Preliminary Skill Update Notes: Feb 19

I find I have to agree. While skill splits may or may not be a good idea in principle (depending on who you ask), if they are the only way to fix the mesmer for PvE, then that's what needs to be done. This is why the skill splits exist. If they are not going to be used to fix PvE without messing up PvP (or vice versa), then they should not exist in the first place. And since I'm pretty sure they're not going away, then one might as well make use of them.

quoted for truth.

it's much easier to roll pve even as an imbagon than as a mesmer. being able to aggro several groups at once and keep them on you AND get some pumping into my spear damage (via heroes' skills, while getting a good synergy between heroes and mes is impossible) AND using AoE heroes is not only safer but also much faster than rolling the same location as a mesmer.
and pve, afaik, is measured by stability and speed - how fast can you roll it and what are the odds that you fail.

if ANet has no love for mesmers and the only TK statements, both given us in words and by actions, say that they don't think mesmers are designed for pve and not intend to change them, we, casual players, can do at least that much. as seriously, wiki is a place where newcomers look for info on a new game. when i've started playing with two friends, i chose mesmer and one of us chose ele only by descriptions on wiki, the nice written bullshit at 'how to play guide', and the other chose monk cause we thought 'we'll need a healer'. there are only subtle hints, like 'A Mesmer has a flexible position in PvE, although some groups will not look for one'. am i the only one to see that it's not enough?

^Agreed. Skill splits are an awesome tool, and throughly underused atm. So it means more work. But more work for that means the end result of happier campers on both sides of the fence that separate PvE and PvP.

You guys really have no idea how great they are, perhaps you might consider the alternatives, for example, in Neverwinter, it requires a DM to enforce rules set in place for PvP, whereby certain skills and aoe effects etc, are banned from PvP altogether.

You tell me which takes more work..I realise, before you say it, this isn't NwN. No, this is GW, and according to most GW'ers, it's better than NwN. That being the case, you have the tools, according to aNet you have the in-game knowledge. How about you start showing us that this is indeed the case, rather than making excuses, based obviously on personal opinion?

I did not look at the other 1000 responses to this thread but here is my two-cents on one obvious skill tweak for SoS that is not being addressed. ANET- Why in the H E Double-Hockey Sticks would you not put SoS in the spawning category. I AM SICK of wars/sins/monks/etc. using SoS to vanquish any zone. All you have to do is stick it in spawning and make it conditional so that at 0-5 ranks you have 1 spirit, 6-10 2 spirits, and 11+ 3 spirits. This ELite skill should be meant for Rits only..........I mean C'MON man!!!

^This right here. Bloody good idea, with a damn good method of enforcing more than 2 or 3 points in spawning.

Know what I think? Those of us in this thread who are here for more than just "lolsf600nerfduh", should be on the TK. In just one thread we've given more sane input than any of the output I've seen thus far from the actual TK.

No offence to you TK folks, I'm sure u can cop that on the chin, just like we're being nice about the fact that personal opinions/preferences seem to be the driving force behind the current state of affairs in the so-called "Balancing" of GW. Or at least that's how it appears.

Regardless of that, or my opinion or the next guys, I really am looking forward to this update. IMO the proof is in the pudding, and this is your (TK) chance to shine and prove us all bumbling incompetent idiots.

If that happens, I'll buy you all an Aged Dwarven at Jalis' Bar 'n' Grill.

I seriously think that all people who want this skills update (with the nerf of SF, OF and 600) are only people that are enable to use this builds and consequently enjoy the "disgrace" of others.

Anyway, i hope will be buff somother skills of sin (for example) cause if nerf shadow form and will not do much for the sin, then it will become totally useless and you could also delete him.
At the same time, i hope will be buff pgs as mesm o elementalist...

