NEW SKILL Updates-

No! Maybe Me/mo RC will see a return!

*cough*

And here it comes again ... HP spam eles.

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Can we now get better skills on GWEN mhenlo now that LoD was nuked? like removal of vigorous for empty slot ideally. or not making him cast it on people when party in under pressure.

Splinter nerf hurts, i would really prefer change of ai on VOD, like ... not balling in nukable spots. guess i can live with it thou.

Al least recall nerf was sane one and not interefering with its pve uses. /btw Rt/A recall can still drop ashes to do something after recall :-) /

Just had another thought. Back in the days of yore, pre factions my elite was Peace and Harmony. After this buff HB has, P&H is now simply redundant for a healer build.

Removing the conditional will fix the AI who would not use LOD unless the entire party was taking damage. I just hope the put holy haste on Mehnlo as well.

[QUOTE=Shuuda]Soul Reaping still get energy from minions and spirits.
Shadow Prison still exist.
Assassincaster still exist.

Soul reaping needs no nerfs... afterall it is SOUL reaping and spirits are bound souls and minion kinda have the soulf of the fallen enemy/ally

shadow prison.....Izzyyy!!! Get back to work!

assassin caster... unique

Yeah, always a good laugh when someone tries one of those-
balance > semantics, y'know?

Apart from that, reaping souls of the already dead sounds just as clunky :P.

Considering that it is impossible to perfectly balance all X number of the skills they created for over 6 different areas, I think they do a decent job of rotating. And noone here is a fanboy. I've shared my ammount of grievances with anet about as much as I've praised thier work.

If AoE is such a problem, and monks are having a tougher time mopping up the damage, why not buff a few self-heals? I remember when Healsig was used in GvG! Getting a war or mes to stop for a half a second to heal will help to compensate for the loss of party wide heals. I realize that adding a self heal to a few bars to replace a single skill can be seen negatively, but doesn't that tell you something about the skill being replaced (overpowered)?

Besides, if LoD affected splits as much as people are saying, those selfheals may be needed if they become a decent part of the meta again.

Is it just me or is Heal Sig your favouritwe suicide skill of choice? I never found any use for it apart from AB, where you can run off to cast it in peace. I don't know about GvG, but healsignet seems a bit outdated for me. I seen some guy in glads arena pose the idea to half the casting time, I think that's not even such a bad idea, probably have to reduce the heal so it won't become imba, but the largest problem imo lies in creating a 2 second window to use it.

Heal Sig was actually used on gvg warriors pre nightfall and monks could call for a defensive mode when needed it was good times in the game to be honest.

Ow my eyes. There's nothing exponential, it's linear at best...

Yes it is that bad, but to understand it you need a few mathematical concepts

It used to be a skill where the effectiveness grew linearly (O(n)) as 'n', the number of enemies grew, to a skill that has only a constant potential (O(1)).

So we have, pre nerf (Splinter/Barrager, chann=12):

4 (number of splintered attacks) x 41 (damage) x (n - 1) (number of targets)

and post:

4 (number of splintered attacks) x 41 (damage) x (3) (number of targets)


So for big ns, say Urgoz Warrent for example, the difference is staggering (use n = 12 for example). I mean, as an ele, you'd be crazy to bring Chain Lightning if you're facing a mob of 12+ creatures no?

Ele's do that much better now, since they can cast multiple AoE spells simultaneously at a snared mob. And you already see this in high-end dungeons where Rangers and Ritualists are now shun in favor of 4 Ele's

Hmm reading your post I understand I was talking out of my rear (and maths give me headaches, I hate it), on the other hand, your more accurate calculations show higher damage numbers then I calculated. Post nerf you are talking 492 damage/volley. The difference is indeed huge, but 492 damage is still OK imho.

damn, splinter weapon nerf....... dammit

I would go for a N/Mo HB healer in such a case, I'm gonna test that as soon as I dragged my hairy arse home. If I'm right HB can serve as substitute for Divine Favor.

There are ways around these problems, but why should we go through such a pain in the first place? was there a good purpose behind these changes? i don't see one.

I really hope they read this thread (... and not busy playing TF2 or something), because this "fix" needs a fix of it's own.

Shake up the GvG meta (Everyone and his granny used LoD), but it was kind of a half assed job, because defense got nerfed, but offense is kept the same. Bottom line, many GvG-ers aren't too happy either because their teams get blown away by pressure.

Thinking a bit about it ... LoD got good ol' overnerf.

2s cast on monk skill that is NOT hard res? WOW. That really screams "never, ever run me again!"

UH-OH!1
I fear what future holds.

I hope the current update gets refined with the thoughts of the playerbase in mind. Devastating offense still needs a hit, especially sins, the number of people getting fed up with them is steadily growing.

