User talk:Isaiah Cartwright/Update20080306

General comments

I love you izzy, balance is once again restored to tyria.. User 24.141.45.72 20:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

GG for makeing eles more op then ever before, you dont know when to stop neffing things GIVE MORE BUFFS TO THE USELESS SKILLS IN THE GAME.75.165.122.205 20:37, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

looks like mostly nerfs this time. 70.132.2.120 20:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Lawl he didnt buff teh eles, he nerft them User 24.141.45.72 21:15, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, this is the best skill change EVER. So many useless skills are now useable, and a lot of OP skills took a hit. 2 thumbs up. Mr.Hobo 21:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Stance monks have to come back with the nerf to glyph and the buff to KD User 24.141.45.72 21:29, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm certainly not liking this update. A lot of PvE builds got hit once again thanks to Anet's precious PvP. Running/farming fire ele builds to name a few 201.174.197.61 22:02, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

With ele's I'm annoyingly finding my solo/farming builds have been buffed thanks to the pbaoe aftercast lessening, but AOE team builds (MB, Rogs etc), nerfed. Wonder if its a hint? 195.137.66.215 23:12, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

With that if I beg enough is there any chance you'll buff balanced stances duration? :( 74.229.66.241 22:05, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

While I disagree with some of Izzy's changes, I also see the wisdom in some other changes (like Wounding Strike). Overall, I like the update. Nicky Silverstar 23:21, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

(Edit on some Points: reformulation, because I wrote also comments that were just crap...sry!) I like a lot of the changes but with some skills this update is not about balancing but about killing them. I think on your suggestion page were better possibilities to balance some skills: for "Shields Up!" there were some nice suggestions on your page (pls look @ the discussion), not everyone of the community thought "Mind Blast" was OP (see also discussion on your page), there is a better suggestion for "Grenths Aura". I don't remember "Shroud of Silence" and "Shadow Prison" being the biggest problems on Sinspilt, they were (especially "Shroud") nerfed too much over all for being elite (without balancing the biggest problem on Sins - shadow stepping!). "Flame Djinn's Haste" was already nerfed enough (with the murder of "Mystic Regeneration", it is hard to play =this build your fighting against). You should remove elite status of "Glyph of Energy" now (compared to GoLE) or change it to 1...2 Spells (and making the exhaustion prevention also conditional on having skilled Energy Storage). "Mystic Regeneration" now is a bad selfheal even for primary Dervishes. "Ward Against Melee" was nice balanced (only against melee classes, expensive and stationary) now it is bad even on Eles. "Mending Refrain" was already balanced and you did a good job (but now you've gone too far imho). "Watch Yourself!" was nerfed in a terrible way (pls remove the recharge on this skill with the new mechanic). As I suggested to buff counter skills against the Block-Meta you said that you don't want to have BuildWars instead of GuildWars, what i liked tbh. But while killing some skills instead of buffing counter skills and buffing other skills you also will create a BuildWars feeling and reduce the variety of skills overall. You know (or I suggest you know), that about 60-70% of skills aren't usefull compared to those which people use (in Meta). Buffing more bad skills maybe would increase the variety ingame and this is the only way to see new Builds, not by decreasing possibilities of synergies... Besides my critics I want to say you did imho a good job on all those skills I haven't mentioned, but I think you have to rework some skills and I hope you will do this! A. von Rin 23:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

My Ranger fanaticism is well known, but I also occasionally play a Warrior and a Mesmer. As such, I think this is a great update, and that's probably the first time I've ever said that, ever. Pin Down gets a buff, a bunch of my favorite War skills get buffs (I don't really care about Watch Yourself, although I do think it's sad this skill was ruined by Paragons, not Warriors), and the new Psychic Instability looks like terrific fun. Because I'm feeling this good, you will not be subjected to the usual litany of useless Ranger skills this time. Feel blessed. :P Arshay Duskbrow 00:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Lol did some1 whine about PvE builds gettin owned? Cry more u and ure PvE Skills.. User 24.141.45.72 01:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I hope you don't want to flame on my comment, but in case you did: I will cite your user page as evidence for your failure - "GvG More". This is what you should do instead of posting these useless "contributions"... (Edit: Sry @ 24.141.45.72, the way my formulation was sounded very noobish. But what I've wrote now (little edit) is my point of view - being failure or not. But your flame wasn't ok, cause I didn't attack anyone personal or something like that - you did!). A. von Rin 02:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Just wondering, did you somehow miss all the QQing about sinsplits A. von? In fact, I'm not sure I agree with half of your negative reactions. There are other places beyond this talk page where feedback is produced. Forums such as the ones from Guild Wars Guru which actually have notable top 10 gvg'ers posting suggestions are also included in the mix. PlacidBlueAlien 07:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Leadership: "You gain 1 Energy for each ally affected by one of your Paragon attributed Shouts or Chants (maximum 1 Energy for every 2 ranks)." /rollback warrior shout changes --Just One More Thing 07:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If ur going to butt rape sins like that, can you at least give us one (1) buff?--The Gates Assassin 07:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you guys at ANet even care about PvE?? Honestly... MiraLantis 08:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course they do :( , Anet cares about everything ;( 86.62.250.4 08:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I am both a PvP and PvE player and IMO people need to be a little more imaginative and come up with new ways to beat the computer AI (PvE) than to do things the same way over and over again. I like constant changes to skills because it gives a degree of new experience when beating campaigns again. I also like changing the way I solo farm because repeatedly doing something over and over again is boring. When people rant about how it affects PvE, it just tells me how unimaginative and uncreative they are. This update nerfed some PvE skills like Rodgot’s Invocation, Mind Blast, Flame Djinn’s Haste, Ancestor’s Rage and etc, but it also buffed many skills like PBAoE, Lion’s Comfort, Deathly Swarm, Soothing Memories and etc. Rodgot’s Invocation did not get nerfed if you think back to the old days when recharge was 15 seconds; overall, it got buffed since GW came out. Sorry if it offends anyone but it is how I feel. --Shadetz X 09:40, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

@The Gates Assassin I think some people are peeved about sin teams winning GvG months in a row. --Shadetz X 09:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Still, buff SOMETHING. They just nuke and take shits on the sin builds and then he makes the WoD necro. WTF? In their "meetings" are they even discussing this? WoD is the most overpowered idea with a 10 second recharge, and it is in the game right now. And they decide that Siphon speed is overpowered. umm what?--The Gates Assassin 11:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

One quick point I wanna make while youre killing off midline it seems. Have you ever just tried 2 monks or even 3 with just 5 others? Even with good monks its a struggle having to deal with every single thing and already some new monks cant keep up with things as they are. Which doesnt bother me because it makes me feel better about myself xD but thats not the point. Simply put midline is needed and if you intend on nerfing it all at this pace "reducing blind, changing shouts, nerfing ward and armor stacking, buffing shutdown and offence" there are going to be no happy monks. So I'll be expecting the next balance on monks to be a huge buff instead of more nerfs ^-^ cheers. 74.229.66.241 15:48, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Well Izzy, two thumbs up for making like 20 skills and a class as whole useable again! Dark Morphon(contribs) 16:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Overall, I think I like the changes, my main form of PvP is GvG, and its the constant defense draws things out to long, hopefully this update turns all the defense skills into more of a reactive game as oppose to cast and forget. Gosu Death 18:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Guardian nerf=retarded, Cripshot nerf=retarded, MB nerf (after ViO "removal") =retarded, SP nerf doesn't really matter, that's why it's not bad but retarded. 151.49.120.139 20:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

So, this is what a skill balancer does... sweet, can I get paid to do this? I can screw things up just as good as you. House Of Furyan 09:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you serious? He brought back a whole class and some skills, what's the prob? Dark Morphon(contribs) 09:46, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Which class you think he brought back? Necros? If so..yeah, just another broken skill so that a class gets use also in gvg. GFG. 151.49.89.94 15:32, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

To every1 asking about PvE.... No-one(good) including ANET cares about PvE balance. Thats why you have your Ursan Blessing. Now lets not talk about PvE anymore cause NO-ONE CARES :) User 24.141.45.72 18:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I love doin GvG and such, but I also love my PvE, and saying no one good does PvE is complete and utter bullshit. And saying no one cares about PvE when there are tons of people complaining about ursan blessing, is also stupid, all your doing is making yourself look like a stupid 11 year old kid. Some people care about pve just as much as you and your precious pvp. Gosu Death 18:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

ANet certainly should care about PvE because they make most of their money with it. But the fact that Ursan Blessing is still dominating PvE and destroying every last bit of fun there was in it but still no one cares to fix this completely broken skill makes me doubt they do. Not a very clever way to promote GW2 imho. Beetlejuice 08:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a better solution for balancing the professions in high-end PvE without ruining PvP balance? -- Gordon Ecker 09:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Nerf Ursan? — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 13:57, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm seriously getting sick and tired of stupid comments, theres PvE skills and everything and even they have been balanced so you cant say they dont care about PvE. And in HM where level 30s can kill you in a few hits you need something stronger than youd have in PvP hence it being a PvE only skill. Ursan alone isnt too strong its when you have like 6 which is the case for every build, if that is overpowered SF needs several hits because its all I saw doing DoA with a obby tank and monks. But in all honesty even Ursan groups fail at times and it's not like you cant beat PvE, hell tons of people have done it all and tons of people have failed and thats how you know its balanced. What I saw here was mostly PvP Meta skills touched so how did PvE even come up? And to Gosu, maybe its the people whining about a single skill some people dont even bother to use that are acting like 11 year olds honestly you dont HAVE to use it and if you dont have GW:EN and cant get it I'd understand some of your frustration but by no means does it stop other builds from working. But personally I really dont care I just fine however this argument came up and went on really annoying and rather stick to the subject of THIS update.74.229.66.241 15:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, then don't post here if you get tired of your own comments. Ursan teams are not only the easiest way to conquer almost any area in the game, including and especially elite areas, but they are also the by far most efficient way. Which leads to 90% and increasing using this 3 skill combo above everything else. Even you should see that this is somewhat not balanced.

Or to formulate it differently so that your narrow-minded comprehension skills can grasp it, imagine there would be a pvp skill, lets call it wail of doom, that would be a ranged shut down skill for 1 energy with 1/4 sec castingtime and short recharge. Soon everyone would run around with it and if you want to still be competitive you would have to use this too. Now imagine that this skill would scale really good the more ppl in your team use it and also would remove your whole skill bar with 3 skills (that are completely uncounterable and therefore completely brainless to use) and then you have the problem we have right now with UB. UB turned this from a game with hundreds of skills and 10 classes into a game with 3 skills and no class. Really, even you can't fail to see that this is neither balanced nor "just ok". Beetlejuice 11:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

@Gordon: Yes, you can read it under skill suggestions:Ursan. But obviously no one responsible reads that section or is so centered around pvp that he does not get the severity of the problem. Beetlejuice 11:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Then theres a section for over/underpowered skills you can post that on,seeing how it wasnt touched this update why is it on the updates page? And if they nerf Ursanway then people will probably either go back to a obby tank with SF eles or make anew build, what then? You want those all nerfed too? If anything this gives classes like mesmer and paragon which are less likely to be picked for a group a lot easier time getting things done. And for the next post lets imagine this skill called wail of doom and see what it does to such things as infuse holy veil return prot spirit and other skills with set effects and numbers that just lengthen the effect or increase it a bit. Its not a total shut down you can still do things and RC still removes all conditions and yadayada. Or did you not bother to think about that? That Ursan lacks AoE has a down time when it comes off and relies on hours grinded over attributes and such on how effective it is. Everything has its down sides but if something must be done as suggested make the attacks counterable and whatnot. You seem to ignore the fact a good a balanced or thought out build can outdo Ursan but I guess people just gave up on skill when pugging xD 74.229.66.241 19:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right Beetlejuice, sorry, I gave the standard canned response because I forgot about your posts at User:Isaiah Cartwright/PvE/Ursan Blessing‎ and User talk:Isaiah Cartwright/PvE/Ursan Blessing‎ and thought you might have been making one of those "PvE was fine when half the professions were useless" arguements. -- Gordon Ecker 01:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure if it was in this discussion, but on that topic i already explained why this "half of the professions" argument is moot. Mesmers make by far the best nukers now (armor ignoring extremly spiky dmg), ritus can nuke as good (maybe even better) than eles too, paragons can make great bips, Dervishes can tank. Only problem are Assassins (i think shadowform tanking is dead) and Rangers (mostly no line of sight). And even they don't need UB to be viable. With Raven Blessing they can fit in any balanced team without dominating the whole team build and destroying fun for everyone else. Btw, those are all tested in hard mode doa, thats nothing i just make up. Beetlejuice 01:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

By "when half the professions were useless", I meant "before they added Sunspear and Kurzick / Luxon skills in the June 15th, 2007 update", back when dervishes had no way of sustaining their forms and mesmers had no reliable AoE nukes other than Energy Surge and Chaos Storm, I was referring to the "Guild Wars was better without PvE skills" crowd, anyway, I shouldn't have made that post. Mesmer and ritualist nukers are viable right now, but I'm not comfortable with their current situation because they rely on a small number of skills which are fairly useful in PvP, and, therefore, vulnerable to nerfs, while elementalists have numerous redundant nukes, many of which are weak in PvP, making the profession resistant to nerfs. As for Ursan Blessing, IMO it could survive a few more hits from the nerf bat. -- Gordon Ecker 09:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

All you need for nuking nowadays is Cry of Pain, Arcane Echo and Echo, so unless they nerf Cry of Pain (which as a pve skill does not interfere with pvp issues) i don't see a nerf coming there. Energy Surge is nice as an arcane echo filler for hex removal heavy areas but hex stacking and good reflexes do the job just as well. Spirit Rift is a nice dps filler if your spike went wrong, but again if you time your spikes it is not needed either. Searing Flames you don't wanna take anyway because you loose 1 cry every 12 sec and 1 cry>4 SF.

I think introducing PvE skills was a great idea, it was just horribly executed. While the Sunspear/Kurzick skills at least somewhat made sense, the eotn skills are just randomly distributed power creep. Only few offer interesting new build choices and none of them fixes any pve issues based on pvp balancing needs.

But now we are really going off topic, so back to my question considering this patch, why the hell is ursan blessing still not fixed?? Look at most of the elite pve areas in this game, all you see there are lots of UB groups forming with maybe 1 or two guys who just can't take the boredom anymore desperately trying to find a balanced group. If in pvp 95% of all front and midline builds would consist of ONE skill, it would not take you months to at least do a hotfix. You do realize that even though this game has a large pvp part and even though pvp balancing is more critical, pve still needs balancing? And you know that most of your playerbase actually plays pve? Well if you think you can attract pve players with giving out free candy then i can tell you sooner or later this will backfire. Sooner or later people will realize that all those nice elite items they now get so easy are nothing worth anymore (and titles neither btw, vanquishing with ursan?). And when the grind is away, all that is left is playing the game for fun. Problem is, with only one skill left in game it is not really fun to play anymore either.

I could understand if you actively would try to destroy the game when gw2 would already be out so you could switch those servers to your new cash cow. But that is quite a long way to go yet. And killing the game now isn't really the best advertisement for gw2. So it is really a mystery to me what cunning plan lies behind this. Whatever it is, i fail to see it. Beetlejuice 11:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Guild vs. Guild

Victory or Death

reduced damage increased to 10%; this skill now reduces healing by 10%.

Victory is Ours

both teams now get this bonus at Victory or Death, regardless of how many NPCs either team has; increased damage to 20%.

What's the point of having VoD & ViO seperate now, if both teams will get both bonuses regardless? Why not just combine the damage bonii and just have VoD? — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 20:23, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe ViO doesnt affect NPC's whereas VoD does, thats all that seperates them IIRC Fowlero 20:39, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

this is how this should work it should give the boost to whom ever has the highest % of npcs dead and should include how much Dp each team has.75.165.122.205 21:09, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

My game: you broke it --66.245.94.198 22:09, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

And I thought you made it to encourage splits and ganks on npcs before VoD. Guess I was wrong, sorry. 74.229.66.241 22:21, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree here. If the original intent was to encourage splits and ganks, then in it's current implementation, ViO is serving no purpose outside of the fact that it speeds things up at the end. PlacidBlueAlien 05:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It was necessary because Sinsplit was dominating MaTs in a terrible way and I think Izzy decided to change ViO instead of shadow stepping which created most of problems with splits... :/ A. von Rin 00:22, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Wtf are u talking about?? I bet u dont even GvG cause i didnt understand any of what you just wrote User 24.141.45.72 18:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Poor boy, if you don't understand that shadow stepping is a bad mechanic in split meta... Weaken ViO makes split builds less powerfull and this also helps against Sinsplit. But I think spltting is a nice tactic and I would have prefered to see shadow step mechanics changed instead of ViO. Hope you now understand what I wanted to say. Btw: Yes I don't play GvG, only Polymock (this one is balanced)... ;o) A. von Rin 19:06, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Yea but many times it didnt last til VoD because the split did enough damage and the main team stalled enough so that either they got the guild lord first or the other team fell back the main team pushed forward then it was a base fight where they could continue to pick off npcs and then finish the team that way too at times. And he nerfed some of the builds its not that bad, hell we beat a sinsplit the day of the nerf ironically enough just before this update. If you dont wanna deal with splits or strategy go to HA please >.< because if I'm tired of fighting Sway and Bspike several times a day. Sinsplit was a well known build but it wasnt really used by everyone or "dominating" like you say it is. 74.229.66.241 17:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Go buy a dictionary! Then read again what I wrote and you might understand that I liked how ViO promoted Split-Builds and that I don't like the change... -.- Sinplits won the last 3-4 MaTs (if I remember it correctly) and it was OP because you don't have to be good at positioning using shadowsteps for having a movement advantage. I only commented that (imho) it would have been better to change shadowstepping (shorter range for example) than changing ViO!!! A. von Rin 17:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you that ViO shouldnt of been changed I just feel that sinsplit isnt as good as you make it out to be and it has and can lose. I'm seeing so much more Sway and Bspike and other HA gimmicks the more and more splitting seems to be discouraged it seems. I dont have a problem with shadow stepping due to its recharge and the fact it takes up an entire skill slot, I think they just need to redo the fact you can instantly access some npcs and bases that would otherwise be harder to get to. Yet limiting the range might get in the way of me using stuff like return in TA and HA because stupid stuff is in the way. So maybe just add an exception to gvgs to something like erm..within your aggro bubble there must be a way to get around to where you want or else you cant shadow step or something, I dunno just throwing out ideas. 74.229.66.241 19:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Bloodspike was in play during the VoD/ViO changes since splits do little to encourage or discourage their usage in my opinion. Those type of teams either try to spike the other team to death or /resign (whichever comes first) or beeline for the guild lord and more or less trade bases with maybe a necro healer or two staying back. PlacidBlueAlien 04:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Assassin

General Comment On Assassins.

