Feedback talk:User/Jette/Nerf Wail of Doom

I fear that with a cost of 15, a recharge double as high as the effect and a fifth of your health bar paid in blood this may be — even if this is as you said the worse suggestion — too much for most people to be taken. Ɲoɕʈɋɽɕɧ 00:57, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Wail is a belanced, and on my opinion, weak elite because is an hex so it can be removed (and hex removal don't need attributes). It have a nice duration compared to the recharge 27%. The target can still attack run and do skills. If we compare Wail with a knock-down or with blackout wail is cleary a worse.Ciotto 01:48, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

You can't be serious. It's a hex with a 4 second duration (removing it would be a waste of time), has an identical recharge to many hex removals, the target can NOT attack, because each attack would do 2 damage, and the only skills they can use are no attribute (which suck) and infuse health (which kills you).

• Backbreaker
  • You need to hit someone 10 times to get the knockdown. Under ideal conditions, BB would recharge every 17.5 seconds without a speed boost.
  • You need to land the knockdown.
  • Melee range.
  • Miss hexes and blind can negate it.
  • Can be interrupted.
• Wail of Doom
  • No prerequisites, except the 11.85 second recharge.
  • No requisites to get the effect.
  • Earshot range
  • Instant cast

I never thought I'd hear anyone defend this abomination of a skill. ~Shard 02:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

@Noctarch: Smiter's Booning the skill would be better for the game as a whole than letting it stay as is.

@Ciotti: I'm going to make the assumption you have no idea what you are talking about, and kindly suggest you get some gameplay experience before attempting to comment on things you don't understand. —Jette 07:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If you say that 4 sec is too low to use an hexbreaker is clear that isn't soo strong. With 0 attributes you do only the 10% with skills then normal, and not nothing. Condition like blind and daze are strong as this elitè but more specific on the targets. Also there are a lot of magics that have a KD effect not only one elitè.And shard i know that you hate skill that kick you from the game, and i know that you are a smart guys, why don't you come on my user page i need tyour help :P.Ciotto 07:44, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Saying that Backbreaker needs 17.5 seconds to be charged isn't a really good example as there are many ways to speed that up (IAS, Enraging Charge) which are as much taken as considered part of Backbreaker's balance. Sure, knockdown attacks can be blinded and so on, but that's there natural draw-back since those deal damage at the same time as doing something different. And finally, an infuser blackened out or knocked down can't do anything. Hexed with Wail of Doom, that one still can do his or her job — dimished but able to. I don't deny that this may be powerful in some situations (Wail of Doom put on a warrior might be considered bad playing by some PvPers since there are much more important targets like monks and those don't attack). However, there's a reason why it's gone out of its over-hyped state.

Regarding an obliteration of a skill; this is the suggestion area — why suggesting that and not a second option which you find yourself viable? Ɲoɕʈɋɽɕɧ 08:58, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) "4 sec is too low to use an hexbreaker"

I think you misunderstand. 4 seconds doesn't mean it's not strong enough to warrant a hex removal, it means that by the time you've managed to use the hex removal, it's half over. That doesn't means it's useless. If you BB one monk while the other is Wailed, then the enemy team essentially has zero healing or prot for 4 seconds (which, by the way, is about all the time it takes for a decent warrior to pulverize somebody, especially if they happened to just use Backbreaker or something).

"With 0 attributes you do only the 10% with skills then normal, and not nothing"

I'm not sure what this means. If you're saying your skills are only 10% as effective as normal with 0 attributes in them, you would be approximately correct in most cases, but that doesn't mean it's useful. WoH heals for 35 points with 0 in healing & DF -- 5 if you jump the gun. Searing Flames does 10 damage and you need another SF to spike with since you can't actually burn them long enough to use it. Even the PvE-only skills start approaching something closed to balanced when you have 0 in the title. 35 points isn't enough to save someone, 10 isn't enough to kill someone. WoD basically turns your character into a level 1 with a really, really big Vigor rune for 4 seconds.

