Curse

ManMadeGod · Oct 13, 2007, 11:59 AM // 11:59

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Originally Posted by makosi

I wonder if the UW/FoW end-reward chests will yield crystallines like their purple counterparts?

I strongly suggest them to add something unique (new skins, greens) to UW/FoW end-reward chests.
So that it's not ecto/forge run only.

Squishy ftw · Oct 13, 2007, 12:39 PM // 12:39

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Originally Posted by ManMadeGod

I strongly suggest them to add something unique (new skins, greens) to UW/FoW end-reward chests.
So that it's not ecto/forge run only.

I strongly ... agree with that

Bale_Shadowscar · Oct 13, 2007, 12:43 PM // 12:43

Chilblains is pretty naff now

But really cool update

ManMadeGod · Oct 13, 2007, 12:52 PM // 12:52

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Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

My take on the skill balances

Ele
Ice spikes is godly now, almost better then deep freeze now since you can reapply it so often.

Steam is awesome.
5 energy for 104 dmg and 10 sec blind, recharge is only 8, woot!

As for para, some songs are coming up from my mind:
ANet: "Are you Dead Yet - Children of Bodom"
Para: "Die Dead Enough - Megadeth"

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Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Monk. I KNEW reversal of damage didn't seem to be working right.

Ouch @ SoD...
Guardian > SoD then.

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Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Necromancer. Chilbals nerf? I'm sorry, but the game needs a few non-targetting enchantment stripping. Otherwise, I'll just run into more shadowform sins in RA. By the way, why no deadly paradox sin signet spike tweak?
Andragon's needed the nerf.

Agree, we do need Chilblains for its unique removal against Shadow Form, Spell Breaker or Obsidian Flesh.
If it has to be so, make it a skill instead of a spell so that it can remove Shadow Form and Spell Breaker.

A lot of enchantment removals got buffed (except Chilblains), but anyone remembers this elite: Pain of Disenchantment? Scourge Enchantment completely beats this elite.

Andragon's doesn't matter imo. Blood sux anyway...
It only impacts Me/N who spams it, however they already got nerfed with MoR so that Andragon's doesn't really matter.

Blood spells need some tweak for more creative usage just like Steam or Ash Blast. Pure Life Steal based design is boring.

For example: Soul Leech-> Hex Spell. For 10 seconds, Target foe steals x...y health form all his near by allies each second. Parasitic AoE lol.

Lagg · Oct 13, 2007, 01:20 PM // 13:20

You know, I don't mind skill balances that get overpowered skills nerfed.

I just hate it when these balances were simply not well-thought of.

I never play Necromancer, yet I think the change to Soul Reaping is ridiculous.

I never play Ritualist, yet I think the Exhaustion that was added for some time was a complete hack job.

Now the Ritualist was fixed with great elegance. Making Ancestor's Rage an enchantment was literally a stroke of genius. Heck, it even fits in with the lore (Ancestor's Visage is an Enchantment as well).

However, Soul Reaping is still gimped without any elegance. Why is it that a Necromancer can only reap souls three times every 15 seconds? How do you explain that? Grenth decreed a speed limit and there's traffic jams on the soul highway?

The community has been proposing great fixes since day one. Spirits should not count towards Soul Reaping, or only some Spirits, or a limited amount of Spirits, or a limited amount of Energy per Spirits. There's any number of decisions that make sense.

So I do hope Aggressive Refrain will go the way of the Ritualist skills and see a more elegant solution.

There's no doubt that it needs a nerf, it just needs a better one.

In the meantime, yes indeed: QQ

By the way, coming from someone who is playing Warrior nearly the whole time: nerf Dragon Slash for Pete's sake. It's so ridiculously spammable with "For Great Justice" to the point it's silly to take any other Elite (at least in PvE).

Simply decreasing the unconditional damage it does (while keeping the adrenaline utility) would already go a long way.

Chris Blackstar · Oct 13, 2007, 02:33 PM // 14:33

why was searing flames reurned to it's former glory, but not sand storm?

the anti-grind part of the update was nice, not much of a hard mode fan, but o well. As for the skill Balance, Hold on as I bent over yet once again, and prepare to get shafted.

