1 Month After Factions Release: What Skills Need To Be Changed?

So I tried air of enchantment today, for a while I thought I'd cast it on myself and for that period of time my enchantment spells would cost less but apparently that's not so... so what's that great about it again?

I'd prefer OOB or MoR for energy management anyday, in fact AoE sucks as it is.

I for one would like to say to ANET to be careful with arcane languor. Any significant buff could tip it from uselessness into overpowered.

Just think of it this way, a buff from 4sec duration (or 5 at super high fc), to 8sec duration (as suggested by someone else), would allow it to be maintained on the monk for 40+ seconds using arcane echo.

Im a mesmer myself, btw, so dont think I dont want it to be buffed. I just think it should be dealt with carefully.

On another note, I think more than half of the faction mesmer skills suck balls. Psychic instability shuts down 7 of your skills for 1-3 of their skills. Also, for a spell in fc, stolen speed has almost no noticeable effect (from what Ive heard, it also applies AFTER fc, making it even more useless. i.e. 8 sec spell... 4 sec after fast cast... 3 sec after stolen speed).

Also, some of the prophecy mesmer elites arent quite worth it (panic, fevered dreams) Keystone signet is better now, but still so situational and not suited for anything but RA (not even PVE)

Heck. Triple chop needs to add, bleeding for 21 secs, Deep wound for 21 secs, and poison for 21 secs, and it should hit target foe 3 times, and have a damage bonus of 50dmg per hit...

But that's my humble opinion...

All the new mesmer elites DO suck balls.

Ret.

P.S. I was just kidding about triple chop BTW

O_o that was clear u were joking

Well, indeed RL need some nerf.....
Air of Enchantment, may stay like this becuz i wanna cap it soon for my boon prot, go a nice build for it

Basically, all of them and more. Well said Falrow.

It's not used for prot, it's used for smiting.

Kill spirit + pre-veil > this idea. Why on earth would u ever take 3 chars to completely shutdown one monk. these 3 chars would have to basically sit on the one monk to accomplish what 1 dom mesmer can do with the right build.

Nerf list:

1: Order of Apostasy. Right now, it might as well say "you win". Your opponents losing all their enchantments in a matter of seconds is a little too strong. Compare to Dark Apostasy, where it works for only 1 player, and runs out if it removes too many enchantments. Also compare to old Natures Renewal, which removed enchantments from everyone including your team. Apostasy only removes from enemies. Don't flame me about just killing the apostasy necro, because they can hide 2.5 aggro circles away from you and still annihilate your team with it.

2: Air of Enchantment. Which reads "For as long as you are alive, boon prots have infinite energy, and smite monks deal 37 damage every half second." Compare to Divine Spirit (not elite, but just for comparison) where it can't reduce its own cost, and reduces costs down to 1.

3: Ritual Lord. My version of what it does: "For 30 seconds, all necromancers have infinite energy to heal with, and your team can't die as long as you aren't interrupted."

4: Psychic Distraction. "Interrupt target foe's action, even if they have mantra of resolve/glyph of concentration on. This also interrupts claim resource, making it impossible for ghostlies to cap or for thieves to open guild halls. Oh, and they can't use the interrupted skill for 11 seconds"

5: Temple Strike. This one isn't too bad. At least it has recharge and it is removable. However, in random arenas where condition removal is rare, temple strike can easily destroy a monk. I recommebd lower the recharge, but make the blind/daze last maximum 5 seconds.

6: Vampyric Swarm: Right now it says "do 150+ unpreventable damage, gain 150+ life" which doesn't seem too bad until you notice that there is delay between when you finish the spell and when they actually lose health. 4 or 5 people running swarm + gaze make a non-infusable spike.

7: Flesh golem. Make it so you can have only one and it will be a finely tuned skill.

8: Soul Twisting. It's hard to talk about skills with no attribute. This one requires that another allied spirit is alive. In exchange, you can keep displacement up forever while you have the energy. To a well coordinated group, this skill means "Your team can never get hit with physical attacks." The instant recharge is the thing that makes it good. Even lowering it to 75% recharge would make it less godly.

9: Auspicious Parry. The only skill that makes my PvE hatelist. AP makes it way too easy to solo farm, and makes you unkillable against enemy warriors in RA/TA. Increase the cost to 2 adrenaline.

Say that to my monk who runs AoE in the Deep and FoW. I created the first monk build that can keep 4 people alive without any energy regen and without needing any energy to cast.

