Reasons for change (and a bit of rant)

Ah...the latest update. Guild Wars is kind of like the really crappy ex-girlfriend you've been on and off with for the past 10 years. One minute she is a complete utter psycho bitch, the next, you just want to spend all of your time with her.

Recently, GW had a nice massive update, and it has turned from 'utter bitch' to 'don't leave me please...I need you...I love you!'. Only thing missing is the pink flowers and the box of chocolates in front of the computer.

However, as with every update with every game out there, they are those who complain about the changes. The nerfs, the interface, the buffs, and so forth.

Case in point, the profession that got whacked with the nerf bat more then Max Payne, the almighty mesmer, caused a huge stir among the mesmers out there.

People complain about the whole 'energy denial' thing being a thing of the past. You couldn't be further then the truth.

Energy denial, pre-update, could've been with two skills. You could use energy drain + arcane echo and you would shut down an entire build. Not only that, but you still had full energy, allowing you to continue mess around with the team. In other words, you RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed up an entire character on the field, without any real damage to yourself, but you can continue harassing the rest of the team.

When you make a build, you need to focus on counters, defences, and offences. If you wanted to be VERY good at a specific offence, you would focus the majority of your skillbar on it. A *good* interrupt ranger would, for example, need to bring three or four interrupts. An ele would need to bring more than two skills to be considered a threat on the field.

So why should the mesmer be able to be threat, shut down an entire class, with only two skills? If you want to play energy denial now, you need to use *gasp*, other skills like energy burn, power leak, and so forth. An interrupt ranger cannot be good with only two interrupt, so a mesmer shouldn't be energy denial shouldn't be good with just two.

Yes, the mesmer got slapped with the nerf bat, but they are still playable. If you want to do enery denial, you need to invest into more then just two skills.

Moving right along, the ranger. Some nice buffs here and the change of the interrupts.

As a hardcore ranger, I'll say this for the record: I'm glad they got smacked with the nerf bat. The interrupting spiking was mildly retarded and only those who complain about it were never, ever good with the ranger anywho. I play an awesome interrupt, and now with the recent 'read the wind' buff (a change that should've happened in release), I can use my recurve bow to interrupt the holy hell out of monks, necros, and eles in a large crowd of people. If I play my game right, I will single handly screw up an entire class while the other team scrambles wondering what the hell is going on and why they aren't getting healed. Concussion ftw.

Monks had some buffs and nerfs as well. A lot of people complained about the recent aegis nerf, and I'm here to say that this is something that should've happened a long time ago.

Aegis, much like nature's renewel, shut down classes. You were literally immune to warriors and rangers, shutting those classes down with a single enchantment. Yes, they are specific skills that can go through the 'blocking', however they were hardly enough damage to even make the monk flinch. It was a shutdown protection.

The matter of the fact is, most monk spells have very fast casting, so there isn't much room for counters or interrupts. Rend enchantments, while awesome, had a long recharge. Strip enchantment and shatter only work if the monks didn't have something on top of aegis. And even if aegis did disappear, a smart prot monk would slap in guardian, giving it enough time to cast another aegis (cycle aegis). Now with the two second casting, prot monks need to smart and know when to cast it when they are free from mesmers and interrupt rangers. A good player will know when to use their skills, while the bad one simply bashes the buttons and hopes the target dies (or lives)

Guild wars is somewhat like chess. You need to think your moves before you execute them. You need to do combos, defences, counters, and offences. You can decieve your enemies, overwhelm them with offence, or tire them out.

Which brings me to my next wonderful point. Why is it that more then half the builds or 'needs' out there are really crappy all-offensive builds with little to no defence?

The infamous W/R. Yes, you can deal an insane amount of damage, assuming your victim doesn't move the opposite direction or you get hexed by shadow of fear. In a sense, the W/R is everyone's bitch. They go out all offensive, yet do not have any defences against conditions, hexes, or even running away. Yet this is probably one of the most requested builds out there.

