User talk:Quizzical/Defense Wins

Offense FTW
If defense is so important, and offense only a second thought, then why do Ursan builds now rule the game. And yeah, I also think there is too much Ursan in the game, so let's not start that rant. Still Ursan is a purely offensive form. Add healing, and nothing stops it. You don't win by defense; you win by killing. Consider also that there is no better defense than dead opponents. If you find you need more defense, then either your healing is not what it should be - fix your monks - or you understanding of what entails a good offense is lacking. You do seem to believe that offense is nothing more than damage. This is most untrue. I have completed the entire game, done all missions (and dungeons) on Normal Mode (that's what the game calls it!) and hard mode, and have also vanquished most of the areas. All done solo, with heroes and henchies. There is no area that can't be resoundingly beaten by a good offense. - Havoc   (Talk|Contribs) 11:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, in the current PvP Meta, you need quite some sick defense in order to not get an exploded Monk. Didn't read the article, tbh, so dunno if it was specific to PvE... And Ursan wins cause it gives you an AoE KD, armor ignoring spammable dmg for offense. And for defense? 20 armor, 200 hp and a SHITLOAD of Weakness. --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG|Ohaider!]]-- (s)talkpage  11:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The article was PVE specific. And despite your excellent points on Ursan, it is the most offensive oriented skill group in the game.  AoE KD's are offensive, not defensive.  Knocking someone on their butt in real life will earn you an assault charge. It also does AOE damage. The weakness also gives nearby allies a bonus on their attacks, so it is both defensive and offensive. And 150 armour ignouring damage anyone? repeatabel evere few seconds?  That is why people run Ursan. For the offense. Or do you see alot of Ursan's hiding at the back of the party? - Havoc    (Talk|Contribs) 12:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Why it is ran != Why it is good. Flare is ran too, but it isn't good. It is good because it has both a crapload of offense, and defense. I'm not disagreeing with you, just stating Ursan also has defense. --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG|Ohaider!]]--  (s)talkpage  12:22, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay. I didn't actually want to argue that point, since it obviously has some defensive value. That is also not the point to my post, it was about the value of offense ingame. Why is it, that when you write the word "Ursan" on this wiki, people see only that one word? Havoc    (Talk|Contribs) 12:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Interesting to note is that, in HM elite missions, Ursan groups epicfail for the exact reasons you mentioned: No matter their massive damage, most Ursans are casters who, even with the bonus from Ursan, are squishy. If you don't do some serious defense, the HM mobs eat through ursans faster than the ursans do. But then I have to say, this only has to do with stupid ursans. I guess, ultimately, what you need isn't really offense or defense, but a strategy to use whatever offense or defense you choose to bring.[[Image:Entrea Sumatae.png|Entrea Sumatae]]Entrea  [Talk]  15:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * As Vipermagi points out, Ursanway is very heavy on defense. In addition to the healers, most of the party has +20 armor, +200 HP, and mobs are essentially permanently weakened and often knocked down (and hence interrupted).  That's a party heavier on defense than most non-ursan parties, and that's why it is effective.  Indeed, that is why ursan blessing is so ridiculously unbalanced:  it not only has extremely high damage outputs, but also quite a lot of defensive stuff.
 * Take out all of the defensive capabilities but leave the same damage as before, and ursanway would no longer work in many hard mode missions. If one were instead to cut the damage of the ursan skills by half without touching the defensive capabilities of it, it would work scarcely less well than it does now.  It would be used a lot less, but that would mainly be because it was slower, and not because it no longer worked.  Ursan blessing is just another piece of evidence in favor of my point.
 * In easy mode, you can often get away with being completely reckless and still win. In hard mode, if you just try to trade hits with the mobs, in many places, they'll kill you before you kill them.  That's why you have to dampen their damage, bring some healing, etc.  Saying that you've beaten missions and vanquished areas doesn't, by itself, say that much.  If you relied heavily on consumables and unbalanced pve-only skills, then it effectively wasn't hard mode.  If you didn't use those, and never took heroes or henchmen that could blind mobs, weaken them, interrupt, remove hexes and conditions, heal your party members, increase armor, block attacks, etc., then perhaps you'll have a point that defense is irrelevant.  But I don't have to have ever watched you do anything in-game to know that you didn't do things that way.
 * If one avoids the usual cheats that act as crutches for incompetent players, there are trade-offs between offense and defense. There is an interval in this range in which the party will beat the mission.  It is quite common for players to go too heavily toward offense, and then fail because they have no means by which to keep themselves alive.  It is exceedingly rare for players to go too heavily toward defense, and then fail because they cannot kill the mobs.  If groups were routinely taking six healers on avoid combat and failing for the latter reason, I'd have written an article advocating the use of more offense.  Quizzical 19:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Now you're telling me how I play? I don't use cons or ursan.  I don't need them. In fact I am seldom found without Charging strike as my elite. Why? It's aggressive. You seem rather confused as to what defense is, and think that offense is only damage and nothing but damage. That idea is blatantly rediculous. Weakening or blinding opponents, or knocking them down are offensive acts. If you doubt that, then go outside and knock somebody on their buttocks, then poke them in the eyes for good measure.  Tell the police you were only defending yourself...  They won't buy it and neither do I.
