Ursan OP

[Arcole]

IMO, ursanway flat out killed FoW, UW, and any other form or high level missions because its soooooo overpowered. ALSO, it destroyed the fun you used to got from doing elite missions because now, unless you are an ursan, you can't find a group because no one will accept you. While these are just my feelings how do the rest of you feel about this skill?

[dhatcher1]

I am playing LotRO now. I think that makes my opinion clear.

[Sonja]

do they go in there according to the rank of your ursan blessing? i have onlly done fow or uw 3 or 4 times so i be new to what goes on there lol

[dhatcher1]

I think that teams of players with specialized, task specific builds that require everyone to perform their duties in a well coordinated fashion is much more interesting and rewarding than everyone running the same build and basically overpowering everything in small pieces.

Its like any strategy more complex than an ovewhelming frontal assault is too complex for everyone so no one gets to play a game that requires more than that. I think it was better when elite areas were "elite" and required a fair amount of build/gear setup and practice to learn how to complete.

[Arcole]

yea, they base your ursan on you nern rank - most groups only take r9 or r10 players ¬.¬

[Sonja]

i wonder if any one has used the raven or wolfen blessing for elite missions or such? thanks much dave and arcole on learning knowledge for ursan op

update to this question
i was curious about why they never worked with ursan in the other classes but thanks to greg he answered my curious question.

[dhatcher1]

Pretty sure its only Ursan that people use.

[inuyashaa]

i hate that skill.
cant find any groups to help in missions, but if u
shout lfg have ursan 100 will try and add u..lol

[Gezil Devar]

Well, I kind of have a biased opinion on this one.
a.) Ursan has made everything in the game way too easy, when you can clear the UW on HM in just over an hour I think it is a "little" overpowered
b.) on the other hand, ursan blessing has made all classes basically equal, any class can run an ursan build and be effective. I noticed this especially in DoA. DoA used to be one tank, 1 necro, 3 monks, and 3 eles, no other classes could ever get in a group so you were screwed if you didn't have one of those classes. Now anyone is accepted in a DoA group, granted your ursan rank is high enough.
In a way ursan blessing just made it easier to come up with Elite area builds. 6 ursans and 2 monks and you are ready to go. If you think about it though all elite missions were like this already. The Deep was always run with 4 warriors, 3 eles, 4 monks, and a necro. That is always what it was and no other class was welcomed.
I can see the good and the bad of ursan blessing but I guess it really doesn't matter for me since I am playing LotRO now. :)

[dhatcher1]

The Deep was always run with 4 warriors, 3 eles, 4 monks, and a necro.
Deep Team:
3 Warriors (tank/knockdown build for interrupts)
3 Elementalists (echo or renewal nukers for AoE killing what the tanks were tanking)
4 Monks (lots of healing for the tanks/necros, preferably with specialty skill for the gate room)
1 Necro (Echo SS - AoE Curse specialty build for taking out oni and other melee mobs)
1 Necro (BiP build - Battery build to keep the monks full of power)

Thats 5 jobs with some build variations for each job based on playstyle (only about half your skills are mandatory in each build).

Sure that means Rangers never go to the deep, but then UW was dominated by ranger (trapper build) groups or 1-2 man (monk, necro, ele, rit) teams. Tombs was dominated by Ranger (Barrage/Pet) groups. FoW was the only elite area that was well suited for balanced groups (and was easier than the others)

My feeling is there is no need for every class to have a role in every mission. Every player has a minimum of 4 characters available so you can easily have a character to participate in each mission. The way it is now there is no point in having a class, its just what you were before you hit norn rank 7.

Also instead of requiring good coordination and cooperation, groups just seem to mass mob and overwhelm monsters (kind of like playing an arcade game). Any sense of tactics and teamwork are just gone.

[Gezil Devar]

Tis true that everyone has a minimum of 4 characters available to them, but it is also true that not everyone chooses to level up more than one character to level 20. (even though this is a simple task to achieve) Not only were certain classes excluded from these elite missions but so were the classes that didn't own certain chapters of the game.

And what about all the people that don't have one of those exclusive classes that are allowed in the elite missions. Many people's favorite classes happen to be classes that have no elite missions that they are accepted in. Mesmers could be substituted for an ele or necro every once and awhile, but that still leaves paragons, dervishes, and assassins. A factions only ele was almost never accepted into the deep because they had no meteor shower which was the main damage dealer until nightfall came out with Searing Flames. Then one of the original build skills got replaced with that and if an ele didn't have SF and MS they usually didn't get accepted.

