Talk:Ursan Blessing/Archive 3

A note to archiver

Can you be more gentle in future in archiving talkpages? Please? Try to read discussions and look on timestamps of recent answers with purpose of understanding what to archive and what not to. It really needed to be archived, no questions, but try to read the discussion first. Thanks. De1m0s 01:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan Rants Abridged

I've always thought ursan blessing to be overpowered and overexploited. It saddens me to see decorated players reduced to using a single skill because its more successful than builds they've worked on for weeks. What gets me is that ursan blessing creates PvE problems across the board and not only is its use not being nerfed but Arenanet seems completely oblivious to its exploitation.

Ursan Blessing's SOLE purpose is to break down wooden barricades during the Blood Washes Blood mission. It was intended for use at a specific time in a specific mission but now this single skill, which has the same effectiveness regardless of a player's level, skill, proffession, attributes and above all CREATIVITY, has been released for use FARMING elite weapons for PROFIT in other campaigns. The personal aspect of the game is fast disappearing and I for one will not continue to play this game if skill related trends continue.

There are so many ways to solve this issue without compromising the game's lore. God knows the truthseeker quests piss all over that anyway. Do you think it makes the bear spirit proud to have people rely on its strength alone to overcome adversity? At the very least it needs to be restricted for use within Guild Wars: Eye of the North. If not deleted as a PvE skill altogether.

concerned, Spawnlegacy 07:11, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

OMFG I CAN MASH 321132312132323213212XXXXXXXXXXXX321312XXXXXXXXXXXX321321321, IM THE BEST PLAYER EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, lol ursan is retarted, the only way to get it nerfed it to make it pvp Anet is like oh its pve, fuck it, we dont care, ppl cant make money with it, but now theres gold farmers using ursan, and what happens? they sell gold farmed in hard areas for money. (the reasons for most pvp nerfs is so that there is no one all powerful build to win the 100,000$ champ) SO if they nerf ursan gold farming will take a hit to, so why dont you? Then we can get rid of the retarded login announcement Shadowshock 17:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

lol.. I'm glad someone is as enthusiastic about this as I am. Let me reitterate a post by another intelligent individual..

"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)"

Ursan Blessing is an insult in every respect. It insults those who play for fun, it insults those who play for the challenge, its so very insulting to all the old school leets out there who get a kick out of forming and testing original builds (something that seems to be a thing of the past) and most importantly it insults the people who use it, because one day, when Arenanet wakes up to its own folly and gets rid of this unnecessary injustice, they'll have nothing to fall back on and once again be the ones called 'noob'. People are adopting a more elitist attitude to that which they had before. You're going to be turned down in every elite mission outpost without this skill. I have EotN. I have Ursan Blessing. The only thing preventing me from making millions is what little nerdy pride I have defending the very foundation that this game stands on. Or rather, what it used to stand on. Whatever policy is backing it now is a bit of a mystery to me. EotN was fun but its not Guild Wars and its not something that I would want to play for the amount of time I've been playing the other three titles. I'd feel dirty...

Spawnlegacy 08:06, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I must disagree with ur last point. GW:EN is very good, rly, it has well-built storyline, good graphics, nice location design, interesting dungeons. The impact on PvE was not done by GW:EN, but by too powerful PvE skills it introduced and consumables. They may be nice while doing dungeons in HM, cos' IMHO mobs there are too disbalanced, and it's very hard to complete some locations. But hey, ANet, u helped ppl to play ur disbalanced dungeons with disbalanced skill (everyone knows this skill...), but why let it to other campaigns and ruin their perfectness? Even in Ascalon there r Ursans. At least there r no Ursans in Pre... De1m0s 15:25, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

damn ursans in pre! that would be fun but stupid, ursan need to be after you take x..x amout of dmg this form ends then its fixed no more abuse in elite areas Shadowshock 19:17, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I found another intelligent person!

"Nothing has been done to a skill that is ruining the game experience for a huge number of players. Even if some think it's ok, it really is totally irrelevant whether the skill actually is overpowered or not if it causes negative feelings to players the way it is. Quoting Sirlin: "Games are not for game designers and their ivory-tower ideals — games are for players." If a large part of the playerbase doesn't like something, it's the right thing to fix the problem even if you don't think of it as a problem at all." (by Gem, who doesnt seem to be a user)

You gotta admit the people against the skill have far better arguments than those for. TAKE US SERIOUSLY. We are the community, not you Anet. Spawnlegacy 21:01, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

how about we just have all ursans wear a huge tag over their head saying:"im helpping to destroy pve beacause im am to lazy to even go to pvx to find a build that takes more thought than ursan"

lol ;P that weould be even better Shadowshock 15:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I dont see why people are so against ursan and say that its ruining PvE...but PvE was ruined when people decided to do solo farming and running areas and u say that ursan is being lazy then u say that going to pvx isnt? at least ursan is encoraging people to do the elite missions in teams insted of just farming it duo and u also say that useing ursan is easyer than geting another build when to acctualy make ursan any good u need at least r7+ to make it work well and that takes longer than geting any other build would. but the thing that gets me is that people say its overpowered? so? its not like only one proffesion can use it and its not even like anyones forcing u to use it and if u dont like it then dont use it and dont attack others for useing it as it has made alot more people want to do the elite missions as before DoA used to only have a few people in each dis and they would only let u in if u had the right proffesion while now anyone can go and manage to do it well. --Azreal of Skyrim 21:35, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

And another thing i almost fogot is that i regularly use ursan and obi tank and with good teams both can clear most places in almost the same time give or take a few mins and one thing i want to know is if anyone that is slaging of people who use ursan, if they have ever done an elite mission using ursanway cuz i dont know if u know this but even doing missions in ursanway your team can still die as when ursan goes down u would be a siting duck with no energy which would mean that u need to go slowly through areas as an inexperianced group would rush in and get killed as ursan goes down and then the monks would be unprotected and it means that with ursan u need to be more slow and stedy than u would with a normal team build--Azreal of Skyrim 10:40, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Ya. Thats the problem that I get in the Foundry. Just as Ursan wears off, someone attacks a group of titans. King Keberos 09:58, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Erghhh.. We people who have something against Ursan and haven't used it out of principle have a whole website backing up our position. Its called guildwars.com Maybe you've heard of it. Read the section entitled Gameplay. In particular, the subsections entitled skills and proffessions. It makes mention of many issues brought up on this page and is, pretty much, definative proof that the skill should not exist. For example, did you know, 'You don't have to spend countless hours on a leveling treadmill to get to the interesting parts of the game'? Guild Wars Synopsis. Hmm, shrine keepers.. Can I get into a DoA PuG without using Ursan? No. Do the math. Its a pretty stupid idea to debate for Ursan. The people on the other side have many arguments against you. 90% of this page for instance. Scroll down.

And another thing I almost forgot, Shadowshock was being sarcastic when he supported PvX wiki. You mightn't understand but everyone who plays Guild Wars knows that PvX wiki is the laziest way to succeed and Ursan Blessing is even lazier because the crap people don't even need PvX wiki anymore. Oh, another thing, soloing an area (without the use of PvX wiki) and running areas (fullstop) requires forethought and skill - encouraging creativity and rewarding good players. In the interest of concision, allow me to slag off the rest of your arguments. - You don't need to read this if you're not stupid - Elite Missions are so-named because the prerequisite of the area used to be that you be elite. The prerequisite of the area now is that you have r8+ Ursan. So yes, Ursans are forcing us to use Ursan. Regardless of tactics and skill, all Ursans do the same amount of damage(except during the grind) they require no creativity (except during the grind) and they don't even need money to acquire it (ever.) They do need money to buy the community shattering expansion/hoax, however, which is another big point and is addressed elsewhere on this page. The gameplay of the skill promotes a lack of tactics. I don't know if you realise but you're less likely to be a sitting duck if you don't think. And lastly, ArenaNet are finally thinking about nerfing it. So, yes, it is overpowered. Namely the 1second cast, 10 second recharge, aoe knockdown that is its own energy management and deals MORE FUCKING DAMAGE THAN DRAGON'S STOMP... imo. The one skill that makes Cantha hard to vanquish and its completely redundant when you have OMG URSAN. I already told you ArenaNet's stance on grind didn't I? ...yup. I guess that's it then... Spawnlegacy 09:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

1.Dude u say that soloing requires thought and skill right?....as well as that is it crashes the economy -.-.

2.u say that you want to do doa with a pug? and u are the one moaning that its a "elite" area

3.the 90% of people on this page argue against ursan right? well can u count the amount cuz im not sure but it does seem like a verry few compaired to the amount of peopole that use it

4.and how is ursan makeing u use ursan? cuz u cant find a group? have u ever heard of guildies?

5.ursan doesnt use tactics? and as most groups that i cleared the elite missions before eotn only had a tank, a few nukers and a monk or 2... can u please tell me what part of that uses more tactics than ursan

6.comunity shattering? well the only "comunity" that dont like ursan are the few people that ive seen moaning on talk pages and forums and from what ive seen in-game most people either like it and use it or dont bother and continue as they were.

7.i admit it is a bit powerfull but nobodys saying that it shouldnt get nerfed i am saying that i dont like the people who attack the people who use it

8."and they dont even need money to aquire it"? what does money have to do with skills?

9.ah so EVERYBODY knows that pvx is lazy? ah so the gvg,pvp,hero and solo farming builds that i regularly see people useing arnt always cut and pastes from pvx then? it just must of been my imagination that alot of people use the same gvg builds

10. anets against grind? oh well i never knew that.. i just asumed that they were for it due to the high rep titles that need u either do rep point farming or to complete everthing on the game 3 times

11.u dont use it out of principle? so how can u juge? im guessing that u are just asuming then

12.the guild wars website is backing ur ideas then? then why are u attacking the pepole who use it then? why dont u get anet to change it then if u are that unhappy about it? or are u just trying to start an arguement?

13."Elite Missions are so-named because the prerequisite of the area used to be that you be elite."? oh so ur just interested about prestige then? so why are playing pve then? why dont u play pvp insted where u might achieve something insted of bashing bots and then moaning about it cuz someones useing a powerfull skill (and may i add that it isnt proffesion specific) which u can also use?

14.ummm last time i checked games are ment to be fun not just for bragging rites or has that changed?

15.please there is no need for foul language.

btw my arguements arnt in any specific order --Azreal of Skyrim 15:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

This is really quite long but try to read all of it.

To begin with, those are not arguments, those are rebuttals, all of which can be shut down by reading the post they're trying to counter. Also making arguments by merely picking holes in what was said before means you're losing the debate. Okey dokey, I was about to end this with 'Suffice to say, they're nerfing it so you're wrong,' but since you havent read this page in its entirety and you did not read any of the GW official site you'll need a little more of a verbal knocking around.

Ursan PUGs are more elite than normal PUGs i heard you say. It never occurred to me that UWay groups were alliance based.. The high end soloable areas are coded such that soloers get fewer drops of lesser quality. This keeps exploiters from crashing the economy. Exploiters like Ursan farmers remain untouched. They are second only to perma-SFers. Perma-SFers don't farm Mallyx items or find themselves at the UW chest too often however and they've been nerfed so what's at the top now? Ursan. 90% of the arguments on this page are anti ursan and about 40% of those are original. Unlike the ones I'm relisting to you now and your 3 pro-ursan arguments that are repeated over and over. They are, 'Ursan let's people who don't play much breeze through elite areas' and 'Looking for prestige isn't respectable.' The original one was 'Ursans can die.' That one caught me a little off guard. Last Ursan I played with overpulled like a nooby bitch. Surprising to me was my coming to his rescue. If your guild is small and has 3 people above Kind of a Big Deal you need to find PUGs or, as I do, be antisocial and use heroes. Obviously there are no henchmen in DoA so I guess that excludes me a little. Sad to see the community divided so heavily. And it is. It is divided. Ask someone who has a monk main. They'll either tell you 'monking for Ursans is boring because they have so much armor,' 'There are too many Ursans,' 'Ursans overpull like nooby bitches,' or 'I like Ursans because its easy and they make me money.' Ask yourself why you use Ursan Blessing. Once you've said because its fun try to find another reason. None of these really show Ursan Blessing in a good light. Skills cost 1k. Fact. Games are about having fun and challenging yourself. Both are essential, trust me. MMORPG's are about meeting people who make the game more fun. I do not PUG anymore due to the undeniable and horrendous amount of Ursan players. I do not have fun following someone who doesn't intend to pull into battle after battle with no energy. Also, I do not have fun grinding EotN titles. I am only doing SS points because I'm vanquishing at the same time. This is enjoyable. Norn grinders do it so they can become a werry powerful FUBeAR and other than for grinding Kind of a Big Deal there's really no other point. Yes yes consumables and armour. Don't need r7+ for that. To a large extent EotN was the first game to introduce such obvious, obvious grinding. The rep titles in the other two were periphreal. SS points were almost all accumulated by the end of the game and allegiance faction is nigh impossible to max. So no one really cares for them as a must do. EotN was different because exploiters and people interested in looking into elite areas had to have r7+. Other than master of the north, the grind titles are the ONLY titles in EotN. Completing missions in NM and HM introduce you to a different area each time at different difficulties. Theyre not grinding by definition unless on multiple characters. People on this page are pleading to ANet to remove this injustice. I don't see people pleading to keep it. You'd see them now if at all since ANet just stated they'll be making a change. I'm starting an argument with you because you are blind to all the undeniable evidence and distressed people below. Every person who is like you needs to be convinced that you're wrong or you'll probably ragequit when Ursan takes a hit. I'm preserving ANet's best interests in the most direct way I can. You however, are supporting a mistake. A mistake that is on 60% of lvl 20 skill bars. A mistake that fills the market with about 50 ectos per minute. A mistake that let's people with little experience forming a skill bar become God's Walking Amongst Mere Mortals. Accumulating prestige is wrong you say? When I see an Obsidian warrior with destroyer gloves sporting a Slayer of All title, I think 'noob.' That is WRONG! He's wearing obsidian armour! He is PROUD of HIMSELF but he is desecrating the image of an elite. Otherwise he wouldn't be idling in the tackiest gear available. I'm not an elite, I don't care. I just pity all the elites that I've thought to be noob.. They don't deserve that scrutiny. Not in the least. Not from me.

... That rant made me tired. Only a few things to go but dont expect me to make them as crystal clear as the last twenty, lest I add bullet points. A tank, a few nukers and a monk or two... Can you be more vague? Regardless, merely referring to them by those names means they are more tactical than fullrun. They have defined roles. Roles that can be linked to proffessions unlike the blessings that are completely different to anything we encountered prior to EotN, the half finished expansion. Read "Proffessions." These people had to actually target effectively and decide which skills worked best in which situation. They had to actually apply their own defenses. Not many skills complemented duplicates back then. Ursan requires you to group foes and press 1, 2, 1, 2. No thought needs to be put into what skill counters what enemy or when best to use the one with the long recharge. Condition application is earshot or adjacent and nothing costs energy. You don't heal yourself and you don't use energy. What are those bars doing there? Looking at them is wasted time that could be better spent rushing to the next mob before the most powerful skill in the entire game leaves you dead in the water. Enough on that point.

And final point but not the best to end on. Where did that build come from before you copied it from PvX? Someone who designed and tested it and found it to be very successful before releasing the secret to the world, that's who. The most successful players in GvG make their own builds. They're the first to pounce on new exploits before the others realise they're there. The one's who copy trends are being lazy. Diligence and apathy can easily be linked to creativity and copying. I thought you'd be able to see that for yourself. Success and skill are another issue altogether and don't actually have to go hand in hand. Such as, in the case of proffessional Ursans who would find themselves easy prey for a necromancer in pvp whether they were running ursan or something else they were familiar with ie a hammer warrior with no heals. Skill, tactics, whatever, they'd die. That is to say, the hammer warrior would have to build adrenaline, use energy and can't deal more than 100 damage a hit with one skill on the skill bar.

Ok, just one more I promise, actually 4 more but promise me you won't pick them apart because its late and i cbf explaining. Not being proffession specific is a bad thing. It means not only are you taking the easy root but ArenaNet is too AND its goes against the core foundation they based the game on 3 years ago. Eye of the North promotes and creates apathy, communism and racism in the GW world. If you're gonna defend communism and get confused I'll only defend that statement with, 'It only works in theory.' Russia has a stockmarket uhhhh. Not rewarding the people who work harder than others is wrong, for them as individuals and for society. None of the races in the previous series were addressed as being any different from the others, now its big ears this, short beardy that, theyre big and powerful, theyre small and arrogant. Why do we need to hear that as part of a storyline? And here comes my favourite line, 'Suffice to say, they're nerfing it so you're wrong.' I hope they treat it with a far heavier hand than I fear they will. If you're gonna ask why, for all of these reasons ^ Huzzah, all the arguments finally collected in one place. No more archiving required. Hey Azreal, I understand that you think its cool, I would if all these things werent so bleedingly obvious to me, but it was a mistake and it will be a thing of the past very soon. So let's not talk about it anymore and leave the next step up to ANet, eh? I am going to bed. Goodnight fellow community members. Spawnlegacy 19:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

well i did read the first few lines but then u said "Ursan PUGs are more elite than normal PUGs i heard you say." uumm can u acctualy point that out cuz i dont see it or remember it...do u even read the veiws of others and try to relate to what their saying or do u just blindly attack others and i acctualy wonder if u acctualy play the game or just spend ur time moaning about it...or do u play for 5 mins then find someting u dont like and just complain to anet insted of bettering ur skill cuz as ive said before ursanway takes the same time as using 1 tank,few nukers and a few monks does and isnt any easer or harder eitherway and no wonder anet are nerfing it...probably just to stop people moaning and get just to play the game for what it is...a game btw this is a wiki so please edit down ur moaning into sizeable chunks for example reading the first sentance, does it even need to be there? does anyone care? well i dont cuz if u ask anyone in game u know what the the answer will be --Azreal of Skyrim 12:19, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Goddammit man... Your perseverence prevails. Well done. 219.90.227.8 12:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Basically, Azreal, Ursan kills builds and game challenge. Why bother to use other skills in PvE when you can have ursan? Letting ursan remain unnerfed will result in groups having this----> Monk Monk Monk/Ursan Ursan Ursan Ursan Ursan Ursan. Forget other skills created by GW for PvE. You need only HB monks and Ursans, period. 220.255.7.208 16:59, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

You use an obi tank right? You don't heal or deal damage in that build.. You already know that uses less tactics than Ursan but its not fair to say every other person in the team is just as tactically inept. Granted you probably group foes a lot better than most other people but the fact of the matter is Ursan replaced your tank build with something that tanks a little worse and deals more damage than most any other proffession. Now you don't even need to apply defenses - you group and own. That makes obi tank a thing of the past. Doesn't that make you angry at all? What tactical advantage you brought to the team is now outperformed by every party member and not only that but, excluding monks, they outperform the duties of every other proffession as well. They make 9 out of 10 proffessions redundant.. Being a warrior you mightn't mind much because its just your proffession but better. Being a necromancer, however, I rely on tactics more than any other proffession. I apply hexes, conditions and prey on energy to shut down specific enemies. I create my own mini tanks, heal and give energy to the party. So multiply your redundant tanking ability to my 6+ tactical maneuvours that Ursan banishes from PvE and you understand how frustrated I am. (regardless of your private apology this is still an argument that won't disappear by ignoring the issues.) I renamed the article to make it less confusing. I hope no one minds. Spawnlegacy 17:59, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

no ursan doesnt make me angry at all, why should it? the only few times i use it is when i get bored and im not realy bothered if others use it because its none of my bussiness, and i can see where your coming from but what i dont understand is how will ursan affect you if ur not in a ursanway team? and i dont realy care anymore cuz if they dont nerf it people will still complain about it and if they do nerf it people will start moaning about something else because thats the way the last few generations have been brought up on the idea of "if i complain enough someone else will change it" insted of just dealing with it and moveing on and u can see that on the amount of people begging on gw insted of doing it for themselves and i personly feel that more time is spent on complaing then acctualy playing gw--Azreal of Skyrim 09:11, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

No -2 energy degen...

i was on a Charr Devourer, after the charrs destroy my ride, i activate the Ursan Blessing, but they killed me anyway...the thing is that when respawned, i lost the -2 degen so ursan stayed with me all the time even if a was killed again n again... happend to anyone? here is da screen... image:Userursannodegen.jpg Boromir 12:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

This is what has happened to me! It happened once ages ago, and a second time just today.

