User:Isaiah Cartwright/Izzy Archive 1

June 15th Update

Assassin Most of these changes where minor, either tweaking some numbers on skills we felt could use a small push, or fixing some bugs or oddities, I think all in all the majorty of these changes are not meant to change the meta or do anything more then slowly fixing some issues.

• Recall: This being the most notable change on the list, we really felt out last changed help people with removal at least know who to target when trying to counter these split characters, but we ended up removing the leash feel of recall which I felt made it much easier to use and much more powerful, After talking over a number of different possibilities we figured we just put the old leash functionality back and keep it casting on the target. Our hopes is this doesn't destroy the skill but makes it harder to use.

• Expose Defenses: While I'm sure many of you have noticed this only put it back to the recharge it was a while back, I wanted to change this skill mainly because of 1v1 (hvh) play. I didn't like how it really allowed the assassin to so easily ingore all block and evade, While I expect Assassins to always be strong in any 4v4 game type, I didn't like how this skill was so easy to reapply, I still think it may be a bit over the top even with it's current numbers, but it's hard to tell.

Elementalist I've been super happy with Elementalist lately, we pushed some of the mobility skills on them and I think it really made them more fun to play, I like that they don't really have any super easy self heal option so they rely on their secondary or their strong movement control to function. So in order to not rock the boat much we didn't want to make too many changes, We where still a little worried about Searing Flames, but we decided to sit on it a while. Most of the changes where very minor and just looking to tweak some skills here and there. We like to baby step stuff when we feel a class is working properly.

Mesmer I think this whole update was about mesmers really, with the Hex meta being the big topic on everyone's list we really wanted to think about it some, but at the same time we where looking at different changes to help mesmers in PvE, and I really wanted to nerf persistence.

• Arcane Conundrum: This skill change scared me a little, improving hexes when hexes are so strong in the meta is an odd call, but we felt at adjacent this wasn't going to be too much of a problem, so we pushed it out and planned on watching it, so far it seems like it's not too scary.

• Clumsiness: This is another odd one, a lot of people where worried about this I still think this skill is very energy bound so while the recharge is helpful I think it will lets some builds work a little better but it shouldn't be too bad well see how it unfolds.

• Conjure's: Once again this felt like an odd change but over all we still ended up nerfing the durations of these skills. So while it looks like a buff we reduced the overall duration.

• Ether Feast: I've always felt this was one of the weaker heals, the main disadvantage of this heal is you have to be within cast range of an enemy to heal, most of the time with self heals you can heal when your safe. I felt this was the major downside to this skill so I really wanted to push for the other costs to be lowered, I think it's a much more usable heal now and I hope it sees some more play.

• Fast Casting: We've been looking at different wants to bring more signets into play, but we always felt that no matter what we do mesmer primaries are just not getting any advantages with these, so we wanted to make a change. I think this is pretty safe, most signets are balanced by recharge not cast, a few worried me like Humility.

• Imagined Burden & Shared: Mainly we felt these where rather lacking compared to their Ice counter parts, so we boosted them a little.

• Lyssa's Balance: Because it's hard to see how many enchantments people have we wanted to make this a little easier to use it's also a bit cleaner in how it works so all in all this felt like a good change, I'm not too scared about it because it's still recharge bound.

• Mantra of Persistence: This was the biggest change on this list, mainly the only real nerf we did to Hex builds, I wanted to hit the Migraine mesmers a bit as I feel it directly counters Hex removal. I don't think it will be enough to change the meta any but it sure doesn't hurt.

• Power interrupts: We felt like these should effect chants as well, but we didn't want to make chants spells because of how other skills could interact with them so we just changed the way these skills work, I don't think it will be a huge counter to paragons but I'm sure a Power leak or Power block on a chant will make a mesmer or two Smile.

Necromancer Some small changes here, the wells where really just to make them more viable as if you can use corpses your gonna use minions so at least with a faster option maybe wells could get some use here or there.

• Soul Reaping: This is sure a tricky one, I know a lot of PvE players feel really strongly about us putting it back, but one of the main reasons we changed this attribute is because we felt it was over powered in all formates, uncapped energy gain is something that is very hard to balance so by putting a cap on it we could better control the rate and get it in bounds, it took us a few changes but I really like this version a lot because things seem to die together it's nice to not lose a bunch of energy because of it and the not counting against you if your at max health was a huge boost to PvE.

• Spiteful Spirit: We still feel like this is one of the best PvE skills in the game now that we where buffing soul reaping we felt it was a good time to put it back, I know I was running 4 spiteful necro builds to Vanquish areas, so I felt like it was a good change.

Monk Once again we really didn't want to rock the boat much on these guys so we didn't change a whole lot, a few smite skills here and there, and I think the most notable change on the list was Strength of Honor.

Paragon Another small list of changes, I felt the Armor change was gonna be huge here and we've been nerfing these guys in all most every update while we did nerf the casting time on Defensive Anthem, we wanted to see how well the armor change works.

Ritualist While the spawning power is a neat change I think most weapon spells durations don't mean much it will boost a few skills and the most important one we nerfed so I'm not sure how well this will play out I know it makes me feel a lot better about dumping points into my Spawning power when I have weapons so thats good. I still think there is an issue with Ritualist Spike in HA but we'll have to really figure out what we need to do about that, as I think it's not a simple problem to solve.

Warrior Ahh the warrior, while I think the warrior has some of the largest number of used skills in the game we really didn't' want to change much so we once again did some small changes and pushed things around.