Update - Monday, June 18, 2007

Of course, who doesn't want a permanent 35% damage reduction? There'll be a Paragon in every PUG.

Why don't we give all professions a "You win!" skill then, and make the standard partysize 10? Everyone can be happy that way.

your 100% right

Here is the right answer, i totally agree, ty for the post.

Perhaps now the paragon will see more play in pugs, and when players start to see what the paragon is capable of they'll start accepting them more often.

Given the uproar over the ele skills, the same could've been said for them. But I suppose autokill buttons aren't as healthy for the game as godmode buttons.

Pretty much how the PvE paragon felt in the past, except they weren't receiving boosts in the past period. But unlike the elementalist, their potential hasn't been realized by the community. When I read how the ideal group from some players consists of 6 SF eles, I can't help but not care that their killing power wasn't increased.

Yes with or without There's Nothing to Fear.

Even with the skill in combination with There on Fire I'm still having a hard sell for Urgoz groups so people have not caught on yet. Furthermore you still need to have rank 10 in Sunspear for it to be truly effective and that takes some work.

How did I miss this? Oh, I couldnt get onto guru yesterday. Heres my comments:

1) Two months of developing/testing these skills and they get nerfed in 3 days. Shows us how good a job Anet are doing.

2) To the people saying elems already do enough damage, they still dont deserve useless unusable skills like the nerfed PVE skills, glyph of elem power is better then both now. Elementalists are powerful in normal mode, but I thought that the idea behind the the PVE skills was to make each class better in HM.

3) My solution for intensity - keep it as it is, add +1 second duration per rank in ES.

4) Did anyone at Anet consider giving elemtalists a PVE only ward skill instead of just buffing their damage all the time? Something like 'allies inside this ward gain a 40-75% block chance and +10-25 armor'. I would have used that.

And anet expect me to buy GW:EN and GW2 after screwing my once loved game over so many times like this? I'm deffo not buying anymore GW products at all, inluding the legacy edition which I previously couldnt wait for. Thank you morons at anets development team for f****** your own game in the A** numerous times up to now.

I've said it once and I'll say it again....

Why not use both Elemental Lord and Glyph of Elemental Power?

If you do, then Ele's just got the buff you're craving.

because its 2 skills and equipping +1 attack skill better is then elemental lord

Because I dont have elemental lord as I only have 5000 faction donated, and it really isnt worth the amount of grinding required just to get such a trash skill.

win.

(12 characters)

Double post(other is 2 from here).
WoW, think the server got a lag spike just now.

Hmmm crit barragers don't really need the extra armor from Critical Agility, and Barrage works best (from experience, I don't have the numbers) with a recurve bow and no IAS. It's because under the refire rate of a recurve, every time you shoot it's a Barrage, whereas with an IAS or a faster bow you'd be alternating normal shots with Barrage.

All I have to say is...

LoL!


About Intensity (best skill icon Btw), with 16 +2+1 fire magic and +23% (if Glyph gives +2 i'll admit the elem lord nerf is downright stupid) i'm sure you can kill a mob in 10 sec, so... Assassin's Promise, anyone? ( I gotta love that hex)

It's not random at all. When ANet first announced the PvE only skills, they said it was to make Mesmers better (in response to a popular thread on these forums about why Mesmers are the most underused and perhaps worst class in PvE, something that most of the "expert" PvE players seemed to agree on at the end). Later on ANet stated that they will improve the lesser used PvE classes (not just Mesmers). They stated their goals clearly (at first it even sounded like Mesmers were going to be the ONLY ones receiving PvE skills). Quite simply, they wanted to make Mesmers, Sins, and Paragons good at something. There was no reason to bring anything other than MM/SS Necros, Monks, Eles, Warriors, and sometimes rangers because there is nothing useful in PvE that Mes, Sin, or Para can do that those class cannot do better.

