The Spotlight is on...

[Sausaletus Rex]

The Guru unveils yet another in what's hopefully an ongoing series with the Spotlight on Skills (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-1-id1181.php).

This ongoing column will try and periodically take one of the more than 400 skills in Guild Wars and to explain the various tricks, tips, and techniques associated with it. It's a look at what makes the skill good at what it does, what can be used to prevent it from working, just who might like such a skill, and whether or not it's worth taking in the first place.

The first skill so discussed is Skull Crack (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/skull-crack-elite-id83.php). Just a note that until *someone* runs the magic script there won't be any links at the bottom of the article but eventually there should be a list of skill trainers, monsters, bosses, and builds that use whatever skill's been spotlighted at the tail end of every column. So in the meantime you'll have to follow this link to a Skull Cracking build (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/unconditional-trouble-id1184.php).

There are also plenty of other skills to talk about, so if you've got a skill you're interested in knowing more about, feel free to suggest the next skill the spotlight should showcase.

[Devil's Dictionary]

A terrific article, Sausaletus Rex. I do not play a warrior but broadening my GW knowledge is nevera a bad thing. I am looking forward to see more spotlight articles.

[Greentongue]

Nice review. (I only hope that it is updated when the skills get adjusted.)
It is nice seeing useful but less popular skills "Spotlighted".

[Draken]

good review, will the spotlighted review also apear in the skill listing if the skill has been spotlighted? :)

[THX]

Yes it will,
ex: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/skull-crack-elite-id83.php

[Uthar]

It's unfortunate that such an impressive and possibly useful skill has to be set in amongst a weak line of skills. I might try to make a build off of it, maybe. have to see what I can come up with.

Anyway, it's great to see another feature column that can be of use.

[Rushing Wind]

That is some tight info! Too bad, like it stated, that this skill is correlated with Tactics! There isn't enough exciting stuff in there to drop my Axe, Strength and other skill (can't remember) to get into that.

That was an awesome overview though Rex and I can't wait for more of the same! It'll be fun to see these in the future because it makes things easier to understand and where one might start drawing ideas from to start on new builds!

[Kui]

Just a quick note... seems more relavent here than in site suggestions..

at the skill display:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/skull-crack-elite-id83.php

The link to the Skill Spotlight isn't linked properly. [There's a # in the link that shouldn't be there]

~Kui

[Sausaletus Rex]

You can thank Scaphism for the Tactics sections, in the first few drafts the skill line and its place in the meta-game was an after thought. However, Tactics, I feel, is being under-rated. It's not an exceptionally strong line, true, but it's not an abysmal line. It's not as poor as Death Magic or Beastmastery. Because it exists on a profession that's almost always going to take as much of a weapon attribute as possible it's always going to be second rate. And, like any attribute line that's as large and as focused on a single mechanic - for a long time Tactics was shouts and stances, nothing more - there's some real clunkers in there. A lot of those stances and shouts should be moved out and added to the weapon lines to flesh them out and the mechanic of skills that last for 10 seconds and recharge for 60 needs a real close examination, sure. But there's gold in the wasteland. Especially in the elites. Skull Crack and the vastly superior Victory is Mine! are both skills that don't *require* a high level of Tactics to work well. If you can spare a rank of 6~8 then there's plenty of nice little options in the Tactics line. They're burried under a lot of junk but they are there. As long as you accept that Tactics is a supporting player rather than a line to take the center stage, then it's really not that horrid (Granted, I don't like that. I'd rather Tactics was to shields what, say, Swordsmanship was to Swords, and that the purely defensive skills got spread around a bit more, Strength being for things like Defy Pain, not Power Attack, and the weapon lines having a bit more than sheer offensive power. But that's just what I'd do if ANet hired me to redesign the game. Unfortunately, they don't seem likely to do that, so I'm stuck exploring the same game as everyone else....

I only hope that it is updated when the skills get adjusted.

Well, I'm hoping I won't have to redo the column drastically when something gets changed. Skull Crack's elite, it's in Tactics, it's going to cost ungodly amounts of adren. As long as that remains true it's just the details that need fixing. Some skills are due for a change, an improvement, a nerf, and I'm going to try and stay away from those skills that are subject to varying widely - you won't see me do an article on Unnatural Signet or even skills from, say, Beastmasteryany time soon because I hold out hope that they're not in their final versions. But, by sticking to those skills that are on the sidelines, as it were, adn aren't as popular as the old stand-bys, I'm hoping I can remain right at least beyond the next BWE.

[Sausaletus Rex]

(Yes, I am double posting, thank you very much...)

The spotlight's been warmed up again so you can now view Spotlight on...Flourish here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-2-id1187.php).

The ultra secret magic script hasn't been run yet so you can check out two Flourish builds here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/the-hammer-and-the-anvil-id1185.php) and here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/you-belong-dead-id1186.php).

[Narcism]

I'm a little confused as to why you put points into Divine Favor in this build:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/you-belong-dead-id1186.php

Nice writeup... there's a surprise in your PM.

[Sausaletus Rex]

I was originally going to put the points into Healing to bring along Orison or something like that. Then I became concerned about energy, so I was going to look at Blessed Signet which necessitated points in Divine Favor but since I would only be running the one signet it wouldn't be doing me much good. I suppose I could have switched over to Tactics for a better shield but I decided to leave the points in Divine Favor so that Balthazar and Judge's could act as mini-heals in their own right. Each time they're cast they'll give the character 32 health, basically, and at least Judge's is going to be cast pretty frequently. Therefore, that constant rebuffing serves a dual purpose as increasing offense and in adding a bit of self-healing to an otherwise offensive build.

I should point out that the builds I'll try and post along with these articles are not the most overpowering or complete of things. They're builds that I've run or tried to run or have been meaning to run and have stashed away but which require a bit of fine-tuning to bring them up-to-date. As such, I tend not to make them as "competitive" as possible, just viable enough that people can twist them to their own needs, but instead to showcase a few tricks and combinations that people might otherwise not have considered. I mean, you really want a tight Flourish build, take your standard War/Ele with Gash+Sever+Final+Conjure and throw in a few non-adrenal skills like Hundred and Power Attack and so on, and then use Flourish so you can chain them together. But that's something that people have already seen, could already come up with, I'd like to further people's strategic options a bit more than to slap a highlighted skill on the FoTM build and call it a day.

So, for my undead slayer I was trying to point out that you don't necessarily have to be in Healing to get a bonus from Divine Favor. As long as you're casting Monk spells on yourself you're going to get some healing. Not the best healing, not the brute power of a Healing+DF combination but enough so that you can spend your slots elsewhere if you're not really looking to heal.

[Tantor]

That was realy a great spotlight write up. I like to use an axe most of the time and didn't even concider the 'weapon swithch' until the end of the article...think out of the box tantor.. :)

[Sausaletus Rex]

Yep, well, that's all part of why I'm doing those columns. I'm sure I know a lot of tricks that aren't common knowledge by this point. But they should be. So, hoepfully by going in-depth on these things I can point them out.

Swapping between a bow and a sword for Flourish was one a good best way to utilize a bow Ranger back in the days when their attacks had those long recharges, for example.

But, really, weapon swapping for fun and profit is something you should be getting used to if you're playing a Warrior. You'll want to have a few good weapons and to swap between them based on need - to gte past resistances on armor, among other things - and swapping for skill use is just a step further along that path. It's a bit tricky and you'll need to practice but it can be done and done well.

[March Hare]

Actually it's not all that hard switching weapons during combat considering that it is all quick keys. Though I am looking forward to what they are going to introduce in the next BWE. I hope that's one thing that they don't change around too much (other than possibly placing weapons in a separate bags or something so it doesn't mess with your inventory as much).