I think that after 4 years of game, Anet should not nerf the skill of what is most used, but should reinforce other pg that are not used, buff some skill of all pg, so we can use somother builds, people have a large choise... Instead, with the nerf will be done, will certainly create other build strong (if there are still >_>) and you will fall into what has happened until now: all with the same build, all with the same pg... I don't think that this is what anet want, so and i also think that thay are doing a big mistake nefing SF: half the people that now are playing will leave the game....
So, i think the nerf will be useless and the best thing to do i to buff other skills

When you want the best option when it comes to SoS spamming - you will go with the rit. It doesn't make sense to go with a non-rit guy for it, which means it has the same effect as if it was tied to Spawning.
The real problem is that you have guys like warriors resorting to SoS. These guys actually feel that SoS is actually better than their overpowered options and that would speak for a nerf of SoS for everyone. Tying it to Spawning wouldn't solve the issue, the same way that tying CoP to FC wouldn't solve the issue - the problem is that the skill is just too good, regardless of who is using it.

^You have a point, though I must counter with this little gem, just one example, but one that makes it glaringly obvious that yes, sometimes (I use that conservatively to say the very least) SoS is better than any of the other options, for any class. In some places, including the examples below, this even applies to Wars and Para's, with their buhhhhh 2 pips of e-regen.

Norn Tournament. Roll the standard SoS, with any class. Drop spirits, go to sleep. Win. Repeat.

Same goes for Glacial Griffin, same goes for Knorr Oaken, same goes for many things in many places. Let me ask you this; How many of you don't see Tihark come up in the ZM of the day and immediately think:

"Awwww, bloody beaut, bonzer bottler matey OYYYYYYY!!!!!" "Time to roll SoS on all my toons for the easiest shitload of Zcoins this side of, well, anywhere!"

I recently took 8 of my 11 toons through NF, for the sole reason of being ready for the update, regardless of how it pans out. Why hadn't I already done it? As I said, 11 toons. I am simply not that masochistic. Anyway....

I used mainly their own skills, or variants of several relatively standard PvE builds. It worked, I got along OK, then I realised, "Hey, I'm missing 6 or 7 meat shields!" Re-roll as SoS, go back to sleep and daydream my way through NF.

Now I'm not a moron, I'm no raw noob, I use all 10 classes and generally cycle through them all to avoid the boredom that killed NwN for me. Thing is this: SF is more griped about than any other skill in GW, yet for doing the majority of things besides pure farming or dungeon running, SoS leaves it dead in the water. IMO, that's OP. Might also add that in some very lucrative solo farms, SoS goes further, to eclipse the SF sin entirely for ease of use, profitability and possibly most important of all, survivability.

You make the point that the Rits' being best at SoS is akin to tying it to SP, but tbh, if you've ever rolled a dedicated SoS dervish for instance, you'd see that the higher survivability of the Derv, with higher base HP and AL, make SP all but completely pointless, so of course ppl are gonna say other classes do it better. Because they do. The only exception to this is spirits like Wanderlust, etc, that lose health as they do their thing, but then these types don't generally make it onto an SoS bar, and the non-elites of that type that do, can generally be kept quite healthy just with Summon Spirits.

Tie it to Spawning, make the reqs that Revrac suggested, then doing that goes right out the window. It's pure plain simple logic.

it's better to have an overpowered skill available to one class (sos to rit, cop to mes), than to every class.
and if everyone had their one special unique op skill/build and was really viable with it, and rits were using rit skills, mesmers were using mes skills etc, it would be easier to tone down those skills later, after everyone plays their primairy class.
simply moving sos to spawning or tying cop to fc isn't the goal, but it's one of the best short-run options to balance further.

i mean, there are imbalanced builds. there always will be. a good idea would be to give everyone their option of being imbalanced when compared to others, in a different way though, and then slowly tone those imbalances down. one would have to decide whether to play a rit for sos, mes for cop, ele for er, etc, instead of choosing - for example - ele because of vast mana pool and rolling both sos and cop, depending on location.

Mesmers need a buff for PvE, certainly more than necros...

Physical + necros still own hm, good for me. Add some ancestor's rage and splinter weapon to blow things up even faster.

All of the places you mention are one-man missions in a team game.
That by default is broken.
So you simply can not make game wide assessments based on that. It's the same thing as arguing that Mending is a good skill because it helps keep the 55 alive.

