User talk:Isaiah Cartwright/Izzy Talk Archive 2

Reward Points - A Travesty

why reward points simply aren't worth it atm

There is no one in the world that is gonna argue that an unlock system wouldn't be better, but when it comes down to it, there wasn't the time and resources available to make an unlock system work, I spent a lot of time working with our programmers and looking over what we could and could not do, and when it comes down to it we just couldn't do the unlock system. It takes a lot of time and a lot of resources to make a system like that work from a lot of different programmers, while it seems like an easy thing to do in the end it really isn't. So with unlocks out the door this was the next system we came up with, we all agree an unlock system would be better, but when you can't do one thing you do the best with what you have. I think the current system is pretty cool I don't really delete my PvP characters anyway so it works out well for me, I know there are a lot of people out there who do delete their pvp characters and this makes the rewards less interesting for them, I think if we added more things you could spend your points on rather then skin unlocks it would be more appealing for people who delete PvP characters, so it's still a work in progress. ~Izzy @-'----

There is a problem with reward points that I think needs to be changed. If your guild wins an AT, the only people who get reward points are the people who participated in the first round. However, if a player subs in the second round and finishes the next four rounds and the team wins, he doesn't get nearly as many reward points for winning as the player he subbed for. It should be scaled based on how many rounds you were participated in. For example, if I played in all five matches and won the AT, I should receive 75 reward points for winning. If I only played in 3, I should receive 45. This would discourage others from leaving after the first round and promote a fairer reward system. -Chiizu

Yeah the problem is this is a tech limitation, it's really hard because in order to make it work we have to record a HUGE amount of data, and so this isn't really a design choice as much as it is a limitation of the system. ~Izzy @-'----

As far as making PvP characters look good goes it isn't a great system. But the part of it that allows you to buy Flames of Balthazaar is quite neat. Perhaps making it possible to purchase more things like this would be nice. Celestial Sigils spring to mind since you can currently only get these via HA or PVE by getting the gold to purchase them, no means of changing your Guild Hall by actually GVGing which is a bit weird. Yesitsrob 18:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Reward points are fine IMO... just make some permanent PvP characters, although for those who can't have perma-PvP characters for whatever reasons, alternatives such as sigils as he said would be nice-Rakeman 07:24, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

"There is no one in the world that is gonna argue that an unlock system wouldn't be better". I've found one, the person works for Arena Net. Gaile Grey. Summarised hereon Guru, it shows her somewhat tetchy responses saying that it is working as intended and implying that it isn't an unlock system, because they are meant to be rare. So now we've got two contradictory reasons from Arena Net employees. Is it because of a lack of resources (fair enough), or is it because you want them to be rare? 124.182.37.20 08:21, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I view either reason as fair...you cant get a Colassal Scimitar on your PvE monk just because you got it on your PvE warrior. Why should this change just because you are in PVP? When i get reward points, ive had enough for two items now, i will spend them on one char only. And lack of resources is also a fair reason.Killer Revan 13:47, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Well I appreciate the response to my thread (and the fact that people actually have payed attention to it), but I do not understand why this wouldn't be a system that would be improved later (perhaps with GWEN), which seems like a prime opportunity to fix a lot of the game's system. Hell, even after GWEN comes out, it would seem like the programmers would have a little more free time to improve some of the game, but maybe thats just me :) Thanks for the repsonse Kenshin 23:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Someone mind explaining why I can't mod my Bladed Buckler anymore (which I got with reward points). I had some wrong inscription on it, so I wanted to change it now, but seems like it's stucked and I can't add any other Inscription except "Luck of the Draw". I also had Focus Core of Fortitude on it, and now I can't add any Focure Core mod. Didn't know where else to post this question, it's not really urgent, and in one moment I thought that it's some limitation with changing inscriptions ... tho I didn't change shield a lot. Anyone maybe knows what's the problem here? Izzy? Default 13:11, 26. July 2007.

Seems like it was just an ordinary GW bug. While I was trying to make some modifications with my PvP equipment, I saw a new inscription on a shield +5 Armor while enchant.. and I said why not. Then it was bugged for like 15 minutes, and now that inscription is gone. Sorry for bothering. Default 13:21, 26. July 2007.

Something about Dervish skills balance

Here's a thread about a few Dervish skills balance. I wrote a fairly big post in the middle of the page where i talk about what i think are the current issues with skills such as Dust Cloak, Staggering Force, etc. that never really see a place in any bar except some Mystic Sandstorm spike in RA, and also with Wind Prayers in general that i feel has very interesting skills that are sadly too hard to make a skill bar with because they either have a need for tons of enchants to be worth it or end up being too costy. It's something that's bothering me since a while because i feel that Dervishes have a LOT of great skills but all you see is Avatar of Melandru bars because the other skills, while good in themselves, can't really fit in any interesting skill bar. I'd like if Earth or Wind Dervish, still fighting with a Scythe, had any hope to see a place in PvP. And if all the 'put enchant ons and strip them' idea was usable too, because it was a great one, if overpowered at start because of the skills themselves doing huge Nearby AOE Holy damage. There's great utility in the dervish skill lines and in Wind Prayers in general that could make Dervishes great split characters in GvG with a mix of damage and healing, but while i tried a lot in the past i never managed to make such a bar truly viable with the skills as they are now. The main concern for Wind was usually energy issues with Mysticism not quite covering for the high cost of many skills in there if you plan to use any attack skill on top. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Patccmoi (talk • contribs) 00:20, 13 July 2007 (UTC).

Well these type of skills got a big nerf right before Nightfall came out there where a ton of builds that where insane and we nerfed these things pretty hard, I really tried to get some missing pieces in GWX that I think will help some more dervish skills see the light of day. Well have to see how it pans out. In the end Avatar of Melandru allows the class to do something no other class can and gives it a place in GvG, and other skills are going to have a hard time competing with that. ~Izzy @-'----

the mistake there was "big nerf". Damage, Range, Recharge, (and i think cost) were all nerfed making the skills unusable. It was a knee jerk reaction to invincadervs. Hopefully for GW:EN they try to turn back some of the changes, with just the duration as it is they cant be spammed anymore, The range and damage could be chnged back to give them more of a spike feel, but not allowing the caster the semi invincibility they had during the test phases--Midnight08 20:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

re your thoughts on updates

Very cool. Stuff like this really makes this wiki and A.NEt shine. --Ravious 01:04, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I'm gonna try to do more of this but I'm out on vacation for a few days so probably be a few days before I update it some more ~Izzy @-'----

Definitely looking forward to it. :)--Bane of Worlds (talk • contribs) 20:04, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I love the feedbacks on the skill balances Izzy. This is probably something that is most sought after by a lot of players (and in particular PvP players). I really hope you will be able to keep at it. Perhaps you might also consider how you want your archives organized, since if you are going to keep this up, you'll get a very extensive userpage. Have a talk with Emily or perhaps Gaile, they already have a decent/good grasp of wiki-stuff.

Personally, I keep smiling when I see a skill update involving Mesmer Signets, A.Net really wants mesmer to start using them, right? The elite signets really stand out from the pack in that regard though: Signet of Midnight, Signet of Illusions and Keystone Signet. All three are just not really viable in a decent build. Keystone Signet is probably just totally inferior as an elite to Signet of Judgment. Signet of Midnight is a niche skill (Blinding Surge on a mesmer is just better) and I seriously doubt that Signet of Illusions will ever see high-end PvP. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 01:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Linking skills

I love your list of comments about the individual skill changes, but it would be very nice to have the skill names link to the respective skill pages here on the wiki, so that people who don't have all 600 or so skills with damage numbers memorized can look them up easily. For most skills that would mean just placing [[brackets]] around the name. I'll be happy to do it for you if you don't have the time, just thought I'll ask first (its bad manners to edit someone else's userpage). --Xeeron 09:16, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll try and make sure I do that, but if you see some I've missed feel free to fix them for me : ) ~Izzy @-'----

Skill Feedback Format

I've been playing around with the format of the skill feedback, Mainly I like Icons and I want to be able to edit each skill as it leads to less conflicts, if you have any comments or suggestions about the format they are always welcome. ~Izzy @-'----

Double Izzy FTW!

You do know that thats the second time you signed my Guestbook. But hey the more the better, and especially from the Almighty Izzy! ~ Kurd 20:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Lol well that just proves how Absent minded I can be ;) ~Izzy @-'----

Elemental Lord

So why lower this to +1? It's not like I could be used in PvP, right?--§ Eloc § 21:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Mainly because it makes it balanced with Glyph of Elemental Power, having a buff up that gives you +2 vs actively having to use a glyph to get +2 on the next 5 skills makes the glyph really crappy, while they do stack I think it's important that no one skill outshines another so by making it 1 there is a trade off between Glyph of Elemental Lord. ~Izzy @-'----

Just face it, you made a really bad skill with EL :P — Skuld 22:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Bad Skill? I think increasing elemental attributes is an interesting thing that Ele's can do, the ability to hit break points beyond 16 is neat when playing around with skills, I'm sure there is something broken about being able to hit 19 or 20 in an attribute just hasn't been figured out yet. At the end of the day thou Ele needed help in PvE far less then most professions so the balance of this skill does reflect that a little bit. ~Izzy @-'----

Higher your magic the better :P, but, 20 is max for Attributes I did find out.--§ Eloc § 00:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Although i do not particularly care about PvE, it makes me laugh a bit when you say something like 'it was stronger than GoEP'. I mean, yes, it was. But can we also agree that Critical Agility, Save Yourselves!, Aura of Holy Might, Seed of Life, Necrosis, There's Nothing to Fear and Eternal Aura are absolutely superior to other skills doing anything remotely similar? Compare Critical Agility to any other IAS, it's superior (for sins at least). Compare Save Yourselves! and There's Nothing to Fear! to any other party protection skills, they are fully better, just as a well used Seed of Life is the best party healing skill ever. That argument that EL was superior to GoEP doesn't make much sense when PvE skills as a whole are infinitely stronger than non-PvE skills. You could've leave it at +2 and say that while you have to recast GoEP, it can't be stripped while EL can. But again, i really don't care much about PvE and it won't change anything for me one way or another hehe Patccmoi 06:21, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

