Talk:Smiter's Boon (PvP)

In b4 Ish 20:55, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, Smiters were popular, but they were balanced with Resto Xinrae's Weapon, Vengeful Weapon and Weapon of Remedy Rits. They nerfed the skills to oblivion for PvP; they could have just increased the recharge to 20 seconds, reduced the duration to the same, and increase the casting time to 2 seconds. This seems like a joke, unless they planned a revert ahead of time. Maybe it's for upcoming tournaments or the double HA weekend? ــѕт.  мıкε  21:02, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * If they'd have changed any one of these 3 stats it would put the standard build out of play. Why all three?  You're right, looks like a joke. I've accepted every update quietly for 3 years, and this is the most ridiculous I've seen. Why didn't they just delete the skill? (My fav skill >__<) [[Image:Sisipherr sig image.jpg|19px]]Sisipherr  21:11, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ya This has to be the biggest PvP nerf in history, ROFL! I DARE anyone to find a bigger nerf --ilr
 * Hence it being your sig :P --Gimmethegepgun 21:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yah it was my sig on several messages boards, IM, twitter, etc for a year. And I'm leaving it in tribute to what once was! [[Image:Sisipherr sig image.jpg|19px]]Sisipherr  22:38, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The nerf is too extreme to be permanent, tbh. ــѕт.  мıкε  21:19, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Updates are for skill "balance" not skill removal... this is ubber failure. Big Bow 21:23, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hell, why did they stop there? Why not go the whole hog? Add a 5 second casting time, 17% sac, change it to 1.5x the DF bonus, and add a "This enchantment ends if you use a non-Smiting Prayers ally-affecting skill" clause. Seriously, what the hell was the point of this? Methnor 21:30, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Or, the old specs but with something like: "For 30 seconds, your Smiting Prayers have double Divine Favor healing bonus. This enchantment ends if any allies are within Earshot." Note that you are an ally of yourself, so you basically spent 5 energy and 1.75 seconds for nothing. =P ــѕт.  мıкε  23:53, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

AHAHAHAHA this is a laughable update. Anet is so lazy. They dont even mind that monks have one less elite now? I have to give it to them though, they ARE good at thinking of the easiest way out of every problem, even if it means ruining their own game...Eikumbok 14:46, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops
I thought it said "or," not "and." Sorry Mike. 21:26, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Someone just said Assassin's Promise. I think we've found our way to get around the nerf. /sarcasm ــѕт.  мıкε  21:29, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I was also going to remove the note anyway, I just thought I'd let people know how utterly useless it is in PvP. XD ــѕт.  мıкε  21:30, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

