Talk:Ursan Blessing/Archive 2

Pulled from GuildWars.com "Skills

If attributes and the distribution of attribute points sketch out your character in broad strokes, skills are where you apply the finely painted detail to your heroic creation. You can check out all of the skills your character currently knows by hitting the K key or going to the main menu and selecting Skills. You can equip up to eight skills at once, creating a unique character "build" ready to handle most any situation. Most skills are linked to a particular attribute, and also carry a subtype such as Stance, Spell, Hex, or Shout."

ArenaNets Thinking.. Or wait... Scratch that idea, let's allow ursan Blessing to be used by 99% of all the groups forming in any and every area of Guild Wars... Scratch the 5+ year old principle and FOUNDATION of the game's creation to have to use SKILLS to accomplish your goal. Lets have everyone use ursan, and they can make a build arround Ursan blessing that allows them to stay in the form longer or use the skills faster. Um... We all know that the staff positions have been changed around a bit, but its apparent the new folks at ARENANET don't know, or don't remember the BASIC foundation of the game. If its not blatently obvious that a skill is overpowered when 99% of all groups use it on EVERY position slot except those that heal the group, then something is very wrong. At one point I was looking forward to buying Guild Wars 2, I really was, I thought it would be epic, but the TOTAL lack of care, and responsibility taken to maintain balance in Guild Wars 1 makes me second guess the outcome of Guild Wars 2. Why spend another 10,000 hours playing Guild Wars 2, if a few years into that game also, a godmode skill is introduced, the very foundations of Guild Wars 2, that ANET are working to set RIGHT NOW, will be broken, forgotten, trampled, and destroyed. The attitude toward guild wars 1 is a complete disgrace. --192.251.103.17 15:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about, if you don't like it, don't use it. It's as simple as that. There's nothing forcing you to wreck your precious "game balance" by using PvE skills, just stick to normal ones and you'll have plenty of challenge. A lot of people like playing Ursan, why should they forfeit their fun just because people like you have a pole stuck up their ass? Keneth 17:05, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

U don't understand such things as balance, challenge, game fun, do u? The thing is - why cannot i gather a PUG for DoA without use of Ursan? And that's just an example. Why should I grind for Norn title to complete areas I want to but not able with H/h with the way I don't like? I mostly walk in PUGs with my monk, but these PUGs are all about Ursan. And that's why me and most players with sense of balance and fun want Ursan nerf - for people to make their own damn minds to just allow everyone to play as they like. De1m0s 23:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you even listening to yourself? You're ranting because other people use the skill for their own good? Why should you care? Is it hurting your profits or gameplay? Or just your pride and ridiculous sense of elitism? People can play however the hell they want, there's no rule that says "You must use the most awesome skill in the game." And people like playing Ursan, because it's easy and because it's fun. Why should they nerf it? Because it's bad for your style? What you're saying is that they should nerf it because you don't like it. And that's not a valid argument. Come back when you have something of value to say, because right now you're no better than people complaining how bad Obsidian armor it because they can't afford one. Keneth 13:09, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Keneth, you obviously haven't read why that does not work. Pls come back when you know the issue. ---- NUKLEAR IIV 13:33, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

What is the fun in smashing C+Space+1+2+3+1? I cannot understand that. Now let me answer ur questions one by one. Yes, I always listen to myself, and I always think what to say before doing so. No, I'm not ranting because of that, I'm disappointed cos' I must be in Ursan PUGs to complete areas I want. I care, I'm playing in multiplayer online game, not in kind of Diablo (I like Diablo, that's just example) and Ursans surround me everywhere in PvE. Yes, it hurts my gameplay, but not my profits, cos' I don not want to play Ursan but can earn money with other ways. No, it's not my pride or my sense of elitism, it's just a wish to play with more or less skilled players, just4fun. They should, no, they must nerf it cos' it is overpowered, cos' no build can do better than Ursanway, and this only thing ruins what was built over years. Yes, it hurts my style of play, here u r right, cos' I want to find very hard challenges in game to try and comlete them. I've answered posted questions and now let me explain my point fully, it seems u cannot understand reasons of needed Ursan nerf. U c, the GW started as a game, based on player's skill, on his ability to quickly understand situation in game and make a decision how to act further, how to act in right way with his team. So personal skill goes secondary to team-playing skill. And that attracted me long time ago, when first reviews of GW came out in Russian game press. This online game is much more like action multiplayer games like Counter Strike, where the first thing to learn is to act in a team and as a team. When I finally purchased GW and started playing, I realized that skill here is dominating argument. Very soon Ursan appeared on my skillbar, when I had from no to very bad skill in the game, and I began to complete missions I thought were hard with Ursan and HM was not so hard too. I also played PvP, and continue playing PvP. Soon I found that areas in PvE can be completed without Ursan (surpising, huh?) and though "why the hell I play in PvP with 8-skill build and mostly lose and in PvE everything can be pwned with just 4 skills?". Simple answer - because one single elite skill overpowers all other skills in PvE. Have u seen anything like that in PvP? Don't think so. There r builds to easier win in TA/HA, GvG maybe, but the still can be countered. Ursan cannot. I stopped using Ursan, and Norn rank will forever stay on 6th tier on my char, unless I would like to go for higher tier in KoaBD. Now I play with full builds, and complete areas I completed with Ursan, which is harder now, takes more effort but rewards a sense of accomplishment. Now u c why I do not use Ursan. U can say "why do u care others playing it, complete ur precious elite areas without Ursanway and stfu". But how can I do it while being in PvP guild? My friends either do not PvE or use Ursan. The only way is PUG, but PUGs r full of Ursans, in which I can participate with my monk only. Again, no sense of accomplishment, no proud of completing somthing. Just a walk to c what's goin on in there. Now let's look on community. On this page u can c a lot of people asking to nerf Ursan because of same or slightly different reasons than mine, a lot of people who want Ursan to stay as is. I'm not alone, so don't u. Try too look over wiki, talkpages and find me a single talkpage of some skill larger than this one. Then ask urself, why can a skill cause so much arguing around it? As for me, I will try to play PvE without Ursan, in constant search of balanced PUGs, or join some PvE decent guild or something, but I will always want an Ursan nerf. And one more thing. How can a mission be classified as Elite Difficulty if it can be completed with Ursanway PUG in HM (!) with use of consets in couple of hours at first try? De1m0s 14:14, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

^ I agree 100%, Ursan ruined the ability to play this game like it was intended. I cannot join a single group that is NOT spamming 1,2,3, and I don't have a monk... *Sarcastic* Thank You Ursan Skill Designer... I paid 200$+ for these games and campains to not beable to join a group unless its ursan. */end sarcasm* There is NO creativity in the PvE game builds anymore, and I don't enjoy PvP. --192.251.103.17 15:22, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

So far the only arguments in this entire discussion page are "I don't like the skill" and "OMFG I can't join nub PUGs because I don't run Ursan". If there are so many people that hate Ursan builds, then why can't you form your own groups? If your guild is PvP only then join one that isn't. Fuck it, make your own non-Ursan elite guild and blast away the areas with your superior player skillz. Personally I enjoy playing Ursan, don't get me wrong, I enjoy a challenge too and I'll jump at every chance I get to Eviscerate everything to hell but I don't want to play a game that is insanely hard. And I'm sorry to break it to you but a lot of people feel that way, some simply want the rewards of harder places while being able to play casually and have fun instead of tearing out their hair in frustration. Ursan Blessing does a great job at that and if you don't like it, that's fine, but don't try to take my fun away just because you like getting a nervous breakdown every 10 minutes. And besides, you have to work to get the skill and waste time grinding to make it effective. What would be the point if it could just as easily be replaced with another one? I want my rewards to be worthwhile and they are, so cry more, people will always take the easy way, nerfing Ursan won't change a thing. Keneth 22:03, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

(Indent Reset) The thing is, Keneth, Ursan has basically turned GW into nothing more than a cakewalk. Don't get me wrong here though. Ursan's a good skill (when only one has it), but it IS overpowered, especially when you have two or more individuals using it. Forming a non-ursan group? That's pretty hard to do now, since MOST groups are running Ursan. You'd be lucky if you can find enough people for a non-ursan group. And as a suggestion (so you actually understand what's going on), try reading the entire discussion (including the Archive). But from what I've interpreted from your comments about this, it SEEMS to me that you want the entire game handed to you on a silver platter. Now I COULD be wrong on that, and after you read the ENTIRE discussion, feel free to prove me wrong there. - Raknor - Talk 22:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Just puttin parallels with GW and other games. Let's take the Game (it's rly Game) Doom. On easier levels of difficulty it's a cakewalk, like NM campaigns in GW. It can be made easier with use of cheats, like Ursan in GW - u go in, kill everything and go out. Nothing more, just looked at all 33 levels. And the hardest difficuly gives u a challenge, as GW did before Ursan, take DoA as live example. U can't use cheats, all monsters are powerful, ur weapons r weak, like HM Elite areas in GW. U cant just smash buttons to complete the game, u must think what to do next, count ur ammo and so on. If u beat Doom on lower difficulty levels - this can be called accomplishment. IF u do this with cheats - it can be not. Just as Ursaning whole campaigns. And beating game in Nightmare proves u r pro player, just as ppl proved that by completing DoA in HM before EotN. And let's c on future of both games now. People played Doom and will continue playing it, even though not so many Doom players r in the world, cos' this games still gives u near-to-impossible challenge. And what about GW? If Ursan remains - with GW2 release almost all players will quit, cos' GW will give no more tasks to complete. And if Ursan gots nerfed, alot may stay, giving ANet more profit from old products, as Doom I sure does to ID software. I wrote it just for all readers to have an example of true legend of gaming world, living for years and Guild Wars, which deserves the same fate but can be destroyed by a single skill. De1m0s 00:52, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

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Prehaps the only reason people complain about Ursan is that they don't actualy have it. I personly think the skill is great because it does not matter which prof you are. I am a ranger and thanks to ursan I feel wanted in elite missions as well as FoW and UW because the party search is not based on what prof you are. I am pretty sure if ursan was never included in the game, the chances that a mesmer would be able to find a party it would be pretty low. Besides its not like when you first get the skill you have the full benefits of it. You still have to work to get the title of norn to rank 10. Since most people cant be bothered to get their rank to rank 10 or people just cannot be bothered to buy GWEN, they just complain that the skill is overpowered. I am pretty sure if you had the full power of ursan then you wouldnt complain. The fact that the skill has not been nerfed yet shows that it is not causing as big as a problem as people make it out to be. I would advise simply to keep the skill as it is.

URSAN FTW any prof can play it ele yes war yes sin yes monk we get bored of healing so theres that if we want 2 ( i play as monk mostly) ranger yes mes yes(NO 1 even plays em tho so w.e :)and if u do u no its true tho lol rit same as mes para yup dev yup necro yea so ursan is good and dont nerf it the econ is dying not cus of that its the ecto farming that real broke the econ cus last i checked ectos were steady till then after it droped saves time i dont think ppl wanna sit for hrs and still fail the mish or w.e u doing or pass it with URSAN and if u think ursan over powerful then wut bout cons in HM UW the axtee(i no i spelt it wrong :)) hit me a monk for 30 damage thats hit like 300 NM with no cons so yea if u dont like ursan and like cons then u cant like that ethier so if u nerf 1 then nerf em both cus they the same overpowerful or rly helping

I AM PRO URSAN

You're pathetic is what you are. There is a difference between making the game fun and destroying the balance. You clearly have no concern for the balance. You just want it to be easy, not care about your skills, and get rich. Very simple minded. Part of playing a game is being able to fail. That's the point. Hard! It's supposed to be hard, you're not supposed to be able to fly through everyanything with just one set of skills. And the fact that everyone class can use it further destroys the game, but it maintains the balance between each class. Think before you say. --Toroxus 12:39, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Dude, he is an obvious troll. -- NUKLEAR IIV 13:06, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan Overview

Dear Anet and Anyone,

Ursan: what a mistake. This skill needs a formal sit-down and talk about. I’ve played all campaigns. and ever since this skill came in GWEN, I must say it really needs a rethink. Locations + Farms

From running Shing Jea Island, to slaying Shiro, to Urgoz. From Kamadan to Gate of Anguish. From Ascalon City (PS) to Hell’s Precipice. Sure it’s a nice skill, but over powered to the max destroys the gameplay. I’m all about balance, and I play some skill bars that are very powerful and even though I love them, I think they should be nerfed. This is ridiculously overkill. Everywhere I go, I see “rX ursan LFG <quest/mission>” or “ursan glf <number of ursans needed> rX+ and 2 HB monks.” For example. Fissure of Woe and The Underworld were elite areas. Although the Elementalist, Monk, Warrior, Necromancer, and even Ranger were the most popular options for groups, everything else fitted in. Yes, some people were ignorant and wouldn’t take a Mesmer, just because he was a Mesmer, not because of his skills or skill level. My friends and I have made every single profession shine in FoW, UW and DoA, but not many people want to play them there because they are more difficult to play in such areas. Any profession can be made to work anywhere. With the introduction of Ursan, that’s all that is there. It’s impossible to get a group of people without using Ursan that is any good, because the hardcore farmers see that Ursan clears Fissure of Woe in 1 hour and UW in a similar time, with almost no screw-ups, and everyone has the same skills so skill checking and using the wrong skills is impossible with Ursan. And the newbies don’t have to get skills or learn how to use them, just get your norn title from farming outside Olafstead and your set to do everything in the game using the same skills.

I agree totally with the above, being another player that refuses to use Ursan simply due to the sheer insult to the games balance it is. I get slightly annoyed when I join a group and get my build demanded before I get greeted, but I was frankly pissed when I joined a group for a normal mode dungeon, and got asked my rank. I wasn't sure what this meant at first, but seeing as this was an Asuran dungeon I was doing to get a little higher rank there, I assumed they meant that, and showed my title. They then explained that they wanted to know my Norn rank. I asked them why this was important, and found that they had assumed I was running Ursan. I told them I wasn't, and was made to feel that people who aren't running ursan are now as popular in groups as Smiting monks usually are. Heaven forbid that I can almost match Ursans idiotic damage potential, albeit without the KD or increased armour, I was branded a noob for using anything but the win skill.

Ursan also gets to be a burden upon groups I join, as if anyone is running Ursan, they change into a Leeroy Jenkins energy fetishist, running directly to the next battle on their own whilst I set up my attunements and enchants. Sometimes I watch them run solo into a group of enemies and think 'You know what? I'm not helping them. Let them die and learn to stay in their group for a change'. This would work well, but as soon as I've finished thinking this, said Ursan has single-handedly turned the whole enemy mob into corpses. Because it's an Ursan. I whole-heartedly support an Ursan nerf. I don't care that I'll be the only one who didn't exploit it to get easy money in 'Elite' areas. I'll just be glad that I'm once again able to join a group and feel like something other than furniature in comparison to the Ursans.

Then, there is Domain of Anguish. What a joke that place is now. 5 Ursans, 3 Monks, 3 hours = full run. Then you go to kill Mallyx in 20 minutes, and take the quest again, and there you go. Rinse and repeat. That place is nothing but “Glf Ursan or Monk” as well. If you want to do a mission, and decide to bring some humans along, like Gate of Madness or even Venta Cemetery, and you went with 8 humans. I’m sure that at least 3 of them will be Ursan. And if asked why, many respond, “it’s so easy.” If you go do the Cathedral of Flames run with a full team, the 600 and smiter aren’t ursan obviously. But if the 600 gets into trouble, you can bet your life that at least 4 other Ursans are going to run into battle. That’s how widespread this is, not even in a place where they would normally not fight like the Cathedral of Flames farming run, people bring Ursan. And you can snap your fingers and they’re in battle, wrecking everything with the same few skills. Then that was that fallout at Hell’s Precipice. Upon the update to add the new end-game area. I went to Hell’s Precipice about 5 minutes later, and about 10 minutes after the update, there were already 3 districts, and what did I see? Ursan this, Ursan that, HB monks, HM, 20 minutes. Half an hour later, there were 8 districts of them. Now I’m sure not every soul in there was Ursan, but the dominating group was them. Now what about everyone else? I was on my Ritualist, and I do have Rank 10 Norn and Ursan. But damn me if I use it. Used it a few times, but it hurt my soul too much to ruin the fun in the game. As a Ritualist, I damn knew that no one was open minded enough to bring a Ritualist, who has skills that they don’t know about, when they could bring a Ursan, skills that they know about, and plow through that mission. There were so many Ursans, that I felt isolated, and I knew that I would not look for a group of non-ursan humans, because I would never get one, and I would probably get laughed at. So I went with 3 of my friends and heroes. And just for the recond, one of them was Ursan as well.

I feel very bad for the people who do not have GWEN (For Ursan) or Nightfall (For Healer's Boon). Because they have a lot of problems getting groups of people they do not know, without using Ursan.

I think its not just the people who dont have GWEN but the kids who play to. I am of course a kid my self and that means i dont get on as much, making it harder to get a max rank like ursan and just dont have the amount of access to knowledge. Ursan nas destroyed my chances of ever getting a good team to do FoW or UW. :(

I only have Prophecies, Factions, and GWEN. I have rarely met anyone outside of GWEN and the elite missions (FoW, etc.) who offers herself as Ursan to join a group and never a group that only takes Ursans and Monks. I've played maybe 250 hours in the last two months, so it's not for want of playing time. I see no evidence that Ursan is unbalancing gameplay even in PvE. As for GWEN and others, perhaps the reason why so many players use Ursan is because the missions are too hard overwise. Since every party gets its own map, I don't see how players who like Ursan interfere with players who don't. Cheng 20:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Economy + Simplicity

And talk about an economic disturbance. Obsidian shards and Ectoplasm have fallen through the floor as they are farmed so much in FoW and UW. Even the Gemstones in DoA have dropped in price. Feathers, used to make consumable sets to make ursan flawlessly overkill, have skyrocketed. As well as all the other materials needed for them. And a new market of selling Consumable sets to people has been made. Speaking of easy, I had my 9 year old cousin over a month ago. I showed him this Guild Wars, and he’s never played it. He wanted to play, so I picked out something easy for him. He would play my Ritualist as an Ursan, doing Hard Mode Fissure of Woe. Saying the words "Ritualist" in "Hard Mode" in "fissure of woe" was a joke to most people, let alone doing it in an hour. And that's what it is now: Hard Mode Fissure of Woe: a joke. Told him to follow the green dots, and push the buttons for the first 5 minutes. After that, he did fine by himself. No one else was complaining or telling him to keep up with the group of anything. No one died. And other then having to guide him through getting the quests, he did it all on his own. That's all you need, Ursan, and you’re as good as it gets, time playing doesn’t matter much now. He was just another mindless Ursan drone, clicking the same skills, with the same targets, and the same farming runs.

I don't get the point of this section. I haven't entered the market for Obsidian Shards and Ectoplasm, but from what I read on Wiki they seem pretty useless (at least optional). By your own reckoning, Ursan farmers have reduced the market on those items but opened new markets for Feathers and other materials for consumables; That sounds like a plus for Ursan; I myself was impressed by the good market price for feathers, since I can farm them easily on Shinjea Island. As for your 9-yr old cousin, why can't you be happy for him? When he feels like it, he can go into the FoW as a Mesmer as you like to do. Cheng 20:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

So you're saying that it's a trade off. Kind of comparable to closing the market of diamonds to make the market of pebbles grow. Did my cousin have fun? Yes, but what's the point in the game if he can do the hardest parts in an hour without any prior experience? --Toroxus 12:34, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Professions

So if you are still reading this wall of text, I applaud you, and I hope you work at Anet and are taking this issue seriously. Let’s talk about the 10 professions. You can find out what professions are good at by looking at a summary of them in the manual. Everyone knows that, but now there are entirely new and much more important reasons to be certain professions because of Ursan. Let’s take a look:

Warrior: Highest Armor. Some skills/stances last into Ursan.

Ranger: Higher Armor.

Necromancer: Soul reaping gives you energy to keep Ursan blessing active.

Monk: Can be Ursan and can heal Ursans through Healer’s Boon (popular choice, get the build from anywhere.)

Elementalist: High energy to keep Ursan Blessing Active.

Mesmer: Some mantras, and energy gaining skills to get back into Ursan quickly.

Ritualist: Some skills give energy once out to get back into Ursan quickly.

Assassin: Higher Armor. Critical Strikes is nice.

Dervish: High armor.

Paragon. Probably the best choice. They have the highest armor, plus their Refrain skills last into Ursan via being refreshed by the Ursan shout.

Those are the major factors that make you choose a profession now. You be Ursan or a healing of Ursans, rocket through the games and farm like mad, and pick wisely from the above, or you don’t be Ursan, and you’re just a lowlife poor non-farmer. Welcome to Guild Wars: If you don’t have Ursan Blessing or Healer’s Boon, stay the heck out.

Fixes

As for a fix: It’s so overkill it’s hard to think of one. It sounds radical, but it’s way too powerful to exist in this game. I wouldn’t mind it being deleted. Yeah, you’re going to have a lot of backlash from all the hardcore farmers who are rich because of it, and don’t care about preserving the balance as much as they do money and items. The only option I can see, that could balance this skill is a complete remake. Something like this:

Elite Skill. You take on the aspect of the Bear. Your Energy returns to maximum and you have –3 Energy Degeneration. You have +0…10 armor and +10…100 maximum health. All enchantments, stances, and echoes upon you are removed and can not be applied. Your attributes are set to 0. Bear attacks replace your skills. This skill ends when your Energy Drops to 0. Recharge: 60 seconds. Cast time: 2 Seconds. Energy Cost: 15

There is just way too much armor and health gain. The energy degeneration is not enough. And the energy gain should be tossed. Any Ursan with half a brain still functioning used Zealous weapons to get more energy when they hit at no downside anyways, so they’ll still gain some energy when they hit. The enchantments, stances and echoes have to go. And the attributes as well. The recharge, cast time, and energy cost is comparable to the normal Elite Forms. But since I trashed the energy gain, Ursan recharges fast as a balance since it can’t be kept up as long as a Elite Form with little energy gain. I mean, it’s just a screwed up skill that should never of made it into this game, let alone last this long un-nerfed. It need radical changes, and it will upset the farmers. But it really has to be done. Kind of like how Ford pardoned Nixon. You just have to do it, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. Players are going to be bad at you no matter what you do, at least preserve the game play in the process.

Zealous should make it -4... that would make people scream "GW SUCKS BAWLS!!!!1!!!!1!!!! I HATE U ALL!"

Game Popularity and Diversity

I remember bringing the issue up with Gaile. Her response (not exactly) was along the lines of, "Some people say it's great, some people say it's bad." Of course, everyone who loves to basically not play the game (not use any skills other than Ursan or skills to help ursan) and not do anything but farm for money don't care about balance. All they care about is their money, and I'm sure they are praying for a buff on Ursan to make it so it's easier. On the other hand, there are the people who wish to preserve the balance, like myself, who value more about the gameplay than the money. Along with me, are all the people who don't have GWEN or Nightfall, and can't get in those groups. Sure, you want them to buy the game, because that gives you money, but how do they feel? They feel scammed that they bought Prophecies or Factions, and can't play it with other humans because it's Ursan this, Healer's Boon that. How would you feel if you bought a game and everyone wanted you to do one thing and that thing only, and you could only play that part of the game? And go figure, that made the game boring, and so simple that Solitaire is more diverse.

Conclusion (congradulations, you made it through reading all this!)

I want to walk into Temple of Ages, and see a group, looking for anything, ANYTHING other than Ursan. I want to go to Dzagonur Bastion, and see a group, looking for something, something not Ursan. And you can eat your shorts if you think that Volfen and Raven blessing won’t get overplayed if Ursan gets nerfed. And I don’t know the intensity of those skills, because they are not on half of the skill bars in Guild Wars like Ursan is, but I’m sure they will become very popular with a nerf to Ursan. So they need a tone down as well, not as severe, because they are not as overkill as Ursan.

If I could, trust me I would, I would sit down with the people of Anet, and show them, and explain to them, just what this skill is doing to the game. Every day Ursan becomes more and more of a REQUIREMENT to play this game. You either have Ursan Blessing to be Ursan, or you have Healer’s Boon to heal Ursans, other than that, good luck finding a group to do things, let alone elite areas.

Thanks for your time for reading that. I pray it inspires people to take action. I really welcome Anet to talk about this and solutions, and if Anet doesn't believe a solution is needed, I would like to intelligently discuss why or why not. Please, if you have any questions, say them here in a respectful manner. --Toroxus 15:42, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Have you posted this before? It looks familiarEffigy 23:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I would sign under every single word in your text, Toxorus. But the thing is - there will be no nerf to Ursan in near future. Let me explain my point (apologise for bad English and awful formatting). First of all, GW2 is on the way. People build their HoMs to achieve more goods in GW2, and they want to do it fast. Learning how to play is long process, it requires playing many professions and changing a lot of different builds in different situations. But HoMs of new players must be filled as fast as they can, because noone wants to be left out of their goods in GW2. That's where Ursan comes out. Easy farming and elite area running - fastest HoM fullfilling. Just busyness, nothing personal - GW2 needs large sales. Secondly, Ursan gives a lot of people, who cannot play much, a chance to wear nice weapons and armor. They can play one hour a day and clear elite areas one by one - all of them to be done in two weeks max. That's not bad, because such people cannot spend much time learning to play, even if they wanted to. And Ursan gives them chance to play, and play as good as others can, and in some kind enjoy it. It also pushes the sales of GW up, which is also busyness. These two points are the only pros I can see in Ursan. In my not so humble opinion, ANet forgot about hardcore PvE players, and which is worse - left them behind Ursans. Why would Ursan group take Ranger, or Elementalist, or Mesmer without Ursan and non-HB monk, even if their builds are good and players themselves are very experienced? It's minus one Ursan or HB in team - it's a fail. Yes, of course, hardcore part of community in every game would always be small - but hey, they are customers too! And if they want to play some elite mission without Ursan, they have to gather balanced party from hardcore players, and there are not so many of them, and more are leaving because of Ursan. I tried Ursan, and played it alot, until it bored me. Grinding was never my speciality, so the highest norn rank I've achieved across all my chars is 6. And the only purpose I will max it for is KoaBD, nothing more. Me and my friends are trying to play PvE as we do in PvP - with good, balanced build of our own creation. IMO, this way we get more fun from the game, even if after 1.5 hours in UW we fail with our own build, when we could beat it in the same time with Ursan. Well, I think too much is written and I hope my point is understood. Thanks for reading this crap and once again apologies for bad lang and formatting. De1m0s 02:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

This skill is fine as is

No need to nerf this skill since it's only pve use. If you don't like it, then look for another game because pve was only incorporated into this game to boost sales (most pvp only oriented online games that have only pvp and no pve have poor sales) and pvp will always dominate what skills will be used.William Wallace 21:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I would consider them starting to seperate PvE and PvP skill updates a sign showing that the PvE community has a little more say in the game these days Effigy 03:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

So I'm supposed to find a new game because I want to play a skill-based (as in player skill, not skills themselves) game? Oh wow, on the Prophecies box it says the exact opposite of Ursan: the time you spend grinding doesn't matter, only your skill. There also isn't just a large crowd of people who want this to stay, there's a seemingly equal group that wants this nerfed. No matter what ANet does about this skill (nerf/keep), it will likely negatively affect the sales of GW2. Its just a question of who they want to keep around more: the people who like the game to be somewhat challenging or the mindless who like everything handed out to them. Btw, PvE will soon not be dominated by PvP changes, read here. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 04:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It still is skilled based Uber. You just have to use your skills to find a non-ursan group. But I say as a trial bases to PvP only players they allow Ursan in PvP for one day. Just so they can understand what it feels like to go to an outpost and see "LFG HB MONK and URSAN R10". Effigy 05:27, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait, you're saying PvP only players don't know what it feels like to see "lf r10+ people?" Tell me I'm reading that wrong. -Auron 05:30, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

PvP has more than its share of elitism, but the main difference here is that the PvE elitism Is Solvable. Nerf Ursan, bam, no more Ursan elitists, and those grinders will have to start using *gasp* skill and innovation to keep being elitist. And I think we all know how much skill and innovation Ursan elitists have. -Warior Kronos 22:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

"Ursan Elitists" I lol'd heartily. Every time I see the "lfg Ursan r10" party search I know to probably stay away from that player b/c he's most likely to bawwww and leave the area the first time he gets killed. I can see the chat now... "FREAKING NOOBS I'M URSAN YOU DON'T HEAL FOR SHIT DON'T YOU KNOW I'M INVINCIBLE BAAWWWWW"Jimbob1178 16:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Tossing aside all armor and health arguments, let's make a reasonable comparison of the three main Ursan skills to their rough equivalents in the game. Ursan Strike's closest equivalent is clearly the armor-ignoring Obsidian Flame from the Earth Magic line... except that Obsidian Flame does less damage, takes a second longer to cast, costs 5 energy, takes 2 seconds longer to recharge, is a spell (and thus prone to all spell counters like Backfire), and causes *exhaustion*. Obsidian Flame's one advantage over Strike is that it can be cast at spell range, as opposed to melee.

Ursan Rage's closest equivalent is Earthquake/Dragon Stomp. Earthquake, however, deals less damage, is not armor-ignoring, and, again, causes the hated *exhaustion*. Like Flame, however, it can be cast at spell range, as opposed to melee. However, it does costs *25* energy and takes 2 seconds longer to cast and 5 seconds longer to recharge. Again, Earthquake/Dragon Stomp is vulnerable to spell counters as well.

