[Dev Update] Skill Balances for Early April

We wanted to provide a detailed note from the Guild Wars Development Team about the upcoming game update:

Following our continued observation of the Guild Wars ladder and tournament play, we intend our April skill balance updates to resolve current game issues and increase the usefulness of some underpowered skills. These changes will remain in place for the week, and if they are successful, they will remain in the game permanently. We will continue to monitor the state of the game and make adjustments as needed. In our next update, we hope to add additional PvE-only skills to allow more attractive options for cooperative play, as well as begin adjusting some skills to make them more viable in cooperative play.

The skills below will be changed with this week's game update.

Assassin:

• Assassin's Remedy: now works on the next 1..10 attack skills.
• Black Mantis Thrust: decreased Energy cost to 5.
• Dancing Daggers: increased damage to 5..35.
• Golden Lotus Strike: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
• Jagged Strike: increased Bleeding duration to 1..15 seconds, decreased recharge time to 1 second.
• Malicious Strike: increased damage to 10..30.
• Recall: changed functionality to "While you maintain Recall, nothing happens. When Recall ends, you Shadow Step to the ally you targeted when you activated this skill."
• Sharpen Daggers: now works on the next 1..10 attack skills.
• Signet of Toxic Shock: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.

These changes are part of larger movement to make the Assassin's lead-to-off-hand attack combination a more attractive option. If these changes are successful, future balance updates will continue to improve upon these types of skills. Recall was a balance concern because it was difficult to recognize (there was no actual Enchantment on the teleporting player), and because those facing Recall could do nothing to prevent it. Now it can be removed in order to send the Assassin back prematurely to where he started.

Dervish:

• Avatar of Balthazar: increased duration to 10..90.
• Avatar of Dwayna: increased duration to 10..75.
• Avatar of Grenth: increased duration to 10..45.
• Avatar of Lyssa: increased duration to 10..90.
• Avatar of Melandru: decreased Health bonus to 100.
• Grenth's Grasp: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
• Natural Healing: increased the amount healed for to 40..150 Health, decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.
• Onslaught: Decreased Energy cost to 5.
• Pious Haste: increased duration to 5..12 seconds.
• Rending Sweep: increased recharge time to 10 seconds.
• Vow of Silence: decreased casting time to .25 second.
• Vow of Strength: increased duration to 20 seconds.
• Zealous Vow: increased duration to 20 seconds.

We're attempting to further equalize elite power in the Dervish line, starting with longer durations on the lesser-used avatars. Avatar of Melandru has become a bit harder to kill than we'd like while transformed. To counter this, we've decreased the amount of its Health bonus slightly. Onslaught and the Vow series of skills were underpowered elites in comparison, so we've boosted its power slightly to see if that makes them more viable. Rending Sweep proved an extremely powerful, non-elite alternative to Avatar of Grenth and received a significant increase to its recharge time. Natural Healing was improved to add a self-sufficiency option into Wind Prayers, Pious Haste received a slight duration increase to make it more manageable, and Grenth's Grasp was changed to bring it up to something more worthy of an elite skill.

Elementalist:

• Armor of Mist: decreased casting time to 1 second.
• Conjure Flame/Frost/Lightning: increased damage to 10..25.
• Glyph of Lesser Energy: now reduces the cost of your next 2 spells by 10..18 Energy, based on the Energy Storage attribute.
• Mind Blast: increased damage to 15..75.

While Glyph of Lesser Energy has been very successful in diversifying elite selection on Elementalists and bringing more high-cost skills into play, it has also enabled a few overpowered skill combinations for secondary Elementalists. We believe this change will address these overpowered combinations without removing Glyph of Lesser Energy as a viable option. Mind Blast was adjusted to bring it line with other low-recharging damage skills. We felt that damage-addition skills didn't add enough to be a viable option, so we raised their damage amounts. Finally, Armor of Mist should now give a good speed boost to Water Magic characters, particularly flag runners.