Image:Userursannodegen2.JPG

--Matt The P. 11:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

PS. This screenshot shows the first time it happened to me.

omfg how do you have yours bars set up like that, the energy and hp bars are so fat!! o wait u use ursan, you dont need to care about either Shadowshock

lol! Good point. Spawnlegacy 18:17, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

yay! Shadowshock 22:21, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

No more changes

As of yet I still cannot see why this skill needs to be changed. It is a PvE only skill that allows the accomplishing of several areas that would otherwise be incomplete-able to several classes. Most notably, Assassins, Mesmers, most Dervishes, Ritualists, and most Monks (outside of 600ing, which even that cannot do places like Stygian Veil). The last update for this skill made it more realistic. A bear has to touch something in order for it to hit, so touch range was well understood and a smart change. Other than that, the skill is fine as is. Without the potency of this PVE only skill Hard Mode for most players would be near impossible. And especially Hard Mode in areas like Domain of Anguish, Most EoTN Dungeons, and several random areas that people would try to vanquish. It just feels a bit unnecessary to nerf something that is PvE. Now if it was PvP i would demand a Nerf Battle Station to fire it's lazar >.(========= at Ursan Blessing. But because it is not effecting other players in combat i see no need for it to be put under thumb or even cared about at all. It's fine, let it be. please?--71.67.243.230 16:09, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Read just a few sections on this page and you'll see why all your arguments are flawed. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 17:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Damn, I could swear that people existed who completed Domain of Anguish before EotN came around. For sure, they couldn't because there does not exist such a thing as strength in mind and will let alone builds outside Ursan Blessing that actually work. Ever thought about the possibility that Ursan Blessing and feebleness to play a non-blessing build resemble a vicious circle? Noctarch 02:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I could swear the same thing, especially considering I've cleared all of hard mode on three characters across all the games and have completed DoA many times before Ursan came into play. Let me see if I understand you, your saying it shouldn't get a nerf because some players can't do elite areas or Hard Mode effectivly? Sorry, but Hard Mode is called Hard Mode for a reason. If you don't have the skill or time needed to do something in it well that's a personal problem. And I should note as the player of a Dervish I have no problem with clearing any of DoA with my alliance, without the use of ursan by anyone. When you get down to it though the fact is that though we've been told that Anet is looking into it, they choose to not do anything about it. Ursan players will continue to use the blessing, those who don't want to use it will continue to do these things with guild or alliance groups.--Masato 22:51, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I won't argue the effectiveness or accessibility of the skill, and a nerf would piss off a lot of people, but consider this, I don't like playing a melee character. I play and Elementalist and a Mesmer. If I wanted a front line play style, I'd have gone with a warrior, sin, or derv. Instead I am forced to play as an Ursan to get into groups for many areas of the game. The alternative is to spend two hours + assembling a non-ursan group which is often composed of even worse players who aren't even good enough to rank up their ursan skill. Areanet is between a rock and a hard place here. If they kill the skill, the majority of mediocre player will all cry to no end that they made it too hard. If they don't they're giving their dedicated players the shaft by forcing them into a play style they don't enjoy. Here is a simple and elegant solution. Change the mechanics to -4 energy degen in hardmode while Ursan, Volfen or Raven blessings are active. They are still usable in hardmode, but require some thought into maintaining the enchantment or choosing alternative skills for their down time. Hard mode, as stated earlier is supposed to be HARD. As it stands, even a complete novice could complete it with Ursan skills. Fun comes from the player's ability to overcome obsticles in a creative way and see an improvement in THEIR skill as a player, not to simply grind up the damage points to their highest level through a long series of mundane and repetitive tasks. Grinders get burned out quickly, they aren't the player base who will be supporting future games. Another solution is o shorten the duration of Healer's Boon or increase it's cast time. Good monks would be indifferent to the change, but the novices would be unable to support the damage taken by a full ursan group. Show them how fragile and narrow that build is.

Victory should not be handed to people. Yes you played that mission in Hard Mode, but that doesn't entitle you to completing it. You don't get points for trying your best, you are rewarded for completing the objective. Why are we pandering to the lowest of players? Why are we giving them an easy pass through the hardest areas of the game? What is this, the special Olympics? does everyone get a reward for an accomplishment that everyone else achieves as well? Do we sacrifice the integrity of the game so that those who fail can still feel like they won? If everyone can so easily complete every objective with minimal effort, that takes away value of the accomplishment. We're not separating the Men from the Boys any more, everyone just gets dumped in to single group where half-assed pansies get to pretend they're good. At the hardest level of the game, most people SHOULD fail. If you just need to load a single skill and join a generic group arranged with no strategy or prerequisite level of player experience, what right do you have to winning? Victory is earned, not through mobbing a group and button mashing randomly, but through combining your wit, experience, knowledge and hopefully some fast reflexes and establishing yourself if not as the best, than at least as better than average. Countess Dramethia

Here is a fool proof guide to making it to the UW chest using Ursan Blessing and builds that support and buff Ursan Blessing. [1] The hardest chest in the game reduced to a 'guide.' Do you think ANET are unaware of this sort of player created 'generousity?' Normally I would not advertise this filth but I have a point. If there are 'quests [that] are either easy and/or tedious' in UW, the most grueling mission there is, then what's the point of playing this game? What's the point of rising to the highest tier of the most difficult title track when the experience has been 'either easy and/or tedious?' I find myself creating the challenge rather than experiencing it ANET. So who's side are you on, fun or lethargy?

The whole time I've spent circumventing the image of Ursan Blessing, ANET, I haven't been playing Guild Wars.

Spawnlegacy 09:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, 5 days now. No Guild Wars, only wiki. The Dragon Festival's coming up and I completely forgot until just then. Its like my toy's broken and I need to fix it.

don't be ELITIST, I don't agree with ursanway as in packing up 5-6 of them in a party at rank 10 but people are ridiculous about this. If you want to spend the next 2 years earning titles and armor to show how Uber you are go play FF online. I find it sad that even if they limit Ursans use that people seem to think a person using it is a "noob". for everyone who calls the Ursan A noob I see a whiney elitist who is mad they can't get 100k + ecto for an item because the people they preyed on can do it themselves. honestly I have purposely never played Ursanway team. I do play Ursan on my warrior, as well as 20+ other builds. I tend to build balanced teams and honestly its not my strongest option, I use it mostly for KD support without going hammer. If you want to make intelligent suggestions start by not hating that which you do not want to use, and calling people "noobs" for not playing the game exactly as you do. the only difference in Ursan and 90% of the skill spamming builds on wiki is that Ursan comes put together for you. take Ursan, hell take pve skills out of end game dungeons it won't effect me. what bothers me is that half you people have the nerve to attack your fellow gamers, quit crying to a-net. Do it differently, show the GW community your right and they will follow. quit being elitist, quit trying to find secrets to doing something and excluding the players because it makes you feel smart or superior. I see it as greed, the people who can do it without Ursan want to be able to mess it up for the ones who use it for there own greed. what happened to hunting Items you want for yourself, are we gamers are gold sellers? and honestly the purpose of this game is to do things as a guild/alliance where you should have no problem meeting in the guild hall and setting up builds.

my views Ursan nerf-not needed, Ursanway nerf- yes, people happy?- never (69.130.157.1 19:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC))Sosyc

Solution to the arguments?

Personally, I believe that Ursan Blessing is a good thing. It lets people who are inexperienced with an elite PvE area and don't have a guild to do it with get the hang of it for the first time. However, the main argument against Ursan is the fact that some people who worked hard to do elite PvE areas feel that people with no skill, that use Ursan, are getting the same rewards that they are. So, I propose a simple solution for Anet. Just add a title/new weapons/anything for people that complete elite areas without using PvE skills. Design it somewhat like the bonus for Rilohn Refuge, where you have to kill The Drought without turning off any pumps. That way, Ursan groups can still do elite areas, and balanced players get recognition for their achievements. -- Maelm 14:43, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

The issue has more to do with the exclusivity of groups since the introduction of the Ursan skill. If you are non-Ursan most groups in elite areas don't want you. Because it is relatively easy to get into Ursan groups however, many experienced players join them simply because of the reduction in time it takes to form a party. In many areas, it's Ursanway or no way. Many people don't have GW:EN, and this forces them to buy it to participate in many groups. Others like myself simply don't like a melee play style.

Your argument falls apart when you use the words "inexperienced" and "elite" togeather. The inexperienced should not be in elite areas, they should gain the experience first and earn the right to play in advanced areas of the game. If we open elite missions up to every player who's unlocked a single skill, is the area really elite at all? I say no. I would prefer a little occasional frustration with retrying a difficult mission after a party wipe, as opposed to the current situation where every area is made insanely easy, there is no chance of failure, and your only challenge is finding a couple of monks to fill out the party. This skill has taken every hardcore PvE player and neutered them so the mediocre and poor players can feel like they belong among the elite. Instead of challenging the beginners and casual players, encouraging them to examine their builds and make strategic changes to their play style, we've opted for simply lowering the standard so everyone can feel special. Why strive to be the best when the "Best" is indistinguishable from the worst? Countess Dramethia

Your have it wrong for the most part. For many players it's not about the achievements, it's that everyone runs Ursan +2 HB monks. So unless your a melee(never seen anything but a warrior taken personally) or a monk you can't really do any of the areas unless you get a guild or alliance group. The fact is the Elite Areas where made be to hard, much harder than the storyline missions. Ursan groups take all the skill that was needed to do these areas and throw it aside. All you have to do to get into an Ursan team in DoA is show your R10/R8 titles, that's it. It removes the skill factor for the grind factor.

The only answer to this problem besides nerfing the skill would be to give all the monsters in DoA and other elite areas a monster skill that removes the blessing, or give the areas an enviromental effect that removes it once every ten seconds. Or better yet, just disable them in elite areas and dungeons. --Masato 22:23, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Winner Weaponmaster 4:13, June 22 2008

I've seen this before, but shall repeat it again - make all these blessings an enchantment. As it removes all enchantments and replaces skill bar, there will be no chance for Ursan user to cast a cover enchantment, so any enchantment removal will send Ursan to hell with 30 sec recharge. And considering that it leaves user with zero energy - it may hurt when taken off in-battle. For squishy professions it means almost instant death (everyone's yelling Leeerooy Jeenkiins, remember?), and all others will need to fill their skillbar with skills meant to protect themselves and to participate in battle. This may even result in throwing Ursan away, as it is elite. De1m0s 06:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The thing is would the monsters actually use it on all the targets or just rip away Healer's Boon which can be re-applied in seconds. Here's an idea, limit Ursan and the other blessings to Norn land only, just like how the bonuses from the vanguard, norn and asura titles work. Disable the skill as soon as you enter a town in the other lands. (Umbral and either Longeyes' or Doomlore, and Central Transfer for Dwarven)Honestly wih how the title bonuses work, it would only make sense to make the blessings work in the same way. If not then I should be allowed the energy bonus from my R10 asuran title anyplace I want in all the games. Either a nerf, fix or change to ursan or the elite areas NEEDS to be done. Period. --Masato 16:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Should be noticed again (yes, the next point was also on this talk page) that not only Ursan blessing destroys balance. Consumables and particularly conset helps Ursan do what it does. Ursans under effect of conset have much more destructive power. I've seen the power of conset just a few days ago, when i was monking in Duncan's level of Slaver's Exile in HM. All restless' popups were destroyed under effect of conset, except for the first one and some of last. Both times resulted a party wipe. So these two things should be taken care of the same time - Ursan blessing and conset. I like the idea of making Ursan GW:EN-only skill, or even Norn territory-only skill, so the conset must be restricted to GW:EN too. De1m0s 16:45, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Only thing wrong with making consets like that is they really don't have any background to fall on for being EOTN only. Ursan gets its power from the norn, so it falls back on that. But consets don't have anything like that, their just craftable items like your weapons and armor. I'm for keeping cons like they are(saved me alot in the snakes-dreadnought-lonars' vanq) But perhaps make it so only 1 of each(minus Powerstones and the scrolls.) can be used per exploreable area/mission. You still get the bonus from em, but you'll have to plan out when is the best time if you know you'll be doing an area for more than 30 minutes. --Masato 15:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Good idea of nerfing along with keeping the power of consumables and making ppl think when to double-click. Agreed 100%. De1m0s 08:54, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Even though I have serious doubts Anet will do anything. Makes me wonder just how overpowered Norn will be in GW2, Bear Form and all.--Masato 22:18, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

At least, if the Norn can turn into a bear at whim, it'll give the rest of us who actually try an excuse to be racist and maybe even have an effect on their ego. Arenanet, if you're reading this at all, this is a HUGE point. Promoting, or rather, creating RACISM is NOT ON, in real life or otherwise. If Norn get to turn into bears, Asura should be able to pull golems out of their tiny, rodent ass. OP, no? Seriously, the Norn were a mistake. From Ursan blessing to their inflated ego (NPC and otherwise) to forcing my character to say 'Great Raven, save us all!' I never used that blessing out of spite.

I guess that about sums it up - 'Great Raven, save us all!' Ursans (notice how I have grouped its users via a judgemental and prejudiced noun) turn to the animal entities for strength when intelligence and confidence fail them. Thank you ANET for introducing apathy as a skill selection. Not only is it there but as soon as you enter Norn territory (The first territory if I'm not mistaken) its use is glorified. Every single shrine keeper uses Ursan Blessing. Every single one! I like to interupt its activation just for kicks. Theyre actually pretty weak without it, and that's just it. The Norn are arrogant and weak and rely soley on the power of another to assure their success. The perks are pummeled into your head, from the beginning to the end of the game. It's the ONLY thing the large and powerful Norn need to be the strongest race in the Guild Wars world. Get the skill and you're set. It's a psyche all too readily adopted by those who haven't played Guild Wars from its glorious beginning and extremely tempting to all the rest.

What.The.Fuck. With all the effort they've gone to to make this skill well liked and used.. there must be something in it. There must be something horrible they're planning for GW2. Something they know we won't like. Something that they regret but are doing all the same. This is probably not the case but its what it seems and I for one am not going to buy GW2 until I hear its completely free of rank-linked skills. I think they forget we control their future so I would suggest the same to all of you.

Arenanet, there is so much more wrong with this skill than merely its unthinkable power and ease of use. Your profit from next year's sales are on the line. The solution, or rather, selection of one of many possible solutions, is obvious. Swallow your damn pride, ANET.. or are you too 'Ursan?'

Skills that = skills that replace your skills = fail. Yet another scathing literary rampage by Spawnlegacy 20:49, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I honestly am thinking of it even though half my alliance is getting GW2 on release. We're supposed to be running majority charr guild/alliance, however the system will work. Still though, perhaps by beta...assuming it ever happens... we'll know if Anet has finally done something right or continued to fail, and not even epic fail at that.--Masato 00:33, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

_____

Before i write anything this is my first discussion so sorry and please understand if the format is a bit wonky :)

Personally i to like the ursan blessing, it is a great skill but it is to great. it should be similar to "Bear form" how it has a set amount of time and instead of a new skill bar maybe replace "ursing blessing" on the skill bar with some highpowered attack that takes about 15second recharge and just buff all your the other skills up about 2 levels or something for like 30seconds to 1 minute that way your whole build isnt just recooperating or preparing from ursan blessing it is a legit build not a made up build. turning into the bear would be cool but to many people would use it then.

to some it up i think ursan blessing should be change to be less powerfull and still require a build for you. -- User Ramirez bloodlust0:56 14/07/08

Buff it!!!!!!111!!!1one!!!eleven!!!!!11

Plz buff ursan strike's damage to 600x5 and remove the recharge! Nah. Rly, this is the only prob with ursan. 150 armor ignoring non-attack/spell based damage which powers up your energy management and thus duration of Ursan Blessing, it's not cool. Nothing except SS can punish this, but still a monk can help you out. The other skills are ok, related to their recharge times and durations. The roar thingy is 5 secs-15 recharge; Ursan Rage has a good enough recharge to handle its IMBA-ness and is physical damage.; the speed boost thing (idk its name, never use morronic skills like ursan) can only be safely used in-battle, due to energy issues. But my problem is with the Ursan Strike. I discussed this here, not on its page, becaus emore people look here and not there, and it's related to Ursan Blessing more as a skill set. Ninjas In The Sky 12:55, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

An unconditional AoE knockdown which deals a large bit of damage along with a 10 second recharge is very overpowered. With just one ursan, your able to keep enemies of their asses 1/5 of the time, which does amazing things for survival. 5-6 ursans in a team and its even better. A 5 second huge AoE weakness is also extremely overpowered. It causes enemies to do 66% less damage with their attacks and a team of ursans can easily keep it on every mob. Just so ya know, no ursan skills cost energy. Meaning the speed boost can be easily used outside of battle. With your character moving 33% faster, you can get to the next group of mobs that much faster and your less likely to have ursan end. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 17:28, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Gemsets

Okay the other day I saw somebody selling a gemset for 8k that means that it would take 15 8k gemsets to give you a tormented weapon or 120k. Which is roughly...(after the Shadow-form induced ecto price drops) 100k +5 ectos. What really saddens me here is that Tormented weapons are supposed to be some of the rarest weapons in the game.....I mean they're even being added to the HoM! Yet they are worth less than a req. 9 chaos axe from the FoW which has been around for ages. I remember before Ursan seeing somebody selling an armbrace for like 100k +100ectos. Now an armbrace can be purchased for a fifth of that. Ursan has really damaged that part of the economy....What saddens me even more than the damage to the economy is the true racism going on here. Bears are being treated far better than Wolves or Birds. But not only are these bears from the north being treated better than other animals....they are being treated better than their fellow bears. In truth I think that Ursan Blessing was the final slam by Anet against Black Bears. Their message is that White Bears will always be better than Black Bears. We need to stand up against this racism and confront the ignorance of Anet. Psychiatric Consultant 21:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

HERE HERE Spawnlegacy 21:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

With special thanks to Warior Kronos:

Ursan is destroying PvE with the speed of a Tsunamei wreaking havoc on a small village in a third world country on the coast during Hurricane season.

Noctarch 10:00, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't you mind I place this on my userpage? De1m0s 14:16, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Hehe, course not, I'm happy people are using it. -Warior Kronos 15:21, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Epic picture. Anyway though, prices drop. It's part of the game. 6 months ago I locked average armbrace prices are 100K+23 ecto or 30-35 ecto(depending on ecto prices) Today I locked them just slightly higher due to decreasing ecto prices. Of course I was in euro and their not as greedy as some of the people in american. Thing is in the case of all rare weapons(excluding Hall of Heroes drops) it's not ALL the fault of Ursan. There's also the 55/SS farmers, Trappers trying to make a comeback, Shadow Formers in both UW and Tombs, and the CoF runners who make on average 20K per run on fees and loot for an hour of work. As much as Ursan annoys me you can't put all the blame for dropping prices on it. Of course there's also people who will add mods and dye a weapon a certain color(black) to raise it's price. Well what if I don't like the mods or the color? Should I have to pay more? No, price raising like that is also creating more issues with this game.

I'm gonna go on certain gemstones prices(as taken in euro just 5 minutes ago) Torment: 1.5K Margo-2.5-3K Stygain-2-3K Titan: 4K

I saw alot more 2.5 and 2K margo and stygain than others so I'll be using those prices. It adds up to 10K at the lowest and 11.5K at the highest. So 14 more sets at the high price will cost you 161,000 gold, bringing the total for 15 sets to 172,500. Lowest total would be 150,000. So yes prices are dropping compared to a year or so ago but that's part of the game.

On the Chaos Axe thing, I think that's only old school ones. I've NEVER seen one with an inscription slot sold for more than 80K even perfect q9.--Masato 16:10, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan is destroying PvE with the speed of a Tsunamei wreaking havoc on a small village in a third world country on the coast during Hurricane season. Third world country? Are you forgetting Katrina? 122.104.167.139 17:27, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Could easily replace it with Ursan is destroying the Guild Wars community as fast as a Malaria torn country in a mosquito plague.. Spawnlegacy 07:08, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to Ursan

There's quite a substantial feedback page for Ursan here but I'd still like to know why Arenanet is so determined to keep Ursan's - even the other two blessings - spammable armor ignoring attacks.

Changing Ursan's main attack to physical, just like Ursan Rage, would decrease its effectiveness on armor opponents and still provide a challenge, but also a 'cheap' spammable attack.

Why was armor ignoring selected as the primary attack? Why not say physical? Why mix up Ursan with a primary armor ignoring attack and a physical aoe attack? Why two different kinds of damage? Since Arenanet won't ever answer this, I don't think, I open it up to you. Why do you think it was made this way? 000.00.00.00 00:54, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Very simple answer - ANet wants ppl to get their HoMs completed by the GW2 release. It means all ppl, no matter how long do they play and how skilled they are. De1m0s 10:31, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Ursan is also one of the sole driving forces of EOTN sales. All the failure players hear about it ingame and go out and buy it, thus being able to do stuff they'd never be able to do with their skill level. Is there ever gonna be a day when a gaming company starts to care more about the players?--Masato 14:32, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Man, I've been thinking the exact same thing. Careful, we might be starting a conspiracy theory, but there's no other explanation when this skill is the blatant injustice that it is. you got a point too De1m0s, as much as your English sucks (I read your userpage, much respect to you) Lots of God's Walking Among Mere Mortals these days cranking an Ursan. Speed up the player's progress and get them bored quicker. Seems like a pretty good business plan to me. They might need one considering there's no fees and all, but daaaaamn, that's low.

Spawnlegacy 19:32, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

The theory of Ursan driving the sales has been around since it was found Ursan could rip apart HM all around for the most part. I've seen alot more R4 and R5 Kind of a Big Deal's walking around than R6's. Makes me remember the days when having R1 was fun. Nowadays it's just assumed that all PvE titles were gotten through Ursan. If it wasn't for my alliance and our balanced clears of missions and the elite areas I might have quit months ago.

As for sales, look at it like this. Proh got a massive amount of sales as it was the first one, looked great and had(and still does) the best story. Factions got alot due to Assassins and all the narutards who gave them a bad rep on day 1, but after that period of time faction sales dropped since many people consider it the worst of the series. Nightfall didn't really give much in the way of something new besides classes, but the Paragon was a god character before PvP nerfs ruined it. Then we have EOTN, which by the time people figured out Ursan was the Guild Wars Easy Button had locked in even more sales than before. I would be willing to bet my right hand that EOTN gets more sales within a month than any of the other games, just because players hear of Ursan within any of the games and how it makes everything easy.

I really and truly miss the days where Elite Areas and whatnot put up the barrier between the Skilled and Unskilled player. I really do. It's just become a Hack and Slash game now, 1-2-3 Rinse and Repeat.--Masato 22:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

GW PvE = Diabloway? O_O De1m0s 01:10, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Just so you know, playing paragon in pve is still playing in god mode. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 02:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

It's getting close to Diablo honestly. And thanks for the info. I havn't played a paragon since they took serious nerfs over a year ago and never been in a team with one minus in AB. --Masato 05:18, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I know the perfect way to both nerf Ursan Blessing AND make it more exciting! Since Arenanet is only keeping this skill because "Some players feel it makes the game too easy while others think it is fun [2]" they should not only jump but LEAP at this opportunity.

Remove the recharge.. all together. It will NOT recharge until killing a boss like Res Signet and the like. That way Ursan parties are in a frenzied rush of desperation from the beginning to the end with little chance of success without a party wipe. It will REMOVE its exploitation from elite missions as they have no ressurection shrines but still allow those who wish to test their speed to the limit a chance to use it in these areas. They will not only make a reasonable but not overly exciting amount of profit but have a large bit of fun in the process. The idea is to keep them from the chest that yields the ungodly prizes but allow them to obliterate anything else in their wake.

