Upcoming skill balance

Even a FC air ele spamming damage spells all day long still won't compare to an unkited warrior ><. Warriors MAKE people run and makes things more interesting.

i think Spitful spirit will get nurfed somehow...... C'mon is way too overpowered: big damage, no AoE, VERY small recharge, and 1 cast kills a whole crowd...

Spitful Spirit: For 8...18 seconds, whenever target foe attacks or uses a skill, Spiteful Spirit deals 5...29 shadow damage to that foe and all adjacent foes.

cost: 15 e (well ok, but compare it to meteor shower with 25e)
recharge: 10 secs (im sorry thats just a joke)
cast time: 2 secs (compare it to meteor shower with 5 secs casting)

i know im asking for some flames, but its rediculous that a skill with that attributes overpowers a skill with the cost+recharge+preparation of meteor shower.... that on top of it triggers AoE and makes mobs run away, and SS doesnt, so u wach enemys helath steady going down

i just hope that if they are making a skill balance they will buff eles a bit.

Did it ever occur to you that mabey Metoer Shower just sucks? I fail to see how SS is "big damage".

a few comments

i'd like to see flurry bumped to the same 8 second duration and 4 second recharge as frenzy, since flurry has the reduced dmg output to lower it's usefulness, and shouldn't be hampered by a shorter duration and longer recharge compared to frenzy, it's closest counterpart

i think hundred blades is just fine, because when u think about it, it gives u double adrenaline, it does have the chance of hitting two foes (especially in pve but i'm sure nobody is worried about that) and it does in effect do +15-22 dmg, +15%, and with the chance of the second hit being critical. possibly, possibly reduce the recharge to make it slightly more deserving of its elite status

i am continually amazed to see that ss does not meet up w/ the nerf stick, but i love that skill to death so i'm definitely not complaining

i haven't heard of cross-profession nerfing before (i think that's what ppl called it. call me noob all u like) but i don't see y it would be so terrible to make vamp touch/bite into spells, not skills (i'm sure everybody and his brother has suggested this, i'm just saying i'm amazed it hasn't happened, like everybody else). i mean, come on, it's not hard to see a skill that sucks life out of an enemy as a spell. it's not like throw dirt, which is obviously a "skill" (pick up dirt.. throw dirt in enemy's eyes.. nothing magical here)... it's stealing life from an enemy in a decidedly magical, spell-like fashion. y would it be made as a skill in the first place?? this approach would of course not hurt necros (who uses spell interrupts on a 3/4s cast spell?) so would not be a bad cross-profession nerf (if i understood that term correctly, which i think i did. it means "don't screw me over cause some other noobs want an easy fix," right?)

and i wholely agree w/ whoever posted earlier about blinding flash being too powerful. blind completely shuts down a warrior/ranger/assassin, and it is too easy and cheap to spam (for an ele). it's just stupid that one character should be able to use one skill and totally shut down 3 other characters.. that's a 1:15 (assuming 5 attacks per warrior in pvp) shutdown ratio.. honestly. power block does something similar to casters, but it's Elite and requires some amount of skill to use. i would rather be hit w/ wail of doom and have my skills disabled than be blind-spammed. at least that way i can hit an enemy w/ my normal attacks

EDIT: def. agree w/ combining charm/comfort animal. give beast masters a break, they shouldn't be limited by being absolutely forced to carry one useless skill, and one to res/heal their pet. after all, charming an animal is pretty close to comforting it :P. it'd be nicer if anet had made the two into one to start off, cuz now it seems kind of unrealistic and improbable that they'd completely change the skills around and merge them into one

No...that would make using most traps practically impossible because of the high energy cost. That would make Rangers defensive skills incredibly costly as well. Do not nerf my ability to play a Ranger at all. I play my Ranger little enough as it is, and never as a touch Ranger.

This solution is much better, if one must have the touch Rangers nerfed. It is one I could live with.

I only read first page.

