hex removal

We need some skills that allow for mass hex removal. Currently you have convert hex's and CoP (contumplation of purity) for any type of mass hex removal. The problem with this, is, unlike condtions, you can only remove 1 players hex's every 20 secounds, or your own provided you throw up more enchants then they have. Now being in CA this isn't a big deal, in GVG it is. Having to fight a mass hex team, you end up have 3-5 deep per person. Any compatent player will cover there hex, so that a single hex removal will be taken away.

Now, given condtions are not nearly as deadly as some curses, you still hay martyr, and draw, which through a either prodigy build you can spam. Both of these offer ways to counter act condtions effeciency. What i would like to see, is either convert hex's on a lower cost/recast time, or a hex skill that is similar to draw condtions, or restore condtions. Currently the only real benifit for having a hex on you is several elite skills, a pvp shield and dwayna's kiss.

Now, this is all fine and dandy to use those skills, however with ice prison, you might as well take that meele class out of the fight, as it has no chance to remove it. If its a caster, you guarentie a beat down or you end up taking 4 times the amount of time to cast the spells, you can't block and your now wearing 40 armor. Keep in mind most hex's come with degen as well, so ontop of all that, your losing health.

Just give us a draw hex or some martyr like spell for hex's. Give us some way we can defend against all hex builds.

Draw hexes is going to be a skill in factions I believe

Yes good idea, lets nurf hex stacking into oblivion just like condition stacking is, that way dirrect damage will be king, and you won't have to worry about pressure builds (that are not hard to counter with heal party spam as it is) at all!!!

I think hex removal is ok as it is. Personally I feel playing hex builds is far more fun than playing builds which rely on direct damage so 'nerfing it into oblivion' would be a bad move.

if the entire enemy team are trying to stack hex on all your team it will be a shame if a single player can remove everthing.

not signed

I'm using Purge Hexes!

Oh man I wanna see that.

Which dirrect damage being countered by wards armor and stance skills. The only problem with mass hexing is there is no way to counter it with one or two class. Convert hex's is 15 mana, a 2 secound cast and a 20 secound recast, thats 3 very bad things for pvp. high cost, interuptable and 3 times every minute theoreticly. Unless your going to make every class a /mo and throw on CoP there is no half way decent way to remove hex's. So what happens when a warrior gets hit for a 21 second ice prison? your useless for 21 seconds. The thing with hex's there are ones that singlehandedly distroy a class. Toss up a migraine/arcane conundrum on someone and find it. With a simple cover of para bond...

The point is, it's terrably inbalanced cause its forcing a specific style of play. Thats the very idea that GW didnt want i belive. take a look at warriors, and elementalists, and see how suseptable they are, unless they are a mez or monk. It would be nice to have atleast one subclass that could counter that stratagie.

You did neglect to mention Purge Signet, but that one's even worse with its drawbacks, including cast and recharge.

On a side note, there're a handful of skills coming anyway to aid with this problem, judging by the posts that keep getting posted about factions skills [the ones that were leaked a long while ago], and the list that is on the pvp char screen.
Reverse Hex is supposed to be Remove Hex's answer to Restore Condition, I've heard, but I guess we'll find out on the factions preview.

Yes there does need to be some better hex removal I'd say, but only to a point. Some classes have entire attributes that're almost entirely hexes, to be able to mass remove them would ruin a lot of peoples builds (unnecessarily) and would senselessly nerf almost two entire classes.

...for the record, Purge Signet's awesome with a signet-only skill set.

Actually Purge Signet has been buffed in the recent skills balance update.
It used to have a recharge time of 30s, now its only 20s.

Purge Signet is good for a mending+watchful spirit Wammo who uses only adrenal skills.
Conditions spammage will kill him however.


Same goes for Purge Conditions, used to be 30s recharge, but its 20s now. I don't know when they changed it.

I usually run 2-4 hex removals on my GvG teams.

Also, if your getting hitt with mass degen, use Heal Party.

Don't forget, though, that hexes many times cost a lot more to apply than conditions. Imagine your 15 energy curses repeatedly removed for 5E each within seconds of each other.

Let us also not forget that classes like the mesmer or the necro rely very heavily on their hexes. The ranger or warrior do not heavily rely on their conditions. They can cause conditions, but they have their damage or interruptions too.

Make hex removal too good and two entire classes are nerfed.

i single hex who hex the warrior wont do anything since it will be removed by any team.

the fact is a sigle player cant hex a entire team making them useless.

A entire team can do that. If a entire team stack hex on you they wont do much else(even if those hex are enough to finish you).
so it will be unbalaced if 1-2 guy can destroy the work of entire enemy team.

I am confussed.

In my view massive conditions removal may exist because conditions can be spread very easely. For example,
Disease spreads itself, traps with Fire or Bleedind may affect many targets, the same if Fevered Dreams is used, preparations with Poison or Bleeding allow to spam these conditions to many targets as the preparation costs little energy.

There is no way to do the same with hexes, as hexes do not spread, they cost much energy then they are not easely spammable, some hexes have area of effect but non of these hexes cause a strong health degeneration.

Demonstration: a group of rangers may go to the FoW or to the UW, or to the Zaishen Challenge and Zaishen Elite and almost kill everything just causing massively conditions with traps. There is no way to do this with hexes. Think in Spitefull Spirity... it is casted in a single target, so it has to be removed from a single target.

So in my view, massive hex removal is not pertinent.

