stop crying about nature's renewal.

i do not see how this skill is unbalanced, i use it quite frequently in the random arenas and it has minimal effect, if any at all. the only way i see this being useful is if you have a disrupting skill to keep enchantments off of the person you are fighting.

there are other skills that need to be looked at, such as hex breaker. hm, a 5 energy stance(note: not an enchantment) that nullifies all hexes, takes 0 seconds to activate, and only 5 seconds to recharge? spell breaker takes 15, only lasts 15 seconds, and is elite! and don't say, "heh bring wild blow noob" because it is then that the proof comes out that the skill is unbalanced. if i need to start bringing one specific skill to counter one specific other, things need to be looked at.

...no.

Nature's Renewal is a global enchantment and hex removal that destroys so many skills in this game. "A minimal effect, if any at all"? Was that a bad joke?

i think it whas its the worst skill ever (for ruining everything hehe)

no. it doesn't have much effect, because in random arena it takes your teammates' enchantments off also so it kind of cancels out.

it didn't ruin anything.

It's random arena where it can hurt as much as help. Why are you talking about the lowest form of PvP or player interaction in general?

I'm talking about organized PvP, where unless you build with Nature's Renewal you don't stand a chance.

explain exact instances. i've seen it used in tombs/gvg and i was unaffected by it.

read this entire thread http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=37259 it explains it quite well. AND READ ALL 11 PAGES NOT JUST THE FIRST OR LAST 2

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Most of the crying you hear about Nature's Renewal comes from people playing Tombs, not 4v4 arena.
You're still missing the power of the skill though- it's not just about how it affects condtiions on the field, it's about how it affects people in the build design phase. I'd suggest reading more of the topics before you come to claim it's not an overpowering effect. And if, after doing your rersearch, you still believe it isn't overpowering, bring some proof with you, not just anecdotal "I use it in Arena so it's fine". Anecdotal examples don't help further discussion, they invite personal attacks.

As for hex breaker: It's a terrific skill in the arena, so much so that I'd say it's a prerequisite for any solo monk in the arena. It certainly could use a look at, but it's not the same in an 8 person team (which is how the PVP was designed). I'd much prefer my monks run inspired hex or smite hex in an 8 person team, when I have multiple people all covering for each other. In Arena, if I'm playing monk, I know no one is covering me, so I need to take as much self-defense as possible.

Finally, counters do need to exist to break certain effects. Your assertion that "bringing wild blow proves my point" does not prove any point, all it does is show me you don't want to put Wild Blow(the available counter) in your skill bar.

Counters are necessary to powerful effects- that's why counters exist. Without counters we couldn't have powerful effects and we'd all be sitting around with a perfectly balanced game of rock-paper-scissors. The trick is, when you have a ton of available skills and not enough room to bring them all, is prioritizing which counters you need.
Generally speaking, that's why counters need to be more effective than the effect they are countering.
A specific example is a spell like Scourge Sacrifice: It's built to counter necromancer skills that require a lot of sacrifice. It punishes blood necromancers (a small subset of all profession combinations) and within Blood Necromancers, it affects only a limited number of their available skills by doubling the amount they sacrifice. If no one is bringing health sacrifice skills, it's a poor choice of counters. (It's a poor spell for other reason, but that has nothing to do with the counter effect.) If you expect to run into sacrifice necros regularly, try and work it into your skill bar.

Hex breaker is a counter to hexes. It needs to be cheaper to use than most hexes that are being thrown up against it. Think for a moment: would you spend 10 energy to stop a 5 energy hex that could be recast immediately? It wouldn't be a worthwhile tradeoff.

The same thing applies with a skill like wild blow- it's a counter, except unlike a focused example, it works on all stances. It's not as though Wild Blow was designed to beat Hex Breaker- it was designed as a counter to all stances. The problem is that wild blow is the only counter available to any kind of stances, and stances themselves aren't very well balanced. Wild Blow may be perfect for ending a stance like Lightning Reflexes, which has a 60s recharge, but you're right, against Hex Breaker, with a 5s recharge, it falls short.

