Curse

Melody Cross · May 31, 2007, 04:14 AM // 04:14

Well Ensign, if even you think your idea is too much of a buff for CS, why not up the recycle on it? Make it even more like BHA than it currently is but keep the conditional dazed

15E apply dazed on interrupt with a 15-20 second recycle?

Personally, I think Dazed the condition needs to be nerfed; one of its effects should be removed. But thats not what this thread is about.

I still disagree with you about SP but...I will concede that sins have come a looooooong way since Factions first hit the shelves.

GGs and Gnite

Patccmoi · May 31, 2007, 05:28 AM // 05:28

2 Main skills i'd want to see hit that you didn't mention:

1) Aggressive Refrain

I gotta say that's the one single skill that annoys me the most on Paragons. Because it's so ridiculously easy to keep up forever and unstrippable that it's basically a passive IAS. You activate it as the game starts, keep it up with some anthem between fight (Anthem of Flame being awesome for that) and then stuff like WY! or GftE! just makes sure it has no chance to ever run out.

I'm not sure exactly what should be changed about it. Maybe make it 10/1/20 and lasting 5..10s? So that if you're not really having shouts ending continuously it just ends fast and you can't keep it up between fights with just Anthem of Flame? I dunno, at least it'd force recasting and give a chance to interrupt.

Cause this one skill makes Paragons have warriors DPS from range. Because while warriors lose on DPS having to chase people and can't just stay in IAS at will (none is good for it unless you wanna sacrifice your elite and go high tactics and have a paragon behind and use lots of energy upkeep... oh wait Soldier's Stance sucks. Frenzy is the closest but has a significant downside while Aggressive Refrain basically has none), Paragons just throw spears from range at a fast rate and even if some miss enough hit to really pressure.

I often think that i'd basically want Spear damage reduced to something like 12..21 and give it better attack skills, but just fixing Aggressive Refrain might be enough cause spears aren't THAT good because of bad accuracy if they couldn't just permanently throw them so fast at no cost. It might also reduce Paragons adrenalin gain and allow for WY! to maybe have 5 adrenal cost?

And a base armor reduction is absolutely required. Honestly i'd even get it down to 65 personally cause they still have a shield and that Centurion Insigna which basically gives them an extra +10AL that comes from unstrippable stuff. So even with 65 base AL, a standard Paragon would have 91AL. And being range and throwing spears and having extra skills to buff their AL (like Stand your Ground!, etc.) it seems high enough to me. But anyway, 70AL would likely be fine too, but they GOT to lose some AL.

2) Blurred Vision

I always feel that this skill has way too good stats considering it's AOE and can be kept up permanently if not removed (which is often the case in a split). Seems to me that duration shouldn't match recharge, or cast time should at least be raised to 2s cause i think 1s cast is too powerful for AOE hexing in general (with maybe a few exceptions like Mark of Rodgort cause that hex doesn't do anything on its own and even if you have their full team affected it's unlikely you can keep all of them burning).

If you keep it working as it is now, i'd suggest instead:

15/2/20, last 5..13..16 seconds

Or it could be reworked to be something like:

'15/1/12, for 3s target foe and adjacent foes have 20..68..84% chance to miss' which would be a nice skill to use to stop pressure significantly for an instant or screw up a spike but not just a huge miss % hex that you leave on people.

When you think about it, Reckless Haste is actually worse than Blurred Vision in every single way (lower miss % unless you got 16 curses, worse recharge, worse cast time, and you give them an IAS on top) yet it's already a very strong curse skill that's on most Necros bar. And i know they're from different skill line, but it's not like Water is a lacking line atm, it's very powerful as is and as much as curses in its own way.

Nice wishlist overall. The only thing i wouldn't be too happy about is the nerf to Spirit Burn. Raising it to 12s recharge when it's supposed to basically be Rt's equivalent to Lightning Strike is bad imo, i'd MUCH rather see it at 5s recharge but with the damage lowered to something like 15..51..63 + 5..17..21 (so 20..68..84 when condition is met). It would be a nice pressure skill and afterspike, but not main spike (84 damage reduced by armor is not spike quality, and that's if you meet condition), the same way you don't try to do Lightning Strike spikes but it's still a decent skill.

In the same sense, i'd also like to see Wielder's Strike recharge reduced to something like 8-9s with a damage reduction similar to what you said. Because this would give Channeling better pressure skills, which are lacking atm because the Rt update basically took all Rt skills and turned them into spikes. And raising recharge without touching damage doesn't really hurt spikes that much, it mostly hurts non-spike Rts that'd be happy to have a pressure skill ready somewhere. If they want a big spike, Channeled Strike or Gaze from Beyond are there, but they're 2s cast which is fine for spike skills.

Channeling used to be powerful DPS because you had low recharge, fairly high damage skills you could chain spam. With the Rt update and Earshot range to spirit they become far too reliable as spike skills and required a nerf. But nerfing them to make them slightly worse spike skill is kinda sad when you could turn them into nice pressure skills instead. I don't think anything really imbalanced would come out of it and pressure damage skills are much better on characters that also have powerful healing and protection attributes than spike skills. Just like Smite has to stick with stuff like Zealot's Fire and Balt's Aura to damage through pressure because giving monk a solid spike skill (ala Mystic Wrath, which had to be nerfed) is a bad idea.

Earshot range limit for Assassins is also something i support since a good while, i'd be glad to see it and it'd likely help assassins actually keep shadowsteps.

Div · May 31, 2007, 05:53 AM // 05:53

I'm so glad it's someone who knows what he's talking about posting about the nerf wishlist instead of someone random whining

Great list, and I really hope Anet reads this...but they probably wont

Farin · May 31, 2007, 05:53 AM // 05:53

Looks good. Wouldn't mind seeing more hexes nerfed. Agressive Refrain is also bad but not the top of my priorities.

Now if only it happened.

Zuranthium · May 31, 2007, 05:54 AM // 05:54

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