Curse

Andrew Patrick · Aug 09, 2007, 07:15 PM // 19:15

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gaile...09_August_2007

You can see the upcoming skill changes as well as the changes to VoD in the link above. To make it easier, here is what it says:

Our goal for this test week is to assess some global changes—-namely adjustments to Victory or Death and long-lasting shut-down Hexes. Specific builds that were either overpowering or uninteresting to play, such as the Shadow Prison Assassin and Ritualist spikers, were scaled down. As with previous test weeks, we'll carefully monitor the metagame throughout the week and make changes as needed. After the testing, we'll decide which changes to keep and which to revert.

Skill Changes

Assassin

* Black Spider Strike: increased Energy cost to 10.
* Dark Prison: decreased recharge time to 30 seconds.
* Death's Charge: decreased recharge time to 30 seconds.
* Expose Defenses: increased recharge time to 25 seconds.
* Golden Phoenix Strike: decreased Energy cost to 5.
* Shadow Prison: decreased duration to 1..10 seconds.

To diversify Assassin Skill Bars, we've helped some non-elite Shadow Step options by making them more readily available. Combined with the duration reduction to Shadow Prison, the increased cost of Black Spider Strike, and the decreased cost of Golden Phoenix Strike, this will hopefully lessen the Assassin's reliance on Shadow Prison and encourage interesting build choices. Expose Defenses proved a superior Assassin Hex, so we increased its recharge time to make using it more of a tradeoff.

Mesmer

* Arcane Echo: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
* Cry of Frustration: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
* Drain Enchantment: increased Energy cost to 15; increased casting time to 2 seconds; decreased recharge time to 20 seconds; increased Energy gain to 15..25.
* Echo: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
* Illusionary Weaponry: decreased recharge time to 25 seconds.
* Panic: decreased duration to 5..20 seconds.
* Signet of Illusions: functionality changed to: "Your next 1..2 Spells use your Illusion attribute instead of their normal attribute."
* Spirit of Failure: increased Energy cost to 15.
* Spirit Shackles: decreased duration to 5..20 seconds.

The theme behind the Mesmer changes is to decrease the power of long-lasting "passive" Hexes. Decreasing the duration of Panic and Spirit Shackles and increasing the Energy cost of Spirit of Failure should make Mesmer builds more active and Energy-bound. Echo and Arcane Echo received another decrease to their recharge time to make them a possibility for dynamic new builds. Meanwhile, we're experimenting with bumping up Signet of Illusions for cross-attribute strategies.

Necromancer

* Faintheartedness: decreased duration to 3..24 seconds.
* Meekness: decreased duration to 5..30 seconds; decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
* Price of Failure: increased Energy cost to 15; decreased damage to 1..46.
* Plague Sending: functionality changed to: Sacrifice 10% maximum Health. Transfer 1..3 negative Conditions and their remaining durations from yourself to target foe and all adjacent foes.
* Plague Signet: decreased recharge time to 4 seconds.
* Plague Touch: functionality changed to: Transfer 1..2 negative Conditions and their remaining durations from yourself to target touched foe; attribute is now Curses.
* Poisoned Heart: functionality changed to: All adjacent foes are Poisoned for 5..15 seconds. For 10 seconds, you suffer -5..-2 Health degeneration.
* Reckless Haste: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased casting time to 1 second; decreased recharge time to 10 seconds; decreased duration to 4..10 seconds; increased miss chance to 50%.
* Rip Enchantment: functionality changed to: You lose 30..10% Health. Remove one Enchantment from target foe.
* Shadow of Fear: decreased duration to 5..30 seconds.

The Necromancer's "fire and forget" anti-melee Hexes have been an increasing source of passive defense that we would like to move away from. The longer-lasting shut-down Hexes (Faintheartedness, Price of Failure, Reckless Haste, Shadow of Fear, and Meekness) were scaled down to make them more active or to further strain resources. The Condition transferring abilities of the Necromancer are largely ignored, so we've improved Plague Touch, Plague Sending, and Plague Signet to flesh out this aspect of the profession.