/agree

/agree

Are you insane?? Wanting to nerf Paragons more than they already have been? I can't even get in a group with hero's and hench anymore, Vekk sees I am a paragon and talks all others into doing a /sit until I go change characters. I was reading thru the update and was very upset to see that they hadn't buffed the paragon to make up for all the nerfs and you calling for more nerfs...geez

Yes, as i said, there's no "Good Purpose" behind this "fix", it's a failure.

As for the "Changes over the course of the week", excuse me for not counting on those too much, look at previous updates, you'll see what i mean.

LoD is useless, using it is saying "Hey ranger/mesmer Interupt me!"

Nerfing recall and not nerfing shadow prison is too bad....now we'll got 98% ppl running shadow prison.

Glimmer, Healer's Boon, Heal Party welcome, i can see HB/HP comming up.

Oppressive, bye bye mo-mo-monster kill, altought isnt a big nerf.

Spirits nerf isnt enough

Weapons boost is pretty interesting, but i think warding is a bit overpowred since u can mantain it in 2 guys at the same time; Splinter nerf isnt a big deal, if u hit 3 foes is awsome yet.

General: i pretty much liked this skill balance, but i think it fails in nerfing recall and those shadow priosn stille out there.
Maybe putting Dancing Daggers "blockable" would be a good nerf to those assacasters....

PWNing hard mode atm with a dual para team, please don't say they nerfed paragons to hell as they are incredibly powerful. chaining [wiki]"stand your ground!"[/wiki] is just retardedly strong.

Vekk is an arrogant bog imp that's too full of himself, he keeps forgetting that he is just a deformed midget.

I love that PvPers are complaining that LoD is the ONLY way to deal with post NF offensive pressure. Its just not true. Monks have to have talent again to actaully heal targets. It was a passive defense nerf (like the old shields up).

A lot of people also don't seem to understand the reason recall was overpowered (shadow prison complainers for example) in HB maps and GvGs. Recall wasn't actually being used by sins for attack chains people.

Yeah... I mean because AI is smart enough to run out of AoE but "PvPers" aren't. (note, "Pvpers" only means the QQing ones, good PvPers realize the need for this shakeup).

LOL.

Please refrain from posting comments when you have zero experience with the issue being discussed (high level pvp).

Sorry to single you out .. my statment applies to about 95% of the posts in this thread .. but you sounded like the most egregious trangressor so....

I really think LOD must be returned to its orinal. My hero does not get how to use it now and gets much more. I can not pve anymore with LOD so i need to search for something else and why is it changed only beacuse of pvp . Pve needs skills too.

As much as I hated the Splinter nerf... it is not the *doom* of Rangers in PvE that folks are making it out to be. Barrage is still a powerful skill - remember before we had Rits that the B/P was a desirable build for rangers. Yes Splinter made Barrage even more powerful on the "dumb" clustering AI and took advantage of the delay in shots to not cause scatter, but its not like being able to do damage to up to 18 mobs is a horrible blow to your build.

I would argue that perhaps a better "nerf" of splinter would have been a reduction in damage as opposed to the reduction in targets.

LoD = EP + HP
can't see any difference
Even pre-nf people were running LoD in another form, as a counter to pressure.
Of course, pressure builds are seen much less now, but all the blocking made the melee some sort of pressure. We were and are still running party heal versus pressure, in any form.
Now the new party heal would be HB + HP.

I stopped using Splinter/Barrage when I discovered BHA. A ranger is not a DPS class, Splinter made damage machines out of a utility class. Rangers do so many things well. Do they really need an uber damage hurricane like Splinter to do there job effectively. Don't get me wrong it is crazy cool to see a screen full of yellow numbers from one attack. However, simply shutting down the backline (PvE-wise) with a few timely placed interrupts make the red dots disappear really fast.

The Splinter issue with NPC's at VoD could have been more easliy dealt with by altering THIER placement or by adjusting the AI of those NPC's.

What exactly is scragging, and is it legal to do to a goat?

Hmmm. I was wondering why she was saying, "pull my finger" to Gwen

QQing was because of guild battle NPCs, because of their horrendoulsy stupid positioning which made AOE nuke simple way to deal with them.

AI runs out of AOE, sure, but AI with 480 health will not run away until its too late /5s which takes ai to react is too late with 2-3 casters wanding them with splinter/ since they just lost 2/3 of their hitpoints and are cheap targets for various "finish him!" tactics.

So, anet fixed Splinter instead of teaching AI to "l2p" (good positioning guys, good positioning ...)

There is nothign wrong with QQing about something you cant influence regardless of your skill. Thou, there is a lot wrong with anets reaction.

Um.......really? wow I'm speechless. Pointless buff/nerf on the monk skills, the rest are so so.

That is not bad idea, with some potential for PVE abuse (crit scyhes :-), but that would not solve core of problem which is NPCs.

Another feasible nuke would be discovered, used, abused and nerfed ...

THIS is why it would be better if people with no experience in such matters would refrain from making comments like this. It REALLY WOULD make the conversation so much more fluid.

