Developer Updates - Skill Balance Changes - 18th June 08

To all of these types of posts. The original skill change stuff is still there otherwise the 'added' developer commentary would have been quite useless.

This is Anet's "response" to Avarre's thread from earlier. Let this be a lesson to those who say that rants achieve nothing.

As someone who very much agrees with Avarre, I appreciate these notes. I may disagree with a lot of what they're doing, but it's nice to know that they know what the problems are, even if they're not properly fixing them.

I don't think skills should me changed in PvE, however in PvP? Why do people change or care what skills are powerful or not? It's not like were PvPing with others.

I understand PvP some skills are so powerful you don't stand a chance and you would want PvP skills balanced.

I don't see the need or the point of nerfing skills in PvE, maybe I am missing something? Is it pugs? Most people dont like their pings? or whatever reason behind it.

From what I read in that opening paragraph:
'We are considering doing something about SF because its f'ing ridiculous but since some people love Ursan we aren't considering any changes at the moment.'

I would of prefered they said something about a change to ursan but a SF nerf is more important at the moment.

Hell yes. Being heard and noticed is always the first step.

I just want to give a thank you to Regina: It's good to see someone voicing our concerns!

Again, why do people want to change PvE skills? Whats the point?

Yes true, I'm happy for that. It's just the explanations are ridiculous.

"We're looking into it. But we don't plan on changing anything. So to make it look like we care, we'll tell you we're looking into it."

It won't Happen the QQers/people that want to skill to be Nerf just so they can Laugh is a small PERCENTAGE......plus we just have haters out there because there class is being left in dust and can't farm half the places SF can, Shadow form will remain as it is........it's only good for Farming, I would never use SF for regular PvE, I have ran into enemies that strip it off.

To be fair, at this point they're screwed no matter what they do. Since they left it alone for so long, the vast majority of PvErs now use it for damn near everything. Since it's a grind based title, all those thousands of bears had to endlessly grind out the title, and will be awfully angry if all that time was for naught.

On the other hand, the corpse of PvE doesn't start smelling better if you let it continue to rot.

I hope they leave SF. I just dusted off my old assasin and am planning to give it a try at farming some much needed cash. I could care less if it "ruins the economy". People will just find something else to use for trade, like Zkeys or something. I think SF makes farming a less exclusive club to try out. As a casual player (read: about 5 hours a week or less) it would be nice to be able to farm ectos for a pair of chaos gloves for myself rather than spending thousands on ectos from others.
Meh. just my opinion. Oh, and they can leave Ursan alone too.

Bragging rights, some people who took advantage of over powered skills or an exploit have achieved what they wanted and don‘t want others to get it as easy as they did. While some really would like to have seen balance.

Ecto’s prices fell to way before SF, there is LS then HM then ursan to thank for that. It would have been nice to see these things addressed way before now. Nerfing them now with out some kind of penalty for the abuse is rather pointless. Why penalize new players and casual players for lack of change now.

All I saw was lots of 'we know skill x is a problem, but we didn't change it'. Or 'we know skill x is a problem, so we changed skill y'.
I love the necromancer part. Like necros are ever going to get close in power to physical damage. And if they do, it won't be because of Suffering for sure. I also like the "we give more options to eles not using a good skillbar." Why would you run Lightning Touch when there are skills in the water line being far more effective? The monk part is fun too. "with no recharge they were too easy to reapply." And with 15 seconds recharge they aren't? You only need to keep it on 2 people after all. And with the enchantremoval on such long recharges, it doesn't matter anyway. The warrior part about swords doesn't make much sense either. Maybe swords aren't used because all other weapons are just better? And if I'm going to use Charge it will be on a paragon, not on a warrior for sure.

The Dev Update for the HoM was pushed back for this....
I can say i'm alittle disappointed. I was excepting a update about nerfs to shadowform or ursan, not a rational for last weeks update what most people understood y things were nerfed.

That will really be the "Coup de Grâce " for GW.
Wonder how the game will be with only 1/10 of the current player base left?

The rest seams like reasonable changes.

Hopefully nothing that will completely ruin the viability of SF farming. I'd like to see something passive in with the skill, so that SF isn't this end-all farming skill, but is still viable.

Like severe movement restrictions, cast time increase, skill disabling, ect. not necessarily all of them though.

And adding counters to elite areas wouldn't be too difficult. [Signet of Humility] FTW

I agree, I think the skills in terms of PvE should be left alone. I know old time players may feel it's unfair, however thats life. Example, Unsarn wasn't added until EOTN was released.

I do strongly feel that PvP skills should be balanced because your playing actual players and why not make it fair.

A/E shouldn't be nerfed, because it's again PvE, why do people care about how some people farm? The community needs it, the ectos and what not.

It's like this I think in every MMROPG. I suggest Anet leave the PvE skills alone and keep the PvP skills balanced.

I'm glad they took the time to do this. At least this shows us that they know what the community's worries are.

Now to hope they'll actually do something about it one day..

Some people are more jealous than others. The people who choose not to take the time to come up with decent builds or ideas complain because thinking hurts.