Preliminary Skill Update Notes: March 17

The wiki said this:

In an update next week, we will address some PvP issues...

So, all of the updates seem to be for PvP.

Little puzzled by the necro changes they are slight tweaks that basically reduce the effectiveness of a few skills.

Trouble is I never thought any of those skills overpowered or even overused.
Must have been a pvp issue I guess.

Ritualist consume soul was the most interesting change for me it will work both for and against players which is good.

Chain Lightning/Invoke Lightning/Blinding Flash alone takes 6+ seconds to get a cycle off, and surely there is at least ONE other skill you want to be casting every so often. But Ele damage in PvE is already shit, and no matter how you try to make a nuker build out of them it will always be shit. ER spamming stuff from other classes is the only effective PvE build they can run.

Its definitely a good change for PvP, though. Just goes to show the massive mechanic difference between PvE and PvP. If PvE was overhauled to conform to standard armor levels and a more reasonable health/damage progression you could unsplit 80% of the PvP/PvE split skills along with remove every PvE skill from the game.

This update is pretty much all about PvP. The difference is that PvE doesn't have 2+ healers per group whose energy you have to slowly overcome. That's most of the battle of PvP, making your enemy monk's energy going down faster than yours. This means that interruptions/degen/conditions are 10x more powerful because their effects all add up after several minutes of battle. In PvE, you just care about spitting out spike damage to kill groups in <10 seconds, preferably AoE damage because monsters are stupid and will stand in it while you nuke them.

my first impressions:

mesmer skill cost reduction: long overdue

elementalist attunement changes: long overdue
invoke lightning nerf: kicking the ele when he's already down. Searing Flames, Savannah, Sandstorm, Unsteady Ground and Bsurge are already much better for general use. The non-elite Chain Lightning is just as good as this except for 1s longer cast time.

necromancer: arguably the strongest profession in the game, so no one will cry if they get nerfs, but this version of Signet of Suffering is just terrible. The non elite skills Barbed Signet and Oppressive Gaze completely own it. Compare to another condition causing elite, Virulence.

ritualist: Consume Soul had its one niche use against Mallyx, looks like its one use is gone now. For an elite skill you'd think that it would do damage to all nearby creatures of any type instead of just summoned creatures. This version should be a lot more useful against spirit spammers (HA?) but I can't see it being used much in general.

dervish: OMG dervish is good now, and we can't allow that. warriors feel second class. QQ


but most importantly... where is the love for paragons, rangers, and smite monks? We have been waiting since May 2010.

Before: Invoke Lighting -1s cast, +2s recharge, +15 dam over Chain Lighting.
Now: Invoke Lightning -1s cast, +0s recharge, +5 dam over Chain Lightning.

Was barely worthy of its Elite status before (compared to the non-Elite). Now it's definitely not worth its Elite status.

That statement does not mean that all skills they change will be changed only for PvP (and split if necessary). It means they are implementing skill changes as a result of PvP issues (imbalances). These skill changes mostly affect both PvP and PvE. Only Fevered Dreams and a couple of Necro skills are changed in PvP only.

Well, the thing I like the most are the changes in the attunements.

The revised Consume Soul might have some uses against all the WiK spirit spammers and minon masters. I could see finding a place for it on a 7h team.

To be fair, most of the changes won't affect PvE much if at all.

Derv: Heart of Fury is -2 seconds. How will I ever get 4 adrenaline within 10 seconds with a weapon that hits 3 enemies and PvE enemies dumb enough to stand still while I do it? Other skills are of negligible usage
Ele: People used them for damage in PvE? lol ok. Attunement changes are nice for all the other eles running better damage builds in NM.
Mes: FD is split, everything else is meh because you wouldn't use it anyway.
Nec: -2 energy on Angorodon's Gaze. Not gonna do much. Tell me when they nerf soul reaping again and I'll QQ along with everyone else.
Rit: Consume soul was only good for Mallyx anyways, not going to matter a ton. But it will definitely be interesting to see a few more anti-MM (also known as the win PvE build) roadblocks. I'll have to see how many enemies actually use it, but I don't think its enough to make a big difference.