Anyone who says hexes can't be spammed has not used a fast-cast mesmer or fast-cast necro.

There still needs to be "better" hex removal.

If they would change "Convert Hexes" to have a lower casting time, or add armor for all hexes, not jus necro, that'd be great.

As a W/Mo, CoP is stupid because it costs me at least 10e, not 5e(You have to have an enchant on or it doesn't work.)

-Remove Hex is to slow and takes longer to recharge then it should.

-Purge Siggy would just eat all the energy, no good unless you're running a full W or Adrenal build, and if you're a W/Mo, you're not.

In addition, if you want to stop hex removal:
-Arcane Conundrum, doubles casting time.
-Interrupts/Disable Skills

Keep interrupting your target, they will never clear the hexes.

I've totally given up fighting hex casters, they come out way to fast, and I can't use any combo of skills to clear them fast enough, I just pray I don't meet them anymore.

Massive Hex Removal: No.
Better Hex Removal: Yes.

What about smite hex?No one mentioned that one.

For example, to "spam" mesmer's "Conjure Phantasm" in 5 targets takes 50 energy and 25 seconds. And whilst it is being "spammed" a monk may have removed already 3 of them for just 15 energy, and the mesmer would not be able to follow spamming "Conjure Phantasm" much longer due to lack of energy.

To spam bleeding with "Melandrus arrows" takes 5 energy and you can stay spamming it for more than 20 seconds, if it were taking 2.5 seconds per target, in 20 seconds you have 8 people bleeding, a monk might remove 7 of them with Mend Condition for 35 energy, and the ranger might follow spaming bleeding as long as wishes to do it.

I think it is clear why hexes may not be removed as easely as conditions.

what do you think?

For the sake of arguement, we will assume that you have a monk.

Hint: Mesmer, energy management skills, or Necro, corpse exploit skills for energy.

Besides there are better hexes to spam then Conjure Phantasm.

Echo + Backfire/Empathy/Arcane Conudrum/etc.
Back those up with any number of lethal necro hexes, it's night night.

I still think we need better hex removal. And until we get it, I always will.

Backfire costs 15 energy and has a 20 second recharge.
Empathy costs 10 energy and has a 10 second recharge.
Arcane Conundrum costs 10 energy and has a 20 second recharge.

>Shatter Hex costs 15 energy and has a 10 second recharge.
>Inspired Hex costs 5 energy and has a 20 second recharge.
>Holy Veil costs 5 energy and has a 12 second recharge.
>Purge Signet costs 0 energy and has a 20 second recharge.
>Remove Hex costs 5 energy and has a 7 second recharge.
>Convert Hexes costs 15 energy and has a 20 second recharge.
>Smite Hex costs 5 energy and has a 15 second recharge.

You've failed to show how hex removal is poor, since just about every hex removal recharges faster OR costs less than the 3 specific hexes you mentioned. And yet you want to make it BETTER?

No. It's fine the way it is. Learn how to prepare for hex-spam, and deal with it. Or stick to praying you never encounter Mesmers or Necromancers. Pick your path.


edit: I still can't believe you said a 7s recharge for Remove Hex is too long. Wtf...

In a hex heavy build, people spread a handful of expensive hexes that're outclassed by hex-removal... But also cheap hexes that match hex removal for cost, and are spread more easily.
Against a dedicated hex team, most of your hex removals are going to hit spells like Parasitic Bond and Malaise, though also a handful of 10 cost spells like Life Siphon, Faintheartedness, and Conjure Phantasm. Through sheer numbers, though, they'll overwhelm your hex removal.

The problem is that if mass hex removal were too simple, then hexes would become completely useless, rather than simply needing cover hexes.

I'd like to see remove hex get a shorter cast time but that's about it as far as improving hex removal.

I don't really understand the argument anyway. What we have right now is great spot hex removal. You want to be able to get rid of the debilitating hexes. Parasitic Bond? Oh well. Migraine on the monk? Let's get rid of it even if it eats up 4/6 of our hex removals across the whole team because it's buried.

Ken Dei, from your posts, I get the impression your upset at the hex removal in the Random Arena environment and not in the GvG environment. Would this be correct?

Ok, so Remove Hex to a 3s recharge, then what? Hexes except Parasitic Bond and Wastrel's Worry pretty much become fodder.

You better buff those skills out the ass, then, otherwise you'll see even fewer non-E-Denial mesmers in GvG.

Either that or shorten the recharge of most hexes as well, since they end up being more energy intensive.

/not signed

I really don't see that hex removal is a huge problem as-is. Of course, my mesmer uses hexes quite extensively, but her party seems to enjoy her Inspired Hex and the resulting 20 seconds of bonus use of whatever she's just cleansed from their system .

Fighting hexes should be something like fighting damage or spellcasting. An interruptor can expect to interrupt some key spells, but not all of them. An E-denial mesmer can totally drain someone, but he can expect them to get a few good spells off and if he doesn't keep it up, he will cast more. People keep getting damaged, which is countered by healing, not be negating the damage. It's not as efficient as negating it, but that makes the damagers useful and not totally nerfed.

One can fight hexes with hex removal, but not to the point where the hexes don't get through. If a group goes totally hexes, one of your team mates can go totally hex removal and bring several. Any part-mesmer on your team can bring hex breaker as well. There are things you can do to fight them, but not to the point where a person's hexing seem futile.

As it should be.