Update - Monday, June 18, 2007

They already did few hours after those skills were released.

Anyway, lol at these nerfs. I have not had a chance to test most of the new skills and now they are already nerfed to oblivion. At least I wont have to complain how tedious and long to achieve the first rank in Friend title to get faction PVE-only skills as its pointless to do so now. Thanks Arenanet.

I didn't see the Mesmer love coming. I was just praying that they wouldn't nerf CoP. It fits in nicely with my skill bar.

What are you smoking? There has always been a PvE "nerf bat". It just usually came in the form of AI and mob changes.

So lemme get this straight.

they try to make the most powerful skills primary class related by requiring their main attributes.

what i DONT understand is, HOW exactly is higher ranks of sunspear needed?

so pretty much, any low level character can get these skills and use them to full potential and don't need to have max sunspear.

all that grinding 50k for NOTHING!

gg anet, gg.

That killed my D & W new build
That killed my E new build
That killed my Mo new build

Well,i found that those skill not worth it anymore and they will get out of my skill bar.Only seed of life still on my Mo skill bar.


Thank you A.net

The assassin nerf was a bit extreme in this case, but I think the Paragon skill was more than fair. It makes sense, after all; ArenaNet is trying to carve out more defined roles for the more underused classes.

Now assassins have arguably the best IAS skill in the game and enhanced defensive ability exclusive to their own class. Paragons can finally exclusively play an integral supportive role in a team. Call me crazy, but the notion of allowing established, overused PVE classes to reap the full benefits of skills intended to buff underused classes seems a tiny bit contradictory.

I predict "Save Yourselves!" will get a major tweaking similar to the skills nerfed today. It will likely become linked to strength instead; a 1 second duration....+1 more second for every 3 attributes in strength, and deservedly so. It is far too ridiculous on a primary paragon.

The skills are still in testing, and it seems ridiculous to complain about them until the testing is over and they are released in their conclusive stages. Oh dear, how dare ArenaNet "ruin" your builds during a stage where they specifically stated changes would come and the skills were in no way permanent. What a cruel world!

Um Twisting Fangs? Unsuspecting strike? Critical eye? Malicious strike so you can upkeep Critical agility?

It is advantageous to spec at least 8 in critical strikes just for energy return.

Not to mention way o the Assassin on a no-elite sin build is basically the best way to upkeep critical agility if you do not want to micromanage it.
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The Assassin skill Critical Agility now has been make less effective for nonassassins, which I think is a splendid thing.

As far as the Elementalist skills go, they were hit harder than the had to be. Regardless, while Intensity was nice it wasn't very game-breaking as people say it was. At least not on its own. Maybe with armor ignoring spells it was ridiculous but with normal elementalist spells like Fireball the 119 damage just gets upped to 142. Now in hard mode on level 30 mobs, the 142 does not hit for 142...so it isn't a big deal. More likely it does around 50 or so given the lack of armor penetration. On the other hand with skills that are armor ignoring there is an imbalance is created (mainly with things like Spiritual Pain and Cry of Pain).

Elemental Lord was nice as a cover enchantment but the high recharge prevents it from replacing Aura of Restoration or Mystic Regeneration. Now it is more or less useless.

Cry of Pain is definitely better now. It is workable. Cheers to Arenanet.

Ether Nightmare didn't change at all really given the dominance of SF elementalists, degen from Curse or Blood Necros, and Apply Poison/burning arrow rangers. They really ought to use the same mechanic as Spectral Agony (Mursaat skill), Spirit Light Weapon, or Shameful Fear, which is a number per second instead of a health degeneration pip. At least then it would work no matter what your team runs.

Like the assassin skill, the paragon skill "There's Nothing to Fear" is more for paragons than other professions now (sorry necros and eles).

Then you see the Ritualist change for Vampirism and scratch your head. It makes no sense. Sure it is more upkeepable with Draw Spirit now...but what's the point? It was longer than the recharge time beforehand...making it a trivial change at best especially since it is 10 energy and not 25 like some of the more ridiculously expensive spirits such as Anguish, Dissonance, Shelter, Recuperation, and Disenchantment.