Why kids? I mean, I even asked a group leader who wanted a W/R, and he said 'he wanted someone who can deal damage'. When I told him my W/mes build, one that can deal some decent damage, doesn't require ald build up, can give defence to his own team, and remove hex/enchantments, he automatically told me I sucked ass and shouldn't be playing warrior.

Let's just forgot the fact that I used this guy in team arena and got 40 consective wins. Rangers had nothing on our team.

Let me tell you a little trade secret when it comes to make a good build: A good build is the one that will have some sort of defence, yet make enough offence to be a threat. My W/mes has only TWO attack skills, but even though he doesn't use deep wound, crippling, or bleeding, if I start banging onto the monk, he is going to start healing himself. Not incredible damage, but enough to be considered a problem for the team.

If your build starts relying on the monks too much...guess what? You'll die. I've seen mesmers who use inspiration laugh at me when I suggested to put spirit of failure in their build. Rangers who refuse to use dryder's defence or lightning reflexes, yet they think conjure flame is going to save them from an axe warrior. No price of failure on a cursing necro? You're dead.

This is why teams lose. People don't like the idea of not killing a target within a 0.5 seconds, yet when they face a defensive team, they die and start blaming each other.

A good build is the one with offences, defences, and counters. As well as being STRONG in the role they play for the team build. The more you burdern the monks, the bigger chance you'll die quickly. Monks are nothing more then a SAFETY NET for when the shit hits the fan. They are not there for your well-being, you are. Defensive skills and counters allow you to delay the death so the monks would be like "WTF...gotta heal that biatch".

Marky out.

- Mark Iradian
Writer of Chronicles of Garas (a dark tech fantasy webcomic)

very good post, the point you made about energy denial was the perfect explanation of why they nerfed it.

An excellent read. Very great points.

two thumbs up, man.

Without doubt one of the best posts I've ever read on these forums !
Thank's for sharing

nice to see someone with their head screwed on right.

good man.

Sweet post.

That's an incomplete analysis. The OP didn't play out the entire scenario with energy denial Mesmers.

Firstly, AE+Energy Drain was a max -21Ex2. Only Rangers and Warriors, the least likely targets of a dual E.Drain, would be at 0E. My Mesmer has a 55E/69E setup sop I was always able to function in this scenario. As a sometime Energy Denier myself, before if I used AE+E.Drain (<--- an elite, which is MEANT to have impact), I'd take the enemy down to low energy, that's supposedly a problem right? But then what? I can't use that combo again for at least 50 seconds so how was this an abusive issue?

An Energy Drain under AE can only be used once during AE's 20 seconds, then AE has to recharge another 30 seconds or a total of 50 seconds recharge per use. In the meantime, my target lost a max -42E, but in 10 seconds a caster will have gotten back 13E, and after 20 secs a total of 26E is added to his pool which wasn't drained. By the time I can come around 50 seconds later to do the combo to him again, he will have gotten an added 65E naturally. He was hardly shut down for the length of a match (I need more energy denial skills for that), and during that 50 second span I am unable to do it to anyone else.

How does that require the nerf it received? If you truly wanted to control the energy of multiple targets, you always had to bring in a lot of related spells, but your damage output was low so it was fair. And while losing 20% energy from a lot of casts is tough on an enemy I agree, it's not nearly as bad as being out of 80% health and is quicker to recover.

I've been drained of all my energy before but I can get back to work in as much time as it takes to wait out a Back Fire hex on me. The nerf was far more severe than needed to E.Tap and E.Drain. The 30 second recharge change would've been a balanced approach if they just left the drain amount on the enemy alone.

Elites are supposed to be powerful, but they are not supposed to be "end all, be all" of skills.

Lingering curse is powerful, but a simple hex removal will get rid of it.

Eviscerate is awesome, but can be evaded or block, and requires heavy ald.

The thing is, energy drain and tap had no counter to it. The only way to defend against an e-drainer is to simply drain them back.

