Guild Wars 2

Just 1v1d a chrono in WvW. Not even gona say how it went. I am however gona Q.Q about moa abit

The issue- Moa is too powerful
In zergs or group fights its not a horrible but in 1v1 if it lands it’s an insta win

Why-
It was IMO OK before the specializations patch that took stats out of trait lines, but right now any mesmer that hits you with moa is going to have the DPS power to straight up murder you before your turn back.

Purpose-
I thought the original purpose of Moa was as a strong CC that couldn’t be stunbroken. Get the person out of the fight and keep them from doing anything for the next 3 seconds. Instead it just leaves them a sitting duck to be killed.

Telegraph-
I know the move has a cast time, I’m sure its telegraphed. That being said. YOUR MESMERS! I CANT SEE KITTEN! XD between invis or clones most players aren’t going to see this coming.

Moa form-
1. Makes any sort of healing power skills or traits useless
2. Makes any sort of condi power or traits useless
3. Makes any sort of defensive skills or traits uselss
4. Wait a second I think I see why people are dieing so easily in Moa
Basically nothing but having more vitality is going to help you survive getting moa’d, and I was running carrion (vitality as a secondary stat) when it happened to me

Moa skills-
No, just no. I swear those things get me killed more than they actually do anything to the other player. And if you get moa’d you really should be dodge rolling (chicken rolling?)
Unless I’m mistaken these skills haven’t been updated since HoT. The games become far more heavily skill based and faster paced. peoples DPS has power crept but moas abilities haven’t

SUGGESTED CHANGES

1. Make a more obvious telegraph. Like stupidly obvious. I want a giant neon chicken flapping its wings above my head while a purple stream of light teathers me to the mesmer casting the spell and words rise up from the ground saying “Get rekt scrub”

2. Make moa survivable. Redo the 1-5 skills to do things like dodge and heal and actually scale of stats a player has like healing power and boon duration. Right now it has a cripple, and a weakness. If cripple and weakness kept you alive thieves wouldn’t be +1s. There’s also the #5 skill but I feel that’s not nearly enough.
2.a. Having the ability for some of that moa damage to scale off condition damage would be nice as well. Bleed stacks

I would rather see it be easier to survive in moa form than to have a shorter duration. As it is by the time you get your bearing straight and realize your fighting as a chicken you’re already dead. Ill take 10 seconds as a running chicken over 3 seconds as a dead one anyday

WITH THAT BEING SAID
If Moa’s actually balanced to not be a insta kill skill than things like CD casttime and moa time can all be pumped without people coming to your forums and writing this about it. But as it is right now its just about as cheap as that GS spike skill you have…wait do yall still have that thing -.^

P.S. I know powerful skills are needed for any class. Etc. Etc. but nothing should be so advantageous in 1v1.

This isn’t duel war 2. That’s your first mistake.

So, I think some upgrades to Moa can be good, though I think the main issue is continuum split (which should not reset elites).

My main issue would be that AA is moving towards your target (or at least this is the feeling I have when moa-ed), which is usually not what you want (go away from your target). Any good player will usually not use AA (especially currently with the confusion stacks) but bad players do. So I would like a fix so that it behaves more like a usual melee auto attack (you can hit while moving, but it does not move by itself).

Also, currently, the moa cast is fairly “discrete”. The animation is fairly limited (looks very much like a staff AA but with more pink glow basically). For a skill of this strength, this is bad. The animation should be more pronounced (think “Chaotic Release” of Revenant). In exchange, reduce the CD of Moa significantly (90s) and its duration a bit (6 to 8s?). and we are fine.

Yeah high CDs are always a hint somethings gonna be OP. If the devs think the CD should be so long you’re not able to use an ability every skirmish than that’s probably not the part of it that needs balance.

And even if there was a better telegraph mesmers love their stealth and clones. Right now I would compare this elite to killshot more than anything else. Except with warriors you see it coming and its part of a weapon skillset. Moa can come from any mesmer. ANY mesmer. Chornomancer? Suprise chicken attack. Sword pistol phantams user? SUPRISE CHICKEN. Support mesmer? WHAM chickened.

By its very nature and design, Moa is a game changing skill.

If you get Moa’d expect to have the game not go your way.

In otherwords: Expect to disengage/give up the fight, or expect to die.

This is the intention of Moa.

Accept that. Play to win.

Dear Ross,

OBJECTION!

Every skill is meant to be game changing. No skill is meant to be instant game winning

If moa was supposed be an instant win it would simply be called “Kill enemy”

The INTENTION of Moa is to turn the person into a chicken for a few seconds so that they really cant do anything. Before the current bursty meta it was a more whimsical skill. You’d get turned into a chicken, dodge a couple times, maybe take a fireball in the tail feathers and then untransform and try to regain your lost ground.
This skill was created before all this CC, before pure zerker stats, and before all this power creep. It’s intention was not for you to die as a chicken but to maddly scramble around as one, that’s why 4 out of its 5 skills cause damage, because it wasn’t suicide to fight with the person while moa’d

Accept that the game has changed and needs balancing, Discuss it, -Play to have fun-, and please retort with something that isn’t an idealistic one liner with no actual argumentative point to it.

