User:NuclearVII/Skill Balance And Revamps

It seems to be a regular trend around here to have skill balance change opinions on every users page. So, me and Kalas are jumping the bandwagon.

General Changes

 * Issue: The Unblockables: When "Active Defense" was big, (Read: Shield of deflection) blocking got out of hand. These days, it seems to me that blocking it the prime way most people avoid melee damage. This results in slowfests that last until VoD. We need active defense back to counter the power creep, but I feel like we need to buff these skills to bring a counter to the block meta. These skills can bring skilled play further into the block meta, but only if they get a tiny nudge.


 * Solution: Lower all energy costs for the "unblockable" skills to 3 energy. I understand that this may seem like a drastic change, but the 5-10-15-25 symmetry thing does not work well at all when it comes to warriors. Warrior's are already strained because they carry frenzy, bull's, shock and, optionally, an energy based cancel. The 5 energy cost makes these skills just not viable. I feel that the active-ness of active defense meta really awarded active and skilled play (Bear with me here...), and I want it back. I don't want the 20 minute slowfests, however.

Swordmanship

 * Hamstring. I miss the warrior splits. They were so cool to behold, and yet not broken at all. This skill, while worthless in any form on the stand, could be used in a split. Wait, it sucks. o, nvm.


 * Solution: Lower energy cost to 3, lower recharge to 8 seconds. Melee snares are usually balanced by nature, and this would allow sword bars to be able to pack more utility and do more pressure. I think Sword needs it, and there is always the cripshot for heavy duty snares, so I don't see hamstring bars becoming broken soon. The final skill would be: Sword Attack. If it hits, target foe suffers from cripple for seconds.".

Strength

 * Body Blow. I never liked body blow. A mishmash between dismember and executioners, body blow has always been the reason why melee can never ever have cracked armor. Its not a hugely broken skill, but cracked armor is never going to be useful unless it is available on melee. This kills that.


 * Solution: Lower the bonus damage by 10 points, and increase the cost to 10 adrenaline. It seems total shit this way, but at leaset it won't impede the progress of CA on warriors. When we can apply CA with, say, penetrating blow, this baby will have serious usage. Sort of a poor man's eviscerate, if you will. The final skill would be: "Melee attack. Target foe is struck for damage. If target foe is suffering from Cracked Armor, that foe suffers from Deep wound for  second.".

Protection Prayers

 * Shield of Deflection. The avatar of active defense, SoD was the bane of all melee when it was viable. It was pretty much the slowest and the most boring meta we've ever had. Still, since bringing back active defense is a pretty good idea to fight scythe damage, this needs to come back - albeit in a more less-imba way.


 * Solution:: One the of the problems with the old SoD was that it pretty much said "Fuck you". And since pretty much all SoD monks packed GoLE, It was "Fuck You" on a global scale. To deal with that, add the the clause "This enchantment can only be active on one person in your party." This way, it's more of an unique bodyguard skill - you can't prot multiple targets with it.


 * Second, the recharge needs to be lowered to a more respectable amount. Lower recharge to 2 seconds. This may seem broken, but remember that this way, it is much better countered by "tab". Since it requires a trace of skill to swap targets without killing too much dps, it won't be "fuck you" to skilled melee.


 * Third, and this bit is optional, lower energy cost to 5. Why? Well, to be honest, I am tired of seeing GoLE on monks, and, since you cannot maintain it over 3 people now, I see no reason to lower the cost. You'll lose energy when you transfer it, anyway. Now that I think of it, maybe it'd be more on the safe side if we add a "You lose 5 energy whenever you transfer SoD from an ally" clause. This may be done to prevent rapidly shifting SoD. Or, you could that that this skill costs 10 energy whilst it is active. This might be a safer, since monks can operate with a 5 energy pool.


 * The final skill would be: Elite Enchantment. For  seconds, target ally gains 75% chance to block attacks and gains  armor. This enchantment may only be active on a single person in your party, and this skill costs 10 energy whilst it is active..

General Changes

 * Issue: Ele machine gun skills like flare and co. These skills are worthless. They do horrible dps, a total waste of skill slot, and a worthless outlet of one's energy. Worst of all, they lull new, inexperienced people with their awesomeness.


