Update - Wednesday February 6

Liking the trolls buff... but Im not sure why its been buffed...

also, glad i kept all those party items now! I had an urge to set off all of my snowman summoners earlier today.

EDIT: Wtf?! 1 energy skills?!
might want to check your coffee machine Anet, i think someones spiking it.

I LOVE ALL THE NERFS I LOVE YOU ANET!!!!!!!!!!!!

/endsarcasm

And 1/4 the healing ... costs twice the energy to reach the old health gain and twice the time. Easier to dose though, and faster casts. Depends on the use.

For those having a coronary over "nerfs", may I point out the line that goes on all skill updates:

I'm a Mesmer. I’m trying hard not to feel that a-net really see me and other pve role players as a cash cow.

Necro Touch Bomb/Touch rangers FTW! lol Now Rangers can spam free life-steals... Touch Rangers are now Mosquitos on Steroids! lolol 1e skillz are definitely a first for guild wars. Too bad, I don't see it lasting long before we see a new update today or tomorrow reverting those e-costs. No changes to Assassins? Power Leak's no longer a Dominating Interrupt... It's ineffectiveness should be reverted imo. Also, What's so mystic about mystic regen, now? Not to mention a multitude of unhappy farmers... Good buffs on heal signet & troll (wish troll would be cut down on cast time though... mebber 2-second cast time like heal sig?). Good Glyph buff. I expect to see alot of players pull off nice builds with that buff. Other than that, not too shabby. Oh, and Ineptitude/Clumsiness ftl... They were kewl while they lasted... but now they got blasted... RIP Anti-Melee Shutdowns. x_X

I wonder, does mystic regen count as one of the three enchantments itself or no?

woot free necro skills, love it.
Just why are you guys saying inpetitude was destoyed? just need to be aplied on time now. And hurray for mistyc regen! Was about time, now they'll be killable... well maybe not but at least moe killable (Ah! the good ol' E/D).
Just too bad for clumsiness and Avatar of Grenth.

LOL!! Necro buffs are crazy fun so far, shame it won't last. A big 'BOO-URNS' to the Mesmer nerfs

the last time I checked, it did.

wtf mending refrain?

and rip pleak

Massive butthurt to Mesmers today. Izzy hates Mesmers or something.

As a PvE Mesmer main, I've read the arguments on both sides of this raep. And I don't like it. I'm probably not the only one.

Power leak didn't need to be castrated as badly as it did. Scaled down to be a little less powerful maybe, but not into uselessness.

And seriously, with nerfs like this, a compensatory buff in something would be nice so that we can use something.

The Modus Operandi must be that if something tastes good, spit it out.

Rise of the Touch Ranger, Chapter II. That's the other thing.

All in all, I give this update a D. Deep Freeze saved it from an F.

If mesmers are going to be this nerfed in GW2, I might abandon the profession for something else.

I feel peeved off with this update for my Mesmer - Ive just this week gotten her an Obsidian top - I dont want to play with her now.. ( )

Im taking that its only the hex amount of time that ineptitude will cause blindness that got took down and not the actual amount of time that the red dots (or blue smurfs if I'm PvPing) will be blind?

Screw this I'm going back to Backfire and Empathy again - Mesmer obviously isnt obviously to do anything else.. like interupt or NRG denial or anything like the class was (as I've been mislead to believe) designed to do? (Ok Im a bit sour about the powerleak thing)

Hexbreaker is going right back on my skill bar.. For all my toons - every single one of them... right now.

1e for Necros? erm..... ok. I'll have to try that out and come back to you.

I think that Tarkin has already found one way to abuse it - I'm sure by the time Ive woken up tomorrow a lot of new builds will be owning AB.

I'm happy about the Mystic Regen nerf tho - That skill was broken with abuse from Elementalists - Eles arent supposed to have that much regen - (My mate is gonna be QQ'ing tomorrow when I tell him - muahahahahaa)

No word on a new mini, and you'd think they'd say something. As for the no boxcamping:

1) All this does is waste my time as I try to post 480k+ runs; it eliminates the 476k-478k runs I would normally post. Anyone who boxcamps for more than a few seconds is bad at GW. Yes, this balances the game for people who just want the gamer points and dislike having someone who combo's at 1 minute fly past them. However, it does very little to alter who will appear on the 100 scoreboard. All this does is reduce the frequency of the best players' appearances in the top 100 a bit by removing their second-tier runs.

2) There's a way to post 476k+ times without boxcamping anyway. The path of play is radically different, but I've seen it done.

As for the skill balance - overall a decent update but the errors are amazingly flagrant:

1) Power Leak - ouch. I agree with the general comments about using a sledgehammer to swat a fly. Increasing the recharge and nerfing the energy loss somewhat would permit the skill to continue to change games; killing the energy loss makes it a pedestrian, high-cost interrupt. Suddenly Web of Disruption starts looking quite attractive - this wasn't the way to accomplish that.


2) LoD: At 1 sec. cast time it is no longer epic fail, but 10 recharge is simply too long for what it does. 8 recharge would be much, much better.


