Nerf Chaos Plains or Shadowform?

oki. sure. then in the last 2 weeks the price hasn;t gone down too much.

in effect i have argued myself out of favour of the buff and for and against a nerf. i have realised that buffing or nerfing doesn;t really matter at all. really... i am more interested in the motives and reasons behind why people want nerfs or not.

@ Arkantos. Money doesn;t matter to me. it matters to others and people in the community might be trying to scam a nerf to protect their wealth. it;s called price fixing and insider trading in the real world and people go to gaol for trying to artificially change the price of stocks in the stockmarket in the real world.

i am just saying it;s not fair for those who didn;t profit off this recent change for those who wish to farm ectos. ipso facto it;s also not fair for those who horded vast amounts of ectos to become rich. but then again we people here in australia have a tall poppy syndrome... we like to cut down the high flyers and favour the battlers. even the playing field. rob from the rich and give to the poor.

that's just how we are. high taxes for rich people and low taxes for poor people. unemployment benefits and social payouts and free medical services for low income families. no one should be homeless or have lesser opportunity. in saying that, we should all have the opportunity to farm ectos or farm noob pve mobs with a basic build called ursan or stomp thru elite areas with 3 necros.

Someone did offer and alternative of including new weapons and armor that uses ectos. That, IMO, would be the best choice.

Then your memory and ability to generally search threads is horrid. Don't know of were else I may have come to that conclusion but the following didn't help.

And yet you said the following

I do about 3 Myst Vaettir runs a day that would say you are grossly incorrect and Tyla is correct. See http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:E/Me_Glacial_Solo_HM - you will note that Arcane Echo is for damage spells and you keep Obs Flesh up all the time with the glyph and a 20% enchant mod. It's really a very easy build to run - much easier than the SF sin. As of right now it is my favorite farming run.

The game has had +20% enchant items for quite a long time, as someone who has been around since beta's I would assume you know that. But oh well, I guess I would be wrong there.

Just make the spawn of Obsidian Behemoths always blocking the way into Chaos Planes.

Just remove assassins lots of problems solved.

( borrowing a line from Johnny Storm: "FLAME ON!" )

Read some posts before posting. This has allready been suggested and is easy to pass by. What's something that Assassins can do? Yes, they can shadow step and you really don't need dash on your bar and I can simply replace it for deadly charge which teleports you behind the selected opponent.

You don't beleive hey well here is proof if you bothered to search it for yourself.http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=32980

There it is as I said E/Mes Obsid Flesh build and couldn't keep it up it doesn't have Archane Echo in it not the one a Friend in my Alliance sent to me.He has done the whole entire UW.

I didn't have to search for that thead as I have it subsrcibed and ever since that nerf jelly has never 55ed agian and I met jellly to one of the founders of the build.This is what brought me on to The Guru as well.

SF IS THE ONLY reason ectos are dropping in price i say kill it all together

I see no proof that it was nerfed because of bot usage - if that was the requirement that it was terrible. The run itself was nerfed because it caused massive inflation and there was a few smaller nerfs to some of the skills for PvP. I know who posted the build first and was around the game then (and I know of a few who had screens of them using the build before this post too).

What? That really doesn't make much sense. You friends builds doesn't use AE, you couldn't get it to work, and he has completed UW (I assume that he used that build that doesn't work to do it?).

The build you have doesn't have AE in it - OK great, AE isn't used to keep Obsidian Flesh up, only the glyph is. AE is used to keep sliver armor up as long as possible or to echo one the AoE damage spells. You can keep Obsidian Flesh up 100% of the time with Glyph of Swiftness and a 20% enchant mod. At 16 earth it has a 21 second duration, with +20% it is at 25.2 seconds. Glyph of Swiftness has a 25% faster recharge and OF has a natural recharge of 30 seconds - adjusted that becomes 22.5 seconds (not sure which way it rounds time so I included the decimals). Therefore you have a 2-3 second window to recast a one second skill - quite doable even for a bad player. In fact you really only need a 12% enchant mod to get to a 23.5 second duration.

Do you want to argue that your time in game makes the basic mathematics change? That you made fun of people who said they can do it and used your join date and number of posts to tell them they were wrong is amusing.