Whirlwind attack is not that big of a deal. I tried it on my assassin and it was pathetic, because the dagger's base damage is so low. +20 damage is nothing when some of the assassins normal skills such as death blossom does something like +45 twice to adjacent foes. Dervishes already do AoE attacks naturally with their scythe, so Whirlwind attack simply adds a little damage (they already have better skills already to do that). Whirlwind attack does open up some possibilities for Hammers and Swords though, although I think it can use a buff, maybe some armor penetration.

I do sense a nerf for Save Yourselves coming though. Not only can paragons use it well, it will find it's way on the bars of paragons, assassins, dervishes too. Even having near god mode for 50% of the time is very good. It's just that 95% of the people can't get the skill yet cause they don't have enough allegiance title, so there is not much talk about it yet. I can imagine a critical agility assassin maintaining Save Yourselves for most of a battle and a paragon obviously benefits a lot from it too.

What's wrong with "There's nothing to fear"? Well, it could be used by Warriors, Rangers, and Necros as well as it could be used by Paragons. Where does that leave the Paragon? Way down at the bottom of the pile again. Mesmers got some nuking type skill in Cry of Pain. However, Elementalists got two skills that made them completely destroy everything. So the Mesmer is once again at the bottom of the food chain (On a side note, I disagree with turning the Mesmer into a partial nuker, while it makes them more desirable, it doesn't fit with their class that well). Assassins can actually survive for a little bit with Critical Agility, but Warriors and Dervishes seem to be able to use it better. So why bring an Assassin?

The MM/SS Necro is already one of the most used in the game, they don't really need the god mode skill "There's nothing to fear". Even without Intensity and Elemental Lord, Elementalists are still the best nukers.

The nerfs were necessary to keep the original goals in mind, which is to make the less desirable classes more wanted. I do have some problems with it though, but it's a step in the right direction. Some of my complaints: PvE Warriors suffered a lot from the 25 armor max cap, which was made to prevent some really cheesy PvP builds. They should get a PvE skill that improves their armor. After all, they are suppose to be the "tanks". The Ranger and Ritualist skills can be buffed a little more. I don't think that Elementalists should get skills that make their nuking far more stronger than it already is, but they should get something. Note that water, earth, and lightning are not used in PvE. Something that would open up the other lines of magic would be nice (although it would probably be difficult to think of something that does that). Ether nightmare can use some reworking. Degen itself is kinda broken in PvE because monsters have ridiculous amounts of HP, but Degen doesn't stack well (caps at 10). There is no point in bringing Ether Nightmare if you already have a SF Elementalist.

On another note, people have a problem with the nerfs because they were given something, and then it was taken away. If they only came out with Mesmer skills that mesmer primaries can use, then people would be saying "great!" they saved the mesmer class. Or ANet came out with the current patch the first time around, you will hear some people complain that they didn't get a great skill, but most of the people will quote ANet and say that the point is to buff the weak classes. People tend not to be as thankful as they should when you give stuff to them, and they tend to have a much bigger problem when you take stuff away from them.

If you honestly believe Critical Agility and "Theres Nothing to Fear!" will save Assassins and Paragons respectively in PvE you are delusional. What is essentially being claimed is that a single skill each entirely dependent on owning and nearly beating Nightfall (to the point of a decent rank in SS) is so overpowered it will save the classes on their own. It will not happen.

Both classes carry a reputation in PvE...

Assassins: Still carry the stigma from Factions release when people thought they were capable of tanking...whoops! Not much if anything has changed in PvE since and nothing is going to make this class more attractive for groups. Not even this new skill. If I was desperate for an assassin (i have no idea why but for arguments sake) I would just use Zenmai and not trouble myself for one skill with a PuG player.

Paragons: Awesome class that got nerfed to absolute hell and back. If you are absolutely desperate for a Paragon why hassle yourself with a lackluster player when General Morgahn will suffice? I use him for Stand Your Ground, Go for the Eyes, and Aria of Zeal and it gets the job done every time all the time.

Nothing is going to bring these classes into the limelight short of absolutely forcing PvE groups to take them in future content. i.e. a mission where it cannot be completed unless you have someone from one of these classes. Remember these skills are SUPPLEMENTARY not FUNDAMENTAL. For the amount of griefing over balance I think everyone is forgetting no one is forcing you to use these skills, you don't even have to use the hero points. If someone else chooses to it doesn't effect your own personal gaming experience in the least and it certainly wouldn't effect my own personal group formation.