You do realize Izzy that you are pushing for more and more passive defense, which I know you hate? I personally don't play assassins due to preference, but the more pressure you remove from the game, the more passive defenses can be used. There is less need to see someone targeted by something and use the right skill. Instead, Monks can almost not just cast guardian on themselves and ZB everyone else. I always figured the easy ability to spike assassins down was their bad side, considering if they add a couple defensive skills, they have most likely, a less powerful build in most cases. I'm all for not getting owned every time I see an assassin in AB or RA, but lets not forget the assassins job, which is to ASSASSINATE. For someone not liking passive defense, your making it really easier to do. 75.183.125.212 13:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC) *edit* While I said I don't play assassin due to preference, I meant It's not my main pvp class. I bring it out everynow and then. 75.183.125.212 13:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Omg, have you read all update notes? o_O Guardian was not only nerfed it is just bad against normal Assassins using anti block skills. And you forget completely about the hard nerfs against passive defense in this update (WaM, "Shields Up!", WY). What you write is wrong, but I also think that some nerfs on Sins here have gone too far this time! A. von Rin 15:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Guardians nerf is a joke. Its still easily used. Not all assassins used unblockable chains, and just one of their attacks that missed would screw up their hole chain. Most of the unblockable chains don't have the attack power other ones do which means your safe, unless your a rit using spirits strength to boost attacks a LOT. WY and Shields up wont change much. Ward against melee Is troublesome but mesmer warders can just now arcane echo it (yes there are mesmer warders which ARE effective). Nothing changed except assassins. I'm not wrong, your just not thinking. 75.183.125.212 19:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Uh, what? Guardian's nerf wasn't really a joke at all. Yes, it's still usable and still a "good" skill. Anyway, it's the assassin class that has issues - it can't pressure (outside of perhaps moebius) so guardian's increased recharge really does nothing for the class since instagib sins have always one trick ponies. They either succeed or they didn't. The changes have progressively made 1-2-3-4-5 harder which I would state that most people say this is good for the game. The problematic part is changing the sin class to do things other than pressing 1-2-3-4-5 to kill stuff because the class was built against attack chains. Also... arcane echo ward against melee? What? Who does that? Chaining 10e mesmer skills is bad enough even with help from the inspiration line and now you want to add 15e skills to the mix? At least use glyph of renewal (shame/diversion hex spam!) and auspicious or something (which no one does either.) PlacidBlueAlien 23:22, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I played a mesmer in GvG a lot, and I usually like to play shame/ward build. I never had energy problems, and adding arcane echo won't change anything. Mesmers are just fine with energy, I've never had problems with mine. 75.183.125.212 00:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

People complain about the 1-2-3-4-5 of assassins, so Izzy nerfs the attacks. Then Izzy nerfs the non 1-2-3-4-5 skills. At least Assassins can still effectively use Resurrection Signet, for now anyways. --Deathwing 00:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that the non-chain skills get abused by other builds such as siphon speed. The problem wasn't just delegated to assassins since the cost etc. made it a snare for all melee to consider if necessary. Assassins just need major reworking since nearly every sin build created has been 1-2-3-4-5. Deadly arts spiker builds (nearly all variants), SP sins, etc. have the same common theme. @75.183 IP: Adding a response under Ward against Melee since it's getting off-topic. PlacidBlueAlien 05:03, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Nerf ward, nerf defensive shouts, stall guardian spamming so you can change targets, erm right hes promoting blockway youre so right. Seriously though it looks like more and more pressure builds are showing up and I've seen 3 frontline teams completely roll some high ranked guilds. Bsurge/BV is all we have left it seems xD On the mesmer note I cant find enough slots on my mesmer to fit skill I want but to echo ward and such? And you have no energy problems? Meaning either you dont do much half the time or the enemy monks are bad and constantly cast through shame and whatnot. At least when the going gets tough I'd think youd do enough to run remotely low on energy but I guess not... 74.229.66.241 17:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not gonna give out my build/weapon set cuz I don't wanna be a wiki build, but lets just say I do my job, and I do it perfectly. It's all about timing, not constant spam spam spam GET HIM SPAM, and thats where a lot of mesmers go wrong. But my original FACT remains, he is making less pressure, so less of a need to be tactical in defenses. I wouldn't be surprised if a WoH spammer can keep a team alive now all by his lonesome. 75.183.125.212 20:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This is beyond me so let me try and comprehend this, so by nerfing wards shouts limiting the range of aegis reducing the duration of blind by a second he is indeed....making less pressure? The teams with like 3 warriors or multiple machineguns/dps spammers/Pshot rangers/whatever you wanna call them and P/me pressure and support that I watched roll in minutes on observer mode at times just came up against bad monks because theres no pressure on them anymore is that what youre getting at? Maybe its because you dont constantly give them a diversion to deal with or a shame or blackout on a monk while your frontline beats on them because youre too busy "timing it perfectly" thats not causing any pressure. I just think IMO monks have way more pressure now than they use to when blockway seemed to come out. And the apparent small buff to hammer warriors and mesmer was just to you know...lessen pressure..I get it now thanks. 74.229.66.241 20:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not gonna sit back here and describe exactly how laughable most of those 'nerfs/buffs' are because honestly, its not worth my time. Feel free to feel superior for a while until you realize whats the game is really like 75.183.125.212 23:39, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

You say you do your job but you don't want your build to become a wiki build. Thus, I will assume that the matches you participate in aren't on observer mode and yet you scoff at someone trying to hold up any form of discussion while acting like an expert on such matters. That's fine, after all, you really might be an awesome expert pro player and the next MVP in GW but there's no need to start stroking the e-peen here. This -is- a discussion page about nerfs and buffs and if you aren't going to describe how you feel that each one is exactly laughable because it's not worth your time, then stop trolling and visiting these pages. PlacidBlueAlien 05:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Augury of Death

• increased recharge to 20 seconds.

fair enough --Life Infusion «T» 22:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I like this one. Lots of /A were carrying this left and right in the arenas for spiking. --Shadetz X 03:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Not bad, the increased recharge isn't too bad and doesn't reduce the effectiveness of this skill. Though it does reduce the spamming of it in certain venues. GhostBear 05:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Ew. I loved this skill. MiraLantis 08:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yayyy finally listened xD <3 74.229.66.241 15:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent! This skill will see about one or two times in any particular mini-skirmish before the sin must retreat to heal up. Thanks for that. --People of Antioch talk 06:53, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This was a good nerf, Not destroying the skill, but makeing it less spammable. My only concern is that soon assassins will have no spammable hexes 0.o Kraken 05:44, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Dark Prison

decreased duration to 1..6 seconds.

Meh. Shadow Prison and Dark Prison are practically the same skill now. And with all the other past nerfs to Assassins Dark Prison is probably better to take in some ways. GhostBear 05:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Why... just why. Of the two, this one was balanced; give Shadow Prison 50% and be done with it. -- Armond Warblade 07:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Makes the skill only worse, assassins used KD-chains regardless of the duration of the snare anyways. Just too much hate for this skill, I wonder who still thinks this skill is a imbalanced or a problem at all. --Longasc 10:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This skill got nerfed because it was so imba. --Lou-Saydus 17:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Why would ANYONE call this skill imba. Everyone agrees it was fine there was no real reason to nerf it. Prokiller88 23:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Read his other comments, sarcasm to the point of cynicism. --Longasc 13:30, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Shadow Prison

decreased duration to 1..7 seconds.

Any way to reduce the recharge now? Prokiller88 22:04, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

still spikey. You only need 4-5 seconds to spike without an IAS. --Life Infusion «T» 22:27, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Nerfed enough to get an energy decrease to 5. And @ Life: This shouldn't be about deleting, but balancing. The snare was nerfed which is good, the recharge was already nerfed which is also good. But energy is now too high for the effect on an elite - which isn't good... A. von Rin 00:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

-66% is more than cripple's -50% , and hex removal isn't usually quick enough to take it off in a spike. It is an insane amount of bar compression. Best snare % (outside of Mind Freeze or Icy Shackles/Iron Mist/Binding Chains) + shadow step + free hex for things like Black mantis thrust to trigger trampling ox and jungle strike. --Life Infusion «T» 01:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Compare! SP: + = shadow step / - = cost, recharge and duration... A. von Rin 01:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

not having to be forced to go /E and invest in water is a plus.--Life Infusion «T» 03:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Bar compression is also an issue to consider. The snare reduction may not have been all that helpful since since sins these days are drunk on KD chains. I wouldn't mind if the energy cost was reduced however. PlacidBlueAlien 05:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

izzy just save some damn time and make this skill cost 100 energy and have 500 recharge, everyone knows you want to do it. *waits a month before this gets another nerf*76.26.189.65 06:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I wonder about all the hate. Why not just take the non-elite Dark Prison by now, the skills are similar enough. Gives Assassins the option to use another elite. Next step: Remove Shadow Prison, Dark Prison and Siphon Speed? Not enough, nerf knockdowns, too? Just because of some Sinsplits in GvG? I did not see Shadow Prison cause any problems in RA, TA, AB and not even in GvG. A simple Guardian or any kind of block/evasion still screws Sins up thoroughly. --Longasc 10:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You forgot they nerfed Guardian. :P — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 15:48, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Good luck trying to use 1 second Guardian against an assassin. --Life Infusion «T» 03:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Your team mates could help, after all. Even in AB, the only time I die to a SP sin as a monk is when I am already around <50% health. And in GvG this skill is not really a problem, or is it? --Longasc 08:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

SoD/SoA will kill the damage. Prokiller88 06:17, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

SoD is another ballpark (not a just problem for sins and from what I can remember, there was plenty of talk against SoD and a push to nerf it somehow but it hasn't really been addressed and it's rather divisive) and I'm not sure why you are letting a 1s cast from guardian or SoA go through as a SP sin (no KDs?). I'm not even sure what your comment was alluding to. It's like saying, "Restore conditions will get rid of conditions," or "WoH makes red bars go up." Er, ok. You might disagree that SP needed yet another nerf (though honestly, this nerf really didn't do much) but listing counters doesn't change the fact that a skill or a combination of skills might be overpowered. For example, you can list block stances as counters to those Grenth's aura Balth dervs but it doesn't change the fact that they were generally considered overpowered. PlacidBlueAlien 05:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Shroud of Silence

decreased duration to 1..3 seconds.

Wow another sin elite left hanging by a hair. Why do I see skills like this and SP nerfed so much? Maybe its not a snare or hex as much as it is the chain used with it? As though I didnt preveil easily against this before now I dont have to bother because in all honesty I dont think anything will get done in like 2 seconds. Sp I didnt even see much anymore as it is yet it gets nerfed every update it seems xD gg. 74.229.66.241 21:39, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

They could've just deleted this skill. Same difference =/ 201.174.197.61 21:42, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

R.I.P. Invincible Rogue 22:22, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Still has uses. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 22:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

could have reworked to work like Shame/Guilt instead. --Life Infusion «T» 22:54, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Awfull change without being a Sin-Fanboy -.- With this short duration decrease energy to 5 and recharge to 20. A. von Rin 00:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Another example of Izzy hitting something too hard. If it tastes good, spit it out. TristanDark84 01:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Blackout is now in every way better than this. longer disable, shorter disable on you, more spammable, same range.... R.I.P. 74.142.187.245 02:19, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This is an unnecessary nerf, 3 seconds is way too short and a waste of elite slot. it can easily be countered with 2nd hex removal or holy veil. BMShen 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This is my biggest disappointment of this update. Especially when I can't see a single reason they would consider this necessary. Blackout, a non elite does more, takes less and is in every way more powerful and longer lasting. A buff to at least one lame duck Assassin skill this update would have been nice. GhostBear 06:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing fun about this skill. I don't see what it would add by still being usable. Pluto 06:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It used to be usable and somewhat competitive. I don't get why a skill that hurts casters only is so bad. This is like Daze versus Blind, Daze is treated like it's so much better when it's less of a shutdown of a caster then blind is to a martial character. This skill isn't overpowered and never was, now it's unusable in any situation. GhostBear 08:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It required high deadly arts, it was 9 seconds at 12 Deadly Arts. Now it is 3 seconds at 12, and 1-2 seconds below. Because we all coordinate perfect spikes or what. Maybe it required a nerf, but not that hard. There are nice numbers between 3 and 9 seconds, how about 6... and then only deadly arts specialized sins would have 6, all others with lower DA only 2-3. --Longasc 10:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. This skill was viable before, but now it's just a piece of crap. As everyone has already stated: this skill could've been good of with being nerfed; not destroyed. Add a few secs. and it should be back to being useful again.--ILLUSiVE 11:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

this was the worst shit u could get thrown at u in ta, followed up by a shadowstep and u got an assassin using his attackchain all over u, killing u under 10 seconds if u were already low on health without u being able to heal/cast spells, 3-4 seconds is ok but izzy forgot to reduce the recharge and energy cost. --Cursed Angel 15:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

While 1-2-3-4-5 lolsins may be the only sins that are worth playing in PvP, they aren't good for the meta. This skill was overpowered but 20r/25r is worth considering at the current energy cost. Apparently, some people here fail to realize that people used two sins regardless, one SP and one SoS, so a 6 second duration wouldn't have changed a thing to stop the instagibbing among some of the other comparisons and suggestions that aren't even worth commenting on. PlacidBlueAlien 17:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This sucks. What'd sins ever do to you? Tip the scales away from 'em, eh? What I don't understand is that with this, sins are forced into a corner. Most of the good elites have been taken away.

Maybe I'll just use Moebius Strike.

The problem, Izzy, is that this skill as-is is pretty much unusable. It wasn't overpowered to begin with, nor was I seeing it in widespread use in PvP. So why kill it? MiraLantis 19:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand why this skill was nerfed because Wail of Doom is better in every way. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:216.218.214.2 (talk). (Please sign your comments thanks MiraLantis 20:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC))

Assassins get more uptime from their elite if they use Wail of Doom as opposed to this...lol. --Deathwing 21:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Lol. Good one. MiraLantis 21:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Sins existed. That's what's wrong with them. Solo killers have absolutely no place in a team-based game, and characters that can easily teleport all over the map have no place in a game where all the damage comes from melee. -- Armond Warblade 21:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think Izzy hates assassins, he must get wasted by them all the time, because as it is this skill is more of a liability than anything else. As far as this skill goes I deem it once and for all DEAD. I would not take a normal skill that shuts down enemy spells for only 3 seconds even if: It Cost 0 energy, Had no "disables your spells for 15 seconds" clause, and had a recharge of anything higher than 10. I would rather take something that just KDs my opponent and stops all of their actions for 2 second and not sweat the extra 1 sec, then not worry about spell denial on self or a 10 energy cost or a 30 second recharge or my enemy kitting or using my elite slot or any of the other lame assassin nerfs that Izzy throws at us. Really pretty soon assassins will disappear from the game altogether because they will be totally useless. Thx Izzy. And contrary to common prejudices assassins are balanced, just differently from other professions, other would be like speccing to 9 in all attributes while an assassin would be like specing to 12 in 2 attributes. Now however with all the assassin nerfs demanded by people who dont want to change their pvx wiki builds to counter assassin combos the assassin are haveing their 12 rank of attacking pulled down to 6 and not having their 6 or so ing defence raised at all leaving them next to useless. Thx again Izzy for the "Balance" you give to this game. *Great moutainous heaps of Sarcasm* Kraken 22:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

As much as I have no idea what you just said, I have to agree. I'm not mad that SoS was nerfed, personally. I don't use it. However I'm mad that Assassins have been targetted so. Uncool dude. Yes, we do LOTS of damage. But we also go down FAST. MiraLantis 22:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. Sins being balanced differently makes them broken. It's like weapon spells. You might notice, by the way, that a lot of the people asking for assassin nerfs are in the top 100... Also, no one runs 12 12 3 or 9 9 9 9, everyone runs 12 10 8, 11 10 10, 11 11 6, or something like that, don't know what you're talking about.

Good sins don't die fast. Good sins shadow step out of the way and laugh at you when you try to kill them. -- Armond Warblade 22:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If sins were broken, Armond, then why do they work? That's silly... You sure do like to disagree for disagreement's sake. MiraLantis 22:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

@ Armond: My biggest problem with this update is that the problem with Sinsplit was only balanced a bit through ViO / VoD change. The nerfs weren't on the right place cause shadow stepping is the real problem, not those skills that were nerfed (some are nerfed for months now and things haven'T changed). A. von Rin 22:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

MiraLantis: lern2slang. "Broken" means that they break the game, not that they're worthless. Next time make sure you know what the hell you're talking about before posting. --24.9.234.253 01:34, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The Point I was trying to make was that, assassins do not have strong defence to begin with, and a couple of months ago assassin damage was taken away, now assassins are haveing all of their utility taken away. If assassin are balanced like everyone else then they would just be warriors with a different model. assassins are balaced because althought their skill have higher damage and comboing ability they have much less defence and cant just sit on a taget with thier auto attack to deal damage. the balancing weakness to assassins strengths lies in the very way the entire class is set up, not in the skill numbers. now the stengths are being destroyed while all the weaknesses are left untouched leaving assassins much weaker than any other class. all in all assassins are becoming the equivallent of warriors fighting naked. average damage, but no armor or anything else to fight with. Kraken 22:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Anon IP 24.9.234.253 - As a general guideline, please make your comments at the end of the section, and not in the middle. This is so that discussion can flow easily and things don't get lost. Also, you may want to check out our policies about posting. And lastly, you're saying that sins are a bug? That doesn't make sense.MiraLantis 01:48, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Every class after Prophecies is like a bug for the balance of GvG and very hard to work with for Izzy tbh. The concepts were nice, but their impact was bad and now there is a lot to balance to restore the game into a fairer PvP environment... A. von Rin 03:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

A very wise statement, A. von Rin. That makes sense. To an ESL user, that's a big deal. I enjoy your input wherever I see it, thanks for the clarification :P MiraLantis 05:48, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

(reset indent) Basically it was a super daze before (seeing how only non-spell hex removal worked) in exchange for 10 energy and disabling all your spells (presumably your Disrupting dagger and dancing daggers). Now it is a laughable elite considering 3 seconds or so isn't a very long time. The 10 energy is a limiting factor that means at best you can get off a lead and offhand, maybe more if you bring "Lotus" skills. I think changing it to daze with about 6 seconds duration at high Deadly arts and around 20 recharge would have been a better option. It doesn't teleport, it just shuts down. --Life Infusion «T» 18:46, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Id be ok with it if it was 15 sec recharge with no spell disabling for you, or a least decrese spell disable to 10..8..7 that would fix all of it, now my anti caster build is dead, why do u just make it so that assasins have tow abilities, Die, Shadow step, stop nerfing the most powerful single target elimination skills, the shadow steps are gettign nerfed too, dont make em warriors with +4 regen and -10 amour.(next nerf is gonne be to attk skills they will all be +1..3..3 dmg and all of them will disable all of your spells for 15 sec. Annoying And Deadly 22:26, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

3 seconds is shabby, non-elite knockdowns cause 2-3 seconds where people cannot cast and in addition to that not run away. What's next? Remove all knockdowns? --Longasc 15:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

so i herd pre-veil > SoS ... why nerf SoS? only baed monks fail aginst SoS and SP sins User 24.141.45.72 18:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

See how it was used/read the comments above and then think about it. I doubt anyone can convince you of the opposing side if the above didn't give you any indication of why it was nerfed. Thus, any further disagreement that people would have about this will devolve into a discussion involving build wars (starting with holy veil it seems.) Sure, I agree that holy veil is a great preprot against hexes for monks but holy veil wouldn't and didn't address the problem. Rit runners didn't even have access to veil and the flag runners are supposed to be one of the primary handlers of the splits. So I guess only monk runners may apply. PlacidBlueAlien 05:32, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

My biggest problem with this nerf is that it completely annihilates the usefulness of the skill AND leaves the downside which was originally scaled for a longer duration. Losing all your spells for 15 seconds so you can stop your opponent from casting spells for 3 seconds is like killing yourself to cause 96 damage to someone. Since this hex doesn't even disable your opponents spells it just prevents them from being cast. If it's removed or prevented in the first place, say by Hex Breaker, then it STILL disables your spells for a full 15 seconds and your target can cast as normal. With a 30 second recharge still there, this ELITE is not even worth a bad regular skill. GhostBear 23:15, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Siphon Speed

increased recharge to 30 seconds; decreased duration to 5..15 seconds; this skill now recharges 50% faster if cast on a moving foe.