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As far as the Faction change is concerned, it more or less reinforced the suspicion i had. Faction was meant to be doubled for the skills and donations (anything but grabbing rare materials). The abuse of making new characters repeatedly for those skills, was not.

people dont use gyph of ele power because theres better things to put in that slot, or atleast something less boring. wont stack with gole either.

as for the other skills
warrior, pretty sweet on everything but axe, but thats partly because crude swing sucks

ranger, just costs too much for what it is

monk, notsure how leet that is as i havent used it

necro, pretty decent spamtasticness

mesmer, tis nice

ele, intensity isnt worth the skillslot

assassin, little use for secondaries, but fine for primaries

rit, pretty woefull tbh

paragon, awsome

derv, useless if u dont run avatars pretty much, but awsome if u do

You mean the fact that it's not renewing properly, right? If not, then now you know.

Well I see some good stuff in this update, and some bad stuff. When is it ever going to be enough? People complained like these were pvp skills, now they were treated as so. Come on!!! Can't some of you just stop your whining and play the freaking game already. I mean you would think that pve'rs would want nice skills, not nerfed ones. How idiotic is that? It's bad enough with the pvp/pve skills. It's like they based half of this update from these forums alone. I remember reading about half the stuff they did today the same day they released the new skills. Put your NERF guns away already damn.

If they decide to nerf all the PvE skills so they're linked to primary attributes as well as titles, I want to be able to use them on my heroes.

But I think that'll happen at the same time as when I can have 7 heroes at once.

I don't get it...

The Mesmers skills. Ether Nightmare is absolutely bollocks. Still is. The general concept of the skill is what sucks, not its recharge/cost. Cry of Pain is now even more overpowered than it was before, those mesmers just need to stfu and stop whining about how 'CoP sucks'.

There's nothing to fear has been made useless for the secondary professions and made no real difference to whether or not people will actually use a Paragon. Aside from the fact the Paragon can make for about 80%+ damage reduction party wide via Save Yourselves, They're on Fire and TNTF spam still. Such a build been boring as hell to play.

Critical Agility... the 1 that would've been useful for all melee is now completely useless. It wasn't overpowered. I had a hard time getting criticals on my ranger, now its just retarded.

Elementalist skills. Elemental Lord isn't worth using. Intensity is just laughable, Anet have no RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing idea how to balance anything, they just go from 1 extreme to the other.

The Rangers skills are absolutely bollocks. They didn't touch them. Why?

What are you crying about? As some wisemen around here said on some other threads when people think the grind for these skills are too much, YOU DON'T NEED THESE SKILLS TO BEAT THE GAME. Don't like them? Don't use them.

They got nerfed? Deal with it.

p.s. Don't get angry. This isn't aimed at you personally. It's actually for EVERYONE who said such stuff on the other threads.

That's exactly why they were nerfed, classes are supposed to be very focused and inflexible

I would pick Glyph of Elemental Power over the nerfed Elemental Lord any day, any build. It's just not worth the slot it takes on the bar.

Intensity, even in this nerfed form may see some play. The damage bonus makes quite a massive nuke power in a short time. The skill description should be changed, to match what it really does - it doesn't boost damage from any spell but only spells dealing elemental damage.

Both buffed Mes skills look godawesome, but i'm yet to test them in play. Any secondary mesmer can use them jus as well as primary, so I don't see them making mesmers desired in PvE teams.

I'm all for the linking of these skills to the primary attribute of their class...it makes more sense that way and discourages abuse.

I thought PvE skills were meant to be tied to title lines to increase their effectiveness and variability, wideness of secondary use, rather than being tied to attributes making them like other skills. That's what made them unique, and interesting, and possibly fun. This is of course setting aside the fact that I also thought PvE skills were meant to be a bit more powerful than regular and elite skills, else why make them PvE-only? Some dont really even hold a candle to a normal skill.

Critical agility is glitched . It only refreshes for 4 seconds instead of back to its full duration. I'm using 13 in critical strikes btw.

I just realized... those poor folks who've only purchased Prophecies is getting none of these goodies.

But then again, you can't expect to have everything by purchasing 1/3 of something. :/

Yeah, still, it would be nice for Prophecies to have it's own 10 PvE skills. Of course, it would also be nice for it to have it's own end-game greens. Right now, despite being favored by many, Prophecies is the forsaken chapter.