ArenaNet talk:Skill feedback/Paragon/Shouts, Chants, and Echoes

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Skye Marin's Discussion

I totally agree with your point and think there should be a cap for the stacking of these effects. On the other hand - as you already mentioned - there are a lot of skills, that with a change in the mechanic would need to be buffed... A. von Rin 21:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

There are a lot of Paragon skills that need a serious buff anyway >.< -- Armond Warblade

My suggestion would stop abusive spamming. "For 10 seconds, the next time each ally (condition), if they aren't under the effects of another chant, (effect)." ~Shard (talk / Nerf List) 04:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

May I also note that chants aren't as much of a problem as shouts are, because they can be interrupted. I believe we should focus on shouts first.

And on another note, the Motivation party heal chants, are delayed heal parties, they are not unremovable buffs. Just a friendly reminder. Nicky Silverstar 08:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The disable chants and shouts on every party member is the best idea so far. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:85.103.187.190 (talk).

I have added a suggestion for the echoes. Making them trigger when applied will make them less micro-managementish (read: unusable unless your team has multiple people shouting) whilst, and at the same time, limiting their application to three times, so they won't be any more powerful on a multi Paragon team. Nicky Silverstar 19:02, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

@ shard you mean make chants into aoe weapon spells in a way? in that as soon as a new chant is used the old one goes away... 76.26.189.65 11:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

no that fails --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:62.13.9.2 (talk).

The problem with Paragons in general is two-fold: First is that shouts require little tactical awareness, usually being safe to spam on recharge. The second is that there are no decent counters to them. Anti-attack hexes are better-focused on frontliners that play more opportunistically, Vocal Minority needs a hex build to stick and does little more than delay them, and you need to shut them down completely for 20 seconds to remove echoes. Riotgear 21:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

How about making all or most skills that remove enchantments, remove shout or/and eccho effects aswell?--85.225.131.117 00:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Disabling shouts or chants might be hard to justify on the grounds that it would confuse players who do not regularly read the update notes (i.e. most of them) - "Why are all my chants disabled?!". A better solution might be to add a skill effect when the shout or chant ends, i.e. The memory of "Song of Restoration" is still fresh in your mind. For 15 seconds you cannot be affected again by this chant. That makes it clear to the players what is going on, and prevents multiple paragons maintaining or spamming the same shouts/chants. Paragon shouts/chants can then be rebalanced on the premise that only one paragon per team will be using them. Jbuk 16:01, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Why should we or better why should Izzy care about people that are not willing to inform about changes? But if you suggest to inform players about updates, add the info @ Login Screen with the inet address to the update notes... @ Topic: I like Shards suggestion and posted myself something similar on the old page. But changing chants, etc. to this behaviour only would be possible, if you give them really big buffs across all lines. A. von Rin 17:31, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Whilst skill balances are made primarily for the benefit hardcore PvP games, ArenaNet will not add a mechanic that confuses the casual players that presumably make the majority of users. Casual players may not play the game regularly, and as a rule will not read through long update notes/changelogs, and so when confronted with a mechanic that apparently randomly disables some of their skills will assume that the game is bugged. Posting a message on the login screen is inadequate, as it will inevitably become buried under subsequent update announcements, which casual players will not want to read through. @ Topic: I don't see how Shard's suggestion prevents powerful effects being maintained through chaining (when it wears off, another paragon casts it). Furthermore it punishes teams not relying upon a single chant by making multiple chants very difficult to use. The problem (as I understand it) is not many paragon chants/shouts stacking with each other, but multiple paragons keeping certain specific effects up all the time. Skills that are balanced by recharge if one player brings it become overpowered when multiple players bring it. Chants/shouts are particularly sensitive to this because of their party-wide effects, so it makes sense to limit the number of copies of a single skill a team may usefully bring. Limiting the number of chants/shouts that can be effect at any one moment is overkill - it doesn't stop chaining but neuters all other uses of shouts/chants (apologies if I have misunderstood how Shard's mechanic functions). Jbuk 11:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I had a very radical idea, don't know if you like it: Give all shouts, chants and echoes (except "Fear Me!") back their good stats before all the nerfs and make them end on a critical hit. They should be removed by 'crits' in the same order as hexes and enchantments are removed by skills. The only problem with the Paragons' mechanics is, that the effects they apply are unstoppable. With this change it wouldn't be (and it would also be a big buff for Sins, btw.). Please think twice before calling this idea an epic fail... ^^ A. von Rin 03:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Shouts and chants are imbalanced because they buff everyone in earshot, you can stack as many of them as you like, there are only a few specific counters, and they can't be removed or punished like enchantments.

