ArenaNet:Skill feedback/Mesmer/Distortion

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[edit] Kite's Issue -- 19:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Issue: This skill is kind of weak. It's not necessarily that it's useless, but it's overshadowed by other skills(unless I'm just completely blind, I've never seen this used by a player).
Suggestion: As shadow stepping has been a bit of an issue(very few counters, only Spell Breaker and Shadow Form, as far as I know), I think that if this skill had the capability to either cause failure to all enemy shadow steps used on the Distortion-user, or to confuse the shadow step(so, for example, a shadow step would send the foe farther away, or have the random-ish shadow step of Heart of Shadow instead of the to-target kind), then this skill would be quite a bit better. The blocking part ought to be kept, though, to keep this skill from being too "niche".

Suggestion: Change from Block to Miss, so that way the skills that trigger on block will not work. Plus, it matches the skills name. Also, it would be reasonable for the -2 every block thing anyways.

Suggestion: As mentioned on this skill's talk page: change stats to 10 energy/5 seconds recharge and change functionality to, "Stance. For 1...4...5 seconds, you have a 75% chance to block attacks. Whenever you block an attack this way, the attacker Shadow Steps to a nearby random location and you lose 2 Energy or Distortion ends".; The high energy cost (12 for a single block) and short duration are meant to compensate for the powerful effect (not to mention it would be far less bothersome to a ranger and a paragon than for an assassin or a warrior). If this is still considered to be overpowered, reduce duration or increase energy cost per block.; (Again, this idea wasn't mine, it was mentioned on this talk page. I thought it was worth mentioning here. The "nearby" mentioned in the skill description means nearby to the attacker, not nearby to the caster.)

Suggestion: This skill is kind of useless at the moment for various reasons. To make this skill see some more play, I think the block % should be reduced to 50 while decreasing the proc cost to -1 per miss. Even 33% miss will do if 50% is too powerful for only -1/proc, perhaps consider making the activation cost an odd number like 7. 7e + 2 procs = 9e and for 50% block, I think that's acceptable. As suggested elsewhere, make the attacks miss to keep in line with the name of the skill (and also to give some incentive to run it over a block stance). To make sure the skill is not as accessible as it currently is (ie, op) make the recharge 12 seconds. Keep the same break points for duration so that you can't have this skill up all the time. This makes it a useful anti-spike skill while keeping it within reasonable power levels.