Why exactly did Mesmers get the buff anyway? Its not Ether Nightmares cost and recharge that make it suck. Its the general concept! What the hell is -4//7 degen gonna do again Hard Mode enemies.

Cry of Pain did not need a buff. Its just those f*cking mesmers whining FOR NOTHING. Cry of Pain was already overpowered at 20 seconds. Now it gets buffed to 15 seconds because for some reason the fact it can obliterate mobs already just isn't enough for them. Maybe they'd be happy i we just gave them the Base Defence skill from AB... Why exactly are Anet only listening to the Mesmer crowd?

The Mesmer team could wipe the floor with DoA mobs in 3 seconds before they buffed it.

People have been generally happy with them. Intensity/Ele Lord got overnerfed into uselessness, most people saw them as a little overpowered. Personall i saw them as more overpowered on secondary Elementalists (see Cry of Pain/Necrosis).
People like Necrosis.
People like Save Yourselves.
People like Whirlwind Attack.
People like Vampirism... sorta.
People like Eternal Aura.
People think that Triple Shot and Never Rampage Alone are absolutely bollocks. The only 1 build i found NRA to be useful for was nerfed when TNTF was made into the godmode button for Paragons only. Why are Anet not leaping to the rescue here? Where is our ranged deep wound? It may be in the works for GWEN so i can't hold that against them. Where is our decent IAS? Critical Agility was barely usable since the rate of criticals is horrible with such a slow refire. This update has brought absolutely nothing for a Ranger. I've now turned to using Prep Shot/Apply and Necrosis since its about the best we've got from the PvE skills.

Whats the deal with TNTF and Critical Agility anyway? Why exactly was Critical Agility in desperate need of that nerf... its an enchantment, its ALWAYS on top if it refreshes. It didn't stop the primary Assassin doing its job... TNTF is overpowered in general, not because of its use on secondary paragons, yet they buffed it to make it even stronger on primaries!

At the moment i have a Paragon build that basically gives a constant 28% and 33% (subject to change if i bother getting new equip/boosting Sunspear) damage reduction and a very frequenty +100 AL to all other party members.
Why do Anet seem to think that it would be great if Paragons got into PvE teams only as a godmode button? So the only way that Paragons could be made decent in PvE from Anets point of view is to take everything that was overpowered about them in 8man Paragon teams from PvP and combine it into 1 super paragon... thats extremely boring to play.

Anet haven't saved the Paragon. They've just killed it. If you aren't running TNTF now with a decent rank in Sunspear (r7 been the minimum anyway since its for Storyline) then you won't get into a team.

It has been said a few times before in the thread, but still I think overlooked.

I'm pretty sure the QQing about the elementalist skill changes is not because people loved how they were before when they would obliterate the entire demon race with their aid, but because an anticipated game update for them is now borderline not usable.

We'd been hearing about the addition of PvE only skills for some time now, and the fact is that by focusing purely on the damage buff for an elementalist, they missed the ball - even moreso because they then took most of it away. The point of special, PvE only skills is to be able to enjoy them through having them on your bar. By taking the path they chose, elementalists can't exactly do that anymore.

Everyone knows elementalists do a high amount of damage already, which is the reason for the animosity toward those complaining about the nerf - why should we care if your 'omgawesome' damage gets reverted back to being simply 'awesome' when paragons/assassins/ritualists/dervish are in such dire need of being party-worthy (side note: every class introduced since prophecies is rarely accepted? weird...)? The point is, damage wasn't the only path Anet could take with the ele skills - it was merely the most uncreative and obvious one. As a result of that choice, and barring any further changes, elementalist skill bars will be looking the same today as they did last week...which is fine, unless you were an elementalist not looking for an insane damage buff but simply looking forward to playing with a few new skills that offered some special flare.

