User talk:Isaiah Cartwright/Izzy Talk Archive 18

Skill feedback

• Skill Feedback Put general skill feedback here please.

Your builds always make me wonder if you're joking. If not, do you even play this game? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:75.165.101.144 (talk).

You're contradicting yourself. If he makes builds, then he's playing the game. Or do you mean skill updates? 145.94.74.23 07:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

He means builds as in builds of guildwars, not skill bars. --66.45.173.98 17:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I knew that. But why can't he say so himself? Without signing? That's not a very noble thing to do. 145.94.74.23 18:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Tin Dao Kaineng and the 'Spirit Rift'

• Tin Dao Kaineng, as you may know, is a boss in Shing Jea Island that is present during a quest called Sentimental Treasures from Miller Quang. During that quest you have to go down to the little lighthouse and grab his box, and before the box is an not-so-innocent ritualist boss, Tin Dao Kaineng. Fine, the henchmen start killing the boss. Suddenly this small globe of light rises from the ground and VANQUISHES A WHOLE PARTY in ONE BLOW, which is not normal for a lvl 16 boss. My complaint is: Tin Dao Kaineng is an overpowered boss because of his Spirit Rift.

Please fix. I have made 6-9 monks to get survivor, about 5 or 6 have died to this sucker. thanks.

I am laughing so hard from this. --216.113.208.150 22:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that he's a powerful boss, but honestly, after 2 of your survivor characters died from this boss, why did you try again? Just ignore him until you have max armor or something. 145.94.74.23 07:57, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Or learn to kite :p Lilondra 14:39, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

That glowing ball, it can't move. You can.

Also, if it's not a primary quest, don't do it. ~Shard (talk) 21:47, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem, I think, is more that your five henchies are too dumb to move away (and honestly, who groups shing jea without a level 20 these days?). When I made my survivor necro, yeah, this guy gave me some trouble (as did the cave of naga for the necro primary quest), and I can see where he'd be a big problem for new players.

That said, it's not too hard to send in your henchies, let them wipe, flag them back, rebirth, and repeat, or even just grab a guildie and have him wipe them. -- Armond Warblade 16:40, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Wounding Strike

Hi Izzy this skill needs a nerf fast before it gets overly abused by bad teams.

3 of those D/Es kick too much *ss for monks to handle. I'm really confused with this update, all you did with this update was to nerf the previous meta. Ohhh and please stop updating the game right before the mAT cause thats just annoying as hell. 212.242.184.220 05:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with Wounding Strike the issue is in the damage add stacking with Strength of Honor and Conjures it's going to be popular in the monthly be interesting to see who figures out how to deal with it the best, it's something I'll probably address after next update. Izzy @-'---- 06:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Shhh, don't tell them of all the nifty, and not so nifty, anti-melee skills and tactics in the game or all the rather nice enchantment removals. People might final start to use their heads and improving their own playing skills rather than running here for nerfs all the time for what ever skill/build they want to blame for losing. ;) ~ Sabastian 07:39, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I like the fact that you clearly know the issue, but tend to do nothing about it? Izzy have you even looked into the R/D that doesnt even use Conjures but just Wounding Strike? They are overpowered too, but according to you they are perfectly fine since theres nothing wrong with Wounding. You have a skill that gives Deep wound + cover condition every 3 seconds HOLY ****. I'm very sorry that i have to sound like an ass to get my point through, but seriously wow! Oh and Sabastian whoru?, do you even have a clue about how hard it is to monk against 3 of those? Everyone is crying about how broken it is. Your suggestion is clearly that we should run the Anti melee builds that just got nerfed (Aegis - B-surge) + have s-loads of enchantremovals. Basicly you are suggesting that people should just run antibuilds. We all know Build Wars in funny. Sorry for my lack of english skills.´08:37, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Then again, it is also an Elite Skill that doesn't deal any damage. Deep Wound, while powerful, isn't more powerful when three people use it instead of just one, and so is bleeding (which is easily countered too). I for one prefer elites to actually make a difference, to actually be powerful, and Wounding Strike is just that: powerful. But not unstoppable. It is an example of a well balanced skill, with its own downsides. 145.94.74.23 09:24, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

With the Downside being both conditions only if enchanted while the dervish build has its own almost necessary enchantments? Or did you ment another downside? Give it a longer recharge. Seriously.

When I complain about this people just say "shut up and bring mending touch" but I don't have Nightfall.

"Your suggestion is clearly that we should run the Anti melee builds that just got nerfed (Aegis - B-surge) + have s-loads of enchantremovals. Basicly you are suggesting that people should just run antibuilds. We all know Build Wars in funny." Wow, simply amusing. Why don't you read what I said once again and use your head. In the game called Guild Wars you can run into anything and melee has been a dominating damage type for a long time. If you don't bother to bring some of the basic counters or know some of the basic counters then that isn't a balancing issue. Also, enchantments are very common and so are ways to remove enchantments. You just have to use your head when it comes to using them. Oh, and yes I have played against the builds as a monk and the first time it caused a lot of issues but we still won. After wards the team, and myself, just changed our style/strategy a little to make it easier since they are very predictable. Also, the R/D are the easiest to beat if you have any skill what so ever and you know, I'm not that skilled at this game yet they don't pose a threat. ;) ~ Sabastian 17:10, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem with Wounding Strike and R/Ds is that the player can headbutt their keyboard and do well. This is really a problem with any scythe build because scythes only have damage, while Warriors need to use well placed knockdowns to be effective, thus Warriors require skill and anything with a scythe does not. Offensive characters need to create and take advantage of opportunities to actually kill stuff. When they don't need to do that, the character takes no skill. --TimeToGetIntense 18:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Honestly im really not trying to piss you off or anything, but daaaamn i want to see you handle three of those dervishes really cause apparently you got 12 enchant removals which you use on the dervishes + you have the ability to make your team block 3 * Wounding strike, seriously why dont you just join a really good gvg guild. Apparently you are better than most monks out there. GFG. What teambuild are you running geez? Block way... wow. So i´'ll do you all a favor and not write anymore, my main thing was to prove my point which has been done. GL HF Ty for the quick response Izzy i really appreciate that even though we clearly disagree here.

I've never seen a R/D with this as a problem. The problem I've seen with R/D is a little something known as escapeway (in polite terms that is). Wounding strike is stopped by anything remotely resembling a melee counter, one of the most common meta skills, Restore Condition, heals it easily and has a SHORTER recharge than this skill. Stop spamming Word of Healing and thinking that you should be able to stand against 3 of ANYTHING as a monk, except another monk. Stall wars needs to end, and if this helps, keep it. --Kalas Silvern 09:38, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

You clearly know nothing about the meta though. RC aint gonna be up because of a continuesly Sig of Humility..

...which affects any elite including wounding strike? Seems like a question of teams adapting to situations rather than this skill adapting to current players like wild blow vs escapeway at the cost of adrenaline spike builds. There are always options some better than others... --Don Knowall 11:06, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

You can disable any skill for a minute with Diversion, therefore no skill is overpowered. --TimeToGetIntense 03:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

OR U CAN KILL? THAT WORKS TOO, AMIRITE? GET 5 WARRIOR AND 3 NECROES, RUN IWAY, U R WINRAR? -- NUKLEAR IIV 16:03, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Izzy thinks a 5, 3 unconditional ++ with possible is fine. I'm speechless. 72.235.48.41 01:57, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the deep wound comes BEFORE the bleeding :P Also the skill is fine, you CANNOT Restore Condition it because it is on a 3 second recharge and usually more than 1 person is using the skill, however it is in the same boat as hex pressure was, back in the day. Only instead of applying say, -7 degen, it applies -3 BUT -20% maximum health and -20% healing on target. As Izzy, and many others have pointed out, it isn't the skill, but the combo the skill goes in, that is making the difference. -Madda--86.13.248.50 22:23, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I am with Izzy on this one, Wounding Strike in itself is ok, it's only when combined with high critical damage from a scythe that it becomes overpowered. In PvE, that is still fine. In PvP, well, PvP players should know how to spread out just enough not to get 3 people hit by 1 attack (it's range isn't large by any standard). 145.94.74.23 21:10, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and, 72.235.48.41...it is not unconditional. Read the skill before you comment on it please.

Conditionals on Dervish skills are a joke. "Lose one enchantment." "While enchanted" "While not enchanted" etc... give me a break. Those conditions are ignored, you just load up the right skillbar and it plays itself. The Dervish is a joke of a class. --TimeToGetIntense 22:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

True, but even a condition that is easy to fufill is a condition. Some people here tend to be overdramatic (including me at times). 87.210.150.58 13:51, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

So you think wounding strike is only good because scythes have it? Why isn't Twisting Fangs a lead attack with a 3 second recharge? Why doesn't Dismember cost 2 adrenaline? Wounding strike is broken because it's perma DW spam.

Also, being enchanted isn't a condition. A condition is a special case you have to put effort (or luck) into meeting. Being enchanted (something 4 people on the average 8-man team can do) is about as conditional as eating cereal. ~Shard (talk) 11:45, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Well you gotta realize that the people at ANET think it's a condition, so I think the best feedback is "Well, it's too easy to meet." Also Wounding Strike is elite, while those skills are not. Not that I think that makes it balanced, but again, that's what the devs think probably. --TimeToGetIntense 22:59, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Twisting Fangs also deals +40 additional damage, Wounding Strike doesn't. Dismember cost adrenaline, and is unconditional. You guys are whining and being overdramatic. There are three assumptions that you guys make that are just plain wrong. So let me repeat: A) 3 Wounding Strikes are NOT stronger than 1. B) Being enchanted is NOT unconditional. You will need a skill to combo with, either on yourself or on another player (Aegis is about the only skill that will enchant you without people putting special effort in enchanting you) C) Good PvP players never stand so close that Dervishes can reliably hit three of them at the same time, over and over again.

Seriously, if this were a Swordsmanship skill, everyone would whine on how underpowered is was compared to Crippling Slash. 145.94.74.23 07:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Gee, I wonder why Sword's only deep wound is conditional and takes 7 hits to apply. Maybe swords are just the worst weapons int the game.

For the last time, the Deep Wound on Murdering Strike is NOT conditional. Being hexed is a condition. Being below 50% health is a condition. Hell, even having a condition is a condition. Having a skill sitting on your bar is not. You can argue all you want, but math doesn't lie, and if you can't understand that, why are you here? Scythes being broken is a fact, not an opinion. ~Shard (talk) 08:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Math is never wrong, only the people who apply it. 145.94.74.23 09:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree Shard, Scythes are not broken, just too easy to use. Also to 145.94.74.23, the condition is so easy to meet that the skill is bad for the game. The weapon is so powerful that it does not need damage bonuses. The drawback is slow attack speed, however, there are 1 second activation skills to completely remove that drawback, furthermore, since the weapon has enough natural damage to spike when using said 1 second activation attack skills, all it needs is a Deep Wound skill, so the lower the recharge on your DW the better. Wounding Strike is powerful because it is on Scythe and because 1 second activation attacks also exist for Scythe. It enables you to spike for 200-300 damage including DW every 3-4 seconds. Again, I want to remind you all that Dervishes only have pure damage, which owns right now due to lack of defense in the metagame. --TimeToGetIntense 09:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree with that statement, though you must also admit that it requires a bit of luck. A critical hit might go for as much as 300, but if you swing for only 9 damage, the best you'll get is around 130, including a -120 health Deep Wound. 145.94.74.23 11:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Uhh, Izzy, if you think there's nothing wrong with Wounding Strike you're a stupid nigger who shouldn't be allowed near ANYTHING pertaining to the balancing of skills.

I'd like it shown on the record that I did NOT write this. The person who wrote this should be put in a mental hospital and is a coward for not siging his comment. 145.94.74.23 17:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

And for taking making such a derogatory comment because of a disagreement about game balance. The skill has no +dmg, learn to not take critical hits to the back while kiting, learn to use aegis, learn spacing, learn watch things develope and use prot, learn to use multi-enchant removals, just learn to actually play. Don't make such a terrible statement in a rediculously cowardly manner, man up and actually discuss.~>Sins WDB 17:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

It really doesn't matter how much you swing for when you've got Conjure + Strength of Honor buffing your damage by like 30, so you're guaranteed at the very minimum 150ish + Deep Wound between Wounding Strike + Mystic Sweep. You could also throw Eremites in for the hell of it. Anyway, when the minimum damage of a melee spike that can happen every few seconds is 150 damage + DW, and it's more likely to hit 200 or 250 + DW, there really is something wrong. 3 of these guys will always kill someone if they all spike. There's not enough defense to handle it. Extra copies of Wounding Strike also does help a lot. If Guardian goes on the target, it has to stop all 3 of them. If you're pressuring that's 3 people you can beast down at the same time not considering any possible AoE luck. --TimeToGetIntense 20:34, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Watch the META game 1 signet mesmer kills the derv or what ever using wounding strike the amount of counters is incredible and saying that an elite that does no + damage that causes 2 conditions with one of them being conditional is overpowered is a joke, any number of skills from blind to blured to humility to freaking bane signet cuz the skyth hit take 1.8 seconds lol. You guys are being increadibly lame singaling a skill out like that. For that same matter i think recharge should indeed go to perhaps 5 seconds so that it would be comparable to other skills. In no way is this skill OP yet it does see alot of use in current meta and so to alow the use of other skills it should be changed to a 5 second recharge so without killing the skill it becomes a bit less spammable.66.177.69.32 13:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah cause 1 signet mesmer can knock down 3 dervishes every 3 seconds. Good suggestion. ~Shard (talk) 04:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The only answer is 4 hammer warriors with Counter Blow. --TimeToGetIntense 13:22, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Very brave and strong. I like that build, time! -- NUKLEAR IIV 15:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Or just run more dervishes than the other team:) They got 7 you go 8 and if they got 8 you're screwed:)212.242.184.220 22:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Wait... Signet mesmer. To counter dervsmite. Are you saying the only way to counter derv smite is to run a better dervsmite? Why didn't I think of this before? And yes, the biggest problem is the damage buffing. However, covered deep wounds every 3 seconds, particularly with the possibility to be an aoe deep wound on a map like burning, and a virtually nonexistent condition, is pretty ridiculous anyway. It might be okay if the signet mesmer is nerfed (soh and humsig in particular), and possibly conjures, but I still think wounding strike feels right at 5s recharge. Pluto 04:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

DUh? First off all I refered to Hum sig second of all a sig mes can kd a derv every 5 seconds thus 5 second recharge is justified. Indeed both builds are OP but definetly more the derv then the sig mesmer. The sig mesmer i think is nearly at par with an e surge any ways, though with kds and no need for energy... btw, also rather then uping the cast time of ermites and mystic why not just put recharge to 10 seconds seams relatively obvious to me but im sure Izzy has his reasons for keeping them high damage spammable and very easy to spike with? - Look Drop Kaboom - Alex.

Nah, izzy, nothing wrong with AoE deep wound covered by bleeding every 3 seconds on a dervish with a constant speed boost. gfg, you fail at skill balance. - 70.15.6.229 04:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

CHANGE EFECT NO DW IF U ~HaVe~ AN ENCHANT ON YOU, like forked arrow u know. problem solved? no conjure no SoH no shit right?

Wounding strike was fine before you made it so bleeding effect covered dw..if you think this skill is fine you should be fired...its pretty clear to anyone with a clue that this game has hit hard times and you are to blame for most of it. I imagine izzy as one of those dumb fucks in ra that uses a necro, but puts insidious parasite on monks and doesnt understand why it does not work. All of your changes lately have been fail, get with the program or quit.

I'm positive that I'm not the only person that feels this way and im truley pushing for izzy to resign for the sake of this game. Please sign here if you agree as I for one do not see any plausable means for someone this clueless to balance a game.

-T

Wounding Strike: (5e 3r) Elite Scythe Attack. If this attack hits, target foe suffers from Bleeding for 5...17...20 seconds. If you are under the effects of an enchantment, target foe also suffers from a Deep Wound for 5...17...20 seconds. | Restore Condition: (5e 3/4c 3r) Elite Spell. Remove all Conditions (Poison, Disease, Blindness, Dazed, Bleeding, Crippled, Burning, Weakness, Cracked Armor, and Deep Wound) from target other ally. For each Condition removed, that ally is healed for 10...58...70 Health. | See any similarities? Since RC is a perfect counter for WS (same recharge time, all conditions removed, scythe damage healed for each condition removed, etc), the only problem comes from poor player positioning that allows for WS to do AoE damage/condition spread, that is, player skill. Krothal 09:20, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

So you expect a monk to use rc every 3rd second do you know what that means.. That means that either the skill gets diverted or you basicly will have no energy regen. With 4 pips of e-regen you gain 4 energy ever 3 seconds you want us to use 5 every 3 seconds as monks in gvg. Nice one. When i started this i just hoped to bash some sense into peoples minds, but damn most people here seem to have no clue and just want gimmickway available so they can actually achieve something in PvP. Nice ruining of your own game Anet having a skillbalancer/Developers who think that skill is balanced. As suggested on various forums make Eviscerate 4 andrenaline and make bleeding cover it. Krothal Just because something has counters that doesnt make it balanced. On the other hand why did you not nerf the Conjure/SoH stacking even though you know its a problem?!?!?!? 212.242.184.220 09:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

My friends laughed and called the devs clueless when they saw everything that changed (i.e from foul feast to wounding strike) TA and RA meta in particular is pretty one sided atm. I can't really comprehend how anyone can support this guy.

I never thought Deep Wound was that good to be honest. it's useful, but in my opinion, it's also overhyped, just like the scythe itself. It might not be bad to give it a small nerf, but overall, it's not that bad. It's the combination that makes it too strong (put this skill in Sword Mastery and nobody would use it). 145.94.74.23 08:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

So one Monk should be able to keep up with one offensive character without running out of energy? So your team should be able to sit and tank any damage that happens, and no problem, your Monks can just heal it? I don't think so. First off, you need to use Prots, second off, people need to kite. WS should not be going off every 3 seconds.

On the other hand, the Dervish should take some skill to play. It shouldn't have a passive 33% speed boost all the time AND have artificial IAS AND be unspikable. I really don't have a problem with offense being strong, but it shouldn't be easy. Applying damage is easy. Everyone knows you deal damage, shit dies. Therefore, challenges need to exist in dealing damage, such as melee characters not being faster than everything else without any drawbacks (Warriors have to choose between stances!) and getting your maximum potential damage should come at some kind of risk (Frenzy!)

But again, defense isn't supposed to be, you just heal everything up without running out of energy. That's easy. Everyone knows you heal and shit doesn't die. When it's important to prot and kite, it rewards awareness. --TimeToGetIntense 20:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

You smart people don't seem to notice that while it is a covered deep wound applicable every 3 seconds, There are 3 things that balance it. A. Unlike Pious Assault It is Elite. B. It has NO bonus damage. None. Zippety doo-dah. 3. It IS conditional. Honestly with the RECENT nerfs to SoH and such enchant removal SCREWS WS dervs. Necros are commonly run now in GvG with Plague signet so just load ur necro up with Strip Enchantment, Rip Enchantment, or even better Rend Enchantments. It isn't OP. Basically it is a deep wound that can be applied every 3 secs....Don't talk about the cover either because the current RC heavy meta bleeding is just food. Because if you spike them down with wounding+x amount of other skills the bleeding doesn't matter. And if the person gets rc'ed before the spke ends then the DW is gone as well so ur whole spike didn't matter. I think it is at worst SLIGHTLY overpowered and deserves a TINY nerf like increasing the recharge 2 5 secs or something. REMEMBER what it was before and THANK izzy for bringing dervs back into meta. Psychiatric Consultant 22:58, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Why is bringing the most poorly designed class into the meta good? --TimeToGetIntense 01:10, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

That shouldnt be a factor Time, all classes should be able to be useful 76.26.189.65 00:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

"There is nothing wrong with Wounding Strike" - Izzy

... lol and thats the guy who balance gw, why not

"There is nothing wrong with an unconditional 5 energy deep wound covered by bleeding on up to three ppl each third second"

there's really nothing wrong, are there? --Cursed Angel 19:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Relic Objective in HoH

Remove it from the game. It's a waste of 8 minutes of everyone's life. 72.235.48.41 04:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I second that, the whole relic run scenario is purely focused on the final 30 seconds and is usually decided by pathing bugs and the legendary "stuck" bug, i dont think this gametype works at all in 3-way matches 80.42.167.224 20:30, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, nobody likes it. ~Shard (talk) 04:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

If it makes meta builds fail, then I like it. 145.94.74.23 07:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Meta builds just throw Make Haste on a hex necro. It doesn't make them fail. Oh, and the shitway rangers have just as good a chance as a balanced team; escape makes you pretty much immune to linebacking, and is IMS too. -Auron 07:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

HoH relics should just be a 1 minute match, and when the match starts, a sound effect going "VROOMMMMMMM" should come up. It would be only a waste of 1 minute of everybody's time, plus it would be humorous the first 2 times we get that objective. ~Shard (talk) 08:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I've never even been to the HoH outpost, but I can sure say that the recent "Stand Around and Make Haste, Forget What Fighting Is" thing is boring to watch. I wonder if it would get any more interesting if the teams had to 'attune' the relics at one of the other team's bases and then run it to the center. --Star Weaver 07:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

how about making only 1 relic appear in the middle and you have to run it to your base, also increase the decreased move speed from holding the one relic. 76.26.189.65 18:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

VROMMMM. Seriously though, capture the flag - now that would be interesting. -- NUKLEAR IIV 12:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

ooh how about 1 relic, and you take it to enemy base, and talk to their hero, upon this happenin theres a huge explosion and everyone in enemy dies and you win! yay 76.26.189.65 20:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I absolutely support the last idea! Would be even more fun than it is now... A. von Rin 22:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

GvG is about strategy. HA is about killing things. There was no reason to add a "run back and forth for 8 minutes through your own territory" objective to HA. Having an objective where only 3 of your team needs to be present is so stupid. ~Shard (talk) 04:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Ha should not be about 8vs8. That makes ha bad and promotes gimmicks. -- NUKLEAR IIV 10:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

HA was a 6 player match for a while, and from what I gathered people hated it and said that it promoted gimmicks and balanced builds had no place... — Poki#3 12:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

That's not what I meant. HA should not pitch 8 people against 8 people in a contest of muscle. It should be like GVG - involving some more strategy. -- NUKLEAR IIV 15:11, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

If it was "more like GvG" it would just be GvG. My point is that HA and GvG must be different. I don't think that just "making it more like GvG" is a valid suggestion. Besides, HA has a much faster pace then GvG (that rarely ends before VoD). I'm only R5 so maybe I know S, but overall I like HA the way it is. (and we didn't lose to a Sway in weeks) — Poki#3 00:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be "more like gvg". It just has to force the players to use their brains once in a while. -- NUKLEAR IIV 09:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

That's less like HA and more like GvG. -- VegaObscura 07:21, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Relics doesn't accomplish that. Take it out. ~Shard (talk) 22:26, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem with relic runs is that, generally speaking, nobody really plays until the last 30 seconds or so. Breaking ahead of the other two teams will make you lose more often then not (or at the very least, that's the general perception I hear), so nobody really does anything until that last push where you try to be the last one to cap. 1v1 relic runs aren't so bad, because the other team is going to be focused on stopping you anyway. In 1v1 relic runs, there's little reason not be more aggressive, so the matches are considerably less stupid. Pluto 04:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Tbh HA is terribly boring and it even would be more fun as a big Random Arena (yes I said "random"), than how it is atm. HA should be to GvG, what RA is to TA: The next step to a more complicated and coordinated PvP experience. A. von Rin 00:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

On a personal level, I always expected HA to be more serious than GvG - That may be because you don't get "vD has beaten PnH in the Imperial isle!" in game chat. Not ever going to happen, though :( -- NUKLEAR IIV 16:24, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Power Shot

I want to ask you to pay some attention to Power Shot. It is by far, the most underpowered beginning skill of the game, and it is very slow and boring for rangers in any starting area. I would like to ask that you lower the recharge to either 4 or 5, while making the skill a little more blanced. Maybe a 50% slower flying speed? or perhaps a lower energy cost with a higher starting damage but lower the skill progression in damage? Or, just make it uber strong for PvE and leave it how it is for PvP. This is just one skills that really bothers me. It could be so good, and yet, it is horrible because of the damage progression and recharge. Thanks. 76.170.190.199 03:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

it got buffed recently its not the weakest ranger attack anymore 76.26.189.65 03:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Good, now do something about Quick Shit. -- VegaObscura 05:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Power shot got buffed but still sucks Antiarchangel TROLL 19:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Its a horrible skill to start of as a ranger with. 76.170.190.199 19:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

It's weak, I know ever sense alpha with Eight v Eight went on an insane run with ranger DPS and we redid all ranges and added expertises the plan old damage buffs have never fully recovered, in the end a ranger is about condition application so skill like that just don't hold up well to the class design. Izzy @-'---- 20:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, this is just one of those skills that's dead and, honestly, better off for it. :P -- Armond Warblade 02:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

It could be changed in a ranged Bull's Strike version with higher energy costs. This would fit to the theme and be usefull, instead of being just a waste of a skill slot... A. von Rin 00:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Guild Lord and Ghostly Hero use this skill, so that would be horrible. It should just be left alone. It's an NPC skill like Heal Area. Because it has a simple and generic effect, players are able to use the skill too because there's no harm in allowing them to. If anything, it should be replaced with Savage Shot in early level areas. It would actually give new Rangers a hint as to what the role of the class is. Also replace Flare with Immolate. New players shouldn't be given the worst, most useless, most horribly designed skills to begin the game with. It's one thing if the skills are simple but also well designed such as Sever Artery and Gash, but Flare and Power Shot are just useless. --TimeToGetIntense 05:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I like how the first 2 skills a warrior gets is Frenzy and Heal sig, in an area where frenzy doesnt REALLY trigger so then later on when thier dying for using both same time they have no idea why 76.26.189.65 04:52, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I think any intelligent player will figure it out. How many Warriors do you see using Frenzy in PvE? --TimeToGetIntense 00:40, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

90% of pugged warriors, then they say my healers suck after they die, then i tell them to bring their own heroes which is usually followed by perhaps the worst healer build you can imagine 76.26.189.65 22:59, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

You're lucky. I always get warriors with 7 self defense skills, resurrect, and 9 sword mastery. --TimeToGetIntense 14:25, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I've seen far too many of them far to often use Frenzy non stop in PvE and give the poor monk a headache. Rakyren 01:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I wish I could find tank wars in pve, then maybe they wont need to burn my monks energy for being useless anyways 76.26.189.65 03:15, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Mid-month balances

I'm guessing the main reason you don't fix things in the middle of a "season" is so the meta stays the same for the whole season, but when you see stuff like

within the span of 12 seconds from 2 characters, don't you ever get an urge to smash face on those skills? If I made something that broken, I'd be knocking people down in the hallway to get to my computer and fix it. ~Shard (talk) 22:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

