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...