Friday, March 6, 2009

Guild Wars Update: March 5th

Some changes came down the pipe today, and frankly, ANet hates Rangers. Taken directly from the Developers Updates page:


Read the Wind (PvP Only): functionality changed to: "For 24 seconds, your arrows move twice as fast."
Flail: decreased duration to 1..15 seconds.

Rangers had been outshining spellcasters at dealing damage and could do so while being much more resistant to pressure damage. This made them ideal for spike builds. By removing the damage bonus on Read the Wind, we're cutting the damage they do with each attack, and by dropping the minimum duration on Flail we've made it harder for them to get an attack speed boost without any real drawbacks or costs. (Rangers can't put points into the Strength attribute, so they can never increase the duration on Flail. Warriors who use this skill should be unaffected by this change.)

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Ok, saying that they "hate" Rangers in an embellishment to say the least. However, this is the second time they've nerfed key skills in Ranger spike builds (in recent memory). Skills like Sundering Attack and Experts Dexterity have already been nerfed to the point of near uselessness in PvP (they still retain their PvE shine, in all fairness). However, it's kinda obvious what the meta will shift to now (Favorable Winds anyone?).

There is one change that makes me happy:


Disciplined Stance: decreased duration to 1..4 seconds; decreased armor gain to +10.
Defensive Stance: decreased duration to 1..5 seconds; decreased armor gain to +10.
Soldier's Defense: decreased duration to 1..5.
Shield Stance: decreased duration to 1..6.

These stances were originally balanced with 8v8 combat in mind. In 4v4 play, where there are fewer attackers and enemies cannot have as wide a range of utility skills on their team, Monks using these stances have become a problem. We've lowered the durations and armor bonuses to help 4v4 teams fight through these defenses.

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I hate stanced Monks. Nothing pisses me off more than a Monk who uses Disciplined Stance and Shield Bash to fuck up melee spikes (granted, while I was pissed, I always conceeded it was legit, since they sacrificed team support for self protection). Granted, my plans to start playing PvP Monks have now been backburnered, but playing Saru just got more fun.

Oh, and finally, a handful of skills that just got buffed:


Shadow Refuge: increased duration to 6 seconds.
Ether Feast: increased Health per Energy drained to 20..65.
Aura of Restoration: decreased Energy cost to 5; increased recharge to 12. Functionality changed to: "For 60 seconds, you gain 0..1 Energy and are healed for 200..500% of the Energy cost each time you cast a spell."
Healing Signet: increased Healing to 82..172.

To split effectively, characters typically need more self-sufficiency than they do when fighting in a big group. With that in mind, we've made a selection of self-healing skills more powerful.

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Interesting, I might stop running dual-attunement now, since Aura of Restoration now gives a smidge of energy back (we'll see). Also, a whole new reason to run Tactics again, Healing Signet is now a healing nuke. Protector's Stance+Healing Signet=ftw?

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