A note about shouts

Shouts are probably the most imbalanced skill type right now. Consider this: every major defensive skilltype can be interrupted, even Weapon spells (although arguably Weapon of Warding/Shadow are a pain to deal with if not interrupted). This can't and can be used while kiting. What's worse is shouts with durations. Skills like Coward, On Your Knees, You're All Alone, Fear Me, None Shall Pass, To the Limit, Victory is Mine, I Meant to do that, and You Will die represent shouts that don't have duration and don't seem to unbalance the game for the most part if the stats themsleves are within reason (Fear Me spam once was a problem). Even some of Paragon shouts like Make Your Time, the Power is yours (completely unusable and needs a rework), and It's just a flesh wound reflect this.

Then you put in For Great Justice (duration), Charge (Party - duration), Retreat (Party - duration), Shields Up! (Party - duration), Watch Yourself (Party - duration), I will Avenge You (duration), I will survive (duration), save yourselves (duration, not PVP) and you notice a peculiar trend that many shouts with duration have been abused or heavily used.

For paragons, shouts with duration include Make Haste (other ally, duration...makes windborne speed look sad), Go for the eyes (party, end on attack and a root of much imbalance for the longest time), Never Surrender (party - duration kept in check by conditional and recharge), Stand Your Ground (party - duration kept in check by energy cost and recharge), Godspeed (Party - duration kept in check by conditional), Lead the way (target ally - duration kept in check by energy cost), Fall Back (party - duration a solid skill that is kept in check by recharge and ending on attack), Help Me (other party members- duration but plain bad), Incoming (party - duration which was once terribly imbalanced), We shall return (party-duration which is basically pointless), and They're on Fire (party - duration which is gimmicky). I am not counting PVE skills but There's Nothing to Fear falls in here.

Brace Yourself (other ally - duration with # of uses), Can't touch this (self - duration with # of uses), Find their weakness (target ally, acts like a single-target chant and is kept in check by energy cost and recharge), Never Give Up (party energy gain) are not as bad.

Beastmasters have shouts too: call of haste (duration), call of protection (duration), otyugh's cry (duration), predatory bond (duration), strike as one (self+ pet, duration), symbiotic bond(duration). I bet if those skills were strong enough they might see abuse (Otyugh's Cry I believe has been).

In general shouts with duration need to be reevaluated or change into incidental skills. --Life Infusion «T» 20:32, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

On a side note, I don't get why echos trigger on shouts also. --Life Infusion «T» 20:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Because when you shout in war people will shout the same thing and so it echoes across the battlefield and if you keep shouting then echoes will continue on. Why so much hate for shouts, another "Let's Kill Variety" Rampage?--Underwood 20:47, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Infusion has a good point that, shouts should have an immediate effect along with the immediate activation they have, thats what shouts are and should be and examples as given above. Duration shouts should be changed someway to have an immediate effect, or simply changed to a chant.

Chants should also be changed to give an effect over time, rather then one effect in a period of time. Song of purification is a good example of this, however things like song of restoration could be changed to give a healing effect over a period of time much like rejuvenation does, so basically making song of restoration give a health gain every 2 seconds for 10 seconds etc... instead of having 1 big health gain that needs to be used with a period of time.

Echoes also are a huge problem with the spamming of shouts and chants, given the above for shouts (immediate effects) shouts would no longer effect echoes as they have no durations to end for the echoes to reapply. IMO i also believe that echoes are fine as they are and rather the problems is how they reapply themself that makes them OP, To adjust this it may be better to change each echoes ending line to something similar to this ""This Echo is reapplied "FOR an additional 1...2...3 seconds" every time a Chant or Shout ends on that ally."" so instead of having an echo that reapplys its self for XX seconds each time... an addtional few seconds are added on to what they already have instead. OblivionDanny 14:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

suggestion

I agree with the disable skill suggestion partly however I would prefer if instead of disabling every skill of the same name when a shout or chant is cast instead lengthen the chant/shouts cooldown in each shouts/chants description example: for each other ally affected by "skill name" that has the this skill in its bar, this skill is disabled for an additional xx seconds. This will allow stacking for a short time frame however it will remove the enduring part that allows big para teams to stay buffed 24/7 unless alot more bring the same skill and thus lowering the general efficiency of the para only teams while not damaging the singel paragon. I think disabling all other shouts and chants in team on cast would be too drastic it would cripple the para too much, think about skills like "WY!" and "GftE!" using your suggestion the paragon e-man would go from good to worse than warriors.--85.225.130.132 07:18, 27 March 2008 (UTC)