Curse

Neo-LD · Sep 15, 2006, 04:51 AM // 04:51

I love this patch

Thump nerf and Rit Lord nerf were very good. The major complaint against both of those builds was that they were so simple to use that they allowed very poor teams to play at a level above where they would normally play... or else extend the match out needlessly long. Less power to mindless spammers is good by be.

Smite nerf and Boon nerf are questionable, and probably not necessary - but acceptable. Certianly makes B-Light more attractive... which in turn makes adrenospike more attractive... which could be interesting. I personally would have left Boon alone, since, as was already said, it was a stable part of the meta. Most teams were moving towards B-Light in the first place... doesnt quite make sense to me.

Buff to general Rit and Sin skills was very good. Makes other kinds of builds and elites viable which is definately good. The best thing that Ive been able to test so far imo is Shadow of Haste. It their updated form, SoH + Dash = AoD + Dark Escape - Initial teleport and frees up your elite slot, which could be very interesting.

LoyalSoldier · Sep 15, 2006, 05:06 AM // 05:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Smite nerf and Boon nerf are questionable, and probably not necessary

I would hold judgement on those till after Nightfall. You never know what skills they are going to produce.

twicky_kid · Sep 15, 2006, 05:10 AM // 05:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

I have to agree.

After the initial knee-jerk reaction to the nerf and RA-ing with a few experimental builds, I decided to GvG. Was asked to run a Boon Prot, I thought fine, whatever. Surprisingly it wasn't too bad. To quote what I said in another thread:

I think for now boon prot will not be that bad. In 2-3 weeks who knows. We've worked out a strategy to hinder boon prots for most of the game and we didn't have to alter our build at all. Other players might be able to catch on to this.

I do feel this change has pushed CoP off the boon prots bar. Its just too risky now. You CoP>boon>stripped now you are down for 10 seconds. Spike the other monk (KD or blackout to disable healing). Collapase on the other monk that doesn't have a boon. If he cast boon strip it again. I don't think CoP is worth setting yourself up for 20 seconds of 60% healing reduction.

On another note anyone else see sig of judgement is now a 12 second recharge with Inscriptions???? That's kind of crazy for a free 80 dmg aoe and KD. Cast time sux but most spike builds are 2 sec cast followed by 1 second cast. I could see this and banish being used for spikes. Spike would be good but what else could it offer the team? Smite is an energy hog attribute line.

Master Fuhon · Sep 15, 2006, 05:53 AM // 05:53

Some all around hits to top builds, not enough to change how they are played, but it's not unwelcome seeing some of the hits. Still, I wanted to see longer recharge on Irresitable Blow; or some kind of nerf on the Thumper that kept it as a pure DPS build, taking away some of its disruption power (knockdown). I always thought that a skill like Guardian should become more useful when the opponent is overloading on melee, but the Thumper has always been the bane of that. Smiting nerfs... wow I hate seeing build with 3-5 monks so good riddance to them. I never liked the animation on smiting skills that just blends in with all the other colorful stuff. Zealot's fire/Balthazaar's Aura should look like Fire AoE so we can all just walk away from the guy being smited off.

Ritualist/Assassin changes are the only ones worth commenting one. Buffs to all never before seen skills in general PvP. About the elites: I would like Palm Strike if it wasn't the absolute slowest lead attack in the game (counts as an offhand, which is why it's elite). I always had fun surviving as a healing monk in Aspenwood against the Temple Strike guys, even modded my build to include CoP because of them (and mesmers). Recharges don't fix an energy heavy character, but I guess he should be forced to a ranger to limit Twisting Fangs. I don't think the class is as good running an elite besides Aura of Displacement yet. You just take a ton more damage running in/away than you would teleporting out. Every assassin in the history of this game has died with his back turned... maybe not an exaggeration, except in Random Arena duels. I don't expect imitation teleporting to be as good.