I guess that's a question for some of the alpha tester's. I haven’t seen anything so far as to what we should expect for the next BWE. I've heard that they're going to fool around with the PvP, GvG, and WoW, but are they going to change the skills and weapons?

[Sausaletus Rex]

The latest skill column is up here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-3-id1198.php) . It's the oft-misunderstood Pain pair up for explanation this time around (And, also, perhaps you can all guess my favorite profession by now...).

Once again, until the magical tech elves wave their magical hands and make the magic happen, magically, of course, you can view a Defy/Endure build here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/the-sure-man-tank-id1197.php)

Don't forget, if you've got a skill you'd like discussed feel free to suggest it here.

[Davion]

makes me want to consider a warrior secondary even more than before...nice..got my interest. thanks

[FireMarshal]

Nice read. :)

I have a few skill suggestions:

Oath Shot
Mantra of Recovery
Aura of the Lich

;)

[Bobangry]

makes me want to consider a warrior secondary even more than before...nice..got my interest. thanks

If you mean warrior secondary as in your secondary profession then it wont really work. Like Saus said, it requires strength to be truly effective. Something that secondary warriors don't have. I can attest to Endure Pains usefulness to a primary warrior though, as it has saved me often as an "panic button" skill. Just remember to tell your healers to heal you even though you're at full health. ;)

Very good read, covered everything that needed to be said for the pair. :)

[Sausaletus Rex]

These skills are interesting, FireMarshal, and probably - well, 2 out of 3 - deserve a column of their own, but here's a general idea of what each skill does:

Oath Shot

It's the recharge version of Marksman's Wager. Shoot an arrow, if it hits all your skills are instantly reusable. Miss and they have to recharge a while longer. It's got a high failure rate without high Expertise and that's before you get into the issue of people being able to dodge your arrow, but if you don't have high Expertise, why are you playing a Ranger? And, you can get around the dodging problem by using skills like Read the Wind or Favorable Winds.

Mantra of Recovery

Again, a recharge skill. All your spells - not skills but spells - will recharge in half the time. But, they'll be costing you more energy to do so - every time you cast MoRec will drain a bit of energy from you. That energy drain's linked to Fast Casting, which, of course really lets you pump out a lot of spells with this skill in a short amount of time, but the recharge time isn't so it's something that any spellcaster can take advantage of as long as they've got the energy management. And, you'll have */Mes somewhere, unless you've necklaced things, and there's no profession better at managing energy than the Mesmer.

Aura of the Lich

Is a skill to waste a slot on. Seriously, I have no idea why you'd want to use this spell. It does exactly as it says, halves health, halves damage. Except, of course, damage from DOT or from those abundant Necro sacrificial skills. By halving your health you've doubled the effective DPS of any Bleeding or Poison or On Fire you might take. And you've doubled the effective blood cost of any skill. I haven't tried it in a while but it seems to me that I remember it halving healing as well - game must treat healing as a positive damage number - although I might be wrong there and it might effectively double any healing. As it doubles your HOTs, such as Life Siphon or Well of Blood, which can be nice, but those weren't very good heals to begin with. Still, as long as sacrifical skills work as flat numbers rather than percentages of your overall health it's going to be a skill that most Necomancers should avoid.

[ratatass]

Nice Read indeed!

Thank you for the in depth analysis of the Defy Pain/Endure Pain Combo. I have been thoroughly confused for quite a while on this combo.

So, that is interessting. You are at 1 hp. Throw Endure and you buy some time to heal. Goddie, goodie. You will have to make your healer aware of this though!

Thank you very much for write up!

Ratatass

[Sphynx]

With respect to endure and defy pain:

I was quite surprised when reading this article as to how it discribed the mechanics of gaining/loosing health when using the skills at a time when you are not at full hit points.
My experiments with Demonic Flesh, which increases your maximum health, sugested that when your maximum health changes, your health in proportion to that maximum doesnt change. So, for example casting demonic flesh with 12 blood magic (sacrifice 101 health, increase your maximum by 176), what was happening was that your 480 health jumped to 480+176-101=555 health, and your max jumped to 480+176=656.
When it wore off, if you were, for example, at 328/656 (ie 1/2 max) health, you would go to being 240/480 health (still 1/2 max).
This meant that if you took 200 damage, for example, while demonic flesh was cast, when it wore off, that would be the equivelent of only 200*(480/656)=146 dam.

So, do Defy Pain and Endure Pain realy work in the additive way described in the article, or are they actually working in this proportional way like the demonic flesh?

[Sausaletus Rex]

Sphynx, there are two explanations.

A) Demonic Flesh works differently than Endure/Defy Pain. They're different skills from different lines from different professions. And although they both add health they don't add it in the same way. Ie I'm right.

B) There's been a change to Defy/Endure since I've tried them last and I'm talking out of my ass. Ie You're right.

We'd have to wait until the next BWE to find out which version is the correct explanation. For what it's worth the last time I used Demonic Flesh I found it to work pretty much like Defy/Endure. A percentile raising and lowering makes a lot more sense, especially in light of the way Deep Wound works now (there's already code out there to drop people's health by a percentage, basically) and does make the Pain pair much more useable. They're no longer so much of a panic button you can use to avoid trouble - a quick and dirty way to make sure that you don't drop below 1 hit point for at least a few hits - but they are much more like what I got into at the end of the article, just another way of increasing your armor. For that matter, a better version of increasing your armor because while there are armor penetrating skills, there aren't many skills that deal damage that don't care about your total hit points (Grenth's Balance is the only one I can think of off hand), so since you take the same damage from an ingore armor skill no matter your total hit points you'd be reducing their effective damage. You do, however, reduce the efficiency of healing in a similar manner to damage so it's a bit of a wash. That 100 hp heal when you're buffed up shrinks when the buff fades, too, after all. All that adds up to a much better skill. Especially Defy Pain which, I think, you can run almost continuously. All you need is one more strike of adrenaline from some source and you should be able to earn those 7 strikes of adrenaline in the 8 seconds in the time it takes Defy Pain to fade. Just using an attack speed buff should do that for you (Using a sword/axe, of course, hammers are out of luck, as usual)...

Anyone out there use Defy/Endure last BWE that can clear things up?

So, that is interessting. You are at 1 hp. Throw Endure and you buy some time to heal. Goddie, goodie. You will have to make your healer aware of this though!

Right, I generally CTRL-click whenever I use Endure Pain (I tend not to use Defy in favor of other things) so that the rest of my team knows I think I'm in trouble somehow. They need to know what it means, of course, as unless you're at low hit points you won't see the health bar display change when you use something like Endure - it's a percentile representation and unless you're really low you're not changing the percentage of current to maximum health very much. But yes, the Endure Pain button is akin to screaming "HEAL ME NOW!!!!" A healer has to know what Endure is to know what I'm saying with it, true, but then people should be familiar with skills outside the ones they use, in a perfect world.

[Ellestar]

Where adding armor will keep you from dying by reducing the amount of damage each attack will do, adding health will keep you from dying by increasing your ability to survive each attack. With 100 hits points you can be hit for 20 damage five times before you die. If you increase your armor so that you take 10 damage a hit you’ll last for ten blows. But if you increase your health by 100 hit points, so that you’ll have 200, you’ve accomplished the same thing, just through another method. Adding health, then, can be seen as analogous to adding more armor. What the Pain pair do, by adding more health is almost the same as if they’d temporarily increased your armor. Adding 258 health to a character with 480 health is roughly equivalent to temporarily adding 40AL to that character. You’ll halve the damage you take, not by dropping the numbers on the hits, but by dropping the percentage of your overall health they’re taking away. But, since you rapidly transition from that increased protection back to your normal protection – and, unlike if you’d added armor you’ll bear the full brunt of the effects of damage long after your protection fades - it’s probably not going to aid your character that much.

