Update: 13 Nov. 07

So why decrease the ability of the player's skills? (Excluding the Holy Trinity of course.)

Did you miss the entire part about pvp relying on player skill?

Sin got main hit. Horns nerf is overkill imo.
lol @EW: some ranger spirits are broken, but the way how ANet "balance" it is much more broken.
Magebane Shot is spammable (about 3en, 5 recharge, cannot be blocked) now, I smell another nerf incoming.
I expected to see they do something about unused skills tho.

Don't know why I feel they are killing GW2... my desire to play GW2 is vanishing.

Soul Reaping no longer gains any benefit from Spirits.
But a lot of nerf were done because of Soul Reaping build:

Soul Reaping trigger nerf
Icy Veins
Blood Spike
Jagged Bones

Okay, now necro healing/restoration is dead, and necro cannot spike no more.
Some nerf should be reverted.

Why does it even matter. No nerf in the history of Guild Wars has made PvE uncompleteable. If something is too strong and people abuse it, it can be balanced along the lines of what other people use. This is because Guild Wars was ideally about skill and not build.

Does it matter in the end? Nope. You can still defeat everything.

Pretty sure adding minor inconvinences to some builds doesn't change anything.

Oh, so if you meet the condition, it's no longer conditional, my bad...

The confusing part about the "no corpse from player pet" thing is, that it doesn't make any sense at all in terms of the pets being a fleshy creature. Fleshy creatures (throughout the whole game) leave an exploitable corpse when they die.

So since player pets don't do this now, it would imply that they are no longer a fleshy creature once they are charmed. This would also imply, that "bleeding" for example shouldn't have any effect on them anymore (no fleshy corpse -> no bleeding, as seen on all other non-fleshy creatures that don't leave an exploitable corpse).

Anyway, the reason for this change deserves imho a better explanation than just the usual "it got abused in PvP", especially if this unsatisfying explanation is coupled with a few "you PvE people need to adapt" lines.

Was the reason that MMs used them to continually raise minions from those corpses?
If so: why couldn't the PvP people adapt to *that*?
Raising minions is done by spells, spells that don't have a quarter second casting-time, so it's already easily countered by interrupting the MM - be it by a ranger, a mesmer, a warrior, a spirit-rit, another Necro...there are lots of interrupts (some more powerful than others, some direct interrupts, some interrupting by knocking down).
I'd assume that each and every PvP team has some kind of interrupt-skills/spells equipped anyway, so this would obviously *not* be something you'd have to bring *exclusively* to counter *this one specific* thing.

Of course that would still leave the corpses laying there, but those can (and always could) be used by both sides anyway, so they don't necessarily give only one side an advantage.
Have one person bring a "corpse control" (e.g. corpse explosion, necrotic traversal, any "well" of your choice, or similar) and there you go - there's nothing more frustrating to an MM than "the other side" using up "his" corpses.
Why you should have to bring corpse control? Because imho the PvE players shouldn't be the only ones who constantly have to adapt to everything that gets thrown at them - show that you're able (and willing) to do that too.

Now one last thing that I keep wondering about (not related to today's skill-balance):
People keep bringing up how super-easy PvE is (NM as well as HM), because of UB. And some of these people also constantly ask for an UB-nerf.

First of all: Not everybody has EotN, I myself for example don't have it (yet), I've seen lots of statements from people that they didn't get it either, I also know people who *only* have the prophecies campaign (so they don't even have heroes at their disposal).
So here's the worst case: You don't have heroes, you don't have any PvE-only skills, only the (ever changing) skills of one campaign, and you have to make due with that. Isn't PvE super-easy now? I bet, especially hard mode.
Don't always assume that every single player has each and every campaign/expansion (even if you think they should).
If something from a certain campaign (or expansion) makes PvE unchallenging for you, don't just generalize that "PvE is super-easy", because what makes it so easy for you might not be accessible for somebody else.

Second, as far as I know, UB is a PvE only skill, which means it only effects PvE, and in PvE also only those who use it.
This raises (at least for me) the question, why anybody in their right mind would ask for it to be nerfed. According to the (see above) general assumption that everybody has everything anyway, everybody is free to use UB, so theoretically nobody should have any advantage over anybody else by using it. You don't like it? Don't use it. But just because *you* don't like it, why force your very own subjective opinion on the people who do like it?
Just my 2 cents about this.