SoJ Is broken? Oo I chuckled, since the skill apparently was OK since Prophecies went live... Same with SoH, though that was affected by the fast Casting change (and thus got it's casting time increased by 1 sec to compensate). — Poki#3 22:37, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

No, you see, this post involves a build that 100% of gvg teams run, maybe you should gvg sometime to find out what im talking about.~Shard (talk) 01:16, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Got some changes in the works, should be out soon. Izzy @-'---- 01:23, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you, Shard, should GvG more and see the main problem is damage stacking. Conjures and Strength of Honor are the real problem. Signets are a by-product. Wounding Strike is a problem but is only further due to the aforementioned enchantments.--74.61.209.219 01:25, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Any time Signet of Judgement sees play, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Too bad it's always in gay builds... :( --TimeToGetIntense 01:57, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Mesmers are gay? How original xD But seriously, I hope nothing big will happen, because I see the Signet Mesmer, in itself, as a really nice build. Granted I also play a SaH-Conjure Warrior in HA... — Poki#3 03:08, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The signets are fine, so is wounding strike. Mantra of Inscription is gay, and scythe is gay. Lightblade 19:13, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

how is dw spam on a scythe not gay 68.93.107.184 19:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

You need to seperate DW spam and Scythe. DW spam is not (ok, I'll avoid that word) bad. Scythe is bad. DW spam get RC and FF, easy counter. Scythe's crit damage and auto-crit mechanic is bad. Lightblade 23:52, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not about to get into the sexual orientation of farm tools or magics, but I will say, we've been observing GvG semi-frequently lately, and pretty much any time I see a Mo/Me cast a signet my reaction is "Bored now. Next?" They're all clones. Also, real mesmers are usually fun to watch :D. --Star Weaver 19:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

its Me/Mo 68.93.107.184 19:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Forhead, meet hand. ^_^--Star Weaver 20:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

DW spam is gonna be bad for the game so long as skills that do an immediate 100 damage to three targets are bad for the game. (Searing/Teinai's are 30s recharge and do their damage over 5 seconds, come to think of it...) -- Armond Warblade 03:01, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Wounding strike is gay everywhere, it doesn't matter what buffs the character has on them. Like I've said before, Dismember doesn't cost 2 adrenaline, there's a reason why. This is that reason. Nearly unconditional spammable cheap DW is bad for the game. 72.235.48.41 06:18, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

did i see the words, "Mesmers are gay" here? couple of things there. mesmers are unpopular just bcause they are more subtle than a war who goes about smashing things. and gay is a word i don't like to see used as an insult.--Sum Mesmer Guy contribs 06:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

You're wrong, and too bad? -- Armond Warblade 06:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't see why Eviscerate and Dismember (and gash, for that matter) have such high adren costs. If AoE DW spam every 3 seconds is ok, 2 adren eviscerate would be balanced as well (probably more balanced, actually, seeing as it lacks a cover condition and axes dont hit 2-3 people at once). -Auron 07:08, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

but...but... warriors carry KD's... -- NUKLEAR IIV 09:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

but... but... dervishes have an attack skill that hits even when it misses. ~Shard (talk) 23:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Saw the update. I was hoping something would get fixed. IDK why I keep my hopes up. They're always bad. 72.235.48.41 06:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Imbalance in Hero Battles

Changes for HB used to be "on the plate but low priority" but in the past year we haven't seen anything that even resembled an attempt to rebalance the format, except for removing The Crossing which was basically a workaround for a lot of the major issues with the format. Has Hero Battles been abandoned completely now? --Draikin 06:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Consider the fact that TA needs a ladder more than HB does, then ask yourself if that question was worth asking. -- Armond Warblade 03:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how that's relevant to my question, since I'm not even talking about the ladder in HB. Of course TA deserves a ladder but that's a completely different topic. I'm asking whether or not HB will still be receiving the updates that we were told would be implemented after they finished EotN. --Draikin 17:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

No because HB is partially hopeless, partially ignored/uncared for, and mostly bad. Not to mention there's better things to fix in the meantime. -- Armond Warblade 04:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Just because there are other things that need fixing doesn't mean entire PvP formats should be ignored completely. There are a lot of simple fixes that would improve HB, if Anet actually bothered to take a look at the format. --Draikin 09:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

You'll find Arenanet's priority on Guild Wars as a whole is low. Don't expect anything, won't get disappointed. 118.92.98.226 20:11, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. There's a lot of little things that would fix HA, but ANet's resources are being allocated almost entirely to GW2. -- Armond Warblade 20:27, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh ffs

Oni gets annoyed. Once again ive seen you commenting pages regarding Dyes and Wounding strike,izzy. yet somehow you always manage to ignore the part about ursan? What are ya,a coward? just state your oppinion WHY you havent nerfed this yet. Some guy who i argued with before said this: I dont know why they shouldnt nerf ursan,but they havent,so obviously they dont want to nerf it.

Care to explain WHY you havent nerfed it? or will you ignore this comment like all the others? -Note that in BOTH sections in this ursan pve thingie area,the argument about nerfing ursan has won.

Stop fucking failing. honestly,your job is to be a skill balancer. not to fuck up the game. what the fuck did you think anyway when you BUFFED shadowform? was it the final statement saying you dont give a shit about pve? Oni 20:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Er, It's been repeatedly stated that the staff is divided over whether there is a problem, what the problem is, and what the solution should be and that the discussion is still going on. Repeatedly. Again. And again. I really doubt that in this situation they're going to be allowed to talk about the details you're demanding. --Star Weaver 20:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

hey oni kid, stop forcing your retarded opinion on everyone else and stop repeating the same bullshit over and over again 87.189.186.206 21:15, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, if Oni is forcing his opinion on everyone by posting here, you're equally guilty (since you're forcing your opinion -- i.e. that Oni's opinion is "retarded" -- on everyone else). Anyways, you (and everybody else) is under no obligation to read Oni's post, so really, it doesn't matter. Also, if you can't come up with a better insult than "retarded," then you might want to consult a dictionary. 85.71.168.42 21:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Only difference is that Oni is acting like a annoying little crack head and as such deserves to be treated so. Done25 21:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps. It's an interesting question actually: does a user sacrifice his right to be protected by policy, etc. when he violates policy, etc? Anyways, I posted more because 87.189.186.206 was entirely unnecessary and served no other purpose than to escalate the debate. Also, I dislike the use of the word "retarded" as an insult. 85.71.168.42 21:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Well you are allowed to be on here so long as you follow the rules so techinally once he breaks a rule he is no longer protected by it and if he repeatedly breaks said rule he will lose his account. Still no matter how nice it feels two wrongs don't make a right. I just flip a coin. :P Done25 21:56, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Soon as you can get everyone to agree that Oni's acting like an "annoying little crackhead" your opinion will be right. Protip: Not gonna happen, so bugger off. (I'm not sure if the IP was you forgetting to log in, Done; if it's not, this whole thing is directed to said IP.) -- Armond Warblade 03:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

He's only forcing his opinion if it's actually being taken into consideration, which from the looks of things isn't happening. --76.25.197.215 07:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

So you think Ursan should not be nerfed and neither should Shadow Form Done25? Care to explain that? This is a discussion that's been going on for a while. I aggree with Oni that it should have been nerfed a long time ago, as it turns PvE into a mindless grind. Dark Morphon(contribs) 17:49, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

At Armond- I only use my home computer so I am always logged on. At Dark - Where are you pulling this crap from? I simply want Oni to stop acting like a 5 year old who didn't get what he wanted and is throwing a tantrum because of it. Done25 00:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Things are going offtopic about an issue that's more or less resolved. If you want to discuss Ursan Blessing, Shadow Form or PvE, you know where the relevant pages are. Please use them. -- Brains12 \ talk 00:37, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

What orifice did you pull that conclusion out of, Morphon? All I said was that since his opinion isn't being listened to, it isn't possible that he's forcing it. If you really need that much help with your reading comprehension, I'm sure there's remedial learning facilities within driving distance of your house. I just owned myself so hard. Googling for remedial learning facilities within driving distance of my house. --76.25.197.215 01:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

A couple of things though,while poor oni was being banned for swearing (lulz?) Anyway. the reason i posted that was to have a nice lill argument,but i realised that every single comment posted against me is so fooken fail its not even worth having fun with. here are some things: When did i force my oppinion in this post? i did -NOTHING- else than ask why izzy avoided commenting ANYTHING why he is doing what he is doing to pve. First of all,i asked what he THOUGHT about ursan,and that the winning argument says nerf. not NERF URZN BIETCH So please,READ MY POST before you start crying about that. and,brains. izzy is the skill balance leader isnt he? i wanted to know why he released immortality and why it took a year for anet to start DEBATING to nerf ursan. So can anyone tell what oppinion im forcing again? So,done25. To be honest you are the one who is acting like a 5yrold kid. I only used swearing and stuff to attract some ppl like you to have fun ;o. its pretty lame that you skipped through my entire post that rings nothing else than the truth just to say stop posting,you are 5 years old immature,i dont care what you say If you dont,dont bother posting ^^.

Gawd,i got banned for 2 days for THIS? p_qOni 21:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Editage: Star Weaver: You say there might be a chance they arent allowed to speak of it? To be honest,i payed for this game. now,can you tell me in any other MMORPG the staff would let GODMODE in pve? (perma sf form.) Id like to know why they did this. and hell,they have to tell. Why? I've payed. ;o.

Er, corporations have rules about employees revealing information to the general public. For example, I'm not allowed to discuss the company I work for with the media AT ALL without clearance, I believe. Haven't read the rules in a while. But I had to sign something.

Also, ArenaNet have no obligation to tell you anything. Seriously. The "I paid money" entitlement argument . . . no.

Also, I think you were banned for being verbally abusive to a specific person, not for the language. That whole paragraph starting with "Stop fucking failing." Try saying that all outloud to someone. And say you just said all that to get a rise out of of people. Trying to attact people to start a big argument is immature, is rude, and usually called trolling.

Feeling a company owes you something (they don't) is not justification for abuseiveness.

You're not forcing your opinon on anyone, you're just convincing people that nothing you say is worth so much as reading.

Geh, look at me, I was planning on reading the drama less and now i'm responding to it . . . . Not for long. --Star Weaver 22:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

According to his block log he was banned for being upset. That's... a pretty shitty reason. But whatever, this isn't the place for it. -- Armond Warblade 00:29, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

"Stop fucking failing. honestly,your job is to be a skill balancer. not to fuck up the game."

agree 100% with this statement by oni. In the real world when you suck at your job this much, you get fired.

I'm aware of this discussion being dead. But i just read what star weaver said. Tell me, what would you do if you went into a store and bought lighter, the lighters company says tons of promising shit. And yar happy with it. Suddenly when yar about to take the lighter away the clerk who you bought it from took it and smashed it. And when you ask why the hell he did that he says that the company cant allow him to do that. I bought gw. It promised me Skill over time. they took it and smashed that. Whatever, i'll manage. Then, they remove 70% of the ighters liquid thingie (PVE) and still cant tell me about it. then they fux up the rest of the 30% by smashing it away. (fucking up balance badly) Really, Guildwars isnt balanced in a single area. Immortality exists in PvE. the motto that made me buy GW doesnt exist anymore. And i do not deserve a explination? Thats the same crap as the clerk destroying the item you just bought and not telling why. yet you still lost yar money.So yes. oni thinks he deserves a explination >.<Oni 12:30, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Because it's a PvE skill, and not even a good one, by bringing Ursan you severely limit what else you can do. The damage slacks majorly compared to a nuker or something focused on damage, the tanking isn't as great as a warrior that's built for tanking. It's more so for mesmers and other professions that at times in places like HM dont always have as much usefulness in a team and also for players who can't pull much else off. Monks don't always just want to heal, mesmers cant interrupt all HM fast casts etc. But in all honestly Ursan groups have wiped loads and that definately doesn't overpower it. Not to mention there is a down time and everything =\ simply there are better things in the game, by asking to nerf this one you're basically wanting to nerf everything that's ever good at anything. I believe a well made balanced team can outdo a Ursan team anyday IMO. 74.229.66.241 13:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

If you went into a store and bought a lighter, and on buying the lighter they made you sign something that said they were giving you a liscence to use the lighter (see TOS #3) with all the other provisions of such a liscence, then they would be legally entitled to smash it or whatever. Your demands and desires are based wholly on morality, not legality, and if you do not agree with a company's morality, do not buy their products. (ETA: entitlement is in the eye of the beholder.) --Star Weaver 15:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Any chance for a Steelfang Slash revert? (PvE)

It was used quite abit by PvE wars combined with Brawling Headbutt. The 1 sec recharge ruined the combo abit. Is there a possibility of it getting reverted for PvE? P A R A S I T I C 09:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I would like to add that the main problem is that it was nerfed with the Backbreaker combo in mind (it could instant recharge itself and therefore fueled a Backbreaker-lock extensively until "For Great Justice!" wore out) but the nerf nerfed it for everyone including "legitimate" users. Maybe making it an energy attack with a quick activation (5e 1c 8r for example) might have made it unfit for the combo but, while energy heavy, easier to connect in a "legitimate" build. I easily understand why the combo was nerfed even if it was rather bad and clunky, but Steelfang Slash is a skill in the worst weapon in the game, using a painful condition fo fulfill (thus rewarding skill) especially with a already crowded sword bar. Nerfing the skill removed swords a bit more from the game, and it is also one of these nerfs that just weaken a skill, not one that kills it for an unwanted combo but opens it for other possibilities. It would be good if it was reverted or somehow rebalanced. 90.58.77.69 14:32, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

So "For Great Justice!" is nerfed, but somehow Steelfang Slash isn't unnerfed? Ok. 90.58.137.32 03:30, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

soul bind

just take a good smiting hex that no one use and put it in curses and make it elite but still the same and now expect everyone to use it.

that's so awesome izzy, i bet it was ur idea. --Cursed Angel 00:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Basically it's the same thing, but with 1 sec casting instead of 2, is Elite and in a different profession, and can't stack with Scourges. Curses is a much more useful attribute them Smiting, I'll give you that, but still the skill doesn't seem to live up to it's Elite status. I didn't test it, but if the damage would be armor ignoring and Scourge not... it's still not that good. IDK... maybe I'm just missing something here. — Poki#3 01:09, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

i'd like to see it hurt the target instead of the healer, it'd reduce healing pretty good. maybe better than the 25 energy 50% less healing elite. --Frozen Archer 01:17, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

It's a lot better than scourge healing. Scourge Healing is in an unusable attribute, and Soul Bind is in an overpowered one. ~Shard (talk) 02:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

This skill fucking rapes bitches all day dawg. I popped a cap in this niggas ass with it man, he put patient spirit on his ass and I blew that shit up with Rip Enchantment and he fucking went down dawg! --TimeToGetIntense 06:17, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Scourge Healing has potential, there are other reasons it isn't used (do you see a healer or do you see a monk?). Stop bashing Izzy just because you don't like him. 87.210.150.58 14:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

What if you combined the effects say: "For 10 seconds when target foe is healed the healer is knocked down."? Kinda like the necro version of Shield of Judgment Done25 18:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

LOL,WHAT? O.O. worst suggestion ever? KD the healer everytime he heals? oh yeah,gg in 4vs4 areas.fuck em up even more,like wod wasnt enoughOni 22:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

What if you heal party and 7 people on your team have it? Does your character get stuck in the ground? ~Shard (talk) 03:52, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Better yet, what if you echo Soul bind on all their players and when they use heal party their healer just dies...instantly 76.26.189.65 23:01, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Hahaha. Anyways here is what I put i na suggestion page. be sure to comment. Elite Hex Spell. For 5 seconds every time target foe is healed the healer is knocked down. 15 energy, 2 cast, 15-20 second recharge. Done25 19:12, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

OMG, What I said actually happens >_<, if you drop Kaolai when enough people have soul bind on them you do die >_< 76.26.189.65 00:36, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Update

Was good, thanks. --71.229 00:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

BP didnt deserve nerf 24.141.43.76 01:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

It was kinda unbalanced in arenas and there was better things to hit (lol WoD), but I'm not gonna complain about it when he finally tapped Splinter and ARage in the same balance. 'Sides, having to recast BP more often isn't going to hurt much since you're rarely using it on more than one or two people. --71.229 03:05, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree, this skill change was a good one. The 'nerf' of "For Great Justice!" for example, prevents abuse but allows the skill to function as it should in normal build. The Elementalist skill changes were nice too. Keep up the good work Izzy. 145.94.74.23 11:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Strength of Honor

Nice nerf. Now, you only have time to put it on 4 people before the gate opens.

Converts weapon damage to holy damage so it can't stack with conjure. Thanks. ~Shard (talk) 02:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Use Enchantment removal, Shard. Thanks. — Poki#3 02:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Mirror of Disenchantment and it takes a full minute to get it back up on those four people. ¬ Wizårdbõÿ777(talk) 04:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Cause there are so many skills that can remove stacked enchantments and recharge in 5 seconds. That's like saying use veil to remove wail of doom. Having a bad counter doesn't make it fine. 72.235.48.41 05:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

This change was dumb, clearly Izzy wanted to leave a gay build viable but slightly easier to counter. Fail. Just kill it. --TimeToGetIntense 06:19, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

So then we can move onto another OP build.--Underwood 06:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Enchantment removal isn't a viable counter, because then it leaves your build without offensive enchant removals, so your team's damage never goes through. Not a wise trade-off. It should just... y'know, be balanced. Converting to holy is fine, or hell, even converting to lightning (even though it might stack, it would only stack with a single conjure, and it would be reduced by armor). -Auron 06:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

You could run extra removals in your build but that really isn't a counter. We need BSurge back because the AoE on enchanted foes prevented people from running 3 melees stacked with damage enchants. It kept Conjure, SoH and orders all in check while providing teams with a pretty good active defense skill for general play. If you don't bring back BSurge there will be more problems down the road. Just make sure Ward Against Melee doesn't work on Air Eles. --TimeToGetIntense 07:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Wait, wait, sorry, sorry, did I understand you right? "No, I don't want to bring a counter for a very popular build, I want that build nerfed so I don't have to bring a counter". That's basically what's you're saying, and that's just wrong and lazy. — Poki#3 09:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The very fact that you are required to bring a counter for it makes it overpowered, by definition. Thanks for proving my point, though. -Auron 10:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I dare to disagree. Enchantment removal isn't a real counter since everyone should have some anti-enchantment. Just like having something to combat conditions and hexes. As with conditions and hexes, you can't remove everything unless you're really devoted to it, but removing key hexes is important. Just like removing key enchantments from the enemy. The way the game should work, is someone thinks up a good build, someone else things up a build to counter it, then someone counters the new build and so forth. Skill changes should just encourage new builds, and tone down existing ones IF they're too powerful. Mirror the thing. Or rend it, and hit a distracting shot on the Mesmer. Or better yet, just kill the Dervishes. They'll lose their enchantments that way. — Poki#3 11:05, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Just killing the dervish is a great counter to this build, why didn't i think of this before? -Warlock 11:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

You're a fucking genius, Poki. A real visionary. --76.25.197.215 11:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

"The way the game should work, is someone thinks up a good build, someone else things up a build to counter it, then someone counters the new build and so forth." Absolutely, positively, 100% wrong. That's build wars, and that's bullshit. The game should be skill over build - no matter what skills you bring, you should be able to outskill any team, regardless of build. If their build, not their skill, is beating you, ArenaNet is failing at their jobs (since they were the ones that said Guild Wars was skill over skills).

Of course, that doesn't mean you can bring 8 smite monks and "outskill" opponents, but you should be able to beat every gimmick in the game running balanced. If any gimmick is enough of a crutch that it allows bad players to beat significantly better players, the gimmick needs nerfing. That's the obvious minimum for maintaining skill over build.

You shouldn't ever have to devote your build to countering hexes. You shouldn't ever have to devote half your build to countering dervishes. You should be able to out-skill the opponents using the standard defense your build already has. Of course, this is obviously not the case, thanks to very poorly designed mechanics with no real counter (hexes - explained ad nauseam, you simply can't counter hexes with weak-ass 12 second recharge single-hex removals. It's the same with dervishes; you can't counter them with *just* enchant removal. They're still dealing 100+ damage crits (easier to manage than 150 damage crits, but only just). You have to devote too much of your build to counter them because they deal too much damage than is healthy for the game).

The game needs to move away from melee dominated offense, but it also needs to move away from build wars, because build wars is simply fail and aids. Bring back the balance, ANet.

And yeah... killing the dervish is a good counter? Holy shit, I need to put "death" as a counter to every single build on PvX. -Auron 11:35, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

No, the game doesn't need to move away from melee dominated offense. Warriors are the only well designed damage dealing profession. Everything else that can do sustainable direct damage is degenerate. Other professions only take skill to play when they have a support role and some non-sustainable damage, or some slow passive pressure. Basically what it comes down to is, a Warrior needs to use Frenzy to deal tons of damage. He needs to balance risk vs. reward in the same way a caster has to decide whether it's worth spending time and energy on a spell. Dervishes don't have to make any sacrifices, there is no risk vs. reward when playing a Dervish. You just hit shit and it dies. --TimeToGetIntense 11:53, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The game will stagnate unless melee are fixed. It'll never move away from a block-web type build, because that's what you need to have to stay alive. The addition of paras and dervs saw to that. If damage was balanced between eles and physical (and possibly a few non-spammable, thus non-spikey, necro skills), and more viable mesmer skills were introduced to counter big damage and condi spam from eles, the meta would be much more interesting. We just need something to get away from the current boring-ass meta. The devs are caught in the never ending loop of fixing only what's in the meta - i.e., removing options from the game without introducing any. Even at that, however, they're doing a terrible job (SoH wasn't nerfed, conjures weren't nerfed, wounding wasn't nerfed, rending touch wasn't nerfed, expertise exploiting wasn't fixed, scythe damage is so retardedly high that every melee class in the game uses them (A/D, R/D, W/D, D*)). They need to focus more on what could be in the game instead of destroying the current game even more by nerfing the wrong things and leaving absolutely broken builds alive.

I agree with you that the main problem with dervishes is unconditional, risk-free killing. Warriors have to frenzy in order to get evis -> exec -> dstrike to hit quickly; if they don't frenzy, the enemy team has ages to prot the spike or remove deep wound. Dervishes don't have to worry about a thing; their deep wound recharges ridiculously fast, their energy never gets low, and they hit for over 100 damage. There are myriad problems with dervishes, but they all stem from risk-free (and thus skill-free) play. -Auron 13:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Every other form of physical based sustainable DPS *aside from Warriors* also happens to be risk free. The best way to keep them in check is to give the reliable DW skills exclusively to Warriors. Also, there are really only a few ways the game can go besides melee pressure with blocks and blinds. Caster spikes or 8 necro pressure. Have you seen what 8 necros spamming every necro skill in the game on recharge can do? It's disgusting. Also I guess R-Spike, Para spike, etc... Basically either gimmicks or you use Warriors for damage because they are the only class that is designed correctly for dealing damage. That's how the game works, it sucks, but it can't go any other way... However, it could be moved more towards splitting, more active defense could be buffed. When splitting is universal, you will see more variety. More skills will become viable. The biggest reason most skills in the game suck is that GW was designed to have alot of splitting going on, but the game has gotten into a state where you need to run a super 8v8 build to survive, or you run a hyper gank build. This causes skills that do these things very powerfully to be the only viable skills. --TimeToGetIntense 13:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

auron, there's no way gw is gonna be so balanced that skill>build, u only have 8 skills, if i as a mesmer only had anti-melee skills and we face 8 eles using sf my team would be one man less, i'd still have rez, maybe something that could hurt them but still i'd be useless. same goes for many builds, teambuilds and the builds u use urself, ranger spirits, snares, hexes, conditionremoval, almost everything is better or worse depending on the opposite teams build. in a world where everyone play balanced i can see how skill>build but the game is also meant to be fun, and selling, repeatidly meeting balanced over and over again isn't fun, meeting an assassin with only anti-caster skills isn't fun but that's how buildwars is. --Cursed Angel 16:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Solution: Don't be bad and bring a decent mesmer. -- Armond Warblade 16:37, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

i used the mesmer to prove a point, it's a profession that depends very much on the opposite team's build, in ha its just to use pd and ure almost never worthless, but gogo criticize cuz u have nothing better to say. --Cursed Angel 16:52, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Depends on the enemy team's build, eh? (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 16:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

take drain ench and go meet sway, gogo prove my point. --Cursed Angel 17:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Because your entire bar is Drain Enchantmentx8, right? (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 17:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Diversion Pious is a bitch. (It's always Pious for me. I don't know why. Lucky button mashing?) Also, diversion the n/rts and they get one less spamheal, which is a big plus. (Diversion on a spike if you're good.) Seriously, if you're rolling mesmer, either take skills that are universal enough to be useful in every battle, or expect to not be able to use one or two of them in any given match. -- Armond Warblade 17:18, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

You can't expect to bring just any 8 skills and expect to beat anything because you're better at the game then your opponent. A good build that has good team synergy is half of the success, and the other half is how you play it and how you coordinate with everyone. I play a warrior, so I know there's a lot of crap you can throw at melee to make them useless. Blind, Cripple, Snare hexes, other anti-melee hexes like Empathy, SS or Blurred Vision; Guardian, Weapon of Warding... You can't expect to win agents a good build without having some sort of defense agents it.

In other news, I'd really love to hear your definition of "Balanced". Is it a party without a Dervish? Is it a party without 2 copies of the same profession, except Monk? Is it a party that has 4 Elementalist each running a different attribute to balance it out? Is it a party that has melee damage, ranged damage, elemental damage, condition spam, hex spam, healing, protection, blocking, snares... all in one packege? — Poki#3 22:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

"Balanced" builds are ones that don't become useless when you shut down their gimmick. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 22:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

QFT Aii. -- Armond Warblade 00:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Just as a side note to your "party without 2 copies of the same profession, except Monk" statement; I personally wish that (and I'll get flamed for this, I know) that the monk class wasn't an exception of the whole balance-thing. I think it ought to be just as viable to win without using a monk, if the team is good enough. I know there are a few guilds who actually don't use a monk apart from having one run flags or something, but it's blantly obvious that theses kind of teams at a high level don't stand a chance against a team of similar level who use monks frequently. If monks weren't overpowered, a lot less people would bother playing them I guess; which plain out sucks. [end of random ranting]--ILLUSiVE 21:47, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I hear you, Illusive. Thing is, Rt's were designed to stop this. They fucked it up, and monks reign supreme. The only reason you see 3 monk backlines is for 2 reasons: 1) they are the only support class 2)NF power creep made it so that if you don't get 3 monks, you die. -- NUKLEAR IIV 11:31, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

In almost every case, if you're not using real monks for your backline, you're playing some version of iway. ~Shard (talk) 22:09, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

On the topic of SoH: why buff the skill itself (letting it deal holy damage) in order to stop it from stacking with conjure? Simply making it trigger only on physical damage would achieve the same goal. --Draikin 00:12, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Because I want to farm undead with it, shhh. Yeah physical damage is probably a better idea. ~Shard (talk) 03:51, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Holy Damage for flavor, also so it can still stack with Judge's Insight, or is that a problem too? I don't think it is since JI is a 2 second cast. Sure it will get around conditional armor bonuses that barely matter... so who cares?--TimeToGetIntense 14:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not against Strength and Judges stacking...they're in the same attribute and 20% penetration isn't that much damage unless it's a scythe critical. ~Shard (talk) 23:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Also it pretty much takes all your energy to maintain SoH on one person and also keep JI on them. It's not efficient at all. I don't think you could maintain 2 SoH's and also keep JI on even one person. I guess you could run some e-management, but yeah, it would suck. Blessed Signet smite bonder? lolz. --TimeToGetIntense 23:59, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Another balance proposal

Sorry to bother you with this once again, Izzy. This time it is only 11 skills and very little rambling from me.

