Curse

moko · Jan 17, 2008, 07:24 PM // 19:24

Open Travel: Territory and District UI Changes

* As a continuation of last year’s “Territory and District UI Changes” that saw language district restrictions removed for America and Europe, we are now removing restrictions on travel to Asian language districts.
* In this update restrictions to Korean language districts will be removed and players of American, European and Korean districts will be able to travel back and forth between these language districts.
* Restrictions on travel to Japanese and Taiwanese language districts will be removed in a subsequent build.

[edit] Skill Updates

We will be evaluating the following changes over the course of the next week. Additional adjustments may be made during that time period.
[edit] Guild versus Guild

* Archers: now have Precision Shot.
* Footmen: now have Pure Strike.
* Knights: now have Warrior's Cunning.
* Victory or Death: reduced the damage bonus to +15%; removed the maximum Health reduction. Guild Lords now prioritize other Guild Lords over players as targets.

[edit] Assassin

* Viper's Defense: changed Skill type to a spell; increased casting time to .25 seconds; functionality changed to: "All adjacent foes are Poisoned for 5..20 seconds, you Shadow Step to a nearby random location."
* Heart of Shadow: functionality changed to: "You are healed for 30..150 Health and Shadow Step to a nearby random location."
* Scorpion Wire: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
* Caltrops: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.

[edit] Dervish

* Pious Assault: increased Energy cost to 10; functionality changed to: "You lose 1 Enchantment. If this attack hits, you deal +5..20 damage and inflict a Deep Wound for 5..20 seconds."

[edit] Elementalist

* Elemental Flame: increased Burning duration to 3..5 seconds.
* Glyph of Essence: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
* Chilling Winds: increased duration to 30 seconds.

[edit] Mesmer

* Wastrel's Worry: increased damage to 20..80.
* Mind Wrack: increased duration to 30 seconds.
* Kitah's Burden/Ethereal Burden: reduced recharge time to 30 seconds.
* Hex Eater Vortex: decreased damage to 30..90; increased recharge to 15 seconds.

[edit] Monk

* Divine Healing/Heaven's Delight: increased the area of effect to earshot.
* Patient Spirit: decreased duration to 2 seconds; increased healing to 30..120 Health.
* Restore Life: decreased casting time to 4 seconds.
* Renew Life: decreased casting time to 4 seconds.
* Vengeance: increased damage bonus to +25%; decreased recharge time to 30 seconds.
* Aura of Stability: decreased duration to 1..16 seconds.

[edit] Necromancer

* Signet of Agony: increased damage to 10..70.
* Wail of Doom: decreased Energy cost to 10.

[edit] Paragon

* Spear of Fury: increased adrenaline gain to 2..6 strikes.
* "We Shall Return!": decreased Energy cost to 5.
* "Fall Back!": decreased Energy cost to 10.

[edit] Ranger

* Power Shot: decreased activation time to 1 second.
* Precision Shot: decreased activation time to 1 second.
* Penetrating Attack/Sundering Attack: decreased activation time to 1 second.
* Magebane Shot: increased Energy cost to 10.

[edit] Ritualist

* Rejuvenation: increased Spirit's level to 1..16.
* Sight Beyond Sight: increased duration to 12..25 seconds.
* Sundering Weapon: now affects the next 3 attacks.
* Warmonger's Weapon: increased recharge time to 30 seconds.

[edit] Warrior

* "Coward!": decreased adrenaline cost to 4 strikes.
* "You're All Alone!": increased duration to 8 seconds.

nothing but fail. :> some TA goodies, but overall, fail. only really good thing is Magebane. Pious assault is however, very scary now. finally a good new way of dealing a deep wound.

i don't know if Aura of Stab change does a lot, but it's a good start.

VoD and NPCs will be interesting, however.

vv poster below summed it up perfectly.

Divine's ninja edit: I'd like to point out although I am also greatly disappointed that Anet did not really pay attention to the community input in the final decisions of skill balance, please refrain from making personal attacks on Andrew (you can disagree with his arguments though, because I will ). I'm sure he's relating the information to Izzy and whoever else is making these balance decisions, but it's just that our wishes aren't going through. It's unfortunate that Anet sent this negative message to the PvP community, but that's how it is and we shouldn't blame the messenger. With that said, any responses should be directly towards the skills themselves, or what impacts these skills have on the metagame.

Sinful Doom · Jan 17, 2008, 07:26 PM // 19:26

Very sad update. Once again 95% of the crap that really needed looked at was passed by...

Blame the Monks · Jan 17, 2008, 07:28 PM // 19:28

Why is Izzy determined to buff melee rits?

Tab · Jan 17, 2008, 07:29 PM // 19:29

Magebane is a good change, Stability now requires a decent spec to run off-monk in TA but it's just as good for GvG.
Divine Healing is going to suck as long as the cast time stays unchanged.
HEV nerf is good.
From the wording, it looks like Pious Assault doesn't require enchantment loss for DW. If so, it could be pretty nasty.

