Skill update 7/10/08

Update - Thursday July 10


http://www.guildwars.com/support/gameupdates/

Updated Zaishen Rewards
Updated the Zaishen Chest drops to replace the Automatonic with a new tonic for the month of July. More information on Zaishen Rewards can be found here.
Automated Tournaments
Updated Automated Tournament map rotations.
Skill Updates

For more information on these changes, please see the Developer Updates page.


PvE and PvP
Assassin
Aura of Displacement: now has a .75 aftercast.
Dark Prison: now has a .75 aftercast.
Death's Charge: now has a .75 aftercast.
Shadow Prison: now has a .75 aftercast.
Shadow Walk: now disables your attack skills for 1 second.

Dervish
Signet of Mystic Speed: increased recharge to 20 seconds.

Mesmer
Mantra of Inscriptions: now affects only those signets that you successfully activate. Interrupted and disabled signets no longer benefit from this skill.


PvP Changes
Dervish
Chilling Victory: this skill is now in the Wind Prayers attribute line.

Monk
Signet of Judgment: decreased damage to 5..50; decreased range to half.

Necromancer
Enfeebling Blood: increased health sacrifice to 17%; decreased duration to 1..16.

Miscellaneous
Chant and shout effects are no longer applied to allied Guild Battle NPCs.


Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug with the Ranger skill Conflagration that made it not affect the ranged attacks of monsters.
Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Mhenlo to display the same dialogue option twice in the Consulate Docks outpost.
Fixed a bug in the Factions quest "Night Raiders" that could prevent players from completing it.
Fixed a graphical bug that occurred when Gwen was equipped with the Deldrimor Armor in a PvP arena.
Fixed a graphical bug on the Elementalist's Elite Flameforged armor that showed the wrong texture on the character's neck.
Fixed a bug with the monster skill Twisting Jaws that allowed monsters to instantly cast it.


Miscellaneous
The Xunlai Tournament House NPC now offers prizes for the June tournament and can be found in the Great Temple of Balthazar, Lion's Arch, Kaineng Center, and Kamadan.

The shadowstepping aftercast was a horrible idea.

Signet of Judgement at half range? Not sure what Anet was thinking for that change.

26zkeys for ravager

/happydance

other then that BLEH

650k gold + this = win

It is pretty interesting though. Some people might think they are lagging now

chilling victory :/ Well that nerfed my A/D..

[Dev Update] Balance Changes - 10 July 2008


PvE and PvP

This week's balance update primarily focuses on addressing problems within the state of PvP. The main problem areas we're seeking to resolve are melee teleport spikes, the dominance of Signet of Judgment, and the power of Dervish spike. We have not changed elite skills commonly featured on Dervishes in competitive play (such as Avatar of Melandru and Wounding Strike), but we have altered some skills that make these builds so deadly. While Shadow Form is unchanged in this update, we are exploring solutions. The goal is to slow down builds that keep Shadow Form up permanently, while not invalidating it for other uses.

Although we are not making major PvE-related balance changes this time, we are working on a larger PvE-focused update. We are currently testing changes to Ursan Blessing and PvE-only skills. One of the goals is to balance Ursan such that players can still use it as long as they do so in a tactical way. Another goal is to alter the grind currently associated with many PvE-only skills. Additionally, we are adjusting a number of underpowered and rarely used elite skills. Depending on how testing goes, some or all of these changes may be released as soon as next month.

Assassin

* Shadow Walk: now disables your attack skills for 1 second.
* Death's Charge: now has a .75 aftercast.
* Dark Prison: now has a .75 aftercast.
* Shadow Prison: now has a .75 aftercast.
* Aura of Displacement: now has a .75 aftercast.

In PvP, teleporting melee characters have become extremely commonplace, due to their unpredictable nature and the speed with which they can focus on a single target. We've added a .75 second aftercast to teleports to give targets (and their Monks) a chance to react to the incoming damage. Shadow Walk got a different treatment because it is a stance. Since stances have no casting time (and therefore no aftercast), we made it disable attack skills for one second so that it is not strictly superior to other teleports. We recognize this is harsher on Warriors using the skill (because they lose all built up adrenaline when their skills are disabled). However, when we made this change, we accounted for the fact that Warriors typically use stances to increase attack-speed or movement-speed. The disabling effect makes Shadow Walk less desirable than other teleports for Warriors in most situations. Because teleportation and movement do not play the same role in PvE as in PvP, we did not create separate PvP versions of these skills.