As far as the rits being the best SoS spammers - you need to look at this from the perspective of the best options available. Why would you need the extra HP points and armour of a dervish when you have a heavily buffed and protted assassin tanking and blowing up the foes?
The dervish SoS spammer is like a mesmer.
It will work - but there are better options.
Regarding the idea that certain classes should be completely excluded from SoS - that in my opinion goes completely against the basic rule of GW and multi-classing. There should be no issue in using balanced skills on a non-primary guy. (The problem here of course is the fact that SoS isn't balanced, so the nerfs to it aren't coming from secondary abuse - but rather from the fact that it needs to be toned down.)

The problem with this is that the overpowered builds really only play a role when farming. And out of the whole game, you will only be farming in a few select locations. And those locations will have foes that are completely static in their behaviour and skills.
So, to accommodate every guy's overpowered build - these areas would need to be designed in a way that would promote the use of a different tactic in each of these areas. So that in one area you'd want rits, in the other you'd want mesmers, third eles ... The problem is that we have reached a level where our options are so overpowered that there is no way to design a semi-balanced environment in a way that would promote different tactics. For instance - with CoP your team could spike down a WHOLE group of foes in seconds. And if you can use this everywhere in the game - why would you use anything else?
It's the same reason why SF is so problematic from the balance-viewpoint.

Of course, that are other viewpoints that need to be considered. The same way that I argued that stuff like SF is actually good for the game because it reduces the grind - and in that light we can understand why your suggestion would make sense. But just as I admit that lessening the grind is done better by actually removing it from the game as game content, in that light trashing other options so that mesmers can catch up is the better option than your suggestion.
So if additional resources will be put into GW - we should ALL argue that the game needs to be trashed. Because the more the options get buffed - the worse the situation will get.

I do wonder about that part where a Paragon has -20 armour instead if having the cracked armour condition. What I am worried about is Paragons who use that skill basically being exposed to having a double penalty when they are being targeted by cracked armour. That is potentially -40 armour. It will offset some buffs making the Paragons armour rating a big doubt.
To have a warrior's strength armour without being able to use Sentinel's upgrades makes this a bit harsh on those Para builds. I do wonder if the -20 armour effect actually then has the same limit of reducing the armour to 60. I mean what would happen if they first get cracked armour and then use a skill that trigger the -20 armour. Does it take em down to 40 in that case?

Tip of the hat sir!
Brilliant question!

Bloody good point. If it doesnt trigger the armor penalty , then CA is going to screw some paragons really hard , getting nukes from lvl 26-30 foes with those -40 H U R T S real bad ( and please , dont come with that "PS say hi" bullcrap , you cant keep whole team under PS always and ench strip do exist ).

You have many good points, and I agree with a fair portion of what you say, but I think your and my idea of secondary abuse differ a little. To me, the mere fact that SoS is so powerful in the hands of any class, whereas SF is only really useful to sins, is a sure sign of secondary abuse.

Let's not forget what most use to farm Nick items every single week. Again, doesn't matter what class you roll solo SoS to do it. In that case, yes the extra armor and HP of a Derv matter. And add that Soloability to a Discord team: Pure unadulterated "WTFPWN!!?!" :O

TBH, as has been said before, GW is more and more becoming a 1p+H/H game. There's no point denying it and the game itself seems to reflect that. No amount of brute force is going to make people party any more than they are now, or any more than it'll force them off of GW altogether. That's not a personal threat masked in weasel words, btw. Mere observation.

That GW2 will be soloable, with "Incentives" added for team play goes further to prove that point than anything else so far, so it just strikes me as weird that they go that way yet contradict themselves as often as they can. Lately it seems that every time they've opened their mouths, it's only been to change feet.

*Edit* Damn, Cthulu!!! THAT is nasty. Good catch!

Afaik every arrow of Barrage count as an attack skill by itself.

@upier: Btw, you were right about Ancester's Rage: http://guildwars.incgamers.com/showt...=493530&page=6

All things cost something so to say it's a drawback is rather stupid and silly. HE emphasised that ALL IAS skills had INHEIRENT drawbacks WITHIN the skill as HE listed them and there are clearly IAS skills that have no drawbacks associated WITHIN the skill itself like frenzy does or the others he listed. So, he's wrong and I'm right. ) The arguement is that ALL IAS have drawbacks well you just might as well say ALL SKILLS have drawbacks associated to something which makes it a rather stupid arguement in that case. Get interupted enough and not even your drawbacked IAS's will be MAINTAINABLE. Sope I win again. )

Oh and btw rubbing it in his face with WotA, RaO and Heart of Furry and Lightning Reflexes...heheee

looks like steelfang lockers r back

charge + deflect arrows meta

yet more fail pvp balance

You've missed a keyword there, mate.