"Condition like blind and daze are strong as this elite"

No, they aren't. Blind and daze each affect one type of character, that's it. If you Daze a warrior, he will probably just laugh at you while you squishes you with his hammer. If you Blind a monk, he and his buddies will giggle in vent. You can cast WoD on any character and they are useless. Your argument is also stupid because you are comparing conditions to hexes. Conditions have a bunch of viable, frequently used counters, whereas hexes have none. If the RC is dazed and covered, you can still take it off of him (and, in fact, you can still do it without using a gay skill). There basically isn't a way to get rid of a covered hex, other than by bringing skills which remove multiple hexes, almost all of which suck. Also: conditions are balanced because they come off really easy and actually have costs associated with them. Blindness is easy to apply, yes, but Flash/Surge come with notable energy costs and unlike hexes, can be removed. One click of RC is all it takes to heal for a lot and make the warrior start hurting shit again. It also happens to recharge faster than blind. I should also point out that Dazed doesn't actually cause spells to be useless, it just makes them really easy to interrupt.

"Also there are a lot of magics that have a KD effect not only one elitè"

Those skills have things WoD don't though: disadvantages. It's the key to balance, really, giving players really cool effects but making them have to do or give up something for them. I am reminded for some reason of an article written by Mark Rosewater, one of the lead balance guys for Magic: the Gathering, in the Beatdown box set's flavor book (it was actually quite nice, order one off of ebay sometime -- the art is great, and the Sengir vs. Ernham theme was pretty cool) that explained how he designed Phyrexian Dreadnought, still one of the biggest creatures to date (for comparison, a 9/9 is basically a living mountain, a 10/10 could eat Hawaii for breakfast, literally, and an 11/11 could punch out W:Cthulhu) to be only 1 mana -- what that means is, you're legally allowed to play the card on turn one, without a stupid gimmick combo. The reason that's okay (and, in fact, the card is actually underpowered, if anything) is because you have to sacrifice creatures totaling at least its own power or it just goes straight to the graveyard (as a side note, the fact that you as the player can take a hit from one of those things and not collapse just goes to show you how awesome you as the character are supposed to be -- in the official novels (which sucked), Urza gets his head cut off and manages just fine for an extended period of time). Obviously, having to give up at least 3 or 4 cards to play the thing makes it a pretty easy target for cards like this, which means that all of your "investment" cards as well as the Dreadnought itself are wasted.

I'm straying a bit off topic here, so I'll get back to the point: Wail of Doom has an amazing effect with no disadvantage whatsoever. 10% health sacrifice is nothing compared to what you get for the cost of WoD. 1 energy? You get one energy back by the time the aftercast is over. 0.25¼ second cast time means it's both uninterruptible and there's no time to prepare yourself for it. Rodgort's hurts, but you can see it coming. Warriors hurt, but unless they're being pricks (or, you know, smart) you can see them running towards you. WoD doesn't give you that; it's just "LOL BAI" for 4 seconds while you helplessly watch your buddy (or yourself) get turned into goo, or ashes, or whatever gimmick the opposing team happens to be running. Old Gale and Blackout both had/have similar effects to WoD, but unlike WoD, they actually had disadvantages and counters. Gale builds up exhaustion fast, and if you like, you can use Balanced Stance or something to keep yourself from getting knocked down when it's important. It also only knocked down for 3 seconds, as opposed to the 4 seconds WoD currently does -- and it's worth noting that you can still activate some skills, namely stances, while knocked down. Your stances usually don't last for but 1 second under WoD. Blackout's effect is almost the same as WoD's in that you can't use your skills, but Blackout has a few major differences: first, it's melee range, and getting a mesmer (the squishiest class in the game) in touch range of a backline monk is not easy to do if you want him to get out alive. It also disables your own skills (meaning you can't, for example, put it on a warrior), and has a 10-energy cost, which is prohibitive to lolspamman. And, again, seeing a mesmer just running up to you screams that something bad is going to happen, since I can list on one hand the number of skills that require a mesmer to get in melee range (I think, unless I've forgotten some that are so bad you usually don't even think about them, like Amity or something). —Jette 09:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Noctarch: I didn't suggest a viable alternative because I do not believe that a skill which sets all attributes to zero can possibly be viable without being overpowered. It will either be useless or imba'd as all hell, similar to my thoughts on Shadow Form. Invincibility is not an acceptable mechanic in a multiplayer environment of any kind. Neither is being able to cause a target to disconnect for 4 seconds on command. —Jette 09:02, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The reason why Dreadnoughts are still quite expensive and strong are Trickbind, Stifle, Volrath's Shapeshifter, Cemetery Puca. (Before you come with Doom Blade 'n stuff — you are playing the deck blue.) ;) Enough off topic :D Ɲoɕʈɋɽɕɧ 09:11, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Yeah, honestly, this skill hasn't been a huge problem since they upped the recharge a bit and has never really been a significant problem in 8 man formats, other than on a split. It only needs a minor adjustment if any, a slight increase in either casting time or cost would do the trick. TA is disappearing and people weren't even running it there any more. Misery 09:08, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Those combos are only valid in Vintage though (I think), a format where you're actually allowed to use one each of the power 9 -- any card or combo worth bringing to the table is going to be capable of winning on turn two.  :/ I said doom blade because it was the first kill card that can target artifacts I thought of. —Jette 09:13, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Um, All of those are Legacy legal ^^° Ɲoɕʈɋɽɕɧ 09:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Legacy is what again? I was never that familiar with the tournament rules. Nobody plays where I live, I think WotC is kind of afraid of all the shotgun-wielding nutcases who still think D&D is some sort of satanic ritual. —Jette 09:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying that is perfect and is well belanced, i agree with shard that there mustn't be skill like that. But this is an elitè and isn't soo strong like other elité. I nevere see i spike of this in ha or gvg. People use this on monk generally because then they can't heal well and not on war or other prof. I want to be clear this elite for me need a little debuff like more recharge and cast time, for the effect that have now.--Ciotto 09:50, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I thouth about how i will change this skill and this is mi idea:

