Nerf Chaos Plains or Shadowform?

W/Rt
W/D
E/Me
E/A
R/Me
Rt/Me
etc etc.

Nerf SF, and every other ridiculously overpowered skill. Overpowered skills are bad for the game, despite what people who enjoy EZ-win God Mode say on forums.

Leave Chaos Planes alone, or better yet, make it even easier to farm with balanced skills, ingenuity, and talent. And set the Ecto price at the trader to ~1k each while your at it. GW was never designed to have an economy, and no item was ever supposed to cost anywhere near 100k except for the rarest of the rare vanity items, which would maybe reach the 100k limit.

Pro farmers and market players can GTFO for all I care, all they do is make life more difficult for other players in order to fulfill their selfish needs (now that sounds kinda like griefing to me).

Nerf SF already, it's ridiculous to be permanent invincible...

Ummm...farmers are meant to help boost the economy and having ecto prices low is GOOD. I mean obsidian armor is already expensive the way it is.

And Shadow Form doesn't need a nerf, it's fine the way it is. Not to mention that SF isn't always 100% invincible.

With bonder it's 95% invincible, maintainable. Read last 2 pages.

[Merged from another thread]

The heated controversy relating to the perma-Shadow Form build has caused lots of flaming and spamming and people arguing that perma-Shadow is destroying the economy. And because of that reason, most people want Shadow Form to be nerfed. However, doing so will not only cause making Shadow Form being useless, but invoking an angry protest from most Assassins. This is because is buff has been around for a few weeks, and nerfing it again is like giving candy to a baby and then taking it away. I'm not good at persuasion, but I will try to make valid arguments to change your mind.

Here are the few good reasons why Shadow Form should be the way it is:
1) It is not 100% invulernable
As I said before, Shadow Form is NOT 100% invincible. The enchantment cannot protect you from touch skills, signets, traps, and non-targeting AoE spells (particularly ones that are point blank). In fact, there is enough behemoths in the mountain path in the UW that is capable of killing you in one shot.

2) Nerfing Shadow Form WILL effect the ecto prices
Currently, ectos are around 4k ea. Apparently, this is good because it gives more incentive for people to buy because it's cheaper. Economics 101. Cheaper is always better, since people can save more and use the money to buy things. This keeps the economy running. Nerfing Shadow Form will make obtaining ectos even more difficult and such, it will raise the ecto prices and cause people to have less incentive to buy. And because of that, sellers will end up having lots of ectos unable to sell. Besides which, ectos are used to trade for everlasting tonics (which by average, if I'm not mistaken, is around 100-150 ectos) and obsidian armor (which I know lots of people want for the Hall of Monuments).

3) Nerfing Shadow Form will destroy oppurtunities.
Nerfing shadow form will destroy personal oppurtunities to get an items. Noticeably, rare miniatures, everlasting tonics, and obsidian armor (I myself, want the everlasting automatonic and the everlasting beetle juice). As well as oppurtunities to buy a lot of consumables for titles like Drunkard, Sweet Tooth, and Party Animal. Even people want those Powerstones to complete vanquishing or filling the hero handbooks for EotN reputation points. Nerfing Shadow Form will ruin the oppurtunity to farm want people wish to pursue. When Shadow Form was buffed, I farm in the UW not just because of the everlasting tonics, but to try something I really wanted to do (and some other people as well), which is farming UW in solo.

4) Other farming build smay not be effective on certain areas than the perma-shadow (particularly the UW)
For this one, people say there are other solo builds that can farm in the UW. Although they may do so, it isn't really effective because the build may lack one or two things:
1) Enchantment Removal
2) Interrupts
3) Negating damage (particularly the Bladed Aaxte)

For example, a 55 Monk build may have the ability to deal with enchantment removal due to Spell Breaker, but the build may not able to handle interrupts caused by Bladed Aaxte and Grasping Darknesses. perma-Shadow Form, on the other hand, is the only one that can handle all of these at once.

Some argue, that farming things in duo is better than farming in solo. However, it is a complete opposite. One, in order for this to be effective, you must do it with someone you know or someone you trust. Second, because loot is being shared, there be even situation where there are perpetual arguments and disagreements. For example, if one player gets 14 ectos while the other players gets 2 in one run, then there will instances of arguments or rage-quiting where the one who gets the least number of ectos leave out of anger. Normally, this situation can be handle with the 50/50 solution, but it isn't always that way because one may be doing the tanking while the other will do the damage. As such, doing things in a duo will get things less done due to disagreements. Perma-shadow, on the other hand, only requires yourself and can clear things in the UW easily (malus the charged blacknesses and the behemoths of course). And such, perma-shadow is not only easier, but you don't have to argue with anyone because you'll get all the loot anyways.