First, SAVE MY SIN! We need shadow stepping and NOW! GRR
Second, Blinding Flash is over powered, not long enough recharge time, it isn't fair being able to completely shutdown a class with ONE skill..

Oh and third someone said that warriors are the best single target damage dealers..(hate to start sin hate stuff but) wrongo Sins are the best single target killers.

yep, i'm looking forward to a stronger assassin...

blind flash is fine

and the end to the Soul Barbs/Recurring Instability spike and a nerf to air of enchant.

Signet of midnight.
Ineptitude.
Throw dirt.
Guardian.
Etc...

Warriors are made to be shut down with one skill

Thanks for the feedback. I see some people mistook some discriptions. Riposte's are still to be in tactic's line, but just to be used not only for yourself. Btw my primary profesion is ranger, but so far I found very little underused skills on him compared to the war for example. In 2 mins will update the 1st post.

Two of those are elites, ya know. Some people will use their elite slot for the sake of blinding a Warrior; most won't. Sig of Midnight isn't even better than the non-elite Blinding Flash, it's WORSE. 15 energy, unconditionally (most blindbots use dual attunements which reduces it to 4). 15 second recharge so if a Monk takes blindness off you're dead long before you get to cast it again. Touch Range, so you already have to be in the Warrior's face to use it, as compared to Flash which never even lets them get close. And Flash's 4 second recharge means you can control 2 or 3 Warriors/Rangers/Assassins pretty easily.

Ineptitude, 10 seconds of blindness, 20 second recharge. Again, still not as efficient, and it's an elite. And if I see it on me, I just run chase the Mesmer till it wears off, THEN wail on his ass. It's not like it's an unavoidable blindness.

Throw Dirt, 13 seconds at 12 Expertise, 45 second recharge.

Dust Trap, you have to walk into it, easily interrupted.

Guardian, wards, etc- 50% chance to miss, far cry from 90%, attacks like Irresistible Blow still hit.

I'm sorry but 4 energy every 4 seconds is too much. I'm not suggesting it be made useless, but looking at other skills that cause Blindness, it's way out of line with the cost and recharge of class shutdown from other professions. It's far and above better than 2 different Elites, for crying out loud. It just needs a longer recharge, not one to make it unusable, but to keep a single Ele from effortlessly shutting down 3 people without breaking a sweat.

Give me a skill combo that can sling out Dazed for 4 energy every 4 seconds, and then we'll talk.

when you send warriors,rangers and assassins in endless complete loop of blinding..then this skill needs to be nerfed.
touch rangers endless loop of evading attacks and HP stealing at same time---> needs nerf also.

Make Elementalists equally strong to warriors. THEN we'll talk. Alternatively give Warrior Attacks 3 second activation times even the most drugged person can interrupt. Maybe THEN we can talk. My suggestions are utter rubbish, but so are suggestions on nerfing the Elementalist Class even more. It's almost dead, it almost stopped moving, want to kill it completely?

Once the elementalist is on par with other classes, we can talk about the "much needed" Blinding Flash nerf. Until then, just deal with it.

/edit:
Come on. What's the matter? What's the elementalists current only purpose anyways? To fuel high energy secondary Spells. And you still scream nerf. That's just ridiculous. So an ele spamming Blinding Flash can shut you down. Fine. You've also automatically shut him down as all he is doing is spamming blinding flash. And if your monks can't give you a moment of opportunity to take that ele down, than it's their fault, not the fault of the elementalists.

Besides, Weapon of Shadow? Shadowsong?
Conditions in a whole became much easier to apply with Factions.

Sarcasm is lost on you...

Funny thing about touches; Some are classed as spells while others are not. Star Burst is a touch spell. Why? Why in gods name is this ability classed as a spell? It's an elite touch ability that will happily trigger Backfire and won't go through Obsidian Flesh. Again, why? Lightning Touch is a touch 'skill'. Why isn't Star Burst? It's so silly I'd even call it a bug. If it isn't then it's just really unfair. I mean, it's an elite for crying out loud.
Even the other new elementalists elites are pretty bad.

