Why some might consider this a rant

Ok, after playing a bit more pvp then usual for the past 2 weeks, I have noticed some big problems, not related to the players or the maps or lagg. Yes, the problem is the skills, and I don't know if anyone has noticed but NF skills, especially elites, seem to be way overpowered compared to Tyrian and Canthan skills.

Really, I can tell you the majority of the players now play monk with zelous benediction, a crazy good skill. Majority of the eles play SF, and I don't know how that skill hasn't been altered yet. I mean, practically EVERYONE uses it, so isn't this any indication that something might be unbalanced?

And then my favorite of all, BLINDING SURGE baby. I mean literally, this skill is now run by so many Me/E what is even the point of bringing a mellee char to RA anymore. The recharge time is ridiculously low, it doesn't even cause exhaustion, and if someone wanted to they could repetivly spam it, on for instance an assasin, all throughout the game (which people have done).

I think that after factions was released skills were nerfed too, but really am I the only one who notices these unbalanced forces?

It's somewhat easy to use and effective against pressure, but removes the elite spot as utility (compared to say, BL). The conditional bonus can also be troublesome.

It's a very mindless skill to use, and also effective. The ease of use for a strong pressure effect makes it popular among many elementalists, and especially among heroways. It does, however, have weaknesses - the elementalist using it is a soft target, and as SF and Glowing Gaze synergize they are often cast very constantly, and vulnerable to being interrupted/diverted.

If they can spend an elite on a mesmer to blind melee classes, you could spend a non-elite on a ranger or mesmer and disable it. It's an extremely powerful skill almost wherever it is though, and will very likely be toned down.

There's a balance coming. Just wait.

Well, Avarre you are probably an avid pvper, so you have noticed how these skills are abused right? Especially blinding, i tried using for instance plauge touch(poor example I know) or even made a monk just for condition and hex removal, but then the melee characters (dervish mostly) on the other team ate me up for breakfast. It is quite frustrating...

They have to sell Nightfall so the skills are more powerful to lure more customers. It was the same with Factions. In the preview event assassins owned until they got nerfed hard after release. Then Ritus were Protter gods and just before Nightfall they got nerfed to oblivion. Now both Factions classes and most of the skills are nowhere to be seen. So just wait a little bit and they will make all the new skills and classes useless just how they have always done.

I wouldn't say all of these are abused, but Blinding Surge is probably going to take a hit of some sort (recharge, energy cost, or adding exh).

As Yanman said, balance is coming.

Anet doesn't talk about these things, like when and if they will happen though right?

Yeah, I've also noticed that Nightfall skills either are weak in comparison to the first two campaigns skills, or they really overshadow them.
Some feel quite weak and others feel like no-brainers now.

Since when? Did I miss something here? Was there a ninja update in the past few hours that made ZB worth my elite slot?

Guild Wars Skill Name Attribute Energy Cost=10 Activate=1sec Recharge=4

Zealous Benediction Prot


Elite Spell: Heal target ally for 30 to 180 Health. If target ally was below 50% Health you gain 10 Energy.

This is pretty powerful, its not even including DF bonus.

That activation time on the spell there is hawt.

Oh poo. You should have left that.

You can just interupt it, disable it, spike him or knock him down. This can easily be done, even in RA.

So you got your observations from RA? Well what do you expect, RA is noobheaven, so SF all over.

Then ZB: It's an elite, like Avarre said, you lose your utility like hex/conditionremoval. It's just a free Heal Other. Nothing overpowered there.

And Blinding Surge: Take a conditionremoval? Plague touch, Remedy Signet, Mending Touch, there's enough stuff to counter it.

Go team arenas and run builds so you can counter all that.

Not to mention Avatar of Melandru or and the ritualist skill that nulifies blinding.

Of course there's going to be an inherent power creep. Anyone who expects anything different is probably an idiot.

We're merely fortunate that that creep is relatively small, and that Anet isn't afraid to rebalance to correct it.

