skill nerf already?

Shadow Prison, Blinding Surge, Spoil Victor, Spiritual Pain, Jagged Bones

These skills are beyond ridiculous.

Shadow Prison single handedly snares better then any ranger skill, water elementalist skill, and Mesmer skill combined. In all honesty I like the "coolness" factor of it, but slown down by 66% so nothing can be dodged, and for 4 seconds with no points in shadow prison to begin with makes it the most abusable skill warriors can pack in. They nerfed Gale on warriors, why the hell did they make this skill?

Blinding Surge is too powerful for its mana cost to be justified. Blinding Flash takes 15 mana, and with decent points last just as long as the cooldown. Compared to 5 mana, possibly(or guaranteed almost in gvg) can make an entire melee build useless. Not to mention its abused by every spellcaster. Hell I saw a monk use it in top 100 gvg observer mode. Thats how ridiculous this is. I would suggest an increase in mana cost, and also the mechanic blind change itself. I would say from 90% chance to miss changed to 75% chance to miss. It shouldn't be useless but it shouldn't be that strong.

Spoil Victor covered does too much damage to be worth anything. I was an assasin in AB. Just singling out targets. Then I was about 1/3 into my combination, my opponent at 1/3-1/4 his health. I then use palm strike etc etc. Spoil Victor was placed at the very start of when I began to use my dual attack. I died instantly. Now.. I know this may sound awkward but I had spoil victor x2 on my status for skills that hit me.. That was it. Not only that I have heard of monk's infusing with Spoil Victor on them and they instantly die... I'm really glad Necro's have a reason to go blood for hexes now, but this is ridiculous.

Spiritual Pain is the most damaging skill in this entire game. Nothing deals 100+ damage in less then a second. It's also on the most anti spellcaster variable class the game has to offer. The mesmer plays the mind game, now all of a sudden he is more hated then 8v8 HA bloodspike. 5 Mesmers, 750 dmg in .5 seconds? I don't think so. (Spiritual Pain +Wastrel's Demise)

Jagged Bones, honestly I feel completely sorry for PvE. This is a very high contending skill that helps with missions+group farming+exploring, it also fuels necromancers to do ridiculous things in HA. For this skill alone I almost wish that Guildwars had different mechanics in PvE and PvP worlds. This has to get nerfed. I can't even obs HA without seeing the Ritualist, Ranger, Necromancer Class Chain.

Although One Mechanic I do want to see buffed is this simply. Divine Favor.
The worst Primary out there. I would like to see it do this as such~
Divine Favor: For each point in Divine Favor, whenever you use a skill on target ally, that ally gains 5 Health. Whenever you use a skill on an enemy, that enemy suffers from 5 more damage.

This will make skills that are useless useful on the monk IMO. The monk should have that "smiting" like ability as a permanent.

This is all opinion and there is alot more, say the earth ele's in random arena's with insanely high defence and obsidian flesh.. those get annoying. A friend of mine ran into 3 the other day and had 3 individual hour matches. Then Another had a one hour match against one. This build is annoying as hell. It's not overpowered but it's irritating.

Searing Flames needs I think possibly 15 dmg reduction, and cooldown increase by 1 second. Its not overpowered, just abused. It's more interruptable then the skills above, and it needs a condition that usually doesn't last long on targets to make it effective. The main problem I think is glowing gaze. Although I don't have any suggestions to change this.

/end rant

People don't know how to play guild wars.

imo, the problem with Searing Flames is actually Glowing Gaze rather than SF itself...

I just want to see what comes this weekend, and we'll see what happens. Chances are all the changes that will be made for the Beta have been made, so let's wait and watch.

spiritual pain has 30 recharge, plz tell me you don't know how to counter it, just learn to play instead of crying for skill nerfs

btw. spiritual pain is the only aoe mesmer spell (which is not completly useless)

plz mess it up for pve players, nerf plz

While you're at it, please nerf good players for me too. They're too overpowered.

Jagged Bones isn't the problem, the issue is Soul Reaping from Spirits - again.

Spiritual Pain is a ridiculously good spike skill, which promotes a spike heavy metagame. Thus it needs toning down.

Blinding Surge and Shield of Absorption are both just too strong against a pressure style of play. They also need toning down.

A single Searing Flames Ele is a fairly weak character, the problem is that it gets exponentially better as you multiply them. Searing needs to be tweaked so it is more attractive to slot one or two into a standard build, and less appealing to run five of them and spam skills.

Spoil Victor probably needs the duration tweaked slightly. I don't think it's that imbalanced in all honesty. It's popularity in the Necro build is largely due to the build as a whole it's self, and the ability to fuel spamming it with Soul Reaping. That is the biggest issue.