 * Solution: A very innocent buff, perhaps only to make eles a bit more viable in low-lvl areas, (Especially earth ones, whom have no dps) would be very much appreciated. Lower energy cost to 3 energy. This is more of a bone to those RA and TA eles, especially those who just want to have some fun while playing easy builds and not sucking. It would be irrelevant to gvg or Ha, or any type of "high" pvp, but those poor, neglected eles in lower ares could use love. This is part of the "Make the game easier for newbs campaign".

Earth Magic

 * Stoning. While it looks awesome on first sight, stoning sucks. A counterpart for orb, it was as good as lighting strike. It cannot do good damage, it cannot KD reliably. Sadly enough, this has the potential to be an awesomely balanced skill, as it is a projectile, and thus, requires skill.


 * Solution: A simple buff of the numbers won't do the trick here. Weakness is a bad primer, and it especially does not stick where the large hunk o' stone would go. Since ranged KD's are ele's department, let's focus on the utility. I'm thinking a gale in earth like. 10 Cost, 1 cast, 8 recharge. Spell. Send out a stoning that strikes for 10...74 damage and knocks down target foe if it hits. This spell causes exhaustion. How cool would that be? Utility, damage, and skillful play promotion, all rolled in one.


 * The final skill would be: Spell. Send out a stoning that strikes for damage and knocks down target foe if it hits. This spell causes exhaustion..


 * Ward Against Melee. I loved ward against melee, as an ele. I also know many mesmers, necromancers, and other midliners who had no business dabbling with earth who loved the ol' wam. This needs to be an ele skill, period.


 * Solution: This skill has a 50% failure chance if under 10 earth magic. This, along with stoning, will bring eles back into the play. Hell, this is an excellent, skill-needing tool on an ele. Why not make it so that only eles use it? (And I mean earth ones, not gay Bsurge eles.)


 * I also disagree with buffing it for earth eles. This is powerful, I can't deny that. I think the stats are right where they should be, just like Ward of stability and ward against foes. They should just belong on eles.


 * The final skill would be: Ward Spell. You create a Ward against Melee at your location. For seconds, Non-spirit allies in the area have a 50% chance to block attacks. This skill has a 50% failure chance if under 10 earth magic..

Air Magic

 * Gale. "The more I think of it, the more I miss the gale meta." Paraphrasing Ensign, I wholly agree. Kalas, a couple of days earlier, mentioned "Stall games". With the nerf of the old gale, defensive builds began to get more and more popular, because there was no way to crack them. The only games that lasted until VoD were those between awesome players who both handled this tool well.


 * Solution: I'm tempted to say bring back the old gale. However, I understand gale locks were a problem, and that needs to be dealt with. Adding a fails if under 10 air magic is the key. That stops any abuse from warriors, or any other gale locker. I'd really like to see the old air ele back in the game, and this change is push in that direction. Bringing the old gale back, along with a built in moderator, is awesome.


 * The final skill would be: Spell. Target foe is knocked down for 3 seconds. This skill has a 50% failure chance under 10 air magic. This spell causes exhaustion.'

Fire Magic

 * Searing Flames. Oh boy. Oh boy. Searing flames. Here, bear with me here for a while, because this needs some explanation. Now, I don't feel that this skill is necessarily broken. SF Spike, while not as powerful as sway is, is still very vicious, and yet dealable. However, I don't think a skill like searing flames should exist. Why? It promotes gimmicky play. 100 AoE damage with burning has always promoted gimmicks. It is for this reason I feel that this needs to be reworked, rather than flat-out deleted.


 * Solution: Completely rework skill:"Target foe and all nearby foes are struck with searing flames, and suffer from burning for 1..3 seconds. Foes already on fire suffer from Deep Wound for 1..3 seconds." The idea is to retain some of it's damage ability, remove the stacking bonus, and make it more useful for single eles. This version also supports more midline spike ability. If this is done, you also may want to up the recharge to at least 15. This is done to prevent abuse from aoe DW, no matter how short it may be.


 * The final skill would be: Elite spell. Target foe and all nearby foes are struck with searing flames, and suffer from burning seconds. Foes already on fire suffer from Deep Wound for  seconds. 

Energy Storage

 * Aura of Restoration. The prime self heal skill for eles, right now, is Mystic regen. Why? Well, all the alternatives suck. As mystic regen is OP in pretty much every form, and will hopefully get nerfed, this needs a buff if eles are to make it in RA.


