Curse

Zuranthium · Jun 09, 2007, 12:22 PM // 12:22

Well I finally finished it!

Over the next 4 pages you will see a Database of everything relating to the 10 classes in Guild Wars that I feel is underpowered, overpowered, or just needs to change.

My goal with every single listed change is to make that idea as playable as possible for PvP (with almost all of the emphasis on GvG). Perfect balance will never be achieved and a few skills will simply never become great enough to see top-Tier play, however, I strongly feel that EVERY skill in the game (with a couple small excpetions) can and should be good enough to put into SOME kind of worthwhile character/team build.

There should be SO much variety in the game and SO many different, viable possibilities that people should be continually surprised by some of the builds they see in matches. We SHOULD see crazy, off-beat builds that are effective (if not "The Best Ever").

In responding to this thread, please only use detailed comments explaining WHY you disagree with something I wrote and exactly how that proposed change would interact too strongly (or too poorly) with some other element in the game. Be sure to specifically look at other changes I have written for another related class or skill before commenting on one specific idea because EVERYTHING is listed here. This thread could become cluttered with unnecessary posts very quickly. Do remember that I'm not trying to favor any specific "thing". I do not want any particular class/skill/attribute to become OWNZ over everything else in the game. The idea surrounding any buff (or nerf) I have suggested is because I specifically feel like it is bad or underpowered or too limiting and needs SOMETHING to be changed...that something may not turn out to be the very best possibility in retrospect but, again, use detailed responses to suggest something better and ADD to the pool of thoughts rather than just stating that you think something is incorrect. Anyone who initially replies should honestly have at LEAST a dozen things to say. I'm sure that a lot of the reasoning behind my thoughts will not come out clearly on paper to other people.

I will continually update the first several pages of the thread with any ideas that have been discussed in-depth and deserve placement, or any changes ANET makes that changes the dynamic of something written within this listing. Some of my "Why?" explanations may be somewhat vague or under-written to other people (oy, YOU try explaining every single skill in the game in-depth and by yourself and not go Bonkers!), so anyone who wants to submit more detailed, fleshed-out revisions of something I wrote is definitely welcome. I'd like this Database to be as sound as possible. (preferably PM me those, however, in order to save the thread from posts that don't need to be here)

**DATABASE LISTING**

PART 1

- Monk

- Ranger

PART 2

- Warrior

- Assassin

PART 3

- Ritualist

- Elementalist

- Dervish

PART 4

- Mesmer

- Necromancer

- Paragon

(DAMN YOU MOKO! LOL...we were trying to split this huge thread into 4 separate threads but it did not work. The end result is that the first part of the skill listing got merged into this first post, which was supposed to just be the header! Now it looks ugly and I'm going to cry. )

MONK

DIVINE FAVOR

Aura of Faith - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Consumes too much energy to ever make it worthwhile.

Blessed Light - Add a non-conditional “you gain 3 energy” clause.

Why? - It’s too inefficient to actually be used as a flexible skill. With this change it serves that purpose.

Boon Signet - Increase the amount healed to 15 + (Attribute Rank * 4).

Why? - The signet itself needs to actually heal for enough health to make it worth all the time you’re spending spamming it.

Deny Hexes - Change the effect to “For each Divine Favor skill you have that is recharging or being maintained, target ally loses 1 hex (maximum of 3 hexes).”

Why? - With all of the other Divine Favor skills becoming playable, this needs to be capped out at 3 hexes.

Divine Healing / Heaven’s Delight - Reduce the amount healed to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 10), but heal the entire party.

Why? - Keeping these as "In the Area" just isn't a good idea...screams Ward camping. Allowing them act like a very efficient Heal Party could help to make other Healing builds equal to Light of Deliverance...should any of the other Healing Elites ever become good.

Divine Intervention - Change the trigger to “the next time target ally’s health would drop below 33%".

Why? - Currently not good because (1.) It doesn’t save someone from degen, (2.) It’s not good as pre-prot because you don’t want to let someone’s health drop to 0, (3.) When used to save spikes it sometimes won’t heal at all because your other Monk will catch the spike anyway.

Divine Spirit - Cut the energy cost in half.

Why? - Doesn’t really provide you with that much energy back after the amount you had to spend to cast it.

Healer’s Boon - Remove the “next X spells” clause and cause the spell to fail if your Divine Favor is 7 or less.

Why? - It needs something to stop non-Monks from using it effectively, but for Monks that DO use the skill they shouldn’t ever have to waste energy re-casting it (unless it’s removed by a spell or ability, obviously).

Holy Haste - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and the casting time to 1/4 of a second, increase the duration by 4 seconds, and remove the "this ends if you cast another enchantment" conditionality.

Why? - It doesn’t actually add to your healing ability, so there are very few builds where this could even be worth the skillslot. But for the skill to be useful at all, it should be very quick and not waste much energy.

Peace and Harmony - Change the effect so that the enchanted person gains 0........1 (at Attribute Rank 8) energy every 2 seconds.

Why? - It's underpowered as +1 energy regen and would be overpowered at +2 energy regen. This solution makes it provide the exact equivilent of +1.5 energy regen.

Release Enchantments - Double the amount of health healed.

Why? - Requires a lot of investment for it to work...the payoff should be big.

Scribe’s Insight - Decrease the duration to 2 + (Attribute Rank * 1.5) but increase the energy gain per Signet to 4.

Why? - Makes it slightly better for a Monk (and therefore viable) and prevents it from becoming overpowered for a Signet Mesmer.

Signet of Devotion - Decrease the activation time to 1 second and increase the recharge to 8 seconds.

Why? - Becomes less effective in terms of simply pumping out healing, but a bit more effective as a skill overall because of how it would work better with Deny Hexes, take less of the Monk’s time, and be less prone to getting interrupted.

Spell Breaker - Drop the energy cost to 5, drop the casting time to 1/4 of a second, and slightly lengthen the duration to 5 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Probably still won’t be great with those changes but it’s a start.

Spell Shield - Remove the “your skills are disabled for X seconds when this ends” clause.

Why? - Because it makes the skill absolute trash.

Unyielding Aura - Take 1 second off of the casting time, reduce the recharge to 10 seconds, unbug the skill so that you’re actually always getting full energy when rezzed, and let the corpse caused by the player’s death be exploitable for anything other than minions.

Why? - Would be great fun to see this become playable.

Watchful Healing - Decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second and change the entire function so that the target is healed for 4 + Attribute Rank health each second this is active on them.

Why? - The current conditionality is mostly just a lame trigger for Dervishes. Instead, make this a very efficient heal-over-time ability.

Watchful Spirit - Decrease the energy cost to 10 and increase the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - Show me one good build where this is useful with the 15 energy cost.

Withdraw Hexes - Make this a non-Elite, move it to the Protection line, set the recharge at 15 seconds, and cause it to remove 1 hex from all party members with a healing amount of 15 + (Attribute Rank * 3) if a hex is removed.

Why? - We need a couple party-wide hex removal abilities in the game.

HEALING PRAYERS

Dwayna’s Kiss - Cap the health bonus at 3 enchantments/hexes.

Why? - Could get too crazy. Should never be healing for as much as Heal Other.

Dwayna’s Sorrow - Increase the amount healed by 10 points.

Why? - Could be good for a Minion Master but not with the current numbers.

Ethereal Light - Decrease the casting time to 3/4 of a second and the recharge to 4 seconds.

Why? - Even on a Healer’s Boon, the “easily interrupted” clause is a bit shady with a 1 second cast.

Glimmer of Light - Should always recharge instantly (ie. - goes right through Diversion in addition to actually having a recharge of 0) and be immune to effects that would cause it to fail, be interrupted, or become disabled...and you should be able to cast it while knocked down.

Why? - The energy-to-healing ratio for this skill is REALLY bad for an Elite but if it was 100% infallible, it would definitely be interesting. Overpowered, you say? It's something that needs to be toyed around with, but I'm pretty sure the skill needs this kind of unique trait to see play. The inefficiency really does keep it in check...like Distortion. At worst, if it did turn out to be overpowered, you could just keep tweaking the numbers (the amount that it heals for) until a suitable balance is found.

Healer’s Covenant - Reduce the amount of healing lost to 15%.

Why? - A small buff to this, plus buffs to other Healing abilities in general, should make it a playable build. Not sure if I like the concept, though.

Healing Breeze - Decrease the casting time to 3/4 of a second and very slightly increase the regeneration amount to 3 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Why? - Might actually become useful on an off-Monk. It’s really boring how every E/Mo in GvG runs Shield of Regeneration. There needs to be a solid non-Elite alternative to that skill so that flag-runners can become more offensive again and use other Elites if they so desire.

Healing Burst - Remove the “you lose 5 energy” clause and increase the amount healed to 60 + (Attribute Rank * 9).

Why? - Pretty useless at the moment.

Healing Hands - Decrease the duration to 8 seconds and decrease the recharge to 15 seconds.

Why? - There could be a couple uses for non-Monks if it was more readily available.

Healing Light - Decrease the casting time to 3/4 of a second and the recharge to 3 seconds, increase the amount healed to 40 + (Attribute Rank * 5), additionally cause it to remove a condition from the target, and decrease the bonus energy gain by 1 point.

Why? - Needs to compress the Monk's skillbar (acting as both Gift of Health and Dismiss Condition) to see play.

Healing Touch - Take Divine Favor out of the picture. It should have a set healing amount of 40 + (Attribute Rank * 5).

Why? - Why should a skill be basically linked to another Attribute??? This change also increases the total amount healed, which is necessary I think.

Healing Whisper - Slightly increase the amount healed to 40 + (Attribute Rank * 5).

Why? - Puts it in line with the new Healing Touch.

Live Vicariously - Increase the healing amount to 8 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Not enough of an effect to ever be worth taking right now.

Mending - Increase the regeneration amount to 2 + (Attribute Rank/3).

Why? - An effort to make it less of a joke.

Orison of Healing - Decrease casting time to 1/4 of a second and change the healing amount to 15 + (Attribute Rank * 3) for the first 10 ranks, then an extra 7 points for ranks 11 through 14, and then back to 3 points per rank after rank 14.

Why? - Reversal of Fortune should NOT have a stranglehold over Monks. Healing Monks should be using this instead.

Renew Life - Should be half-range not touch-range.

Why? - Way too restrictive at touch-range as a 6 second cast.

Restful Breeze - Slightly increase the duration to 6 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Why? - The conditionality limits the skill a lot and nobody with a high rank in Healing Prayers is actually going to use it.

Restore Life - Decrease casting time to 4 seconds and increase the amount of health the dead player comes back with to be the same % as the amount of energy they come back with.

Why? - Totally worthless in comparison to other options.

Supportive Spirit - Move this to Protection Prayers, decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second, increase the recharge to 10 seconds, and change the healing to damage reduction of 6 + Attribute Rank that is active 100% of the time.

Why? - Just horrible right now. Would make more sense as a high-powered Protection spell.

Vigorous Spirit - Remove the recharge time and increase the duration to 30 + (Attribute Rank * 2).

Why? - Becomes useful as a party-wide enchantment when you have the energy for it.

Word of Healing - Decrease the recharge to 1 second and make it cast twice as fast if the target was under 50% health.

Why? - Allows it to replace Infuse Health, giving the Monk an extra skill on their bar (which is necessary to make this useful).

Words of Comfort - Increase the base amount of health that is healed by a small amount (same spread as Orison of Healing) and decrease the recharge by 1 second.

Why? - Needs to be more well-rounded to ever be worth taking.

PROTECTION PRAYERS

Amity - Increase the AOE to Nearby and decrease the recharge to 30 seconds.

Why? - Hilariously bad right now.

Convert Hexes - Should be self-targetable and the armor bonus should be +5 for every hex that was removed (not just necromancer hexes).

Why? - Rounds the skill out better.

Divert Hexes - Should cost 5 energy and cause you to lose 5 energy if it removes more than 1 hex.

Why? - Becomes much more well-rounded....able to act as both a single removal and a mass removal.

Extinguish - If a condition besides burning is removed, heal for half of the normal amount. Additionally increase the recharge to 15 seconds but decrease the casting time to 3/4 of a second.

Why? - Needs to provide some healing no matter what kind of condition is removed for the spell to become useful in a balanced team. Recharge/cast times tweaked to make it a little less unfair against condition heavy teams but still useful.

Life Sheath - Decrease the recharge to 5 seconds and fix protection effects so that they stack better (ie.. someone with both Life Sheath and Shielding Hands on them should ALWAYS have the damage negated by Shielding Hands first before it starts coming out of Life Sheath’s pool...it shouldn’t matter which order the spells are stack on the character).

Why? - The only way to make it playable.

Mark of Protection - Decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second, decrease the recharge to 30 seconds, and it shouldn’t disable your Protection Spells for 5 seconds.

Why? - Total crap right now.

Mend Ailment - Change the name to Mend Ailments, increase the recharge by 1 second, and cause it to remove 1......2 conditions (2 conditions at rank 12) from target other ally, healing them for same amount as Mending Touch for each condition that is removed.

Why? - The role of a targeted dual-removal spell is unfulfilled in the game right now.

Mend Condition - Move it to Healing Prayers.

Why? - That line needs a targeted condition removal spell..

Mending Touch - Move it to Healing Prayers.

Why? - The Healing line needs some actual removal abilities and having this in the Healing line would also allow for further diversification of Ranger builds by allowing certain characters to use Healing Touch instead of Troll Unguent.

Pacifism - Increase the duration to 8 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Needs some kind of boost.

Pensive Guardian - Should provide 25% chance to block against non-Enchanted opponents. Also modify the duration so that it’s 1 + (Attribute Rank/2) up until rank 10, at which point it increases by an extra second for each Rank after that.

Why? - Too conditional to be worthwhile.

Protective Bond - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Makes it more worthwhile as something you can continually re-cast and maintain for just a little bit.

Rebirth - Target should come back with 75% health, the casting time should be 3 seconds, and the amount of time that their skills are disabled for should be lessened by 2 seconds.

Why? - Might possibly be useful now??? (outside of PvE, duh)

Reversal of Fortune - Change the maximum amount of damage it prevents/heals to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 3) for the first 10 Ranks, and then an extra 10 points per Attribute Rank up through rank 13, and then an extra 5 points per Rank after an Attribute Rank of 13.

Why? - Establishes the use of Orison of Healing on Healing Monks instead of Reversal of Fortune.

Reverse Hex - Increase the damage reduction amount to the same level as Reversal of Fortune (the new version).

Why? - Just a slight tweak to make the secondary effect more worthwhile for characters who spec high into Protection.

Shield Guardian - Decrease the energy cost to 5, increase the recharge to 2 seconds, and have the healing amount apply to the enchanted ally only.

Why? - Too costly to be worth using right now.

Shield of Absorption - Change the duration to 1 + (Attribute Rank/3) for the first 6 ranks and then (Attribute Rank/2) afterwards.

Why? - Becomes less effective for a Monk who isn’t primarily Protection based.

Vital Blessing - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Becomes more interesting as something that you just maintain for a short while to keep someone up.

Zealous Benediction - Move this to the Divine Favor attribute and return 8 energy when the condition is met.

Why? - Makes no sense being in the Protection line.

SMITING PRAYERS

Balthazar's Pendulum - Increase the recharge to 8 seconds, change the skill so that it ends when the enchanted player would be knocked down (that knockdown is prevented and the player who caused it is also knocked down), and cause all adjacent foes to be knocked down when this ends.

Why - Becomes more versatile (as it could be cast on a Dervish and they could remove it when they want to), which is needed for this to be an Elite.

Bane Signet - Decrease the activation time to 3/4 of a second and the recharge to 15 seconds. 50% failure on the knockdown component with Smiting Prayers 4 or less.

Why? - Not usable enough to be worth the skillslot.

Banish - Cute the recharge in half.

Why? - Probably still won’t want this outside of PvE but at least it’s something for now.

Defender’s Zeal - Set the energy gain on a sliding scale of 1 + (Attribute Rank/7).

Why? - Needs to be returning 3 energy to really be worth taking.

Holy Wrath - Reduce the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Let’s you re-cast it more often, which could be interesting (ie. Put it on someone and then switch to low energy set until you want to stop maintaining it).

Judge’s Intervention - Change the conditionality so that it ends whenever the target’s health drops below 50%.

Why? - Unplayable with the current conditionality.

Kirin’s Wrath / Symbol of Wrath - Should be able to target any ally.

Why? - Too limited right now.

Ray of Judgement - Drastically decrease the recharge to 5 seconds, increase the damage by 10 points, and have it deal double damage to undead instead of setting them on fire.

Why? - Horrible, horrible skill at the moment.

Retribution - Cut the energy cost and casting time in half.

Why? - Let’s you continually re-cast it better.

Scourge Enchantment - Halve the energy cost and double the recharge.

Why? - Not as good as Scourage Healing, should cost less.

Scourge Healing - Double the recharge time.

Why? - Would be a bit overpowered if the rest of the line was good too.

Scourge Sacrifice - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and additionally cause hexed foes to resurrect people with 33% less health than they normally would have.

Why? - Needs a broader ability to ever see serious play.

Shield of Judgement - Decrease the duration to 3 + (Attribute Rank/2), decrease the recharge to 10 seconds, and decrease the energy cost to 10.

Why? - Doesn’t work with such a long recharge...people just get on another target.

Signet of Judgement - Set the recharge as 15 seconds.

Why? - Just needs a little more of a push to become a GREAT Elite.

Signet of Rage - Decrease the activation time to 3/4 of a second and have the conditional damage apply for each adrenaline skill on YOUR skillbar.

Why? - Smite Warrior - gogogo! No, honestly. This skill could make Decapitate playable.

Smite - Decrease the recharge to 5 seconds and increase the conditional damage to the same amount as the non-conditional and have it apply as a separate hit.

Why? - Way too much suck here right now.

Spear of Light - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds and the activation time to 3/4 of a second, increase the projectile speed, and have the bonus damage be applied separately instead of with the original damage.

Why? - Prot Spirit ruins the effectiveness against Frenzying Warriors. Damage should be separate so that it’s still doing good damage.

Word of Censure - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Even at 5 energy, it’s not that efficient of a nuke. I don’t think it would make Smite Ball too powerful.

NO ATTRIBUTE

Empathic Removal - Drop the recharge to 5 seconds and change the effect so that it can be used on yourself when no allies are around: “You lose 1 condition and 1 hex. If another ally is targeted, they lose 1 condition and 1 hex.”

Why? - The removal rate is too slow and conditional for this to be Elite-worthy.

Light of Dwayna - Decrease the energy cost to 15 and return the dead party members with 50% health and 5% energy.

Why? - Much too costly and ineffective to ever be worth taking.

Purge Conditions - Move this to the Protection attribute and cause it to heal for 15 + (Attribute Rank * 3) points for each Condition that is removed.

Why? - Just doesn’t serve a useful enough purpose without having the heal as well.

Remove Hex - Move it to the Healing line and heal for 15 + (Attribute Rank * 4) points if a hex is removed.

Why? - It needs to actually do something else to ever be worth taking over Holy Veil.

Resurrect - Change the recharge to 0 and bring the dead party member back with 50% Health and 5% energy.

Why? - Never worth taking in comparison to other options.

Vengeance - Decrease the casting time to 3 seconds, move it to Smiting Prayers, and set the duration as 10 + (Attribute Rank * 2).

Why? - Makes sense as a Smiting Prayers ability because of the damage bonus.

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RANGER

BEAST MASTERY *NOTE* - Pet DP should be maxxed out at 30%. Also change the skill-disabling aspect of your pet dying to a flat rate of 1 second. I think those are important changes in making Beast Master builds more viable.

Bestial Fury / Tiger’s Fury - Remove the “all non-attack skills are disabled for 5 seconds” clause and change the IAS so that it’s 33% and only applies if you have a pet.

Why? - No reason this can’t be 33% with RAMPAGE AS ONE existing.

Bestial Mauling - Decrease the dazed duration to 1 + (Attribute Rank/2) but quicken the pet’s attack speed for this to 3/4 of a second.

Why? - With a short duration and long recharge, the actual attack deserves to hit reliably when the knockdown happens.

Bestial Pounce / Savage Pounce - Increase the recharge to 20 seconds but change the knockdown so that it’s unconditional.

Why? - Pet attack skills that are too conditional just don’t work.

Brutal Strike - Cut the energy cost in half but triple the recharge time.

Why? - This skill doesn’t make sense as high cost and quick recharge...it’s a spike ability and as such it should be changed to reflect that.

Call of Haste - Should affect all allied pets.

Why? - Let’s see if Beast Master teams are workable. This skill is crucial.

Call of Protection - Decrease damage reduction to 5 + (Attribute Rank / 2) but have it affect all allied pets. Also decrease the recharge to 30 seconds and the duration to 60 seconds.

Why? - Needs to affect all pets but would definitely be too good with the current reduction rate.

Disrupting Lunge - Set the pet’s attack speed as 3/4 of a second for this.

Why? - Pets attack too slow to make this useful otherwise.

Feral Lunge - Should be no conditionality on the bleeding.

Why? - It’s pointless otherwise.

Heal As One - Remove the “under 75% health” conditionality.

Why? - It’s an annoying clause on an Elite that is already marginally useful.

Lacerate - Increase the degen to -3, decrease activation time to 2 seconds, and decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Total crap at the moment.

Maiming Strike - Increase the recharge to 7 seconds but have the crippled be unconditional.

Why? - Too unreliable right now to be worth taking.

Melandru’s Assault - Increase the extra conditional damage 5 + (Attribute Rank * 4).

Why? - Really sucky right now for costing 10 energy.

Otyugh's Cry - Drop the duration a few seconds but affect all allied pets.

Why? - YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO SEE THIS GET PLAY IN GVG.

Poisonus Bite - Pet’s attack speed for this skill should be 3/4 of a second.

