Preliminary Skill Update Notes: Feb 19

wat?
Yea, I thought about that. But if the drop rate is still .000002, people will quickly find that the chance for profit isn't worth the several hours spent completing an area with a balanced team.
It still would've been pretty OP even if it was only used by mesmers. Personally, I would've liked to have seen it changed to something like

Spell. Interrupt target foe's skill. If that foe was suffering from a Mesmer Hex, that foe and all foes in the area take 25...50 damage. If a skill was interrupted, they take an additional 25...50 damage.

every maintainable IAS has a drawback. every. single. maintainable. IAS. frenzy- double damage, p rage- double damage, flurry, reduced dps, flail, reduced movement.

I must agree with this. Many skills may seem nice by themselves, but not in the same build. Some skills seem like they're in the wrong attribute, too. I don't think the primary attribute needs any sort of buff at all. Another player and I were discussing how neat it would be to have more attributes that weren't based on giving energy.

This is a good idea. Instead of changing what mesmers are meant to do and homogenizing them with other classes, just make more skills reward the interupts, e-denial, etc.

But really, this was a good update. I only wish it hadnt taken 5 months to get out. Arnt skill updates supposed to come out every 2 months?

I would like to remind some that getting the Test Krewe fully in place and involved with the update process took up a chunk of that time, but I doubt that it could account for all three or so months' lateness.

Guild Wars is named after an era in the lore of GW's history. It has NOTHING to do with hinting you need to play as a team or in guilds.

And what if you can play areas in a 2 man setup? It's still co-op play. Just like two people bringing 6 heroes, except that drops suck in full group play.

Farming was part of pve endgame content. But instead of adding new content to the game, they take out existing content.

In conclusion: good for the masochists and purists, bad for the fun factor and replayability.

In all honesty, the only thing I'm looking forward to is abusing the new Dwarven Battle Stance.

I'm a little weary of the change of Ancestor's Rage to armor ignoring. Mobs of multiple rits will be hitting a lot harder now, possible party wipe situations in HM.

But I will say I am interested on running Ancestor's Rage on a Rt/Me possibly echo chaining it off a beefed up warrior. Just for the lulz.

2-man setups usually just involve casting four enchantments on yourself by microing a hero and then soloing everything while flagging your hero behind you.

It's just soloing with two skillbars.

Everyone has the same idea of fun as you do.

And I'm not even joking. Demonic Flesh + Barrage looks very overpowered, perma life-stealing splinter weapon much? Sure, it's an indirect update but by the looks of it, still gamebreakingly overpowered.
Too bad you can't break something that's already broken.

On another note, Makes me wonder if the live crew actually plays their own game, considering the recharge time is already 45 seconds.

I remember the last update that allowed Precision Shot to end stances even though it wasn't supposed to.

I remember the TK was introduced to as mediators between the developers and the community? I thought the whole point of the TK was to relate feedback from the community to the Live Team, to let them know of main issues and concerns, to discuss what should and what shouldn't be done for future updates? If all the TK is doing is just being given a bunch of dart boarded skills to test, then what is their own QA team for?

Read the forums and the Wiki? Anyone who's been remotely following those should be aware that the general consensus is that the main issue they should have looked at were the much needed Mesmer, Paragon, and Dervish buffs.

• The enchantment reapplies on critical hits, and if I remember correctly, that means it will almost always be considered the first and frontmost enchantment on you to be removed.
• You don't get criticals? You lose your IAS and have to wait maybe ten to fifteen or so seconds to put it back on.

I wouldn't think that each single target of Barrage would be considered a target for Demonic Flesh, but I guess that's something that I'd have to test when I get back to my computer.

It seems that a couple of skills were mentioned to have changes to them with respect to some of our previous proposals and ideas for those skills, rather than what the current skills do. I see now that a similar mistake was made for Fierce Blow.

I am kind of confused as to why Anet chose to focus on three classes (warriors, necros, and rits) that were already probably the most powerful classes in the game. I mean I know hammer mastery and blood magic werent used much but they belong to some very powerful professions and they are at least better than motivation and wind prayers are in pve

I'm very curious to hear if it syngergizes with Barrage, just to see how dedicated this Test Krewe really is. I came up with that combination in about 15 minutes of looking through the preliminary skill update notes.

So if it really works as I think it does, I've all the reason to finally give up on this game and move on.

Edit: Meh, who am I kidding. No matter how broken this game is in its' current state, I still enjoy playing it every once in awhile.

I don't see what you'll gain in taking away the fun for people like me who duo with a bunch of old timer friends and not with a hero like you think. Wtf are we gonna do, play everything for the 10th time again 'balanced'? Or waste 4 hours to get a titan gem in foundry if you're lucky? Sounds fun yeah. Been there, done that. To each their own I guess.

The point it, its maintainable and has no negative effects.

Well you're wrong there check out the Ritualist skill "Weapon of Aggression". It's not a stance either.

Oh, and don't forget to rub WotA, RaO, Heart of Fury, Lightning Reflexes, etc... in his face while you're at it.

doesn't matter, it's only maintainable with a huge stat investment, and is used on a class that performs poorly in melee, and when used on a warrior, isn't maintainable without being forced to use zealous.


WotA and RaO sure, but a key word in my post was MAINTAINABLE, which pretty much nullifies the rest of your examples.

I don't think it would work that way with Barrage since you're only actually using one skill that's targeting one foe. The other arrows are just AoE.

But if it does, I'll appreciate the buff.

It has a pretty high energy cost. It also limits the use of defensive weapon spells like Weapon of Warding and offensive ones like Splinter Weapon and GDW. No splinter or GDW is a big deal in PvE.

WoTA only works with daggers, can only be used effectively by assassins, provides a pretty low speed increase, and it's elite.
RaO has a short duration, requires a pet, has a huge energy cost, and it's elite.
Heart of Fury isn't maintainable, has a high energy cost, and has a 3/4 casting time.
Lightning Reflexes can only be used by rangers and can only be upkept about 1/4 of the time in PvP.
What's with you and rubbing faces?