Curse

Mysterial · Jan 04, 2006, 02:49 AM // 02:49

Soon there'll be a World Champion, a new Ladder Season, and hopefully some skill balance changes. Here's my ideas of what should be included, with comments. What's everyone else's opionions?

All
Resurrection Signet - Reduce health restored to 50%.

When a skill is so important that nearly every non-monk has it on his skill bar, so important that you will be ridiculed for not having it, so important that your ability (or lack) to use it can determine the battle, there's something wrong. Reducing the health gain isn't going to change that it's usually more useful than a resurrection spell, but at least it forces the team to quickly heal the resurrected player lest he be immediately spiked down again.

Elementalist

Mind Burn - Also affect adjacent foes.
Mind Shock - Increase damage on both hits to 10...60, increase knockdown time to 3 seconds.
Mind Freeze - Increase damage on both hits to 5...50, increase slowdown time to 3...9 seconds.

While all the other professions get elites that are clearly better than any similar non-elite skill, Elementalists get three conditional, Exhaustion causing, slower recharging spells that at their best have only slightly more effect then non-elite spells. Sure, they cost a little less energy and they cast faster, but that's not worth it, especially when the conditional requires you to limit your casting of any other skills, especially since you'll be without elite energy management to handle the large Elementalist spell costs. All of them could use a boost.

Conjure Flame/Frost/Lightning - No longer lose all enchantments.

I'm pretty sure that effect was left on from when the spell didn't require a weapon of the corresponding type; I can't see any reason for it now.

Fire Storm - Increase damage to 5...37
Lava Font - Increase damage to 5...37
Searing Heat - Increase damage to 5...37, foes are set on fire every second (instead of at the end of the effect), fire duration scales from 1...3
Eruption - Increase damage to 5...42, foes are blinded every second (instead of at the end of the effect), Blind duration scales from 1...5 seconds
Maelstrom - Increase damage to 10...32

Now that these spells are just as weak in PvE as they are in PvP, they need a boost. Increasing the damage a little won't make them amazing, but at least they'll do enough damage that you'll want to avoid staying in them.

Glimmering Mark - Increase duration to 5...25 seconds, increase Blind duration to 5 seconds.

Besides how easy it is to remove conditions, even repeated ones, in order to use this skill effectively you have to target the two classes that are most resistent to your attacks. If you had enough time to switch targets in between blindings, this skill might actually see some use.

Lightning Javelin - Interrupt any action, not just attacks

Takes too long to cast and hit to actually target a skill with it, so its extra 5 energy are mostly useless and you might as well take Enervating Charge.

Obsidian Flesh - Change 'cannot be the target of enemy spells' to be 'take zero damage from all spells'.

I'm of the opinion that a skill whose supposed "counter" is "choose another target" is overpowered, and that's what this spell does to casters. (So does Spell Breaker, but at least that spell is a primary attribute, has a much longer recharge than duration, and costs a lot for its class)
This change, besides making more sense given the name, it also means you can remove it. Because of its long duration and low cost, you can combine it with Armor of Earth and a +20% enchantments staff and be nearly invulnerable and outside of trying to interrupt a one second spell there's not a thing the enemy can do about it. The penalty to movement speed makes it useless in GvG and weakened in tombs (due to the need to keep the Ghostly Hero alive in many levels more than yourself), but especially in the arenas the skill is overpowered.

Inferno - Reduce energy cost to 5.

Inferno is completely outclassed by Flame Burst, which affects a greater AoE and recharges four times as fast for only 5 more energy and a little less damage.

Swirling Aura - Reduce energy cost to 5 and casting time to 1/4

No reason the ranger counter shouldn't be exactly as powerful as the warrior counter (Magnetic Aura)

Ward Against Harm - Increase armor against other damage to 12...32

Except against fire, this spell isn't particularly useful, especially since against the damage against which armor is most important, elemental damage, Ward Against Elements is just as good and is also in a line with other useful wards and protection spells.

