Preliminary Skill Update Notes: Feb 19

^I have to agree with a lot of this. And btw, TK members, if you're communicating to the devs on what we say here, I've said it many times, several have agreed, give us back our VoR now please. U can have cry, but hows about just one little cookie?

Personally, I don't care what else happens, used the FD build Arkantos linked earlier before, gave it another roll tonight, still just a second rate waste of time build against any number of other builds..I dunno what your idea of fun is Ark, but mine isn't crawling around putting daze on with an elite when there's plenty of non elites to do it with. Oh and there's also epidemic. And Fragility. Oh I know, this all takes slots, but FD takes a slot too. A wasted, slow, boring elite slot.

You also mentioned pre-nerf VoR as being viable in DoA. Having had personal experience with it in DoA, would you personally say that bereft of Cry there is a reason for the VoR nerf to stand as-is?

The TK are among us in this thread, it just remains to be seen whether or not that actually matters at all, or whether it's just another aNet proprietary carrot, what Zappa referred to as jive talk..

Once again I repeat, those who say Mesmers are all about everything but raw damage are still not getting it. With the right skill bar, not focussed on interrupt or energy denial, a proper PvE skill bar, a Mesmer can be all about damaging the enemy for every single move they make(or don't ). This in PvE for a Mesmer, is no less important than any other class, especially for those of us who pour our time into our beloved Mes, regardless of the jeers and catcalls wherever we go. VoR was and should still be a shining example of this punishing approach to the use of a Mesmer.

What pisses me off the most? Those who never spend any real time on a Mesmer, telling those of us that do, the role we're supposed to fill, and the way we're meant to fill it.

Owell. Can always roll Me/Rt and SoSroll everything.. Welcome to Ritwars..Please leave class identity at the door.

Its been said in other threads, but mesmers are ok at everything, great at nothing. Which makes them great as secondary professions in PvE. But necros can degen and crowd control better, rangers can interrupt equally as well, monks can run hex removal, is anything left? Oh e-denial in PvE... you're kidding right?

The only time mesmers were balanced is when the game was first released, and they were only balanced because nobody had fully explored all the optimal builds. So as a result mesmers could still find groups and run FoW and UW.

I started playing June '05. I don't believe I've ever seen a skill update where mesmers weren't nerfed or just left alone. Never buffed...ever. Sure a skill here or there maybe, but usually along with that single buff several others took a swing from the nerf bat.

Is it possible to beat the game and elite areas using mesmers? Sure it is. Is it easier/faster to do it with other classes? Yes. And in today's game its all about time, UWSC doesn't stand for Underworld Slow-it-the-hell-down Clear.

okay i think its silly people think 600 is easy. if its easy why do we have to bring heals for them in cof? why do we have to bring dmg for dungeons they run like vloxxen and frostmaw? if its so good and easy why cant it do ducan's or all of uw? and when you go on a run and have the 600 die more then 6 times before half of lvl one is done in cof then you can rethink its easy.

I to wish they give more love to messies. most of the time i go /something and use the secondary skills more with some title skills and some interrupts. or they only want me when they cant get a monk bonder. i wish they wouldnt gives us dates/times for updates only to not deliver.

your sentence almost sounds like anything is needed besides damage in pve.

It is easy.

heals are for the smiter, not the tank.
vlox is pokey without damage, and enchant strips/daze in frostmaw's
if you die in cof 6 times before level 3, /uninstall. i didn't even die that much when i first learned to 600.

When I take Norgu in PvE I have him do interrupting. Helps shut down dangerous high-damage enemies, vastly contributes to party survival.

Mesmers' primary function is interrupts, and they do that extremely well.

Keep the random buffs out of PvP, please. We've already seen what kind of abuses that creates.

what's wrong with backbreaker sword warriors chaining off of steelfang?

oh, same reason bbswayers is considered lame. kinda figured they'd have the common sense mot to undo that fix, but really, shouldn't figure anet would have any sort of common sense.

The main problem is that you are essentially bashing a square pvp shaped mesmer into a round pve hole. When the majority of your skill pool is dedicated to sole target pvp play of course you are going to have deficiencies in pve.

