March 2 skill balance update!

Ive just gone back and done the Recruits for Hollis quest

I'm about to be really pissed. I can't believe that none of you feel the same way. Don't you see whats happening. They nerfed farming. Now the rich will stay rich and the poor will quit the game. Good job Arena Net another smooth move Ex lax.

I don't know what you're talking about, as I'm getting enough rares and my new green staff from these scarabs.

They nerved the easiest farming place. O NOES now you actually have to do something when farming.

thing that gets me is Riposte, Deadly Riposte were to me much better than Shield bash anyway. Now Sheild bash gets the nerf bat, while the Riposte boys get the steriod injections. Now you can do 150 dammage in a single counter and cause bleeding with just 2 skills.

Upping evis doesn't do much as most people wait till ex is recharged to use it in a tight string.

oh and shields up is nerfed for me 1% less chance to block. Oh noes!

What staff? The stupid internet at work wont let me load the past pages.

gutted about the drift box(didn't farm it my self because it's just to long and boring waiting to get something of use)because i was hoping the crystalline prices would start falling.they realy need to boost the drops on these a little then maybe the people like me who don't camp on the high-end forum with there amazing amounts of ecto can have a chance of getting 1 or at least a nice green version,preferably not vamp this time,the same as they did with the rare axes.

nice to see more buffs than nerfs this time although neither the buffs or nerfs have effected any of my builds but saying that i may have to add gash and rodgort's to my respective skill bars(will try them out later).

bit strange how they have only added a monk green this time and none for any 1 else.shield bonus sounds ok but not gonna run out to find 1.

and no shocking or ebon dragon swordunless that is a secret addition,we can but hope though.

Mmm yes in conjuction with other preps now, but choking gas is now overpowered along with it imo.

No, it's not. A 'bot' in this context is someone using automation for in-game actions, aka 'scripts', and the commercial farmers, who happen to be mainly chinese, are known to frequently do so.
I.e., they are commercial farmers who are thought to be using bots for their farming.

As for the update, I think it's mainly good. I also think some of the more curious changes may be to bring especially monk and warrior skills in line with ritualist and assassin skills.

EDIT: I forgot... I'm disappointed they didn't fix the stupid keg/book/gear tank exploit, though.

same here

Was happy seeing they boosted riposte, deadly riposte so i can speed up chest runs, but then no chests

I think the update is fair. I was hoping that they would up the cost of gale and crip shot. They were way overused before. The update is just enough to still keep them effective though.

I'm happy the fire ele got a buff. I don't play one myself but I can see many interesting builds with fire eles becoming popular.

As far as monks go, the 20% sacrifice on OoB isn't really going to hurt anyone. Monks will just have to be more careful when getting low on health. Mend ailment took a bit of a toning down but I don't think that leaving a condition on for 5 seconds is going to effect things too much. I think its interesting that they buffed aura of faith and brought peace and harmony up to scratch. I don't think that P&H will now become the 1st choice energy management for monks though, it doesn't really give that much energy compared with the popular energy management skills for monks and is shatterbait in my opinion. Perhaps it will become used more in PvE now with 1 monk maintaining it on himself and his fellow monk.

Distortion got a knock but not too badly to break many builds. The breakpoint for 2 energy loss per evade is now 8 illusion compared to 4 before the update so it will be interesting to see how this effects things.

I'm a little surprised with mantra of resolve being rebalanced. I'm not sure that it needed it. Especially now that practiced stance (the choking gas spammer's friend) got buffed.

The main thing that I am the most pleased with is the fixing of the increased attack speed buffs. This was way overdue. Now that order of the vamp wont work on targets already with an necro enchantment IWAYers will have to think about their builds. I don't think this will break ranger spike though because a good team can kill with just one order.

And finally, my most favourite random arena skill got put on steriods.... ineptitude. Used to do about 87 damage at 16 illusion now does about 142! Its quality to tag those pesky interupt spamming rangers with this beauty. It may now be finally worthy of elite status. Oh what fun.

Wow, this post is way longer than what I had planned. My apologies to those that have read it all.

I love the changes to Prophet's Path.

Not only are the item drops nice, it's.. clever.

I love the new monsters.

And I love how it's a finger in the face of botters.

I'm not too convinced - for the ranger spikes I've been in with 1 fast cast order and 4 rangers - I think they will be fine with just the 1 order.

I don't think 3 man ranger teams will work too well anymore though - I do believe with 1 order they will kill - obviously there's perhaps not a need to go 3 anymore - could just go 4.... or 3 and something else - obviously the 2nd order is pointless now , but the common build will have to be re-adjusted to find room for martyr and shield of deflection if they are wish to be kept. that's for tombs anyway.