Currently the update purveyer's definition of fun is, 'A currency traded for goods and services.' If we have it my way, it will never again be a staple for the 'uber' party but rather used by the niche group of people who don't equate fun to a number of platnium. The easiest way to tie this in with the game's lore is to have a message pop up when you run out of energy, which reads, 'You have fallen from the bear spirit's grace' which is a lot more logical than the current skill description that says, 'rely on me for strength.' Spawnlegacy 09:21, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I still like the ideas that myself and a couple other people posted somewhere here. Making it act like a res sig is kinda eh. Plus if they did that the way you explained it, by the same logic they'd have to do that for the dervish avatars. Locking them completely after 1 use even if you triggered Eternal Aura. --Masato 21:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

They wouldn't have to, as such. Dervishes are meant to be holy warriors. Bear spirit exploiters are merely that. But my idea's flawed anyway because just bringing along arcane mimicry would allow you to copy a fully charged Ursan Blessing in the U-Way. That's the other thing. Seeing as everyone would agree the avatars and blessings are similar in every respect, why are the blessings not forms? I know ANet didn't have the time to turn people into bears before the release date of this half assed game but even without a change of shape, its still valid. Form is a synonym of exterior and aspect is a synonym of characteristic, meaning: aspect is part of form. You're right that its the same as dervishes but it doesnt mean that any run of the mill PvEr, who can click on a 'branch with honey' should be the apple of the bear spirit's eye. Anyway, I don't really care what they do. It needs to get out of elite missions and this makes it more fun. Spawnlegacy 04:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Arcane Mimicry allows you to copy blessings? I didn't know that. Well they COULDN'T turn them into bears, you just have the blessing. My idea is if your not born Norn you can turn into the bear period.

But okay, I can see what your talking about. I still think that the blessings need to be limited to GWEN and then only to Norn Lands. --Masato 14:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

What of the other 2 blessings?

It just occurred to me that nobody uses the other 2 blessings. But looking at the descriptions, it might be pretty good to mix in at least 1 of each in an Ursan group. Deep wound, cripple, group increase in attack rate, bleeding, AoE blindness, and group blindness removal. All that at the mere cost of what, 3 instead of 5 AoE knockdowns? I'd like to hear if anyone tried this... -- Alaris 16:03, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

becase ursans dont use weapon attacks, deepwound is not needed in insane spike, ursan is better than any of the others, so no ones gonna be like OMFG I CAN CAUSE DEEPWOUND BY MASHING when the can be OMFG I CAN KILL ANYTHING BY MASHING 122112321312XXXXXXXXXXXX21321312321312321XXXXXXXXXXXX1321

Shadowshock 19:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, here's what you explained: why blindness removal and increased attack rate are not needed in an Ursan group. Still, deepwounds are used during spikes or DPS attacks to make the targets less likely to heal / recover, cripple to stop them from running away (would be useful to make it less likely that target runs outside of KD area), bleeding is always a nice addition, and blindness is also useful as added protection against enemy attacks. Remember, allcaps is not an argument, and neither is 123. -- Alaris 19:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Who needs Deep Wound when you have insta-kill? But who needs a an Ursan r10 when he can get my lvl 99 Paladine? Noctarch 20:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Multishot amazon with dual leech ring > paladin in GW anytime. Case closed =D -- Alaris 18:57, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

This is not a discussion of the intricacies of Diablo II nor is it a discussion of how to raise the effectiveness of a group of six people using a single skill. Please move your banter elsewhere Spawnlegacy 20:58, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

what can out heal, run away, or do anything to six ursans thwn they are in a permanent kd? Shadowshock 22:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Giants at least cannot be knocked down =)De1m0s 00:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I can think of a few things, one would require Ursan to be used against other players though. Something that would officially be the end of Guild Wars.--Masato 14:30, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I want April Fools joke to come true. Then those dumb-heads in ANet would at last understand this skill imbaness. De1m0s 20:34, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

An Open Letter to Arena-Net Regarding Ursan Blessing

To Whom it may concern:

In the 7/2/2008 update, you addressed the over-usefulness of Shadow Form Farming, specifically the ability to farm ectos in Underworld. Even as one of the players using one of the many SF builds to farm UW, I applaud this move. The price of ecto's dropped dramatically while this farm was easier, and that was affecting the in-game economy grievously.

Now, I (along with countless other customers/players) hope that this move paves the way for a change to Ursan Blessing.

SF farming was affecting the economy quite a bit, but for a long time now, UB has been affecting ALL aspects of the economy. Some of the most difficult areas of the game are easily handled with a team of Ursans, making the rare drops in those areas worth much less. Additionally, if a player either does not have access to UB, or refuses to use it for whatever reason, pick-up groups in these aforementioned Elite Areas will simply pass a would be teammate by.

While I understand that access to UB can be a major selling point for GW: Eye of the North, it could also be very easily argued that making the Hall of Monuments account-based regarding accomplishments is even more enticing to those players who haven't yet purchased GW:EN.

My proposal is a simple one. Make GW:EN PvE only skills only usable in GW:EN. This precedent has already been set by the GW:EN Reputation Title Blessings. (With the exception of the bonus vs. Charr, which could also be geographically limited) The skills would then still be viable, just limited in their area of use.

Now, granted, there are also Nightfall PvE only skills, but Nightfall is a PRIMARY campaign of GW, not an expansion like GW:EN. I wouldn't change those, nor would I change the Factions title based skills.

I sincerely hope you see the logic in this suggestion and keep it in mind as you work to further improve the games you have so masterfully crafted.

Regards, Guild Wars Players

Agree: 76.3.155.224 01:35, 3 July 2008 (UTC), Spawnlegacy 10:19, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Sigh* no no no no. Do i have to remind you of the days when you would search and search for a group of people doing DOA, then after 30 minutes looking for the last monk you get him. After 2.5 hours of grinding monsters in DOA trying to kill them all, your bonder has to leave because his mom is yelling at him to get off. Now what? you are done, game over, you have just wasted 3+ hours accomplishing nothing. Now here trots along ursan blessing. now areas can each be done in 1.5hours or so (less with max title) and everyone is happy. everyone gets their long sought after mallyx items, and everyone gets their much sought after tormented items for a much affordable price. it was ridiculous that before a tormented item costed upwards of 3,600,000g + 150ectos give or take. that's just stupidly priced for items that aren't R8-7, 15% always. and on top of that, they are items that are made so that anyone who wants them can get them. not just a random drop that you have to grind for 2+ years for.

So no, there should not be a nerf to ursan blessing. if you want a nerf, make ursan roar not do weakness. there, you have your nerf.

Disagree: 71.67.243.230 03:51, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

You have a point but I'm going to shut you down out of principle. If Ursan Blessing did not exist, you would have no argument. You would not cry to Arenanet that DoA is too long or too difficult because you would understand that it is designed to be very long and very difficult. There is nothing forcing anyone to enter such areas, in fact, there is a cost to enter most providing a barrier between the battle ready and the less than prepared. You are suggesting that reducing the prices of weapons that people display for prestige is a good thing.

Think of it this way, you're not nerfing inflated prices, you're nerfing prestige. After 3+ years of play, I have aquired this wonderful skill that allows me easy survival in the Domain of Anguish; I probably have enough money for a tormented item after 3+ years of play; but after 3+ years of play, I still don't see myself as worthy to enter the realm of a god. I've vanquished all of Cantha, half of Elona and some of Tyria without the use of Ursan so I'm probably skilled enough for normal mode at least, but still, I shouldn't be stomping the otherwise superior with a single, widely used, multi-proffessional skill that creates so many more problems than just imbalance.

I needn't point out that extensive planning and research goes into defeating the powerful bosses of WoW. Even with its crappy graphics and physics, widespread imbalance and mindbogglingly confusing gameplay, its still tempting to give it a shot because it seems obvious to me that Arenanet isn't providing enough of a challenge. Of course, I could stroll into DoA with an alliance based balanced team because everyone else who regularly farms there uses Ursan Blessing but that would take time to organise and why should I put any effort in when other people aren't? I don't think my primarily skill based game should only provide a challenge when I force it to.

I should also make a point of saying that killing monsters faster by using Ursan Blessing is still, by your definition, grinding. All you have done is identified growing economy concerns and said that elite missions should not just be for elites.

Can all the people who agree with the letter sign it? I mean there's probably not going to be too many names coz no one reads this.. maybe all the people that agree sign yours and all the people that don't, sign the other ip address man's. I'm curious to see how many people are unaffected by all the evidence on this page.

Spawnlegacy 10:19, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

/signed. I want Ursan Blessing to be nerfed as perma SF was. De1m0s 18:48, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

/signed. And while your at it, nerf consets as well. Even without Ursan they still make Legendary Vanq and Guardian a joke. Actually correction: even without ursan they still make everything a joke.--Masato 21:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

/signed. Ursan Blessing has made me quit and uninstall Guild Wars, but I still want A-net to know they have failed so utterly that they can not redeem themselves.

Hmm no. I am sorry to come back into this discussion but well, as much as i think ursan is to much it wasn't a big an impact as the infinite SF builds that are still dropping the ecto prices. All you people seem to care about is being able to say i am better than you are as that is what prestige seems to mean after so many people use it as a reason to nerf. The only reason to nerf ursan is that it is the only thing used beyond guild groups in elite areas there needs to be a way for people that want to play normal builds to do so.

Rare items be damned there dropping price stops a few people from having all the money such as the few people who could finish DoA but would not let anyone else in with them or tell them how.

Your cause i believe is just to an extent, but your reasoning represented is not. The economy was stable with ursan not plummeting into the ground as SF was and is doing. (i am now going to brace myself for the hate i am sure to get from writing this) Tenri 07:30, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree with you on SF being a bigger impact on Ecto, 100%. But you have it wrong. I said at one point on this page that it isn't about Prestige or saying I'm better than you. It's that Elite Areas should not be so easy to clear. You shouldn't be able to take 6 tanks and two healers and rip apart everything you come across without any real challenge being presented. People ran normal builds before Ursan. Sure Ursan gives people who don't have hours to spend on the areas a chance to clear them, but I say then make time. Their called Elite for a reason and if you don't have a good few hours to put toward clearing the lot of them then you shouldn't be playing them.

What? You serious? It wasn't just a few people. The most common clear build was spread within a month of DoA being added to the game. Now we have nubs running around with Tormented Weapons thinking their all that when Pre-Ursan there was no chance they'd ever be able to get them since their skills were far to low.

This isn't about the economy, it's about the fact that unskilled players are getting an easy button for elite areas and Hard Mode. The skill factor for those areas has been replaced with grind, grind to R8 LB and R10 Norn and you can do DoA. Guild Wars does NOT need this kind of easy button, especially when it just increases the amount of nubs in the game for those who actually want to play normally. Go look for a normal vanq or HM mission that isn't gonna be pure Ursanway, go look.--Masato 14:44, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

SF is not a problem, its ursan, a whole team of ursan farmers can farm ectos faster than sf, if a 800 player alliance got say 10 stacks each of ectos, 2m ectos, we could drop ectos to less than 900g ea, and could crash the economy, by ursan farming in a few weeks. that is why ursan is bad for the economy!, now ima go temp leave my guild and start this up! Shadowshock 18:24, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

SF was a problem, otherwise people wouldn't be using Burning Speed now to conter the 50% less dmg. Yes ursan can kill faster, but actually Perma SF pre-nerf could get ecto at a faster average rate.

Ursan go for a clear, which normally with that setup takes 2-4 hours, maybe less with an experenced team. The pre-nerf SF farmer could do the run in about 10 minutes, give or take. The ursan may get more ectos, but they take far to long to get them. If the SF'er took 10 minutes for the run and let's say the ursan clear was 3 hours, The SF'er could do 24 runs compared to the Ursan's 1. Faster farm is better than clearing the lot of the area, even if you have more chances that way.

Bottom Line: In terms of ecto farming SF was(and even with the nerf) still is a better way to farm ecto than Ursan clear. 600/Smite takes a second place due to it takes longer and has to depend a second person or hero to make it work.--Masato 18:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

And I just now noticed this on guru, and I advise just staying away from there. Guru is filled with nothing but elitest players who can't think about what's best for the game as a whole. It is sad though that basically yelling at Anet is the only way to get them to actually do anything. -sigh- Whatever, I'm done here for the day. Gonna go back to farming up tokens. 9K per stack is nice for my bank.--Masato 20:32, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

ok, maybe perma sf is faster to farm ectos, ill just start working to make an allaince that is dedicated to deflating ectos, then were gonna start sending threats to anet, saying we will collapse gw economy unless you nerf ursan or whatever, Shadowshock 23:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

As I said, the only way to get them to do anything seems to be to yell at em. Go ahead, no skin off my nose. I'll just sit back and see they will actually do something. Honestly though, if it works then I'll laugh and make sure you and your alliance get the credit for doing it. XD

But not tonight, been doing alliance DoA and tip CoF running all day so I'm done. Up much later than I intended to be. Especially since I have the morning shift tomorrow, ugh.--Masato 04:37, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Shadowshock, I'm amazed how little someone knows about how an economy works. You talk big about "crashing the economy", yet you lack any understanding of how an economy works. Bravo. Your great "masterplan" wouldn't neccessarily make the "economy" collapse. Not that it's actually an economy anyway. You sell to and buy from an NPC who, well, is just a machine. It has nothing to do with an actual economy. If ectos would become cheaper with your method, then more people would buy ectos from the trader NPC. Cheaper goods, more people may be tempted to buy (they will definitely buy if it's something they want). I would say, it would actually aid the economy. Remember what Henry Ford did? Produced a car cheap enough so that his own workers could buy it. Tremendous success. You would "produce" more ectos, thus help to make them cheaper, thus more people would buy them. Thus, on the long run, it's possible that this would lead to yet another money sink and all those "rare" and "special" things are nothing else. Money sink, not economy. Great "masterplan" failed. It certainly won't hurt the trader NPC and you would actually help all those hundreds, thousands of people who want Obsidian armor. As for the player economy, well, more and more people are taking Z-keys instead of ectos, so that's a mute point. It wouldn't damage the player economy at all. The only thing that would happen, would be a general switch from ectos to Z-keys. Then you're going to farm Z-keys? Well, then the trading community will switch to something else, meanwhile the ecto prices will go up again, because nobody's farming them cause everyone's too busy farming Z-keys. The economy will adapt. Great "masterplan" failed. Not to mention that the player economy in GW is a strictly capitalistic economy. It's purely based on offering and demand. Cheap goods usually raise the demand, until a certain saturation is achieved. Then you can continue to drop the price of ectos (how long will you be able to do that anyway? Weeks? Months?), just nobody will buy them anymore and your great "masterplan" has failed. Again. Face it, no matter how you'll try to pull this ridiculous threat off, you'll lose.

Apart from that, Shadowshock, making threats to A-net or even hinting to the possibility of doing it or, more or less, wanting to sabotage the game/gameplay certainly doesn't help your cause (and I wonder what A-net has to say about such behavior). It's just childish. "A-net do what I tell you or I'll sabotage you!". Hmmm... I really wonder what A-net has to say to such threats.

Final note: "Now, I (along with countless other customers/players) hope that this move paves the way for a change to Ursan Blessing" Hold your horses! No offense to the OP, but "countless"? Where? One person speaking for the whole player base? With some five or so signing it? That's a BIG no-no. You're certainly not speaking for me, I can speak for myself. The argument with "customers" is also extremely weak. Remember: no monthly fee. If anyone wants to quit over Ursan, then A-net's marketing will say "Okay". They're not losing any money that way. So, please get better arguments. Bringing in the in-game economy also doesn't help the cause of the anti-Ursans. It's "damaging" the economy? Based on whose point of view? Really people, learn one or two things about capitalism before you whine. So the prices are going down when people farm. Right, why are people farming with certain builds and skills? Because there's demand. You want to solve this? Stop the demand and people won't farm anymore. How to do that? Remove all rare items from the game. Hardly an acceptable solution, is it? But anyway...

I say: no nerf. Don't like it? Don't use it.

And Masato, you're absolutely right about Guru. Such wannabe elitism makes me sick. Takekaze 02:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Read the whole page before creating long winded flames with one point for the sole purpose of shutting down another person to aid your opinion/ ability to farm expensive items. In particular, read the first article. Try shutting down all of those arguments in less than 50 paragraphs. That poor soul needs some help. I mightn't be the best rolemodel for preserving concision but at least my 20kb rants include more than one point. Suffice to say ANet are nerfing it, so you're wrong. Spawnlegacy 16:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Cant u see

the only thing i can think of why anet has not changed this skill. Is they want more people to buy GW:EN and thus line their pockets with our hard earned money. I have never personaly used this skill other then in the mission it was created for. I am lucky to be in a guild/allince that likes to vanquish and just go kill things. Ive even seen guilds recuiting players that only use this damn skill. (talk about spliting up the communitty even more). If that is the direction this game and company continues to move i will not be playing any of their games anymore. That too is what Anet is trying to do as well is make more players quit. Then they wont have to keep so many servers up and running(almost make me want to pay to play so they will listen to us more). Beside the damage from this skill is all ready to far in to ever truely fix. To think that in my 2 years of playing and thousands of hours spent in GW. Now some new punk can reach my lvl in half the time which really bums me out. All the wepons i worked so hard farming for have droped so much from players that use this freakin skill. It shouldnt even be called a skill since none is required to use it.(damn i am digressing srryz) It seems this whole game is going down the toilet and Anet seem happy to let it do so. well time to go back to PvP till they nerf the zchest agian. ty for letting me vent lol and may all your drops be gold

First off sign your comments. Second you can't blame all the falling prices and whatnot on Ursan. Perma SF(pre and post nerf now),55/SS and 600/Smite are just as much to blame. Yes, I have a 600/smite and I include myself in this because when my alliance isn't active I go do HM UW with it or something else until they are.

This part of those comment makes me lol. "Now some new punk can reach my lvl in half the time which really bums me out." Ursan players don't reach the skill level of those that cleared these areas out before, you take away that one skill and the line between the skilled players and the nubs becomes clear once again.

But what's this about the zchest getting nerfed? I thought that even though it could drop anything(besides greens, end games, tormented and minis) the super rare drops were like...well super rare. Or have there been alot more q8 perfect Cysts coming out of it lately?--Masato 21:28, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

lmao srryz was late at night and i thought i was signed in. what i mean about reaching my level. Is that all my work finding a spot to farm and the build to make the farm run faster. Can now be done wit little to no thought, as i stated u dont need skill to be ursan. I said my level in which i ment gold wise and exp, with the gold being more my concern.

lol and the zchest was sorta nerfed when the tittle thing came out. thought it wasnt really documented i have noticed that the amount of perfect mods on wepons can drop to 15% form 20% when i first started wasting all my loot on it before the tittle came out nearly all of the items droped were maxed stats.Lordman 04:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Strange, I used the 10 keys I've been building up from GvG and on all 4 weapons I got, either the inscription or mod was maxed(and in the case of one, both were). June rewards are coming up so I think I'll take this as a chance to study the chest more. --Masato 14:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm...

the way i see it, the people who argue in favor to ursan keep on bringing up the same points. 1. "it makes people able to complete elite areas who couldnt previously" 2. "i dont have to grind as much to make money" 3. "its easier to use" (im sure there are more but im breaking it down to the most common arguments that ive observed)

as for the first topic, you shouldnt be in an elite area if it is too hard for you, hence the meaning of elite. "elite" of course, in my opinion, meaning that you take the time to make observations on what skills are used, and find the best possible balanced build/party to counter it

well.. as for grinding, there are other builds out there that allow superior farming compared to ursan. i just believe that people are too lazy to come up with thier own builds and strategies, so they just grasp the nearest thing to them capable of accomplishing such a feat, that being ursan blessing

finally, yes... it is easier to use. but i dont think a-net had the right of constructing such an imbalanced "skill" in the first place. imo the only reason they made such an imbalanced skill is so that people will take the easy way out, buy GW:EN , then use ursan. in other words, the only reason they made ursan is for profits. everything(meaning nothing) they have done to rework ursan is suggesting that this is a valid assumption --Arrythmia 17:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I used to not go to elite areas, because I never really found myself worthy of taking on the challenges. Presumed lack of skill (which I am more than likely to have) plus dial-up would equal to many frustrating hours. Occasionally I would do a 600-smite-ranger in DoA, or trap UW, or fight in FoW, but never did clear any of the areas. I was content with this fact, as there were other fish for me to fry. Now, with the introduction of Ursan....I still don't do elite areas, except for a different reason. I don't want to spend hours grinding a title to complete a "high prestige, high honor, high challenge, tougher than hell" etc. mission that, oh my gosh, everyone and their grandmother, little brother, older sister, drunken father and uptight mother has completed. Where's the fun in that? And even completing the aforementioned high end areas with a balanced group anymore isn't any help because some ursan abuser will shut you down with "I did it in half the time, which means I spent the other half doing UR MOM, lolololololollol"

All in all, the Ursan Situation is a lose-lose for Arenanet. Either keep it in play and have the truely skilled people complain against you and end up leaving, or nerf it so it isn't as viable and have "the silent majority" break their silence, complain against you and end up leaving. Ezekial Riddle 20:37, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I still wanna know why what other people having done something diminishes (the general)your fun. But then, I also tend to believe that other people's reactions to and feelings about something you achieved in a game is not really a healthy source of one's own self-worth, so, I'm probably on a different planet from some of y'all anyhow :). --Star Weaver 20:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, no matter what Anet does their gonna shoot themselves in the foot(yet again) and ruin sale chances for GW2. Assuming it doesn't get pushed back as often as Wrath of the Lich King XD.