Burton2000 · Jan 17, 2008, 07:29 PM // 19:29

Hmm vod nerf is one gonna have to watch. Certainly lowers spike damage at vod by a load now.

TimTimTimma · Jan 17, 2008, 07:30 PM // 19:30

YAY! A new way to inflict deepwound as a dervish!!!! REJOICE!!

Caltrops is intersting change...

Divine Healing/Heavens Delight is heading in the right direction...Not sure if its there YET, but an earshot version of heal party that doesn't have the same cost sounds very appealing to me from a monks stand point.

The new VoD changes are nice, VoD looses the maximum HP lose and dmg bonus BUT gains some extra damage from NPC's, makes it less burdensome for those who already have heavy DP and now is more winnable from a team whos down and out stand point.

I am interested in seeing some "Coward!" warriors, at only 4 adrenaline this would work well on a sword warrior I believe, or even a dervish considering the new deep wound from pious assult.

Why did hex eater vortex get nerfed? o_0;

Vengence seems ALMOST worth using on a melee character now...Not sure if its there yet though...30 seconds is still kinda high, 20 is maybe perhaps where it would be more useful at.

Patient Spirit, might see some more action now considering the cast time to set it off, would make a good topper offer.

Magebane got nerfed, which was very neccesary. I consider it to be equal with cripshot, and burning arrow now.

I do believe this update while not a BIG change, will affect a lot of things, its more so bringing more skills forward with the rest instead of pulling some forward and pushing others back. I think this update did a good job of domething just that.

Div · Jan 17, 2008, 07:31 PM // 19:31

As expected, only magebane and warmongers actually made a difference. HeV isn't as auto-win versus water hexer, which is good. AoS still needs to be 1 second cast to make it balanced. The buffs are totally random and have little direction. Dervs need more skills like pious assault.

RhanoctJocosa · Jan 17, 2008, 07:31 PM // 19:31

It really looks like ANet are being incredibly lazy with their skill balancing. Gg

Sun Fired Blank · Jan 17, 2008, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Here was my list of everything i wanted looked at:

Ancestor's Rage
Augury of Death
Aura of Stability
Barbs
Corrupt Enchantment
Fear Me
Magebane Shot
Rampage As One
Rip Enchantment
Rigor Mortis
Shadow Walk
Shattering Assault
Siphon Speed
Soldier's Defense
Steady Stance
Warmonger's Weapon
Hexes (Removal vs. Overload in general)
VoD NPCs (behavior, numbers)

Here's what they addressed (halfheartedly):

Aura of Stability
Magebane Shot
Warmonger's Weapon
VoD (kind of)

A big "who gives a crap" for most other changes; Coward, Sundering Weapon and Rejuvenation could be interesting or profound. Hex Eater Vortex may or may not be notable, I dunno, because it seems like it's still going to be a "you win or it's useless" kind of skill, even with the nerf. VoD changes seem really marginal.

Div · Jan 17, 2008, 07:35 PM // 19:35

The fact that the other thread survived for 500 posts and 25000+ views shows how long it took Anet to put out a skill update. The quality of this update shows they don't care anymore. Enough said.

Jetdoc · Jan 17, 2008, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Any thoughts to the impact of hotkeying hero skills to the potential of using heroes in spike teams?

Moloch Vein · Jan 17, 2008, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Interesting that they actually buffed Wail of Doom somewhat, shows they're actually reading the fora. I'm pretty disappointed N didn't get more but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Wyat Hawke · Jan 17, 2008, 07:37 PM // 19:37

This update is more random than the lolcats we get in the Riverside forum...

Tamuril elansar · Jan 17, 2008, 07:39 PM // 19:39

blockways now might have a harder job keeping people at VoD allive, knights, footmen and archers have unblockable attacks :O

RhanoctJocosa · Jan 17, 2008, 07:39 PM // 19:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

Interesting that they actually buffed Wail of Doom somewhat, shows they're actually reading the fora. I'm pretty disappointed N didn't get more but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Tbh, and no offence, it shows that they have no clue what the game needs.

Tamuril elansar · Jan 17, 2008, 07:49 PM // 19:49

<3 vengeance :S and ofcourse glyph of essence.

Amalek · Jan 17, 2008, 07:49 PM // 19:49

Pretty pathetic, not gonna lie.

Riotgear · Jan 17, 2008, 07:50 PM // 19:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

Interesting that they actually buffed Wail of Doom somewhat, shows they're actually reading the fora. I'm pretty disappointed N didn't get more but at least it's a step in the right direction.

I'd call it rather disappointing. It means they're still listening to people that want to buff skills because they're bad rather than because the buffs are going to lead anywhere positive.

Realize that Wail of Doom being viable means your meleers are utterly useless and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

HEV, Warmonger's, and Magebane changes are good. The rest are another skill update done by throwing darts at a list of skills, thanks Izzy.

Farin · Jan 17, 2008, 07:51 PM // 19:51

bad, and the nerf to aura wasnt nearly enough

Shuuda · Jan 17, 2008, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Allow me to sum this update with a single expression:

Meh