Mesmer:

• Auspicious Incantation: changed to "For 20 seconds, the next spell you cast is disabled for an additional 10..5 seconds, and you gain 110..200% of that spell's Energy cost."
• Diversion: increased recharge time to 12 seconds.
• Ether Signet: decreased recharge time to 45 seconds.
• Keystone Signet: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
• Guilt: duration changed to 6 seconds, decreased recharge time to 25 seconds.
• Mistrust: duration changed to 6 seconds.
• Shame: duration changed to 6 seconds.
• Shared Burden: decreased Energy cost to 10.
• Signet of Clumsiness: increased damage to 15..60.
• Spirit of Failure: Decreased Energy gain to 1..3, increased recharge time to 20.

The Diversion/Mantra of Recovery combination was proving to be slightly overpowered, so we changed Diversion's recharge time to compensate. One-time effect Hexes such as Shame, Mistrust, and Guilt have similar issues, so their duration has been changed to a flat 6 seconds. We simplified the description for Auspicious Incantation, and Signet of Clumsiness received a small damage boost to improve viability of the anti-melee and PvE varieties of Mesmer. Spirit of Failure received an increase to its recharge time and a decrease to its Energy gain, making it a little more difficult and less rewarding to spread this Hex everywhere. Keystone and Ether Signet's recharge time have been reduced to encourage the use of these lesser-used Signets, and Shared Burden has been reduced in cost to make a more attractive, elite alternative to Imagined Burden.

Monk:

• Zealous Benediction: decreased Energy gained to 7.
• Convert Hexes: decreased casting time to 1 second.
• Deny Hexes: attribute changed to divine favor.
• Reverse Hex: decreased casting time to .25 second.
• Reversal of Damage: decreased recharge time to 6 seconds.
• Signet of Rejuvenation: increased the amount of unconditional healing to 15..75.
• Smite Hex: decreased recharge time to 12 seconds.

Zealous Benediction is simply too powerful, so we've reduced the amount of Energy gain it supplies. This, combined with the change to Glyph of Lesser Energy, should help to diversify Monk elites. We wanted to improve a few of the less attractive Hex-removal options without increasing the pacing of Hex removal overall. Reverse Hex adds a quick-casting 10 Energy option, and the improved casting time for Convert Hexes makes it more usable for multiple removals. Smite Hex was improved to match the pacing of Holy Veil, and Deny Hexes was moved to the Divine Favor attribute to give it a guaranteed removal and better synergy. We added additional healing to Signet of Rejuvenation, making it a better zero-Energy option for Healing Prayers. In a similar vein, Reversal of Damage received an improved recharge time to give Smiting Prayers a more usable, low-recast skill.

Necromancer:

• Animate Bone Horror: decreased Energy cost to 10.
• Animate Vampiric Horror: decreased Energy cost to 15.
• Enfeebling Touch: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.
• Mark of Fury: decreased Energy cost to 5.
• Mark of Subversion: changed duration to 6 seconds.
• Poisoned Heart: decreased Energy cost to 5, decreased recharge time to 12 seconds.
• Price of Failure: increased recharge time to 20 seconds.
• Reckless Haste: increased Energy cost to 15.
• Soul Reaping: now only provides Energy at a maximum rate of once every 5 seconds.

Soul Reaping's synergy with Spirits and minions opened up a lot of builds that simply never ran out of power. Spirits still provide half Energy, and with Soul Reaping's Energy gain limited, a player death will now provide more net Energy, which we believe will help Soul Reaping get closer to its intended function. Mark of Fury was strictly inferior to Dark Fury, so we reduced the cost of Mark of Fury in hopes that this improves its playability. Mark of Subversion was changed to match the duration of Diversion, Shame, Mistrust, and Guilt, which keeps these one-time Hexes consistent with one another. Reckless Haste had its cost increased, and Price of Failure received a duration decrease to make it more difficult to keep these powerful Hexes on a large number of people. Poisoned Heart became cheaper and now recharges faster for some fun, creative play, and Enfeebling Touch has been improved so that it's more in line with other applications of Weakness.

Paragon:

• "They're on Fire!": now only affects party members.
• Anthem of Envy: damage bonus increased to 10..25.
• Anthem of Fury: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds, now only affects party members.
• Anthem of Flame: now only affects party members.
• Anthem of Guidance: now only affects party members.
• Crippling Anthem: now only affects party members.