Glyph of Concentration - Ignore all spellcasting time increases (Migraine, Arcane Conundrum) not just Dazed.

Dazed is overcosted and easily removed, so few use it and thus few use this Glyph since for interrupt protection Mantra of Resolve and Mantra of Concentration are far superior.

Glyph of Elemental Power - Increase attribute boost to 3.

2 more attribute points doesn't do enough extra to be worth 5 energy and 1.75 more seconds on the spell you want to use it with.

Mesmer

Chaos Storm - Reduce cost to 10 energy, reduce recharge time to 20 seconds

See comments on damage over time spells above.

Shatter Hex - reduce energy cost to 10

They nerfed the damage and AoE and now it's too overcosted to be useful.

Shame - reduce energy cost to 5

They buffed Guilt; why should spells that target allies be more expensive to prevent?

Mantra of Recovery - Reduce energy cost to 10

Considering that many of the Mesmer elites are super versions of other spells as well as Mesmers having Arcane Echo and Echo, it's hard to find a skill bar where you'd want multiple skills to recharge faster, not use the elite version for one of them or one of the Echo spells, and have enough energy to actually cast those spells as fast as they're recharging.

Fevered Dreams - increase duration to 5...25 seconds

It's hard enough to spread conditions around with this spell better then you could with other skills (like traps against warriors) and its short duration doesn't help with that much.

Ineptitude - reduce damage to 5...41, reduce Blindness duration to 5 seconds, don't end when it takes effect

The damage is minimal enough and the condition easy enough removed that this spell isn't particularly useful, even in the random arenas. Making it like a super-Empathy may not be very unique, but it's a whole lot more useful.

Arcane Echo - don't allow copying Elite spells

Arcane Mimicry has a long recharge for a reason. Two elites are powerful. For many skills, it being two of the same spell isn't any less so.

Epidemic - Increase AoE to 'nearby foes'

You can't hit enough with this to justify the large energy cost

Monk

Peace and Harmony - increase energy regeneration to +2

Weak compared to other energy management elites AND it has a drawback. +2 is still weaker than some, but with high Divine Favor you can have it on two targets simultaneously so that balances it out a bit.

Unyielding Aura - no upkeep (lasts forever until removed), fix the bug where when the caster dies the resurrected players stay alive.

It seems like a bad idea to waste your Elite on a resurrection spell when you could spend it preventing your allies from dying in the first place, especially for a spell that, if it manages to last longer than the non-elite Vengeance, actually costs you more energy (ignoring Blessed Signet). The spell also has a gigantic, emissive effect that practically screams "REMOVE ME!" at enemies.

Restore Life - reduce casting time to 6 seconds.

8 seconds at touch range against a team resembling something competent is never going to happen.

Rebirth - Increase spell range to 1.5x normal spell range

Being able to cast it at long range might make this spell useful in PvP for stealth resurrections. Or not, but it's worth a try.

Shielding Hands - reduce recharge to 15 seconds.

This would be a good spell against teams with lots of small hits... if only you could cast it often enough to actually have it available when they're doing those hits.

Symbol of Wrath: Reduce recharge time to 15 seconds

See comments on damage over time spells above.

Holy Wrath - Energy lost per attack scales from 10...5 energy.

10 energy is just a little overkill. 5 energy is probably overkill too, but at least it's consistent with other spells that burn your energy on some action, like Spinal Shivers and Thunderclap.

Scourge Healing - Make it work on healing granted by Divine Boon.

Then you can use it as a boon prot counter, so people might actually use it.

Light of Dwayna - Increase range to the aggro circle.

This spell, besides being expensive, has too low of an AoE to work with anything except suicide builds where you can choose where you're going to die.

Resurrect - Increase energy restored to 25%

So if you manage to get this spell off, the resurrected ally might be able to contribute sometime soon.

Necromancer

Chillblains - Reduce energy cost to 15, increase recharge to 20

25 energy and a condition that requires yet more energy to remove is too expensive for a spell that will, if you're lucky, remove one enchantment from two or three enemies and cause them negligible damage.