By your definition, if SoS was only used by ritualists it would be balanced?
Or if CoP was only used by mesmers, it would also be balanced?

See, I told you so!
I also told you that i was wrong, but let's forget about that!

(Damage really never was something I cared much about so I pretty much just picked up pieces on how it works. That's why what I said first made sense, but then you reminded me of the part I forgot about and I quickly assumed that what you said disproves my view.)

Because they (who ever think making the recharge time longer for SoS with less damage is gonna make a difference) has failed to see that SoS is not the real problem of spirit spamming, the real culprit is Summon Spirit

Try not bring summon spirit with your spirit spamming rit and see how good/bad it works. Another Winter's Embrace

PvE-focused update. Only the skills at the bottom of the update will be changed in PvP.

PvE-focused != PvE only. They are explicit about where a change is PvE only.

Certainly a whole lot more balanced than it currently is.
Dont forget there are many ways to value balance.

Balance can be skill-to-skill balance. Making sure all skills are used equally among one another. It can also be proffesion-to-proffession balance. Making sure each class sees relatively as much use as another. And lastly balance can be seen as a measure of difficulty. Making sure that nothing is too overpowered so that end-game areas remain a challenge.

In my opinion, shadow form needs to be nerfed the most because it violates all three views to balance. Assassins now dominate elite areas. They always use shadow form over other elites, and they clear final areas far faster than Anet inteded them to with ease.

If you look at something like 600/smite you can see that it really only violates the second view. Monks dont always run 600/Smite, they have many many more options, and 600/smite is very difficult in elite areas, often taking a lot of practice to pull off. However, because of it you pretty much get looooads of monks running around (take a look at mqsc).

Oh, the irony.

PvErs were pushed away when the january balance update was introduced, basically because it was PvP-focused. Now, it's the other way round: this is the PvE part, PvP issues aren't prioritary this time.

Yeah , because all is black or white. If something is powerful but can be used only for 1 class , its power is X. If that can be used by all classes , its power is at least 8x .... i cant believe you asked that seriously because its plain simple , hope its a joke .

Run 14 Channeling/14 Resto.
Bring SoS, Spirit Syphon, Weapon of Warding, Mend Body and Soul, Spirit Light, Protective Was Kaolei.
That's 6 skills, leaving you with 2 open slots.
With this you get a character that does some 60ish DPS while having the healing potential of a monk. That has unlimited energy.
I somehow don't think that the problem is Summon Spirit.

So, for areas where 600/smite is used, can you name comparable builds that would clear the same areas with as much (or better yet - as little) effort as it takes with 600/smite? And the skill and effort required for 600/smite is MUCH higher than when doing the same areas with a full team (I mean certainly you can expect that since you clear an area with 2 people instead of 8), right?
So, what would be the 2 (or 3 depending on the team build) man variants that can match this build?

I mean it would be nice to know of these options since when 600/smite gets trashed we'll all move to those options because clearly they are very much comparable and nothing out of the ordinary.
Right?

Works fine for me as a R/Rt. Just drop spirits on recharge..


Regards 600/smite and mqsc/dtsc, I think that's more to do with a broken title track than anything else. Anet wants you to grind, people don't want to. If it was maxable by playing one of each class through cantha (including a VQ of every k/l faction zone on every char), it might be more reasonable. Since it's not, people will use the fastest thing they can. Same as boxing for survivor.

So they care about Rit in high-end PvE, but how about mesmers ? Not a single buff proposal so i guess thay will probably nerf it even more in pve.

