Incoming skills nerfs?

This thread is about a foreseeable fallout from the embark beach update: now that we have access to 7 heroes, that gives us more room to play around with skill combos/builds and knowing this community, it won't be long before someone exploits this new advantage to make some even easier insta-win builds. Your first three heroes are the ones you have to micro manage, your other 4 you give autopilot builds.

So any thoughts on when this will happen and which skills will be nerfed?

I don't foresee any overpowered combinations that wouldn't have manifested to some extent in 3 hero team and to a large extent in full human teams.

AI and PvE skills are still a limiting factor. I wouldn't expect any big nerfs.

I could see Discord getting a Nerf if things carry on the way they are now (since most arguments about mercs seem to be stapled on this very skill build). Would love to see the reactions of people who bought the merc pack purely to roll around with that
Pretty sure it would force players to come up with more interesting builds tbh... (or just cause nonstop QQ)


But in all honesty, I'd doubt much would change unless someone really does work out some kinda crazy exploit.

I would like to think Shadow Form, Protective Bond, Life Barrier, and any other similar skills would be nerfed first.

To bring the difficulty back too many things would need to be nerfed. Discord is one thing - but even discord builds are only a mere shadow of the balanced build you can run now. Discord in fact was only really popular because it was a spike you could use with 3 heroes (and there were better ways to execute that anyway). You would have to take the nerf bat to 30 or 40 skills and take us half way back to Prophecies level of power to make anything easier than HM elite missions more then a snoozefest.

That said, Shadowform needs to be killed. Really killed this time. Save Yourselves could also take a hit, but I don't think that will happen until a paragon update that gives them something else worthwhile to run. Most of the rest of the popular skills are 'balanced' in the sense that they are about equally gamebreaking.

Discord really is one of the weaker builds to run on heroes, esp in higher end areas. I really don't know why this keeps getting dropped in threads like these.

I play all the time 2 players + 6 heroes. Discord or 6 heroes discord is far from being the best build available. In some areas it is still quite good, but balanced parties are possible and very strong.

Guess that is a side effect of people being gimped for so long that they can't think outside the box.

I don't see any foreseeable nerfs. A balanced 7 hero build pwns face all by itself.

While the 7H builds are inherently stronger to the average player, I doubt there will be any that can match the all human Speed Clear set ups. 7H builds are still at the mercy of AI.

Nerf what's already broken for a while now. Kill Shadow Form finally, please. Balance Infuse Health to kick it out of eles' builds.

It sucks unless you're a caster with decent caller build. If you're a mesmer, discord is (was?) probably the best H/H build for general PvE, including HM, you can run.

Hahahahaha. Sorry but a 7 hero team will wreck shit day and night regardless of the state skills are in. Hell, I rocked many a mission with preset stupid HENCHMEN alone before heroes came out, then I rocked a little more with 3 heroes. Then I played with a friend with his 3 heroes and we rocked a little more. 7 Heroes is the overkill part is the part that is [close] to what needs to be nerfed and it isn't going to happen plain and simple.

Said the mesmer. :P

Surely a 7 hero party cannot really do any better than an all player party.

If 8 really good players haven't caused a particular team build to be nerfed yet how will 7 heroes.

They'll never nerf any of the skills you listed. Especially not Life Barrier, that skill hasn't changed since they made it, and it's not that exploited. It fills a very specific niche, and as such it won't get nerfed.

105+ armor ignoring damage every 2 seconds x 3 is not one of the weaker builds in the game lol.

I never believed Discord was that good either until I used it myself, but what it does is add insanely huge spike damage on top of a hexway.

Hexway + Discord is one of the few unbeatable synergies in this game. Discord also lets your N/Rt healer pack some huge single target damage as well.

My main is an elly. Other than ER or Ether Prism, theres very little that they can do with their primary skills compared to the damage output that necros, mesmers and rits have. So I choose to play ER because its better than any damage build my elly can run, and I stock up on necros and mesmers for a hexway + discord spam.

Discord doesnt work in UW though, and maybe not too well in elite areas. But I think its very well understood that this is a speed vanq build, and really is one of the best you can get for vanquishing in as short a time as possible.

