PvE skill reversion, what do you want to see?

I couldnt agree with you more. I woould also like to see the beast master nerfs undone. Oh and add back in the orignal form of Searing Flames while you are at it.

When it comes to necro related comments on this thread, these are my 2 cents worth(ok, maybe it's more than 2 cents, i have alot to say):

As an avid necro player, I was very upset and vocal on these forums last spring when SR was nerfed. For those who think it was nerfed due to it being overpowered in PVE, it was due to the SR-factory spirit-spamming N/Rt builds in HA and later in GvG and the resultant waves of protest that brought about the nerf, being "overpowered" in PVE was a lesser issue. We never saw eles QQing that pugs were rejecting them over necros, did we? At the time I thought it was such an atrocity that a game mechanic that had been around for over 2 years had been changed so drastically. In retrospect, I have to admit that it was overpowered. Before the nerf I was convincing tombs groups to allow me to monk for them on my necro using HB, HP, heal other, jamei's gaze, etc. Here I was with a monk primary attribute elite skill that should have been useless to me, but HB lasted for 10 casts of healing prayers spells with zero in divine favor. All I did was stay back just out of agro, spamming HP for heals worth 104 points and hitting the odd low party member with a heal other/jamei's gaze worth around 226 if I remember correctly. Back then Heal Party with 16 in healing prayers was worth 84 points, so as a necro with eternal energy I could out-monk any monk when it came to tombs,since there was always so much stuff dying. On one of my first runs doing this I had a run with no party members dying on me. Although this is an unusual way to play necro, it illustrates how overpowered SR was at the time. That build was killed by the SR nerf and rightly so.

Today we have a very powerful EoTN energy management skill in "Air of Superiority". For those not familiar with this skill, every time you receive XP from a foe dying(even if it's zero XP), you receive one of 5 random benefits - lose all conditions, gain health, gain 5 energy, double XP from kill, recharge your skillbar. So if you have an energy management skill such as GOLE and your skillbar gets recharged, that is huge. Shots of 5 energy every 5 kills is pretty nice too. I used to run Assassin's Promise to receive these two benefits, now I get it from AoS and save my elite skill, although the triggers are random. This kinda makes me wonder why all the HB/HP monks aren't using this skill, GOLE would be recharged often with it. I often run FoW clears using a tombs style BP ranger team build and no matter how hard I spam my curses bar (barbs, mark of pain, SS, Reckless, etc.) I do not run out of energy.

The point that I'm making with this long-winded post is, what we have lost through nerfs has been more than made up for with what we have now in PvE only skills (Ursan, cough cough....) and also consumables. While there may be some skills that we personally want reverted (for me it's weaken armor, i loved the old hex stacked with barbs!), some of this stuff should stay right where it is. Anet has obviously done certain things over the past several months in order to hold its customer base to the game until gw2, but lets hope things don't get out of hand since this game is easy enough as it is.

You can't see why getting energy randomly makes the build non-intuitive? Please engage brain.

Stop with the STUPID arguments please. By that reasoning, we should have timers on EVERY primary attribute.

Expertise - Timer
Divine Favor - Timer
Leadership - Timer
Crit Strikes - Timer

Hell, lets put a timer on Adrenaline too!

Because when you're doing well, the game should invent things to make it harder. Let's go a step farther, lets have a "character-timer", where your character dies after a certain random amount of time.

SR was made to power MM builds. It does that very well. Its a PvE attribute in a PvP game. So, on that matter, it was probably a mistake to include SR in a game like GW. The mechanic itself is fine, it's just out of place in GW.

If you aren't running out of energy, then you aren't trying very hard. Energy on every corpse is what SR is about. You're being ridiculous again.


Sigh. It does NOT ensure that. Where are you inventing this stuff? The minion cap HUGELY destabilizes SR returns. It causes SR triggers that do not generate corpses, often it causes multiple triggers at once (which not only overflow, but it ALSO burns your SR until the timer resets)

How is it a 'problem'? I suspect your answer is just a subjective thing - "I hate it, so it must be bad."

The vast majority of mainly PvE players, if they ever dipped into PvP beyond the bare minimum the game forces on you (ie, the transition between Pre- and Post-Searing), would think "Hmm. This skill I use in story mode doesn't last the same amount of time in the arena areas. Oh well.", replacing "doesn't last the same amount of time" with "has a different cost", "doesn't do the same amount of damage/healing", etc., as appropriate. Then they'll continue using the skill or, gods forbid, take a look at their other skills to see if there's something else that might work if their preferred skill is inadequate, just as they do now when they find that the PvE skills can't be used. And, in the case of reversions to more powerful forms, for those who don't bother with PvP much, I figure the most common reaction will be "Yay, they buffed a bunch of skills!", assuming they weren't around for the original nerfings for the sake of PvP balance and thus will be "Yay, they reverted a bunch of skills!", or some similar phrasing using a simile for 'revert'.