Ok, great - he hasn't 55'd since. Not really sure how this strengthens your assertion that the 55 build was nerfed due to botting though. Prices for everything that was player market controlled (by this time the traders were in the game) was so high that a player that didn't farm the UW couldn't afford even plain armor or minor runes - they had to be farmed if used at all. Anet had issues with Prot Bond in PvP too so they nerfed it first. When that didn't work (the prot spirit 55's kept on trucking) they added the dying nightmares and that mostly did the job (the job being to stop the inflation). There were also some other minor 55'ing skill nerfs that it wasn't clear if it was a farming or PvP nerf. Do a search for "nerf prot bond" and start at the last pages - it is amusing to read nowadays including the prices for plain items.

Can somebody explain to me why ecto prices dropping is a bad thing?

Instead of costing 100k + 20e it costs 100k + 40e

This really only affects those who bought up big ecto volumes for 5k+ and hoarded them all and now want to sell.

There is no doubt that the SF build is powerful now, but he reason to nerf or not to nerf shouldnt be about ecto price...the base price of items should remain relatively unchanged with the amount of ecto reflecting their current value.

Maybe obs armour needs to be nerfed so that it needs a harder farmed ingredient than ectos

I think the GW1 economy is on the downward spiral to GW2 anyway, and nerfing SF or UW to readjust ecto pricing just seems a waste of time now....let people have their fun and last hoorah before GW2.

As long as SF doesnt affect PvP well it doesnt matter. If people think it is too powerful in PvE then they can choose a different build to challenge themselves. But dont whinge about ecto prices as the choice is there to use the SF build or not.

Neither. I haven't farmed UW enough yet, maybe once I get more ectos. Than you can spike the prices up for all I care.

Go to bed sweetie, you know not what you say.

Ecto prices do matter. They have been used in trades as an alternative to money forever. Ectos have always flunctuated in prices. But this sudden drop doesn't look like it will go away unless something is done. This ecto price drop screws all of the "rich" people of guild wars and let's the community as a whole catch up.

As someone who worked their butt off to get a mere 100k after a month, I get frustrated when a build like this becomes exploited to the point that people can get what I worked hard for in much less time doing the same thing over and over.

To solve all of these problems, I think the favor of the gods should be brought back to what it previously was. This would stabilize the price of the ectos for the most part. People would care more about HoH and who was playing. I remember the good ole days when you would see some guild get America one away from favor and everyone would rush to ToA and wait. That's how it should be. If people are that desperate to get in, scrolls won't be out of their price range (the price of those would go up of course).

SF definately needs a nerf as well. Everyone talks about reducing the time on it...but I think it would be better to just make SF a form like the dervish forms. Make it disabled for the 60 second duration no matter what. The skill would be exactly what it was meant to be and would be perfect right there. The skill isn't literally a form I know. But you could either make it "disabled for 60 seconds" or find some other way to kill the ability to abuse it.

So to some all of this up ~ bring back the old 'favor of the gods' system and change SF to "disabled for 60 seconds".

Correct me if I'm wrong, don't the merchant prices only decrease/increase when people sell/buy ecto's?

If that is true then people are selling them a lot and are very content with those 3,5-4K they get for it.

Edit: The merchant offers me 3,4K for an ecto.

Hey, this is a videogame, you get frustrated for a videogame? You have problems, big problems ...
You worked hard? Worked? WTF? And for what, for 100k or some pink pixels? Do you really think you "have" something in a videogame?
I play the game for fun, work is something I do in my office, where I get paid with real money.

This is not specifically direct to you, but in general to all those who have lost any common sense and think that a videogame is real life.

Now speaking about the videogame, SF is very very very very very very good for the game, ectos are something needed to get some armors, well more people will be able to enjoy this aspect of the game, provided they have enough patience to make a sin and kill some monsters for several hours.

I have a sin and also a superior rune, but I never farm because it's boring and not enjoyable to me. But for others it can be, so let them enjoy.


EVERY update that cuts the time to get a specific goal is simply GREAT.
Games MUST NOT BE ADDICTIVE.

If the Fow armor required 1 month of farming before SF update, and now it requires 10 days, well this is highly welcome, players will achieve their goal, enjoy for some days, then forget and move on, instead of being frustrated and addicted.

