AoE Nerf: Overkill

wow. you know what, *I* like this update now. thanks for your post, it opened my eyes.

There have been sound arguments provided for why the update is good. But who reads the whole thread anyhow? Everyone just wants to get their word in, earlier conversation be damned.

It's the reason why we have these 10 page threads that go round and round and round and round and round until it exhausts some moderator's patince.

Personally, I think a seeping pustule of a thread sometimes could really use a cauterizing flame or two.

Ok I apologize for my braincells comment but when I see people just screaming about how this or that is "dead" I just feel contempt for that person, especially when I've just tried some of those builds and they work fine. I loathe overreaction and overreation certainly doesnt help your cause either.

This is spot-on.

Did the AoE nerf got increased?

For some reason, i think moderators think differently. It's just that they currently have to sort out a whole armada of flamethreads left and right. Besides if the topic goes round and round - don't post in it if this annoys you. This way you're not contributing to it going around and around. It's as simple as that - the downright best solution to the problem.
No one has to flame this way, no one has to read opinions he doesn't like this way and if there is really nothing to say without the occasional stfu from some folks, the thread will ultimately die - all without the need of throwing insults around and trying to mock people. Unless this is what your intention is (i'm not saying it is) and you're enjoying it. If that happens however, a moderator should simply remove the aggresor from the GWGuru Boards as he is violating the Agreement everyone accepted by signing up.

Templates.. they are great arent they? GREAT WAY FOR ANET TO KNOW THE FARMING BUILDS. ANET ARE SPYING ON US. CHECK UR GW FOLDER

they knew them even before the templates.
they got stats on how much a skill is used and so on. and don't forget they read the same boards as you do

templates are a great improvment, they will save us all a lot of time.
It would be great to have a filter on the primary profession when you'r browsing them in-game, though

... templates got nothing to do with the aoe, do they?

i doubt Anet know the jade farming builds, or the titan farms etc..

ROFL THIS IS AWSOME!!!!!! I am away for like a day and A-Net makes the game harder, I am loving this thank you much A-Net!!!!!!

They probably do.

It seems to me this patch hurt PvEs more than PvPs. In fact, for me, this was a frickin' amazing patch I love it. (I PvP though...)

It's not harder, unless you're soloing.

With a more or less balanced party, it's just more tedious because killing all the baddies takes a bit longer.

Just what PvE needed: tedium.

How delicious, dervishes nerfed even before the game goes live.

Everything you do in GW you do it from a server that belongs to ANet, your characters are stored on a server that belongs to ANet, everytime you enter an area your character and your build are loaded on a server that belongs to ANet, good luck hiding your builds from them. :P

"Good my farming, goodbye my friend, you have been the one, you have been the one for me..."

~Me quoting James Blunt

I don't like the AI update much so far. I don't farm so that doesn't affect me too much but I went capping with hench tonight and it was an exercise in frustration.

The enemies were just charging all over the place and Stefan and Thom were hardly fighting, just running up to the enemies and running away again. It actually felt a bit easier but took longer due to having to chase things all the time and having two cowardly hench warriors in the team.

Definitely needs some tweaking I think.

now you know how elementals feel

I'm not following up on the people who claim this is good because it makes PvE harder and more challenging, because it does not. It only adds tediousness to fighting mobs.

Now, if one would want to make PvE more surprising and challenging, one could make the spawns of an area or patrol routes random, or the skillsets of certain enemies change occasionally. Or add various types of levels (which I reckon Nightfall is going towards with traps and such)

Ah, but there is an upside. A rather big upside, in fact, than i don't think a lot of you are considering.

This update, while yes, has nerfed pve in a whole new way, will only serve to increase the average level of competence of gw players. How? By making it so that teams have to use different tactics, troop placements ect, it makes it so that people will seriously have to think about what they are doing before rushing into a horde or red dots.