How come we are going through a strange skill balance again that is just plain irritating. Is this just a ploy to stop us thinking about when the November bonus missions will appear?

There is a difference between adapting to a change in something overpowered that you use, and therefore using something else instead to complete an area (PvE), and adapting to something overpowered by trying to find a way to defeat it (PvP).

The two forms of adapting are so incredibly different if you don't see that immediately I struggle to think how you manage to play the game without getting confused by moving targets.

There was also never a point in GW's lifespan when HoH wasn't won by one of the competing teams, with the exception of a few bugs. There was also a winner for each GvG match.

PvP as a whole is meant to provide a competitive platform for two or more teams on relatively even footing. Hence, the decided between the matches is skill (ideally) rather than other aspects. There will always be a winning team, and the winning team is usually the team that played better. When build becomes the deciding factor, it is important to try and ensure various skills and builds are even in terms of power.

PvE is meant for the players to defeat the AI. Nothing else.

The only purpose for PvE balance is to try to ensure that one skillset doesn't significantly give more success or rewards for less effort than others (such as prot bond farming). Not to ensure that both sides in a battle are balanced against each other.

Actually I don't know about that... I don't think we could four man PvE Tombs anymore with the nerf to OoB, like we did on our first run the day it was opened.

PvE, so challenging.

What they do about soul reaping is a joke. people suggested that no energy from spirit at first, but they added the timer and nerffed tons of necro skills.

Now no energy from spirits, they should revert some nerf because of soul reaping build as well.

timer nerf
blood spike (especially OG)
icy veins
jagged bones

This pet thing is annoying because I just charmed a pet in Pre so a guildie and I could use them as minion fodder while Charr hunting. I doubt it will be permanent though. ANet probably did it to test the waters and see what happens. Thats what I have to keep believing. Yesterday I couldn't get into a FoW group b/c I didn't have Ursan Blessing. Tomb isn't as good as FoW or UW but at least I can do a run there without people demanding I have r6 UB. I actually saw people with UB get rejected b/c it wasn't r6 or higher. *lol* I don't care about PvP. I find it tedious, somewhat elitest, and in the end hardly worth the trouble. But I resent it when these nerfs occur because now builds I worked my butt off to accomodate are useless and I don't have loads of plat to waste.

Player Pets: no longer leave exploitable corpses.
...... You know... I don't tend to try and min-max every chance I get.. but wha?? is that about?? If I kill an animal.. I can make a minion.. but now if I kill a pet.... what? It turns to vapor?? And that's just looking at if from a 'I like this game and can ignore a fair bit of the stuff that doesn't make sense' point of view.

Ya.. kinda roll play based I know... and reading above, some 'PvP is uber and PvE dosn't really count' noobs will be really confused right now, asking what a story line is and all..

Anyhow.. I don't even what to talk about the Soul Reap nerf.. but that's just a Grrr.. I liked that extra energy point of view.. lol I can justify it story line logic...

Oh well.. My necro just suck a little more.. I just glad I'm not a poor Sin...

Oh, I know what you mean. The old 3-man FoW clearing team took a real hit when Warriors lost some of their tanking power. We were thinking of maybe adding another member to the group, but that just seemed to be taking the easy way out.

Guild Wars. Serious PvE.

And just because total dmg is increased doesn't mean you win. +4 dmg on a single target from a single person is almost negligible when you consider the weapon dmg range, armor, skills being used by foes, etc etc. +4 dmg will in no shape or form tip the scale in your favor during a battle.

I heart this post.

Now a few things may need to be added but overall great post IMO.

The only noteable thing i remember someone saying is that only when a build can not be beaten by any other build is it truely imbalanced.