5) Nerfing Shadow Form will incite a massive protest
As with all nerfs, nerfing permashadow will incite protest from other people. In this case, this will anger a lot of assassins and perma-shadow farmers. Remember, the loot scaling? It caused a lot of people to angrily protest the scaling. And remember the Spirit Bond nerf (Spirit Bond once heal you when dealing over 60 damage with no limits), this angered a lot of 600 monks because of that. Although not everyone will disagree with the nerf, I believe most farmers nowadays are assassins and 55 monk is considered to be obsolete.

6) Finally, perma-shadow is the only build that can EASILY handle bosses (well, there are other builds, but perma-shadow can handle it EASILY).
That's true, because of the resistance to attacks and spells (most may have enchantment removal or interrupts), Permashadow can handle bosses way better than any other builds (which most bosses drop some sort of a "green" weapon). Although green weapons are pretty much worthless and hard to sell nowadays, some may choose to equip their heroes with a green weapon because one won't have to go through all the trouble to get the mods needed for the hero to use. Also, in HM, bosses drop elite tomes, which some may want to give an elite skill to their new characters to make life easier. As such, perma-shadow will effect how things will play around when it comes to getting skills and managing hero equipment. So what are going to equip your warrior hero with when Shadow Form is nerfed, a non-perfect Divine Favor staff?

Now, before you guys post and such, I want everyone to be respectful, and don't go to the extent of calling someone a vulgar language. Otherwise, I will simply report you.

Anyways, discuss your opinions relating to my argument and I will allow opposition and criticisms. Just that I will try to make counter arguments to counter your point.

Don't change a thing. Keep things as they are. I think the main QQ'ers are the rich ones who have stacks of ecto. They are afraid that their stockpile will reduce their Godly wealth. The worst this could do is make FoW armor more easy to obtain for the average player. But come to think of it. I have only really seen a 1.2K difference in Ecto Prices since the Buff to PvE Shadow Form. Ecto goes down and then it goes up again. I have seen it at 5.5K recently at trader and then 3 hours later it will be 4.3K. It goes back and forth.

JUST SAY NO TO NERF's to PvE!!!!!!!!

your arguments are true but some people are just worried for a crash of the ecto
yes the opportunities will be gone but shadowform can be used without perma
but balance is needed and if ecto crashes the prestige of obsidian will be gone and for people who farmed for it without perma it's really a kick in the dingdong

I wish I was rich with stacks of ectos. Sadly, I have about 20k in my bank, and no ecto.

So, you were saying something about the complainers?

So you're saying shadow form shouldnt be nerfed because it can be countered by a few things, but your other reason is because it is almost invulnerable and makes farming very easy? make your mind up

BTW most assassins couldn't organise the inside of an empty paper bag, let alone a huge protest.

Well it is your own fault for not having cash then... Have you heard about the Perma Sin Build? Easy to farm Chaos Plains. I think I have the build but i'm sure you can find it in game. Just go to ToA and talk to an A/E.

I agree, it's only about the so called higher classes of players beign greedy and they generally have all the money they need, perma SF provides a quick and easy way of getting ectos/anything really. I myself used it to get vabbian on my sin but since then I've only used it to farm the occasional green that you just can't get any other way, such as Icebloods Warstaff (my personal fav). More people are HAPPY with it than those that aren't, as Paladain said, cheaper ectos=good as it gives poorer payers a chance.

The thing is that not all professions have an 'invicibuild'.

Either you give each profession one, or you remove the ones that exist for the others.

