Update: 13 Nov. 07

for the last time, GW pvp is a COMPETITIVE game. and like all competitive games, it requires a steady stream of skill balancing in order to make it work. GW high level pvp is NOT about countering recountering. that will lead to what's known as "build wars", or in other words: a glorified rockpaperscissors game. that is NOT a good thing.

unlike pvp, GW pve is not a competitive game. as such, it really doesn't matter whatever the form skills end up being. it's a fact that you can go through the game with an empty skill bar, and do nothing but direct your henchmen. skill balance makes no difference in pve to those with a brain.

Assassins aren't dead, just because you spit your spite on them Doesn't mean there dead.

SP sin instagib is hopefully dead, but sin's existed before that build and we still do.

The only problem here is Horns of the ox.

Mark of instability can fill in its space.

MoI allows for stronger damage anyways due to the fact you could knock down with twisting fangs (Bleed+DW+knockdown)

And then finish with BoS/Death blossom.

By nerfing horns they pretty much FORCE, any assassin without Eye of the North

To take MoI and increase there damage even more, but loose a slot.
Or take Iron Palm.

>.> You don't see how stupid the horns nerf was but I do.

New build...actually old really...dug it up from my archives

[card]Aura of Displacement[/card]
[card]Mark of instability[/card]
[card]Golden Phoenix Strike[/card]
[card]Twisting Fangs[/card]
[card]Falling Spider[/card][card]Blades of steel[/card]
[card]Feigned[/card]
[card]Resurrection signet[/card]
[card]Dark Escape[/card]

Does more damage then the combo using horns.


No they did not kill sins, they just reverted us to take out OLD builds from a year ago.

except without Horns...thus to give Knock down...we must Increase our damage.

GG

I still am

Quote of the day, follwed by Colbalts

I love skill update threads lol

Wastrel's Collaspe, dumbest Assassin skill you have.

Horns of the Ox, I am crying with you. That skill didn't deserve the nerf, now it will do very minimum damage, almost making the short knockdown, not worth it. At least increase the KD time by a whole second, giving us even MORE time to pull off the Falling spider. Ever hate those times where you use Horns of the Ox while they were running, or you were using shock, etc, and then by the time you use it, they're back up already. Yeah.

We do have too many lead attacks, IMO, and not very good ones, same goes with off-hands. Assassins are supposed to get in, combo, and get out, however with the current skills, it's hard to pull off something that works effectively. I don't know about you, but I always have to play smart (which is probably a good thing) but for example, I'm in the RA.

I'm always watching for when the Monk is using his/her Guardian, and whoever it's been casted on (thank the makers for at least giving that a unique animation, which I wish more skills had.) then spike someone, as almost 9/10 of the times, if I start attacking someone, even without a spike build, BLOCK. BLOCK. BLOCK. BLOCK. BLOCK. There's so many blocking skills, hardly any effective unblockable skills. Bull.

Expose was nerfed twice, if you wish to lower it, lower it to 6 seconds at 12, 9 seconds at 16, 25 recharge, with a 5 energy cost. The 10 energy is too much cost for an assassin with horrible defense, and only 25 energy to use. I use radiant runes to try and make up for the damage of the cost of the attacks.

As for Shadow Prison sins nerfed, no, not completely. I'm going to just load up a new build. Same thing as Shadow Prison spikers today, Shadow Prison, Tiger Stance, Black Lotus Strike, only, I'm going to throw in an off-hand right there, then Twisting Fangs, Black Spider Strike, Blades of Steel, Ressurection Signet. Yeah, that's right.

PARAGONS. FIX THEM. Izzy, I am depending on you to make Paragons used more, but watch the skills you choose. Shouts, more effective, last longer than one or two attacks, change Aggressive Refrain to 10 energy, you get a speed attack bonus for say, 8...16 seconds, as a shout, it ends prematurely if you use another shout or chant. Leadership attribute.

I want my Paragon to be awesome, not a heaping pile of "No one plays Paragons, GTFO!" or "Paragons suck you noob!"

I completely agree.

