User talk:Isaiah Cartwright/Overpowered Skills/General/Archive 4

Passive Defense

Skills like Aegis,Shields up,Ward Against Melee and the Blinding Surge spam. (This is for Norad because he is even more noob then I am at Wiki. ~Izzy @-'---- 18:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't most of the Paragon's Motivation skills fall under this category? : ( Erasculio 18:40, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I think Wards either need shorter durations or perhaps a 2 second cast to make them more interruptible like Defensive Anthem. I would also include Soldier's Defense. Soldier's Defense needs a longer recharge (20-25) seconds, more in-line with Return/Dark Escape. It is far too abusable with Paragons. Blinding Surge(Flash) is somewhat of a necessary evil at this point (given conjure wars, dervishes), though maybe a slightly longer recharge of a second or two. --Black mischief 18:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll second Black's suggestions. Wards should get either a duration or recharge hit to break up their near 100% uptime (a 2 second cast time would rock their utility too hard, I think). A couple more seconds on the blind recharges would be a good idea as well, you can't even try to keep up with it as is. I think Soldier's Defense would be fair if it has the same recharge as the other stances, 15s, anything more and it'd be useless. Also, I'll add that I think Aegis needs to have the block percentage scale with Protection Prayers. I'm ok with where that skill is balance-wise when used on Monks but I don't like the super-Aegis off-Monk at all. Defensive Anthem and "Shields Up!" aren't problems anymore, the only defensive skills I'd look at for Paragons are the Finales and maybe Chorus of Restoration for being so ridiculous in Paraway builds. -Ensign 19:32, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess some of the problem I see is just fighting feels sluggish, and it's irrating to be blocked, and blinded, it makes for slower games with less killing and movement, when it's active defensive, which I think blinding Surge is more active then passive, you can put effort on shutting that character down, but when it's more passive, it becomes this web of defense that I feel is bad for the game, I don't know it's a complex problem that I've been working on a lot, I don't think there is any simple answer, as there are a lot of skills that fall into this category, but I do feel these type of skills really slow down the game, and I think that is a bad thing. Ward vs Melee is not as bad because AOE and movement is more of an Issue and it doesn't effect Ranged, Aegis is more of the issue IMO, could reduce it to 33% block or make it 50% on Ranged, and 25% on Melee, or the other way around, but even then there are plenty of other skills that do the same job, I think it's more of an overarching problem, as the passive abilities are outshinging the active ones, and I think it's a matter of buffing active so they are viable, while nerfing passive, which is a tricky thing to do at once. ~Izzy @-'---- 19:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I think bsurge/flash are fine the way they are. (I play Warrior btw) If I get blinded and it stays on, my Monks/Midline aren't doing their job. Miss hexes and Aegis are pretty awful though. The problem with Aegis is that it's a passive skill that you have to use active skills to counter; they don't need skill to use it, but you need skill to beat them. Wards aren't a problem at all right now, imo. One Fire ele can make Wards totally useless, if not a liability. I think the only problem with wards is the lack of good AoE damage characters. Fire eles don't have enough utility and you really just don't have room for a pure damage caster on a balanced team if you want any flexibility at all... And at the end of the day, the fire ele isn't necessary for beating a team with Wards. --TimeToGetIntense 20:40, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: Soldier's Defense. I look at Soldier's Defense/Dark Escape/Disciplined Stance as prot skills which happen to be in a stance form (which is really quite nice, because they are only removable with wild blow/throw). A monk can usually save himself from an entire spike with only Dark Escape. How long should the recharge on that sort of skill be? I think at least 20 seconds. If Soldier's Defense is going to have 75% chance to block, it should be roughly a 20-25 second recharge, or reduced to a 50% chance to block (or a % block that scales with tactics). Either would balance it more in-line with what Natural Stride provides. I would think Disciplined Stance needs a minor nerf (% to miss scaling with tactics), as well. I would rather see adren spikes stopped with BSurge/Prot Spirit, than difficult to remove/low spec requiring stances. These stance skills only end up requiring less positioning effort from soft armour characters when the recharge is too low. Often, they also demand you run a Melandru Derv who spams Wild Blow all game. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Black mischief (talk • contribs) 03:30, 19 July 2007 (UTC).

