Civilized Discussion?

I remember going through ROF... as a partial minion master/fire nuker/blood necro. Yeah I sucked. I found it hard. But I can guarantee you that the next area I was packed for blood magic/fire nuker. It was still bad BUT it was an improvement. The next time... well I had a decent SS build. Now I can mow my way through it.

Nowadays I don't think people can do this anymore. You can't learn by yourself, everything you need to know is out there. Even "worse" (can't really call it worse, it's a double-edged sword, which sides cuts the best I dunno :P) but you now have access to skills like Ursan. I really, really wanna avoid a big UB discussion but I'll tell you why I THINK Ursan was introduced.

Remember spending hours to find the perfect FoW group? DOA runs that lasted over 4 hours... for a SINGLE area? (spent 7 hours in Stygian veil, I'll NEVER forget it) Then it was up to the group to succeed - sure people had "skills", but if you failed after such a long time, you were screwed. FoW runs... over 3 hours to clear the entire thing. Count 4 hours for UW with a low success of success.

That's a typical PUG group to ya.

I can understand the meaning of "elite" area. I'm thinking about L2 and WOW raids, and they're not always easy.

No more of that with Ursan.

And I have to cut it there 'cause the office closes.

So far Kusandaa is winning the thread.

I'm all for skill > time. That's why I love the level cap so much. I'm a big fan of everybody theoretically being on the same level, making skill the only difference between characters. I don't want to have to grind over and over to get an armor piece that makes me stronger (like other games to remain nameless) or to get a green drop that is absolutely necessary for my character to remain on par with others.

IMO everything about this game - namely the fact that there's no monthly fee - implies that it was supposed to be skill > time. If the entire game was supposed to be time based Anet would have charged money to capitalize on the people who loved the game. If PvP was supposed to be time based they wouldn't instantaneously make you level 20 with unlocks to all the cool stuff you have. Sadly with PvE skills, consumables, etc. skill > time is no longer the case. I'm really hoping for something amazing from GW2 or else Blizzard is winning me over (not with WoW, but SC2 and D3).

To Kusandaa:

YES!!
We had to use our wits, and what we had learned to use!!
When my guild was the first to defeat Mallyx BEFORE his dumb-down....It was an acheivement, not a chore.
We didn't have cons...we didn't have ursan...we had a well-balanced team.
People QQ because they couldn't take this proffession, or that proffesion...good lord, they didn't even take the time to think out the mission before hand.
After my guild did it several times after..it was decided we actually knew what we were doing. (We took several different proffessions, just to mix it up.)
Yes, Paragons are imba..but they ARE Paragons...not a fake proffession.
*sigh*
WHY did ANet create such a rift in the original game?
WHAT reasons are there to ruin such a good concept as skill>time?
We all play GW to relax, and entertain ourselves....who REALLY wants to rush thru it, and then just keep repeating the same quests ..over, and over, and over again?
Ok..I'm border-line QQ here..I'll stfu.

Let me guess - you sucked at math?

Actually, in elementary school I was like the best student in my class. Then came the middle-school with THE WORST math teacher I've ever seen. I barely made a B (4 out of 6 in my country...).

But negative times positive is always a negative. Zero is a neutral number. Ain't that right? Multiply 2 and -2 and you get -4.

So, since you get experience as you play, it's time = experience.

But you don't get ANY experience using ursan. Nothing. Well, maybe your head has 1 2 3 permanently printed on it for easier head buttonmashing, but that's it.
So, if you dedicate (XDD) your time to play using Ursan, you get a 2 (time) x -2 (ursan). You get a -4. And since:

Time = experience
Skill is based on experience in like 80%. You can be talented naturally, but you still need experience.
So in this case, 2 (times) x 2 (skill) = 4. So you get.. something more when not using ursan. Oof.

There is one thing that A-Net left out of the equation when they thought up the skill>time concept for GW ,individual intelligence. Human nature dictates that some will adapt faster than others to certain situations and there is no way you can compensate for that through game mechanics.
As long as we are individuals we will make our own adjustments to situations and that will force A-Net to adjust the game in order to try and keep the status q. GW have now reach a stage where we have people that do nothing but try and beat the status q and A-Net can't keep up anymore.
(It only took a few hours before there was a new SF build up on wiki).

As it is now in PvE it's more like experience>skill than skill>time, everyone knows exactly what and where to expect in each area.

Unless A-Net starts to give the "monsters" a skill bar that changes randomly it is an unavoidable situation.

How is using Ursan no experience? Someone who does DoA 50 times in Ursan groups will learn the position of mobs and become experienced with the instanced areas and quests a lot more than someone who does it twice in non ursan groups. Thats all PvE is. The same mobs and patrols in the same positions all day every day.

'Skill' is such a myth in PvE, i mean how do you measure it? By achieving what you want to achieve? By clearing an area fastest? By using less popular builds and professions? Its totally subjective.

Time > Skill is an old arguement now that's been addressed with rep books and double weekends. Ursan is overpowered but it has nothing to do with encouraging grind over skill.

Knight O Cydonia wrote:WRONG, and fail.