I wonder if this was ever said, that "Skill Balance is a Red Herring"

t h i n e eyes b l e e d · Oct 13, 2007, 03:16 PM // 15:16

Whoa! Paras didn't diserve ANY nerfs... buffs only i think... the mesmer buffs were fun I like the fact that they don't want to make mantra of recovery a trash
I have been mostly using signet of illusions cause of the update so i'm glad to see it getting buffed again.
the HoM update wasn't THAT wonderfull but still it was fun

Maximumraver · Oct 13, 2007, 03:39 PM // 15:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Etta

[*]Gold rewards for vanquishing foes in Hard Mode have been increased to five times the number of creatures killed.

I'm confused as to what this does exactly, would you get 1K from every monster after you've killed 200, seems a bit strange.

Squishy ftw · Oct 13, 2007, 04:25 PM // 16:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maximumraver

I'm confused as to what this does exactly, would you get 1K from every monster after you've killed 200, seems a bit strange.

It means that when you vanquish an area that had 200 foes in it, you get 200 * 5 = 1k gold when you kill the last foe in that area.

Moloch Vein · Oct 13, 2007, 04:26 PM // 16:26

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Originally Posted by ensoriki

and I always thought gaze of contempt crapped all over shadowform

Please restate that?!

street peddler · Oct 13, 2007, 05:01 PM // 17:01

the spirit nerf isnt a big deal really....oh noes my spirits can suffer from burning for 7 seconds thanks to the newly BUFFED searing flames (utter bs)

and shelter displacement and union take another hit (who cares)

CHunterX · Oct 13, 2007, 05:04 PM // 17:04

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Originally Posted by Sekkira

Oh noes! Paragons got 1 skills hit slightly! It's the end of the world!

And in a week or two we'll be seeing threads titled: Where did all the Paragons go?
The few that played them just aren't going to bother anymore. Its apparently impossible to run AR with H+H now, without them spamming all their energy to remove cracked armor. Its obvious that they are never going to get a single buff. These 2 skills were just the straws that broke the Paragons back.

That is, if anyone will even miss them.

BlackSephir · Oct 13, 2007, 05:14 PM // 17:14

The few that played Paragons will stop now?
Lmao ;d

Mickey · Oct 13, 2007, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHunterX

And in a week or two we'll be seeing threads titled: Where did all the Paragons go?
The few that played them just aren't going to bother anymore. Its apparently impossible to run AR with H+H now, without them spamming all their energy to remove cracked armor. Its obvious that they are never going to get a single buff. These 2 skills were just the straws that broke the Paragons back.

That is, if anyone will even miss them.

Congrats for showing the Holy Trinity pug mindset.

Cobalt · Oct 13, 2007, 06:11 PM // 18:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by kvndoom

I think they more put them where they should have been in the first place than "punish people for playing them the way they were meant to be played." If, from day one of Factions, all spirits had had 50 less health than they did for the past 1.5 years, then people would have played around that and been used to it. But again, the sense of entitlement comes into play, and once something in the game changes, people cry foul as if it was a personal attack. And frankly, it was the Communing line that caused the most problems in game balance and all the Rit hate that has been around for 18 months, so I won't shed a tear to see it get hit. Anet shouldn't have reversed the exhaustion mechanic; that would have worked just as well, but they gave in to the whiners and reversed it. I wouldn't be surprised to see them cave in to whining again. I play a Rit in 4-man arena quite often, and this change doesn't bother me a bit.

I actually agree that Anet has almost no clue how to properly balance this game of theirs, but some of the changes they made in this update are pretty good.

These nerfs affect all the abilites of the Rit not just Communing in one form or another so they are rally cross the board nerfs however it does affect Communing the most.

Killing the Communing skills for a Rit so that the class is forced to use other abilities just plain wrong, no two ways about it. It is like killing healing prayers for monks so they are forced to either use smite or protect instead. It completely alters the core function of the Rit class which is just asinine for Anet to do. They might as well remove it and start all over from scratch.

We are in desperate need of new blood in the skills department, they need someone that is neither delusionally paranoid that players will actually beat the game with current skill sets to easily. Or deems himself the "skills police" and runs around trying to bust everyone that comes up with a creative skill set. Or is an ego bloated mad man that thinks he is god of all Guild Wars and everyone should play exactly how he want them to play and tries everything he can to force them to.