Restoration Rit changes are some I enjoyed seeing. I always wanted more casual spirit use from a Ritualist, but with PvP, the only single spirit that a Rit would get good investment time on would probably be something useless like Pain. Rit Lord was just a boring passive build that you had to fill with stupid spirits to get the most out of your elite and your energy management. My favorite 2 spirits have always been Recuperation (for being high spec in Restoration) and Shelter, but so much for a casual build using either of those at 25 energy. Lastly, skill changes to rival the healing ability of a monk are good: But PvP survival is all about damage mitigation, not healing output.

Red Locust · Sep 15, 2006, 06:14 AM // 06:14

If you're able to secure a reliable spirit presence in your mid/backline (and this is a pretty big "if"), restoration rits and channeling rits are a beast now.

Restoration heals with access to spirits can put out a lot of raw health per energy, a very nice self-usable infuse-type skill (spirit transfer) and a non-elite version of restore condition (mend body&soul). I particularly like the weapon of warding + wielder's boon combo now, very nice way of relieving pressure.

Channeling rits, once again provided you have access to at least one spirit nearby, are in my mind the equivalent of what the elementalist air line should have been; strong single-target spammable nukes with some limited AoE. Essence strike, gaze from beyond, spirit burn, ancestor's rage, channeled stike are very appealing skills now, and you can pretty much be a channeling turret (spamming the abovementioned skills constantly) and also contribute a lot to spikes, as opposed to the elementalist's...lightning orb, and not much else. And let's not forget Guided Weapon, man I love that skill now.

Overall I think ANet did a pretty good job on the rit, it's just a matter of time before new rit builds start to kick in.

Ensign · Sep 15, 2006, 06:33 AM // 06:33

I think Thumpers are just worse than Linebackers now. The advantage Thumpers really had was Irresistible Blow spam, and with the lessened damage I don't think it puts them over the top anymore.

Channeling/Communing ritualists have some strong skills now - there might be a viable character in there somewhere. I don't know. I think a Restoration Ritualist is a lot more sketchy though. You don't have the energy to provide your own spirits, and you basically have to take a monk slot - with a character that is shut down when another character's spirits are shut down. It might work out OK, but it's a huge gamble, and I don't think you get enough of a payoff.

Peace,
-CxE

Thom Bangalter · Sep 15, 2006, 06:37 AM // 06:37

Attuned with songkai is some really good energy management in conjunction with restoration skills, provided you can have some allied spirits. probably manageable in heroes ascent where spirits dominate, but not so much in GVG or more spread out maps.

Thom · Sep 15, 2006, 06:51 AM // 06:51

Conceptually this rebalance makes a lot of sense.

Last metagame in a nutshell:
-Pressure:
--Bunny Thumpers
--Smiters
--Tainted/Putrid
-Anti-Pressure:
--Ritualist spamming
--Elmo Ether Prodigy spams
--Splits (Assassins)

Of those 6 points, smiting and Spirit spamming get hit hard, Elmos and Thumpers get lesser hits, Necros are ignored and Assassins are revamped. The basis of the meta game has been shifted enough that it will stay interesting, but things won't be unrecognizable.

Ritualist: I've spammed a few spirits in my day and I love this rebalance. Your old ritualist lord build is now incredibly horrible and I'm glad to see it go. Now you have to choose between shelter and soothing-- you can bring both but you end up choosing in battle. Soul Twisting should be revisited as a spamming alternative since it will let you keep you your priority spirits. Perhaps the boosts to almost half of ritualists skills will yield another playable build. I could see this rebalance totally flopping and ritualist disappearing completely from competitive play, but losing the old rit spammer is worth that risk.

Assassins: After seeing this rebalance, I may actually start playing a bit of assassin. The one build everyone played was completely lame-- I could have a more well rounded build running AoD on a sword warrior.

Warriors and Monks: Rebalance meant to get players to play different skills.

Final thought, when comparing frequency selection to properties of skills I think Izzy found that recharge time was significantly correlated with "playablity". Spammable skills are more reliable because, when the situation arises where a skill is needed it can be used repeatedly. The ability to play the same bar completely differently depending on the opponent is what makes a superior build, but this is only possible with low cast times.

