Angelic Bond

[mattpwill]

Double Angelic Bond in GvG is overpowered. It's like the double incoming before it was nerfed, where they can just sit and wait for VoD with their NPCs, and get a guaranteed win. That's what Thrill Of Victory use, and their record shows how good it is.

If one gets distracted, they can make up for it with the other Angelic Bonder. It's impossible to stop without a perfect counterbuild

Please balance it Anet :smiley:

[Shens Death Touch]

Yes Anet, please please give us another nerf...Jeez

You can't win in PVP and you asking for a nerf, thats just great and also typical.

[GunnerDude]

make a major use for a paragon not good? great, someone else wants another major paragon skill nerfed.... with everyone complaining about these skills, the paragon will eventually be disliked. How about make a counter instaid of nerfing paragons.

[mattpwill]

I didn't mean because of that at all. I was just stating a fact. 1 Angelic Bond is less than half as good as 2 Angelic Bonders, because you can shutdown 1. It isn't a shout, so you can't counter it that way, it's 1 second cast and assume they have shields up which is common on paragons, so interrupting it is tricky. Degen pressure doesn't work because of they enormous healing power. It's the hardest build around to beat, because you can't split against it

It's a tricky situation, because it is one where it isn't so overpowered on its own, but only with 2

[herod]

...But it's so much easier to just ask anet to do another "balance":shocked: I love how people would rather ask for the nerf bat then to just think out the build and work on a counter:angry: sad!

[kamekazis]

Well how would you nerf it?

As is its
For 10...30 seconds, all damage suffered by target other ally is divided equally with you.
leadership
1 sec cast
5 energy
5 sec recharge

Am i missing any thing

[mattpwill]

I was only saying the name involved because it shows the wins-losses record of it. It's nothing to do with not beating them, it's the only build I've seen that I can't imagine anyone beating

Don't you think I'd keep quiet and just copy their build if I was more interested in winning all the time than keeping Guild Wars PvP balanced?

[jasmine leb]

It has a 1 second casting time. Just interrupt it.

[The War Keeper]

paragons are already to nerfed almost reduced to junk! if u cant find any counter for paragon dont try to make it even worse than before... they already reduced paragon heal wich i hated btw and guild wars is called rpg for something pvp is not the only thing that gw is made for so leave paragons alone they already are to crap

[mattpwill]

Ye, I agree, you could take a Psychic Distraction Mesmer just to counter their build, but it would be inefficient vs most other teams

Or, you could take Seeking Arrows on a ranger to counter it

[The War Keeper]

good here is ur counter now leave paragons in peace they already are to unneficient wanna make them more?

[mattpwill]

I didn't nerf the other paragon skills, Izzy did. Don't go blaming me for the other Paragon skills not being very good, because I largely agree with you. I'm just saying that the double Angelic Bond build is overpowered in GvG

[The War Keeper]

relax mate im not acusing u of anything...

all i wanna say is well imagine a team of 8 touchers in a pvp there is nothing to counter that too is it? and surelly they can win most of teams but yet no one says they should be nerfed, so they are pretty hard to win.
Paragons have counters and before updates i didnt see any reason to do such big nerf to paragon heal etc... use life stealing spells or skills and u can win its simple :smiley:

There is and always were anything vs everything thats why i hate the updates

[mattpwill]

8 touchers would be very easy to counter. You can split, cripple them, diversion them. It's not comparable

[The War Keeper]

8 touchers would be very easy to counter. You can split, cripple them, diversion them. It's not comparable

im sayng touchers vs paragons lol
and for paragons u can use vocal minority hex it will make them unable to cast any shout or chant for a limited period of time and u can kill them with angelic bond on them easely

[celsius]

It works quite well together with shield of absorsion and healing seed, but it's usually not a problem to go against a team with two paragon with angelic bond.
Its the same as Life Bond with the advantage that it does stack and cant be removed, but then again paragons by themselves dont have good skills to counter against the damage that is inflicted to them.

[The War Keeper]

2 monks 2 mesmers and 3 necros would do the trick vs them
mesmers removing any spell and enchantments necros blocking all chants and shouts attempts and life stealing them monks healing and proting the damage suffered from the paragons

[mattpwill]

Vocal Minority doesn't affect Angelic Bond.

Life Bond doesn't affect spells, Life Barrier would be more comparable, but you could just remove his energy by distracting Blessed Signet, or traditional energy denial, and you can remove the enchantments

[GunnerDude]

Just split the 2 paragons. If you face a 2 angelic bond build, split and either the paragons stick together or they split. So if u dont have trouble with 1 then split and kill the 1 and keep going along.

[Raven Flameheart]

Make it a shout. That's all it really needs. It's not fantastic atm, and a lot of teams could overcome it with split damage, or spiking the bonder(s).

[The War Keeper]

Vocal Minority doesn't affect Angelic Bond.