IMHO it's a little misleading. In a games with healing (especially that powerful like in Guild Wars) higher armor is generally a lot better than higher health even if they have same Effective Health = Health / Defensive_Adjustment because target recieves less damage from most sources and so it effectively improves heals.

***

Also, you mentioned switching weapons. Do you know, if there is any delay when you switch weapons? Say, if i'm attacking with one weapon and switch to another, do i lose some time without attacking waiting when switching animation will end etc.?

[Ensign]

Generally I'd agree that I'd rather have armor than base health if the two choices resulted in the same effective health - however, you don't want to take this to extremes simply because attacks that penetrate or ignore armor are not all that uncommon. If you're a caster the extra armor is certainly preferable as ignore armor isn't going to have a huge effect, but if you're a Warrior with heavy armor and a shield you should definitely be grabbing the +health over +armor, because armor penetration and ignores armor effects are going to be what really rip you apart.

Weapon swapping doesn't cost you any time - you can't do it during an attack or skill without interrupting yourself, but if you make the switch between attacks you don't skip a beat. I'd like to see the ability to queue up a weapon swap - hit the key during a skill, and you'll switch immediately upon completion of the skill. Assuming, of course, that isn't already in the game. =)

Peace,
-CxE

[Hikarate]

It sounds like these Pain skills just delay the damage. If you add Armor it will actually block a % of the damage. The Pain skills buffer the damage while in effect, and when they expire the damage is still dealt as it was originally received to your base HP. If +Armor spells worked the same way, they would block a % of the damage while active, and then once they expire you would take all the damage that armor originally blocked.
Sounds like +armor is a better choice in most cases.
Thanks for the info.

[Sphynx]

Note that the elite pain skill give you armour too!

[THX]

The latest Spotlight is on Dwarven Battle Stance, read the column here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-4-id1201.php).

[ratatass]

As usual I great write up. I am little dissapointed in not finding an UBER Combo with a twist that makes this skill worthwhile. And the reason for it - is probably that there isn't.

I do not understand the finer mechanics of the game, but using an elite slot that prevents you from using any skills in 8-9 amount of seconds - is hard to justify. Yes it is fine to have the caster not able to do anything for 8 seconds, but I don't think I would have a problem with it in PvP - I never hit the guys back, it would actually be too most casters benefit.

In PvE, trying to control multiple target with such a skill ? Maybe - but usually the 4 Char Warriors hacking on you are using regular melee attacks. It is those that kill you - not the power spikes now and then.


On another note, Ensign says that your really don't know your effectivness of skills untill you try them and test them out under different conditions. It might be worth a try to test it out and see if it is some use. I might do that. Idefinetly will test Defy Pain and Endure Pain, just to see how they work for me.

Thank you for another great writeup!



Ratatass

[Sphynx]

I would think one of the better uses for this skill would be to deal with those irritatingly hard bosses that keep healing themselves in pve; 8 seconds of them failing to get of that critical healing spell might well be enough for them to die.
It also occured to me that it would be a good idea to use it when your skills are short of adrenaline; you will likly be left doing several normal attacks to charge up the adrenaline skills at some point - why not spend that time interupting your target as well?

[nicosharp]

Now that most warriors seem to be the designated rezzers in a team, I think that this stance could be effective for a mid-battle after-adrenaline ressurection stopper. Of course, this skill is basically only effective on primary elementalists with aoe, a ranger trying to troll unguent, or primary/secondary monks with ressurection, unless you have the timing of a god.

[Dovi the Monk]

its basically just one of those ok elites, has some purposes out there, but there are much better skills to choose for your elite. it would prob beuseful against a caster, but thats about it, and in pve like what was said

it may help in the capture of bears in pre seaered ascalon, but i dont think u can get the skill yet.

[Sausaletus Rex]

I'll point out that a build using DBS is up here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/shutdown-soldier-id1200.php) although you're probably all already familiar with the basics of it. It's just a nasty little interrupt/denial build, I wouldn't be using it to deal damage with.

Generally I'd agree that I'd rather have armor than base health if the two choices resulted in the same effective health - however, you don't want to take this to extremes simply because attacks that penetrate or ignore armor are not all that uncommon. If you're a caster the extra armor is certainly preferable as ignore armor isn't going to have a huge effect, but if you're a Warrior with heavy armor and a shield you should definitely be grabbing the +health over +armor, because armor penetration and ignores armor effects are going to be what really rip you apart.

Right, there are pluses and minuses either way, scenarios where one is better than the other and all that, but the net effect is to add more defense to your character. And defense is, ultimately, just to keep you from catching the dead.

As usual I great write up. I am little dissapointed in not finding an UBER Combo with a twist that makes this skill worthwhile. And the reason for it - is probably that there isn't....
On another note, Ensign says that your really don't know your effectivness of skills untill you try them and test them out under different conditions. It might be worth a try to test it out and see if it is some use. I might do that.

By all means, do try these things out for yourself. These columns are opinions, for the most part. Namely mine. Granted, I probably have more experience with these skills and a clearer picture of just how they've altered and changed over time than most but beyond the bare facts it's nothing more than my opinion. And I most definitely do not hold myself up as the final arbiter off all things GW. Your opinions may well differ from mine. Just because I or the common wisdom can see no value in a skill doesn't mean there is none.

Try them for yourselves. You never know, you might be onto something no one else's figured out yet. Or you could fail horribly but, hey, it's a game.

Except, don't try DBS. It's horrid. I've tried it and while it's useful in spot duty - say for when you really don't want someone to do much for a brief moment - it can be pretty effective. But you can't really captalize on it yourself, you'll need your teammates to help your out because there's no way to crank out the damage - or even the interrupts, really - while using DBS. I'd consider it as a hammer war if it was a normal skill, maybe, but it's just not worth the elite slot at the present time. Cut the recharge time so you can get something closer to 50% efficiency out of it or make it adrenal and we'll talk. I still don't get why it's not linked to hammers, either, while I'm at it.

I would think one of the better uses for this skill would be to deal with those irritatingly hard bosses that keep healing themselves in pve; 8 seconds of them failing to get of that critical healing spell might well be enough for them to die.

Right, if you really need to stop someone from using something to open that window of opportunity it can really shine. I personally found good use for it to prevent the Hero from capturing a dias when, say, you had five or six seconds until the rez (Although for that you could use Earthshaker or Backbreaker just as well, even though those are pretty poor at the moment, too.). But the problem there is the hammer's swing speed. It's just too slow, skill that have less than a 2 second casting time can be safely used in between your blows and those are generally the skills that have low recharge times - the spammable ones you care about taking down repeatedly, anyway, the long recharge skills only require a single use interrupt - so even if you get lucky and catch one it'll only be a few more seconds before they can try again.

It also occured to me that it would be a good idea to use it when your skills are short of adrenaline; you will likly be left doing several normal attacks to charge up the adrenaline skills at some point - why not spend that time interupting your target as well?

Wait, there's going to be times when you're out of adrenal and energy skills to use? Not if you're doing things right. The real hard part of coming out with an effective Warrior skill bar is to get one that has a pattern of skills you can do over and over again. You want as little downtime, as few crucial seconds during a battle, when you're not using a skill to aid you in bashing away at someone as possible. You want to go from adrenal to adrenal to energy to buffing spell to energy to adrenal to energy to normal and back all over again. 8 or 9 seconds of forgoing your skills is intolerable. Of course, this is the hammer line we're talking about, the land of 20 and 30 second recharges, so maybe you're on to something...