Shadow Prison is fine, I feel. In higher levels of play it isn't that great because it just helps monks recognize the spike target.


This game is balanced for PvP, bringing up PvE based arguments for the balance of skills is ridiculous and futile.

Very well said. But alas, it will ALWAYS happen....

I agree with everything you said, with the sole exception of the argument against Sp Pain. It does promote spiking, not quibbling there, but how is that so bad? If there is one style of play I dislike to see it's the defensive turtling that runs rampant as soon as it become even moderately feasible. Most teams that I encounter have a strong tendency to pack a ridiculous amount of defense-- spirits, wards, chants/shouts, healing etc, and only 1 or 2 offensive skills per char. That makes play so stale. Spiking is at least fast and hard. Either beat the spike (or execute it properly) or fail. More fun than 20 minute sessions where nothing gets past defense. I know that you have some options in GvG to get away from the head-on fight and split off and such, but in all other PvP arena's you can't do that, and even in GvG it may not always be feasible.

It is exactly skills like Spiritual Pain that promote such defensive builds, since you don´t need as much skill slots to get a spike decent enough to kill. This leaves too much room for defensive skills.

See you at VoD.

Didn't think of that. Fair point indeed.

okay then...

Ya i wish there was a way to install skills in PvE and PvP both the same but when it comes to tweaking them only do it in PvP, kinda like if you had a 10 hour account for night fall came over got the skills you needed then the 10 hours was up and they were greyed out you see what i am getting at then everyone is happy and us PvE'rs can go back to killing level 30 ellite monsters without getting hit with the "ajustment"s" that PvP'rs want to see. I see alot of people complaining i see both side's but come on just leave well enough alone tweak a few but not every dang skill that floats out and because in PvP you have a hard time dealing with a new build's people go nuts lol .

Remember it is just a game nothing more, i mean when you goto work or go out do you bring your batman decoder rings to try and emote your tiger,deer,wolf or what ever lol

That solves everything ^^ Now everyone's happy.

Considering i use a dervish alot, and i don't like earth prayers at all.
Mystic regen to Mysticm is a great "rebalance" for a dervish.

posting ignorant stuff like that is even more ridiculous. gw is both pve & pvp, but some people don't care just want a skill nerfed for selfish reasons and even if it is the only useful aoe mesmer spell in pve, thanks this is exactly what devs should see

Finally. Something worth reading...

Searing Flames: Your right in saying it needs to tail-off at around 2 or 3 casters packing it. How about giving it Shatterstone style functionality by making it a hex.
For 2 seconds you are hexed with Searing Flames. Target foe, and all foes in the area begin burning for 7 seconds and take xxx (whatever the numbers are) damage when this hex ends.

How does that sound? I dunno... It wouldn't gimp it completely, just take a bit of the 'spike' out of it. In actual fact it 'becomes cheaper' since you get the burning and the damage in one spell cast.
I was initially going to suggest making it like Rodgort's Invocation, but that would obviously be even more over-powered with Multiple users (Incidentally this would also work well with a Soul Barbs team build)...

Blinding Surge: A 10 energy cost would make this prohibitive yet still worthy of being Elite. Any more changes would make it worthless. Or at least make Blinding Flash plus Elite e-management more attractive.

How about Energy Surge? That skill is not completely useless, and is a AoE mesmer spell.

Well, all I can say is, when skills keep getting nerfed to balance out PvP, in the end it's going to be the monsters in PvE who'll be having the most fun spawnkilling us.

Does finely tuned skill balance matter to PvE at all? No, it really doesn't. If a skill is imbalanced in PvE then it just makes mowing down mobs easier. If a skill is imbalanced in PvP then it has a large effect on matches and creates a stale and limited metagame. I am not trying to argue that the devs care less about PvE than PvP, that would be ridiculous, the simple fact is that skill balance is important for PvP - not PvE.

Please look in the mirror before throwing around accusations of ignorance.

I'll analyze it for you.

You have two camps which both have two perspectives.

PvP camp: Both groups' motive is to win.

Group One: Using an overpowered skill.
Feels that the skill is awesome, because it's so easy to use, yet still give a good effect compared to other similar skills.

Group Two: Not using an overpowered skill.
Feels that the skill is broken, because it takes effort out of beating another team by making it too easy if you use said skill.

PvE camp: Group one's motive is to win, group two is without motive.

Group One: Players using an overpowered skill.
Feels that overpowered skill is a nice, because it makes it easy to beat group two and arguments that group two doesn't even care it all. However, making winning easier than planned by the development team.

