Curse

Zabe · Jan 22, 2007, 07:47 AM // 07:47

Skill: Sympathetic and Ancestors visge:

Old skills, no reason to nerf these. Only places i know these are used are some farm builds like dual or solo underworld etc.

Skill: Rend Enchantments:

Too much nerf, this wont anyway be used by anyone. Only reason i can see to this skill is the pathetic try to ruin UW solo builds etc.

Skill: Searing Flames

Let me laugh at this nerf please. 2 seconds off from burning isnt anything as it is still easily spammable.

Skill: Rising Bile

Too big damage increase. Something like 10 seconds and 10 damage per second or something?

Skill: Avatar of Grenth

Too powerful. Wild Blow combined with AoG makes target lose 1 enchantment, 1 stance and does damage on 60AL like 100 damage, and combined with other attack skills it does like 130-150 damage and you can't use prot spirit or anything against it.

Class: Dervish

Overally overpowered in PvP. Enchantments etc. Not to mention that damage skills do fairly over 100 damage per hit, aint it cool that you get 3 dervishes on you and you cant do anything and you die, no its not good.

Shield of absorption:

No reason to lenghten the cast time to 1 second, would be like more get it to old 0.25second cast. Take like 1 second off the duration.

Blinding surge:

Good balance at this one, made it unspammable for mesmer elementalists without good energy management. =)

Overally from the balance: Heroes ascent changes were good imo, makes some variability to that tournament system (I know theres other thread for this)

Skill balance was still a big joke imo. Old skills that are only used on farming etc. get nerffed and new nightfall skills are still overpowered alot.

Siva arwen · Jan 22, 2007, 08:15 AM // 08:15

Skill Name: Palm Strike

Quote:

Beguiling Haze: increased Energy cost to 15, increased recharge time to 20 seconds. Functionality changed to "Shadow Step to target foe. That foe is interrupted and becomes Dazed for 5..11 second[s]."

How about add Shadow Step to Palm Strike and increase recharge to 15 or 20sec?

Skill Name: Sharpen Daggers
How about change to 5energy, 2sec casting, 15sec recharge : duration 15sec , all of your attack skills cause bleeding for 1...15sec?

When Anet is going to fix this Phoenix skill? or this skill has no meaning at all?
Most of Assassin attack skills have their own meaning behind the skill name.

Golden = Enchantment
Black = Hexed-Foe
Falling = Knocked-down-Foe
Leaping = Moving-Foe
Fox = Unblock
Spider = poison
Mantis = Cripple
Lotus = Gain-Energy
Wild = Break-Stance
Phoenix = ?????

And Golden Phoenix Strike is still a weak attack skill, not even worth like Black Spider Strike that has low energy require, does more dmg, and has poison.

George · Jan 22, 2007, 10:01 AM // 10:01

Paragons entire motivation line: shouldnt be touched,
skills that effect party only now should be restored to "effect all allies within shout range" - restriction to party only is an overnerf

Arcador · Jan 22, 2007, 10:27 AM // 10:27

Skill Name: Jagged Bones
Impressions: Allows infinite number of minions allowing a party of necros infinite income of energy. Make it that this minion does not trigger SR - it will still be used for infinite minions but not abuse.

Ysa Noba · Jan 22, 2007, 11:17 AM // 11:17

Shadow of haste: Shorter time, dont like what you have done. Plz put it back to the original state!

Gr Ysa Noba

Rone · Jan 22, 2007, 11:50 AM // 11:50

Critical Eye:
Excellent buff.

Sharpen Daggers:
Needs buff; way too much nerf.

Shadow of Haste:
Good

Weakness Condition
Excellent

Energy Surge:
Fair

Spiritual Pain:
Too much nerf

Rez skills:
Good

Glowing Gaze:
Too much nerf

Searing Flames:
Not enough nerf

Spoil Victor:
Good nerf

Gladiator's Defense:
Too much nerf

Paragon skills:
Way too much nerf; needs buffing -- what about making it so that Paragon skills do not stack with other Paragon skills to prevent Paragon-heavy teams in PvP -- make a lone Paragon (a Leader) more valuable than a group of Paragons (all shouting to be heard).