HawkofStorms · Oct 13, 2007, 06:15 PM // 18:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHunterX

And in a week or two we'll be seeing threads titled: Where did all the Paragons go?
The few that played them just aren't going to bother anymore. Its apparently impossible to run AR with H+H now, without them spamming all their energy to remove cracked armor. Its obvious that they are never going to get a single buff. These 2 skills were just the straws that broke the Paragons back.

That is, if anyone will even miss them.

Good job showing a COMPLETE lack of understanding of PvP.

Paragons BROKE PvP, especially GvGs. They are godly good and have great synergy with each other.

Everyone who can't adapt and deal with THREE skills being changed is a bad player. No matter how integral those skills are to the paragon, there are still over 1000 other skills you could use.

For example, if Eles suddenly had their energy management nerfed (ie, attunements and GoLE suddenly stoped working completely), sure you'd see a lot of complaining. But suddenly Ether Prodigy and Mantra of Recall Eles would make a comeback from the old Phrophecies days. No matter how useful 2 or 3 skills are, there nerf/buff will not destroy a class. Good players adapt. Bad players QQ.

Plague · Oct 13, 2007, 06:17 PM // 18:17

Long-winded "sort of" rant follows"

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Decreased the Health of all Spirits by 50; allowed Burning to affect Spirits.

Like this will resolve anything. I've yet to understand this fixation on making spirits relevant to Soul Reaping. No matter what they do, the players will always outsmart the ANet staff and come up with a new way to exploit them.

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Death's Charge: increased conditional Health to 65..200.

On the rare occasion I want to grief and bring a Shadow Form Assassin to AB or RA, this is what I use to cover the health loss after the enchantment wears off, which goes right back up after about five seconds. So thanks for the grief buff, I guess. It's not as though people use this skill much for anything more than utility anyway.

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Shadow Refuge: increased duration to 6 seconds.

It's about time, but this skill is still very weak. Assassins rarely are capable of sustained attacks, so the purpose of this skill is innately thrown out of the door. Get in, attack, get out. If I want a decent self heal, I'll bring Restful Breeze, which at 3 att owns this skill in a typical Assassin build / playstyle.

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Wearying Strike: decreased damage to 5..20.

Why? I mean I can see WHY, but honestly, have you thought about just causing this skill to reduce your attack damage and NOT apply a condition? Isn't that the problem, that a Melandru Dervish can entirely circumvent this? Or that any form of a Dervish that can easily remove this instantly, perhaps beneficially, circumvents the intended purpose? There are better ways to balance this than just pooping out a blind nerf.

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Ash Blast: increased damage to 35..65.
Chilling Winds: increased damage to 25..50.
Ebon Hawk: increased damage to 45..100.
Enervating Charge: increased damage to 25..50.
Steam: increased conditional damage to 40..100; increased damage to 25..70.
Stoning: increased damage to 45..105.

Completely irrelevant. While I appreciate the damage buffs, no one ever asked for them, and they were never needed. All of these skills are utility skills that are not going to displace pure damage skills on any bars. Due to the necessity of bar compression, these buffs aren't going to change many current builds. There are other Elementalist spells and skills that are in more dire need.

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Conjure Frost, Conjure Flame, and Conjure Lightning: now directly increase the damage you do when you hit with an attack (previously, they dealt damage as a second, additional strike); decreased damage to 5..20.

Well, there go my various conjure builds. Instead of nerfing these skills, why isn't the reason they're used addressed instead? Pure damage builds on most melees classes are already difficult to use due to the current meta's abundance of physical attack-denials. Blinds, blocks and disables are so incredibly prevalant that many classes, WARRIORS ESPECIALLY, are totally neutered in some matches, especially RA matches in which they can easily become the focus. Conjure builds, or any other form of damage stacking is the only way to compress enough damage into the time you DO have to get through these literally hundreds of defenses (in the forms of conditions, hexes, blocks, evasions, shouts, wards, etc). The only natural form of this type of compression innate to most physical classes are very weak, nearly worthless. (Signet of Strength, Scavenger's Focus, etc) I understand this nerf, but if you're going to have to resolve the innumerable forms of perpetu-denial that almost all classes have to physical attacks. Using a secondary and splitting the atts gives you the right to use builds like the conjure warriors/sins/dervs/rangers. (Notice I don't mention Paragons, yes.) It's nothing to punish.