Why? - It’s a bit lackluster as general pressure, but with a faster attack speed it also becomes a quick cover condition.

Pounce - Increase the amount of bonus damage to 5 + (Attribute Rank * 2) and decrease the recharge to 12 seconds.

Why? - A 20 second recharge is far too long considering how conditional the attack is.

Predatory Bond - Cut the energy cost and recharge in half.

Why? - It’s simply a total waste right now.

Predator’s Pounce - Increase the heal to 5 + (Attribute Rank * 5) and have it heal you as well.

Why? - Needs to have a useful effect that other pet attacks don’t offer for it to ever be attractive.

Scavenger Strike - Change both the conditional and non-conditional damage to be 5 + (Attribute Rank * 2).

Why? - It’s a 10 energy attack; needs an improvement to be worth it.

Strike as One - Increase the damage bonus to 5 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Doesn’t do enough damage to be Elite-worthy right now.

Viper’s Nest - Move this to Wilderness Survival and increase the damage by 10 points.

Why? - Totally pointless sitting in the Beast Mastery line.

EXPERTISE

Archer’s Signet - Move to Marksmanship and decrease the recharge to 30 seconds.

Why? - NEEDS to be in that attribute line...it makes no sense here. Needs to be a 30 second recharge as well in order to actually have a purpose in comparison to other Elites.

Dodge / Zojun's Haste - Increase duration to 8 + (Attribute Rank / 2) and set the blocking % at a flat rate of 75%.

Why? - A copy could now be useful with Natural Stride when you want your Ranger to be able to get around the map better. It’s also a bit of a buff to Touch Rangers, which is FUNNY.

Escape - Increase the duration by 1 second.

Why? - Close to being Elite-worthy...not quite there yet.

Expert’s Dexterity - Drop the increased energy cost to 75%..

Why? - Insanely worthless with the current massive increase in cost to skills. Who cares that they recharge so much faster when you can’t even use them because you’re out of energy?

Glass Arrows - Cause the bonus damage + bleeding on all adjacent foes when blocked.

Why? - Makes sense that the shards of glass are flying out and hitting people when Blocked.

Lightning Reflexes - Have the 33% attack speed bonus apply to Bows only, reduce the Blocking rate to 50%, and reduce the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - It’ an odd skill because you’re getting two totally opposite effects. I think it should serve mainly as an IAS skill, with the extra blocking ability just being a nice addition.

Marksman’s Wager - Set it as 12 second recharge and 24 second duration like a normal Prep.

Why? - Rounds the skill out better.

Point Blank Shot / Zojun's Shot - Decrease the recharge by 1 second.

Why? - That way they can be chained together constantly.

Trapper’s Focus - Increase the duration by 5 seconds and cause traps to become un-interruptable.

Why? - Needs to be more impervious if you’re really going to create this kind of character

Trapper’s Speed - Slightly improve the quicker recharge it gives to your traps to 33%.

Why? - That part of the effect should be equal to Serpent’s Quickness.

Whirling Defense - Increase the splash damage to 10 + Attribute Rank and decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Makes it a little nicer for Oath Shot builds (which is really the only way this thing becomes good).

MARKSMANSHIP

Arcing Shot - Should end the target’s stance and move less slow.

Why? - The glacial time that it takes for the arrow to hit makes this worthless, but even with that improved, the attack needs an additional effect to ever be worth taking.

Crossfire - Change the recharge to 10 seconds and add 1 + (Attribute Rank/6) seconds of Dazed if the enemy is near any of your allies.

Why? - Needs an extra effect beyond just vanilla damage.

Determined Shot - Remove the conditional crap and instead cause it give you 2 + (Attribute Rank/2) energy if it hits.

Why? - I believe an attack skill that you WANT to miss is a pretty dumb concept.

Disrupting Accuracy - Add a bonus critical chance of 5 + (Attribute Rank) to the skill.

Why? - It would be super-funny to see a Bow Assassin become a viable PvP build....

Focused Shot - Should have a recharge of 0.

Why? - Because it’s pretty much worthless otherwise and would still only have limited usage if changed as such.

Forked Arrow - Decrease the cost to 5 energy.

Why? - Very risky to use and doesn’t work for spike builds, so it should be efficient.

Hunter’s Shot - Increase the damage bonus to 5 + Attribute Rank and cause an additional 10 + Attribute Rank amount of damage if the opponent is moving or knocked down.

Why? - You’ve already got Screaming Shot for a bow attack that causes Bleeding, this should do something different.

Marauder’s Shot - Decrease recharge by 1 second.

Why? - Synergizes perfectly with Enraged Lunge for Bow Beastmasters that way.

Melandru’s Shot - Switch the conditionality around...always give energy and then do extra damage if they are enchanted.

Why? - The main draw here is obviously the energy gain. For this to be a worthwhile Elite, you should always be getting the energy and then just have the extra damage as a nice bonus sometimes.

Penetrating Attack / Sundering Attack - Increase the recharge to 6 seconds and increase the damage bonus to the same spread as Burning Arrow.

Why? - For raw damage on a single hit, it makes them the most damaging non-conditional bow attacks in the game. Probably still not going to be used but at least they would have a unique trait.

Pin Down - Decrease energy cost to 10.

Why? - Only usable every 15 seconds....overpriced.

Power Shot - Slightly increase the damage (same spread as Burning Arrow), decrease the energy cost to 5, and decrease the recharge to 3.

Why? - Probably still won’t ever get used but it does make the Guild Lord a bit more powerful from a range, which I wouldn’t consider a bad thing.

Precision Shot - Should have a 1 second recharge.

Why? - High energy cost, easily interruptable...needs to be very spammable.

Prepared Shot - Slightly increase the overall the damage bonus (same spread as Burning Arrow) and slightly tweak the energy bonus to be 2 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Why? - Little buffs here and there give underused builds the push they need.

Punishing Shot - Put the recharge back at 8 seconds, but cause this attack to disable all of the opponent's skills for 0 + (Attribute Rank/2) seconds if it hits someone who is activating a skill.

Why? - Needs a more unique effect to see play over Burning Arrow or Cripshot.

Screaming Shot - Should have a have a 1 second activation time and move twice as fast.

Why? - Could replace Apply Poison for Burning Arrow bars and I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing some alternatives to that skill.

Seeking Arrows - Decrease the cost to 5.

Why? - Nobody uses this and it probably still wouldn’t see much play at 5 energy. That’s a start, though.

Splinter Shot - Cause the AOE damage always, not just conditionally.

Why? - Too unreliable to ever be worth using.

WILDERNESS SURVIVAL

Barbed Trap - Double the amount of damage caused.

Why? - Really sad seeing those weak numbers...

Conflagration - Additionally cause 1 second of burning on all arrows that hit.

Why? - Really bad at the moment; needs something else.

Dryder’s Defenses - Cut the recharge time in half.

Why? - The duration is incredibly short.

Equinox - Should cost 5 energy and have a 2 second activation.

Why? - Needs to be less cumbersome to even possibly be worthy as an Elite.

Famine - Should cost 5 energy and have a 2 second activation.

Why? - Same reason as Equinox.

Greater Conflaguration - Cause all ATTACKS to become fire damage.

Why? - Won’t be totally sucky now.

Ignite Arrows - Increase the duration to 36 seconds and increase the damage to the same amount as Kindle Arrows.

Why? - Not very useful right now.

Incendiary Arrows - Small overall duration increase to 3 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Still not quite constant enough to be worth the Elite slot.

Kindle Arrows - Increase the duration to 36 seconds.

Why? - Becomes a bit less of a hassle for a Conjure Flame Ranger, which I think is needed for that bar to become great.

Melandru’s Arrows - Increase the duration to 24 seconds.

Why? - The effect isn’t so great that it shouldn’t be lasting as long as Apply Poison.

Pestilence - Conditions on someone who dies should spread to anyone in the area, not just people already suffering from a condition. Also change this to a 3 sec activation and 30 sec recharge.

Why? - Not a very useful ability as it stands.

Poison Arrow - Remove the 1 second recharge.

Why? - Should actually be better than Apply Poison, a NON-ELITE, at spreading Poison.

Quicksand - Decrease to 5 energy and a 2 second activation.

Why? - Needs to be less cumbersome to even possibly be worthy as an Elite.

Scavenger’s Focus - Decrease energy cost to 5, increase damage bonus to 5 + Attribute Rank, and change it to a stance.

Why? - Total crap right now. Several non-Elite preparations are better than this. It should be a stance so that you can use it with Apply Poison or Barbed Arrows.

Serpent’s Quickness - Remove the “this ends if you go below 50%” conditionality and decrease the recharge to 40 seconds.

Why? - 40 second recharge puts it on a perfect timer to go with 60 second recharge abilities and the conditionality really needs to be dropped as well for this to see serious play.

Snare - Slightly increase the crippled duration to 3 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Just a little weak right now.

Spike Trap - Increase the damage by 20 points.

Why? - Not attractive enough as an Elite in comparison to Smoke Trap.

NO ATTRIBUTE

Antidote Signet - Should also remove weakness and dazed and have a 3/4 second activation.

Why? - Would actually become worthwhile for a few select builds.

Called Shot - Decrease recharge by 1 second.

Why? - Puts it on a perfect timer with Quick shot....Called Shot/Quick Shot/Regular Shot/Quick Shot/Called Shot/Quick Shot/Regular Shot....etc.

Magebane Shot - Decrease the recharge to 8 seconds.

Why - Makes it more viable as an Elite.

Storm’s Embrace - A few Elementalist skills that have a side effect of dealing elemental damage to the caster need to be created.

Why? - That’s the only way I could see this becoming useful outside of PvE runner builds.

~Z

Zuranthium · Jun 09, 2007, 12:28 PM // 12:28

WARRIOR

AXE MASTERY

Axe Rake - Increase the damage bonus to 5 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Damage should be on par with other axe attacks.

Axe Twist - Increase the damage bonus to 1 + (Attribute Rank * 2), reduce the adrenaline cost to 6, and change the weakness to bleeding.

Why? - No axe attack should cause weakness...that’s for the Hammer line to do.

Cyclone Axe - Increase the damage bonus to 5 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Too sucky...

Lacerating Chop - Cause crippled rather than bleeding.

Why? - You don’t care about causing bleeding after you knock someone down. This should act as an anti-kiting ability.

Penetrating Blow / Penetrating Chop - Decrease the adrenaline requirement by 1 point.

Why? - Would make them good for a Warrior with a very low amount of points in Strength (or for a crazy N/W, R/W, A/W, or Rt/W....lawl).

Triple Chop - Instead of dealing bonus damage, actually cause the attack to hit 3 times with 25% less damage on each hit.

Why? - Much too sucky to ever be worth using right now.

Whirling Axe - Remove the “disabling clause” and cause the attack to hit all foes adjacent to you.

Why? - Doesn’t actually do enough and the negative conditionality really kills it.

HAMMER MASTERY

Auspicious Blow - Drop the adrenaline requirement to 5.

Why? - Needs to be usable on the same recharge timer as Staggering Blow.

Belly Smash - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds and have the attack deal 5 + Attribute Rank points of extra damage.

Why? - Far too useless right now.

Enraged Smash - Increase the damage per each other fully charged adrenaline skill to 3 + Attribute Rank and increase the damage cap to +50.

Why? - Not sure if it can become playable, or if the current mechanic is even workable, but this is a start.

Fierce Blow - Decrease the adrenaline cost to 5.

Why? - Isn’t even worth using on a Devastating Hammer bar with the buff to Mighty Blow. Could be playable on a Staggering/Forceful Blow bar with this change, though.

Forceful Blow - Remove the “if blocked you are knocked down” conditionality.

Why? - Ruins the skill.

Maghunter’s Smash - Increase the adrenaline to 7, make the knockdown unconditional, and cause the knockdown to last for an extra second if they are enchanted.

Why? - Elites that depend on a R/P/S conditionality just should exist.

Mokele Smash - Instead of gaining adrenaline, gain 3 + (Attribute Rank/2) energy if you have less than 2 adrenaline skills, and double the amount of bonus damage this attack deals.

Why? - Becomes good with Shove

Overbearing Smash - Cut the adrenaline cost in half.

Why? - Costs way too much to ever be worth using in place of other options.

Renewing Smash - Remove the damage bonus but cause all of your stances to become recharged regardless of whether or not it hits.

Why? - Becomes a more interesting, playable skill that way.

Staggering Blow - Cut the adrenaline requirement in half.

Why? - Weakness is not an amazing condition...you should be able to get this thing charged much more quickly.

Yeti Smash - Increase the adrenaline cost to 8 but double the amount of damage done to adjacent foes.

Why? - Actually makes it useful in conjunction with Earthshaker.

STRENGTH

”I Will Survive!” - Increase the duration to 8 + Attribute Rank and decrease the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - Doesn’t currently let you survive much better at all.

”You Will Die!” - Remove the conditionality.

Why? - Doesn’t work very good.

Battle Rage - Reduce the conditionality to “you lose 2 strikes of adrenaline when Battle Rage ends”.

Why? - Too limiting right now to be a good Elite.

Bull’s Charge - Should only end if you use an attack skill.

Why? - Is an inferior Elite compared to other options because of how it cancels out if you need to use Heal Sig, Mending Touch, etc.

Charging Strike - Increase the recharge to 8 seconds and cause it to end only if you use a non-attack skill.

Why? - Needs to be usable in conjunction with Bull’s Strike for it to be a good Elite.

Counter Attack - Increase the overall energy bonus to 1 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Why? - Not enough of a bonus to make it worth using.

Defy Pain - Increase the duration to 12 + Attribute Rank and decrease the adrenaline cost to 4.

Why? - Spending your Elite on a defensive skill better be worth it and allow you to overextend quite a lot.

Dolyak Signet - Decrease the speed reduction to 33%.

Why? - LMFAO.

Dwarven Battle Stance - Cause it to end only if you use a non-Adrenaline skill or non-Attack skill.

Why? - Too limiting to be worth using right now.

Endure Pain - Increase the duration to 12 + Attribute Rank and add a +10 AL bonus.

Why? - Needs to actually prevent damage to ever be worth taking.

Griffon’s Sweep / Leviathan's Sweep - Tweak the effect to the following: “If this attack hits, you strike for 5 + Attribute Rank extra damage. This attack can not be "blocked," and your target is knocked down if the attack normally would have been blocked”.

Why? - Makes the attacks do more damage if they would have been blocked, which is needed in order for them to become attractive in comparison to other options.

Headbutt - Decrease the energy cost to 10.

Why? - Just isn’t effective with how much energy the skill costs.

Lion’s Comfort - Decrease the adrenaline cost to 4, change the conditionality to “if you use a Signet in the next 10 seconds it takes twice as long to recharge”, and have the skill be totally Strength based, not half Tactics.

Why? - Far too sucky and inflexible right now.

Primal Rage - Increase the armor penetration to 5 + (Attribute Rank * 3)%, and instead of disabling skills simply cause the stance to end if you use a skill.

Why? - Absolutely horrible right now...

Signet of Stamina - Remove the activation time and change the function completely...for 5 + Attribute Rank seconds, cause adrenaline skills you use to not take 1 hit off adrenaline off of other adrenaline skills.

Why? - The skill is useless and redundant with Defy Pain/Endure Pain already here...this change makes it actually do something useful (could be used very effectively with Rage of the Ntouka).

Signet of Strength - Remove the activation time, decrease the recharge to 20 seconds, and cause your next 5 attacks to deal 1 + Attribute Rank extra damage.

Why? - Becomes useful for spiking instead being a horrible, boring DPS booster.

Sprint - Decrease the recharge to 15 seconds and slightly decrease the duration to 5 + (Attribute Rank/2) seconds.

Why? - Makes it more available to cancel Frenzy with.

Tiger Stance - Change the duration to 1 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Too bad, Assassins.

Warrior’s Cunning - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and the recharge to 45.

Why? - Much too inefficient right now.

SWORDSMANSHIP

Barbarous Slice - Increase the adrenaline cost to 9 and remove the conditionality.

Why? - Just isn’t useful with that limitation.

Dragon Slash - Decrease the adrenaline cost by 1 point.

Why? - Has become a little underpowered in comparison to other skill combinations.

Galrath Slash / Silverwing Slash - Decrease the adrenaline requirement to 6.

Why? - Sun and Moon Slash is so much better and costs the same.

Hamstring - Decrease energy cost to 5.

Why? - Uncovered crippled at melee range...isn’t worth 10 energy.

Hundred Blades - Cut the recharge time in half and cause the attacks to be unblockable.

Why? - Much too sucky right now to deserve Elite status.

Jaizhenju Strike / Pure Strike - Increase the damage bonus to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 2).

Why? - They need to do more to be worth the slot on your bar.

Quivering Blade - Increase the adrenaline cost to 5 and change the conditionality to “if this is Blocked, your opponent is dazed for 7 seconds.”

Why? - Just isn’t effective as it is now.

Seeking Blade - Increase the damage bonus to 5 + (Attribute Rank * 2) and make the attack unblockable, causing bleeding instead of the damage bonus if it would have normally been blocked.

Why? - Not a useful enough skill at the moment.

Sever Artery - Decrease the adrenaline requirement by 1.

Why? - Hurts the compression of your skillbar...needs to be even more spammable so that the effect of the skill itself is able to do more than just activate Gash.

Standing Slash - Decrease the adrenaline cost to 4 and have the bonus damage be applied if the opponent is not moving.

Why? - It would just be a conditional version of Galrath Slash in the current form.

TACTICS

“Charge!” - Change the duration to 0 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Makes it more effective for Warriors with a high rank in the attribute.

“Fear Me!” - Increase the adrenaline cost to 5 (possibly 6).

Why? - It’s just too good with certain skill combinations.

“None Shall Pass”! - Should recharge 2 seconds quicker for each rank of Tactics that you have.

Why? - Basically an unlinked skill at that moment and not a good one.

“To the Limit!” - Automatically gain 1 strike of adrenaline PLUS the amount listed (gain 0 if no opponents are within Earshot).

Why? - Not a reliable enough of an effect to be worth taking.

“Watch Yourself!” - Increase the adrenaline requirement to 6.

Why? - Too strong on Paragons.

Gladiator’s Defense - Decrease the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - Too sucky as an Elite.

Protector’s Defense - Decrease the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - The conditionality really hurts it. At least make the skill more workable for some kind of silly build where you have Death’s Retreat and can constantly be jumping to an ally to protect them.

Shove - Move this to the Strength attribute, only disable non-adrenaline skills, cause any stance you are in to end, and change the knock down that is caused to last 1 second longer than normal.

Why? - Makes more sense in that line and needs some changes to become a strong Elite.

Soldier’s Defense - Reduce the blocking chance to 50%.

Why? - Just too good for certain builds.

Soldier’s Stance - Add a conditionality of “you must be wielding a one-handed weapon” for the IAS to take effect and add an un-conditional damage bonus of 3 + (Attribute Rank/2) for all attacks made while in this stance.

Why? - It simply fails in comparison to other options. The added conditionality is so that it doesn’t become overpowered on Assassins.

Steady Stance - Drop the recharge by 2 seconds and remove the adrenaline gaining component.

Why? - Makes no sense for it to be used with “Fear Me!” With this ability you’re giving up your IAS, and therefore should be gaining adrenaline slower, in order to take advantage of Drunken Blow/Desperation Blow.

Thrill of Victory - Decrease the recharge to 4 seconds.

Why? - Should be able to chain it more when really trying to get a target dead.

NO ATTRIBUTE

“Coward!” - Decrease the adrenaline requirement to 5 and set it as half-range.

Why? - Could be great if it activated a little more frequently.

”You’re All Alone!” - Decrease the recharge to 8 seconds, increase the condition durations to 8 seconds, and set as half-range.

Why? - It’s more problematic as a balancing issue because of the range than the effect.

Flurry - Should take 25% off the bonus damage attacks are modified by as well.

Why? - Can be too good on Assassins.

Skull Crack - Reduce the adrenaline cost by 1 point.

Why? - Just a small boost to get it some play.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ASSASSIN

1.) All shadowstep abilities should empty the adrenaline pool. It’s a matter of flavor. Warriors shouldn’t be utilizing teleports in the same way an Assassin can (except for one very specialized build - the Shove Warrior). It also fixes Assassins using Flail for teleport spikes.

2.) Attack chains should not disable the Assassin from switching targets. If an attack skill is used on a target, and the Assassin then goes to attack another target, their attack chain should still be open on the original target at the spot they left off...maximum of 30 seconds. Assault Enchantments and Impale should act in the same way with the “mark” being left on a target that was hit by a dual attack for 30 seconds. ADDITIONALLY, regarding attack chains, any Lead attack skill that misses/gets blocked should still open up the next part of the chain. This is part of the effort to make Lead/Offhand/Dual attack chains more viable.

3.) New mechanism on certain melee skills - “lunging attacks”. These attacks have a “Nearby” range rather than an “Adjacent” range and your character will move while performing the attack if you are not already already adjacent to your target. Your character shadow-steps to the opponent at the completion of the attack (maximum range of “Nearby”).

4.) Daggers should have a base attack speed of 1.2 (IAS abilities should all be altered so they are not able to be used effectively for Assassins...at least in attack chains).

5.) Reduce the maximum teleport range to half of Radar range.

CRITICAL STRIKES: *Important*, the energy bonuses for this attribute NEED to be at ranks 3, 7, and 12. Having to go up to 13 Crit Strikes for maximum effectiveness really takes away from the versatility of several possible Assassin builds out there.

Assassin's Remedy - Change to a skill with automatic activation and have it activate when ANY Assassin skill or attack skill is used.

Why? - Because now it’s actually useful, while at the same time not making Mending Touch inferior.

Black Lotus Strike - Should always hit but not give any of the bonuses if the target is not hexed. Decrease the damage bonus to 5 + Attribute Rank and the energy bonus to 2 + Attribute Rank but also decrease the recharge to 8 seconds as well.

