Curse

Skye Marin · Feb 01, 2008, 07:30 AM // 07:30

Balance was defined by Izzy as giving several different viable options as a goal to victory. Viable is the key word of course. It doesn't help to blindly buff, of course, because the meta would swing violently. Unseen combos can pop up months after a change. The main idea here is to buff and change skills that are obviously outclassed by other skills into new skills that would help shape the current meta to give better variety, and give more general counters to builds that depend on gimmicks or exploits. By focusing on skills with common features (be it attributes, or a skill function, like disenchantment) then meta swings won't be quite so violent.

Let's start!

Warrior - Hammer Mastery

Belly Smash - Lower recharge to 10, also causes Cracked Armor on knocked-down foes
Magebane Smash - Causes knockdown, unblockable to enchanted foes, raise cost to 6 strikes
Enraged Smash - Increase damage to +5..20 damage per charged skill
Staggering Blow - Also causes interruption and weakness
Yeti Smash - Lower cost to 4 strikes

The Magebane buff would make it a staple, and it is a fair trade to add Pulverizing Smash into a build, to sacrifice +damage for more conditions. Giving non-casters access to Cracked Armor would help proliferate it. For example, any attacking class can take Sundering Weapon for 5 energy and a slot on your bar, however skills like Body Blow aren't used. Adding an attack skill that causes Cracked Armor that has a notable downside (like requires knockdown) should make it easier to fit on a bar and buff the synergistic skills.

Paragon - Command

"Can't Touch This!" - Increase range to all party members, lower number of touch skills to 3
"Find Their Weakness!" - Increase range to all party members, lower duration to 8 seconds, Lower deep wound duration to 5..10 seconds.
"Help Me!" - Skill rework: Lower recharge to 5. For 5..15 seconds, whenever target ally is below 35..65% health, all spells cast on that ally by teammates cast 50% faster.
Anthem of Envy- Decrease cost to 4 strikes
Anthem of Guidance- Now effects the next 1..3 Attack Skills

"Find Their Weakness!" was changed to be more useful to a team, but the duration was reduced to prevent multiple foes from being affected by it. "Help Me!" can encourage easier but more efficient twitch heals. Anthem of Envy and Guidance was buffed to help improve Paragon offensive synergies. Zergway is addressed in other buffs.

Elementalist - Earth Magic

Sandstorm - Increased damage to attacking foes to 10..40, lower recharge to 25
Magnetic Aura - Change functionality: Lower recharge to 10, lower duration to 1..10, Causes weakness for 5..10 seconds to all nearby foes when target ally is hit with a physical attack, and then ends.
Crystal Wave - Lower recharge to 5, increase range to nearby
Teinai's Crystals - Lower recharge to 10, increase range to nearby, adds 5..15 seconds of weakness to nearby foes
Ebon Hawk - Lower casting time to 1 second

These change focus on punishing poor positioning of melee attackers, and giving more defense to earth elementalists in terms of weakness, and improving general builds. While weakness is a type of passive defense against attacks, it is less potent but cheaper, and as such is a little more twitchy than block webs or hexes. AoE weakness and damage punishes balled-up attackers, like Iway and Zergway. Disconnecting the clone skills between Factions / Prophecies gives more room for diversity.

Necromancer - Blood Magic

Blood Bond - Increase to +1..9 regen
Foul Feast - Skill Rework: All conditions are removed from target foe. For each condition removed, all allies in earshot are healed for 10..20 health (maximum 60)
Jaundiced Gaze - Lower sacrifice to 5%, Increase life steal to 15..80, decrease other damage to 10..40
Oppressive Gaze - Skill Rework: Target foe and adjacent foes are struck for 5..60 damage. If target foe is suffering from weakness, all nearby allies to that foe gain 20..120 health.
Ravenous Gaze - Skill Rework: 10/1/10, Remove one enchantment from target foe. If an enchantment is removed, steal 10..90 health from target foe, otherwise, steal 5..60 health. For each point of health stolen, all allies in the area of target foe are healed for that much.
Vampiric Swarm - Three other nearby allies are also healed for 30..120 health

Blood magic skills have been worked over to improve options for party healing. Consideration has been made to prevent increased versatility in Blood spike, notably by giving skill bonuses for removing enchantments, removing conditions, or having the foe have less health than you.

