Preliminary Skill Update Notes: March 17

How can it be bad? With seven heroes and cons, the game is stupidly easy. How making HM actually hard can be a bad thing?
Anyways, Prot Spirit says hi.

I have to say i agree with Borat regarding eles and the whole prelim in everything but one thing - eles can emulate ritualists, spamming spirits just as well as pretty much any other class ;p

Prot spirit is already waaay too mandatory for it's own good. I leave it of my bar when it's even remotely possible.

Euhm, I'd like to see you prot spirit every party member before engaging a particular boss, because he's gonna wipe you. Remember, heroes are stupid as hell, and micro flagging all of em.. Just, cba, so 1 nice hit from that one boss and you're gone.

I think the point is fairly obvious you buff a skill to a certain point that the damage in hard mode could be an instant kill.

Players level armour and hits do not go up so if you buff ele enough then the bad guy comes in at level 30 and may well kill everybody and your cons will do little.

Armour penetration is fine but damage boosts should be carefully considered

Saying prot spirit is the solution to insanely high-damage AoE is RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing stupid. If anything, things need to be nerfed to hell rather than buffed to make the game a challenge.

If you get wiped that fast of ele bosses, you suck. Shelter says hi.

The fact that your intire team wipes from 1 spells means you're incapable of flagging out your heroes, and is no excuse to call ele bosses overpowered, altough I do understand your point.

The biggest issue with eles is that they either need to one hit kill or they're inferior to everything else. An ele boss doesn't do more DPS than a frontline or Paragon boss, he does, however, manage to one hit heroes sometimes with spells such as rodgorts or one of the air skills.

There's enough ways to buff eles without necessarily buffing HM ele bosses, I'm not even going to bother listing them. It's the least of our worries.

- your original post
isn't ironic if you use your numbers that Discord is better even for DPS purposes vs 60Armor? Discord has 2 recharge after all, Flare has none. I these 2 seconds you can fire off any 1 second spell. Flare tops out at 40DPS, if you do nothing else and it costs 1.14 energy/second after Attune+AoR so you actually can't do much else unless you're running more than those 2 energy management skills.

Eles have to use all resources: time, energy, and position (if using AoE). Mesmers have much less emphasis on time. Necros have much less emphasis on energy and for stuff like Discord, time as well (1 cast and no need for attunements).

The more spammy something is without energy to support it, (i.e. Invoke+chain lightning on 40/40 and air attunement + AoR) the more Necros pull ahead. Spiking with Discord is possible, spiking with flare or anything short of Meteor/Liquid Flame/Fireball x5 is flat out impossible even against 60 armor (8*62=552 if you run 8 copies in the team and do nothing else). Discord is really not that great on its own (consider that SoS+Bloodsong=100damage per volley before Painful Bond ; the only advantage is targeting ....that's not even including Keystone mesmers with 100+ AoE damage every few seconds). It's that necros have the energy without using up 2-3 strippable slots on their skill bar.

Immolate can be used with other skills because 5-6 energy under Attune (5 under AoR also) every 6.75 seconds is nothing hard. Immolate isn't impressive at all, it has no spike potential ([email protected] +42 burn) or AoE (Fireball/Liquid Flame). It's more or less filler on Mind Blast+Rodgort's like Liquid Flame on a Searing Flames bar.

If you're running Attune + AoR, you're bounded by 0.75*6 aftercast=4.5 second aftercast + minimum of 6 cast for ele skills (with a slot used for res, you're bounded by 3.75 aftercast and 5 cast). So anything less than 5 recharge will stop you from using your full bar. That's why Immolate is mediocre and Lava arrows is lame. Lava Arrows puts out 36.3DPS if it hits all 3 targets (it's harder than with Immolate since it's projectile).

The only reason HM PvE eles have so much spike power is a 1.23-1.682 or even 2.5-3.5x multiplier due to a combination of Level and double Boss damage. It's like if I run Fireball or Lightning Orb against Ascalon mobs.

I don't even know why I even care about Eles anymore. I stopped playing mine in PvE and now I'm pew-pewing everything on my other casters.

The reason I edited the post was because Discord's calculation was wrong ("should be" 115/3, even though 115/3 is still completely wrong). Having fixed that, the same reason Immolate > Flare is the same reason why pre-nerf Invoke > post-nerf Invoke.

I don't disagree with the rest of your post. I just think it's blatantly inaccurate to say that post-nerf Invoke does more DPS than pre-nerf Invoke.