I still want Anet to make Ursan allowed in PvP for just one day, then maybe once it takes over in a matter of seconds they'll see just how bad of an infection ursan is and that it's turning Guild Wars into a game of pure fail even if you have a great alliance.--Masato 21:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, what I suggested. Either they are cowards aware of what treacherous nightmare they bred or foolishly dumb and rotten to the core. Yea, I know, harsh words - as harsh as the statement "we currently do not think that Shadow Form has an impact on the economy" or "we are unsure if Ursan does anything bad"... if it this question of most greatest importance has not been solved by the time GuildWars II arrives, I will promise that I and the ones that I call companions will not only leave GuildWars but boycott it and its sequel by any legal yet amoralistic way. Spite's spoken. Noctarch 01:57, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

In response to Star Weaver. We're pretty immature but if we were mature we'd stop playing regardless of this debate. So, once again, a pro ursan lose... Although you take no affiliation in the debate, I'm sure. Spawnlegacy 04:35, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

ROFL just imagined pro Ursan... "I can mash buttons let me do PvP I'm gonna pwn faces!". Let him do PvP with Ursan, in my not so humble opinion. Let ANet see this skill in action, cos' they surely focus more on PvP. And I won't quit GW. It is great game, and with release of GW2 most of pro Ursans will move along. I will continue playing, making challenges for myself, cos' GW is in any terms is great game. De1m0s 05:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

let's put Ursan in PvP and see it fail so bad because a build where you gotta be in touch range to do any damage and no self heal being shut down by any amount of e-denial will do so good. Sure ursan will look a bit overpowwered i mean cmon +200 health(defy pain) and +20 armor(defy pain again) don't forget AoE knockdown(earthshaker, earthquake, meteor, meteor shower, shall i go on...), AoE weakness kinda big problem achievable on a smaller scale from a few other skills, and 150 armor ignoring damage this would be the biggest problem in PvP but honestly it would be fairly simple to interrupt if you know how to on that note so would the AoE knockdown. Tenri 07:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

E-Drain + Sig of Humility = GG. That's all that would really be needed to take down an Ursan in PvP, and both are usually ran(sig of hum more so) Add in anti-meele conditions and hexes, slow down hexes and good interupts and their done. Though I know everyone would run to play it in PvP(I would for the lulz, then run a build to kill it for more lulz) it would be awful. Though Anet might actually pay attention to the PvE needs.--Masato 14:52, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

As it is PvP they wouldn't mess with their shiny main character warriors and take Elementalists instead. Yea, drain your 130 energy away. have one monk with three hex-removal and one condition removal for the only disrupting condition and you are fine. Noctarch 18:46, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

It may even serve as reason to buff Ursan in PvE lol XD De1m0s 15:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Nerf this. Please.

EVERYONE who has had an account before EoTN came out hates Ursan, and it's really not necessary at all -- a friend and I beat all of Nightfall starting at Rihlon Refuge in 13 hours, with all heroes except for us two, and we did not, in fact, use Ursan. The Vortex IS doable with skill and experience, and isn't that what Guild Wars was supposed to be about? I spent 1,700 hours for 7 months or so LOVING the game, and despite the fact that I keep leaving, I keep COMING BACK, because Guild Wars is just that awesome. Now I'm worried about Guild Wars 2 -- if they don't nerf Ursan before it comes out, I might not get it, and if I do get it, the first thing I'll do is make a Norn and see if becoming the bear changes ANY of your skills in an unreasonable manner. If it does, I leave GW2. Permanently. It makes me quite sad that Arenanet has allowed this to happen to their game, because I truly LOVE Guild Wars. I'm an obsessed fan of the game, and my favorite part has always -- or at least so long as I can remember, because I have been playing enough and long enough that I cannot remember what my favorite parts over time have been, and because all of GW is just so very awesome -- been messing with skill sets, strategizing for the best build to defeat this mission, this boss, this mob. I love the tactics, the stragety, the thought process of fighting challenging foes. I have trouble 55 HP SoA Monking, because I simply cannot stand just sitting there spamming skills. I may have to leave Guild Wars for lack of an ability to use any character but my Monk in a high-level area without resorting to taking along one of my guild or alliance members. WHY are you doing this?! This is TORTURE. You're taking the very foundations of a game that has become some people's favorite thing in their entire LIVES and you're shaking them. In a bad way. In a very, very bad way. PvE skills in general are iffy, but Ursan is just plain going too far. The nerfing issues in general right now are VERY worrying. If they can't spare enough people for GW1 while they're making GW2, RIGHT after unleashing a new expansion with possibly game-breaking skill changes, then how will things be when new expansions come out in GW2? What about right before GW3, if GW2 doesn't have too many people that share my current fears? You're beginning to prove yourselves incompetent, but I REALLY don't want to have to call you that. You guys are awesome, and I know you're doing your best, but PLEASE get the extra people free for GW1 soon. PLEASE nerf Ursan. PLEASE balance PvE. You're scaring your fans, and you're scaring me, and my sister will probably not be getting GW2 until I test the Norn stance even IF you nerf Ursan, and I really can't believe this whole thing is happening. Isolina Black 05:43, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Regina said that they're hiring a programmer and a new designer that will work solely on GW1. She also said that this will probably be one of the first things tackled once they are hired. But what I want to know is why, in the months this has been a problem, has this not been balanced? You would think that you wouldn't need a programmer and designer to balance a single skill when we have, you know, a skill balancer. Saying that his team was too busy is utter crap, as Izzy has worked on many, many other balance changes in the 10 months EotN has been out. My two cents. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 07:59, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't want a new guy working to bring this game closer to the original... I'm sad now. Bring me back my toy. Spawnlegacy 12:53, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Sauce on the new guy pls? -- NUKLEAR IIV 14:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't hate Ursan, I don't understand why it is still here. Why these blessings were introduced? They just kill build concept, kill tactics in doing missions and strategy with preparations before that. These blessings truly kill what I love in all games I play - game's ability to make u think like hell to win, to blow ur brain with countless problems need to be solved to complete something. That's why I play games - for them to make me think and give me some rest in one time. And now what? I've lost interest for doing UW cos' if I say I've done UW in three hours with several near-wipe situations some Ursan will say "haha, I did it in half ur time using Ursan and consets in HM, u loser". So what can I be proud of in this game? I can beat all missions in NM and HM, get Legendary Guardian - but when I display it everyone will think I've done it with Ursan and this is nothing special. If I go through all campaigns without any single death and get tons of XP along with Legendary Survivor - everyone will think I've grinded Kilroy's dungeon for days. Having tormented item is nothing more than 100k + xx ectos, and I as heard long time before these ones were elite weapons of great cost. U can say it's elitism - but hey, if everyone can have what others spend hours for it isn't fair. Even WoW is more competent in this way - it's elite items are hard to get and display wearer's skill in game... as WoW really needs long planning before raid on some hard boss. I'm not elitist, I don't want to have obsidian on all chars along with high-tier KoaBD, Hero or smth. I just want to make my chars look like I want them to. I want to know for sure, that Guardian knows near-everything about missions and can share knowledge with me - unlike just giving recommendation "hey, get R10 Norn and Ursan, u'll do it". I want to ask Legendary Survivor for safe areas and ways to survive in no so friendly ones, without advice to get run to Gunnar's Hold. Don't get me wrong, I really thing GW and GW:EN in particular is great. EotN is good expansion, with interesting quests and missions, hard challenges and good rewards, it reminds about Prophecies, which became my favorite after I walked with my char in Lion's Arch. But it has several points, which ruin the whole Guild Wars idea. For this I don't like EotN.

You may say elitism is bad. I disagree. Elitists surely are in every game, they frequently bother others with their skill. And I say skill - cos' elitists in well-balanced game must have skill to beat it and say "hey, look, I've done it!". And now I can see the other kind of elitists - their skill is Ursan Blessing. When first ones can say it took them much time and preparation to do something, they may say they have "1337 skillz" - and they have, mostly - but Ursan elitists say "huh, FoW in HM is just three consets, it's for noobs". Is this right? Each game must have it's icons, highly skilled players who can be noticed just visually. This makes easier for new players to decide who to ask for help. Everything beyond that is matter of one's culture.

Oh, sure, you can say that Ursan takes less time to get something in game to get some real life - if you want something, you must work for it, even in game. If you think it's time waste - uninstall. I've played about 1k500 hours in 5 months - u can say I have no life. Sure, u imagine I've spent endless hours smashing buttons - but u r wrong. Most time I spend in game I chat with my friends. Or just stand in Guild Hall afking. Or standing in Nine Rings =). It's what it is made for - communication. We relax in GW, chat with our real or virtual friends and kill some mobs along with other players in PvP. This game makes us complete something in team, not alone, which provides even more communication. And doing elite areas must take a lot preparation. If you haven't much time to complete these elites - u may not, no one forces you do something. You can show your skill in some other way, as getting some titles to show or slowly store up for some gear... there are so many ways. You won't be proud if you complete something with Ursan - it's just easy button, as you can't say "I've done Doom (with cheats)" and be proud of that.

I don't talk about PvP, it's all straight and simple there - you have skill then you can do smth special, you haven't - you must get it to get what you want. PvE is little more democratic - u may have fun in non-elite areas without being endlessly frustrated.

Oh, it's lots of text. It was just a cry of player who sees his favorite game being ruined by it's creators. I don't think I've explained my point fully and/or clear, but I hope I am understood. Thank you for reading. De1m0s 15:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Amen, De1m0s. I didn't like elitists all that much back before EoTN came out, personally, but they're about 500 times worse now. Now ALL the noobs think they're all-powerful and amazing, without ANY work, and they don't get any experience to verify that or to tell them otherwise, because they'll always win unless they run out of gold for consumables. @_+

But, Guild Wars really was supposed to be about skill, instead of time. I believe I heard someone say they have it on the box. I am SURE I heard it hyped up everywhere before I played the game and while I was playing it. Guild Wars was revolutionary. People would ask which skill is the best skill, which profession is the most versatile, and I would be able, with pride, to say that ALL skills are equally useful in different situations. It was wonderful, still is wonderful, because not everyone has EoTN and in the non-Vortex and non-FoW/UW areas you still can get non-Ursan groups fairly easily, and it really is my favorite game. I've dissed it before, I've left it before, but the truth is, I spent roughly 1,650 hours in Guild Wars in 6 months, completely OBSESSED with it, and I still haven't gotten over this game after 3 years. I love the strategy of it, I love how challenging it is, and Ursan is hurting that. It upsets me quite a bit, and I'm trying to be patient and wait for the new people to change it, to be as fair as possible to the ever-busy Arenanet, but it's beginning to irk me more and more. I just hope they fix this soon. Isolina Black 21:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Skill comes through time and patience. For some people it's less time, for some more, some people won't get any skill ever. And with raising your skill you can spend less time on planning, it's what you said, Isolina, game becomes mostly about skill, not time. On my Guild Wars: Prophecies box stated that game inside measures players by their skill. Now players are measured by Norn rank. Everything changes, always changes, but ruining a concept of so quote revolutionary end quote game cannot be good or bad change - it's a fail. I really doubt I will purchase GW2. If only there will be such disbalance - I'll throw game box from my window and start playing Diablo III. De1m0s 23:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I haven't been in a PUG team since last year. You know why? Because players are crap. Everyone who is looking for a PUG is crap and needs other people to help them. Its understandable when they havent got heroes and they're new and have to find a good party amoung a selection of crappy henchmen but its alarming to see a great deal of these people using Ogden Stonehealer as their personal bodyguard. What I'm trying to say is, EotN is promoting unskilled play and the promotion of skilled play was written on the back of the Prophecies box in huge letters. That is ruining the game for me. THAT is breaking the foundation on which it stands.

I've taken a couple of big blows when it comes to being social in GW. The introduction of heroes allowed me to be more creative; People just being crap is understandable; but EotN overpowers these crap players so they can finish EotN's imbalanced dungeons without ever learning the lesson that's held within. They'll never learn anything about countering skill type except that Ursan Blessing > all. If they're looking for a team to beat a quest they're finding difficult they'll look for Ursans because, in their experience, 'Ursan is ze best,' and my tremendously OP echo SS build with melee shutdown and an interupt tossed in for defying ele induced death will be forever lost amoung the pages of viable builds. I'd imagine that if I were to join one of these PUG's, show my Slayer of All title as is custom and ping my SS build, they'd kick me. EotN may be seen to promote the dwindling number of PUGs but, for me, outside of my guild, I don't think I'm ever gonna help another desperate soul. Elitist elites are fine but, as much as I'd like to be seen as a helpful and good player, elitist noobs just make me angry. I'll just go recluse and work on new builds while ya'll make yourselves proud grinding to God Amoung Mortals. Maybe one day I'll join you and know how it feels.Spawnlegacy 06:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that not every Ursan player is a noob. Some use that skill because it's more efficient or easier to PUG with, but will revert to using effective regular builds if Ursan is nerfed. They'll probably still be elitist though. -- Alaris 13:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

90% of them are, and most of those being Warriors(with fugly primevil but that's not really important). Hell, I've seen dervishes, rangers, mesmers and paragons play ursan better than most warriors do.(From the rare times I decide to pug Forgewright and Duncan instead of alliance it, or if I'm bored and want a laugh). Ursan only provides additional support to the "Almost all PvE Warriors are nubs" thought. If Ursan is nerfed you can expect the old OB Flesh tanks to return, they havn't had work to do in a long time, well outside of Terra Tanking anyway.--Masato 17:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Ahem i said they overdid dmg what does asking me to show you as skill that does that much damage help you argue?? and ya you can easily have alot of AoE knockdowns there are far to many skills that can do so to list them all.

How is this for a balance to ursan Rage the skill you seem to hate most. Deal 50...100 physical damage to all adjacent foes, foes who were attacking are interrupted. Tenri 07:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

That would only work about half the time, as in HM even spellcasters are attacking you with wand/staff bursts. It wouldn't take long for people to start using Rage one at a time and only when the enemy is attacking.--Masato 16:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not even going to bother taking apart the whole argument by Isolina Black. I only use this: "EVERYONE who has had an account before EoTN came out hates Ursan, and it's really not necessary at all" Everyone. Everyone from several hundreds of thousands of players hates it. Right... Please, I mean no offense, but your opinion is not the opinion of everybody else. Get that into your head. Takekaze 02:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Once again, that is your opinion and in a player discussion arguments are opinion based. Try to understand that we are all merely using what tools we have available to make Ursan look bad/good and you, my friend, have few. Try being original instead of making arguments designed purely to make others look bad. Spawnlegacy 16:59, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

A Case for Ursan

→ moved from User talk:Regina Buenaobra

Random PuGs in harder areas tend to fail, usually due to build inefficiencies, lack of teamwork which is caused by a lack of defined roles, then add a dash of face-punching mobs, environmental effects and whatever else. If they didn't fail, it would be easier, like the rest of the game is in the starting missions on NM. PuGs there don't usually fail.

Folks who have reached the harder areas enjoy not failing, so order has been made out of chaos. A team build that has been proven efficient has been developed, and people who don't want to fail agree to form groups with this build and include those who also want to run it, in the name if efficiency, that is, efficiency starting up, getting out, and finishing the quest.

This isn't new. In the new Tombs, Barrage/Pet is one example. It works well, people call for it, and run it all the time. Ursan is not much different. Some groups might be misinformed about how effective Ursan r7 is compared to r10, but many don't care. Many just hope that you don't over-aggro and get out of range of the monks. You know, play your role so that failure doesn't occur.

This isn't a bad thing. This is a good thing. It lets people play. Ursan is just one part of a team build, like minions or Barrage is one part of Barrage/Pet. Sway is a PvP example. No single aspect of the build is overpowered, but it is not hard to run once you learn how properly, and easy to set up a random team, and most importantly, you stand a chance to win if you play your role correctly.

Those who want deeper play in harder areas, play beyond PuGs, you need to know how to get groups that aren't PuGs, and the first step is to have and maintain friends list, or be in a like-minded guild. Pugging is nearly impossible in Urgoz and The Deep, even with Ursan, not only because of the lack of people, but the way that those Missions are set up. You need Rebirth and Necrotic Traversal. You need to split up your team of 12 into 4 teams of 3. These very hard missions simply cannot be beaten with a PuG. If you refuse to have a guild or friends list, then some areas are already off limits to you.

If your main concern is that Ursan stagnates creative build making, then a duration nerf might be justified, so that Ursan becomes just one part of a player's skill bar, instead of the focus.

If your main concern against is finding a PuG in a high end area that doesn't want a specific build, then nerfing Ursan doesn't solve anything. The next most efficient build will just take its place.

If your main concern against Ursan is that it makes hard zones easier, you'll find that most good skills and team builds do. Energy Surge is better than Energy Burn, and plenty of things are better than Flare on a monk. Knowing AI patterns helps tons, and so does having a general strategy (even things like pulling, shutdown, not over extending, or killing priority targets like hard res characters first). Ursan just happens to be one that works the best. Again, if it's nerfed, the next most efficient build will just take its place.

To extend on this, if your main concern is that this build lets people who haven't beaten the area, beat it after you've already beat it some other way, then you should realize that it does not ever take anything away from you. There are people on the wiki complaining, because you can go back and update your HoM with Obsidian armor once GW2 is released. This is the same, and flawed way of thinking that more people doing things takes away from your personal accomplishments. The first cartographers had it hard, and even they swapped reference maps to find the last nooks. FFF is now streamlined efficient down to a science. The first explorers of the Deep and Urgoz probably died dozens of times, solving traps and simply learning how to progress.

Things get easier as knowledge becomes common. This has always been true.

That's how I see it. If Anet decides to nerf it, I hope they do so for the right reasons, and in the right way, and I hope they explain their justification well, and I hope it's a good one.--Skye Marin 01:17, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I understand the point you're making, and it is valid. I think no one has a problem with Ursan builds being effective in tough areas. The issue is that it's become a "Universal" build. It takes strategy out of the equation. Without that, the whole game is reduced to a button mash. I remember a time when we actually had to change our skill bars, suiting them to the areas we faced, compensating for or augmenting the skills of other party members was a necessity. We even scouted new areas to see what we'd be up against before building a team to face it. Now that is no longer needed. Everyone just loads up as an Ursan or HB monk and that's it. Removing any strategic planning and forcing parties into a cookie-cutter build makes it easier to complete missions, but not necessisarily more fun. There is a large segment of the community who equates fun with challenge. They teased us with hard mode, then dropped in dozens of PvE skills that made it easier than the original easy mode.

I would like to see some changes to Ursan Blessing, reducing it's effectiveness in end-game areas. If your good enough to clear the Underworld or DoA, you should be good enough to do it with standard skills. If you're not that good, you don't belong there. Force people to examine their builds again. Force them to experiment with different skills and different teams. Let them adapt to the many unique challenges the Devs have worked so hard to implement in these different areas. Let them appreciate the fact that they are playing in an elite area and that actually means something. Vlatro 21:25, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The only way in which you're wrong is that Ursan is pressing 2 or 3 buttons to do insane damage and clear areas easily. It promotes no skill and it means you NEED to get into a PvE guild or regularly PvE to find other players who WILL play something OTHER than Ursan in order to actually run BALANCED in DoA. Tbh, I'm not quitting from a fucking TOP TWO FUCKING HUNDRED GUILD in order to have a little fun in PvE. 82.34.128.95 13:00, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I think people generally miss a trend that is becoming more and more evident within the game, its the reliance on Ursan. People faced with a challenge will generally just say "throw on Ursan and lets do this" or "we need more Ursans". This is what I am seeing as most of my parties have just been PUGs, which make up a large portion of the PvE ingame community.

We already know that the number of Ursan users is 'huge' [I've seen more Ursans on peoples bars than I've see Res Signets], I have yet to go into any PUG or more organised group in the game that doesn't have it on their bar. Ursan is growing out of control, changing it, even remotely now runs the risk of Arenanet trending on far more toes than they ever have with changing any one skill. I think people don't realise just how far spread Ursan has become. The skill in itself could be a fun skill, don't get me wrong its an interesting skill [to which the logic behind it I would love to know], with balance I would probably use it outside of EOTN but, for my play style, running it outside of that expansion cheapen the entire game for me.

Most of what I see in Guild Wars I like, but one of my largest critisms of Arenanet comes from Ursan and their complete lack of interest. I say lack of interest as its been months that they've been " looking into it" and I'm sure their data will show more and more players are having Ursan on their bar more and more. Arenanet has allowed a culture to come into the game, the reliance of Ursan, and I think they seriously need to rethink their position. No one skill, outside of the original profession mechanics, should overpower that equation, Profession/Secondary. Ursan is overpowered outside of that balance due to its nature, a title track skill vs a profession based skill.

Eh, I'm done talking about Ursan, its starting to get boring, and my interest in Arenanet is starting to go the same way. 000.00.00.00 01:41, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Great post Skye.Manitoba1073 01:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

As Regina said here: "Until such time that I actually have something to discuss or report about this, I am not going to entertain Ursan Blessing threads here. Thanks". Therefore this discussion belongs elsewhere. Erasculio 01:48, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, very true. I should have remembered that. >.< 000.00.00.00 01:51, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

The very fact that people actually still defend this steaming shit pile still eludes and amazes me. -- nüklaer | VII | Selfless self promotion 20:02, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

It's too late for them to nerf Ursanway. This skill has been OP for so long too many people use and rely on it, to nerf it now would alienate most of the GW players. 122.104.167.139 06:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Nuclear sory to come back but why do you hate ursan so much what has it done to you beyond stop you from getting balanced teams. The first post here is a good one and i personally like the way Skye Marin said it. But before you go crazy at me again remember this i think it has to be balanced a lot, not nuked into oblivion as you think it should, the reason it should be balanced is because it is unfair to people who cant get GW:EN for ursan in endgame areas, or don't want to use ursan in endgame areas.(this is because of build discrimination which i am discussing next in my post)

To the people that don't want to use ursan in endgame areas, i don't want to have to be an obsidian tank i don't want to have to reroll a different profession and beet whatever game it is just so i can finish a elite area on not my main character, this is not profession discrimination QQ it is the old elite area setup hate.