Why? - Becomes less effective for spikes but remains a good energy management ability.

Critical Defenses - Change it to a stance and reduce the blocking chance to 50%.

Why? - This shouldn’t be a spell but it would also be overpowered as 75% blocking.

Critical Eye - Decrease the duration to 1 + Attribute Rank, increase the Critical chance to 5 + Attribute Rank, and have the skill be refreshed whenever you cause a critical hit.

Why? - A boring and underpowered skill as it stands now.

Dark Apostasy - Make this a skill, not a spell. Increase the activation time to 1 second and also increase the duration by 1 second for Attribute Rank of 8 and higher.

Why? - The Critical Strikes line should have no spells. Slight duration change is just because the random, uneven Attribute progression is annoying.

Deadly Haste - Change to a skill with automatic activation that affects all half-range abilities (which basically just adds “You’re All Alone!” to the list).

Why? - Because you could make some great builds with this skill but at the moment it's too clunky (wasting 1.75 seconds to use it, can be removed) to really be worth it.

Fox's Promise - Change to a skill with automatic activation, decrease the energy cost to 5 and the recharge to 10 seconds, change the duration to 1 + (Attribute Rank * 2), and make it so that effects which would cause you to “miss” are reduced by a flat amount of 70% (ie. Hex spells would become totally useless on you and Blind would be reduced to causing you to miss 20% of the time).

Why? - Because otherwise Expose Defenses really negates the purpose of spending your ELITE slot on this skill.

Locust's Fury - Change to a skill with automatic activation.

Why? - If you’re going to be spending your Elite on what is basically an IAS that doesn’t help out attack skills, it shouldn’t be easily removable and you shouldn’t be wasting time casting it.

Malicious Strike - Change to a one-half second activation.

Why? - Because the effect is currently almost worthless.

Palm Strike - Decrease the recharge to 8 seconds and make it half-range ability that shadow-steps you to the opponent.

Why? - Because it's an Elite and deserves to be better than other Offhand attacks that are non-Elite.

Seeping Wound - Decrease to a 1/4 second cast and 5 second recharge. Also change the duration to 30 seconds and move to the Deadly Arts line.

Why? - Because the effect isn't amazing for an Elite but if spammable the skill could actually become good for condition pressure builds. Move to Deadly Arts because this line shouldn’t have any spells.

Sharpen Daggers - Change to a skill, decrease recharge to 10 seconds, and dramatically increase the number of attacks this effects to 3 + (Attribute Rank * 3).

Why? - Because you shouldn't have to waste time constantly re-applying a skill with an effect that's this small and if interrupted you can at least go for it again in a shorter amount of time.

Unsuspecting Strike - Make it unblockable, add the “lunging” mechanism to the skill, and increase the recharge to 4 seconds.

Why? - Cause it's a leet sneak attack. They don't know it's coming (in RPG terms), so they shouldn't be able to block. A 10 energy Lead Attack better be worth it.

Way of the Assassin - Remove the "while enchanted" conditionality, cause all melee attacks to become “lunging” attacks, and change the duration to 5 + (Attribute Rank * 2).

Why? - Because the current effect is hardly worthy of this skill being an ELITE.

DAGGER MASTERY

Black Spider Strike - Should always hit, but not cause any of the bonuses, if your target is not hexed. Also increase the damage (to the same amount as Falling Spider).

Why? - Assassin class should move towards being more well rounded. If your opponent’s hex(es) get removed as you are using these kinds of attacks, the attacks shouldn’t completely fail and mess up your attack chain entirely. The damage increase is to make it worth 10 energy.

Desperate Strike - Decrease the recharge to 4 seconds, change the activation time to one-half second, and set the conditionality to "less than 80% health".

Why? - The Mantra is “Lead Attacks need to be worth it, Lead attacks need to be worth it...”

Disrupting Stab - Should disable all skills, not just spells.

Why? - Makes it worth using over Disrupting Dagger for certain builds.

Exhausting Assault - Should be able to follow a Lead or Offhand Attack.

Why? - Just some versatility; makes it more usable for Mobius Strike builds. Might need a slight recharge increase.

Falling Spider - Add the “lunging” mechanism to the skill and decrease the recharge to 1 second.

Why? - Becomes very good with Horns of the Ox + another knockdown skill.

Flashing Blades - Decrease energy cost to 5 and recharge to 20 seconds. Also make it just a “skill” and not a stance.

Why? - Still really crappy as an Elite.

Fox Fangs - Decrease recharge to 6 seconds and add the “lunging” mechanism.

Why? - It’s obsolete in comparison to Wild Strike otherwise.

Golden Fox Strike - Add the “lunging” mechanism.

Why? - Most every Lead Attack needs to be on a 4 second recharge. That’s what Lead/Offhand/Dual chains need to be effective when compared to attack chains that bypass Lead attacks.

Golden Skull Strike - Should be an offhand attack with no Lead requirement; also decrease the Dazed duration by 1 second.

Why? - Too similar to Temple Strike.

Golden Lotus Strike - Decrease recharge to 4 seconds and energy gain to 2 + (Attribute Rank / 2).

Why? - The 10 second recharge is too inflexible with most attack chains.

Jagged Strike - Decrease the bleed duration by 4 seconds and add the lunging mechanism.

Why? - The current effect doesn't take enough advantage of the 1 second recharge.

Jungle Strike - Decrease to a 4 second recharge and remove the half second activation time.

Why? - To fit in with the recharge of Black Mantis Thrust, making that kind of attack chain worthwhile.

Leaping Mantis Sting - Decrease the crippled duration to 3 + (Attribute Rank/2) and also drop recharge time to 6 seconds and add the “lunging” mechanism.

Why? - Will be more consistent at crippling people and fit into attack chains better.

Nine Tail Strike - Add the “lunging” mechanism and decrease the recharge to 6 seconds.

Why? - Synergizes better with the other unblockable lunging Assassin attacks, creating a situation where you can chain these attacks together, thereby being able to attack a fleeing foe without a speed buff.

Repeating Strike - Should be able to follow any Lead or Offhand melee attack. Also cause it to do +5 damage for each time it hits beyond the first in the space of 5 seconds (maximum bonus of +10) and have it be disabled for only 2 seconds if it misses.

Why? - Because it just isn't worth the energy and effort right now. It should be able to be used as the offhand attack in a normal Lead + Offhand + Dual attack chain and it should synergize a bit more with builds that give you the energy to use it many times.

Temple Strike - Decrease to 10 energy and interrupt any action, not just spells, when used.

Why? - This skill REALLY hurts the compression of your skill bar; the long recharge means you basically have to bring a second offhand attack. Needs a boost to be a solid Elite skill.

DEADLY ARTS *important*, a new weapon should be created for this attribute line. Shurikens - A two-handed projectile weapon with “half-range” that has an attack speed of 1.2, the double-attacking properties of a Dagger, and a damage range of 5-15. They would basically just be used for Deadly Arts “caster” Assassins to utilize the (low specced) Critical Strikes attribute.

Assassin's Promise - Reduce to a 20 second recharge and a 1/4 second cast and slightly increase the duration (equal to the energy gain of the spell).

Why? - Because it's currently only playble in SBRi group builds and maybe now an actual Assassin can give the spell a use.

Augury of Death - Do not teleport if you are adjacent to the foe.

Why? - Because when you’re already adjacent to the foe that generally means you’re attacking and this simply causes you to be interrupted.

Deadly Paradox - Don't let it affect Forms.

Why? - Just to make it so that the new version of Shadow Form can’t be activated any quicker than normal.

Enduring Toxin - Decrease to a 5 second recharge.

Why? - Because it's sub-par unless it can be kept up at all times.

Entangling Asp - Should be able to follow any dagger/shuriken attack or melee Assassin skill.

Why? - Because it's currently too limited. This needs to be available at any time you've engaged your opponent.

Expunge Enchantments - Decrease the duration of the self-disabling time to 9 - (Attribute Rank /2 ), and have the skill disable itself for that short duration as well to add to the enchantment-removal stack.

Why? - The necro mass removals are better and not even touch range.

Lift Enchantment - For some reason this is a touch-range skill...change it to full range.

Why? - To make it more useful; it's pretty limited already.

Iron Palm - Increase the damage (equal to PALM STRIKE).

Why? - Would make the 20 second recharge feasible.

Mantis Touch - Change to a touch skill with the “lunging” mechanism (should still count as an offhand attack) and let it be able to follow any dagger/shuriken attack or melee Assassin skill.
Why? - Because it's too conditional right now.

Mark of Death - Increase the duration (5 + rank in attribute) and decrease recharge to 15 seconds.

Why? - Because now it might be useful outside of SBRi to add pressure.

Mark of Insecurity - Decrease casting time to a 1/4 second and additionally cause it to drop the opponent's Armor Level by -10.

Why? - Not worth taking over other Elite abilities with the current effect.

Scorpion Wire - Cut the casting time and recharge in half.

Why? - Way too sluggish right now for the effect.

Shadow Prison - Decrease recharge to 15 seconds.

Why? - Fixes to IAS abilities and Black Lotus Strike make Assassin spikes less deadly. Drop the recharge to move the skill more towards being a general snare.

Shameful Fear - Reduce to 1/4 second cast, do not cause the spell to increase your target's movement speed, and increase the damage dealt by 5 points.

Why? - Because if your opponent is running away it doesn't do too much good to stand there casting this for 2 seconds, especially when this just makes them get away faster. The spell needs to quickly force your opponent into a predicament...they either stand there and get hit by your melee or they run away and take damage.

Shroud of Silence - Cause it to effect shouts/chants, decrease the recharge to 25 seconds, and decrease the amount of time it disables your spells for to 5 seconds.

Why? - The shout/chant part totally fits in with the flavor of the skill and the other updates are needed in general to make it a great Elite.

Signet of Shadows - Reduce recharge to 15 seconds.

Why? - Why not? Signet of Toxic Shock is a 15 second recharge.

Siphon Strength - Reduce the bonus critical chance to 25% but allow it to affect all attacks, not just the ones made on the hexed target. Also decrease the overall damage reduction to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 2) and set as a half-range spell.

Why? - Makes the skill more versatile (can be used with Deadly Haste, you aren’t forced to attack the hexed person/people to get the bonus + the bonuses stack) at the cost of being less powerful as an actual debuff at the higher Attribute Ranks.

SHADOW ARTS

Blinding Powder - Should be able to follow any dagger/shuriken attack or melee Assassin skill. Also change this to a half-range skill, remove the AOE component, and reduce the recharge to 8 seconds.

Why? - Well first of all it makes no sense why this isn't a half-range skill (pretty damn hard to throw powder and make it go very far) and secondly it needs to be reliable. Being required to make a successful offhand attack hampers its usefulness currently, especially since it is pretty much THE only Assassin ability that makes Unseen Fury worth using.

Caltrops - Reduce recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - High-cost uncovered Cripple....should be more usable.

Death's Charge - Drop the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - Needs to be more available than Shadow Walk, since that skill gives you a more useful secondary ability.

Death's Retreat - Reduce to a 10 second recharge.

Why? - Because otherwise Return is almost always going to be superior.

Heart of Shadow - Decrease to 10 second recharge and make it teleport you to a random nearby location that is not adjacent to your current location. If you are targeting another ally when using the spell, the teleport should be in their direction.

Why? - Because it's not constant enough healing right now to be worth using and the current teleportation component is too funky.

Mirrored Stance - When this spell is used, you enter into whatever stance the foe is using for the full duration of that character’s attribute. While they remain hexed by Mirrored Stance, they may not activate any stances. Also change the duration to 5 + (Attribute Rank * 2) so that the minimum spec required to constantly maintain this hex is a bit higher.

Why? - Because it's way too conditional at the moment to be of use.

Shadow Form - Remove the "you lose X amount of health when this skill ends" component, change it to a skill with a 20 second recharge that also changes the form of your character, set the duration at 10 + (Attribute Rank * 2), and cause the skill to become disabled for 60 seconds when used. Also make it so that the character is unaffected by traps while in the Form.

Why - The skill in its current state is either useless or gimmicky with things such as Deadly Paradox and Arcane Mimicry. With this change it would temporarily give the Assassin near-invulnerability without the drawback of massive health loss when it ends and not be abusable by other skills in any way. Worthy of being an Elite but not problem causing.

Shadow of Haste - Increase the duration by 5 seconds for every critical hit while in the stance.

Why? - Makes the skill useful for Assassins while keeping it balanced for other builds.

Shadow Refuge - Decrease casting time to a 1/4 second.

Why? - Casts too slow for PvP.

Shadowy Burden - Increase speed debuff to 33%, remove the "while foe has no other hexes" condition for the armor debuff, and slightly increase duration to 3 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Needs to be worth 10 energy.

Shroud of Distress - Reduce the recharge to 20 seconds and change the duration to 1 + (Attribute rank * 5).

Why? - 45 second recharge makes it a too prone to removal. The minimum duration is also lowered so that a Monk can’t just 0-spec and constantly maintain the spell.

Unseen Fury - Reduce recharge to 20 seconds and additionally make it so that you are unaffected by blindness while attacking a blinded foe.

Why? - Needs something to make it attractive over Expose Defenses since you have to use another skillslot for this to even do anything.

Viper's Defense - Decrease the recharge to 8 seconds and change the effect to “For 8 seconds the next attack against you is blocked and the attacker is poisoned for 5 + Attribute Rank seconds if it was a melee attack. 50% failure to block with Shadow Arts 4 or less".

Why? - Because the skill is horrible right now; it barely gives you any defense at all. With this change it would definitely give you concrete protection while still adding a bit of pressure from the poison as well.

Way of Perfection - Decrease the recharge time to 10 seconds.

Why? - Needs to be less vulnerable to enchantment stripping if you're going to depend on it for healing.

Way of the Fox - Decrease to a 30 second recharge.

Why? - Needs to be available more often to be really useful as a spiking aid. Plus, Dervish get a spell that does the exact same thing with a 30 second recharge.

Way of the Lotus - Reduce recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - Too inconsistent at the moment to be used for energy management.

NO ATTRIBUTE

Aura of Displacement - Decrease recharge to 15 seconds.

Why? - Isn’t crazy abusable with the teleport-out range decreased. Drop the recharge to set it in time with attack chains.

Mark of Instability - Decrease energy cost to 5.

Why? - Because there are better ways to spend your 10 energy if it remains as such.

Shadow Meld - Decrease to 5 energy and a 10 second recharge.

Why? - Aura of Displacement has a stronger effect. This should cost less energy.

Spirit Walk - Reduce recharge to 3 seconds.

Why? - Obviously wants to be used with Consume Soul. Also, with a very short recharge (and other changes to Ritualist spirits in general), you could use this like a high-speed train...hopping across the battlefield map between your spirits to get to and from places quicker.

Swap - Should cost 0 energy and be a skill rather than a spell.

Why - Could possibly be put to good use with the Destruction + Rupture Soul but it’s currently too much energy being spent.

Wastrel’s Collapse - Increase the energy cost to 10 and change the effect so that if the opponent uses a skill during it's duration, have the hex end prematurely and cause that skill to be disabled for an additional 15 seconds.

Why? - It's too easy to completely avoid the main effect of the skill at the moment.

~Z

Zuranthium · Jun 09, 2007, 12:31 PM // 12:31

RITUALIST

*** Ritualist spirits NEED to be changed so that you can not naturally have more than 3 of them within the same earshot range. If 3 allied Ritualist spirits are already active within earshot of you, it should be impossible to cast another. Ritualist spirits in general should be casting faster, and in some cases lasting longer or recharging quicker, to promote the use of spirits as something that can move with the team better or act as long-term battlefield structres. Copies of the same Ritualist spirit should also be able to be placed somewhat closer to each other...instead of half the map range drop it down to Earshot range. Furthers the idea of placing Spirits in intervals across the battlefield.

*** As part of the Ritualist’s uniqueness I do not believe they should have ANY enchantment spells - all of their enchantments should act like Spirit Lord...unremovable and instant activation. They all mostly suck anyway and need to be buffed. How many of the Ritualist enchantments ever get used??? If you said “none of them”, you would be correct.

*** If you weapon swap while holding Ashes (an Item Spell), or if the duration of any Item spell ends without you actually hitting the "Drop" button, the effect of the Item should still take place/

CHANNELING MAGIC

Ancestor’s Rage - Increase the cast time to 3/4 of a second, give it a 50% chance of causing exhaustion, and make it a normal spell rather than an enchantment.

Why? - Ritualists shouldn’t have any enchantment spells and a 1/4 second duration is just silly.

Bloodsong - Move this back to Communing, decrease the activation time to 2 seconds and the recharge to 20 seconds, and increase the duration to 30 + (Attribute Rank * 15).

Why? - The Communing line should be able to constantly place long-term spirits around the map, creating “turrets” that the team can fall back on or just add extra damage in the big fight.

Caretaker's Charge - Increase the overall energy gain (same amount as Essence Strike).

Why? - Why was this nerfed???

Clamor of Souls - Cut the energy cost and recharge in half and decrease the cast time to 3/4 a second.

Why? - Totally useless right now.

Cruel Was Daoshen - Decrease the damage caused by dropping the item (same amount as Destructive was Glaive) and while holding the item cause people to take 1 + Attribute Rank damage whenever they attack you.

Why? - Makes it more useful to hold and run around with.

Destruction - Decrease the casting time to 1 second, the recharge to 10 seconds, and the duration to 20 seconds, have the spirit do a base amount of 50 damage when it dies, and slightly reduce the extra amount of damage done for each second the spirit was alive to 1 + (Attribute Rank/4).

Why? - Might actually be useful in conjunction with Swap and Rupture Soul? Even by itself it can act as a detonator bomb...blow it up simply by re-casting while within earshot and catch some opponents off-guard.

Destructive was Glaive - Increase the duration to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 4) seconds, make it an actual item spell, and give all of your Channeling spells a 40% chance to cast quicker while you hold it.

Why? - Wastes a lot of time and energy to constantly recast it with the current duration. The quick-cast chance is to make up for the lack of items while using it.

Gaze of Fury - Cut the energy cost and activation time in half and double the amount of damage that the Fury spirit does.

Why? - The created spirit needs to actually be useful.

Grasping Was Kuurong - You should not be able to be knocked down while holding the ashes. Also decrease the cost to 10 energy.

Why? - Definitely needs an improvement although it might need a different mechanic in general to prevent it from becoming too gimmicky.

Lamentation - Decrease the recharge to 5 seconds.

Why? - Very pointless right now.

Painful Bond - Move this to the Communing attribute and increase the duration a small amount (10 + Attribute Rank).

Why? - Doesn’t make sense in this line.

Spirit Boon Strike - Cut the recharge time in half and heal all allied spirits within earshot.

Why? - Totally useless for any purpose in comparison to other options right now.

Spirit Burn - Increase the damage by 10 points.

Why? - It's a bit sub-par after the nerf.

Spirit Siphon - Double the recharge time but increase the overall % of energy gained from the spirit to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 2).

Why? - Makes it more effective for high-specced Channeling builds.

Warmonger’s Weapon - Decrease the duration to the same spread as Wailing Weapon.

Why? - Could become too powerful with the added duration from Spawning Power.

COMMUNING

Anguish - Decrease the activation time to 2 seconds and the energy cost to 10.

Why? - Extremely worthless spirit at the moment.

Anguished Was Lingwah - Decrease the energy cost to 5, the casting time to 1 second, and the recharge to 20 seconds, and move this to Channeling Magic.

Why? - Gives that line the requirement of both an item and a spirit with one skill.

Armor of Unfeeling - Should be a skill with automatic activation and the damage reduction should apply whenever casting a spirit PLUS 1 + (Attribute Rank/2) seconds afterwards.

Why? - The effect is far too limited to ever be useful right now.

Binding Chains - Decrease the energy cost to 10 and increase the duration by 1 second for Attribute Rank of 8 and higher.

Why? - Same as Iron Mist, basically.

Defiant Was Xinrae - When you drop the ashes all of your Ritualist skills, except for Defiant Was Xinrae itself, should become recharged. Should cause Exhaustion when cast.

Why? - Needs a powerful effect to actually make it Elite-worthy.

Disenchantment - Decrease the casting time to 3 seconds, decrease the energy cost to 10, and cause exhaustion.

Why? - Too clunky at the moment.

Displacement - Decrease the casting time to 2 seconds, decrease the recharge to 30 seconds, and only affect allies within earshot.

Why? - Hard to find that perfect spot for these spirits where they aren’t useless but also aren’t incredibly boring. I think nerfing the range on party-wide Communing spirits is the way to go.

Dissonance - Decrease the casting time to 3 seconds, decrease the energy cost to 10, and cause exhaustion.

Why? - Again, too clunky...standing around for that duration of time just doesn’t work.

Dulled Weapon - Should additionally cause attacks to deal 3 + (Attribute Rank/2) less damage.

Why? - Simply causing people to fail to crit isn’t enough of a draw to put this on your bar.

Earthbind - Decrease the casting time to 3 seconds and decrease the recharge to 45 seconds.

Why? - Too slow and sporadic.

Guided Weapon - Decrease the energy cost to 10.

Why? - Too much energy being spent in comparison to other options for it to be good.

Mighty Was Vorizun - Decrease the maximum energy bonus to +20 and gain 7 + Attribute Rank points of energy when you drop the ashes.

Why? - Gaining max energy really isn’t that useful by itself.

Pain - Decrease the activation time to 2 seconds and the recharge to 20 seconds, and increase the duration to 30 + (Attribute Rank * 15).

Why? - Same reason as Bloodsong.

Restoration - Decrease the casting time to 3 seconds and the recharge to 30 seconds, and increase the range of the rez to Earshot. Also, I think this spirit should be called “Life” and the spirit that’s already named Life should be called Restoration.

