AoE Nerf: Overkill

It means (or should at least), that if you press "T" under 30 seconds after the first call, this very target will remain recorded, but you can switch targets freely, but if you press T again, it will go back to the first call. It used to be like 10 seconds, or so.

I've done some tests. It's not an AOE Nerf. It's an overall damage nerf. I tried putting Spoil Victor on an enemy. He took two hits and then broke aggro and came for me - and i was two aggro circles away.
I tried hitting a mob with a sword. After he took a few hits, he started running away. I tried hitting a mob with fricking Flare. He took a few hits and started running.
Please, please tell me this is just a bug and not intended. Chasing mobs is no fun and you can't tell me anyone actually enjoys running after enemie again and again with each mob in GuildWars...

Now you how people who are playing the elemental class feels!!!!!!

All I am going to say on the subject. It took nature to make human minds how long?????

Now you have programers trying to make ai act like humans. not even the us army have free thinking program that act like a human!!!!!

<.<

Also fun is an apparent bug when using a runner. I had a guildie run me from Ascalon to LA, and mobs that broke aggro from my guildie didn't really react (read: did didly squat) when I passed walking by...

Because clearly no class has the ability to slowdown these fiends!

Shut the Red-Engine up and adapt you noobs.

Because when fiends slow down, they'll still attack with SS, VwK, and (yes, I tried) Retribution? All these skills and more make them run away like pansies, reducing damage of all these skills to nothing. Yeah, criplling them helps -.-"

If i'd report half the flames and downright flamebaits today, i'd be doing nothing but reporting. Seriously folks, as much as it pisses you off to read someone elses opinion, no need to flame him/her just because he is thinking different.

@dreamhunk
I've been around for a longe while. I've played before and under the first AOE Update. I never liked it. All it did was prohibit the use of some spells. Now we have another AOE Update which basically prohibits the use of any skills or weapons.
If running is the new GuildWars, then snares MUST be buffed.

I played my ele last night through Dunes and Dragon's Lair, and while the mobs ran around a little more than usual when I set them afire, our PUG had no trouble dispatching everything in a timely manner.

It was annoying but still playable.

I'll give it a shot, with the stipulation that by and large I like this update. The AoE implications are the only aspects that are potentially troublesome.

If the AoE change has an effect that renders certain disciplines or professions useless then it's probably a bad change.

The last time AoE was changed it made many fire elementalists spells useless in PvE (searing heat, firestorm, etc...) You really couldn't use those skills in a pug group and as such those skills died. With this new change it looked like you can add fireball and similar such skills to that heap.

In general I believe that worthless skills are bad for the game because they are just dead weight. If you can't use a skill then the skill is no fun.

For example, when I used to play my monk I really enjoyed mixing in Zealots Fire into my build. It wasn't a game breaking build. I just had satisfaction in knowing that I was doing a small amount of damage to the mobs attacking our warrior while I healed the warrior. Now that skill will likely be worthless because I don't want to break aggro (for obvious reasons).

More-over, the question brought up earlier regarding the Dervish character is a very good one. If the Dervishes attack and all of his enchantment stripping triggers now cause AoE break then it's probably going to be the the most worthless class in game history. I mean at least with assassins they only passively caused harm to your party by sucking up the healing. With Dervishes they'll be actively making the parties job more difficult.

Then there are the farmers. A subset of the player base really enjoys farming in solo and dual teams. If anet wanted to stop that then I'm sure they realize that they will be reducing their player base. If that style of play was the reason that anyone was playing the game then it stands to reason that they may stop playing the game if that avenue is no longer open to them. If the number of people who leave the game because of this loss of play style is greater than the number of people who are drawn to it because of the same change, then it's a bad change.

In the end I think the largest consideration is wether or not this change will marginalize a large number of skills. If the net pool of useful skills is decreasing then I think Anet needs to revisit the change and impliment it in a more suitable fashion.

Unless they changed how creatures choose their targets, scattered monsteres = monsters looking for new more squishy targets, so casters are at much greater risk.