Elementalist

* Arc Lightning: decreased recharge time to 6 seconds.
* Blinding Surge: decreased Blindness duration to 2..8 seconds.
* Blurred Vision: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased casting time to 1 second; decreased recharge time to 12 seconds; decreased duration to 4..10 seconds.
* Chilling Winds: decreased Energy cost to 5.
* Glyph of Elemental Power: increased duration to 25 seconds; increased number of Spells affected to 10.
* Glyph of Energy: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
* Glyph of Renewal: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
* Rodgort's Invocation: decreased casting time to 2 seconds; decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.

After improving Glyph of Lesser Energy earlier this year, we wanted to push more Glyphs into a similar range. Elemental Power got a massive power increase, affecting your next 10 Spells, while Renewal and Energy got lowered recharge times to make them more worthy of their elite status. Chilling Winds is a hard-to-use combo Skill, so we decreased the cost to reward that build choice, while Rodgort's Invocation and Arc Lightning received recharge boosts to improve their damage over time. On the defensive front, Blurred Vision was made more active (and therefore more Energy-intensive over time) as part of our sweeping Hex balance, and Blinding Surge took a minor duration hit to pressure resources a bit more.

Monk

* Aegis: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased area of effect to earshot.
* Blessed Light: decreased recharge time to 3 seconds.
* Guardian: increased duration to 2..7 seconds; increased block rate to 50%.
* Judge's Intervention: decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.
* Remove Hex: decreased casting time to 1 second; increased recharge time to 8 seconds.
* Shield of Regeneration: increased recharge time to 8 seconds.

Aegis received a rework this month, reducing its range from party to earshot (1/5 of the original range) to address the passive nature of "Aegis Chaining." To compensate, the more active Skill, Guardian, received a boost to both duration and block chance. Combined with effective Energy management, Shield of Regeneration's prior reduction to .25 second cast time has made it popular in 4v4 play, but we'd like to see a bit more diversity. In the same vein, Blessed Light received a buff, in the hopes that it would compete with its big-brother, Divert Hexes. Remove Hex's 2-second cast time kept it in the scrap yard, so we're hoping its superior recharge makes it viable next to Holy Veil.

Warrior

* Berserker Stance: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
* Crude Swing: functionality changed to: Attack all adjacent foes. Each foe you hit is struck for 1..20 damage. You have -40 armor while activating this Skill.
* Flourish: decreased recharge time to 8 seconds; increased Energy gained per recharging attack Skill to 2..7.
* "For Great Justice!": decreased Energy cost to 5; increased adrenaline gain to 100%.
* Savage Slash: decreased Energy cost to 5.

The Warrior received a few boosts, mostly to Skills that often go unused. We made Flourish more worthy as an elite, hoping to see it in more builds. "For Great Justice!" now has greater potential to boost adrenaline at the expense of less Energy, while the negative end effect of Berserker Stance is enough of a drawback that a 20-second recharge time seems appropriate. Lastly, we made Savage Slash more affordable, halving its cost to promote interrupts in melee combat.

Ranger

* Equinox: decreased casting time to 3 seconds; decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
* Escape: decreased recharge time to 12 seconds; decreased duration to 1..8 seconds; increased move speed boost to 33%.
* Famine: decreased casting time to 3 seconds; decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
* Flame Trap: increased damage to 5..20.
* Greater Conflagration: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
* Infuriating Heat: decreased casting time to 3 seconds; decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
* Lacerate: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased activation time to 3 seconds; decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
* Point Blank Shot: decreased Energy cost to 5; increased damage to 10..40.
* Punishing Shot: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.
* Run as One: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
* Storm Chaser: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
* Zojun's Shot: decreased Energy cost to 5; increased damage to 10..40.