Ursan Roar has no direct equivalent, but can be considered a bit of a cross between Order of Pain and "You Are All Weaklings!", a Norn PVE shout. Two skills for the price of one ain't bad... costing no energy (Order costs 10e and 17% health, and "Weaklings!" costs another 10e) is even better.

Is Ursan overpowered, you say? Hmmm. I hesitate to say that balancing the build would require adding exhaustion to the first two skills... but yeah, balancing it would take just that. Or a complete discard of the elite entirely.--68.124.182.227 16:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry to say it but Ursan Rage is not armor ignoring it is physical dmg. Tenri 04:48, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

just a note: Ursan skills have no type of dammage in their descriptions, and thus have the mysterious "untyped" damage, WHICH IS ARMOR IGNORING! Mcdertr 12:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan Rage

Skill. You deal 60...135 physical damage to all adjacent foes. Struck foes are also knocked down for 2 seconds.

Actual skill discription ursan rage is NOT armor ignoring Tenri 17:45, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan is awsome when ur farming rep points and then u get more done and less ppl die trying and then when u come to UW/FOW its easier but i do feel for the ppl that are not high in the norn rank b/c ppl in there ask for r9+ so that would be hurtful but when it comes to farming it is great to have ursan but is would be nice to have double rep points like every 4 or 5 weeks just help some ppl out it would help out.--Gar the tank 23:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I've used Ursan alot during vanquishing since its very effective for tanking and damage dealing. However I would sooner use normal skills since Ursan gets very boring with time. I used Ursan for EOTN vanquishing since that place is too heavily anti-melee (blind, block stances, blurred vision, smoothing images, Critical Defenses etc etc). This forced Ursan on my skill bar. Other regions though I use normal warrior builds. Ursan is very overpowered but then so are monsters killing people with one spell (HM Bosses), which in turn forces monks to take Prot Spirit. I stopped playing with PUGs when heroes were introduced to the game so don't know what impact this has had for teams. I can imagine though it gets frustrating. --SK 06:33, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

New Age Nerfing

Just incorperate Ursan Blessing into loot scaling. If two or more players have Ursan on their skill bar good drop rate go down to almost zero. Then people wouldn't be able to farm the hell out of the elite items. Because over all that is the big problem. People worked so hard to get their ambrances, ectos etc etc, that they then feel as though all the work was for nothing when the could have waited a few more months and just used PvE easy mode(fyi no longer the Paragon).Effigy 23:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok what about real people that group together and use heroes and ursan just to do a quest you gona kill their chance of getting loot or do you mean only affect the drop rate of golds and rare items, o wait golds and rare items drop in normal areas too so just no. Tenri 00:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The solution deals with only a fraction of the problem. The bottom line is, people shouldn't be punished for wanting to play the game their way. If that means Ursan, so be it, they shouldn't automatically earn less. Most of the problem lies in the fact that Ursan does just that, prevents people from playing the game their own way. I'm not talking about running Frenzy/Healing Signet, I'm talking about legitimately good builds that are being thrown by the wayside in favor of an elite that reduces everyone's bar to the same five skills. And those five skills are so good, who (interested only in drops) wouldn't run them? That's the heart of the problem, the skill itself is overpowered and grinds originality into a watery pulp in favor of rank discrimination and a means of getting everything you could possibly want from PvE while still being absolutely terrible. It needs a nerf, there's no way around it. --SoraMitsukai 05:10, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

when my friends and I go doing dungeans they don't usually run ursan and we are planning an attempt at clearing DoA and there is a good chance that only I will run ursan but I may use an infinite Balthazar build, this doesn't mean most people don't use ursan just saying not everyone does.

On a side note instead of half the world saying nerf it we could try to come up with solutions that don't completely make the skill unusable. Several have been suggested on this page and on on Regina's. Such as do not allow PvE skills to be used in elite areas, wouldn't be hard already used in PvP outposts, but would pis off alot of people who dont use the wikis or pay attention to the talk pages. 2nd make ursan rage do physical damage instead of armor ignoring, this removes the over powered brute forse in later areas of the game. Make Ursan only usable in GW:EN this will prolly make allot of people pissed off but it is a solution that would solve the farming UW FoW DoA and the Factions elite missions.

Also to people who say you only gotta press 1..2..3..1..1..2..1..1..3 etc i can find builds that once the battle starts don't use more than 2 or 3 skills does this make me a horrible person who cant come up with original builds.

And lastly to people who say it doesn't make all professions included in elite areas because all already can be or because you aren't playing your profession anymore might wanna think about what happens to people who don't have a group of people dedicated to elite areas to group with when they play there favorite profession and don't wanna reroll something else cause they don't like the playstile of some other professions(in my case i don't really like playing warrior, paragon, ranger, or necromancer), and more importantly wanna get the monument for each elite area for their hall of monuments.

If you wanna criticize what i just wrote go ahead but don't just repeat what everyone else says without reason and if it looks like i am repeating what other people say without reason i am sorry.

[Edit:] The only reason that I mainly use ursan when i am playing is the PvP skill "balancing" killed the build that i was used to playing but it wouldn't matter considering it was a Dervish build and if i tried to find a group for DoA specifically malax i woulda been told to go to hell dervishes are completely useless [end rant]. Tenri 12:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Er... get a team that isn't bad? Dervishes are fine, just throw splinter weapon on them and let them blow mobs up. Heck, Avatar of Mels is quite a nice elite for DoA, as you can sit in eruptions and next to dementia titans and not have any problems with blind/bleeding/crippled/etc. -Auron 12:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, there are tons of tweaks that could be made to Ursan. Even making Ursan Strike an attack skill would force it to be affected by evasion/miss chance. Having a spammable PBAoE knockdown is another thing that makes it stupid, that could be fixed by upping the recharge (and perhaps changing the damage to physical). But ultimately, the survivability of the damn things lets them make so many scrub mistakes, that it doesn't matter what the recharge or skill type of anything is. Halve it, and it might be reasonable. I don't think it should be useless either, as I've mentioned before. I think that given the choice between that and any other mediocre build, it should be a toss-up.

And as Auron suggests, if you have a group that thinks Dervs (or whatever other class you're running) are bad for PvE, it's time to find a new group who knows what they're talking about. After all, last I checked, a scythe hits up to three adjacent targets. I have a guildie that runs a Derv as his main, tears things apart with things like Splinter/Great Dwarf Weapon. Running Earth+AoB lets you tank like woah (though with a bit of imagination, you can find a build that does it better), AoM is just as amazing for condition-heavy areas as it is for PvP, and AoL coupled with an IAS brings your DPS through the roof against anything that likes to spam skills. Similar things could be said about Elementalists, Mesmers, Ritualists, or anything else for that matter. Any profession can be taken into an elite area, it's all about knowing how to play it (and how to -gasp!- adapt your playstyle). It seems 90% of the community has forgotten that. --SoraMitsukai 17:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess my disdain at DoA is from when it just came out as i haven't really tried it since people learned enchantments are bad and wouldn't accept my build that used 1. I agree dervishes are quite good for allot of things that is why it is my favorite class. Also if you think the survivability of ursan is to much AoB can last forever no problems and has twice the armor boost, but dose not have the huge damage output of ursan in later areas. and i believe it is a general rule with pugs that they don't like what isn't confirmed to work for elite areas which is why dervishes weren't favored in DoA at first because say 70% of derv skills were enchantment based. [will say more but gotta go atm] Tenri 22:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Why shouldn't you get less loot as an Ursan? You get less gold in Normal Mode than you do in Hard Mode..... With Ursan you are basically in God Mode..... The thing is, if you are Ursan you are not actually playing the game anyways.. you are avoiding or rushing thru the game. I see no issue with applying a loot eduction to Ursans. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:68.14.76.172 (talk).

Ursan is NOT god mode. Is more like 'power mode'. You get more armor and damage completely forfeiting healing. You depend on other player to heal you. And Ursan does not remove Mission objectives. Nor help to protect NPCs in any way but killing faster enemies. MithTalk 06:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok God Mode may be a little strong, but calling it "Kid Mode" certainly wouldn't be. Also it is not just more armor, it is a LOT more armor. It is not more damage, it is ridiculous, armor ignoring damage that is not subject to any kind of anti-melee anything, and face it, the quality of monks needed to spam HB/HP is not gonna cause a skill evolution. Those who can't do .... Teach. Those who can't play........ Ursan. I know Ursan has caused a lot of people to just kinda stop playing, but those of you who are left that actually care more about the game and commubnity than loot..... do the right thing and refuse to accept Ursans into your parties and into your Guilds. Show your hate. It is righteous rage and it isn;t misplaced and since Regina doesn't really seem to know what she thinks, or for that matter even know what the issue is, it is a way to communicate with the dev's. It isn't like things could legitimately get much worse for team-play anyways. Let the bears know.

o ok so the twice as much armor you get from Avatar of Balthazar must be extremely massive armor of unbelievable awsomness, along with say feel no pain as one of your 3 pve skills for the +200 health while drunk(very hard after doing a couple runs of kilroy's dungeon) with a bonus +5 rgen, o and don't forget eternal aura as the second one so Balth never runs out. and before you say yes the damage is lower than ursan would be but you will actually live longer this way if you know what you are doing Tenri 04:50, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't really know, I have never played Ursan. I still like strategy. I prefer the elevator to the stairs.

Except that dealing more damage, AoE weakness and AoE knockdowns are all ways that make Ursan easy to survive with. If 5 Ursans use Ursan strike on a target it no longer does damage, its dead. If they chain Ursan Roar, you take way less damage from enemies. If the foes are knocked down 1/5 of the time with just one Ursan using Ursan Rage, enemies deal even less damage. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 04:58, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes and i believe i said you will do less damage but the point i was making was more on the armor boost and another way to get the health boost without ursan Tenri 05:53, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

What about an activation time where the player is easily interrupted and a shorter duration by setting the player's energy to a fixed amount and the skill plays normally from there? I dunno...just thinking out loud.Jimbob1178 23:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan Blessing

Ursan Blessing is the greatest skill Anet ever made for the casual gamer. The whines are from the hardcore 24/7 type players and I'm sure not from the casual market (though of course I would expect many to LIE and say they are casual players and hate Ursans). So, no need to nerf it. It's working perfectly and as designed for the majority of us now and everyone who is a casual player is having a ball again. Thanks for inputing a skill where everyone can play in all areas of the game now. Think about that before you nerf it please. ;)172.192.232.208 06:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)MasterNightfall HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH the 24/7s use it, the only way to get is good is something called grinding, the casual, like me, chose stupidly to focus on another title, because i find ursan lame and used to often, as someone who gos against the grain in everything, So nerf NERF URSAN LIKE U DID SINS (make it worse than mo/w with 4 swordmanship, trying to be a melle char) Shadowshock 03:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as for a change we've got an Ursan lover giving a good argument against an anti-Ursan who is gibbering like an idiot, I think I'll step in as an anti-Ursan. I refuse to use Ursan, and don't kick people out of groups if they're running a poor build. I've been known to kick an SF Ele from my group for being a whiny offensive elitist, and take a level 18 monk with no elite because they were being friendly to everyone. Why? Because I enjoy variation in the game. I enjoy having to cope with weaknesses, and I even deep down enjoy being beaten by a mob because our healer was interrupted too much and couldn't cope. Because if you remove any real way of losing the game, why is it still a game and not a repetitive task? That seems to have ended now, though, with every group using Ursan/HB. No way of losing, insane power and speed through areas, complete disregard for players running non Ursanway builds, and No Variation. You're just running through the same environments in your group of unstoppable Ursans with powerful healers to stop they dying. Thus the challenge is removed from the game. Thus the element of skill is removed from the game. Thus the game is no longer a game.

---

I may have missed it, but I have yet to see an ArenaNet staff member comment on this skill despite the community wanting them to do so (not including this in game message from Gaile which really doesn't tell us much). Are the skill balancers looking at it? Are they simply avoiding it? Is there any reasoning ArenaNet has for keeping it the way it is? Is there any reason ArenaNet feels they need to change it? Information such as this will help bring back faith in the company and possibly help disprove (or prove) our fears that the skill is just a tool to sell GW:EN. Yet another no-post will only deepen our fears. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 04:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

STIRRER! :P Good man. Izzy himself, in all his mightiness, hasn't responded to the community on his own pages, yet I don't see an answer really coming for this and can easily see Regina just killing the conversation. GWEN in general has done a lot to change Guild Wars, and not in a positive way yet after months we haven't really seen anything change. Consumables haven't been toned down: Elite Areas and HM is supposed to be hard or challenge not so much with the set and Ursan combined). Ursan especially needs some consideration, go into any area where you can access an elite mission and tell me how quickly you fine a group not screaming for Ursan or HB monks, or just most areas of the game it seems now. I find it funny, the Norn in the game use their bear skill, ever wonder why its considerably different (and sub-par) than the non-Norn Ursan skill? o.O 203.173.242.13 05:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Ursan Blessing is being looked at by the designers. It is not being ignored. It's something that is being debated. People here are aware of how strongly many players feel about it -- on both sides (nerf/leave as-is). There are a few different perspectives and opinions on the skill, some of which echo the feelings within the community, again on either side. There are also few different ideas on what should be done about it. --Regina Buenaobra 17:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Could that have been any more ambiguous/unhelpful? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 140.198.139.18 (talk • contribs) at 18:09, May 1, 2008 (UTC).

Why yes, I believe it could have simply read, "We're looking into it.". Lojiin 18:20, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

They're keeping it as-is until they decide what to do with it. Some at ArenaNet feel that it's too strong. Some feel that it's fine the way it is. As I said earlier, there are different opinions here about it -- probably as many opinions internally as there are within the player community. --Regina Buenaobra 18:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Dude, what more do you want? ANet is still debating what to do about Ursan, so there is nothing conclusive to tell the community about it at this point beyond the fact that ANet is aware of everyone's concerns and is currently working on coming to a decision. Given the current state of affairs--that the dev team at ANet hasn't made up it's mind--what answer would have been helpful by your standards? 71.136.3.65 07:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

actually that is basically all that was written 85.176.91.251 18:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I find it useful to know that they are aware of the problems with Ursan and are considering what to be done about it. Because there was no response for a long time it seemed like they didn't know or didn't care. --Lytel 18:33, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The only thing I see wrong with it is the same that I see with all effects that replace all 8 skills in the skill bar: they should ignore armor equipment and primary attribute. It seems that we can only wait and see, though. MithTalk 18:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Regina. --Ravious 18:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

If I am aloud to parallel: it seems somewhat disturbing that its taken so long for them to do anything; we as the community have been discussing this for months, just how long has this been 'discussed' in Arenanet? Ursan has now gotten to the point its fundamental changed the game: profession means next to nothing when using it but the up side to Ursan is Arenanet has more players playing... longer and doing more in=game (HM and Elite missions are easier, easier still if they us consumables) a nice benefit considering the buzz from GWEN sales will be dropping and with no planned content announced to us it seems a positive to have more people playing longer (though Ursan seems a cheap answer to encourage). Yes, I understand what they do will change the skill and the game so any insight into how close the developers are to deciding? Discussing is such a vague term - GWEN is 8-9 months old, thats a lot of discussion time. 203.173.242.13 20:19, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

No, don't edit it. That's my two cents.--Homie Star

Please do edit it. That's my two cents. Honestly, I don't really need to say much, the above points have summed it up. It takes all skill out of high-end PvE areas, and to people who say it allows different professions into high end areas, it really doesn't. The trait that defines a profession and makes it different from the others is different skills and attributes, none of which come into play with this skill (unless you count grinding and buttonmashing 1,2,3,4 as an attribute).-Warior Kronos 13:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok try to get into a mallax group as a dervish or mesmer before ursan existed and without a good guild. Also needs to be toned down a little bit not so far that it cant be used on any profession effectivly like say instead of +20 armor make armor 80, not fair to wars or paras for armour boost but hey tough, also make ursan strike physical dmg that way its not always over 100 dmg for high lvl ursans Tenri 07:20, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

*Sigh* This reason and "don't use it if you dont like it" have already been declared bad reasons for a number of reasons. Your "it lets all professions play" reason isn't true. Your not playing a Dervish or a Mesmer when you use ursan. You're playing as an Ursan. And since you've already given up playing as your real profession, why continue to hurt the PvE community by insisting Ursan is the answer. Reroll to a different profession-yes I know it sucks sometimes. But the community, for the same reason Iway/othergimmickbuild became popular, insists there is one or two universal ways to approach an area of the game and until we can fix the attitude of the community, going with a generic build in a PUG is going to be the way it is. If you want to run a (dare I say) original build (which by the way I fully support), then unfortunately, its going to be in a guild. There is a mind behind the madness of generic builds-in PUGS, players of all skill levels will be playing, and a simple build with a simple concept is going to fetch the best results by players of any skill level. But to the original topic, whether you reroll as a different profession using one of your (min.) 4 slots, or go ursan, either way, you give up any uniqueness of your profession. But Ursan hurts the PvE community by taking away fun there once was in pugging. Even with gimmick builds, like Iway, or B/Ping, there was at least some skill. But Ursan is just 1,2,3,4 repeat. Just reroll for pugs. Don't treat Ursan as your savior. -Warior Kronos 16:47, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I have put a little section on my user page discussing the differences between Ursan and my old (warrior) build. Saying ursan takes no skill is the same as saying that build took no skill (...but go ahead and say that) The only difference between my old build and ursan is that ursan is more powerful. Hence I use ursan. As far as I can tell, its not any easier. I don't know how it stands for other professions, but there is really not much difference between the Ursan build and a generic dragon slash build. Ashes Of Doom 17:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Can you youtube me a video of 6 Dragon Slashers and 2 HBers clearing DoA, FoW, or UW please?

Ursan Blessing ruins the class and build distinction. A group of 6 UBers and 2 HBers is the say-all do-all build, being virtually unstoppable since the damage output is intense and there are very few things that can limit the damage-output. Prior to Ursan, you would play a specific role which would require the use of strategy to be able to get anywhere. Now with Ursan, all you need is to just stare blankly at the computer screen, just pressing 1,2,1,3,1...blah, blah, blah. I think what should be nerfed is the drop rates depending upon how many people are using Ursan Blessing. If two people in a group have Ursan Blessing, then drop rates would be nerfed by 30%, and for any other person that had Ursan in their skill bar, drop rates would be further nerfed by 15%, up to a maximum of 90% (6 People). Ezekial Riddle 23:17, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait, is this an "Ursan ruins PvE/the game" or an "Ursan ruins MY economy by allowing others farm what i farm" discussion? Because i don't see how nerfing the drops rates based on the use of UB would help the game at all. Not that it bothers me really, they could pretty much put the drop rate to 0 if they want, but i am not sure what the intentions of people claiming for the nerf of this skills are actually, which may pretty much be the reason why Anet doesn't answer :/.--Fighterdoken 23:24, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I dont mean to say that dragon slashers can even simulate the effectiveness of ursan, what I am saying is that your "just stare blankly at the computer screen, just pressing 1,2,1,3,1...blah, blah, blah." applies just as easily to many other builds which are not ursan. And I agree, nerfing the drop rates is not only a bad idea, it is unprecedented throughout the game. Is there any concievable way that could hope to tie into lore? The Great Bear Spirit just nerfed your drops...? Ashes Of Doom 00:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Ursan for me has just boiled down to this: 'awful game design on Arenanet's part'. It and consumables (all GWEN related) for most part remove the challenges from the game, adds to player discrimination and very much spits in the face of what Arenanet has actually spent its time doing. People are becoming far to reliant on Ursan to do anything, its effects in game are well spread. At the moment I am sitting in the Temple of the Ages right now and witnessing the pinnicle of Arenanet's failure with this skill. Almost every unique post in the area is either GLF HB or GLF Ursan r10, people are now actively posting they have the consumables or have them as a requirement - UW and FOW runs now require Ursan, HB monks and consumables. Groups now are only accepting either Ursan users or HB monks, but this isn't just limited to these areas, Ursans influence has spread to every area of the game. Funny, no where on any of the documentation about Guild Wars does it show Ursan as a profession.

I call this Arenanet's failure as this is what it is: Arenanet is responsible for everything that goes into the game: poor game design is their responsibility and if this is the best they have - and can easily allow it to exist for so long - I have severe doubts in their abilities and even more doubts when it comes to Guild Wars 2. Some may ask if I bothered by it so much why keep playing then? I continue to play because of the friends I have in my alliance and Guild, and for the interesting PUGs I pick up along my way, and following my way of gameplay style. I also don't like to waste my time, or have my time wasted, and am hope Arenanet gets off without bump they're on and actually brings credit back to their game. 203.173.242.13 00:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Nerfing drop rates isn't entirely unprecedented. With the introduction of Hard Mode came loot-scaling. I say nerf the drop rates, which will keep the Ursan Builds either out of the high end areas or decrease potential profits from such areas.

Perhaps what I am trying to suggest is if there is also a penalty dependent on the amount of Ursans in a group, then groups would discourage the use of multiple Ursans. Perhaps drop rates ain't your thing, but I think ANet can be a bit more creative than just nerfing the skill. Ezekial Riddle 01:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Drop rates? Who cares about drop rates...I want to play PvE. Honestly, EoTN has done a lot of harm, but I think the first priority for the balance team should be ursan. A skill nerf is in order, not a drop nerf. Onto consumables, they aren't bad by concept-Candy Canes are a great example of this. Single person DP clear. Awesome. However, when you see Party Wide clearing DP, and giving + 10 morale boost, thats a bit over the edge. And when they're very easily obtainable, especially to an ursan user, thats even worse-Warior Kronos 03:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) To previous comments, why even consider nerfing drop rates because of Ursan? Would that be a smack in the face for all non-Ursan users? The only nerf that needs to come is to Ursan - and to an extent the GWEN related consumables-, think of it this way: the game doesn't need to be adjusted because of Ursan, Ursan needs to be adjusted because of the game 203.173.242.13 05:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Nothing needs to be nerfed or adjusted if Blessings would simply work in GWEN areas only. --Xer 15:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Been to Slaver's Exile lately? --SoraMitsukai 04:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

There will always be special farm builds for specific dungeons or areas (raptors, minotaurs ...), I find that legitimate. Blessings are an intended solution for GWEN so its okay IMHO to use them for local GWEN problems. But keeping them exclusively to GWEN would prevent them destroying the entire PvE idea of GW and finally stopping the ever growing rank discrimination/profession dying nightmare we experience ATM. --Xer 09:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

What ursan blessing does, most of all, is allowing anyone in all areas, regardless of profession, when no one would pick them otherwise. Anyone saying that there are no build better than Ursan would be lying, and when a profession is not as suited as other they can always take Ursan. Ursan is not the 'best' for everywhere, but is good anywhere. So far I've only used Ursan once, in the Domain of Anguish, and nowhere else, where I found it quite boring. MithTalk 12:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

What ursan blessing does, most of all, is forcing anyone in all areas to play as Ursun, regardless of profession, because no one would pick them otherwise. That's the problem, not the other way round. --Xer 15:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Ursan has just illustrated that most people do not know the potential of the professions and how to actually form workable builds and groups of builds that they have available to them. My guild did a clear of FoW yesterday - well, four of us from the guild - and we did it without Ursan and without consumables, and wasn't very hard, long and a little freaky but still a blast as most of them hadn't been there once, I'd only been down their a few times prior - never a total success. We had a Dervish, Warrior, Ele and mesmer as players, a healing monk, nerco running a monk build, ranger and another nerco running a nerco build. Most of our builds weren't the greatest, I personally could nit pick the builds to death but we had fun and loved it. We were going to make a full PUG at the start but very few, if any, wanted to do it unless were a farming duo or Ursan users. Any profession can do all areas of the game, its just the social leaning towards the 'easy road' that needs to be fixed when they fix Ursan.

203.173.242.13 19:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it's a rarity, but I was looking for an ursan group to test my HB monk's build and abilty yesterday in ToA. I got invited to a group which had mixed professions in it, although I assumed that they were all ursans. To my surprise, they were actually running a non-ursan build. We had a great time, and although we weren't quite as fast as ursan it was fine. I use this example to illustrate that Ursan is not the ONLY option. It is the fast and easy option, but a very well coordinated guild non-ursan group could probably beat it. All Ursan does is allows people who wouldn't normally do high end pve to do it successfully. That might anger those people who can afford to spend 3 hours in ToA organizing a group, but those of us who want to pick up and play, rather than waste our time, really appreciate Ursan.Ashes Of Doom 19:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Nice find :)

Ursan can still be nerfed/balanced and still remain highly functional, if Ursan continues to be title track based usable anywhere they can still make it usable and fun, just need to tone down the perimeters a bit: adding casting time, a duration, counters, attribute reduction maybe a reduction in the armor ignoring damage are all viable options to change in Ursan without killing the skill and still making it functional for all professions but not overpowering in the hands of certain professions or a ursan/monk combination alone. I think I would use it more if it wasn't overpowering, but for me as a player I dislike using overpowered skills for two reasons; they're overpowered and I don't like coming reliant on things because when they change -and they always do - it sucks >.< :P All Arenanet needs to do is make Ursan actually sit within the game system that have already established instead of making it sitting high and mighty on the outside. 203.173.242.13 20:03, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, nice find to the person with the normal group in ToA. That shows me that not all PvE PUGers are brain-dead. While I wish that we could all be in a guild with fun people that would do a FoW run normally with cool builds, and have fun with it, in my 3 years as a guild wars player, I've found 1 guild that has fit that description, which recently broke up, leaving me for PUGing again, and putting me in the situation of the general public of guild wars. To people who insist on continually using the "But it lets my profession into (enter PvE area)" excuse, I ask you to read comments above. Honestly, when you make comments like that AFTER it has been addressed HUNDREDS of times and at least 3 times on this page, and you don't add anything new to the argument or reply to comments made about the argument, it shows me you don't belong in this argument. When you join a debate, posting your point of view should not be the first thing you do. Please people, read the argument. Look for your point of view. Chances are in a lengthy discussion like this, your point or a variation of it has been brought up at least once. This doesn't prevent you from posting your opinion, but please if you do, add something new. Reply to comments made about the idea you had. Post another reason that supports your idea. Don't just mindlessly say "But it lets my profession into X area." We get it, but its been said before and shut down before, and unless you have a superb argument that supports your argument, and singlehandedly shuts down any opposition to ursan, than please think before posting...<endrant>-Warior Kronos 21:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC) (forgot to sign in)

(Reset indent) I believe Arenanet will nerf Ursan for several reasons:

• Its an overpowered set of skills, no question
• Through its use users are now abusing the game as never before. Never before has there been one skill so powerful, not only does it render the challenges Arenanet itself spent months trying to programme, but it also renders professions useless.
• I personally do not believe Ursan was intended to have been taken on the route it has. I seriously believe Arenanet may have created it to be used as a fun skill to give everyone something to use to punch forward, but didn't see how quickly and thoroughly it has infested the gameplay style over the gaming masses.
• Reputation - a big factor why I think they will change the skill. Arenanet set itself apart from many other developers when it built Guild Wars and to have one, only one skill push all that to the side looks very bad. Some of the heads of Arenanet are supposed to be big guys in the developer community and for them to let this continue says something about then: nothing good mind you.

My thoughts 203.173.242.13 09:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with your first two points, but to be honest, I don't really think Anet is sticking to the original gameplan when it comes to Guild Wars *cough*sunspeargrindtoadvanceinnightfall*cough*reputationgrindforreskinedarmor*cough*alldungeonslookthesame*cough*. Sorry, bad allergies. Anyhow, I agree I don't think anet when planning EoTN sat down and said "Hm...we have a successful formula here, with balanced professions and strategic skill use. Now how can we screw this up?" And someone said Ursan and then the head of the meeting started maniacally laughin-sorry off topic. Anyhow I think ursan started off as an innocent little gimmick to go along with the other innocent little gimmicks in eotn *cough*polymock*cough*dwarvenboxing*cough*nornfightingtournament*cough*. Sorry allergies again. But even if it started off as a nice little bonus, it has mutated and evolved and become some hideous half-norn half-bear half-pvedestroyer creature. And its not to late to beat it to death via a few smacks to the head niko-style with the nerf bat.-Warior Kronos 21:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

or heres and idea, add major edianal to every sinlge elite area in the game, like 2 deabilitatish shot rangers, and 2 e-dnail mesmers in everygroup, and Bam ursans fixed for elite areas, now lots nerf it! Shadowshock

uummmmmmmmm...... warrior kronos you know thats 150% right? Mcdertr 13:25, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Two concerns from an ex-player

I've noticed, lately, a large number of bugs making their way into the final release versions of the game updates. In fact, I've noticed three major bugs fixed in the past two updates, and throughout April, only one update didn't fix any bugs. While it's great to hear that they've been fixed, it's surprising to me that so many of them made their way into the game. I know you guys are only human, and I respect that, but my (rhetorical) question is whether the staff in the "R&D" department (as I suppose would be most appropriate) has undergone any major changes. Perhaps you've lost a few people and haven't been able to replace them, or something? (I know how that would go; I've been looking for a job in California for quite some time now.) It could just be that the game code is getting large enough to be unpredictable in these senses, but regardless, I personally think it's something that could be looked into.

My other question pertains to the (rather large) section regarding Ursan Blessing above. You mentioned that it's being discussed by the staff; quite plainly, what is there to discuss?