And even though you don't completely drain the target, the point is that they are denied that energy, while you get your energy back. Was there any real sacrifice in your part? No. You used your skills, screwed him up, and you still have your energy. You can now energy burn another target, back fire another, or use diversion. Meanwhile, your victim has to wait to recharge. By the time he is fully charged, guess what? E-drain again.

What made it worse is that even monks could play energy denial as well.

Anyone with any experience in PvP, including top guilds like IVEX and Nuclear Launch Detected would back me up on this. Energy denial is a very powerful tactic, but the pre-update made it too powerful.

Each character in a build serves a specific purpose, whether as a support, damage , disruption, healing, etc.

Each character in any build should be dedicated to one or perhaps two of these tasks, anymore and you are diversifying your skills too much to be effective. So for example the W/Mo premade has both the capability to attack with a sword and heal, but what is the point as an attack class if you can't deal enough damage to force monks to react with more than an orisons or two on your target? And at the same time you won't be able to heal an ally (or yourself) as well as a monk, mainly because of class constraints. So you now have character that can't do anything in particular well, and 2 roles rather poorly.

That is not to say that you can't have particular character have a dual role, but the options are limited b/c of class constraints and how the skills work together. Having a spike build(blood, ranger, warrior take your pick)coupled with enchantment removal or some potent hex(es) will work well, but having that same build along with say, hex removal or healing won't work as well, to provide some examples.

To run contrary to what you declared in your conclusion, the more you divesify and water down your build with over redudant skills the less you will be able to accomplish, having everyone on your team be self sufficient in terms of healing and conditions means you won't be able to put a dent in the other team. Defensive skills on non-priority targets in your build serves only to delay the inevitable and having everyone on your team have a form of defense detracts from their role in the team build ever so much. You state that the best builds are strong in all three categories, while this would be true if it was possible, it simply isn't.

The problem with edrain and tap were the fact they drained AND gave you energy. They are skills that made the rest of your bar better, while still screwing someone else. They decided to make the 'screw' part lesser, and that's perfectly fair. You can still use these skills to add energy to yourself to allow you to use your other skills more often.. but they do have a lesser effect on the opponent.. as they should. If you want to deny energy, there are still great options out there for you and even easier than before with the ease of interuption.

As for the warrior with limited damage ability... yah.. not too bright. The build itself should have counters, defense, offense, etc.. but you still have to have a level of specialization to make yourself efficient and effective. While you do make it more difficult to shut down when you have less specified roles, you're also much less powerful.

I don't like war/r and I do think a warr can add something else to it's bar that's utility.. but that should be done while still maintaining a high damage output.

I agree with all of that except necros needing price of failure.

Actually, necros could make warriors kill themselves easily. For example, POF, guardian, another evade skill, insidious parasite, etc.

I really like soloing warriors with my necro. I have quite enough tricks up my sleeve to never run out of energy while dealing massive damage. BTW I despise mesmers =)

FOr a support oriented necro POF is an excellent addition. It simply depends on what type of build you are after.

So to end, I agree and disagree at the same time

I wish people would realize that damage necros are the best for taking out heavily armored targets such as warriors and rangers. The damage ignores armor and kills very quickly. Now eles are typically the best for taking out weaker armored targets. Ele's damage takes armor into account, so you want to use eles on things that don't have armor, like monks, necros, mesmers and other eles, making them a very nice all around addition to your build.

Ahh well I'm getting way off topic and I only mentioned 2 classes. ok I'm done

@op Excellent post BTW

End all be all? Please, point to ONE POST in this entire website (from before the change) that cried for Energy Drain nerf. Show me one! It was already fair because it took a decent amount and had a decent recharge. The target is somewhat screwed up TEMPORARILY (plus he still has other energy), and is in full health. I took up 3 slots and have to wait 50 seconds to do the combo again.

