The Future of Solo Builds and Guild Wars

I want to thank everyone for all comments in respect to this issue!

After reading the whole thread, nerfing any solo build is not the way to go. Later in this thread I floated the idea of having a section here in Guru identifying hotspots so those of us who have some extra time and the will can report them to ANET, however this also might have bad implications if a human is farming and is accidentally banned. I know I read where Gaile Gray stated they can tell the difference.

Some other way to help ANET could be:
In game way to report offenders instead of /bug maybe /bot
something based on time logged in like two or more days in a row without logging out
a way to tag them in game
Fill in the blanks support ticket with exactly what ANET needs to research/identify offenders and an easy way to report submit it

I was running my sin through the Kurzicks portion of Factions and was in Altrumm Ruins and there is a steady stream of em heading out to Arborstone. I bet there is much more I have not even encountered yet. Any suggestions you all may have are welcome!



The time is now to have a serious discussion about the Solo builds and the effect on Guild Wars.

I think we have to consider having the 55 Build nerfed permanently, protective spirit or shielding hands needs to be changed (and any similar spells) so it does not effect the caster.

Anyone going to Granite Citadel or Bergen Hot Springs (and many other places) can see the side-effect this build is having. I love my 55 but this is obscene. Before you post an answer to this post go there and spend 10 minutes watching the stream of Monks.

Is the preservation of these builds going to ruin the game in the long run? Will ANET have to allocate more resources to combat the problem, leading to the game no longer being offered without a monthly fee? Far fetched? Maybe, but not completely outside the realm of possibility. Have these builds already caused many problems? Yes they have. I completely understand that it is not the builds themselves causing the problems. It is what is being done with the builds, by the greedy, that is creating problem. It is a slowly growing cancer in our community and will not be stopped by any amount of banning. Banning is a game to the people who exploit games, one which they have been adapting to for many years.

It is too time consuming for ANET hunt the offenders down, it is ruining many facets of Guild Wars. I love this game and I am seeing it start to go down the road of Diablo II. I'm sure many of you have other examples of games being ruined in this manner. We only have to point to those games to see what could happen here.

I have reviewed many of the posts from Gaile Gray and the responses from many of you. I cannot find where anyone has suggested killing this at the point which enables Guild Wars to be exploited (my apologies if someone has). Many of the banning issues would be mute since the reason for the problem in the first place would be eliminated. Loot scaling may have never happened.

If any other Solo Build can be perverted to the uses we see in those areas then it should be nerfed also.

I do not want this to degrade to a discussion of what should have been done or who is at fault. And if the moderator shuts this thread down I will understand.

This issue is here in front of us and we need to offer positive and constructive input to see it through. I for one would be happy to find alternate farming methods should the solo builds go by the wayside. We the Guild Wars Community should ask for this change to help ANET keep our game free and free from exploits.

i think i agree with you that its a good idea, it needs to be nerfed a little(besides theres always still spirit bond for GVG/HA)

Although i think i can imagine all the "just because you don't have a 55" that will plague this thread.

It seems however only a short term fix as they(botters) will soon develop other builds until anet nerf those too...

im kinda torn tbh

There is no way you can nerf those skills Protective Spirit or Shielding Hands as it would cause an imbalance in the game.Many PvPers use those skills and they wouldn't be as effective if they were changed.

Could always give it the same Spirit Bond nerf; after 10 hits of reducing to 10% it goes.

That is what will happen. There has not not, nor will there ever be, something to really stop them. Online games have been fighting to no avail (in fact, it has only been getting worse) for at least a decade now.

Heck, some of the Chinese aren't even bots but with wages are so low that it *still* makes money to pay a human to farm gold for a living. You will *never* make it such that a human player can make gold but the human full time farmers can not. Not only that, but if it is a human doing the farming it isn't against the EULA and isn't something they can easily ban (if caught selling the gold then it would be). They are just people who play an inordinate amount of time. It shouldn't take much thought as to why one shouldn't ban human players that farm too much - unless you can prove they are selling the gold "asfda afda" mo/d may very well be a kid in Idaho.

