Feedback talk:Skill update previews/20100219

Bye bye Primal Rage after energy->adrenaline cost. Loves to Sync 23:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The Blood Bond change makes me VERY sad. Bye-bye my Necro (stop-gap) healer. The new Blood Bond blows in its requirement to attack foes. I'd always use it on my party while I stood back in the wells to counterbalance its degen on me. :( --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Emkyooess (talk).

Blood Bond didn't find any good use beyond Codex support :> ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 23:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, some of us play for fun. My most fun character is by far my Blood Bond/Life Transfer/Blood Well/Vampiric Swarm necro! --Emkyooess 23:48, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks interesting <3 ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 23:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Powercreep says hi Anet. Lokre 00:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Very glad Spirit Burn and Renewing Surge won't be just "Immolate and Flare, but worse and conditional". Spirit burn will actually be 2 more damage at 16 attribute than immolate. Looking forward to playing with Tactics and Hammers, 100 blades is getting old. Manifold 00:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, everything but the other issues part looks promising. :> Kinda don't understand why they would up the recharge of shattering assault if they're already putting the skill in the critical arts line anyway. →[ »Halogod (talk)« ]← 00:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

PvE AoE Qknock! InfestedHydralisk 00:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, which of these changes are PvP uncluded aswell? InfestedHydralisk 00:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Even with all those Rit "buffs", they still look weak and useless in my book, with the exception being AR which is now armor ignoring. Definitely not worth the "minor" nerf to SoS. And why not just get rid of the armor penalty for paragons in PvE? Are you really that adamant about killing the shit out of that class? And where are the mesmer changes?? Geez if that's all you guys have been working on for the last 5-6 months, I'm pretty disappointed. 205.206.140.29 00:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

These changes will increase synergy in PvE no doubt.. but yeah, long wait for a relatively short list. One that does not address a number of easily resolved issues. Wouldn't care so much if I believed another update was around the corner. TooLittleTooLate 00:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

This is it? 6 months for this? --ilr 18:51, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Steelfang Slash

Please don't. Please. Being knocked down forever is not fun, interesting, or balanced. is for Raine, etc. 00:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That'll be pve only I assume. elix Omni 00:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

First line of that paragraph suggest otherwise. :\ is for Raine, etc. 00:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I hope so.. InfestedHydralisk 00:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

am I missing something? - Wuhy 01:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Dev Hammer -> Steelfang Slash -> autoattack -> dev -> steelfang -> attack -> dev -> steelfang -> attack -> dev -> steelfang -> attack -> dev -> steelfang -> attack -> dev -> steelfang -> attack -> dev -> steelfang -> attack -> dev -> steelfang -> attack -> sever -> gash -> /rank. is for Raine, etc. 01:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't find that skill on the page:O - Wuhy 01:04, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Last sentence, second-to-last paragraph. is for Raine, etc. 01:07, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

k I got it now but dev hammer->steelfang->dev and steelfang will have 5+1 steelfang hitting+1(autoattack)-1 deva usage+1 deva hitting=7 adrenaline so unless you use prot strike, thats a no but since that gots 3 sec recharge, the duration of a KD cycle so as long as you have energy, which you should then its pretty much FFFFUUUUUU - Wuhy 01:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

at least it's gonna require more skill than mark of fury->BB->BB->BB->BB->BB - Wuhy 01:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Backbreaker -> Renewing Smash -> Pulverizing Smash -> Auspicious Blow -> Protector's Strike -> Backbreaker. So, so hawt. is for Raine, etc. 14:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Did you forget why this stupid skill was nerfed to begin with? There's no reason to undo that change, and every reason to keep it as is. Pluto 11:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Primal Rage

This largely makes the skill unplayable. Instead of making it unmaintainable, I think you'd do better to give it a flat 10-adrenaline cost and remove the recharge; this makes it extremely difficult (not difficult in terms of energy management or attribute allocation, but difficult in that warriors will actually have be good in order to get it off at all) to maintain, but not impossible. is for Raine, etc. 00:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Tbh, the only drawback between this new functionality and the old one is that a warrior will no longer be able to act offensively as fast now. The recharge is basically the same, so there's nothing different about that part. They didn't nerf the RaO effect of it, so it's all good. --Ulterion 03:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It will take on average 4-5 seconds longer to reactivate it. They should lower the recharge time by 5 seconds to compensate. --Draygo Korvan 03:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

+4-5 seconds downtime on a skill with 13/15 seconds uptime is a pretty big change. is for Raine, etc. 03:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I actually hope it becomes unplayable. This skill is ridiculous.--Sensei | talk 04:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Why not increase the energy cost over time.Shock/bulls strike cant be used as much with higher energy maintence cost for this skill, it will essentially reduce the dps of this skill while still making it viable. I propose like 5en. 8sec duration 10recharge or 5en 13duration 15recharge you have -1energy degeneration while this skill is active. I believe if you make the skill adrenaline based, the skill will not be used anymore as the main reason to use this skill is the unconditional increased movement speed. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Diabiosx (talk).

It isnt. Maybe recast and duration could have used a slight increase, as to maximize the drawbacks of cancelling this skill. I second the opinion of this skill being largely inferior to other elites if the change takes effect, as the major advantages of this skill were the ability to relocate a warrior fast (which gets completly removed) and the ability to have your IAS-based attacks unkitable. The second effect still remains, though it's not worth using your elite for this purpose only, if you cant even maintain it in combat. A less drastic change would be to additionally implement one of the mentioned changes, i.e. removing the recharge altogether, adjusting adren cost in return, decreasing the recharge to account for the time it takes to build the required adrenaline, or leave it energy based and tweak the numbers. -- Sai 08:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

man... QQ... I am not liken this. Especially when I was starting to fall back in love with this skill again. I hope this will be a PvP only fix with the adr issues of PvE. Then I will get over my break up of the skill. With 4 adr + recharge limits... makes this a very technical skill to try and use in PvP. I can understand the change... but I am surprised that the 15 recharge and the force to cancel due to double damage was still not enough of a balance the skill. The other problem I see with this change is that the PR Warrior will no longer be able to carry the flag as a back up either. Will have to be the Ranger again. - SabreWolf 13:43, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Something deep within is screaming to me that Anet's not going to give a rat's ass about what ya'll think. They're just going to push this change forward without a care. --Ulterion 04:12, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty simple, guys. You overuse a skill and follow pvx like a fucking religion, you're going to get "your" build nerfed. Try creativity and you won't have this problem. I'll be happy to see wars using something other than PR for axe.--99.225.28.182 20:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

People will still use PR or it's back to Eviscerate. 207.62.190.33 21:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Evisc will be better. half time (at best) IAS isn't as good as frenzy. Whirling is still pretty strong too, but i just don't think primal will be worth it after this--TahiriVeila 21:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

@99, people use PvX builds because theyre (normally) good. If you use a bad build because its creative rather than using a good build that someone else made your a ****ing idiot.--71.193.48.146 21:57, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

^ We put bars on pvx because they're the BEST bars available. If you want to use some shitty bar because it's "creative" that's your prerogative, but most players don't like to gimp themselves on purpose.--TahiriVeila 22:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

^Because they're the best, lul. Obvious moron is obvious. Builds get put on pvx because retards look for ego boosts. "Omgaz, everyone is using my build now, I'm pro". I don't use builds because they're creative, I use builds because I made them, and it's my playing style. I adjust and rework them to fit, that way I actually know what I'm playing, instead of reading an instruction set on how to be a cookie cutter. Oh, and I annihilate pvx builds on a regular basis in pvp, and you know why? It's because I'm not running a pvx build, and am thus unpredictable.--99.225.28.182 23:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

PvP/E Splits

A few of these are quite dramatic. Instead of bridging the gap between the two formats, you're making quite a chasm. is for Raine, etc. 00:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

And many of those changes still won't see any use at all. 205.206.140.29 00:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

@raine Im confus in regards to "bridging the gap" --adrin 00:43, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"We don't want a fractured playerbase." is for Raine, etc. 00:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

At this point the playerbase is so fractured already (and the players of each format despise the opposing format so much) that the developers probably aren't too worried. After nearly 5 years of GW, whoever didn't do the supposed PvE->PvP transition simply isn't going to do it. And this probably amounts to a much large percentage of the playerbase than Anet ever hoped for - like it or not GW has a much stronger PvE playerbase than a PvP playerbase.--Sensei | talk 04:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

___ 1. There is a Problem. Do you:

• (A) Ignore It.
• (B) Fix It.
• (C) Make It Worse.
• (D) None of the Above.

I'd have to go with B. is for Raine, etc. 04:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You forgot *(E) A and C. --Ulterion 04:05, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree, the difference in PvE/PvP versions are starting to get huge. InfestedHydralisk 01:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Skill splits won't push or pull the PvE or PvP playerbase, it just keeps the two formats balanced without affecting the other's balance. I don't see how skill balance affects the gap between two playerbases, except of course when said balance is caused by one and affects both. -- Konig/talk 01:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Compare: you go into RA for the first time with your PvE bar and 5/8 of your skills have different functionalities

With: you go into RA and all of your skills are exactly the same.

Which makes assimilation easier? Which is more likely to make you say, "Fuck this, I'm sticking to PvE." is for Raine, etc. 01:56, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Example on what Raine said:

PvE: Demonic Flesh for life steal!

You go into RA: Oh em gee 20% life sac and no life steal! InfestedHydralisk 02:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It also works the other way. I still go into PvE and I'm like WTF ARAGE?! D': is for Raine, etc. 03:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I, for one, am not happy with the PVP/E split of Savannah Heat...it costs 5 energy in Pve, and 15 energy in Pvp...it should be 10 energy for both...it makes me not even want to use an elite in pvp if its gonna cost so much energy, when the non-elite version of it does just about the same amount of damage.

That's the only skill I have a complaint for. The rest I could care less about, cuz I'm not much of a Pvp'er, and the only thing I do in pvp is Zaishen Elite, so I can get my 6k balth faction to unlock skills or get zkeys for the day... Angel Serrenity 4:30am, February 20, 2010 (EST)

PvP is already extremely different from PvE, and is meant to be so. Really, anyone who suggests the theory and practicality behind skill splits are bad deserves to be thrown under a bus for sheer idiocy.
When you walk from PvE into any form of PvP, you should expect a huge change in your playstyle - you are no longer playing with bad and buggy AI (or at least, no longer just playing with bad and buggy AI), you face opponents which are dynamic and ruthless at abusing the most degenerate mechanics which are balanced in PvE. For that reason, skill splits are the best way for a PvE player to be happy since they get to keep their powerful skills and wipe through PvE, and for the PvP player to be satisfied with the balance remaining intact.
If you are a PvE player, and you want to try PvP formats, you jolly well accept that the skills aren't the same as you are used to, because if they are, you will be *crushed* by people with more than 4 years of experience with the meta. Anet is already holding your hands keeping your PvE degenerate skills in check(or at least, to an extremely limited extent since Anet rarely coughs out any good balance updates). You just need to get used to it and get better at it.
If you are a PvP player, and you want to PvE, quite frankly, you have *nothing* to complain of because pretty much every skill is more powerful than it's PvP counterpart. You PvE not for the challenge, but for the easy and mindless repetition. Don't expect things to get harder when you drop down from human to AI, if that's your excuse for PvE skills to be on the same level as PvP skills. Pika Fan 10:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"PvP is already extremely different from PvE, and is meant to be so."

"is meant to be so"

Okay.

"When you walk from PvE into any form of PvP [...] you are no longer playing with bad and buggy AI"

"bad and buggy AI"

Hold on.

"You PvE not for the challenge, but for the easy and mindless repetition."

"easy and mindless"

Stop there.

PvE is meant to be easy and mindless and so, accordingly, intentionally plagued with bad and buggy AI?

I think your premise is incorrect; the rest of your argument is invalid. is for Raine, etc. 11:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That is entirely your opinion that YOU dont want a fractured player base... but in essense... no one cares. Guild Wars has a PvE group and a PvP group. And to prove that further, ANET has already said they will split PvE and PvP skills at the start of GW2, most likely to the point they wont even carry the same names. So ANET stand is that PvE/P splits will stay, and have been a good thing they will continue to support. - SabreWolf 13:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't want a fractured playerbase, but neither does anet - hence the quotes and orange text. I don't have the diff saved, but I know for a fact that you can find it around the point where TA and HB were removed. I wouldn't have an issue (okay, I would, but I wouldn't have THIS issue) if anet were simply doing something that I didn't like; it's that they're taking steps away from a solution to something that they had previously said was a problem. is for Raine, etc. 13:34, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

But look what the split does... it removes the constant PvP changes from the PvE group that has no issues with the skills that are changed. I don't know how many times my PvE builds got changed because of some PvP bullshit that was going on. Mind you, I do play both and have for years, but I am just siteing an example of the fact the PvE group QQ'd every time a PvP issue came up that a skill got changed and effected them (PvE). Now, one group's play no longer effects another groups play. But in your defense, and a question for you if you will, would you prefer PvE only skills like the Deldrimore, Sunspear, Faction, ect verses split skills? Or are you for absolutely no speration what-so-ever? - SabreWolf 13:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to the concept of title-skills so much as their implementation. On the bright, mobs don't get them, so you don't really get as used to playing with/against a certain skill that does a certain thing. Compare to turning Arage into... well, pre-nerf Arage: shit's insane.

What I don't like about them is their being tied to a title track (lolgrind) and their generally being wtfimba. Like monster skills.

Ideally, imho, the game would've just had one set of (balanced) skills, but it's kind of late for that at this point. To actually answer your question, though, if one or the other were absolutely necessary, I'd prefer PvE-only skills to split skills. is for Raine, etc. 13:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I do agree with you that its a little late now since at the time of the splits, GW was already post market for years. But I am with you that Title Tracked PvE Only Skills sucks for those of us that do not like to grind. Although, earning it instead of being handed a skill that imbas you when you get it is the trade off I guess for balence purposes. - SabreWolf 14:21, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"Ideally, imho, the game would've just had one set of (balanced) skills" and a good, balanced AI so strategies viable against it were once in a while viable against human beings, and a semi-dynamic environment in which enemies in a stance would follow one among a few set parameters, instead of being the same. You would remove part of the dumbness and predictability that make PvE so different from PvP, while creating a better (less mindless and less easy) PvE game in the process. Too much to ask for GW1, though. Erasculio 15:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That, exactly!

The only point I disagree with is "too much to ask for gw1". The lists of individual mob behaviors wouldn't be hard (I could do it myself), and the code would largely be copypaste. From what I've seen, as far as botting goes (both the farming bots and the interrupt bots), it would even be possible to automate without touching GW's source code. Not that I'd ever do that (even if I knew how).

Team dynamics would be more involved, but certainly not extraordinarily daunting. The real difficulty would come in making sure that they're not TOO good, as far as just annihilation goes. For parts of PvE with objectives, individual coding would have to happen (though, really, a lot of that would also be copypaste), and that would be relatively time-consuming. Still, certainly not impossible. is for Raine, etc. 15:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Is that all you can do these days Raine? Take 2 unrelated points out of context to disprove a perfectly logical argument? You are disappointing lately.

PvE will never be as challenging as PvP, regardless of GW's bad AI being there or not. As long it's an AI, there will be a set of fixed reactions you can do - basically, it's a scissors papers stone match, except your opponent shows you his hand first. You know how your opponent is going to act, and that's the greatest difference from PvP - you don't know what your opponent is going to run, and your opponents' tactics can and will change according to what you do. Pika Fan 06:49, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The points aren't unrelated at all: you've concluded that the two formats are, by necessity, drastically different based on the fact that the AI blows ass. The logic is fine. That is a prefect conclusion based on your premise. Unfortunately, your premise is incorrect, so, naturally, the conclusion that logically follows is incorrect. The AI does not have to blow ass, so the formats do not have to be as drastically different as they are steadily becoming.

The PvP/E split is a treatment for a symptom of a deeper actual issue, like a cast is a treatment for a broken bone: sure, it makes things workable on the surface, but by no means ideal. Strictly speaking, it's better than doing nothing, and that's something to be thankful for. That's about where my praise for the system ends.

"As long it's an AI, there will be a set of fixed reactions you can do -"

The same is true for every video game ever. As other games have shown, that fact does not mandate that AI always perform the same action in the same circumstance. This directly ties into the rest of that statement:

"- basically, it's a scissors papers stone match, except your opponent shows you his hand first."

Guildwars, like every video game ever, is a s/p/s match. However, by that analogy, GW mobs always pick scissors. Guildwars AI will always do the exact same thing in the exact same situation, and that's something that definitely needs to (and can) go before it will be dynamic at all.

But, tbh, the AI has some much bigger issues than that as things currently stand. Not only is it currently predictable, but it's currently just bad. Things like 600/smite and SliverForm wouldn't be half as useful if the mobs had the most basic semblance of common sense, and they currently lack even that. While issues like overall predictability would, eventually, make even the best AI farmable, we're not even near a point where that becomes a pressing issue. :\ is for Raine, etc. 07:28, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Your assumption is wrong. I claimed that HI will always be different from AI. I claimed AI in GW is bad. I mentioned that PvE is meant to be easy because of the very presence of AI. While it is related because I use AI in those situations, the context in which I used in those circumstances were different. PvE is meant to be different from PvP, and whether or not the AI is bad or buggy, this isn't supposed to be change, nor can be changed. The only reason I raised whatever I did in my original post was to emphasize on the difference between PvE and PvP and its necessity. If you choose to continue corrupting the clear meaning of what I said by linking similar content used in different contexts, feel free to do so, I am fine with ignoring whatever you say.

"Guildwars, like every video game ever, is a s/p/s match. However, by that analogy, GW mobs always pick scissors. Guildwars AI will always do the exact same thing in the exact same situation, and that's something that definitely needs to (and can) go before it will be dynamic at all."

I am not sure why you are even raising this. We all know AI is basically a dumbed down s/p/s match, which is why I am pointing out the fact that as long there is an AI, it's going to be easier than HI, assuming the AI is imperfect, because there are fixed steps to counteract it regardless of how unpredictably it chooses its actions. PvP isn't a dumbed down s/p/s match, you can have hundreds of different reactions to cope with hundreds of different possible choices you or your opponent can make. There's no clear correct choices and countermeasures in PvP, but there are in PvE.

"But, tbh, the AI has some much bigger issues than that as things currently stand. Not only is it currently predictable, but it's currently just bad. Things like 600/smite and SliverForm wouldn't be half as useful if the mobs had the most basic semblance of common sense, and they currently lack even that. While issues like overall predictability would, eventually, make even the best AI farmable, we're not even near a point where that becomes a pressing issue. :\"

Your point being? It doesn't change the fact that the problem doesn't lie in the skill split; the skill split (attempts to) solve the balance issue. inb4 you attempt to twist the context in which is used "attempts to" - I am referring to the way Anet incorrectly nerfs aspects of a skill that aren't the problem, e.g. making LC cost 15 energy(lolenergy on a necro).

Conclusion: skill splits is the perfect middle ground for PvErs to enjoy their casual play and for PvPers to achieve a semblance of balance. Fracturing the playerbase is inevitable, the requirements and demands of each mode of play, as well as how the game is designed, is too different to even consider otherwise.

P.S. Many PvPers still PvE, and many PvErs still PvP. Get anet to give you their statistics, I am willing to bet the skill splits have brought much more good to the game than not. Pika Fan 01:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Utopias can't exist. We won't have GW Utopia, and we won't have mirrored PvE and PvP. It just can't be done. Why? Just open your eyes and look at them! One has battles of 2..8vs1..n. And the other has battles of 4vs4, 6vs6, 8vs8 and 12vs12. The play styles are TOO different. In PvE you try to go fast, and the battles must be designed for victories. Imagine having a 50% chance of victory in the whole PvE, having to run to the battle again and again from the nearest resurrection shrine (if there is any). That would be complete nonsense. As for AI, I go with the Mass Effect terminology. We don't have AI. That's currently impossible. We can only have VI (virtual intelligence), and for an online game, it must be rather simplistic, to make it as fast as possible. So, what do you do to go around that? Nothing, You can't. But there are some things that make a little more interesting some areas. Look at eye of the North and all those monster builds. Many of them are inspired in builds used by many players. What if monsters were able to mimic player and hero builds...? Imagine visiting some ice areas with your favorite fire build in your Sousuke, and when you switch to an area with fire elementalists, you'll find that they have that build too, and they use it as effectively as Sousuke does. Now that would be interesting... MithTalk 01:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Mith, for everybody's sake, please don't harp on technicalities and syntax. In game terms, illusion of intelligence is largely considered as AI, or any programming technique that simulates the smallest semblance of intelligence. We naturally can't have pure and good AI(according to the standards of AI purists) due to current limitations in calculations and computations in a fast-paced + low/mid-end technology oriented game. Pika Fan 01:33, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Blood Bond

This reminds me of life tap from diablo, finally some useful support compared to some semi-breeze with a drawback. -Cursed Angel 00:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, they stole it. >.> →[ »Halogod (talk)« ]← 04:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I think this skill will see a big time use in PvP if its a global change... becuase this will kill Warrior damage. - SabreWolf 13:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Warrior gains health when they hit, not the other way around. is for Raine, etc. 13:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

no.. reread the skill mate... its a hex that when the foe attacks an ally, the ally gets healed... Its like a hex that causes RoF. -SabreWolf 13:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Allies will gain 5...40 health every time they hit a foe hexed with Blood Bond. is for Raine, etc. 14:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

ok, may bad... that is worded wacky... but ok. Not sure how or why that would be used if that were the case. I kinda prefered my interpriation. - SabreWolf 14:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

As someone who uses heroes and henchman heavily... this may have just become my necromancer's favorite skills. Everyone is auto attacking when you're leading an AI team into battle. Even you since you need to direct their AIs. In fact since it says allies instead of just party... it is almost better than pressure healing. Probably has an area of only adjacent or an energy cost of ten to compensate, otherwise it would come close to outshining pressure healing like Divine_Healing--Ryan Galen 02:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"Allies" Hmm.. interesting. MM's already tap into blood magic for Dark Bond. Think this would out weigh Blood of the Master if used correctly (since the hex is AoE)? Magic Talk 01:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Who still uses blood of the master? It's so simple to get a minion wall up you're better off bombing them and making new minions than trying to heal old ones--TahiriVeila 01:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I use BotM but I'm rly bad at necros. It probably could work like you suggest though, especially if they all focus on one target. --Kyoshi (Talk) 02:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

@TahiriVeila: I don't use MM's for just meat shields.

@Kyoshi: I don't quite understand you. 1) It's an AoE hex and 2) it's life gain not steal.Magic Talk 03:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

"We’d like to establish clearer guidelines for ourselves and for players as to what is and isn't acceptable."

I'd really appreciate some information about what those guidelines are, because at the moment the "clearer guidelines" are more obscure than ever. Changing these skills affects the entire PvE end game, including item farming, speed clears, outpost running, mission and dungeon running, faction farming, elite mission teams, Hard Mode, vanquishing, and of course the prices on everything. There are a number of possible reasons to make the changes that you are making, but because these skills affect so many different things, changing the skills doesn't communicate your reasons for changing them. Without explaining your reasons in detail, we can't know what arenanet thinks is a problem, and we can't anticipate future changes at all.
I don't think I'll dislike any of the changes you make, but I do dislike the the poor communication of arenanet's motivations to the player base. What goals does the dev team have for this skill update? What is the philosophy driving these changes? Tot 01:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)Tot

I would expect they will provide developer notes with the update that will more clearly indicate their reasoning. -- Wyn talk 01:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you, but it seems like they have already provided developer notes for everything except Shadow Form, Obsidian Flesh and 600, which is a curious omission since that is the section where the dev's emphasized the importance of clarity. Why say you want clear guidelines and then be clear about everything except those guidelines? Is there some reason we have to wait for the dev notes for that update but not for any other skills? I understand that the changes are going to be controversial, but I think there would be less trouble about those changes if the devs were more inclusive.Tot 01:34, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind that these notes are on skills that are still being tweaked. Since the farming skills are going to cause a pretty big reaction no matter what happens to them, the devs want to be sure of exactly what they're going to do before they release the final results.--Pyron Sy 01:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Putting preliminary notes up allows them to get feedback. Not doing it does not. is for Raine, etc. 01:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

They could use some feedback, because right now they are on crack. I wish they had been clearer about a bunch of stuff, they have all these PvE headings, but some of the changes seem distinctly PvP. I cannot believe they are only tying Backbreaker to strength in PvE, but that makes me very worried about every other change that doesn't specifically mention PvE. Misery 02:07, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering the same thing, but at most of the skills I fucking hope not. InfestedHydralisk 02:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

We gave them feedback for the last pvp update in January, but they didn't listen to us. What makes you guys think that they'll bother listening this time and actually do something right?? 205.206.140.29 07:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

So, um, what is and isn't acceptable? How about making sure that future modifications to the game don't make the problem you are trying to fix even worse? The perfect example of this is the UW. Changes were made to the UW (the skeleton patrols, skeleton spawns and changes to the Ice King quest being the most substantial) in an alleged attempt to end the perma dominance by making things more difficult for perma speed clears. While this did slow down the speed of full clears, it did NOT end perma dominance. Instead, it made full clears virtually impossible without running with permas, and obligated the use of a team loaded with permas to complete a full clear in less than a lifetime (see DAYWAY). Since SF is now up for its biggest nerf, how about actually making it possible to do a full clear with a BALANCED TEAM? Either ditch the skeletons completely, remove the skeleton spawns from the quests, or modify the Ice King quest so that it can actually be completed by a team that doesn't have permas. --JET 06:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, if you read the posts at Guru, Dayway didn't happen overnight. Despite Shadow Form being obviously overpowered; it still took volunteer researchers many days of testing before UW speed clears became possible again. While I do agree that SF needs nerfing, I also want to point out that only a few people consistently benefit from Shadow Form. If you don't believe me, try pugging uw for an 8 hour period and count how many times you reach the end chest. Besides, your assertion that balanced teams can no longer clear UW with reasonable speed is wrong. There are people working on that already (I know at least 2 guilds that already can do it, though the best time is still about 1 hour). SF or no SF, the fact remains that you need a dedicated group of people to test new team builds and continually refine them until it's fully workable. If you don't have that kind of support from your guildies; you will more likely be looking at 4 hour UW clears with pugs, or copying successful builds posted in Guru, or complain about how the new team build is unfair and needs nerfing. --218.186.10.225 14:53, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Jet has some valid concerns, especially about the Ice King, and similar massive pops (Foundry comes to mind), but I like the skeletons.Tot 20:54, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

In response to 218.186.10.225: Actually, I have read numerous Guru posts related to the UW, and have participated in discussions related to the efforts to use a balanced team in the UW. I have also spent hours working on builds myself (for the UW and many other areas). But I don't see anything that invalidates what I have said. I completely agree with you that the use of a team loaded with permas will not guarantee a successful full clear. That said, the changes to the UW have made the use of 6 permas the default method used by most to complete it. Further, the choices for clearing the UW without permas are exceptionally limited. Based on what I have seen and read, the few teams without permas who have made it all the way through are almost all reliant on SY! and Great Dwarf Weapon. IMO, having such limited options makes the game less of a RPG and more of a FPS (First-Person Shooter). This is the same brick wall that GW ran up against with the over use of Ursan. For me, what makes this game fun is the challenge of coming up with new ways to solve problems. However, when you are limited to a very small number of ways to bring about a solution to a particular area, success is no longer based on creativity or ingenuity. Instead, success becomes gauged by whether your teammates know how to repeat the boilerplate build/tactics for that area and whether they have the requisite laser fast reactions to avoid a fail. IMHO, that is not fun, nor what has made GW such a wonderful game for me to play over the past 4+ years. Don't get me wrong, I love this game. My only purpose for adding my comments is to help ensure that future updates will keep the forgoing in mind and keep GW from morphing into just another run of the mill FPS. --JET 00:06, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Back to the Guidelines: why? Why does Anet nerfs all farming builds? I understand that Shadow Form is overpowered, so it needs a nerf. But why the 600/ smiter set up? They already tried it before by nerfing Spirit Bond, which made it more difficult. Now they want to nerf it again? When are they going to nerf the W/Me Smite Crawler farm then? And what about the R/Mo FoW Forest then? What is wrong about farming? That is the way to get gold, and get nice items to keep the game fun for yourself. I mean, we all heard a lot that Shadow Form nerfed the GW economy, but it seem stable now. Any idea what will happen if you nerf Shadow Form AND the 600/smiter set up? The prices of everything valuable (especially Glob of Ectoplams), will reach the record price. This way, the players that played this game a bit longer, and are well informed, will become far more richer in just days. The staring players, and the not obsessed with farming players are not able to pay anything then! How should average players then ever be able to get Obsidian armor? I wouldn't (not that I like it though:P). So or Anet should just lower the prices of everything available from traders (which doesn't solve the problem of things not able to get from traders, like miniatures), or stop nerfing every farm build.

Last, it is unfair to the starting players that they will need lots of more work to get the same items then. For instance, I got a ranger as main character. Played a long time without much contact with others, then a time in some small guilds, and finally in a good guild. There I learned much! So, when I heard of the Underworld, which has always been a inaccessible area for me, until then,

and that you could farm ectos there, I made a Assassin to make some money. I got there a few days before Halloween. I didn't even got the chance to farm there. So I made a Monk. I did a few 600 smiter run with her. Then I heard about the W/Me Underworld farm. As you use less people, you get more drops. So I decided to get my Warrior of the Factions starting Island to Kin Zu Corridor. Bought the right stuff and the skills for the build. Wasted my money because I just can't make the run:P. So, just back to the Monk for my money, and the Assassin and Ranger for fun. I heard a few days ago about the Tomb of the Primeval Kings, so I am farming now already a few days before it is to late because Anet nerfed al the farming builds I can use. That means no money and nice stuff for me anymore. And if I can't buy nice stuff, the game isn't fun anymore.

