Dev Updates Today!

They are also one of the only remaining unbalanced caster classes in the entire game, but are a necessary evil and play a vital role. All I am asking for is more flexibility in the class, its not rocket science.

Yeps i know how to play Gw Signet can only be maintained 13 out of every 20 seconds on 1 target, ud require another skill to keep it up periminently on just 1 foe. Its still only 1 foe! Maybe if u werent so dependent on using Dragonslash to keep ur build running ud learn that the more skills u use to counter a foe the less u have to deal damage. Its no different than getting diversion put on u at just the wrong time (for you). Shutdown is a style of play that mesmer skills are best at.

Elite skills are Superior skills, but they alone are not MUST have skills, they are powerful yes, but u can live without them if u have to, and if u cant then ur not a good player.

[card]Weaken Armor[/card]

lol.

Ok, so I'm a moron. LOL.

But still, the new build I tried does not depend on more than one armor skill, and so should still work after the dev update is added.

BTW, when is this Dev update being incorporated into the game?

Alternative... rival... whatever. They mean the same thing. You managed to write a whole post attempting to insult me for something that you said yourself could be interpreted the same way. The truly pathetic thing here is you.

The only monk skill they buffed i give a damn about is Strength of Honour. And thats because i use it on Dunkoro on all my melee PvE characters. But its still a bit random...

Ok now that is the dumbest thing i've ever read...

monks get a lot of powerful heals at 5e cost. divine favor can nearly double the power of a heal, even moreso on healing touch. half the class's skills are energy management in that regard. necros would kill for some extremely effective 5e cost skills hehe

Actually Ecklipze, I meant skills that could completely remove the buffs, but ty for reminding me, and potentially everyone else if they would bother to look, of a skill that could help them deal with the heavily buffed players in RA or AB. What is particularly irritating is all the people screaming nerf, instead of changing their builds to counter the current meta-game, and storing their current builds until the meta-game changes.

10 more pages and yet again in none of them a explaination for the armor nerf typically anet.

Maybe if [wiki]Crippling Shot[/wiki] = [wiki]Crippling Slash[/wiki](..and begins Bleeding for 10...22 seconds) it would be a worthy alternative. Just my 2 cents.

I used Beguiling haze occasionaly. Silencing weapon FTW!

I'd still use Return if it was elite. I love it that much.

Siphon strength was already a cool skill, just not used much. now's even cooler

Armor was nerfed because of invinci eles. There were counters to them in 7 different classes, but nobody bothered to use them.

It already pretty much gives poison on hit since the only time anyone ever uses it is with Apply Poison. Giving it bleeding too would make it too powerful as a form of pressure.

A warrior can use Apply Poison too =p

Excellent Update! Good work Anet! About time.

I think a point that a lot of people don't understand is that what the community wants isn't always best for the game. When it comes to dealing with the community, those who shout most often and loudest are heard the above the others, but having a big voice does not necessarily indicate a true wisdom. Giving someone exactly what they want is also not necessarily what is best for them. Think of it this way, if a dog begs for a chocolate bar, do you simply start feeding him chocolate until he doesn't want it anymore? Humans may have higher levels of rationalization than animals, but they still suffer from the same flaws often due to their primal nature.

this update will only make it harder for me as an ss necro in hero battles

why the increased energy cost of ss? =(

i hoped assassin would have got a bigger nerf

Hmmm i like this update ALOT.

Everyones complaining mesmers buffs are too powerful, but in reality they LOWERED mantra of Persitence and made Conjure Phantasm + Nightmare longer to compensate.

PvE do get nerfs. Who remembers the old MM nerf?? I used to be with my friend he'd have like 50 minions rampaging through PvE. That wasnt for PvP.

Then Soul Reaping was an update for BOTH sides of the game, PvE Relied on it to SPAM skills on the monsters having a constant flow. They are making the game more challenging thus more fun.

Trade chat is something i've ALSO seen complaining about too much. There is something called PARTY SEARCH. In there there is a Tab called " TRADE " Which makes it EASY to find things your looking for. Stop complaining and START TO USE IT! The all chat change is for the better!. PvE people are also complaining about Skill Nerfs, That is why GWEN will have 100 + PVE ONLY SKILLS! So STOP WHINING and be patient.