Thats not quite right. It should read 'People (who are not warriors) like Save Yourselves'. The standard warriror reaction to seeing this skill is 'buff others only , not me? that sucks'

These are the first shiney new pve only skills we get. Why not make them important to the class for whom they were intended. Actually that seems to be the direction. If a skill has usefullness to another class -> tie it to a primary attribute to severly limit the usefullness to the other class while giving the primary class elite use of the skill. From what i am reading here Sins, Dervs, and Paragons are feeling good about that.

Why not all the classes?

It has been mentioned that save yourselves is an aggro getting tool based upon hidden logic in the AI. Well if this is the purpose of save yourselves it should have been called an Attack Me! shout so that its purpose was clear and not mysteriously based upon game logic that is opaue to us.

Along that line an Attack Me! shout for the warrior class would have been much better than a Save Yourselves. Why? Because it would make the warrior class special, other classes would think twice about using it because they would indeed be attacked. Warriors would like it because it would stop the hard mode ai from fleeing or attacking soft targets to refocus , even for a little bit, on the warrior whose main purpose should be soaking up damage. And i dont think having everyone attacking the warror would cause hue an cry from the rest of the party as being overpowered. Some thought would be needed if it should be area effect or target. 2 differen skills, both would have usefullness.

I would prefer "That's Not What Your Mother Said!"

See, they try to improve the skills, Gaile, could you ask them to take a close look at some other skills?

I think you missed the point... Warriors have plenty of armour already. This skill is intended to help the backline casters. However the point still stands, people like it. Primary Warriors who obviously aren't team players may not but that doesn't matter. Triple Shot/NRA are compltely useless... to EVERYONE.

Intensity........

Up energy cost to 15 or 20
Link to Energy Storage with +3 seconds duration per skill point
Make it a Glyph

It wasn't that good before, perhaps the above might revive it.

There's Nothing to Fear..........

Return it to original duration
Make base damage mitigation 20, heal 25 at end
Add +1 mitigation and +3 heal for every point in Leadership

I'm sure there are other ways of balancing the new skills so they are still useable on secondaries, but better on primaries.

In my opinion, all that's been done so far is to give us a glimpse of some fun new combos for a couple of days, then crudely rip them to pieces.

I hope Anet will reconsider.

As of the older patch, when Intensity and Elemental Lord was stronger, there is a good reason why all the mesmers are crying. This is the patch that suppose to make them a usable class. So they got one good "nuke" type skill. However, they made Elementalists far stronger, superior to a Mesmer with Cry of Pain. Once again, there is no role for mesmers in PvE. However, after Intensity and Elemental Lord got nerfed to uselessness, the mesmer is now a decent nuker (relative to the Ele). I don't agree with making the Mesmer a nuker though, that doesn't seem to fit the profession. I would prefer something like an AoE empathy or an AoE energy drain that recharges all allies, etc. However, don't forget that Cry of Pain is not linked to Fast Casting, so other classes can use it too.

As for the "God Mode" button paragons, yeah it is unfortunate that ANet must resort to that to save the class. However is it really any worse than PvE already is? What about the "Searing Flames" button eles or the "Barrage" button B/P groups. Well Spiteful and MM necros usually rely on more than one button (2 or 3?), but they are essentially simple gimmicks too. The only people who can afford to have a little creativity in their builds before the PvE only skills were Mesmers, Assassins, Paragons, Dervishes and Ritualists because most of their skills sucked in PvE (well, maybe sucked isn't the right word, but they were definitely not "buttons" like Searing Flames).

Mesmers need Spells that disable the enemy, not Spells that do damage.


Change Cry of Pain so that when it interrupts, it disables all of an enemy's skills for 10 seconds and all of your non-Mesmer skills for 20 seconds. And make it a 1 second cast-time interrupt, so that high Fast Casting is pretty much required.


Change Ether Nightmare so that you lose all energy and target foe loses 40%...70% energy (based on your Fast Casting) and adjacent foes suffer energy degeneration, not health degeneration. Making an enemy lose 4...7 energy in PvE is utterly useless.