 * Solution: Making a passive healing spell active is hard, but we can turn it into a more skill-demanding skill. Change to For 60 seconds, whenever you cast a spell, you gain (whatever the current healing is). You gain 3 points of regeneration for every 20 points of energy you have whilst under this skill. This way, this skill rewards more skilled play. Manage your energy well, and you get more healing. Suck, and die from bad healing. It also fits the theme of an "energy dabbling mage", so no lore problems there.


 * The final skill would be: Enchantment Spell. For 60 seconds, you are healed for % of the Energy cost each time you cast a Spell. You gain 3 points of regeneration for every 20 points of energy you have whilst under this skill.


 * Glyph of Lesser Energy. This glyph is the most powerful energy management there is. Ironically enough, like nearly all elementalist skills, it is only broken when used on different primaries. This allows for an unmatched ability to generate energy for any caster, far outclassing all other non-elites except maybe Auspicious Incantation, which is fragile and requires two skills. I'm also glad that the issue is clear to Izzy. He has made numerous attempts to nerf it in the past, and, as of the current meta, it is somewhere in the "okay" region. But primary eles, especially earth and air ones are to see play, this needs to be made to an ele-only skill.


 * Solution: Rework Skill: Glyph. For 15 seconds, your next 1..2 spells cost 10...17 less energy. Cast, cost, and recharge remains the same.


 * Another, more drastic approach would be to add exhaustion. This allows more skilled players to get more millage out of the skill, whilst not mattering to eles one bit. If this suggestion is implemented, lower the energy gain and recharge by a small amount, and keep the overall energy per second the same. This would force non eles to accumulate more exhaustion, and, therefore, become more of an emergency skill for them.


 * The final skill would be: Glyph. For 15 seconds, your next spells cost  less energy. This skill causes exhaustion.

Soul Reaping

 * Wail of Doom. This skill is old gale/signet of humility/diversion/dshot/backbreaker rolled in one. Oh, and it costs no energy. Yeah, nothing wrong here.


 * Solution: A wide variety of solutions spring to mind. First would be to revert this back to what it was. The old Wail was pretty potent, effectively being the most powerful antimelee with bad recharge. Reverting back to the original, less broken version, and then buffing the numbers a bit would also be okay, if the skill is wanted in the meta.


 * Another fix would be to make this cost something. Either 50% sacrifice, 25 energy cost, or 4 second cast, anyone of these brings it down to "bearable". If this powerful effect is wanted in the game (I can't see why) this would be the way to go. High costs on powerful skills is how the game revolves around skill.

Curses

 * Parasitic Bond. The best hex in the game, period. It's just basically a tool to make opposing hex removal, barring expel and convert, utterly worthless. If we are to stop hexways, this has to go.


 * Solution: The fact that this is far too cheap cannot be denied. I suggest some sort of penalty for using this as a way to bypass hex removals, and protect passive hexes. The most obvious solution is to increase recharge to at least 8 seconds, and increase duration to 30 seconds. This, while nerfing the skill, does not totally kill legitimate hex application and removal. With an 8 second recharge, you can only protect that important hex once. The next hex removal gets through. 30 seconds is there for the ability to spread degen, albeit minor, and giving that pressure buff to necromancers.


 * The final skill would be: Hex Spell. For 30 seconds, target foe suffers -1 Health degeneration. The caster is healed for when Parasitic Bond ends.


 * Faintheartedness. A passive necromancer hex that just fucks any type of melee pressure up. It should be common knowledge by now that passive hexes like these, especially when they are so easily covered, lead to powerful hexways.


 * Solution: My initial thought was to up the cost or the recharge. Seeing that necromancers need some more help in GvG, however, making this more active would be more preferable option. Let's add some minor sac, like 10%, lower cost to 5 energy, and drastically reduce duration and cast time, at the same time, increasing recharge and intensity of the skill. How awesome would it be to have a hex that lasts only, say, 5 seconds, but reduces your attack rate to 33%? With a 30 sec recharge, of course. That way, It would be like a weak Ineptitude, and not a broken one: A once-per-spike shot, it completely kills the DPS of the warrior in the spike, but not so much the initial attack skill. I think this change promotes more active play, and thus good for the game.


 * The final skill would be: "Hex spell. For 1...4 seconds, target foe's attacks 90% slower and that foe suffers from health degeneration."


