Curse

Blame the Monks · Apr 04, 2007, 11:40 PM // 23:40

http://www.guild-hall.net/forum/showthread.php?t=45234

Here is a note from the Guild Wars Development Team about the upcoming game update:

Following our continued observation of the Guild Wars ladder and tournament play, we intend our April skill balance updates to resolve current game issues and increase the usefulness of some underpowered skills. These changes will remain in place for the week, and if they are successful, they will remain in the game permanently. We will continue to monitor the state of the game and make adjustments as needed. In our next update, we hope to add additional PvE-only skills to allow more attractive options for cooperative play, as well as begin adjusting some skills to make them more viable in cooperative play.

The skills below will be changed with this week's game update.

Assassin:

- Assassin's Remedy: now works on the next 1..10 attack skills.
- Black Mantis Thrust: decreased Energy cost to 5.
- Dancing Daggers: increased damage to 5..35.
- Golden Lotus Strike: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
- Jagged Strike: increased Bleeding duration to 1..15 seconds, decreased recharge time to 1 second.
- Malicious Strike: increased damage to 10..30.
- Recall: changed functionality to "While you maintain Recall, nothing happens. When Recall ends, you Shadow Step to the ally you targeted when you activated this skill."
- Sharpen Daggers: now works on the next 1..10 attack skills.
- Signet of Toxic Shock: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.

These changes are part of larger movement to make the Assassin's lead-to-off-hand attack combination a more attractive option. If these changes are successful, future balance updates will continue to improve upon these types of skills. Recall was a balance concern because it was difficult to recognize (there was no actual Enchantment on the teleporting player), and because those facing Recall could do nothing to prevent it. Now it can be removed in order to send the Assassin back prematurely to where he started.

Dervish:

- Avatar of Balthazar: increased duration to 10..90.
- Avatar of Dwayna: increased duration to 10..75.
- Avatar of Grenth: increased duration to 10..45.
- Avatar of Lyssa: increased duration to 10..90.
- Avatar of Melandru: decreased Health bonus to 100.
- Grenth's Grasp: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
- Natural Healing: increased the amount healed for to 40..150 Health, decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.
- Onslaught: Decreased Energy cost to 5.
- Pious Haste: increased duration to 5..12 seconds.
- Rending Sweep: increased recharge time to 10 seconds.
- Vow of Silence: decreased casting time to .25 second.
- Vow of Strength: increased duration to 20 seconds.
- Zealous Vow: increased duration to 20 seconds.

We're attempting to further equalize elite power in the Dervish line, starting with longer durations on the lesser-used avatars. Avatar of Melandru has become a bit harder to kill than we'd like while transformed. To counter this, we've decreased the amount of its Health bonus slightly. Onslaught and the Vow series of skills were underpowered elites in comparison, so we've boosted its power slightly to see if that makes them more viable. Rending Sweep proved an extremely powerful, non-elite alternative to Avatar of Grenth and received a significant increase to its recharge time. Natural Healing was improved to add a self-sufficiency option into Wind Prayers, Pious Haste received a slight duration increase to make it more manageable, and Grenth's Grasp was changed to bring it up to something more worthy of an elite skill.

Elementalist:

- Armor of Mist: decreased casting time to 1 second.
- Conjure Flame/Frost/Lightning: increased damage to 10..25.
- Glyph of Lesser Energy: now reduces the cost of your next 2 spells by 10..18 Energy, based on the Energy Storage attribute.
- Mind Blast: increased damage to 15..75.

While Glyph of Lesser Energy has been very successful in diversifying elite selection on Elementalists and bringing more high-cost skills into play, it has also enabled a few overpowered skill combinations for secondary Elementalists. We believe this change will address these overpowered combinations without removing Glyph of Lesser Energy as a viable option. Mind Blast was adjusted to bring it line with other low-recharging damage skills. We felt that damage-addition skills didn't add enough to be a viable option, so we raised their damage amounts. Finally, Armor of Mist should now give a good speed boost to Water Magic characters, particularly flag runners.

