Curse

King Kong Monkey · Oct 13, 2007, 08:38 PM // 20:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

Seriously.
Devs.
Listen to the community.

QFT

Anybody wanted skills like Defensive Anthem and Deadly Paradox to be nerfed but they didn't changed a thing? SoD was a little bit to strong but this nerf is too much.

ensoriki · Oct 13, 2007, 08:44 PM // 20:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by King Kong Monkey

QFT

Anybody wanted skills like Defensive Anthem and Deadly Paradox to be nerfed but they didn't changed a thing? SoD was a little bit to strong but this nerf is too much.

Nerfed how, cus some of the communitys "fixes" are so bad I rather A-net do it so I can say well I have a Company to piss off at and not some stupid 6 year old named Bob.

Cus getting angry at A company is cooler than

OMFG OMFG, That Flippin 5 year old buffed Searing flames to 200 damage!! WTF!!!! shadow refuge sucks even more!? 0_o!

martialis · Oct 14, 2007, 01:50 AM // 01:50

Also, you know that Furious Axe activates in .88 seconds, right? I could just spike with that instead of Agonizing Chop. Agonizing Chop does less damage and is an interrupt, but is slower. The change seems inelegant and doesn't make sense to me, almost as if it was thrown in at the last minute. Weird.

Moloch Vein · Oct 14, 2007, 02:56 AM // 02:56

I see that Hexer's Vigor has had its wording changed to keep in line with the skill being bugged in the first place. Interestingly now the wording makes absolutely no sense.

"Hexer's Vigor ends if you cast a non-Hex skill"????

Melody Cross · Oct 14, 2007, 05:04 AM // 05:04

I was hoping for more. the upside: they performed a balnce before the end of the year. The downside: they performed this "balance".

I can't get my head around it. The skill changes say one thing, Anet says their aims were another. Any reply I make would be construed as insulting, and I don't want to hurt anyones feelings over there. I'll say I am disappointed. I am very disappointed.

no gg for you

Kyp Jade · Oct 14, 2007, 01:50 PM // 13:50

It would definatly be nice to know the design decisions they made on some of these skill changes. Pretty much they did nothing to change the meta, aside from scaring people away from paragons for a few days, they did not touch any of the problem skills.

kvndoom · Oct 14, 2007, 02:24 PM // 14:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyp Jade

aside from scaring people away from paragons for a few days

Truthfully, it didn't last even that long.

Anet has this weird "beat around the bush" balance mentality. Melandru is the problm, so nerf Wearying Strike. Leadership is the problem, so nerf Watch Yourself. Back when Avatar of Grenth was raping everyone, they nerfed Wild Blow. Glyph of Lesser Energy is a problem, so they nerf skills that became overpowered only because their cost could be negated with GoLE. Anet needs to share some of that stuff they're smoking; it's too good to keep for themselves.

TheOneMephisto · Oct 14, 2007, 02:38 PM // 14:38

One interesting thing that the update has done is made ineptitude/clumsiness mesmers viable, at least for a while while everything sorts itself out. Obsed a couple games where 5/3 splits with 2 sin + monk on the offense while the defensive team ran 2 ineptitude mesmers was interesting.

I've always liked ineptitude mesmers, at least how they used to be played everywhere in TA. Besides the fact that they're fairly effective at defending while putting on some pressure, they make it almost impossible for opposing warriors to frenzy, which is fun.

Of course, the split builds that I've seen them in are just 2 idiotic SP sins, so meh... Nerf 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 spike.

Moloch Vein · Oct 14, 2007, 08:30 PM // 20:30

I would like to know if or when Foul Feast is going to be changed into a spell that anyone in the world would like to carry on his bar for any purpose.

I did make a suggestion to stop the Angorodon spammer build (or at least actually hinder it in what could be construed as a "fair" manner) by requiring both foe and caster should suffer from a condition, and to change Foul Feast to provide Weakness (or any other condition really) for both. Was this heard?

