Game Update Thursday April 17, 2008

Update - Thursday, April 17, 2008

Game Update Notes - 17 April 2008

This month's update is unique. It is a "temporary tournament update" targeted at the final cash-prize tournament, which will take place at the end of April. The skill changes are temporary and will be in effect for only two weeks. They are all geared toward addressing the most immediate issues with Guild Battles.

In order to reduce the possible negative impact on PvE play, we will be reverting the changes on May 1st. For future tournaments, we aim to focus on changes that will not impact PvE play at all.

Guild vs. Guild

* Warrior's Isle: Adjusted the location of NPCs in red base.
* Druid's Isle: Removed two archers from both bases.
* Burning Isle: Removed two archers from both bases.
* Updated Automated Tournament map rotations.

Some map changes accompany this week's balance update, mostly NPC locations. We removed the additional NPCs in Burning Isle and Druid's Isle that somewhat limited skirmish and split potential. On Warrior's Isle, the away team's NPCs were much more susceptible to trebuchet fire than the home team's, so we've moved them to balance the bases. Finally, Nomad's Isle has been a sub-par map for a monthly tournament, while Isle of Weeping Stone has repeatedly proven its quality in a competitive environment. We've replaced Nomad's with Weeping Stone for the tournament.

Assassin

* Assassin's Remedy: increased Energy cost to 10.

Blind is a staple prevention method against Shadow Stepping spikes, but Assassin's Remedy passively bypasses that counter. The condition is removed before the attack even hits, which nullifies well-timed Blindness in a self-sufficient, "fire-and-forget" manner. The higher Energy cost will add a little Energy pressure, especially to Dervish/Assassin combinations, and limit the frequency of their spikes.

Mesmer

* Hex Breaker: changed skill type back to stance.
* Fragility: decreased Energy cost to 5.
* Fevered Dreams: decreased recharge to 8 seconds.
* Chaos Storm: decreased Energy cost to 5.
* Energy Surge: increased Energy drained to 1..10; decreased damage per Energy to 9.
* Energy Burn: increased Energy drained to 1..10; decreased damage per Energy to 9.

To support additional Energy attrition (and allow teams to break down overwhelming defenses), Energy Surge and Energy Burn both get increases to the amount of Energy they drain, and Chaos Storm gets a significant cost decrease. We've also improved condition spreading, especially from Necromancers, so we wanted to support out-of-profession skills that combo particularly well with conditions. Fevered Dreams' recharge comes down and Fragility's cost is reduced to make these hexes more easily spreadable. Finally, Hex Breaker and Mantra of Concentration were too powerful when used together, so we've changed Hex Breaker back to a stance.

Necromancer:

* Dark Pact: increased damage to 10..70.

Dark Pact's damage was not worth its cost. We've raised that damage by more than 20 at the high end, hopefully making this skill a viable way to inflict damage at a Health cost.

Elementalist:

* Blinding Surge: decreased recharge to 3 seconds; decreased Blindness duration to 1..5 seconds.
* Ward Against Melee: decreased duration to 1..18 seconds; no longer protects Guild Battle NPCs.
* Lightning Orb: this skill no longer applies Cracked Armor.
* Glyph of Concentration: decreased number of spells affected to 1.
* Shockwave: increased casting time to 1 second.
* Ward Against Harm: no longer protects Guild Battle NPCs.
* Ward Against Elements: no longer protects Guild Battle NPCs.

Wards, when used during Victory or Death, gave teams too much irremovable defense for their NPCs. The positional play of these skills also matters much less in the final standoff at the flag stand (because everything clumps together), so we've disabled their effect on Guild Battle NPCs. Lightning Orb's Cracked Armor component made it too easy to compress skill bars, which made other options like Shell Shock obsolete. In response, we removed the Cracked Armor component of Lightning Orb. Teleporting Elementalists using Shockwave could quickly annihilate targets on a spike in an undetectable way, which made them very difficult to deal with. We've increased the casting time here to prevent that particular combination. Finally, Glyph of Concentration enabled caster spikes too efficiently, so it now prevents interruption on just a single spell.

Monk:

* Aegis: increased Energy cost to 15.

Aegis, despite all of its drawbacks, continues to be a very powerful defensive skill that helps draw games out to Victory or Death. We've added additional Energy pressure here, aiming to bring it more in balance.

