Curse

Khomet Si Netjer · Dec 01, 2010, 05:14 PM // 17:14

So... Cautery Signet. 2s activation time, 15s recharge, removes all conditions from everyone and gives you 1s burning per condition.

I feel that this skill needs help to be viable... even if we only consider paragon skills, cautery signet is inferior to the alternatives. Song of Purification provides mass condition removal and gives you energy, and IJAFW recharges much faster and has no activation time. With non-paragon skills you have Pure Was Li Ming (mass condition removal), Draw Conditions and Foul Feast (remove all conditions, .25s activation), Mend Body and Soul (heal + remove many conditions) and powerful elite condition removal such as Restore Condition and Peace and Harmony. The elite skill most similar in function to Cautery Signet is probably Martyr, but Martyr recharges faster and activates faster.

Given all of the above it's easy to see why Cautery Signet doesn't see much use. The question is, what can we do to make it better. Reducing activation and recharge time is obvious but I'm wondering if we can do something better.

MidnightOokami · Dec 01, 2010, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Most classes have a lot of condition removals, so it's pretty easy to switch to an alternative class and use their condition removal. I think if it was to be any good use it should keep everything the same (cast, recharge, remove the condition removal) and just remove one hex from every party member. It would be powerful enough because Paragons aren't full support nor full damage, so it could remove a hex every fifteen seconds and not be weak either since you would be helping the monk a lot by just removing some pressure.

Even if that is still too powerful then just make it all other party members affected and thanks to fifteen seconds you can't spam it so it should be pretty balanced. That's just my opinion though, I'm not really going to continue talking about all the other Paragon skills since they are still working on the Dervish as well as other updates so I'm letting anet fix one thing at a time.

Skyy High · Dec 01, 2010, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Cautery Signet is fine at what it does. In fact, it's great at what it does. When I'm facing party-wide condition spreading, it's always a choice between Extinguish and Cautery Signet. It's unlinked to any attribute, it removes ALL conditions without any requirements, and the drawback of burning is negligible (it certainly kicks Martyr's ass in that regard). Most of the other skills mentioned in the OP are single-target, only remove a few conditions, have clauses that need to be met for the skill to work, require attribute point investment to be useful, or some combination of these drawbacks. Song of Purification has the additional problems of needing the players to activate skills to remove conditions, and not being available on demand.

Not needing to spend att points to get the skill to function alone is reason enough to leave it as-is. This is like complaining that Empathic Removal is worthless because there are better hex/condition/healing elites available for monks.

FoxBat · Dec 01, 2010, 08:21 PM // 20:21

The skill is not useless but it's fairly niche, basically mandragors and cleaning Abbaddon's daze. I would buff the recharge to 10s and still leave it in it's niche. There are plenty of completely worthless paragon elites like angelic bond to rework if you want something new.

dasmitchies · Dec 01, 2010, 10:10 PM // 22:10

1 sec casting time. Seriously give a Gon a bone.

NerfHerder · Dec 01, 2010, 10:25 PM // 22:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by MidnightOokami

I think if it was to be any good use it should keep everything the same (cast, recharge, remove the condition removal) and just remove one hex from every party member

I like the idea of giving the Paragon some viable hex removal. Maybe its just me but it seems every foe in PvE has hexes/skills meant to shutdown Paragons. Hexbreaker Aria? WTF? I'm supposed to gain 8 adrenaline and spend an easily interruptable 2 seconds casting it with Soothing images and whatever melee hate hexes are on me and then cast a spell? Yeah, yeah, I know, put antihex on heros, I'm just sayin.

However, I dont know if Cautery Signet is the right place for this. Maybe if any conditions were removed one hex is also removed. That would be a more conditional(no pun intended) form of hex removal that might not be OP. I'm thinking of PvP uses and not having to split the skill as well.

FoxBat · Dec 01, 2010, 11:03 PM // 23:03

Hexbreaker aria uses to be 1s recharge, and was changed for some very unknown reason to push hex builds. I would just put some nominal motivation requirement on it (5?) and pull it to 1s, its not like hexes are hurting in the pvp meta.

Luminarus · Dec 02, 2010, 12:06 AM // 00:06

In terms of party wide condition removal that pretty much smash it theres Pure Was Mei Ling (the condition pot, forget proper name), recovery (spirit that reduces condition duration by about 55-60%, martyr (party wide draw).

I like the turn they took with IJAFW, giving the ally whose condition was removed a variably offensive or defensive buff to run faster. I think Cautery should be changed to leadership

Cautery Signet (Elite) 0 Energy, 1 Second cast time, 10 Second Recharge
All party members within earshot lose all conditions. For each condition removed you suffer from burning for 2....1 second and attack 33% faster for 0...1...2 seconds.

