March 2 skill balance update!

What can I say? YEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!

Does the reduction in the casting time of firestorm now mean Orion might actually HIT something with it ? As to the farming - bit of a shame but plenty of other places out there. Hmmm, rockshots without blind on the dust trap....

Maybe he's trying to kill your party with kindness? What's the recharge on that?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong...

Old Rodgort's Invocation - 5... 119
New Rodgort's Invocation - 7... 120
Old Lava Font - 5... 31
New Lava Font - 5... 35

In fact I remember nearly all Fire skills capping at 119 or 31 (16 attribute). So the only change was +1/+4 on their cap, and a +2 on the base of a handful?

The lack of enchantment removal on the conjures is nice, however, I don't know *any* Elementalist primary that's going to bring it along just to milk some more damage out of their wand. Its a great Elementalist secondary skill, and for a long time now Elementalist has been a much better secondary than its been a primary.

More importantly I do not see a single change that's going to bring Elementalists any closer to being welcome in most groups, beyond the typical Echo Nuker that tends to do nothing but scatter mobs and I swear is only included because people feel they need one. Kind of like a second monk.

Semi-rant, semi-opinion, semi-getting tired of not seeing my primary character being able to do anything in the game. I'd love for someone to correct me and tell me that I'm wrong, but I'm just not seeing it outside the forums and inside the game.

And I know Mesmers are (still) having the same problems.

lol, actually I wasn't joking. It was effectively turned into a defensive spell (that I never took along) after the AI update, but with a cast time that was waaay to long for it to be used that way...

It is still to long of a cast for a defensive spell but is much better. It will likely never find a place on my skill bar because it is still a crappy skill, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.

A skill rework might be: (note that this would better fit what I see to be the skill's purpose now)

Firestorm
15e 1/2 sec cast 10 sec recharge

Create a firestorm at target foe's location. For 5 seconds target foe and all adjacent foes take 10...48 fire damage. (or leave dmg at 5...24, or whatever it is)

Your old numbers are for attribute level 16.
Your new numbers are for attribute level 15.

Flame burst and RI do 127 damage at 16, lava font does 37.

Thank you for the correction.

Also don't forget mend ailment was the only condition removal spell ( at least one that was worth its place on your skillbar ) which you could use on yourself . With the the 5 second recharge time , you can pretty much predict what will happen : they will spike the monks with conditions and as you can't throw mend ailment on self fast enough anymore , this will be succesful.

I would have understood this "debuff " as they call it if any viable alternative was offered but there isn't .

Peace and harmony still isn't what it should be for an elite .I agree with your statement :
It should at the very least return more energy for it to earn its place as an elite energy management skill.

Oh well, rockshots still have blind effect on their dust traps...

I don't know, it still costs a lot :/

Yep, Augury is now full of ppl shouting "LFG QUEEN HUNTING". It's crazy! My mesmer had a couple quests in Prophet's Path (Ancient Sword and Ele Path). Was easier to start from Heroe's and I must say, I almost felt sorry for the minotaurs fighting the scarabs. But the quests were still easily completed with henches (no one available for mere adventuring! not when they could *farm*) although the henches did not do well against the Queen and her lackeys. They'd left a few griffons, poor things huddled against a dune waiting for us to come along and dispatch them .

Mantra of Recovery, far superior imo to Recall, surely is nicer with egy req of 10. My ranger had given up Crippling Shot long ago so no loss there. Still need to test out a few other skills. Overall, a really good update.

I've always liked Peace and Harmony, even if it did suck.

They fixed the biggest problem with it, but the heavy recharge time is still restricting, especially if it gets removed.

The thing with Peace and Harmony is that it's one skill on one skill bar. Roughly 90 seconds of an energy regen is about 30 energy over a long period of time, for a net gain of 25. Offering of Blood (at 9 blood magic, for an easy to compute with 15 energy) will give you a net of 10 every 15 seconds. Over 90 seconds thats 60 energy. This is a little more than twice as effective as PnH. However, the person with PnH is not restricted to using it only on himself. With a 30 second recharge and a 90 second duration, PnH can be cast on 3 monks, for a net energy gain of 75. For one skill, you net your team 15 more energy than Offering of Blood.



