User talk:Isaiah Cartwright/Overpowered Skills/PvE and Monster/Archive 1

Overpowered Sunspear Skills

I'll put out there that "There's Nothing to Fear", Seed of Life, and Critical Agility are all ridiculously overpowered in their current forms. Critical Agility makes player Assassins better than player Warriors for the most part; Seed of Life is a full team godmode while it is up, while TNTF is sufficiently broken that the only excuse to not have it on your bar is that there are enough copies in the team already to get full coverage. -Ensign 09:01, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if that came across as obnoxious, I've been looking for an excuse to use that image for quite a while. The thing is, these skills are an absolute must in hard mode or it easily becomes simply too difficult. They aren't that overpowered imo, and there isn't enough abuse potential (except for maye Critical Agility being able to be used with all weapons) to warrant a change. Seed of Life is balanced perfectly for a non-PvP skill, and "There's Nothing to Fear!" can take a lot of skill to use - using a 15e skill with only 2e regen every 10 seconds or so isn't easy unless you're using all adrenal shouts or something, which brings down the effectiveness of the build. --Santax (talk · contribs) 09:14, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

PvE skills were meant to be broken. —ǥȓɩηɔɧ〚₮/ḉ〛 09:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

The fact the Elementalist PvE skills were nerfed soon after release make clear to me that no, PvE skills have not been meant to be broken.Erasculio 13:10, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the assertion that Hard Mode is too difficult without these skills - I say this based on my experience, having completed the Legendary Guardian title track on my Ele before these skills were released (with a majority of it being hero/hench and only a couple missions with more than 2 total players), and Legendary Vanquisher without making much use of them (probably 70% Herohench with 2-3 zones with more than 2 players, minimal use of TNTF on my Ele). I have to think that if I can do it when henchmen, that players don't need hideously broken skills to do the same. -Ensign 21:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Ensign cares about PvE? --72.194.109.3 09:22, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't know why you think he didn't. And Ensign is right, those three skills are really overpowered. However, if we were to nerf them, I would suggest nerfing only Seed of Life. I think PvE balance is important (not as important as in PvP, since it's not that critical in PvE, but important anyway), and that said balance should mean that all professions are equally useful for a party, and all skills of each profession are equally useful for a given profession, on average. Of course that's never going to happen, just like perfect PvP balance is never going to happen, but I think that's a goal worth aiming for. The PvE only skills currently hurt this - "There's nothing to Fear!" is waaay more powerful than anything else the Paragons have - but at the same time they help it: Paragons are always going to be weaker, in PvE, than some other professions. The fact you cannot remove shouts or chants means they need to be weaker than enchantments with the same effect for the sake of PvP, but in PvE, where enchantment removal isn't that important in the great majority of time, all players are going to see is weaker effects. So in order to make Paragons as useful to a PvE party as any other profession...They are going to need PvE only skills, and very good PvE only skills while at that. Hence something as overpowered as "There's nothing to Fear!". Do I like that? No, I think having a profession with 7 skills slots is bad : P However, I think the advantage of making Paragons useful in PvE is worth that cost, as long as Arena Net's balance team continue to look for ways to make Paragons more useful in PvE without the need for that kind of overpowered skill.

Seed of Life is a very different issue, IMO. Monks already have plenty of powerful skills; they are already VERY useful in a party (probably the most useful and most sought profession right now). I see no need to give them such an overpowered skill, as they don't really need that kind of help PvE wise. Erasculio 13:10, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

They're needed everywhere with or without the skill. It's like saying, "We'll buy this car for 30,000 but only if you take out the navigation and 6-cd changer and replace it with an empty dash." —ǥȓɩηɔɧ〚₮/ḉ〛 22:14, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

My case for these 3 skills is as follows:

Critical Agility makes a player Assassin better than a player Warrior in any area where you can keep it up. Assassins already had the best damage ever barring attack speed buffs, and with this they get the best attack speed buff in the game. On top of that this tacks on enough armor to make the Assassin on par with a Warrior or other hard target. The only thing checking it, again, is its tendency to get blown up in a lot of zones, which is a different problem - Assassins are way too good in some zones, but continue to be weak in others. Critical Agility should be powerful to make up for some of the problems Assassins have as a profession in PvE, but in a way that's more uniform across zones and doesn't replace other characters outright. It's easily the least of the offenders, but it's a skill that should be looked at.

"There's Nothing to Fear!" is simply ridiculous. I mean that if you don't have a player Paragon, you run it on Necros, Elementalists, Mesmers, Assassins, Dervishes, anything. You find a way to make it work and you run it. It's an awesome party heal with 0 cast time, and oh it tacks on 4 seconds of damage reduction on top of that. Two Eles chaining TNTF is better than a Paragon using it, you get nearly the same DR and twice the healing. Not that Paragons even need the skill - as far as I can tell they're the 3rd strongest PvE profession for general usage, behind Necromancers and Monks. Tack this and "Save Yourselves!" onto a player Paragon, and hard mode becomes easy mode while normal mode becomes drool mode.