Why? - Confusing spirit names!!! The buffs are an attempt make it useful...although I’m not sure if it ever really can be without increasing the range of the rez (which is quite problematic).

Shadowsong - Decrease the casting time to 3 seconds.

Why? - If you couldn’t tell I’m setting up a pattern here....3 second cast time for the spirits with a powerful offensive effect, 2 second cast time for the more vanilla spirits, and 1 second cast time for the spirits that do nothing until they die.

Shelter - Decrease the casting time to 2 seconds and affect only allies within earshot.

Why? - Wouldn’t be as much of a problem if it couldn’t be cast behind the back line and still be affecting your front line.

Signet of Binding - Decrease the recharge to 5 seconds.

Why? - Isn’t useful unless it can be used on all of your spirits.

Signet of Ghostly Might - Double the duration of the effect.

Why? - 10 seconds of extra damage just isn’t worth it.

Soothing - Decrease the casting time to 3 seconds and decrease the damage your opponents’ attacks deal by 25% rather than the current effect.

Why? - It’s too one-sided against adrenaline-based physical characters.

Union - Decrease the casting time to 2 seconds and decrease the spirit’s range to Earshot.

Why? - Same as Displacement/Shelter.

Wanderlust - Decrease the casting time to 3 seconds, increase the duration to 30 + (Attribute Rank * 7).

Why? - Furthers the strategic ways in which it can be used. Elite spirits need it be worth it ON THEIR OWN with the change to how many spirits you can place in one area.

Weapon of Quickening - Decrease the casting time to 1 second.

Why? - Too much interrupt bait.

Xinrae's Weapon - Decrease the energy cost to 10.

Why? - It's still barely worthy of being an Elite.

RESTORATION MAGIC

Blind Was Minson - Gain health regeneration (same spread as Weapon of Warding) while holding the item.

Why? - Needs some kind of additional effect while holding. Can’t think of anything better for the moment.

Ghostmirror Light - Decrease the casting time to 3/4 of a second and the recharge to 2 seconds.

Why? - It’s not a big heal; should be more spammable.

Life - Decrease the casting time to 1 second, decrease the recharge to 15 seconds, increase the duration of the spirit to 30 seconds, cause it to heal for a base amount of 5 + (Attribute Rank * 3) health when it dies, and decrease the extra amount of health healed for each second the Spirit was alive to 1 + (Attribute Rank/7). Also, change the name to “Restoration”.

Why? - Will let you time when you want the party healing to happen better.

Lively was Naomei - Decrease the casting time to 4 seconds and while holding the ashes all of your spells should cast 25% quicker.

Why? - There needs to be some kind of incentive for running around with this thing.

Mend Body and Soul - Decrease the healing amount to 20 + (Attribute Rank * 4), but remove one condition plus another condition for each allied Spirit within earshot (maximum 3 conditions).

Why? - I believe it’s VERY important for this line to have an unconditional condi removal.

Preservation - Decrease the casting time to 1 second, slow down the rate of healing to once every 6 seconds, and have the Spirit heal the ally with the lowest health within EARSHOT.

Why? - Needs to be a useful Elite by itself.

Recovery - Decrease the casting time to 2 seconds.

Why? - Puts it in line with Recuperation.

Recuperation - Decrease the energy cost to 15, decrease the casting time to 2 seconds, decrease the recharge to 30 seconds, and decrease the duration to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 2).

Why? - I really don’t think this thing is worth 25 energy. The other changes are part of the general goal to allow spirits to come out quicker and be less hindered by a lot of team movement.

Resilient Weapon - The armor bonus should apply 100% of the time.

Why? - Almost never worth using over Weapon of Warding because of the conditionality.

Soothing Memories - Decrease the cast time to 3/4 of a second.

Why? - This line needs some more healing spells that cast just a little faster.

Spirit Light Weapon - Decrease the cast time to 1/4 of a second.

Why? - It's just not functional on a Healer Rit with a 1 second cast. When factoring in aftercast, you're leaving yourself prone too often by using this because the immediate effect of the weapon does not provide a large heal and does not protect someone in the same way that Weapon of Warding can.

Spirit Transfer - It should be the spirit with the most health within earshot range that you draw the health from.

Why? - Has to be more reliable (for a Rit Healer to work in balanced team)...sucks accidently only getting like a 50 point heal because a spirit near you is almost dead but there’s another not too far away with full health.

Tranquil Was Tanasen - Increase the overall duration to 1 + (Attribute rank * 2), gain 15 energy when you drop the ashes, change the armor bonus to a set amount of +24 regardless of attribute rank, and don’t let your Item spells be non-interruptable.

Why? - Not good enough to be worth the Elite slot. The change to not affect Item spells is so that the spell can’t make itself non-interruptable if it outlasts the recharge.

Vengeful Was Khanhei - Decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second and steal health from all opponents within earshot when you drop the ashes. Also cause all party members to be unable to drop items for 1 second when you drop the ashes.

Why? - Needs something extra to be worth the skillslot. The small life-steal with giant AOE range is interesting (would certainly amount to a very large self-heal). The “1 second” clause is so that you obviously can’t run 8 of these and do a retarded spike with Arcane Mimicry.

Vocal was Sogolon - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and when you drop the ashes, cause all non-Elite Shouts/Chants that allies are affected by to last 5 seconds longer.

Why? - There aren’t many things this is really good with...needs to improve.

Weapon of Shadow - Increase the blind duration to 7 seconds and change the duration to 5 + (Attribute Rank/3).

Why? - Increased Blind duration is to make the skill useful and the duration change is so that it lasts just a second less at the higher attribute ranks (to go along with the increased duration from Spawning Power).

SPAWNING POWER *Important* - This attribute should have an additional bonus of "You gain 2 + (Spawning Power * 2) more maximum energy and 20 + (Spawing Power * 4) more maximum health while holding an item”. It makes up for the health and energy you lose from your weapons while holding items.

Boon of Creation - Should be a skill with no activation time.

Why? - Builds that this could be useful for can’t be saddled with the possible removal/interruption and time wasted casting.

Doom - Increase the damage per recharging Binding Ritual to 5 + (Attribute Rank * 3).

Why? - Since it’s less effective to put more than 3 Spirits on your bar now, this should only require that number of recharging rituals to get the bonus.

Empowerment - Decrease the casting time to 2 seconds, decrease the recharge to 20 seconds, change the maximum energy bonus to 3 + (Attribute Rank/2), and cause one random ally within it’s range that’s holding an item to gain health and energy (equal the maximum amounts provided) when the spirit dies.

Why? - It becomes energy management for a single Ritualist.

Explosive Growth - Change to a skill with no activation time and increase the AOE range to “In the Area”.

Why? - You could make a Ritualist “trapper” (but with spirits) build with this if it was more consistent.

Ghostly Haste - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and make it a skill with no activation time.

Why? - Would become a conditional Mantra of Recovery with half the effectiveness. Sounds fine.

Renewing Memories - Increase the duration to 5 + (Attribute Rank * 2) and change it to a skill with automatic activation.

Why? - You barely get any extra energy out of this right now considering how much you have to recast it.

Sight Beyond Sight - Change it to a skill with automatic activation.

Why? - Ritualists should not have any enchantments...not part of their nature.

Signet of Creation - Decrease the activation time to 1 second.

Why? - Not enough of an effect for this to be taking so much time to activate.

Spirit Channeling - Change it to a skill that activates automatically and increase the duration to 15 seconds.

Why? - You’d be gaining 25 energy every 30 seconds at 14 Spawning Power. Consistent, but not nearly what you could get from another Elite.

Spirit's Gift - Change it to a skill with instant activation, increase the healing range to “Earshot”, and increase the condition removal range to “In the Area”.

Why? - Could definitely be useful with less restrictions.

Spirit's Strength - Change it to a skill with automatic activation.

Why? - Definitely needs to be non-removable for this kind of build to be reliable.

Wielder's Remedy - Change to a skill with automatic activation.

Why? - So many of these abilities are acting AS the primary effect of the Spawning Power attribute since it isn’t all that strong by itself in comparison to what other classes get. These abilities deserve to be extremely impervious to removal and disruption.

Wielder’s Zeal - Change it to a skill with automatic activation, decrease the energy gain by 1 point, and whenever you cast a weapon spell with a base duration of less than 10 seconds on someone who has 1 weapon spell on them already, the weapon spell you just cast should not override the current weapon.

Why? - Makes you able to put Vengeful Weapon on people who are already affected by another weapon spell. That’s just able the only way to actually make this Elite useful.

NO ATTRIBUTE

Draw Spirit - Decrease the recharge to 0 and fix the bug so that the spirit’s abilities move with them when they teleport.

Why? - It could actually serve a purpose now.

Soul Twisting - Should cost no energy.

Why? - The effect isn’t as valuable with the change to spirits in general...it should be priced accordingly.

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ELEMENTALIST

1.) PBAOE spells (Aftershock, Inferno, etc.) should NOT have an entire extra second of after-cast time as compared to normal spells.

3.) All of the Attunements and Conjure Element spells should have a 30 second recharge. For Elemental Attunement also change the duration to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 4) so that it can not be abused by Mesmers.

AIR

Chain Lightning - Increase recharge to 15 seconds but remove exhaustion.

Why? - Is the effect really so strong that there needs to be exhaustion linked to it?

Glimmering Mark - Decrease cast time to 3/4 of a second and automatically Blind for 5 seconds when cast.

Why? - Totally and completely overshadowed by Blinding Surge.

Gust - Add an unconditional 1 second knockdown (still knockdown for 3 seconds if under the effects of water/earth hex) and decrease the casting time to 3/4 of a second.

Why? - Very limiting at the moment.

Invoke Lightning - Remove the "if not under the effects of an enchantment" conditionality.

Why? - Just an annoyance.

Lightning Javelin - Reduce the casting time to 3/4 of a second.

Why? - Makes it better for actually interrupting melee attacks.

Lightning Surge - Give the damage 25% armor penetration and reduce the casting time to 1 second.

Why? - Seems like a long-standing oversight that this spell doesn’t have armor penetration like all of the other lightning abilities. I think the casting time probably should come down as well because this spell is just too easy to totally avoid right now.

Mind Shock - Cause knockdown even if the energy requirement is not met.

Why? - Should never be reduced to just a Lightning Strike that causes exhaustion.

Ride the Lightning - Cause a 50% chance of Exhaustion.

Why? - Not Elite-worthy when it's constantly causing Exhaustion.

Teinai's Wind / Whirlwind - Decrease energy cost to 5 and very slightly increase the overall damage (equal to Gust, just too streamline these Air spells).

Why? - Not much of an effect...should be very cheap.

Thunderclap - Decrease to 5 energy and a 1 second cast.

Why? - The massive energy loss is good at preventing the spell from becoming too abused. This just it a push to make the conditionality worthwhile. I’m not sure if the mechanic on this needs to be changed, though. It’s difficult to balance, for sure.

EARTH

Churning Earth - Set the recharge at 25 and the casting time at 2.

Why? - Too sluggish to ever be worth taking right now.

Crystal Wave / Teinai's Crystals - Increase AOE to Nearby and decrease recharge to 15 seconds.

Why? - Makes them more useful for AOE spikes.

Dragon's Stomp / Earthquake - Increase AOE to "In The Area".

Why? - With a 3 second casting time, people know it’s coming and can spread. Increased AOE makes it useful.

Ebon Hawk - Should cause weakness ALWAYS. Also decrease the casting time to 1 second.

Why? - It’s obviously asking to be used in conjunction with Glowstone and Stoning but sucks too much right now to ever be worth playing.

Eruption - Reduce to a 25 second recharge

Why? - Needs be to usable more often to be worth taking over other options.

Iron Mist - Very slight duration increase to 5 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Just because I hate it when skills like this have a couple random attribute ranks where you get no bonus for increasing the level.

Magnetic Aura - Reduce recharge to 45 seconds.

Why? - Too sporadic to be of worth at a 60 second recharge.

Obsidian Flesh - Increase armor bonus to +60.

Why? - Armor bonus should be high enough on its own so that you don’t need to bring a million other defensive enchantments if you put this on your bar.

Sandstorm - Reduce the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - Not good enough pressure at a 30 second recharge. Give the Guild Lord about 10 more armor vs. earth damage if you’re worried about this being too powerful for THAT situation.

Sliver Armor - Slight duration increase to 6 + (Attribute Rank/2) and increase blocking % to 30 + (Attribute Rank * 2).

Why? - Needs a boost to make it useful.

Stone Sheath - Decrease recharge to 5 seconds.

Why? - You should at least be able to constantly spread the spell if you’re determined to make a build that benefits from the effects.

Unsteady Ground - Reduce to 5 energy.

Why? - Should be very efficient for this effect, it’s an Elite ability.

Ward Against Elements - Reduce to 10 energy.

Why? - The armor bonus isn’t huge; this is fine at 10 energy.

FIRE

Bed of Coals - Reduce to a 20 second recharge and increase the damage per second to be equal to Fire Storm.

Why - Only conditionally useful so it should be available more often.

Breath of Fire - Decrease recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - Could be good in conjunction with a Hammer Warrior...needs to the 20 second recharge to assure it’s always ready when the knockdown is called.

Burning Speed - Should have 0 aftercast (if running, you keep moving when you use this).

Why? - It’s currently worthless as a running ability because of having to stop to re-apply the spell so much. With this change it would become the absolute fastest running ability in the game at the cost of burning through your energy and health. Would be very fun on a Dervish too.

Double Dragon - Reduce energy cost and recharge to 10.

Why? - This wants to be used in conjunction with Inferno/Flame Djinn’s Haste. Needs to be readily available.

Fireball - Drop recharge time to 5 seconds.

Why? - Mind Burn bars really need this to be better.

Firestorm - Increase the AOE to Nearby.

Why? - We already have Breath of Fire for a small radius AOE DoT spell. This one should be hitting a wide area.

Incendiary Bonds - Decrease casting time to 1 second.

Why? - Because I’m hellbent on making the Bodyguard really annoying, apparently.

Immolate - Lower the recharge time by 1 second.

Why? - Should be able to keep someone constantly burning.

Inferno - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and slightly decrease the damage so it’s on-par with Flame Burst.

Why? - Needs to be less energy consuming so that it can always be used on recharge if needed.

Lava Font - Decrease casting time to 1 second.

Why? - A PBAoE DoT spell with a long casting time is simply silly.

Meteor - Increase to 10 Energy but decrease to a 2 second cast and 25 second recharge.

Why? - The effect is definitely worth 10 energy, although I do feel the skill needs to become less sluggish in order to be more playable.

Meteor Shower - AOE range should be 50/50 chance at being adjacent or nearby for each wave.

Why? - Our favorite crazy spell becomes even more fun. No, but really. You should be able to actually use it before VoD in conjunction with another knockdown and least have a chance of hitting someone with it twice before they are able to run out of the AOE.

Mind Blast - Gain half of the energy bonus even if your energy isn’t higher than the target’s.

Why? - The entire point of the spell is the energy management. You should never be getting just a targeted flare out of it.

Mind Burn - Cause the burning even if the energy requirement is not met.

Why? - Again, you should never be reduced to just a targeted flare (that causes exhaustion!) from your Elite.

Phoenix - Improve the projectile damage so it’s equal to the PBAOE damage and reduce the energy cost to 10.

Why? - Simply a shitty spell in the current form. Needs a buff. For Flame Sentinels on Burning Isle, tweak their Fire Magic attribute if this is too much of a problem (OR, just delete that absolutely retarded map altogether!)

Rodgort's Invocation - Increase the recharge time to 7 seconds.

Why? - Just a little too spammable.

Savannah Heat - Reduce recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - Usage needs to be a little more frequent to be a strong Elite.

Searing Flames - Increase the burning duration to 3 + (Attribute Rank/2) and decrease the damage dealt to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 5).

Why? - Becomes good for a single Elementalist to use but less stupid when you group lots of them together.

Searing Heat / Teinai's Heat - Decrease recharge to 25 seconds.

Why? - Needs to be just a little bit more active.

Star Burst - Remove the “you lose 5 energy” clause and very slightly increase the damage (same amount as Flame Burst).

Why? - Pretty iffy to use it in the first place; doesn’t need the extra limiting factor.

WATER

Armor of Frost - Should cost 10 energy, have a 30 second recharge, give a UNIVERSAL armor bonus of +30, and have a duration of (10 + Attribute Rank * 4).

Why? - Armor vs. physical only? It’s poop right now.

Armor of Mist - Decrease the recharge time to 25 seconds and set the armor bonus as +30.

Why? - Makes it slightly less effective as an armor boost at higher attribute ranks, but a little more constant (and therefore better) as a running ability.

Freezing Gust - Increase the recharge by 1 second.

Why? - Just a touch overpowered. Shouldn’t be able to keep someone snared 100% of the time.

Frigid Armor - UNIVERSAL armor bonus!

Why? - Again, pretty crappy at the moment with the conditionality.

Frozen Burst - Increase the recharge by 1 second.

Why - After the super-long aftercast on PBAOE spells gets fixed, this will need a slight nerf.

Ice Spikes - Slightly increase the damage (same numbers as Shard Storm/Deep Freeze).

Why? - Just annoying that it isn’t streamlined with those similar spells.

Icy Prism - Decrease to 5 energy and a 1/4 second cast and do only half damage to foes not activating a signet.

Ice Prison / Tenei’s Prison - Decrease the casting time to 1 second.

Why? - Doesn’t do any damage or have an AOE effect...doesn’t deserve the longer cast time.

Why? - Pretty useless at the moment.

Maelstrom - Increase AOE to Nearby.

Why? - Too easily avoided right now.

Mind Freeze - Slightly reduce the snare duration to 1 + (Attribute Rank / 2) but cause it even if the energy requirement is not met.

Why? - Not worth using as an Elite over Icy Shackles when it becomes totally useless at times.

Rust - Reduce casting time to 1 second and change the duration to 15 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - It lasts too long at the higher Attribute levels for larger battles but the quicker casting time makes it more effective for smaller fights.

Shard Storm - Increase the projectile speed.

Why? - Needs to be more reliable to ever even consider being used over Freezing Gust.

Shatterstone - Decrease recharge by 1 second.

Why? - Puts in on the exact same timer as Vapor Blade.

Swirling Aura - Decrease to 5 energy and a 1/4 second cast and increase to a 75% block rate.

Why? - Way too sucky in pretty much every way.

Vapor Blade - Deal 30% less damage to enchanted foes rather than 50% less.

Why? - A little too restrictive right now.

Ward Against Harm - Decrease to 10 energy and slightly increase the overall bonus vs. non-fire damage (set it to half of the bonus vs. fire).

Why? - Would piss off people who have trouble against the Zaishen. FUNNY!

ENERGY STORAGE

Energy Boon - Remove the exhaustion.

Why? - The exhaustion makes it pretty much useless.

Ether Prism - Decrease the energy cost to 15 and reduce the maximum energy gained to 40.

Why? - A dumb skill currently. It rewards a player for NOT casting and keeping their energy really high. Also very, very risky because you’re out a TON of energy if you don’t finish the cast. This change would help that out on both fronts.

Ether Renewal - 1 second duration increase.

Why? - It got over-nerfed back in the day, although the mechanic itself probably needs to be changed. Even with the buff, the templates you can make with this thing are pretty limited.

NO ATTRIBUTE

Glyph of Elemental Power - Decrease the activation time to 1/4 of a second and gain 3 energy when it ends.

Why? - Not that strong of an effect..needs to be wasting less of your time (and energy) for it to be useful.

Glyph of Essence - Should cause you to lose 10 energy instead of all energy.

Why? - Becomes useful without always overshadowing Glyph of Sacrifice.

Second Wind - Change to a “skill” rather than a spell and add 3 energy to the amount given back.

Why? - Makes the inflexibility of the skill more workable.

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DERVISH

EARTH PRAYERS

Aura of Thorns - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - The snare is more removable and lasts for a shorter time compared to Grasping Earth.

Dust Cloak - Increase the AOE range of both effects to “Nearby”, decrease the recharge to 10 seconds, and increase the Blind duration to 1 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Why? - Very useless right now.

Fleeting Stability - Reduce the casting time to 1/4 of a second.

Why? - Should be able to use it quickly to prevent a knockdown.

Sand Shards - Increase the damage dealt to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 2).

Why? - Aside from Signet of Midnight currently sucking, this also doesn’t do enough damage to be worth using.

Staggering Force - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds and increase the AOE range for both effects to “Nearby”.

Why? - Worthless.

MYSTICISM *Important* - Change the energy gain spread of this attribute so that it starts at rank 2 rather than rank 3. You shouldn’t be forced to use a Major Rune and go up to 15 Mysticism to get the full energy bonus that is needed for certain builds. Also increase the health gain per lost enchantment to 5 + Attribute Rank because it’s too negligible right now.

Avatar of Balthazar - Increase the duration to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 7).

Why? - The effects it provides isn’t as strong as what other Avatars allow you to do...needs to be up nearly constantly to be worth using.

Avatar of Dwayna - Increase the duration to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 6).

Why? - Makes it comparable with Melandru in terms of overall effectiveness.

Avatar of Grenth - Increase the overall duration a very slight amount...5 + (Attribute Rank * 3).

Why? - Sad to see something go from crazy overpowered to dead. This should still see a little play for the ability it gives you to make a strong offensive push.

Avatar of Lyssa - Increase the duration to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 6) and gain 20 energy when it ends.

Why? - Could be good when combined with a Migraine Mesmer if the uptime was higher.

Avatar of Melandru - Decrease the energy cost to 15.

Why? - No Dervish skill should be costing 25. The nerf to Wearying Strike balances this out.

Balthazar’s Rage - Increase the duration to 30 seconds and cause damage to all adjacent foes instead of health gain when it ends (maximum of 80 damage).

Why? - No reason to use it with the current functionality.