"We recognize that the changes to this skill will essentially remove it from play." That quote right from the Devs pretty much says it all, bwahahahaha... --ilr
 * i lold when i saw the update--24.84.110.200 21:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Hahaha, what the hell? --GW-RM 21:39, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Wow, what ridiculous gimmick build required changing it from 300% of the recharge to 6%?[[Image:Entrea Sumatae.png|Entrea Sumatae]] Entrea   [Talk]  21:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Makes Smiting worthwhile seems to be the approximate reasoning.[[Image:Entrea Sumatae.png|Entrea Sumatae]] Entrea   [Talk]  22:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * At least they willingly killed it and didn't think they were balancing it. &mdash; Powersurge360  23:33, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hold up, so they completely nerf smite monks (of which are not much trouble) but leave everything else alone? Damn you and your ignorance anet... 68.47.192.6 23:48, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You seem to be missing the horror of the PvP smite monks. They are monks, right? These monks, though, were neither healing nor mitigating damage in any way. Rather, they were dealing damage. Smite monks are a crime against nature, and had to be stopped at all costs.[[Image:Entrea Sumatae.png|Entrea Sumatae]] Entrea   [Talk]  23:52, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thats fucking retarded. What if I WANT to deal some fucking damage. Smiting prayers are meant to deal damage saying otherwise is retarded. Reversal of damage etc was just a way for a smiter to add some protection to their arsenal.~RASK 96.25.96.218 00:18, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * So with that argument, how does the removal of this skill from the "arsenal" prevent smite monks from "dealing damage"? -- [[Image:Isk8.png]]  I~sk8   (T/C) 00:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I forgot Sarcasm doesn't work well on the interwebs. Personally, I think that smiting being a viable option is a good thing, but Anet obviously believes otherwise.[[Image:Entrea Sumatae.png|Entrea Sumatae]] Entrea   [Talk]  00:24, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I honestly can't see why this skill was overpowered to begin with. Unless the smite monks are just spamming reversal of damage all the time, I don't see that many other skills that can get much use out of this one... maybe Smite Hex/Condition, and a few other misc. skills.  -- [[Image:Isk8.png]]   I~sk8   (T/C) 00:28, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That about covers it, from what the Dev update says. They were too good at removing Hexes and Conditions, and healing at the same time is unacceptable.[[Image:Entrea Sumatae.png|Entrea Sumatae]] Entrea   [Talk]  00:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * A smiter on your team means that your frontline is clean of all hexes and conditions AND provides tremendous pressure to whatever they happen to be smacking. It did too much at once in too quick intervals, heals, utilty, and damage. &mdash; Powersurge360  00:45, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think mending found a new friend... Backstabberu 01:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Nice joke. YOu can nerf something without breaking it entirely. You could have left the duration at like 30 seconds and with a 90 second recharge and a 25 energy cost its still weakened considerably. Hell you could have just made the energy 25. Smiting monks aren't exactly bundles of energy. They can't afford to keep up a 25 energy skill (probably softened with a glyph down to 15) without costing them alot of the power of their bar. &mdash;♥ Jedi ♥ Rogue ♥ 20:29, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * But the point of the nerf was to essentially remove the skill from the game (in PvP); if they would have done a small nerf to Smiter's Boon, Smiters would still be used, albeit not as often, but with this, smite supports will become rare in PvP. ــѕт.  мıкε  05:17, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * NO F@#%in DUH! That's the whole point of the argument, Yes I know this is a month late but hell, Your comment hit the nail on the head. The point wasn't really to remove the skill from the game, It was to stop smiters from entering PvP. To be fair to the Devs I gotta say that skills that make a warrior look useless(which to me is a good thing :P) Is pretty annoying at times. But come on..."Smiter's Boon is a key skill in smite-heavy PvP teams that were generally overpowered and which too strongly discouraged the use of hexes and conditions" Awwww poor baby you had ALL your hexes removed. Providing a sufficient counter to hexes is "Overpowered" As a PvE Smiter I can tell you that yes you can remove conditions, Yes you can remove Hexes, and yes 3-5 Smiters can provide a HELL of removal but only "Discourages" those who depend solely on those things. Might as well ban the Scourge Skills, or Spoil Victor, Insidious Parasite, Visions of Regret or even Deep Wound, not to mention others that "Discourage" the use of attacking, healing or enchantments. The reasoning that it did "Too much at once", I think that's a cop out because while you could do a lot at once, you couldn't do it for very long energy wise. As for the healing.... even in it's former state, it would IMO be unwise to run more than 13 in Divine Favor, that's only 42 extra healing per spell, AND it has to use ally targeted spells. Seeing as only monks can use this skill to any effect whatsoever, being able to heal in sufficient amounts shouldn't be the issue. Pairing it with Divine Boon heals Ally-targeted Smites for 138(DF/Divine Boon/Smiter's Boon) at 13 DF for 7 energy and the loss of 1 pip of regen. The fact that only Reversal of Damage has any degree of spam ability just weakens the "Overpowered" argument more. Monks lose energy hand over fist when running Smiter's boon/Divine Boon, so E-Denial is a very real counter to this build. Honestly(and the rest of this rant is ALL my opinion)This skill was not overpowered, nor did it sufficiently overcharge Smiting Prayers. The Meta just wasn't in the mood to deal with the fact that *GASP* Monks were kicking a few of they're butts, and Smites as we all know are looked upon as n00b play until it smashes them across the face, so they whined to the Devs. And THAT is why Smiter's Boon is (as far as my Guild Wars knowledge takes me)the ONLY skill that has been, for all points and purpose BANNED from PvP. Because Smiting doesn't overwhelm the target, and instead "Goes around" them, it seems to be cheating...if and when it works. I am probably ignoring some facts in my lack of knowledge of the other side of the story but if I am, I ask that I be told. In any case I doubt that even if it is unbalanced, it could not have been fixed with a slight tweaking, hence what I said at the start that this was to discourage smiting not this skill's use. [[Image:NGKnight_Sig.gif]](NG) 10:58 October, 28, 2008
 * I'm starting to actually see another side, tbh. Smiter's are still used in TA, even after the nerf, however they'll usually take Remove Hex over Smite Hex. With Smiter's Boon, RoD was actually more reliable than RoF, and a Smiting Monk could Heal for more than a Rit while dealing some damage in the same skill. As far as I can tell, Smiter's Boon made Reversal of Damage better than Vengeful Weapon, and unless you were taking a million spirits, Smite Condition was also better than Mend Body and Soul. Or, you could just take Melandru's Resilience+Draw Conditions. >.>
 * Now, I'm not sure if they nerfed it just because Smiters countered most shutdown/pressure builds, but because they could do that AND Heal decently at the same time, tbh.
 * There were still much better ways to have balanced the skill, though, and I can think of about 20 off the top of my head. ــѕт.  мıкε  11:17, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If you think about it support Smiters are meant to be a counter build, what I mean is that to deal damage the majority of smites require something be done to you for it to take effect. Kinda like an Internal Martial Art. All a Smiter can do is stare to death a Warrior or Assassin if he's not attacking him or one of his allies. HAHAHA I just thought of something funny, a Locust's Fury sin would absolutely OWN a Smiter's boon smiter, the damage from the daggers would be small but numerous thus minimizing the effect of RoD, and it doesn't use any hexes or conditions. Anyway back to the topic, I think it was nerfed because of you're second reason: It countered most shutdown/pressure builds and healed while doing it. [[Image:NGKnight_Sig.gif]](NG) 3:24 October, 29, 2008

