Curse

Cirian · Feb 16, 2008, 12:55 AM // 00:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrmango

And was enchanter's corundum that widely used?

Yeah, you did Enchanter's Conundrum + Shatter Delusions for a nice armor ignoring spike, throwing in Shatter Enchantment when necessary.

Sha Noran · Feb 16, 2008, 02:45 AM // 02:45

I wanted to go on the record and say that I'm stunned to see the number of changes that I saw centralized in this thread updated into the game in the Feb. 15th update. It could be that some actual listening is being done. Well done.

... now hopefully they address the variables that actually make the skills they changed good, rather than the inconsequential ones. Progress is progress though I suppose.

Ensign · Feb 16, 2008, 03:23 AM // 03:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

Instead of just trolling you might want to elaborate. The point I was referring to in Ensign's post, in the context of flag running, was Up until the last couple updates it was nigh-impossible to keep someone snared for any length of time..

Hence removing the necessity of snaring a flag runner by making the flag a hard autosnare, removing yet another facet of gameplay, is a good idea because...

Shmanka · Feb 16, 2008, 03:25 AM // 03:25

I don't agree with one skill change: Power Leak

I don't think this was adressed at all with lots of thought in mind. I assume that formerly Power Leak was too forgiving from recharge and energy loss. They had reduced the energy loss to a near unethical level, now after this update another simple problem still remains on the skill : it is near unplayable. Almost in relation to metoer shower, it is a bomb when it hits. Losing 20 energy at VoD is pretty much a win mechanic against a 2 monk backline.

I would like Power Leak to play more along the lines of pressure.

Cost 5 Energy, Target loses 2-8 energy. 12s recharge.

This is important for mesmers, the reason Leak was used so much was to cause extra pressure, now I feel it is an auto "Ok guys I just leaked them they are gonna push into NPC's" every 20 seconds skill. I just don't agree with mesmers having huge single skill bombs, and having played one for quite sometime now I still feel the skill is handicapped purely from its recharge. This needs reworking again. EC nerf is fine, except I think frenzied warriors without prots deserve to get killed anyway in some humiliating way.

Armond · Feb 16, 2008, 04:01 AM // 04:01

Agree with most of the changes, but a few comments. I've not read through the whole thread (sick = tired = not patient enough to read), so forgive me if these have been mentioned.

Might just be me, but by my calculations the proposed bsurge/bflash changes would still allow for about 50% uptime. Not nearly as bad as it is now, but...

Ineptitude should, in my opinion, take a damage nerf. I still get hit by Clumsiness and Ineptitude just before spiking - and that's in RA - and the frenzied damage of Inept is pretty RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing huge.

I'd also like to say that the SoA buff would be heartily received by the PvE community; SoA 55 return, anyone? That'd be a good one to include with updates they might not find so appealing (hard res nerfs, inept/clumsiness nerfs).

LifeInfusion · Feb 16, 2008, 04:37 AM // 04:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Morale/Flagging:
Suggested changes:

Nerf hardrezzes (stuff like flesh is fine but uber hardrezzes, mainly DPS, are too powerful)

Nerf superspeedboosts across the board, e.g. Pious Haste 25% speed 8 second recharge, Flame Djinn's Haste 25% speed shorter duration, Storm Djinn's Haste 25% speed shorter duration, etc. (possibly buff some other speedboosts like sprint that could encourage double flagging).

I agree. 33% speed boosts shouldn't be upkeepable or have disadvantages for the most part (ala Natural Stride). I think the problem with the Storm Djinn's Haste change is that it saps your energy regardless and therefore the duration should be decreased at lower attribute ranks to force recasting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Passive Defense/Party Healing/Pressure Play:
This template basically encompasses everything that's wrong with GW, strong (uncounterable) passive defense (shields up/watch yourself) strong (uncounterable) party healing (song of resto/mending refrain) and a ranged DPS turret that can easily switch targets and thus bypass most active prot.

Heal Party right now is much too strong, at 1s cast it's hard to stop (near impossible under HB) and due to the high energy cost still not very viable on stand monks, I'd much rather see this stay at 2s cast but changed to 10 energy and have slightly reduced healing + maybe a small recharge increase (5-7r)

LoD could get a small buff still as at 10r requiring an elite slot and high attributes it's too weak, change the recharge to 7-8s.

Suggested Changes:

Nerf glyph lesser energy to 5..15 or make it so you get the energy refunded after finishing a cast on it.

Make Watch Yourself and Shields Up end when you use an attack skill.

Make Song of Resto 2s activation and 10r.

Make mending only reapply when a chant ends, not when a shout ends.