However, if it can roll a majority of the builds then it may need to be tweaked slightly. That said not everything is imbalanced and broken. Everyone crying for balance is a joke, a joke thats been going on for 2 years now, with no punch line in sight. As for the whole 'but but but my balanced team of pro's shouldn't lose to these "gimmick" builds nerf it', whatever. What you may call gimmicky, may indeed be gimmicky. However, gimmick builds are nothing more than specialization. And specialization can be counted. So unless it can roll over the vast majority of other builds as well, then i think you need to change your "balanced" team build. Part of the game after all is not knowing what your opponent will bring. The example of the TCG, Magic, a few pages back is a prime example of this.

And quit saying that skill changes don't affect pve. They most certainly do affect pve. If it makes me change up a skill set/hero skill set, it affects me and it affect pve. Besides it also affects the changes in the foe skills to, so I'll need to take note incase I encounter it later. And HM can be quite challenging. I'd love to see for some of the people who claim they can c+space through the entire game and not even bring half a skill bar try to H/H it through HM. Its actually challenging and makes me think about my builds and i know for a fact i couldn't make it through some places with out a full skill bar. (And Ursan Blessing doesnt count - everyone knows its imbalanced with more than one in a group - with 6 and 2 monks you can roll every elite area in the game for ffs.) So when I hear people complain about pvp trumping pve i have some sympathy for them, and you should to. Not alot but you should at least know where they are coming from.

And way to kill 3 rangers farms in less than a week. Solo trapping is pretty much gone. (I haven't tested to see, but a 9sec EW at 4 beast mastery. GG) Any Splinter Barrage farm is gone. B/P is probably still do-able but not able to recover as easy from almost party wipe, but definately taken hit. Are they trying to make monks and eles the only professions to solo farm. (I know other professions have solo farms but a vast majority of farms are run by monks and eles.)

And as far as i remember there was a whole doa zone that relied on NT to a dead pet to complete. Now i'm sure there are ways to do it without the trick but i'm pretty sure they'll be harder.

I don't even know what else to add. I'm begining to become apathetic to it all at this point. At this point, I would just like to have some official comments on why certains changes were made and what they were intended to do, besides make everyone scream, bit**, moan, jump up and down, and do little dances over the changes. (Ensign/Izzy haven't posted their two cents about this update yet have they? I honestly dont know.)

as usual just adapt to the change. Maybe instead of a 3 man ranger farm do a 4 man and have one guy that has alot of points in beast mastery i dont know i dont trap and all that shit. Isnt the end of the world just adapt to the change.

I wish there could be PvP balances that dont piss off PvE players, but thats never going to happen.

However...i still stand by my opinion that pets leaving no corpses is a rather stupid decision. Its just so...unnatural.

We've been playing under Anet's rules that fleshy creatures leave corpses. Suddenly turning around and making what seems like a purely arbitrary and biased exception is going to piss a lot of players off.

Yes i understand that pets are being used as minion sources in PvP.

I thought thats the reason your skills were disabled when your pet dies, so that simply letting your pet turn into a corpse makes you useless for a period of time. That is supposed to be the balance. Thats one of your costs.

The pet brings damage, body blocking, and an exploitable corpse, at the cost of disabling skills, as well as taking up space on your skillbar.

The removal of corpses from pet seems to me like just a cheap answer, instead of dealing with the mechanics as to why the tactic was imbalanced.

[TANGENT] You know, I don't usually mind skill balances. In fact, the only nerf I ever complained about was the first SR nerf, but only because it was very "inelegant" and affected the whole class rather than just a skillbar or two like most nerfs. The more "elegant" solution fixed my issue with it, and I'm fine now. I completely understand the purpose of balances, and although there are those skill changes that aren't so great, or could be tweaked a bit more (I'm looking at you, exhaustion for Rits...), the 'heart' of skill changes is honest and with good intent.[/TANGENT]

That out of the way, this pet thing just doesn't feel right to me. Not that it affects me in any significant way, though it does affect me (I don't do B/P or anything, but I do like to have an emergency corpse for wells if the team is under heavy fire or in an area with little to no corpses, such as battling a tough boss like Remnant of Antiquities), it just feels really clunky and "inelegant."

It makes no sense, really. Why would a pet, who leaves a corpse as a level 5 animal, suddenly not leave a corpse once charmed? Perhaps this could go the way of pet DP and be PvP-only?