Curse

Hella Good · Mar 27, 2006, 05:52 PM // 17:52

Please, post here with your experience with new skills. Any nice combinations you have noticed? Please, indicate whether you are talking in terms of PvE or PvP.

I play PvP mostly (I'm sure I'll PvE when Factions comes out) so my evaluation will be in terms of what I tried in PvP:

Monk:

Boon Sig- this is really nice nrg management skill for boon prots. What I love about it is that if used correctly it can keep up with you nrg needs much moreso than P&H has while still giving you the benefit of being a Monk nrg management elite (allows you to spend more points on Prot). I'm talking Boon Prots here.

A side comment: the addition of many new and useful sigs will create the need for Sig control (much like corpse control) in large teams. I think this is wonderful and a nice strategic move.

Necromancer:

Blood Drinker- This skill is weird, I was thinking that it can be used along with Plague Sending/Touch and Virulence but didn't get a chance to use it a lot. It has a great damage output for the nrg cost and a relatively low cooldown.

Cultist Fervor- Wow, wow, and wow. This skill despite the high life sac works very well with Unholy Feast and Oppresive Gaze (large team obviously) but more importantly I used it on a Heal Party monk for alliance battles- it was hillarious I could literally spam HP without ever running low on nrg and negating the sac damage completely. Wonderful.

Jaundiced Gaze- This skill is a cross-bread between Dark Pact and Vamp Gaze. I played with it a bit but it will take more practice than a few runs to get the sac to work with the health gain. I liked the idea of it tho.

Oppressive Gaze- This is a weaker version of FoC with a different condition to trigger the health stealing effect- you need to have your targets weakened instead of hexed. Obviously Enfeebling Blood + Opp Gaze will be a common combo. The skill is very powerful in large teams.

Vampiric Swarm- I was very hyped up about this skill but I found it kind of awkward. Perhaps it will take me some time to get used to but the 10 sec recharge gets to you. It doesn't come cheap either. But then in large teams, it might me something to consider spamming along with Unholy Feast and Cultist Fervor.

Order of Apostasy- This is the ultimate chant killer. Amazing skill. Despite its high cost it worked just fine for me (I combined it with Heal Area and just stood way behind and out of fire). BUT and this is a big BUT, OoA has made IWAY strong and well again. And this is a MAJOR concern. I don't think the skill is broke per se. I just think that there is a little bit needed to push IWAY over the top always and this is it for Factions.

Reckless Haste- Let me tell you- I haven't had so much fun with Spites in a long, looong while. Spites + RH is a killer, hillarious on assassins. Cover it up with Parasitic Bonds-> you will get your health very, veery soon

Soul Bind- I was actually very excited about this skill. I tried to combine it with Faintheartedness and Parasitic Bond and just hit with Wastrel's to trigger the effect. I didn't quite get it to work tho... like I didn't find it all that useful... Could be just lack of xp but... I think this skill needs a review of the KD trigger. Whats the point of nailing attacking things, if I can't interrupt their Heal Sigs and Troll Unguent or whatever the case might be?

Well of Weariness- Big fan of e-denial here. This skill was awesome- not only is it a nice e-denial addition (it's like making everyone in the area maintain a chant) but it's cheap and works for corpse control perfectly well. Used it on my mesmer mostly tho.

Animate Flesh Golemn- WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT. This skill RAWKS. I don't think anyone will disagree in here. Soooo much fun to have the big daddies of the undead on the MM's side. Lets get it ON!

Animate Vampiric Horror- I was so-so impressed by this skill. Horrors don't do enough damage to really say I felt a significant benefit from using them. I'd rather combo my tank Golemn with Fiends. In PvE maybe Vamp Horrors will be much more useful. Or... another option is to combo Cultist Fervor with both horrors and fiends but... who would wanna miss on the Golemn!!!

Bitter Chill- This skill is really nice if you do an AotL MM. It's a nice and cheap skill to use for initial damage.

While I'm at it, I wish I had tried Discord... looks like an awesome monk killer skill.

Mesmer:

Overload- It is my understanding that this is like an anti-ele type of skill. It's ok... but it's also nothing to be excited about.

Unnatural Sig- The return of this skill is a big one. I love it. It's nice for killing annoying Rt spirits, it's nice as a finishing spike (Mesmers always seem to need the last move), and I can finally make a highly effective and damaging Sig mes.

Accumulated Pain- Phantom Pain/Shatter Del alternative. I used it on top on Images of Remorse and Conjure Phantasm-> 10 degen, some minor spike damage, and a Deep Wound. Worked perfectly fine.