Pve skills instead of being a tool to broaden the pve mesmer's appeal had the opposite effect and marginalised the class. Unfortunately unless there is a large scale skill function change, the only option is to suck it up (or whine on guru depending on your mental age).

I sort of agree but...

They could go for some splitting, just like they did with the Ritualist (ever noticed half of the current splits are Ritualist skills?)

Then again, the problem is actually well rooted. We currently have an excess of professions, the non-core being sort of redundant and so hard to balance.

Out of the 10 professions available, some of them were badly/limitedly conceived since the start, some of them lacking true peculiarity. That's the problem with Mesmers: for how deep the differences between the two might be, they're basically hexers/indirect damage dealers, like the Necromancers. Designers had to focus the Mesmer on this single target/PvP approach, otherwise the Mesmer would have become just a Necromancer in posh clothes. Changing it now is very hard, and would require an extensive redesign to the whole class - sort of what happened to the Ritualist, getting half of his skillset reworked for PvE - which I doubt will ever happen.

The new approach to professions they've said to be implementing in GW2 is kinda reassuring in this respect. I'd expect only one class dealing with hexes in the sequel, with probably multiple ways to develop this ability.

Oh you mean Heroes ? yeah sure , what about players interrupting in HM ? yeeeah .... i thought so .

Guess they need better reflexes! ^ ^ Otherwise, I'll take a hero over them any day.

i'll say it for a third time. and sorry for the caps, but... you know, i don't like repeating myself.

WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT MESMER HEROES HERE. AT ALL.

now make a mesmer, go into hard mode and try to interrupt mobs. even if you are successful, one-two interrupts every 20+ seconds changes nothing - there are too many mobs to even notice the change. that is, if you are successful.



there was another Shriketalon's idea in another thread.
make mesmer mantras party-wide.

and it can be easily done. keep them as stances, so only one mantra can be up at a time. instead of it having a direct effect, change mantras into something like: "Stance. Creates an enviromental effect for party members within earshot. Those party members get x less damage from y and get z energy whenever hit by y".
there are LOADS of possibilities to buff mesmers in pve, not add damage to them, not overbuff them and keep them mesmerish. just play one, look at the skills and use your brain.


that's fun actually - TK is soooo against skill splits, but there is an assload of splits on ritualist skills. because 'spirits in pve sucked when cast 6s'? now sum it up with ritualists being buffed even further...
mesmers suck for the whole time, because of various reasons. splits, please!

Mesmers never being top of the classes?

Remeber Cryway before the VoR nerf? VoR/CoF teams were the spikers in every DoA HM run. I don't wanna hear about mesmers never being used in high end PvE, its maybe your mesmer never got used, then its just a matter of joining the right guild to play.

My main is a Para. I know how you mesmers feel about not getting updates. I have given up on my para, running imba/SY! is not what that class should be forced to do. Try joining a DoA HM with a Para. This lack of inclusion of classes does not only apply to mesmers, it applies to alot of us.

Our guild runs NM DoA all the time and yes we use mesmers, we havn't been able to come up with a balanced team for HM DoA that doesn't take under 2 hours to do. All the other elite areas can be done with any class in HM.

If you wanna pug DoA HM, it'll never happen, unless they bring back ursan.

If my runner dies 6 times halfway through level one it means he's very close to ragequitting in embarassment, or it's time for me to leave and find a runner that doesn't suck. Having a bad runner does not = 600 being hard. 600 IS easy, just like Shadow Form IS easy. Both are easy ways to clear/run certain areas, and if one is looked at, both should be (imo). If they were to nerf SF alone, everyone would migrate to 600/smite, which would become the new dominant overpowered build. Everyone would cry nerf. It would be nerfed, and everyone would migrate to Obby Flesh, which would become the new dominant overpowered build. Everyone would cry nerf. Their way of dealing with all three at once is probably the best way. And yes, I use both 600/Smite and SF.