User:TimeToGetIntense/game_balance_june08

Thanks --TimeToGetIntense 07:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I commented on them, take a look ;). Dark Morphon(contribs) 15:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Why do you favor gimmicks?

I think a lot of the pvpers in the game (the good ones) are still waiting for pvp to involve skill so we don't have to try so hard (and sometimes lose) against bad players. I'd really, really like to know why you favor gimmick builds so much. Anet was high and mighty about they're MMO being about skill instead of grind, yet it is currently the exact opposite. "Good" players have no advantage whatsoever, and bad players are allowed to cheat to beat out good players. Why do you encourage cheating Izzy?

You have a world of information and suggestions, many of which are brilliant. Take a chance on some of them. In fact, change every god-damn skill in the game and it'll fix more problems that it causes.

99% of the people who post here play the game enough to know what's wrong and what needs to be fixed. Read what they have to say. Changing 3 overpowered skills at a time won't fix the currently 100 over-the-top skills in the game. Your changes recently have been pushing the game in the right direction, but you're pushing an inch when you should be pushing a mile.

In short, fix the game. It's 3 years overdue. ~Shard (talk) 03:55, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Shard you should be a speech writer, you could probably convince the world that Bush is smarter then Einstein 76.26.189.65 04:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I aggree with Shard in that Izzy rebalances waaaay too slow. I don't think Izzy really favors gimmicks however. Dark Morphon(contribs) 07:41, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

IWAY existed for 10 months, albeit it was a crappy build that I almost never lost to, but it was still a gimmick nonetheless. Sway has been around since (insert nightfall release date here) nearly unchanged. Ranger spike has been around for almost as long, though not as prevalent. Either he likes gimmicks, or he has no clue what people are running. ~Shard (talk) 08:42, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, we have his confession that he actually likes gimmicks. Wait, Lemme find it for you.... I founds it! Look at his comment on expertise and weep. -- NUKLEAR IIV 09:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you really trying to think about it? You can't change too much, because it would just create chaos, and make it impossible to monitor the changes. And there's nothing "broken" with the build you mentioned. You need to be "good players" and counter builds. I almost never lose to Spirit Way. Kill the spirits, then the backline and trappers. Ignore the R/Ds and leave them for last. Spike builds fail at splits, and usually are fragile, in that killing 1 person breaks the whole spike. "He likes gimmicks" is a wrong way to put it. More like "He likes to see different builds being played". Oh, and there's nothing wrong with Expertise. You're seeing things. PS: IWAY still exists, but now with Paragons as extra (saw it in HA a few times). — Poki#3 09:40, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Saywhut? Oni agree,sway isnt too hard if you actually know how to counter it. but something is terribly broken if someone who NEVER haed before can beat mediocre players running another build. Iway sux with fear me nerf. And if you honestly say that being able to take a schyte, use pious assualt with 14 expertise. Oni cbf to math now but a ~5-6 energy aoe deepwound with the most powerful weapon in the game isnt balanced.Oni 09:52, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

"I think this really destroys a bunch of fun and interesting builds, the Thumper, Pack hunters, and Escape guys are interest builds and one of the few ways that rangers are seeing play. Izzy @-'---- 00:30, 23 May 2008"

That's the quote Nuke is talking about. I agree, he basically admitted he likes gimmicks.

Also, Poki, I don't care how you go about beating sway. I care about the fact that the frontliner in that build is reward without risk to the extreme. Dervishes with auto-self-infuse are one thing, but fucking Escape Rangers, you can't even touch them. I don't care how strong the build is overall. What I care about is that build is idiot proof. That's the whole issue with sway. Izzy intentionally leaves builds like this alone because he thinks they are "interesting". In fact, they are not interesting once you get over the novel concept of a Ranger in melee, once you realize that this build doesn't bring any real variety to the game, it doesn't bring a new style of play to the game, it's just a dumbed down version of the Warrior. --TimeToGetIntense 10:59, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Weaker, less organized players also need something to fight as. I wouldn't expect someone relatively new to the game to use Frenzy the way it shines. The build is good, but it can be beaten by more organized players. I see no problem in that. — Poki#3 12:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

(EC)I think it was Isaiah who once mentioned how Arena Net has to balance slowly in order to be able to effectively measure the impact of each change. For example, the latest skill update had changes to 27 skills - if it had changes to more skills (and skills that see a lot of play - regardless of how bad such play is anyway - like the currently overpowered skills), I think it would be hard for Arena Net to judge if each skill change had been effective.

The interesting thing is that we have already seen changes to a lot of skills in a single update, like in this one. I have no idea if the impact of that particular update was good or bad, but IMO it would be interesting to learn if the impact of the "let's change a lot of skills" updates we have had in the past has been better or worse than the impact of the "let's change only a few skills" updates. Erasculio 12:36, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

That's an interesting example. It had been tested for a week (or a weekend maybe), then adjusted and implemented. It turned out to cause a bunch of nasty shit like assacasters, ritspike, and many other things that are/were problematic. It just goes to show that a short period like a week or a weekend is not enough time for the players to fully exploit a change. A similar example would be the may update, which was tested for a weekend, then implemented. During the test run the update got really good vibes, but after it was implemented the metagame went to shit. This was an update with only a fraction of the skills but the same thing happened. I don't think the testing periods are helpful because the big problems always come up after the update has been implemented. --TimeToGetIntense 14:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I beat SWAY almost every time too, that's not my issue. My issue is gimmicks are in the game. They shouldn't be. There are people in HA who have never played HA before, they join a low rank SWAY and farm the first 3 maps by karate chopping their keyboards without knowing what's going on. They beat average players running real builds, which should never happen. Some of the builds around are so easy that I could write a bot for most of them. Skillful effort should outplay random button mashing EVERY SINGLE TIME. Do you understand that izzy? Skillful play should ALWAYS outplay gimmicks.

There is no skill involved in Searing Flames. 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2... if someone dies, 8... 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2. That's not skill. Cats can do that on pianos.

Sway rangers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4... if someone dies, 8... 1, 2, 3, 4. People who pass out in front of their computers do that as their head rolls on the keyboard.

Ranger spike: 1... 1... 1... 1... 1... 1... I have plastic objects filled with water that can do that.

The joke of balance in GW isn't funny anymore. I bought GW because it was competitive. If I knew it was going to become a "no effort required" game, I would still play pokemon. ~Shard (talk) 00:41, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

sway taeks much knowlege to play. i play ranger/derv and i win much only win and tahts becuse iam good and better then u so stop QQ only becuse u tink your beter then sway --Frozen Archer 00:56, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

The above comment is genuine proof that retards can win with sway. ~Shard (talk) 09:22, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, don't make me laugh. I played against good Sway players, and I can tell you that there's a big difference over the average Sway. And I can make a point like you made (1, 2, 1, 2) about any build if I really want to. A skilled player will always win agents unskilled players, unless the skilled player uses Flare. What's that? A skill player doesn't bring Flare? Of course not. A skilled player plays a good team build with something he's comfortable with. Like I said, there will always be unskilled players, and there always be builds that are easier to use then others. Why can't they win from time to time? If they battle someone on their level they have every right to win. In more classic sports, like football, bad teams can sometimes win against better teams too.

Bottom line: Sway, SFway, Touch Rangers etc. aren't overpowered and wont make you start winning against players that know how to play against you. Oh, and Spike builds take a lot of skill to play! I'd say more then balanced builds, because unlike in balanced, killing 1 person breaks your spike. — Poki#3 04:51, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

quote=you "there will always be builds that are easier to use than others. Why can't they win from time to time?"

Answer: Because GW is supposed to be a game of skill. If team A needs to put in 50 effort and team B has to put in 100 effort to make the game a complete tie, given their builds aren't counters to each other, that is not balanced. If something is too easy to play, it should be very very weak. A 600 damage aoe spike that recharges every 2 seconds is too easy to play and too effective. Players should not be allowed to do that. ~Shard (talk) 09:22, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

If new players were accepted in 'skilled' HA teams from time to time, they wouldn't have to resort to gimmicks to farm fame. 145.94.74.23 08:27, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA GENIUS MAN! Take that gimmicks! Dark Morphon(contribs) 09:32, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Exactly anon. Sway ect. doesn't required that much effort, and players that put more effort and play something else win more often. That's how it is now. Why do you have a problem? And I didn't encounter much SFways, but since their damage is reducible by armor, protective spirit and spirit bond our monks had no problem healing us, and our warriors, dervishes and rangers pierced their week bodies without problems. — Poki#3 10:36, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

New players do not need gimmicks to win, just a good list of contacts and friends. The gimmicks only hold them back because they would rather win than practice builds that challenge them. Also the gimmicks now are retarded. It was cool when we had EoE bomb and Minion Factory. Those got people interested in PvP because they were so cool, but it became obvious that they were just that, gimmicks. Anyone with half a brain could tell that they wouldn't be the end-all build. Now it's not so obvious. The gimmicks now sustain high pressure indefinetly so the players have no reason to consider different builds. --TimeToGetIntense 14:15, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I feel like I need to be serious here for a sec, guys. Poki, you are, of course, right about new players needing to play, and yes, indeed, gimmicks allow that. I know this. Everyone does. However, I would like to use a metaphor here: Spoiled brats. I'm sure you have encountered children whose parents treat them like golden boys and always grant their every stupid, silly, wasteful and, frequently, pointless demands. These children grow up to be be douche bags who can't work for shit, and are dependent on family money. Don't you rage when see douche bags like this? I know I do. They are just... waste, compared to the rest of working class. Gimmicks are very much like those overprotective, rich, but ultimately, ignorant parents. They allow you to be happier, yes, but you don't get any better playing them. Not only that, but they weaken you, forcing you to be dependent on said gimmicks. The people who played a gimmick or two always show it - they are lazy and slow when it comes to playing balance, which has much more potential to it.

Poki, this shows. I don't know how long you have been playing this game, but HA is not how it used to be. Back, way back when there wasn't IWAY, and the only gimmicks were air spike, BERZERK, and, to a lesser extent, smiteball, the top games were fierce. Now, pop open OBS mode, and you'll be bored with the games, even when there is balance involved. Now, I'm not saying the hasn't changed, but the fact remains that gimmicks are dulling the playerbase. People lose their edge. The games are not fun anymore, because playing is so easy. Never mind that you, as a good player, can beat them, but mind that they practically roll any newcomers without any effort, and thus Virtually force themselves on other, less skilled people. This is why we want to stop gimmicks. -- NUKLEAR IIV 16:15, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty bad at expressing my thoughts, so I'll make it short. I think it's the communities fault that gimmicks became something more then interesting just interesting stepaways from a normal build and something for new players to start from. These builds will always be there. The problem isn't their existence, but the fact that people that played HA for a while don't move on to something else. Actually, I think that if you leave it alone (to an extent) it'll move on. Just like Touch Rangers. I understand that you may not agree with me on that last part. — Poki#3 21:22, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Poki, if we leave the current gimmicks alone, sway will turn to SF, SF will turn into the next broken build, which will turn into the next broken build. Nuclear said everything I was trying to say - HA was fun when gimmicks were weak, but interesting. Now they're c+space and mash your keyboard and win simply because any profession can scythe a warrior for 170, or you can roll a spike that does 3000 damage every 3 seconds. Gimmicks are the only reason pvp titles mean absolutely nothing. Every time someone ranks, someone else says "sway tiger" and they're probably right in some way.

Anet said pvp would be skill-oriented and pve will be grind-free. Now you can beat pve with 1 skill and farm pvp with none. ~Shard (talk) 22:04, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I loved it back when some gimmick required skill (lol). Remember Minion fab? now that was a tricky gimmick! Let's bring that back. But the problem stems from gimmicks yielding victory with no skill input. The win/skill ratio is an all time high. -- NUKLEAR IIV 11:05, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it's just important for the gimmicks to be so hit or miss and different than normal builds that anyone can tell it's just a gimmick. EoE bomb and Minion Factory are good examples because they were fragile. People ran them knowing they were not serious builds. --TimeToGetIntense 13:12, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

You can view the Asura/Norn/Deldrimor/Ebon Vanguard as boring grinds, but I prefer to view them as ArenaNet's creative way of reaching out to player who would love to gain levels. Some PvE skills have gotten out of control, true, but the titles aren't required to play the game, they just add a way to 'level up' beyond level 20. And I'd like to hear your defenition of gimmick builds. It sounds more and more like 'anyhing that doesn't fit the way I think the game should be'. Because Searing Flames may be a relatively easy build to play, but it has more than its fair share of counters. Gimmick, like newbie, hasn't been used in a non-flamatory way in a long time... 145.94.74.23 17:33, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

We can view them as boring grinds, or creative level ups, or we could just look at them truthfully and see them as economy killers. Gimmicks are one-trick pony builds; they excel at one thing, usually imbalancedly well, and die when that one thing is countered. (Ok, some can do two or even three things. You get my point.) Besides, all gimmicks are, by definition, bad for the game; the only builds good for the game are balanced ones. -- Armond Warblade 20:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

The economy doesnt get directly killed by titles, but the way it was implemented however did. 76.26.189.65 21:56, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

No, the PvE skills that required title grind did. -- Armond Warblade 03:56, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Funny Armond, you disagree with me, and one sentence later, you agree with me. Some skills are a problem (the fact that most people call the Norn rank Ursan rank should say enough) but some skills (like Eternal Aura, Summon Spirits and Light of Deldrimor) are very well designed. It is not the titles that are economy killers, it is a handful of skills (most notably Ursan Blessing and Pain Inverter). Asura Summons, Ebon Vanguard wards, Dwarven drunkard skills, those are all fine. 145.94.74.23 06:19, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, titles killed a lot. Screw the economy, titles killed the majority of low-end pvp and most of pve. they were, arguably, the worst thing that happened to the game. -- NUKLEAR IIV 08:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

How can a PvE title kill low-end PvP? For that matter, how can title effects that only help you against foes after you defeated them dozens of times already be harmful to PvE? The skills are a different matter entirely, but the titles themselves are well balanced. In fact, their effects are so unneeded that I rarely bother to switch titles, even in Eotn Hard Mode. 145.94.74.23 11:42, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm weird like that when I don't think before I type. Nooks was talking about things like Hero or Gladiator. -- Armond Warblade 13:59, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I was talking about Glads and Hero. They were certainly not good for the game.

As for pve titles, it doesn't matter whether or not they are strong. They promote grind, and people, being the mindless sheep they are, flock to them like bunnies with a kink (too many animal metaphors, ewww). They did not necessarily damage the gameplay itself, but they did their share of damage with the playerbase. -- NUKLEAR IIV 18:03, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

The only thing that made Hero title actually worth anything was the fact it had animation, which is why zaishen titles are now bombing the economy since EVERYONE seems to want the little spear dropping animation, if they were to add animations to other pvp titles like gladiator and hero battle, I bet most people would start populating those areas 76.26.189.65 23:56, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

And that would be excellent, amirite? We sure need more glad farmers in RA! -- NUKLEAR IIV 09:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Just seperate TA and RA titles and give TA a animation, and then you will have 3-4 full districts in TA 76.26.189.65 13:09, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Excellent idea, lets promote more rank farming in TA! -- NUKLEAR IIV 00:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I FUCKING LOVE FIGHTING GLAD-FARMING SHOVESPIKE FAGGOTS. --76.25.197.215 00:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I LOVE YOUR MOM, AND YET I DON'T WANT HER IN TA. WAIT. I CHANGED MY MIND, IT WOULD BE FUN TO FARM HER WITH FOUR PEOPLE. -- NUKLEAR IIV 01:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that's an NPA and a half. If they actually moderated this wiki anymore this guy would be on a long ban. LOL Rakyren 01:49, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

This conversation has degenerated into something oblique. For it's and my dignity, and for the mutual spaciness of this wiki, I propose refurbishing it with extravagant and yet obstetrician remarks, complex comments and comets, and critical exclamations.

I'm just going to skip to conclusion: yo mama. -- NUKLEAR IIV 01:52, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Your mother is a particle/wave duality.

Rakyren, my previous post was an attempt to highlight that TA is already imbalanced, and giving Glad ranks an emote would encourage the kind of degenerate shit that already exists there (Hexshit, Shovespike, critscythes, etc) to the point of breaking the entire arena by discouraging any kind of non-farm play. Shovespike is not fun to play against (kite for thirty seconds, hit one target with an unprottable spike, kite for thirty seconds, repeat forever), and if I had to go through five farm-groups of that crap just to find one balanced team to play against, I'd ragequit the entire thing. --76.25.197.215 01:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

That's a reason to post something offensive, derogatory, and in blatant violation of the rules? I don't think so, but I'm sure the moderators will excuse it. They only seem to hold folks they don't like to the rules anymore, and let everyone else do whatever they want. Rakyren 02:04, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Policy discussions belong elsewhere. --76.25.197.215 02:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Rakyren, please don't backseat and accuse people of "violating the rules". If you got a problem with something I said (Frankly, I think you should have) you can take it up with the noticeboard. I also would be kind enough to suggest that questioning the competence of our admin team is pointless. Tell you what - go post my name on the admin board, and watch me land in my 4 hour ban. -- NUKLEAR IIV 02:12, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Where's this offensive, derogatory, and blatantly policy-breaking post you mention? It's just yo momma jokes; it's harmless trolling. Grow some spine, or stay off Izzy's talk pages; you'll find a lot worse if you care to look. -- Armond Warblade 02:09, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I think he was referring to me calling people who run shovespike faggots, which I stand by. --76.25.197.215 02:12, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Armond, I wouldn't expect someone like you to be able to recognize homophobic statements that are derogatory to a group of people. The way you abuse your powers on PvX it's clear you haven't got the slightest idea of what might offend someone or be unfair or incorrect to do. Rakyren 02:15, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and that level of intolerant hate and ignorance should earn you a one-way ticket off the wiki for good. Plan to slander the Jews next, or are you just going to post some burning flag images on your userpage? Rakyren 02:15, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'm trying to figure out how to make swastikas in unicode so I can vandalize your userpage with them while I fondle my underage sister. :/

Lighten up, Francis. --76.25.197.215 02:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Would it be unkind of me to post a link to /b/ now?

On a more serious note, I don't think he was insulting homosexual people. On the internet, the word "faggot" is used more like the words "asshole/dickhead/fucktard". It really doesn't have much (or so I hope) to do with gay people.

Oh, and if such a small insult annoys you, you really should get away from the internets before you see much, much worse. -- NUKLEAR IIV 02:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it matters much who you hate, you can be a homophobe, a nazi, a white supremacist, or a scientologist. Matter not, you're still an ignorant bigot with insecurity issues and don't belong anywhere that gives you access to spread your hate to others. Rakyren 02:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

You know, for someone who likes citing NPA, you don't seem to follow it a whole lot.

And on that note, I'm vacating this section. There's enough shitter drama here as it is, and my presence is apparently only causing more. --76.25.197.215 02:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Rakyren, I take great offense to your signature. In Greek tradition (which I was born to and follow to this day), the color green signifies Demeter, who, as we all know, is the mother of Persephone, queen of the Underworld; a green and yellow sun (similar to your signature image) implies the fusion of Demeter and Helios, the sun god. In Greek tradition, such a union could not, in any way, be more tolerable than the kidnap and sacrifice of one's own children to the equivalent of Christianity's devil. Demeter has embraced her child's role and acts as both the Giver and Mother of the Earth as well as the Cold Lady of Winter; both of these are directly opposite of Helios' role of space (unless the sun has landed on earth since I last checked) and warmth. I'll thank you to change your signature.

In addition, I live in San Francisco, so I think I know a bit about how to offend gay people. I call my gay friends faggots all the time, and they don't give a crap. -- Armond Warblade 02:35, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

LOL AMOND YOU SIGNATURE OFFENDS ME CUZ YOU HAVE A WARRIOR ICON AND THAT MAKE ME THINK OF DUM WHAMMOS WHO SUCK AND GET PWONED ALL DAY LONG YOU CHANGE IT NOW CUZ I TIRED OF THINKIN OF STUPID PEOPLE WHO PLAY WARRIORS CUZ THEY SUX TO BAD TO PLAY A GOOD CLASS. ALSO COLOR GREEN AND YELLOW OFFEND ME CUZ I THINK MY GOD WOULD NOT LIKE THEM AND SO YOU CHANGE AND EVERYONE ELSE TO IF THYE USE THOSE COLORS AND RED IS BAD CUZ IT IS LIKE SATAN AND EVIL AND SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED IN SIGS CUZ THAT BAD TOO NO MORE COLRS SIGS 4 ANYONE

Go back to your shameful silence, Rakyren. --76.25.197.215 03:29, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't find my silence to be shameful at all, if you'll check out the tips on my userpage you'll find that I prefer to play the game than attempt to educate others about it, and as such (as well as life in general) I'm not content to stay here on the wiki 24/7 like you. Rakyren 13:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes Armond, it's clear that you can create extravagant excuses for just about anything, but it still comes down to one simple thing. If you walk up to a group of African Americans on the street and call them N****s, you better be fast and prepared to run. They might joke around and call each other that, in the same manner that homosexuals often call each other Faggots in jest, or ignore such joking from their friends, but you'll offend them just the same if they don't know or like you and you call them that, as if you were to call random African Americans N****s. Rakyren 13:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

This is the internet, not the streets, yo. --TimeToGetIntense 13:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I'm taking all your e-peens and throwing them into the blender. That's right, you no longer have a reason to carry on this discussion, nor debate the intricacies of what is offensive and what's not on this page. Seeing as this is where the discussion has gone, this thread is dead. Don't make this page longer, nor personally attack someone for thinking something's offensive -- likewise, don't accuse people of making personal attacks when it only serves to lengthen the pointless discussion -- read the no personal attacks policy and you'll see that the first action to take is to ignore. Once it escalates, don't fuel the discussion if the only way it can go is downhill. If the trolling and attacks continue, you'll find yourself blocked for a day or three. -- Brains12 \ talk 14:03, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Let me make Brain's statement more clear: It is not ok to call users of a certain build "faggots", nor "asshole/dickhead/fucktard". Neither is it ok to refer to gang raping someones mother. Just as you can not imply that someone is a "homophobe, a nazi, a white supremacist, or a scientologist". If you continue doing so, you will be banned. --Xeeron 14:20, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Idiots like most of the above posters are the reason devs don't read forums/wiki. Please stop the e-peen drama wars. It stops being funny when you get to high school.

I will be playing Brawl during my cotton-picking related weekend ban. Later evry1. ~Shard (talk) 08:34, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Nice

Nice changes on Rust and "For Great Justice!". I'd love to see more like those. 145.94.74.23 11:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, he's on the right track. I'd like him to buff/nerf things faster, though. Dark Morphon(contribs) 09:29, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

So now we know that it was PvE that was keeping him from doing the right balances, Flamers, excuse yourselves :P --MageMontu 06:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Ohaider

No flaming this time mafraid >':. just want to mention 2 things that bother oni.

1. The pvp skill names. srsly,its kinda boring seeing I'm using Enfeeble(pvp). Oni knoewz that this has been suggested before, but i have'nt seen a response to it. enlighten oni if ez wrong.

Solution: If you really want to have that pvp part in the skill,put it in the skill description. srsly, it should be enough by just seeing the text in chat log saying skillname has been updated on your skillbar for pvp.

2. HA maps. yah, Oni is aware of that people have complained about this too, but still whuteva. The problem is that they are so bloody crowded which makes stuff like Schytes,splinter weapon,traps,any aoe extreme. when hitting with a schyte there is a very high chance of you hitting multiply peoplez.

Solution: None,cbf about broken ha aniway ;o

Sorry about terribad spelling,its f00ken 03:45 atm. goezing to bedOni 01:44, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Here you go Izzy, a well thought out, not flaming deal on what I think needs to be done dude. Please read this.

Izzy,

I've contacted you in game occasionally, and while I think you're doing a great job (and you are.), I am writing this to preface a rather long letter directed towards you, with suggestions (not individual skill balance suggestions) on what we can do, and I hope you read this because I'm pouring my heart into this dude, and it's fairly long.

Obviously, you're doing a better job than most other people. Guild Wars even in its current state is way better than just about every MMO out there right now in the competitive arena PvP business, but that isn't saying much, either. The competition all sucks. WoW has to make gear just to make PvP work there. Fury was a failure of a game. etc.

I know very much so you don't want to do this, and that saddens me a bit, but Izzy man, Ensign was right dude. You need to shake the metagame up. I'm not saying randomly change stuff for changing stuff either (like say, Symbolic Strike. I really disagree with that buff, because let's face it, it's a gimmicky skill. It doesn't award skillfull play, it awards throwing as much signets on your bar as you can without sacrificing all your utility. No.).

Izzy, do a huge skill balance. I am imploring you. I sent Regina this same feedback, and I hope she passed it on to you, but the meta is boring. Your last skill update didn't fix it. People just took another Mesmer for the humsig. A recharge buff to a maintained enchant does nothing. I know why you don't want to do this, because you don't want to screw up the metagame or make it really really bad. It is really hard for me to say this, but as someone who has the utmost love for this game, it can't be any worse than it is right now.

Wounding Strike is not balanced or fine. Yes, SoH and Conjures make it a bit more ridiculous, but it is the only skill that a) applies Bleeding and Deep Wound every 3s on a possible AoE, and b) doesn't apply the conditions in the order listed on the skill. Deep Wound is the best condition in the game dude, you and I both know that. It's what kills people. There isn't a high level PvP team build alive that doesn't have some form of Deep Wound in it. You can't really kill people without it, not easily anyways.

And it's currently on a skill that costs 5e (a moot cost, easily regotten through Zealous scythe), on a 3s recharge (the fastest recharging Deep Wound skill in the game), hits AoE (the only AoE Deep Wound skill in the game), and requires of all things, just an Enchantment to use, which any Dervish has, and even if they don't a Monk can just Veil them. Removing Enchantments across 3 guys just to stay alive is not fun, especially if failure to do so results in you dying in under 2 minutes thanks to 3 mesmers humsigging your Monks so they can't RC/WoH. Some guy literally posted a pic on GWG where it was 2 Monks, 3 dervs, 3 mesmers. They killed the enemy team in under 2:50. The enemy team resigned. No way they could win.