Conjure Nightmare- This skill is damn costly... I used it with Glyph of Energy. It is cool, because of its low cooldown you can spread it around and max degen a lot fo things and if u use GoE or smth similar to negate the cost, it can be really useful.

Images of Remorse- Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful new addition. Clumsiness meets Conjure Phantasm for a cheap, low recharge anti-war, ranger, assassin move. If your target isn't attacking- who cares- give them some cheap 5 degen anyway!

I didn't try of the new mesmer elites. Though I'd use my faction unlocking other stuff instead. Speaking of which... these elites... they are sooo situational. The ones that I was thinking about trying were Psychotic Instability, Stolen Speed, Lyssa's Aura, and Power Leech. The rest didn't impress me enough. This goes for most any char I played btw. You see like 4-5 interesting elites and the rest are kind of the new "nice to have", "never to be used" elites. (reminds me of Fevered Dreams before they buffed it)

Well, I typed a lot. I'm yielding the floor to others. Curious to see what the rest of you guys discovered.

MSecorsky · Mar 27, 2006, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Ranger - Needling Shot or Arrow... whatever...

Loved it. When you get someone's health below 50% you become a machine gun. With Fav winds and a prep, add on a weapons spell, very much pain.

Mordakai · Mar 27, 2006, 06:27 PM // 18:27

I wish I had played a Warrior more. I mostly played a Rt/N, and I also found Flesh Golem "RAWKed".

The few Warrior skills I tried were:

Triple Chop {E} This was nice in PvE, but I can't see it replacing Eviscerate in PvP builds.

Signet of Strength Really liked this, went well with my maxed Axe and Strength build. The +5 damage adds up when it's lasting 12 seconds....

Tiger's ???? arggh, can't remember the name of this skill. 33% attack rate increase, but only if you don't miss. Plus, it only lasts half the time of the recharge. Only 5 en, but Frenzy is still better.

pigdestroyer · Mar 27, 2006, 06:32 PM // 18:32

there was this new mesmer skill that cause exhaustion to the enemy.... it seemed really good..

CKaz · Mar 27, 2006, 06:36 PM // 18:36

Second Wind - Ele elite - gives back energy lost due to exhaustion, causes exhaustion.

Ok I'm wracking my brain trying to justify this elite in any build and I can't. You'd use a different energy tool plain and simple. I'm still kicking it around but there are a lot better options out there.

Why is there so many conditions and exhausts for eles even in their elite line-up? How can you even pre-suppose we can mix elemental lines at any level with so many ways to cause exhaustion (even a couple of our elite energy management tools!) and NO ENERGY ARMOR?

Remain disappointed in the eles options... if you call them that :b

jibikao · Mar 27, 2006, 06:38 PM // 18:38

I've tried almost all new Pet attack skills. Not very impressed. The two new elites Heal as One and Enraged Lunge are alright. Heal as One can be really good in PvE but in PvP, the healing won't save you, not with that 12s recharge. As for Enraged Lunge, I think I can achieve similar damage (if not more!) with Ferocious + Brutual Strike + Melandru's Assault.

Pounce, 20s recharge is quite bad.
Poisonus Bite, 20s recharge is bad and it adds NO DAMAGE on attack.
Bestial Mauling, good luck timing with it.

Predatory Bond, 16 health at lvl 16BM per pet's hit is not great healing. Probably good for PvE.

Viper's Nest, interesting trap for BM but as a pure trapper, I don't think it's all that great. 30s recharge doesn't make it too appealing.

Nikki Moonlight · Mar 27, 2006, 06:38 PM // 18:38

auspicous parry..i can see that becoming the elite on quite a few tanks...

Kakumei · Mar 27, 2006, 07:02 PM // 19:02

The word is energy.

And Enraged Smash is just...oh wow.

Hella Good · Mar 27, 2006, 07:24 PM // 19:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by pigdestroyer

there was this new mesmer skill that cause exhaustion to the enemy.... it seemed really good..

Arcane Languor. It's actually ridiculous. It only lasts 3 secs, unless you pump up your Fast Cast to get it to 4... Think about it... if people can chill out and wait for Backfire and Soul Leech to expire, I don't see them not waiting for a 3-4 sec duration hex to expire. Not to mention the 15 sec recharge. Like at 1st I was thinking this would be a nice move on Boon Prots... but even a Boon Prot can wait for 3-4 secs before casting a spell...

