Curse

Hella Good · Sep 27, 2006, 05:13 AM // 05:13

Too bad that MoM is such a bad skill. It has one of the best new skill names. But then Fevered Dreams soulds wonderful as well and so does Spoil Victor, and we know how good those turned out to be. A pity, I would think that a Master of Magic would be able to do more than just leech on recharging E-storage skills. Apartently, I have been miscalculating.

Hyprodimus Prime · Sep 27, 2006, 02:42 PM // 14:42

Well when used right, any skill can be useful. Fevered dreams+"Victory is Mine!"=infinate energy and infinate health. All you have to do is leach off ViM off you Warrior partner and you get a deccent health boost and full energy too.

And Damit AN!!!! make your descriptions more clear!, You could have said,

"Master of Magic: 10/1/30
Elite Enchantment Spell. For 20 seconds, whenever you cast a spell you gain 0-2 Energy for each recharging Skill IN ENERGY STORAGE."

But even so, you can use Auspicious incantation or Glyph of Sacrifice to lengthen Aura of Restoration. But you know what thats too much work for too little gain and you cant have Aura on a 30 sec recharge, its your cover enchant! I give MoM thumbs down.

Hyprodimus Prime · Sep 27, 2006, 02:48 PM // 14:48

My edit button doesnt seem to be working, so ill post this in a new post.

I just found this on guild wiki. http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Talk:Master_of_Magic

It says that it was bugged. Can anyone explain this? Is there new hope? Did AN make a mistake?

Ensign · Sep 27, 2006, 03:23 PM // 15:23

The comparison for a skill's usefulness is not 'empty skill slot'. It is whatever other skill would have gone in that slot. If a skill does not compare favorably to whatever else could have gone in that slot, that skill is bad.

I once ran into a pick up monk who used the following technique to deal with a condition on a teammate: Draw Conditions -> Blessed Light on himself -> Orison of Healing. When I had the nerve to suggest trying a Mend after he was furiously clicking on his empty energy bar, he got indignant, saying that it's his choice to do things differently.

While I will not argue with that logic, I cannot help but to look skeptically at someone who insists on trying to drive in his nails with a spatula. I mean, sure, it's *different* than using a hammer, but what do you think you're proving?

Peace,
-CxE

Hella Good · Sep 27, 2006, 04:07 PM // 16:07

Here is a snippet from Wiki that might give some insight into the MoM issue:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Titine

For the moment this skill is bugged : you gain energy for each recharging Skill that doesn't share this Spell's attribute

Here is a direct link, altho I think it won't work:

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Talk:Master_of_Magic

frojack · Sep 27, 2006, 09:26 PM // 21:26

Well maye theres hope afterall. It does have the best name at least. Use it for fashion

.

There may be some hope for Stone Sheath also. I'm sorry, I just don't get the usefulness of this elite. Stone Striker is quirky sure, but it's not elite so it's not so bad. However I can't find the reason Stone Sheath deserves to be an elite skill.

Hella Good · Sep 27, 2006, 09:36 PM // 21:36

I think the basic idea is that by converting the damage to Elemental you can gain higher armor benefit from a number of skill, and anything that increases resistence to elements- Elemental Resistence, Mantra of Earth, Feigned Neutrality, Weapon of Warding, Watch Yourself!, Armor of Earth, to name a few. You can also use Geomancer armor or any other + armor vs elements set. And finally you can utilize +7 armor vs elemental damage wep mods. It's technically a protection skill but I don't understand the elite status. I'm sure someone, somewhere will come up with a use.

Hyprodimus Prime · Sep 28, 2006, 03:12 AM // 03:12

Add in Ward against Elements and you should be pretty good, that with someone spamming barrage and spamming "Wtach yourself!" will provide hefty damage control. thats a total of 44 armor buff inside the ward.

Riotgear · Sep 28, 2006, 05:28 AM // 05:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by frojack

There may be some hope for Stone Sheath also. I'm sorry, I just don't get the usefulness of this elite. Stone Striker is quirky sure, but it's not elite so it's not so bad. However I can't find the reason Stone Sheath deserves to be an elite skill.

Seems to be designed for gimping Orders. Nightfall seems like it's loaded with tons of subtle shots against IWAY (i.e. anti-shout hexes, Signet of Sorrow, etc.) and that may just be another. If you had a mostly-ranger team I suppose it could work quite well. Don't think that's worth the elite though.

Stone Striker appears to be designed for leveraging Geomancer's armor for a cheap survivability boost.

This kind of sucks though, the new skills are so much better that things have been really BLAH ever since the weekend ended. This is gonna be a long month. :P

Ensign · Sep 28, 2006, 07:38 AM // 07:38

You get 62 armor from Armor of Earth, and 84 from Kinetic Armor. You get +10 from while enchanted armor, and +5 more from a staff head (since you're going to use enchanting).

