How would you tweak the new PVE-only skills?

I agree, which is why I think ANet should make it much easier to gain faction. I entirely understand why they made Factions skills, to encourage people to buy it as well as NF... But this really isn't the best way to do that since it'll take ages for any normal person to get the skills powerful enough to merit their use.

They need to redo the icon for intensity. It looks like it is perpetually stuck at being 3/4 of the way charged up and ready for use because of the entire upper left hand corner being perma blacked out by the hair.

I agree. I had a real hard time telling when it was recharged, and I often forgot about it because I reactively see it as "still recharging" and don't bother to hit it again until I realize "hey, it should be recharged by now, surely" and hit it.

I suppose I'd agree with changing the factions reqs. Maxing faction donated is something I don't reckon anyone outside of an alliance that wanted to control a town would ever get close to. Don't matter either way I suppose.

As for nerfing the skills, well most aren't all that. Even the ele skills. With a standard SF/MS build, you'd have no defence or utility at all, and wouldn't contribute anything to a party except straight damage, and a glass jaw. Mess up aggro at all and you'll be eating dirt. The assassin skill is awesome for any melee and the para damage reduction is hax on a para and very useful on anyone else. The monk divine seed thing is damn good for a bonder. The rest are okay, but hardly anything that's a must have.

while this skills are very powerful i do believe that these skills need no nerfing at all, why? cuz every area, except anything beyond doa, dont really need these skills on ur bar, not even realm of torment, just doa...

and guess what, its only 2 skills i believe will be used down there, its the monk SS skill and with any luck the para SS skill otherwise, the rest are meh... in any case what we should be seeing would be buffs to some SS/Faction skills (rit, necro, etc.) .

Thanks for contributing your thoughts, everyone. That's exactly why we have these skills in "test mode" right now.

We will be sure to include this in the weekly community report.

That's a really terrific idea. Tying it to Protector Of Cantha would a) reduce the grind to an acceptable level and b) really fill those outposts up again with people doing the missions. Win, win. Personally I think the Kurzicks/Luxons should still hand out the skills, perhaps with the "Befriending" quest.

Definitely agree with changing the icon of intensity. I mostly play Ele, so...

The sunspear Ele spell is nice, basically an extra 30 or so damage per SF hit...kinda long recharge, might have to find a staff with a +20% enchant mod, or use serpent's quickness....if this got nerfed at all, the only time it would find a way into my skillbar would be if I simply had nothing better to put in...this certainly isn't an overpowered skill, I think it should be left alone.

Elemental Lord - I haven't been able to get this skill yet, (hell, it'll be a few weeks). However, it's basically a Glyph of Elemental Power that you don't have to really pay attention to - certainly a nice skill, even though I don't really use GoEP I foresee this being on my skillbar once in a while, but there's no way that I'm going to farm past 100k faction....i'll have to take it with a 15 second downtime, but ah well...I would've preferred seeing this with the LB title, a track that I haven't yet maxed but is certainly maxable....the Faction track, forget it.

Please, when reporting the responses, make sure to include which ones are from PvPist and PvEist for these PvE only skills. These skills are are NOT required to for use so noone is forced to take them and ones like the Assassin's "Critical Agility" is a lot of fun so please try to keep the devs from destroying skills for those claiming balance when PvE is not their main area of choice in Guild Wars.

Yea and the warrior sunspear skill so totally isnt like ANY other skills warrior has.

Imo, decrease recharge time to 10 seconds for Cry of Pain. Argue that with MoR, it can be used every 5 seconds, but only a mesmer can take advantage of that, i think it would be a welcome change.

And also from those of us who don't PvP at all, and who still think the PvE skills need fixing. As I've mentioned elsewhere, making the new Para sunspear skill useable from a secondary makes Paragons even less desirable to the community than they are now. Almost every class except Warriors can better use that skill than a Paragon can. I've demonstrated it myself with an Ele both specced as a full Para and as an SF Ele running the skill. I can Spam SF and keep PERMANENT DR on my team through an entire mission. That hardly entices one to use it as a Paragon primary, where one might use it once, possibly twice in an encounter.

