Update - Thursday, March 5

solid update imo

let the meta settle, see what happens then look at skills like lingering curse and party healing

First Paragons, now Rits, are the primary targets for repeated nerfs? Sucks to be them I guess. At least they didn't touch Splinter Weapon during this update, yet.

Also why the hell didn't the tactics stances get a PvE/PvP split? Way to beat the dead horse on the tactics line... and buffing Healing Signet while nerfing pretty much every other skill there isn't going to make people want to spec into Tactics geniuses...

And omg at AoR buff, it's insanely powerful now. It was fine before, but wth? Finally Shadow Refuge, it started at 4 seconds, then buffed to 6 seconds, then nerfed to 4 seconds, and now it's back to 6 seconds? Come on, make up your minds.

One of my favorite ranger skills unnecessarily nerfed into oblivion. Flail I get, it makes sense, this however just doesn't. gg.

Oh well, I can't play at the moment anyway. Apparently I was suspended for racial slurs.

Well, if it says PvE and PvP, it's for PvE and PvP.

If it says PvP, it's only for PvP.

Always thought the 'no tomes' in HM Eotn was intentionally. Couldn't figure how something that blatantly wrong wasn't fixed already, hence, Anet must have their reasons for not including tomes in those drops.

defence = balanced stance - No KD so sins are still trash

That beats anet's tactics nerfing ideas.

some random buffs that may be interesting to use


and like always, a few nerfs asked by top10 players, as if the shit you can see everywhere else was no problem

I thought this. Especially stance tanks, since its one of the few effective warrior primary tanks thats not been entirely superseeded by perma sins...

until now.

Are you serious...it took 1,5 years to fix this?

After hours of waiting, I got my tournament rewards, but wtf !!! incredibly less than expected, and I didn't get double reward las month, wtf.

This is not a /cry, I am sure I did better, friends with the same predictions recieved more points.

Is there any official place to complain about rewards?

[Aura of Restoration] is now smexy, but [Read The wind] lol, do i realy need +damage?It's still good.
[Rend Enchantments]More time to cast spell breaker on uw. >.>

you mean like we used to before the AOE "nerf"

at least eles got a buff

Developers, if PvE is not the problem then just nerf the PvP skills. This looks like a no brainer.

And meanwhile back at the ranch ... balance changes are all very well but ...

A far more serious problem with PvP is the leeching at Fort Aspenwood. I mean, c'mon. This has been going on since there was a Fort Aspenwood. You can't just throw out a report system, consider the problem fixed and then ignore the all too obvious fact that it is not fixed.

Fix Fort Aspenwood? Please?

Warrior now the only profession with 1 primary and 2 secondary atributes! Way to go a-net!/ sarcasm!

Fixed a bug that caused Eye of the North treasure chests in Hard Mode to not drop Skill Tomes.


Wow....finally

Impressive, most impressive. Pretty good update imo. WAAAYYYY better than for example last month. Also for PS-nerf cryers - flail is nerfed, that means sins will need to bring frenzy or tiger stance. That is a better nerf than touching PS again.

I just may come out of retirement and go back to TAing after this update.

Monks and necros are a tad weaker now in that Arena, could be fun, or still be stupid as usual, we shall see.

I read perfectly well, thanks. Definition: nerf = render less effective. Fixing the AI to add scattering will render RoJ less effective. Less effective = nerf. Get it? Critical thinking skills, FTW.

Arkantos, the horrible Smiter's Boon era has little to do with this discussion. I'm concerned with PvE. Smiter's Boon was not nerfed to oblivion for PvE, but SB builds have never been a big part of the PvE meta AFAIK.

I understand your point about bugged skills needing to be fixed. But, darn it, it is so NICE to be able to go out and deal significant damage to something other than undead for a change. I'm just suggesting that if ANet wants to fix the bug, then they need to fix some other skills so that smiting remains a good alternative. Don't take away with one hand unless you're prepared to give with the other. The reality is that smiting wasn't very viable in PvE until this bug came along. Smiting teams, hero or player, are now a competitive choice vs. necro teams and OP-PvE-skill teams for HM play, and it's easier for a smiter to lead H&H teams. I don't want to lose that.

I think they doled the reward points out in two batches. I got less than expected last night, but then this morning got the rest of them when I talked to the guy again with a different toon.

