3/6/08 update

they dont know when to stop nerffing things what they need to do is give new life to the 100+ skills that are useless that dont see the light of day in pvp

Restoration:
0 - 15%
1 - 21%
2 - 26%
3 - 32%
4 - 38%
5 - 43%
6 - 49%
7 - 55%
8 - 60%
9 - 66%
10 - 72%
11 - 77%
12 - 83%
13 - 89%
14 - 94%
15 - 100%
16 - 106%

IMHO, I like the removal of aftercast on ele skills. Aftercast has made me stop playing ele altogether, you spend half of the time just sitting there, waiting for some magic grasp to release you.

Wow. A lot of changes

My comments.

Removal of aftercast. HURRAH! Ele gets a lot of nice changes. New lightening orb and shock arrows provides some nice new air options. Shock arrows seems better then mind blast now though. Mind blast is an elite, I'm not sure if the nerf was neccessary since the skill replaced so many better elite options. And I'll miss ward against melee (though its still useful).

Shadow Prison already sucked. Why nerf it even more? Siphon speed is also kinda sad. With all the "require hexes" sin combos, sins should have some sort of spamable hex. I mean, as it stands, they either have to go into their secondary or synergy with a teammate, which basically kills a large number of attack chains for sins, especially in casual PvP (AB/RA).
Shroud of silence did need the nerf.

New wail of doom. Kinda cool. Will have to play around with it to see if it is functional. Necro changes are all cool.

NOO! My augury of death/enchanter's condrum/shatter delusions mesmer spiker. Oh well, was a bit over powered. At least finish him still works for PvE.

Pious assault... it was so much fun while it lasted. Needed the nerf though.

Monk nerf on passive defense I can understand (though buffing shields up after nerfing it 8 months ago?)

Warrior buff on lion's comfort is great. That skill was never used because using it killed adrenaline gain. Finally a functionally useable strength self heal.

goody, lotsa changes.

Might tweak some builds again now.

All I can say is, Arcane Echo + Wail of Doom, goodbye Duncan.

WHAT!? I am outraged with Psychic Instability! Now it's as rubbish as Power Leak was when they 1/6thed its strength... please, PI is now ridiculous.

Thanks!

mustfeedthemachine12

finally crip shot...

Rofl at Wail of Doom, Enfeebling Blood, and Weaken Armor (which I plan to run in Sabway now?)

And at least now I can run fire at 14 for a mindblaster...

wounding strike <3

Wow, Necro got so buffed this time. Me likely.

An I already loved LC, now......it's SO much better then Heal Sig.

Yes A-net balances for PvP, no they do not change anything in PvE unless something really gets bad.

As for what changed, most of it sounds good.... except a couple points...

I am confused by Necro skills that cost 1 energy now? The best energy managers now have skills that cost 1 or is that some kind of typo?

And Ranger... nerf to cripshot is only suprising because it seems to be the only skill keeping rangers in high level PvP, so now do they actually use something different, do rangers dissapear from PvP completely, or is the change meaningless? I like that they bumped Pin Down a lil bit....and Hunter's, well I guess they probably have a quota that outlines a minimum amount of changes they make per year or something.

And too bad for "Watch Yourself!", gonna have to test to see how bad the damage is- it may still be useful....but the limited hits the skill can take sucks, gives an advantage to fast strikers like assasins. (which do not need help in any way shape or form)

Gives an advantage to Assassins? The poor things have no advantages left.

Look, Paragons got nerfed... well, I pretty much expected that. I think the Mending Refrain nerf was due to Ursan Roar, however.

Are you Ursan haters happy now?

Whats in the 2nd update?

No Ursan haters are going to be happy until it's either nerfed down to size or removed.

Wounding Strike is like sex now, but with pro females.

yes, cuz if WY! only gives armor against 3 hits assasins will burn that in less than 2 seconds...whereas a ranger trying to go against WY! will be against the +20 armor for 8-10 seconds....with a FGJ! fueled adrenaline build it may not matter too darn much- we'l see.

I dont think P-gons got nailed that hard, Mending Refrain costs 5 more, and the other changes are buffs. (song of restore is now more expensive, but does more)

I'm not going to lie, the moment I saw that Sins received some nerfing I got a little bit of happiness from it. Shroud of Silence, for instance, needed some kind of evening out because it was way too much to deal with, but even now it can still be useful and doesn't suffer too badly. Siphon Speed though - almost made me cry with elation. That skill was so ridiculously overused (aka spam it on everyone on the enemy side, laugh, rinse & repeat, throw in a few combos for larfs). And speaking of overused .... augury ... oh how I am SO glad you won't be hanging around like a zit all the time now. Selective use of it I'm sure will still come into play, no more of that senseless like before though, less we're talking about caster Sins (15 energy Deadly Paradox, ouch). I probably sound like I'm a total sin hater, which isn't the case, I've just had to Monk against a lot of these gimmick builds stemming from their line of skills for too long. Maybe it's Anet to blame there, either way I have less to worry about now, cept the ole' Beguiling Haze spikers (the Dervish version now much less effective).

Eh ... the poor Dervish. First Mystic Regen (which should be in Mysticism, btw, prevents everyone and their Mother's using it) and now Pious. I suppose I see the reasoning, yet I question it at the same time. I don't play in larger scale PvP (such as GvG or HoH), but to me the effectiveness of the Derv has taken another step down. I guess if you're looking for general aoe pressure then the Dervish is a hard hitter that looks cool while fighting, however anytime I've seen a Sin I've also seen a Dervish die crying. Guess AoB will see more use, lawl.

Most of the other changes seem to make sense, though I will never understand why they messed with the Ele. Flame Djinn's was fine after the initial nerf to 25% (meaning they couldn't run around in something like AB with insane speed and cap everything). I'm not completely sure about all the changes till I go through my characters and test things out, old builds, etc. And yes, I have an Sin too.

Oh, and the Guardian change hasn't effected my Monking any, I tested it out right away. I suppose melee pressure might be a little more stiff, though. So far I don't think the change is unreasonable. I went into AB and went around protting who I could, etc, and it worked as good as I ever remember it ... then again I didn't spam it too often before, either, so who knows. I met a couple Sins in that match, one threw on Seeping Wound and Augury of Death, the other Shadow Prison. Pretty much tanked the SP for the 3 second duration (lol) and removed Augury the second it was on me. Always pre veil, folks, it rocks!

Damn, I've gone and wrote an essay, I gotta get back to GW to try out some more builds, so catch you all later.

P.S. And if you didn't notice, this is all from a PvP perspective.