[Dev Update] Shadow Form Balance Changes - 2 July 2008

Yes we do have the extra favour, I'm glad a-net finally came through on one of their promises (ahem, "never nerf raptor farming again, ahem)

I think it was inevitable.

Maybe ecto prices will increase drastically in the short term, but will drop again to it's former 5-6k. We'll see.

Some investors with money may buy ectos coming hours. Dragon festival is coming up too, where lots of players gamble away money.

Interesting times.

Smart people, overdid it, held onto ectos, and will be selling in roughly 21 days when favor runs out, dumb people, sold as they farmed, gg, they needed this update, it's nice.

Erm, methinks it will be a good few months.

This update doesn't really do much aside for slow down killing in the chaos planes, and you can ignore the new mobs. However, it has destroyed the effectiveness of pretty much any other SF farming build for areas with enemies that can heal at a decent pace.... so all those people who'd made a sin just for farming ectos, well, can still farm ectos, where as those of us, or at least me, who like to use SF farming builds for other things.... are having trouble killing mobs with monks in them now. I'd rather they nerfed the length of SF instead of this stupid 50% less dmg change. I'd rather be able to farm other things, than to only be able to farm in areas w/o monk (IE chaos planes). -_-

Really bad move on the Shadow Form change. Thankx to all the damn whiners!!!! they shoulda jus changed Mindblades and left Shadowform alone. I think it is a pretty retarded change, and they should change it back. People were complaining about Mindblades, not every other kind of farming. so it pretty much **** up all my Sliver farming.

I think it's good that the nerf took place, however it's a shame, because it was a fun run to do!
Shame I used the ectos for armor o.O

God I suck at timing

Just last night I get my sin to TOA and a new rune set

Ugh. Enough with the scapegoating already--if ANet was caving to "whiners," we'd have seen an Ursan nerf months ago, and reporting people for saying "stfu noob" or swearing in all chat might actually result in disciplinary action.

The SF nerf had nothing to do with whiners and everything to do with the fact that it shouldn't have made it out of playtesting.

Impact of the update:

- uw is harder for the balanced groups, see above why
- more people go ursan

Lol.. Anet changed the price back. Didn't want to deal with the QQing.
I'm not glad this was nerfed (and no, I don't even have a Sin). It simply made ectos more affordable to the masses but it wasn't going to drop much more than it had already dropped.

No, I believe it was down to the players, who, aftering hearing news of the update, bought as many ectos as possible; resulting in a player driven rise.

I guess I was one of the dumb people who sold ectos while farming....=-(

Has anyone heard or killed enough of the new Mindflay Specters to know if they drop ectos?

Anet please remove the 50% reduction, or just put SF back at 21secs and Nerf Perma it takes double the time to kill Raptors now.

Not as much, 50% less damage. but swell still. good balancing, honestly.

Raptor Farm: Slowed it down, did take me 1 minute, it now takes me 2 minutes, don’t see a problem. Switch dark escape [dark escape] back to intensity [intensity] to get some damage back. As for longer periods and scatter, just use a left hand wall (plenty of those in a cave). The change is more noticeable in the Fenrir cave since fewer enemies in that cave and vermin farms. Just a bit slower on some farms so not a problem. On the vermin and a few other the A/Me is faster now.

Some elite tome farms are completely gone now, just can’t generate enough damage to compensate for healing. The Naphue quarter farm is pretty much over too, Lights can out heal you even with the dragon boss dead.

I got enough ecto for my 3 set of armor so I am only waiting for the price of shards to go back down below 1k. As for the price of Ecto, went up fast but seems to be coming back down. When favor runs out it may cause the price of ecto to increase but doesn’t matter to me, never farmed ecto for gold.

The one thing I am concern about is the speedway groups. They used A/Me so the sin is not affected in the group, what about the terra on the plains, will this make him go away, my elementalist is my least played character because my wife's favorite character is her elementalist so I don't understand the terra tank. Want to make sure I still have people to sell consets too, what else am I going to do with 2000 skill points (been farming a long time on my monk).

I would like to see the damage reduction nerf reduced slightly but I have been at this long enough to know how to role with the punches. Any chance the damage reduction can be taken to something like 25% or even 35%?

There has been alway some form of enchanment removal rend enchantments ring any.


You tell them way to go and they can still solo where as 55 Monk can't or possibly any 55 build for that matter.

So if it was possible then to go with balanced group and "explore" now nothing will change. Gotcha.

If the trader changes the price that quickly from 3.7 to 5.5 then it is messed up. I think Anet was involved, but that's just me.