Eremite’s Zeal - Increase the recharge to 15 seconds and change the effect to simply “You gain 1 + Attribute Rank energy.”

Why? - Far too conditional to be useful right now.

Faithful Intervention - Decrease the casting time to 1 second and the recharge to 15 seconds.

Why? - Just isn’t good with a long casting time AND recharge.

Heart of Fury - Decrease the duration to 0 + Attribute Rank and decrease the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - Works better this way for builds that want to use Extend Enchantments.

Heart of Holy Flame - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds and increase the AOE range to “Nearby” for both effects.

Why? - Worthless.

Meditation - Increase the energy gain to 3 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Why? - Far too little of an effect.

Mystic Corruption - Decrease the recharge to 20 seconds, have conditions last for a set rate of 12% longer for each enchantment on you, and change the maximum amount to 4 + (Attribute Rank * 4)%.

Why? - Needs to be constantly maintainable to be useful.

Mystic Vigor - Change the duration to 5 + (Attribute Rank * 3) seconds and increase the health gain per enchantment to 1 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Requires too many enchantments to get the full bonus and the duration requires you to waste too much time recasting it.

Pious Renewal - Remove the after-cast from this spell and decrease the recharge to 2 seconds.

Why? - Then it might actually be useful to use with the Scythe attacks that require an enchantment strip.

Watchful Intervention - Decrease the health gain by 20 points but cause the healing to always occur when the enchantment ends.

Why? - Now you’re still gaining health if it ends prematurely or wasn’t activated by the time the duration is over.

Zealous Renewal - Reduce the energy cost to 5 and the cast time to 1/4 and remove the damage component.

Why? - You want to use this for the energy gain - it should be good at doing that without some dumb side-effect tacked on.

SCYTHE MASTERY

Reap Impurities - Decrease to 5 energy.

Why? - The cost isn’t worth the effect you’re getting.

Reaper’s Sweep - Cause the Deep Wound if the target is below 75% Health.

Why? - Too conditional right now for an Elite.

Wearying Strike - Increase the recharge to 10 seconds, decrease the damage bonus to 5 + Attribute Rank, and decrease the self-imposed Weakness duration to 3 seconds.

Why? - Too powerful as both spike and pressure for a single non-Elite skill.

WIND PRAYERS

Grenth's Fingers - Increase the range to “Nearby”.

Why? - Isn't worth 10 energy with such a small range.

Grenth’s Grasp - Instead of saying “if you are wielding a cold weapon” it should be “your attacks deal cold damage.”

Why? - Just a small, annoying limitation to the skill which shouldn't be there for an Elite.

Mystic Twister - Decrease the recharge to 8 seconds.

Why? - It’s not reliable for a spike so it needs to become better as pressure.

Onslaught - Increase the bonus rate on both components to 33% and decrease the cast time to 1/4.

Why? - The effect isn’t strong enough to use this as your Elite right now.

Rending Aura - Change the current effect to “whenever you are hit by a melee attack SKILL” and also make this remove an enchantment from all nearby foes when it ends.

Why? - The skill is far too single-minded right now.

Test of Faith - Change the conditionality to “foes below 75%” and decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Not enough damage for it to be worth 10 energy and too conditional for it to be useful.

Vow of Piety - Change the range of the effect to “All Nearby Allies”.

Why? - Too random to ever be useful at the moment.

Whirling Charge - Change the duration to 1 + Attribute Rank, change the conditionality to “this can only activate if you are under the effects of an enchantment”, and let it only remain active if you are wielding a Scythe or a one-handed weapon.

Why? - Becomes slightly better for someone who is heavily specced into Wind Prayers and more flexible for a variety of builds (but not for Assassins).

NO ATTRIBUTE

Intimidating Aura - Should only end if you strike someone who has less health than you AND is enchanted. Also should remove ALL enchantments from the opponent.

Why? - It’s garbage with the conditionality right now and even if that was fixed, the actual effect isn’t strong enough to be worth using.

Winds of Disenchantment - Should cost 10 energy and simply remove 1 enchantment from all foes “In the Area”.

Why? - Too conditional to be playable.

~Z

Zuranthium · Jun 09, 2007, 12:36 PM // 12:36

MESMER

DOMINATION MAGIC

Arcane Larceny / Arcane Thievery - Should disable one random spell that is not currently disabled by an effect.

Why? - They come less effective when you have a chance of only disabling one skill between both of them.

Backfire - Decrease the energy cost to 10.

Why? - Would be a solid spell if it just didn’t cost so much.

Chaos Storm - Increase the AOE range to “Nearby” and decrease the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - Too sporadic and limited to be useful.

Empathy - Decrease the casting time to 1 second.

Why? - Needs to be less sluggish in order to quickly punish people at the appropriate times.

Enchanter's Conundrum - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and decrease the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - Wow, so useless right now.

Energy Surge - Increase the amount of energy lost by 1 point.

Why? - I never did like how this was exactly the same as Energy Burn against a single target and the AOE nerf has really made it sub-par.

Hex Breaker - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - Not great in comparison to other options.

Ignorance - Give the spell an AOE range of “In The Area”.

Why? - Might actually be useful now.

Mistrust - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Not worth using over Guilt.

Overload - Completely remove the recharge time.

Why? - Could possibly be effective if you could twice long-casting spells with this twice.

Power Flux - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and increase the hex duration to 5 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Why? - Because Power Leak, a non-Elite, is better.

Price of Pride - Cut the casting time and recharge in half and double the amount of energy lost to 3 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Why? - Much too crappy at the moment.

Signet of Disruption - Increase the damage to 18 + (Attribute Rank * 3).

Why? - Needs to have a little more of a punch to compare with Leech Signet.

Simple Thievery - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and disable a random non-Spell skill that has not already been disabled.

Why? - Wastes time if you’re disabling skills that have already been hit.

Visions of Regret - Should trigger on any Attack skill.

Why? - Much too limited right now.

FAST CASTING

Persistence of Memory - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Too much of an energy sink in comparison to other options for the effect it provides.

Stolen Speed - Should increase the casting speed of ALL your spells, not just the one targeting the hexed person(s).

Why? - A waste of an Elite with the limited effect.

Symbolic Celerity - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and change the duration to 3 + (Attribute Rank * 2).

Why? - Need to be able to keep it constantly maintained for a low cost for it to ever be useful.

Symbolic Posture - Cut the energy cost and recharge in half.

Why? - That’s the only way it might be used over Mantra of Inscriptions.

Symbols of Inspiration - Change the duration to 1 + Attribute Rank, cause the enchantment to be refreshed whenever you use a Signet, and change the effect to cause your spells to be cast 50% faster.

Why? - Doesn’t make any sense as an energy management ability. This idea, however, is quite interesting and unique because you would be able to cast some spells at very scary speeds.

ILLUSION MAGIC

Accumulated Pain - Increase the damage to 15 + (Attribute Ranke * 3).

Why? - Isn’t strong enough compared to other options.

Air of Disenchantment - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - Needs to be more constant to be worth the Elite status.

Ancestor's Visage / Sympathetic Visage - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Costs too much for having such a short duration.

Crippling Anguish - Decrease the energy cost to 10.

Why? - Not worth what you’re paying for in comparison to something like Icy Shackles.

Fevered Dreams - Reduce the casting time to 1 second.

Why? - Need to be able to put it up quickly for any kind of build like this to work.

Fragility - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Need to be able to spread it around better to be effective.

Illusion of Haste - Increase the duration to 6 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Why? - Makes Illusion Mesmer flagrunners slightly more viable, which isn’t a bad thing.

Illusion of Weakness - Decrease the recharge to 20 seconds and lose only half of the current amount of health when cast.

Why? - Has to be more effective in-battle to be worth the skillslot

Illusionary Weaponry - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Would be funny to see this puppy get some play...

Ineptitude - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - The extra bit of efficiency would make Illusion Mesmer gankers just as strong as the other options out there.

Recurring Insecurity - Decrease the recharge time to 20 seconds and increase the degeneration amount to 1 + (Attribute Rank/3 for the first 12 ranks, then another increase at rank 14, and then back to every third rank for progression after that point).

Why? - Should be useful by itself and not just in conjunction with Soul Barbs. Since we have arrived at that skill combo, though, I think it is important to state that no character should be able to suffer from more than 5 hexes at any given time. Anyone who tries to hex a target that already has 5 hexes should get a “You must wait for other hexes to expire before this target can be affected by your spell” message. Which effectively kills the team SBRI build.

Shared Burden - Increase the AOE to “In The Area”.

Why? - Needs to be worth spending your Elite on, considering what you can already do with Deep Freeze.

Signet of Clumsiness - Increase the amount of damage that is dealt (same amount as Clumsiness the spell).

Why? - Needs to be more of a threat to be worth the skillslot.

Soothing Images - Increase the duration to 10 + Attribute Rank, cause hexed foes to gain adrenaline at half the normal speed instead of completely being unable to, and decrease the damage attacks do by 30%.

Why? - The effect is too narrow, hurting only physical classes that have an adrenaline ability.

INSPIRATION MAGIC

Discharge Enchantment - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and change the quick recharge rate to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 3)%.

Why? - Removing an enchantment with no great side effect is only worth 5 energy.

Drain Enchantment - Decrease the energy cost and energy gain by 5 points.

Why? - The change basically just means you lose less energy if the spell gets interrupted. You really should not be losing 15 energy from this.

Elemental Resistance - Remove the negative conditionality and set the elemental armor bonus as +30.

Why? - Abilities which are too extreme are bad. In it’s current form, this will either be sucky or a little too good.

Energy Drain - Decrease the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - Didn’t deserve to be nerfed. The value of Monk Elites has gone up...this is no longer something that is overpowered for a Monk.

Energy Tap - Decrease the casting time to 2 seconds.

Why? - Too sluggish.

Ether Lord - Remove the “you lose all energy” clause.

Why? - The effect isn’t strong enough to justify that kind of setback.

Extend Conditions - Cut the recharge time in half and cause the spell to additionally affect all foes in the area of the target.

Why? - Incredibly shitty right now.

Feedback - Reduce the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Not getting enough of an effect with the current stats for this to be worth 10 energy.

Hex Eater Signet - Change it to a normal range ability rather than touch range and increase the AOE to “Nearby”.

Why? - Too conditional right now to be worth playing.

Inspired Hex / Revealed Hex - Increase the energy gain to 5 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Why? - Didn't deserve the nerf...most definitely not overpowered for a Monk or any other build with the original amount of energy gain.

Keystone Signet - Allow it to recharge Resurrection Signet, decrease the amount of time it disables your non-Signet skills for to 17 - Attribute Rank, and impose a 50% failure on the recharge effect of this skill with Inspiration at 7 or less.

Why? - That’s just about the only way to make it worthwhile.

Lysaa’s Aura - Additionally add a “whenever you are attacked” clause that causes the energy draining effect in exactly the same way as if an enemy spell was cast on you.

Why? - Far too inflexible to be worth using.

Mantra of Concentration - Decrease the recharge to 15 seconds.

Why? - Needs to be just a little more frequent when needed in preventing the interrupts.

Mantra of Signets - Drastically drop the energy cost down to 5.

Why? - Isn’t useful for any build with such a harsh energy requirement.

Physical Resistance - Remove the negative conditionality, set the armor bonus as +30 that applies to attacks from any physical weapon rather than just physical damage, and decrease the duration to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 4).

Why? - Doesn’t work very well currently because of weapon swapping. The duration nerf is to prevent people from speccing really low into the Inspiration line and being able to maintain the stance 100% of the time.

Power Leech - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Too inefficient as an Elite.

Spirit of Failure - Increase the energy gain to the amount it was at before the nerf.

Why? - Very questionable if this is worth 15 energy now.

NO ATTRIBUTE

Arcane Echo - Decrease the energy cost to 10.

Why? - A little too energy-consuming to be really useful.

Arcane Mimicry - Decrease the cost to 10 energy, decrease the recharge to 40 seconds, and additionally prevent it from copying maintainable enchantments.

Why? - Too sporadic and energy consuming to ever be worth using.

Echo - Decrease the recharge to 0 seconds.

Why? - Could actually be a good Elite if there was no delay between the times you can use it.

Epidemic - Increase the AOE range to “Nearby”.

Why? - Current effect is too limited to ever really use effectively.

Expel Hexes - Decrease the recharge to 6 seconds.

Why? - It’s just vanilla removal; should be very active.

Hypochondria - Should additionally make conditions unremovable on the target for 5 seconds.

Why? - Could be an interesting mechanic that way; it’s certainly useless right now.

Signet of Illusions - Decrease the activation time and recharge by 1 second.

Why? - This could be an AMAZINGLY fun ability if it were a bit less clunky.

Signet of Midnight - Increase the self-imposed Blind duration to 30 seconds, make the skill targetable instead of touch range, and cause all foes adjacent to you and adjacent to the person you targeted with the ability to become blinded as well.

Why? - Sooooo sucky right now. And, hurray, synergy with Sand Shards.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NECROMANCER

BLOOD MAGIC

Awaken the Blood - Decrease the recharge to 30 seconds and the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Not a huge effect...it doesn’t need to be as prone to removal as it is now.

Barbed Signet - Decrease the recharge time by 5 seconds.

Why? - Slow activation, not much of an effect...meh.

Blood Bond - Increase the health regen to 1 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Why? - Somewhat lackluster.

Blood Drinker - Should cause unconditional 10 second bleeding on the opponent instead of conditional bleeding on you.

Why? - It’s so dumb right now.

Blood of the Aggressor - Drop the recharge time by 1 second.

Why? - Very low damage here...should be as spammable as other similar spells.

Cultist’s Fervor - Decrease the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - Needs to be maintained constantly to make any build of this form work.

Dark Bond - Move to Death Magic.

Why? - Makes no sense in this line.

Dark Pact - Increase the damage to the same amount as Vamp Gaze.

Why? - Makes the life-sac worth it.

Demonic Flesh - Cut the recharge time in half and have this heal you for the same amount of maximum amount of health it provides when the spell ends.

Why? - Not ever worth taking if you’re just going to die as a result of the massive health loss when it ends.

Life Siphon - Decrease casting time to 1 second.

Why? - This line needs a good cover hex.

Life Transfer - Decrease the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - Still not a worthwhile Elite. Could possibly be useful for a Necro Blood ganker if they improve the line. Lmfao.

Ravenous Gaze - Change the skill so that it steals 25 + (Attribute Rank * 3) health and then an additional 5 + (Attribute Rank * 3) health if you were below 50% health when this was cast.

Why? - Far too conditional right now.

Signet of Agony - Double the amount of damage that is caused.

Why? - A worthless skill currently.

Touch of Agony / Wallow’s Bite - Decrease the life sac amount to 5%.

Why? - Too much life sac going on to make a real build with these.

Soul Leech - Decrease the casting time to 1 second.

Why? - Makes it more competitive with Spoil Victor.

Strip Enchantment - Drop the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Not worth 10 energy.

Vampiric Bite / Vampiric Touch - Decrease the energy cost to 10.

Why? - I don’t like how grossly inefficient the skill is by itself. Energy cost only drops by 1 point in comparison to what it is now for Touch Rangers, so the change wouldn’t make them overpowered either (although, along with the Dodge/Zojun’s Haste buff, it does make the build into something that is really good as a dedicated split character...almost).

Vampiric Spirit - Increase the duration to 5 + (Attribute Rank * 2), decrease the added energy cost on spells to 2, and slightly increase the range to “In The Area”.

Why? - Too inefficient to ever be worth using right now.

Vampiric Swarm - Decrease the energy cost to 10 and the recharge to 7 seconds.

Why? - Not efficient enough or consistent enough to ever use.

Unholy Feast - Reduce the recharge to 5 seconds.

Why? - Needs to be spammable to ever see play.

CURSES

Chilblains - Increase the amount of damage dealt to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 5) and cause poison on all foes in the area for 10 seconds instead of on yourself.

Why? - Currently not worth 25 energy.

Defile Enchantments / Desecrate Enchantments - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Depending on opponents to have a bunch of enchantments up just isn’t reliable. These spells should be efficient enough to use even when people are affected by no enchantments at all.

Enfeeble - Decrease the recharge to 2 seconds.

Why? - Weakness isn’t a very powerful condition...this deserves to be very, very spammable.

Enfeebling Blood - Additionally deal 10 + (Attribute Rank * 3) damage to everyone it hits.

Why? - Needs something else to make it useful outside of Oppressive Gaze spikes.

Enfeebling Touch - Increase the damage to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 4) and move this to the Death Magic attribute.

Why? - Makes more sense in that line and needs an improvement to possibly ever be used in the first place.

Envenom Enchantments - Target should be poisoned for each enchantment on them, rather than each remaining enchantment.

Why? - Just a small added effect to make it more attractive.

Feast of Corruption - Decrease the energy cost to 5, change the spell to a hex with a 10 second duration that deals 40 + (Attribute Rank * 6) damage to target foe and all adjacent foes, and cause the affected opponents to be healed for 8 + (Attribute Rank * 2) points if the hex ends prematurely.

Why? - Becomes a good Elite when you want to give your Necro a strong spike ability, but not overpowered for a Necro spike build in general.

Insidious Parasite - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - It’s priced high and doesn’t concretely help to thwart the opponent from spiking (someone else)...should be a little more spammable.

Lingering Curse - Decrease the energy cost to 15 and change the duration to 5 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Too costly for the effect as an Elite. The duration change is to make it less effective at lower spec levels (could be quite usable with just a couple points in Curses if the energy cost was dropped and the current duration spread stayed).

Mark of Pain - Cut the recharge time in half.

Why? - Need to be able to spread it around more for this to become good.

Meekness - Remove the life sac component.

Why? - Makes the skill useful.

Pain of Disenchantment - Decrease the casting time to 1 second and the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - Those changes should be enough of a push to make it Elite-worthy.

Plague Sending - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and remove the life sac.

Why? - Still quite sucky, even after the small improvement it received.

Plague Signet - Reduce the activation time to 3/4 of a second and give the effect a “Nearby” AOE spread.

Why? - Total poop right now.

Plague Touch - Should transfer 2 conditions at Attribute Rank 4 and 3 conditions at Attribute Rank 12.

Why? - What was the point of "buffing" this skill when it takes 8 in Curses to get the added benefit? No Warrior is going to spec that high into the line.

Poisoned Heart - Increase the poison duration to 5 + Attribute Rank, increase the AOE range to “Nearby”, and decrease the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - Could possibly be useful on a Dervish if the effect was stronger.

Rigor Mortis - Decrease the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - RIGOOOOR MOOORRTISSSSS.

Signet of Suffering - Cut the recharge time in half, give it an AOE effect range of “Nearby”, increase the base damage amount to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 2), and cause the extra damage bonus to be applied only once (if they are suffering from a hex).

Why? - Totally changes the effect from strong spike to pressure/moderate spike, which is needed since Feast of Corruption is already in the line for a strong spike ability.

Soul Bind - Increase the speed debuff to 50%.

Why? - Needs more of an effect to be Elite-worthy.

Suffering - Decrease the energy cost to 10.

Why? - Isn’t worth the energy cost for the effect.

Ulcerous Lungs - The life degeneration should be unconditional and the casting time should be 1 second.

Why? - Would actually make it useful.

Weaken Armor - Decrease the casting time to 2 seconds.

Why? - Too slow of a cast to really be worth taking.

Weaken Knees - Decrease the casting time to 3/4 of a second.

Why? - Inferior to Water Trident if left as it is now.

DEATH MAGIC *Important* - I believe that a character with a Minion spell (or spells) equipped should start every mission as if that spell had already been cast. These minions should not start degenerating or be targetable/effected by any skills until the “mission” actually begins for PvP matches. Additionally, when a Minion Master dies the minions should come under his power again when resurrected and no team should ever be able to have more than 10 minions at a given time. A Minion Master could actually become a viable, balanced character build for GVG with these changes.

Animate Bone Fiend - Decrease energy cost to 15.

Why? - Costs too much for what you’re getting.

Animate Bone Horror - Decrease energy cost to 5.

Why? - Such a generic minion that just doesn’t offer anything useful in comparison to other minion spells. Should be very cheap.

Animate Bone Minions - Decrease energy cost to 10.

Why? - With the Soul Reaping change, they aren’t acting as a massive energy engine.

Animate Flesh Golem - Decrease the recharge to 20 seconds and increase the Golem’s attack speed by a small amount.

Why? - Needs to be more constant to ever use this as your Elite over Jagged Bones.

Animate Shambling Horror - Decrease the recharge to 15 seconds.

Why? - Getting less energy from Soul Reaping...should be more usable.

Animate Vampiric Horror - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - A little too slow in comparison to the other Minions for the cost.

Aura of the Lich - Change the duration to 5 + (Attribute Rank * 4), decrease the casting time to 1 second, and cause the spell to reduce life-stealing effects by 50%.

Why? - Needs to truly cut all health-loss effects in half and be less interruptable to have the potential realized.

Bitter Chill - Increase the damage by 5 points.

Why? - Puts it in line with Flare, etc.

Contagion - Decrease the life sac amount to (8 - Attribute Rank/2)%...never going below 1%.

Why? - Too much life loss going on for it to ever be useful.

Dark Aura - Double the duration.

Why? - Costs too much energy to continually re-cast this for it to be good.

Feast for the Dead - Cut the recharge time in half and double the health gain your undead receive.

Why? - Just isn’t effective enough compared to Taste of Death.

Fetid Ground - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Isn’t efficient enough to use right now.

Jagged Bones - Decrease the recharge to 5.

Why? - Isn’t broken with the Soul Reaping fix.

Malign Intervention - Increase the duration to 5 + (Attribute Rank * 2) and have the minion that is created be under your control.

Why? - Creating masterless minions isn’t an attractive ability.

Necrotic Transversal - Decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second, additionally cause weakness, and increase the AOE to “In the Area”.