And while I'm at it, would it be possible for Isaiah to make some sort of a comment on the page he set up to do so? It'd be nice to know, at the very least, that he doesn't just ignore it when it pops up on his watchlist. The more people post there without any sort of official response, the more people like me start to think that he's ignoring the page because Ursan is doing what it was meant to do - make people buy Eye of the North and spend extra time playing in order to get it effective. -- Armond Warblade 19:53, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Hasn't she said what they are discussing already. Some people think its fine while others don't. What more do you want? Or do you just want anet to agree with you right now just cause you believe you are right. Their are 2 sides to every debate and your side isn't necessarily the right one. Personally I think Ursan has its plus points, in that it's finally made every profession useful again. However I also think this is a bad point as its led to lazy skill balancing and it shouldn't be left to one skill to be so powerful to basically make PvE balancing pointless. However that's just my opinion and I accept that others may have a differing view point which could be completely valid. -- Salome 20:29, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

You want me to be more specific? Ok. What possible arguments could the devs have for keeping the skill, given all the arguments against it and all the factual evidence presented on the page I linked to, assuming they have brains larger than peanuts?! -- Armond Warblade 01:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I for one agree with Armond for the most part, but lets keep it a clean discussion, yes? 203.173.242.13 01:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Instead of reposting here, just read my thoughts behind this link. -- (gem / talk) 01:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

IMO, there are dozen arguments to keep this skill as it is - all of them horrible arguments, but the fact they exist and are mentioned time and time again, despite being shot down every single time, is IMO a sign of how many users like Ursan the way it is. That skill became a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario for Arena Net: if they nerf it, plenty of players who abuse it would complain (and we all know some would complain even if the skill went from overpowered to good, instead of going from overpowered to trash), if they keep it as it is players who don't like Ursan or its impact on the game complain. Right now, Arena Net knows how many users are complaining against Ursan and what's their impact in the game; they don't know the size of the outcry if Ursan were nerfed. Therefore, I see the safer approach as keeping Ursan the way it is - better the evil known than the evil unknown. I do expect better from Arena Net, though (as it would also have been safer to release a MMORPG with a monthly fee, as opposed to releasing one without a fee and without microtransactions...). Erasculio 01:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

So as a game dev myself, I can help you with the finalized version bug stuff. What'll happen sometimes is that you'll make a feature, and it'll work fine, and then along the lines you'll add another thing that messes with it. Keep in mind also they're running on what you call an "SVN" (I'm assuming?) and what happens sometimes is that you'll test the bug, and someone else will notice something in the part they're working on then and reupload it after it's been tested, assuming that small change won't affect anything. Lastly copying and pasting can get tedious and it's easy to forget to change one little number that stays in the system for ages and only rears its ugly head when something bad happens. Hope I helped you understand a bit more. Vael Victus 02:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, you are incredibly arrogant, Armond Warblade. Did you not read the part where Salome pointed out that "There are 2 sides to every debate and your side isn't necessarily the right one."?? Just because you don't think there are any good reasons for not nerfing Ursan right now this very instant doesn't mean that your opinion is fact. Obviously this is a complicated issue, and ANet is taking its time to make sure that it comes to the best possible solution. Regina already said that ANet employees are divided on this one; thus they are discussing it to come to a resolution. Your snide remark, that anyone who doesn't see it your way has the brain the size of a peanut, is really immature. I would suggest that if you really want to engage with the Community Manager and get a response from her that you elevate the level of discourse that your operating at cause right now it's ridiculously childish and doesn't deserve a reply. 71.136.3.65 02:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Besides...why would ANet or anyone else care what an ex-player wants? Maybe Ursan could be changed to make players who like it and what it makes available to them happy, and those who don't, or maybe not. But, nothing is going to happen to keep the 5% that remember how the game used to be but don't play anymore happy. So please, give us all a break and go play WoW. -- Inspired to ____ 02:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with the previous two posters. As an ex-player (which by definition means you are no longer an ArenaNet customer), what right do you have to demand these things? By your own admission, the section on Ursan Blessing above is rather large, which indicates how much controversy over the subject there is. If you want to call 50% of the posters in that discussion peanut-brained, thats your choice, but there are rules on this wiki against attacking people (especially devs!) like that. Confronting Regina with such rudeness is unlikely to make her willing to have any kind of discussion with you. People like you are the reason Izzy has all but abandoned some of his talk pages. As to the actual issue at hand, would have to agree with what Erasculio said: Anet does not know how bad the outcry will be if Ursan is nerfed. As far as I can tell, for every "ex-player" like yourself who is complaining on the forums and wiki, there are several playing the game and enjoing the skill. Richard Nixon called it the Silent Majority. I think that ArenaNet should carefully consider the consequences of a change to Ursan, and that seems to be exactly what the are doing. Ashes Of Doom 02:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Just thought I'd point out that whether or not Armond has the right to "demand" anything, he's still free to voice his concerns. *Defiant Elements* +talk 02:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Personally, I think the very fact that he is an ex-player adds validity to the points he makes. He quit playing, so in a very real way Anet has lost a customer, who may or may not return for GW2. As a company, I assume ANet strives for attaining customers and keeping them, and should care when they lose them. If someone quits for so or so reason, it's good to listen and find out why, so that, as a company, you might find a way to prevent that in the future.
As to the right to making demands... I wasn't aware that Guild Wars was played on monthly fees. As far as I'm concerned, once you pay for any Guild Wars product you are a paying customer to the franchise, and therefore you have a right to complain. Do you lose your warranty on your computer just because you bought it six months ago and haven't used it much? I should hope not- certainly not in my country, where the law sets the minimum warranty at a year regardless of how much you use a product. In either scenario, it is in the company's best interest to listen to your concerns (and depending on how reasonable they are, act on them) so that they can improve on their product and convince you to keep buying their stuff in the future. -- Elv 08:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

"I think that ArenaNet should carefully consider the consequences of a change to Ursan, and that seems to be exactly what the are doing" oh they should, with no new content coming for Guild Wars - as far as the community knows - how Arenanet handles such issues won't just impact Guild Wars, but the perception of Guild Wars 2. 203.173.242.13 09:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Regardless if you think Ursan Blessing is overpowered or not, it has opened up the game for those who cannot sit around forming a party for an extended period of time, setup the skills needed etc, only to then embark on a 3-4 hour journey into one of the elite areas. Not only has Ursan made it possible to form parties on a fly, it also cuts down on those ridicilously long elite areas, to 2-3 hours, tops. However many disgruntled people there are, complaining because they do not have the skill themselves, or not high enough rank, you forget that the same people wouldn't be considered for a party back in the day either, most likely. So they haven't actually lost anything. Instead of complaining about not getting into groups, they now complain specifically over Ursan Blessing. Same thing really, except that now parties are plentiful in comparison, and a lot more people get to enjoy those areas. Kherec 16:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Arenanet itself designed elite areas and the such for "skilled players" to be a challenge, they are designed - even in the PvE aspect of the game - to be a challenge, so that players who can easily blow through all other areas might find something to actually challenge them. You may think they are overly long areas but this is what they were designed to be, they are created for co-operation and co-ordination. Yes, there was discrimination by the players towards certain professions, but each profession can beat these areas, not game developer would create an area that only some of their character classes could be. Elite areas are created in a way that every profession has a role in them.

Ursan universally destroys what these areas actually mean, what a lot of the game exactly means. I'm against Ursan in its current form not because it gets people playing elite areas - all be it some of the lazy unskilled players I've seen - I'm more against because it goes against what Arenanet spent massive amounts of time and money trying to achieve. They create all these things to challenge the player, granted the players then get big heads over it, but then go off and either directly or indirectly design a skill (set of skills) that are removed from profession, that are removed from the general way in which characters operate and make meaningless the challenges they make.

The argument that it gets people playing or previously unwanting professions in is flawed, Ursan in its current form is flawed. You can not use those in a debate such as this when you're not going in as a Ritualist, or a Assassin or whatever, because you're going into it as an Ursan user, you are not using your profession for its purpose or its role because when you're Ursan you're a tank with only one course, there is no variation in Ursan, no profession comes into consideration. Everything the profession based system stands for is passed aside for an Ursan user. 118.92.111.241 19:46, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to ask a question here. If you don't use Ursan Blessing because you hate it and think it's overpowered, but other players do use it, how are they harming your personal gameplay experience? --Regina Buenaobra 19:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Because if you're a high-level player like Armond (and me), and you want to play, say, DoA. You like playing the purist style, but the only thing spanned in all chat is "r8 ursan lf ursan group" or something along the lines of that. No balanced groups forming. Calor 19:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Player elitism and snobbery existed long before Ursan Blessing came along, and regardless of whether Ursan Blessing is changed or not, you will always have players excluding others based on the builds and Professions they choose to play. The Ursan parties that form aren't actively doing anything to your gameplay experience. They aren't griefing you or abusing you. They are forming teams based on their own requirements. --Regina Buenaobra 19:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Nothing stops you from being a purist and completing these elite areas without Ursan Blessing, if you so desire. You always have the option not to use it, I don't myself. Not very often anyway. I do however use Ursan for Mallyx or so, when you want to do them all at once for the biggest reward. It really cuts down on time, which for me is a big factor. As Regina says, they aren't actually harming you, those carebears *pun intended*. Kherec 20:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps an analogy will show the flaw in this argument. Consider a skill with the effect "kill all enemies in radar range". Do you think that would harm PVE? By your logic, it won't, as noone is forced to use it. So why not put such a skill in?Cassie 20:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Because no one would be playing this game if it took a day or two to complete everything. That is obviously not the case because if anything Ursan is causing more people are playing not less, especially in the elite areas. -- Inspired to ____ 20:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, if such a skill did actually make the vast majority enjoy the game more, should it not be done because a very vocal minority said it would ruin the game? -- Inspired to ____ 20:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I would only support said skill if it killed all foes within the instance and was linked to a title track requiring grind and paying cash to access it. Lord of all tyria 20:25, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I would have to argue that Ursan groups are harming the gameplay experience of others. I can't speak for everyone, but I personally consider the challenge of something part of the fun. If an area is easy, who cares if you can beat it? If an area is hard, trying to beat it and finally succeeding can give a great sense of accomplishment and provide more fun than using a mindless Ursan build to beat an area with sheer force, rather than strategy. When GW:EN came out, I though I may have a reason to play PvE again, with new areas and dungeons and such, but what I found instead were overpowered skills left and right, a very obvious indication that ANet does not care about PvE balance, and was no longer even trying to pretend that they did. I have not played PvE since Eye of the North for this very reason, as whatever fun there may have been in conquering a difficult boss or dungeon was lost. So yeah, more people play high-end PvE, but noone cares anymore, as being able to beat a dungeon or elite mission is simply an accepted fact, instead of an accomplishment and source of pride as it should be. 71.31.149.63 20:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

But how is it harming your sense of personal pride and accomplishment if other people, and not yourself, are using Ursan Blessing? --Regina Buenaobra 21:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Because the pride-giving accomplishments have become impossible due to the popularity of Ursans. If every single group wasn't using Ursan, and if finding a balanced group was still reasonable, your point would be valid, but the popularity of Ursan renders it nearly impossible to get a group that I could be proud to have played in and beat a mission through tactics with. 71.31.149.63 23:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

You're talking like this is a single player game Regina; it's not, it's mmo. Players affect other players. Individuals collectively form a community that interacts with itself. The health of the community reflects the health of individual players and vice versa. I'll use Halo 3 as an example. In Halo 3, there is offline single player, where the gamer can choose to play on Easy or Legendary (hard). Achievements are unlocked for playing the game on either which add up to a gamer score. What one person does in single player has no affect on another person playing single player on a different Xbox 360 for obvious reasons; they are in no way, shape, or form linked to each other. There is no community to speak of that can impact the integrity of the game.

However, if you play online multiplayer, you will find a vibrant community replete with a ranking system, more achievements, special armor, all in recognition of player skill. The moment you put an easy mode in online play to unlock the things that only the best players could achieve is the same moment that those achievements become meaningless. It doesn't matter whether you used easy mode or not; the rewards have been nulled. This is similar to the special titles, armor, weapons, and items in Guild Wars. Comparing the PvE of Guild Wars to the PvP of Halo 3 might seem like a stretch, but PvE is just another form of Player to Player interaction. And putting an instant win button in the game ruins the integrity of the game unlike how it does with single player Halo 3 on Easy mode; and I assert to you that this is because of Player to Player interaction.

I assume you know that Ursan is incredibly imbalanced. Anet MUST be trying to make an easy mode for PvE, targeting casual gamers. You underrate casual gamers; they do not need an instant win button. Instant win buttons are bad for any game. 24.12.41.148 07:58, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) They're harming my personal gameplay experience because if I want to do DoA, and none of my friends/guildies is on, I'll have to go with a PuG. I don't want to use Ursan, so it's impossible for me to PuG those areas. That's how they ruin my personal gameplay experience. -- Mini Me 20:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinion, Mini Me. --Regina Buenaobra 22:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Ursan hurts the gaming experience in a lot of ways Regina. I can't even begin to guess how you can not understand what is being said here. Titles were added to the game to give it extended play value beyond level-20. Titles were supposed to be a way to show your in-game achievements as well as a way to pimp out your character. Not all of the titles were easy to come by. Legendary Guardian took some real work, anytime you saw someone wearing the title you knew they knew where they were going and what they were doing. Earning those titles made your character look cooler, and they gave you a real sense of accomplishment. Since the dawn of Ursan the titles can just be run thru. You don't need to know what skills the enemies are packing, you hardly even need to know where you are going because if you accidently wander into 3 groups of enemies it just means 30 seconds extra to kill them. If The Boston Marathon allowed people who wanted to do so to drive cars I don't think the runners would be very happy about it. This is the same with Guild Wars, it was supposed to be about skill and comradrie and fun, thanks to Ursan it is about money, what can be solo'd, class-based elitism and zones full of nothing with people standing around silently wating for a runner to come thru. A-net your crdibility is waning fast..............................................

Speaking form the experience i got on another games, i must ask you. If you are forced to PUG because none else is available, and the only people you can get goes "Ursan" because they can't play in that zone otherwise, would you honestly want to group with those people using a normal group build?. Do you really would want to go with a group of people that could make you not want to play again in a PUG in your life?. While i can understand that not having people to group with is a problem, this is not limited to Ursan only. People has declided grouping before because of titles/builds/armor/etc, and this new skill is just one more nail in the coffin of ignorance.

About the "game experience issue" and "accomplishment", i am sorry, but the only way i see it is that ursan took away from some users the "bragging rights" they used to have, and they feel bad about it. Put things in context if you want really have the need of bragging. Tell people that you did zones when there was no ursan, same as you tell you did survivor when there was no dwarven brawling :).--Fighterdoken 20:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

This isn't about bragging rights, this is about fun. Ursan is too easy to be fun. Ursan is the only way to get a group for many places. Therefore, Ursan is pretty much killing fun all around. It's not about your ego with respect to other players seeing your title and such, it's about how you feel about yourself after getting the title. Beating DoA with a good group using non-Ursan builds might take longer, but it would be more fun. With Ursan, noone cares if you win, because there is no chance that you will lose. Honestly, if you are farming an area for days on end to get a title which lends a miniscule amount of prestige to your charachter in an online game, you need to seriously re-evaluate what you value in life. A title should be a badge showing pride in overcoming something difficult, not a symbol of hours played. 71.31.149.63 21:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Exactly that's it, thanks anon for pointing that out (Though with or without Ursan, the title would still more or less be a symbol of hours played, but it took higher standards then) —ZerphaThe Improver 21:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Your definition of fun isn't the same as other people's. If you beat DoA without Ursan Blessing and that's fun for you, great. Why begruge other people who choose to use Ursan Blessing if they want to get through content more easily? You choose to play the game in a challenging way, and other people do not. Why hate on them for the way they choose to play it? --Regina Buenaobra 22:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Why do all of your comments seem to be targeted at certain other players in a negative manner rather than in a diplomatic way? Not very community mangeristic imho. It seems as if you don't take the issues that the players have with this skill seriously. It's not your task to say if the players are worrying for a reason or not. As far as I know it's the game developers and skill balancers who make the decision. -- (gem / talk) 22:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I just saw that a number of people were harshly judging others for using a particular skill that they disapprove of. If they choose not to use that skill -- great. But why hate on other players for using it? It's not friendly at all. --Regina Buenaobra 23:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I read it more as her playing Devil's Advocate. But I also am very hard to offend, so maybe I'm just missing the ill intent. Assume bad faith and all that.. — THARKUN 22:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was just trying to stimulate discussion by interjecting that everyone does not enjoy the game the same way as other people, and it's a little unfair for people here to judge other players harshly for the way they choose to enjoy GW. --Regina Buenaobra 23:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

You are right in that my definition of fun is different from other people's. It is very different from ANet's idea of fun, even if it is very similar or exactly the same as that of mostly all gamers I have met. That's why I stopped playing GW, all of the fun and variety that used to be in the game was being slowly removed. Ursan was simply a large jump in that direction instead of a step. 71.31.149.63 23:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm suprised that the kill all enemies in the radar skill wasn't introduced alongside Ursan Bessing...come to think of it...Grind of the North [E] Kill all enemies in your radar. This skill is only available once you grind quest your way to rank 10 in each faction in the North. This skill has a 60...10 second recharge (Attribute: Grind). Same deal as ursan just faster.-Warior Kronos 21:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Mini Me said, "They're harming my personal gameplay experience because if I want to do DoA, and none of my friends/guildies is on, I'll have to go with a PuG. I don't want to use Ursan, so it's impossible for me to PuG those areas. That's how they ruin my personal gameplay experience. -- Mini Me 20:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)" - Mini Me, please explain to me how they're ruining your gameplay experience. You go to DoA, you wanna do balanced, that's fine. The Ursan groups are not PMing you and harassing you because you want to play balanced, they're not tracking your IP address so they can hack into your account and quit you from your Elite PvE Guild, they're not doing anything to stop you from saying, "Forming Balanced Group for DoA (Party Search)". You can play how you wanna play, the Ursans can play how they wanna play. They're not taking anything away from your gameplay experience, so why do you care? Nobody has seemed to answer this question.68.196.141.53 22:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

no one hate those who use ursan, they hate anet for not doing anything about it. i don't pve, mainly cuz this shit is everywhere ruining the original balanced groups. if u go anywhere u have to use this shit repeatedly through everything, pressing 1,2,3 through the whole pve ruins that part of the game completly, espicially in high end pve where ur only other option is a pick up group of the losers without ursan --Cursed Angel 22:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I'll post it at the bottom (where new comments should generally go) - "But how is it harming your sense of personal pride and accomplishment if other people, and not yourself, are using Ursan Blessing? --Regina Buenaobra 21:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)". Because people automatically assume, in this world where 99% of people are forced to, that you used Ursan to get a certain title or monument. When you display your "Kind of a Big Deal" title track under your feet, you can't add a "and I got it through my own skill, determination and strategy" -- by having such a title, it's implied you got it through the easiest way. Right now, the easiest way (not necessarily the best way) is through Ursan Blessing -- and that is assumed regardless of whether you used it or not. Also, because this is a multiplayer and co-operative game, "personal pride" goes hand in hand with pride of other people. If that pride was brought out into worthlessness, through Ursan Blessing, that pride that you get from seeing a friend or guildmate's title is practically non-existent. That has an effect on the person with the title -- 'It doesn't mean anything to him, so it doesn't really mean anything to me. Why am I doing it?' So asking how Ursan Blessing affects one personally is not a good way to go about it -- in this game where contact and a sense of achievement with other people is what ArenaNet (should) promote, it seems contradicted by a skill which nullifies said sense of achievement. And as Gem says, that's not very community-minded. -- Brains12 \ Talk 22:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I'm inclined to agree with Brains. I quit GW before GWEN was released, but even so, I've heard a lot about Ursan's impact on the game. I don't think it's so much a question of being deprived of the ability to run a balanced team or being forced to use Ursan so much as it is Ursan's cheapening effect on the game. Sure, there's some minor sense of self-accomplishment winning without Ursan, but all the while, you know that other people are accomplishing the same things with a bare fraction of the effort. *Defiant Elements* +talk 22:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

But you still retain your own sense of pride at having accomplished the same thing without using Ursan Blessing, don't you? In fact, do you not feel even more accomplished that you'd done the same thing without using Ursan Blessing? Instead of getting angry at people who are using a skill to make thing easier for them, why are you not just simply secure in your abilities to complete the same content in a more challenging way?--Regina Buenaobra 23:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

As I said, it's not only my own sense of pride (by the way, that's a null point because I've never used Ursan -- I've pretty much given up on Guild Wars). People display titles because they want other people to see their achievement -- it's not simply about "me." As I also said, that achievement is worthless if it can be achieved with something that doesn't require much thought or skill and on such a large scale. I'm not angry either, I just feel that something so boring, monotonous and generally "easy" is not something that should exist in Guild Wars -- as a multiplayer game, I want to play with other people. That's simply not an option without Ursan Blessing. -- Brains12 \ Talk 23:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I think that, if we really want to discuss Ursan, we should separate the topics:

1. Some players feel that this skill takes away from them their right to be better than your common Joe.
2. Some players feel that this skill affects the economy by making rare drops more common in the market.
3. Some players feel that this skill affects grouping by making the chances of getting a non-ursan PUG harder.
4. Some players feel that this skill affects your average user gaming skills by being just a 1-2-3 button smashing (which is funny, because usually melee classes are 1-2-3-4-5 smashers anyways).
5. Some players feel that this skill is not really balanced game-wise, and that offers too many advantages (armor, armor-piercing damage, health increase) without any disadvantage.
6. Some players feel that this skill is problematic because it can be abused when used together with other features in the game (by example, consumables, or a full group of ursans).
7. Some players feel that this skill is just a way to encourage grinding in the game (ignoring that grinding has been here since titles).
8. Some players feel that this skill is a needed after the balance updates that have been happening since EotN was lauched.
9. Some players are actually happy whith having a skill that allows them (after some grinding) to do what they would have had lots of troubles doing before.
10. Some players are happy with the skill, but are unhappy because they have to grind to use it.

For me, I actually agree with points 8 and 9, but have to admit that i feel points 5 and 6 have some truth in them. I don't really want so see the skill nerfed into oblivion (because i use it for H/h, mind you), but i think some changes to avoid less abuse could be made (like fix armor/hp instead of plus, not allowing consumables while on it, etc).--Fighterdoken 22:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) To be perfectly honest, all PvE skills are imbalanced, and they are ment to be that way. Also, Ursan is not the only skill/set of skills that break PvE. If you want to run DoA with a balanced party get guildies, or advertise a pug as such, if you want to run Ursan more power too you, but as for "Breaking the economy" really what is there to break? you get special armors and gears that look cool, so what? there really is nothing special about any item in the game other than how it looks, and i really dont see how skills such as Ursan break the economy anymore than say a 55 farmer, or ele tanks. There is so much really that you can do with this game, if you really have a problem with Ursan then dont use it, But also dont expect to get into many pugs, to be honest you find the same thing in HA, TA, and any other organized arena, Most people generally use Sway for HA, I personally dont like it, but there again thats why I don't pug. If your guildies arent on or arent interested, rage and get a new guild, but for real, If you think about it, a nerf to ursan will only bring about another build that everyone wants to run, that will become trendy and then you will be here again complaining that something about it is imbalanced enough that everyone wants to run it. Sorry if any of this has been said before but reading walls of text bore me.--Shadowsin 22:36, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) On the Prophecies box: "You'll prove your worth with every battle as skill, not hours played decides your fate." Players who have the most intelligence were supposed to be able to do better than those who don't have intelligence. With Ursan, you can literally mash the buttons and be 100% efficient. If you do somehow make a huge mistake, it doesn't matter because you have 900 hp and 120 armor with everything hitting you for half damage thanks to AoE weakness. The fact that Ursan effectively turns the statement on the original box into a lie is my biggest gripe with this skill. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 22:43, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Mini Me actually has a valid point hidden in their comment. Yes, Mini Me can choose to play balanced if they want, but if they cannot find other PUGs that will play balanced no matter what time they are logging on, that's a definite concern. This is one of the issues the developers are aware of regarding this skill. The problem I have with some of the people here is the hatred towards the people who choose to use Ursan Blessing, as if their use of Ursan Blessing is a personal insult to them. --Regina Buenaobra 23:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Why acknowlage the same point you argued against earlier, simply because a different person suggested it? 71.31.149.63 23:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Because there are different developer opinions on why Ursan Blessing should be kept as-is/nerfed. Mini Me's argument is an opinion shared by some people here, and the way they delivered their feedback was not in terms of some people are losers for using Ursan and everyone else are elite gods for not. They didn't resort to insults to make their point. --Regina Buenaobra

OMG, she was just being balanced in her viewpoint. Anyhoo Regina people on the wiki always moan about things which dont directly effect them. See the third year mini rant above. Some people got their mini's slightly earlier than other peeps and all of a sudden half the wiki is crying about it for no dicernable logical reason. The same with Ursan. It's more a case that making the game easier for peeps seems to effect how they perceive their own achievements done the purist balanced way. However i do have to give them some points on the fact that it is now impossible to get into pugs in some areas if you dont want to run Ursan, which is annoying. Personally I dont mind running Ursan but its all my mesmer has been allowed to run in recent months and I have to admit its boring me senseless now as no one will just accept me as a plain old ordinary domination mesmer, same with my other chars. The only who who still get to fulfill what they were designed for is my monk and my rit which is a shame as it makes the game dull. As to pug my only options now are to Ursan or to heal which kinda makes the professions, normal skills, attribute lines, appropriate weaponry and equipment somewhat redundant. :( -- Salome 23:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Even worse, the last days playing as a monk I'm getting forced to show my build and if my skill bar should differ just 1 single skill from the "official" vanilla HB-monk build, regardless how good the reasons for this may be, I'm getting kicked. --Xer 23:46, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to the DoA of old, and the (balanced-team) Slavers' of today, where the biggest sin you can commit is deviating from the cookie cutter an half an inch. Build-nazis are nothing new, and they're a hell of a lot more prevalent outside of Ursan teams. 12.208.228.124 13:42, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd rather know someone's opinion, especially if they may be able to bring about change based on their opinion, than have them try to argue both sides. I saw her state earlier that we could just play other builds if we want, but now she says that ANet knows that you can't get a group with anything other than Ursan? Well, which is it? There would be no need to perpetuate this arguement, which would be the only reason to argue two conflicting points, if a solution could be reached or at least a clear idea of what will or will not happen. 71.31.149.63 23:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately it's really not that easy. Some people here feel that player elitism will always exist and there is no need to change it. Some people feel that Ursan Blessing has created a more refined form of elitism that is detrimental to the formation of other types of PUGs. As I said above, Ursan Blessing is being looked at by the designers, and it is something that is being debated. People here are aware of how strongly many players feel about it -- on both sides (nerf/leave as-is). There are a few different perspectives and opinions on the skill, some of which echo the feelings within the community, again on either side. There are also few different ideas on what should be done about it. --Regina Buenaobra

She's the CM, thus she has to represent all oppinions. It's not up to her to make changes but instead to relay information to and from anet in relation to us the community. Anet and the community are split on this one and as such she's rightly reflecting both view points. Her statements do not contradict, all she said is that both viewpoints have credit and value. Also as a side note, frankly what you would personally prefer from Reigina, be that oppinion or action based, really isn't an issue of consideration for this wiki. -- Salome 23:43, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Regina, that's exactly what I was looking for, information. And Salome, that was not my point at all. I was stating that simply giving us information instead of qualifications to each opinion would be more helpful, not what I would personally prefer. Also, "But how is it harming your sense of personal pride and accomplishment if other people, and not yourself, are using Ursan Blessing?" and "but if they cannot find other PUGs that will play balanced no matter what time they are logging on, that's a definite concern. This is one of the issues the developers are aware of regarding this skill" are contradictory(note the words I bolded). 71.31.149.63 23:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not. How does it hurt a player's ego if they are able to clear areas without Ursan Blessing? How does it hurt their ego if other people choose to use Ursan Blessing? Surely they feel even more accomplished without using Ursan Blessing and other people do use it. The second comment regarding the awareness of developers and Ursan versus non-Ursan party formation -- I am not sure how finding PUGs is related to a player's personal pride. Could you explain?--Regina Buenaobra 00:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure. GW is a team game, so you can't have a "personal accomplishment" without other people. If the system is set up so they will only accept one build, that's removing any ability to choose a playstyle that leaves the player satisfied that their skill, and not their skillbar, beat the area. 71.31.149.63 00:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