How is having to run oby tank 3 nuker 3 healer 2 rangers different then having to run 5 ursan 3 healer? in my opinion it is not as they are both what work best(i may have the team setup wrong but that is because i only wanted to do DoA or other elite areas with my friends but they were to scared to try). Sure Oby tank nuker and ranger builds are builds that use 8 skills, and not just ursan blessing dwarven stability and the mantra of what element you will be facing carrying rezes in case of an issue and using ether sig when ursan runs out but wait that can be 8 skills to.(sure not a setup most ursans use because it requires some foreknowledge of the are you will be entering) Tenri 17:24, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1--hey let's not worry about the monster chasing the squishies! Why? They have armor boost! They're better than other tanks! Ezekial Riddle 18:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

What armor boost are you talking about? there are hundreds of skills that give armor boosts and there are thousands of builds that use 3 skills only activating the others outside of battle. Tenri 00:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

"Elite Skill. Lose all your enchantments. You take on the aspect of the bear. Your Energy returns to maximum and you have -2 Energy degeneration. You have +10...20 armor and +100...200 maximum Health. Bear attacks replace your skills. You gain Energy every time you take or deal damage. Ends when your Energy drops to 0. "

I'm assuming you misread what I was trying to say. Other than Earth eles and prot/smites, when do casters tank? Talk about getting rid of class identity. A single skill allows this use of repeated buttons and it's not a bitch to maintain. Enchantments, stances, etc. all have a finite limit before they need to be recast or before they need to recharge then recast. It's no problem with Ursan, just find something to beat the shit out of. Ezekial Riddle 05:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

perhaps. Defy pain you have an additional 90...258...300 Health and an additional 20 armor. Avatar of Balthazar you gain +40 armor, you move 33% faster. both of those make you a better tank than ursan either by taking less dmg or having a greater health boost both can be kept up permanently and better yet you get to keep your enchants. Also as i have said before the only thing that make ursan better than anything else is the 150 armor ignoring damage change that to physical and ursan is just another build no better than anything else. Tenri 07:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) The 150 armor ignoring damage is the only overpowered thing? What about the unconditional AoE kd with a 10 second recharge which also deals a good bit of damage? Or the earshot range weakness that a team of Ursans can keep up infinitely? Along with the +20 armor and +200 health, Ursan blessing is something no other build can come close to matching. Even if the 150 damage was made to be armor ignoring, nothing would come close.

Defy Pain

Obsidian Flame

Whirlwind

Enfeebling Blood

Order of Pain

Pious Haste

Blank

Blank

This is the closest that I could come up with to cover all the benefits Ursan gives. I'd like you to notice a few things:

1. Its not possible to get all these skills on the same bar, due to profession restrictions.
2. Even at 12 for every attribute, these skills are not as good as the Ursan versions.
3. The skills come at a cost:
   1. Defy Pain costs adrenaline, which you must build up by doing physical damage, meaning you would not be able to use this skill right when you enter battle. Not only that, your weak against anti-physical skills. It is also a strength skill, meaning you have to have warrior as your primary.
   2. Obsidian Flame costs energy and exhaustion, a warrior spamming this would run out of energy extremely quickly. It still doesn't do as much damage as the current Ursan Strike.
   3. Whirlwind relies on the adjacent enemies attacking and has an energy cost. It also deals a lot less damage. It does however have a slightly shorter recharge.
   4. Enfeebling Blood has a 10% life sac and a much smaller AoE. It does last longer but imo its still worse.
   5. Order of Pain has a large sac, energy cost, cast time and can be stripped. It also doesn't work on allies like bone minions.
   6. Pious haste, while having a shorter recharge, it has a shorter duration, energy cost and can be stripped.
4. With this build, you have two option slots. When playing an Ursan, you get 7 other skills to play with when not in god mode.

See why simply nerfing ursan strike to do physical damage isn't enough? — Teh Uber Pwnzer 08:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

"perhaps. Defy pain you have an additional 90...258...300 Health and an additional 20 armor. Avatar of Balthazar you gain +40 armor, you move 33% faster. both of those make you a better tank than ursan either by taking less dmg or having a greater health boost both can be kept up permanently and better yet you get to keep your enchants."

AoB: takes an additional spell to maintain. Defy Pain runs on adrenaline which will run out when out of combat. You have to stay in combat in order keep that up permanently, which is a very poor strategy choice. Plus, with both of those, there are finite limits. There are times when you need to pay at least a bit of attention, but with Ursan, it's just "MORE BLOOD! BLAAARRGGHHH!" Plus, you never hear of a team of 5 AoB Dervs or 5 Defy Pain Wars with 3 HB Monks, simply because those skills don't also provide elementalist amounts of damage with shorter downtimes. Ezekial Riddle 18:48, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

AoE knockdown can be done so many ways that bringing it up is pointless AoE weakness can be done in a few ways but not at such a huge range and you can make a team that will do more dmg that ursans but there are more counters for other kinds of skills. so i ask you this you would rather run a set group of builds that you stray from and your kicked or would you rather run a set lvl of tites if you stray from your kicked? to me both are pointless ways to make a team. Tenri 18:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The point is to make Ursan as viable as other builds, so that you have a choice. You're more likely to get into a team if you have to either bring a good build or bring Ursan at a high-enough level. That's IMO an improvement over either choices presented. -- Alaris 18:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I would like to see ursan just as viable as any other mele build as that is what it was supposed to be i believe they just overdid it a bit. Tenri 20:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't. It completely ruins a crucial part of Guild Wars. Your build. Any skill that is enough to win is bad in my book. -- NUKLEAR IIV 20:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Tenri, no one skill should be able to effectively make profession mean nothing. If you're crafty you can have a AL 60 character get near 100+ armour with this skill, effectively turning an Elementalist or Nerco or other squishy into a Warrior; but with Ursan they can outperform pretty much anything a Warrior can offer. Ursan was/is an interesting skill, but has providen to be:

1. Bad game design
2. Bad developer decision: to allow it to spread as it has.

PvE only kills can be aloud to be a little overpowering, a little, but with Ursan Arenanet has missed the mark and continued on another hundred yards. 000.00.00.00 23:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok yes your right but ursan was supposed to make all proffecions able to play warrior they just overdid dmg. Why do you keep arguing when i keep saying it has to be balanced, o right you guys don't want anyone to be able to play warrior but warriors. Tenri 17:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Only the damage is overpowered? Look above at that big list I made. Tons of AoE knockdowns? Show me one besides Ursan's that does 130 physical damage, is unconditional and has a 10 second recharge. Merely changing Ursan Strike to physical isn't enough. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 18:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

"you guys don't want anyone to be able to play warrior but warriors", Ursan wasn't designed to be a warrior replacement, and it does replace warriors, and outperforms them = bad game design. No one skill should be able to turn you into a Warrior for the duration to which Ursan can be maintained, and it rapidly outclasses Warriors. You want everyone to be able play a Warrior even though something else then make at least make it reasonable. Add a duration to it at least. Man, they could make it like the Avatars for all I care, a good amount of time to get the benefits that it gives you, at least a duration with a decent recharge would be better than this, I was actually able to keep Ursan up quite nicely on my Dervish just by having enchantments cast on me outside of battle. Arenanet may have had a nice idea but their execution just stinks. PvE Only skills can be overpowering to a point, but as I said before "with Ursan Arenanet has missed the mark and continued on another hundred yards."

Changing all Ursan's damage to physical would still make NM easy with it [depending on areas and the armour level of what you're hitting], but have you tried using it in HM and watching how much the AOE does? 120 physical damage reduced to about half of that to some foes I observed, less to some Warrior types, physical damage would probably be the only thing they'd consider [though I seriously doubt they'll actually change the damned skill]. Changing the damage type would be simplier for the community for Ursan users [that Arenanet is very concerned with upsetting] to understand than changing each skill on one or more points. I can't see them really doing anything, but they could at least 'do something', or I'm hoping if its good for Guild Wars that they'll have it so we can get it in Guild Wars 2 because I half expect them to just copy and paste it to not upset the legions that use the flipping skill religiously to be able to do anything in the game. I'm personally getting sick of meeting groups that have Ursan has a requirement and get bitchy and immature when you don't use it, you either get kick, leave or find yourself trying to explain why you want to use your profession based build. Or maybe I'm just meeting all the wrong kind of ingame people.

I'm not holding my breath though, Arenanet's interest in any kind of balance in PvE is mild to say the less. 000.00.00.00 18:56, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Hey, have some faith. They at least tried to nerf Perma-SF farming in UW, so they may be getting somewhere. Ezekial Riddle 19:57, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

QUOTE :::As Regina said here: "Until such time that I actually have something to discuss or report about this, I am not going to entertain Ursan Blessing threads here. Thanks". Therefore this discussion belongs elsewhere. Erasculio 01:48, 6 July 2008 END QUOTE --- Erasculio That is not exactly what Regina said, it is only part of it. The complete statement was: This discussion is going in circles. People have repeated themselves multiple times and there will be no resolution to this issue in this particular discussion thread. The designers are working on Ursan Blessing when they have time to spare from working on GW2 development. We're getting a dedicated designer on GW1 very soon, and this will probably one of the first things to tackled. Until such time that I actually have something to discuss or report about this, I am not going to entertain Ursan Blessing threads here. Thanks.--............. Now tell me, in genuine earnest that Regina's words mean anything other than - "Fuck you guys, I am sick of being asked to do my job when it is unpleasant. We already have your money for EoTN so support for EoTN is a secondary concern to us. We are busy working on GW2 so we can release it in time to get more of your money. Eventually we will hire someone as inexperienced with Guild Wars as I am to do something which has so far not really been considered, because there is no reason for us to hurry, we already have your money. -----I am sorry but Regina makes me angry. Gaile used to avoid a lot of stuff and she'd get pretty pisy sometimes, but at least she was forthright and honest.

Ursan Sucks Because...

...all it teaches you are a few things about Guildwars:

1) aww nuts I can't use it in PVP!

2) grinding for *this* max title ain't so bad!

3) this is such an easy game to play!

4) there are *other* skills in this game?

5) I suck at this game cause I can't do anything except Ursan!

6) oh look, I ain't the only Ursan-godlike player!

Since Ursan has come out, so many new players to GW's - those who have only played since GW:EN was released - have not learned how to play this game correctly, or how to balance a build for a specific area, or really had the true GW's experience. Ursan takes away from the real fun and awe and fear and challenge of many areas, a statement that cannot be denied based on the number of 'old school' players - more than 2 years of playing the game, more than 3000hours - that will still avoid using Ursan.

Sadly Ursan has gone from a gimmick ability to an out of control I-want-to-finish-the-game-in-two-hours-or-I-won't-bother-with-it-again skill. It's time that Ursan and the other GW:EN PVE skills were confined to GW:EN only, in the same way that Lightbringers is confined to Nightfall and the demons of that game. --Shaia 13:29, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

But I like Pain Inverter in UW. : (

Seriously though, restrict blessings to norn lands since that's where the shrines are located. (And nerf cons cough cough) Let us keep the other skills since they don't draw power from a shrine or whatever. Restrict them to eotn and you'd have to do the same to the lux/kurz skills, sunspear and lightbringer(though lb isn't useful outside of nf anyway) For Avatar dervs Eternal Aura is dead helpful in many areas(I run a Lyssa-Eternal build for general things and HM and it REALLY helps to keep it up continously)

In the end it's to late to do anything to Ursan, Anet let it drag on to long and if nerfed a big chunk of players would leave(Fine, prices for rares will go up again and nubs wll leave. Makes me happy.) Eyes are gonna be on GW2 and the Norn's Bear Form skill now. If Anet doesn't limit it's power in a serious way, I can say without a doubt in my mind GW2 will fail and not even in an epic way.(I'll get it reguardless for Charr, I have an addiction to em)--Masato 18:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Factions\Nightfall PvE skills should be restricted... GW can live with it and they do not break profession system. And Ursan may stay in GW:EN, it would be a perfect decision. De1m0s 20:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

why are people so hyped up over the nornbear skill it is nothing compared to ursan you can solo the norn even when they use there nornbear skill. Tenri 00:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

A point on the Luxon/Kurzick skills for PVE, I don't believe it's necessary to have these limited to Factions only, this is an account-wide title and so should be available game-wide. The Sunspear skills I think was Anet's first way of trying to balance out the PVP Skill vs PVE Skill nerfing. Primarily I believe it was aimed at the Paragon class to give them some value again in the PVE world with There's Nothing to Fear - we all know how that turned out. HOWEVER, with the subsequent introduction of GW:EN PVE skills, they again managed to make the Paragon class lose a whole lot of value, primarly with the Ebon Vanguard protection wards. One can suppose that these skills were added in as a motivational effort to lure new players to the GW's world. As such, most of these new players are all playing GW:EN and thus having these PVE Skills only available in the GW:EN lands wouldn't have too large of an impact on these new players' ability to play the game. GW:EN is easy enough as it is, and I would not be buying another part of a game if it were this easy - where's the challenge in that? Certainly the argument that it has been around this long, can to a point mean an unlikely change - knowing Anet though, one cannot bet on it - but when you consider things like Divine Healing and Heaven's Delight and the changes that were made to those skills, it is not so hard to imagine that a change can be made to Ursan. That it will affect a LARGE part of the community farming or breezing through areas outside of GW:EN is a truth, yet all these places are doable without the Ursan skill both in HM and NM, all it does take is a bit of planning and understanding of the area. GW's was a game that required player skill when it was initially released. Now...well 1 2 3 1 2 1 3 2 is even more lame than the SF/GG elementalist doing 1 2 1 2 1 2 all the time. --Shaia 09:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

If a game is too easy it ain't fun. In fact it can't be considered a game at all. Movies are about sitting back and watching stuff. Games are about testing your skills in an interactive way. Anet please keep your debug/god mode... err Ursan Blessing for your developers, thanks. Eth

"why are people so hyped up over the nornbear skill it is nothing compared to ursan you can solo the norn even when they use there nornbear skill"

Because A: The version in the current game may not be the same for GW2(and most likely isn't) and B: Reguardless if it's the same or not it still needs to be toned down. We don't see it outside of the first encounter with norn shrine npcs or in the norn missions, but looking around I can see a number of issues with the skill if it was accessible to players. Since the present state of things won't likely ever change we have to look to the future.--Masato 15:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

"it is not so hard to imagine that a change can be made to Ursan. That it will affect a LARGE part of the community farming or breezing through areas" I agree with that. Besides, it was the same thing with Shadow Form (that quote applies to it as well), and they eventually did nerf it, though in a way that still allowed it to be used for running, which is fine for me, since it's the only time I use it (and it's slower than most other running builds, energy-intensive). Nerfing Ursan would have a huge impact on the PvE meta, but it would recover. It's bound to get nerfed eventually, and even if people do leave because of it, I say good riddance, because you don't belong in this game anyway, if you need to rely on something like that to succeed.

Shadowform didn't really affect a LARGE part, just the solo farmers like Green farmers and raptor farmers(though raptors can still be owned). It's not like SF had a use outside running in proh and solo farming where as Ursan can pretty much beat the crap out of most things in all the games.--Masato 17:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I am of the mind Arenanet won't change it. Sad, but its been far too long that they've been looking 'into it', too much time as past and Ursan's own little sub-culture in the game is too wide spread. I've been playing with Ursan for about a week, primarily using it to finish HM books in GWEN but have found the last few missions I haven't used it, and don't actually have it on my bar anymore. Ursan is far too limiting, it limits my character far too much. Yes, its powerful, overpowering if you ask me, but its just killing the functionality of my main character, the only one with it. Just nerf the flipping thing already, Anet. 000.00.00.00 22:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

ursan is guud u just fail teribly cuz u are low norn rank end QQ becus u cant get fow armor like me cuz im a poweful r10 ursan --Frozen Archer 22:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thats the best argument for ursan so far... |Foul Bane| 23:01, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

He's a troll, don't respond to such edits please. De1m0s 23:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Please Stop Ursan Bashing

Although there are a few scattered postings defending Ursans they are pretty few and far between. Please stop bashing Ursan, finding a set that works and running it as meta is nothing new. Before Ursan came along all elite areas were farmed with 1 Obby Tank, 3 Monks, and 4 Eles, maybe if your team was creative they would slip in a SS (Note all the Professions that could not even get a team) Also all those people on here claiming Ursan has killed all the elite areas are not the people who used to run those area before. Areas that would take hours to put together teams and even longer to beat them, it took a strong team over 6 hours to beat Urgoz's warren and don't even think of beating UW without at least 2 leavers. So please guys if anything Ursan is a blessing to all those players that aren't monks, eles, warriors, or Warriors. If you really have some strong Ursan hate and can't get over it find something that works better. Sorry if this sounds a little "Rant-ish" but in my defense there is pretty much 3 very full pages of Ursan based whining Monk Texas Ranger 23:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Stop bashing Ursan because it makes areas easier to form teams is by no means an effective counter arguement to keeping it as it is.

You need to find an effective arguement when countering non-area specific questions/statements as well.

1. Ursan users do not necessarily have to invest any attribute points into their character due to it being a title track skill
2. Ursan has too many benefits not relating to professions, bonus armour, bonus health not to mention the skills that come free with it [and a flawed drawback system that can easily be compenstated for].
3. Ursan users can easily have their AL increased to over 100+ depending on their attribute setup and secondary, making even original 60AL characters effective tanks [probably not so much in HM but still very effective]
4. Due to it being a title track skill there is no way of dimishing its effectiveness, as can be done with profession based attributes.
5. Due to its main strike being armour ignoring and spammable it outperforms most skills avaliable to professions, I have yet to test it personally but word is skills such as Empathy don't work against the Strike as its classed as a skill, not an attack.
6. Counters such as blind do not affect Ursan's damage dealing skills.
7. Several Ursan can effectively surpress entire parties with weakness and knockdowns are more effectively than any profession/team combinations
8. The speed boost from one skill can effectively be maintained [only ending due to energy loss]
9. Zealous mods do not effect the energy degen, providing a benefit at no cost where there usually would be one, allowing double the energy return for no cost, very effective for scythes even with no investment in that attribute.
10. A culture of dependence on the skill. A more wide spread sense of elitism, players now being rejected from parties due to not having Ursan.
11. Coupled with consumables Ursan users can effectively be considered more potent than HM mobs.
12. Arenanet's lack of interest in balancing the skill, they say they're looking but also admitting changing it would upset a huge number of people [what are you scared Anet?]

I could go on, but I'm tired and have a cough. >.<

Oh, ps, only ever did elite areas with guildies and without Ursan. 000.00.00.00 00:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, another point, elite areas were designed to be a challenge, and if the challenge meant you spend 2-6 hours in an area then so be it, keeping Ursan becomes you spend less time in areas designed to take time is a counter to your own arguement. 000.00.00.00 00:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

"Also all those people on here claiming Ursan has killed all the elite areas are not the people who used to run those area before" Really? I was under the impression that I had completed DoA hundreds of times befor EOTN, and hundreds of times as non-ursan after EOTN. Are you telling me I'm lieing to myself?

Let's see what else I can agree with and/or rip into because I'm in a interesting mood tonight.

"Ursan users do not necessarily have to invest any attribute points into their character due to it being a title track skill"

Those who don't are failure players, I'd love to see em try to fight with the blessing locked down with 0 attributes.

"Ursan has too many benefits not relating to professions, bonus armour, bonus health not to mention the skills that come free with it [and a flawed drawback system that can easily be compenstated for]."

CoughAvatarsCough

"Due to it being a title track skill there is no way of dimishing its effectiveness, as can be done with profession based attributes."

Don't max that title?

"Due to its main strike being armour ignoring and spammable it outperforms most skills avaliable to professions, I have yet to test it personally but word is skills such as Empathy don't work against the Strike as its classed as a skill, not an attack."

/agree, nothing that could really fix that outside of interupt.

"Several Ursan can effectively surpress entire parties with weakness and knockdowns are more effectively than any profession/team combinations"

Only if they all don't use the skills at once like most players do. Req Vent.

"Zealous mods do not effect the energy degen, providing a benefit at no cost where there usually would be one, allowing double the energy return for no cost, very effective for scythes even with no investment in that attribute."

/agree, fix it so that the -1 works correctly.

"A culture of dependence on the skill. A more wide spread sense of elitism, players now being rejected from parties due to not having Ursan."

Ursan is to Elite Areas as Rank is to Heroes' Ascent. Same thing happening in both modes.

"Coupled with consumables Ursan users can effectively be considered more potent than HM mobs."

/True To bad most ursan players fail even with cons.

I'd do more but I wanta finish duncan sometime tonight, so ya.--Masato 03:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

hehehe nice Masato, but [cough] no Avatar replaces an entire skill bar with armor ignoring attack that bypasses multiple counters, a speed boost, aoe knockdown and aoe weakness etc... and the Avatars are profession based with a true benefit to only one profession :P [cough] 000.00.00.00 05:35, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

As much as I find the points are valid and true enough, agreeable to the extent that Ursan does defeat the very purpose of 'skill-building' that the game, nay, most games are founded upon, I think that these large vocal and, sometimes, insulting/threatening comments have gone long enough. Anet has already addressed the issue and will get to sorting it out, we don't know when, but they will. End of. The constant whining of 'I want my toy back' is needless, it's like taking a child to a shop and having to pull them away from the sweets constantly and so they begin to whine, needless to say, it gives yourself and others a headache. Yes, you've all made your points, you've shut down any 'Ursans' who tried to defend their skills by using the same points over and over again, sometimes more explained and in depth. It's agreed that UB requires little to no technique, but please give it a rest and enjoy the many other skills that are at your leasure within the GW game as it'll keep your e-pride intact and whatnot. Remember, Anet cares, they've tried to make popular builds less popular before, UB is no exception.Whisperer 23:56, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Persistency stimulates urgency. The longer we are vocal, the more pressure there is on ANet to do something. Ezekial Riddle 00:49, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

And secondly, anyone who sees it as 'whining' is actually missing the point entirely. And I agree with Riddle, you get more done when applying pressure. 000.00.00.00 01:02, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Applying pressure? I didn't see it as 'whining' at first, but if you refer to the oh so large page before you, you'll notice how long and how many various techniques have been used to 'pressurise' Anet into doing something, we're not the mafia so there is no need to pressure a company into doing your bidding when they've already stated what they would do. If I "missed the point entirely" please state where, because, apparently, the foundation of the game is not the main point of what Ursan has been ruining, so is it the pride of the elites? Furthermore, the game economy, as any economy is, is dependant on the PLAYERS, not the builds the players use, someone did threaten to crash the economy and that's just proof written in black on white; Ursan doesn't ruin the economy, nor does SF, it's those players who, perhaps, use those builds or their own special build to gain ectos within elite areas and sell the game rarities to merchants at a constant supply, when, even if you over farm ectos, the price would not drop if players didn't sell them to merchants. Whisperer 07:23, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok i am going to pressure you guys until you think of a way to help them balance this skill. got one yet? how bout now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now? now?(get my point yet probably not) -- Tenri 07:13, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Try thinking straight while getting constant DPS. Wait... what? =D -- Alaris 08:30, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, I think you're missing the point of my arguement; it isn't about the 'elites', I for one have never, nor would ever, be/have been considered an 'elite' player, and this I am happy with. From what I've seen of the 'elite' and the economy in Guild Wars it and they can go <insert your favourite bad 'f' word here> themselves. I've seen what the 'elisist attitude' was before Ursan, and I see it now with Ursan; to which is becoming/has become the new elite but no longer is based on profession and copy and pasted builds but one skill [with a preset build] and at least a rank of 8+. Nor do I give a hoot about the economy.  :)

What I do care about is how Ursan has diffused into the community, and not in a positive way. Yes, there are positives to any change, as there are negatives. For me the elitist attitude, the effect on the economy are immaterial.