I don't know about power creep that everyone keeps talking about... there have been totally overpowered skills that got nerfed since the beginning. As for having elementalist elites worth using... well, it reminds me that somebody complained when they balanced warrior armor out and said "OMG higher armor level... must be power creep..." except that one of the sets was the same as gladiators but without the energy. Making stuff usable compared to other skills != power creep. Almost nobody used elementalists to do damage with elementalist skills before Nightfall in GvG. If Searing Flames were to stay the same as it is, that would be more like power explosion.

Gaile mentioned the skill adjustment would be right after the holiday event. She also hinted previously that SF would be adjusted, which I'm sure everyone suspects, anyways.

Wanna play a good melee char in RA???

Rt/A with spirits strength, sight beyond sight, and vital weapon. Take your pick of a 4 skill sin combo and go kill things with ease.

Kiting > You

All skill changes happen at the end of a ladder season. They don't want to change a skill right in the middle of a competitve PvP season since it would throw those results off. For a real life example, just look at how much controversy they have had this year over them changing from leather back to the synthetic ball in basketball this year.

A ladder season ended like 2 weeks ago, so a skill balance change will probablly occur at the end of wintersday.

You can do that with all spells. Spells must suck.

With Glyph of Lesser Energy, ZB became very popular. Not to mention in a situation where you will probably be the only monk (RA as the OP mentioned) snagging that conditional energy gain on ZB is a lot easier to control.

And blinding surge, I mean for 5 secs and near instant recharge and like 50 dmg, how can that skill also cause blinding for 9 seconds and not cause exhaustion??

Hmmm let us go over a few skill comparisons from nightfall and previous campaigns. Divert hexes>>>>>>>>>>expel hexes and withdraw hexes, maybe combined lol. Searing flames... closest comparison is rodgort's invocation, but it is so overpowered that using another skill in the same sentence isn't really fair. Blinding surge vs. say... glimmering mark or something... the list goes on.

For the kicker its also aoe if your target enchanted. So, if you have 2 melee swarming 1 person, and if your target has an enchant (is a dervish or got some prot from a monk etc...or unfortunate mending warrior) then both are blinded for the price of 1 cast . Anyway, mending touch/plague touch etc are helpful, but they aren't going to keep you clean and if they blinder knows what they are doing and time it well they can shut you when it counts, i.e. you're about to unload adrenaline or in screwing over your sin chain. But its the cheap spammability thats also annoying.

My favorite RA toon at the moment is a mes/ele with bsurge/spiritualpain/gale and such. I love spiritual pain sooo much vs rits who clump their spirits and make their team huddle around them. I hate spirit spammers in RA so much, they ruin matches. I hate playing on their team and hate playing against them and the worst is the spirit camp standoffs. Spiritual pain ends this and so I <3 spiritual pain in RA. Nothing personal but those matches just bore me to tears.

Zealous is in general ok, but better in RA than elsewhere. Here u are the lone monk and often taking a lot of heat and there will be a lot of cases where you'll nearly fill your bar for free. Its a nice big heal. As others said it lacks the utility of other elites. I'd almost prefer taking divert hexes in RA as I swear every team has 2 necros, or 1 necro 1 mes/nec etc etc. Hexes are popular.

Searing, yeah its a bit much. It will get the nerf stick. But really in the context of RA you're just a soft target that will get smashed if you don't have monk support. Its still gross though.

Yup, it is so spammable even with plague touch or something the blinding is still repetitvly spammed.

Oh yeah, that's balance...

Remember kids, new means overpowered. All of the nightfall skills are obviously overpowered now since most of the PvP community would rather steal builds and whine on the forums when their old builds no longer work against new skills.

But oh well, prot bond, chain lightning and ether renewal can use some loving in the nerfed to death and beyond skill category.

That something is new does not make it overpowered, otherwise we'd see people running healing ring everywhere . Obviously its particular skills. the reason people pick out certain skills is that they are simply unbalanced, or at least very very good. The general goal of competitive pvp is of course winning for most people, and if you want to win you want to use the best skills available, which means a lot of people use the same skills because they're bloody good.

Prot bond? Chain lightning? Ether Renewal?