Originally Posted by Del

I don't attempt to, but if that was my aim, i'd prob bring some aids to assist with rupting in hm.

Originally Posted by Lopezus

Yeah but even useful interupt like Cry of Frustration has 15s recharge so taking it without AP is meh...

Originally Posted by Lopezus

Yeah, once in 15 seconds ( without AP),big deal, better bring maelstorm.

Originally Posted by The Drunkard

Which causes exhaustion (25 points), has a small AoE, and scatters mobs.

Cry is a great skill, though it's very limited for players that don't have bot-like reflexes in HM.

Originally Posted by Shriketalon

On a non-mesmer related note...

You know what would be nice? If Necromancers were still not better at being rits than rits, and if monks healed better than eles.

It would be interesting, for example, if soul reaping's "gain energy 3 times in 15 seconds" were changed so that every time you use a non-necromancer spell, it counts as one of those 3 pips. It would mean normal necromancers were unaffected, and you could still employ a few non-necro skills without trouble, but you couldn't spam the spells of another profession with an infinite energy pool, thus doing their job better. Likewise, I would rather enjoy seeing Ether Renewal only work on elementalist skills to prevent them from being healing gods, and in turn, give the eles more ways to get around armor.

Originally Posted by Del

because 1-2 hex removals are really going to be efficient against a hexway team, which is where VoR is most often used.

lol, no.

in hexway build, necros cover the VoR/panic etc with lc, soulbind, etc. the mes doesn't have to worry about it since the necro/s are just going to make massive hex stacks anyway.

Originally Posted by cthulhu reborn

Even if I just hear terms like hexway it already gives me an idea that something's not right. It's part of the dual class problem as well. The fact that VoR can be used well by non mesmer primaries adds to this issue.

Originally Posted by Abedeus

So you bring 2-3 skills to help your disrupting. 1 hard rez, because mes + fc = lolrotfl fast rez. That leaves you what, 2-3 interrupts and MAYBE one utility skill?

Wouldn't bringing more damage be a lot more efficient for your team?

Originally Posted by drkn

you don't even attempt to play an interrupter in pve, while i have tried to run various possibilities to get at least one viable.

Originally Posted by drkn

i don't blame you for not trying it yourself, but please don't think that actual mesmers are idiots and haven't tried the obvious.

Originally Posted by drkn

actual mesmers

Originally Posted by Chthon

Better late than never. I've had a looong week, so I'm just now able to weigh in.