Im happy with these buffs + nerfs. Even the Armor nerf. I think its HILARIOUS that PvE people are complaining that the armor buff will ruin Hard Mode when in reality it wont -.- What you were using in Hard Mode was WAY Overpowered and defensive. I mean literally even in RA, Ab, PvE + HB You see the E/D With like 4 invinci enchants then 2-3 support enchants thus making him INVULNERABLE. So that armor "nerf" is a BALANCE to an UNFAIR build.

So this update OVERALL in the OVERALL Community was FOR THE BETTER. So like it or not it is for the better on BOTH sides. Why do you think they didnt nerf SF? Its running rampant in PvP BUT PvE Needs it as a NECESSITY So ANET is trying to help both sides of the game.

The SS energy cost increase was becuase Soul Reaping is designed better now. 3 times soul reaping in 15 seconds is PLENTY of energy. 1 hit of energy from Soul Reaping in every 5 seconds isnt enough because say your facing a group of 4 mosters/people and 3 die, your only getting what 10 energy from SR? Now you can get 30 energy which in reality HELPS more.

(posted this in another thread but maybe it should go here for the devs - hopefully - to read and think about)

From what I've read, players using stacking armor buffs is really only massively problematic in PvP, right? Of course, it should be expected in a PvP match of any sort that the players would be far superior and more intelligent that AI in PvE, but whatever.

If this is the case, how about this for a solution? In PvE there are areas in missions that have conditionals placed on the players. Movement slowed, healing less effective/health or energy degen, +XX to hp, etc. Why couldn't there be something of that nature in PvP to help alleviate the uber armor stacking instead of enacting a change scross the board that also hurts PvE? Seems to me that the coding would be less, the effect more evenly distributed (everyone gets a max of +25 to armor while in that zone/Hall/wherever, for example), and more of a BALANCE achieved where it needs to be rather than penalizing those where it doesn't.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the best, after all.

But, if a cap is still desired, then please make it a more reasonable number or you'll be re-writing a lot of skills.

********

I played a monk/nec all through Prophecies a while ago (she has since retired, fool that I was to delete her before the titles were enacted!). Her only damage/attack/defense skill was SS, everything else was Heal. From a roleplay viewpoint, it fit her 'backstory' and was extremely effective ........ I think she could still achieve respectable results regardless of the "nerf". In fact, her little sister is training to do just that since everyone says SS has been so horridly watered down and "zomg ruint!".

Elites are a great boon IF you know how to play your profession already. Think outside the box, folks! If you're going to rely on one or two skills and simply cannot roll out of bed to face another day if they've been lessened in some way, maybe you shoulkd re-evaluate your style of play. Sure, many skills are ho-hum at best. Look at combinations, think of weird pairings. Who knows, you may come up with something that is far more powerful and effective than even the devs could dream. (Just don't announce it too loudly or it'll be next week's cookie cutter and subject to change. )

~Falcon

QFT

There is no place here for agression or insults. Just because you (those of you who abuse others on the internet) rant and abuse other posters loudly doesnt make you right or give you the right. Discuss instead. If you cant discuss then dont participate.

That is the crux of the problem, both in terms of spam and this bad attitude we are seeing from people posting here slagging off ANet for its updates.

The people spamming and being rude in posts are not respecting other people.

(rest of the post refers specifically in terms of spam)

That includes, those of us with no interest in buying/selling; other sellers and wait for it... buyers!

Sadly irregardless of what trade tools there are people who are disrespectful and will always be disrespectful. (that being said, efficent tools are always useful)

That is why dealing with spammers requires a mindset and attitude change.

How is that done? By ANet actively promoting the fact that spam will no longer be tolerated and that suspensions will take place if this is flaunted.

As someone pointed out..if it is possible to spam 3 messages in a row before being hit with the inbuilt game spam alert.. This could be another potential easy update for Anet to consider - so that you actually can't post more than 1 message in a row.

A little bit of respect goes a long way.

(or of course this post could be as ignored as my last one in this thread asking people to reflect on this wisdom (or lack of) before they abuse ANet staff.) *sigh*

I'll say this. 15 seconds

My eyes.