I agree with above...sort of. The way I interpret current play in PvE is that eles are intended to be the primary damage source in a group. I don't play this way so I guess I am a weirdo. I let the tank(s) do their job as the main damage source with a plethora of support classes to back them up. How it got to the point where fire elementalists are the steamrollers while tanks just run interference (block or distract) is mind boggling. Getting away from the holy trinity in this sense at this point in the game is going to be like asking people to cut off their thumbs. When every group begins to essentially look like a Rotscale farming team there is a problem.

I think most folks forget that as good as fire eles are at raw damage you can produce just as nice an effect with weapon spells (Splinter Weapon, Wailing Weapon), punishment hexes (Mark of Pain, Empathy), conditions (Rotting Flesh, Enfeebling Blood), or even shouts ("Go for the Eyes!", "Find Their Weakness!") just for a very small few. Theres absolutely no shortage of fantastic skills/spells or combinations available, making people use them is however not the same story. Of all the potential out there Assassins will always get the short end of the stick. Hexes or conditions are better dealt from necromancers or mesmers. More heavily damaging critical hits can be applied with the right spells on a tank or barrage ranger and assassin armor is abysmal unless heavily buffed which once again a tank could do better even under the cap. As a class they just don't fill a desirable or necessary niche while all the other expansion classes can be used for some support or primary function. One or two new PvE only skills per class are not going to dramatically alter fundamental PvE team construction.

Edit: I also agree with Lagg, Cry of Pain should disable the skill. As is CoP is good but not great, and could stand to be improved.

Does this work? Because I tried "beefing" damage based enchantments with Intensity and it did not work. For example it did not add damage to Shield of Jugement. I assumed it only worked for direct damage spells like EQ and such, but not enchantment based spells like Bath's Aura or SoJ?

If it does work with Conjure that would be nice, but I would question why it doesn't work with other enchantment based damage spells?

Great post, I agree with all 4 points...although with a ward like that, they'd probably effectively kill the earth line for PvE, if it's not tied to it.

I'm not upset about the new skills because I felt that the Elems were underpowered. I'm upset because these skills have been hyped up, and because we happen to be the best damage dealers (as we SHOULD be), we don't get to use the new skills, effectively isolating us from one of the only cool things to happen between NF and GW:EN.

Unwarrented shot at me in suggesting that i am not a team player and therefore my opinion can be dismissed. I can see how easy it is to say its a good skill when you are the reciprient of it. It would be a great skill if everyone, including the shouter, could participate in the few seconds that its active.

You are completely ignoring the current version of Necrosis...it's a thing of beauty for a Mesmer.

I beg to differ, NRA is actually quite useful with a Spirits Strength Beastmaster Rit. Keeping Vital Weapon on yourself and brutal weapon on your pet at 25% increased speed is fantastic. The minor health buff is also quite nice.

You can essentially wand things at 25% increased speed for 40 - 70 damage, keeping brutal weapon on your pet does between 15-25 damage. This is great for pressure and a dead pet body for wells, minions, explosions, etc.

10 Beastmastery
10 Communing
14 Spawning Power

Brutal Weapon
Maiming Strike
Predatory Bond
Comfort Animal
NRA
Vital Weapon
Spirit's Strength
Charm Animal

PS: this is the only thing i found NRA useful for lmao.

I'm not saying Intensity didn't deserve to be nerfed since Eles were strong as it is. They gave us these skills. 2 things that both increase damage, something an ele has no problems with already. Instead of giving them something they actually needed they gave them that, then completely destroyed both skills 3 days later. Why even keep them in the game? Remove the damn things and give Elementalists something they actually need. In there current state nobody will miss them.
Cry of Pain was already strong enough. The Mesmers got there pre-nerf Spiritual Pain back in an overbuffed Lightbringers Gaze form. Free to construct entire builds around reducing its recharge and echoing it basically kill everything. I'm really not liking Anets outlook with regard to 'saving classes' because it just seems to go completely against what the class is designed for. They're trying to turn Assassins into Tanks. They're trying to turn Mesmers into Elementalists.