Bah, our cover hex is no more. I don't see this being useful in its current form. Perhaps it will be in PvP, 'cause no one plays PvE anymore, amirite Anet staff? :\ 201.174.197.61 21:44, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

It's already in PvP (thats why it was nerfed!). This change is ok, but decrease the cast time to 0.75. A. von Rin 00:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

And who would bring it in PvP in its current state? The skill has not been nerfed, it has been killed. 10-15 seconds recharge would have been fair. 30 seconds and conditional 15 seconds just sucks. It was sometimes needed as trigger hex, Sins got shafted a lot in this update. --Longasc 02:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that 30 seconds recharge is an overkill for this skill. I would rather see recharge at around 12 seconds. --Shadetz X 03:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

30 sec. is a MAJOR overkill. I would personally prefer something like 10-15 on this.. maybe 15-20 if it keeps it's "spell recharges 50% if cast on a moving foe"-effect, but then it should also have it's casting time reduced to .75 as well.--ILLUSiVE 11:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Explain to me why this deserved anything less when comparable skills were elite. -- Armond Warblade 21:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

not saying that the recharge was unfair, but those elites you mention have 66% snare, which is much more than 33%. It's more of the fact that it is 66% relative speed to your target that is why it is imbalanced. those elites give -66% absolute/base speed.--Life Infusion «T» 03:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

15-20 recharge would have been more fair upon thinking about it a bit more. --Life Infusion «T» 18:47, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The reasons this was overpowered was because it was spamable, so the sin could have a constant 33% speed boost in battle and the easy ability to snare people, and even if it was removed, it didn't matter. 3..2 seconds later it was back up. So if he fixed the spamablity or made the effect harder/less it would balanced this. 10 recharge is a must, lower duration to 1..15 is too. Then make the 33% faster boost conditional (if they are moving) or lower the effect to 25% faster and slower (Think of it like crippling them instead of freezing gusting them).--The Gates Assassin 09:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Dervish

Glad to see Dervs getting a bit less obnoxious, even if it's only a bit.--Glenforder 22:06, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Grenth's Aura

decreased duration to 10 seconds; increased recharge time to 25 seconds; increased Energy cost to 15; increased casting time to 2 seconds.

Deleting skills is funny, isn't it? Take this one, its just the better option for the same issue: Enchantment Spell. All adjacent foes are struck for 20...70...80 cold damage. For 20 seconds, this Enchantment does nothing. When this Enchantment ends, one foe in the area loses 1...2...2 Enchantments." Set the rest back to its old stats with this change in the mechanism and Derv-Spike remains dead without totally killing this skill! A. von Rin 00:19, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

100% Switching to grenth's fingers and AoG Prokiller88 01:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

YOu can still use intimidating aura.--The Gates Assassin 07:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Gates your comment ( Prokiller's one, too) has nothing to do with what's wrong with this change... >.< A. von Rin 20:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh you mean the clear over kill? yea, I saw it but complaining would be useless. Prokiller88 04:41, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I would have much preferred something like cold damage, poison, disease or something Grenth related rather than making it extremely unwieldy. --Life Infusion «T» 18:49, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I think in this case Izzy didn't know how to balance it and had to kill it quickly to destroy the Dspike synergy. That's ok for a fast shot on the skill, but can't be it's final state! My suggestion for an unpredictable ench. remove or Life's idea to change it's functionality and go with poison, etc. is far better than this crap version of a skill formerly known as Grenth's Aura... :( A. von Rin 01:39, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

a bit balanced when compared to chilblains and other forms of enchant removal 76.26.189.65 06:37, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Mystic Regeneration

decreased duration to 5..20 seconds; increased recharge time to 12 seconds.

Decrease energy cost to 5, otherwise this is terrible for Derv. It's ok if you don't want selheal on Eles (I suppose), but why killing it for the primary class? You could also just move it to Mysticism with its old duration... Recharge is ok. A. von Rin 00:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

the root of the problem (1/4 cast) was not fixed. 12 recharge is moderate but the duration scale killed it more or less since it is now a conditional fast cast healing breeze. --Life Infusion «T» 01:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Make max duration = recharge IMO --Srakin 06:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

→ moved from User talk:Isaiah Cartwright

Why? What was the point of changing mystic regen in such a dramatic way, the earlier nerf was good for the people using it to out-do degen in pvp and was still enough in pve to farm. But now? what is this, some kind of gold sink to stop farming? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:65.34.193.183 (talk).

...What? How does this affect farming? Any serious farming was killed by the previous nerf, and it's still maintainable at 8 earth prayers (the breakpoint for +3) even if you did still want to use it. -- Armond Warblade 07:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This should probably be moved under the feedback page. PlacidBlueAlien 07:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

are players only abble to complain about the lost of their own interests ? it's boring. it's a game, try having fun finding another way to farm, because it seems farm is you'r way having fun. lussh 07:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

My guess is that this was one of those "Let's see how the meta is without this skill/build" nerfs. Remember PLeak. I think it's a great idea for them to do temporary changes like that. It gives them a lot more insight into how the meta works. I could be wrong though, maybe Izzy really did think it was overpowered. --TimeToGetIntense 11:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Wanna know what would fix this skill? Put it under mysticism then no other class can abuse it and the derv still has it as a viable skill, tbh nerfing it this much is a real problem--Shadowsin 14:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

a simple revert to previous state will fix this skill :p --Zealous 18:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) IMHO, this skill, after the last balance, was STILL too powerful. Yes, I play a dervish. Yes, I use him to play, farm, and sometimes, AB and Team. Yes, I use this skill. But compared to other classes, this is really just far too powerful; I am glad to see that it is slowly getting sinked until it is comparable to other non-elite health regenerations. ...My opinion on what to do? Leave it as it is, make it an elite. That should do the trick. MiraLantis 19:19, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Umm if you think Mystic Regen is too powerful, we might as well Nerf every Monk healing skill there is. /checkmate--122.108.8.47 21:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

RIP --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:198.53.41.68 (talk). (Please sign comments, thanks. MiraLantis 20:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC))

Hi, Anon IP 122.108.8.47, make sure to leave your comments at the end of a section, not in the middle... makes it easier to read. Thanks. ...And it WAS too powerful. I rather like it now... I mean I hate it for my PvE dervish, but I was starting to dislike him anyways so I guess it's alright. If we nerf every monk skill there is, what's the point of Healing Prayers then? ...I guess the same as Earth Magic eh? Peh. Why don't you go ahead and look at those other great Dervish Skills. Y'ever try Conviction? I rather like it. MiraLantis 21:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Umm no thanks Conviction is a Stance and i am already got a stance on my Derv build. If it was changed to a Skill instead maybe i would use it.--122.108.8.47 21:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey! You could try Healing Breeze!! Didn't that get a slight buff a few updates back? MiraLantis 21:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Mira how about those of us that use D/R and already use a stance? Dont bother mentioning Troll Urgent because i dont use Wilderness Survival--220.245.179.132 23:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I was just recommending another very nice, comparable skill. Of course you aren't going to get the same skill twice... well I mean, you will (Karei's Healing Circle and Heal Area come to mind). The healing breeze bit - and indeed, if you want me to say it, the Ungent bit as well - was merely a joke. Besides, the long cast time on Ungent puts you at a SIGNIFICANT disadvantage in PvP; personally I believe the skill is PvE-oriented and I don't use it unless I have points in wilderness survival for other skills on my bar. I only PvE with my dervish really, so I can't recommend much. I don't use mystic regen because my stances and defensive tactics bring me to take little in the means of damage - it just wasn't worth the slot, for me. Why not play around with your secondary? You might find other nice things out there. MiraLantis 00:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Why should the primary class need the secondary for selfhealing, only because it was OP on E/D? Moving it to Mysticism with it's old stats of the last nerf and the new recharge would make it balanced for Derv. and useless for other classes, what obviously was the reason for this nerf... -.- A. von Rin 00:18, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

A. von Rin... that's a fantastic idea. MiraLantis 00:20, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

yes Rin great idea, this has being suggested before. But Izzy never listens--220.245.179.132 01:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I propose this to modify mystic regeneration. Its current state has done next to nothing to stop or even hinder many of the builds that "abused" it. Make it behave something like this. Mystic Regeneration: Enchantment Spell. For 20 seconds you have +1...3...4 health regeneration for each enchantment on you. Maximum of 6 + 1 for every 3 points in mysticism. 10 energy. 12-15 recharge, quarter second or maybe half second cast. This means that secondaries can only get 6 regeneration out of this skill, and that dervish primaries are capped at 10 (12 mysticism) or 11 (at 15 mysticism), and in the unlikely event someone has 18 mysticism, 12 regeneration. The reason I suggest this is because, as previously stated this update has done very little to many of the /D builds. I would appreciate some feedback on this idea. Kelvin Greyheart 21:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Pious Assault

increased activation time to normal weapon attack activation time.

Well, Could always switch to AoG and grenth's fingers. Prokiller88 22:04, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

and have no deepwound? --Life Infusion «T» 22:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Dervs still need a quick attack that removes enchantments Phunky Town 23:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Wounding Strike

functionality changed to "If this attack hits, target foe suffers from Bleeding for 5..20 seconds. If you are under the effects of an enchantment, target foe also suffers from a Deep Wound for 5..20 seconds."

Finally a buff.. I think.. Prokiller88 21:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

because spammable bleeding is really strong, right? --Life Infusion «T» 22:10, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Only when it covers good conditions, like this one does.--74.61.209.219 22:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it covers. Look at the order of application. It would only cover if you use Wounding strike again after you just applied the deepwound. --Life Infusion «T» 22:29, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Um why dont u go test it like i did, otherwise I wouldnt say it did if it didnt.--74.61.209.219 22:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Just run around an enemy team using this on as many different targets as possible, you'll have the enemy prot swearing in no time. --Ckal Ktak 11:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Or their RC tells their WoH to go make a sandwich or something because they won't be needed for a while. --24.9.234.253 11:40, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Rofl.That's true, since there is no +damage. --Life Infusion «T» 03:29, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Its better then before, I think that should be enough. Spamming deep wound and bleed is pro, thats why all the sword wars do it question its will it replace them? Prokiller88 04:43, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

If someone is just going to spam bleeding and deep wound I want them to stay alive for awhile so I'd go with 100AL over 70 :P --74.61.209.219 04:47, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This skill is about 100% faster with spamming bleed and deep wound then sever and gash, because sever + gash take 6 swings at about 1.33s each but this is 1.75 + some cast time of any random enchant. Only down side is, no damage. Prokiller88 06:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

downsides? Not having a robust character, no bull's strike, slow attack speed with scythes,no interrupts/knockdowns, IASes (Heart of Fury, Pious Fury, Whirling Charge) can't be upkept, having to spec into Wind prayers for speed buffs is also a malus, triggering Spirit Bond on criticals is another issue. Using an elite slot is a pretty big minus. BTW 1.33s is for normal sword/axe/dagger (minus double strikes) attack rate. In practice it is more like 1 second per sword/axe/dagger attack if you are using a 25% or 33% IAS. The only benefit to Wounding Strike is not having to build adrenaline , something that can be subsidized with Enraging Charge. Keep in mind for an energy attack you are still limited by energy regen. 5 energy/(4pips*1/3 energy per second)=3.75 seconds. --Life Infusion «T» 15:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

You are confusing life.. Still I'm saying its better then before but still will see no use. Prokiller88 16:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This skill is meant to make DW hard to remove and keep off. 3 sec is about right, until you look at RC. --8765 22:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Use of this skill necessitates Restore Condition to deal with it, forcing monk bars to bring it. Combine this with signet of humility on RC and there is no way to take off all the deep wounds in time. Note: the current version of the broken build involves 3x Wounding dervs and 2 signet of humil mesmers. Tell me how the hell you're going to remove 3-9 deep wounds covered by bleeding every 3 seconds? Also, the easy application of this deep wound allows a dervish to solo spike a character with three hits (Wounding->Chilling Victory->Mystic Sweep).

Suggestion: possibly limit the damage even more to make it pure condi ala... this skill does only 10..20 damage and [insert rest of the effect here] Samcobra

Elementalist

Aftershock

removed the long aftercast.

yay--Life Infusion «T» 22:11, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

wasnt the long aftercast added because of earth ele teams wiping everything in TA? 76.26.189.65 06:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

And Ride the Lightning ele teams aren't now? >_< --Srakin 06:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

RtL just needs prot spirit or spirt bond, shockwave hits 3x per person, it cuts thru prots... edit added more ... not to mention thier aoe 76.26.189.65 06:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

True, but RtL are really hard to pre-prot...I see your point though. Well, if it gets out of hand, I'm sure they'll deal with it. Eventually. --Srakin 16:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

why did it take 3 years to remove the long aftercast ?

Lag is my big issue with spells with a range as small as Aftershock's. Nearby range is the minimal requirement for me to use them, if I want to hit something once in a while. Nicky Silverstar 10:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Blinding Flash

decreased duration to 3..8 seconds.

not much a change since Blinding surge has almost the same scaling. --Life Infusion «T» 01:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Still nice to see this change. Now a single air ele can't (almost) maintain blind on two targets. --Srakin 16:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The change is reflected on the Mind Blast bar. Lightblade 18:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Crystal Wave/Teinai's Crystals

removed the long aftercast.

The range is too small for it to be usable. In my experience, a small amount of lag can make the use of this skill impossible. How about making (most of) these kind of spells nearby range instead? I don't mind if the damage is lessened to compensate, it would still make them far more usable. Nicky Silverstar 10:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Double Dragon

removed the long aftercast.

Yay.. Well, it at least went from being utterly useless to just being bad. Rejoice. Seriously, down the recharge by those 5 little seconds and MAYBE you'll bump into some new player giving this one a shot. Bring it down by 10secs. and you'll bump into two of them.--ILLUSiVE 11:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It seriously needs 15-20 recharge to become an elite or similare to one. :/ A. von Rin 01:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Flame Burst

removed the long aftercast.

ehh... it's not the after cast that makes these skills crap >.>.... bigger aoe, more damage, less energy. Then you still wouldnt see these skills used because no ele in their right mind is going to get into melee range ^^ --Lou-Saydus 17:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Apparently, this skill is meta fire ele in Alliance Battles, along with glyph sac met shower, deaths charge and starburstSamcobra 22:06, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Flame Djinn's Haste

decreased duration to 8..14 seconds; increased recharge to 20 seconds; the skill now recharges 50% faster if you damage a foe with it.

yet again don't know when to stop beating a dead horse.75.165.122.205 21:09, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of dead things, this skill is. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 22:38, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Terrible change! The reduction of running speed was enough for this one. At least the Duration should stay the same, if you think you have to increase recharge... -.- A. von Rin 00:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

R.I.P. for this one too....

I believe this change was made in accordance to Ensign's recommendation of reducing the "uptime" of the running skill. The actual speed boost wasn't the problem (should stay at 33%, imo, because of this nerf); but rather it was the ability to maintain it constantly. This change means that flag runners can actually be caught. --Scottie theNerd 02:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

And any time Ensign suggests something, Izzy bends over backwards to do it? This one can have a fork stuck in it too. TristanDark84 04:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

No, unfortunately, though Ensign's a lot better at balance than you would think. Permanent speed boosts were ruining flaggers; deal with it. This is still good for PvE and it's not breaking PvP. What's to complain about? -- Armond Warblade 07:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It kills several PvE builds, that's what. 201.174.198.141 01:38, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Make it recharge 75% faster and I'll be happy with spamming this, using the speed buuf to keep up with people trying to get away, and spamming Star Burst and Fire Burst and Inferno too. Would be, if nothing else, amusing to watch. --Srakin 06:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Not the most aweful of changes. Ran it in AB, still does what it's supposed to do, and it makes you WANT to use it for the AoE now (before It was a near-free speed boost)- Vanguard 15:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

It needed a nerf, 21 seconds was unnecessary when it also does a crap load of damage. I found it useful for just dmage, the running and the fact its an enchantment made it an excellent utility skill. Thats good enough for. Barely any harder on e-management, or u fail at GoLE.--Relyk 00:57, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Frozen Burst

removed the long aftercast; increased recharge to 8 seconds.

Nice for Kiting now at least. 198.86.116.254 19:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Glyph of Energy

decreased Energy reduction to 10..35; canceled spells now count as a use of the Glyph's effect.

only works on 1 spell, worse then gole by alot.

Because we all know that people like to spam their 35 e skills.--74.61.209.219 23:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

it works with nonelementalist 15 energy skills as well, keep that in mind. It is the only way to use Gale/Obsidian Flame relatively often on a non-ele. --Life Infusion «T» 23:14, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Now it is terrible not only for Eles but also for other combinations (small edit: because of my failure -.-). Please change it to 1...2 spells too, so it will be viable for primary class. A. von Rin 00:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK, glyph of energy was used to primarily combat exhaustion from spells and give a free cast more or less. Mesmers in PvP primarily used GoE for gale which also happens to be 10e. It also helped cover the cost of the ward sometimes as well in the past but the main thing was using it with gale. I'm not seeing where you are having issues unless you played some fast casting earth tank with dragon's stomp in the lower arenas. At most, it can be changed to 15e..35e to cover the cost of ward again. PlacidBlueAlien 07:19, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

they scaled it to 35 so that you can get 25e reduc at 9 energy storage, they did the same thing with focused anger 76.26.189.65 07:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, what were you thinking? This does nothing to stop gale mesmers, which was the entire reason this wasn't given 7s recharge, and what's with the huge overkill on the energy save? Make it remove exhaustion if you have 5+ estorage, or give it a fail chance, and be done with it. -- Armond Warblade 08:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Might have been for that dragon stomp mesmer...--The Gates Assassin 11:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

10...35? There are skills that use 35 energy? News to me... — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 15:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

wtf lol? xD now we can spam all those 35 energy skills! woot! --Lou-Saydus 17:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Armond is right. This doesnt help against gale mesmers and makes the elite worse then before. Making the exhaustion prevention conditional, but decreasing recharge would be better... A. von Rin 17:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

turn it back to what it was , at least it had some uses on gale spam mesmers , now it's just an inferior and elite version of glyph of lesser energy 189.70.153.219 20:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

used to be used for Deep Freeze on Mesmers also, seeing how the snare is unconditional. --Life Infusion «T» 13:54, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

If it reduces the cost of skills while Quickening Zephyr is added on I guess it makes sense?...fine it doesnt Q.Q 74.229.66.241 17:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

omfg its scaled to 35, so you dont need 15 e storage, that way you get 25 discount with only 9 76.26.189.65 23:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Glyph of Lesser Energy

canceled spells now count as a use of the Glyph's effect.

this is tho only thing im kinda pissed at, but ill have to run balanced stance anyway User 24.141.45.72 20:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The irony here is it was always like a safety net some monks used to lessen the pressure and it logically only made sense to me because it said cast, not attempted. If I get interrupted putting up aegis or something I dont go on vent saying "I casted it" more so "I tried to cast it....but I got interrupted." In all honesty though it shouldnt change awfully much so lets see how it goes. 74.229.66.241 21:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah this is stupid. It was good for the game to let people cancel cast for free, especially since /Elementalist does not offer any defense skills. --TimeToGetIntense 00:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

no it wasn't, that was stupid --Cursed Angel 03:03, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a good change. Pluto 06:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the only time someone complained about this was when some pissed off ranger in RA went on a rant about how some monk kept making him waist interrupts not too long ago. So I guess they have to make the game idiot proof somehow ^-^ 74.229.66.241 15:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, where have you been? --fraught · (talk) 15:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Terrible change. In a game so driven by interrupts, the only chance a stand caster has is canceling skills so he doesn't get every ward pleaked. Now that you can't do that, this skill is trash, and interrupts are indirectly placed as the most important thing to have on any team. Good job ANet, I'm glad you like your tiny assortment of viable skills. Call me when I can count the good ones on my fingers, then maybe it'll be like an FPS and not suck as much. -Auron 15:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

100% Agreed with Auron. --Srakin 16:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Not that it matters, I have yet to see Izzy react to anything that has been said on this page.

Interrupts are active play, Izzy likes active play and never liked monks to think they're untouchable. This is one of the steps taken to ensure kills actually happen in GvG rather than whittling down to VoD each time. --Ckal Ktak 10:48, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Inferno

removed the long aftercast.

Lightning Orb

functionality changed to: "Send out a lightning Orb that strikes target foe for 10..100 lightning damage and that foe has Cracked Armor for 5..20 seconds if it hits. This spell has 25% armor penetration."

this is a nice revival to Lightning Orb. It still is projectile so it is not reliable but it packs a punch. --Life Infusion «T» 23:06, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

why wasnt this done to the lightning hammer, you know the one that costs 10 extra energy over this one and does practically nothing over this one (except come from the sky)76.26.189.65 06:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm wondering that myself as well. Lightning Hammer has always een inferior to Lightning Orb due to it's high energy cost, but now it's not just that... Now it's actually worse of a skill.--ILLUSiVE 11:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Go to fort aspenwood, run dual attune and glyph of elemental power. Have fun killing things with 3 spells. --Lou-Saydus 17:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

it works in RA too, but OCCASIONALLY you may need a 4th spell 76.26.189.65 19:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This skill is perfectly fine, even before it was fine. Prokiller88 23:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Lightning orb is a projectile. As unreliable as it may seem, it is very possible to make this skill miss entirely by simply moving, also, i could hide in a crack somewhere, and you cant touch me with Lightning orb. The Hammer on the other hand, is non-projectile, which means I can't hide from it or dodge it. Coming from the sky is not to be underestimated.