How good does Stone Sheath have to be to replace one of those skills on your bar?

Not calling it useless...but it's really freaking weak. This needs some sort of mechanical buff to make it playable.

Peace,
-CxE

Thom Bangalter · Sep 28, 2006, 08:40 AM // 08:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

You get 62 armor from Armor of Earth, and 84 from Kinetic Armor. You get +10 from while enchanted armor, and +5 more from a staff head (since you're going to use enchanting).

How good does Stone Sheath have to be to replace one of those skills on your bar?

Not calling it useless...but it's really freaking weak. This needs some sort of mechanical buff to make it playable.

Peace,
-CxE

Unfortunately, not all skills are going to be playable, It's too hard to balance them. However, they have to add new skills somewhere to appease people, so if you can't think of something good and balanced, just put random crap there and let people enjoy the good ones.

frojack · Sep 28, 2006, 12:20 PM // 12:20

Some interesting points. The orders thing seems to be the most logical. Nobody uses orders in pvp unless there's something wrong with them (to the best of my knowledge) so maybe this is here to kill the B/P locusts who ravage all the high-end areas (Urgoz being a prime example). In that regard, I'd call it a monster skill.
Also, does it only function on physical damage? Same goes for Stone Striker. I didn't try that out personally. If that's the case for Stone Sheath, then that seriously makes it look really rubbish.
Additionally, if all you need is a non-ebon weapon mod to counter the effects of Stone Striker, why bother with it in anything but gimped farming builds? Elemental Resistance will still be of use I guess, but wheres your energy gonna' come from? You can't use both ER and a Mantra, and you obviously can't use Balthazar's Spirit or Essence Bond either.

The only way either might be of use is if they converted the non-typed damage from say warrior skills into earth. Now that would be insanely good. If a little unrealistic ^_^.

Mysterial · Sep 28, 2006, 02:55 PM // 14:55

It works on all attack damage of any type, so it also breaks Conjures as well as a couple Dervish skills. That's still a narrow use; I'm really surprised they didn't also add another defensive skill or two that works off earth damage.

Damage bonuses from attack skills become armor ignoring earth damage, which basically means Mantra of Earth will still reduce it but otherwise doesn't do much.

Phades · Sep 29, 2006, 01:24 AM // 01:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

Unfortunately, not all skills are going to be playable, It's too hard to balance them. However, they have to add new skills somewhere to appease people, so if you can't think of something good and balanced, just put random crap there and let people enjoy the good ones.

There is no point in inserting unplayable skills into an already saturated playing environment in both pvp and pve. Its just a waste of design time and disk space.

Hella Good · Sep 29, 2006, 05:26 AM // 05:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

You get 62 armor from Armor of Earth, and 84 from Kinetic Armor. You get +10 from while enchanted armor, and +5 more from a staff head (since you're going to use enchanting).

How good does Stone Sheath have to be to replace one of those skills on your bar?

Not calling it useless...but it's really freaking weak. This needs some sort of mechanical buff to make it playable.

Peace,
-CxE

My thoughts were more along the lines of a team situation, where converting the damage to elemental can provide benefits to allies, not only the caster. I wasn't suggesting the skill outperforms existing proto skills, it was more like brainstorming how the skill can be used. It's very similar to Greater Conflag, altho GC is far more cumbersome to make good use of.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

There is no point in inserting unplayable skills into an already saturated playing environment in both pvp and pve. Its just a waste of design time and disk space.

I've said this before, they are overdoing it with the 10 new elites per prof, perf chapter. Most of the stuff is niche and hardly usable. They generally come up with good new non-elite skills but it seems when they start working on the elites they can never come up with more than a couple of good ones per prof. I'd be more than happy with 5 new elites only, but most worthwhile, than 10 new elites, and most niche and outright unplayable. However, quantity is clearly ANet's choice over quality when it comes to new skills.

johnmedgla · Sep 30, 2006, 08:36 AM // 08:36

I'm sure it's occured to all of you, but I was having really absurd amounts of fun in ABs and RA just slapping Mark of Rodgort on someone and spamming Glowing Gaze and Flare. Using Flame Djinn's Haste, it made it absurdly easy to evade any warriors who took an interest. Rangers were still a problem, but it was hilariously funny to keep someone burning for 30 seconds, dealing 50 odd damage over 2 seconds, and keep a full energy bar ready for a money skill when their health took a sufficient dip.

I was really looking for a skill similar to Glowing Gaze/Glowstone in the Air attribute - but then I was hoping for Rampant Thunderclap abuse, lol. I'm not sure why, but I still have fond memories of taking a Mesmer, and BiP Necro and Boon/Prot into Team Arenas with my Thunderclap Ele and demoloshing everything we encountered.

Thunderclap and BiP = Zomg! Did I mention that I love Thunderclap? So yes, a lightning damage + energy return would be truly wonderful, but I understand why it isn't there.