This small adjustment to the Paragon was made primarily to deal with Spirit/Chant issues. Since all Spirit attacks count as attack skills, these Chants were making offensive Spirits more powerful than they were intended. Anthem of Fury also received a slight recharge decrease to allow it to fuel Echoes more effectively, and Anthem of Envy's damage bonus was increased to reflect the difficulty of meeting the skill's condition.

Ranger:

• Antidote Signet: decreased recharge time to 4 seconds.
• Archer's Signet: decreased casting time to 2 seconds, skill disable time improved to 15..5.
• Bestial Mauling: decreased Dazed duration to 4..10 seconds.
• Disrupting Lunge: increased recharge time to 10 seconds.
• Heal as One: decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.
• Lightning Reflexes: decreased recharge time to 30 seconds.
• Needling Shot: damage bonus increased to 10..30.
• Otyugh's Cry: changed to "For 10..25 seconds, all allied animal companions gain +24 armor and cannot be blocked."
• Pestilence: changed to "Create a level 1..10 Spirit. When any creature within its range dies, Conditions on that creature spread to any creature in the area already suffering from a Condition This Spirit dies after 30..90 second[s]."
• Spike Trap: increased damage to 10..40.
• Trapper's Focus: increased duration to 10..25 seconds.
• Tripwire: increased damage to 5..20.
• Viper's Nest: increased damage to 5..35.

While we've been pleased to find the Ranger seeing more play, we felt the skill diversity for this class was limited. The addition of the new pet controls caused us to scale back the interrupting pet skills, and allowed us to rework Otyugh's Cry into a much more useful skill. Antidote Signet was strictly inferior to the Paragon's Remedy Signet, so we reduced its recharge time to match. The trapper role is something we're looking to improve, so in this update we've improved the Condition duration or the damage of the least-used Trap skills. Heal as One now has an improved recharge time to put it more in line with other self-heals and add some additional options for the Beast Mastery line. Needling Shot's damage bonus was not quite good enough for its conditional effect, so we improved that to give Bow Rangers another damage option.

Ritualist:

• 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.

We wanted to improve a few niche skills in the Ritualist line, and we think we've accomplished that with these changes. Consume Soul is very specific skill, so we reduced its recharge time to make it more effective at removing Spirits from play. The fact that Brutal Weapon cannot stack with Enchantments is a bigger drawback than we'd originally thought, so we gave this skill a slight damage boost and a significant duration increase. Spirit's Strength is a fun, niche skill for some builds, and we wanted to make it more rewarding for players who choose to try something creative and different.

Warrior:

• "Shields Up!": decreased duration to 5..11 seconds, and reduced armor bonus to +24.
• Barbarous Slice: increased damage to 5..30.
• Crippling Slash: now also inflicts Bleeding.
• Dwarven Battle Stance: increased attack speed boost to 33%.
• Heavy Blow: decreased adrenaline cost to 5 strikes.
• Mighty Blow: increased damage bonus to 10..40.
• Savage Slash: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.

"Shields Up!" was proving to be a frustrating form of passive defense, and since one of our overall goals has been to reduce passive defense and support active defense, we felt it important to reduce the raw power of this Shout. Barbarous Slice was an inferior sword attack that we wanted to improve, and we felt that increasing its damage was a way to make it a more likely option for causing Bleeding. Crippling Slash also now causes Bleeding in order to improve its versatility and to make it more likely for players to equip it. We decreased Savage Slash's recharge time to put it more in-line with other melee interrupts, and Dwarven Battle Stance was given a full 33% attack speed bonus both to take more advantage of the interrupt quality and so that it acts as a full-fledged attack speed increase skill. Because of Heavy Blow's conditional nature, we reduced its adrenaline cost slightly, and lastly, Mighty Blow was given improved damage to put it on par with the recently improved Strength attack skills.

We're sharing this information to help detail the reasons behidn the changes, as such detailed update notes have proven helpful to players in the recent past. We look forward to hearing your thoughts as you have the opportunity to use the revised skills in PvP and PvE gameplay.

I've played Elem for 2 years, and this is a great update for all the Ele's out there!