Its biggest issue atm in my opinion is that if your facing a condition heavy team which is the only situation thats gonna make it really worthwhile is they almost always have a ranger. Signets have a nice sexy symbol above their head alerting everyone observing that your casting a signet, and with a 2 second cast it would be to easy to select you and fire off a d-shot to knock it out. 1 Second is still easily ruptable with even moderate ping. You do still get burnign, but ive increased the length of burning at low leadership to punish secondaries using it. I was thinking of giving it 0 seconds at 12+ leadership, but thought that might be a bit op.
Finally the IAS in it. This would be a good way to give paragons an IAS without the downsides of AR/Soldiers however it wouldn't be op, because if you verse a team without conditions your not going to have an IAS available.

Another I wasnt sure if leadership or motivation would be a better option. Leadership would give it more versatility as part of a command or motivation support gon, and motivation already has 2 condition removals. Option 3 could be command or spear mastery with a >4 leadership req.

Khomet Si Netjer · Dec 02, 2010, 03:57 PM // 15:57

For those who think Cautery Signet is fine as is... at the moment, it is the best way to deal with Murakai and Abaddon and Mandragor mobs. However other than these corner cases it isn't very useful. Martyr has the same issue but I'll let people in the monk forums worry about that.

I like both of the suggestions made so far. I might as well post my own suggestion and see what people think of it. The intent is to make something unique that has synergy with other paragon skills.

Cautery Signet. 1s activation time, 15s recharge
Removes all conditions from all party members.
Target foe and all nearby foes are set on fire for 1 second per condition removed.

Aside from removing conditions from the party, this punishes enemies that use condition spam and has good synergy with They're On Fire, Glowing Signet, etc. The 'burning on all nearby' feature is delivered by plenty of non-elite skills.

Steps_Descending · Dec 04, 2010, 05:21 AM // 05:21

I alway wondered why there was such a high cooldown, isn't the burning there to discourage you from using it too much?
No cooldown might be problematic, but I could see a 5sec MAXIMUM (I honestly prefer 2-3 sec) with the current functionnality, at least so it could work as an "offensive" condition immunity. Takes off a lot of condition-pressure and give a source of burning.

WarcryOfTruth · Dec 04, 2010, 01:30 PM // 13:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

For those who think Cautery Signet is fine as is... at the moment, it is the best way to deal with Murakai and Abaddon and Mandragor mobs. However other than these corner cases it isn't very useful. Martyr has the same issue but I'll let people in the monk forums worry about that.

I like both of the suggestions made so far. I might as well post my own suggestion and see what people think of it. The intent is to make something unique that has synergy with other paragon skills.

Cautery Signet. 1s activation time, 15s recharge
Removes all conditions from all party members.
You, target foe, and all nearby foes are set on fire for 1 second per condition removed.

Aside from removing conditions from the party, this punishes enemies that use condition spam and has good synergy with They're On Fire, Glowing Signet, etc. The 'burning on all nearby' feature is delivered by plenty of non-elite skills.

I fixed it Khomet, that way there is a drawback, otherwise this screams abuse in PvP, punish the caster, because it is very powerful in the functionality you described, so I think what i added is legit, I don't know I'm tired...

Lanier · Dec 04, 2010, 03:47 PM // 15:47

I dont know... the thing is that Paragons already have 3... 3 elite condition removals. Thats too much imo. If you buff one, the others will become less useful. What needs to happen is a functionality change, and I think that SoP is a good candidate for this. Change Song of Purification into a hex removal skill rather than a condition removal (adrenaline cost can be increased to compensate). This would give paragons the unique distinction of having the only AoE hex removal and might even make them see more use in the hex-heavy PvP formats. It would also give paragons some more variety in their elites, leaving IJaFW and cautionary as the only condition removal elites.

As for Cautionary Signet, Id like to see its casting time reduced to 1 second and recharge reduced to 7-8 seconds. After all... it is elite and it does have another downside.

IJaFW could also probably use a small change. The speed boost isn't all that big of a deal in PvE and it isnt used at all in PvP. Id like to see the secondary effect changed to something else that fits in with the motivation line. Maybe make it a battery/condition removal hybrid. Target ally gains 0-2 energy for every condition removed.

Sirius Bsns · Dec 04, 2010, 04:18 PM // 16:18

It should be turned into:

Cautery Signet (Elite Signet.); 2s [cast time]; 15s [cool down] Removes Blind, Daze, Weakness, Cripple and Deep Wound from all party members. Casts twice as fast, and all party members gain 50 health if Leadership 5 or higher.

Only paragons could ever reap the complete bonus of Cautery Signet with the above requirement met.