The game should never be about building against something, Izzy. Sure, I am sure I could beat dervsmite super easy, if I threw like tons of anti-melee hexes and signet hate on my team, but then that's Build Wars and I'm destined to lose immediately to a non-Dervsmite team.

Izzy, the game is getting boring. Not just to me, to a ton of people. It's getting close to the second Exodus here, and the exodus caused from NF was pretty big.

I know you're working on GW2 and shit, but if I had anything I could wish for right now, it would be that you would seriously do a huge skill update. The updates now are so infrequent and so small. A typical single class WoW skill update is bigger than the entirity of an entire GW skill update now. It saddens me.

It isn't because the metagame in GW doesn't have problems. It has a lot of problems. Namely, there is still a ton of power creep in the game (Wounding Strike, Word of Healing, to a lesser extent Crippling Slash, etc) that overshadow a lot of decent skills. Hexes are still by and far very passive fire and forget skills. Shadowsteps are abused by any class that isn't an Assassin, and should honestly just get a "Fails if Critical Strikes is below 1" clause or something, because I can't name 1 good skillfull thing I've seen a non-Assassin use a Shadowstep for. Monks can use them to stay alive for the longest time thanks to WoH, then there's Melandru telespike which is soooo dumb, etc. If not a Crit Strike clause, make them ALL worse in some way, except for ones that reward some form of skill (namely AoD).

On top of that, you have a ton of skills that would be PRETTY GOOD for the game but are overshadowed because of the above. Blessed Light is good, but Word of Healing is way better. Blessed Light's -1 Hex and -1 condition isn't worth taking it over WoH. WoH is a 200HP heal for christs sakes. It can keep up with most hexes and conditions anyways (when it isn't being Humsigged).

The game needs a shake up Izzy. I mean, an honest to god shake up. You have a PvE/PvP skill split, if you have to break shit. There's no reason you can't now! By all rights, as far as I'm concerned, Shadow Form (PvP) should read "For 1 second..." because skills like that should never be allowed in any form in competitive play. All Shadow Form does is make the game even more build wars.

All I'm asking, is to maybe take a whole month, watch the game completely focused on it, discuss with players a ton, and get a ton of people (PvPers) to test stuff out on a test server. This way you can do the biggest skill balance in the world and it won't be AS crazy on day 1. I mean, you have more skills in the game than ever, but the game is seeing fewer changes than ever. It's almost bewildering, you know?

As crazy of a suggestion as this is, read (I think you already do, but just sayin) and post on GWO/GWG's PvP sections if you have to. Just make a topic and say LETS TALK, and discuss this crap on a forum if you have to.

Whatever you have to do to do such a thing, because man, the current idea of a balance a month with just a few skills, isn't working. We should strive for something better than this, because even if GW is better than WoW/Fury/etc in the PvP department, it is still a shadow of its former PvP glory.

If you want to discuss this further, I'll be checking this often. You can contact me in-game too, I think you should know it. If not, just say you want to talk in-game, and I'll contact you if you so desire. I really hope you'll read and reply, because I think this is something on the minds of a lot of people. They may have a hard time saying it in a polite way, or say it very angrily, but deep down they care about the game and just want to see better changes.

Signed, DarkNecrid 18:32, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

It truly sucks to see that some people react this way, if they do. Something bad has really happend to the game.

Izzy personally said that he likes gimmicks.but i would love to see a huge balance. For BOTH pvp and pve. Oni 19:49, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

/signed. I don't care so much about the PvE update, but a PvP update is seriously needed. "sway phoenix" is a phrase that shouldn't exist, yet it does. -- Armond Warblade 20:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I love you, Dark. I really do. Nothing to add. ~Tyla

Something many of you dont other stand is that gimmicks SHOULD exist, their fun and its IS interesting to see awkward combinations of skills that in the end proved effective, HOWEVER!!! they should NOT be overpowered as how they currently are. Also you guys are rather interesting about your opinions, You say you dont want gimmicks but then it leads to a stale meta which is something you also dont want, any build that gets developed you instantly adopt the name gimmick if you dont like it, basically gimmick for many of you is anything that doesnt fit the classes hard role, hell for some even take it farther and say classes should only use 1 attribute and if they dont, its instantly a gimmick. For example if a necro decides to use Blood magic with life stealing he might get labeled gimmick, or if a Sin decides he doesnt want to kill people with daggers but instead prefers deadly arts he ends up labeled as a gimmick 76.26.189.65 21:47, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above (er, the above to the above, not the paragraph above). It must be very hard to do a huge balance update (one of the biggest ones I remember was tested for a couple days and got positive opinions, but in the end it introduced Ritualist spikes and a lot of other problems), but I believe now would be a good time for one. Maybe, instead of keeping the skills as they are now and slowly nerfing them, it would be worth nerfing everything imbalanced and slowly buff the skills that need to be buffed later? And really, we are (well, some of us are) concerned about Ursan Blessing and PvE balance, but even I, a PvE only player, think balance in PvP is more urgent. If we have to wait a bit more for PvE balance in order to have faster PvP balance, I'm all for it. Erasculio 22:20, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I used to love this game too, but izzy (and some non-balance things also) made me hate it. Everyone at anet needs to get off their asses and fix what they broke, especially izzy. ~Shard (talk) 22:43, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

To mr. 76.26.189.65, those aren't gimmicks in themselves. To Erasculio, the problem with that is that stuff might not die, but I guess that really depends if he nerfed everything that needs to be nerfed. :P. To Shard, that's pretty rude. They are off their asses, working on GW2 and GW1. And a lot of the time it isn't Izzys fault, but problems with CR. I'm just hoping Izzy will reply. :) DarkNecrid 22:47, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Quote from top of page: "...still working a lot on GW2,...". Sry no can do job - too busy on GW2. (Also, the Skill Balancer of this game favors Imbalance...liek wtf?) 91.154.12.139 22:50, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for not reading the letter at all and just attacking him. If you aren't going to add anything, please don't reply. Thanks. DarkNecrid 09:40, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Excelent Idea, Have you seen special events on OBS. Use those to test skills and how they would work in GvG. Let some top guild try things out see if it is OP or not, Try to fix skills that have no point, i think soul bond is a rather interesting fix for example. Make skills work off of each other more so we can see some new inetresting builds. Please hold it in for a month or so work on it and put an update out there that will get ppl to start playing this nearly dead game. Thank you Izzy for all the work you put into this game and for all the updates u have put out there that at least a bit shifted the metagame. Please respond to this even if it is to say u dont have time for it. Most players on Guildwars want a shift in skills just to bring fun back into the game. Thank you Dark and Izzy(if u read this). I hope ill be seing comehing withing the next month or so, if not I am afraid my self and propably hundreds of other players iknow will be quiting this game. ~ Look Drop Kaboom ~

Searing Flames

First, I'm going to explain why I'm posting this here AGAIN.

Izzy doesn't read the talk pages for every single skill in the game. Nobody does. Nobody has the time to do that. It's a balance issue and goes here.

Secondly, he doesn't have time to read the skill suggestion pages over and over and over, so even if this went there, it wouldn't even be considered.

Thirdly, he hasn't even read the first one...or he has and just doesn't respond to suggestions, which is very unlike him.

Searing Flames (PvP) - 15 1 7 - "Target foe and adjacent foes are struck with Searing Flames. Foes already on fire take 10...82...100 damage. Foes not on fire begin burning for 1...6...7 seconds. This recharges instantly if it strikes three or more foes."

As it is now, it's the best spiking skill in the game, because the balance mechanism of recharging is ignored. Damage is not the problem, constant AOE spike with no downtime is the problem. This pretty much stops its spike abuse in pvp.

Side question...since Andrew isn't the pvp coordinator anymore, who's the person we should go to to suggest how to unsuckify bad game mechanics and/or maps? ~Shard (talk) 02:35, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

So I heard something about HA having really tiny maps and game mechanics that force people to ball up. And no idea. --76.25.197.215 02:40, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Another idea would be to add the clause "disabled for an additional X seconds if interrupted." — Teh Uber Pwnzer 02:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I've lost to SF spike on fetid river, which is pretty open and uncluttered. SF spike, even hitting 1 person at a time, is too strong. Most of the HA maps (esp cap points) give AoE an unfair advantage, but this skill is broken regardless. ~Shard (talk) 04:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

To me, it just sounds as a bunch of warriors complaining the Elementalist can deal damage too. The Elementalist is not just a support class, so please stop whining before Izzy decides to listen to you (hopefully, he won't). The SF build has plenty of counters and lots of ways to stop it, and spiking in itself is not a 'gimmick' but a serious game tactic. You'll just have to find a way to fight it. 145.94.74.23 06:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Please, tell me how I'm supposed to outmonk 6x98 damage plus burning every three seconds when it's hitting two to four people every cycle. Say Ward Against Harm or scatter and I'll laugh at you. --76.25.197.215 06:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

"The SF build has plenty of counters."

I'm the King of England.

Those two statements are equally backed up and equally true. There is only ONE counter to SF spike, and it's an elite that costs 25 energy and has a half minute recharge. ~Shard (talk) 07:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

oh, but shard, SF has plenty of counters! Seriously, though, I'm thinking SF needs to be reworked. As in, completely. -- NUKLEAR IIV 08:14, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

That's right. HA maps are the same size as Arena, but they cram 16+ players in it. Getting hit by AoE is easy. Lightblade 09:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

My apologies, your Royal Highness Shard, but SF is very much affected by dazed, damage dealers (60 armor anyone?), interrupts and armor boosts (even a simple "Stand Your Ground!" can reduces the damage of spells by a lot). You want me to /kneel for you? 145.94.74.23 11:36, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Counter: Damage. Probably the best counter for any spike. — Poki#3 13:39, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I must be doing it wrong. I've always had a hard time doing damage while dead.

Bear in mind that this is elemental damage, which the best damage dealers in the game are vulnerable to. -- Armond Warblade 13:57, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't make me laugh Armond. Warriors with a shield have 96 armor against Elemental damage. That's very nearly a 50% reduction in damage. The +20 vs. Physical Damage might as well be "vs. NPCs" considering that all good Warriors weapon swap. For all intents and purposes, Warriors are equally resistant to Elementalists and other Physicals. --TimeToGetIntense 14:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

And believe me, that 50% damage reduction is great comfort when SF is hitting a third of your party at a time. --76.25.197.215 15:41, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Look, personally, I don't think SF is okay. It is not necessarily broken, but it is not okay to have a 100 aoe 2 recharge skill in the game. It just promotes stupid gimmicks. Even if it's nerfed, it will still be 100 aoe with 2 recharge. This is not okay to have in the game because it promotes gimmicky play that can and usually out-build most of decent randomway-ers. Therefore, I think this skill needs to be reworked. It was so badly designed that the current mechanic is just... not acceptable.-- NUKLEAR IIV 17:58, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, the way I see it you just need to rework it a bit more, atm its good for spiek fails on any other ocasion, how about put energy cost to 5 and make it cap at 70 damage.

Whoever is vandalizing this section, please stop. If you don't, you will be reported. ~Shard (talk) 00:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Searing Flames (PvP) -

15 1 3 - "Target foe and adjacent foes are struck with Searing Flames. Foes already on fire take 10...82...100 damage. Foes not on fire begin burning for 1...6...7 seconds."

Simple fix to Searing Flames, Nearby -> Adjecent 76.26.189.65 01:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah simple fix, except you forgot the "fixing" part.

The AOE is not the problem; the damage is.

Let's say it again because it's important.

The AOE is not the problem; the damage is.

The AOE is a broken complement to an otherwise still broken skill. As nuclear said, no "spike skill" should have zero recharge. That's the point of recharges - so spike builds aren't pressure builds at the same time. What happens when you infuse SF spike? You get spiked while healing yourself. That's the problem. The AOE is not the problem; the damage is.

Do you know what the point of this post is?

The AOE is not the problem; the damage is.

Don't post suggestions about reducing the AOE. Know why? The AOE is not the problem; the damage is.

The damage has to come down or the recharge has to go up. ~Shard (talk) 01:57, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

You know, right now I'm just having fun thinking about ways to change this skill. What I'm going to suggest isn't really viable, but anyway..."Searing Flames: Target foe and adjacent foes are hexed with Searing Flames. For 10...20 seconds, every 5 seconds foes begin burning for 1...4 seconds and every 6 seconds burning foes take x...y damage". 25 energy, 45 seconds recharge, exhaustion. So...

• Second 5: burning begins for 1...4 seconds.
• Second 6: burning enemies take x...y damage.
• Second 7: burning continues.
• Second 8: end of maximum burning time.
• Second 10: burning begins for 1...4 seconds.
• Second 11: burning continues.
• Second 12: burning enemies take x...y damage.
• Second 13: end of maximum burning time.
• Second 15: burning begins for 1...4 seconds.
• Second 16: burning continues.
• Second 17: burning continues.
• Second 18: burning enemies take x...y damage. End of maximum burning time.
• Second 20: burning begins for 1...4 seconds.

The oposing team has 4 seconds to remove the hex before its effect begins. Reapplying the hex (if multiple enemies are using it) would be counter productive as it would trigger the counter back to zero and therefore require 4 seconds before the skill does anything at all. Erasculio 02:52, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

There are plenty of skills that hit for 100, even over 100. So the damage IS NOT the problem. Now, perhaps the damage PER SEC might be the problem, or the RECHARGE might be the problem but, and to make this clear, THE DAMAGE IS NOT THE PROBLEM. Even in all the changes you suggest you left the damage alone, and all your arguments so far has been that its OP because it hits 4000 targets in the incredibly tiny HA arenas. If you think its OP because it recharges too low, then bump it up to 5 recharge and see how it plays out, btw changing the recharge from 2 seconds to 3 seconds = 25% dps reduction, making it 5 seconds is around 50% dps reduction 76.26.189.65 03:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

When I said damage, I meant the damage when they spam it, not the damage when they use it once then resign. Nobody does that. The damage is the problem. No other skill does more damage than searing flames consistently. ~Shard (talk) 03:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

And to me, your highness, that's exactly how it should be. It is the Fire Elementalist at his best, but again, he can be stopped by a lot of things. No, 1 mesmer cannot stop an SF team (wouldn't that be fun, 1 player stopping 6?). But any balanced team has all the counters that I mentioned earlier. Your 2 or 3 melee fighters can take out 1 SF each, your mesmer can stop the 4th and the 2 remaining hardly pose a threat to your monks. And a single SF spammer shouldn't be a problem for a balanced team at all. If you're any good, that is. 145.94.74.23 07:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Except for, you know, the amount of passive and active defense SF teams pack. You've got three free slots, a free secondary, and ten to eleven free attribute levels per character plus two monks. Generally the only way to get through that is with spikes or pressure, except oops, they're doing both better than you (unless you're running rspike shit). You can win, of course, but that really depends on lucky maps or a bad caller or lucky monks and mesmers and frontliners more than anything. --71.229.253.172 08:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC) I'm assuming a relatively equal skill level between the teams, because any other kind of comparison is dumb.

Except, 145, this is a game of skill, not a game of "oh eles are fine because they're supposed to blow up everything on the map" or "assassins can have one hit kills because that's what assassins do IRL." It's really not about what you think eles should do, especially if you've never balanced a game before or have had any competitive gameplay experience. Yesterday I was contemplating writing a short little thing to explain to precensored people why "It's balanced because it's cool" is not a legit argument, and you've just made it worth my time to do so.

2 or 3 melee fighters sticking to one target each for the whole match? Welcome to pvp.

Play a balanced build vs a SF spike and tell me when you win. Chances are, if you abuse SF to the extent that you think it's balanced, you aren't good enough to beat The Zaishen.

Also, I'm not royalty. Thanks for the complement though. ~Shard (talk) 08:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I like my SF change the best. -- NUKLEAR IIV 09:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I fail to see the difference between "it shouldn't be the way you see it" and "it should be the way I see it". At least I don't have to resort to personal attacks when I run out of arguments though. 145.94.74.23 12:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Oh, and Shard, while you're at it, write an article on metagames which only have melee characters as damage dealers. Since that's obviously your ultimate goal.

P.P.S. Did you guys know that, without the burning, Searing Flames' DPS is actually less than that of Flare?

145, you are shaming yourself by not knowing the problem. This is not about warriors vs. elementalists. Stop your ele fanboisim for a second, and think about game balance. This is about that, yeah, game balance.

If you don't believe anything me and Shard say, I can counter all of your arguments with one: THEORYCRAFTING IS BULLSHIT. Who says eles were meant for damage? PvE scrublets? The Manual? Look three (Three!) years back, and you'll see warriors the king of damage. Period.

There was a bloody good reason for this as well - the devs, miraculously, knew that viable ranged damage only leads to gimmicks and skill-less play. If you look at the past meta's, you'll see this to be correct - but of course, this is assuming you've played the game for a while now.

At this point, you may be asking "Well, then why does SF exist?" Here is your answer: Izzy gave into fanbois. I sometimes think the skill balancing and design teams work separately - all the fanservice shit they've added (Assassins, SF, Dervishes..) is broken to its eyeballs.

As a final note, Since when did flare start hitting in aoe, and hitting for upwards for 100 damage? Shard failed to mention the problem well - It is the 500 aoe spike every 3 seconds. -- NUKLEAR IIV 13:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming you mean looking at single target damage per second. For the sake of argument lets assume the a person is always on fire. Lets also assume 15 attribute skills. Flare does 65 damage. Searing Flames does 100. Searing flames can be cast once every 3 seconds for an average of 33.333 dmg a second (not to mention AOE but were talking single target), while Flare can be cast once every 1.75 seconds for an average DPS of 37.14. However the target is burning, which may apply up to an additional 14 damage per second, the whole AOE thing, and the fact that you have time between castings to cast something else, move or whatever, means that the raw damage from SF is much greater. High damage to a single target, even on quick recharge is fine, but high damage AOEs that can be spammed like there is no tomorrow are a bad point in the game mechanics. When something gets access to powerful ranged AOEs with quick recharges allowing several skill-slots and attribute points to be spent creating a blockweb, while still having a neverending spike, something is wrong. Kelvin Greyheart 13:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you like the warrior-damage-only-meta, but I do not. I find it rather annoying that everything that even remotely threatens the melee fighter's dominance is nerfed into oblivion. SF is GOOD for the game, because it forces people to think beyond how much block/blindness they should take. Ranged damage dealers? Yes, I think they're balanced right now. They have room left for passive defense? Warriors are already packed with passive defense because of their armor and shield, without using skills. They can bring energy management? Warriors have automatic attacks and adrenaline so they don't need energy management. SF teams deal either damage OR use utility, Warriors can combine both in the same attack skill. Warriors can easily be blinded? Casters can more easily be dazed, interrupted and hacked to pieces. Call it fanboism if you want, thrashtalk me, but the absolute truth is that they are balanced. Just not in an "everything should deal exactly the same amount of damage or less"-way. End of story. Don't complain just because you didn't bring enough caster counters. 145.94.74.23 14:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

P.S. The Flare comparison wasn't serious. Get a life.

First off. Sarcasm doesn't work on the internet without a handy set of <sarcasm> </sarcasm> brackets. Second "Casters can be more easily dazed" Name one daze skill that doesn't have either an absurdly short duration or some drawback. And yes, being elite counts as a drawback when you have blinding flash to compare to. Blind is one of the easiest conditions to apply. Meanwhile blind wars don't gain much andrenaline, and anti melee hate is everywhere. Nukes should have several options. Armor penetration, AOE, quick Cast, Lots of damage, cheap cost, quick recharge, non-projectile. Pick 3 for normal skills or 4 for an elite. Of these SF is AOE, quick cast, lots of damage, moderate cost, absurdly fast recharge, and isn't a projectile. Something about being 5.5/7 when 4 is good enough seems a bit overpowered. Kelvin Greyheart 18:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

145, you still don't get it. But I'm not going to explain myself further. PROTIP: Go observe the past meta's, and name me a single, non gimmicky, non broken build that utilized casters for primary means of damage. If you can't, then your arguments is trash. -- NUKLEAR IIV 21:09, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Any build I name will automatically be called a 'gimmick' by you. The attitude of self-crowned l337 players is a problem in this game. I stated my reasons why there should be damage dealing caster, and they have just as many weaknesses and counters as anything else. You don't like my opinion or my arguments. Tough for you, but let Izzy decide. He's the only expert here, regardless of what anyone may think. It is Anet's game, so they make the rules. 145.94.74.23 21:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

You're unbelievable. Stop acting as if the world has turned against you and actually try to answer properly. -- NUKLEAR IIV 21:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Nuclear and I aren't self crowned. Maybe we're just good, know what makes things broken, and have been around long enough to observe why some metagames sucked and why some didn't. Flare does more damage than searing flames? This is news to me. 65 damage every 1.5 seconds vs 100 every 3, PLUS burning, PLUS what SF eles cast in between - because they don't stand still with just one skill on their bar.

You see 145, PvP is about damage compression (spiking), which Flare cannot do. It doesn't matter what its DPS is as long as it's being abused in a spike.

Purge said this in vent, and it's completely true. He could be a good SF ele by throwing his keyboard down a flight of stairs. That's how much skill it takes.

Come to think of it, it would take some amount of aim to get the keyboard to land face down every time it bounced... so in actuality, Searing Flames spike is EASIER than throwing your keyboard down a flight of stairs. ~Shard (talk) 23:17, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Just checking, but did you seriously say that if a skill can be used to spike its broken? btw ALL builds are easy to play, nearly ANY build can be used by blindly smashing buttons. Essentially as long as you still use a keyboard to play this computer games it will be like this. Playing monk - run, click low bar, 1, 2, run, click low bar, 1, 2, repeat, the "smart" War - 6 to shock, 5 to frenzy, 1 to evis, 2 to exec, hit once, then 3 to rupt and woah the guy died! Stop using the argument that these builds are easy to play because ALL builds are easy to play 76.26.189.65 23:56, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

GWW is over, everyone go home. --76.25.197.215 23:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Redbar monking is easy. Active prot (guardian to the warrior's face) is less so.

Frenzyspam warrioring is easy. Quarterlocking, switching to the target that just toed out of the ward, switching to the guy next to you that's fleeing your other warrior, and dumping off dchop while spiking another target are less so.

Your examples of things that are "easy to play" tend to get your team killed.

-- Armond Warblade 00:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Nowhere did I say spikes are broken. I said Searing Flames is broken because it's a spike with no recharge. What if eviscerate costed 5 energy and no recharge, oh wait, we already have one, and it's broken too!. ~Shard (talk) 01:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Not all builds are easy to play, only the gimmicks you run are easy to play. All builds should be hard to play, that's what makes it "skilled play." ~Shard (talk) 01:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the Warrior skillset as hard. It's a set of skills you can practice and delegate mostly to the subconsious eventually. Everyone and their grandma can quarterbreak/knock. You know how many fucking shock axes are running around RA these days? A lot. However there are some other things that separate superb Warriors from mediocre Warriors. Mostly it has to do with awareness and experience. Knowing what you need to be doing in every situation. Mastering the mechanics and tricks of the class are only the first step. Unfortunately without these things a class loses versitility and the whole awareness and experience thing matters a lot less. --TimeToGetIntense 02:31, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Euhm, nuke...I act that way because there is no reasoning with you guys. I already said that I mentioned Flare's DPS for fun and not as an argument, and Shard keeps attacking me on it. Whenever a build doesn't fit your way of thinking, it is automatically a 'gimmick'. When I say something you cannot deny or counter with an argument, I am a noob, who should listen to you PROgamers 'who are good players and know which metagames sucked and which did not'. And when I say something about it, I'm supposedly acting as if the whole world is against me. I'm done arguing with little kids (I'm talking about mental age here). 145.94.74.23 08:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Show me the place where I called you a "noob". Show me place where I failed to respond properly to anything you've said.

Stop making this about you and focus on the issue. Caster damage. I have, with detail, explained why caster damage is broken by the design of GW. Your counter consisted of "nobody luvs me".

If you're not going to make any sense, please go away. You're not helping by turning things personal. -- NUKLEAR IIV 12:03, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

And I explained, in detail, why I think it is good for the game. I'll sum it up for you: variaty. A metagame where only fighters can deal damage worth mentioning will only make block/blindness/passive anti-melee defense that much more important and the only caster damage dealer that is remotely viable is the Searing Flames Elementalist, who needs half a skillbar just to be able to compete with melee fighters. And I am making this personal, because you fail to respond to my arguments, not because you fail to respond. Things like PROTIP: aren't helping, at any rate (indirectly calling me noob, just because I happen to have different opinion) 145.94.74.23 15:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

For the third time, ranged damage isn't good for balance. Balance isn't "make everything viable", it's "make it so skilled players can beat unskilled ones". -- Armond Warblade 16:23, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

And for the third time, my intention is not to make everything viable, but to create balance by allowing players more than 1 way to win. 145.94.74.23 16:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

That's... not how you create balance?

You create balance by making all available options approximately equal. When you go to create your team, you choose your frontline, your midline, and your backline, yes? And if your midline does just as much damage as your frontline, but without the restrictions of fighting in melee... why do you have a frontline?

Do you see the problem now?

-- Armond Warblade 17:34, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Euhm...no. Because they don't have the same restrictions, they have DIFFERENT restrictions. What is so bad about allowing people to choose between the following 2?

• Ranged caster who has only 60 armor, needs several skill slots just to deal damage and cannot combine utility and damage in the same burst.
• Melee fighter with 100+ armor, who can deal quite a lot of damage without using skills and can spice up his normal attacks with knockdown, conditions or other effects.

It seems to me that both have their own advantages and disadvantages, so why limit players to just 1 choice? Why not allow people to make that choice themselves? Why do you insist on making caster damage go away? Just because you cannot counter it with melee counters? 145.94.74.23 19:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

After reading the block of text above, I, first and foremost, apologize - I haven't been getting my point across well.

To remedy this mistake, I shall lengthen the arguments on why caster damage is bad for the game.

You want ranged damage to be viable, to promote variety, right? Okay, I'm guessing pretty much everyone can go for more variety.

And for this, you want to keep SF the way it is and buff other damage sources so melee can be equal to caster damage, right?

Furthermore, you argue that caster damage can be countered as easily as melee damage can, yes?

Now, here is why it doesn't work. The system of Guild Wars, the entire (and I mean the balance of about 2000 skills here) balance has always, always been based upon melee damage.

Here, you say that caster damage should also be equally viable, yes?

