Update - Thursday, February 25, 2010

Hao would be great....if heroes would use it.....

All I can say about this update is:
Earthshaker animation looks like the animation of a critical hit in Baldur's Gate 2 (for those who played the game you must remember that...)

Coming from someone who got into the Ritualist scene long before spirit spamming became hip, I'm extremely pleased Rits now have more options. Destructive Was Glaive + Cracked Armor + Spirit Rift doles out a huge spike and the hexes look pretty tasty. On the protection side, the new Ritual Lord allows Shelter and Union to stay up for entire skirmishes; throw in Dulled Weapon and you've got an extremely effective way to mitigate damage. And, last but not least, methinks Spirit Channeling is the new Offering of Spirit.

The only caveat I can see lies in the new Blood Bond. Either the recharge needs to increase or those numbers need to slim down.

Sin are still usefull in Alliance Battles where they shined.

^Does that mean more spirit spamming in HA?

^ This.

Also, you're welcome. Patience is a virtue, one that many people lack. Good updates take time. Remember this.

hmm, why are you people whining about SF nerf, weren't you and your friends supposed to leave the game now? (because without perma game is no fun anymore right?)

rit buff - gogo discord rage

too bad so few ele changes. i barely used obsidian flesh and glimmering mark change isn't enough for me, it should be aoe or something or get rid of the ending condition.

necrosis is a skill - could be a good way to get rid of stupid spellbreaker mobs

rofl?

u probably not totally understood the rework... yes... there will not be a perma sliver anymore, for sure...

but permas are now more far away to disappear...

except for Obsidian Flesh... everything else i kinda like, i tought the change would be much more dramatic...

Seeping Wound + IoP = Insane DPS

Might try this out. Hmmm...

The real amusement is, that apparently Guild Wars has been "dying" or "dead" for quite some time now, yet you see ten to twenty times more people in Guild Wars on a daily basis then you would see in Age of Conan or Warhammer Online in weeks, and this is with those games funneling you into specific zones, and Guild Wars just being a series of outposts connecting you to instances.

after all, the change to SB is nice.
raptors are still farmable, with runs under 1 minute.
sos spiritmancer can still farm for nick.
elite areas, especially uw, will be damn harder now.
yet i do not understand the pblock nerf. after all, disabling enemies is something what mesmer was designed and created for. he has nothing to do in pve and now we're slowly killing him in pvp, making one of the best pvp elites less useful? it still requires reflexes and targeting, it still can miss, it still has nasty recharge time. the only good thing is that the four horsemen will hurt less now.

Agreed. Can't wait to be hit by cracked armour now!

I'm wondering if I should spec tactics instead of command and rely on heroes for fury skills to gain adrenaline when FGJ is down, so that I can take Soldier's Stance instead of Focused Anger and AR or Soldier's Fury. Bar compression + no risk of -40 armour sounds good to me right now tbh.

*

As for the Pblock nerf - it doesn't really make any difference in PvE but it's still terribly funny/sad that the only mesmer change is yet another frigging nerf. Way to go ANet.

The end of January update addressed some problems and that was fine, but this update was meant to address PvE invincibuilds and it did that. However, they've overbuffed a ton of stuff and nerfed a lot of other things and added it to PvP which didn't seem to be their plan. That's my problem with this update. Anet has sort of addressed one problem but they've created others now. Go into RA (I know it's low-end but it's still a fairly popular PvP form) and you'll just see a slurry of Seeping Wound assassins and Oppressive Gaze necros. Just more melee hate and OP hexes.

An unexpected boon to have Necrosis reclassified!

Finally get to actually do something against all those annoying perma-magic-immune Dervish mobs.

Earthbind.

12chars

I missed that. My mesmer's Lyssa's Aura necrosis spammer build ain't gonna work so good no more now - yet another option gone. BAH.

Oh noes... what have they done...
Now playing the game will require a bit more rather than just press 1, press 2, press 3 in less than 1 minute interval. Anet have failed again, they are forcing players to be a bit more creative



Factions - 2 days, doable in 1 if you know what you are doing
Nightfall - as above
EOTN - as above
Prophecies... 20+ days?

Good point well made.

Even still though, if you're a hammer warrior intending to KD in areas with large enemies you'll need to think about bringing that spirit.

Just compare progressions:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Soldier%27s_Fury
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Soldier%27s_stance

Oh, look, Soldier's Fury is mantainable even @ 0 Leadership, while Soldier's Stance isn't unless @ 15 Tactics, which is something no one will ever run just for an IAS. Also, SS is a stance, you can't stack it with another stance and it can also be removed. Not frequent, but entirely possible.

SF is mantainable with absolute ease. Every mantainable IAS in the game has drawbacks, this one had none. SS is a stance, it isn't mantainable, and it's tied to an attribute that's hardly used when DPS counts.

Also, about Cracked Armor. Have it removed. Once. Not every time your Paragon open his/her mouth. Job done. I really doubt you'll ever experience -40 armor for more than 1 measly second overall.

Once again - Expert's Dexterity.
No drawbacks AND they even made a split for PvE.

there is usually what, 7 American districts in Kamadan for trading? And I know that they were big festivals and what not, but there were multiple districts for other languages/regions during Wintersday, Wintersday Redux and CNY, so some people must still be keeping track, even if they don't play that often. And that is given that they haven't had an expansion in roughly 2 - 2 1/2 years, and in the mean time other games have come along and died. I seriously doubt that GW will die until probably a year after GW2 comes out.

10 of those is getting pissed at Aurora Glade, even if you do know what you are doing....