, because, as another said, it has a ripple effect.



Ah, and as a final note, I believe as another poster (Ensign, I believe) said, Fertile Season spirit should not affect itself... perhaps its base life can be lessened. I don't think this spirit is as much of an issue because there are very few situations where this would not boost the opposing team as well in a very large way. (I suppose if you run a Protective Spirit, low-health monk this might be an exception)

As for the others... I don't see them quite as pressing. However, I do believe enchantment removing in levels (1...4 enchantments removed, ect.) based on attribute level should be looked at for other enchantment removing spells.


Again, my apologies if this seems ridiculous--I have only my own experience to base this on. Also, my apologies as well for the very long post.




Edit:

I don't mean these comments maliciously, and I would appreciate if you would correct me if I'm wrong but:

If it is difficult, as you say, to counter because of its "spammability", wouldn't one copy simply lessen the range of its problems? That wasn't very clear so: What is to prevent a ranger from, immediately after that one copy of the ritual is destroyed, simply recast it. I believe that is what you meant by its problem being in its spammability. If not, this particular aspect of it is still a problem.

Also, the same with all spirits of the same type being destroyed when the first is--the ranger would still be able to recast after they are destroyed, wouldn't he/she?

That sounds very much like an attempted fix, and a good idea if the range of the spirit was the primary problem at the moment. However, there is really nothing that can be done except address one problem at a time--the same way, for those who like examples, Starcraft did.




Sarus: I believe what he is trying to say is that if people try harder to counter Nature's Renewal, the people running Nature's Renewal will have no choice but to abandon it.

I disagree with that opinion though, as many are already trying and there isn't any truly effective counter when the counter to the counter is merely to recast it.

Hello everyone, and please excuse the interruption

Both sides of this flame war have been warned thoroughly. To everyone, if you can't post constructively, and keep all personal attacks/references out of your argument, just don't post at all. From this point on, I'm going to be very delete-happy, and so please watch your tone.

Thank you,
Aria

I agree that making Nature's Renewal an elite skill could be a first step to lessen the problem. The skill is very good and should be treated as such. The fact that it strips enchantments is amazing, but I wonder if removing this part of the skill will make it worthy of an elite. Hehe, I want to see people use Well of the Profane!

What i said at first was over zealous. I did'nt really mean to say it was uncounterable, uncounterable is way too harsh a description.

As it is I myself have no problem with them using spirits over and over again. On the other hand i have a problem with the fact they do-not have to maintain the spirit due to the fact they can have 3-4-5+ out at any singular time, they do not have to recast it after the fight begins due to the fact even if you destroy one they have their other 3. There are a significant number of tactics to stop them from getting more out after the spirits are gone, the main problem currently is the fact that by the time you get to the other team they can already have to say the least a couple of spirits out. While the right ranger build can make it very difficult to disrupt their casting of these spirits you cannot disrupt somthing which is being cast while you're behind a wall waiting for the pre-game timer to end.

While most pre-game tactics are focused to stopping a certin game plan, any spirit spam stopping game plan seems to revolves very much around stopping NR. Fertile season obviously also has alot of weight in this discussion, but lets leave it out for now.

The fact is meta game comes down to stopping game plans. Not a singular skill. NR might not be unstoppable, but when picking skills you're revolving it around which ones this specific skill does'nt effect it has already shown it's dominance. Meaning without already having counter measures specifically against NR it is unstoppable.

It's 5am here, and i'm most likly not thinking straight so i'll look back tomorrow or later with some clearer thoughts.

For those suggesting it be an elite skill...this will help moderately with you being unable to stack oath shot and renewal but it still doesn't solve the problem of renewal.

Reccomending something to be elite is always a bad idea; it's just a bad band-aid solution and not something lasting that we'll want.

I never shard this idea, but wouldn't it be funny to see how many spirits get put up when you have to maintain spirits, like monk enchantments. See how many spirits they put up then.

As for NR, someone suggested a few pages back about it having levels of stripping going off the rank in WS, that sounds like a birlliant idea for it and something that seems prefectly viable to still use it

I think NR should be made so that it strips the enchants/hexes at the end of its life not the beginning. And the strip only happens if NR's time runs out not if it is killed by the other team. This would make it a minimum of 30 seconds before the stripping happens and give the other team a chance to stop the strip from happening. Also leave NR as a non-elite if this happens. Allow it to be spammed with oathshot but so long as the other team kills the spirit no stripping occurs. Also this should be combined with Fertil Season being made so that it only buffs spirits by 50% of it's stated effect (If it says +400 health a spirit only gains 200 health).