Defile Flesh - Reduce sacrifice cost to 10%

20% seems a little hefty for a spell that really isn't preventing *that* much healing.

Weaken Armor - Reduce armor vs all, not just physical

So Elementalists and Necromancers using cold spells can take advantage of this spell to get some damage boost options like the other damage classes.

Consume Corpse, Necrotic Traversal - Increase recharge to 5 seconds.

For the same reason that Putrid Explosion got it.

Ranger

Otyugh's Cry - Add additional effect of giving all allied pets +33% attack speed.

So you might actually bring it to PvP, especially in a pet build where you could give it to one and have all pets do more damage.

Revive Animal - Increase AoE to the range of the aggro circle

For the same reason as Light of Dwayna.

Point Blank Shot - Add the effect of not being evadable

Doesn't do enough bonus damage to justify the reduced range.

Concussion Shot - Reduce energy cost to 15

Dazed is overcosted by a lot.

Power Shot - Increase damage to 15...30

Longer recharge than Penetrating Attack and that skill does more damage.

Warrior

Belly Smash - Add +1...16 damage

Who cares about Blinding knocked down targets? There are better skills to be using, like ones that cause damage.

Hammer Bash - Increase knockdown time to 3 seconds

Considering how much adrenaline some hammer attacks take and how long it takes to get there, an attack that loses all of it really needs to be worth it.

"I Will Survive!" - Increase duration to 6...18

So if you have enough conditions, it's at least better than Healing Breeze... not that making that the case will stop any W/Mo's from carrying it.

Hundred Blades - Add damage bonus of +1...10

So it's clearly better than the non-elite Cyclone Axe instead of requiring complicated enchantment setups to get it that way.

Desperation Blow - Attack time of 3/4 second

So (maybe) it'll have a use as an "OMG they're about to die I need to attack RIGHT NOW!" skill.

Skull Crack - Reduce adrenaline to 7 strikes

Dazed is overcosted.

awesome sauce · Jan 04, 2006, 03:04 AM // 03:04

Nice. You should include some more IWAY nerfs, other than the res sig one.
You should nerf eoe and pred.

tafy69 · Jan 04, 2006, 07:57 AM // 07:57

I enjoyed reading that, I like the idea of the traversal spells having 5 second recharge. May give you a chance to actually get some wells up.. but its actually a little boost to IWAY.

Res Sigs should stay 100% hp, but boosting hard resses is better idea

Aoe boost is nice idea, especially the eruption lol

Ele attack elites are pretty pathetic atm, defo should take the conditional out or the exaustion

Oh well balances will be here soon i hope, lets see what they been upto

Slick Blade · Jan 04, 2006, 08:22 AM // 08:22

The change id like to see most is balance out disrupting chop more. This is the skill i fear most as a monk and the only reason i use an axe. To balance it with hammers id like to see hammer bash also increase recharge if interrupted or for something different maybe if using spell when knocked down loses double energy for spell.
To balance with swords they already have savage slash which interrupts for plus 1-32 damage so maybe drop the recharge of this from 10 to 5.

I also agree with the Elemental elites needing a boost.

Slick Blade · Jan 04, 2006, 10:38 AM // 10:38

Also with Res Sig it really penalises caster more than warriors. Rezzing with 25% energy isnt a big deal to most warriors like it is to casters. Although the better players have found ways to counter this i still think maybe make it so rezzed player cannot gain adrenline for 10-20 secs. Just so it penalises warriors as well as casters.

flawless650 · Jan 04, 2006, 11:12 AM // 11:12

Skull Crack- The only time I've made this elite useful was using flurry as an ias because any other ias would have already killed the target before dazed could even take effect. Otherwise, it’s nearly blind luck if you ever want to pull off a daze on a monk. The fact that dazed is a condition makes skull crack even less useful. Take out the clause that requires you to interrupt a spell and make skull crack apply dazed on a target regardless if they are casting or not and reduce the adrenaline cost.

