Guild Wars: Oh Noes Teh Broken

A few weeks after the last rebalance, the cracks are starting to show, it seems. As you can tell from this thread at TGH asking for a do-over to the buffing of Ritualists (Personally, I agree that they're a little too strong at the moment. But I think the root cause is the alteration of spirit range to be ear-shot. That this happened along with a sweeping boost to pretty much everything else obscures the issue and is why I'd like to see smaller changes more often.), a sentiment that's uniquely expressed in that TGH way but by no means uniquely held. It's time once again for the community to engage in a Guild Warrior's favorite sport – complaining about the state of the game.

However, it's not just Ritualist based builds that are causing problems. Nor is this really a new occurrence. Guild Wars, after all, is a complex system of interlocking parts. There are over a thousand skills alone. And the slightest change to anyone thread can pull the entire weave into a different direction. Balancing the game, then, is a continuous affair as no matter what's done someone, somewhere, will find a crack to exploit that can send the entire system spinning into bad places. I don't think you'll find anyone arguing against that statement, just about how often or drastic any corrections should be. Which, admittedly, is tricky and something I'm glad I'm not responsible for. But whenever the game is allowed to rest in a given state, strange things can pop up that threaten to overwhelm the tic-tac-toe of the metagame into a distorted state. That's, again, just a given. And no matter how finely the game is balanced (And, believe me, I was there in the test and I've seen the game evolve for a long, long time. The kind of balancing we're talking about is a razor's edge compared to the wild swings of the past.) there are going to be “cheap” builds. Builds, characters really, that are easy to run without an advanced degree in Guild Wars mechanics. Like your simple spike, like the Arena, these are gateways. They let people who might not otherwise have the skills into the competitive environment and, odds are, some of them will evolve past the entry level stuff and into more complex and rewarding play. More people playing and experimenting is better for everyone involved and it's all part of the constant turnover that sees people get bored and leave the game on the other side. But it does so through builds that can be very difficult to beat for other teams.

That's not a bad thing, of course, as build disparity is only an issue when skill levels are roughly equal. Or, to put it another way, when you're rolling in the muck with the scrubs, a good plan gives you a significant edge. That edge, though, drops away as you face better opposition. There's a reason, after all, why no matter what the flavor of the month is or how the game twists and turns that the same players and teams are on top. And it's not because they're running the latest gimmick because they're not very likely to for the same reason that people with less experience are likely to run them – they work well against people who don't know what they're doing but not against someone who knows how to pick holes in anything they come up against. So there's always going to be an IWAY or a bloodspike (Well, okay, that one has some other problems.) or another way of pushing to the extremes of the given constraints. Where this becomes a concern is when these cheap builds threaten to crowd out the more intricate stuff.

It takes time, after all, for less extreme builds to compensate and build in the defenses against the latest fad (Giving the extreme builds a limited window to run wild before the system naturally self-corrects. It's that sort of arms race that drives the metagame). If, of course those defenses exist. And it's there where balance concerns come into play as if something is truly abusive then it needs to be corrected before anything else can compete with it fairly. If not, then the game becomes tilted towards playing one particular way and running the narrow counters that blow that one style out of the water but leave you vulnerable to everything else.

So, let's take a look at some of the builds that are getting a bad rep these days.

Name: Discord Spike

How it Looks: Necromancers. Lots and lots of Necromancers. Generally, several Hero Necs packing Discord along with a lot of hexes and conditions to spread around.

The Idea: Discord is a difficult skill to pull off as it requires a target to be hexed and suffering from a condition. But when you can jump through that hoop, it's a powerful, quick damage dealing skill that you can just hammer people with. So, you load your team up with quick hexes and conditions which are, of course, fairly common in the Necromancer skills where you're picking up Discord in the first place. While defeating your team's spike is a simple matter of a team keeping themselves clean of hexes or conditions – lacking either one means your spike fails and the other team gets to rage in your face - that's not as easy as it sounds. Even the best mass hex and condition removal (Condition removal is hardier and more likely to be encountered, especially mass options like Extinguish or Draw or RC.) options take time to go into effect or have recharges that leave you windows of opportunity. If you're tossing out conditions and hexes left and right then that's all you need and you'll eventually spike someone down. Throw in some minions, especially the Jagged kind to spread even more conditions and you're talking about greasing the rails and slippery slopes for the other team. They have to plya mistake free and all you need is one little slip-up to start things going your way. It combines the quick action of a spike strategy with the constant nerve-wracking of hex and condition pressure.

The Problem: Heroes. They have AI reflexes and if they're carrying Discord they can nearly instantly spam Discord as soon as they see someone with a condition and hex in range. It makes for a powerful,, co-ordinated spike that even experienced infusers will have a hard time catching. And, again, most Discord spike teams are built with minions (Which also serve as a nice energy battery for all those Necs, thank you very much Soul Reaping.) or some other way of kicking a team when they're down so one teammate falls through the safety net and you're on your heels as the pressure mounts. Without the bots you're talking about a spike that requires a lot of setup and some difficult co-ordination to pull off. With the AI's help, you get to sidestep all the co-ordination problems. To top it off you get a team that can roll it's way up the ladder in short order that only needs two human players. It's the very definition of a cheap build.