Just watched a match (PvE vs Unicorn) with a guild (PvE) using 5 diversion proof (hex breaker) mesmers syncing Lightning Orb and Lightning Strike . They had the Iron Mist and Blinding Flash thing going on. They won but Lightning Orbs missed the target many times. About half the spikes were a failure because one or two orbs missed when spiking giving opposing monks time to respond. It would be horrible if lightning hammer was able to inflict cracked hammer because you will not be able to get away from it. I also notice that their attunement is not covered. Tough luck for the opposing guild for not bringing Mirror of Disenchantment. --65.38.32.84 08:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Even though it is a LOT more reliable then orb because of its not being a projectile, I would kind of like to see hammer get a buff of being 20 Energy. I know there aren't 20 energy spells, but just recently, we got a bunch of 1 energy spells (which I agree with because sacrificing is a HUGe risk in PvP and some Pve)so I see no reason why they can't implements a couple 20 energy spells. Doesn't need cracked armor or anything, but it would be nice to see energy drop by 5. Just a thought 198.86.116.254 19:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I like having the cracked armor effect on this spell. The spell was fine already and this seems redundant with Shell Shock. The only advantage SS has over orb is that its not a projectile. --SavageX 00:03, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that is quite an advantage. 145.94.74.23 10:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This is way imba now, warriors can just use body blow now and it will be easy to kill any melee in spikes. the Cracked Armor should've been on lightning hammer, lightning orb already pwned.--Relyk 01:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Being able to kill melee in spikes was the whole point of cracked armour, they're still unlikley to be targeted first unless they overextend since teams like to kill the party support characters first, squishy armour or not. --Ckal Ktak 08:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

/agree with Ckal. It is not over powered, but that doesn't mean that Lightning Hammer shouldn't get this, too. A. von Rin 17:52, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Nah, LH shouldn't get this too, it should get an energy drop. And for that matter, for me to even consider using Shellshock you'd have to entice me with a recharge decrease (I't sall about recharge times with eles that I run). --Ckal Ktak 16:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Mind Blast

decreased Energy gain to 1..8; increased recharge to 3 seconds.

Why??? With all the other nerfs it was not important to nerf this one... If a build is problematic you need to kill its synergy, not every single spell in it! A. von Rin 01:48, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

it really isn't that much of a nerf. --Life Infusion «T» 01:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

if you calculate how much energy you can get in the long run it just went from like 600 to 400, so its hard to call it a big nerf since its only 1 extra second, but that extra second adds up in the long run 76.26.189.65 06:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, because you can't manage with 400 energy? What kind of an ele are you running? -- Armond Warblade 08:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

400 energy was a random number... 76.26.189.65 14:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

-sigh- "Meteor Shower"-Spammer @ Armond... -.- The nerf isn't big and yes it still would be ok, but it was not OP imho. And the build Izzy wants to kill was nerfed enough. I don't see any reason to nerf this skill - that's all. A. von Rin 14:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Mind blast was used to power high cost spells other than Rogdort's Invocation making it into some weird energy machine that could spam whatever cost skill till mind blast got diverted or dshotted. It's not much of a nerf but I can see why Izzy took a small swipe at it. PlacidBlueAlien 17:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Rodgort's Invocation

increased recharge to 8 seconds.

it was pretty much relegated to Mind blast and Dual attune anyway. --Life Infusion «T» 00:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Fast-cast Mesmers who used this as Auspicious Incantation fodder got hurt with this. Not the best idea to hit it like this, but it could have been far worse. Still unsatisfactory though. TristanDark84 01:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Still ok, and decreases pressure from Split-Eles. Hope this was the last nerf of this skill... A. von Rin 15:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

the thing is if you're spamming a 25 energy skill you are not using your other skills. 8-10 recharge is okay when you think about it. --Life Infusion «T» 18:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Shock Arrow

increased recharge to 8 seconds; functionality changed to "Send out a Shock Arrow that strikes for 5..50 lightning damage if it hits. If Shock Arrow strikes an attacking foe, you gain 1..9 Energy. This spell has 25% armor penetration."

probably should have made this change to lightning strike instead. This is spammy and projectile. --Life Infusion «T» 22:12, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

in other words, it suffers the same problem as glowstone. --Life Infusion «T» 00:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Glowstone's problem was lack of synergy in the earth line... But hey, WM's sin build got buffed! Woo! -- Armond Warblade 08:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Not was, IS. Nicky Silverstar 08:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The projectile of this spell is really fast and hard to dodge. Glowstone is a pretty slow projectile on the other hand. I think this is a decemt spell now. The energy gain is pretty decent and it's another damage spell. While you can't usually gain energy while hitting a priority target with this, that's a good drawback. A smart Ele will choose to how to use this skill effectively depending on the situation. --TimeToGetIntense 14:57, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

it still is an unwieldy mechanic, casting on attacking foes. It makes it extremely situational. It could have used Liquid Flames' mechanic instead (attacking/casting a spell). Remember, this is on 8 cooldown now. --Life Infusion «T» 18:53, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I saw somewhere else (perhaps this wiki or the other one) where someone suggested that the conditional should be changed to "if the target is suffering from cracked armor". Since there is now two cracked armor air spells, that might make for some good synergy. --SavageX 00:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

That'd be a significant buff IMO. Right now there's the dilemma between using shock arrow on attacking targets to get energy, and softies/called targets to do damage; allowing you to just orb -> arrow someone without worrying about timing the arrow for energy gain would be very nice. It'd be a nobrainer follow-up for orb: if you've just cracked-armored someone and done a pile of damage, you probably don't mind hitting them again. --70.190.102.87 07:57, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Ebon Hawk and Glowstone suffer from the same dilemma, and they didn't get fixed. 145.94.74.23 12:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Shockwave

removed the long aftercast.

woot shockwave aftershock spike is back! what was the last skill again? 76.26.189.65 06:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Grasping earth, Shock, after shock, shockwave. --Lou-Saydus 17:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Ward Against Foes

removed the long aftercast.

Ward Against Melee

removed the long aftercast.

put back the aftercast for this one 76.26.189.65 06:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter on wards in practice. Not unlike the damage skills...Nicky Silverstar 09:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Ward Against Melee

increased recharge to 30 seconds.

*cries* WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY! It already made you AoE bait and youve already nerfed it :( You hate anyone trying to help the monks out dont you Q.Q the blinding eles, the wards, the warrior shouts, you just want us to die :( youre a warrior arent you? Seriously though it's only 50%...I thought it was fine.. 74.229.66.241 22:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I think Izzy is trying to turn the game into a slaughterhouse. Just scroll down to Wail of Doom...--Glenforder 22:22, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

So the whining warriors have finally won. This skill was perfectly balanced because it only affected melee attacks. I must say that I really don't like this change. The melee players will lover it probably, but it was the last reason I could get an Earth Elementalist into PvP. Now nobody will ever accept me in their team. Please, unnerf the recharge. This skill was not overpowered. It doesn't block ranged attacks. It doesn't block spells. It doesn't block any interrupts. It restricts your movement. It promoted non-melee professions. This skill was the only thing that made Earth Elementalists welcome in PvP teams...all good reasons not to nerf it. Let warriors stop being lazy and adapt their builds to include anti-block skills. Nicky Silverstar 22:34, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a skill that rewarded good positioning and is an example of risk-versus-reward kind of skills. Now it is just bad. If you want to nerf unremovable block go hit Weapon of Warding. --Life Infusion «T» 22:51, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Exactly but hes buffed that one before I'm sure, and anyone relying highly on this ward tended to have a lot of visits from mr rodgort or ms splinter. Plus if the battle moved any the ward was for nothing and this and that and grr. 74.229.66.241 22:57, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

"This is a skill that rewarded good positioning and is an example of risk-versus-reward kind of skills. Now it is just bad." /agree: Now the skill is terrible even on primary Eles... A. von Rin 00:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If youre trying to put this in par with aegis or something lower the energy cost back to 10 people, same with the sin skills and such lower energy or recharge for such drastic nerfs pleaseeee :( 74.229.66.241 01:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

"This is a skill that rewarded good positioning and is an example of risk-versus-reward kind of skills. Now it is just bad." *also agrees* This was an excellent skill, it gave intelligent, skilled teams a chance to excel by carefully planning ward placement and forced a sense of strategy and tactics into the game that very few other skills promote. It basically allowed a PUG to still be able to coordinate effectively. It's skills like this that GW needed more of, not less. =( --Srakin 06:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

you guys are over praising those who use this skill, the only real dmg comes from wars 90% of the time, and wards could stay up for 75% of that time providing an easy to cast aegis that was up for longer, couldnt be removed, very hard to interrupt... the ward didnt provide intelligent play, it said - stand here and we no take dmg, no kite, just stand and laugh 76.26.189.65 06:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The flaw there does not seem to be the ward, but the fact that only physicals, mainly paragons and warriors, "do the real damage" over extended periods of time. Isaiah Cartwright lowered the efficiency of elementalist running spells, is making their wards worse, while they still do not become viable with their attack spells. To have that ward up and running, you need 1-2 elementalists or chars with fairly high earth magic, and requires people to stay in place. This is enough of a requirement. That auto-attacking warriors do "the real damage" is even more brainless and requires also no skill, rather one-dimensional. Warrior builds have an IAS, a running/cancel stance, deep wound and often a KD/Bull's strike. The immense skill needed to run this build goes to ZERO, as it depends more on monks to remove hexes and conditions from said warriors to make the no-brainer warriors work. --Longasc 10:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Good positioning? What? No, you just sit in the ward and watch the other side's pressure die. This was no-skill melee pressure immunity, and all the real damage comes from the warriors. -- Armond Warblade 08:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Which is exactly why it should have stayed the way it was. "All damage comes from warriors" is one of the worst things the current metagame has. The balance has again been altered in favor of the warrior. Elementalists already deal less damage, less DPS, have less armor and now they can't defend themselves anymore either. It doesn't even give damage reduction, it gives blocking, which a good warrior should be able to deal with.Nicky Silverstar 08:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

90% of the classes/builds in this game are easy to run, so its a moot point. i also agree that the game shouldnt be heavily balanced around the fact that wars = dmg, everything else = support. but theres no point in discussing that since i doubt that one will be changed. ward placement barely matter before since even if your warder was a moron the skill would recharge in a few seconds anyways, oh well. now the ward placement will actually matter since it will take a LONG while for it to come back. 76.26.189.65 14:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

"easy to cast aegis that was up for longer, couldnt be removed, very hard to interrupt... the ward didnt provide intelligent play" Welcome to guild wars :) Hard to interrupt? High end 1 second is a joke to a lot of rangers, didnt provide intelligent play? Any AoE would rape you unless you fell into the ward for cover not stayed in it and a lot of people kited out of it anyway. Instead of just kicking all monk support in the groin and leaving 2 monks to deal with the pressure of 6 warriors alone at this pace why not just buff the recharge of shatter enchantment and such and maybe reduce the damage. That way aegis SoD and such might not be such a bother? Or do people just not feel like bringing something they dont want to run?74.229.66.241 15:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Blockway was annoying and now i gette use my SoD bar again! YAY! User 24.141.45.72 15:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

1 second cast with the massive never ending lag isnt what i call easy, especially compared to the 2second aegis. what aoe dmg btw? at most you would see in gvg was rodgort e/d and thats been kicked in the nuts too 76.26.189.65 16:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Kay, I agree with "Ward placement will actually matter"...Perhaps that's what is needed. Suggested skill change: Increase duration to 15...30 seconds, increase recharge to 30 seconds, leave everything else alone. I feel this would greatly enhance what wards are supposed to do in the first place, promote intelligent play. --Srakin 16:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) A few responses:
Life - they already did hit Weapon of Warding in a skill balance a while back. People said it was effectively nerfed, though I don't know, I still sometimes use it. It just really isn't worth the 10en for the short duration now. I agree wholeheartedly with Skrakin.
Anon IP 76.26.189.65 and Armond - Warriors don't do my damage in PvP IMHO. Maybe you're talking about in PvE; I don't know, but Izzy tends to focus updates on PvP. What about skills such as Shouts and Stances that YOUR precious warriors have that do the exact same thing as the ward here? The ward's function is to balance that; with its high cost it gave stance-like-effects to caster classes as long as they didn't move. What sucks about them not moving? Sure, melee classes have to put in a real effort... but really, what the ward does is force the casters to make a choice - do I stay HERE and get bombed by their casters, or do I leave and get thrashed by their melee? On a side note, I don't fear warriors at all; I see mostly juvenile play from them - I mainly fear Eles and Sins.
And I disagree quite strongly with Anon IP in his second statement. I don't think he gets it. Warriors are supposed to, in my experience, take damage more than dish it out. Their high armor class and plethora of stances warrants this. This is called a "tank." You say everyone else is support; how? That doesn't event make sense. I'll give you Monks, Ritualists, and Paragons, since their roles are support for the entire party. However, how would an Assassin, say, be support for a warrior? You've got it backwards. The role of the warrior is to take damage while high-damage classes such as assassins and elementalists can go kill stuff quickly and efficiently, with no residue. As a monk I rely on the warriors to shake melee and caster classes from me - that is the warrior's job. However, I play a warrior and an assassin mainly - the ward hurts MY classes too and you still see me here defending it to the core. There's too much undeserved power in melee's stances; WAM was a good way for the under-defended caster classes to combat that, giving them their "stance" so to speak, while still promoting creative and tactic-based play. MiraLantis 19:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

@mira, id hate for this to sound insultive even in the slightiest since it seems that you truely do believe what you wrote, but to be the one that shatters your delusions, practically none of what you said happens in guild wars76.26.189.65 20:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Tell that to my title MiraLantis 20:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Facepalm. What title are you supposedly showing off? Ally of the Kurzicks? Cue unlimited facepalm works. I made a similar comment on your talk page honestly and any personal discussion should probably continue there there. PlacidBlueAlien 20:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This is classic. MiraLantis 20:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Another thing that should be considered, that this skill was THE reason Earth Elementalists were used in PvP. Now, they're inferior to Air, Fire and Water. Some compensation for this nerf would have been very nice. Nicky Silverstar 22:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The funny thing is, Mira, this is classic. You honestly think sins and eles outdamage warriors, and that warriors should thusly "tank" damage, even though such a concept is infeasible when you have enemies with above-room-temperature IQ that can just target the monk instead?

If you earned a title for thinking that way, it's gotta be something like Legendary Defender of Ascalon, cos it definitely isn't Legendary Champion. -Auron 08:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

They need an iQ that high?

In all likelyhood, if ward bsurgers don't die out completely, they'll start taking ward foes... which actually requires a bit of skill, because you can't just sit still and tank damage as a monk. It might even encourage a bit of prekiting.

As for warriors doing more damage than eles: Oh, so you want eles to do as much damage as warriors, and have AoE? Or do you want the three support lines to suddenly be turned into (worthless imo) damage lines? O ok, I see wut you did there. -- Armond Warblade 02:02, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow. That was the single dumbest thing I've seen since I stopped watching Fox News for laughs. --71.229 01:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sorry. Earth can also be used for farming. Still, ward against melee is one of THE things that Earth can do, and in practice is the thing that gets you into a team over a Fire Nuker or a Water Snarer. Even if it is still good, even if it is still playabe, people will see the Earth Elementalist as useless and beaten. If I had a dime each time I heard the words: Can't you go SF? or Earth isn't meant to deal damage... Nicky Silverstar 07:47, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think I saw this on more Signet of Illusion Mesmers than anything else...Gothica 07:42, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually Armond, I would really like to their average DPS to be roughly equal, or at least enough for people to take them seriously as damage dealers again. Sure, Elementalists have range and AoE...but they also have higher casting times, higher energy costs, less armor and, at the moment, still do less damage even when spamming something like Flare. (Which has a lower 'attack speed' than a Warrior but still costs 5 energy to use while the warrior's attacks are free, and doesn't give the Elementalist room to use things like interrupts, conditions or snares). I am not saying that their spiking power should be increased or anything, just their overall, average DPS. Just their average, overall However, that has nothing to do with this skill and is just my point of view. Nicky Silverstar 09:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

@75.183.125.212 (cont'd discussion from General Comments On Assassins.) - I'm not sure how adding arcane echo wouldn't change anything. I'm not about to ask what experience do you have in PvP etc. so you might be more experienced than me in GvG but quite frankly, it doesn't change the fact that you are spending 30 energy right at the start of the match not counting the recast later on another WaM. Then you need to cast diversion and/or shame on top of that(10e per) or perhaps a shatter enchant (15e) for spike assist. You'd have to camp and pray the monks brought aegis or something to power drain and drain enchant off of. GoR [E] + WaM is at least feasible. PlacidBlueAlien

They aren't necessarily spending 30 energy, though. There are glyphs. But I guess that's beside the point, eh? MiraLantis 05:09, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

No, it's a valid point. The problem is that GvG mesmer bars are pretty cramped anyway. Mesmers normally take e-management skills that also serve a dual purpose - with GoLE, they give that up which means a bit less functionality so it's not something I would personally consider but it's a good point for the conversation at hand. PlacidBlueAlien 07:07, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't find the explanation for this nerf on the skill balance page. Would you please specify the reason behind this nerf Izzy? Nicky Silverstar 13:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

While I'm not Izzy, the reason for this nerf was probably to start addressing all the blockwebs available in GvG. Cancel casting was a part of this as well due to aegis chains and the heavy reliance on interrupts or even more defense also revolved around these things. This has been on the table for awhile with many comments about gvg becoming "stale." Of course, when changes were implemented, people complained about that too but that's the nature of things. Everyone has to QQ about something. PlacidBlueAlien 04:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's all fine and dandy, except that I cannot see the reason why this should create "stale" games. The cancel casting is already gone, and what's more important: it only blocks melee! Any Paragon, Ranger or caster can beat it. Has the game really been getting that worse that you cannot play GvG unless all your damage dealers are not only melee characters, but that those characters cannot even bring any anti-block skills for the fear that they might not deal enough damage? Nicky Silverstar 08:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, the only character who can effectively spearhead an offense is a Warrior. I don't see any problem with Ward Against Melee, though. I see a problem with Aegis becoming extremely viable for Monks to bring. It has nothing to do with not being able to kill stuff though, it's because non-split builds are so focused on keeping the whole team together and relying on skills like Aegis that you have some serious buildwars happening. Back when people ran Boon Prots both Monks could split really effectively AND be really effective at stand. As far as the stand battle goes, people need to stop QQing and learn to shut down defenses. While the Warrior spearheads the offense, the Mesmer, Ranger and even Ele have to support him. Overall, I think the nerf to Ward was retarded and didn't improve the game. --TimeToGetIntense 09:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The verdict is in, most of us agree that Ward Against Melee should not have been nerfed. No reason has been given yet why is was nerfed in the first place. So why hasn't this been reverted yet? What is the great improvement that this nerf has made to the game that we are missing? The least you could do is tell us why we're wrong about this. A nerf that got over 20 replies deserves that much. 145.94.74.23 14:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Still awaiting Izzy's reply...145.94.74.23 20:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Still no comment. Is it too much to ask to have a developer's opinion on the second most debated nerf? 145.94.74.23 08:32, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Izzy really doesn't read these pages. 145.94.74.23 09:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Mesmer

Cry of Frustration

decreased Energy cost to 10.

nice change. --Life Infusion «T» 22:13, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Enchanter's Conundrum

functionality changed to: "For 10 seconds, target foe casts enchantments 100% slower. When this hex is applied, that foe takes 30..120 damage if not under the effects of an enchantment spell."