I'm not in favor of nerfing any of them. I am in fact in favor of some buffs to some. But I AM in favor of making them accessable only to primaries, and PvE is my ONLY focus ;-), thankyouverymuch

The paragon skill is hardly sustainable by other classes, unless they are equiped with very good energy management. The paragon can use just a few adrenaline fulled shouts to boost his energy, not other class can do this, and 15E per 10 seconds is quite a bit. I used it on my monk, and after initial use of this skill and a few spells you need to choose, use the para skill, or heal and prot. an ele could maintain somewhat longer but still will deplete his energy, asd he doesnt get any returns. The ranger may still be very proficient with it due expertise. The paragon leadership would make it cost 7 or 8 energy, due leadership, and can fuel his energy by using watch yourself/go for the eyes, etc.

Maybe ANet should make them have maximum effectiveness at the first rank or something. Sort of like "No Attribute" skills.

Seriously, how were the Faction skills supposed to help Mesmers in PvE if they require so much grinding to make them effective? What happened to the "Mesmers will be buffed with PvE skills! Just you wait and see!" Cry of Pain looks like a great skill. (I haven't played with my Mesmer much yet, so I don't know all that much about them.) But Ether Nightmare looks like it'd make Memsers simply amazing. -7 health degen to a large group of foes would make them someone I'd want on my team.

Well since everyone else is throwing their opinions in I thought that i would. First of all, I personally have no problem with the skills and think they are a welcome change. I personally play and Assassin and love the new Critical Agility. Now everyone else here seems to think that we lose out because other classes can use the skill, but as I said I play Assassin and I have no problem with this.

But i can see that many people here don't share the same view and are suggesting radical changes. Firstly i would like to say that they, in no way, represent a majority which makes things difficult. In my opinion A-Net should take a cautious approach to how they change these skills.

Perhaps make a poll that pops up at GW start-up screen and allows you to choose, let the player base decide and don't jump in with some serious changes beforehand.

Murtagh

A couple suggestions come to mind.Like Eternal Aura only recharges dervish skills, Intensity should only affect elementalist spells, that way it doesn't become some huge exploit. Also perhaps allowing only 1 pve only skill on the skill bar to prevent some abusive combinations by a single build.

Sorry if these suggestions have been mentioned already, late and don't feel like reading back.

Yes, change the icon for intensity. It looks like it's recharging (sry skill art guys, all the other icons are great!) and set intensity to only work for ele spells.

I'd welcome a change to the K/L titles or skills but I won't be angry if I never get them either.

Umm, if I'm not mistaken, Eternal Aura already only works on Dervish skills... right? Or do I need to throw that on my Ele's and Rit's bar?

To put it bluntly:

The new PvE skills make things so easy that you can forget about player skill.

What is it, the reward for grind if you are not able to beat up the Skales in presearing or what? These skills remove any need for any personal skill from PvE, which was easy enough already.

Especially the ability to combine up to 4 of them plus an Elite, without investing in an attribute, makes them broken.

There are many examples how the combos of these skills make things really easy.


What is going on with ANet, is the trainee developing these skills or do they share the mindset that PvE has to be boring, dull farming and collecting festival hats?

If these skills are BETA, they are so easy to exploit that one wonders how this came through ALPHA testing at all... who is testing these skills, if it is Izzy, he fails even more at PvE skills than at balancing PvP.

I was saying that Intensity should only affect ele spells like how Eternal Aura only affects dervish skills.

Oops, my bad. Missed the "Like" somehow...

What are you talking about? Why would PvP players care? Personally, as a PvP player, I am glad of the introduction of these skills, as it means we can get our side of the game sorted out without upsetting PvErs as much.

Or you can just get an SF ele on your team......Ether nightmare is a waste.

I can't believe I missed this post... This is WAY better than any of my ideas for "fixing" the Allegiance rank thing.

ANet should return Allegiance rank to how it was, only rewarding points for DONATIONS not for amber/jade/scrolls. This would make many guilds very happy.

Tie the skills to the Protector track... It'd encourage people that've beaten the missions in normal mode to then use their new skills in hard mode. More people doing hard mode is always good. It also encourages people to finish the normal mode missions again with their other characters.

Although, perhaps ANet tried to put the skills under Allegiance for other reasons... Like trying to get people to AB or something. I'll probably never AB, simply due to the fact that I don't really care for PvP. About as much PvP as I'll do is Fort Aspenwood...