Can't disagree with that, though all of the Warrior stances will need the higher recharge. -Ensign 06:03, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's anything wrong with those stances. They only function well against spikes due to their short duration. They have such a large window during recharge. Well, Soldier's Defense could use a tiny recharge nerf. I'd say put it at 12 seconds. --TimeToGetIntense 10:45, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Personally i've been supporting the range route for a little while. Lower Aegis to 'Earshot' AOE, and maybe even make block scale with attribute. This way you'd want monks to cast it, and they couldn't run all that far in the back to do it either if they want a chance to cover all your midline and possibly frontline. When it's used out of interrupt range or forcing your interrupters in very dangerous positions, it's quite a problem. And with the 40% FC sets, i see 1s Aegis go up all the time which aren't THAT easy to interrupt if you're expecting them to go up in 2s. Eles with GoLE even fake cast it if they're in range to screw you up. Limiting range to earshot would make interrupts more meaningful, and possibly not allow them to easily cover their frontline with it either, leaving targets to pressure/build adrenal on even if it wouldn't be your first choice. But having something like Aegis expiring after it blocks say 1..3..4 attacks could be an interesting way to do it too. You'd need 13 Prot for 4 attacks, so only prot monks could do that, and Eles that aren't 12 prot would only give 2 blocks to others so it becomes much less interesting on /Mos in general Patccmoi 00:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC).

Here's a good idea. Cap blocking and miss both at 50%. --TimeToGetIntense 23:04, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I made a thread suggesting that a while ago and guru, and while many people said that it wouldn't effectively change much, i really agree with this. It might not settle all the problem, but it'd help! Patccmoi 23:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually i think Izzy did a pretty good job concerning passive defense (at least the one i usually fight against):

• Aegis is fine. (See section below.)
• Ward Against Melee is fine. As someone already said, you can get punished by AoE. On top of that a good mesmer should be able to get most of the wards.
• Shields up is fine since the duration nerf.
• Soldier's Defense is a problem. This needs a 15 sec recharge, 10 secs is too low. In its current form combined with Disciplined Stance means one Wild Blow is not enough to counter it (my experience with that is pre-25 armor cap though).
• Blinding Surge/Flash is fine. One could maybe increase the recharge to 5, but i would never go higher. -Void 11:56, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't you mean Soldier's Defense? Done25 17:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Yup, my bad. Thanks! -Void 22:21, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Your welcome. Done25 22:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

A thought from another discussion gave me the idea that Ward Against Melee is a bigger problem now that AoE has been slowly pushed out of the metagame - Zealot's Fire has been obliterated and Balth's Aura is a juicy interrupt target in the current meta; Energy Surge isn't as prevalent as it used to be; Water AoE has given way for more defense as that character received nerfs. It might just be a trend, but the prevalent skillsets are ill-equipped for punishing Ward Against Melee.

That would imply that the only real problem skills right now are Shield of Deflection, and perhaps Soldier's Stance (though I haven't seen that used in quite a while now). -Ensign 21:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your point about AoE being pushed out of the meta, but i still think Ward Against Melee is just a strong skill and doesn't need a nerf. When we face the meta-balanced running RC, the match is normally decided after a few minutes and it's a pleasure to play. With SoD and half-decent monks, it's just a pain.

Also, i can remember precisely the first time we ever played against a SoD backline a few months back: It was Dephria guesting for PUFF, who ran balanced with a monk runner (and even without a Melee Ward). We only had one Shatter, and it felt like punching against a wall - a difference between day and night.

So my suggestion is: Slaughter SoD, if it's still too hard to kill after (what i doubt), one can check the other defenses. -Void 13:22, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Block in general, instead of nerfing things (unless it's really necessary), I'm more a fan of "turn their strenght into a weakness" tactical approach. No, I'm not promoting build wars. I'm promoting risk and reward system. Let people use block if they want, but make it risky. For instance:

• Irresistible Sweep - this skill needs a buff in any case, some solutions are proposed in the skill section. This is another possible solution: make it so that +damage is done only is the skill would have been blocked (but cannot be blocked if enchantment is lost). And make that damage scary enough. After all, you do need to lose an enchantment, and enemy does need to block. It's conditional enough.
• Splinter Shot - increase conditional (if blocked) damage
• Guided Weapon - buff it. The main problem here is the Communing line. If Rt is a spirit spammer, he won't have energy for this skill. If he's not spirit spammer, he won't have high communing, or any communing at all, because atm the number of usable non-spirit communing skills aint high ;)
• Introduce an interesting feature in GWEN. If target foe would have been damaged for 40+ (number can be adjusted of course) from a melee attack, but the attack was blocked, that foe has a 5-10% chance of getting Cracked Armor. So, if you block a powerful attack, you don't lose any health, but a possible downside is still there. This wouldn't be overpowered IMO, since Cracked Armor in itself does no damage if you still don't manage to hit the target afterwards (even if condition isn't removed). Anyway, it's just a thought.
• Irresistible Blow, Griffon's Sweep, Swift Chop, Seeking Blade - increase conditional damage (ok, problem with Irresistible = thumpers pft). Aside of the first skill, I dont remember when I saw the last 3 skills except on newbie builds (but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). This blocking bonus would make them interesting to use.
• Forceful Blow - buff unconditional dmg.