The Solution: Well, the obvious answer is to nerf the hell out of Discord (I'll note that, like a lot of other problematic skills, this one also hails from Factions.). You could beef up hex and condition removal but that would put it in ridiculous levels and put any team relying on hex or condition pressure out of the game as well. So, tweak Discord, somehow (The casting time and recharge are the places to look, of course.), and blast this particular build and a skill that's little used outside of it into oblivion and knock off to the pub with a job well done. But, as with Soul Reaping and Jagged Bones, that's only addressing the symptom and not the root cause. Sure you take out Discord but that just means people are going to look for another skill the AI can abuse. Especially now that they know the trick can work. To really address the problem it's necessary to treat the problem at the source. Now, that means you'd have to figure out what that source is, of course, and that leads to all sorts of wacky ideas like limiting the number of classes or skills that a given team can bring (Which, yeah, no. I could explain why that's a bad idea but I could also take the time to explain why sticking your dick into an electrical socket is a bad idea, too. I'd much rather take that time to mock and belittle everyone who supports that idea in the hopes they'll try and defend it and either realize why it's idiotic or come up with a compelling reason to listen to them. Sometimes when you encounter a truly horrendous idea it's best for your sanity to dismiss it and move on. Just because someone can have that idea or belief doesn't mean it deserves a response.). Tweaking the AI is another idea I've heard – dumb it down and make it slower so it can't respond quite as fast. That might work but the AI is plenty dumb enough already and I'd rather work was done to improve it positively rather than handicapping it further. And the way I'd suggest would be to simply limit the number of AI players on a team. At the moment, just as everywhere else, each player can bring up to three which means not only can you field a team with two players and six uber-henchies with customized skill bars but you can also field up to four duplicates of the same Hero (More, actually, as for every profession except Mesmer, Ritualist, Assassin, Paragon, and Dervish there are multiple Heroes. A team of three can get five Necromancer Heroes with Discord, for example.). In the tournament, for example, you can only bring two, and I think that's a reasonable position. It means that if you can't field a full team you can still take part but, sorry, if you can't find enough warm bodies then GvG (Or HA or TA or AB or whatever format you want to talk about) just isn't for you.

Name: Rit Spike

What it Looks Like: Ritualists. They'll lay down spirits and then act like bug zappers with Channeling lightning whenever you get anywhere near.

The Idea: Ritualists got some Izzy love during the last rebalance. And while they were always pretty sexy because while just about everything they do has some precondition to meet if you could meet that precondition they were very effective/efficient at whatever it was you wanted them to do. They made for great healers, defenders, batteries, or damage dealers. But annoying ones to play because you had to set that all up through weapons or spirits or items or whatever (Although with Nighttfall it seems that items and weapons got some much needed love, the best stuff is still tied to spirits. Which, you know, is the worst mechanic to ever be introduced into Guild Wars but makes some sense as spirits are the most difficult of the three to get established.). With the last rebalance, though, they became very sexy thanks to some tweaks to the game's mechanics – specifically the aforementioned change to spirit range giving any skill that requires a nearby spirit to work a lot more room to roam – and a sweeping uptick to many skills. Builds that use Ritualists to spike just like you'd use Elementalists or Rangers or Necromancers to spike have been around since Factions. As an added benefit they typically had a lot of spirits to help them create defenses or pressure. Now, you can add things like the ultra-fast cast Lamentation as an after-spike or the revamped Weapon of Warding as damage mitigation and any of a number of small but subtle changes that make the Ritualist far more capable. Fold those into any number of pre-existing templates for a Ritualist based spike (Which are pretty common in the HA no matter what the team size is.) and you have a team with a lot of defense and a lot of offense.

The Problem: Well, it's an old one but still problematic – once a team with a lot of defensive spirits gets them established they're very tough to uproot. While they're easy to interrupt when they're going down the range they work at is longer than what you need to get into to stop them from going down. Once they're up it takes time and energy to put them down or you have to live with them being up. Since they're probably going to be in the back of a team bristling with the ability to put a hurting on you that's not going to be fun. A Rit spike takes that to the extreme by having not only excellent defenses (Although the defensive spirits have been toned down a bit since they were introduced, thankfully.) but also a very nasty spike. Easily enough to turn anyone into a bloody pile. Being so offensively defensive they can turtle, cause you to pull back, push out, and creep towards you as they steamroll across the map. It's very difficult to break through their defenses and very difficult to blunt their spikes. While the established ways of dealing with a Rit spike – disrupt, spread out, disengage, draw them out, and split - are no longer quite as viable themselves. They're no longer as trapped in one particular location so hovering at the edge of aggro bubbles and pushing up to, say, cap a flag isn't as easy. And a defensively oriented Rit can be a handful for most common splits. As for disruption, this isn't like Obs Flame where people are going to be casting for 3 seconds and giving you plenty of opportunity to land D-shots or prot someone up, these Rit Channeling spells are fast and deal high levels of damage with plenty of opportunity for follow-ups. And these characters have more than enough room to pack in utility stuff like Gale or snares and everything else they need to optimize their plan. They can be beat but it's gotten a lot harder while they've gotten a lot more powerful.

