ArenaNet talk:Developer updates/20070809

General Comments
I'd just like to say booya on the Warrior buffs, GPS buff, and the Ritualist rebalance (Xinrae's Weapon looks real interesting now). I'm imagining it's supposed to be "increased recharge" on splinter weapon. - HeWhoIsPale 20:28, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

How high do you have to spec into Curses to get Plauge Touch to transfer two skills. If its low, then I think W/N is going to look very attractive.--Bta 21:57, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

So I guess that because the reduced healing change was not mentioned here, that is not going to be used? --Bta 22:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, it was fun using my Ritualist builds while they lasted. I guess I'll have to pick a new favorite profession, because they're dead now. I hope your happy, ArenaNet. All because of a couple of HA gimmicks. Can't even use Rit in PvE anymore...Unless I want to Resto all the time. RitualDoll 00:09, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I have to agree. Looks like we can bury the Rit next to the Paragon when it comes to dead classes.  The poor Rits had their healing and protection nerfed down to barely worthwhile because they were seen as a threat to Monks, and people were just as willing to have a healing Rit as a Monk for a while... so they nerfed them down to be far weaker... so they only thing they had left was damage, and now that's gone.  The Rit was the one class I never played through Faction with until after Nightfall came out (despite having Factions from it's release) because I could not get into the whole spirit thing and healing Rit style... but once I put together a good Channeling build I made and played a Rit through both Factions and Prophecies and had a lot of fun doing so.  Now she's not even playable for the only thing I ever used for her.  Waste of 15k armor.  ~  J.Kougar  [[Image:UserJKougar sig.gif]] 01:59, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Way to kill an entire class...this exhaustion thing better get reverted (or at least used more sparingly i mean look what you just did to the class)

Splinter Weapon
"Splinter Weapon: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds. " It's currently 5 seconds, where's the mistake, should it be increased, or is the time wrong? -Meridan 20:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * izzy said it was a typo and duration was meant here. - Y0_ich_halt [[Image:User Y0_ich_halt_sig.jpg|16px]] 23:20, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Ritualist Spirits
It's ok that the spirits have something like exhaustion now. But in exchange they should be a little bit buffed, I mean a ritualist can now only have 1 (rarely 2) spirits on the field. Unfortunately I don't know how to balance them: increasing the damage woudn't be that good I think. - Windir 22:38, 9 August 2007 (GMT)
 * The only spirits with exhaustion though are the really powerful ones though. Maybe they could have their level buffed a little to compensate for the fact that they are a much larger investment to binding them now. - [[Image:User HeWhoIsPale sig.PNG]] HeWhoIsPale 20:44, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of adding exhaustion haphazardly just to gimp a pvp gimmick build. I took some more time to see if I could come up with anything more akin to the class and not so...unwieldy. This is my proposed balance to the Ritualist Skills that had exhaustion just tacked onto them:


 * Ancestors' Rage: Changed Functionality to: Enchantment Spell. Ally is enchanted with Ancestor's Rage for 3 seconds. When Ancestor's Rage ends, all foes adjacent to target ally are struck for 30...110...130 lightning damage.

This means a few things to RitSpike. AR can no longer be spammed on a target, since it will cause the enchant to renew, and the damage to never occur. It keeps the damage potential of the skill when carried by many down. This also makes this spell viable for usage in PvE.


 * Anguish: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased recharge time to 20 seconds; this Skill now causes Exhaustion.

Exhaustion adds a recharge of 30 seconds. That's all. This spell will live long enough in most cases for taking it to be fine. (I know when I'm using anguish I don't have any other exhaustion skills).


 * Defiant Was Xinrae: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased recharge time to 20 seconds; increased duration to 5..15 seconds.

Makes it worth using, not infinitely maintained, and interesting.


 * Disenchantment: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased recharge time to 20 seconds; this Skill now causes Exhaustion.

[I]Once again, a situational skill, pretty powerful, and I don't mind having exhaustion on powerful spirits. [/I]


 * Dissonance: decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased recharge time to 20 seconds; this Skill now causes Exhaustion.