It does make a huge difference for PvE players, though. PvE-wise, Elementalists are balanced already, without the need for any kind of overpowered skill to help them (at least IMO). Giving them something better than what they already have would only make them overpowered in PvE, and that's bad. In the other extreme, "There's Nothing to Fear!" is way overpowered, but then again Paragons are too weak, PvE wise - TNtF is then overpowered in comparison with most other things Paragons have, but Paragons are still not overpowered when compared with the other professions, PvE wise. Ideally there would be no need for such things - all professions would be equally useful in PvE, with all skills being equally useful within a profession, and no single skill would be overpowered - but unfortunately that's not true (and that's not going to happen anytime soon). Erasculio 14:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I understand the constant nerfing of the elementalist's spike DPS to balance the ability of all character classes in PVP so that instead you don’t get ping war spiking where the team with the better reaction time that spikes wins. I understand that Searing Flames was slightly overpowered in the PVP areas of this game, I understand that it had to be reduced, I was not angry because I was told about these new PVE skills which couldn’t possibly be nerfed because they were ONLY PVE skills. In hard mode elementalists can not use AOE damage that would scatter enemies and have to rely on high damaged spikes so things do not scatter. As fire magic has long been held as having the highest DPS as well as the most damage to multiple targets without scattering said targets it is almost always used. I assumed that these two new ele PVE ONLY skills could make up for that and once again place the ele firmly in it’s place in Guild Wars as described as doing “a considerable amount of damage in a short time.” I feel cheated that my ele has been continually nerfed. Repeated AOE is completely dead for almost every PVE area, so we relied (since nightfall came out) on Searing Flames which took a HUGE hit when it was nerfed, I rejoiced when intensify and elemental lord came out even though it was EXTREMELY hard to put these two skills into an already crowded PVE bar (keeping a fast pace is critical in most groups especially PUGs because they are there to enjoy and have fun NOT wait so waiting on regen for an extended period of time is unreasonable). Both of these skills got nerfed hard, so much so that they aren’t worth the extra slot for the limited use… how can an ele drop one skill like liquid flame, a hard res, e-management (glowing gaze) etc? In hard mode eles can not afford to get into line of sight, give up multi-target damage dealing nor into melee range… In all of fire magic for every campaign, Elementalists are left with the following skills: incendiary bonds (questionable), liquid flame, meteor, meteor shower, searing flames and rodgort’s invocation (questionable due to the extreme amount of energy needed for the minimal amount of damage and condition duration)!!! Tell me now, with all the buffs to dervish, assasin and warrior lines how a team can justify taking people with an AL of 60 when warriors in many cases do the same or even greater amounts of damage (ever seen primal rage, a warrior using a scythe and aura of holy might in one build?). I know most of you guys in the DEV team love your physical damage dealing characters, but please a little help to a PVE crippled profession please or could you at least explain why I should continue to spend more money on this game than I could have spent on WOW? Concerned User 1337000 01:40, 21 July 2007 (PST) --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:71.34.80.208 .

Am I the only one that read the above comment like: BAAAAAAAAAAW I got an Obsidian Armor for my Ele and now the Fire Line got a nerf and I cant play Searing Flames (read: Ele in Easy Mode) anymore. Just pair up with an Ice Ele and you're good to go.84.136.254.14 20:36, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

"I was told about these new PVE skills which couldn’t possibly be nerfed because they were ONLY PVE skills" - IMO, that points very well where you are wrong. PvE needs balance as well - it's not as critical as in PvP, but it is very important there. Said balance means that all professions should be equally useful to a group, and that all skills should be equally useful to a profession, assuming people know what they are doing. Currently, elementalists are more useful than many professions, so they really don't need an overpowered skill. And if you think warriors have better damage output - go ingame now and ask people who they think is the true source of damage in their groups, I assure you they won't say it's the mesmer (oh, and don't use the skill bar you posted, that's a horrible one; Fire Magic has way better skill combinations). Erasculio 21:14, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Erasculio that was not a skill bar that was only listing the skills an ele has left to use in fire magic in PVE HM that do multitarget, not line of sight, non-scattering damage. If you could read you would have known that. Yes if you ask a PUG who the damage dealers of a group are they will tell you an ele, because that's what they have been told by anet, other people etc... why would a tank be easily able to out damage an ele without any of the major issues of e-management, regen time, less armor etc? Furthermore if you can, and it has been often done, create a team of high armor, somewhat self healing, high damage dealers who do not have to worry about HM Scatter why would you ever take an ele...? Besides this question was not on your page nor was it dirrected at you. Concerned User 1337000 15:46, 22 July 2007 (PST) --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:71.34.80.208 .

Oh, so when you said, "In all of fire magic for every campaign, Elementalists are left with the following skills", you actually meant "In all of fire magic, excluding everything that's not multitarget, that requires line of sigh and that does scattering damage"? In other words, you are purposedly ignoring most of the Fire Magic skills, and you think that is enough to make an argument? Sorry, but it is not. Elementalists currently deal far more damage than warriors do, even Hard Mode-wise; and while you state that you know better than most PUG players, I somehow doubt that. Lastly, I would suggest you to read GWW:NPA before writting a reply like that - and realize that you may complain as much as you want, but I'm not going to sit quietly while you try to use bad arguments in order to push a change that would only hurt the PvE game.Erasculio 23:03, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry my plain English is not enough for you, apparently "In hard mode eles can not afford to get into line of sight, give up multi-target damage dealing nor into melee range… In all of fire magic for every campaign, Elementalists are left with the following skills" is too complicated to understand. Please do not make unwarranted personal attacks at me and threaten me with the GWW:NPA as this violates the GWW:NPA in and of itself, furthermore how is making the ele the major damage dealer in GWs hurtful? Oh and about the eles do way more damage with AOE recuring damage you're right for about 2 seconds before they scatter and pwn everyone in HM unless you are lucky enough to have a paragon with a high luxon or kurzick title and "Save Yourselves" loaded. Also please do not obscure my original question or try to push your melee characters by doing so, thank you. Concerned User 1337000 23:22, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The Elementalists already are the major damage dealer in PvE; your idea to make them more powerful than they already are would only hurt the game, as it would make elementalists overpowered in PvE. It's very easy to deal with the scatter, as long as you actually consider all the skills the elementalists have, instead of choosing, for whatever random reason, to ignore the great majority of the skills within the profession's purview. And really, lay down with the personal attacks, to breach GWW:NPA twice like that is bad form in a wiki. Erasculio 23:30, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Having Vanquished quite a deal with an ele, warrior and monk I can tell you that the ele's damage is not as significant as it used to be and in certain builds with Go For The Eyes rangers with one or more W/D they are doing extremely high damage often equal to that of elementalists. One of two things needs to be changed, either reduce the effectiveness of “Go For The Eyes,” Aura of Holy Might or Primal Rage; or return to the PVE ele the damage it could do before the Searing Flames nerf or the Scattering nerf so in hard mode we can use firestorm, breath of fire, savanna's heat, sandstorm etc... I would like a reply Isaiah, please. Concerned User 1337000 01:35, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Indenting is getting too deep. Concerned User, I think the ele is actually doing well in the PvE part of the game atm. As Izzy said, even before the PvE skills made their mark in the game they were already seeing good use; the PvE skills were more for increasing the viability of those classes which have problems in PvE (see Mesmer, and Paragon after numerous nerfs). I would only start getting worried when I stop hearing masses of 'glf nukers' in mission outposts. And if you think Primal Rage, of all things, needs a reduction in effectiveness... --Ufelder 09:41, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Question 1: Ever actually tried it (With that team build, and a high rank luxon/kurzick rank with at least Aura of Holy Might, Primal Rage and Using a scythe)? Question 2: Did you know I was refering to Hard Mode (Pugs don't often try to form HM groups mostly it is done with friends, alliance and guild mates)? Sure as always elementalists can easily blow stuff up in normal mode, heck so can anything for that matter, but in hard mode things get a little crazy. Concerned User 1337000 21:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

So you think that Fire Elementalists are obsolete because Scythe Warrior/Dervishes with Primal Rage and Aura of Holy Might are too good, and Eles need some big buffs to compensate? Just checking. -Ensign 21:57, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

If you thought Primal Rage/AoHM was too good for the game, you're going to puke at my assassin running: Way of the Assassin, AoHM, Critical Agility, Critical Defenses, Critical Eye. Armour comparable to a warrior, IAS, 75% block, excellent e-management, and able to use up to three attack skills. And yeah, I think that's okay, because god forbid assassins and warriors should ever try to perform as well as an ele in pve. And what does it matter what format you are referring to; a skill change affects both NM and HM. --Ufelder 09:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that all character classes should be equally as good in a team build, but if warriors (or assasins for that matter, yeah I've seen the IAS on the assasin, put I just don't love my assassin too much atm unless I'm FFFing or something) or any class can do the same damage as the ele, i.e. "the damage dealer" with a HUGE armor advantage what's the point of the weakling ele who gets pwned in 3 hits in hard mode? Personally I don't want to buff the heck out of the ele, I just want to balance it like it used to be. The SF nerf, Intensify nerf and Elemental Lord nerf made SF a joke. There are so many awesome team builds for physical damage dealers that leave the current balanced group in the dust. I would like to know what Isaiah thinks, because at this point it really does seem like ANET wants p-damage dealers who have more armor doing more damage than casters. I think is just plain wrong and makes no sense according to everything ANET put forth about the ele profession.Concerned User 1337000 18:24, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Regarding balance and Hero Battles

What's your opinion on the lack of unique builds in the area? -FireFox File:Firefoxav.png 23:58, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

It's a harsh game type to balance, the game type is sorta taking pieces of another game which is balanced for 8v8 and trying to force them into a new sudo 1v1 game type, this is a hard thing to do and I think one of the issues with that is there are a number of things that are overpowered in that small game type that hard to fix because of how they interact with the other game types. This makes it hard to balance and fix the issues to Hero Battles without effects the other parts of the game, this really pushes things towards some of the same builds. This is basically a small version of say GvG were things are hard to balance, if someone is overpowered in GvG you will notice it starts to take over, everyone starts to run the same thing and overall diversity goes down, When things are balanced there is a large amount of diversity. So the simple answer is I think it's not very balanced and as such there are less unique builds and it's a hard problem to fix. I have a number of idea and things I want to try, but we are really trying to get GW:EN out the door so progress on it has been slow. ~Izzy @-'----

Would nerfing the likes of Recall, Shadow Prison and Expose Defenses affect the other part of the game in a negative way? Those are just a few examples of skills that are completely broken in Hero Battles and completely dominate the metagame because of that. Furthermore, the AI simply can't use a lot of skills (simple example: everyone uses SoR monks because the AI fails horribly at using ZB) which further limits diversity in builds. A third reason there's so little diversity are the shrines: we're forced to cap shrines while we only have 3 heroes to begin with. This means we have to build our heroes to split and survive 1v1. Currently this means we're seeing hero splitter builds like Heal As One R/P, Mystic Regen + Ebon Dust D/P and Melandru's Resilience + Riposte W/R. That's the kind of thing you'd only expect to see in Random Arena. --Draikin 22:40, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

You realize you just asked if nerfing 3 of the better assassin skills would have any impact on other parts of the game right? Short answer... of course.... there is a long answer, but i like assassins and would probably not be so nice about how i said it.--Midnight08 15:17, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course it would have an impact on the game, I asked if it would impact the game in a negative way. --Draikin 15:34, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok then "Of course it would have an impact on the game in a negative way. Assassins are a part of the game, and They currently only have a niche impact in most forms of play. PvE its hard to get teams, and anything greater than 4v4 has too much prot for them to see regular play (since splits are rare nowadays). Now you want to pull their effectiveness from 4v4 games as well, because theyre good at what theyre supposed to do?--Midnight08 15:51, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Then what are they supposed to do, spike down people in 4 seconds? I don't want to pull their effectiveness from 4v4, I just want them to be balanced in that format. If they have a niche impact it's because they have only one overpowered skillbar that's worth using to begin with. --Draikin 16:29, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Then what are they supposed to do, spike down people in 4 seconds? In short...Yes! If an assassin takes longer than 4 seconds to kill an un-protected target then its not doing what it's meant to. The clue is in the name! Assassin! Assassin's ARE NOT BORKEN! Hero Battle's is broken! People need to learn this!--ChronicinabilitY 16:51, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, an assassin is meant to spike an unprotected target easily if they do not protect themselves... a spike means yes under 4 secs. Theyre frontline squishies. They may kill fast, they also die fast, their defenses are pathetic and their entire attack chain is conditional. if any attack mises the spike is moot, if conditions are removed before a kill, the same thing. Its part of their concept. They kill FAST and well, but also die easily. A good assassin is one that kills fast and survives long enough to get away. The key thing to remembet that if a spike is avoided anywhere in it, it usually does not get the job done. An assassin can usually produce an effective spike once every 15-20 seconds, if a target survives the spike, they have 20 seconds to heal before the assassin can do much of anything. Their weapons and skills are a perfect example of their purpose. the lowest base damage for max weapons, but one of the highest oh hit damage sets (especially when u consider dual attacks and dual strikes). Theyre meant to do spike damage fast, but are pretty bad at sustained damage. I'm done arguing my point... i'm pretty sure Isaiah understands the situations assassins are in well and hopefully he will consider their purpose in any balancing.--Midnight08 17:51, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of theme/name/whatever, don't you think that's a pretty serious design flaw? A class that has absolutely no legitimate purpose other than to solo spike obscenely fast? Besides how generally skill-less it is and frustrating to fight against (especially for new players), that idea basically condemns most of the Assassin skills to uselessness. Nobody cares if, say, Temple Strike, is any good if you can just annihilate everything in four seconds. Additionally, having a class based primarily on spiking encourages a single, stale build - just pick whatever skills have the highest damage numbers on them right now and go.