Lorekeeper · Oct 14, 2007, 10:52 PM // 22:52

not sure if anyone has posted these yet, but here are the comments posted alongside this months updates...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet

* In this update, we addressed the melee-overload-versus-block-overload struggle we're seeing in Guild Battles right now. Some of our goals were to increase the viability of split tactics, reduce the effectiveness of a defensive "block web," decrease the effectiveness of some spike-oriented melee skills, and reestablish caster pressure and area-of-effect damage, while not overpowering pure spike builds.

seems like they started off with the ideal intentions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet

* The Assassin's ability to strike, retreat, heal up, and move back in for the kill was limited by the lack of solid basic healing. Shadow Refuge played second fiddle to Feigned Neutrality or non-Assassin self-heals for some time, so we increased the unconditional heal portion of this staple skill. Death's Charge has a very conditional heal that yielded too little Health for its situational nature; the healing has been raised accordingly.

Since when was the assasins ability to solo kill limited by the lack of solid basic healing? How about the lack of good attack combos outside outside those which are unblockable or can skip the need for a lead attack? Not to mention the fact that they require the stringing together of at least 3-4 attack skills in order to kill anything. If assasins are struggling at doing anything its because the entire class just doesnt fit into the game. How many assassin builds actually carry ANY self heal? Is that explained by the lack of ANY good self heals or the fact that in order to be good at doing the job of killing anything an assassin has to devote an entire skill bar to do so? Deaths charge is not in play because it has a huge recharge and pushes the assassin into combat without an escape plan. All of this has been commented on by the community for such a long time its comical how you could have got it so wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet

* As part of our effort to decrease melee damage slightly, we made Wearying Strike less powerful to adjust the ever-popular Avatar of Melandru/Wearying Strike combination.

How about the fact that wearying strike can hit up to 3 targets and in a matter of moments decimate ALL the NPCs at VoD? Will -10 dmg really stop that from happening? Deal with NPC AI at VoD properly (not just make it come in waves) and AoE melee will become less of a problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet

* As part of our movement to augment caster pressure damage, many Elementalist Skills obtained raw damage boosts. The Conjure Skills have been changed so they hit as part of the attack, rather than a separate damage packet. This reduces their power versus Reversal of Fortune. Searing Flames received a boost with longer Burning duration, which we hope will empower the choice to bring one copy of it without creating teams consisting of nothing but Searing Flames Elementalists.

Casters role's in GvG was never a matter of its DPS but a matter of its ability to bring a wide variety of defensive/offensive utility in combination with the ability to aid in killing things. The Air ele is a good example of where an elementalist can adopt a vital role in a midline, anti-physical defense with blind, spike ability with lightning orb, defensive/offensive utility with gale, gole and high energy to fuel things like mirror/aegis/wards, and even glyph sac hard rez. Why dont you see earth eles at the stand? Good AoE skills have huge recharges and irrelevant dmg as a result (only really useful against the AI at VoD), main spike skill obs flame causes exhaustion, defensive utility (wards) requires restricted mobility and vulnerability to AoE skills, anti-physical spell - stoning, requires weakness to be applied on targets before use, and in general, all earth skills cost 10 energy or more, rendering earth eles vulnerable to energy denial from a couple of pleaks. No need to run a earth elementalist as its main qualities can easily be taken advantage of without dedicating a build to this attribute (hence air eles with ward melee). Water eles are limited by their lack of any real non-elite spike skills, which is a very important criteria for a midliner. Snaring ability is not so reliable in the face of hex eater vortex, preveils and the buff to pleak. Not
to mention, the expensive costs of most of the water skills.
Fire eles just dont fit well into the GvG environment, since the fire ele is generally an attribute focused on delivering dmg. These form part of highly specialised niche builds rather than more flexible ones. Alot more has been said about the role of the elementalists in the game, and even more about the solutions. I barely scratch the surface of the things people have said about this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet

* Mantra of Recovery has dominated Mesmer Skill Bars in Guild Battles. We reduced its raw effectiveness to remove the complete reliance on it, then we adjusted the recharge times of a few skills to compensate and make them more attractive without Mantra of Recovery. To further encourage diverse Skill Bars, we increased the effectiveness of most Mesmer elites. Hex Eater Vortex was proving to be too powerful at dealing with Hexes, so we lengthened the recharge time to favor more precise Hex removal. Power Spike is a staple Mesmer interrupt that was inferior to its bigger brothers, so we lowered its Energy cost to 5, making it a more readily available choice. The Drain Enchantment change creates a second Mesmer Skill for self healing, while Illusion of Haste seeks to increase Mesmer split potential.

