Talk:Ursan Blessing

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Check This Out
The very fact that people are arguing "for" Ursan and "against" Ursan at all is a sign in itself that Ursan is a mistake. I see hardly any argument for any kind of side for or against the use of say.. Flare.Brass2TheMax 01:29, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Ummm, what?

 * Ppl keep saying, oh, if you don't like it, just go H/H, and leave our poor Ursan alone. What about all the Gate of Anguish, hmm? Look, keep Ursan the way it is, but just add freakin henchmen to GoA!!!!! Otherwise I have to team up with some retard Ursan who wants to breeze through one of the challenging areas of PvE. Konradishes 04:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Nerfing A PvE-Only Skill?
Yeah, I don't think they would do that because if this one skill is getting ANet money from people hearing about it and wanting EotN and going out and buying it they won't nerf it. Plus why the hell would they even do it? Too overpowered for PvE? You guys act like you are facing against real players all the time. Come on this is PvE not PvP. --Hel llb rin ger 23:28, 24 May 2008 (UTC)


 * How about the duping bug? That only affected pve.  Indeed, it affected pve a lot less than Ursan Blessing has.  Should they have left that in?
 * It's funny how those who argue against nerfing Ursan Blessing are unable to claim that it is anything remotely resembling balanced, but are reduced to arguing that pve should have such flagrant cheats. But even if one concedes that point, to make Ursan Blessing the only one would still be astonishingly idiotic game design.  Why not make a hundred such skills so game-breakingly overpowered, to at least give players a little variety?  Quizzical 00:24, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the idea behind that is that using said overpowered skill quickly becomes boring and tedious, forcing people to actually play the game.


 * I got a question, how does it count as a cheat if it's just a very good thing inside the game? --Hel llb rin ger 01:03, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


 * At the title screen in Contra, if you pressed up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start it gave you 30 lives instead of the usual three. Konami programmed that into the game intentionally.  Do you consider that just a "very good thing inside the game" or a cheat code?  Quizzical 01:34, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't be the first time they nerfed a PvE only skill, look at Necrosis.. Zerak talk 17:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Necrosis was obviously too overpowered before. --Hel llb rin ger 20:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * If semi-spammable 90 armor-ignoring damage, conditional on the target having a hex or condition and at a cost of 5 energy was overpowered, then surely semi-spammable 150 armor-ignoring damage, which always does the damage (and split into two packets) and at no energy cost, is more overpowered. Quizzical 20:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You know this would be overpowered if there was no energy degeneration but seeing as there isn't, I guess it isn't that overpowered. --Hel llb rin ger 21:10, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you serious? Why do you think GW is overflowing with "rank 10 ursan lf more"-spamming?
 * Also if you think about it, the team build is actually a balanced team because anyone can get in. --<font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="red">Hel <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="yellow">llb <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="green">rin <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="black">ger 21:38, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Not quite. I would prefer to only take Paragons, Warriors, and Rangers. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png]] 21:44, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That is true, but other then that it is still able to be used by every profession. --<font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="red">Hel <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="yellow">llb <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="green">rin <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="black">ger 21:45, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * By that argument, letting players instantly clear any area by typing "iwin" would be perfectly balanced if every profession can do it. Quizzical 22:10, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah your funny. But I guess you don't see it that Ursan Blessing is actually a skill and "iwin" wouldn't be. --<font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="red">Hel <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="yellow">llb <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="green">rin <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="black">ger 22:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The GW box says something to the effect of skill>grind. Ursan requires no skill, it doesn't even have a full bar. But it require grind, in this case, the norn title. Lord of all tyria 22:21, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Very well then. Make it a skill called "iwin", that when you activate it, it instantly kills all mobs on radar.  Now it's a skill.  Happy?
 * I'm merely taking your argument to its logical conclusion. If you don't like an immediate corollary of a statement, perhaps something is wrong with the statement.  Quizzical 22:24, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * They already have that skill. Its called "BAMPH!". Its icon has D3v H4x on it. &mdash;[[Image:MaySig.png]] Warw/Wick 22:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict)Yeah, what 1 skill, soloable, and no grind? Kinda redundant for you to bring that arguement up now. --<font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="red">Hel <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="yellow">llb <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="green">rin <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="black">ger 22:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Quizzical is bringing the fact that ursan requires no skill to utilise, and the fact that you think this is good, to the logical conclusion that you would agree with an auto kill ability. After all, everyone would be able to use it. Lord of all tyria 22:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

