Dev Updates Today!

If they're so broken why don't we see GVG matches running 6 Hex casters and 2 monks? Yup, it's on account of they are 'usefull' not 'broken'. Some builds don't use Mesmer OR Necro and instead have some Eles or Rits or Paras. I know this'll sound like crazy talk to you, but... If it really were broken do you actaully think there would be any way top guilds *wouldn't* be all running merciless hex onslaught builds? 'Hexes' are balanced, there may be some which need fine tuning but as I'm sure you are aware, with such a vast selection of superior hex removal options there IS balance.

This has been said enough in the thread on the changes in Gladiator Arena, but I think it needs to be sent through one more time here

Good game, anet. Good game.

thanks SlyClone... some cold minded person here...

people who want to rant simply go outside and smack someone... you know you won't stop playing this game whatever changes they make... and if you do... way better for us(who accept anything and adapt)...

as i said... nice update

I don't like how ritspike is dominating in HA either, but please consider the number of PvE Ritualist players that want some diversity in their builds instead of always spamming spirits.

I totally agree with you not to ruin the rit for PvE. I tried to suggest making some of the skills that spam damge/heal more conditional. there may be a better way. but its needed so bad, if rit was a core class id probably not gripe as much but they have more use than some of the core classes in PvP. wont see 8 unranked mesmers running around spiking, holding halls, and beating people down with any success .

when will this update actually take effect? we should just play it out and then criticize.

most likely tomorrow. most of the big updates seem to come thursday afternoon pacific time...

Seems to me like this update is as much about PvE as PvP.

Armor stacking paragons were a problem in PvP...but, as apparently a lot of people have missed, ANet was concerned with armor stacking in a lot of different areas...could it be possible that the hit to the standard DoA earth ele tank build was intended, and not collateral? =O

Soul Reaping, yeah, ANet's approach to that balance has been PvE centric from the beginning. If they were only focused on PvP, killing energy gain from spirits would have been fine, but no, they wanted to limit its use in PvE as well, because it provided ridiculous amounts of energy with no slots devoted to emanagement.

Some of the buffs and nerfs are obviously just for PvP; Defensive Anthem is crap in PvE but annoying in PvP in duos, for example. But the, "zomg PVP sux, split the skillz!" isn't rational. Heck, SS was obviously nerfed for PvE; no one uses that in PvP. Reducing it to 10 energy was a bit of a surprise in the first place, it's still useful and powerful at 15 energy...and guess what, now you'll actually be bumped back up to full energy when the mob of onis in the Deep die from echoed-SS nuking.

@Lennymon: The point of hexes being unbalanced is that two characters (3, if you have a water ele as well) spamming hexes can shut down all of the offense, and mostly all of the defense, of most other teams. No one brings 6 hex spammers because that's redundant, and unnecessary; 2 is more than sufficient due to how long a lot of passive hexes last, which means you have the rest of the slots in your build open for warriors, dervishes, or what have you to kill stuff.

You bring an umbrella when you expect it to rain, hunh? But you don't expect it to stop raining? Ok. Why don't you bring "Frigid Armor" when you expect SF. No burning = wasted elite skill for opposition. FA is not an elite, only needs Att 10 to keep it up until recharged (so any second prof could handle it), and at 5 energy, even a warrior could support it in their skill bar. Short cast time too. Plus the basic additional 30 armor vs phys means that the skill isn't wasted if you aren't facing an SF team. 30 armor, + no burning, sounds like problem solved to me.

"But I don't wanna have Ele as my second profession!" All I have to say to that is, if the skies look cloudy, bring an umbrella. If SF teams are showing up frequently, bring Frigid Armor.

While Frigid Armor is a half-decent counter to SF, it's not an ideal or absolute one. For example, frigid is a self-cast enchantment and can be removed if you're be targeted. SF is a nearby AoE skill carried by a handful of casters that can make room on their bars for utility, like Gale and Gaze of Contempt and Signet of Humility. Other suggested counters, like Signet of Humility, removing the Attunements, and interrupts don't work all that well either because of the spammy nature of SF, and the number of people casting it at the same time, repeatedly. Counters exist, but that spawns counter-counters, and by using a counter, you won't have enough flexibility for a counter-counter-counter. Saying "I'm going to expect Melee Pressure, so I'll bring Gaurdian" isn't at all the same as saying "I'm going to expect Searing Flames, so I'll bring Frigid Armor."