Once again, a situational skill, pretty powerful, and I don't mind having exhaustion on powerful spirits.


 * Spirit Burn: decreased recharge time to 6 seconds; increase damage to 25...61..70 ; decreased conditional damage to +10..22..26.

Now the brunt of the damage is reduced by armor, and the +dmg is minor. The skill now does less damage than before, maxing at 96 instead of over 100.


 * Splinter Weapon: increased recharge to 10 seconds.

I'm assuming this is a typo on the page. A 20second recharge splinter weapon would be near useless, find a common ground. Going from 5 seconds to 20 means it's weakened by about 200%....

Once again, a situational skill, pretty powerful, and I don't mind having exhaustion on powerful spirits.
 * Wanderlust: this skill now causes Exhaustion.


 * Wielder's Strike: Decreased recharge to 8s, decrease damage to 10...40..45. Lose one weapon spell. If a weapon spell was lost, deal an extra 10...40.45 damage and this spell gains 10% Armor Penetration (perhaps if the AP is too much, just deal an extra 20...50..55 damage).

The idea is that you're exchanging your weapon spell effect for a spike of damage. As there is no way to remove weapon spells in the game, a self inflicted way may be interesting. No weapon spell benefits from early removal. This version seems more in line with it's spiking cousins of Lightning Orb. Both have drawbacks and uses, but as is with this, neither one is really "better". The loss of the weapon spell prevents usage at all times "imagine losing your vital when low on health, or your WoW while being slammed on by melee... Overall, I feel like this would be balanced.
 * Xinrae's Weapon: decreased Energy cost to 15; decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.

More viable, more usable to take out clutch skills, but prevents constant abuse.TGgold 22:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Instead of adding exhaustion to the 25e 5s (or 3s) spirits, why don't you trigger energy loss when they hit? As in,


 * ...Whenever Disenchantment removes an enchantment, you lose 7...3 energy.


 * ...Whenever Dissonance interrupts an enemy skill, you lose 7..3 energy.


 * ...Whenever Anguish hits a foe suffering from a hex, you lose 5...2 energy. (The reason this one should be lower is because pure damage isn't as threatening as constant interuption or enchantment stripping)

The numbers are just an example, and they could be changed depending on their usage as well. Because exhaustion shouldn't be inherent on a proffession that already has a low energy pool, but with the energy loss above it won't take 30 seconds to remake the energy, and if energy gets too low, the highly unused Allied Spirit destroying skills could be seen in PvP. Especially ones such as Feast of Souls which hardly ever see play. Having the 25 energy cost and the 5 second activation, which you've admitted is interrupt bait is a drawback enough. And I'd rather be interrupted then suffer exhaustion AND be interrupted... RitualDoll 22:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Also! And I know this may be a little off, but since a lot of the changes have to deal with things that are based off of Weapon Spells, maybe you could change one spell that has been made completely obsolete from NF. Since Weapon Spells are being used a lot because they can only be removed by the casting of another Weapon Spell, have you ever considered making Dulled Weapon a target foe weapon spell? With it you'd be able to remove the current weapon spell. And since it's affect(or effect, I'll never know) has been made useless by Stone Sheath, couldn't it also be anti-weapon spell? Weapon spells an ally tries to cast on someone with Dulled weapon on them could take twice as long to cast, or just fail outright. It's just an idea though... RitualDoll 23:11, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

No offense to the mighty Gaile, but I'd advise you post those thoughts on Izzys discussion page, as he is the skill balancer for Guildwars. I do agree with the AR change, would satisfy most people I do believe. Ss

Black Spider Strike
I know this was changed to make BLS,Dual,BSS,Dual less viable.. but this makes BSS less viable as a whole and i would have much preferred a lowering of BLS's energy gain and feel that would probably worked better to change things than this. Oh well i'll test but most likely i'll have to move to BLS like everyone else. --Midnight08 20:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This update on BSS did nothing to any of my builds in any way, including SP. I like it =). --72.74.237.104 19:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Changes to the Dev Updates
I wonder how we should handle changes to Dev Updates. I believe that this page was considered at least semi-official, and that in general it would not be edited, except for typos or wikifying, except by someone from ArenaNet. I just went to edit, and found many changes, including one that is apparently based on forum post quoting a GW Team member. This is a third-degree of separation from absolute certified fact, and is not, in fact a Dev Update, but a contributor update to a Dev Update based on a forum post about an alleged conversation. ;)