Now that most warriors seem to be the designated rezzers in a team, I think that this stance could be effective for a mid-battle after-adrenaline ressurection stopper. Of course, this skill is basically only effective on primary elementalists with aoe, a ranger trying to troll unguent, or primary/secondary monks with ressurection, unless you have the timing of a god.

No more effective than Distracting Blow. And that's not elite. That one swing is all you need. Rezzes take forever to cast, they're big ripe targets, you don't need to try that hard to blow them up as long as you've got interruption skills, period.

[Sausaletus Rex]

Merrily I double post to tell you all that the latest Spotlight is up here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-5-id1212.php) and you can find a build related to it here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/red-hands-id1214.php).

This time around it's that FoTM skill Victory is Mine! It's probably gotten enough attention to be due for a nerf or at least for opponent's to have figured out how to counteract it (Simple answer - use condition removal, but most teams should already be doing that), but there's a reason it's so popular right now: it works. And hopefully this latest column will explain why.

[Sausaletus Rex]

The next Spotlight is lit here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-6-id1213.php). I thought I'd try something new this time around and instead of looking at one skill, I took a look at a wide variety, namely those Mesmer skills that are primarily interrupts (sorry all you Ineptitude fans, you'll have to wait). No builds this time around since I think those skills are pretty common and I haven't really had much of an idea about how to make those that aren't better, but maybe I'll think up a few later on.

[whiskas]

Nice article, I haven't run into many interrupters. Although I did encounter one in an arena match a couple BWE's ago that stuck in my mind. I was an all fire elementalist and was in the middle of casting something when I was suddenly interrupted, no big deal, I'll just select another... WHAT THE BLOODY HELL, all my skills were disabled, needless to say I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off for a good 10 seconds.

It might also be worth mentioning, that if you're a E/Me Power Block and Mind Burn/Freeze/Surge work nicely together, but thats more in the realm of energy stealing than interrupting.

[Sausaletus Rex]

The latest Spotlight is up and it's a doozy. It's a bit of a compilation piece this time around but I think you'll find it's well worth it as it's an overview of many of the important changes from the past weekend. Read it here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-7-id1240.php).

[Blackace]

The new Rituals, a source of much complaining and in need of balance :)

edit: Props to Rex for kicking Ether Lord when its down-again :)

[Sausaletus Rex]

Yes, the rituals are chock full of abusive goodness. A few favorites by way of Zrave :

First, cast Fertile Season. Gain, say, 500 hp and armor (Zrave's pretty convinced the +AL is 40 rather than 24 and I'm inclined to agree). Next, find the range of Fertile Season, stroll to the edge, and take one step over. Lose 500 hp. Engage the enemy while staying close to Fertile Season. When you start to run low, step back into the Fertile Season. Gain 500 hp. Step back out again, step back in again, do the hokey pokey and have, effectively, infinite health.

Or, there's the old stand-by from the beta weekend. Cast Mantra of Inscriptions, cast Quickening Zephyr, cast Signet of Judgement. Then figure out something to do in the one second it takes SoJ to recharge. Cast again and enjoy flattening the enemy. You can toss in things like Mantra of Signets, Bane Signet, Leech Signet, and so on. Or, of course, you could always abuse the new Arcane Mimicry to get two SoJ on two characters on your team.

Sure, I won't expect a lot of the big abuses to last, but it's sure fun to think about while they do...

Props to Rex for kicking Ether Lord when its down-again

It's ever so much fun, isn't it? Anyone can rag on U-sig, I like a more challenging target.

[Dreamsmith]

There's a huge inconsistency between the guides and latest spotlight. Specifically, quoting the Warrior guide (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/warrior-id234.php):
Adrenal skills recharge based on a number of hits either received or dealt in combat and once that amount of adrenaline has been built up cost no energy to activate.
Note: "received or dealt".

From the latest spotlight (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-7-id1240.php):
... A prime example of this would be the ready-made PvP build, the Protection Healer, where Bonetti’s was once used as both defense and cheap and dirty energy management on a character who wanted to heal away and was likely to get swarmed by Warriors. Now, unless you want to spend the time attacking to charge it up or have some other way of gaining adrenaline, it’s worthless, as you’ll never get to use it.
Huh? If I'm being swarmed by warriors, I should be receiving a lot of hits. Why am I not gaining adrenaline?

Which one of these articles is correct and which is in error?

[Rellok]

I didn't see the change to HB making it do 100% but being {E}. That is a pretty big change for those using IW+HB or Flourish+HB for super damage.

Anyway, I know it's been discussed on the forums already, but it bears mentioning.

Great job Rex,

Matt

[Sausaletus Rex]

Which one of these articles is correct and which is in error?

The most recent one, which would be the Spotlight - I tried out the Protection Healer mentioned in the Spotlight and I never gained a lick of adrenaline despite getting lots of hits. Adrenaline gain when struck used to be in the game but has since been taken out. The Warrior guide was written a little under two months ago and is probably in desperate need of an update at this point. In fact, all our profession pages probably need an overhaul...

I didn't see the change to HB making it do 100% but being {E}. That is a pretty big change for those using IW+HB or Flourish+HB for super damage.

Yes, since I'd listed all the skill changes in a forum post I didn't feel the need to look into them all, just to highlight the ones that were most important or overlooked. Oh, and to trash Ether Lord again, but that's a given.

I missed out on HB and other changes. HB has been discussed but, yeah, it was a change made probably specifically to address IW builds using it to gain effectively 200% damage on any target in range with extreme rapidity.

For a non-IW build it's an okay skill now, I'm not sure if, as a Warrior you'd pass up Skull Crack, Battle Rage, Warrior's Endurance, Victory is Mine!, Flourish, and any good elite from your secondary for it, no questions asked. I'm not that big of a fan of having an attack elite when there are elites which offer a lot more flexibility and power but it can fit on a Sword Warrior's skill bar. It's not all that impressive, except in terms of doubling adrenal gain while giving some nice damage - but even then it's pretty expensive to spam over and over again for primary Warriors - because that 100% damage change only affects your weapon damage. The key to getting a lot of damage out of a Warrior isn't swinging a good weapon, that's part of it, sure, but it's stacking buffs, enchantments, preparations, and whatever else you can on top of that weapon damage. That's why people were fans of Conjures - which have also changed and are pretty much something to pass over now - they're cheap and effective ways of adding damage. That extra damage wasn't reduce to 75% by Hundred Blades. A well-made Warrior wasn't doing just 150% of their damage, they were doing 150% of their weapon damage and 200% of all their adds. Now it's 200% total, which is an increase but not all that much of one.

For an IW Mes, though, it's a crushing blow. IW limits a character to just the damage from IW. You can't increase that damage by any means. If IW says it does 34 damage it does 34 damage (You can't decrease it with armor or evading techniques, either, so it's not all bad) you can't use Power Attack or Savage Slash or anything else to pump up your DPS. The only thing you can do is add more attacks. Either by increasing your attack rate, through things like Flurry, or by creating additional attacks, through things like Hundred Blades. HB nearly doubled your efficiency against a single target. Your DPS went from, at best 30odd, which isn't much to brag about, to close to 40 or 50, which is getting near to the better Warrior and Ranger outputs, *and* avoids a lot of the counter-measures to such builds. It was competitive with those builds and although I dislike that a secondary Warrior or non-Warrior has to get so gimmicky to get near a primary Warrior I don't dislike the idea of a secondary Warrior being as effective, it's that it's so hard and so rare that I disparage, not that it's possible. Now, HB was extremely good when you could get your enemies close together because it wasn't just 200% of your IW damage it was 200% of IW to anyone in range with a low recycle time. You could carve through packs of enemies as if they had Mark of Pain on because HB wouldn't decrease IW damage just as Power Attack wouldn't increase it.