If it's so difficult to find other people to play with that don't use Ursan, doesn't that suggest that the majority of people like using Ursan as is? You could make the argument that lots of these people don't like using Ursan and are only using it because they have to, but I don't buy that as a valid argument because the use of Ursan is optional. ANet has not forced anyone to use Ursan and it's entirely up to the player's choice. If you don't like it and feel that you don't get the same sense of accomplishment when you use Ursan, don't use it. Don't join groups that use it. If there are really so many people who don't like Ursan/refuse to use it out there, shouldn't it be easy enough to find other non-Ursan users to play with? If it really is that difficult to find other non-Ursan users to play with, then it seems like the controversy over using Ursan is really confined to just a small part of the GW community as a whole, and isn't a majority opinion. The issue of forming groups aside, how does it impact your personal play experience if other's choose to use it in their gameplay? And really, what difference does it make if someone with less skill than a non-Ursan user has achieved the same things in the game? It doesn't change the fact that you did it on your own w/o Ursan in anyway. You had fun playing the game your way (w/o Ursan), they had fun playing it their way (w/Ursan). It just sounds like a lot of elite players are insecure and want to make Ursan unavailable to others so that they can maintain their monopoly on certain achievements, which in turn makes them feel good about themselves. If you're relying on the abilities of other players as compared to your own to feel good about yourself, and need other GW players to know that you are highly skilled in order to feel a sense of accomplishment...well, that's not ANet's problem, now is it? 99.157.202.134 23:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I really don't mean to sound rude, 99.157, but have you actually been reading the conversation up to this point? You've just repeated basically every point that people have been making, which isn't really constructive to the conversation. Kokuou 00:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I would not go so far as to say it is not Anet's concern, but if the problem is actually small scale, it is not so much of an issue as people might lead us to believe. The idea of the vocal minority standing out in politics was established years ago, and it may be the case on this wiki. The "concern" that the Devs have over the fact that it is hard to get a non-ursan group these days, imho, is rather unfounded. How many groups did you see forming in ToA back in the days before Ursan? Not nearly as many, I can assure you. And how any of those were truly competant groups who knew what they were doing? Hate to break it to you, but fewer still. Those groups that were "forced" to use the old, non-ursan builds (simply because that type of tank, monk and damage dealer were the only efficient build that worked) often did not succeed. Let me give an example. As a warrior, I could never find a high-end PvE group unless I ran a obsidian tank build. That was it. There was no other choice that would get me a group, unless I ran with a guild. How is that significantly different to the ursan problem these days? There will always be certain builds that work best in certain situations. By default, the general pve crowd requires those things for those situations. Ashes Of Doom 00:06, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I've read the entire conversation. Perhaps I should have synthesized my main two points (which I haven't seen made explicitly) more clearly: 1. If it really is that difficult to find other non-Ursan users to play with, then it seems like the controversy over using Ursan is really confined to just a small part of the GW community as a whole, and isn't a majority opinion and 2. If you're relying on the abilities of other players as compared to your own to feel good about yourself, and need other GW players to know that you are highly skilled in order to feel a sense of accomplishment...well, that's not ANet's problem, now is it? 99.157.202.150 00:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Let's assume, for a second, that UB is indeed by far the most popular play style. If you are right, what should be the logical consequences? Why not remove all professions from the game and offer just to hard coded skill bars: an UB class with 5 skills and an HB class with 8 skills, thus reducing the then-totally-unnecessary complexity of the game to near zero. Just get rid of it, because it isn't needed anymore. I think this gedankenexperiment shows how UB has changed the very elementary basics of Guild Wars. --Xer 00:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Offering ridiculousness as the only logical option in an otherwise unthought-out list of options rarely goes far to supporting a conclusion. Here's a real thought-experiment: If UB did not exist, would the rest of the game's complexity still be unnecessary? The answer here is an overwhelming yes, considering the number of skills that are of little or no use in the face of other skills that are more efficient; probably 1/5 to 1/2 of the game mechanics (skills, weapon and mods, potentially classes) could be excised on the argument that they are underutilized, LAME (as the tag), or just not the latest and greatest. It also entirely misses the point. The complexity exists not because it is necessary for its own sake, but because complexity, freedom and more options generally lead to more fun. It's also funny how you try to argue for complexity by trying to force a conclusion stating that all need to convert to one camp or the other. Logical this is not, nor is it even workable satire. 12.208.228.124 13:42, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Are you trying to infer that UB is not the most commonly used skill for high end PvE? With the exception of guild groups, 90% of the groups to be found spamming in ToA are ursan. I'd say that is probably a w:majority. As far as the so-called "plan" you have, that is simply ridiculous, and is just an attempt to dramatize the matter. Ursan is not the solution to all the problems in PvE (by which I mean challenges, not bugs). Yes it is possible to do everything with Ursan, but who PuGs for general play these days anyway? I personally use the sabway build concept to great success. The main discussion (unless I have somehow missed something) was referring to Ursan use in high end PvE, like FoW, UW, and DoA. The game of Guild Wars is a bit more than just that. Ashes Of Doom 00:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure this is a dramatization. This is what thought experiments are made for. :-) You are right that during the main campaigns the influence of Ursan is (still) marginal, although growing day by day. But sometimes all chars end up in some elite areas and then you are asked to show up your r9+ title or be kicked/shunned. No fun. TBH I'm against nerfing Ursan (its a nice skill) but restrict its use to GWEN areas only. --Xer 00:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not saying that using Ursan is the most popular play style. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I don't know. But a lot of the Ursan detractors on this thread are arguing that it hurts them because they don't want to use Ursan but can no longer find PUGs that don't Ursan. All I'm saying is that if that is really the case, that if it is so difficult to find non-Ursan using groups, then most people either like using Ursan and/or don't care, thus the controversy is really being generated by a small minority. If their issues belonged to the majority, there would be a lot of non-Ursan using players out there, and it wouldn't be so hard for them to form PUGs. 99.157.202.150 00:19, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

@99.157's first post-Most of the people that don't like Ursan don't even bother trying to find a group, so they won't be in the PvE areas where Ursan is used. And no, it's not optional. It's either use it, or don't get a group. And most of the Ursan users don't care about the skill at all. They just use whatever build is the easiest and fastest thing they can find, so if the easiest build is AFK-mode easy, so much the better for them. And skill changes are often made based on minority opinions, because often the majority has no idea what they are talking about. That has much to do with why this wiki has so many problems, but that's an arguement for another day. And as to "what difference does it make if someone with less skill than a non-Ursan user has achieved the same things in the game?," it makes no difference at all, except that a game based on skill is exactly what GW was advertised as, and why I, and many, many others, came to play this game over WoW and such. Now that GW is barely based on skill, those players are leaving. And "If you're relying on the abilities of other players as compared to your own to feel good about yourself, and need other GW players to know that you are highly skilled in order to feel a sense of accomplishment...well, that's not ANet's problem, now is it?" was completely wrong of you to say, seeing as that's not the point at all. The point was that you really can't feasibly get individual achievements in a team based game without the help of others, so having a forced playstyle kills individual senses of accomplishment just as much as egos, because you can only find people willing to run a god-mode build. The only part of that post I completely agree with is "had fun playing the game your way," simply because you included the word "had." Taking the "elitism" angle to this was completely ignoring most of the arguements that were made, and going from elitism to communism isn't exactly solving problems. While ideal communism would fit perfectly within the game as far as balance, we all know that such ideals end up being simply enforced rules by those those that are less fortunate in a system that is not forcibly balanced. 71.31.149.63 00:20, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

While that comment about "communism" may be true in the real world, the system always ends up being exploited for personal gain by the people in charge. The thing is, Anet is the "people in charge" as it applies to Guild Wars. They are not going to be exploiting the system are they? (that was rhetorical, we could argue about that all day =P) Imho, in that analogy, "communism" would probably be preferable. Ashes Of Doom 00:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You know what I intended by that analogy :\ 71.31.149.63 00:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you were trying to associate the idea of using ursan blessing with the generally negative perspective most people have of communism. Or am I wrong? Ashes Of Doom 00:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you were wrong :\ I don't hold a negative view of communism, in fact, ideal communism would be the most effective form of government. The relation to my point there, is that Ursan acts as a method to allow "balance" between skill levels by giving players victory not based on skill. The relation is that, just as in actual practice of communism in the real world, the system ends up as the people who like Ursans forcing those who would rather do things another way to do things their way, adding not balance, but forced regulation. So I was basically explaining how a nice concept can be destroyed by realities. 71.31.149.63 00:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

What a discussion! I love it. The notion of personal pride that Regina has brought into the discussion is an interesting one. Of this notion I can ask, "How is Arenanet's pride with Ursan in exist?" Is Arenanet happy about how the game is turning since it created Ursan? Since more and more people are now using - even arguably reliant on - it to complete some of the more challenging aspects of the game, are they proud of this? Are they proud that since GWEN came out, through the use of consumables and Ursan more and more players are going through the more 'skill based' aspect of the games and running through them as if they were nothing. Running through the areas designed to be the most challenging. Consumables can make even the most challenging HM area as if it were NM. With Ursan and its over powered armor ignoring main attack and set of skills a pair, trio etc of Ursan's can easily decimate the normally most challenging of creatures of PvE Guild Wars with any profession using Ursan and two Healer's Boon monks. Is this something Arenanet is happy with? Is this something they're proud of? Are they proud that one skill which is rapidly redefining the game is not based in profession, the very mechanic which determine the character? I feel it is overpowered in the truer sense than anything that has been released by Arenanet. Normally overpowered skills are profession based and accessible either through primary or secondary use of that profession can use such overpowering skills. Yet Ursan is not grounded in the profession system, it is grounded in a universal title track. Players who use Ursan to go through these areas aren't playing the game based on the prinicipals Arenanet itself established. Profession based characters. Skill. People are now beating the game, its harder challenges not as a Warrior, not as a Nerco, not as a Ritualist, but as a Ursan user. Ursan is outside of the gaming mechanic - for the most part - when it comes to the character. Ursan is reliant on a title track, unlike an attribute it can not be weakened there is only one direction it can go up. (unless the player decides not to farm points etc) It is a constant, there is no counter to the determining factor the relates to Ursan's power. Even with the lowest rank in this title Ursan can be massively devastating, even more powerful than most professions in Guild Wars - in the sense you of just its main attack. Even with consumables a group using the profession based system of skills will probably (from my experience) not be able to do things as quickly as a group of 6 Ursans and 2 HB monks. There is literally no skill in Ursan. When a player creates a character they can everything for that character that that profession has to offer. You decide your look, your skills, your weapon, everything. When you're an Ursan user, using Ursan to complete a game, bar having that one Elite on your bar, do you have any control over what skill you can put on it? Ursan goes against the prinicipals of Guild Wars, in my eyes, where the player isn't picking their own skills, they're only picking one because the others they have no say over Arenanet pre-sets Ursan's bar, not the player. Its nice ot know Arenanet can set up a bar, I suppose.

In the end its not whether the players consider it a good and viable skill or something that is overpower and just dumbing the game letting everyone to everything and challenges be damned. In the end it comes down to Arenanet, whether they feel that Ursan in its current from conforms to what Guild Wars actually is, what they have just spent the last few year trying to achieve. 118.92.111.241 00:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

GUYS! Could we just stop? Regina has told you what's going on several times. What more do you want? This is just needlessly spamming her talk page. IMHO this topic should be archived for now until we get more info as this is just going round arguments which have been discussed a million times. I suggest moving this topic to the talk page of the Ursan blessing skill which can be found here: Talk:Ursan_Blessing. -- Salome 00:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest it not be moved since usually when a discussion is moved it generally kills the conversation, plus Regina (who's talk page this is) is taking a part in the conversation. 118.92.111.241 00:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

"It just sounds like a lot of elite players are insecure and want to make Ursan unavailable to others so that they can maintain their monopoly on certain achievements, which in turn makes them feel good about themselves. If you're relying on the abilities of other players as compared to your own to feel good about yourself, and need other GW players to know that you are highly skilled in order to feel a sense of accomplishment...well, that's not ANet's problem" In my opinion, that statement more than sums up things. ~ Sabastian 01:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I am for a Ursan nerf and since I was previously rejected from UW, FOW, and DOA runs on several character profession I wouldn't say I was elite :P 118.92.111.241 01:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

nah shes not taking part anymore, now shes just getting hounded by people wanting it changed and touting the same old reasons at her, in spite of her saying they are considering it. What more do you want from her? -- Salome 01:40, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I say archive it, but maybe a short post from Regina in its place to redirect users who what to debate Ursan? This is the 3rd or 4th time an ursan discussion has popped up on her page in the last few days. Ashes Of Doom 01:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Regina brought up the notion of personal pride and am urge to hear her thoughts on even part of my post relate to the pride aspect she asked the players about, but in sense of Arenanet's pride.  :) 118.92.111.241 01:47, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Stop it. Lord Belar 03:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

We should be able to use 7 heroes. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 03:39, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Considering we're given so many profession double ups with heroes it might be nice ... lol... oh oh and Jora should be able to have Bear Form, from a purely story point of view why the hell can't she? >.< hehehehe :P Sorry, off topic :P 118.92.111.241 04:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no way that guy would be able to take down that horse with his normal skills.. I mean, look at him. Clearly even he is an Ursan user. Notice the saddle-ignoring damage, too. Too bad, though.. doesn't look like he got any good drops. — THARKUN 06:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

That's why he keeps beating it I guess - no drops. Maybe he got that cane as a drop, it's probably white. One thing though, am I the only one who thought that was a camel instead of horse at first glance? -- ab.er.rant 09:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Thank you, Regina. It's good to know Anet is atleast discussing it :) -- Mini Me 10:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You got me wrong. I didn't refer to the fun-factor. (as to be honest, i'm the sort of player that prefers having a walk-over than succeeding after several harder trials) I refered to the value of all those titles if one can get them like that. My view of this skill can be read here. —ZerphaThe Improver 11:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Poor horse. Anyway... I never understood the big deal with Ursan. I really, really never did. Yes, I think it's lame, and people who use it to attain, say, Legendary Vanquisher all the way are lame, because they lacked the skill to just do it with whatever the profession they play has to offer. No, I do not feel it dents my personal pride. Why not? Because it's personal. I completed one Legendary Guardian and Legendary Vanquisher so far and I'm close to completing those titles for the second time. Not by using Ursan, but by using the skills my professions have to offer. I take personal pride that I did it like that. Yes, I think that people who Ursan through every area of the game are probably less skilled than those who don't (especially because it's really not always the faster way to do it). No, I don't think they shouldn't be allowed to do it. I enjoyed playing the game with skill, they enjoyed rushing through the game mindlessly mashing the same skills over and over. It may be difficult to find non-Ursan groups in DoA nowadays, and people might feel constrained by it, but surely our memories are not so fallible as to already have forgotten what DoA was like before that? Any Guild Wars area has always been subject to a certain elitist attitude. Back in the Prophecies days, it was hard to find a PuG if you weren't a Warrior, Elementalist or Monk. People have always discriminated based on titles and profession. Nowadays, they base their discrimination on the rank you have achieved with a certain skill. Boohoo. Out with the cookie-cutter set profession discrimination in high end places, in with the Ursan rank discrimination. The pro side is that any profession can join easily now- even "underdogs" like Mesmers and Assassins. The con side is that you'll need to grind 2 titles a long way first before being considered. (These grinds, by the way, are really easy and each takes no more than a day to complete if done from morning till nightfall.) It's less challenging, more boring- but essentially a lot faster too. If you've only two or three hours a day, Ursan is perfect to still get a chance to see a bit of high-end PvE.
Nerfing Ursan is not the ultimate solution to the apparent problem. People forming in DoA will still prefer a rank 8 Lightbringer over a rank 4 one. People will be more likely to ask for cookie cutter professions from known successful builds than to take up the challenge and try something new, like an all-Dervish team. The best way to avoid this kind of PvE snobbism has always been to form guild or alliance teams. Likeminded people can gather and do an area that way, without having to run into the big bad Ursan monster. My alliance does just that. I'm sure others do too. Considering the amount of people who nag about Ursan (or maybe it's the same handful every time?) I'd say there's a big enough crowd to try and gather a balanced team in high-end areas. If the people who opposed Ursan so much would take a deep breath and stopped complaining for a while (here, in game, on the forums) and all ran to International District 1 to see if other likeminded people showed up, I'm sure there'd be enough people present to form a party or two.
It's not unlike the PvP versus PvE argument. You can stamp your foot and shout that you're right until you've worn out your vocal folds, or you can simply ignore the people who complain, act snobby and whine whenever they get the chance, and enjoy the game. PM some friends. Throw a crazy idea into guild chat. Stand in a busy town and chat around in Local Chat and see if there aren't people who think like you. It is not impossible to find players like you. If it were, this discussion wouldn't have so many people on both sides of the argument. Relax, take a deep breath, and go back to play the game in a way you enjoy most. And hey, if you're really afraid you won't find anyone who'll play something other than Ursan, you're welcome to PM me in-game. ;) -- Elv 13:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I read and can understand the use of Ursan Blessing from both sides. However, I think it should stay as is. It helps people from all classes able to do things in end-game areas. If it was taken away for instance, it would be rare an assassin, ranger, ritulaist, dervish, paragon, etc would be able to get into groups that want only monks, 1 tank, eles and necros (ie. what DoA used to require pre-Ursan). Sure it takes time to get r10 Ursan but it saves a bit of time when going with an ursan group doing other things. If people do not want to use Ursan, they don't have to. Nobody is forcing anyone to use anything. If Ursan is nerfed, people will then complain because they can't use their ____ to do ____ because people only then want ____ for that area. Foxysheri 15:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I would like to make two points from an unbiased perspective. PRO) Heroes can't use this skill, so an Ursan team encourages team play with other humans. Since ANet has stated repeatedly that their main reason for limiting the number of heroes a person can have out at one time was to encourage more interaction, this can be seen as a huge plus. However, with the emphasis on consumable sets, team play means little as their is hardly any chatter during a "(literally)run". CON) I haven't seen any discussion on the effects of UB on the economy of GW. Before anyone scoffs that "the economy is already ruined", remember that there is no title associated with most of the elite areas, so guess why people keep farming them over and over.Stan Thompson talk 15:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

While there is no title for elite areas, there are monuments. :) Foxysheri 15:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The jist of the CON point was that the economy is affected, not that it is the main offense. You are correct that there are monuments, but that has been discussed so much I was honestly trying to take this discussion in a new direction (that doesn't have half this talk page already devoted to it). Hence the 'over and over' phrase.Stan Thompson talk 16:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You are right about the fact that Ursan is probably affecting the economy, but I don't think thats a bad thing. Pre-ursan, there was no way the majority of players could afford some of the higher end items, such as tormented weapons, minis, and other rarer weapons. It seems that as Anet put so much work into creating these cool skins and minis, more than 2% of the user base should get a chance to experience them. Ashes Of Doom 16:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

FTFY. --164.47.99.222 16:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Here is a Nifty Fact.... Our Guild has been around in some incarnation or another since the day GW was released. We have lotsa of people that met thru Guild Wars and played together literally everyday for a very longtime, in some cases 3 years, but in most cases more than 1 year. We have played GW in every venue and we have loved it. When HM came out we all hooked up and started scoring Legendary Guardians and Vanquishers and we enjoyed each other company as much as the game. Everyone was ready for some fun when EOTN was releaed, some of us, like me, bought 2 or 3 copies because we had multiple existing accounts. It seemed like nothing would ever stop us from playing together. Then Ursan took hold. I had played GW everyday for the last 3 years , now I log in once a week to see if anything has changed. I look at our guild roster to see that no one is playing anymore. This is the effect of Ursan, it hurts the community. Regina I dunno what you are trying to do with the statements on this page. You claim to not understand very basic things. You are acting just like Gaile.. instead of straight answers you convolute things. You ask for clarification iof things that are aleady clear. You seem to WANT to be duplicitous..... People who have been playing for a long time are upset about Ursan because it devalues not only thier items and in-game achievments but also the time they have spent gaining them. Ursan is basically a form of God Mode. At tyhe very least a distinction should be made between titles earned as Ursan and titles earned by actually playing the game.... If you need proof of the effects of ursan on the GW community just go out and zone hop looking for a group....... Compare that to pre-ursan times. I had high hopes for Regina, I was hoping we were going to get someone who kept the gamers and the community here they belong in the list of priorities, at the top..... I must admit to being very dissapointed , Regina may as well be Gaile JR, all she does is double talk and make excuses and never giv straight answers.... I been playing or 3 years, If it were not for Ursan I would still be playing everyday.... Now that Ursan is here I just don't see a point. There is nothing at all to strive for in the game.... Ursan gives it away..... 94 people 38 of which have been here 3 years, 12 for 2 and 18 for more than 1 have just stopped playing .... and only a couple weeks after the release of the final expansion.... doesn't that say something ? ........ I guess developers signet is next........... I really really miss Guild Wars, it was a great game and I am sorry it is over. Oh BTW, you can bet your sweet life none of us are coming back for GW2......... not that you care , we are a small number in the grand scheme of things...... --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:68.14.76.172 (talk).

";Duplicitous"? I think you haven't been paying attention when I stated numerous times that opinion at ArenaNet is divided on Ursan Blessing. Some people here consider the problems you cite as player-created problems, not problems with the skill; others believe the opposite. You want "straight answers" but the fact is there are no easy answers to this complex problem. --Regina Buenaobra 18:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not a matter of pride so much as poor game design. There should never be a button you can press that makes you instantly win. You know this skill is severely imbalanced yet you keep it to target casual players. You give casual players too much with this skill or underrate casual players too much. They don't need a skill this powerful to play the game. The integrity of any game is destroyed when you make instant wins. Don't use it is not a valid argument. That's why it is bad for the game. Nobody wants to play a game with instant wins. That's why it affects gamers. That's why I'm considering Age of Conan over GW or GW2. 24.12.41.148 06:57, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Regina when I said duplicitous I didn't mean about the direct answer you gave about A-net being of split opinion. I appreciated that and I recognize that it is probably more than we would have gotten from your predecessor. What I did mean was that you have been almost entirely avoiding the actual issue, which is not Ursan at all...... It is the negative effect of ursan on the GW community. What I , and I think more than most of the people here and in other Ursan related topics scattered across the web are am asking is not about wether or not the skill is considered overpowered. We KNOW it is overbuffed. Even the people of split opinion out in your offices must know that. What is actually being asked is wether or not the PvE community is being thrown to the wayside. You Regina, have not even commented on the impact to the community. Do you feel that the community is better or worse since the addition of Ursan. Are you aware that all of the zones outside EOTN are devoid of people playing with each other? You keep turning the issue back to the power of the skill, and the fact that some people like it and others don't......... now you are saying that it is the players fault..... This reminds me of the SOA axe incident a few years back. This is to say nothing about titles. Titles were introduced to give the game extended play value beyond level 20. Some of those titles were hard to come by and there was a degree of pride that came from weaing them in game. It also let others know that the person they were accepting into thier group knew what was up. Ursan gives that away completely. You claimed to not understand this concept, which I can't really understand, because it doesn't seem that complex. If you put effort into gaining or achieving something and then 2 days later the government just hands out whatever it was you were after, it cheapens it. In this day and age there are a lot less people who take the stairs when there is an elevator available, which is why there are so many overweight people. Look I didn't mean to insult you. When I read your responses to people I always get the impression that you have read and understood what was said. That was not true with Gaile and it makes me really want to have some hope for the future of GW1. I am bummed out that MY Guild Wars experience has gone from, "I can't wait to play tonight!" to "Wow it is raining hard and nothing is on TV and I have already washed the dishes, let's see if anything is going on in Guild Wars." just to find out nothing is. So now tell us Regina, is Ursan A-nets way of saying that they are done with PvE in GW1? Are you guys basically done with the community as a whole and content to leave people playing in God Mode to see the sights they may have missed untill GW2 comes out, or are you going to try to fix this mess and give people reason to be social and play together again? Anyways.... I need to go make an account here, the whole Unsigned thing is bugging me.........

Sweet baby jesus, what did you people not understand about the dead horse graphic??? 128.32.28.94 17:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, it does look more like a camel. --164.47.99.222 17:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

What is wrong with mourning for the poor horse....... I liked her, she took me lots of places. I was looking forward to new adventures with her. I am sorry that she is dead. I wasn't ready to find a new horse.

Surely you mean camal? -- Salome 18:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

"You want "straight answers" but the fact is there are no easy answers to this complex problem. --Regina Buenaobra 18:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)" that leaves me with little faith in Anet, time was you used to know what kind of game you people made, remember all that stuff about skill over grind? You really need to think long and hard about what kind of player base you want for your games, the fact is you aren't going to please all of the people all of the time with whatever you do so I suggest you make a decision because as it stands your losing players, not only losing players but also losing future customers who have lost any faith they had in Anet as a game developer. The one thing I will say is that my cynicism about Anet has been slightly lessened by Reginas post on the subject, at last a voice from Anet, it's taken way too long though, how long has Ursan been tearing apart communities across the forums? yes you have a complex problem with Ursan but one of your own making. It's too late for me, GW was a great game, a great set of skills that gave you lots of choice on your skillbar, getting to know how those skills worked and how they synergised with each other was a big part of the learning curve and the fun, for anyone who enjoyed a challenge in their game then GW PvE provided that. I like challenge in a game, thats why I play them, take away that challenge and give me the easy option to complete it then I get bored very quickly and move on, which is exactly what I've done. I've put thousands of hours into GW along with thousands of hours into the community (I used to work on a listed fansite), I was one of the biggest Anet fanboys going because the game was good, It's not anymore, PvE skills and Consumables have provided an easy option for everything and if theres an easy option I'm gonna take it, means I get bored quicker and I like the game less, espicially when that game used to be about skill and challenge, thats the thing that gets me the most, the 180 degree turn Anet have made over the concept of the gameplay, it's not the game it used to be. So what was the point of Hard Mode and Elite Missions? that point is lost, you gave the players a challenge for a short period then removed the challenge straight away, it's not about player elitism its about players wanting things to aspire to in the game, Tormented weapons used to be hard to get, getting them via Ursan is very easy and your personal sense of satisfaction is negligible getting them that way. I don't have to play Ursan but you know what it was fun for a short while and it makes getting from A-B very easy. I suggest you don't hate on the Ursan players just hate on the skill for what it's done to the game. Seriously Anet make up your mind, do you want a player base that enjoys challenge in PvE or want a player base who just enjoy a walk in the park while chatting to their mates ? You lost my faith a month or two ago with your lack of action or a voice and your u-turn on game play, if you don't make up your minds it's gonna be harder to convince me that as a company you really know what your doing. --Evil Geek 16:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not even sure there is a fix at this point. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. It is the same as all the people that bought gold for real money online. Once the market was flooded with illegal gold the damage was done. Ursan is the same thing, get rewards that were supposed to be reserved for people who excelled at the game without actually having to earn them. Before EOTN our alliance was just under 1000 players strong, in the last 3 months ALL of the people that have been playing since the start have just become so fed up with the "new community" that they have just stopped playing. Evil Geek and I are not really on the same page as far as our reasoning for feeling as we do, however I think our end sentiment is the same. You folks at A-net need to decide what is important. I enjoyed Guild Wars a lot, and I stuck with it and stood behind A-net even through the dark times, this is different, this is total ruination of the game. I just can't believe this... Come On A-net, it has been months, pick a side, at this point you ARE going to lose people, chopose which players you want to keep so the rest of us can move on. Shame on you A-net.

Can only agree with the above statement. The "we're looking at it" response just seems to be a way for Anet to try and appease those concerned with the skill whilst sitting on the fence and doing nothing. I don't see a change to it ever happening now.. 204.68.144.233 12:06, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

recent balance change

now that pve and pvp balance are being seperated, the time to crush ursan under foot is here. we all know 1 skill should not be more powerfull than all others. diversity should be promoted, not unskilled no brain play. restore all those skill changes made due to pvp and get rid of ursan once and for all by limiting it to norn areas only --92.235.8.13 21:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I hope you realize that Ursan is a PvE only skill, meaning that they could crush it under their feet whenever they wanted :) Forget that. Indeed, if they were to revert some of the more problematic changes that came after EotN (by example, WoH spammers) it could be less of a problem to change ursan also, meta-wise.--Fighterdoken 21:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Although have always been strongly opposed to an Ursan nerf, I think if done in the context of some decent buffs to other skills it could be alright. I wouldn't want to see ursan nerfed to oblivion though. I would just want to see Ursan on the asame level as other elite skills. Ursan would be a little easier to use than other builds, but maybe not quite as effctive. It should still remain a viable option. Ashes Of Doom 19:29, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that's what we all want, make Ursan a viable choice, not THE viable choice. 204.68.144.233 16:15, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with that. Vael Victus 22:33, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

A Suggestion of Update

Why nerf this skill? Make all non-monk characters being the Ursan class (80 armor, 600 health, 40 energy) with resurrection signet as the starting skill and Ursan Blessing as the skill you earn by completing your first and last Skill quest. Now you deleted maybe 90% of all skills, most monk skills that interact with those gone can be dropped, too, making playing the second profession of Guild Wars even more easy (I bet this encourages newbies [I really mean newbies and not people condemned to be noobs] to play this game). A reasonable consequence would be changing the character creation setup to the following: Role-playing or PvP => [Campaign left out] Monk or Ursan => Modifying your Character's look => Choose your name. Look at this experiment for two days, think about it. Of course, this is sarcastic (for the ones who doubt sarcasm being able to be show up on the internet).