No, it shouldn't. Because the game cannot handle caster damage. It never has. It lacks the, for the lack of a proper word, framework to support caster damage. This is why I asked you to look at past meta's: Whenever caster damage was viable, the resulting gimmicks and -ways were horrendous. Don't believe me? Airspike. Smiteball. Rtspike. Bloodspike. IV spike. SFway. Hypocondria Spike. Fragspike. Obsidian Spike. They are all gimmicks that require no skill to play at all. It is not "Caster damage should not be viable" it is "when it is viable, it breaks game". We insist the caster damage go away, because, frankly, they've tried it before, and it never has worked well. (If you choose to, say, argue that the above builds were not gimmicky or bad, then I have to drop the argument here and now)

I'll also be kind enough to explain why caster damage does not work. Monks. Yes, monks. Because monks are casters, caster damage is hampered by definition.

Why is this? Well, first of all, let's go back to "caster counters". Caster damage counters are laughable. You can kill an entire frontline with a single hex. Can you do that with any other hex? Can you apply an 8 second aoe daze for 10 energy? Of course you can't. Because if you could, the game would consist of frags every 10 seconds. Monks would be history. Caster counters are much weaker to melee counters because caster counters counter monks. Do you see the problem here? If caster damage is buffed, then the counters need to be buffed, and then, we have a meta that focuses on forgoing all defense and getting 8 killer chars.

Caster damage is bad not because Anet favours warriors. Caster damage is bad because it breaks the game. -- NUKLEAR IIV 20:21, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Well said. If anyone can come up with a counter argument to this, I would love to hear it. Kelvin Greyheart 20:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Nuclear wins. Nerf SF now plz. ~Shard (talk) 07:25, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't say that caster damage should be buffed, but I do think it is fine the way it is now. Even if it is only to keep players on their toes. Because there is 1 balancing factor in caster damage, and that is that most of it is affected by armor. Take a random attack skill or buff, and it ignores armor. The big counter against caster damage here, is armor. Specific counters that increase armor against elemental damage (like Ward Against Elements for example, or even better, since its less specific, Ward Against Harm) could be used to defend against caster damage, withou hurting monks or melee in any way (since melee could just weapon swap). I see your point, and I agree with you about the monk part, and I even agree that it might be easier to simply use melee as damage dealers instead of trying to balance caster damage. However, there are still options left to try and balance it, which Izzy (looking at the wards I just mentioned) hasn't explored yet. There is no shield mod that can help against melee damage, but there are several that can deal with all kinds of elemental damage. And anyone who has played hard mode knows that as an Elementalist, your damage drops rapidly as soon as your enemy's armor goes up.

That being said, caster damage other than SF is still less than that of melee characters, especially those wielding scythes. 145.94.74.23 07:57, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

There are anti-slashing, anti blunt and anti-piercing inscriptions. A good monk never leaves without it. Armor is, however, a problem for both sides - a bulk of a warrior's damage comes from auto attacks, which are affected by armor. -- NUKLEAR IIV 10:37, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The real balancing factor of caster damage is that it is not sustainable. As Nuke said, Warriors are mostly affected by armor. Their bonus damage from attack skills is a fraction of this damage over the long haul. For example, Evis + Executioners is only 67 damage every 8 hits, while each of those hits is going to average to roughly 30~35 damage per hit. The important difference between this and caster damage is that the Warrior is sustainable. Even and SF ele needs to use two energy management skills to be truely sustainable over the long haul, assuming they are not interrutped. and it doesn't help when you kill them and they come back with 25% energy. --TimeToGetIntense 11:24, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Killing them is hard when your entire team is taking the upwards of 1000 damage per second for the first 30 seconds of the match. ~Shard (talk) 22:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Again with the exagerations Shard? As for armor, it may not be the ultimate caster damage counter yet, but as I have stated, it could be used as a specific defense, just like block is being used as a specific defense against melee damage. Another way to make monks less vulnerable to caster counters than other casters has already been implemented. The average casting times of monks spells are much lower than those of damage spells, making them a lot harder to interrupt, excluding dazed. All I'm saying is, caster damage balance could be done, but I agree it would be hard to implement. Maybe in Guild Wars 2? As for now, I think Searing Flames keeps players on edge, being a different type of team that needs to be fought with different strategies. And I believe that such variaty that is good for the game, even if it may be a bit overpowered. 145.94.74.23 07:23, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I was exaggerating. It's more like 700 damage per second. The 1/2 less person dying every second makes the difference. This skill is broken. ~Shard (talk) 08:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

642 per SF use (=3 seconds), including burning at 15 Fire Magic on a 6 SF ele spike team, so any armor boost will prevent an instant kill. That makes a difference (especially compared to your 1000). Yes, I know they can still use other skills besides SF. But SF itself doesn't deal 700 damage per second. Not even when multiplied by 8, let alone 6. 145.94.74.23 21:53, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Except its AOE, and they are casting other things as well. Can you heal 3 people from a sliver of health to full every 3 seconds? Can you simultaneously prot your entire team at once? After all with a 3 second cast cycle, its not like they can't change targets. SF is high single target pressure by itself, let alone adding in the other skills, and the AOE nature of it. Don't say spread out. You can't in HA, and SF has a big AOE. Your team may very well be taking 700-1000 damage from it every 3-4 seconds. Kelvin Greyheart 16:14, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

OK I'll give this the benefit of the doubt, even though I did it a year ago before the first SF nerf, which was a deserved change. 6 SF eles at 15 fire spiking a single 80 armor target. No glyph of immolation, no weaken armor. Here we go.

First SF burns for 7 seconds. Damage after 7 seconds = 7*2*7=98.

100 damage on an 80 armor target = 70 damage. 70*5=350.

6 SFs come back 3 seconds later = 70*6 = 420.

6 SFs come back 3 seconds later = 70*6 = 420.

So, over the course of 7 seconds, SF group did a total of 1288 damage.

1288 damage divided by 7 seconds = 184 damage per second.

Remember, this number happens when the team casts SF, stand still for 2 seconds, casts another SF, stands still for 2 seconds, then casts SF again, against a single 80 armor target. This is a very low DPS for SF spike, considering most of them run weaken armor.

Now, let's see what happens when they cast Glowing Gaze twice and Liquid Flame once in those 7 seconds, plus weaken armor on the target, taking them to 60. This will be the normal DPS for a searing flames spike.

1798 (SF alone) + 300*2 + 672 = 3070 damage

3070 / 7 = 438 DPS.

Wow would you look at that. I was wrong. It only kills 2 people every 3 seconds instead of 3. Lots of skills can kill 2 people every 3 seconds consistently. Wail of Doom and prenerfSignet of Ghostly Might come to mind. Searing Flames is just as balanced as the other two. In fact, SF might even be more powerful than prenerf ritspike, which always hit a single target and had a recharge. ~Shard (talk) 04:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Now we're gonna stop talking numbers for a second, since I'm obviously bad at that. Go play an SF spike. I'm not in tombs today, so you won't have the humiliation of me telling you how bad you are for running a broken build. Go try it for a few runs. Then come back and tell me how easy it was to win with half a skill bar. ~Shard (talk) 04:52, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

It's pretty good at rolling scrubs, but if you don't ball and you get Aegis down you're swinging at 8 60 AL targets. pew pew — Skakid 05:14, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

How do you cast a spell with an 8 second recharge twice every 7 seconds? and a 15 second recharge once every 7? --24.179.151.252 10:09, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've seen the arguments of both sides and have come to a conclusion. Searing Flames is an easy, gimmick, spike that allows baed players to beet other baed players running similar gimmick builds. Because obviously when asked whether sf can beat a "good" team the answer is "of course not". So I say that even tho caster damage is bad for the game sf spike is the MOST balanced caster spike so far even tho it is far from that. Thus, I think izzy should leave it alone. The reason its not dominating the meta like b-spike did is because it is easy to counter with good teams. Leave the gimmick for the ppl who like to play it. If it rolls a few Sway teams who cares? Psychiatric Consultant 03:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

<comment removed by user> 145.94.74.23 07:51, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

hey kids Note: Please use ArenaNet:Skill feedback for all feedback about skills Only because you think izzy doesn't read your suggestions doesn't mean you can repeadetly spampost this on every place you find. 87.189.252.176 10:11, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

OMG, OMG, OMG, I just saw the funisst thing in the world!!!! Three years back wariors being the kings of damage lmao!!!! Trap ball= insta kill. Smite ball = insta kill, bloodspike = insta kill, Obsid flame spike = insta kill, RuS rank 2 with stone daggers = way op eles. Three years ago I beat War Machine with a rank 3000 Blood SPIke! what warior king of damage? 3 YeaRS AGO ABOUT ONLY THING WARS WERE KINGS OF WAS GALE LMAO. ~ Look Drop Kaboom ~

You're right Look Drop Kaboom. Warriors still are not the highest DPS characters, never were, never will be, but 6 seconds KD chains pretty much rape the shit out of everything so it doesn't really matter. --TimeToGetIntense 19:15, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've seen the arguments of both sides and have come to a conclusion. Searing Flames is an easy, gimmick, spike that allows baed players to beet other baed players running similar gimmick builds. Because obviously when asked whether sf can beat a "good" team the answer is "of course not". So I say that even tho caster damage is bad for the game sf spike is the MOST balanced caster spike so far even tho it is far from that. Thus, I think izzy should leave it alone. The reason its not dominating the meta like b-spike did is because it is easy to counter with good teams. Leave the gimmick for the ppl who like to play it. If it rolls a few Sway teams who cares? Psychiatric Consultant 03:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not dominating the meta like b-spike because you can mitigate some of the damage outside of pure red bar goes up power and the fact that some maps you can spread out (at least in gvg). In HA, it really depends on the map you are on to know if you can spread out or not. Unfortunately, on most HA maps, there are natural chokepoints everywhere you turn (that's where the whole discussion on AoE come in.) I'm not an HA scrub so I'm sure those with more experience can provide more info. This doesn't change the fact that at least some people feel like it's a problem. PlacidBlueAlien 17:41, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

"Searing Flames is an easy, gimmick, spike that allows baed players to beet other baed players running similar gimmick builds. Because obviously when asked whether sf can beat a "good" team the answer is "of course not". So I say that even tho caster damage is bad for the game sf spike is the MOST balanced caster spike so far even tho it is far from that. Thus, I think izzy should leave it alone."

Only the first half of what you said is right. For the millionth time, I'm going to explain why gimmicks are bad for a game of skill:

They require no skill.

It doesn't matter whether "It's beatable." Every build is beatable, that doesn't make them okay. It takes an average balanced team significantly more effort to even stalemate SF, and that's what makes it broken. Nerf it. ~Shard (talk) 01:43, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

So i herd u liek Spirit Bond -FireFox 01:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Spirit Bond cost 10 energy. A monk can't afford to cover every squishy with it. Like it has been stated the biggest power a ele has is AoE damage. A warrior w/a Sentinel's Insignia on his/her chest plate and a shield will take about 38% of the original damage. With 500 health that means they need to do about 1315 damage to kill said warrior. This will take a few seconds. However while damaging that one warrior they are also killing anyone close to him. This can double or even easily triple the amount of damage your spike does. And spikes work by killing your foea before health or energy becomes a problem. Am I making sence? It's 9:10 pm here. Done25 02:13, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

People keep trying to argue that you can stop a single SF spike. You can, but that has nothing to do with how broken this skill is. You cannot, however, stop 30 of them, which is about how many the average SF team does every 2 minutes. Monks cannot spirit bond a new target every 3 seconds for an entire match. Monks cannot infuse a new target every 3 seconds for an entire match.

Fact: SF takes no skill to play but wins a lot.

Fact: Winning alot without any skill whatsoever = broken. ~Shard (talk) 09:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

FACT: Your 2 facts are opinions 76.26.189.65 15:38, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Unless the people running SF also run Headbutt, it doesn't take skill to play. T, 1. I just killed someone. T, 1. I just killed someone else.

Winning a lot without any skill isn't broken. It is, however, degenerate, and should be fixed anyway. ~Shard (talk) 06:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Idea for certain shadow stepping skills

Certain Shadow Stepping skills have always been huge problems, being too good for GvG splits. Specifically, these ones: Aura of Displacement, Recall, Shadow of Haste. These two should also be included, though they are minor: Shadow Walk, Shadow Meld.

My suggestion is simple. Whenever any of these skills is ended prematurely by an enemy (enchantment or stance removal), they do not trigger their shadowstep. When some Assassin rambos in with AoD you should be able to Shatter it and kill him. He should need to react quickly when there's a threat of this happening or else die. The way a split team can gank a base with the enemy turtling and still wipe it without any chance of being killed is rediculous.

These skills would mostly remain as strong as they always were, but the counters to them would be far more universal. Right now there's one skill in the entire game that gives you a reasonable shot at killing one of these guys: Scorpion Wire. What a joke. Please consider my suggestion.

PS: I realize someone will bring up the issue of removing these stances and enchants being a counter to make an Assassin get off you, but I feel it is more important to provide ways to actually kill them in GvG. --TimeToGetIntense 14:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Would be nice for positioning to actually matter, a lot of people currently run Death's Charge hammer warriors on split maps which makes defending even harder than it already is on broken maps like corrupted. Perhaps remove shadow steps from HA/GvG? Warlock 15:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Make all Shadowsteps fail if you have less than 2 in Crit Strikes, preventing secondary class abuse. DarkNecrid 17:07, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Secondary abuse is not a problem at all. They are, at least, "dealable" to some extent. The real broken part is when assassins can single-handedly slaughter an enemy base without any fear of retribution. The most broken assassin skill there is is on that list - AoD. -- NUKLEAR IIV 17:46, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Secondary abuse isn't a problem at all? lol no. Melandru telespike, Shadow Walk to remove aftercast, Return monks, and so much more. AoD isn't much of a problem really, I'd like to know why a Sin is in your base not getting taken out by a split really. DarkNecrid 21:32, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps comment on these issues should be reserved for people that actually play PvP rather than PvE players that will say anything to prevent their precious farming build being nerfed. Warlock 22:49, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Some of you guys really don't seem to get my point here. I'm not talking about telespikes. Sure, they are annoying, but they are not the end of the world... and more importantly, they are not the issue I am trying to discuss.

AoD, Recall and similar skills are a real problem, however. They break the game... hard. They make GvG gank teams overpowered. All you can do is turtle, preserve your boat NPCs and scrape together some sort of last ditch effort at VoD, usually involving walking the lord out an AoEing the enemy NPCs which they are guaranteed to have a full party of. You still get a small chance to win, but there's nothing you can do in such a match that gives you a good chance of victory unless you're running the same type of build, one that abuses shadowstepping. You could try and gank too, but normal builds don't have the mobility to pull it off, they will easily dispatch your gank while keeping up a lot of pressure on your base. Either way, you have to let them boost all game too. --TimeToGetIntense 23:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

someone said " why dont your split team just deal with them" Its simple its 1 guy, and he cant be caught. If you do manage to catch up to kill him, you will never kill him because he will warp a massive piece of map away, if you send more then 1 person to deal with him your front line team will get severely weakened and the people who got sent back will be able to do essentially nothing 76.26.189.65 23:51, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Precisely, AoD is nothing short of invincibility.

DarkNecrid, here's a little tidbit of info - no shadowsteps have aftercasts. Return monks are pretty win. Now, I feel like this is the spot where I say "lrn2play" but I won't, due to the kindness in my heart. -- NUKLEAR IIV 08:45, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Um, All shadow steps have aftercast, There will be no aftercast for canceling AoD, Meld, etc. and any based on stance also has no aftercast, the all the others do have it. For some people they lag when they shadow step so they may not notice the small aftercast. 76.26.189.65 13:08, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

NUKLEAR you can actually read what I said...you know...You use Shadow Walk (since it's a stance and has no after cast) to get around the aftercast of another ability. It will remove the aftercast. All spell Shadowsteps have an aftercast, (as they are a spell) except for Shadow Walk (since it is a stance). Also you could, idk, close the gate behind you so the AoD sin can't escape, but that'd be crazy. DarkNecrid 13:54, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

It's interesting how, even though the assassin class with all it's shadow stepping potential is considered so wastly overpowered, it's a class that VERY rarely sees play in GvG. Just strikes me as kinda funny, don't know why... History has proven that in order for Izzy to adress the efficiency of certain skills he must first observe this overpowerdness in action a couple of times. So if you want it gone: abuse it. (Doesn't always work ofc... Wounding Strike and Escape/Scythe rangers spring to mind... but worth a shot, I guess)--ILLUSiVE 13:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

They see plenty of play. When people feel like running an aggressive split they usually use Assassins. The vast majority of players suck at GvG and can't win using offensive splits, so you don't see it much because most people can't run it. They aren't willing to put in the practice and training to properly run a split of any kind. I'll admit it takes some experience and skill to properly run a sinsplit, but that doesn't change the fact that it's overpowered. --TimeToGetIntense 19:08, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

"The vast majority of players suck at GvG and can't win using Flare, so you don't see it much because most people can't run it. They aren't willing to put in the practice and training to properly run a Flare build of any kind. I'll admit it takes some experience and skill to properly run a Flare build, but that doesn't change the fact that it's overpowered."... sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. And show that without proof anything goes. — Poki#3 21:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Except he's right and your post is dumb. -- Armond Warblade 21:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

"They see plenty of play. When people feel like running an aggressive split they usually use Assassins. The vast majority of players suck at GvG and can't win using offensive splits, so you don't see it much because most people can't run it." Ok... so is it they see plenty of play or don't see much play because the vast majority of players suck at GvG? As a side note, you do make a good point with the vast majority of players sucking at GvG and their not wanting to learn builds and the like. Though they often think they arethe best players around and come on here and whine for nerfs claiming imbalance because something beat them and their leet skills. ;) ~ Sabastian 00:45, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

If all you're going to do is misunderstand what he means by "plenty of play" and make snide comments about posters that know what they're talking about, you can just not post, you know. -- Armond Warblade 01:02, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, then please do tell me how the assassins see "plenty of play" but are rarely played then is not a contradictory claim? "posters that know what they're talking about" If that where the case then they would be posting on Izzy's private little forum rather than here. This wiki page is about crowd control in letting people voice their opinions and concerns and occasionally respond to them to make it seem like their opinions matter when they really don't. ;) ~ Sabastian 01:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, snide comments = get off of this wiki. Most players are horrible; those that are good and want to use an aggressive split use assassins. In that sense, they're plentiful - they're the most common choice for what they do best. If you want to call that logic ridiculous, I'll say it's ridiculous that monks aren't used often because, in the absolute sense, they're rarely seen doing AoE pressure.

As for the private forums: They're kinda private. The point of making them was so Izzy and his handpicked friends could contribute to them. Not everyone that knows what they're talking about contributes to those forums, simply because there's too many of them. Izzy doesn't know them all (or most of them), and even if he did, most of them wouldn't be invited to the forums because it would be too much information for him to process.

In other news, this wiki isn't anything near crowd control, simply because the crowds come here. Or, if you mean it's a distraction for the majority, it's not a good one at all - everyone who posts here does so knowing Izzy's likely never going to read what they posted, or, even if he does, the odds of him replying are even lower.

-- Armond Warblade 02:16, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

We actually try to take this place seriously, you know, unlike *cough* some people. What He meant to say was "When people want to buttrape with a split, they use assassins". Other than that, assassins don't see play in GvG because they are gimmicky and without utility. -- NUKLEAR IIV 01:36, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

See to you, everything seems to be gimmick, and... assassin has no utility? You do realize sin is one of the classes with the most amount of utility right? 76.26.189.65 01:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not going to bored tonite, it seems. Fine, I'll bite: What viable utility does assassin have? (We're talking stand) -- NUKLEAR IIV 01:42, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

LOL @ TimeToGetIntense - You should try some validity with your contradiction next time, instead of just posting contradictory statements. Obviously they aren't getting much play, and just because they get a little play on a rare occasion, doesn't mean they are getting a lot of play, it still means they don't see much play. As such, there is no problem with the skills the way they are. Rakyren 01:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

When they do get play, they get to buttrape your base without any worry whatsoever. The argument of "not used, not broken" is proven to be bollocks. Please get a new one. -- NUKLEAR IIV 02:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but not being skilled enough to actually be able to counter or beat something, like an assassin, doesn't mean that the skills are overpowered it just means that the person losing to it needs to try something new (builds, tactics, or something besides the same 8 skills that have been on your bar for the last 2 years) or get a little better at playing the game. If you can't beat it, get better, don't cry about it. LOL Rakyren 02:08, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

By that logic, nothing is overpowered because everyone can get better at the game. See also: [Me], [SpNv], and [HaND]'s gold capes. -- Armond Warblade 02:16, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

What would you know, you don't play anymore I thought. Besides, you're twisting things because most of the time there are very viable, simple, and effective counters that work on a wide level against a lot of builds but instead of just considering them, and changing a skill or two, people would rather whine and cry because they got beat in a battle than to consider doing something about it themselves. Sure, some skills need balanced but the majority of the ones that get nerfed is because people are too lazy or ignorant to just use a simple counter and become a better player for it. Rakyren 02:21, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and sometimes, you don't even have to change a skill you can just adjust your tactics a little. If you're a decent player you should be able to see what tactics aren't working, and make a few changes. Rakyren 02:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I would know plenty, because one is not required to play the game to study it. Also, name me these tactics, please? Against SFway, hexway, and shitway in HA, and hexway, sinsplit, and shitway in GvG. -- Armond Warblade 02:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Tactics to fight all three with one balanced team (per arena), please. Since it's kind of hard to know what you're going to face ahead of time and if it can easily beat a balanced team, it's overpowered. --76.25.197.215 02:48, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Lucky for me "plenty" is a subjective term. I did not say that Assassins are used by the majority of teams. Therefore I did not contradict myself. Now let's lay off the semantics. What I meant was, there are a handful of good guilds who understand how to execute this overpowered build. When they want to split, they more often than not run Assassins. Then there's everyone else. --TimeToGetIntense 02:38, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I feel as if I'm trying to explain how a television works to a caveman who could not even begin to fathom the basics of it or even what electricity is. The best I can do is leave you with this.

If you have one set of skills, or one type of tactic that can go against anything and never lose, then that build and/or tactic is over-powered. The key is to use skill and become a skilled player. This means you will often need to change your tactics, even in mid battle, because if things are balanced then there is always a 50/50 chance you're going to lose unless you show your skill by changing tactics to make sure you win. If you're incapable of changing your tactics to fit the situation, then obviously you're not nearly as skilled as you think you are.

If you use only one sort of tactic or one build and you get beat, then that doesn't mean that the skills used to beat you were overpowered, it just means that they had some effective counters against what you were doing, and you failed to be able to adjust your tactics to beat theirs, and thus, you lost to a more skilled player(s) not overpowered skills. Rakyren 02:49, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Great, so what are those tactics? Because believe me, I've played for quite a while, in both controlled and uncontrolled situations, against these very builds, and have talked a lot with other good players (and if you say Ensign isn't a good player, I'll gladly show you to the door), about what kinds of tactics (note the plural!) we ought use against such builds, to no avail. (Well, Ensign had some great ideas, but they required his level of experience or similar in order to work properly. Ninja reflexes and about seven more sets of eyes than I have.) -- Armond Warblade 02:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

@Nuklear, do you consider kds, snares, enchantment removal, interrupts and insane movement as utility? 76.26.189.65 03:20, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

If they can be used against something other than the target you're spiking/ NPCs you're ganking, yeah. -- Armond Warblade 03:23, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Rakyren, you're condescending and ignorant. --TimeToGetIntense 04:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

@ 76, show me a stand bar with utility and I'll shut up. Rakyren, by dogmatic posts, I can only reach the conclusion that you don't play high end games, and you have no experience with any type of sinsplits. Please, don't try to sound smart while actually not being so. -- NUKLEAR IIV 11:09, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you Nuke, but on technicallity 76 would be right. They usually pack a KD or removal as part of their 1234 chain. =\ But your point is that they can't use their utility for many things and therefore are not versitile, right? --TimeToGetIntense 13:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Armond, I can't explain to you how to use common sense and become a better player in a few paragraphs of text on a wiki, it's just not possible. You should be able to depend upon your team, as well as your own skill, and a group of skilled players are more than capable of thinking, adapting, and using common sense in a battle to not simply be wiped out by the flavor of the week build. I've defeated many of the so-called overpowered and impossible to beat builds without much trouble, and sure, I play a lot of Guild Wars and I might just be a better player and tactician than most, and since I'm familiar with the majority of the skills from the majority of classes it's also handy when I need to figure out what might work well against a specific skill or tactic, but that's just part of being a skilled and knowledgeable player. Something everyone should strive for (Last Pride and War Machine are two great examples of what players can strive to become, they could adapt to most any situation), rather than asking for play to be constantly brought down to their current lower level, as it ruins the enjoyment of the game for the rest of us. Rakyren 13:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Rakyren, you have not said a single thing on the topic of sinsplits. Again, ignorant and condescending. I'm sick of reading your pretentious garbage. I don't give a flying nigger about your generalizations about how you can always counter a build. How is sinsplit not overpowered? Assuming it's beatable on a consistant basis without specially counterbuilding, assuming it all comes down to skill/strat vs. skill/strat, why would anyone consider any other kind of offensive split?

Also, "Flavor of the week build"? Do you have any idea what you're talking about? [EviL] abused sinsplit 2.5 years ago, since then it's come and gone in different forms and it's always been problematic. You think we post this crap because we die to RA sins or our GvG team loses to some midrank guild running an unfamiliar build with Assassins? No. I've abused Assassins as well. It's called a BYOB pug. You don't even need an organized team to abuse Assassins, you just need a bunch of strong players who do whatever the fuck they want for 20 minutes and still win. If you're fighting a really strong guild of course, you need more organization, but it's amazing how many people lose to BYOB. But then you know, good guilds lose to other good guilds running sinsplit and that's how many guild have gotten their gold capes. --TimeToGetIntense 13:44, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Me, HaND, and SpNv weren't good. Rakyren, yeah, I kinda figured I should be working with the rest of my team, etc, etc, and I did, and we lost to SFway a thousandth (er... thousand times?) our rank because it was Burning Isle. :/ (Whose idea was it to make an island where you can't outsplit SF-way *and* they can herd you into lava?) -- Armond Warblade 14:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I find it quite amusing that this rakyren dude just popped out of nowhere and started giving out insults without relating to anything related to GvG. -- NUKLEAR IIV 20:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not gonna lie. I find it extremely annoying. --TimeToGetIntense 08:29, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh I'm not new or anything, I'm an old acquaintance of Armond from PvX, and one of the people who kicked his sorry frenzy warrior playing butt a few times (and we all know how he loves to brag about how he got beat all the time by this build and that build and use his personal lack of skill as an excuse for wanting things nerfed). I've been around PvX and a lot of you guys for a while, I just recently changed my username to match the name I use on many of my characters because it seemed more fitting, and because after giving Armond such a hard time for his shameful activities on PvX for such a long time, I knew I'd be better off not announcing who I was known as before because you'd be more likely to discredit me just because of past history.

