Cap of +25 to the armor buff ... is it right?

They can't exactly do that, PvE and PVP are interlinked in this game. What you learn about skills in PvE helps Johnny New Player play in PvP not by builds but with the synchronization and synergy of skills and knowledge of mechanics, if you exclude one from the other and more changes like this would follow so you might as well have two separate games because a lot of the skills and some mechanics will be completely different as guild wars evolves.

Anet needs to realize that the armor skills are essential to staying alive in HM and elite areas, as it is we take quite a pounding, now its gonna be much worse.
Also, nerfing the armor skills will ruin several farming builds as well. Perhaps just this one time Anet could make this nerf affect PVP only.

All the paragon has done is shown that players can easily abuse armor skills.

Gaile has already said that the primary attributes are being worked over. So Leadership will hopefully be adjusted properly and various skills be buffed to match.

As I've said before elsewhere, this nerf stinks. It's another sloppy, quick-n-dirty global nerf where all that needed to be addressed was the synergy between two specific skills. It renders a huge number of skills useless, as well as several builds which were absolutely vital for high-end PvE. Garbage.

Well pardon me... who died and made you perfect? Hmm... /ponder.

Agreed, the armour nerf is insane, I use a warrior and an ele and have used armour stack builds for nearly 2 years. Why change this so late in the games lifespan.

If you have to alter skills this badly for the sake of pvp the split pvp from pve. I mainly play pve (after all arn't Tyria, Cantha, oh and Elona continents for pve?) Thats right 90 % of the game is made for pve.

Armour stacks for needed for doa like so many other areas, the game has been hit hard by loot scaling and other changes recently, just let the game be.............

Funny, i've done the majority of my vanquishing in HM with an Assassin, no extra armor skills except occasionally physical resistance and frigid armor for Dasha Vestibule. So please tell me again just how much you really need extra armor above +25. Also don't forget that each class also has various insignia available to them that increase their armor, and are not effected by the armor buff limit.

Since when... i've vanquished all 3 continents, most with H/H and i've never had to rely on mass armour buffs. The only elite mission i can even recall that needs such a thing is DoA, and wow, it might actually become hard!.... well lamer.

And do you think Anet care if it affects farming builds...

Don't tell other people that their grammar skills suck when you can't even account for your own....I'm not perfect and don't intend on being...

Is this a joke? Really, PvE gets you prepared for PvP? Well, then I wonder what those Challenge Missions and Elite Missions are for. When was the last time you had a PvP match with a team of 8 against a team of 30 people?

The point is, the original idea was for PvE to lead into PvP, yes. However, they've become so far apart that there really needs to be a split between the mechanics in order for anything to work.

Here's a suggestion, take a page out of the PvE books. Make an environment effect in all PvP that causes there to be an armour bonus cap of +25. That way PvP can be balanced, without messing up PvE.

EDIT: It could be called something like "Spirit of Balthazar", similar to the environment effect in Dwayna v.s. Grenth (snowball arena).

thats actually a great idea cursed you. that would be a great fix to the problem.

I read this and this I am split from this.

definitely one half of me is screaming bloody murder because I love my earth ele and his armor bonus stacking.

The other wants to see warriors STOP BEING TANKS and start being melee damage dealers q.q I havent seen one in so long! Infact I don't remember warriors being used for damage on any build in a few months when concerning pve... if it was pve you tanked, nothing else. Or possibly you ran. Maybe Strength will finally be a usable attribute. Maybe more hammer warriors will start popping up.

Probably because they suck at damaging high level monsters. Most of the time, the things they tank would only take 10-20 damage from their attacks. Seems rather pointless to be trying to kill something with 30 damage a second, when the creature is dealing 100-200 damage to you.

Also, it's Curse You, there's no 'd

just add 1 additional armor(against physical and elemental) for every point put into Strength.

Fixes the weak strength attribute and lets warriors be the best tanks.

Dude, that is an awesome idea, Curse You. In fact, I believe this is the right time for me to use my new word:

Spanpiffytasticatedness!

"Omg it makes PvE harder! Make it only affect PvP!" (By harder I mean you can no longer press two or three buttons which will reduce all damage by 80%).
I hate this mentality, makes me wonder why I play such a scrub friendly game.