SF is mainly flawed because the more copies of it in play, the better it gets. This same basic flaw can be found in almost all other degenerative builds, like hex stacking, Echos and Chants, the old SR with spirits, and Spirit Spam Rit Spike. You can also see it in the old Fragility spike, the current SB/RI spike, and even in Signet of Mystic Wrath spike. The key here would be to remove the stacking effects of similar skills, not hurting one caster, but definitely hurting a pile of them using the same ideas. It's important to note that the problem is with the skill, not the counter.

For example: Take SF. Increase the burning duration to 8 seconds, but whenever it does the extra damage, cause it to remove the burning after it does the damage, or do damage based on how long the burning was on for. This would mess with the synergy of SF + Glowing Gaze in a team of SF casters, and lower DPS of the build in SF teams of three or more because the burning would have to be re-applied by the next hit. Alternatively, you could lower the damage from 115 to around 80, but then increase the burning time to 10 seconds. This means most of the damage is caused from the burning, instead of the extra casts. The skill is still potent with one caster, but not abusive with multiple.

Another example: Take spirits. There are tons of skills that rely on ally spirits to function, and if a whole team has a couple, then there will almost always be one spirit on the field to cast off of. If, instead, those skills relied on a spirit under your direct control, then spirit-heavy teams would be vulnerable to spirits being destroyed. Destroying the spirits belonging to the healer would make his Spirit Light sac health, and destroying the spirit belonging to the Spirit Burn caster would make it less potent.

I appreciate you taking the effort to read and make a counterpoint, and politely too *salute*. I also understand the point, but shutting down the other team's offense at the cost of 3 spots on the team *is* offense, pressure. My point was (while my exageration approach was not very clearly stated) that while yes, I agree it's effective it's really no worse than 3 of anything else. Everything has a counter, sometimes it's only counter is a similar build yes, but it's a counter. A Divert monk can remove a lot of hexes but not all are important to remove, but against a hex light team it's harder to justify. A full team of cripshot rangers is super annoying too, running around continually plinking everyone... but not unbabalanced. I'm hoping my point is a little clearer now, just because hexes slow the oppositions physical game down doesn't make it unbalanced. Hexes is a hugely broad supercategory, and encompasses too many divergent aspects for it to be simply 'broken'. Enchantments, physical weapons, armor ignoring damage and weapon spells are just as equally 'broken' in the hands of a well built team with experience.

Do I think there are *some* hex based builds which are played too frequently to be mere coincedence? Yes, and I agree that some fine tuning wouldn't hurt in order to encourage other builds. But 'hexes' aren't the problem anymore than monks are the problem, after all 2 monks can often stall the entire enemy team's offensive push to destroy your team right?

Melandru's Resilience is pretty spiffy now.

Trade spam reduction, HELL YEAH!

Thats actually secret code for mini-bans because anet can't make an auction house.

making rits spirit reliant spells conditional, best idea ive heard. *winkwink* *nudgenudge* anet!

Way to completely miss my point AND stereotype me at the same time. Hat's off.

The same people spamming the trade channel are not the same people spamming the local channel. If you don't believe me, hit Kamadan, AD1, and count how many people you see on both. Go ahead, I'll wait.

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Great, now let's take all those people unique to local channel and stick them in the same, already flooded channel. Hilarity ensues! I'm not saying flooding local channel is a good thing; on the contrary, it's annoying. I'm just saying that this response to it seems to not be particularly thought-out. Generally, any answer that involves suspending/banning offenders ought to be given serious thought. Rarely has "make more rules" been a good solution for anything, and that's coming from a lawyer! Address the underlying issue rather than create new rules. The underlying issue is that buying and selling of certain goods is difficult.

I have never advocated an "auction house" or anything similar to that, so please don't accuse me of such (I find it a bad idea, in fact). Heck, even allowing mods and inscriptions to be bought and sold at a trader who uses supply and demand would be a vast, vast improvement over what already exists, and would be exceptionally simple to implement.

I agree. We need a weapon trader like we need a dye and insignia trainer.
It's one of those cases where things are only worth what you can sell them for - I've had a max chaos axe req 9 gold unidentified and the same stats on a bloody shadow blade just sitting in my box because I can't find the time to sell them over tradespam.

WTH are you complaining about? Hexes are one of the lame things? Dump thought! Hexes are fun to play with. Without hexes, what else will be fun to play? Just play a freaking iway and bash everyone with the axe or hammer? WoW man!

Rit spike does not need a nerf. Be more realistic. If you make a lame build consistent of ALL melee or fire, it will not be a build. To anti rit spike, you need tactics more likely! Killing spirit and pressure as well as shutting down the vital bonder. Play more to get more exp man.

