Perma is the new PvE?

I agree with this. GWGuru only see the success stories in elite areas so those not willing to try the build (because its deemed gimmicky) get a seriously skewed view on the builds effectiveness in PuG groups.

I still stand by the opinion that SF should never have been maintainable in the first place. As it stands though, anet have got themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place - they can't take away the maintainability without upsetting a lot of people and they can't leave it alone without a lot of others moaning.

The problem with GW right now is that people are doing quests/missions/dungeons that they have already done 1000+ times. So they have turned to the quickest/easiest way to get through them.

Until we have some new content you shouldn't expect to see much more than wiki/farm builds in play. It is just the nature of gaming really.

Double-edged sword there too...if they introduce new content, people will attempt to use their gimmick builds in these areas. Therefore, any new content needs to be created specifically to counter these gimmick builds without gimping balanced play at the same time.

I can see why they just decided to give up on GW1 altogether, give us EOTN with dedicated farming mobs, new monster skills to counter the builds, and dedicate their time to starting over with GW2. Also the shared explorables kinda promise to remove most desire to farm, because who wants some newbie to walk in on your farming session stealing your drops? Anet is making the vocal minority happy by starting over fresh but keeping perma available in GW1 for the silent majority.

Well when you think about it why nerf SF? They made sins ub3r popular and PVE and if they got rid of it many will just log back on their monks and 600 everything. 600's can do a lot of stuff that permas can do albeit slower, but they also can do things permas can't like many dungeons, missions, and even some vanquishes. So then people are gonna bitch "NERF PROT SPIRIT!!!!!". And when you consider that when skills like [protective spirit] and [spirit bond] are combined, they form a similarly imba combo to SF.

Need proof? Send any other character running a standard tanking bar of choice, (OB tank, defy pain war, w/e) through cathedral of flames, yes cathedral of flames, while bonded with the 4 standard skills on the smiter bar: [life attunement][vital blessing][retribution][holy wrath]. See how long the tank can last compared to a 600 bonded with those same 4 skills. Every time the exp. 600 wins in this situation...even in CoF.

So it's not that SF is the most imba thing in game, it's just imba in certain situations like DoA. SF can still be beaten in the elite areas, it's just harder. Although when you bring it to the dungeon situation, SF is worthless except for running from point A to B or running from Floor 1 to Floor 2.

PS and SB are good, not imba.

They're not imba unless synergized like on a 600 monk.

Shadow form is crap as well without [glyph of swiftness][deadly paradox] or an essence. Take the paradox, and you lost your imbaness.

A 600 monk is not nearly as imba as an SF sin.

Each build has their own positives, and negatives. SF has much more positives when it comes to tanking. However PS and SB are actually useful outside of gimmicks, which is something SF will never have.

I'm sorry but SF is just another form of Tank n spank which some of you hate also.

Personally, solo SF farms arent that profitable, the real profit lies within team builds. SF promotes team play, and ALSO gives a whole class a damn good reason to play. Let's face it, before SF no one wanted sins in their 'elite areas'. Before Cryway, no one would even take mesmers. Mesmers arent bad, they just don't do things as well as some other classes.

The fact that Cryway/imbagons/and SF sins will be wanted now, and people will still take every other class (cept maybe rits....they need something too now) Promotes playing other classes. Also your never forced to SF, as most 'gimmicks' allow for various versions of a build.

Also, anything that promotes easy team play is +1 in my book. I don't mind elite areas NOT being elite. I find playing low level areas with friends a lot more fun then hard areas requiring skill. If you are new to the elite areas, it is hard to find groups that will let you come, but with the builds we have now, a new player isn't intimidated and gets to enjoy being able to play in these areas.

GW is a people game, hence the CORPG, and is free to play, and actually allows EVERYONE to get whatever item they want with little grind compared to other games. Keep taking these 'OP' builds away and many will run away to a different game. GW challenge has and is always from PvP as that was the final goal in early stages. Monsters are predictable and people will always find 'OP' builds to counter them.

If you want challenging pve, go to WoW or something else.