That had to go, apparently. And IW builds are much poorer off without it. Cyclone Axe has been mentioned as a replacement for HB and it would work to replace the AoE, sure, but that wasn't the point of HB. The point of HB was to increase their DPS against a single target, but that AoE damage made it too abusable, without HB it's not going to be easy to find a way to get close to enough damage out of such builds to make them threatening and the other problems inherint in an IW build become much more apparent. Honestly, I can't see running one in the near future. I'd much rather have seen them take off the AoE effect on HB or something like that, perhaps make Galrath Slash into an adrenal AoE attack - which would also circumvent IWs from using a skill, of course, and would solve the problem of having Galrath, Pure, and Final all nearly identical in the same skill line.

I mentioned the Conjures earlier. Those were what made War/Ele and Ran/Ele playable, pretty much. They were central because they were the cheapest and longest lasting damage add and Warriors and Rangers don't have that much energy to throw around (Rangers less so, but they do have less energy and regeneration, for skills unaffected by Expertise they can't get too wacky.) and, of course, those characters could dabble in the other ele skills which weren't really suited to them, being too hard to cast and too expensive, for the most part, or, like Expertise/Marksmanship or Str/Weapon suck up a lot of AP as they only get better as their attributes progress. It was never a good combination because other professions offered War and Ran a lot more flexibility. Now, of course, Conjures only work if your weapon does the associated damage type. If you use Conjure Flame you only get the bonus with a Fiery weapon. You can swap out and use another weapon but you won't get that bonus until you hold the right type. As long as there are things like Zealous upgrades around on the same upgrade part as what gives you elemental typing then elemental damage is sub-par. The energy starved Warriors and Rangers are much better served by having the energy to use skills - especially those W/E and R/E who dabbled in other Elementalist skills - than by having those few extra points of damage. So, they'll avoid Conjures and, if they're smart, they'll avoid Elementalist altogether.

There's other things I didn't mention. Let's see...

Elementalist has several of the new Touch range skills. That's a nice change, too, as it's a way for such characters to get around Dazed or Backfire or whatever. They'd be nice for melee characters, like Warriors, but they're a bit too expensive. You have to be up close to use them so they either need to do a lot more damage or need to be discounted a bit to account for the fact that it's dangerous to use them.

A lot of Elementalist damage ranges got tweaked. So did others. It's an interesting change. The overall effect seems to be a) to simplify progression to the nearest interger - something those of us who don't hold advanced math degrees can appreciate and b) to front load damage a bit and drop it on the back end while still keeping the average damage range about the same. For example, Executioner's Strike went from +1~32 damage to +10~34. In other words it went from 1+(2.58xAxe) to 10+(2xAxe). At 12, you won't notice much of a difference. At 0 you will as you'll do a lot more damage, which is good for lower-level characters. But the real change is as attributes progress. As you get past 12 and onto 14, 15, 16, and above, you get diminishing returns (Executioner's turns out to be a bad example as it's still roughly the same at 16) the net effect, then, is that scaling is less important. Lower-level characters do more damage, mostly, so they're more effective and it's easier to have your attributes lower. Yet, it's harder to pile on +att and get to insane damage levels. It's not perfect yet but it's a step in the right direction as you can get some insane damage out of, say, an Air Elementalist - enough to pop up damage balance warnings - when you can get to Air 18 or 20.

Speaking of Air Ele, Thunderclap got a big hit with the foam bat. I wasn't keen on it before but I'm avoiding it now.

The faster casting Wards are great. They were good before but now they're a lot harder to interrupt and a lot easier to get up when needed. They recharge faster, too, so you can keep them up if you move or as they run out a lot better.

Ether Prodigy and Renewal both got much needed boosts. Ether Prodigy lasts longer now, meaning you get more energy. Damage on end and exhaustion is still too much of a double-hit, though. One or the other should go. And Renewal now gives you a bit of healing. Like Victory is Mine! the real point is the energy but that little bit of health (with 3 enchantments you'd get 51 health. Assuming you could cast a spell 10 times in the 10 seconds you'd get 510 health. Not bad, patently unrealistic, though, and hard to focus that healing to the point where it's most needed, on demand, which is where healing is best.) which hasn't changed but it's a bit nicer now.

And, of course, Ice Spear, Stone Daggers, Lightning Javelin, and Flare are all still overly expensive, ineffective sources of damage. Get a Wand and get a Conjure, you'll be better off (Conjures are still great for Ele, if you're, say, a Fire ele you'll have a fire wand or staff probably. Conjuring with that is 10 energy every 60 seconds to get a decent amount of damage. Few ele should pass it up even though you can get it removed.).

Moving on, Mesmer didn't get many changes.

The big one's to Arcane Mimicry, which is just ripe for abuse now. It's a more specific version of Echo, in a party setting. Reportedly, despite the description it works on any elite, not just spell elites. So, you can get something like two Backbreakers on two War/Mes or two Signets of Judgement on two Mes/Mon and anything. Basically, if you're in a team, your Mes characters can now double up their elites. Or they can have two separate elites wihtout spending too many slots.

Mantra of Recall got a flat duration. Not much of a change there as it wasn't going to last that long anyway. You use it, use another stance to cancel, get that energy, and then wait for it to recharge.

Signet of Weariness got a bit more dangerous, draining more energy with AoE. Be nice on that War/Mes that's going to concentrate on disruption with Fear Me! although the recharge is a bit suboptimal. Oh well, that's what Mantra of Inscriptions or Mantra of Signets is for.

Monk had some big changes, too.

Like Freyas, I like the change to Divine Spirit. Monks like the low-cost energy skills. Before it only worked on 10 energy skills, which was poor, because it didn't reduce them a lot and a Monk wasn't going to be casting many high-energy skills. Now, it's a quick burst of cheaper energy skills that can help your regeneration as you're spamming heals. Not the best but Monk's weak on energy management overall, so I'll take it. Blessed Signet is much better now, too. It'll take twice as long to cast but it recharges twice as fast so you can net a lot more energy with it. You will, though, spend four times what you used to recasting it if you're doing it as often as you can but, again, weak energy management means take what you can get.

Healing Touch is nice for a primary Monk now. With good Healing and good DF it's roughly a 120~150 heal or a lot more than the new Orision at a comparible cost. Since Heal Other is now spammable and heals for a good 180~200 and Orision's been reduced in effectiveness a bit, I'd drop Orison, take Heal Other, and use Healing Touch for self-healing. Heal Other's twice the cost but it's nearly twice as effective as a heal, too. Casts faster, too.

Light of Dwayna take four seconds to cast now. That's low for a rez but it's still extremely costly and you'll probably never get more than a few allies in the same spot. Not without the enemy standing right over them waiting to tear you a new one when you stand around casting for four seconds.

Necro now...

Consume Corpse gives you energy now. Not a lot but it's quick enough to cast to spoil any minion master's casting, even with their lowered casting, so it's not a bad thing. Necrotic Traversal is similar but it'll poison enemies. They both teleport you to the targeted corpse though which can be a problem. Deathly Chill's recharge came down so you can spam it a lot more quickly now for a moderate amount of damage. Malign Intervention actually has some possibilities. 10 en is bearable and it's a minor version of Lingering Curse, neutering healing. It's not a bad thing to put on a focused target and, as a bonus, you'll get a havoc-wrecking minon when all's said and done, too, if you're lucky. Verata's Aura lasts forever now, probably longer than most minions will last, so it could be good. Verata's Sacrifice is now an effective way of keeping those minions alive a while longer, although you can't use it forever. And, of course, the casting and recharge came down on those minion summoning skills and they gained a few more levels on the high end. It all adds up to an overall boost to the effectiveness of a Death Necro, especially in terms of PvP. The underlying problem : the overall lack of corpses in quickly decided PvP matches and the harmful consequences of more than one Necro fighting over those corpses remains, though.

