Curse

Baaltrader · Jan 20, 2007, 11:54 PM // 23:54

Sympathetic/Ancestor's Visage:

Impressions: overly nerfed. At it's current state... pretty much useless.
Suggestion: restore it's previous attributes.

Naga The Apocalypse · Jan 20, 2007, 11:56 PM // 23:56

Flare: Good

Savannah Heat: recharge at 20 would be fine, leveling it with sandstorms recharge

Ice Spear: sience flare was buffed, pls remove the half cast range.

Discord: Good balance for an elite skill

Beguileing haze: a shadow step and daze=overpowered. change to daze only if u interupt.

Rend Enchantment: Good finaly a balance to mass UW Farming and great Mass enchant removal for pvp.

Weakness: good, may finaly see use to the condition besided Yaa

Reaper's Mark: Reduce Duration to 5-20.

Glowing Gaze: Good

Blinding Surge: Good

Bloodsong: Good, Less simplicity to Spirit spammers

Spiritual Pain: Good, no longer the most powerful spike skill in the game

Icy Shackles: reduce recharge to 10

Mind Freeze: good

Energy Surge:good

Spoil Victor: reduce dmg please, and not to work on spells cast on allies

Incendiary Arrows: Finally lol

Barbs: Good, reduce cast time to 1 wouldnt hurt.

Depravity: good

Icy Prism: good

Water Trident: make recharge 0 and dmg 100 at 16 water and it'll finaly be worthy of elite

Shard Storm: good

weaken armour: change cast time to 2 and duration to 5-40

stuntharley · Jan 21, 2007, 12:07 AM // 00:07

Divert Hexes - Bad Nerf
2 Second Cast was not needed, it is a fine skill

Signet of Mystic Wrath - Good Balance
One of the most hated builds IMHO this needed a nerf and it got it

Eruption - Good Balance
It now is great for the energy it costs and I use it in all my sandstorm builds

Shock Wave - good Balance
Great skill not used enough though

Energy Surge - Bad Balance
Should have been kept the same

Unnatural Signet - Good Balance
It is now perfect for HA VS'ing jagged bones

Shield of Absorbtion - Bad Balance
Now it's not worth taking with the 1 second cast

Word Of Healing - Good Balance
Great with the extra heal

Barbs - Good Balance
Perfect for melee running with a necromancer

Gaze of Contempt - Good Balance
Now people can't spam it like they use to, and the 1 second cast is great

Insidous Parasite - Good Balance
Great skill, now the lower recharge made it even better

Reaper's Mark - Good Balance
It's was fine before and it's fine now

Rampage As One - Good Balance
Now thumpers having to use RaO more now, makes it alot better they won't have enough energy =)

Critical Chop - Bad Balance
It was a great Skill, now with the recharge and the damage is it worth bringing?

That is my opinion from the skill balances

Syll · Jan 21, 2007, 12:23 AM // 00:23

Skill(s): Malaise/Wither
Impressions: Great change! I think malaise needs its recharge time increased though. 2 seconds is far too spammable.

Skill: Divert Hexes
Impressions: Thanks for changing it back to 1 second! :-D

Skill: Impale
Impressions: Fantastic! Assassins have needed another deep wound method for a while. Good choice.

Skill: Shield of Absorption
Impressions: Good choice.

Skill: Shield of Deflection
Impressions: I am infinitely pleased. This will make a fantastic spike-stopper now.

Skill(s): Warrior stances
Impressions: Awesome. These will actually be helpful in PvP now.

Skill: Blades of Steel
Impressions: This got overbuffed. It's significantly stronger than it should be.

Xpl0iter · Jan 21, 2007, 01:56 AM // 01:56

Since ele is my main role, i will focus ele skills only.

Arc Lightning
Very Good Buff, Spamable, yet conditional enough to keep in check.

Bed of Coals
Good

Blinding Surge
Nice nerf, keeps it viable for eles, yet affects mesmers the most

Breath of Fire
Good

Churning Earth
Earth definetly needed a dmg boost on its most offensive skills. Good buff.

Eruption
Excellent Buff.