Make heal party a 2s cast, 10e and heal for slightly less.

Make LoD 7-8r.

Put PwK back at it's old stats.

I agree.

Death Pact Signet is ridiculous and even on 4-5 cast it would still be powerful.

Glyph would be fine at 5...15 since most eles use attunements and that would mean there is still net energy gain from 15 energy skills.

Song of Restoration is brainless and passive. Echos probably shouldn't stack either.

Heal Party is basically Mind Blast 's new friend...

Watch Yourself + Shields Up are better on paragons than warriors and it is sad. (Leadership makes Shields Up a lot more usable).

LoD is bad compared to party heals like Protective was Kaolai. That shouldn't be. LoD needs to be 7-8 recharge as stated.

All in all I wholeheartedly agree with these ideas.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Mesmers:

After the complete obliteration of Power Leak there's not much of a place for domination mesmers anymore outside of spike builds.

Power Leak was an extremely powerful skill and basically one of the only things that still allowed pressure builds to work against defenseball/blockway.

With PLeak gone mesmers are reduced to spamming glyph energy gale and shame/diverting monks and shattering enchantments on spikes, I think Dom mesmers were once one of the most interesting templates but now the only way to sorta pressure is to spam gale and bridge the gaps with shame and diversion.

Properly fixing party healing/passive defense might go a long way towards making mesmers more than just a spiketool I think that it would be a lot more interesting to buff some mesmer skills to make their role shift more to energy denial again.

Suggested Changes:

Change Surge/Burn to 10 energy burned and 8 damage per energy.

Change PLeak to 20r and -15 energy (at 14 spec)

Change Feedback to 20r 1c.

Change Drain Enchant to 10e 1s 25r and 5..20 energy gain.

Change Inspired Hex to 5..15 energy gain.

Change PLock to 20s disable (at 14 spec)

The changes to increase energy denial won't do much other than keep people in shield sets I think.

I don't see anything wrong with Drain Enchantment right now.

Inspired Hex/Feedback change would be nice.

Power Lock at 20 disable would be a minute increase that would make Mesmers everywhere happy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Active Defense:

Active defense is something that should be promoted, the best 2 examples of active defense are single target prots and blinds.

I think SoA and SH could get slight recharge reductions, whereas guardian (which was previously sort of kept in check by PLeak) could do with a recharge increase.

Big prots are largely (pun) fine, in future updates maybe skills like shield guardian could be looked at (.25c 75% block for 1-3 seconds for spikestopper maybe).

Blinds used to be one of the key components of stopping a spike, today it is spammed on recharge to stop people from pressuring, condition runes/inscriptions help a lot here but I think to change blinds back to their previous role a good thing to do would reduce the duration of the blind to 1..5 seconds, decrease the energy cost and maybe increase the recharge somewhat.

In future updates skills that apply weakness could be looked at to make weakness more viable as a pressure reliever.

Suggested Changes:

Change Guardian recharge to 4-5s.

Change Shield Of Absorption Recharge to 8s.

Change Shielding Hands Recharge to 10s.

Change Blinding Surge to 5e 1..5 blind and recharge to 6s.

Change Blinding Flash to 10e 2..6 blind and recharge to 6s.

Change Steam to 3..7 blind and recharge to 6s.

Guardian is incredibly strong given the alternatives for damage mitigation. 5 seconds recharge and it would still be good.

Shield of Absorption is not as good as it used to be at 1/4 cast, so 8 recharge isn't really that big a difference from 10 seconds.

Shielding Hands could use more of a buff than 10s. Even 7 wouldn't be that farfetched. The effect is minimal when you consider it is roughly equal to 50% reduction in damage and skills still hit. It doesn't affect anything that kills and conditions and such still go through unlike block.

The one thing I disagree with you on is Blind. I don't see why Air Magic needs to be increased in recharge (since blind is the only reason to run it). There's a lot of condition removal and the main reason why Blind is powerful is because of blocks (i.e. you lose blind but you still are blocked). At most you can blind one or 2 people as it is (7-8 duration on 14 air and ~4 recharge) provided it doesn't get removed.
Maybe Blinding Flash could be bumped to 7..8 on 14 like Blinding Surge given that Mindblast and Dual attune makes it cheap. Steam could have a similar change as well. Regardless, one condition removal could remove it before it sticks and if you run antidote signet it is a sure removal even off a stack. Blind is largely active, counterable with condition removal, and one d-shot or diversion screws it.

EDIT: Also, you failed to mention Weapon of Shadow.