Group Two: AI, no feelings.
No motives. Getting beaten by said overpowered skill.

I think the main reason for keeping skills the same for PvP and PvE alike is that it makes it easier to play the game, especially for newcomers, who might find it hard that there is first 1137 skills to learn and yet some of them are different depening on where you use them. Short answer, simplicity.

To say skill changes doesn't impact the game in PvE is simply false. One of the "finely tuned skill balance nerfs" effectively ended spirit-summoner (support spirits) which was one of the corner-stones for the ritualist .

I looked in the mirror and couldn't find any ignorance in my posts sorry.

Guess what? That balance to Ritualists was made due to that particular brand of spirit shitting Ritualist dragging out matches in VoD when a team chose to turtle in their Guild Lord area in Guild Battles.

Nobody is arguing that the skill balances don't effect PvE, the fact is that balance changes just aren't made with PvE as a major concern.

Sadly I think some people do

JR your wrong there i guess you havent been PvEing much all the mob's and mobs of monsters in the tourment are somewhat over powered and with what we have in the PvE realm is just enough to do it, take the foundry it has titans in there that are 4 builds(monk,elly,mes,war) could be more if i am not mistaken and SF is usefull but no where near over powering in there at all if SF takes any hit IMO it will render it usless in there well depending on what happens to it if anything at all


In PvP you deal with 8 others in PvE it is endless mobs sometimes 20+ so really i think it is the other way around in PvE it matters and who cares about PvP i mean people use diff builds all the time just look for a way around it is all

I don't think you quite understand this subject.

Your not serious ru ?


PvE out #'s PvP 20-1 (prob more) this game is a PvE base big time PvP is something else to do, it isnt what this game is about .

Don't get me wrong i have PvPed before dont really care for it IMO but hey i am only me i love PvE and everything about it

What am i not understanding ?? you stated that a skill balance dosnt effect PvE well i said your wrong it effects us PvE'ers big time is what i was trying to state

Dood, you're living in backwards world. You want a game that's PvE first and PvP second, try WoW.

Bold for emphasis?

Look at it this way:

You and your eight PvE buddies can sit and stare at a group from afar and decide what you're goin to do, possibly change skills for that mod next time you come, completely design a build around that mod, because IT WILL NEVER CHANGE.

PvP is random and thus, most players want this game to be what it was intended for, player skill against player skill - NOT player skill against button mashing SF eles.

Let me know the first time Anet holds the PvE championship.

Correct me if i am wrong but isnt Guildwars a RPG??

"You want a game that's PvE first and PvP second, try WoW."

Reading the Official WoW Forums would suggest this is not the case. Both the GW and WoW developers must balance for PvP while continuing to provide a challenging and interesting PvE environment. Not an easy task.

you just stated though in a post that a skill balance DOSENT effect PvE now your changeing your toon ..Hummmmmmmmm

Please quote where I said that?

My point it Guild Wars is PvP first, PvE second.

World of Warcraft is PvE first, PvP second.

Each have their strengths and weaknesses, but this game is driven by its Player vs Player competative atmosphere.

Eye em oh.

GW till date is still the biggest PvP pushing RPG on the market.
And i can't disagree with them.
Being a PvE player myself i can surely understand and admit that PvE is all about knowledge of the spawns...
Once you know them you know them. End of story

PvP requires a whole lot more of adapting, tweaking and other little mindbreaking twitches to make sure you survive AS A TEAM.

So in that pov GW is more PvP than PvE.
Take it or leave it.

no not really. RPG is the general turn, but in purer sense, the term RPG is more closely linked to games like FF and the like. guild wars is a CORPG (competitive/cooperative online role-playing game), which can be seen as a sub section or off shoot from a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).

No.

Skill balance affects PvE.

But.

It matters a lot less.

Stop. Read. Comprehend.

Broken skills in PvE exist already and they don't bother anyone (Monster skills anyone?), but broken skills and unbalanced skills cannot exist in a PvP environment, if it is to be a fair, fun and interesting field of competition.

OK guys calm down, although I have to admit some of the skills are nerfed for crybabys who cant be arsed to work out a counter.

scrool up i quoted you in the second post you begin with balanceing skills dosnt really effect pve at all

Yes, many games enjoy both aspects of the game. However, different games are more slanted twords one side.

Look at it this way: My guild could probly come into the hardest PvE area and beat it relativly efficiently, and we have at times. However, no PvE guild would stand a laughing chance in hell at lasting in any high end gvg games.

The better players are in PvP. The game is slanted to PvP.