If you are wondering ... the intrdodcution of various Nightfall skills (mending touch, SP intsgibs, etc) have rendered an ele incapable of defending a base. THAT is why you don't see EP anymore, and everyone is basically forced to run LoD. It is the ONLY heal efficient enough to keep up with currrent pressure.

As far as HB+HP goes... it is far inferior. It requires HB, HP, and GoLE ... 3 slots for what you used to be one... and still lacks much flexibility. Monks just got ALOT weaker - with no corresponding weakening of offense. That's why everyone is complaining.

For LoD,just use Holy Haste and then its at a 1 second cast again.

For PvE atleast. :P

About the Splinter Weapon and Barrage.

I don't know if i'm right but, before the nerf, the effect of splinter worked with all the 6 arrows from barrage skills wich means that all adjacent foes targeted by the 6 arrows would be hited by splinter. Now, after some tests,(i can't tell if i'm right again), i see that ONLY ONE arrow of the barrage is affected by the splinter weapon, wich means that only FOUR foes it hited by the splinter. If this is the way it works now, Splinter Weapon is pretty useless with Barrage.

If this is the way it goint to be, make it so that Splinter Weapon works with ALL arrows of the Barrage Skill, that way, VoD won't be touched by the the splinter because nobody uses Barrage in PvP and scythes can hit only 3 people with one hit.

Discuss *i'm sorry for my bad english*

Was HP nerfed before? I remember the last time I played it it was something around 150HP per cast at Healing Prayer 16.

I think the most current problem lies in the fact that people have been relying on uber-buffed monk skills and have dropped all of the mitigation that other players used to need to carry. Almost every Mesmer previously would carry Distortion. Eles almost always had wards /w blind. Monks had WASD until the assassin came out, which evolved into Returning and Dark Escaping (also Warrior stances). Rangers had godmode and still have godmode, which brings me to my next point.

Why do rangers have godmode? Selfheal, mitigation stance, rediculous armor, and interupts. Which of these can we mimick? How many bars contain damage mitigation of some sort? None. We've been relying on Aegis and Defensive Anthem as our legs, screw crutches. Granted, Aegis has been working it's magic for a long while now, it's just become much more of a "necessity" recently. How many bars contain selfheals? Healsig is trash thanks to the gain in player skill, but the point being that it worked when it was up with the meta. Our ele's used to carry Healing Breeze, etc. All of this is in addition to what I've already mentioned above. Interupts are a strong but less mimickable part of the equation, as is the ranger armor, but do you see where I am comming from?

When it comes down to it, Monks have become so heavily relied on to heal/mitigate all damage that players seem to forget the methods that worked previously.

Granted, there is the rediculous Assassin threat to deal with now, which explodes anything that doesn't have a monk standing behind it, but that's not reason enough to be raging so much over LoD. Newsflash: Guildwars existed before LoD. Life will go on!

If anything, Anet should focus on bringing back healing and mitigation throughout the party, and not just on monks.

People remember, this is a test week, sometimes they roll-back the nerfs. GIVE IT TIME!

Why am back in this thread I don't know because my posts keep getting deleted...*glares at mods*

However, Splinter Barrage nerf is a big deal and it isn't. It really only affects heaving farming/vanquishing in pve. The nerf to 3 adjacent foes still works for average pve use as the times more than 3 enemies are adjacent to each other is minimal. However, the fact being that it was required to be adjacent for it to work said something. The way splinter weapon actually works with barrage is effective. Before, i noticed and just didn't care now it makes splinter weapon almost not worth the energy. The way splinter weapon works is each attack does aoe dmg to adjacent foes, and barrage is one attack. So theoretically you might think you shoud get 4 barrages from one splinter weapon. However guildwars treats each arrow as an attack. So when if you barrage on 4 enemies, each enemy gets hit by dmg from barrage plus dmg from splinter weapon 3 times (the enemy hit with the arrow doesnt take dmg from splinter). Upon doing so splinter weapon will end having used 4 attacks.

Instead of changing the number of foes, why not a change in dmg reduction or a change in the way it functions with barrage. If barrage were to really work as a single attack, each foe in the adjacent area would only be struck for dmg from barrage and dmg from splinter weapon once, and only using one attack from splinter weapon. This would serve just as well, seeing as it would effective lengthen the dmg ouptut from splinter barrage by over 3 times.

But splinter weapon still works, definately not as effective any more but still works.

And i dont want to even talk about rangers not being a dps class. No other class is solely just support character or dmg dealer. They all have builds that allow for a range of roles. Rangers deserve a dps build, and for me at least this was the one i had found and most enjoyed.

And Mhenlo uses LOD in Eotn, doh! Not using him anymore. Since thats now thats an automatic shutdown on him in pve.

LOD at 2s is definately major interupt fodder. However for the vast majority of pve you can easily not use it. The only times i even bring lod is the bosses battles with constant degen/dmg. The rest of pve can be covered by prot/heal.

As for pvp...i havent pvp'd, other than RA or AB, in months so i can't really comment on what it does for the game.