-Pluto- · Feb 16, 2008, 04:04 PM // 16:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

Instead of just trolling you might want to elaborate. The point I was referring to in Ensign's post, in the context of flag running, was Up until the last couple updates it was nigh-impossible to keep someone snared for any length of time..

yes, but a large part of the post was about treating causes rather than symptoms of the problem. your suggestion was pretty much what Ensign was saying shouldn't be done.

Ensign · Feb 16, 2008, 08:44 PM // 20:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Death Pact Signet is ridiculous and even on 4-5 cast it would still be powerful.

It would be worthless with a casting time >3 seconds. Resurrection skills with casting times longer than 3 seconds so rarely resolve that they're not worth bringing. Flesh of my Flesh is the res of choice on a Mesmer simply because it is fastest and has no recharge, letting you recast if interrupted by anything but DShot. That gives it the best chance of resolving. I still want to see how often you can get DPS off before judging the change, but I think it'll be ok at a 3c.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Glyph would be fine at 5...15 since most eles use attunements and that would mean there is still net energy gain from 15 energy skills.

A 5...15 GLE is a rather weak skill. The strong GLE is what allowed Ele templates to stop running energy elites in the first place, and this change would reverse it for the most part. If you're just trying to keep it off of secondaries dropping it to 8...20 would make the most sense; but really the only change that needs to be made to the skill is to stop cancel casting. If you couldn't cancel cast Aegis to get a fast cast, is there still a problem with GLE?

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

I don't see anything wrong with Drain Enchantment right now.

A 2 second cast time makes it impractical to use on a flagstand Dom Mesmer who is going to be eating a ton of interrupts regardless. The fast cast was essential for it to serve as a reliable enchantment removal and reliable energy management that served as both a backbone for and epitomized everything that the Mesmer profession stood for. Now it's unrecognizable, and while not a horrid skill anymore it's far from something you can use reliably.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Power Lock at 20 disable would be a minute increase that would make Mesmers everywhere happy.

It would likely make everyone else unhappy though, as a DShot that can't be blocked, goes through walls, and doesn't have a flight time is pretty gross. I don't think there's anything wrong with PLock right now, and if it does need a buff to the lockout duration it's only by a couple seconds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Maybe Blinding Flash could be bumped to 7..8

You could drop the top end to 8 on Blinding Flash without causing any problems; I think that would make for a good change in fact. Remember that with runes blind doesn't stick very long as is - against a Warrior an 7-8 second blind turns into a 5 second blind, just on the edge of playability. It's already a very active condition given the costs associated with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Also, you failed to mention Weapon of Shadow.

It's good to precast against Assassins since it gets around Rigor and breaks up their combos. Against everyone else it's on par with Weapon of Warding. Is there a problem with the skill?

Kyp Jade · Feb 16, 2008, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shmanka

I would like Power Leak to play more along the lines of pressure.

Cost 5 Energy, Target loses 2-8 energy. 12s recharge.

<3 swift, this wins

LifeInfusion · Feb 16, 2008, 10:31 PM // 22:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

It would be worthless with a casting time >3 seconds. Resurrection skills with casting times longer than 3 seconds so rarely resolve that they're not worth bringing. Flesh of my Flesh is the res of choice on a Mesmer simply because it is fastest and has no recharge, letting you recast if interrupted by anything but DShot. That gives it the best chance of resolving. I still want to see how often you can get DPS off before judging the change, but I think it'll be ok at a 3c.

A 5...15 GLE is a rather weak skill. The strong GLE is what allowed Ele templates to stop running energy elites in the first place, and this change would reverse it for the most part. If you're just trying to keep it off of secondaries dropping it to 8...20 would make the most sense; but really the only change that needs to be made to the skill is to stop cancel casting. If you couldn't cancel cast Aegis to get a fast cast, is there still a problem with GLE?

A 2 second cast time makes it impractical to use on a flagstand Dom Mesmer who is going to be eating a ton of interrupts regardless. The fast cast was essential for it to serve as a reliable enchantment removal and reliable energy management that served as both a backbone for and epitomized everything that the Mesmer profession stood for. Now it's unrecognizable, and while not a horrid skill anymore it's far from something you can use reliably.

It would likely make everyone else unhappy though, as a DShot that can't be blocked, goes through walls, and doesn't have a flight time is pretty gross. I don't think there's anything wrong with PLock right now, and if it does need a buff to the lockout duration it's only by a couple seconds.

You could drop the top end to 8 on Blinding Flash without causing any problems; I think that would make for a good change in fact. Remember that with runes blind doesn't stick very long as is - against a Warrior an 7-8 second blind turns into a 5 second blind, just on the edge of playability. It's already a very active condition given the costs associated with it.