Guild Wars has never really been a huge team work game for me though. You can easily hench your way through almost all aspects of the game and with the addition of heroes you can even get those elite areas done with just 2 or 3 real people and there heroes. I think it is good that they tried to make a skill that made all the classes equal in a sense, although they kinda failed by making it overpowerful and easy to use.

[dhatcher1]

I would say that instead of something like ursan, give dervishes and paragons an anti-knockdown stance and a knockdown skill and suddenly you have 3 classes that could fill the tank role. Give hunters some spike AoE capability so they can fill the AoE role. Mesmers almost have the skills to be the AoE already. Its about roles and who can fill them. If a class can not tank, can not heal and can not AoE then where does it fit into a team strategy? The only other roles are sniper (single target DPS), buffer, debuffer and CC (Crowd Control). In GW there is no penalty for AoE damage so it is always preferable to snipers. Part of that is because there isnt much CC, and what there is is not broken by damage.

Necros are a great class. They can tank (MM), can AoE (SS), can snipe (blood degen), can "heal" (BiP -its power instead of health but same concept), can debuff (curses/enchantment strippers). There are tons of roles they can fill.

Monks also got alot of flexibility simply because they got most of the good buffs, are the only strong healing class, in most areas can out tank any other class (55) and have decent AoE (smites).

Assasins as a class pose a real problem because they are melee only sniper/debuffers with light armor. In LotRO the Champion is a melee AoE, but they get to wear heavy armor so they dont collapse in longer combats. The LotRO burglar is much more survivable because they have CC skills to reduce the number of opponents they face, they have debuffs that reduce their chance of getting hit and how much damage they take and have several stun/knockdowns to buy themselves time. GW assasins kind of got the worst combo of those roles.

[Gezil Devar]

That was kinda my point. In LotRO every class has a purpose and each one can be just as effective as the other. I went through a Fornost run with 2 hunters, 3 champions, and me(minstrel) and we easily got through it. It would have been just as easy if we would have all been different classes because each role is almost always interchangeable. (although it is nice to have a guardian and a minstrel in the group). In GW, there isn't as much switch-ability. If you want massive AoE damage you take an ele, if you want healing you take a monk, etc. etc. There really isn't too much choice for the roles that need to be filled. Eles will almost always out damage a ranger and monks almost always out heal a ritualist. Therefore Anet took the easy way out and made a super god mode skill that every class can use in order to try and make a more leveling playing field. Was it the right thing to do, probably not, but we got it, we are stuck with it (for now), so we should just make the most of it.

[dhatcher1]

we are stuck with it (for now), so we should just make the most of it.Yep - like playing LOTRO! ;)

Diane was out vanquishing last night. She was running ursan. Said it get the job done, but its very boring. Pressing 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 over and over.

I wonder if they are having problems with ursan bots now instead of the 55 bots they used to? Seems like an ideal build for a bot.

[Gezil Devar]

I don't know how Diane keeps going in GW. I got bored with doing the same thing over and over and over again. We need to get her playing LotRO, and get her hooked on it like the rest of us. :) As to ursan being boring I agree 100%. I think it is boring for everyone in the group. I have never played as an ursan in a group, since my monk is my main and I had no urge to grind rep on another character, but monking for an ursan team is Boring! Unless of course you are with the multitude of idiots that run it and think that they can aggro every single thing on the compass. Then it can be challenging. But, with good ursans a group can require little to no healing. I find it funny that an easy to use skill like ursan blessing can be screwed up so badly by stupid people. LOL!

[Arcole]

dont know about diana but im just going to survive GW until this fall or winter hwen GW2 comes out

[DPaladin]

my eyes going crazy with all the long post lol! Anyway what the hell is ursan? If my memory served me right (like 6 months since i logged in gw/my laptop dead) it is the bear transform?

[dhatcher1]

Yes - its the bear transform. Gives you like a 50% health and armor increase and a dual 100+ damage attack skill +3 others I dont remember. People run the elite missions in under an hours by just overpowering everything there. I think if the monsters are not individually more powerful than the players to make up for consistent, predictable computer AI then there is no challenge to the game.