Curse

IMMORTAlMITCH · Dec 02, 2008, 01:42 AM // 01:42

My thoughts on what the next skill balance should be:

[Power Block]
Spell. If target foe is casting a spell or chant, that skill is interrupted. The foe is interrupted regardless of any effects that prevent interrupts. The interrupted skill and all skills of the same attribute are disabled for 2..11 seconds for that foe.
15e .25c 20r -> 10e .25c 15r

Makes coincidental PBlocks less powerful but keeps some of it's strength there. (Consider making it a skill instead of a spell so you can't get HSR on it)

[Power Leak]
Spell. If target foe is casting a spell or chant, that skill is interrupted and target foe loses 2..11 Energy.
10e .25c 20r -> 10e .25c 15r

Make it a bit better interrupt wise but a bit less destructive for energy, 20r hurt it alot outside of triple interrupt bars it lost a lot of it's value I think.

[Psychic Instability]
Interrupts through mantras etc.

[Simple Thievery]
Interrupts through mantras etc.
10e .25c 10r -> 10e .25c 5r

[Blinding Surge (PvP)]
Spell. Target foe is struck for 5..50 lightning damage and Blinded for 3..8 seconds. If that foe is under the effects of an Enchantment, all adjacent foes are also Blinded for 3..8 seconds. This Spell has 25% armor penetration.
10e .75c 3r -> 10e .75c 5r

Increase blind duration so it actually does something again. (Consider having Blinding Surge end stances so it doesn't become problematic with hexbreaker again)

[Gale]
Spell. Knock down target foe for 2 seconds. This Spell causes Exhaustion. (50% failure chance with Air Magic 4 or less.) Remove Aftercast.

Allows Galing for tactical use again, gale a mesmer or ranger and get a 2s window to get a spell off, etc.

[Glyph of Immolation]
Move to Energy storage, make it scale 0..3..4 spells/seconds.

Indirect hit to Me/E.

[Steam]
Spell. If target foe is on fire, Steam Blinds that foe for 5..10 seconds and strikes for 15..75 cold damage. Otherwise, that foe is struck for 10..60 cold damage.

Reduce the damage to more acceptable level, the skill is fine otherwise.

[Aura of Stability]
Enchantment Spell. For 3..6 seconds, target ally cannot be knocked down.

Prothuntersmash spiking sucks, make this self targettable with a slight duration nerf.

[Healing Burst]
Spell. Target ally is healed for 5..130 and all party members in earshot are healed for 5..20.

In the area is way too small, earshot will put it more in line with WoH.

[Mend Ailment]
5e .75c 5r -> 5e .75c 3r

Inferior to Dismiss in every single way, and people hardly even play dismiss anymore.

[Hunter's Shot]
Bow Attack. If Hunter's Shot hits, you strike for +1..10 damage. If this attack hits a foe that is moving or knocked down, that foe begins Bleeding for 3..25 seconds.

Less damage to decrease ranger's spike potential, it's still a good skill with the long bleeding and short activation makes for good poison spreading.

[Read the Wind]
Preparation. For 24 seconds, your arrows move twice as fast and deal 1..6 extra damage.

Less damage to decrease ranger's spike ability, it still allows for very good interrupts and unkitable (or close enough) arrows.

[Keen Arrow]
Bow Attack. If this attack hits, you strike for +5..20 damage. If you land a critical hit, you deal an additional +5..25 damage.

Less damage to decrease ranger's spike ability, it's still good damage with the conditional and very cheap and spammable.

[Sloth Hunter's Shot (PvP)]
Bow Attack. If this attack hits, target foe takes +5..20 damage. If that foe is not using a Skill, Sloth Hunter's Shot does an additional +5..15 damage.

Less damage to decrease ranger's spike ability, it's still +35 damage with the conditional which is pretty much always met.

[Protective Was Kaolai]
Item Spell. Hold Kaolai's ashes for up to 10..35 seconds. While you hold his ashes, you gain 20 armor. When you drop his ashes, all party members are healed for 10..85 Health.
10e 1c 15r -> 10e 1c 20r

Toned down slightly, it's too strong in it's current form, especially when you run more than 1 copy.

[Pure Was Li Ming]
Item Spell. Hold Li Ming's ashes for 5..20 seconds. While you hold her ashes, Conditions on you expire 10..50% faster. When you drop her ashes, all allies within earshot lose 0..2..3 Conditions.

Reduced the effectiveness at low spec, you don't really want rangers running around with this at 3 spec cleaning conditions party wide.

[Ancestors' Rage (PvP)]
Skill. For 3 seconds all foes near target ally are struck for 5..35 lightning damage each second.

It's still too good on spikes as it now completely bypasses Spirit Bond, make it have 3 pulses so you can keep the damage about the same, but decrease the spike potential, the area of effect can be increased slightly as well since VoD is gone.

[Power Attack]
5e 3r -> 5e 5r

Make it a little less spammable, a non-WE bar won't be able to use this every 3 seconds anyway.