I agree. Ether Nightmare sounds like it would be fun to play with, but alas I don't have my Kurzick/Luxon titles maxed out. (I don't even have the first rank. X_X) The problem seems to be the rank requirements to use the Luxon/Kurzick skills. It would be nice if the title was adjusted to a more reasonable obtainable level. It took me six hours to max out my Sunspear title. (That's starting from Rank 6.) I think the Kurzick/Luxon titles should take the same amount of time. It looks like they'd currently take way too long to obtain.

If they're unwilling to change that, then perhaps they should setup a weekend in which we gain a lot (and I mean a hell of a lot) of faction points from doing things in Cantha.

Also, they could also make it so that our titles show the amount of faction we've earned instead of the amount of we've spent donating to Factions.

Totally unrelated, but Ether Nightmare really looks like it needs a better recharge time. 25 seconds is a bit ridiculous.

But wouldn't Cry of Pain at max Sunspear do almost as much damage as SF (provided the foe was suffering from a Mesmer Hex)? And yet, it'd interrupt too if the opponent was using a skill. Granted, with Intensity... SF would be even more powerful. Then again, the Mesmer could be half-Ele and use it too.

Cry of Pain is very conditional and has 10 times the recharge of Searing Flames.

I think that theses PvE only skills need some tweakings. Some are too overpowered, and others are too weak.

If one of the purposes of theses skills is to help unwanted classes find a group in PvE, then the possibility tu use them on secondary profession need to be weakened (but not necessary forbidden).

All theses skills should need some attribute points to be used, that way primary class could use them better than secondary.

So I would suggest that the power of theses PvE skills rely on two factors : rank in the appropriate title, and rank in the primary attribute. That would still allow secondary class to use them to some extend, but would also make primary class more suited to use them.



I will now comment about the mesmer's ones.

Currently they are not very good. And worse, one of them is not very mesmerish.

Mesmers asked for improvements yes, but they never asked for becoming ele nukers wannabe.

Giving use a Spiritual Pain bis was a bad move. It is a good nuke, but still less powerful that the ele nukes, meaning that ele will still be prefered for this role.

What is the biggest complaint from the PvE mesmers ? That most of their spells affect only one target, whereas PvE is all about AoE.

So I would suggest to replace completely Cry of Pain with a new skill, like this :

A signet, A mantra or an enchantment, wich will allow our next non elite mesmer hexes (numbers of hexes affected based on rank in Fast cast line) to affect all foes adjacent/nearby/in the area (AoE affected by sunspear rank).

That way mesmers will still be able to do mesmer things (notably punishments), but like the necro will be more suited for the PvE because of these new ability to affect an AoE.

AoE Empathy or Backfire will be far better in PvE than an almost (the condition is so easily met) unconditional armor ignoring damage nuke every 20 seconds, and will be far more mesmerish too.



As for Ether Nightmare, currently it is a joke.

A spell that lasts 20 seconds, have a cast time of 3 seconds and a recharge time of 25, just to put at max title (which need many grind) AoE -7 degen is ridiculous.

Searing Flames is far better, same degen, recharge faster, cast faster, and do direct damage on top !

Yes SF is an elite, but most of the PvE only skills are better than elite skills.

Why take a mesmer with Ether Nightmare in PUG when you already have a SF ele ? Just to put -3 degen half the time on top of the permanent -7 from SF ?

I would change this hex so that it is casted faster, have a lower recharge time, and more importantly so that it works like Spectral Agony (doing direct damage per second instead of degen):

making the foes lose 4...48 Health each second (4 health points lost for each title rank), instead of just old degen, so that it can stack with normal degen (and so it isn't render useless by SF).

Points in fast cast would increased its duration too.

And another thing...

Why do you hate so much rangers?

Triple shot? Non-elite RaO? :S

about the paragon skill, you need 15E every 10 seconds to keep it up. With the SR nerf even necros won't have an easy time doing that. I, on my ele, with around 80+ energy still have trouble b/c don't forget I have to spam my other 7 skills too.

Warrior, Necro, Ranger and mesmer need a buff... badly.

Emphasis mine. I was skeptical about the PvE-only skills from the start. The current implementation with the tie-in to massive grind is the worst case scenario turned reality.

