Preliminary Skill Update Notes: March 17

Hi everyone,

We've got a skill update coming and we just posted the preliminary notes about the next skill balance up on the official wiki:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedb...views/20110317

Thanks.

Nice to see Shatter Hex/Enchantment are better options on a Domination bar now .

The invoke lightning nerf is PVP only, or PVE + PVP???

If it isnt split, then why does the only offensive elly skill that is still somewhat useful in HM being nerfed for?

The Dervish balance changes are PvP only I presume?

hmmmm....... and still nothing updated on rangers..........


and there goes my EDA barrager

I'm wondering the same thing...

Hope we can get some sort of explanation soon.

I don't like the Invoke Lightning nerf at all. It's now finally being used in 7H HM and now you want to put it in the dumps. Congrats ANET.

Signet of Suffering seems terrible now and will be barely used.

I'm glad of Hex/enchant shatter buff for mesmers now.

Attunement skills buff is better now. I like the decreased rec time incase your ele gets stripped. Why not let it recharge to 10 though incase of enchant removal?

Meh Consume Soul seems to be a tad better now. It won't be used in PvE or PvP (unless in places with high minions like certain dungeons). Now enemy monsters can be a pain for MM's and SS's now.

So far pretty disappointing skill update. It's alright.

are you serious, you're pushing me to delete my ele right now to just build a dervish for the hell of it.

why not just keep the dmg and decrease the recharge

and where's love for Rangers...ugh.

hmmm i don't see it as much of a nerf...

reasoning:

old invoke: 100 dmg every 9 (8 recharge + 1 cast) sec so 300 dmg in 27 sec
new: 90 dmg every 7 (6 recharge +1 cast) sec so 360 dmg in 28 sec.

little less damage (and due to 25% ap there won't be a significant difference) but able to cast it more often i'd see it as a slight buff. thats just me though...

Characters have more than 1 skill on their skill bar they need to use. By your metric, Flare does about 1050 damage in 27 secs. There is a reason eles who spam flare are laughed at, though.

We'll just have to see how the IL nerf(/buff?) goes. If it's less effective overall, looks like my ele'll be playing her RtL air/daggers build forever.

But eh, meh update. Looks like I'll have to wait for another update for paras and eles to become viable in HM with more than one build.

The Invoke nerf is totally odd to me. That was the one skill that was decent to run with Intensity in my opinion. Intensity just lost its appeal to me and it wasn't really that appealing to be honest. I didn't buy the merc pack as I have dotted my "i"s and crossed my "t"s, but i can imagine that some people would be put off by this what with being able to play with 7 ele's now as mercs and really, this skill hasn't seen PvE use up until now. I don't keep up on my organized PvP, but if it was a problem there, why wasn't this skill split? Also, I use this in RA and it's not OP there, but I know that RA isn't really considered all that much in terms of buffs/nerfs.

I have a tendency to agree with this.....even though dmg is toned down, remember the recharge was lessened as well.

I think everyone should keep in mind that these updates are clearly reaction to the dervish update. Don't expect much other than that for now

Considering Invoke was used in PvP as a spike skill, the decreased damage isn't a buff in my opinion.

I do like the decreased casting time of attunements though. I've always thought it was a bit long.

I am not surprised about the dervish nerf, being able to both have an IAS and IMS on you near 24/7 with minimal upkeep felt pretty OP.

The necro change looks.....interesting..... I guess they figured barbed signet deserves elite status....

Seeing the ele buff is a good thing though, the attunements were pretty clunky, the invoke number tuning may require access to the new number range in order to judge whether the skill was nerfed or buffed, however more frequent attacks can't be a bad thing, right?

Having a break from gw now, but i -really miss- some updates for the ranger!! PLEASE! Come up with something creative skillwise!

And not just for the 1st of april.

If your actually taking 28 seconds to kill stuff in PVE, they your doing it wrong.

More damage in one go is better than lower but more frequent damage because its more likely to kill something and less likely to get healed in time.

You already have Splinter Barrage which is better in HM than most of what Ellys can do other than E/Mo protting.

The changes here are either very good or just pointless. Signet of suffering will probably see little to no use in competitive play; the players won't sacrifice an elite just to get bleeding. I understand the point of the Invoke change was to reduce spiking potential, but you've really just hurt PvE players more. As a fan of eles pre-HM, I can honestly say that my ele gets almost no use in PvE anymore, and this is just another reason for me not to use her, or any of my ele heroes. Intensity buff did nothing to change that, as it's still crap.

If there's going to be a PvP split then it's specified. Everything else will affect PvE as well.

I like the signet of suffering change in theory. Lets blood still be strong but at the cost of random utility elite.

Derv builds will change but I still see them dominating PvP. There's a good number of enchantment alternatives around, and cheap IAS + IMS still puts them far ahead of wars.

Eles lacking AP don't really have any non-elite skills to spam though. An air ele will have no difficulty hitting it on recharge. The lower recharge will also proc Battle Standard more which you ought to be using for elemental damage anyway.