The conjure buffs will probably make Rangers and Warriors with elemental weapons happier; I don't know many Elems that ever use the Conjures.

[email protected] Reaping

i like how u lowered those minions spells cost but soul reaping hmm... think its ok

I'm definitely going to be using reverse hex, and I can't believe they actually changed diversion..............wow. Just. Wow.

And then what about SH eles or BoA sins? Anything?

(PS bring on soul reaping complaints!! HA!)

Why ruin soulreaping? Kill the majority (pve) because of a few complaints by the minority (pvp). This is the worst news Ive heard in a long time. Please do us all a favor and separate the way skills work in PVP and PVE.

Gaile, I have a big question: If the true reason for the Paragon skills effecting only party members is so that it does not effect spirits, why didn't it just be changed to "all non-spirit allies"? There are a ton of skills like that currently.

I am a little blindsided by the Mesmer changes. Then again, it's always painful to take a nerf virtually across the board, but with all the talk of "omg buff the mesmer" this certainly seems a step in a .. weird... direction.

I'm not sure that nerfing the Diversion recharge time was the way to go about nerfing the MoR/Diversion combo, but I'm willing to stick it out, test the changes, and see how it plays.

Yes make lead attacks better
Very happy about black mantis thrust and Dancing daggers.

A brutal weapon ritualist on a assassin may be to strong though

With blades of steel hitting 60 dammage with a ritualist on it it will be hitting _85 damage on each hit, aswell as Twisting fangs, its almost insta death to anyone unprepared.

Now if shadow stepping other than elites became more viable I'd be happy ^.^.

Mm but as a side note, Try changind deadly paradox so it's disabling lowers with mastery in deadly arts that or Shroud of silence (heh if your more skilled in something you should see less punishment right?)

Sucks for Soul Reaping, why not change paragon skills so, Does not Affect any other Paragons in party, so in HA Paragon holding becomes much harder but it allows them to be buffed to see significant play else where.

Great idea!!! Make Paragons better but change Paragon skills to say "All non-Paragon party members/allies"! That would be one of the best skill changes EVER in my opinion! Gaile please read that man's post!

Same as always. Nerf the Mesmer.

Woo-hoo.

-Sol

And just like that... Otyugh's Cry is no longer the worst skill in the game!

WOOT!

Guys its not that bad for Soul reaping
if I read correctly they UPPED the amount of energy gained, but you can only get that energy every 5 seconds.

Although I dont care for or use my level 2 necromancer -_-, I think that the energy should be in reserve so if you killed something inbetween that 5 second waiting time you still get it after 5 seconds, which means like after 15 seconds the battle is over you still get energy back.

Boo! Diversion nerf...BOO!!

Lol, I noticed.

Finally a better skill, I mean it had to have been the worst skill in the game, up to this point.

I also like the decreased energy req on the Necro for a few death magic skills, It'll make it a bit easier on the MM's.

The only thing that gains from nerfing Diversion are...

Touchies.

MoR dom was mesmer on easy mode. At least this reduces the spammability of these skills and actually require people to use their brains to time shit.

Bah, MoR should have taken one for the team, not Diversion. There are enough energy gaining skills that you shouldn't rely on MoR to succeed.

Diversion, on the other hand, has far greater value to the mesmer.

I wonder what this will do to minion masters in PvE? I'm not going to pass judgement yet but this seems like a horrible nerf for PvE players. :/

edit: Now that I reread it, if the energy gain is doubled then this won't be as bad as it seems.

The new meta will be all melee, I'd imagine. 90 second avatars? Crippling slash? Goodness.

Those poor necromancers get hit so hard at times. I do like the buffs to assassins as it will open up viable builds in time. Also the modifications to rangers seem very cool, especially with pet controls on the way, I wonder how this will affect the little guys. Mesmers are getting it again too which is funny because wasn't Anet going to make PvE viable for them and instead they reduce hex effectiveness (True I did hate those Shame Mesmers when I Monked but still...)? Lastely, I feel sorry for paragons because I felt they could at least change it to non-spirit allies so that npc's in quest and allies could still receive the help (for example in AB).

