Regarding Corrupt Enchantment

[Grim Daddy]

I wish to address a concern of mine regarding a post that was not on this site. A site and poster that I wish not name as to keep them both anonymous (unless an Adim. here requests it). The reason for addressing it here is two fold. Firstly, this site is one on ArenaNet’s list. So, they’ll most likely see this post. Secondly despite the different points of view on these forums that are in opposition to my own point of view, there is still a greater voice of reason than on most of the forums out there.

The poster wanted to see that the skill so that the health degeneration on the skill only occurred of an enchantment was removed. Of course, I have very much different reasoning as to why that shouldn’t be the case, which is as follows.

If they don’t bother changing this skill (assuming that the degeneration does work separately from the enchantment removal), I can foresee a lot of Touch Rangers, Boon-Prots, and other gimmick builds dying at the hands of this skill which will hopefully change the way PvP is played. And I think we can all agree that the Touch Ranger could use more counters to shut them down, even if the counters do not directly affect them.

Also take into account that removing an enchantment from a Dervish often times does more harm to the person who cast the removal than it does good. During the preview event, I noted that the Dervishes seem to be sensitive to degeneration. This means that this could prevent a Dervway FoTM running wild in the arenas for a year.

The person even went as far as to compare it to the non-elite skill Conjure Nightmare & imply that it was too weak. However, Conjure Nightmare (like Conjure Phantasm) has half the cool-down time and a longer duration than Corrupt Enchantment. The poster even went as far as to imply that the skill is better than Life Transfer. Sure, Life Transfer has a longer cool-down time, but it has a longer duration plus the enemy’s degeneration becomes one’s regeneration. Overall, Life Transfer seems to be on par with Corrupt Enchantment, which is the way it should be.

I will agree with one thing the poster did say though, which is that there are plenty of other good elites to choose from. However, I personally haven’t seen that many good skills for the Curse line since the first chapter. So for me at least, the alternatives (when it comes to just using Curses) are skills that do a lot of damage over a large area or denying energy/health to a target of my choice and not being able to have the option of a skill that causes massive damage to one target. It’s important to remember that there are only 8 skill slots per character. So, in order to be truly effective with something specific one must specialize in what one wants to do, and not have an end-all-be-all build.

As for it being overpowered, I fail to see what’s so overpowered about it. What I mean is the skill looks like it could be easily countered by an elite hex remover (Expel Hexes being the best one that I can come up with at the moment). That’s the way it should work: elite skill=elite counter(s) (for optimum results in countering an elite).

A single build should not be the end-all-be-all for dealing with every situation. From what I’ve seen & experienced, most players that I’ve run across can’t keep up with pressure hex builds because most them choose not to run skills that would can and will outpace the hexes that are being used. Honestly, it would only take a very simple healing build with one good hex removal (or 2 decent ones) to shut down my curse builds.

To the posters on this forum:

If you disagree with anything I’ve said, please elaborate in detail so that I can know what it is exactly that I said that has caused the dissention. If you have a concurring opinion, please elaborate on why else it is that you agree with me on this.

To ArenaNet:

If you intended this skill to have the degeneration work separately from the enchantment removal, please leave this skill as it is. If you didn’t intend for the skill to do this, please fix the skill so that it matches its current description. And if you wish to pass along any words through your representatives, please do so.

Alright, that’s enough angry venting from me for now.

[STINGER]

Corrupt Enchantment [edit] Elite Hex Spell.
Remove one Enchantment from target foe. For 10 seconds, that foe suffers -1...-7 Health degeneration.
10 ¾ 10

Well, I dont see this to be all that over powering. It may need adjusted in the end but a Conjure Phantasm Elite with 1 enchant removeal possibility doesnt sound too bad.

It is my guess though that the cool will change, 10 seconds is pretty fast for an enchant removal. The 3/4 cast is a bit fast too but we shall see.

I dont dislike the basics of the skill at all....


Envenom Enchantments [edit] Spell.
Target foe loses one Enchantment. For every remaining Enchantment, target foe is poisoned for 3...9 seconds.
10 2 20

This doesnt look bad but the poison is easy to remove.......