There's no point in listing all the skills of course, this is enough to get the picture. There are a lot of skills with block as conditional effect, but even if one does get blocked, these skills are bad. Servant of Kali 02:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I like those ideas - another idea would be to make Armor Penetration damage ignore blocking, as it fits with the concept. If you "Block" an attack that pierces armor, wouldnt you still take some dmg? --Midnight08 20:29, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I seriously doubt Ward Against Melee is overpowered. It harms your movement, which is a huge downside, but it also works on melee ONLY. That means that, unlike Aegis, blindness or most stances, which counter everything else too (like wanding, bow interrupters, spear spikers, etc.), Ward Against Melee can easily be countered by simply changing the build of your team to include other damage dealers than the stndard AoM dervish or Cripslash warrior. Also, a good team can use their own movement to force the opposing team to move out of the ward (by falling back or splitting). Blurred Vision does not have the movement issue, cuases to miss instead of block (and there are lots of unblockable skills, use them for a change!) and is a lot more spammable. Nerf that if you so desperately want melee to reign unchallenged, but leave the not-too powerful wards alone! Most of them are underpowered you know. Nicky Silverstar 07:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Put a cap on block rates and make the game stack them as one value instead of chained values. 66% IMO. This way, bad teams can't bring 6 defensive characters and stack their Aegis, DA, guardian, SoD, wards, shields up, and weapon of wardings. Add a miss rate cap too. Of course single skills (or blind) could exceed those caps. Shard 12:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

+Health Runes/Insignias and of Fortitude Weapon/Off-hand mods

I think many of these complaints against so called Passive Defense can be resolved by reducing the effect of +health mods to equipment. See my suggested changes to +health mods here Having additional health is about as passive of a defense as you can get and that's what all the new Survivor Insignias, Rune of Vitaes, along with the old of Fortitude mods and Superior Vigor Runes have encouraged and allowed. These +health mods are a secretive way of breaking the level cap of Level 20 (480 health) so now we have players that are effectively Level 26 (600 health) or 28 (640 health) and higher. And of course all this additional health serves as a "layer of defense" and it's the most passive layer you can get because all you have to equip the mods and that's it no skill activation required you survive because you have more health. The high health is unbalancing the game just like fertile season/symbiosis would if they weren't killed off. I like how spirits were nerfed back in October with an overall health reduction. Now that type of change should be applied to players as well. Please reduce the health gained from mods. Thanks. 134.154.249.239 19:28, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Spears

spears totaly outclass bows they have a much shorter attack speed and only a couple of points less damage and thier 1 handed and they can do near sword/axe dps at a range just a small nerf to damage of the base weapon will do so max is somthing like 13-24 for max not much really but just to keep in line with bows as when you compare hammers and swords the damge diffrance is much larger. Dstroyer 666 08:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather have the Paragon do less damage and be better at support than the way they are now, but they'd be much harder to balance. Also, to me, the power of bows lies in skills, not the weapon itself. It will probably be hard to balance base weapon damage. Nicky Silverstar 08:13, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Paragons would be more balanced if they did bow DPS and the same level of party-wide invincibility as they have now (their support really doesn't need buffing). -Auron 08:19, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Motivation needs a buff. In PvP, it is nearly useless and in PvE, it is overshadowed by There's Nothing to Fear!, which can basically replace the entire Motivation line all by itself. Nicky Silverstar 09:38, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Getting back to spears, it needs to be toned down in max damage. They should lower the base damage to 11-20 or something (25% nerf) or 11-22 (20% nerf). They out-do swords and axes right now (due to the min damage being so high and not having to deal with kiting).--Life Infusion «T» 22:57, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Courtyard and HoH

I think Courtyard and HoH lost their originally intention. In most cases it stays at an 1on1 or 1on2, because of a resigning team or a team that ganks your team, to let the others win. Another problem is, that the ghosty hero can be bodyblocked. If one Team resigns and your ghost was kicked u won't be able to get him to the altar. 1 Player is enough to block the ghosty, if he is on the Stairs of the altar and he won't move till another ghost caps or the bodyblock is removed.