Fire Storm
Was wondering, Reducing damage to 25 and increase AoE to Area... So keeping the scatter effect while actualy doing the damage too, increase the cost or recharge a bit if needed.

Flame Djinn's Haste
Good

Flare
Good

Frigid Armor
Good

Frozen Burst
Good

Glowing Gaze & Searing Flames
Tricky combination for nerf
In my honest opinion, Increase recharge on Glowing Gaze to 10..12 and increase energy return to 15..20 with a 1/4sec cast. This allows for a NON elite energy return spell, yet doesn't allow the spike damage due to energy issues within short period of time, but lets an ele maintain it without spiking abilities.
Burning Duration is fine, reduce the damage to 95...105, Re-apply the burning condition on each hit. Reason... less spiking damage, and allows foes to scatter on awareness. punishes those who won't bother scattering.

Increasing recharge on SF will hurt the combination by far. Glowing gaze will be forced to be used within the time where sf is recharging, and burning doesn't last long with the new update.

Grasping Earth
Increase energy while addding no armor to foes.
Close range combat professions won't be able to abuse it as much/

Icy Prism
Ice spears version of spell with higher energy cost, and side affects to a certain type of skill ( signets ) not bad at all.

Icy Shackles
This spell is not worth the elite slot. Why would one take an elite snare with no dmg which is not maintainable? It should be like blinding flash which is mostly in PVP.
66% slower, 15 energy, quick recharge, lasts 10 seconds at 16 water.

Immolate
Good

Incendiary Bonds
Very good.

Lava Arrows
Good

Lightning Bolt
Good

Lightning Hammer
for 25 energy, dual attunements are must to spam this spell.
Increase recharge to 5 seconds to make it a non projectile version of orb for a higher energy cost
And one Thing, Kindly Make ORB Not that Easy to be missed.

Mark of Rodgort
I will definetly use it now.

Mind Freeze
Increase cost, remove exhaustion. It is conditional enough for its damage and takes up an elite slot.

Phoenix
Increase the area of effect for either Foes Adjacent to you or the Foes adjacent to your target to Nearby.

Savannah Heat
The previous version is better.
Removing OR Reducing the Scattering affect in PVE would be nice to make it another viable fire dmg elite. Foes do not even last 5 seconds within the area of this spell which makes it quite useless.

Searing Heat/Tenai's Heat
Was wondering..
Increasing Cost back to 25, Reducing Cast time to 1 second, and applying the burning condition on every pulse.

Shard Storm
Good

Shockwave
Good

Smoldering Embers
A good buff to spell.

Stone Daggers
Good

Stoning
Good

Unsteady Ground
Good

Water Trident
Increase Damage Dealt

Mercury Angel · Jan 21, 2007, 02:20 AM // 02:20

Just a quick notice; I went through and merged multiple posts by single users to reduce clutter. If one of your posts has gone missing, you can find the content in full in one of your prior posts. Feel free to edit out the red merger notice at your leisure when revising your post.
If your post was removed and does not fit the above, please check here for details.

drekmonger · Jan 21, 2007, 03:09 AM // 03:09

Grasping Earth Small energy cost, usable at 0 or few points in Earth, fast recharge, wide area of effect. Wildly overpowered, of great utility to melee characters or against melee characters. Knock the duration down to just 1 second at Earth 0. Knock AoE down to adjacent.

Augury of Death Small energy cost, usable at 0 or few points in Deadly Arts, fast recharge, exceptionally cheap Deep Wound. Wildly overpowered, of great utility to pressure builds. Instead of a Deep Wound, have the skill cause direct damage (scaled by Deadly Arts) when the target reaches 50% health.

Burst of Aggression Usable at 0 Strength, with it's drawback meaningless to the assassins that use it. Overshadows most other assassin builds due to it's effectiveness. Should have been nerfed. Reduced duration down to 1 for Strength of 0. Increase duration at Strength 16 to compensate.

Spoil Victor Changes do nothing to address the problem with this skill. Others have stated how to fix it.

Searing Lame Changes do little to address the problem with this skill. Reduce damage slightly.

Zealous Benediction Displeasing that possibly the best heal is in the Prot line. Switch it Healing Prayers or reduce the energy gain?