Back to Hero Battles. I think a big part of the problem, besides Assassins and the shrine morale mechanic (which I'd nerf to almost nothing if I could - buff the shrines if necessary to keep people going for them), is that the Hero AI has gone either nowhere or backwards since Nightfall shipped. I'm still constantly annoyed about that update in January where they changed the AI to always use forced skills on your target even when your target is way out of range. Before that, microing a simple Blinding Flash or something on a hero to keep physicals at bay was pretty trivial; now, it's almost impossible - I can't switch targets that fast and micro my monk against any nearby Assassin and keep up decent pressure of my own (plus sometimes they're out of radar range and you're just screwed). Also heroes still leave the shrines on the Cultist map (can't remember the name right now) due to the elevation confusing them (also introduced in that update in January). Finally, a lot of the lack of diversity in builds comes simply from the AI being unable to use the majority of them - a significant AI update may very well promote as much or more diversity than any balance change.--Mysterial 18:20, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of theme/name/whatever, don't you think that's a pretty serious design flaw?...no! Just because you dont like them, and for some reason cant take advantage of one of the numerous weaknesses they have does not make them a design flaw. You seem to be just annoyed because they simply do what they are meant to, and they do it well! --ChronicinabilitY 18:29, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I hate the fact that we need to split our team since it's already difficult enough to balance a team for a 4v4 battle. When every hero needs to be able to fight 1v1, you simply don't have a lot of builds left to choose from. That's the one and only reason you're seeing all those splitter builds with nothing but selfheal, condition removal and block stances on their skill bar. That fact alone cripples your build and is the main reason for the lack of diversity in my opinion. The fact that the AI can only use a subset of all the available skills only makes things worse, together with the overpowered assassin spikes and the fact that shadow stepping is broken on every map (ignore elevations with SP, shadow step from one shrine to another with Recall). If it were up to me I'd simply delete all the maps and replace them with TA maps. There's no doubt that we'd run into A/W + 2 N/Rt + Rt spirit spam builds after that but at least then I could build a real 4v4 team to try and counter it. --Draikin 22:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Signet FC Weirdness

I play a Signet of Illusions Mez in AB and I noticed that (at 11 FC) I was seeing a timer bar when I cast SoI. I don't remember seeing one before. Anyway so I went into the Isle of Nameless to see if something was up, and I couldn't time things with my eyes well enough when I upped and lowered the FC attribute. Anyway, finally I did an online stopwatch thing where as best as I could I pressed the skill bar number and "simultaneously" clicked start on the stopwatch. I was getting about 2 seconds on the SoI pretty consistently when it should be about 1.2 seconds (I was at 13 FC), and I was still seeing the timer bar (helped to stop the stopwatch). So, just wanted to give you a heads up. Maybe I missed something, or am off my rocker.

Fast cast signets broke in the last patch, along with the Power interrupts working on chants and Spawning Power lengthening weapon spells. It's pretty clear whatever chunk of code updated those effects was reverted in this patch. -Ensign 19:20, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Might I suggest...

Creating a subpage for the "Overpowered Skills" section, and another for the "Underpowered Skills" section? If you're not sure how, I'd be glad to do it for you - and it'd make it easier to edit, since browsers wouldn't have to be chucking 105kb of data around with each request. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 00:39, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I think this is a good idea, if you want to do this feel free, I'm gonna be focused on the GW:EN skill feedback for a bit. ~Izzy @-'---- 22:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd be glad to. And I already mentioned this on Emily's page, but thanks for the new info. (P.S. - if you all happened to have a finalized graphic for Cracked Armor, it'd be great to have something to replace the placeholder image at Image:Cracked Armor.jpg.) :) (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 22:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! ~Izzy @-'---- 00:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll be working on getting the skill icons up over the next few hours, so I'll make sure to put that one up as one of the first ones. -- Emily Diehl (talk) 22:38, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I'm trying to track down Cracked Armor. ~Izzy @-'---- 00:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for hunting it down, the red question mark was starting to look odd. :) (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 04:00, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Goren is married!?

Thought you might appreciate my theory. Tell me if it's right :P. User:Eloc Jcg#Goren_is_Married.21.3F--§ Eloc § 07:02, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

What the fuck? — Skuld 10:30, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Jeez Skuld, Nice language. =P Vengeance Signet 02:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Ya, Skuld has problems.--§ Eloc § 02:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

That's not exactly nice to say about someone...=( Vengeance Signet 02:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

GWW:NPA. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 02:18, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah that too. =P Thanks for writing something in the nuetral, xD I didn't want to type at that moment. ^^ Vengeance Signet 02:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

LoL, alot of people would agree with me though Aiiane. I've seen times where it's just a discussion and he comes in and says "shit dicks"--§ Eloc § 02:24, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Cry moar — Skuld 11:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see any attacks. — Skuld 11:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

New Eye of the North skills

So... Looking through the skills, it seemed right to me when it said there would be 100 new skills, so that would be 10 per class, though that seems a little too... few, to me anyway. And I was hoping for maybe 1-3 elites per in the expansion, to create more diversity... but I assume there's only 10 per, and no elites, to help with balancing, right? Also, is there any place to see concept art or.. anything, related to the new upcoming armor sets? =) I'm extremely curious what they're going to look like. And also, I'm probably even more curious about these new 50 PvE-only skills, that unless I heard wrong, are not class-specific, so all characters would have 50 new skills available in PvE? that seems like an awful lot, unless it includes skills like "Disarm Trap", from Nightfall that was only available occasionally, and wasn't similar to Lightbringer and Sunspear skills. ^^ Since you can't get a collector's edition of Eye of The North, I was especially hoping on some place you can tell me to go to for the concept art, it's always awesome :D--Devvu

Hmm, I feel 100 is pretty much enough, I'd rather take a small set of skills which are balanced than a larger set of skills which is horribly inbalanced. On the topic of elite skills, given that each skill bar has 1 elite, but 7 non-elite skills, the previous expansions all had too many elites, it seems that GW:EN is used to counter that a bit. --Xeeron 11:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

As it seems likely that GWEN will be the last big expansion for GW1 what I really would've liked to have seen was enough skills to bring Assassin, Ritualist, Paragon and Dervish in line with the core professions in terms numbers - 150 would've been just about right as far as I can remember (25 A/Rt, 50 D/P). Seems a shame that those professions (especially the Nightfall ones) will always have less of a choice than the others. --NieA7 13:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

IMO, that's how it should have always been - as much as I like the Assassins and the Ritualists, I think Arena Net should not have added new skills (or new armors) to them in Nightfall. Not only they are not core professions (and we were told, by the time Prophecies was released, that the core professions were the only ones that would be supported in all chapters), but that also created a horrible tendency of "content requiring more content". Chapter 1 had 75 skills for 6 professions; chapter 2 had two new professions and 25 new skills for 6 professions; chapter 3 had two new professions and 25 new skills for 8 professions; chapter 4 would have needed two new professions and 25 new skills for 10 professions, and chapter 5 would need 25 new skills for 12 professions, and so on. That was an incredibly huge mistake by Arena Net, IMO, as they would have to work more for each new chapter than they did for the previous one (and it would soon result in an overwhelming number of skills for GW1). Here's to hoping that, in GW2, Arena Net will add less skills, slower than they did in GW1. Erasculio 14:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Some of the goals of GW:EN was to reduce the amount of skills and split them up, we are still offering 50 PvE only skills akin to sunspear/kurzick and luxon skills. With only 100 in PvP we effect PvP less and can keep from getting a huge reduction in overall balance that we see with a huge influx of new skills. Well see how it pays off, but I for one felt a lot more comfortable getting 100 skills ready for the meta game then 300, in a short amount of time. ~Izzy @-'---- 20:05, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

A note

Heya Izzy, I thought I'd just drop you a note. I've been GvGing for a long time and during the last 18 months or so I've seen the GvG scene go through many changes. I think one of the nice things about this official wiki is people can drop you a note now and again, it's rather good. Firstly, as several people have said hex builds are seriously unfun. In the last month or two I've never played so little, every time I come back I find that it's as awful as before to play. You've touched on a few point on why hexes builds are bad for the game, I might just mention a few more.

Any game that you cannot explain to others is never going to be very popular and it presents a stiff barrier to entry for new players. If I was to watch an an observer mode match with a PvEr, in all honesty I'd find it difficult to describe what's going on. Basically it's a bunch of defensive chars and some attacking characters who are working at less than 50% efficiency. Eventually someone dies, maybe the blindbot got distracted and didn't keep the blinds up, perhaps the hex removal on one character and the hexes ended on another attacking character happened at the same time, or was it that the Mesmer finally managed to Divert enough skills that you can bring that efficiency above 50%? Whatever it was, the planets have aligned and someone has got a kill. So Mr. PvEr, that's how you win :/

I'm no great player but being in Australia I've been lucky enough to play some of the really good Korean guilds in their prime. Let me tell you, those battles didn't last long, we're get totally rolled. Yet in spite of that we'd usually get a kill or two in, the general emphasis was on damage and if you were using Diversion, you'd put it onto a monk to try and increase your killing. Now you try to just Divert their key attacking skills most of the time. Every single game seems to go to VoD, it shouldn't be like that. I know you've acknowledge that Hexes are not fun but I'm a bit worried that we're not going to see any improved hex removal skills or buffs to existing skills, I know drastic change can put things too far the other way but really GvG is horrid to play at the moment, if you said, "after the next update the meta will have 10 times less hexes, that's right just 10% of the amount of hexes we currently have" I reckon the reaction would be pretty good. Sometimes drastic measures are called for...