Bull's Charge- I've tried using this skill but most people are smart enough to sidestep when trying to give a warrior a hard time and prevent critical hits. Against flag runners, this skill couldn't even keep up let alone even hit them. It's basically sprint and bull's strike combined into one skill. Change it so that it knockdown moving targets regardless whether they are fleeing or not, and make it so it cannot be evaded or blocked.

Dwarven Battle Stance- there are definitely better hammer elites out there than this one. Maybe include a speed buff of 33% along with the interrupts?

Healing Hands- I find that using this skill isn’t enough to negate an attack from a warrior or a ranger. Even sadder, I’ve found that sometimes it could barely neglect the damage from a wand. Decrease it’s recharge time and buff up the healing to maybe 70.

Energy Drain- the long recharge on this skill makes it a horrible energy management skill and energy denial skill. The fact that the energy gained is dependent on how much energy the target has makes it even more unreliable for energy management. Reduce it's recharge time to 20.

Practice Stance- a passive elite that seems to benefit only choking gas. All non-elite preparations have a lasting rate double that of their recharge rate, so this elite doesn't really give any huge benefit to them. I suggest that it loses the 50% last longer clause and is replaced by a 75% faster casting rate to make all preparations benefit.

Poison Arrow- there is the debate whether to take this elite over apply poison; the preparation is better and more energy efficient when you want to poison a team of 8 players while the elite is good for poisoning single targets. I believe that elite skills should be way more superior than a normal skill, but it seems that this is not the case. Take away the energy requirement on this elite and there is no longer fuss over which is the best.

Mind Freeze- the weakest of all mind spells. It has the same damage and duration as ice spikes except target moves 90% slower. If I wanted an elite that keeps the target from moving, then I’d take arcane echo and water trident. At least with that combo you can keep someone stationary for 20 seconds. Increase the elite’s duration to 10 seconds.

Fevered Dreams- all the hexed person has to do is move away from his teammates to totally destroy it’s usefulness; I’m not going to rely on my opponent’s IQ in order to spread conditions. Increase it’s aoe to that of a ward.

Flourish- the elite isn’t that bad on a warrior, except for the fact that it takes 1 second in order to cast. That one second is all a target needs in order to escape a warrior or disrupt it. Make this skill have an instantaneous cast and this would be a more worthy elite.

Gladiator’s Defense, Mist Form, and Defy Pain- elite self-protecting skills are totally worthless, except for obsidian flesh because at least it protects you against both physical damage and spells, in pvp. Most people are smart enough to switch targets if they see some sort of self-protect skill. If I wanted to tank in pve, I’d bring the countless other skills found in tactics, earth, protect, expertise, and inspiration. Make GD and DP capable of affecting adjacent / nearby allies and allow MF to be used on target ally.

Medion · Jan 04, 2006, 12:50 PM // 12:50

Why is it I only see upgrades for the current skills and not one nerf except the res sig?

tafy69 · Jan 04, 2006, 01:25 PM // 13:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Medion

Why is it I only see upgrades for the current skills and not one nerf except the res sig?

Ohh let me try some

Dual Shot - Increase recharge to 10 Seconds
Energy Surge - lose 1-4 energy, aoe 20 damage per energy lost
Burn - same as surge but not aoe
Signet Weariness - Lose 1 - 7 energy aoe
IWAY - Put a Cap on the max time (10 - 20 seconds or something) and not affect pets

Mysterial · Jan 04, 2006, 03:31 PM // 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Medion

Why is it I only see upgrades for the current skills and not one nerf except the res sig?