Is this page intended to be semi-official? Official? How solid should this page be? Not the discussion page, but the actual Dev Update page itself? Is it appropriate to ask that the Dev Update only be amended by a Dev, except in cases of typos, wiki-fying, etc? It's really up to the GWW community as a whole, but I'm sort of concerned about trying to make an update to a page that has been altered, after official placement, by others. What are your thoughts? --Gaile 00:51, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe that it should stay in your hands, as intended. It is important for the wiki community to reach a decision about this ASAP. Laura Brinklow [[Image:User Laura Brinklow Sig.png|LB]] 04:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe it should be treated like update notes, with any non-ANet commentary and notes in a separate section. -- Gordon Ecker 04:46, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * That was me, sorry Gaile : ( I assumed we were to do the same that is being done on the GW:EN preview skills, in which we updated the skills based on what was said at their discussion's pages. Given the notice on the top of the "Gaile News" page, though, I would not worry that much about it - I don't remember this kind of thing happening on the other news posts, for example. Erasculio 04:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Personally I think no edits should be done to these news posts by other people than Gaile (and maybe other devs), except for wikifying. It helps keeping them official and verified. If something needs updating or comments, a message can be left on the talk page of the post or at Gaile´s talk page, I assume. - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 08:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * From an overall wiki content perspective, the interface should be improved for this to have this sort of special editing status. In general, content in the main namespace is up for anyone to try boldly editing/improving. We should try to maintain that as the default expectancy by keeping any exceptions obvious as such. Some thoughts on possible ways to approach it:
 * Treat the text as copied from an official source, where we are just copying the content here. Much like copied in-game descriptions/dialogue, general editors should naturally keep it verbatim with respect to the source. We should also figure out a better/consistent interface for labeling content from official sources.
 * Move from main namespace into Gaile's userspace.
 * Write up and pass a policy that makes this content special with respect to editing privileges, and slap a notice+link that summarizes it on every page that displays the content.
 * --Rezyk 18:50, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * First of all, several people had a hand in updating the Dev Update, and no one should feel bad about it. The page is different from the Update Notes, though, because the Dev Updates capture a moment in time and contain logic and explanations that the Update Notes lack. As you will note, I amended later with strike-throughs and updated wording, where necessary. What does the GWW community look for in this page? I know that as a user, I would expect that something called "Dev Update" should be straight from, and only from, the Dev Team. In support of that, members might propose potential changes on the discussion page or ask questions about "Why does the Dev Update say "X" and the Update Notes say "Y?" I could review the suggestions or questions and incorporate any amendments into the official Dev Update article itself. As I said, I welcome (and I don't think anyone disputes the value of) wikifying or typo fixing. I don't know how to permit that while preventing, or at least strongly discouraging, actual content changes.
 * In response to your ideas, Rezyk, and thank you for offering them:
 * Treating the text as "copied" won't work for me. It's not copied -- the GWW is where I post things first and foremost. Lately, it's the only place I post the Dev Updates, and then team members link from fan forums to the page. In other words, this page is the initial or only source for this sort of information.
 * Moving Dev Updates into my user space is not a good option, in my opinion. My user space is not official in the same sense as the Gaile News section is official. Gaile News was created by the early GWW community precisely to separate those official announcements from my more conversational comments.
 * I don't know what "slap a notice+link...on every page" expressly means, but judging from the way you said it, is it a bad thing? ;) I thought perhaps the answer was to in some way protect the page, mark it as official and "dev contributions only" and be done with it. Or should we just mark it as intended for Dev-provided content only and know that if it is altered, the GWW contributors will revert to the original? Thanks for offering your insights and opinions. --Gaile [[Image:User gaile_2.png| ]] 20:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I think everyone (so far) is on the same page as far as keeping major changes restricted to devs, and it's just a matter of how to go about making it clear enough for other users.
 * For prevention or page protection, I don't see any decent option. I also think we need not go this far, and should just improve the interface to give discouragement/clarity.
 * Hmm..I shouldn't have referred to it as "copied". What I really meant was: If we come up with a clear way to distinguish the "official text" (such as content from manuals, the game, etc) from general text, using that distinguishing way could help here. It might be something simple, such as standardized headers that obviously denote "official text", or something more flashy like a box with cited source. (Also, a tangent topic: Do you expect that the Dev Updates are released under GFDL and that any fansite can re-host the content through that?)
 * I didn't mean "slap a notice+link" as a bad thing -- just being candid. =) By "notice", I meant something like the purple box at the top of Gaile News. My point is mainly that we should have such a notice on every relevant page, including Gaile News/20070809 and new Dev Update pages, as a manner of making things clear for the user who loads those pages. I'd also guess that just doing that would work well enough as an informal solution for now.
 * --Rezyk 22:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I see! That all makes sense to me. I just want to make sure that everyone's clear on content, and officialness, and so forth. Let me know what I need to do to help. If it's clip/paste in a message on the Dev Update-style official pages, as we do a different message on every archive page, I am more than willing to do so. --Gaile [[Image:User gaile_2.png| ]] 05:03, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The way I see it, we first need to decide whether or not editing should be limited to Anet staff only. If so, then I see no point in just saying that edits or change of content is discouraged. Is it possible create a separate group for Anet staff and assign namespace write permissions to a group? After all, if it's a "Dev Update" page that's bound to get lots of views, I see no problem with limiting who can edit the page. -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 02:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed, but how soon can this be done, this page is already going in a direction which clearly indicated ignorance on some user's parts. Do they and will they ever read the top box of a page, prior to posting, when they have this need(almost like when you really, really need to go to the restroom) to be heard in every way possible. Perhaps some users who are only on the wiki to freak out about skill changes, should be redirected upon login to the correct page, and blocked from editing the incorrect pages. (ban them all for a day if they show ignorance twice) Laura Brinklow [[Image:User Laura Brinklow Sig.png|LB]] 17:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's get this code: " " put on the start of all Gaile News page, old or new. See Gaile News/20070305 for an example. --Rezyk 22:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