I do not want to restrict people to not using the Blessing for that is what I judge most; restriction of will. However, that's the problem. Everybody deserves the right to do what he or she wants to do unless violating this right. So I still not refuse taking the so-called Ursans with me as long as the do not refuse to take non-Ursans with them. I like diversity, they do not - it's their way of thinking so leave them. Either everyone's right or no one (this leads to a philosophic problem that should nor could not be referated here). The blessing, its usage and its users are fine as they are if the majority (I feel sorrow for not being able to prove this by other thins than personal experience) of the Ursans did not kick players for not being one of them, did not blame their group after failing in a Domain of Secrets quest for not having used the Blessing or did not force to use a specific build much more often than the older elite player snobs did in rejecting Blood Mages in the Fissure of Woe or something like that. I highly doubt that changing or removal of the Blessing would bring an end to player elitism. It is a question of morale. In former times, I have been kicked because I played Mystic Healer, a Warrior interrupter or some other idea. But I found a group that preferred diversity over guaranteed victory - they were rewarded with fun at playing AND winning. Nowadays, I am often rejected for playing anything for I have yet to gain the Blessing. Fine, one thinks, find another group. The problem is that the chance of finding a group that accepts your playing style has drastically decreased. The issue of some people refusing to play with some people may move to half of the community refusing to play with the other half. Tense and polarization shalln't find their way to a game.

As a last note, tolerance until tolerance kills itself.Noctarch 04:41, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Win. -Warior Kronos 23:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I have also had problems finding groups that accept my playing style. Luckily, Guild Wars offers alternatives for the cookie-cutter challenged users: Heroes and Henchmen. When i finaly succeded, it took me 4 hours to kill Duncan, and they never complained :). Seriously, if i had to choose between "playing with people who want me to use a certain skill-set/go ursan" and "playing only with H/h", i would go for the second, because probably the first ones will rage-quit at the first sight of problems.--Fighterdoken 23:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Is This A Final Statement From A-net ?

The Ursan Blessing skill has certainly been the center of a lot of discussion amongst players for the last 6 months or so. There are a lot of really mixed feelings about it. Some think it is the greatest thing ever. Some detest it. Individual players seem to have made up their minds, one way or the other how they feel about the changes it has brought to the game. It would appear that A-net has also made up its mind, though for some reason little to no word about it has been released. The fact that the skill has remained relatively unscathed since it’s release, whether A-net is truly debating it or not, would indicate that Ursan is not going anywhere.

It is impossible for me to imagine that anyone familiar with the game in any venue could feel that Ursan Blessing is not mega-imba. You get 1/3rd more armor, the ability to spam super-spikes, AOE knockdowns, increased movement speed, more than 1/3 larger health bar and total energy management as well as absolute immunity to any kind of counter, including blind, all but the most focused and severe energy denial, chance to miss or be blocked, Backfire/Empathy/Spiteful Spirit type spells, daze, weakness, even decreased attack speed hexes won‘t slow an Ursan down and all of this without compromising your damage output in the least or spending a single attribute point. Which of the individual classes would allow you even similar global buffs with no downside? What even comes close? ... Nothing Does.

So the question is not whether Ursan is imbalanced. The question is how does A-net feel about the imbalance. We know A-net often adjusts skill properties based on PvP performance, and though many PvE players don’t like that fact, it is necessary to keep the game well rounded. The fact that A-net lets the meta-game dictate which skills are adjusted is another matter of debate, but has no bearing here. Ursan Blessing is a PvE only skill, so it has no impact whatsoever on PvP. It ‘s impact on PvE however, whether you are in favor of or against it, is undeniable.

Ursan Blessing has been in play long enough now so that there is no going back. Nerfing or even removing Ursan Blessing would only serve to create new problems without solving the old. A-net by having allowed Ursan Blessing to flourish has made a very strong, very BIG statement. Possibly their final statement about PvE for Guild Wars 1. The statement itself is simple: PvE will no longer hold rewards for competent play or strategy, it will, instead, reward only the grind.

Ursan Blessing allows players of any skill level, or lack there-of to completely dominate anything PvE has to offer in about 1/3 the time it would take a polished non-Ursan team. Elite zones used to hold the promise of very special rewards for those who could master them, now the only things that sets teams apart is whether they are doing them in 35 minutes or 45 minutes. PvE titles, which were the only true measurement of PvE accomplishments, no longer hold any esteem. There is no challenge whatsoever to beating the games in Hard Mode using Ursan. The titles no longer comment to ones skill, only the time spent playing. It has been suggested that players “inner pride” should remain unaffected by this, in a game where armor with the same stats costs 10k or 1000k I can certainly understand how that notion could be construed as out of place. The cheapening effect of Ursan Blessing has no less of an impact on the PvE title tracks than would granting the title of Eminent Hero to anyone who won 11 times in HA effect the PvP title tracks. It is a part of A-nets unspoken statement via Ursan Blessing that they are indifferent to how this makes the customers who predominantly PvE feel. It is their absolute declaration that PvE is at best a secondary concern and rewards for PvE play are of no consequence.

The things mentioned above may frustrate you. They may make you happy. There are people who prefer to earn things. There are people who prefer to simply have things. The people who want to earn them are likely very frustrated that there are no longer any true incentives to excel, or even to play for that matter. Those that don’t want to work are probably very happy that they no longer have to put in much effort in order to have the best rewards the game offers. In the end it really just depends on the kind of person you are. The problem is that A-net cannot make both groups of people happy. Without Ursan there was really no conflict, you got from the game what you put into it. Since Ursan, those who want to earn it are finding themselves out of place. I have noticed a lot of my “earn it” buddies leaving the game. They just start coming on less and less, and when they do it is just to complain about what Guild Wars has become and then leave. They are no longer interested in titles or elite zones or anything else. What is left in the community, quite frankly, is not something I want to be a part of. The PvE community has been lessened.

Ursan absolutely is a statement about PvE play from A-net. Whether you feel it is for the better or the worse it WILL reshape the entire community in a way no other single action A-net has ever taken ever has before. Ursan HAS changed the mission statement Guild Wars launched with about rewarding players for skill rather than hours spent. Some people are definitely overjoyed about this. Some people most certainly are angry.

I paid $400 for my two copies of GW with all the expansions and a few extra character slots. I love the game and I am not going allow the “new order” of things to run me off, although I will probably not play as much, as there is nothing to do without decent titles to pursue, and the idea of playing as an Ursan just makes me want to vomit. Zombie play has never been my thing. The Ursan blessing has definitely made me rethink getting involved in GW2. It is hard to be impartial, I feel like I am being punished for my loyalty. I guess A-net deserves a chance to show me the logic in what they are doing, after all the game was great for 2 1/2 years, so I will try to keep an open mind, it is hard for me to imagine that there is anything they could do to bring me back for GW2. I am sure others feel the same. I am sure there are enough players on either side of the coin to keep A-net in business, so what it really boils down to is: “What does A-net want to be?”

I guess time will tell. 68.14.76.172 20:35, 12 May 2008 (UTC)Concerned

Well-stated. Having played Guild Wars since its inception three years ago, I feel as if there were two revolutionary changes to the game on the PVE front which drastically altered everyone's playstyle, though not necessarily for the better. The first is the addition of heroes in Nightfall; despite (or perhaps because of) my own religious usage of heroes, I feel their implementation offered great convenience and flexibility, but at the complete expense of community/group play. After all, why seek out unproven strangers when you have time-tested, reliable builds right at your own fingertips? Whether this tradeoff was ultimately worth it is open to debate; while I initially bought Guild Wars for the thrill of forming parties with complete strangers to topple Prophecies' (then-)fiendishly difficult missions, by Nightfall, henchmen and heroes had permanently occupied party slots 2 through 8 for me.

The second major (and to some, cataclysmic) change to PVE was the addition of Ursan Blessing and consumables. While I probably feel just as strongly about Ursan as most vocal opponents of the skill, I don't have any problem with people using it -- in fact, I strongly encourage them to! Loopholes are meant to be exploited, I'm fond of saying, and all the more power to anybody who wants to abuse the heck out of Ursan. That *doesn't*, however, make Ursan right.

Guild Wars' history is rife with instances where fun, cheap methods of taking advantage of the game prevailed over so-called "balance" and "equity." Surely not everyone's forgotten AFK Lightbringer point farming in the Realm of Torment (I'm not afraid of saying I expoited that loophole to its fullest) or the showers of easy Zodiac golds from spirit-farming the vampires at the start of Urgoz HM. Or, from the PVP front, how about when fragility still did 37-43 a hit? (I had a hoot running inced/frag rangers and Me/Ns in arenas back then.) Or those swell D/Mo portable nukers with Contemplation of Purity during the NF preview weekend? In short, just because it's fun and easy doesn't make it right.

Is this about elitism? Perhaps for some people it is, but that doesn't change the naked truth that Ursan discards profession choices and skill bars out the window for the sake of three repetitive skills. I'm a self-admitted title addict, having largely wrung the PVE title well dry even before EotN's introduction. I don't think Ursan and consumables diminish my own accomplishments in any way -- but I definitely can understand those who do feel that way, and it's undeniable that these two additions have diluted the challenge of the entire experience. If this were really an issue of one's personal pride and accomplishment being threatened, then why ever add Dying Nightmares to the Underworld? Why take away the drops from the hopping vampires in Urgoz? Why eliminate the gain of reputation points from resurrected enemies? Because it was a matter of balance. Because it was the right thing to do. As difficult (and perhaps unfair) as it is to say, leaving Ursan as-is simply seems like a cynical exercise in enticing people into buying an expansion for a single, overpowered skill.--68.124.182.227 16:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Reminder

Please keep in mind that wiki discussion pages are not forums. They are intended to be used by the editors of the articles to hammer out the details of the content of the articles. As such, it is extremely difficult to do this while the majority of comments on the discussion page would be better relegated to a forum. There are numerous forums on the web to have these discussions. Thanks you. Mohnzh say what? 20:58, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

This isn't wikipedia where you can only talk about what is on the article. On this wiki, you can discuss the topic that the article is about even if it has nothing to do with what is actually on the article. i.e. you can talk about whether it is overpowered, even if the article doesn't say whether it is or isn't. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 00:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Lol, since PvE is all about ursan now, might as well instead of splitting pve and pvp skill functions like it was said in the developer diary, make all skills except ursan pvp-only =P From my 2 years of playing I've noticed Anet doesn't really care much about Pve... Everyone is starting to ursan everything, which is gettin really annoying =S There are other skills in-game for a reason -_-... And if you dont have Gw:En you aren't easily accepted into pve teams anymore, lols. Please don't even nerf, remove it entirely! 65.34.193.183 04:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

ok remove it so player elitists can stop people from getting titles on their favorite character. I agree that many people think using ursan is a bad way to play after reading many posts i have come to a conclusion of my own. People who feel ursan takes away from the prestige of titles in general are right, people who think that people who play ursan are ruining the economy for the people who have the time to spend over 4 hours playing in one sitting are right, people that think ursan removes the prestige value of titles that they earned before ursan are to an extent wrong because people dont think it is quite as amazing as they used to(not that you should really care what others think i know some people do and they are the ones that are pissed off), people who hate ursan cause they aren't one of the few who can do elite areas are greedy people who should have tried straying away from the cookie cutter builds when ursan didn't exist so so many people didn't feel it necessary to resort to using it for elite areas(not that anyone could have predicted the outcome ursan has had). And if you are gonna say remake another character or only have ursan for PvE then don't, not everyone uses ursan for everything and there are actually some things that ursan can't do: such as solo anything, hero/hench in HM(anymore than any other build can), and kill things faster than a standard level 20 in early areas(not that anyone on this wikiwould admit to caring about early areas). also just because everyone on the wiki seems to hate ursan its because those that don't are to cautious to say anything because when ever someone says anything good about it anywhere from 2 to who knows how many people say their opinion is completely and totally wrong in every signal aspect that can be imagined. So before you say my post is wrong in every way think about those who play the disliked classes or builds, or those who only have an hour or 2 to play each night or maybe those who actually hero/hench as much as they can because they are fed up with elitist jerks that only want what they know will work to finish something instead of breaking from the zombie-like builds that they used to get from whoever they knew could had beaten it and use their skills in a order that bots could preform looking to hit a certain one once and a while because its necessary(a bit more skill than ursan but honestly not much). Tenri 04:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so I've read the post (use periods, please). It has been said before - any profession can do well in an elite area. The argument only stems from the typical "but I can't get a group, profession discrimination QQ" line of reasoning. Switch "profession" with "Norn rank," and you have Ursan - nothing is fixed at all by it. As for the "only two opinions supporting Ursan and they got shot down" argument, it's because they aren't presenting strong arguments at all. I have yet to hear one genuinely good reason to keep Ursan that doesn't pale in comparison to the arguments for nerfing it. If you, or anyone else, can give me one, I'll eat my words and uninstall right now.

If people don't think your Mesmer or whatever is good in an elite area (o hi thar Cry of Pain, et. al.), it's either one of two things: one, the non-cookie-cutter build being used is genuinely bad and you need to make some changes, or the people you'd be grouping with don't know what they're doing (in which case, if you have a decent build, you're probably better off without them). --SoraMitsukai 14:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I tried punctuating but I guess that failed.

More on topic I never said any professions are bad, I said it was neigh impossible to find a group as one of the professions that people don't want in a certain elite area. People may not have strong arguments to support ursan and I myself think it is too much of a good thing so to say. I have not seen many good suggestions on how to Nerf it either, because most people just say get rid of it not proposing anything useful to the skill balancers recently. I tried collecting all possible Nerfs that don't completely destroy the skill up above somewhere. So today I will leave this in your mind as I feel like playing the game instead of arguing now, Instead of saying Nerf or remove the skill try suggesting something that can be done to Nerf it without making it completely useless(by that I mean make it equal to or slightly lesser than normal PvE builds). I am not going to repeat any of the suggestions I have personally made or referenced as I think they are still on this page somewhere. Tenri 21:37, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Tell me what you think of my suggestion. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 22:07, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow i must say well thought through and actually keeps the reason why i like ursan and many other people to. Makes it good for one person that is hero henching as long as you can avoid loosing it in the middle of a battle, however the change to ursan force with all the other changes might be unnecessary because to much rushing would get you killed when the blessing ends Tenri 23:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Devils Advocate

After having read the majority of the posts in this discussion page. I have decided to think outside the box for a minute.

As soon as A-net let Ursan get to the point at which it is today, it was too late for a regular nerf to it. A nerf would be a catch 22 situation. Piss of the players the use it, make the non-user happy. Or not change it and the opposite would happen. Although I am not sure why Ursan was made as powerful as it was, I feel that it was created with the intention to give the players and advantage in the harder areas of the game. If you really think about it they more than likely aren't going to release any new campaigns or expansions for the game, they are relying on the Hall of Monuments to keep players busy until the release of Guild Wars 2(it seems).

Does Ursan need to be fixed, of course it does. Game economy aside, Ursan has more or less stopped people that don't use it from clearing the elite areas, unless they have a good allaince, or guild that does not use it.

But like I said before a direct nerf won't solve the problems redarging Ursan, we all need to remember that we share the game with millions of other players, and if A-net does hit Ursan with the nerf bat a great percentage of them will be upset. The solution has to make everyone happy, not just one side of the debate.

A-net needs to come up with a non-skill balanced way to fix the problem. A straight out nerf isn't going to fix this.Effigy 22:17, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

how about getting rid of ursan blessing, and making the skills cost energy, as well as taking up build space.--70.71.240.170 22:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Removing it would have a worse impact on the players than simply nerfing it.Effigy 05:19, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The only viable option to somewhat pacify both the people who like what Ursan allows them to do and those who don't want to be forced into playing it to find a PUG, remains for Ursan and the other blessings to be changed to non-elite skills. Nerfed somewhat in the process or not doesn't really matter. What this wouldn't change is the affect on the economy; however, it is probable that ANet wishes that more players continue to move from the "have not" to the "have" category and are thus as okay with this aspect of Ursan as are the vast majority of players. -- Inspired to ____ 14:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

A-net can NOT fix the damage Ursan Blessing has already done to the Guild Wars community or to the game as a whole. Furthermore A-net will have a long road ahead if they want to repair the damage they have done to thier own reputation. This was the worst idea ever, it makes no sense to simply give everything away when there is still more than a year before the sequel comes out. A-net must have hoped this would net them a few extra EOTN sales, which is poor thinking. They may have sold more copies of EOTN but they screwed themsleves out of a lot of GW2 sales. Longtime gamers, experienced gamers and the hardcore niche are furious about Ursan Blessing. Just google "Ursan Blessing thoughts" if you want to see what I mean. I think that A-nets willingness to so completely sell thier souls for a few extra game sales says a-lot about what kind of company they are. I believe that as long as GW2 is free A-net will find enough sales to keep them in business, after all there are a lot of people who prefer not to have to do something as silly as play a game or learn it's mechanics in order to reap rewards, Ursan has certainly proven that. I think tho that gamers can take heart in the fact that A-net will get it's just desserts. My wife and I were looking for a new game to play now that Guild Wars is Ursan Wars, (and since our gaming clan has decided for certain that we are not returning to GW2 for more Ursan Retardation) one of the games that looked pretty cool at a glance was called "Aion" before I even had a chance to finish reading the page my wife pointed out that it is produced by NC-Soft, without a single word we agreed that we should forget about it, the NC-Soft name was enough to prevent even a further look. A-net has disgraced themselves beyond that which words can express. This is unforgivable A-net. Gamers are not going to forget.--The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:68.14.76.172 (talk).

"A-net has disgraced themselves beyond that which words can express. This is unforgivable A-net. Gamers are not going to forget."

Wait, what? There's no way they said "YEAH LET'S MAKE URSAN BLESSING AWESOME, WOO!" as if to attract people. I'm a long-term gamer, I make my own god-damn game, and I could care less if people are using the damn thing. I can make 10k just by standing there as someone solo's Cathedral of Flames. If you want to make money in Guild Wars, you find 1/100 working builds and play one of them. As a necro, I can easily solo tons of bosses for their stupid greens all day long. I have run Ursan and if not for that, I'd never have even GOTTEN to Duncan because no one wants to party with necro's for some reason. You want to be pissed off about something? How about the fact you HAVE to use heroes for the elite dungeons because ANet won't let us have more than 3 heroes in our party? Or, how about shadow form sins destroying any fucking boss they want to?

Like seriously, it's not impacted the economy enough to have you whine about it. Gamers aren't going to forget, please. You know what I won't forget? When the economy of GW was crippled so bad that there was rumors of a rollback because suddenly tons of those DoA-end-game-items were duped. Vael Victus 22:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Obviously there is something seriously weird about the people who say they no longer play the game and won't play GW2 because of Ursan, but they repeatedly post over and over again to point this out. I can't think of a single game that I have ever done more then maybe once say: "I'm done". Yet, the "Ursan Whiners" expect us to believe they are putting all this effort into complaining about a game they no longer play and will never play again because....well, I wish one of them would explain that. And, the majority of the time the people complaining the loudest are those who describe themselves as primarily PvP players and Ursan doesn't affect PvP at all. Yes, I have occasionally played Ursan, but never outside of EotN where it was created; but, that's not to say I won't ever....So what? At most Ursan affects a few percent of the areas outside of EotN and you certainly don't "need" Ursan to enjoy those areas. So QQ please, it's getting old and annoying. -- Inspired to ____ 23:00, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I personally don't think A-Net will make the same mistake they have made with Ursan Blessing in Guild Wars 2. Although I do think they are making mistakes by taking out instanced zones, but that is a topic for another page. But currently I am fearful that the majority of the people that move on to Guild Wars 2 have used Ursan so much that will have forgotten what it is like to play and have to actually play hard for the elite items. I don't expect to see something like this in GW2 period. Not after A-net found themselves in the current damned if you do - damned if you don't situation they are currently in. And as for Ursan not effecting most areas outside of EoTN, while that may be true, people that don't use it for whatever reason they have chosen have an impossible time getting into groups. Remember that their are people that don't have EoTN and still want to play DoA, UW, FOW and other elite areas.Effigy 23:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Calm down. It's PvE. Ursan isn't even the most effective build. 76.64.185.213 23:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Isn't that the truth...

As far as GW2....didn't they say something to effect of fewer more powerful skills that change with situation. And, to me, all except the change with situation, that sounds more like Ursan then the regular GW skills. Anyway, let's be honest, be it a sequel or a new game, most people decide whether they will play based on the reviews and comments of the first players then whether they liked the original. -- Inspired to ____ 23:20, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

On the Prophecies box: "You'll prove your worth with every battle as skill, not hours played decides your fate." Players who have the most intelligence were supposed to be able to do better than those who don't have intelligence. With Ursan, you can just about mash the buttons on your keyboard and be 100% efficient. If you do somehow make a huge mistake, it doesn't matter because you have 900 hp and 120 armor with everything hitting you for half damage thanks to AoE weakness. Oh, don't forget about the 10 second recharge AoE knockdown. The fact that Ursan effectively turns the statement on the original box into a lie is my biggest gripe with this skill. This, imo is how ANet disgraced themselves. Few last things: @Vael: he never said he was talking about the economy. He could be about titles, game life, etc. @Inspired: Many of the people why say "I wont be getting it" or "I dont play it currently because of Ursan" usually dont mean that. They say that to put more force (i couldnt think of a better word), but end up making fools of themselves. What they really mean (usually, at least) is that they would like the game to be good again, but they dont play now because it sucks. I don't play GW anymore (not just because of Ursan btw. there are lots of reasons I prefer other games now but this isn't the time or place), but I still care that it sucks. I want GW2 to be good. However, if Ursan stays the same as it is now, I really don't think I'll buy it simply because of how little I trust the company due to the aforementioned lie. Many people probably agree with me and change in this skill would help bring back that trust and confidence, possibly swaying them into playing GW2. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 03:07, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure ANet didn't expect anything they put on a box 3 years ago meant that it would apply forever. And, unless the buyer was a total idiot, he didn't either. For example, do you really believe that you will be able log on and play Guild Wars in 25 years. Right, things change and we all know that. When I bought Guild Wars less than a year ago I thought here's a game I heard good things about that I might get a couple months enjoyment from. Here I am almost a year later (and yes, a couple more campaigns but so what) and still playing and enjoying. But wait, some users who bought the game three years ago, and thus I can't even imagine how they don't think they have gotten their fair value out of it, have nothing better to do but complain about a statement on the box for what was that the tenth time I've heard that. QQ more. -- Inspired to ____ 03:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Uh... uh... Inspired. They printed that on the box as one of the big draw-ins, and it still is is a big draw-in. Ursan doesn't take a lot of skill, there's even like only four skills to work with and you don't use the running one much. Saying QQ more is so full of jackassery that I am sorry your parents didn't raise you better. Anyway, Uber, I just wanted to say indeed he didn't say anything about the economy, but a lot of people did, I wasn't specifically just talking to him. Also, why do we assume all anons are male? O.o Vael Victus 21:13, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

um Uber only warriors get 120 armor with ursan and that is only against physical how many ursans are casters? 60-80% of them I'd say. also 900 health sure some ursans can have that much if they can have 700 health without ursan which kinda means no real runes or you spend money on consumables. Now as a general statement does anyone really think that they will put something like ursan in GW 2 after all the trouble it is causing i personally think not. Tenri 04:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

@Vael...whatever...and somehow that quote from the box which is somehow pointed to as a reason why Ursan doesn't fit into the game is nonsense. First, skill is a relative thing and it is definitely debateable if not plain false that Ursan requires less skill then many other things. However, the relative strength of skills is clearly not what the statement means. It is obviously relating skill to hours played as a statement that there is a meaningful level limit and reduced grinding. Somehow, the significance of PvP involved in the game and required in any evaluation of skill versus time played is also conveniently ignored. Futhermore, if the complaint about Ursan being a stronger skill is correct then one could equally well say that statement justifies Ursan because Ursan reduces the hours one has to play to succeed in the game. However, this is equally not what the statement is meant for. If that's not enough, now Uber wants to take this to a new level and equate intelligence with skill; thus, making an offhand attempt at not only going with the standard implication that Ursan users lack skill, but now they also lack intelligence. I don't really like that these crap arguments put me in a position of seeming to argue for Ursan because I could basically care less if it was gone or stayed. But, when people repeated take a single statement off a box and attempt to use that as justification for a position, or are overly melodramatic in their statements, they ought to be ready for a bit of "jackassery" as you call it. -- Inspired to ____ 22:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Regardless on who's right or wrong, can everybody take a deep breath and cease trashing the opposing side's common sense/parentage/etc. 203.218.204.145 12:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

My Thoughts

Ok, after reading through this and the archive, I think it's time to toss in my two bits here. A few things I should point out before I get too carried away though.

• Recently got Ursan
• R6 Norn
• I'll H/H or group with guildmates before I'll consider a PUG.

With that said, I realize I'm not experiencing the full effect of Ursan. Big whoop. At this point, it's only JUST giving me a little more damage output than my normal skill bar does, and effectively removes my ability to boost my health. So in comparison to my normal build, with the points I listed above taken into consideration, it doesn't really seem to be that great a skill.

From what I've read though, the MAIN problem seems to be when you get a full party that uses Ursan. So far, when it's just me (which it usually is), I don't have a problem with having Ursan around. But when I do get in to a group, Ursan's out, and Defy Pain goes right back in. Sorry, but I like a challenge, especially in the Elite Areas. Isn't that the whole point? To be a challenge?

Do I care if I get tossed as a result? Nope. Just fill up my party with H/H and either attempt it myself or just do something else.

Futz it, I'll add more to this later. I lost my train of thought. - Raknor - Talk 00:13, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't disagree, but will suggest that if you want a challenge take a group of Ursan users whose only justification for being there is that they have r9 or 10 in Ursan. No matter what anyone says...guaranteed success...no way. Were some of these same players there before? Yes, and if it was one, or maybe two, you could carry them. More then that, forget continuing on. Now, not out of the realm of likelihood to have half the party consisting of them. Can you make it? Maybe, but either way there's the Ursan challenge. -- Inspired to ____ 01:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Lol this skill is so leet I got my protector titles with it. xD Halogod35 04:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Lol, and I got mine without it, lol maybe protector is just real easy to get. -- Inspired to ____ 04:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

A Two-faced Lesser Evil

I am a very proud person when it comes to my own skills as a player. Countless times (more now with the release of titles than ever) I have been underestimated, under-dogged and discriminated by some of my fellow players just because I lacked certain status symbols. Once or twice I have even been called a noob just because one of my title was insufficient for some kind of task or because of my choice of skills in my skill bar. Most of them were proved wrong.

Ursan Blessing is, without a doubt, a very powerful tool. A single skill that grants such power to every character who uses it it's something to be reckon with. I even admit I used it once or twice outside of the Blood Washes Blood mission. I made to Legendary Guardian with no help from that skill and now as I write this I'm aiming for the Legendary Vanquisher and this skill was of major importance in vanquishing certain tougher areas. All of this was made without the help of any PUG.

I'm a Necromancer, and since I started playing three years ago I have been barely anything else other than a Necromancer. So far, my main character has had three incarnations all with a certain degree of completion. Should I use Death, Curses or Blood the monsters die quickly all the same. With the right build I can even out damage a single Ursan. So technically I don't need this skill, but I'm here commenting about it anyway.

What bugs me about Ursan, is not the PUGs forming requesting this skill (I just plain ignore them, I don't PUG, never what ever the circumstance), the impact on economy by making the richer poorer and poorer richer thanks to a better flow of resources and drops (I'm a Communist so that is wonderful for me, almost Utopic, I'm still waiting for the prices of Ectoplasm to drop even further) nor the more recent Elitism forming around this skill (and I quote: "LFM 1/8 Paragon/Dervish/Warrior/Ranger only, LB 8, Norn 10, bring own consumables and no freaking Assassins"). It's the fact that this skill not only makes everything easier, but it actually decreases the skill of the player using it!!!

I have noticed that each time my friend uses Ursan Blessing, after a while he starts missing Interrupts more often (he is a ranger and he is indeed a Surgeon when he has the right bow on his hands, he rarely misses) and even in my case I stop being able to pull lures and maintaining Aggro long enough for my skills to be effective. A skill should not be so powerful that it actually makes players play worse over time nor simplifying the game to point of asking myself: Should I go Ursan or Old School.

Here's what I think this skill is wrong. First of all, it's duration. The energy bar influencing how long I'm able to maintain the skill, in a game in which some characters have Energy Micromanagement with out help of skill is something I cannot cope with. Warriors are the characters that without energy enhancements can maintain the skill for less time, while Paragons can use the Ursan Roar to self sustain the skill, Assassins can win more energy from Critical, Necromancers can virtually keep the skill up indeterminably thanks to Soul Reaping and lets not talk about Elementalists. Secondly, if ArenaNet had it right with Avatar Forms in Nightfall why leave a good concept over a bold new one, specially on EotN which we all now it was rushed to meet our demands and pressure? Would it be harder to make the skill last a minute and then force a 2 minute recharge after it ended? It could still be able to make more damage than a average skill but at least players wouldn't be encouraged to neglect the rest of their skill Bar instead of focusing solely on Ursan.

