Anet Nerf= Smite tombs only

Never played Magic the Gathering ehh?? The solution to someone who keeps countering your spell is... to counter his/her spells! A good smiter team should have a mesmer taking care of the opponents counter spells and a healer taking care of the smiters, just in case...

it surprises me that many of the people who enjoy guild wars have never played/didn't like m:tg

the two games are very, very similar in quite a few ways, which is one of the reasons i enjoy guild wars so very much

nearly all of the tactics that applied in magic also apply here which is nice

also, the daily articles that the m:tg team puts out really help you to understand the basics of game design, and even some far more advanced concepts

the people on these forums who complain about balance issues and whatnot would do well to go read some of those articles

And what you do if they counter your spells? Well, maybe you join the "counter" fun?

My new favorite anti smite strategy, as was mentioned, is to have an ally take one for the team and die and then fast cast well of profane (Me/N). Bye bye smite. That person is always resed, maybe its a dumb idea but it sure as hell works. Also once the warriors enter well of profane they seem to now want to run so they die and we make more wells. So inaffect WoProfane can easily counter any below-average team, which could be quite a few :/

Putrid will still beat well of profane to a single corpse. You'd need multiple corpses to get a profane off.

there are more smite groups then normal (i have been in a lot of em) but it doesn't really matter since smite groups have a lot of faults, and only work well if u got a good strategy.

And the more people who whine about it........

yea, my friends and i made a new build (5 axe warriors, 2 healers, and 1 prot monk) we kicked ass. we won in the hoh at least 4 times. I think trying out new builds is the best way to go

Due to the recent influx of warriors I think we'll be seeing people actually use skills like soothing images I was actually almost going to say that warriors seemed to be overpowered and were going to get a nerf but then I remembered that like half the necro + mesmer skills specialize in just that

I've never been stopped smiting by a mesmer. Most teams make the dumb mistake of killing the monks - who aren't really doing anything but healing themselves - instead of the smiters.

Sure, if they freeze your Draw Conditions that can be a big pain, but stuff like Blackout and Backfire is such a joke.

So onto week 2 and still 90% smite teams..i know alot of guilds and ppl are not playing tombs because of boredem and lameness of one build being run...anet realize yet or they to busy making pve areas?

And what are they going to do? Nerf smite? Do you really think all these people are going to magically start using a variety of different builds because the latest FOTM was nerfed? Of course not. They'll just pick a new one, and they'll all just use that.

Arenanet has the power to fix a lot of the problems in the game, but one thing they can't fix is the laziness/stupidity of the majority of its playerbase. That's just the price you pay when you have no monthly fee and all the players on the same server.

I started a topic to fix Ether Renewal if you'd care to comment. In short, for a smiter build, ER amounts to 5en per second of energy -- which is about 5x stronger than other energy recovery elites such as Energy Drain, Mantra of Recall or Offering of Blood (all of which average around 1en per second). This is without even considering the health regeneration...

I think Ether Renewal is over-powered; but in general, I also thing that Smiting is a a wee bit overpowered. When my monk was lvl 15, I
was able to solo the "Undead Hordes" quest; without a smiting monk,
this quest is somewhat difficult with even 6 players. Sure smiting should
help somewhat against undead, but even if you didn't have the undead
2x damage, you might be able to pull it off. Every good farming build
is developed around smiting line. You'd think this would tell you something about skill balance? How is it that one class has both the
strongest healing and, subject to only a tad bit of debate -- top-of-the
line damage dealing ability?

There is nothing overpowered about it; the only way its over powered is if you do nothing to counter it, but surprise, every halfway decent build is the same way.

Its quite easy to counter with simple skills every group should be bringing anyway (Diversion, Rend Enchantments etc) for utility. The reason they are predominant in the Tombs is not because they are so overwhelmingly good, its just that they are relatively easy to use and the "it" build of the moment. Just wait, a new power build will come out soon and e/mo smiters will become the Air Spikers of today.

Smiting is basically packing an absurdly amount of damage and steamrolling over teams. It can be countered, but it requires some intelligence, more than most pugs will have.

The good thing is that if you bring a heavy anti-smite you will fare very well because there are very few non-smiting builds out there, that are run by decent players. So you won't suffer much for doing something like bringing 2 mesmers to completely shut down the smiters and a monk or two.

If you don't bring anti-smiting stuff though, prepare to get run through. It is very lethal.

On face value, the skill is about 3-5x too powerful when compared to any other skill that does anything remotely similar. I don't care if humans can compensate for the unbalanced nature of the environment they are in -- the bottom line is that this skill is very much out-of-wack.