This is only in terms of primary monks.

Offering of Blood: Large ammounts of energy on a single person. Anyone who wants the energy boost needs to use the elite slot. Significant attribute points spent in periferal attribute line for a single skill. Restricts secondary profession.

Peace and Harmony: Smaller ammounts of energy to several people from a single skill. Other monks are free to use other elite skills. In the Divine Favor attribute line so no extra points needed to be spent. Free secondary prefession. If it's removed, you're screwed.


Overall, Peace and Harmony doesn't give you as much energy as Offering, but all of the periferal benifiets give it other advantages, so long as you can keep it covered. (especially with the new 20% sac ammount)

i agree

When you run, do you not return to finish off your weakened foe? Mobs don't. Broken. If they held aggro, not broken.

Example: Warrior cutting you to ribbons, do you run? Yup. Do foes? No. Ranger with ele secondary casts lava font with 0 fire skill. Does 1-3 dmg a "tick". Do you run or laugh it off? Mobs flee and change targets. Broken AI.

Granted, AI can't determine the difference, but if they would hold aggro, it would be a huge step in the right direction in making them "smarter" and PvE slightly more difficult - and that's a good thing.

Now, about the other questions... anyone?

ROFL. *applause*

It is a good point, the fact that the seemingly less important matters are being dealt with and some major flaws are being left unnattended.

One thing I most certainly agree with is the nerfing of farming at Prophet's Path purely because it deals with the botters.
When the update first happenned, I re-started my client and loaded up Augury to see the usual tidal wave of monk bots begin running through the door. Then I saw them all respawn a few seconds later and within minutes their shrieks of confusion, frustration and terror were echoing all over the Crystal Desert, and i've got to admit, i've never laughed so hard in my life.
Then I started hearing legitimate, non-botting farmers complaining, and I thought to myself 'Why on earth are they in dismay?'

The botters were in dire straights because the most easilly bot-abused farming area in the game has been completely bot-proofed, but legit farmers still have plenty of choices.

Although you can't do it in Prophet's Path, you can still farm Griffons, should you so choose. There are places to do it, the only difference is that you need to fight through other enemies to get there - for example the Griffon nest in the south-western corner of Skyward Reach with Hydras between you - and a bot is a simple script that makes your character repeat motions to perform one task over and over. It'd be pretty difficult to program a bot that could deal with the hydras and their meteor interrupt and get to the griffons then farm them, but a skilled enough player with a 55 build can easilly demolish them and get to the Griffons, and I think that might have been the whole point of this aprticular part of the update.

Also, I can't remember who, but someone made a quip about thinking ANet should concentrate on the lopsided economy rather than stopping the excessive farming. This is a contradiction. By stopping the botabusing and overfarming of Griffons, this is exactly what they are doing, granted though it may be too little too late. In an economy with an abundance of currency, the currency is devalued and prices rise to reflect this. The influx of created and bought gold caused by excessive griffon farming and botting has been removed from the equation, and so a huge source of created gold is stemmed. If all excessive farming was prevented, prices would lower because there would not be enough gold to pay the high prices, gold would be rarer, and so worth more.

Supply and demand applies as much to currency as it does to items bought with it.

Yeah it is better, but still not quite there. Enchantment with long recharge = bad pretty much everywhere in the game (thanks to enchant stripping being quite prevalent), and this is exactly that. If they dropped the recharge to 20, even if they reduced the duration accordingly, it would be quite the attractive little team-oriented skill.

BTW thanks to all who helped to clarifify my Dread's Drift keyless chest question. I had planned to try and get to it for the first time this weekend... alas, I guess not.

Oh well, with this update, something in me died as well. I was hoping that eles might actually be buffed enough that they might become damage dealers in pvp, but that hope seems to still be so far away. By only buffing some skills by some 6-9 points, does anet really expect that those skills suddenly become attractive or that they do enough damage for its cost?