Don't need to, got a hero to do it for me Not sure why anyone would make a mesmer character, it's a hero's job in PvE.

too bad vor/cof was mostly abused by primairy eles on mindbender due to their high energy backup. NO investment in fc cause of mindbender, NO investment for cof, and vor was only to fuel up cof spikes.
i remember when it was used. even then, when i tried to join with my mes, people were like 'meh, eles are better, they don't run out of mana after mindbender/vor/echo/cof'. i don't mean that i wasn't invited to alliance groups from time to time to run cryway; but still, even with so overpowered mesmer skill, it's availability to other primairies left the mesmers neglected.

Why would I bother inturrupting the mobs on the mesmer I'm actually playing, they cast/attack themselves to death so nicely with Empathy+Backfire? Cry of Pain can add some decent degen to that. You can throw high cost spells on your bar with Lyssa's Aura, you can make a 3-4 attribute split skill bar with SoI. Mesmer's have options, the problem is you have to know who to put backfire on and who to put empathy on for it to have the greatest effect.

@Orry:
i've just replied to another silly statement about mesmer heroes, as it's not the topic of this discussion.
even with empathy and backfire put with your best targeting and timing, it's still indirect damage that can easily be stripped (bosses already have 1/2 hex duration, so...). even at your best, you're still much slower/weaker than other classes. if some hexes, as empathy, were AoE or dealt more damage as it's indirect, though...


bottom line. counted all the splits profession-wise:
6 sin
6 derv
4 ele
5 mes
7 monk
6 nec
22 para
14 ranger
32 rit
3 war

after taking a brief look at them, almost all splits were done to nerf more or less powerful pve skills in pvp. example? Mantra of Inscriptions. pvp recharges boost is about half slower than the pve one. it was toning the skills down for pvp.
on the other hand, rits (and paras to some level, but not THAT much) got buffs in pve, while the earlier version of the skill remained in pvp. with 32 rit splits done already, why are you so much against splitting ~10-20 mesmer skills, TK? i think we have all agreed that it was a pvp-designed class, but GW is not 'pvp only' or 'pve only' and it's possible to buff a class by splits as proven on a rit (again, ritwars say hello). laziness (maybe someone should replace you?), lack of ideas (maybe start reading sardelac?), buffing your personal fav classes or simply having a grudge on mesmers because they've interrupted you a bit too often in pvp?

Because some enemies carry spells that can rape the party if you don't have an SY spammer.

Pain Inverter does the job better if you're going for the damage-rather-than-interrupt route.

I've actually used the existing DBS FREQUENTLY as a hammer build for the last 2 years (Dwarven Battle Stance + Dwarven Stability = CONTINUOUS interrupts). In fact, its the ONLY hammer build I use in PVE. Based on ANETS decsion to try to get more players to use this elite, I figure that I'm probably the ONLY GW player that ACTUALLY uses DBS on a REGULAR basis, so really NO one is gonna be negatively affected by this NERF cept me.

KD's are fun BUT, INTS are considerably MORE useful in PvE. Many monsters in PvE simply can't be KD so it's useless to bring KD against them. INTS ALWAYS INT. The existing DBS is NOT susceptible to soothing images (who needs adrenaline when U int EVERY time your hammer connects). Sadly, I'm gonna miss using a hammer in PvE... U can actually go toe to toe with Duncan (by the time you finally get there) stopping almost ALL of his skills against you and your party.

If ANET wanted to buff this skill, they would just remove the "ends when you use a skill" clause instead of NERFING the ints. That way the skill can still be used to int on auto attack, and the hammer war can use any bonus damage skills without penalty. The +40 armor is really insignificant compared to the continuous interrupts.

Thank you ever so much for that enlightening information, of which I was totally unaware. Let them eat cake! It simply never occurred to me that raptors were the only necessary or desirable farm in the game. But, I guess they are a perfect substitute for vaettir given the number of gold caster weapons, mesmer tomes, and glacial stones dropped by raptors. They can also stand in for the kappa outside Gyala, given the propensity of raptors to drop Archaic Kappa Shells and ele tomes. Really, who needs options?

Favoring farming is bad in a game that encourages farming in dozens of ways, from titles to Nick the Traveler?

