2041

Things I’m more concerned about than mirror class balance:
The missing classes (in particular, the two zapped tank classes).
The missing capital cities.
Getting people to play open RvR.
Getting people to play PQs.
Fixing certain scenarios so that there is an actual contest going on most of the time - whenever I play Doomfist or the Lost Temple of Isha, the side that controls the control point first wins, invariably. Usually by hundreds of points. Which side gets it is a factor of things like organization, but once it’s taken, it’s incredibly easy to hold.

Once all of those things are fixed, it will be possible to have a clearer picture of how class balance is actually playing out on a decent playing field, and nitpicky changes in balance will make sense.

2042

Go reread my posts?

Also, Emperor’s Ward is an Empire tactic, not a BW tactic. Yes, all Empire classes have access to it. Ph33r our leet tactic that no one with half a brain equips because you would have to be a moron to waste a tactic slot on it. If I were to equip that tactic on my lvl 23 WP, it would be worth around 160 points of damage with a 1/4th chance of proc, and it cannot proc more than one time per three seconds. So the shield has a value of about 13 points of damage per second, which is less than a tenth of what my WP, not a damage class, does in a single auto attack. I mean are you serious? A level 1 sorc can easily crit for over 300 with the very first skill they get. Or more than twice the value the shield provides for a character 22 levels higher.

Before you posted about Emperor’s Ward, I was taking you seriously. Now? You’re barely even trolling. /shun

2043

Cause nobody on destruction has AOE knockback. I think the swordmaster aoe knockback is better anyway (10 sec timer, potentially 30 foot range)

2044

I didn’t know SM even have aoe knockback, they get a single target one after augmenting a tactic.

IB get a pbaoe one that’s on 10 seconds cool down after using a particular tactic.

Also, Emperor’s Ward is an Empire tactic, not a BW tactic. Yes, all Empire classes have access to it. Ph33r our leet tactic that no one with half a brain equips because you would have to be a moron to waste a tactic slot on it…

It’s perfectly valid comparing that to the stupid AOE knockback which is extremely situational plus other than 1 instant cast channel aoe which basically render the damage on that aoe useless since it knocks the target out of the range of the aoe. every other skills that can proc that knockback require either extremely long cast time or put sorc in range for a gangbang.

yes Knockback is fairly uselss as a cc other than Tor Anroc, since it’s extremely easy to target nearest and spam instant the instant a player get sent flying with a knockback.

2045

It’s not listed in the tooltip, but Gusting Wind is AOE knockback, initially at 10 foot range (30 with a tactic spec).

Anyway, Destruction has AOE knockback as well, so it’s hardly IB or Swordmaster only.

2046

only Cone, not PBAOE. which is much harder to target compare to just run into middle of a group and hit your instant and watch 4-5 people die.

2047

So the patch broke a bit of my class (engineer). My mines don’t work, my gun STILL does the dumb machinegun loop sound all the time and I still can’t turn in doomfist crater quests. This is the worst patch ever.

2048

AE knockback on casters standing, as they are wont to do, at maximum range will be fairly devastating. It puts them out of combat for six seconds (three in flight, three in return) and can be used repeatedly.

Don’t even try to say casters don’t stand at 100ft. You’ve already complained about the 80ft cast ranges, and you wouldn’t bother if you also didn’t prefer to stand at 100. I know I do, and I know that most other casters stand in an oval whose center is roughly 75ft from the center of the main melee scrum. Knock the healers back and suddenly their side’s melee is unsupported for four to six seconds – enough time to seriously damage them, especially if you continue with the knockbacks.

It’s useful, and it would be obvious just how useful it was if you weren’t fixated on a rather unimportant metric – your personal damage. Yeah, a BW can, under ideal conditions, outdps a sorc operating under ideal conditions. And when you manage to find those conditions I’ll be very impressed. In the mean time, you profit most from winning, and destruction seems to be very effective at winning. If/when you get to the level cap on your sorc, I’ve no doubt you’ll find it an extremely efficient and effective killer, and an infinitely more efficient and effective neutralizer of enemies. View the sorceress as a crowd control specialist with a strong damage focus and it starts to make more sense.