No I haven't because MOST everything is maintainable if you use your energy wisely. I can maintain Weapon of Aggression very easily and constantly. It's all in energy management. ) Also without any inheirent drawbacks within the skill. ) This is also a great skill to use with assassin and warriors I'm finding. Adding Warriors Endurance really keeps 25% IAS up constantly barring no lucky interupt, but, interupt ruins all cases of anything when it comes to drawbacks.

However, the skills that aren't being split will still affect PvP. I'm not too worried about it, as nothing looks gamebreaking.

Actually, I'm not worried about any of it. At this point, I'm so happy to have skill changes that they could be buffing Shadow Form and I'd still be happy.

A lot of it looks like it will affect hero-ways (especially physical hero-ways, if you looked at the blood changes). I have a feeling that D/N, E/N, and N/X orders heroes are going to be a lot more popular. And "Retreat!" will be a pretty awesome alternative to FB! in large, low-end arenas (CM/AB).

I think people should have realized by now that I speak of the Test Krewe and part of what we do, not for them.

I don't see an easy fix to the solution. I don't play Mesmer in PvE (or PvP). I don't have what it takes to figure out what needs done to make the Mesmer viable in high-end PvE again. It's extremely low on my priority list, until someone comes out with a set of proposed changes to skills that mostly fills the previously mentioned criteria. If and when I can see a solution to the problem, I don't mind pushing for it.

My mesmer is my main, and honestly Mesmers just need more of what every other profession has - namely, AoE. Look at the new changes for necros and rits. They're being made more viable in PvE with essentially more AoE that makes sense for their profession.

Either that or convince Anet to let Mesmers steal Monster skills. That would definitely end some of the bitching

There was an important aspect to the Deflect Arrows skill change that wasn't mentioned. It shouldn't be as bad as it seems.

The Paragon has its base 80 armor reduced then by -20 from the skill and -20 from an outside application of Cracked Armor. The important thing to remember here is that Cracked Armor doesn't reduce armor below 60. The Paragon would then be stuck at 60 armor, and would have to throw a lot more armor on top of itself through its shield, insignia, and other buffs in order to get above 60.

It's a problem we're aware of. Just thinking off the bat, adding a line "when unaffected by Cracked Armor" to the end of the -20 armor clause would solve this problem enough, right?

No mesmer love

No dervish love

Odd rit buffs

Odd para.. buffs (more like nerfs)

Op warrior buffs (still fun.. so this is a good thing)

Lame necro buffs

Hmm.. was this really worth the wait? :/

Sorry..

I still don't understand why they ignore the terrible para elites. For example, Defensive Anthem. After next Thursday, DA will still be less powerful than Aegis (non-elite) and now less powerful than "Retreat!" (non-elite).....

Kind of ridiculous when you think about it.

I'm pretty sure mesmers and dervishes will eventually be covered in a future update. Until then, these seem to be the priorities.

As a para you will be running with Centurians and at least + 15armour of the shield.
Which means that you should be on AL 105+.

"When unaffected by Cracked Armor" is a nerf to an already nerfed skill. Previously if Cracked was removed you'd be back to your normal armour level (since CA from two sources does not stack), whereas now this clause would kick in and CA was removed for nothing - wasting energy and a skill that could have been better used on someone else.
With CA in the game, this change really doesn't make sense.

Sure thing.

The problem I was pointing out is forum users advocating a split even in those discussions about updates: whenever a skill is altered, changes will affect both PvE and PvP, so both playerbases have reasons to discuss.

I just found irritating when PvErs were told to shut up last time because of the update being "PvP-focused", yet now PvPers come here and complain about "Charge!" and Steelfang. That's exactly the same as Soldier's Fury, only reversed.

Also, I'm afraid people here still expect a panacea with every update. A Fix with capital F that will solve every issue they can think of, otherwise the update is /fail. Well, that's not going to happen.

You clearly didnt read the new skill description . CA affects paragons like affect any other char but with the new nerf it changes. CA doesnt lower your armor beyond 60 but that debuff DOES , therefore is not a nerf to a nerfed skill , is more like some room to breathe.
Paragons have good armor amount but that doesnt justify the -40 armor when affected by CA and the Debuff . 2 Bleedings dont stack when necromancer uses some blood spells and someone inflicts bleeding again , why 2 -20 armor debuffs should stack ?.