I assume that by "extreme solo farming" you mean speed clears of elite areas and runs of difficult dungeons. I can sympathize with the desire to stop that activity. However, I am concerned about the possible impact on other farms, since I would prefer that the baby not be thrown out with the bath water.

I am quite puzzled at the insistence that OF confers some ungodly op invulnerability that ranks right up there with SF or 600/Smite. If it's so great, then why do I not see a single speed clear or dungeon running build using it on PvX? Granted, if SF and 600 are nerfed, then OF will be the only option left to work with for those trying to create a new speed clear. But, it is so vastly inferior for that purpose that I just can't see any threat from leaving it alone.

I have a spirit-spamming rit working on survivor, the hard way. He does not use Summon Spirits, and his build works great. (Spirit's Gift and Spirit Siphon both work best when you summon fresh spirits as often as possible.) I have an ele who uses a spirit spamming build almost every week to farm for Nick. He does not use Summon Spirits, and his build works just fine. He has the energy pool to summon fresh spirits as desired, and I find that it usually makes more sense to summon a new batch in a spread formation than to use Summon Spirits to ball up the old batch for easy nuking or easy takedown by dervs who can hit the whole batch at once.

I love skill updates. Always makes for great reading. Keep em coming ANET.

I'm talking about the ritualist/weak attribute line changes in the update. It's better that they're making multiple professions stronger as opposed to making one stronger. And I know no one is asking for that, which is why it's going to take a lot more time to rework mesmers to be powerful in the communities eyes. ANet can easily just mega buff random mesmer skills so they steamroll shit in gimmicks, or they can take their time and actually rework more skills without making them super overpowered.

To be fair, that really has nothing to do with mesmers. Pretty much any class can do amazing damage with AP and PvE skills. A warrior can pump out more single target damage with that bar than a bar with warrior with attack skills in some situations. It's a universally broken template.

By that logic, healing monks are crap because E/Mos can heal better than monks. Restoration ritualists are crap because N/Rts can heal better than ritualists. Any caster that can do big damage by spamming skills is crap because necros can do it better with infinite energy.

A time where mesmers were slightly superior to other classes? Have you already forgotten about cryway? There, you wanted your moment of superiority, you got it.

And you're right, ANet doesn't want a completely balanced PvE. However, they're currently nerfing all the overpowered templates and buffing other attribute lines to a point where they're decent/good, but not overpowered. I think it's obvious that ANet doesn't want insanely overpowered skills in PvE right now, which is exactly why they didn't buff mesmers in this update. Yes, they've had years to do it, and they certainly should have done it sooner, but now it seems like they want a somewhat balanced PvE game. Seeing as that's what they want, it's going to take longer to balance professions.

Mesmers along with a few other professions in PvE are in a very deep hole, and it's going to take time to fix it. Anet should have buffed them long ago, but now they actually want to put time and thought into skill updates as opposed to 'here you go guys, indefinite invincibility and huge damage skills!'.

There's a difference between years of trying to make mesmers good, and years of ANet not giving a shit. When you don't give a shit, you don't work on it, so that whole argument is pretty moot.

yea cause 5 months(years) is not long enough...

Edit:

yes, it may be that the developers don't care; however, I'm part of the community and I do.

I agree, the problem is that AP and PvE skills are better than any other Mesmer build for PvE.

I wander why we're all talking about updates to skills that have not been updated instead of the updated skills themselves...

Anyways, just looked at the preliminary notes again and I think the 'wow' feeling sort of faded into just a 'not bad...' feeling. Had it not taken this long to come out then it would have been more overwhelming but I guess I, like many others, were expecting more... However, I guess they did release another skill update about a month ago, though it did not affect me in any way so I'm biased towards thinking it never really happened, but that's just me.

Onto this update though. I won't mention the warrior updates since I don't play warriors and am pretty much clueless how to play them, although I think the retreat skill seems a nice change (and very similar to fall back)... Then again I only use fall back to speed up missions and the health gain is a nice bonus. As such, whilst a nice change, I'm not sure whether it will really have that big a impact. For me at least I doubt it will as I will probably prefer the health gain over the block chance mostly because I only use it when the monsters are dead so there won't be anything to block against. I do see that it might be a good running skill though.