For one thing, Obsidian Flesh and Arcane Echo were also nerfs.
[EDIT: And Consume Corpse/Necrotic Traversal]

For another, I don't see any dominant "must use" or "must be able to counter" skills in PvP except for Resurrection Signet. Nor any truly dominant builds - IWAY is very popular but isn't that hard to beat and the IWAY skill itself isn't the reason it's powerful anyway. (The trick to beating IWAY is more in being able to beat it with a build that can beat other things - creating an only anti-IWAY build is pretty easy.) I'd like some ranger builds to be a little weaker but I think the problem there is not that ranger skills are too strong and more a matter of there being too few anti-ranger skills - something that hopefully will be addressed in chapter 2.

I'm more concerned with the large amount of skills that go nearly unused because they're simply not good enough.

awesome sauce · Jan 04, 2006, 06:44 PM // 18:44

He's right, res sig needs to be nerfed. Any other res is almost useless in pvp, and the only two that are really used in pve besides res sig are res and rebirth.
Reses need to return to the monk.

Mysterial · Jan 05, 2006, 05:52 AM // 05:52

Can't believe I forgot this one:

Holy Veil - Increase recharge to 15 seconds.

Fixes the balance with Remove Hex, although Holy Veil still probably would get used more because you can pre-cast it.

Phades · Jan 05, 2006, 07:32 AM // 07:32

Most of what has been presented would be interesting changes, but i believe that most of them are not neccacary for balance. It would shift some of the flavors around a little making it more interesting for awhile. There are some things i disagree with though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

Glyph of Concentration - Ignore all spellcasting time increases (Migraine, Arcane Conundrum) not just Dazed.

Dazed is overcosted and easily removed, so few use it and thus few use this Glyph since for interrupt protection Mantra of Resolve and Mantra of Concentration are far superior.

Glyph of Elemental Power - Increase attribute boost to 3.

2 more attribute points doesn't do enough extra to be worth 5 energy and 1.75 more seconds on the spell you want to use it with.

All glyphs need to affect more than one spell at a time, in order to be more comparable to other profession options in addition to being delivered faster. Just ignoring the cast time increases from hexes will not make glyph of concentration worth it, because you only begin to break even on the time lots using the glyph on spells with a cast time of 3s or more. Repeate use of such slow casting skills in addition to repeating the use time of the glyph and the energy cost is just too rediculas to really consider. It would always be better to risk the chaos storm like drain from resolve even in that instance. The attribute boost increase is interesting, but if the glyphs are one shot affairs it would need to be signifigantly higher than that as well. I would guess in the 5-8 range. Unfortunatly it would be easy to abuse with wards and some select enchantments like obsidian flesh or non-elementalist primaries. Personally i think that all the glyphs should be varaible in nature and moved to the energy storage skill line, but they would be radically different if a change like that occured.

Then there is the issue where you cant use multiple glyphs in conjunction with each other, like you can do with stance, spirit, shout, preperation, and enchantment combinations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

Mantra of Recovery - Reduce energy cost to 10

Considering that many of the Mesmer elites are super versions of other spells as well as Mesmers having Arcane Echo and Echo, it's hard to find a skill bar where you'd want multiple skills to recharge faster, not use the elite version for one of them or one of the Echo spells, and have enough energy to actually cast those spells as fast as they're recharging.

It would need to last longer too, because its only a slightly better version of serpents quickness currently and costs more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

Arcane Echo - don't allow copying Elite spells

Arcane Mimicry has a long recharge for a reason. Two elites are powerful. For many skills, it being two of the same spell isn't any less so.

Not all spells are created equal either. Many of them have a near 24/7 effect with this or glyph of renewal. You didnt talk about it, but it would be nice if the blackout effect generators, power block and blackout, had their skill listing updated so that blackout is described more like knockdown where the interupt is a byproduct of the blackout effect rather than the result of being interupted.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

Restore Life - reduce casting time to 6 seconds.

Even 6s is an eternity in pvp for someone who is a target and potentially required to heal or protect. A mesmer knocking it down to 3s or less seems more functional, but they are a soft target, splitting their skills strangely, and still need to be in touch range. If any reduction is made, it would probably need to be more than that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

Concussion Shot - Reduce energy cost to 15

Dazed is overcosted by a lot.

