Developer Updates - Skill Balance Changes - 18th June 08

I'm sorry but if A-net nerfs perma sin then they need to nerf all the solo builds and ursan to be fair and IMHO all the QQers are mad that ecto prices are going down.

I dont see any QQ over any other solo build out there but sents this one can get ectos.....oh ya and lets not forget that the perma sin was doable before the buff to shadow form

If there was a nerf it'd have to be to shadow form, adding a skill like Sig of humility would totally RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO over normal people doing UW.

Sins weren't just designed to do this either that or unerf Protective Bond and remove Rendenchanments on the Grasping Nightmares.It wasn't nerfed for server crashes.The 55s were King of the UW let them be King agian and no this is not just Monks.

That is becuase not everyone except Warriors can solo the UW and Warriors can't make to the plains of chaos just to the smites and some Aataxes.This makes Sins a little over powered in pve.

I really loled with this update.

Sould Bind made me really lol. Really. And the FGJ nerf.....poor SY worrias.

[Barbed Arrows]+[Frenzy]=[Healing Signet]+[Frenzy]

As I said before, I loled with this update that, to sum up, complained about SF and Ursan.... for Goth´s shake, we already now that they are going to do nothing or to do almost nothing¡

I like the communication that comes with the skill updates (maybe next time at the same moment as the update if possible). At least now you can understand where they're coming from.

Shadow Form nerf could be in the making. Getting an average of 3-12 ectos in 30 minutes is a bit over the top imo. It's the same reason why monks got nerfed back in the days. It's either a nerf (direct or indirect) or a further drop of the ecto price as we see lately.

Smite line can use some buffs in PvE.

Reading the thought behind some of these updates really makes me lol at first, then I get depressed when I realize they are actually deciding what happens with the game.

They also have to torture PvE players by saying they _might_ think about fixing ursan sometime in the indefinite future.

I was hoping to hear some sort of reasonable explanation for messing with Energy Drain in pve. Its a stupid reason. Mesmers aren't in dire need of energy management in PvE. That's not why people aren't using mesmers in pve. Generally, folks don't use mesmers because they aren't meant to be used to blow everything up. Why shut something down when I can nuke the hell out of it? Anet would have to essentially redesign GW completely to make it so that mesmers were needed in all areas to shut down foes. I don't expect them to do this. They're working on Guild Wars 2 now. The only thing I can expect them to do now is 1. Buff damage inflicted by mesmer skills (Which they are doing, a few skills at a time.). 2. Make it so that some of the mesmer skills become skills that affect multiple targets.

On a related note, We have skills like Auspicious Incantation for energy management. Why waste a skill slot, an elite skill slot even, on Energy Drain when a non-elite skill does the job better? Additionally, Mesmers are also using Assassin's Promise for e-mangement. Energy Drain does provide more energy than Assassin's Promise, but II'd rather take Assassin's Promise because it it instantly recharges all skills. If Energy Drain provided something more than just energy gain then it might be worth adding to my skill bar.

And about UB...

Regarding Ursan Blessing. We just had an informal meeting and the designers are currently evaluating what options they have to change the skill, whether to change it, and how much to change it. Why is there a question on whether to change Ursan Blessing, given the amount of vocal player hate of the skill? Isaiah ran a query to get a general estimate of how many people have the skill on their bars, and it was not an insignificant number. If the skill is changed, it will affect a huge number of players. The main issue being debated with regard to Ursan Blessing is the massive impact this will have on the playerbase. Sure, there are a lot of people on the wiki and on the forums decrying Ursan Blessing, but the designers have to weigh this feedback against hard numbers. Any change to this skill, no matter how small, will affect a large number of players. Having said that, they know this is an issue, and they are going to run some tests starting tomorrow. --Regina Buenaobra 00:02, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_...t_situation.3F


Atleast they're actually working on the Ursan problem now. The Dev update page sounded like a general blah response similar to the May 1st post made by Regina on the UB talk page. (That they were aware of the problem with UB and that was that.) This last post by her, which should be linked, almost gives me hope. I seriously hope something is done within a month or so.

Why the hell are they "considering" nerfing SF but not Ursan?

To fix SF, give the smites in UW this: [Signet of Disenchantment]. It's fine otherwise. Ursan's been broken for AAAAGES. Just remove it from play already.

GW was fine without ursan, now people only care about how fast they can run through the uw with their cons sets. Takes the fun out of the game.

Ok this made me lol. I wander if they know how many ppl are using SF
and how many a nerf would impact.

Is it possible to have a discussion about skill balancing WITHOUT it degenerating into more Ursan QQ?

Honestly, the developers gave you an answer - they're looking into it. If you can't accept that, then you really have an issue with letting things go.

Honestly, you guys want everything handed to you yesterday.

As for the update: what I like here is Symbolic Strike. Glad the change to Mantra of Inscriptions is PvP only - I use this one a lot on my Mes, and monk heroes.

I wonder how much damage perma needs to do to GW before they fix it.

Barbed arrows, still pointless, and what's the logic behind the -40 armour? That's just churlish stupidity, it would still be a naff prep without it.