Ursans effects are my concern, not just the overpowered nature of the skill but also the sub culture in the community because of it. It effects my gameplay as a player of the game, especially when I personally don't wish to play the skill and either get kicked from, leave because of attitudes of Norn rank requirements, or have to justify my build to people in groups. And, no, I'm not always on when my guild are on. I generally solo play but since Arenanet 'encourages' people to do missions together, since Guild Wars is not a single player game, the effects come into play. I say it effects me as before Ursan I never found myself affected in such a way. Ursan has direct and indirect effects. 000.00.00.00 09:06, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm aware of the attitudes of the 'High and mighty' of Guild Wars, I too play singular with henchies and heroes most, if not, all the time. But attitudes like this will always persist whenever players deem themselves more useful, some may be more modest than most. Regardless, I didn't mean to imply that you were an elitist, it was merely a quick comment to show that the former, "the foundation of the game is the main point of what Ursan has been ruining", was infact more true than you saying 'I'm missing the point'. There are multiple rebounds and diverse effects that are affecting multiple players, so it's true what you said, but I wasn't targeting YOU as a person, the main issue has been stated, as have the others multiple times, I just want this pointless relisting of them to stop. As for the game economy, meh xD I like it! Makes the game feel somewhat more 'realistic' and buisness-like. Whisperer 13:17, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay true on the avatars, I had forgotten that. I'd say more but I just woke up and can't bare to read all the text atm. Perhaps later.--Masato 16:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey Tenri, have a look at this. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 19:36, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Whisperer, sorry if my post come across as a defence of a call out, but their is a general sense that only the elites want this skill changed, which is flawed when a non-elite player wants it changed too :P

Oh, and on the economy, maybe its because I'm no good with money ;) lol 000.00.00.00 20:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok Uber as i had said i would in that archive i left the ursan blessing page for a while and didn't see that go up before it was archived but using that doesn't matter there are way more people out here just saying nerf ursan than proposing changes no body bothers to look in the archives so nobody will see those suggestions altho some are fairly good.

And you probably want to know what i think should be done i will only say for ursan

Ursan Blessing - You have 70...90 armor, 500...700 maximum health, and 20 maximum energy all enchantments stances, shouts, and echoes on you end, your primary attribute is reduced to 0, you have -2 energy regeneration and gain 1 energy every time you take or deal damage.

Ursan Strike - attack skill you deal 20...50 slashing damage to target foe, if no foes are adjacent to target foe target takes an addition 20...50 slashing damage, else one adjacent foe takes 20...50 slashing damage.

Ursan Rage - skill All adjacent foes take 50...100 physical damage, affected foes are interrupted

Ursan Roar - shout for 2...5 seconds all allies withing earshot deal +5...20 damage with there normal attacks, all foes withing earshot attack and activate skills 10...25% slower

Ursan Force - no change seems necessary to me

Well what do you think it may not be enough to satisfy you but it removes everything you seem to hate so much by giving you a set health / armor / and energy no way to increase them other than signets and plain skills that give boosts. -- Tenri 21:37, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I do like the edit on Ursan Strike, atleast it has gotten rid of the large spammable damage players love to abuse, not bad at all =) But I still think a lil' more tweaking is in order with the other skills suggested. Haha, it's alright and it is agreed that there appears to be more 'elites' or seemingly better players out there arguing that this skill is unbalanced, 000.00.00.00, but I knew there would be some that just hated the constant abusing that players pull off on easy builds and other affected factors that ensue. Anet, I think, notices that when particular builds become too common, it's because they're unbalanced and people are just finding shortcuts through the gaming experience of Guild Wars, obviously the logical way of thinking. People who abuse/post builds that are considered 'imba' can't honestly expect that Anet will leave it untouched, it's a bit of arrogance really, shame my Paragon has suffered, but hey, I try to work around it.

I'm TERRIBLE with money, mind, especially with my "Must fill HoM" frenzy. Whisperer 22:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Lol, nice nice, Whisperer, I have stopped my crazed "must fill hom" frenzy for a bit, it was expensive and my character couldn't afford 3 square meals a bit.

The only suggestion I have for Ursan Force is that they put more breakable barriers in the game... I would so be found running around breaking respawn barriades to release some tention :P 000.00.00.00 22:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Tenri, I actually like that suggestion quite a bit. I would rather have a set duration on Ursan instead of the energy mechanic, but otherwise your suggestion takes care of pretty much all the problems.

@Whisperer: Paragons are still more powerful than Ursans in PvE. The only reason they're not mentioned so much is because they're not as wide spread and take slightly more skill. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 22:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Trust me, I know xD. It's a true shame though, it's a rare sight to see a paragon, atleast, when I'm strolling through outposts, don't know whether I'm just having bad timing though. But there are few skills that a paragon can consider "useful", but what I do love is that you really need to consider changing certain paragon skills when facing certain enemies, it'd nerf the enemies and buff the party. Lol 000.00.00.00, I think we could all use some more barricades. Whisperer 22:49, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

In defense of my statement way at the start of this section, the point of said statement was not that it makes forming parties easier it was 1.) Allows professions to join groups that couldn't have before, there in not detering people from making said professions 2.) Running Cookie Cutter builds is not new, although this is the first time they have been giftwrapped so nicely for us 3.) Nobody is forcing people to Ursan there are better alternatives out there, look at Save Yourselves for instance with some coordination you could make a team build that doesn't even need to have tanks. Now I am by no means saying that Ursan couldn't use a slight nerf (taking away the Armor ignoring damage for the first skill or giving it a longer recharge would be more than fair) I am very interested to see what will come of the Ursan/PvE Rebalancing but lets not say Ursan is ruining the economy, Ursan doesn't generate all that high quality loot heck if you want to blame someone for that look at 55ing I was doing that with my monk before he was even level 20 talk about unbalanced. But I was just checking my posting (sorry about the warrior, and Warrior one of those is supposed to be ranger) and thought I would justify myself a little, also to address the comment I made about people not having run elite areas I should have worded that to state that I get the feeling that many of the people on here with the strongest opinions are people that can't run Ursan, not choose not to, but can't and were offended when they were booted from a group, but again inability to conform resulting in a booting is nothing new. So again I am not necessarily pro Ursan or against it but just thought I should claridy some misconceptions about what I said. Oh yeah Mr. 0's there are plenty of issues with Ursan that can be addressed but the ones you brought up totally missed the target, forget maintainable speed boost (sig of mystic speed), or extra AL (armor of Earth)lets focus in on the whole 150 armor ignoring in two installments (gets you around prot spirit) that tends to be what makes Ursan so darn good, So dang it again this turned pretty rant-ish sorry again... heres hoping for a decent yet not crippling nerf to Ursan Monk Texas Ranger 09:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

1.) No it doesn't, it allows Ursans to join groups. The moment you use Ursan is the moment you throw away your profession along with every single skill in the game and trade it for Ursan.

2.) Those cookie cutter builds had variability. And they spanned multiple professions. You had several viable builds for each profession you mentioned. Necros were regularly taken, as well as Barrage Rangers. Mesmers, Ritualists, Dervishes, and Paragons (aka imbagons) all can fill niches. Assassins pre Critical Agility were the only ones that really had severe trouble finding a group in elite missions, though Critical Barraging was popular in my day (Sins can run OF tank btw). Ursan doesn't require profession, it requires 1 skill slot. Throw in a monk to make red bars go up.

3.) If I can't find anybody running a non-Ursan group, then I am forced to use Ursan or not play the game. And there is no single alternative skill that can replace Ursan; Save Yourselves! doesn't even come close to its level of imba.

In short, Ursan Blessing > Defy Pain, Ursan Roar > OoP/OoV + Anthem of Weariness/Enfeebling Blood, Ursan Strike > every single target attack/damage skill in the game, Ursan Rage > Earthshaker, Ursan Force > nearly, if not every, IMS in the game. All done by one skill, usable by any profession. The -2 energy degen does not make up for this; you have Critical Strikes, you have Soul Reaping, you have Energy Storage, you have Leadership, you have Zealous weaponry, you have the innate "Ursan Zealous" effect which stacks with Zealous weaponry, you have BiP. Pick a few and maintain it. This skill is imba beyond imba no matter how you look at it; none of these arguments address the fact that Ursan is a broken skill. The way that 1.) should be done is to make the other classes work just as good/easily to begin with. And again, the proper to address 2.) is to introduce a plethora of alternative methods, achieving a balanced game; it should NOT be done by skewing the game so severely that it reduces the game to one skill, creating massive imbalance. 68.51.112.211 10:00, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

.......

• Another very common, though controversial team build, is to have 2-3 healers, and the other team members use the skill Ursan Blessing at a high rank. This is mainly used for elite or difficult areas, and often used in conjunction with consumables.

Taken from, get this... THE GUIDE TO PVE!?! How far can the community fall..?

hi regina

→ moved from User talk:Regina Buenaobra

i haev an serius isue whit guildwars.

myself ima wery powerful warrior end i used not get in team cuz people sayd i was baed end all. them used to blaem me when our monk faild to heel me.

pve was wery hard until i becom rank10 ursan end now im wery powerful end strong.

but now thees peopl i talked of want arenanet to nerf ursan but ive used al my powers to become how strong i am now so i will not accept thet to hapen. i hope arenanet can see that ursan is not overpowred end that u dont lissen to al thees baed ppl on this wiki that is not as strong as me --Frozen Archer 20:37, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I like Ursan and all but a few things,

1) if you need Ursan to survive and be powerful as you say, you are NOT a good warrior or a good player

2)Do not blame the monk, if you run ahead, aggro lots and get killed, it's your fault, don't blame others for something that is your fault.

3)Saying other people are not as strong as you? Listen to yourself, you're trying to brag that your strong and yet you need ursan to make yourself strong while the people who say nerf ursan are usually strong WITHOUT ursan

My warrior is strong without ursan using a very nice Dragon Slash build (No save yourselves for those who might think I am using the Dslash godmode build) and the only reason I have used ursan lately is to try it out. I am perfectly happy learning new builds and not confining myself to one skill. YOU are not a good player, a good warrior or a good anything if you use ursan to be "strong"--Stu 20:49, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Frozen, you are a horribly obvious troll. I salute thee. -- NUKLEAR IIV 20:53, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there something administration can do to this troll? De1m0s 22:03, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

A warning was issued already. There is not need for further discussion about that topic in particular.--Fighterdoken 22:06, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

This really should be removed but lol at Stu.. Spawnlegacy 12:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

A Solution (not really)

So far, the only (somewhat, not really) valid point I see is "Ursan allows casual players to do elite areas." Let's look at this phrase for a moment. I have embolded the words casual and elite for a specific reason. Unless they're highlighting antonyms, they do not go together. This phrase is completely illogical and contradictory, simply because of the use of two words. However, regardless of word definitions and all that jargon, this one point stands out the most since the current plan for the majority of videogame companies-for at least consoles anyway-is to appeal to the casual gamer: The one that isn't the godly 96-2 in Call of Duty Four, level 70 in World of Warcraft, or that (in)famous Zezima guy from RuneScape. An important reason to the casual gamer's plight is lack of time to train. That is where we make a compromise.

Which is why I suggest we add an option under our Account Options/Management for "casual" play or "hardcore" play. Not much of a difference, except that casual plays allows access to the PvE skills that are considered Frigging/Freaking/Fucking Unbalanced Beyond All Reason, or what shall now collectively be known as FUBeAR. The catch is that you can only be on forty minutes at max(subject to change) with twelve hour intervals of "rest time," since those twelve hours are spent doing better things. If you don't play the full time, the time will reset after twelve hours. If you play twenty-five minutes, take a three hour break, then play the other fifteen minutes, the twelve hours would start after your first time getting done playing, but would reset once your done with the second time. If you play through the full time limit, your account is locked for twelve hours. It shouldn't be any problem to all the casual players who, being casual like they are, have better things to do than burn through three hours of farming the Underworld.

Any complaints that aren't related to potential exploits but do cause inconvenience to the casual user can be resolved with one phrase: Tough shit! You're casual! Not only are you aided with skills that are FUBeAR, but also Guild Wars isn't your highest priority.

Assuming that everything goes as planned, that there are no want-to-be exploiters and that there is a syzygy happening, then this is the best idea ever. Absolute genius! Who's with me?! Ezekial Riddle 05:54, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Ha Ha, fu-bears. OK, about your idea, account locking? What, do you want everyone to rage quit? How will anything get done in 40 minutes? All farms, missions, vanquishing, and alll that good stuff takes forever and a day. And the Casual vs. Hard Core, it reminds me of something. Hmm, what could it be, oh wait, oh yeah, its Hard Mode. Plus, if someone just went grinding Norn title, they deserve to reap the benefits of their boredom. Not to say that I like Ursan blessing. Its way too overpowered and I personally prefer Volfen blessing, or just AoL. Uberxman1028 06:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC) _{(ahh, whats this? i don't have an account on this wiki??)}

There are some missions that a casual gamer would not be able to complete in NM with a 40 min time limit and because you are going to want an example Dzagonur Bastion can take forever because finding a group that is capable of finishing is nigh impossible, or Gates of Madness it can be very easily over 40 mins unless you get lucky or your team knows exactly what to do. The Least they could limit you to is 2 hours because thats when the game starts sending you take a break messages. -- Tenri 07:23, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Tenri, as a casual player I've managed to complete most missions in the average time I have to play, even sometimes to redo if I failed. Oh, and I for one have managed to H/H Dzagonur Bastion in NM within 20 minutes and get masters, and I am by no means an uber-leet-super cool player either :P Arenanet encourages players to come together, so if finding a team is near impossible for areas to find perhaps that 'direction' Arenanet has chosen needs to be reviewed?

Casual players can complete most areas of the game, but areas designed to specifically take time are made for that, to take time and be a challenge, thats why they're challenging areas.

:P Ezekial, hehehe :P 000.00.00.00 09:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I have done Dzagonur's in 20 mins H/H as well. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 10:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Riddle, you've given me something to seriously think about. I honestly hadn't even begun to think about things that way. Very nice job.--Masato 16:17, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Congrats on 20 mins H/H did you just go and do that with your best character instead of an account with no skills unlocked?? Tenri 21:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I did it when I thought Avatar of Balthazar was 'da bomb' :P with very few skills unlocked for my Dervish and an imperfect made up version of Dwayna's Grace ... I didn't even have Mystic Regen back then :P Technically, you can't get to that point with no skills unlocked as well :P But yes, the time I achieved that with Heroes and Henchmen the skills available to me and my heroes were are more limited than what I had now. 000.00.00.00 21:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok fine i guess i did the same on my dervish when i went through there my first time but when i tried on my monk a couple days ago it took me a couple days of the hours i spend playing because i cant lead H/H very good as a monk.-- Tenri 21:46, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I put a lot of my success with H/H down as successful flagging: especially for me, it was successful flagging of the MM :) I believe I found myself more as a running healer between my Hero grouping and my henchman grouping [holy aoes and signet of pious light - sighs - I remember those days ... wait, I still do them now :P]. Now, would that work in HM? Probably not so much. I wanted Masters for that mission, and sat around for about 20 minutes after miserable failing my first attempt trying to work it out better :P Took 3 attempts after that to get masters :) 000.00.00.00 22:05, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Lol, and I remember when I did that I didn't know about Eternal Aura... man... I was kinda lame back then bhahahaha! 000.00.00.00 21:59, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Ursan Should Stay As Is

I, for one, thing Ursan Blessing should stay as is.

In a nutshell, it is one of the only ways a casual player can experience some large portions of the game - and I think that's a GOOD thing. I understand that some people think it makes things too easy, but some of those arguments seem to me to sound like, "Hey, this used to be an *elite* area accessable to only a few of us! What are all these other people doing here?" This is a great game which I truly enjoy and want to experience in its entirety - a sentiment I'm sure shared by many.

Why nerf the skill that allows the casual player a better chance of accessing some of the more interesting and challenging parts of the game? Shouldn't casual players have the opportunity to experience all of the game just as the hardened veterans do? I think so - and if the veterans want to prove their mettle without Ursan Blessing, they still can.

I say leave Ursan Blessing as is - otherwise we will be effectively denying access to large portions of the game to a lot of people and I think that would be a real shame. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:208.29.201.128 (talk).

"casual player": player who's playing to have fun, and is not worried about grinding or improving his skills. An elite area allows any skilled player to enter it and win; that leaves most casual players out. With Ursan, an elite area allows any player who likes to grind Ursan ranks to enter it and win; that leaves most casual players out. Grinders are not casual players - they're rather the worst kind of player the game has, and the ones that would be hurt the most if Ursan were nuked. Well, hold your keyboard, a nerf to Ursan is rumored to happen today : D Erasculio 16:37, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

"Grinders are not casual players - they're rather the worst kind of players the game has...." This is frankly my biggest problem with the vast majority of the 'nerf Ursan Blessing' arguments. It is akin to saying, "Everyone should play the game the way I do, and what's more, they should be forced to." One of the great things about this game is that each of us has the choice to play the game the way we choose to - and yes, that includes "grinders". --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:208.29.201.128 (talk).

Given how the main problem with Ursan is how everyone is rellying on it everywhere, so you cannot join a PUG unless you're willing to grind yourself a high rank of the Norn title...Speaking about "choice" is very, very ironic. There are many playstyles for GW - some (clearly) better than the others. Grinders hurt the game as all they demand from Arena Net is a reward - anyone willing to do the same content over and over without having fun while doing it, aiming only for a reward, is basically telling Arena Net that it's ok to do bad content as long as there's a shiny item in the end. How people allow themselves to be blindly led by a carrot dangled in front of their faces is something beyond my comprehension, but it's obviously not in the best interest of everyone else other than the grinders to have that kind of game. So unless you expect all players to follow the "grinder" way of playing...Arena Net is expected to nerf Ursan. Erasculio 17:12, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

What content is bad? Are you talking about the Ursan team as content is bad? So Ursan is bad because grinders are bad, because Ursan is bad? That doesn't make much sense to me. Could you clarify?--Skye Marin 18:14, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

This discussion is kinda holywar. Someone wants Ursan nerf, someone wants it to remain, and someone /ragequit GW because of it. ANet must make a difficult decision, which will hurt some people's feelings about the game. If Ursan remains, more and more hardcore PvE players will quit playing GW and probably won't buy GW2. If Ursan gets nerfed in any way, putting it on equal rights with balanced builds or even making it weaker, a huge army of bears will surely stop playing. So, ANet, the next step in this war is yours. Too bad you will lose either way. De1m0s 18:17, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Maybe the next step is comparing Ursan to Windows and balanced builds to Emacs. Or something. Also, I really think that the threat of lost players over this is generally greatly overestimated. --Star Weaver 18:40, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

208.29.201.128, your argument is very flawed. First of all, you say it allows "casual" players to do elite areas. Elite areas were supposed to give elite players a challenge, not be something any "casual" player could do. Please note, the players did not name them elite areas, ANet did. Second, you say that casual players are the ones who benefit from Ursan. The only problem is that casual players are not the type to grind for hours to get R10 Ursan. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 19:06, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I get a feeling people don't know what a casual is. -- NUKLEAR IIV 20:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Here's a big post... why? Because I like hearing myself type :P

NuclearVII, agree with you, and I agree with Pwnzer, that the argument is flawed, but seems to be one of the main ones to which Arenanet is itself not shooting down, which is surprising; using Ursan as a way to get into areas that are specifically designed to be a challenge for players who find the standard game difficult or helping the 'casual players'.

Arenanet has put itself in an interesting position with Ursan, as their position on it is a bit wobbly. Ursan wasn't designed to make the game easier, it was a GWEN elite primarily designed to break the barriades in Blood Washes Blood. Arenanet also amazes me that the first examples of the Norns and their Bear Form pales in comparsion to their Ursan Blessing. I don't want to play Norn in Guild Wars 2 because I expect the Blessing to be there, and have you seriously compared Bear Form to Ursan Blessing? Arenanet made an interesting design comparsion with Ursan, also an interesting theme comparsion, then made an equally interesting decision to leave it as is after it unbalanced a lot of the game, and is interesting to see them continue. Interesting should really be replaced with "a matter of concern"

In the end not changing it can only look bad for Arenanet; it specifically designed areas and modes to be a challenge for the casual player, and players are using Ursan and GWEN related consumables to effectively remove the conditions Arenanet put in the game to be a challenge. Hard Mode was a step up, granted they only boosted the level, attribute level and gave the AI a general boost in casting times etc but these conditions were put in to add replay value to players who managed to beat most of the aspect of the game and to step up into a more difficulty replay of the game. Arenanet has effectively used NM to accomodate to the casual player, sometimes I only have an hour a day to play, or 3 hours, but have hardly ever just as a profession based character had to log off or walk away from a mission because I ran out of time [generally only doing so when I had made stupid mistakes while H/H and had to leave us sitting back in a safe area].

To say it gives casual players more opportunities is equally as flawed, as I am a casual player but am not sitting around saying Ursan is the only way I can experience the more hardcore elements specifically designed to be just that. Ursan makes things easier, but its only because its overpowered and unbalanced. I went through a deliberate phase of using Ursan and not it stays the hell off my bar now; its dependence and restrictions as a skill are uncomplimentary to my play style, and I see the rank discrimination, Ursan requirements, and the more and more noticable bad gameplay styles it encourages coming into it which people don't seem to be paying much attention to.

Ursan is not a winning card in the hand of the casual player, and as a casual player I don't want to have to repeat a mission time and time again because one of the players using Ursan [and this has happened 9 times out of 10] has either intentionally,unintentionally over aggroed so he can keep his Blessing up and leads to the entire party being killed. Granted behaviour like that existed before but not in the facets I see it. I personally don't use Ursan to play the general game anymore [as before I went through a deliberate phase] but am sick to death of the impacts that skill is having.