Toxicity:
Good buff

Trapping skills:
Good buff

Caze · Jan 22, 2007, 12:31 PM // 12:31

Jagged Bones:
Make that this cannot be used on Jagged Horrors or something. The current Jagged Bones + Death Nova + Taste of Death combo is way too powerful. With 12 points in soul reaping, the necro can keep doing this for an infinity.

[DemoniC][EVL] · Jan 22, 2007, 02:27 PM // 14:27

Bloodsong, it should be put back in communing, and gaze of fury should be changed to a spirit. With bloodsong lost from communing this line misses significant damage, and the other communing spirits are still pretty unusable. They have too short lifespans which makes them even worse at their high energy costs.
Bloodsong should be made communing again and cost 25 energy instead of the old 15. It's the only spirit that deserves a cost of 25 because it lives so long and because of the damage it does.

DreamWind · Jan 22, 2007, 04:09 PM // 16:09

-My General View on the Entire Skill Update: I could go on listing all of the things about each individual skill, but I will give the general impression after watching a lot of observer and playing a few games.

The game "feels" broken. I know a lot of other people can back me up on that. It seems like some builds in both HA and GvG are just so much better than others that you almost have to play them. This isn't a good thing. The idea is to make it so a lot of possible builds are playable, but I don't get that feeling right now. Right now in GvG, you really don't have a ton of options if you want to be competitive from my viewpoint.

There are a lot of ways to fix this. Maybe in the future instead of buffing skills, just nerf skills that are overpowered? That is one idea. That alone would cause less powerful skills to be used, and eventually you would get to a point where all skills have potential. Obviously this is a drastic idea that probably won't happen, but all I am saying is Guild Wars metagame just feels broken to me right now. Don't others agree??

Prefectus · Jan 22, 2007, 04:10 PM // 16:10

Leave bloodsong in communing i dont unbderstand why it was thought changeing it to chaneling would be a good idea

guild deputy · Jan 22, 2007, 04:37 PM // 16:37

Skill: Eruption

To overpowered, extra damage be my guest but not the blinding effect each seccond, it's almost impossible to kill something with 1 or 2 melee/ ranged fighters with al the sandstorm warders.

Skill: Sandstorm

Still to powerfull, it nerfs the entire teams based on hexes like hex presure etc the spirits/minions die to fast so there is no energy... why does a necro have soul reaping anyway with sandstorm around.

Skill: Locust's fury

A little boost was at place I guess but even a infuse healt doesnt help enough to stop an assasin killing a soft target.

Proffesion: Paragon

I am not going to name all skills, but the paragon was nerfed pretty hard before which i liked but this is a little bit insane, just leave the skills as they were after the previous nerf.

Avatar of Grenth vs Order of apostasy and Dark Apostasy

Why is it that those skills have a lot of sacrifise of energy and healt and the Avatar doesn't, it's a good skill, works pretty long but I think it isn't balanced at all, why did Anet change some avatars but not Grenth.

Skill: Rampage as one

Good enough I guess you can still use it but it's just a bit harder.

This was what I had to say, tnx for you time in advance.

Shadowfox1125 · Jan 22, 2007, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Critical Chop: Overly nerfed. Either reduce the damage OR the recharge, but not both, please. If kept this way, this skill will never be used again.

Motivation Skill: Why the nerf? It's like hitting someone when he/she is down.

Bloodsong: Doesn't really make much sense to put it in Channeling..

Shadow of Haste: Not bad.

Shanaeri Rynale · Jan 22, 2007, 05:48 PM // 17:48

Skill: Spiritual Pain:
Too conditional now, renders it useless in PvE and not worth taking in pvp.
Keep the damage as it is now, but increase cast time to 2s. Please take the views of PvE mesmers into consideration.