Rangers also have built in efficiency. If you are going to argue along these lines then most of the 15-25 energy elementalist spells should in fact be 5-10 energy as well. If you want to talk about overpriced skills start with the 10-25 energy ones that also cause exhaustion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

Belly Smash - Add +1...16 damage

Who cares about Blinding knocked down targets? There are better skills to be using, like ones that cause damage.

1-16 damage wont change that situation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

Hammer Bash - Increase knockdown time to 3 seconds

Wear stonefist gauntlets or allow the knock down time to be increased past that point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

"I Will Survive!" - Increase duration to 6...18

So if you have enough conditions, it's at least better than Healing Breeze... not that making that the case will stop any W/Mo's from carrying it.

W/mo characters would still be better off with the crap skill mending, because i will survive only adds 3 pips for each condition. Since 3 pips only counters bleeding; disease, poison, and burning are going to rip right through you anyway. Then there is the issue of degen via hexes on top of that. Basically the skill needs to more closely reflect melandru's resiliance minus the energy regeneration for it to be moderatly useful in pve. It would still be a junk skill in pvp though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

Hundred Blades - Add damage bonus of +1...10

So it's clearly better than the non-elite Cyclone Axe instead of requiring complicated enchantment setups to get it that way.

1-13 would place it very close to eviserate in general purpose work, due to the lack of a deep wound applied. 1-10 would probably be adequate initially to see how much of a change it caused in trends.

Mysterial · Jan 05, 2006, 02:58 PM // 14:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

All glyphs need to affect more than one spell at a time, in order to be more comparable to other profession options in addition to being delivered faster. Just ignoring the cast time increases from hexes will not make glyph of concentration worth it, because you only begin to break even on the time lots using the glyph on spells with a cast time of 3s or more. Repeate use of such slow casting skills in addition to repeating the use time of the glyph and the energy cost is just too rediculas to really consider. It would always be better to risk the chaos storm like drain from resolve even in that instance. The attribute boost increase is interesting, but if the glyphs are one shot affairs it would need to be signifigantly higher than that as well. I would guess in the 5-8 range. Unfortunatly it would be easy to abuse with wards and some select enchantments like obsidian flesh or non-elementalist primaries. Personally i think that all the glyphs should be varaible in nature and moved to the energy storage skill line, but they would be radically different if a change like that occured.

You're correct, particularly with these glyphs, but there's no way Arenanet is going to change their functionality drastically, and as for increasing the numbers, with balance changes you always want to go in baby steps. 3 is also not quite as useless - for example you could use it with Thunderclap to go from 6 energy per knockdown to 4 - making it a win if you get it going for any useful length. I also imagine it could be useful on mixed spike teams where each character uses a different skill on a coordinated target - using the glyph there is like free damage when you are expecting that the combination is going to kill the target.

Quote:

It would need to last longer too, because its only a slightly better version of serpents quickness currently and costs more.

Probably, but anytime I used it as a Mesmer I had too many problems trying to find the energy to cast the spells as fast as they're recharging to worry about whether or not it was lasting long enough.

Quote:

Even 6s is an eternity in pvp for someone who is a target and potentially required to heal or protect. A mesmer knocking it down to 3s or less seems more functional, but they are a soft target, splitting their skills strangely, and still need to be in touch range. If any reduction is made, it would probably need to be more than that.

Probably true, but again, baby steps.

Quote:

Rangers also have built in efficiency. If you are going to argue along these lines then most of the 15-25 energy elementalist spells should in fact be 5-10 energy as well. If you want to talk about overpriced skills start with the 10-25 energy ones that also cause exhaustion.

The 15-25 energy elementalist spells often have useful or powerful effects - e.g. Meteor Shower. Concussion shot, even with high expertise is still quite expensive for a Ranger for an effect that is almost completely useless outside of random arenas. It needs to be at least cheap enough that you can afford to spam it a little more, similar to Blinding Flash for Elementalists.