3) Heal Party: Has Izzy lost his mind? HP is balanced at 2 sec. cast time. It won't be at 1 sec. cast time unless either the healing or the recharge gets hammered into the ground. That is WAY too efficient for a non-elite. No one will take LoD when this and Glyph Lesser are available; if you can solve the party heal problem without burning your elite, you will. Also, this just encourages bad play: did HA channeltanking need this buff?


4) Glyph of Energy: Note to Izzy: I shouldn't be able to pop off a spell that causes exhaustion (or costs 25) every 7 with impunity. Among the horrors that this enables:
1) QZ Chain Lightning spikes.
2) Dragon Stomp and Quake every 8. Literally. 2x this + Resolve + Earthbind = shut off opposing backline...
3) Sustainable Hammer spikes without Attunes.
4) Chilblains spam. After all the buffs, spamming it at Monks would be sick. What pre-prots?
5) Nightmare spam.

Is this REALLY a good idea?


5) Troll Unguent: Why? Doesn't every Ranger in GvG take this already? Why not buff Mend Touch to 1/2 second cast while you're at it?


6) Avatar of Grenth: At least this is a step in the right direction. Doesn't quite make me want to take this over my alternatives, though. Don't get me wrong, I like never getting blocked...but there are better ways.


7) Song of Restoration: This didn't see enough play? *scratches head*


8) 1 CC sac skills, especially BiP: Wasn't PvE BiPping skilless enough? I can understand wanting to make these skills more viable in PvP and resurrect the battery Necro...but 1 CC BiPs on a Paragon is cheating.

I heard one of the stealth updates was that new PvP chars start in Isle of the nameless. +1 for less lag when zoning into an outpost with 100000 people when rerolling. Also moar QQ from people because of mesmer nerfs because of how "Anet only cares about GvG QQ."

I whole heartily agree with you. However, A-net believes what ever they do is for the best and the community suggestions come in at the end; when a feature has already been beaten to death.

Anyways going with Avatar of Grenth, I don’t know whether this is a good thing or not. In some ways it’s like doing Holy Damage to those who already have enchantments on them. I have to wait and see on this skill change before I say it was either good or bad.

Ooh... hadn't thought of that. The monsters' tactic attributes can always be adjusted if they decide to keep the change.

Avatar of grenth looks alright, but i doubt it will see much play.

Troll will never be good with 3 seconds cast, its stuck in the past.

Whats the hidden shadow refuge nerf about? Ive never seen that used O_o

Thank GOD for the nerf on Mystic Regen. That skill is probably the most abused next to Mobious Strike. No more E/D BS.

Power Leak........NOOOOOO!!! Well, time to throw my Aneurysm build in the trash I suppose.

No Not Mystic Regen!!! Q_q

Interesting update. While I'm glad they added another bonus to using those festival items, I do wish they'd fix the HoM's outstanding problems (or at least the horrible way titles and the like are displayed) before adding more displayable stuff to it.

Like the Mesmer skills that are buffed. I wasn't aware Ether Feast was a bad heal, although I really only started playing my Mesmer again a couple days ago. Can't say much about the nerfed ones. Doesn't matter to me, though I had thought Ineptitude was nerfed already.

Really like the Necromancer buffs. I'd thought Demonic Flesh, Blood Ritual, and many of those others were good enough as they were. This new 1 energy thing is going to make them even better. And the other buffs seem useful as well.

Like the Monk buffs. Glad they brought back some of LoD's old usefulness without making it overpowered. I'd thought Divine Healing/Heaven's Delight had already been buffed, but I guess they're even better now too.

Don't care much about the Elementalist balances, but they look alright.

Like the Warrior and Ranger self-healing buffs. I'd always felt it was a little weird to be using those skills so much, but they're even better now.

Ouch to the Dervish. Can't say I'm too displeased, though, these seem like they were done in the sake of good balance. Strange choice for Avatar of Grenth, but whatever. Too many people like Grenth anyway. Give the other gods a chance.

Paragon and Ritualist look alright. Seems like good balancing here too.

Bug fixes are always nice, even though I liked the "Devona in Pockmark Flats" one. And not to complain, but what's up with fixing a minor issue in The Dragon's Lair, of all places, after this many years? Better late than never, I suppose.

The thing about new PvP characters starting in the Isle of the Nameless bothers me, since I get the feeling that they had already done that before. If it's to stop bots or something, first of all, I don't see how, and second of all, why would they change the spawn again? A little indecisive.

Overall, pretty neat, despite some strange decisions and a disturbing lack of UB nerfing. I've always been a fan of buffs that make old and/or useless skills worth something again.

I like it all except Mystic Regeneration.

Okay, I have a PvE mesmer like many of those complaining here...but I'm actually intrigued by the supposed "nerf" to clumsiness. Sure, now you can't really spam it as much as before (but really, 7s recharge to 10s recharge? Not that big of deal IMO), and yeah it takes a bit longer to cast (gogo fast cast), but what I see in the skill change is following:

Now affects adjacent foes.
Which means mesmers now have an AoE attack interrupt and 90ish AoE *armor ignoring* damage skill. x2 (sort of) with Wandering Eye. Is this not what PvE mesmers have been yearning for for...a long time?