Also, as to solo/dual farming, I personally think it deserves to be nerfed. Yeah, aoe has taken anothe big hit, but there are ways past that. I have been developing a 5 person SF team that uses air spike ele's, and it works exceptionally well.

Everyuthing can be overcome in this game. It just takes time, effort, skill and knowledge to do it.

That was said before but destryed the elemental class!

I did the same thing as Falcon. Farming is boring as hell.

Me either. I have a feeling people might be saying "7/8 LF MESMER" in nightfall.
Bring on the crazy bosses.

QFT. Though I just advertise as a tank and leave the "tank" part on my skill list. I always get comments on how good of a tank I am too. Go figure.

No one will miss you. And Arena Net already got their money.

It's funny how many people say this and don't realize they're being intelligent. Running lots of warriors with orders is going to make your PuG a lot more efficient, but people like "nukers" and "MM" better. Whatever.

At any rate I think it's just bugged right now and you'll all be happy when you can use your firestorms and searing heat again. Freakin worthless elementalists. ~.~
I kinda hope it isn't a bug so I can put frenzy and protector's strike on my warrior and never look back.

Well besides the AoE change I noticed something more important...

Today I decided to PvE and try out the new henchies controls, and for the first time in a month my character wasn't taking spiked damage.

Even on the mobs I faced while charging ahead of the henchies, all the monsters had different targets ( as if I was fighting against a bad PUG, lol )

It was freak'n great, also the sin and war henchies were pulling out when it got too tough and I had no problem being the only monk in the party of 8 keeping them all alive.

The new update makes it feel like I'm actually playing against things that think, instead of idiotic AI that goes and attacks, and always spikes in synce.

I tell you after a month or so of seeing monsters break the front lines going straight for me this is a relief, in fact I didn;t even have to kite as much, everything just feels more realistic.

Hmm, I wonder if the Goon Squad in FA are affected by this, cause those guys never broke formation. And had an endless supply of adrenolin for Coward...

Cut off the nose to spite the face, huh?

Since I find the farming grind tedious at best and only do it when I have to, I'm not really coming at this from a farming PoV. That said, farming is probably the easiest and most-well known way to make money in this and many other online rpgs, so what baffles me is that if developers don't like people doing it, why do they not give us more constructive and entertaining ways of making money?

For most people, gold is required for their post-lv20 and last-mission PvE activities, like forging armour, acquiring nice weapons, buying skills etc. And yet the only real way to generate it in decent amounts in a manner that doesn't take you months is to go kill baddies. People are understandably going to keep coming up with farming builds, and Anet are going to keep nerfing them, and people are going to moan that their tried and tested cookie cutter builds aren't working anymore, and the elitists are going to snipe at the farmers about how they just aren't 1337 enough at the game just because they want to go with something that is proven to work because they're farming for cash, not e-penis lengthening over their mad gaming skills.

If Anet hate people farming for gold SO much that they have to keep introducing this inevitable aggravation every time they nerf the latest farming build and in ways that often affect normal PvE for non- or casual-farmers, then the solution is really quite simple: give us more constructive, more creative, more interesting ways of EARNING our money. For me this is a key hurdle online games don't even seem interested in crossing, and so the farmingZOMGNERFWAH ranting goes on and on and on.

That post takes the words right out of my mouth. I've been playing this game for over a year now, and last night I went out into Factions and fought a group of 10 or so wardens after killing a boss to cap shatterstone for my mesmer (hehe, watch out for me in pvp now).

I rushed into the group just for fun to test the new AI.

"ok they will spike me.. i die... gg"

But no... that didnt happen.. the enemies "danced" around... they moved away when hurt.. they attacked random targets... they healed themselves like they WANTED TO STAY ALIVE

It was as if.. they were REAL.. and to me that makes playing the game 100x better then static "rush the first thing that enters the aggro circle" enemies.

I love it... ANET did a wonderful job with the new AI.