 * Insidious Parasite. Passive hexes like these, while not necessarily broken, are quite annoying. In an effort to reduce hexway to cinders, I have blacklisted most of the offenders, and this little bugger is guilty. The problem here is that this is pretty good pressure (mostly talking about lower-end arenas here) without much input. I feel that it also needs to be reworked to bring more necros into GvG, and to do this, this skill must require more skill.


 * Solution: I suggest "Hex spell. For 4 seconds, the next time target foe strikes with an attack, that target is healed for ." Cast, cost, and recharge remains the same. Now, the idea here is that the necro has to be more aware of the game, and when a spike goes down, he needs to target the spiker, hit him with this, and hurt it. Think of it like an offensive prot. Note: This change is mainly directed at bringing more skillful play into curses line. Insidious Parasite is not a broken skill.


 * The final skill would be: Hex spell. For 4 seconds, the next time target foe strikes with an attack, that target is healed for .

Death Magic

 * Issue: Minion Mastery. Remembering there is more to GW than pvp, focusing on MM seemed appropriate. The old Minion Masters were nerfed, hard, because the old build with Verata's took no skill whatsoever. The new MM builds... also take no skill, but are largely weaker. I would love to see the old MMs back, but only with a twist. And yes, this change is proposed because I have a crush on the old 50 man armies. So sue me, but the proposed change will also promote skilled play, so there.


 * Solution: Bring back the old cap. As in, no cap. Now, I can hear the protests, but hear me out. The old MMs had Verata's Sacrifice, which was largely passive and boring as hell. Now, we have Blood of the Master. BotM not only heals for more, but it also requires skill under the new version. As in, get too big an army and you will kill yourself.


 * Furthermore, a new mechanic can be added to the game: For every minion you maintain, all your minions suffer from one pip of degeneration. This replaces the old minion degeneration. How cool would that be? It forces brainless necros to think before stamping out hordes. Sure, you could make an army for 40, but, in the effort heal them, you'll just burn out. As in, succumb to the sacrifice of botm. I think this change brings back some skill into MMs, and also rewards those smarter necromancers who just want to be noticed.


 * Verata's Sacrifice. We all know the fate of this skill. Hell, I can still remember, read the updates page, when factions came online. It was a sad, sad day for necromancers. The official reason for nerfing this to uselessness was, basically, to stop MMs from being passive. In fact, Izzy himself stated that the skill itself was killed on purpose. Wait, we can do that?


 * Solution: I don't want the old passive armies back. But I still feel like minion mastery should be kept as an art. It should require skill to wield a horde of undead, and I feel that this is evident from the two suggestions above. To this end, VS needs to be reworked.


 * Completely rework skill: "All your minions are enchanted with Verata's Sacrifice. They have +60 armor and 10% damage reduction, but attack 60% slower." Okay, this may require a bit of explanation. Basically, it is an endless enchantment that turns your current minions into awesome tanks, while killing damage ability. So, with the above suggestion, a smart minion master would raise, say, 7 or 8 bone horrors, hit them with this, and begin raising fiends. He also would have to take care of the horrors, because if he loses and re-animates more horrors and uses this, he will lose damage on his fiends. I think it is a win-win suggestion, both for game balance and minion mastery.


 * The final skill would be: Enchantment Spell. All your minions are enchanted with Verata's sacrifice. They have + armor and 10% damage reduction, but attack 60% slower.

Expertise

 * Escape. Shitway makes broken use of this innocent skill. Fine by itself, this is totally retarded when combined with scyhte damage and a ranger's way of surviving. So, shitway frontliners are invincible.


 * Solution: It's fucking ESCAPE. It is the elite brother of dodge. Legit users of this skill don't attack under it. This needs a clause of "You cannot block attacks and suffer from -40 armor while attacking whilst under this skill." for compensation, you could buff so that it would be maintainable at 14 expertise. I think this fixes a lot of shitway's imbaness and doesn't kill the skill. Fuck me, it even buffs it! Everybody wins when we buff a skill that is broken in build X, when the usage of that build X is nerfed.


 * The final skill would be: For seconds, you move 33% faster and have a 75% chance to block attacks. You suffer from -40 armor and cannot block whilst attacking under this skill.

