The new sunspear skills

Plain bow damage is crap anyway. Bow damage comes from skills. Triple shots damage comes from, like dual shot, the amount of shit you can stack on top of it. Favourable Winds, a damage preparation, vampiric bow and/or a conjure. Whatever you stack on it, it triggers multiple times. It currently has the same cost and recharge as dual shot, at rank 1 the same damage reduction, but that extra arrow puts out some nice damage with stuff stacked onto it. Now, I'm not saying triple shot is as good as some of the other skills they added (hello Intensity, Eternal Aura, Elemental Lord, "Theres nothing to fear!", etc), but people who say it's weak aren't looking at it in the right light.

I could very much repeat someone else's words in this post (or several someone else's words...), but I don't have a great problem with most of the skills. My experience is that everyone of them is fairly decent; I've no doubt many of them require adjustments, but I don't consider any of them to be unfixably underpowered or overpowered, especially given their status for PvE-only skills. My sense is that a great number of people are complaining but have not pondered exactly how much balance is required; it may be a lack of imagination or a lack of actual testing. For example, I don't mind the new elementalist skills; a first glance is overwhelming (OMG, +2 to elemental skills, +23% damage!) but a second glance and some testing is not. The problem is that a setup with both Intensity and Elemental Lord is going to drain you very quickly, and you probably don't care to give up so much energy management for +50% damage. If you're getting about 50% more benefit for energy spent per use of a skill, I don't know if that's blatantly worth giving up whatever it replaced, or if it's going to make your elementalist build unthinkably godly. It would make it better, however, and that is the point, I think. These skills are PvE-only options to improve a PvE character beyond certain levels. They should be at least a touch overpowered, just not broken.

With that in mind, the only skill that is absolutely underwhelming is Never Rampage Alone!, not because it doesn't have decent power (and it does), but for the reason that very few of the other skill blatantly forces you into a specific subset of build, and none of the other skills force you into a build that is, generally speaking, underpowered. I don't know exactly what could make it useful; perhaps if it was entirely self-contained? For example: 15e, 10s. "If your companion is alive, for 6 .. 10 seconds, you and your companion attack 25% faster and have +1...3 health regeneration. Otherwise, your companion is resurrected with 30...50% health and gains +20 armor." Triple Shot isn't particularly amazing. Perhaps if it had another option to recharge it instantly or completely remove the damage penalty. Save Yourselves! and "There's Nothing to Fear!" obviously require a reduction; to be frank, however, even a 50% reduction for effect and perhaps a very minimal reduction of cost and increase in duration would still make both skills distinguishable, powerful and useable, without requiring a build focused around them. Critical Agility is very powerful, also; it probably requires a minor nerf, although I don't know exactly what it might be. Perhaps the addition "or if you fail to hit" at the end of it? Shadow Sanctuary is a bit underwhelming also, but I don't know exactly what can be done with it, and I have no real suggestions either. The same applies for the Necromancer signet.

To be honest, the cross profession use of these skills is really awesome, but I think it's ultimately harmful. I would like to see that removed; it might be helpful to bind each of these skills to a primary attribute (e.g. Seed of Life), limit them in the same fashion as elites (one title skill at a given time; my personal choice), force them to be used by primary professions only (Intensity for a Necromancer only), or perhaps even a combination of every one of these. There are pros and cons to each of these options, but being able to stack certain title skills is horrendously abusive, and I don't think that should be allowed to continue.

I like Intensity (Ele Sunspear Skill)

Good for farming. Adds another 23% damage (Level 8 - Castellan)
E/A Shadow Nuker build FTW

But for casual PVE, I'm use to not having it, even though it's equipped, I don't bother clicking it unless I remember.

As for Kurzick/Luxon.
30k Kuzick
115k Luxon

So don't have em.

So I'm assuming Glyph of Ele Power + Allegiance skill would stack giving +4 to attributes?