Inexperienced players that use this skill will receive a proxy feeling that they are getting better while instead they are getting worse and risking being more discriminated by the cutthroat Guild Wars community. That cannot be allowed to happen. Kailden Jera 02:06, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea what the heck you are babbeling about,but if you say your death/blood magic can outdamage ursan,id love to see that build.Oni 13:46, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

A dark bomber, could, in theory, out damage ursan, but it needs about 5 people to bunch up on te bomber. Oh, and a dark bomber dies real fast. -- NUKLEAR IIV 19:50, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

A dark bomber MAY be able to slightly outdamae ursan,okay. but this is assuming that all your minions/party members get enchanted,runs in and all die near foe. What are the odds again? And id love to see a blood magic necromancer outdealing ursan,lawl. this guy is just talkin bull o:

not you nuc :p<3Oni 14:03, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

A dark bomber is not a minion bomber. It is a blood build, using dark aura and spamming sacrifice touch skills to deal routinely 100 single target, 50 aoe damage. Usually the elite AOTL, for survival. But meh. Oh, and death can and will out damage ursan, Order of Undeath is about the most damaging this available. -- NUKLEAR IIV 14:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and this quote is pretty smart. "Inexperienced players that use this skill will receive a proxy feeling that they are getting better while instead they are getting worse and risking being more discriminated by the cutthroat Guild Wars community. That cannot be allowed to happen." A very good summary on why this should be killed. -- NUKLEAR IIV 16:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Ooh,you ment that aotl gimmick? Noez,it doesnt even closely outdamage ursan. some reasons are: Its counterable It dies in seconds when someone attacks ya a necro rushing up to tha enemy with like 200 hp is suicide. my bad for mistaking minion bomber with that aotl build ^o^. sowwi. But it still isnt close to ursan.Oni 06:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Damage is close because of better aoe. Dark bombing is manly. Dark bombing in pve is bad because of twisting jaws. -- NUKLEAR IIV 12:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

My 3 Cents

Okay, well I just bought EotN last week. I don't even have Ursan...yet. However, I think that the fact that this talk page is so long says something. There are few, if any, talk pages with archives for skills. No matter how imbalanced people have ever considered any particular build or skill that build or skill has not gotten this much discussion. Heck, even Sway isn't getting this much hate. There HAS to be SOMETHING wrong with Ursan in order for this talk page to be so long. I've read opinions ranging from balancing ursan to deleting it and anywhere in-between. I've also read opinions saying how Ursan is not imbalanced and shouldn't be nerfed to how Ursan should be buffed. What I think is the real issue with Ursan is that it is detracting from the professions themselves. Ursan might as well be a profession. The whole point of a role-playing game is to roleplay. You might think that a Necromancer would be raising and empowering an undead army to crush his enemies under their feet but wait, no, he's turning into a bear. Is that elementalist over there raining fiery hell down on the monsters to win the day....no he's not! He's turning into a bear as well. Is that dervish rushing into the middle of a mob scythe swinging, obliterating them in holy fury or....is he TURNING INTO A FREAKING BEAR!!!!!!!! I'v heard of the acronym BW or Build Wars but now its turning into another BW...Bear Wars! I don't wanna play Bear Wars!!!!!!!!! Psychiatric Consultant 19:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

wow, no really? Congrats for typing the obvious. In all seriousness though, I like the acronym for BW. -- NUKLEAR IIV 19:42, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm great at ur first comment and ty for ur second. BTW I hate ursan so I am SOOOO going to abuse the heck out of it before A-Net nerfs it to kingdom come. ;p Psychiatric Consultant 03:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I fucking hate that skill, too. My entire guild knows it, my entire alliance knows it, and most of them share my feelings. I will never use it. I won't even acquire it. Anet has already dumbed down the monster AI and enemy builds enough (Gates of Madness, anyone?). Damage done, but that's for another article. In addition, to all of the players that like to boot ppl from PUG's if they aren't running and Ursan build: I will lie to your face and tell you I'm running it. Sorry in advance. No one should feel like they have to use this broken skill to complete an elite area. I'll see you in Tombs and DoA and FoW. I'll do it in HM. And yes that's my original Melandru's Stalker following me.Jimbob1178 16:12, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I really only use it if my alliance can't get a balanced group together for elite PvE, and even then I wince when I realize I'd have to take that route. That said, I think this skill SHOULD NOT work at all in dungeons, FoW or the Underworld. Frankly, I think it's boring and it's a rubbish way to play. If I wanted every character in my group to be identical, I'd go back to Star Wars Galaxies. KrelusDerian 04:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

LOL ahhhh the good old jedi...

Compromise, as usual

Absolute decisions for one side will only end up angering the other. Personally, I want this nerfed, but ONLY after classes are made more viable for elite areas. Ask anyone who plays an assassin(uh perma sinGwftw 20:57, 18 June 2008 (UTC) so sin more popular so dont say that 1), mesmer(no 1 likes Gwftw 20:57, 18 June 2008 (UTC)), ritualist(no 1 likes Gwftw 20:57, 18 June 2008 (UTC)), para(uh god papa/imbagon Gwftw 20:57, 18 June 2008 (UTC)), etc. about trying to get into, say, DoA before Ursan, and in most cases you'll be told that they could not get into a PuG. Ursan allows them to. If classes were improved, or these elite areas were rebalanced so as not to completely screw classes other than War, Ele, Monk, and Necro, very few would complain about a nerf to this, since EVERYONE would now have a way to get into these areas. People need to compromise: I propose that Anet buff all the underused classes in PvE, which they can now do thanks to the pve/pvp split, and then, once that has been done, nerf Ursan without killing it so that it remains viable without being absolutely stronger than any class. This way, all Ursans can still use the skill and succeed, but other builds will also stand a chance. And anyone who wants the old "balanced" back, that included 4/10 classes. If you call that balanced, then you need to understand that 4/10 classes having the chance to get into a group in certain areas is anything BUT balanced. --Kalas Silvern 09:28, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Mesmers, Ritualists and Paragons should have no trouble. That only leaves the assassins, and, tbh, they were design to be pvp players. Broken ones at that.

The whole argument of "my class can't get into elites!!!" only derives from the secret impulse of "I want to buy skin revealing armor for my mesmer and showoff and grow a epeen in my HoM!!!". That's also not nice. -- NUKLEAR IIV 13:54, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

That was irrelevant....and what's an epeen? As for the underused classes, I do agree that they need some sort of pvE buff. although, no matter how skilled and useful someone is, war/mo/ele/necros automatically are more likely to be viable PUG members in the eyes of many party leaders. It's simply easier to know what their purpose will be, whereas the more under-used proffesions have more 'vague' purposes. (end rant). sorry that this comment didnt have much to do with ursan blessing. Nalana Darkling 00:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, in the beginning of GW, the exact same thing was said about Necromancers: that they were useless (together with Mesmers and Rangers) and that a good party was a Warriors/Monks/Elementalists party. Then came Sorrow's Furnace, then came the update that allowed us to see the damage done by indirect sources (such as minions and Spiteful Spirit), and ta-da, without a single skill buff, Necromancers went from the black sheep farm to being one of the most sought professions in the game. It's all a matter of finding the proper PvE role(s) for each profession. Erasculio 05:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Some really do suck, though. Mesmers and Assassins have no real roles for a balanced team in a seriously hard area. Deep Wound is better done by finish him from any caster class (not to mention warriors and dervishes), a single-target attack chain followed by 20 seconds of cooldown is really lacking, especially since said combos usually don't even kill a level 28 or so target. Moeb/DB, while theoretically powerful, is shut down too easily (or simply blocked) to really work. Assassins can't do anything about it, really; the most they can do is a half-assed sins promise build with expose defenses and hope to god they dont get blind/blurred vision.

Mesmers are much of the same; an entire class built for single-target shutdown, when you try to get them to shut down targets in PvE, they simply stop working period. What do they have, really? Chaos Storm? Cry of Frustration? Basically, they can't shut down anything worth shutting down. Monster skills can't be diverted, bosses cast 100% faster (so reaction interrupts are out of the question), interrupts are only so effective (and some monsters are simply immune to them)... there's not much that they really do. In any elite area, there are too many casters to shut down; and when there aren't very many casters, the mobs die so quickly that shutting them down simply wastes time. The only option left is damage, and although Cry of Pain is decent, it is only one skill. They really need some huge pve buffs, whether it be AoE dazed condition (preferably short duration and spammable) or an aoe interrupt with a very short recharge.

All the other classes have something to do. Rits can splinter/ancestors, wars/dervs are standard melee dps, eles and necros nuke, monks prot and heal, and rangers... well, their dps is pretty trash, but it's really all they have left to do as well. Like with mesmers, bringing dshot/savage is only so effective when you have 20 monsters casting at once. They can barrage/splinter, but even then its just the splinter doing damage... Yeah, I wouldn't mind a pet damage buff or something to make them not as bad. -Auron 05:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, Mesmers and Assassins suffer a bit (or a lot) in PvE. Mesmers are, IMO, easier to fix - like you said, give them PvE-only AoE disruption (be it AoE dazed condition, AoE interrupts, even AoE energy denial could be interesting for those monsters who cannot be interrupted, as long as it were powerful enough to have a real impact), and we would actually have a role for Mesmers. Assassins, in other hand...I have no idea what could possibly be done to "fix" them in PvE that would not make them a poor man's version of another melee profession. Erasculio 06:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I was thinking of a critical strikes based OHKO skill. *Completely* useless at 0 crit, but actually useful at higher level; not spammable enough to wipe out mobs, but strong enough to kill key enemies (Charr with hard rezzes, word of healing grawl in hard mode, etc). Defense is covered already (if anything, the game has too much of it), so crit agility and that pve version of feigned were really not what sins needed.

I'd suggest something like WoW's rogue skill Sap, but that would require a totally new mechanic coded in... so I guess just a one-hit kill will do :p -Auron 07:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(off topic) Omg I hate that skill. D:< Halogod35 07:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Holy Crap

this argument is huge....i think that ursan should be left as is. yeah, its overpowered, but it does more good than it does bad. if you are against ursan, simply dont use it. it provides a great relief for casual gamers who get frustrated at difficult parts of the game, as well as providing an opportunity for experienced players to go back and have fun in a difficult dungeon. i LOVE making and seeing other people's original build ideas, and these original ideas tend to be more fun to use than Ursan. They also can be more useful in different areas in a game, as there is no way to solo farm with an ursan build as you rely completely on monks. And for the people who say ursan just leads to grinding through the game, i agree, but with or without this skill people will continue to grind. people make such a huge deal out of this skill, when all it is, is just a really nice elite. BTW, i have never had trouble finding a group, and to be honest ive only seen people shouting things like "rX Ursan LFG!" in about three outposts in eotn. and toroxus, please calm down. you make this seem like were debating whether to invade a country or something.

Possible nerf idea-not being able to be affected by shouts, echoes or chants (as this is a norn skill, and norn like to fight solo). this way you could not do things like perma-refrains or have paragons/warriors protecting and honing your damage with their skills. Nalana Darkling 00:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Ursan is a single skill that can clear any area if you put it on 6 ppl and use 2 hb monks. That-should-not-be-possible. Why are they called elite missions? why are they called elite items? because anyone mashing 1-2-3 can do them? noez. This skill is destroyong PVE gameplay. and people spent money for the game,and you say they shouldnt debate about it? Finnaly,it also restricts ANYONE who doesnt have eotn from playing in any of the elite areas. And,go to Temple of ages. you will see URSAN LFGLFGLFGOni 09:55, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't really see that much of it, Oni. Last time I was there, there were maybe three groups (out of 18, rough guess) that had Ursan as a R9+ Req. Then again, it could have been the wrong time of day. Who knows? Mind you, I also tend to use the [P]arty Window with Local turned off, so that might have something to do with it as well. - Raknor - Talk 19:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Stop. Using. The. "Don't use it if you dont want to lulz." Argument. For the love of god, it has been overused and overused again, and overused again (again?). I recall regina above (or on her talk page) asking about how this skill hurts my game. It hurts me because in every elite area of the game I/every other anti-Ursan player wants to play in, the only groups available are Ursan groups, groups requiring quite literally, only grinding skill to achive victory. There's another downfall to this skill, and I'd actually like to compare this skill to mario kart wii (I know, sounds crazy, keep reading =P). Nintendo's approach in this new version of the classic racer scares me a bit, and well it is somewhat of a fun game, Nintendo put a questionably huge effort into making this game as even as possible. By this, I mean if in last place, a clear sign that you are doing something wrong (lets bring in GW, replace last place with dying repeatedly), almost every powerup you get will be uber-godly and enable even the worst or newest player to achive victory even when up against far more experienced and skilled players. Now replace uber-godly powerups with Ursan and this analogy somewhat makes sense (I hope). By enabling new or bad players to have easy access to beat (SELF NAMED) elite areas with no skill at all, how will they improve? How will they learn from their mistakes. Instead of thinking "Ok. Mending + Frenzy did not work. What other skill combinations could work?", the initial reaction will soon be "Ok. Mending + Frenzy did not work. W/e I'll just run Ursan." This may not seem like a big deal, but the fact is that because this is such an easy alternative to actually thinking out new skill tactics, seemingly innocent overpowered skills that players can use as a fun addition to the already diverse selection of skills, when the older generation of players will die out, and the newer players will become the majority (which of course is inevitable), they will immediately be introduced to the cheat / easy way out, instead of thinking things through. New players will not have to experiment with new skill combinations because A. Who doesn't want the easy way out, and B. Good luck getting a group without it in challenging areas. Not only will this hurt their experience, as half the fun of Guild Wars is trying out new combinations and fun ideas, but it also is going to raise a generation of players who don't know how to be creative, and don't know how to adapt, and don't know how to take a failed idea and learn from it. No, we will end up with a generation of players who after one or two failed attempts will take the easy way out 90% of the time and just use Ursan, making them poor players in general who never learned any of the above vital lessons to Guild Wars. We will have to play with this generation. And that is how Ursan hurts not only mine, but the entire GW community's playing experience.-Warior Kronos 23:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, but I see a flaw in your argument: the good old "what if I don't want to?". As in, "what if I don't want to learn from my mistakes?", "what if I don't want to think things through?", "what if I don't have fun in trying out new combinations?", and etc (usually followed by a hysterical "and how dare you tell me how to play the game?"). IMO, the main problem with Ursan is how it allows players to breeze past the game - if a mission that was supposed to be challenging (and thus take some tries to be finished, something that translates to taking some time) may be done within seconds by a party using Ursan Blessing, players will be able to go through all the game's content in a matter of hours; and when reaching the end, they would become stuck in the "what's next?" syndrome, demanding more and more content to Arena Net. What kind of content would be time consuming enough to keep those players busy, while being easy to create? Grind. And so, the more players who rush mindlessly to finish the game we have, the more grind Arena Net is tempted to add to GW. Erasculio 05:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

If I went through every reason Ursan sucks I'd have an essay not a long paragraph =P. About your comment about people not wanting to change, I agree, there will always be those people. But before now, those people did decently with a cookie-cutter build, but could always be defeated by almost anyone with a good build. Now, not only is Ursan enabling them to succeed tremendously in saying "BUT I DONT WANTT TOOOO CHANGE MAI BUILD" because Ursan is without a doubt the easiest (and cheapest) way to succeed in PvE, but Ursan is also drawing new people who for the sake of doing better would have stuck to my opinion("my opinion" put in for lack of assault by forum demons saying "dont tell me how to play the game") of how the game was meant to be played. I mean at this point why not just take out all but 20 skills for PvE and say go play. -Warior Kronos 21:27, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Ursan and Inflation

I noticed recently that whenever I team up with a group of human players, at the very least one of them would be wielding a Tormented Shield. (Usually it's 2 or 3 T. Shields). Paying a bit more attention when joining groups, I've noticed that a huge amount of players have a collection of seriously expensive stuff. (Tormented weps, fissure armor etc). Is this a reflection of the damaging effect Ursan Blessing has on the in game economy, or something else? 218.214.126.215 04:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Its ursan. Like,every third RA game i go in theres pretty much always a monk or mesmer or something with elite armor+torment shield. i wonder,if ursan didnt affect the economy...why does everyone have all those items? Note that everyone didnt when ursan wasnt out there. Oni 05:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)(im a mainly pvp player,so i pvp daily. seeing like 50 torment shields a day is..wtf o.o)

Yes, it's an economy-damaging side effect. -- ab.er.rant 05:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure if it's a ursan-only effect but, if as some people stated in other discussion groups can clean hard zones in half the time, it makes sense that the output of rare-skin items has also at least doubled lately (which sadly doesn't seem to mean that they are cheaper now). Now, if only we could send a couple of Ursan teams to the middle east and take care of oil extraction...--Fighterdoken 05:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Best Idea I have seen for Ursan. Foreign policy via ursanway. Man if they only had Ursan Blessing during the World Wars, or the Cold War. Yukiko 07:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Well.. Shadowform is going to make it worse. :3 Halogod35 06:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Sry if this sounds mean but Boo Hoo your not the only one with the rare items. Even without ursan the more people that get to and learn how to finish an elite area the more elite items will be gotten or you have people that farm money to buy gemsets or an armbrace of truth because there are people who sell them. As for fissure armor you don't need ursan to get it just alota money that you can get without ursan. All ursan has done is make it happen faster with a more noticeable effect to those who care. Tenri 15:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Seriously tenri,why the fuck are you defending ursan all the time? its getting annoying when all these noobs think they can make a argument by saying CRY MOAR! JUST DONT RUN URSAN! ectect.

Let me tell you this,SLOWLY. PLEASE understand and stop making a moron of yourself.

1. Ursan LOCKS high end areas for ANYONE who doesnt have eotn 2. Ursan KILLS the economy. 3. Ursan makes Any fucking nab in the game being able to clear any elite areas with just mashing 1-2-3 4. Guildwars main marketing tool was saying Skill will reward you more than time Its the opposite when ursan was released. 5. Ursan is a single skill that can clear areas. that shouldnt exist. PLEASE understand that you cant go clearing any area using ANY other skill. if you want proof,how about trying to clear DoA with me with only dragonslash? how about it?

Stop-defending-a-gay-skill. Its obvious that your probebly using it and want more time abusing it so you want pretty FoW armor for your characters.Oni 16:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I did not say don't use it if you don't want to did i?

1. True enough i did not say it didn't

2. No ursan made the death happen allot faster

3. Once more no i have tried a few time to clear DoA ursanway every time was a complete failure cause of "nabs"

4. I believe the main marketing tool was no subscription fees but i do c what your saying

5. Sure it can. Of course not. And no single skill but as a group of builds that everyone will require you to bring without ursan, and i will NEVER get any warrior that far in the game i am sorry.

ROFLMAO i HATE ALL FoW armor. And i ussually hero hench everything or play with my friends, sure i use ursan but i don't abuse it and i actually want it nerfed at bit myself and the only reason i defend ursan is because nobody other than me can stand all the people telling them they are an idiot.

I have done my best to calmly think through all my posts to try not to say anything that would justify that responce but if you add up all my posts saying it is good without saying it is bad you might get 2 or 3 posts as i have said why it is good and why it is bad in most of my posts.

one last note my last post did not defend ursan beyond toning down the extream point of veiw that people like you are putting forth. Tenri 17:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

1) No, it doesn't. There are still groups running that do not require Ursan. Last time I checked in ToA (not sure on the other locations), There was a 5:1 ration of non-ursan groups. This was within the last week. - Raknor - Talk 22:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Scroll up to your previous remarks. you´ve done nothing else than defended ursan. you´ve gone like MESMERZ DIDNT GET TU JOINZ GRUPS! Thats pure bull. they got into PLENTY of groops as nukers. DERVISHEZ DINDNT GET GRUPZ Lmfao,are you awake? ASSASSIZNG DIDNT GET GRUPS. And all other crap. Oh,and by the way. a couple of lines up you said that everyone wanting ursan nerfed was greedy elitists who sits in front of the comp 4 hours in a row or some crap like that. Note,some people actually spent their MONEY to buy this game,they didnt say mommomommy give me dat gaem pl0wrx and now this game is becomming this crap? Sheesh,if someone PAYS for the game they want fun in it. not just some gayass armor and a lame title so they can rush around showing it,knowing that they got it with hammering 1-2-3. You´ve defended ursan.scroll up and you will notice that yourself. Stop it. You even admit that you use ursan. (Although,i guess doing H/H with ursan isnt that bad. its when you put 6 ursans togheter its gay and faggitory.)83.249.119.162 18:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

ok i do defend it more then say it is bad now read all my posts in the archive most of my posts are in there including all the ones where i agree with people that say nerf it(i wouldn't want to look for them myself as the archive is massive but they are in there i didn't know they were moved sry for misleading you in that respect). And most of my points defend ursan because when i make my post thats all that people seem to see. I already explained the dervish complaint as disdain from the early days of DoA when people saw them only had enchantment users. The point about mesmers has been made by countless people why bold at me about it??(plus i dont play mesmer i was making a point about elitism b4 ursan as everyone just sees what it is after). Did i say anything about sins i don't remember but countless people have said stuff like that bout them as well. As a last note i have baught all the campaigns and expansion myself so quiet you.

ok before your respond to this i have this to say as i just read my posts on this page. I DO SAY IT IS BAD ON THIS PAGE. In the post where i talk about elitists with allot of time i say ursan is bad and people who say it is bad are right you are just responding to what you want to respond to. Tenri 18:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

now i just read all my posts in the archive one of the ones there say it is good without bad and that was the first post i made regarding ursan. the rest on that page talk about nerfing it( or the one section that isn't about weather it is balanced). and i was wrong again the majority of my posts are on this page and i defend it more than i thought Tenri 18:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey guys, there's no GWW:BE CIVIL, but let's try and keep it that way, huh? On topic, virtually everything that can be said about this topic has been said; one side isn't going to change the minds of the other side, nor is it going to sway those that don't care one way or the other, so I don't see why people are still getting in a huff over the skill, one way or the other. If ArenaNet's decision is to do something extreme to UB, one side's going to be upset one way or ther other. The more likely thing is that they're going to do something not-so-extreme. I just don't get why people are still arguing about it; like I said, everything there is to say has been said. Let's just wait for the official word on it instead of e-fighting amongst ourselves. Kokuou 18:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have never seen this much fail on a single page on the wiki. Owait, maybe I have... -- NUKLEAR IIV 19:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes OK i agree Kokuou but I will not stand idly by and watch people get this skill destroyed. I am going to keep watching this page and try to respond calmly to what other people say. The only reason i do this is because not everyone will read the rest of the posts, not everyone will read the archive, and most importantly because strangely enough I agree with both sides of the argument, I appear to defend ursan more than slam it but that is because all others that go to the talk page are getting tired of being insulted either directly(hasn't happened but is close) or indirectly happened allot to me i feel but i wont complain because I have the patience to understand the points that they make beyond the insults. Tenri 19:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, the reason so many Ursan topics keep popping up is because Nothing is being done. I know Regina has said that the staff is split on it, but really an overwhelming amount of points have been made-Valid points-that explain why Ursan is in fact not a good thing. Regina (and correct me if I'm horribly, horribly wrong here) has implied there will be somewhat disastrous effects if this skill is nerfed, bringing up valid arguments such as "For every 1 screaming against the skill, there are 10 silently enjoying it", but to be frank, anyone who isn't actively defending this skill on the official wiki which has been made public in numerous ways including on the official site and even an in-game command for accessing it! And you know what I think will happen? The few who were defending it will go off in the corner to continue grinding, and keep complaining, while the rest of the Guild Wars community who may at one point have been ok with ursan will accept the fact that a skill has been nerfed and MOVE. ON. Its Guild Wars. Nerfs happen. Deal. -Warior Kronos 21:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The only reason i ever go on to guild wars now is to speak with my guild who i've made good friends with. I'd recommend checking out Age of Conan which looks pretty awesome for an MMO. A-net you really let the shit hit the pan, it seems to settle down to this: nerf the skill or lose a large fanbase. Those who used it before a nerf (if A-net EVER MAKE THEIR MINDS UP) will deal with it and go back to using builds and hopefully some sort of meaning can be retained from "Your skill will be your ledgend". BTW hearing nothing on GW2 for months only re-inforces the idea you could not give a shit about the players (oh, except taking their money). Regina it would be nice if you could reply as to why its taking so long to decide on what to do, I mean come on its not politics. If the dev. team are so split on what to do, take a vote or ask the players (majority wins obv.), when you log in every player (over the course of a week) has to tick a box either keep ursan/scrap it, i'm doing the job for them here. Why the hell are the dev. team stuck on what to do anyway we are the fucking players not them, just ask us please before you lose more players. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:91.110.39.244 (talk).

Many skills that some players believe are overpowered remain that way. Ursan certainly wouldn't be the first example of this. Also, almost every skill that has people who feel is overpowered has significantly more people who point out that they believe it should be nerfed then there are people who don't waste their time telling ANet to ignore the complainers. That fact that this skill hasn't been nerfed yet is a very good indication that it never will be. Perhaps some day you will accept this or maybe not. Either way, MOVE ON. Its Guild Wars. Nerfs don't always happen just because you think they should. Deal. -- Inspired to ____ 22:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(indent reset)91, for your comment about why the ArenaNet team isn't saying anything about GW2, check your talk page.

Now, Just because there are a lot of complaints about Ursan, it does NOT make it a majority consensus that it should be nerfed. Hell, for all WE know, it could be a MINORITY. So your statement "Majority wins obv." is false until proven by said vote.

Don't be so hard on the dev teams. Keep in mind that they have to figure out HOW to balance the skill and just how much they need to nerf it (if that's what they're going to do). And IF they're doing that, it's probably on the test server. Now as much as I hate to say it, (Sorry, Kronos) there's always the option to NOT use it. - Raknor - Talk 22:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Why would you not use it? It owns everything. That's the whole point. 203.213.7.131 05:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

And that is why there are calls for nerfing it, 203. It's not too bad when it's just one or two individual(s) using it (as things are still a challenge), but when you've got 5 or 6 individuals in a group using it, THAT is where the problem is with Ursan. I've been messing with Ursan a bit since "My thoughts" up above, and even with another level on my Norn title, I'm STILL not impressed with it, since I

A) Still don't get as much health as I would with my normal skill bar.

B) My normal skill bar still puts out more damage than Ursan does, so it takes me a little longer to bash through a group of monsters with Ursan than it does w/o it.

So with those in consideration, Ursan's pretty much useless to me. - Raknor - Talk 22:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The thing is,inspired. people will NOT move on.because they dont need to. this ursan rampage will go on untill GW2 is released,and when it is pretty much every noobass ursan farmer will have all the elite titles and such transfered to GW2. and wtf,nerfs doesnt happen because we think it should? Its KILLING the game. the only one who benefits from it are lamers and newbs. and GW was originally created for skilled and intellegent players.not the opposite. TBH.it cant be that fckn hard to nerf the skill. but i suppose i can understand em abit. because when TNTF was nerfed the QQing was MASSIVE. people said that their paragon days were over and now they suck ect,just cause they cant make their team immortal as easy as before.:? PvE sucks now.and you keep trying to promote it to stay that way,say. do you use ursan?Oni 06:04, 30 May 2008 (UTC) (cuz the only reason ppl should defend this skill is cause they want to be lame and abuse it so they can touch themself when watching their titles)

It is not for you or me to decide who can enjoy the game and how. That is for ANet to decide. Clearly they have decided that all who buy the game can enjoy it. And if they use ursan to get that enjoyment apparently that is fine. One things seems clear from your post and many others that oppose ursan is some type of selfishness. What the hell do you care if anyone else gets a title, has a nice weapon or a certain armor. It's only a game and maybe you need to go accomplishment something in real life to feel good about. Of course, your probably one of those people whose shiny new car suddenly isn't so nice anymore when your neighbor gets one. Or is that just when it's your "idiot" neighbor who didn't even go to college.

You ask if I play ursan as if that is telling of something. Well I'm not sure what you expect to determine from that but I have. I have played it when farming Norn points to get the title. (I have also done the same HM run without ursan.) I have used it for doing Slaver's dungeon runs several times and I have used it to do FoW a couple times. And that's it. If it matters, I would classify all those as for farming. Of course farmers have always used whatever they can to farm the fastest from 55 monks to every other gimmick build imaginable. When i needed to max Sunspear and Lightbringer points I used the "overpowered" wurm. Big deal. Of course that misses the point since these areas which exists only to farm don't really matter outside of farming and thus there is no good reason to care if ursan is used there. So although I haven't used ursan to do a mission, that should be the only serious "game play" issue. I don't know if a significant number of people are only able to to do certain missions because of ursan or not. Maybe, because I'm pretty sure there are quite a few who can't do them all without being carried by others in a party they join. But, they also bought the game and should have tools available that allow them to "play" the game. Anyway, a better question is, have you used ursan? If not, why not. If only to have better information on something that you seem to care about deeply, I would expect you to play it and see what it is and isn't. For example, imho, it isn't any stronger then a lot of other builds. However, it is easier, faster and more consistent. Although, it doesn't make stupid players smart or prevent them doing stupid things including causing party wipes. Etc.