Also, with the new AI of the eneimes it will become important make TEAMS and not cookie cutter builds... anet gave us templates and the ablity to change secondary at any time for a reason.. think about it.. and while you are at it make as many mesmer friends as you can.

"GLF mesmer" coming soon to a district near you.

Winner. This is my exact stance on farming. Sure lot's of people say farming is dumb and boring, but there are those who like being able to readily afford things we want. I'm a farmer. I actually like it most of the time, too. It's no different than doing missions, really. Missions have you farm through mobs to progress the storyline, farming just gives you money at the end instead of storyline progress.

The reality is that there's no efficient way of making money beyond either

A: eBay
B: Farming

People attest to buying sets of 15k armor from just PvE gold, which is all well and good, but what if someone wants Fissure armor? What if they want that rare-skinned weapon because it looks nicer than the boring crafter items? Any answer given is going to be either farming, buying gold, or grinding through the missions to "not-farm" farm gold. So, ANet, you can nerf all the skills for farming you want if you just give us a way to make gold other than that.

O crap Dervishs are screwed.

Well I think probably this is just an error on Anet's behalf. Most likely their is going to be a new update with a few days saying "Fixed a Bug that caused Monsters to run away from AoE skills too easily.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Dervishes aren't screwed.
The critical mass for running away seems to be 3 foes, just the same exact number a scythe will hit.

There's is no 'AoE nerf', please read the thread before you post any more whining.

Ive seen alot of good points made here and otherwise.

#1) The nerf killed most solo builds, thus ruining any chances of making good profit and finding golds/dyes/materials to keep all for yourself.

#2) People do make too much solo farming. It makes it to where a select few can be rich as they are skilled farmers, they have the raw talent to be able to solo farm and have enough money to get thier farmer built. Sadly the unskilled/unfunded will stay poor. (maybe promote teaching newbs how to farm? but with what will they use to farm?)

#3) It will promote a team effort when farming. This is good if you actually have guild members to play with when you want to go out farming. Which 9 times outta 10 Im online alone. For big guilds it will only bring more wealth as a whole.

#4) If this "nerf" stays, and applies to all classes. The solo farmer (most popular) will be dead. BUT as some other people have stated if the enemies drop more or better loot + more gold (at least 3x as much/better as current) to be shared among the group, then the nerf will be forgotten as groups of 2-4 will still make a good profit in a joint effort to farm. Again my solution to make this fair would be to have the game "know" when you are alone and "know" when you are in a group. So if someone did figure out how to solo farm then they wouldnt get 3x as much loot but would get the normal amount. (which I am almost certain this is how the current game is coded to begin with. added with maybe new & lower level players get better drops allocated up to a certain experience percentage or age, then it levels off.)

I can not see any problem here.
PPL who do not like challenge can go to Isle of Nameless and farm barrels. Why don't you complain then barrels do not drop Ecto?

With this update GW is much more fun to play.
BTW, henches are smarter as well, not only monsters.

A lot of skills are area affecting so..

I guess they should just give US the stuff for free then as rewards for completing missions and quests while they are at it reintroduce skill quests so we don't have to use gold to buy our skills.I really really hate the gold sinks now more than ever.

Funny I had the exact same experience in FOW

I just laugh at these threads full of these whiners, have they seriously tried pugging several areas? All they do is go out w/ their tried and true solo build, close their eyes and start mashing buttons. Then OMG/WTF, they're running away! I can't do my 5 min per run repetative gold mining! OMG I won't have enough gold, the rich will get richer, I will get poorer, I can't buy anything, go red engine go red engine go red ENGINE!! Items will explode in price, the gw economy will crash, I cant believe I got suckered into preordering Nightfall!!

If clicking on a guildwarsguru banner ad deposited 100 gold into their gw account with every click, I think all the players would be busy clicking on the ads rather than playing the game.