Btw I saw some reeeeal nice new ranger spirits. I was wondering if anyone got a chance to use those. Famine and Equinox to be more specific. I can see those spirits used in combo with e-denial mesmers to achieve higher shut-down effect. Tranquility is a nice move as well but who will ever need anti-chant with OoA in the house? xD

Mysterial · Mar 27, 2006, 07:47 PM // 19:47

I really don't understand why they wasted two more Elementalist elites on energy management, especially since Ether Prodigy crushes them both. Elementalists don't need more elite energy management, they need good non-elite energy management. Until they do, most builds are going to continue to just run Ether Prodigy because you simply cannot afford Elementalist spells without it.

They also continue to tag elites with Exhaustion for no apparent reason. Double Dragon doesn't need Exhaustion, especially not with that horrible recharge. Neither does Ride the Lightning (which, BTW, had an unlisted 25% armor penetration - so its damage is only mediocre instead of terrible)

Shatterstone is abysmal in every aspect. Unsteady Ground's conditional needs to be 'moving', not 'attacking' (which would make it the only DOT AoE in existence that actually did all the damage you're paying for)

Star Burst was OK - it's a PBAoE as a touch spell so you can't miss and it has a normal aftercast instead of the extra long PBAoE one so you can quickly follow up with Flame Burst.

Gust can be great if you can get the water hex, since you can cycle it with Gale and get a whole lot of knockdown at low cost. I think it needs the cast time reduced to 1 second, though.

Mirror of Ice is yet another Elementalist defensive spell that would be so nice if only it could be cast on someone else.

There were a couple good non-elites, but not many. Bed of Coals was surprisingly good, especially on the capture points in Alliance battles; when it works it does exactly what those spells should do when they work - punish the enemy hard. I wish they were all like that. Burning Speed needs to cost 5, considering it's effectively a sacrifice spell.

Lightning Hammer is so bad it's hilarious. Shock Arrow needs to lose the 1 second recharge, which doesn't do anything and is just annoying. Arc Lightning's conditional is bad, but hey, it's another copy of Lightning Strike.

Vapour Blade is almost as bad as Lightning Hammer. The Signet denial skill (forgot the name) has a recharge that outlasts the Signet blackout and so is useless - if you really care about Signets, take Rust.

Hella Good · Mar 28, 2006, 02:23 AM // 02:23

You must admit tho the point-blank E/As are pretty annoying. But yes, I do agree that some of the new ele skills (esp. the nrg management ones) don't make any sense whatsoever. I find it kind of weird tho to buff fire and then make it even more powerful with the E/A combo. And I'm not sure which Sig you are talking about.

SisterMercy · Mar 28, 2006, 03:45 AM // 03:45

Well of Weariness (N)

This is lovely. I was hoping for an anti-energy well.

Animate Flesh Golem (N)

Has anyone else realized that this skill has now made Minionmancers viable for PvP? It leaves an exploitable corpse, remember. Perhaps cast Death Nova on it, and then Dark Bond when you know you're about to get hit by something big. Then, after he explodes from all the damage that he suffers for you and causes big damage to whoever he's been aimed at, you can reanimate him. This is SO going to rock the arenas. I only wish he'd be given a temporary party slot, like rangers' pets, so he'd be easier to quick-target.

Animate Vampiric Horror (N)

I think the OP missed the health regen benefit of this one. Not bad; we'll see.

Conjure Nightmare (Mes)

It's a big energy killer, yes. More condusive to Necros (Soul Reaping) or Eles (Energy Storage), but even then you need to be careful. It's a good lead-off skill, unless you know someone's going to strip the hex. In the case of the latter, it's not worth it.

Churning Earth (Ele)

Approximately in league with Maelstrom, perhaps a bit overpowered, especially when you combine it with an attribute that is often more effective than Warriors for taking damage and some good field control -- you're looking at some extremely potent skillsets here. I have a feeling the AoE nerf that killed Fire attributes is going to stay, but Earth Eles are going to become one of the hot builds to come.

Mysterial · Mar 28, 2006, 03:58 AM // 03:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by SisterMercy

Churning Earth (Ele)

Approximately in league with Maelstrom, perhaps a bit overpowered, especially when you combine it with an attribute that is often more effective than Warriors for taking damage and some good field control -- you're looking at some extremely potent skillsets here. I have a feeling the AoE nerf that killed Fire attributes is going to stay, but Earth Eles are going to become one of the hot builds to come.

Am I missing something? Although I didn't get a chance to test it, from the description I can't see how this spell is good. Unless the AoE (which was unspecified) is "all foes in the area", a speed boosted character can run right through it without ever taking damage. So unless it works on nonmoving/attacking foes who happen to have a speed boost on them right then, it's mostly useless, and even if it does you're using it on enemies who will resist much of the damage, it has a huge energy cost, and like all the other DOT AoE's, a horrible recharge.