In terms of linking the SS/Kurzick,Luxon skills to a primary attribute or making them elite status(only one on ur bar at a time)... i prefer the later. Giving them elite status will take away the potential of people have 4 of the skills on your bar at once but will still allow characters to use any of the skills(with the exception of seed of life). The reason I would prefer it with elite status is I would like to have the variety in a skill set, if i play as a warrior it would be cool to be able to use critical agility on that character.

Maybe I'm just saying i'd like them elite status because the ranger ones are so garbage(ok triple shot isn't garbage... its just... dissapointing)... if all the skills become linked to a primary attribute my ranger is left without any SS/kurzick,luxon skills

For the most part I like these "PvE" only skills the way they are.

Inger: my apologies, but I meant you should only be able to have one sunspear skill or faction skill on your bar at a given time along with your elite, so that a very abusable combination such as Focused Anger, Save Yourselves!, Spear of Fury, There's Nothing to Fear!, is undoable; you could only take Focused Anger and one of those choices.

ahh ic... well fine having 1 SS and 1 Kurzick/Luxon skill on ur bar is still better than linking to a primary attribute imo

but once again I'm biased simply because I want to be able to use the skills of other classes... the ranger ones are trash(yea triple shot is... just... dissapointing... )

awww dammit!
The new assassin skills made me pee myself.

Now...


critical agility, Assassins promise...black lotus strike...twisting fangs...black spi...blah you know whats coming.
Critical agility... death blossom..moebuis strike... jagged strike.. and umm wild strike? and fox fangs? I can constantly spam that right?
jagged wild death moebuis jagged fox fangs death moebuis , death...

anyways this update has made me very happy. Except for the warrior update, its just like.... support. bad support.

my ranger is 1 of my fav classes and i was thinking of somthing like a devestating nature ritual or a really powerfull bow attack |,( but they had to give us a IAS usable with a pet and a bow skill that can only be used at majorly high alligence rank. just saying seems odd when most of the other classes got somthing nice (sf+GoEP+Intensity+Ele lord anyone?)

I'm not sure why everyone thinks the warrior one isn't all that great. Think about it, it costs 6a and hits all adjacent foes. If you happen to round up 6 or more enemies, you can continuously attack all adjacent foes with +damage. Add in a conjure or weapon spell, and you have insane DPS.

W/A: [skill]Primal Rage[/skill] + Critical Agility +[skill]Wild blow[/skill]

Anyone?

I thought that too Arcane, but the skill has a 1 second recharge so that the initial 6 hits won't auto refill it.

Ahhh, hadn't noticed that. Well that explains a lot. Still, it does a good amount of adrenaline boost for other skills, and something like triple chop/cyclone axe added in can keep the damage coming.

But yeah, I can now see why it's not "OMFGBESTSKILLEVA" or anything, but it's still pretty nice.

Oh i don't know... maybe the fact i was using it along with Glass Arrows and Favourable Winds? I'm not a f*cking idiot. The damage output was still pretty bad. The only way this skill will do more than Dual Shot is if its you are completely overbuffed. I'm talking Orders, Conjures, Glass, FW, Winno, etc. Such thing is only gonna happen with a PvE Ranger spike team... and whats the chances of that. What exactly were they afraid of? They gave the ele a skill that makes them do 25% more damage. Yet rangers get a bow attack that is barely any better than Dual Shot.

Worryingly enough... Critical Agility may indeed be a use for Primal Rage... although considering it still shuts down your entire bar... i doubt it.

Nerfing them so you can only have 1 equipped won't help. They should've balanced them better, like they said they were doing... *cough* bullshit.

Why are some of you guys complaining about "overpowered" PvE skills? ITS PVE WHO GIVES A SHIT. You guys have good skills to use that won't get nerfed because it will destroy PvP.

And all this crap about instant recharging avatars. Thats a good thing that is not overpowered in PvE.

