Guild Wars: Metagame Shakeup
Well, the major skill changes I predicted came out last night.
By far the biggest change is effectively removing Light of Deliverance from the flagstand builds. The metagame has been balanced on LoD for quite a while now so I expect a period of turbulent flux while things sort themselves out.
I saw iQ's latest smurf on obs last night running condition pressure with traps, a Rotting Flesh mesmer and Ensign on an old-school Ether Prodigy / Heal Party runner. Here's Ensign's post on the subject. Personally, I think he may be jumping the gun a bit - it's been a long time since we've seen Martyr, for example. There are a lot of other possible previously second-tier options - e.g. Motivation Paragons providing small party-wide heals, Restoration ritualists - that may emerge. Right now Word of Healing is amazingly strong and clearly the best replacement on the monk that was running LoD previously. I saw Tommy had Heal Party and Mantra of Concentration last night on a WoH monk and apparently some Euro guilds are running dual WoH monks.
The idea of this update, as I understand it, is to make normal play more exciting than the block/protection metagame that's been around for quite a while - i.e. instead of all the bars staying static till a sudden collapse, a more dynamic situation where spot healing is important and not everyone is always at full (well, with the old LoD, 80%) health. We'll see if that actually happens.
In other news, Weapon of Warding is back, and Conjure Nightmare got nerfed. Yes, paradoxically it got nerfed by making it cheaper, since you only ever cast it when you already had Auspicious Incantation up. Healer's Boon is also looking pretty hot - in general, the Healing line as a whole just got a lot more important.
Splinter Weapon got a nerf so you can't destroy all the NPCs in one shot. It's still good, just not quite as ridiculous. There is a question of whether you can fit that character into a GvG build now though.
The recall change is clearly aimed at Hero Battles and I don't see it making a big change a lot in GvG.
Bloodspike got a nerf. Cry me a river.
And for the PvEers out there, watch out - Mhenlo in GW:EN is a LoD healer, so he'll be feeling this nerf where the sun doesn't shine. If you're heroing it up, you may want to bring a hero monk and skip Mhenlo for the moment.
By far the biggest change is effectively removing Light of Deliverance from the flagstand builds. The metagame has been balanced on LoD for quite a while now so I expect a period of turbulent flux while things sort themselves out.
I saw iQ's latest smurf on obs last night running condition pressure with traps, a Rotting Flesh mesmer and Ensign on an old-school Ether Prodigy / Heal Party runner. Here's Ensign's post on the subject. Personally, I think he may be jumping the gun a bit - it's been a long time since we've seen Martyr, for example. There are a lot of other possible previously second-tier options - e.g. Motivation Paragons providing small party-wide heals, Restoration ritualists - that may emerge. Right now Word of Healing is amazingly strong and clearly the best replacement on the monk that was running LoD previously. I saw Tommy had Heal Party and Mantra of Concentration last night on a WoH monk and apparently some Euro guilds are running dual WoH monks.
The idea of this update, as I understand it, is to make normal play more exciting than the block/protection metagame that's been around for quite a while - i.e. instead of all the bars staying static till a sudden collapse, a more dynamic situation where spot healing is important and not everyone is always at full (well, with the old LoD, 80%) health. We'll see if that actually happens.
In other news, Weapon of Warding is back, and Conjure Nightmare got nerfed. Yes, paradoxically it got nerfed by making it cheaper, since you only ever cast it when you already had Auspicious Incantation up. Healer's Boon is also looking pretty hot - in general, the Healing line as a whole just got a lot more important.
Splinter Weapon got a nerf so you can't destroy all the NPCs in one shot. It's still good, just not quite as ridiculous. There is a question of whether you can fit that character into a GvG build now though.
The recall change is clearly aimed at Hero Battles and I don't see it making a big change a lot in GvG.
Bloodspike got a nerf. Cry me a river.
And for the PvEers out there, watch out - Mhenlo in GW:EN is a LoD healer, so he'll be feeling this nerf where the sun doesn't shine. If you're heroing it up, you may want to bring a hero monk and skip Mhenlo for the moment.
posted by Clamatius | Friday, November 09, 2007
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