Actually, Minion factory was a popular build for GvG before it was nerfed.

And the eles were easly killed off. 7 professions had a counter to them. Yet the skills get nerfed because people are too lazy to put them in.

PvE doesn't need SF. they've got better skills. You yourself said that they nerfed Soul Reaping because it was overpowered in PvE. Well, SF is overpowered everywhere, but that doesn't mean crap.

You must not have played DoA or RoT in HM or even HM in general. Overpowered is necessary to offset the retarded power of the monsters in HM. When enemies can do 400+ dam per hit IT IS REQUIRED! As it stand now you need to be a friggin millionaire to vanquish due to having to buy clovers or some other form of DP removal in order to even come close to vanquishing certain areas.

If you say, "adjust you build noob" or "I have done it" I wanna see your builds and an explanation as to how you can do it as easily as you claim. I think your just a pvp player who "thinks" he knows the whole game, stick to pvp and let us worry about PVE.

You know, all said and done. They have turned my necro into a storage account and made a lot of people mad
There are skills that necro's and mesmers have that ignore armor... and they still all their mesmer necro goodies only now, They are buffed even more for the Mesmer... to me that is total crap while I like some what like what some said about change...
But to change the total working and killing off of a skill IMHO is a slap in the face to the people that are smart enough to think of ways to do things... the days of have a true TANK and over and that is what is going to finally push people away once and for all. How long will people sit here and have to totally re-thing every darn build they have just to survive?
DOA teams...pfft done no tank no wall = total mess and 20 min death time for team if that.
Sorry this might have done it for me

In a card game if somebody is good at the game do they change the rules?? Just cause they are good at it? No they don’t
As far as the stone flesh nerf... that is the thing that really Pi$$es me off the most. Lets see, dervish can get through... necro can get through it mesmers can get through it the only thing that really can't get through it is another warrior... and we wont have to worry about that cause nobody will be playing warrior cause EVERYBODY will be playing mesmers cause of all the buff’s then, THEN anet will said WAIT a min ... NERF the mesmer time..People actually figured out how to play them we can't have that... I sit looking at these skill changes and it makes me so mad.
The one class that is the most annoying "mesmer” get of all things buffs
As if they needed anything else to make them more annoying...
Slowdowns, degen, interrupts I could go on and on...
And all a warrior had was armor buff and they nerf them? What the heck good does armor do against degen? Nothing and lets not forget the slowdown... cause we all know that with a higher armor were fine against slowdown's pfft... so stupid..

I really do not know what to say, ostensibly this is to hurt paragons that can keep "passive" defensive shouts up on themselves in definitely, but what this really hurts is pves last viable tanking build. My warrior is my main character, with this change I have no idea what I am gong to do as half my tanking builds will have no synergy anymore, I will have to remove up to 4 skills from these builds. I cannot use defy pain with any other armor boosting skill.

Seriously, I am at my wits end, this game supposedly promotes creativity and skill and all the while they limit the possibilities of builds.

I know I over react to a lot of things but I seriously think this might be the straw that breaks this camels back.

The thing that irritates me is that Anet is bowing to people unable to conceive of bring massive enchantment removal to RA or AB. If the Invincible Ele or Dervish is such a problem, start going x/N for the necros mass enchantment removal, or bring Defile Enchantments and Desecrate Enchantments and kill the invinci ele outright. Part of this game is countering what the opponent brings. Shadow Prison bugging you, bring hex breaker or holy veil. Searing Flames? Signet of Humility, interrupts, resistance to fire, etc. Seriously, learn to adapt and counter, or kindly quite GW so the rest of us don't have to hear you whine for nerfs. Asking for skills to be buffed to the same level as other skills, is a different story, by all means do so.

Recall needs to be changed. that's for sure. Just not the way they changed it...

But I play SP assassin, and I think SP is overpowered. :P

This is absolutely correct. People complain about "unassailable" Ele and Derv builds as being "unoriginal" and so needing a nerf. What is truly unorigional is not being able to come with a way to shut them down with the skills that are already in the game. I sometimes play an Ele earth tank, and any Mesmer in the game can shut me down in 5 seconds.

