Skill Update Speculation

The built in AP from strength is practically nothing. It does have good abilities tied to it, but the inherent affect of the attribute itself is not that much.

run 0 strentgh and hit with a sword abil then run 12 and see the difference.

nice personal attack there too thanks I will l2p

I think we need to remind people of the differences between PvP and PvE.

Warriors are very well balanced compared to pretty much every other profession, especially in PvP.

Most of the physical classes need tweaking in one form or another in PvE hard mode, other than assassins. Then due to armor, certain elementalist magic lines could also do with a similar treatment.

I'd love it if they could postpone content and prioritize working on tweaking the classes but overall it is a lot of work to do to fix a lot of what Izzy did...

@Jaigoda
After a bit more consideration, i have to agree with you - up to some point, at least. Melees' main strength lies in their sheer power when they face not-so-complex and not-so-powerful monsters' builds, and the fact that you can pretty much roll your face on the keyboard to pump high DPS. Even though casters CAN produce high DPS as well, or provide protection comparable - or even better - than SY spammers, it's much harder to compute: those two mesmers would have to time their PI's well to keep the balled group on the ground, for an easy example.
Melees are blatantly overpowered in PvE because of their high armor, high damage output (and variety of damage skills), variety of utility skills, decent auto-attack and ease of play - despite arcane techniques of body-blocking, corner-blocking and keeping aggro, being a successful warrior is much easier than being a successful monk or mesmer.
But that's just broken by game's very design.

On the other hand, simultaneously, casters are able to do things out of melees' grasp - 600/smite comes at first to my mind. Spiritmancing is much easier and usually better with a caster, Discordway works MUCH better with a caster (and that's why people usually whine about it being weak - or not running a decent caller, but that's another topic), and so on. Still, they require more from the player and are not always as useful as sheer power of high damage while not being squishy at all.

People want to believe that the game is somewhat overally balanced and their class is playable - and even when they see they're wrong, it's hard to shatter own delusions of chosen class being on par with everyone else. That was the case of mesmers for five years - before Panic, PI and a few more skills got buffed, they were the single least useful class in HM PvE, save maybe Cryway teams (still, E/Me with Mindbender was better at it).
And even though, when you realise that hexes/conditions/careful rupts/disabling skills ain't that useful in PvE, it still does the trick. A full caster group can still be successful in high-end HM and achieve everything they need.

On a side note, i wonder what would be the 'melee meta' without the obviously and terribly overpowered skills - MoP, SY, AoHM, SF, to name the most guilty ones. They could be nerfed and/or linked terribly to class's main attribute. Fixing 6~10 skills alone could bring physicals and casters closer in terms of usefulness; not necessarily the fun factor though, which is IMO the most important when playing.

Todays the big day!!!!! wheres this update people are rumoring about.

Cant wait to see the in game text "A new build of guild wars..." Everyone will go check the wiki and find "Fixed a bug..." than back to the forums to rage about the "Big Update" that was never announced, thank god for speculations

Means the 25th November


Means February. Perhaps.

Looking at your updated list with regards to Dervs, I can't help but sigh.
The Avatar skills are dull. The Dervish has 15 elite skills, a third of which are simple, long lasting self buffs. Buffing these won't really accomplish anything.
AoHM doesn't need a buff. If you touch this, just link it to Mysticism - that at least is a quick fix to making the Scythe the toy of the Dervish alone.
Flash Enchantments? I'm guessing short-lived, fast casting enchantments with end effects. Putting several of these on your bar will demote the Dervish to the status of caster and will just weaken him.
Adrenal costs I'm less certain on. It would at least mean the Dervish wouldn't need to go overboard on energy management to get things done.
However the Derv's attack skills don't lack utility. Scythe Mastery provides Deep Wound, Bleeding, Cripple and Enchantment removal, along with several other things that may prove useful pending the update (self enchantment removal if you ever make that useful). Add onto that the multiple self-healing skills and the AoE nature of the Scythe and you really don't want anything else - all it lacks is stance removal, Cracked Armour and a knockdown and these are things that can be made up for with a secondary profession and (in PvE at least) PvE skills.
Changes to attack speed? This is the only weapon with that has an AoE attack and (I presume) you want to make it attack faster?
Changes to Crit Rate? Why make it break the standard formula for everything else? If Scythe-Sins are your concern you're looking to fix the wrong thing.

