Never really understand the skill balance until now

They never have or will make any changes to Protective Spirit as it is the best skill to preventing spike damage.I find you post irrelevant as to the what the discussion at hand is what is the matter can't you farm as there is nothing agianst it.

It's sad the vocal minority in PvP always wins over the concerns PvE players. ANet should load the skills differently in PvP to PvE, but I suspect they can't because the game engine is not flexible enough to support it. If they could, then they can adjust the same skill to behave differently in both environments to cater for the different styles of play in each. Right now, one environment always trumps the other - but one size clearly does not fit all. Therefore, you WILL continue to see people whining about nerfs in PvE - it's only reasonable to expect so.

And telling them to go away isn't really a reasonable answer. When PvE has become so disfigured it's no longer fun to play, GW will be dead.

Making skills different in pve and pvp is a bad idea. Playing around with skills in pve at least gives you an idea of how the skills work. If a skill is different in pve from pvp then someone that plays or used to play mainly pve will have even more trouble succeeding in pvp at the beginning which leads to frustrated players which causes some to abandon it completely.

Limit its max procs to 8 to 20 depending on protection prayers investment. Like the spirit bond nerf, it won't affect its use on prot monks in either PvP or PvE, but would totally kill the 55 monk.

It's relevant to what leprekan said who brought up nerfs for farming. Commas are also your friend.

Killing prot spirit isn't going to stop farming of course. It does make desiging a bot more difficult because they are better at totally mindless builds, there's a reason every farmbot is Mo/W even as efficient elementalist farm builds are showing up. I'm all for Anet encouraging more intelligence in efficient farm builds because that's alot more entertaining to play as I'm racking up the platinum. But some people want all the gold and none of the challenge.

SoA is going to be hit with the nerfbat because it's overpowered everywhere; RA, high-level GvG, questing, and the 135 monk. So there's no point in the chinese farmer gripe here, even though some people will inevitably see it that way.

That's hardly a viable change. Protective Spirit is far from being an overpowered skill. It has numerous downsides to it.

1. It is an enchantment, and so can be removed
2. It's duration is dependent on your protection prayers
3. It reduces the damage to 10%, which is only useful with low health

You seem to think that the 55 hp monk is capable of farming anything. The build is far from effective. There are only a few places left that can be farmed that are worth it. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two places in Tyria, four in Cantha, and two in Elona.

SoA is working as intended. It is supposed to reduce an increasingly high amount of damage. When used, it is a good way to relieve pressure from a target for a short amount of time. Just because it can be used to solo large numbers of monsters, doesn't mean it's going to be nerfed. Just look at Protective Spirit.

And really, you're compliants have lost much of their meaning, largely because most of the farming bots have gone. The biggest impact to farming bots wasn't a skill change, it was an A.I. update.

So you call having the Smiting and Devine Favour Runes costing around 900 gold, the Protection Rune costing around 1,500 gold, and the Healing Prayers one costing around 5,500 gold inflated?

The Rune of Superior Death Magic costs more than the most expensive of those (around 6,500 gold), so why don't they nerf Minion Masters, since that the main build that is used with Death Magic?

Besides, even if they do nerf SoA, I can just use my Elementalist to pick up the farming.

I just hope more people think that.

And AGE knows for the most part of how versitile a true 55'er can be, as he's had one of the best show him. I have around 50 or so different spots if not more that i do and can solo with it.

What I wonder is if you actually know how to read an entire post at all?
Reading part of it doesn't count.

Just because you think you are more important (re: better) doesn't mean you get to get away with only barely reading what you are attempting to respond to. I read the full post before I respond to it. The problem with that is, a lot of times I have to put up with peoples ignorant responses (re: yours). As much as I like pwning forum noobs in the face for the 15 millionth time because they cannot read an actual post, I'm not about to be excited about it because they suck far, far to much to ACTUALLY READ.

It's the main thing coming into use in duo-farm DoA, although no bot will be able to handle clustering for famine farming, it's true. Terra tanks or any kind of war would have much more trouble with the insane damage numbers there, prot spirit works because it doesn't care how much damage the opposition has.

SoA has much to do with the destruction of pressure in high-level GvG (well, in combination with the even worse BSurge). That's hardly "working as intended".

It is the overall best non-elite prot skill right now, period. It doesn't just reduce melee-based pressure in 8v8, it completely pwns it.

Is the skill update today?