*edit* Dumb me, I should read all the threads before posting. Regina explained it here.

Why should RoJ be the only AE Damage over time ability that doesn't cause scatter?

All other AE Damage over time abilites cause scatter reactions. RoJ should not be an exception to that.

Olias where are you ????????????????????


* Improved Hero AI for the Necromancer spell Death Nova to reduce the use of this spell when not in combat.


Thanks for the change

Good point. Arkantos should have made that point, and I should have acknowledged the justice in it and suggested fixing the bug while not returning smiters to the PvE ghetto ... oh, wait, he did and I did. Hmmm.

I agree RoJ is bugged. I agree that it should not be an exception to the rule. I agree that fixing bugs is a good thing. Okay? Can we put that behind us and consider the point I was trying to make?

Will you agree that viable smiters are also a good thing, adding another choice of ways to play the game? And that the bug is the only thing that is currently making them viable in general PvE? And that fixing the bug without compensating by changes to other skills will make smiting a vastly less-desirable option than it has become?

Wait, so the "double damage" wasn't an effective drawback in first hand?

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, i see! Primal Rage was handicapped, since it only had one hand, so you added the second hand drawback to turn it in a common/despised Elite again. You couldn't allow handicaps to steal the spotlight, so you placed them where they belong.


Brilliant, at least.

If you're going to add another choice of ways to play the game (pve-wise), why not restore some of the ways that have been nerfed due to pvp updates? Why should a communing rit based on defensive spirits be nerfed for pvp-related reasons while paragons can offer similar defensive benefits just by spamming one or two shouts? This sounds like a case of self contradiction, saying that you can play the game one way but when you want to do the same thing using different mechanics it's not allowed.

I'm glad that somebody is finally talking some real sense about RoJ. The fact that it's broken doesn't even matter. The reason that ANet won't fix it is because, as it stands, RoJ hurts absolutely nobody.

For high-level PvP, like HA or GvG, RoJ is a huge joke. Nobody is going to seriously let a monk stand there and cast a slow-casting spell, and then afterwards be dumb enough to stand in the huge pillar of light and burn themselves up.

For farming purposes, RoJ is totally useless. A single RoJ caster cannot kill anything by themselves. They still have to work in a team as a smiter has poor survival capability by themselves. Also, all it takes is a monster running some kind of anti-caster spell like Obsidian Flesh or Spell Breaker and all your smiters have to stand there and wait for it to wear off to cast anything.

These two reasons are good enough for ArenaNet to put the skill on the "who gives a crap" list. If gold farmers can't use it and it's not being exploited in tournaments, then seriously... Who gives a crap.

For general PvE, RoJ is useful, but it's certainly not the most unbeatable build in the game. There's plenty of equally-broken builds including Cryway or Discord spam. Actually, the AOE damage is so narrow that you often catch just two or three targets in the damage beam under normal use, and the spell has a slow cast and a long recharge. If it was that great, then you sure don't see many people in Temple of the Ages saying: "LFG RoJ smiter for speed clear".

In fact, the only reason why people seem to complain about it is because of its heavy use in JQ. As for those competitive arenas (low-end PvP), the real reason why it works so well is because people are so bad at it. Seriously. In missions like JQ or FA, hardly anybody plays as a team. People run around trying to death-match any player or NPC they see, and when they see a solo player effortlessly capture one of their shrines (as they stand there like an idiot), then they cry for a nerf. In my opinion, JQ and FA's biggest problem is not a so-called "broken" build, but the horrible quality of the players playing it. Also, leechers and bots have pretty much figured out that ArenaNet won't ever ban them from griefing so they just enter over and over.

I dunno....I'm really of two minds about the Read the Wind nerf. First, I'm unhappy that one of the few 4x4 reasonable Ranger builds for DPS has been made less effective. Rangers had never really been good dmg dealers and it was fun to finally be able to hold one's own defensively and put out respectable DPS at the same time. That said, after playing the new RtW, removal of the +dmg ain't as terrible as it looked at first. Yeah I miss the extra dmg but I can still kill stuff reasonably fast. All in all it could have been a lot worse...like hitting BA.

It really wasn't, anyone with decent reaction time would cancel it immediately and take almost no extra damage, and then switch back into the stance at their leisure and go right back into fight as if nothing had happened.