There's a reason why there is no complaints about the old version. There's a reason why the game isn't swarming with AE Energy Drainers. It's because it was a nice technique to do but in no way even close to being overpowered. One gimp to the skill is one thing, but two gimps (50% less drain, 50% longer recharge) is absolutely ridiculous.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...t=energy+drain
"It is come to my attention that PvP has been hitting down the crapper lately, yet again. Ether Renewal is still a godly elite among elementists, smites are still around, IWAY is the new deal, newbs think all ranger builds work, energy drain, and GvG has become of game of "let's masterbate furiously for 30 minutes since those five monk/mesmers are now playing energy denial healers.""

"As for the EP build, what they do is get Mo/Me with energy drain, and simply stall the other team and drain them. You can't kill them, and they won't kill you. They stall until Victory or Death, when all the NPCs move away from the positions, and the three attackers on EP will gank your lord."

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...t=energy+drain
"Energy denial is imo a pretty big issue. When concerning shutdown, you have a couple of choices: hexes like guilt/shame (screwed somewhat by NR), interrupts like power leak, and energy denial like edrain. But I honestly don't see that these are balanced at all. Energy Drain, Debilitating Shot, and Fear me! are the top 3 energy denial skills and can be tailored to make edenial far stronger than normal shutdown. With interrupts you have to be skilled and react fast. Doesn't leave much room for errors without something like arcane connundrum on. Hexes are vulnerable to removal. A big part of that is that like Blackace said, energy management skills are mostly elite and those that aren't elite (like attunements) are not the greatest thing. And the best way to shutdown an elite is with signet of humility."

http://www.guild-hall.net/forum/show...=energy+denial
Energy drain wins the poll with 62 votes.

http://www.guild-hall.net/forum/show...=energy+denial
"We completely drained out basicly everyone except their warriors."

"Yes it is overpowered along with a number of other elites being underpowered or just crap this skill becomes the only viable elite skill for a number of classes. Mesmers are basically required to use this elite skill because all of the other skills are pointless and all healing monks should be using this skill seeing as how it is the best form of energy management on the market.

Also any other profession speccing as an anti caster or any class having energy issues is basically required to use this skill due to the other poor options of energy management. So while it is overpowered I would like other skills buffed instead of nerfing this one.

P.S. your build didn't really show why it is over powered since we couldnt see the enemies energy but it did do a good job of showing how it outclasses all other energy elites in the game. Barring ether renewel anyway because that skill is 10 times worse than e drain will ever be."

"ED's the most overpowered skill in the game."


Enough?

Come back to me when your monks have Arcane Conundrum, backfire, and conjure phastasm, while your elementist is getting drained, your necro is busy getting his ass kicked by an interrupt ranger, and your precious W/R cannot do anything because he has shadow of fear and is crippled.

It's because of players like you and your one-track mind that the quality of PvP players is seriously lacking.

Another thing, don't twist my words around. I never said anything about healing. I said counters and defences, as in Spirit of Failure to make those warriors miss, stances evade blows or run, and hex removals when the monks are getting bombared with them.

Hell, if you play a W/R, bring a freaking antidote signet.

Yeah they can, if you plan on doing an entirely anti-tank.

if I plan on bringing a curse necro, I'll bring shadow of fear or price of failure just in case there is warrior train on our target OR they are after me.

This is called defence, aka "delaying the inevitable". A monk does not have super human reflexes.

I really disagree here.

An illusion mesmer will do a much better job pwning the warrior then a necro. They have many snares, degen, both things a warrior cannot stand (and something that totally ignores armor)

Well, that's not really entirely true. a Necro combined with the right other profession will take out a Warrior just aswell. I'm building a Hydro/Necro lately. He seems like he'll be best suited to anti-tanking.

It sounds like you're coming from competition arenas. Antidote signet, with martyr, draw, restore, and mend available? I don't think so. Your warrior was called a noob for a reason. There are jobs done better by other team members, and watering yourself down so you can do a few jobs poorly, isn't going to win you anything.

My new sigil today says you're wrong.

EDIT: Btw, do you know remove hex and purge conditions require nothing in monk attributes, right?

Eh ignore me, posted late.