So far, the largest cut to their profits has been loot scaling and it is arguable that it did more damage to the player community than bots (I'm torn on the issue).

Going this far will be akin to stopping runners with locked doors a la Factions (and to a lesser extent Nightfall) - yes it sucks that people get run to where they shouldn't (often with purchased gold), but the fix is ever so much worse than the problem. Do not cut off your nose to spite your face.

Well if it happens, they'll all change to eles and my secret builds will become commonplace. Oh well, I don't really see what problem bots are anyway. They give anet-net a lot of money and they keep our economy stable. Without them many prices would fluctuate due to people not being able to buy gold from the internet.

whats so bad about a 55 monk? or even a 55 necro? exploits? isnt bringing a bunch of earth armor buffs +stoneflesh aura the same type of "exploit" you speak of? or how about trapping? both take advantage of certain skills, why would you single out the 55 builds?

So let's completely ruin prot spirit and shielding hands, which are both great spells for not only PvP, but hard mode too, so we can get rid of those nasty 55 bots because we all know that 55 monks or 55 monk secondaries certainly aren't the only way to solo farm things. Or wait?

Do away with 55 monk bots, sure. Welcome to the new E/D (or any other number of possibilities) bot.

Anet, please nerf mystic regeneration, vigorous spirit, balthazar's spirit, vow of silence, spiteful spirit... no wait, how about we just nerf all of the skills (don't worry, res sig is safe!) so they are in no way, shape, or form possibly exploitable, ever.

Yes, something needs to be done about bots, but your solution is quite possibly the worst idea I've ever heard, and I've heard some colossally bad ideas.

I don't know about that, it appears on over 50% of bars in pvp sounds like its imbalanced and needs a whack on the head to me


To OP: if you nerf 55, something else will play its role its best left as is.

Love the deceptive thread title, smart if it was entitled "Nerf da Fitty Fivee!!!1111!! lolz" you would be plagued with flames.

There is no exploits with the 55 builds, talking about all of them here, Monk, Necro, Derv, Ele and War. Its game mechanics and smart players (then the cookie cutter kiddies that join the bandwagon) that created these builds. Not exploit a weakness in the game.

Your final soultion of nerfing any solo builds will only last a few months, taking away one build won't stop solo's. The classes will change and the skills will vary but you'll never nerf solo farming...
...Unless you make instances multi-player required. But then farmers will use henchies and Heros... wait they already do that to get around the loot scalling.

Your post is flawed for a great many reason,
You claim its a discussion about the future of solo builds, and yet you only mention 55 builds.

You speak of porblems and ruined facets of Guild Wars. Yet you fail to name any.

You wanted to have a thread that "offer{ed} positive and constructive input" and yet I fail to find a valid point in your original post. Which can be summed up with Nerf the skilled used by 55's there was no reason why the 55 skills should be nerfed.

You spoke of growing cancer and resources... Umm resources are a required factor anyway.


I have a 55, and I fail to see the logic of your argument. Show me ways that 55s are ruining or killing GW and I could possible agree. But until you have evidence or proof your sounding alittle disgruntled.

Any skills being offered into the game are intended for a certain purpose. Whether people use to exploit them for farming, thats beyond what Anet can do. Botters on the other hand need to be dealt with. But for the people that use farming as a source of income, shouldnt be punished. This has been said in countless of other threads.

And like julia said. Why single out the 55 farming build? Any profession has been used as an exploit at one time or another.

Nerf 55?
YOu will have earth tank ele.
Nerf Earth tank ele?
You will have trappers.
NErf? NErf? Nerf?
Stop.
I still agree that protective siprit should be changed into "target ally cannot receive more than 70...40 damage in one hit".
But there is plenty solo builds.
Did you see the Farming of ELite Canthan Missions? It only uses an AI flaw and spirits.
There will always be solo builds.
Loot Scaling is a good way to answer to solo farming. But is nerfing farming is really necessary?
To nerf solo farming, just make group farming a lot more effective than solo.