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Glyph of Swiftness: fixed a bug that increased the projectile speed.

This skill is nearly innately worthless. Even if buffed to expand across multiple activations like Elemental Power, I sincerely doubt you would find this on many skillbars. This is once again an issue of utility. Players that understand the limitations of cast speed and projectile dysfunction have already compensated, and hence aren't going to need this skill. Bar compression also plays a heavy role.

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Searing Flames: increased Burning duration to 1..7 seconds.

Laugh. I'd explain this further but I don't want my favorite Ele build getting hit with a nerf.

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Illusion of Haste: decreased Energy cost to 5.

No one is going to use this. It is an innately horrible skill. Stop trying to buff it in worthless ways and fix its utility.

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Ineptitude: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.

This didn't need a buff. This will only introduce more unneeded challenges for physical attackers.

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Keystone Signet: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.

This is less of a hit on Keystone and more on signets in general. Many signets that might go well with this also require another elite to create full utility on the build. Signets in general need a major buff.

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Signet of Illusions: increased the number of Spells affected to 3.

Until this skill works in the same vein as Glyph of Elemental Power (capable of being sustained across an entire skilline of activations), this elite won't be a viable threat. This is less of a problem with the skill and more of a problem with the Mesmer. It seems like this elite was added to try to entice players to invest into the weak Illusion attribute, but in the end, this skill is simply allowing you to play another primary's skillbar on a mesmer. More Illusion skills need to be adjusted to make the line more friendly to this elite.

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Signet of Midnight: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.

Once again, another unnecessary buff that will hurt an already crippled physical attacker meta. This, once again, is especially true in RA.

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Shield of Deflection: increased recharge time to 10 seconds; increased duration to 3..10 seconds.

About time. Perpetu-block across 3 out of 4 enemies in RA matches made playing a warrior, especially, impossible.

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Angorodon's Gaze: decreased Energy returned to 12.

Please link this skill to benefit from Soul Reaping in some way. The problem is with fast cast/recharge mesmers dualing this skill. Instead of punishing Necromancers to balance a single Mesmer skillbar, help a Necromancer to benefit from this skill as well.

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Chilblains: now works on target foe instead of having a point-blank area of effect; decreased number of Enchantments affected to 1; increased casting time to 2 seconds.

This skill will always be worthless. I don't say that because of the skill's utility. I say that because whoever is balancing the game apparently has something against this skill. It took... what? Three years for this skill to finally be rebalanced? And after all that, it's a TWENTY-FIVE energy spell that causes ***46*** damage. COLD damage. And it also removes an enchantment. Think about that. This is NOT an enchantment removal spell, this is a pathetic AoE damage spell that also removes an enchantment. Truly pathetic. This skill needs some major, major buffs. And someone aside from whomever is currently working on it needs to be put in charge of it. Because they apparently have no idea what they're doing.

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Nature's Renewal: decreased Spirit levels to 1..10.

Okay. ...Was this supposed to do something? Am I supposed to actually waste a skill slot to bring this now? I can see it on some specialized high end PvP builds, but then, it's not going to need a massive level anyway.

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Paragon

* Aggressive Refrain: now causes Cracked Armor for 20 seconds when applied.
* "Go for the Eyes!": increased recharge time to 4 seconds.

I personally hate playing as a Paragon. I find more benefit in using a ?/P rather than a primary. Leadership, I feel, is broken, and is poorly designed. I cringe when I see a Paragon in my party in a RA match, less so in a 6/6 (where applicable0 or 8/8 when that Paragon isn't wasting attribute points in Spear Mastery. Yet, I feel for them. They've been abused ever since their release. I consider them Guild Wars' misunderstood, often abused stepchild that seems to be able to do nothing but wrong in his parents' eyes, due to their own horrible parenting. The Go For the Eyes buff was just unnecessary. It was one of the few shining reasons to have a Paragon leading your well-orchestrated party into a fight. It's not unusable now, but it was imply unnecessary. The Aggressive Refrain "nerf" can be solved (if you even want to solve it) with one use of Remedy Signet. It's not so much a nerf as it is a nuisance. Please, for the sake of the Guild Wars family, stop abusing the Paragon. Child Services is watching.