I think a lot of players feel the same. This is going to be the worst nerf ever. F. C. Sauër 14:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Ha! Never farmed. Got all I wanted. Like a female friend of mine that also lays GW said: "Farming is like prostitution, is not a good way to get money, it's a fast way to get money. And I doubt anyone doing it really liking it, unless they have some weird fetishes for fat guys with hairy backs, or..." And then she started digressing... weird gal... ahem... I don't think they will nerf all farming builds. They will just try to make 'too effective farming builds' less likely to happen. You can vanquish 400-enemy areas in a few minutes with some of those builds, for gods sake! Those are supposed to take over 30 minutes. People against the change is just too used to the farming way of playing. So the problem is not ANet making those changes, is ANet waiting for so long to make them. And for the new players, I won't worry too much. They changed the prices for low-level armors when they added insignia, remember? Item prices are not fixed. The logical thing to do is, once they are confident enough with the changes, balance some of the prices if people find hard to get stuff without farming. What you can't have is people getting waaay more stuff for playing the game the way it was not meant to be played while the ones that do play the game nVidia get much less, look at those farmers, become farmers too, and end up with the same 'farm' mindset of other games. GW is too different for that. It has no gearscore. MithTalk 00:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I know it's a bit late for this comment now that a nerf is coming; but I believe Shadow Form wouldn't have been a huge problem if more mobs used signets or life steal skills. UW now has seen almost exclusively perma teams because the difficulty of clearing these areas has been increased to the point that balanced teams cannot compete. If instead of making uw more difficult in general, why not make uw easier for balanced teams and difficult for permas? For example, making the skeletons deal damage only to enchanted foes, lowering the armor and health of smite crawlers while giving them Signet of Judgement and bane signet as their only skills, giving dream rider class types leech signet or signet of disenchantment, or giving behemoths tranquility, or giving the necro types signet of agony and well of the profane. At the same time they can make those mobs easier to kill by lowering health, armor, or energy pool; or even lower attributes. I think if those were the changes that they did, permas would fall out of favor without needing any nerf to the skill.--220.255.4.26 06:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with what you say in the top. However rather than fix every single elite area and every single dungeon a perma Shadow Form Assassin can solo, why not fix the root of the problem? 71.146.81.65 01:01, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

^ Beat me to it. --Kyoshi (Talk) 01:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Back up to the original poster: Speed clears, dungeon running, faction farming, and outpost running, though aren't an exploit, weren't intended to be used in such ways. They are always bound to be nerfed or changed. Farming is generally nerfed or changed due to balance (that one class can be used to generate cash and items over another). Not all players create multiple characters to gain access to different types of farming builds due to time restraint. So the game changes to balance between those who can have the time to make multiple characters for farming vs those that cannot. [Note on outpost running, though assassins and dervish have the dominate builds for running other classed builds have been able to complete many of the common runs.]

Farming was never support by Arena.net. Though they obviously have nothing against it but the purpose of the game was more oriented around team play. Many of the common farming builds out today are solo. [Characters should be made to play not just to farm. ; \] Plus the balance issues stated above come into play. "Changing these skills affects the entire PvE end game...and of course the prices on everything." The economy of a game is ever changing. In my opinion, the economy still could use some work. Take unique items for example, since their sought after by many more players over rare items, they're commonly (for the average green) priced between 1-3k. Not to long ago they were 3-5k. And a way back (some years now) many were higher then 5k.

@Mith 1) I am one of the few people that can say I love farming. 2) You've nailed it: ->"People against the change is just too used to the farming way of playing. So the problem is not ANet making those changes, is ANet waiting for so long to make them."

After seeing many of the changes to these skills i can't wait for the update. Personally, when I farm I use my elementalist and favor Obsidian Flesh in many of my builds (not just for Vaettir farming). I think this is a step in the right direction fore it will influence more team playing (not just duo builds like 600/smite). Lately is seems more and more that GW has become a Massive Single Player Online Game and hopefully this update will be the beginning to change so of that. [I'm probably forgetting a few things I wanted to say but oh well. xD] Magic Talk 02:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I remember what I forgot. When it comes to UW and farming ecto.. People constantly complain about the raise of ecto prices for Obsidian Armor or Chaos gloves.. But instead of revolving it around farming.. why not just lower the material requirements of the armors. It wouldn't be the first time they've changed it. Magic Talk 02:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I can see I wasn't clear. I support the update. I'm just pointing out that that transparency that ANET preaches has not been practiced yet. The update is a good idea for many reasons. I want to know which of those reasons ANet thinks are most important.Tot 04:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see. M'bad. :3 Magic Talk 06:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I read through most of the comments on the upcoming SF farming... You know what it reminds me of? The discussion which came up shortly after introduction of hard mode. Bloody CROWDS of people complaining, blaming ArenaNet for killing the game etc etc etc. And what happened in the end? NOTHING! Everything is fine now, till the next change! So just lean back and enjoy the new opportunities the update will bring :D 198.36.87.87 16:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

So... any recommendations on good games out there to play?

← moved to User_talk:219.64.78.96

Signet of Spirits

Please...
...don't nerf my SoS! QQ --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Some Ninja Dude (talk).

The recharge doesn't even matter, you have Summon Spirits. is for Raine, etc. 02:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree dont nerf sos. It is the heart and soul of a ritualist --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.27.89.248 (talk).

If one skill is the heart and soul of rits, then rits need a re-vamp. Oh, what? That's what they're getting? ; ) G R E E N E R 03:07, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Making a good skill suck is going to balance a sucky class. Lolwut? SoS is the only reason rits get into any high end PvP at all. And if they do they're usually filler/back-up for this.

It's still going to be a godly skill. Stop whining. elix Omni 05:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The whole reason SoS was so freaking good was because you DIDN'T need summon spirits for it to work - you could literally cast that skill over and over again, multiple times a battle, and thus saving you an extra space in your bar. Not everyone likes to fill their whole bar with spirits you know... hybrids are more fun. 205.206.140.29 07:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah cuz spirits are so tough and strong with their super high health,armor, and lack of mobility. /roll eyes. Dumbass. --71.193.48.146 07:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I assume your smartass comment was trying to say that spirits are useless without summon spirits? If that's the case then you missed my point. My point was that you don't need to bring summon spirits because SoS had such a short recharge that you can just keep casting it without having to summon them. And no, you don't need to fill a bar with a bunch of spirits either because Rits also have room for tons of support/utility. 205.206.140.29 08:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Tl;dr. Premise was wrong. Was talking to felix. not you. --71.193.48.146 08:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

oh ok, my bad. 205.206.140.29 08:07, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It will be cool if a blood magic can have a bleeding spam skill, like a non elite version of toxic chill --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Diabiosx (talk).

Reguarding this "nerf" to SoS, the thought process in the minds of Anet is going about it all wrong. I don't mind if the currently thought up nerf will be added as well, but the main problem with SoS is that warriors and dervishes and every other class can use it and kill enemies just as easily as the rit. The proper skill balance to SoS would be to simply put it in spawning power, and have it only summon one spirit at lvl zero, then 2 at mid range, and 3 at about lvl10 or more, in the spawning power attribute.

This would encourage players to stop looking to spirit spamming as an easy way out for every class, and actually play their own classes, or make a ritualist and use that, if they really want to spirit spam so much.

...I swear...I should honestly have a job position in Anet's Test Krewe...I would most certainly accept that job so fast! Angel Serrenity 4:15am, February, 20, 2010 (EST)

So everyone runs it because it's better than their own elites, and that's not the problem? God, that's good to know! I thought it outclassing just about everything else was an issue, silly me! :D is for Raine, etc. 09:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It certainly is an issue, when you see a warrior, who's supposed to be tanking, become a caster, even though they only have +2 energy regen, and not much energy to begin with. And its not simply that its such a "powerful skill" but more the fact that, just like Ursan, you don't have to think very hard, in order to use it properly. Just cast spirits, wand an enemy, and the spirits do all the work...oh wait, my bad...you might have to simply use summon spirits to get your spirits out of the occasional AoE...but yeah, other than that...you get the point...

Btw, Raine, I'm impressed how fast you reply...but unimpressed on your lack of proper "comeback"...perhaps you're one of those who uses a spirit spamming skillbar on your warrior or dervish, since it bearly took a thought to come up with that reply... Angel Serrenity 5:00am, February 20, 2010 (EST)

Being easy to use is the large part of WHY it's such an obscenely powerful skill. Regardless, it's still obscenely powerful. Take a look at half of the degenerate bs builds that have gotten (or need to be) nerfed: sway, hexway, smiteway, hero tease, etc. All of them were (are) ridiculous because they allowed any player who could press "load build" and then hit their skill buttons on recharge to be competitive; this is exactly the same.

If a skill or build reduces the game to a thoughtless faceroll, there's something wrong with it.

For the record, I rarely PvE because I hate how thoughtless it is; why would I ever advocate anything that makes anything more thoughless? is for Raine, etc. 11:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

TBH... SoS needs a scale back... and scallign back the damage slightly is no biggie since you are 1.) getting 3 spirits and 2.) Spirit Boon Strike is going to be way over played to make up the damage loss. Also, no one cares about the recharge if you have Summon Spirits to keep dragging them behind you... - SabreWolf 13:28, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

One more time. Spirits are so strong and brave with such high armor and health. Thats why its, you know, Brave triple Spirit and not spiritSPAMMER --71.193.48.146 14:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I picked up SoS so I could steamroll PvE on my rit, and I used it through the entire Factions campaign (NM). The spirits were lasting long enough to die naturally (except in Tacahamani Temple or whatever, because the temple guardians have like 19 copies of breath of fire and then 48 more of flame burst). Even if they didn't, they should still be accomplishing enough in 30 seconds to be worth the whopping 0 energy and 1 second it takes to put them up.

In HM, they die faster (though not much, and they rarely wiped within 30 seconds), but still not fast enough that this nerf will actually hurt any of the builds that used SoS with the possible exception of the one that uses Spirit to Flesh. In which case, you're killing your spirits, anyway. is for Raine, etc. 14:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Another so not needed nerf. Realistically this should be moved to spawning to stop every other profession trying to pretend to be a spirit spammer. It's not the recharge I have a problem with is the loss of 20% of the damage output that I disagree with. 86.17.72.80 15:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I would have been fine if they decided to nerf ONLY either the damage or recharge... but hitting both is not so good. From those notes it seems like the damage difference will be, at 15 channeling, 7 damage per spirit, or approx 21 DPS. That's pretty significant. And what do we get in return? A bunch of weak ass buffs that still results in weak ass skills. No thanks. 205.206.140.29 18:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

They attack once every two seconds. -- 18:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually they attack every 1.5 seconds, so it should have said 21 damage per volley. But who cares about the wording anyways.

Master of Damage says it's every 2. I'll go with what he and the internets tell me. So the proposed nerf shaves about 10.5 dps off. ~50 nerfed to ~39.5. Still basically an infinite 33% ias'ed Dragon Slash! -- 19:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The thing does more damage than most any single target Hero build by itself right now. You see Liquid Flame's ~50 dps? That's the basic cutoff for a skill be useful (and what they rebalanced channeling attacks around), which is the same damage the Signet now does every second for an entire minute for no energy. Painful Bond will almost double it. So one skill on your bar equals an entire PERSON. The damage nerf proposed will do basically nothing, but the recharge time will be annoying for those trying to milk Signet of Slaughter with Mantra of Inscriptions. Linking it's effectiveness to Spawning Power would be cruel beyond words - there are only a few skills in that attribute and a lot of filler. The ideal solution would be a further small damage noif for SoSlaughter, but a buff on the other attack spirits to make you pay for the (then worthwhile) turrets in skill slots. Stuff about 20% stronger than Vampirism. Which would be more PvE splitting madness, but hey, at this point I kind of want them to split every single skill now. -- 18:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreeing with the previous poster that the REAL way to "fix" this skill to prevent abuse is to move it into Spawning Power, and make the number of spirits it summons a function of higher investment in Spawning Power (still max of 3 at perhaps 10 or 11 SP). I'm rather upset that, after eliminating my favorite build last month (Ebon Dust Aura/Volley ranger), they are now going to nerf the one build I have left that allows me to HAVE FUN playing the game. Please, Anet, PAY ATTENTION to this feedback page, and think about how your plans will affect the game! You claim to be trying to buff Rits, but eliminating the one build that makes them accepted in party play is totally counterproductive to that stated goal. I love that you're trying to give some underused Rit skills a boost, but it will all be for naught if Rits go back to being the unacknowledged bastard children of the meta (along with Dervs and Rangers, now)! --66.116.33.57 22:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not an issue because it's abused, it's abused because it's an issue. A signet that gives your team a free air ele for 60 seconds is *overpowered*, regardless of who's using it. Rits included. is for Raine, etc. 23:27, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

And if SoS Rits actually functioned like Air Eles, I might agree with you (never mind the fact that Anet seems to be trying to make that happen with the upcoming buffs to Rit lightning skills). However, there are some fundamental differences in how Rit SoS builds work in practice.

1. Air eles can select specific targets; spirits cannot be targeted. I think this is the strongest argument in favor of spirits being more powerful than comparable damage skills, due to their element of unpredictability. Not MUCH more powerful, mind you; just a little.

2. Air ele skills for the most part deal all of their damage to the same target (or a small area) all at once; spirits will often focus fire on different targets, thus causing more pressure damage than spike damage.

3. Eles of any flavor will usually spec highly into Energy Storage, giving them enormous energy pools and making it feasible (from a game design standpoint) for high-damage skills to cost high amounts of energy without breaking a build; Rits are much more limited in energy by comparison, thereby making the nonexistent cost of SoS much less "broken" than just "helpful."

IMHO, the problem with SoS isn't that it's an overall issue, but that's it's a *universal* issue. When a primary Warrior (or any other class) can spirit-spam just as well as a primary Rit, it's too abusable. If you don't believe me, take a poll and find out what percentage of GW players have taken anything OTHER than spirit spam into the Norn Fighting Tournament recently. :P --66.116.33.57 23:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

SOS should be moved into Spawning, Having everybody else in the game able to play that one is nuts, actually most spirits should probably be in spawning it's one of the main advantages to playing a rit, the ability to have spirits, or at least make the all spirits levels and/or damage output based on how much spawning power you have. It would absolutely clear up any abuse issues. Because with the direction they are headed in now, it doesn't make SOS unusable it just takes a bit more creativity in putting your build together. Wynterarwynrose 14:05, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Again, Nothing good comes out of yet another update for ranger?

When are you gonna sort out the ranger class properly and buff them to be equal to the rest.

Rangers have to work twice as hard as any other class in order to attain the same goal. BE FAIR FFS.

Um. No? A good ranger can make a world of difference. But even if the ranger is rubbish and randomly spams interrupts and conditions at will, it is still bound to interrupt something and apply pressure. Only a truly retarded ranger has to work twice as hard to be as average as everyone else. Rangers need to be nerfed; their expertise is ridiculous (touch skills? wtf?). If you're working twice as hard to be the same as everyone else, I suggest trying a new profession. I suggest mesmer. They interrupt better than ranger and they have the added bonus of not sucking. Ronjewart

Lolwut? InfestedHydralisk 03:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"Stop being terrible." is for Raine, etc. 03:11, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

^that. Flick on obs mode sometime. King Neoterikos 03:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Just wanna let everyone know, Cripshot nerf, I totally f*cking called it.

Cray me a river- yea... yea... yea! --Ulterion 03:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm just wondering when they'll finally lower the ridiculous activation times of nature spirits and thereby make them actually useable. --Nathe 15:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

.................................................................................... is for Raine, etc. 15:56, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"Stop being terrible." Very amusing since your probably some dumb ass warrior, secondly I'm not terrible and can play the shitty old boring condition spreading and rupting ranger all day long, but the fact is.... there's no option to play any other builds for ranger, and in pve rangers have 1 build is "Ok" which I and I'm sure many others are sick of playing.... yes you guessed it the good old barrage build. Unless your actually going to add something constructive fk off simply. I'm getting bored of anet constantly nerfing rangers in pvp but also messing them up in pve so much more. DO MORE SPLITS and BUFF some skills for pve. fk pvp it's dead anyway.

Ursobad, pros play Escape daggers in PvE. --Kyoshi (Talk) 19:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Abusing your secondary proffesion to make your primary proffesion not suck. ITS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!!! --71.193.48.146 20:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"and in pve rangers have 1 build is "Ok" which I and I'm sure many others are sick of playing" Pretending that only one build is even remotely viable, it's also cruise control for cool? BTW even with cruise control you still have to steer. --Kyoshi (Talk) 21:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

He's kinda right though. I mean, What great builds are there for rangers in PvE? Theres trapping but, cmon, how feasible is that? And theres R/Rt methods. S/B, Nightmare spike, and Spirit ranger. Thats about all they have in terms of working PvE builds. and in PvP they have a grand total of 1 viable, NON-GIMMICK build. Its really sad to see an entire proffesion reduced to using the same bar. --71.193.48.146 22:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

First things first. You are not a ranger. You play a ranger. You can change that at any time if you feel it is no longer fun.

Secondly, why are you bothering with Apply in PvE? Sure, it's cool, but there's a plethora of bow builds that are acceptable in PvE. Don't like the meta PvP ranger? Run splinter barrage and blow shit up. Run Glass Arrows and blow shit up. Marksman's Wager Sun/Pen spam and blow shit up. Don't wanna use a bow? Pets are viable in PvE. Traps solo everything. Don't like that, either? Well, that's okay, because rangers have the most broken PA in guildwars. Take a scythe. Take RaO. Take Escapemelee.

Fact is, rangers probably have more viable builds in PvE than any other profession. What do wars have? Dslash, HB, ES, WE, spear bars, and tanking. Eles? Fire Magic or gtfo. Mesmers? VoR, Illusion, and FC Fire. Necroes? MM or SS. Monks? HB, prot, or RoJ. Sins? Mobieus/DB, shadow form, critscythe. Rits? ONE VIABLE BAR. Paragons? ONE VIABLE BAR. Dervishes? ZERO VIABLE BARS.

You have an imaginary issue. Stop being terrible. is for Raine, etc. 22:27, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Umad? All i said was that in PvP they have one bar. Out of a hundred skills in this game, you will find 7 of them on EVERY SINGLE RANGER IN PVP.

Also, i find myself wondering how many times im going to have to put in the words NON-GIMMICK before people stop being autistic. =/ --71.193.48.146 22:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Every ranger takes savage and dshot in PvP because they're two of the best skills in the game. Those are also the only two ranger skills that are on "every ranger bar" ; every other skill slot is optional within limits.

The first skill is a bow attack, usually elite. Possibilities include BA, Cripshot, Poison Arrow, Mel's, Pin Down, Prepared Shot, Punishing Shot, Concussion Shot, Incendiary Arrows, Screaming Shot, Debilitating Shot, Point Blank Shot or its duplicate, or even BHA, depending on what arena you're in.

Magebane can be subbed for Savage.

The fourth is pretty much the same, though, obviously, not the same as 1. The fourth slot can also be a preparation, depending on how much bar space you need.

The fifth slot is a preparation, if the 4th is not. Apply Poison, Expert Focus, Read the Wind, Glass Arrows, and Barbed Arrows are all viable.

The sixth slot is whatever you want. Blackout, Convert Hexes, Mending Touch, etc.

The seventh slot is Natural Stride or Lightning Reflexes.

And that's variety ONLY FOR BOW RANGERS. Compare to, say, axe wars: rangers simply have a ton more options, period. is for Raine, etc. 23:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Seriously... how do you think I feel taking an ele as my title hunter? Elemental damage does crap in HM so even an ele/rt SOS build out damages an SF ele in hardmode. I mainly use ether infuser in HM, and nothing else is really all that viable for an ele in HM. Rangers have so much more options so stop complaining. The profession I really feel bad for is the paragon, they have imbagon, and oh yeah imbagon.--Lania Elderfire 18:55, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I call fire-whore. In HM, Water snares are excellent at bashing enemies into a state where they can't do much. Air ele can easily spike a harmful target where fire nukes can not, and Earth tanks can somtimes be tankier than the best warriors. When someone says eles are useless, its either because they don't use enough of the other elements, or they just plain suck at spellcasting.--203.160.125.87 04:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Conjure Flame/Frost/Lightning+Expert Focus+Prepared Shot+Sundering Attack+Penetrating Attack+Needling Shot. Haven't tried it in pvp yet but for pve it works great for high, fast damage to a single target while keeping energy high. Favorable Winds adds even more damage when you get a free moment to slap it down. Would be even better spirit with a shorter activation time. --Nathe 14:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I haven't used that one, but I have used a similar Ranger turret build before. Probably dead of course, with the update to timed bow attacks. As a guildie of mine said, he'd look around after he killed someone and see I'd taken out a monk and a half. I think the point's been made, though. There's plenty of variety, you just have to think of it, or even LOOK. --Kyoshi (Talk) 18:05, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Why do you want to run single target damage in PvE?.. InfestedHydralisk 18:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Contrary to popular belief, enemies don't always come in mutually adjacent packs of 6+. Manifold 16:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, this is true. :< I'm pretty sure Barrage hits farther than adjacent though, regardless of what the skill says. --Kyoshi (Talk) 16:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Spirit Rift

Please dont do this. The Nuke capability of this skill is the only thing that makes it usable. Its not a problematic skill, you dont need to make it cause scatter, Im begging, please, My Ritbomb build cant take this sort of hit. :( --71.193.48.146 03:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

BAAAAAAAWWWWWWWW! --Ulterion 04:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Even people that type well with genuine concerns get made fun of? That's sad... Taros 04:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to GWW. →[ »Halogod (talk)« ]← 04:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I think your jumping to conclusions, Im pretty sure Ulterion is just Trolling. --71.193.48.146 04:48, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict) I've been here for a decent amount of time, and while there is a lot of fun stuff and making fun of, the targets are usually users who are used to it and are ok with it or terrible IP's who make bad suggestions or trolls. Taros 04:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I just don't want them to nerf a skill that isn't even problematic. Thats screwed up. The only place its ever usable is in specialized builds. Like my Rt/A Bomber. They don't need to nerf this skill. It's good just as it is. --71.193.48.146 04:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't hold your breath. Anet hasn't been known to revert their mistakes as of late, no matter how terrible they may be. --Ulterion 05:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Smiter's Boon wasn't a mistake. ThrainFile:User Thrain Sig.pngcontribs 05:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes because getting rid of Smiters boon was bad, ofcourse. --Frosty 05:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The "Balance team" Making a skill (yes, ANY SKILL) Unplayable, is a mistake. Making something unusable is just as imbalanced as having it be an instant cast 1 sec recharge Instagib spell. --71.193.48.146 05:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I would rather the Balance team remove a skill which causes terrible metas (seriously look back at late 2008, smiters fucking everywhere), then take 6 months to try and find a way of balancing it. --Frosty 05:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Then we're in agreement. Removing a skill is not balancing it. When did this turn into a discussion about smiter's boon being overpowered? This was supposed to be about how not overpowered and not in need of a nerf Spirit Rift is. --71.193.48.146 05:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

In all honesty untill you see the numbers you can't tell if the skill has been nerfed or not, if looking at it in a PvP aspect, it means you deal more damage to targets that would normally simply avoid the damage, you deal CA at the end, and possibly all the damage could go under Spirit Bond. The only thing I can see this doing is nerfing RiftSpike, which hasn't been run in a long time. --Frosty 05:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

25/90ing Smiter's Boon was a LOL worthy move. Sure, it was OP'd in PvP, but that doesn't mean they couldn't maybe make it a 10e 60r with maybe 20 second duration, or something of the likes.. y'know... actually balancing it? Instead, they simply take the quickest, easiest route to bypass actually having to "think"! --Ulterion 05:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Excuse I'm sorry, Did you just say, "See the numbers in PvP"? Where exactly in PvP is this skill used? other than crappy JQ builds. --71.193.48.146 05:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Uh, they're not reducing the damage. What are you on about? It's doing the same amount of total damage, just not all at once. That makes things more likely to take damage. As if that wasn't enough, it cracks armor, too. is for Raine, etc. 06:57, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

They mad because instead of one spike its over time, and likely to cause scatter.personn5 06:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

^that. DOT+AI = Scatter = ineffective spell. This is a nerf. A completely unnecessary nerf. --71.193.48.146 07:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Do mobs even scatter in 3 seconds? Even if they do, God forbid snaring.

And, to be fair, it probably should've caused scatter ANYWAY, being an AoE DoT (yes, it deals damage over 3 seconds in an area, though it is only one packet) spell. Mobs not scattering until they take damage is a bug, afaiac. is for Raine, etc. 07:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

They react to damage over time. They do not predict damage over time. Which was the only thing that made this skill viable anywhere in game. To answer your question, Mobs begin the reaction sequence to AoE damage after the second packet of damage. Which means they would avoid the third packet of damage from this change. And they dont immediatly scatter after any of the use of any other skill in the game. Like Fireball or Meteor. Why would they scatter for this (in its current form)? --71.193.48.146 07:42, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The same reason that they should scatter from Meteor Shower before they get owned: even if they're not taking damage, they're still standing in a harmful AoE effect for 3 seconds. is for Raine, etc. 10:57, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

i said meteor. not meteor shower. --71.193.48.146 11:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

My argument was not based on yours, but I will address it now. Fireball is not an AoE DoT; it's an AoE projectile. While it would be nice if mobs attempted to avoid projectiles to some degree, that would be impractical. Meteor, on the other hand, IS an AoE DoT. The operative difference with meteor is that it hits about half a second after activation, compared to the six-times-as-long delay before Spirit Rift or Meteor Shower. is for Raine, etc. 11:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You know, i could provide a ton of different examples of skills that follow the same guidlines as meteor and spirit rift. I dont see how the time between activation and damaging effect makes a difference. The point is that AI reacts. It doesnt predict. And if your saying it should then your wrong. Hard mode is hard enough without them dodging all your damage spells. making this spell a traditional DOT AoE spell would simply remove what little viability it has. as far as i can tell this (combined with a few other spells) are the only spike capability that a rit has. and it is THE only AoE spike that rits have. Its perfectly fine as it is and has a perfect niche as it is. they dont need to do this and seeing as your argument seems to be preficed on the idea that on top of already having a 10 level difference, 100% HCT/HSR, Half damage from all sources, double damage from all spells, and ridiculously large mobs/overpowered monster skills, that monsters should be dodging your spike spells, I'm gonna go ahead and just agree to disagree with you. --71.193.48.146 12:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The AI reacts to taking AoE DoT damage. The AI does not react to standing in AoE DoT. I am saying that it should.

"Hard Mode is hard enough [using normalmode faceroll tactics]."

I'm gonna have to, for a second, intimate that maybe Hard Mode should be, well, hard. Challenging. Maybe asking players to do something other than "Tank damage -> cast lots of AoEspells -> winguildwars" is a Good Thing? Maybe things like team synergy should become a concern at some point (there are dozens of skills that stop or slow foes' moving out of AoE; pick one)? ffs, they're even giving rits a hex snare with this update (wtf?).

"as far as i can tell this (combined with a few other spells) are the only spike capability that a rit has"

Paradox aside, does it matter if a class does not have spike damage skills? There was a time in guild wars where Curses did not do spike damage, and it was good for the game! There was a time when monks did not nuke, and it was good for the game! There's no reason why a profession needs to have access to an enormous variety of skills; in fact, it's quite the opposite: having different professions with different roles promotes is part of what makes guildwars the great game it is/was.

On another note, what does it matter if a profession can't do something that it wasn't intended to do? Secondaries are cool.

"and it is THE only AoE spike that rits have."

Clamor of Souls, Cruel Was Daoshen, and Destructive Was Glaive (which is getting monstrously buffed) don't count?

"they dont need to do this and seeing as your argument seems to be preficed on the idea that on top of already [being imba] that monsters should be dodging your spike spells, I'm gonna go ahead and just agree to disagree with you."

Actually, I don't think Hard Mode should be Mobs On Steroids Mode at all. I think it should be challenging in an actually challenging way. In fact, I think a lot of the HM changes are actually counter-intuitive: giving every mob Fast Casting makes interrupts (part of what makes/made guild wars skillful) null and giving them all Rampage As One makes kiting (the very most basic way of mitigating damage) ineffective. It actually encourages thoughtless tank-n-spank type builds (which, no matter how hard the mobs hit, will never be challenging).

I'm certainly not going to advocate mindlessness. is for Raine, etc. 12:57, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You don't even know what they are doing to the skill yet. For all you know they could be doubling the damage. All they have said is that it will deal damage over time instead of all in one packet and will inflict cracked armor. The point is to make the skill more effective in hardmode, so don't tell them how dumb they are being about it until you know what they are actually doing or you could end up looking mighty foolish. Rip people apart when they deserve it, praise people when they deserve it. If you just rage it people regardless no one will ever take you seriously. Misery 12:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You totally missed the point. Making it a traditional AoE DOT will completely change the skills use. it IS the delay between that makes this skill viable in the few builds it is viable in. The delay allows for (if you have good timing) perfect self-sync'ed spikes. Like for instance, you get close enough to hurt something with DwG, Cast spirit rift, hit with Essence Strike, and then right as essence finishes up, drop DwG. Removing the spike ability of Spirit rift throws the entire build out of whack. and, that i can think of, thats the only build where it would be viable. --71.193.48.146 13:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

So? Plenty of skills have "completely changed" and ended up better, so to assume this will make it worse is pretty unfounded. Just one specific build will no longer work. Unfortunately for you, arenanet does not balance around one particular build you happen to like. Misery 13:11, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay smartass, lets see a build (with the new parameters in place) that WOULD make use of this skill? A decent build. None of that gimmicky mathway shit. --71.193.48.146 13:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't do that because I haven't seen the new parameters, so I don't know what build would be good. See, that is what I said from the start. Also, this is under the heading "Ritualists in End Game PvE", so for now I am assuming it is a PvE only change, because I don't see them wanting to add more sources of cracked armor in PvP. In other words, express your concerns about the currently proposed changes and the ambiguity, feel free to suggest what changes would be appropriate, then shut the fuck up because you don't know what is going to happen. Misery 13:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"not gimmicky [...] shit"

lol ritspike isn't gimmickshit?

