Curse

Apathetic · Aug 25, 2005, 04:55 AM // 04:55

I'm defenitly liking what im seeing

I know this will make Pvp much much better and balanced and knowing ANet is right there to make changes, always comforting

Ensign · Aug 25, 2005, 05:02 AM // 05:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

I think they definetly will be more strategic uses of spirits, but at the cost of limiting combinations. They've essentially made them into elite skills with only one being active at a time which limits combinations.

I think that's a typo in their overall description. The specific change listed:

Quote:

All Spirits: Spirit effects no longer affect other Spirits (example: Fertile Season no longer adds Health and armor to other Spirits); also, when a Spirit is cast, it destroys all other allied Spirits of the same type within its range

Which, as I read it, means that if you cast Winter while Greater Conflagration is up, it will only kill all other Winters, not all other spirits on your team. So you can have one spirit per *type*, not one spirit period.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

iirc, Izzy uses a 0-16 notation, and GWG uses 0-12. So at 12 Air it will be dealing less than 82 damage from now on.

He uses the 0-15 notation, since 0-15 are the fixed points in the game. Everything else is extrapolated. So damage was effectively nerfed from 10...100 to 10...85 in game, or 10...82 to 10...70 in 0-12 notation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asplode

Cover enchant? Aegis? Chillblains? Pwned? lol k.

Yep, Chilblains pulls of one cover enchantment at the low, low cost of 25 energy. Now take off the other cover enchants and dig down to the stuff that starts to matter. Echo Chilblains starts to get interesting, but a single Chilblains hits, right, Aegis, or Dark Fury, or an Order, or some other enchantment that cost us a whole lot less than 25 to put up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ManadartheHealer

NR is getting nerfed? No decent hex removal?

There has always been decent hex removal - the skill is called Convert Hexes. It was a staple of many of our builds until Nature's Renewal was fixed. Power hex stacking usually only affects one person at a time - Convert Hexes punishes that strategy with a vengeance. When the skills are available to power-hex large sections of the opposing team, I'll take notice.

Peace,
-CxE

Phades · Aug 25, 2005, 05:03 AM // 05:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Savio

Well, NR still has its use...enchantments take double energy to maintain. Makes enchant stacking harder to maintain.

Unless they changed how the maximum degen works, there is still a work around for -10 pip energy degeneration, which also happens to work with alot of enchantments being active at the same time.

Mercury Angel · Aug 25, 2005, 05:29 AM // 05:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Unless they changed how the maximum degen works, there is still a work around for -10 pip energy degeneration, which also happens to work with alot of enchantments being active at the same time.

This is what I really don't like about that short article-
Too many confusing descriptions.

Another potential interpretation is that the casting cost of maintained enchants is doubled, which serves the purpose of making it difficult to set everything up again after all the enchantments are stripped.

A 20 cost, 4 second cast Life Bond would definitely not be fun.

It still means that multiple people in your team are going to have to take Rend, Lingering Curse, or both.
It'd be nice to grab Well of the Profane, but what're the odds of getting that off with people spamming Putrid ASAP?

Calibretto_9 · Aug 25, 2005, 05:33 AM // 05:33

It seems that they are making some effort to stop the overall spamming of putrid, but I'm actually looking forward to the return of enchantment stripping skills. It was almost laughable at best to bring them with nature's renewal around, but now teams will have to back it off a bit and maybe the necromancer can get some love. Actually, after thinking about that it's completely not true. Necromancers still suck compared to other primaries, but dangit, they have to realize that eventually.

Phades · Aug 25, 2005, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

They took some advice on the fire line, but they buffed the wrong skills-Meteor and Fireball were already good. They need to pay attention to stuff like Searing Heat and Lava Font.

I agree they need to look at the area of effect within fire specifically, but i dont disagree with the change with fireball when looking at the paralel in application with lightning orb. The fireball aoe is too small to really compare it against the armor penetration. Although, this change does make fireball more efficient than immolate now.

I am not sure about the meteor cost change though, the more limiting factor it has is the cool down time, which all fire spells largely suffer from.