Skill: Power Block
Nice change

Skill MoR
Great changed but can see it being over used.

Evade removal
Effectivley reduces the use of distortion to being almost not worth the effort.

Warrior Stance and paragon changes
Too much reduction in effectiveness I feel.

ainkami · Jan 22, 2007, 06:00 PM // 18:00

Like many posters said before, the skill rebalance only seem to make the game more broken. Not enough overpowered skills were nerfed, and too many useless skills that got an uber buff.

Assassin's Remedy: Still useless. What good is it when you have blind & cripple. The only conditions that matter to an assassin.
Beguiling Haze: unconditional daze and shadow step makes too overpowered.
Blades of Steel: too much damage increase. ~200 dmg right now
Impale: already does 100 dmg, doesn't need deep wound to take 100 more hp away.

Warrior Stances: On demand stancing makes it too easy to avoid assasin/warrior spikes. Distortion was nerfed b/c of on demand stancing. Why bringing it back now?
Evasion removal: Griffon's Sweep and Leviathan's Sweep will be back to 5sec recharge. Knockdown everytime you use stances. Makes whole blocking system worseless.

Searing Flame: No nerf needed. It's Glowing that needs nerf to prevent SF spam.
Glowing Gaze: +7 net energy every 5 secs is too much. increase recharge.
Savannah Heat: Too much damage. Glyph of Elemental power -> SH -> Gale -> Liquid Flame -> dead opponent in 5secs.
A/W with Shadow Prison & Burst of Aggression killing things in 4 secs. Needs nerf.

These <=5 sec kill techniques really need to be nerfed. Otherwise, it's all that people will play.

Chewbacca Defense · Jan 22, 2007, 06:28 PM // 18:28

Shadow of Haste
Great balance. Would like to see it with a lower recharge. Possibly something like 5..20..25 with recharge of 30s.

Shield of Absorption
Perfect!

Shield of Regeneration
Perfect!

Evade Removal
Not a big fan of this, but still it works.

Weakness
Awesome!

Jagged Bones
Either increase recharge or increase cast time.

Great work and thanks for listening to the community. It's much appreciated and much loved.

Divineshadows · Jan 22, 2007, 06:49 PM // 18:49

Skill Name: Blades of steel
Impressions: Too much improvement. Maximum bonus damage of 80 x 2 is just too much especially on soft casters. I agree that 50 x 2 was too low since this skill was usually in direct competition with twisting fangs (since horns is pretty much needed for two dual attacks in short time). Twisting does about 135 armor ignoring damage which counts 100 from deep wound and causes bleeding. This skill should have a cap of 70 bonus damage.

Skill Name: Avatar of Grenth
Impressions: Changing the recharge to 30 seconds was not much of a nerf. In fact, this skill received a virtual buff due to increase in energy cost to blinding surge. This skill needs some downside whenever enchantments are removed such as a health sacrafice.

Skill Name: Avatar of Melandru
Impressions: Same as grenth. The 30 second recharge was not enough. Not sure how this skill needs to be changed, but it needs something. Perhaps lower max health (+100 instead of +200)? Or perhaps conditions being fleeting (last only 25% of their normal time) instead of immunity?

Skill Name: Wearying Strike
Impressions: Was expecting to see this skill altered in some way. Either a long recharge such as 6 seconds or a lower +dmg amount.

Skill Name: Eremite's Attack and Mystic Sweep
Impression: These two skills combined with avatar of grenth are the cause of making warriors inferior pressure options when compared to dervishes. These skills should have a 6 or 8 second recharge in my opinion. Even with these 2 skills having longer recharge though, I don't see anything that would prevent a dervish from just using protector's strike instead.

Skill Name: Eruption
Impressions: Too much improvement in my opinion. I would keep the blindness on each pulse, but not buff the damage. The earth line in general received too many damage buffs to its AoEs. Why would you go fire (other than searing flames of course) when earth has strong AoEs as well and better utility in the form of wards?

