Feedback talk:User/Falconeye/Ascalon (pre-Searing)

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Ascalon (pre-Searing)

Discussion

Hmm some skills aren't the best choise you can have, mainly due to balance and skill quests that occur later in the game.

This list is a combination of skills, for each profession, one skill obtained trough a profession specific skill quest and one skill trainer only. Of course trying to make a selection within the level of balance of Pre. Da Mystic Reaper 15:01, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Power Attack
Disciplined Stance

• Power Attack, an attack skill usable on any weapon type. (Sever Artery> Gash> Power Attack, Hammer Bash> Power Attack)
• Disciplined Stance, a short lasting stance with some aditional defense. Good skill to cancel Frenzy.

Hunter's Shot
Scavenger Strike

• Hunter's Shot, gives a condition for the ranger.
• Scavenger Strike, gives the pet an attack and one that synergizes with Hunter's Shot for energy management.

Resurrect
Signet of Devotion

• Resurrect, a hard rez to raise fallen allies.
• Signet of Devotion, for healing at low energy.

Dark Pact
Barbs

• Dark Pact, gives a cheap form of damage. All other form of damage for the necromancer are 10+ energy.
• Barbs, good synergy when used with the minions.

Energy Burn
Power Drain

• Energy Burn, a more direct damage spell and energy denial. Offers a good alternative for Conjure/Shatter combo and the punishment hexes.
• Power Drain, gives the mesmer an interrupt an energy management.

Shock
Whirlwind

• Shock, a good touch range knock down with overcast, can also function as interrupt. High overcast prevents spammability.
• Whirlwind, a good defensive skill that synergizes quite well with Shock.

Try keeping it within the limit of 10 skills per profession, and my advice; try to select skills that can only be obtained at a skill trainer and not a skill quest.
As for the elementalist's Earth Magic spells i advice Ward Against Foes and Aftershock instead. Ward Against Foes gives new eles a ward that snares foes and also synergizes with Fire Storm. Aftershock because it might be best to keep the overcast skills limited to just 1 and Aftershock has some very nice synergy with Shock and Whirlwind.
To meet the 10 skill limit for the warrior i advice to remove Shield Bash and "To the Limit!", Shield Bask because you hardly see foes in pre with melee attack skills and "To the Limit!" because it can already be obtained by a skill quest later in the game.
For the monk to meet the 10 skills add Guardian, it can only be tought at a skill trainer and it's the one in Ascalon City post-searing, who also teaches all of the skills found in pre.
For the mesmer replace Arcane Conundrum with Signet of Weariness because Arcane has hardly any use in Pre due to a lack of enemy spells and you would only have it for energy management. To counter spells and have energy management Power Drain is enough in Pre. Signet of Weariness weakens attacking foes reducing their damage and it's an aditional teaching about e-denial. Being obtained early might also improve it's use later on.
The rest of all the skills looks fine to me. Da Mystic Reaper 19:14, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll just make it an even 12 and let the Anet Live Team decide for themselves. Please feel free to make adjustments however you see fit! ^_^ --Falconeye 22:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I reduced it to 10 since it's more balanced that way. You also added some skills that are a bit too powerful for Pre. The ammount if skills players can learn are now 60 in total wich is more than enough. The list of added skills do not conflict with any other skill reward quest that offers skills for all professions wich is best since it prevents players from going: wtf where is my skill i am supposed to get here? Well to prevent such a thing i advice to replace Illusion of Haste with Sympathetic Visage to prevent A Cure for Ralena not offering any skills, but that's up to you. Da Mystic Reaper 19:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Current best non-conflicting replacements for Illusion of Haste are: Arcane Echo, Channeling, Hex Breaker, and Sympathetic Visage. --Falconeye 22:47, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Just for Fun

Looking at the dervish skills and the names for the quest you added, my opinion is that Attacker's Insight and Meditation are not the most ideal skills. I can understand why you chose those 2 skills but they do not fully cover the different play styles of the dervish. First thing is that you only have 1 adrenaline skill, I would increase it by 1 attack skill. Prefered for it would be Twin Moon Sweep replacing Attacker's Insight, adrenaline is an important part of the dervish's energy management. Second thing is something that is a bit of a personal gripe and that is that you are lacking Earth Prayers skills. The candidates for that would be Aura of Thorns as offensive feeder, other options for Earth Prayers would be Signet of Pious Light which combines very well with Vital Boon and Mirage Cloak for defense. Like I said it is completely optional since Meditation supports teardown builds very well at the lower levels.