Overpowered vs overpowered

People say things like thumpers, assassticasters, and ritspike (or they used to pre-nerf). But what I wonder is: Are they overpowered or is everything else too weak? I am sure Thumpers would not steamroll a buttcaster and buttcasters would have a hard time beating the pre-nerf ritspike. Why can't all builds be like that? Done25 14:12, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Because it's a lot easier to change a couple of overpowered things than it is to change everything else that's underpowered. There's no absolute state of "this is the correct power", there's simply what is more powerful and what is less powerful. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 14:21, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The fact that this game has no staples (or as aiiane said, "the correct power") makes it hard to balance anything. The game balance team needs to decide the staples for this game. Their item mod staples are well set (5 health = 1 energy is a common one), but we have almost no skill staples, except for generic attack skills. Sometimes I think the balance team can't "feel" how good skills are in this game. Shard 03:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

They have decided the stables for the game....weapon damage. Weapon Damage has always been the same, and always will be the same, and is for the most part, considered "balanced". Things like Flare are underpowered because it has the same purpose as weapon damage, except it does a worse job of it. --Deathwing 23:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

the big problem i see , is that if some overpowered skills get nerfed , they will be totally useless , such as Hex Eater Vortex , they should make underpowered skills usefull before nerfing the overpowered skills , the main issue that i see is with Ancestor's Rage and Splinter Weapon , they will probably get nerfed pretty soon , and by doing that , Anet will kill the ritualist class--189.70.104.87 23:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Shadow Stepping, VoD, and Failure

People say that shadow steps are not overpowered. 99.8% of these people, are bad. Now that you have made archers "fuckuwithabowgud", Ganking is quite possibly the best tactic in the entire game. hao2beat? Well, there are 4 possible scenrios:

• Camp until VoD - Not only do they get moral in this situation, but they also get to waste your time (as you will be raped in the end).
• Collapse on the Split - Due to the fact that the sins have a shit load of KD's and unblockable attacks, protting against it is pointless. They will simply rape your split healer/flagger. Not only that, but shadowsteps give them three huge advantages:

1. Element of Surprise: Unlike a Warrior, an assassin is able to attack whenever/whoever he/she chooses.

2. A Back-Door: By leaving one NPC alive, the assassins are able to escape at anytime they choose. This is quite effective on maps such as Imperial.

3. A Faster Gank: By far, dual sins is the fastest/easiest way to dispatch NPC's in the entire game. They are not disadvantaged by terrain, and kill 2 NPC's every 12-15 seconds or so.

• Rape the Stand - Simply not possible. Dual/tri-mesmer with a dual monk backline, is simply impossible to fight through. Warriors, simply cannot frenzy through Ineptitude and clum. It just doesn't work. Meanwhile, all of your NPC's are being raped by sins. Unless you are able to push all the way to their base, and win before VoD, your chances of recovery are slim.
• Out Split Them - Not even going to go here. Unless you are also running ineptisins, you are probably going to fail with this strategy.

In conclusion, dual-sin gank is gay. Not that [Me] didn't deserve to win the Jan Monthly, but the build just isn't fun to play against. Just something to look into. --Readem 22:09, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Am I the only one who contributes to this site? --Readem 01:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

i agree [me] didnt deserve to win, and that sinsplit is overpowered, and that [me] will win this monthly against simply because the tourney rotation suports their build again. GG on failure Anet.

Game Mechanics of Chants, Echoes and Shouts

A lot of problems started with the high synergy effects of stacking chants, echoes and shouts of Paragons. Skills were nerfed, some were nerfed to death, but the problem still remains. My suggestion is to buff a lot of the Paragon skills, but to change the ingame mechanic of chants, echoes and shouts! Those shouldn't stack with other chants, echoes and shouts, so you can only have a maximum of one chant or echo + one shout at the same time and - like weapon spells - one shout is automatically replaced by the new one (the same mechanic with chants/echoes), so you can't stack in chain different effects to a too huge one. Doing so, you could probably (for example) remove the armor cap, cracked armor from "Aggressive Refrain", give "Incoming!" a nice buff, etc.! Would be interesting to give my idea a try... ^^ A. von Rin 23:24, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

That would pretty much kill any paragon build not focused on Spear Mastery. Weapon spells are single-target, so they can only be overwritten if you specifically target someone who already has one, paragons don't have the option of not targeting certain allies with their chants and shouts, and getting everyone you don't want affected to move out of earshot isn't worth the effort. -- Gordon Ecker 00:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Dervish spike in GvG

Hi Isaiah, i know there is talk of a skill balance this week but im afraid that the current build of choice in GvG will escape the balance changes. Im not entirely sure what part of this build is the most broken, its toss between shadow stepping (very hard to pre prot and allows even the worst callers to get sharp spikes) and the dervish build (grenths + pious), but the combination of both is as im sure youve seen on observer is incredibly nasty, the build is evolving into another "Eurospike" as people are taking increasing amounts of defense (2xBsurge/Ward/2xAegis/DA!). I must say that the meta is an improvement on Assassin Split, but its going to the other extreme of burning isle wars.