"lets see a build (with the new parameters in place) that WOULD make use of this skill? A decent build"

Here's a viable use! You apply this. You then cast Binding Chains, because it does wtf damage to kiting foes and/or stops them from moving (possibly completely, but definitely not out of this). You then deal a shitton of damage that ducks SB and that the foe can't simply walk out of before it does anything! :D is for Raine, etc. 13:27, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

So i herd Binding chains ended when the sufferer took damage. O.o --71.193.48.146 13:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

So i herd reading comprehension wuz gud. Binding Chains will deal damage per second now, if it still ends on damage I will never defend Arenanet again. Misery 13:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Wanna place bets? 20 plat right now says theres some kind of bug and that actually happens. Or they put in a clause saying "if the sufferer takes damage from outside this spell" clause. --71.193.48.146 13:34, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh sorry, I didn't know I was supposed to include predicted bugs and/or currently unstated skill effects.

With that in mind, 100% of teams will run this because it can target anything and causes that target to die 10 seconds later. is for Raine, etc. 13:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I really hope your edit summary wasn't directed at me Raine. That would make me very sad if you thought I was that dumb :< Misery 13:45, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Most certainly not. is for Raine, etc. 13:48, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Let’s pull back the intent. I can see some people are very passionate about this. Almost to the point that I’m afraid to comment. But that hasn’t stopped me before.

I’ve never used this skill. I’ve watched the NPC rits use it all the time at with terrible timing since the enemies always just walk out of the area of affect. In contrast the Mobs rip my NPCs apart with it all the time simply because a well defended backline doesn’t move as often as the mobs and I’m suddenly left with a damage spike on multiple heroes/henchman. So I’ll enjoy this change, which in context means the people complaining about the change are validated in their complaints.

We can only wait to see what the developers will decide to do with this feedback.--Ryan Galen 01:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Blinding Surge

It bogs down games:
1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1. Nuff sedd... --Ulterion 06:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't know what all those 1's are about(above), but im pretty sure he/she means spamming the elite over and over. I agree that this is an over-powered skill, and needs a nerf, even in Pve. When doing quests/dungeons where enemies have this elite, melee chars/heros get hit with constant blind condition, exhausting their healers to try and get the condition off of them, especially heros... Angel Serrenity 5:00am, February 20, 2010 (EST)

basically. I'd suggest toning the duration down to 0-2-2 secs, decreasing the cast to 1/4 and removing the damage - Wuhy 12:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

^LOL Lilondra 13:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

inoino - Wuhy 13:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Reasoning : That would completely kill it.Since 20% mods stack You'd proly be able to get only 1 sec blind.And 2 sec is useless anyway.The problem is this skill is so good on itself you can just waste 3 slots on management. Lilondra 15:07, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It would be more of an anti-spike skill and less of an anti-physical-existence skill. But yeah, 2s is too short; 3 would be ideal, imo. is for Raine, etc. 15:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I realise that and Imo it still wouldn't work as a skill.Imo MB + Blash would be more powerfull then a Bsurge ele.Also Raine I commented on your feedback Lilondra 15:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It's an especially ginormous problem in 4v4 [Random and Codex Arenas]. It's like every other match up it's, "Olook, it's another B.Surge." /resign.. ow8, RA resign-denial ftw... No Monk To Red-Bar Team + 3 Other Assholes + Dishonorable Combatant System = Resign-Denial. Not to mention the fact that players also stall matches using shadowstepping and self-healing to bounce across the map, so if a team doesn't have the proper utility and timing, or unless the staller/griever fails.. you're in for a waste of your time watching him stall for the remainder of the match. --Ulterion 01:46, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

+1 .. I agree .. bbots are simply as they are, bots .. worst thing is that even somewhat-good players play it (I know because I see bbots acctualy FAKING blind on me), please nerf it hard with the nerf stick ! ;) 109.65.2.76 11:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Agressive Refrain and Soldier's Fury

I wonder if the -20 armor will stack together with Cracked Armor to go to 40 armor. I guess it depends on the order of things. I would hate to have 100% more damage on my paragon for such a thing, while 50% more isn't as bad.

you have minus 20 armor (minimum of 60) --71.193.48.146 07:45, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you even realize they are buffing AR instead of nerfing it? Koda Kumi 10:37, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I would guess that any armour debuffs would stack the same way armour buffs stack; they cap out at a maximum effect of a set value. An individual skill may be powerful enough to go over that cap value, but you cannot stack skills to go over it. So for instance even if you have a -20 effect from a skill, plus Cracked Armour, it might cap out at a total of -25 armour even though an individual skill might cause -30. That's roughly how it works for armour buffs, so I assume debuffs will work the same way. Note that my example has fictional numbers, not necessarily existing skills. -- Elv 11:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

actually youll have 66 armor because you had 106 armor before oh and armor debuffs stack to infinite 127.0.0.1 14:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

No more Body Blow for nonelite evisc on paragons. :( is for Raine, etc. 14:45, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"We’ve listened to concerns about the interactions between heroes/henchmen and the self-application of Cracked Armor in Aggressive Refrain and Soldier's Fury." Who told ANet to actually nerf paragon instead of "buff" in this way? I prefer Cracked Armor with H/H as in such cases CA was removed almost instantly... Also now there will not be interaction with Purifying Finale >.< Lex Luxor 19:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Believe it or not, a few people actually were suggesting just this change on the wiki. And the OP may be correct; if cracked armor is taken into consideration before the skill's, then the user's armor may go below 60; if it's figured after, then it stops at 60. elix Omni 22:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It was VERY WRONG suggestion then. >.< And order doesn't matter as in most cases paragon's armor is: base 80 + shield's 16 + centurion's 10 = 106 total so Cracked Armor (from enemy) will trigger everytime under Aggressive Refrain / Soldier's Fury reducing paragon's armor to 106 - 20 - 20 = 66... very BAD move form ANet and unexperienced people/testers' team. Lex Luxor 22:27, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know that many enemies that can spam cracked armor, and if they use it once or twice your monks can remove it, compared to before where it applied every single time a chant/shout ended on you and your monks would waste energy on recharge removing it. That's the main complaint I've heard from people anyway. Taros 22:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

But the very important differences are:

1) you CAN remove Cracked Armor (if it is needed, and some skills heal for removing conditions) and you CAN'T remove -20 "bonus"

2) -20 "bonus" and Cracked Armor stack - you get now twice armor reduction

3) you could use Purifying Finale with Cracked Armor = no "punishment" at all

All in all it is better to have just SIMPLE condition than something hard coded in skill description. Lex Luxor 00:11, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Because paragons NEED to be nerfed MOAR! Besides, balancing paragons is a nightmare, we all saw how degenerate multiple paragons could be in pvp, and in pve they are still very strong. Seriously, if you were to begin balancing paragons RIGHT NOW, how would you even begin? keeping in mind; shouts and chants cannot be removed, echo's cannot be removed and chained to be up kept to infinity, the class has access to group heals, the class has access to group energy regeneration, the class has access to group health regeneration, the class can cause bleeding, deep wound, dazed, crippled, and interupt skills. If you balance from the PoV of you fighting AGAINST a paragon, it's in a pretty good place balance wise. It's a pity that when you play AS a paragon, your inabilty to do all of the above at the same time and/or with an effective attribute spread or decent skillbar, is the real limiting factor. Add on the weird triggers for some skills (heal only when signet used...wtf?) and you can see why it was a class with a lot of promise, but ultimately must be nerfed into non existence.-- Megages

I still do not see any nerf to the skills, just a clear buff. Blind and cripple are no longer auto-covered on you, you just get your armor lowered to 86 as long as the skills are active. That is it. Koda Kumi 12:09, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

To Be fair

I dont see this as a very bad nerf.nothing has been taken away from us (Dam) and hardly anything has been 'Booned' and tactics has got such a large buff,i think im actualy going to see tactics paragon's in PVP again.so all thumbs up on this not changing--Neil2250 The Render Nazi 09:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I thought the Tactics changes were PvE Only tbh... --92.10.117.207 11:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Of course they are pve only. Tactics would be ridiculously broken if those were in Pvp. Fear me, charge, shove lol.--TahiriVeila 22:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for listening...

...To the concerns about the paragon skills inflicting Cracked Armor. Now it will be much more feasible to use those skills with heroes and henchmen. Erasculio 11:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

+1. is for Raine, etc. 14:27, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I really hope your thanks are form of an irony. Lex Luxor 19:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

+1 more paragon love *cough* please :) --Megages --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.25.241.151 (talk).

imo this is a nerf to the skill. Cracked armor can be easily removed -20 armor however cannot.Brian78wa talk 03:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

It was a work around the actual fix. Heroes would burn all their energy removing CA because their AI blows. This is better than that, but neither are good. is for Raine, etc. 03:49, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I think this is a better option anyway. The point is to be weaker while you're using it; cracked armor was a workaround to the original skill, probably because saying "adds cracked armor" was just a matter of yanking code from Signet of Agony or something and switching it to cracked armor, as opposed to causing an actual -20 armor effect (that isn't capped like CA is), which would have needed more effort. –Jette 03:54, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Why

Why does it take them so freaking long to fix skills that should have been fixed a year ago - Any competent HUMAN could have probably semi balanced this game within a week! 68.202.136.112 11:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

no one knows - Wuhy 12:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

cuz its arenanet--Boro 14:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

But now the synergy of having a shout remove the cracked armor upon ending at the same time as renewing the skills is ruined :(

Saaadlyyy. /sarcasm --Boro 18:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

A year ago? I never knew that Hammers ever worked in PvE. MiraLantis 00:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Earthshaker says hi --Megages --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.25.241.151 (talk).

"...Any competent HUMAN..."

Theres your problem. Anet isn't human. They're a bunch of aliens bent towards world domination. (I'm on to you, Regnia) personn5 01:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

They are not aliens! they are chairs!!! --Boro 10:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

More Dervish hate Q_Q

Once again nothing but nerfs... come on dervish and paragon have the smallest skill pool in the game, surely they should be easier than the rest to balance. But instead seems you prefer to nerf us into oblivion.

Vow of silence, Sand shards, Avatar of melandru, arcane zeal, pious renewal, mystic healing are all pretty much useless due to high cost, low dmg/healing, low duration/return or unpractical requirements.

And mysticism? The energy return is not bad.. provided you want loose ur buffs reguarlly which is not always possible when you need to maintain them to survive... at the end of the enchant really isn't that useful mid fight tbh and 1-16 health? seems totally pointless. I would say by far the worst primary attribute.

I noticed above someone saying...

"Rangers have to work twice as hard as any other class in order to attain the same goal. BE FAIR FFS."

They should really try play dervish in the current state of things...

"With the exception of a few powerful skills, many Ritualist skills just have no place in end game PvE"

I gotta say i know how those rits feel. I really do hope you will examine the dervish for the next skill update... seems all we get atm is nerfs which alot of the time seem to be due more to ?/D's abusing our skills then we get punished for it -_-. Dinsy 11:43, 20 February 2010 (GMT)

<<Avatar of Melandru is useless>>

Nice joke. Koda Kumi 13:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Av of mel is too expensive which makes it not practical to use as i said, 25e is alot for a chars who's base energy is 25 i never said it was useless but it's just impractical to use. Dinsy 02:17, 21 February 2010 (GMT)

Ya my Dervish is really only used for one thing now-a-days... running people around Tyria... nothing else for him to do really since there is no outstanding, energy manage build out there that is not debuff/rebuff in order to play properly. Event my healer Dervish build got nerfed... - SabreWolf 14:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I do enjoy running alot but i don't want my main char to just turn into a glorified taxi. The most useful enegy management i've found so far besides Zealous vow is Attackers insight and lyssa's assault.

I tend to run; [Conviction] [Mystic Regen] [Armor of sanc] [AoHM] [Attackers Insight] [Lyssa's Assault] [Chilling Victory] [Wounding Strike] Most of the time now, with wind walker armour and a zealous scything of enchanting +5e, against general melee it's next to invicible provided you get the condition spam right. other than that i have about 3 or 4 other decent working builds for all situations. Which while they do the job the game gets a little stale when i can't shift my skills around so much and try new playstyles. There are fun builds which don't have the survivability or don't allow me to put out enough dmg to compete properly.

The armor of sanc buff i liked, would like to see more buffs or functionality changes to allow dervs to chain skills buffing them defensive and offensively. We don't have the armor of a war we need to be buff but it shouldn't come at the cost of our dps as much as it does already. being Melee and caster dervs are vulnerable to more counters that most classes and need to be able to cope with and still be an effect member of the team. Dinsy 02:27, 21 February 2010 (GMT)

deflect arrows

surely this should be given a new name since it'll be able to 75% block all types of attacks? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 92.16.117.190 (talk).

1. don't waste anet's resources on unnecessary BS 2. its fine enough since it causes bleeding if you are hit by a projectile so it still makes sense in a way - Wuhy 12:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Long-Description Award

What is that?--Wingsy 12:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The description for the skill will be so long that it will have the longest description of all skills. Shadow Runner 12:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

lol'd @ that - Wuhy 13:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Backbreaker

Holy mother fucking shit ANet. You finaally fixed an abused skill without completely nerfing it. Congradu-fucking-lations. --71.193.48.146 13:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

2 Sways 1 Cupdate. is for Raine, etc. 13:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

OSHIT! i just noticed that. Killed to Swans (bad play on words there) with one stone. Gogo swaykillers! --71.193.48.146 13:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

byebye bb sin ... --121.7.18.168 00:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

In fairness, it says the Hammer changes are for PvE, but it's pretty ambiguous. --Frosty 00:07, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, you're right but there is one inconsistency. For Destructive was Glaive, it specifically says PvE only even though it's under the PvE heading like hammer mastery. So these changes may be for both PvE and PvP. Taros 00:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I have an oddball feeling the BB change is going to be for PvP as well, purposely ridding of the BB sin... Oh well, at least I didn't customize an expensive hammer onto my sin, so there's no "ruin" for me. --Ulterion 01:56, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

If they split backbreaker so that it doesnt require strength in PvP ANet will get SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much shit. Purposefully allowing back-breaker sins would be the worst thing they could possibly do right now (short of buffing Shadow form) --71.193.48.146 02:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that would be buffing SoGM to its previous state saying they fixed a bug that prevented it from targetting foes.And then sticking it onto every end game monster :3 Lilondra 08:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Be strong with your ignorance --Boro 18:46, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Shove

So in essence, Shove will be an Elite form of Shock, in that it will not have exhustion AND will remove Balanced Stance. Not sure if it will see play, but it sounds intersting. - SabreWolf 13:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Having a recharge instead of a recovery makes it significantly less useful, imo. is for Raine, etc. 13:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

you can use both Raine - Wuhy 13:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That bar makes me sad kills me a little, inside. is for Raine, etc. 14:04, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Good chance you will still lose all adrenaline when you shove. Misery 14:07, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Fix'd to reflect. is for Raine, etc. 14:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I am thinking more on the lines for ^ this... also, @Misery, the loss of adr might be removed, but not sure. If it loss of adr remains, then this skill will still not see any use. - SabreWolf 14:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure it will, shove spike just got a buff (can spike out prots through Balanced Stance if they are moving as Shadow Walk still has no aftercast) and Shoveasins got a buff. Next, Shovishes! If you meant it won't see much use within balanced teams at the top 100 level, I agree. Misery 14:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

People Shovespike in... GvG, HA? ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes? Have you never heard of [Goth]? Misery 14:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Cirque was the only one who ever ran shovespike in gvg and it was really complete suq outside of TA =\--TahiriVeila 18:24, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Ya, I ment that it wont see much use at the top 100 level IF adr loss remains - SabreWolf 14:28, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, not every skill has to be top 100 GvG viable. In fact, very fucking few skills are. Misery 15:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I've seen Bromance run alot of different builds (well I haven't attila has,he tells me :p) and they pretty much get away with it.Lilondra 15:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

@ Misery: I don't know about that one. I've observed many GvGs, and some of the top 100 used skills I would normally consider to be LOL worthy (i.e.: Signet of Removal). --Ulterion 02:00, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Look at this. --71.193.48.146 02:08, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Heal as One

WOW... talk about a combo skill. Adds a Pet, Heals you and Pet (w/ no more below 75%) AND increased damage in the form of life steal for the pet! That thud you heard was my pet Ranger fainting... he can't handle the buff to this skill and Enraged Lunge (PvE). But you want a damage Ranger in this meta, better invest in Beast Mastery. - SabreWolf 13:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Moebius Strike :< ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 14:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget about the ability to resurrect your pet - it looks like it will retain that as well. Excellent bar compression. -Ninjatek 19:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Know whats lame about that? pets will still suck. --71.193.48.146 22:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't get why this skill needs a change in PvE, i like it the way it is now.... Lou Wolfskin 22:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

If this wasn't an elite it would be a fine buff, but when you use other BM elites like myself (Strike as One in my case) it doesn't help at all. LynxRavenRaide 22:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I just think it's too much, don't get me wrong, a little buff here or there is fine but this. Wouldn't it be enough to say heal when you use it and pet can be used without Charm Animal? Why the Lifesteal buff for the pet? Lou Wolfskin 23:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Because not bringing a damage elite is terrible for a BM. This was already obsolete to every other BM elite, and the buff to Comfort Animal was another nail in the coffin. A-Net is still ignoring Revive Animal, though. -~=Ϛρѧякγ (τѧιк) 16:11, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I still don't get this 'buff', if you want to deal damage, do so, that's fine with me but turning a heal into a damage-buff just doesn't make sense for me, sorry. Lou Wolfskin 19:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Does it matter? You can buff this up to "Your pet is enchanted with shadowform for the rest of the game" and pets would still suck. Why is this a problem? --71.193.48.146 20:40, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

My personal problem is that PvE is getting buffed more and more without sense, and pets don't suck, i like to play a beastmaster and i like this Elite when playing a beastmaster. Lou Wolfskin 22:09, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

"Know whats lame about that? pets will still suck. --71.193.48.146 22:01" /Agree. The pet system is flawed. If you're pet isn't attacking your target, he's in an attack when you use the skill, or he's ran to your target and hasn't started attacking yet, your skill will often drain your energy but not go threw. Depending on the energy cost.. that's often annoying. [It's be nice if they fixed the UI bugs with the pet menu as well. ; \] Magic Talk 02:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You do not know that the command will be executed the next time the pet attacks, even when it's not attacking when you shout it? Amywien 12:27, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think, if you want to buff the Beastmaster, make Companionship viable, and if it's just by adding "revive your Pet", it has 2 seconds casttime, the heal is conditional and it would be fine as a non-elite since it could be interruptet quite easily in PvP. All BM's could use dmg on their pets as much as they like and you all could be happy, right? Lou Wolfskin 18:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Obsidian Flesh

I don't get changing OB Flesh and don't tell me it would become the new SF because there is no way possible you can do half as much with OB flesh as you can SF. OB flesh works in a few cases and except for farming those few places there is really no reason to even use it. The Slow down is obnoxious & annoying. Wynterarwynrose 14:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

it is retarded thats why, you are slow but you can tank and spank the entire game and thats bad - Wuhy 14:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

i don't see how it's much worse than rolling the game with SY! permanently up. Athrun 15:56, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

A invincible tank isn't as bad as a invincible party.Good reasoning Lilondra 15:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) SY!, by its nature, requires a team to be effective. Still, I wouldn't mind seeing it killed with fire. :> is for Raine, etc. 16:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You can not spank & tank the entire game with OB flesh, hell you can barely even farm with it. It's not like you have solo elementalists clearing dungeons and missions, hell in most places OB flesh just doesn't work. Touch Skills, Poison, these still affect you, also if your knocked down just forget OB flesh ever happened.Wynterarwynrose 14:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

All the things you just listed affect perma SF as well, but it doesn't stop SF and it wouldn't stop OF either. Really the reason why these spells have been so successful for farming is that there isn't enough touch skills, signets, untargeted AoE, etc in the game. Those skills increase the difficulty for so called "invincible" builds without a significant increase to the the difficulty for balanced teams.Tot 20:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes but your still forgetting the one major drawback of OB Flesh which SF doesn't have and that's how you are slowed down, hell imo it would be better to slow movement even more if your worried about abuse of it. Under OB flesh your not out running those enemy with touch skills and sure not gonna be able to survive the pounding on be Aatxe in the Uw I know I have tried, it never works. There is no way you can turn OB Flesh into SF, it just doesn't work, if it did you wouldn't have half as many perma sins running around, because all they would need is an ele with OB flesh, instead of using ele as their secondary, for damage output. Don't think I haven't tried using OB flesh in the UW, FOW and in other places, but it never works. You either get bled to death, knocked on your ass, burned alive, or die in some other way. OB Flesh can not be used in the same manner as SF it never has been. Wynterarwynrose 02:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I dont suppose these make any difference whatsoever? O.o --71.193.48.146 02:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Tot you know what you are talking about?!? Did you ever use an earth ele to tank? I think not. SF prevents me from being hit with attacks, none of the earth ele tank do that, you are hit, the attacker is doing 0 damage but that will not stop him from using skills on you (as earth ele) that will kd you, skills that will not work on the sf sin cause the skills miss... Also the earth ele tank needs 6 skills to tank, and this is in one of the best cases, you may need 7 or even 8 skills to tank. How many attack skills you have? In best case you can have 2, in worst case none... I almost forgot, any skill that need to hit you to inflect condition will miss on the sf so probably there will be no condition on you, but if you are earth ele you will get conditions on you. Daze is another problem for the earth ele. Combine daze with intrerupts and you will see the earth ele dead while the sf sin in the same conditions will have no problem even dazed... Go with the earth ele in ToPK and try to farm, if you can...User:Thedukesd

I use earth ele tank all the time. I use it because I think it's more fun than perma, precisely because it's more challenging. I use 600 for the same reason. I'm not debating that perma is easier than earth ele or 600. It is. But I do understand why Anet includes Obiflesh is included with shadowform and 600/spellbreaker as the same "type" of build. They're not equally easy, but they do all have similar potential. In capable hands, there is a huge gap between those three builds and other farming tanks. I admit I'm not happy about the Obiflesh or 600 nerfs, but I do think it will be good for the game in the long term. I'm getting sidetracked. Back to my original point, regardless of which of the three builds you use, Vampiric Bite affects them all the same.Tot 15:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

There are two main sources of damage in this game. Physical(Piercing, Slashing, Bashing and untyped physical) damage and elemental damage(fire, cold, lightning, earth). You can make entire builds that deal lots of damage without dealing any of those types (armor ignoring, life steal, degeneration), but still, the ones that deal THE MOST damage deal those. So, any skill that completely removes any of those is a bad idea. It's not just immunity, it's a 'too effective' immunity. MithTalk 01:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Demonic Flesh

Fastcast Flarespam GOGOGOGOGO. --Boro 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The Best Dervish Bar in guildwars, imo. It's an enchant, too! is for Raine, etc. 14:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Lol. PvE. --Boro 14:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

HA bar, actually (hexway and smiteway; Taint and JI, respectively, fuel WS); the other 4 skills are Insight, HoF, Rush, and res sig. is for Raine, etc. 14:42, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Still Demonic Flesh buff idea is retarded. Rewarding flarespam with AoE is gay, stupid and gimmickry. They seemingly forgot Dark Aura's glory... --Boro 17:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You really think they'll use this fo flarespam ? I mean really ? Lilondra 08:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

whateverspam basically --Boro 10:16, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Spell Breaker

Do the changes to the 600-Smite builds mean they won't be playable anymore or would they become harder/slower? 77.78.176.159

You will find out in 5 days time. -- Arduin 16:42, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably not playable. --Boro 17:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I think they're gonna reduce the damage of Holy Wrath and Retribution. Reaper of Scythes** 18:11, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Edit: or make Holy Wrath end when you hit zero energy, but that would kill it. Reaper of Scythes** 18:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Edit2: "Based on our testing, observation and discussion, we expect to make changes to Shadow Form, Obsidian Flesh, and to a skill or two used in 600-Smite builds." So probably Retrib and HW or how Protective Spirit and Spirit Bond react with eachother. Reaper of Scythes** 18:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Killing 600/smite would be a really bad idea imo. Its not invincible it requires some skill to play. But they will lose SO many players with this nerf. For some of us we don't have a whole lot left in the game and enjoy doing this. They're already going to lose alot of players with SF nerf so atleast leave us with one farming build.Brian78wa talk 01:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Now watch this section get slammed with 2000 people saying "they can go play WoW for all I care" --71.193.48.146 01:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

It takes skill to play 600? Since when?--Pyron Sy 01:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Since Bone Spike. --71.193.48.146 01:33, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The only difficult-ish 600 runs are Vloxen, Raven's, and Frostmaw's. Other than that, you can basically godmode. UW included. is for Raine, etc. 02:05, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Sarcasm can never be found on the internet. Can it? --71.193.48.146 02:12, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

To some yes it may be easy. But to alot more it is not. I see SO many people fail horribly at 600 in something as easy in CoF. 600/Smite is FAR from godmode as some of you people like to put it. You people whine about farming builds destroying the "economy" or cant get into groups because youre not a perma/cryer w/e hate to break it to you people. You STILL wont get in groups and the "economy" will STILL be destroyed. Nerfing these in this point of the game is a bad move in mine and many other peoples opinion it's not going to fix anything and you can gaurentee that gw will lose about 1/4th of their community AND make people not want to buy GW2 because of it. Brian78wa talk 02:33, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Also GW are liers as well. They have stated they don't have a problem with people farming, yet what are they doing? Nerfing all farming builds. Bad business.Brian78wa talk 02:38, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, see, here's the thing. Farming implies killing mobs over and over without completing anything. Not clearing every mission and dungeon in the game. elix Omni 04:03, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

You're talking about the methods used in completing missions and dungeons Felix, but [farming] does include [repeatedly] doing missions and dungeons. And you would agree that repeatedly completing a dungeon to get a specific drop from the end chest is farming wouldn't you? I think a lot of people prefer certain builds because it takes some of the grind out of Grind Wars. Sardaukar 07:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

There's not that many places that can't be done by some variant of 600. It doesn't take a genius to see that the build is overpowered. You've just got to hope that the just tone it down and not totally slaughter it. Same goes for the other farming builds.--Pyron Sy 14:42, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Spell breaker being nerfed=can't farm the UW=even higher ecto prices.

Yeah 600ing is easy, take Foundry for instance...wait... Shy 23:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Retreat

Is this becoming a stance, or is it still a party wide shout? Is it PvE only? Cause the thing they're suggesting is (almost) a non-elite Defensive Anthem for less energy, insta activation and Charge stapled on for kicks. Razor39999 16:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Compared to "Fall Back!" it has a 50% block instead of 5..15 health/sec with a heavier drawback. DA ends on attack skills, Fall Back ends on attacks, Retreat ends on attacks and skills (anything basically). -Cursed Angel 17:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Basicully you can shout yourself like a Para can... energy wont be as good though, but it opens up space for a nice anti KD stance for running people around. - SabreWolf 06:00, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Hammer Rangers

With the renewing smash buff, can't rangers keep up lightning reflexes forever?

It won't recharge stances anymore. elix Omni 22:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Even if it did, renewing smash only recharges warrior stances anyway. 173.88.136.15 22:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That's already possible with "On Your Knees!" in any case. Arshay Duskbrow 09:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Rolol lololol --Boro 18:45, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like "Retreat!" will replace FB! in CM and AB

50% block would make getting between shrines pretty fun. Random and non-consequential note, I know. But after all that time without any skill changes, I'm so happy just to see an update that I don't really care what it is. Plus, OP stuff in PvE doesn't worry me. The power creep in PvE has been ridiculous for a loooong time. Honestly, all of this just looks fun to me at this point. Karate Jesus 01:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

At least this one isn't going to break anything (that I've seen). Honestly, I think there are way more pressing issues than making Tactics less bad or making necromancers more OPd, but I'm not in charge of the updates, so, yeah. –Jette 02:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Mega Rit Love yay Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ аІiсә ѕνәи Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ 21:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

What is acceptable?