55 shouldn't be nerfed. All classes should have skills allowing them to solo well.

All classes do have skills that allow them to solo.

Even mesmers seem to have solo builds, so its impossible to nerf all.
When i saw the news about loot scaling i was "hurray! take that stupid solo builds", but then everyone cryed and then tehy took it back ¬¬

I allways thought that by adding loot scaling and increasing the avarage drops would solve the problem, but they only added the loot scaling and didnt increased the number of avarage drops that much (in a way that would kind of compensate to have 8 people in ur groups and still get drops like you were in 4)

I think this very fact (ironically the statement argues the opposite) proves that it's already imbalanced. Not heavily, but consider how skills make it into a pvp skillbar, and not just one, but arguably the majority of pvp monk builds run the skill. Is it because the skill is ok? No, because it has superior effect for the money. And in fact it's an integral effect which cannot really be removed without making monks useless.

The problem isn't the skills however.

The problem is that there are areas which the 55 can farm and areas where they can't. Hard mode added lots of viable hunting ground. But lootscaling completely changed the economy. I know I have access to every single piece of equipment I'll EVER need until GW2 comes out. Only thing I 'farm' for is skill points and tomes (personal goal of all skills known on my main character). I even merch 95% (well vast majority anyways) of the gold items I get just because it's completely not worth my time even setting up an auction for them.
The whole point of lootscaling is/was to remove the solo farmer advantage in getting loot. Lootscaling works well for this in that you *do* make more per time spent while in a full party. This is simple math, 4-8 member party can steamroll anything which can be soloed. Additionally, any area which can be soloed, and therefore crunched in a group *also* contains chests... these are guaranteed superior items. The income from farming in a party pays for keys or just save lockpick drops, whichever suits you.

Solo Farming IS NOT the problem

The problem is folks are scared of the ghosts stirred up by the challenges lootscaling made to the in game economy. Adjust, learn how to best optimize your play time both in and out of a party. Quit buggin ;P

I think this thread is a troll.

Ontopic, PvE farmers already destroyed Prot Bond for PvP play. I don't feel we need to add more nerfed skills to the list just because of goldsellers. Destroying Protective Spirit and Shielding Hands is an ill-conceived notion, at best.

The solution to goldsellers, and the bots/farmers that supply them is simple: don't buy gold for real curreny. I don't.

Meh if they nerf the monks, I'll go back to warrior farming or ele or Necro.
Been awhile since I've done a decent Minion Master farm.
Thats untill GWEN comes out, cause there will be more and exciting builds for solo farmers including 55 monks mawahahahahahah

Engage brain for a moment.
A-Net do ban bots. They don't ban enough bots to get rid of botting, but they do ban a lot of them. The bot-farmers then have to go out and buy new accounts to continue their business... which means more money to A-Net...
The more of them get banned, essentially, the more money A-Net will eventually get (assuming it gets through the intermediary companies first)... up to the level where it might ACTUALLY dissuade them from bothering.

As such.... if what you are saying happened, not only would it ruin Guild Wars for many legitimate players.... but it might also do as you say, strip out the farmers, strip out the source of income for A-Net.... and inflict monthly fees.


So... as I was saying... Engage brain.

Boo-fvcking-hoo. The entire backline purpose of PvP seems to be to get skills r4ped... so honestly, I don't see why you're complaining. Afterall, all I ever hear from PvPers most of the time is them constantly QQing about skills being too effective and the need to nerf them... then dancing elatedly when half the skills in the game are nerfed to hell and everyone else starts complaining.
Fvck that.

Nerfing the 55's won't do anything.

