Feedback:User/Curse You/Ray of Judgment

Since the buff to Ray of Judgment in the Thursday December 11 (2008) update, the skill has seen a giant surge in usage. This is perfectly acceptable for PvE, where most enemies are much stronger than the players and many players prefer to play alone, it gives monk players an alternative to simply healing or protecting heroes and henchmen. However, in PvP, it has become a highly over-used and proven extremely effective in multiple forms of PvP, more-so than many Elementalist ADoT skills.

The main reasons for its strength are its high, armour-ignoring damage mixed with a short duration and a relatively fast recharge, all while still allowing the monk to use skills from their other attributes to help keep their team up. The the only downsides are its 2 second cast time and fixed damage point, which are rarely a problem when fighting opponents grouped around a small area such as a control point, the hill in Heroes' Ascent or a quarry in Jade Quarry. Therefore, a more severe downside needs to be added.

Suggestion 1
Before the skill was buffed, it had the effect of disabling all non-smiting prayers skills. Returning this function seems like a good way to discourage builds that use Ray of Judgment as its sole source of damage with all other skills being for healing or protecting. Currently many builds are able to effectively capture an objective using Ray of Judgment then proceed to effectively keep the other team from taking it using the rest of their skills, basically doing the job of two people at once.


 * Change to: -  Elite Spell. All your skills except Smiting Prayers are disabled for 10 seconds. Invoke a Ray of Judgment at target foe's location. For 5 seconds, target foe and all foes adjacent to this location take  holy damage each second and begin Burning for  seconds.

Suggestion 2
Currently, Ray of Judgment has a shorter recharge than all but one Elementalist ADoT skill (Unsteady Ground). This seems out of place, as Elementalists are supposed to be the best ADoT damage dealers in the game. The longer recharge also serves to encourage the use of other Smiting Prayers skills to deal damage while Ray of Judgment is recharging, as no build should be able kill so quickly using a single skill as its only source of damage.


 * Change to: -  Elite Spell. Invoke a Ray of Judgment at target foe's location. For 5 seconds, target foe and all foes adjacent to this location take  holy damage each second and begin Burning for  seconds.

Suggestion 3
Since the skill deals armour-ignoring Holy damage, it is unreasonable to make it deal so much damage which, unlike Elemental damage, cannot be easily reduced. Currently, at 15 Smiting Prayers Ray of Judgment deals 323 damage if all ticks hit, including damage from burning. By comparison, at 15 Fire Magic Savannah Heat (PvP) deals 300 damage if all ticks hit. Unlike Ray of Judgment, Savannah Heat deals Fire damage, which can be reduced by armour, making its actual damage output on most targets much lower. Ray of Judgment should not be able to outclass Elementalist elite skills in practically all ways, which it currently does due mainly due to its high damage.


 * Change to: -  Elite Spell. Invoke a Ray of Judgment at target foe's location. For 5 seconds, target foe and all foes adjacent to this location take  holy damage each second and begin Burning for  seconds.

All Suggestions
The three changes I have in mind for the skill are each an attempt to solve the imbalance in PvP. Though I would prefer all three be implemented, each can be considered on their own. Here is what the skill would look like with all three at once.


 * Change to: -  Elite Spell. All your skills except Smiting Prayers are disabled for 10 seconds. Invoke a Ray of Judgment at target foe's location. For 5 seconds, target foe and all foes adjacent to this location take  holy damage each second and begin Burning for  seconds.