Unless there is a bug in the new code I'm guessing you'll see casters having to dedicate a slot or too toward running skills or skills that cripple would be attackers.

Casters are in more danger than they've ever been. Tanks can't hold aggro, so those casters are going to be slaughtered and the tank left there going "dur hur? where'd everyone go?"

The question is.. who here use AoE spells for farming purpose? If almost everyone answer yes than there you go. The reason why A-Net is so up tight with AoE is probably to stop the damn bots and famers.

And this, in truth, should be the biggest concern of Anet because I know this is true for many people.

I never farmed until I finished Factions with my 2nd Factions character and then to kill time I decided to try some light farming. I wasn't really concerned about the drops, I just liked the challenge. It was fun.

I suspect other farming techiques will arise, and my primary farmer build isnt' really effected (that much), but this change does seem to greatly reduce the options available in farming so far as variety goes which tends to support your argument.

Once people finish the game with a character or two they will move on to other games faster. That seems like an undesireable side effect.

On some of my builds, yes. On my favorite build, no.

I tried my Vwk rit on a few spots i used to farm before the update and..
it still works.
granted, it takes much longer, but it can be done.
But while i can't spend my life farming, a bot can. bots aren't dead, but the wallet of casual players/ small farmers like me have a dark future.

Now, i haven't tried the kuzrick zone yet, but anyone who played there with henchmen an aoe skills such as firestorm or ignite arrows knows what i'm talking about. it will be a pain.

Due to the description of the AOE change and the how it seems that they scatter worse then before from what I've been reading, it screams the AOE bug when they 1st changed it where any aoe made them flee in terror.

Also everytime Anet Change X = OMG they killed Kenny, I quit... give it a month before people adapt and find new build that can farm nicely. That and 2/3 of the I quit.. don't quit.

And yes my favorite primary character is a fire ele, this was before and after the 1st AOE Change.

Really? See, I leverage Barrage to the hilt but if they took it out of the game I couldn't blame them. How can Barrage not trigger AoE?

i just went with a 8player group to FOW and we had to chase the mobs more than once, somethimes was total caos...no one died but it was really boring.

Your "The want PvE to be more like PvP" argument is a very good one, arcane. Good enough to make me doubt that the AoE effect we are seeing now is a bug.

If the scatter-rule only allowed more mobs--6, 5, even 4, it would be a lot better. 3 is just too low to me. It takes three times as long to kill even relatively small mobs. Tiny mobs are fine though.

Oh well, off to farm the shit out of rangers.

It also interesting to watch the Foes battle each other and run around. I spectated in the Hatchery in the area where Reefclaw and Jacqui are and it was quite amuzing to watch them battle a little bit, run away from each other, battle a little more,,,,,, over and over and over.

The change is a benefit in theory:

1) The water line for elementalist is much more useful in slowing mob movements.

2) Ritualist channeling and spirits are more useful because they do not depend on aoe and can wall the team casters from danger.

3) Anet will most likely add aggro shouts to the warrior that will overide all aoe ai for their duration and pull all enemies, their pets, and their minions to them. This would even make firestorm viable again.

4) Reduces farming bot effectiveness.

5) Forces groups to rework strategies in order to hem and control mob movements.

6) Degen is more viable

7) Overall refreshes stale builds and play strategies.

8) Encourages more teamwork.

The changes add some new possibilities for play. The game has been growing stale with all of the identical methods of playing areas.

I think it's because it triggers physical damage with the fact I'm not next to them when I'm attacking (this is only tested in groups). I haven't play tested it extensively but when I was doing the hero quests yesterday I could barrage entire groups of enemies without them trying to run away. Maybe it was because they all wanted to aggro the assassin we had since her armor was lower than the tanks? My farming friends have also informed me that the Forest FoW R/Me farm is pretty much untouched as well it seems. So uh, don't buy Obsidian Shards. :3

Possibly. It sounds like Barrage doesn't break aggro and that is probably because its not "Simultaneous multi-damage from a singular source". Barrage hits multiple targets, just not at the same time.