My quote:

They aren't crying for a nerf... they are showing one of many effective strats in the game. Even if it needed toning down, nerfing it with two separate gimps is too much.

The other two quotes weren't from this site as I asked, but the poll is interesting I must say. E.Drain though was hardly "the most overpowering skill" since by it self it was max -21E every 20 seconds.

EDIT: Read the posts in the poll and many say it was stupid without Ether Renewal as a choice, and people say they were voting for E.Drain even though none of the choices needed a nerf. In other words, it was an annoying skill to many but hardly worth gutting so hard in the update.

Ah I remember it wasnt too long ago when W/R's were put down as the worst Warrior combo on these boards...Before the whole IWAY craze. Funny stuff.

But Marky makes a lot of sense...you should all listen to him. *grovel*

Running a Warrior that doesn't focus on damage is kind of like putting Chain Lightning on a monk. It could be useful from time to time, but at the price of crippling your ability to perform your primary role.

Let the defense people handle defense. Let damage people focus on damage. Let assist people assist. They're all better in their niche than anyone else could hope to be.

Those don't seem to be calls for a nerf/balance?

I'm not saying "lets mix everything up"

I'm saying have SOMETHING to save yourself at times. One or two skills at least. Stances, signets, whatnot. The rest of your build can be your role in the team build.

This is my ranger build that I use in pvp, both tombs and arena.

Kindle arrow, conjure flame, poison arrow (e), dual, precision, lightning reflexes, dryder's defence, res.

I can dodge shit for around 20 second, attack a bit faster, deal some NICE damage, and degen people. I can't remove hexes or conditions, but at least if rangers or warriors start chasing me around, they won't hit me.

I can make my bow vampiric to deal additional damage also, since kindle turns the arrows to fire, which I can use for conjure flame.

So not only have I made a build that deals nice damage and can degen people, but I can also save myself sometimes for crazy warriors or that fire ele who thinks he can take down a ranger (20 damage meteors ftw)

Sorry, but if you need more then 6 attack skills you're not a very good player imho. I've instinctively always followed the same pattern that the TS advocates, its common sense imho to be able to do at least some self healing and/or have an ability to get out of dire trouble.

If you want to be one that relies solely on monks to save your hide I can pretty much guarantee you'll be the first one to die when the monks are interrupted, running for their lives or otherwise engaged just as you need healing badly.

A Monk will always be better at healing, that isnt his point though, he simply states that self healing/protection/evasion skills are worth a slot(s) on your bar at any time.

Yes lets sacrafice a skill slot that may be used to further a team build and place a skill in its place that may buy you another .001 second of time, because not all teams are filled with idiots and that rigor mortis/warrior's cunning is going to make a mockery of your defense.

Now granted if there is a critical character in your build (like the flag runner in gvg) that is expected be self sufficient or an aggro magnet, then it maybe wise to have something that can keep in running when all that flak is flying at him. Other than that you just wasted a skill slot that will just cause the enemy to either ignore and target switch or just counter.

Yay lets throw up a bunch of hypothetical situations and call it an argument.
I suppose me and my teammates are going to be sitting there sipping tea while getting hexed and attacked as well. Lets have the enemy be all anti-caster mesmers and I'll bring monks and elementalists!

On a more serious note hex removal on multiple characters, especially non priority ones can be a good idea depending if you have room in your build, I never said anything to the contrary, so don't put words in my mouth either.

[sarcasm]
But yeah, bring gladiators defense, your whirling defenses, because thats going to change the tide of battle alright
[/sarcasm]

You obviously didn't play much top 50 GvG before the patch. The reason boards weren't swarming with "nerf ED" posts is because in tombs and general GvG it's better to just wander in and smash anything that gets in your road, so 99% of the population never saw a problem with it. If you look at the patch notes, almost every energy denial skill got some form of rebalancing (with a few exceptions, guilt even got a buff, but that was needed). The reason for that is the high level GvG was quickly degenerating into a "who can instigate energy lock faster" situation. I would say that without the changes, the tournament would have ended up being Energy Wars, which is neither fun to play nor watch.