Shockwave? What? Hit's adjacent opponents 3 times. Great. Armour is now caculated 3 times on your total damage.

Mirror of Ice. What? It only works on direct damage spells, not hexes. Even ones that actually deal damage after a certain time. For example Incendiary Bonds will still go through it. Even then, if that spell has a condition like burning attached to it (rodgorts Invocation), that will still go through also. Gimped in a similar fashion to Mist Form. With a 10 second recharge, you can't even use it to protect you for any real length of time either.

Edit: On further testing, it would apear this does in fact negate damage done by hexes also. For example BackFire. You can continue to cast this through While hexed with BackFire and you'll recieve no damage. Makes it a bit better than I originally thought. However it could still do with a smaller recharge.

I'd propose letting this trigger on hexes and not allow the conditions/hexes to go through, or keeping the current crappy settings and just reduce it's recharge to something like 3...5 seconds, so It can atleast offer lasting protection from the tiny amount of damage it prevents.

Gust; Sigh. I've tried to use this effectively but the reliance on a water or earth hex really makes things difficult. Plus the damage doesn't even have the armour penetration you'd expect from an Air damage spell. If it worked on all hexes across the board (condtions also perhaps?), it would be a much better elite. It already has a 2 second cast(so warriors couldn't abuse it too much) and a 10 second recharge.
I'd say, up the cost to 15-25 energy, and add the ability to knockdown foes who are aflicted with any hex or condition, and add armour penetration to the damage.

Lightning Surge; I'd say since this causes exhaustion, it should have armour penetration built into the damage. The fact is, the target has a total of 5 seconds to do something about this spell. It could at the very least do higher damage as a result of getting through.

Shatterstone; Nice hex spell. The damage is a little low though. I'd say up the damage to 70 then 75 (at 16. Not so bad considering armour will be calculated twice) or reduce the cost to 10 energy and have it slow your opponent by 66% for 6 seconds (again at 16).

Vapor blade; Another nice spell (great animation). Since the damage is quite conditional, I'd say lower the cost to 10 energy, and reduce the cast time to 1 second.

There's more, but I'd like you guys to give comments about these for now if you please.

Wrong. Good players are sick and tired of playing against the same gimmick builds over and over again, not to mention being 'forced' to play the same gimmicks themselves.

Again, the HA & GvG scene has gone rather stale, we just need something to spice it up every few months. I know I'd enjoy GW much more if I were to face new builds rather than the same old crap over and over again.

At least they're not in GvG, but the IWAY infestation in HA is the same, if not worse, than it has been before.

My list of changes:

1. Air of Enchantment -> rework (make it self cast!)
2. Recurring Insecurity -> reword (No reapplying! Just renew)
3. Order of Apostasy -> rework (Sac for intial cast (like all the other Orders), then energy cost per enchant removed, OR recharge time increased)

Assassins don't have the best single target damage, they just throw all of their damage into the span of a couple seconds. They suck for a decent amount of time after they've finished their chain.

Also, if a spell hit's someone 3 times for 20 each, armor won't reduce the damage to a lower total than if the spell just did 60 straight damage before armor.
Look:
20x.66 = 13.2x3= 39.6
60x.66 = 39.6

Now, the same isn't true for weapon attacks, like someone tried to say with Hundred Blades, because the extra damage from it being a single attack rather than multi ignores armor.
And if you actually think HB isn't seriously underpowered, look at this:
Cyclone Axe is a single attack with +10 damage, a 4 second reset, and a far better AoE range.
Hundred Blades is an elite, it strikes 2 times, has an 8 second reset, and has a far weaker AoE.
You can cast Cyclone axe twice in the amount of time you can cast Hundred Blades. In the end, the non elite and the elite are equal. Think of it like this.
Hundred Blades: 5 energy cost, 8 second reset. Strike foes in a small adjacent range twice.
Cyclone Axe: 10 energy cost, 8 second reset. Strike foes in a large adjacent range twice for +10 damage on each attack, but gain only half adrenaline from these attacks.