MoR was only so popular because of its synergy with diversion and ward against melee. With the hit to ward against melee such a big hit to MoR might not have been so necessary. Drain enchant buff would not magically make mesmers more splittable. Splittable mesmers generally rely on other classes to become splittable (eg healing breeze, mend touch, storm djinns haste). Ether feast would have been a better candidate for a buff to make splittable mesmers more viable. The buffs to the mesmer interrupts are kinda scary, making backline jobs even harder than they are already and now will be considering the way defense has been hit without offense being hit in kind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet

* The 1/4 second cast time of both Shield of Deflection and Shield of Regeneration made these skills too easy to maintain on a constant basis. We countered this by increasing their recharge times. Enchantment removal should now be a more viable counter to these popular elite skills.

if the cast time made it too easy to maintain them on a constant basis... why not increase the cast time? Truth is, it was the recharge (assuming energy levels were able) that allowed these skills to be kept up on people so often. But to be honest the doubled recharge on SoD was a bit too strong, especially considering the lack of permament wards. SoD was only so strong because of the layers of the defensive web that it rested on. A 8 second recharge would be the maximum, 6-7 probably ideal. 10 is way too long.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet

* We enhanced Necromancer Enchantment-removal options so they wouldn't be so overshadowed by Mesmers. Chilblains, in particular, received a powerful increase to better fit its hefty 25 Energy price tag, while Strip Enchantment, Rend Enchantments, Rip Enchantment, and Gaze of Contempt all received more conservative power increases. Rigor Mortis was improved as another counter to the blocking metagame, while Angorodon's Gaze had its Energy return component reduced to halt the infinite Energy engine.

rigor mortis with 20second recharge the solution to block meta? Why bother adding this in when you have already hit the blocking meta so hard on the chin? Not to mention the buffs to enchant removals... what need is there for this buff? (this really only helps spiritway in HA).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet

* We increased the recharge time for "Go for the Eyes!" because it was generating near-limitless Energy, especially when combined with "Watch Yourself!", for Paragons from the Leadership attribute. Aggressive Refrain's tradeoff of 25 Energy had very little consequence, as it was rarely activated more than once per battle. The addition of self-inflicting Cracked Armor should create more interesting choices for this skill.

surely its not GFTES or WY that are at fault here but LEADERSHIP itself? And applying cracked armour to AR paragons just screams clumsy. i wonder how hero monks cope with this constant condition. Its almost childish to see that it effectively is the same solution suggested by the PvP community but poorly implement purely on the stubborn desire to do things your own way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet

* Nature's Renewal was a lot tougher than other Spirits and was getting far too large an armor bonus for its additional levels. We've reduced the level to bring it down to size.

NR was buffed in the same update when hexes were nerfed... another example of an unnecessary skill change which has plagued the game for months and only now is the skill change being reverted.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet

* Critical Chop and Agonizing Chop now have longer activation times to reduce their raw spike potential. Without a recharge time, "Watch Yourself!" was like an Energy buffet for Paragons, so we limited its rate while making it last longer so that it is still useful. Finally, "Charge!" was improved to keep up with the newer speed boosts and increase the viability of split tactics.

Another clumsy update, how many other attack skills have a 1 second activation time? Agonising is meant to be a adrenaline based interrupt... a 1 second activation time seems a little contradictory. So right now, it is a skill with a split personality because it really doesnt know what its meant to be doing... interrupting? Adding dmg?