@ imkey,
What makes strength good (or bad) isn't really the armor penetration, but the awesome skills in the attribute. I can see how strength can be weaker in PvE since the only useful skill in that line is Doylak's Signet (please don't flame I know some of you use other skills but most tanks only use Doylak's Signet from the strength line) compared to half a dozen decent strength skills commonly used in PvP.
I could see this change being justified from a PvE perspective.

I think we're on a different wavelength? I am talking about adding extra armor points with increasing strength not extra armor penetration to counter the effects of the armor stack nerf for warriors.
Even though there are some nice skills in strength line, the attribute itself could use a small buff. This would solve two issues (the slightly weak primary attribute and the armor stacking nerf).

Insane armour buffs can and DO promote a different style of play.
They reward players who will go that way - and they require some thought to be put into different player- and team-builds.
What is wrong with that?
What's wrong with having options?
ESPECIALLY in pve? Where the other side doesn't complain and the main focus is for the player to HAVE FUN!
You know - one of the options in pve is to NOT run it also.

And its really bad when we go from "one can decide not to run it" to "you can't run it".

Holy stereotype Batman. Not all Warriors are Mending choobs. (some of us are uber godly pro Mending choobs)

Warriors have ALWAYS had the highest single-target DPS. There's no reason you can't be a damage dealer and be a tank at the same time.

You want to see more Hammer Warriors outside of PvP? Then by all means don't get rid of the WY! + Dolly Sig combo, used to offset the lack of a shield.



Warriors need high survivability. It's the very essence of the class!

Heck, I could ask those Earth Eles to STOP BEING TANKS.



To sum things up: leave us with options.

The option to have a Warrior tank. The option to have an Earth Ele tank. You name it.

As someone else pointed out, nerfing the Armor stack so late in the game's lifetime is yet another way to alienate the long-time and most loyal playerbase.



The sanest solution.

Just like they altered Spawning Power's effect on Weapon Spells.

If 15 Strength adds a base +20 AL to Warriors, I'll start getting over the +25 AL armor stack cap.

Warriors arnt always and only Tanks and Warriors arnt the only Profession that can Tank

Your idea is Way OTT, Warriors already have the highest base armour of any profession, they also have a large number of AL boosting skills and Blocking skills/stances, to add that would nto only make them a big problem in PVP but would also make enemy ones in PvE A Massivie problem, eg. Any Warrior u face over lvl 20 would have atleast 20 extra armour ontop of there already massive armour.

Hi thanks for feedback,

When I said tank, I mean the ability to soak up dmg. Warriors are suppose to be able to take a lot of dmg...more so than other profs.
Just how many AL boosting skills and blocking skills/stances do you expect warriors to carry around and still be effective? Remember, AL boost from multiple skills will only stack up to 25max soon. In most PVE and almost all PVP, the majority of their bar is offensive.

At lvl 20, the warrior has at least 9 pts into this weapon mastery... probably 12+runes+helm. and more frequently than not, a good deal into tactics just for the efficient heal sig. What does that leave? Enough for a moderate strength primary or ... perhaps pts in the secondary profession's branch for the utility skills?

Even at strength = 12+1 which is the most I see warriors investing into it, it only adds 13 additional AL. I don't see how this is very imba.

Also remember, there are a lot of armor ignoring dmg, life steal, hex, and conditions which bypass the armor entirely. There are plenty of warrior hate skills which bypass their armor.

Warriors over lvl20 only exist in pve mobs...and there are plenty of ways to kill them no matter what armor level they have.

I hope that clears up any confusion and better illustrates my thoughts.

No, I just did a bad job at explaining what I was trying to say.
Adding extra armor with each rank in Strength is justified in PvE because people barely use strength skills. Strength (like energy storage) is strong because of the skills in the line, not because of its direct effect, and strength should have a stronger direct effect in PvE (9 more armor on a warrior isn't exactly gamebreaking from a PvP perspective) because strength skills are not commonly used in PvE.
I hope this is a bit clearer.

Now for the fun part:
I never said they didn't, unfortunatly it's bad style of play which Anet are trying to discourage. Pressing 1,2,3 without any thought and then getting hit for 3s and 4s intead of 50 is just dumb.
Goodbye game depth! Hello noob friendly game!
"I'm good. I took 3 skills that said +xx armor and I'm being rewarding for being great at the game!"
Last I heard, player skill needed to be rewarded, not mindless button mashing and taking advantage of the exponential nature of increased armor.
Nothing wrong with having options. It's just that this specific option dumbs down the game and makes it much easier, killing any sort of game depth.
Let's make this game soooooo easy and everyone will HAVE FUN!
And you will probably be sub-par because every other Joe Wammo is getting hit for less than you. You WON'T have fun because worse players are doing better than you, and your monks will keep yelling "Tank better, Like Joe Wammo!".
That's a matter of opinion and I disagree.