1. For the quests I advice a quest that teaches you about the teardown mechanic offering Twin Moon Sweep, Grenth's Fingers and Aura of Thorns/Meditation, lets make this one a quest where you need to kill multiple groups of multiple foes at once. Teaches you about balling up foes to make the best use of the scythe's ability to hit multiple foes.
2. The next quest teaches you about the value of maintaining enchantments teaching you Heart of Holy Flames, Imbue Health and for the secondaries Pious Assault and Vital Boon, would make a nice escort mission in the catacombs dealing with undead. Teaches you about the armor increase Mysticism offers and the weaknesses certain enemies have.
3. The last quest teaches you Chilling Victory, Crippling Sweep and Whirling Charge, make this quest one where you need to prevent a charr from reaching it's warband together with an academy monk in the Northlands. Teaches you about snaring foes and the danger of overextending from your group and overaggroing if you are not careful enough.

Well that's my piece of advice for the skills and the quests for the dervish in pre, even if it is just for fun and will never be implemented. Da Mystic Reaper (talk) 16:46, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

You've just summed summed up my entire thought process... too many good options, limited to 10 newbie-friendly skills (preferably "core"), best designed for low-intesity solo-builds (that are not farming-related), all while not making them too easy or "overpowered" within the context of pre-Searing's balance. Hope these thought experiments help in fine-tuning your skill-articles. --Falconeye (talk) 04:20, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I have been testing out the skills you listed and possible variations with the new added skills and the removed skills. The combinations work very nice and it should not be too powerful for Pre. The only gripe I have is that Signet of Pious Light may need to be replaced with a different skill because you already have Vital Boon in Earth Prayers and Twin Moon Sweep which gives the dervish it bit too much healing for Pre. You could add a healing skill from Wind Prayers such as Mystic Healing or Dwayna's Touch, both require you to be enchanted adding to the lesson of maintaining enchantments and the latter can be used on allies as well. It should not pose a problem for overkill healing because of the attribute investments. Other than that the skills and the quests cover the basics of the dervish nicely. I also wanted to keep the original quest skills but I came to the conclusion that those skills are simply not viable for Pre. Da Mystic Reaper (talk) 19:56, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Please note that the ritualist is -only- one not reliant on their primary attribute to function adequately (Com 12+1+1, Cnl 9+1, Rst 6+1); more level-based health/armor better than 4% bonus. Any input for the other professions? Know any sin or par experts on the wiki? Otherwise thanks for your imput. ^_^ --Falconeye (talk) 04:15, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I have been trying out some assassin skills and I managed to make a decent build with the skills that are offered early in faction. Like the dervish some skills have been replaced to make them more suitable for pre. The skills being: Unsuspecting Strike, Fox Fangs, Critical Strike, Dancing Daggers, Caltrops, Iron Palm, Falling Spider, Twisting Fangs, Death's Charge and Shadow Refuge.

Unsuspecting Strike, Fox Fangs and Critical Strike serve as the basic combo and Dancing Daggers can serve as an energy efficient lead attack instead of Unsuspecting Strike. Caltrops serves as a snare and meets the condition requirement for Iron Palm followed by Falling Spider and Twisting Fangs for a condition heavy combo. At a higher level you can even make a single chain of Unsuspecting Strike, Fox Fangs, Twisting Fangs, Iron Palm, Falling Spider and Critical Strike without needing Caltrops and leaving room for 2 utility skills. Death's Charge is used to shadow step to foes and Shadow Refuge acts as healing. With these skills you have a good mix of dagger attacks and Deadly Arts skills and you have skills that can be chained if different ways.

Ideally for Pre and with the knowledge of an assassin plays PvE I would go with basic Death Blossom Spam and replace Unsuspecting Strike with Jagged Strike and would focus more on utility skills instead of large chains. Keeping Critical Strike, Twisting Fangs and Caltrops but replacing the Deadly Arts skills with more defensive Shadow Arts skills such as Viper's Defense to shadow step out of combat and adding Dash as well. But doing that would mean a larger removal of the skill quest skills and less offensive variety. Da Mystic Reaper (talk) 16:49, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Any other imput? Otherwise great stuff! ^_^ --Falconeye (talk) 18:52, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm currently looking at the paragon skills. Due to a lack of party members/allies in Pre it is pretty hard for the paragon to fully utilize it's already bad skillset. You want to at least give the paragon a shout, a chant and an echo as well as a few spear attacks and those skills have to be spread out between 4 different attributes. I'm currently looking at the viability of that and am looking at the option of using only Command and dropping Motivation. Motivation skills in Pre are near useless while Command has some synergy with the spear. Da Mystic Reaper (talk) 00:01, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Ideally, Paragon quests are built around having plenty of allies. Energy management = Leadership, Energizing Chorus, Signet of Aggression; just to make it easy in jump-starting the stupid Energy/Shout/Attack love-triangle balancing act. Its very hard to -not- create a pre-searing version of imbagon. Your Paragon feedbacks' are currently the most polished and updated; hypothetically, what would be ideal tutorial "core skills" in you opinion. -_- --Falconeye (talk) 07:55, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