• Wail of Doom

10% 10 0.75¾ 20 Elite Hex Spell. For 2...12...15 seconds all target attributes are reduced by 0...3...4.

Tell me what do you think about it ^_^.--Ciotto 14:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Eh... I think it still might be pretty strong. -4 to all attributes means a lot less power, but I guess it wouldn't be anywhere near as abusive as it is now, so if ANet wanted to do that I guess I'd be okay with it. Besides, given the option between this an Lingering Curse, I imagine hexgay teams will still go with LC (also broken out the ass). —Jette 19:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

So with that change a physical class would need to have 13 weapon mastery to not deal crap damage (14 if you also want to deal with weakness). --JonTheMon 19:21, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Physicals run 14(+[+]). Ɲoɕʈɋɽɕɧ 19:43, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

So if physicals typically run 14, would the proposed WoD need to take away more attributes (up to 6)? --JonTheMon 19:46, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Mine is only a suggestion. I think 4 less attributes at 15 or maybe 16 in Soul Reaping that require a major or a supre runes that are quite rare in pvp. But lowering to 3 is still nice ^_^. You have to think that weakness lower your damage by 66% so losing the req for the weapon becaouse of it isn't that bad.--Ciotto 20:09, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

As I read thru half the suggestions, I completely feel the feeling that you guys want to smiter boon this skill, even if they left this skill as it is, and all they did was reduce the duration to be max 3 seconds, then it will be about the same strength as gust or a warrior kd Talamare 23:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

"same strength as gust or a warrior kd"

SCROLL UP —Jette 00:07, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know nobody really uses WoD as is - and from what everyone was saying it was only a problem in 4v4, even pre-nerf. Reverting it to that old version would pretty much turn it into a mindless attacker perma-shutdown skill, and your suggestion honestly just sounds boring and Pblock-like. I'd like to see the skill staying close to how it is right now, as it's actually really fun to use and unique. Impaled 01:42, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

If you exclude PvE Shadow Form, this is mathematically the best skill in the game (and even then it might qualify as the best, but Shadow Form is still rationally the best and PvE would need a different categorization system anyway). Really. Cost: basically nothing, benefit: kill target foe for 4 seconds. Right. Okay. That's balanced. Even if not many people use it, the point is that it's so amazingly abusive that it needs to be changed. "Changed" being a key word here, not necessarily "nerfed." When I first heard the skill name Wail of Doom, I thought it would be some sort of necromancer elite Cry of Frustration (as a side note, implementing another Cry clone is a VERY BAD IDEA DO NOT DO IT). They should do something original instead of making it a bad shutdown skill or stupidly overpowered shutdown skill. —Jette 02:01, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I read the thing by shard, but then you have to consider things like a warrior kd is often followed by 300-400 damage, and probably a second or third kd... then theres something like echo gale to knock lock but then we get into the realm of exhaustion... and you have to consider this isnt even a full "knock lock" its just 4 second disable, the target can still move and cast spells to a minor degree of effectiveness, but somethings(very very few things) still do the bare minimal even with 0 attribute, like dismiss condition or cure hex will still remove a hex or remove a condition, even if you disabled the healing with WoD... I also suggesting that it should be nerfed, to reduce the duration to 3 seconds instead of 4, since I rather not smiter's boon the skill and the basic of what it does...... edit also the target CAN attack, yes he will do 2 damage, but he will also be able to build adren and spike the second WoD ends, or still be able to get minimal effects from his attack -IE Dev hammer will still KD Talamare 09:39, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