This addresses Arenanet announced (probably internal) new farming builds nerf guidelines. I am not against the change of rules when it helps to bring fresh air in the game. I am however concerned about the fact that the last changes went into the direction that achieving ingame goals becomes more and more time consuming. What I would like to see is that Arenanet does also assume it's responsibility in keeping the game on a reasonable level as far as the necessary time investment for achieving the ingame goals is concerned.
For example maximising the Kurzick title with teams of 5-8 human players, requires all included at the moment about 250 hours. That's more then 6 weeks of a full-time employee. If you do that with 8 people that means in total a full year (48 weeks) of the working time of a full employed person... all this already using a "overpowered" build that will soon be nerfed. But remember this is only one of 30 other things you have to achieve when you want to "finish the game" by becoming a GWAMM...
I am playing this game for more then 4 years and also my guild just celebrated the 4th anniversary. We have already many Gods and we have many people that can afford to put so much time in a game. Many of them are even bored, have no more goals ingame, only stay in the guild and the game because over the years we became a gamers family.
But isn't that normal? Must a game last and stay a challenge forever?
Increasing the difficulty level of farming by nerfing builds without offering an equivalent alternative has 2 negative effects:
1. It disadvantages the more social oriented and more casual players and rewards the unsocial selfish powerplayers.
2. The game becomes more and more hazardous for the players health because a psychological addiction is already the precondition to achieve what the game offers.
What I strongly hope is that these new guidelines will take into account that nerfing a build should not result in an overall higher time requirement to achieve the goals of the game. On the contrary, I think GW already requires an unreasonable amount. Personally I think that the game balance should more reward full human players groups in both the speed as the reward aspect. Again, taking care that the whole game is not played with only one build is good, but should be rather countered offering competitive alternatives then making the game harder.
Marcus The Cube 02:28, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Trying to compare man-hours of a group of people to man-hours of a single person is retarded. Do I go and complain to the university that my teacher is tyrannical because all the students combined have to do more than a solid weeks' worth of homework in the course of a week? No, because it is psychology 101, there are 100+ students in the class, and only half of them actually put any effort into the class. MAFARAXAS 03:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Seen the friendly language you use I am not surprised that it takes the combined effort of 100+ students in your class to master your psychology homework ;) But seriously, that one persons' share is more then 6 weeks doesn't bother you? For how many of your exams have you and will you invest 250 net study hours (6 weeks) in which you fully focus on what you do as much as you have to while playing GW? Marcus The Cube 09:51, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I would also like to note that good results in some areas considered to be perma-requiring can be achieved without a perma, and I'm talking about tombs. Last evening we cleared it, while we had a hundred blades warrior with some tanking skills (not BUH), A Spiteful Spirit hexer necro (without mark of pain), A generic Searing Flames ele, a generic spirit rit, A BHA ranger for caster hate, Me as an Ether Prism water/air hybrid with Heal Party (didn't have prodigy atm), and 2 monks (one HB, and one WoH using his JQ build!). We steamrolled the first two areas, then the HB got disconnected, and we still won. Without any of the shadow form sins, 100b/mop crap, Ebon battle flag of dishonor, buh and whatever pvx says. We were in the range of B/p groups in terms of speed, and it took two hours only because the hb disconnected. --Boro 08:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Marcus, you are confusing "work" with "play". You can't go and compare hours playing GW to complete to game with hours in a week people have to work because Guild Wars is a game, a game you are not necessarily required to play (I know you aren't required to Work but if you don't you will have worse things coming your way). Games don't have to be finished, they have to be enjoyed, if you are playing the game just to complete it that's your problem not Arena-Net's. --Frosty 16:14, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I think for some people they confuse guildwars with work. A game is supposed to be fun, if it isn't fun for you anymore then move on to something else you might enjoy for fun like a hobby other than video/computer games. --Lania Elderfire 16:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I think some people confuse guild wars for a game. If you only play GW to make purple bars go up, you're doing work as opposed to having fun (unless doing the same thing 200 times is fun for you, which is cool). ~Shard 20:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

10,000-100,000 times* –Jette 21:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Re: Marcus. I am increasingly concerned by faction farming as well, particularly by Anet's tendency to nerf any viable PvE option for maxing a faction title (HFFF, Amatz, 600 vanquish). Kurzick and Luxon are ostensibly PvX titles, but the unspoken intention of Anet seems to be that they should be PvP titles, as that is the only arena where repetitively doing the same mission/area for faction is acceptable. We need more repeatable PvE options for faction title farming, and especially more *cooperative* PvE options for faction farming. "One off" faction rewards like quests and first mission completions just don't cut it.Tot 21:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

It's called Vanquishing. -- Wyn talk 19:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Vanquish an area of around 400 enemies in over 30 minutes? Fine. Doing the same thing under 10 minutes? Not fine. See? It's actually quite easy. MithTalk 20:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Completing a very difficult ingame goal in over 250 hours? Fine. Doing the same thing for 750 hours? Not fine. See? It's actually quite easy.Marcus The Cube

You look at it upside down. You don't do things to get the titles. You get titles while doing things. You just want the points, and were doing the thing that gave you the most points in less time. But you are supposed to do what you like in the game, and titles being an after effect of that. You don't like doing things that give faction points, you don't get those tittles. See? It's even easier. Hey, when I got the Little Rocket Man in Half life 2, I did it for the sake of doing it, but I enjoyed trowing the gnome around (and killing enemies with it, XDDD). I could care less about the achievement in my Steam profile page. MithTalk 16:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not about liking it or not. A Kurzick/Luxon savior title is not a title obtainable by normal gameplay. Normal gameplay ended 2 years ago when I completed the game with all professions. It's an extreme grinding title that most people got with 600/smite during the last year investing at least 250 hours. The question is how much grinding for this title is required now after the game redesign. Then follows the question if that's normal or should be treated as pathogenic and maybe even signalised to the department of health ;) Marcus The Cube 00:18, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I tl;dr'd half of this discussion, but I'd want to point out that places like UW are meant to be prestige and high-end, and they're meant to be long and challenging. Also, things such as maxing titles isn't designed to be an easy job, otherwise GWAMM would be worthless (which I personally think it is <3) ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 00:31, 27 February 2010 (UTC) Yes of course there must be also a ranking among the (us) nerds, however what I wanted to point out is, that there must be a limit for goals that can only be achieved through farming. More then 6 weeks, 8 hours per day should be hard enough. Marcus The Cube 07:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

New Demonic Flesh

Whirlwind attack and Cyclone axe Say Hai.(Its a Hundred blades in a different profetion!)...Hundred Blades->Demonic flesh->Whirlwind attack=Dead Enemys and shet loads of health --Neil2250 The Render Nazi 11:39, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I'm a scythe. --92.10.117.207 11:45, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I'm a brain. The skill steals health from everyone around you "whenever you use a skill that targets a foe", not when you attack. Which means, since Cyclone Axe is a single skill, it would trigger Demonic Flesh once; and since attacking with a scythe is not using a skill, it would not trigger Demonic Flesh. Even a scythe attack, being a skill, would trigger this only once. Erasculio 11:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Tbh, it just looks to me like Blood Bond, Demonic Flesh, and Mark of Fury (maybe Jaundiced Gaze?) will be on every single D/N, E/N, and N/X Orders hero bar from now on. Just makes physical hero-ways a bit more powerful, which isn't terribly damaging to the game. Karate Jesus 14:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

quad sin team with demonic flesh and a blood bond + OoP nec gogogogo InfestedHydralisk 16:12, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd rather have adren wars. --Boro 18:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd rather abuse exhausting assault with demonic flesh. Hint:Think Sand shards pre nerf. 98.248.90.248 19:11, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

CRITICAL CHOP + DEMONIC FLESH + MARK OF FURY?! is for Raine, etc. 09:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello. My name is Barrage. im spamable, have AoE Capability and dont require you to follow your enemy around. It's nice to meet you all. --Briar 09:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

AoEs balance themselves out. In PvP, players don't stick together. I mean MINIMALLY intelligent players. In PvE, monsters tend to flock together more often, though much less in hard mode if there are several party members and they are not 'hold aggro' freaks. So, AoEs are as good as the one using them, and as bad as their targets. And Adjacent isn't really much of an AoE. MithTalk 14:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Nick Farming

If ANET is going to kill farming, I want to see reduction in items required for Nick from 3 to only 1 and 5 to 2-3. Most of us don't have 2-3 hrs to just for collecting 15-25 items/week by taking full/partial parties. Farming builds help out alot. And now with all the good farming builds nerfed, its going to get alot tougher farming these. Spirit Spam is useful, but in certain areas it either fails or takes way too long. 74.196.7.230 14:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Nicholas isn't a primary thing to do, it's just an extra. InfestedHydralisk 14:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Besides, with loot scaling going out into an explorable with a party and blowing stuff up is quite efficient. --Orry 15:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Besides, Anet didn't say they are going to kill farming... but make it so that you aren't invincible 100% of the time. --Lania Elderfire 15:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

There will be good farming builds for the retards who still can't play with groups. Otherwise just get a group and blow stuff up. --Boro 18:42, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The fuck is the point of farming if you get killed? are you retarded or something? --71.193.48.146 20:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

If you get killed while farming, you are terrible at this game. Koda Kumi 22:02, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

it happens to everyone sooner or later so kep your insulting for yourslef 127.0.0.1 22:05, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

If farming is killed, the prices on non store items will skyrocket.

Thanks for the speculation guys, now can we wait until it happens to start whining? They haven't exactly given us that much information about what they're planning. --Kyoshi (Talk) 01:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Farming builds for Nick will still be there, people will just have to be more creative and actually think, or what for the more creative to put builds up on PvX. This "end of the world" screaming is starting to get old. 118.92.189.156 00:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This is the problem with leaving SF and 600 untouched for so long. Now people can't seem to think of any farming build other than those two. Farming existed long before those builds, and there will be new builds on pvx for you to copy by the end of next week.--Pyron Sy 00:24, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

"Fear Me"

Is gonna be abused heavily by sins and dervishes I think but great buff to it even though e-denial in pve is kind of sucky:( Hitojin 14:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

That's the next thing that needs to be fixed... But probably never will mainly because lowering a Mob's total energy interferes with its A.I. scripting and makes it effectively "Stupid" after just spamming its normal skills. And they can't just buff the amount of energy taken off by the PvE skills b/c the mobs use the same skills. It's a frikkin catch 22. So the only intelligent way to do it would be to add new functionality to unused skills that give the user a 200% increase in Drain effect on their "next skill that targets a foe" and hope none of the mobs regularly use any of those skill combos. --ilr 19:14, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Alternative: improve the fucking AI so mobs don't need lolwtf energy pools and an extra pip of regen. is for Raine, etc. 00:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Selective Power Creep

This update does not promote balance. The professions (yes plural) that need updated skills and skill splits the most aren't touched or touched much at all in this update. Adding more power and skill splits to professions already useful will make things worse. Cuilan 19:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Tactics and hammers (in pve) are useless, what harm could be of making the game a little more fun to play? inb4 lolbalance ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 20:00, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Because all your doing is making the useful more useful and efficient while the others professions are left out. Cuilan 20:05, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Which profession need more attention? Give us a valuable explanation.. -- Cyan 23:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Wait, is that a serious question? Mesmers that's been lacking in PvE for 5 years, Paragons who only have one build and just got another nerf to their IAS skills, and dervs who are outclassed by every other melee profession at using their own weapon; that's what needs more attention, not more dartboard buffs to already powerful professions. 205.206.140.29 03:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Your point is invalid. Ritualists have beside SS and support not that may effective builds. Hammer Mastery can't reach Swordmanship or Axemastery. Tactics need also some rework. These 3 things do we get, and these are needed. Then what you said. Serious, there are many effective builds to bring down foes with a mesmer in PvE. If you think Paragons have only one good build in PvE you're wrong again. Last, it's true that the scythe increases in popularity by other melee professions, but the Dervish still have many effective ways to be played. Besides, PvE is not only for popularity builds, it's just how players want to handle it.

And now, flame at me, what will happen. -- Cyan 08:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Cyan, since when were your replies unreadable without repeatedly banging my head into a wall? Pika Fan 08:50, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Language fail too much? I knew it, Im still sleepy -.-' -- Cyan 08:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I read it for the sake of bad language, and it was a mistake. It frustrated me a ton though I had no issues understanding it =/ ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 09:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I think I stop posting on balance pages, it doesn't work out well =( -- Cyan 09:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Cyan, when was the last time you actually looked at the state of the game? Rits have not that many effective builds? They can heal, support, damage, and protect your entire party, usually fulfilling at least 2 of those roles in one build, without even using a secondary! Warriors, despite their heavy usage, are more needed than mesmers, dervs, or paragons because they can't use hammers as godly as swords or axes? Necros, despite being the most powerful class in PvE still needs more buffs? Do you not understand what priority means? Have you not been paying attention to the outcries of players who have been asking for changes to those 3 classes for the longest time now? To fix the neglected classes that are in the most dire situation, not buffing already powerful and overused ones to enlarge the gap even further, THAT'S what was needed and should have been looked at. And if you think Mesmers and Paragons have more than one EFFECTIVE build in PvE that actually makes a significant contribution to your party, then post them I'll bet you they'll be outdone by something else. And regarding dervs: how many EFFECTIVE ways can you play a derv? They are meant to be melee, nothing more. Except again they are outdone by the other melee classes. Their most effective build (WS) can be easily outdone critscythe sins. Instead of making all these general comments, how about posting some examples that actually helps to back up your claims?

A mainly PvE update should concern about fun more than about balance, since PvE is unbalanced (vs the hostile NPCs) by design. But if you want balance between professions so teams become even and players that favor certain professions have the same chances of getting into teams like the rest, that's quite hard. Almost an utopia. Since in PvE many players will just go for 'the best possible combination', and you get only one of those most of the time. In this case, it was not a profession, but two attribute lines, the ones 'remastered'. It is true that mesmers and assassins (after losing SF) could use some love for PvE, but... one thing at a time. Tactics and Hammer have been underused by warriors for a long time, and since there are more players that have at least one warrior than players that have at least one mesmer, then this change would, theoretically, benefit more players... in terms of 'gaming fun', I mean. I have nothing bad to say about the change to the Dwarven stance. I'm eager to try that one, even when I favor elementalists and ritualists and do not play very often with my warrior. MithTalk 20:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I guess they should have never changed/buffed SoS in that case then, huh? Cuilan 22:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Well Cuilan (or who it was, advice: sign properly next time), and where are your (reasonable) examples? -- Cyan 23:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Wasn't me, but perhaps you can answer that person's questions? Cuilan 23:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

An Update of Cataclysmic Proportions! (That's BAD)

Now I'll explain in-depth the most prominent nerfs, and then below that briefly mention other pointless ones.

Shadow Form seems to have a bad rap these days. ToA is overrun by Assassins, the Fissure of Woe was RUNNABLE for a time, and people, for a TIME, were hauling ectos out of the Underworld like they were Wintersday Presents. Sure, this was bad. Then came Dhuum. Despite the effectiveness of Perma-Form Assassins on dozens of scales, let's face it. The Underworld is the home of SF. So why not make it hard to use? How about BUFFING areas such as the Underworld, Fissure of Woe, and the Shards of Oor, in an attempt to make Shadow Form a more difficult build to use in the more popular zones. If we nerf every common farming mechanism in an attempt to balance the market and/or currency, we end up with a bunch of overpriced items and a bunch of poor people. "OldSchool", or "Balanced" party builds for elite missions don't work for pugs, and pugs have the most influential impact on the market. SINCE when did Shadow Form provide invulnerability? There are dozens of damage sources that wipe Perma-Form groups daily.

PR, I wouldn't say, is a nerf. 4 hits is nothing, but one little thing: How about a 25% reduction in damage instead of a 2xDMG? This would balance the skill IMMENSELY by bringing back down to Earth the DPS of a PR.

TACTICS make no sense. Warriors have always somewhat needed Strength, as it provides MAJOR damage boosting. Tactics offered nothing in PvP before, and, after this update, will STILL offer nothing. Taking out points in Strength for defensive skills is worthless.

• There's no need to switch Shattering Assault to Critical Strikes. It doesn't automatically land a Crit, and it's not an OP skill anyways.

• Backbreaker was never used on Warriors anyways, and 9 adrenaline is still too steep. I'd rather take a support Ritualist with EB.

Finally, BloodSpike. BloodSpike was never very effective of a build. *waits for flamers* With a good Fuse and experienced players, a balanced team will drop BloodSpikers one by one. A Smiter in GvG can Scourge them all day, and a VoR Mesmer will negate a spiker's life steal capabilities. So why are we trying to "keep it in check"?

Above, someone posted a comment regarding nerf-ready builds that weren't touched. I can't agree more. In this update, ANet seems to be smiling at the meta, "Oh, look at all these WONDERFUL buffs!" while viciously nerfing whatever they don't like behind the scenes. DarkNe7h 20:47, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Please look up Shitters assault on PvX before you decide to say that moving it to crit strikes isnt necessary. As for everything else.... What? --71.193.48.146 20:51, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Please learn that profanity isn't necessary to communicate your opinion to others, sir, and that R/A "Shitters" can't touch a party with a good support class. Resil/Ward combos kill. DarkNe7h 20:59, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

No dude. Thats the name of the build. Shitters assault. Look for it. Im not kidding. --71.193.48.146 20:55, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm aware of what it's called. I still, IMO, think it's trash. As an r9, c3, cmd6, I think my opinion has some relavence. DarkNe7h 20:59, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

"How about BUFFING areas such as the Underworld, Fissure of Woe, and the Shards of Oor, in an attempt to make Shadow Form a more difficult build to use in the more popular zones."

Because then real teams won't be able to beat them, and shadow form will still be a broken skill.

There are plenty of skills that Anet could add to elite missions that would affect "invincible" builds without making the areas harder for balanced teams. Off the top of my head: Signet of Disenchantment, Signet of Humility, Expunge Enchantments, the touch life steal skills, many condition causing skills, and for SF (but not 600) any PBAoE. All those skills cut through so called "invincible" builds without increasing the damage burden that regular teams need to be able to handle. I'm sure there are more as well.Tot 21:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I forgot Illusionary Weaponry.Tot 21:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

PBAoE totally kills shadowform. amirite? --71.193.48.146 21:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Everybody's opinion has relevance, and if you were talking about pvp, listing pvp titles might have helped you. ~Shard 21:02, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I think your wrong. Because there are plenty of other R9+ that want shitters assault dead. Any build that abuses your secondary profession to make your primary profession not suck needs to die (see shitters assault, BBsin, That sort of thing). BtW I highly doubt you have any rank at all because apparently you've never fought against a shattering orders gimmick-team. --71.193.48.146 21:03, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

You're only rank 9? That means I have more than four times your fame. Wrong poster. ~Shard 21:04, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't do HA very often anymore. I do, however, keep up with the meta in order to play. After over 7,000 fame, hundreds of high-end GvG's, GuestWars with [VD] to claim 4 silver capes, and a spot in the top 500 for a time during HB, I think I just might match your experience. As far as Shitterway goes, I don't recall losing to them. And SINCE WHEN did Rangers and Assassins suck? I didn't know we were hating on Shitterway and BB Sway here. C'mon, it's just a build. DarkNe7h 21:12, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay ill rephrase. Abusing your secondary profession sucks. BB was never meant to be used as often as an assassin can use it. And to be frank its completely fucking unfair how often they can pump that skill out. And rangers have something like 100 base armor against elemental damage? something that nearly everyone uses if they have melle weapons? you dont need 5 frontliners in a group. And they dont need to be spamming unblockable enchantment removal. On top of that, they dont need to be abusing their secondary profession. What are you not getting here? O.o --71.193.48.146 21:16, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

What's the deal? You don't need to use profanity to communicate your opinion. Also, what we don't "need" is a bunch of meta-haters who want to Blast-Nerf everything that kills them. If people would let the meta turn on its own, skill updates wouldn't be as often. DarkNe7h 21:29, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Good way to say nothing. Things are obviously meta for a reason, it doesn't just change because people feel like playing something that takes skill. -~=Ϛρѧякγ (τѧιк) 21:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean? The meta changes because people want to counter a given build. Balance does this best, and tiny tweaks can kill an enemy build. DarkNe7h 21:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

People actually do invent new builds. ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 21:36, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

THANK YOU! xD..Someone understands.

(Reset indent) The problem with your theory is that your assuming theres an effective counter to shattering orders. Short of holding down blind on the entire enemy team, There isnt. --71.193.48.146 21:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The other thing, is that there is. Smiters have been out of the meta for a while. Scourge much? Just as an extra skill. Proper positioning of players on a given map can ball the enemy team. Fun with BSurge. Oh, and I heard Well of Darkness is fun.

So I heard Rock-paper-scissors was fun? I also herd that wells were reliable and could be used at any time. what can you tell me about that? --71.193.48.146 21:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Ohh, and I heard that teams who can't get 1 person down to put up a well shouldn't be doing HA. Shitterway is PRESSURE, not spike. There's not any heavy damage. Maybe have your LS do some protting? Oh, and get a VoR to pressure out the Orders, so that life steal is minimal.

And yet again we have someone who thinks it is a better idea to change 3 elite areas than to axe 1 skill to oblivion. Then again, he also says spammable spikes that completely ignore any prot (so you basically have 1 and a half monk in your party if you are lucky) have never been a problem. Koda Kumi 22:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

OP! And there, again, we have someone who thinks forceful meta changes are healthy. And for me? Spammable spikes? I guess I'm just the best player in all of Guild Wars, seeing as RitSpike, RSpike, Shitterway, EleBall, Bloodspike, BB SWay, and more, have never been a problem for me. Oh wait, maybe you just don't like them because they're effective. DarkNe7h 22:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

"Scourge much?"

Scourge what? Enchantment? You're joking right? Smiters are not viable in real pvp.

"Shitterway is PRESSURE, not spike. There's not any heavy damage."

I think 140 unblockable damage + rend every 4 seconds from 3 different characters constitutes "heavy damage."

"we have someone who thinks forceful meta changes are healthy"

That's not an insult. Forceful changes in this abomination of a metagame would be a good thing.

"maybe you just don't like them because they're effective"

I think he doesn't like them because they're overpowered. It's funny how overpowered skills are always effective, isn't it? ~Shard 22:38, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Once again, you guys are all talking about the meta, which is a mostly pvp phenomenon, when most of these changes are for pve. While some of the skills that have not been split, may have some affect on pvp, I think it will be seen primarily in PvE. You are all simply looking at it from a pvp standpoint of how it's going to affect you, while pve players like myself are looking at it in regards to how it is going to affect the mobs... I mean... Binding Chains is already a massive pita from the Irukandji in the Jade Sea, this change is going to give it damage as well as the slow down. Some of those groups have 3 or 4 of the beasts in them, spamming Binding Chains as fast as they can. The hero AI isn't smart enough to stand still so heroes will be taking almost constant damage. It will be interesting to see how the party is going to have to be adjusted. -- Wyn talk 22:45, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

"Smiters are not viable in real pvp."

Smiters are, in fact, viable in "real" PvP, just not popular. Please, however, tell me. What invalidates them?

"overpowered skills are always effective"

You want nerfs to take place because you, apparently, can't counter the builds in question. These "overpowered" skills kill you. If you find the counter, there's no need for a nerf, because the build is no longer viable. DarkNe7h 22:47, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

one more time, So i herd Rock-paper-scissors is fun? BtW if you REALLY think that smite monks are viable in PvP, (that means dropping one of the spots in a balanced team in favor of a smite monk) you are wrong. Plain and simple. No ifs, ands, or buts. Your just wrong. --71.193.48.146 22:51, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

@Wyn, most of this list will be for pve and pvp. The only skills that will be split are the rit skills and renewing smash, and a small selection of others. For the most part, the non rit changes will be applied everywhere.

@Dark, smiters aren't invalidated, but eles exist, which do more raw damage for basically the same casting time, energy, etc. Necros punish players for having enchantments and for attacking better than smites do. Simply put, smiting is overshadowed by other professions.

Lastly, this: "If you find the counter, there's no need for a nerf, because the build is no longer viable", is pure rubbish. At this point I either think you're trolling, or you've never played a competitive game before. Something being counterable doesn't make it balanced, and something being counterable certainly doesn't make it "not viable." I don't even think you know what viable means. I suggest you google it. ~Shard 22:56, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

What is horrible about a smiter? Please, tell me. It was only a few months ago that KD+RoJ were in the meta. DarkNe7h 22:54, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

OHNOEZMEHSHADOWFORMDONTWORKNOMORE! Personally, I analyzed the SF nerf. I don't give a crap about PvE, mainly because I've already maxed every relavent title and have everything I could want. PvP is all that matters, so so do meta changes. DarkNe7h 22:59, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

You do realise that your not the only one playing guild wars right? Updates should never be designed to please very small minorities, let alone one person. Tidas 23:07, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Really? because I'd be willing to bet a shitload of money that the people that want shadow form nerfed are a very small minority. Everyone else likes it and is using it. --71.193.48.146 23:11, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

"Everyone else likes it and is using it."

You know, I usually don't use profanity but FUCK that sounds SO dumb. Personally, I don't think a nerf is necessary, but I don't "like" the skill itself. It sends a false sense of invulnerability. ALOT of people want it nerfed, and ALOT of people don't.

"Updates should never be designed to please very small minorities"

Do you like, pull your information out of your butt? I want my Ranger, Mesmer, Paragon, Dervish and Warrior to get their UW statues but there's no meta that allows them into a party with a viable build to clear it. ALOT of people want balanced clears. DarkNe7h 23:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

If you think people don't like fast easy and potent ways to make money then you are dumb. --71.193.48.146 23:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

When did I say they didn't? I said that people want balanced clears. Alongside loleasy forms? Sure. But if my Paragon and Dervish can get their statues in my HoM, why not do a few balanced clears? And I DID say below, that these clears should be halfway between loleasy and ohnoeztoohard. DarkNe7h 23:26, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

As i said there as well. They could. But they wont be. Ever. And your getting very annoying with changing your argument. The majority of people who play this game don't post on wiki or guru or anything like that. Know why? because they are using shadow form to farm. --71.193.48.146 23:29, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Well then I must be among the few who are done with PvE as it stands today because there's nothing left to do but farm..and buy what? IMO, you really CAN beat an MMO. It's perspective. DarkNe7h 23:33, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Remember that whole "changing your argument" thing i mentioned above? yeah. Thats exactly what i'm talking about. --71.193.48.146 23:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Because this argument is done. What's left to say? Some want SF, some want balance. Done. DarkNe7h 23:40, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, are you trying to be the worlds largest troll? Let me get this straight, your arguement for not nerfing skills is because, certain top teams can beat it with ease, or because the masses can take random situational skills? Wow pal. Great idea. The purpose of balancing isn't for the rawr's or the YM's of Guildwars, but rather for the players struggling in a particular pvp meta. Abused or OP doesn't mean it can dominate a top tier guild, it means accross the board it dominates a meta. Also, lol pve. --Dim 07:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC) R.I.P Shadow Form, the only reason it was nerfed is to please the minority of the q_q community that refuse to abuse the sexy UWSC team build. We all wan't fast, effective clears. No one wants to spend 8 years doing a balance group NM to find that half the party is either AFK or has disconnected. You balance lovers are the last of a dying species of Guild War player, that have been playing for far too long and refuse to get with the PvE meta. Then you wine and moan on gwguru, gwwiki. Yes you got what you wanted, but I will be honest with you, shadow form is much better now, and <50 minute DoA clears are still possible. You haven't won so don't dellude yourself with the notion of this being a victory for you...

This isn't a contest. Why you've "dellude"d yourself into thinking it is is beyond me. I don't care if balancing the game makes other people happy or sad because I'm a horrible, selfish person. I'd be advocating the same thing whether you existed or not, and I'd hardly call that a competition.

Your post kind of put me in mind of one of those dick joggers that tries to pass other joggers who don't really care because they get off to winning contests that don't really exist for anyone else. is for Raine, etc. 21:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Why are people complaining about SF etc nerfs...

Oh noez ma farming build is dead now I must go rage at anet... There was a time when people were used to regular updates, where people would accept nerfs and find the next best thing. Don't you miss that? Also, if you are so sad that SF 600/smite Obbyflesh are getting nerfed, abuse now while you can don't complain. --Frosty 22:36, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Who was complaining? IMO most of this page consists of critical analysis. It may appear as complaining, but big meta changes bring big fear :P DarkNe7h 22:39, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

You mean that whenever something big and abused gets nerfed a ton of people will make an amazing fuzz then start living with it. ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 22:47, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yarp. DarkNe7h 22:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Frosty. Go do UW without a SB/Obby/SF tank. Then give people shit. kk? thx. --71.193.48.146 22:52, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Then it's not loleasy anymore is it? That sounds more like UW was intended to be! InfestedHydralisk 22:58, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

If it was so loleasy, then why is it that almost every UW group fails? Anwser that! --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 97.121.1.47 (talk).

Btchplz, nobody will do Underworld if it isn't loleasy. With that DayWay, it isn't loleasy anyways. So don't go on HolierThanThou. DarkNe7h 23:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

One more time. DO IT. Then give people shit. --71.193.48.146 23:02, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

So by saying that, you're publicly announcing that you personally can't run ET's that aren't loleasy. I hear it's not good to announce your incompetency :P DarkNe7h 23:04, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

And the blame for that difficulty is on balancing done around speed clear groups rather than balanced, as best I'm aware. They'll have to rebalance it later, just like plenty of other things in PvE, I'm sure. --Kyoshi (Talk) 23:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you Drunk, High, or just plain stupid? Where did I say that I couldn't complete underworld without doing a speedclear? I said Complete underworld with absolutely no anti-spell tank present. I know a couple very experienced people that couldn't. PS they put in Skelly (which were purely for storyline purposes according to ANet) and didnt take out dying nightmares. Which were expressly introduced to stop 55'ers. Why would they "re-balance" anything? --71.193.48.146 23:09, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Kyoshi makes an excellent point. Rather than nerf SC's, why not build an update around balanced speed clears that are halfway between challenging and loleasy? Make balanced UW and such more viable.