There are only three counters to this smiting build that I know of:

(a) well of profane -- unfortunately, against a good team you'll never
get this spell off. If you do, you got a team that wasn't prepared

(b) spam diversion -- unfortunately, your ratio here is 1 to 1.5,
you need the mesmer to spend almost full-time effort shutting down
one el/mo; and can probably hinder a second -- but not provide a
total shut-down; with 4-5 el/mo's you need at least 3 mesmers

(c) smite them faster than they smite you; so far, this is the best
counter I've seen yet -- and judging by the 90% smiting teams,
the most effective

If anyone has a good counter for a team of 3-5 el/mo -- by all means
post them. It's not like an el/mo is a air-elementalist damage dealer,
who requires a healer. They can cast Reversal of Fortune on each other;
then you factor in the health regain from Ether Renewal plus Aura of
Restoration -- and you've got a class /w a huge health regeneration to
go with overpowering supply of energy.

What was the "counter" for air-spike teams? Have 2 or so monks carry
protective spirit... that's not so bad. What's the counter here? Not just
one skill for a common class -- no, it requires you to completely re-skill
about half of your team.

Regardless if you can counter them; the primary build is just so overpowering that it prevents any sort of PvP diversity. Just look at the
numbers for energy regain;
Ether Renewal needs a fix

Omg, pugs in the tombs lately....... + the crazy smite action = AHGGHHG

Seriously. I'm putting the game down until the update. I've had enough. >_<

and let's not forget that warriors were almost never allowed into parties before this smiting trend started. generally speaking, everyone would treat you like a leper if you tried to join a party as a warrior

i say it's about darn time that warriors are finally being allowed to participate in Tombs parties

Why would you want to play in a random pug in the first place?

Sidenote: Since smite teams do not have much way of energy denial, air spike is actually pretty effective. Take along 3-4 Ele/Necros for rend, letting you shutdown ER/ZF somewhat if your timing is really good. Not saying it's great, but its definitely not a terrible idea. Also to note, protective spirit does NOT counter air spike. Fertile Season and energy denial does.

For anti-smiting stuff..here a couple of stuff to think about:
1-2 mesmers
Diversion, Mantra of inscriptions+signet of humility and some other random energy denial. MI+soh allows 100% locking of their elite iirc.
Ward against melee
Ward against foes
Ward against elements
Ward against harm (taking 30% damage from ZF is pretty fun with these 2 up)
Life Barrier (smite teams will generally have very few enchant strips)
Drain Enchant
Rend (multiple copies of both)
Healing Seed
Shielding Hands
Aegis
Water snares+iron mist

Bringing a normal build isn't going to cut it. Smiting will just run you over after the balance changes (before it really was easy to counter) unless you invest heavily in counters.

Second sidenote:
8 eles abusing ether renewal. Various /mos in there as well for healing/prot purposes. High sustainability and you can net several spike kills very quickly. Would be fun to try

IxChel: do you want people to /sign or are you guys still at the discussion stage? I'd definitely /sign alternative #2.

Indeed I wholeheartely agree... Also if you look closely at the posts from Anet site, you'll see they refers from time to time to M:TG.

Too bad this game was a hell of a money sink (Especially the Online version)

How did ANet not see this coming? Smites were already popular in tombs before the patch - you'd see a smite team every other run or so. Nature's at least kept it in check (that's another issue), but the smites could still beat spirit teams if they were good. With no global enchant wipe like Nature's anymore, it really is 90%+ smiting teams in tombs.

Seems to me, the only way to win and *hold* the halls now is to out-smite other smite teams. Ridiculous. Every time our group makes it to Halls, we are facing 2 other teams with 2-3 smiters in it, and the team trying to hold just leaves their hero on the altar, drops back a bit, then waits for the 2 minute mark to smite the crap out of the other 2 heros before they can cap.

That's not lame, it's logical. Why not play it, when it's the best?

I like the smite group, and I'll keep playing it.

Numa,

I suppose it's probably at the point to ask for signatures, but over on the
Fixed Ether Renewal thread. So that you don't have to be bothered with jumping, here is the proposal (#2):


Fixed Ether Renewal #2 {Elite} - Enchantment Spell

For 10 seconds, each time you cast a spell, you gain 20-60% of the
energy cost of the spell back, plus another 15% of the spell cost for
each enchantment on you.

A Random Pug has won the Hall of Smiters and keep the favor of the gods for Who Cares.

why did A-net "have to see this coming"???


i am so tired of all you guys calling for NERFS i am about to puke.

learn to play the damn game and think of a counter for the builds. there is nothing overpowered about a smiting build and they are not that difficult to counter.

ify ou cannot do it then go back to PvE.

and if you keep calling for NERFS every time you cannot counter a build you better go back to playing space Invaders.

