Curse

Patccmoi · Jun 08, 2007, 01:50 AM // 01:50

Those changes are already in game in the text of the primary attributes, but aren't actually implemented in the game yet.

1) Fast Cast now gives 3% faster signet activation/level

2) Soul Reaping now only gives energy from spirits you control. The once every 5s was replaced by 3 times every 15s (so same cap but more flexible in when you get it).

3) Spawning Power now gives 2% longer weapon spell duration per level.

Additional skill changes that were noticed:

Power interrupts now affect chants too. So you can actually Power Block chants, or Power Leak them, etc.

Arcane Conundrum will now affect adjacent foes too (likely for PvE)

I didn't notice any other skill changes personally, but it's very likely that they just didn't update their text yet since it's not implemented after all. What went through is likely a mistake in the first place.

Living Parasite · Jun 08, 2007, 02:01 AM // 02:01

Like the change I've seen.

Randomway Ftw · Jun 08, 2007, 02:06 AM // 02:06

Now instead of weapon spells making you hard to kill they make you invincible, gg Anet.

ichigo_panty · Jun 08, 2007, 02:17 AM // 02:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Power interrupts now affect chants too. So you can actually Power Block chants, or Power Leak them, etc.

If they can pre cast those chants, they will never need to recast them again. We need chant removal skills on memser.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Spawning Power now gives 2% longer weapon spell duration per level.

Yea, they are almost invincible now. Weapon spells can't be removed. Vital weapon ftw.

Patccmoi · Jun 08, 2007, 02:31 AM // 02:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by ichigo_panty

If they can pre cast those chants, they will never need to recast them again. We need chant removal skills on memser.

Chants aren't Echos. Things like Defensive Anthem being interruptable by Power stuff will help a lot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ichigo_panty

Yea, they are almost invincible now. Weapon spells can't be removed. Vital weapon ftw.

The skill balance isn't announced yet. Vital Weapon will likely be nerfed along. Weapon Spells that might be problematic with the change will possibly be tweaked to take it into consideration. At least wait until the actual patch notes to start whining that doom is upon us because Weapon Spells can now have something similar with high investment in Spawning to what Enchants get from a weapon mod.

moko · Jun 08, 2007, 02:35 AM // 02:35

ok;

1) Fast Casting Signets

- makes Humility even stronger
- mesmers bringing Unnatural In HA against lameway start smiling (although nobody will run that due to SR nerf, so it doesn't mean anything)
- just-for-fun RA bars with Signet of Illusions can have a party?
- FAST CAST SIGNET REZMER (lol)

2) SR

- YESSSSSSSSSSSS

nothing more. no more shitway HA, less SR abuse in general..just good.

3) Spawning

- Vital Weapon
- Weapon of Warding
- Warmonger's Weapon

those 3 are the crit points imo. AFAIK Izzy said that these aren't the only changes, so i just hope changes to the skills listed will happen..

4) Mesmer interrupts

well, i'm not sure, but this might basically kill any sort of Defensive Paragons, or just the class in PVP. Powerblock will HURT a lot, and just imagine a single Powerleak, lawlz. it's gonna change a lot, and is a good decision. i just fear Paragon chants will be buffed with Faster Casts..

and if you added a Chant/Shout removal, the class would be completely dead -- and you'd need Weapon and Ashes removal, else it wouldn't make no sense, and rits are dead also (not that it would be a shame).

considering the mesmer changes were for PvE..how many signet mesmers are in PvE and how many Paragon mobs do you encounter?..

5) Arcane

lulz, balled casters? good for PvE, that's it.

Patccmoi · Jun 08, 2007, 03:56 AM // 03:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mokone

3) Spawning

- Vital Weapon
- Weapon of Warding
- Warmonger's Weapon

those 3 are the crit points imo. AFAIK Izzy said that these aren't the only changes, so i just hope changes to the skills listed will happen..

I agree with Vital and Warmonger's, but honestly what is it with Weapon of Warding scaring people so much? I mean, yes, it's a strong skill. But people read this as if suddenly you'll have infinite Weapon of Warding to throw around on everyone.