This is what Riverside does to PvP updates.....

I'm curious what the Dev update will be next week. Been hearing some QQ on the rangers, so maybe it's that. Some rants on paragons, too, but not so much. It could be about something else, though. Just have to wait and see.

Regarding the HM ele boss with AoE problem - reading posts like those few above make me want to say 'l2p'.

So, step by step. I assume you have spirits in your set up - they're pretty much meta in PvE right now, mostly on player bars, but even if not, then there's a spiritspamming hero. At least one. If not, there's a minion master. Still, it's the easiest with a player spamming spirits and prot spirit on a hero, but it can be done otherwise.
Now, to the point. Set up your spirits, or be sure your MM has minions, or be sure your spammer has his spirits recharged.
Spam your spirits and put AoU on them, flag your heroes, precast PS and other prot spells you might have, aggro the boss with Pain Inverter, summon spirits. It's as simple as that 90% of the time.

If you don't have PI, if you've screwed and lost all minions, if you don't own Factions, if you encounter a particularly hard group - it's still doable.
Want a few hints? Spread your heroes and pull with a longbow. Lock your mesmer interrupter hero on the boss. Keep the boss on the ground long enough to kill it.
Even if there was an armor-ignoring spell that deals 900 damage and a few bosses in game used it, it'd be your fault that you wiped, not a flawed design. There are numerous ways to handle it.

And given how easy the game is now, especially when 7 hero teams got introduced, i would gladly trade harder ele bosses for more useful ele in HM PvE. Actually, if you're a real player, not just expecting to mash your face on the keyboard to do your thing, it's a win-win situation.

Hmm, how so?

I completely agree. More powerful Ele, Ranger, Paragon skills and HM foes are long over due. Asking Anet to nerf all the OP skills this late in the game just isnt going to happen. The only realistic option we have right now is to go with the flow of powercreep(in PvE).

Flaggable pets while Charm Animal is equipped would be nice, for starters...

I hate worthless skills.

Seriously...
Invoke Lightning's damage was nerfed down because the A/P spike in GvG was imba.
Grenth and EDA should be self explanatory.
Any time a physical class has been able to run a perma IAS and IMS simultaneously (see Primal Rage) it has been retardedly imbalanced so that has to be toned down (honestly, they should just make those run enchantments into stances instead... prob solved... and "smiter's boon" enchanted hast.)
Fevered Dreams Mesmers are stupid. Click skills... don't think.
The only thing imbalanced about barb sig Necromancers is the fact that the build has an open elite slot that can be filled with utility of choice. That is fixed with this update.

EDIT (infringement of my first amendment due to hurt feelings): All in all this update is really good for the game. It is a small step towards balancing the game back to how it used to be... fun. I understand where PvE people are coming from but HM is already easy, especially with the 7 hero update.

As I said, there's lots of skills they can buff to add damage to eles that a PvE mob won't have, swirling aura, magnetic aura, glyph of essence, iron mist, Elemental flame(they could change any of these in in pve only to add extra damage, armor penetration or an effect similar to BUH or the vanguard ward, or intensity), ward of weakness(could be altered to crack armor in addition to weakness, or reduce armor when in the ward), Elemental lord(buff the attribute increase or add a bonus damage modifier), Not to mentrion the bevy of junk elites that eles have, glyph of energy, second wind, ether prodigy(eles have gole, they don't need more e-management junk) Master of Magic(it actually nerfs your stats), and most air elites in PvE(surge needs to hit nearby when it pops, glimmer needs to damage adjacent, gust need to lose it's req of an off att hex and be AoE, invoke needs to hit way harder and hit more then 2 guys).

As for actually fighting the mobs with those skills, by Balthazar's flaming pubes, by Lyssa's exquisite tits, by Grenths icy balls, by Dwayna's dimpled ass, by Melandru's splintery areola BRING IT THE ON! GET SOME!

The attunement change makes it easy for a Dual Attunement FC mesmer . Lightning Hammer/Lightning Orb spam away!

...Or they could just run something effective. Aside from dodgeball, that seems pretty lame.

Again, you're missing the point, suggesting Anet to create/change skills to support the ele is retarded and not solving the problem. If one profession can pump out insane damage without taking extra skills, and the other one can pump the same damage, but has to take 2-3 extra skills to get it done, who's the superior one? It's just mitigating the problem..

