Preliminary Skill Update Notes - 23 April 2010

To counter this all they'll need to make some better hex removals. Not just through mesmer skills like hex eater sig either...

Lawl @ preliminary notes , they are just going to do everything me and some other ppl suggested about pve mes :
- Shorten some stupid recharges
- Increase damage/effect
- Increase AoE for some spells
Lets see how goes the buff ..... first half of may *estimated time date* ... ;D

I think me and my mesmer and even my mesmer heroes will enjoy this update

however as mentioned, even though I'm loving what I hear, I do worry about the enemies (that have already been mentioned) with this new update applied to them

onoes I feel some overpowering here.
Followed by QQ nerf crap on forums.
And a the test team didn't saw that excuse.

Can we get a buff to withdraw hexes maybe? So i can remove some of the nastyness faster.

i shat bricks

So foes who have piss bars will suddenly be able to at least attempts to do something makes them hard? The only foe that I see there's a possible issue is Mindblades, but there's so many of them and it's in an elite area. How out of all of the sudden skill updates suddenly make PvE hard?

Please keep all these changes out of PvP. "but when appropriate, the changes will apply to PvP as well." <---- except none of your buffs are ever appropriate.

Arcane Conundrum - slow down casting and provide energy on death (AP much?)
Frustration - prep for spike
Accumulated Pain - Deep Wound + 60? damage
Cry of Pain - 50 dmg + 75? dmg + degen
Cry of Frustration - 75 dmg + 75 dmg
Psychic Instability - 75 dmg + 4 second kd
Shatter Delusions x 2 = 75 dmg + 75 dmg

7 skills with ridiculous single target shutdown potential with ~560 direct damage, energy gain at end, deep wound (lolmesmer?), early degen, and some AoE damage and shutdown mixed in. EDIT: I was thinking about Wastrel's Worry after Accumulated Pain so that while you're busy shutting your target down, the clock is ticking on another 100 AoE damage burst, but I didn't want to fill out a full 8 skills.

Is it perfect? No, but it's the kind of bar we might be seeing this next week. I'd run that bar if the damages are as listed and energy and recharge values suit it.

You're making a bar out of them? It would be pretty tame since you're splitting your attributes into 4...

I wonder if now is a good time to stock up on mesmer runes?

I'd say yes. Even if it wasn't going to overpower mesmers (and it will, relatively speaking*) you'd still see a lot of new mesmers just from people who always wanted to make one but didn't like the weakness, and from people who decided to make one just to see what the "new class" is like. If it does overpower them? Lots of people.



*I doubt it'll bring them into the circle of awesomeness that the monk, assassin, and necromancer are huddled in, but like the spirit update, it'll appeal to PUGs.

Since when does Domination, Illusion, and Fast Casting = 4? Looks pretty prime for a 12-10-8 or 12-11-6, depending on what they do with Fast Casting.

But... whatever.

I already take Gwen into HM vanquishes/missions almost all the time, with this update, she'll be even more awesome!

At this point, I'll settle for OP stuff that requires some thought and teamwork (still have to hit the interrupts, these changes are begging for team builds to be built around them) than what we have now. If this is better than AP+Discord, I'll be surprised, but it will certainly be more interesting to play.

*Shrug* at least it's different, and it's mesmer-y, which is something mesmers haven't been able to do in PvE for a long while.

hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Will just repeat myself yet again - some of the updates seem overpowered or may prove imbalanced in the gameplay, yet i doubt that any of them will result in game-breaking builds like SF, 600 or SoS spamming.
Before you shout 'omg OVERPOWERED!' please take a look at other classes' potential - mesmers are simply catching up to them now, finally, after years of being neglected.
And although some areas may become harder to complete/vanquish, it will bring some challenge into PvE. I mean, come on, even DoA (except Foundry) is a piece of cake. I'm concerned about several bosses in game, but not to the point of being worried 'omg how will it be possible now?!?!?!'. Furthermore, i would love to see mesmer mobs with the ultimate annoyer for speedclears in a few spots of elite areas.

well just because a mesmer can go over 12 in an attribute doesnt mean another class cant do better. a N/Rt hero out heals a primary Rit due to the return on energy from soul reaping and they can only run 12 in restoration, and the hero reaction time is better then a human in most cases. making these skill from a mesmer do more damage and have the added AoE to them without making an improvment in energy management somehow and/or making a huge difference in the damage from 13-16 in the atribute for the primary mesmer or tying the AoE effects to fastcasting is just another N/Me exploit waiting to happen. what would you rather have on your team, a primary mesmer who has to sacrifice 1-2 skill slots for energy management with the possibility of running out of energy or a Necro who has near unlimited energy return with soul reaping as long as stuff is dying letting the necro spam the skills longer but only doing slightly less damage. heck even an Ele with max energy storage and a mesmer secondary has the possibility of doing better due to twice the base energy of a mesmer.

i too like what i see bacause i have a mesmer who along with my ranger are my primary characters, but i feel there is other things that have needed to be addressed in the game before this update goes live or along with this update. namely the unbalanced mob makeup and after looking over some of the Ai enemy current skill bars, they run on average 2 of the skills in the planned update. if you currently do alot of Hero/henching, your game will get much harder seeing the H/H Ai doesnt react the same as the enemy ai when it comes to AoE.

Gwen is going to be devastating to enemy mobs. Maybe now she'll cheer up and give young Lt. Thackery a break.

And, Norgu can't go above 7 in fast casting because of that humongous beer gut.