Eclair · Mar 28, 2006, 04:04 AM // 04:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

Am I missing something? Although I didn't get a chance to test it, from the description I can't see how this spell is good. Unless the AoE (which was unspecified) is "all foes in the area", a speed boosted character can run right through it without ever taking damage. So unless it works on nonmoving/attacking foes who happen to have a speed boost on them right then, it's mostly useless, and even if it does you're using it on enemies who will resist much of the damage, it has a huge energy cost, and like all the other DOT AoE's, a horrible recharge.

Well it knocks down speed boosted people. Not to mention, Earth Ele's get the awesome ward against foes^^

Lady Lorwinia · Mar 28, 2006, 04:11 AM // 04:11

Marauder's shot: disables all non attack skills for 5 seconds. Does +33dmg 0.0!

Imagine this rtw+fav winds+ winnow + conjure + orders

I mean holy crap. I smell nerf.

Pharalon · Mar 28, 2006, 05:14 AM // 05:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by CKaz

Second Wind - Ele elite - gives back energy lost due to exhaustion, causes exhaustion.

Ok I'm wracking my brain trying to justify this elite in any build and I can't. You'd use a different energy tool plain and simple. I'm still kicking it around but there are a lot better options out there.

It blows Prodigy away at 10+ energy storage. It'll give you 10.5 pips for the first minute of an encounter, and a steady 5->5.5 after that. That inital battery recharges pretty quickly as well. Even just being able to skip one cast moves it back up to 8ish pips. It's a lot of energy on demand for a 1-2 minute burst, and is on par with Prodigy when it's flatlining (at a cast every 30 seconds). Pretty much anywhere you use Prodigy, you can use second wind instead, and throw some enchants into the mix as well. It is, however, very restrictive in how you have to use it to get good numbers out of it.

Weezer_Blue · Mar 28, 2006, 07:33 AM // 07:33

I don't think Boon Signet is powerful enough to warrant the Elite. It's not powerful enough to be a useful heal, and the constant recasting and conditional energy makes it less than useful energy management. It also has a long enough cast time for any mesmer worth his/her salt to interupt it, and with new skills, disable it and your other signets for a while.

Hella Good · Mar 28, 2006, 04:11 PM // 16:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weezer_Blue

I don't think Boon Signet is powerful enough to warrant the Elite. It's not powerful enough to be a useful heal, and the constant recasting and conditional energy makes it less than useful energy management. It also has a long enough cast time for any mesmer worth his/her salt to interupt it, and with new skills, disable it and your other signets for a while.

There isn't an energy management option that is perfect: OoB you sac too much, MoR is a chant and can be shattered/stripped, P&H plain sucks (might as well have a wammo bring Succor- Sucoor>P&H wtf...), ED depends too much on other people's nrg and recharges way too slow. I mean... these elites aren't even supposed to be the ultimate solution to the nrg problem- they are simply things that address it. I like Boon Sig for many reasons but most importantly it's a viable MONK nrg management elite. Yes, of course stuff like Ignorance and Rust will suck but hello... it's a hex... not like I can't remove it.

jibikao · Mar 28, 2006, 04:27 PM // 16:27

Beast Mastery : Lacerate
Elite Nature Ritual. Create a level 1..8 Spirit. Bleeding creatures within its range suffer -2 Health degeneration. When this Spirit dies, all creatures within its range that have less than 90% Health begin Bleeding for 5...21 seconds. This Spirit dies after 30...126 seconds.
------------

Not sure how useful this ELITE spirit is.... I am not a fan of spirit but I guess this could work?

CKaz · Mar 28, 2006, 05:47 PM // 17:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

I really don't understand why they wasted two more Elementalist elites on energy management, especially since Ether Prodigy crushes them both. Elementalists don't need more elite energy management, they need good non-elite energy management. Until they do, most builds are going to continue to just run Ether Prodigy because you simply cannot afford Elementalist spells without it.

They also continue to tag elites with Exhaustion for no apparent reason.

Agreed with most the post and really agreed here.
Where are some non-elite and/or non exhaust aids!

Thanks for 2 more energy management elites which cause exhaustion...

Ether Prodigy or Ele Attunement or... Glyph of Energy or... use the 2ndary

yeah
And then give us a bunch of new elites (lots with exhaust) but still no way to handle the energy and/or exhaustion w/o an elite. Thanks for so many new ways to exhaust us out too (Ranger, Mesmer, Assas, etc)