Curse

jummeth · Apr 05, 2007, 09:51 AM // 09:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Overall - Hexes are still quite strong, and Arenanet's buffing of spot removals really shows they don't understand the inherent design problems. Aegis is unchanged, though monks will be spending 5 more energy on it now. The SR change means about 9 potential pips from SR instead of 16 (halved for spirits), so the SR + spirit abuse builds probably won't work anymore. Hexes and Aegis will still dominate in 8v8 combat, while the skirmish meta remains relatively unchanged. None of the major templates were hit either.

I think too many physical attacks were buffed while many of the hexes regarding physical damage were nerfed also.

I'd say prepare for melee trains and full Para teams, especially with Shields Up pretty useless now.

Avatar of Balth is the new RaO?

Surena · Apr 05, 2007, 09:54 AM // 09:54

Where's the reaper's mark nerf?

I like the first approach to reducing necro hexes. They used to be too cheap, too effective with a very long duration on their hexes. I understand that "warrior hate" is needed but not in such a cheap manner.

"Crippling Slash" is superb now.

Good change on "convert".

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 05, 2007, 10:08 AM // 10:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by jummeth

I think too many physical attacks were buffed while many of the hexes regarding physical damage were nerfed also.

I'd say prepare for melee trains and full Para teams, especially with Shields Up pretty useless now.

The only physical attack buff that really matters for pressure is Crippling Slash (which gets owned by the already common Restore Conditions.) Some of the assassin skills might develop into viable templates, but until we have better offhands I doubt it.

And while the Failure skills were both hit hard, Reckless remains a powerful skill and Faintheartedness is good as ever. It's not like this game has ever lacked stackable melee counters. If hexes went out of style, people would start running wards and shouts to deal with physical train builds.

All that aside - a meta based around physical offense is vastly preferable to what we have now, and there's no reason you can't have splits or tactics in that kind of meta. Indeed, with templates like BA rangers and Cripslash warriors, you have characters that are equally viable in pressure and split play. Strong versatile templates are good for the game, and in Guild Wars, most of these templates happen to be physicals. That's just the way the game works.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jummeth

Avatar of Balth is the new RaO?

I've never been that impressed with Avatar of Balth, regardless of it's uptime. It's an elite run buff, and while the armor makes you more difficult to spike, you're better off with Melandru for its additional health and Deep Wound immunity. The issue with avatars was never their duration - most avatars have enough of an uptime to make any play you want to make. The issue is whether their effect is something you actually want.

jummeth · Apr 05, 2007, 10:18 AM // 10:18

Fair enough, I still think the paragons are a big problem with ranged deep wound and very strong pressure and spike, without the positioning difficulties and the telegraphing effects of warrior.

suiraCLAW · Apr 05, 2007, 11:59 AM // 11:59

Quote:

- Brutal Weapon: increased damage to 10..25, increased duration to 1..45 seconds.
- Consume Soul: decreased recharge time to 2 seconds.
- Spirit's Strength: increased damage to 5..35.

Brutal Weapon + Spirit's Strength + Wearying Spear = +- 90 armor penetrating damage, not calculating the spear base damage. Add harrier's toss as an afterspike and one rit/paragon can do 200 damage... GG? (simimlar stuff can be done with forked arrow/savage shot + kindle arrows, but that might give some spec probs)

Offcourse, you could just take 5 of these and throw spears at the enemy right away, the damage stays HUGE...

BTW: the synergy between jagged strike and grenth's grasp/EDA is amazing.

Kakumei · Apr 05, 2007, 12:18 PM // 12:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by suiraCLAW

Brutal Weapon + Spirit's Strength + Wearying Spear

is not a combo.

suiraCLAW · Apr 05, 2007, 12:59 PM // 12:59

Quote:

is not a combo.

Oops, nevermind my post (bah, can't find an excuse for such a stupid comment)...

I still don't like these buffs though.

Nekretaal · Apr 05, 2007, 07:41 PM // 19:41

This is a disappointing update. Basically they decreased caster energy managment across the board, and nerfed counters to physical, buffed counters to anti-physical, and buffed physical across the board.

It's also a negative update, with more significant nerfs than significant buffs, designed to shift the metagame of what sees play rather than encouraging players to use new builds.

If any new build does come out of the update (instead of stale old builds becoming more used due to weakend counters), I think that it will revolve around the buff to:

Vow of Silence:

With a 20% enchant mod this thing lasts long enough that its essentially up permanantly (the windo when its not up is now very small. Its .25 cast can be used as a counter to caster spikes, and used correctly will essentially make the dervish immune to all spells even if its not up all the time. .25 is also very hard to interrupt. It's a new and better form of Godmode.