I dont know I see all kinds of stuff that sends out alarms to me I just need to see how they play. A Good deal of it though are skills that can be worthless if certain stuff isnt present which makes them a tuffer take.

[Damarus]

Whats with the mellow dramatic intro there grim?

[Grim Daddy]

Alright let’s start from the top:

Regarding The Elite Specifically:

I’m going to have to agree with STINGER on this one. However, my main concern is that the suggestion the person outside this forum made pushed was one that in my eyes made the skill far too gimmicky to warrant the title of elite. There are already enough broken skills in the game, like Otyugh's Cry. There’s no need to make more.

Though the basic attributes to the skill do not seem overpowered (i.e. such a notable amount of degeneration working independently of an enchantment removal); the casting time might be a little too fast, but that is still yet to be seen. To be fair to the current casting time, it is still a half second slower than Reversal of Fortune, which seems to be the cornerstone to most Protection builds. The only way I could see them increasing the casting time drastically higher than what it is while keeping the skill balanced, would be to decrease the cool-down time. To get a good example of what I’m talking about, take a look at Smite Hex and Remove Hex.

The problem with increasing the cool-down would be that it may just become like an elite version of Strip Enchantment or Life Siphon without the health regeneration. In turn, this would most likely beg the question of why not just use Strip Enchantment &/or Life Siphon? Conversely, if the skill is given too low of a cool-down time, then it may become too spammable and break the meta-game altogether. If the casting time does turn out to be too fast, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just left the cool-down time alone and bumped the casting time up to one second.

Overall, your concerns and suggestions to resolve your concerns seem to be well warranted, STINGER. This is something I can’t say to the person outside this forum, whose suggestion seemed to me to have very little consideration towards balance.

Regarding Game Mechanics In General:

To be honest, there are many more skills (a number of them not even elites) that scare me more than Corrupt Enchantments. Since I work with both the Monk and Necromancer professions (on diverse sets of builds might I add) on a frequent basis, I know how to counter and even undermine the protection/healing that is given out by a Monk with a Necromancer, and vice versa. This may not seem like much. But understanding this opens a lot of doors for me to learn how to use these concepts to out perform other build for most of the classes.

Knowing about the mechanics behind countering health degeneration makes me call into question why someone else would want a skill with unconditional degeneration and relatively low spammability adjusted to a skill with conditional degeneration and still relatively low spammability. I may be jumping to a poor conclusion about this next part. It seems to me that a person with this sort of attitude simply doesn’t know how to deal with health degeneration or at least not very well, and might do away with any stills that did too much degeneration if they were given the option.

Considering the number of skills the Paragon is getting that cause burning, it seems that ArenaNet is encouraging more of its player populous to find a ways to both implement and counter health degeneration.

Regarding My Tone & Word Choice:

I apologize, if I seem at all unnerved or paranoid, Damarus. I haven’t entirely made the best of judgment calls (or even good ones) relatively recently, due to not factoring in several variables when I come to the some of my conclusions. As a result, I’m not entirely (or at all) confident that I have reached a sound or logical conclusion.

I hadn’t bothered looking at the State of the Game when it came to Necromancers, nor did I take into account the thread on E-Storage vs. Soul Reaping. Both of these things pointed out that while the Necromancer enjoys a good time in most PvP arenas for being well rounded, they have very little going for them when it comes to GvG because they have no real niche that they can perform with their primary attribute. The GW Community seems to recognize this fault in general. ArenaNet has caught on to this and seems to want to reconcile the situation.

Thank you all for your concerns.

[STINGER]

Corrupt Enchantment [edit] Elite Hex Spell.
Remove one Enchantment from target foe. For 10 seconds, that foe suffers -1...-7 Health degeneration.
10 ¾ 10

10 energy for this degen is on par with Conjure Phant

3/4 on a degen or enchant removal however isnt, these are anywhere from 1-3 seconds leaving them to be interruptable which IMO is needed for any skills that is this solid.