If a Dervish does damage that isn't simultaneous, such as doing damage counter-clockwise rather than 'every gets it at the same time' then it probably won't break aggro.

sssh. No all 55'ers are effected

Well, if it's really that bad, coupled with the upgrades PvP-only characters just received, I'll probably quit PvE after I play thought Nightfall with a couple characters...

I didn't have the time to see AoE effects for myself yet, since my guild went tombing after the update last night, but this thread sounds pretty dreadful. >.<

It's hard to think of a worse idea. Do you want to return to the days of gear tanks?

personally I'm a bit disappointed about this update, yesterday after re-reading the spirit bond description I just saw my fow armor fade away, sure, people say that you can still do 8 man uw, but just imagine, if duoing uw you can only get an ecto per run, now how difficult is gonna be to get the ecto with 8 persons... 12.5% chances so you must do 10 uw runs to get an ecto, how is that for grind?

i can see now geotankers in uw using kinetic armor + armor of earth + obs flesh + stoneflesh aura (if it doesn't get hit by the nerf bat) and lets see if those aatxes deal dmg... btw, does glads defense scatter mobs too? i was thinking of using sliver armor

ive already contacted the people who supplied nightfal to me and im planning to get a refund. this nerf is just stupid. u cannon farm because of scatter. u need 100 armor on ever player incase a crazy ataxe in uw decided to hit u.

the AI should be changed back. i can live with spirit bond being changed. but they changed vengefull wepon and all other skills like that.

i get u all £100 that the sales on nightfall drop ALOT. this better get changed back to how it was b4 >.<

sorry, double post.

AMEN.

The Pro comment posts as usual are from people that hang out on forums more than playing the game.

Anet finally messed up.... THIS UPDATE SUCKS !

And you farmers spend more time farming than actually playing the game (i.e. missions, PVP, or actually play with other people)

I just finished using a Geomancer ele build with henchies and enjoyed larger success than the typical renewal MS build. Basically I used the following skills:

Ward Against Foes
Unsteady Ground {E}
Eruption
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Aura of Restoration
Armor of Earth
Earth Attunement
Rez

I cast Ward against Foes after the first AoE to snare enemies then cast the second AoE after. Some enemies escaped, but they were generally near death and were finished off quickly by henchies.

I think people are just going to have to realize that enemies aren't going to just stand in one spot and let you whale on them anymore and that the game is still perfectly playable with this in place.

Why are there ALWAYS after every update idiots who go "OMG CHANGE BAK 2 HOW IT WUZ B4 PLZZZZKTHNX"

Don't you people ever learn? Anet will fine-tune some of the initial problems, you will adjust to it in time and you will realize it's better. When I think back to the days when monsters used to stand in AoE like some dumbass RA player, I can only laugh. There were even more people then going "OMG CHANGE BAK 2 HOW IT WUZ B4 PLZZZZKTHNX".

If it really bugs you that much, leave, but you're just being silly. Also, give me all your stuff plzkthnx.

Orbberius showed the understanding of a dead log. Congratulations. Anet destroyed so many builds. MM=DEAD, TANK=DEAD.55=DEAD,SS=DEAD,SPIRIT BONDER=DEAD etc.
MM is dead because of concentrated dmg in one area

If builds are dead simply because you cant use them without turning on a few brain cells, then yes they are dead.

*Cue laugh-track*

Interestingly enough, i guess it shows more than enough about the quality of arguments the "great update" side has, the amounts of flames, flamebaits and wannab leetspeak are mostly coming from the Antiwhiners.
If you're unable to speak your opinion properly and have to resort to "idiots" "noobs" and other words alike and can't help but "cue some stupid laugh tracks" don't even speak at all. All you do is help the OTHER side. You're not providing arguments, you're not discussin. All you do is try to get a flamewar started.

Brain Cells have nothing to do with it. This update is more for the down side. Not at all useful