Vermilion Okeanos · Sep 15, 2006, 06:52 AM // 06:52

I don't think the rit are going anywhere, while the closest thing they are getting at is just another e/mo in 1 class with lower ability in energy management. I am just waiting for see if nightfall going to give a big change to rit.

-spirit are very unreliable in their targeting.
-rit nuking and ele nuking got the same deals.
-doesn't offer as many warrior hate as ele.
-doesn't offer caster hate either.
-their best defensive ability got nerfed, although we might see dedicated spirit rit (1 rit focusing on 1 or 2 spirit instead of a whole bar of them).
-can not defend against hex by rits themslves.
-somewhat higher tolerance against attacking classes, but that doesn't help very much.

The only thing I might use rit for are probably vital weapon spam or something related to weapon spell. However, GW really is not a game of buffing; so far, I still can not find a build that is good with just buff on the whole bar. Although I am quite excited about Rt/P or P/Rt.

Thom Bangalter · Sep 15, 2006, 07:23 AM // 07:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vermilion Okeanos

-spirit are very unreliable in their targeting.
-rit nuking and ele nuking got the same deals.
-doesn't offer as many warrior hate as ele.
-doesn't offer caster hate either.
-their best defensive ability got nerfed, although we might see dedicated spirit rit (1 rit focusing on 1 or 2 spirit instead of a whole bar of them).
-can not defend against hex by rits themslves.
-somewhat higher tolerance against attacking classes, but that doesn't help very much.

spirits are unreliabme in their targeting because i think they were more about position control, which supposedly would be useful in an enviornment like alliance battles and to a lesser extent ha where you have certain points that you need to maintain control of certain locations.

I don't know what you mean in your second point.

Ele only has a few skills for warrior hate, the same as the ritualist (flash and blurred, soothing and painful bonds, though with warriors being the main source of damage all defensive spirits could be considered warrior hate)

Only one class really offers caster hate (mesmer) so I don't see your point.

I think Anet's skill change was to promote more than 1 defensive capability of the rit.

Lots of classes can't defend against hexes.

Your last point contradicts an earlier one.

personally, I like the rit balance.

TeeGee · Sep 15, 2006, 10:38 AM // 10:38

When i first saw the update i thought it's great. But after some consideration I've noticed that some of skills were nerfed too hard.

Recharge change to Divine Boon was big hit to the skill and whole build (CoP won't save you - fear the mesmer!). Adding heal nerf was little overdue imho. They could ony add one of those and check what happens (and update skill further if needed) - it's generally better to applu gentle changes than hit overused skills with huge bat.

Same goes for Rt Lord (actually applys more here). As much as I disliked the build, I think that making shelter cost 250% of what it was before, was too much. Especially that the skill effectivity itself was nerfed also (recharge is not big issue as it basically remains the same with rt lord nerf). That's the biggest one-update-nerf I ever saw. Was shelter THAT overpowered? Then why wasn't it changed even slightly during minor skill balances. I guess that this change is made to get rit lord out of meta, not actually balancing it.

And the other strange thing - Recouperation nerf. How was this skill overpowered. Actually the only reason why I would consider replacing monk with resto rit, was his ability to lay party-wide helpful spirits. 25 energy is way too much for any healer character. I wonder if anybody is going to ever use this skill now, especially considering that it's effect is helpfull but not game-breaking and it needs specing in resto atribute (which is useless unless you try to be healer).

Also some of assasin's skills like Unsuspecting strike was buffed too much for one time imho.

Generally I think that Anet balanced the right skills but used to big numbers.

Bloodied Blade · Sep 15, 2006, 11:00 AM // 11:00

I saw most of the updates and was somewhat happy to see smite get the bat. It's still usable, just less effective. I didn't like the nerf to boon though- the healing nerf, while overdue, was a little much to do at the same time as a recharge nerf...though JR- says he can still boon/prot fine and I haven't noticed any major impacts. Oh well, only time will tell.

twicky_kid · Sep 15, 2006, 11:38 AM // 11:38

Rit Lord spammer hasn't changed. You just need energizing winds now. They decreased the recharge on the spirits so the nerf to rit lord itself is really nothing.

