Feedback talk:User/Raine Valen/Expertise and Primary Attribute Compensation

I like it... my W/R and D/R(trapper) would DEFINITELY appreciate it. --ilr 22:42, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the opposite: the primary attribute should be necessary to the profession and make it different from the others. This would make that a ranger is best played by a ranger and not by a N/R (like ritualist u.u). And expertise is one of the best primary attributes cause it supply the energy management of ALL ranger skills and a lot of other skill because it involve attaks (D/A) and touch (N/E/Mo).Ciotto 01:42, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The reason people run rit skills on every other class is because, with their scaling, there is functionally no difference between 12 and 14 spec. You don't need rit runes, and you don't need to dual-spec into rit lines because Restoration Magic does everything. You're mistaking balance issues caused by PAs wit those caused by imba skills themselves. Raine - talk 08:06, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

On my opion people use other classes for restoretion because ritu haven't a good energy menagment like other class (N and E) becouse a free second prof and runes are always good. But is true that they do a big error giving to rt skill that heal like a monk with 10 DF and 10 HP and have a loot of secondary big effect.--Ciotto 10:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

On a related subject,

"I think the opposite: the primary attribute should be necessary to the profession and make it different from the others."

You mean like you need Mysticism to play Dervish and Critical Strikes to play Assassin and Strength to play Warrior?

It looks like Rangers are still standing on a pretty hard double standard, tbh. Raine - talk 16:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I mean that:

• Monk heal more than other classes that use monk skills.
• Ele manage better the hight skill cost then aother.
• Warrior attack are stronger and faster (withs strenght stance).

Understand what i mean? ^_^--Ciotto 16:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I see what you're trying to say, it's just that that's not at all true with some attributes, especially Expertise and Fast Casting. Raine - talk 16:56, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Sundering Weapon + Judge's Insight > Rank_16 in Strength. Strength is in No Way required to play a Warrior effectively on a team like Expertise is for a Ranger. Infact the ranger's situation would best be compared to Warrior's only gaining Adrenaline if they had high ranks in Strength. --ilr 23:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

From what I can see the percieved problem with Expertise only ever applies to PvP. Yes Expertise is a help in reducing energy costs, but remember Rangers have a lower energy pool, and also 1 pip less energy regen as a counter-balance. So if any changes are made please be sure to apply them to PVP ONLY Anon-e-mouse 21:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Have you ever seen a warrior without strenght? Some primary attributes have low passive effects but a lot of great skills.

Your new suggestion of change expertiese now is nice ^_^.--Ciotto 20:16, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes. It was the standard before Nightfall came out, at least in PvE. On the whole, I like the general idea of making primary attributes a bonus instead of something that is required, even if that means toning down their effect a bit - but on the other hand, there should still be good incentives to play a profession as a primary of that profession rather than, say, playing a ritualist as N/Rt or a dervish as A/D. Draxynnic 04:22, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Primary Professions should be a requirement, not a bonus. If this would go for every primary profession, there wouldn't be mesmers abusing Fast Casting for Water Magic. Lots of other examples there. Dark Morphon 16:03, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I have to disagree with anyone who says Expertise needs to be nerfed. Rangers have 25 base max energy at lvl 20. Like you said, Apply Poison and Concussion Shot have high energy costs, but those are also crap because there are much better preparations and interrupts. You should also look at how many self heals that a ranger has (uh troll unguent?). If the ranger cannot maintain health easily with troll unguent and it's 3 second act time, how will he/she survive? Keeping expertise the way it is lowers the energy costs of attacks, giving the ranger ample opportunity to kill opponents before being killed themselves. Also, expertise provides blocks to keep the ranger alive in order to snipe at close range against melee. And about mesmers and fast casting, look at how many Mesmer skills have 2+ second casting time. --First Blood Seven 22:11, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

You read what I said, but obviously didn't comprehend much of it.

Let's start with the easy fallacies:

Why does it matter how many self-heals a class has if they only take one on a bar (IF that, and only for split characters!), anyway? You survive by having good backline, not by healing yourself.

Apply Poison and Concussion Shot are probably two of the best ranger skills. Apply is the most-used preparation, period, and Concussion Shot is probably the third-choice nonelite interrupt.