Mesmer:

- Auspicious Incantation: changed to "For 20 seconds, the next spell you cast is disabled for an additional 10..5 seconds, and you gain 110..200% of that spell's Energy cost."
- Diversion: increased recharge time to 12 seconds.
- Ether Signet: decreased recharge time to 45 seconds.
- Keystone Signet: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
- Guilt: duration changed to 6 seconds, decreased recharge time to 25 seconds.
- Mistrust: duration changed to 6 seconds.
- Shame: duration changed to 6 seconds.
- Shared Burden: decreased Energy cost to 10.
- Signet of Clumsiness: increased damage to 15..60.
- Spirit of Failure: Decreased Energy gain to 1..3, increased recharge time to 20.

The Diversion/Mantra of Recovery combination was proving to be slightly overpowered, so we changed Diversion's recharge time to compensate. One-time effect Hexes such as Shame, Mistrust, and Guilt have similar issues, so their duration has been changed to a flat 6 seconds. We simplified the description for Auspicious Incantation, and Signet of Clumsiness received a small damage boost to improve viability of the anti-melee and PvE varieties of Mesmer. Spirit of Failure received an increase to its recharge time and a decrease to its Energy gain, making it a little more difficult and less rewarding to spread this Hex everywhere. Keystone and Ether Signet's recharge time have been reduced to encourage the use of these lesser-used Signets, and Shared Burden has been reduced in cost to make a more attractive, elite alternative to Imagined Burden.

Monk:

- Zealous Benediction: decreased Energy gained to 7.
- Convert Hexes: decreased casting time to 1 second.
- Deny Hexes: attribute changed to divine favor.
- Reverse Hex: decreased casting time to .25 second.
- Reversal of Damage: decreased recharge time to 6 seconds.
- Signet of Rejuvenation: increased the amount of unconditional healing to 15..75.
- Smite Hex: decreased recharge time to 12 seconds.

Zealous Benediction is simply too powerful, so we've reduced the amount of Energy gain it supplies. This, combined with the change to Glyph of Lesser Energy, should help to diversify Monk elites. We wanted to improve a few of the less attractive Hex-removal options without increasing the pacing of Hex removal overall. Reverse Hex adds a quick-casting 10 Energy option, and the improved casting time for Convert Hexes makes it more usable for multiple removals. Smite Hex was improved to match the pacing of Holy Veil, and Deny Hexes was moved to the Divine Favor attribute to give it a guaranteed removal and better synergy. We added additional healing to Signet of Rejuvenation, making it a better zero-Energy option for Healing Prayers. In a similar vein, Reversal of Damage received an improved recharge time to give Smiting Prayers a more usable, low-recast skill.

Necromancer:
- Animate Bone Horror: decreased Energy cost to 10.
- Animate Vampiric Horror: decreased Energy cost to 15.
- Enfeebling Touch: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.
- Mark of Fury: decreased Energy cost to 5.
- Mark of Subversion: changed duration to 6 seconds.
- Poisoned Heart: decreased Energy cost to 5, decreased recharge time to 12 seconds.
- Price of Failure: increased recharge time to 20 seconds.
- Reckless Haste: increased Energy cost to 15.
- Soul Reaping: now only provides Energy at a maximum rate of once every 5 seconds.

Soul Reaping's synergy with Spirits and minions opened up a lot of builds that simply never ran out of power. Spirits still provide half Energy, and with Soul Reaping's Energy gain limited, a player death will now provide more net Energy, which we believe will help Soul Reaping get closer to its intended function. Mark of Fury was strictly inferior to Dark Fury, so we reduced the cost of Mark of Fury in hopes that this improves its playability. Mark of Subversion was changed to match the duration of Diversion, Shame, Mistrust, and Guilt, which keeps these one-time Hexes consistent with one another. Reckless Haste had its cost increased, and Price of Failure received a duration decrease to make it more difficult to keep these powerful Hexes on a large number of people. Poisoned Heart became cheaper and now recharges faster for some fun, creative play, and Enfeebling Touch has been improved so that it's more in line with other applications of Weakness.

Paragon:

- "They're on Fire!": now only affects party members.
- Anthem of Envy: damage bonus increased to 10..25.
- Anthem of Fury: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds, now only affects party members.
- Anthem of Flame: now only affects party members.
- Anthem of Guidance: now only affects party members.
- Crippling Anthem: now only affects party members.