"pst....invite a mesmer to your group. There. Bam. One mesmer and anything else will take out the entire smite group."
Dur. Nuh uh! Mesmers are the suxor! They don't do as much damage as my balthazar's aura does over 10 seconds. Duh! Any elite person knows not to invite a mesmer because they are just plain useless (except for Mantra Of Recovery)!!11!!one

/endsarcasm

I actually run a mesmer and have forever. The mesmer enchant removals are very cost effective because, for the most part, they near pay for themselve. Drain Enchantment gives you quite a bit of extra energy. About 10 if your inspiration is nice. Inspired Enchantment should give you an extra 3, and Shatter enchantment costs 15, so you can just about pay for this with the first two enchant removals. If it was a Me/N, I suppose you cuold remove up to 5 enchants. But the most effective way, in my experience, would be well of the profane (I think that's the name). Cast it when one of yours dies or when one of them dies, and it should help to eliminate the smiters for a good while. It works especially well in tight packed groups. Perhaps they should make NR remove enchantments only once, but you can only cast it once at a time. Saying, If you cast NR, you have to wait until it is destroyed or runs out before you can cast it again. That should help be a good buffer vs. the smiters but not too overpowered.

I have no problem with smite builds, only the ether renewal, which is a broken skill. It generates way more energy than any other elite energy regeneration skill, so fast it's not funny and with conditions that are easy to set up (enchanments on yourself? much easier than conditions on others for example). But calling for a nerf to Ether Renewal isn't a new thing, it's been a problem skill forever.

Smite and Spike are the easiest teams to create on the fly. Therefore, they are used much. They can be used to great effect, or they can be used to much doom.

Its not so much a problem with lack of balance in the game, but the lack of willingness for people to take some time to create a different kind of group. There is also, of course, the problem that it takes time to devise a well-rounded group, get the people to use the correct spells and skills and work together. This often requires a guild, where people can and do communicate fairly frequently. Of course, this is Guild wars, not randomly select players to fight with you wars.

Personally, I never really cared. Rank 1, 2, 3, whatever. New emote, yay. Fantastic goal to set for yourself, if you can feel my sarcasm.

At any rate... continue discussion

bah ... Anet responds to things in due time ... but although 90% of tombs teams are based on smites .... I rarely see 80% of them making it outta the tombs. Even with a broken skill, bad teams just don't go no where. Necros are getting key roles now to destroy smites, which I kinda like to see. I won't argue about the ether renewal ... hmmm ... issues ... but I will abuse the hell out of it until Anet does do something. Not hard to keep it up either ... cover it will reversal on yourself and your sitting pretty ... but as far as smite teams go ... like spike teams ... like spirit spammers ... i find it humourous that as soon as the metagame moves a rampant cry for nerfs comes flying out. They just need to fix renewal ... which there are numerous posts about. I bet it sure gets tiresome for some of the guys repeating the same thing over and over and over as some one knew posts a new thread everyday about the same thing that has been on the board for a long time ... maybe the search button should be flashing red, or guru should invest in a gw wizard that screams use the search button.

If EVERY GOD DAMN GROUP in Tombs is a smite, then it's overpowered.

Otherwise, it wouldn't be used.

Stupid smiters.

Well not really, if everyone uses it then its obviously easy to use. That does not mean it is neccessarily broken. However the power it out puts is the actual sign of how broken it really is. The biggest damage machine shouldn't be all that easy to create, IMHO.

Everyone is a smiter b/c no one wants to bother with a counter build. Go into tombs with one and you will own. As others have said, mesmers can counter smiters (diversion, humility, etc). Monks can counter them (shielding hands, mark of protection, everyone cluster around a healing seed, etc). Necro's can counter them (rend, profane). Ele's can counter them (wards). I'm not familiar enough with rangers to know how effective their disuption would be on smiters. Warriors could start a KD chain as soon as they get off an Ether Renewal and keep them flat on their backs unable to recharge their E.

All of the stuff I just mentioned are completely normal skills to bring with you anyway, so you are not nerfing your build by carrying these counters. You just have to go in with the mindset that you will likely be facing smiters and should have your strategy prepared.

Please no more nerfs until enough time has passed for people to adapt. Everyone screamed for Spike-group nerf-age for quite a while before people finally started taking counter builds.