Here's a reasonably solid pre-patch GvG EDenial build

Oath Shot
Serpents Quickness
Arcane Mimicry
Arcane Echo
Echo
Debil Shot
Sig of Weariness

Personally I'd say the main problem with that build lies with Mimicry, but the fact that you can drain 100+ energy every 20 seconds shows that the skill needed some form of change. The fact that it's only useful denial in a denial focussed setup now is a good thing.

Unless they tell me something specific (e.g. frozen soil, favorable winds, etc), I don't really see the need to change my sample build. I deal damage, have something that goes through prot spells, and degen. And this is just me, a lone ranger. Imagine if i have 7 other people with me.

As for warrior's cunning, it's true that its a counter for stances. But by your logic, we should just throw away enchantments and aegis since "rigor mortis" and "warriors cunning" can be used on them.

Just remember that mesmers and rangers can interrupt that aegis. Can you seriously say to me that your healing monks will be able to handle that if aegis weren't up?

It could if I was the interrupt ranger countering their freaking necro, prot monk, or fire ele.

Well you obviously thought well enough of countering people's defenses, otherwise you wouldnt bring rigor mortis/warrior's cunning. If you're calling people idiots for bringing defenses yet you're bringing those two skills to counter those defenses then doesnt that make you an idiot as well? I mean why bring counters against supposedly idiotic defenses then?

If good teams dont have some form of defense then why are you bringing those counters? Why waste those slots then?

You yourself aren't saying it's so much E.Drain (the mimic'd spell I presume) but the effectiveness of the overall setup. Your suggestion to instead address A.Mimic would've helped solved the problem (maybe a 25E cost and/or 3 second cast, and/or only 10 seconds of use per cast), as would adjusting Oath Shot (make it for Ranger skills only). I still say that E.Drain/E.Tap didn't need a double hit when other tweaks to abusive energy denial builds could've still been effective.

echo and oath shot are both elite.

I played your team. I wasn't impressed. If you base a build around your philosophy of watering down everyone and taking stances on rangers and warriors.. you're not winning the hall.

Exactly. If you're focused on as a ranger or warrior.. GOOD! Why have a stance that discourages it.. to make them want to switch targets to a weaker party member.

You run the same build in tombs and arena? That's not a team build then, that's just you saying.. here's what I'm doing.. take it or leave it. I'd go with leave it.

That wasn't my team build...a friend asked me to play an interrupt ranger. And I never said anything about putting defensive stances on warriors. You're obviously not thinking straight if you think thats what I mean.

Try again.

Just my two cents, but it seems like a lot of the arguing over whether or not to make a 'balanced' character or a character who is solely dedicated to one role (damage, healing, interruption, etc) ignores the fact that the different PvP types necessitate different builds. In the 4v4 arenas (especially CA) I'd agree that you usually want to have a couple skills to get you out of a jam even if you have a dedicated healer on your team, just like you always want to bring a res sig. In 8v8 the # of ppl gives a greater emphasis to specialization. For instance a lot of 'balanced' teams run 3 monks for healing/condition/hex removal, and in that case it becomes a bit redundant for the damage dealers in that group to also be running defensive spells, when they need to be concentrating on focusing their fire and dealing as much damage as possible. This is an oversimplification of 8v8 of course, but I think the principal is valid.

nm miss read the quoute

but if I had to guess the build he Arcan mincry echo letting him have 2 elites and then echoing oath shot. but even taking out echo I could easily make a build that could do the same thing.

GG.

The whining over EP's build isn't over ED. ITS NEVER BEEN THAT. its the fact that they camp and wait for VoD, while putting up a 5 monk defence. with 5 monks, they can simply wait, grind away at your npcs, leave a few monks to tend the lord, and send the rest to heal the npc swarm that's going after your guild lord at 45 minutes.