As for the mainly PvP players, other than those who'd be jealous when they suffer a nerf to their favorite skill(s) for the sake of balance and start whining about it (which, frankly, seems to be the favorite pastime here), I'm fairly sure most of them will either shrug and get on with their playing, since the split won't affect them in the least, or perhaps even have fun in PvE with the change in balance.

Then explain it for my tiny brain. Explain how getting energy randomly on a timer is less intuitive than getting energy randomly without the timer. I have stated time and time again that I think SR is a broken mechanic because of its random energy management. The timer doesn't change that at all.

Because the timer is clunky, and the SR mechanic is broken, I completely agree with an entire re-vamp. I do NOT agree to simply removing the timer and claim that will make everything better. It simply won't. That is what I am addressing. Until then, the timer works fine.

Totally agree, and that really is the heart of the issue. It simply was not designed well within the mechanics of Guild Wars.

How am I being ridiculous? "Energy on every corpse is what SR is about," yet we both agree SR is broken. Therefore, "energy on every corpse" is broken. How is that unreasonable?

The old timer (once in 5 seconds) definitely did that. The newer (and current) one almost entirely solved that issue except for the ridiculous overhead of energy that came without the timer. Besides, 15 seconds with a full energy bar is plenty of time to use it up, ready for another flow of energy.

I honestly don't see either a problem, I just think these minor annoyances are just less of a problem than that. Of course they're both subjective. If they weren't, we wouldn't be able to argue as the facts would prove themselves.

protective bond

damnit i just got my feet wet, must be all the QQing necros making a lake

this thread is PVE **SKILLs** not pve mechanics.2 pages of utter tripe about soul reaping doesnt belong here imo

It wasn't random pre-timer. You could actually manage the SR returns. You know when you are about to cast, you know when a minion is about to die, you know when you are animating against the minion cap.

You could predict SR returns, and that would allow you to decide what to do next. Before the SR timer, I routinely had skill decisions planned 5-8 skills deep. Yes. I knew what the next 8 skills were going to be, presicely, and what energy I was going to get back at step 3 (for example) that would feed into step 4...

The timer reduces this to probably knowing what the next skill will be.

Neither me nor Chthon are advocating removing the timer alone.

• Remove SR Timer
• Remove SR triggers from minions entirely
• Reduce costs of Animation skills

the first thing that came to mind is bring back the old spirit bond without the limit of 10 attacks

My first though was [Anguish].
Now it may be useful without having to combo it with other skills.

its not going to happen, ever. Soul reaping is still stupidly op, no need for a revert.

Oh god.

If they were going to nerf ursan, why would they wait for this? You dont need PvE/PvP separation to nerf a PVE ONLY skill.

Just which part of
"You gain X energy everytime something dies, but not more than 3 times in 15 sec, but we count the 15 sec in a funny way, so it's really not more than 3 times in the 15 sec counting from every third trigger, and not any 15 sec, and in fact you can get 5 triggers in the same 15 sec period so long as the first of those five comes one after a multiple of three, and triggers that happen when your energy is full don't count, and you never get energy from spirits"
is intuitive to you?

At first I thought you were just trolling with a stupid truism, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Are you maybe thinking that the SR returns "level off" as your killing speed increases? Well, they don't. They fluctuate in a jagged fractal pattern that looks like a staircase collapsed 45 degrees. You can actually end up with SIGNIFICANTLY less energy for killing the monsters at a given pace than you get for killing at a slightly slower pace. Your energy returns don't "level off" -- they actually GO DOWN if you kill things faster.

Now, this is just... well plain wrong. More energy isn't a huge problem for most people. I don't think most people think, "Oh, I have all this extra energy -- DEAR GAWD whatever will I do?!?!?!" There's a potential for creating a class that's so superior that other classes have trouble getting parties because of it (like Ursan), but that's unlikely. After all, it never happened before in the 2 years of SR having no timer. So there's no real reason to worry about it happening if the timer is removed again.


I think Carinae addressed most of your other points better than I could.


Thank you. This is a perfect example of what I've been trying to say about the timer's randomness ruining any possibility of "managing" your energy.

I'd like to say that I would gladly accept the mere removal of the timer. It's not my first choice, but I vastly prefer it to the status quo. My hierarchy of preferences is:
1. Remove Timer + Remove SR from minions + Dramatically reduce minion costs
2. Just remove timer.
3. Status quo (leave timer).
I understand that the devs tend to be pretty lazy when it comes to balance updates, so I would be happy enough with the mere removal of the timer.