Skill Name: Frozen Burst
Impressions: Too much improvement in my opinion. 10 second recharge is optimal for this skill with the new damage range.

Skill Name: Lightning Hammer
Impressions: Too much improvement. The recharge did need buffing, but 2 second recharge is excessive under dual attunements. 8 second recharge is best.

Skill Name: Water Trident
Impressions: Awesome change. With the tridents missing much less often now, this skill is at least something you can keep in the back of your mind when you want a spammable snare that can be used offensively or defensively that does damage. Previously, crippling shot and crippling slash were the only option for this role.

Skill Name: Mantra of Recovery
Impressions: Too much improvement. Costing 5 energy is fine, but the duration should have been left as is. There needs to be some downtime at medium levels of fast casting (9 to 11).

Skill Name: Mirror of Disenchantment
Impressions: Lower recharge was not the answer for this skill. It really needed its energy cost reduced to 15 instead.

Skill Name: Price of Pride
Impressions: Too much improvement. Reducing the energy cost to 5 makes it playable. Reducing the recharge makes it sick.

Skill Name: Shielding Hands
Impressions: One of the best skill updates. You now actually have a choice between this and shield of absorbption and with the increase in cast time to shield of absorbption they are very different in how they can be functionally used by monks.

Skill Name: Monk hard rezzes and other hard rezzes in general.
Impressions: I liked these changes very much. Not sure if some of them were buffed enough, but this is one area where baby steps is the way to go. Those hard rezzes that need it can always be buffed again in a later update. I particularly liked the buffs to flesh of my flesh and death pact signet.

Skill Name: Depravity
Impressions: This skill should not have been buffed. 10 second recharge is insane. I'm wary of even changing this one to a 20 second recharge (from 25). Combined with a panic mesmer with glyph lesser, power drain, and mind wrack and other hexers providing degen and cheap cover hexes like parasitic bond and ether phantom, the combined power of the energy denial is just sick.

Skill Name: Necromancer profession
Impressions: Aside from depravity, the skill balances to necromancer were spot on in my opinion. I particularly liked the adjustment/nerf to spoil victor. It's still playable, but not insane like before. Something still needs to be done with soul reaping though and its interaction with spirits and minions.

Skill Name: Paragon profession
Impressions: I still feel like something is wrong with the damage range or the attack speed on spears. 4 paragons should be able to spike with spears (just as rangers can with bows), but their auto-attacks should not create nearly as much pressure as they do. I would change the attack speed on spears to one throw every 1.7 seconds. 1.5 is just too fast especially while under aggressive refrain.

Skill Name: Throw dirt
Impressions: Awesome change. The recharge before made it only useful on oath shot rangers. A 30 second recharge at least makes it a skill to consider on other types of rangers.

Skill Name: Rampage as One
Impressions: Perfect change.

Skill Name: Destructive was Glaive
Impressions: 25% armor penetration was way too much (aside from the fact that it was bugged to be -25 armor), but 5% makes it worthless. 10% to 15% armor penetration perhaps? The change of spirit range to earshot is not a good thing for the game. Leave the previously existing spirit range mechanic please.

Skill Name: Gaze from Beyond
Impressions: This skill did not need a buff at all. It's a very spikey skill and almost all caster spike skills in the game have a 2+ second cast leaving them more open to interruption. Spiritual pain was another exception, but its damage got reduced. Gaze from beyond at it's new damage level and one second cast is just downright scary.

Skill Name: Critical Chop
Impressions: Overly nerfed. The damage should have been left as it was and just change the recharge to 15 seconds.

Skill Name: Weakness condition.
Impressions: Before it was the weakest condition in the game (along with bleeding). Now it can be used to prevent players from hitting key breakpoints on skills. Now casters have to think about whether or not to bring 6 air magic when using gale or leave their spec at 5 and just pay attention to whether or not they have weakness on them.

Earendil · Jan 22, 2007, 07:12 PM // 19:12

I will mostly refer to channeling weapon spells.

