Today's update makes a few skill changes to address outstanding PvP balance issues and returns Order of Undeath to its old functionality. The PvP-oriented changes start with some Elementalist skill changes to adjust the balance between Mesmer/Elementalist and Elementalist primaries. Because this imbalance isn't necessarily game-breaking, we've been conservative with these changes. In Guild Battles, the bodyguard, as long as he's alive, will now reduce damage done to the Guild Lord. Based on player feedback, we've reverted our changes to Order of Undeath.

After last week's modest adjustments to selected Water Magic skills, we've found that fast-casting Mesmer/Elementalists are still superior to Water Magic Elementalist primaries in Guild Battles. We've made Glowing Ice, Glowing Gaze, Glowstone, and Shock Arrow return Energy based on Energy Storage to give Elementalist primaries an advantage. Icy Shackles' cost has been increased to 10 energy as well, in an aim to make it less affordable for Mesmer primaries. We've removed a second of recharge from Mind Blast to make Fire Elementalists more viable in GvG. With the removal of NPC-killing as a core GvG tactic, we believe that the types of builds enabled by a more effective Mind Blast will not be detrimental to overall playbalance. Master of Magic was meant to support Elementalists with multiple elemental attributes, but it ending on Energy Storage and unattributed skills really limited that potential. We've changed this spell to end on non-Elementalist skill use instead.

We'd underestimated how many players used Order of Undeath at its previous functionality. Since the new implementation hasn't garnered a similar amount of play, we've reverted this change.

Sloth Hunter's Shot did a little too much damage. We don't want to eliminate the damage-style Ranger from play, so we've done a small damage reduction on this to bring it more in-balance.