Wow, dumbest thing i've ever heard, for multiple reasons.
1. smites are monks, it be the only thing in uw with double classes
2. perma-sins can't kill smites, zealots fire hits them (no target aoe)
3. it would kill all other farming builds in uw, which are not bring abused, terra tank, 55, 600.

This is an easy fix, do it like they did with "There's Nothing to Fear!" have it require points in all classes primary attributes.

oh wait never mind, i need time to abuse this skill too....

Short answer: no
Long answer: hell no

Anyway, A/E will get nerfed, this was a friendly warning. Either the mobs will get a counter or one of the key skills in the build will get nerfed. You can read it any way you please, but anyone who wants ectos better farm the hell out of it while they can, and not sell them. When the farm gets nerfed, prices will rise again.

See? It's all in everyone's minds. Now, Anet please reduce [Crippling slash] and [Eviscerate] to 4 adrenaline. Oh, and make [Eviscerate] cause Bleeding if you are enchanted. And make [Crippling slash] cause Deep Wound if you are enchanted. Those elites need to be as "not overpowered" as [Wounding Strike].

Cool, my favorite part of the updates are the misc. parts.....not so much skill balances.

Imho the PvE Smite line could use some assistance.

Note: Rather nice to see Anet addressing the community with some of their thinking in both this and the paragraph that followed it. Except:

I'm not sure they get it. That's too simplistic a view. Ease really isnt the issue in my opinion. The problem with Ursan is its the main group "build", if you want to call it that, for pretty much any activity in the game when playing with other players. Gone are build and class diversity. What's the point of skills and classes when all you really need is Ursan and a couple monks? That's not really in the spirit of the game. The game was never "hard."

Might say the same for SF, the do-all farming build. Ease isnt the problem so much as loss of diversity and gameplay. Its rather nice, imho, having farming builds for various classes that specialize in one sort of area or activity, and others for other classes. A bit of balance for those that have one class vs those that have others, as opposed to everyone scrambling to make an assassin. Having one that rules them all again discourages diversity.

On both these points I'm not sure it matters anymore to nerf either. The point would have been to see that very early on and make it not so. Enough time has gone by now that its simply a game trend. Much more difficult to change. Most who use it are nearly religiously attached to it. Those who dont are opposed with almost the same fervor. You sort of shoot yourself in the foot as a developer creating that sort of situation.

These notes would have been great last Wednesday...

Personally I find the explanation for it (ie, acknowledging that Energy denial is pretty useless in PvE, so they upped the Energy management portion of the skill, in PvE-only, to compensate) to be quite good and far from 'stupid'.

Maybe not, but you still don't explain why their reason for adjusting [[Energy Drain] to x3 is 'stupid' - just that, in your opinion, it was unnecessary and still not as good at Energy management as some other skills.

I fail to see any mention of it being to get more people to play Mesmers in PvE. I just see an update to a skill (rather than a wholesale alteration of monster AI, and probably deeper game mechanics, which is what it'd take for energy denial to be useful against monsters) to make it more useful for PvE.

Mesmers can nuke quite well, actually, at least to single targets. Probably about on par with the Elementalists' Air line (and maybe a bit better since all Mesmer damage, to my knowledge, is armor-ignoring), though without many side effects (other than interruption). And, of course, they can use stuff from their secondary if they need even more, or AoE, nuking power.

I've found that Mesmer shutdown is very good in PvE and I wish we had more competent Mesmer players around (sadly, they're few and far between). Either they keep whatever the current priority target is from effectively fighting back (ie, interrupts) while it's being pounded on (especially bosses) or they keep an eye out and shut down the stuff that currently isn't being targeted by the party - after all, monsters don't always clump around a small area so that the nukers can AoE 'em to death.

The main problem with Mesmer shutdown, especially in PvE where there's so many targets, is one of perception: you have to try and judge performance by what hasn't happened. If you and the Mesmer are targeting the same critter, at least you can see when they've interrupted a key skill - but you have almost no way of seeing what the Mesmer's been doing elsewhere (except for the #$!*&, or whatever, cursing string of [[Cry of Frustration], of course).

I want to thank the developers at Anet for the extra information in the opening paragraph. That's the first step. Please don't stop. ALL updates need this degree of candidness.

We'll be watching....

You clearly don't understand how Izzy's thought process works. Allow me to explain:

Mesmers aren't getting enough play in PvE, so it's time to throw some darts at the PvE balance Mesmer board.

That's pretty cynical.

We already have weekend event keyboard. Care to make balance dartboard?

umm if perma sin cant do smits then how come i do it every night, you really need to learn this one fact or i mean couple

a/mesmer fastest way to clear plains
a/d . d/a fastest way to clear pits
a/e , e/a fastest way to do pools or smits

use then 4 sins 3 ursans 1 wolf 1 monk to clear uw in under 25 min

I hope Anet realise...NERFING URSAN IS NOT ENOUGH. You need to provide viable alternatives for underused professions (mesmer, dervish, assassin come to mind) or it will go back to monks, warriors, eles, necros only. Some buffs to skills of those professions would be helpful too, then maybe PUGs cold stray away from the bonder, healer, tank, nuker, BiP/SS mentality.