It's highly IMMORAL to create targets and goals that can induce addiction and frustration in videogame players.

Games must give fun, and not increase the psycological problems that some people already have.

why nerf SF and chaos plain????
People before this buy money trough internet cause really difficoult to farm money and now you can't otherwise you're account can be banned.
Thanks to Anet i got my first fow in 3 years of game otherwise.....
Stop to question about nerf sf or chaos plain think not necessary. Anet know what to do. Enjoy SF and chaos plain!

I don't know what's gotten you all hyped up...

Everyone will get frustrated at some point while they are playing a game. You don't get frustrated losing at Tetris?

I think you missed my point when I said I "worked my butt off". I meant I played the game without doing any farms, the way it should be played. I did quests and missions and while doing those got enough money from drops and such. This took some time I'll admit but I was lucky enough to find some rare items to put me up quite a few k's. Letting someone abuse something like this ruins the "fair" aspect of the game because you either join them in it or miss out.

I have always been against farming builds and always will. Maybe that's just because I can't stand the fact you can do some mindless build over and over and be rewarded for it while someone else has to get 8 people organized and try hard to do the exact thing while being rewarded less.

Playing UW with 8 people can be fun as well. Just because the SF build is "fun" doesn't mean it should be left alone.

Making a game so easy to accomplish something that has seemed extremely impossible in the past can be extremely addictive as well. Why do you think people are farming so much? They are now getting within range of their "obby armor" and they are 'addicted'/determined to get it.

DON'T NERF!!! ITS BLASPHEMY!!! ANet should have thought of all the possibilities first, then left it forever.

why people care so much about VIRTUAL money?

Post counts matter? Join date matters?

Just because you came to the game earlier than me doesn't mean you can have more information than me on the game itself. I've seen plenty of 3 year players who are absolutely horrible at the game, both in player skill and in their knowledge of the game. Stop acting like this matters.

You're kidding right? I know plenty of farmers who take part in the usage of perma Obsidian Flesh, myself included.

I believe Glyph of Swiftness on Obsidian Flesh = 22.5 recharge, and with an enchanting weapon.

Obs Flesh at 16 attribute is 21 duration, with an enchanting weapon it's 25.2 seconds in duration. Read notes here aswell.

As for editting posts, what do you mean? I edit my posts after someone replies to my post? /Facepalm

I'm sure that one or the other (sf or chaos plains) will be nerfed as it is really too profitable. But I hope ANet takes a couple of things into account

1: What will happen in other areas if SF is nerfed - no skill should be nerfed for the sake of one run only. Keep it viable but not overpowered.

2: This is not only about ectos. As ecto farmers are spending to buy new armor and such, the price of other commodities has risen. Certain minis have jumped in price and things like tanned hides and granite have taken a sharp upswing. While this is bad if you are buying, for the majority of farmers who do not farm chaos plains, this is a good thing. They can finally make money off their farm runs too.

Frankly, the game was in a severe depression with a few very rich players trading high end goods among themselves and the rest working hard to earn a few plat. (the huge difference in price between ectos and other rare crafting materials was not a good thing but a very bad thing) This run has been an over all boon for the game as a whole by lowering ecto prices and raising others. I would wait at least a couple of week before making changes. Frankly, I would like to see ectos stabalized at about the level of rubies and sapphires.

I did read some where that it said that on some update as I can't find it right now.I said jelly was one of the Founders not The Founder.The main reason jelly quit is because he was in 1 man guild I do believe and could not find it profitable to farm with the current build as well as having a SS/SV Necro .My friend doesn't use AE on his build and yes know the UW like the back of his hand and has more than 1 stack of ectos.

I know just as much about the PvE side of the game as you do if I want to know more about pvp I know where to go.

No. I am not kidding and I stand by my word anyway this is getting very off topic as I just made little not to The Paladin X if SF gets nerfed don't think it is the end of the world.

I am stopping right here with this so it can get back on topic.

