Hey folks,

Today I bring you the first set of changes aimed at updating the PvE experience, beginning by balancing out the existing gap between the best and worst classes. I have no doubt that there's going to be a lot of strong opinions following this change, as such I will be opening a thread on the forums where everyone can discuss the changes as a community.

Some classes have extra bonuses to their damage (like Praenomen Potence) that might skew things a little more in their favour, or some classes have better healing that helps them bash (like Templar Redemption). For now we just want to meet a base line and then make further tweaks from there, however feel free to bring them up in the aforementioned forum thread above.

As there are some classes with a fair few options, here is a list of skills we consider to be the main hunting tool of the class. All of these skills have had their damage adjusted to some degree, along with any supplimentary skills to ensure they remain the main focus. Fair warning that Sentinel and Wayfarers got hit the hardest, they were far above everyone else.

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Archivist - Crux
Ascendril - Staffcast
Carnifex - Spinning or Doublebash
Indorani - Decay or Bonedagger
Luminary - Smite or Lightning
Shapeshifter - Slash
Monk - Scorpion with SDK/UCP/UCP
Praenomen - Frenzy
Sciomancer - Staffcast
Sentinel - Crosscut/Thrust
Shaman - Lightning
Syssin - Camus or Garrote
Templar - DSK or DSW
Teradrim - Batter or Skullbash
Wayfarer - Chop or Lob
Zealot - Scorpion with SDK/UCP/UCP
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Make sure that you base any feedback around these abilites.

Along with that are a few minor changes to help make things a little more even across the board. All changes only affect the skill when used in hunting, nothing about PvP should change.

Changes (PvE Only)
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- [Artifact] Scepter of Duality recovery time increased to 4 seconds, up from 2.5.
- [Artifact] Scepter of Duality now has an endurance and willpower cost.
- [Bladefire] Reduced the damage dealt by Sacrifice by a fair bit.
- [Corpus] Potence no longer affects the balance recovery of Frenzy.
- [Primality] Boosting no longer affects the equilibrium recovery of Lightning.
- [Primality] Lightning equilibrium recovery reduced to 3.5 seconds, down from 3.75.

Lastly, for the time being we have tied damage dealt for the main bashing skills to skillrank. This means that the higher your skill rank is, the more damage you'll deal. Some newbie skills (like Sumac) will continue dealing a flat amount of damage for now. At a later date, we plan to tie this to your level instead, but that requires a bit of fiddling yet to go, specifically when it comes to weapons.

That should sum things up for now. Keep your eyes peeled for further changes!

Penned by my hand on Closday, the 15th of Haernos, in the year 472 MA.