On /Rt, this won't change anything. And the only viable primary Rt out of some lame Rt spike (which hopefully will be hit at the same time) that you usually want is Channeling/Resto because of its hybrid strength to support offense with stuff like Splinter, Warmonger, Weap of Fury, some nukes, etc. and support defense with stuff like Weap of Warding and some base heals. There's just no attrib left to put anything significant on Warding. At best, you'll have like +1s. Big deal. +1s warding won't throw game balance out the window and it won't suddenly prevent you killing people. I'm not saying it's meaningless, but when i see 2-3 people commenting as if this change will make protective weapon spells nearly broken, they're not really considering how the change to Spawning will be usable since it actually requires investment. A pure Resto-Spawning build might get a decent Weapon of Warding that could potentially last up to 13s. But a pure Resto-Spawning is actually a primary healer. If a primary healing Rt can become viable, i'm not sure it's a bad thing.

That buff to spawning is overall quite a minor buff that will only help a few skills here and there. Vital is scary because of it's already very long duration combined with spammability potential, and the fact that it's in Communing and Communing actually has some synergy with Spawning to begin with (as opposed to Channeling and Resto that had absolutely none before that). But 20% longer enchant weapon mods don't break enchants do they? Weapon Spells aren't that different. No they can't be removed, but neither can they be stacked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mokone

4) Mesmer interrupts

well, i'm not sure, but this might basically kill any sort of Defensive Paragons, or just the class in PVP. Powerblock will HURT a lot, and just imagine a single Powerleak, lawlz. it's gonna change a lot, and is a good decision. i just fear Paragon chants will be buffed with Faster Casts..

and if you added a Chant/Shout removal, the class would be completely dead -- and you'd need Weapon and Ashes removal, else it wouldn't make no sense, and rits are dead also (not that it would be a shame).

I think it's overreacting. What Chant would you want to Power Block so bad? Defensive Anthem has a recharge longer and the only thing you'd likely disable on the guy's bar is Anthem of Flame. Hexbreaker Aria to disable GftE! might be decent, but if you can cast it on a Paragon or a Caster, a Caster would likely be hurt MUCH more significantly.

Power Leak is more interesting, but then again there was no change written to Leadership and unless GftE! and WY! adrenal cost are truly raised, Paragons are insane energy machine and dropping to 0 won't prevent them to go back up really fast.

I think it'll just balance them a bit, and i prefer to see them balanced this way than overnerfing shouts/chants.
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Zuranthium · Jun 08, 2007, 04:10 AM // 04:10

I support everything you say 100%!

~Z

Racthoh · Jun 08, 2007, 06:25 AM // 06:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Hexbreaker Aria to disable GftE! might be decent, but if you can cast it on a Paragon or a Caster, a Caster would likely be hurt MUCH more significantly.

I think you may have Hexbreaker Aria confused with something else; Hexbreaker Aria still appears to be a Leadership skill (unless there was a note I missed about the skill being moved to Command in the near future?).

kvndoom · Jun 08, 2007, 06:30 AM // 06:30

I'm glad to see Spawning Power finally not be so useless (the skills weren't that great, nor was the effect). Of course now many of the weapon spells will have to be nerfed, unless Anet is planning to make rits yet one step closer to being semi-viable monk replacements. Buff Weapon of Shadow just a teensy bit and I'll be the happiest person alive.

Energy management as a primary attribute was, is, and always will be a bad idea. The Bunny Thumper was born out of the Ranger's ability to spam energy-based warrior skills that a warrior wouldn't be able to upkeep. N/Rt spirit spammers, they speak for themselves... The A/R Critical Barrager... Paragons in general. Too many nerfs have come about because of Anet's inability to understand that your primary should provide utility, not energy. Divine Favor tops off healing. Energy Storage makes ridiculously expensive spells affordable (energy storage is not e-management, that argument has been beaten to death already many times). Strength adds a little extra damage (not a good attribute, but oh well). Fast Casting is self explanatory. Those I consider balanced Primaries. Expertise wouldn't have been too bad off if it was limited primarily to Ranger skills, since a lot of traps/etc are prohibitively expensive for other classes. In a way it was similar to energy storage in that it kept certain skills viable only to primaries. Soul Reaping pre-nerf was always overpowered, but I agree with all that it didn't get fixed properly (and still isn't, apparently).

But 3 of the 4 new classes have energy management built into their primaries. C'mon Anet, don't leave the poor Rits out! Make Spawning Power give you 1 energy per rank whenever you create a spirit! (EXTREME sarcasm there) Are they ever going to get a clue?