Before the AoE adjustment Elona Reach was my favorite farming spot. ( money, holiday items ) So I adjusted to it with a modified version of the 130 Dervish so I could farm it liek i did with my 55 necro.

Than the lot scaling came in and I couldn't use that build anymore. But I still liked Elona Reach, so I modified my 55 necro to do it in hard mode. He can only take 5 at a time, but thye die in 15 seconds and the lot was good.

Point is everytime they nerf something, somebody comes up with something to counter it. Necessity it the mother of all invention.

Plus we all seen the bots. And I doubt Anet doesn't know about them.Thing is how do we know the bots successful?
I'm thinking Anet has different ways or is trying to make a new way of battling them. Banning doesn't help and I doubt they'd disclose everything they do to solve the problem.

But what i can't understand is seeing all this complaints about solo farming and how making money is hard at the same time.

If solo farming is alive, than making money should easy.

Nerf Prot Spirit by preventing up to 10% of a target's 'normal' health. So that it will be always fixed at 48 max damage taken. That'll nerf them 55ers.

/Grabs flame thrower to join in the party of roasting the OP..

Yeah.. I mean come on dude.. I dont even farm with my 55 anymore.. I farm with my Rit/Mesmer.. VWK.. there hardly isn't anything I can't farm with it now... very effective.

you gonna nerf that too?

2 things.

1: A.net cant stop the bots get used to them..
or
2: A.net doesnt want to stop the bots, they want us to get frustarted and quit gw1 for gw2.

Its funny though, everyone who yells "Get rid of the bots" you only have yourself to blame.. they exist because you pay them to.

stop buying gold from websites... OHh wait I forgot a.net made items called JAPAN MINI PETS.. that you pretty much HAVE to ebay gold to buy.. ohhh yeah..

Flaux how dare you!
I'll find you, and you'll pay!

Despite the legions of people complaining about bots, I haven't heard one legitimate reason why they are bad that has any bearing on economic reality.

Turn Prot Spirit into "target other ally", lol.

They do cause inflation, and have an effect on the socio-economic responses of the market.


Simple version: noob buys 10'000k from gold farm, person selling item is asking for 100k+ectos, noob pays for it with brought money. Suddenly standard price is 100k+ectos.
Thus more noobs buy 10'000k from gold farmers.

Ppl, with this argument you can simply say "Destroy the game, players are too smart and use skills to generate wealth quickly".

Farming and solo farming are aspects of online games which you cannot eliminate.

The way to stop 55ers and other enchantment-dependent soloers is simple...

In Hard Mode, make sure that somewhere near the spawn/entry point an enemy with enchantment stripping and/or vampiric spells exist.

This allows skills to avoid massive change, and continues to allow ingenuity with builds.

Dont make it any worse on us plz.

Their inflationary effect is almost zero. In game gold is exchanged in return for a time investment. Whether a person invests their time farming gold in game themselves or flipping burgers at mcdonalds to buy their gold from gold sellers, there is no difference. Time is money and GW is no exception.

Plus, in the gold selling business is not immune from normal market pressures, in fact, it is directly linked to in game economy. It's fairly basic, but the price of gold from a website will rise until demand levels off, and reach a fair market value. The market value of gold is proportional to how useful gold is and how difficult it is to acquire in game. If inflation was a problem, as you suggest, the price of gold would be ever increasing. It isn't. Gold has fluctuated according to demand and supply, such as when a new campaign is launched or a farming spot is nerfed. The price of gold is completely unlinked to the amount of gold already in existence.

In your example, an item sells for a certain price and you assume the seller will sell the next item he gets for more. Why? What makes you think the item hasn't reached it's fair market value? What makes you think a gold buyer would have been willing to pay more? After all, gold to a gold buyer is probably more valuable than gold to a non-gold buyer and he would thus be less inclined to waste it. Your theory would require a real example in order to be at all valid. I think it's clear in the history of GW that all items have steadily LOST value, rather than increased, which is pretty much the opposite of inflation.