And for reference, my Main is Warrior and Mesmer. I RARELY EVER SF. But I am extremely Happy My Mesmer is invited into groups because of Cryway, and I don't want all the sins out there to be sad that they aren't useful anymore except for when partying with friends, who have different schedule's then you and is hard to get together. THIS is why I stand up for SF

However, I know that both the original posters post and my post is just...

Do I actually have to say something or can I just say +1 in another SF thread?

So because ps and sb are useful elsewhere, the build which has been proven to be much more overpowered than SF perma when it comes to farming shouldn't be nerfed? And because Shadow Form has no use other than farming, it should be removed altogether? Name me one non-farming build that uses essence bond and balth spirit, or Blessed Aura, or Holy Wrath, or Retribution, or Life Attunement, or...you get my drift? You don't have to nerf ps or sb to nerf 600/smite. You can nerf/change the other skills that are required for it to be at all useful in farming. Nobody's asking for that, although 600/smite and 55/ss are still prevalent in ecto farming in UW. SF gets the short end of the stick because of the numbers people were claiming from Chaos Plains runs, and its use in speed clears of the elite areas. Oh well. Physicalway in Urgoz is only a few minutes slower than perma/cryway with a good team. You don't need cryway/sf perma to complete an area fast, but it's easier to put a team together because there are fewer individual builds that are used.

Put PS and SB on a high-health low-armor monk and it's imba. Each skill alone is useful elsewhere.

Take the skill recharge buffs away from SF and it fails hard. You need the combo to be imba. How is a SF sin better when it comes to tanking? Put one enemy in there with a touch skill or trap, and you're dead. 600 monks can tank out all damage with ps, sb and SoA. They don't have the energy problems of a SF perma, because of essence bond and balth spirit. Lifesteal can be balanced out by sb's healing. Spells can be blocked with spellbreaker, and spellbreaker can be maintained 100% with the right build. SFs cannot tank damage...if they start taking damage they're in trouble, especially now. You can mitigate the damage with skills, but that gets expensive for a perma.

600 monks can tank in so many places that a SF sin cannot. There are very few places a SF sin can tank that a 600 monk cannot. VS Farming comes to mind, and even then the perma needs a monk to keep him alive. There's a reason that even pre-nerf, SF sins were not doing dungeon runs. And since the highest-value golds in the game come from dungeon end chests, I'd say that 600/smite has more impact on the rare weapon economy than SF does.

I'd like to see a response to my contention that Zkeys have more of an effect on GW's economy than SF permas ever did.

If it's not Ursan, it's Shadow Form. If it's not Shadow Form, it'll be something else. Let's just nerf *all* skills so nothing can be better in any given situation than anything else. Oh wait, then Warriors and Paragons would be broken because of armor level, and Scythes and Hammers would be broken because of their higher max damage. Lame argument is lame.

No. Please stop assuming stuff that I didn't say. Also, SB+PS is not nearly as imba as SF and I have no idea why MisterT69 insisted it as so.

edit: Not sure how many times I have to insist that SB+PS is not nearly as OP as SF. It has so many more natural counters than an SF sin. If it was more powerful you'd see it being run in the elite missions over SF. But SF allows for more bar compression, has less counters, and has been guaranteed by Anet that you'll always be able to maintain it 100% no matter how many nerfs it goes through (sad right?). It's possible to run SB+PS everywhere you can run SF, Spellbreaker and the such allow this. But SF is so much OP and has been proven as so.

Show me the proof. Make a list of elite missions, dungeons, farm spots that can be run with either, and the potential rewards from either.

600/smite will win in sheer dollar value of potential rewards. SF might win with sheer numbers of kills per unit time, but the individual rewards are lacking. Eternal Blade, Obby edge and Frog Scepter are the only specific high-dollar golds that are obtained through using a perma-sf without help from a 600/smite. Everything else is riddled with non-targeted damage, touch kills and signets. Runs can be made with monks, warriors, rangers, you don't need SF. 600/smite can run every dungeon in EOTN. That's silverwing recurve, dryad, BDS, emerald blade, frog scepter, eaglecrest axe, etc etc etc. Ectos, shards, gold unids, event collector items...obtainable much easier with 600/smite than SF perma with the exception of vaettir bombing for unids.