As far as you go, Mr.NoAccount, why not rebalance? DarkNe7h 23:11, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying it isn't a good idea. I said they wouldn't do it. They introduced this and didnt remove this. Why would they make anything else "More balanced" --71.193.48.146 23:14, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The thing is, if SF, 600/Smite, Obby flesh (you know things that make you impossible to kill) were looked at before the playerbase became reliant on them nobody would have complained back then, they would have enjoyed the abuse they got from OP skills and then gone back to running proper builds. But because it's been like a year or more, people are so used to SF etc that removing them makes people think that the areas are now impossible. News Flash areas like FOW, UW, anything where tanking with builds that makes you immune to damage, are meant to be hard, they're meant to be challenging. But obviously people have forgotten, and to the person saying "go do UW with a balanced group", no too busy making the most of Shadow Form. --Frosty 23:31, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah because enemies, Skills, Effects, AI, and Spawns, Have stayed exactly the same since them. Not a single change has been made to make the enemies smart or make the entire area tougher or anything like that. Nope. Everything is exactly the same as when SF tanks and 600/smite were first discovered. /end sarcasm --71.193.48.146 23:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Mr.NoAccount makes an excellent point. People are so used to the area, there's no motivation to try something new. If the areas were TOTALLY redesigned, solo-based builds TOTALLY nerfed, people would be eager to find new ways. However, guys, the game is too old for changes like that. GW2 is coming. DarkNe7h 23:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

"Mr.NoAccount" stop your attitude twards ips already 127.0.0.1 23:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Ohplz, if you're going to contribute as much as Mr.NoAccount does, log into it. DarkNe7h 23:51, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I have an account. I just don't feel like logging in. Cookie to whoever figures out who i am. --71.193.48.146 23:49, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Wild Piplup Appears. ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 00:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

You don't act like him, though. ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 00:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Briar. King Neoterikos 02:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

@DarkNe7h: Actually there are many groups that want to play UW/FoW balanced, particularly newer players, but who can't find groups because everyone is doing speed clears and absolutely nothing else. I'm one of them (as I have completed it only once, and with one perma in the group), and I know of several in my guild, but again, the UW has been balanced around speed clear groups for so long that it has made completion by balanced groups near-impossible, and even nearer-impossible for groups that haven't done it before.

When they actually don't re-balance the areas after the nerfs you can say you told us so, but until then stop being so sure about your goddamn pessimistic speculation. It gets annoying to hear IT WON'T HAPPEN IT WON'T HAPPEN IT WON'T HAPPEN over and over and over again when the only evidence you have is past mistakes that ANet is currently working on correcting. Now please, can we take the noise down just a bit? It's not the end of Tyria when a gimmick gets nerfed. --Kyoshi (Talk) 00:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, UW is quite fun balanced. Although without a spell immune tank The Four Horsemen can be quite difficult. --Orry 04:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

For sure. Without a guildie/friend group or a spell tank, pretty much impossible. I needed both to complete it the one time I managed it. --Kyoshi (Talk) 04:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

With decent monks you can kill both groups by drawing them away from the reaper and double aggroing them. Or possibly split and kill them as four seperate groups, but that is just theory-crafting as I've never tried the latter, and I've never done it without an obby-tank since the skeletons were added, although we did have to fight half the dryders and all of the horsemen at the reaper since we didn't have enough damage to kill before the skeles spawned and killed the tank.--Orry 05:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The double aggro sounds dangerous and would definitely require good monks and tanks, Obsi, perma or otherwise. A four way split would almost definitely require four tanks and four nukers, which is pretty much infeasible for the rest of UW. Same theorycrafting stuff though. --Kyoshi (Talk) 05:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The double aggro just needs decent monks, you don't need a tank for it like you do for splitting at them, best way is to attack them while slowly backing towards the middle where you'll meet up, that way they already have some damage on them, since they have no healers and you do. Make sure to kill the dryders first, the horsemen just sit there with a lot of health and a lot of ether feast.--Orry 16:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Moved

→ moved from Feedback talk:Skill update previews

I will start by saying that any decision related to change the main elite skills use to farm I consider as a failure from ANET in the fight with the farming bots. You think shadow form provides invulnerability? Go and tank in foundry using shadow form alone (no bonds on you) let's see how fast you die. You think 600/smite/famine is invincible?!? You are joking. Go and run foundry if you think you are so good. Obsidian Flesh... The ele tanker is actually the hardest... And another thing. No word about Vow of Silence. If you rework Obsidian Flesh rework Wov of Silence too. Why? Cause it's used to farm. Monitor Gate of Anguish and see how many parties are doing Foundry and Gloom in HM (parties made mostly by humans), also see how many parties are doing each of the 5 parts of Mallyx quests are actually able to finish them, also see how many of this parties are made with pugs (it's an important thing cause so far i moved from guild to guild cause i was not able to find one that is actually acting like a guild). I will tell you what you will see now there are several hour interval were Gate of Anguish is almost empty, at peak hours it's hard to find a decent party, with SF and 600/smite/famine nerfed Gate of Anguish will become an empty area like many other areas. And I have a question why you decided now to change this skills? 6 months ago weren't the same problems? Beside the bots problem this has something to do with GW2 or Aion?

About Aggressive Refrain and Soldier's Fury are u actually going to make the paragon have 60 armour as long as this 2 skills are active?!? So we will have a class with 2 energy regeneration that as long as it use a skill (from it's class skills) to attack faster will actually have the armour of a caster... Also it's a bad idea to make this (from the description of what you want to do this is what I understand). If you are actually gona do what I understood I strongly sugest to make changes to all the skills that are adrenaline based for paragon. Why? Using Aggressive Regrain and Soldier's Fury will become almost unwanted cause of the uggly armour penalty. Another thing. If you are working on paragon skills how about making some changes to make the paragon have a role in Random Arena. Why? Cause at the moment you can't do to much in Random Arena. (Making changes that makes worst the skills of a class that has one of the smallest number of skills is bad). Send your Test Crew do some testing in RA with paragons. They will understand what I'm saying. Stand Your Ground (PvP) needs to be reworked (it should not end at least on the paragon when the paragon attacks).

Let's see the sin in PvE. How many dagger skills have cooldown <=4s ? In PvE the dagger sin will use almost usually the same 3 dagger skills. Isn't this a big problem?!? Daggers damage (without skills) is low (the fast attack rate will not compansate the fact that the daggers damage is low). If you nerf SF (in the way I'm thinking) then sin needs rework (damage skills must be reworked or the things you can for having points on critical strikes must be changed). --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Thedukesd (talk).

While I understand what you are saying in the opening paragraph, you are talking about one single area, DOA (historically one of the most difficult in the game). I challenge you to go look at EVERY other area in the game, from dungeons in EotN, to UW, and FOW, and mostly what you will see are permasin or 600/smite runners or speed clear parties. ArenaNet can not base a skill change strictly on a single area, especially DOA, given that farming/running throughout the game is a major problem. -- Wyn talk 01:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Wyn I challenge you to find something interesting to do in the PVE Side of the game once you have been playing for years and have done everything else. The only thing left to this game after titles & beating the games multiple times is to farm. I and quite a few other PVE players have no interest in PVP we hold on to GW praying for the day when GW2 is released so we have something new to do. Zaishen quests are interesting, but I mean really how many times can you repeat the same missions before they are old news.

Anet has waited far to long to introduce these nerfs. Anet has even stated that the don't wanna try to fix old bugs by removing dev support from gw2 thats why they got rid of Tournament House. So now we are almost 5 yrs into the game a few years after SF was introduced and at a state in the game where Farming builds have become the norm, Anet has stated multiple times they have no problem with farming, yet now they are preparing to to nerf the majority of farming builds. The only thing this nerf is going to accomplish is make players more frustrated at playing and attaining high end items.

I and some of the others I have talked to are considering this the final straw, I don't even know if I want to invest my money in GW 2 only to have the same things happen all over again. Skill balance & update makes sense from a PVP point a view but PVE skills should have a standard and should not be changed very often Anet changes skills like my kids go through diapers. Skill changes do no make pve more interesting only more frustrating. You don't wait until the majority of your player base has become comfortable with their skills to up and change things on in them. For PVE this is something that should be mostly figured out not long after release, not YEARS later. Whether or not people like it Farming, running, & soloing are all styles of play and some people actually enjoy this style of play. If you find that your getting less regular players in the game it could be because you no longer have anything of interest left for them to do so they are no longer playing, it's probably not that these players changed to farmers it's that they moved on. When Anet decided to no longer work on GW and move to GW2 development, They set themselves up to become a grind game. So instead of nerfing all us remaining players into misery, they should just get on the ball on realease GW2 already, because I don't how much more nerfing the player-base can stand. Wynterarwynrose 04:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"I challenge you to find something interesting to do in the PVE Side of the game once you have been playing for years and have done everything else." Play with handicaps. Challenge yourself. Do something besides farm to get another foot of epeen. If all else fails, play another game. Nobody is forcing you to grind. If you're still around then you must like something about this game, but these problem builds have to go.

"Anet has waited far to long to introduce these nerfs." Don't you mean "It's about damn time ANet introduced these nerfs"? It's never too late when you're talking about a video game.

"Skill balance & update makes sense from a PVP point a view but PVE skills should have a standard and should not be changed very often" Problems that PvE has had for a long time, including Shadow Form and other farming completing areas far faster than group play, have stagnated to the point that uptight elitists like yourself have come to the surface saying that this method of play makes you special somehow, and that you should be able to play better than a balanced group. News flash: That's not ANet's standpoint on it, nor is it mine. Solo and farming play is fine. Solo and farming play moving so fast that it renders balanced play practically useless is an issue, and it's the very issue that has developed to the point that ANet, and a vast number of the GW playerbase, no longer believe it should continue. There will always be farming, there will always be solo play. But in ANet's philosophy for GW, it should never overshadow group play.

"So instead of nerfing all us remaining players into misery, they should just get on the ball on realease GW2 already, because I don't how much more nerfing the player-base can stand." So that GW2 crashes even quicker than GW1 did? No thank you. Let them take their time. --Kyoshi (Talk) 04:22, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

" stagnated to the point that uptight elitists like yourself have come to the surface saying that this method of play makes you special somehow" First off I never said anywhere in my post that I was special, or insinuated that I was uptight. I know farming doesn't make me special I'm not an idiot. I don't move on because I'm waiting for GW2 and because over the years I have made friends which I frequently socialize with on the game.

Secondly What has stagnated this game is the lack of new content which is not going to be forthcoming because they are working on GW2 and not GW1, farming & running are going to become the norm in a game where they are not adding new content, why because nobody wants to repeat the same crap over and over again. They only thing that has become a challenge in this game is beating Anet at their nerfs, most quests & missions are no longer challenging when you have been playing the game a long time.

Stop acting like I'm just somebody who is whining over the nerfs because I don't want to see my farms go bye bye. What I'm clearly bitching about is the fact that the community is going downhill with every single nerf in this game. Less and less people have a reason to stick around. They can take all the farming builds for all I care as long as I can still chat. My main point is that it's already gone on far too long in the game and waiting this long until your no longer developing a game because your trying to develop it's successor, to then nerf skills when they are already suffering from lack of PVE content is just asking for trouble. Wynterarwynrose 05:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

They upkeep all the holiday events. They added Dhuum. Yes, they're working mostly on GW2. You can't expect ANet (or rather, half or less of ANet) to keep up with new content in the same way a company like Blizzard does, and considering that they're doing quite well.

As I've said before, farming and running are not inherently a problem. When farming and running overshadow balanced play to the point that balanced play becomes unfeasible, that's when it's a problem. And that's what has occurred in UW and FoW and many other areas.

I was tired and I see that uptight elitism was the wrong way to put it. What I meant is that you believe that because things have been this way for so long they can't possibly change, and/or you don't want it to change because you've gotten so used to this play style. Guess what? It's not fair to the people who want to play balanced. It's been imbalanced for too long and it's about damn time they fixed it. Doing it at this point is only asking for a very marginal amount of trouble. Honestly, it doesn't make much difference to ANet whether people stay; they've already got your money from GW1, and many will still buy GW2 with the hopes that it'll be as good as the original once was, such as yourself, apparently. Balancing a game people are getting bored with is a GOOD thing. It gives people a new challenge, it gives people more different ways to play, to attempt difficult areas, even to challenge themselves in another way. Adding new content when the game is broken will only give the people using the overpowered builds such as permas and 600/smites more advantage over those who want to play balanced. --Kyoshi (Talk) 05:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"Nobody is forcing you to grind. If you're still around then you must like something about this game, but these problem builds have to go."Yes you are right. There is something about the game that keeps me around even after doing the same crap over and over. That would be the farming of which anet claims they have no problem with and then pulls nerfs like this that just show them to be liars.Truseattleite 05:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"Don't you mean "It's about damn time ANet introduced these nerfs"? It's never too late when you're talking about a video game."At this stage in GW's life it is pointless. You have a dying game as it is. If you don't believe me then ask anyone the difference in the amount of districts in LA and Kamadan today from even 1 year ago. The only thing this will do will cause the player base to shrink faster.Truseattleite 05:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"Problems that PvE has had for a long time, including Shadow Form and other farming completing areas far faster than group play, have stagnated to the point that uptight elitists like yourself have come to the surface saying that this method of play makes you special somehow, and that you should be able to play better than a balanced group."Nowhere in her post did I see her state anywhere she felt she was an elitist or special in any way. Comments like that just make you sound like a bitter jealous person.If you were not then there would be no need for such a petty comment and trying to put words in people's mouth.Truseattleite 05:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The elitist comment was the wrong term to use. I was tired when I made that comment and not watching my words correctly.

A shrinking player base is most certainly not the only result that will come from this nerf. To suggest so is very nearsighted.

Again, the issue is not farming, but the fact that farming goes faster than balanced groups. --Kyoshi (Talk) 05:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"I was tired and I see that uptight elitism was the wrong way to put it."Apology accepted, I understand what your trying to say I really do, but the fact is that another big issue to finding PUG's can be attributed to the fact that GW is an older game there are many other MMORPG's out there which are newer and I'm not just talking about WOW, either. Whether you "balance skills" or not in PVE you will not force players who would rather go it alone to play with others, and most times people who enjoy the grind also enjoy playing alone, or maybe with a steady companion. So I don't really see this changing. Most people happen to be running these builds these days, and because they are you don't have a problem finding a group to do dungeons and such with in that manner. If most people wanted these builds gone then it should be no problem to find a balanced PUG, but you have a hard time finding them because most people are doing the farming thing. So if anything imo it's a smaller group + Anet that wants the farming builds gone and not the opposite. Wynterarwynrose 05:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Well there is no need to nerf sf/600/smite skills. There is an easy solution. Add to some monsters in the area where the sf/600/ele tank farm/run a skill that removes all ench and cause it's a skill it will pass sf/obsi and cause of this the 600 will die. Also another thing, pug groups have a high rate to fail (easy quests also), this is actually the reason why people take runs, do hero teams. It's not funny to try 2 weeks to find a group that can actually do foundry and fail over and over (my ele never was never able to do it, don't blame me for this blame the pugs, my sin do it almost always cause i'm tanking, my monk do it cause i 600). A game should be fun to play and trust me insane number of failures it's far from being fun. There is another aspect. Several changes to pve skills affect the game in a negative way. Any changes made to skills that were used to farm make the game not fair for new players cause old players had the chance to use those skills to farm while new players don't have this chance. I never saw what is bad in farming/running. Farming is keeping the price of ectos at the price it's now. Nerf sf, 600/smite and the price of ectos will become insane. Ecto price going high will make other prices going high... Let's talk about speed clear. After a couple of hours the game sugest you to take a break. ANET having something with sc and game sugesting you to take a break... a bit strange... You get level 20 fast, you can actually finish any of the campaigns in less then 2 days. So sc don't seams to be something saw as bad by ANET, else you will not be able to get lvl 20 fast of finish a campaign fast.

And if they want to nerf something how about nerfing RoJ in PvP. Why? It's not normal in JQ to see a monk (supposed to be a suport class) be able to do damage as an ele (supposed to be damage dealer). If ANET thinks this is ok then paragons should have a similar skill.

Probably noone will believe me but nerfing sf/600/smite/earth ele in such a way that they can't farm will actually increase the money the sites that sell gold/items for real money get from players (Bots can form a party and bots never do mistakes...).

Most of the peoples like easy and stable things. Changing skills is not stable at all. Nerfing sc is not going to make things easy at all.

As I said before except ANET failing in the war with farming bots (the way the game is designed make us not see them (the bots) to much) or ANET wanting to promote other product (it's a common technique used in one way or another to promote your new product), I don't see any other reasons to affect the main farming skills.

To actually predict the efect of a skill change you need a huge test server. And a large number of people testing the posible changes (>1000).

Also if you think pvp skills are unbalanced why not look at the pvp areas. Let's look at Fort Aspenwood. It's very "balanced". To balance Fort without redesigning it you need to make it round based (each team to be in one round the defending team and in the other round the atacking team). If you don't do this the defending team (kurzick) has an insane advantage (they can just heal...).

The only thing that will happen is players not sharing their team builds. I have a hero team build for foundry (it's not posted). You know why you will not see me making this public? Cause I have the feeling ANET will nerf it sooner or later.

DOA is not the hardest area. Try to do Deep without any tricks or better said try to find a party when it's not zb.User:Thedukesd

"Add to some monsters in the area where the sf/600/ele tank farm/run a skill that removes all ench and cause it's a skill it will pass sf/obsi and cause of this the 600 will die." The problem with this is that SF is used EVERYWHERE. You are suggesting that they add a monster to all areas that removes enchantments, for one skill. Why go to all that trouble when nerfing the skills will solve the problem in ALL the areas? It's much easier to hit the problem at the source instead of giving balanced players a harder time by making monsters stronger; that method is what made UW so impossible for balanced groups now, because balancing of the area has been done around speed clears and farms instead of around what balanced groups should be able to handle.

"I never saw what is bad in farming/running." The only problem is when farming groups can finish an ELITE area faster than a balanced group can. That's what the problem with speed clears is.

"Farming is keeping the price of ectos at the price it's now. Nerf sf, 600/smite and the price of ectos will become insane." So what? FoW armor is supposed to be prestigious. They can just increase the drop rate if it gets THAT bad, you know.

"Most of the peoples like easy and stable things. Changing skills is not stable at all. Nerfing sc is not going to make things easy at all." Elite areas are supposed to be hard. What exactly gave you the opposite impression? People (or the demographic ANet aims for) want a challenge from this game, not a facerolling cakewalk.

"To actually predict the efect of a skill change you need a huge test server. And a large number of people testing the posible changes (>1000)." What exactly makes you so certain that such an enormous number would be needed? Seems like a bullshit statistic to me.

"Also if you think pvp skills are unbalanced why not look at the pvp areas." Irrelevant to the discussion, but PvP is just as imbalanced as PvE.

"The only thing that will happen is players not sharing their team builds." That is certainly not all that will happen, and I don't see why this particular result would be a problem. --Kyoshi (Talk) 05:15, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you on everything but the second point. Balanced teams should not be faster than speedclears. Speedclears should be the fastest. Thats the point of, you know, speedclears. And while I agree that elite areas should be hard, they should not be on the rough edges of impossible. A challenge is nice. Wiping 20 million times because of the terrible level design and lolwtfimba monsters is NOT fun. And people who share builds will always share builds. People that don't share builds will never share builds. I myself know of a Kathandrax Solo for derv that I will never give to anyone in the hopes that it wont be nerfed. But thats just precaution. I wouldn't call it anything else. --71.193.48.146 05:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Speed clears are bad. The speed is the problem, and why they should not exist. They complete areas with incredible ease and speed that make balanced play almost obsolete, which kills the game for me and MANY other players out there.

Monsters are only omgwtfimba because they've been balanced around speed clears for so long. Balance speed clears and they can then work on balancing the areas correctly.

I didn't make the build sharing comment. Take that up with that Thedukesd guy. --Kyoshi (Talk) 05:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

WTB NEW POSTS ON THE BOTTOM INSTEAD OF SLAPPING IT SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE THREAD --71.193.48.146 05:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Same, but at this point it seems too late. They're just putting it after the comment I made that they intend to respond to, and from here the number of quotes required to bottom-post would be kind of annoying. Very productive comment by the way, I appreciate it. --Kyoshi (Talk) 05:47, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

EVERYWHERE?!? I see only 2 options: you don't play GW or you don't know what you are talking. Both are bad for you. This kills your idea of using that mob skill everywhere. If SF is used everywhere as you say then why I don't see only sins or at least 50% of the chars sins?!?

A balanced team will always be slower then a specialized team. So another bad idea... Again I'm thinking that: you don't play GW or you don't know what you are talking. Both are bad for you. (You want balanced team for each area. I have a little chalenge for you. Make a build for paragon that will act as support for the team in City hm, the paragon must use spear as his weapon. The build must be at least a decent build. If that looks easy then make same problem for Gloom hm.) You want to play in a balanced team? Noone stops you. You will find one for UW, FOW. But I wish you luck in actually finishing the area. This is exactly why the speed clears are here. ANET can't fix how good the players are. Sooner or later you will have to play with random peoples and then you will understand what I'm saying. Until then you will believe that solo farming, speedclears are bad.

Great. After you actually did a bad thing you decide to fix it by increasing the drop rate. You know that it will only prove that it was a big mistake and you try to fix it in a stupid way.

Did you ever heard of testing? You know that changing a single skill has impact that you can't predict without a huge number or testers?!? Each tester has a limited point of views. To see as much aspect as you can you need large number of testers. If you can't understand why it's not really my problem, I'm not pay to make peoples smarted so I won't make them. Probably you want a skills change now, change again at the next update cause it was a bad change and so on (it happened once so it will happen again).

Balancing skills without balancing areas is pointless. It's more then relevant to balance the areas too not just the skills. How often are the areas balanced?!?

As you don't see any problem with people not making the builds public cause they fear ANET will nerf them I don't see any reason to nerf SF/600/smite/earth ele/vow of silence/warrior tanking skills (well if u nerf sin,ele,monk tanking skills then why not nerf warrior tanking skills, deru tanking skills, why not remove healing skills cause they can be used in farming builds, how about removing all the skills cause they can be used in farming build; i just want to point that affecting the tanking abilities of some class will make people ask to remove the tanking abilities to other classes).User:Thedukesd

tl;dr. You dont play on american servers do you? plz dont WoT me. --71.193.48.146 06:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

holy wall of text, batman! MAFARAXAS 06:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Oy, Thedukesd, bite my head off harder why don't you. Civil discussion, please.

Permas are used as tanks when people want a mission to be easy. Hard Mode missions, farming, and dungeon clears, and various other things. You don't see them as much except during Zmissions and Zbounties when they flock to the mission/bounty area, especially in the case of the harder missions, because they're usually farming UW and FoW and doing dungeon speed clears.

Balanced does not mean that one team build will be useable to complete every area of the game. (Which is exactly what Perma proponents suggest be the case, ironically.) Of course you will have to change your build to adapt to enemies in an area. The problem is when you can complete almost every area in the game, fast and easy, with a single build. Guess which one I mean.

If you aren't going to bother explaining why increasing the drop rate is a bad thing, quit calling my comments stupid. It hurts their feelings and it doesn't help your point whatsoever.

Obviously you need more than one tester, and while I don't know how many members are in the Test Krewe, I know it's certainly enough. Blizzard doesn't have thousands of testers for their balancing, what makes you think GW needs so many?

"Balancing skills without balancing areas is pointless." Absolutely. But doing both at once will just screw more things up, especially in the case of UW where so few balanced runs have been done that they don't even know how to balance it to a typical group anymore. One thing at a time, rushing will just cause more problems.

Your last paragraph is pretty difficult to understand. (Please use punctuation more often.) From what I can gather, it's a rant about how in my opinion obviously everything should be nerfed to oblivion, which really isn't pertinent to the argument, or for that matter remotely correct. Permas are so much more effective than even the most powerful Warrior farming builds that comparing them is absurd. Show me a group with 6 Defy Pain warriors completing the UW in 28 minutes and I'll have a reason to ask for them to be nerfed too. --Kyoshi (Talk) 06:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Let's see how many sins are in doa (american district 1) 3. Let's see how many other class are in doa (american district 1) : 28. Why I DOA? Cause sins can run 2 of then and tank in the other 3. Let's see how many sins are in elona (american district 1): 0. Let's see how many other class are there: 5. I don't see that GW is a sin busines...User:Thedukesd

Bringing up elitists is almost humorous, the reason i don't pvp is for the simple fact if i don't run a specific build, i'm not allowed in a group. that's another argument all together though. nerfing solo builds in pve is not a solution to you ecto hoarding freaks out there. correct me if i'm wrong, but the merchants dictate ecto prices, you sell 100,000,000 ectos to a merch and the price goes down, you buy, it goes up. if players buy and sell in the open market, the price stays stagnant. the last increase in ecto prices was due directly to the SF nerf rumors and people stockpiling from merchants in hopes of cashing in post nerf. the option of open trade combined with gold sellers effectively kills the economy, and as stated above, will most likely increase the popularity of gold sellers to those foolish enough to use them. and fyi, the overfarmed TOPK is a prime example of the effectiveness of the overfarming=less rare drops already in place in the game. and yes, i'm inferring that not many ectos come out of there due to the area being overfarmed which equates to not many ectos flooding the market affecting the economy. point being that whole arguement for nerfing any solo build is a mute point.

I have 1 of each class toons with the exception of a rit, and a mes. I enjoy playing pve with each of them and thaking them through the campaigns and using various skill combinations. and when i'm sick of dealing with people, snobs in high end areas that tell me what build to run, and how to play the game, or trying to accomplish an area with pugs who obviously had issues beating pre searing, i use my sin and solo, or my monk, and 55, or 600. both have very limited areas that the builds work solo, and if you have ever run SOO with a 600 and 2 henchmen, you'd understand the complexity and skill it takes to run that solo. 600 should be left alone. as for SF in a pve setting, i can agree that speed clears are a problem, but the solution isn't a nerf to the skill taking away the solo enjoyment of that toon, but a modification to the areas that are targeted by an entire team of permasins. TOPK is a perfect example of an anti solo monk area..try to 55, or 600 it with a monk and you'll find yourself akin to a WWII japanese fighter pilot.

Point being, my opinion of the whole issue is anet is done busting their butts to make a perfect game, so rather than find a solution to apease the elite snobs complaining about the mass's of common folk infiltrating 'their' regions of the game, and the common folk just wanting to enjoy some mindless gameplay and having the ability to ejoy ALL aspects of the game so they're doing what every other company does as a game winds down, they nerf everything and move on rather than put the effort and resources into a money pit that generates very little revenue. Welcome to the reality of business economics, life sux, get a helmet. i have very little doubt that this move to nerf solo farming will deter a large player base from continuing to play GW, and derail a large # from entertaining the thought of playing GWII. and as GWII is also a non pay to play game, i would expect the same 3-5 years down the road there also. we'll see. in the meantime hope for the best, expect the worst, and don't be surprised when everything is nerfed to the point of having to have a full party to complete pre searing. just my 2 cents, anet will do what they're going to do, and i do hope i'm wrong, but i doubt it. 67.149.29.15 06:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

ps. i was logged in but for some reason it didn't save my name =/ Ferret1972 06:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"600 should be left alone." No.

"but the solution isn't a nerf to the skill taking away the solo enjoyment of that toon, but a modification to the areas that are targeted by an entire team of permasins." Permas are used everywhere, and it's not just the full-perma-teams that are an issue. Modifying every area of the game to make it harder for permas will make it impossible for anything else to match it. That's what we call power creep, and then nothing will be played but permas because everything will be too hard for regular groups. Let's bring permas down a notch instead of raising everything to their absurd level, I say.

"i have very little doubt that this move to nerf solo farming will deter a large player base from continuing to play GW" Guessing at statistics doesn't prove your point at all.

"and don't be surprised when everything is nerfed to the point of having to have a full party to complete pre searing" Exaggeration and ridiculous speculation gogo, and I'm really getting tired of hearing this one. --Kyoshi (Talk) 07:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

So what's wrong with the earth ele?!? It use at least 6 skills only to be able to tank. It remains only 2 skills to do damage (in best case). Regarding the number of testers. Why I feel they are not to many?

In the last part I wanted to say that if you nerf only some skills use by some classes to farm there will be people asking nerfs for other classes that can farm.

People that love the game but disagree with the changes in case ANET will not listen them will start private servers. I'm sure ANET don't likes private servers.

What will actually do the increase of drop rate? Finally you will end up increasing the drop rate of all the items (not only the ecto price will go high, the other prices will go high). You increased the drop rate. Can this make the prices go lower? No (i will say it's pure speculation the fact that more items will make the prices be lower). More items/ectos/etc on the market doesn't mean prices will go lower. People can just decide to keep the prices high. More items sold at high price = more money for you so why not.

I don't think 6 earth ele will finish UW in 28 minutes. I don't even know if they can actually do it.User:Thedukesd

"Permas are used everywhere, and it's not just the full-perma-teams that are an issue." Really? This is news to me. I am disabled, I don't watch t.v. and I'm not into movies, I play the game on average 10 hours a day because really I don't have anything else to do(hard to have a life when you can't walk and all). But I do not see perma's every where as you state. Hell I have even played in some PUGs with Sins who were not permas. I see a huge variation of classes being played at any given time. Personally I'm starting to think the that only reason this has become a real issue for so many people is because of what Ferret1972 said "so rather than find a solution to apease the elite snobs complaining about the mass's of common folk infiltrating 'their' regions of the game, and the common folk just wanting to enjoy some mindless gameplay and having the ability to ejoy ALL aspects of the game so they're doing what every other company does as a game winds down, they nerf everything and move on rather than put the effort and resources into a money pit that generates very little revenue.", This makes perfect sense to me, let's just throw everything down the tubes because then that will force people to want to leave GW and move on to GW2 where they will be earning their real money, well that and the bandwagon hoppers who like to join in on bashing. Wynterarwynrose 08:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

tl;dr, but imo Vow of Silence, Spellbreaker, SF, Oflesh and Spell Shield all have no place in this game. Currently they serve no purpose other than making characters completely invulnerable to enchantment removal and armor-ignoring damage. Which is a bad thing. Koda Kumi 12:35, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"Modifying every area of the game to make it harder for permas will make it impossible for anything else to match it. That's what we call power creep, and then nothing will be played but permas because everything will be too hard for regular groups. " I agree that the perma SF nerf is a good idea, but I have to disagree with this quote. The power creep occurs because Anet has gone about making the areas harder for permas in the wrong way. There are alternative ways to increase the difficulty for farming builds without increasing the difficulty for regular groups. A few signets of disenchantment, expunge enchantments, or soulrending shrieks to elite areas would would make those areas a lot harder for permas, without changing the difficulty for regular groupsTot 15:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"But I do not see perma's every where as you state. Hell I have even played in some PUGs with Sins who were not permas." Because the permas are all at UW or doing dungeon runs most of the time, because that's where the profit comes from. When a Zmission comes along, see how many permas flock to the mission to tank; Zmissions net quite a bit of profit for very little work (or at least, very little work for a perma). The fact remains that they CAN complete practically every area in the game, and if you just make UW impossible or unprofitable for them, they'll migrate to wherever else they can make money easily because of being such an overpowered build.