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Agonizing Chop: increased activation time to 1 second.

Okay. Congratulations.

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"Charge!": increased movement speed to 33%.

Sure. Why not.

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Critical Chop: increased activation time to 1 second.

Why exactly is this skill on my bar? I can bring a skill that actually compresses my damage into a spike, applies bonus damage AND has a high chance to critical with the high weapon mastery I should already have. Nerfing this skill was like spitshining a dead horse. It has its uses, but not in the way you think.

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Disarm: reworded skill description to explain that it is an interrupt.

I fully expect the Gladiator's Defense / Riposte warriors in Random Arena to cheer. The rest of us? I think we'll use a real skill with some actually relevant utility, thanks.

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"Watch Yourself!": increased recharge time to 4 seconds; increased duration to 10 seconds.

So the most important shout in the entire game just got nerfed. It's probably the only spammable shout, as far as I can remember. There goes my Soldier's Stance conjure build. (Not that I could use conjure effectively anymore anyway. And not that anyone else would use Soldier's Stance, which needs a buff, and isn't on this update list.) The 10 second duration does not cover the recharge. Gaining adrenaline in many matches can be an extremely painful process; once again, this is due to the melee-denial meta issues. Roll back the recharge to 2 seconds, 3 if you must. And why do adrenaline skills even have recharge these days? Wasn't that the POINT of adrenaline? That you have to earn it by making hits? Honestly.

Please, Izzy, whomever, look at the heavy list of underpowered skills on the wiki. Notice almost none are on this list. Remedy that. Some skills do need a nerf or a buff, but the ones I keep seeing in these updates are often the ones no one cares about. They aren't relevant to the current meta. The skills that are on the rebalance list are there because they're the ones getting the most disappointment; they're the ones players want to see changed. Not many people have been aching to see Illusion of Haste get a 5 Energy buff.

IlikeGW · Oct 13, 2007, 06:20 PM // 18:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Good job showing a COMPLETE lack of understanding of PvP.

Paragons BROKE PvP, especially GvGs. They are godly good and have great synergy with each other.

Who gives a crap about PvP in this game? It's always imbalanced, and has always revovled around gank gimmick-of-the-month builds. It's stupid to turn PVE classes into mush, they might as well make seperate skill updates.

«Ripskin · Oct 13, 2007, 06:25 PM // 18:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by OI-812

OMFG. Chilblains has been murdered, Aggressive Refrain butchered...

A.net, go to hell. With every patch you do more harm than good. You clearly don't have the foggiest idea about how to balance skills and classes, because you constantly engage in knee-jerk nerfs like this. It would be one thing if there were a minor adjustment in the skill - say, simply increasing the cast time, and requiring 13 or more in Curses to get a second enchantment strip. Guild Wars' PvE and PvP balance is apparently a game of Jenga to you, you destroy a skill/gimp a build and then add a NEW broken skill or class onto the top of the stack. How long can you play this game before the stack simply falls over? How long before you have utterly destroyed balance in PvE and PvP and alienated your playerbase?

/uninstall
/cancel any plans for World of GWCraft 2 purchase/play

It's one thing to not get it quite right the first time. It's another thing entirely to repeatedly skull-f*** your own game with imbalanced classes and skills, knee-jerk "rebalances", and a general inability to realize that PvE and PvP balances should NOT be joined at the hip, as they are completely alien to each other.

Dude, mellow out. They made so many changes for the wants of the community, and they made two skills not work as well as they did. You're obviously overreacting.

Snow Bunny · Oct 13, 2007, 06:26 PM // 18:26

I haven't really played anything since the update, but the AR Para nerf is an interesting one.
WY+GFTE needed this nerf. Basically infinite energy, and ridiculous party buffs. This whole PvE thing is BS - Paras are still overpowered in PvE because of TNTF.

I agreed with the post about Hammer Bash. If that skill got put into the strength line, I'd be so happy.

RaO didn't get touched, and SF got some unneeded attention. Lol, what?

And why did you touch SoD. Why Why Why Why. RIP