It went from...

Advantages:
-5e
-33% IAS AND 25% move speed (no other stance, elite or otherwise, does this)
-Can immediately recover from cancel stance or stance removal

Disadvantages:
-Have to use cancel stance if threatened

to...

Advantages:
-5e
-33% IAS AND 25% move speed

Disadvantages:
-Have to use cancel stance if threatened

They saw the skill had a disadvantage that was not as significant as they had intended, so they fixed it by adding a 15 second recharge. The stance is still very powerful while the warrior is not under pressure, the only difference is that now putting pressure on the warrior and forcing him to cancel stance will actually have an impact on that warriors ability to go right back into the fight at full power. Basically, the 'nerf' makes it so the other team actually has a reason to attack the warriors that are using a stance which makes them take more damage.

The other side effect is that low strength builds can no longer use it for sustained pressure damage just by pumping out enough energy into it, but I don't really see the big issue in making a strength elite require the warrior to invest in strength to maintain (1-3 seconds of downtime is acceptable).

i think prage should get the old 33% IMS back. after all, since it's now easy to force a warrior out of prage, that warrior better be damn powerful while under it.

Will have to test it out but this doesn't sound like a good thing.

One of the good points of the minon bomber (and that's what I think you and I are both thinking about) is to have them all running in with Death Nova on. If the AI isn't going to start applying Death Nova until they are in combat, this will reduce the mob thinning effect at the start of each encounter. I'd prefer that the minons run in and help reduce the mob size or hp of the mob while applying conditions. Tends to work nice with the sab/discord builds. I'd imagine in most HM situations, the minons would be squished prior to having Death Nova applied therefore minimizing it's effect.

Again will require some testing but this sounds unfortunate

elk

I would have liked to see it at maybe 8 second recharge, with the way it is now, they killed it off. Abit, it's better for the game overall in my eyes and the skill should have never seen play in the way it did to begin with. Anyone who was playing with it for the last 2 months, go put frenzy on your bar and notice how things seem to be toned down now, or in line with the rest of the game

Lol dont be bad.. BA was an overpowered turret build, the REAL manly rangers still out there.

I probably did miss the whole smiters boon era b/c i stopped playing for about 4-5 months between 2006-2007 and after I came back was mostly playing pve. But the last viable smiteing build I could think of was air of enchantment and that was a long time ago so idk I just think they should make smiteing more of an option I mean its an entire set of skills that were rarely used if at all in conjunction with anything as a monk. I'm not talking about assacasters. Also like I said Pve its not bad but I can see y its OP in pvp I said it b4 pve/pvp would be good. Seriously though I remember way back when if u entered RA/TA/AB and u said u were a smiteing monk u would either get laughed out or flamed out.

It wasn't unnecessary. I guess you have to (know balance in) PvP to understand why it was nerfed.

So as long as it isn't hurting anybody, it's ok that it's bugged? I like your logic.

smiter's boon still works in pve, and is still one of the most powerful build templates you can run.

all right people seriously enough QQ, there have been like 3 updates where the majority of the people were positive towards it. this wasn't too bad, compared to some of their update. i specially love the aura of restoration buff, the nerfs are actually not that bad.

On the PvE side, I don't have any real problems with the changes, but I have my doubts about the AoR buff and the change in the AI for Death Nova. I see no need to QQ about those until I'm sure if I'm hurt for real as opposed to theorycrafting, though.

the problem with illusion of haste is not the duration of cripple... the problem is that the casting stops you dead in your tracks every 11 sec ... making it faster just to walk distances than chaining haste...

you want people to use this skill you have to make it a stance... the crippled duration don't matter.

They are sill usefull and one stance hasn't been touched.Don't forget what about those who use /A maybe PS need to be relooked at.


I have never noticed a change with RoJ when they first changed it as well as the scatter.

So just because you consider something to be low end, and that everyone who plays is "bad", a broken game mechanic should remain broken?

Who gives a crap? All the people who enjoy playing Jade Quarry and/or Fort Aspenwood. That alone is good enough reason to fix a broken game mechanic.

Especially if it doesn't matter for the rest of PvP because it's a joke. If it's such a joke then a change to it won't matter at all.