Update - Thursday, December 8, 2011

LOL

Under the Ritualist why didnt they just put, STOP USING IT IN DOA the semi nerf in there was aimed directly at that area of the game,

I see that SoS took another hit, instead of nerfing something to the point where people dont want to use it, just go directly for the kill switch and remove the skill completely,

Your nerfing the SoS yet the SF sins can still run around the place farming high end areas with little trouble, the attacks against solo farming is getting bad now, if the drop rate wasnt so bad with a team maybe people wouldnt farm solo,

The Ele update looks interesting.

Quite amusing, the nerf to mistrust and decrease in armor is going to shaft mesmers in PvE to strictly use either Panic or shared.


I'm going to call it now: Star burst is going to be the new DwG. People are going to run 4 of them with intensity, and one person with Double Dragon. Have the eles bring Arcane mimicry for a loltastic spike with 5 copies of DD.


/sigh

Re-looking down all that wall of text about Elite park for Eles, i don't see any mention to AP changes/nerfs.

Maybe because the focus of that update will be exactely that - the elite choice - but any time we've talked here about PvE Eles someone brought up the AP issue.

Not that needed, cause Eles aren't the only prof using it (and won't HAVE to use it anymore as they do now in PvE anyway to be useful) and non-elite skills weren't buffed that much, but still surprised to do not see it touched.

Btw, also noticed that there isn't a single change to ER, Sliver, most of Tanking Earth stuff and Burning Speed.... looks like an important part SC backbone is untouched too.

I don't think AP Caller builds are broken. They just happen to be the only decent options for elementalits right now, and that's gonna change after the update. Especially now that the higher HP is gonna nerf a little AP.

A quick look at some of the obvious and subtle PvP implications:

- Blinding Surge: Teams often collapse multiple melee to pressure spike, so this will make the skill somewhat more effective at mitigation. The damage change is irrelevant.
- Chain/Invoke: Not enough to solve it.
- Energy Boon: This one is sneaking under the radar, but there are many possible hex bars that would be lethal if only someone could pass you 50 or 60 energy each minute.
- Glyph of Energy: 20 Earth = 142 Obs Flame, permitting kills with just five spikers. Has the potential to significantly alter the HA meta.
- Gust: Huge. It's not just for griefing, it's for opening up kill windows at will.
- Mirror of Ice: Brutal on relic runs. This, Frozen Burst and a teammate with Energy Boon? Ouch.
- Shatterstone: That is a LOT of pressure.
- Star Burst: Ditto.
- Stone Sheath: You can catch spikes from the midline with this and mitigate. Insane.
- Water Trident: Nasty in confined spaces like Halls. Not so hot in GvG.

"Most people" is not the same as "me", fyi. Halloween was quite popular this year, so I see no reason for you to make this statement.

Yeah most people as in the vast majority of people who've bee playing for a number of years. Of course events like Halloween and Wintersday are popular, it offers the chance for people to finish off titles and earn money for HoM. Players who've got their HoM finished up and have been are not going to come back for recycled festivals, but they might for a change in game mechanics.

I see no reason for you say such a thing without any evidence to support it, making it irrelevant. Obviously there's a spike in player activity for festivals but it's only newer players/people playing for a reason. The point is it's not reason enough to bring people back and one of the most debated topics about festivals on these forums is the fact that they're recycled.

Mesmers will still be pretty powerful. Right now Elementalists are about 50-60% as powerful as Mesmers in elemental builds that aren't Invoke. After this update Eles will probably be about 120% of pre-update mesmers in damage and mesmers will drop by something like 10% IF they use mistrust (plenty of good builds don't). Mesmers will still also have the shutdown abilities that come with a lot of their skills.

In addition to Panic/Shared, Fevered Dreams, Psychic Instability, Keystone Signet are all still untouched.

Star Burst recharges in an average of 4 seconds with EBSoW. Throw in a second copy through AM or AE and that gets pushed down to 2s. Time to reach out and touch someone...