I do apologize though for pointing out your failings as players and your less then perfect lack of skill at the game. Best I can say is keep trying, keep playing, and experiment with new things in game and in time, you'll advance too. Rakyren 13:24, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and yes, I do play a lot of high end PvP and GvG. You've never come across Rakyren in GvG because it's the name I'm using on several characters on the latest account I bought (my fourth now), and since the account is still new and I'm just goofing around with it, I may end up just leaving it as a play account. Rakyren 13:36, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, no one gives a shit. How about you discuss the topic at hand or gtfo? --TimeToGetIntense 13:51, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Hey, not my fault. You guys made me the topic of discussion there, so I discussed it. Sure, this thread has gotten offtopic from the original section, but I'm not the only one to blame for that. Rakyren 14:31, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

This topic is called "idea for certain shadow stepping skills," not "lets talk about how good rakyren thinks he is."

Shadow stepping skills should just come out of pvp altogether. They aren't good for balance, and they aren't good for skilled play. ~Shard (talk) 11:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

No skill play? Know how much more skilled a monk has to be to prot step spikes? It forces players to get better 76.26.189.65 17:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

And it takes equal skill to utilize a shadow stepping spike? — Skakid 17:30, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

its takes much skil too shadow step whit assassin. it s much harder then to heal --Frozen Archer 17:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

It would be good if they changed recall, shadow meld and aura of displacement because i play hb and its pretty overpowered there. So here are my suggestions.

Recall-for 10(or maybe 15 or 20) secs nothing happens. When Recall ends, you Shadow Step to the ally you targeted when you activated this skill, and all of your skills are disabled for 10 seconds.

Aura of Displacement-When you cast Aura of Displacement, Shadow Step to target foe. After 10 seconds you return to your original location

Shadow Meld-Shadow Step to target other ally. After 10 secs you return to your original location

those ideas above me are just bad. (yay unbanned)

Srsly, rakyren wtf? stop embarrassing yarself. I have played forever. i can beat sinsplit all the time. i am a amazing tactican. sinsplit is a FLAVOR OF THE WEEK BUILD. .....wait..what? it's been abused for 2.5 years. which is proof enough that you dont know a damn. stop acting like you do. Oni 18:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

hi izzy read this

evryon here fails et pvp, espicialy shard. i gues noone of them even play ra as i do and im wery good at it. dont listen to them wen they say sway end seerin flame is gimick or wat they caled it, their only baed end sdont know how to win in heros asent. meself, ima wery strong and brave sway ranger who fight wery powerful battles of wictory, i know how to balence the game.

first u must buff up seerin flame, its wery baed atm end canot kill good in ra, ppl are to spred out in ha wer the maps are to large so the area off serering flame must be stronger. aditionaly, escape end before u can use it again, this is not good so maek escape lonmger so i cannot be hit by thoos baed warriors. end when i play ra woondin strike do to little damage so buf it up, maek it do like +30..70..80 damage end add cripple.

that is all i got to say, im soon r3 --Frozen Archer 23:59, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

WOW!!! this kidd is a genius!

Mabe now ppl will listyen when u make it sound soooo ridiculous to think otherwise. BTW SF was made for spike it w=should be reworked or just plain killed like that wierd smiteing skill with 30 recharge..

I wonder who it really is, lets see my first guess would definitely be Shard, but I dont think he would stoop so low. The next person I would guess is Nuke since he said "strong and brave" somewhere on this page, hmm on 2nd thought I dont want to point fingers. Whoever it is, is just wasting their time 76.26.189.65 01:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

iam not shard. im on a much higher level of pvp then he --Frozen Archer 01:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

i bet it's shard --Cursed Angel 01:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Which is why I reported myself, right? ~Shard (talk) 02:12, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Plenty of people say "strong and brave". If you're going to accuse people because of that, you've just narrowed it down to about half the people that contribute to Izzy's pages. -- Armond Warblade 02:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, when I have something to say, I don't hide behind a sockpuppet. Most of you know me better than that. ~Shard (talk) 03:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

What the hell? Am I being considered a suspect now? FYI, 76, if I was strong and brave, I would troll openly, using snide and yet amusing comments regarding to your mother's sexual preferences. So, Frozen is not me. -- NUKLEAR IIV 08:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you're being labeled as suspects because you're the only ones who constantly bring up the same issues over and over again. Just a wild guess...145.94.74.23 12:33, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The game might actually be interesting if it were different problems with balance every two weeks or so. Hell, I'd have to actually think about what build I want to farm HA with when I do my once-monthly login instead of just getting on my scythe ranger. -- Armond Warblade 19:00, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it was wild, pointless, and worthless. Don't do it again. meow. -- NUKLEAR IIV 12:47, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

*hugs Nuke and Shard* I sorry, in the end I ended up feeding the troll a tiny bit. Very sorry ^_^ 76.26.189.65 13:05, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Frozen Archer is such a bad troll. :( Can I vandalise his userpage? Vigilante justice plxz? --TimeToGetIntense 19:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Yes you should. Scream "I am the Law" and wear a manly mask for extra points. -- NUKLEAR IIV 01:05, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Shard, like Armond, would totally do something like that just to get attention. Shard might not have a very good grasp of the game, but at least he seems to play it some. People like Armond who say they don't play anymore but still come here just for the attention they can get are even worse. Rakyren 01:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Shard and I would both do it on our main accounts. You obviously don't know either of us very well; even if I were to sock, I'd do it on my favorite build (whom I've forgotten the password to). -- Armond Warblade 02:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Stop the witch hunts, accusations, flaming, off-topicness, and general terribadness please. If you've got nothing constructive to contribute to the topic at hand, let it die. -- Brains12 \ talk 02:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Terribadness is a win adjective. May I use it? -- NUKLEAR IIV 02:05, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

wow your al sush baed trools. trieing to trol my important and right messege to izzy whit your failures. noone of u even knows how to be guud end win like me do and im wery guud. --Frozen Archer 22:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

LOL@ I don't have a grasp on the game. That's cute. It's the same thing I'd expect from any spiritway scrub in ID1. Idolize GANK less. ~Shard (talk) 07:37, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

This guy is the reason we need that traceuser deal. Also hopefully a permanent IP ban. --TimeToGetIntense 11:27, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, because banning people who are better at the game than you is a perfectly rational thing to do. LOL Rakyren 13:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm just so intimidated by this Frozen Archer guy. He's such a beast. I'm afriad that Izzy will make the game harder for me due to his influence and then I'll lose even more. QQ --TimeToGetIntense 14:16, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Will I get banned for deleting such bullshit on Izzy#s page? Or do I get the Cookie of Honor? A. von Rin 18:10, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

all this crap is proof that only kids post on izzys page, me included, and yes all this BS should be deleted, oh yeah lets listen to them they have awesome ideas lolz cares

plz remove enchantremoveal from the game it destroys my woondin strike ranger in ab

and deep wound is to bad so add demeg WOONDIN STRIKE DOS NOT ADD DAMAGE IT ONLY AD NBLEEDIN END DEEPWOUND WICH ISDBAD AND CAN BE REMOVED MONK CAN REMOVE IT EASI SO NERF THEM--Frozen Archer 19:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

o.O wtf!?!.....sooo DW+Bleed+quick recharge+only 5 energy+u only need an enchantment to do it is still not ok? -.-......somethings wrong with you >.>..... i mean its already overpowered y the hell do you wanna make it stronger? o.oAPEX :D 21:11, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

hey

I would like to know the regulations put on guild names. can I talk to you in-game? --Readem 20:48, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe the EULA has everything you need to know about what guild names are allowed. ~Shard (talk) 04:04, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, my one-person guild was recently banned :/. Also, it is a harmless pop-culture reference that is easily acceptable as long as its origin is known. --Readem 19:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

what was the name? --Frozen Archer 19:28, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Noobs On Izzy's Talk [FA]. Ok, maybe not, but I'm allowed to tease, yeh? :P -- Armond Warblade 02:57, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

OMG HATERZ

<inappropriate comment> YOU NARBS, ALL YOU WANT IS MASS NERF SO EVERYTHING <inappropriate comment> LIKE YOU IZZY ROCKS --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Phill Gaston (talk).

I believe your objection is noted even with the <inappropriate comment> Phill.--Silverleaf 18:24, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

What's a narb? 145.94.74.23 07:54, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Interested in stats.

→ moved from User talk:Regina Buenaobra

"Isaiah ran a query to get a general estimate of how many people have the skill on their bars..." Is there any chance some more of these queries could be run? For instance, what is the least used skill in the game? Has there been any thought towards finding these rarely used skills and buffing them, perhaps significantly? I think that would make for a more interesting and fun reason to change up my skill bars a bit, and would probably make result in a little less anger from some in the community. Perrin42 06:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

There are a lot of good skills out there that no-one uses for example, Rigor Mortis is an excelent anti ranger/assassin skill, or any build that relies on blocking, but perhaps if they couldn't dodge either. Insidious Parasite is also pretty good, I take assassins apart and do some good dmg to warriors with all the time, AND it's pure life stealing, so not like any super armored warrior is going to be able to shrug it off, but perhaps if it stole a bit more health...... Buffing up some un-used and neglected skills would help in allowing more useful and powerful non-ursan builds. It would also mix up PvP a bit and keep things fresh. I imagine facing and using the same old builds gets a bit boring. --Wolf 13:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow cool, thanks. I totally forgot about insidious parasite in general. Nice find or something lol. Vael Victus 14:34, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

IP is actually stapled to my Necro's bar. It's great. <3 -- Elv 16:35, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Same. I don't see it used very widely in PvP tho. I think we should make a list of potentialy good but under-vauled skills. Im gunna start things off with 3 that I love and keep with ym necro pretty much always. And to all, add skills to buttom of the list, and post comments above it. --Wolf 17:12, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

You're joking, right? Every 3rd Necro I encounter has IP. RM is often used in spike builds, along with Rend Enchantments to bypass enemy defenses and VA (although very bugged) finds play in AB and CM. — Poki#3 19:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Never seem many people use any of those. I ask a necro to bring VA in an AB and they all always ask, "why, it sucks." RM could be a lot more useful outside of spike situations, and never had IP cast on me in all my time with my warrior in RA, and ABs. If you know of a few skills, please, add them to the list. --Wolf 19:40, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess this is my attempt at tackling ursan by saying, hey, here are some awsome skills that you probably didn't know existed. Use em. Even though some of them might not apply to PvE. I know I missed out on some good skills for a while purely b/c I didn't know thye existed. I don't know about you guys, but I don't have the time to read through every skill in the game and ponder how it can be used..... --Wolf 19:47, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Hexway has been big since the soul bind change, now 2/3 of every n/e in HA runs insidious parasite. Also, there are multiple "least used" skills in pvp. I'd say the pet attacks are the least used skills in the game, pvp wise. A lot of the dervish and communing skills aren't so hot either. ~Shard (talk) 20:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The goal of this is to find those rarely used skills that are already good or can be with very minor tweaks. Also, I never was big on HA, so I have no-idea whats going on in there. If you know of some skills, please, add them to the list, so we can talk about more than just the 3 that I had on-top of my mind. also, please don't post below the list, I would like to keep that on the bottom, thanks. --20:43, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Rigor is bad, due to the fact it is a huge "prot me skill". IP is one of the best skills in 4v4, next to dshot/mbane ect. The fact you have not seen it, merely notes your inexperience. VAura is just bad. --Readem 21:04, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

For starters, I don't know why I haven't been running into IP on other's builds. Its entirely possible to never face some builds. It was a couple months after I first started doing TA and RA frequently before I ever had SS or Empathy and the like cast on me as a warrior. How is VA bad when I can pretty much disable an MM in one cast? And thats not limited to one MM. I saw 2 MM's bunched and forming most of a mob, I run in, cast it, and BAM! All your minion are belong to us. (or dead) I get 5 minions and kill 15 (5 DM) and the mob lost pretty much all its strength. How does that not own some serious face? --Wolf 14:00, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Potentialy Good but Undervalued Skills

• Rigor Mortis
• Insidious Parasite
• Verata's Aura

VA is bad, because MMs in AB are bad. People take MMs to fill up the radar and catch the nubs, anybody else would actually take a good build and actually kill stuff. Oh and if theres no MM then you have a useless skill slot for a whole match too. Antiarchangel TROLL 17:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Wait are you guys making a list now, or already have a list? 76.26.189.65 00:51, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Failed Changes

Just a few off the top of my head:

Wounding Strike

Blinding Surge

Signet of Midnight

Foul Feast

Plague Sending

Plague Signet

Soul Bind

Wail of Doom

Blurred Vision

Reckless Haste

--The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:66.91.74.197 (talk).

Maybe someone should use the allmighty vandal tag on the arbitration page for anon, or he should tell us why those changes were bad instead of saying he invented cheese. ~Shard (talk) 05:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with : foul feast,plague sending,sould bind (could use 5e) blurred vision and reckless rest can be seen as WTF but SoM and WoD arent that bad BS however deserved the update but got killed :/.Lilondra 14:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

The Necro skills aside from Wail of Doom are all fine. People just somehow don't want Necromancers to pose any threat or something? As long as Warriors can 6 second KD chain, and Rangers can be immune to blind and have an unblockable, 10 second disabling, 5 second recharge interrupt, I don't think anyone should be complaining about Necros. They are now strong enough to compete. WoD is bullshit though, don't get me wrong. --TimeToGetIntense 20:12, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Very few of those actually seem bad - BS, Foul Feast, Plague Sending, Blurred Vision and even Reckless Haste are all pretty much OK, Signet of Midnight is fine, it's its combination with Plague Sending that's a bit OP, Plague Signet is quite powerful but it's an elite and Soul Bind's also an elite even though it's only slightly more powerful than Scourge Healing (but it is a necro skill, which makes a difference). The only thing you might consider wrong there is Wounding Strike, but I wouldn't say it was exactly a failed change since it did what it was supposed to - WS was weak and overshadowed by Avatars, and now it's a lot more used. Really, it was more of a "pendulum change" in that it was buffed (as it should have been), but a bit too much so now it's OP.

"This is Madness!"

I kinda just thought this up today to make the Ghostly in HA much more affective and meaningful. Currently, unless your team is on the verge of winning, the ghostly in non-objective maps is not healed because the recharge of res skills and such is useless if nobody's died. My idea would have the ghostly put back in the game and make long matches non-existent. Currently, builds like SWAY and other trap/run into our massive spirit builds rely on 'camping' on there own side until the other team rushes in and gets massive trap/spirit bombed. My idea, is for the ghostly to have a shout that prevents this. Example, in GvG theres VoD to end the match so that it doesn't last forever. In my opinion, at the 9 minute mark in HA the ghostly should have a shout, (I thought the name was great because of the numerous other pop-culture references and because, well, it fits!) "This is Madness!" Skill. For 60 Seconds all party members deal 25% more damage, but allies receive 20% less health benefit from healing skills. [5 energy, No cast, 30 Second recharge]. Also, it's a skill so that vocal minority cant own it.

This skill would make balanced teams hold on to their ghostly and make the opposing team much more pressured. Any balanced team will be able to have much cleaner spikes, at the price of having less healing which wouldn't be much of a downside because you should be able to spike out all of the damage fast. Please comment on your thoughts. Thanks,

"Madness? No, This! Is! SPARTA!" Oh come on, someone had to do it. sounds good, maybe an arsenal of shouts for the Ghostly for various situations, like this one. Used as soon as one player activates a trap.

"It's a trap!" Shout. For 30 seconds, all party members take 25% less damage from traps. [5 energy, No cast, 60 Second recharge].

Or something along those lines. --Wolf 15:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

First make it so you can spike R/Ds :P But yeah, awesome idea. --TimeToGetIntense 16:59, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

if someone could remove the damn box, that'd be nice. :(

This idea is bad for the very same reason VoD fails. What if you fight against a team with 7 healers, like holy strike spike or ritspike? Ele ball would become popular because it would be invincible 9 minutes in. A decent skill balance with map changes will fix all of HA's problems.

On a similar note, 5 new HA maps coming up. ~Shard (talk) 21:15, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

are there gonna be 5 new ha maps u say? --Disrupt Shot! 21:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I say there are gonna be 5 new HA maps. ~Shard (talk) 02:33, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Sauce? -- Gordon Ecker 02:44, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll upload pics and link them on my user page. Someone had a problem with the link I posted. ~Shard (talk) 07:31, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Back on topic, I think it might be quite cool for the Ghostly to have some special skills and AI (so he only uses them at certain times and whatnot). It would also stop ppl from running in with their hero like they sometimes do so that their foes kill him and can't get a res sig recharge later (at the cost of them also getting to +10%, but if they're already there it won't make a difference anyway).

VoD

Hey, I got a great idea. What if instead of boosting offense, VoD boosts defense, then creates a situation where one team will still die, for example, make both Guild Lords benefit only 33% from healing. Currently VoD forces the game to end, yes, but a build must have massive defense to handle VoD. This is not fun.

Rather than continuing to nerf all defensive skills, make VoD favor heavily offensive teams. This would create a challenge when building to survive until VoD but still being able to take advantage of the VoD mechanics. A heavily defensive build can easily make it to VoD, however, if VoD did not give them the offense they lack, they'd be unable to abuse VoD.

Yes, they'd still get their NPCs at stand, but they would not get the massive offensive boost that VoD currently gives. The NPCs can be much more easily dealt with when the enemy Warriors and Eles aren't soloing people, plus, if the offensive team makes it to VoD with it the way I'm suggesting, they will break through any defense because they will be able to push balls swinging.

So the question is, how to prevent stalemates in this system. Simply make sure the Guild Lords can still die. Make them only gain 33% health from healing, and maybe reduce the effect of Amulet of Protection during VoD, also when VoD hits remove the +5 HP regeneration the GL has. Your team could be as safe as you want, but the Guild Lord will still die, whichever team can kill it faster will win.

What exactly am I proposing VoD should give your team defense-wise? I was thinking an armor and/or HP regeneration boost, maybe a max health boost too.

I know this sounds insane, basically reversing VoD, but let's face it, VoD has been a problem forever. It was never a good game ending mechanic, a necessary evil. I think the complete opposite would actually be a good mechanic. --TimeToGetIntense 23:35, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Offense is only OP now because of skills alone and because of scythe damage. Skill damage has to come down to a level where well placed prots stop them, but still above the power level of autoattacking. ~Shard (talk) 02:41, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

All the no-skill offense needs to be nerfed either way, but offensive teams should be encouraged by the gametype. --TimeToGetIntense 13:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

This is Madness. (V2)

I know they probably do this, but GW staff should really have 5-10 people actually PLAYING in PvE, and 1-15 people actually PLAYING in PvP. Feedback from the players is important, but Staff should really test the skills they Edit, and the builds they nerf, simply to see the functionality of it. Honestly, there are over 100 articles on skill feedback/change ideas. if 15 people sat down and sifted through the skills, and tried to make builds centered around them, then Izzy would have trustworthy and sensible feedback from resources he sent out into the field himself. I'm pretty sure it would take a day for them to test all the skills. then they could take thier weekor two to give accumulate feedback while Izzy is checking out the spews of his GW-ians.

Oh yeah, Fix Smite please. D:

Phill Gaston 19:04, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

This is typically expected of game balancers. Honestly, if Anet knows about how shitty balance is in GW1, why would they tell Izzy to work on GW2 without hiring a new GW1 balancer? Or at least getting someone completely new for GW2 while Izzy stays on GW1. It's fairly evident that Anet has given up on GW1 pvp (and pve). Balancing a game without playing it is like making a 3d model without previewing it. Both terrible ideas that end up badly. ~Shard (talk) 21:45, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

You do realize that it's difficult to skill balance and that hiring a new balancer with no skill balance experience in Guild Wars is probably going to end up bad? (unless it's someone like Ensign, but he declined) Did you ever see some of the skill balances suggested by "good, knowledgeable players"? They're trash. — Skakid 23:32, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Not as trashy as some of the changes Anet does. Needed to bring necros, an already overpowered prof, into gvg, so they made them even more OP. What a joke. ~Shard (talk) 07:02, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Balancing a game isn't difficult. The biggest thing you need to do is PLAY THE GAME. Izzy doesn't. Most of game balance is common sense, and as long as you're not biased toward a certain play style or build, it's easy to pick out overpowered builds.

Hint: In a significantly unbalanced game, overpowered builds are the ones everybody runs. Know why no 2 balanced builds are the same? Because they're balanced. ~Shard (talk) 07:02, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

So true. There's so much shit out there that changing very nearly any skill not used in a balanced team would be an improvement. (No, wait, I'm wrong, because there's over a thousand skills and only a few hundred of them are balanced or overpowered.) -- Armond Warblade 16:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

EDIT/ADDITION: I'm sure Anet could find hundreds of viable candidates that would work for free, or just complimentary GW unlock packs. This really isn't something that would be hard to follow up on. Phill Gaston 20:24, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Alright, Stop before you saysomething stupid. DONT NERF MY NERCO BUILD. I am Alex. Look Drop Kaboom. Penut what ever. I got 1 guild to rank 200 and then another to rank 700. The rank 200 guild has ppl with a barin and 3 necro heros we win Ats and we were in MOnthly Place For My [HeaD]. The rank 700 guild [VOIN] is a bunch of ra scrubs that can win GvGs just because i and my heros make up half the team. rest of players dont even know were flag stand is. Player skill * build = Ability in GvG. So far, im sure that every build centered on necros (Trust me im sure i used th most powerfull necro build that why I rolled Pastel Drawing and GoH and many other top guilds) can be easilyt stoped. in mAT we had no chance cuz ppl run smite monk and like 5 hex removals and hex braker on top. NO matter how good a build is it always has a counter. Just cuz warior do damage doesnt mean u take them from GvG. ham war keeps u on ur ass for 5 second then you die ohh noes must kill the warior builds? nerf everything? I belive that rit were over nerfed because of spike ability. Paragons were Overnerfed for the same reason. Dervs only thing thats special about them is their skil recharge hit that or put an after cast of derv skills and boom u got balance.

Stories like that are exactly why we call for nerfs. I really hope you realize that anything below r100 (maybe even r50 these days) is a pretty horrible quality of player, assuming you didn't just gimmickway your way up the ladder. You also really don't know what you're talking about with rit and paragon nerfs, and with dervish balance, and about the game in general. -- Armond Warblade 02:22, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Right. POint being. I promote new things in the game u want 100 skills and evyerone plays same balanced build? ~ Alex ~ Getting to rank 200 running random stuff with heros means nothing when i work 6 days a week and barely have time to play GW.

Close, actually. Introducing 1000+ skills was a pretty shitty idea from... nearly any point of view you care to name. I'd be fine with as much as 500 balanced, useable skills - but that requires dealing with the 250 or so that are broken and the 70 or so that are actually useable in a balanced build first. -- Armond Warblade 02:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, tbh you know very well that will never occur. I want to be able to play a new build every day and for the new build to be able to win. Im not interested in doing the same hting every day simply cuz i can play WoW or some other game to acomplish that. Like i stated b4 I dont get to play this game as much as I would like and thus i implament heros so my builds are evermore limited. As hero AI is improving i can now do more then just SF spike. All i would want from this game is for at least 100 usable builds instead of 4 OP onse. And TBH in the builds that you would call balanced there has always been an Over Powered component. Such as the Axe war spike wich got nerfed. E surge wich got nerfed. Flaggers of wich every build got nerfed. And Paragons wich also got nerfed. Am i right? If not please explain your thought on what you thnk "Balanced is". And also i would like to ask you Do you think "Balanced" build in GW is actualy Balanced pertaining to the rest of the game? ~ Alex ~

SOme one once said IF balanced can beat anything then why not nerf Balanced?

Back in prophecies, people actually made their own builds, because all skill combinations were good. Now, you run meta or you run nothing. ~Shard (talk) 06:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Massive Skill Update

Well Izzy you finally split Pve/Pvp skills. YAY! Why don't you MAKE UP a few different metas over the next few weeks and try them out. You can always revert them if they go south so no one will care. It wouldn't effect PVE either. Like make a 2 hundred skill update just to change things up. Oh, and nerf ursan. Psychiatric Consultant 23:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

....that's a terrible idea. — Skakid 23:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Except for the part about nerfing Ursan. -- Gordon Ecker 00:40, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Which I would love to see btw :P 64.229.16.66 11:56, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

so, would a lot of people, but it would be like banning cigarettes IRL. people "need" them, but they're not good for them. people need ursan, but it's not good for the game--Sum Mesmer Guy contribs 16:34, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Dump cigarettes for weed, imo. -- Armond Warblade 16:48, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

paras and dervs should be more balanced and less broken, but that's not likely to happen...--Sum Mesmer Guy contribs 16:53, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I second that. Paragons are either borderline suck, Or rigidly broken to the max. Then again, we have yet to see a Paragons used in RA or TA, because of their near uselessness in most "small arms" situations.(Except soldier fury, it rocks D:) HA and rarely in PvE are their only fields of use, because thier only effective with too many allies. =D Dervs are broken period. I once tried to defend them, but when a derv beats a war w/o using blind/block or weakness, something is funny. >_> Phill Gaston 00:43, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Would it be ok if a Warrior beat another Warrior w/o using blind/block or weakness? I fail to see why the warrior should win such a fight. 145.94.74.23 19:46, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

in general, conditions and skills should be used to dertermine who wins, as well as equipment. conditions are a very good way to win. if a derv comes away from a war w/o using conditions, and wins but only cos they used broken skills, then something is wrong.--Sum Mesmer Guy contribs 20:10, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Conditions are results of skills, they're not a game mechanic that exists besides skills. There are ways to win without using conditions. Apart from that, the Dervish is basically a Warrior with way less armor and higher base damage (the Warrior often wins on skill damage) and I really see no reason why it's bad if either one beats the other. Like I said, there are ways to win without conditions. 145.94.74.23 07:55, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

THings are much simpler then u think. Derv is not better then WAR a warior is far more versitle and can acomlish much more then a derv can, Problem with dervs is that they are easy to play when u can win Important GvGs without the input of skill then it becomes a problem that a skill balancer has to face. If a gimmik requires skill to play then I would not mind. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.177.69.106 (talk • contribs) at 01:57, 4 July 2008 (UTC).

I say they're about equal. If a Warrior is better, as you say, then the Dervish shouldn't have to be nerfed. Skill-less builds, as you call them, are often not as skill-less as people make them out to be. It's often just builds played by other people that beat them. 145.94.74.23 06:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

You would expect, I guess, that in a 1-on-1 match a warrior should beat a dervish, since dervs get more powerful against multiple foes (so three dervs would beat 3 warriors). That's kinda the problem with them though, and even more so with paragons - they're too much more powerful in large battles.

Heroes Ascent

In addition to listing why many broken skills are broken, my Nerf List now tells you why some HA maps suck and why some don't. You should read it sometime, or pass it on to the person responsible for HA. ~Shard (talk) 00:58, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow. That's a lot of stuff. And a lot of it is probably right, too (at least the really broken stuff). That said, there are some things I don't agree with (e.g. making Freezing Gust 10 would make it like an even poorer Shard Storm) but tbh even if every single one of those changes was implemented to the letter, at least it would get rid of SWay and shake things up a bit (which is a good thing, ofc).