Seed of Life is straight up ridiculous. Monk was the most popular and in-demand profession even before the Sunspear skills came out. Seed of Life is basically easy mode on a stick. On the odd cases where I had a player Monk with me when vanquishing, we didn't even need to pay attention to aggro all that much. Oh, no, we pulled two mobs instead of one? That's ok, Seed of Life, oh my god my FPS just dropped to 3 from all the numbers. Why did this skill need to be added to the game again?

I consider Critical Agility to be non-essential, because Assassins aren't legitimately powerful PvE characters without it. The other two are simply ridiculous, ez-mode additions put onto professions that really did not need the help at all. TNTF going on absolutely everything does not help either. -Ensign 22:33, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

People want the game munchkin'ed up for them, witness the stack of new Win Button™ skills introduced in NF and slated for EotN. Even hard mode is munchkin mode with an overpowered team build :P. GW is moving towards a Diablo style PvE gameplay, so really there's no point in balancing PvE only skills. --Tankity Tank 01:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

There's Nothing to Fear is not used on non paragon classes because they don't have leadership, without leadership ist crap like Incoming. 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah it is... You only need it on 3 members to have a constant damage reduction of15-45%. ~~ frvwfr2 (talk · contributions) 18:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

TNTF actually becomes more useful being chained over 2-3 non-paragon members; nothing like a Heal Party every 4 seconds; oh, and damage is being reduced by a third. On the flip side, a primary paragon can spec his leadership higher for a perma TNTF, take Angelic Bond as his elite, and have the human monks cycle Seeds of Life for an overflow of blue numbers. --Racthoh 05:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I've liked the introduction of these skills, specifically "TntF" and "Save Yourselves". What they have done is enabled me to play without monks in my Paragon's team. Combined with "For great justice" and Focused anger, a 4s save "yourselves" is up all the time, and "they're on fire" plus "TntF" reduced damage to laughable levels, even in hard mode. Add a few heals to heroes, a draw on someone, and you have a monkless party.

Is it good that we can play without monks? Oh yes, the ability to diversify builds is great. But is it good that one character can provide enough damage mitigation to keep the whole team up in 95% of situations? Well, sort of: I monked quite a few missions in Nightfall with 7 damage dealers on my side featuring minimal support; the best defence is a good offence, the faster they die the less of a threat thay are. My paragon saviour build is fragile; the moment I'm blind, attack speed decreased, or the main target, it collapses faster than anything. If one "Save yourselves!" is missed, the party will die.

"For Great Justice!"

Focused Anger

Angelic Protection

"They're on Fire!"

"There's Nothing to Fear!"

"Save Yourselves!"

Aggressive Refrain

Signet of Return

Maestro Ed 10:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Ursan Blessing

Izzy, I'm a fervent PvE player, and like a challenge. that is, I like playing hard stuff that isn't about clicking 1 button and owning. Ursan Blessing is a waste, its by far more powerful then anything else in the game, and there are party's that won't go somewhere if they have less then 2 Ursans in their team. so my request is, make it less extremely overpowered. making stuff so easy if you use this skill, makes stuff like HM titles worth nothing, as you probably just got 6 ursans and 2 monks and, tadaah you won. is there really no way to make this less overpowered??? Rhydeble 16:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm really annoyed by how powerful this skill is. Makes it so that it's the only thing to run nowadays, especially when pugging. - Anon

Delete it tbh. Lord of all tyria 20:35, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I prefer MS/DB for damage, tbh. 75% block chance, crazy AoE damage, ect. — Skakid9090 20:38, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Not that this isn't overpowered. — Skakid9090 20:38, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Ursan blessing - Only Useable while in Norn territory--Just One More Thing 23:58, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I did the Domain of Anguish in one sitting with people who were never there before, or never dared. And it was easy as hell. Shards of Orr in HM is also easy with this. This elite skill is not a skill, it is a perfect build: great damage, ranged damage, ignores blindness and everything including armor. It causes weakness and knockdown. Plus gives you health and armor. As a Necro you can keep it up permanently with soul reaping, Eles also rarely run out of bear form, and smart people just use zealous spears or staves for energy to keep the bear running. This skill needs balancing badly, in every former "elite" area or mission people abuse the bear to make it a joke. My suggestions that I posted at Guru: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10221415 - basically, make the bear attack a physical, non-armor ignoring attack that is not ranged. The "not ranged part" is already the case in the blood washes blood mission, why is the elite you get different to the skill in the mission. I would like if this skill turns the players actually visually into a bear, and maybe it should be only useable in norn territory if there is no other way to stop this bear from making PvE looks silly. Along with the ton of imba consumables that were already added. :( --Longasc 01:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Do not nerf it because for some people its the only way to get into groups & after a nerf people would play tank/nuker/healer instead. 87.189.219.232 14:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

...I don't understand this logic. "Don't nerf this skill, without it I would have no way to freeload my way through the campaign." "Don't nerf this skill, without it I might have to run something that doesn't suck." "Don't nerf this skill, without it I would have to play one of the classes the game was balanced towards instead of whoring Izzy's overpowered midnight mind-abortion." --71.229.204.25 04:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Can we archive this now that Ursan Strike is no longer ranged? -- Gordon Ecker 05:13, 7 December 2007 (UTC)