Empty Skillbars are nice example of the counter. They won HoH day before yesterday, today two times in a row.

enchantment removal and energy denial are whatr is needed. not really that difficult

not every group is a smiter group my friend. once you make it out of burial grounds you will see that

Dazzler,

Before I even respond; let me make it absolutely clear that my position
isn't that the el/mo smiter build is the problem -- what's the problem is
that the Ether Renewal skill is 3-5x more stronger than any equivalent
elite management skill. Offering of blood gives you .9en/sec average,
Energy Drain will give you .7en/sec average, Mantra of Recall is a whole
1en/sec. The average is 1en/sec. Ether Renewal is 3-6en/second. It's
a seriously out-of-wack skill.

You could fix it by buffing Energy Drain to take about 3x as much energy,
or about 85en at 16 inspiration; and you could fix Offering of Blood to
give about 24-80 energy; etc. But, if you did that, then every other Elite
skill would be so far inferior to the energy management skills that you'd
have to label them junk. By contrast any other primary elite skill is junk,
its a factor of 3-5x inferior.

Now, you do have some good points below about how to take-out a
good character. However, why should a good El/Mo have 3-5x as
much energy regeneration ability than a Me/Mo? You don't see that
many Me/Mo smiters -- do you? Or Ne/Mo smiters using Offering of
the Blood? The result is a serious game imbalance and it reduces
diversity -- and thus fun.

Most arguments of this style talk about the ability of a Ranger or Mesmer
to do multi-target shut-down. If they didn't then it'd be 1-1 and that
would obviously be an advantage to the damage dealers. However, there
are many factors that most of these on-paper arguments dont' take
into account.

1. There is a good 1-3s of time switching targets; you have to use
the TAB key to go through targets, and unless you've got a superior
memory you're going to spend a good 2s to swap to another target.

2. To alternate between targets is extremely hard; you have to
remember who your first target was and get back to them in-time
before a given spell expires, etc.

3. Even if you're switching targets, coordinating between 2-3 other
shutdown wizards is quite difficult -- even good players will often
target the same person; or end up casting spells on someone who
is already dead/nudered/etc.

4. As a mesmer or someone doing shut-down, you're going to be
targeted and usually must spend a good deal of your time away
from your target (at least mentally) while you evade, run, etc.

5. Most shut-down techinques have counters; and believe me,
those who are even occasionally shut-down know about them.

Most paper-strategies that lack in-game experience fail to take into
account these aspects of shut-down. If you're a good mesmer, you
can usually shut down 1 player -- but it is quite hard to even partially
shut-down 2. If you plan to shutdown 3 other humans, you must
be expecting them to roll-over dead.

So. Let's get to your specifics.

Signet of Humility -- Yes, this is a super skill, assuming you can find
the right person to shut-down and remember to stick with that person
so you can lock-down their elite. On paper, this skill alone can limit
an el/mo so they can't abuse ER. In reality, you want to target someone
else, and the chance of you getting back to your target (or even
remembering who they were) is quite difficult. At best its a partial
shut-down of a single player -- plus a 2-4 second Tabbing hunt
looking for them.

Diversion -- To effectively use this skill you need to be babysitting the
target non-stop. You have about 3 seconds to hunt for another target
and swap back to your original target before Diverson runs out. If you
try to use Signet of Humility on another el/mo, for example, you're
going to spend 2-4s hunting, 3s casting humility, plus another2-4s
to get back and cast diverison again. I'll assume you're uber efficient,
that's at least 8s of time, giving your opponent 2s of non-diverted time.
This doesn't even begin to take into account chaff skills that people
sacrifice on diversion (an unnecessary spell), or the fact that you're
probably being knocked-down or running away from a warrior who
doesn't like you. In short, with diversion you might be able to lock-out
a single player; but the moment you put anything else into the mix;
its at best a partial lock-down, not a full shutdown.

Backfire -- You didn't mention it, but let me say it's kinda junk, it
takes 2-4s to cast, and if you add in the hunt time, and the ability
of someone to remove the hex; it's just does not qualify as a
"shut-down"

As for the Ranger, "Prepared" Choking Gas is a very nice skill against
an el/mo, but once again, its 1-1; you really can't be focusing on another
player or your shutdown will stop.

For the Necromancer

Well of Profane -- if you're up against a good team, you've got very l
little chance of this skill succeeding. Not only will it not take most
of the time (Putrid and Necrotic are so much faster), but it costs you
25en -- so even moderate energy denial, and you'll never get a
chance to cast it; unless, of course, either your team or the other
team is mostly dead. If you u

Rend Enchancements -- this has a 30s recharge; a good team can
re-start an el/mo's engine in under 5 seconds. If your Rends
are horribly effective, you're playing against newbies.