Ok secondly a suggestion for the ATs. They were supposed to be the saviour for GvG but I don't really see what the point is. You play for QPs which isn't that exciting for middle/lower tier guilds. PvPers generally don't care about Tournament Rewards, sounds like minipets, cute but a PvE thing. Finally you can improve your ladder rating, um why? I'd like to see a ladder that resets again, being the number x rated guild since the start of 2007 is kinda pointless and doesn't keep people playing. Trying to improve your finishing rating each season does have a point and a reason to keep GvGing. The tourneys should have nothing to do with the ladder, it looks half assed otherwise. Why not make tourneys separate and interesting. Every fortnight a new tourney type starts, some possible examples are: You can only use core/Prophecies skills, you cannot have any monks on your team, VoD starts at 10 minutes, there's no Guild Lord so you have to DP the other team out, the whole map is effected by Domain of Health Draining and everyone suffers 3 health degen. Those are just some quick things I've thought up now, I'm sure you guys can think of some creative stuff that isn't too hard to implement for a technical standpoint. This would be something really different, there might be a few misses but given that it changes every fortnight (or whatever) who's going to complain? People will however remember the really amazing and different games they play where they're really challenged and have to think on their feet. Heck there's a chance that not only will people stop leaving, you might even get a few back! --Xasxas256 14:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the post, I'm working on a balance update not sure when well announce it, but I normally do them after Monthly AT's so do the math ;). As for more different types of AT's I'm really worried about that I think one of the problems with GW is we have too many game types we've split the community a bit too much and by adding more types it could really fragment things even more, I wouldn't mind doing some cool Weekend event some time were we do that, but I think it would really hurt the game if we added more game types. ~Izzy @-'---- 20:45, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, thanks heaps for the reply. To be perfectly honest I think most complaints recent complaint stem from boredom with the game itself as much as any particular skills being imbalanced. The meta at the moment is reasonably balanced, even if hexes are too strong. It's just that after 2 years or so of doing the same old GvGs, it's hard to maintain interest I'd say. For anyone reading this, if you look at the Factions Championship it's a pretty similar mix of characters, it's just that skills are a lot better now, particularly the defensive characters. Curses necros, blindbots, Dom mesmers (forget E Surge) and water hexes are so much more powerful now. Ether Prodigy was the most popular elite skill in those championships! But the main thing is the monks, BL and Boon Proters with MoR/E Drain are so bad compared to RC and LoD monks. It's so darn defensive now, I remember ages and ages ago pre Factions, watching LuM versus WM (I think) and thinking that man those Koreans are crazy running just 2 monks! Now you only have two monks but no matter how much Diversion/Migraine spam you get, you'll almost certainly hold out until VoD. The no elites in GWEN might be a good way to stop this efficiency creep though, so that's good. Previously on your defensive casters you had to run OoB or Ether Prod for energy, now energy management is easy (GoLE, AI) and you have uber elites.

I guess the above follows on from the hexes topic above, it's stuff you already know but for anyone reading over this it gives a little bit of background from my memories and might help explain why PvPers seem to complain a lot! But all in all it's the same as it was a year ago. An infinite ladder is meaningless, tournaments are basically the same as normal rated matches, there's nothing different about them and the balanced meta is the same as before, only more hex heavy, ie more boring. ATs are better than the Celestial Tourney, all 4 Aussie guilds who entered ended up breaking up just after or during it, that's how stressful the CT was but they're nothing special. From a PvP side of things the game is just slowly bleeding out, there's fewer and fewer people playing, this would be a good time to add something interesting on the PvP side, to encourage people to stay and buy GWEN, as well as to get people to return to the game and buy GWEN. I don't think it'd split the community, I can't see any guild just playing ladder GvGs or just tourney GvGs. If I quit the game tomorrow and never played again I'd have nothing to complain about, I've surely got my monies worth, I just reckon there's still life in this old game yet! --Xasxas256 00:05, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Please Read This Izzy

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2971970#post2971970

I know you are mainly focusing your efforts on the new skills in GW:EN, but there are still skills from nightfall that need to be balanced, all I ask is that you read this and atleast consider what they are saying.--72.84.72.113 04:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I agree the dervish line is very small, but this has happen to a lot of classes I'll look at improving some other builds, but it's a tricky one, the reason people take Melandrus is because it does something no one else can, I don't think your gonna pull that off any Dervish bar without something that is overpowered. ~Izzy @-'---- 07:45, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

hmm I think I miss understood some of this post, this is asking for a rework of Melandru I don't think this is the right thing to do, there are weakness to the Melandru character it's just being out shined by the prevalnce of blind. While a rework could happen I think it jsut removes the only real successful avatar, id rather continue to fine the balance of this unique character rather then reduce it to something more typical. ~Izzy @-'---- 07:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

On the subject of the Avatars... I've always thought certain avatars seemed like they should have been... different, I don't know... Perhaps Melandru's Avatar having effects towards ranger skills like Bow attacks and Traps, not just immunity to conditions... Wich didn't really seem a very Melandru-like thing to me, the only condition removal rangers have that comes to mind is Antidote Signet. I'd think that Avatar of Balthazar would make you attack 33% faster, not move 33% faster, Though I'm not entirely sure what Lyssa would do aside from what it already does...You'd think lyssa would remove enchantments, not grenth, since mesmers have the most enchantment removal.. Hmm... But grenth... Perhaps cause a certain degree of life stealing with your attacks? I'm not sure, I just never felt like the avatars quite reflected the gods they were meant to... be avatars of, since they didn't emphasize enough of what they're about, or maybe that's just me xD Also, it would be nice for there to be some new necromancer skills, I was slightly bummed that the sunspear/kurzick skills didn't relate to corpses or minions in any way... but now I'm getting off topic xD I'll just shut up :)--Devvu

Try not to match the Avatars with professions, but with the gods themselves. Melandru is a nature spirit so condition resistance fits. Balthazar is a holy warrior. Grenth "feasts" on souls (enchantments :P) and so on... — Poki#3 14:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Grenth doesn't feed on the souls of the dead or living. Dhuum did that, as does his minions. Grenth, even though he is the god of DEATH, is a good god of death. Counciler 20:01, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Please Read This Izzy(contd)

Thank you for the quick reply, I always thought of the people behind the game would be distant for some reason. On the issue of a Melandru rework, I honestly think it would work fine, it wouldnt destroy Melandru, just allow for some possible defense against it. I think the main issue is not about the Avatar itself, but the lack of viable options outside of it. Wounding Strike was used, but not for long as people realized the potential of Avatars, as was Reapers Sweep. I don't think of it as removing the only succesful Avatar, but allowing others to shine as well.

If you saw Pat's post the main problem with his build and no doubt many others is because of lack of a viable Deepwound option inside his own class. Wearying Strike is nice, yes, but then you have to free up a spot to use it effectively without Melandru. And this is why I personally think its why Mels are the chosen in gvgs, the lack of flexibility with Avatars and attack skills(I hope you can understand what I'm writing, its kind of just coming out).

Warriors have a couple effective DW skills out of an elite, either crushing blow, dismember, or gash. Assassins have a load of dw attack skills available to them. The Dervish, however, has 1, and its conditional UNLESS used with Melandru or forcing a skill out of the bar to fit something like sig of malice in. The two elites, Reapers Sweep, is very conditional, and Wounding Strike, DW spammability at the cost of your elite.

Is there a possibility of changing some mechanics to allow a deepwound skill like wounding strike was in the test weekend before it got its elite status, was wounding strike really that imbalanced when it had nonelite status? And if so, is there anyway to redeem its nonelite status but nerf other aspects such as giving it a recharge hike or something like that?

Thank you for your time, I'm glad you are so responsive to your playerbase.--72.84.72.113 03:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Ahh your welcome, I'm a bit behind on responding to people I've been trying to get these GW:En skills cleaned up so I've been focusing on the skill feedback more, but over the next week or so I'll start putting more focus on my next skill update so stuff like this is great to bring up. ~Izzy @-'---- 20:10, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

GW:EN skills

Will this wiki be able to feature some pre-release information on GW:EN skills? After all, it's the offi-wiki! --  (CoRrRan / talk) 23:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

OOOOOO that would be SOO nice! ~ Kurd 23:45, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Maaayybeee ; ) ~Izzy @-'----

I'll give you a cookie!! perhaps even two! --  (CoRrRan / talk) 23:55, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Is there a page on those leaked skills yet? If not, is it ok to make a page/pages for them? --TimeToGetIntense 01:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Those, you mean? Given how they are not official, I think it would be better if they stay where they are, in a talk page. Of course, when the very nice guys at Arena Net give us an exclusive scoop on the new skills, then I would be all for making pages for them : D Erasculio 01:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Great stuff Izzy! Thank you for all those sneakpeaks! (I guess I must've read your mind there...) --  (CoRrRan / talk) 10:31, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I have a question - how does the new necromancer curse Atrophy work with Energy Storage?? I think it might be overused by Me/N or N/Me along with the Aneurysm spell. -- Pulse Reaction 00:30, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

When max energy is reduced or increased, current energy is increased by the same amount. So you could temporarily lower an elementalist's current energy as well, but when the hex wore off (and you can't keep it up 100% of the time), the elementalist would be back up in energy again. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 00:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

GW:EN skill postings followup

It seems many of the Attack skills that were posted don't have any weapon-specific tagging (i.e. Bow Attack, Spear Attack, et cetera) on them, though a lot of them look like they should. Any chance you might be able to go through them and add any appropriate wording so that people don't get confused? Most of the Marksmanship and Spear Mastery skills look to be missing such (if any is intended). (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 03:29, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, if the type is a melee attack, then it can be used by any melee weapon. If not, then it can only be used by the Profession specific.--§ Eloc § 03:49, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Apart from that being a very obvious thing to say...that is not what is being asked. We simply don't know if such a skill is a Mellee Attack, or an Axe Attack or what it is. This is why Aiiane has requested they be looked at again. --ChronicinabilitY 04:40, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Guild Halls Music

When you get some free time, do you think you could take a look at the music files being used in the Guild Halls? Perhaps match the correct files to their proper region-themes? For example, Wizard's Isle does not use Pre-Searing music, despite the obvious theme. Imperial Isle could use the Divine Path music to hieghten atmosphere. Things like that. The 'correct' music for the corresponding theme. Thanks. Counciler 23:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Izzy isn't exactly the person in charge of music. ;) You'd probably be better served asking Emily or one of the others. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 23:26, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Haha, Linsey Murdock pointed me here. Ok, I'll go over there too.... Counciler 01:04, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Pre-Searing music is imba. Nerf plx. Errr 13:07, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

lol Counciler 17:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

AT Map rotation

I rolled some dice and here is the order for the next AT map rotation: Isle of Jade , Hunters, Quicksand, Druids , Isle of the Dead, , Frozen Isle.

Probably be a few days until I update it but feel free to scream at me about how horrible this rotation is (Please include reasons) thank you! ~Izzy @-'---- 18:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The catapult maps (Warriors, Hunters, Wizards) should be excluded from the rotations until something is done to fix the asymmetrical catapults on those maps. Too much of an advantage comes from which side you are randomly assigned when you load in. Along those lines, asymmetrical NPC placement on Corrupted and Uncharted Isles should be fixed as well. -Ensign 19:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I know of most of the issues with Wizards and Hunters, but what is off on Warriors? and Could you start a section about the placement for the other maps as I'm not aware of what is different, I can fix them up pretty fast most likely. ~Izzy @-'---- 21:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a fine rotation to me. Nothing too out of place. --Dragonious 08:48, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I love warriors because when my team gets outplayed for 20 minutes we can just 1 hit all their npc's with the catapult and be on par or better with their 20 minutes of splitting. It's pretty obvious which maps are suitable for tournament play and which aren't. At the very least Frozen should be in every rotation. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:202.80.0.149 .

