Why Am I Still Posting?

Finally, the update's live. Took about two and a half hours past the posted date, though, which isn't good. It's an epic one, though.

First, the bug fixes. Looks like they've caught whatever it was that made my Heroes do more damage. Sceenshots being save as .JPGs is nice, too, because now I don't have to switch the format myself. Giving my Heroes my Lightbringer bonus (whatever that is, I assume it's important in the areas of the game I haven't gotten to yet.) could come in handy even if it means I have to run around with a lame-o title. Instead of, you know, skillz baby.

The alterations to the Format Formerly Known as Tombs (Herby to be known as TFFKAT or tiff-kat.) are interesting and I'm sure I'll have more to say about them. The Scarred Earth map, if I'm remember right, is the one that featured several teams but started off with teams in locked areas squaring off against each other. I ran into the map the last time I went on a Tombs run and they'd added levers on the outside that allowed a team that had finished off to charge in and not have to wait around for their opponent to finish off their foe. Which was nice but, still, it puts a team that gets a really weak opponent to start off at a pretty good advantage (Or works by killing really fast but since when has that been a goal in Tombs?) and, I imagine, still led to a lot of waiting around as rushing in to potentially sandwiched is not exactly the smart play there. I'm really not a fan of the maps that have more than two teams fighting, anyway. Burrial Mounds is similar but the teams didn't start off trapped in their fight and were free to move on whenever they wanted (Especially if their Priest got killed, there was no point in sticking around their spawn point.) although I gather it's been remodeled as a 1v1 map which, you know, good.

The change to the dais maps to work more like Alliance Battles (And, I take it, almost exactly like Hero Battles) makes a lot of sense. I like that capping's going to be a gradual process rather than an all-or-nothing interruptible one. I'm less certain about the kill count being the way of deciding a winner because I think it takes too much emphasis off the central fight and encourages teams to spike someone out and then just run or turtle up. Turns into into a battle for who can gank last which I don't like. Eliminating Death Penalty is....interesting, I'm not quite sure what to make of it but it should be fun.

Now, the Halls. Taking out the Death Penalty makes a lot more sense here and it'll help keep teams in the fight even if they initially get rolled. We'll have to see what “changing the contents” of the reward chest means – they better not have taken away my sigil! I like the idea of changing the victory conditions to something other than being the last team to hold the dais, should make the battle much more of a, well, battle and not just an attempt to wait and get the Hero on the altar at the last second. The new conditions look interesting and I'd have to see them in action to say which one's really going to work. What I'm unsure about is the random factor. You're telling me I'm going to be playing for the Hall and favor and everything else and I have no idea what to expect? I mean, I know they don't like teams sitting in the Hall and winning game after game (Which, let me tell you from personal experience is fun.) but I don't get why it can't be more of a straight up contest against another team. This whole random factor turns the game over far too much to chance.

Okay, for the skill balancing I'm going to be brief. Partly because I want to play and partly because I'm not quite up to date on all the skill lists.

Removing “evade” from the game is, I think, a good call. I remember when the whole block/evade thing went in – replacing a system whereby attributes like “Melee Defense” would protect people (It was, of course, a Warrior attribute meaning the game would have been very different if that had lasted.). And, at the time, I believe the thinking was that two separate mechanism would provide for more room for skills to play around with them. Things like Irresistible Blow, for example, would punish someone with the wrong melee evasion and cut through the other one. Now, I gather, it's just going to knock someone with a block down whether that's Whirling Defense or Aegis or whatever. It takes a little bit of design space away but since that space wasn't being used very well, it's not a big loss. Does make me wonder what happens to skills like Sun and Moon Slash, though (I'd guess it's just two hits that can't be blocked now. I'm just not sure what that does to the power level or cost of it.).

The test change to Weakness is one I like actually. It makes that a dangerous condition for a lot of people rather than just an annoyance for Warriors (Blind's much worse because it prevents you from gaining adrenaline. Weakness lets you still connect, just not do as much damage. But, well, when you only deal real damage during an adrenal spike when you'll be sure to have it cleaned off, well...). I think it could be especially harmful for people who only run with juuuust enough in one attribute like, say, people who pick up Ele secondaries to use Gale. Weakness doesn't shut them down but it does mean they're handicapped. I can live with that.

Assassin. Shadow of Haste and Feigned Neutrality got their expected nerfs. Not sure if it's quite enough but, then, I'm not sure if I'd want them completely out of the game. Bit surprised nothing was done with Shadow Prison – I figured it had a recharge increase coming or something. Aside from the general cost increase to Beguiling Haze, the rest is just generalized Izzy love. Exhausting Assault looks like it got a nerf but, actually, as I read it, it got turned from an Dual Attack into an Off-Hand. Since it was a pretty weak Off-Hand, that's probably a good thing. Some nice things like the reduction to Death Blossom's recharge and the increase to the effectiveness of my favorite, Critical Eye. In general, Assassin now have a much easier time of forcing criticals which could become useful.