"A few signets of disenchantment, expunge enchantments, or soulrending shrieks to elite areas would would make those areas a lot harder for permas, without changing the difficulty for regular groups" See above. They'll just move to wherever else they can make cash quick and easy. Want to try and keep up, adding non-spell enchant removal to every area in the game as permas move there? Why bother, when you can cut down the problem itself right here and now?

"So what's wrong with the earth ele?!?" Invulnerability to spells, shrugging off damage, and simultaneously dealing enough damage to kill large mobs, all from skills on one character, in a game which is supposed to be (and was in fact meant to be, and still is meant to be) team-oriented. You don't see the issue?

"I don't think 6 earth ele will finish UW in 28 minutes. I don't even know if they can actually do it." In 28 minutes, no. The only reason permas are favored over Obsidian tanks is because permas don't have the speed reduction of Obbies, and because obbies do take some damage. But they could definitely complete it.

"You increased the drop rate. Can this make the prices go lower? No" Yes, actually. Supply and demand. If the drop rate stays as is and farming is nerfed, supply will go down while demand will likely stay the same, since obsidian armor is so coveted; thus, prices rise. Increase the drop rate, leading to supply increases, and everything is back to normal, or some semblance of normal.

"This makes perfect sense to me, let's just throw everything down the tubes because then that will force people to want to leave GW and move on to GW2" Do you really think that's the motivation behind this? --Kyoshi (Talk) 17:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Sins selfhealing is mostly based on enchants, ele self healing and energy management is mostly based on enchants. I don't see any reason to overpower the mesmers mobs. The fact that the skills are splited in pve and pvp means that ANET consider pve and pvp 2 things diferent. In pvp almost invulnerable classes is bad, in pve it's not. There are level 30+ mobs in this game. The level 30 mob has the advantage of having more powerfull skills cause he has more attrib points then a player. The fact tha maybe the AI is stupid should be eliminate from discusion, it's ANET who's not able to make the AI smarter... Changing skills will make even more unbalance...User:Thedukesd

"In pvp almost invulnerable classes is bad, in pve it's not." What are you smoking? Near-invulnerability is always bad because it makes everything else obsolete and ruins what little balance Guild Wars has managed to salvage out of the worst of the train-wreck updates in the past. When an assassin can complete almost every area of the game, but a monk needs another monk bonding him/her to get even close to that, and a full group without spell invulnerability can easily fail in the areas where these invulnerable classes excel the most, what exactly about near-invulnerability do you think isn't bad, and isn't contributing to imbalance? Video game AI is not perfect and never has been; there will ALWAYS be a way to exploit it, and no matter how smart some mobs get, without a skill balance of some kind, permas will still be able to take them out and come out of the battle without a scratch. --Kyoshi (Talk) 17:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

AI can learn and become better and better. The fact that you need a lot of things for this is not my problem, it can be done and this is the most important thing. And if you implement this the AI will become better then any player. You will go there whit an invulnerable build and you will not kill a single mob. And it's not even needed to make the AI learn, the AI can be easily changed, how about if the mob see that he can't hit you change the target, or if it don't see any other target just run away like a human will do when it can't hit a sf sin in pvp (or that is actually not doing any damage, or is not doing damage more then 10% of your hp). This AI changes are easy to do and will nerf the things you don't like in an indirect way. I actually want to see a smarter AI, cause heroes showed many times that they are just stupid (sins heroes don't even use their skills right..., there is no sin hero build on pvx and i'm sure cause it has something to do with the fact that dagger sin heroes are stupid). Better AI = new chalanges.

Earth eles will never finish UW in 30 minutes, probably it will take ~2h witch is actually the time in witch a decent pug team will do it. And I still think they will not be able to do it.

No. Increasing the drop rates will not make the prices go lower. Look at new released CPUs (just an example). The number of the CPUs is more then needed, the domand is high but the price makes the domand by low (the price in this case is the way you actually get the CPU). ANET will never increase the drop rate x4 so the prices will be high.

I will give you an example of a class in another online game witch is invulnerable cause it's invisible (it's actually similar to sins). He can perma invisibility in pvp too. There is actualy a single skill that will make that class visible and mobs don't have it. In that game noone complained about the fact that invisibility is a bad thing. The fact that it becomes visible when it atacks is not a problem cause it's a fast atacker and will take his target out before that target realised what happen and then go invisible again. Noone is complaining about the fact that this class is actualy invulnerable and can spike any other class. If they will actually nerf SF then why not to change SF to make the char invisible. I will actually want to see the sins being invisible. It will fix some of their problems.

Funny to see ANET trying to fix some skills and not fixing problems in pvp. And I'm talking here about Fort witch is insanely unbalanced, JQ witch is not proper design (the quarries are not at the same distance, kurzick have advantage again, some of the defender don't atack the carriers, you can be on the brige, a melee under the bringe and the melee will actually hit you, witch makes me think the game engine is 2d (not the graphic engine) cause it's ignore the fact that you can't hit with melee atacks someone that is on a higher ground). This are actually problems more important then the fact that SF is overpowered. Codex Arena witch is imposible to balance cause of the fact that it's bad desinged. This are major problems. It's funny to see that they have people for skill balance but don't have people to redesign 3 pvp areas...

You know that you can actualy use the earth skills that give you chances to block be imposible to kill? I tested this on raptors in HM and surprise the block chance was enough to be able to handle them. Cause of this, based on the things said by other this skills should be nerfed too cause they can help you farm and become invulnerable (you only die if you do mistakes but this happens with sf and similar skills). Also this is another argument to the fact that SF/obsi/vow should not be nerfed. If I don't die from melees atacks cause I block enough atacks then I should be able not to die cause I block enough spells.

Enchants removal skills are mostly normal skills. Skills making you invulnerable to spells are all elite. It's an elite skill suposed to be way better then other skills?!?User:Thedukesd

My god, you are wrong on so many levels. I'm too sleepy to quote3 anything properly, but later! is for Raine, etc. 18:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I say go to Doomslore and see who is offering to run EVERY single dungeon in EotN (some for outrageous prices for the effort it takes them). I say go to ToA and see what kind of group you can get for UW or FOW. I have been playing this game for almost 4 years, and I do still play, and I have done pretty much everything there is to do in PvE, and I don't farm. Farming is mind numbingly boring imo, and more of a total waste of my time that just sitting staring into space. I do find interesting and challenging things to do in PvE. I'm still 3 titles away from GWAMM, one of which actually requires playing, so I play. And I keep it interesting for myself by challenging myself against the game, different builds, vanquishing 8 player areas with only heroes, things like that. I still find it fun. I do however get disappointed when I can't find teams to play with in the high end areas. I don't want to pay 20k for nothing more than the single chance of a BDS to drop out of an end chest. If I'm going to play in a dungeon, it's going to be for points, (even though I don't need them) which means actually killing the stuff rather than just having some perma run past them all while I stand at a gate. I used to play a lot of DoA, but there again, find a balanced group that is willing to take the time anymore to actually do it. I have only purchased 2 high end things in this game in the entire time I've been playing, a miniature Mallyx, and a Clockwork scythe. If I can't get it by playing, I most likely will never have it, and that is fine with me. -- Wyn talk 18:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Page break

The page break is refreshing, thanks to whoever did that.

"I actually want to see a smarter AI" So do I, but let's take on one problem at a time.

"Earth eles will never finish UW in 30 minutes" I never said 30 minutes. I said they would complete it because they're still becoming invulnerable to spells and because they still can wipe groups of enemies.

"If they will actually nerf SF then why not to change SF to make the char invisible. I will actually want to see the sins being invisible." Hell no. An entire team of invisible (and thus untargetable) assassins could take out any given team in HA or GvG, and two or three teams of invisible assassins would sit at a standstill forever in high-end PvP. And adding such an invisible and "untargetable" mechanic for a single skill is just stupid.

"Funny to see ANET trying to fix some skills and not fixing problems in pvp." For one thing, this is completely beside the point. For another, did you miss the rest of the skill update? And do you even play FA? Shadow Form is regularly used by Luxon Elementalists to wipe gates in mere seconds all while siege turtles, who can take out gates in two shots, give support. "This are actually problems more important then the fact that SF is overpowered." Neither PvE nor PvP takes precedence over the other when making skill updates. The game includes both and is neither more predominantly than the other. "It's funny to see that they have people for skill balance but don't have people to redesign 3 pvp areas..." Are you actually suggesting that completely redesigning an entire PvP area takes less work than tweaking skill effects?

"You know that you can actualy use the earth skills that give you chances to block be imposible to kill? I tested this on raptors in HM and surprise the block chance was enough to be able to handle them. Cause of this, based on the things said by other this skills should be nerfed too cause they can help you farm and become invulnerable" Hey guess what, Obsidian eles are being nerfed too. And how many of these allow enough extra room on your bar, and enough extra attribute points, to simultaneously kill the things attacking you, to the point that you can clear an entire dungeon full of melee attackers, ranged attackers, and casters? "If I don't die from melees atacks cause I block enough atacks then I should be able not to die cause I block enough spells." Just because you can defend against a single kind of attacker doesn't mean you should be able to defend against three different kinds of attackers at once and simultaneously party wipe them.

Elite skills should obviously be better than regular skills, but when one elite skill surpasses all other elite skills to the point that your beloved farming builds have, it's simply gone too far. --Kyoshi (Talk) 18:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll try to my stance on this simpler, but SF is a much more complicated issue than either the "It's godmode nerf it" or the "don't nerf it" sides make it out to be. Should perma be nerfed? I believe so. Is perma the best farming build everywhere? No. Here are some examples. Raptor farming (E/Me and W/N are faster), Outcast farming for Nick last week (Rt spirit spam was safer), Stygian Veil (trappers are safer). Perma is not a good farming build. It's almost always slower than alternatives when alternatives exist. In some cases perma doesn't work at all, but other farming builds do. Is perma invincibility? In some places, not all. Is perma unbalanced? Yes. Perma farming works best in areas where nothing else will work. IT can do things that no other build can. The strength of perma is the ability to get elite drops (ectos and gemstones) easily. Are there multiple ways to deal with the perma imbalance? Yes. Is it viable to nerf (elite) areas where perma rules without messing it up for regular teams? It's possible. Is a nerf to SF better? possibly, it's certainly less work for Anet. Is Anet doing the right thing by nerfing perma? I think so, but we'll find out. Do I support the perma nerf? yes. I hope that clears things up.Tot 19:11, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Anet has said that they're okay with farming. Like you've said above, there are still a billion other farms that are not being touched.

The main difference between 600/smite, Shadow Form, and other farms is that 600/smite and Shadow Form work just about everywhere; the exceptions are few and far between. While the ranger's Whirling Defense farm is the best at what it does and the warrior's Hundred Blades farm is the best there and whatever good farms other classes have are decent someplace, their applications are few and far between.

While arenanet is okay with farming, they are not okay with two farming builds completely dominating (COMPLETELY. DOMINATING.) the farming scene, as they shouldn't be. As evidenced in sections throughout this page, many players associate themselves with one "main" character; how badly does it currently suck for those whose mains are not assassins or monks? Sure, they can still make money, but they're doing it twenty times slower than that sin or monk could.

That's really not fair, and I can't say I'm sorry to see these farming monopolies being dealt with. is for Raine, etc. 03:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I think there are any number of reasons why SF and 600 are a problem. You've listed a big one (works just about everywhere), but it's not the only one. Another big consideration is that SF and 600/smite work places where nothing else works. 600/smite especially has the "works just about everywhere" problem, it's a fast farm that easily out competes more specialized farming builds. SF is slower, so it doesn't outcompete the more specialized builds in their area, but it DOES outcompete them by being the only way to farm certain extremely valuable items. SF leans more to the "works where nothing else works" problem. Both builds have both problems clearly, and both build generate other problems as well. But agreeing with ANet and each other all the time is a waste of this page. Let's go back to giving them some feedback instead.Tot 06:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Let's just sum up every problem in guild wars right now:

• Builds and skills that generate rewards disproportionate to their cost, risk, and/or effort are bad for the game.

For example:

• Shadow Form has potentially infinite reward and zero risk. As such, it should have an infinite cost (its rewards should be impossible to attain) - it doesn't. That's bad for the game.

Discuss. Please use examples. is for Raine, etc. 09:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

IN PVE NOT THE SKILLS ARE THE PROBLEM! THE AI IS THE PROBLEM! AT WHAT USE IT WILL BE AN 100% INVULNERABLE BUILD IF THE MOBS WILL RUN AWAY WHEN THEY SEE THEY DON'T DO ANY DAMAGE?!? If you face a sf sin in pvp what you do? You atack him over and over just to see that you can't hit him? NO! You change target and when you will see the hp of sin going down (cause sf ended) you try will try to kill the sin. If the mobs will act in the same way (running from invulnerable sin, sins will not be able to kill a single mob; running from earth ele when the ele take 0 damage, earth ele tankers will not hit a single thing; running from players enchanted with holy wrath/retribution, this players will not kill a single thing). So why to change the skills in pve cause the AI is under the level of a monkey (monkeys runs aways if you hit them and they can't hit you back)?!? Improve the AI! Improving AI to counter the things that you ANET don't like is the best way! This way noone will complain about the fact that skills are changed. And I think noone will start complaining about the fact that the AI is way to smart. Changing skills over and over each month is not good at all. So ANET do the best thing and improve the AI! Also if a new farm appears and you ANET don't like it, it can be nerfed by making the AI couter that farming way. Of course improving the AI is harder then changing the AI, but changing the AI will improve the game a lot more then a change of skills will actually do.

Regarding PVP. Well. A lot of classes needs skill balances. Each class should be able to pvp decent in any of the pvp areas, but surprise it's not hapening. Let's take the paragons as example. At what is actually good a paragon in RA? Suport? Monk and rit outmach the paragon. Damage? Good joke. At what good is paragon in JQ and FA? Runner?!? Well any other class can take some running skills, so no. Suport? Same as in RA monks and rits are way better. Damage? Good joke again. The nerf on syg in pvp is realy bad for paragons, if you ask me i would had let syg as it was and moved it to leadership. Even in PVE a party don't need a paragon. You will say imbagons are needed. Wrong. There are other classes that can keep sy almost always on, and sy is enough for a decent party, SY makes TNTF almost not needed. Imbagons are actually needed in a party witch is far from being decent. How many paragons you see in the game? If you don't believe me send your test team to pvp with paragons in all the pvp areas. They will see players reactions...

Some skills looks overpowered not cause they are actualy overpowered in PVE but cause the AI is stupid. Even bugs run aways if they feel danger. The AI don't really run away...

So hard to understand that the AI is the problem and not the skills...User:Thedukesd

I forgot something. If you thing losing to much time with GW to improve the AI think this way ANET, you can use that code in all of your other games... So you will not actually work for a single game, you will work for other games too...User:Thedukesd

Nice wall of text just to say that the AI is the problem and make a huge off-track ramble. There are many problems compounding this issue, and ANet has apparently said they aren't going to change AI. Admittedly I would like to see it improved as well, but their reasons don't have to be explained to us, even if it'd be nice. Ignoring potential AI improvements, there's not much to be done but nerf SF and rebalance areas, and both need to be done.

Also, THE SKILLS ARE ALSO A PROBLEM, EVEN IF THE AI IS ALSO A PROBLEM. What about "Permanent near-invincibility is bad" don't you get?

As far as your paragon ramble, I can't say, because I don't play a paragon. They were intended for a utility kind of role, but it obviously hasn't worked out that way, because they're impossible to balance due to the way the mechanics are designed. There have been several suggestions for fixing that balance but they're pretty drastic.

Off topic for a moment: who the hell removed the page break? I'm putting it back in. Watching the page lag as I edit a 57kb text is not fun. Not fun at all. --Kyoshi (Talk) 04:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

They changed the AI to run a bit away when you use some area efect spells cause those skills were used to farm. They changed once the AI to react in a specific way when you use some skills so I don't see a single reason not to do it again. The server know what ench you have on you so AI can react similar to the way it reacts when you use the area efect skills (I said similar, not in the same way :p) when you are enchanted with the skills that makes players invulnerable or almost invulnerable.

Amatz Basin... I wanted to increase the kurzick faction limit and one of the way is to score 100+ in Amatz Basin. First problem I had was that it was imposible to find people, almost no pug in Amatz Basin, and noone from alliance wanted to give a hand (you can said change the guild but this is the first alliance that is actually doing alliance parties, so far I changed guilds after guilds cause the guild/alliance was not acting as a guild/alliance should act). I attempted to do it with my ele, heroes and hench. This way I was not able to score more then 35. Decided to go ele earth tanker, i was trying to tank one side and the heroes and hench another side, it's kinda hard to tank it as ele earth tank, not imposible but it's hard, max I scored was 54. How I scored 100+? I decided to do the kurzick area with my sin and I had the luck to find 2 more people that wanted to do Amatz Basin. I perma one side and the other 2 did the best they could to keep 2 sides (3 people + 5 heroes). Without cons we scored 90, with cons we scored 120. And this was in nm. I was able to score 100+ in the other luxon/kurzick challenge missions with heroes and hench, but it this one I was not able to see a way to do it, not even using SF,earth ele tanker (600/smite team needs a famine and to micro the famine and to 600 right is a bit hard). The kurzick factions limit is increased with only 1000 and if you ask me Amatz Basin is way to hard to do it now, nerfing SF,obsi and other similar skills will make this even harder. What I want to say? I want to say that nerfing some skills can make some missions/areas way way way to hard, so hard that people will not even try to do them. Changing skills and make people not even try to do some areas/missions cause the reward is way to small compared to how hard is to do that area/mission is just stupid. (As you can see I had to perma to keep alone one side, cause the other 2 had major problems keeping with their heroes their sides). When I said you need an huge number of testers I wanted to say that a low number of testers will not be able to see the real impact that a skill change can have. Changing skills used in most of the tanking ways is a dramatic change of the game and trust me needs a high number of testers to test the real impact, also I'm 100% sure that as result several areas will need to be reworked (I have strong reasons to believe that areas will not be reworked cause I didn't saw so far a real rework of an area).

Depends how you look at the problem. If you are invincible but you can't tank and you can't kill a single mob cause mobs run away from you and ignore you completly is useless. An invicible char that can only run from one place to another is not bad thing at all, you can actually run from one place to another faster without using any skill that will make you invincible. Cause of this 2 things an invincible char will not be bad thing at all, it will become almost useless. The fact that Shadow Form can become an almost useless tanking elite skill can be bad, but by looking at how many other almost useless elite skills are it's not that bad. As you can see I don't have a problem with the idea of nerf, I have a problem with the way they want to do the nerf. Making changes whit the way the mobs reacts or adding some skills to mobs to counter player skills is a way that will reduce the number of players that will complain. What can SF fans say? Something like this: "Why are mobs so smart and run away from me?" ? Why not? A human that is facing a SF mob will run away, change target if don't have skills that passes SF. Also at first look changing a bit the AI looks a hard thing to do, in fact you don't need more then 1 person to write that code and I have strong reasons to believe that to right that code can be done in less then 1 day by a single person.

Compared to other classes dagger skills have a huge handicap. The sin needs to chain his atack to be able to use his dagger skills, other classes don't have this handicap. If by any reasons the chain is broke the sin has a problem. The problem is even bigger cause there are way to few skills with a fast recharge. I always saw Shadow Form as a bonus for the fact the dagger skills needs to be chained and cause there are not many options to make a bar with dagger skills with fast recharge. Taking Shadow Form from sins and buffering the warrior will make the sin not wanted. Who needs a class that can't tank and is outmatch at damage by a class that can tank also? Noone! And this is actually a major problem. I always tought that a class should have the best build using his own weapon (daggers in the case of the sin), but from several tests I noticed that daggers are not the best weapon for sins in PVE if the sin don't perma. Heroes have major problems chaining the dagger skills and I will not even talk about dagger heroes. Also in a party as a dagger sin you can do mistakes, let's say you are using dagger skills on a target, that target is low hp and you can use the dual attack, you use the dual atack but surprise someone else from the party killed the mob and your dual attack will be wasted on another target if you have another mob close to you. And it's not your fault, at the moment when you took the decision you use the dual atack to finish the mob the mob was alive, no chance to know that someone else will do the kill before you. Other classes don't have this problem, maybe the skill will not be used at 100% of what it can do but compare to the sin it will do damage, using a dual atack as starting atack on a mob is 0 damage. The game should not allow you to use off-hand, dual attack if that attack requires an lead,off-hand attack and you didn't meet this requirement (this should apply only to pve).

I never said that paragon can be easily fixed. Without major changes I don't see a real fix.User:Thedukesd

ANet has made AI changes in the past, that much is obvious. Someone else on this page said they stated somewhere that they will not make further AI changes. Might have just been trolling, I'll lurk around to confirm it myself later. I KNOW that changing the AI would solve a lot of these problems. But the skill is still permanent near-invincibility, even more so if mobs don't attack you. You know that some perma builds use degen spells, right? Like Radiation Field, for example. If the mobs didn't even try to kill you, there'd hardly be a threat running those builds. One could suggest, again, that the AI could be improved to solve everything, but a) the above, and b) there are certain issues that only skill updates will fix.

"you use the dual atack but surprise someone else from the party killed the mob and your dual attack will be wasted on another target" You play with auto-target on? Yeesh.

"I noticed that daggers are not the best weapon for sins in PVE if the sin don't perma." Because scythe crits are insane.

"The problem is even bigger cause there are way to few skills with a fast recharge." Because each assassin dagger chain can basically be thought of as a spike in and of itself, if performed quickly enough. If you could continue autoattacking through an assassin chain (like so many love to with Jagged Strike --> Fox Fangs --> Death Blossom, sometimes with Moebius Strike) it would be way too much power in one character.

"I always saw Shadow Form as a bonus for the fact the dagger skills needs to be chained and cause there are not many options to make a bar with dagger skills with fast recharge." Permanent near-invincibility >>> Any dagger combo. Imbalance. Baed. --Kyoshi (Talk) 16:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Anet said a lot of things. Some of them happened some didn't. If they decided some time ago not to change the AI they can always change this decision.

Regarding radion field, I suggested the mobs to run away, if the mobs run away they can easily run a bit far away from you so area efect degen skills will be useless. Sin will have to use single target degen skills. Using single target degen skill will make the killing slow, also monk mobs will stop a single sin to do kills, and the sin will not be able to spam degen skills over and over(going with a team made with 6 sins will be a bad idea, cause this way the sins will have energy problems if they try to spam single target degen skills).

Auto-target is good an bad in the same time. Also I had some strange problems with that setting. Several times with that setting disabled it acted as it was enabled. (I don't blame GW for this, I have several problems cause of my Windows is not feeling to well (I experienced several registry coruptions and even file coruption) and I'm to lazy to reinstall it).

I see some of the aspects of the problem, you see others, other see other things. This is way I said you need a high number of testers. Public beta test sometimes don't help, cause a good % of the players will just want to play a game free even for a short period of time(if the game is not 100% free to play) and will not report a single thing, also cause it's a public beta test you can't control the level of gaming experience the players have, you can have problems in the bug report section caused by to many topics about same problems and other things like this.

Depending on how the skills will be changed and the impact they will have we can see in 1 month (maybe in less time) another skill update that will change the same skills. (And this makes me think that we are all acting as testers, and if we are all acting as testers at what good is the test team?!?) Also before changing the skills the test team should be able to find ways (more then 1 single way) to do areas were these skills are used (i'm talking about hm) with a decent team (not some addicted persons) without cons in a decent amout of time (better said less then 2 hours).

Someone else said that 600/smite team is used to max luxon/kurzick title and you lose a lot of hours to max it. Changing 600/smite in such a way it will not be able to do those sc will make you lose way way to much time to max them.

SF provides the best invulnerability, the other provides limited invulnerability (cause mobs can intrerupt, inflect conditions, kd u). While SF needs max 3 skills to provide invulnerability, other ways may need a full bar just to do the same thing (earth ele tanker as example cause he might need anti kd, self healing, mantra of resolve to tank a single area and he will not have place for a damage skill).User talk:Thedukesd

"If they decided some time ago not to change the AI they can always change this decision." That is neither here nor there. Let's work on the assumption that they aren't going to change AI, because if they planned to do that, then there's not a great deal of suggestion that can come from the community, because we don't know the limits of the specificity with which the AI can be programmed. It all becomes just wishful thinking without direction. Just let it go for now.

"This is way I said you need a high number of testers." Sure, you need a good number, but not thousands of people for a skill balance.

"Public beta test" Who said anything about public betas?

"Depending on how the skills will be changed and the impact they will have we can see in 1 month (maybe in less time) another skill update that will change the same skills." They just did so with Cripshot. It could happen.

"And this makes me think that we are all acting as testers" The Test Krewe are the testers, but companies can only see how things will play out if they observe the entire player base when a change is implemented. Some things aren't foreseen from testing. If this qualifies as testing to you, then the entirety of Guild Wars' history (and that of every regularly-balanced regularly-updated sometimes-updated MMO) has been one big test. Moot point if you really want to argue it.

"Changing 600/smite in such a way it will not be able to do those sc will make you lose way way to much time to max them." Speed clears are bad. Period. People have managed to max the Kurz/Lux titles without DTSC or MQSC. It's so damn dull anyway, I don't see why people would want to do monotonous work in a video game. Then again, farmers have their way of playing the game, I have mine...Still, speed clears are bad.

"ways (more then 1 single way) to do areas were these skills are used (i'm talking about hm) with a decent team (not some addicted persons) without cons in a decent amout of time (better said less then 2 hours)." Elite areas are supposed to be difficult. Some are too difficult because they have been balanced to make speed clears and farming more difficult, because they were getting overpowered. Basically, my hope is that ANet plans to re-balance these areas after the fact, because otherwise I'll find myself rather angry with them. Likely won't happen immediately, of course. --Kyoshi (Talk) 02:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• To make the AI play like a human is hard, not imposible but hard. To make the AI counter some think it's easier, of course this means more data to process.
• Changing a skill and then changing the same skill in the next update skill make me think that it was a mistake the first change.
• Speedclears, solo farming is the result of a huge number of noob pugs (at least this is why i prefer speedclears, solo farming). You can find 4 years old GW players that are total noobs, and you can find 6 months old GW players that are pro (and some of the noobs don't want to listen when you say then don't use these skills...). I actually started to solo farm cause of noobs, I was starting to get angry (witch it shouldn't happen in a game cause it's just a game) and to fix this I started to solo at least if something went bad it was my fault. You can find noob smiters (and usually they are the one making the 600 a noob, and when the 600 says ok i'm a noob you 600 i'll smite you will see the smiter leaving). Depend how you see the problem with the speedclears, if you think at the health of the players then speedclears are actually something good (my example will be from doa cause doa is the place were i lose most of my time, doing a 30 minutes run in foundry and then going to do something else away from your pc is way better then losing 1h and 30 minutes and then going to do something ele away from your pc). When you are talking about health of the player the fact that an area in the game it supposed to be hard is pointless. Most of the jobs = monotonous work. The time spent to max lux/kurz titles without sc is way more higher.
• I'm pessimistic a person and I don't think the areas will be re-balanced after the nerfs.The reason why I'm thinking this cause it's just to much work to do. Changing skills and not changing the AI is a good example of chosing an easy way.
• Selfless Spirit recharge time should be lowered to 40s in the same time with the sf,600/smite,obsi nerf. Also at rank 11 it should have 20s duration (same as rank 12).
• "Soldier's Fury will now give you -20 armor while active, but will not inflict Cracked Armor. " "Aggressive Refrain will now give you -20 armor while active, but will not inflict Cracked Armor. ". NO! This will actually make the paragon have the armour of a caster. Huge handicap compared to warriors, rangers (I said warriors cause paragon energy regen is same as warriors, paragons will never outmach warriors at damage, tanking, I said rangers cause spear is similar to bow, the ranger will always have a better range with the right bow). Actually the change made in the previsous update regarding Soldier's Fury was bad, there was already a condition to get the 33% faster atack and 33% more adrenaline. If you don't like this skill and you still think it needs a nerf then remove cracked armour and lower the faster attack to 20-25% and the adrenaline gain to 20-25%. Regarding the concerns about heroes monk spending all the energy to remove cracked armour, well after several tests I understood that you can't rely on heroes monks, also it's know that there are several skills that are used wrong by heroes, there is always the option to use n/rt healers witch from I saw are doing a better job then a monk hero, also there is the option to disable and micro the condition removal skills (it will not be the only time when you have to micro a skill to make the hero use it right). As I said before Stand your ground should be changed again, this strike way to much the paragon in pvp, anyway one of the changes regarding this skill that i'm thinking is to move it to Leadership (making syg only usefull for casters in pvp is a joke, cause in a decent pvp party there will be defenders for casters).
• Awe should be changed. The options to use it are way to limited.User:Thedukesd

"Changing a skill and then changing the same skill in the next update skill make me think that it was a mistake the first change." To err is human. To forgive, it seems, is less acceptable, even when they fix a problem.