Please at least have the guts to sign useless feedback, thanks. ~Izzy @-'---- 21:26, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Could we expect this change, along with skill balances and HA balances, in this Thursday or Friday's update? --Dragonious 22:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Skill balances wont happen this week, but yeah map rotation will be. I went with these: Isle of Jade , Imperial, Quicksand, Druids , Isle of the Dead, Frozen Isle. ~Izzy @-'---- 22:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Are there ANY changes planned to arrive BEFORE this weekends double fame in HA event? You DO realise how messed up the weekend will be if there arent? Dont you?!87.194.81.41 23:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)Lorekeeper

Yeah, if update won't come before weekend it wil be a one big failure with a lot of rage. --Kain 09:12, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

HA is going to be 8 districts of Rits and Thumpers! lol The real choice...which side to take!?? --ChronicinabilitY 17:00, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

One Nerf to Balance them all?

If you want the simplest solution to skill balance, don't balance the skills as much but rather balance the teams using them. If you imposed a limitation of no more than four of any one primary profession on a team you would not only destroy most gimmick teams/builds but also save yourself the hassle of constantly nerfing skills each time they become popular or used... since, after all, most all of the skills that get nerfed are not at all over-powered when used by one or two people, but when you have six-to-eight people on a team all spiking with the same skill at once (IE: Most all Gimmick Teams) you have a problem. The issue with balancing skills the way you currently are, with nerfing any skill that gets used in a gimmick to spike targets, is that the skill often becomes useless in PvE because it's not likely that you'll have more than one or two people on your PvE team with that skill (or even any balanced PvP team with more than one or two of that profession).

Limiting any team to only four of one primary profession will have a greater impact on PvP than PvE of course, but the only teams it really hurts either way are the Gimmick Teams... as no balanced team would have more than four of any primary profession on that team to begin with. So if it can only hurt or hinder the gimmicks and not the real and balanced play, why not implement such a restriction?

Sure, you could still have teams composed of four X/Os and four Z/Xs all using the same skill from the X line... but since the most the Z/Xs can have is a 12 in the attribute, it won't be nearly as effective as a team of eight Xs with 16s in the given attribute. To further make this more effective, you'd need only to adjust the damage scaling a bit (which should probably be done anyway) so that you get less benefit from level 1-12 but much greater benefit for having a 13 or above in the attributes. This will only further promote the classes using the skills that were originally intended for that class, but not keep other classes from using skills from another profession as they'll still be more than able to do so, just not with quite the same expert results as a member of the primary skill's class would be capable of... which only makes sense, right? Why wouldn't someone from a primary class be able to use their skills with better effect than someone who only has that class as a secondary?

In conclusion, rather than constantly modifying the skills themselves and never really resolving the problem of skill-abuse due to far too many of one class on a team at one time, why not limit the number of any one profession on a team and leave the skills more useful for the balanced groups? ~ J.Kougar 23:32, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I know this is a little bit of a drastic change, and many people don't like change, so why not implement it for a test week or weekend, and see how much it helps? ~ J.Kougar 23:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

In case you haven't noticed the majority of teams aren't running more than 4 of anything anyway. ATM the only team this would affect is ritspike and ritspike is already on the block for it's own (very good) reasons. --Pork soldier 00:37, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to concur with Pork soldier here - this proposal doesn't solve nearly any existing problems and does add major limitations, not a good combination. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 00:39, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

First off, on the Ritualist Spike thing... sorry, but I have a little trouble feeling sorry for someone who got spiked because they didn't bother to move out of eight Spirit Rifts. lol

That's just one such gimmick team though, the Necro spirit spamming but could have been avoided as well as all that struggle and hassle and making Necromancers unusable for all that time while they tried to find a way to stop that gimmick. There might not be too many gimmick builds being used 'right now' that have a lot of one profession, but putting in such a limitation would not only prevent future gimmick builds like that from starting, but also prevent the revival of some of the old ones that are occasionally made re-plausible due to skill changes. It would also keep the soon-to-be nerf to the Ritualist from completely making channeling unplayable without a team of all Ritualists, to just a minor tweak.

As for this being a huge and limiting charge, how so? How does it limit anyone who is playing a balanced team? Can you name one balanced team that requires more than four of any one primary class? Seems like more reason to implement it to me. ~ J.Kougar 04:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, If I were rit spiking (no, I'm not) and you limited me to 4 rits per team I would switch to 4 rits and 4 N/Mo. I'd run bloodspike on the N/Mo with an Aegis chain and a lot of prot. IMO limiting to 4 people of a class solves nothing, what it does do is limit possibility and therefore fun. Rit spike FYI is less about spirit rift and more about Spirit Burn + Essence Strike. --Pork soldier 04:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I know, they're low damage skills that are only an issue when more than four people use them on you at once. Otherwise they are okay for instances like PvE, but any lower and they won't be. I just mentioned Spirit Rift because I've seen several people complain about Rit Spike because they got hit with all those orbs at once, and for that I don't feel sorry for them.  ;) It would be silly to nerf Spirit Rift at this point, but I bet you it ends up nerfed anyway.

Nevertheless, if someone were to run Rit Spike as you said you could/would, it would still be less effective than a full Blood or full Rit Spike, and far less powerful than eight of either... if it weren't, people would already be running it... and any limitation to the gimmicks is a good limitation, right?

I can't see how it would limit fun either, unless the only way you have fun is by running gimmicks... which you shouldn't be doing in the first place as it only results in the castration of more skills. What limits the fun of a lot more people is when more and more skills are taken out of play due to nerfs, and the choices for good skills is limited even further. Now that's a limitation that really hurts. ~ J.Kougar 07:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Did you consider that you could have four Rt/xx's and four xx/Rt's? The only difference your nerf would make is that a team cant have a 'gimmick' team relying on a primary attribute. Then what? Are you going to disallow having having more than 4 professions primary OR secondary? I doubt you will get support for that one, bub. Counciler 07:25, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Please go back and read the third paragraph of my argument for this change. I think you'll see that I've already explained that one and made suggestions concerning that possibility. Then you might also read any other part of this discussion that you skipped before you ask more silly questions.  ;) ~ J.Kougar 08:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

For the sake of anyone not familiar with it, this is a somewhat common position taken by players who know virtually nothing about PvP, and usually care even less, who believe that such a restriction will be a magic cure-all for imbalanced skills in PvP and thus will allow their pet skills to remain in their imbalanced state for their use in PvE. Discussing the subject is generally an exercise in failure; the best response is to stare blankly at the person spouting the position. -Ensign 10:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

For those not familiar with Ensign, he's been playing GW for a very long time but mistakenly believes that the amount of time he has played makes up for actual hands-on experience with the various classes and aspects of the game he's never dealt much with. He doesn't even play all the classes frequently, yet he is one of Izzy's 'chatt buddies' (or so he likes to flaunt) and this further seems to add to his superiority complex. He doesn't address issues and statements that he's unable to argue against and usually just tries to insult the poster or derail the conversation when he has nothing constructive to say about it. This is his normal behavior pattern on the fan site forums as well. The guy even thought that testing out Soul Reaping (when it was at it's most broken) on his Olias was an adequate test to see if it worked or not, and then deemed that it was perfectly fine because he believed that all players should have the computer reflexes to know the health of all enemies on the screen at any given time and be able to select one under 50% to use Signet of Lost Souls (a non-core skill BTW) on at any needed time. His credibility with a lot of folks for a lot of reasons, is sketchy at best and should he come in and attempt to derail your topics it's best to simply stare blankly at him and hope he goes away. I realize by posting this I'm likely to incur the wrath of all his friends for speaking against the all-knowing Ensign, but for the reasons stated above I really can't take his insult to heart and abandon an idea he has no actual and substantial reasons for disagreeing with, aside that perhaps he's only interested in playing in off-balanced teams? ~ J.Kougar 18:21, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

You are stepping close to violating GWW:NPA. Please, don't, neither of you. - anja 18:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Can we get moderators so this sort of irrelevant shit doesn't happen? :-/ — Skuld 18:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes please, I hate when a discussion gets dragged off-topic and then you are obligated to respond in kind to defend yourself and only further add to the issue. Please feel free to remove my response to him if you remove his comment, and no hard feelings will be had.  :) ~ J.Kougar 19:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll note that despite the attempt at character assassination you never attempted to refute to assertion. -Ensign 20:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh? I thought I had by discrediting your original argument as not being worth responding to, given it seemed rather baseless and completely incorrect. Since there was no truth or accuracy to your post, I didn't spend time trying to respond. Sorry. ~ J.Kougar 19:44, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of credibility, you don't have much either bub. Not after your Gaile Gray stunt. Welcome back anyways, though... I forgot to mention that. Counciler 01:45, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Just because I played the voice for many and brought to light a thread where many players, like myself, were voicing their concerns for the way Gaile Gray was doing her job, or rather not doing it... the only credibility issue I can see people having with me is the means in which I had to go about getting the attention of people who needed to see just what Gaile is and isn't doing. That's another entirely different subject though, not one that's at all been resolved... but not one for discussion here I don't think.  :)

Thanks though, it is a little less hassle for me to post here again since I don't have to keep swapping IPs every few posts like I was doing there for a couple weeks. ~ J.Kougar 19:44, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to state my argument against this simply: J.Kougar, your argument is essentially summed up in "why not?", to which my inevitable response is "why?". If it wouldn't really have much of an effect either way, I'd rather err on the side of fewer restrictions. If only to be able to enjoy the occasional fun of running 8 W/Mo's with mending and healing hands for kicks in between serious matches. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 11:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The only teams this can hurt are gimmick builds, and yes, perhaps this will limit the fun of gimmick builds 'on the side' for amusment, but doesn't playing such things for fun only end up encouraging more unbalanced team play? I know it's a limitation, but I still cannot see how this limitatiuon would ever hurt any balanced play. It's still going to be less limiting than more and more skills being taken out of play as time goes on . ~ J.Kougar 18:21, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

What previously overpowered skills have been rebalanced, but wouldn't have had to be rebalanced if this restriction had been in place? What skills that are currently considered imbalanced would become fair if this restriction were in place? Why should this suggestion be seen as anything other than an attempt to gloss over one of the primary indicators of imbalances in the hopes of keeping those imbalances in the game? -Ensign 20:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

That's quite a list you're asking for, but I'll attempt to compile it in the next few days. It'll take a bit of effort given the extensiveness of it, but it should be easy enough once I have time to sit down and work on it. Most of the research will probably initially be done by my fiance though, he's great at that sort of thing and laying out how the DPS of skills compare and whatnot and compiling skill data. Check back soon, I'll get that information for you. ~ J.Kougar 19:44, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll settle for one. -Ensign 22:11, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

That would really just dwarf the problem would it not? I offer up just one and you can easily argue against it, but if I provide multiple instances then it's a bit easier for everyone to see.  :) ~ J.Kougar 11:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

One is significantly more than the zero that you have provided to date. -Ensign 20:44, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