It’s single target, long CD, and it’s numerous counters make it very unreliable.

In 1v1 it is slightly OPd, but it’s far from the only Elite in the game that is. As someone else alluded to, this game is not balanced on duels and 1v1. Even in 1v1 a skilled opponent can usually wear down the Moa with kiting/LoSing, and simply resetting the fight with their own Elite or other abilities.

In a group setting it can also be deadly for sure, and yes it often is a fight changer, but a properly cooperating team can counter it very often. In turn, even if you manage to land it, the ability itself provides a pretty powerful escape tool. You know, we Mesmers get Moa’d too, but I never seem to hear Mesmers complain about it. I easily live through 50-60% of my Moas and manage to escape unscathed to return a few seconds later. (That on top of an easily 33% or higher failure rate, and it’s long CD, gives you an accurate picture of how balanced Moa really is.)

Short version:

“QQ more, L2P, whambualance, etc. "

It’s been around since the beginning, and it’s likely here to stay. (Though you won’t see me leading the QQ train if they adjust it…as long as they they also make Mesmers more viable in other matters, as Moa is no small part of what keeps us in the meta right now.)

It has been around since the beginning…. when the game was different
And DPS was lower
and there was less CC

short version

Moa is not balanced for the current game
And you’re right the game is not balanced for 1v1 duels, It hasn’t been for a while. We should fix that

Also- A pretty powerful escape tool? Ok moa #5 flee. .75s of evade. Dodge a couple times, Your up to two and a half seconds tops that you’re not getting hit, mind to explain how you survive that other 7 seconds against a mesmer in pure zerker gear with a bottle of BBQ sauce with your name on it?

One more thing- Of course mesmers aren’t going to complain about moa, you’re the only ones that use it!

One more thing- you get out of moa unscathed half the time. REALLY? So your telling me that elite thats on a 180s CD is useless 1/2 the time? Jeez maybe we should give it instant cast and have it last 20 seconds :O

Silhouette.5631:

It has been around since the beginning…. when the game was different
And DPS was lower
and there was less CC

short version

Moa is not balanced for the current game
And you’re right the game is not balanced for 1v1 duels, It hasn’t been for a while. We should fix that

Again l2p. Suggesting balance for 1v1 is like the long list of changes we as consumers wish we could have. The provider this case Anet has a direction. Sorry for the harsh words but l2p or move on. Do not support the game or adapt. You know adaption is the key. Imagine if we qq over everything in life. We still would be ooze.

See that’s the thing about balance

It has NOTHING to do with a players skill

its the balance of THE GAME

And if you go through these forums, for every class, every time there’s been a complaint about something people jump on the bandwagon and say L2P. Aaaaand anet gives us a balance patch anyways

Its not that your words are harsh. It is that they are not well thought out, they are lazy, and they do nothing to contribute to the balance and overall health of the game.

If you truly think moa’s balanced please give me a reason other than “Its this way already just deal with it”

Does it make up for other flaws the class has?
Is it generaly as powerful or usefull as other elites the class has?
Is it less powerful or useful than skills other classes have such as Killshot on warrior?

Silhouette.5631:

See that’s the thing about balance

It has NOTHING to do with a players skill

its the balance of THE GAME

And if you go through these forums, for every class, every time there’s been a complaint about something people jump on the bandwagon and say L2P. Aaaaand anet gives us a balance patch anyways

Its not that your words are harsh. It is that they are not well thought out, they are lazy, and they do nothing to contribute to the balance and overall health of the game.

If you truly think moa’s balanced please give me a reason other than “Its this way already just deal with it”

Does it make up for other flaws the class has?
Is it generaly as powerful or usefull as other elites the class has?
Is it less powerful or useful than skills other classes have such as Killshot on warrior?

The player skill has everything to do with this. Moa is not game breaking. It’s game breaking to you because you have issues with it. Hence my suggestion. It should be more powerful than killshot it’s a weapon skill. Moa is an elite. It has a long cool down and a telegraph. Whether it needs a stronger tell sure. But compairing an elite in a 1v1 is wrong. If Anet makes changes it has nothing to do with qq or people defending the qq.

another moa QQ

fyi moa gives 3 out of 4 seconds uptime on cripple and weakness has a heavily damaging attack on a 4 second cd with a coefficient of 1 that in many cases has a higher dps than many skills on your bar.

oh and dont forget skill 5 is an evade, and you can still dodge

you can always tell if a mesmer can moa you due to the signet symbol, and it can be stopped by evade block invuln and interrupts.

if you want to compare it to killshot berserker war, imagine taking a war ks from stealth followed by a full shatter combo into a stun into a second ks shot as it will be off cd then the mes stealth again, and hit you with another ks. if mesmer had berserker KS to throw 16k+ crits with cd around from a single button you would soon be back on this forum crying op as you would be taking in excess of 50k damage of burst in a few seconds. so yes moa is powerful, but if mesmers had ks in its place you would truly then understand the meaning of op.

Silhouette.5631:

Dear Ross,

OBJECTION!