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1-16 damage wont change that situation.

Not really, but giving it some damage might have a chance of convincing some people to use it in the arenas where the condition can sometimes actually be useful.

Quote:

W/mo characters would still be better off with the crap skill mending, because i will survive only adds 3 pips for each condition. Since 3 pips only counters bleeding; disease, poison, and burning are going to rip right through you anyway. Then there is the issue of degen via hexes on top of that. Basically the skill needs to more closely reflect melandru's resiliance minus the energy regeneration for it to be moderatly useful in pve. It would still be a junk skill in pvp though.

Possibly, although you're forgetting that some conditions don't inflict degen such as Blindness and Deep Wound. Additionally Burning is always very short and the health regeneration is going to outlast it. Also it's a Shout so your stance slot is free (unlike Melandru's Resilience). I actually forgot about MR working with hexes as well, but that might be overkill for this skill.

flawless650 · Jan 05, 2006, 08:45 PM // 20:45

Concussion shot is already a good enough skill as it is, with high expertise it's cost is reduced by more than half. If you're still running into energy problems and have the intention of spamming it, why not throw in Marksman's Wager for energy management?

Weaken armor is good as it is now-any added buff to include elemental damage might make it be a bit too powerful since lightning already penetrates 25%.

If one is truely intent on using desparation blow, then maybe one should bring along balanced stance and charge to utilize the shout and stance aspects of the two skills. As it is, the skill is fine and does not require a buff.

Another nice balance would be to increase the recharge of that one pet skill, that interrupts and causes 20 second recharge, to 10 seconds.

aeronox · Jan 05, 2006, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Increase ether lord degen/regen, but possibly shorter duration? As it is it's fairly useless, and u'd almost never use it because of losing all ur energy.

Mysterial · Jan 05, 2006, 09:28 PM // 21:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by flawless650

Concussion shot is already a good enough skill as it is, with high expertise it's cost is reduced by more than half. If you're still running into energy problems and have the intention of spamming it, why not throw in Marksman's Wager for energy management?

I'd be curious to hear in what situation you think Concussion Shot is good. In my view, it is nearly useless unless you can spam it, and you can't spam it because it costs too much, so it's underpowered. I compare it to the Elementalist skill Blinding Flash, which has a similiarly crippling effect on warriors and rangers if it manages to stay on and has the same situation of needing to be cast repeatedly against a team with any condition removal at all. The difference? Blinding Flash costs 15 energy. (And before you mention Expertise, Elementalists have attunements that do nearly the same thing)

Quote:

Weaken armor is good as it is now-any added buff to include elemental damage might make it be a bit too powerful since lightning already penetrates 25%.

Why is a hex giving warriors and rangers (who also have armor penetration on some attack skills) a damage boost balanced but one that also gives some elementalist and necromancer skills a damage boost not balanced?

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If one is truely intent on using desparation blow, then maybe one should bring along balanced stance and charge to utilize the shout and stance aspects of the two skills. As it is, the skill is fine and does not require a buff.

A good point on using Balanced Stance to counter the knockdown; I had overlooked that. Still seems a little weak, but that's also due to the fact that the condition you get is random which is what makes the skill unique so I don't think that should be changed.

Quote:

Another nice balance would be to increase the recharge of that one pet skill, that interrupts and causes 20 second recharge, to 10 seconds.

Why? Unlike Distracting Shot (which does have a 10 second recharge), you cannot 'aim' Disrupting Lunge because the pet will do it on its next attack instead of having a 1/2 activation time. The faster recharge seems like reasonable compensation.

awesome sauce · Jan 05, 2006, 10:18 PM // 22:18

Mysterial are you a fan of IWAY or something. You should really add some more IWAY nerfs in there. It's is getting way too old for most people and needs to be nerfed. We need some more originality in tombs.