What's your rush? Sorry, I kinda prioritize playing the game over talking about it, and when my fiance isn't working I spend time with him, or he and I play... so I hadn't taken the time to go over skills yet, but apparently that worked to my advantage, as I can still point out skills like "Incoming!" that were nerfed to uselessness because of too many of the same profession on a team... but instead of pointing out some other skills like Signet of Mystic Wrath, Jagged Bones, and whatnot... I can just point to the newest nerf list and pretty much say to take your pick from the Ritualist skills. Most of the skills nerfed there were not overpowered, except when used by half a dozen or more Rits at once... so it's a prime example of when skills were nerfed because there was no limit on the number of any one profession on a team. Aegis could be yet another example. Regardless, I know people aren't willing to even try something that might help (as is seen from the folks who responded here, even though they are a poorly diversified group to get an adequate feel for the majority from) and that's fine. As I said many times, it was a suggestion... a good one in my opinion, and that will remain my opinion even if it never does get implemented... the only thing that can change my opinion is hard proof that it would somehow hurt balanced play, and I've yet to see that. Oh well, Que Sera Sera.  :) ~ J.Kougar 02:25, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

In addition to doing absolutely nothing to pvp spike builds this change would ruin a lot of B/P ranger's fun, that by itself is reason enough not to do it. Please consider the side-effects of your suggestion and be willing to engage in discussion rather than just demanding that everyone agree with you. --Pork soldier 20:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

So limiting it to no more than four of any primary using a skill with a 16 in that attribute on one target at once, would do "absolutely nothing" to the spikes? I'm more than willing to discuss why this is a good or bad idea, but so far the only reasons anyone has provided for why this should not be done, is because they support unbalanced teams or because they don't want it done or even want to try it... instead of actual reasons why not to. Sure, this cannot fix every problem, but it would have stopped a lot of them in the process, kept many skills from being made useless, and will prevent more teams of eight all exploiting another skill later. It's not a total fix, but I've yet to see any good arguments made yet as why not to limit this in order to prevent some exploits and make it easier to see what skills are actually unbalanced. If 4 people spike with something and kill the target there is a problem. If eight do the same thing, you can't tell much about the skill... only the team, which is obviously not balanced. ~ J.Kougar 19:44, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Even IF this uber-nerf were to happen, I still find it hard to believe this will magically stop all imbalanced teams from sprouting up in the future. I'm sorry to say, but this is a bad idea. You put a lot of thought into this, yes. You wrote many paragraphs on it, congratulations; but the concept is flawed. The reason for such a nerf appears (from what I read) to be preventing 'gimmick' builds (which you imply is defined by too many of one class) or to prevent PvP imbalance. I don't see how this idea would even accomplish the second one. People will ALWAYS find new loopholes in the game and exploit them. Especially the tactically sound PvPers. Furthermore, if this nerf cannot balance the PvP metagame as intended, what is the point of posing so many restrictions in the first place? Like I said, I just don't see this working. Counciler 01:47, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I never said it would magically stop them all, but it would make quite a few of them implausible and would have stopped a lot of nerfs in the past had it been in place. It's not a total fix, no, but it can help... and so far, the only hindrance anyone has been able to point out, is to the unbalanced teams that do still get played (be it for fun, farming, or whatnot). The skill nerfs are just a Band-Aid on the problem a lot of the time, and often a lot of good skills are made totally unless. With this limitation in place to stop some of the exploits it can only lead to a few less nerfs in the future, right? ~ J.Kougar 19:44, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The goal is to balance the game, not put a band-aid on the situation and say "All done." Izzy's stance has been made clear in previous postings elsewhere, and there's been entirely relevant argument against the OP's suggestion. This does nothing to balance the true problem - the abused skills/mechanics themselves. --Tensei 14:46, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The only Band-Aid fixes seem to be the destruction of skills to prevent them from being used instead of limiting the teams using them. There may have been discussions about how this would not work, as you claimed there have been, but I've not seen any of them and so far the only reasons people have given here... have been that it'll ruin the fun of people who want to play unbalanced teams, or they just don't like the idea and thus aren't willing to see it tried out, even for a weekend. If you can provide links to any of the 'relevant' reasons to why this option is bad, please do. I'm very curious. After all, it's been two years of skill balances but the game is still unbalanced, don't you think that means it's time to try something else? You cannot balance a still for use by a team of eight, and still have it viable for a single user. ~ J.Kougar 19:44, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I think what we are trying to say, J, is that we agree that the skill nerfs are annoying to a lot of people, and that it does not fix the long term problem. HOWEVER, your idea does not fix the problem either; in addition there is a high chance that it would ALSO be annoying. I don't see how this would be much different, go from one annoying nerf type to another; STILL not fixing the problem. If its not a total fix no... but it can help, I don't see how its all the different from the non-total-fix-but-helpful skill nerfs as far as effectiveness. It's just not worth the effort. While we are on the subject of links, and seeing as how you have no qualms with being the one who played the voice for many, why not do it again and inform us about how the community views your idea? Like... for example, do you have a Guru or GWOnline thread working on it? If so please do present the links to us. Counciler 22:33, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I didn't bring it up on Guru because most of the time I cannot access the forums. They either won't load, time out after I get to them, or give an error message... sure, it's always been that way... but lately it's been thrice as bad as ever, and I've pretty much given up even trying. I used to use the auction portion of the site all the time too, but now it's as bad or worse than the forums. I have a bloody 12000+ kb/s Internet connection and I cannot get the majority of the site to load anything in under ten minutes.  :( ~ J.Kougar 11:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The burden of proof is not on us to explain why a new idea or rule is unnecessary or just plain bad (though unnecessary rules are inherently bad). The burden is upon *you*, to show why this rule is needed, what problems it solves and why its addition would be beneficial to the game. You need to show us what skills or abilities are breaking when used by 5 or more players on the same team, but only then - skills that are perfectly fair and balanced otherwise. -Ensign 22:48, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, I don't see how it is our place to prove YOU wrong. In near any scientific community, the one with the theory is the one who must work to prove himself right. I think, but I'm not sure, that goes for debates too. At any rate, I can't imagine there are very many skills that fit Ensign's criteria (and thus would be 'fixed' by your nerf while not overnerfed). Good luck trying to see this idea through. Like I said in the beginning.... its a flawed concept. Counciler 23:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm only so eager to see proof that it won't work because the current system doesn't work and this option has never been tried and tested to see if it could be helpful. It's nowhere near as limiting as the current system where countless skill balances that result in the total annihilation of skills and make them no longer playable or desirable to be played with, isn't an effective or appealing tactic. You cannot effectively balance a skill for use by eight people at once, and still have it viable for a single user. If the skills cannot be balanced to work for both scenarios, then I suggest limiting the number of people on a team that can use that skill, as balancing around four would be much easier and would likely result in less skills being removed from play. That's my idea, I posted it here in hopes that perhaps Izzy would take a moment to give me feedback on it, but thus far I've only gotten responses from folks who are only concerned with protecting the playability of imbalanced teams. You may not agree with me, but I cannot change how I feel and until someone offers up a better solution as to how to balance skills without destroying them, so I'll have to stand by this idea until it's tried and tested (which may never happen but at least I tried to put the idea out there). ~ J.Kougar 11:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

On a completely separate note, I do like the idea of having attributes above 12 reward a player more when it comes to the skills. Counciler 22:36, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Yea, that seemed to have gotten overlooked by most everyone, but as was made obvious from many of the responses I got, very few people read all three of my initial paragraphs. I've thought for a while though that it would just make more sense for a primary class to be able to get higher benefits from that class's skills than someone with that class as only a secondary, and thus scaling things up more drastically after 12 would be greatly beneficial. ~ J.Kougar 11:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Kougar, I have to agree with the other posters here. This idea looks like another annoyance that doesn't fix the core problem (skill imbalance) but rather tries to smooth over and hide broken skills. Yes, game balance with this many skills is hard, no, it's not impossible. I'm a bit bothered by your assertion that we should disprove you because you're obviously right when in reality there are valid criticisms of your idea. Having people disagree with your idea isn't bad, it just means that there might be a better way to balance the game than this particular limitation. This suggestion doesn't fix any existing problem and imposes a new and arbitrary limitation on players, in short it's just not a good idea. --Tankity Tank 01:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Well put, Tankity. Counciler 02:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm only so eager to see proof that it won't work because the current system doesn't work and this option has never been tried and tested to see if it could be helpful. It's nowhere near as limiting as the current system where countless skill balances that result in the total annihilation of skills and make them no longer playable or desirable to be played with, isn't an effective or appealing tactic. You cannot effectively balance a skill for use by eight people at once, and still have it viable for a single user. If the skills cannot be balanced to work for both scenarios, then I suggest limiting the number of people on a team that can use that skill, as balancing around four would be much easier and would likely result in less skills being removed from play. That's my idea, I posted it here in hopes that perhaps Izzy would take a moment to give me feedback on it, but thus far I've only gotten responses from folks who are only concerned with protecting the playability of imbalanced teams. You may not agree with me, but I cannot change how I feel and until someone offers up a better solution as to how to balance skills without destroying them, so I'll have to stand by this idea until it's tried and tested (which may never happen but at least I tried to put the idea out there). ~ J.Kougar 11:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll have to agree with every1 saying this is a bad idea. It's not like it's new either, the same thing was suggested time and time again, and never adopted for many reasons, the main being that it adds limitations (that's never good unless absolutely necessary) without actually fixing the real issues. And it also stops potentially builds that wouldn't necessarily be a gimmick that would want to use 5 of the same class. For example a pressure build with 2 Thumpers, 2 Interrupt/conditions ranger and a NR/Tranq Trapper (not necessarily a great build, but just an example). That's 5 Rangers, but they're not all 5 doing the same thing, they just all happen to be Rangers. But really, all in all, it's limitative without fixing real issues, and that combination is very bad. Until you can prove that either one of those aren't true (and i doubt you can prove that it's not limitative!), there's just no need to try convincing any1. Patccmoi 17:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

How is removing more and more skills from play not limiting? There are only so many skills to choose from, and with half of them not being practical to begin with, and the decent ones being removed from play... it won't be long before every profession has just eight skills that they can use and everyone will be using the exact same thing (which I guess will bring about the balance that people seem to desire)... and it'll be more limiting than a slight inconvenience to some unbalanced teams that are currently running builds that only work with a half-dozen or more of one class. After all, countless skill balances that result in the total annihilation of skills and make them no longer playable or desirable to be played with, isn't an effective or appealing tactic. You cannot effectively balance a skill for use by eight people at once, and still have it viable for a single user. If the skills cannot be balanced to work for both scenarios, then I suggest limiting the number of people on a team that can use that skill, as balancing around four would be much easier and would likely result in less skills being removed from play. That's my idea, I posted it here in hopes that perhaps Izzy would take a moment to give me feedback on it, but thus far I've only gotten responses from folks who are only concerned with protecting the playability of imbalanced teams. You may not agree with me, but I cannot change how I feel and until someone offers up a better solution as to how to balance skills without destroying them, so I'll have to stand by this idea until it's tried and tested (which may never happen but at least I tried to put the idea out there). ~ J.Kougar 11:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Kougar, when everyone, including many well-respected and talented members of the PvP community, is saying that you're wrong. Then you're probably wrong. I don't need to list reasons, as everyone else has already. --221.237.31.80 03:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