The top changes of this update for me are all ritualist skills and whilst I do have, and play a nec, I don't see myself running blood magic anytime soon. Demonic flesh seems an interesting change though, but I find it is very vague, such as, is it only for the caster or does it affect other party members? and how long does it last?
If it last anywhere near as long as its current self then it could combo very well with moebius death blossom builds...
Blood bond also seems quite nice.

Anyways my top three changes are, in order;
.Destructive was Glaive
.Destruction
.spirit rift/spirit boon strike

I liked destructive was Glaive the most as I find it decent enough to contend with signet of spirits in terms of being the elite of choice for many rits. The 20% armor penetration is nice, as is the damage when dropped (which is also affected by the ap), but the recharge makes it even nicer too.

Destruction is next if only for its 5 times increase in accumulation of damage.

The next two I find are tied for third place followed very closely by ancestors rage. I always found the 5 second delay annoying but to get rid of that and add cracked armor is great. Spirit boon strike is also great for its quicker cast and recharge which can help manage spirits like union better. Spirit heroes will probably benefit more though as players can just use summon spirits.

One last thing, I can't remember where so I can't quote it, but I think it was Shayne Hawk who mentioned his priorities with regards to what he would like to push for in updates.
I'm not too sure but I doubt it would be against the NDA, but I think I and many others would like to hear about what some of you TK who read this' priorities are. This may require a new thread but I was unsure so decided to post here where it was mentioned.

Sorry for the wall btw!

Wow this really turned into a mesmers vs not-mesmers thread didn't it?

For myself, let me start by saying that I have a character of every profession who has played through every campaign, most dungeons and done a lot (if not all) of hard mode. My goal in doing so was to learn the class by class balance issues, the effective play strategies for each class, etc.

My mesmer has done everything there is to do in HM except the Deep and UW since the Dhuum addition. While its fair to say that mesmers are disadvantaged in PvE, they are far from terrible. The issue is mainly that mesmers are a class focused on damaging and disrupting single targets, and in PvE this is usually not an efficient (or even effective) idea due to large mob sizes and artificially inflated damage/regenerations/cast times etc.

However, a mesmer still has a nice place in PvE... as GW is a TEAM game, a mesmer can augment a team in a way that is analogous to how a sniper augments a battalion of traditional infintry. By having mostly AoE type damage characters and 1 or 2 sniper like mesmers the player can be extremely effective in virtually any situation.

That being said, where a mesmer truly shines in in HM only, as all damage they deal from mesmer spells is ARMOR IGNORING! They also have some superb energy management options. What they lack most are effective skills with reasonable energy costs, cast times and recharge times. Mesmer skills generally have good effects imo, but the energy costs and recharges pummel the skills to the point of not being useful. But make no mistake people! Mesmers are still good, they just need to be brought more in line with the other more favored classes (keep in mind mesmers are not alone in this aspect).

Now, regarding Aggressive Refrain: I still say, even after all the discussion, that the proposed nerf to this skill is stupid. A non-removable -20 AR on a skill already costing 25 energy is a far too high price to pay for a IAS. The cracked armor version was much better, despite the whining about heroes removing cracked armor. I mean seriously... "Wahhh!!! My heroes used all their energy removing condtions from me making me less squishy!" There are a lot of ways this can be dealt with rather than making a skill a crapfest. If the cracked armor is really such a big deal, why not make the AR induce the -20 AR only when affected by a shout or chant? Or have it last only for a specified period of time instead of being always active? There would seem to be no shortage of ways to deal with the whining better than what was announced.

For the TLDR version: Mesmers are not terrible, but deserve and need some some love, the new Aggressive refrain makes me think that the people coming up with ideas for balance issues are doing little more than throwing darts and not thinking about where they land. Good hunting.

Except that using it requires a 60 AL rit to go stand in the middle of the action instead of remaining behind the frontliners. I would look at a rit bringing something like this on a team outing the same way I'd look at an ele bringing Shockwave as his elite -- suicide prone. PBAoE skills for squishies just don't make much sense to me outside of farming builds, and I'm not sure that even the buffed version would be all that useful for farming.