That said, I do agree that it feels a bit off that skills that are otherwise identical seem to have differences that are slanted in favor of the BW. I value knockback highly, but you’re right that it does require a significant time investment to reach that tactic – but then again, aren’t most magic classes traditionally shite until the upper levels? In the first two tiers, BWs are the bitch of every melee type that gives them a hard look. After that, they (and sorcs) are fairly dominant. Other classes also go through a power shift, feeling more or less powerful based on what tier they’re playing in.

Give it time.

Oh, and just so you have something else to be grumpy about:

http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=9247

I wonder how many other classes have a -50% received heal hex? Granted, not as nice as the BW hex which damages the healer, but still it has the most important element.

2049

Hmmmm.

Hong “would have preferred Jesus to Christ, but you work with what you have” Ooi

2050
2051

This, much like the BW vs. Sorc. debate, is a player problem. If it’s worth it to you, as a player, to pursue an extra 10% efficiency above everything else including fun, there’s not a fucking thing in the world a dev can do to fix that. There’s no way to make everything, ad infinitum, “equally the same yet intriguingly different”. Misbalances happen, there is no “average” in anything.

In other words, if the bats bore you silly, quit picking the goddamn bats.

XP outside of scenarios isn’t so bad in comparison that quests aren’t worth doing, unless you’re always winning every scenario and topping the kill list. With rested bonus my level 20 BW gets about 550 XP a kill of a normal monster, and it takes roughly 30 seconds to kill a monster. In the 10 minutes a scenario lasts, That’s 20 kills @ 550 XP per, or 11k XP. Last night in Mourkain temple when order won decisively and I had a healer to prop me up, I made 10k XP.

Now I enjoy scenarios, and that’s fine. I enjoy open RvR more, of course, so I’m all for them putting more/better incentives on that to get it going, but chances are at 10pm at night local server time when I play, I’m not so likely to find throngs of 40+ on each side looking to back-and-forth it on a random weeknight. So my choices are scenarios or PVE, both of which have similar XP rewards. Of course, only the scenarios have RP which is kind of a bummer but, on the other hand, I get 1/4 of the RP of other folks my level in scenarios due to the dynamic RP reward scaling. So I’m still free to choose which I prefer without fretting too much.

If you’re tired of scenarios, get off your fucking treadmill and stop and murder the roses. If you don’t like the scenarios or the PVE, and you’re not willing to accept that the game is what it is currently for open RvR, it’s time for you to microwave your disks too. But wanting them to change the game so that other people have less choices because you can’t stop venturing into bat country is fucking broken, sorry.

2052

Extremely true. I do wish they’d up the loots and exp across the board, because t3 drags on something terrible. If it doesn’t start getting fun again, my dollars and I are going to go patronize the crap out of some other company.

But wanting them to change the game so that other people have less choices because you can’t stop venturing into bat country is fucking broken, sorry.

2053

You presented a good point Aeon221.

unfortunately the instant aoe is a ground target one that have a 20 second cooldown that’s channel over 10 seconds as well as a big circle shows up on the ground to tell player to keep away.

It’s an extremely clumsy way to try to keep healer away as well as healer usually aren’t in range of my spell due to the fact that healing spell typically are 150ft. Currently the best way to break down a line is not chasing after the healer, but instead have MDPS(WE or WH) harass the healer while Magic RDPS AOE the line. That’s why BW have a massive advantage currently simply just from Detonate.

There are plenty of -% healing skills on both side , but the only the BW actually inflict significant amount damage on the healer at same time reduce the healing effectiveness on target. how early can a BW access a skill like that, lvl 21.

2054

This would be true if it was accurate.

We aren’t complaining over a 10%. It’s consistently more for PvE vs Scenarios, and it’s not even comparable for Scenarios vs Open RvR.

It’s not complaining about a tiny discrepancy, it’s about complaining over a huge gap.

The large majority players obviously perceive the truth of this more than you do.