It's been my personal experience in the last two years, that few PvP players deserve any more respect than the hard-core PvE players (many deserve much, much less) so I don't think that just because a few folks from one side of the equation (the side that doesn't bring near as much money to the game as the other) has the right to be the total voice for the entire game... but that aside, the real heart of the matter is that countless skill balances that result in the total annihilation of skills and make them no longer playable or desirable to be played with, isn't an effective or appealing tactic. You cannot effectively balance a skill for use by eight people at once, and still have it viable for a single user. If the skills cannot be balanced to work for both scenarios, then I suggest limiting the number of people on a team that can use that skill, as balancing around four would be much easier and would likely result in less skills being removed from play. That's my idea, I posted it here in hopes that perhaps Izzy would take a moment to give me feedback on it, but thus far I've only gotten responses from folks who are only concerned with protecting the playability of imbalanced teams. You may not agree with me, but I cannot change how I feel and until someone offers up a better solution as to how to balance skills without destroying them, so I'll have to stand by this idea until it's tried and tested (which may never happen but at least I tried to put the idea out there). ~ J.Kougar 11:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Flaw with your logic: you assume that limiting numbers of classes in a team will eliminate a need to nerf skills. Simply put, it won't. Can you give me an example of a skill that's broken with 5 of it in a team, but not broken with 4 of it? (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 22:37, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Kougar, having primary class restrictions will not solve anything...also it's a completely stupid idea. Caster spikes will replace 3 spikers with other profession spikers. Whoop-dee-doo. What if your team wants 3 backline monks, 2 monk smiters, and 3 melee? Is that not a legit build? The fact of the matter is that it's the SKILLS that are imbalanced, not the number of people you can bring. Shard 21:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Legit? Maybe, but far from balanced... so no loss there.  :) The fact that a slew of Ritualist skills were just nerfed to the point of death today, because of teams of eight Ritualists using what were not otherwise over-powered skills, kinda goes against the points that such a limitation as I proposed would help, as in this case, it obviously would have.  :) ~ J.Kougar 02:25, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, Kougar, as was said before; your argument is simply summed up in why not?. Well that doesn't work. You say why not, we say because it wont stop the imbalanced spiker teams (Spiker professions of different types instead of one type), it will prevent many legit legit teams (3 backline monks, 2 smiters, and 3 melee for example) and furthermore, because it does NOT ADDRESS THE IMBALANCED SKILLS ISSUE. WE have read your posts, try reading ours. If all you can come up with is a why not defense, why should we go through further burden of trying to prove you wrong? Izzy isn't going to use it until you can prove to him that it will work as intended, doing more good than harm. You can sit here and copy/paste your paragraphs all month long, but eventually its going to be archived and forgotten. So either buck up and come up with a few more reasons why your idea works, or forget about it being used in the future. Because as it stands now, all the posts I have seen have pointed at a "No" consensus, excepting yours. IN ADDITION, consider this, there are idiotic and respectable people in similar ratios between BOTH PvE and PvE. It is just as true that few [regular] PvE players deserve any more respect than the hard-core PvP players as it is that "few [regular] PvP players deserve any more respect than the hard-core PvE players". I am a PvE ANd PvP player, myself. In my two years of gaming, I have seen both sides of the intelligence scale in both game-styles. Yes, you get more screaming 12 year olds in PvP than you do in PvE. Why? It's not because there are more in PvP than PvE, its because your on the same team as them in PvE and killing them in PvP. How often do YOU yell at Shiro in PvE for spiking you? But I digress.... I've gone off topic enough already.

ADDED: Oh, and as for the Test Weekend idea, the thing about giving Izzy reason to do it beyond why not stands here too. It is a lot of work to hold a test weekend like that, changing a lot of game mechanics. Especially with EOTN coming out in 23 days. They have too much to do as it is to be bothered with something that, so far, does not show much potential. Counciler 06:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

You really can't accept that there is insignificant proof to get me to accept that this would not be beneficial in game, can you? My last responses, though somewhat generic, were more of less to say 'fine, that's your opinion and this is mine' but you don't seem to want to let it be.

The fact that a slew of Ritualist skills were just nerfed to the point of death today, because of teams of eight Ritualists using what were not otherwise over-powered skills, kinda goes against the points that such a limitation as I proposed would help, as in this case, it obviously would have.  :) still, as I've said many times, it's just a suggestion I made and all I can do is make it, if people aren't willing to try then there is nothing more I can do. Thanks for your time, yada yada yada.  :) ~ J.Kougar 02:25, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

And you can't accept that in the end, it really matters very little what you accept or don't accept. You're welcome to believe that ArenaNet should run around and hold test weekends for every willy-nilly idea that comes along, but we're also welcome to say why we think that's a Very Bad Idea^TM. There are many, many ideas that come along, and most of them don't get tested. The burden of proof is on the one suggesting the idea to convince ArenaNet and Izzy that something should be tested, not to others to convince them it shouldn't be - because the "default state" for ideas is not testing them, there's simply not enough time, resources, nor reason to.

So since you've still yet to answer it, I'll ask again: can you give me an example of a skill thats imbalanced with 5 or more people using it, but not imbalanced with 4? (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 04:00, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, missed your post above or would have replied. 5 vs. 4 is going to of course be less significant than 8 vs. 4. The problem comes from teams of 8 using a skill, for the most part, and while I personally don't think it should be more than 3 of any one primary profession on a team, I said 4 because I knew people would resist giving up their unbalanced teams and gimmick builds as is, and I thought that saying 4 instead of 3 might soften the blow. Unfortunately, I've only gotten responses from people who fancy themselves elite PvP players and who don't like change and aren't at all concerned with the side effects of all this PvP skill balancing on PvE, where more powerful skills are needed because you end up fighting things up to ten levels higher than you, with attributes far higher than you can ever attain, and with mostly balanced teams with a couple monks, maybe a warrior or two, an ele or two, maybe some rangers or mesmers, etc. Having a damage Rit on your team in PvE was a nifty thing, but now they've been made useless thanks to the last nerf that was brought on because of PvP teams of 8 abusing the skills... something not possible if balanced teams were forced and gimmick builds crippled. You claimed my logic was flawed, but how can you explain what just happened to the Rit skills because of teams of 8 of one profession was allowed? You can try to bend it any way you want, but the fact that skills keep getting destroyed because teams are not limited, is more than obvious. ~ J.Kougar 04:44, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

If your proposed change had been implemented, I can guarantee you'd see a variant of ritspike with 4 rits, and then 4 characters that synnergized well with them (say, necros). You say it's mostly a problem of 8 people running something, but how is it less of a problem if only 7 people run it? It's not so much that having 8 people running it makes it exponentially powerful: it's 8x as powerful as one person running it, and if that 1 person is running something overpowered, than of course it's going to be overpowered as well if 8 people run it, certainly - although it's definitely more noticeable if 8 people run it. PvP teams optimize for success, thus, if it's overpowered as a single individual, you can bet they'll run as many of them as they feasibly can. So, moving back to my question: if 8 people is overpowered, is 7? How about 6? 5? Where do you draw the line? Can you draw it in the exact same spot for every skill? What makes it so that such is the precise breakpoint? What makes a skill overpowered with 8 people running it, and not 1? Noticeably overpowered and subtly overpowered are still both overpowered. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 04:57, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but if it had been 4 Rits and 4 Necros or such, then neither the Rits nor Necros would be over-powered, would they?  ;) They'd not had to ruin the class for PvE and severally cripple it in PvP.  :) ~ J.Kougar 20:16, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Allow me to start by saying that I understand that you do not 'accept' that there is 'insignificant proof to get you to accept that this would not be beneficial in game'. But know that honestly, nobody cares. We have said time and time again, its not our place to prove your point wrong. It is yours to prove it right. There is also something I noticed that I'm not sure if you have attempted to address yet. Someone mentioned the possibility of just mixing two spike teams half and half. Lets roll back a bit to where the rit spike still worked. Lets have a half sized team of rit spike and a half sized team of some other spike. Is this not still a spike team? Is this not still a 'gimmick build', as you say? Or is your definition based solely on profession difference ratios instead of being over-effective? As I said before, it is still possible EVEN WITH YOUR NERF to make a gimmick build. However it does limit possibilities to create balanced builds to some extent. If it is only partially effective in it's chosen objective as a nerf, and it impedes on balanced builds it supposedly is there to encourage; how is this a viable option for even considering using? If they are going to spend the time and effort implementing this idea, should it not be at LEAST totally effective in it's goal? In fact.... that may be the problem here. In a skill nerf, the goal is simple and within reach: Prevent <skill> from being used <in such a way>. Your nerf has the lofty goal of preventing all gimmick builds whilst encouraging balanced builds. It seems a bit too complex.

By the way, nobody here has claimed to be an elite PvP player, nor have they said they don't care about the PvE effect of nerfs. Of course we notice and care about them! Also, its not too bright to suggest that we don't like change when our posts can be found all over Izzy's talk page suggesting changes. Counciler 09:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

"But know that honestly, nobody cares." you must, you keep posting. lol  ;) Nah, I won't give you a hard time after chatting with you in game. ~ J.Kougar 20:16, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

This (useless) thread is >42kb, would someone mind archiving it? --Tankity Tank 13:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Jealous?  ;) ~ J.Kougar 20:16, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

It's still active, Tankity - discussion threads aren't archived in part, they're only archived in whole when inactive. However, if Izzy wished to (or if someone got his permission) this could be moved to a subpage. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 16:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Atually I don't mind, it can be archived any time. Heck, if Izzy had taken two minutes out of his day to give me a yay or nay from him, this would have died out long ago. Still, if everyone else is ready to let it die, so am I.  :) ~ J.Kougar 20:16, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Hero Battles

I've been playing this PvP gametype for a while now, and the stale metagame has been drawing more and more people away from this arena. The problem with this type of play however, can not be solved by a simple skill balance...or can it? Does the proposed Assasin nerf have anything to do with their overuse in HvH? In addition, will brutal weapon be touched in order to draw players away from using the ever-popular Razah?Snype 15:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Just for you're information...i don't run Brutal on my razah =P and i know a lot of other people that don't either. So on that not nerfing brutal wouldn't remove razah at all. --ChronicinabilitY 05:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict :)HB needs more win conditions. As it is, it is a run-a-thon. If you don't run around capping shrines, you lose. If you run around solo, you are easy prey for an assassin, if you run around with your whole team, they cap faster than you and win. Would help a little if there was random map types thrown in. Keep the capping fest, add in some annihilation, or even some defend/assault things. Like where Team A has to defend NPC, Team B has to kill NPC. Granted, overly defensive teams would win if they rolled a defend, but they would lose with assault. I don't know, but the run-fest that it is now is just crap. --Deathwing 05:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

That would be a good idea. Just make sure to keep anything with flags and whatnot out of HB, unless you plan to give Heros a way to carry stuff. I would personally start playing HB if there were more game types then simple "cap faster" strategy. I simply gave up on HB once I got bored of the shrine idea (which was about five games after I started playing). That one map in RA, with the resurrection Priest? Games come down to how quickly you can kill that priest + wipe out the foe's team. Note that nowhere in that plan is there a "sit back and defend until you win due to having more points" strategy... random maps with alternating strategies would encourage real, balanced teams... you really just need a single map that messes up the generic HB team, enough to make it a free win for another type of team. People might just stop using the generic team type if they lose every game on a particular map. -- Jioruji Derako.> 07:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I've despised Hero Battles ever since they changed it. It promotes running and tanking now, so it's more crappy than ever.