Anet is repeating history (the ppl who know me would know im going to refer to utopia - by swirve - by now) but i'm not going to.

I am simply going to type down what got me to spend +3000 hours (yes i do work) on a game i loved, not just because for what it was; but for what it could become.
I loved the layout, i still haven't played a game that could match it, all from the compass combined with the minimap, to the options and mainly something that brings me to the next subject, the skillbar.
Having only 8 skills enables an inherant balance into guild wars and allows casual player and experienced gamers to coexist (together with the lvl 20 cap).
Grabbing a PUG and heading out was one of my favourtie things to do, sure there were people who couldnt relax and accept the varies in skill and experience but atleast we had human interaction back then, heroes was just a way to make the pve part a single player campaign for the majority of it.

I liked the enemies, and the simple way they acted, it kept me calm to know that there was a clear difference between the enemies and that the "usual" foes were weaker then the bosses.
I definatly like dthe way you could "run" a char through the game, missing many highlights but keeping several characters alive and having the possibility to play with them, thus encouraging diversity rather then having to spend hours upon hours on something you might not even want to do - Guid Wars was open, you were not FORCED to play it a certain way.


It still started out quite balanced, and i dont mean skillwise, or well i do in one sense, what i mean is that a casual player and a hardcore gamer could compete on allmost equal basis - this was the best thing with GW (that is why i'm coming back to it) in my opinion. This simple fact brought together loads of people, with different age and various places in the real life community aswell as from different countries. With that it also created a big community filled with anticipation, promises and activity. People simply had fun. This just because the game was easily accessible (required relativly little time).

People liked exploring areas and were satisfied with the skills at hand, (and yes im aware that fewer skills might be a constraint on pvp gameplay, and that people by this post could "deem" me as a pve enthusiast, and yeah i am, or rather were, but i also spent more then a little time on pvp). But the point im giving is that the GW community can never flourish if they decide to skip out on the pve community (vice versa), which means balancing / limiting things should be done through buffs / area effects not through nerf's and caps.
You dont get ppl complaing over lost builds. Buffing countermeasures usually lets the pve keep their balance.
You dont have to refigure skills when balancing pve with area effects, you can also keep the enemies at a logical lvl concering skills and their handling of such.
This also opens up the direction that you rather ad areas then "require a core audience" by copying prophecies 2 times.

Anyway, you wont care about this post, after eye is released i will probably aswell leave this behind, what is one gamer anyway?

Let me stop you right there.

This is the whole point of the discussion, right?



Yes, there are enough AL boosting skills. Yes, quite a number of defensive Stances add +24 AL.

Yay, you can add exactly +1 AL to that.

Gee gee.

Also, I think part of the reason is that a lot of strength skills which are awesome in PVP (such as bull's strike, shield bash) just aren't as useful for PVE mob groups.

I just want to point out that the strength of the "Strength" skills is different between different gameplay styles. This is also true for many other lines.

Great pvp skills doesn't automatically qualify the skill to be awesome in pve... such as blackout pre-nerf.

armor nerf really isnt that bad imo, alot of people are running watch yourself / stand your ground combo atm, and it can be a pain in the a** vs some builds ... ie : SF builds - annoying when spirit bond dosent trigger cause searing flames just hit for 54 damage cause of all the armor buff ...
its really not gonna make any difference imo , at least ele ball builds wont work as well...

oh yea , steady stance is not gonna take as long to kill now, which will be nice

Exactly what I was trying to say =D

What? You could say that about half the skills in guild wars. Press 1,2,3,4 and I get damage, speed increases etc. If armor bonuses are so ridiculously imbalanced like you say they are then why isn't every top team running earth elementalists? Proper nerfing to imbalanced armor skills like "Watch Yourself" would have been a much better solution.

Again, if you can't deal with some random arena noob with Armor of Earth, Kinetic Armor and Conviction you need to get better. If the problem is so prominent, bring the simple counters. Those which can't effectively be countered such as Chants should justifiably be nerfed, not the whole armor line.