Offering of Blood is interesting. It's elite but it's extremely quick now. It could be useful as a quick way of regenerating energy every 15 seconds. 10% health isn't too much of a barrier, either. I'm not entirely sure it's worth it, though.

Vampiric Gaze got quicker to cast, too, although it's still pretty costly. 15 energy for, at best 50odd healing is something like 4 health per energy, which is atrocious. That's Mending levels of healing and Mending is something to avoid at all costs. Yeah, you get that much damage, too, but 15 energy for 50 damage is pretty poor, too. And, with a 5 second recharge you're spending nearly 3 energy every second to use it, which is 9 pips of degen.

Warrior got a few nice new things, too. A few not so nice things, as well.

Shield Bash lasts longer and, since it's not a stance, can be added on top of a defensive stance. It's still not very good, though, as it only lasts for one hit even as a normal skill.

Warrior's Cunning went from being a great skill to being trash. Unless you know your opponent's using blocks and evasions it's useless. And, then, it's 10 energy with a 60 second recharge. Bleh, awful efficiency, awful effect.

Disciplined Stance is nice because you'll no longer screw up your adrenal gain. It just ends when you use one but if you have high adrenal costing skills, that's not that much of a problem. That additional armor is a nice little boost, too.

Shields Up is a lot better. I don't know if I'd actually *use* it but it no longer requires the rest of your team to carry around shields to take effect. And that dodge on both arrows and things like Water Trident can be good, although it's not enough to rely on, really.

Pure Strike needed a change but, as I said, I still think it's too close to Galrath and Final. 5 energy every 8 seconds is about 2 pips of degeneration though. Unless you're heavily adrenal or are using something like Flouish you can't use that for long.

Over in Ranger the new pet skills are intriguing although, as they eat up valuable real estate on your skill bar they're probably forgettable. +2~20 damage doesn't sound like very much given how little damage pets already cause, it's probably very hard to time the attacks to get that side effect, and, at the same time, you're costing your own character some power by further limiting their skills. I'd rather see such skills be innate to the pet. Maybe have a secondary skill bar when you have a pet or have each pet earn a set of, say, 4 skills, once each 5 levels, as they advance that you can use or their AI can use. But, it does give you a bit more control over your pet, which is nice.

There's also the new Determined Shot. I think that's a pretty solid skill. If you can get it to miss consistently, of course.

All the rituals, too, which is a column in and of itself, and well, you can tell why I started to do a quick little overview for a nice little column and wound up with something as big as a build review. Once I hit 10,000 words, I knew it was time to stop and get to editing...

[Bobangry]

Out of curiosity -not that it would be all that effective- I was wondering if this would work to once again combine HB and Illusionary Weaponry.

First Player:

Warrior/Mesmer

Attributes:
12 Sword
12 Illusion
3 Strength or Inspiration

Skills:
-Hundred Blades
-Arcane Mimicry
-some energy regen like Energy Tap to net you 4 energy. (there's probably a better option but I'm too lazy to look)

The rest doesn't matter


Second Player:
Mesmer/X or X/Mesmer

Skills:
-Illusionary Weaponry

The rest doesn't matter


I'm assuming the points your ally has into Illusion doesn't help you, so you need them yourself. If not have him get Illusion Magic to 12 instead.

The warrior uses Arcane Mimicry on his ally to steal Illusionary Weaponry, then uses Energy Tap or somesuch to get enough to cast Illusionary Weaponry, after casting IW, use Hundred Blades.

A lot of work and most definatly not worth it, just curious if it would work like I'm thinking and allow the combo again.
---------------------------------------------

Nice recap on the Nature Rituals, I forgot about a lot of that.

[Sausaletus Rex]

Out of curiosity -not that it would be all that effective- I was wondering if this would work to once again combine HB and Illusionary Weaponry.

Yes, it would work. Mimicry currently works on any elite skill and that applies to HB. It's used, then, to get two elites on your skill bar. And unlike Arcane Echo you can use it to get an elite that wasn't originally there at all or you otherwise couldn't have.

You could do the same thing by having two IW take Arcane Mimicry and one take HB while the other takes IW and then use Mimicry to share with each other to complete their builds. AM is ripe for abusive things like that right now, I'd expect it to change at some point but you never know.

The problem, though, is time. Mimicry lasts for 20 seconds. Yet it recharges for 60. To go back to my efficiency idea you only get 33% efficiency out of such a skill, so it'd better be worth it. Unless you only want to use HB in spurts it's not going to last long enough to really make that much of a difference, but you probably already knew that. For a Mes/Ran it has some possibilities because you'd be able to use Oath Shot or somethign to instantly recharge Mimicry and you could swipe HB from a Warrior teammate - It's unlinked, especially if you're using IW - but that seems like a lot of effort to go through for minimal gain to me.

I'm assuming the points your ally has into Illusion doesn't help you, so you need them yourself. If not have him get Illusion Magic to 12 instead.

Right. For Arcane Mimicy, Thievery, Inspired Echantment, Echo, and all the rest that create a new skill on your bar it's not that meta-skill's linked attribute, it's the attribute linked to your new skill. Your Mes/Ele can steal Shielding Hands with Inspired Enchantment but you won't get much use out of it because you have no Protection.

[Pharalon]

Or, there's the old stand-by from the beta weekend. Cast Mantra of Inscriptions, cast Quickening Zephyr, cast Signet of Judgement.

You've actually got to cast Zephyr, then use the mantra for this to work. When calculating any enchanments/rituals/hexes/conditions, the game uses a FiFo queue. Mantra will reduce the recharge on signets by a percent of the base recharge time, while Zephyr will halve the recharge time of a skill when the queue gets to it. So for a 30 second recharge skill, Zephyr->Mantra will be (30*0.5)-14 =1, while Mantra->Zephyr will be (30-14)*0.5 = 8.

Hopefully they'll standardize the way such skills work by release so you don't get abusive loopholes like this.

[Sausaletus Rex]

The latest Spotlight is up and can be found here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-8-id1265.php). Give it a look and you'll find it's rather appropriate I've cast *Restore Life* upon this thread.

[Blackace]

Arcane Mimicry-one of my favorite skills for breaking things. Use it while you still can in the event it gets changed!

[Davion]

hmm... considering I have not yet tried the monk as secondary to my ranger builds yet,and have been figuring how to get something that would help out in there, thank you for clearing a few things up on the rezz department.

Gives me a more attuned idea what my R/Mo will be using for PvE misadventures. Rebirth. Seems in the end this would suit my personal needs much more closely as it would allow me a bit more of a chance to save my adorable (cough..not so smart..cough) henchmen when they decide to charge off into that 40 monster posse.

gracias.. for the info. :cool:

[Spura]

Yeah Offering of blood is pretty nice. But still, I am looking for better energy management options.

On my current curses build I have 3 slots devoted to blood(or any other secondary attribute I would want to use).

Currently I have:
Life siphon(132 damage and healing over time isn't shabby)
Well of Blood(this one rocks)
Offering of Blood(I need energy badly)

Now I have been thinking. If I go inspiration I do get nice energy management spells, though not much better than offering of blood. Or are they?
I would also lose a nice, party helping, corpse spell. And life siphon does well when I spam it, as damage and as healing.