Also, if cool down's too short, 20s would also be appropriate. Heck, even 25s is acceptable! It's awesome bar compression, and it'd be better than leaving it how it is.

Lanier · Dec 04, 2010, 04:28 PM // 16:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sirius Bsns

It should be turned into:

Cautery Signet (Elite Signet.); 2s [cast time]; 15s [cool down] Removes Blind, Daze, Weakness, Cripple and Deep Wound from all party members and gain 50 health. Casts twice as fast if Leadership 5 or higher.

Only paragons could ever reap the speed boost of Cautery Signet with the above requirement met.

Also, if cool down's too short, 20s would also be appropriate. Heck, even 25s is acceptable! It's awesome bar compression, and it'd be better than leaving it how it is.

Oh, I like this idea. Maybe link the health gain to leadership somehow? "and gain 50 health if leadership is 5 or higher". We should submit these ideas to anet since they've said they're having trouble coming up with ideas on how to change paragons.

ogre_jd · Dec 04, 2010, 04:45 PM // 16:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steps_Descending

I alway wondered why there was such a high cooldown, isn't the burning there to discourage you from using it too much?
No cooldown might be problematic, but I could see a 5sec MAXIMUM

Nah. 10s. Match Martyr with the burning to account for the fact that it's free to use.

Steps_Descending · Dec 04, 2010, 05:10 PM // 17:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by ogre_jd

Nah. 10s. Match Martyr with the burning to account for the fact that it's free to use.

Still think it's a little too high, but if it's comparable to the other skills, makes sense I guess. Beside, cooldown redux isn't unhead of. I was acounting for the 2 sec casting time in the cd, so 5 sec still meant 7 sec.

Sirius Bsns · Dec 04, 2010, 06:01 PM // 18:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by ogre_jd

Nah. 10s. Match Martyr with the burning to account for the fact that it's free to use.

If it were 10 seconds like Martyr, then which of the two would you take? Obviously Cautery because it's a signet, which won't trigger any spell-based hexes, won't be affected by dazed, AND heals every 10s. It'd also be even more OPd with signet cool down reductions from the mesmer line. It'd be HP + Martyr, but better! /notsigned; 15-25s cool down would be good enough.

Steps_Descending · Dec 04, 2010, 11:52 PM // 23:52

It gives burning tought, and it's twice as long to cast.

Khomet Si Netjer · Dec 05, 2010, 04:33 AM // 04:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

Oh, I like this idea. Maybe link the health gain to leadership somehow? "and gain 50 health if leadership is 5 or higher". We should submit these ideas to anet since they've said they're having trouble coming up with ideas on how to change paragons.

I've submitted tons of suggestions to Anet, all they have to do is use them. :-)

Lots of others have suggested things too and I don't think it's rocket science. The paragon skills need to improve so that they are not strictly inferior to the other professions, that way they become a viable option relative to the others. Their damage capability is too low, their offensive support is too low, their healing/energy support has been nerfed into uselessness, the only thing they are still good at is PVE skill abuse (namely TNTF/SY) and even that is arguably outshined by a ST communing ritualist. Sadly the ritualist does not need any PVE skills to do this either, his native skills are good enough to do the job.

Anyways check them out if you want to, I think the suggestions are good but if you have better ones this may be a good time to share.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:..._skill_changes

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarcryOfTruth

I fixed it Khomet, that way there is a drawback, otherwise this screams abuse in PvP, punish the caster, because it is very powerful in the functionality you described, so I think what i added is legit, I don't know I'm tired...

That's fine, burning on the user is not a big deal either way, it is easily removed with remedy signet or various other skills. The think I liked about the mass burning on foes is that it fits the theme of the skill, it has synergy with other paragon skills, and it gives you a reason to take cautery signet vs. song of purification which is usually superior to it. While mass burning is useful I don't think it is ZOMG powerful, it is easily caused by Searing Flames, Rodgort's Invocation, Mark of Rodgort, Incendiary Arrows, Flame Trap, Ray of Judgment and more. Granted, many of those are elite skills but Cautery Signet is an elite skill too.

LifeInfusion · Dec 06, 2010, 02:48 PM // 14:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

Change Song of Purification into a hex removal skill rather than a condition removal (adrenaline cost can be increased to compensate).

Brilliant. Now your only problem is Vocal Minority, which can be fixed by Cure Hex on monk; Convert Hexes on a midliner.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sirius Bsns

It should be turned into:

Cautery Signet (Elite Signet.); 2s [cast time]; 15s [cool down] Removes Blind, Daze, Weakness, Cripple and Deep Wound from all party members. Casts twice as fast, and all party members gain 50 health if Leadership 5 or higher.

What about Poison, Bleeding, Disease...?