 * You scream about defense, and then suggest offensive acts. Reminds me of Ghandi beating up reporters. I have beat missions and dungeons in hard mode without ursan or cons or "great defense", and it was fairly easy. Moderate defense (condition/hex removal/healing) is certainly a wonderful thing, and you may even be right about others neglecting it, but it doesn't replace a good offense, and nothing ever will. - Havoc   (Talk|Contribs) 21:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well yes, if you define everything as offense, then of course you'll think that offense is important. To take your analogy, if you walk up to someone on the street unsolicited and try to "heal" him or "remove hexes" from him, that could well get you charged with assault, too.  Does that mean those are offense?
 * Why do you weaken or blind mobs? Is it to kill them?  Of course not.  It is to prevent them from killing you.  That is half the point of defense, and yes, it is very useful in some situations.  What I'm against is the people who want to do a lot of damage and nothing else.  If a character is built to do a lot of damage, and also blind or weaken mobs a lot, then that's the sort of balance I'm advocating.  It sounds like your disagreement is one of definitions, not one of substance.
 * Though if you have a way to usually beat The Eternal Grove with henchmen/heroes, without relying on pve-only skills, and without consumables, I'd like to see the strategy. Quizzical 22:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you're probably right about my disagreement being one of definitions. Let's just check that hypothesis:
 * I don't define everything as offense; I just feel that offense is more than the raw damage that you present it to be. It is more than numbers floating over an opponents head. I differentiate between "offense" and "damage". I also recognize that skills which may be seen as defensive skills can be used in an offensive manner, and likewise offensive skills can be used in a defensive manner.
 * I have, in fact "healed" people in real life - I am very quick to provide first aid to those in need thereof - and have never been charged with assault. Are you one of those people who look the other way when someone is in desperate need of help? If not, then you've led a sheltered life to have no experience in this. I do suspect however, that I would probably be charged with something (disturbing the peace? public entoxication? harrassment?) if I tried to remove hexes on someone in real life. I'll forgoe any experimentation in that direction. Also, I don't consider healing to be defensive in nature (and neither is it offensive).
 * Why weaken and blind mobs? Usually I am, in fact, trying to kill them; weakening or blinding them simply furthers this cause. I wouldn't bother otherwise. This is most definately an offensive usage of those conditions, and the application of those conditions is an act of aggression. The skill being used to apply those conditions is being used as an integral part of an offensive strategy, and must be considered offensive in nature. It is, however, quite possible that I am not in the least interested in killing them, and only want them to not kill me (happened alot while I was scraping walls, or hunting a particular elite and couldn't be bothered with other mobs). In this event, blinding or weakening foes is not an integral part of an attack against them, is not done to expediate their deaths, and is thus defensive in nature.
 * My definitions for clarification:
 * Offense: Those skills and tactics which are primarily used to attack or defeat an opponent. This includes skills which cause damage, as well as those which inflict conditions and hexes upon an opponent, when those conditions and hexes are part of an attack methodology and serve primarily to expedite the defeat of that opponent. Tactics which are offensive include spiking, the application of pressure to opponents in order to override or circumvent their defensive and supportive strategies and capabilites, and the usage of teamspeak/ventrilo in PVP. Most PVP tactics are offensive tactics, designed to beat opposing teams as quickly as possible. Most things done in-game fall in this category, since just about every aspect of the game involves killing something.
 * Defense: Skills and tactics which are primarily used to subvert an attack against oneself, or to reduce the damage thereof. This includes blocking, interrupts, and conditions or hexes which impede an opponents ability to cause harm - where the intent of those conditions and hexes are to avoid harm and not simply to expedite the defeat of an opponent. Tactics include turtling and running tactics, as well as tanking in PVE and the basic idea of a "backline".
 * Support: Skills and tactics which primarily provide support. Healing falls in this category. Pure healing is obviously not an offensive capability, as it does not harm an opponent in any way. It is also not defensive in nature as it neither impedes an opponents offensive capabilities, nor reduces the damage done by that foe . It simply "repairs" damage which has already been done. (Note that I differentiate between pure healing and the damage reduction provided by many protection spells, the formor is support, the latter is defense.) Other things generally in this category are speed buffs, resurrection, skills and tactics for energy management, tactics for moving quickly between battles, and the usage of temspeak/ventrilo in a PVE environment.
 * I'll post what I can remember of the build and tactics I used in the Eternal Grove on that missions talk page, if you want. It has been some time, so I don't remember it clearly, but I should be able to reconstruct it easy enough by doing the mission again. I can tell you now that I used 4 maxed level pets (all heroes were Ranger secondary and all had comfort animal and one trap, using a total of 3 skill slots), 2 hero minion bombers, 1 hero spirit spammer (using the spirits mostly to impede entrance to the grove and absorb attacks). Attribute allocation for heroes was unusual, with beast mastery maxed, since the minions were supposed to die). the Henchies were Professor Gai (for a second, albeit less controllable, spirit spammer), the healer, the prot monk, and Cynn. I was a warrior using Charging Strike for constant speed and increased damage output. split the mm's and ss's, monks in the middle, divy up the tree thingies, and get ready for alot of micro-management and running back and forth. Ugly, and it didn't work perfectly. Do to the amount of micro-management, I think it will only work for an uncomplicated player build based upon speed and quick damage output. Took me a couple of tries. Without a doubt, the hardest mission in the game imo. - Havoc   (Talk|Contribs) 16:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)