With the others like searing heat and lava font, i wish they would have broke the damage over time model and done something more explosive with them. Even though searing heat has the added effect on completion, i think more of the lasting aoe style spells should have more of their "effect" or damage happen up front, then taper off over time. Say for instance, searing heat does 60 damage when initialized, then the next wave does 30, then 15 and eventually apply the on fire condition, perhaps also applying the on fire condition up front/re-apply with each wave and extending the duration to last after the spell finishes. This helps offset the player awarenes some and still gives a unique spell feeling, while not diminishing the balance between instant effect spells and damage over time efficiency. Other spells like flame burst, lava font, and inferno could stand to have their aoe bumped up slightly more, so that 1-2 character steps doesnt invalidate the positioning. It can be difficult at times to stick with a target as a warrior, never mind having to stop to cast and have after cast times.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mercury Angel

This is what I really don't like about that short article-
Too many confusing descriptions.

Another potential interpretation is that the casting cost of maintained enchants is doubled, which serves the purpose of making it difficult to set everything up again after all the enchantments are stripped.

A 20 cost, 4 second cast Life Bond would definitely not be fun.

It still means that multiple people in your team are going to have to take Rend, Lingering Curse, or both.
It'd be nice to grab Well of the Profane, but what're the odds of getting that off with people spamming Putrid ASAP?

The problem with sustained enchantments and normal enchantment removal, is that you never get down to those more important enchantments, wasting time going through cheap and spammable flak like orders, divine boon, guardian, and so on. This is while you are spending alot of energy on very expensive enchantment removal. Nerfing NR almost requires a nerf on the enchantments, unless they want to add or overbuff targeted enchantment removal. (See current version of NR for more details...)

ElderAtronach · Aug 25, 2005, 05:57 AM // 05:57

So after reading this, I see that they will beat NR over the head repeatedly with the nerf stick, Rodney King-style. Doubling the cost for maintained enchants? Oh noes, it'll destroy the 105 monks in PVP! Gimme a break.

Let's see how fast it takes people to bring the heal ball back into fashion as the new FotM after the next patch...

Aug 25, 2005, 06:02 AM // 06:02

When I was in alpha, one of the suggestions I made to buff fire was to give it a burst effect and have the damage scale down after a few seconds, but the devs said that wouldn't be good for design since Air is the line with the frontloaded damage aspect they wanted.

Well Fireball being balanced vs LO is actually a reason I think the change isn't that good. Fireball is entirely playable, the damage is less than LO but it is less expensive and the small AoE is just a bonus. It's also one of the few non-aoe centered attack spells in the line, and unsurprisngly those are Fires best skills. The change wouldn't be so mind boggling if they buffed some of those other fire skills. I mean, it's the same kind of thing with Ether Renewal: you buffed something good to become even better and left all the bad stuff out to rot.

Phades · Aug 25, 2005, 06:13 AM // 06:13

Er, how does the old cost 15e, 2s cast time, 10s cool down be less expensive than the 15e, 2s cast time, 5s cool down lightning orb? I am a little confused at your meaning of cost there. Also with the very minimal aoe fireball does have, id say its rather negligable in most instances of intellegent pvp play. Sure you could get more mileage out of it against warrior heavy teams that are trying to gang up on a single target, but then you are using a fireball on a warrior. Even with frenzy up 1 fireball isnt that scary and even then it would be better to knock them all down with meteor and let their target move away. Phoenix is a little more scary to a frenzied warrior, but that also requires positioning and a 3s cast time, which feels like an eternity, except when compared to 5s cast times or restore life.

What i was concerned about is reducing the recharge time and cost of fireball stepping on the toes of immolate for efficiency. The parallel between fireball and lightning orb isnt as bad as it was now and might even be in fireball's favor now for damage over time versus cost. It doesnt change how the entire line works though.

Quote:

When I was in alpha, one of the suggestions I made to buff fire was to give it a burst effect and have the damage scale down after a few seconds, but the devs said that wouldn't be good for design since Air is the line with the frontloaded damage aspect they wanted.

When i read that line again, what it says to me is that they didnt want to spend time coding in a new mechanic for a simple damage spell. Front loaded damage is not the same as a burst followed by an after effect. In essence they have this philosiphy already for fire spells in the form of immolate, incindinary bonds, mind burn, and combination use with mark of rodgort.