Diablo 3

will be the metagame

Actually it will be more like Diablo 2, where everything is a race to see who can get the first one hit kill. We don't know how imbalanced Diablo 3 will be yet.

Then again, the diablo series is balanced around pve, not pvp. If you want a balanced competitive game, play MtG. ~Shard (talk) 21:15, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

ritualists

Need a buff. THey have fallen out of metagame due to magebane shot and other ranger builds. No longer are ritualists useful anywhere, therefore they are unbalanced.--File:Mister Resetti.jpgGRAARR /RESETTI Crossfire 14:54, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Lol, no. -- Armond Warblade 16:46, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Crossfire, stop being bad and go back to groveling for acceptance. --76.25.197.215 22:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

More like Magebane Shot needs to not be unblockable. Oh right, we can't have a good metagame in Team Arenas, sorry. --TimeToGetIntense 08:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Communing needs to be changed / buffed (not because of Rangers, but because this line is fail). This line is just terrible and dead atm. The other ones are okay. Btw Spawning Power as a PA sucks too and also needs a change! A. von Rin 11:58, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Please buff the skills to the spawning line. Spawning skills do not need to be bad. --142.52.81.18 16:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, before buffing Ritualists, Arena Net has to decide what role they expect Ritualists to have. The original design, having Ritualists as "engineers" (placing turrets around the battlefield and providing party-wide protection) has, IMO, failed in PvP thanks to how it encouraged passive play (you could literally forget about the spirits after placing them) and turtling (as it allowed ritualists to control a small area). The next design, to have Ritualists relying on spike damage, caused all the troubles seen on Ritspike (a problem that is still being dealt with after all this time, as seen on the recent nerf to Ancestor's Rage). Arena Net has yet to find a proper, skill-rewarding and active-play based, role for Ritualists in PvP. Erasculio 17:39, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Spawning power is an overpowered attribute. The irony is that spawning power requires communing for the most part, which is a useless attribute. ~Shard (talk) 21:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Spawning is an overpowered PA, that's a first. But then again it is Shard the guy who complains about Ritualist heals because his math is wrong. I agree with modifying Spawning and buffing the spawning skills as they are severly weak at the moment. --65.38.32.42 19:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

My math is wrong? I'm reading Mend Body and Soul now. At 14 resto it heals for 109. Let's look at three different monk heals. Orison of Healing heals for 67. Words of Comfort heals for 100 with the conditional. Healing Whisper heals for 96. Hmmm. It must be a coincidence that MBnS is better than every 5 energy nonelite healing spells. Holy shit, it removes conditions too?

Don't criticize people who understand balance, especially when you don't.

Pre-response: Divine Favor costs attribute points. ~Shard (talk) 01:44, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

If spawning power did what DF did then you could say rit heals are broken but DF is considered when balancing monk heals, so add around 32 hp to all those heals - orison = 99, words = 132, whisper = 128 - which is effectively less the pretty much all of them, also flat healing isnt the only thing you should consider monk has hex removal and prots, which FAR outweigh the slightly better healing from restoration 76.26.189.65 15:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

If communing was win, then spawning would also be win. Last I heard, niche PA's never worked. -- NUKLEAR IIV 20:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

DF being considered for monk heals is exactly why rit heals are overpowered. Divine Favor has nothing to do with individual monk heals, just as mesmer cast times have nothing to do with fast casting, and why high ranger skill costs have nothing to do with expertise. Professions are nerfed around their own primary attribute, and that's a problem. Primary attributes are a requirement to play your primary, instead of the bonus like they are supposed to be.

Someday maybe someone can explain why spending 160 attribute points on a monk is equivalent to spending 90 on a rit. Rit heals are overpowered or monk heals are underpowered. End of story. ~Shard (talk) 22:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, spawning power is a really good attribute. It's just unusable because every other rit skill that synergizes with SP sucks. ~Shard (talk) 22:24, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Comparing underpowered monk heals to a somewhat decent heal like MB&S is not a good approach to balance. There are already suggestions to boost certain healing prayers skills. Although direct heals in resto are somewhat more superior to the monk counterpart, they have their constraints. Resto heals require item, spirit or weapon spell to be effective. Ones that require spirits have to forgo mobility and risk getting interrupted and having their spirits destroyed. There are very limited selection of spammable weapon spells that last a decent duration and are useful. Finally the main reason Monks come out dominant overall is their elite skills and protection prayers. Rit heals may be good but nothing outshines stuff like WoH and ZB (Spirit Light is not dependable in higher level matches due to reliance on spirit). Rit lacks the ability to resolve majority of spikes. Devine favor may require attributes but it benefits both healing and prot skills. 97 attribute points can get a rit 14 points in resto magic, however, if the your skill bar is dedicated to healing/prot then the rest of the attributes becomes meaningless as spawning gives resto rit limited support. Monk, on the other hand, have 200 points to allocate for the purpose of healing/prot and devine favor further assist monks in the purpose of their skill bar. I personally do not feel attribute points a good reason to nerf resto magic. Excess attribute may allow rits to put points into stuff like channelling but that is the rit gameplay Anet promotes. Their fixed role in GvG is to give some heal support and also help with offence and flag run. Prot prayer pwns resto magic hands down. We had this discussion ages ago. It is time to move on. The bitchfest is becoming lame. Let's just agree to disagree. --Shadetz X 04:35, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I stopped reading your post when you said "rit heals require a spirit or item to be effective," because you're wrong. MBnS heals for 117 or whatever it is without a spirit. Even spirit light heals more than it hurts when you have to sacrifice health. Sure, they all benefit from having that conditional, but they're better than all 5e nonelite monk heals without the conditional. It's basic math we're talking about. 50 damage flare vs 60 damage flare: which is better? Everyone would run ritualists for healing if monks didn't have elites. Oh wait, THEY DO THAT ANYWAY!

Triple Chop

Can you please make Triple Chop an attack and not just an AoE skill? If you are chasing a dying character and use Triple Chop to deliver the finishing blow fo it's nice extra dmg (On top of the critical you will get for hitting a fleeing target in the back)you will miss. You stop moving and the enemy gets away. This is the only attack skill I've seen do this other than Cyclone Axe. FleshAndFaith 00:49, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Deleting troll suggestions

I think I asked this once before but never got an answer. How do we delete stupid/troll suggestions? Frozen Archer made a suggestion with the sole intent of trolling/being stupid. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/ArenaNet:Skill_feedback/Ranger/Symbiotic_Bond Done25 00:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

ban plox --Frozen Archer 00:55, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

You know, I still don't think anyone's sure whether this is meant to be sattire or if he's just plain stupid. It wouldn't actually surprise me.

Vote for class cap in PvP

Most imbalance develops from Builds using several characters from the same class. There should be a cap of a maximum of 2 charakters per class in a team in all PvP modes. I know that variety would suffer under such a change, but to trade variety for more balance seems to be a good deal... A. von Rin 12:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

So instead of 6 Rangers/anything, we'll get two Rangers/anything with two Elementalists/Rangers and two Necromancers/Rangers, all using the same skills? This subject has been suggested before, here and here. Both times the idea was shot down. Erasculio 18:06, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, because there is no difference between a Ranger or Mesmer using SF for 82 damage and being out of energy after a couple casts, and Elementalists who can spam SF for 106 damage and not have energy issues. Just like for Sway, somehow I don't see most of the caster classes using the Dervish skills without the higher armor and expertise that Ranger have, not to mention the speed boost and defensive capabilities. If you decide to try either SFway or Sway with 2 Rangers, 2 Elementalists, 2 Monks, and 2 Mesmers (or whatever) please let me know, I'd love to watch that as I'm sure it would be overly amusing to see.  ;)

Just because the idea was shot down by a few folks before, because they wanted to be able to play unbalanced teams of 8 Warriors or such for pure amusement and to goof around, doesn't mean that it wasn't a good idea then, and not a valid one now.  :) ~ J.Kougar 21:27, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

3 instead of 2 as 3 war front is balanced and is fun 2 play.3 derv front however should be nuked Lilondra 15:18, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I can't recall how many times I've asked for this, and how many others have as well. Like so many others, I think this would solve many of the issues and keep so many skills from being nerfed into uselessness unless you have six to eight people using it at once. The problem being, the few people who are against it claim that it's better to limit the number of playable skills in the game, rather than to limit the number of a specific class that can be on a team at once because if they did that, then they'd not be able to go in with a full team or Warriors or Rangers, or whatever and just goof around for fun. Somehow, they value the ability to fool around with unbalanced teams on occasion, over the ability to play diverse builds in the Meta with so many more skills being playable. Just think of how many skills have been destroyed because they were overpowered when used by six people on one target at the same time, but weren't even remotely overpowered when used by just one or two. This would also deal with some of the more hated team builds like Sway and SFspike. Since the game seems rather unappealing with only a hundred or so of the over a thousand skills in the game being viable for play... this would do wonders for Guild Wars. Heck, even implementing it for a month or two to try it out (and adjusting some of the previously destroyed skills accordingly) and making additional adjustments from there would be worthwhile. ~ J.Kougar 18:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I got internal server error what I was saying :Its not gonna happen because its a bad band aid over it the problems is imbalanced primarys and skills you cant just put a lame limit on it and call it a day theres nothing at the core of it wrong at the core of it with taking more than one profession there has always been spikes thats why you have infuser and shadow bond lookat it this way would have you suggested this back in profs no its the factions and nightfall professions and the new skills that made a mess and shooting a gun at a fire wont put it out --Droks` 18:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Limiting teams to no more than X of each primary profession does little to stop gimmicks, but it will not fix the problem. SWAY would follow this rule if they used dervishes in the frontline. Thumpway follows this rule. Even ranger spike follows this rule, except most of them bring 3 monks.

Creating stupid rules won't balance the game. Balancing the game will balance the game. People can't see that because most of them have been playing a shitty game for 2 and a half years. ~Shard (talk) 21:55, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Knowing yourself you are wrong, why do you write this? Dervishes in a Sway team wouldn't be the same - you should know. Rangerspike with 2 Rangers and other "spikers" would be a mixed spike and not as easy as it is now. "Balancing the game will balance the game." - So true, but nearly impossible with 1 person balancing a game, especially when this one has not much time to do it and 1000 skills that need to be looked at... Why do you think ppl want to delete all classes and skills that came after Prophecies? Because less options for builds cause less imbalance. So the easiest way now is to cut down options by giving the game this cap. Again: Cap the maximum of classes in a team and you will reduce the amount of gimmick builds and all their imbalances! A. von Rin 02:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

izzy have minions in his evil group, he's just the leader. --Cursed Angel 02:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm almost never wrong. If you put dervishes in sway, you'd have the meta, OMG PEOPLE RUN THE META, NO WAI!

I didn't say 2 rangers and other spikers. I said 2 rangers and 2 monks.

Balancing a game with staples is so easy a caveman can do it. People want to ban everything after prophecies, but they don't have to. Every broken skill that exists today has a balanced core/prophecies relative to be compared to. GW isn't that complex of a game, skill-wise. Balancing 1000 linear skills is easy when you have 40 hours a week to analyze them. Stop coming up with complicated solutions to simple problems.

Here's a question. What happens when people have a gimmick taken away from them for technical reasons? What happened when HA was changed to 6v6? Gimmicks were made for it. What happened when splits started becoming more prevalent in GvG? Gimmicks were made for them. What happened when Hero Battles was introduced? Gimmicks were made for it. Gimmicks will always exist no matter how you change team sizes or restrictions. In fact, they'll even exist when the game is perfectly balanced because there will always be people who suck at the game so much that they need to run something requiring zero brain power. Every game has gimmicks, game balance is a means of reducing their efficiency, something arenanet fails at on a legendary level.

I can't blame izzy for half the shit that gets put into the game, because his bosses probably tell him "we want X to be broken so people will buy that expansion." It seems like a good sales strategy until you realize that your playerbase will buy a game when it's fun over when it's badly designed. ~Shard (talk) 07:34, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

pls have a look

At My opinion in how skills should be changed when you find the time.Thx anyway.

Just my opinion, but somehow I don't see people liking it very much if Elementalists could keep Perma Burning on a group of foes for only 3 energy every 3 seconds, and do a small amount of damage too. I can't see anyone being able to remove burning from multiple people every three seconds... and with it only costing the Eles 3 energy every 3 seconds they'd keep that 8 seconds of burning going non-stop. Just seems way to overpowered to me.

Normally I don't read over user suggestion pages like this, but I did glance at yours and that was one of the first things that caught my attention. ~ J.Kougar 21:38, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

buff seering flames! <3 --Cursed Angel 21:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I developed the {{EAR}} template just for lists like yours. It's really useful.

{{subst:EAR|5|10|15}} will parse to

5 10 15

There's also AAR for adrenaline based skills, and HEAR for health sac skills. ~Shard (talk) 22:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Not rly a buff you can no longer deal tons of damage with it just a way to spread burning Lilondra 09:28, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

what about this:

make Stone Sheath worth using

make Stone Sheath useful

make Stone Sheath worth a skill slot

done stone sheath proly imba so will check again the update is more fun thing though its way to big and izzy doesnt like things like gale 3 sec (wich is understandeble) Lilondra 08:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

hi Izzy

I Demand that your next skill update should look like this:

User:Cursed Angel/Skill balances,

comment on it if u have time, thanks in advance. yours sincerly --Cursed Angel 22:18, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

lol @ your idea for max scythe damage range

Dervish have been nerfed, it's the skills (and not that many...) which need nerfing, what you're doing is retarded, look @ Paragons, that's what you want to do to Dervish, and you "demand"?

do yourself a favor

uninstall the game -->78.16.129.43 22:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

lol @ you for thinking scythes are balanced, lrn to play or /uninstall plz. No 22:57, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

If dervish skills are what's broken, why do critsins put +9 damage attack skills on their bar? Not for the 80 aoe damage every second. Scythes are broken. ~Shard (talk) 23:53, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

agreed scythes are annoying, plz replace them with forks that deals 1-4 dmg. --Cursed Angel 02:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Me too

Everyone else posted their wishlists, so I'll jump on board.

Most needed changes

Random nerfs

Random buffs

~Shard (talk) 03:02, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey, where the hell is the wish list page? I wanna set up one of these Skill change request pages.

EotN items available for PvP reward points

Pretty please, you promised it.213.192.63.242 10:25, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Elite that realy needs a update

Scavenger's Focus http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Scavenger%27s_Focus

Suggestions:

• Reduce energy cost to 5.
• Increase Duration.
• Change to "...deals +X...X damage for each condition suffered by target foe".
• ....or better to "...deals +X and an additional X damage for each condition suffered by target foe". (cause then its realy good enough for an elite skill)

Robertjanvaneijk1988 15:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a good thing you added a link to the other wiki for the skill because not only doesn't Izzy know what the skill does, but he also doesn't know how to look it up on this wiki and we don't have a page about it yet over here. 145.94.74.23 19:41, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

That being said, I do agree that it could use a buff. I'd just buff the damage number slightly though, I wouldn't make it trigger per conditions. Such 'infinite' mechanics scream potential abuse. 145.94.74.23 08:00, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The condition part of the skill isn't that hard since you got Posion tip signet in the same line of attributes Fox007 11:42, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

True, but in practice this skill is outclassed by Read the Wind, as Rangers rarely use more than 10 Wilderness Survival. 145.94.74.23 14:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

the skill was intended to be used with weapons other than bows, but nobody uses cause the damage is conditional, wastes your elite, and just completely sucks. No 15:14, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Mending

Please please nerf this skill. My opinion, move it to Divine Favor attribute so that W/Mo's in RA find something else to heal with!--'ÑöẊĭƑý 20:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Is this joke spam? Done25 22:04, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Please smack him.Phill Gaston 23:02, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree mending is way over powered, i believe it should be +1 regen max 25 second recharge and causes exaust--Il Tahlkora Il 23:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

You morons are the reason the game balances suck. He actually listens to you sometimes. ~Shard (talk) 00:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Shard, how come you arent a moron? :o no offense, but you are --Super IgorUser:Super Igor 00:27, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

any game balancer who actually listens to the general community is an idiot. listen the top few guilds and tell everyone else too bad. This is why we have crap like wounding strike. Antiarchangel TROLL 00:30, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

except euros, euros and there spikes are just bad. Antiarchangel TROLL 00:30, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Err..Mending overpowered? It's like one of the WORST skills in GW,

it's easily countered, costs high energy, kills your E-Management as a Warrior.

The whole skills is just a joke!

What's next? you gonna ask is Izzy wanna nerf Power Shot?? Lolz xDxD

Ohw, and to TROLL, not all smart ppl are in Top Rate Guilds,

A lot are in PvE-Guilds as well, these don't ever show up on GL,

But still have a lot of experience in the game.. (Rezu Blackheart 13:28, 3 July 2008 (UTC))

pve portion of the game, nobody cares about that, just ursan. Thing is top rated guilds are pretty much guaranteed to be good at gw, pve guilds might have some good people, but there probably gonna have alot of bad people as well. Plus pve guilds dont gvg alot last time i heard No 14:53, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Not true, some people do care about PvE. And being good at GW doesn't equal being good at skill balance either. 145.94.74.23 06:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Not caring about pve is why it is full of shit like ursan and SF. Why do you think WoW pve is win? -- NUKLEAR IIV 14:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Izzy is so cool

HES MY HERO!! he would be even more cool if he made wounding strike a 8 second recharge--Il Tahlkora Il 23:52, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Sign your comments and no, he is evul, he keeled teh shadow forms and kept Ursan, yeah Ursan brings money to anet because it makes people buy eotn but...it makes so many people leave the game, I mean, either balance pve as a whole or dont do it at all like it always was before, thats my two cents. --Super IgorUser:Super Igor 23:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

PvE is all about skill, not grind

Grinding is optional in GW. PvE is all about skill...and that skill is named Ursan Blessing. Just something to think about. :p 145.94.74.23 07:58, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Grinding is very easy, 10 hours at max - you got an alligience grind title, hff makes luxon/kurzick in little less than a month too. --Super IgorUser:Super Igor 13:29, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

You didn't get my joke, did you? 145.94.74.23 14:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

bad jokes ftl, pve is do some missions, farm, and stay bad at gw. I mean seriously how many pve people do you think have even been in a gvg. No 14:50, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Not true, some players might enjoy pve more and dont pvp as often it is a matter of preference and it doesnt mean that they never were in any kind of pvp format or that they are bad. --Super IgorUser:Super Igor 15:11, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, partially true. Anyone who plays PvE off the bat wont get a feel for PvP in a month than a PvP player. a PvP player going to PvE would just have too much fun, because of buffed skills, and much better options due to title track... Skills and such are a lot less harder to run and are less complex in PvE. I can tell you right now one HA battle is way harder to win and takes much more planning and effort than an HM mission in the Realm of Torment. Phill Gaston 00:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

GvG battle tbh, HA you can get lucky and go up against a sway team. No 00:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

bad ppl are bad at PvP and good at PvE but elitists only see the PvP part and therefore consider them as over all bad. but yeah, PvE is a joke. however the guy is talking about what PvE in gw was actually meant to be, both take skill and not involve grinding, ursan is by all means optional even if u cant get a team without it. --Cursed Angel 00:21, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Err, I still wont agree that if you enjoy pve better, becuase its fun, or you like to steamroll huge aggros or whatever doesnt make you bad at gw and things, as long as you know what you are doing and supposed to do, as long as you know how skills work it doesnt matter what play style you enjoy the most and play most, on other hand you would learn much quicker playing pvp as opposed to not touching it at all. --Super IgorUser:Super Igor 00:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you care about this game at all?

Do you? It's a valid questionSnow Bunny 17:08, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

he cares about the paycheck part. No 17:08, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

nothing more like trolling Izzys talk page isnt it? --Super IgorUser:Super Igor 23:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I think he cares but the difference is that its his job not his hobby, im sure you would be happy spending 12 hours a day playing guildwars and attending to skill balance but im sure Izzy has other interests or other games he enjoys. Warlock 13:17, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean izzy doesn't enjoy his work? I'd call it dumb if someone would be doing such a job though he actually don't like it and prefered something diffrent of the same professional domain instead. —ZerphaThe Improver 13:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Theres a difference between enjoying something and being consumed by something, i think profesionally theres more demand on him for other topics rather than spending all his time tweaking skills for GW1, he already does monthly balances the next was indicated by the new Gaile Gray as being next week.

What i meant by having better things to do is that when he clocks off i expect theres other things to do than get some overtime in balancing skills. I may be wrong here im not intending to talk for him i was just trying to get across the message that not everyone dreams of Guild Wars when they go to bed. Warlock 14:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

well, sounds plausible —ZerphaThe Improver 06:37, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Deadly Paradox

Question. Now that PvE and PvP ar seperated does that mean this can be un-nerfed or will it be abused by farmers too much? (Shadow Form) Done25 22:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Increase spiritbond with increased dmg?

Just wondering if you ever considered increasing the heal ammount of spiritbond with the increase in dmg guild wars has had. With dervs and such hitting for 150+ its kinda disheartening to have an ally with spiritbond still die from these attacks. Maybe change the skill to if ally takes more than 60 dmg that ally is healed for 90, if ally takes more than 120 dmg that ally is healed for 150.

Escape

I think the duration and recharge should be chanced to something like RaO so that stopping the stance has actually any effect if you stop Escape now with Wild Blow they will be in it again over 5 secs or so. If you increase the recharge and increase the lenght it will be easier to remove and at the same time easier to maintain. Fox007 08:57, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Escape isn't the problem, the problem is that scythes and Rend do so much damage on their own that R/Ds can afford to piss their elite away on an IMS. Pious and Rend first, Escape if there's still a problem later. --64.202.126.223 09:01, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Escape is a major problem, no matter what you use, whether its a scythe, a dagger, or any other weapon, you shouldn't be almost invincible without an easy way to remove it. Yes you can argue wild blow, wild strike, or wild throw, but who the hell uses wild throw or wild blow in a build anymore.FYI being biased is bad. Prokiller88 14:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Wild throw = no one. Wild blow is lots but even with wild blow they have 4 secs without being irritating and blocking your attacks Fox007 14:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Escape is not a strong skill. 64.202 is right, they can afford to bring an elite for a speed boost because scythe attacks are strong enough, especially the nonelite ones that cause deep wound. Expertise has always been and always will be broken until it stops affecting energy costs. Ranger skills are costed around expertise, and that's why very few rangers use actual ranger attack skills - why use a 10 energy skill for +30 damage when you can use a 2 energy skill for +30 damage?

The speed boost on escape is the bigger problem, and there are ways to counter it like any other melee profession. Every profession except necromancer and monk has some form of snare. Four professions have easy access to blind or blind hexes. If you don't bring melee counters on your team, it means you're playing SF spike, in which case you deserve to lose. ~Shard (talk) 22:15, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

You can bring melee counters on SFWAY, but melee counters on eles require *gasp* skill to use. -- nüklaer | VII | Selfless self promotion 11:02, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Blocking - A Problem

Well, blocking is a problem in my opinion, because skills like Escape influence the game in a bad way. There are many skills in the game, which use the blocking mechanics and much melee damage is negated. Blocking is something that should reduce damage by using a shield or weapon of any kind; the way it now works is more like dodging (which was removed long time ago, but had had the same effect like blocking). My suggestion is to change the way blocking works. Make skills that use blocking reduce damage, instead of preventing a hit. For example: Warrior stances would reduce damage of meele attacks ( Projectiles like arrows and spells like fireball, too, imagine a character using a shield or weapon to block the incoming fireball) by 25 points for a certain time. Skills like guardian would reduce damage by 50 points, because warriors have got better armor and caster classes need the extra protection to survive. Ofcourse guardian would work on all classes, and warriors would get an extra bonus, but if they would block, they would get no damage at all. There already are plenty of armor ignoring skills like Obsidian Flame and the condition Cracked Armor, which soften hard targets, and also are not affected by the new mechanics, because they neither are attacks nor projectiles so this way blocking would work shouldn´t be overpowered.

I think that would solve many problems, such like R/D´s with Escape, Monks using warrior stances more effectivly than warriors themselves ,or Block Webs and something like a damage-reduction-limit could be implemented, to prevent too much defense (like the armor stacking at the moment). This ofcourse is just an suggestion, an idea i got and maybe i´m not aware of all consequences.

So please feel free to discuss and don´t flame me to hell ;P

I´m looking forward for some comments^^. 84.176.12.177 16:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Scythe and critical hits are you problem, and not Escape. Lightblade 17:41, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Bad suggestion, but yeah, blocking is too prevalent. the Blocking cap should be 66%.

Although I agree escape is abused, I do not believe there should be a cap on blocking. If a monk invest attributes points and skill slots into warrior stances then they deserve the extra defense. Besides, blocking stance only works on melee and rangers and useless on casters. This game need less melee brainless spikes. --Shadetz X 03:40, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

And what about the teams that pack two Aegises, two Defensive Anthems, two Guardians, and Soldier's Defense on every single squishy? They get a free ride to 90% block all the time? And I actually laughed out loud at brainless melee spikes. Adrenaline spikes are about the least brainless kind of spike in existence. --64.202.126.223 03:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't want to deal with block? Go spell caster. Done25 04:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I thought I was talking about team builds, because Guild Wars is a team-based game. But I'm sure 1v1 is a very important aspect of the game, and I respect your expertise in it. --64.202.126.223 04:20, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

You were the one using escape ranger and stance monk as prime examples to support your argument and they are common in all forms of PvP except GvG. Now you are talking about Aegis, Defensive Anthem, Guardian and Soldier's defence which are used in GvG. Ok, I will talk about GvG. If GvG teams did not have to rely on melee spikes then they would not need to pack so much melee defence. Seriously, if you look in high level GvG you will notice a majority (if not all) guilds use warriors or devishes as their main source of damage. This is something that is already entrenched into the game. It does not have to be this way but it was made this way. The large number of defence against melee damage would not exist if other forms of spikes were more prominent. Nerf blocking does make melee more brainless to use. Do you want to see 4 monks and 1 rit teams more often like what we saw in the championships? --Shadetz X 05:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Learn to read IP addresses. They don't even start with the same number.