=(

this didn't get that nerfed, u can still hit a shatter delusion right after for the same damage just with a second between. --Cursed Angel 23:15, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

you dont understand now this is actually useful for something other then that spike since youre not just running it for the "when it ends" dmg, you basically can still spike with this but if you change your spike a bit say - this, cover, shatter - your spike will do just as much dmg (albeit slower) and it will screw over prots 76.26.189.65 06:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You have to drain the target now, then use this, then shatter. It's much slower and harder to do. My guild just switched to E Surge.--The Gates Assassin 07:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This did kill the spike, because you did it by going EC -> Energy burn or something like that ->Shatter delusions. with all of the damage tucked into the aftercast of energy burn and casting shatter delusions. --Ckal Ktak 11:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

this change is trying to make people look past the 120 dmg, and seeing that there was actual affect on enchantments 76.26.189.65 14:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

What kind of horrible monk lets you successfully do a spike that shows them the target nearly 3 seconds before the first damage and doesn't do most of the damage until a second later? Just spike with EC-Shatter Delusion(or don't even bother with shatter delusions, you're still adding more to the spike than a bsurge or an esurge or most midliners). — Edru/QQ 23:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, spiking with it is clumsy now. But, it is now a much more favorable finishing move. Jigoku 03:54, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Before the Monk would what, Prot the spike? Then you go "ups, Shatter Enchantment. ups, Shatter Delusions. I just did 300 damage." --TimeToGetIntense 14:59, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Mesmers were never meant to be spikers/damage dealers. They're primarily meant to be anti-casters. I think this is a good choice because it moves the damage up to the front for PvE and gives you a reason to leave the effects on in PvP. Garrick 21:25, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

You do realise that it's quite possibly better for spiking now in some ways as 2+ mesmers can now all use this on one target at the same time for the initial damage. Agreed it's no longer so fast as a 1-person spike, though. This most recent change was a nice attempt to remedy the skill, but I don't think it's quite worked out. 86.150.1.227 22:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

It's pretty easy to keep everyone enchanted, if they shatter before the spike you have over 2 seconds where you know who's being spiked. That's a pretty fail caster spike tbh. --TimeToGetIntense 07:45, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

ok 3, 2,(mesmers start casting), 1 (gaze is used) spike! - wtf insta!? overload if they live 76.26.189.65 05:04, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Leet monk sees the little yellow arrow leave one party member and infuses the spike. A perfect spike is probably not going to happen anyway. You should expect to be interrupted and pressured. Yeah, fine, it would work on bad teams. So does Blood Spike or Obs Flame spike. It's not a big deal. With the recent buff to Cry of Frustration, though, I think you'll have trouble against more teams even if you don't play in the top 100. But hey, if this is so awesome, rush to the top of the ladder with it and prove me wrong. --TimeToGetIntense 06:15, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Imagined Burden

decreased duration to 8..20 seconds.

Why oO 86.62.250.4 08:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand this one either =/ Want us to use Kitah's Burden or something? =\ --Srakin 16:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This skill was never very good in the first place. Jigoku 16:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Energy cost and recharge are too high for my liking. --65.38.32.84 05:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Refer to this. --76.2.230.81 07:06, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The 30sec cast is already enouth of a drawback for this piggy...85.168.232.38 01:52, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Power Leak

decreased Energy lost to 3..17.

Woawie. Nerfed without getting killed this time, eh? [hands Izzy a bag of kudos] Good, good.--ILLUSiVE 11:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Power Lock

decreased recharge to 12 seconds.

Psychic Instability

this skill has been moved to the Fast Casting attribute; decreased casting time to .25 seconds; functionality changed to: "Interrupt target foe's action. If that action was a spell that foe is knocked down. (50% failure chance with Fast Casting 4 or less.)"

Caster overkill?Prokiller88 21:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. It is a bit strong for a primary attribute skill. This is going to be like Bull's strike for mesmers. The only thing that stops it from being used is the fact that it doesn't recharge as fast as gale. --Life Infusion «T» 22:14, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

wow this is so gonna be tested tomorrow --Cursed Angel 22:53, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow I've got to try this with frustration. It does not only disrupt spells, it disrupts everything!!!! --Shadetz X 04:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It states, if it is a spell target gets kd. Prokiller88 06:20, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow you can read. LoL--74.61.209.219 06:22, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Simple Thievery

decreased casting time to .25 seconds; increased recharge to 10 seconds; decreased duration to 5..20 seconds; changed functionality to: "Interrupt target foe's action. If that action was a skill, that skill is disabled for 5..20 seconds, and Simple Thievery is replaced by that skill."

this makes it more active and usable, which is good. --Life Infusion «T» 23:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. :P That was dumb, anyways, the bug was fun. :D Drago 02:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

so you actually CHOOSE the skill you steal? ... awesome 76.26.189.65 06:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a good change. I remember asking during the EotN skill talks if a interrupt=thievery skill could be made. I'm glad they did it. Too bad SOI can't be brought too. XD --Redfeather 08:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This skill isn't half bad now. Jigoku 03:57, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Now I'm waiting for these changes to go to its relatives--74.61.209.219 04:05, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

No more stealing stances and other zero-activation time skills though. Ayumbhara 14:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

usually they aren't the most skill on your target's skillbar. Besides, this makes it way more active. --Life Infusion «T» 18:54, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

At the momentan the skill ist fun but nothing more. When I want to deactivate the enemy´s skills I still use Power Block. I would suggest to link the stolen skills attribute to the Domination Magic attribute. With that change it would make a viable alternative to the given elites. --Ean

Honestly, I have that issue with all the "Steal a skill" abilities. Great. I can steal you skill. Now I can use it...with a wand/focus that doesn't affect it, at a 0 attr level. Whoop-de-frikkin-doo. Seems like Signet of Illusions is required to make these types of skills anything besides crap. And it also seems like there's a lot better uses for my elite slot. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 17:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Those stolen skills should really use your attribute level of the skill you used to steal it with or of the foes attribute. Would improve them a lot... A. von Rin 18:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

*Goes to steal a res sig and res an ally* 129.65.103.217 21:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

stealing 1 rez, that was worth your elite slot 76.26.189.65 23:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

True, stealing a skill doesn't necessarily mean it will work well for you. But keep in mind that for those 20 seconds, or whatever that skill is stolen for, the person you stole it from can't use it. IMO, being able to use it yourself is a bonus. Garrick 19:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

That's not true of Inspired Hex or Inspired Enchantment. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 19:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Stealing skills is really only viable if you're using the two other skill stealing skills. Having three skills disabled at once, plus diversion, can absolutely destroy a single monk in that 15 or 20 second span. However, the skill on its own wasn't worth taking. Just bringing Diversion would be enough. --Reklaw 16:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Monk

Guardian

increased recharge time to 4 seconds.

I'm just going to start off by saying I highly disagree that this skill needed a nerf. Active prots like guardian should be encouraged and it also presents interesting dilemmas for monks since they aren't made out of energy - warriors should/will target switch to make the monks use up more of their energy. It's a 1s cast so it is susceptible to interrupts and coupled with the facts that it's an enchant (o hai there enchantment haet) and doesn't last forever and a day, I really don't see the overpowered issue. While I haven't TA'ed or GvG'ed extensively enough since the change (only a handful of matches earlier) to make a firm judgment, I feel as if this does negatively impact lower arenas the most. I have found that it is still manageable though but I could be a bad monk. Any other monks willing to sound out? PlacidBlueAlien 06:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this probably shouldnt have been hit, its one of the few skills that was actually balanced and active, even if they wanted to nerf it, they over did it too imho. they should have started with 3 seconds and hit some of the other skills in the block meta 76.26.189.65 06:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

/signed... used doesn't mean imbalanced... This is enchantment - easy to remove. Klotek 10:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to hit blockway, then please hit the passive defence... aka Aegis. Would like to see this back to 2 or 3 second recharge, as its effective use requires skill and not spamming anyway. Really not overly concerned though, just wanted to point out that its the passive layers that are the problem.--118.90.40.163 14:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

IT WUZ BAED IN RA SO I QQ'D THAT I COULDN'T HIT NETHANG WIT MAI AXE AND IZZY NERF. -- Armond Warblade 15:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

uhh intarupts are guud i herd? at least make the recharge 3........ can anyone say monk hate? No one in this game will want to play monks anymore, first you kill their guiding light in a pool of uselessly retarded skills with little to no emanagage what so ever, and then you make them useless under the hands of a crazy necro. G fucking G izzy.--Shadowsin 15:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Bad impact in lower arenas you say? Meaning the monk actually has to preprot carefully and not spam it and keep it up on as many people as possible, because thats what we want to people people, to waist energy and hide behind guardian. Most Bloodspikes I see in observer mode and guest for are countered with GUARDIAN! Is that really the kind of reflex you want on people? Aegis? It takes like 3 to keep it up, aegis alone isnt overpowered, but like any skill mostly spike and pressure used on multiple characters with multiple copies people start to complain then it goes from being a helpful skill to being who uses that anymore? 74.229.66.241 15:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem lies in the fact that preprotting was/is somewhat useless due to shadowstepping and by a lesser amount, enchant stripping (balth dervs previously etc.) Preprotting has always been mitigated by target switching anyway and knowing when or when not to use skills. This is all under the assumption that the opposing magebane ranger is camping your necro/mesmer/ele and doesn't get off the reflex shot on you in the first place. If a monk spams it badly, then they are out of energy and will die soon enough. The cost/benefit/risk ratio allows guardian to stay balanced. 3 targets amounts to 15e with plenty of opportunities in between to interrupt it. The fact that it doesn't last forever means they can just keep cycling through. As for throwing up guardian on blood spikes, I'm guessing the guilds you are guesting for aren't winning against blood spikes so they should be getting the hint sooner or later. So yes, in conclusion, I do think guardian promotes better play on the part of the monks, melee, and midline because it amply rewards successful use of the skill or eventually screws you over if you don't. This is all my opinion of course and may not reflect that of anyone else. PlacidBlueAlien 17:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed as a Warrior that shit is way easier to kill in Arenas now. Target swapping owns this skill so much harder now because you get 4 seconds where the Monk has no way to prevent your damage just because you changed targets. It allows you to cause much more pressure and pretty quickly you have them pressured enough where 4 seconds is more than enough for your to start scoring kills. And of course there's interrupts too. I mostly play Warrior and I think this change should be reverted. --TimeToGetIntense 03:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the point I made in my QQing was that a monk could easily preprot himself and whoever I target swapped to. -- Armond Warblade 02:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

IZZY WHAT HAVE U DONE! I dont care that you buff attacks and nerf monks once again, b/c I know you never actaully play monk and your a warrior at heart. But this time, you have gone too far and you actually screwd the good core monks who keep good teams good. Guardian was a core skill that should never be changed like ROF and PS, and u just screwed the pooch.

@ Unsigned statement: You don't seem to know that Guardian already has been touched?! It was buffed for a while in its blockrate and now was totally superior to "Pensive Guardian". Now both skills are better balanced to each other. But I think 3 seconds recharge would be better. A. von Rin 16:09, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Tuning the recharge down to 3 seconds would be wise, its indeed a slight overkill with 4 seconds. Its still playable, but in TA it has hurt the prot monk template a lot, even though it didnt push it out of usage (the HC spam heal bar did that instead). And as others have already said, it is vulnerable due to its long cast time (unless you sit on 40/40 set and hope to get lucky all the time).

3, 4, whats the matter? One second isnt overkill if it still lasts well beyond the recharge, only problem I see is that you cant maintain it on 2 people constantly which is why Bsurge and SoR were nerfed before I believe so why should this all the sudden be an exception? To be honest if you have a good ranger on you it doesnt matter if its 1 second cast or 3/4ths if they want to get it theyll get it and if you suggest any less I'd demand the same cast for SoA which wont happen. Just preprot yourself or other important characters when you see the need to do so and not just spam this all day and you shouldnt really notice a difference, I know I didnt, if anything this helped me determine easier how long before I proted so I know when to reprot. 74.229.66.241 20:24, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that a good Warrior could already pressure out and slaughter a Monk who used this skill when it had a 2 second recharge, interrupts or not. --TimeToGetIntense 09:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Heal Party

increased casting time to 2 seconds.

Wasn't it always 2 seconds cast time?

Lacky 06:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It was, until a couple weeks ago when they dropped the healing a bit and the cast time to 1. Now they just put the cast time back up, so it's back to being mostly useless. =( --Srakin 06:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I can imagine it being a little too powerful on an Elementalist... Nicky Silverstar 08:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

back healing to old - 30...78...90 please.. =.=' Klotek 10:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

With Healers Boon it makes it a 1 sec cast and interuptable again. Ajax Baby Eater 10:03, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Aren't the updates to balance the skills? This skill already was useless; if you're going to revert the cast time please revert the amount healed. Although I still probably won't use it, the skill will get a fighting chance when I break out my monk. MiraLantis 19:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

the problem is really the 15 energy, not so much cast time. Since it isn't range dependent,you could stay back and avoid getting interrupted if you don't use Healer's Boon.--Life Infusion «T» 18:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Tbh if I was using this on stand I'd rather have it 1 cast instead of 10e, if it was on a flagger I'd prefer to spam than to worry about being interrupted. I still miss the 1 second cast :( 74.229.66.241 20:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Reversal of Damage

decreased recharge time to 3 seconds.

yay--Life Infusion «T» 22:42, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Good one! Some more changes like this and maybe Smiting will become playable after almost 3 years. ;) A. von Rin 00:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

maybe too much? --Cursed Angel 00:40, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

We will see but I don't think so. RoF is still superior imho and there aren't a lot good builds for PvP smiters out there. But maybe now we will see some play - which is nice imho. A. von Rin 00:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

vengeful weapon, reversal of fortune are better. Smite may be buffed but it still isn't strong enough to be considered as a damage option, so as long as it does mediocre damage but good support then it is fine. --Life Infusion «T» 00:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that vengeful weapon is better than RoD if a monk is the user. Vengeful weapon steals a fixed amount of health regardless of the damage. Monks using RoD gets a devine favor heal bonus and RoD can negate up to around 60 damage and redirect it back at the foe. This skill provides a 40-50 hp gain and up to 60 hp damage prevent benefit. --Shadetz X 03:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Does his Smiter's Boon dance* Now just give me a smiting skill that works like ZB and I'll be happy! :D --Srakin 06:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

A smiting version of ZB is wrong in every single way. --Shadetz X 08:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Reversal of Damage only mitigates the damage it deals, so useless for non-smiting monks. Interesting on AoE smiters. BlazeRick 13:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

QFT @ Shade. -- Armond Warblade 15:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

A Prot version of Word of Healing is wrong in every single way too, IMHO...but low and behold, ZB. --Srakin 03:19, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

*lo, for one, and for another you ought to take a look at how much worse ZB is than WoH, even taking into account the attrib split. -- Armond Warblade 02:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Awesomeness on this one. Thanks for the thought. Even bigger thanks for the actions. --People of Antioch talk 06:49, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This buff was completely uncalled and unneeded for, for it merely buffed an already strong smiters boon template - coupled with a HC spammer they have a devastating impact in TA. Those who are praising the buff...you apparently are not aware of how strong the smiter's boon build with balthasar pendulum already is in TA...now with woudning strike buff the 2 monk gayness teams are even more annoying...and once again, even stronger. Please undo the buff for the sake of TA, if nothing else. And kill healers conv ench spam abuse while you're at it, its insanely overpowered considering it has practically no downfalls whatsoever and makes mindless spam far more efficient than wise protting that ZB or a WoH monk bars have.

It's TA. Who cares? The game is balanced around 8v8 or 4retardsv4retards. TA is so littered with morons forming groups with other morons that the occasional coordinated group using a smite-protter is less threatening than your standard tele-spike TA teams.

If anything, the smite protection build needs a little buff. Right now you certainly can't keep up your team using a smiting build, which is how it should be. However, the idea of transitioning damage away from your party is barely working. Smite Condition and Hex are a bit too PvE to work particularly well in most situations. That leaves Reversal of Damage as essentially the only skill on the entire bar that's doing any work. Balth's Pendulum is just there to act as a Divine carrier skill, with a minor annoyance as a plus. It's not a very threatening build when Reversal of Damage is your best skill. --Reklaw 16:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

You think? Smite Condition seems to be the best skill on the bar IMO; it does a surprising amount of random damage to the other team. So does Smite Hex, but not everyone runs hexes. I've been running a more damage-oriented smite bar in TA (with Signet of Judgment as the elite, which is pretty darn useful), and the smiter winds up kicking out significant pressure. As an added bonus RoD/smite condition/SoJ/Castigation make frenzy *very* dangerous for enemy W's, especially if we're running the version of the TA build that has a mindshock ele in it. --70.190.102.87 14:31, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Symbol of Wrath/Kirin's Wrath

removed the long aftercast.

Still awfull because of the recharge and cast time... A. von Rin 00:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

yah the recharge kill these skills, but now they got better to use after eachothers in mobs in ab i think, gonna try it out later. --Cursed Angel 00:40, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

still underpowered, wtb real buff --Zealous 10:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

it does not need a buff, it will never become a pvp skill and in pve mobs scatter anyway, unless u manage to block them. there are more important issues at hand than sth like this. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:212.235.183.141 (talk).

Spell. For 0...5...6 seconds, foes adjacent to the location in which the spell was cast take 8...27...32 holy damage each second. Attacking foes are knocked down.

Lower cast time to either 1 second or 1/2 second. Then you have a somewhat usable skill. --Deathwing 15:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Necromancer

Deathly Swarm

decreased casting time to 2 seconds; increased recharge time to 6 seconds.

oh no, 6 sec recharge......I think I can still use it in my build but 1 more sec and I would have had to take it out. But I do like how u reduced casting time tho. --Shadowphoenix 02:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

this is a major buff, the reason it was useable was the horrendous 3 second cast time, and technically they only added 2 seconds recharge, since before it was 3cast+3rec = use every 6 seconds 76.26.189.65 06:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Enfeeble

decreased casting time to .25 seconds; increased duration to 10..30 seconds.

thanks, this skill have always been on my necro and now got even better :D --Cursed Angel 00:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Enfeebling Blood

decreased Energy cost to 1, decreased casting time to 1 second; increased recharge to 8 seconds.

It seems odd that it costs 1 energy. It was already strong to begin with. --Life Infusion «T» 22:15, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably just part of their rebalancing sac skills. Ayumbhara 03:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This was already stapled to my PvE skillbar, now it is the reason I never die. --Ckal Ktak 11:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Foul Feast

decreased casting time to .25 seconds; this skill has been moved to the Soul Reaping attribute; changed functionality to: "All conditions are transferred from target other ally to yourself. For each condition acquired in this way, you gain 0..45 Health and 0..3 Energy."

interesting. Necromancer's draw conditions lookalike. It probably should have been in Blood with Blood Bond. --Life Infusion «T» 22:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

and then plague sending after this :D --Cursed Angel 23:39, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Going through the update notes I thought this skill is gonna put a few necro primaries back in GvG, but then I saw what happened to Wail of Doom and lol'd after realising that any build without an echo WoD is gonna suck hard. 78.2.11.147 06:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

could this skill possibly replace RC, O_O 76.26.189.65 06:48, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

No. --24.9.234.253 07:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

necro/rit healers were already rather popular, this will just amplify that 76.26.189.65 07:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It's still not even close to RC. --24.9.234.253 11:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It' really nice now and RC is elite. This isn't, so why should it be close? O.o Combine this with "Plague Signet" + "Epidemic" or "Plague Sending"... Nice buffs on Necros = GG Izzy! A. von Rin 17:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

yeah, compared to RC the diffrence is that you get the heal instead of the ally. and that it isn't an elite skill. and only equally helpful for primaries. i simply love functionality changes of lame skills or buffs of unfavoured ones :D

8 necro teams passing around conditions on each other to heal and get energy, wtf O_O 76.26.189.65 23:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea of this skill. I tried running, probably, 12 different builds using it. One included a Melandru's Resilience N/R, a N/Mo heal spammer, N/Me epidemic spreader (bad idea, yes), and none of them were very reliable. It seems like this skill was altered with the buffed Plague Signet in mind. Unfortunately, that combination doesn't impress me too intensely, as those are just two skills plus a rez, leaving you with a very disjointed bar. There aren't really any other skills that fluidly work with this spell. --Reklaw 16:43, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Tell me, Reklaw, what do you think of Draw Conditions? — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 16:46, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a monk skill that accessorizes very well with its monk skill brethren. Foul Feast just needs some friends to play with, that's all. --Reklaw 16:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

How about Plague Signet, Plague Touch, Plague Sending, Resilient Was Xiko, Restore Condition, or probably a few others. Remember, you not only have a secondary profession, but other people on your team, too. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 16:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

No one is going to bring the three Plague skills on the same bar. You're basically going to be either using Plague Sending or Plague Signet on this build. Restore Condition is an equivalent skill to this one - you won't be drawing conditions to yourself when you have RC on the same N/Mo. Foul Feast is a primary att skill. There's little to no point to a secondary using it. Your logic is heavily flawed.