• Shadow Form and Invulnerability
  • Shadow Form. Yes, nerf it.
  • "We can't nerf SF unless we nerf all invinci-builds." SF is far worse than the others. As soon as it became apparent that this update was going to go over deadline, you should have nerfed SF in a 1-shot balance. The migration wouldn't have been that bad before you got around to the main balance. Anywho, it's far too late to matter now.
  • Obsidian Flesh Not needed. The movement speed penalty is more than enough to prevent it from being used in a "speed clear." Nerfing this skill goes beyond nerfing just speed clears and hits hardest on farming, tank-n-spank playstyle, and UW balanced clears.
  • 600/smite. I've said this before, but it bears repeating in big red letters: DO NOT NERF PROT SPIRIT OR SPIRIT BOND. These skills are too important to every aspect of legitimate play to mess with. It would be OK to nerf the smite half of 600/smite into the ground. It would also be OK to nerf SoA or to fix its order of application so that you can't trigger BalthSpirit/EBond or Spirit Bond off a hit that's reduced to zero, or both. Just keep your hands off PS and SB.
  • Four Horsemen. My impression is that you have not been paying attention to the fact that this update might be making what is already one of the hardest quests in the game even harder. You are nerfing the 3 best options for dealing with this quest --SoS, SF, and OF -- all at the same time. I really hope a good SoS rit will still be able to hold one side. If not, you're forcing people into (a) wasting 2 whole builds so that you can split 5-2-1 and maintain Spellbreaker on a tank, (b) splitting 4-4 and subjecting both healers to facing dual Diversion bosses solo, (c) fighting at the reaper with 4 of those damned skellies, or (d) coming up with a heretofore unknown way to hold one side. If you're going to remove most or all of the viable options for beating this quest, please at least make sure to change the quest in the same update.
• Hammer Mastery in PvE
  • Generally. Hammer didn't need a PvE buff, and these changes appear to do nothing to shake up the best builds within hammer or the appeal of hammer as compared to other weapon choices. At most, there's some incremental improvements.
  • Auspicious Blow. If hammer warriors need energy, it is only as the result of this update converting so many of their skills to energy-based.
  • Backbreaker. Still not worth using over Earthshaker in PvE. Opens up danagerous combo possibilities in PvP.
  • Crude Swing. Good change to a skill that's actually used.
  • Forceful Blow. Looks like it's not buffed enough to see play. Basically a stronger version of Cleave at a higher cost, plus some questionable utility features.
  • Staggering Blow. Fixed-activation-time attack skills are always at least promising. The weakness isn't terribly impressive, since hammer's weakness-based combos aren't that impressive, and weakness is so easy to get from other sources on the team.
  • Belly Smash. Still worthless. The cumbersomeness of needing a guy next to the guy(s) you want to blind, knocking him down, then hitting him with a second skill is extreme compared to a caster blind. In order to ever see use, this skill would need a bigger radius and maintainability.
  • Overbearing Smash. A 20 sec recharge on a daze with a tricky precondition doesn't strike me as very good. Moreover, if you're already KD'ing a foe, chances are they're not going to live long enough for the daze to matter.
  • Renewing Smash. This looks like a skill that will see use. Good update.
  • Fierce Blow. First, I'm assuming there's a typo and it still triggers off weakness and not off KD. Basically it's an easy-conditional DW for 6adr. Compared to Body Blow, Pulverizing Smash, or a whole bunch of axe, dagger, spear, and scythe skills, I'm not sure it's worth of being elite.
  • Yeti Smash. Close, but not quite. So close that it's painful. Lose-all-adrenaline is simply a no-go in PvE because of the anti-synergy with SY!. End of story. Even if you make Yeti Smash into a fricking non-elite Earthshaker, it still wouldn't be worth using. The though of a non-elite Earthshaker that isn't worth using makes me sad.
  • Dwarven Battle Stance. Assuming the uptime isn't getting changed, we're still looking at an IAS stance with ~50% uptime. I'm doubtful that any amount of interruption or extra armor is going to make that worth using.
• Ritualist Buffs
  • Generally. I'm not at all clear on why ritualists needed another buff. The previous buff put a couple of builds into the top tier. I guess I'll be happy since this seems to create more options by providing buffs outside the current strong builds.
  • Ancestors' Rage. 100+ unconditional armor-ignoring AoE damage on an 8sec recharge? Quite overpowered.
  • Spirit Burn. Underbuffed. Still a weak skill.
  • Destruction. Still an awful skill. The problem is the downright awkwardness of getting the damage in the right place at the right time. Basically you need 2 extra skills -- a spirit draw and a spirit pop -- to make effective use of this skill. To be worthwhile at the cost of 3 skillslots, this thing needs to have a much, much better payoff than 150 damage every 15 sec.
  • Hex Rits.
    • Anguished Was Lingwah. Hard to judge this one without seeing the exact specs on the new hexes and the recharge on this skill. My overall impression is that hex rits won't have enough dept to be useful.
    • Lamentation. 0...3 degen? Looks like this skill is still going to suck horribly. Even if AwL has such a quick recharge that you can spawn the up-front damage, it's still a vastly weaker Necrosis/Discord.
    • Renewing Surge. Potentially good e-managment if AwL has a quick recharge. Otherewise junk.
    • Binding Chains. Looks like junk for general-purpose play, but potentially very abusable for gimmick solo builds that exploit the AI, again, if AwL has a quick recharge. On a plus note, it will make some of Faction's most annoying monsters less annoying.
    • Dulled Weapon. Cream of the crop for the hex rit buffs. A relatively strong AoE debuff. Packed on top of SY! or weakness, this should take damage all the way to zero. Not a first line of defense, but decent enough for layering.
  • Cruel Was Daoshen. Underbuffed. Still bad.
  • Destructive Was Glaive. Hmmm... If it's even possible for armor-sensitive damage to not suck in PvE, this would be it. Spammable 100+ AoE with armor pen. I'll have to wait and see.
  • Gaze from Beyond. Cheap unconditional caster blind. A decent skill. Too bad the uptime isn't 100% I sense Me/Rt or Rt/Me taking over from Me/E on mandragor builds.
  • Spirit Boon Strike. I don't see this as any more useful than Flare offensively. And I suspect the spirit heal won't be too useful. Shelter/Union/Displacement burn out so fast the heal would be a drop in the bucket. Nothing else really needs healed.