Longasc · Feb 01, 2008, 08:36 AM // 08:36

Nice that you think about blood magic.

But I fear that the healing options you suggested would not make it more viable, but just create more 6+ Necro bloodspike teams in HA instead of making Necros appear more often in general PvP.

I like your suggestion to reduce the casting time of Ebon Hawk, it is really unattractive because of the 2 second cast. It is already conditional (moving/attacking).

System_Crush · Feb 01, 2008, 09:40 AM // 09:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skye Marin

Necromancer - Blood Magic

Blood Bond - Increase to +1..9 regen
Foul Feast - Skill Rework: All conditions are removed from target foe. For each condition removed, all allies in earshot are healed for 10..20 health (maximum 60)
Jaundiced Gaze - Lower sacrifice to 5%, Increase life steal to 15..80, decrease other damage to 10..40
Oppressive Gaze - Skill Rework: Target foe and adjacent foes are struck for 5..60 damage. If target foe is suffering from weakness, all nearby allies to that foe gain 20..120 health.
Ravenous Gaze - Skill Rework: 10/1/10, Remove one enchantment from target foe. If an enchantment is removed, steal 10..90 health from target foe, otherwise, steal 5..60 health. For each point of health stolen, all allies in the area of target foe are healed for that much.
Vampiric Swarm - Three other nearby allies are also healed for 30..120 health

Blood magic skills have been worked over to improve options for party healing. Consideration has been made to prevent increased versatility in Blood spike, notably by giving skill bonuses for removing enchantments, removing conditions, or having the foe have less health than you.

Contrary to the N/Rt and N/Mo healers, necro's are support not healers.

I agree blood magic needs a buff, but this makes no sense.
The great thing about blood magic is that your damage is your healing, meaning you will need no additional skills other than your spells in order to be effective(except energy management)
The bad thing is that a R/N is a better blood magic user than a necro is, because blood magic lacks truly effective spells, just spamming using a gimmick build is far more effective than using the attribute correctly, a gimmic should be limited to reaching the level of a skilled bloodmancer without having actual skill, it should not surpass that level.

Aside from that blood magic offers support, in the for of wells and energy spells, because you won't need a skill bar of it to be effective.
(Problem is there aren't enough good spells to fill even half a skill bar)

[wiki]Angorodons Gaze[/wiki] was a step in the right direction, but Anet is too frightful to make blood magic useful, because necro's might actually become uncountable by hex removal/low corpse count.

What blood magic needs is inproved energy management, countered by boosting the energy denial skills in curses and perhaps rangers too.

[skill=text]Cultist's Fervor[/skill] needs to increase the casting speed of spells as well
(or half the casting time of blood magic spells).
[skill=text]Offering of Blood[/skill] should have a conditional sacrifice, like only when above 12...39(50)% of max health, because it is pretty much sup-par to [skill=text]Offering of Spirit[/skill] right now.

The damage of ranged blood magic needs to be brought on par with the touched ranged blood magic, this should be done by offering good damage skills, with less spamability than touch ranged skills and keeping the health sacrifice.
This means a ranged blood caster will need more offensive spells to deal damage, a melee one only needs 2 or 3.

[skill=text]Lifebane Strike[/skill] and [skill=text]Shadow Strike[/skill] have their recharges increased to 12 seconds, and their casting times reduced to 1.5, they always deal 12...41(51) damage and steal 12...41(51) health.
[skill=text]Dark Pact[/skill] increase the damage to 5...65(85) and increase the casting time to 2 seconds.
[skill=text]Blood Drinker[/skill] decrease casting time to 1 second.
[skill=text]Jaundiced Gaze[/skill] increase damage, or reduce health sacrifice.
[skill=text]Ravenous Gaze[/skill] Make the damage 50/50 or change it to:
Steal 15...27(31) health from target foe, another 15...27(31) if you where below 75% of your max health, another 15...27(31) if you where below 50% and another 15...27(31) when below 25%.
(Based off of when you cast, not after receiving a fist little bit of health)
[skill=text]Oppressive Gaze[/skill] should steal 5...26(33) health, form foe and adjacent unconditionally, you gain 1...4(5) energy for each foe suffering from weakness.