Remember:
The more general a counter is (counters many skills) the weaker its effect should be.
The more specific a counter is (only works against a few skills period), the more powerful it's effect should be.
That's how counters work- in theory.

were running a smite build. we stack enchants. OOPS nr dropped, all of them are gone. no problem right? we just put them back up. wait... did it say i got hit by oath shot? boom nr is down again. over and over.

scenario #2
mesmer is running lots of anticaster stuff. he casts stuff over and over on the monk, nr goes down, all hexes are gone, and now it takes twice as long to cast. he starts casting again, oath shot+nr means all enchantments removed every 10 seconds.

I completely agree with Tigris of Gaul. NR affects the entire map, how can it possibly have a "minimal effect?" This is completely and utterly asinine.

There's a reason why spellbreaker is elite and hex breaker isn't. First, spellbreaker makes it so that you cannot be the target of all enemy SPELLS. This includes every elementalist offensive spell and every hex spell from mesmers or necromancers. Hex breaker is able to be used only once, any smart pvper that uses hexes can easily counter this. After it is used, it disappears and you must recast it.

Well, when it's spammed, there's no point in running enchantment builds, is there? Water Magic? Mesmers and Necromancers in general? Oh yeah... Spell Breaker. Man, we can't hurt this target. Nevermind, let's drop Nature's Renewal.

Oh yeah, "stop crying about" Hex Breaker.

Probably not the best example considering how abusive the typical ether renewal + zealots fire smite build is at the moment. Basically you're complaning that your overly powered smite build is being destroyed by an overly powered counter so I can't really sympathize there. Both NR and the ether renewal + smite build need to be balanced better. As a matter of fact NR might be the only thing keeping smite builds remotely in check at the moment. I'm no Ensign or Zrave so I can't really back that up. Just a hunch.

wow. i'm a firestarter.

anyway, i guess i kind of see now how it is a little overpowered, maybe make it so it's elite and can't be on the same bar as oath shot? then again there is still that one skill that if it misses all your skills are recharged.. the name escapes me.

Ether Renewal + Zealot's is easily countered. Ether Renewal lasts for a base of 10 seconds, with a perfect staff wrapping of enchanting, that's 12. The cooldown time is 30 seconds, I'm sure you can figure what to do in the other 18 seconds. Not only that, E/Mo smiters use a few skills to spam. Drop Diversion or disrupting shot on them, backfire, or even daze them, and they will have problems. Not to mention, all the enchantment removal spells in this game, lingering curse for one. And yes, NR for another.

While I'm on the subject, Nature's Renewal is a counter itself.

However, it violates the basic principle of counters.

It affects a HUGE range of skills in the game (enchantments, hexes, and casting times). Not only that, its effect is global.

Given that it affects so many people, and such a broad range of skills, it's effect should be proportionally weak, right?
Wrong. Its power is tremendous, removing enchantments and hexes across the board, and combining that with a global "migraine" (double casting time) for hexes and enchantments. On top of that, Nature's Renewal is unstoppable when you face a team determined to use it.

The normal "drawback" to using Nature Rituals is that they affect both teams equally, and your team has to spend time putting the ritual down. Also, most rituals lose their effectiveness once the spirit comes down. However, with Renewal, the most powerful effect is the initial enchantment stripping, which outweighs the drawbacks. On top of that, because your team has planned ahead and brought NR, you know not to bring any enchantments that get hosed by NR. (You are playing with a team that plans ahead, right? Not just random arena?) You sacrifice one (or 2-3 skills) on one character to ensure you can use NR, and you can hose entire team builds and skill lines (Water magic and Curses, most notably), and there is no reasonable COUNTER for those teams to bring.

To stop a dedicated Nature's Renewal character you have to devote multiple characters to the task, and that's a fundamentally bad play- remember that counters are supposed to have a powerful effect when applied narrowly. At that point you're better off running NR yourself, and then you reach the stage we're at (or getting to). It's a degenerative skill because it restricts the number of viable strategies that can be played. I don't want that in Guild Wars, and that's why I'm making a fuss about it.

R/Me with Oath Shot*, Arcane Mimicry.

Anyone on the team with Nature's Renewal as an elite, which I'd still definitely take even if it was elite.

= still a spam of global enchantment removal.

Soul leech + backfire = no emo smiting. Nr spam means no emo smiting. Rend enchant after ether renewal? No emo smiting. I could go on, but you're starting to get the picture here. Focused shatter enchants, for example, make the E/Mo smiter totally useless, but people aren't bringing mesmers or alterior enchant removal due to....

