[Dev Update] Skill Balances and Hero Battles

No fix for jade isle, imo thats the most broken thing in the game at the moment. Ohh well can't have everything.
Thanks for the quick fix for Lamentation.

First of all, thank you for listening and implementing these changes to skills and Hero Battle mechanics.

But I agree with Byron that SP is still a bit good...but the tweak is better than nothing. And while the changes to HB are great (no more lame holding builds) now we might have lame running builds. I'd like to see different objectives in HB other than capping shrines, that way any gimmick won't have an advantage on every map.

Hooray, Fast Casting Discord.

Night night everyone.

Don't expect it to continue. They only gave such reasoning because they're changing skills in the middle of a tourney.

There's the death of my PvE E/Rt build that concentrated around those 3 channelling skills that I've used since, well, Keining Center right after Factions came out basically. I didn't see much increase in power with their spirit range buff -- I'd always stand in the range of a spirit anyway. *sigh* The long cast times make my use of Master of Magic all but useless with it, and the build already suffered from waiting for skill recharges.

Another of my characters nerfed dramatically because of PvP abuse (the first being various attempts at building a decent support Paragon).

Well pretty much any regular PVP player will know the reason for each skill nerf, so the explainations provided for each skill change is mostly for PVE players....but sadly that still won't stop the complaints about nerfs.

LOL, that's probably the reason why I've been so complacent with the change. I use it on my Me/N.

Like Cacheelma, I'm glad that there are at least reasons given for the updates. Then again KamikazeChicken is right, it's probably only because of whatever lame elitist event is going on right now. The shadow prison adjustment is much welcomed. I could care less about the hero battles change seeing how I don't like heroes or their battles and frankly I don't understand how anyone does.

Is Anet going to fix the bug preventing some accounts from getting to Hero Battles in the first place? It's mentioned right in the wiki that some can only unlock it via a PVP character, even if Heroes have previously unlocked in PVE. I don't have a free slot, nor do I want to delete a PVE character to make one available.

So what am I to do?

Go without.

You're not missing much.

In case the devs haven't seen any discussion on the skills:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10125730 -Many dagger attack issues, ie, no one uses them, buffing golden attacks, etc. Making leads useful, etc etc.

People have talked about AoD being inferior, and it still is comparing the cost of both of the combo styles involved with hexed and enchanted.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10115432
Honestly, I think BoA made the Shadow sin overpowered, not the hex.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10119903 -Another discussion on a skill that was "nerfed". Pats idea seemed to balance out the damage, while keeping the skill worth taking on a primary. This only saw play as a gimmick, I doubt it will see use again with a 2 second cast time. Its like putting a 2 second cast time on Searing Flames.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10125403 -Another skill discussed. In two threads. http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10127114

Id also like to quote something Wasteland said in the second thread, as he seems to have hit the nail on the head:
You also make a gimmick skill that is no longer playable, instead of balancing the damage on hexes, conditions and hexes. Id rather have pat's idea, or have the recharge upped. Or even my idea of making the skill so you would have to apply your own condition. (Another) Or make the npcs that make this skill to powerful not be able to spike as soon as the conditions are met, maybe disable hex spells and condition spells for 5 seconds when this is used, or dropping the damage dealt. Id rather have it back to its prebuff status than the skill it is going to be.

As of the last change in the ladders there is no "middle of the tourney" and they explicitly stated that skill balances will happen at fairly short intervals. This is now to be normal.

As to why they are giving reasoning - note the beginning of the Gaile's post "It's time for another official Dev Update, straight from the Guild Wars Design Team. Hooray!". Once more - new standard operating procedure.

Obviously this attempt to make gamers happy will fail as much as pretty much any other thing they could ever do (or any other company). Those that tend to be happy will be, those that want to find something to complain about always will. Though I do think this makes those of us "happy" people happier so it is still a win. Hope fully Anet looks more at the compliments (I, for one, hope these stay at least as regular as they are now - I also miss the old weekly questionnaire they did even if they did tend to cover the same stuff a lot).

Feel free to think otherwise - no skin off my back. They will either continue to do this or not, in the end all arguing either will will not accomplish much as it is in their court as to who ends up being correct.

a decent patch up to hero battles but it is still in desperate need of a major fix.

Ensign had the right idea (base damage, +damage if hexed, +damage if condition, +damage if enchanted). Increasing casting time to 2 seconds basically removes it from the game again. The spell is simply too conditional to be anything but a spike gimmick.

In the right direction at least, but what's more important for Assassin primaries is that with a zero in the attribute it lasts long enough for their entire attack chain.

The difference between Wastrel's Demise and interrupts is that the former is on a conditional that *you* control. For the usage it was getting it was effectively unconditional because the target was usually knocked down already anyway.

Do you not understand that this is an emergency update and not a full rebalance?

Glad to see Lamentation get hammered. Spirit Burn is still a bit too good but with the other changes Ritualist damage should be reasonable again. I like these changes in general, they get the point.

The Discord change was suggested by someone who has never used the skill and doesn't get it at all. A 2s cast on Discord makes the skill more horrendous than it has ever been. Simply reverting it to its previous form would have been better. I'm glad to see something done about Discord but the particulars are very poorly thought out.

The Assassin changes don't do anything to Assassins. Blades of Steel was normally run at +56 or +60 anyway so a lower cap doesn't do anything. The Shadow Prison change I approve of, for making it a bit harder to use on Warriors, but that's the extent of it. If Assassins are percieved to be a balance issue, this doesn't address them at all.

Wastrel's Demise needed that for a long time, thank you for finally getting around to fixing it.


Hero battles: still don't care.

Peace,
-CxE

Realized it after my soapbox moment, will edit.

Me neither. I do not see how such changes make an inherently super boring and slow paced arena more fun.

It maybe helps, but it is still nothing you, me and probably a lot of other players want to do at all.

I agree 100%. Making a skill useless, especially an Elite, is not "balance." And as has already been said, making Shadow Prison 10e does nothing other than make it uninviting for Warriors. But what's to stop them from bringing a +5e axe instead of their 15>50 and use the skill the same way? 5e -> 10e does absolutely nothing to dissuade Assassins from using this over any other elite. Having to wait 20 seconds between attack chains means they'll have that extra energy back anyway.

Yay, way to kick assass...

Im assuming SP change was to stop W/A ? I can think of other ways to get it done... How about change SP to WORK only if one's deadly arts are higher than 7? This way it will be balanced- no more ppl talking that you can still pwn with 0 deadly arts, no W/A...
BoS change... *moan*
Cool, change good skills to sucky skills and leave sucky skills of assa (golden, elites, you name it) as sucky as they are

Meh