I could care less about how much money I have. I was just pointing out that it's not only the rich people who are complaining.

nerf it, theres something wrong with being able to solo just about anything. and in the 1month its been out, chaos plains have been raped so much ectos have droped by about 1.2k which is silly.

chance to do what? to get cheap stuff? why does it matter if it is cheap? where is coolness? where is sense of accomplishment? where is anything in that?
and what about people who worked hard farming fow/uw/doa/urgoz/deep/etc to get those ecto just so now every nub could get them almost for free?

ya... except you wrong. Ectos are not food or gas or any other commodity consumed on daily basis. You get them once, you buy FoW armor and you done with them. Market overflows. Prices drop below basement level. Anything that was used to buy ectos with becomes useless dirt. Everyone becomes poor.
Ya... so to clarify your point, this sint economy 101... this is COMMUNIST economy 101.

shards price has increased significantly, if you calculate the total amout of cash you need for an obsidian armor, it is higher than before

it's easier to farm ectos, but much harder to sell them, and to find shards


btw, obsidian armor has never had any special prestige to me, it just shows you spend enough time in game

normal players can now buy one in one week of farming, instead of one month, if you really want it (for hom or because you like the look), good for you, if it's just a question of e-peen, uninstall gw please

Obsidian looks awful on pretty much every profession, in my opinion. Getting upset that this "prestigious" armor is worth less than before is silly, as this isn't the first time ecto price has dropped.

The price of ectos has indeed gone down, but it's stabilized (for now) at 4k.
But if you look at one thing: So many people have made Sins/others to farm the UW, and look at our favor. It is slowly decreasing, i remember it was 4,600 minutes and then the next day was down to about 4,200 or so.

So eventually, my theory is, the favor goes down to zero. People end up waiting for someone to make a maxed title so they can get into UW, thus ectos are obtained at a less rate than before. Price of ectos goes up.

but that theory is whack

Oh... Sorry I thought you were sad about not having any ecto or gold.


But I'm sure all the "Complainers" will be happy when the PvE Shadow Form nerf does come as I personally think ANET will nerf this. The Funny thing is that an A/Me with arcane echo can perma as well. It is just harder to pull off. All the A/E's out there that have just got wind of the ECTO LOVE that soloing the chaos plains has become will learn and switch. It will not be as easy though seeing as an Ele has some nice AoE damage. However i'm sure there is a build out there than can solo it.

While we are at it lets nerf the 55 by making PS target only other ally. LOL

Or the 600??? Nerf Spirit Bond again. Kick the Recharge up to 20 seconds. Way to many people doing CoF runs. They are making to much money charging for Hard Mode runs.

Or better yet... Make it so you can only take 8 Real people in the underworld with no heroes allowed sort of like the Real player demand in HA.

(Can you feel the sarcasm?)



It is PvE..... Guild Wars is over 3 years old. Balance is needed in PvP for sure. But PvE is just a game. I have done just about everything more than once. I enjoy buffs and gimmick builds now days cause it makes the game fun for me personally. I did all the missions with normal builds long before PvE Skills. I'm working on 30 titles and filling my HoM for GW2 so anything that makes that easier is good with me. I'm going to need a lot of gold to buy sweets, booze,party items and unid golds. So you will find me in ToA Farming Ectos with my A/E until ANET nerfs SF. Then it is off to the next gimmick build for me.

Well, consider a real life example:
The reason why the United States health care sucks (not saying in quality, im saying in affordability) because health care is simply too expensive (not to mentioned being denied care if you can't afford it). In Canada, UK, and Japan, however, the quality is the same no matter what, but they get things cheaper.

With armor in hand in GW, the level 20 armor is the same as 15k armor, malus the looks. Honestly, I want everlasting tonics to be affordable and why is it 130 ectos when you don't get party animal points from it.

As such, perma-shadow doesn't need a nerf or anything.

Everlasting = infinite change for you character
Everlasting + party animal points = Automatic maxed party animal title?

No you make the profession that does have one and level him up as quick as you can.

I didn't have a PvE Sin a month ago. I didn't have an open character slot to make one either. So I bought a slot in the online store. I don't play 24 hours a day so it did take me 2 days to get my new Assassin to level 20, ascended, and ran to ToA.

Favor is going to run out eventualy. That'll take it out well enough, prices for scrolls/ectos go up, people still get their previous overpowered SF and the UW doesn't get messed with.

The thing is that permaform:

A) Was possible, and about as viable for UW solofarming as VwK or terra before the buff, but took good timing.
B) Is easier, and more viable for UW solofarming than VwK or terra after the buff.
C) Will still be possible, and about as viable for UW solofarming as VwK or terra after a nerf that resets it to its pre-buff duration, but will take good timing.