Avatar of Grenth Changes do nothing to address the problem with this skill. Maybe enchant stripping causes a Health sacrifice....?

Flame Djinn's Haste Not terribly overpowered, but it's effect is now comparable to Inferno. Suggest reducing the damage caused by Haste slightly.

Barbs Be aware that Barbs are set off by spirit damage. In combination with numerous spirits Barbs caused quite a bit of damage even before the buff. The skill did not need the buff it received.

Shield Stance One of my favorite skills before adjustment. Did not require an adjustment of any sort. Kind of useless now, for my purposes.

Order of the Vampire Long ago nerfed into obscurity in response to Ranger spike. Suggest dropping the enchantment condition, doubling duration, doubling recharge, slashing damage in half.

Jagged Bones Overpowered, slightly. Increase recharge and/or energy cost.

Bloodsong Was fine as it was before. Don't see the point of making spirit spamming more viable. It's a boring mechanic to fight against and already quite strong in the 4v4 PvP modes.

Blades of Steel 200 points of damage at full strength. Very unbalanced on a Burst of Aggression sin. Suggest a return to prior values.

AlbertGator · Jan 21, 2007, 03:14 AM // 03:14

- Energy Surge: Terrible. It's one of the few AOE damage skills available to a mesmer. How about a buff to other elites to actually make them worth carrying instead of nerfing the one good one?

- Spiritual Pain: Again, change the casting time or something, not the conditions. Mesmers may be "not about damage dealing" but things like this make PvE drag horribly.

- Incendiary Arrows: I might actually use this now. Good stuff.

- Weakness: interesting. It sounds like it will be even more fun to carry now.

- Bloodsong: I just remembered my Rit is channeling, so I love it.

kurtas · Jan 21, 2007, 03:25 AM // 03:25

Skill Name: Jagged Bones
Impressions: good idea for an elite, but the unlimited amount of energy for a whole party of necromancers is just retarded. A better idea would be to no give energy for any Jag's past the first one.

Skill Name: Divert Hexes
Impressions: The best defence agaisnt the fotm hex builds gets nerfed?? It was very conditional and easy to shut down as it was, now its just pointless.

mystwillow · Jan 21, 2007, 03:40 AM // 03:40

A PvE-only mesmer's perspective (we do exist):

Energy Surge:
-Hate this change. It's been the same since the game opened and it was never overpowered before, now it suddenly is? Addressing the rationale that "maybe now mesmers will carry another elite for once": ever wonder why mesmers tend to carry the same elite? Cause that's easily the best one! Why kill it instead of making some of the other useless ones more viable?

Spiritual Pain:
-Hate this one too. Everybody loving the change is loving it from a PvP perspective. In PvE, mesmers are not nearly the superstars they are in PvP, and it's hard enough to get a group without taking away one of the very few skills a PvE mesmer can use to do decent damage. It seems like it would be a better idea to buff some other, largely useless skills so as to provide a remotely attractive alternative to these "overpowered" skills.

Interrupt Skills:
-Like the decreased recharge time, although this move coupled with the nerfs to the two above skills smacks of trying to put mesmers into a neat little box labeled "Interrupters." Sure, it's a great way to use mesmers, but it shouldn't be made the only way. If the point of the skill balances is to promote creative builds, why steer an entire class into one functionality?

Weakness:
-An interesting change, and one I'm inclined to like. However, if casters are going to have to start worrying about Weakness, how about a similar change in Dazed (like, easily interrupted while attacking) so that melee fighters would have to start worrying about that one?

razixx · Jan 21, 2007, 04:08 AM // 04:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMFD

Skill name: Bloodsong
Imrpessions: Leave as communing!! It is the only decent (non-elite) damage option to communing rather than pure prot, now I may as well play a paragon (aoe prot/heal and attacks) or Monk (single prot/heal) rather than a com rit.

I agee. PLEASE leave Bloodsong Communing, though the other changes to the skill are well-appreciated. I liked the idea of moved Anguished was Lingwah instead.

Or, if you must move Bloodsong, perhaps Anguished was Lingwah could summon a Bloodsong insted of a Pain. That way Communers aren't stuck with two Pains and no Blood.