(1) 600 < SF. (2) 600 = SF. (3) SF deserves to die.

Umok.

Best post on page 5.

When I emit the previous words, I'm assuming that there is a player, or a group of players that are low-skilled, but want to complete an elite area. I'm assuming they can't get past a first mob of an elite area using builds that aren't over the top, but when apply those certain skills that are incredibly easy to use while placing an incredible gain - so much, that it at least halves the time of a mediocre parties' completion using a build that isn't absolutely imbalanced.

The only thing in farming that requires any part in learning is enemy AI. After that it's just "press this button, wait X seconds, press again". You don't take a 55HP Monk into an area with heavy enchantment removal, and the same is with a 600/smite anyway, but Shadow Form allows you to overcome 90% of all game mechanics with permanent maintenance within a grand total of 3 skills, 2 with Consumables leaving an incredibly huge amount of skill slots to deal damage with.

It's not really based on the conception of irony, because you've never had the ability to Heroway elite areas that efficiently. That is, outside of SF usage. PvE was a joke, but it's being dragged to the point where there's a button which just gives you access to the spoils without any given difficulty.

People will always choose the easier routes for the most part, and I believe anyone with a brain understands that. But sometimes, ease is a bad thing to comply with. It creates laziness and carelessness, leaving the victim with a craving for even more ease.

As for this game being about the spoils for your armour, wouldn't that turn this game into some sort of dress-up game in which you have to take part in grinding to progress? This isn't Second Life or anything of the sort.

The only people who play the game for anything other than flashing ones' e-peen or gaining max titles for the hell of it are new players and casual players. Casual players don't use perma-sf to play their game, usually. Casual players also don't usually participate in high-level content unless they happen upon it. Those that do happen upon it usually die miserably and give up. Some move on to PvP, some move on to be higher-end players who do elite missions and such, some quit altogether. Each change is a choice made by the player. Each skill that inhabits a player's skill bar is a choice made by that player. Builds exist for teams to complete high level areas without using SF and cryway, but they're a bitch to PUG, there's too many specific roles to be played so it's hard to form a group unless it's organized beforehand(guild group).

I didn't just say armor, I said armor, weapons, rare skins, minis, tonics. It's not just dress-up. It's dress-up-and-put-on-weapons-and-show-your-rare-mini-while-using-an-everlasting-tonic. In effect it IS like Second life but you kill shit instead of buying a house.

I still don't see how it's ruining the game, if the majority of the players enjoy using it, and only the vocal minority such as those posting in this thread have anything against the gimmick builds. Seriously. What's so bad about the vast majority of the GW playerbase having an easy way to play high-end areas? If people want to use balanced or physicals, i'm sure they'd find a way to do so. They'd come on here, look at all the anti-SF hate, look at the guilds of the people putting it out there, and find a way to join those guilds. That's what I did.

By itself, Shadow Form was never bad. It was an annoying skill that the exploding plagued assassins used in Cantha to draw minion aggro and actually make missions hard-ish if you wanted to master completion. Otherwise, it sucked, because - as the plagued assassins demonstrated - you blew up the moment it wore off.

The problem here is the interaction of things, or more specifically GWEN. Glyph of Swiftness and consumables made certain things permanent - things that should never have been. This is NOT an oversight, but a design decision on ANet's part. The need to sell HOM & GW2 dictated that there be a way for players to grind farther and faster, which is why Ursan and consets made it into the game.

Mind you, if the challenges set up in GWEN were not of as high a magnitude, the general player population wouldn't feel the need to resort to "cheats"... but because of the way the game is designed, people have been forced to. The fault here lies first and foremost with ANet - for not giving the players another campaign or even another expansion, and therefore cranking things up "for the long haul" of GW2, and therefore needing to give players an "easy" button. Even when player dissatisfaction with the "easy" button caused it (Ursan) to get nerfed, ANet chose to simply make sure there was another one to replace it rather than looking at the core issue at hand.

Which essentially means that "nerf X" is always going to be pointless. "Make Y easier to complete" is what we should be shouting at ANet, pointing out the mistakes in game design rather than the overpowered strength of player tools given to us by ANet to beat said design.

That is some major bullshit that does not even make sense.