In conclusion, overpowered or not, hurting the game economy or not, fun to play or not; all seem insignificant compared to this: What the hell is lacking from some people's real lives that they care so much about one silly skill played by some people in a game or not? -- Inspired to ____ 14:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes Inspired, I have used Ursan, and it totally destroyed the enjoyment of the 'elite' areas for me. Playing in an Elite area is suppose to provide a challenge. Ursan removes that challenge and turns it into a slaughterfest. I thoroughly enjoy being in a group of mixed (yet balanced) professions and working through the build challenges to find the correct synergy to be able to complete these once 'elite' areas. The entire concept of an elite area has been utterly destroyed by the Ursanway group. Yes, I can still take a guild/alliance balanced group in to do these areas, and I do, but finding new people to play with by way of pugs in these areas is gone forever (or at least until Ursan finds it's proper place as a GWEN only skill, or is nerfed enough to make it unviable in the rest of the game in some other fashion). As for being selfish... I guess in some ways I am in that I enjoyed the 'prestige' that came from wearing the title 'Legendary Vanquisher' and that prestige is now vanished as pve titles have become so easy to achieve due to Ursan and the fact that no one believes you achieve those titles without it anymore. (edit) I also have to question what right you have to comment on other people's real lives. I find your condescension completely and utterly offensive.-- Wynthyst 14:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, now you understand how I feel about the way many people who object to Ursan usually refer to people who play the 'elite' skill Ursan Blessing. It doesn't take reading many comments against Ursan users to understand why many players don't stand up and say they play it. But, of course if a lot weren't using and enjoying it, it would be nerfed to please the "vast majority". Of course, that's not the case and so the skill remains as it is for now. Finally, clearly my comments resulted as a response to Oni's comments such as "the only one who benefits from it are lamers and newbs. and GW was originally created for skilled and intellegent players.not the opposite" which I don't see how anyone can see as anything other then personal attacks on Ursan users by calling them lamers and newbs and by inference unskilled and unintelligent. Thus, I feel it is very appropriate to question if there is a something underlying attacks such as these. -- Inspired to ____ 15:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

While I disagree with Oni's wording, I agree with his point. Guildwars is meant as an environment where you use tactics and synergy both between skills and between characters. With Ursan, there are no tactics other than "ENEMIES! KEEEEEEL!", and the only synergy is that monks heal the ursans, and frankly, that's not really synergy at all. Let me use an example: Say you went to a dentist, and wanted him to remove a dodgy tooth. There are two ways of doing this. One is with an exquisite, precise, high-speed drill and anesthesia (a balanced, well-strategized GW team.) The other method is a big-ass hammer (Ursanway). One requires practice and precision. The other, a trained monkey could do it, really. In addition, the latter is extremely damaging. The economy has gone to crap since EOTN came out, and yes, getting a group for Elite PvE remains almost impossible without R8+ Norn or an HB healer. You can spout your "WELL DON'T USE URSAN LOL" rubbish as much as you want, but the simple fact remains that this skill is messing up even those who refuse to use it. KrelusDerian 19:51, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This wont be liked by many of you but we don't need you to repeat what is bad about ursan 100 times just as much as we don't need people repeating bad defenses. So please stop saying "stop saying 'don't use it if you don't like it'" that is just as annoying as people who say "don't use it if you don't want to". Also this ruined the economy tell me how it did this it still costs an arm and a leg for the average player to get a torment weapon or FoW armor whether that is spent on way to much time or way to much gold for them but the people who sell the Elite things do so because they spent a lot of time farming, whether they farm with ursan or not is beside the point because people farmed these items before but they were far fewer whether that is from ursan or from more people learning how to farm i do not know. As for Ruining the prestige of titles sure people don't this it is as impressive to get legendary vanquisher anymore but you can get that with H/H as far as i know using that triple necro team(and don't say cant in 4 man areas as i have done a few with that team). Also before someone says i abuse Ursan for profit i don't have any torment weps or FoW armor and i no longer have enough money for any more elite armor.

I personally will be trying to make a new non ursan build for general PvE on my dervish as old PvP balance had broke my build just before getting ursan. At the time ursan was a good replacement but it is getting boring to continue playing.

Once more i regret having to say this but can you stop just saying get rid of it because they cant just do that make meaningful suggestions on what can be done. Teh Uber Pwnzer has made one i would like for what i believe ursan was originally designer for.

I will also use this post to pull out of this discussion as it is starting to annoy me at how naive some people seem to be, however if i see a great need for me to comment once more i will but not for repeated foolish hate. Tenri 06:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

If you took a moment to read my various posts instead of calling me naive, you'd understand that I'm not saying "REMOVE IT!" What I suggested was to make it so that the Elite Norn blessings were banned in dungeons, much like PvE-only skills are prohibited in PvP. It's a nerf that would work without fiddling with numbers and causing a skill to be laughably weak, or affecting someone's ability to progress the story. What it WOULD do is make it so that dungeons require prepwork and a specially tailored group, which in my opinion, they should. As for your economy counterpoint, what the heck? The price of FoW armor and torment weapons are pretty much constant. Most ecto farming is done, to my knowledge, with a 600/smiter team, unless they nerfed that. The problem is the economy has become flooded with the elite items that you get from completing dungeons. The best example I can think of is a bit of history from Ancient Egypt. A philanthropist went to Egypt and donated a massive amount of gold to the poor there. However, he gave them so much gold that it took the kingdom two decades to recover. In addition, you still haven't addressed the main damage this has caused, which is getting a group for elite PvE. Now, stop putting words in my mouth, thanks. KrelusDerian 22:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

My post wasn't actually directed at yours and i could have / should have reset indent for it sry bout that. As for not addressing the issue of not being able to get a group in an elite area without ursan that can not be done without a balance change like what you have suggested and i for one agree with baning ursan from elite areas/dungeons. As to the economy issue the original topic of this thread was FoW armor and Torment weapons/shields that is why i did not address dungeon rewards and the hardest dungeons aren't done with ursan to my knowledge. I am sorry for making it look like i was calling you naive but some people posting here are as i have seen the same things said a few to many times by people who think read the artical just to repeat what was said the most as i have a friend who has done that in a diff game he would just constantly complain about what people complain about on forums he even told me that was his reason for complaining bout them. Tenri 04:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I might have used bad wording,sowwi. but my point still stands. there is no reason at ALL to not nerf ursan. and the only reason that ursan havent gotten nerfed is because they are AFRAID of everyone who abuses the skill. massive qqing incoming ;o. But now instead everyone pretty much decent leaves gw because of this. and now everyone in pve high end areas are INDENTICAL >:/. everyone running the EXACT same build. HB monks and ursans. thats EVERYTHING. Seeing that some people love to use the argument It doesnt matter.get a life and accomplish something there, i dont give a DAMN about people having pwetty items. good for them. The fact still is that i payed for this game and now its becomming trash. am i such a nolife for disaprooving that? i think nutz.

Srsly,you still havent said a single argument WHY ursan should stay as it is. you just simply say that do something in real life instead >,<'. Srsly,even mudkip would want to nerf this.Oni 11:31, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow, so much fail here... -- NUKLEAR IIV 13:53, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the reason i have not said ursan should stay as it is, is maybe because i don't think it should stay as it is. Tenri 15:59, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

URSAN FTW its not even messing up the econ btw cus ecto farming is so when u c ppl with torm its the fact that ectos r overfarmed so ursan does nothing but speed things up and if ur saying that its all ursan and hb its now cus i get in 2 grp with WoH not HB and ppl dont mind cus they no they wont die cus WoH is still good. ALSO if u gonna mess up ursan u might as well mess up cons cus they overpowerful 2 so yea if u dont agree then y am i taking like 20 damage for axxtee in HM UW yes i no i spelt it wron i suck at spelling :) tyvm and its true ursan makes it some wut boring but u like sitting there for like 3 hrs or 1.5hrs more gets done and plus more ppl with torm the better we all want it and it HELPS NEW PPL SINCE ANY1 CAN DO IT THE LEARNING CURVE FOR THIS GAME IS NO MORE WITH THAT ANY1 CAN USE IT THATS LIKE THE POINT RIGHT Gwftw 20:48, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Another Random Suggestion

I'd like to see Anet remove Ursan from PvE, and give it to all PvP only chars and let it be used in PvP for a single weekend event. Just the reactions from people on the wiki would be funny to watch, not to mention actually seeing what PvP would become! ;-) |Foul Bane| 16:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually,it wouldnt really matter. the diffrence with pvp and pve is that in pvp,people have brains. ursans would get snared and wtfpwned in many areas.

Well,i guess RA,TA and HA would get fuxxed,but izzy doesnt care about those areas ;oOni 16:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Pretty much, cripshot beats ursan any day. -- NUKLEAR IIV 19:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Might as well, with PvE variance gone to hell we might aswell bring it to PvP.

URSAN FTW it now even messing up the econ btw cus ecto farming is

How This Skill Affects My Gameplay

Further up in the page, Regina asked someone to explain how Ursan affected their game.

Today, I was kicked from a group for not displaying my Norn title. That is laaaame. I play games to enjoy myself, and grinding an r10 Ursan title feels a bit too much like WORK. Screw Ursan. Every PUG I actually manage to get into now is the same. Gone are the days of bow-wielding monks or ranger tanks. Now, there is no creativity. Ursan is breaking this game, and that's sad as hell. 65.102.71.5 17:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I can say as a warrior Ursan is one of the few things that allowes the truly most underpowerd class in the game the ability to do end game pugs. Try going to UW of FOW as a warrior LFG you will get laugh out by the MM necros, B/P rangers, elementalist. And for those saying it is over powerd I would like to see a Ursan solo UW like the assasin I followed in UW a few nights ago. I was brought along to buff the assasin so he could "Go faster". Lets talk about the 55 monk who solo's the quest A Time For Heroes for 1k a person. And for all you "Original Build" players. 99% of you got your Uber build off some website so stop pretending like Anet and people who play ursan are out to ruin the game. How did you think I felt when I was booted from multiple groups in UW purely because I was a warrior.

I've never been booted from a group for being a warrior. Sign your posts, as well.KrelusDerian 18:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

And you know what, I have more to add. 55'ing and Invincisins require pretty much the whole bar to function, and I think they're rather clever builds. Ursanway is a single skill that grants way more power than any one skill should. I've never heard of Warriors as being underpowered and shunned, to be brutally honest. Mesmers and Sins, yes. But not warriors. KrelusDerian 18:55, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Warriors are shunned? Wow. I gotta be brutally honest here, either the pugs you went up to are plain idiots, or you are one. I think its the former. Also, mesmers have the best nuke there is. yeah, Cry of pain. -- NUKLEAR IIV 19:47, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The majority of people are idiots. Another example of this is the majority of PvEers thinking Paragons suck. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 22:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Aye, a guildmate of mine is a Paragon. I have yet to wipe with him in the group. KrelusDerian 04:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan is one skill thats way overpowered, and a lot of players don't like it because they have put time and effort into builds to find which skills have good synergy. You could say "oh you get your builds from pvx wiki boo hoo" but most builds taken from there are used for pvp (go to HA or try gvg out you'll understand). I have R10 norn and I COULD use Ursan but whats the point? What do I personally gain from completing UW in an hour or any other "elite" area in record time? I don't feel like i've accomplished anything I could go again and again all day oooooo lucky me. The high-end areas are pathetic there was a time when completing FoW actually meant something. I mostly play dervish now and if you must know i tend to use Ebon Dust Aura as my elite (before anyone starts going on about the forms), and sure it works, but i can't get a team. I get called noob, shit, wtf thats crap etc. by the players who are apparently "SILENTLY enjoying it". Can you just come to a decision please so we can make our minds up whether we want to keep palying or not (i'm sure i speak for many there). If i wanted elitism i'd play WoW.

This brings back memories of my times doing RA, and from previous discussions. I left on my page a statement about it, if anyone want to read it (which, of course is totally unrelated to my opinion regarding if UB needs a adjustment or not).--Fighterdoken 17:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thing is, Ursan isn't even that GOOD of a "build". Watching elementalists play as ursans is incredibly depressing, because they're wasting their potential as damage dealers. To do comparable damage to mobs, Ursans have to bunch enemies with proper pulling. How often do you see an Ursan pulling? The energy pressure placed by the blessing encourages Leeroying into groups and turning fights into chaotic scrums with no elegance. Ursan ruins player skill and breaks class distinctions. I have a guildie that got the legendary vanquisher title on a ritualist... with Ursan. That is ridiculous to me. A ritualist could do even more damage and be more effective simply by being a spirit spammer with the luxon/kurzick rit skill. Most people are so wound up in the Ursan mindset that they don't do anything BUT ursan.65.102.71.5 17:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Puh-LEESE! 6 Ursans clear anything in record times. How does an ele out damage an ursan? renewal shower? Yeah, sure, especially in HM, where you get about 24 damage per meteor. Ursan, on the other had, does 150 full armor ignoring damage every 3 seconds. With AoE KD. With AoE weakness. A sprit spammer, how would that deal more damage? -- NUKLEAR IIV 10:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Warriors the most underpowered class in the game? Warriors not allowed in groups? Are we playing the same game? Ursan may be overpowered and ruining many things, but it has nothing to do with what you said about warriors. --Lytel 11:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Wel the way this skill effect my gameplay is there is no otherway to play i'm forced to play ursan and i refuse that. I'm forced to buy consume course with none i can't get a team. I still remember back in the days GW was a game of how use all the skills Gw offers. Yes ursan is one of those skills but ursan is the ulimate cheat Gw offers. I do not care about inflation and that weapons and such get worth less, but what i do care is that the ursan skill kills my GW and many others Gw to. I'm unable to play DoA only ursan allows me to i can't vanquish course i refuse and reject Ursan/cons same with the devine realms.Cult Mephisto

Holeee shit!

WARNING: This page is 224 kilobytes long; some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb. Please consider breaking the page into smaller sections. I think this one speaks for itself. -- NUKLEAR IIV 13:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to archive some of the older and longer parts of this page specifically Two concerns from an ex-player. Tenri 13:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Screw Ursan

→ moved from User talk:Regina Buenaobra

I know this has been sad many time realy Nerf or even better remove Ursan. Realy it needs to go 95% of all teams are those stupid dickheads with ursan blessing can't you people see that it kills your game. Many people complain about it, is it so hard to understand that they need to Nerf rebalance or remove those kind of skills. I know this topic may be removed or placed somewhere else but realy this need to be consider this was this realy what you thought the skill would do to the game. Cult Mephisto

wrong place. This should be on the ursan talk page. Regina is aware of your concerns as you would have seen if you had of checked the ursan talk page. Pestering her about it aint gonna effect change any faster. -- Salome 22:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you seriously think they care about what is happening in GW1? No they don't inflation is natural. There focusing them selves on GW2 and will analyse what is going on to prevent this in GW2. Dominator Matrix 22:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

People at Anet see this skill as a really good idea, and they are just so right too. Those who do must be in positions of power within the company because they're keeping it in the game in current form so who are you to argue with them *shakes fist*. I say keep it as is. I'm going to start working on my titles and this skill makes the game so unbelievably easy it almost a joke, but its not because there are people in Arenanet who believe this skill is, to quote some young people "Da bomb!".

Anet, please don't nerf is, it would be completely retarded to do so, I mean, this skill is the only reason a lot of us are getting anywhere in the game. I mean, when it gets hard all we have to do is throw on Ursan, grab some HB monks, player or AI, and we can run through any area so quickly, and with consumables it makes it so much easier. Ursan and consumables are the best things you guy have ever done, you guys must have put so much work into it. *thumbs up*

Please, don't nerf it, some buffs might be nice.

I'd love to know who in Arenanet thinks the skill is bad so I can write letters to them *shakes fist* 118.92.214.169 23:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The way I see consumables is that it turned the game into a game where you didn't have to have the perfect build for a dungeon. It was advanced character power. And I love it. I don't love getting to the end of a mission and having to restart due to a spike or something. Thing is, a lot of people liked GW because you had to "use skill" to pass. etc. etc. this has been restated tons of times. :P Vael Victus 00:19, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I have only one comment here. For those of you who can't get anywhere in the game without Ursan.... go back to Mario Brothers. I am a mid to upper level gamer who has gotten one character of each profession through all 3 campaigns, and most of them through GWEN as well without the use of Ursan Blessing. There is absolutely no validation to the idea that Ursan is necessary for someone of ANY profession to be able to complete any area in this game.-- Wynthyst 03:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan is great. anyone can use it and it doesn't require much to get it, and every little can stop a group of them. Makes getting the titles and such easier. If you want to play Guild Wars your way, go do it, but Arenanet made Ursan (and I gotta say I love the Arenanet employees that are stopping it from being changed) and its great. Ursan and consumables ftw 118.92.214.169 04:35, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The one above me you can't be serious Ursan and consume is the worse thing ever happening to GW. I may be one of few who refuses to play course this brainless shit isn't the sollusion like my first post says almost all teams are those stupid ursans with there consume sets. I forces me to play that way and thats bad. for example FoW and UW thats 99% ursans so i can't play it course i refuse to degrade my skill to that lvl. Iff they wish to save some stuff allow me and maybe others to use 7 hero's when entering UW ir 11 hero's Deep Urgoz. I wish i could be more detailt with comment but my english is just not that good. Cult Mephisto

Ursan destroyed the game. Now not only good, skilled, experienced players can complete the hardest areas, kill the hardest bosses and farm very efficiently - everyone can. This may seem good to new players, maybe it makes the game fairer. However, it makes the game totally unfair, as those who have spent long hours learning how to play the game properly's skill is totally irrelivant. I would not be suprised if now a player would have the ability to go kill mallyx in a team on their very first day playing GW.Pre ursan and after the nerf it used to be hard, and you would get quite a bit of respect for being able to do it. Now everyone can do everything, all the once rare and expensive items other than those that come from chests and are entirely 100% luck what you get are common and worthless because any old newbie can go get them.--Neyon 09:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Salome , I have read the ursan talk page, which is pretty long and many of the points have been made, including all those on this post. Regina and the team are very aware of all concerns on ursan, being in favor of, or the complete opposite. I also would like to add the fact that, even though most groups are Ursan builds, I have been able to go to both UW and Fow with very good non-Ursan groups. Agreed there isn't such a group always around, but they are out there and can be found. I have been playing since July 2005, and this game has always been constantly changing (sometimes even changing back), so I'm here to enjoy the rest of the ride into GW2. --Nekki 15:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Regina, don't let them change this skill. Ursan and consumables are the best thing to happen to guild wars. its lets us play and get all the stuff we normally wouldnt have been able to do. *thumbs up to Arenanet, and don't listen to the piss players, they're just angry because they're not the only ones who can do FoW and stuff now* *smile* 118.92.214.169 23:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan sucks. Reasons have already been stated why. I'll skip the long speech, read my userpage if you want my argument on how it hurts my gameplay experience-Warior Kronos 23:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan does not suck! 118.92.214.169 00:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan's for fags who cant actually play the game --Metroid 02:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) no...no its not......i only use it when i am with and ursan group, for, per say, a DoA run through. Doesnt anyone get this yet? Much like many other things in GW, ursan was made for the CASUAL GAMER. So they only have to spend about 2-3 hours on a whole DoA clearing (maybe even including mallyx), or FoW. Experianced gamers that have alot of time cando an excellent non-ursan DoA clearing in about 1 1/2times as much...er...time.--Raph Talky 02:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yup, cause grinding to r8-10 ursan is really casual...-Warior Kronos 02:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan wasn't made for the casual. It was made and it happens to be casual. Grinding, perhaps, but look where GW got without any grind: GW2. WoW has over 10 million people now and racks in as much money as Iron Man made, in one month. I think in the beginning GW tried to not be an MMO, and then was clumped in with them regardless. It's unfortunate for you people, because if you're so bored to get upset with Ursan and then quit, it obviously only proves the point that the current formula they're using isn't meant to keep people around. (buy a campaign, beat it, end game if you want, which you probably won't want to) (PvP if you're into it) And I just don't think you're going to be seeing much of this formula in GW2. Vael Victus 02:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

if you are good enough (or have the right quest and eotn HM) you can gain alot of faction for norn from one run of it, which only take 25 mins.-1 hour--Raph Talky 02:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

If I may be serious for one moment here, DoA, a several hour run, by all meanings of the word is not casual. To grind to rank 10 norn and rank 8 lightbringer is by all means not casual. It takes a metric shit-ton of time and is meaningless, boring, easy-mode grind to get money to look pretty in pink, or obsidian armor, or what have you. To say "Ursan is casual" is a load of shit. Most casual players put some random shitty skills on their bars, increase attributes in what they feel like would give them the best effectiveness, and then go and conquer normal mode storylines. DoA is not casual. Grind of the north is not casual. Having PvE/RA/TA/AB/FA fun, experimenting with skills until you find a combination that works for you, and admiring the scenery is casual gameplay. Basically, to say "Ursan is casual" is a blatant lie. —ǥrɩɳsɧƴɖɩđđɭɘş 03:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

this s all coming from the second worst troll on the wiki.....apparently, you dont do enough elite pve--Raph Talky 03:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

GWW:NPA applies for everyone, including "trolls", Raph. In this case, mgrinshpon is actually quite correct. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 03:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

bleh......thats opinion, not proven fact. Dungeons and ursan are also an example of casual gameplay with ursan. 2 or 3-level dungeons can be completed easy with just one ursan, a good monk hero, and w/e else you need for that dungeon (slavers is an exception). As for NPA..........oi very.....i am about *puts fingers up* | | that close to becomeing a troll. For god sake, i dont want that to happen, but at this point, its almost a certainty--Raph Talky 03:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan is a brillant skill, people who think its not should really think about it. By saying its not you're just taking a swipe at Arenanet, they made the skill and continue to keep it unchanged, why? Just its a brillant skill that just has Guild Wars written all over it. They love it, so shut up and go elsewhere if you don't like it. Ursan rocks, its here to stay, get over it or go somewhere else. 118.92.214.169 07:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Your "logic" continues to be unmoving. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 07:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

at this point in pve, we should be more concerned about Shadoway w/ 2 monks--Raph Talky 13:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

May I suggest someone moves this discussion to the correct location: Talk: Ursan Blessing? I would try it myself, but I don't want to accidentally kill Regina's page. Ashes Of Doom 15:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

My logic, Aiiane, is that Arenanet made Ursan, and continue to leave it as awesome as it is. Arenanet thinks its great otherwise they would have changed it by now, the Ursan Haters out there really need to get it into their brains that Arenanet thinks Ursan is great for Guild Wars, and it shows because everyone is following suit and using it. Its a great skill, a much needed skill. I think its awesome I can literally run through an area with no attributes in anything and Ursan and nothing can stop me and my friends. *thumps up* Me and several of my Guild took our level 10 characters that were already in EOTN, got Ursan, and then finished NF in almost under 1 days (none of us bar our monks had to invest any attribute points bar out primary), just using Ursan we smashed through every challenge and are going back to do the same to Proph and Factions. A day a campaign seems good, then their UW or FOW, both even. Max titles here I come *waves to Arenanet with a big thumbs up*. 118.92.198.220 02:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

That's not logic. That's being ignorant of the real problem. The primary issue is not that Ursan makes things nice and easy for those who don't want to put in any effort. The primary issue is that Ursan is affecting how players play the game and shortening its lifespan. After breezing through the game like that, how likely do you expect you and your friends to ever bother with non-Ursan play now? It is fundamentally changing the PvE scene and lowering the overall skill level of its player base. And you might want to read a bit of Regina's responses if you think ArenaNet is wholly in support of the skill. -- ab.er.rant 02:12, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

though you have great logic, you are overkilling it i think. Campaigns are meant to be done with a real build, though i guess if ur just bored so you are going to overly buff 1 char getting him ready for GW2. this is just me, but i find guild wars much funner if i do most of it with real builds, and use ursan occasionaly on an elite area or dungeon--Raph Talky 02:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you being sarcastic...I can't tell...-Warior Kronos 02:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

no im not. 1. most sarcasm fails on the interweb, and 2. ursan wasnt meant for everything, its true, and even i realize that--Raph Talky 02:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

If it wasn't meant to be this way Arenanet would have changed it by now, but since it hasn't been changed Arenanet obviously think its a brilliant idea, I totally agree with them. Who are you to judge what Arenanet considers good for the game or not? Ursan is brilliant, Arenanet think so to, why don't you? 118.92.198.220 07:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

May I suggest someone moves this discussion to the correct location: Talk: Ursan Blessing before further discussion kills Regina's talk page (like last time)? Ashes Of Doom 12:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry ashes xD. I'd move it but I too am a wiki n00b *goes and copies code from 1337 wikians to make myself look expert*. Wasn't talking to you Raph, was talking to the anon above me. And in reply to Why don't I think Ursan is brilliant, and who I am to judge, I'm a 3 year paying veteran player who has seen PvE fall to grinders. Thats slightly offensive, who am I to judge. Anet isn't god you know, and the only argument you've been providing is that Anet is god, without any backup whatsoever, except your argument above which I genuinely thought was sarcasticl. Quote: I think its awesome I can literally run through an area with no attributes in anything and Ursan end quote. I'm sorry if this crosses borderline NPA but people who actually think not having to invest ANY ATTRIBUTE POINTS WHATSOEVER as you have said, is a GOOD THING are ruining Guild Wars, and the very principle it revolves around.-Warior Kronos 20:55, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Kronos, your crying offends me. If you think its so bad, then why go tell Arenanet. Oh, people have. People have gone over and over that Ursan is bad for this, or this or that... but do you see it being changed. In the end its not what you or I think is good, its what Arenanet thinks is good for Guild Wars, and judging by the fact that almost everyone uses Ursan and it hasn't changed much since it was first release, then that just screams "ARENANET THINKS ITS BRILLIANT!" Get over your self-rightous attitude, get a grip, the grip being Arenanet made Ursan, Arenanet keeps Ursan, if you think PvE has fallen to the grinders then naff off and go somewhere else. Ursan FTW. 118.92.198.220 05:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

ok, first i somewhat agreed with your principles, but now you're just being stupid--Raph Talky 13:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Ashes that this should be moved to a more appropriate page, but I can't help adding my own rant to this. Sorry for adding fuel to the fire.

Why go tell ANet? If you get an undercooked steak at a restaurant would you sit there an eat it because chef Gordon Ramsay cooked it? No, you would ask that you get one more to your liking. Even the best make mistakes (Don't tell Ramsay I said that) including ANet, Ursan was one of them. No one wants to see this skill get nerfed into limbo where no one would use it but at the very least they could bring it down to a level where it doesn't replace every other skill in the game, save for the healing skills needed to keep them alive. The only thing more troubling than the fact that you think its fine is the fact that ANet has no problem with a single skill, along with consumables, has replaced just about every other skill out there. There is a happy medium where Ursan can still be viable allowing every profession a chance at high end content without discrimination and at the same time make it so it is the only skill you will ever want to use. Unfortunately we also have to deal with the new buff to Shadow Form allowing it to be permanent, there should never be any skill or skill combination that allows you to turn off your brain. -- Broodling 14:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. Now that this isn't on Regina's page, I can add my spam/ideas. Personally, I think that GW shouldn't require a brain, sometimes I use Ursan when I am doing other things, and its really useful. Every tried to vanquish an area while writing an english paper? Trust me, its not easy, but Ursan + sabway helps =P. The casual player has a lot to gain from ursan, and I use it pretty regularly on my warrior, though I use real builds on other professions. Ashes Of Doom 16:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Guys, listen to grinch. He is right. You cannot call him incorrect because he is a troll and better than u r. He is right. Ursan needs to die. Hey, that rhymes! -- NUKLEAR IIV 18:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow. Just... wow. Well, I guess this page is a great example of "Changing the playerbase" way to go anet, GW2 will have all the scrubs you'll ever want! GG! Oh, and no smart people, but that's a given when the best skill in game is just 123 -- NUKLEAR IIV 12:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Going to give you my 2 cents on why Ursan is bad for the game.

1. It limits the creativity and variety of the game in PUGs and most elite areas down to a few skills. Not everyone can gather enough people to play through with balanced groups, and it takes long amounts of time to gather a large enough PUG willing to run balanced.

2. It makes rare items common. The point of a rare item is to be rare, something hard to obtain. Ursan destroys this aspect of many items.

3. It is incredibly easy to use, and is very powerful; more than any other single skill. Meaning it imbalances gameplay. A game with a button that automatically makes the player win is designed poorly. Ursan is like this. If the team can't understand why [maintainable +20 armor, +200 health, a 150 dmg armor ignoring unblockable attack with a 1 second cast 3 second recharge attack, a 135 dmg adjacent range kd that also ignores armor and cannot be blocked, constant +15 dmg per attack buff, and 33% IMS] is bad for the game, I am utterly appalled by their ignorance of exactly how imbalanced this skill is. I have to assume they know how imbalanced it is and are just trying appeal to "casual players." I consider myself a casual player, only playing PvE, and I don't want this skill to ruin the integrity of the game. A win-all skill does just this to any game, whether I choose to use it or not.

4. It makes doing what previously required skill to do possible for any player that can press 3 buttons. This cheapens the achievements of others. Why? Because now something that was hard and took skill to achieve is being done by everybody; it is common now. Would you be proud of getting an A+ on your exam if your entire 9th grade class also achieved the same grade? I doubt it. Regina questioned this earlier; it's how humans work, human psychology. IE, titles mean very little anymore and are cheapened. People like them because they are hard to obtain. They are not hard to obtain with Ursan.

5. It cuts the act of playing the game itself to the simple task of pressing a few buttons. What is the point of playing a game that plays itself? That's not a game at all; it's called a grindfest. Ursan does just this to the game known as GW.

That's my 2 cents on the topic. Hoping for Regina to respond. 24.12.41.148 09:03, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Just so you know, the KD skill is affected by armor. Your points still stand though. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 16:52, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

To recap, this skill is maintainable Defy Pain, Earth Shaker, Order of the Vampire/Pain, an unblockable, unconditional, Blades of Steel with maximum +60 dmg with a 3 second recharge and no cost, Anthem of Weariness for Ursan Roar's weakness effect, and an IMS that outclasses every other IMS in the game. There you have a comparison to other skills that act similarly to Ursan.