Arturo02 · Aug 25, 2005, 06:41 AM // 06:41

"The primary difference between lightning and fire damage is that lightning is meant to be a very powerful single target damage line, while fire should be a very powerful multi-target line. We felt that Chain Lightning was a little too powerful in terms of multi-target damage, and we felt that some of the basic fire spells like Fireball and Meteor where a little too expensive for the damage they did. We reduced the damage and effect of Chain Lightning and lowered the costs on some of the fire spells to help bring these more into balance."

it seems to me they are trying to set it up where a fire ele is a viable pvp build. I don't see how they can do this by just boosting these two skills a little bit.

And the air build doesn't have a viable aoe skill besides chain, why nerf it? I have never heard anyone complaining about chain or air eles. It's always about spirits.

I am no pvp expert but I fail to see how this improves things. If I am wrong, someone please enlighten me

Yawgmoth Kg · Aug 25, 2005, 06:42 AM // 06:42

i just hope the buffs to enchant removal area adequate

Phades · Aug 25, 2005, 06:47 AM // 06:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arturo02

it seems to me they are trying to set it up where a fire ele is a viable pvp build. I don't see how they can do this by just boosting these two skills a little bit.

And the air build doesn't have a viable aoe skill besides chain, why nerf it? I have never heard anyone complaining about chain or air eles. It's always about spirits.

Long story short, that 1 spell was a more effective (damage wise) aoe spell than the majority of the fire line combined. It was trimmed back to try and bring it inline with the themes of the elements. Combine it with things like thunderclap or glimmering mark and you turn it into something costly, but potent.

Kaylee Ann · Aug 25, 2005, 06:49 AM // 06:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arturo02

it seems to me they are trying to set it up where a fire ele is a viable pvp build.

It always was. It just wasn't the most desirable compared to other things.

Lord Malikai · Aug 25, 2005, 06:59 AM // 06:59

Errr, you can still drop NR, kill enchants/hexes, then oath shot and drop another one, who cares if it destroys the first one, it still does its job.

Kaylee Ann · Aug 25, 2005, 07:03 AM // 07:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Malikai

Errr, you can still drop NR, kill enchants/hexes, then oath shot and drop another one, who cares if it destroys the first one, it still does its job.

Unless you have the ability to read:

"Nature's Renewal: no longer removes all Hexes and Enchantments when cast; doubles the cost of maintained Enchantments"

Vermilion Okeanos · Aug 25, 2005, 07:07 AM // 07:07

that panic is a little scary... AoE energy degen of 2... +signet dmg

I think they are out there to kill enchant maintainer, NR 2x enchant cost, Panic AoE, Panic signet dmg (blessed signet).

I hope that was only a small list of their bigger version... I mean heck... what about mind freeze? lightning javelin?

what about the case with mind burn and mind shock? mind burn seem to be way better than mind shock in terms of single target?

I am just hoping...

Lord Malikai · Aug 25, 2005, 07:13 AM // 07:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaylee Ann

Unless you have the ability to read:

"Nature's Renewal: no longer removes all Hexes and Enchantments when cast; doubles the cost of maintained Enchantments"

Yea, wow. That sucks ass. I was coming back to edit the post after reading that :P Who woulda figured that they would change it so dramatically.

Savio · Aug 25, 2005, 07:23 AM // 07:23

So perhaps they're angling to make energy denial a part of enchant removal...interesting.

Kishin · Aug 25, 2005, 07:25 AM // 07:25

Not bad, not bad. Let's hope this is just the start, because god knows, if Enchantment Removal doesn't get a little boost...Gentleman, start your Healing Balls.

Fire still needs a bit more loving, too. Searing Heat and Invocation of Rodgort need to be made to not suck.

Phades · Aug 25, 2005, 07:27 AM // 07:27

Energy denial is not a sustained endevor typically though, while maintained enchantments are. Sustained enchantments can also be used in a spiderweb style setup, so that draining one character will cause a break in defense elsewhere, but can be covered by another character doubling up on the spells. It also doesnt adress energy engines that are sustainable. Panic only addresses one of those options.