Sorry, burden of evidence is on you to prove your claim, since you're the one who made the claim in the first place. I did go to Halloween this year, because I find it fun for a number of reasons, none of which have anything to do with GWAMM or the HoM because those have been maxed for a long while. The number of districts were just as high as I recall them being last year, the player population was also just as high as far as I could tell without taking a goddamn survey, CB was packed whenever I went there...so, all in all, I stand by what I said: there's nothing to support your claim that "most people don't bother" anymore, and there is at least some evidence to contradict it.

You obviously don't care about them anymore, which is why I said what I said; you're extrapolating from you, and your group of friends, to "everyone who's not a newbie or currently working on the HoM". As a final point, even if we took your definition at face value, the fact of the matter is that 50/50 is not a common achievement, so "most" people would, according to you, be interested in festivals for that reason alone.

@Kunder: you can't make any claims as to how effective mesmers are going to be after this update until you know how much HP they're adding to HM monsters. Anything you say before then is pure speculation.

Boosted HP will equally nerf Ele and Mesmer builds though, so we can still see how effective they are in relation to each other.

This update will hit mesmers hard- more health means that armor-ignoring damage packets that FD and Keystone pump out are going to be mediocre since everything but armor-ignoring damage is getting "buffed," in comparison. You're going to start seeing the mesmer heroes getting replaced by eles (aside from maybe panic).

Which is a good thing IMO. If we ever end up with a balanced hero team meta in the future, I would really like that. I miss not feeling like gimping myself when bringing a non-ER ele hero...

You don't have to be a genius to see that comparatively new people play nowadays, it's a 6 year old game after all.Point is festivals aren't new and will not bring people back as it doesn't change anything, unlike skill balances. My evidence? 6 Years of playing guild wars and being part of the community.

How do you think I feel when I'm currently playing a Shared Burden Mesmer?

Fear not though, I've already come up with a reasonably good Mist Form "healer" Elementalist build that may compensate Signet of Spirits. Then again, until changes are made, I can't say anything is good...

Panic, Psychic Instability and etc. are still going to be great builds, it just so happens that elementalists will be back as the main nukers, which at the moment is also what the mesmers do.

Their damage is comparable to (the now higher) ele damage. The time to kill for each is nerfed by higher health.

Mesmer heroes getting replaced by eles is of course normal because the better shutdown elites are horrible with hero AI and more damage is always better.

Super stoked for the versatility a lot of these skills offer. MoM is right where I always wanted it to be with this build. I have a set of Prismatic Armor just collecting dust that I will have to don again.

I like the direction the team is taking the Elites and can NOT wait to see what they have in store for some of the non-elites down the road.

As per the discussion going on about heroes, I just think this opens the door for other hero builds to be in play. I really don't see the new Elementalist stuff outshining builds that are already in use. If anything it gives us a lot of new ways to come up with new hero and team builds. That to me is what is most fun about GW.

Speaking as someone who hasnt played since WoC and a little bit for halloween, this change will probably be enough to bring me back for a while.

The change in PvE meta will give me chance to finish WoC in a new way on my alts that havent finished it yet, especially my Ele. I always like tweaking my heroes/toons with new builds after skill updates. And Gust alone will probably get me back into some casual PvP. Or even some creative builds for PvE. Conjure/Gust melee gogogo!

This is my preemptive thank you to Anet for this update! See you for the Wintersday Event!

Think this will do anything to Frostway DoA?

That was me and after thinking about it the 3 conditions might be okay. Like everyone says its a high risk elite. You want to Shockwave that monk behind the Dervish, Mesmer and Necro? Better take a shadowstep with you but again the risk is high because chances are your out of range for the monk to heal you and if he pushes up hes gonna get rocked. Shockwave will only become OP when the team running it can push hard into the other team. Stone Sheath might make that happen though.

Then there is the altar pvp game type. Shockwave is going to be meta there