We already have an axe adrenaline based interrupt, disrupting chop. We already have a nice dmg skill, executioners strike. If you want to make a skill that does both but less effectively, just keep the same adrenaline cost, remove the 20 second disable and halve the dmg (or even more). Deep wound requirement and 1 second activation is not necessary. Critical chop with 15s recharge was really already enough. If axe warriors were so hell bent on 1/4 second attack skills to allow them to compress their dmg for better spikes, they use prot strike... or even one of the dervish 1/4 attack skills.

overall comment

just remember the opening intentions of the entire balance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet

* In this update, we addressed the melee-overload-versus-block-overload struggle we're seeing in Guild Battles right now. Some of our goals were to increase the viability of split tactics, reduce the effectiveness of a defensive "block web," decrease the effectiveness of some spike-oriented melee skills, and reestablish caster pressure and area-of-effect damage, while not overpowering pure spike builds.

1) increasing viability of split tactics - failed

VoD at 18min is the problem. Assassin self heals are not.

2) reduce the effectiveness of defensive block web - nerfed too hard

it got hit too hard with SoD at 10s, hit to ward melee was really all that was needed. (without corresponding hit to physical dmg pressure that necessitated the defensive web in the first place).

3) decrease the effectiveness of some spike oriented melee skills - fail

Melee builds will always be and have always been designed with the ability to spike AND to pressure. Melee builds were rarely being played to pressure anything because of the numerous layers of defense they faced (it was a matter of how they were being played rather than the build being played). It was far easier to create tiny windows of opportunity in these layers to allow a spike to go through, rather than to peel away enough of the layers to allow pressure to build. Melee builds can still be used to spike with the combination of a deep wound and a 1/4s skill to activate the deep wound asap... the changes to agonising and critical chop will not prevent this. But now the defensive layers have been nerfed which might result in warriors playing a pressure game rather than a spike game. Builds will not change drastically. They never really have.

4) re-establish caster pressure - fail

by buffing enchant removal skill on necros... only a handful of hardly ever used elementalist skills... and esurge and eburn on mesmers?

necro caster pressure was never the classes selling point. The necro is generally chosen either for its spike ability in bloodspikes, its hexing ability that could shutdown physical and inflict some degen pressure, or its ability to create minions or to spread disease to an entire enemy team. Enchant removal does not help it achieve any of these tasks. Blood magic needed comprehensive changes to make it useful outside of bloodspikes or hex builds. Curses is too complicated for me to talk about lol. Death magic needed a bit more utility or dmg ability whether in the form of enchants or hexes.

elementalists... well go have a look at the official wiki... there are tonnes of suggestions and reasons why they have such limited roles in PvP.

Buff to eburn and surge? Why dont you look at the huge number of mesmer elites that are simply awful?

how did you buff AoE? By making spirits vulnerable to burning and giving searing flames more burning duration? You cant be serious. AoE is only bad because its only really useful at VoD. If you buff AoE, all you do is make VoD one hell of a fireworks show. AoE has limited appeal in PvP, especially in GvG because you can never guarantee that your opponents will be stupid enough to stay inside them. It requires quite some coordination to enforce the effectiveness of AoE with the use of snares or KDs. And even then, catching more than 2-3 opponents in AoE would be a rare thing.

conclusion

this collection of nerfs and buffs again only prove to the community that its suggestions are simply not being taken aboard. Not only that but Anet is failing to show the level of understanding needed to tackle the actual problems with skill balance. In an almost random arbitrary fashion, some skills are given buffs (signet of midnight/keystone signet/extend conditions/chilling winds/ashblast/steam) which ignore the reality of why they dont see any play in the first place. Things were overdone again (SoD) which may or may not completely negate all the good things that were done (ward melee).

looking forward to any proper feedback addressing the concerns us players have over this update... considering it is one of those testing phases where they are continually monitoring things and are interested in our feedback.

/sigh

but dont worry everyone

They wont make the same mistakes with GWII!! Cos you can jump and swim!

Div · Oct 15, 2007, 01:26 AM // 01:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

They wont make the same mistakes with GWII!! Cos you can jump and swim!