Thats not all true. Shared Burden can be an incredibly potent snare. Its illusion, cast it with a high level Mantra of Persistance and you've got a ~35 snare in a large area. Shame really that the only use for this would be PvE to control groups for eles to nuke. In 9 out of 10 cases from what i've seen on Observations, you will never hit more than 2 people with a snare at the same time. In the cases like protecting a flag runner you hit 1, pretty damn useless there.

Anet really are basing skills on situation way too much. Shared is only good if things are in large groups otherwise you might aswell use Imagined.
Arcane Languor is only good if your target happens to be a moron and casts through it 3 times.

Are people STILL whining about Blinding Flash? Get over it ffs, its a warrior shut down. If its recharge was increased then you might aswell increase the recharge for every other anti-warrior skill, without Ether Prodigy you really can't keep up BF for very long

Sure you did, champ.

Wonder if he'll share his godly build with the rest of us useless folk... bet its too secret

Contemplation of Purity needs to be a spell, not a skill.

At least... that's what my Shroud of Silence assassin keeps telling me.

Soul Twisting in the hands of a skilled player is extremely powerful. Look at Elendar in the finals.
Are we talking about the Spirit Transfer that with 14 Restoration heals a target for 213 health in 1/4 seconds with 10 energy? It's like Infuse with much, much better health/energy ratio. Great for catching spikes. 10 seconds is a bit much yea, but I wouldn't call it useless.

The recharge is 20 seconds at the moment.
AoE spike every 10 seconds without line of sight seems kinda too good to me. Other Smiting skills need so much more buffs.

Why? AoD is just fine.

So that it becomes totally ownage in both pressure and catching spikes?

24 energy bad?

Maybe lower to 10 energy? Other than that it looks like the best snare in the game. GvG splits are much easier to do/kill with this.

Can be used with Attunements and can't be stripped. Gives still about 4 pips of energy with ~12 in ES.

I checked the skills from GWonline.net, so if I have wrong info, feel free to correct me.

lol! - I bet you do..

"OMG they nerfed...."

or

"Open letter to ANET Concerning recent Skill change"...

oh yes, its a wonderfull time xD and I looked forward to your very well worded replies Gaile

yeah, like... Interupting your spirit will never shut you down

Interrupting the spirits = GG ritualist

Why ?? Ritual lord is only viable when used in conjunction with Boon of creation ( and that is an enchantment ) . Besides : those spirits take a long casting time (= easily interruptable ) and some of them die pretty fast . Ritual lord is- as far as I'm concerned - the only elite worth taking for communing ritualist ( shelter/union) ,if you nerf it that will be the end of ritualists using those builds ( in effect the end of communing ) .

Have any of the folks crying nerf for ritual lord actually played with that setup ?? It is by no means über .

then you should also know it's only viable when used with boon of creation.that way there wouldn't be more options but less options to use spirits,by the way ( put up boon of creation>gets shattered >bb spirit-summoning ,when you nerf RL )

I'll first comment and then post my suggestions:

I dont know what you mean by 'shouldnt be missed', but i dont like your suggestion. As a Rt player, you should know that shadowsong more often than not will hit some squishie like monk, mesmer or ele, and NOT warrior/ranger... Sure if warrior is solo oh well. But skill is fine, it's in no way overpowered. I cant possibly believe ur saying it's overpowered, when most people around me think that dmg Rt sucks just about everywhere (i disagree).

Touch should be skill. Not spell. It's logical that it's a skill.

However, your problem with touch is touch ranger build. While i agree counters are few, i dont like nerfing everything on sight.

New skill:
"Burnout" - Hex. If target foe uses a skill x times in x seconds, that skill is disabled for xy seconds.

I dont think this would hurt RoF Monks much, they have plenty hex removals. But touch rangers dont. Most of them just like to solo, which they can. Now, this skill would disable their spammage. Ok, true, Diversion would do the same, but make this one cheaper, since it's more conditional, and doesnt trigger instantly.

Actually, Consume Soul would pretty much own any Rt build. Drain his Boon of Creation, and Consume. The problem is, not many want to waste an elite on that. I dont find any problem with it, aside of people being lazy. Everyone brings Spell Breaker in HoH, even tho only good use for it is on ghostly. Well i guess it's time people consider Consume Soul.

I play in TA mostly. What u just described would do.. nothing. Monk at 5 energy out of 40, could cast 2x and still wont be hurt all that badly.