[Protector's Strike]
5e .5c 3r -> 5e .5c 5r

Make it a little less spammable, a non-WE bar won't be able to use this every 3 seconds anyway.

[Warrior's Endurance]
Skill. For 5..35 seconds, you gain 3 Energy each time you hit with a melee attack. While Warrior's Endurance is active, you get -2 energy regeneration.

Toned down the energy gain a little bit by nullifying the base energy regen of a warrior.

[Pain of Disenchantment]
Spell. Target foe loses an enchantment. If an enchantment was lost in this way, that foe and all adjacent foes lose 10..100 health.
(Fix the health loss part, it's currently damage I think as it's affected by Frenzy/Dark Escape.)

Elite Shatter in a more versatile attribute line, possibly decrease the recharge to 12 or something.

[Rend Enchantments]
Spell. Remove 1..2..3 enchantments from target foe.
5e 1c 20r -> 10%sac 5e 1c 20r

Make Rend require a bit of an investment and not blindly strip ALL enchantments on the target (remove 2 enchantments at 8/9 curses and 3 at 12/13)

[Soul Barbs]
Hex Spell. For 30 seconds, target foe takes 10..20 damage when an enchantment or hex is cast on that target.
10e 2s 20r -> 10e 1c 12r

Less spiky, if possible also remove the synergy with Recurring Insecurity.

[Vampiric Spirit]
5e 1c 8r -> 5e 1c 12r

Less spammable.

[Wail of Doom]
10%sac 1e .25c 10r -> 5%sac 10e .25c 10r

It's pretty broken at 1 energy cost, reduce the sac a bit to compensate.

Michael805 · Dec 02, 2008, 01:42 AM // 01:42

Fast casting: Reduce the casting time of mesmer skills.

lolfixd

la_cabra_de_vida · Dec 02, 2008, 07:33 PM // 19:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

My thoughts on what the next skill balance should be:

xxxxxxx

While I like pretty much agree all the ideas are good, I would just argue to change all those 40 elite buffs back to what they were before. That way we dont have to go out of the way to change other skills that have been affected by the changes.

Rend Enchantments: changed to 1...2...3 removed 10e 1 30r

Gaze on Contempt: to 45 sec recharge.

Soul Barbs: changed to takes 7...13...15 damage.

Wail of Doom: to at least 5 energy.

Protective was Kaolai: change to 20sec recharge.

Ancestor's Rage: Instead of changing this again to different pulses, go the safe route and follow the shatterstone, change to hex: Target foes takes 5...41...50 lightning damage and after 3 secs takes another 5...41...50 lightning damage.

Expertise to affect ranger skills only.

Hunter's Shot: activation back to normal attack speed.

Sloth Hunters: Perhaps make half range? This still does high damage for 10e 8sec recharge.

Keen Arrow/Dual Shot/Forked Arrow: add the aftershot effect thats on savage and dshot to get rid of the spike you can do with these + hunters + savage with damage stacks.

Blinding Surge: Put it back to 3...8 seconds. Recharge to 4secs.

Strenght of Honor: unstackable with conjures.

Aura of Stab: 5e 1/4 2r For 3...6 secs, the next time target ally would be knockeddown, they arnt. Single charge?

Shield of Absorption: 3/4sec activation.

Spirit Bond back to 2sec rechage. This is seriously the best anti spike skill, its disgusting that you can that the amount of damage classes are putting out, and then hamstring monks with 5sec recharge on this skill.

Smite Condition/Hex: reduce damage to 5...25...30 reduce area of effect to 1 adjacent foe.

Reversal of Damage: back to 6 sec recharge.

Drain Enchantment: remove health gain, activation to 1sec.

Not gvg based: but destroying searing flames and rampage as one would go so far for this game.

Krill · Dec 02, 2008, 08:33 PM // 20:33

I like all of Mitch's suggestions, it would fix a lot of problems. Wouldn't mind seeing VoR bumped to 3s activation so you can interrupt it on HCT or changed in effect too.

kvndoom · Dec 02, 2008, 09:30 PM // 21:30

More good suggestions falling on deaf ears. We'll probably see Meteor Shower buffed to 45s recharge or something equally pointless.

Forgotton200 · Dec 03, 2008, 12:32 AM // 00:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Productivity

The sooner you realise that ANet doesn't give a shit about supporting competitive PVP in GW and that Izzy has no serious oversight of what he's doing and has a completely different view of what balance should look like to the majority of the PVP community (ie. he views degenerate but 'interesting' builds as good), the happier you will be.

Nothing significant will change in how PVP is handled without major changes within the management hierarchy of ANet and Izzy being sacked. The chances of either of those happening are low.

There is no point fixing rend enchantments, as when it is fixed, something else equally retarded will be buffed and replace it. Abuse what you can and if you don't enjoy it, do something else other than GW is my suggestion.