Searing Flames, an MM or B/P doesn't ensure victory. Enemies spreading out is the bain of Searing Flames. Massive AoE is the bain of the MM. Shields Up and anti-attack hexes are the bain of the Barrager. None of them ensure victory. TNTF/ToF/SY give a party wide 80%+ damage reduction vs armour effected skills and ~ 50-60% vs armour ignoring. Only 1 hex will actually stop you, Vocal Minority... and thats hardly common. Now people know how effective it is why would people care what you run on your Paragon? If its not godmode why would a pug take you... someone said it earlier. TNTF is now basically a fixed slot on a Paragons bar if they want to have any chance of getting a team.

Lmao. That says it all really doesn't it ^^

I can't believe the whining about Intensity.

First off, ANet told everyone this was a trial period, so anyone who based their entire future in GW based on the first draft of the skills... well, 'nuff said.

Second, Intensity gives you 10 seconds of casting spells at +25% damage. Excuse me folks... with some of the ele skills out there, that's a lot of damage to be delivered.

Finally, this whole fuss about Glyph of Renewal and the new skill... use 'em both. You're now at +3 in say Fire Magic and adding +25% damage on top of that if you add in Intensity as well. Anyone care to calculate how much spike damage you can deliver in a ten second window? What do you people want... to map into a zone and everything dies out of fear of your presence, piling the loot up at your feet? (Sad part is... someone out there just thought "That would be nice")

Tying the skills they did to primaries is a nice touch. Some skills it wouldn't make sense to do that to, and they didn't. How many mesmers run at 16 FC, or Eles at 16 storage? Nah, this was a well thought out and balanced update. I like the new CoP skill. Making it conditional on a mesmer hex being applied first, good idea. When you combine the conundrum buff, they're a nice team.

People actually talking about quitting because skills in a trial period were adjusted for balance and we're still in the trial period! Give me a break.

Except that it's not AoE interrupt. It interrupts your target and does aoe damage. What's more, this isn't some new trick for mesmers; they have had an aoe interrupt since Prophecies, and already have several other aoe damage spells. This really isn't bringing anything to the table that wasn't already there; it's just a slightly more spike-friendly package. While I agree there are better approaches for some kind of grand mesmer buff, it's hardly changing the nature of the class to have a skill like this.

You are going to see Paragons make better use of "Save Yourselves!" than warriors possibly could because paragons are not on the frontline, they are frontline support.

Consider the following...

P/W
"Theres Nothing to Fear!" + "Save Yourselves!" + Focused Anger

Paragon isn't going to be right in the thick of battle due to spear range and those buffs at a distance would ALSO effect the warrior(s) or dervish(es) who will be. The tank and additional support classes would be GODLY while the paragon could maintain distance and shout till he gets laryngitis.

Eternal Aura ia a god gift to Dervish. I just hope they don't
nerf it so it won't recharge form.

Have you tried triple shot on an assassin yet, with the new assassin skill, WoA, Keen Arrow, and that ranger stance that interrupts when you critical... whatever it's called...

I think you need to read the mesmer section. The last lot of new PvE skills listed there all involved Cry of Pain and either Necrosis or Intensity (the latter probably no longer, its not even usable for an MoR Mes now). So much for the counter class. The only counter skills they had were so that they would act as a base for Cry of Pain to act off of. The skill has completely changed the nature of the class from counter to an armour ignoring Elementalist wannabe.

My last Paragon build.

Go for the Eyes
Save Yourselves
There's Nothing to Fear
They're on Fire
Spear of Fury (i really like this skill)
Focused Anger
Burning Refrain
Agressive Refrain

Well, it involves more spamming than anything i've ever seen. Its ridiculously boring to play. It gives the party almost near godmode status if the Searing Flames are burning or the attackers are attacking. At higher ranks of Allegience Spear of Fury could recharge Save Yourselves instantly under Focused Anger.

