Thoughts on Snowball skills

I'm opening this thread so we can give our thoughts to Linsey, Regina and Anet on the newly updated Snowball skills. Feel free to discuss ANY Snowball skill, but I want to just begin with a comment about Holiday Blues.

My comments below are specifically in regard to the PvE holiday quests, but the thread is open to any format or quest, just specify which.

Holiday Blues - this skill still needs work. At least it's not "insta-fail-if-used", like previous years. Unfortunately, it's ALMOST still that bad. The sacrifice is still prohibitively large. You don't DARE use it unless you're over 400hp. The Grentch WILL target-swap to attack you at very low health, and unfortunately, dodging at close range is fail.

You can't chain Cone->Blues. You can do Blues->Cone, but then you've wasted your heal purely to enable the use of another skill. And likely you are surrounded by Grentch, and unable to use any skill now for 10s. Bad.

You can chain Fort->Blues, but only at extreme risk. You have to charge a group of Grentch, get Fort off without being interrupted or KD'd in the middle of said group. If you do get interrupted or KD'd you're in trouble, and only have Cone left.

Holiday Blues would have EXCELLENT synergy with Ice Breaker, if only you could use them together. Blues->Breaker would let you heal, and provide defense while you are vulnerable.

Baring that, Blues needs to be changed to sacrifice 50% of your current health. (EDIT: I added the word OR ->) Or, instead of dealing 50 flat damage, it should deal the sacrifice back out. Sacrifice 250hp, deal 250 damage. Sacrifice 12 hp, deal 12hp damage. Also possibly scale the degen according to the amount sacrificed.


So that's my thoughts there. Any thoughts from Guru people on the class specific skills, or any snowball skills, in any format?

Well, not only that, they made Snowball Dominance quest repeatable. If you have a PLAYER necro (not a hero, since they have a tendency to move around even after casting Ice Fort) run up to Staci's group and have the player use Holiday Blues along with Ice Fort and Cone, you end having Staci and her group bunch up together. This puts Staci's team in a more vulnerable position for flurry of ice if you are a ranger.

But I do noticed a bug. If an NPC turns back into an ally while inside the Holiday Blues effect, they still continue to lose health through degeneration even if they move out of the area itself until Holiday Blues ends. I noticed this while playing Snowball Dominance.

Now that you don't become an hero for using this I've run it all event long this year and it's great. When you get to the last group you need a target that can soak up some punishment (Freezie). The second he pops up rush in and do Ice Fort + Holiday Blues then pick off the stragglers with snowballs. A 50 shot to area and sustained -10 degen is a hell of a lot of damage to a bunch of 200hp targets. I like your idea of 50% current health, would be a nice touch.

Hero necro in snowball dominance is OP.

The problem with snowball skills is that a skill that is balanced for one type of use is OP for another and useless for another.

I like the repeatable snowball dom. It's kind of fun and at 5k a pop, my survivor's sittin' pretty.

Adjustments to snow fighting skills must be balanced first and foremost for the Snowball arena. PvE is an afterthought. A skill split would be a silly idea. I don't see how your suggestions would be beneficial for the PvP arena at all.

Not sure why, avalanche is relatively useless in PvE.
Holiday Blues is same case, the degen is not worth it when you could take a different prof and see much better results.

It might even be possible that the reason DvG is unbalanced is because they don't want yellow snow to be OP in PvE. Key word there is might, just brainstorming here.

Lets get em is pretty weak in PvE.

or how about the blinding snow haha

Yeah I would definately be pleased with a split and maybe a few buffs to certain profs

PvE & PvP

Steady Aim: Shout. For 10 seconds, the next time each ally within earshot throws a snowball, that snowball moves 50% faster and does 5 extra damage. Recharge 5

Blinding Snow: Spell. Interrupts target foe's action. If that action is a skill, that skill is disabled for 5 seconds. 1/4 casting 15 recharge

PvP

Side Step: Skill. Shadow step to target foe, that foe is knocked down and you gain 100 health. 40 recharge

Yellow Snow: Preperation. You and adjacent allies lose 1 condition and 1 hex. Your next snowball causes disease for 10 seconds. 3/4 casting 15 recharge

PvE

Lets Get Em: Shout. All allies move 20% faster. You gain 1 strike of adrenaline for each ally affected. 30 recharge (I don't see how 10% is going to make a difference in PvE and one mega snowball insta-charge isn't that helpful in PvE)

Avalanche: Spell. Target foe and nearby foes are Dazed for 10 seconds. 3/4 casting 15 recharge.

Holiday Blues: Spell. You and all foes in the area lose half of their maximum health. 50% Sacrifice 1 casting 60 recharge.



w/e doesn't matter. Just some suggestions.

Excellent suggestions! Far more constructive than "PvP Veto".

Not sure why they shouldn't be split? Are you serious?

1) it exists two weeks a year (three if they run Wintersday in July again)
2) the entire existence of these skills is for PvP; sure you use them in stuff like Strength of Snow but even the Snowball Dominance quest is basically like Zaishen Elite leveled PvP
3) this is really what you want dev and Test Krewe time spent on?
4) (my personal opinion here so this one's not to be taken as a legitimate point) Skill splits are completely retarded in the first place
Please name one single reason why they would care if Yellow Snow was OP in PvE when crap like Shadow Form, 600/Smite, etc. are running rampant. Also, again, it's two-three weeks a year.

So basically what Shayne said. BTW, I'm pretty much a 80%+ PvE player.

Hence the w/e it doesn't matter at the end of my post. Flame me less plox
I love how srs business sf and 600/smite nerf is.....they are working on it, within a couple of months the skill balance will come. As soon as a couple weeks it may even be here. Find something else to do for a couple weeks if the game is so damn horrible without the "Balance"