It's good to precast against Assassins since it gets around Rigor and breaks up their combos. Against everyone else it's on par with Weapon of Warding. Is there a problem with the skill?

But you see, DPS gets cast reduction just like Flesh of my Flesh (Actually if signets get only slightly less of a reduction than spells from Fast casting). That's why I think 4-5 second cast and it would still be strong. Unlike other resses besides res sig, if you get interrupted you didn't waste energy. At 3 seconds it is better than Res Sig because of the reusable nature and the greater energy return (if you have energy) instead of 25% ala Res sig.
By an awkward comparison Vengeance has 4 cast and you don't see people use it even though it gives 100% health and energy. If it ends when you don't want it to (ala shatter enchantment or just ending) then it hurts more than it helps. For Death Pact Signet, the risk (two people dying at once within 120 seconds) is less likely than the Vengeance enchantment running out/shattered when you don't want it to be. In short, the risks of DPS are less than the benefits of having someone at >25% energy (Res Sig) and being interrupted doesn't mean much other than it taking 8..or 12 seconds (after the patch) to reload.

A 5...15 GLE ...oops. I was thinking in terms of -15energy at 9 energy storage instead of 15 energy storage. Never mind about that. As long as 10-12 energy is reduced at around 8-9 energy storage then it is fair enough.

Drain enchantment could use a cast time decrease but I always thought that it was stronger than Inspired enchantment in terms of energy gain since Fast recharge focus/wand mods work with it. It's a triple utility skill (enchant removal, health, and energy gain) and we don't see many of those. I guess it needs to be competitive with Feedback/Shatter Enchantment/Mirror of Disenchantment/Rip Enchantment, but it is 5 energy as well so it is low investment.

If Power Lock were increased to 20 seconds disable, it's still on 15 recharge. At best you could hit maybe 2 people. If whatever skill is disabled is that vital then something else is broken, not Power Lock, I think. D-shot is on a ranger, which is less fragile compared to a mesmer and arrows can miss/be blocked etc. I can see why you think it would be overkill though (once you add the other spell interrupts in). If it were upped to 20sec disable I'm guessing the recharge would/should be upped as well or changed to "recharge" like Power Block instead of "additional recharge". However, ever since blackout went out the door, there hasn't been much outside of knockdown, diversion, magebane, and d-shot that presents the same disruption. This would do loads against Guardian, Aegis, Defensive Anthem, etc. Anyway, I think it is fine now, but Power Lock being increased as per IMMORTAlMITCH's idea would do loads to break defense.

EDIT: better yet, just make the chant disable 20seconds and leave the spell disable.
EDIT2: right now you can replicate this to a extent using signet of humility, death pact signet/Res Sig, Leech Sig, and Signet of Distraction (4 signets and 14 dom). It's just disable, not "additional disable".

Weapon of Warding is 50% block. You can still hit them if you have anti-block skills or switch targets. Whereas with Weapon of Shadow if you hit whoever has it on them you have blind that stays on because nothing can remove it fast enough or energy efficient enough (the only option is Sight Beyond Sight or Melandru's Dervish) to match your attack speed. It's like having a Shadowsong bodyguard for whoever has it on them and if you switch targets you still need to remove the 5s blind (which is equal to Blinding Surge +/- 2 to 3 seconds ).

Ensign · Feb 16, 2008, 10:59 PM // 22:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

But you see, DPS gets cast reduction just like Flesh of my Flesh. That's why I think 4-5 second cast and it would still be strong.

Except that you would have to run it on a Mesmer for it to be any good at all, while you can put the DPS anywhere you want right now. Making it a skill that you could only run on a Mesmer is a good idea because...

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Unlike other resses besides res sig, if you get interrupted you didn't waste energy... being interrupted doesn't mean much other than it taking 8..or 12 seconds (after the patch) to reload.

I'm sorry are we playing the same game here? When someone dies, you try to Death Pact, and get interrupted, you sit there and let him lay on the ground for another 12 seconds before you try again? If Death Pact is interrupted you burn a sig. The entire reason Flesh of My Flesh is any good is because it has 0 recharge and you can eventually get it off, with Fast Casting, barring DShot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Drain enchantment could use a cast time decrease but I always thought that it was stronger than Inspired enchantment in terms of energy gain

It's *supposed* to be better than Inspired Enchantment in terms of removal and energy gain. Inspired Enchantment is supposed to be good for ripping off Aegis or Tainted Flesh and putting it up yourself. That's why you use that skill. Drain Enchantment is for taking off enchantments and giving you energy. If you don't want to make use of the copied enchantment, Inspired Enchantment should not be good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

This would do loads against Guardian, Aegis, Defensive Anthem, etc.