Why the hell do you WANT to run DoA (An ELITE area kids.) 50 times Ursan??????
Holy crap..that statement reeks of armbrace farming to me..NOT exploring areas that weren't available (accessable..lulz) to the less skilled player...

its just an example. i think your finger slipped on the caps lock too.

Keep living in the Matrix.

Really? I've been in a Ursanway team once to clear UW. Wasted quite some time, as we just were going FASTER!!! FASTER!!! FASTEEER!!! to next area. Same in FoW.

That means that when you play Ursan time stops.
Or to quote you:

Please help me understand otherwise then. You can easily do an elite area with a r5 ursan team which is easily gotten without grinding, eliminating the time factor. The problem lies in the overpowered blessing, not time > skill.

Actually what you get using your equation regarding Ursan in the above post is an Implosion.
Unless your playing with your monitor off you do get some experiance even with Ursan, like it or not.

That's a negative experience. Maybe it's just me, but ursaners are more reckless than year ago.

For example, the only norn run last double event Ursans (there were 3, 2 monks and my assa, mesmer using energy surge an a nuker) were just running running RUNNING, I kept dying, one of them was all the time slowed down with hexes, monks were shouting ,,stop rushing please, we can't keep up with you'' and they were ignored.

Plus the amount of FoW-wearing morons increased.

I said multiply, not add 2 and -2. Because THEN the time would stop.

But you actually loose skill. Same as when you don't train but use steroids. You seem to be getting stronger, but your skill decreases.

Hey, finally a good way to sum up Ursan - a steroid.

To quote:
Thus time when playing Ursan = 0.

GW STOLE teh 'Matrix' look with their asura glasses and jackets!!!
ZOMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!

Yet you see bullets flying. So time isn't stopped. It's SLOOOWED DOOOOWN.

And that would mean you are gaining experience while playing Ursan.

Random PuGs in harder areas tend to fail, usually due to build inefficiencies, lack of teamwork which is caused by a lack of defined roles, then add a dash of face-punching mobs, environmental effects and whatever else. If they didn't fail, it would be easier, like the rest of the game is in the starting missions on NM. PuGs there don't usually fail.

Folks who have reached the harder areas enjoy not failing, so order has been made out of chaos. A team build that has been proven efficient has been developed, and people who don't want to fail agree to form groups with this build and include those who also want to run it, in the name if efficiency, that is, efficiency starting up, getting out, and finishing the quest.

This isn't new. In the new Tombs, Barrage/Pet is one example. It works well, people call for it, and run it all the time. Ursan is not much different. Some groups might be misinformed about how effective Ursan r7 is compared to r10, but many don't care. Many just hope that you don't over-aggro and get out of range of the monks. You know, play your role so that failure doesn't occur.

This isn't a bad thing. This is a good thing. It lets people play. Ursan is just one part of a team build, like minions or Barrage is one part of Barrage/Pet. Sway is a PvP example. No single aspect of the build is overpowered, but it is not hard to run once you learn how properly, and easy to set up a random team, and most importantly, you stand a chance to win if you play your role correctly.

Those who want deeper play in harder areas, play beyond PuGs, you need to know how to get groups that aren't PuGs, and the first step is to have and maintain friends list, or be in a like-minded guild.

If your main concern is that Ursan stagnates creative build making, then a duration nerf might be justified, so that Ursan becomes just one part of a player's skill bar, instead of the focus.

If your main concern against is finding a PuG in a high end area that doesn't want a specific build, then nerfing Ursan doesn't solve anything. The next most efficient build will just take its place.

If your main concern against Ursan is that it makes hard zones easier, you'll find that most good skills and team builds do. Energy Surge is better than Energy Burn, and plenty of things are better than Flare on a monk. Knowing AI patterns helps tons, and so does having a general strategy (even things like pulling, shutdown, not over extending, or killing priority targets like hard res characters first). Ursan just happens to be one that works the best. Again, if it's nerfed, the next most efficient build will just take its place.

To extend on this, if your main concern is that this build lets people who haven't beaten the area, beat it after you've already beat it some other way, then you should realize that it does not ever take anything away from you. There are people on the wiki complaining, because you can go back and update your HoM with Obsidian armor once GW2 is released. This is the same, and flawed way of thinking that more people doing things takes away from your personal accomplishments. The first cartographers had it hard, and even they swapped reference maps to find the last nooks. FFF is now streamlined efficient down to a science. The first explorers of the Deep and Urgoz probably died dozens of times, solving traps and simply learning how to progress.

Things get easier as knowledge becomes common. This has always been true.

That's how I see it. If Anet decides to nerf it, I hope they do so for the right reasons, and in the right way, and I hope they explain their justification well, and I hope it's a good one.

Skill > time existed all the way up to ursan and imbagons. For example, I could complete a mission or get X title in Y minutes. It might take a worse player twice those Y minutes to get that title. In the end, if they play 3x as much as me, they'll have more titles, but if he played the same amount (or just a little more), my skill will win out over his slight time advantage.

Now it's not the case. It's just whoever can afford consumables and mash 123 on recharge that wins.