Lastly the supportive function of blood magic needs to be improved.
The well, order and energy regeneration skills are fine, but the other support is pretty lacking.

[skill=text]Mark of Subversion[/skill] at least half the recharge, preferably by even more.
Also add an anti spell for hexing spells and move [wiki]Defile Defenses[/wiki] to blood magic(perhaps renaming it).
Also add a "Mark of the Unfaithful" against enchantments, that does not make the skill fail, but instead steals health from each target that became enchanted.
[skill=text]Vampiric Swarm[/skill] should target an ally and make that ally steal 10...60(90) health from up to 3 adjacent foes.
[skill=text]Order of the Vampire[/skill] make it steal more health or reduce the health sacrifice.
[skill=text]Blood Bond[/skill] make it transfer all new conditions that ally receives too you.

Damage and support, that is what necro's do, that is what blood magic should offer.

Mangione · Feb 01, 2008, 10:00 AM // 10:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skye Marin

Paragon - Command

"Can't Touch This!" - Increase range to all party members, lower number of touch skills to 3

This is really cool as buff.
Would make this skill a bit more desirable, would be useful in the AB where you see from time to time teams of 4 touchers.
But that would make Slaver's exile dungeons a lot easier... think at the big spawn of touchers before Selvetarm, or the small groups before Duncan.
Would make vanquishing in Kryta (already easy if you know what you are doing) a lot easier too (scarabs spam touch skills like crazy).

And some other things that don't come to my mind atm...

Since it is unstrippable maybe it would be better if was

"Increase range to all party members in the area, lower number of touch skills to 3"

So it is the same range of a ward/well spell.

For the rest, I think it is a nice suggestion.
I like System_crush suggestions too.
/congrats

Sleeper Service · Feb 01, 2008, 10:02 AM // 10:02

the thing that makes blood magic useless is not the skills it has, its the 10 degeneration/regeneration cap limit.

with the amount of anti hex, hex removal, condition removal spells out there now i really dont see why we still have that.

arcanemacabre · Feb 01, 2008, 10:09 AM // 10:09

Honestly, the main problem with life stealing skills is that the mechanic behind life steal (not counting as 'damage,' so is impossible to protect against) is broken. Therefore, to balance life steal skills and effects, they must be seriously underpowered in general to prevent abuse. I wish the whole mechanic was removed and replaced with the wording - "target takes x...x damage, and you gain x...x health."

Wildi · Feb 01, 2008, 11:39 AM // 11:39

Dual conditional life steal is pointless, I'm looking at you Oppressive Gaze. A simple "You gain xx Health from any who were suffering from Weakness", would have been better.
I just can't believe people from anet have a meeting, go over the issues and decide double conditional life steal is the way to fix a skill.

Stormlord Alex · Feb 01, 2008, 11:49 AM // 11:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wildi

I just can't believe people from anet have a meeting, go over the issues and decide double conditional life steal is the way to fix a skill.

Ham-fisted it may have been, but Oppressive Gaze needed to die. It ended up as a degenerate spike skill, FoC except without the retarded recharge and non-elite, and was thusly bad for the game.

The inherent trouble with Blood Magic as a damage-dealing line is that there is absolutely no way to defend against life-steal; buff up the damage options to be on par with other casters (Rage and Splinter from Channelers, MB + RI Fire guys) and you end up with degenerate bloodspikes.

I like the OP's idea, or things similar to it - instead of making Blood a viable damage line (which would end up as lame spikes), turn it more towards a party-support line. Would definately need some careful thinking though, otherwise you'd just end up being better with Kaolai on a Rit or HP on an ele still; and Blood Magic still being ignored.

... well, the Necro class as a whole could do with a total revamp imo.