AR is still one of the most powerful IAS' in the game.

Cry of Pain will already be on the bar for damage purposes, it can inturrupt the big spells while still not being on an inturrupt bar.

Hexes stack, you can use Pain Inverter along with Empathy and Backfire. This helps a lot with preventing hex removal too. Empathy and Backfire also work nicely on healers, something which Pain Inverter doesn't do so well.

Armor ignoring is nothing when you have the synergy professions smashing face. This update further promotes such play with necro bars that clean, give health, adrenaline for SY spam or other toys, and mass damage buffs on a single bar.

Cryway groups many times had 0 mesmers. They didn't need mesmers.

Pure-healing monks are crap compared to E/Mos or N/Mos with pure heal, they have superior e-management and can also carry protective spells + Heal Party for huge heals without energy problems.

N/Rts same, better than pure healing rits.

And yes, casters that only spam high-damage spells are crap compared to necros. Necro = ultimate caster damage, armor-ignoring > elementalists in Hard Mode.
Don't kid yourself. E/Mes were used thanks to their superior e-pool, same with Necros and even Monks sometimes carried CoP. Mesmers? Fast-casting a 1/4 second spell is useless. Especially if you have an invincible tank and time is not an issue.
Yeah, but it took them a LONG time to do anything. And all they did was buff Warriors, confuse Necros and slightly change Paragons + misc. farming skills. They're not trying hard enough.
Well yeah, but it's not like A.Net is EVER going to care about the customer base. GW2 train, all aboard.

Reversal of Fortune is one of the best protection skills in the game.

Therefore, the rest of the monk's skills should be complete shit?

What if I don't have Mesmer secondary? What if I've gone with, say, Assassin secondary for AP? Or if I'm using my PvE slots on better skills?

Why bother, just use Pain Inverter and a couple Norn shouts, couple smite signets, paired with your Discord Necros and that enemy is dead - on to the next one. A lot of the time there's no time even to cast all your damage skills; let alone a long-casting spell like Backfire.

Plus, Pain Inverter doesn't take away attribute points.

Pain Inverter often triggers 80 on healer auto-attacks in Hard Mode, but beyond that, it makes enemies take so much damage that their healer simply can't heal them enough to counter - or quickly enough, if the enemy uses an AoE skill.

My thoughts:

SF, OF, and 600/smite: No comment, I could honestly care less. If anyone leaves because of these nerfs, then I hope they can find another game that lets them godmode through it without a cheat.

Rit buffs

A-Rage: Whatever

Spirit Burn: You can make it 100 second burn and maybe it will be useful.

Destruction: So, if it lives for 7 seconds and you Rupture it, you win PvE, right?

Anguished was Lingwah: About as useful as recharging all your Warrior signets, even after the new Rit hexes.

Lamentation: Wastrel’s Demise is better.

Renewing Surge: IoP is better.

Binding Chains: Winter’s Embrace is better.

Dulled Weapon: A hex version of Stoneflesh Aura that is better than Stone Sheath… wow…

CwL: Okay, non-elite versions of stuff is fine with me.

DwG: This makes me happy.

GfB: Ash Blast with a different conditional blind effect.

Spirit Boon Strike: Summon Spirits is better, but nice to have a stationary spirit heal.

Spirit Rift: Burst damage is better than all of it missing once they move out of the way after one second.

Signet of Spirits: Doesn’t kill it, so okay.

Hammer Buffs

Auspicious Blow: This change can actually be balanced in PvP as well as PvE. Something to think about.

Backbreaker: Should’ve been done in PvP in the first place…

Crude Swing: Okay, AoE damage buffs are always welcome. Could even be balanced in PvP, if you hit the recharge.

Forceful Blow: Okay, four times better than what it used to be.

Staggering Blow: Okay.

Belly Smash: Okay. Won’t do much for the skill, though.

Overbearing Smash: Okay. Better alternatives for Daze, though.

Renewing Smash: Repeating Strike? On steroids? Okay.

Fierce Blow: An adrenaline-based Crushing Blow? Okay.