I don't know...call me crazy but I think the change to Clumsiness is a buff for PvE while being a nerf for PvP. I'll use it for sure now. And really, like others have said, the lower duration of the Ineptitude hex is not that big of a deal for PvE, but is definitely a PvP nerf.

On the other hand...the hit to Power Leak makes the baby Jesus cry.

Have to "lol" at all the Necro skill buffs.
A lot of Blood skills are now 1 energy.

Damn Necros.

Why won't the just move Mystic Regen into Mysticism.. only thing they need to do and it would solve everything.

Would still also like to see a brutal death to sway, all that's ever played nowadays.

Surely I'm not the only one that thinks gaining the "life of the party" title by clicking on virtual fireworks in an MMO is incredibly tragic?

It's already been said... but QQ at Mystic Regen. Might this ruin 130 Dervishes (not that they're great anyway /sob)

And... firework title kthx?

woot troll buff ftw

and wow after all this time they rebuff AoG kinda late ther anet

This exact titles was suggested multiple times on these forums. At least a.net listened to us and give these items a "use."

Some of these changes have come out of left field...


Power Leak was very powerful and did, IMO, need to be toned down, but this might be overkill. Still, there's a week or so to evaluate the changes.

The necro skills -> 1 energy. Unexpected.... I wouldn't be surprised if Izzy wanted to change them to 0 energy, but the game engine wouldn't allow it. Just speculating there, mind you.

In a way it's not too surprising, I guess. Rangers have been better at using touch-range necro skills for a while because of expertise. That's always struck me as weird. Perhaps necros can now be the ones who can best use these skills? Maybe that's too much to hope for though. This might mean there'll be a new flavour of toucher - the N/A toucher? Kiting a toucher will be more awkward if they can just shadowstep in....

I like the change to hexbreaker on the whole. The only downside is that "in stance" modifiers won't be applied by it anymore.

Mystic regen...good.

Avatar of Grenth. I'm very interested to see where this leads. Weapon of Warding has suddenly become even more appealing IMO.

Can see why clumsiness was changed - seems like a mild nerf for PvP and a buff for PvE. Can't help but feel that this is too similar to Wandering Eye now. (Yeah, I know they have different effects - I just wish they were more different).

Divine Healing/Heaven's Delight - that's quite a buff. They're almost as good as LoD for PvE H/H now.

Glyph of energy - so it's official then.....Gale mesmers are to become the FoTM (or perhaps earthquake ones) I guess.

As for things that aren't there - I'm surprised to see no change to UB. I'd also have liked to have seen some changes to the Asuran skills (namely, toning down Pain Inverter and buffing several of the others).

I am particularly happy about the Ele buffs. But i'm severely disappointed at the Mysten Regen nerf. I mean, comon Anet. How could you???

Mystic regen nerf makes 55ing harder.

I was in Gates of Kryta with my 55 and I died. I was so confused, checked my armor, checked my weapon, couldn't figure out what I'd done wrong...came here, aahhh. Now I know.

Sigh.

No, cellardweller, you most certainly aren't.

Hmmm I knew my mesmer build in Alliance Battles was too good to last

Oh no youre limited to 9-12 regen what ever will you do?
all that regen was way too much so this is a good thing.

It's a stupid title; ignore it if you don't want it. Just sell your sparklers and stuff to other people and make a load of money.

Power Leak.... *sigh*... this was overpowered tbh, I mean, look at Power Flux and Power Leak. Power Flux was elite, yet it was **** compared to Power Leak. Now... I suppose PF might get some use. But still... a maximum of 5 energy lost is a bit too heavy, maybe around 8-10 would have been more of a balance yet still allowing the skill to see play.

well I guess I'll have to say goodbye to
[skill]Mantra of Recovery[/skill][skill]Clumsiness[/skill][skill]Power Return[/skill][skill]Frustration[/skill][skill]Auspicious Incantation[/skill][skill]Ethereal Burden[/skill][skill]Kitah's Burden[/skill]
then... it was fun pwning everyone in AB/RA without breaking a sweat. First they screw over MoR, then Conjure Nightmare, and now Clumsiness... WTF

2 seconds on Clumsiness (and with Fast Casting it's still over 1 second) is way too easy to interrupt and it's nearly impossible to stick it on an Assassin or Warrior in the middle of his combo now.

I don't know why they didn't do that from day 1...

Also, they really should have lowered the cast time on [skill]Healing Signet[/skill] and [skill]Troll Unguent[/skill] instead of what they did...

Mystic Regen is just fine with even 2 enchantments up as I just tried it.There was one last thing I forgot to mention in my last post and that is HealSig and LionsComfort didn't need a more just the casting time reduced.

super buffs!

New necro farming builds coming into play.

So happy about the Lions Comfort. That'll help LOTS to keep up with Monk demands... Finally a mesmer healing skill thats worthy... 1nrgy for the following nec skills? Wow...explanation?

It's a poor attempt to make blood magic viable outside of gimmicks.

I'm really just being greedy. I don't really enjoy thinking about all the little pvp centric balence tweaks.

/dons flame resistent suit.