FoC, give it either a 5 en cost or leave it at 15en but give it a recharge of like 6 seconds. would love a new curses elite to use.

also minion limit up to 15 would be nice (but i doubt it)

how about agonizing chop?

Not sure if you caught my response to Carinae, but the timer doesn't change the erratic energy return SR gives by nature of the mechanic. SR is not intuitive, period, and it never was.

Soul Reaping gives a "reward" of energy whenever something dies. The timer gives less of a "reward" as you kill things quicker. The timer is not "punishing" you for killing things quicker, it is giving you less of a reward. I'm not sure how much clearer I can explain that.

But that is exactly the problem right there. The very fact that Necros are superior damage/support in just about every area of the game even with this supposed 'handicap' is proof enough that if you remove the 'handicap,' you're going to be left with a literal infinite energy machine.

You are absolutely right - everyone who qqs about ursan and every other skill thats needs to be nerfed can be summed up nicely in that one liner you used.

Inde, please put this single line on the main page of the forums...perfect, just perfect.

Okay... you guys need to stop talking...

1) They said that they were going to separate SKILLS not ATTRIBUTES so stop talking about soul reaping - its still lame but it works fine.

2) Again, minion masters were nerfed because they were imbalanced in PvE, so they're not gonna rebuff them and also because of #1. Ya it was nice having 50 minions follow you around while throwing on mark of pain on mobs, but change is good and I've accepted the new minion master system now.

3) They aren't gonna buff all skills that suck in PvE because chances are most of them suck in PvP as well.

4) Anet won't make all your skills extremely powerful just because it will be a PvE only version.

5) Other skills were nerfed because they were overpowered in PvE, so they won't come back.

actually, do your research kid. mms were killed because of HA Minion Factories and Self-saccers before the match started. not because ZOMG LUK GUIZ 50+ MINUNS LOLOLOLOLOL

Um lol, minion factories failed and they weren't really a problem in HA. Most people sucked at them anyway. Sure that could have had a small factor, but at that time minion masters were demanded in like every group and they kinda wanted to change that up a bit. And its minion master, not mm which sounds like a piece of candy lol.

I would like to see Ursan reverted to back when it was even stronger. /endsarcasm.

EoE sounds like a fun reversion lol.

I think skills that need to be reverted are ones that made certain pve monsters pretty much unable to do anything. A good example of this was the energizing wind nerf and the effect it had on oakhearts.

Other than those skills I don't really think much needs to be reverted. Some skills that were nerfed have not lost all usefulness in PvE and thus really don't need to be reverted. A good example of this would be splinter weapon. Its a favorite combination of mine, obviously as a ranger. Now I would love it if I was able to do massive splinter bombs like before but tbh the skill hasn't lost all usefulness as a result of the nerf. Its still powerful and it does its job.

However, some skills have been beaten so badly that they're completely useless in PvE. THese are skills I think definately need to be buffed. I mean whats the point of having them if they are so poor that it would be almost disadvantageous to use them since u take away a skill slot that could have been used more effectively. Watch Yourself definately comes to mind for this category also to a lesser extent, LoD

Sure it does. If a mob has X monsters and I have rank Y Soul Reaping, I know for sure that I'm going to get X*Y energy out of that mob. Perfectly predictable. As opposed to the random crap with the timer now -- am I going to get X*Y? 3*Y? 0?

You need to engage your brain here. The way the timer is implemented, killing faster means you get LESS energy gain than killing slower, not the same.
At 10 SR:
7 sec per kill --> ~1.43e/sec
6 sec per kill --> ~1.67e/sec
5 sec per kill --> ~2e/sec
4 sec per kill --> ~1.9e/sec (!!)
That's right, your energy gain decreases if you get your team playing better so they're making those kills a second faster. You would be better off actually playing worse so that you got more energy. Making you worse off than the status quo when you do X, is the very definition of "punishing" you for doing X.

Did you EVER see a group kick an elementalist to make room for a necro? How about a ritualist? A monk? A warrior? If they're so superior, why have we never seen class discrimination in favor of necros?


Actually, they were nerfed immediately after the Factions preview because of the whining that they would be too strong in AB.

I hope they buff a bunch of skills used by "hard" monsters, so people will complain that xx monsters are too hard because ANet buffed skills for PvE.

