NEW SKILL Updates-

WoH is absolutely ridiculous. I love it haha.

i dont see why they would nerf splinter weapon. usually nerfs come from over use of a skill in pvp, and i cant think of any time in pvp that groups bunch up, unless the team is dumb or loosing on purpose. it is used quite often in pve where groups bunch up, but since when does anet nerf a skill for pve usage. lol

Holy lord, monks are so freaking awesome now. WoH targets the caster? My god.

If I recall correctly, WoH USED to target the caster waaaay back when (I remember the desert mission in proph with the mobs that respawned every 2 minutes... one of the monk bosses at the very end had WoH and was almost impossible for PuGs to kill before the mobs respawned... if at all). And then they removed it all the way until present day... but yeah I like the change I hope it stays.


I don't know if this is why, but there was a destroyer core farming build that had a single Splinter-Ranger wiping out the entire first wave in 2 casts of splinter weapon... wouldn't surprise me if this was the cause.

VICTORY

OR

DEATH


But really, splinter was powerful in both parts of the game. More so in PvE.

Enchantments anyone?

Anyway, after running some tests, I'm starting to come to the conclusion that the gimped LoD is still better than WoH, Glimmer, and Healers Boon for PvE (PvP is anyone's guess right now). How terribly pathetic.

Honestly, I can't think of a nerf that has altered/damaged the game this bad for both PvE and PvP since I started playing over 2 1/2 years ago.
I have NEVER had this much trouble finding a replacement for a skill after a nerf before. For 2 1/2 years there has been an answer for every nerf Anet has ever done. But there is simply no answer this time.
We're forced to revert back to our old and outdated builds and play-styles that we used before LoD ever existed. Which might not be as big a deal if damage output hadn't increased so much since that time.

And all of this because of 1 little second.
I'd gladly give up an additional 10-20 points of healing to have that second back.

Just want to jump in real quick and say: Bout time on the Weaken Armor buff!

That's really the only one I really care about. Freakin cool on that one.

Amazing to see how many people relied so heavily on LoD.

Oh. My god.

Word of Healing is GOOD again!

EDIT: Further reading has left me irritated at the Splinter Weapon nerf.

these monk buffs make me feel all tingly inside (other than LoD). im used to running HB with succor from a hero to offset the minus pip in PvE; now i get to have the cake and eat it too /cheerful

ANOTHER skill update. skills revert to original forms etc....
what is the point of this apart from underlining poor skill/level design?

the only good thing i see in this update is the Slaver Exile spawn issue being addressed.

QFT. Never really realized it until today.

All these great new damage skills (and classes) were added to the game, and LoD was what monks were given to deal with all of that. Now that it's been taken away, we're right back to square one with crap like WoH and Heal Party and such.
Hey ANet, 2005 called, they want their skills back.

This'll be interesting =]

I feel like testing....

Monk 1: [skill]Healer's boon[/skill]
Monk 2: [skill]Arcane mimicry[/skill] [skill]Word of healing[/skill]

hahaha wow. Haven't tested it yet but it should be entertaining at least.

The new LoD sounds like it was designed to be used and spammed with Holy Haste. Its strengths now are energy cost and recharge. Still, I'm thankful to see it exit the meta.

So far HB + HP has actually worked pretty well. Only using it on Dunkoro so far, but he actually has better energy management with that combo than he did with LoD.

LoD is a bit of a bummer, but I can understand it I suppose.

I'd been thinking just the other day that weaken armor should be changed this way, glad to see that done.

Most of the people posting in this thread have no idea what they're talking about.

If you think that nerfing LoD is a good thing, and the rest of these monk "buffs" make up for it, you're other grossly misinformed, or spend the majority of your time in PvE.

LoD was the linchpin holding back the floodgates in terms of overpowered physical aggression. The solution was to reduce the NEED for LoD before introducing a slight nerf to it. Anet has effectively rolled back monk builds to a year ago, while doing nothing to mitigate the intense amount of melee pressure. LoD was used because it was one of two skills that pushed up health bars across the board, and the ONLY competitive option with the other being complete jank.

Now monks have nothing in the way of full party heals, and we will now regress into a meat-headed slaughterfest, where monks will allow a team to survive for as long as their energy holds out, then everything falls apart.

I'm sick of Anet's ham-fisted, unnecessary, and above all idiotic nerfs.

The problem is that monks have never had a good way to deal with diffuse damage prior to LoD. Skillful use of prot has essentially nullified concentrated spike damage - there is pretty much nothing in the game short of coordinated enchantment removal + spike that can punch through a pre-protted target. Therefore, large heals like WoH miss the point.

LoD was good because of its ridiculous efficiency and the fact that it fit the bill perfectly for a game that had settled firmly into prots. With the kind of protting we had flying around, the type of damage that gets through is generally residual damage that's much more efficient to mop up in a modest party-wide heal than it is to heal with a large single-target heal.

I suppose now we're reduced to just WoHing a lot and moving back to stuff like Eprod HP? I really don't know.

It was nerfed BECAUSE it became the linchpin. When skills become so popular that they are required to run an effective build, they are overpowered and should be nerfed.