(reset indent)Yeah but the fact that you still need a team for Ursan is what I'm trying to show. --<font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="red">Hel <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="yellow">llb <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="green">rin <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="black">ger 22:31, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Fine then. Make the "iwin" skill take exactly 13% of the max HP off of all mobs on radar at the next ten second increment.  Make it also require some particular rank of the kind of a big deal title track.  Now you need a team of eight and a bunch of grinding.  Does that make it balanced?  (Incidentally, requiring grinding makes things less balanced, not more.)  Quizzical 23:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Speaking of teams, Ursan Blessing may be an OP skill, but Ursanway teams are actually quite fragile. Remember that Ursan doesn't allow for support, healing, or ressing- only damage. If an Ursan has to drop out of Ursan to res a monk, he's effectively useless for the next 30 seconds- and immediately useless too, considering his energy is gone. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png]] 23:02, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That's why ursanway means mostly ursan plus a couple of monks. Is there any build that doesn't rely on pve-only skills where 6 of build X plus a couple healers works well nearly everywhere?  Quizzical 23:05, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm just defending Ursan Blessing. I hardly use it and I'm only r6 norn. I use other builds I make. --<font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="red">Hel <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="yellow">llb <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="green">rin <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="black">ger 23:07, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

REPLY to - >"At the title screen in Contra, if you pressed up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start it gave you 30 lives instead of the usual three. Konami programmed that into the game intentionally.  Do you consider that just a "very good thing inside the game" or a cheat code?". ONCE again, this kind of argument is wrong. Did you find that "cheat-code-info" on the manual of the game ? Did you find a nice icon and a full description of that on clear view inside the game ? (you can find more questions in the same line of thinking). If your answer is NO and NO to those 2 questions then you are still comparing DIFFERENT things. A) Cheat code, was "leaked" to the players. B) Ursan Blessing, was introduced to the player as part of the game. I have stated this before but you people still go for these arguments. Please, find better ones. Once again, I DO understand your point of view in general, I just don't agree with your arguments. Ne33us 10:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with Quizzicall because unless every other skill in the game just required you to have 2 monks to back you up its way to overpowered.--Eb22m2 16:58, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Fine then, let's take your line of reasoning. "Did you find that "cheat-code-info" on the manual of the game ?"  I don't recall ever seeing the manual to Contra, but I'm guessing that the implied answer to that question is "no".  And for comparison, no manual for Guild Wars mentions Ursan Blessing, either.  See for yourself here:   So congratulations, you've spotted another similarity of Ursan Blessing to the famous Konami code.  And this is supposed to prove what, exactly?
 * Next point: "Did you find a nice icon and a full description of that on clear view inside the game ?"  Perhaps you forget how rare blocks of text in games were back then.  I wasn't able to find the size of Contra in particular, but Super Mario Bros. was 32 KB--and that was considered enormous for its day.  That's not 32 KB of text, but 32 KB total, including graphics, AI, and everything.  Even a contemporary game like Zelda II that tried to rely heavily on talking to townspeople allowed townspeople at most 32 characters of text--and I'd be quite surprised if they didn't compress this somehow to take a lot less than 32 bytes.  I'm unable to check this, but the complete text of the entire game of Contra probably takes far less space than the dialogues for the quest to acquire Ursan Blessing--and likely takes less space than the in-game concise description for Ursan Blessing alone.  With so little text available, it should come as no surprise that the Konami code isn't mentioned in-game.  For that matter, even in Faceball, where a cheat code is explained in game, the text used to explain it is so concise as to be hard to follow what it means.
 * And since you bring up an icon, let's consider that the Ursan Blessing icon this wiki uses is 5 KB by itself. A game designer who tried to use several percent of the total space allowed for a commercial game for one trivial icon ought to have been fired.  Quizzical 19:52, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