Yeah! Increase Fireball's max damage to 200 and make the radius 10 feet. Deep Freeze should do 150 damage and shouldn't be able to be removed and should cause immense lag for 3 seconds and slow for 15 seconds. Oh and Spirit Rift should be upped to 350 damage with cracked armor, weakness, blind, deep wound, bleeding and disease for 120 seconds! Woohoo.

There are plenty of viable builds in PvE, the problem is that the vast majority of them are outclassed by Ursan and SY. The issue here is not that everything is underpowered, it's that those two skills are overpowered. There are two ways of resolving this: buff everything up to the level of Ursan and SY, or nerf those two back to the level of every other skill in the game.

The changes you proposed seem to fall in the former camp, but they don't address this fully. Even if they were implemented, Ursan and SY will still dominate PvE. Maybe MMs with a horde of 30 minions will give them a run for their money, but that's about it.

A better proposal would be to nerf Ursan and SY, allowing old builds to see play once again and start tweaking things from there.

PvE has design issues that prevent class balance from ever happening. Mesmers are terrible because PvE doesn't favour precise, single-target shutdown. Assassins are terrible because they are low-armored frontliners who are slow at switching targets (limiting attack chains to short recharge skills). I can't see a way of fixing this unless PvE is completely redesigned, or class distinctions are eliminated and everybody turns into a bear (and even then, some classes are still better than others).

I don't mind buffs. However, I don't like buffs to things that are already powerful, or random, pointless buffs to skills with no clear goal.

I am with Sab all the way (and with the few that are not a big fan of the skill changes split between PvE and PvP).
However it might have something good in Dev's actually putting thought into balancing PvE ... and that would start with Ursan, SY and Consumables (which I see as the biggest problem).

As much as I agree with your post, I had to say that there are a couple points I want to make.

Firstly, Ursan and SY are so commonplace now in PvE, I'm not sure there could be a change that would cause people to change builds. Simply because the skills are so easy to use. SY would only benefit from a change such as the AL reduced to around 40-60, as opposed to 100 (this would still be more than half damage for your party, so still excellent for support).

Ursan on the other hand, would require MANY changes to fix it. Not only damage reduction, but there would have to be changes related to the way the skill works. Health bonus would have to be reduced/removes, armor bonus would have to be reduced/removed, and the way energy works would probably need a change. Currently it's far too easy to maintain Ursan, and for a team of 6 to roll through everything. Even if damage was HALVED, people would definitely still run it, as it's easier to run 6 ursans and kill slower, than run balanced and play smarter.

So realistically, unless Anet are prepared to destroy the skills (very unlikely, knowing their track record for appeasing PvErs), there will have to be strong buffs to other skills in order to compete. Other forms of party defense, other damage output builds, etc etc.

Maybe the way you play. Personally, my Assassin doesn't go near the front lines and doesn't have to worry about attack chains.

[Barrage][Distracting Shot][Sharpen Daggers][Critical Eye][Way of the Master][Critical Defenses][Heart of Shadow][Antidote Signet]

13 Critical Strikes, 12 Marksmanship and 3+ Shadow Arts (how much more depends on if you rune in a way to save a 20 point block, of course) and a Zealous bow of some sort (love my Ironwing Flatbow I just got today after Shiro). Can replace [[Heart of Shadow] with [[Viper's Defense] if you prefer to punish the relatively rare swarmings, or maybe [[Shadow Refuge] for more reliable healing. Doing a lot better with this build than my Barraging Ranger.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand...

Strange. Been playing for a few months now and have yet to see [["Save Yourselves!"] used by anyone I've grouped with and, outside of EotN regions, I've probably seen Ursan used in a PUG I was in less than a half-dozen times.

LoD back to its amazing state.

Healing Hands revert.


from 25rc to 15sec rc...

that nerf costed me my troll farmin build. Not happy.

ANet's been pretty inconsistent with their approach to appeasing PvErs, to the point where the no one has a clue what they'll do next (not even the devs, I don't think). With that said, I don't think they have the balls to completely obliterate Ursan/SY either, but a slight toning-down is certainly possible. That would be a good start, if they actually plan on introducing back the builds that Ursan/SY have displaced.

That's pretty much my point. The concept of the Assassin works so poorly in PvE that you've simply bypassed all the problems inherent in the class, and turned your Assassin into a Ranger.

Similarly, I can turn a Mesmer into a Me/N with Curses, but that doesn't mean Mesmers are perfectly fine in PvE.

Well, I guess it's a bit late to answer the OP, but here goes:

Hard to say - I guess these were the builds I look fondly back on. It's hard to say how this would work with all the changes since then but some of these I would *love* to see:

Minion limit - I still VERY fondly remember having huge armies. I find that the changes to Verata's Sacrifice and Blood of the Master (especially with AI and the possibility of multiple MM's in a few missions) would be interesting on top of that. I think that, PvE wise this would still mostly be "balanced" as the old method of long lived minions is no more - BOTM would quickly become a one skill insta-death of the MM This is the only one I *really* want but I don't really expect it.

