Armor stacking bad idea?

Now if you cast more then 1 armor skill you'll only get up to 25. You can get more armor by using a single skill, but I think it's an unneeded nerf. What's so bad about having more armor in pve or pvp? It's not imbalanced, it's not like you see a bunch of tanks running around pvp.

So how many think this is a pointless nerf and how many find it a good nerf?

Sorry I can't figure out how to add a poll or I would. (noob)

I haven't really thought about an armour cap, but it is annoying to see a bunch of tanks running around in PvP... notably in RA and Hero Battles. In PvE, Earth eles were the most efficient of that profession to go farming with, I don't know what they use now...

I think the cap could be raised to 40.

I think it is a great change!
You obviously haven't ran across the high armored monks that were making GvGs so much fun.
Watch Yourself - Shields Up - Disciplined Stance - Shield of Regeneration - Stand Your Ground.
Toss in an Aegis and Defensive Anthem just to make sure you can't hit the 150+ armored squishies and I'm sure you can see the problem.

All of these could/would be found nightly on most of the teams you would play for far too long.
Passive defense is FTL and I'm glad someone else noticed!!!

It's a shame if it ruined someones farming builds or PvE epic battles but the good news is they gave a new skill that gives 100 armor to your whole team now.

I don't personally see that much of an issue about it, it makes Earth Tanks less annoying, and tones down the Paragon a little. Although, a cap of 40 Armor bonus (Which halves damage) would be better.

Many skills can easily hit over that. Hell, ht Kurzick/Luxon Warrior skill gives a straight +100 armor to everyone but yourself. Nice try, but armor has been nerfed enough. If you can't handle it in PvP, get strippin' or stealin'.

I know that there are skills that do well over, I'm just saying that it would be better to make the cap at 40, which would halve damage. So Paragon skills and the Ele stuff wouldn't be as nerfed. I never use them anyway, I only ever use Watch Yourself! or Feigned Neutrality for armor boosts, so it doesn't affect me in the least.

Making a +40 cap would defeat the purpose of them introducing the +25 cap in the first place.

Cool that they need to nerf that after 2 years:

Just take the example posted above:
Watch Yourself - Shields Up - Disciplined Stance - Shield of Regeneration - Stand Your Ground

Disciplined Stance got changed to faster recharge and all of these skills saw some modification. The old Shields Up was by far better, the same for Watch Yourself, which needed no attribute investment at all.

Now I wonder, did the Paragon Shout SYG which ist at least a bit conditional (standing, not moving) really make things go south in PvP?

If there was need for fixing, it was done poorly. They eliminated all armor stacking builds in PvP and PvE. Furthermore, they introduced +100 AL monsters to compensate. Jesus, they should better have kept their "PvE-Unskills" and found a better solution for armor stacking than that.

Armor stacking is dead. Someone tell that to the new players that really want to start playing this game in its last phase...

I don't mind this for PvP... but for PvE this is a real pain. I don't farm... so not sure what the impact is for farmers... but feel it's a negative impact on PvE otherwise.

Usual Dervish build [skill]avatar of balthazar[/skill][skill]conviction[/skill]
Forget about conviction post update .

They only give it to you if you want to spend some time faction farming... but that's okay, I mean, it's optional, just like the armor buff cap is optional... oh wait it's not.

The sunspear paragon skill is pretty good though. At least before it gets nerfed.

Eh, conviction is still good if you want to use something else for an elite in PvE (reapers sweep etc).

Anyway, yes I think this was an unneeded nerf, but isn't there a like 8 page thread on this already? I say take your discussion there and consolidate.

Armor stacking in PvP was a major problem. When you run into teams that have watch yourself, shields up, shields, stand your ground, defensive anthem, and aegis all stacked up, there's almost no need to even kite anymore. All of this with fairly skill-less things (spam shouts, yay).

This change is basically ANet saying: "Yes, we completely failed with the design of Paragon. It was meant to be a fun profession, but we decided to make 90% of Paragon skills uncounterable. Suprisingly enough, PvPers didn't like the whole profession being uncounterable and having 80 base armor even without the shield."


Yeah... as i said, the biggest problem in this game is stuff without counters or with so bad counters that you need a whole team build built around em (ie Vocal Minority, right...). Yes that means Wards, Wells, Weapon spells, Glyphs, Shouts, existing Chants and Echoes, Shadow Form ridicule, Preparations (ok they are nicely balanced but i dont care), Avatars and everything else.

I understand why they did it, but I think they should nerf paragon armor down to 70 and raise the cap a bit... 25 is a bit low, maybe 40 or 50 would be better. Also, I realize that it affects PvP in a great many ways, but due to anet's history, I really think they did this more to nerf PvE farming (E/D, IDS, FoW beach farm, etc.).