WTF?????????????? Smiting Monks Just DIED.
HOLY SHIT! I'll go uninstall Guild Wars now...They have officially make smiting support skills for -/Mo's There is no point to being a Mo/- in PvP any more. Smiters Boon is complete and UBER crap now. It has the 2nd longest recharge in the game with the highest energy cost (25) in the game, with the worst duration for it's effect in the game, It is worse than taking blessed signet on a W/Mo with no maintainable enchantments and without the skill symbolic strike. This skill is utter shit now. I just dont know what to say but..."Good night sweet smiting monks, may a flight of angels sing thee to thy passing."--66.192.104.10 01:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Your post tells us pretty much why they slaughtered the skill. Backstabberu 01:40, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That Monk primaries did Smiting prayers better than Monk secondaries? XD ــѕт.  мıкε  02:15, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Nerf it, fine, but can they honestly say they could think of nothing better? I'm appalled. "We recognize that the changes to this skill will essentially remove it from play." So terrified were they of making a mistake in fixing another that they chose instead to deliberately screw up.
 * No, but the fact that you can't smite without it :P Backstabberu 14:14, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You can, you just suck more. I really wonder why anet didn't just remove the skill from the game for PvP entirely.  To nerf something this much and still leave it in the game is just adding insult to injury.  --GW-Seventh 15:39, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Izzy was at the G|C in Leipzig, Germany. So I was. My guildleader asked him about smiters boon. He said, that they couldn't accept a skill that allows to heal and deal lot amounts of damage at once. So they "filled in ridicolous numbers" and nerfed it (It wouldn't be easy to remove something from the game). 84.171.81.56 07:43, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Change the function imo, or just make it heal for 50% more divine or something, right now its just lamesauce. I know the purpose wasnt to balance it but to remove it, but that doesnt really justify it. Izzy's job is after all to "BALANCE" not "KILL"...--Majnore 15:52, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I love the fuss being made over the death of this skill. Sure, skill balancing shouldn't completely obliterate a skill's usefulness in any area of the game, but honestly, this is an awful lot of anger over a skill that everyone managed to live without for two whole years - and the years acknowledged as the game's heyday, at that! 72.87.244.28 18:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it's funny as hell. That skill existed for months and nobody used it. As soon as they saw rawr running 5 monks in GvG (3 of them smiters), they flocked to the skill like ugly on whoopi goldberg. Now that ANet decided smiter's boon needed a redesign, they all cry their hearts out because... well, I don't know, really. It's not like they had long enough to even get accustomed to its use. It surely isn't the only build they can play, nor does it invalidate the attribute. I simply can't fathom their loss over this skill, unless it's the same people who whined that their Rt/N minion bomber build was killed because of the soul reaping nerf. - Auron 18:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It was more than that. People like myself wanted to use monks from time to time as per say an elementalist, or a ritualist, where they could do decent damage while being able to apply generous or at least valid healing/party support. However, there are so few skills that are of actual use in PvP or PvE for smiting that if you invest those skills into your bar you become more of a liability than a useful tool. Like you said, pretty much the only useful skills in the smiting line for a monk primary are Strength of Honor, Judge's Incite, and Castigation signet. But now here is where we hit a snag. Now that they have nerfed Smiter's Boon, you now must invest into another attruibute to give adequate healing or protection to party members. There is nothing wrong with that, it just creates a skill bar that is just mediocre, not great. Returning to my previous point, there are several people out there that want to be a monk and basically have the abilities of a Rt or Ele. But the recharge times for Monk smiting skills are often so severe, or the energy cost so high, or the casting time to ridiculous, that most of the smiting prayer's line is utterly useless for a Monk primary, and is more reserved for a Rt/Mo, E/Mo, Me/Mo, or another class in general. There are just too many smiting skills that have been nerfed or just existed with not a good enough effect for their cost in one way or another.--66.192.104.10 00:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I get your point, but people wanting to play monk like an ele is no excuse for poor balance. Izzy tried to pull that in defense of splinter weapon and ancestors - "they're the only reason people play rit." Ups, bad logic. Balance the class more and maybe people will have a reason to play rit. In the end, he nerfed both splinter and ancestors, so I think he got the point. - Auron 10:20, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Lol, Rt/N bombers being hit by a Soul Reaping nerf? --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG|Ohaider!]]-- (s)talkpage  18:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Smiter's Boon allowed Monks to play Smiters better than Monk Secondaries, but now there is little benefit to it. ــѕт.  мıкε  00:51, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