Sinful Doom · Apr 05, 2007, 08:52 PM // 20:52

Anthem of Envy buff + Brutal Weapon buff + Shields up nerf + ranger spike = dont want to be the opposing infuser. /sigh

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 05, 2007, 09:48 PM // 21:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nekretaal

Vow of Silence:

With a 20% enchant mod this thing lasts long enough that its essentially up permanantly (the windo when its not up is now very small. Its .25 cast can be used as a counter to caster spikes, and used correctly will essentially make the dervish immune to all spells even if its not up all the time. .25 is also very hard to interrupt. It's a new and better form of Godmode.

Vow of Silence is terrible, with or without the buff. What spells are cast at a dervish that you want to use your elite to counter? If a dervish is carrying vow of silence, you just direct your hexes and caster-based spikes onto other targets.

kvndoom · Apr 05, 2007, 10:12 PM // 22:12

Vow of silence will be useful for PVE runners and RA griefers. Neither of those really count for much in the grand scheme of things.

Zuranthium · Apr 05, 2007, 11:01 PM // 23:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Vow of Silence is terrible, with or without the buff. What spells are cast at a dervish that you want to use your elite to counter? If a dervish is carrying vow of silence, you just direct your hexes and caster-based spikes onto other targets.

Well if you're a hex team with anti-melee crap and the only two physicals on the opposing team are Vow of Silence Dervishes....that could make things pretty hard?

That would be a stupid build, though. I think this skill might have a place on a runner Dervish. Extend Enchantments + Featherfoot Grace + Vow, with one of your monks using Shield of Deflection....only a really good body block is gonna stop that guy from running the Flag in! Use the remaining skillslots for Mystic Regen and Scythe Attacks (or whatever else)...now you've got a character that provides good pressure, is VERY splittable, and runs flags REAAAALLY well. It's certainly worth a try.

~Z

DieInBasra · Apr 06, 2007, 04:02 AM // 04:02

Which would be great, since dervs have tons of DW outside of elites! Oh, wait, they don't

It's just too many loops to jump though, and even if they have hexes, they're still going to have physicals, and your monks not being able to heal you when you're relatively squishy is a good way to lose.

Riotgear · Apr 06, 2007, 04:37 AM // 04:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Some of the assassin skills might develop into viable templates, but until we have better offhands I doubt it.

The terrible offhands have always been the problem, but I still don't really think there's much room to move if SP/BoA still provides a far superior spiking template (which wasn't nerfed at all, despite all the speculation), and MS/DB still provides a far better pressure template.

Symbol · Apr 06, 2007, 06:14 AM // 06:14

Actually Black Mantis Thrust is an excellent combo starter for Moebius.

BMT - wild or BMT - exhausting with expose or siphon speed work very well. It's even better if you have other hexes in your build.

Shattering Assault would be good also, but A.net is lazy and the skill is still bugged to hell.

Isis_In_De_Nile · Apr 06, 2007, 06:40 AM // 06:40

The Soul Reaping nerf was pretty dumb. Just remove energy gain from spirits. That's it. You don't need to mess it up from the working fine PvE end. Furthermore, I'm not even -sure- this is actually going to affect the SpiritWay situation ATM, in which primary Ritualist and Monk professions are getting replaced by Necromancer primaries.

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 06, 2007, 07:18 AM // 07:18

With the previously unlisted buff of Mirror of Disenchantment, Aegis chains are actually a lot easier to deal with. Good change there.

Also, Crippling Slash is awesome. I had more fun playing GW tonight than I have in a long time.

stueyman2099 · Apr 06, 2007, 07:26 AM // 07:26

Conjure [insert element here] is pretty nice (read; too strong) too.

Thomas.knbk · Apr 06, 2007, 08:36 AM // 08:36

I think I'm going to make a W/E with Crippling Slash and Conjure.

Patccmoi pointed this out in another thread: Beastmasters might suffer from the 'lamentation'-issue now: a skill too narrow to use, so they buff it to hell, but once that narrowness is removed you suddenly have an extremely powerful and pretty solid skill.
I am afraid that the entire beast mastry line will suffer from that once the pet controls are in. Ofcourse we'll have to wait, but look at the numbers! Beast masters undenyably have some of the best attack skills in the game: a +80 attack on a 5 second recharge? A +58 conditional dmg non-elite again on a 5 sec recharge? Their very own copy of Distracting Shot? A +52 dmg skill that atm is bugged to deal +85 dmg against enchanted foes on a 5 sec recharge?
Apart from that, I like pretty much everything.

Elrodien · Apr 06, 2007, 08:42 AM // 08:42

Yea a Conjure Warrior sounds pretty good now. Prepare to pack more enchant removal