Dervish

* Signet of Mystic Speed: increased recharge to 20 seconds.

Signet of Mystic Speed costs no energy, has no cast time and can be maintained permanently. By increasing the recharge, it now requires a high investment into Wind Prayers to achieve this same effect.

Mesmer

* Mantra of Inscriptions: now affects only those signets that you successfully activate. Interrupted and disabled signets no longer benefit from this skill.

Previously, Mantra of Inscriptions would recharge signets faster under any circumstances -- including ones that were disabled from enemy disruption. This change doesn't affect the basic function of the skill, but opens up signets to counters by interruption and disabling effects.

PvP Changes

These changes will only affect skills when in PvP. PvE will be unaffected.

Dervish

* Chilling Victory: this skill is now in the Wind Prayers attribute line.

Chilling Victory is a hard-hitting skill that contributes a lot to a Dervish spike. By moving it to Wind Prayers, we lower the damage on most builds since attributes are traditionally higher in Scythe Mastery than Wind Prayers.

Monk

* Signet of Judgment: decreased damage to 5..50; decreased range to half.

Signet of Judgment was the only unconditional ranged knockdown without a very long cast time or Exhaustion or both. Even as an elite skill, this proved too powerful, especially when featured in skill bars that maximize signet efficiency. We've lowered the damage and range on this skill to bring it in line with other ranged knockdown skills.

Necro

* Enfeebling Blood: increased health sacrifice to 17%; decreased duration to 1..16.

Enfeebling Blood has been far too effective at spreading Weakness everywhere, especially at low Curses attribute. We've adjusted the duration scaling and increased the health sacrifice to add cost and enforce some more attribute investment.

Misc

* Chants and shouts no longer affect allied Guild Battle NPCs.

Specific shouts and chants (particularly Anthem of Weariness) were overly effective at eliminating the damage NPCs do at Victory or Death. Using the same philosophy as we have on wards and Spirits, we've changed shouts and chants to no longer affect Guild Battle NPCs, which should cut down on some ability to nullify NPCs at VoD.

i cant stop laughing but its only the usual pvp 'meta' lolage.

one thing has me confused:

These changes will only affect skills when in PvP. PvE will be unaffected.
Dervish

* Chilling Victory: this skill is now in the Wind Prayers attribute line.

Chilling Victory is a hard-hitting skill that contributes a lot to a Dervish spike. By moving it to Wind Prayers, we lower the damage on most builds since attributes are traditionally higher in Scythe Mastery than Wind Prayers.
Monk


the shift is only for pvp? (no access to my gaming rig atm) if it is then that is a mistake and a lazy lazy 'fix'.

*waves her goodbye to the oh so fun Healing Ball then sniffs and walks away*

At least we did our last few HB rounds before it was updated as a say goodbye to the fun times we had using that build.

Not bad, but half distance on SoJ is meh

yay i love the new build and all the nerfs GJ anet

Chilling Victory is a majorly funny nerf. The Cancerous Escape Sycthe got hit a bit >:3

You know your build is unbalanced when 4 of the skills on your bar have a pvp version :/

this was not worth waiting for....but it didnt affect me at all---so

meh.

No nerf to God Mode yet aka [Shadow Form]

Ya Anet is on top of things. /end sarcasm.

Not sure if anybody mentioned this but what a total logical inconsistency here: (Dev Update notes, 7/10) "Because teleportation and movement do not play the same role in PvE as in PvP, we did not create separate PvP versions of these skills."

As opposed to what makes sense and should be done: "because they do not play the same roles in pve versus pvp, we WILL create separate pvp versions of these skills." I'd hate to flame the devolopers of the game.. but for this i'll make an exception...
Nerds like you should be smarter than that! lol

I don't think the shadowstepping nerfs are that bad, a typical lolsin bar still kills just as fast from what I've tested.