10 recharge....although pretty decent for the average degen skill, a bit higher than Conjure btu a lot faster than Life Transfer but this one doesnt heal you so 30 second slike Transfer is probably too much. Now I point you to Chiliblains....it just recently got a boost but has been 25, 3/4, 15 for a long time IIRC and it brings a negative with it in bleeding.

Rend is 30 cool
Strip 20
Shatters 20-25
Drain and Inspired 20

So with all that said I see 10 to be pretty short cool.......now ATM it is sort of a mid point in a drain 2-5 cool and a removal at 20-25 but I feel its still to fast.

Look at this situation......BoonProter.....10 sec cool on Boon now. Corrupt is 10 second degen and 10 second cool........you can 100% shut down a booners boone and keep him degened the whole time. At first he will be able to counter it, but it wont take long before he just cant do anything but be a weak proter running around wiht degen all the time.

10 1-2 and 15-20 to me seems more balanced. Still the fastest recharge of a removal, pretty cheap at 10 for what you get out of it, and now counterable by interrupts if you want to.

I just forsee that if this skill remains 10,3/4,10 and gives degen 100% of the time and removes an enchant if its there then it will be at or near the top of the list for "can we take this" and may very well become a 100% taker.

Right now the average Me/X drainer Crippling/Conjure/Conjure.......I would drop Crippling Anguish in a heart beat for this Necro skill even if it ment runnig it at mid level attributes......I can snare them with non-elites. Even with the adjustments I suggested it might still be on every drainers bar it is just that good if it always drains and removes an enchant.

No degen Hex is "scary" what makes degen hexes scarry is when you have 2+ of them that can stack 2-3 people wiht 8-10 pips over and over and over and you dont have Convert to fight them. You cant remove this kind of stuff without bulk removers and even those cant do it all, you have got to disrupt and kill them while still removing as best you can and spam healing to maintain.


Histroy of skills in this game in removals......both hex and enchant ones have been introduced at X, X, X and always changed to be less effective. Enchant removals were once so good that in testing we built without any enchants just to try and get a build that we knew we could use the skills.

If it comes out as is and doing both things always........it will be used, and it will be strong and probably be changed.

[STINGER]

BTW....

If this skill only removes and then only degens if it removes then it still isnt a bad skill at all. It may be harder to take than if it did both always, but remember enchants are used a great deal and will be used alot more with the Dervishes.......

[Grim Daddy]

I probably should have stated that the casting time would most likely be pushed up to at least one second, assuming that the skill gets out of hand.

As I’ve noted before, it appears that the developers seem to be aiming at making health degeneration (both in implementation and counters) a larger part of the game. Since damage from degeneration doesn’t have an effect on adrenaline, making it harder for them to power up some of those heavier adrenaline attacks because of this. This gives a slight edge to the Dervish for having energy based attacks.

Monks Counter-Measures & Current Builds:

The problem with boon protection is that it makes a very grave assumption that the enemy (for the most part) is going to bring skills that deal direct damage that is powerful enough to be mitigated by things like Protective Spirit. However energy denial and upkeep still can be an issue, but it’s one that most players have found their way around this issue. As a result, there has been little incentive to change from protection to healing for most parts of the game, when one could both mitigate damage and recover health as a boon prot. Thereby, making boon prots the optimum choice for any situation where the team isn’t in a need moving very far or fast.

I’ve just recently started looking for ways for my monk to out maneuver the troubles that I expect my avatar to face with the upcoming chapter. So you all will have to forgive me if I forget something.

If one looks at the skills for chapter 3 for the monks, one will realize that there are even counters to losing enchantments (such as using Watchful Healing). One will also notice that there are many more skills being developed to encourage people to try skills other than enchantments to directly aid their party. Holy Haste, Revitalize, & Boon of Signets are some that give direct benefits for mixing and matching between signets and spells. There also seem to be several skills, like Glimmer of Light & Light of Deliverance, that seem like it would make it feasible to out heal such degeneration.