Yeti Smash: Why nerf it? It’s fine the way it is.

Dwarven Battle Stance: Can’t wait for next year’s buff to this skill: +100% IAS, +100% IMS, +100 Armor, Changed to a skill, and KD’s on hits. Seriously though, it’s a nice job.

Tactics Rework

Auspicious Parry: Okay.

Defensive Stance: Actually works out well when I think about. A defensive Enraging Charge…

Deflect Arrows: As long as it has the same recharge and duration as Disciplined Stance, I’m fine with it.

Thrill of Victory: Power Attack is still better, but this is a nice change.

Shield Stance: Okay.

Soldier’s Defense: Was only popular and will only be popular for monks used in Paragon-heavy builds. Adrenaline means nothing then.

Soldier’s Speed: Looks interesting; stance version of Sig of Mystic Speed.

Soldier’s Stance: Elite Lightning Reflexes in PvE is welcome.

Fear Me!: Interesting, but with this and the Grapple change, I fear Steady Stance warriors will make a return.

To The Limit!: Okay.

Charge!: Okay.

None Shall Pass!: Looks interesting.

Retreat!: A Shout version of Dodge… Okay.

Grapple: It was changed to remove stances on self to not be abused by Steady Stance warriors…

Shove: Okay, now requires as much thought as Bull’s Strike.

Blood Magic Rework

Blood of the Aggressor: Enfeeble is better.

Blood Renewal: Okay.

Life Siphon: About damn time.

Ravenous Gaze: Why nerf it?

Barbed Signet: Looks okay.

Oppressive Gaze: Make it Disease and it would be interesting.

Jaundiced Gaze: Hit the recharge (15 seconds) and it will be fine.

Blood Bond: Meh.

Demonic Flesh: Keep an eye on this, Anet.

Mark of Fury: Okay.

Other Issues

Soldier’s Fury and Aggressive Refrain: Anything that makes Paragons more vulnerable is okay with me. Don’t listen to the doomsayers here (why should Paragons have a better Frenzy?)

CripShot: Finally.

Heal as One: Okay.

Glimmering Mark: I hardly think IoP mesmers will abuse this. Word of Healing and Vamp Spirit are better elites for them.

Pious Concentration: ABOUT DAMN TIME!

Resilient Weapon: Nerf the armor bonus (+10 instead of +24) and it will be fine.

Shattering Assault: Gee, I wonder what elite R/A’s will abuse this time? Moebius Strike? Assault Enchantments? Flashing Blades?

Featherfoot Grace: Finally.

Primal Rage: Battle Rage with a recharge… okay.

Steelfang Slash: No. Nuh-uh. Let it stay in the fire it died in.

This is a video about the perma sin nerf possibly this Thursday hope u like =D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hSDd-1NXm0

Hmm?

You can do a full DoA run in NM with 2 players + 6 heroes in about 4 hours and that will net you 4 titan gemstones at least per person at the end.

Add 20-30 minutes if you want to do Mallyx too for a 5th titan.

But I agree with you.

And I love the retards (apparently includes Anet) that think permanent -20 armor is better than CA in PvE.

Insanity doesn't even scratch the surface.... I feel sorry for anyone in a DBS war with Dwarven Stability and Whirlwind with a GDW+GDArmor spamming Necr.... I'm getting disgusting ideas about how hard this skill is gonna rape.

Hi,
personally I trully enjoy most of the boosts you are proposing, however I think you should (imo) have a look at 2 skills, I mean :

-deflect arrows (the new skill would be : "Deflect Arrows will be reworked to give a 75% chance to block all types of attacks, but it will cause bleeding to adjacent foes when you block projectiles.")
With 9 in tactics, his duration is 5s while his recharge is 10s: isn't the recharge too short ?

-Primal rage, which would have now an adrenaline cost...Not because I am in love with this skill, but because i think that this skill is not overpowered yet. Besides, warriors are playing different builds in gvg for some months, in comparaison with before (now i guess everyone is going to play with one or even too whirling axe warrior because of new stances).

thanks!

GG Anet, i really see your trying to make paragons not rely on a pve only wammo skill to get a group.