Yea, go ahead and nerf protective bond and turn elementalists into the most useless class for HM. Funny that necros, mesmers and rits are the most powerful classes in PVE right now, but you want to nerf classes that suck enough already first.

Why the Life Barrier Hate, Cuilan? Other than Urgoz, I've never seen it been used. It's not like you can cast it on yourself. Shadow Form, on the other hand.

The only reason why Discord is not as strong as people say it is, is because it doesn't have AOE so it limits it to about 41DPS (115/2.75), whereas autoattack damage with buffs will do over 50/second (i.e. 1 cast of Discord) and Spiteful Spirit with Awaken the blood will do that with adjacent AOE. Since you need a hex and condition it's also wasting 10+ energy on top of that. Also, it's in a line that only has minions,Putrid Bile, Rising Bile, Putrid explosion, and withering aura basically (Malign Intervention; Dark Aura is really a gimmick skill and the cold damage ones are bad like elemental damage) so if you pump it to 16 then you can only run one other attribute at high spec (12+) without resorting to more than 1 superior's HP loss.

Also when things have hex and condition removal it gets dicey. The only difference between Discord and other builds is that the Damage is a huge spike (300) which doesn't get mitigated unless the hex/condition is removed. Without AP callers' 160+100from deep wound (260) that 300 damage isn't that impressive, simply because it won't instakill.

If Discord doesn't instakill something (i.e. there's only 2 of them), you're better off with the 180+ damage per volley (25x4+20x4) from SoS+Bloodsong+Painful bond, seeing how it doesn't need a non-flexible attribute and you get a high spec splinter weapon and restoration magic. Granted SoS isn't as mobile and spirits don't follow targets.

I'm sorry, what?
Before 7 heroes, Discordway was incapable of completing Slaver's Exile HM, yet all those dungeons could be H/Hed. What does that tell you?



YMLAD, Finish Him and EVAS is a potent spike. Combine that with a fair contribution from Lightning Orb and perhaps Chain Lightning and you have a far greater contribution than a single Discord hero. AP recharges for you.
The single target spike is greater than anything the Nec can do on their own.

Stumme is pretty much about making the game easier so far. Even the BuH/AS nerfs, were actually motivated by making the game "easier", because it's too much to expect players to do skill quests and work on their title rank. Future potential nerfs to PvE skills aren't going to mean much to heroes.

If you read all of my post rather than selectively quoting and misinterpreting, you would find that I said that Discordway is a vanquish build.

Thats what I'm still doing atm, Vanquishing. Discordway is very powerful for that.

When I go into UW, I dont take discordway, I have a balanced build for that. I've cleared all of UW except for 4H twice with just 6 heroes, ofc it didnt involve either discord or an MM, but it did use Spiteful Spirit + Panic.

I've not gotten into EOTN dungeons yet because I dont like the few I already played. I find that they take far too long to complete for something that you cant save and resume halfway through. I rarely like sitting down and playing for several hours for a dungeon or elite area, I just do UW for ectos because I want obsi armor eventually for my HoM.

Also, I hate the PVE skills and any build that requires them. I personally wouldnt bother with arguing against other peoples builds if all I did was run a build that relied on PVE only skills. I'd much prefer for them to be entirely removed from the game.

Ellys do not compare in the slightest bit to mesmers, rits and necros in hard mode, thats been a well accepted fact for a long time now.

All that tells me is that henchmen dont synergise well with discord. Discord needs both hexes and conditions to work, there are some parts of the game where you cant apply both hexes and conditions to enemy mobs (like in a lot of UW with hex breaker, and none fleshy targets means an MM wont work, so 1/3 of a normal discord build is completely useless), and in those cases Discordway wont work.

Its just like Searing Flames. Searing Flames is powerful on Normal mode, and usable in HM (but other builds are a lot better). But once you play in EOTN, Searing Flames becomes useless.

But if you are playing any part of the game where hexes and conditions work, which is a vast majority of the game, Discord + hexes is one of the best synergies you can run.

If skills like those were nerfed, it would affect stupid skills like Keystone Signet.

REALLY?!? SF, again....... I wish I had $1 for everyone who has a axe to grind with SF. A rich man I would be.