I think the AI, at least in FOW and UW is horribly broken. My FOW pug which ended up dropping to only 5 people, 1 monk, 1 war, 2 nukers and 1 ss cleared the 2 hardest areas in FOW simply because the mobs just couln't get enough of our tank. Spiders no longer interrupt the casters, abyssmals are more interested in dying from SS against the tank, and casters just stand around and nuke. Reminded me of the horribly boring days of the book trick, but it was even easier than even w/ the book because the warrior had his hands free.

UW, virtually the same thing. I was in a pug w/ 3/8 1st timers, with skills that would usually cause a complete wipe very early on. But it was ridiculously easy for the below average pug to get through to the chamber.. where invariably such newbie pugs fail @ not taking all the quests at once.

A few players cry wolf because their solo build doesn't work like it used to, a few other start foaming at the mouth upon hearing this and once again, as usual following everyother anet "nerf" we have the masses in a uproar. I'm think I'm gonna go get my rabies vaccination now.


Come on, play this game for the challenge! Not for how much virtual gold you can farm per minute.

There's is no 'AoE nerf', please read what has been said already in this thread before you post any more whining.

This was addressed pages back, but it's really the kicker for me. Because of the randomness in monster AI, certain classes, namely the warrior, have greatly lost their value on a team. Anyone with a PvE warrior knows what a headache it can be to get on a team as it is, the populace is already deluged with "tanks". (As a testament go look at any post-Thunderhead Keep mission)

As it stands, tanks are no longer needed. They can't properly execute that one role at all anymore. Warriors are almost never taken on the merits of their damage-dealing capabilities, (whether rightly so or completely falsely is irrelevent) and as such they are headed down the path of the PvE assassin. Getting into balanced groups will become that much more difficult. And attracting a competent human healer will be out of the question, with their veritable pick of teams to join.

This portion of the update isn't healthy for PvE at all. All it will accomplish in the long run is narrowing down the class/skill choices that are viable to play the game.

You can't expect ANet to balance the game around the discrimination criterias of subpar PvE players.

So if warriors are good for nothing else but being a big fleshy wall, why are they holding axes, swords, and hammers?

In my experience playing the majority of the tanks are mending + vigorous spirit Paladins who run into a mob and just spam defensive skills all day. To illustrate my point...

PRE UPDATE:
Party: 1 tank, 1 ele, one monk

Tank runs into the mob and they all herd on him like mindless lunatics. Tank uses glads defense and the enemies are to stupid to know what that is. The ele just firebombs the herded monsters with MS and the monk just casts WoH every now and then. No skill needed, the entire battle is controlled and enemy behavior is predictable. Glads defense, doylak, WoH, and MS win the battle everytime... so who needs the other skills. Just repeat this process 30 more times and gg, FoW is clear.

POST UPDATE:
Party: Same

Tank runs into the mob and they close it, he uses glads defense and some monsters take damage. But rather than killing themselves like usual the abyssmal breaks off and heads for the monk, who obviously isn't used to using prot spirit at the last second. With 2 attacks the monk is KD'ed with deep wound and a barrager shadow ranger in the back finishes the guy off. Tank just stands there and watches his team die with no offensive skills and the ele has no defense and is mauled down by the abyssmal. Wiped, situation NOT controlled. The end result is the players suck and so they lose.

POST UPDATE
Party: Same but smarter.

Tank runs in and aggros the mob. The abyssmal closes in on the tank and meets an auspicious parry, followed by a hammer attack that KD's the target. A shadow warrior breaks of and heads for the ele, who throws up ward of melee while the monk prot spirits him. Ele throws on sliver armor, and the warrior retreats to healing sig, where the warrior hits him with disruptiing chop. Ele casts obs flame to down the shadow war, and the abyssmal attack s the war, who throws up doylak signet and wails on the abyssmal while the monk seeds him. Barrage ranger attacks the party so monk throws up aegis to prot everyone while the ele throws an EQ out on the group of rangers. End result: Learn to play noobs, the game was so easy its been spoiling you.

Nevermind, screwed up my post.