This small adjustment to the Paragon was made primarily to deal with Spirit/Chant issues. Since all Spirit attacks count as attack skills, these Chants were making offensive Spirits more powerful than they were intended. Anthem of Fury also received a slight recharge decrease to allow it to fuel Echoes more effectively, and Anthem of Envy's damage bonus was increased to reflect the difficulty of meeting the skill's condition.

Ranger:

- Antidote Signet: decreased recharge time to 4 seconds.
- Archer's Signet: decreased casting time to 2 seconds, skill disable time improved to 15..5.
- Bestial Mauling: decreased Dazed duration to 4..10 seconds.
- Disrupting Lunge: increased recharge time to 10 seconds.
- Heal as One: decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.
- Lightning Reflexes: decreased recharge time to 30 seconds.
- Needling Shot: damage bonus increased to 10..30.
- Otyugh's Cry: changed to "For 10..25 seconds, all allied animal companions gain +24 armor and cannot be blocked."
- Pestilence: changed to "Create a level 1..10 Spirit. When any creature within its range dies, Conditions on that creature spread to any creature in the area already suffering from a Condition This Spirit dies after 30..90 second(s)."
- Spike Trap: increased damage to 10..40.
- Trapper's Focus: increased duration to 10..25 seconds.
- Tripwire: increased damage to 5..20.
- Viper's Nest: increased damage to 5..35.

While we've been pleased to find the Ranger seeing more play, we felt the skill diversity for this class was limited. The addition of the new pet controls caused us to scale back the interrupting pet skills, and allowed us to rework Otyugh's Cry into a much more useful skill. Antidote Signet was strictly inferior to the Paragon's Remedy Signet, so we reduced its recharge time to match. The trapper role is something we're looking to improve, so in this update we've improved the Condition duration or the damage of the least-used Trap skills. Heal as One now has an improved recharge time to put it more in line with other self-heals and add some additional options for the Beast Mastery line. Needling Shot's damage bonus was not quite good enough for its conditional effect, so we improved that to give Bow Rangers another damage option.

Ritualist:

- Brutal Weapon: increased damage to 10..25, increased duration to 1..45 seconds.
- Consume Soul: decreased recharge time to 2 seconds.
- Spirit's Strength: increased damage to 5..35.

We wanted to improve a few niche skills in the Ritualist line, and we think we've accomplished that with these changes. Consume Soul is very specific skill, so we reduced its recharge time to make it more effective at removing Spirits from play. The fact that Brutal Weapon cannot stack with Enchantments is a bigger drawback than we'd originally thought, so we gave this skill a slight damage boost and a significant duration increase. Spirit's Strength is a fun, niche skill for some builds, and we wanted to make it more rewarding for players who choose to try something creative and different.

Warrior:

- "Shields Up!": decreased duration to 5..11 seconds, and reduced armor bonus to +24.
- Barbarous Slice: increased damage to 5..30.
- Crippling Slash: now also inflicts Bleeding.
- Dwarven Battle Stance: increased attack speed boost to 33%.
- Heavy Blow: decreased adrenaline cost to 5 strikes.
- Mighty Blow: increased damage bonus to 10..40.
- Savage Slash: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.

"Shields Up!" was proving to be a frustrating form of passive defense, and since one of our overall goals has been to reduce passive defense and support active defense, we felt it important to reduce the raw power of this Shout. Barbarous Slice was an inferior sword attack that we wanted to improve, and we felt that increasing its damage was a way to make it a more likely option for causing Bleeding. Crippling Slash also now causes Bleeding in order to improve its versatility and to make it more likely for players to equip it. We decreased Savage Slash's recharge time to put it more in-line with other melee interrupts, and Dwarven Battle Stance was given a full 33% attack speed bonus both to take more advantage of the interrupt quality and so that it acts as a full-fledged attack speed increase skill. Because of Heavy Blow's conditional nature, we reduced its adrenaline cost slightly, and lastly, Mighty Blow was given improved damage to put it on par with the recently improved Strength attack skills."

By Andrew Patrick

_________________________

So I think now is a good time to point out the things they missed or messed up, including:

boa sins
mending touch
spirit's strength
brutal weapon
grenths grasp

As well as serious game mechanic flaws such as:

Map selection in ladder and tournaments
the fact that gimmicky button smashing is often > skill based play
Jade Isle, Burning Isle
VoD and NPC problems
Chants/Shouts/Echos/Weapon/Forms/Spirits/Shadow Stepping
______________

Overall its nice that meat spam was nerfed, but they buffed several conceptually flawed skills in the name of increasing diversity and thus promoted skillless gimmickry. Oh, and say hi to rit/r ranger spike.