1. Using Ursan as the "it gives us a chance" card is flawed and invalid, as Guild Wars is based upon [to its core] Professions, not Title Track Skills. The second Arenanet let Ursan get to the point that Ursan is the only way players can do stuff in Guild Wars in the fashion that the skill is being used and abused for, is the second Arenanet itself abandoned the very core mechanic of their game: the Professions.
2. I say leave Ursan Blessing as is - otherwise we will be effectively denying access to large portions of the game to a lot of people and I think that would be a real shame., the issue I see with this is that now that Arenanet know Ursan is the ONLY reason a lot of players are able to do stuff keeping it only looks bad for their abilities to design, maintain and balance their own game. Ursan, for many of the casual players, is the ONLY reason they are able to do stuff, even just HM. Saying "leave it" as is can be seen in the exact some light as say "Arenanet has lost the plot!". Ursan wasn't designed to be the great balance button or wasn't designed to be a tool players can use to step around the gameplay.

Seriously, Ursan insults the casual player if its the only thing getting the casual player through; have you actually looked at the makeup of the skill? At what makes it as powerful as it is? People are using Ursan as the argument "Its the only thing we can use!", which is sad because if Arenanet has to allow Ursan like that then I seriously question their abilities to provide a balanced, enjoyable game. One of the things that was nagging at the back of my mind while using it was that I had no control [apart from putting the Blessing on my bar] over the skill. This is a 'preset' build by Arenanet, possibly one of the most profession-unspecific skills ever created and with skills and effects the very core of the game mechanics can not counter.

Sorry, but its insulting, and if you can not see why then.... 000.00.00.00 20:14, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Anyone using the words "Casual" and "Elite Area" in the same sentence to back up Ursan not getting a nerf needs to uninstall now and go look up the meaning of Casual because it's clear you don't understand what it means and why it does not work with Elite Areas. Can't Ursan users come up with one solid reason as to why the skill should be kept as is? It's too easy to rip your current reasons apart.

Reguardless though, Anet failed to control this nightmare and nothing they do will really fix things. But hell, if people QQ then rage quit over it then fine by me. Perhaps rare skins will rise in price and give me a reason to farm them again. Plus that means less whiners and complainers ingame which is fine by me.--Masato 00:34, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The only point not previously said is Ursan being far more powerful than other builds means that in the future, if they add any more content to GW1, the hard areas will have to cater for a group of 5 or 6 Ursans and no other team build could match the damage output. They already did that for a lot of the dungeons in EotN. For anyone who may disagree, the fact of the matter is, balance is necessary, be it boring or otherwise. Unless your target and you are outhealing eachother, personally I think balance is fun. UB's use is already as common as a cold. If ANet wishes to maintain some sort of challenge in Guild Wars they either need to buff every single other spike skill and raise everyone's armour by 20 standard OR merely restrict Ursan Blessing to EotN. Challenge is necessary in any game and ANet's inaction has harmed the community grievously. You still get your fun obliterating the otherwise superior, what's so wrong with not allowing you to easily beat the highest level of play PvE has to offer? If you actually intend to answer that question with 'because casual players should be allowed to beat the game' you need to re-read the last sentence or two. If that doesn't change your mind, read the whole page. If you still don't get it, you need a labotomy. At last count there's about 5 - 1 reasons for an Ursan nerf and that one reason isn't very good.

Creating Ursan Blessing was a horrid mistake. Its a monster that will surely turn on its creator, much like Frankenstein but, unlike Frankenstein, the monster has more friends than enemies and the creator will merely stop creating cause he's poor. Do what's right for the game and stop lying to yourself about fair play.

gg i guess

Spawnlegacy 18:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Ursan, for a story device and a Norn theme was a nice idea in theory, I wouldn't say it was entirely bad for Guild Wars. But Arenanet can by no means justify their Blessing in the current form as anything more than a problem waiting to happen; both from justifying in a story sense or bad game design in the overpowered nature of the skill itself. They had a nice concept and nice skill [at heart] but in a mismanaged way that turn it into terrible game design. Compare Bear Form to Ursan and you see this. Ever asked yourself why the Norn are Warrior based, they will a Monster Skill that turns them into a Bear but still Warrior based, while the Ursan Blessing has to turns you into something that no Warrior or Norn [unless its a boss] could ever pull off? Or, ever asked yourself why Bear Form, a truly unique form, can be countered easily, look it has a 2 second duration, where Blessing is an Elite Skill with no counter bar having no energy. That was one of the things that initial made me critical of the skill.

Arenanet should have realised from the get go they were putting such a skill in the game that could easily reshape things, and I heavily critise Arenanet for that: they've done this for whole long now?

Arenanet, after allowing it to stay as is for a duration they're unable to justify without admitting mismanagement[Ursan in its form was bad from the get go] is making moves towards fixing it. Well, that isn't exactly true; they are testing stuff, which may or may not make it into the game, which for the players is as loose and unproductive as saying "we're looking into it". I did find this interesting "One of the goals is to balance Ursan such that players can still use it as long as they do so in a tactical way." This is an interest choice of words, and I'm eager to see what they mean by "tactical way", but why they didn't say something along the lines of bringing it on par with profession based setups or a statement admitting it was overpowered but to a lesser extent tell us its not a very play-tactical skill [perhaps a reference to the many posts regarding the mindless 1,2,3,1,1,2,3,4 posts?] That was one of the real issues; that it was uncomparable to any profession based skill that was/is becoming the new elite, the new "you can only do this area/mode if you have this skill and this rank!". The constant and unremovable/unalterable health boost and armour boost, the almost uncounterable attacks, the truly abusable chaining potential between Ursans, the list goes on when thinking of the questionable, somewhat insulting devices Arenanet originally put in. Ursan is a title track skill, which is removed from the general mechanics of the game, and will be interesting to see how they work to find a way for the game to current this core fact. Actually, their reasoning for any changes that may come to the skill will be something I read with much interest.

But, they are "looking into" changes, so I will be content with this. I will, however, personally not hold my breath for the new version - if it comes to pass - to be what anyone critical of the skill will consider balanced. It would be nice to be pleasantly surprised but then again the potential new Ursan is created by the same guys/girls that created it in the first place. Time will tell. 000.00.00.00 18:50, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I Finally Got It

For a while, I was rather annoyed at the fact that I would HAVE to use Ursan in order to make any money....because the only thing Ursan teams have is monks and ursans. Then I thought why not make a monk! It would be more fun then Ursan and still in high demand! Then I found out HB monking is boring as heck. It's like "press button to make ursan bar go from 50% to full", the problem is unlike monking with normal people there's no CHALLENGE. Normally, when you monk you are always twitching and looking for people who could die and hoping you can catch a spike and protting eles who run into the front line, and stuff. With Ursan ITS SO BORING they can't die from a spike. Oh well, back to the drawing board, and thank God they are nerfing Ursan. Psychiatric Consultant 05:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

nice try, but no. 87.189.248.99 20:47, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it a nerf just yet, knowing Anet they won't do a single damn thing to it. But I must agree with your statement on Monking. It's boing to do it for an Ursan team, even a fail one. I enjoyed the challenge of it before HB became the must have skill of PvE monks. That poor griffy, getting its elite ripped out of it at at least a few times a day. I call animal abuse!--Masato 16:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Masato, devs have mentioned that they were looking into changes for Ursan skills. There is every reason to believe something will be done about it. That being said, you are correct. There is no reason to say it's been "nerfed", we don't know what the specifics just yet. That in mind, any changes to any skill seem to be regarded as a "nerf" by the majority players who lack the creativity to work around it. There are literally thousands of thread on the forums proposing changes, many of which specifically address the "monk grind" associated with Ursan parties. The most popular ideas all seem to center around lowering the benefit of healing spells that target someone under Ursan blessing and may be paired with a PvE change to HB. That would force ursan parties to fill an additional slot with a Protector monk, Restoration Rit, or a hard-ass warding ele. The loss of one ursan in the party, exchanged for an additional defensive player will significantly lower the party wide damage output and make non-ursan groups more attractive in many areas. Changes made in this manner still leave Ursan a viable skill for individuals running with heroes and henchmen, specifically for the required mission.

I realize we have done a lot of whining to AreaNet, "Please fix Ursan..." seems to have become our motto here. How many have those exact words on their forums signatures? Still, the crap we've given them about it is nothing compared to the backlash they'll receive from the majority of insignificant amateur players after any changes to their beloved skill actually go through. Still, AreaNet is responding to us in a reasonable way, and acting in the best interest of the game, not the favored opinion of their players. That takes some courage, and ultimately makes for a better game over all. I thank them for their attention in this matter, and for doing the right thing.- Countess Dramethia

I agree with many of these things, I'm just saying Anet has a long history of waiting til the last minute to do something and then either saying it's fine as is or making a change that doesn't really affect the preformance of the skill as a whole, be it single use or teamwide. Because of their history I have to believe that while they are looking into it(I believe they are), they won't do anything to reduce this skills' insane effect on the game will be done.

Making it remove stances and signets as well as enchantments would be a great start. That's one thing I don't understand, why it wouldn't remove them as well.--Masato 16:54, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't fully know when you can consider skill changings the "last minute", but as for Anet's seemingly underachieving history you've stated, in terms of skill changings, you can't really say anything to that until after the skill has been changed, they do "nerf" skills to make the game more challenging and diverse, but not so that you remove the skill entirely. Whisperer 13:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Last Minute=When Anet finally sees how overpowered/underpowered a skill is. Usually takes about ten months to a year, IE: Old school IWAY took forever to nerf.(I wasn't for or against it since I didn't care about HA at that time) Same thing is now happening with SWAY.

And yes I can, Anet takes forever to fix something that needs fixing. Go ask anyone who was around right before Factions and Nightfall came out, they'll give you a number of examples. Here's a more current one, the Shadow Form nerf. It was needed for a long time and Anet took forever to do it, none of the changes they made to it before then affected the perma-form farmers at all. Now months after the complaints started Anet has done something to it. Granted it kinda screwed over other farms like Raptor which was awesome for farming event items, but it had to be done.

And for the last bit on removing skills entirely, hmmmm. Let's see, IWAY doesn't work for shit in HA anymore, 90% of paragon builds for PvE got screwed over pre-spilt lists, and of course perma SF for all but Chaos Planes and a few other select areas.

I could go on about the last bit, but atm I'm losing focus due to lack of sleep for the last four days.--Masato 19:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Be At Peace Young Padawan

---

Guys, it's getting a bit off topic here, the below is not a discussion of the article anymore, it's a rant. I'm as guilty as the next guy when it comes to ranting, but aside from the first post, why are we keeping this discussion? Take it to the forums, not the wiki.- Countess Dramethia

That's what I've been saying! xD In all seriousness, if it cools some heads I suppose that it's going to continue regardless of what we think. Whisperer 13:31, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

---

There is really no point in addressing Ursan Blessing anymore. The damage has been done. Too many titles have been garnered using Ursan Blessing for the titles themselves to hold any further value.

I am completely in agreement with all who have negative sentiment about Ursan. I detested Ursan. Ursan Blessing was the reason that I, my wife and the majority of my guild stopped playing, however, I think that at this point it would be even less fair to remove it from the game. Too many people have already used to obtain titles, items and HoM accomplishments that they would not have been able to do otherwise. If Ursan Blessing was removed new players coming into Guild Wars would find themselves at too great a disadvantage economically (due to Ursan-built fortunes and the fact that nothing that is found during gameplay is rare enough to be of any value anymore.). Also they would be confused by the title system, which before Ursan could be used to identify how experienced a player was. If Ursan Blessing was removed all the folks that obtained Legendary titles under it's use would of course retain the titles, yet thier actual skill levels would be the same (or more like less) than they were before Ursan Blessing came into play. It is my experience that the majority of players who chose to rely on Ursan Blessing and consumables were poor players to begin with. Better players and leaders have gone to Age Of Conan and LOTRO and other games that chose to maintain thier integrity. I hate to say it but at this point Ursan Blessing has weakened and devalued the community to a point that no nerf or balancing, not even removing it from the game entirely, could undo the damage.

The actual problems caused by Ursan were further compounded by Regina's inexperience with Guild Wars, it is clear when she comments that she has little or no idea why people are even complaining, rather than give any kind of answers to Ursan Related questions she asks people to constantly clarify things that are already crystal clear to anyone who is even reasonably experienced with the game, then she archives everything unanswered. I understand she was probably directed to sweep the whole Ursan issue under the rug, like GW Guru did by deleting "Ursan Flames" posts. Nonetheless her inexperience with the game shone very clear and I think it made a lot of people look at A-net in a newer, dimmer light. I know I felt that way.

I think A-net may be trying to gear Guild Wars towards a much younger audience. Simplifying the gameplay as drastically as they have with Ursan Blessing MUST have had some rationale behind it. It would be nice if they would tell us, the players, what that rationale was, but the truth is I have ceased to care.

A-net sold more copies of EoTN than they likely would have without Ursan, but I believe that the future will show thier logic to be in error (read: GW2 Sales and community quality). In any event I will never buy another A-Net / NCSoft title again, including Guild Wars 2. A-net lost any shred of integrity they had by implementing Ursan. Having Regina come out and claim there was no issue, and then later blame "player exploitation" just really said everything I needed to know about A-net. I do miss Guild Wars, but the game no longer offers anything to experienced players. I moved on. I am happier now. Guild Wars 2, A-net and NCSoft can bite my GOREDENGINEGO.

Happy Playing!

Personally, I think the whole of GWEN experience was the pinnicle of Arenanet's inexperience, illustrating pure poor design and mismanagement. Which is still showing after Regina announcing Arenanet's staffing issues to a Guild Wars related player concerns.

Consumables. Missions with res shrines, allowing people to bypass entire mission sections [Assault on the Stronghold is bad for this]. So many grind related PvE Only skills: Ursan was possibly the most all-round all consuming bad choice and Arenanet's management of that was poor to detestable, much damage has been done to Arenanet's repetition to those who hold such things as important, I certainly look at them in a different light. Effort is in the works, as so we have been told but such falls short, GWEN has been out for too long, and such concerns have been voiced for far too long. Damage is done.

I feel content to continue playing [when in reference to player ability], Ursan for me was only used in Eye of the North where it really belongs to be used. All of my achievements I got before Ursan came out, and quite frankly the Asuran, Norn etc title tracks I've been working on lately mean nothing more than a grind than fun.

So many things Arenanet brought out with GWEN could have been done much better, perhaps they should have just finished Utopia as a proper campaign instead of a poorly designed expansion. I still would like to say GWEN has its fun elements, introducing some of the new races and the such, but there was so much left that felt unfinished and unbalanced. The Hall of Monuments, a truly inspired idea has fallen short and continues to do so.

All and all GWEN was my least favoured product Arenanet released, and as the final product of the Guild Wars series [as far as we know] it has left me questioning their abilities when thinking about Guild Wars 2: considering the things they wish to change and bring into Guild Wars 2 and the things as they are in Guild Wars at the moment they will have to do much to inspire me to be a returning customer. As of now nothing in the game makes me want to keep playing, its the external stuff like friends and guild mates that they are the only things keeping me playing. And, of course, my rather long postings on the Wiki :P 000.00.00.00 00:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the first post in this section wholeheartedly. The damage is done, unless Arenanet has a time machine there is nothing they can do now to fix it. Nerfing Ursan will only serve to piss off the lesser players. Better players will view anything Arenanet does to Ursan Blessing as too little too late. It reminds me of Mortal Combat on the SNES. Nintendo made the blood a light blue color which was supposed to resemble sweat, they did it in order to appease parents who were worried about the games violent content. It was a bad plan though because parents still found the violent content to be too explicit and gamers that liked the blood and gore were unhappy that it was not present. Nintendo made no one happy. Arenanet has created a situation where they are not going to be able to please anyone. A nerf may give the few experienced players still playing a little satisfaction, but it will be too little too late. Arenanet should have been able to see this coming. At the very least they should have made titles earned using Ursan have a little teddy bear symbol or something next to them so that players could identify who was a good player an who was just an Ursan. It is too late, let the kiddies have fun with the bears now, the titles and hall of monuments achievements are too cheapened now anyways. This nerf, no matter how severe, if it even happens at all, will not bring back all the players that Arenanet turned thier back on by creating Ursan.

/agreed with all of you. Too sad to realize - GW is dead. Probably, I won't purchase GW2. De1m0s 02:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Same here, fully agreed. Dominator Matrix 02:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I've never felt more sad about something as lame as a videogame.. Cept when I was 8 playing Spyro and I didnt have a memory card. Poor ANet and all the hate. Spawnlegacy 07:35, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

"He who never makes a mistake never makes anything."--Spider 12:04, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting a bit beyond the Ursan point, but I think the lesson GW:EN has to teach us is how Arena Net is an extremely talented company that is able to create very good games...IF, and only IF, they have time to do so. For example, we have seen plenty of amazing character armors in Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall - yet many GW:EN armors are, IMO, horrible. A bit of research would show us how the Norn armors (which IMO are the only reasonable looking armors from GW:EN) were actually left overs from GW:Utopia, and all the other GW:EN armors were designed by one single designer (ending with a product that IMO is not only aesthetically unpleasant, but also is filled with flaws, such as the red tint that permeates many of the armors even when they're dyed a different color). We know Arena Net could do better - they have done better - but in GW:EN the result armor-wise was lacking probably thanks to how they had to hurry.

I think the same applies to many other points in GW:EN. The Hall of Monuments? Many parts of it were changed between the GW:EN preview event and the expansion's release one week later, and things are still going to change more - leading me to believe that Arena Net would have done it right (as they are doing now) IF they had time enough for it the first time.

That's why I want Guild Wars 2's release to take as long as Arena Net wants. I'm sure it may be a wonderful game...But if, and only if, Arena Net has enough time (which means a lot of time) in order to make it good. Erasculio 13:43, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with Spider and Erasculio. Guild Wars was and continues to be a very innovative game: and innovation requires experimentation. I'm happy to put up with mistakes ANet makes, because I know they are necessary in order for Anet to figure out how to make the best possible game. One could argue that they should keep their experiments in-house and not force players to be guinea-pigs, but many experiments require players in order to obtain accurate results. What seems like an obviously stupid idea after having been subjected to player scrutiny, is actually a great idea when first thought of, in the comfort of the office with a handful of testers, that appears worthy of live release. So I wonder exactly what all this Q.Qing over Ursan is about: if the damage is already done, then GW1 is a lost cause and there's nothing anyone can do. The issue is GW2: is there any reason to expect another Ursan in GW2, or will Anet learn from their mistake and try something different? Call me naive, but I trust Anet enough to expect the latter. --Mme. Donelle 14:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

EotN has been out for well over 6 months now. Experimenting is fine but letting the game bleed to death with the huge gaping wound that is Ursan without so much as a bandage for over 6 months when the wailing from the community we've all been seeing? How long did they want to wait to see the epic failure it was? 122.104.167.139 18:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

[sorry for the out of order post but] Eye of the North has been out since August 31st, 2007. And they're looking at fixing Ursan now... 000.00.00.00 22:38, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the first three posts in this category 100%. Anything that A-net does at this point will only make more huge problems within the community. I knew Ursan Blessing was going to be a real and serious problem for Guild Wars the instant I saw it. I didn't realize just how much of a problem it was going to be, but I did have faith. I felt sentiment similar to Mme. Donelle and Erasculio's statements 5 months ago, but too much time has passed. I am not sure if Regina deserves 100% of the blame for the whitewash or not, but A-net has had more than 6 months to respond to players. They simply say nothing. Regina says that they are busy working on GW2, and that we as players simply cannot understand how difficult it is and how understaffed they are; I am sorry but that is a load of crap. You can't simply abandon a product that is already paid for to go and work on your next cash cow. A-net is certainly a talented company, but they are reprehensible to thier customers. Everquest made a lot of mistakes, but they were a good enough company made up of good enough people to recognize and apologize for the mistakes that they made. A-net to me seems to be made up of people that simply will not tolerate questions. The other thing that I just can't get around is that the whole time Regina says they just simply do not have time to even formulate an opinion about Usan Blessing, despite the flood of hate mail they *must* be getting is outright BS, because we ALL know that if a skill was causing the PvP community this much hate and anger they would make the time. I will continue to play Guild Wars, I paid for it. It is hard to imagine A-net ever regaining my good graces. I don't care how good Guild Wars 2 is, I won't be playing it. There are other games, I will support a company that respects gamers and treats them like people rather than numbers. A-net constantly preaches fair play, but in the end it seems like the only people A-net feels deserve respect courtesy and fairness is A-net itself.Wildcard 19:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Reprehensible? Really? I think that's far too strong a word to be using here. Anet haven't done anything wrong. While the people complaining in here may feel that "everyone thinks Ursan is overpowered", that's not necessarily the case. Angry people are vastly more vocal than contented people. Think about it: if you spend all your time on wiki pages and in forum posts dedicated to bitching about how overpowered Ursan is, when are you going to come across those who think it's fine? Or those who simply don't care? Furthermore, Ursan is not the huge fuck-up this page makes it out to be -- it has genuine use as a tool for casual players, which is controversial, but justifiable; and Anet are busy. MMOs aren't exactly easy to make, especially when one is trying to maintain a previous one. From their perspective, Ursan is one of many little problems they have to deal with and frankly I find it perfectly understandable that it's taken them this long to address Ursan's "problems". --Mme. Donelle 19:36, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it is too strong a word. I think it fits. They are saying that Guild Wars 1 is not a concern because it is already paid for. What other software, game or not, discontinues support for a product immediatly after release in order to start working on another? If A-net didn't feel Ursan was a problem they should have said so. At this point I agree with the other posters in this section that any fix is too little too late. The damage has already been done and it is not fixable. I do not fault them for thier concept, which has turned out to be very very flawed. I fault them for not taking any responsibility for it, and then for blaming the players. A-net refers to every mistake they make as a "player exploit" in some cases that may fit, but not in this case. They owed the people that supported them some kind of response. If they had simply said 4 months ago, "We feel Ursan is not something that needs to be addressed and it fits very well into our new gaming philosophy." Then I could have just left and been done with it. I may have come back for GW2 or I may not have, but I would have had at least some respect for A-net. The way they handled this was reprehensible. I wonder if you would be so content with waiting seven months for any kind of answer from some other service provider. Let Ursan be now, there is no point in fixing it now, the game is irrepairably damaged, as is A-nets reputation. Wildcard 19:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Anet won't recover from this no matter what they do, and if it wasn't for my alliance and the fact that I have to much free time and little cash I'd go find another game. My alliance(and the fact that Charr are playable) are the only reasons I'm going to get GW2 at this point in time. (Unless this open beta is godly, assuming it ever happens) Unless Anet pulls out a pot of win for GW2 there is no chance in hell that they can recover from the serious fuckup that is Ursan. I'll keep using it for Blood Washes Blood at other random times when my alliance isn't active in slavers, but I refuse to take it outside of EOTN.

