Disenchantment Course

I made a new toon recently and spawned him in Factions. I was going through the 'Insignia' quest, which requires you to take some sub-quests from Instructor Ng. One of these is called the 'Disenchantment Course'. In this test, your goal is to remove enchantments from Brother Pe Wan to make him more vulnerable to damage, and pound down his HP bar until he yields.

The problem is that he uses [[life sheath], which is not the same skill it originally was. It is (and has been for a fair amount of time now) an elite version of [[reversal of fortune]. Because it casts in a quarter of a second and recharges in two, using any enchantment removal skill against it is pointless. He can recast it many times in the time it takes an enchant removal skill to recharge once. He also gains HP when you damage him while he's enchanted with it, and to top it off, it removes conditions from him and causes him to get the divine favor bonus every 2 seconds. This can make it hard for a low level toon to overpower him and complete the quest (my poor little level 6 had to chip away at him for about 6 minutes).

Yes, you can remove it by hitting him with a standard attack and immediately follow with something stronger (a skill attack or spell). That's how I slowly killed him. But IMHO, this really misses the whole point that the quest is trying to teach newbies (they're the people it's really directed at): removing a prot from your target before continuing your attacks is a good thing.

So, the suggestion:

Change his skill(s) to something that doesn't end upon taking a hit and has a longer recharge. Maybe something like [[shielding hands]. That way, a newbie can more easily see the difference between attacking a prot'ed target and one that isn't, and also more fully appreciate the value of removing the prot.

/signed

But not for your idea, for Anet to take time to look into NPCs and monsters that use the skills they change. I remember them changing an Assassin skill and it removed all the monsters that used it from being able to use more than their Lead Attack as the Off-hand was changed. Or look at Amiresh the Pious out in the Sulphur where he can only be reached by Wurms that have no hexes and his elite is [divert hexes]. Lots of skills and monsters need to be fixed, but I don't expect it will happen. Makes it easier to farm the [dwarven battle stance] Elementals that don't actually use a hammer.

I don't think Anet had this quest in mind when they changed Life Sheath. It's not really a matter of /signing or /notsigning, but just getting it fixed.

Sometimes skills are made for single quests and missions.

All needed here is to make a simple 'copy' skill and make the NPC use that.

Then you can forget about skill change and balances there forever.

ANet ought to take a month to look through builds that have become dysfunctional, or just to modify a few monster bars here and there.

A Wiki user is also noting obsolote skillbars for Anet's reference:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:...lete_skillbars

Which do you all think Anet was thinking of first when they did the skill changes? Player usage balance, or the effectiveness of NPC builds? I would say the former.

My point: The effects the skill changes have on NPC builds aren't top priority on the list. We might as well form our own team that surveys NPC skills and give Anet the data, because they sure as heck aren't going to bother caring about the NPCs.

That list is no where near complete. I'm here to say that 95% of all pve mobs had obsolete skillbars upon release. What is the difference between some of those terrible combinations and Oath shot + determined shot + whirling defense?

Actually I would love to see all of the mobs updated and given legitimate working skillbars. Not so much that, but everyone later bitching about how the mobs are now way too powerful everywhere.

Life Steal completely bypasses his only form of defense.

Yes, but that undermines the point of the quest (educating newer players). It also poses a problem, because only the necromancer will have access to an abundant amount of life steal skills, a lot of which cannot be obtained on Shing Jea island.

Really, this is part of a larger problem (as many others have pointed out) and it needs fixing.

They cold also make him a Spell Breaker 55 Mo and give the player Chillblains and a stick. XD

How about giving him [[Shield of Regeneration] instead? It's the only other Core/Factions Elite enchantment I could find(besides Spell Breaker). That or do a "copy" skill like Mithran suggested with the old [[Life Sheath].

Shield of Deflection would also be a suitable replacement.

Man first people cheer about Anet buffing underused elites, but when THE MOBS USE THEM they get all bitchy.

Make me more powerful, but no one else amirite?

They should get rid of elite for the moment from the NPC and replace with with either Shielding Hands or Healing Breeze.

/signed

Gotta say it would be a pretty bad way to teach newbies to disenchant something with that short a recharge.

Does this have anything to do with the topic?


But on the topic, indeed it needs to be changed. Alrdy hear some people shouting, just kill it. Yes I know, I killed it with my assassin in 4 seconds, without using any disenchant skills, but thats not the problem. If for new people, learning the ropes of this game, this should be fixed, as as it is not, its teaching nobody nothing.

Just like marthy said, its not about /signed or /notsigned, it just needs to be fixed.

[signet of humility], [diversion], [broad head arrow] take ur pick, kill him in 5 seconds. *sigh*

Not one of those is available on Shing Jea island and not one of them is concerned with disenchanting.

You gotta love it when the trolls come through, post their knowledgeable sounding one or two sentence replies, and then leave - while completely failing to address the topic of the thread.

This isn't about whether the NPC target of the quest is overpowered or underpowered. This isn't about whether his build (or more accurately, his one single skill) is over or underpowered. This isn't about whether you can bypass it with "life stealing" or "health loss" effects. This isn't about the fact that he can be easily beaten by coming back later when you're at a higher level and have better weapons, skills, and higher attributes. This isn't about whether he can be easily beaten by skills that aren't available on shing jea island.

What this thread is about, is how the nature of the quest has been broken. The functionality of [[life sheath] is not, unto itself, a problem. The problem is that, with its current functionality, it's not a good skill to throw at newbies and say: "Here, practice your enchantment removal against this."

Seriously, some of you really, really need to learn to take a few moments to think about, and actually UNDERSTAND what you're reading before posting replies that do nothing except make you sound like idiots... *sigh*

/end rant

On topic, I like Mithran's idea the best, too. Giving Brother Pe Wan a unique skill soley for the purpose of this quest would be the best solution. That way this problem could never arise again due to another skill functionality change in the future.

I think a non-elite enchantment would be best; there would be no need of making a special skill and also the "new" player will be familiar of that skill which he/she can easily obtain.

You have a point there, too. One of the reasons I picked [[shielding hands] for a suggestion in the OP was because I knew it's a skill monks recieve as part of a quest on Shing Jea island (my monk is from factions).

Shielding Hands would, with its current functionality, be an effective choice for the quest. It has both decent duration and a relatively long recharge. It also will have a noticable effect on the DPS of a low level toon, which encourages the use of the enchant removal skill. All of that could change with a skill balance though - just like what happened to Life Sheath.