A step in the right direction, but disappointing because they failed to address some of the largest issues.

Symbol · Apr 05, 2007, 12:27 AM // 00:27

Um, the dev update concerned skill balances only. The update encompasses a lot more than just skill changes, so it's premature to say that they haven't addressed map selection and the like.

TheOneMephisto · Apr 05, 2007, 01:12 AM // 01:12

I like a lot of these changes, but the diversion change kind of irritates me, but it won't be too bad.

Recall change is pretty good, allows for anyone with enchant removal to easily deal with recall splits.

Armor of mist is great for water runners, hopefully no more needing to use storm djinns.

Glyph of Lesser Energy is a change that I liked quite a bit, toning it down without making it useless to non-eles, but making it more powerful for eles. If they aren't going to buff inspiration, this is a good place for GoLE.

Convert is nice vs. hexes, and sig of rejuv basically gives healing monks a version of SoD with less cast time.

Crippling slash just makes me happy. Giving a spammable cripple and freeing up a skill slot? Starting to look pretty decent.

And I REALLY want to see how these pet controls turn out.

Robster Lobster · Apr 05, 2007, 01:19 AM // 01:19

I hear some people are annoyed about the change to Diversion, as it's a skill that rewards skill, but I don't think the change is going to affect that. Skilled players aren't likely to spam Diversion on recharge all the time, and if they are, then it's hardly skilled usage. 2 (or 1 under MoR) seconds seems to me like a change that will affect unskilled usage of Diversion (spam on recharge), rather than skilled usage.

I also wonder about how Cripple and Bleeding will stack on Crippling Slash. If Cripple covers Bleeding I reckon it'll be balanced fine, and a strong skill. Having cripple buried could make it overpowered though.

The Grenths Grasp change is also quite nice, and should make a nice alternative on a ranger to a Crip Shot depending on whether you want your ranger to split or not.

rii · Apr 05, 2007, 01:29 AM // 01:29

<3 Jagged strike.

Patccmoi · Apr 05, 2007, 02:01 AM // 02:01

I really hope that as part of the big update there will be map changes etc. My first impressions on the updates:

Assassin:
Nice with Jagged Strike and Black Mantis Strike. Those needed it and it gives better lead attacks. Also nice with Dancing Daggers (which hurts like hell now actually... might be overboard). BUT what was the idea of NOT buffing the offhands requiring a lead? I mean, decent lead is nice, but you also need decent offhands to follow. Now only Wild Strike is acceptable at best. You won't see the lead used more if the offhands aren't worth it... think about that.

Sharpen Daggers/Assassin's Remedy - meh. If you need the enchant maybe...
Malicious Strike - interesting on A/D maybe. Was needed for the skill i guess
Recall - interesting approach, will have to see how it turns out. At least it allows for some sort of counter.
Signet of Toxic Shock - nice i guess. With the buff to Dancing Daggers, it can allow for strong Deadly Arts damage. But Deadly Arts still has a bad need of energy management for spells.

What i think was the most missed : lower recharge on offhands that require a lead. Possibly a change to the overall SP/BoA assassin build in one way or another.

Dervish :

Interesting approach on the Avatars. I prefer to have them have a better uptime then an imba effect when they're up which would've likely happen with a direct buff to Balt's or Lyssa's. Will see how it turns out, but it's a good idea imo. Also good to see Melandru nerfed a bit more.

Grenth's Grasp - not sure, but it seems quite powerful. But Mending Touch keeps it in check overall.
Natural Healing - nice
Onslaught - imo it needed more than that, something like 33% instead of 25% maybe.
Rending Sweep - needed, but i would've gone more for 8s than 10s.
Pious Haste - nice, very good running skill now
Vows - dunno how much that will change overall

Elementalist:

Armor of Mist - it's a really serious buff that i'm not sure was needed. Makes a solid skill much better. Gives all elements but earth a very good running skill now. ANet likes Eles runners apparently.
Conjures - When will the buffing stop? Dunno, seems to be getting very, very good on a secondary... A/E with Conjure Frost and Armor of Mist ftw?
GoLE - good change, made intelligently instead of killing the skill. Remains a solid option for /E and even better for Eles.
Mind Blast - wasn't needed, makes a good elite even better. Don't think it's broken though.