Paragons need to be reworked completely. Give them 3 energy pips, reduce or eliminate the adrenaline dependency and skill costs, and rework their primary to do something else besides give energy. The PVE'er in me is still pretty ticked about Watch Yourself getting nerfed because of Paragon abuse. Wow, what if Warriors could get energy from using shouts or from scoring critical hits? Not that I'm proposing that (I'm not; warriors are balanced by being forced to use adrenaline which doesn't come if they don't hit something, and a warrior's only e-management options are a zealous weapon or Warrior's Endurance, which is an uber-gay skill).

I've yet to use Spawning on a Rit other than a point dump, so here's to hoping some skill reworks come around to make it useful. I'm going back to bed.

Riotgear · Jun 08, 2007, 08:47 AM // 08:47

I don't think it's going to make much of a difference with Vital Weapon simply because Vital is so easy to keep up forever even with the existing duration.

Warmonger's Weapon is starting to worry me more, although that may not matter as long as Channelling maintains limited viability outside of spike builds.

Other than that though, I'm not really sure how much of a difference it's going to make. Warding/Shadow targets get switched off anyway, Guiding and Xinrae's are expensive, so that really kind of limits its usefulness to Fury, Resilient, Warmonger's, Wailing and Spirit Light.

The 3-per-15-sec change to SR is a pretty well thought-out change, should have minimal effect in situations where SR isn't being exploited, while completely owning it in situations where it is.

ichigo_panty · Jun 08, 2007, 09:13 AM // 09:13

Thank Patccmoi for correcting my chant/echo mistakes. Always thought aggressive is a chant.

If they are buffing spawning power, the weapon skills will surely get nerfed in the process.

Anet hates paragon and ritualist, they will do whatever they can to destory them totally.

All mysteries will be solved by next week (Mid-June) Cross your fingers and pray hard.

Dzan · Jun 08, 2007, 10:15 AM // 10:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by ichigo_panty

Anet hates paragon and ritualist, they will do whatever they can to destory them totally.

'

Yeah they hate them so much they made them the most powerful and imbalanced classes in the game.

Lady Callingwell · Jun 08, 2007, 10:41 AM // 10:41

they just started out with a wrong concept of classes which become better if you take more of em.

Patccmoi · Jun 08, 2007, 12:19 PM // 12:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady Callingwell

they just started out with a wrong concept of classes which become better if you take more of em.

Pretty much agreeing with that.

All those 'triggers when x happens' skills that aren't capped are simply a bad concept in general. I'm not talking about stuff like Vigorous Spirit which triggers when you hit, cause that's still actually capped (you can't hit more than once every x second). But when it can come from exterior source, it's just asking to be exploited unless the effect is worthless. Energizing Finale and Soul Reaping were the best example of that. And Finale on Paragons are EXACTLY that, asking to have multiple Paragons to exploit them. Refrains aren't as bad overall since 1 Paragon can often do as much as 8 but still with multiple Paragon they simply become passive, absolutely unremovable buffs... capping their max duration would still be a good thing (like refreshes every time there's a shout/chant ending, max 60-90s duration).

As for Ritualists, it's not so much that more of them are better, it's just that they are a fully self-sufficient class or nearly. They have massive party-wide protection (which, even if nerfed, is powerful when you can pack multiple Rts chaining the skills), they have good healing, and they have good spike skills. It's just asking to be used to make a full Rt spike build.

Rts, to me, are actually a very interesting class. But a good part of it is pretty much garbage that's too exploitable and if something is exploitable it will always overshadow everything that's interesting about the class. I mean look at iQ's current Rt/A using mass weapon spells, it's an interesting build. Weapon of Fury Rt as part of balanced setups were fine. I used various Rt builds that are pretty nice. What do most Rts in balanced setups have in common though? Very low, if any, dependance on spirits. Because spirits are imo simply a bad concept, and it's sadly at the center of the class. Ashpots are a good concept if they were just buffed a bit to make use of their dual effect property more (effect when you hold, effect when you drop. Made a thread on that in skill discussion already). Weapon spells are a good concept if they're balanced properly (fairly powerful unstrippable buff that can't be stacked. If it's balanced, there's nothing wrong with the concept). Spirits... Spirits aren't. They're just lame in PvP in general, where they're either massed to be a freaking pain to fight against, or not used. You very rarely see just 1-2 spirits well used. It's either an aweful mass of them or none. And it makes sense, since skills requiring a spirit are too unreliable without multiple spirits.