My vote goes for nerfing SF back to the old duration (or atleast close to it). Nerfing GoS will impact other builds. Nerfing the stacking between skill recharge time reduction could potentially impact other builds as well.

Don't get me wrong - I used permaform before the buff on SF, I am using it now, and will use it still after the above suggested nerf. Before the buff it at least took some skill to use, and failure due to bad timing was an issue (and Nature's Renewal was a semi-counter back then).

My problem is that before the nerf, you saw different builds in ToA. W/Rt, W/Me, W/Mo, Mo/Me, Mo/E, Mo/Rt, N/Mo, N/Me, E/Mo, E/Me, Rt/Mo, Rt/Me, A/Me, D/Mo, D/Me... the list goes on... as well as Ursans of every profession. Now we see two districts of ONLY A/E. With less than ten people with different professions (or builds for that matter).

3 years of the same crap can make people pretty cynical.

There is already a balance dartboard image around somewhere...

I wonder if in their PvE skill reversion process they will put ancestor's rage back to its old overpowerness.
Not that it's not usable now.

yeah, others: FYI, A/E permasin has premium access to Stoneflesh aura. Exact thing he needs to survive smites ...

That wouldnt help anything. i think they should do NERFS so you would need more ppl for em & differend ones..

Think you mean this one.

[energy drain] is now so on par with [Ether Renewal]. You can tell Anet put a lot of thought behind that buff. Just kidding, its still beat by the non elite [Auspicious Incantation]. If they want to go the way of Ether Renewal I suggest changing the AoE on [Channeling] to be earshot. Win.

lolwut? I think you missed the point of nuking. Either that or my warrior is definitely gonna be inviting itself into groups asking for nukers because I can beat your mesmer in single target damage.

That dartboard is epic win btw.


EDIT: BEST IDEA EVAR TO GET MESMERS IN PVE! [Signet of Illusions] -> non elite and affects all skill types. Mesmer becomes the ursan class that doesn't make you grind for norn. Izzy, you better be reading this. In fact, if Izzy doesn't use my suggestion I think I should replace him, its obviously the best way to encourage PvE players to make mesmers, I am a balance genius.

lol wut. if there's anyone reading this atm then obs the pastel drawing vs dragons zen game its funny

WoW. I cant even begin to grasp how imba THAT would be.

It'd be like unnerfed soulreaping for everyone, except more imba. Maybe even more.

Still underpowered compared to Leadership though. I can think of some interesting ways to exploit it. Rogue minions following your party being healed by Heal Area to power everyone sounds fun.

If you made it a PvE based balance, then no. If you made it PvP based, then yes. Gotta love the split system.

Why don't they just add some pop up monk monsters to the Chaos Plains, like a few Life Pods, to stop the farming of Mindblades and save the price of precious ectos. That way I can still you my Assasin to farm other places.

This would actually be fun to test.
Because in PvE - the single target dies insanely fast (With 8 people gang-banging one foe - how long can it live?!). And with AP - you can actually keep up these insane bursts of damage on a chaos/shadow nuker.

Nuking definitely changed.

What's wrong AN, Factions sale didn't increase as much as you hoped for so you're looking at SF now? Oh, and congratulations on
So what do we have here? Blah blah blah, not now, maybe tomorrow. Bullshit that everyone here is aware of. Same old, same old. When Proph was out I heard a lot how awesome is AN at talking with the community. It's a shame they're not now.
What the hell? Viable alternatives? Assassins are good enough in pve now, Dervishes blow stuff in the sky with perma-avatar and Holy Might. The only class I'd decide to buff in terms of pve are Mesmers, because shut-down in pve simply sucks.

If people are so stupid to accept only holy trinity- let them. I'll steamroll the area they want to do while waiting for tank/nuker/monk. Holy trinity is better than ursan because it isn't actually overpowered.

I think if you took all single target focused damage you would run into a speed barrier because of cast times on skills, time spent retargeting and coordinating the next attack and such. If you are making a whole party around huge damage you would want something like [Searing Flames] or [Cry of Pain], which combines high damage with an aoe.


My original [Channeling] suggestion was half sarcasm , but now that I think about it it wouldn't be too bad. Consider that in PvE you are most often going against smaller 2-5 groups of very strong foes rather then 8 people of equal power like in PvP. Just put a 1...8 scaling on it in line with Leadership and its not bad at all. Since the ele buff E/X outclasses almost all casters, this would let them come back with X/Me, provided they spec in about 6-8 Inspiration. Yes its still overpowered, but its PvE. We already have Ursan, this is nothing next to it. It encourages some build diversity, something that ursan and ether renewal never did.

Mesmers already have Me/A AP Chaos nuke thing. Which is pretty damn powerful and on part with other profession builds. Ironically, it provides excellent shutdown (enemy being dead IS great shutdown.)

They could use some love (as in, being usefull without PvE imba) but they can pull their weight in organized group.