A little analysis into the skills itself would make you wonder why you are actually spending that much energy for that little damage. Take Rodgort's Invocation for example, 127 + 42 burning damage = 169 damage for 25 energy, seems nice, but its only an increase of 8 points from before the update, and those 8 points hardly makes this skill worth the 25 energy. To illustrate, a simple fireball and immolate for 20 energy beats Rodgort's Invocation hands down, dealing 119 + 53 + 42 = 214 damage with almost the same effects. And you only spent 20 energy as opposed to 25 to deal that much more damage than Rodgort's Invocation. Granted, you needed 2 skill slots as opposed to Rodgort's 1, but seriously, it shows that Rodgort's Invocation is horridly overpriced for its damage and anet adding 8 points to it still doesn't help it much.

Anet should really fix the energy costs first as that is a bigger issue with eles than just getting +8 points more of damage. Energy storage only applies when an ele is above 40 energy, once he dips below that, he becomes just like any other caster but with a huge difference, his spells are overpriced.

Rodgart has a few reasons why its 25 energy.

It has a huge aoe. Its not just 169 Dmg to 1 target its multiple targets. Hitting 2 targets will out dmg firebal + emolate. Imagine 4-5 of these being spiked and pressure builds.

Rodgart is very impresive the way it is. Look at ways to using skills and stop using flawed math.

With the current nerf to healing fire and air eles are going to be in every build.

Oh God Not Holy Viel!!!

Ok, i only considered a single target because i was referring to it in a GVG sense, in which case people are constantly moving and cases where you actually get to hit 4+ people bunched up are extremely rare, its more likely you will only get 2 people or at most 3 and yes i concede that at 3+ people, rodgort's does win out against a fireball hitting the same 3+ and then immolating 1 target, but still at 2 people, fireball hitting and then immolating 1 does 333 damage, while rodgort's only does 338, slightly better but still having to use 5 more energy, so actually worst. At 3, Rodgort's does 507 while fireball + immolate does 452. So it is actually only at 3+ more people that rodgort's does more damage, but how often do you actually manage to catch 3+ more people of a good guild bunched up for an aoe nuke? Not a lot, which is why i made my arguement the way i did, flawed though it may be.

SO many monks running out of Forge now! LOL

Explain or you suck!

Rodgort's Invocation isn't a huge AoE, it's "nearby" (the skill description used to say "in the area" but it was lying). You're lucky to hit two targets in anything that's not HA, which is the only place this skill is remotely efficient. I really don't understand why they chose to give it an inconsequential buff to damage instead of increasing the AoE.

Actually, now that hexes and conditions are more meaningful you're going to see more and more teams that go with Necromancers and Mesmers and if they bring an Elementalist along at all, he's going to be spamming Heal Party.

I'm pretty sure it used to be "in the area". I tested it a few times in the Zaishen Playground. Maybe they changed it to "nearby", but it didn't use to be.

I tested it there myself and I'm 100% sure it has been "nearby" since the skill update where they reduced the casting time to 3 seconds.

I hate you, anet.

Has anyone noticed that warriors are Favored by anet? they get some new shields, and ALL the changes were for the better.

Necro's arn't.
Almost all he necro's skills that were changed were made worse.

OotV doesn't deserve to be an elite.
OoB doesn't deserve to be an elite.

Boo hoo. Necros have 70+ skills. Make a new build.

Looking over past skill changes, and the threads here in correlation with them, it's actually pretty amusing. Sarcastic replies of "Make a new build..learn to adapt...use skill" are abundant. Why doesn't anyone ever reply with an attempt at an explanation?

I think the sworsdsmanship and stance based warrior skills were for the better, but hammer/KD/axe warriors took a hit, no pun intended. Across the board I think it was pretty balanced as far as nerf to buff ratio in each profession. I think that you will see more changes in the weeks to come, especially after Factions, when we start seeing the leveling of these new skill changes vs. those of the new professions, and also how the changes affect gameplay in both PvP and PvE.