How will the change to Signet of Illusions work? Currently it says "Your next Spell uses your Illusion attribute instead of its normal attribute." but this update claims that it will be changed to "Your next 1..2 Spells use your Illusion attribute instead of their normal attribute." but since Signet of Illusions is a No Attribute skill, how will you be able to get it to work for 2 spells and not just 1? What will the requirement be? I like the change, I'd love to see a 1 second cast time on it as well, but I'm just curious how this is going to work. Thanks. ~ J.Kougar   01:05, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I see that despite it not being mentioned, my question was answered when the change went live. If the data now on the skill page is correct, then I have to really wonder about the Progression.  Why make it so low?  If it can only be a 1 or a 2, then have the change from 1 to 2 take place at attribute level 12 at least?  If it's going to be so low then why not make it jump to 3 at attribute level 13 or 14?  Just seems kinda imbalanced... I know that 8 is half of 16, but still... just seems way to low to me.  ~  J.Kougar  [[Image:UserJKougar sig.gif]] 01:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Is it game breaking to change the scaling to 1 to 3 or even 1 to 5? When balancing that skill, I think we can take into account the fact that you cannot use an elite and you are 1 slot down in your skill bar, those are already very great limiting factors, taking rez into account, you can only have 6 skills on your bar and you can't take additional elite. I mean...just look at Glyth of Elemental Power now.... and it's not an elite