Now another option would be: Victory is mine and conditions. This has many drawbacks. First I have to be at point blank range to some people, while offering of blood work whereever on map. Second I would need at least 4 conditions nearby to make this better energy source as offering of blood. Enfeebling blood is the only condition in curses line(ok aside from Chillblains).

Do you think I can make this work?

Saus rez doesn't rez you with 1 HP but rather 20% HP.

[Blackace]

Inpsiration has Power Drain and Channeling, both of which are better than Offering of Blood(elite status)

[Sausaletus Rex]

Saus rez doesn't rez you with 1 HP but rather 20% HP.

I seriously have to fire my proof readers. I had a brain-fart on that one and everyone else who saw it missed it, too. Thanks, it's been corrected.

And, in any event, the next Spotlight's up now. Give it a look here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-9-id1269.php).

[BlackArrow]

And, in any event, the next Spotlight's up now. Give it a look here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2619).

That link goes to the Guild of the Week #2 thread. Did you want the spotlight on rez skills (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-8-id1265.php) or glyphs? (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-9-id1269.php)

[Sausaletus Rex]

Weird. How'd that happen? Anyhow, #9, glyphs.

[filter]

“Your next spell cannot be interrupted, and ignores the effects of Dazed.” - Glyph of Concentration.
Knockdowns will still interrupt right?

[Spura]

And there’s no way to get around this penalty. “Disabling” a skill is locking it and forcing it to recharge over a certain period of time. You can use skills that alter that recharge such as Mantra of Recovery or Oath Shot to get around that two minute timer, though.
Those 2 sentences contradict themselves.
But to do so you’re not just spending 1.75 seconds out of every 16.75 casting your glyph – that’s about 11% of your time, by the way, just to make your spells cheaper – you’re also using up your elite slot. And that means of all the elites available to your character you’ve settled on Glyph of Energy as the best. Which likely isn’t the case. There are better elites that can give your character better energy management.
I would like to see that better energy management elite. Energy drain takes 1.75 seconds as well, net gain is 15 energy as well(or less since I don't usually use headpiece and HP decreasing rune on inspiration), it requires speccing in an attrib when glyph requires no points in any attribute. So which are those elites that offer better energy management?

[Ellestar]

I think that Glyph of Lesser Energy may be much better than it was described in an article. It's possible to precast a glyph, and when battle already started cast a spell (that's +15 mana), use glyph that is already recharged, cast another spell (+10 mana), use glyph once again after 30 second recharge, cast a spell (+10 mana). That's +35 energy in a first ~40 seconds of battle or 2.625 pips of energy regeneration when it really counts.

[Sausaletus Rex]

Knockdowns will still interrupt right?

I'm not certain. I don't think I've even been hit with knockdown while using GoC or even something like Mantra of Concentration. Maybe someone who has can fill us in. My guess is that, yes, knockdowns would still interrupt you but it might be that it turns a knockdown into just an interrupt - that you'll be disrupted but you'll still be on your feet.

Those 2 sentences contradict themselves.

First line should have been omitted. It's from an earlier draft and I meant to take it out. Good catch.

I would like to see that better energy management elite.

Ether Renewal? Ether Prodigy? Energy Drain? Mantra of Recall? Just about every other one out there? Hell, get out of the elites and even Energy Tap and Power Drain are arguably better. Yes, you can save a lot of energy with Glyph of Energy. However, to do so you'll need to cast spells large enough to benefit from it. If you use it with 15 energy skills you're not saving 3 pips you're saving 2. 10 energy skills you're saving 1. 5 energy skills and it doesn't matter, you're just increasing your casting time. If you're not casting 25 energy spells then you're not making the most of Glyph of Energy and you're getting a lot less out of it than other, less conditional, energy management skills.

GoE is powerful, sure, and you can put it to good use without spending any attribute points. But there are better elites even for what it does.


I think that Glyph of Lesser Energy may be much better than it was described in an article. It's possible to precast a glyph, and when battle already started cast a spell (that's +15 mana), use glyph that is already recharged, cast another spell (+10 mana), use glyph once again after 30 second recharge, cast a spell (+10 mana). That's +35 energy in a first ~40 seconds of battle or 2.625 pips of energy regeneration when it really counts.

Yes, the shorter span of time you consider it over, the better it gets because you can add front loaded energy savings at the beginning by casting the glyph in advance and considering the first moment you cast your first spell. As you approach infinitiy, the savings get closer and closer to that single pip.

However, I don't think you can work it quite as well as you've stated it.

Not without something messing with recharge times. GLE recharges in 30 seconds. But its duration is only 15 seconds, like all glyphs. It will only wait for you to cast a spell for 15 seconds. So, taking the zero point as, say, the 14th second, you cast that first spell and you still have 15 seconds to recharge. recast it, cast your next spell and wait 30 seconds again, repeat. That's 35 energy in just over 45 seconds (46.5 actually) or about .75 energy per second, just over 2 pips worth. It scales down after that. On the fourth cast it's 45 energy in 77.25 seconds or .58 energy per second. On the fifth it's 55 energy in 105 or .50 energy per second. On the sixth it's 65 in 138.75 or .47EPS. And so on. Over the long haul you get worse and worse returns.

Of course, it works the other way, too. Consider just the first two casts there and you can save 25 energy in 16.75 seconds or 135 energy per second or between 4 and 5 pips worth.

Works for GoE this way, too, of course, although less dramatically because the recharge and duration times synch up better. But the first two casts will net you 35 energy in 16.75 seconds or about 6 pips worth of energy. Long as you can get two 25 energy spells off in the span of those 16.75 seconds, of course. All that's discounting the initial cost of casting the first glyph, too, which is 5 energy you'll need to regenerate. Not a big deal if you're leading up to combat but during combat it's a factor. Unless you're a Ran/Ele - Expertise works on glyphs, too.

So, yes, they do work rather well to preserve the already large energy advantage of an Elementalist, making Energy Storage and other energy increasing items better, for bursts of casting. Of course, for burst casting you run into the problem that they're increasing your casting time limiting the number of spells that actually do something you can pack into that time frame.

[Blackace]

Gotta take into account that GoE is only efficient with certain spells, and puts you in the mold to precast a set combination.

Energy Drain is always going to be "good" as it's just a straight energy steal.

Sure energy drain requires you to spec in Inspiration, but who the hell wouldnt want to?

[Ensign]

Sure energy drain requires you to spec in Inspiration, but who the hell wouldnt want to?

Do you really want me to answer that question, or can I just point to the recent, inexplicable buff to Energy Drain? Most people won't see the obvious even after you kick 'em in the teeth with it.

Peace,
-CxE

[Pharalon]

Good article Saus. Just a couple of points. Due to its nature, Glyph of Concentration will be consumed on the next skill used (even on an instant attack skill for example), so it can't be pre-loaded as effectively asd the other glyphs.

Also, Expertise effects the cost of all Glyphs. So for an Expertise ranger, they'll cost about 2 energy instead of 5.

[Sausaletus Rex]

Good article Saus. Just a couple of points. Due to its nature, Glyph of Concentration will be consumed on the next skill used (even on an instant attack skill for example), so it can't be pre-loaded as effectively asd the other glyphs.

Right. Any skill will trigger the GoC so unless you're planning on not using skills for a while you can't front-load it. Still, it's got a 2 second recharge so it's not a huge deal. You'll just have to repay the casting and energy costs to use it.

Also, Expertise effects the cost of all Glyphs. So for an Expertise ranger, they'll cost about 2 energy instead of 5.

Yep. A good point and one I couldn't find a way to just slip in there without going on and on and on about Expertise. I was going to mention it when I posted by Range/Elementalist bild using glyphs.