  • Spirit Rift. Might use this for an easy source of cracked armor. Also a good synergy with Glaive. 2 Important questions: Does the monster AI flee the AoE? If so, this would be worthless. Does the H+H AI flee the AoE?
  • Soul Twisting & Signet of Creation. Good.
  • Ritual Lord. Wait. Stop. No. Ritual Lord affects recharge not cast time. It was not made irrelevant by the previous buff. In fact, it was seeing use for the first time in ages because spirits became worth casting.
  • Spirit Channeling. Good.
  • Signet of Spirits. Yeah, that was OP. Nerf deserved. My only concern is the affect on 4 Horsemen. With SF and OF out, if SoS can no longer hold 1 side either, that quest gets a lot harder.
• Tactics Buff
  • Generally. This section is the worst fail of the previewed update. It's mostly underbuffs that take skills from very bad to bad, mixed with a few OP buffs. A large part of the problem is that any stance that isn't an IAS is going to need to be insanely strong to justify foregoing IAS, and that just doesn't happen here. Another thought is that a fixed-activation-time attack skill to compete with Protector's Strike (To the Limit, perhaps) would maybe at least see use in scythe builds, and we don't see that here.
  • Auspicious Parry. Worthless for general-purpose play because it means no IAS. Maybe useful for SY! uptime builds, if the duration was shortened so that the adrenaline gain was reliable.
  • Defensive Stance/Deflect Arrows/Shield Stance/Soldier's Defense. All worthless because they mean no IAS. Maybe the adrenaline pumpers might replace Enraging Charge in builds that use a Frenzy/Enraging combo, but I doubt it.
  • Thrill of Victory. I might consider using this in some builds depending on where the breakpoint for 2 adr is.
  • Soldier's Speed Fail. Suggestion: Change it from IMS to IAS and make it maintainable at 8 or 9 tactics with a recharge around 8 or 10.
  • Soldier's Stance. Good, but probably not good enough for an elite.
  • "Fear Me!" Remarkably overpowered.
  • "To the Limit!" Adrenaline gain is still not enough on a 15sec recharge. Can't imagine picking this over Fear Me for procing under-shout status.
  • "Charge!" Brilliant buff, but IMS remains a dubious use of an elite slot for general-purpose play.
  • "None Shall Pass!" The requirement that foes be moving pretty much does this skill in.
  • "Retreat!" This has been pointed out to me as a very strong running skill. The end conditions make it obviously useless for general-purpose play.
  • Grapple. Still bad. So many other knockdown options without silly conditions. The 12 sec recharge makes the combo with Steady Stance or whatever too infrequent to be productive.
  • Shove. To be worthwhile as an elite, it would at least have to be better than brawling headbutt, which it isn't.
• Blood Magic Buff
  • Generally. This section contains the most unexpected and overpowered buffs of the update. I say "unexpected" because, while Blood Magic is undoubtedly one of the worst skill lines in the game, necromancers have 2 other good lines and a decent (if nerf-mutilated) primary.
  • Blood of the Aggressor. The weakness makes this a great filler skill -- which is something blood builds have often needed in the past with so few good skills to choose from.
  • Blood Renewal. Self-heals are fundamentally dubious. This can never be a good skill on that basis alone. As far as self-heals go, the buff makes it a pretty good one.
  • Life Siphon. Meh. No amount of twiddling with cast and recharge will make weak degen or regen worthwhile.
  • Ravenous Gaze First: It's unclear whether the damage and life steal or both AoE, or just the life steal.
    Second:In either event, it's a terribly weak elite. It tops out at 60 AoE damage on a 10 sec recharge. For an elite? Compare to the new Ancestor's Rage.
  • Barbed Signet + Oppressive Gaze. These look weak. Bleeding, in and of itself, is worthless. So Barbed Signet is junk unless it provides amazing combo value. There's potential that OGaze will deliver that. But only if (1) Barbed Signet causes bleed on every affected foe and not just the target (ie it can't work like GoI does), (2) Barbed Sig causes bleed before OGaze checks for a condition, and (3) OGaze has a at least "nearby" range. IF these skills work that way, then I'd consider them worthwhile. Otherwise, they are junk and I'll just bring Enfeebling Blood at a low curse spec.
  • Jaundiced Gaze. Is it keeping the 8-sec recharge?
  • Blood Bond. Game-changingly overpowered. This skill runs circles around any other party-healing in the game. The big question in my mind is whether it's so strong that a team can cut a backliner and get by with just 1 ER ele plus this on a midline orders necro.
  • Demonic Flesh. Just when I thought that Blood Bond was surely the most ridiculous skill of the update, here comes Demonic Flesh. First: It hardly matters what the amount is; AoE lifesteal on an attack spammer is going to be pretty insane. Second: There's a couple of bugs to worry about. Exhausting Assault and Blinding Powder are reported to count as "used" even when they "fail," opening up infinite spam potential. Third: It's unclear whether this is a self-only skill or can be cast on other allies. Fourth: Is the duration staying the same? A bad uptime ratio could break this skill. Sadly, uptime ratios fall diametrically into "~100%" and "crap," so this can't be balanced by tweaking the recharge.
  • Mark of Fury. Very good buff resulting in a very strong skill. I'd probably call it overpowered if I wasn't still in shock from the last 2 skills.
• Other
  • Aggressive Refrain/Soldier's Fury. No. Permanent -20 is worse than cracked armor, even with the H+H AI problems. People who say otherwise just don't know how to make decent heroes. The correct solution to this problem would be to fix the H+H AI to heavily deprioritize cracked armor on a paragon who's not under attack. The easy solution would be to just remove the malus from these skills for PvE. Making the -20 armor permanent isn't acceptable.
  • Crippling Shot. That makes sense.
  • Heal as One. The life steal buff makes this skill worth investigating. Though I'm dubious that it can be made worthwhile given pets' poor AI, slow attack speed, and lack of true AoE attacks. (Hint: Fix Mel's Assault so that it actually attacks adjacent foes!)
  • Glimmering Mark. Fine.
  • Pious Concentration. Fine.
  • PvP Stuff
    • Fine. Fine. Fine.
    • Primal Rage is dead now. Sad to see it go back to being total junk again.
    • Steelfang Slash. First: Is this change applying to PvE too? Second: Questions have been raised about infinite quarter-lock builds with this and the cheaper Backbreaker (plus some other things).