Preliminary Skill Update Notes: Feb 19

Heya folks. We've got the preliminary skill update notes about the next skill balance up on the official wiki:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedb...views/20100219

Sweet mercy its finally update time!!!

Thank You Regina for the heads up and plz lets get this SF nerf started already!

Syn

sweet, thanks for the heads up

With the exception of a few valid skills, all Mesmer skills just have no place in end game PvE.

please consider that point.



edit after reading everything:
* due to buffs to ritualists, i see more n/rt heroes abuse
* due to 'killing' (we don't know how they want to solve the issue yet, hence the '') 600/smite, faction-based guilds will run rampage and maxing an allegiance title will probably be a pain until someone finds a puggable 30-40 min vq; still, it WILL be a pain. if you need kurzick title for your gwamm, farm 24/7 ;p
* tactics still won't be desired
* paragons not only have just one viable end-game build to run (imbagon), but now they pretty much have to run and shout on their allies with constant 60 armor without any means to remove it (in the typical imbagon build, that is)
* i know it's not complete, but with changing blood magic (aka touching necros), i'm surprised that MoP change isn't announced

Well I totally woke up at the perfect time. Reading now, will edit this post :3.

Edit: I'm pretty happy with that. I have no idea why you buffed ritualist again instead of looking at Rangers/Mesmers/Eles in HM, but I am pretty happy about it. Blood magic looks interesting, the Hammer buffs and tactics rework still seem kinda meh. Would have thought you'd change more stuff to affect the party. Overall I'm pretty happy, I hope you can do a huge change thing like this for PvP sometime in the future.

Also:

Yeah, 500 players will quit without Obsidian Flesh -_-. It's another invulnerable build, you really think the speed REDUCTION means its balanced? How does that even matter when all you have to do is sit there and take 0 damage while dominating them with your own skills.

EDIT:

1. Invincibility skills

- No for Obby flesh is making me scratch my head. No 600/Smite makes me somewhat angry, because I really like the build. Good bye SF I guess, we all knew you were going to be gone sooner or later, it was fun abusing you.

2. Hammer.

- Ok, I guess. Hammer is pretty good in PvE already, but this will give a few more builds a warrior can work with for HM.

B+

3. Rits.

- I don't see how these skill changes will make rits more viable in high end pve. What we will see is necros abusing some more of the rits skills that do look a little powerful.

C

4. Tactics.

I like this, some of the skills sound fun to work with. Shield Stance will be a new tank skill (bleh). Fear Me! sounds OPed, but at the same time fun. Retreat! is will be like Fall Back!, kind of cool. It's not bad, should spice things up for a bit.

B+

5. Blood Magic.

Will still be underpowered.

D for effort I guess.

6. Other issues.

Heal as One sounds great, looking forward to that. Agressive Refrain and Soldiers Fury no cracked armor is great for H/H.

B+

So basically I have to make a warrior, sin, rit, or necro to have all the fun tweaks. Nothing's really changed, at least for me.

Kill SF for all you want but don't touch my 600

Don't touch obby flesh.

Its not even OP anymore because of the speedbuff and after Obbyflesh/600/SF are gone, I garuntee youll lose atleast 500 players.

We'll it's not hard to vq DT on a warrior with h/h in ~35 mins. It's still a pain, though, I just did it out of boredom and wouldn't want to do that for more than an hour.

I definitely want to see how long it takes until the next broken build is created. Fun times!

***Finally, Dwarven Battle Stance is being revised a bit. It will cost 5 energy, provide +40 AL, and +33% attack speed. Dwarven Battle Stance will still cause interruption, though only when you use attack skills. It will no longer end if you use a skill. ***


this is gunna be insane

LOL at R/A nerfed for the third time in a row and what is funny is that this update will not stop them.

AND LoL at crippling shot nerf

how dare people be forced to actually play the game without exploiting skills, ur right.

Tank 'n spank is slow and surely you'll still have ways to farm. Scare tactics don't work. Go look at the Blood Bond buff on top of the other necromancer toys. You'll still have fairly fast groups.

candy and an essence say hello?
that's something for sure - no running everywhere, no easy farming, no 600/smite, no rushing various places with a sin/monk/ele.
but if someone played only to accumulate wealth through running other people or something, that was his choice, though. yet, on the other hand, with limited running/rushing/farming/etc, the money-titles will now be even bigger pain in the ass than they used to be.

Take away over powered gimmicks that have been around for far to long and you suddenly finding yourself back to 600/smiting cof...o wait thats nerfed too.

Wow, Dwarven Battle Stance + Dwarven Stability might be fun.

Sf and Obby flesh nerfs are good things. But 600/smite is a really versatile and dynamic way to play the game. Theres a lot in it and its something you really do need to practice and get good at.
I think its a big mistake to remove a niche like that from the game. Just make changes to the problem areas, (i.e underworld) Not the playstyle itself.

While you guys are reworking Tactics you should move both Riposte(s) to Sword Mastery

After reading these notes, I'm just glad I got pretty stuff and pretty titles on PvE before this update. Now I know for sure I quitted the game on a perfect time.(I never liked SF but killing most gimmick farming builds at once can't be good)

Also, it would be terrible to finally help Dervs now that mine is retired ^^ So just let them like they are -Ty for that btw