LOL I made a minor change to your quote, only added the bold for effect
in·ge·nu·i·ty
–noun, plural -ties for 3.
1. the quality of being cleverly inventive or resourceful; inventiveness: a designer of great ingenuity.
2. cleverness or skillfulness of conception or design: a device of great ingenuity.
3. an ingenious contrivance or device.

I wonder why the 55s have survived 4 or more major nerfs, couldn't have anything to do with be ingenious.
No Clever.. Never, Inventive... hardly, resourceful... Newb plz its never been resourceful.

I fail to understand why there is some much 55 hate.
'ZOMG bots use 55, lets nerf da Fitty Five Nowoza!!!11!!'
It won't stop the bots

THe botters dont necessarily have to buy the game... quite a few stolen accounts are used by the botters.

Or add something dropping symbiosis spirit. or nature renewall, one can imagive tranquility work somehow nicely too now when SoA is main keep-up skill of 55hp.

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But its academic discussion, seccond after 55hp is nerfed, new build will emerge and take its place. (i would lol, it iut would be Mo/x build and egold comanies would loose less than couple of minutes.)

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Btw, you simly cant nerf prot spirit and not make it overnerfed.

Case a: target other ally - hard mode monks would thank you a LOT. PvP monks would cry nonstop. Seriously, what good is monk that cant prot himself while doing split.

Case b: scale its damage cap - if you get over 20%, prot spirit is pointless, get it over 30% and its useless. People can do 105hp quite well anyway so 20% wouldnt be that great nerf to 55hp, but overnerf to pvp.

Case c: make it work on max hp - it would loose lots of its power that comes from working around DP if it worked with DP, 55 hp monks would simply DP thmesleves (they do that sometimes right now anyway)

The problem with the 55 build isn't the skills used, and nerfing the skills would be stupid.

If something should be done about it, it should be changing how runes work and somehow prevent people lowering their health so much (that is effectively exploiting the mechanics of the skills).

QFT. If anything, the market is depressed and getting worse. I see no reason based on economy to make even further forays into trying to prevent solo farming. At this point it would near kill the game to try and stem income production even further imho. Its very difficult to sell pretty much anything unless its greatly underpriced, an indicator that there is no gold surplus and that its not at all a seller's market.

You could just put a mesmer in every mob with diversion pretty much makes solo farming very difficult.

i recon bots are a big problem but i dont think the 55 build should be nerfed. all professions have an advantage build i think. The monk profession finds it hard to make money just let them continue.
people wanna use bots and exploit this and to make money, let them, its there problem. Some people enjoy playing it as it is and have no problem. Soloing was dramatically change by loot scaling but everyone seems fine. not broken , dont need to fix it

waaaaaaaah waaaaaaah people have more money than me waaaaaah wahhhhhhhh nerf their builds so i can be just as rich (or poor) as them! waaaaaaaaaaaaaah i cant think of stuff on my own!!.......

jealousy sucks. its a game.

I think that nerfing 55hp monks will only be an inconvenience for botters. They'll just adopt the next best 'bott-able' farming approach and we're back to square one. Cutting them off at source is the best idea but I'm not sure how easy/difficult that is.

If it were up to me, I'd employ a bot hunter and ban IPs which ran multiple accounts. I'm not that technically adept though.

How are the bots harming you? Is it your jealously that they get to make money for no effort at all?

Honestly, inflation in games is typically a good thing as long as you engage in player to player trades. This means fixed costs, like 15k armor, requires less effort (more like wasted time) to accomplish. Now that Anet has nerfed white drop solo farming, gold prices have jumped and ecto prices have fallen (due to the smaller number of people ebaying their FoW armor, possibly). This means the material traders get an even bigger share of your money, now that the selling and buying prices are farther away, relatively.

Unless you're selfish and take pride in something only because it's something so few others have, inflation is a good thing because it reduces the timesink involved in doing things in the game.