Skill name: Nightmare weapon - can apply to the next 4 attacks (at 12)
Impressions: Maybe overpowered. Can be used for low damage fast attacks and does about 210 life stealing damage (the most difficult to balance). Most probable ways to (ab)use:
- on a low damage fast assassin (been said before in this thread)
- on a warrior that's charging his adrenaline (and will also do some pressure damage and heal himself)
- most important - coupled with Dual shot and a fast finisher (probably distracting since damage doesn't really matter) - it will bring back Rspike at its worst (combined with Bspike no less). Also consider the use of Needling shot with this. Assuming a self cast 12 NW, a 12 OoV and a vampiric bow, the damage from dual + distracting is at 180 life steal. Too much.

Skill name: Splinter weapon
Impressions: Very powerful now against aggroing mobs (in combination with Barrage). Low cost low recharge. I see it being used a lot in PvE if it stays like this but might see some PvP too.

Skill name: Warmonger Weapon.
Impressions: I like the change. the 15 e cost made it a bit prohibitive for low energy regen melee classes (and rangers). It will definetely see the light of PvP more like this.

Alleji · Jan 22, 2007, 07:16 PM // 19:16

Only commenting on whatever I feel qualified to comment on, so excuse leaving out most assassin, paragon and warrior changes.

Feigned Neutrality
Reduce armor as well, or significantly buff shadow shround... they are designed to do the same thing, but one is still 5x better than the other.

Shadow of Haste
Completely killed the skill, but I suppose it wasn't intended to be better than AoD anyway, so good.

Shadow Prison
Nerfing shadow prison by buffing arcane thievery = leet. <3 anet.

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Avatar of Grenth
Not nearly enough... does izzy play GvG at all? Rework the skill entirely, or add a severe health and/or energy loss whenever it removed an enchantment, or make it trigger only on crit hits. </3 anet.

Avatar of Melandru
Nerf on this would be nice as well, or significantly increase recharge on wearying strike... like 15 seconds.

Wild Blow (yes, it's a dervish skill currently)
50% failure with strength 4 or less imo.

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Blinding Surge
Wrong way to nerf the skill IMO. I'd leave it at 5 energy, but remove AoE blind condition and increase recharge, so blind = recharge at about 11-12 air.

Eruption
Good, now earth has a second viable nuke.

Sandstorm
Needs a nerf - recharge, damage, 25 energy, whatever, but it needs a nerf. Either that, or rework HA completely. </3 anet.

Searing Flames & Glowing Gaze
Between the two of them, nerfed just enough.

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Arcane Larceny & Arcane Thievery
Great buff to two fun skills. They're 100% viable now because you're trading 1 for 1 instead of gimping yourself. <3 anet. Simple thievery, on the other hand, will always be trash, no matter how much you buff it.

Mantra of Recovery
A bit too much I think... although I <3 mesmers and mesmers need to be more effective to counter all the broken shit you seem to be reluctant to balance. This skill = steroids for diversion = great counter.

Spiritual Pain
Got killed. Good.

Energy Surge
I don't see why this was necessary. Spiritual Pain already got killed. Esurge was fine for 2 years, what's wrong with it now?

Price of Pride
Nice buff.

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Balthazar's Pendulum
If you make a joke skill in the first place, why buff it?

Shield of Absorption
Good. Needed a nerf.

Shield of Deflection
Nice buff.

Shield of Regeneration
I'd reduce duration/increase recharge and bump it down to 10 energy. Then it would be good.

Signet of Mystic Wrath
SoMW spike let stupid people win halls. But wait... that doesn't matter because you refuse to make halls not suck. (i.e. make it 8v8, return to 10-min 5-team HoH and remove avatar of grenth from the game)

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Barbs
It was already a good skill, didn't need a buff.

Jagged Bones
ffs, do something about it. Recharge, most likely, or rework it entirely. This skill is dumb. </3 anet.