"Speedclears, solo farming is the result of a huge number of noob pugs" Speed clears are the result of imbalanced skills being abused.

"I'm pessimistic a person and I don't think the areas will be re-balanced after the nerfs." Yet your alternate suggestion is that they change AI, which is actually harder to do than a few numerical switches in base attack damage or size of spawns.

"Selfless Spirit recharge time should be lowered to 40s in the same time with the sf,600/smite,obsi nerf." It's a powerful energy management skill, and it's in a title track. It doesn't need that. "Also at rank 11 it should have 20s duration (same as rank 12)." If there's no improvement for the last level, there's no point to getting the last level. You can already put the Kurzick statue in the HoM before r12. I don't see any need for this; monks have managed energy in PvE just fine already.

"NO! This will actually make the paragon have the armour of a caster." And you still get to keep the adrenaline levels of an angry gorilla. Plus heroes and henchmen won't waste energy removing cracked armor like many people complained about before. I quite like the change.

"Awe should be changed. The options to use it are way to limited." Deadly Paradox has very limited uses. But nobody complains about that one...I wonder why that could be. Oh, that's right! But honestly, there are some inventive uses if you take a look. --Kyoshi (Talk) 16:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Testing is the way to prevent most of the errors. And there were some major skills change errors...
• I'm not an usual person, I always chose strange ways to solve problems. Some of the ways i see are harder some are easier. Changing skills is almost something usual in GW, why not do it in another way? Also adding skills to mobs and changing AI to block sf farmers can be done in the same time. Why not? The skeleton in UW didn't stoped the sc because the skills they have are stupid. The skeletons can become the sin killers with a few changes:

1) Bone Spike changed to this: Skill. A Bone Spike shoots out, dealing 100 damage to target foe. The Bone Spike seems to penetrate all defenses. Remove all sins enchantmens. This skill can't be intrerupted.

2) Flurry of Splinters changed to this: Skill. A flurry of Bone Splinters shoots out, hitting target foe and up to 5 foes in longbow range for 35 damage per hit over 3 seconds. The Bone Splinters seem to penetrate all defenses. Remove all sins enchantmens. This skill can't be intrerupted.

3) If this is not enough. A mob skill: Stance. If an attack miss target loses all sins enchantmens.

• Selfless Spirit is way under other classes energy management. Also there are way to few people that have a single char. There are other classes that max their lux/kur skills at r11 or even lower (sy,Shadow Sanctuary,Ether Nightmare). The 5s is not a major improvement. Monks can't really use spells with 10+ energy cost without a biper. Changing Selfless Spirit in the way I suggested will not stop someone from maxing lux/kurz title cause there are skills that max at r12. I don't think the fact that sy max at r10 makes someone that has a warrior stop maxing lux/kurz title.
• Several paragon atacks & skills are adrenaline based (using an adrenaline skill affects other adrenaline skills) so he needs a lot of adrenaline. And if you think that Soldier's Fury is to powerfull then remove cracked armour and remove the adernaline gain from it let the 33% fast atack with the same coditions or remove cracked armour and remove 33% fast attack and let the 33% adrenaline with the same conditions.
• Sin has spells, Deadly Paradox affects sin spells, in some strage tanking ways (without sf) sin actually needs Deadly Paradox. Paragon don't have his own skill to knockdown...User:Thedukesd

"Testing is the way to prevent most of the errors." But it's never a guarantee that no errors will show up. Never heard of Murphy's Law, have you?

"Also adding skills to mobs and changing AI to block sf farmers" To every area they overpower? That just makes it unnecessarily tougher for non-permas.

"The skeleton in UW didn't stoped the sc" It was stated somewhere, by Regina I think, that they weren't meant to stop speed clears.

"Selfless Spirit is way under other classes energy management." Not really, especially in pressure situations where you have to cast a lot.

"And if you think that Soldier's Fury is to powerfull" I don't. I think the skills it fuels are too powerful, but they're the only way that a Paragon currently fits into PvE reasonably, and they're honestly not THAT powerful.

"Paragon don't have his own skill to knockdown..." Which encourages speccing into secondary professions or coordinating with allies. --Kyoshi (Talk) 08:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Why does it matter?

Why does it matter that lots of people use the same build. GW is the only game I've ever played where the developers care soooooo much if people use the same skills, its really annoying, who is it hurting if people use the same skills, who died from it, it does not matter, its trivial. Honestly, I'm only going to play GW until Anet kills it or they shut down the servers. Also, Between the utterly horrible communtiy on GW which Anet does NOTHING to stop and Anet's nerf rampages, I have no intrest in buying any game that Anet had anything to do with. I know for a fact that after Anet kills the current tanks, people will create a make-shift tanks that sort of works but not well at all, Anet will nerf that then the next tank and so on until it is not possible to tank past outside of ascalon and piken thus giving the older GW players nothing to do because they cant do things like UW, FoW, DoA, dongeons, etc. Therefore, I'm going to enjoy GW before its dead. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 97.121.1.47 (talk).

"I have no intrest in buying any game that Anet had anything to do with." "Therefore, I'm going to enjoy GW before its dead." Your argument is invalid.

The reason people use the same builds is because those builds are overpowered. Warrior tanks with Defy Pain have not been touched in this update, or haven't you noticed what with raging about a few extremely overpowered builds being nerfed? --Kyoshi (Talk) 03:11, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

My arguement is in fact valid. Most people choose a build because it WORKS, while anything else would not. I have never met someone who said, "Wow! I found the really overpowered build, I'm going to use it." The only thing I've ever heard someone say is, "Jeez.... I FINALLY found something that actually works, now I can do do the stuff I like doing!" Even if there was such a thing as an "overpowered" build, who does it hurt? Name one negative side effct of said "overpowered" build. We all know that regardless of your build, you can always manage to be killed by something. My overall point is even with so called "overpowered" builds, there is no negative side effect of "overuse" of such builds. The only reason I can think of that someone would be so mad over something as trivial as a build would be the people who don't have all the expantions and can't use the build themselves, so they have to take the fun out of a game just because they don't have what others have. By the way, does anyone know of a non-free yet no monthly fee MMO out there? I need to figure something out before GW gets killed by the developers. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 97.121.1.47 (talk).

Your argument that you have no interest in ArenaNet, yet are going to enjoy GW before it's "dead", is what I meant was invalid. Excuse the confusion.

The fact that one build works and no other builds work half as feasibly imply that both the build and the area it is being used in are overpowered. This game is about being imaginative and finding unique builds, both team and individual, that work. When only one works, it is a problem, and by acting as if the build is a godsend because it can complete the UW, you are completely ignoring the other factor of balance: the area itself, which in the past has been balanced to try to keep down your precious "farming" builds taking the entire area down rather than performing actual farming (attempts which have largely failed as of yet). THIS is the downside of an overpowered build; nothing else gets run, and the endgame grows stale.

"The only reason I can think of that someone would be so mad over something as trivial as a build would be the people who don't have all the expantions and can't use the build themselves, so they have to take the fun out of a game just because they don't have what others have." Because people with one campaign shouldn't be able to do UW, amirite? Bullshit. People with one campaign have just as much of a right to high-end PvE content as people who have bought all three and an expansion, and the fact that they are allowed to access it through Zin Ku Corridor and Chantry of Secrets is the proof that this is the stance ArenaNet has taken. Well, that and the fact that this godawful overpowered skill/build is finally getting hit with a nerf/rework. --Kyoshi (Talk) 01:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

*Points to around the end of your post* I NEVER said they shouldn't be allowed to do the UW, I mean people with one expantion don't have have the skills to do it. By the way, everyone got what they wanted, SF was killed and *of course* Anet did nothing to "balance" high end pve areas, simply leaving them non completeable, and if a build is found that can tank in the uw for example IT WILL TAKE TO FKING LONG TO COMPLETE IT (woot for 5hrs in the uw and around 2-3hrs into it, someone will say "this is taking too fucking long, I got shit to do, bye"). Side note: Woot! GW lost roughly 30% of its players and also there is nothing left for 4 year players to do ;D...Have fun with your dead game anet lol.

Oh yeah, there is something I forgot to add...After the SF nerf, no one is doing high end pve areas anywhere. I sat in ToA for a good 30 mins and not one person was looking for a group for FoW or UW, same deal in that one place (sorry, I forgot the name) in EoTN where everyone goes to find runs, same deal in Vlox's Falls, and the list goes on. So, due to the SF nerf, no one wants to do high end pve areas anymore... AWESOME, THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE SF NERF! BEST THING EVER! Basicly, he people who have the expantions will have to hero/hench (due to the loss of tons of players) their way through missions, but after they beat all the expantions there is NOTHING that makes them want to keep playing GW...just like a console game...

WTB NON-SF TOPIC--203.160.125.87 05:12, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You must have missed about half of the page. Well, maybe a third. Whatever~ --Kyoshi (Talk) 05:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Nah, just tl;dr'ed the whole lot of SF stuff and was like >_> --203.160.125.87 05:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Ravenous Gaze

I have mixed feelings about this skill.

On one hand, it's being changed from a skill whose second functionality was rarely used into an easy to obtain elite that while weak is easier to use properly and doesn't stress your resources if used properly.

On the other hand, certain mobs use this skill, and they're getting the buff as well. For the most part like any skill buff it's dismissible, but I have special alerts in my brain for anything that buffs a dino. Angorodon use this skill, and when combined with Unholy_Feast and Twisting_Jaws, and the fact they travel in packs of four to five to counter the otherwise lose damage ratio of life draining skills... I'm a little worried. I'm not expecting other people to share my worry, and honestly I worry about a lot of things I shouldn't worry about... but I still can't look at this is balance the gains to my necromancer against having even more wipes in Sparkfly Swamp.--Ryan Galen 03:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

No skill balance is perfect. As they have done before, they can work on fixing problems caused by this update in a later one. (I do agree with you though, I'm slightly worried. I don't like those areas to begin with.) --Kyoshi (Talk) 03:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Your looking at the same problem that comes up everywhere in PvE. I mean EVERYWHERE. Its the reason myself and others say PvE will never be balanced. Because if you have one enemy doing lifesteal, then you have mountains of enemies doing life steal. and they do shitloads of it. --71.193.48.146 03:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Perfectly balanced? Never. Pretty damn close? One can always hope. --Kyoshi (Talk) 04:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It's a welcome and interesting change, but yeah, Angos are going to be a nightmare in HM, you'll probably want to flag apart before engaging them. Manifold 05:00, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

They're not already? O.o --71.193.48.146 05:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The dinosaurs in HM is way tougher already compared to every where else in 3 campaigns in HM. No where else does twisting jaws followed by blood spike... but it's still do able. I doubt this update will make it "that" much harder, just have to be more careful. --Lania Elderfire 06:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to disagree with you there. I think that these guys Give Dinosaurs a real run for their money in terms of annoyingness. --71.193.48.146 06:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Eh, those guys are rather meh. Condition and hex stacking is much more manageable than multi armor ignoring spike. --Lania Elderfire 06:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thats true. I think i just have a love hate affair with my baby. lol. --71.193.48.146 06:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Upcomming 600/Smite change... or 330 Rit?

I know ANET has said that they are going after the 600/Smite builds since they are OP Farmers... but what about the popular solo 330 Rits? They use a lot of the same skills but packed on one toon and with VWK. Wouldn't that be a bigger issue since that is "completely" solo verses a 600 AND Smite? - SabreWolf 05:57, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually no. Because 600/smite is more common. So its more abusive than 600/smite. </sarcasm> --71.193.48.146 06:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, heres the thing... loss of 600/Smite, loss of SF, loss of Obi... what does that leave? 55 Mo or N and 330 Rit for "solo"? (I am ignoring 1 function farming builds that only do 1 area). - SabreWolf 06:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It leaves nothing, don't you know they don't want you to farm </sarcasm>. Wynterarwynrose 08:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Since they put a 55 enemy into PvE I think it's safe to assume they aren't opposed to ALL forms of farming. 76.188.221.120 21:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The issue they seem to be targeting is the ability for certain builds to rampantly clear multiple high-end areas with ease or at a fast rate, or both. I've never seen a 330 Rit advertising to clear any dungeon. Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ аІiсә ѕνәи Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ 22:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

^This. Before you start complaining about other things which are "just as bad as SF", provide a point of comparison that gives your claim some ground to stand on. --Kyoshi (Talk) 22:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Lol. If you think rits cant do it just as well as monks (and alot faster) your soooooooooo wrong --71.193.48.146 02:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Care to explain why they're not as popular as monks if they're just as good but faster? --Kyoshi (Talk) 02:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Because taking only 1 bonder means 6 customers where-as having 2 bonders means only 5 customers? Buisness 101 anyone? --71.193.48.146 02:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

You'll have to excuse me, I don't do dungeon runs, so I don't know a thing about the methods used to do so. The logical progression is that this'll spring up after 600s are nerfed, and this'll be next to go. --Kyoshi (Talk) 02:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I have a feeling they're banhammering SF, Obby Flesh, and the smiter bonds....which would kill VwK 330's as well. Don't forget that dervs can 330 too, but I think that the smiter bonds are key to the builds being fast. Without them it would just be slow. Karate Jesus 02:33, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Slower obviously, but still do able. By a team of less than 8 people. Which means that there will be room to take more people that don't need to do anything. Which means a running service will be born of it. It is inevitable. --71.193.48.146 02:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

So what? I think Anet is targeting Speed Clears, and without smiter bonds the runs would take forever. And by forever, I mean like 2-3 hours without some extra damage....so I really don't think they'd worry about that. Karate Jesus 03:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If they're targeting speedclears then why is 600/smite in the crosshairs? Theyre the complete opposite. Speedclear means skipping every enemy possible so that you can get to a key enemy. 600/smite is akin to vanquishing. Completely different. --71.193.48.146 03:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Whatever you call it, both are a problem in that they complete their respective goals in record times compared to more balanced groups, and both are (presumably) being dealt with. What precisely happens along the dungeon runs doesn't change that. --Kyoshi (Talk) 03:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

600/smite Shards of Orr isn't a speed clear? What about CoF? Please don't make me laugh at your ignorant replies. Pika Fan 03:14, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

No i dont. I think SoOSC is a speedclear. I think YOURE the one thats ignorant. Just because something is farming or running doesnt make it a speedclear. Thats why speedclear has its own name and isnt farming or running. Stop talking please. --71.193.48.146 03:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Because clearing an area fast is not considered a speedclear, urhilarys. Whether they choose to call it a speedclear doesn't change the fact that it's fast and it's an area clear. Go pick up some lessons on english and in-game terminology, then lecture me on a subject I am clearly more proficient in. Pika Fan 03:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Quit arguing semantics, please. It doesn't pertain to the argument at hand even slightly. --Kyoshi (Talk) 03:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Clearly more profficient in? have you ever even done a speedclear before? --71.193.48.146 03:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I have done at least 50 and 100 of both CoF and SoO respectively on my monk to know 600/smite is as close to the entire concept of speedclear as it can get. The term speedclear is given to any teambuild that can clear to end chest fast and efficient compared to most other builds. It is not limited to Shadow Form, that's why they call it speedclear rather than just SFway because if one day someone finds a faster way to clear UW/FoW that build will be dubbed the new speedclear. As I said, take lessons on English and game terminology, then lecture me instead on building on your already towering ignorance and lack of substance, thanks. Pika Fan 03:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Kyoshi... I am going to ask you to stop. You already admitted you don't know anything about this topic... So you need to stop dicussing the topic until you have first handedly done this stuff in the game like PikaFan, myself and some of the other people in this discuss have. I am not bashing you as a person... I just think you need to actually know about the subject matter before you go and make your own statements. - SabreWolf 07:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I said I don't know about the methods used to speed clear and farm. But I know a pointless semantics argument when I see one; that doesn't require farming experience. The important part is not whether 600/smite is a farming or speed clearing build but, as Aliceandsven put it, "the ability for certain builds to rampantly clear multiple high-end areas with ease or at a fast rate, or both." For the record, I have run DTSC before, so I have enough firsthand knowledge to understand that 600/smite has earned its nerf in the coming update. --Kyoshi (Talk) 05:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

DTSC isn't as easy as it looks, depending on the skill of the team it can take anywhere from 9 minutes to 30 minutes or more. I've been in DTSC runs that take longer than our 2 man hero team to clear Drazach Thicket which takes about 20-25 minutes. DTSC for me averages about 17-18 minutes because there are a lot of bad 600 tanks and bad smites, even our guild group averages about 13-15 minutes cause some people are naturally bad no matter how much they practice. How much experience do you have with DTSC and 600/smite overall? It takes a lot of practice to 600 efficiently and it takes more than just popping in the skills and go. 600 used to be easy as heck, and they nerfed it once already so that it takes a lot more skill, and I'm sure they will nerf it again and the learning curve will just get steeper and the speed clears will just get slower. Now getting the title faster, clearing dungeons etc... how this damages the almost 5 year old game where PUGS are dead and full human balanced teams are rare... I do not know. --Lania Elderfire 05:24, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I played with alliance buddies when I did DTSC usually. Few deaths on my part, but I did usually play 600 on the same route each time and knew approximately where the Oni spawn was. Only issues that arose were when I got distracted or when my smiter rushed in and got the Oni's attention him/herself. (Yes, it happened, too many times.) I never did 600 anywhere else, but if the runs are at all similar then I'm sure I could manage to a point. I will completely agree, however, that 600/smite is not nearly as bad as SF. --Kyoshi (Talk) 02:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Primal Rage (2)

About fucking time this monstrosity of a skill gets nuked. IMS+IAS should never have been allowed in one skill. :P Dark Morphon 10:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Rampage as one?--82.39.185.99 10:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, another example of a skill with a terrible design. :P Dark Morphon 11:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

There is a build for every martial weapon that abuses RaO (except of course bows) --71.193.48.146 11:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Only the Hammer and Axe variants are relevant, the rest sucks ass. :P Dark Morphon 12:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

BS, RaO sword ownzzzzzz. is for Raine, etc. 14:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Lol, RaO sword. Just lol. It's inferior to the Axe variant no matter how you look at it. :P Dark Morphon 14:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Rao spear is also viable in arenas.All builds have pros and cons.Sword is inferior to axe because dismember is a fucking beast Lilondra 15:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I remember when Eviscerate was considered a fucking beast. I kind of miss those days. –Jette 15:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to say everyone does but about everyone is fucking retarded and thinks they are awesome because they can spam shit so I'm sorry jette but almost nobody does :(

""Mesmers were just fine in PvE, IMHO. Right up until VoR got lulwut-nerfed, for no real reson except to appease PvP'ers who got sick of being VoR chained to oblivion, mainly because most of them are just too stupid to stop attacking."" to prove my point. Lilondra 15:53, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

hahaha where did you quote that from, thats one of the stupidest things ive ever read 86.134.168.242 16:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Funny thing is, I think it's from higher up the page.--Orry 17:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Att showed it to me.Its from guildwarsguru apparently, no wonder wyn has been ragy lately :p Lilondra 17:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Short recharge AoE hexes

I just thought I'd say it while nobody else has, but I for one would appreciate it if a short recharge AoE hex (Blood Bond's proposed change) were not added to the game. Even though it has a reasonably short duration it will work excellently as a cover hex. I'd prefer a longer duration and recharge if the functionality is not to change just so that it cannot be spammed to cover AoE hexes, which are problematic enough. Misery 17:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That's actually a good point. Maybe it could be an area-of-effect enchantment instead, with the same sort of effect but dulled down a bit. --Kyoshi (Talk) 17:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, just make it PvE only and it should be fine. It looks interesting for PvE, but in PvP Misery's right - it's too good of a cover hex. Karate Jesus 17:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

its lolterribaed for pve thats for sure 127.0.0.1 18:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

wat? You don't seem to know how popular Orders heroes are for physical PvE players. If this skill stays the way it is now, it'll be on every single orders hero bar..... Karate Jesus 18:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

orders are good for damage this one doesnt add to that and there are far to many skills liek hex removal condition drawing and giving back enchantment removal basicly ANYthing is better tahn hex baesd helain 127.0.0.1 18:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't read the last half of that, but I'm assuming you were basically saying that utility is good, and that's true. That's why blood bond would be decent as utility (you'd still have slots for enchant removal, hex removal, condition removal, etc.) Karate Jesus 18:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) actualy no even in taht bar you could wish for enfeblin blood and shado fo fear

	Elite

127.0.0.1 19:06, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, you didn't even know what I meant by an orders bar, did you? You don't use OotV, you use elite e-management (D/N, E/N) and OoP......Sorry about that, by this point I just assume that everyone knows the common meta builds that have been around since NF. D/N orders has been around forever and ever since ER protter have gotten popular, people have started to use ER OoP heroes too. Karate Jesus 19:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

i do know waht those are and specialy since VoP change d/ns less good (and thats overload wiht stuff already) i couldve posted e/n for example to point is taht order heroes have too many usefull skils to choose and healing is definatly not utility (it doesnt even synergise wiht d/n orders) 127.0.0.1 19:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"and healing is definatly not utility"

wat? And VoP is actually still good, since most heroes can maintain it in HM. And I'm pretty sure that D/N's already use healing as a utility, so saying that it wouldn't synergize is slightly asinine at best. Karate Jesus 19:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

its hex thats teh problem for a derv order guy (they need to be set to avoid combat and tehy need every enchantment aviable) vop is good but its not good for waht it was used for 127.0.0.1 19:17, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

IMO,blood bond will atleast be viable on H/hench and H/H way.Its lots of healing for physical parties so I don't get how that can be a bad thing Lilondra 19:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Urgoz's Warren or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Binding Chains

Far be it from me to question the changes to Binding Chains to make it more viable to players, but has your testing encompassed defeating Urgoz in HM without using EoE? Seem's like he'd deal a bit of damage, after all he does spam it at a ridiculous range. I'm not complaining, just want to see if you looked at this from all angles. LunchboxOctober 21:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's a though. Quit being bad and use an EoE. 98.248.90.248 22:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Urgoz doesn't use Binding Chains. He uses Forest's Binding. --Kyoshi (Talk) 22:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Forest's Binding - Skill. Fires an impaling spike at target foe which causes target to be hexed with "Binding Chains" if it hits. It can probably use a different version of Binding Chains, though. I vaguely remember similar things happening when monster skills get involved. -~=Ϛρѧякγ (τѧιк) 00:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

/facepalm, sorry, been a while since I did Urgoz. But what attribute level does the Binding Chains from the projectile currently equate to? I think that's the best way to judge. --Kyoshi (Talk) 01:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't see this as a problem. If you get hexed, just don't move....and this way you can still attack Urgoz while standing still. Karate Jesus 01:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

did you just sugest stand still and urhoz in the same sentence? your aware of these? 127.0.0.1 01:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

IP makes a good point, KJ. About five seconds standing still in Urgoz's room and you're KO'd for three, and far more if you get hit again after that. --Kyoshi (Talk) 01:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Shadow Step Shadow Step Shadow Step. but srsly nerf forests binding... --Boro 13:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

No need for a nerf on Forest's Binding, just change the skill so it does not interact with Binding Chains (like Argo's Cry does not interact with Meteor Shower) Koda Kumi 18:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

btw if you do it right, urgoz will never hit you, 2 steps then the time of 1 step stopping. he will always miss then :p78.23.98.159 22:44, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Ancestor's Rage

Seriously? This is already a strong skill as is. At 16 Channeling, 117 armor-ignoring damage every 8 seconds for 5 energy that is almost instant cast doesn't seem overpowered? Why not address the fact that elementalists are weak in end-game PvE especially when compared to MoP/100b and other builds that rely on armor ignoring damage to quickly dispatch mobs in HM?

Wrong. --71.193.48.146 22:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

15e. Elite. Conditional damage that is affected by armor. Burning in HM is cute.

Gz on playing high end pve at any point in the last few months. SF is gloriously overpowered. 98.248.90.248 22:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

^ current record times for DoA are with 3x SF eles + an SH--TahiriVeila 02:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

So i herd that attunments wer guud? --71.193.48.146 01:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Weaken Armor. -- --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.54.154.145 (talk). 14:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Soldiers stance

+Make haste. Gogo new PR (only this time with no drawback) --71.193.48.146 22:17, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

make haste ends on attack....--TahiriVeila 22:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Ups. 4got PvP splits. lol. --71.193.48.146 22:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Tbh, I see the Charge/Frenzy old sword builds coming back. Karate Jesus 01:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Godspeed, Orders, Soldiers Stance. Or lead the way + Evis war gogo! InfestedHydralisk 03:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The PvX build will be called Order of Soldier's Godspeed. Or Soldier's Order of Godspeed. Maybe God Ordering Speedy Soldiers. is for Raine, etc. 07:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Mega-lulz. How about "Imbaway"? Owait, thats just about every team build in the meta atm. :< --71.193.48.146 07:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Make haste isn't even a split skill... --Frosty 14:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Think he meant pvp/pve split--TahiriVeila 19:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

So did Frosty baddie. Make Haste is the same in PvE and PvP. Misery 19:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

lol ups. jsd :< --TahiriVeila 19:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

STEELFANG SLASH

PLEASE take another look at this! Using steelfang with either weapon of fury, dark fury, or infuriating heat (NONE of those are used in HA, right?) allows for PERMANENT quarter knocking with EASE. There was a REASON the recharge was placed on steelfang, the Backbreaker->S&M->steelfang combo is WAY too strong--TahiriVeila 22:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It might provide less adrenaline. ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 22:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

They didn't mention that it did. Thusly I think TV is pretty justified in his concern. --Kyoshi (Talk) 22:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I suspect that a lot of numbers will be tweaked, though they're not mentioned. I don't think they'd just remove a drawback which was put there for a reason. ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 23:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Why does everyone assume this will affect pvp? true it is implied but it wouldn't be the first time anet gave misleading information. Just a thought..--82.39.185.99 23:22, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

While you're right that it may not affect PvP, they explicitly stated in the preview that these may not be the results actually used in the update, so "misleading" isn't the right word. --Kyoshi (Talk) 01:04, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

They could make backbreaker drop all adren after you use it? That might stop steelfang abuse. --71.193.48.146 06:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Right, because making backbreaker a useless skill is an appropriate response to making steelfang stupidly OP--TahiriVeila 19:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes or Just slap a 15 recharge on BB so people can use erf shakur/devastating and still be OP? Yeah, no, Yeah. Lilondra 06:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes Jake, but I am so, so, so looking forwards to Coward! sword again :> Misery 08:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh and the correct fix all along was easy as hell: Sword Attack. Deals +1...25...31 damage. You gain 1...4...5 adrenaline if target foe is knocked down. Disables all hammer attacks for 3 seconds. Misery 09:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

^--TahiriVeila 22:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

4 ele mid line and r/a's say hi

Now do something about it, oh and bring back VoD. Endgame gank isnt fun 24.150.172.32 00:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah sitting at stand with 4 defensive midliners and a tree is a blast.--TahiriVeila 00:40, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

trees are meta again? :> MAFARAXAS 02:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

No. They would be if they brought VoD back. VoD was fucked and boring, what we've got now sucks too but it's WAY better than VoD--TahiriVeila 02:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

TBH Thats open to debate.Alot of (actually decent) people liked VoD to and just see this tiebreaker as a good intermezzo so TK can find time to fix VoD.Although I doubt if thats possible myself.Yeah, no, Yeah. Lilondra 06:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

yeah. no. yeah. - Wuhy 14:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

wat--TahiriVeila 01:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, Lil said so. - Wuhy 21:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Lil is tres b.--TahiriVeila 21:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Good Lord

Already every month the number of people leaving this game > number of people joining. Every nerf makes more people leave. So you spends months working on nerfs for everything people like to do instead of working on new content? No gg. 98.220.126.134 05:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If you can still say that again after reading everything that's been posted above related to Shadow Form (which I assume is the topic of your post), I will smack you. Hard. I will also smack you, twice as hard, if you bother to say it again without reading everything above. --Kyoshi (Talk) 05:50, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

People disliking shadow form doesnt mean they should nerf it. It being imbalanced could be a reason to nerf it. But players opinion of a skill makes No difference whatsoever. --71.193.48.146 05:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Of course I read it. Why else would I bother to post? All anet does is nerf nerf nerf everything which becomes popular (ie - what people like to do). The game is already dying at an alarming rate so why make more people leave? 98.220.126.134 05:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Because 95% of those people are retarded anyway and the other 5 % just move to WoW/Aion/co cause it has better balance and because shit actually gets nerfed there. Yeah, no, Yeah. Lilondra 06:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Care to explain why you think things become so insanely popular, as SF has in the UW, if not because they are overpowered? --Kyoshi (Talk) 06:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and while you're at it, explain why you're so sure this will make more people leave. Practically my entire guild is going to simultaneously leap for joy when the update arrives. --Kyoshi (Talk) 06:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I do appreciate the irony of Kyoshi, a member of a speed clear guild which relies on its 600's, being so down on other popular farming builds, namely sf, which i have not mentioned previously 98.220.126.134 06:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Because (guestimation) 8/10 people use shadowform on a daily basis and have their main characthers completely built solely on this one skill. of the other 2, 1 hasnt discovered perma or doesnt have factions and the other is a stick in the mud and doesnt like shadow form. (keep in mind im not saying his reasoning is good. thats just his reasoning.) --71.193.48.146 06:14, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The only people who will be happy when the nerf comes are the ones who will profit the most - those with many, many ectos which value will increase dramatically with the drop in supply. Its a greed thing. Nothing more. 98.220.126.134 06:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Dont forget the assholes that have some deluded fantasy of PvE being balanced and just want thing to be harder for inexperienced players. :> --71.193.48.146 06:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad for the update. It's the only new content this game gets anymore. Updates keep the game challenging and give me builds to make and more new puzzles to solve, so that I don't get bored with the same old same old all the time. I would be particularly happy if after this big update, ANet gets back to once every two months schedule they sort of promised us. Can we have regular updates again, pretty please? Tot 06:30, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

"Its a greed thing. Nothing more."

