Curse

Patccmoi · Mar 07, 2007, 03:10 PM // 15:10

Quote:

Hello,

It's time for another official Dev Update, straight from the Guild Wars Design Team. Hooray! This week, we'll be making some changes, including a modest number of skill balances and an alteration to Hero Battles. So here's the latest news, with an outline of the upcoming changes and a note about the why's and wherefore's of each.

Upon reviewing the first half of the Celestial Tournament, we’ve decided to balance some skills to improve the competitive environment. These changes will take effect after 12:01 PM PST on Wednesday, March 7 to allow completion of Round 4 of the tournament.

This permanent update addresses critical balance issues within the tournament and is not a temporary weekend implementation. We are still working on a larger play balance review in preparation for next weekend’s event.

Ritualist

The following skills have changed:
Gaze from Beyond: increased casting time to 2 seconds.
Spirit Burn: increased recharge time to 8 seconds.
Lamentation: increased casting time to 1 second; reduced damage to 15..75.
When these skills were first implemented, they required the caster to be very close to a Spirit in order to use them effectively. We recently changed all such skills to work at a much greater distance, though they became too powerful. Our intention is for these skills to remain effective but not be out of scope with other damage-dealing options.

Necromancer

The following skill has changed:
Discord: increased casting time to 2 seconds.
We have been pleased to see Discord useful in a variety of PvP and RP situations, but its rate of sustained damage output is excessive. Increasing the casting time lowers the damage output to a reasonable amount while giving opponents an opportunity to use general purpose counters such as interruption and Condition/Hex removal.

Assassin

The following skills have changed:
Shadow Prison: increased Energy cost to 10.
Blades of Steel: decreased maximum damage bonus to 60.
Shadow Prison was simply too powerful for its cost, thus the increase to its Energy cost. The damage from Blades of Steel was out of scale with that of other dual-attack skills. We hope that these skill changes will encourage build diversity for Assassins and Warrior/Assassins, and we believe both of these skills will remain viable but not superior to other options.

Mesmer

The following skill has changed:
Wastrel’s Demise: increased casting time to 1 second.
With a ¼ second casting time, this skill was too fast and powerful as a source of follow-up damage.

My opinions on the changes :

Ritualist :
Gaze : good change, was needed

Spirit Burn : i don't like the way they changed it because they took out the only spammable 1s cast nuke of Channeling. It's still a good skill, but instead of being a spammable damage attack it's a 8s recharge kinda-spiky skill. I would've much prefer that they reduced the conditional damage to 0..24..32 so that the total damage is around 90, this way Channeling would've remain a decent spammable DPS skill.

Lamentation : kinda killed the skill. It's like WD now but with a 20s recharge. But meh, i can't say i'm sad to actually see the skill die. I guess it's still an ok afterspike every 20s, but it's not really interesting anymore imo.

Overall : Decent changes. Will very likely take out Rt spikes in great part with the nerf to their 3 key skills without severly hurting Channeling for general purpose (just a little sad about Spirit Burn). I'm happy that they didn't went too far on the overkill. I think that Wielder's Strike should've been raised to 10E though, that's the one nerf to channeling they missed imo (and maybe 10E Bloodsong).

Necromancer :

Well, they kinda killed Discord. On 2s cast, it's actually very easy to remove the conditions and the Discord spike will just not see play anymore. The problem is that Discord remains too gimmicky to see play in any other build. But i won't cry that much cause Necros have one of the greatest set of elites (Spiteful, Spoil, Reaper's Mark, Corrupt Enchant, Toxic Chill...) so they won't be that affected by losing one.

Assassin:

SP : Needed nerf. Will remove it from W/A likely and hurt Euro spike a bit more along with WD (this is still seeing a lot of play!). Won't seriously hurt SP sins, but at least they'll need a full bar now. They could've possibly raise recharge at 25s too, but i'm fine with seeing how it plays out at 10E first.

BoS : Needed too. It's a minor nerf, but it will take out a bit of damage from it, it was really freaking huge.

Overall : i think that a lot of other skills, mostly the lead and offhand requiring a lead, need some attention, but since this looks like an 'emergency patch' more than anything else (ya, ok, emergency 1 month too late, but at least it's there now) i guess it's ok. Will see how it affects SP-BoA sins, which should still be a viable build but slightly harder to use well. They basically need pretty much full energy to reach the end of the combo reliably. If all they do is the combo fine, but they won't be able to do something like Expose Defenses-SP-combo anymore, cause the energy cost of that will just be too high reliably reach the end of the combo.

Mesmer:

WD change is fine. It was too fast of an afterspike for the damage and it was also too 'reliable'. I mean, it punishes people who aren't casting a spell, but when you cast it in like .15s it's not like there's any doubt if the guy will be casting a spell or not. At 1s cast, it might miss its damage once in a while if used out of spikes, and in spikes it's still gonna be decent but not as insanely fast.

So overall, I'd say good changes, should hurt most of the current gimmicks but no skill was totally destroyed for once except maybe Discord (maybe being forced to explain why they do the change they had to think about it?).

JR · Mar 07, 2007, 03:35 PM // 15:35

Excellent changes. For once they just picked out the few real problem skills and hit them hard enough to make a difference. This is exactly the kind of skill updates we need.

Lorekeeper · Mar 07, 2007, 03:59 PM // 15:59

Great changes...

nice that they come only a few days after i posted my loss of patience with the current state of affairs. Now i can enjoy gvg!

well... maybe not but thats a woeful tale of edrama.

all im waiting for now is word on HA.... but as long as GvG is playable they can take as looong as they want.

hmm i dont really mean that but... you get my point.