First, casuall players are definitelly NOT the ones to run cryway, nor the one benefiting from pretty much any imba. It was true about ursan, and it is true about cryway: It is ran by dedicated, but unskilled, people for who it is about the only way to do something and be "l33t". FFS, go join cryway pug and count chaos gloves.

Your casualls wont really even have right characters in right places. Or have grinded titles. Or know about that SF at all. Or care about daily platinum gains and efectivity of runs.

So stop using actuall casuall players as shield, because whatever that makes you look, it definitelly is not good, well-wishing-upon-those-less-fortunate, fellow.

Fine, less-than-hardcore players. Or they have been around the block before and know what happens with balanced pugs, so they want their quick groups when they can get them and run the builds they need to do it. Or they just want to finish the areas as fast as possible to repeat for profit. Either way, it's what the people want, obviously, because that's what most people are doing. If Anet nerfs these things, they're going against the majority merely due to you, the vocal minority.

You can keep insisting all you like, it still won't be true. I use both and in the areas where sb+sp work, it is at least as overpowered as SF. Just as in the areas where SF works it is overpowered.

The point is there are certain areas where each will work and certain areas where each won't. (far more with far greater profit where sb+sp works well than SF, by the way)

In an area where each works, they are both god-mode with guaranteed success for anyone who is experienced with them. In any area where the particular build will not work, they are utter failures guaranteeing a total wipe out.

But as long as content remains the same and mob spawns are predictable, people will find ways to beat it over and over with little or no risk of failure. if it is not SF or PB+PS it will be 3 hero discord or sabway or some other build.

I'm not actually against changing SF so it is not maintainable. But neither am I for it. But if they nerf it out of existence then I also want to see them place counters in SoO, Ooze, Ragars and Kathandrax and other areas to prevent SB + Sp. If god-mode should not exist for one then it should not exist for all.

Yup:

Nerf Soul Reaping again so Necro/Rits aren't godly healers; Nerf Paragons in general even more;
Nerf the rest of the Dervish Avatars;
Nerf the fruitcakes so you can't outrun Grentches while delivering presents;
Nerf Candy Canes so all they do is add sweet tooth points,
Nerf Birthday Cupcakes so they make you fat,
Nerf Wintersday so it's totally lame and Grenth ALWAYS wins,
Nerf the Dwarf Boxing Chest Run / Survivor Run
Nerf Rune of Sup. Vigor
Nerf, Nerf, Nerf. Let's all suffer together.

'saves time', you aren't playing this game for fun aren't ya?

i thought that was the meaning of a game... 'fun'.... but hey, everyone likes to grind elite missions with SF and cry.. guess thats the new 'fun'.

I have a little suggestion:
1. Shadow Form: becomes a skill , a bit lower duration than now , but now instead of losing health your skills are disabled for a period of time.
2. SY! : increased duration , gives some health regen , but only works on allies below 50% health.
3. Spirit bond: whenever target ally takes more than 60 damage from the next 10 attacks or Spells, those attacks or spells are negated.
4. Prot spirit : triggers only 3 times per second.
5. Obsi flesh: you gain +20 armor and cannot be the target of enemy Spells that cause earth or fire damage, but move 50% slower.

This should solve godmode problems.

Fun is very subjective , but the beauty of GW pve is that nobody can impact your gameplay unless you let him. If you like SF Cryway , do it; if you like h/h do it; if you like playing something completely different with your buddies do it. Nobody can stop you from that unless you let them. That's why GW pve is awesome , play how you want and let others do the same.

As Avarre said, the 'I'm not touching you argument is terrible'

People keep on insisting that sb+ps are better than sf. We're talking about group pve here, not solo farms - not to mention they still aren't as op as sf, even in solo play. Sure 600 can farm a few dead dungeons and parts of the UW but sf can farm ecto the fastest, solo just as many other spots just as fast, AND is much better suited for a tank role in group play.

Merry Christmas Riverside

The second part of my post was directed to the people who think that they must play how pugs tell them. This was not directed about balance of pve.

So , other godmodes are ok since the they aren't as op as SF? I say kill all of them.