Elite Nature Rituals can have extensive effects, but their 5 second cast time made them interrupt-bait (when near the battle) and their long recharges made them unreliable. We lowered their casting time to 3 seconds and significantly decreased their recharge time so teams feel they can rely on them as build choices. Natural Stride left its friends Storm Chaser, Escape, and Run as One eating its dust, so we improved those run-speed Stances in hopes they'll be valid options. Additionally, we increased several Ranger bow attacks to evaluate in the various metagames.

Dervish

* Attacker's Insight: functionality changed to: For 20 seconds, your next 1..3 attack Skills cost 5..20 less Energy.
* Enchanted Haste: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
* Featherfoot Grace: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
* Grenth's Fingers: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds; increased Cripple duration to 5..15 seconds.
* Meditation: decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.
* Rending Touch: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.

We improved the Dervish's largely unused speed boost Stances to grant this profession more access to mobility without cross-classing. Attacker's Insight was adjusted to take into account the low cost of Dervish attack Skills. Situational skills, such as Meditation and Grenth's Fingers received lower recharge times so that they are more likely to be available when the opportunity to use them arises.

Ritualist

* Ancestors' Rage: this Skill now causes Exhaustion.
* Anguish: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased recharge time to 20 seconds; this Skill now causes Exhaustion.
* Defiant Was Xinrae: decreased Energy cost to 5; decreased recharge time to 5 seconds; increased duration to 5..15 seconds; this Skill now causes Exhaustion.
* Disenchantment: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased recharge time to 20 seconds; this Skill now causes Exhaustion.
* Dissonance: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased recharge time to 20 seconds; this Skill now causes Exhaustion.
* Gaze of Fury: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
* Recovery: fixed a bug that caused the effect to persist even after the Spirit had died.
* Sight Beyond Sight: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
* Spirit Burn: decreased recharge time to 6 seconds; decreased damage to 5..50 damage; decreased conditional damage to 10..40.
* Spirit Rift: increased casting time to 2 seconds.
* Splinter Weapon: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
* Vital Weapon: decreased duration to 5..35 seconds.
* Wanderlust: this skill now causes Exhaustion.
* Wielder's Strike: this skill now causes Exhaustion.
* Xinrae's Weapon: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased recharge time to 10 seconds; this skill now causes Exhaustion.

A while back, we adjusted expensive Ritualist spells. This week we wanted to examine Exhaustion and see if the reduced sustainability of these skills would make them more balanced and interesting. We scaled down a number of Ritualist damage Spells as well, to further move away from "Rit Spike" builds that combine too much damage and defense on a single character. Vital Weapon, a staple of Ritualist builds, took a light shot to duration because it so easily enables many other Ritualist skills.

Paragon

* Awe: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
* Signet of Aggression: increased the strikes of adrenaline you gain to 2; decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.

The Paragon remains largely untouched, although we did boost a couple underused Skills.

Heroes' Ascent Changes

After monitoring the impact of last week's update on Heroes' Ascent and reading player feedback, we are adjusting some maps. Map changes take time to implement and test; so they will not be ready this week. We aim to increase the playable space in Fetid River and smooth out the height advantage around the river. We are also changing Forgotten Shrines by removing the middle path and altering the area around each point. This will encourage more of a tactical choice about which points you can capture, and reduce the chaos of a more open map layout. Overall, we feel that the last update improved Heroes' Ascent and we plan to continue in this vein. We understand that the Relic gametype in the Hall of Heroes needs adjustment and that a lot of people miss Sacred Temples. We will evaluate these and other changes for future updates. Once again, we appreciate the feedback.

Victory or Death

* Victory or Death now occurs at 18 minutes.
* The Guild Lord now walks to the flag stand at 20 minutes.
* The Guild Lord no longer deals 300% damage to non-Guild Lord NPCs.
* Guild Battle NPCs now deal 300% damage to Guild Lords.
* Guild Battle NPCs now march out in three waves. The first wave arrives at the stand at 18:45, the second wave arrives at 19:00, and the third wave (Bodyguards and Knights) arrives at 19:15.