Pyro maniac · Feb 01, 2008, 12:20 PM // 12:20

Those buffs seem very random and please tell me why this would affect the current-meta?
The warrior buffs aren't needed, a hammer isn't meant to poop out random damage.
also:

Quote:

Crystal Wave - Lower recharge to 5, increase range to nearby
Teinai's Crystals - Lower recharge to 10, increase range to nearby, adds 5..15 seconds of weakness to nearby foes

wut?

Skye Marin · Feb 01, 2008, 02:10 PM // 14:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Longasc

Nice that you think about blood magic.

But I fear that the healing options you suggested would not make it more viable, but just create more 6+ Necro bloodspike teams in HA instead of making Necros appear more often in general PvP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre

Honestly, the main problem with life stealing skills is that the mechanic behind life steal (not counting as 'damage,' so is impossible to protect against) is broken. Therefore, to balance life steal skills and effects, they must be seriously underpowered in general to prevent abuse. I wish the whole mechanic was removed and replaced with the wording - "target takes x...x damage, and you gain x...x health."

Agreed. Bloodspike's prot-ignoring properties are the biggest problem. Vamp weapons would be exempt, because Reversal of Fortune would be triggered by the 3 damage hit, which would cause a ruckus.

More to follow.

MithranArkanere · Feb 01, 2008, 05:13 PM // 17:13

I do like adding Cracked Armor to a Hammer Mastery skill, but not the way you say. Maybe taking the less used Weakness-applying Hammer Mastery Core skill and changing Weakness for Cracked Armor.

Teinai's Crystal and Crystal Wave MUST have the same description. They are copycat skills. They are THE SAME skill.

And I don't like the rest of the changes.

HawkofStorms · Feb 01, 2008, 06:21 PM // 18:21

Magebane smash almost seems too powerful. An unblockable devistating hammer that costs less adrenaline. Yes please.

Kanyatta · Feb 02, 2008, 01:04 AM // 01:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skye Marin

Balance was defined by Izzy as giving several different viable options as a goal to victory.

Yea, there are always different viable options to obtain victory, but the problem with that logic, is that there will always be 1 to 2 builds that are just a bit more powerful than another viable build, thus making what we know as the "meta".

You will only not see a "metagame" when Guild Wars is renamed to "Stick Wars" and everyone is running around with 0 Armor, a req. 0 10-10 damage Stick of Stick Mastery (+1 to Stick Mastery 20%), and all the skills are like "Stick Smash: You smash target for for +0...0 damage", and the only attribute for it is Stick Mastery, which does something to the effect of "You're stick mastery allows you to do another +0 damage with your stick every 3 for every 3 levels of stick mastery".

Only if you have a game like that, then there will not be anything IMBA.

Horseman Of War · Feb 02, 2008, 01:34 AM // 01:34

magebane smash is almost a cool skill... Id like to see it get a slight tweak to enter the playing field

Skye Marin · Feb 06, 2008, 05:54 PM // 17:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

This game does not need "dartboard updates." Some skills are just total shit by design and are never going to find use unless they are so blatantly overpowered in a handful of situations or selective builds that they wind up having to be nerfed again.

Balance needs to be done from the ground up. You don't say "Stone Sheath is a pile of shit, buff it," you say "this aspect of the game needs more options, this skill looks like it fits the bill, or used to fit the bill and has not moved with the rest of the game, buff it."

Discord remains my favorite example: Garbage skill, and then it gets some buffage and winds up seeing viability..... on teams with 6 Necro heroes spamming Enfeeble/P-Bond then sync-spiking with Discord over and over. Why? Because it's a single-target DD you have to spend your elite slot for, and on top of that, it's REALLY conditional. The game doesn't have room for something like that.

Stuff like Amity is the same way. It's a skill that basically says "LOL U LOSE" if it's capable of staying on a target, if it ever hits the point where you're able to reliably stick it on a target, it'll be quite overpowered, and if it doesn't, then it'll remain useless. For the health of the game, hopefully it remains useless.

Wise words. I agree that it's about expanding options. I hope my explanations suffice.

Moving on:

Ranger - Wilderness Survival
Barbed Arrows - No longer easily interruptible.
Healing Spring - Increased range to area, reduced healing to 15..45 per pulse.
Roaring Winds - Shouts and Chants are also reduced in range from earshot to area.
Piercing Trap - decreased recharge to 20.

