NEW SKILL Updates-

They buffed Breeze.

I will now go put my eye out. Please excuse me.

As though the game didn't have enough Breeze Wa/Mos...

Holy Haste Infuser ftw, op that's getting nerfed to 33% too now lol

Totally unneeded nerf to Splinter Weapon, only people who used it were splint barragers...

1. Shadow Prison still has amazing bar compression with already broken shadow stepping.
2. Assassincaster still owns everything.
3. Spiritspam still rediculous.
4. Mystic Regeneration still usable on every caster.

Though, the monk changes are looking hot at the moment.

The buff to WoH is completely pointless.
It doesn't do anything for you that Kiss doesn't already do just fine. It's basically a slightly stronger Kiss that you can cast on yourself. Kiss is strong enough in that role as it is, and self-casting isn't important because we already have RoF. So what we're left with is a completely redundant and pointless elite.

The buff to Glimmer is also completely pointless.
Again, it does nothing that RoF and Kiss don't already do for you just fine. Another redundant and pointless elite.

The buff to Healers Boon is actually really good, but it's still not nearly good enough to compensate for the loss of LoD. It's pretty much the only option left at this point, which is sad.
It's a mixed bag of a skill:
Good: No longer destroys your energy; upkeep is gone (hallelujah). This skill instantly goes from crap to playable because of this change.
Bad: Wastes a slot on your bar. Bar space is a premium in hybrid builds, and HB is basically a dead slot on your bar, leaving you with only 7 skills to cast on allies instead of the usual 8 (or 6 instead of the usual 7 if you pack Glyph of Lesser Energy)
Deceptively bad: The Healers Boon + Heal Party combo, which takes up an astounding 3 slots on your bar (with GoLE) to do what LoD did in 1. And even with those 3 slots it's still not as good as LoD because of GoLE's long recast and general clunkiness/inflexibility when used with Heal Party (GoLE is much better suited for PS/SB, which you might actually want to cast twice in immediate succession, which is what GoLE requires).

So what are we left with for an affordable, relatively reliable party-wide heal? Nothing

There are only 2 options left:
1. Prot monks with prot elites and Gift of Health
2. Healing Boon hybrid monks with single-target heals only, and 1 less slot for prot stuff.

Everybody loses.

Makes NPCs blow up at VoD too.

The below 80% heal was never a problem... if you're not below 80% you don't really need the healing.

New monks are gone.
Are we trying to revert back to Factions days?

Hello, boon prots again.

Wow, what a giant buff for monks.

Now if only Mhenlo can know to use Word of Healing to himself...

BTW... where is the Paragon section? Did OP forgot to upload that part?

I'm hoping that the removal of the requirement will cause Heroes to actually use LoD now.

You know me so well. Thats exactly what my Paragon is doing!

The sheer number of comments like this in this thread is just baffling...

The only situation where the buffs to WoH and Glimmer would make any difference is if Dwayna's Kiss were removed from the game. Then they would actually be good.
But I just downloaded the new build with the new update, and alas, Dwayna's Kiss remains in the game, so WoH and Glimmer continue to be crap.

From what I can tell it's bugged right now. The requirement is still there.
Granted this is only from 10 minutes of testing, but it appears bugged. Need to go back and test again to be sure.

EDIT: nvm, it's not bugged. It's just that the blue healing numbers don't pop op over allies who are at already at 100% health like it does for Heal Party.

Dang necros really didnt get touched at all again....

Nerfed the OG spike and i guess they made weaken armor better :/. I still wish they would change soul reaping to something different that doesn't need a huge description of the attribute...

(Haha I'm from WI too)

Anyways I don't understand how WoH would be worse off than Dwayna's when in PvE most of the PUGs I'm with never have enough enchants or hexes on them to do a larger heal than 150 tops. Maybe in PvP it's different but I'd have to like GW to do that so yeah not happening..but PvE wise the WoH buff was nice. I don't care about Glimmer.

I'm trying to figure out builds, couldn't find a good one with HB, so doing a WoH/PS hybrid type..with Heal Party and D-Kiss. Figured that's all the healing/proting I'd need NM PvE wise. If it's garbage oh well! Anything can complete PvE as far as I'm concerned.

Is the change to LOD good or bad? How much is the healing changed? THough I will say it being ALL players regradless of health can be nice.

I think you're wrong on more than one count:

A) split builds are already prevalent ie sineptitude. Good teams can split anyway.

B) people will just run more defense webs to counter the lod nerf so they take less damage especially when you buff such a blatant spike skill as shellshock which was already seeing a little play.

C) We will probably now see retarded party heal runners again like in the days of eprod. This was boring for the players and boring for the game. Any non reatarded team can shut down a LoD by dshot, pleak, edenial etc when its 1s cast.

We will see what the splinter nerf is like.
Ineptitude/clumsiness is still retarded.
With regards to the ancestors rage change someone pointed out to me that it wont work with ancestors ride the lightning anymore as that build relied on using an enchanting mod, ancestors will now end before you reach the target due to the 1s cast time of rtl and the aftercast of ancestors.

I know it's been mentioned, but ouch. As if Mhenlo wasn't already bad at using LoD. :P

I tried it out, and it's not that bad. Probably better used by a competent (human) healer, than an npc, however. (Speaking in terms of PvE, anyway)

yes but that wasn't the only change. even tho i don't use it personally what about recall. why waste time nerfing it to this extent. just remove it completely. they have done the same thing to it. don't nerf skills because some douche is abusing it in 1 venue in the game. and it has been posted repeatedly on this site that PvP is very much secondary to PvE so why base skill updates on PvP crap. and yes it pisses me off that my ranger hasn't gotten far enough to learn every skill in the game yet and was set up as a S/B ranger because it was the best option for the area i am in and now they have wasted my time and effort earning and learning skills since in PvE you can't just unlock and use new ones you have to invest time and money into your skill bar. so like i said it was a crappy change and i stand by what i said. PvP whiners ruin the game for everyone. and numerous bad skill changes have made this game suck as much as you do.

P.S. response to typical whiner flaming in other post on this topic.which got deleted.

Recall nerf is a bit too much. 5 seconds seems like a better amount.

Shell Shock looks a lot nicer.

Love most of the buffs to Healing Prayers, especially Healer's Boon. Healing Breeze isn't so bad anymore. I don't think anyone would touch Glimmer of Light though, since you now have a crazy Word of Healing...

Weaken Armor is nice...more ways to spread Cracked Armor.

Magebane Shot doesn't seem that great even after the update.

Weapon of Warding is nicer, but Splinter Weapon is blah...no need for Barrage anymore, with Volley right there...

I don't understand Symbolic Strike...WHO WOULD USE THAT?


That's my view.

symbolic strike and body blow, i sent anet 3 support tickets regarding this, about time they fixed this, now just for the pve-only skill melee attacks(club of 1000 bears) to get fixed and we'll be set.

Good update overall... just needed one more thing:

PvE-Only Skills

- Great Dwarf Weapon: this Skill can now target the caster.

Come on Anet, give us ranger's a cookie