Yes its still possible to kill said Warriors with these buffs, however other than most mesmer and Necro skills there arnt many skills that are actually armour ignoring, The Ele for example has jsut 3 all of which have big draw backs. A +20 armour boost cuts damage in half, in PvP Warriors will be recieving 3/4 damage from all sourcings without using any skills (which will increase i further)

Now imagine a HM PvE warrior, they have atleast 20 in strength taht half damage for them right there, ok now factor in there already boosted armour lvl and hp, ok now factor in any skills to increase AL even higher than several monsters have. Your now looking at them only taking 1/8 of the damage they should be taking, then remeber the disputed Fact of Warriors having the highest dps(although i disagree in part to this, most seem to agree.)

Now if that isnt overpowered i dont know what is. Why not just make every Warrior into a HM Mallynx and make them wander in groups of 8+


Most players wont equip more than 1 such skill anyways i was pointing out there is a large selection of them and with so many u can keep AL buffs up non stop even without any other buffs from other party members.

Yes, but don't you see the difference between a good player that uses speed increase/IAS/damage skills correctly and a bad one that doesn't use them as well? This encourages *gasp* actually being good at the game, whereas any shit player and the best player will use their +zillion armor skills at the same level at the same effectiveness. These skills make bad players as good as better players, which goes against Anet's "show me your skillz" motto.
Comprende?
That is irrelevant, but let’s pretends your logic is flawless.
Earth Eles? lol. Enchants can be raped, damage is poor, easily shutdown, have to stay together. Overall horrible example.
How about I provide a valid example: Paragons.
Paraway is a common build in both HA and GvG (especially euro hours) where the entire team consists of paragons getting hit for very little due to armor buffs from shouts (and base armor which needs to be nerfed, but that's for another thread). They have a bazillion armor and many teams are in fact running this build. Let's not forget one of the most common balanced builds in HA which has 2 paragons chaining stand your ground and watch yourself. Some American GvG teams run a very similar set-up as well ([tag] ran it 2 tourneys ago, and many have been running it since).
So you say "no-one runs it, therefore how can it be so powerful!", I say "you have no clue. Good day sir".
Maybe, but I doubt it. Please elaborate.
When did I ever say that?
It's quite the contrary, I go into RA about once a month because I feel like pissing noobs off, and I generally run griefing builds like the one you mentioned. THANKS FOR YOUR HELP THOUGH!

I can really be a bitch...

Now you're just venting an irrational frustration towards Warriors.



Let's put it this way.

Yes, Warriors have the highest survivability and the highest DPS on a single target.

Yes, all that, but they have one MAJOR drawback. RANGE.

They're harmless when they're more than five feet away from you.



In PvP, Warriors pressurize and ultimately (sometimes literally) decapitate the clumsy, dealing the killing blow to a crumbling team.

There is so much you can do to stop a Warrior. So much of his superb DPS can be negated by simply not standing right next to him or her.

You wouldn't believe how many battles you can survive by not participating in them.

A Warrior by himself, in PvP, is nothing. An 8 Warriors team is a death wish.



In PvE, Warriors serve more of a utility role, soaking up damage all the while dealing a fair amount of damage themselves, often in reduced AoE form (think Cyclone Axe or Triple Chop, for example).

Yes, they are powerful in PvE, but they are needed. Especially in the later stages of the game and in Hard Mode.



For reference, other Melee professions can bypass this huge range disadvantage.

Assassins offset it with Shadow Stepping.

Dervishes offset it with a wide array of Forms, Enchantments, and AoE cripple.



To conclude: the Warrior is an absolutely balanced profession.

Punisher in PvP. Tank in PvE.



Keep it that way.



But we all know that this Armor cap is about Paragons. A truly broken profession.

Well, of little use in a balanced team; absolutely overpowered in an 8 Paragons team. But I'll come back to that later.



Shouts should never have been given such power. Especially with the less than effective counters to them.

They're basically just Skills. Extremely tedious to stop. And spammable.

Let's hope the Mesmer buff will help a little.



And here comes the real problem. Tanking in PvP is done by pretty much every profession except Warriors.

Why would a Warrior want to tank in PvP? They are subconsciously considered "The Tanks" anyway.

"You'd have be crazy to attack the tanks, you choob!" Even if they're not packing a single Armor buffing skill.

So you'll see about everything try and tank one way or another.



Paragons first and foremost, especially since they can afford it.

They don't have the extremely crippling range disadvantage.

And they have much better healing, conditions removal and hex removal. Heck, even a hard res.