i tried it, it's ok. illu magic high enough and you're done. can use anything ya want - Y0_ich_halt 20:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Your Feedback is Important, but...
As it says at the top of this page, please make your comments about the skill balances, HA changes, and updates to Victory or Death on this page, so that the designers can be sure to see them all. Thanks a bunch! --Gaile 20:09, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Most, if not all changes were poorly thought out/implemented. You are welcome :). Readem (talk *gwwcontribs ) 01:33, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * And that's about the least helpful and most pointless kind of comment a player can make. If you have something to share, do so, but be constructive, thoughtful, and clear on what you're saying, why you feel the way you do, and so forth. We cannot consider your opinion or ponder the changes you'd like to see if all you say is as meaningless as the ten measly words above. Oh, and you're welcome, back. :) --Gaile [[Image:User gaile_2.png| ]] 05:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Very well, I believe that adding Exhaustion to the Ritualist class, was both pointless, and was done not through coordinated planning, but sheer laziness. Perhaps, since you are considered PR for Arena Net, you should pay more attention to GW Guru (There are many intelligent people there, can you imagine?). Now, if you would bother to read through my contributions (I am sure you have not, due to your nature that I have casually observed), I have at this point commented on most, if not all the recent skill changes. Making such sarcastic comments Gaile, reflects poorly on the image you attempt to portray. Now act rationally, when I say that many of the recent decisions Arena Net has chosen to implement, were poorly conceptualized and not for the best of the Community. The new Favor-system for example, is horrible at best. No one cares, if someone gets a maxed title; most titles simply promote the buying of online gold. The only thing I suggest, is thinking before changing; actually listen to the opinion of the many, rather then of the few. Set up an anonymous poll for various concept ideas, and state so in the GW News during login. Anything! I really don't care. Go to guru, go to GW, go to the more popular sites. You are PR Gaile, thus meaning, if the users are unhappy, you are unhappy. Sincerely, Readem (talk *gwwcontribs )
 * Excellent! Well said!  I've tried to make such points before but it did no good, even when I pointed out an entire thread full of people complaining about the PR's lack of PR.  You are not wrong in your conclusions and I can only hope that someday she realises it or something is done about it one way or another.  ~  J.Kougar  [[Image:UserJKougar sig.gif]] 08:30, 13 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, I disagree. I think Gaile is doing a good job - and if she were ignoring what's said at GWG, that would be great, given how that is by far the worst GW fansite. The new favour system is perfect - not only we have favor the majority of time, but also the two main problems of the old system have been fixed. Assuming you know better than Arena Net while ignoring the results of their changes doesn't really deserve more than a sarcastic reply anyway. Erasculio 13:00, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Zzz, there was a huge thread about PR (or lack of it) on GWG (as J.Kougar pointed out), but inde had it closed after about a hundred people grilled Gaile and Andrew Patrick over the coals. Truly incredible thread, had the touted post-of-the-year by JR, but it was all removed to appease ANet. You're right that GWG isn't a great fansite, but your comments on pretty much everything else are just as... base-less?... as Readem's. The favor system is terribad, it leaves aussie players in the dust half the time; when the majority of americans and europeans are playing, favor doesn't stop; as soon as they go to bed (and aussies/koreans start playing), favor stops for hours on end. Is that really a good system? At least in the old one, I could go win halls for america and get favor, but not anymore... - Auron 13:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * But compare that to what Japan had to do (never get favor), what Taiwan had, what Korea had, and etc. The new system not only is more fair to more players (in the old one, Europe had favor the majority of time - now the world has favor the majority of time, even if that time is not the best for all players), but it also solves the problem of PvE access being controlled by PvP players (something that never made sense) and it also removes the rivality between real world territories (something that also never made sense) - now you won't read players spamming "F--- Europe!" on the American Temple of Ages. Between those three factors, I had no doubt the new system is better than the old one. Erasculio 14:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Rendering Touch
Can I ask why you lower the recharge of this skill but then also plan to put it back up again? This happened before with Conjure Lightning etc. Is this just a sign of making a mistake during an update? --SK 07:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Sure you can ask, but checking the discussions at the page that is listed for discussion above would probably be easier (this is a test week, the skill was found to be overpowered at 5 sec)--Midnight08 21:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)