2055

Well there’s an accusation http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143425 floating around that there’s some kind of VP bug that favors destruction over order allowing them to quickly cap zones. Reports that destruction can win zones without taking all keeps, order taking all keeps and BO and it not setting back to contested, etc.

2056

It might be consistently more for scenarios vs PvE…for Destruction. I don’t know. I do know that if I get my ass beaten in scenarios, which happens with great consistency in certain scenarios (coughDoomfistcough) that I now avoid, I make maybe as much experience from the whole affair as I’d have done turning in a quest for a couple ranks below mine. I do make a few RP, but meh. Avoiding those means that scenarios don’t really chain pop, so my average exp from scenario play might approach my PvE experience, maybe. Certainly not if I am actually doing PQs through to the end the way you’re supposed to.

Of course, one can quest in between scenarios, which is probably the optimum mixture of playstyles and what I’ve been doing the past couple of days.

I just don’t agree that scenarios are a reliably dominating force for advancement. I do them because they’re fun for me, not because they = powerlevelling.

2057

…which is BORING and completely at odds with any sort of lore. Sorry, but that’s one of the biggest things I hate about WoW, the cookie-cutter identical natures of Horde and Alliance. It fits WoW’s “war is sport” style approach to faction-based PvP but it really, to me, robs the game of a lot of flavor. WAR needs to have asymmetrical realms, in my opinion. You have to have a different feel for Destruction than for Order, and yeah that makes it harder to balance. But it’s the right thing to do.

2058

You guys are still arguing with idrisz? Should we bring Draiken in next? Maybe get some backup from the P&R tards (Bob, where are you?)?

This is silly. The classes aren’t supposed to be exactly the same. Both are extremely fun to play and very dominant. If you don’t like the style of the Sorc, DON’T PLAY IT. That seems pretty straight forward.

2059

I ask for balance not for the same, same damage output != same class.

2060

I know it’s a grievous offense to the hivemind for someone to have a differing opinion, but could you just go back to saying “na na na na na” with your fingers in your ears and pretend that these posts aren’t happening?

A lot of the effective shield skills and party member buffs require the healer to be within 100ft or less of their target, so you’ll rarely see them standing further than 75ft from the scrum. Granted they can cast most of their instants from further, but those instants are, as I’ve said before, not very effective heals. They’re little more than band-aids while you pop something more effective.

Having played a WP into t3 and an AM into t2, I feel pretty confident in my assessment of how far healers work from and what kind of skills they use where. And I can also say that when knocked back I’m generally unable to do anything effective. Even on my WP, with its focus on instant hots and group heal/shield spam, if I’m in the air I’m less effective. And on my AM, if I can’t pop Boon of Hysh I’m not going to to be very effective.

Area denial skills like the ones the Sorc has are efficient means of controlling the position of enemies. In Guild Wars, area denial allowed guilds to more effectively pressure enemies by separating the frontline from the mid/backlines. Yeah, they’re big and shiny and obvious – that’s the whole point. People can’t be scared of and run away from stuff that they can’t see. They might not be efficient for single target lockdown, but you aren’t looking at single target lockdown – you’re looking at locking down entire groups over short but repeatable intervals. And you aren’t looking at just knocking back healers, you’re looking at disrupting melee trains and generally being a massive pain in the ass. A tank that is being knocked around can’t pressure effectively And yeah, I think the 3sec cast 80ft range skills are going to come into play. The BW ones aren’t very efficient because the BW doesn’t get any benefit besides damage from them; the sorc does.

Again, it isn’t personal damage that matters so much as team effectiveness. By splitting up enemies all over the place, you’re making it easier for mdps to ff and nail isolated targets, for frontliners to crush enemy frontlines, and for your team to break an enemy group’s morale. In Guild Wars, the mesmer served a similar function – it’s a class that is focused on the interruption of enemy skills and the denial of energy. And it’s a devastatingly powerful class that does little damage simply because it can prevent other classes from functioning. Much like a Sorc knocking people all over will do.

But none of this is going to really show up before the end game when you start getting access to these skills and the tactic that makes them strong.