Every skill is meant to be game changing. No skill is meant to be instant game winning

If moa was supposed be an instant win it would simply be called “Kill enemy”

The INTENTION of Moa is to turn the person into a chicken for a few seconds so that they really cant do anything. Before the current bursty meta it was a more whimsical skill. You’d get turned into a chicken, dodge a couple times, maybe take a fireball in the tail feathers and then untransform and try to regain your lost ground.
This skill was created before all this CC, before pure zerker stats, and before all this power creep. It’s intention was not for you to die as a chicken but to maddly scramble around as one, that’s why 4 out of its 5 skills cause damage, because it wasn’t suicide to fight with the person while moa’d

Accept that the game has changed and needs balancing, Discuss it, -Play to have fun-, and please retort with something that isn’t an idealistic one liner with no actual argumentative point to it.

You make a fair point. The solution is pretty obvious. Nerf the CC and damage of those classes with the insane power creep (it’s not the chrono’s cc/dps in this case XD ).

That said, survival rates while Moa’d back then as per now seem about the same, given relative class/build, and relevant level of team communication/coordination.

So uh, in conclusion, I’m not really confident buffing the Moa form is the correct form of action.

Though if you would like to add a “lazer” to its head, that’d still be “frickin” awesome.

Silhouette.5631:

One more thing- you get out of moa unscathed half the time. REALLY? So your telling me that elite thats on a 180s CD is useless 1/2 the time? Jeez maybe we should give it instant cast and have it last 20 seconds :O

Actually it’d be a safe bet that the survival rate of all Moa attempt is well above 50% (from the moment of every cast whether or not it succeeds to the end of the transform if it does).

It’d actually be really cool to see some stats on this XD

It’d also be cool to compare those stats vs a properly used Gravity well, single or double,

Oh my god shut up about moa please stop please. #makemesmerforumsgreatagain

I’ll just leave this right here.

https://youtu.be/dWZ9lkbK_2U?t=528

It’s not that Moa is not balanced for the current game, its the current game isn’t balanced around Moa. Why do you think a mesmer can’t kill you when you’re in moa form? Nerf the damage creep, the cc lock and the condi spam from every other class, and then we will talk to see if moa is as “instakilling” as you say it is.

Moa has existed for over 3 years and nobody has complained about it until now lol.

That’s PvP people for you, they will never be satisfied.

Ananeos.4587:

It’s not that Moa is not balanced for the current game, its the current game isn’t balanced around Moa. Why do you think a mesmer can’t kill you when you’re in moa form? Nerf the damage creep, the cc lock and the condi spam from every other class, and then we will talk to see if moa is as “instakilling” as you say it is.

To put this another way: We should be concerned when the answer to the concern of an increase in power creep is so dire that people are suggesting a dramatic increase in power to the Moa form XD

Complain about power creep → Suggest power creep to Moa XD

How did they miss that? XD

Tripple XD XD XD

So my previous post on balancing Moa but in a clearer form. What about:

1. increase significantly the visual cues for moa cast (noob protection)
2. because it will be avoided more often now, reduce its cooldown to 60 or 90s (anti-uselessness protection)
3. because it has shorter CD, reduce a bit its duration (6s) it should not be less since moa has good disengage so if less, moa would actually help the target survivability
4. change Moa AA so that it does not move you towards the target (noob protection)

CS would still need to be changed, but I think this is a more balanced version.

Moa can be played around, if you let a mesmer play around and read you, you’re dead with or without Moa. (Although I do attest that without Moa, it is easier to stall a mesmer, creating more opportunity for them to whiff making an opening. But denying stall, and certain “reset” or momentum changing mechanics is not imba.)

Mesmer is given the tools to you play you, but you can just as easily out play it.

If Mesmers had to anticipate backstab among other combos that heavily change a fights momentum, with little or no tell for 3 years, people can learn to play around a long obvious cast, or how to react when it lands.

When other classes need to summon a cleavable adrenaline bar half of which is on 20+ second base c/ds with long cast times to both attack and defend, then they can complain.

Also this game is not balanced around 1v1 especially not in WvW roaming. Balance is also not based on bowing in on a flat banning the use of terrain.

It’s 5v5 and although A-net flubs design making objective hard counters, killing diversity, and promotes apex predators every meta for a terrible game type (lol territories). There often are methods to achieve victory.

As a side note not a jab at OP’s skill level, but people often die 2v1 or even 3v1 in eotm and wvw, this is usually because the one is significantly more skilled, not because their class is OP. Where a Mesmer might use moa and portal, a thief might gib from shadows then pressure and kite well, odds are the same target in these two situations will react in predictable ways if not accustomed to it.

I would be down for making it more telegraphed though. Hell it could put a little red circle around peoples feet saying “YOU WILL BE MOAED IF YOU DON’T DOGE NOW!” and people will still get hit and complain. Who knows maybe it needs less of a cast time, and the long cast is tripping people up.

Not trying to be a **** but moa got nerfed. I TOLD YOU SO

That being said its just a duration nerf. Pretty heavy too. Looks like its just ment to kneecap it and not actually balance it out. Hope it gets changed again at some point to a lower CD, Cheers