"As far as I know nobody really uses WoD as is"

Nobody really uses Searing Flames as it is - but it is still a stupidly overpowered nuke skill (in PvP, for chrissakes) when you run 5 of them. A skill not being in the meta this very second doesn't mean it's underpowered - look at Avatar of Melandru. It's still absolutely amazing, but since Wounding Strike is ten times better, nobody's going to run mels. In a full game re-balance, if you nerfed wounding down to where it needs to be, everyone would just go back to melandru. You can't ignore stuff that isn't in the meta at this very second - those skills are still a big part of the game, and they can come back in a heartbeat.

"your suggestion honestly just sounds boring and Pblock-like."

PBlock is actually one of the most fun skills in the entire game, let alone the mesmer class. You just can't suck at mesmer. -Auron 11:58, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, Wail of Doom isn't really that powerful. It's inferior to Blinding Flash for avoiding spikes (15 recharge is a pain in the rear), inferior to Faintheartedness for avoiding general anti-pressure and doesn't really do much when you use it for general pressure on monks since it has a very low upkeepability. So the only real use this skill has is spike support which is something you can also provide by using Gale. I'm fully aware of the downsides of this skill but because it's non-elite AND has only 5 recharge it's much, much more flexible than Wail of Doom ever will be. Also add the fact that if you are running a spike you will likely not be running much hexes meaning that this skill isn't very hard to remove AND the fact that Infuse Health, the main spike counter, is barely touched by reducal of attribute points, I think you can conclude this skill is highly overrated and in fact not very powerful at all. EDIT: Before you're going to say "but you can use WoD for all these things", I just want to say, taking 2 non-elites on 1 skill bar (Gale+Blinding Flash) is better than running an elite skill on a different character, especially if those 2 non-elites cover everything the elite does and better. Furthermore, concerning Exhaustion, that argument is easily countered by the fact that you don't HAVE to use Gale every 5 seconds because you will likely not be spiking so much. And concerning the condition removal to counter Blind, usually that Blind has already taken off the bite of the spike by the time you remove it. I do agree this skill needs a rework though, it's stupid in the current form no matter how you look at it. Dark Morphon 08:09, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it's cute people still complain about this skill. With the 15 second recharge it has now it doesn't bother me anywhere, really. The 0 Attribute hurts things like Word of Healing for catching spikes but things like Infuse and Protective Spirit won't suffer too badly if they're cast at the right time. It's strong but most skills that are primary-linked should be a little heavier handed just because secondaries can't get a good use out of 'em. Eh, I can't say I agree with you but with the amount of popularity this page has gotten I'm sure it'll be one of the first considered by the devs. Good luck. :P Bathory talk 05:43, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I've begun to stop paying attention to this page, in all honesty. Most of the concerns you and others have expressed have already been addressed and justified, either by myself or by others. This skill is simply degenerate, and I believe that it should be changed both to put it back in gameplay and prevent it from being abused. —Jette 06:06, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree on this one, there is no way this skill is ever going to be balanced in the current form. Dark Morphon 08:04, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that the original version costed 15 energy and disabled only attack skills. It was pretty powerful, tbh. just revert to that.

@Jette, why do I get the impression that Feedback pages are full of shit? NuVII 23:44, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Edited for correctness. Oh, and it tingles my funny bone when people compare this a KD skill. Gale, even. Pretty lulzy, but I bite.

Yes, on paparcraftan, Backbreaker is better. Deals damage, costs no health, KDs (which is better than 0 attribs) and does a bunch of other stuff. It also (as Jette and Shard have stated earlier) doesn't cast instantly, can be blinded/hexed/interrupted, takes (lolDshotting BB) 30 seconds to charge at best, never charges at worst, and gets blocked all the time.

Stop using bad arguments like "this be a hex, strip it lol" and "you can still attack, lol" and "blind is better for warriors, lol" and "A KD is stronger, lol" and "I've never seen this run". They have already been disproven. NuVII 23:51, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I would assume that has something to do with them being full of people who prefer to theorycraft bs without even bothering to play (or even watch) what happens to the game when these kinds of skills run amok. I think most people understood that 90% of the comments on suggestions and suggestions themselves would be full of shit when this namespace opened, but hopefully ANet will be able to sort the crap from the wisdom. –Jette 00:09, 11 October 2009 (UTC)