Dervish. The big change here is the recharge increase on the god forms. They were 10 seconds, now 30 (This is something that bugs me about the updates. They can't list what they're being changed from? No, they expect someone to know what they're talking about. Which is fine for someone who's familiar with the game but for a new player or those who haven't, you know, memorized the skill lists? Rather daunting to try and figure it all out. And the previous versions just disappear down the memory hall and are forgotten about by the in-game displays so unless you keep track of these things you have no idea of how much stuff is being altered. As I've said before, greater transparency here helps everyone involved.) and that makes it actually viable to try and interrupt them. Without completely nerfing the form's powers. I see Lyssa and Dwayna both got a boost and I'm fine with that – Lyssa's still a little underpowered, to me – that bonus damage it deals just doesn't feel like it's working as hard as stripping enchantments or preventing conditions from being appliled – and extra energy is bad when e-denial's hot. I'd much rather see an energy regen boost rather than straight energy but what do I know? Dwayna, on the other hand, could actually be good if, as I think, there's going to be a shift towards hexing in the metagame. The changes to Ebon Dust Aura and Harrier's Grasp were, I'm sure, done with one thing in mind – R/D who'd picked those up to spam conditions and used them unlinked.

Elementalist. Lots of changes. The big one I was expecting – a major hit to Searing Flames – didn't happen. It got a slight shift downwards by losing second or two of Burning but that's leaves it good enough to use still – and since it adds a lot of value to the Elementalist, that's a good thing (Likewise, Sandstorm is rather powerful but in a good way. Glad to see it wasn't touched.). The real hit to it is in the increased recharge on Glowing Gaze which hurts people's ability to keep the SF flowing. Blinding Surge, on the other hand, got the expected hit and now costs twice as much to use. Which is an ouch without elite energy management to keep it going but it was really good before so that's probably not a bad change (Me, I'd have gone after the recharge but that would probably have put it out of serious play.). Otherewise just a lot of generally love thrown around that makes things better.

Mesmer. Okay, Spiritual Pain didn't get a hit? As far as I can tell it's still a lot of unconditional damage in the Domination line – it only hits the primary target of a spike now instead of everyone else, too, so it's not quite as good but it's still way too much damage for a Mesmer to be chipping in at will. And it doesn't do the job of really punishing any kind of spirit spam which, I'd think, is the whole point of the skill in the first place (The change to U-Sig, doubling its damage, on the other hand does.). Energy Surge's AoE being reduced makes sense, though. Mantra of Recovery just got playable all of a sudden and that opens up a lot of things. Makes hexing Mes a lot more viable. And with the decrease to interrupt recharges that might become a way to go, too. I rather doubt it as a dedicated interrupter is a pretty unequal trade with your opponent but, hey, you never know.

Monk. Huh, the first thing that hits me is the buff to the rez skills. They're all faster now which makes hardrezzing a lot easier. Interesting. Vengeance still isn't seeing serious play though, I don't care if you make it so you 1000 faction a swing, it's still going away in a flash and you can't fix that without messing with the recharge and that potentially breaks things wide open. The change to Divert Hexes is one I was expecting and I'm glad to see. It was way, way powerful before. Still is, just more sane now and should give hexes some room to breathe again. Same with the change to Shield of Absoption – simply too good and needed to be toned down. Hitting Monks with time costs is a nice way to go there.

Necromancer. I wasn't sure what to make with the changes to “butterflies” or what most people know as Sympathetic Visage and some other enchantments but, well, now I do. Enchantment removal just got nasty again. No idea why Wither and Malaise got changed, though, it makes sense in terms of the game's flavor for them to punch someone in the gut on the way out but it reduces their effectiveness in terms of energy denial and they were already pretty weak there. And having played around with it a bit in the Arena with Clamatius, I was expecting Spoil Victor to take a bigger hit.

Paragon. No clue. Couldn't figure out this class if you spotted me a “c” and a “lue”. Moving on.

Ranger. I was going to rage about Rampage as One but, on second thought, I'm moving it into the “uncertain” column. By decreasing the recharge it should become more useful. But by decreasing the duration that means a Bunny Thumper's going to have to spend a lot more energy just to keep it going. And that's a pretty hefty 25 en tag on it. Energy denial's the way to ruin a Thumper's day, of course, and despite Expertise Rangers are actually pretty vulnerable to it overall. I mean, I like the idea of a thumper and I'd like to see them around still but I don't like just how strong RaO is and how it's almost the only thing to run as a thumper. I'm not sure how this impacts the scene but I'm guessing it's going to be a positive step.

Ritualist. See Paragon. Then add in the fact that the list of changes is the longest of any profession. I'll be over here sobbing, thanks.

Warrior. Like a lot of things, many stances have gotten shorter but also had their recharges lowered. I think I like the change. You're All Alone got a hit which it needed but not sure if it's enough. Oh, and Power Attack got better. Yay?

As promised, a lot of stuff to play around with. Now if you'll excuse me it's time to head in game and get to finding a group. Tiff-cat, here I come!