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

-Burning arrows needs to have its duration lowered (or damage) if Searing flames is to be nerfed. A burning arrows ranger can easily take down a bodyguard before anyone can respond.

Leave Burning Arrow be. The difference is that SF hits everyone at once with burning. Burning Arrow must be applied manually to each foe, and there's an 8 second downtime between each target.

Selene Delacour · Jan 21, 2007, 06:06 AM // 06:06

For the most part, I like the skill changes. I love most of the Assassin, Elementalist, and Ritualist changes especially. The spirit range on Ritualist skills is an amazingly good change. I'll point out the changes I don't like however:

Assassin

Assassin's Remedy
Seems too weak now.

Sharpen Daggers
Absolutely hate this change. Worst one out of the whole bunch. It's useless in this form. If you want to stop Assassins with weapons other than daggers from using it, just change it to where it only affects daggers (as the name implies anyway).

Elementalist

Glowing Gaze
Seems unnecessary to me, but the 8 second recharge isn't horrible.

Mesmer

Energy Surge
Wasn't overpowered to begin with, so I see no need for the change.

xoorauch · Jan 21, 2007, 06:52 AM // 06:52

Sheild of Absorption:

Was perfect i believe the way it was before. It's a good skill to go with another anti-spike skill and also good in AB vs sins and mobs.

Making it a 1 sec cast makes it interuptable and gives enemy more time for kill.

Shadow of Haste:

This I find, was really bad in my view. At max shadow arts you just miss recharge by 2 seconds...hum.

If this skill is going to stay like this, then give it 'block' or something or decrease recharge to go along with all the other speed buffs. The recharge could stay the same but the duration can go up to it's old one. This can make it so you need some points in shadow arts while making it non-spammable.

Mighty Throw

Love the new update, makes it a bit more worth it now. 3 seconds was a bit overkill for an attack skill.

Arshay Duskbrow · Jan 21, 2007, 07:05 AM // 07:05

Antidote Signet:
A step in the right direction, but 8 seconds is still too long. Reduce recharge to 6, and make it remove Weakness.

Throw Dirt:
Better, but still not good enough for a spot on most people's bars. Reduce recharge to 25.

Troll Unguent:
Reduce activation time to 1, increase energy cost to 10.

Barbed Arrows:
Increase duration to 24, remove "easily interrupted". Warrior synergy notwithstanding, this prep should stand equal with Apply Poison.

Expert's Dexterity:
Reduce Energy cost increase to 75%. Modify skill type to "skill".

Archer's Signet:
Link to Marksmanship attribute. Set non-attack skill disable to 10 seconds. Decrease recharge to 30. Decrease activation time to 2.

Scavenger's Focus:
Change functionality to, "For 24 seconds, your attacks deal +3...8 damage for each Condition suffered by foe (maximum bonus 30)."

Power Shot, Penetrating/Sundering Attack, Splinter Shot, Precision Shot, Crossfire, Hunter's Shot, Point Blank/Zojun's Shot, Arcing Shot:
Too many to give specific suggestions, but a general buff to these skills is needed. Use your judgement.

Rampage as One:
Revert all skill statistics to pre-test weekend levels. This was unneeded, and is unusable in its current (test weekend) state.

Strike as One:
Increase number of affected attacks to 10.

Forked Arrow:
Remove no-enchantment requirement.

Melandru's Resilience:
Increase health regen to 4 per condition/hex, lower recharge to 20.

Melandru's Arrows:
Increase duration to 24.

Punishing Shot:
Decrease recharge to 6, increase damage to +10...26. A buff of this kind to PS is badly needed.

Whirling Defense:
Decrease recharge to 45.

Lightning Reflexes:
Decrease recharge to 35.

Rangers are in serious need of these kinds of balances to viably compete with the enhancements to other professions.

Aran Deathslinger · Jan 21, 2007, 08:04 AM // 08:04

{edit: Defensive stance:
Excellent change. now usable in serious builds.

Glad's Defense
Recharge buff: much needed
Duration nerf: a little too much. make it usable at 9-11 tactics IMO /edit}

Evade removal
please fix it back (see below about how to fix thumpers)

SF/GG
well done. not too harsh.