Robster Lobster · Jan 05, 2006, 10:55 PM // 22:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

I'd be curious to hear in what situation you think Concussion Shot is good. In my view, it is nearly useless unless you can spam it, and you can't spam it because it costs too much, so it's underpowered. I compare it to the Elementalist skill Blinding Flash, which has a similiarly crippling effect on warriors and rangers if it manages to stay on and has the same situation of needing to be cast repeatedly against a team with any condition removal at all. The difference? Blinding Flash costs 15 energy. (And before you mention Expertise, Elementalists have attunements that do nearly the same thing)

Attunes can be removed though, and have an annoying recharge time, they're not the same thing.

The problem with dazed is that it absolutely destroys all spellcasters, and they are usually the ones that are going to be handling condition management. The way you're talking about it, anyone could grab 2 rangers and shut the casters (2/3 of the classes avaliable) rendering most of the team useless.Blind doesn't affect the skills that remove it, but in most cases dazed will.

EDIT: Apart from that though, I do agree with alot of your other points, some great suggestions in there that I'd like to see implemented.

Mysterial · Jan 05, 2006, 11:22 PM // 23:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by awesome sauce

Mysterial are you a fan of IWAY or something. You should really add some more IWAY nerfs in there. It's is getting way too old for most people and needs to be nerfed. We need some more originality in tombs.

1) IWAY doesn't need to be nerfed, but in any case, I think nerfing Resurrection Signet will do quite a bit, since they have no way to quickly get themselves back to full.

2) Nerfing the FOTMs doesn't create more originality in tombs and it never has. It just causes new FOTMs to be created that then are used by the majority playing there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robster Lobster

The problem with dazed is that it absolutely destroys all spellcasters, and they are usually the ones that are going to be handling condition management. The way you're talking about it, anyone could grab 2 rangers and shut the casters (2/3 of the classes avaliable) rendering most of the team useless.Blind doesn't affect the skills that remove it, but in most cases dazed will.

It harms a single spellcaster and is conditional (you have to catch them casting a spell). Most condition removal spells are under 1 second cast times so still require effort to consistently interrupt unless you're attacking with warriors as well. Additionally, anyone can grab two rangers, load up on their fast recharging interrupt skills, and destroy them just as badly. It's not like it would make rangers do something they couldn't already do with ease. Finally, Arcane Conundrum has half the effect of Dazed (arguably the more important part), is not conditional, and is cheap.

I do agree that there's risk of going too far in the opposite direction and overpowering Dazed, especially in the arenas where condition removal is more rare. But right now just about nobody uses it, and I think there's a reason for that.

twicky_kid · Jan 05, 2006, 11:48 PM // 23:48

Res sig is balanced by DP. No need to reduce the life gain. If you killed the target once you should be able to do it again but much easier the 2nd time.

Mind burn does not need to be aoe "on fire" last for 7 seconds making it over 100 dmg in degen then another 100 from spell's dmg. Mind burn is fine the way it is.

Mind shock is fine. 1 second casting with 140 dmg is just fine.

Mind freeze does need a boost but not in dmg. I'd rather have the increased slow duration.

Ward vs Harm does not need to be 32 armor. At a 20 armor increase you are reducing all dmg by 1/4. At 32 armor you are reducing by 1/3. That's insane.

Mantra of Recovery needs to have a longer duration to be of any use. At 15 seconds you are going to get 1 more use out of most spells. For 15 energy on a mes is a huge investment.

Sheilding Hands is a very powerful skill that is often overlooked because of recharge. Peronally I have no problem with 25 recharge but I think 15 is a little much. Being able to reduce dmg by 15+ (on avg) and have a 3 second window that it is down is way too much. 20 recharge would be much better.

Consume corpse and transveral are just fine the way they are. Purtrid was given recharge due to armor ignoring 120 dmg aoe. It was not nerfed because of fast corspe control.

Point Blank shot does 100+ dmg so ya that sounds like we need to increase the dmg. Its fine the way it is.

Concussion shot at 14 expertise is 15 energy so its fine the way it is. Every ranger should have 14 expertise.