isnt it just slightly depressing that u can play through this entire game in hm using a guitar hero controller .... ffs OP doesnt even come close to covering the problem 85.176.73.160 23:01, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I hate to agree with the eletist-types in the game, but I have to this time. The arguments you have been making have been more about the nature of the arguments and not of Ursan Blessing. I dislike Ursan Blessing as well. I believe that the elete areas of the game should be difficult. If it is some sort of marketing scheme on the part of Anet, that is kinda low, but they don't charge us...well, it's no justification I guess. But yes, I agree that Ursan Blessing needs a heavy nerf bat. IMO PvE only skills were a mistake to begin with, but I think that rather than just arguing about whether or not it should be nerfed is irrelivant. Suggestions should be made. Devs do paruse the wiki... Anyway I sugest some mechanism that would make it impossible to duplicate this skill on multiple characters. Problem solved. I will say this, however, to those of you who (rightly so) argue that this skill should be left alone. Whenever a team build duplicates a skill on multiple characters that is a red flag that the skill is imbalanced. (See Splinter Weapon at VoD) If a team spends 5 or 6 character in an 8 man team to doing the same job, that must mean that a certain skill or combo is making all others obsolete, I.E. imbalance. So yes, Ursan blessing fits all characteristics of an imbalanced skill in GW and not any other game. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 99.131.12.190 (contribs).


 * If what you want is a suggestion on how to nerf it, remove the +HP and +armor, and make ursan strike deal damage once instead of twice. Quizzical 22:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This skill is maintainable Defy Pain, Earth Shaker, Order of the Vampire/Pain, an unblockable, unconditional, Blades of Steel with maximum +60 dmg with a 3 second recharge and no cost, Anthem of Weariness for Ursan Roar's weakness effect, and an IMS that outclasses every other IMS in the game. There you have a comparison to other skills that act similarly to Ursan.


 * Earthshaker is easily outclassed by Ursan Rage. The innate armor and health bonuses easily outclass Defy Pain. Ursan Roar easily outclasses both OoP and Anthem of Weariness/Enfeebling Blood and note that it is one skill. Note that two of these "ordinary" skills are elite. Ursan Roar as a dps boost outclasses OoP because it costs no energy, has no casting time, doesn't sacrifice, and also weakens better than Anthem of Weariness. If you picked OoV to compare Ursan Roar to, it's only 5 energy, still more than Ursan Roar, and it bumps it up to 3 elites in one. Blades of Steel is a dual attack, with 5 energy cost, 8 second recharge and requires having multiple recharging dagger attacks, so it's very conditional compared to Ursan Strike, which outclasses just about every damage skill in the game. You'd have to be some kind of crazy W/N/P/A to use all of these. To get the same effect, you'd need a necro dedicated to spamming OoP/OoV and/or Enfeebling Blood, a tank to Defy Pain/Earthshaker Spam, a Paragon primary or secondary for Anthem of Weariness. Not to mention your perma 33% IMS in Ursan Haste, which also outclasses every other IMS in the game That's 2-3 characters using 2-3 elites and some non-elites spanning 3-4 professions just to match one Ursan, which can be used by any profession and takes up one skill slot.


 * And don't say -2 energy degen balances this, because it doesn't. There are Zealous weapons, there is the innate "Ursan Zealous" effect that stacks with a Zealous weapon, there is Soul Reaping, there is Critical Strikes, there is Energy Storage. Hell, you can even cast Blood Ritual on an Ursan. There are tools that can be used to maintain Ursan for as long as we wish and because of this, Ursan is severely imbalanced.