The long-awaited VoD adjustments are ready for testing. The focus of these changes is to emphasize the NPC resource and to reward fluid tactics (such as splitting) and NPC advantage at VoD. We also ensured NPCs won't bunch up at gates during VoD, and cleaned up their pathing and placement—making them harder to annihilate with simple area-of-effect attacks. The additional deadliness to the Guild Lord at the flag stand should mean that NPCs become a valuable resource again.

Please discuss.

UPDATE Friday Aug. 10th

Dervish
Rending Touch: increased recharge time to 8 seconds.

Necromancer
Reckless Haste: increased Energy cost to 15; increased duration to 6..12 seconds; increased recharge time to 12 seconds.

Ritualist
Wielder's Strike: reduced recharge time to 5 seconds.
Ancestors’ Rage: reduced Energy cost to 5.

Warrior
Desperation/Drunken Blow: these Skills now only knock you down if they hit.

Lord Mendes · Aug 09, 2007, 07:29 PM // 19:29

Looks pretty good.

lacasner · Aug 09, 2007, 07:30 PM // 19:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

* Expose Defenses: increased recharge time to 25 seconds.

Awsome, this skill should die lol.

<--Loving the fact that hexes are now shorter duration and recharge, so they promote more active play.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

* Shield of Regeneration: increased recharge time to 8 seconds.
* Blessed Light: decreased recharge time to 3 seconds.

Ehh, not sure if this will fix the skills, blight still needed a slight heal buff, SoR maybe slight casting time nerf.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

Natural Stride left its friends Storm Chaser, Escape, and Run as One eating its dust, so we improved those run-speed Stances in hopes they'll be valid options. Additionally, we increased several Ranger bow attacks to evaluate in the various metagames.

I like this approach of buffing skills to make them on par instead of nerfing skills to sub-par levels.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

this skill now causes Exhaustion.

That's all I needed to read about rits lol, Woot!

Well, should be interesting to test when updates go live!

Thomas.knbk · Aug 09, 2007, 07:31 PM // 19:31

Oh

My

God

This may very well be the best balance update I've ever seen. Hexes, Aegis, SP sins and Rit spike all in one update? Thank you.

the Puppeteer · Aug 09, 2007, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Does Anet want to disable spirit spammers permanently?

skillsbas8 · Aug 09, 2007, 07:37 PM // 19:37

AOM went untouched

however, the guardian buff is incredibly tasty; I like.

Lord Mendes · Aug 09, 2007, 07:40 PM // 19:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by the Puppeteer

Does Anet want to disable spirit spammers permanently?

Pretty much.
Instead of making it a shitty mechanic that is extremely easy to use succesfully, they made it a shitty mechanic that is a tiny bit harder to maintain.
WOOT!

fripple · Aug 09, 2007, 07:43 PM // 19:43

I have to say I didn't see exhaustion coming as a possible solution to rit spike. I think it's a fairly good idea, although I do wonder about making every non-basic spirit cause it - they're not all so powerful and game-breaking that they need it. I mean, Wanderlust? And the Xinrae variants weren't hugely popular to begin with, so I'm not sure how making them spammable but putting an even harsher restriction on their use is going to do anything at all.

I'm also a little skeptical of introducing exhaustion into a profession that apparently will never have any skills for managing it, unlike elementalists. Maybe rework Spirit Channeling or something, because that seems a bit silly, especially if you're going the route of exhaustion spam rather than only the occasional hit from something like ms.

Also an excellent adjustment to a number of mesmer and monk skills, especially drain enchant, although I wonder if Guardian isn't too powerful now.

That said, it's a good solution because many of the affected skills are not critical to pve play (or are not changed in a way that takes them out of contention), so it should reduce the amount of irritation on that front. Overall, this is one of the more intelligent updates we've had in a long, long time.

moriz · Aug 09, 2007, 07:45 PM // 19:45

Splinter Weapon: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.

wait... what?