Life Bond doesn't affect spells, Life Barrier would be more comparable, but you could just remove his energy by distracting Blessed Signet, or traditional energy denial, and you can remove the enchantments

U wont need life bond or life barrier versus a paragon

all u will need is vocal minority few degen spells and life stealing for necro

empathy, backfire, shater enchantment powerspike or any spell interupting skill

for monks wont be hard to heal the team

and also with angelic bond on the paragon team, the damage is divided by two so damage is same if u kill one with only damage the other is dead also

and yes only thing that u could possibly to do angelic bound is make it a spell.. since its an elite skill

[mattpwill]

If the team playing them did split, they could either split too, which would make them weaker, or they could just move their whole team to their base and sit their to VoD, and win at VoD

[The War Keeper]

If the team playing them did split, they could either split too, which would make them slightly weaker, or they could just move their whole team to their base and sit their to VoD, and win at VoD

lol not only paragons can run u know? :P

[Red Acid]

I'm not sure if 2 is overpowered, never faught it, but a normal balanced team will have at least 1 decent interrupt I guess ? Change few skills for another and you made a good counter, and it is indeed effective against other builds, because interrupts can be used against every profession, and every profession can suffer from it.

[The War Keeper]

Well i just had this awsome idea to fix everyone problem including us paragons

1- Set paragon healing and any decreased effectivity skills to normal

2- in a team of 8 or 4 set max allowed paragons to 1 or 2

what u think of it? i think its the only good decision we can do about paragons to not ruin it

[mattpwill]

1 Angelic Bond is relatively straightforward compared to 2 Angelic Bonds to play against, because you can spike him down, or interrupt it sometimes

Paragons are a class that can be overpowered with several of them, but after their nerf pretty useless alone in a balanced build. I can imagine how hard it is to balance them, and don't envy Izzy's job with them

[The War Keeper]

ofc... well u know in pve its pretty rare to get paragons mostly 1 in team of 8
in pvp they exploit the game using huge teams of paragons instead reducing them to junk affecting alot pve since we mostly get 1 in team it should be easyer the idea of allowing a max of 1 or 2 paragons per team

[WingspanTT]

lol "psychic distraction just to counter this build"

guess what: PD can counter tons of things, so it's not like bringing PD is a waste in most matchups

[mattpwill]

PD is relatively inefficient vs most builds. I didn't say it was useless, like you're inferring

[Aiiane]

Dual Angelic Bond is not overpowered. It simply is a very good counter to a spike metagame. However, Angelic Bond does nothing to counter pressure, because it doesn't lessen the damage taken - it only redistributes it.

[mattpwill]

It does only redistribute it, there are many skills that take advantage of the damage taken to reduce it to near 0

Just watch out for Thrill Of Victory [tV] to get top 100 with it and then observe them vs pressure, then we'll see what the general concensus is.. Ah they've started GvG again, they might have top 100 by end of the day. 30 wins 0 losses and counting :smiley:

[Almas Darksoul]

I just watched two tV games, and I have to admit that their build is pretty strong. Note game spoilers coming up, although I doubt it's relevant unless you read this post about 2 minutes after I put it up and you're watching replay at the time.

I personally didn't know what their build was in advance so I'll say for convenience now - it's a 5-man Paragon spike using a Dervish Orders flagrunner. In the games I watched they faced a heavy offense build (damage pressure using thumpers and assassins) and an assassin spike with medium-high defensive capabilities and the ability to pressure if necessary. I'm sure some people will be able to associate the guilds with the builds.

The first game was won by tV fairly rapidly - they had a lot of damage mitigation and a gank attempt was fairly ineffective (the build didn't seem to cater fully for the gank - neither of the gankers had self heals so progress was very slow and they were unable to kill Knights due to the presence of a monk who played smart.)

The second game was won by their enemy - despite a lengthy wait. The assassin spike sent all three sins to gank the enemy base, leaving only defensive characters at the flag stand holding off the spike. Using one copy of "Shields Up!" they managed to pull this off, with aid from frequent morale boosts - the enemy could not run flags as the three sins in the base controlled it effectively. Even having two monks at base couldn't save tV from losing all henchies but the Bodyguard and two lord archers - the team retreated once this point was reached. They then waited until VoD, at which point they sacrificed the remaining henchmen in order to protect the lord from a gank from two assassins. They eventually moved out at 25:00. However, they were unable to deal with the large amount of pressure of having almost all henchies attacking them (or their lord). They dropped only one archer before buckling under the pressure and having 4-5 deaths, at which point they could no longer defend their Guild Lord enough. Their first loss of the season, I believe.

The build is strong, but not invincible. Paragons have slowly changed from group support characters to ranged damage characters who can also offer some groupwide bonuses. Skills such as Shields Up are now more useful than ever, and IMO not very hard to fit on bars since many teams run warrior-trains now. The specific build in question is probably weak to effective ganks provided the main team is able to preserve henchmen too. Flag control also seems to be a key weakness - the more time the Dervish spends running the flag, the less time he has to cast Orders which drastically improve the spike damage. The problem with this idea is that you need to ensure the flagger survives each trip, else the enemy will gain a huge advantage - and this is not always an easy thing to do.
For killing the build, hex pressure would be the strongest option if you didn't want to gank. Hexes such as Blurred Vision and Reckless Haste will quickly render the spike useless, and strong flag running combined with shutting down Light of Deliverance on one of the monks would make it hard for them to survive. However, it is important to realise the build is very strong in VoD - forcing them to guard their Guild Lord to ensure a large Henchmen advantage is important.