Last word, so what is good build are you thinking of? Spirit way? Iway? Those are pure dmg, it has no hexes and oh it is not rit spike! Those are all good builds, just need more different builds to face and play! Just stop complaining and think of the other way to play a better and more efficient builds WITH the current change!

Thanks for the change that make GW game has different builds coming up after a decade of changing. Hope the upcoming build will be fun to play!

Doh, yea. I did however forget to mention that Migraine has a 5 second less recharge than Conundrum however.

Yea, I look forward to skill updates from a PvE perspective. Even if they aren't usually changed with PvE in mind, they still change the experience and make the game feel a little more new again.

the armor stack cap hurts warrior skills a bit.
Please change strength to grant 1 additional armor (against physical and elemental) for every point

Please don't comment on PvP skill balance if you're not an active PvPer. If you play TA or GvG at all, you'll see how overpowered hexes are because hex removals suck, are only in a few classes' skill lines, and the elite hex removals are easy prey for Signet of Humility which every hex team has at least one copy of.

If Anet wants to disable spam in trade and in all chat channels
they should encourage players to use the search pannel they created long ago and nobody seems to be using it !

When i trade i still watch both channels, so trade channel wont flow faster due people moving from chat to trade channel.

ANet would slow things down if not the move from all to trade is underpinned, but actually spamming will be purged. In that way scroll speed will be reduced quite a bit and trading will be more easy for people who abide the rules. Its not that anet introduces more rules, the rules were already there, they simply restate them and hopefully will take action where needed.

For once Im for the most part happy with the update.
SR however is horrible. It could be worse than the last nerf. 3 times in 15 seconds. Ok so lets say a foe drops I gain my energy im using a skill as that foe drops which keeps me from being max 1 sec later foe drops im using a skill 1 sec later foe drops. ok this is 3 times I gain energy cause my energy wasnt full now I have to wait 12 seconds to gain energy again? No ty I havent played my necro since the last nerf of SR now its even worse. Way to kill a necro.

But the rest of the updates were good. Im still waiting for a SF nerf. Also a Shroud of Silence would be great. Its not used very often but when it is theres nothing you can do about it then you die ><

On the Shroud of silence, Holy veil and stances are your friend, its a short duration, any stance will save you from whatever the sin had been planning till you can cast again.

Is it me or nothing good is ever done for the warrior class? and on every skill balance update, all warrior skills are just nerfed bad and those that get buffed are those that are kinda usless. I love the warrior class but with time it has just become less fun. I would really like to know why they do this, I think someone is holding up a grudge against this class.

hmm I should post my ride the lightning build for HA now that it's significantly more powerful.

Indeed I better cap it now before Kunvie Firewing and the Saltspray Dragons become more powerful. As we all should know by now Exhaustion means little to the AI since they really don’t have an energy cap.

Boo for SR change
Boo for SS change
Yay for Wells change

with battle rage now 33% IT MAKE IT A VERY USEFULL SKILL IMAGEN A BUILD WITH +ADRENALIE SKILLS LIKE [skill]"to the limit!"[/skill][skill]rush[/skill]
this might be then next warriors build with a fast quick adrenaline build...

cant wait to go back to dwarven battle stance in ab yarr

Please explain why sometimes my Energy Surge only deal 48 damage instead of 80 (15 Dom) to a mob (There's no damage reduction buff on the mob). Isn't it because my target doesn't have 10 energy to be burned?

Battle Rage is unpredictable and random and needs a high strength spec. No ta

Yeah, explain how you do 48 damage as I'm curious since Energy Surge deals 10 damage per point of energy lost. So if an enemy only has 4 energy then and you Energy Surge them then they take 40 damage and if they had 5 then they take 50 damage when you have a 15 in Dom.

Hey there is always something screwy with the PvE part of the game, things happen like you never expect them to happen. I mean there has been some very odd events in PvE that no one can really explain but A-net, but do you think they want to? Of course not, that would just kill the fun factor.

Does anyone else think its rediculous that people are complaining about completely free energy gain? Take an e-management skill and stop whining. Every other caster has to think about managing energy, why shouldn't necro's to some extent.

the most popular argument seems to be that its always been that way, so why should it change now

Yeah that's exactly why they should nerf dominant, lame builds to hell and back. Playing the same stuff all over again gets old real fast, but if one build is so obviously better then others, why play the others?

Its nerfing that is causing the stagnation. The more builds that gets nerfed the less there really is to play.

If you haven't even played your necro how do you know if the last adjustment was bad or not???

Sounds like you won't know what this one does either aside from the QQing you will read here regardless of how it actually works out.