Of course, im talking about stupid monks. Any half-decent monk will CoP/inspire your cute arcane echoed elite skill. If you ever played hex mesmer against CoP boon prot in 4v4, you'll know what im talking about. It's just not worth it.

You use 2 elites to shut down monk for how long? If. I'd like to see your theory in practice. I heard many people saying skills i use are horrible, and in practice they work. Yet their 'superb' skills in practice kinda... sucked.

Drawback is making ur spirit weaker Well it's not all that much, but hey it is a drawback

You know, i find something funny. Hardly anyone will want you in a team if you're Rt. They usually will say it sucks. But, when facing Rt, it's overpowered.

Ok time for the exact skill suggestions. Only mesmer and Rt, since that's what i usually play in pvp lately.

If i mention some skill as underpowered, pls lemme know in what arena you use it an how. It's quite possible that i missed some good combo.


Mesmer

Overload - a very small increase in dmg would be nice. Not too much, just abit. As it is, the skill is very very limited in its use.

Arcane Languor - others commented on it already

Lyssa's Aura - not many (if any?) max Inspiration line, so effective lenght of this skill is 8 sec or so. With recharge of 15. It's... bad. If it wasnt elite skill, i personally would not use it either. Any decent ele spiker or necro/mesmer hexer will wait till enchant is off, then spam all they have to. Sure, it can chance that you're counting stars while warrior (in a highly hypothetical situation) uses this skill, and then you cast hexes on him and it drains your energy.. but.. really, after 1-2 hexes you will notice. Even if you dont, you'll notice after he recasts it. Most battles last longer than 15sec anyway. In any case, at its best, the skill is so very situational that even if it works in 1 battle it will be useless in next 20.

Unlike what others will say, the rest of mesmer skills are usable, and in no dire need of a buff.


Ritualist

Doom - i've seen few use it. I'll simply say the skill sucks. 10e for 135 max of conditional dmg. This skill needs a lower recharge or more dmg, or both. 15sec recharge means that most likely, in practice, you will be able to use this skill once in 1 minute. I cant imagine a build where this skill will be good

Ashes - i cant comment on the whole Restoration line as i didnt play alot with it. I know it's weaker than monk but that's the way it's supposed to be. However, i have a problem with some ashes. While hilding ashes you cant use staff. That means you cant wand anyone, and even if you dont wanna wand anyone, in alot of cases ashes give minimal benefit. I lose all bonuses staff gives, which means recharge, faster cast etc... for something ashes will give me. Some ashes are worth it but some are not. For instance, Mighty was SomeGuy gives me +5 armor and +5 max energy (after we equalize with staff im carrying), BUT i lose 1 skill slot, i use fastercast, fasterrecharge, and i cant wand (i find wanding cool in pvp). +5 max energy is mostly useless for my Rt, so it's basically +5 armor. Protective Was Kaolai is 10e conditional heal, which has the same drawbacks and i just dont like it. It's just not worth it. Illusion of Weakness is enchant, so can be stripped off sure, but other than that is way better than these ashes. It lasts until effect triggers (or enchant removed); you dont need to recast it. And you can still use staff/weapon. Vengeful Was Khanhei is a skill that only farmers are using. Im not saying idea of the skill is bad, it's not, but it needs to be reworked somehow.

Armor of Unfeeling - there's something missing with this skill. It's a good idea, tho. Maybe make dmg reduction abit bigger? I mean let's face it, no one is spamming spirits 100% of the time. Let's compare it to Shielding Hands; 10 sec, -15dmg (but not base hmm), 5e. Unfeeling isnt weak per se, conditionality makes it a bad skill. Since it's conditional, perhaps just increase dmg reduction. 10 isnt alot really. Remember that if you're casting spirits you aint kiting, so you're gonna take more dmg than a monk who can cast Shielding Hands AND keep kiting.

Spirit Siphon - i saw some numbers on this skill and it seemed bad. Cant say i used it myself tho.

Nightmare Weapon - maybe smaller recharge? With current recharge im not sure why anyone would use it.


These skills are critical, the rest can be worked out.

Hmm I have been hearing some people complain in saying all factions mesmer elite suck balls. I admit quite a few do, but some are pretty dam useful. Here is my list of mesmer elite they should leave and buff, slighly adn dramatically.