As for Protection Prayers, it seems they made it a little more than simply skills that mitigate direct damage. Zealous Benediction is to be located under Protection Prayers, which seems odd at first when given the nature of the skill. However when I thought about it, it seemed to make more and more sense. The reasoning behind this is that if a target is taking too much damage and skills that would normally prevent this from happening aren’t working to their full effect (like Guardian), then the monk can just use this skill to them to give them more health, regain the energy that was used up, and use that energy to continue protecting them. Though Dismiss Condition doesn’t seem to be as powerful for the number of conditions it removes or the amount of conditional healing it give; it does seem to provide a quicker recharge time to those that want a self condition remover. Divert Hexes can remove up to 3 hexes with a 5 second cool-down. To top it off, for each hex removed a condition is lost as well and up to 79 health can be gained for each hex that is lost. The real kicker is that this skill costs the same amount of energy as Corrupt Enchantment.

Overall, Monks appear as though they are ready to combat skills such as Corrupt Enchantments. Though I will admit that it does look like the Recall Boon Prot is pretty much dead; it seems that ArenaNet has been fair enough by giving monks skills that they can use to counter what’s to come for them.

Enchantment Removers, Cool-Down Times, & Additional Bonuses:

The bonuses to the skills for taking an enchantment for Strip Enchantment, Inspired Enchantment, & Drain Enchantment are immediate. Whereas, the bonus to Corrupt Enchantments takes ten seconds after it is cast to take full effect (assuming it doesn’t get removed or health regeneration is added onto the target).

Rend Enchantments may take away anywhere between 7-9 enchantments. But this is offset by a 30 second cool-down, 3 second casting time, & taking damage for each Monk enchantment removed.

Let us also remember that none of these skills that you compared Corrupt Enchantment to are elites.

I will acknowledge that Crippling Anguish does have a longer cool down time and costs more. However, the skill has a longer duration. And during that duration, the target has to suffer through both the conditions (being slowed down & suffering degeneration) for the entire time.

There is one skill that we both missed, which was Lingering Curse. Considering the amount of trouble that Lingering Curse can cause, Corrupt Enchantment seems to pale in comparison, since one can avoid getting one of their more important enchantments knocked out using a 1/4 second casting time enchantment as a cover. I personally have found that Corrupt Enchantment can easily be counted just by using a one-two punch, with Reversal of Fortune and Smite Hex. Combine this with the new skills that I've been looking up for the Monk, and it becomes painfully apparent that this hex can be countered much more easily than its predecessor. At this point, all that Corrupt Enchantment seems to have really going for it over Lingering Curse is the lower health/energy costs and casting time.

Conclusion:

In general, Curse skills have never been that strong, unless the skills are really good at doing one task really well or are well rounded to fill out multiple tasks. From the looks of it, Corrupt Enchantment appears to be more rounded than specialized. True, that the skill Corrupt Enchantment seems strong now but its counter Divert Hexes seems to be at least on par with it, which means that this seems to work with my philosophy of an elite is equal to an elite counter (for optimal results). Considering the number of ways (and the magnitude at which a number of these skills work) monks are getting to counter rapid losses in health and preventing hexes from causing more harm, it seems illogical to me to weaken an elite skill (like Corrupt Enchantment) when there are hex removing elites (like Divert Hexes) that will act as a perfect counter against such elite.

But then this entire situation begs the question: If there are so many skills coming out that have the potential to change the face of the game, then how can we really tell which ones are going to be the most effective purely through examination?

At this point, it looks as though we'll just have to wait and see.

Side Note:

If nothing else, this conversation is really catalyzing the rate at which I’m developing these new skills and ways on countering them too.

[STINGER]

I guess you just need to look at it "over time"......things like Lingering dont hold up over time as its 25 energy, its harder and harder to use as the battle lingers.

PvP skilling cant be compared dirrectly very well, they need to be looked at in short term and also in long term. Life Siphon is a POS in the short term btu over time can have impact much like Bleeding. Dazed is nasty but can be removed quickly, but "over time" those removals start to not come. There are many builds that wont kill a thing for say 2 mins but if they can make that battle last until 2.5 mins they may roll the opposition where other builds are designed to kill in 30-60-90 seconds and if they cant then they cant kill until they regen thier supply.

