Update 12/10/07

Heh yikes Johtan are even nastier in hard mode..:> Any real suggestions? Aegis/ward of melee/ward of weariness and they still tear through my party.

Drain Enchantment, welcome back to the skill bar. You've been missed.

"Charge!" skill text hasn't been changed.

ya apparently anet thinks the solution for spirit nests is making them vulnerable to searing flames...lol.

My take on the skill balances

Ele
SFs buff?? Okay then.
At least earth and water magic got a nice boast. Ward against melee was getting to be too problematic in the current holder GvG build so that's good. Ebon Hawk and ash blast damage boasts are appricated.
Ice spikes is godly now, almost better then deep freeze now since you can reapply it so often.

Mesmer buffs w00t. Ineptitude/cluminess combo was good before. Now... oh baby. Constant blind. Mantra of Recovery nerf was needed.

Dervish. Wearing was pretty common with Melendru and an easy way to inflict DP, so that's fair. I mean, it was one of the first Dervish skills I bought. It was pretty obvious that it was always good. It still is. Good balanced nerf.

Monk. I KNEW reversal of damage didn't seem to be working right. Preventing all damage at zero smiting prayers? It was too useable on a dervish. It being corrected also indirrectly improves the ele elite mirror of ice, which looks much better by comparison now.

Necromancer. Chilbals nerf? I'm sorry, but the game needs a few non-targetting enchantment stripping. Otherwise, I'll just run into more shadowform sins in RA. By the way, why no deadly paradox sin signet spike tweak?
Andragon's needed the nerf.


And finally, a minor buff to Charge! Hooray for all my W/Mo teammates in RA.

I dont get the chilibanes nerf at all

me and my guildmate experiencing this also

Wow! Half of my PvE mesmer skillbar just got buffed!

My paragon almost died to the great destroyer on hard mode, oh wait, TNTF still exists.

Rank up disappears when you die now. If you get a Rank up while dead, it will erase any previous Rank up you had. I believe this was still an issue before the update, but I haven't noticed it until now.

Judging by the approximately 50/50 break of happy to mad, I would say the update was an overall good one.

Spirit Nerf: Good
WoM Nerf: Good.
Mesmer Buffs: VERY GOOD.
Wearying strike Nerf: Good.
Hard Mode in EOTN: Good.

Conjure buffs: ROFL
Reversal of Damage: ROFL
Charge buff: ROFL
Aggresive refrain: ROFL PAWNT
Gaze of contempt: ROFL

Uneccesary SF and Rigor buff: Bad
Ignoring Deadly paradox: Bad
Ignoring various skills that everyone knows need a buff to be remotely usable ( wastrels demise, Power Shot, ect.): Bad
Lack of needed attention to monk line other then nerfing the obvious basics: VERY BAD
Dervish Scythe is still a poorly designed Luck based weapon ( 9 - 40 ftl. High luck factor =/= balance ): Bad ( Sorry this has been a pet peeve of mine since Nightfall was released. )

Chillblains change: FAIL

Overall: B-

Read Andrew's post in this thread (its like the 3rd one from the top). There is a slight problem with people who beat the game early from entering HM yet. Will be fixed within a few hours.


Also, all the people complaining about paragon's being "nerfed" obviously don't GvG. Paragon's BROKE GvG and are way overpowered in it. Until you realize the true potential of your class rather then just complaining about the change of TWO skills, you will never be a good GW player. Players should adapt and be willing to experiment with many builds, not rely on a couple of skills to the point of it being a cruch.

Wait! Is this true?

If so, that's pretty bad.

Otherwise this is a pretty darn good update

I'll be doing some grinding this weekend

The nerf to the spirits kinda pisses me off though.. -50hp is rather harsh on such low lvl spirits. Besides, the problem is not the spirits, it's soul reaping but they won't touch it

Union feels crap now, I liked it but now it's so weak. In fact, the whole communing line feels kinda "meh"...

new update just fixed the hm

They won't change the wat dervishes Scythe work just because you don't like it. End of story. To act like its all luck is pretty short sighted. Lets just have all weapons do 15-15 damage. I can understand the whole Sword vs Axe debate with damage ranges, but some luck has always existed and didn't break GW because EVERY team has the same luck factoring in. Over a long term battle, the odds balance out.

I don't think people realized how much Reversal of Damage was bugged. It prevented ALL damage from one attack at zero smiting every 6 seconds. On a Dervish it was free with mystcism. It wasn't a nerf, it was a fix to put it in line with similar skills (RoF) and to make skills that actually do prevent all damage elite worthy (mirror of ice).

I agree that Deadly Paradox needs to be changed. Its just too annoying in TA/RA. I know a.net doesn't balanced based on that, but still...

Heh anyone try the snowman lair? :> You get 2 count them 2 summon snowmans WOOT!!...ahem :> Does anyone even use them?

Not for me

/clap

Time to dust off the Mesmer again

Power Spike: decreased Energy cost to 5.
Energy Burn: increased damage multiplier to 12.
Energy Surge: increased damage multiplier to 12.
Drain Enchantment: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased Energy returned to 7..15; added a heal effect of 40..120 when an Enchantment is removed.