 * I'm comparing this to "regular" skills just to show how imbalanced Ursan really is. The point of this is to show that Ursan isn't just a PvE skill, it's an obscene mega-fucking-ultra-BFG skill that sickeningly imbalances the game. Anet has made it so that it really isn't viable to use anything but Ursan since people will always take the easiest path to victory (which is unarguably Ursan). And if they can't see why this is poor game design, then I refuse to waste any more of my money on their games. An instant-win button is TERRIBLE game design. I hope this helps to show how imbalanced this skill is. GW-Anon 08:20, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Anyone who can't understand how overpowered Ursan Blessing is, or the negative efect it has had on the community is not intelligent enough to grasp any rationale that was explained. Ursan is garbage and now that it has been in the game for over a year the damage is done. There is no fix at this point, nerf or no nerf.


 * One half-solution..."fix" Ursan, and with the same update introduce a new ecto-type crafting material (and of course high-end things to go with them) which drops in some elite area...ofc Anet will never do that. - [[Image:AdVictoriam1.PNG|19px]] Ad Victoriam  20:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Ursanway, the Toucher of PvE
Those lazy bastards with no skill!-- 22:53, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It's only funny because Ursan Strike is a touch skill. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png]] 22:54, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Link title

Guitar Hero controller
I'm currently working on being able to run Ursan using a Guitar Hero controller. Frets 1-5 control the skills. Strumming up targets the nearest enemy, and strumming down is the same as the default space bar. The select and start keys are used to target other enemies or nearby allies, for following them to other mobs. Mad as this sounds, it may actually work.


 * However m4|) h4x it is, it goes to the bottom of the page ;) --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG|Ohaider!]]-- (s)talkpage 21:08, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, fair enough, my bad. Still, this will be fairly sweet, should I pull it off.


 * Yes, yes it will be :D Too bad this needs a nerf. And don't worry about it, there'll always be someone ready to fix mistakes. --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG|Ohaider!]]-- (s)talkpage 21:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I've encountered a speed bump of sorts...I'm not sure how to bind the guitar hero functions into normal keys. Can anyone with experience using game controllers suggest a way to do this?


 * Search online. They usually have tips on how to do it. --<font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="red">Hel <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="yellow">llb <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="green">rin <font face="vivaldi" size="3" color="black">ger 22:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You'll need an application to manage the keys; normally a controller would come with one, but obviously a guitar hero doodad wasn't made for PC. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png]] 22:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Guitar Ursan is now a reality! Using a doodad called JoyToKey, which I would provide a link to if I didn't have a feeling it was against the rules, I have configured my Xbox 360 X-Plorer to work with Ursan! True, it's hard, but definately worth it for sheer awesome value. Having had refused to use Ursan because of its reputation, I have now found something I can use it for without feeling like a cookie-cut noob.


 * Setup is frets 1-4 as the four ursan skills. The fith fret is equal function with the space bar. Totem of Man is unusable.

The select key is used to target the nearest enemy, like the default 'C' key. The start key targets the next ally in the list. Note that using this makes you entirely dependant on allies for moving around. You simply let them walk ahead and follow them, by targetting them and using the fifth fret (space bar) then use the select key to target enemies. Anyone who fancies playing with a Guitar Ursan, my IGN is Falcifer Veneficus.
 * What about item pick up?--[[Image:Gigathrash_sig_G.jpg]]<font color="Black">ìğá†ħŕášħ 23:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Look, when you're using a guitar to run an ursan, you don't -need- items. You're already as awesome as you can get.
 * When you kill a monster, sometimes it automatically selects their dropped items, and you press space and pick them up right away. -Mike 20:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

This seems a bit of a testament to how easy it is to win with Ursan.
 * Haha I was thinking the same thing... <font face = "Matura MT Script Capitals">Silver Sunlight [[Image:SSunlight.jpg|19px]] 18:11, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I've taken a vow to only use an Ursan when I'm using the guitar. Seems to give me about the same ability as an average player.
 * I actually used the same program to configure my Logitech controller, normally reserved for Melty Blood, Higurashi Daybreak, and other such doujin games, to Ursan as well. It almost makes the hours you spend in DoA squinting in agony worthwhile. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png]] 17:01, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