I understand some people being pissed off about the crap ones, but the good ones why are people complaining? A charr isn't gona come to these forums and complain that you skills are overpowered.

uhh... i think with even just splinter wep and ignite arrows, triple shot can prove quite useful... 3 fire damage blasts... thats 45 fire damage on all adjacent enemies at 12WS... and splinter wep, thats ~90 damage to all adjacent at 8 channeling...
or if you want single target instead of AoE, use kindle arrows and conjure flame. thats ~100-120 damage depending on how you set attributes... plus everything is now fire damage which is resisted less than piercing usually...
add in a vampiric bow and thats 15 lifesteal with each shot as well...
only kinda bad thing is the recharge, but that can be lowered with serpents quickness or quickening zephyr...

might not be the best pve skill, but i think it beats the conditional necro ones hehe. I'll definitely be adding it to my barrage ranger when I play him again.

It will do more than dual shot with even one buff on you. At rank 1, it deals the same arrow damage as dual shot (3 arrows doing 50% less damage, compared to 2 arrows doing 25% less damage - both are going to average 150% damage of a normal bow attack). Triple shot has the extra arrow to trigger a buff an extra time. So, with any buff, it's going to out damage dual shot. I never said it was a great skill - I merely said it's an buffed dual shot, still a nice skill to play around with and not as weak as people made it out to be, but nowhere near as powerful as some of the other skills they added. As Miral said, the recharge hurts it, and that would be a great place to buff it. Make it more spammable, and it would make a nice damage skill.

Here are some of my thoughts about the new skills. Mesmers have become even much more undesirable relative to the other classes. Ether Nightmare is a joke. It is basically just the degen part of Searing Flames, if you have high alliance title. If someone wants AoE degen, they will use Searing Flames. Even if it gives -10 degen to all, it probably still won't be that good compared to the massive amounts of AoE other classes have. They should change it to something like an AoE empathy. Cry of pain is decent, usable but not even close to being as good as some of the other classes's new skills. As someone else said, it's virtually spiritual pain (also, it only interrupts one enemy, so it's not a super cry of frustration).

"There's nothing to fear" is probably the strongest skill that got introduced. Stacking this with any AoE damage prevention (other shouts, aegis, wards, etc) and you are near invulnerable.

Rangers and Ritualists didn't get much. The spirit moving skill might lead to many new builds though, although it will take a lot of experimentation. Ritualists can actually use offensive spirits now, but I'm not sure if it is worth doing.

The melee classes got huge boosts in critical agility. The warrior +100 armor shout is insane. Combine critical agility with that and you can keep it up most of the battle.

Elementalist skills are very strong. It seems like ANet is trying to promote Paragon+Elementalist Searing Flames builds, since both of them got huge buffs.

Necros got really crappy skills, but I found that it isn't so bad for them. Mainly because Soul Reaping is still the best e-management in the game despite the recent nerfs. This allows them to use "There's nothing to Fear" freely while the other non-Paragon classes have trouble with the 15e skill.

I feel sad for mesmers, they were all waiting for the Sunspear Skills which would supposedly make them at least on par with the other classes. Now there is even less reason to bring Mesmers. And even though the melee classes got huge boosts, I still think there is no point in using these "tanks". Paragon turns everybody into a tank, Searing Flames is superior in damage.

Thats +100 ac for everyone but the warrior who gets nothing. The char with (possibly) initally the most armor, the warrior, is now the least armored of the group. And since this is an adren skill, it means the warrior is in combat and most likely taking damage. This is a buff others skill that more favors a paragon than a warrior. It seems that they wanted to give paragons 3 skills and decided that a warrior wouldnt mind if they gave up a skill that could directly be of use to the warrior.

Who the hell would use "Save Yourselves!" on a warrior?

When you can use it and "There's Nothing to Fear!" on a Paragon with Focused anger?

ok, we are discussing PvE here correct? so all you people saying "I don't want it to be easy should stop....look at the environment...and realise that the choice of using it affects only 1 person...YOU. if you don't like them, don't learn them and then your experience doesn't change. oooo...easy fix. some people may want to use them the way they are in which case if it makes the game too easy it is only for them. doesn't affect you. you aren't every player in the GW community. so why worry about it. maybe killing huge mobs quickly is fun for them. if so what is your motivation or even what gives you the right to nerf their fun? if you don't think the new skills are balanced then don't use them. end of story. let everyone enjoy the environment the way they see fit. not everyone has to see things your way.