Melee damage is overpowered, which causes prots to be overused. The solution is not to make prot better. --64.202.126.223 05:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

This is something we both agree on. I never suggested to make prot better. --Shadetz X 05:32, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

"I do not believe there should be a cap on blocking.'" --Shadetz X 03:40, 5 July 2008 (UTC)'

It doesn't have to be a direct buff in order to be a buff. --64.202.126.223 05:37, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Melee damage is overpowered. 87.189.196.199 11:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Already covered that. --64.202.126.223 12:06, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

If melee damage is overpowered, blocking is overpowered anyways. I know melee classes CAN inflict massiv damage, but there are many ways to prevent this. Weakness, which is often spammable and reduces the inflicted damage by 2/3 or so, blindess, spammable,too, hexes which result in missing the target, cripling melee classes, so they are not able to hit, hexes to slow them down or make them suffer massiv damage if they attack and last but not least blocking. Of course everything is removeable, but that costs time and energie, much energie, because of the often reapplied conditions and hexes. And i dont think nerfing blocking would make melee brainless, one still has to pay attention (Emphatie, Spitefull Spirit, Insidious Parasite...). 84.176.24.113 20:15, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

And applying hexes and conditions does not require energy. LOL it's funny how i can kill a mesmer even with empathy on with a warrior or devish. --65.38.32.42 21:01, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

If you were right, there would not be dervishes gibbing any squishy that peeks out from his enchantment stacks. There are dervishes gibbing any squishy that peeks out of his enchantment stacks, so by process of elimination you're wrong. --64.202.126.223 21:09, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Blocking is annoying but caster classes don't have to deal with it. Maybe this will help move the balance from elementalist performing the role of utility to a little more dps. 122.104.167.139 05:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

If Anet could find a way to give eles more damage without causing more degenerate casterspikes, I'd be very happy. Unfortunately, they haven't shown the ability or the inclination to do it. --76.25.197.215 05:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Caster damage cannot be viable, I've gone over this before. -- nüklaer | VII | Selfless self promotion 11:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Innate Damage Reduction Per Second Per Skill/Skill Type

This would be a major update, likely something for GW2. Rather than balancing skills to compensate for spikes teams might run, I came up with another idea:

When an attack skill is used, have a 1 second time period in which if that target is struck by the same skill, the damage is reduced by a percentage. Alternatively, base this on damage type. That is, if a target sustains holy damage, if he takes additional holy damage in the same second, that damage is reduced. Take a skill like Lightning Strike. It deals straight-forward damage, but not a lot of it. It could, in theory, be a lot stronger. The problem is that a lot of people in a 8 man party could use it all at once. A normal 100 or even 80 (whatever) damage attack can bring down someone in a couple of seconds. Or, to use a more modern example, take an instance of D/As using teleports to deal attack damage at the same time. Both of these instances can be negated by ensuring that damage from the same skill, or the same weapon, or the same damage type (or some combination of those) is reduced if that damage is taken in the same span of time.

Of course, spiking isn't something you want to completely remove from the game. It's very important. You just want a system that allows you to have impressive skills that you can't abuse by using them across several people. If GW were "real" and armies were fighting across a battlefield, there'd be nothing from stopping a thousand Necros from using Vampiric Gaze on a single monk at the same time. It's an exaggeration, but that's why ANet experimented with 6v6 PvP. 8v8 is overkill as far as damage goes, as a result of joint spiking across characters. Having a system that makes this form of exploitation less effective opens up new ways to balance the meta.

You could also establish a cap of damage someone can take per second, and ignore what kind of damage or what skill is being used. If I'm being spiked by 8 people, using 8 different skills that do basically the same thing, and it's all happening within about two seconds, I could have an innate damage reduction that begins once the DPS inflicted on me hits a certain range. If I take more than 150 DPS, for instance, the system kicks in and any new damage is reduced by 40% for 5 seconds. If the DPS keeps going up to 200, damage is lowered by 50%. If the DPS hits 350 DPS (that is, if I take 350 damage in one second, enough to reduce my HP by half) then the damage is lowered by 80%. This, of course, should never come up in most normal matches since DPS rarely goes over around 60 for a single attacker. It would still allow spikes to occur, but not on the scale that some people exploit: killing someone with 600 HP in less than 5 seconds.

I think this sort of damage dissipation is necessary in any new system of PvP ANet develops for GW2, although not necessarily in any the forms I suggested. Ensuring that spikes cannot exceed a certain ceiling of hitpoints over a window of time allows skills to become more powerful, and to have greater diversity. --97.73.64.152 08:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

killing someone with 600 HP in less than 5 seconds. That is spiking if you want to remove that you remove almost 50% of all builds excisting and it is not an exploit it's coordinated use of skills at a given time Fox007 10:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Almost 50% of the builds are gimmicky. I like the suggestion. -- NUKLEAR IIV 13:59, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem, IMO, is that it's too artificial. Adding caps to the game increase the learning curve, as those caps are counter-intuitive, and often prevent better solutions from arising. One example being the Soul Reaping change in which it only triggers 3 times every 15 seconds - SR has always been overpowered and it did need a nerf, but that cap is too random and does not really make much sense. Same with the idea above to prevent having more than 3 characters of a given profession in a team - that would not really help, but it would only randomly add one more cap to the game. IMO, the core of balance in the game is balacing a 8 players team versus another 8 players team - I believe the skills should be fixed to meet such balance, not the mechanics players rely on. Erasculio 14:15, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Erasculio is right on the mark. Adding retarded technical caps doesn't do anything. People will always find a way around them. 6v6 HA is solid proof of that.

However, despite how perfectly correct eras is, dimishing returns on skills would be an improvement for the game. It would promote more individualistic play instead of "321spike" teams. Look at ritspike. 7 spirit rifts + 7 channeled strikes for about 1600 damage packed into one second. Those skills on their own are fine, they're only abisable when you have 7 of them every 8 seconds. If you reduced damage of a skill by 33% each time it hit within a 5 second window, ritspike would only do about 300 damage. Diminishing returns is actually something I've already incorporated into my game/GW emulator, and it works really well. It's too late to make this change for GW1 though, as too many bad players rely on having 7 rits on their team for warrior damage + monk heals with one skill bar, and anet needs those terrible players to keep playing the game. ~Shard (talk) 08:38, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Shard - diminishing returns would require more skill and hurt silly spikes build. While I'm not happy with changing a mechanic in order to incorporate such feature, I think it could be implemented in individual skills, just like what happened with Ancestor's Rage and Spirit Burn. For example, we could turn Channeled Strike into, "Target foe is struck for 5...77...95 lightning damage (...) For 5 seconds, that foe has 50% damage reduction against lightning damage", and make similar changes to all skills commonly used in mindless spikes. It would add a bit of diminishing returns without any "mechanical" change. Erasculio 15:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

WOW lmao 600 HP in less then 5 seconds lmao. Watch VH spike 1 second poof no red bar. I caqn sometimes acomlish the same in my guild but we have ping problems and its much harder. True though it would stop alot of the bloack way spikes and allow for more interesting build then everyone runing dervtrain. ONly i htink it should work more like if u take 300 damage in 1 second all damage in the opcoming second is reduced by 50 % thats it. spikes can still happen just harder and much more infusable. 5 secon dpikes is pressure kill bro. A good spike lasts 1-2 second 2 seconds spike is a failed 1 second spike. ~ Look Drop Kaboom ~ Alex or Penut what ever u call me.

Let's just all be like Mhenlo and have an infinite Protective Spirit. (Yes, sarkazm) — Poki#3 13:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Physical damage

Someone had to do it, so. I've heard top-10 players mentioning it for a while, but it took scythe abuse to really push it into the public's consciousness. Physical damage is overpowered. Nerf DW and weapon crit ranges, murder blocks, and buff caster damage and anti-caster prots please. --64.202.126.223 12:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

They are too deep in the game. It's like trying to perform liver surgery to a 60 year old guy. It's a good idea, but the chances for failure is just too much. By nerfing DW but just 20 points, you upheave over half of the game's balance. Same goes for anti caster skills. This one goes to GW2 suggestions. -- NUKLEAR IIV 14:05, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

It's actually a terrible idea. The reason you have to bring lots of defense is not because physicals are strong. It is because VoD naturally encourages high defense builds. You defend 'till VoD, then you get a big offense boost and blow everything up. Defensive teams easily survive until VoD because they have lots of defense. If casters were stronger and caster defense was stronger, it would be the same thing with different skills. --TimeToGetIntense 09:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Not really. It's not good for game balance when warriors do essentially nothing until someone steps outside their ward, which was meta before ward melee nerf. Now they just do essentially nothing until a monk misses any of their thousand prots. It would be fine for the game to reduce both the sheer amount of damage all characters do and also reduce the stunningly powerful wall of defense teams bring to counter it. If I want a game where I get instakilled as soon as the medic looks away, I'll go play TF2 on a sniperfag server. -- Armond Warblade 13:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

People are not forced to bring extra defense because physicals are too strong. Like I said, people bring insane amounts of defense because it pushes the game to VoD, at which point they are provided with sufficient offense to break any defense. As long as VoD gives defensive teams what they lack it will always be a stall game until VoD. The format needs to give the most insanely balls swinging nothing to lose offensive team victory at VoD because such a team doesn't have the tools to stall until VoD. If the game is pushed to VoD the teams who build to force the game to go to VoD should not get an advantage at VoD. This is a win-win scenario, there is no drawback to such a build as long as VoD makes it win. A really offensive team can break a defensive team eventually but they only have 18 minutes to do it, then VoD comes and they lose. The best chance at victory is by stalling until VoD and abusing it better than the other team. You can bring ward, aegis, guardian, blind, weakness, snares and also lineback all game, but you'll eventually crack, but probably not in 18 minutes. The team who stalls should actually have a disadvantage at VoD, thus creating a balance between the value of defensive and offensive skills in the game. --TimeToGetIntense 11:10, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

So ursan is not required ?

As regina said ursan is just a way of playing and if you want to play different you can now what to do with this : |huh ?

So sad... go cap ursan nao. -- NUKLEAR IIV 15:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

lets hope thats sarcastic :p got more of those screens Lilondra 15:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

bet it is photoshopped or he asked to join an ursan doa pug as non-ursan lol. --Super Igor 21:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The reverse argument: "Lets nerf a skill that is only abused in a handful of elite areas and upset a even larger group of people but a few hardcore players will be happy." They did that for three years with the PvP skill balances, it is how PvE ended up in the shape it is now. 87.189.196.199 22:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

PvE was fine until they added PvE skills and split PvE and PvP apart. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 00:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Igor, are you retarded? It doesn't matter if he's asking to join an ursan pug as a non-ursan, simply because that would mean that pure ursan groups exist, which is just about as big a problem as ritspike was and shitway is. And I'd love to see who you think would waste their time photoshopping that kind of thing when they can log on and get a real picture instead. -- Armond Warblade 04:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Stop trolling Armond, if he asks to join a doa ursan pug as non-ursan the reply would be obvious so he screenshots it and makes it look like any pug is ursan...lol. :P --Super Igor 12:53, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Try that again with logic. You're assuming that there are, indeed, non-ursan pugs in DoA; this is not, in fact, the case. -- Armond Warblade 22:48, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Then start a team of your own. Get guild members or post of the forums if you want. Nothing stops you from making your own team other than you. ~ Sabastian 04:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Wait, you said you quit playing Guild Wars and that Ursan, among other things, would have to be nerfed before you'd come back... and yet here you are making statements about what's going on in the game. So which is it, you're not playing Guild Wars anymore, or you sit around on Guild Wars all day and thus can actually say what is or isn't happening in a specific area? Just curious.  :) ~ J.Kougar 04:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Shut the fuck up. I don't have to play the game to know how it's played; I do actually talk to people. -- Armond Warblade 00:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Just a suggestion but if you are only going on second-hand information perhaps you should state so when you make comments. Just simply add in "I've been told by others that..." or "From what I've heard..." instead of stating things as fact or trying to pass them off as if you have personal knowledge of the content on which you are commenting. I think it might help to clarify things and cut down on confusion later, but that's just my suggestion to you, and taking it might help to save face in some situations.  :) ~ J.Kougar 20:18, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, because I never log in, ever. Wait, what? -- Armond Warblade 20:32, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey you're the one who said it. "Shut the fuck up. I don't have to play the game to know how it's played; I do actually talk to people." If you do login and play then some of your other statements like "I'm leaving the ranks of those who care enough about the game to complain to the devs and joining those who just don't care and leave." are perceived as confusing, since both of those quotes imply that you don't play the game anymore, and others such as "Ursan is one of many things that would need nerfing for me to come back." seem to back that claim up, yet your actions paint a very different picture, since despite "I'm leaving the ranks of those who care enough about the game to complain to the devs and joining those who just don't care and leave." you're still here and talking about what you think needs to be done in the game, and giving the illusion that you know this information first hand, despite admitting that you don't. Can you really blame me for being confused?  ;) ~ J.Kougar 04:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I think Arenanet is missing the influence Ursan now holds over the game, its not just EOTN, its not just Elite areas, its general gameplay all through Guild Wars. Its sad, no one skill should have been aloud to do this. Professions, you can give Arenanet some room, but when they let one skill get this far, makes you wonder. 000.00.00.00 02:59, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Umm, what? See thats pretty funny since I've took new characters through all three stand alone campaigns this past week and seen only one person using Ursan's Blerssing and that was of their own accord. They spent most of the time dead and the rest of the team had no clue what Ursan was. Nobody was demanding it in normal play when I went through either. So please don't claim it's a must for normal play when it isn't. Also, when you do one of the Elite missions and people want Ursan and you don't want to play Ursan then either join a team that isn't Ursan or start your own for that Elite Mission. It's the same as HA really, if you aren't wanting to run what the others are asking for then you start your own team with what you are looking for. PS, one of the big drawing factors to Ursan is it makes setting up the team less time consuming since you don't have to spam for certain builds and then making sure each team member has said builds. ~ Sabastian 04:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

That's more than a little unrealistic. I have seven accounts, and upwards of sixteen characters on several of them... and I create new characters and PUG through the various campaigns all the time, sometimes I even make and play through more than one character in a week. I do it because it's fun, I do it because I'm bored and no longer have to work for a living, and I do it because it's fun to use Tomes and have great skills from level 1 on and help other people new to the game get though missions where they often don't know what's required of the mission or to get the bonuses. Because I do this so frequently, I feel more than qualified to say that Ursan sees next to no play among the casual players in the normal areas of Guild Wars. Sure, once in a while you get some fool with GW:EN who ran over there at level 10 and got Ursans, but then are usually the greatest liability to the team because they think it's some all-powerful invincible mode, and as such they end up dead a lot and doing next to no damage in comparison to the rest of the party. The majority of the casual players don't even now what the skill is, and the rare ones who do usually don't bother with it because they aren't willing to grind to the ridiculous amounts required to get the title high enough to even make the skill remotely worthwhile. So no, Ursans isn't used among casual players in the normal areas of the game, and anyone who plays there should be able to tell you that.  :) ~ J.Kougar 04:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Undoubtably so, you do not need to use ursan to play, or enjoy the game. I use my elementalist, and rarely pug at that, and I can win and have fun without ursan.

However, that's beyond the issue.

That screen says a lot - not just that ursans are rampant (and they are, and trying to deny this fact is foolishness) but they dull the playerbase, dull their edges, for the lack of a proper term. I've seen pugs get worse and worse, because hammering 123 really cuts down on the experience you get from the game. I would say that this is why ursan is broken - fuck the economy, fuck the game balance, fuck elitism, all that Ursan does is, well, fuck up people.

I also find it quite true that ursans have nothing going on for casual players - even though, as demonstrated by the screen, casuals are harmed with Ursan. -- nüklaer | VII | Selfless self promotion 07:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

To the two above the last; in the past two weeks I have been through missions and quests in Proph, Factions, Nightfall and GWEN, most of the parties I was involved with had it on their bar or were reliant on it when things become tough.

Also, Regina already told us the results of Izzy's ingame query about Ursan users (defined by those with it on their skillbar) and the result was, in one word, "huge"; which is also part of the reason they are cautious about changing it, a larger number of the player base are using it, it holds no boundry to profession so a far large variant of player have it avaliable to them, and by Arenanet standards they use it too. 000.00.00.00 12:19, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Kougar and Sebastian: How do you plan to start a team of 8 for... anything... without playing something they'll all agree will work? The game's gotten to the point that Ursan's the only thing they'll agree on, for the most part. You can't get a random DoA group together like that; even in the biggest guilds, it's nigh-impossible to get 8 non-ursans together for DoA (or vanquishing, or whatever) at any random point in time just by pinging guild and alliance chat. Sure, you could set up a calender on a guild website for something like that, but should we really have to go to that much effort to guild pug DoA or some such? I think not. -- Armond Warblade 00:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I realize you're just going off what you've been told about how things actually are in the game these days, but I really don't think it's all that difficult to do, and do so on occasion. I usually have my fiance for starters, which makes two, but poking a few other friends of guildies and asking them to join us usually results in just that, some of our friends popping over to join the group. We discuss who is bringing what and such, and if we don't have a full team it's not hard to pick up another couple people just by posting that we are doing such-and-such, 6/8 or whatever. Sometimes we have to turn away a person or two who has an Ursans build, but it's really not that difficult to pick up a few folks who want to play the game in a less dull and simplistic way. Many folks get bored of the mind numbing experience if playing Ursans rather quickly and are happy to take a little time to play in a traditional group. Sure, Ursans might make it easier or faster to get a group together, but if you are willing to put out a little effort in creating a team (instead of two minutes to see if the people have the rank you want and the skill) it's still not difficult. Easy/Fast isn't always best.  ;) If you want something that requires more skill and makes the game more fun, then you'll have to put out a little more effort in creating a team, just like people did before Ursans.  :) ~ J.Kougar 20:18, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

You've got a far better alliance than any I've yet found. (Then again, I always tried to find alliances with actual intelligent people, which meant that my alliance-mates tended to stick to PvP.) -- Armond Warblade 20:32, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

PvP is fun, but I'm all too aware that a lot of the typical Warrior players can't handle PvE because they get taken out when they run around clicking Frenzy every time it recharges, and don't know what to do when faced with a mob of foes that outnumber them greatly and have higher levels and attributes than they can fathom, but if you stick with the game long enough and devote enough time and energy to it, it's easy enough to master both PvP and PvE. If your friends and alliance mates haven't done so yet, don't be too critical of them, sometimes some people are just slower than others at adapting to the differences in the two halves of the game. Personally I don't think our guild is all that great, but it is made up of mature folks who actually took time to master the different professions and sections of the game, so I guess that does give us some advantage.

Still, I think one of the other issues is that places like DoA were around for so long, and so many people played through them legitimately so many times, that having an option now like Ursans that makes forming a group and playing through the area much faster, is just the quick and easy way for them to do it. Still no lack of new players who'd rather play with a normal group, or people who have gotten bored with Ursans or don't care for the skill at all. You just need to look around a little, they aren't so hard to find. You could always try to get a group together with the few others here on the Wiki that seem to hate the skill as much as you do.  :) ~ J.Kougar 04:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

So Ursan is really for grind-fags only? You don't see a lot of ursan requirements just going through the campaigns, only for DoA which is everyone major bitch apparently. Who cares if you cant get a pug for DoA if you don't have Ursan, that is one aspect out of the thousands of other things you could be doing on this game. I really think it to be very boring to go through entire campaigns with Ursan blessing, and I don't really see many people doing it either. Stop using DoA as the grounds for nerfing a popular skill. If there were an easier way of doing it I'm sure that would be all you could pug too.--99.153.226.11 04:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

DoA is only one facet of thousands... yeah, if you consider, say, Shaoshang Trail to be a facet of the game. The problem is, the main campaigns are so short (especially Factions), so easily completed, and have no incentive to redo them except in hard mode (in which case, guess what, people roll ursan), that they're essentially ignorable. Places like DoA, Urgoz, the Deep, FoW, and UW have actual replay value (read: profit) and tend to control the economy, thus making them actually important when it comes to balancing.

DoA isn't the only area where this happens. UW is just as big a (if not a bigger) problem because, especially in hard mode, it's a huge source of ectos. FoW is, likewise, the only area in the game to get shards (and from what I've heard, investing in shards may actually be a better idea than investing in ectos; are ectos really down to 3k and shards still at 2.3k-ish?). DoA, however, is the biggest example of ANet's failure; implement "elite weapons" with, quite honestly, some of the most well thought out skins in the game (at the time, at least; I'm sure some will argue that Deldrimor weapons look cooler) and then, a few months later, both nerf the area to make it easier to get the gems and introduce godmode that lets you roll through the place. It was, quite honestly, the first big demonstration that ANet doesn't care about the economy or PvE as a whole. -- Armond Warblade 13:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

AngelicxProtection.

Angelic Protection

Please use this, people. at 16 leadership (Not common, I know) it ruins most spikes. Could use a buff, though. It would be a method of countering all this OOberspike teams nowadays w/o nerfing them necessarily. Anet made the perfect anti-spike tool, but they made it half impossible to use.

Suggestion

Skill. For 10 seconds, any time target other ally takes more than 260...180...145 damage in 3 seconds, that ally is healed for any damage over that amount. 10 en 25rec.

It counts up the damage and heals after each second ends. Worthless for countering spikes. Oh, and it takes about three times too long to recharge. --66.97.128.58 20:19, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

not terrible, but not brilliant--Sum Mesmer Guy contribs 20:21, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a terrible skill, since you can't predict when the heal effect triggers. It's actually possible to push through twice its listed damage before healing actually happens, under the worst circumstances. Would be usable if it was

10 0 10 and lasted 10 seconds, but still on the weak side. ~Shard (talk) 23:07, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Essentially unlinked skills

I'd like some skills to change their attribute line, so that we can go away from skills being marked as "essentially unlinked". The following skills should be moved to No Attribute:

• Anthem of Guidance
• Hexbreaker Aria
• Lift Enchantment
• Mirror of Disenchantment
• "None Shall Pass!"
• Song of Concentration

Additionally:

• Assault Enchantments - Should be moved to Dagger Mastery, since it's a Dagger Attack and doesn't scale with Critical Strikes at all. Just noticed that it's not a Dagger Attack, but a Skill. This means that it technically fits in Critical Strikes, since it's not directly related to daggers but requires them, but it would equally fit No Attribute and Dagger Mastery.
• Called Shot, Dual Shot, Magebane Shot and Quick Shot - Should be moved to Marksmanship because they require a Bow. (They're just like Forked Arrow and other, mainly Warrior, attacks like Hammer Bash.)

— Poki#3 01:31, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

See also: Power Block. (I also like how you say attack skills should be put under their weapon's attribute even if they don't scale after campaigning for non-scaling skills to be put under no attribute.) -- Armond Warblade 01:35, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Power Block... Actually, I totally forgot about that -_- Still it doesn't apply to Lift Enchantment (Skill), "None Shall Pass!" (Shout) and the attack skills. The attack skills are just an addition. If it bothers you that much change the section title. — Poki#3 01:51, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't bother me at all, it just seemed kind of ironic - I really do agree with all your changes, mostly because, well, no one cares if you can't mirror because your diversion got pblocked (as if your mesmer's getting pblocked it means there's no healers anywhere near you and/or you're trying to spike and it won't matter anyway because a. mirror should be on recharge and b. you didn't get diversion off anyway so it doesn't matter). From a balance standpoint, the extra skill or two recharging isn't going to make a difference, unless you're pblocking the essentially unlinked skills... which would, again, not really make a huge difference as far as I can tell. (We've dealt with it for this long and it's not a major - or even minor - balance issue yet...) Maybe something with the paragon skills, but pblock shouldn't be able to hit chants anyway imo. -- Armond Warblade 01:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, circular reasoning when it comes to pblocking diversion. My point was if you don't get off diversion on a spike, your spike is less likely to go through anyway. -- Armond Warblade 01:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Aura of Stability

I think the animation for this should be more visual, like PS and SB. It's pretty important to know when this is casted on a target, and rewards field vision more. — Skakid 02:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

"Casted" lol. But yeh, /agree, if you're going to have a skill that says "fuck you" to gale/dev hammer wars/shock/bull's/SoJ/etc it ought to be at least as visible as PS or SB. Still, not something Izzy can do; all he could do would be petition the art department to stop focusing on GW2 and make an image, and then convince the programming department to stop focusing on GW2 and code it in (neither of which are gonna happen, imo, though I'd be thrilled if they did). -- Armond Warblade 13:19, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Rodgorts Invocation & Haste skills

Since pvp has been split off from PvE can Rodgorts(3 second recharge) and Flame & Storm Djinns haste be reverted back? Well at least increase the time and take off the "Must hit target" stipulation, not necessarily speed. --99.153.226.11 03:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

They were nerfed because of PvP in the - oh, wait, you mean the PvE versions. Meh, no reason to make PvE any easier than it already is, imo; even with the reverts, eles still fail as damage dealers. -- Armond Warblade 13:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

armond i think your wery wrong. most i think rodgort shud be 10 energi in pve end take 2 second to recharge. also theirs alots of skils thats needs a short recharger end cost 5 energi. like metor shover end ertkuake end more. pve shuld be alots of easi tthen it is now its to hard. the pve skils are to bad end ursan blesing is hard rto use but i got fow whit ursan so i shuldn be mad :P --Frozen Archer 13:21, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

forzn ur baed at tis game, fow es so oldskul, evri1 use leet judg die blak. -- Armond Warblade 13:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

if u has bearpower liek me u culdav has fow to but dont QQ, baed ppl dont get fow so sry for u --Frozen Archer 13:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

"even with the reverts, eles still fail as damage dealers" <- is this a counter argument ? 87.189.199.181 14:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Sort of. If RI is re-buffed, bad players will try to use it instead of letting buffed warriors deal the damage. The point of an ele, even a fire ele, isn't really to deal damage; splinter/gdw earthshaker/strength scythe do that far better, and that's just with one support skill. Throw on a conjure, a SoH, dark fury, stuff like that, and you've got an insanely powerful damage machine with more armor than an ele can hope to have. The problem, like I say, is bad players won't realize this, and will simply keep using horrible builds and never get better. -- Armond Warblade 21:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Guess I should have been more specific, but I don't necessarily mean increase the speed, just the duration.--99.153.226.11 17:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

the isue is that meny skils are baed in pve cuz their ver wery good in pvp before but now wen them has split i think meny pve skils should be buff so pve finaly become easi --Frozen Archer 18:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

PvE doesn't need to become any easier, some areas of the game are still challenging and fun, there is no point in making it easier, it removes challenge and thus removes fun, in my opinion. 000.00.00.00 22:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

thats a poor argument against reverting haste skills which were nerfed because of flag runners in pvp --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:87.189.199.181 (talk). 12:15 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll summarize his comment for you: "They were nerfed because of PvP flaggers, but they were also too good for PvE." -- Armond Warblade 12:19, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

IMS skills didn't break the game in PvE. IMS are a convenience there, nothing more - they simply aren't required. Flame Djinn's being awesome got you around fast (although I'd run storm djinns even on fire bars, just to get the faster cast time), but didn't wipe out mobs. There were usually better options to take in that slot. They were definitely only nerfed because of abuse on flaggers/relic runners.

Although, for the same reason, a revert would be pointless as hell. I'd still use storm djinns instead of flame. This definitely isn't high up on my list of wants :/ -Auron 12:25, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

PvE is to easy as is: I actually remember when the last mission in prophecies seemed hard, now I can hero it in hard mode as a monk survivor while using no armor / spamming spirit bond. (That should get my point across) Baddock

hey Izzy

can you please take a look at some of my skill balance ideas? User:Super Igor/Skill balances thanks. ^^ --Super Igor 13:56, 9 July 2008 (UTC)