A very simple way to fix ursan
Make it end 20 seconds after it is used, regardless of your energy situation. You would then get 20 seconds of ridiculously overpoweredness (is that a word?), followed by being weaker than normal for a while due to the skill ending, leaving you low on energy and with no elite available. Quizzical 15:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 20 seconds might be too short, though. There are plenty of ways to nerf Ursan, like reducing the maximum HP and AL gained, as well as the effectiveness (damage, recharge, activation, duration...) of all of the Ursan skills. You could make it cancel out any Stances/Echoes you're being affected by, or increase the energy degen to 4 pips. The skill doesn't have to be killed completely, but a pretty hard nerf is in order. ــѕт.  мıкε  15:26, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * With how insanely overpowered ursan is when it can be kept up indefinitely, keeping it up 2/5 of the time would still be pretty powerful. Don't forget that players would, in practice, have substantial energy upon coming out of ursan, as they'd switch to a negative energy weapon set when it was about to end.  Quizzical 15:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * And then use Ether Signet. Actually, 20 second duration doesn't sound too bad, now that I think about it, but it may be better to up the recharge and that 20 second duration to something like 45 second recharge and 30 second duration, so it won't always cut you out in the middle of a battle. ــѕт.  мıкε  15:45, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Well yes, cutting you out in the middle of the battle is the entire point. If you can invariably have ursan blessing active while in combat, and only be without it while out of combat, the situation is not meaningfully changed.  Having to wait between battles would be creating a stupid nuisance, while leaving Ursan just as strongly in need of a nerf as before.  Quizzical 18:03, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What do you want to bet that when Ursan gets the axe, people will start using something else. In many areas, perma-blind+block or massive IAS could end up better than a nerfed Ursan.[[Image:Entrea Sumatae.png|Entrea Sumatae]] Entrea   [Talk]  18:45, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it looks like we'll have to wait and see. XD ــѕт.  мıкε  19:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * But see, that's one of the wonderful things about this method for nerfing ursan: it could immediately be applied to the other blessing skills in the same manner.  If you nerf ursan by removing some defensive bonuses or reducing the damage output and then want to nerf raven or volfen, you have to start from scratch in figuring out what sort of nerf you want.  Quizzical 20:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * So you can't nerf Ursan if it changes the mechanics of the skill, because you'd have to do the same to the others? They could just inscrease the recharges of the Ursan skills, and/or reduce their damage, as I've mentioned. ــѕт.  мıкε  21:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Nerfing the various ursan skills would work as a way to nerf Ursan, too. Provided that they're heavy enough nerfs to make Ursan only situationally useful, I'd certainly be satisfied with that approach.  As Entrea points out, though, they'd probably have to directly nerf Raven and possibly Volfen blessings at the same time, too, to prevent the game from instead being taken over by Ravenway or whatever.  Volfen might not really need a nerf, though, as I'd expect that there are quite a few places where two monks and six Volfens (Volfs?  Wolfs?) would be pretty ineffective in hard mode right now.  Though even Ravenway would probably fail as it is against some hard mode caster-heavy groups.  Quizzical 15:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't make a build around Volfens, but one Volfen (probably D/R or P/R so you can have Quickening Zephyr) in a team can be helpful because of DW spam and AoE IAS (mind you, it's adjacent ranged.) Volfen Bloodlust+OoU Minion Masters is pretty awesome. I still find Ravens to be the least useful because they deal very little damage (maximum of 26 DPS from the Raven skills alone) and conditions like Bleeding and Cripple are more PvP-oriented, anyway. The Raven skills also don't have many profession specific benefits (won't renew Refrains and don't have its own enchantments for Mysticism.) Raven Shriek is the only skill that I find useful, tbh, and I don't think you need 5-6 Ravens for it to be useful. ــѕт.  мıкε  16:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Another way to fix ursan (and other powerful skills)
Maybe by allowing only N occurrences of a pve-only skill in a party would do the trick? Maybe only 2 by team is enough. Parties would have to deal with at most 2 ursans? 90.28.17.250 18:38, 25 July 2008 (UTC)