Just make it so SF reduces 100% of your damage, specially because i don't see a shadow hitting me that often =p, this way it can't be used to farm almost everywhere real easily, but stays as one of the best tanking builds there are, thus making it possible to farm with it with dual teams (monks can do it, why not sins?) and maintain cryway, which i don't see any problem as it's a team organized build, but can still be nerfed by nerfing some of the cryers builds.

Other godmode skills do need to be nerfed - but this thread isn't about SY or any other current godmode skill, hence why, I didn't mention them. Saying PS and Sb are godmode is a joke when comparing them to the likes of sy and sf

I guess I'll never get why people are so arrogant on these boards.


Stop trying to influence others gameplay when they're not influencing yours.


You won't make pugs better by hitting anything you don't like with the nerfbat.


It's the same everywhere, a minority of arrogant and selfish people pretend to know what's good for others better than anyone else, and want to impose ideas they can't have adopted by the community.


Actually, there were more players disappointed by the ursan nerf than happy about it. And if they were honest, those who were in favor of an ursan nerf would recognize that things are not better now :
- prices gone up ? no
- more successful balanced pugs in elite areas ? no
- pve'ers are now more skilled ? no


Maybe you should take some time to think about the consequences of what you're asking for, before asking for it. And maybe you should stop acting like spoiled arrogant children...

Because:

1. Prices did go up until people started abusing SF. Even more, that is, because SF was overpowered before.
2. Why run balanced, when you can abuse the hell out of something dead easy.
3. See 1 and 2.

Right now, the only arrogant child afraid of losing it's toy is you.

So according to you then the Ursan "nerf" was a bad thing then, afterall, it is a skill that can benefit your group in pve. And no, I don't see any monsters Ursaning!

Bottomline, SF need to be changed, the way it is now merely gives the ignorant and the stupid a chance to get something valuable in GW. If it's a few ppl sfing, idk personally, i even use it from time to time. But go to a place like the DoA/UW/any elite area you can think of, I guaratee you that you will see parties composed of permas-it has become a costume in play elite areas. "Hey we are doing Foundary" "ok, I will get on my perma, brb"
That's how things is now.

If you like SF merely because of its simplicity, well, that speaks alot about your personalities as well.

I disagree with that. Considering the other ability that the Glyph has is to speed up projectile attacks, I think they just didn't even think of the possibility of maintained SF, and just meant it as a nice skill for eles to improve a spell or two. Oops.

could you try to be honest please ? and use precise examples to prove me I'm wrong

let's talk about doa a little : after ursan nerf, it's now impossible to find a pug (I heard things about cryway pugs in german districts, but I have yet to see one of them), you NEED a guild

don't you understand that you can take off whatever you want from the game, you can't force people to play what you want them to play, they'll stop playing or find another cookie cutter build

let's take a look at the price of armbraces now :
- did ursan drive it down ? yes, but it was going down anyway long time before ursan abuse
- did it go up after ursan nerf ? no, after hom update


and no, I'm not afraid of "losing my toy", I don't even pve anymore, I don't care what happens to sf or other skills, I just can't stand your attitude

people don't force you to play the way they want, so why do you want to ?


anyway, I'll be kind, and help you clarify the problem : you feel like you're good at the game because you don't use skills that you find too cheap... but there's nothing in game for you to show off your superiority over player that do use these skills, and that really pisses you off

stop trying to show off, stick to personal accomplishments, play for yourself and your friends, and you'll enjoy your game experience, just like I do

This isn't actually strictly true in most elite areas, even with a combination of Bonders, skills like Armor of Earth and the old Angelic Bond (depending on what is more suitable in that area). This becomes obviously more important the larger group you're dealing with.

Urgoz: 100 blades and degen in some rooms
Deep: Not very SF friendly whatsoever. Chilblains, Death Nova, Putrid Explosion from outcast and expunge enchantments on the Freezing Nightmares. No Enchant + no spell casting aspects.
FoW: Magno Hydra AoE, Spirit Shepherd AoE - mostly avoidable but not totally.
DoA: Environment effects, dervish Margonite, Dementia Titans, Stygian Horrors.