Again approaching the team healing issue, healing spring seems like it could be a good utility skill for groups against pressure with a well planned change. The range was increased, but the healing reduced. The trap is still easily interrupted, which is part of it's balance, but is not especially overpowered by other skills that buff traps. Roaring Winds was buffed to give a more specialized skill to counter Zergway.

Monk - Smiting Prayers
Reversal of Damage - Reduce recharge to 3 seconds.
Smite Condition - Reduce recharge to 5 seconds.
Judge's Intervention - Triggers when foe is hit to under 25% of health, lower damage to 30..120.
Balthazar's Pendulum - Change skill functionality: for 1..8 seconds, the next time target ally is struck by a foe with an attack skill, that foe is knocked down, and takes 10..75 damage. Increased recharge to 10.
Ray of Judgment - Change skill functionality: 10/2/5 target foe and nearby foes are struck for 15..70 holy damage. Attacking and summoned foes are set on fire for 1..7 seconds.

Smiting Prayers is a skill line that has a lot of contention with a lot of players, so I'll tread lightly here. Reversal of Damage was brought in line with Vengeful Weapon (consider the DF bonus equivalent to the life stolen back). Other skills were reworked to act as a bit more effective punishment for causing damage. Bathazar's Pendulum was changed to a sort of mini SoJ, but only blocks one attack skill in a chain. The attack still hits, so it's not as abusive as Clumsiness, but still worth an elite slot.

Mesmer - Fast Casting / Inspiration
Stolen Speed - Increase to 50% / 50%, increase recharge to 10
Persistence of Memory - decrease cost to 5, decrease recharge to 10
Symbols of Inspiration - Increase duration to 5..30, lower energy gain to 1..5
Discharge Enchantment - increase recharge time bonus to 30..75%
Feedback - lower recharge to 20
Extend Conditions - Skill rework: For the next 1..3 conditions that expire on target foe, those conditions are renewed for half of their initial application time (maximum 10 seconds)
Energy Drain - Returns an additional 1 point of energy for every 2 points invested in Fast Casting
Shatter storm - target foe loses all enchantments. For each enchantment removed this way, Shatter storm recharges for 5 additional seconds (max 15)

Stolen Speed was buffed, encouraging the use of twitch interrupts by making them a little bit easier to use, a little more often, but still worth an elite slot. Disenchantment on a Mesmer has been buffed to meet similar abilities on a Necromancer. Energy Drain has been buffed in a way that only Mesmers can use, making it more worth the elite slot.

Assassin - Dagger / Shadow Arts
[B]Jagged Strike - If target foe is already bleeding, this attack does +5..20 damage
Repeating strike - Increase damage to +5..40
Leaping Mantis Sting - causes crippling on foes moving or using a skill
Shattering Assault - causes +5..50 damage instead of 5..50 damage
Hidden Caltrops - reduce duration to 5 seconds
Shadow of Haste - Skill rework: for 5..15 seconds, you move 33% faster. If you move out of earshot range from the position you casted Shadow of Haste, this stance ends (no teleport). Reduce recharge to 10.
Shadowy Burden - Increase slow to 33%, remove -20 armor, add cracked armor on dual-strike
Way of the Lotus - Lower recharge to 12.
Wastrel's Collapse - Skill re-work: If target foe is not using a skill or attacking, that foe is knocked down.

The focus here was to make the assassin more flexible by giving more variety for pressure and utility. Shadow of Haste was changed from a previously abused, then nerfed shadow-stepping skill into a stance that lasts a long time when staying in the same area - great for chasing down foes. Hidden Caltrops's shorter duration and guarantee to trigger will help it's effectiveness as a snare tool. Way of the Lotus was buffed to make the Shadow Arts investment worthwhile. Wastrel's Collapse was buffed significantly to encourage more tactical use of knockdowns as combo starters as well as snares and opportunistic shutdown. Compare to Water Trident: longer recharge, no projectile, but no damage. A player is always one of the following: Using a skill, moving, attacking, or standing still. WT covers moving, and WD covers moving and standing still.