Price of Failure
Good. Now people might actually use it on primary necros. (3s hex without fastcast = sux)

Reaper's Mark
I'm surprised this wasn't nerfed. (No, energy return isn't a nerf, you're running 14 SR anyway). Reduce to 25 seconds and cap at 5 degen. Also, increase energy gained when target dies to 300 and see if that makes any difference.

Spoil Victor
Good. I'd take the damage down a notch as well, but duration only is ok.

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Rampage as One
Nice nerf. RaO needed it.

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"Within Earshot of a Spirit"
Great.

Ancestor's Rage
Nice buff.

Channeled Strike
Don't think it was needed, but sure... if you feel it's too powerful, put back the recharge, but don't touch the damage. Rits need a big damage spell.

Death Pact Signet
Best skill in the game.

Offering of Spirit
Good. In fact, I'd bring it on par with OoB and just remove the clause that prevents health sac entirely.

Protective Was Kaolai
Great skill. Rits now have a Heal Party. <3 anet.

Spirit Light / Mend Body and Soul / Resilient Weapon / Weapon of Warding
All great. Rits now have some good healing.

Spirit Rift
Very nice buff as well. Rits don't have "channeling attunement", so 15e spammable nukes don't get used much.

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Overall impression: great changes to rits, some very nice changes on mesmers, SF got nerfed just enough, nerf avatar of grenth ffs, nerf on melandru would be nice too. Not doing anything about jagged bones makes baby Jesus cry.

BlackEagle · Jan 22, 2007, 08:21 PM // 20:21

Most of these have already been said countless times, these are just a few skills that I noticed in particular:

Avatar of Grenth: Nowhere near enough of a nerf, 30 second recharge does nothing. I think either a total rework of the skill - causes a different condition or something? or make it lose health/energy when an enchantment is removed. I mean, it is ridiculously imbalanced, compared to dark apostasy. Dark apostasy not only needs a critical hit, but it also causes the loss of energy or it finishes, Grenth has no negative for the time it is up.

Avatar of Melandru: Again needs a better nerf imo, I think complete immunity to conditions is too strong, like it was suggested above, I think maybe it lowering the duration of skills would still make it powerful enough.

Spiritual Pain: Far too conditional now, it may stop abuse in eurospike and general play, but I think a longer cast time and lowered damage would do.

Energy Surge: I geniune do not understand this nerf, because I don't see how this skill was particularly imbalanced. It is basically an elite energy burn now, with the slight chance of hitting another foe. Whilst it is quite heavily used, that doesn't mean a skill is imbalanced, just good. There are many other skills, which are used a lot more than it.

Rampage as One: I like it, it doesn't totally kill the skill for all situations (for HA it does in reality imo) but it will stop it being abused so widely.

Searing Flames: Not a big enough nerf imo, but with glowing gaze nerfed, it probably balances out.

Spoil Victor: Needs a bit more of a nerf imo.

Sandstorm: Needs a nerf, either lower damage or something: 2/3+ sandstormers, in a confined place, like halls, it almost impossible to deal with.

zarnill · Jan 22, 2007, 08:42 PM // 20:42

Skill: Gladiators Stance - this has traditionally been one of the more elite of the elites being harder to get and has been one of many pivotal tactics builds. Unfortunately, it is now fairly useless to meet its original intent as the over all energy to keep it up is significantly too high.

Skill: Defensive Stance has disadvantageous built in. The inability to use a skill keeps it balanced and limits its use effectively. Defensive Stance and Bonettis in the same build creates long periods of no other skills being able to be use effectively making interrupting and other activities difficult. Therefore, it was very well balanced as it was.

Skill: Shield Stance is one of the few stances you can activate another skill. Its long duration makes it very useful (before change). Remember, the effect on speed is fairly dramatic for a stance tank that loses aggro. Regaining aggro as a stance tank with Shield Stance up is very difficult and throws your entire 'stance cycle' off. Mandating a shield is a minor limitation. Overall, this skill was highly balanced to start with. Now the speed limitations combined with the energy consumption make it rather un-helpful.