8 Paragons teams are absolutely overpowered. And what's even better: they're all tanks.



So there's your problem. And Warriors have to pay the bill for it.

You clearly havnt done much PvP most Warriors will stop you from escaping, using secondarys to get to you or to knock u down etc. In AB you might be able to escape but in a more organised PvP Arena the warriors are smarter, they chase, knockdown, bring wildblow, condition removal, there is no escape especially if your a monk or caster. A Warrior can easily a squishy target relativly easily on its own. The only way to truely survive one is too kill it! Your AL increase suggestion makes this considerably harder with given them an inherant 25% damage reduction for all non AL ingoring attacks even without skills.

This also promotes more Hexway builds for AL ignoring skills, Hexway is already much hated and is coming closs to being weakened, Anet is currently monitoring them.

Warriors are no more or less needed in PVE than any other class. Ive done most of Hard mode Tryia and so far ive not had a single warrior in my group and ive had no problems. ITs all up to how u prefer to play.

The only time in PvE warriors Tank is when farming, basically u want ur warrior to be able to solo every creature around so u can earn ur precious Ectos.

I think the main problem here is what we are looking at.
The way i understand your posts - you are looking at a single individual on the field.

My grudge with the change is that it hurts different kind of party making.
In my almost two years of playing i normally ran the all-mighty cookie of "tank grabbing aggro + others nuke then".
Then i made a paragon and to be effective i had to put most of the things that served me well up to that point in question. And one of the most fun things that came out of it were party wide armours buffs which gave me the option to move freely on the battlefield. That removed the need for tanks - since everyone's armour was buffed up nicely and thus a new playing style was born. That opened the door for new builds and skills that couldn't be used before since aggro had to be always considered.
If the change stays - that means that every char WILL have to specialise in having a self cast armour buff that will be higher then the 25 OR to go back to the "tank grabbing aggro + others nuke then".
And that is why its bad - not because that tank is taking 3 damage - but because my mesmer cant run to a boss and blackout him without getting pulverized by the 400 damage spell. We are being taken away options - and the only viable option we are left with is the cookie we have now. YES - it will be worse then it is now - but that doesn't matter. The thing that matters is that this option (tanking) will be so much better then everything else so that other options won't be even considered!
And this sucks! Since different classes excel at different things. So to use those classes at their best - different approaches MUST be taken!

So in my opinion - the party wide armour buffs gave a very nice depth to the game RATHER then removing it. It gives the option to build completely different PvE parties and a different way to play PvE! (Of course party wide buffs also mean that they aren't as good at what they do as single member buffs - and that is why stacking is so important!)

(And yes - i can see why this might be a problem in PvP. And that is exactly why i am using it in PvE! But what PvP sees as a problem - I see as an option in PvE! So that's why I support the idea of the rule (if it has to be introduced) to be PvP only!
Not so that PvE would be easy - but so that one can try out different things that work!)

In normal mode you don't need to tank anymore, anyone with Prot Spirit can tank there. In Hard Mode there is no point in tanking, because they kite as heck and switch target every 3 seconds.
I always found tanking retarded, takes away the fun, and skill. Also, how many times have you met this: "GET BACK!!! OMFG NOOB, LEMME TAKE AGGRO!!!"

I never said the mobs were apart of it. -.-; I said skills and mechanics and general functions. I don't expect to have a PvP match with dredge or a big swarm of afflicted. Stop twisting words I merely said it leads you to PvP so there shouldn't be vast changes in the functions in the different aspect of these games.

And I do PvE so please don't treat me like an imbecile thanks :-) and I do understand PvP needs to be maintained too.

Although I do like the idea of an environmental effect such as that, I think it would need to be supervised in its implementation. Or confined to certain PvP matches/arenas/competitions.

I'm sure there's a way to compromise to make both parties in this happy

Okay, let's all calm down and keep it sensible.

We're trying to work out a solution, not prove how much of a fanboy we are of the class we play. I think we've all demonstrated that quite enough.



Stee-rrrike one!


I've never said Warriors were defenseless. I've just said it's obvious how to make them harmless.

And in my humble opinion, it's quite easier to snare, block or otherwise blind a Warrior than, say for example, completely burn through a Fire Ele's Energy Pool before he burns it through you

Or have to skillfully interrupt the skills he uses.

But that's just my opinion, maybe you've just had very nasty experiences with Warriors and I feel your pain. I really do. We can be nasty. But so can any other profession.