Now, let's move into the deeper mistakes:

Basically, expertise needs to be nerfed and ranger skills need their costs decreased.

In a similar issue, fast casting needs to be nerfed and the cast times of mesmer spells need to be made sensible.

"But why, Raine?! Expertise (FC) balances the costs of ranger (mesmer) skills (spells/signets); why do we need to change things?!"

Because only ranger (mesmer) skills are balanced with expertise (fast casting), so whenever a ranger (mesmer) uses non-ranger (non-mesmer) attack skills (spells/signets), they are much cheaper (cast much faster) than they were intended to be, and so become imbalanced.

There are two ways to fix this. You can either (1) leave ranger (mesmer) skill costs (casting times) the same and make expertise (fast casting) only affect ranger (mesmer) skills or (2) balance their skills across all professions and decrease the effect of expertise (fast casting) to reasonable levels because the extremity of their effects will no longer be needed; this also affects secondary skills, which, in turn, makes expertise (fast casting) with other weapons (spells) less broken. is for Raine, etc. 22:26, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Just make primary attributes affect skills from the primary proffession. Monks divine favor only affects monk skills. And make primary attributes more powerful (Possibly). But only to the ones that were changed. I forget how to sign. c:

That's not as fun. is for Raine, etc. 11:30, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, before anyone says that "omg rangers only have 3 pips and 25 max energy!!", you have to realize that, at 10 expertise, rangers have the equivalent of 410.66⅔ base energy and 5 pips. At 15 expertise (just using it because the math is clean; rangers run 13 or 14 in practice), they have the equivalent of 620.5½ base energy and 70.5½ pips. That's pretty retarded when rangers use non-ranger skills, tbh. is for Raine, etc. 11:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

you've put the problem concisely and easy to understand, i really like the proposal. This way the cost of various other classes' skills could get their cost reduced as well. —ZerphaThe Improver 00:00, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

In response to what you said here

I've tried to logic my way out of it on this page. Please take a look. Morphy 08:01, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Hammer wars could run savage shot at 5 energy. It isn't just for spreading poison and damage; it's a no-drawback interrupt with the same recharge as Power Return.

Apply Poison isn't only useful for spreading poison; ever seen Wounding Strike Rangers? Being an instant cover condition on everything is an extremely powerful functionality, and a lower energy cost would make that available for other professions.

Create more problems like Seeping Wound Bow? Well, you kind of killed your argument, because Seeping Wound Anything wouldn't exist in a balanced game. In fact, neither would Way of the Master.

You said that the first way eliminates R/D? Yeah, it totally does. Let's say that we went with the second way, though, just for shits and giggles. Instead of 4% per rank, let's say 2%. That means, at r14, Pious Assault is 7 Energy and Mystic Sweep is 3 Energy. That's twice what they paid for those skills before. Would rangers still be able to play R/D? Sure. Would it be much more effective than a primary dervish? Not at all. Fastcast eles are in the same boat: okay, it's cute that you can cast 1s skills in 0.8 seconds, but is that worth more than being able to use Glowing and having Energy Storage? Hardly.

Making primary attributes a bonus does take more work, sure. But the end result is a game that's not only equally as balanced, but one with more options. is for Raine, etc. 15:16, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow, sorry about this. I was discussing balance stuff with Sylv when I posted this so I completely forgot it was here. I'm going to react as this is still a relevant topic.

Savage Shot on a Hammer Warrior or any other frontline build for that matter is a bad idea because you can't really benefit from the 5 recharge or even interrupt reliably without having to be in your bow set frequently, which gravely decreases your DPS and adrenaline gain. If anything, this is worse for Hammer Warriors than it is for midliners. Besides, if this truly was a strong choice, you'd see it on Ranger frontline bars a hell of a lot more.

Apply Poison is strong in that build because it benefits from the Scythe's AoE, meaning you actually CAN spread Poison with it. The fact that it also covers Deep Wound and Bleeding whenever you spread those with Wounding Strike is a nice bonus. I highly doubt that an instant cover would be worth kicking Shock out for on an Axe bar, though, and I'm surprised to see that you do. I'll use this argument again because it's so easy, if that was really worth it people would have used it on Rampage as One Axe builds.