I'm for a nerf to put SF back in its (old) place. I solofarmed UW with permaform before the buff (although not exclusively), I solofarm UW with permaform now (although not exclusively), and I will still solofarm UW with permaform after a nerf that removes the buff (although not exclusively).

I have as of this time 6k and no ectos on my account, as I used it for a trade.

clearly you have no idea about healthcare situation in canada... Overcrowded hospitals. Terrible shortage of family doctors. Many things are just NOT funded. You need some weird sugery? Well, too bad - you gonna have to go to US for it.
And yes, that IS because it is goverment controlled and pricing limited.

Also don't play real life examples with me please. My point is already proven. Some barely relevant associations will not disprove it.

I will continue to ticket my main point around all this fuss. Its is not set in stone that ecto is a currency. If it were to fail, There are substitutes for exchange rates. But the point is it won't fail. Both decreasing favor and currently stabilizing prices are enough proof. So if it won't fail, then finding a substitute won't be necessary. If finding a substitute isn't necessary, then the change in the ecto market isn't significant. If the change in the ecto market isn't significant, then there is no need for change. No need for change eliminates the need for a nerf. No nerf means you are all complaining in vain.

Invincible assumes there are no counters. There exists counters to SF. Ergo, It is not an invincible skill.

Sorry but... UW scroll = 1k
Profits from a single run = 3e + trash and gold to sell for 5k every 7 (to me in kanadan ) <> 8e + trash and gold to sell for 5k every 7 (to me in kanadan )
Favor teory = big fat fail.

The 600 smite build is not nerfed I don't know where you get that idea from and as to The Favour theory just buy scrolls if you can afford them otherwise it will be along wait.Anet should put ectos ahd shard some place else in varing certian locations.

Did I say it was nerfed? Just a sarcastic suggestion that I in no way intended ANET to make real. I don't like nerfs for PvE. I have about 27 UW Scrolls saved up. I get them quite often farming Ecto. And Yes I can afford them

Lower prices are not allways better and if you'd done the basic economics courses that you are quoting, you would understand that deflation is rarely something desired and instead a erasonable, predictable level of inflation is preffered.

Neither will be nerfed.

Nerfing Chaos Plains makes no sense because of reasons OP stated. You have an area that existed for such a long time, and Anet will nerf because people started getting ectos easier? No chance.

Nerfing Shadow Form? Kinda kills the WHOLE POINT of splitting PvE/PvP skills, doesn't it?

I find it funny people are still so concerned about wealth in GW. When GW2 arrives, we will ALL be penniless (for the beginnings at least). Unless HoM is changed to allow ANY additions, all your Crystallines, Eternals, Obsidians, FoW armor etc etc will mean JACK ****.

And what is rich really? 100k? 500k? 1000k? Every minipet undedicated? 1000K in storage + 100K on all characters + 250 Ectos/Armbraces etc on every possible storage slot X multiple accounts?

None of that matters. It's just to feed the e-peen.

Remember that ppl got Scrolls..

Not really, no. Shadow forum was already a strong farming/running skill in PvE, and it did not need a buff.

With that logic, wealth in every online game means jack shit, because the games servers are eventually going to go down.

Yeah. Farming titans outside LA with my SV/Necrosis 55 sure is difficult. /sarcasm

Seriously though, perma-SF is pretty easy, but to pretend like you don't even have to try when using it is just untrue.

Not a bad idea, but I don't think it'll work. People will still complain. The core essence that people seem to be vocalizing is NIMBY-esque (not in my back yard). It's not farming that people have a problem with, it's other people farming that they have a problem with. It's like all the people that act like they are somehow a cut above the rest and are afraid to show their build, in case someone nudges in on their precious loot. (even though they just ripped the build directly from Guru anyways)

Those that want SF nerfed are either:
or


Are you saying that there are no counters or ways around SF? SF is a very powerful farming skill, but it hardly makes you completely invincible. Being a 55 in most areas is practically being invincible, too. Hence the spawning of "invinci-monk" builds.

ANet should either go against all solo farming builds or leave it alone. Cherry-picking a specific farming build over a plethora of others is, IMO, wrong headed. And don't feed me that bull that other farm builds take more skill. That's purely delusional hyperbole.

i think that at the end of favor, ectos will go up max at 5,5 (as usually) because ppl use to keep uw scrolls i want my ecto's price back :S

I agree. This is one of those topics where anet just can't win, they can only do what seems to be the best option. I personally have farmed about 300 ectos using perma SF and while it seems overly effecient, the devaluing of ecto isnt necessarily a bad thing.