I think... this update was pointless? I think it's lulz in pvp, but for PvE.... *shrugs*

This has me interested. I wonder what they are planning on doing there?

Well one thing is definately the HoM being accountbased, so no need to max it all the time.

Maybe they are making the TITLES THEMSELVES account based?

Ok...

First off, it's good that Anet is fixing the armor glitches...but...sooooo slowly.
Second, I don't give a shit about a graphical armor glitch on a HERO, fix my damn mesmer fow already, it's full of glitches.

I'm more interested in what they have planned than what they did today. Sounds like the next skill balance may be a big one. I always love those.

I really liked what I saw in the developer notes about changing the power of UB and PvE-only skills, as well as combatting grind with them. Nobody has mentioned that.

This is awesome. I mean it. I am so happy right now.

Well to this I have one thing to say, you have a problem with this (SF), yet you seem to have no problem with running ursan, which is more overpowered, that gives me a little giggle, but the laughing will cease as anet is now officially testing changes to ursan.

This my friend, is only something we can wish for forever, for, that would be by far the GREATEST thing that anet could do, EVER.

Fixed, for PvP.

I really don't see why they nerfed them in PvE, though. Most assassins don't run shadow steps in PvE.

I am a-liking the direction they are going..

this is an update??

great. another week of playing AoC..

Same Spoils all the fun of playing a sin in pve, since the most fun is the shadowstepping...

Why not make it pvp only, the comment from devs on it is completely pvp based as well, since i don't see AI monks pre-protting any monster you might shadow step onto .

Shadow Step changes were long overdue; I'm happy with them. lol Chilling Victory.

Further, the dev update about PvE only skills and title grind sounds great.

Nice update.

Me/Mo should be balanced now. The aftercast was a good idea.

Anyone else notice that [shadow fang] still has no aftercast?

Hey Guys if u want shadow step with no aftercast buy gwen

From what I have read in a lot of the threads, and makes some sense to me, I agree both skills are incredibly powerful however I see the major differences between SF and UB being that SF allows a SINGLE player to go and solo many places (most noteably/talked about Chaos Plains) and is just a skill you can buy, while UB is a skill that needs to be ground out for max effectiveness, even then it does not allow for solo play/farming, so while both are overpowered I can sorta see the backlash against SF and possibly why it has taken Anet so long to address UB.

The aftercast is just weird. If they say shadow steps don't play the same role in pve/pvp, why do they have to make the same change to both... Wouldn't that simply defeated the whole purpose of the pve/pvp split?

For the PvE skills, I for one hope they at least dampen the progression around the centre like,
- change 3..5..6 into 4..5..5
- change 20..52..60 into 40..52..55
- change 40..80..90 into 60..80..85
etc. nerf the top, boost the bottom, but overall roughly the same, so to make them less dependent on grinds.

It was never an issue that Assassins could solo farm any place, it was an issue that Assassins could farm ecto at a rate that hasn't been seen since the 55 / dying nightmare nerf.

Shadow Form is elite, you either have to cap it or use balth points + elite tome to get it.

Ursan Blessing is an elite skill that is a quest reward. A truly ironic thing about ursan blessing, the most powerful skill in the game, is that the quest to get the skill can be completed without killing anything.

Ursan Blessing can be used to complete elite areas or dungeons in record time to farm the end chest. Try using a permasin to complete any dungeon HM or NM.

I used a Shadow Form + a shadow step to eliminate high priority targets all the time in PvE. Now I just have to drop the shadow form and I have ten seconds to eliminate the target and hope the hero monk can keep up.

I am not happy about the nerf but at the same time I have to wonder, why wasn’t Shadow Fang [Shadow Fang] nerfed too? I used to think people were joking about using Ursan Blessing and other skills to sell EotN but now I have to wonder.

In after a joker.

The chilling victory change wins, and especially since its only for pvp now

I thought shadow stepping was meant to give your target a surprise... not to pop in and say 'hello, how are you?' o.O