Concerning Seeping Wound Bow, this is true, but what I'm trying to demonstrate here is this: as soon as an abusable skill like Seeping Wound would get introduced, this would start causing problems.

Concerning R/D builds, the problem here is that these builds are mindless. Regardless of how effective they are, they will always cause an imbalance on some level while not ever being in a situation that they're balanced. Same goes for FC Water Magic: regardless of what numbers you pick, the reduced cast time will always make the skills harder to interrupt and thus decrease skill in the game.

One final note, if there's only two or three skills that would be proper secondary skills, why not just use an ad hoc solution, decreasing the energy cost and punishing Expertise attribute investment? You did it with your Mass Balance version of Dodge. Ideally, you'd want to catch all the primary/secondary related subjects in one convenient system (which I believe my version is), but making exceptions won't do any harm. Morphy 15:39, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

PS. I have moved the content of my article to this page.

Your argument is invalid. Having Savage Shot on a hammer bar wouldn't require camping a bow set any more than Wild Throw requires camping a spear set.

Ranger frontline bars either (1) don't run Apply Poison because they don't have room for it (RaO or Enraged Lunge) or (2) actually DO run it (WS). A sword warrior with Apply would be strong (Cripslash with 2 covers and 7 degen?); it probably wouldn't see use on an Axe or Hammer bar because they're not used for that kind of pressure. Assassins could use it (even with a non-retarded jagged strike) for condipressure. Paragons *do* use it. Dervishes with WS would almost certainly go for it.

There's no problem with mindless builds; there's a problem with effective mindless builds. Reward should be proportional to effort: if there's a build that takes little effort to master and play, it should have little effectiveness.

An ad hoc solution could work, but it's half-assed. Simply fixing the attribute would be cleaner and more universal. — Raine Valen 20:15, 17 Jul 2010 (UTC)

Not quite. Wild Throw has a 7 adrenaline cost, which is comparable more with Distracting Shot's recharge, which would actually be a much more reasonable choice for Hammer Warriors. Furthermore, as opposed to an interrupt which needs to be used when an opponent uses a skill, Wild Throw can be used whenever the user needs it, meaning you don't actually have to be in your Spear set before using the skill. Other than that, Spears accumulate adrenaline faster than Hammers so it makes sense to be in your Spear set for other stuff every once in a while, again unlike Bows.

You're contradicting yourself here. You say that RaO builds don't use it because they don't have room for it then in the second sentence you say Axe/Hammer bars won't use it because it doesn't match their pressure style, which seems to me a lot more logical explanation. Spears and Scythes combo well with Apply Poison as their main role is to spread stuff, but these weapons currently aren't used in proper builds, which makes it troublesome to really do statements about them. That leaves use with Cripslash sword builds, which is somewhat interesting as that build is supposed to spread Cripple and Bleeding while still performing standard Warrior roles. Yeah, that could work. Wouldn't expect it to become meta but it's definitely an option, which we can't single out.

I think the gap between FC Water Magic and conventional Elementalist builds on one side and R/A and R/D and standard Assassins and Dervishes on the other would still be too small, though, and I don't see why you would actually want builds that are mindless and contradict balance to stay in the game. There's simply no advantage to it.

Last point (and this concerns Apply Poison as well), these systems are purely there for convenience. If there's only one gap in the system then I'll gladly make an exception for that one skill. Morphy 13:57, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Hammer warriors can and do use distracting shot (though not usually in GvG because Wild Throw is so good, and they don't have a secondary or skill slot for it in HA). It's very easy to switch to a bow set after a quarterknock to interrupt skills, or to use a bow while not in melee range of any targets. If savage were 5 energy, it could fill the same niche. Warriors being on spear set frequently actually has little to do with hammer wars' usage of wild throw: no one uses stances while warriors are spearing them, so a swap is always required.

There's no contradiction at all. Unless you're of the opinion that a RaO axe/hammer is used for the same sort of pressure as an axe/hammer warrior? Hint: lack of bull's strike on the bar says a lot. RaO is about damage damage damage and training training training a target with 2 interrupts or a KD and daze. Axe/Hammer warriors are about shutdown and spikes (have you ever used Body Blow? Magehunter's Smash?).