Mesmer:

Auspicious Incantation - Good. Instead of an unintelligible complicated horrible skill, it's now quite simple and decent at first glance. No ridiculous disable anymore.
Diversion - Never fun to see such a good general counter nerfed, but i think it was actually needed. Still remains a strong skill.
Ether Signet - Slowly approaching the realm of usable. With MoI it's very good if you use say Sig of Humility already. Can replace GoLE then.
Keystone - signet builds suck. Signet builds without an elite signet doing something suck even more. No amount of buffing will make this signet good imo. But who knows, maybe i'm overlooking some super secret build.
Guilt/Mistrust/Shame - ok, but i would've like a recharge buff to 25s on Shame, 20s on Guilt and 15s on Mistrust to make up for it.
Shared Burden - Deep Freeze. When it can compete with it, come back.
Signet of Clumsiness - yay... that's their answer to PvE for Mesmers? lol? Damage could be 100 and it wouldn't be broken, it's not like you can spike with it.
Spirit of Failure - harsh. Seems overkill to me. I would've much prefer a duration scaling of something like 5..17..21s instead of a nerf like that. It only hurts Inspiration even more as a way to gain energy. It was too good in hexes builds, but a duration nerf would've helped it a lot there, especially since it's rarely run at above 10 insp.

Inspiration is still too weak imo, but will see how Auspicious Incantation and Ether Signet play out.

Monk:

ZB - good
Convert - nice
single hex removal - still too long imo.
Reversal of Damage - good buff
Signet of Rejuv - good buff

Necromancer :

All i can say really is insignificant changes overall for the first 4 and Poisoned Heart.

Similarly to Spirit of Failure, would've prefer duration scaling on PoF.
Similarly to Shame, would've like 25s recharge to compensate on Subversion.
Good change to Reckless, it's worth it.

Soul Reaping : interesting change, might work well. It limits the energy you can gain with Soul Reaping from spirit at 4-5 pips of regen, but since it's very unlikely that things are timed perfectly it'd be more like 3-4 pips of regen for a spirit spamming team. Still good, but not insane and you can achieve the same with 1 guy using Blood Ritual on 2 monks. It's a different alternative to turning SR into regen that still leave SR a little better but might be ok. At least it's capped now. Will see how it plays.

Paragon:

Nerf their freaking armor to 60-70 already, they have a shield and a nearly 100% sure +10AL insigna, and lower their DPS. That's what's breaking them, being ranged warriors with instant cast buffs and a nearly passive IAS (i had full games where i didn't lose Aggressive Refrain... something's just wrong when you -never- need to recast a skill, especially when the effect is so good). It doesn't matter if you change the Anthems to not buff spirits. Nothing you did will stop mass Paragons, you even nerfed Shields Up! and Aegis chain. Now i can only expect even MORE mass Paragon teams.

Ranger:

Antidote Signet - good
Archer's Signet - it needs to be in Marksmanship. Then it can see use. Rangers need their elite for the utility, the only chance one that has NONE see use is if it allows you to skip expertise so that you can have your utility elsewhere.
Bestial Mauling - not a big change, but needed
Disrupting Lunge - needed
Heal as One - nice, though i can hardly see some1 use it in PvP atm, but i guess it's good for PvErs or RAers
Lightning Reflexes - good change
Needling Shot - becomes interesting. It's armor ignoring damage, and coupled with a few buffs it can become very serious DPS on low health people
Otyugh's Cry - wtf, i can't laugh at this skill anymore?! Seems very good now actually
Pestilence - guess it fixes the abuse
Traps - no big deal, but good for them i guess

So Pet control is coming in? Now Beastmastery might become viable depending on how that works out, especially with Otyugh's Cry. A couple of pet tanks that can't be blocked will be a pain. Will be nice to see, though i can already tell you that the first build using it will be some variation of IWAY.

Ritualist :

3 stupid changes imo. The 3 skills become too good at what they do.

