Strength of Honor (PvE Only): increased damage to 5..25.

While Strength of Honor was too good in competitive play, PvE builds that focus on buffing up a single character can be a lot of fun.guild wars gold To offset its removal from viable competitive builds, we wanted to try making this a PvE-oriented skill.

Aegis (PvP Only): reduced casting time to .25. Functionality changed to: "For 1..3 seconds, hostile spells and attacks against 'target other ally' fail."

Aegis has long been a concern in the balance of competitive play and has seen numerous adjustments over the years. It has continued to be a problem because of both the overpowered nature of Aegis's basic functionality and the ability of teams to work around attempts to balance this skill by bringing multiple copies. So we've taken a different approach this time and hit the reset button by changing Aegis's functionality.guild wars gold Since this skill has only been a problem in competitive play, the change was not made to the PvE version of Aegis.

Warrior's Endurance (PvP Only): this skill is now a stance.

After changing Warrior's Endurance to be a skill last year, we have observed a trend towards Warriors using only one weapon type over their other options. We've changed the skill back to a stance to encourage a more diverse spread of viable builds in all three weapon types associated with Warriors.

PvE Skills

Updates to PvE Skills are targeted at improving underused skills.
Dwarf

Low Blow: functionality changed to: "Strike target foe for 45..70 damage. If target foe is knocked down, that foe takes an additional 30..50 damage and suffers from Cracked Armor for 14..20 seconds."

To encourage this skill's use, we increased its power by providing a better reward for building with knockdown.

Faction Skills

Elemental Lord: functionality changed to: "For 40..60 seconds, your elemental attributes are boosted by 1, you gain 1 Energy for every 10 ranks of Energy Storage,guild wars gold and you are healed for 100..300% of the Energy cost each time you cast a spell."

Elemental Lord has been given additional functionality similar to Aura of Restoration to make it a more versatile support skill for Elementalist primaries.

Summon Spirits: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.