ELITE SKILLS TO LEAVE
Psychic Instability - fine as it is
Sharded Burden - seems fine to me
Power Leech - again does not really need a buff
MOSTLY FINE BUT NEED A VERY SLIGHT BUFF
Expel Hexes - should be placed into fast-casting so it is only useful for primary mesmers.
Shatterstorm - same as above
Stolen Speed - increase in duration
Psychic Distration - lower blackout duration
Recurring Insecurity - needs higher degen
NEED SERIOUS BUFF
Arcane Languor - people have commented enough on this
Lyssa's Aura - longer duration, steal more energy and shorter recharge

Also removing all those monk enchantments will make that necro die in a matter of seconds as well.

If they do that they should do that for all curses/hexes.

And I say let there be skill changes . please enjoy

Are the devs actually happy with where elementalists are at this point? Can we get an actual official response about it? I really can't see how elementalists can in anyway be considered on par with other classes.

Wow. Talk about a dissapointment. Hopefully this is only a very, very tiny sneak-peak, because those changes don't adress the skills that really need changing and the update is so tiny, just like everything else in factions. If this is their only update for this entire season, I may as well jump on the Air of Enchantment Smite bandwagon, or the future FoC spike banwagon.

The only changes I really saw from that page is "Wow, AoE and Golden Phoenix got nerfed, every change to Ritualist (except one) was a buff, they nerfed Auspicious Parry(why the f...?), Siphon Stregnth is actually usable now (atleast on a secondary)."

Aside from that, most of those changes are irrelevant.

Mesmers :

Recurring Insecurity : For 10 seconds, target foe suffers from 1-5 (instead of 1-3) health degeneration. If that foe is hexed again, Recurring Insecurity is renewed for 10 seconds.

Conjure Nightmare : Should cost 15 energy (instead of 25).

Ritualists :

Tranquil was Tanasen : Should have 1 second casting (instead of 3).

Ghostly haste : Enchantment Spell. For 5-17 seconds, spells you cast while in the area of a Spirit recharge 10%-41% (instead of 5%-17%) faster.

I'm liking what they shall do in the next update, looks much better
Still a few skills need buffs, but at least they are taking all this into account.
Also I agree with Themis that Conjure Nightmare should be 15 energy.
Arcane Languor actually looks useful now thank god.
I think in general that elementists in factions need the biggest buff. There skills seem to really suck... and you thought the new mesmer skills sucked.
Anet seem to have fixed the elementlist skills which DON'T really need fixing.

The thing about Ritual Lord is not that its overpowered itself but that spirits are underpowered without it. Really its only viable option now for communing rit. If spirits recharge times were shortened and rt lord was nerfed it would be much better.

Now Assassins are even MORE vulnerable...is that even possible?

ok this sucks now, everyone hates assassins bc players playing them weren't using them correctly. Now they do this to the shadow stepping. Assassins actually are goin to suck now. Thanks alot Anet. Its hard enough for a PvE assassin to get a group, oh wait you guys dont care about us Pvers. I forgot, I give up.

How about a buff in the direction of Hundred Blades?

*Runs and Hide*

good againts AoE smiters, population has been rising.

Even tho AoE makes Guardian, RoF cast nothing. That skill makes them cause exhaustion.

If its the recharge you're worried about.. Try 2 mesmers, one brings Mantra of Recovery, other Arcane Languor. Both Arcane mimicry
eatch other.

EDIT: nvm about recharge, saw list.

The problem with recurring insecurity is that it has a long recharge and is always bumped to the top of the hex list when refreshed. IMO it would work better as a sort of "super cover hex".

Recurring Insecurity: 5E/1s/5s
For 10 seconds, target foe suffers from 1-4 health degeneration. If that foe is hexed again, Recurring Insecurity is renewed for 10 seconds.

okay, I posted this BEFORE the recent skill change...

you may now fill in the missing blanks with..

1 = Assasin
2 = Aura of Discplacment.

What a waste of time. They might as well have not bothered and just got on with chapter 3.

They are going on with chapter 2 they have a skill blance team that takes care of the skills. Got to remember the term dev team doesnt mean on one team

What about Illusionary Weaponry?

*maps out*

Auspicious Parry + Riposte. I farm about 12 bosses that drop greens with those two skills.

I really don't want to comment on the skills that suck are unplayably bad, because there are hundreds of them, and no one wants to read a list that long.


I remember a conversation I had in the past about Vampiric Gaze. There was a bit of concern over the skill as a spike option, in part because the skill was unstoppable, but moreso because of the one second cast time. Dangerous spike skills have two second cast times so that they are not difficult to interrupt.