Being unstaffed, or focusing on GW2 is NOT an excuse for leaving GW1 as is. Get a team that is just for GW1 support(supposed to be getting another skill balancer soon, hopefully a non-fail one) instead of making up BS excuses. Galie wasn't the best at giving out infomation but at least she understood the players to an certain point. I'd honestly take her over our new community leader anyday. Regina doesn't give a single straight answer and I don't believe she's had the experence to understand what theplayers are talking about.--Masato 21:49, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Mme. Donelle, Ursan wasn't supposed to be used for what it was used for. I never will believe Arenanet foresaw and intended for it to be so wide spread as they allowed it to become. They are the developers and they have/should have people monitoring these kinds of situations, and should have seen it building. We already know, in a rather late timeframe, Izzy did a check and found the number of players using it on their bar at the time, and I would imagine that number is a bit more than 'huge', and a fear for Arenanet was changing it just in case it upsets people.

Ursan was not the magic "casual player button" that a lot of people think it was specifically designed for. If people continue to go down such a path I do question why they think Arenanet would use a title track skill as this magic button. Why use such a grossly overpowered skill, not in just terms of overall power but the share fact that they game couldn't handle it: normal condition and hex counters wouldn't work, the core element of the skill couldn't be stripped or removed - its a title track skill and there's no skill that effects that. Ursan is an insult to the player: "Can't use your profession? Well, lets create them a skill the game can't really counter."

Arenanet is going to have to make it affectable by counters, otherwise they themselves are just giving it too much power. The idea of the energy degen as balance, which I think was used as a counter to an extent is just too abusable, Energy Storage, Soul Reaping, Mysticism [with a enchantment heroes or ally keeping enchantments on you, the primary attribute should be put to zero so it leaves the skill more balanced regardless of profession, closet profession Ursan mirrors is Warrior so a themetical change to Zero Primary Attribute should have been put in from the get go. The list of viable alterations go on.

But the question comes how far Arenanet will balance it. There are many issues with just one skill.

Also, GWEN in itself highlights many issues; consumables, Ursan, so many PvE Only skills, reskins and the list goes on. GWEN was not as polished as it could, or should have been. 000.00.00.00 22:29, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a fair point. I'll come clean and admit that I probably shouldn't be aruging in here: I just can't bring myself to give a crap about Ursan, so I'm really just yelling at people who look like big drama queens to me. ;_; I shall respectully step down before I make a real ass of myself by attempting to argue with someone who has actually thought this through. I do still feel it's worth keeping one's mind open about how much one should bitch at Anet, however: mistakes are frighteningly easy to make, even (or particularly) by entire companies. New Coke, anyone? :D --Mme. Donelle 22:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

New Coke? I thought swearing wasn't aloud >.< 000.00.00.00 23:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

EoTN may not have been as polished as it could have been. But I personally thought it was very well done. I liked the short storyline combined with the very very large amount of post-storyline play(ie: Dungeons). The reskins are not really an issue to me. It was after all an expansion, not a complete campaign, and while some of the re-skins are a little blah, some of them are kind of cool. I have no problem at all with EoTN. My issue was with Ursan. Title tracks, which were THE quintessential extended play were rendered worthless. Ursan doesn't just make the game way too easy, it allows players to circumvent the game entirely. Why did A-net create Hard Mode? Ursan should have been limited to Normal Mode play only. People who were incapable of seeing the things the game had to offer could have zerg'd thier way thru FoW and DoA and UW and seen all the sights. The title tracks would have maintained thier integrity and gameplay for experienced players wanting to spend the time necesary to earn high-level titles would have remained intact. Parties playing in Normal Mode could do whatever they wanted, and be subject to the lesser loot and protector level titles. Hard Mode could have been saved for it's intended function, a challenge to experienced players. I do not agree that other PvE skills had the type of negative impact on gameplay that Ursan, Raven and Volfen blessing had. Other PvE skills do not have the impact of Ursan because, very simply, they require thought and skill to use. Skills like Pain Inverter add depth and dimension to gameplay. Pain Inverter IS very powerful, but it is subject to counters like Backfire, and can be removed by NPC AI. More importantly Pain Inverter requires the player using it to think. If you are throwing PI on healing monks it is worthless. If you are throwing it on an ele as soon as you see it is an ele you will likely miss the "big" aoe attack that it is meant to counter. Ursan requires no skill at all whatsoever. It is not susceptible to any form of counter. Allowing players that were incapable of completing missions like Thirsty River to go out to areas like DoA in Hard Mode and rip thru it in less than 1/4 of the time that a well poished practiced team could hope for is ridiculous. I know everyone says that A-net has to be fair to players who are unskilled, but skilled players deserve consideration also. ---- All of this would have been forgivable 5 months ago. Of course A-net makes mistakes, it is made up of human beings. The problem is that in allowing Ursan to thrive as it has for too long they have broken thier game. Titles are no longer of any worth. Players who understood and excelled at the game understood this. That is why so many of them have left, which has in turn morphed the community into what it is now........ Players who supported A-net for the last 3 years deserved better. A-net should have had the balls to step up and make a statement about Ursan 5 months ago. If super-simplifying the game to the point that even first time players could rip thru "Elite Areas" in hard mode without any kind of resistance, they should have said so. Serious gamers want nothing to do with this garbage. They should have manned-up and accepted the losses. Instead they decline to say anything specific, and then finally come out with this "Ursan is player exploitation" BS. It is an insult. Arenanet obviously thinks that players will just forgive and forget the abuse they have shown us. This player will not. I have been a gamer all my life. I do not like being insulted and ignored by a company I am supporting. At this point I feel like A-net made thier bed and they should just lie in it. Nothing they do to Ursan will be good enough for anyone on either side of the fence. Not now. It has been too long.Wildcard 23:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I dunno. Isn't this just like the group of people that left because of the apparent farming nerf? All of the arguments and controversies and the game is still running with just as many people...? I think the title of this section is cute, but vastly inaccurate, because you're really only speaking for yourself and probably a maximum of 20 other people that you know - multiplied by the number of other contributors here that are in agreement with you. When I first played this game it took me only a week to work out a good portion of problems that this game has, but it also opened up loads of doors that other games have never set foot into. At the end, it's your loss, not theirs. If you're looking for the perfectly balanced game that you can't complain about, then go play tetris. Otherwise, you can either not use ursan, or not use ursan. Aside, there's probably another mob out there that's complaining about how it took Anet 3 years to address PvE properly, that's more of a valid mob than this one is. (Terra Xin 23:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC))

Terra Xin, I speak for myself. Others that feel as I do have thier own voice. I am not sure who it was that designated you as the final authority on what is and isn't valid to others. I paid just as much as for my copies of Guild Wars as you did for yours. I have as much right to express my opinions here as does anyone else. Whatever your feelings toward Ursan I am sorry if you were confused by my logic. Just wanted to clarify. Thanks.Wildcard 23:51, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I really wonder what Anet was thinking when they had the "brilliant" idea of making these blessings skills (not just ursañ, but the other two aswell) these skills just haven't got any point. They can't synergize with other skills, because your skillbar will always look the same (eventhough i highly doubt you'll be looking at your skillbar, cause you're reading the paper/smashing your head on the keyboard) 62.51.183.226 01:36, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Ursan has little to no synergy with anything in the game... and since they're the ones who make the game you'd think they would have thought it through better. 000.00.00.00 02:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Wildcard. My comments are based from the opinions that I read from posts, and the comment made was directed at all people who think this way. I'm sorry that you think I'm final authority, and I'm sorry that I didn't bother to read your opinion in length (tbh it's really long and winding, like when Prince Rurik talks about himself...) This could have probably been picked up by a five year old, but I did say that you're only speaking for yourself, which directly means that everyone has their own voice - but I dunno, I'm 22. I mean let's just excuse the fact that you said "that's why a lot of people left" and "gamers want nothing to do with this garbage" as well as "Nothing they do to Ursan will be good enough for anyone on either side of the fence." comes paired with accurate sources (sarcasm) and factual evidence (sarcasm) added to it - and focus on MY short-sighted observations. I agree with you on one part though, Anet does (should) ignore you.(Terra Xin 07:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC))

Terra you are harsh like fire. Quit being so "Ima remove you from wiki if you're not concise." No one back me up there and please stop fighting in a thread entitled be at peace. Thanks Spawnlegacy 09:17, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The most popular excuse is "I worked (grinded) hard for my title and I deserve recognition for it! And now Ursan has come along and taken that mojo away!" It's taking the subject out of proportion. I mean... Ursan sucks. My guild has practically banned the use of it. I tried it once and decided that my mesmer can deal more damage. It's a skillset for the six-fingered person that can chat at the same time. I get it. But it's not worth leaving the game because you're unhappy that someone got the same title as you have, but faster. Because that's all it comes down to, isn't it? We claim skill>grind but we hate it when grind becomes easier than skill. Yet the titles are all grind and the pathways to get them require no real skill at all - just time. Hard Mode is a blowover, and the general mechanics of PvE can be mauled over by 6 warriors and 2 monks, or 6 SF eles and two monks. The problem was there right from the beginning, Ursan just made it more obvious to look at... What happened to the days when there were no titles, and people just played for fun and being in a group of people? Congrats to those who have lost the essence of Guild Wars. Some people are just so consumed with prestige, elitism and character image. (Terra Xin 13:28, 14 July 2008 (UTC))

I agree with Terra regarding the "prestige" of titles. I mean, I have some characters with Grandmaster Cartographer, and I learned that some players use external software to make finding the missing areas easier. Does that bother me? Not really, I achieved GMC because I wanted to, and I know it stands as an accomplishment I have realized. If other people don't know or don't care...Whatever, I know what I have done and what of an accomplishment it is. I think the need to seek external validation - expecting other people to be impressed with any title I have - isn't necessary for GW.

However, I'm still against Ursan thanks to other reasons, concerning how it hurts some aspects of the game. Erasculio 13:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Terra, no, it is not about titles, it is not about prestige, and it is not about the economy. Of course Ursan is annihilating all of those, but they are drops compared to the real damage that is being subtly done. That damage is done to the playerbase.

When you give somebody a very easy method of doing task, especailly is this new method is passive instead of active, everyone will use this new and beter method. Ursan is very much like that - it makes things a lot easier.

The reason this is bad is quite simple - everyone, and I mean everyone, including pvp people, are getting worse at the game because of ursan. When GW2 rolls out, the majority of the players are going to be ex GW1 vets. Because of ursan, these "vets" are going to be very bad players, capable of only pressing 123456. It may be hard to grasp the severity of this situation, but this will result in a game that is geared towards (Because games adapt to players by definition) grind and repetetiveness. Combine that with ANET's new motto of "Grind in GW so you'll get awarded in GW2" and you get a very grave picture.

I don't care about accomplishments, nor do I care about the supposed damage Ursan is doing to the economy. They are very insignificant, very trivial to what Ursan is doing to the playerbase. That damage is largely irreversable, and much farther reaching than a few economic issues.

Another similar consequence of ursan is going to be with the build concept. I'm thinking we'll have many preplanned bars and pre-made builds powerful enough to deal with ones made by decent players. Because Ursan is the spearhead of all this. It needs to be stopped NOW, or the far reaching consequences will be devestating for Anet. -- NUKLEAR IIV 14:18, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Terra & Erasculio that game designers should not have to cater to the prestige-seeking individuals within the community. For example, I take pride in having achieved Legendary Survivor on two characters without farming, and a friend of mind did it by very strict rules of playing the game normally. But those who farm it take nothing away from our pride. I think that Ursan users should get lower quality / frequency drops. This would make Ursan farming unattractive, yet would keep Ursan for those who want to achieve titles in preparation for GW2. -- Alaris 14:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Terra Xin in a post a little ways back, the one where you kept apologizing to me, and admitted you hadn't actually read the statements you were commenting on, you were very mean without reason. I prefer not to deal with trolls for exactly the same reason I don't like to deal with Ursans. Your flaming degrades everything said on this page. I am not going to answer you anymore when you are fist shaking and flaming, it only serves to take away from the actual issue and incite others. Try not to be an internet bully, it really serves no purpose. Thanks. ------- Alaris I think one of the bones of contention about Ursan is that getting a title with Ursan is not really achieving anything, there is no struggle or intensity involved, you do not even have to read the skill descriptions in your bar, much less think about them, all a title obtained with Ursan really says is that you played the game for a few hours.----- Nuklear, your point a very good one which I certainly agree with at it's end, however, I believe that in addition to the fact that Ursan makes people very weak and very lazy, it also makes titles and high-end game items so worthless that they are not at all attractive to the kinds of people that actually DO want to earn things. This has caused so many really good players, and people with leadership skills to leave the game entirely, whats left in the community are the people who follow the Ursan mentality, unchecked and without direction. I can understand why you might not care about titles or the economy, but I believe that all of the factors are connected, and that all of the factors contibute to the current state of the Guild Wars Community. I don't believe that nerfing or even removing Ursan will bring back the better players who have already abandoned the game for greener pastures. Too much damage has already occured. I believe that regardless of what A-net does with Ursan now, the community as a whole will have to bear the shame that Ursan has already caused. I see no reason to nerf it at this point. The people who need it to get thier meaningless Ursan begotten titles would be furious if it actually required skill to play again, and the people who have been earning titles all along without it, and are still present, have been soured to the point that they will hero/hench and play with only a very few friends. I agree that Ursan was a huge mistake, but I maintain that at this point the damage is done and no "fix" would be fair to anyone. There is no reason to adress Ursan at this point. Too many people have been given titles for 0 effort in the year that Ursan has reigned. Nerfing it or removing it now is not fair to others who want to have titles but are also too unskilled to earn them. Why create ANOTHER very unfair problem for an already crumbling community? Wildcard 16:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

But hasn't it always been like that, Nuclear? There has always been a group of people who use builds that require a mere 1-8 sequence to press. Assassin chains, spirit spamming and pretty much all of PvX wiki are prime examples of this. Even premade builds used to be designed by high ranking guilds a few years ago, remember when we had that old character selection screen? Ursan is like the progression if this idea. And then following on to the idea that players are getting worse becuase of Ursan? I am an RA fanatic, and ever since I first played there since Factions came out, right up until today - the player's skill level has remained fairly constant. In PvE, I always see the warrior rushing into battle, or the ranger dancing off in the distance, or the monk with smiting skills. Ursan just grouped all of those players together, and said "ok, now there's absolutely no way you can suck now". At best, it'll slow the rate at which people can get better at this game, but now we've got people claiming that it's a means to an end? this is definitely not the first time that players have made the claim that this game is dead - and it's always just so when there's a change that they don't like (and have the means to voice it). Anet tried to cater to the casual player and accidently attracted all the lazy ones - that was a bad move. You've got to give credit to Anet though, unlike most other MMORPG games that will only listen to market research and read player trends, they actually have a system designed to listen to all of our whining and complaining. (Albeit they didn't even know how to use it at the start, because we've had a mob like this complaining about HA, and that resulted in a big divide.) But the great thing about Anet is that they're always willing to make the change for the better. You go to almost any other MMORPG and try to raise a complaint, they'll just ignore you and tell you to fuck off because they know better. Actually, a few people on this discussion page should actually make their own MMORPG so they can say the same thing. Excuse me. (Terra Xin 23:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC))

Wildcard, Arenanet needs to do the honourable thing and own up to its mistakes and correct them, damage has been done but it doesn't mean it has to continue because it was let slip in the past. Titles are to be worked for, through Ursan Arenanet allowed an 'easy way' through all the challenges they themselves put in the game. Ursan not only insults the players but it insults Arenanet, whats the point of all the work they put in just to allow such a skill rip everything they put together aside. That what annoys me as a player, they do so many good things and then just spoil it with something like Ursan. Arenanet is responsible for everything in the game and should own their mistakes instead of calling them player created.

Ursan was the straw that broke the back of the issue that is titles. If people are too unskilled to earn them then they shouldn't have been able to get them in the first place. The game isn't exactly hard, even in Hard Mode. Arenanet should have never let Ursan take hold as it has, the damage can not be undone but Arenanet can at least correct the injustice and show that they accept responsibility for their own actions.

Honestly, those in Arenanet who thought Ursan was fine seriously need to rethink their positions. I've started going back through the campaigns to get HM titles, finished a few areas and missions before GWEN was released and thought it was time to work on them. It was disheartening to see every vanquishing party I was finding using Party Search was an Ursan party, even having people tell me to use it. In the end I gave up and just partied with a few and H/H others, I wasn't going to stand around all day trying to find a non Ursan group. I didn't want my experience with everything before Ursan to be spoilt so the two HM missions in Nightfall I got through the use of other people as Ursan I went back and did myself with H/H. I just have one thing to say, the designer of the Dzagonur Bastion mission I just want to hug and then to punch :) That was a killer, but very very exciting to do H/H in HM [bows to that designer]

Arenanet knows people will exploit any legal use of the game, and Ursan is fully legal and even justified by Arenanet, Regina the spokesperson. There are only certain things in the game that get me annoyed and disappointed, and Ursan in the only thing that really ticks me off because it fully effects my game [the game from my P.O.V.]. Arenanet needs to own its mistakes, Regina just highlighted they did not, and even though a change is considered I still think they still won't.

In the end, the fact of the matter is, Arenanet is the ones who made the game; its their fault when something like Ursan takes hold, not the players, theirs.

Still, I like the game and I'm going to go play :) 000.00.00.00 00:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Terra, no, I have to say the game hasn't always been like that. I also have to say that you have not played this game long enough to feel the change in the playerbase. I remember the fierce battles we've had in HA and gvg - they are all but extinct now. Comparing the the ratio between past gimmicks and present gimmicks is staggeringly high.

Ursan is just the final drop in the bucket. The biggest problem and the biggest causeof current grind is very much simple. Hall of Monuments, titles, and Anets new position of "you'll get rewarded if you grind" mentality. ANET IS PROMOTING GRIND WITH THEIR GAMES, AND URSAN IS THE EMBODYMENT OF THIS PHILOSOPHY. That's why I think the playerbase is going down in a dump. -- NUKLEAR IIV 08:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Ursan is bad because it's fucking imbalanced. Not a little bit, not a tad, fucking imbalanced. People tend to have a problem with this because it breaks the game. That's why this "skill," if you can call such a monstrosity that, has 2 archives (soon to be 3), something no other skill has ever achieved. Not even TNTF (imba) has gotten this much attention. That says something about how people feel about this skill, no? 68.51.112.211 09:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

And what? TNTF wasn't there for the same length of time either. Ursan may have been the cause of this uproar, but there are waay more powerful skillbars out there that deserve just as much attention as this one. It's the fact that its simple to use. 1 to 6 and you can make a cup of coffee while you wait. I just dont understand why people are leaving over it. There are more expensive games that have more flaws than this game does, and those developers are much less likely to turn to the player's opinion. But like I said right at the beginning - you've already paid Anet for the game, if you wanna leave, then it's your loss, not theirs. Nuklear, you're right. I haven't been playing the game long enough to make the claim that I made, but you've got to give credit to Anet, they have the most superior 'developer to player' interaction than any other game on the market. If the player expresses a problem, they're always there to hear us out. Philosophies can change. (Terra Xin 12:19, 19 July 2008 (UTC))

There's actually only one skillbar that I can think of that is superior to Ursan, that being the Imbagon. The thing is, Imbagons actually have counters, unlike Ursan. Go to DoA and have fun with Shroud of Darkness and Repressive Energy, neither of which Ursan is affected by. Because of the counters Paragons have, Imbagons require more skill (or at least become better in a more skilled players hands). In addition, most PvE idiots (the majority of the playerbase) are unable to think around pure damage or pure healing (Monks are better for healing, Warriors for damage), and so they think of paragons as bad and don't use them. This means that there are not enough overpowered paragons to be affecting the game very much. Despite all this, Imbagons are still extremely overpowered and do deserve a nerf. The issue with them just isn't nearly as pressing as Ursan. One last thing: if there are other skillbars that are "waay more powerful," please point them out. I doubt there are any, besides the Imbagon that is. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 18:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

"And what? TNTF wasn't there for the same length of time either." Wrong. "Ursan may have been the cause of this uproar, but there are waay more powerful skillbars out there that deserve just as much attention as this one." Name them and then we'll talk. People have already expressed in the archives why this is wrong. 150 armor ignoring damage every 3 seconds with constant OoP, a KD > Earthshaker by far, constant enemy weakness, constant Defy Pain, and you're looking at at least 2 elites, support skills requiring 2 professions, and a single target attack that owns every other for damage skill (save nukes with lot's of guys in them). Your "overpowered" bars at least use multiple skills and span multiple professions. Ursan isn't a skill bar, it's a skill that doesn't require profession or any other skill in the game and is still imba despite that. "I just dont understand why people are leaving over it." I agree, but it's probably due to the fact that the game is broken. Denizen Zero 20:55, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I really don't think it is reasonable to say that "Imbagons" are MORE powerful than Ursans. I think a group of 6 or 8 Paragons with or without TNTF and SY would be much hardier than 6 Ursans and a couple monks. In fact I don't think anything PvE has to offer could kill 6 or 8 Properly built Paragons. But there are draws. Groups of Paragons on thier own are neigh un-killable, but they have huge problems with multi-monk groups in HM, they just don't have the damage to end those kinds of fights quickly. It is always best to bring a weapon rit or an orders necro or or both, or something along those lines. Paragons don't have the output to go it alone in HM PvE. They need caster support. In any event, Para's, as you mentioned, ARE vulnerable to counters. Ursans are not. That is the difference.Wildcard 23:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)