Warrior:

* Disarm: decreased time that attack skills are disabled to 0..3 seconds; increased recharge to 20.

Disarm's ability to lock out adrenaline, essentially preventing a character from doing much of anything, was both overpowered and frustrating. We've limited how frequently this skill can be used. When properly timed, it can still be effective without completely removing an opponent from the game.

Ritualist:

* Flesh of My Flesh: increased recharge to 10 seconds.
* Death Pact Signet: increased activation time to 4 seconds.
* Ancestors' Rage: increased casting time to 1 second.
* Splinter Weapon: increased recharge to 8 seconds.
* Recuperation: no longer affects Guild Battle NPCs.
* Life: no longer affects Guild Battle NPCs.
* Pure Was Li Ming: no longer affects Guild Battle NPCs.
* Displacement: no longer protects Guild Battle NPCs.
* Shelter: no longer protects Guild Battle NPCs.

Flesh of my Flesh and Death Pact Signet's downsides were not harsh enough for their effect. These fast-casting, fast-recharging resurrections could be seamlessly integrated into a defensive build, with the Health sacrifice and possibility of caster death easily mitigated, making these skills too powerful. The additional recharge limits how fast a team can recover from multiple deaths. Ancestors' Rage and Splinter Weapon have trivialized pre-VoD NPC advantage by making it easy to slaughter NPCs at the stand during VoD. To limit their impact, we've increased the casting time of Ancestors' Rage and increased the recharge of Splinter Weapon. Defensive Spirits and bundle items, like Elementalist wards, were too effective at providing irremovable defense for NPCs at VoD, so they no longer protect NPCs in Guild Battles.

Dervish:

* Mystic Sweep: increased activation time to 1 second.
* Eremite's Attack: increased activation time to 1 second.

The most deadly Dervish spikes revolve around fast-activation attack skills combined with Assassin teleportation skills. We've normalized the activations on Mystic Sweep and Eremite's Attack to decrease overall scythe spike potential.

Paragon:

* Song of Restoration: increased recharge to 30 seconds.
* Ballad of Restoration: increased recharge to 30 seconds.
* Harrier's Toss: increased activation time to 1 second.

Song of Restoration and Ballad of Restoration continue to provide too much healing overall, especially coming from a high-armor profession. Harrier's Toss allowed Paragons to participate in the spike (thus allowing them to fit more defense on their skill bar) as well as maximize Splinter Weapon's already-powerful effect, so we've reduced the activation speed to limit these issues.

Bug Fixes

* Fixed a bug that caused Ritualist Spirits to stop attacking if their caster has moved outside of compass range.
* Fixed lighting issues with the Demonic Aegis, Draconic Aegis, Draconic Scythe, Dryad Bow, and the Eaglecrest Axe.
* Fixed a bug that caused the Paragon skill "Never Surrender!" "Never Surrender!" to affect non-party allies.
* Fixed a bug that caused the Monk skill Healer's Boon Healer's Boon to improperly affect skills on occasion.

Miscellaneous

* Implemented UI for trial accounts which displays the time remaining on the trial.

Guild Wars Wiki notes

* Changed icon for the Guild Wars In-Game Store.
* The developers stated that the skill changes will be reverted on May 1st.

Aegis back to 15 energy.

You made me click on this thread for nothing. >.>

ermites and mystic cast times are 1 second now....gg ****way rangers -_-

This update mad me frenzy echo mending arcane echo heal sig >:-0
OMG B-SURGE NOEZZZZ!!!
now I'm rlly in a [Frenzy]

Disarm was nerfed to 20 seconds recharge
Shockwave is 1 sec cast now

Allow me to add:

8 sec rec on Splinter, 5 energy Chaos Storm <- lol

- Blinding Surge - nerfed duration to 4s at 12 attribute; reduced recharge to 3s

- Aegis - 15e now

- Song of Restoration + Ballad of Restoration; recharge increased to 30s, SoR Energy increased to 10e

- Lightning Orb - no longer causes cracked armor

- Energy Burn/Energy Surge - now 9 e-denial 14 spec, reduced damage per energy from 12 to 9

- Death Pact Signet - 4s cast time

- Flesh of My Flesh - 10s recharge added

- Eremite's Attack - 1s cast time

- Disarm - 20s recharge

- Shockwave - 1s cast time

- Splinter Weapon - 8s recharge

- Ancestor's Rage - 1s cast time

removed cracked armor on lightning orb

Energy Surge - Energy Burn
before were 8e lost 12 damage @14spec
no changes same 8e at 15 & 16 spec
now
9e lost 9 damage @14spec
10e lost 9damege @15spec
11e lost 9 damage @16spec

Lightning orb..reverted not cracked armor anymore.
B-surge 3 sec recharge ...and i think blind duration was cut

Aparently Flesh of my Flesh has been hit. Possibly MBaS, although i cant see where.