But it does change the figuring on some things, especially the GLE and GoE as you might imagine. A Ranger with enough Expertise saves up to 13 out of 15 energy with GLE (about .43 energy per second instead of .33 unless you want to go through Ellestar's situation again...) and 18 out of 25 energy (about 1.2EPS) with its big brother. Granted, you have a smaller energy bar than the average primary Elementalist but Expertise helps spread it further with pretty much everything that's not a spell so you get a benefit both from the savings and from the lowered costs.

[Spura]

Ether Renewal? Ether Prodigy? Energy Drain? Mantra of Recall? Just about every other one out there? Hell, get out of the elites and even Energy Tap and Power Drain are arguably better.
Ok, I don't play ele primary. So that rules first 2 out. Energy drain? How is energy drain better? I mean sure it works with small spells, but it has enough problems and has same returns at 15 inspiration than GE at 0. First you need to hit a target with 20 energy. And later in fight noone has 20 energy. Some people continuously run at 10 or 5 energy 20 sec into the fight. That is why energy drain and energy tap aren't as hot as they are advertised. And at 11 inspiration return is 17 energy on energy drain and thus not as big as on glyph.

And to use glyph all you need is a 25 energy spell with sufficiently low recharge or a couple of them. Animate comes to mind. With glyph you don't need to spend points, you don't need to spend time getting a target that likely has energy.

Mantra of recall is so bad it makes me laugh. Besides it needs 15 seed energy which is quite a big downside. I mean, how often do you have 15 energy on hands when you need energy?

And power drain isn't that good either. Granted it is good for non-elite, but it requires quick fingers, spellcasting target(not always available, and often requires switching from current target to some spellcaster). And return at 10 or 11 inpisiration isn't much above 20. Power drain has 25 sec recharge.

Despite its shortcomings, glyph is blissfully easy to use, requires no attention, no attribute. Other drains and interrupts require you to get a good target. I'd say GoE, Energy drain and Offering of blood are of equal power.

[Scaphism]

Ok, I don't play ele primary. So that rules first 2 out. Energy drain? How is energy drain better? I mean sure it works with small spells, but it has enough problems and has same returns at 15 inspiration than GE at 0. First you need to hit a target with 20 energy. And later in fight noone has 20 energy.

I didn't realize this talk had to be geared towards non-elementalist primaries.
Energy drain is better than just about everything out there because:
1) It's cast time was shifted reduced to 1 second (less with fast cast!)
2) Not only does it net you 10+ energy, it drains that from your enemy- so it's not just a energy management tool, it's a huge swing in your favor in the resource fight.

As for people not having 15 energy to steal, you'll likely notice a lot of people rezzing with lots of energy, or auto-rezzing every 2 minutes and rejoining the fight.
And to use glyph all you need is a 25 energy spell with sufficiently low recharge or a couple of them.
All you need are a handful of useful 25 energy spells? And you're not playing a primary elementalist? So what are you casting?
Animate comes to mind.
Oh and here I thought we were talking about useful spells.
But you did mention you weren't an elementalist primary...so I'm assuming you have soul reaping to give you that boost of energy when something dies, so you'll have enough energy to raise a minion from the fresh corpse?

Mantra of Recal...you're basically right. When you need energy, you don't have 15 energy to spend getting extra energy. But then again, that's why you cast it whenever there's a lull. Still not worth an elite.
And power drain isn't that good either. Granted it is good for non-elite, but it requires quick fingers, spellcasting target...
In what universe did Power Drain get bad?
And since when hasn't there been at least 1 spellcasting target somewhere when you need it? 4 of the 6 professions in the game have lists full of spells. Unless you're playing a team heavy on rangers and warriors, there are spellcasting targets. Even then, Rangers and Warriors need secondaries.

Finally, if you can't nail people with an 0.25 cast time interrupt and you're playing a mesmer, you need to find a new profession. Sure you wont be nailing Reversal of Fortune with it, but good mesmers will nail Word of Healing. You should aim to be interrupt anything with a 1s cast time or more. That includes Orison, Breeze, and other Monk staples. Necros and Elementalists are far easier to interrupt than monks, but you're probably worrying about them after the monks are down. Remind me what was bad about power drain again?

Glyph of Energy has uses, but it also has drawbacks. It requires a GOOD spell to pair it with (you're using your elite to make a non-elite better), and it adds 1.75s to your cast time, which is 2 wand attacks. I sure hope it's a damn good reason to use it, and not Animate Bone Fiends it's being wasted on.

[Sausaletus Rex]

You underestimate Mantra of Recall. It's probably not worth an elite but it's a bonus 15 energy every 20 seconds no matter what. Now that it's no longer a stance and you can't self cancel it's a lot less useful but as long as you can get it cast you'll have that energy eventually. If you get Rended, for example, you get the energy right then and their. Your opponent can't stop it with focus tricks or draining their own energy or knocking you down or any way else except by interrupting you when you cast it. Skills that are difficult to counter have power that's not to be overlooked. Still, I never said it was good just that I'd run it over Glyph of Energy and not feel bad about it.

As for Power Drain, no, a drooling idiot won't be just able to slap it on their skil bar and use it well. It takes a little bit of timing and a little bit of practice. Not using it because it takes a modicum of skill, though, is a mistake. Note that you don't have to hit someone before they complete that spell. You can strike the aftercast which extends the casting time of all spells and still reap that energy. You won't blow the spell but if you're just using Power Drain for energy management, do you really care? So, your .25 activation interrupt can hit even a .25 cast spell because it's got that .75 aftercast tacked onto it giving you a full second to act. .75 second spells are really 1.5. 1 second spells 1.75. 2 second spells 2.75. And so on. For that matter there are some spells with even *longer* aftercasts than that up to as much as 1.75 seconds, I believe, making them even easier to hit.

[Ensign]

You underestimate Mantra of Recall.

Is it better than Energy Drain? No? Then who cares? When you're talking about elites, you can't just look at if a spell is good - it's competiting with every other elite for exactly one skill slot, so if it isn't the best of the best it might as well not even exist.


So, your .25 activation interrupt can hit even a .25 cast spell because it's got that .75 aftercast tacked onto it giving you a full second to act.

Interrupting the aftercast of a spell and still getting the secondary effect is a bug, not a feature. Or should I say, was a bug. It got squashed recently.

Not that this makes interrupts bad or anything, they're still nuts - just a little bit trickier to use.


For that matter there are some spells with even *longer* aftercasts

Since you brought it up, the complete list is:

Aftershock
Crystal Wave
Flame Burst
Frozen Burst
Inferno

Or, simply, the Elementalist PBAoE spells. Each of these has twice the normal spell aftercast, or 1.5 seconds - thus, the spells go off quickly so you can hit things with them, but they still require a significant time commitment to keep people from blowing someone away with PBAoE.


In what universe did Power Drain get bad?

The one where Animate Bone Minions is PvP playable.

Duh.

Peace,
-CxE

[Sausaletus Rex]

Is it better than Energy Drain?

In one respect, yes. Energy Drain requires a target with enough energy for you to steal. Mantra of Recall doesn't, you get your energy regardless of whatever else is happening on the battlefield. Yes, Energy Drain is better in many situations but there are reasons to pick Mantra of Recall over it on occassion.

Interrupting the aftercast of a spell and still getting the secondary effect is a bug, not a feature. Or should I say, was a bug. It got squashed recently.

It's not a bug until they fix it. :P

[Sausaletus Rex]

Lost in the excitement over this little thing we call the last BWE ever, the latest two Spotlights went on. Check out #10 -Shield Bash (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-10-id1273.php) and #11 - Marksmans Wager and Oath Shot (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/spotlight-on-skills-11-id1274.php).