NR.

You mean determined shot, and that only recharges attack skills.
First, coming in here with only a minimal understanding of the skills will inspire a lot of condescension on most message boards. If you're coming to learn, good for you. If you're coming to parade your ignorance and claim your views are right...I hope you have thick skin, for your sake.

Next, your attitude of "make it elite" qualifies you to be a lazy balance designer. It doesn't address the fundamental problems of the skill, it just makes it minimally more difficult to use. The effect is no less powerful for making it elite, and as others have already demonstrated, there are easy to find workarounds. Arcane Mimicry is just one example. Serpent's Quickness and Quickening Zephyr are two more that spring to mind immediately, and both are in the same skill line as Nature's Renewal.

It's been said before, but bears repeating: Any skill that affects casting times, energy cost (or recovery), or recharge times need to be tightly regulated. Even then some skills make it through into the game, and need to be re-examined in the current game atmosphere.

Thanks Scaphism for making the point quite clear. I am buying the argument.

Yeah I've been reading over all the threads about it for a long time, and I do think it's overpowered simply because of how many it affects. It's basically arcane conundrum x100 for any enemy necromancers, mesmers, or allied monks (although a good team who uses it will avoid this). Why the hell should rangers be able to screw over so many people when a mesmer, who's meant to screw up casting, can only affect one at a time when it comes to something like that? Doesn't make sense to me.

While it's not insanely unstoppable in power, it's still problably one of the most insanely powerful skills in the game. Not because of what it does, but because of the number of people it affects. In the tombs it can get murderous.

The effects are tremendous because the ratio to casters (4) and non-casters (2) is pretty large. Maybe ANet can acheive the same effectiveness of Ranger squads by changing things in a different way, but as a Mesmer primary, I'm glad they can make the spell chuckers play by their rules. I think in time people will find some consistent answers.

I'll bet Anet is laughing their butts off at all these anti-NR threads because they've hidden the answer so well and people are still searching. If THEY thought it should be nerfed (like a few other skills have been in the past few months), wouldn't they have changed it? Maybe in the end they'll adjust it, but I kinda hope that people only need to keep working on unique answers. Six months from now, it'll be great to look back and laugh at the nerf threads if some teams out there find something consistent that works. Who knows?

scaphism i pretty much get the picture, although your saying that making it elite is a cop-out is kind of a slap in the face to a.net because that was kind of the "solution" they applied mid-beta testing.

There are no unique answers besides running no enchants or hexes, which gimps casters and promotes 5 warrior and 5 ranger teams.

But isn't it easy to gimp a Warrior dominate team? Without Spirit Spamming, isn't it easy to gimp a Ranger dominant team? Maybe this three way gimp is meant to be.

Slap away then. I'm still convinced it's a lazy balancing mechanic. I've accepted that it's here to stay, but that makes it no less odious. It's akin to working out in a gym for years- you learn to ignore the smell.

No, because the warriors can run secondaries. W/R + nature's renewal doesn't hurt the warrior team at all, and a W/N with rigor mortis removes most of the non-enchant methods of defending vs. warriors. The other 3 can be whatever you want.

casters isn't a single group. its 2/3 of the character classes in the game. Dropping 2 lines from mes, 2 lines from necro, all energy maintainment from ele and all of prot, the best of smite, and some of heal with one skill isn't the same as saying "well, you can gimp warriors too".

Actually Backfire doesn't really help much against El/Mo smiters with the right build. With enough enchants one them they will heal themselfs for 120+ with every spam. So Backfire will do too little damage to be threat.

Diversion is alot more effective.

I can't really see Smite being dominant. Even during the age where NR was not used alot, and Smite was just introduced in halls with the damn Bal Aura stack, some of us could wipe any smiter off the hall with the current flavour of Air Gank. Not sure about GvG, but its power is probably proportional to the map.

now that i remember, you guys can't really say you weren't asking for it with that god damned 8 people stacking balthazar's aura on someone doing 200+dps. how did you expect someone to counter that?

it's called Protective spirit or protective bond and then while those are up use rend or the like to take off balthazar's aura. Or use chillblains (doesn't work so well vs. enchant stacking though as it just removes chaff). Or run away from them and aura will do nothing. Or group them and drop 5 meteror showers on their head. Or any number of other counters, many of which can be worked into other builds without much trouble.