Escape
give 50% speed boost and lower rechargel maybe then I can actually escape from something.

Punishing Shot
Dire need of buff. Should disable skill. should have 5s recharge.

Spiritual Pain
good nerf. was way too strong.

Power Block
right direction, but needs more help. (how about if interrupt successful disables all skills?)

Rampage as One
how about this: let me have RaO back, and include patch so that rangers wielding hammers automatically die. deal?

weakness
awful change. used to reduce dmg. now reduces monk heal @@ omg insanity

WoH
excellent buff.

Lightning Hammer
Excellent buff.

Convert Hexes
I'll pay 20, even 25 energy for this skill to have 1/4s cast time.

Power Attack
Dmg buff perfect. change RC to 3s.

Leader's comfort
awful nerf. plz help not hurt this skill.

Avatars
20s recharge long enough IMO.

dwayna
cool buff.

hex eater
right track. 1/4s cast time, and 2 hexes removed to make this elite.

expel hexes
should remove all hexes. make 3-4s cast time. (then it becomes a mesmer skill).
alternative: tie it to dom and removes 1-6 hexes, 3s rc.

SoA
was too strong, but leave cast time and cap dmg reduction instead.

antidote signet
worthless: every ranger now has to carry something to remove weakness...

glass arrows
not enough help. maybe make it skill not prep?

trappers focus/speed
excellent, much needed buff.

death pact signet
right direction. make duration linked to restoration magic and "if that party dies within 120...20 seconds" or something like that.

bloodsong
nice buff, but put it back in communing (or put pain/anguish etc in channeling)

signet of spiritS (that's plural)
fix back, plz.

You're all alone
should be linked to str and 4...10 imo

glad's defence
I like the rc update, but doesn't last long enough.

Shield of Deflection/ Shield of Regeneration
It's the thought that counts I guess. Now these 2 skills work in all the places except anywhere you really need them.

Stand Your Ground
15energy is fine, but plz decrease recharge to something reasonable like 20s.

Tombs run
excellent Nerf. Joke's on us @@.

Kook~NBK~ · Jan 21, 2007, 08:25 AM // 08:25

Spiritual Pain:
Beaten to death with the nerf bat. Instead of making it conditional on the presense of a spirit, maybe the best answer to leave it as is and give it a 2 or 3 second casting time so it can be countered. Consider this: In order to use this skill with the condition of a nearby spirit, a mesmer, as a back-line caster, has to move to the middle of the battle ground to get within casting range of the Rit or Ranger spirits that are placed in the enemies back line! A very risky move for a squishie!

Energy Surge: Bad nerf. It's not overpowered in its original form and if SP is being nerfed, there's no point in weakening this Elite skill. With PvP teams spreading out, and the improved AI in PvE, the built-in game mechanics have already weakened it.

stueyman2099 · Jan 21, 2007, 08:43 AM // 08:43

Various Ressurection skills: Nice change, though many still only viable in PvP with fast casting.

Avatar of Grenth: Seriously, how did you guys miss this one? still way too powerful.

Bloodsong: seems odd to me that this was moved. Appears to me that it was done to buff channeling, which is fine, but the reprecussions it gave to communing are bad.

Critical Chop: Slight over nerf.

Weakness Mechanic: I like the change.

LC-Evo · Jan 21, 2007, 08:51 AM // 08:51

Profession- Warrior

Skill-All stances

Opinion- ok...so warriors are basically screwed over in this update. With the low skill time and decreased recharged time, this will really hurt warriors. It will cost a lot of energy to attempt to upkeep the stances so not enough energy will be available for offensive moves that require energy. One may argue to use a zealous weapon can solve it, but does that mean we all have to use zealous weapons from now on so we can use stances? That doesnt sound very fair to me. It is as if anet does not want warriors to use stances at all. This update may have been better for lots of people, but it sure sucked for warriors, most professions got buffed except warriors. Offensive moves update for warriors did not really matter to me cause i choose tactics over strength. It may have been better for offensive warriors...

Profession- Ele

Spells- Searing Flames/ Glowing Gaze

Opinion- OK we all knew that was coming. Although it sucked for my sf i do agree that it needed some nerfing. I think that is good enough. Oh well, other ele moves were strengthened.