As for your argument about a Monk's Healing Seed being a counter.
Your assertion is blind and lacks in-game experience. I play a Mesmer
and a Monk depending upon what my guild needs. Using Healing Seed
does not "shut-down" in any way shape or manner broad-based smiting
damage from an Ether Renewal driven El/Mo.

In summary, see the start of this message. Certainly you can couter
some stuff; but unless you're running several El/Mo's in your toumbs
team, you're at a 3-5x energy disadvantage. The only place that such
a solid disadvantage can lead is.... routine defeat. Certainly you may
win a few battles against an inexperienced team; but I have my bets you
won't hold the hall of heros more than once w/o at least one el/mo.

Even if you have 16 inspiration, SoH only lasts 17s, giving
your opponent a 5s window every 20s to cast (or recover);
so, at that level, you've got a 75% lock-out -- not a 100%.,
assuming your very good at renewing the signet. At a
more resonable inspiration, you're spending a good deal
of casting time and one slot to do a 40-50% lock-out.

And what is the effect? A 50-75% lockout of ER almost
brings it in-line with equivalent Elite Skills. So, you're
spending 1/4 of your PvP time (valueable time, I might
add) hunting your opponent and casting SoH -- if only
to bring ER more in line with other equivalent elite skills.

Yea; you do that. I'll run my smiting build, thank you
very much.

Mantra of inscriptions+signet of humility.

There you go 100% lockdown of ER. Drain them, survive the first dose of draw/ba, and they are nearly useless.

Yeah, running an anti-smite team is much harder than a smite team. Mes are not easy characters to play. That's why smite is so popular. Just like air spike, it's easy. It's even easier than air spike because air spike you had to have coordinated rends/chain/orbs. In smite the only hard role is a warrior and even with mediocre warriors it's not bad because you have the power to steamroll them anyway.

Uh no.

A mediocre mesmer can shutdown 1 target with ease, completely. I'm a bad mesmer because I can't stay on two targets well but I definitely can take 1 caster and make sure they never do much of anything. The mesmer anti-caster would be useless if it was a 1:1 trade.

Yeah playing a mesmer is hard, so what? A proper counter is harder to pull off but it will beat a smite build very badly.

I'll say it again:
Diversion spam one, signet of humility the other with mantra of inscriptions up and drain them. It's not that difficult of a job, no interrupts needed or anything. Tabbing isn't hard because of no spirits anymore.

Ok. So you've spent 2 slots and about 1/3 of your time (tabbing)
to keep one player's Elite Skill 100% locked-down. That's still very
far from a 100% shut-down of the El/Mo; they've got 7 other skills
you know.


I think since you're posting on this forum and on this topic, you're
probably not a medicore mesmer; you're probably in top 5-10%. You're
probably average for high-level competition, and you represent what
I've found out to be true in pratice -- it's very hard to stay on two targets.

Indeed. I usually try for 50-70% shutdown on 2 targets, for an average
of 1:1.5 trade. If I accomplish that I'm doing superbly; if I can actually do
a 90% shut-down on two targets I'm getting very lucky with build
weaknesses, or I'm facing a a very under-developed team. But hitting
a 1:2 trade is, well, perhaps something that only Blackace is capable of.

The key to being a good mesmer is not hitting 1:2 or 1:3 ratios, but
rather it is getting your shutdown time at a critical point in the game.
It's far less about how many you can shutdown, but when you can
do the shutdown.

1. You still lose 2-3s or more each time you switch targets
2. Your Signet of Humility shut-down is only partial (50%)?
3. When you switch, you make your other shut-down target at
best partial (perhaps 70%?)

Therefore, you're much closer to a 1:1 ratio than a 1:2 ratio. Perhaps
you're much better and can do an actual 100% shut-down on two targets;
that's super, you're far far better than me.

Regardless, this isn't my main point; it's a side point, and a mostly
irrelevant one. It doesn't matter if a single mesmer can shut-down one,
two or three el/mo; the issue is that ER is 3-5x more efficient than any
other energy management elite skill out there. This is just plain unfair.

Ether Renewal needs a bit of rework .

uh, since when does switching take 2-3s? you have to be a completely retarded mesmer to not be holding down the display names button while you fight to go between people. Tabbing is only useful for finding a target who's enchanted, or a target of opportunity. Switching as a mes takes me around .12s, since that's my approximate reaction time in CS to random events. the worst thing that happens is that i position myself improperly and have to change camera angle, which is rare, because i always move to areas where i can see everything that's going on.