Again, remember that the update is meant to just be before the mATs. The notes that I saw said they'd like to have them done by today, but Anet is rarely on a rigid schedule.

It may not happen today. It was just their "hope" to have it done before today. This thread may not have helped with that deadline.

Remember that there's more to it than we have posted. On top of that, the Dervish rumors/speculation is all based on stuff from September. Any number of those things could have changed.

However, from the response I've received from certain people about "flash enchantments", I'm pretty sure those are still happening. I won't say anything else in order to prevent my post from being deleted.

And If this thread DID in fact contribute to a later than wanted update, let me please be the first to thank you so much for the valuable discussion that has happe- oh wait, right. Seriously, what was the point of this thread? Was it just to piss ANet off for being lousy at community outreach? Are you trying to get Regina's job? Seriously dude, this whole premise of "speculation" is absurd.

Ok....?

I meant that comment in a good way. If Anet has delayed the update due to the attention gained from this thread, then it's probably a good thing. I'd much rather have a well thought out balance attempt in GvG than a sloppily done one.


If you're accusing me of something (that isn't as retarded as "trying to get Regina's job"), then please, feel free to elaborate.

Aw, thanks. I do my best

Mwah, this is one of the only threads I bother reading on the GW1 forums now. I for one thank KJ for keeping me updated on how the Derv update is coming along.

This. No news from ANet, no (semi-)official news from TK, so at least KJ shares his informations in more or less lawful way. Thumbs up. And if ANet/TK don't post prelims/headsups/whatnot, more leaks please.

We have absolutely nothing left to talk about that won't become a really big drama thread. So might as well speculate on things.

lol. The Regina comment was purely for ironic value, as you seem to think it's your responsibility to disseminate information when the villainous community managers don't, I thought that was clear but I guess it wasn't. Regardless, I know that you're a smart person so I find it hard to believe that you fail to understand how disruptive and asinine it is to mention "rumors" that you have on good authority from people that may or may not have signed nda's.
If ANet wanted us to have information on the update they would've given us some. So again, thanks for PvXwiki and all the other stuff you do but please don't try to play CM, it's demoralizing enough without your meddling.

Leaks aren't going to be shared - here or elsewhere. I know it's felt bad lately, with the almost complete lack of information about skill updates, but one of the purposes of this thread is to remind people that skills will eventually be updated and the TK/Anet are actually working on balance.

I know they've felt distant from the PvP community, and I know they've seemed to completely disregard those of us who don't care about costumes. However, there is a small part of the Live Team that still cares about PvP and/or the balance of the game, and they are actually trying to get stuff done.

First of all, I don't seek information from anyone who has signed an NDA. It may have originated from someone who has, I honestly don't know, but I don't ask people to break the law.

Second of all, the CMs are not evil. From what I understand, being a CM is pretty difficult because you're completely dependent upon what the company/parent-company will allow you to say. They do the best they can, and share with us what they're allowed to.

And finally, I'm going to assume that you're just trolling from this point on. The last thing this thread has seemed is "demoralizing". People here have been polite, excited, frustrated, and had a larger range of reactions, but I've rarely seen anyone "demoralized".

I, for one, feel hopeful when I hear things like this. Anet is actually addressing balance issues in the game. For an older game, that's pretty awesome.

Yeah, I'm totally the troll between the two of us.
You seem to have from your statement a lot of respect for our CM's, so why do you feel the need to try and do their job for them? I also find it funny that you think that I was serious in calling the CMs "villainous", again i thought the sarcasm translated well through the text, but again I have been thwarted. And as to the "Oh hey guys, I have some info from a source that I won't disclose but trust me he/she/they doesn't/don't have a nda signed" ploy, really? If they have information about an update that may or may not be happening, where do you think they got their info from? Don't insult your intelligence, it's not flattering. Anyway, I'm done with trying to explain to you how your ego trips might be harmful to the game, It's fruitless to be rational when facing irrationality.

so basically this thread was to get our hopes up for something that might not even happen? and half the day is gone and no update so then they say oh no it'll come later in the month. if thats true why was this thread made so early? why not wait until closer to the real time? if that info is the real stuff.