Foul Feast NEEDS accessorizing skills. Right now, it only has ONE in the form of the slot you use for Plague Sending or Plague Signet. That's it. The build is disjointed. Most other builds that utilize secondaries on a Necromancer will need to use an elite for the entire build to be worth it, meaning if you choose to use Plague Sending, you're going to be saccing a lot of health if you're dedicated to drawing conditions from your teammates.

Case in point, this build is much like the Smiting-Protection build in that it does not heal or protect your team, but utilizes the condition of your team to enpower your offense. Aside from Foul Feast and Plague Signet / Sending (or Touch if you're an idiot trying to play a support cast build on a melee character), the Necromancer can do this with no other skills. THAT is the problem.

Right now this is just a skill for N/Mos healers to use, and even then, the prevalence of conditions on that character will necessitate enough changes to the build so that it loses its focus. Right now, this skill is a gimmick rather than a truly viable option. --Reklaw 04:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Plague Sending

decreased Energy cost to 1.

oh noez the touchers will be immune to cripple now! 76.26.189.65 07:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yep, you are right. And they cripple the guys who crippled them, for only 10% health. It would be nice for necros, but it would see too much abuse on secondaries. --Longasc 10:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

lol im liking all these indirect buffs to touchers. --Lou-Saydus 17:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Cautery Signet -> Plague Sending. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 16:21, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

nah its, Martyr -> Plague Sending 76.26.189.65 05:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Plague Signet

changed functionality to: "Transfer all negative conditions with their remaining durations lengthened by 100..200% from yourself to target foe."

elite condition removal that self targetted is probably never going to be popular. I bet if this was made tsrget ally it would see use. --Life Infusion «T» 22:17, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Use it with the newly changed/buffed foul feast for Epic Win. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 22:35, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Or martyr... — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 22:35, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Could be fun with Fevered Dreams... — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 23:22, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

yes, 2 elites to spread some degen >_< .... its nice they buffed bad skills but its not enough imho 76.26.189.65 06:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Project time: get a screenshot of an hour-long duration Blind condition by tossing it back and forth between two Plague Signet necros. -- Armond Warblade 15:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, what Armond said, kinda. Conditions do more than degen. x3 duration Cripple, Weakness, Blind, Deep Wound, Dazed, etc on all targets in nearby area would be killer fun. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 15:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

People are running dual headbutt warriors and using foul feast + plague sig to spread the dazed around. I never though I'd see the day. o_O --Symbol 20:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This skill still needs a reliable way to inflict a condition on yourself aside from Signet of Agony (Blood Magic) and Chilblains (25 energy, long cast time). Curses needs a couple of skills that can achieve this somehow, or there needs to be a way for a Soul Reaping skill to manifest conditions on yourself. --Reklaw 16:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

better yet a skill that takes conditions from your enemy 76.26.189.65 06:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Rip Enchantment

functionality changed to: "Remove 1 enchantment from target foe and that foe suffers from Bleeding for 5..25 seconds."

Bleeding is pretty lame unless you are trying to get sword warriors to be more popular. Otherwise it is RC fodder. --Life Infusion «T» 22:53, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

nothing really wrong with losing the life loss that didnt trigger machosism and a free bleeding to boot is there? now secondaries can use it with zilch curses.--220.245.178.136 01:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

true. having the health loss removed is a plus. --Life Infusion «T» 04:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It is actually not bad since necromancers can already inflict degen with hexes, poison and disease. Bleeding will just add to the list of things necros can spread around. Think of this as a weaker Corrupt Enchantment. --Shadetz X 04:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

none elite enchantment removal with 10 second rechage is awesome, the fact that it even adds some bleeding dmg just makes it sweeter 76.26.189.65 06:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It makes Envenom Enchantments look even more pathetic than ever, tho. --24.179.151.252 15:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This buff isn't for gvg. It just adds to RA, AB, FA, etc. Gives necro's an even easier way to hit that 10 degen cap. --Lou-Saydus 17:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

why cant it be for gvg, removing the prot on over half the spikes is pretty nice, even if this was unspecced, not like the bleeding will matter 76.26.189.65 20:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This is pretty good. Sure, Bleeding is weak, but either way, this is a 10 recharge 5e non-elite enchantment removal. --TimeToGetIntense 05:47, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a long bleed duration, so it's either a lot of damage through degen or it's another 5 energy a monk needs to dismiss it, unless of course it was stacked with something else and RC'd but you get what I mean. --Ckal Ktak 23:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Strip Enchantment

functionality changed to: "Remove 1..2 enchantments from target foe. If an enchantment is removed, you steal 5..65 Health."

wow izzy rly luuks et those suggestion paeges :D --Cursed Angel 22:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

LOL BLOOD SPIKE WITH STRIP ENCHANT, AMIRITE? -- Armond Warblade 15:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

shatter enchantment now looks really really bad 76.26.189.65 16:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It only steals health once which kinda sucks, I was hoping it did it twice D:--Underwood 22:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

so you you could get spiking for dummies? --Life Infusion «T» 03:49, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Vampiric Swarm

decreased casting time to 2 seconds; decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.

Wail of Doom

decreased Energy cost to 1; decreased recharge to 10 seconds; decreased duration to 1..4 seconds; changed skill type to hex; changed functionality to: "For 0..4 second[s], all of target foe's attributes are set to 0."

This is a bad joke right? lol thats a pretty good one izzy..... good joke... --Lou-Saydus 21:54, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

WHOA WTF>!>!>!>!!>?!?!?!?! For 4 seconds monks cant do shit while their party gets spiked. IS THIS A FUCKING JOKE?! User 24.141.45.72 22:02, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Finally necros will be back in gvg. Prokiller88 22:05, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably the intent but at least make it 10 energy or something, a 5 energy heal from the WoH monk or a patient spirit or something with divine can cover the health lost >.< and its not interruptable really now is it? 74.229.66.241 22:11, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

wtf. This is like Atrophy gone wrong...--Life Infusion «T» 22:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

My monk is curled up in a corner in the Guild Hall, rocking back and forth muttering to herself between sobs. She refuses to come out until Izzy takes the bullseye off her back.--Glenforder 22:36, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

ofmg this is awesome and unbelievable, it was sadly my favorite necro elite but by this it still is --Cursed Angel 22:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[Echo][Arcane Echo][Arcane Mimicry] + [Wail of Doom][Arcane Echo][Arcane Mimicry] = GG — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 23:15, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Expect to see TONS of necromancers with WoD in PvP. Seriously, monks are going to be ragequitting like they've never ragequit before. -AyaStowar

(ECx3)I haven't logged on since the update yet, so could someone answer some questions for me? Is fire raining from the sky? Are the streets of GW now paved with the bodies of dead monks? Is this and arcane echo now stapled to every necro's bar in the game? Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit, but this is amazingly overpowered. Hit a monk, good luck catching spikes, or even pressure. You can't exatly pre-veil with a cast time that short, a 1 energy cost and that short of a recharge. It's not just monks either. Hit an ele at the right time to drop attunements/wards/blind for spikes. Hit a melee class to cause them to do ~1 damage per hit for the duration. This is like Atrophy now, but without any of the semblance of balance. Make it an interrupt that reduces the attribute of the interrupted skill, increase the recharge(to AT LEAST 20, probably more, don't make it chainable by 1 person), increase the energy cost(10 or 15, and remove the health sac, casting under Masochism, this skill gives net energy gain), preferably do all three. Then the skill will be Power Block. Oh wait, it would probably affect everything, attacks, spells, skills, so it would still be more versatile. But it would be much more balanced than this. 71.31.153.138 00:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd recommend you up the duration to 0..6, but lower the attribute knock down to 1..8 (minimum 8)--Skye Marin 00:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Making people instantly die is overpowered. I'd recommend you merely make them suffer a long, painful, lingering death instead. --71.229 00:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Sry for OT, but: ROFL @ 71.229, you made my day! :D A. von Rin 01:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This won't make people die instantly.. It just will help...? Prokiller88 01:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It will help more than any single skill ever has the right to. Hell, it will help more by itself than just about any single bar.

@A. von: I live to serve. :O --71.229 01:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

All I can say is... Wow. -- ab.er.rant 02:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

LUV IT, now I can get those minks in PvP *evil grin* --Shadowphoenix 02:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this will be changed in a few days... ~A. von Rin~

I sure as hell hope so. And so does every other balance-seeking person out there. This skill in it's current state is a joke... No, it's not even that... it's a perversion.--ILLUSiVE 11:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The IDEA is completely awesome, and yes, I was in RA earlier...every necro and their mother (lol Flesh Golem) are running this thing, most with Arcane Echo, and it's ruining monks. But like I said, the IDEA is awesome. Just needs a little tweaking to make it not completely rape monks in the eyes with a large hammer. --Srakin 06:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC

I know Izzy was watching this skill and buffing it and then buffing it again to no avail since no one used it so he just got fed up and made it godly for teh lulz... jokes on us. Moral of the story: use Izzy's skill buffs before another kitten dies. PlacidBlueAlien 07:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think what bothers people is that it's unconditional. Power Block doesn't even generate this much fear. --Redfeather 08:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

→ moved from User talk:Isaiah Cartwright

I didn't post a page with an issue+suggestion because this is still a new skill, but I wanna get some discussion going about it. Anyway, seems you've created a really dangerous skill here. This is essentially a 4 second knockdown without the snare. Most things any character does while hexed with this will be pretty ineffective. Warriors do no damage even with attack skills, Monks don't heal and get crap duration/effects out of prots, Mesmers get a 10 second Diversion, Eles do no damage, etc, etc, etc... The sac cost is pretty negligable. You can Arcane Echo it or just have a 20/20 recharge set for Soul Reaping and that's where this skill becomes really scary. You don't even need the cast speed mods since all the Soul Reaping spells you're going to use are 1/4 cast.

That said, I think this is a really awesome skill and it would be a shame if you had to nerf it. If it proves too broken, I suggest increasing the sac cost. The way I see it being abused is with Arcane Echo, so with a higher sac cost that becomes a higher risk. --TimeToGetIntense 11:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

the duration can't be lower but i don't think the sacrifice should be higher either, but i wouldn't have energy problems using this on like 10 energy instead, or with a longer cast time, it's pretty fun to catch monks with this while theyre under 50% health, its fun to catch eles before a spike and fun to cast on an assassin triggering his attack skillchain like 1..2..3..4 without doing damage, haven't tried echoing it, would cost too much. --Cursed Angel 12:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Ranged, uninterruptible KD is pretty powerful. File:Nuclear7 sig image2.jpg nuke7 File:Nuclear7 sig image2.jpg 12:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

→ moved from User talk:Isaiah Cartwright

the feedback pages on wail of doom plz. My monk is QQing a river right now. Wail of doom is more imba than imbagons in pve are. Antiarchangel 00:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

haha im already a wail of doom necro :D --Cursed Angel 00:03, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

no I win with shadow step + blackout --Zealous 00:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You didn't get it, did you? The whole update is for killing this thing formerly known as backline! I should start GvGing only with melees... xD A. von Rin 00:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the whole 'balance' thing was just too hard for Izzy. We should really be supportive of him right now, in his moment of need. --71.229 11:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It's really not that good, some possible uses yes, but it's not godlike. LOL@the people saying finally necros are back, did you ever play against hexes in gvg? It's horrible, no skill, not fun to play or play against and promotes passive play.

l2p -- Armond Warblade 15:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

To sum up every1's thoughts..... WoD > Everything.. nerf plz User 24.141.45.72 15:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

i really like the wail of doom change but it seems to be really overpowered right now like everyone else is saying. just up the recharge and activation time (to 3/4 or 1 sec) and it should be fine.

After testing it as victim and victimizer ;) I agree. It isn't as OP as i thought. Just increase cast time to 0.75 and it would be fine (Holy Veil and interrupt to counter it is good enough, hex remove won't help much because of the short duration). The new mechanic is awesome @ Izzy!!! :D A. von Rin 17:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Necro being my favourite class, I must say I love all these buffs, but this skill is a bit overpowered when combined with arcane echo. I'd suggest changing it to an interupt again, so it reads "Interupt target foes action, if that action was a skill, all of target foe's attributes are set to 0 for 1...3...5 second[s]." (Yeah, I buffed the duration a second longer at 13 soul, make it last a bit longer, since as an interupt it would be harder to get the effect) With that change, I think it would still be an intresting skill worth using, but would require a bit more skill then just spamming it. Gosu Death 18:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I refuse to go outside my guildhall until this is fixed. MiraLantis 19:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If this skill was at 15e and 20r that would be fine with me, but wow izzy did a good job. Prokiller88 23:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

15e and 20r? o_O Before he does this, he should change it back to its's previous stats. Your suggestion is on the other extreme and totally UP! You have health sacrifice and it is a hex with only up to 4 seconds duration. The main problem here is the casting time which has to be increased to 0.75 or 1 second and then it would be ok... A. von Rin 23:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You're all aware nobody uses this in GvG right? ...right? — Skadiddly[슴Mc슴]Diddles 23:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

All this skill needs is a longer recharge (20 seconds to match atrophy) or a bigger sac (33%) and it should be balanced. Jigoku 16:43, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

If it had a 20 second recharge, no one would use it, for 4 seconds of a hex that is easily removed. And i think the 33% sac would do the same thing, really the only thing I see being plausible is a functionality change, so it has the same sort of effect, but takes more skill to use then spamming it, like my suggesting above of turning it into an interupt. Gosu Death 18:59, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I think people are overreacting to this, but only slightly. It's a decent skill now, and no, it doesn't need a huge recharge time. We don't need any more Shroud of Silence or Shadow Prison nerfs that turn potentially good skills into worthless piles of crap because they're overly effective for two or three seconds.

This skill, you have to remember, does absolutely nothing to someone on its own, on most bars. You actually need a decent team that's powering through blockway for it to have any consequence. (That's not my defense for it, by the way, just a reminder.)

What this skill needs is some sort of requisite. The need to interrupt a skill sounds good, but isn't quite Necromancer material. How about: "Hex Spell. For 1...4...5 seconds, all of target foe's attributes are set to 0. This hex ends when that foe uses a skill." This would make the hex only affect one skill, but it would still be a worthwhile skill for a Necro to bring along. The only thing I would change is give the skill an 8 second recharge, since making a single Reversal of Fortune have 0 atts every 10 seconds isn't going to do anything. You have to remember that this skill is essentially a long range Blackout in disguise.

I haven't tested this enough to know, but probably the most important question I have is, if you cast this spell on someone who's casting a spell already, is that spell affected since it began BEFORE the hex? That is, if I cast this spell on a warrior that is about to finish using Healing Signet, or whatever, is that warrior going to be healed for 13 Tactics, or 0 Tactics? That, to me, determines the form this skill should take. If it CAN "interrupt" skills in resetting their atts, then the skill curve for this hex is tremendous, and the skill becomes much more useful. Right now it seems to just be a skill you fire and forget, and hope has merit.

Bottom line: make this skill have an active point rather than being fire and forget. This will also resolve the problem with echoing the skill without neutering it completely, and making echoing it MANDATORY, which I don't think anyone wants. --Reklaw 19:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

My spellcasters have just commited suicide by Blood is Power, my condition ranger has just fled to the desolation and killed himself in the sands, and my assassin just willingly got mauled by 68 bladed aataxes. seriously, this is a bit overpowered. I just got uber-pwned by this skill because of 2 necros in AB. had a whole party with me, the morons had this skill on me, and I couldnt do beans. this needs some serious workovers.... Wandering Traveler 23:26, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Reklaw, wtf? The other team doesn't have to be good for this to affect them... Unless they're using only unscaling skills, in which case they're probably horribly bad enough that you'll win anyway. Unless you mean "the other team needs to be good enough to not spec into seven attributes", in which you'll probably win anyway. -- Armond Warblade 01:41, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're talking about. Did you even read the rest of what I said? --Reklaw 04:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Not that overpowered i think, nevertheless it may have a too dangerous 'abuse potential' because of its duration : 3-4s monk shutdown is enough to spike with too much ease. I only suggest lowering duration to 0...2 seconds and maybe change the effect from 'all attributes set to 0' to 'all skills disabled' therefore it could match its original aim : counter melee attackers (although it would overall be more dangerous with this effect) ~~ Azul 10:57, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't nerf it yet, because I don't really see people using it all that much. It's a good skill, but I would at least leave it for a while before possibly nerfing. And those who say lower the uptime.. I mean, what? If you lower it to less than 4sec it's going to be utterly useless. First, in GvG you still have other monk, and you still can use condition n hex removal even on zero attribute (as well as Infuse). In RA, if you lower Wail to 3sec or even 2 as some suggest, can you explain to me how that is better than just playing hammer warrior? In RA, I can shutdown a monk or anyone else better with mesmer and warrior, than with 3-sec Wail, and do more dmg in the process. So unless there is some imbalance in GvG that I don't know of, there is no need to nerf Wail at this point. 78.1.31.198 11:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

/agree: A little increasement on casting time as I said before would be enough to deal with it (about 0.75 to 1 second). You have to observe its overall impact on Meta before crying that you want to change or nerf it in those suggested ways - and looking at most suggestions it would be a terrible skill kill nerf, that is intented by some users here... -.- A. von Rin 16:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

HAI GUYS IM NOT OVERPOWERED SEE YA LATER! — Skadiddly[슴Mc슴]Diddles 01:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Weaken Armor

decreased casting time to 1 second; this skill now affects all adjacent foes.

nice buff here. --Life Infusion «T» 22:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Usefull = Good. It's about time, TBH. --Srakin 05:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

A nice PvE buff to it with that adjacent thing, I will no longer need to worry about that unwieldy well of ruin. --Ckal Ktak 11:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Paragon

Barbed Spear

decreased adrenaline cost to 2 strikes.

why? o.O --Life Infusion «T» 22:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I mean, it's a neat idea...turns any paragon carrying this into a kind of...Apply Poison wannabe...but...Why? --Srakin 05:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

spreading bleeding! thats actually too much adren for that, lower it to 1 76.26.189.65 06:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I see it as a buff to Ebon Dust Aura dervs...oh and to tele Spear Swipe Paras--Underwood 22:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Blazing Spear

decreased adrenaline cost to 6 strikes.

this wasn't bad to begin with. --Life Infusion «T» 23:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The 7 adren cost for the maximum of 3 seconds of burning wasn't BAD, but paragons need GOOD, not just "Not bad." I'm happy this skill got a little buff, even if it only means that another ranger with a spear is going to be throwing these around. --Srakin 05:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

No, this was bad, way too much adrenaline for its effect. To be "good" it'd have to be like 4 or 5 adren. But no one good wants paragons to be good, because they're still fucking broken. -- Armond Warblade 15:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

if you specced 12+ spear then it is a good +20 or so damage + 3second burning. --Life Infusion «T» 03:53, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Big deal, I still need to get six adrenaline for it. That's too much for three seconds burning and a bit of extra damage. Why am I not taking Spear of Lightning when I have infinite energy anyway? -- Armond Warblade 01:33, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Mending Refrain

increased Energy cost to 10; decreased duration to 15 seconds.