Personally, I am still rather baffled by the introduction of the new shields, I really didn't see a high need for them, but I am not the most knowledgeable tank, being rather green with mine.

Probably trying to farm Trolls

Yeah, but, they just nerfed 2 skills that were fine. and they tripled the damage form some warrior skills? since when did they need a damage triple?

And they have nerfed EVERY blood elite at one time. GG.

I think Anet just hates me. they have nerfed EVERY ONE OF MY FAVORITE builds.

All the warriors favorite's builds are buffed? that's not fair.

All the professions EXCEPT have gotten a decent/godly update. warriors now have a recieved damage -5 shield now, Ele's can deal more damage faster. mesmers can too, rangers in that group, monks can heal better.

What do Necro's get?

Reduces Cast time to 1 second, reduces recharge, increases recharge, This skill won't stack with another necro skill, inrceased health sacrifice.

And WHAT build is the Staple build for getting fame, that requires NO brain activity?

The one that gets the least nerfed.

Eviscerate has to get one 1 more adreniline strike? Big deal.
IWAY gets an attack speed reduction of 8%? big deal.
Necro's die 10% faster? Necro enchs don't stack?
That's a big deal.

this is the worst nerf ever in all games history

15 energy for 8 sec or less?? its ridiculous

ok where do I start?
from what I see, every "build that works well" has been nerfed (IWAY, boonprot, gale warrior, cripshot ranger).
at first, I was really upset with the Oob nerf ( still possible to use, but harder) even though it was overpowered. but then I saw mantras of recall's cost had been reduced, so Ill be going with that instead.
what annoys me most is the mend ailment nerf. 5 sec recast is just too slow. a LOT of builds rely on conditions, and with a 5 sec recast condition removal skill, u just cant do much.
Ive considered mend condition, but this "only other ally target" isnt really that good.
so yes, the monk nerf/buff is what concerns me the most, and Im trying to understand that mend ailment nerf.
would anyone care to explain that nerf if they can?

EDIT: the cripshot nerf is really ridiculous as stated in the post right above me

I was trying out mend ailment and it really isn't spammable as it once was although mend condition is.This was one skil I never left home with out it either heal or protect and mostly in PvE.The only to cercumvent(sp) this to use healing and this is in PvP as orisons is still spammable.

and mend ailment was also used on self ( mend condition can't )

Cripshot nerf is ridicilous.

Mend conditions was a way to gain IMMENSE health over a short time with only a little energy cost. it would heal for pretty high with 16 in prot (correct me if i'm wrong.) at ~80 per remaining condition.

I have healed for 220 points with this skill. it could be pretty insane, because of the chain casting i used.

How was IWAY nerfed? Please Explain.

Again, how was Gale warrior nerfed? it works for me still.

It's quite a bit less than 15 if you're using Expertise like you should.

To make such a machine would be like giving a double answer to the turing test; as it would not be human who would have to discern whether it is a player or a bot who is playing... ^ ^

Note: The turing test is about whether a person may be able to distinguish a machine behavior from a human behavior using a machine.

IWAY (the skill itself) used to be bugged and provided a ridiculous attack speed increase when combined with a stance. Now it's supposedly fixed. It still triggers off of dead pets though.
In terms of the IWAY build:
Since order of the vamp now doesn't stack with other necro enchantments, order of pain is out as is Tainted Flesh.
The change to the HoD helm means that hexes will actually last on warriors, so you can actually keep spiteful spirit/faintheartedness/shadow of fear on them.
Because of the change to Mantra of Resolve, trappers are going to have a difficult time putting as many traps out.





Gale on a warrior was very simple to use because you could do a focus swap into negatives to remove your exauhstion. Combine that with a 5 energy cost and it becomes quite spammable. The new changes mean that as a warrior you will have to wait the full 30 seconds after using the fourth or fifth gale and every subsequent Gale before you have the energy to cast it again. It's cost/exauhstion also precludes the use of other energy based skills.