Quote of the day~!

Wish Swiftdeath · Oct 15, 2007, 05:25 AM // 05:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

They wont make the same mistakes with GWII!! Cos you can jump and swim!

lol i just had to laugh.

O man SoD

The rest is kinda meh, some good but mostly useless

Akaraxle · Oct 15, 2007, 07:33 AM // 07:33

I wouldn't celebrate for the SoR nerf. See, I'm a flagger and - although I wasn't a big fan of the skill - it allowed me to stay alive while still posing a threat with snares and moderate damage. Although Ensign claims the monk runner has been more convenient than the water emo, I still had an excuse to play ele and enjoy myself.

What happens now is that people run full-fledged monks or rits with unremoval weapon spells and splinter for VoD. Have fun dealing with that, those that wanted SoR to be killed.

Symbol · Oct 15, 2007, 07:44 AM // 07:44

Quote:

Also, you know that Furious Axe activates in .88 seconds, right? I could just spike with that instead of Agonizing Chop. Agonizing Chop does less damage and is an interrupt, but is slower. The change seems inelegant and doesn't make sense to me, almost as if it was thrown in at the last minute. Weird

That's not true. Attack skills with activation times are affected by IAS just like anything else, so agonizing would be .67 sec under frenzy. Also since it has an activation time it has the additional benefit of coming out right after the previous attack hits, instead of making you wait until the "afterswing" animation finishes.

That's why agonizing is still useful for compressive damage, it's just not as crazy as before.

v o i d · Oct 15, 2007, 08:28 AM // 08:28

I didn't expect so much negative feedback; apart from a few exceptions (like SoR), the update seems pretty solid.

Div · Oct 15, 2007, 08:45 AM // 08:45

Overall, a decent update, though nothing spectacular given how long it took. There are some changes that still need to be made, but for the love of kittens that will be punted, change keystone signet. At 10 second recharge (which is made much lower by mantra of inscriptions), it's insanely overpowered. I have no idea why it received such a big buff in the first place instead of taking smaller steps to buff it (maybe as a response to PvE complaint about signet builds being not as good?).

Qual · Oct 15, 2007, 08:56 AM // 08:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by King Kong Monkey

SoD was a little bit to strong but this nerf is too much.

It is not, the nerf is all right, QQ

Akaraxle · Oct 15, 2007, 08:57 AM // 08:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by v o i d

I didn't expect so much negative feedback; apart from a few exceptions (like SoR), the update seems pretty solid.

It's solid in the way that it changes nothing: refer to this.

EDIT: link fixed.

glountz · Oct 15, 2007, 11:09 AM // 11:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

Overall, a decent update, though nothing spectacular given how long it took. There are some changes that still need to be made, but for the love of kittens that will be punted, change keystone signet. At 10 second recharge (which is made much lower by mantra of inscriptions), it's insanely overpowered. I have no idea why it received such a big buff in the first place instead of taking smaller steps to buff it (maybe as a response to PvE complaint about signet builds being not as good?).

It actually made signet builds viable.
No, it made signet builds overpowered. Weariness = -7 mana every 12 seconds. Perma elite lock through humility.

A-net, fix it to
Keystone Signet:
1 sec cast 5 recharge.
Keystone signet recharges all your signets. For each signet recharged this way, Keystone Signet have an additionnal 6...3...2 recharge.

This way the more signets you recharge, the more Keystone itself have a bigger recharge. Additionally it gives it a reason to be in Inspiration line.

Moloch Vein · Oct 15, 2007, 11:28 AM // 11:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet
* We enhanced Necromancer Enchantment-removal options so they wouldn't be so overshadowed by Mesmers. Chilblains, in particular, received a powerful increase to better fit its hefty 25 Energy price tag

War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery.

Ignorance is Strength.

Take a skill.

Remove its ability to affect non-targettable foes.

More than double the casting time.

Limit the number of enchantments it can effect.

Keep the insane energy cost.

Call it a "boost".

For heaven's sake...