It is kind of pointless to use now. Nicky Silverstar 22:36, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

indeed --Zealous 22:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

seriously overnerfed energy cost wise. Unlike the partywide shouts/chants this doesn't return energy and isn't that potent to begin with. --Life Infusion «T» 23:53, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Set energy cost back! Duration nerf is ok... A. von Rin 00:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Either set energy cost back, or set duration back. This was over-nerfed, and hit the weakest Paragon attribute right in the gut. =( --Srakin 05:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course. Motivation is the weakest paragon line, and that's why nobody was running motigons (sarcasm) Pluto 06:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

its because mending is uber pro, why ya think the best wars use it. this is just a wannabe mending that will never reach the godliness of mending 76.26.189.65 06:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Euhm...Pluto...nobody is running Motigons. In fact, I have never even heard of the name. The only good Motivation build that I could find on PvXwiki has been nerfed by the Song of Restoration recharge increase, and it used just 2 motivation skills, so I hardly call that a motigon.. Nicky Silverstar 09:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Erm.. you've never heard of Motigons? Thrash 11:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The fact that he had to check PvX should say something. --71.229 11:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, dude, don't use PvX to look for meta builds. Press B every once and a while, mmkay? -- Armond Warblade 15:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Nicky stop posting or die pls. 151.49.120.139 20:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Then enlighten me. Show me what build was so powerful that used 5 or more Motivation skills. Anything with 4 or less Motivation skills is not a motigon, that is just a Paragon who happens to use a few Motivation skills. Nicky Silverstar 22:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Provided you brought a rez, 4 skills is 4/7 skills is almost 60% of your skills - sounds like a motigon to me. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 22:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I have found the build you mentioned. It seems to me that it is Aggressive Refrain, Spear of Lightning and Watch Yourself that makes the build powerful, not the Motivation skills. Then again, what do I know, right? Nicky Silverstar 22:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The point - it was good at what it did (the skill bar), maybe too good and pulled the nerf bats attention, just like the AoB/Grenths Aura/Pious Assault dervishes...although not that extreme.--Underwood 22:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's just that I never ever use metagame builds so I thought PvXwiki would be a good place check how popular Motivation was in PvP. I found 1 build that uses Motivation skills, and it wasn't the motigon, so my conclusion was: Motivation is underpowered. There may be a few useful skills in it, but most of it is unusable. Is that so far from the truth that I must (and I quote) die? Nicky Silverstar 22:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

WEll its true meta builds are on PvX wiki so I dont see why people are like no use obs mode :/ Motivation is, for the most part, underpowered but has decent skills. You should know by now to take nothing personal from anyone on the wiki as most of them are rather...Idk anal.--Underwood 22:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, well, sorry about that. I try to think about what I post, but once every few posts, I post something really stupid (like now) and I tend to ruin the entie discussion. I'll stay out of this one from here on, my apologies for the inconvienience. Nicky Silverstar 23:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Nicky don't give a shit on opinions of guys that flame anonymous on the I-net and have not even the courage to show their ign... Pff, ban this one! A. von Rin 23:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. And don't worry about trolls, either. Everyone has the right to their opinions on this wiki, and if they don't want to work towards the betterment of the wiki, then they should get on the forums and troll there. MiraLantis 02:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Song of Restoration

increased Energy cost to 10; increased recharge to 20 seconds; increased healing to 45..110 Health.

Motivation in general will always remain weak right? I should have chosen Command instead. Nicky Silverstar 22:41, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

it feels like it is a reactionary partywide heal. A reduction in recharge and heal power probably would have been better so that paragon stacking is not as strong but single paragons are buffed. (sort of like chorus of restoration and divine healing). Anytime a chant/shout is balanced solely by recharge then paragon stacking is an issue. --Life Infusion «T» 23:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

/totally agree @ Life (but maybe the plan was to rape it like LoD?)! @ Nicky: Command has no elite that is worth a skill slot, so you shouldn't take a Paragon at all (as long as you are alone)! ;) A. von Rin 00:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

given that heal party isn't (and shouldn't be if it is 2 cast) viable midbattle then there needs to be solid party healing options that don't save targets from spike damage. Ritualists have Protective was Kaolai which is on 20 cooldown but it is also in a useful attribute and isn't elite. I think a way to make this better in a single paragon setup and less viable on multi-paragon setups is simply reducing recharge and heal power, making it more vulnerable to shutdown from interrupts but also making it less fire and forget. Something like 5...29...35 health on 5 energy, 7 recharge for example (half the heal and recharge of divine healing, a nonelite). This would make it a pressure heal rather than a large heal avoiding overhealing and stopping it from paragon stacked teams. 7 recharge is a healthy number because that is around how long it is before someone (that is not a healing monk) uses a skill that isn't spamtastic. Whatever is done ought to have diminishing returns from having more than 2 paragons, sort of like how you wouldn't want to run 2 monks with both carrying Spirit Bond. Having skills on 20 recharge isn't a balancing mechanism when paragons chants can be stacked in tandem. Since Song of Restoration relies on skill usage as opposed to Ballad of Restoration (which is utterly brainless buttonmashing) reducing the recharge would not be an issue since there are only so many times someone can use a skill before it is spam that is going to be diversion-ed (in other words, the heal will not always trigger if the recharge is low). --Life Infusion «T» 01:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If having it lower than 10 second recharge is an issue, simply slashing it to 5...41...50 and 10 recharge wouldn't be out of line. That shouldn't be the case since adrenal chants are less than 10 recharge. --Life Infusion «T» 01:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This is why Paragons can't have nice things. TristanDark84 02:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Do explain. --Life Infusion «T» 04:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Increase the cast time to two seconds, double the healing power, make this skill interesting. --Srakin 05:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

im not sure if its paragon that izzy hates, i think its party heals 76.26.189.65 06:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If he hated them then why were Divine Healing/Heaven's Delight, LoD made usable again?--Life Infusion «T» 18:59, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

No one plays with LoD (ok, in PvE maybe) <-> Long recharge and low healing (@LoD) are bad compared to the usefull skills out there... A. von Rin 00:01, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

dR plays with LoD. Two copies of it actually. Nuff said.--118.90.40.163 16:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Ranger

Crippling Shot

increased recharge time to 2 seconds.

Was this really necessary? It's not like you can throw it around with reckless abandon at 10e, anyway...--Glenforder 22:25, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Usually 4-6 after expertise. VegaObscura 00:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

LOL this isnt going to change anything. Most peoples Bow attack speed will fit It nicely. I know a bow isnt 2 second attack speed but still. This is a joke. Be a man and change it to 5 recharge. Ajc2123

All present, raise your hands if you hate skills that require skill to use. --71.229 02:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC) that's your cure, ajc

VegaObscura, it's an effective 4-6 second recharge then, if you consider that a ranger has 1 energy per second. --Life Infusion «T» 02:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The only difference is you get 4-5 of them off before you have to wait for said 1 energy per second.

Who cares how fast you get your energy back? -- Armond Warblade 15:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Hunter's Shot

decreased activation time to 1 second.

As it should be. --Srakin 05:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

pretty soon every ranger attack will have 1 second activation 76.26.189.65 06:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh yay. I had been playing with this on my ranger. Wonder how it works. I'll have to test it after they fix Wail of Doom and I leave my guild hall again. MiraLantis 19:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Instead of changing all the activation time to 1 sec, maybe just up the damage or effect of those skills. Hunter shot has low damage, and a fairly conditional bleed bonus, which is outclassed by the other bleed-inducing skills, particularly screaming shot. --8765 19:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Pin Down

decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.

Thank you :)

nice. --Life Infusion «T» 22:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Not nice. Fantastic. Just a bit sad it took so damn long to get this done. Still: [hands Izzy more kudos]--ILLUSiVE 12:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Ritualist

Ancestors' Rage

decreased damage dealt to 5..110.

3/4 cast time would probably make this less of a problem. --Life Infusion «T» 01:40, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Way to miss the fucking point. How many people were saying 8s recharge? How many people were saying 10 energy? How many people were saying 1s cast? And you go and drop the damage by 20. Yeah, that'll really make a difference. -- Armond Warblade 15:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah still imba. Sure the Rit will probably stop being used if you get rid of the imba skills. Too bad. The players shouldn't have to suffer because of a poorly designed class. --TimeToGetIntense 17:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Damage reduction is ok, now set recharge to 10 seconds and cast time to 0.75 and nobody has to QQ... Really more than what I suggested now shouldn't be done, cause Ritu players shouldn't have to suffer either. A. von Rin 18:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

As long as this remains a 1/4 cast, everybody ELSE suffers. 10 energy and 1 second cast with old dmg plz. ~Shard (talk / Nerf List) 03:03, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree, it was the cast time and energy cost that made it ridiculous. 130 or so damage is nothing special when you look at PBAOE. It just happens that Ancestor's Rage was really low recharge, low energy cost, and about impossible to interrupt reliably. It just needs a reasonable cast time and energy cost.--Life Infusion «T» 19:03, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone really care that the damage was reduced, anyway? This is still LOLHUGE damage. -- Armond Warblade 01:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Nerf? Can't see s--t, captain. Still works as previously advertised. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 16:53, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Considering the monk spell "Balthazar's Aura" Does barely any more dmg, but costs a shitload more, recharges longer, and is removable, this skill is teh imba. Moush 17:26, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Consider holy vs. lightning damage. Anyway's if the intent is to keep the dmg at this then up the recharge to 12 seconds so this is not so spammable, the casting isn't so much of an issue as the low recharge. With the 50% recharge added it'll be balanced. The Sins We Die By 01:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Death Pact Signet

now resurrects party member with 15..100% Energy, instead of the caster's current Energy; The energy returned now scales based on your Restoration Magic.

makes sense. --Life Infusion «T» 22:48, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

No doesn't @ 3 seconds cast time and the possibility to die... Cast time should go back to 2 seconds and energy should be 20...100% - would really be enough for this skill (and yes I play PvP / GvG -.-) A. von Rin 00:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Why izzy why? death pact was my favorite skill in all of GW, because of how balanced the risk was with the reward. When the 3 second cast and recharge balance hit I thought that it was not needed but went along with it. with this update it becomes another Resto res, it has fallen from its once awesome throne. Now in PVP (RA mostly for me) When a party member goes down, if i am at low health the res is almost useless as it will cause death for both me and the player i just ressed at 65 life, the only bonus was being able to bring back my monk in 3 seconds with full energy when i switch to a +15-1 set. Also when DPact was originally introduced monk reses were still at 8 seconds (possibly six) and a two second res was amazing and totally outweighed the whole death thing. now as new skill balances have moved the cast time of all monk reses down to 6 and some down to 4 having a 1 second advantage with possibly less energy and health seems entirely not worth it, especially when you factor in the whole "Death" part of the skill. Now the skill is nothing but a blue res sig, that you can possibly use more than once if the player you res dosn't get spiked as before they stand up. -- Pwncho 00:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a nice change.Ajc2123

Yes, nice change.. we have next useless resurrect skill! :D Klotek 10:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

1. Don't balance based on RA.
2. Don't res target at your current health when your current health is 65.
3. Don't compare 2s/3s cast reses to 6s/8s cast ones.
4. Don't complain before seeing if this brings resto rits into play.

-- Armond Warblade 15:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

@ Armond: 3 sec. cast time, higher recharge, lower energy regain AND the possibility to die is too much. As I stated, setting cast time back to 2 sec. and having all the other disadvantages would be ok and maybe help to increase Ritus popularity besides flag-running (which I doubt). Maybe they could put this skill into communing, which is the worst line atm imho. A. von Rin 17:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This skill is still awesome and made of win. At 3 resto it gives ~35% Energy which is good. Whether it's 2 or 3 second cast doesn't matter that much. Akirai Annuvil 23:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Wrong: On a Mesmer it really matters if it's 3 or 2 seconds and lower cast times are always better... o.O With all the nerfs giving it it's low cast time back is too much for you? A. von Rin 00:06, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Why are you using it on a mesmer...? Use FoMF, which is basically your spam-res. Would you be happier if it were a 60 second effect? Because, seriously, if your monks are any good (and you're not being completely overpowered by the other team), you ought to be able to stand up for two minutes anyway. -- Armond Warblade 01:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

No we don't use it on Mesmer tbh ^^ and 2 minutes don't really matter, if they do there comes "game over" anyway. But you don't seriously want to tell me that a fast rezz isn't superior to a slow one? o.O The (bad) examples only were there to highlight my problem which is: Wasn't that OP anymore but energy reduction is maybe necessary. So why should it hurt to give it its fast cast back... A. von Rin 02:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Keep the skill as it is now, but lower the conditional death timer some. 45 seconds, one minute or so. --Reklaw 16:59, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Soothing Memories

decreased casting time to .75 seconds; decreased recharge to 4 seconds.

interesting change --Life Infusion «T» 22:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

About time this was put on par with the other Rit heal spells. Approved =D --Srakin 05:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

WTB something similar for Mending Grip78.2.30.181 23:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

/agree A. von Rin 23:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Warrior

"Shields Up!"

increased armor gain to 60; functionality changed to: "For 5..11 seconds, you and all party members within earshot gain 60 armor against incoming projectile attacks."

Wow, this skill's dead. --71.229 20:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

ummm no, thats like 1/2 damage User 24.141.45.72 21:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Against Rangers and Paragons only. I'd compare it to Can't Touch This, except this might actually some minor play if Rspike ever really comes back. --71.229 21:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Less than 1/2 damage, but...only against rangers. How prevalent is rspike, anwyay? — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 21:30, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I've seen three groups in the last month, and they all sucked. Like, casting-AR-and-DA-in-the-middle-of-their-group-without-being-interrupted bad. --71.229 21:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

nice! +60 armor is like 75% less damage BTW Life Infusion «T» 22:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

...versus projectiles. Which means spears and Cripshot. Which means 75% less damage from Paragons, half the time, for a heavy spec. --71.229 22:35, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

most balanced teams run a ranger. 5 Paragon teams get hit severely by this. --Life Infusion «T» 22:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Apply says hi. And that's just pure build wars. --71.229 22:49, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

all bonus damage is armor ignoring (a lot of preps), I don't know what your point is. --Life Infusion «T» 01:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think we have had a miscommunication. I'm saying this skill is basically dead in the water since all it counters is one specific team (paraway) and it requires such a heavy spec to even keep it up half the time. The Apply comment was @ yours about most balanced teams running a ranger, and the build wars one was @ this skill only countering paraway. --71.229 01:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

what bothers me though is that it still is better on paragons. 10 energy just isn't good on a warrior. --Life Infusion «T» 04:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Kay. You nerfed this. That makes a little sense, since this was more of a paragon skill anyway, and everyone knows how much nerfing paragons need. --Srakin 05:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

On a site note, I should point out that +60 AL is not 75% less damage (you'd need +80 for that). It's a logarithmic scale, thus it's about 65% less damage. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 05:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Pretty sure Damage says that +40 armor is half damage, flat. -- Armond Warblade 15:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

40 is half, and 60 is half and half of a half making it 50% + half of a half, if half would make it 75%, half of a half makes 65% apparently, i have no idea wtf i just saiy but basically to get 75% you need 80 armor... 60 makes a number less then 75% 76.26.189.65 16:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Have we all forgotten that most sins in pvp do piercing damage? --Lou-Saydus 17:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Have you forgotten piercing =/= projectile? Srsly, the only reason to use this skill was for the blocking, which saved you from Apply and interrupt. The armor was just a bonus. So, now this skill has no point, but a nice bonus. = DEAD. GJ IZZY. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 17:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Doh! --Lou-Saydus 21:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think everyone forgets that this used to be, in its earliest stages, +50armor versus piercing and 50% block against projectiles (which was useless once Rangers swapped to ele bowstrings and the like). Then everyone got used to the 50% block and +24 armor against everything under the sun including melee and spells. Essentially it is now damage mitigation without the interrupt stopping. What bothers me is that it is 10 energy. --Life Infusion «T» 19:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I echo above; this was an integral part of the way I dealt with charr and stone summit while working shiverpeaks and ascalon areas (I don't have GWEN, but that would count, too) becuase it prevented the added effects, especially cripple that can be so deadly in those areas, and allowed me to escape a wipe most of the time, by using a running stance with a shout. This now elimiantes all shouts that caused allies to block. It may have been "neccesary" in PvP but it was crucial in its old form, for PvE and especially running. I can't image why ANet discourages running, but if that's the point, it should be published somewhere amoung a list of discouraged activities. Screw armor. Vidnuev 23:52, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Did you miss the part where the +al didn't matter, because the blocking was the important part? On another note, this is now the ultimate defense against bars carrying Flare, Fireball, Lightning Orb, Lightning Bolt, Water Trident (well maybe not), etc. -- Armond Warblade 01:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

NOPE. I just tested it and it doesn't work with projectile SPELLS. Only projectile attacks. I honestly would like to keep the block, but reduce it to maybe 33% and then reduce the AL gain to be scaleable at 24...60 AL vs. projectiles.

What's your problem with this Armond? Be happy, we now can finally deal with those terrible OP Flare-Spamming Eles out there because Izzy gave us this powerfull counter skill (BuildWars ftw?). I don't like this change but if it shall stay like this, please lower energy cost to 5 and recharge to 20 to make it a "better" support skill for warriors (not only paras). Omg, my suggestion doesn't really help this skill at all tbh, because it's a anti-build skill - which is just bad... >.< A. von Rin 16:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

"Watch Yourself!"

functionality changed to: "Party members within earshot gain +5..25 armor for 10 seconds. This shout ends after 1..3 incoming attack[s]."

worst change ever. now you get no benift from havening this skill.PLZ lean to stop neffing things.75.165.122.205 20:42, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

stfu User 24.141.45.72 21:23, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Holy crap...I mean seriously, was WY so overpowered with a 4 second recharge that you sat down and said "lets make no one ever want to use this skill again?--Ryudo 21:28, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

*shrug* That's what they did with LoD. Amirite? — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 21:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

With a four second recharge, you can still use this skill quite a lot, it just can't be use ALL the time. I like it. Mr.Hobo 21:34, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

4 sec recharge + 4 adren build for something that lasts for 3 attacks....Im not digging it.--Ryudo 21:35, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

this skill has been nerffed like 10 times. it wasn't over powered at all it might have been with another skill but by it self it wasn't what he needs to do is buff old skills that one one uses to counter it not nerff it for the 100th time buffing is another way of nerffing which is something izzy doesn't understand from the looks of it. all i have seen the last few skill updates is nerffs to popular builds.75.165.122.205 21:38, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Why do I get the feeling the monks an midline are upset and the frontlines smiling right now... I really dont find this or some other skills worth using at all after their nerfs. 74.229.66.241 21:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow. Just... wow. --71.229 00:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

REMOVE recharge with this new functionality! Now it is just a waste of adrenalin... A. von Rin 00:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yea remove the recharge. Prokiller88 01:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This skill has been killed for PvE. I liked to use it with Soldier's Stance. I also do not get it why it now becomes important to nerf this skill even more, after so many years. :( --Longasc 01:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I too used this with Soldier's Stance, along with FGJ...that build is dead now tho.--Ryudo 02:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

More hate to Paras and Wars who liked to give their party an extra boost. It's updates like these that are driving people away from the game. Seriously. Izzy, is PvP all you care about here? Another RIP skill. Pretty soon we won't have many options left. TristanDark84 02:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Recharge needs to stay, otherwise it's an energy machine for Paragons. --70.190.102.87 14:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I want to punch this isiah guy in the face....must..punch....-24.16.45.133 02:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Kay! You nerfed this skill too. See, I wouldn't mind at ALL if it weren't for the fact that Paragons didn't get a buff out of all this. It makes SENSE for this skill to be nerfed because a warrior's job is NOT party-wide buffs. HOWEVER. That being said, it IS the paragon's job, and they're finding it pretty damn difficult now, since their only decent party-protection skills aren't seeing any buffs and the skills they steal from warriors are getting nerfed now too. >_< --Srakin 05:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Which is why they have a nice set of ones for offense, rather than defense, which have been useful for a while now and haven't been nerfed. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 05:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

they didnt kill it, it commited suicide... armor versus 3 attacks, oh my *facepalm* 76.26.189.65 06:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Indirect nerf as well to any warrior or para skill that required 'whilst under the effect of a shout of chant'. This is the only skill which was usable in that way, no they're all pretty much uselss as no other shouts have anywhere the decent synergy this on did. RIP WYS, Soldier's Strike, Soldier's Stance, Soldier's Fury plus the others I can't remember Ajax Baby Eater 10:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

oh noez the soldier boy build is gone *cries* why izzy! why!!!!!!! 76.26.189.65 14:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Troll somewhere else. --71.229 02:03, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Trolls are terrible. If Disney taught me anything, it's that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. MiraLantis 02:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

No, no. Trolling is doing something to intentionally annoy, disgust, or infuriate people. I was telling the truth. --71.229 02:13, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

What is a troll? MiraLantis 02:52, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Hell, going by that you're the troll here. "It necessarily involves a value judgment made by one user about the value of another's contribution." Your post was wrong and caused drama. --71.229 02:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

it was too god prior the update - also "exploitable" for paragons...now it got possibly overnerved, as Ryudo said :P —ZerphaThe Improver 03:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Possibly Overnerfed? Its had its throat slit and left in a ditch to die. This will never see play again the way it is now, its unusable. Ajax Baby Eater 12:09, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

It is not only this skill, as you already pointed out, it kills the whole "Soldier's" line of skills. And it also kills the whole tactics attribute. Healing Signet seems to be the only reason it exists anymore at all. Lion's Comfort got strengthened like mad, the tactics part removed - it now buffs some adrenaline plus heals and requires only strength. 14 Axe/13 STR warriors with LC seem to be the future. The game does not become better. If the 20 AL was really such a problem, reduce this or do something else, but do not take away the only maintainable warrior shout that is necessary for many other skills/synergies. The collateral damage of this nerf is too high. The skill was there from day one, just because ANet screwed up the Paragon class warriors should not suffer, too.

