GW:EN Skills Preview

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Putrid Bile

Hex Spell. For 5...17...20 seconds, target foe suffers -1...3...3 Health degeneration. If that foe dies while under the effects of this Hex, all nearby foes take 25...73...85 damage.

ive always wanted a death nova i could cast on foes <3

very disapointed with most assassin's skills... please take the energy gain skills out... those will never see any use...
vampiric assault looks cool but since it's life steal it won't do as much dmg as normal dual atks, plus, you'll have to invest alot in deadly arts. A sugestion is to make it a dual atk that must follow an offhand but still lets you use another dual atk, now that would be awesome and break the regular offhand>dual>offhand>dual.

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So basically cracked armor only affects paragons and warriors in terms of pvp, how gimp! >_<

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I'm wondering if Cracked Armor is going to make +30 fortitude mods more attractive than +5 armor on the average...

yea, that is an awkward balance atm with fort "usually" winning out, but +5 AR still has its place... if cracked becones readily availible they might dissapear for the most part (with only 4 skills that cause it its no big deal yet, but could be worse if other skills are changed to add it)

cracked armor also hurts rangers alot. Its sad how many people seem to forgot the 100AL against elemental rangers have when considering the meta...

I just hope there's some PVE skills for tanks to help the support more than just some armor and adjacent evasion for 9 seconds.

"NOOBS!" - All foes within earshot try to kill you, and only you, for X seconds.

Alright maybe that's a little imbalanced, but you know what I mean.

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I like that skill idea

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Spear Swipe... Free dazed with almost no conditional... Hmm.

I like some of the new hex removal options though.

On the smiting prayers:

Smiting Prayers are not spammable due to the high recharge. The idea is good, but the skills don’t exist in the smiting prayers line atm to make SBoon usable on a defender. A half monk, a runner, some type of support build for splits that adds pressure, maybe. In the end, a regular caster with off-monk Draw is an improvement over most smite monks in terms of pressure to opposing teams and provides more utility to their team. Existing hybrid protection build rely on heal per cast to keep players alive. Mend C and Dismiss are good because they remove conditions and heal.

I’m not saying that support smiters should have the same damage that an SF ele can put out. But it should be respectable and comparable to other utility builds out there. In the end, I wish Holy Damage were not armor ignoring. I think that was a huge mistake because it has gimped every skill in the smiting prayers line since…including these.

Because of this, Smiter’s Boon will not see serious play.

Purifying veil will defiantly see play . Good idea; just wish it wasn’t in the smite line. It may be useful to consider increasing the conditions removed, however. Dazed usually comes with a cover…still, It's Just a Flesh Wound and Cautery Sig may have found a new best friend...

Recycle for smite condi should be dropped. It’s a situational small range AoE spell that takes 1 second to cast (full cycle 8 seconds). Not worth a slot.

Castigation Signet should reduce cast time to ¼ second. Frankly, so should Bane sig while you’re in the shop. How can you use either effectively if they take 1 second to cast?

The Protection Prayers line is obviously solid, so I understand why only one skill was added to that line:

Steadfast Soul looks a useful skill for an off-monk or support smiter (overpowered in some builds, actually, where wars may intentionally KD themselves or bring skills that can put them on their backside like Crude Swing). Time and testing will tell.

Healing Prayers has some very interesting additions:

Cure Hex looks like a great skill. A non-elite Divert, just like we asked for. Can’t wait to see it in action.

Spotless Mind could be a solid non-elite removal if it doesn’t get nerfed. A non-elite Divert pointed in a different direction. Could be very powerful against hex teams for passive removal.

So could Spotless Soul. Passive condi removal sounds neat, especially in PvE. Their only problem will be that they are passive. Do they remove a hex/condition on cast or do you wait for 5-3 seconds? I’d like to see the either uptime increased or recycle reduced for both to make it easier to remove 2 hexes or 3 conditions without locking yourself into HP (and to combat enchant strips; can you say shatterbait?) but this may be a step toward viable “pure” healing builds other than HBoon or an improvement thereof.

Healer’s Covenant using enchantments has long been an idea I’ve tinkered with. Buffing existing HP enchants on a whole would widely increase the attribute’s abilities. Prot has better enchantments (the best in the game where utility is concerned) so prot sees use and is more seriously considered outside of LoD, Infuse and GoH (I think Seed still sees play in HA…been a while).

But…RC is king at condi removal, and needs to stay that way to combat the massive condition potential that exists in most team builds, PvPwise

I’m not sure which underpowered skills you are buffing though. Build diversity would improve if Elite skills that have existed since Prophecies were improved. More on that in end of post suggestions.

Healing Ribbon…no. Balling teams get owned by the AoE that exists from all the casters (and dervishes) in the game. I don’t see it seeing play without better healing or a self target ability so you can control and use it to better effect. It’s a rare and powerful skill that sees its way onto a monks bar and is incapable of healing her/him.

Patient Spirit: I dunno. It looks too weak on its heal for starters, and a lot can happen in 3 seconds. You throw a heal, you want that person healed ASAP. Derv teams will see use for spamming this. Beyond that…maybe this a turn toward “sloppy monking”. Throw it on someone who may get hit, then swap targets to someone who is getting hit…and throw it again. Maybe make it more like RoF or Divine intervention it self strips if the player takes damage or fatal damage? I just don’t know yet.