Love how ensign posts something and it's automatically the truth. He speaks highly of the melee classes which is fine, but the truth is that you'll get the best results by having just 1-2 melee classes and let the rest of the team be rangers dmg dealers. Mesmers are excellent at this.

The notes said that it was scheduled for today. Thought it'd be nice to discuss it the week before.

If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. Don't forget that it's only 2:51pm in Seattle right now. They have 2 more "normal" office hours to roll out an update, and sometimes updates happen after 5:00pm PST.

But again, it's not like I can promise anything

You're really just making yourself look bad. None of what you're saying makes sense. KJ is just trying to help, and I for one am happy that he's giving at least some information on the update, especially since it looks like it's going to get pushed back a week or two. Do note that this thread has actually sparked some good discussion, and (so far) has created no drama at all.

SmokingHotImolation:
3 melees is more the number you want to aim for. And no, it wasn't because Ensign posted that I said his post was win, it was because his post was win that I said his post was win. If he had spouted some random dribble, I wouldn't have said anything. And anyway, I only said "Coming from Ensign, a "personal list" is probably . . . the truth." Considering how much experience he has with the game, what he says is most likely true. Of course, everyone is human and I've disagreed with what he's said more than once. But I'd put more faith in what he says than some random guy who decides to write a big wall of text.

for all the times I have seen KJ criticize the CM's, I love that he is getting backlash like they have received from him. Sweet karma yo! I do appreciate you sharing what you heard from some birdie on the interwebz though.

It's only 4pm PST. Regular office hours aren't even up yet and I remember many an update that came past 5pm Pacific. Can people at least wait another hour before the "no update today?!" starts?

The limited resources are the number of people working on it. The people working on the costumes are not the same ones working on skill balances. The art department likely wouldn't even know how to do that sort of thing. And balancing skills is more than just changing a number or two in a database.

Some things are best not spoken when speculation is proposed as a semi-truth.

As far as I can tell, this thread exists so certain "experts" can expound on their theories.

None of this mini-maxing matters.

Sure, there are PvE skill bars that are better than others. But it's silly to declare that only a handful of skills are worth carrying. Ensign seems to think everyone should spam SY while wielding a scythe... yuck.

In all fariness, they do seem to borrow staff from GW2. I know it was just for the costumes, but Kristen Perry is also working on GW2 and she worked on the GW1 costumes. Its my hope that they borrow a few more resources, considering GW2 is a loooong way away. If GW2 was delayed a month or two to give us more skill updates and content, no one would know the difference. But, the difference it would make to the player base in GW1 would be extraordinary.

It wouldn't make a difference to us as consumers but it would make a huge difference to NCSoft/ANet who are in this to make money. Btw, you are getting skill updates (yes, they still do happen...sometimes) and new content (Wik anyone, Cantha stuff).

Is there any chance to see a new build today? Or it's too late now?

Irony is sweet, I guess.

Looks like the update wasn't today :/

I am going to say that tomorrow is an other day.

OP is just looking for attention.

Hahahaha, Anet never fails to disappoint.

You know me so well! I'm the queen of drama-whoring.

Read my massive wall-o'-text, and you might have a different opinion, though


......or not.

One cannot feel disappointed if the outcome was never promised in the first place.

No thanks.

If anyone's disappointed it's their own fault. It's stated in the first post that absolutely none of that was promised. :/

^ this. It's been stated numerous times throughout this thread that none of this is guaranteed.

Even after the testing is done, Anet has been known to make changes.....and in many cases, it's been a good thing.

Yes, I apologize. I'm probably being too hard on Anet, after all we just had a pvp update here in february and being as they have not actually promised anything we would be out of line for expecting anything ever again.

Btw how much are they paying the chimps on the TK? Regardless of salary I'd argue that it's not money well spent.

They work for free from what i understand

Better luck next year err...I meant month of course..

Pol

Yeah, they don't get paid shit. It's a volunteer job. Believe it or not, several thousand people applied to do the free labor