In PvP 1/2 cast time was godly for spike characters and made it worth the elite. 2s cast on a spike is so useless that you might as well not run it. As has been mentioned, PvE != PvP.

I was thinking it might be useful against Duncan the Black.
Not gone up against him myself but am told he spawns a large amount of spirits and can keep doing it.

Crippling Anguish isn't why Necs are being used in GvG.
The loss of the free elite hurts, but I doubt it'll push Necs completely out of play.

I'm not sure why they just don't increase the cast time on Invoke back to two seconds.

Dervs still get IAS+IMS with no real drawback.


You could do that now, without the overhaul.
It would just make the game a bit harder.

If they dropped the armor of mobs back to normal, and massively increased their health (figure increase the hp by a quarter for each 20al a mob loses), it'd probably do wonders for HM PVE in general. No more spiking things out with armor ignoring damage, much more actual fighting against the mobs and a much better chance for classes that take longer to matter to get into the fray.

Would nerf the crap out of degen based builds, but since no one really uses degen anyway it's not a big deal.

Consume Soul is going to be interesting when the creature that uses it is surrounded by Death Nova Minions. BOOM! dead.

I wasn't contesting any of that; I didn't even argue on anything related to that.
And degen builds would be unaffected; other options merely improve.

Edit: I don't get the CS change either. Since it's elite, was it really that bad if it hard countered a Rit's spirits (especially since the Nec has lost its free elite)?

I rather not have my dungeon runs take 2x longer with heroes and 4x longer with pugs. There is something called real life.

"Bring Buh!"
"Bring Intensity"
"Use Invoke"

Its funny how after posts after posts about Ele's damage in HM...that Ele managed to have all of their options nerfed in less than a month...lol.

Wait...There's still one left
"Bring EBSOH!"

Countdown till nerf.

It all seems well and straight forward.

I hope these include mentions for plans about the next planned batch of GW1 content whether it be PvE, PvP, Profession update overhauls, or GW: Beyond.

I'm surprised it took them this long to nerf the dervish buffs, honestly. I heard they won't be split, either.

And what's with Barbed Signet being elite and Sig of Suffering being non-elite? Obviously, Sig of Suffering will be used in the GvG blood bar instead of the random utility elite, but outside of that build it's pretty pointless.

Also, the new Barbed makes me want to scream FRAAAAAGSPIIIIIIIKE.

haha i thought that too,


and nice that dervs are getting toned down abit (though why for pve too? who cares about pve) , the attune change is nice and mes changes are great. Though the invoke leaves me puzzled.

^^This.

I am glad PvP is getting some attention, but news about more dramatic skill and content updates is what I'm looking for.

1. Grenth's Aura is not addressed. It's a bigger problem than Avatar of Grenth.

2. Heart of Fury nerf is too big.

3. Invoke nerf should be split. (E/Mo healers aside,) PvE eles are already weak as hell in HM, and Invoke was one of the few skills that was at least mediocre.

4. Combined Blood nerfs are a bit too much damage on the energy management. I'd leave one of the skills intact, probably AGaze.

5. Signet of Suffering would not be worthy of elite status as proposed.

6. Consume Soul should be split because of its importance in PvE, specifically Mallyx.

I don't mind what they focus their work on, but I want some detailed news of it.

I do not want at all to see a repeat of the long silence and lack of information because of what happened with the Dervish update.

Energy storage should give 3% armor penetration per rank. That will solve the damage problem...

Rangers need to have like 90% of the bow and pet attacks reworked to actually do something useful.

Traps should be projectiles; you can throw traps at half range at foes, and they aren't easily interruptible.

Nature spirits should become an ally and follow you around, so you don't have to recast them everywhere.