Hi,

I would like to personally thank the GW team for making changes that matter. Or attempting to. I read the message carefully that Gaile wrote and I see that at least Anet is trying to balance the game. And that this update will be temporary as they watch the game for a little bit and see if all their changes were worth it or not. Then they will decide on valid permanency for those changes.

Also, thank heavens for the chat spam issues. I am all for this. You go to any given district that Player Trades overcome, go to Options, Interface and make your Chat Window as tall as possible and you can find that around 45% of people spam in some way or another.

After talking to a few spammers myself today, I found that they are very skeptical of Gaile's announcement on possible suspensions. They outright tell me they are willing to bet 2 million gold that nothing will be done about Local Chat traders, much less those who spam 3 times fast.

Well I beg to differ. I think that Anet is fed up with people who break the rules and that action speaks louder than words. So I'm going to back them up 100% on this particular case and hope that something does get done. I would love to help out.. for free. I would work my butt off for Anet on this case. Because I love this game as much if not more than they do. I already have a full time job, but working for Anet would be my dream come true. Even if I am a ill tempered person, I know that taking action against players who simply think that they can get away with anything would be something I rather enjoy. Without guilt whatsoever.

I love this game. As you may have noticed, I've only complained once about any of the updates/fixes in 14 months of playing GW. Loot Scaling. But now that I have found a way to kill things in Hard Mode, it's not so bad. I was just scared that it was impossible to be creative. But it's not. And my issues with GW are resolved.. therefore I am back in full action.

I appologize for not looking at the big picture before I opened my mouth last week. But I see what HM/Loot Scaling brought to the game. And that's less bots and cheaper Merchant prices for items that are supposed to be cheap in the first place. Thank you Anet. Thank you for all the hard work and dedication you guys/gals have been determined to show in the past and far into the future.

I have a suggestion to effectively deal with ritspike in a way that wont make the class useless for pvp or pve purposes. Reduce their spammable damage output. the cost/recharge/casting times of spells like spirit burn and weilders strike can be increased to make them less spammable or the actual damage can be decreased. also the conditions of the double damage effect could be changed to something like "if a spirit under your control is in range," or "under the effect of your own weapon spell." The ritualist has some very powerful spirits and healing capabilities but with the large damage output, in a way reminds me how Monk used to be with huge damage outputs(i.e. smite) with lots of healing. Smite was obviously nerffed because this combination was far too good. It is the same with the channeling/restoration combo. I am hard pressed to think of any builds that 7 players can spam out 370+ damage in 3 seconds (with timing spirit rift). Have 4 people with 300+healing (as well as 2 back-ups packing 250+ heals). Plus on top of all that the effects of the spirits themselves for defensive/regerative/healing/offensive purposes that easily fit into the bars of 8 people.

So you have easy damge and easy heals with easily met conditions. Please address this will a skill balance, it has been needed for a very long time (for the past 2 months since 8v8 was re-introduced) and theres some ways of doing so that im sure i havent even thought of i just suggested one. If the skill needed to counter the build were equal to the skill needed to play the build effectively i dont I or as many other people would complain about it. I personally dont play it because i like a bit more of a challenge than 3...2...1... every few seconds and im sure would the majority of the HA players would agree.

well the thing that annoys me about all of these constant nerfs that anet is bringing out: lack of creativity. how are we supposed to COUNTER builds, if the builds are used for a week and then crushed with the sundering nerf hammer of idiocy? good god, here is a list that you should just combine all the skills and attributes with, since you guys are on a nerfing rampage. just make the skills different by only the picture!!
and these skills should be the only ones used, take out the rest because that would involve creativity:

warrior:
axe skills ONLY - do 20 damage, 80 AL all the time

ele:
fire skills ONLY - do 50 damage, 60 AL all the time

necro:
curse skills ONLY - do 35 damage, 60 AL all the time

mesmer:
illusion skills ONLY - do 35 damage, 60 AL all the time

monk:
healing skills ONLY - do 45 heal, 50 AL all the time

ranger:
bow skills ONLY - do 20 damage, 70 AL all the time

....and take the rest out. infact, since mesmers are similar to necros, give them the boot too. anet...god damn, are you not listening to people? are you caving in to the 'select' few that 'THINK' they are elitists? Yeah, keep all these updates coming. With every 'update' I see, it makes the vision clearer and clearer that I will NOT be buying Guild Wars 2. Why? Because when Guild Wars came out, the devs constantly said, 'This is a no-grinding game, and you play how you want!', and that is how I LOVED the game at the beginning. You think starting over will fix your problems with skill balances? Get real. I am done posting in response to shit like this Anet doesn't listen and Anet can give a rats ass about players that used to love this game. Thank you Anet for the first 6 months of the game. After that...well...yeah.