Having a necro as a main char, I can say the same thing. MM isn't the only way to go. Sure in areas with exploitable corpses, it's pretty fun; damage-reducing in a way your foes will focus on something else than the party members, bodyblocking (see ToPK and SF b/P groups), and pressure on your foes. However, you can bet I don't rely on ranger pets when I'm MMing - if an area doesn't have exploitable corpses, I won't play MM and I'll go for something else. Hell, we have SV, FoC, SS, degen builds, we can nuke, we can heal, and more. So why sticking to MMing? There's much more to necro >_>. I'll live with the pet nerf 'cause aside ToPK/SF, I don't MM much anymore and when I do, there's a ton of exploitable corpses.

Adaptation > GW. Something PvPers would indeed need to learn.

As far as I can tell, the pet corpse nerf (along with the new splinter weapon) is there to try and break the monopoly B/P farming has on tombs. I would think it's still doable (pets tanking during MM downtime), just the corpses aren't infinite so you can't be as sloppy. Which opens the door for other strategies to be tried out...

We will adapt and overcome!

People will come up with new builds that are "overpowered", then they will nerf some skills in that build.

Rinse, repeat....

Try thinking just a little bit outside the box. No one really relied on a pet dying (outside Tombs), but now, if that does happen, and it will (and admit, a Dire pet is going to get targeted more often then most real players), it can't even serve the purpose of partially helping an MM or Well. Again, its more hits against players who want to use a Pet. Its like they took one spell away from Rangers. For no reason.

nothing here really effects me, i'll just have to think of different builds to use. no SR gain from spirits makes sense to me. No pet corpses makes it seem they are implying that pets are undead I guess, in that case my necromancer should be undead too and be immune to conditions.

But seriously the other nerfs don't affect me for i don't base my ranger builds on barrage and pets alone. Arrrg I guess its off to making new builds, wait new builds I thought we always used the same builds over and over? Wow hmmm..

play HM. come back when you're done.

fyi no pets are not integral to any of my necro build. it just so happens i LIKE taking my pets out with me EXCUSE ME FOR ENJOYING THE GAME.

up to now they left a corpse, now they don't. why?

like someone said above me, pve will adapt. we always adapt. except in very specific situations people will be running all kinds of builds, numerous and diverse.

pvp on the other hand establishes a meta, becomes STALE and then izzy has to come and hold your hand while the class hollers and whines pointing at the "bad bad man" crying "make him go away he scary".

Well said... :-)

It's times like these that I wish armor was trade able, so I could just dump my sins armor to some other player for my cash back

Bring pet - kill pet - raise meat shield - rez pet - rinse and repeat??

Boringgggg

Izzy.....Keep whatever sin nerfs you want

I beg.....Restore horns........I'll go down on my knees.

I'll leave Guru's pvp forums Forever!! if you restore horns within the hour.

Interesting. Ensign, in that goofy edited skill balance article, told us that during the early days of GW high end pvp it was great never knowing what your opponent was going to bring to the table and likewise, what you might bring.

Now you're telling me that coming up with unique builds isn't good for pvp? Everyone bring they're cookie cutter 2 wamos, 2 eles, 2 monks, 1 ranger and whatever else and it's great fun?

You're not reading properly.

name me ONE competitive game where they go in and change the rules every few months.


ummm...


ok one game then.

"lets have a chess tournament!"

"ok"

"wait what day is it?, Tuesday yeah...so..."

"yeah towers now move diagonally and the queen can only take a piece if you wear green socks"


or CSS?

"from now on until next month Glock and AWM damage will be reversed in the sake of promoting handgun usage and competitiveness"

OK most of these updates i understand, except the monk ones cause i never play a monk. Mostly i play an assassin, and let me kill your fears that i am going to just whine about how badly assassins have just been nerfed, because it looks like that is all i will be killing. there are only 2 assasin nerfs that i disagree with, namely trampling ox, and horns of the ox. these are duel attack skill and they deserve to deal some damage. trampling it might be possible to recover from, but horns is now officially dead. it is a dual attack skill that dealls 20 dmg (counting both hits) and has a conditional knokdown. it should at least have each hit deal 20 dmg, and trampling should deal 25/hit. also since assassins no longer have a decent way of KDing an oppnent the falling skills are dead too.
My remedy. give horns 20 dmg/hit. reduce the recharge of mark of instability to 10. add a clause to critical strikes that says "For each point in critical strikes assassin criticals deal 1 more dmg." this would help cover the low dmg of daggers and all the recent dmg nerfs to assassins.

thanks Nerf-Net for ruining one of the last fun things to do B/P Ranger

You just promoted that guy to Ensign's level :-( Although, truthfully, Ensign probably disagrees with me just as much as these guys, probably more on principle, but I doubt back during the heyday he and his peers had as much trouble finding counters and ways to solve problems as these people do. It's almost like they want GW PvP to be like chess.