The problem, however, in nerfing the plains itself, is that it will screw up more than just perma sf farmers. Normal (non-ursans mainly) uw clears will face more difficulty aswell.

As much as I bitch and moan like everyone else on most of anet's decisions, i fully acknowledge that there is no "clear choice" on this topic, and will be contented by whatever course of action they choose, if any.

Finally somebody gets it !!

meh... ANet knew exactly what they were doing when they reverted shadowform. Not buffed, but reverted! That;s right... it was PVP that originally nerfed SF.

I am in favour of ANet reverting all skills back to original functionality and power before PVP nerfed them. But that would be too confusing for nwebies.

Personally i wouldn;t care. It;s still hard enough to do the run (dodge charged blackness, manage energy, get past traps, door often spawns 3 and 4 behemoths anyway, newbies getting lost on their way to the plains etc etc). Building the Sin and equipping with runes and sigs still must be done and costs about 20k anyway.

If anything, nerf all PVE skills so they require attribute points and replace your secondary. ie. Ele/Ursan. Ranger/Asuran, Warrior/Lightbringer. And change Norn blessings to no longer be armour ignoring. That kind of damage is restricted to people like Ele's who get exhaustion for that kind of stuff.

Edit: oh, and FIX FAVOUR OF THE GODS !!!!@!@!! 13,834mins of Favour of the Gods is just IMBA and it really should go back to something else that is perhaps affected by PVP like the old HA favour of the gods.

Having now bothered to go do one that is my opinion too. It is often enough that the behemoths block your path to get there and force you to get hit by a trap to die that it is irritating. I've had as many as 8 in a row where there was *no way* to get by them without killing them. It is also *really* easy to let Shadow Form drop when you are having to watch where your aggro bubble is, where Charging Blacknesses are, where traps from the behemoths are, and what skills are recharged and need cast. I've died a number of times if for nothing else than a little bit of lag stops me in traps or the Charging Blackness catch me.

In the end I can't do the run well drunk and there are UW ecto runs I can that are nearly as efficient. As of right now it is different and enjoyable but that will get old too. I think more people than not will find it that way too - boring and only used when I really need money (which is never now) or am just tired of the other things to do. For the new players that decided to farm this like crazy older builds as just as effective and doable so no real change there.

I actually kinda like that idea. There is just something doesn't feel right about them though I enjoy their use very much (Pain Inverter rocks - blows UB out of the water if used correctly and I enjoy its use quite a bit). That's not really a nerf either though I am sure others would say so. However at this point probably not really worth the change, it would have been neat if that had been from the beginning.

The current method of Favor works just fine - what is borked was what the double SS/LB points weekend did to it. It was obviously not foreseen what would have happened if for nothing other than the numeric overflow that happened (the so-called favor reset). PvP shouldn't really affect PvE play that much - at least unless PvE play also affected PvP in a similar way.

Non-perma favor would solve a lot of these issues to where both sides would be OK with it even if not really happy. To the people who point out passage scrolls recall that they are *farmed* items too, not unlimited in quantity. Their cost fluctuates and they are *not* remotely in demand now and for quite a long time now. Once perma-favor dies out expect cost to go right on up. Nor are they really a common drop - rarer than ecto in my experience.

The perma-SF sin fixes a lot of issue that casual farmers have had - that was there is no 10-15 minute effective farm with little skill. This needs to make about 800-1k per run - many old farms are now available again that do. This is needed because peopel need to purchase skills, base rune sets, and base armor in a reasonable amount of time to play the game. It really only hurts the top end ecto farmers (so far it doesn't seem to effect DoA farmers).

Most people who play the game are *not* UW farmers, they are casual gamers/farmers. As such I would guess that Anet would be more likely to nerf Chaos Plains in some way. For myself I have a large number of other farms I enjoy more so no biggie - nerf any of it. However I think that a SF farm will hurt the community as a whole more than not. While I have argued otherwise (and since all of the 10 a year I get go directly to the trader I don't really care) I actually do wish ecto to retain it's value - I just don't want the perma-SF sin nerfed to oblivion because a very small portion of players find it bad. I would rather see that individual run nerfed (you could just make it such that traps couldn't get run past and would change it to still doable yet not so easy).