I'm liking the ele changes... The new GoLE is gonna be better than ever for primaries ^^ And the buff to Mind Blast... Cute.

Crippling Slash... GJ there (seriously) It means that C. Slash warrs don't have to lug around that godsforsaken Sever just to nail a DW on someone... Now what do I do with my free skill slot? Mending?
Now... about Hundred Blades?

Brutal Weapon looks... well... Brutal now. I'm sure that 'sins, for sure, are gonna find a way to use it. Even rangers... This + Forked Arrow? A killer skill for random formats... cool.

Signet spiking 'sins are gonna like the buffs Cheers! As are SS rits... happy days for unorthodox builds

And I'm ready with my popcorn to watch all the PvE necros start QQing.

Crippling Slash Ftw

Cripple Slash, Mighty Blow, no scythe nerfs except Rending - this next season will be bloody.

I seriously urge you to reconsider this for PvE. Come on, most builds kill several creatures within a 5 second time period (SF much? Or even SS build). This is heavily gimping the Necro's EN gain in PvE, while the change seems to have been aimed at PvP. A better solution would have been 0 EN from Spirits, which would solve the current problem in HA.
I myself will get cheated out of 13* (how many critters in the mob -1) a lot of times. That's a very heavy nerf compared to the PvP side of the game.

All of Anet's Skill Balances need less Mesmer rape.

Mesmers are better in PvE. We have the mighty signet of clumsiness. Searing flames Ele's And SS necro's look out.

The fixed duration of thpse hexes will hurt, esp in PvE where they are usful energy and aoe damage, against a boss the 6 seconds is could down to 3 almost making it a direct interupt, which is not really what those skills were good at. The only upside is that it may help with attribute point spread.

The other changes are'nt too bad really. Gives me a reason to play with signet builds again. Diversion and price of failure are the hardest hit. I'll need to see how these are affected in real play before commenting.

The more I think about it, the more the GoLE change was a nerf for other classes, than a buff for Elems. There are very, very few spells that cost more than 15 energy (MS, Rodgorts, etc). What would be nice would be to gain back some of the energy, rather than it costing less.

R.I.P Soul Reaping and Glyph of Lesser Energy :'(
I understand why the glyph was nerfed (a lotta fun though), but why Soul Reaping? -_-

ill be taking a wait and see policy on these skills and changes. things of interest though:

ability to do something about a recall split. not what i, or a lot of people would have liked. will wait to see it in action, but not sure anything was really done, aside from being able to maybe see it coming now.

soul reaping. again, want to test it out before i make any claims. the pve aspect will definitely see problems with it. but i think it just ends up meaning fewer bone fiends per mob, with the changes to horrors. a hit, but not doomsday. at least, i think.

price and spirit of failure. lets see them in action now. maybe this helps. maybe not. would have liked to see the durations scale too. 10..25 or something similar.

GoLE. we will see. maybe its enough, maybe not, but at least its a start.

derv and assassin changes. half-hearted woot. whatever really. didnt break anything (that i can see. maybe avatar but im not sure) and tapped rending which needed it. its good. warrior changes. i like them. crip slash will see a lot more use now. shields up! needed a change, as it was actually forcing some teams to drop a ranger over another warrior. para changes. whatever. still broken to some extent. doesnt need buffs or nerfs. needs a retooling. mesmer changes. not sure why, but whatever. didnt break anything beyond repair, but didnt help much either. we will see if these skills fall out of the meta. ele changes. mind blast got enother buff. was decent before. wonder what its like now. monk changes. serious anti hex buffs! and the change to ZB is ok. doesnt break it, but doesnt really hit it either. ranger changes. trappers and beast masters ftw? sure. rit changes. brutal looks brutal, but nothing else of note.

Judging from what the update provides regarding Soul Reaping: Thanks for destroying the Necromancer class. If this change is going to be as bad as it sounds, I guess GW is done for me. I've enjoyed playing my necro as of lately, but with the nerf to soulreaping as describe, it won't be fun at all anymore.

Instead of taking away a necros backbone, it would be more feasible to change the elements that trigger the issue - spirits and minions. why not reduce the energy gained from minions to half the energy, like from spirits? Or reduce energy gained when a minion/spirit dies? gah... this change sounds wrong on so many levels.