General

 * Issue: Shadowsteps. Shadowsteps are broken on many levels. They make spiking too easy, preprots too useless, splits too murderous. Something needs to be done about the power these sins have.


 * Solution: I think adding a 25% sacrifice for every shadowstep is an excellent fix. It accomplishes two things: First, it makes sinsplits a lot harder to execute and a lot easier to stop. It forces sins to pack more self heal and less 4 hit kills. It also becomes a skill like frenzy on a stand - If you use it well, you gain advantage, but misuse it, and it costs too much health. It also indirectly nerfs gay shadowstep griefers. Win win.


 * From a lore perspective, this makes sense. You travel through a realm of shadow, so it costs you health. Okay, not perfect sense.

Dagger Mastery

 * Shattering Assault. This is a perfect example of how certain skills get out of hand. A 200 damage dual attack that is both unblockable and enchantment removing? What else does that? Well, Mallyx has a toy that is quite similar...


 * Solution: Since this seems to be based on the issue that this does too much spike and too much pressure, it would be logical to limit it to one aspect. So, either decrease damage done, via making it armor respecting, or increase recharge to 30 seconds. To be honest, do both. This skill deserves both, being Shatter Enchantment/Death Blossom rolled together and then beefed up some.


 * A less radical fix would be to make it so that the damage deals only when an enchant is removed. This would also help with boring block webs, and encourage more skilled usage. Hell, this is powerful enough.


 * If all else fails, however, the energy cost could be raised to 15 to prevent 1-2-3 killing with SA.

Unlinked

 * Aura of Displacement. Ah, yes. The epitome of broken assassin shadowsteps, AoD allows for nothing short of complete immunity from damage at a split. Worse, it allows other sins to take advantage of this via Return and Recall. This skill allows badly broken splits that can only countered by camping, which is bad for the game.


 * Solution: Implement the shadowstep suggestion above. That'll stop those pesky invicisplits. They'll be on their asses if they lose half their health every time they split. Hell, we may even have a chance at killing them!


 * If a global nuke to shadowsteps does not happen, this still needs to be hit. Since these sins are practically invincible, how about stressing their health as they maintain this? Move this to shadow arts, add the clause "While you maintain this enchantment, you suffer from health degeneration." This stops boring splits two ways - First, it forces an attribute spread, making it more difficult to use. Second, it slows down the split, making it a lot less murderous than it is right now.


 * The final skill would be: Elite Enchantment. When you cast Aura of Displacement, Shadow Step to target foe. When you stop maintaining Aura of Displacement you return to your original location. Whilst maintaining this skill you suffer from health degeneration.'

General Changes

 * Issue: Weapon Spells. Sitting around the campfire, let ol' Nuke tell you a story about the Ritualists. Way back when Anet decided to release factions, they got plenty of fan feedback, stating that they wanted something that could replace, or at least challenge, the irrefutable places of the trustworthy, venerable monks. Thus, they brought forth the existence of the Ritualist, who, at this point of the game, is badly balanced - they got eight broken skills, and 100 sucky skills. As we near the end of the story...


 * Yes, we all remember the story, grandpa Nuke. We also know this: Ritualists will never be balanced until they start requiring skill to play. To do this, we need to rework the mechanics of the class, starting with weapon spells. Weapon spells. They are irremovable, unstoppable prots that nowhere near reward skill.


 * Solution: First of all, we need to change the mechanics a little bit: Implement so that "Only a single copy of one weapon spell may be present in any single party." This accomplishes multiple things: One, it fixes the broken Rt class stacking. Two, it rewards players that actually use their brains to place their weapons. Three, it buffs bars utilizing multiple weapon spells, which, imho, is awesome.


 * Of course, we cannot rest after this. We need to buff most of the badly designed or weak weapon spells after this change. Not all of them, Resilient weapon and Vital weapon are the only two that spring into my mind, though I'm sure they won't be all. I think this will promote more skilled play in Rt's, and, perhaps, open up new ways we can balance this poorly designed class.
 * Note: After some comments and my own personal doubt, I have decided that this suggestion is too generic, abstract and is currently not viable. Please ignore it for the time being.

General

 * Issue: Paragon Stacking. Paraway teams a still viable, still powerful, and are nigh-impossible to defeat on unsplittable halls such as Burning Isle. Even then, you need something like a sinsplit to outdamage these fuckers. Oh, camping until VoD? Yeah, these guys are invincible.