Yes shelter was that overpowered. You could never spike anything. It also prevented your npcs from being catapulted at VoD. It gave your team a huge advantage at VoD.

Tainek · Sep 15, 2006, 11:40 AM // 11:40

one little gem thats gone unoticed, Guided Weapon Recharge at 20S , at 14 communing thats 11 seconds of unblockable attacks out of every 20 seconds

Can Anyone Say Spike Happy?

TeeGee · Sep 15, 2006, 12:19 PM // 12:19

Quote:

Yes shelter was that overpowered. You could never spike anything. It also prevented your npcs from being catapulted at VoD. It gave your team a huge advantage at VoD.

My point was that if it was that overpowered, then why was it left untouched for so long then sudenly... BOOOM! It seems that it was changed to shift metagame not to balance things. Sorry if I didn't made myself clear. Also I sometimes think that they make skills cost 25 energy points only to not make first skill that costs 20 energy. Expamles are shelter, recouperation or conjure nightmare, and maybe panic. They should be at 20 imho.

Also it's not true that you couldn't spike anything - spirit spamming had it counters. In GvG I used to just KD rit with gale or divert shelter to make my team able to spike. It wasn't to hard, not to mention HA PD mesmers or InteRangers. I agree that it was overpowered skill and part of button-mash build that made games boring - still I think that changing it THAT much isn't best way.

And what about Recouperation - was it THAT overpowered. I guess no. First when i saw the update I thought "Yeah buff to resto rit (mend body and soul is SO awesome now), at last I can try thinking of healing ritua... WHAT? no possibility for recouperation?! Meh... I'd better get back to monk".

Still I guess that this is best update since long time, but some of the changes are just strangely big.

Shiggidyshwa · Sep 15, 2006, 01:24 PM // 13:24

All I know is now Dazed will be a viable condition vs Boon Prots in small 1-Monk arenas, and maybe work its way into GVG.

Legendary Shiz · Sep 15, 2006, 02:02 PM // 14:02

CoP is basically no longer an option for boon/prots. With the recharge nerf, it's just not safe or worth it tbh.

Imo they should have just nerfed the healing if they had decided to make a change to the skill instead of completely changing an enitre build.

moriz · Sep 15, 2006, 02:35 PM // 14:35

heart of shadow does have its pluses. what it cannot do is what soul wedding did in game 2 vs iQ: run on an elevated platform of jade, healing people below him while being completely unreachable, and then using return to join up with his teammates when the platform ends.

basically, heart of shadow works very well as a panic button, but less viable strategically (at least with regards to positioning and such).

Helll is for Heroes · Sep 15, 2006, 02:46 PM // 14:46

I like the leech signet buff.....and thats pretty much it.

I dont see whythey had to hit the smite line so hard, considering the fad had already died down a few months ago. Same with bunny thumper, they almost matched warriors in terms of hitting power, now they arent very viable over the warrior power.

Its nice that they buffed the assassin though , i would like to see more of sin play in HoH.

Ether Prodigy debuff wasnt that significant, easily can live with the extra few points of damage i will be taking but they need to make the mind skills more powerful rather than just having a 5 energy-exhaustion spam/unspammable elite.

They still need to make Greater conflag useful, its still as shit as always.

I like the way they try to make rits something other than rit lords, hopefully this will mean play will not be so defensive anymore.

latbec · Sep 15, 2006, 02:56 PM // 14:56

The nerf to divine boon does not bug me too much. In the hand of a skilled player, the boon prot is still one of the most effective monk build out there. If you already have good damage mitigation in the build like aegis and if your squishies know how to kite properly, I don't think the nerf to divine boon will be noticeable. I still can't see how a pure healing monk can do a better job than boon prot.