HAHAHA!!
Yeah, diversion is changing the toucher meta.

THEY BUFFED OTYUGH'S CRY!!!"

OMG, best update ever!!!

Notes:

Glad to see ZB get nerfed. I'd love to see it get nerfed even more. Let the invincimonk whining begin. :P

Antidote signet will help ease away from Mending Touch. Good.

Shields Up nerf will make thousands of W/x FOW farmers cry blood. Since I'm always asleep when the US has favor, I don't really care much. Even though the nerf wasn't farming based, it was the power of 2 copies of SU at VOD.

Dwarven Battle Stance still sucks. At the very least, let it be affected by all weapons, OR make it end if you use an attack skill.

Crippling Slash: awesome buff, it needed more than it was. Of course, since crippled and bleeding aren't removed by Antidote Signet, Mending Touch may not be let go after all...

Soul Reaping got what it needed. Actually, if Anet had just made it affect "fleshy" or "non-summoned" creatures only, the current mechanic would have worked just fine. Spirits and Undead are, well, non-living, so they wouldn't have a soul to reap. But whatever. We'll see how the mechanic works in practice.

What do you mean why Soul reaping

1, This is HARDLY a nerf for pve, most pve necros are MM, they just reduced minion Spells energy, and you now get more energy from soul reaping just only at 5 second intervals. If you get something like 32 energy for 16 points of soul reaping and most mm skills are now only 15 energy each kill gets you 2 minions if your not a MM its still not a big deal because you were probably focusing on 1 target.

Now lets work that Paragon shouts do not work on other paragons idea o' mine.
As soon as thats tweaked in buff some stuff make paragons a buffer and Ritualists holders (Put the spirits down to assist in damage and pressure) and Whammo...got buffs...heals...and additional damage that doesnt need a corpse (mms).

wow, you made Otyugh's cry not suck!

Why is it that all the classes that people are saying need to be better are getting more and more nerfs(paragon and mesmer)? I've said it alot: make paragon shouts not effect other paragons(I've said it ever since the first skill update after NF's release). And for the spirit problem you could make it non-spirit ally like it is with alot of other skills (on a side note: can spirits even hear sounds?).

Other than that I think it's great! Warriors finally have a good swordsmanship elite, monks got some improvements for hex removal, necromancers have cheaper minions, and assassins got some better lead attacks.

First off it's not a few complaints. Other then the players abusing it, SR has been on the list to get hit in some skill balance update for over a year now. The abuse of the attribute is sickening, and is destroying PvP. And to show you proof that the PvP community never wanted this as a fix work your way down past the little PvE Happyland into the PvP Section of Guru and read.

Where exactly did this come from? Anet didn't even look at any suggestions that any of the PvP community has mentioned. Basically they are getting the same amount of energy, only now every 5 seconds. How do you even believe this is going to stop the abuse of the attribute? Sure it might slightly hinder some of the builds abusing it now, but in no way is it close to a fix.

For the sake of PvP and to save Anet from the swarms of angry PvErs look at the simple solution of destroying the benefit of Soul Reaping from Spirits alone. The major abuse of SR came/is coming from Minions and Spirits. Minions took a hard hit with Jagged Bones being nerfed, however you have yet to fix spirits. This is but one suggestion that has been brought to light, and I would suggest Anet figure out a different solution to the abuse rather then the one they intend to implement.

I like some of the changes but I am not sure I like the changes to ZB as to the gain of 7 energy that is fine if you are a Mo/E but not if you are a Mo/X.It is sort of beginning to look like smiting is maybe a different way of protecting those who need it and maybe accepted more in competive play.It would be nice to see savage slash even more reduced in energy cost not 15 more like 5 or better yet make it a adrenal skill like disrupting chop.

@HiKan Trilear .Warriors got a great swordsmanship elite in Factions Dragon Slash.

I'd love that Mind Blast buff. ^^ It's one of my most favorite spells to use and I'd love for it to do a tad more damage, all the changes sound good/needed.

I largely like what I'm seeing and am looking forward to testing things out to see if my initial optimism holds up.