The latest developer update from the folks at Guild Wars takes a look at balancing several PvE and PvP skills.

The major goals for this update are to address the power of certain spike builds, make pressure builds a more viable option, adjust some skills to encourage tactical use, and provide some buffs to underused skills.

In GvG, we have continued to see extremely versatile spike builds dominating; they are able to split, be defensive, and output high damage spikes while still having many of the tools needed to counter other build types. They could do it all, and do it all a bit too well. We''ve targeted certain key skills to tone down these builds'' ability to do high damage spikes and shut down other build types. We''ve also reduced the effectiveness of party healing as well as hex and condition removal to slightly encourage pressure builds in the format. As always, we seek to reward tactical use of skills, and some skills have been adjusted to help encourage this.