Perhaps spiking with punishing as opposed to savage might be a bit more common now - it only took 2 rangers with punishing and 2x orders to spike out the majority of targets - I'm sure 3 and 1 order could do a lot of damage too, or 4 and 1 order.

I believe the OoV nerf to be one of the harshest, I'll manage

Gale nerf was probably overly harsh too

Ineptitude could be absolutely awesome now - catch them bastard warriors on frenzy ... ouch nearlly 300 damage, follow it with a clumsiness too

My god I didn't realise! We're doomed!

If you care about farming so much you should just play a game that is dedicated to grinding, obviously gw is not for you

Geesh, one farming spot got nerfed and everyone cries "end of the world." Hardly! Expand your horizons! With these stance buffs, there is some SERIOUS ass-kicking just waiting to happen! I already see a ton of potential, which I will be working on this weekend. One of my favorite builds in particular will be EXTREMELY powerful now. Damn, these next 2 hours before I get off work are gonna be PAINFULLY long...

loads of players call chinese farmers bots, when I know theres another human at the other end as i've spoken to them, it's just a catch all phrase for the automatonous nature of what they do. sure there are bots, I reckon loads of the sellers in international district augury are just automated programs sho wu qi 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 heh, but a fair few of the farmers are not bots/they are people

IWAY is not nerfed, its weakened. I entered Int. 1 "Heroes Ascent" and saw IWAY's gathering allready. The reduced attackspeed won't make that much of a difference. IWAY still triggers on pets and I honestly haven't seen that IWAY's used minions. The orders don't stack, good. But one will still be up.

Making the orders not stacking is against R-spike with 3 rangers. A R-spike with 4 rangers won't feel it. They only need one order.

Why didn't they adjust EoE or NR. Would have been much cooler.
Make NR an elite

Except that the longer cast now makes it interrupt fodder. Combine that with the mend ailment nerf and conditions should be a lot nastier this time around.

Kind of what I hoped for ^^ - although was due to a personal hate for the skill
I would have been happy enough with increased energy cost

Another thing worth mentioning is the resetting of adrenaline on res sig - which was due as well. Warriors always benefited the most from res sigs - this is definitely a step in the right direction.

And the hard res buffs are interesting - which makes gvg resmers a bit better. and perhaps a home could be found for them in HA builds

... bah, I didn't see that >_< conditions have gotten a real boost heh. That said RC is still the same

It's going to take some getting used to the Mend Ailment, Holy Veil, and OoB changes I think myself, maybe draw conditions is a very good option now so you can bring the conditions to yourself before mending them, not like that was ever a bad option or anything

I can't wait to get home from this damned university!

Bull's Strike and Bull's Charge are really hot now. You can't just sidestep to make them useless anymore, they're going to be rocking people.

Shadow of Fear just got a triple buff - the hex helm that neutered it is gone, the bug that held it at 33% instead of 50% is fixed, and they halved the recharge. It was a decent to good skill before and now it's retarded. Expect to see it everywhere.

Order of the Vampire got obliterated.

Honestly I don't see this update having too big of an impact. All of the terrible skills that were touched are still terrible for the same reasons they were terrible before. The metagame isn't going to shift much, it's still going to be Warriors (Bull's instead of Gale) + Dom Mesmers + Cripshot (though only one now) + Boonprots + Heal Party. The number of changes makes me feel like they wanted to shake things up a bit, but the quality says that were afraid of any serious change.

We'll see how big of an impact the few big changes (those 3 buffs above, plus the Gale nerf) end up having.

Peace,
-CxE

i love to see how often this statement is made on all the forums and i'm sure a.net appreciates people advising there income source away from the game.at the end of the day it realy bothers me when people are shot down for voicing concern/unhappiness on a change to the game they payed for that was usualy only changed because of others whining for a change.all in all my favourite statement stands "each to their own".we all have different views on everything in the game.if you don't like something or want something new added you have to speak up and keep your fingers crossed that you are heard over the people shouting for the opposite either way its a.net that have the final say.if to many things are changed for the worse in some eyes then no doubt they will not be joining in on other chapters and a.net will lose some cash but then again if those things were not changed those unhappy people would stay and we would most likely lose the ones whining for change instead.myself i have some concerns over ch2 which if proved to be a problem and not addressed would put me off future installments,but that is my choice,and many will agree and disagree with that view.as the old saying goes "you can't please all the people all the time" and kudos to a.net for trying there best to do so.