My point precisely Evilsod, while boring its INSANELY good. Some people are looking at these skills from the wrong perspective. Having an unlinked warrior skill that buffs +100 armor in combination with excellent adrenaline building paragon skills = damn near invincibility. Particularly since the paragon will not be in the heat of battle but rather buffing the tanks. I think this usage of a paragon in comination with Lightbringer title at high ranks and signet or gaze would absolutely annihilate the RoT maybe even the DoA if done properly.

Edit: You wait though...now that I've written this. Anet will come along and force us to wear the Sunspear title to use the skills so we can't use the SS skills and the LB damage reduction and attack bonus at the same time.

It's fun watching this spiral out, certain persons each adding a bit more to the "OMG the sky is falling!" attitude upon which certain others pick up and push further.

Seriously people... from the top.

Ok, 2 months to create the skills and then 1 day to change them? Most likely this is due to the typical single-minded approach one gets when they create something (similar to, but not exactly, how when you write something you see the word spelled right when it could be misspelled.)

ANet said time and time again that they wanted to give more playability to the under-used/abandoned Professions and that this update would at least push them in the right direction. The designers came up with the previous incarnation of the skills and thought (perhaps naively, or just with the single-minded approach I spoke of) that the community would go "Awesome! Let's take an Assassin and a Paragon, or a Mesmer, wow I can't decide!"

... because let's face it, although players can show you left and right how deadly the above three classes are (and how Paragons are still very viable despite the supposed endless nerfs, thanks ClawofCrimson!), the community that only wants Tanks, Nukers and 2 Monks with maybe a Necromancer will simply go "how much damage do they do?" and then laugh when they see a low-armored Melee character, an indirect caster, or a loud guy that tries to buff/protect the team (but clearly Monks do that better than everyone... right? So what's the point?)

It's not that these Professions are "dying" or limping along or what not, these skills won't "save them." They're just meant to be a bat across the Community's collective head as a gateway to actually seeing the potential of these characters.

Anyways, back on track, so ANet comes out with these skills and perhaps in their testing (either themselves, or a select group) the single-mindedness prevailed and they in fact saw an increased potential for the less-desirable of Guild Wars, and figured this was the solution. Perhaps caught up in the magic they never truly factored in how many people would go "Yes, Mr. Paragon, that is a nice skill... I'll put it on my Ele/Monk/Tank now. Thanks!" Of course they had to assume some would do it, otherwise why make it even available in the first place? I'm just betting that they didn't expect to see the numbers of how much those skills were used in Non-Paragons/Assassins/Mesmers.

So they rally together, upset to see their new fix only furthering the lack of those professions being used and change it to make it very clear: These are for Paragons, Assassins, etc.

I doubt anyone sat in the ANet meeting room and went... "Ok guys, check this out. We're going to dangle super-powerful skills in front of everybody, then heavily restrict them as soon as they start liking them!"

---

As to the rest of the skills as a whole, remember, they said this is a period of testing. I'm sure ANet is just doing the method of turning the dials up and down until they find something they like. When the skills came out, the dial was up, the second update turned the dial down. This is how you fine tune in the most broadest sense. Don't think that this is the end, ANet themselves said that.

These skills were made to augment, I doubt anyone intended them to be Skill Bar Replacements. 194+ Fire Damage and Burning to foes in a nearby range 3-6 times in 10-12 seconds. That's not powerful enough for you?

I seriously have to laugh when I read about people who say skills are useless, unusable or what not. First of all, because the skills WORK as they are listed and are able to be used, thus refuting the second term. And they're only useless if you were expecting them to do more than they do.

I mean come on... +2 to attributes limited to 5 spells (though re-castable) or +1 to attributes with no limit to spells, but its an enchantment (and Ele's have plenty of easy cover-enchantments, Aura of Restoration for instance.) Did you want it to replace GoEP? Use them both!

10-12 seconds of +25% nuking power, for 33-35 seconds of downtime. It's PvE, you can sit and wait the 35 seconds if you want. Or, you know, just have the bonus sometimes, not always? One Mob you have extra power to, then next one you don't, the third one you do again!

Series, I have to agree with you on this. They wanted a Win button.