Razz I do find it funny. You basically say that one persons opinion doesn't speak for the whole community. But you act like your solution is the one best for the community. Ironically humourous.

that wasn't what i said at all. i said everyone chooses their own PvE experience. if i run a monk/ranger with nothing but ranger spirits, how does that affect you? if i run a sin/ele carrying a scythe how does that affect you? answer.....it doesn't.if i run the new skills how does that affect you? same answer. it isn't like i will be hitting you with em, right? my solution is let everyone choose their own play style.period.

I agree with Razz, these new skills were supposed to be powerful because they were given to us as PVE only. PVE only because these are skills that wont have to be nerfed because of PVP and should not be nerfed because of PVE either. I think Anets plans to nerf some of them stems from people complaining about them being overpowered. You can't tell me that the design team had no idea that these skills were overpowered, if they did not, then these people should not be making design changes in the first place. Its pretty bad when we get good skills and they are nerfed for PVE reasons. No need to nerf them, just don't use them if you feel you are good enough without them. I really appreciated them and even thanked anet for them, then after some ppl said OMG these are too powerful, Anet decides to nerf them. I know where my money is not going in the future.

The one second recharge prevents that, or else it'd be great.

Actually it isn't and AoE interupt. It just does AoE damage if you manage to interupt while a mesmer hex is on that enemy.

Cry of Pain actually has separate components. The only requirement is that a mesmer hex be on the target the results will be:

1. 100 AoE damage (R10) to surrounding enemies
2. Interrupts target AND does 100 AoE damage (R10) to surrounding enemies

The interrupt itself is just a nice bonus...it would be even better if it disabled the interrupted skill for a set span of time.

I'm disappointed with the monk skills.

Seed of Life amounts to no more than an elite version of Healing Seed. At 10 cost and suffering from the problems of being an enchantment in a PvE setting, its return is not all that high in many settings to warrant its use over something else. It does shine as an optimal choice for a bonder, but within parties containing heroes or where the aggro changes often it becomes much less useful.

Selfelss Spirit amounts to no more than a different version of Air of Enchantment - remove the enchantment conditional but change the recharge time from 8 to 60. The recharge time kills this skill. Its also very similar to Divine Spirit, the only real difference is that it costs 5e less, and Divine Spirit isnt even an elite skill.

In both cases they should be somewhat improved as they are no better than a standard monk elite and do not even contend at all for high priority on a bar in many circumstances as other PvE-only skills do, but rather warrant use under specific circumstances only. I cant see using them in many cases - certainly not Selfless Spirit. Compared to the choices that need to be made on a monk's bar, most times you are better off with the nuts and bolts in the profession than either of these. They should be more akin to the priority level of the Dervish, Paragon, Elementalist and Assassin in terms of a high priority skill as PvE-only skills were envisioned. Same can be said of Ranger and Mesmer skills which also are in need of improvement.

I'm with Razz, if you think this is "overpowered" then don't use it. If you find the game too easy, you can hinder yourself quite readily, choose less efficient skills, take out skill-points, take less people/hench/heroes, etc. You shouldn't try to get nice skills nerfed for "PVE" reasons. These skills should stay the way they are (or be buffed); that was the whole reason they were made pve only, so there was no balance-issue. And before someone throws out "how do you know that, you a dev?" I would ask you what other conceivable reason is there for pve-only skills?

As it stands, I like the Nec one, it lets me do some direct damage in my curse-build. The Ele one is nice if not anything "special"; and I'm looking forward to getting some forms to use the Derv one on. So, all in all, I'm a fan of the skills/buffs to some (ie: ranger), a vehement opponent of nerfing them.

Hey, there,

Thanks for continuing to post your thoughts. We'll pass along this link to the designers working on skill balance, so they get your impressions of the new skills.