Final Opinion- What dissapointed me the most is that every profession was buffed except warriors, they were nerfed. I read the skill changes and only 2 moves were buffed and all the important ones that i actually use are nerfed. What made it worst was that ranger staces were not changed at all. Why is it that warrior stances were nerfed but ranger stances arent?? How i feel about this is warriors missed out on this update. Every other buffs were generally well.

PS. To all those who dont know why shield of absorption was nerfed...it was a skill used by a new monk build. with max prot prayers, enchat mod on scythe and blessed aura, shield of absorption could last 7 seconds with 7 recharge time. so they increased recharge time.

Anyways that is only my opinion. I guess it was done pretty well.

Rururrur · Jan 21, 2007, 09:10 AM // 09:10

I think the Searing Flames and Glowing Gaze changes are excellent.

I think SV and AV took to big a hit. I'd like to see it last about 1 second for each point put into it.

I love the change to Lightning Hammer.

Gladiators Defense and many other warrior stances have been reduced too much. I think they were balanced as they were.

I think Avatar of Dwayna was viable at 10 energy.

I think the improvement to Avatar of Lyssa is excellent.

As for Rend Encahntments, I hate it when I'm in UW, but I think it makes the skill a much more viable option in pvp.

That's just my two cents. Thanks for an interesting weekend.

Kaie · Jan 21, 2007, 10:01 AM // 10:01

Mesmer – General
One thing I would like to see changed in the mesmer’s skill list are the spells/stances in fast casting that effect the signets. They cost way too much and the mes signets are, in my opinion, worthless to begin with. The only one I actually got some benefit from was Sig of Midnight while in RA, but that’s it. Please improve the signets and their related skills. Also no pt in having +3 armor for each sig when no one uses them.

Skill: Mantra of Recovery
Impression: I absolutely love that it was improved, but it hurts me to say it is a bit much. I would like to see it go back to the old time limit but cost 5 energy instead.

Skill: Arcane Larceny, Thievery, etc.
Impression: Though Sig of Illusions can improve these, you already know my opinion on mes sigs. When you steal the spell/skill from a foe, that spell/skill should match one of your attributes like fast casting for example. Otherwise those skills will remain useless. Arcane Larceny/Thievery had great potential and can be very fun to use, but mesmers need a reason to use it.

Skill: Interrupt Spells
Impression: Very good improvement, though leech sig also needs a quicker recharge time. I might actually use it for energy management if that were the case.

Skill: Sympathetic/Ancestor’s Visage
Impression: I can understand a small nerf but that was too much.

Skill: Energy Surge.
Impression: I don’t see a huge difference, but it's not like Mesmers have any other AoE skills so having a mediocre AoE spike every 20 seconds doesn’t make it overpowered. I guess I’m saying it doesn’t need to be changed.

Ritualist – General
Great improvement! Like the fact that that the attributes are more balanced with each other.

Skill: Bloodsong
Impression: I think I’m one of the few that loved the change to channeling. There’s now another binding ritual besides destruction in channeling. I do think there needs to be another low energy dmg dealing spirit in communing though now that bloodsong is out.

Skill: Nightmare Weapon
Impression: Love the improvement, but now it is overpowered. I’d say next 3 attacks is sufficient, 5 is a bit much. I managed to stay alive way too easily with that, and with a staff no less.

Overall great improvements and thanks for letting us give feedback!

This is just an opinion I have on mesmers, please correct me if I’m wrong because I’m tired of feeling this way. I don’t understand where mesmers are going. They have all these spells to “misdirect” the opponent, but you give other classes one skill that is way better than any Mesmer skill. For example, mesmers have spells that drain or steal energy but only small amounts, but yet you give depravity to necros and this skill alone does more energy draining than all Mesmer skills combined. They also are supposed to be good interrupters, but rangers have quicker recharge times on theirs and are more efficient, not to mention they interrupt any skill (mesmers can’t interrupt res sigs unless it’s cry of frustration and that’s a huge energy cost… ALSO some ranger’s interrupts disable the spell/skill). And again, compare any other profession’s sig to a mes sig and it’s not hard to realize how much more effective they are.