Brutal Weapon cast on Assassins? Yes, have fun when does daggers hit stronger than a scythe and a 6 hits combo suddenly gains +150 damage.
Spirit Strength was ALREADY good. There was no reason to buff it at all, now it's quite insane. Coupled with OoP for cover hex, you're looking at +50 damage a hit. Rt/R ranger spike ftw... 4 of them with 0 marksmanship and a Necro behind would still do enough armor ignoring damage to kill someone straight just doing Dual-Distracting
Consume Soul on the other hand means that having this in your team makes spirits absolutely unusable by the other side. Really hard counter to spirit, the idea would've been to make it LESS gimmicky, not insanely powerful at what it does because it's too conditional to see use regularly.

Rits are just getting a bunch of other gimmicks instead of continuing to work on their usefulness as part of balanced setups, STOP DOING THAT! Communing is still garbage too.

Warrior :

Shields Up! - this would've been ok along with a nerf to Paragons. Now it's gonna make stopping mass paragons quite hard. I would've prefer 33% block with same duration to 50% block with low duration too personally.
Barbarous - will see. Still sucks to not use a stance on a warrior, so meh. Maybe on RaO...
Crippling Slash - VERY good buff. Will become a dominating sword elite definitely as it compresses skill bar.
Dwarven Battle Stance - dunno... seriously maybe think of something else for this skill. If it goes on like this it'll become usable, but it will be too good then. I AM considering DBS warrior with Windborne on his back from an Ele atm though.
Heavy Blow - ok... but will you freaking buff Staggering Blow someday? If that was actually usable and not a RIDICULOUS adrenal cost only to cause weakness (it should be 3-4 adrenal, not 7!), then you could see more Heavy Blow use. Cause now the only good way Hammer has to cause weakness is with a 7 adrenal elite, so Heavy Blow could be 1 adrenal or 7 adrenal, it'd still only be used to follow Devastating which is 7 to charge (well ofc at 1 adrenal it'd be used for more...)
Mighty Blow - ok i guess
Savage Slash - it's still 10E. Reduce it to 5E and then we can talk.

Overall, good changes imo along with changes to Jade Isles hopefully. Still some stuff lacking, but will see how it turns out, especially for Soul Reaping and Pet control. I'm mostly annoyed at what they did with Rts atm, just creating more stupid gimmicks.

Mesmer in Need · Apr 05, 2007, 02:19 AM // 02:19

I feel like they're good changes. the soul reaping "tonedown" might hurt some mm's in pve, but i think theres enough people dying in ha and stuff to fuel them. but this is good, because hb necs could heal endlessly. now they'lle still be able to heal fine, but less spamming. Ony real thing i can complain about id gole. its one of the first skills eles get! when i fc nuke now, i may have some trouble. for eles though its great. zb is nice, it was a free 180ish heal, no 3 energy is fine. Recall- Im not sure how this will change things, i just hope the deep will still be doable. As for some things i love-
Crippling slash- wewtx10 i may get to use this skill now.
avatars- wewt. i love my god forms.
other than that, i either dont play them much, or the changes arent that great. but i feel its overall good.

Patccmoi · Apr 05, 2007, 03:59 AM // 03:59

I actually missed what Deny Hexes moving to DF means. It means it will count itself as a recharging skill so even with just another DF skill you'll be able to remove 2 hexes. This becomes actually a very good non-elite hex removal now if you use say Sig of Devotion or w/e else in DF in your build. Can change a lot to the hex counter possibilities.

As for Brutal, just one suggestion for devs: yes, the fact that it doesn't work if you're enchanted is too much of a drawback. But one suggestion instead of making it do RIDICULOUS damage if you're not enchanted : make it deal REDUCED damage if you're enchanted. Like 1..8..11, then it's not broken if stacked with other stuff, but not so useless if you get enchanted. But buffing the damage the way you did there will just encourage stupid gimmicks.

Zuranthium · Apr 05, 2007, 04:02 AM // 04:02

Those trap "buffs" are laughable. They are still useless.

The Jagged Strike upgrade missed the mark, although hurray for Black Mantis Thrust becoming good.

Crippling Slash is excellent now.

~Z

BenO_Under · Apr 05, 2007, 04:25 AM // 04:25

Crippling Slash + Gash ftw

Teh [prefession]-zorz · Apr 05, 2007, 04:45 AM // 04:45

I actully love the updates, perhaps we might see a small comeback of the Avatar of Grenth?