 * Solution: I think the solution is obvious here. Limit only one paragon per team. Paragons are meant to be leaders, right? Speaking from lore, this makes perfect sense - how else would they get imba support, imba damage and imbavincibility? One paragon per team also allows some leeway in balancing paragons, too. It also kills paraway gimmicks, which is good.

General Changes

 * Issue: Scythe Damage. Scythes hit too hard, too fast. Already a great dps monster (two handed axe, anyone?), scythes do murderously bloody damage when they use attack skills. The skills themselves, especially PA, need a nerf or two, but their passive dps is way too high for a weapon which does not require skill to play. Oh, and it also hits 3 targets per swing, just the "icing on the cake".


 * Solution: Here, it must be considered what the scythes were ABOUT in the first place. To, me it seems that, at some point in design, devs wanted to make a melee weapon that hit AoE just for the heck of it but forgot to tone down the damage.


 * If that is the case, lower max scythe damage to 9-25. This way, they are still useful for PvE, and their PvP dps is nothing to laugh at. However, it seriously dilutes the damage one scythe user can bring to bear.


 * If, however, the scythe was meant to be a powerful, utility-less weapon with big numbers, but with AoE tacked on for the flavour of it, the AoE needs to go. Remove AoE from scythes, increase damage to 10-43, and lower attack speed.. This way, scythes would retain their ability to spike bloody powerfully, but their dps is all shot to hell. Furthermore, now they are more vulnerable to blocks/blinds/interrupts/kiting/prots due to lowered attack speed. It's about time dervishes are forced to take IAS for warrior-like dps.

Scythe Mastery

 * Pious Assault. Arguably, this is the most powerful and most damaging attack skill that requires the extreme skill of "Punching the 1 key". It'd be nice to make this a bit... less godly.


 * Solution: First off, get rid of the DW. There should be no imba deep wounds with scythes, period. Then, you could add, say, a 5 second burning. Okay, that doesn't make any sort of sense from a lore perspective (how about - FIERY BURNIN' PIETY ATTACK), but it still retains the whole ability of "high-powered, expensive scythe attack".


 * Another option is to up the energy cost to 20e, whilst retaining DW. That's about how much it should cost to DW with energy.


 * The final skill would be: "Melee Attack. You lose one enchantment. Target foe is struck for + damage and suffers from burning for seconds."

Unlinked

 * Rending Touch. No matter how you look at it, an enchantment removal with only an 8 second recharge is broken. It has been documented how this is broken in SWAY multiple times. Compound the 5 energy cost with expertise, and you get free removals that can be abused on recharge. Furthermore, this has been used to replace shock in warrior bars, something I feel that never should happen.


 * Solution: I have suggested that a 20% Sacrifice would solve the problem with this skill. However, if it is felt, say, inappropriate from a lore perspective (bear with me here...), you could rework the whole thing: "Touch spell. You and target touched foe lose one enchantment. If you lost an enchantment, all nearby foes are struck for fire damage. If you did not lose an enchantment, you lose 10 energy instead". Move the skill to mysticism, cast, cost, and recharge remains the same. That way, you are rewarded when you lose an enchant of your own, but punished when you spam it.


 * The final skill would be: "Touch spell. You and target touched foe lose one enchantment. If you lost an enchantment, all nearby foes a struck for fire damage. If you did not lose an enchantment, you lose 10 energy instead."

Norn Skills

 * Ursan Blessing. This is so broken right now it is not funny. Reciting the arguments against this piece of donkey shit, I think, is not needed, it should be fairly obvious to anyone with half a brain that a skill that kills PvE is bad for the game.


 * Solution: NUKE. This skill should never have existed.

Kurzick/Luxon Skills

 * "Save Yourselves!". Because most of the broken PvE team setups revolve around this skill being thrown around for the kicks of it, I feel like it should be toned down in compliance with the "Bring smart play back to PvE" campaign.


 * Solution: Lower armor bonus to 60. I feel like this skill is pretty potent with 100 armor, and yet, with HM and broken monsters and dinos and all that, I feel that completely eliminating it is pretty harsh for bad people. At least with 60 armor, it might be a bit easier to handle.


 * The final skill would be: "Shout. For seconds, all other party members gain +60 armor."