So of course they make the marquee spike skill of the ritualist hit for 126 on a one second cast time, making it the single best caster spike skill in the game.

I think the other stats on it are fine, and even the armor ignoring part would be ok. But the thing really needs a two second cast time. It's honestly downright insulting to all of the offensive casters to say, 'hey, we've made this great defensive class that can perform a similar job as a monk, oh and he spikes better than you do too.'


Arcane Languor is a Diversion that you don't care if you cast through. Exhaustion doesn't matter until you have a lot of it, and you're not going to get a lot of it from this hex.


They're basically equivilent of monk healing spells, except you don't get a Divine Favor bonus with them. Given that 5 energy monk heals are steaming piles of yak dung without Divine Favor, the results should be predictable.


I don't understand the logic of this. Sure Soul Twisting is a bit more spendy than Ritual Lord, but it's also a much stronger skill. Ritual Lord is simple, but the effect is simple and is just a straight power boost - Soul Twisting is less straightforward in its use, but allows you to force the most dangerous spirits down your opponent's throat.

I'll just say this - whenever a Ritual Lord guy is giving my team fits, I'm thankful that he's not a good Soul Twisting guy.


Expel Hexes is the best hex removal skill in the game and has seen play in numerous high-end PvP builds. Shatter Storm might not be what you want a lot of the time but it removes an awful lot of enchantments (roughly 8 per minute) if that's what's needed. Psychic Distraction is downright evil against Ritualists and Ghostly Heroes - some people are crying for a nerf because of how good it is for owning that deranged NPC. And while you might not think much of it, the Recurring Insecurity / Soul Barbs hex spike that SNA ran at the end of last season was truly a sight to behold.

Sure, mesmers got some terrible elites too, most notably Arcane Languor. But even if more skills are bad than good, you shouldn't overlook the few gems you have been given to play with.


Air of Enchantment is patently awful on a boonprot. People switch targets, you have to lead with Air of Enchantment on any switch for it to be worthwhile, and generally your energy turns to crap very, very quickly. It is a good spell on a smiter, but they most certainly do not deal 37 every half a second. Realistically they use a pulse of Zealot's Fire four times every 5½ seconds. In a few situations that smiting can be rather effective, but a lot of the time it honestly isn't any better than Flare spam.

Smiters require a pretty significant infrastructure to make work, and many of their casts, while free, don't accomplish anything other than triggering Zealot's Fire. The best skills a smiter can be using, Smite Hex and Draw Conditions, both cost energy and don't benefit from Air of Enchantment. Top that off with just how fragile the character is - a mesmer can shut down a smiter with one skill and a minimal amount of attention - and you have a template that is rather pedestrian.

It's not a bad character by any means, and it shines in certain situations - on Jade Isle, when smiting off the Ghostly Hero in the Hall, or when pushing the flag or a relic on appropriate maps. But it certainly isn't breaking the game open by any stretch of the imagination. Air of Enchantment is a dangerously good skill, no doubt - but for now, it doesn't seem to be able to power anything more dangerous than existing templates.


Have you noticed the attack speed on that thing? It actually deals less damage than a Bone Fiend. If it weren't so valuable as a startup tool for a minion master I don't think it would be remotely playable.


You like it for solo farming? I thought it underperformed next to Gladiator's Defense in that role, since one block every second doesn't amount to much against the packs you normally try and farm. The skill is the ultimate dueling skill though. It's all over GvG because there isn't another template that can beat it 1v1, and it only costs you one skill - the warrior is a normal sword guy otherwise.

I agree that it needs a small nerf, but understandably for different reasons. =)


They're one of the more played classes in GvG, with Blinding Flash, Heal Party, and Ether Prodigy. When the class is seeing a lot of play it doesn't exactly set off alarm bells for buffs.

A similar hypothetical situation would be if every build contained a ranger, but that ranger did nothing but lay traps and the occasional spirit - he even carried a staff, not a bow, for the extra energy. Is the class ok because everyone runs one? Or is something messed up because no one ever fires a bow? You can certainly argue either side but you have to admit the situation is rather weird.

I am personally happy with either direction, though if they do decide they are happy with the blind-turret as a PvP ele I would hope they would flesh out that role instead of giving us more Lightning Hammers and Shock Arrows.

Peace,
-CxE

/signed - this is a very good idea

edit: Overall I'm very happy with the skill changes, I think they're coming together nicely. Anet: thanks for balancing, please ignore the chorus of whining from the forums.