So to fix Rts, really i think that spirits and spirit dependant skills would need a TOTAL reworking, but that's kinda unlikely to happen. They could possibly add some mechanic to limit spirits but many would likely disagree in the PvE/RA PvP crowd (for example a maximum of 3 spirits in earshot of each other per team). Spirit dependant skills would need to have a valuable effect without spirit but gain extra utility with spirit. A good example is MB&S, which is a solid healing even with no spirit around and acts as a good condition removal if there's one. It's never a waste no matter if there's a spirit or not and i often used it even with no spirit in the build. And i think in general what you should gain is UTILITY, not flat +damage/+healing. Utility is what Rt lacks. For example, Wielder's Strike could do 10..80 damage, if you have a weapon spell on you it interrupts. Spirit Burn could do 10..60 damage, if there's a spirit in earshot it sets target on fire for 1..3s. Channeled Strike could do its damage and KD attacking targets. It's just example and i didn't think well about exactly what utility to do for each and skills would likely need a bit of rebalancing, so don't go saying like 'omg Channeled would be op', maybe i didn't take time to dwell on it. What i mean is just the idea that requirement should add UTILITY to skill but they should have a worthwhile effect without any requirement met. It would add a lot of versatility to builds instead of abuse potential.

And since Rts are decent healers, they should seriously limit their amount of spike skills and move Channeling to pressure instead. Constant zapping of medium-high damage mixed with a bit of utility would be much better than having 3-4 spike worthy skills.

Anyway, i'm getting OT... Just that personally i'm tired of seeing so many people being like 'omg remove Rts, Sins, Paragons and Derv' when imo the major part of the classes is fine (ok, not for Paragons). I like to experiment with stuff a lot and i got many interesting builds for all of those that i like a lot as part of balanced setups that aren't exploiting anything really. It's just that a few broken stuff totally shadows everything else because what's broken is always what will see play first, especially obvious abuses (like Rt spike or mass Paragons or SP sins). Instead improve and balance what's good on the classes (shutdown + fairly strong spike on sin using short duration daze and small combos, weapon and ash spells on Rts with nice base healing and pressure nukes, good pressure with some enchant removal and condition spread utility on Derv) and nerf the rest severly until you bother to take the time to fix it. But stop asking to remove everything when it just will never happen in the first place (very bad marketing move) and when in the end it's taking potential away from the game. But ofc, nerf the garbage in priority.

ideologue · Jun 08, 2007, 01:06 PM // 13:06

I think paragon's leadership should be changed in a way such that it's not as powerful in 8v8 situation, but still useful in 4v4 situation. A P/Me that spams expel hexes and mirror of disenchantment better than a mesmer can get pretty ridiculous. On the other hand, Paragon is perhaps the only useless profession in RA, TA, AB, and Hero battle(not that we care, but still...) due to the pathetic effect of leadership in a smaller party.

It is still too early to say at the moment, God knows what Anet has done or is planning to do in this update.
Edit: my bad, just found out this is a secret update from last night.

Div · Jun 08, 2007, 01:38 PM // 13:38

Another unmentioned potential future change is that lyssa's balance will work even if you have the same amount of enchantments as the foe.

Nekretaal · Jun 08, 2007, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

2) Soul Reaping now only gives energy from spirits you control. The once every 5s was replaced by 3 times every 15s (so same cap but more flexible in when you get it)..

Soul reaping also would only trigger on nearby deaths. This is is fairly harsh because a necromaner has no business being that close to the fight with such weak armor.

Cirian · Jun 08, 2007, 03:16 PM // 15:16

Interesting. Quite a few things I've seen discussed on the forums going into the game there - excellent.

master of cookies · Jun 08, 2007, 03:45 PM // 15:45

I think that because A-net didn't really know what the paragon would actually do in the game, they just said "don't know what the primary attribute should really do so lets make it give energy". After seeing this Rt change, i think they may decide to make shouts or chants last longer aswell, it would fit with the trend but can't seeing it being any better coz by the time the shout had ended well u'd have enough energy to cast it again anyway!