Living Parasite · Aug 09, 2007, 07:46 PM // 19:46

Get out your RaOs, for no longer do hexes keep this build from smashing through the meta.

On a more serious note:

Quote:

Dark Prison: decreased recharge time to 30 seconds.
Death's Charge: decreased recharge time to 30 seconds.

-No don't reduce shadowstep recharges, REMOVE this idiotic mechanic from the game so we can actually play.

Quote:

To diversify Assassin Skill Bars, we've helped some non-elite Shadow Step options by making them more readily available.

-How does nerfing everything into oblivion help unused Assassin bars? They're unused not b/c SP is WAY superior to them but b/c they are useless.

Quote:

Drain Enchantment: increased Energy cost to 15; increased casting time to 2 seconds; decreased recharge time to 20 seconds; increased Energy gain to 15..25.

-Thank you. You guys finally stop nerfing Inspiration so that Mesmers can have real e-management.

Quote:

Aegis: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased area of effect to earshot.

-Where's the scaling? I like energy cost decrease when it has scaling.

Quote:

Rending Touch: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.

-This is a joke right? This is a spammable enchant-removal... Doesn't that scream broken to someone?

One more thing, good job destroying the Ritualist class. The next step for you now is to remove them from PvP.

Vermilion · Aug 09, 2007, 07:48 PM // 19:48

Well I wasn't expecting to see exhaustion. Points for creativity! There are also some pretty useless buffs, (as always) but overall I like it.

Sarevok Thordin · Aug 09, 2007, 07:48 PM // 19:48

Thank you, THANK YOU.

I am seriously laughing and crying with joy SO HARD at various things. The ritualist section in particular.

Aegis is a well deserved change, no more Aegis chaining.

The ritualist changes....a bit extreme, but somethings just HAVE to be done with these insane spammable spike skills. DEATH TO RIT SPIKE

Andrew Patrick · Aug 09, 2007, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Glad you enjoy the changes. We will be looking at all these changes over the next week so if anything was "over-nerfed" or "over-buffed" and we will make changes based on feedback.

Shadow Kurd · Aug 09, 2007, 07:56 PM // 19:56

Finally something done to Rits, although i think they will need some kind of Exhaust management.

Ranger's got a nice buff too, but still not good enough

LifesRestorer · Aug 09, 2007, 08:02 PM // 20:02

oh noez DA wasnt touched

i like the update though, DIE RITS DIE!

and the buffs to xinrae look nice too, might have to start using those

)

Melon · Aug 09, 2007, 08:13 PM // 20:13

4v4? Who plays 4v4? I think Anet got them shields mixed up, it's SHIELD OF DEFELCTION you should look at, notn Regeneration.

Divinus Stella · Aug 09, 2007, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Awesome changes, not sure about rending touch and reckless haste tho, perhaps increase the recharge on each.

Thumpers are Paragons were ignored but i supose you have to leave something for the rit spiker scrubs to move onto.

Thomas.knbk · Aug 09, 2007, 08:15 PM // 20:15

What I didn't like though was that Avatar of Melandru wasn't touched. That skill should be nerfed the crap out of. Especially if there's no more Aegis to keep it in check.

And hurray for killing rits.

Snype · Aug 09, 2007, 08:15 PM // 20:15

All the changes pretty much look good...although I predict a glyph of energy+rogorts spike...but I guess we will see.

The death of the "boa" sin will not happen with such subtle changes.

moriz · Aug 09, 2007, 08:18 PM // 20:18

here's how to properly fix blessed light: reduce energy to 5. keep the 5s recharge. change functionality to: remove 1 hex, 1 condition, and heal for x. if you remove a hex, you lose 5 energy.

blessed light should be a bar compression skill. there no way it will ever come close to divert hexes in the removal department.