Er what? It would do something against Guardian, kinda, but losing Guardian for 15-20 seconds isn't exactly vital. Aegis or Defensive Anthem? Several Monks will happily cast their Aegises through Diversion, I don't think they care very much about an additional 15-20 second disable if it's interrupted. It's good against the same stuff that you want to DShot - Monk elites and spells on the midline (Diversion, Mind Blast, Blinding Surge, Freezing Gust).

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Weapon of Warding is 50% block...

Isn't that essentially what I said, except without the details of the unblockable attackers invariably being Assassins?

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

5s blind

3s against Warriors. They get to pick which of their attacks hit and miss as well - they need to actually hit in order to receive a new blind, so as it blinks off they're guaranteed a hit. Against anyone who is any good, they'll miss with their autoattacks but Bull's Strikes and DShots will always hit. It is an anti-training skill with no other tactical value, essentially.

erk · Feb 16, 2008, 11:32 PM // 23:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Pluto-

yes, but a large part of the post was about treating causes rather than symptoms of the problem. your suggestion was pretty much what Ensign was saying shouldn't be done.

I see two main problems with flag running.

Firstly, that it's too easy to cap the flag, hence morale boosts don't come that often, with each team simply capping over the other. If you make the flag harder to cap by introducing greater penalties for carrying it, in theory that should result in morale boosts to the team that can deal with the capping issues better.

Secondly It would also help if A.net improved the value of morale boosts to put some emphasis back to the stand, instead of just having everyone focus on the NPC's. It was suggested elsewhere that 10% damage increase for +10% morale might put some value back into morale boosts, that could be a good reason to play for morale.

Vaga · Feb 17, 2008, 02:37 AM // 02:37

Personally I like pleak being a 'bomb' on high recharge, it's just a matter of whether or not its recharge is high enough atm.

Captain Robo · Feb 17, 2008, 05:01 AM // 05:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

A 5...15 GLE is a rather weak skill. The strong GLE is what allowed Ele templates to stop running energy elites in the first place, and this change would reverse it for the most part. If you're just trying to keep it off of secondaries dropping it to 8...20 would make the most sense; but really the only change that needs to be made to the skill is to stop cancel casting. If you couldn't cancel cast Aegis to get a fast cast, is there still a problem with GLE?

Wasn't it determined a while ago that changing GoLE to function in that way was impossible to code under current game mechanics?

If that was the case, it would be best to have GoLE simply return energy, rather than reduce the cost of the spell (which would punish cancel-casting).

Hundbert · Feb 19, 2008, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Robo

Wasn't it determined a while ago that changing GoLE to function in that way was impossible to code under current game mechanics?

If that was the case, it would be best to have GoLE simply return energy, rather than reduce the cost of the spell (which would punish cancel-casting).

What's wrong with the current gole? It's been nerfed already once isn't that enough?

Andrew Patrick · Feb 19, 2008, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hundbert

What's wrong with the current gole? It's been nerfed already once isn't that enough?

I believe the issue is that, under the effects of GolE, you can cancel your spell as much as you want until you get the "20% faster cast speed" bonus without losing energy, or using one of the two "next 2 spells" you cast.

It is used to ensure a fast-cast of slow casting/high energy spells like Aegis. And I have passed on the concern.

itsvictor · Feb 19, 2008, 06:48 PM // 18:48

Hmm GoLE that gives energy back at the end of successful cast.... /sarcasm on YES I c4n 5p4m m4h R0f m04rs... /sarcasmoff

Imo Passive defensves like Defensive Anthem need to be toned down a bit, while party healing,etc needs to be buffed. This way blockwebs aren't as viable, while still being able to keep party members up, giving you a chance to still effectively pressure/ defend properly without the non-sense of never taking damage(or very little)

DutchSmurf · Feb 19, 2008, 07:47 PM // 19:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

"20% faster cast speed"

Small detail, but wasn't it a 20% chance to get a 50% faster casttime?

Andrew Patrick · Feb 19, 2008, 10:11 PM // 22:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

Small detail, but wasn't it a 20% chance to get a 50% faster casttime?

Yes, sorry that is what I meant. I forgot the word "chance" in there.

Zuranthium · Feb 19, 2008, 10:40 PM // 22:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

You could drop the top end to 8 on Blinding Flash without causing any problems; I think that would make for a good change in fact. Remember that with runes blind doesn't stick very long as is - against a Warrior an 7-8 second blind turns into a 5 second blind, just on the edge of playability. It's already a very active condition given the costs associated with it.

5 second Blind with 14 Air Spec. With the spec on a Mindblast template, it would become a 3 second blind.

I think B-flash is fine.

~Z