What was so bad with the old format? It promoted micromanaging your heroes, which could be regarded as skill. Holding the middle shrine was the only way to obtain points (other than killing your opponent), but if your opponent fetched the mercenary from a shrine, your camping tactic would fail, so putting your heroes in the right spot at the right time, was vital. The only broken map in the old format was Bombardment, since there was no npc shrine there; if someone brought Razah, you might as well /resign. As HB's are right now, all maps are crap, boring, and promote running, and not worth the attention and effort it's getting from the devs. Saph 09:44, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Improving Hero Battles

While we discussed the problems with Hero Battles a couple of times already, we should also discuss ways to (try and) fix those problems. Here's a couple of ideas I had in mind to improve the current format:

• balance assassins so that they're a bit less absurd when it comes to shadow stepping over the map with SP (see maps like "The Crossing") and destroying ~80 armor and +600 health targets in a matter of seconds,
• remove Recall from the game (which is not going to happen, I know...),
• change the morale rate gain to 1/120 or 1/150 of a bar per second instead of 1/107 (further discourage random shrine running),
• cap the maximum morale meter gain to 3 pips (discourage capping the shrines just for the morale gain).
• swap the Mercenary Shrine with the Battlecry Shrine on "The Crossing" or redesign the map so that Shadow Prison/Recall isn't as broken as it is now,
• drastically lower the solo capping rate or remove the ability to solo cap shrines altogether to encourage 2-2 splits, allowing for more options when creating your heroes (what that effectively means is that you don't have to bring self heals on every hero and turn them into a tank since they can always be supported by at least one other hero. This will give you more options to work with, and skills like Draw Conditions and Expel Hexes could finally find a place on their skillbar),
• the Cannon Shrine shouldn't stack with "To the Pain" and hit for 110 damage, the damage is too much already and destroys single monk teams while a more defensive Rt + Mo or 2 Mo team can camp the Central Shrine longer.
• fix the AI problems (skill activation delay, heroes ignoring flags completely when they want to use a skill on their opponent, heroes walking to flags that have already been removed, heroes walking out of shrine capping range despite being flagged, heroes following you when you're kiting despite being flagged and specifically set to a target, skills used incorrectly or not at all like ZB, Holy Veil, Vital Weapon, Weapon of Warding, Mending Touch, Inspired Hex,...)

I'm not a big fan of the idea to add random alternating objectives. In the end people will bring the build that works the best for all objectives and that's simply the same build they're running now. Any build designed for annihilation is going to fail horribly on a shrine map, while the current assassin builds are perfectly capable of 4v4 battles. Thoughts? --Draikin 15:41, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you need to rewrite the game to fix it. Here's what I would start with:

• One morale pip is a point every 300 seconds (five minutes). Morale should be a tiebreaker, not the game. Then buff the shrines so that you really want them to win anyway:
• Center shrine: "While you hold this shrine, your party deals 15% more damage".
• Health shrine: add "reduces condition duration on your party by 25%" (stacks)
• Mending shrine: +5 health regeneration
• Battlecry shrine: Move, attack, activate, and recharge skills 15% faster
• Cultist shrine: Cultist gets Shadow Strike
• Siege Cannon shrine: targets one random foe anywhere on the map
• "The Crossing": Add a gate in the passages between the spawn points and the upper level, controlled by a pressure plate next to it on both sides. This prevents shadow stepping from the lower level to the higher level (unless the gate was just opened). In theory by doing it as an adjacent pressure plate the hero AI won't require any work because they'll run up to it, get stuck temporarily on the pressure plate, then the gate will open and they'll continue on.
• Recall: "This Enchantment ends prematurely with no effect if your Health drops below 50%". Alternatively, have that effect when stripped (or any trigger, really, anything reasonable is fine, it's having one at all that matters)

--Mysterial 21:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok so i like a lot of the suggestions but then when you think them through fully there seem to be a lot of flaws. Please don't for one minute think that i am trying to defend the current system as it is quite obviously terribly broken, and NEEDS fixing. However:

• Firstly don't change recall, it's been nerfed once and that lost most of its use, nerfing it to end at 50%...what would be the point? The entire point of the skill is to get out of a bad situation, it just seems to have found it's place where it is very powerfull in Hero Battles, but a Nerf could potentially kill it.
• Adding stronger effects to the shrine would make it a race to the most effective shrine and basically camp it, especially if the other team couldn't get points by capping other shrines.
• Winning by capping shrines is actually not a bad thing at all. Don't reduce the rate at which you gain morale as it encourages intelligent play. A good player can outplay a build that should technically beat his by good better Hero management, and after all it IS Hero Battles.
• Balancing Assassin's is very difficult, especially since they aren't overly IMBA in any other game area. And if they can't solo spike targets then as a class they become useless and everyone will run something that does the job better. However i feel that with a change to the Hero AI assassin's may cease to be the best choice and i will explain why:...

With the current AI the hero's use some skills exceptionally well! (SoA,RoF,Deny Hexes,Hexbreaker,any sort of interrupt,etc...) However other's are used terribly if at all as has been pointed out above. A hero is much better at playing a healing/prot character than a damage dealer. They can't make decisions, but they can react to things. Someone taking a lot of damage = Prot + Heal, simple. Because of this having heros that are primarily healers is the best use of them, which then leaves the human to deal the damage, and the best way to do that is without doubt an assassin (as it should be).

Now if the hero's could be changed to a much better AI and knowledge of skills and their own skill bar, then there would be more options. Maybe allowing for humans to have more control over the hero's. As it is you want a hero to use 2 skills you micro the first, and if you micro the second they will cancel the first in order to do the second, this is not the same as how we play our characters and it is very limiting. I think that if there was a lot more detail in how you could order you're heros rather than just "Go Here" "Attack This" and "Use This Skill Now" then there would be many more options and lead to a lot more variety. Being able to tell Hero's before the matches which skills should be prioritised, under what circumstances to use which skills, and ordering them to do things like build up all their adrenaline before using any adrenaline skills. I understand that this would take a lot of programming and time and effort but i feel the Hero Battles need it, otherwise the situation will never change, as it is the best use of hero's is to have them play defensive/healing/holding characters where they simply react to the health bars, which then requires the human to deal as much damage as possible. Therefore we have everyone running sins. If you nerf assassin's so much that they arem't the best source of damage the meta will change, but everyone will simply move to what IS the best source of damage. The short fix to seemingly keep people happy is to nerf assassin's because it would change the meta...but it won't add more variety.--ChronicinabilitY 02:43, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Let me clarify why I think Recall should simply be removed from the game. You say it's a skill that gets you out of a bad situation and basically that's true. The skill not only allows you to make moves which your opponent simply can't counter, it also allows you to make mistakes without being punished for it. For example on the Beachhead, you can cap the Central shrine with a Mo/A at the start and still keep the Mercenary shrine neutral by canceling recall to shadowstep back to your team. The opponent can have all the enchantment removal in the world but he can't counter this strategy without losing either the Central Shrine or the Mercenary Shrine. You're just going to sit at the Mercenary Shrine and beat on a 2 monk team for several minutes while they gain points from the Central Shrine. Fun? I think not. Secondly, assassins can use Recall to overextend without their monk. Currently one player in the top 5 uses this strategy to anchor himself to his 2 monk team which stalls the opponent at one shrine while he overextends and spikes a hero at another shrine. If he gets into trouble he can just cancel Recall and get back to his 2 monks. The other assassin without Recall can't split without his monk or he will risk getting killed. The only actual counter to those builds is to kill them, plain and simple. If you play along and try to cap shrines then you'll simply lose. Perhaps people will realize how bad this skill is for the game once SP sins are nerfed and they can't simply overpower those 2 Mo/A teams anymore. There's a very good reason why most non-assassin players use an assassin secondary in HB... There's nothing fun in chasing monks around the map for ten minutes only to end up losing without even getting killed once yourself.

- "Adding stronger effects to the shrine would make it a race to the most effective shrine and basically camp it, especially if the other team couldn't get points by capping other shrines.

Agreed. If there was no morale meter I'd just rush the Battlecry shrine and never look back.

- "Winning by capping shrines is actually not a bad thing at all. Don't reduce the rate at which you gain morale as it encourages intelligent play."

There's nothing wrong with splitting your team after your monk goes down to try and recover while using the shrines to get points. On the other hand when an opponent makes you run a marathon from start to finish then I do see shrine capping as a bad thing. Further reducing the points gained from shrines would discourage strategies like this and encourage "aggressive" gameplay. You want the player to think "I'll try to cap Battlecry Shrine so I can go for a counterattack" instead of thinking "So what if they score a kill, I'll cap shrine #3 and get another pip for the morale meter ftw".

- "And if they can't solo spike targets then as a class they become useless and everyone will run something that does the job better."

Then it's about time other assassin skills are buffed so that assassins aren't stuck having to accomplish such a simplistic job. As long as everyone wants them to do nothing more than "go in, spike, get out" then they're always going to be either overpowered or useless. You can't balance around that, you either spike and kill your target or you spike and fail. Assassins can be given more potential than that. Look at a Moebius-Death Blossom sin: he can't single spike a target, but he can pressure a target and repeat his combo more often (meaning he can switch targets more often) and even function as a linebacker. An SP sin goes "12345678" every 20 seconds and is a useless addition to the team in between spikes.

- "If you nerf assassin's so much that they arem't the best source of damage the meta will change, but everyone will simply move to what IS the best source of damage.".

I agree, that's exactly why I wanted to discuss other improvements. However, it's quite possible that after SP sins are nerfed there is no "best build" anymore (for example the two builds that are just below SP sins in HB are Devastating Hammer warriors and Moebius sins, but can you really say one of them is better than the other?).--Draikin 15:26, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I Don't want to say much because i generally agree with everything you have written, (as you did agree with me) I think we just have different things we want to change in order to add variety. You'd like more variety on the human side and i'd like more on the hero side. TBH getting both would be excellent but i think either one would be a huge step forward.

And not to put you down at all but in regards to how you view assassin's i feel i should quote Izzy so you're not too disappointed, "In the end the assassins job is to get in spike their little heart out, and get out. This is not going to change, this is their job it's what they do! From Here --ChronicinabilitY 02:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Being able to switch to your heroes and control them up front Anti Oath 23:02, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions, Improving Hero Battles is on my task list, I have some ideas I'll post up once they get a little more formalized, it's a hard problem to solve. A game within a game has a lot of limitations. ~Izzy @-'---- 05:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Why did you change Hero Battles in the first place? It was fine imo, when only 1 shrine gave you points, and the others just gave you bonusses. In fact, the only broken map then was Bombardment, since it was the only map that didn't have an NPC shrine. On all the other maps, running was pointless due to the nature of earning points, and camping the main shrine wouldn't work (mostly done with Razah) properly since you could easily fetch the Mercenary to get an edge in capping. You actually *battled* for the win, making split tactics effective, as well as timing your kills to get an edge in capping that one point. As HB's are right now, there just isn't a real 'fighting' area. People run from shrine to shrine and occasionally get spiked or try to hold a shrine... then abandon it when they can't hold, only to run off to another shrine that needs to be capped. Saph 20:37, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, although the original Hero Battles wasn't optimal I think it's far easier to tweak based off of that than it is to change the current version of Hero Battles. I didn't understand the major problems with the original Hero Battles except for the spirit spam build, and that was a problem because of SR abuse (basically gone now) and SP spike (somewhat balanced now). skaspaakssa 03:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)