Suggestions/wishlist:

Overhaul existing ally targeting smiting spells to be viable in PvP. Retribution or Holy Wrath should not be maintained enchantments but on par as a smiter’s Spirit Bond. Change Defender’s Zeal to an ally targeting enchantment (and 5/1/10). Give Balthazar’s Pendulium a nearby AoE damage strike per cast (not a big hit, but something that would make spamming this skill worthwhile outside of a KD fest). Reduce the recycle of Judge’s intervention (and Divine intervention) by half. Then you’ll have the makings of a solid smite build that can provide support to the team via SBoon. Its not as subversive as a mesmer nor as powerful as an ele or rit, but it’s a support character that does damage…and that’s what smiters should be, imho.

If Holy damage makes you wary of such action…remove the armor ignoring aspect. It’s either that or remove smiting, and you guys seem to be trying to buff smite a little…

Healing Prayers enchantments need to be improved and made useful. The only people who take HBreeze are those who don’t know any better, your henchmen or farmers (and PS is the farmer’s bread and butter…though, if you mess with that, I think you’d have a monk riot in-game and RL). The only people who take restful breeze are…does anyone? Does anyone actually use Supportive Spirit? Outside of 4v4 arenas, Vigorous Spirit is trash for passive healing. Buff them. While you’re at it, increase heal per cast for most skills as well (orison, Words of Comfort, Whisper, et al) as well. Where protection is super because it prevents damage, HP needs to rock because it (yes, I’m saying it) overheals. So long as HP heals are as tight as they are, prot or hybrid prot will always be a better alternative hands down. You’ve made it too easy to outpressure a healing monk and ignored or stopgapped the lines shortcomings (sans LoD; one of the few great anti-pressure skills in the game). These skills are a start, but only a start, at making the HP line viable in pvp. To get HP into contention, it needs to be addressed at a fundamental level. While we’re at it, 1 second is an eternity to a decent mesmer. Reducing cast time to some of the straight heals would improve an HP monk’s ability to survive (why HBoon was so successful and remains viable in PvE). The other reason why monks prefer prot is because when they cast a spell, there is a reasonable chance it will actually land on the target. Not so much for HP.

Increase range for Healing Burst and decrease recycle, decrease uptime and recycle for healing hands and healing seed by about half to force proactive use. Buff Glimmer's heal or remove the recycle; you overnerfed it and its trash now.

DF skills need a buff. Do it. Aura of Faith could make a viable healing build or smiter build OR prot build if you could maintain it on 8 people with relative ease. Boon Sig should apply to enchantments on you, not target (and increase heal), Blight is outdated (reduce recycle to 4 and bump healing up), PnH should either supply 2 pips per cast or give an energy boost if it is removed early from you (by means other than attacking), Scribe’s insight should have massively reduced recycle, Spellbreaker…reduce recycle and leave everything else (there are too many ways to remove it now not to and it doesn’t see play because its not worth it to run something that only works on one ally ¼ of the time). Even at 7 seconds, I still wouldn’t take Withdraw Hexes into a match. Increase range to start with, lower cost and…drop recycle even more.

Buff spell shield’s uptime. I don’t care about Aspenwood, buff it. Divine Boon…gimme back my boonprot please. Reduce recycle on watchful healing to 5 or even 4 and reduce its strip heal slightly at the same time. Do all that and the DF line will be as strong a contender as prot for elite choice and diversifying builds.

Prot: Mark of Prot and Life Sheath. Reduce recycle on both. Make Shield Guardian’s effect scale to 1…3 attack skills or remove the nearby heal and make it 5/0.25/3, an attack damage triggering RoF. Guardian: reduce cast time to ¾ and increase uptime to 7. Increase uptime on Spirit Bond (or make it scale like PS) but leave the 10 attack removal in place.

That’s my wishlist anyway…when do we get a run buff?

GGs

before u say Vampiric Assault suck, do u know y this skill used Deadly Arts instead of Dagger Mastery or Critical Strikes? do u know there is a build that use high Deadly Arts and throw dagger? do u know any of these skills Iron Palm, Dancing Daggers, Mantis Touch, Impale? with this skill, Vampiric Assault, Deadly Arts doesnt need a high Dagger Mastery to use dual-atk for high dmg or hight Shadow Arts for self-healing. Dont u understand it now?

Defile Defenses + Dual Shot + Forked Arrow + Needling Shot = dead Protect Monk

Guardian, Aegis, and Shield of Deflection get raped.

Ranger and Warrior will too, as they both have many stances to block.

I don't look forward to playing my Paragon in PvE with Necros using Vocal Minority. Cacophany will just be worse.

I see Necro getting nerfed big time before this goes live.

Ouch.... I just realized Vampiric Assault is a Dual Attack, meaning it hits twice. 84 stolen health at 16 Deadly Arts..... wow.

Way of the Warrior? This doesn't sound like a useable skill. Assassins can't use this because they need daggers and for other class to use this, they need to pump up critical strikes to use its decent effect but since critical strikes is an assassin's primary attribute this will never see action in any skill bar