The Solution: Of all the teams I'm bringing up, the rit spike is the one I'm least sure of including. Enough people are complaining about it that it's likely broken but it's far from being as obviously broken as something like Discord. It invokes the same responses of limiting character professions, I'm sure, and I've even heard people say that it's time to retire the obviously broken and problematic Ritualist profession. But, really, it also would seem to have the most obvious fix. The change to spirit range, however, is something I'd like to see kept as it makes Ritualists, in general, far more useful. But “fixing” Rit spike means rolling back some of the changes to their skills to reflect that their opportunity costs are now much lower. Tweak the damage of their skills downward, increase a few recharges, maybe up the casting time on, say, Lamentation and make them, across the board, tless threatening. It's a tricky line to walk as you don't want to blast Ritualist damage into the ground. There's nothing wrong with the idea of Rit spike, as far as I'm concerned, it's just a little too strong in practice these days and needs a slight adjustment. The sort of changes that will leave it viable but not the gold standard.

Name: Haven't heard anything snappy but I'll call it SinWay (You know, if there's one thing I'm disappointed with about Guild Wars it's that these builds and flavors don't have snappier names. We, as a community, seem to have gone for utility and ease of transferring information about what a build does quickly rather than more fanciful, flavorful, and inventful descriptions. What's Bloodspike? Well, it's a build that spikes with Blood skills. Why does everything get called X-Way? Well, IWAY ws the first big flavor of the month and it's the acronym of a lengthy skill name, the sort of thing we commonly abbreviate when we talk about it a lot. But “way” also has meaning which turns out to be pretty equivalent to “build” so when you're talking about about any sort of pressure it's easy to wrap it in that box. Anyhow, if I had my druthers, I'd call this the Build of a Thousand Blades or Ong Bak Stabby Time or something. Of course, if people called Assassins “Nightcrawlers” like I always wanted we could get really creative.)

What it Looks Like: 5 Assassins, 2 Monks, and a runner. HA variants are popular, too, as extreme builds tend to be bred in that format, and they basically drop the runner and one of the Sins, I'd imagine. As are variants like the one XoO main just used to ladder farm which dropped one of the Sins for an Orders Necro. The big schism I've seen is between A/W with Burst of Aggression for faster spikes and A/Me with Web of Disruption for more hexing and disruption.

The Idea: As with Ritualists, with the last rebalance, ANet buffed several key Assassin skills. ANet said “You know, these guys are going to be doing enough damage where they're a threat now. Which is to say, they can kill stuff quick.” People looked at them and said, “Hey, you know, a single Sin can spike down a single target. More is better right?” And then they made a whole team ot of them. They can attack multiple targets making it hard for their healers to keep everyone alive. Expose Defenses means that mass melee hate like Wards or Aegis isn't going to work. And if you're spread out then things like Shadow of Fear which hit multiple targets just aren't going to catch enough attackers – if they can even land them in time. Teleporting means you don't have to worry about snares, especially with Shadow Prison. So while you'll have trouble with Blinds, you have enough attackers that they won't be able to keep up. Since any one of your Sins can drop someone in seconds by unloading a single attack chain that's good for you and bad for them. You'll just attack and attack and attack in waves and eventually get kills. It's pure pressure and do it well enough and often enough and they'll break. It's IWAY with Sins. And it turns out to be very effective against the popular Rit spike.

The Problem: It's IWAY with Sins. Shadow Prison is imba, they can step around many of the common counter-measures, and they can split well enough that you're getting rolled on the split or in the scrum. I mean, there are a lot of reasons why people dislike builds that are easy to run like this as if being able to run a balanced build was a sign that you were among the chosen people. But it's a simple, effective build that doesn't take a lot of imagination or skill to run so it's time to get the pitchforks. Anyhow, Assassins have been buffed up so the fix here would be to push them back down a bit. Take Blades of Steel, for example, which got buffed to absurd levels over the Test weekend and was later reimplemented as better but not quite as single-hit dead.

So, while these builds are going to be problems, I think they can all be easily corrected. However, it's not very likely to happen any time soon thanks to the Celestial Tournament. The developers following a few incidents shortly after the game was released have proven very reluctant to make changes in the middle of a season. Even a “fun” season like we're in now. While they've promised to take care of any gross abuses (Call it the Ether Renewal pledge), only Discord really rises to that level and since it not particularly viable in the tournament, it doesn't seem like any drastic actions need to be taken. What's left, the Rit spike and the Sin pressure build are annoying, yes, but so are other builds. They can be played through. Although I'd like to see some action taken, I don't think we will until the tournament is over – rebalancing the skills when there's only a few days between rounds would cause no end of headaches and would actually encourage people to run more extreme builds from the stuff that didn't get touched and the obvious balance mistakes rather than practice and experiment to find the new sweet spots. When the Celestial season is over, I'd expect another massive update (Which, you know, isn't exactly a good thing if you ask me.) that's going to cover these and a lot of other issues.