Note that you'd have to be some kind of crazy W/N/P/A to use all of these, and have crazy amounts of attribute points to spend to make these skills work. Note that two of these ordinary skills are elite assuming you pick OoP, which requires 10 energy, health sacrifice, and a character dedicated to spamming it. If you picked OoV, it's only 5 energy, still more than Ursan Roar, which also causes weakness on enemies in EARSHOT. Which means that I have to add Anthem of Weariness or Enfeebling Blood, both of which are vastly inferior to Roar merely in terms of causing weakness. It also bumps it up to 3 elites in one if you use OoV as a comparison. Blades of Steel is a dual attack, with 5 energy cost, 8 second recharge and requires having multiple recharging dagger attacks, so it's very conditional compared to Ursan Strike, which outclasses just about every damage skill in the game.

I'm comparing this to regular skills just to show how imbalanced Ursan really is. Anet has made it so that it really isn't viable to use anything but Ursan since people will always take the easiest path to victory (which is unarguably Ursan). And if they can't see why this is poor game design, then I refuse to waste any more of my money on their games. Age of Conan looks more promising than GW2 at this point.

And don't say -2 energy degen balances this, because it doesn't. There are Zealous weapons, there is the innate "Ursan Zealous" effect that stacks with a Zealous weapon, there is Soul Reaping, there is Critical Strikes, there is Energy Storage. Hell, you can even cast Blood Ritual on an Ursan. There are tools that can be used to maintain Ursan for as long as we wish

If this does not appear imbalanced to Anet, I'm simply at a loss for words at their lack of understanding about game design. 24.12.41.148 18:10, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Dear ArenaNet: please don't change Ursan Blessing in haste.

There is a lot of steam from players who passionately believe Ursan Blessing is the worst skill ever. However, after reading all the comments, I have yet to find any evidence that this skill is harmful to the game. The main reason, of course, is that this is a PvE-only skill.

One major complaint is that too many groups expect Ursan in the elite missions, and players who do not have the skill get left behind. One big factor is that so many players who play these missions are farmers. Naturally farmers need the most efficient build possible for a given area; if it's not Ursan, it will be something else. Players who play those missions for fun probably won't care if their team members have Ursan or not.

Another, perhaps biggest, complaint against Ursan is indirect. It is claimed that Ursan makes some elite missions too easy to farm, and the economy of the game is screwed up as a result. I find that laughable because unlike in many other MMORPG, GW primarily has a NPC dominated market that is minimally affected by farming. Player bartering exists mainly to trade rare items. There is an article on Wiki about Ectoplasm that mentions it and others like it as currency. Ecto, being a crafting item with no other uses, should never have risen to the position of currency. The game was evidently designed to keep the economy vibrant if cool; even the most powerful monsters drop little more than 200 gold. Trading several Ectos, each valued at several platinums, for an item indicated a screwed up economy. I cannot imagine anything in the game worth more than 100K. As I stroll around towns, I now see many more people wanting to buy items using Etcos than people willing to sell for Ectos. If anything, Ursan helped to return the economy to normal.

As for Ursan's making the game too easy, I don't really know how to respond to that. Since the game uses instanced areas, I don't see what skills one player uses is any other's business.

In short, many (I dare say most) of us who play appreciate Ursan Blessing the way it is. It is a fun skill that makes some otherwise frustrating areas easier to overcome. Since it's PvE-only, it has no bearing in PvP battles. Now that I think about it, I am not sure if the skill hurts anyone other than those who are holding a lot of Ectos and Obsidian Shards who want their price to go back up. Cheng 20:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It hurts those who already had rare items (who actually had to work for it), it hurts those who already had hard-to-get titles (who also had to work for them). People who got them before did it mostly to show off, now they feel like their titles and gear are worthless (which they practically are now). It hurts the game in general. with the game sooo easy, nothing feels like an accomplishment anymore to many players. Many people are eventually saying "why do I still play this?" and after that, "why should I get the next expansion? Its just the same." What I dislike most is that Guild Wars was supposed to reward player skill: good players were supposed to be able to accomplish things and do it somewhat efficiently, while less skilled players were supposed to take longer. In Ursan Wars, good players have no advantage, everybody does everything lightning fast. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 22:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for providing more reasonable arguments than the troll anon above, but I don't really see why if its PvE only it doesn't matter. It does matter, and many areas players go to alot when they're done with the main campaign, such as elite areas or challenge missions can only be done using Ursan when grouping with PUGs. The overwhelming disappointment about this skill is the simple fact that it requires absolutely no skill to use. To be honest, while I would still be against it, if Ursan was as overpowered as it is now, yet required precise timing, careful use of skills, and well timed executions of the skills, I'd feel a bit better (still not happy that one skill is better than all the others and its not even profession specific, but better, knowing that at least it takes moderate skill to use). As of right now, its 1234 repeat. You could teach a cat to do that. -Warior Kronos 00:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan is simply a noob skill that requires no effort or actual thought. It's just used by noobs who can't kill anything with a normal build and are forced to rely on a fixed set of skills and make this game SUCK. Not on;y can you no longer go into FoW,UW, or DoA you can't get into any freaking dungeon groups unless you're freaking rank 10 in the norn title track. This skill needs to be removed immediatly, it's destroyed the GW economy and ruined gameplay for those of us who actually like to think and plan out ways to skill something. Remove it or Nerf it severly, all that Arena net is doing by keeping it in is digging a deeper grave. -Royal Bodyguard Monday June 16 1:54am Pacific time

Ursan is BORING

God, I can't understand how some people can really play Ursan or HB for hours. Just mindless button smashing, even a brainless monkey would become bored. If I wanted flipper or whack-a-mole games, I would go to some 80's game hall or opened my old pc. Seriously, if people find this pseudo-build amusing or benefitting, 50 € is too high price for that. I suggest all Ursan supporters to buy some babies' toys, they even develop your brains and reaction. 84.250.84.106 12:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

so's ur faec. Gaypalm 15:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Might be funny if not for how sad that the arguments against Ursan have now moved to pure nonsense. The vast majority of bars in the game are just a couple of buttons almost exclusively with the occasional other button to for example enchant yourself or deal with some rare happening. If anything, you are actually actively playing with an Ursan skill bar more then with many other skill bars. No, it may be less challenging then many other ways of playing, but if anything it is faster paced and thus less boring then being something like a Barrage Ranger or SF Elementalist with no fewer buttons actually being played. And what any of this has to with playing HB Monk for hours which people were doing long before Ursan Blessing even existed is...well it's just further evidence of how ridiculous I believe your argument to be. -- Inspired to ____ 14:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

As a customer of Arenanet and NCSoft, I have rights to complain this is like whack-a-mole, and then I gave you a constructive idea to develop yourself, and how am I being treated? This is gross. 84.250.84.106 14:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Everyone who insults me and/or my opinion, give me your real name and I shall charge you to the Court of Human Rights of Europe. I gave my opinion to this thing, and I am being insulted for my opinion. Even worse, if you attack me personally, I will charge you for defamation of character along with the prosecution of breaking my liberty of speech. 84.250.84.106 15:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

ROFL. Are you for real? -- Inspired to ____ 15:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Liberty of speech has nothing to do with attacking opinions, freedom of speech also applies to his right to attack what you are saying. Freedom of speech refers to physical, bodily harm, or mental trauma in a way deliberately used to prevent your opinion from coming out. A refutation actually acknoledges your right to say such a thing. Defamation of character only refers to slander, i.e. when untrue statements are used to damage one's business, and in such a case you are compensated for business loss. I am sorry to hear how you are being treated, but your own posts we're hardly in a constructive tone (i.e. "Even a brainless monkey would become bored...I suggest all Ursan supporters to buy some babies' toys, they even develop your brains and reaction".) 203.218.204.145 12:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

(ECx2)Wow... just... wow. Inspired, I tried to keep out of seriously trolling this page.. but damn.. I just cannot resist your post. Here we go: "'Might be funny if not for how sad that the arguments against Ursan have now moved to pure nonsense...are just a couple of buttons". Yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense, I'm sure. "actually actively playing with an Ursan skill bar" Uhm, that's quite correct, actually. Of course, it requires a monkey brain to play an SF, you know, with energy management and the occasional chance at death and all, but ursan, the very pinnacle of active-ness, only requires your 123 fingers! Awesome! "it is faster paced and thus less boring then being something like a Barrage Ranger or SF Elementalist with no fewer buttons actually being played.". Go count the number of skills in ursan. 4. Totem of man is never used, so you got 4 skills. With.. ANY other build, you got 8 skills to play with. "it's just further evidence of how ridiculous I believe your argument to be". yes, your evidence is awesomely irrefutable. -- NUKLEAR IIV 15:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict x2) Here I go, into the flypaper.

First, let's take a look at what I'm doing before you. I'm criticizing your threat of legal action over someone critcizing your opinion. That's something to have introspection about.

Second, you're asking people to give you their real information so you can (I assume this is the equivalent of our limited American basic legal vocabulary) sue them. My jaw just pulled my whole face down.

Third, if anyone really was attacking you or you through your opinions, we have GWW:NPA to deal with that. Not lawsuits!

Fourth, only one person criticized you. Why not just direct that legal threat at him?

Fifth, if you followed the link to his user page, you could have found that you were threatening an American with European legal action. When I threaten my European friends on the International server to legal action at the Supreme Court, it's a joke. I just knew the legal honking couldn't be limited to North America, I knew it!

Sixth, this is the Internet. Shock and awe. I know that battering another's opinions is wrong by wiki and by free country standards, but Inspired never told you to shut up or that your very opinions were invalid. You're not the first to complain about Ursan, and while the above criticism was a bit uninformed and presumptuous, I think that he has a right to argue. I really don't have much more to say about this, so I'll just finish off my organized list with the wikipedia page I had to go to for figuring out how this would translate in American to European law: w:European Court of Human Rights. Let's hope you're a really good comedian. (I don't really think it translates from continent to continent)--Chaiyo Kaldor talk contribs 15:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I admit, I went too far. But I will hire Matlock if Ursan won't get balanced/nerfed/removed! 84.250.84.106 15:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

@Nuclear. Actually, the point is that the number of skills on a bar has nothing to do with number of skills actually used. If that were a valid argument, it would still lose because an Ursan has the four plus the seven non Ursan Blessing skills for eleven total usable skills. But, again, this has nothing to do with whether something is boring or not. Not only is boring a very subjective thing (ie, some people actually fish, watch TV or threaten to sue for fun) but is not really dependent on how many different buttons you have available, or even how many you actually push. Finally, a Barrage ranger very rarely hits any button other then the one for Barrage over and over and over and over again. Oh, and if they do hit another button, it would have usually been more effective if they had just hit Barrage again. -- Inspired to ____ 15:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

There are also builds that need more than smashing buttons, like using skill synergies, terrain and tactics to work. SF-team used the Necrotic-Rebirth tactic to get behind the walls, which are part of environment. Barragers use minions and pets to take the damage instead and shoot from range. Greater risk to die made players more alert. Ursans just march somewhere and smash the buttons and the job is done in any terrain against any foe. That makes it boring. 84.250.84.106 16:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

At least this may explain the Ursans I was monking for last night. They apparently have found their own special way of making it less "boring" by dying for "fun" every once in a while. Or maybe, they need to give me credit for making their experience less boring for having let them die a few times. Either way, I'm sorry if you're bored. -- Inspired to ____ 16:53, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Srsly,dont mess with him,he'll drag you to court! Inspired,can you please tell me why ursan should stay? im pretty darn confused why you are so bloody stubborn of having a skill that gives you four other skills,that let you clear any area in the game,you cant do that with ANY other skill. surely,thats enough reason to nerf ursan? there are other overpowerd skills like TNTF but you cant put that on 6 /any and clear any area.Oni 17:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Now we're actually having a discussion. Sorry for ripping on your legal threat, but sometimes that's what it takes to get people into a human state of mind. Other times it's like taking flash photography of King Kong.

What really makes me scratch my head is why it's the four extra skills that are the subject here. It's not really the orignal gripe. Is anyone complaining about Volfen or Raven being out of balance? No, so apparently those ones have a good thing going with four extra skills, keeping balance and strategy in check. So, let's try and see whether no one's playing those, or whether they're happy with them. Lastly, what HB were you talking about in the beginning? Hundred Blades? It's a disambiguation when I go looking for it, so help me out a bit. --Chaiyo Kaldor talk contribs 18:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I assumed he was talking about Healer's Boon but that may have been a mistake on my part.

@Oni. I don't know if I can tell you why Ursan should stay, or even if it should. That's actually for ANet to decide what their game should be like. I really don't see the point in all this change this, don't change that discussing. I just often find myself pulled into these Ursan discussions because of seriously flawed reasons being used to get rid of it. What I do know is that I enjoyed the game pre-Ursan and I enjoy the game now, I can't be sure that I would enjoy it post-Ursan because I don't know what that would look like. That combined with still not having seen Ursan having an impact on anything other then a few farming areas, leaves me overall thinking...big deal. Added thought...Besides that, I can tell you that when using Ursan is about the only time I've been in PUGs since having realized early in my GW experience how big a waste of time that can be. So I suppose maybe Ursan just works for me because it adds the opportunity to do something in PUGs where I otherwise wouldn't have. Of course, even then, PUGs can still be terribly frustrating. So, in conclusion, apart from PUGs, Ursan has no impact on the game that I can see that anyone should be complaining about; and for PUGs, it is a plus. -- Inspired to ____ 19:03, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

URSAN is soooo boring!!!! I hate it. I press 2 buttons and everything dies with no animations. :( I feel like some sort've puppet. URSAN IS LAME AND BORING!!!! Who cares if it's good, needs to be nerfed, overpowered, ruining the game economy, etc...IT IS FREAKING BORING!!!! Plz murder with the nerfbat Anet, but give us some new, INTERESTING pve skills to farm the ---- out of the DOA Psychiatric Consultant 23:22, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

First of all, it's absolutely lolastic that any of you thought that legal threat was real. Second, Inspired, like it or not, it's no longer their desicion. There are some people whom have invested so damn much time and effort in this game, and we're not going to stand by while ANET fucks up whatever balance left just to lure grinders and epeeners out. Ursan is bad. It's not because it fucks up economy, and it's not because it fucks up the balance in the game. It fucks up the playerbase. GW was meant to be a skill over time game. People bought this game for that reason. Ursan rewards time, not skill. Therefore, Ursan does not reward casual players. You say it's great for pugs. Yeah, it is, but only if you are part of an idiotic group who choses to grind his/her ass out just to get r10 norn. You say ursan lets you into pugs. Brainless pugs. Finally, if you can say that you can enjoy grinding with a mindless skillbar with only the reward of pretty titles and armor, you, sir, are a part of the new idiotic group that is fucking up the playerbase. -- NUKLEAR IIV 10:59, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Points nuc forgot: It restricts anyone without eotn from high end areas. and it lets anyone with eotn have the ultimate skillbar. try clearing any area with only proph skills,works maybe but you need to be good,not a button smashing monkey.Oni 18:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Actual suggestions

→ moved from User talk:Regina Buenaobra

I know we've all heard the arguments against Ursan, and as valid as they may be, actual suggestions on how to fix the skill have been rare on this page and the Ursan talk page, so I thought I'd share some of my suggestions for balancing the skill (Instead of just arguing against it like I usually do =P)

• A. To start off, make your base armor 70, and your energy 30, to prevent abuse by different professions (allowing profession equality when using this skill)
• B. Make the skills actual attacks, balancing the issue of immunity to blind and blocking.
• C. Follow the avatar format when it comes to durations. Anet had a solid balance idea when it came to avatars-Making it last for a certain duration, and then after that duration was finished, it was disabled. You couldn't use it again for 120 seconds. Why Anet didn't apply this format to Ursan in the first place is beyond me.
• D. Lower Primary attributes to 0. Goes along with suggestion A.
• E. Lower the health bonus to + 70...170.

Just some actual balancing suggestions-Warior Kronos 17:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Might work. -- NUKLEAR IIV 18:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 18:53, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I like that better. -- NUKLEAR IIV 18:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The changes I'd made for them are the following:

1. Make them ignore profession.
   1. All attributes but the title ranks would be reduced to 0 under a Norn blessing.
   2. All properties of Armor (but not weapons and off-hands) would be completely ignored.
2. All three will have the same 'base' properties: 60 armor, 30Energy, 480(base)+20..120(Norn Rank)Health, and then each one would have its own particular benefits:
   1. Ursan: +10..20 armor, +10..100HP.
   2. Wolven: +1..5 HP regen, +10..50% Critical rate.
   3. Raven: +10..30% Block chance. +10..50% Casting and Recharge spell speed.
3. Change each blessing to feature the character as one of the three types of profession in GW: Caster(Cloth,60AL), Rogue(Leather,70AL) and Fighter(Metal,80AL).
   1. Make the Ursan fighter-like.... wait it is already fighter-like... but make it more. Change all Ursan skill but one to 'attack' type. That way bringing Raven(or any other condition removals) would be more logical.
   2. Make the Wolven 'rogue'-like, more like Rangers, Dervishes and Assassins, with blockings, criticals and one or two spear-range attacks. At least half of the damage skills would be changed to 'attack' type, but not all of them.
   3. Make the Raven caster-like, with caster-range skills, 4 of its skills would be changed to spell-type and the functionality would be changed, one for healing, one to hinder enemies, one to buff allies and one for damage.
4. Make some of the skills (specially the attack ones) behave in a different way depending on the equipped weapon. For example, bring an scythe and the skill affects all adyacent enemies. Bring a hammer and the damage is armor-ignoring, bring a dagger and it's always critical, bring a staff and the damage change to the damage of the staff, etc...
5. Add 3 more skills to each Blessing, fitting the Fighter/Rogue/Caster theory.
6. Move the Totem of Man to the 8th slot.

I always saw them as a way to quickly turn a character into an acceptable 'filler', to make a character of an 'unwelcomed' profession a better choice than a Hero. This way they'll work more like that. MithTalk 19:46, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

What we really need is a peanut dispenser. I'm not too sure on the technical aspects but I guess it would have to be USB and you stick it on the top of your monitor. Anyway, basically what it does is every time the C-space-1 combination is pressed it shoots out a peanut. This way my pet monkey reaps the rewards of delicious snacks, while I reap the in-game rewards without even playing! Genius! 203.213.7.130 23:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

That made my day. -- Broodling 03:17, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

LOL@ the peanut dispenser. ALso, Mith, it's an excellent idea to buff all the forms. Yeah, bloody wonderful. -- NUKLEAR IIV 09:16, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

My turn to give suggestions:

1. Changing the base effect:
   1. Like WK said: Lower primary attributes to 0.
   2. Like TUP said: Your armor is set to 80...88...90 and your health is set to 450...490...500.
   3. Plus: You have 25 maximum energy, 2 arrows of energy degeneration, and Zealous weapons don't give extra energy. All stances end.
2. Changing the skills:
   1. Ursan Strike: Target touched foe takes 60...75 damage. If that foes is weakened, target takes 120...150 damage instead and Weakness ends. 5 seconds recharge.
   2. Ursan Rage (exactly like TUP said): Hex Spell. All adjacent foes are affected by Ursan Rage for 5 seconds. When this hex ends, they are knocked down (maximum 2 seconds) and take 75...95...100 physical damage.
   3. Ursan Roar (a variant of TUP's version): Shout. For 3...4...5 seconds, target foe is Weakened. If that foe was using a skill, you deal +10...15...20 damage per attack for 3...4...5 seconds and this skill recharges 50% faster. 30 seconds recharge.
   4. Ursan Force (exactly like TUP said): Skill. For 4...6...6 seconds, you move 5...9...10% faster and adjacent enemies move 20...24...25% slower. While under the effects of Ursan Force, you can break wooden barricades. Erasculio 13:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I like Erasculio's best overall; TUP had a few nice ones, but the attack can't flat-out suck; because it's your only real method of dealing damage, you shouldn't have to wait around all day before the damage hits. One second lag? Sure - all other attacks that land in the 1 second simply don't do any damage. But waiting 4 seconds is a bit much, which is why I prefer Erasculio's.

And IMO, make it like the real forms; 120 second disable time (or maybe 60... for Derv forms, the 120 starts counting as soon as you use it, so the downtime is roughly a minute). Ursan being maintainable simply compounds whatever other balance issues exist. -Auron 14:23, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Isuggest changing the effects of the skills to something along the following, ursan strike;deals X amount of damage twice(only change should be that the damage is NON-armour ignoring),ursan rage;deals Xdamage to all adjacent foes and causes knockdown for 1 second,ursan roar; all nearby foes suffer from weakness for x seconds and all nearby allies deal X more dmg with there attacks(something like 1-5 instead of the current 10-20),ursan force;more x faster for x seconds(nochanges, but this should be a stance!!! look at the one found in the norn storyline in it ursan force is a stance!),totem of man;leave ursan form,all skills are disabled for 30 seconds.ursan blessing;you have +Xarmour and +Xhealth, all enchantments are removed from you, this skill is disabled for 90 seconds.costs 10 energy, 0 activation,30recharge.

Wow a legal threat on this site? Well first of WHERE THE HEEL DO YOU THINK THIS SITE IS BASED? This site is run out of the USA, you can't sue someone for their opinion lmao. Wake up you moron, that's like suing someone for them thinking about calling you a name...It's lunacy.

You can't sue people in USA because of their opinion? -- NUKLEAR IIV 09:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

i think ursan should be your Hp is set to 500, and your armour is set at 80, and you lose all enchantments, after you take 1,000..2,500 dmg ursan blessing ends and is disabled for 45 seconds

that will fix everything and make some players in your party be there to reduce dmg, so we wont run ursan/HB 10000000% of the time but we will at least run ursan/hb/protector monk/paragon,

OR

make dmg attacks, and set hp to 500 and armour to 90..100 and duration 45..90

RAWR FIXED OMFG FIXED NO WAY

Shadowshock 03:00, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

LOLZ

What I think is funny about most of the arguments against Ursan is that most of them are so stupid. I mean decreasing the price of rare items, making the game 2 easy,making getting titles 2 easy are all moronic reasons 2 nerf ursan. The reason it should be nerfed can be found within the build commonly known and an "imbagon" or god paragon. This build has been considered one of the most uber builds in pve guild wars resulting in comments like "this turns HM into easy mode and NM into pre-searing." Yet nobody is shouting "nerf the imbagon!". The reason why is that the imbagon is a build that takes skill and fits the paragon theme which is "party support". Ursan detracts from the value of the professions by making them all into one bar. Not only that but it is BORING to play Ursan. Frankly, I think that A-net should delete Ursan and make "celestial skills" pve only, and available always. Yes they are freaking over-powered but the fact is is that they all fit within the profession's "theme". Yes Ursan deserves to be nerfed into oblivion but you shouldn't go on and on about stupid things like the game economy, titles, etc...those reasons are all debatable. The main reason Ursan should be nerfed is because it is boring, stupid, any profession, AND overpowered. Psychiatric Consultant 03:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

You, sir, are an ignorant baffoon. Look a bit more around you, if you can't see the demands to nerf the imbagon. The arguments against ursan are nothing short of true. Scroll up, and tell me the ratio between "Ursan fucks up the point of PvE" and "Ursan fucks up mah epeen!!!" arguments. Here is a hint - it's a big fucking number. -- NUKLEAR IIV 09:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Fuckin fail. Imbagon is a build,ursan is a skill. imbagon requires a class,ursan does not. both deserves to be nerfed.BADLY. but for now ppl dont even NEED imbagons to clear all the areas. that alone should be proof enough that something is wrongOni 11:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I have been complaining about the Imbagon, but not because it is so overpowered. I have complained about it because it makes any other build, especially the Command and Motivation ones, obsolete. My cry was ignored. Even after TntF was nerfed so it could only be kept up 50% of the time instead of 100%, people complained it was worthless. I play Paragon. Not a bear, and not an imbagon. And I am proud of it. 145.94.74.23 14:21, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The reason people don't complain about imbagons as much as Ursan is because the majority of PvE players think paragons suck and don't use them. With less players using them, they're not having near the impact. Many players, including myself, still think imbagons need blown up though. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 14:44, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me, I must apologize. I must not have been clear as to my point because obviously you intelligent people don't get it. I am not saying there have been no requests to nerf the imbagon. I am not saying that Imbagaon is in any way shape or form NOT overpowered. I am merely stating that the imbagon is a (while extraordinarily overpowered) skill based build, and is (relatively) fun to play. Ursan is overpowered, boring, and has NOTHING to do with any class that uses it. THAT was my point. If you can not understand that uninstall plz. Oh, and take some reading comprehension classes. Besides as you said, there is no reason to nerf the paragons when few people play them and Ursan is still around. Also, as to the other arguments against Ursan...I'm not saying they aren't true or that the people who defend Ursan are correct by any stretch of the imagination. I am merely stating that they are lesser, symptomatic problems compared to Ursan turning everyone into a bunch of freaking 2 button pressing bots. Psychiatric Consultant 22:59, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure, Imbagon takes skill. Just like, tab+cspace. -- NUKLEAR IIV 10:24, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Dont make oni laugh. imbagon isnt any more fun that ursan is.you spam skills and get invicbility instead of instantkills.yayOni 21:36, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan Blessing has decreased the difficulty of achieving nearly every item/title in Guild Wars. It used to take time and thought to balance an entire team of human, or heros and henchmen before going to vanquish an area. Vanquishing 100+ areas was a very difficult task and I earned it before Ursan Blessing was around. Now you see 8 people at a time getting legendary vanquisher, Guardian. When you get a drunkard title you know that person drank 10,000 Ale its the same for each person that got the title. With Ursan, the amount of planning, time spent, and overall work to get one of the most prestigious titles in game had diminished so much. The equality between the two types of play style completly change the "value" of the title. The only thing that get me to log into the game right now is knowing that the skill will most likely/hopefully be nerfed.

Don't Feed the troll...I've learned that by now. Half these people don't actually think what their saying, they just like to see ppl get worked up over their ignorance...or at least thats what I hope is going on. Anyway, Nuke is right, Imbagon is overpowered, but priorities have to be set. Deal with Ursan first and foremost, and then work on the other Imbalanced builds. Not that any of these arguments matter...Anet clearly's been drinking the Ursan creator's kool-aide seeing as Regina's stated that Anet is split on the issue of whether Ursan is imbalanced or not...-Warior Kronos 00:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

That's a joke, they couldn't possibly not know... HOW COULD THEY NOT KNOW!!! 24.12.41.148 09:12, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

This game allows up to 8 skills in which you're supposed to be able to kill your enemies. Adding a single skill that does the work of 8+ is stupid. Who the hell came up with the idea to make a single skill that anyone can use that completely shatters a basic principle of Guild Wars...

They didn't, they made 3. why doesn't anyone complain about any of the other blessings? (I'm not saying I like Ursan, just that I hate them all.)

I think you should not be able to have more than 2 or so players in your team with ursan blessing, i dot know if that is possible but it could be like when you try to add more than 3 pve skills or 2 elites.

Here is the logic: Why worry about an A bomb when there is an H bomb? -- NUKLEAR IIV 08:24, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I just want to say that I am a 52 year old female with a crippling disability. Some of the areas in GW were impossible for me to play, let alone enjoy before Ursan and PVE skills. Anet, please consider this before nerfing Ursan and other PVE skills. I would like to continue to enjoy Hard Mode and other difficult areas in Guild Wars, without these skills, it is impossible for me to do so. Our Guild has several other members with disabilities and to take these skills away, would ruin our chances of playing in the more difficult areas in the game. If anything needs to be done, it's limit the number of players on a team that can use Ursan, this will keep the skill intact for those of us that actually need it. Thank you Anet, for taking the time to listen to my request, Nancy R. (Ohio)

I do not see how a crippling disability would reflect on how well you play (crippling implies leg injury, paralysis, etc). If it doesn't, then why even bring it up? Pity points? I lost my left leg at the age of 13 (three years ago), pity points for me as well! If you take away the pity, your left with "I do not have enough skill to play HM and elite areas without Ursan." As said before, they are called hard mode and elite areas for a reason. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 09:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree with Uber here. While it is sad that you may not be enjoying GW due to physical injury, it has, to be frank, nothing to do with game balance. Keeping ursan the way it is simply because it allows a fraction of players into elite areas is... inconsiderate to the rest of us.

Furthermore, If you didn't enjoy most of the game beforehand, why did you insist on continuing to play it? -- NUKLEAR IIV 10:03, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Frankly it is obvious that people here think the "Imbagon" needs to be nerfed. That to needs to be rethought. In order for paragons to be truely good you need 6+ to begin stacking Shouts and Chants on players. Without the mass numbers of paragons, they begin to fall quickly and easily to pressure. The point of the matter is synergy and strength in numbers. Guild Wars was created for players to play together. Now that a class has synergy with the same class people are demanding it gets nerfed. Do we really want to go back to the days of spending 3+ hours on an area just to have 1 monk leave and then the whole group fails miserably? No. Do we want to spend 3+ hours on an area that could be done in 30 minutes? Yes. The point of the matter is you guys are arguing about PvE. Which is sad. Your party are the Heroes of the game. The monsters are the bad buys. You kill the bad guys. Everyone is happy. (Paragon)you kill the bad guys faster. Everyone is still happy and can go eat supper with their family [or whatever].--71.67.243.230 16:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Uh, a single paragon is the most powerful thing in all of PvE, you don't need to have a lot of them to make them useful. Paragons dont get "nerf! nerf!" shouted at them all the time because they actually arent used that much. Even so, they do dumb down the game and do deserve a nerf. Btw, your arguing about PvE. By your logic you are sad. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 17:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)