As you know, we offer several types of chat options in Guild Wars. Lately, players have shared their concerns about the increasing problem of people spamming trade messages to the All Chat ("Local") Channel, instead of using the Trade Channel which is designated for that purpose. In response to that concern—which we share—we will be taking steps to increase our enforcement of the existing Rules of Conduct. As you are probably aware, spamming of any kind is strictly against the Rules of Conduct, but we are specifically concerned with those who are spamming the All Chat Channel. In order to encourage those with sales, purchases, and trade to use the designated Trade Channel instead, we will begin keeping records of the worst offenders, and those who spam All Chat with trade messages may have their accounts suspended. (You can find details on our policies and practices in our Conduct Breaches and Outcomes document.)

Wowsers...

well Star none of your post was a calm logical explination of the problem, you say nerfs but i see very little going on maybe you mean the AC thing? and also a possible solution to your particular problem should be stated, so i dont see how ranting about it helps you or them in any particular way.

Why keep changing the game? I can understand its necessary to make some balance changes the first 2 months after a game is released. So why is this such a neverending story?? Anet, please leave the game as it is for the next 2 years! We don't like everchanging games. We want a solid base to make plans, we want to be certain that rules don't change while playing. Keep this in mind for your next games: no tweaking anymore after 2 months please! Only technical issues if necessary

Yes, I wish they would have limited the ability to repeat in chat. If you put up a sentence, you shouldn't be allowed to repeat up to a certain % of the last sentence for a certain number of minutes. And only so many sentences in a minute. Typing something and hitting enter and up arrow and enter multiple times to fill up a screen and then be able to do that again in less than a minute is the problem. If they couldn't do that, that alone would solve most of the issues.

I already get blocked when having a normal conversation with people, it would be nice if it wasn't made more restrictive. Yes, I type very fast.

To solve the problem with trade just have an npc for everything... a rare item npc, and green item npc, and inscription npc and i think um 99% of the trade issues would be solved. the traders would buy the items from you for a "fair" price in relation to what people buy. unfortuneately thered be a lot of worthless green items/inscrpitions.
People dont want to sit there and spam but theres no other "good" way to get noticed and sell youre item(s) (or are you gonna tell me all caps or some copy and pasted stars are ok?). so you have the npcs for all the junk stuff and these guys will pull that stuff out of trade chat then the truly desireable items can be haggled over trade chat instead of left to sifting through pages and pages of red texted junk looking for the possibility of what you want or need...

Can i just say that armor cap didn't happen/work!!
I tested with a guildy in scrimmage and i put up Armor of Earth (53) then he hit me with spell = 12dmg
I stacked Dolyak to Armor of Earth = 6dmg

So my armor DID go up with 2 stacked spells that go above this 'cap'

skill balance hasnt been implemented yet

Wow really?
Try it again after they actually make the changes and see what happens.

this is why your +armor still stacked

Nice updates, but more should be changed.

...I seriously don't know what to make of this update - Ritspike is acceptable, is it? I've seen it in action and even a bunch of idiots can win halls with it. Soul Reaping would seem to me to be no more 'elegant' than the current mechanic.

The Armor Stacking simply means more creativity is needed to tank. E/Me is the way to go now for the traditional Earth Tank, as there is one massively powerful bypass tech you can use. I won't mention it, but it's blindingly obvious. So now, the most an earth tank can achieve AL wise is actually around the 170-180 mark with a 40+% reduction stacked on top. With 3 skills. Thats still pretty damn good imo. I think the key way around this will be more creative use of insignias - there is more to life than radiant.