Curse

Blame the Monks · Jul 21, 2007, 04:02 AM // 04:02

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_...e_North_skills

Note that it was written by Izzy, so its accurate. Lots of hex buffs, a few spike skills, a bit more button mashing. Almost as much potential as factions imo.

Riotgear · Jul 21, 2007, 05:15 AM // 05:15

Of interesting note is that there are several skills which seem useful for linebackers.
Grapple + "I Meant to Do That!" + Hammer
Disarm
Winter's Embrace + Lieutenant's
Withering Aura

Oh yeah, and:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Defile_Defenses <----- Nerf plz.

Smoke Powder looks fun for Mo/A, but that combined with stuff like Withering Aura and a few other things makes me really suspect that GW:EN is going to push the meta even more towards Mel's Dervishes. Spotless Mind + Spotless Soul puts a lot more utility in Healing Prayers.

Looks like Izzy things that passive armor debuffs are bad, so his solution is to add 4 clunky skills that add a condition and a few more skills that rely on said condition (and are consequently also clunky).

druggedchimp · Jul 21, 2007, 05:44 AM // 05:44

Oh My Word

There's going to be a lot of nerfing no doubt about it.

If not, I can see skills like Expert's Dexterity becoming considerably more powerful...

Though, since these skills are far from finished, it's best not to make too much of a big deal about it.

Mesmer in Need · Jul 21, 2007, 05:44 AM // 05:44

I see some interesting combos forming:
Backbreaker -> pulverising -> fierce blow would be a good spike, idk about the big different in adren costs though.
Weapon of agression may be the new flurry for iw mesmers and spirit warrior rits.
And omg super powered sythe sins batman, way of the warrior :O Way of the assassin+wotw+critical eye and 12 crit strikes= 80%+ chance to crit, plus the natrual crit rate of a scythe.
Sig of mystic speed= new permantent unremovable droks running skill unafected by vos.
Farmers scythe=130 farmers heaven.
Theres also a bunch of nec skills with high armour ignoring dmg.
Seems interesting.
Btw, no elites announced yet? or are there none?

druggedchimp · Jul 21, 2007, 06:17 AM // 06:17

"...100 new profession-specific skills (10 per profession, none of which are elite)..."
- http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Image...North_logo.png

Lord Natural · Jul 21, 2007, 07:29 AM // 07:29

Same crap as always. Create a bunch of overpowered skills to promote the game, and then the next year trying to clean up the mess.

around · Jul 21, 2007, 07:59 AM // 07:59

The only good thing I see is that lead->offhand->dual might be viable. Other than that?

Imba.

Turbobusa · Jul 21, 2007, 08:16 AM // 08:16

most skill i've looked at for the moment (para + warr) seem to be completly overpowered.
at least, easily abusable

kvndoom · Jul 21, 2007, 08:21 AM // 08:21

Weapon of aggression... So after 2 1/2 years, unconditional IAS without any drawback.

Grapple + Steady Stance... um, free KD + energy + adrenaline anyone? Ugh, I hope this listing was for PVE-only skills, even though I know I'm dreaming to say that.

Ugh you know what? I've not even looked at all the skills and I've already seen 5 or more insta-kill combos (when paired with existing skills), some worse than when Nightfall was released. Yay for the return of the spike meta. The good news is, Izzy will have 2 years to fix this mess before GW2, that is if there's anyone left playing PVP by then. This is how not to please your userbase.

ImbAnet lives.

Div · Jul 21, 2007, 08:31 AM // 08:31

Pulverizing smash seems pretty broken too...

I hope these are PvE skills, because otherwise they'll all end up like searing flames or rampage as twenty.

Riotgear · Jul 21, 2007, 08:38 AM // 08:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by spawnofebil

The only good thing I see is that lead->offhand->dual might be viable. Other than that?

Imba.

As I kind of mentioned in another thread, the problem with lead-offhand-dual is the same problem that Crippling Slash had before it caused bleed: Chains that take too long to get to the money skills (read: Gash) suck. Warriors don't look for better skills to use BEFORE Sever Artery, the mere requirement of Sever was enough to make most run Eviscerate before the Cripslash/Conjure buff.

Offhands are already kind of analogous to Sever Artery to begin with as they're really just fluff to get a KD or DW with two chances to bypass block, or whack your target with the 5-energy non-elite highest-damaging skill in the game. Leads on the other hand just give your target one more chance to ruin a combo at its most fragile point.

If they really want to make lead-offhand-dual viable, then the lead-skips need to be significantly clunkier, and Blades of Steel probably shouldn't be maxing out unless it's at the end of a 5-part chain.

Lotus Strike - Recharge is too long for a pressure bar, spike bars want to skip to the duals ASAP so it fails on account of Black Lotus Strike doing the same thing immediately after Shadow Prison, and tacking Impale on the end is better than tacking any lead at the start.

Falling Lotus Strike - See above. Might replace Black Spider Strike on spiker bars, isn't going to make lead-offhand-dual any more popular though.

Vampiric Assault - Not as good as Death Blossom for Moebius Strike bars, not as good of a combo mid as Horns or Twisting Fangs and not as good of a terminator as Blades of Steel, irrelevant to lead-offhand-dual

Golden Fang Strike - Okay, this one's good.