This was kind of a stupid nerf in PvE.

In PvP, I can imagine it's annoying trying to kill something with lots of armor. It's not hard though. There are lots of skills that can reap enchantments off, and end stances etc. Surely, 1 of 8 players can place one of these skills in 1 of their 8 skillbars...

In PvE, the update means hell for alot of people. Yesterday, a Monk boss in factions wanded me to death. Even while having Sentinal Armor, a +16 armor shield and "Watch Yourself!", the Boss still did 260 friggin damage with a WAND ATTACK.

Now imagine fighting an elementalist boss, who uses skills so fast that they're un-interruptable, and deals 500 dmg + to a full armor warrior. That was prior to the update, now nobody has a chance of killing heavy-hitting bosses without sinking to 60% DP.

ROFLMAO
Frenzy - Heal sig doesn't even add up for that one.
All the armor in the world won't save you from a wild imagination.
Sorry.

WTB 260 Damage Wand

iono i hope im not the only person to not notice this.

even with the stoneflesh aura nerf it is still somewhat feasible in a high energy yeild build. add all blessed insignias to armor. add a +45 armor while enchanted offhand with a wand with + energy, then take both armor of earth and kinetic armor (kinetic will be your primary, armor of earth is backup in case of stripping) and take ether renewal as your elite. so right now your bar is Stoneflesh Aura, kinetic armor, armor of earth, ether renewal. now take mystic regen, obsidian flame, stone daggers, rez. you can replace rez with aura of restoration for the additional 60 sec enchant or replace obsidian of you so feel the need. you still have pretty much the same amount of armor as before the nerf using 2 skills. stoneflesh does not give armor just base damage reduction hence it was not hit by that part of the nerf...add kinetic with 80 some odd armor+45+all the blessed insignias. it will still take either lots and lots of degen to kill you or a few very determined grenth dervishes to take you down. i havent tested the build since the nerf so unless they changed a few mechanics that im unaware of in theory the build should still work. as for monks i think your still boned =)

There is no +45 armor mod while enchanted offhand, or any weapon with that mod. You are perhaps confusing +5 armor(enchanted) and +45 health(enchanted) together.

yeah maybe lol i havent played in a while......maybe thinking of the sheild mod of +uber armor while enchanted

The problem was never related to armor stacking.

It is the fact that shouts once they are out cannot be removed/countered in any way.

Fixing this by eliminating (not limiting, it totally destroys everything that uses multiple armor buffs) all other possible forms of armor stacking is a very crude bandaid.

Ummm... Why can't the cap just pertain to PvP? Why does PvE have to get shit on whenever PvP lemmings start finding loop-holes in the fracking skills?

Sorry, but PvE suffers too much because of PvP mishaps. The PvE Only Skills are a step in the right direction, but the next step would be to start balancing PvP while leaving PvE alone for the rest of us to enjoy.

Okay. I vented.

Seems we all agree this was a good thing for PvP. But even in PvE, I for one was kinda tired of the mindless armor stacking super-tanks getting better payoff than the people who tackle new areas by being a little more dynamic in their strategies. With regards to the emphasis on individual skill that Guild Wars is known for, I actually think this cap was a move in the right direction.

What it means, if made permanent, is that tank warriors in guild wars are now reduced to only having one of their 8 skills (7 if you discount the slot for a resurrection skill) used for an armour boost.

For most tanks, gladiator's defense is the elite of choice, but for me defy pain (particularly with endure pain) beats it for sustainability throughout a combat, +20 armour, and increased resistance to health degen via conditions and especially hexes.

For me personally, it has thus made watch yourself! + soldier's defense, and all the stances that give +20 armour (eg: disciplined, defensive) kind of irrelevant and untidy. Most of the blocking stances available to warriors are already crippled by being cancelled if you use a skill (or adrenal skill), and now the +20 armour bonus on these stances is a meaningless addition for anyone using defy pain or watch yourself!.

The suggested +40 stacking max would be an improvement, but in the meantime, a logical warrior tank is looking to earth magic skills for her/his single armour skill, and probably gladiator's defence and bonetti's defence for their stances.

This is the worst aspect of the armour stacking nerf for me - most of the tanking warrior stances and other skills are even more irrelevant than before. It sticks in my throat to have to look to other professions to get the skills I require to fulfill what is a (the?) core role of the warrior profession in PvE and take them at, say 12 earth magic, whilst tactics and strength are now never worth taking above 12 for the warrior tank.