Splinter Volley (Barrage is almost never worth it over Volley) is good only because Splinter Weapon is good, and that's a Ritualist skill, not a Ranger skill.

lol at fail Ele update. Read: made ele damage more expensive in PVE (-10 damage for -2 recharge = -10% on [email protected] and -25% recharge --> 1.35x damage before aftercast or "40/40" set), decreased cast time on attunements for elements that don't get used. The more ele damage gets reduced into DPS rather than spike, the more crappy it is. If you can't spike down multiple mobs in a few seconds, you're better off with Discord/SoS/Mesmer AoEs/Keystone Mes or even a SS necro (41*6=246; 37*6=222).

All the Avatar of Grenth change does is add more Fragility triggers at the expense of armor-ignoring damage. Flash enchantments need to have longer recharge in PvP, IMO (6 --> 8, 10-->12?). 2x 6 recharges and you have perma-disease (2x 10 recharges atm).

I also don't see a point to the Aura of Thorns change. Cripple lasting a few seconds shorter isn't going to make a difference to Aura of Thorns ->Twin moon--> Gash.

Crippling Sweep could be made even less damage. See Axe Rake/Hamstring/crip slash/pin down/crip shot/maiming spear/Leaping mantis sting (+20ish on a weapon that does ~1/3 base damage compared to scythe).

Barbed signet (PVP) got smacked. Nobody uses it in PvE anyway.

Consume Soul is a hard counter, nothing more. Why not use Spiritual pain instead? The recharge on spirits isn't 5 seconds anyhow.

Signet of Suffering is going to be laughable when used by Awakened mobs

Oppressive Gaze isn't overly strong. The nerf didn't make it suck, it just made it not a "use and forget" skill like Life Siphon or Barbed signet (i.e. passive effects).

FD got hit, more than it needs to be probably. You can put it on 2 people atm.

Positive change: Rending Aura is no longer armor ignoring. EDA damage+recharge nerf. Harrier's Haste smacked hard (no more perma IAS+IMS).

EDIT: If it's a PVP update, I wonder why Invoke hasn't been split. It's the same as nonelite chain lightning, minus 1 cast time. Not exactly elite worthy, except when you run 5-6 copies of it and shell shock for Invoke Spike (topping out at about 115-120 damage, i.e. kills on 600HP using 5 of them). For the damage, you can run Water ele with Mirror of Ice or a dom mesmer with Mind wrack+shatter delusions (~100) or energy surge (~90). The only caveat is the nearby range; a few seconds shorter cooldown.

If air is nerfed any more all you'll see is water + the occasional mindblast fire ele w/ meteor. You don't need more than 6 air for gale and blurred vision sticks longer than blind does (B-surge/B-Flash).

Invoke is dmg/(8+1+0.75) , now 90/(6+1+0.75)

Invoke + Chain is 2xdmg/(6+1+0.75) which is in theory more damage. Neither skill combo instagibs like discord + AP callers (16 air Orb+Chain+Invoke = max 399).

You can take into account the damage boost due to cracked armor on 80 armor: 140/106*10=13 damage

It's different than Discord because Discord is on 2 recharge so you just spam 3+ copies for instagib and switch targets.

It's a nerf because of energy and spike-power, not so much a nerf to damage. An ele can't sustain the energy needed to fire off more spells than Invoke + chain with the current recharges. Attune+AoR = 5 energy instead of 10 energy on each. So you can fire off those two twice in 8 seconds unassisted (i.e. 10 energy on 4 pips) at the moment which is why 8-10 recharge is ideal. With a "40/40" set you average at 1.440 energy per second at the moment just running chain + invoke. Once you throw in Orb, you're out of luck, you need glyph. With the change you push 1.633 energy per second to push out max 38DPS per target (instead of the previous max 36DPS with longer recharge). Camping a shield set, the effective cool-down between Invoke + chain is ~4.1 seconds which is more reasonable than with a "40/40" (more reasonable on your energy with a cost of ~1.339en/sec) at the cost of dipping to a max of ~31DPS on 3 targets.