Also @this:
First of all, you seem to make it a sport to insult me in every thread we come across, which says more about you than about me.
Secondly, I never said I wiped at every ele boss I encounter, but I'm sure enough noobs or newer players do.
Thirdly: I did every VQ prior to heroes update, so never took a shelter hero and still got everything done. Also, never VQ'ed with cons etc..
My point was that some ele bosses already hit for 400-500 damage, and that an ele buff might just make that damage even more OP..

Cons shouldn't exist anyways.

Good thing I've finished my Kurzick title, but now that might just mean I can't steamroll through Mount Qinkai for faction vanquish with my heroes since I use a minion+spirit train. All the Yeti Ritus there carry Consume Soul.

Time to switch it up to a Barrage Pet team without minions or spirits for that VQ now.

i remmber them saying in the derv update they wanted to change some things so theres more viable builds, so not 100% requiring shelter/prot spirit would be good. i like certain skills being useful in certain areas/missions etc though. like frozen soil in slaviers for example.

Disappointing that the PvP avatar fixes (or should I say fix) is basically nothing.

Heart of fury needs a detraction like every other IAS, even at 25%. -20 armor, a cool down, anything.

Harriers haste should only have a token amount of bonus damage, in the 3-5 range.

Martial classes inflicting cracked armor with primary skills was a really bad move. Should have just changed aura slicer to + minor damage when enchanted and rending aura / staggering force to another condition on end.

All avatars (PvP) should be changed to earth damage to get the same effect of no conjure or blood buffing while not negating any use of inscriptions, ranger bonus armor, warrior bonus armor and sentinel insignias with the current non physical or elemental damage. Unbelievably stupid.

Aura of Thorns is still probably too good as a feeder.

blah blah rant.

A.Net is well aware that what the vast majority of the PvE community demands is inherently contradictory and makes for a really crappy game. All of the best PvE game developers more or less ignore their communities entirely when it comes to balance issues.

Vast majority or vocal minority?

Even after a big update that has people raging on the forums, I've only ever had a handful of complaints in my alliance...and certainly never about a reduction of 10 damage, with a recharge decrease to boot.

The vast majority want things to happen; a vocal bunch make those demands.

All the best and all the crappy as well.

Of course most games are crappy anyway.

my necro mm and 2 rit heros are okay even against the boss rit in MQ, perhaps my mes hero interrupting with Panic/power return etc be why.

So you're updating heart of fury, but you are letting dervs keep an IAS without any downsides to it? Nerfing invoke lightning? Eles already do bad damage and now you guys are making it worse.

Nice way to show you guys aren't in touch.

Eles don't need to deal big damage. they are support characters so they have a lot of counters for opposite team (see snares, melee hate spells as blurred, blind). And now mix their great support ability with a big damage capability. What will you get? Gazillions of def balls as a/p spike with 4 eles or another modification of [Gear]'s 4 ele build.

I think we all know what happened when Eles did big damage in PvP...

Nice way to show you don't know anything about PvP, if you think ele spike damage isn't a problem.

I don't think anyone is complaining about eles not doing enough damage in pvp or being useful in pvp. It is in PvE hard mode that eles suck. Its a combination of having to rely on 2-3 emanage skills, long cast times, having 50-80% of their damage reduced by increased armor in hm, and having low armor. There is no reason to run anything but er prot and ap caller as an ele. Most people that rolled an ele did so under the impression that they would get the highest damage caster in the game. Instead they get the lowest damage caster in the game; rits, necs, and mesmers do better damage in pve.

Update is here. Aura of Restoration got nerfed to 20sec recharge, but that wasn't documented in the update info.

All the people complaining about Rangers not being updated for PvE...

Stop suggesting ANet should remove the no preparations clause for Barrage. We don't want stupidly power creeped bullshit.

We already can thank Mesmers, Necros, and Rits for absurd sources of damage which for some reason have not yet been nerfed...


I would like to hear the plans next in line for balancing or retooling via PvE and/or PvP though ANet (excluding the surprise Birthday update). =o

So apart from a surprise nerf to a particular farm, was this update meant to achieve anything?

To see if small changes have the effect they desire, rather than the huge changes that the community always bitches about?

Most people don't care enough to post on guru or wiki. They just play and log off.

The Guild Wars Guru echo chamber strikes again without why or how.

Guess I don't have too much to worry about then, haven't tried the VQ yet today. Plus my main damage comes from OotV+GDW+EBSoH+Barrage x2.

Minions were meant to be a distraction + bodyblock and spirits were mainly for protting against spikes.