Game updates/20070615

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.

Assassin

 * Beguiling Haze: increased the Dazed duration to 3..9 seconds.
 * Expose Defenses: increased recharge time to 15 seconds.
 * Expunge Enchantments: now removes an additional Enchantment.
 * Hidden Caltrops: now triggers when the Hex ends. This skill now ends when you hit a moving foe.
 * Recall: now ends if the target moves out of Compass range.
 * Sharpen Daggers: fixed a bug that caused players using Sharpen Daggers to suffer from Bleeding when an attack skill was used against them.
 * Siphon Strength: decreased Energy cost to 10.

Elementalist

 * Ash Blast: increased damage to 20..65.
 * Ebon Hawk: increased damage to 10..100.
 * Ride the Lightning: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds, increased damage to 10..100.
 * Shockwave: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
 * Stoneflesh Aura: decreased duration to 5..15 seconds.

Mesmer

 * Arcane Conundrum: now affects adjacent allies.
 * Clumsiness: reduced recharge time to 4 seconds.
 * Conjure Nightmare: increased duration to 2..17 seconds.
 * Conjure Phantasm: increased duration to 2..17 seconds.
 * Ether Feast: reduced casting time to 1 second.
 * Fast Casting: each rank now decreases Signet activation time by 3%.
 * Imagined Burden: increased duration to 10..30 seconds.
 * Lyssa's Balance: functionality changed to: "Target foe loses one Enchantment. If you have more Enchantments than target foe, this skill has no effect."
 * Mantra of Persistence: decreased duration bonus to 20..50%.
 * Power Block: now affects Chants as well as Spells.
 * Power Drain: now affects Chants as well as Spells.
 * Power Flux: now affects Chants as well as Spells.
 * Power Leak: now affects Chants as well as Spells.
 * Power Leech: now affects Chants as well as Spells.
 * Power Return: now affects Chants as well as Spells.
 * Power Spike: increased damage to 30..120, now affects Chants as well as Spells.
 * Shared Burden: increased duration to 5..25 seconds.

Monk

 * Balthazar's Pendulum: decreased casting time to .25 seconds.
 * Empathic Removal: decreased recharge time to 7 seconds.
 * Shield Guardian: decreased casting time to .25 seconds.
 * Signet of Rage: decreased casting time to 1 second, increased conditional damage to 5..20.
 * Strength of Honor: increased damage to 3..15.

Necromancer

 * Signet of Sorrow: fixed a bug that kept this Signet from recharging properly when near an exploited corpse.
 * Soul Reaping: Energy gain now triggers 3 times every 15 seconds (if you are already at maximum Energy when something dies, it does not count toward this limit). You now gain full Energy when a Spirit you control dies; you gain no Energy when other Spirits die.
 * Spiteful Spirit: increased Energy cost to 15.
 * Well of Blood: decreased casting time to 1 second.
 * Well of Darkness: decreased casting time to 1 second.
 * Well of Power: decreased Energy cost to 5, decreased casting time to 1 second.
 * Well of Silence: decreased Energy cost to 10, decreased casting time to 1 second.
 * Well of Suffering: decreased Energy cost to 10, decreased casting time to 1 second.
 * Well of Weariness: decreased Energy cost to 5.

Paragon

 * Defensive Anthem: increased casting time to 2 seconds.
 * "Never Surrender!": increased duration to 15 seconds.

Ranger

 * Barrage: fixed a bug that caused it to remove Glyphs.
 * Crippling Shot: decreased Energy cost to 10.
 * Heal as One: now states that it heals instead of giving a Health "gain," no longer resurrects pets with full Health.
 * Melandru's Resilience: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds, increased Health regeneration gained for each Condition to 4.

Ritualist

 * Spawning Power: each rank now adds 2% to weapon spell duration.
 * Weapon of Warding: decreased duration to 3..8 seconds.

Warrior

 * Agonizing Chop: decreased activation time to .5 seconds.
 * Battle Rage: increased movement speed to 33%.
 * Dwarven Battle Stance: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
 * Warrior's Endurance: increased duration to 5..35 seconds.
 * Yeti Smash: decreased adrenaline cost to 6 strikes.

PvE Skills
We will be evaluating these new skills over the course of the next week. It is likely that we will make playbalance adjustments to them during that time.

Players can now acquire twenty new PvE-only skills. There are ten Sunspear skills (one for each profession), and ten Kurzick/Luxon skills (one for each profession).


 * To acquire a Sunspear skill, talk to a Sunspear Hero skill trainer. Each skill costs 1 Hero skill point. Sunspear skills become more powerful the higher your rank in the Sunspear title track. You must have at least rank 1 in this title track to learn any Sunspear skills.
 * Sunspear Hero skill trainers will now convert normal skill points to Hero skill points for a 1 platinum fee.
 * To acquire a Kurzick or Luxon skill, talk to a Faction Reward NPC. Each skill costs 3,000 faction points. Kurzick/Luxon skills become more powerful the higher your rank in the corresponding title track. You must have at least rank 1 in the Kurzick/Luxon title track to learn any Kurzick/Luxon skills.

Title Updates
In order to accommodate the addition of Kurzick and Luxon PvE skills, the Friend of the Kurzicks and Friend of the Luxon titles have been modified:


 * The number of ranks for these titles has been significantly increased. The faction point requirement for the top rank is still the same, but the faction requirement for the first rank has been lowered.
 * The Faction Transfer and Faction Rewards NPCs have been combined.
 * Exchanging faction points for amber or jade now gives progress toward these titles.
 * The blessing provided by Kurzick and Luxon shrine priests now gives progress toward these titles for kills earned while under the blessing’s effects.
 * Exchanging faction points for Kurzick/Luxon skills will also give progress toward these titles.

Targeting Refinements

 * Offensive skills and attacks will now identify a valid target on screen if you have no target selected.
 * Outside of combat, it is now possible to interact with adjacent NPCs and items with no target selected.
 * The Target Display now has a button that clears your target.

Miscellaneous

 * Victory or Death is now a Skill instead of a Shout.
 * Fixed several issues in the Uncharted Isle that prevented NPCs from getting close enough to the flag stand to fight at Victory or Death.
 * The Jade Isle map has been updated.
 * Heroes now receive the Victory or Death buff.
 * Reduced the rate in which the shrines increase the morale meter in Hero battles.
 * The cannon on the Bombardment map now fires every 10 seconds instead of every 15 seconds.
 * Teams in Daily GvG Tournaments now require only 4 guild members instead of the previous 8.
 * Added a cap of +25 to the armor buff when stacking skills. A single skill can still push the bonus over +25. Bonuses from shields, weapons, insignia, and inscriptions are not affected and still stack.
 * Players may now access their account storage by clicking on the Storage Vault instead of interacting with the Xunlai Agent. Xunlai Agents now offer storage upgrades.
 * Additional Storage Vaults have been added to several outposts.

Bug Fixes

 * Heroes can no longer walk through pets in PvP.
 * Heroes' skills now correctly disable when their pet dies.
 * The Pet Tamer Nehdukah on the Plains of Jarin will now accept Hero pets.