It is quite hard to find a suitable set of skills for the paragon in Pre. One of the biggest problems is that most of the supportive shouts and chants the paragon has only affect party members and not allies. in Pre you simply don't have any party members but solo and allies you get for quests will be unaffected by those skills meaning they will be useless. Prime examples are "They're on Fire!", "Stand Your Ground!" and "Never Surrender!", all defensive shouts that only affect party members, even Motivation chants like Aria of Restoration and Ballad of Restoration only affect party members. Because of that you are mostly stuck to single target shouts and echoes to assist allies. For Command I would go with "Go for the Eyes!" and Fall Back!. For Leadership I would stick with Anthem of Flame and Leader's Comfort. For Motivation I would stick with Mending Refrain which can be easily maintained with Anthem of Flame and add Finale of Restoration which synergizes nicely with GftE instead of Signet of Synergy which is useless for a solo perma Pre. For Spear Mastery Barbed Spear, Spear of Lightning and Merciless Spear. For the last skill I'm still doubting a bit and trying out what works best. But the best conclusion is that the paragon is not a good profession for Pre Da Mystic Reaper (talk) 17:48, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

So unlike the others, "overkill" is a non-concerned issue. --Falconeye (talk) 18:52, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Non-primaries

Should the Live Team "loosen" skill options available to secondary professions? The simplest/laziest approach is make them available for purchase from Halbrik. For example, when I was aiming for LDoA as Ranger (and thoroughly frustrated by the lack options; Dual Shot was my -BEST- skill!) I tried warrior-second only to discover Frenzy wasnt accessible. I had similar problems with other professions, which took the "build-making" fun out of pre-searing. The fact that pre-searing allows players to "test-drive" secondaries almost indefinitely (at least, until one is ready to commit and leave to post-searing) should be embraced. ^_^ --Falconeye 00:02, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Feedback on layout

If it were me, I'd stick to using {{Skill bar preset|mini|<skills>..}} to display the skills currently available - and seperately list which skills you would add - at the moment its not super clear which skills have been added and which are just from List of pre-Searing skills. Also, did you address how much "Power Shot" sucks somewhere else? --Chieftain Alex 23:32, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

How does it look now? --Falconeye 04:51, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I find this very confusing?

I mean no disrespect, but you have post Ascalon skills listed such as monk Resurrect. If your page is title pre-Searing you should keep it to the point and not introduce new elements outside of pre-searing. --Wendy Black 07:13, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Introducing new elements outside of pre-searing is the point. --Falconeye 08:13, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

So you want them to add this to pre? Good luck, I suggested something I thought was simple enough. Now that the work force is busy with the sequel I don't expect much to change. --Wendy Black 02:45, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

You'd be very surprised on the amount of ideas on this feedback that actually makes it into the game. ^_^ --Falconeye 07:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

New Quests Perhaps

So my suggestion would probably end up being very similar to yours, and in order to avoid reinventing the wheel, I'll just see what I can contribute to this.
I think that just adding these skills to existing quests would create some awkward situations (i.e. if your character already did these, you would be forced to purchase them from Halbrik). Your character shouldn't be penalized for completing skill quests. Would it be possible to design some new quests that build on the themes of the new skills? Aqua (talk) 02:55, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

1. Awkward... yes. But no more par usual. When Anet added End-game unique items for Prophecies, everyone had to redo the mission to access it. The average veteran pre-searing character is <lvl.50> with 100 platinum, more then enough to purchase every pre-Searing skill. The average newly created character can reach level <lvl.10> in just under 3 hours while earning enough to purchase the top 10 most useful secondary skills.

2. This feedback is meant to be implemented with the fewest effort/expenses possible. The possibility to design some new quest is not up to me. It is not within Joe Kimmes power to do so. We can only propose what we know Anet is capable of implementing; and Anet has chosen to devote 99% of their resources to Guild Wars 2.

--Falconeye (talk) 01:59, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

The Ascalon (pre-Searing) Challenge!

I dare anyone on this wiki to run a solo-Hard Mode vanquishing run -- using only the starter skills listed on this page -- and then post the results to better fine-tune this article! If it thoroughly sucks or you don't agree with it, then change it! ^_^ --Falconeye (talk) 04:18, 25 March 2015 (UTC)