Why? - Not enough of an effect to be worth taking.

Order of Undeath - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and remove the initial life sac.

Why? - Not reliable enough to be worth using over other Elites.

Putrid Flesh - Increase the disease duration to 5 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Actually makes it worth taking over Rotting Flesh in some cases.

Soul Feast - Decrease the energy cost to 5.

Why? - Isn’t worth taking over other abilities with the current cost.

Tainted Flesh - Change the duration to 15 + (Attribute Rank * 3) and gain 1 energy when you cast it one someone.

Why? - Mirror of Disenchantment really hurts this....should be more efficient to constantly maintain.

Taste of Pain - Cut the recharge time in half.

Why? - So that Signet of Lost Souls isn’t always wayyyy better.

Vereta’s Sacrifice - Decrease the life sac amount to 10%, decrease the recharge to 30 seconds, and have the recharge be shortened by 2 seconds for each minion you control.

Why? - This was WAY over-nerfed.

Vile Miasma - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - Lets you keep the degeneration going constantly.

Vile Touch - Increase the damage by 10 points and decrease the recharge to 1 second.

Why? - Is never worth taking. Probably still wouldn’t be.

Virulence - Remove the conditionality.

Why? - Actually makes it Elite-worthy.

SOUL REAPING *Important* - Additionally limit the effect so that it triggers from YOUR minions only.

Wail of Doom - Give the spell’s effect an AOE of “Adjacent” range.

Why? - Needs to be able to thwart melee trains more effectively.

NO ATTRIBUTE

Grenth’s Balance - The health gain should be the ENTIRE difference between your health and your opponent’s, not just half, and it should be capped out at 400 health (with the health loss on the person you use it on being capped out at 200 health).

Why? - Needs to be more effective at actually saving yourself when your health is low. Yes, I realize the change ruins for skill for many areas of PvE. I don’t care. Stop using it to cheat anyway, imo.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PARAGON

*** Shouts, Chants, and Echoes needs to be changed so that a player can never be affected by more than 2 of them at the same time. If someone is ever already under the effect of 2 Chants and a third one is used, for example, the Chant that is “most buried” in the stack should become removed. This change (along with some other small nerfs) would automatically kill the stupid Paragon builds that stack defensive abilities like crazy...“Stand Your Ground!” would be getting removed very quickly by a combination of “Go For The Eyes!” + “Watch Yourself”. It makes perfect RPG sense as well - you can’t very well pay attention to people shouting a hundred different things. This change should REPLACE the current maximum of +25 Armor from stacked effects, as that game mechanic hinders certain skill combinations that wouldn't be overpowered.

COMMAND

“Go for the Eyes!” - Increase the critical chance to 30 + (Attribute Rank * 5) and increase the adrenaline cost to 6.

Why? - It gives Paragons too much energy at 4 adren. The increased critical rate promotes using the skill with better timing.

“Help Me!” - Make it cost 0 energy and decrease the recharge to 12 seconds.

Why? - The effect isn’t worthwhile but this could be good energy management for a Paragon.

“Incoming!” - Decrease the energy cost to 5, decrease the recharge to 5 seconds, let it affect ally allies within earshot and not just party members, and change the effect so that it lasts for 5 seconds and causes affected allies to take 15 + (Attribute Rank * 4)% less damage the next time they are dealt damage.

Why? - The effect is always going to be either problematic or useless with the current mechanic. This way, it becomes something that only really works for one Paragon, instead of something that can be chained together, and it serves several small functions - a little bit of energy management for the Paragon, a little bit of damage mitigation for everyone, and a good way to trigger certain Finales.

"Never Give Up!" - Change the conditionality to “below 90% Health”.

Why? - A little too restrictive to be useful right now.

“We Shall Return!” - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - Not too useful by itself but it could be worth the skillslot if it were spammable (to activate echoes and for minor energy gain if your Leadership attribute is 12 or higher).

Crippling Anthem - Increase the adrenaline cost to 5.

Why? - A little overpowered at 4 adren with the energy you can get from it.

Song of Concentration - Remove the recharge time and reduce the adren cost to 7.

Why? - Could stand to be improved...I don’t see any Ghostly Heroes trying to cap altars on the battlefield, after all.

LEADERSHIP - *Important*, this Attribute needs to be changed so that the Paragon gains the specified amount of energy EVERY time they use a Shout or Chant. It should not be limited by the number of party members affected, as that really hurts their ability to position and split, therefore watering down the whole class. No, you probably won’t make a build that specifically has a dedicated split Para but the flexibility still needs to be there.

“Lead the Way!” - Increase the recharge time to 12 seconds.

Why? - Would be overpowered with the Leadership energy change.

“Make Your Time!” - Decrease the recharge to 20 seconds.

Why? - Too inconsistent to be worth the skillslot.

Aggressive Refrain - The Paragon should have -10 AL while affected by this.

Why? - It’s just too good of a skill to not have a drawback.

Burning Refrain - Should cause the burning whenever the affected ally hits someone who is below 75% health.

Why? - It’s too counterproductive with the current mechanic.

Defensive Anthem - Double the activation time.

Why? - Too easy of a passive defense ability.

Enduring Harmony - Increase the recharge to 15 seconds.

Why? - Shouldn’t be able to maintain it on more than 2 people.

Hexbreaker Aria - Should activate the next time any ally uses ANY skill.

Why? - Would be worth using that way.

Leader’s Comfort - Decrease the activation time to 1 second, increase the non-conditional health gain and maximum health gain by 10 points, and limit the number of times the bonus healing can be gained based upon the Leadership attribute.

Why? - Too weak as a self-healing ability currently. The added limitation is because it could be too good as a 0-spec.

Natural Temper - Change the duration to 1 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Becomes more worthwhile with a high amount of points in Leadership.

Solider’s Fury - Change the duration and mechanic so that it’s exactly like Aggressive Refrain (except with 33% IAS and no -10 AL).

Why? - Currently worse than Aggressive Refrain and it’s Elite...gotta change that.

MOTIVATION

“It’s just a flesh wound.” - Increase the recharge to 4 seconds.

Why? - Would definitely be overpowered as a 1 second recharge with the Leadership change.

“The Power Is Yours!” - Remove the negative energy degeneration that it imposes upon you.

Why? - Kills the skill.

Aria of Restoration - Cut the energy cost and recharge in half.

Why? - Doesn’t provide enough of an effect.

Aria of Zeal - Decrease the activation time to 1 second and increase the energy gain to 1 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Why? - Should definitely be un-nerfed considering the change to chants and such in general.

Ballad of Restoration - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - Needs to be a stronger ability by itself.

Energizing Finale - Increase the energy gain to 2 energy and increase the recharge to 30 seconds.

Why? - Could be useful to maintain on one specific person in your team if it the energy gain was higher.

Finale of Restoration - Increase the recharge time to 15 seconds.

Why? - Should only be able to maintain it on two people at most.

Leader’s Zeal - Increase the range to earshot, increase the amount gained to 3 per ally, and change the maximum amount that can be gained to 3 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Very useless right now

Lyric of Purification - Decrease the recharge to 15 seconds.

Why? - Needs to be a little more active to be worth using.

Mending Refrain - Decrease the cost to 5.

Why? - Shouldn’t take so much energy to re-apply in battle...the effect is small.

Purifying Finale - Increase the recharge time to 15 seconds.

Why? - Should only be able to maintain it on two people at most.

Signet of Synergy - Decrease the activation time to 3/4 of a second and increase the healing amount to 40 + (Attribute Rank * 5).

Why? - A bit lackluster right now.

Song of Purification - Cut the activation time and duration in half and increase the adren cost to 6.

Why? - Too interruptable for the effect you’re getting but it also shouldn’t be lasting any longer than a normal Chant.

Song of Restoration - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds and increase the healing amount by 20 points.

Why? - Needs to be Elite-worthy on its own.

SPEAR MASTERY

Barbed Spear - Increase the bleeding duration to 5 + Attribute Rank.

Why? - Need to be able to spread it better for this to be worthwhile.

Blazing Spear - Decrease the damage bonus by a small amount (5 + Attribute Rank) but additionally cause the target to be set on fire for 1....3 extra seconds if they are already on fire.

Why? - Would synergize a little better with other Paragon abilities that way.

Cruel Spear - Increase the damage bonus to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 2).

Why? - The Deep Wound is conditional, it deserves to do a lot of damage.

Disrupting Throw - Should have a 50% chance of interrupting the target even if they aren’t suffering from a condition.

Why? - Too risky to be worth using when it NEVER works without the condition.

Merciless Spear - Change the conditionality to "below 75% health".

Why? - Inferior to other options right now.

Swift Javelin - Remove the “if you are under the effects of an enchantment” clause.

Why? - Doesn’t have enough of an added effect to need that kind of limiting factor.

Vicious Attack - Increase the recharge to 10 seconds.

Why? - Deep Wound chance becomes more likely (or guaranteed, with a high enough Command rank) with the “Go For The Eyes!” change.

Unblockable Throw - Spear should move 3 times faster than normal.

Why? - Costs 7 adren...make it worth that amount.

NO ATTRIBUTE

Cautery Signet - Reduce the activation time to 1 second.

Why? - Too clunky as a 2 second activation...against a heavy condition team it’s just gonna get d-shotted.

Remedy Signet - Decrease the activation time to 3/4 of a second.

Why? - Makes it more competitive with Mending Touch.

~Z

Toilet Oni · Jun 09, 2007, 03:07 PM // 15:07

Im going to bash a little on your your RT balance

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

RITUALIST

*** Ritualist spirits NEED to be changed so that you can not naturally have more than 3 of them within the same earshot range. If 3 allied Ritualist spirits are already active within earshot of you, it should be impossible to cast another. Ritualist spirits in general should be casting faster, and in some cases lasting longer or recharging quicker, to promote the use of spirits as something that can move with the team better or act as long-term battlefield structres. Copies of the same Ritualist spirit should also be able to be placed somewhat closer to each other...instead of half the map range drop it down to Earshot range. Furthers the idea of placing Spirits in intervals across the battlefield.

rather make spawning power decide how manny spirits you can control at once.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

RITUALIST

Bloodsong - Move this back to Communing, decrease the activation time to 2 seconds and the recharge to 20 seconds, and increase the duration to 30 + (Attribute Rank * 15).

If bloodsong is going to be moved back to communing, it need a nerf or pain needs a buff
Why? as it is now bloodsong is more powerfull than pain
NOTE: Bloodsong dont need a big nerf, and pain dont need a big buff

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

RITUALIST

Gaze of Fury - Cut the energy cost and activation time in half and double the amount of damage that the Fury spirit does.

Agree with the Cut the energy cost and activation time in half, but not the double damage, my suggestion is give it 2 more damage for each level of the spirit. and make the duration 15-40 seconds

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

RITUALIST

Lamentation - Decrease the recharge to 4 seconds.

note, it is armor ignoring damage.
With the 4 second recharge its a weaker obsidian flame without exahustion.
My suggestion is remove the within earshot of a spirit and buff the damage and make the recharge 10 seconds

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

RITUALIST

Anguish - Decrease the energy cost to 15, decrease the activation time to 2 seconds, and decrease the recharge to 30 seconds.

Keep the activation time at 3 seconds
Why, i beleve the no spirit should have a activation time of under 3 seconds

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

RITUALIST

Pain - Decrease the activation time to 2 seconds and the recharge to 20 seconds, and increase the duration to 30 + (Attribute Rank * 15).

If bloodsong is going to be moved back to communing, pain needs a buff or bloodsong needs a nerf
Why? as it is now bloodsong is more powerfull than pain
NOTE: Bloodsong dont need a big nerf, and pain dont need a big buff

And i think that no spirit should have a activation time under 3 seconds

suiraCLAW · Jun 09, 2007, 03:08 PM // 15:08

Changes I can't agree with:
- Orison of healing: 3/4 cast would be OK, especially if you buff holy haste. In fact, all direct healing skills like orison, words of comfort, dwayna's kiss, etc. deserve that 3/4 cast time.
- Mend condition/ailment: if a heal monk wants a condition removal that does something, he should spec in the prot line.
- expel hexes: overpowerd...
- expert's dextirity: would be too overpowerd with stuff like high specced debilitating shot or chilling victory

kvndoom · Jun 09, 2007, 03:54 PM // 15:54

Haven't had time to read all of it yet, but I appreciate the time you've put into it.

However, that said, if your adjustments are primarily GVG-based, then any buffs to hard rezzes are unacceptable. Many of your rez buffs would make them viable alternatives to Rez Sig. The problem with that is that replacing rez sig with hard rezzes on multiple teammates causes a total tactical shift in the way GVG is played. Even at 60% DP, a good player can get enough done to change the tide of battle, even if it's just firing off a catapult before getting spiked back down, or taking out an NPC or two.

K, just got finished reading Warrior (my favorite class, can't help it). Your buff to Battle Rage would simply turn it into pre-nerf Rampage as One without the pet requirement. Sprint, Frenzy (little slower), and For Great Justice all in one skill slot, with infinite upkeep (warriors kill, so a BR build should be stacked with attack skills and rez, so rez would probably be the only non-attack skill to end the chain)? Wow. I agree with you on many of the others though. If you drop the adrenaline gain from Steady Stance, then Fear Me doesn't really need to be nerfed, because it really doesn't see play outside of SS builds anyway. Remembering that Hundred Blades hits every target twice, making it unblockable is an overbuff. Either the 4 second recharge or a 6-second recharge with a +damage bonus equal to your rank in Swordsmanship would fix it.

martialis · Jun 09, 2007, 04:25 PM // 16:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Dismiss Condition - Change the name to Dismiss Conditions, increase the recharge to 5 seconds, and remove 2 conditions from target OTHER ally with a healing amount of 15 + (Attribute Rank * 3) for each condition removed.

Why? - Protection Prayers should have multiple-removal spells.

wtf?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Signet of Stamina - Remove the activation time and change the function completely...for 5 + Attribute Rank seconds, cause adrenaline skills you use to not take 1 hit off adrenaline off of other adrenaline skills.

Why? - The skill is useless and redundant with Defy Pain/Endure Pain already here...this change makes it actually do something useful (could be used very effectively with Rage of the Ntouka).

omg
omgomgyesplz

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

“To the Limit!” - Automatically gain 1 strike of adrenaline PLUS the amount listed.

Why? - Not a reliable enough of an effect to be worth taking.

that's been done (it was nerfed)

Is it really necessary to extensively buff skills? They're not terrible, after all, just marginally weaker than other stuff, and perfectly functional. Surely it's more important to nerf things which are practically bad?
This thread is silly.

Tab · Jun 09, 2007, 05:21 PM // 17:21

I'll just go over my thoughts on some of the key monk changes for now, seeing as that's where I have the best knowledge of current skills.

I've taken only what I see as the key, or interesting, skills for the class, rather than commented on some that will still be useless.

Blessed Light - Drop the energy cost to 5, increase the recharge to 12 seconds, and reduce the casting time to 1/4 of a second.

Would be FAR too good like this. It would be a Glimmer for the same amount of energy, that heals for more and removes a hex and condition. You have to bear in mind that it saw alot of play back in the factions meta. The problem isn't that BL is underpowered, rather that the NF skills are overpowered.
If the need is felt to buff it, it would be better off keeping all the same numbers as it has now, but having a condition that "If Blessed Light removes both a Hex and a Condition, you gain 3 energy".

Deny Hexes - Change the effect to “For each Divine Favor skill you have that is recharging or being maintained, target ally loses 1 hex (maximum of 3 hexes).”

Looks OK.

Divine Intervention - Change the trigger to “the next time target ally receives damage that would drop their health below 33% or the next time their health would reach 0".

Still probably wouldn't see play, long recharge time and doesn't trigger from 'damage' sources such as degen.

Divine Spirit - Cut the energy cost in half.

Would make it a bit more playable, although a half cost, duration and recharge would be better.

Healer’s Boon - Remove the “next X spells” clause and cause the spell to fail if your Divine Favor is 7 or less.

Would be OK.

Holy Haste - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and the casting time to 1/4 of a second.

It's good enough as it is, the problem is you can't cast other enchants under it, and prot is generally the best form of monking.

Peace and Harmony - Decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second, increase the recharge to 15 seconds, and also increase the duration by a small amount to 30 + (Attribute Rank * 5).

Would probably still be largely useless.

Scribe’s Insight - Decrease the duration to 8 + Attribute Rank, but increase the energy gain per Signet to 4.

Might make the Scribe's + signet Boonprots more interesting.

Signet of Devotion - Decrease the activation time to 1 second and increase the recharge to 8 seconds.

Basically an unconditional, but lower total Signet of Rejuvenation, would be good like this.

Spell Breaker - Drop the energy cost to 5, drop the casting time to 1/4 of a second, and slightly lengthen the duration to 5 + Attribute Rank.

Would be good, but the single target and long duration makes it fairly useless.

Withdraw Hexes - Make this a non-Elite, move it to the Protection line, set the recharge at 15 seconds, and cause it to remove 1 hex from all party members with a healing amount of 15 + (Attribute Rank * 3) if a hex is removed.

Basically an Extinguish for hexes? Would probably be too good.

Dwayna’s Kiss - Cap the health bonus at 3 enchantments/hexes.

Would be OK.

Ethereal Light - Decrease the casting time to 3/4 of a second.

Good.

Glimmer of Light - Increase the amount healed to 25 + (Attribute Rank * 5).

Good.

Healer’s Covenant - Slightly reduce the amount of healing lost to 20%.

Might make it slightly more viable, but the fact is that protting is more valuable than a heal spamming monk in a 2 man backline.

Healing Breeze - Decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second and very slightly increase the regeneration amount to 3 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Would maybe be more common on runners like this, still wouldn't be good on a normal monk though.

Healing Hands - Decrease the duration to 8 seconds and decrease the recharge to 15 seconds.

Still probably isn't going to be that good outside of gimmicky builds where several X/Mo's pack this.

Healing Light - Decrease the casting time to 3/4 of a second, increase the amount healed to 40 + (Attribute Rank * 5), and drop the 3 energy gain break point to an Attribute Rank of 11.

Might see a little more play.

Healing Touch - Take Divine Favor out of the picture. It should have a set healing amount of 40 + (Attribute Rank * 5).

It's OK as it is IMO.

Orison of Healing - Decrease casting time to 1/4 of a second.

Practically a non-elite Glimmer. Not a good change.

Restful Breeze - Slightly increase the duration to 6 + (Attribute Rank/2).

It's OK as it is.

Supportive Spirit - Move this to Protection Prayers, decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second, increase the recharge to 10 seconds, and change the healing to damage reduction of 6 + Attribute Rank that is active 100% of the time.

You might have me confused, but are you suggesting that the damage reduction is active when not KD'd? See Shielding Hands. Otherwise, the 1/4 might make it useful in some cases.

Vigorous Spirit - Remove the recharge time and increase the duration to 30 + Attribute Rank.

Still wouldn't be great.

Word of Healing - Decrease the recharge to 2 seconds and set the healing amount as 20 + (Attribute Rank * 9).

Would be too much, at 14 healing, with the condition met it is a 292 heal.

Words of Comfort - Increase the base amount of health that is healed by a small amount (same spread as Orison of Healing) and decrease the recharge by 1 second.

I find it OK as it is, Dwayna's is more useful because it's better to remove the condition than heal off it in most cases. This would be aacceptable though.

Convert Hexes - Should be self-targetable and the armor bonus should be +5 for every hex that was removed.

Again it's OK as it is, but this wouldn't be bad either.

Dismiss Condition - Change the name to Dismiss Conditions, increase the recharge to 5 seconds, and remove 2 conditions from target OTHER ally with a healing amount of 15 + (Attribute Rank * 3) for each condition removed.

No. RC and Mending Touch are for multiple condition removal. With this change conditions would be made fairly useless. The OTHER condition isn't really relevant, as two monks can both take it. This change would make RC useless.

Divert Hexes - Should give you 5 energy back if it removes less than 2 hexes and the recharge should be increased by 1 second.

The skill is OK as it is, the problem is that against teams where it would be useful, it is always disabled.

Extinguish - If a condition besides burning is removed, heal for half of the normal amount.

It's fine as it is now.

Guardian - Change the blocking rate so that it’s 10 + Attribute Rank for the first 10 ranks and then increases by 8% for each rank after 10 (maxing out at 50% at Rank 14).

Also fine as it is now, a 2% increase over the current chance isn't going to do much, and running it at low prot isn't very effective.

Life Sheath - Decrease the recharge to 5 seconds and fix protection effects so that they stack better (ie.. someone with both Life Sheath and Shielding Hands on them should ALWAYS have the damage negated by Shielding Hands first before it starts coming out of Life Sheath’s pool...it shouldn’t matter which order the spells are stack on the character).

RoF isn't elite, which will still make this a bad choice.

Mark of Protection - Decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second, decrease the recharge to 30 seconds, and it shouldn’t disable your Protection Spells for 5 seconds.

Makes it the ultimate spike stopper, however a 30s charge makes it useless for that role. I'd take Spirit Bond over it.

Mend Ailment - Move to Healing Prayers, reduce the recharge to 4 seconds, and change the healing component so that it applies to every condition the target is suffering from at an amount of 5 + (Attribute Rank * 2).

Fine as it is.

Mend Condition - Move it to Healing Prayers.

Condition removal should stay in prot.

Reversal of Fortune - Decrease the maximum amount of damage it prevents by 8 points.

Wouldn't do much, as it rarely stops the full amount. Fine as it is IMO.

Reverse Hex - Decrease the energy cost to 5, increase the recharge to 12 seconds, and increase the damage reduction amount to the same level as Reversal of Fortune (the new version).

Would make it playable, though maybe slightly too good.

Shield Guardian - Decrease the energy cost to 5, increase the recharge to 2 seconds, and have the healing amount apply to that ally only.