Like wait for GW2? Is Izzy going to be in charge of skill balance in GW2 as well?

moriz · Dec 03, 2008, 02:16 AM // 02:16

yes he is, which is why i'm not expecting GW2 to have good competitive pvp.

anyways to mitch: alot of the skill descriptions can be less convoluted if they are just changed around slightly. for instance,

power block: change to "if target foe is casting a chant or spell, all chants and/or spells of the same attribute are disabled for x seconds".

psychic instability: change to "interrupt target foe's action. if that action is a spell, target foe is knocked down instead".

Marxon Aurion · Dec 03, 2008, 08:55 AM // 08:55

I don't like Pblock as it is, would be nice to have it be an elite Power Lock (longer disable duration).

IMMORTAlMITCH · Dec 03, 2008, 10:28 AM // 10:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marxon Aurion

I don't like Pblock as it is, would be nice to have it be an elite Power Lock (longer disable duration).

Power Lock doesn't get any use as it is, and you expect an elite Power Lock to get used?

PBlock is mostly problematic because people tend to run prot monks with 6-7 prot skills, buff some monk skills to give monks some alternatives and maybe people will run more hybrid monks.

Marxon Aurion · Dec 03, 2008, 11:40 AM // 11:40

That might be a better solution, yes.

la_cabra_de_vida · Dec 03, 2008, 10:02 PM // 22:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Power Lock doesn't get any use as it is, and you expect an elite Power Lock to get used?

PBlock is mostly problematic because people tend to run prot monks with 6-7 prot skills, buff some monk skills to give monks some alternatives and maybe people will run more hybrid monks.

Could change Blight to:

5 3/4 3
Heal target ally for 10...114...140 and remove one hex and one condition. If a hex or condition is removed, you lose 5 energy.

Krill · Dec 03, 2008, 11:23 PM // 23:23

I think if you're going to make BL a skill worth using (presumably instead of RC) you have to do a lot better than that....still to expensive and not as good as WoH / RC / HB.

[healing light] and [life sheath] are two other monk elites I like conceptually but they need more cowbell.

moriz · Dec 03, 2008, 11:23 PM // 23:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marxon Aurion

I don't like Pblock as it is, would be nice to have it be an elite Power Lock (longer disable duration).

*cough* some typos on my part. forgot to add "and all chants/spells of the same attribute" to my powerblock suggestion

Seraphim of Chaos · Dec 04, 2008, 01:35 AM // 01:35

If blight is buffed, it should just be 5 energy. As it stands, Emp Removal heals 100 UNSPECCED, and gets rid of 2x's more hexes and conditions than blight.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Dec 04, 2008, 11:19 AM // 11:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seraphim of Chaos

If blight is buffed, it should just be 5 energy. As it stands, Emp Removal heals 100 UNSPECCED, and gets rid of 2x's more hexes and conditions than blight.

You're an idiot.

Also:
[Blessed Light]
Heal Target Ally for 15..120..160, Remove 1 hex and 1 condition from that ally, if a condition was removed you gain 2 energy, if a hex was removed you gain 3 energy
10e .75c 4r

-Pluto- · Dec 04, 2008, 08:38 PM // 20:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forgotton200

I just bought guild wars and I can already tell this game has one of the worst GvG (due to the four-core classes only and their ridiculous elite skills such as "warrior's endurance" that can make other classes useless) I experienced.

Tell me this game then. As bad as guild wars is, I honestly don't know a single game on the market that even compares to GW's GvG. Most everything else offers either ganking, small arena, or some shitty AB-like pvp as its high-end instead, and rarely is even balanced or designed with pvp in mind anyway. Hell, I'd be surprised if you could even name a game that has comparable, organized gvg like GW, even if it's worse.

On a side note, I like pretty much every one of Mitch's suggestions.

Phe Belladona · Dec 04, 2008, 08:53 PM // 20:53

didnt like your ancestors, looks well scary, but the rest was good mitch. tho the blight above is still too shit to use imo but i like the way you went with it reducing cost by using it more efficiently.. maybe fiddle with the energy returns.

Turbobusa · Dec 04, 2008, 09:25 PM // 21:25

What about making smite hex/condition deal something around what it is right now, reducing recharge a little only, but make it spread damage to the number of foes hit?
3 foes hit, 60 damage, 20 each. Just an exemple. I can see the "always clean" problem, but by having 4 monks in a team, you can't expect less really.

At least the pressure can be managed, maybe a little harsh in smaller formats.

icedwhitemocha · Dec 04, 2008, 10:28 PM // 22:28

Hasn't rend existed in its current form for quite awhile? Why is it just now (past month?) getting so much attention/abuse?

Seraphim of Chaos · Dec 05, 2008, 12:30 AM // 00:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

You're an idiot.

Also:
[Blessed Light]
Heal Target Ally for 15..120..160, Remove 1 hex and 1 condition from that ally, if a condition was removed you gain 2 energy, if a hex was removed you gain 3 energy
10e .75c 4r

Mind explaining why? I guess not.