Degens never really do squat early.......they slowly become trouble as the battle wears on and this is where a 10 energy, 10 second kool skill that degens and removes enchants will shine. a Single Monk with a certain skill cant focus on countering that skill he has 7 people to focus on with heals, prot, mend, other hex removal...etc Even with some Godly called "Kill Corrupt Enchantment" eventually wiht his other dutys he will become taxed and that is the whole function of degens.......DOT (damage over time), just keep casting eventually we will reach thier breaking point.



I cant really comment well on too many Nightfall skills. This Deny Hexes? Elite? If it is then it costs the Monk his Elite slot to try and counter (1) skill??? Now it works on others but if you dont see a hex heavy build it may not be usefull.......

[Grim Daddy]

I know that I’d intended on simply waiting and seeing for myself what the new skills’ impact would be for the upcoming chapter. However, I’d come across quite a bit new information, which seems to be insightful and a shame to pass up on.

*Shatter Storm (Mesmer: No Attribute):
Target foe loses all Enchantments. For each Enchantment removed this way, Shatter Storm is disabled for an additional 7 seconds (Energy: 10; Casting: 1; Recharge: 0-672) (Ch. 2).

Unlike Lingering Curse, this skill has a faster casting time and lower health/energy cost. However, this skill does suffer a much longer recharge time for each additional enchantment that’s removed. Such is the case in the incredibly improbable situation that 12 players in AB have filled their skill bar with all different enchantments, cast them all onto one player, and then have them all removed by Shatter Storm (hence the seemingly impossible maximum recharge time of 672 seconds). Like Lingering Curse, this skill is hard to spam.

*Air of Disenchantment (Mesmer: Illusion):
For 10 seconds, target foe and all adjacent foes cast Enchantments 10...82% slower. When Air of Disenchantment ends, it removes one Enchantment from each affected foe (Energy: 10; Casting: 1; Recharge: 20) (Ch. 3).

This appears to be even deadlier at shutting down any enchanter. The hex slows down the enchantment ability of not only the person that was targeted but all the foes within an arm’s reach. If there’s a dedicated interrupter on the team, that person could shut down the enchanter of their contempt with greater ease. Removing the hex seems almost as bad as keeping it there. The reason being is because if the person that was hexed was shut down the entire time by an interrupter, then that person could very likely be in a position where they have no cover enchantments over the enchantments that have no upkeep (like Faithful Intervention) which means that such an enchantment could be removed when the hex is gone. If I'm reading this correctly, then it's possible for the hex to be removed from one person with enchantments lost on everyone hexed by this skill and still lose another enchantment when the hex's duration wears out on the rest of them.

*Lingering Curse (Necromancer: Curses):
Sacrifice 10% max Health. Target foe loses all Enchantments. For 8...18 seconds, target foe gains only half Health from healing (Health Lost: 10%; Energy: 25; Casting: 3; Recharge: 10) (Core).

Unlike Shatter Storm, this skill has a faster recharge time. However, the high demands of both energy and health make this skill almost as hard to spam. Opportune timing on a critical target is what gives both Lingering Curse and Shatter Storm their power.

*Order of Apostasy (Necromancer: Curses):
For 5 seconds, whenever a party member hits a foe, that foe loses one Enchantment. For each Monk Enchantment removed, you lose 25...17% Health (Health Lost: 0-100%; Energy: 25; Casting: 2; Recharge: 0) (Ch. 2).

This skill would be decent if it didn’t turn the Necromancer into a suicide minion against Protector Monks. But even then, the skill does stand a reasonable chance of being spotted before it is finished being cast; giving the opponent ample time to get out of the way. This is an issue that the Scribe had talked about. This means that in all likeliness ArenaNet is aware that skills in general suffer a loss when they must be coordinated with one another, instead of being used at the discretion of the person using the skill. An example of a time when one chooses to use skills at their own accord are in such instances where one uses OoB instead of BiP to manage their energy because of not having to rely on another ally to recharge one’s energy.