Are there actually any buffs? :/ Besides chaos storm

I loled because it's still a bad skil.

MEH my precious assassins remedy, but hell, it was deserved. Nice move to nerf bsurge at the same time. Did anyone know if FF and plague sending got hit? And sig of nidnight?

Ugh Anet Get The Notes Out.... Also L2 Buff.

Chaos Storm yeye
I'M SO GONNA PLAY SPELL SLASHER IN RA ON DOUBLE WEEKENDS!!1

Wow I'm glad I killed off my Paragon months ago. They are utter crap now it seems.

Pfft, ward against melee nerfed even more ...

Was "• Displacement: no longer affects Guild Battle NPCs." on the source you copied it from twice?

w00t for Sway Nerf.
I think AR should be 3/4 cast time
I don't get the para nerfs but it must have to do with GvG
4 sec on DPS is a little overkill.

GG for Sway nerf...

lrn2 offense

I'm glad to see some of these nerfs but what I've really been wanting to see are buffs to skills.

yeah lightining orb (was a pain soloing them gargoyles with it).

flesh of my flesh wtf?????

*sigh*

Not going to whine...trying to look at this objectively....trying...but this non separation from PvE vs PvP is really beginning to sting.

I tried. Now I'm resorting to beating the hell out my friend for fun. It's not going to change the skill, but damn do I feel better.

Imbagon says hi.

Seriously it wasnt that bad, but reducing the time that the ward is in effect makes the skill completely useless now, which will force using ward vs foes, which will make melee pressure + snare very effective together with the aegis nerf...

PVE Perspective>>

Yay at Fevered Dreams - much more usable now
Boo at ermites/mystic - a real ias is mandatory for pve devishes now
SoR/BoR - that'll hurt some of my one of my hero templates, but its easily replacable.

Raptor runs will take 5-6 seconds longer now thanks to ancestors change but I think I'll still throw it in the "meh" category with the rest of them. I do like that they excluded guildbattle npc's rather than changing it to "Party members" like they have in the past.

ffs I cant get over it, Aegis + ward vs melee nerfed, monks are so dead in gvg now...


edit, everything is dead...

Thanks Izzy, thanks a lot. Kill good Paragon skills a little more please.

This is Nerf Wars!
Shockwave nerfed because of shadowstepping, sad, sad... It was a bad skill by itself, only good when you had the surprise element of teleporting to your target.
EDIT:Ward foes may see more play, then QQers will wake up and nerf it to 33% or something. We're getting nowhere.
Note that Ancestor's rage finally get the casting time it deserves

There you see, good thinking on how to use other skills

Let me get this right, Splinter weapon is now terrible on a non prime rit, and not even that good on them - Ursan anyone?

and flesh of my flesh is now the worlds most usless res

can see where your going, better choice = nuking shadowsteps instead.

Yeah, Anet continues to beat around the bush, nerfing everything used in conjunction with the single most broken game mechanic, but refuses to do something about said single most broken game mechanic.

Holy wow o.O

Nerfs nerfs for everyone...


'Cept for Necros, which Izzy <3's

I don't see why all the paragon people are QQing. You guys first got tactics completely nerfed and because you are overabusing certain skill sets, you builds got nerfed.

Here's a little tip: if you all don't want a skill nerfed, don't over use it. I'm guessing that if something that is a little overpowered isn't abused, Izzy is more likely to leave it alone.

SoD Ftw I guess, but then again, rigor mortis...

leave....my.....dervish....alone

QQ, Anet ruined rits for PvE.

Don't they understand I need all of those spirits to own in PvE?!!!???!!

QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ

/ragequit

Most of the rit stuff was the effect they had on the GvG npcs.