Seed of life is Healing Seed on steroids since it heals the whole party. Healing Seed you have to be adjacent to the person you casted it on. This difference is what makes Seed of Life 1000X better than Healing Seed. IMHO because of silly posts like this it will be one of the first skills nerfed. Having a bonder plus another monk with Echo/Arcane Echo/Seed of Life casting constant Seeds on the bonder is an awesome combo.

Selfless Spirit is crap I agree. It's 5 less EN than divine spirit but you can't cast on yourself. Considering most people don't waste a skill slot with divine spirit then Selfless Spirit won't be on my bar either. A handful of the other Kurzick skills are good though and are worth farming level 1-2 of the faction title (Ele, Nec, Derv, Ranger to name a few). I won't be FF'ing 10mil anytime soon though...

Please do not nerf these skills for gods sake. They are PvE ONLY skills. Who cares about balance in PvE. PvE'ers finally get some nice skills that should be exempt from nerfing (since they don't affect PvP) and now people are complaining about them being too powerful.

Beef up the skills that need beefing and leave the others alone. Stop catering to the whiners already ANet.

Just one thing: the sunspear & faction skills in their current form make the Mesmer less viable in PvE than they've ever been before; there's no reason to take one over another Ele or Necro if you want to be efficient. Since ANet doesn't want them playing the role of a purple Elementalist, I would have thought the new mesmer skills would have given them more in the way of disrupting, diverting damage, or adding something to a team that no other profession can. Something perhaps similar to the following:

• If target foe is interrupted, skills of target and nearby foes are disabled for 6 seconds. All of your skills are disabled for 6 seconds.

• If target foe is interrupted, for 6 seconds, the next spell cast by nearby/foes in the area fails.

• The next skill used by target and nearby foes recharges in +x seconds.

• Lower the attributes of target foe and nearby foes by x.

• Remove an enchantment from target foe and nearby foes. If an enchantment is removed in this way, that enemy [pick one]
  1. takes x damage
  2. suffers -x energy regeneration
  3. suffers -x health regeneration
  4. cannot be the target of further enchantments for x seconds
  5. takes x damage whenever a spell targets that foe
  6. suffers -x armor vs physical attacks

• While suffering from this hex, 50% of damage you receive is redirected to target foe.

• All hexed or conditioned foes in the area take x dmg when they attack.

• For x seconds you suffer -y health regeneration. Target foe and nearby foes suffer -z energy regeneration.

But the most critical thing they missed out on was having a skill that started"For each point in Fast casting..."
Other than that, the new skills were mostly what I expected them to be - overpowered to the point they change PvE from easy to stupidly easy. Now to focus on regular skills, right?

They did? I like the fact there is another binding ritual which can be used in a Communing / Spawning build to replace Bloodsong since it was sent to Channeling...Granted, it's not as powerful as some of the other skills but that's sort of a good thing.

People always complain PvE is way too hard...well a lot of these skills will make it way too easy...because quite simply they're too powerful. Eternal Aura, used to recharge Forms allows you to permanently use a form...The Assassin skill, as nice as it is, imo is too powerful...It's too easy to critical and keep it up indefinitely. Necrosis still seems overpowered to me...Necrosis + Discord spamming could destroy a mob very (too?) quickly. Those skills sort of take away what challenge there was in PvE even more.

There are some skills I like though, Intensity for one, purely the fact that you can't have it up permanently and the extra damage hasn't been rediculously increased seems reasonably balanced to me...a nice little extra damage in Hard Mode. The Paragon Skill...like it. It's a nice replacement for the now redundant "Incoming!". Also Whirlwind Attack...that doesn't seem too overpowered to me and is nice with a hammer

Never Ramapage Alone and Cry of Pain seem kind of "meh". Cry of Frustration > Cry of Pain. Never Rampage Alone is just....meh. It doesn't do much imho.

If Vampirism Gave area allies the same amount stolen in health, or even one energy, and/or had increased attack speed, then it might be comparable. Right now, it's a modified Bloodsong with a shorter duration and twice the cost, and that's nothing special.

