Skill update November 29

I know everyone is focusing on bonus mission pack.

but I want to discuss skill update here.

Assassin
Deadly Paradox: increased Energy cost to 15. -> caster sins should be fixed, but, ouch...
Shadow Prison: increased recharge time to 25 seconds. -> acceptable change


Mesmer
Clumsiness: increased recharge time to 7 seconds; decreased duration to 4 seconds. ->acceptable change
Cry of Pain: decreased recharge time to 12 seconds.->awesome but can Anet adds some visual/sound effect for these armor ignoring spells plz?
Empathy: increased damage to 10..55. -> awesome!
Overload: increased non conditional damage to 5..40. -> Overbuffed, 5en, .25, 3 recharge for 42 (+53) armor ignoring dmg, it's imba now. compared with this, blood spell is a joke, look at Dark Pact, Jaundiced Gaze, uber nerffed Oppressive Gaze and Barbed Signet...

Now we can see Domination Spike again, Overload is a perfect follow up spell for spike/pressure skill.

No you wont. What are you going to use as a follow up spike on a mesmer thats also another .25 second or a .50 second cast to be able to spike in time and not get caught by the benefits of healing?

Your really late =P

Anywas

DP nerf means nothing to me.
Because I know of something called secondarys, and I know of something called the Mesmer.

Shadow prison nerf doesn't phase me, could be done better.

Empathy buff is going to run over Arenas.

Clumsiness nerf is great.

Dom spike >.> lol

You don't remember Old Spiritual Pain -> Old Wastrel's Demise spike?
And E.Surge -> Old Wastrel's Demise (you don't know who to infuse usually)
When they recharge they just spam diversion.
That's why thy change most .25 sec damage spells.

But my point is, Overload is just too good if you compare it with other armor ignoring spells.

yes but the old spiritual pain had a higher damage output than overload does currently. since both Spiritual Pain and Wastrel's have been hit, there isnt a good either lead or follow up to the spike to make it worth a shit.

Deadly Paradox was badly overnerfed imho. Now is unusable.

CoP wasn't overpowered enough already? *rme*

anet buff mesmer skills in every skill update? why?

mesmer is overpower enough, especially in pvp. if anet want to improve mesmer in pve, pls buff the pve only skills

YES.. tanks, monks and everyone else must know who is the real team member doing the killings. I usually deal huge amounts of armor ignoring damage with cop (sometime a-echoed), but nobody seems to know it. The only visual effect of COP on the victims is a purple fog.. not very impressing.

i'll roll a E/A and use the same skills. less damage, but all the better for cutting through big prots.

or, i'll roll a A/Me and use energy drain as my elite. or maybe even assassin's promise.

problem solved. yes, the build is less powerful now, but with a few adjustments it can still be used. only time will tell whether if it is still worthwhile.

The unconditional damage on Overload is still relatively small. For Overload to be an actual threat, it would still need to be used on a target that's casting a spell. But then, who would do that when you could just use Power Spike (which does more damage and interrupts, unlike Overload). The recharge on Power Spike is nothing as well, as mesmerisation is a waiting game and there's usually plenty of time to wait before needing to cast it again.

Empathy's buff is excellent. From the point of view of a PvE mesmer, Empathy is one of the few skills that works everywhere so an extra buff to the "old faithful" of the repertoire is very much appreciated (thanks ANet!).

Clumsiness... Personally, I rarely use this hex. Though maybe now Norgu can use it without running out of energy by spamming it (a nerf making a skill more usable - that has to be a first!).

Cry of Pain - this beauty's been a staple on my bar since I got it. Can't ignore a solid interrupt with the potential for AoE damage, and also good as a finishing move if timed right.

Can't say I use the assassin skills that got rebalanced in the update, and I'm somewhat lacking in experience with that profession so I can't really comment.

There's already a visual effect. When a creature gets hit for armor-ignoring damage or health loss (including health steal and sacrificing) it gets a sudden flash of blueish/pinkish/purplish light in a ring around its feet. The bigger the target, the easier the flash is to see.

Domination spike will not rise to meta again because there is not a secondary AoE lead spike skill. When Dom spike was at its most powerful, the key was the fact that E-Surge-->Wastrel's and Spiritual Pain-->Wastrel's could be alternated, with an occasional E-Burn thrown in (and of course, Shatter Enchantment <3). Overload does not give you anywhere near the spiking power that Mesmers once (albeit rather briefly, compared with other class' team spike ability) possessed.

They still think that recharge on SP is the problem?
http://images.google.com/images?hl=p...-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Not really, look at Dark Pact, 5e, 1s, 2r and 10% sac for 48 dmg.
Overload : 5e, 0.25s, 3r for 42(+53 if target is casting a spell) dmg.
And Power Spike (which you preferred, maybe) can NOT be used for team spike at all. But Overload can be a follow up or usual pressuring usage.

Everyone knows what you mean.
But it's not good enough (especially for some elite skills such as FoC, I mean simply a parasitic bond has better/unique visual effect).
Try ele spell: Magnetic Surge, it's armor ignoring dmg spell, it has its unique visual effect.

And most GWEN pve skills have new/awesome visual effect, but some important core elite skills has no visual/sound effect at all.

16 domination 13 fast casting

[skill]Energy Burn[/skill][skill]Overload[/skill]

nice spike? (ingore un-updated details) it would acauly be about 150dmg spike right?

I hope you are kidding

I'd say shadow prison needs

5 energy
30 second recharge
increased duration to 3-12 seconds



so yeah kinda a buff with less usage

Shadow Prison builds had already to be redone. Black Lotus Strike changes had more impact.

+5 seconds more recharge serves no real purpose, it is just annoying... so I have to agree, recharge was never the the problem.

In fact I no longer see a problem with Shadow Prison.



If they take away the Assassin ability to kill an unprotected target, the class loses a lot of appeal. A single block or interrupt or any other means of defense was already all that was needed to stop SP builds.

Deady Paradox: Sometimes I wish they would rather remove skills completely from the game than nerfing them over and over.

But 15 energy would work - I have not tested it since the patch rolled out, but from previous experience I would say I can deal with 10 more energy cost.

Not bad at all. Glad they finally addressed the retardedness of Deadly Paradox, the lame mechanism of that skill has irked me from the beginning. Hope it will be too costly to use now and die.