Orb is a skill that tricks people into its cost without Elemental attunement, it's not sustainable so at best it's a last-ditch effort for spiking at the cost of drain on an Ele's larger energy pool. Alternately with Intensity + Orb, it becomes a 13 energy (under AoR + attune) AoE since the only other non-conditional option is 21 energy (Lightning hammer + Intensity).

Honestly, I still don't think that the blood necro nerf is going to be enough. It'll stop ridiculous things like quad necro being driven by a Consume Soul blood necro, but that's about it. There are currently playable eliteless bars that do a comparably good job as the Crip Anguish variant at both being a split threat and 8v8.

Nice info, thanks

Hmm... slight nerf to some dervish skills, slight buff to some depending on application.

straight buff to ele's, though few skills that are buffed.

Don't see why people are complaining in a 10% damage nerf to invoke, when the recharge is reduced by 25%, it's still a buff overall.

Though, I have to say wtf at signet of suffering, that seems like a terrible horrible skill :P

because its reducing damage on a poor hardmode class, its also becomes more expensive aswell as your casting it more often

Taken from Guild Wars 2 , Elementalist Introduction

or from Guild Wars 1, Elementalist Introduction

Note "Single Attack" but casting again and again just to reach that overall damage is not what i see in elementalist.

Quite contradicting.

If we're going to start listing the contradictions within Guild Wars, we'll probably finish around the time of the Second Coming (possibly the Third).

However, you are very right.

hmms all they talked about is changes to pvp skills. i hope they dont forget about winds of change. the zv and other stuff we got it cool,but would be nice to get new content. xD

All the more reason to nerf it imo. They target skills that have become staples in aspects of the game. Like the Shadowform, Asura Scan and BuH changes.

I don't see the point when there are plenty of other degen options that involve bleeding. If that's really what the bar is for then get something better.

Blood necros aren't problematic just because they spread bleeding. They also provide armor-ignoring spike damage, physical hate, enchantment removal, an offensive split threat, and a defensive split threat in addition to spreading as much degeneration as a conventional hex necro or a ranger. In short, they do far too many things too well.

Even just a five skill nonelite bar of Barbed Signet/Angorodon's Gaze/Oppressive Gaze/Strip Enchantment/Life Siphon provides 90% of the functionality, which is why depriving the blood necro of the flexibility available from having a free elite slot is far less crippling than it initially works. Where we currently have Expel Hexes, we'll see Convert Hexes. As for Flesh Wound, Foul Feast. For Crippling Anguish, Imagined or Ethereal Burden. The only elite that people actively run on blood necros that won't have a direct replacement is Consume Soul, but that's another can of worms - that skill should have never existed.

Except they're obviously not otherwise there would be a pvp split for every skill there and there isn't so it's a pvp+pve change for most of them.


Suggested the same thing myself...some sort of armor penetration or armor ignoring buff in energy storage for elementals. They could even make it only work in HM.


blood still sucks in pve. no one runs it. everyone is all about death & curses for aoe weakness and cracked armor + mop/barbs.

Kind of expected Avatar of Grenth to be toned down some, still kind of hoping for a Paragon, Ranger and Monk update some time in the future

These balances aren't for PvE. They're also not split because no one in PvE cares about them anyway.

I was waiting to see when Failnet realized the fail dervish update making em overpowered and decided to nerf em. Thanks for keeping me amused this time and not breaking the tradition Anet.

lol says the pvper. plenty of people care about pve, far more then care about pve then pvp as is seen by all the updates over the years.

You said it, not me. If you interpreted my post as "no one cares about PvE," read it again.

I just honestly don't see signet of corruption being used as the meta in gvg. I don't disagree that it's still viable. I just think they will find something else, or a different midliner altogether. The PvP community seems to be fickle like that sometimes.

1. It's Signet of Suffering, not Signet of Corruption.

2. There is no other midline template as powerful as a blood necro, regardless of whether its free elite utility slot is taken away or not. There is no debate about this whatsoever.

I tried to reinforce this in a previous post, as did Lemming, but I feel like I have to point it out again for most of the other posters here.

This

was

a

PvP

balance

update.