I'm pretty sure it is being nerfed because It's the most broken skill in the entire game It has nothing to do with who has ectos. ~Shard 06:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Shard, No one gives a fuck if its broken in PvE. No one in their right mind gives a flying fuck about PvE being balanced. In fact theres like 5 different title tracks (of the top of my head) that are specifically designed to make PvE imbalanced in the players favor. NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT BALANCE IN PVE. --71.193.48.146 06:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I care. Therefore, your argument is rubbish. Care to try again, master of wikirage? ~Shard 06:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes. If you think that PvE can (or more importantly will) ever be balanced, in any sense of the word. You need to either check yourself into a mental hospital or re-enroll in the nearest school. Because there is something very very wrong with your brain. --71.193.48.146 07:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

That's no good. What else you got? ~Shard 07:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

this, this, this, this, this, this, this and of course this. --71.193.48.146 07:06, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh and lets not forget this. --71.193.48.146 07:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

"Dont forget the assholes that have some deluded fantasy of PvE being balanced and just want thing to be harder for inexperienced players. :>" — Anon 71.193.48.146

Presearing. Shing Jea. Istan. It's called a fucking tutorial.

The game should not be harder for new players, but it should be harder for people who have finished the tutorials (i.e. just about everyone). As it is now, DoA and the elite missions are the same bloody Tank N' Spank faceroll as everything else, and that's pretty weak imfho.

To be fair, the tutorials largely suck abysmally in guildwars (they teach you how to move, talk to NPCS, attack, and use skills. THAT IS ALL.), and the devs should also put some work into that.

Regardless, at some point, people should have to learn to guildwars. As things currently stand, that's so far from a requirement to succeed.

"If you think that PvE can (or more importantly will) ever be balanced, in any sense of the word. You need to either check yourself into a mental hospital or re-enroll in the nearest school." — Anon 71.193.48.146

Let me explain, in a nutshell, why GW PvE can't currently be balanced.

The AI is retarded. Because of this, players naturally have a huge advantage. Because of this, the mobs are made stronger than players to compensate. Unfortunately, some players are also retarded. Because of this, they are given broken skills, etc; these are extremely effective. Unfortunately, everyone can use them. Because of this, PvE becomes a faceroll for everyone who wants to be as effective as possible.

How to fix? Let's start at the beginning. Make the AI something more than "completely retarded". Then mobs don't have to be level 30 to give some semblance of challenge. Then players don't need lolworthy imbaskills (and they can be toned down to reasonable levels). Then the faceroll aspect goes away.

Oh, and about the players who are just naturally bad? Fix the tutorials, win. is for Raine, etc. 07:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow. For once I find myself agreeing with Raine. Do you feel that sudden chill in the air? thats hell. Freezing over. --71.193.48.146 07:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Great, but it still has nothing to do with your point. How many other games have you played that have this particular mechanic? I bet that number is zero. Even indie game developers understand that invincibility in a game with a health system doesn't work. Shadow Form breaks the core rules of the game. It's pathetic SF was in the game for more than five minutes, much less three years. If you really think Shadow Form doesn't ruin the game, for the love of all that is holy, GTFO. ~Shard 07:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It has everything to do with my point. My point that if you ever think that PvE will be balanced you need help. PvE isn't now, Nor will it ever be, balanced. NEVER --71.193.48.146 07:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

No, you said nobody cares about pve balance, then you took a 180 and said pve will never be balanced. I agree with you on the second one. Anet has already stated time and time again they will not change AI (which is the source of the problem), and despite how often they are wrong, I trust them on this one. ~Shard 08:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not exactly a 180, just continuing on the same argument. But hey, the fact that "nobody cares about game balance" is no reason to not at least try to achieve game balance, by discouraging use of meta skills (Signet of Spirits, Incendiary Arrows).

Also, Shing Jea did pretty good with the tutorial part, it was a little longer with harder quests, and it taught about things such as synergy and catching kiters in the insignia quest, but unfortunately, people didn't understand to relate this to anything about the game. The jump to the mainland is also not as big a leap. Neither is it in Nightfall. ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 08:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

tbh, I went through factions several times without knowing that those quests existed; it wasn't until I rolled my sin that I noticed them. And even still, they still only cover very, very basic things. is for Raine, etc. 09:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Just as a response to the earlier comment about only people who will benefit from the nerf being happy, I have 0 ectos and I could use shadow form if I wanted (I have on occasion for a run) but I will be most happy when shadow form gets nerfed. I will make 0 money (I'll most likely lose money since I'm saving for a tormented spear) but that doesn't change the fact that shadow form is silly and needs to be nerfed.--82.39.185.99 12:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

tl;dr, tho I felt mentioning this: "becomes popular (ie - what people like to do)" something being popular =/= people like to do it - Wuhy 13:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Keeping the game as it is won't help to ease the playerbase exodus. That happens to all games, and there is only ONE thing that helps against that: New stuff. People like new stuff. MithTalk 13:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

"I do appreciate the irony of Kyoshi, a member of a speed clear guild which relies on its 600's, being so down on other popular farming builds, namely sf, which i have not mentioned previously" I don't appreciate the irony of this anon, as I bet he/she has never even heard of my guild. It's not exactly a prestigious one.

"New stuff." Good updates count for some. Dhuum should have been implemented after SF was balanced and the UW was balanced a bit, though, imho.

Anyway, I was not aware that ANet had said they won't change AI, but that being the case, the SF rework/nerf is absolutely necessary at this point. --Kyoshi (Talk) 16:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Why must my agreement with you always be partial? you seem like a nice guy. You just have some very strange ideas. :( If dhuum were introduced after shadow form got a its head pulled off "FATALITY!" AND the underworld had been balanced (you know, so that you didnt actually NEED 40 different tanks) then it would have been a fun and exciting new prospect. But of course. Player abuse of a usefull skill and the fact that dhuum is nearly impossible to get to on NM spoils it for the entire playerbase. No bueno man. Nooooooo bueno. --Briar 17:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

@ OP and others, where do people get info about how many players are joining and leaving the game? Your Guild? --smøni 17:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC) @ Obvious rhetorical question, Where do you get the information that the general populace of the game wants SF nerfed? Shard? --Briar 17:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

@Briar: I don't see the partiality of your agreement from your comment. Where exactly is the dissent? --Kyoshi (Talk) 17:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

You opinion that shadow form needs to be changed. Im a perma-advocate. Remember? --Briar 22:33, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten. I don't remember you having any alternative solution to UW being virtually impossible without permas, though; maybe it's just been too long since I saw you post on the issue without it being angry and unproductive. Was your suggestion something to do with balancing the area instead? --Kyoshi (Talk) 00:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Precisely. Making the area easier would prevent a shitload of backlash when the perma-nerf hits. And would really REALLY make the playerbase happy. But ANet actually fixing the AI and ridiculousness of mobs and mob power (ever tried to cast when one of These has you in its crosshairs?) then i would have no more reason to advocate perma. As it stands i don't know of anyone that has done UW without some sort of mega-tank. Be it perma or obby or w/e. So i advocate perma. --71.193.48.146 01:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah, so you want an area balance and then the nerf? If I've interpreted your stance right, then I understand your reasoning, but I wouldn't call you an advocate for Shadow Form. I wouldn't actually mind that, probably, but there is one problem I see: if you make the area easier, then it becomes even easier for permas to speed clear the UW until the nerfhammer actually hits, and so those who want it gone just rage harder. (And permas still continue to solo dungeons just as easily, too.) I don't know how large the demographics are of those for and against SF nerfs, but the different implementation would probably only make the opposite group angry. There would also be the issue of finding exactly how hard the area should be made for a balanced group without a substantial number of balanced groups actually attempting it, but I think that's what the Test Krewe is for, or something. I don't see any good reason why they wouldn't rework the area after nerfing the only viable method(s) of completing it. But one thing at a time, and there's a lot to be done to bring PvE as-is to even some semblance of balance. (Key word: semblance. No, I'm not so optimistic as to believe it will ever be perfectly balanced.)

Mindblades are nasty buggers. I can't argue there. --Kyoshi (Talk) 02:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Once speed clears are gone, another problem a lot of people are going to face is time. Many people don't have 3-4 hours to spend on a single area like the Deep or Urgoz... Maybe on a weekend for me but definitely not during the weekday as I "do" have an active life outside guildwars. There are other areas that take an hour or more to clear/beat and many times it's just painful and annoying. I've never done any DoA or the Deep clears for that reason. i don't want to take the time to learn the area, and the potential rewards aren't enough for me. It also takes too long to clear it w/o speed clearing, and if you fail you have to start over again. I've also never cleared Urgoz without a speed clear team and I've done it only twice... and each of those clears take an hour or so, at least for the teams that I was in. I like short, fast, and furious missions and dungeons where you don't have to pull annoyingly to finish something without wiping. I've also never entirely cleared UW or FoW; I never have the time to do so, and I've never went with a speed clear party. I know they are "elite" areas but spending hours with the possibility of catastrophic failure to start over again just doesn't appeal to me, and probably doesn't for a lot of people. --Lania Elderfire 05:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

One isn't bad. Draw its interrupt. 71.146.81.65 06:06, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Signet of sorrow?

signet of sorrow anyone in pve with demonic flesh? gonna be like a life stealing (okay not exactly as powerfull but still) mark of pain O.o --Miriforst fox 07:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Could do the same thing with flare. That doesnt make those spells imba. It makes Demonic flesh imba. :> --71.193.48.146 07:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Death Blossom/Moebius sins gogo! InfestedHydralisk 16:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Know what i saw just now???

Someone running the underworld. 50k. Those skellys are fucking beasts eh? --Briar 12:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

saw them to, they are called scammers:p 78.23.98.159 22:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Not scammers a friend of mine paid to be run by them , they finished it all.--82.39.185.99 02:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It's still pretty easy to 2-3 man UW, just takes a bit more time/attention--TahiriVeila 02:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

As if this page isn't huge enough already

Please note that these are the opinions of a near-exclusively PvE player who occasionally dabbles in FA or AB. The Demonic Flesh change looks like Necrosis spam will be hilarious. Glimmering Mark change doesn't make a lot of sense as an Air Magic skill anymore, but sure thing. Warrior changes appear to be an attempt to make Warriors back into the main PvE tanks again, which is a good thing. I feel that Shadow Form and 600/smite running of dungeons and various elite areas is ridiculous and due to a proportion of the community being lazy and PUG-resistant, having these options available makes it harder to find a group to actually play an area. As someone who plays Elementalist and Ritualist mostly, I like the buffs headed toward lightning-channel rit, am glad that SoS is recieving a (minor) nerf and hope that the buffs make the various styles of rit builds more viable and balanced for PvE. Not sure if I like the Spirit Rift change, but I guess we'll see. Bubbinska 14:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

lolpve Morphy 17:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If you think shadowform discourages PUGing your wrong. Just, on so many levels, so, so wrong. BtW "OMFG ANET WTF R U DOIN NARF SF PL0X SOEZ MAH WAR CAN TANK AGAIN!!" Wars will NEVER solo tank like a monk or ele can. Get over it and start a steelwall team. --Briar 17:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

You mean like a monk or ele did, after Thursday. --Kyoshi (Talk) 17:31, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

So i heard E/Mo's had some pretty impressive damage mitigation? that whole thing about not loosing more than 5 percent health from any damage packet seems pretty cool to me. --Briar 17:36, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I obviously forgot about whatever it is your you're talking about. Is it something to do with Ether Renewal? I thought that was for healing. Shows how much I play eles and/or how popular the build is, I guess. Fix'd my previous statement anyway. --Kyoshi (Talk) 18:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I think he is talking about Oflesh tanks, which, according to Regina, will be nerfed just as hard as 600hp monks. Koda Kumi 18:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

"that whole thing about not loosing more than 5 percent health from any damage packet" I'm pretty sure that's Protective Bond, not an Obby skill as best I'm aware. --Kyoshi (Talk) 18:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps he was referring to using ether renewal eles with protective bond ? dunno Yeah, no, Yeah. Lilondra 19:51, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, He's talking about renewal tanks / renewal bonders, which are somewhere in between 55 and 600 in terms of effectiveness. They're limited in the number of enemies that they can tank, but the have higher health and are more stable than a 55. On the front lines, they can tank touchies when other builds can't, but they don't have spell immunity and are very vulnerable to enchantment stripping. On the back line, they make any other tank better. I have no idea what Anet's position on renewal tanking is. It's kind of a grey area. I suppose we'll find out, either when ANet releases it's mysterious guildlines (yeah right), or when we find out what the effect of renewal is on the game. It's not a very popular build right now, because it doesn't have spell immunity and perma and 600 are clearly better. Also, it's pretty much guaranteed carpal tunnel.Tot 19:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

ohaidere ursan

So we break mindless tank and spank meta to bring back c-space clusterfuck, right? Lolanet--TahiriVeila 19:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Shhh! Don't point it out to them! I actually like the OP hammer shit and blood buffs, even if people are going to abuse the holy mother of Christ out of them. Karate Jesus 19:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

PvE in guild wars is already lolboring. The cspace buffs just make it worse =\--TahiriVeila 20:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Then let's boycott them! Although, rank discrimination on New Ursanway builds would be pretty funny to see again. Karate Jesus 20:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

^ except you need max deldrimor + norn this time, instead of just norn xD. Owell, pvp isn't much more broken and JTL is still pewpew fun. Kills time until ToR beta--TahiriVeila 20:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

c-space clusterfuck > mindless tank and spank meta - Wuhy 20:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Mindless tank and spank at least took SOME talent for infuses + tanks and some tactical splitting. Cspace cluster fuck you just run at mobs and mash buttons until you win--TahiriVeila 00:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Pretty absurd megabuff there, Anet can't learn from SF, ER, SoS and is doing the same thing again. This is going opposite way from creating a balance, they now nerf some imba and create new imba. --Yawg 00:43, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Can we get some more attention to the fact that we're about to replace small-brain-activity tank and spank with faceroll-buttonsmash-cspace in end game PvE? Not sure why I care because GW PvE is a joke to begin with, but somebody should.--TahiriVeila 18:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Detailed Feedback

This person goes through every change listed: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5063333&postcount=577 23:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to bother replying to that entire thing, but the Four Horsemen is going to be difficult until the area gets updated to suit balanced groups again, as the UW's balancing has been done targeting speed clears for so long. A little bit of foresight is usually necessary to critique things like this. Additionally, they haven't even said what they're doing about any of the farming builds yet. We have no idea if they'll even be nerfed to oblivion yet. Hopefully they'll still have some use after the rework (I'd hate to see more Smiter's Boon type nerfs) but at this point who knows. --Kyoshi (Talk) 01:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

"Assumptions that they will ever re-balance the UW" <- I lol'd. --71.193.48.146 01:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Speculate all you like. We'll see. --Kyoshi (Talk) 01:33, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think we've already seen. Thats my point. They fucked 55ers in the asshole but did they remove the one thing that was put in there specifically to stop them farming? The answer that question is no. And you can keep saying "they will" or "they might" all you want but it just sounds like your in denial and can't face the inevitable truth that they will never re-balance the underworld. P.S. even if they did provide some sort of pseudo-balance type situation where monsters didnt run in energy denying and inturupting PACKS, you would still have the problem of AI being completely dictated by protocol. Thus counterable. Thus exploitable. --Briar 01:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Holy shit. Briar just said something that's well reasoned and based on fact. Somebody punch me in the nuts, there's no way i'm awake--TahiriVeila 01:43, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Well reasoned, maybe. But it's not denial on my end, whatever it sounds like, and we don't have any facts that make it "inevitable" that there will be no re-balance, just like I have none for the opposite point. (Of course, saying I'm not in denial sounds like denial as well, but how can I prove what's in my head? I'm really not going to bother arguing that point.) To be honest I'm just getting sick of the constant pessimism. Everyone argued that they would never dare to change SF, too, didn't they? But what do you know. --Kyoshi (Talk) 02:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I disagreed a ton with him on many places. Sometimes it seems like he's just misunderstood skill functions (and he remembers names wrong too), but he remains relatively constructive. "# Jaundiced Gaze. Is it keeping the 8-sec recharge?". What? ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 10:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes they nerfed SF eventually.It only took them a few years and a TK Yeah, no, Yeah. Lilondra 11:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, it happened. --Kyoshi (Talk) 21:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Skill Update Feedback Page and it's total fail

Nobody is going to read this page, there's too much bullcrap inbetween, basically making this entire 'discussion' page pointless. If we would want to get any kind of decent feedback through this isn't the way. I suggest we delete anything that doesn't comment on the CURRENT skill changes (not what's NOT there). Everybody that wants to post his thoughts on the preview opens a new header and people can comment on how good or bad his logic is. If you have your own ideas on how it should be better; new header. (Artisan Archer 10:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC))

Lol. No. --Briar 10:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The irony... King Neoterikos 10:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Inorite? --Briar 10:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

There are some ongoing discussions, but I'd archive this page to limit discussion and to not have a massive page. ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 10:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Who cares? Update goes live tomorrow and the discussion will move. It's more useful large and ungainly for now than archived. Misery 11:29, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You might actually be surprised at how much of this is being read/monitored by ArenaNet. -- Wyn talk 11:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Lmfao. Yes Wyn, I would be VERY surprised "how much of this is being read or monitered by ANet". Roflwaffle. --Briar 11:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Wyn,Perhaps I'm bad at psychology but wouldn't anyone with iQ 90 or above realise that if people know you are reading they will appreciate it.You can do this by posting,posting or posting.Things similar to yh,blablabla.I'm pretty sure it takes less time to monitor it once every X days and add 1-3 comments then to monitor it every X-Y days.Yeah, no, Yeah. Lilondra 15:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

And if changes are implemented based on the comments here, then people will know that they are being listened to, and they will appreciate it.

There are still discussions going on right now in several of the above sections, I would also recommend leaving it as is right now. Probably after the actual update it should be archived. --Kyoshi (Talk) 16:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't care myself, my computer(s) manages this just fine. And yes, I didn't take in account that this page will soon be forgotten. Why arrrrrchive it after that? ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 17:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Because people with brand new accounts like to post lame opinions about lame topics on pages that are temporary at the very best? --Briar Flame Me 18:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

"Omg I hurd anet is baed et balanceing lol"

"rofl no wonding strike nerf XD XD XD"

"I WILL STOP PLAYING IF THEY NERF MY SF SIN."

"stop nerfing ranger damage, warriors deal more then rangers nerf warriors"

I can't believe developers are ignoring this goldmine of feedback. -Cursed Angel 18:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Tbh a few of us who actually understand game mechanics have actually made positive contributions. Most people who understand how the game works just forgoe this whole shitstorm and MSN Regina though.--TahiriVeila 18:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

@Lilondra - No, they have pretty much realized that if they post anything it's just going to feed the frenzy. So they read. As for archiving this, it has not reached critical mass, and I don't believe it will prior to the update, so just leave it be imo. -- Wyn talk 18:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

^ the only thing that would be accomplished by archiving is removing the necessity to load 325 kB when posting. But that can be easily avoided by just editing a section. So there's no real point in archiving.--TahiriVeila 18:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying they should activly be part of the discussion.I'm just saying they can post 2-3 times every X days.Yeah, no, Yeah. Lilondra 19:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Archive

Yes? Talk page is far longer than some others that have been archived. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 92.9.238.239 (talk).

Way to ignore the discussion right above you. --Briar Flame Me 18:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I specialise in ignoring useless chatter that gains no good. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 92.9.238.239 (talk).

It would seem you also specialize in Creating it. Also, if your to lazy to use four ~'s on your own, theres a button at the top of the editing window (second from the right) that will do it for you. --Briar Flame Me 18:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Slap the unsigned tag onto my lines if you want, but i'm not gonna be forced to sign. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 92.9.238.239 (talk).

hf with a vacation then--TahiriVeila 18:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Lol i'll be blocked for refusing to sign? Honestly that is a pretty sad act of enforcment. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 92.9.238.239 (talk).

"I'm brave and strong cuz i dont sign my edits!" -3/10 Bad troll bad. P.S. No, youll be blocked for trolling. (in this case it means purposefully disobeying a policy for the sole purpose of disobeying when you are fully aware of what it entails) --Briar Flame Me 18:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

GWW is pretty sad in general. Get over it.--TahiriVeila 18:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Whether somebody is trolling or not is an opinion, since it relies on peoples act of judgment if said person is being srs or joking around, hoping to get srs-replies - something which i'm not doing. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 92.9.238.239 (talk).

Doesn't really matter. GWW Sysops have the authority to construe policies + comments in whatever manner they wish in order to block people unreasonably.--TahiriVeila 18:43, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to get somebody to block me, but you know a much better way to make me fuck off? It's to reason with me. Since i'll be back both ways.

I personally have no problem with you refusing to sign. I'm simply explaining to you what the repercussions of that action will be and while they will occur. In my opinion GWW needs to cut its anal-retentive factor down a great deal and realize that white-knighting every person who doesn't fit into the conceptual notion of what a perfect wiki user should be will result in disaster.--TahiriVeila 19:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

He's not obliged to sign. People aren't obliged to not slap on an unsigned tag either. Yay, pointless drama. Do whatever the hell you want ya'll. Misery 22:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

you're just saying that cuz you're misles, i know plenty of admins on GWW who'd ban fro not signing after one had been told to sign they're comments =P --TahiriVeila 22:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Renewing smash

• Renewing Smash Renewing Smash is also being reworked. It will cost 5 energy, deal 10..40 bonus damage, and will recharge instantly and give you 3 energy back when used on a knocked-down foe. It will have a 1-second activation time in PvE.

so when used with stonefist and IAS you can hit a KDed enemy 3 times in a row with this. amirite?--88.24.8.104 19:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

No real point When you can just Erf Shakuur->crude swing->erf shakuur->whirlwind chain until a mob is dead.--TahiriVeila 19:03, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

fails at teh assumption that there are enough foes most of the time 127.0.0.1 21:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Was assuming that you'd be running orders + enraging so it's not that big a problem getting adren =\ If you're not running orders with a melee bar in PvE you're Doing It Wrong--TahiriVeila 21:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Less foes than needed to be able to do that can probably be dispatched in under 10 seconds anyway, so kinda irrelevant. --92.10.117.207 21:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

he is talking about pvp i guess?:3 - Wuhy 21:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Can't be, whirling is pve-only =\--TahiriVeila 21:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Qknock pve with Yeti Smash. InfestedHydralisk 22:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh i forgot about that. Yeti smash + Erf shakuur + crude swing + whirlwind. Gotta love it when hammers are better scythes than scythes--TahiriVeila 22:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

IMO, the change to RSmash looks really, really good. However, Tahiri, do you find hammers superior to scythes in both PvE AND PvP? DarkNe7h 22:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Hammers WILL be better/on par with scythes in PvE and are better in PvP. --92.10.117.207 22:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Scythes are kinda suq in PvP b/c of their slow attack rate and the nerfs to scythe attacks & buffs to axe/sword/daggers. Scythes are only good in HA hexways where they can easily put DW on half a team. Hammers will always be amazing in pvp b/c 6s knocklocking is godly. Holy EC batman--TahiriVeila 22:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Better in PvE? Okay, I can see that. But in PvP,....Wrong.96.233.6.119 22:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Shit like wounding strike only works well in pressure builds (hexway), apart from that Axe/Hammer/Swords in general Warriors are better. --Frosty 22:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Gotta say i agree on this one. 6second knocklock can make shitloads more stuff happen than DW. Not to mention that 6 second knock makes DW kinda easy. --Briar Flame Me 22:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

"Can't be, whirling is pve-only =\" I was talking about the OP's post - Wuhy 22:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

O ups. It'll be strong for like tombs i guess. I can see it in a backbreaker/steelfang build with WoF. Otherwise it's not really worth it b/c you can't qlock with it + DW--TahiriVeila 22:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You can if you're IASd when you hit your elite KD. is for Raine, etc. 01:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Which means being in flail when you hit your elite, which is pretty meh--TahiriVeila 13:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

you ould alwyas activat flail while using bs 127.0.0.1 13:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

you could just man up and use frenzy ... Yeah, no, Yeah. Lilondra 16:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

you could just man up and not use yeah np yeah 127.0.0.1 16:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

its in his sig I guess, it looks kinda retarded coz it looks like he writes it after every post, writing 2 dashes before it and bolding it might help, see: -- Yeah, no, Yeah. Lilondra 16:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC) - Wuhy 16:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

And imitating it is just so cute! *ruffles IP's hair* --Kyoshi (Talk) 16:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

127 isn't actually an anon. is for Raine, etc. 16:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Well I feel silly. --Kyoshi (Talk) 17:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

You realize what 127.0.0.1 is right?--TahiriVeila 19:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

w:localhost--Orry 20:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know. I don't have that much networking knowledge. --Kyoshi (Talk) 00:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Dulled weapon

→ moved from Feedback talk:Skill update previews

Can be used for support tanking? -195.181.32.133 07:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

bear

ok so, they removed bear cuz it was over used and people couldnt get into partys unless they had it. thats part of the reason they are removing perma and such.. well, all these changes are going to make some places impossibly hard in HM, so i say nerf cons a little, and give us back our bear!!!!!(or at least fix totem of man) 98.108.133.225 08:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Lol, bringing back an overpowered and mindless skill? That sounds like a horrible idea to me. Morphy 11:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Lau already has spamway clusterfucks in mind for the new meta. :> is for Raine, etc. 11:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

^ new meta is basically ursan. You get on a hammer warrior with 100% uptime DBS, AoE weakness, and like 4 AoE attacks. Take 5 of them, an orders, and two monks and steamroll shit. PvE is ma dfun, c?--TahiriVeila 13:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

"Hammer"

Best fucking PvE meta ever. is for Raine, etc. 16:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

dwarven hammerfuck to be precise. Athrun 01:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The changed the bear because people weren't playing as a certain profession. They were playing as bears, as if bear was a 11th profession. The same happened with assassins. People no longer asked for 'perma assassins', they just asked for permas, and many of them almost never changed the basic perma skills in their skill bars. There are 8 skill slots and 10 professions, you know. MithTalk 16:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Warning: This page is 371,973 bytes long

lol? Vili 点 20:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

This is kinda like the conversation on healthcare in America... so many words and conversations, and not a shred of consensus on most things here. --Lania Elderfire 21:34, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps if the page could be split into two columns... at least we'd make better use of space. Previously Unsigned 22:27, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

nop, too much space wasted in establishing the blank space you need between columns. MAFARAXAS 22:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Mark of Fury

I have my reservations about adding any additional adrenaline gain to pvp format as it can be fuel for the constant kd/interupt lock which is already devistating in 4 man play. This is a hex though. And like all hexes, are much less powerful than direct affects as there are dozen of hex removals and dozens more interupts/kds/energy denial to counter it.

That being said, i think the skill could be reworded just slightly to benefit a broader range of characters without too much fuss. Changing the adrenaline gain to 'skills used' on the target rather than attacks. Thus allowing melee-mancer to fuel his bonetti's or attack skills with his offense spells.

Also i believe this spell is weak enough to warrant a bonus which i think is really needed in pvp. This bonus is: punishment for hex removal. Every time i play a hexer in Random Arena and am teamed against a monk with hex removal i feel so impotent, already a hexer does far less damage than a melee character and this is compounded by a huge factor with only minimal hex removal, much less the total futility of facing a peace and harmony monk. If the skill simply had a really nasty affect when it's removed prematurely by an opponent, such as cracked armor+ 35..90 life steal. I recommend this rather than the straight cracked armor upon ending. Judge Omega 23:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Hexes are OP. elix Omni 23:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

"Every time i play a hexer in Random Arena and am teamed against a monk with hex removal i feel so impotent."

Instead of saying "Go die.", I'll say congratulations, that's how EVERYONE YOU PUT A HEX ON FEELS. is for Raine, etc. 01:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Duncan buff?

Way I see it, Duncan gets a slight buff here, no? Not saying he was totally unbeatable (though I never managed it yet using only H/H), but increasing his damage output should make things rather more challenging there. Considering lack of (balanced) group seekers, this may make life tricky for those attempting to H/H him, I'm guessing. Particularly the combination of spirit rift and spirit boon strike on him seems frightening, considering their spammability and his double boss damage. On the other hand, the changes to spirit rift will increase pain inverter output, for what it's worth.

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see, but I'm not particularly looking forward to it. Even more important to daze/disable... Twam Valandil 94.209.65.245 23:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The biggest troubles I've had with Duncan (H/H) were spirit rift killing several party members at once. I try to flag them away, but I'm not always in time. With the Spirit Rift change, they'll probably only be taking one damage packet when I'm not fast enough. Manifold 00:22, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

None shall pass.

→ moved from Feedback talk:Skill update previews

After using this skill in pvp, i can tell you that something needs to be done with the area effect range. It's currently so close to the shouter that combined with pvp server lag and reposition issues in pvp you can never land it right, or stuff that's still very close to you is still out of range.

Personally i'dd keep costs @ 10 energy if it meant making the knockdown range just a tad bigger. The long recharge would still balance it. --Kaga --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.151.201.213 (talk).

What PvP server lag? If that was true then interupting would be quite hard. InfestedHydralisk 00:28, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I just have an otherwise epic Finnish ping, so half of the time I barely hit Guardian. Then I go like yeah wth and find 1-2k ping spikes. ---Chaos?- (moo!) -- 00:26, 27 February 2010 (UTC)