Armbrace prices did raise slightly after ursan was nerfed although not to their original cost. Many people anticipated the addition of Tormented weapons to the HoM, hoping the cost would increase when there was a demand for more armbraces. As a lot of people did this there was a large supply of armbraces around at the time, resulting in no increase at all and that price has just stuck.

Speed clears are more heavily reliant on tactics to increase speed than single builds or skills. In the case of UW the split+solo is just a tactic that (to an extend) was being formed far before SF was maintainable and one thats more commonly known in the community than DoA/FoW/Urgoz/Deep SCs.

Why can't you answer my challenge to list areas for both builds?

Why is Perma so much more OP just because it's used in a group setting? Obviously perma isn't 'GodMode' because you NEED that group to do anything more than run and farm raptors/vaettir, meanwhile you can take 2-3 characters and finish elite dungeons. Easily. In a half hour sometimes. Permas have their places in these dungeons...but there is no dungeon that a single assassin with shadow form can complete on his own, and these elite dungeons are where the most valuable weapons in the game drop. So you'd rather people NOT perma, thus NOT group up, and resort to farming with solo/duo builds?

You're starting to sound desperate. Give some specifics for once how SF is so much more overpowered than 600/smite. Please.

Seems to me like people don't want other people to play the way they want in their grind-fest of a game. Or maybe you don't want people to all have the same max titles as you when they didn't "work" for them? What's your definition of work? Sitting in Spamadan turning 10k into 500k in a day by powertrading? Doing the same things over and over again to make money? Chest running for hours just for treasure hunter, lucky, unlucky? Farming ectos for their armor or to buy something else they want that costs 2304808234 of them?

Killing farms won't get rid of high prices, it won't get rid of power traders, it won't make fewer people have obsidian armor and chaos gloves...it's not going to prevent the cheapening of your titles, and why? Because the money is already on the market, it's just being pushed around from player to player. It's not really going anywhere....any money sinks that occur I'd say are made up for simply by the constant input of money into the game. It's that simple.

Why do you want it to go away so badly? I really don't understand why you feel the need to tell other people how they should want to play guild wars.

That's an absolute lie. I can't even get into group with my imbagon any more, forget any normal build. How is that not an influence? Sure I can go and play cryer, but it is still incredibly stupid and degrading.
Nice try on defensive stance though, too bad black aint white.

^^^join a guild that doesn't run cryway. It's that simple. If you're in a guild and you're loyal, get your guildies to run balanced or physical. If there's not enough, join an alliance that runs balanced or physical. Stop being lazy and ruining other peoples' fun just because you can't join your precious pugs.

You could just as well start with that sentense. I would know that the whole post reminds me of something... OOOH RIGHT

"Don't nerf ursan, don't force people to play the way they want QQ MOAN MOAN".

So sorry we care about keeping shreds of balance and trying to restore some of it back to PvE, so there might be any challenge at all.
Playing =/= buttonmashing with your forehead till you explode all enemies.

Yep, they did go up after ursan nerf AND hom update, then got quiet again.

Too bad that even if value of armbraces was going down, as with anything in this universe, Ursan sped up this process more than a bucket of burning acid.

Same crap , different package.

On point , don't look for pugs , make one. My brother made a tank'n'spank group that had splinter barragers instead of eles. With pugs you need to have lots of time and patience. Join a guild , or make friends that like playing the game in the same style as you.

No balance can bring back the challenge , only new content can.

nerfing cry/sf groups won't make it easier for you to find groups with your paragon

why don't you admit that killing something isn't the best way to promote another ?
killing something will only encourage people to find even more broken substitutes, or just give up

they killed ursan, and now we have uw speed clears, things got better indeed...

why don't you spend your time talking about buffs or changes that would make the game more interesting instead of asking here for a nerf


first, stop with your "omg, you're just QQing", this is really irrelevant and useless, if you want to debate over something and not just troll, I can do both, as you wish

there's a balance in something when there's interaction between groups of players, that doesn't exist in pve

the only way there could be interactions between groups is in the trade panel, and, although you won't admit it, prices were more influenced by a huge lack of demand (gw is an old game now) than by ursan

pve = button mashing, there's random button mashing or organised and experienced one
you can change whatever skills you want, pve is about killing mindless monsters, not outsmarting your opponents