I'm probably one of the few people who took you seriously.

you know... it seems to me that maybe ANet are loosening their belts and allowing people to finish the game before GW2. What i mean is, first Ursan and 3 necros pop up, then along come z-keys so pvp'ers can make some dosh and now we have Shadow Form farming and cheaper ecto's.

these people are ANet are not stupid. i used to be in ZoS (you know, with Firefox, Frosty, Gaile) and even before anyone else in PVE were playing full Ursan teams, these guys were pounding UW and DOA with it, when it was fresh!

the people who nerf and buff skills are not stupid, they know exactly what they are doing and would have even tried perma-shadow when they were testing the build on their test servers... they know this game better than anyone else playing cause, you know, the programmers actually code the bloody thing... they know how spawns work and at what frequency etc etc... (eg. 2 behemoths, 3 behemoths, 2, 4, 4, 3, 4, 2, 3, 2, 4 etc etc.)

sooo......... maybe they are giving us all a hand to buy up our elite armours to display in our hall and get all our max titles. so we can all have good stuff in GW2.

You're saying they expect people to play SF and Ursan for another 1,5 years?

I believe they are making things easier for farmers so we can fill our HoM for GW2.

To me this kind of rings true. I mean how many people are upset that the hours they spent playing on their main character means nothing in the next release. The casual player might consider 200 hours on one character to be a major commitment where someone else may put that much time during a week.

There is no way my wife could have completed a HoM with the amount of time she plays or gotten 5 sets of elite armor.

I was serious when I wrote it

I believe you are correct (for the first time in this thread).

I had not thought of that but you may be right - they may also be trying to boost sales of GW2. People have been saying they don't know if they want to buy GW2 but ANet may figure players are more likely to buy if they have already invested in filling the HOM.

When I find myself wanting to complain about [insert farm build here] that is messing with prices, I remind myself of all the "free" gold anet has given me over the years. Free gold for having old characters (minipets), free gold for playing PvP (z-keys). I haven't played PvE since I started playing GW again in March and since them I've collected ~1.5 million gold from z-key and 3rd year minipet sales. The effect of gold pouring in from yearly minipets and z-keys is underestimated imo, maybe ecto was just overpriced to begin with.

ecto = a random, high priced mat at the start of GW that people decided they wanted to use for high-cost trading. key word=PEOPLE

moving on

if someone can give me ONE good reason why its a BAD thing for people to have FoW armor, i will change my belief that perma SF farming is not a bad thing.

^
It wasn't for the casual player, it was a gift for playing and earning that armour.
It wasn't supposed to be easy / short.

Either way, I'm not really bothered about that.
What I am bothered about is that it gives godmode defense.

@Age: I have no proof of that and you have no proof of that.

You hadn't thought of it? Its been a theory since HoM came into existence...hell I consider it a fact at this point.

Somehow arenanet isn't intelligent enough to realize that giving people complete invincibility in a game based on staying alive might be a bad idea.

lol - I meant in relationship to the easy ecto run

just nerf the plains already, so someone can figure a way around that and then we can finally listen to something other than "WAAAAH! my imaginary money is worthless, Shadowform ruined my life".

It'll just be another 2 months of "WAAAAH! (insert latest fun thing to do here) ruined my life!"

Its not a bad thing for people to have FoW armor.

In order to get FoW, you needed a ton of ectos and a ton of shards and money.
Shards and ectos are only found in FoW and UW.
These areas were "time locked" via the favor system.
Add the fact that they are rare drops.

This creates an armor that...by its very nature and design will take a LONG time to gain the necesary materials.

So now...you take that design....and you chuck it out the window.

Now the armor can be gained VERY quickly. Why is that bad?

You just destroyed the very design of your game. Why should I have any respect for a company that can't keep its head straight about its ideas?

You can't keep bending over backwards and disassembling a good game and rebuilding it to please some people...because it pisses off the people who already like the game because it keeps changing to something that wasn't what they fell in love with.

Now...you can say thats hypocritical since asking for a nerf is the same thing. But think about it for a moment. Nerfs and skill balances have always been a part of GW. This is inherently different from asking Anet to keep the godmodes.

This is exactly right. The more people that fill their HoM will nice stuff, those people are more likely to check out GW2. With the recent buffs the people farming and getting rich (filling HoM) far surpasses the people crying about their ectos and Anet knows this. Rich GW1 players=buy GW2.

100% /agree with that logic. The number of SF farmers and players who love the buffs is much greater than all the elitist QQers who are pissed that their precious rare weps and expensive armor are nothing special anymore.