Fact is, there is nothing left to do now but grind SS rank (wurms wow, talk about a shallow game experience) and Kurz/Lux faction (doorkeeper lfg?). Why should you even focus on anything else? These new skills will be the default standard for any sort of challenging enterprise in PvE, without them (and at high lvl), you can't be taken serious anymore.

Also AGAIN Anet has deemed it necessary to reward one of the POOREST of accomplishments in their game: Kurz/Lux titles. These were ridiculous from the start, with the blatant FFF farming exploit that is still the fastest way of getting faction. Those who have mindlessly grinded this exploit now get insane skills. No need to spec attribute points. No need to spend an elite skill slot. Better results than from any other skill, elites included. Can you spell no-brainer?

Hey, by the way, GREAT JOB on making the mesmer so very much more efficient in PvE. That sunspear skill is so awesome. Some AoE damage if you interrupt a skill on one foe, every 20 secs. Could you be more overpowered? /sarcasm

The introduction of these skills has pretty much killed my interest in PvE. I don't say this lightly and I have considerable time spent in PvE. I PvP a lot as well, but I am not sure this alone can hold my interest. Not with the state of HA atm, not with the joke that is RA/TA, and not with the highly over-rewarded botfest hero battles.

So is this mindless grinding what players want? I know that there are many who go to great lengths and do many boring things for a little show, i.e., a title (hell, I have GMC titles myself), but is this now going to be the center of GW PvE? This doesn't even cater to casual players. It certainly doesn't appeal to an oldtimer like me. Are there really so many veterans who love grind like this?

A necro with SR and Signet of lost Soul can easily spam the paragon's skill.

Same for an ele with SF + Glowing Gaze + Glyph of lesser Energy.

Nah A necro should be spamming his spells, and not the skills he is less efficient in. Be fair if he devotes energy to this skill, then that spent energy wont go into offense. What if you are fighting just a few monsters and deaths do not come quickly enough? The necro would cripple himself, either not being able to spam hexes or not being able to shout anymore. The paragon just creates energy by shouting adrenaline based shouts. Don't try to improve on something that is just made for it.

If a necro can spam Arcane Echo + Spiteful Spirit, it then can spam "There's Nothing to Fear!" + Spiteful Spirit.

Necro should stop whining as if there energy management was bad. It is one of the best of all classes in GW.

If its for PvE only skills I would recommend a wide variety of skills, from sublte combinations to brute force. Its up to the player how to use it. No balancing issues anymore if its for PvE only skills!

iddqd + noclip
those skills are the easy way out for Anet's designers who apparently can't design challenging PvE without stupid environment effects and power creep mobs

how to balance?
tie them to primary attributes, not to grind titles (or scale the gain logarithmic instead of linear ->more gain from lower ranks, only tiny increase in the upper ranks)

edit:
Selfless Spirit - 60s recharge is too long for an easily stripped enchant, reduce duration & recharge

3 Things I would do:

1 - Give the rangers a decent skill which works on its own, ie doesn't need another skill or two to make it even vaguely effective
2 - Make the skills primary only
3 - Fix the Allegiance skills to be effective without months of grind...

1.do NOT make SS skills primary only
2.Allow only one SS skill on the skillbar

Yeah these skills are making things a little too straight forward. There's Nothing to Fear is way too overpowered, my Ranger and a Necro friend have no problems chaining it for unlimited coverage and still been able to use the build properly.

Making it primary profession just destroys synergy... the problem is these skills should've been on par with that of an elite (or slightly less) in non-elite form. Things like Theres Nothing to Fear far surpasses Incoming. Thats where the problem lies. Triple Shot barely surpasses Dual Shot. Necrosis is far better than Discord. Intensity is just ridiculous.

Tbh the most balanced skill they added is Spear of Fury.

for all those people who actually love their new skills.....

please Anet. dont nerf these skills.

i can finally stand a chance in HM now. and my mesmer/dervish/ranger/assasin have suddenly found some use.

My though on the Luxon/Kurzick skill.

Maybe increase the Factions point limit cap and remove factions point reduction of the opposite faction and lets the skill tie on factions point instead of factions title

Or give more option on trading the factions to others benefit like a portable buff items.Because now amber and jade are abundant on the material trader.