Not sure on this one, it would be alot more attractive, but still isnt a great skill.

Shield of Absorption - Change the duration to 1 + (Attribute Rank/3) for the first 6 ranks and then (Attribute Rank/2) afterwards.

The scaling is fine as it is.

Zealous Benediction - Move this to the Divine Favor attribute.

No. There's nothing wrong with prot having a single elite heal, and it wouldn't really fit Divine Favor any better.

Defender’s Zeal - Set the energy gain on a sliding scale of 1 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Would still be useless, as an energy source hex for the opponent's monks is a high priority removal.

Scourge Enchantment - Halve the energy cost and double the recharge.

Would be OK.

Scourge Healing - Double the recharge time.

Probably a good change, this can be fairly dangerous in a hex team.

Scourge Sacrifice - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and additionally cause hexed foes to resurrect people with 33% less health than they normally would have.

The energy change is fine, but the resurrection aspect makes no sense, and would be overpowered.

Signet of Judgement - Set the recharge as 15 seconds.

One KD every 15 seconds and light AoE damage still isn't great.

Empathic Removal - Drop the recharge to 5 seconds and change the effect so that it can be used on yourself when no allies are around: “You lose 1 condition and 1 hex. If another ally is targeted, they lose 1 condition and 1 hex.”

Fine as it is.

Purge Conditions - Move this to the Protection attribute and cause it to heal for 15 + (Attribute Rank * 3) points for each Condition that is removed.

Would be too good.

Remove Hex - Decrease the casting time to 1 second and the recharge to 6 seconds, move it to the Healing line, and heal for 15 + (Attribute Rank * 4) points if a hex is removed.

Way out of proportion with the other hex removals. Holy veil, the most common removal is a 12s charge with no healing other than DF bonus. Losing the ability to preveil is massively outweighed by the heal and halved charge. It's fine as it is IMO, the lower charge than most other removals is balanced by its cast time.

*Edit* - After reading through the rest of your suggestions, my criticism is that you seem to have placed too much emphasis on buffing. For example, you have missed out several skills that need nerfing, such as Signet of Humility.
As the current metagame stands, the skills that need changing mainly are Paragon shouts, and maybe the Leadership attribute, aswell as Hexes and Hex removal, which can be achieved by a universal recharge reduction in hex removal, and weakening a few key hexes such as Faintheartedness, as well as changing Signet of Humility to make Divert Hexes a valid counter.

Also, I have to say I agree with martialis. In reality it isn't a case of the vast majority of skills being underpowered and in need of a buff, it's more of a case of certain skills being overpowered. While there are a few skills that really need buffing, the balances most needed at the moment are nerfs, which Ensign's post outlines extremely well.

While I respect that you have taken the time to try and help balance the game, such extensive buffing as this isn't the answer.
Now that Nightfall and Factions are out, there will never be the same amount of balance as there was in Prophecies, and rather than try to make all skills equal through buffing, the devs should nerf the overpowered skills, and focus on making the Eye of the North skills fit in properly.

Shane Postus · Jun 09, 2007, 05:25 PM // 17:25

obviously theres going to be some synergy problems with this balancing, as there all with ALL balances. So im going to comment on the motives, as the technicalities can be smoothed out at anytime if the concepts are correct. My first problem is that you seem to think that each character should have specific roles (im specifically bringing up your monk balancing between prot and heal). Now you may think thats the best for the game, and thats your opinion, but personally i believe that classes should be blended more. Apparently Anets original plan included this as well since they gave each character 2 classes to pull skills from. Flexibility is the key, balance between characters. Now im not saying have a mo/p that heals and throws spears, but having a monk that can heal as well as prot is better than a monk that can only do one. Its my opinion that if every character can be versatile (prots are pretty useless vs degen teams besides deny hexes, which is easily shutdown) then it can be used in different situations and strategy becomes more prevalent over "Buildwars". Afterall, didnt we all love te boonprot?

Heal and prot in one and it promoted some nice energy management techniques, skill usage, and player skill/experience

Second: You seem to not want secondaries to be overpowered. Personally i think things like the bunny thumper, FC air spikers, e/mo's and others are good for the game, not exploits. They use their primary attribute to gain an advantage over the intended chars in CERTAIN builds. If they were really all that much better then we wouldnt see any warriors, ele primaries, or monks in PvP altogether, and that obviously isnt the case. I remember the shock when i first saw a ranger beating my head in and i think it should happen more often when you just say "Wow, thats pretty clever"

Overall i think its a nice general balance though

Patccmoi · Jun 09, 2007, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Just a couple of random comments:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

*** Ritualist spirits NEED to be changed so that you can not naturally have more than 3 of them within the same earshot range. If 3 allied Ritualist spirits are already active within earshot of you, it should be impossible to cast another. Ritualist spirits in general should be casting faster, and in some cases lasting longer or recharging quicker, to promote the use of spirits as something that can move with the team better or act as long-term battlefield structres. Copies of the same Ritualist spirit should also be able to be placed somewhat closer to each other...instead of half the map range drop it down to Earshot range. Furthers the idea of placing Spirits in intervals across the battlefield.

It shouldn't be impossible to cast another, it should destroy the oldest one. But i agree with a limit of 3 allied binding ritual in earshot. However i disagree with copies being able to be cast in Earshot range of one another. You could easily have 2 Pains, Bloodsong and Anguish pummeling the same pack of enemies with good positioning and that's broken. Especially if you move all of them + the hex raising damage in Communing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

*** As part of the Ritualist’s uniqueness I do not believe they should have ANY enchantment spells - all of their enchantments should act like Spirit Lord...unremovable and instant activation. They all mostly suck anyway and need to be buffed. How many of the Ritualist enchantments ever get used??? If you said “none of them, you would be correct.

Hrm, no. Too much unstrippable buffs tend to be bad. ESPECIALLY Spirit Strength which you seem to greatly underestimate with what you propose below.

Brutal Weapon + Spirit Strength could give a Rt/W something like +51 damage that's impossible to remove from the guy with 13 Spawning/14 Communing (Communing coming from a different guy). And if your reason is 'Rts are softies', with Ghostforge + shield they have a base 91AL against everything that can't be reduced, which is far from soft and better than a Dervish in most cases. When you add a +51 damage Axe/Sword to it, it's pretty insane pressure. Sun and Moon doing +102 unblockable damage followed by Prot Strike for another +51 would be freaking ridiculous spike. And that's not counting that you can do like Sever-Gash before. Sever-Gash-SnM-Prot Strike in Flurry would do like +250 damage + DW and 3 sword attack damage (4, but 25% reduction) in around 2s.

Stuff like Boon of Creation needs to be removable to control Rts energy a bit. Spirit spammers with Boon have very good energy, especially if you add fast cast/recharge, cheap spirits and having Boon just let them spam all of those for free with no way to interrupt/strip it would be stupid.

Screw the 'uniqueness' part here, you need balanced stuff. The 'uniqueness' of things like Echos that can't be removed, mass Shouts that have only some random counter in the form of a necro hex, etc. are hurting the game much more than helping. Let Rts use enchants so that global, useful skills can be used to counter them as well as other stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Bloodsong - Move this back to Communing, decrease the activation time to 2 seconds and the recharge to 20 seconds, and increase the duration to 30 + (Attribute Rank * 15).

Dunno. Not sure, even though you move Anguished. I think it's good to actually split turret spirits between lines.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Caretaker's Charge - Increase the damage to 30 + (Attribute Rank * 4).

Put the energy gained back to 7E instead. It was very good when it was a light emanagement skill, i used it regularly and it made a lot of builds more viable. I have no clue at all why they changed it. This skill shouldn't be a heavy damage dealer, it should be a little of every utility a split/self sufficient guy need. Some damage, some self-heal, some emanagement. Was great this way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Cruel Was Daoshen - Decrease the damage caused by dropping the item (same amount as Destructive was Glaive) and while holding the item cause people to take 1 + Attribute Rank damage whenever they attack you.

1 + Attribute Rank is pretty damn low, dunno. It's armor ignoring? I think i'd prefer something like 1 + attribute rank x 2, but lightning damage. Would make it about as good against warriors, but a bit better against Derv, Sins and Hammer Wars.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Destructive was Glaive - Increase the duration to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 4) seconds, make it an actual item spell, and give all of your Channeling spells a 40% chance to cast quicker while you hold it.

On top of 10% AP or instead of?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Gaze of Fury - Cut the energy cost and activation time in half and double the amount of damage that the Fury spirit does.

Hell no. You'd be able to kill an enemy spirit straight every 15s for 5E and make a spirit doing more damage than Pain in its place? Seems way too good to me...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Lamentation - Decrease the recharge to 4 seconds.

Why? - Very pointless right now. With this change it’s still just a conditional Lightning Strike that recharges a second faster.

A Lightning Strike IGNORING ARMOR. Too good

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Painful Bond - Move this to the Communing attribute and increase the duration a small amount (10 + Attribute Rank).

It does make sense, and it's better for balance sake not to put it in Communing. Especially since you think of buffing stuff like Anguish, Bloodsong, etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Wielder’s Strike - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds but double the casting time.

Why? - Does way too much damage to have such a low energy requirement AND cast time.

No. It should be better at pressure, not have another 2s cast spike skill. Rts shouldn't have much spike skills because of their strength as healers too. Lower damage a bit, lower recharge. If you want a spike skill, there's Channeled Strike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Anguish - Decrease the energy cost to 15, decrease the activation time to 2 seconds, and decrease the recharge to 30 seconds.

I could agree IF you didn't actually change Painful Bond, etc. Personally i'd leave it as it is now but 15E. And don't put Painful in Communing... Anguish + Painful is actually very powerful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Anguished Was Lingwah - Decrease the energy cost to 10, the casting time to 1 second, and the recharge to 20 seconds, and move this to Channeling Magic.

Why? - Gives that line the requirement of both an item and a spirit with one skill.

Casts too fast imo. But it'd be pretty good in Channeling.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Armor of Unfeeling - Should be a skill with automatic activation and the damage reduction should apply whenever casting a spirit PLUS 1 + (Attribute Rank/2) seconds afterwards.

Why? - The effect is far too limited to ever be useful right now.

Kinda weird. Imo it's just a stupid concept in the first place. What i'd like it to do is give you 50% chance to resist interrupt, or requires 2 interrupts to interrupt you while casting a spirit. Though with all the greatly reduce casting time on spirits it might be too good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Guided Weapon - Decrease the energy cost to 10.

Why? - Too much energy being spent in comparison to other options for it to be good.

This is REALLY powerful. Not sure you want to make it cheap at all. We used it before on Mind Blasters and it's pretty scary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Weapon of Quickening - Decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second.

Why? - Too much interrupt bait.

1s, maybe. .25, no. It SHOULD be interruptable, the effect is the most powerful caster buff in the game you can use on others, and it can't be stripped on top.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Xinrae's Weapon - Decrease the cost to 15 and change the effect so that it is disables ALL of your opponents’ skills for the listed duration if they cast a spell on the person with this weapon.

Why? - Too narrow in its usefulness (anti caster spike).

Hrm, if you say it works on all skills instead of just spells, ok. If you mean it blackouts the guy if they happen to use a spell on you, no.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Lively was Naomei - Decrease the casting time to 4 seconds and while holding the ashes all of your spells should cast 25% quicker.

Why? - There needs to be some kind of incentive for running around with this thing.

Seems really good, not sure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Soothing Memories - Decrease the cast time to 3/4 of a second.

Why? - This line needs some more healing spells that cast just a little faster.

Shouldn't be this one though, it's like Sig of Devotion in a sense. It's 'free' healing to top people's bars. Shouldn't cast fast.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Spirit Light Weapon - Decrease the cast time to 1/4 of a second.

Why? - Elite Weapons = 1/4 second cast.

Bad reasoning. There's no reason why Elite Weapons should all be .25s cast if it's not balanced. SLW is fine as is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Boon of Creation - Should be a skill with no activation time.

Why? - Builds that this could be useful for can’t be saddled with the possible removal/interruption and time wasted casting.

Actually they should for balance sake.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Sight Beyond Sight - Change it to a skill with automatic activation, change the duration to 6 + Attribute Rank, and also make it so that you can not “miss” while this is activated.

Why? - Could be quite interesting...you think you’re safe from that Warrior because he has blind or blurred vision but then...BAM.

Is this a joke? Give this to a Rt/W with Spirit Strength and make someone stick Guided on his back and there is like no way to control his damage except massive snare? Recharge would need to be raised to 60s... Just no. And it should be an enchant, as most skills that i don't bother quoting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Spirit's Strength - Change it to a skill with automatic activation and decrease the damage bonus by 4 points.

Why? - Definitely needs to be non-removable for this kind of build to be reliable. The damage decrease is so that it doesn’t become overpowered with Brutal Weapon.

But it would be. Read above.

That's it quickly for Rt. What i didn't quote either i agree or i don't really care about the change (or i read too fast and didn't notice =p). In general though i disagree with nearly all the 'instant skill that can't be removed' stuff.

And just some other quick random comments:

1) Magebane Shot with no aftercast would possibly be too powerful on spikes. Dual-Magebane-Savage allows 3 rangers to do as much in a spike as 4 rangers previously did. If you really want to do this, you'd need to move it to expertise and make it deal 1..17 damage

2) You seem to have a wrong concept of Avatar durations by wanting to raise them. Avatar of Balth's and Lyssa already last really long enough. I use Balth's regularly in GvG in a pressure/spike build for all the utility i can fit on it (spell DW, interrupt, enchant removal, constant IMS and IAS, etc.) and i nearly never suffer from the downtime. Thing is, you have pushes in GvG and you rarely need to be in pushmode constantly. You just control your pushes to be more aggressive when they're up and the downtime doesn't really matter much.

3) You buff Heart of Fury for Extend Enchant builds but hurt it for other builds (costs much more to maintain). Makes no sense to me. Maybe you personally want to run an Extend Enchant Derv with Heart of Fury and would wish it to be this way, but for all Derv builds that DON'T want Extend Enchants, it'd hurt the skill which is already borderline as is.

Robster Lobster · Jun 09, 2007, 06:49 PM // 18:49

Haven't gotten round to reading everything yet, but I glanced over the monk skills, and thought I'd comment on this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Healer’s Boon - Remove the “next X spells” clause and cause the spell to fail if your Divine Favor is 7 or less.

I'm pretty certain that the end condition on Healer's Boon is to stop Arcane Mimicry abuse, which could allow you to run an LoD monk with Healer's Boon pretty comfortably.

Lord Natural · Jun 09, 2007, 06:53 PM // 18:53

It seems to be that for every skill you've nerfed, you've buffed 5 more. The result would be an overpowered mess. Also, reduced casting times seems to be a trend, which would make the incoming gimmicks even more annoying.

There's way too much in this thread to go over skill by skill, but though some changes make a lot of sense, the synergy just wouldn't work. I just skimmed the list but already I'm seeing new gimmicks forming using buffed arcane echos, mark of prot, and other weird shit. The Paragon shout limit is somewhat impractical, and makes aggressive refrain a gamble, and ultimately useless. Obviously you'd need AR and anthem of flame as a combo, which means your team build can't include things like "Shield's Up" without potentially stripping your AR. It was anet's choice (mistake?) to make a class based on shouts. They won't completely destroy the class. Besides, you don't see those defensive builds anymore anyway, except with that zergway crap, which will probably suck once steady stance is nerfed. Anyway, like I said, too much stuff to get into for one thread.

You can't just take every skill, buff it to whatever seems appropriate and think that it will fit in with the game. Skill synergy means far more to this game than the power of individual skills. Individual skills are easy to fix, re-balancing skill synergy would be a nightmare. Devs spent months, if not years creating and testing these skills to mesh with each other. Impliment that list and they may as well shut the servers down and move the game back to beta. Kudos for trying, but an adjustment of that magnitude would pretty much be impossible (and impractical) for them to test at this point of GW's shelf-life.

Seamus Finn · Jun 09, 2007, 07:50 PM // 19:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

LEADERSHIP - *It should not be limited by the number of party members affected, as that really hurts their ability to position and split, therefore watering down the whole class. No, you probably won’t make a build that specifically has a dedicated split Para but the flexibility still needs to be there.

~Z

What? I can split a character with inifinite energy management that dps like a sword war with ranged degen comparable to a warrior and can maintain healing on whatever else I split? Yeah I would never make split paragons with that buffed leadership...

Lodurr · Jun 09, 2007, 07:56 PM // 19:56

Tremendous amount of stuff here, I'll just stick to the class I play the most (Warrior). Anything I don't comment on you can assume I agreed with:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Cyclone Axe - Increase the damage bonus to 5 + Attribute Rank.

This and many other skills you're talking about changing are already super-uber in PvE. I think Anet's policy is keeping certain skills intact for PvE balance only, and others for PvP. Even with a nice +damage bonus I can't imagine bringing this into GvG with all the better utility options out there.

Quote:

Triple Chop - Instead of dealing bonus damage, actually cause the attack to hit 3 times.

Conjure ftw? That would be a hell of a spike skill.

Quote:

Whirling Axe - Remove the “disabling clause” and cause the attack to hit all foes adjacent to you.

This would rape PvE, hard.

Quote:

Mokele Smash - Instead of gaining adrenaline, gain 3 + (Attribute Rank/2) energy if you have less than 2 adrenaline skills, and double the amount of bonus damage this attack deals.

Too conditional. It might be fine the way it is.

Quote:

Yeti Smash - Increase the adrenaline cost by 1 point but double the amount of damage done to adjacent foes.

This already does pretty massive AoE damage--50 at 15 Hammer. You want it doing 100 armor-ignoring damage to all adjacent foes?

Quote:

Berserker Stance - Should end only if you use a non-attack skill.

Then what would balance this out with Flail, BoA, Flurry, Frenzy? It would be way to good. You could cut the recharge down to 15 or 20 and it would be usable as an adrenaline boost skill.

Quote:

Griffon’s Sweep / Leviathan's Sweep - Tweak the effect to the following: “If this attack hits, you strike for 5 + Attribute Rank extra damage. This attack can not be "blocked," and your target is knocked down if the attack normally would have been blocked”.

This skill is actually fine the way it is. People don't like Irresistible Blow functionality anymore for some reason.

Quote:

Lion’s Comfort - Decrease the adrenaline cost to 4, change the conditionality to “if you use a Signet in the next 10 seconds it takes twice as long to recharge”, and have the skill be totally Strength based, not half Tactics.

It just shouldn't disable signets.

Quote:

Galrath Slash / Silverwing Slash - Decrease the adrenaline requirement to 6.

Galrath is still a very strong skill. It's identical to Executioner's Strike, and I didn't see that on your buff list. It should stay the same. Sun & Moon is more popular, not better.

Quote:

Hundred Blades - Cut the recharge time in half and cause the attacks to be unblockable.

Nerf Conjure back to where it was a year ago then maybe I'd agree.

Quote:

Quivering Blade - Increase the adrenaline cost to 5 and change the conditionality to “if this is Blocked, your opponent is dazed for 7 seconds.”

My first reaction is "NOOOOOOOooooooooooooo," but it would be interesting because the rest of the sword line has little to disrupt casters/monks. And you're giving up the valuable sword elite spot. Drop it to a 5 second daze, maybe, then it's more of a mini-boost rather than a guaranteed monk kill. Then they'll know how Warriors feel when they get Returned off of and the Cripple is just short enough to not be worth getting removed

.

Quote:

Sever Artery - Decrease the adrenaline requirement by 1.

If you do that, nerf the bleeding duration. It lasts a lifetime now.

Narcism · Jun 09, 2007, 08:57 PM // 20:57

You buff good skills and you buff okay skills.

I think you just went through the list and thought along the lines of: "It would be cool if..." instead of actually thinking of the repercussions..

Zuranthium · Jun 09, 2007, 09:13 PM // 21:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Blessed Light - Drop the energy cost to 5, increase the recharge to 12 seconds, and reduce the casting time to 1/4 of a second.

Would be FAR too good like this. It would be a Glimmer for the same amount of energy, that heals for more and removes a hex and condition. You have to bear in mind that it saw alot of play back in the factions meta. The problem isn't that BL is underpowered, rather that the NF skills are overpowered.
If the need is felt to buff it, it would be better off keeping all the same numbers as it has now, but having a condition that "If Blessed Light removes both a Hex and a Condition, you gain 3 energy".

I was thinking about something similar to that but did not like it in the end either, as I think we should see some 1/4 hex removals out there that are playable. If BL were to be overpowered with this change, just keep tacking on more recharge (start with going to 15r) until it settles itself out. Looking at all of the other Monk options, it NEEDS to be quick, cheap and effective for you to ever want it instead of something else. And, yes, I know BL in its current form did see play back in factions but I greatly feel that was just because lack of options.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Divine Intervention - Change the trigger to “the next time target ally receives damage that would drop their health below 33% or the next time their health would reach 0".

Still probably wouldn't see play, long recharge time and doesn't trigger from 'damage' sources such as degen.

It does trigger from degen, though (just not at the 33% mark, which could be changed...but then again I've already heard people say the skill in this form would be excellent so there's going to be some debate about it).

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Withdraw Hexes - Make this a non-Elite, move it to the Protection line, set the recharge at 15 seconds, and cause it to remove 1 hex from all party members with a healing amount of 15 + (Attribute Rank * 3) if a hex is removed.

Basically an Extinguish for hexes? Would probably be too good.

I really don't think so considering the restrictive cost/recharge. I find it rather important to have a couple skills like this (the other one being Hexbreaker Aria) in the game, as it's a removal mechanic that is lacking for hexes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Healing Breeze - Decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second and very slightly increase the regeneration amount to 3 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Would maybe be more common on runners like this, still wouldn't be good on a normal monk though.

Of course it wouldn't be good on a normal monk. Neither is Restful Breeze. But it's fine to make a few skills with other classes in mind, as the overall goal is MORE possibilities.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Orison of Healing - Decrease casting time to 1/4 of a second.

