Skill Updates

We will be evaluating the following changes over the course of the next week. Additional adjustments may be made during that time period.

Guild versus Guild

• Victory or Death: reduced the damage bonus to +15%; removed the maximum Health reduction. Guild Lords now prioritize other Guild Lords over players as targets.
• Archers: now have Precision Shot.
• Footmen: now have Pure Strike.
• Knights: now have Warrior's Cunning.

Assassin

• Viper's Defense: changed Skill type to a spell; increased casting time to .25 seconds; functionality changed to: "All adjacent foes are Poisoned for 5..20 seconds, you Shadow Step to a nearby random location."
• Heart of Shadow: functionality changed to: "You are healed for 30..150 Health and Shadow Step to a nearby random location."
• Scorpion Wire: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
• Caltrops: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.

Dervish

• Pious Assault: increased Energy cost to 10; functionality changed to: "You lose 1 Enchantment. If this attack hits, you deal +5..20 damage and inflict a Deep Wound for 5..20 seconds."

Elementalist

• Elemental Flame: increased Burning duration to 3..5 seconds.
• Glyph of Essence: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
• Chilling Winds: increased duration to 30 seconds.

Mesmer

• Wastrel's Worry: increased damage to 20..80.
• Mind Wrack: increased duration to 30 seconds.
• Kitah's Burden/Ethereal Burden: reduced recharge time to 30 seconds.
• Hex Eater Vortex: decreased damage to 30..90; increased recharge to 15 seconds.

Monk

• Divine Healing/Heaven's Delight: increased the area of effect to earshot.
• Patient Spirit: decreased duration to 2 seconds; increased healing to 30..120 Health.
• Restore Life: decreased casting time to 4 seconds.
• Renew Life: decreased casting time to 4 seconds.
• Vengeance: increased damage bonus to +25%; decreased recharge time to 30 seconds.
• Aura of Stability: decreased duration to 1..16 seconds.

Necromancer

• Signet of Agony: increased damage to 10..70.
• Wail of Doom: decreased Energy cost to 10.

Paragon

• Spear of Fury: increased adrenaline gain to 2..6 strikes.
• "We Shall Return!": decreased Energy cost to 5.
• "Fall Back!": decreased Energy cost to 10.

Ranger

• Power Shot: decreased activation time to 1 second.
• Precision Shot: decreased activation time to 1 second.
• Penetrating Attack/Sundering Attack: decreased activation time to 1 second.
• Magebane Shot: increased Energy cost to 10.

Ritualist

• Rejuvenation: increased Spirit's level to 1..16.
• Sight Beyond Sight: increased duration to 12..25 seconds.
• Sundering Weapon: now affects the next 3 attacks.
• Warmonger's Weapon: increased recharge time to 30 seconds.

Warrior

• "Coward!": decreased adrenaline cost to 4 strikes.
• "You're All Alone!": increased duration to 8 seconds.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug in the Eye of the North quest Kilroy Stonekin's Punch-Out Extravaganza! that occasionally prevented players who had regained full Energy from standing up after being knocked down.
• Fixed a bug in the Eye of the North quest Leader of the Pack that prevented some players from completing it.
• Fixed a bug with the Eye of the North PvE Skill Ursan Blessing that caused it to incorrectly replace some Skills when its effect expired.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a player's profession to appear using the wrong gender-noun on the character select screen in some languages.

Miscellaneous

• Added the option to bind keys that activate Hero Skills. These keys can be bound through the "Action: Order Hero (1-3) to use Skill (1-8)" option in the Control options panel (Menu > Options > Control).
• Updated the Hero AI for the Dervish Skill, Faithful Intervention.

Open Travel: Territory and District UI Changes

• As a continuation of last year's "Territory and District UI Changes" that saw language district restrictions removed for America and Europe, we are now removing restrictions on travel to Asian language districts.
• In this update restrictions to Korean language districts will be removed and players of American, European and Korean districts will be able to travel back and forth between these language districts.
• Restrictions on travel to Japanese and Taiwanese language districts will be removed in a subsequent build.

More...

I'm so proud of my site robot!
Look at how nicely formatted that post is! :o

I don't see too much to get excited about in this update. Although, the new hero keys could be useful. I'm not sure I understand the logic though. Sure, it's nice to tell my hero to use a specific skill, but I think a toggle between Fight, Guard or Avoid Combat would have been more useful. In Hero Battles, I'm not worried about specific skills. It's stopping them from attacking when they're hit with Spiteful Spirit or something like that. A button to stop all NPCs from attacking, and another to start them up again, seems more useful to me.