Lorekeeper

Thomas.knbk · Mar 07, 2007, 04:30 PM // 16:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

Excellent changes. For once they just picked out the few real problem skills and hit them hard enough to make a difference. This is exactly the kind of skill updates we need.

I agree with this. For once they hit the nail on the head almost 100%.
I think Lamentation is kind of dead now, but I can't say I'm sad.
This was basically an anti-spike update. Though I'd have liked a change to Burst of Aggression, I'm happy about this update.

Byron · Mar 07, 2007, 04:31 PM // 16:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

For once they just picked out the few real problem skills and hit them hard enough to make a difference. This is exactly the kind of skill updates we need.

QFT.

I would have preferred they remove shadow prison from the game, but something is better than nothing. As for rit spike, gg scrubs. Get out of the top 10 plz.

Bread Fan · Mar 07, 2007, 06:37 PM // 18:37

http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10127588

Some skill balances and the "oh so badly needed" Hero Battle update! No word on HA not even a slight post from a rep in the HA section... So great to be ignored.

TLLOTS · Mar 07, 2007, 09:28 PM // 21:28

HA is still being decided on so don't get your panties in a knot.

In any case, good to see ANet doing some nice surgical nerfs for the most part. The game could use this kind of update much more often.

Effigy · Mar 07, 2007, 10:58 PM // 22:58

I hope more skill balances follow this example. Most of the nerfed skills are still viable. I also like that they focused the update instead of trying to change 50 things at once. Good work, ANet.

You just got tomahawked · Mar 07, 2007, 10:59 PM // 22:59

If Izzy did this I'm very proud of him. Very well done. best balance ever?

karunpav · Mar 07, 2007, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by You just got tomahawked

If Izzy did this I'm very proud of him. Very well done. best balance ever?

True dat. Well done, ANet.

Vermilion · Mar 08, 2007, 12:24 AM // 00:24

No offense, but how long has wastrels demise been used? Lets say at least as much as spiritual pain. Better late than never after all I guess. All in all predictable (not a bad thing) changes.

Lordhelmos · Mar 08, 2007, 12:58 AM // 00:58

This put an end to one of the most rediculous metas. Good job, I doubt alot of people will complain about this update. Also good to see that everyone realizes that instant kill buttons are imba.

Arkantos · Mar 08, 2007, 01:04 AM // 01:04

Did Izzy get fired? I don't think he's capable of this balance.

Clinically Proven · Mar 08, 2007, 01:23 AM // 01:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by You just got tomahawked

If Izzy did this I'm very proud of him. Very well done. best balance ever?

Yes

7654321

Um Yeah · Mar 08, 2007, 01:35 AM // 01:35

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Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Necromancer :

Well, they kinda killed Discord. On 2s cast, it's actually very easy to remove the conditions and the Discord spike will just not see play anymore. The problem is that Discord remains too gimmicky to see play in any other build. But i won't cry that much cause Necros have one of the greatest set of elites (Spiteful, Spoil, Reaper's Mark, Corrupt Enchant, Toxic Chill...) so they won't be that affected by losing one.

Honestly, I just don't think anet intended people to be able to ladder farm (although relatively minimally) by using only 4 real people, and that's why it was "killed".

Anyway, good balance imo. Nerf to SP takes away possibility of using it on W/A, but doesn't really do anything to the sin. I think it gets down to about 5 energy or so after the combo is through, but the sin's got 20 seconds to regen energy anyway... Rit nerfs were definitely needed imo. Dunno 'bout WD nerf. Personally haven't seen it being used a lot in awhile, but I live in US so I guess it probably had prevalence during Euro hours.

Snype · Mar 08, 2007, 01:44 AM // 01:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arkantos

Did Izzy get fired? I don't think he's capable of this balance.

Well see they had to hire an "anet employee balancer" to balance out Izzy's mind. Then he was able to properly balance.

Legendary Shiz · Mar 08, 2007, 01:48 AM // 01:48

The nerf to boa sins is laughable, it still works fine. Still rips through targets, and there's still enough energy to go through the bar. I guess it made it a *little* less versatile but tbh it was more of a band aid to lessen the complaints than a real fix. No complaints here though, love my sin.

Zuranthium · Mar 08, 2007, 02:07 AM // 02:07

Lamentation was over-nerfed. The casting time definitely needed to be increased but the damage hit is silly. Now it's not efficient enough to be worth bringing ever. *sigh*

Discord also got hit a bit more than necessary. It's too sluggish to be worth using as an ELITE. I would have rather seen the recharge increased to 4 seconds.

Shadow Prison WARRIORS should be officially dead now, hurray. I still think the skill should be set to a 15 second recharge, though. Also change Burst of Aggression to a 3 second minimum duration. Now it has to be timed perfectly and won't last any longer than the combo.

~Z

tomcruisejr · Mar 08, 2007, 02:47 AM // 02:47

Discord is now only useful in killing pve monsters with no condition removal.

Shadow Prison? Just wait your energy pool to have 10+ energy?

If the maximum bonus of the former BoS is over-overkill, +60 bonus is overkill, still.

Ritualist nerf? A Rt spike guild made it to top 6 so the nerf is badly needed.

remmeh · Mar 08, 2007, 02:49 AM // 02:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

QFT.

I would have preferred they remove shadow prison from the game, but something is better than nothing. As for rit spike, gg scrubs. Get out of the top 10 plz.

Personally I'm anticipating that particular rit spike guild (who plays rit spike "only for fun", mind you)'s rank to drop like a rock.

but excellent skill changes... it seems like for once Izzy paid attention to the ridiculous metagame. And better late than never.