Buff Agony

This is a petition for a buff to the skill Agony.

I like the idea of this skill, but in its current form it is just too anemic to be of much use considering its cost, cast time, and recharge.

Here are some possibilities for making Agony a useful and balanced skill.

1. Decrease cost, cast time, and/or recharge
2. Increase spirit level (similar to Rejuvination)
3. Have spirit health loss decrease as damage done increases as rank in Channeling Magic is increased

I am against any more change in the skill of the game. That is a playtesting part. Once in the game it is too late for playtesting.

This is my first, but not last, of militant NO SKILL CHANGE post.

Nice thought, but welcome to Guild Wars. Pretty bad when I had to replace a tactics skill with a restoration magic one after last week (or was it two weeks ago) when the entire line of tactics skills were nerfed.

On topic, I don't know a thing about <EDIT>Agony (nice catch RPGmaniac)</EDIT> so I won't argue in either direction.

Can you imagine what would happen if the bug in the skill Signet of Ghostly Might was still in existence and was never changed? There'd be no game.

You fail to realize that we are the testers. The only real way to see how well a skill will be used is to introduce it to everybody. Plus, this game would get stale very, very fast with no skill changes. Heck, some people say it already is.

And Maximus, it's Agony. Anguish is a NF spirit that does double damage to a hexed target. Agony does damage similar to the way Spirit Light Weapon heals. The more enemies it affects though, the faster it dies. It's an Eye of the North spirit.

The problem is, if you buff Agony too much it becomes too powerful. Other then killing the spirit, there is no way to migate the damage at all.

I agree - I wasn't trying to make Agony overpowered. My goal was to suggest ways to make it useful but balanced at the same time. I like the idea of the Agony skill, but think it is simply too weak to be useful in all but the most niche situations. Even leaving all other aspects of the skill alone but reducing the recharge would even help make it one I might take along in certain PvE areas at least.

Increasing the level and reducing the amount of damage the spirit takes by half would be fine. Keep the damage the same as it is hardly a problem. I think it causes the same amount of health loss as mending causes health gain. Also buff rejuvenation to only take half damage too.

I seriously don't want to buff spiritspam in any way, shape, or form. Ritualists sitting still, statically crapping out spirits, simply doesn't make for fun play, in PvE or PvP.

/unsigned.

Although to be fair, what is "fun" is seriously subjective. You may not like spirits, but many others do. I used to hate spirit spam too until I tried playing a Ritualist in PvE for awhile. I found it to be fun. Whether it's fun or not, it's part of the game and should be balanced along with all other skills and professions.

I guess I don't want this thread to be about whether people "like" the Agony skill or not. It's about whether you feel it is currently a usable and balanced skill or not. Even if you don't like the skill or Ritualists in general, if you objectively feel Agony is currently too weak to be a viable skill, please sign the petition.

i /sign this

I might use this skill a bit more if i didnt have to waste a skill slot on [skill]Signet of Binding[/skill] or [skill]Signet of Creation[/skill]

I suggest the range be increased to normal spirit range. That would be a a great buff.

>_>

The problem is that it dies too fast!
Even at TA it doesnt last long enough for you to say "ok, this actually did some damage".

I liked the idea of Agony and Rejuvenation, but none of them seem to be very effective at either pvp or pve

What could be done is increase the 'spread damage' time while not increasing the spike potential.

That is done by making the spirit take less damage the more people it damages, without increasing the damage each person receives. If there is too many people the spirit dies too soon without making almost a scratch. This is noted specially in 12vs12 maps or where there are minions.

Possible examples of things that would be nice to try would be:
- Limit the number of foes it can affect, with a preference: Players&NPCs, Animal companions, Minions, rest. Always from nearest to farthest.
- Make it heal itself 1HP for each enemy hit that is making a certain action (like attacking or activating signets)
- If damage is dealt to a minion, it takes 50% backfire damage. (5 instead of 10, for example)
- If damage is dealt to an animal companion, it takes 75% (7 instead of 10, for example)
- When it dies, foes adjacent to the spirit take 0..4..5 damage for each time the spirit damaged a foe while it was alive (Half the spirit's maximum HP).
- Make the spirit have +1 regen for every 4 enemies in its range.

And I like this one quite a lot:
- Make it not take backfire damage when the damage is dealt to a foe under a ritualist hex. There are only 3, 12, 30 and 12 recharge and one of them ends if foe takes damage. And since the damage is not dealt by spirit attack, but by a spirit 'effect', that makes almost one usable hex for this.

Bringing that up, I'd change it to say something like this:

Create a level 1...7 Spirit. This Spirit causes 3...9 Health loss each second to foes within earshot. This Spirit loses 3...9 Health if it damages a foe and 6...18 Health if it damages more than one foe. This Spirit dies after 30...78 seconds.

Also, since we're on the topic of Agony, is there reason to also buff [wiki]Rejuvenation[/wiki]? Just looking at it first glance, I see it can already potentially have a higher level than Agony.