Energy drain served as a way for them to lock down one or two annoying targets for long enough to allow them to keep on top of heals. 5 copies of guilt could just as easily have done the trick. 5 copies of fertile could have cheesed the living hell out people too.

Top 50 gvg has always been characterized by hex heavy builds, huge upfront damage, or endurance builds. ed works VERY well in those situations, but lets remember: every time you use ED, you run the risk of draining a dry target, and as such leaving yourself quite boned for energy.

More to the point, if you're in top 50 gvg, you know that people protect themselves from drain by keeping themselves at base energy until they need their reserves. Monks don't have to run around with their staves if it means they put up 20 energy as a treat for whomever's around.

oh wait, does that mean that this elite can be easily countered by taking off your weapon and playing smart?

Does this sound like the same reasons that people give for saying that malaise and wither are terrible?

Uh oh...

Just a note, edrain and arcane echo is a very finicky "combo": it hits hard for 40~ energy, but then it does nothing for a long long time. on top of that, if countered by the above method, it does almost nothing to a target that has been targetted for denial previously. Most importantly, however, it cannot stop most conventional methods of energy creation: zealous weapon attacking, subbed bip/offering on a necro, counter drain, channeling, ViM, the glyphs... etc... So in sum, it gets you down, but has no way in hell of keeping you there. Especially since you aren't running panic.

speaking of panic, add insp hex to the list of conventional methods of e-creation.

If you cannot have an effective damage build using only 4 or 5 skills, you are not doing something right. You don't need all 7 to do damage. In fact, if you decide to use all 7, you will probably run out of eng quickly in battle.

Actually Tiger's Fury W/R's were on the scene when Yin An Yang won halls with them, definitely NOT IWAY.

Even with a domination based drain, it was slowed down tremendously, in addition to being a nearly direct energy used to energy drained and still not doing consistant damage. At the same time they made it alot harder to keep a character low->out of energy with the reduction in drain for ether feast. The multiplyng thing doesnt bother me so much for tap as much as the 10s slowdown it was hit with. Domination based drain also requires nearly the entire skillbar, compared to debilitating shot spam, which is closer to half the skill bar and is relativly consistant damage. I think the biggest blow was the utility use for energy drain, where there is no real point in using it and changing over to offering of blood instead.

Leak is useful, but not reliable as it is only one counter every 20s and can't catch the snap casts allowing monks to do their thing unhinderd, but with the change to glyph of renewal that really isnt an issue anymore. 1-5e healing spells for everyone forever. It would basically be like trying to shut down a ranger permenantly with energy drain, hard to impossible.

The slowdown in reuse along for inspiration with the slow down in use for domination, combined with the less drawn via inspiration is what really caused it. 2 skills is not what kept someone shut down that way, but it went a long way to getting them to that point.

Or just use mantra of resiliance, if they choose to retain their mesmer secondaries and drop energy drain for tap, since at lower levels there is little to no different between the two.

Warriros cant deal with conditions or hexes, while rangers have some conditions removed. W/E is everyone's bitch though when it comes to those things. People talk about teamplay and having support characters, but it doesnt always work out well like that as the support characters are targeted first causing survival over support to be an issue.

Same reason why flare spam or a tanking warrior isnt a real winner in the big picture. Play to the class's strengths not its weaknesses.

Spirit and price of failure doesnt do much on their own and takes up time the mesmer or necro could be doing something else. Seriously though, why even bother with price of failure, when you can slow their attack speed and cause weakness to an area. If you say put it on top of those, then you arent gettting much out of price of failure as the attack speed reduction reduces the effectiveness of price of failure for the cost and time spent applying it to every individual target.

There are only 8 skills to be placed on the bar and not all defensive skills are made equal to offensive or disruption skills available to a given class.

Explain the ranger like energy use from monks now post patch, while nerfing energy drain pretty much across the board. Guilt and shame are more inspiration than domination though in function, but still are played similar to diversion requiring the target to do something, which makes it akin to power leak with only affecting certain spell types, recycling slower and casting alot slower.