User:ShadowFog/Nekorb Skills

Broken Skills

Some rants of some skills that are broken or not broken. Read on, love 'em or hate 'em.

Visions of Regret->Nightfall

Elite Hex Spell. Also hexes foes adjacent to target (10 seconds). These foes take 15...75...90 damage whenever they use a skill.

Basically this skill punishes the foe for playing the game. In an organized field of 8 players, the skill might not give a lot of problems but in an organized format of 4 or random it will choke. The most hexes can a monk remove in an instance is one in one second unless he/she is equipped with Peace and Harmony and even with that he/she will get punished for that unless the monk is "pre-veiling".

What makes it broken?

You can die withing activating 5-6 skills on top of that, that same Mesmer would have hexed you with BackFire and/or Empathy. This means an Instadeath to Dervishes or about 240 damage to a spell caster, spell casters uses healing skills that are most likely spells too, so they are pretty much screwed. Only the Paragon, Ranger and Warrior are safe from taking this much damage. And even with that, Wastrel's Worry will be spammed. For 10 seconds every 3 seconds, will you take 95 damage or 100? In a 10 seconds interval, you will suffer a damage ranging from 285 to 400 anyhow, there's no escape. Another thing that will happen, after you are hexed with this, you will get attacked by the mesmer's teammates, and now that you need your skills to escape because you are in a 4 team arena or a random arena, who's going to help you now?

Anyway to avoid it?

If you are healthy enough, you can just keep wanding or attacking, beware of Empathy, and depend on a healing source. If you are down to 30-50% health, the best option is just kite to the nearest crowd of friendlies, Wastrel's Worry will do you a number. Depend on a source that can lower the damage or a source that can provide you with constant high healing. Until that hex dissapears or gets removed or the Mesmer gets distracted, Wastrel's Worry will apply pressure.

Searing Flames->Nightfall

Elite Spell. Hits foes near your target. Deals 10...82...100 fire damage to foes already Burning. Inflicts Burning condition (1...6...7 seconds) to foes not Burning.

The best Area of Effect(AoE) damage spell in the game. It doesn't need support just someone that can maintain it's energy cost. The first cast will set you on fire for 7 second enough time to do 200 fire damage and lose 98 health due to burning condition when the burning has subsided.

What makes it broken?

The fact of the matter that one player with one skill alone can deal over 300 damage to nearby foes in 7 seconds and without any chance to escape it becomes a problem. When raw power surpasses the healing or manipulative skills(as in Necromancer, Mesmer, etc.) without any effort of doing that much damage, you are bound to have masses of players with the same skill over and over. With Visions of Regret, there's no reward of casting the same hex over and over unless you force the foe to activate a skill and even with that, Visions has a 100% difference between it's duration and recharge times, if it gets remove the foe has a bliss of 20 seconds. So, it is possible to have 8 players with Searing Flames, each one rewarding the other for the same skill and each one with a 142 damage every 3 seconds pressure and to all nearby foes. To experience this, do it in PvE or head to Sacnoth Valley and make it hard mode for a serious beatdown. Not convince? Prepare your guild or friends and take them to Fort Aspenwood or do some other PvP format.

Anyway to avoid it?

For now, no. Unless you can put a plug into the Elementalist casting, in some way like draining it's energy, some king of Power Block, constant interrupt or stopping his way of restoring energy, there's no way to avoid it. If you do find yourself in a losing battle or under a Searing Flame spam, there's some ways you can react so others will have an easy time against the Elementalist.

1)Do not run to a healer nor near your allies. Common mistake by many. The healer is already dealing with your problem, getting near the healer or allies will get him/them under the Elementalist SF spam.

2)If you are inside a crowd, run from the crowd if not bait the Elementalist. The Elementalist is targeting your for a reason, you are in the middle of crowd perfect for everyone to get affected by SF. If not, bait him/her away from the battle. The farther the Elementalist is, less headache will be for you other allies.

3)If there's no other options, waste his energy. How? If you cant with skills, tank it with your skills. More Searing Flames the Elementalist cast on you the less the Elementalist will cast onto others or he will be forced to wait for his energy bar to recharged.

Wounding Strike->Nightfall

It's no wonder Nightfall have broken skills. This skill is very easy to make it's user yield. Scythe attack with no plus damage?

What makes it broken?

I dont find this skill broken at all. Maybe it's the fact that everytime I go into a PvP format I make sure my build, and my team, has a way to deal with melee. Take a look at my front page for the classes I play with. The Paragon is the only one that has no anti-melee skill so fleeing and a high armor set is the only way to deal with it.

On top of that it has no extra damage. Something so simple as a Weakness will shrug off the Wounding Strike's damage. What you must take into consideration is the constant deep wound a ranger can deal since this skill cost them almost nothing, shutting you off from healing.

Anyway to avoid it?

For being an elite, there's nothing like a blocking, blind, weakness or a weapon like Resilient Weapon cant fix. Very easy to shrug off.