The paragon. The paragon definitely has it's "Imbagon" thing going and no question that is quite powerful - however I *really* liked playing some of the early holding builds that were out well before PvE only skills (see a thread by Lord Helmo for the build I am thinking of). Unfortunately I do not see this one happening as it would make the paragon too good in PvE with the PvE only skills out there. Even though it wasn't really a core part of the above mentioned build I would like to see the recharge for "Go for the Eyes" removed.

Spiritual Pain - LOTS of fun with that one. Because of the general lack of spirits this wasn't used too much. However it was powerful enough that it was worth wasting a skill slot in general for those cases - also nothing like the satisfaction of all the gold numbers floating in the air.

Splinter Weapon - lots of nice gold numbers. Again, not really overpowered in PvE and more than just the barrage'rs used it. IIRC the reasoning given for it had to do with VoD or some other PvP specific environmental effect.

*shrug* IMO skills that are generally unbalanced in PvP are also overpowered in PvE and both should share the buffs/nerfs. The ones I don't like are ones that require a specific team build to take advantage of, a specific PvP area effect (say Victory or Death), or a specific PvP circumstance (too easy/too hard with respect to killing the guild lords). Obviously those PvP instances aren't happening in PvE and it's too hard - in general - to get those really powerful PvP team builds outside of a few larger guilds.

I hate (but I do understand so I normally do not complain as there was no other choice) when my OK build with my hench/heroes is nerfed to oblivion because four of us, two monks, a MM and, and a SF ele wins at VoD in a GvG battle. Especially being that I and 99% of the GW population will never have said team setup nor will we ever have the VoD affect on us (again - read above - I fully understand and support PvP based balances).

I'll be happy if they separate them intelligently from here on out even if there are no skill reversions. Especially true if this continues into GW2. How ti works out will be interesting.

It's remarkable how many people are asking to revert skills that were actually changed because of PvE.

PvE has rarely been the reason for nerfs, but apparently they hit hard when they did.

Personaly I'd change very little. Keep the differences between PvE and PvE small.

On the other hand a few skills were completally killed because it prooved imposibble to balance them in PvP. (thinking about poor old "incomming".) I'm expecting Anet to revert those and only to a workable sollution for PvE.

Sins are fine in pve. Highest single target DPS of any class. Crit Agility + Nightstalker insigs make your armor comparable to a war. More mobile than a war since they tend to use Flail (-33%speed) in PvE. Fast dagger attacks mean "SY" is charged faster. Put Dark Fury on someone and it's almost got 100% uptime. Moebius + Club of a thousand bears is perma KD on anything below 50%. If low armor is a problem for a PvE sin, Crit Agility probably isn't on your bar. If it gets disenchanted and you die from low armor, get new monks.

btw bow sins are bootleg ranger replacements.

I'm not sure why people want GftE!'s recharge removed. Critical hits do not turn the tides of a losing battle in PvE. There are plenty of other ways to abuse leadership's absurd energy returns if for some reason your build is energy heavy.

Splinter Weapon outdamages any elementalist skill and it only costs 5 energy. There is no reason to revert it back when it is still one of the best skills in the game.

I don't see a need for huge changes so hopefully it will be kept to an absolute minimum.
I certainly don't want every skill to be buffed to insane levels but I would like skills which were necessarily nerfed due to pvp brought back into general pve play whilst having the stupidly overpowered pve skills toned down.

Buffs ? Skills such as Ineptitude/EoE/Energizing Winds to increase variety/fun a bit more.
Nerfs? Overpowered skills like UB and SY! to limit their "general" use. I can't see any real way to stop their use but halving the damage output/effectiveness might make it used less and encourage more builds [not a regional limit , just punt the skill into next week]

There should be no change at all to any mechanism's like SR or Minion levels for PVE , frankly that's an idea beyond stupid in my opinion. Too much skill separation is bad enough without contemplating completely differing game mechanics.

and again talk about SY and not about sin.
especially this kind of ... "If it gets disenchanted and you die from low armor, get new monks. "
i personally like to see some people reversion but hey "welcome to the ursan world"

EW back to org. form....trapping FTW

I don't know if someone posted it already, I would like spirit bond to be back to its old version ^^
ie : removing the 10 hits counter

Thats cos UB is used for steamrolling the allegedly Elite areas of the game, get your self to DoA, ToA, check out the lf ursan spam.