Practically a non-elite Glimmer. Not a good change.

Glimmer sucks right now. An "almost as good" Glimmer is basically what a normal healing skill should be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Supportive Spirit - Move this to Protection Prayers, decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second, increase the recharge to 10 seconds, and change the healing to damage reduction of 6 + Attribute Rank that is active 100% of the time.

You might have me confused, but are you suggesting that the damage reduction is active when not KD'd? See Shielding Hands. Otherwise, the 1/4 might make it useful in some cases.

Shielding Hands has a totally different purpose, as this costs more energy and lasts longer (and has a slightly stronger effect).

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Word of Healing - Decrease the recharge to 2 seconds and set the healing amount as 20 + (Attribute Rank * 9).

Would be too much, at 14 healing, with the condition met it is a 292 heal.

What condition? It's totally removed. I'm proposing that WoH simply become Gift of Health on a 2 second recharge.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Dismiss Condition - Change the name to Dismiss Conditions, increase the recharge to 5 seconds, and remove 2 conditions from target OTHER ally with a healing amount of 15 + (Attribute Rank * 3) for each condition removed.

No. RC and Mending Touch are for multiple condition removal. With this change conditions would be made fairly useless. The OTHER condition isn't really relevant, as two monks can both take it. This change would make RC useless.

I don't think it would make RC useles at all. RC would be giving you a bigger heal and is of course a 2 second recharge, whereas this is 5 seconds. It's about variety...there SHOULD be options are solid multiple-removal spells outside of just RC...hence my proposed change for this and Purge Conditions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Divert Hexes - Should give you 5 energy back if it removes less than 2 hexes and the recharge should be increased by 1 second.

The skill is OK as it is, the problem is that against teams where it would be useful, it is always disabled.

It's a back and forth war of disabling. You have to interrupt their Sig Hum; you can't just stand there and take it. The idea, however, is to change Divert Hexes so that it still works against a regular balanced team that doesn't have too many hexes...perhaps just water snares and diversion/shame.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Reversal of Fortune - Decrease the maximum amount of damage it prevents by 8 points.

Wouldn't do much, as it rarely stops the full amount. Fine as it is IMO.

I'm trying to separate Healing and Protection Prayers monks.

A Healing Prayers monk should have just 1 Protection Spell - Spirit Bond. Their purpose should be stoping Spikes, making red bars go up, and spot removal.

A Protection Prayers monk should have just 1 Healing Spell - Gift of Health. Their purpose should be preventing damage before it happens and mass removals.

You go Divine Favor based if you want to mix it up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Defender’s Zeal - Set the energy gain on a sliding scale of 1 + (Attribute Rank/2).

Would still be useless, as an energy source hex for the opponent's monks is a high priority removal.

You'd obviously run it with other hexes to have a cover. Quite possibly in a split build where you have a Smiter on your split (odd-sounding things like this should most definitely be possible...remember the goal of variety) since there's less hex removal available in splits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Scourge Sacrifice - Decrease the energy cost to 5 and additionally cause hexed foes to resurrect people with 33% less health than they normally would have.

The energy change is fine, but the resurrection aspect makes no sense, and would be overpowered.

The rez aspect makes perfect sense, as the skill right now is simply a VERY limited Rock/Paper/Scissors ordeal. That's another goal with my changes (that I should probably list in the first page of this thread)...you should be able to take ANY skill into GvG and have it be useful against 95+ precent of the teams you'd face.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Signet of Judgement - Set the recharge as 15 seconds.

One KD every 15 seconds and light AoE damage still isn't great.

Signet Mesmer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Empathic Removal - Drop the recharge to 5 seconds and change the effect so that it can be used on yourself when no allies are around: “You lose 1 condition and 1 hex. If another ally is targeted, they lose 1 condition and 1 hex.”

Fine as it is.

??? You'll need to describe that one more. It's bad as it is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

After reading through the rest of your suggestions, my criticism is that you seem to have placed too much emphasis on buffing. For example, you have missed out several skills that need nerfing, such as Signet of Humility.

There's way more underpowered skills than there are overpowered skills. *shrug*, that's jus the way it is. I had Sig of Hum in there as needing a nerf to 3 sec, btw, because of the fasting casting change. Must not have saved to my Word document properly before I posted this here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

While there are a few skills that really need buffing, the balances most needed at the moment are nerfs, which Ensign's post outlines extremely well.

Yes, it's more important to nerf certain problem things right now but then what? Does the game stop improving and stop being able to create new, interesting variations? That's where this thread comes it (although I obviously did cover the nerfs as well)

--------------------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shane Postus

You seem to not want secondaries to be overpowered. Personally i think things like the bunny thumper

I'm not sure what you mean here. Especially regarding Thumpers, as I specifically proposed buffs that would make (at least) 3 different kind of Thumpers viable. I want MORE class combinations and build types to become possible. That's, again, the major point of this whole thread.

--------------------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

It shouldn't be impossible to cast another, it should destroy the oldest one. But i agree with a limit of 3 allied binding ritual in earshot. However i disagree with copies being able to be cast in Earshot range of one another. You could easily have 2 Pains, Bloodsong and Anguish pummeling the same pack of enemies with good positioning and that's broken. Especially if you move all of them + the hex raising damage in Communing.

Spirits can be killed. And, is it a bad thing that Rits would actually be GETTING something out of great positioning of their spirits???? I really don't think so. Maybe it would be an overpowered combination (possibly with Preservation too), but at that point the spirits themselves should be looked at. That is the mechanic that I feel would be most sound for the game.

And, no, I do think it should be flat-out impossible to cast another after the cap of 3 has been reached. Positioning should be rewarded and there are also plenty of skills in the Rit line to blow up spirits if that if what you want.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Brutal Weapon + Spirit Strength could give a Rt/W something like +51 damage that's impossible to remove from the guy with 13 Spawning/14 Communing (Communing coming from a different guy). And if your reason is 'Rts are softies', with Ghostforge + shield they have a base 91AL against everything that can't be reduced, which is far from soft and better than a Dervish in most cases. When you add a +51 damage Axe/Sword to it, it's pretty insane pressure. Sun and Moon doing +102 unblockable damage followed by Prot Strike for another +51 would be freaking ridiculous spike. And that's not counting that you can do like Sever-Gash before. Sever-Gash-SnM-Prot Strike in Flurry would do like +250 damage + DW and 3 sword attack damage (4, but 25% reduction) in around 2s.

Perhaps I did underestimate Spirit's Strength. I'll drop the numbers even more. It needs to be unremovable, though. You can't base most of a melee character's entire effectiveness on something that is removable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Stuff like Boon of Creation needs to be removable to control Rts energy a bit. Spirit spammers with Boon have very good energy, especially if you add fast cast/recharge, cheap spirits and having Boon just let them spam all of those for free with no way to interrupt/strip it would be stupid.

What exactly are they spamming? You can't put more than a few spirits in one spot and 6 energy off of a 25 energy spirit is hardly enough to let you spam THOSE spirits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Screw the 'uniqueness' part here, you need balanced stuff. Let Rts use enchants so that global, useful skills can be used to counter them as well as other stuff.

No, it's entirely possible to balance the Rit skills on their own terms. You can't remove Divine Favor bonus from a Monk. Or Expertise energy reduction from a Ranger. That's what these Rit abilities are acting like...something that is intrinsic to the possible character builds you could make and NEEDS to be unremovable for those characters to ever work. Again, how many Ritualists have you seen this entire year using any of the current Ritualist's enchantments in the current form?

Quote:

Destructive was Glaive - Increase the duration to 10 + (Attribute Rank * 4) seconds, make it an actual item spell, and give all of your Channeling spells a 40% chance to cast quicker while you hold it.

On top of 10% AP or instead of?

On top of. 10% AP is nothing and the fast cast chance balances itself out for the possibility of creating a Rit-spike team with the ability, as their spikes would never be timed correctly because of getting the fast cast at different times.

Quote:

Gaze of Fury - Cut the energy cost and activation time in half and double the amount of damage that the Fury spirit does.

Hell no. You'd be able to kill an enemy spirit straight every 15s for 5E and make a spirit doing more damage than Pain in its place? Seems way too good to me...

The point is to kill your own Spirit of Destruction to get the spirit. The skill needs to be good enough to be used without the enemy having any spirits at all. No skill in the game should rely on the enemy having something that's extremely conditional for that skill to be useful.

Quote:

Lamentation - Decrease the recharge to 4 seconds.

A Lightning Strike IGNORING ARMOR. Too good.

My mistake. I thought that aspect of the skill was nerfed. Definitely needs imrpovement over what it is currently, though, to be useful for a balanced team.

Quote:

Wielder’s Strike - Decrease the recharge to 10 seconds but double the casting time.

No. It should be better at pressure, not have another 2s cast spike skill. Rts shouldn't have much spike skills because of their strength as healers too. Lower damage a bit, lower recharge. If you want a spike skill, there's Channeled Strike.

Not every Rit build is going to have an item spell to properly use Channeled Strike. Or a spirit to use Gaze From Beyond. Channeled Strike is is there for a Weapon Rit on a balanced team to have a strong spike option.

Quote:

Anguish - Decrease the energy cost to 15, decrease the activation time to 2 seconds, and decrease the recharge to 30 seconds.

I could agree IF you didn't actually change Painful Bond, etc. Personally i'd leave it as it is now but 15E. And don't put Painful in Communing... Anguish + Painful is actually very powerful.

Anguish + Painful would indeed powerful....for 30 energy. It's not any more than what you can do on other classes for that amount of expenditure.

Quote:

Weapon of Quickening - Decrease the casting time to 1/4 of a second.

1s, maybe. .25, no. It SHOULD be interruptable, the effect is the most powerful caster buff in the game you can use on others, and it can't be stripped on top.

Humm, I did have that as a 1 sec cast already. I'll go edit that.

Casts too fast imo. But it'd be pretty good in Channeling.

Quote:

Soothing Memories - Decrease the cast time to 3/4 of a second.

Shouldn't be this one though, it's like Sig of Devotion in a sense. It's 'free' healing to top people's bars. Shouldn't cast fast.

It's not free at all. Still costs 2 energy overall and you need to actually have the 5 energy to use it. The "holding an item" conditionality means you can't weapon swap. A monk can be in their negative energy set, protecting themselves from e-denial, and still use Signet of Devo.

Quote:

Spirit Light Weapon - Decrease the cast time to 1/4 of a second.

Bad reasoning. There's no reason why Elite Weapons should all be .25s cast if it's not balanced. SLW is fine as is.

There's a "Why?" I definitely need to expand on in the database. Anyway...SLW is NOT fine as it is. Exactly why do you think that? The 1 sec cast totally kills it as an Elite. You can only have 1 weapon spell on someone at a time and the effect is absolutely not better than Weapon of Warding, overall. The only way for it to possibly be using is to have it as a 1/4 second cast so that you can immediately use Wielder's Boon on the person directly after casting and not leave yourself as prone to that person getting spiked because you wasted 1.75 seconds putting a heal-over-time ability on them.

Quote:

Sight Beyond Sight - Change it to a skill with automatic activation, change the duration to 6 + Attribute Rank, and also make it so that you can not “miss” while this is activated.

Is this a joke? Give this to a Rt/W with Spirit Strength and make someone stick Guided on his back and there is like no way to control his damage except massive snare? Recharge would need to be raised to 60s... Just no. And it should be an enchant, as most skills that i don't bother quoting.

There needs to be something that makes a Rt/W possibly playable over other forms of physicals. Please add new ideas to the mix if you disagree. Although, granted, I didn't pay attention to the numbers enough with Spirit's Strength.

Quote:

1) Magebane Shot with no aftercast would possibly be too powerful on spikes. Dual-Magebane-Savage allows 3 rangers to do as much in a spike as 4 rangers previously did. If you really want to do this, you'd need to move it to expertise and make it deal 1..17 damage

You can already do Dual/Quick Shot/Savage. Although Magebane is added utility. I'd be fine with making the attack do no damage at all, as that's not the purpose of the skill.

Quote:

2) You seem to have a wrong concept of Avatar durations by wanting to raise them. Avatar of Balth's and Lyssa already last really long enough. I use Balth's regularly in GvG in a pressure/spike build for all the utility i can fit on it (spell DW, interrupt, enchant removal, constant IMS and IAS, etc.) and i nearly never suffer from the downtime. Thing is, you have pushes in GvG and you rarely need to be in pushmode constantly. You just control your pushes to be more aggressive when they're up and the downtime doesn't really matter much.

I realize you're a fan of Balth's, but most everyone else disagrees. I think it needs to have an even longer duration to give the character more reliability as a split character and pressure in general. The effect just doesn't match what you can do with Melandru and you have to realize that a Balth's Derv would be played in a different way than you'd play a Melandru.

Quote:

3) You buff Heart of Fury for Extend Enchant builds but hurt it for other builds

Not at all, actually. Yes, with that change you'd be spending more energy on it, but it would also be up a little more constantly than what you can do right now...16/21 seconds instead of 22/31. I had that specifically in mind with my proposed change because I definitely did not want to make the skill worse for non-Extend Enchant builds.

~Z

frojack · Jun 09, 2007, 09:31 PM // 21:31

I won't make this long, I'll just comment on Spirit Light Weapon.

A player with this up using ghostforge armour is very hard to kill if a spirit is nearby. It takes a lot more effort than you'd expect. Even if a spirit isn't around. On top of that, if they're holding Kaolai...

edit: Also Bloodsong is fine where it is. Pain should be enough. If a Rit is just filling his bar with spirits, he's not playing effectively. He's playing the shit game everyone's wanted gone for a good while now...

Zuranthium · Jun 09, 2007, 09:46 PM // 21:46

"In responding to this thread, please only use detailed comments explaining WHY you disagree with something I wrote and exactly how that proposed change would interact too strongly (or too poorly) with some other element in the game. Be sure to specifically look at other changes I have written for another related class or skill before commenting on one specific idea because EVERYTHING is listed here. This thread could become cluttered with unnecessary posts very quickly."

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Originally Posted by Narcism

You buff good skills and you buff okay skills.

I think you just went through the list and thought along the lines of: "It would be cool if..." instead of actually thinking of the repercussions..

No? In any change I listed, I compared it to what kind of similar builds already see play and if that skill would completely overpower another option or not. "Okay" skills should be getting buffed. There should be so many options for character builds that you never see too many builds in GvG that are exactly the same, with all of the different varitions coming playing to Group playstyle and personal preference.

And, AS I SAID in the first page, not everything that I wrote is going to be infallable. One single person can't possibly go through like 1,000 skills and try to make everything balanced in one fell swoop. This absolutely should be a group effort in shaping the Database to be as perfect as possible. And to do that, people actually need to think and put their ideas forth instead of responding with nothing posts.

So, please everyone, only respond if you genuinely want to add to the discussion. Like, every post in this thread should be a BIG chunk of text. Everything else is deletion-worthy, really.

~Z

Tab · Jun 09, 2007, 09:52 PM // 21:52

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Originally Posted by Zuranthium

I was thinking about something similar to that but did not like it in the end either, as I think we should see some 1/4 hex removals out there that are playable. If BL were to be overpowered with this change, just keep tacking on more recharge (start with going to 15r) until it settles itself out. Looking at all of the other Monk options, it NEEDS to be quick, cheap and effective for you to ever want it instead of something else. And, yes, I know BL in its current form did see play back in factions but I greatly feel that was just because lack of options.

While there were no where near as many options in the Factions meta, BL is most certainly not a bad skill, as it was probably more popular than Boonprot pre-nerf. Also, making the recharge of BL more than 8 or so makes the skill pretty useless. The 1/4 cast really isn't needed on it, 3/4 is a good time for that kind of skill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

I really don't think so considering the restrictive cost/recharge. I find it rather important to have a couple skills like this (the other one being Hexbreaker Aria) in the game, as it's a removal mechanic that is lacking for hexes.

The thing is, if you were to make a Withdraw into what you proposed, it would simply be taken on midline E/Mos, and would take hexes from overpowered to underpowered. And Hexbreaker aria is alot more conditional than what you suggested.
Hexes are intentionally more powerful than conditions, but harder to apply, which is why there is an "each member loses 1" spell for conditions and not hexes.

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Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Glimmer sucks right now. An "almost as good" Glimmer is basically what a normal healing skill should be.

Although Glimmer isn't the most poweful of skills, it definately does not "suck". For instance, Soul Wedding uses Glimmer, so it must have something going for it don't you think?
1/4 cast heals should not be normal healing skills. Orison is perfectly fine as it is. It has a lower total heal than skills like Words and Dwayna's, but is unconditional.

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Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Shielding Hands has a totally different purpose, as this costs more energy and lasts longer (and has a slightly stronger effect).

Removing the 'While knocked down' condition on SUpportive Spirit defeats the object of the skill.

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Originally Posted by Zuranthium

What condition? It's totally removed. I'm proposing that WoH simply become Gift of Health on a 2 second recharge.

So it's practically an elite slot for a cheaper heal other? It's better in it's current form. I wouldn't personally use WoH as it is, but I'd be even less likely to use it as a 2s charge Gift.

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Originally Posted by Zuranthium

I don't think it would make RC useles at all. RC would be giving you a bigger heal and is of course a 2 second recharge, whereas this is 5 seconds. It's about variety...there SHOULD be options are solid multiple-removal spells outside of just RC...hence my proposed change for this and Purge Conditions.

Dismiss removing two would be extremely overpowered. RC takes up an elite slot, and removes all, but in reality there isn't a huge amount of times it will remove than two or maybe three conditions. A none elite version that does the job just as well for most of the time, lets remember that in this form it would be taken on both monks, would most certainly make RC useless.
Given the choice between a SoD/DH+LoD backline, both with a 2 removal Dismiss, and a RC+LoD, which would you take?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

It's a back and forth war of disabling. You have to interrupt their Sig Hum; you can't just stand there and take it. The idea, however, is to change Divert Hexes so that it still works against a regular balanced team that doesn't have too many hexes...perhaps just water snares and diversion/shame.

That is the theoretical answer to Humility, yes, however in reality it isnt that simple. Even if you interrupt one cast of it, hex teams regularly take two copies.
And Divert as it is works against balanced teams with just a few hexes. Even if you remove one hex with it, its a hex off, a condition off, and a heal, which is hardly underpowered.

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Originally Posted by Zuranthium

I'm trying to separate Healing and Protection Prayers monks.

A Healing Prayers monk should have just 1 Protection Spell - Spirit Bond. Their purpose should be stoping Spikes, making red bars go up, and spot removal.

A Protection Prayers monk should have just 1 Healing Spell - Gift of Health. Their purpose should be preventing damage before it happens and mass removals.

You go Divine Favor based if you want to mix it up.

Healing and Protection are seperated as it is. As you said, Heal monks make red bars go up, Protection monks stop damage before it happens. However you will rarely get a pure healing monk in high end PvP, as Prot/Heal hybrids are so much more effective.
As for Divine Favor, it shouldn't be a mix of Heal and Prot in one attribute. As it is, it is a nice complement to either one, and has a very useful effect.

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Originally Posted by Zuranthium

You'd obviously run it with other hexes to have a cover. Quite possibly in a split build where you have a Smiter on your split (odd-sounding things like this should most definitely be possible...remember the goal of variety) since there's less hex removal available in splits.

Having a bar which runs Defender's Zeal and cover hexes wouldn't be practical, as you would be devoting a large amount of your bar to energy management, which could still be easily stopped by the target not attacking.

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Originally Posted by Zuranthium

The rez aspect makes perfect sense, as the skill right now is simply a VERY limited Rock/Paper/Scissors ordeal. That's another goal with my changes (that I should probably list in the first page of this thread)...you should be able to take ANY skill into GvG and have it be useful against 95+ precent of the teams you'd face.

The res aspect of it is not a good idea. And as for being able to take any skill into GvG and have it work, it's not going to happen. Some skills are more suited to PvE, while some are more suited to PvP, that's just the way it is.

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Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Signet Mesmer.

You want to run a mesmer totally devoted to using smiting signets? Go for it.

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Originally Posted by Zuranthium

??? You'll need to describe that one more. It's bad as it is.

Empathic Removal is not bad as it is. It isn't quite on par with some of the other monk elites, but it used to be fairly common on non monk bars. Just because a skill isn't something you'd want to run on a primary monk doesn't mean it's bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

There's way more underpowered skills than there are overpowered skills. *shrug*, that's jus the way it is. I had Sig of Hum in there as needing a nerf to 3 sec, btw, because of the fasting casting change. Must not have saved to my Word document properly before I posted this here.

Yes, there is alot more underpowered skills than there is overpowered, but you can't realisticly have them all equally balanced. There is alot of different skill effects, some of which are naturally going to be better than others.
And as for Humility, it needs more than a cast nerf, it's the recharge that needs hitting, so that you can permenantly lock a targets elite with it.

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Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Yes, it's more important to nerf certain problem things right now but then what? Does the game stop improving and stop being able to create new, interesting variations? That's where this thread comes it (although I obviously did cover the nerfs as well)

Of course I'd love it if all the overpowered skills were sorted, and Anet began to focus on making all of the skills useful. However that isn't going to happen. With as massive a skill set as GW has, whenever you make a set of changes to remove the problem skills, skills that were previously only good will become strong in comparison to the new skills.

To sum it up, I have to agree to agree with Narcism. Alot of the changes show a quick idea of what you thoguht would make a skill interesting, but not much thought of the implications of the change on game balance.
There isn't a real need for so many buffs. The game is reasonably balanced as it is, especially considering how much the new chapters have added, apart from a few problems such as Ritualists and Paragons, which need their basic mechanics reworking.
While I appreciate that you must have put alot of work into this list, I don't see much of it as being potential changes, and I see alot more of it being imbalanced if it was added.