I wish Cry of Pain did what it did by default to one foe, recharged 1 second faster for each rank in fast casting, and then increased the number of foes interrupted and damaged by the Sunspear rank.

Not when it's disabled. They are disabled for 120s when used, they dont have a recharge that matters.

Yeah, umm, Eternal Aura does indeed recharge the Forms. You can keep one up indefinitely now.

The Ranger's Triple Shot... seems OK for Ranger primaries, but it looks GREAT for Ritualists! It's practically MADE for Nightmare Weapon! Nightmare Weapon applies to your next three attacks... and Triple Shot gives you those three attacks at once. Might be pretty handy with Splinter Weapon too, without taking up your Elite slot (like Barrage).

A Ranger primary can carry Nightmare Weapon and Splinter Weapon too of course, but can only put 12 points maximum into Channeling. A Ritualist can have 16 points which gives a lot more damage from Triple Shot + Weapon Spell.

Bull's eye. Can we please just focus on getting the crap skills buffed?

I suggest:

1.) Never Rampage Alone- Increase attack speed to +33%, reduce energy cost to 15.

2.) Cry of Pain- Reduce energy cost to 5, reduce recharge to 10 seconds.

3.) Vampirism- Reduce energy cost to 5, reduce recharge to 10 seconds. You can have 1...7 Vampirism spirits active at any time based on the Spawning Power attribute.

4.) Triple Shot- Reduce energy cost to 5, reduce recharge to 7 seconds.

5.) Selfless Spirit- Reduce recharge to 30 seconds.

6.) "Save Yourselves!"- Add a bonus for the warrior, "You enter a state of furious rage, gain +200 Health and attack 33% faster for 1...16 seconds (based on Strength attribute).
7.) Ether Nightmare- Rework the skill so that it would actually be a nightmare:
"For 10...21 seconds, target foe and all nearby foes are hexed with Ether Nightmare. They take damage and lose 5 energy whenever they use energy. The damage taken is equal to 0.4*Fast Casting*energy cost of skill used." Sounds confusing but basically, if a monster uses a 15 energy skill while under this hex (say at 10 FC), then it receives 0.4*10*15 = 60 damage and loses 5 energy.

These could be way over the top, but I'm just throwing some ideas.

Intensity: decreased duration to 10 seconds, increased recharge time to 45 seconds.

Well......was seriously considering adding Intesity to a few builds, when there was only 15 seconds downtime, but now it's just another worthless skill in a long list of worthless skills. It simply isn't worth the slot at 10/45, 35 seconds of downtime now, might as well let this be added as a PvP skill the way they smaked it with the nerf stick.

Oh well. Nothing to see here, move along.

I've been trying Triple Shot on my ranger - with loads of different combinations of preparations, weapon spells, conjures etc... and I like it a lot!

I usually take a prep of some sort, and frequently a conjure or weapon spell as well. Where I used to take Marauder's Shot, Melandru's Shot or Keen Arrow for a big damage attack... I take triple shot instead. Assuming all 3 arrows hit, it's at least 150% the damage of a normal arrow... +30 from Read the Wind... and another +36 from Brutal Weapon, or 51 fire damage from conjure flame, or...etc etc. Favourable Winds or Winnowing adds gravy. With Nightmare Weapon, it steals 126 life.

Delicious! It's a big damage attack, but doesn't disable your non-attacks, doesn't require a critical hit, and doesn't take your elite slot. I really don't think this could be buffed without making it overpowered.

The only thing I don't like about it, is that it's a skill for Ritualists more than Rangers. A Ritualist will do much more damage with this than a Ranger because of weapon spells (which they can boost with Runes, unlike a Ranger). Well, not that its a big deal, and its nothing new, it's always been that way with Barrage, Dual Shot etc. It seems kind of "wrong", but Ritualists simply do more damage with bows than Rangers.

As for Never Rampage Alone... that's unlikely to appear on my skill bar as it stands, other people have pointed out its shortcomings already.