*Corrupt Enchantment:
Remove one Enchantment from target foe. For 10 seconds, that foe suffers -1...-7 Health degeneration (Energy: 10; Casting: .75; Recharge: 10) (Ch. 3).

There is a distinction that ArenaNet appears to be making between elite skills that remove one enchantment and ones that remove multiple enchantments. The skill does have the lowest combined energy cost, recharge, and casting time of any of the other elites here. However, it still only removes one enchantment. This means that if someone wants to use this to its full effectiveness, then that person will have to play the waiting game for the opportune moment to use the skill on an ideal target. On top of having the same requirements for optimum use as Lingering Curse, the person will additionally need to have lightning reflexes to respond before a cover enchantment is applied in order to use this skill at its full potential. Suffering this hex is not nearly as bad as suffering from the one that occurs due to Air of Disenchantment because it only effects one target, no backfiring occurs directly from removing the hex, and if all else fails the degeneration can easily be out healed by skills like Heal Other.

*Build Constraints and Grim’s Law:

With a limit of 8 skills that can be put on a skill bar and only one of them can be an elite skill, there comes a constraint of being only able to do so much one person can do. If someone chooses an e-management elite, then they miss out on using a skill that is efficient in another respect (such as having an efficient defensive or offensive skill instead). Being well rounded is not always the best approach, neither is being specialized. In other words, creating a build is about choice. There is only so much one can do, before the build becomes a niche build that is too specialized or becomes to rounded that it’s diluted to the point at which the build can’t perform any one task efficiently. This follows a principle I like to call the Build Constraint.

Monks and Ritualists may be key components to a team, but they’re still just components. There is only so much that they can do before someone else has to pick up the slack, stop having their support Pamper them with healing and protection, and actually take responsibility for their own health and energy management. The best experiences that I’ve had while doing support work are when a party as a whole does recognize that they’ve got to pitch in as to not overburden me with problems that they could easily deal with on their own, while leaving the moments of when cow patty hits the fan to me. It could be that I just don’t take enough credit for the deeds done by my team and am humble, or that I am being honest with myself. Any way I look at it, the fact remains that support characters are not there to tend to every last problem the team faces.

And for those that complain that PvE is too easy and that their Boon-Prot can breeze their way through the entire campaign blindfolded, this will add some challenge for them because this’ll actually think about what to bring, instead mindlessly taking the same build. There a plenty of new skills coming out for the next chapter, plus ones that have been overlooked in the last two chapters, so I wouldn’t cry foul that ArenaNet hasn’t given me anything. Moreover, it would be sad if we were basically playing the same builds as we were while only the first chapter was out, because the newer chapter’s skills were adjusted to the point of being useless due to the majority of the player base not being able to create new builds or was just too lazy to do so.

ArenaNet’s actions in making these skills are perfectly in line with other adjustments that they’ve made in the past. The only difference here seems to be that, instead of adjusting a certain set of skills, they decided to introduce direct competition, as well as direct competition to counter the other competition. In other words, it seems that ArenaNet hinting toward its player populous to adapt or face the consequences.

Dealing with Build Constraints applies to what I like to call Grim’s Law, which is as follows: To any build that has to cope with an adverse adjustment, the player populous that has invested the most time in that build and/or is least capable of adapting from the change will be adversely affected the most.

*Side Notes:

Had I created Grim’s Law and the principles of Build Constraints sooner, I wouldn’t have spent so much time moaning over the adjustments they made. The reason for this is because I was able to estimate about where I stood according to Grim’s Law just by looking at the number of builds that I’ve created for myself. And from what I gathered, ArenaNet wasn’t after me so much as they were after those who rarely used any other builds that fell outside the realm the build that was adversely affected. This is mostly due to the diversity that my builds encompass as a whole.

I'm sorry if this post seems too long, but ideas that didn't seem important on their own started piling up until it got the point where as a whole it seemed important enough to share. Trust me; I could have used just as much space showing the proofs to Build Constraints or Grim's Law. I’ll post again, if I find anything else important.