Good call, btw.

Why is the only accepted build "balanced" for PvP? I never understood that. Why is Izzy and the PvP playerbase so adamantly against players using builds outside of Monk-Monk-Monk-Elementalist-Ranger-Mesmer-Warrior-Warrior? If the game is suppose to be made made for "balanced-only," why isn't there a limit on how many of one class you can bring? Haven't "balanced" players been asking for this for a while?

My main complaint about the change is simply animals not leaving exploitable corpses makes about as much sense as soul reaping having a timer. You dont need pets in HM or areas where there are little to no corpses. Plenty of other ways to deal with it.

Having them leave no corpses is clunky. Change the pet corpse mechanic in PvP for PvP-only pet characteristics, unless the intent really was to make people stop using them as sources for corpses in PvE. If that was the case, why? Been going through HM just fine without ever using a pet.

3 extra damage on barrage... am i missing something here? Why the excitement? Let us keep preparations with it and maybe i might be more enthusiastic. What say you Anet?

Glad Sins got nerfed anyway. I was getting very sick of being killed in 2-3 seconds without being able to react to the knock-down and daze. It was only a few hours ago my GF witnessed my monk get slaughtered by a sin and i calmly told her that they will be nerfed one day because Anet doesn't give players an IWIN button. So i wasn't worrying about it.

QFT Once again why not nerf PVP and NOT PVE. i know its possable as we now have PVE ONLY skills. So Anet must know when we are in pve and are not.

Changes I would have liked to seen with the update:

Necromancer
Soul Reaping: no longer gains any benefit from Spirits. You now gain Energy 3 times every 10 seconds.

Ranger
Kill this --> Player Pets: no longer leave exploitable corpses.

Also, the changes I've mentioned in a few other threads.

Sekkira just because people can adapt doesn't mean its fair.

Horns of the ox nerf = WTF, A-net....Hire someone else now. 15 strikes your out.

Nerfing Horns is bad for assassins,bad for secondarys,bad for pvp,bad for the game, BAD for NORTH AMERICA...

BAD FOR THE WORLD.


>.> Pve'rs do adapt, but for what for? There are certain (few) parts of Pve, where your build really does matter, and if a-net isn't careful they can seriously gimp play there.

Eternal grove, is not a mission for total idiots (well MM makes anything possible but regardless) you generally have to split (1 of the first applications that will prepare you somewhat for gvg)

Need co-ordination and team work.

You don't just run crap, there.

DoA....not as bad as it used to be but regardless, you don't just run crap.

PVE can adapt, but what if that adaption means ruining it for other classes?

Mesmers/sins arent' exactly Perfect for pve (although Moebius DB allows sins a chance)

Soon enough, they won't be able to adapt for certain missions. Sunqua Vale will always be do able, but there are missions, even pvpers should realize...theres places where you can go to far.

>.> I don't really do missions in pve, but its there.

You a**.. you beat me to the punch completely lol.. I was just thinking the same thing. :-) Even in video games this is true.

either you are joining typical b/p groups for the sake of efficiency(?) or you dont know how to set up heroes properly.


try playing for fun and coming up with your own builds, you might...you know...enjoy it?

edit:

errmm jagged bones? minion bomber?, using minions in areas with few De and El fire dmg?, if its the case prioritizing targeting?

oh yeah . pvpers think all pvers are idiots who c space the whole game.

The SR nerf is not enough. Remove SR for minions also.

Make Animate Bone Minions cost 25e.

It is time to close the shameful SR exploit chapter of GW.

EW needs to be reworked completely. It can still be kept up constantly by dual E/Rs. Making it reduce the cost of ranger skills only is one fix.

If you need a minion army just to do HM, you're not very good anyway, and prob should go back to NM.


Me B/P?? lol I don't farm. I've never needed to farm. I've never been in a B/P group. I've never done Tombs. You get my drift??

I play for fun...this is why I laugh at skill updates. They don't effect me, as I don't really care.

You could like run a SP->Black mantis combo with trampling ox, still get your imba damage in and the kd.

I think this is what you were going for, making Soul Reaping useless, right?