At the same time, swords are between the two: you apply cripple and damage damage damage until they get protted, then go do it again to someone else and leave a mess for monks to clean up. There's a reason that Shock (and some even say Bull's) is optional on sword bars; Apply works here.

There would be a gap between E/X and Me/E builds, and a gap between D/X and R/D and A/D builds: the primary playing their primary would be harder, but would have the advantages of bigger atts and the utility offered by their primaries (which generally match the purpose of the profession: dervs have Heart of Fury, eles have energy management). Yeah, Me/E with power return would be cute, but would it be as effective as an ele with Glowing Ice? Not a chance.

Requiring less skill than an alternative isn't imbalanced. Requiring less skill than an alternative while being equally as effective or more so is imbalanced. The point of nerfing the primary atts while buffing the primary skills is so that the R/D and A/D that exist today don't continue to exist: they currently offer huge advantages over the opposite profession choice, and they wouldn't continue to do so. — Raine Valen 17:04, 18 Jul 2010 (UTC)

My point is, Distracting Shot is a stronger skill than Savage Shot and doesn't require you to switch weapons and be in aftercast nearly as often, costing you less adrenaline on the long run, unless you just use it as frequently as you use Dshot, but in that case you're sacrificing shutdown for nothing. There simply is no reason to take Savage Shot over Distracting Shot for this purpose, let alone over Wild Throw or other utility skills.

Concerning Axe/Hammer stuff, I mean it more like this: If you're running an RaO Axe build, you're not going to switch targets unless your target comes under heavy protection. Apply Poison won't help much with that, so it's not just the "doesn't fit into your bar" part. When you said Axe/Hammer builds, I assumed you meant builds featuring these weapons, which includes the RaO builds. A misreading from my part. Apply Poison would certainly work on Crippling Slash builds, I think we agree on that. Question is, though, would it be good for the game? Do we really want Crippling Slash Warriors to have a double covered Cripple and covered Deep Wound? Just seems like another promotion for heavy Hex/Condition builds that require no skill.

Mesmers have Inspiration Magic (which they can spec in at the cost of Fast Casting) and access to another important E-management skill: Water Attunement. The main reason people ran regular Elementalists over FC was the existence of Mirror of Ice and the fact that Mesmers couldn't use it. Remove that and there isn't much difference (although the Mesmer bar is easier to play): Mesmers can cast shit faster and Elementalists get to have a higher attribute, while both have proper energy management. They really aren't that far apart. I personally would fix this by limiting the Attunements to Elementalists and just leaving the entire Fast Casting attribute the same, but I don't have much problems with how Anet handled it either as secondary skills like Gale are still perfectly usable and don't require the FC bonus at all.

As for R/A and R/D builds, Rangers have Lightning Reflexes and in case of R/D also Natural Stride. The lack of Heart of Fury is easily compensated by that, especially since it adds more survivability. Your change would mostly leave things as they are for the WS and JS/FF builds: energy costs go up from 2 to 3, but this isn't enough to make energy management problematic and the build would still have very strong survivability.

Skills that require less skill but are also congruent in effectiveness on lower levels will always be outclassed by the more skill requiring skill on higher levels. That's still an imbalance: the less skill requiring skill would be "underpowered". If the purpose of this change is to make A/D and R/D builds ceize to exist and if both ways succeed in that, my way of changing would be equal to yours on this aspect. Morphy 15:12, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The purpose isn't to make them cease to exist; the purpose is to make them (1) not stronger than a primary and (2) not stronger than a harder-to-play build. — Raine Valen 19:37, 21 Jul 2010 (UTC)

Which is the same as killing it. Glad we reached an agreement. Morphy 09:29, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

"Shitters don't exist."

Yeah, okay. — Raine Valen 22:44, 19 Nov 2010 (UTC)

{ri}5 months later, I still don't see why you prefer breaking their toys over taking them away. Looking back, I think I could have done a much better job defending my opinion, but I don't think you convinced me to change it. Morphy 17:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)