Trampling Ox - More conditional than Horns, slightly better recharge, might find use.

..... in all though, only GFS seems like it'll do anything, the problem still remains that the leads are mostly fluff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

I hope these are PvE skills, because otherwise they'll all end up like searing flames or rampage as twenty.

Highly unlikely. The press release notes 150 skills, 50 of which are PvE only. The list only shows 100, which would imply that all 100 are for PvP use.

moko · Jul 21, 2007, 08:51 AM // 08:51

oh my god.............

............

........................

i hope Izzy is going to slap himself hard before the game is released. :/

Tab · Jul 21, 2007, 09:01 AM // 09:01

Hmm. This stuff makes NF look balanced.

nugzta · Jul 21, 2007, 09:05 AM // 09:05

Imba skills are now necessity to stay competitive, after all what gives pvp community incentive to buy pve oriented expansion if it wasnt for these skills. Good job Anet! /rolleyes

Riotgear · Jul 21, 2007, 09:18 AM // 09:18

The more I think about Grapple, the more ridiculous it seems. I'm seriously betting what you're going to see is a lot of telespike crap, since you can basically have one warrior Grapple them monk with an anti-KD ability up, then Shadow Walk-Eviscerate the spike target, while the other Shadow Walk-Grapples the other monk.

Oh, and zergway gets a KD that ignores block/blind/anything, bet that'll make HA more fun.

EDIT -- Oh, and I initially thought that Smoke Powder could singlehandedly get the HB meta away from SP spikers, but if that even comes close to happening, you'll probably see them run A/Rt just to prevent that.

BlackEagle · Jul 21, 2007, 09:27 AM // 09:27

The new monk skills look pretty bad. After a quick count, 6 of them are smiting prayers, 3 are healing and 1 is prot.

As smiting is never going to really be used on main monks (except for things like smite hex) that introduces 4 new skills for main monks. Of these, Cure Hex looks relatively decent, with a more useful side affect than smtie hex. But I can still see veil/deny seeing more play, as most the time(unelss it's hexway); the hexes (ie. diversion/water-snares) you are going to be removing are going to be on targets that are high on health anyway and you won't see the benefit. In which case I'd rather be able to pre-veil, so veil is better than cure in that sense. And then against hexway, you aren't going to get the money hexes with single removal anyway, so in that case deny is better.

Spotless Mind/Soul could be interesting, but it really depends on the way the meta develops. The fact that you would have to run a major to get full benefit out of them doens't help.

Steadfast Soul looks interesting, but again it really depends on how the meta goes. But by having a look at some of the new hammer skills, I can see hammer warriors becoming even more popular.

So overall, the monk skills are pretty sucky (By that I don't see any skills there that you will have to take, though I'm not sure how good spotless mind/soul and steadfast soul will be in reality) unless I'm overlooking something major. Though monks kinda got spoiled with nf.

Other skills which I saw that looked interesting were Weapon of Aggression. When I first saw it, I thought it might be balanced out by the fact that you have to have rit secondary and spec 7 for permanent IAS. But the trouble with it is hammer warriors. The standard bar has no secondary, and now flail will be unusable because Pulverizing is adrenaline cost. Having said that, I'm not sure if it's necessarily a bad thing. This will probably become the standard IAS for hammer warriors imo, but for anything else, there is no reason to stop running frenzy. The only drawback of frenzy is the extra damage taken, but that can easily be dealt with by a cancel stance and knowing when you're going to take damage and playing a bit smart. The downside of Weapon of Aggression is a need to change your secondary (so no conjure, shock, MT etc) and the recharge meaning at points you won't be able to get your IAS.

Power Lock looks very strong as well.

Overall, to me (of the ones I've looked at) some of them seem relatively ok, but just a few will have the greatest affect and completely shape the meta unless they're changed. But you really have to wait and see them being played and how they fit into and change the meta before you can really see how imbalanced they are.

Riotgear · Jul 21, 2007, 10:26 AM // 10:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackEagle

As smiting is never going to really be used on main monks (except for things like smite hex) that introduces 4 new skills for main monks.

Smiting's place is more along the lines of a midliner, you are never going to replace a prot or heal monk with someone who only does half the job of keeping health bars up. However, Smiter's Boon means that at 11 Divine Favor, you're basically tacking "and is healed for 35 health" to every Smiting skill, which is a major improvement in the perspective of stuff like Smite Condition and Reversal of Damage compared to their cousins in Prot. It might be enough to make it viable, since you've still got quite a bit of room to play around with attributes.

around · Jul 21, 2007, 11:21 AM // 11:21

What I meant to say with my lead->offhand->dual comment is that Golden Fang strike is good and Falling Lotus might make AoD assassins viable again.

We still need a decent lead though. Black mantis whatever is pretty good, but needs siphon speed to get the most of it.

Orange Milk · Jul 21, 2007, 11:46 AM // 11:46

fail

This sucks, not at all what I was hoping for.

I guess they tossed the word "overpowered" out the window for most of these.

Turbobusa · Jul 21, 2007, 11:53 AM // 11:53

make your suggestions in the "talk" page of each skills to avoid a broken release.