Patccmoi · Apr 05, 2007, 04:48 AM // 04:48

Is anyone else thinking that Otyugh's Cry is just way too good? It's funny to say that, but imo it is. I mean, if they're adding pet control, it means that pets become a weapon you can somewhat control. So they can become your MAIN weapon. Now, the thing is this works for all your team. Say you have 3 beastmaster, 1 of them has to take 1 skill and you basically have 3 main weapons that are unblockable. And if you're thinking of killing pets that have over 100AL, it's like trying to take down warriors but the rangers can heal them on top of the monks and rez them at will.

I think it should really work for your pet only at least.

skillsbas8 · Apr 05, 2007, 04:53 AM // 04:53

I think its too early to tell.
This pet "control" could simply be to make them attack or stop attacking.

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 05, 2007, 05:22 AM // 05:22

The skill is excellent in thumper-heavy builds now, no question. Thumpers already had 8 effective auto-attackers, and making 4 of them unblockable for one skillslot is a huge buff.

On the other hand, thumpers aren't incredible right now to begin with, and the Bestial Mauling nerf will make them weaker. I'd say at least wait to see how the skill plays out.

Overall - Hexes are still quite strong, and Arenanet's buffing of spot removals really shows they don't understand the inherent design problems. Aegis is unchanged, though monks will be spending 5 more energy on it now. The SR change means about 9 potential pips from SR instead of 16 (halved for spirits), so the SR + spirit abuse builds probably won't work anymore. Hexes and Aegis will still dominate in 8v8 combat, while the skirmish meta remains relatively unchanged. None of the major templates were hit either.

There are some individual buffs or nerfs that I like. I feel the Spirit of Failure nerf was well-deserved and long overdue, and the Crippling Slash buff elegantly solved the skill's biggest problem. Unfortunately, the lack of game-changing effects implies that Arenanet likes the current meta, which does not speak well for GW's future as a competitive game.

Patccmoi · Apr 05, 2007, 05:38 AM // 05:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

The skill is excellent in thumper-heavy builds now, no question. Thumpers already had 8 effective auto-attackers, and making 4 of them unblockable for one skillslot is a huge buff.

On the other hand, thumpers aren't incredible right now to begin with, and the Bestial Mauling nerf will make them weaker. I'd say at least wait to see how the skill plays out.

Honestly i'm not thinking of thumpers. Currently thumpers are the only Beastmaster build seeing play, but if they add decent pet control (hell, a pet target lock would be crazy) you could just see true Beastmasters. Ranger that just uses a bow and say DShot and pet attack skills. Target lock pets on different casters, switching target if they get heavily protted, and have 3 rangers just spending their time interrupting everything.

Pets have some of the best attack skills, they can spike extremely hard. If just one skill slot makes a bunch of 14 BM pets unblockable, it can be a real pain to counter. Especially if you throw Brutal Weapon on their back... they don't even get covered by Aegis.

I agree though that we'll have to wait and see. Especially see what exactly they mean by pet control (personally i'm thinking of something similar to hero pannel, but i might be totally wrong).

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 05, 2007, 06:18 AM // 06:18

I don't think it's feasable to speculate on the power of pet builds under the new pet controls until we've played with them ourselves. It could be they allow for incredible control and fine-tuning, it could be they're weak controls with really basic commands so your pet is easier to focus and harder to aggro off.

Zapper901 · Apr 05, 2007, 06:55 AM // 06:55

I am going to die if Soul Reaping stays like that. Other changes look nice though, especially the Avatar skills.

Master Ketsu · Apr 05, 2007, 06:58 AM // 06:58

One thing they missed:

Burst of aggression: Changed duration to 1.....10.

yesitsrob · Apr 05, 2007, 09:39 AM // 09:39

Pretty decent overall, in my opinion

On Soul Reaping, I wish they'd stop messing about with it and just nerf it to oblivion with Soul Reaping getting you no energy from Spirits

Crippling Slash is quite amazing now.

Buffing Mind Blast is stupid

Spirits Strength buff is also stupid

Mindless Searing Flames builds for scrubs still work.

fenix · Apr 05, 2007, 09:43 AM // 09:43

mmm Crippling Slash is gonna own now, I like it.

The other changes I like, Soul Reaping needed something more (removal from spirits, halved from minions), but oh well, it might work.