A final reason why they received such a long streak is because their map is fairly good for turtling in (as maps go). You can retreat back to base easily, there is no catapult to kill your henchmen and ganking isn't the easiest thing to pull off. Since they are better than most rank 200- teams, they can beat them on any map, and against top 100 teams they can play much better on their own map. Once they reach a rank that suits their build/skill level, you'll find their ratio averaging out a lot more.

[FarbrorVattenmelon]

Well how would you nerf it?

As is its
For 10...30 seconds, all damage suffered by target other ally is divided equally with you.
leadership
1 sec cast
5 energy
5 sec recharge

Am i missing any thing

Change energy cost 10 energy or maybe duration and recharge to make it more expensive to keep up. Basically it would be nice if an angelic bonder would only be able to bond 2-3 people.

[rentauri]

Change energy cost 10 energy or maybe duration and recharge to make it more expensive to keep up. Basically it would be nice if an angelic bonder would only be able to bond 2-3 people.

Which pretty much ruins it except if you want to run with one than one Paragon. Thats the main problem of balancing this profession, what is good for only one paragon can be overpowered for 2+. If it is that overpowered, and I dont see it as that, make it a shout that way it can be counted via all the shouting counters.

[garidanthefighter]

Some of you people need to stop thinking of paragons as solely just support. Just because all you could think of using them for was for their support skills that recently got 'nerfed', doesn't mean that that is the only use for them nor does it mean that other uses have never been there.


make it a shout that way it can be counted via all the shouting counters.

By all the shouting counters, do you mean Roaring Winds, Vocal Minority, and Ulcerous Lungs, for a grand total of two direct counters and one indirect counter? Kill a spirit and use divert hexes; not very hard tasks for a build to accomplish. Sure, in a hex pressure build, Vocal Minority and Ulcerous Lungs might be effective (providing there is a SoH elsewhere in the build), but in any other build? No.

[rentauri]

By all the shouting counters, do you mean Roaring Winds, Vocal Minority, and Ulcerous Lungs, for a grand total of two direct counters and one indirect counter? Kill a spirit and use divert hexes; not very hard tasks for a build to accomplish. Sure, in a hex pressure build, Vocal Minority and Ulcerous Lungs might be effective (providing there is a SoH elsewhere in the build), but in any other build? No.

So instead of changing it to a shout we should nerf it? I dont think it should be nerfed (stat wise) simply because it is one of the few elites that are worth a damn to a paragon in GvG. Making it a shout gives it SOME extra counters (you forgot Well of Silence btw) on top of all the other counters that any skill has when its a one second cast time.

Again the problem with the Paragon prefession on the whole and one of the reasons it gets hit isnt cause its an overpowered profession, its cause of the great syerngy that a group of them can bring. This keeps up and the only way to effectively play a paragon would be to bring two of them or have them act as a ranger (ranged attacker) and well the second option sucks.

[werd]

Again the problem with the Paragon prefession on the whole and one of the reasons it gets hit isnt cause its an overpowered profession, its cause of the great syerngy that a group of them can bring. This keeps up and the only way to effectively play a paragon would be to bring two of them or have them act as a ranger (ranged attacker) and well the second option sucks.

the fact that they are extremely strong offensively and defensively doesn't help their case

just read Ensign's post on GWG, he put it more succinctly than i'd bother to

besides, it looks like paragon skills are being rebalanced in the near future

[FarbrorVattenmelon]

Making it a shout gives it SOME extra counters (you forgot Well of Silence btw) on top of all the other counters that any skill has when its a one second cast time.


Well of silence, you joking? Unless you fill the map with wells its useless. All that they should fix is that you cant bond an entire team which is what people are doing. Bonding the entire team and bonding the bonder and then a couple of SoA's on the bonders and they are fine. The reason this should be nerfed is because of fact that you cannot strip the bonds.

[rentauri]

Well of silence, you joking? Unless you fill the map with wells its useless. All that they should fix is that you cant bond an entire team which is what people are doing. Bonding the entire team and bonding the bonder and then a couple of SoA's on the bonders and they are fine. The reason this should be nerfed is because of fact that you cannot strip the bonds.

Um.. the guy was listing counters to shouts and I pointed out one he missed dont need to get your panties in a bunch. I guess we should also nerf anything that isnt a shout, chant or echo (but listed as skill) in the paragon line to because they cant be stripped either?


the fact that they are extremely strong offensively and defensively doesn't help their case

just read Ensign's post on GWG, he put it more succinctly than i'd bother to

besides, it looks like paragon skills are being rebalanced in the near future

Thats more Anet's fualt I think simply because they dont seem to know what they want the Paragon to do.

[halfthought]

I wonder how many posters here actually PLAY gvg.

Judging by the EXTREMELY contemptuous replies, i'd say not many.

Those people should really get a idea of what there talking about, they probably couldnt beat SF post nerf let alone a Angelic bond team.

I dunno, it might need a minor nerf, as some people put it, its main strength is the fact that its unstrippable, maybe cut the duration so it 20 seconds