This isnt actually nerfing, this is more banning the skill...82.72.233.33 20:00, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

This is not balance. I could care less if it's "Smiters Boon" or any other skill in the game. Balance is about making all skill valid... none overpowered, none underpowered. Sure 100% balance is difficult, but this isn't trying. Openly admitting to it being a cop-out strategy even is worse for the games future outlook. If you honestly care about GW, this is disgusting. If you think GW is ok, then it's kinda funny really. If going for comedy, they should have change functionality to "disconnects you from server". --Mooseyfate 05:55, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right. This is not balance. They said so themselves. They plugged random numbers in to make the skill unusable. They're removing it from play until they can get time to rework it.
 * To recap for everyone who apparently missed that point: The Smiter's Boon "nerf" was not an attempt to balance the skill. The entire purpose of the change, as stated by ArenaNet, was to remove the skill from play.
 * If you're afraid of his ability to balance things because he removed a skill with poor design from play, I have to disagree with you (since that is a valid form of balance). If you're afraid that this means he can't balance the skill properly (based on this change), I'd also have to disagree with you, since they weren't even trying. - Auron 06:09, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * "since they weren't even trying" -- which is precisely the problem. I don't care about semantics. They did what they said or said what they did? It's still a crock, based, I maintain, in laziness and/or cowardliness (take your own pick). Now we're coming up on a week later, with an unknown number of unique, workable solutions provided by an irked community. The mess is still on the floor. I've never used this skill. I don't even have a monk. But it's the principle that drives me to want to see a (virtual) protester, with a flip-card day counter and a sign, "Smiter's Boon (PvP). Day 7. What the hell, mate?" --24.160.244.131 00:19, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "we're coming up on a week later, with an unknown number of unique, workable solutions provided by an irked community." Since when did they redesign skills in a week? I don't think I've seen that happen in the entire history of Guild Wars. Also, show me one solution by an "irked" community member that isn't simply changing the numbers around. Remember, izzy wants a complete reworking, so making the recharge 30 seconds or making it cost 10 energy is completely missing the point - and that's what most people have been suggesting. If the suggestions are crap, of course he's going to ignore them. - Auron 01:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * More to the point, to paraphrase Carmack, "Perfection is not a reasonable target". Don't spend a month pondering the changes to a skill. The system's too complex. The skill, ripped from the game, reconstructed, and dumped back in: if that works out, it will be as much luck as skill. Instead, give us some approximation of perfection, and tweak it if it needs tweaking. Or at least leave it as a sub-par skill in the interim.

GVG
On the update page they said that they did this to remove it in GvG because it was overpowered there. So why not disable it for GvG like the PVE skills are for all types of PVP and change it again to its old discription for AB,TA,HA,RA and HB?Robertjanvaneijk1988 07:02, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It creates a much more complicated game, harder to maintain, GW has a death sentence already, another valid reason. &mdash; Powersurge360  07:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

RA
I really enjoyed playing Smiter’s Boon in RA. Very sad to find they took it out. I liked support classes.
 * Smiter's Boon, Melandru's Resilience, Draw Conditions, SoH/Divine Boon, Reversal of Damage, Smite Hex, etc. was a pretty fun build in RA/TA. =/ ــѕт.  мıкε  13:35, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeap another skill gone out cause of GvG and HA, that´s my main focus to talk äbout it on official wiki. How RA suffers from those changes.--85.207.210.115 20:36, 22 August 2008 (UTC)rain4est
 * Wasn't used a lot in HA, it plagued GvG, TA, and RA though.--72.189.85.47 00:50, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't kid yourself. It was removed mostly because of TA (y'know, 3 smite monks, 1 melee builds). Like 72.189 says, it wasn't used at all in tombs, it blew chunks in RA, and its use in GvG was minimal, really - smiting mesmers with SoJ/Strength of Honor were more common than monks with smiters boon ever were. Outside of Automated Tournament play (which was plagued by disconnects, so people ran additional monks in case one of their heal monks disconned), it never saw use. Do more research before "talking about it" on those skill feedback pages, please :< - Auron 18:28, 26 August 2008 (UTC)