If you haven't made a build specifically to counter NR/spirit spam than you can't win against them if they are anygood at all.

Hence why i said backfire + soul leech, and those builds self smite, making them largely useless for providing real dmg. The most lethal builds are the ones that spam heals on warriors, netting near to 100% hit efficiency. In those builds, having ether renewal and aura of restoration nets you around 80-100 hp per cast, which is still 60-40 dps against the smiter. this jumps to around 100 to -80 dps with both, but no one uses either soul leech or backfire due to NR, hence my point.

200dps was coming from many 28dps casts of aura. Heal seed was the only counter.

^^
Sorry I didn't PvP much while balth's aura was broken. The rest of it works though as I have tested that.

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You're going to tell us "we asked for it"?
Grow up.

Now, let's talk about how the situation was resolved:
ANet saw people stacking multiple copies of Balth's Aura onto one target and changed the game so that multiple copies couldn't "stack".

That's one of the most recent skill balance changes I can remember. (Can't think of any others off-hand, but I could have forgotten.)

To suggest that Nature's Renewal was implemented to counter stacked copies of Balthazar's Aura is laughable at best. Or do you like to solve all your problems with unwieldy sledgehammers?

no, i doubt that's its specific reason but that seems like it would have been a very viable counter to an obviously broken game mechanic. and that's bullshit itself, anyway, because i remember a.net saying stacking multiple copies of balthazar's aura was "Working as intended" when the original topic was brought up over at vnboards.

Nature's Renewal's description has always claimed it did what it currently does, but it simply used to be bugged so it wasn't a problem. The enchantment/hex removal part of it worked rather sporadically before which made it unreliable and thus ignoreable, then they started work on it and it got infinite range somehow, now it works as it was originally advertised and as it turns out, it's rather unbalanced without the 5% death penalty mechanism it was originally designed with.

As far as it's current usefulness goes, it's a pretty 'new' skill among the pack since it only recently started working as advertised, and I believe they botched the balance testing for it, if they did any of it at all - it should've gotten a rebalancing when the DP mechanism was dropped for spirits, but since it didn't work properly then it was overlooked. Pure speculation, but it might be an explanation of the current state of affairs - unfortunately that doesn't help anyone.

I'm surprised this thread wasn't nuked outright though. There's plenty of threads where Nature's Renewal was being discussed in, and the OP was pure uninformed flamebait - maybe since actual clue was added by others, the more worthwhile snippets can be merged with one of the existing threads about it?

It wasn't really changed was it? It was moreso fixed, because enchantments don't stack.

i wasn't trying to start a fight.

Most people who are crying about NR are typically lazy people who don't want to find a way to deal with NR. I heard far too many cries about this from below average teams in tombs. Most good teams in tombs never say a single word about NR regardless winning or losing.

Here are a few little hints for all you who are crying about NR. NR affects everyone including the one spamming it; I hope this little fact is obvious to everyone who is crying. And don't build your team entirely based on enchantments and hexs. Try building a balanced team, maybe you'll like it.

EDIT: I appologize in advance if I sound a bit harsh, but I am tired of hearing all the complaints about NR in tombs from one-dimensional teams.

Yes, yes, we know. Build around Nature's Renewal, so that it doesn't effect us! ...Wait a minute, we may as run Nature's Renewal ourselves to screw those of us who weren't thinking the same thing. As has been said thousands of time before, you shouldn't have to become a NR build to beat one.

You were wrong from line 1. A large number of the people complaining/pointing out the imbalance in Nature's Renewal are members of top guilds, and testers.

But you can gimp warrior teams easier than caster teams (if there was no NR). They still keep up a good fight, but in general casters at this time seem to have at least a bit of an overall edge to non-casters without NR. Mesmers alone have 15+ skills it seems to do the trick on Warriors. Not that Warriors can't win, just that they exert a bit more to get the job done.

I'm not saying that they should or should not adjust NR if Arena.net determines it is too tough (or boring) of a battle for casters to take Spirit teams out. Just that the cycle of what beats what may be a little underdeveloped in that the answer may not be as simple as 'use skill X', but implement team strategy X (and still have a chance to survive non-spirit builds of course). There's possibly combinations out there that can be effective. If not, then I'd agree with an adjustment.