Most Warrior-hate skills use Armor ignoring damage. That's the whole point of anti-Warrior skills, bypassing the Armor.



What's wrong with Hexes and Armor ignoring?

First you hate the Warriors' Armor and then you feel that it's wrong to bypass it?

Welcome to Guild Wars.



Of course.

Refer to my earlier post.

Leave us with options.



I just find a Warrior a great option. You may not think so, fine, you have other options.



Stee-rrrike two!

It's just raining prejudices today, isn't it?



The best tanks in the game are 55 Monks. Bar none. In the proper situation (no lifesteal or enchant removal): UNSTOPPABLE.

Anet refuses to fix them. Fine. Actually, I don't even consider them really broken, it's just a clever use of the game mechanics. And they're pretty much harmless outside of PvE.

Personally, I don't use one. But I understand people who do.



So why aren't they tanking then?

Well, to be honest, they're the ones earning "ur precious Ectos".

That's great. Let them.



Warriors have something they don't have. Versatility.

Which I've been hammering on since five posts ago.



They have Armor, but nowhere near as much as an Earth Ele.

They have damage negation, but nowhere near as much as a 55 Monk.

They do damage, but nowhere near as much as a Fire Ele, SS Necro, Barrage Ranger etc.



And that is the Strength of a Warrior. He can adapt. He has plenty of inherent advantages to ward off danger to himself (and consequently to the party which he is tanking for), but he's not invincible due to some quirky game mechanic.



He is a well-balanced part of a well-balanced team.

Without his team, he collapses.

Without him, his team collapses.

Well, that is a very different way to look at it, one I hadn't considered.

You kind of demonstrate my point (makes playing mesmer easier because he can go in and blackout without getting demolished because of unremovable armor buffs, not good use of prot from monks), but I have one thing to say.
I do realize you were doing something different than others, but in PvE armor stacking is the most common in the form of a tank using two to three skills and gaining a zillion armor, which is just dumb and mindless. Also when you were buffing your entire party's armor, you were effectively making the game much easier for them. This would have the same effect as Anet decreasing the damage of your enemies to make the game easier. Now I don't mean to offend anyone, but playing paragon isn't particularily hard, and a mediocre and good player will play paragon at the same effectiveness.
To recap, the point I'm trying to make is that any build that that requires no skill (be it paragon or tank) that makes the game easier because of increasing armor is bad for the game.

Also, can you please post the armor buffs you were running on your paragon? I fail to see how this change can really hurt a lone paragon spamming shouts.

I don't want this armor cap rubbish. In HM, I run combinations of armor buffs because of the insane monster damage (WY, SYG, Ward Against Harm, Shield of Regen, Shield of Deflection, Shields Up, Conviction, Ward Against Elements, etc). Don't change the armor mechanic because of a single profession...

SUGGESTION: why not move Watch Yourself! to Strength? This should clean up the mess right?

And once again, it turns into PvErs vs PvPrs. And once again, I side with the PvErs. You can really see that those PvPrs who agree with this change, really don't care about how people in pve feel about it. Really, why should they? Now they can feel like pros when they take down that group of paragons. Who cares that armor buffing was a good way to prevent damage in those higher end pve areas? You only really care about what affects you, and that's totally expected.

Like someone said, anet is breaking this game. It's alienating all the longtime fans who've been there from the beginning. Soul Reaping,loot scaling, this new armor cap crap, man this game is almost nothing like it used to be even 6 months ago, much less 2 years ago. It's really sad that the majority of players get punished because of the actions of a few. Like or not, the majority of the playerbase is in PvE, yet it's the pvp folk who determine our experience in our part of the game.

That would be due to the mechanics of the game revolving around PvP...

any other questions? no? good, move along please

It wasn't a lone paragon.
I completely changed my party build.
It was 3 paragons, 2 warriors, 2 monkies and 1 curser.
Shouts were going around like there was no tomorrow - and because they were party-wide and they stacked that gave me the option to focus on different things - namely damage!
And yes - the game WAS easier - but i deserved it to be! I worked my ass off to figure out what to take and being very limited with the skills i could take (i curse you the lucky title!11! = i was completely broke ) and in my knowledge of both paragons and warriors - this really brought some new depths of the game. And now - if this will get removed so that tanks don't tank so well anymore - while they will be still doing JUST that! (just because there is no better alternative!) - i consider this to be a loss for the game.
THIS would dumb it down - not the fact that everyone is able to run around with +50 armour!