Leadership shouldn't trigger on warrior shouts, then there wouldn't be the big problems with those skills... :/ A. von Rin 14:16, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Leadership shouldn't trigger on shouts, only chants IMO. --Life Infusion «T» 19:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This killed it for everyone except paragons, who didn't really care about its effect anyway. -- Armond Warblade 01:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Axe Rake

decreased adrenaline cost to 5 strikes.

Is this a buff? Prokiller88 21:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

yes, a rather large one. --Life Infusion «T» 22:22, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

pressure backline axe!!!!!!76.26.189.65 06:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Oooh... *runs off to try this one* MiraLantis 20:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Axe Twist

decreased adrenaline cost to 5 strikes.

conditional weakness isn't that strong but I guess this makes it chainable with Dismember. --Life Infusion «T» 22:23, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

pressure backline axe!!!!!!!! 76.26.189.65 06:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Gash

decreased adrenaline cost to 6 strikes.

seems like it is good with cripslash. If used with sever, you still need 2 more strikes. --Life Infusion «T» 22:33, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

It's good with standing slash too. sever - gash - standing is beefy damage. --Symbol 01:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

true but a pure damage skill like Standing slash is hard to fit on a bar once you have cripslash+gash+ bull's strike +interrupt/shock+frenzy+rush/enraging+res.--Life Infusion «T» 01:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Standard cripslash bar carries Sun and Moon which is pretty much a pure damage skill. Standing slash is a pretty good alternative now (MOAR damage for less adren) --Symbol 04:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

S&M slash is unblockable and will probably do same amount of damage as standing slash, even more so if youre using conjure. and it gives a net +1 adren. S&M just beats it flat out 76.26.189.65 07:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Nope, you're wrong. Sun and Moon does less damage to a 60 AL target unless you crit on both hits, and even less on harder targets. Also, 6 ad is better than 8 adrenaline + 1 adren rebate. Sun and Moon is better only if you're using conjures or FGJ. --Symbol 12:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Irrelevant. Final Thrust >>>>>>>> Standing Slash. --TimeToGetIntense 17:40, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Final thrust is bad for pressure. If I want a hard spike, I'll go axe. --Symbol 22:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Final Thrust owns for pressure. It's for finishing off pressured targets before the Monk gets off WoH or something. On the other hand, it's bad for actual team spikes because you have to time it to come after the rest of your team's damage, making the spike slower. Final Thrust becomes better at scoring kills the better your have the enemy pressured. On the other hand, stuff like Standing Slash don't actually add much to your DPS. Under perfect conditions (dummies on isle of the nameless), it adds 7.2 DPS. In actual play, this is much lower because it's an adrenaline skill. Adrenaline combos are more for scoring kills than causing tons of damage over time, even if you're playing pressure. --TimeToGetIntense 01:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The point of adren spikes in pressure builds is not to get outright kills, it's to draw prot. The kills come when monks no longer have the e to respond efficiently. Final thrust is bad for that because you frenzy less aggressively (no rush cancel after spiking), you build adrenaline slower, and unload less often. Final thrust is great once their team breaks and you can beast low targets, but it's worse for applying pressure in the first place. All the mass pressure builds that run cripslash (condi pressure, hexes) don't use final, they use Sun and Moon. So the proper comparison in this case would be S&M. --Symbol 03:12, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

They use it because it can't be blocked. =\ --TimeToGetIntense 05:41, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

You still need to build 8 adrenaline...--Life Infusion «T» 13:45, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Final Thrust is bad because you can't run rush with it. Pluto 08:38, 9 March 2008 (UTC) edit: unless you're very brave.

That can't be the reason. You can run Dash and until recently you could run Pious Haste. I think the reason is that there's a high chance of a sword warrior's finisher being blocked because you have to set up with Bleeding. Unless you're running condi overload pressure you give a really long warning compared to an Axe Warrior. And I haven't seen anyone run condi overload in a while. --TimeToGetIntense 08:04, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Dash is too expensive energy wise for stand pressure. Ditto for pious. The beauty of rush is that you have an (almost) always available cancel, a 100% uptime speed boost, and no energy concerns so you can pour your two pips into frenzy or bull's or whatever random utility you took from your secondary. Nowadays final thrust is mostly used in splits. I've seen it occasionally on Rage of the Ntouka bars (for obvious reasons). Also, [dR] lost to condi overload last night, so it's definitely around. I think it was that headbutt + plague signet build, but with three warriors (two sword + one hammer). --Symbol 21:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Lion's Comfort

decreased adrenaline cost to 4 strikes; functionality changed to: "All of your signets are disabled for 12 seconds. You are healed for 50..110 Health, and gain 0..3 strike[s] of adrenaline."

YAY --Tr33zon ಠ_ಠ (Talk - Contribs) 21:51, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

This kinda scares me, gives strength warriors massive healing without effecting their adren gain too much. this + FGJ = heal loop. --Lou-Saydus 21:57, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't heal as much as healing sig, the negative is pretty strong compared to healing sig. But still a pretty good buff. Prokiller88 22:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

You can't use it until you hit someone. If you use up your adrenaline then it means you can't heal. Heal Sig is used on splits for this reason. --Life Infusion «T» 22:24, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

as for heal loop issues, it should probably be given 1 recharge ala Whirlwind attack/kneecutter. --Life Infusion «T» 00:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Already been done. Think this is what the second update today did. Ajax Baby Eater 00:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Awesome! GG @ Izzy. A. von Rin 00:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

use with magehunters for awesome KD spam 76.26.189.65 07:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I logged onto my assassin yesterday and it showed 0 adrenaline gain no matter the attribute. Is that a bug (or has it been fixed already)? Nicky Silverstar 07:48, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This skill is under strength, so as an assassin you can never bring its attribute up. You were probably mistaking it for being under tactics. VegaObscura 08:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was, I just realized it now. I always used it for it's tactics heal with Watch Yourself but they now moved it entirely to Strength. I somehow overlooked that part, sorry about that. I don't play melee that often. ^^ Nicky Silverstar 08:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Magehunter's Smash

increased adrenaline cost to 7 strikes; functionality changed to: "If this attack hits, target foe is knocked down. If your target is under the effects of an enchantment, this attack cannot be blocked."

probably would've been nicer with 6 adrenaline cost. It's a good change regardless. --Life Infusion «T» 22:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

OP! well just kinda. Prokiller88 01:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Hell yes that would be OP. Unblockable 6 adren KD? Who would use any other elite on a hammer? --Symbol 03:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

wow this is liek devastating hammer, just worse --Cursed Angel 03:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

unblockable devastating hammer that is. --Life Infusion «T» 03:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

actually, the thing is devastating hammer allows a chain with Heavy Blow. Having it adrenaline based means you need something like Enraging charge to build the 7 adrenaline anyway, otherwise cannot be blocked is all for naught. --Life Infusion «T» 04:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but the weakness gets drawn/dismissed/RCed before heavy lands...that's why people have switched to dev + hammer bash. I can guarantee you that 90% of hammer warriors are going to be using Magehunters + bash now, it's just too damn good. --Symbol 04:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Pulverizing Smash syncs good with this--Ryudo 05:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This skill is perfect now, useable warrior hammer elites -

• Devastating causes weakness to chain with heavy blow for the strongest of the hammer chain, has synergy with Auspicious and Overbearing
• Earthshaker causes a useful AoE knockdown and has synergy with Yeti Smash and Crude Swing
• Backbreaker causes 4 second knockdown for the most potent knockdown lock on 1 character, has synergy with Mokele to offset the 10 adren
• Magehunter causes a nearly unavoidable knockdown that often allows for disruption of enemy backline saving a gale, some synergy with irresitable

this is by far one of the best balances this game recieved in a long time 76.26.189.65 06:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Good update for this skill. I feel the skill will probably overtake dev hammer for most warriors. Almost think it might be better balanced at 8 adrenaline, but 7 might be fine. There's really only one problem with this skill right now... The animation doesn't look like the other Hammer KDs. I know this seems minor, but I really like being able to see the kd coming more clearly so I can prot it better, or throw up my balanced stance if I got it. It should be a pretty easy change to implement, so here's to hoping to see it soon =) Pluto 06:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

for gvg this will definately be the more popular choice since damage isnt as important on a hammer warrior 76.26.189.65 07:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Will Dev hammer even see any use now? P A R A S I T I C 03:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

76.26.189.65, that's not true. Damage is equally important to all Warriors. The thing is, the utility of this skill is more important than 40 or so damage on your hammer combo. --TimeToGetIntense 12:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

So you say it's not true and damage is equally important, then you go on to say the utility is more important than the damage, or in other words the damage isn't as important as the utility, which is what he said. --Lytel 12:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Stop trying to simplify it. Time is saying that that amount of utility is more important than 40 damage, not that all utility is more important than all damage. -Auron 12:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to simplify it. :S And I wasn't trying to say "all" utility is more important than "all" damage. I just read what user 76.26.189.65 said and then what Time said and it seemed like he contradicted himself. User 76.26.189.65 said the damage wasn't as important on a hammer warrior - as important as what? I thought it was implied that he was saying it isn't as important as an unblockable knockdown since the context is Magehunter's Smash, but I guess you could interpret it that he meant damage isn't important on a hammer warrior in general, in that case yeah, I agree with Time. --Lytel 12:44, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Hammers do plenty of damage just with autoattack (more than both swords and axes). So +damage is a luxury, not a requirement. --Symbol 22:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

forgive me if i wasnt clear then, ill repeat and fix it "for gvg this will definately be the more popular choice since damage isnt as important 'as an unblockable knockdown' on a hammer warrior", its also the reason why they are often seeing running, elite kd, crushing, hammer bash and bullstrike. essentially ignoring a pure damage skill such as mighty blow or body blow 76.26.189.65 23:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Speaking as an almost exclusive hammer warrior, this skill now has its uses in utility-heavy GvG, but is irrelevant in the arenas. As is the problem with unblockable skills, once you use them, you're back to being blocked, so knocking someone down, causing bleeding, or whatever, isn't relevant. It's actually possible to make a near infinite KD chain using this skill (made one a few nights back), but of course, it's unreliable and doesn't deal out enough damage for it to be of any consequence. You'll be blind, blocked or killed way before your series of KDs will deal out enough damage to kill someone. Sins also have ways of causing rolling KDs, but you don't see them because they're too vulnerable, unreliable, and most of all, they don't deal much damage.

I'll add that damage is very important to a hammer warrior, like any other warrior. You're not just a glorified disruption / KD machine. You're also there for spikes, and the resulting damage is very important if you want to kill your target monk as he's lying on the ground. +40 damage is a massive difference between a dead monk and one that can poop out RoF to save his butt. That's why I typically run a Forceful Blow build in arenas (but not in GvG obviously), as the FB + HB, CB + PA build deals more damage than a DH build could ever dream of doing. Knocking people down is fine and good, but if you or your team can't kill them, you're just being a nuisance. --Reklaw 04:21, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Mokele Smash

decreased recharge time to 12 seconds; increased adrenaline gain to 1..3.

thanks for listening.

Yay, they took my suggestion :)--SavageX 02:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Sprint

decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.

part of the attractiveness of enraging charge is the dual usage (adrenaline+ speed). Even if it ends if you hit, it doesn't matter since you were going to probably frenzy anyway. A lot of people bring rush and drop energy stances altogether. --Life Infusion «T» 01:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This is still nice to see though, as it makes this a more viable option for people who want a guaranteed speed boost. --Srakin 05:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

good for hammer warrios who use hammer bash that causes them to lose all adren and they need something to cancel thier flail and catching up to your enemy and still being at max adren to instantly do your full hammer combo 76.26.189.65 07:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

splitway? --Lou-Saydus 17:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

finally...i mean, who used this skill if there was something like Enraging Charge? —ZerphaThe Improver 03:18, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

this is comparable to rush not enraging, since enraging ends after 1 hit 76.26.189.65 00:01, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Nerf Bat usage

This is how izzy swings his nerf bat, [1] --76.2.228.61 04:53, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

He better swing it to WoD now. Prokiller88 06:16, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

He will just miss and hit something like Life Transfer or Jagged Bones. --76.2.228.61 06:46, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, that is true. Prokiller88 16:21, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

...Win. -- Armond Warblade 01:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

You sir, you win many internets for this. I couldn't agree more with you. And it's because of this inefficient swinging that players are being driven away from GW in droves. Might be time for someone over there to wake up before GW2 fails to sell! TristanDark84 05:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh stop your pathetic winging and have fun with different builds that are now possible, you act like nerfs only affect you when you're playing the game and that it doesn't affect other players, every nerf to every skill that can be used against you is a buff to yourself. Don't think your young minds can actually do a better job than someone who spends his professional time looking at the game rather than going to school. --Ckal Ktak 13:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

So...what new builds are available for Assassins? --Deathwing 21:48, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

GW1 could go completely stagnant until GW2 is out (and it definitely will once it is out). It comes down to whether changes skills or not is a choice of a lesser of two evils. --8765 22:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe not this time, but there can be new builds which crop out of pure nerfs, remember when shadow prison got its ass finally kicked? All of a sudden there was more than one build a sin would use. --Ckal Ktak 08:46, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Rofls at "So...what new builds are available for Assassins?". Enough laughing. I'm pissed at all the nerfs to sins. Izzy needs to dust off his buffbat and put it to work before it rots, especially on sin skills that are totally ignored (Enduring Toxin, Mirrored Stance, Wastrel's Collapse, Seeping Wound, Assault Enchantments, the list goes on...) --Lann 15:30, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

There was the A/Mo signet spammer :o but that got nerfed... Anyone seeing a trend? 74.229.66.241 17:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Right, assassins complain about nerfs. How about nerfagons? There are overpowered skills that were used, but seriously...look at all the junk in Leadership attribute and Command attribute. "Help Me!", "Can't touch this!", Burning refrain, Angelic Protection, Enduring Harmony, "Make Your Time!", etc... --Spura 15:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

True, Paragons have only a few viable skills. Fortunately, though, those few skills are among the best in the game. I'd rather have the best skills and a ton of junk ones than an entire attribute that is mediocre (smiting, communing, beast mastery, shadow arts, etc). Those skills you mentioned do need re-working, but Paragons as a whole can live without them. Assassins, quite frankly, are a bad class right now. They suck outright in PvE, with no one-hit-kill PvE skill (with a chance of failure based on crit strikes) and most of their survivability being flimsy enchants, and in PvP, they're only used in gimmicks - a sign that something is wrong with the class. -Auron 15:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, you might think it is well that paragons have a few good skills, but it makes the profession so BORING. Really... They were announced as a support class. How many skills do paragons in GvG pack these days for support? 1 or 2. Defensive Anthem/Song of Restoration+Ballad of Restoration. That is it. Everything else is not there for support. Spear attack skills, IAS(aggressive refrain), an otherwise lackluster chant to keep up IAS(Anthem of Flame), a lackluster shout for energy(GTFE). Instead of support class we have an attacker(spear) class with elite slot for support. --Spura 18:13, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not complaining. A paragon without a spear is simply a monk. Paragon autoattacks doing serious damage gave the class depth. You *can* run like 8 support skills, if you wanted; there are a number of passable skills that could be run on a full support bar. However, to manage energy, the paragon has to be attacking, and since his attacks are capable of doing damage anyway, why not put some spec into spear mastery? In the end, yeah, if you were expecting 8 defensive anthems on every para bar, you'd probably be let down. But paragons certainly have a unique role in Guild Wars; what other support class has a literally free elite slot (for any secondary!), with energy managed fine by non-elite skills? Mesmers come close, but again, they don't do any real damage by wanding. -Auron 03:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

LOL sins are fine in PvE. Moebius and fox's PvE are great builds for it. In PvP they need buffs to create some new builds cuz atm there are three viable sin builds: Shattering Assault, Fox's Scythe and GG sin.--The Gates Assassin 09:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Run that moebius sin in DoA and tell me how it feels to be blind/miss-chance-hexed about 90% of the time. Moebius is nice, but it simply doesn't cut it in high-end PvE. -Auron 05:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Paragon autoattacks made the class overpowered if support skills were worth a damn. They didn't give class depth, they gave it nerfs and now they are one-dimensional spearchuckers. Paragon without a spear in not a monk. The only monk thing about paragon is half of motivation attribute. Command and leadership is not monkish at all. Besides I blame it on izzy, for not giving paragons not even one shout that targets an enemy. They are too defensive. There is no viable full support bar. Also the only reason paragons have free elite slot is because ALL THEIR ELITES SUCK so using a secondary elite is preferable. --Spura 13:59, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Defensive Anthem isn't at all like Aegis? Brace Yourself isn't at all like Aura Stab? Cautery Signet isn't similar to Martyr? And as you said, a few motivation skills are like partyheals - but there is more. Song of purification is a remove-on-skill-use condi removal, song of conc prevents interruption, make haste is a maintainable 33% speed buff; lots of cool things monks can't do are done on a gon. And then you get PvE, where they get TNTF and (war secondary) SY...

I agree, most of their elites suck. There's about one maybe two per attribute that are worth using. What about war, though? Same story there. Eviscerate, Cripslash, Dev Hammer, maybe earth shaker... and that's pretty much it. Rit? Uh... offering of spirit. End. Paragons actually do get a selection compared to some classes, and they get the option of expel or icy shackles or something for the lulz.

Yeah, the spear-chucking aspect was a change - it did give depth. Without it, Paragons'd just be rits; rits used a different mechanic (spirits) to do party-wide protection and healing. Paragons use the shout mechanic to the same end.

Sadly, you're right, a full support bar is hampered by energy. Even if you had 8 skills worth using, you'd probably run out of energy without spamming GtfE or WY on recharge. That's just how things turned out :/ -Auron 05:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Nerfing

   This probably isn't the place for this...

Ive been looking at the various skill nerfs (balancing and w/e ever they call it) and I can't help noticing that a very large portion of those are negative. Increased recharge, Increased energy cost, Decreased damage/duration. I'm afraid that at the rate this happens it could cause some problems latter on. I think that there are some overpowered skills that do deserve nerfs but most of the updates affect trivial or non overpowered skills making them even less powerful. I don't think that scrapping skills is the proper way to balance the game. And another thing is the total modifications (Avatar of Grenth and Pious Assault as examples) those skills just ar'nt very usefull anymore AoG is actually totaly useless if you ask me hardly worth an elite skill.

I suppose my point is that if skills get constantly nerfed and very rarely buffed your just ruining builds some of which are not overpowered without providing the means to make new ones. Sooner or later people will stop trying and I belive that at that point the game will start to decay and sooner or later will die out, which wouldn't be a very good marketing scheme for guild wars 2 now would it. 67.55.4.12 05:17, 18 April 2008 (UTC)