The energy cost is offset by the bigger AoE, and the lower adrenaline gain is offset by the higher damage.

i know hb doesn't do extra armor-ignoring dmg, my point was only that it does do more dmg than a normal swing (the dmg from the second hit usually, in my experience, comes out to much more than 10, so it actually does more dmg than the armor-ignoring +10 on cyclone). and as for hitting multiple foes, cyclone is basically useless in pvp since ppl don't clump close enough and u can't hit somebody w/ it if ur chasing (u spin while they run away laughing, last time i tried it), while hb gives u double adrenaline all the time w/ the possibility of giving u 4x adrenal. good luck hitting 4 enemies w/ cyclone in pvp, or having two stand close enough to each other (and next to an attacking warrior) for 5 secs so u can use cyclone twice

I've actually used both Cyclone Axe and Hundred Blades in PvP.
Cyclone axe is easy as hell to hit multiple people, the adjacent range for it is 2-4x as large as the one for Hundred Blades, and not only that, but it hits everyone around you, not anyone stupid enouph to stand next to eachother. Also, the second swing from Hundred Blades only goes over +10 on casters. On rangers, it's typically around that area, maybe a little more. Against warriors it's only 2-8, sometimes 0. And 8 is only on criticals.
Not only that, but like I said, you can use Cyclone Axe twice in the amount of time you can use Hundred Blades. Against a single person, you're only getting 1 extra strike of adrenaline with HB. Against multiple people, you get nearly the same, as you can hit those multiple people with it twice in the amount of time you can hit them with HB once for 2a each. And it isn't nearly as hard to hit running people with CA as some people like to claim.
So like I said, they're equal.
And I've mentioned this before in my thread, but you're much more likely to hit 10 people with CA than you are to hit 5 people with HB, on top of it having half the reset time.
Also, the reset on CA is 4 seconds, not 5.

I Don't want to take this thread off topic, so if you want to keep argueing about Hundred Blades then post here:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3066642

I'd say the Assassins really need a buff. In fact, not just a buff but a direction. There needs to be some kind of role that they fill.

I'm not saying you can't play an Assassin well (I know some good Assassins), but those who play Assassins well don't bring anything special to the table. There are better classes for damage, better classes for degen, better classes for condition-dealing, better classes for hexing, etc. There isn't anything the Assassin does particularly well.

Buffing shadowstepping a lot is a good idea. That's their one unique advantage. I'd say they should buff Dash slightly too. We don't really have a good mobile damager, or at least, it is a role they can fill. Give them the weaker versions of the degen, the spike, the hexing, the condition-dealing, the knockdown, but at the advantage of being incredibly mobile.

They should dramatically reduce the reset time on all shadow step skills, so that we can be constantly teleporting everywhere. They also need to enhance the effects of a few. By "dramatically", I mean like reducing the reset on Death's Charge from 60 to 10.

Dagger attack speed needs to be increased. As mentioned Assassins, have little purpose. After some tinkering around, I finally was able to make mine a good pvper, but they should have a faster attack speed.

I agree, cut the majority of them down by at least a factor of 4. I would even be okay with taking a nerf to the assassin's utility/defense skills (caltrops, shadow refuge, dark escape, etc.) if they would just LET US SHADOW STEP!

You cant keep 3 people shut down with blinding flash, there will be gaps between when each ends before being able to re-apply it. In addition it would take nearly all of your uptime to keep 2 warriors blinded. Furthermore the attunements flat out stink and at any point you are forced to re-apply them, the blindness is over and someone could easily be killed in that timeframe. Even under the effects of ether prodigy, its playing at a defecit when only attempting to blind 2 characters over time. Then you have skills like extinguish and draw conditions that can easily nulllify the effects over time.

Creating a longer recharge for the skill, even 1s, would cause it to be ignored entirely for many players and simply opt to only use gale instead. This is just for the simple fact that kd cannot be removed and they would be on the same recharge timer.

If you can't keep Defy Pain up 100% of the time, there is something wrong. It's 6 measly adren.