I think they should there should be another searing and all our characters get deleted
/sarcasm

I don't think its a big deal, but either anet listens to your rants or they don't. Its as simple as that, hey I like doing B/P too, but lets have another build craze everyone. Lets make a new *widely* used build to play, cheer up!

Purely out of curiousity, please be the example?
Complete hardmode, with only H/H as they are, with NO skills on your own bar.

Additionally, if you truely think skills in PvE simpy dont matter, then dropping all skill effectiveness to about 1/4 of what they currently are you still think PvE will be so easy? IT will be like running around trying to kill 300 ton flies with a typical fly swatter... Yes, skills matter in PvE.

How moronic of a statement is taht? I am not foolish enough to be pulled in an argument about PvE vs PvP, as i play both, but alas just dont make statements that are plain silly and purely inflammatory/flamebait. *sigh*

cheers.

Because for the most part, there are a lot of good balanced builds that take advantage of a large amount of warriors and rangers. Other builds run large amounts of the other classes, but less so. I could say the same thing for every other class.

What if I want to run 5 sins/elementists/warriors/rangers/mesmers/ritualists/monks/dervishes/paragons but can't because theres one skill out there that is sooooo good, and imbalanced from the rest of the game, that theres no reason?

Oh Guru Form, Since when has ANYONE on this entire planet see me PROMOTE, or SUPPORT Insta-gib. PvP forum....even though some of you think im retarded...when have I showed any compassion for that crap?

I've always done, things the way I prefer.
I don't plan to run SP-gib any time soon.

anyways

I also don't have eotn any moment (and im considering not wasting 50 dollars)
I probably wont get eotn until at least december.

As
Mario galaxy> Guild wars.
Nintendo doesn't Screw up its customers. Fact.

Izzy......can you divide your Job into 10 different parts please?

We should have 1-2 persons balancing for each class.

Izzy should just be a super visor.

I wan't someone working on the assassin class, who cares enough to know

Nerfing Horns is retarded like having guns on the street.

Fix Black Lotus Strike! Even with the nerf, they make it FAIL.

Description:
"Lead Attack. If it hits, Black Lotus Strike strikes for +[damage]. IF target foe is suffering from a hex, you gain [energy]."

It is usable without a hex now, but still, to this day.


Picture:
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/8083/failjt9.png



FAIL.

How I envy players of online games that don't have constant pointless skill updates that do nothing but aggravate players.

ArenaNet should do a complete rollback so each class has their skills on the original way they were. Then take a second try at balance, but with someone OTHER than Izzy. Someone who actually plays PvE.

To this, let's take a look. I bet there are more solutions (one I know of, and the one I'll resort if the old b/p way doesn't work anymore... although, TBH, it should), but let's see the foes in ToPK.

Grasps aren't melee friendly; in HM they do up to 400dmg/hit; they remove enchantments from their foes and hexes from themselves when they hit the "right" target, attack through stances, blind, cripple. They come in bunches of 4-5. Solution: ranged attacks that hit multiple foes; Barrage. Pet to bodyblock and create diversion from your original team. Pets also provide CORPSES for the necro to use at either the beginning of the level, or after a party wipe when they happen, or less enemies in the area and the MM has low-ish minions (3-5).

Scythes: casters, mesmers; deal less damage than the grasps, but still have the same stuff as them (ench. removal, attack through stance, etc). They can shut a caster down for a short time. Solution: Barrage.

Terrorwebs: fire nukers with MS and general AoE damage. MS > party. Solution: interrupts, so once again: b/p.

Riders: casters, mesmers; enchantment removal and they love to use it. Solution: b/p. Solution to b/p: Empathy. Solution to Empathy: Hex Removal.

So of course most of the population will NOT run balanced; the tanks are being leet and carry Mending (ench. removal, attacks through stances); the monks prot pullers (ench. removal from riders); the nukers are heavy nukes with long spell casts (shutdown from mesmers) and remain squishy to elemental damage. So no bodyblocking > grasps leak > party dies.

Note that I'm talking here about the general PvE mentality, focusing on the "holy trinity", which needs to be changed and won't. The b/p pet is ideal, I'll agree, because it eliminates a buncha problems caused by the foes.

HOWEVER...

PvE needs to adapt as well. Even though this build is effective, well there ARE other solutions: I 3-man ToPK with a famine ranger, a monk with SB and a VwK rit. It works, faster than your average PUG, and you have the advantage of a 3-man farming build.