Discontinued items in Guild Wars

The HOD items sword, axe and the 20% rockmolder have been removed from optaining but not from players inventories. reasons why they where nerfed:

five energy on sword with a 20% longer enchantments mod
for an Illusionary Weaponry mesmer useing Flurry [attack rate is increased by 33%] and, Distortion [evade attack lose 1energy]
necro useing Touch of Agony, Vampiric Touch, Demonic Flesh, Blood Renewal, Signet of Agony Plague Touch.[useing Illusionary Weaponry with this build is very effective]
monk useing Peace and Harmony gains +1 energy regeneration but will end if you attack.
for spikeing the extra 5 energy makes all the difference, extra Touch of Agony =61 damage
HOD sword is the best equipment for these specific types of builds

hod axe with +55hp with max fortitude grip
perfect item for runners

20% rockmolder
pre-October 20 2005 the rockmolder had an improves skill recharge of 20% on all skills
post-October 20 2005 stats have been changed to 10% recharge

Its a fact these items give a statistical advantage to a player with them [too overpowerd]. What NCsoft/arenanet has done is create a problem with a significant impact on this game. These limited editon items are now worth a great deal of money and it would take hundreds of hours to acquire the funds. Removing the way of optaining them but not removed from players inventories is unacceptable. Scavengers axe was removed right after people started to find out about them. why didint they just remove it as the quest reward and keep it in everyones inventories? got a small download next few days and that was it. Unlike most for you on these forums or on Guild Wars I have somthing called a Life in the real world. I dont have the time to play video games for hundreds of hours. I got guild wars because it's an CORPG rewards skill not time spent playing.I want to hear a comment from arenanet on this issue.

the rockmolder was a glitch, it wasn't supposed to be 20%. the max is supposed to be 10%.

Beating.....a.....dead.....horse.

It was probably just an accident by typing in 20% instead of 10%, but still, it doesn't change it's pretty overpowered.

And the HOD items and the Rockmolder are far from the only items that are discontinued, there are about 10 I know, and I probably don't know all of them.

Im rather partial to the HoD Longbow. You don't hear it talked about much, but it is the best pulling weapon in the game. With a +5 defense grip you get +15ar unconditionally. Its like carrying a shield and a bow at the same time.

for the simple reason there are relatively few of the HOD items floating around while everybody was FARMING the SOA axes.

15 minutes from new character to axe in storage.

they were piling up at 1000/hour? 10,000/hour?

i got 10 of them for less than 3 hours work just in case they were allowing us to keep them.

if they didnt yank them all they would have been the next HOD item pricewise in time.

if you cant afford one you dont play enough to need it.

That's not really true. I've played 1000 hours, and, and I've farmed about 3 periods of 2 weeks. I'm not rich, and probably never will be, because I'm not really really trying to get much money, just because I get bored of farming quickly, I'd still love one of the discontinued items, which I could use on 2 of my characters.

I agree. I don't play enough to have the resources to get one of these items (other than what I have aquired prior to removal, like the HoD Longbow), but that doesn't mean they don't have a legitimate use for a non-ub3r-hardc0re player.

The reason the scavengers axe was removed was because it was over powering, having every spell you cast last 40% longer is much much much worse than having 5 extra energy or a constant 20% chance of an improved skill recharge.

Spellbreaker could be cast and then recast without it ever expiring, this means that except with a wand or staff an ele really can't do much against the person with spellbreaker on. OotV/OoP would each last 9 seconds rather than five, basically doubling the number of spikes that a ranger spike team could do. My characters have zero need for the HoD sword or the 20% rockmolder, but to compete against someone using the axe, your team would most certainly need one, this is why it was removed rather than left in inventory.

I wouldn't say any of those items really create a huge imbalance. If they were still around, then some of them might (namely the Rockmolder) but as they aren't, and a select few have them... well it seems like the damage has been minimalized.

No one ever NEEDS one of these items, but almost everyone WANTS one.

The main question is, are you willing to dedicate as much time as it takes to get one (e.g. through farming, playing the market, etc.) to satisfy that want.

In the end, it's a cost-benefit analysis. Since the benefit is relatively marginal, whether you are willing to spend the time to get that marginal benefit is a personal choice.

true.

i can afford one (maybe 3) but why would i put all that effort into one small item?

Just focusing on this last paragraph, and ignoring the fact that I could probably search for a dozen such similar threads and then close this one:

1. Too overpowered? Who uses Illusion enough to wholly benefit from a Rockmolder? I'd say they're slightly better at best, at least the ones still ingame. They aren't a make-or-break issue.

2. "hundreds of hours": a few dozen hours if you farmed the right spots, and that's assuming that you're after the HoD sword. Last I checked Rockmolders were barely considered expensive.

3. The SoA axe was removed because 40% longer enchants was much more destabilizing than a mere 10% more chance for all spells to recharge, or for +5 energy. (Most of the "good builds for HoD swords" listed, aren't. Peace and Harmony...?)

4. Skill: you can still pretty much beat anyone with any of the existing items if you had more skill and a good build. I wouldn't sweat over a IW Mesmer with an HoD sword.

Its basically stripping an item from a player, displeasing some of ANETS customers

And...Pre-Nerf Rockmolder aint that overpowered, HOD sword just supplied a small edge, SOA axe is completely useless now (unless ur an invincimonk)

Would be way 2 much trouble for anet, and it would piss off a good many of their customers

The reason why SoA axes were removed outright, even from peoples inventories, is not because it offers something along the lines of HoD swords or what-have-you, but because it was a gross exploitation of a bug. AND compared to HoD swords and the like, it was unbalanced into the extreme ranges. A little +5 energy isn't that unbalanced, however +40% longer enchants is a gross unbalance, and totally unfair advantage.

The HoD sword w/ focus is only as good as a staff, how is that any edge at all, for IW id rather have a 10% skill recharge axe than a +5 energy sword, infact, in any build id take 10% recharge over +5 energy and you can get that item for 3 lodgestones.

40% longer? try 90% longer...man people don't know how to use exploits to the fullest

From testing the skill recharge doesn't work at all so no big deal there on Rockmolder. They should probly fix that.

HoD sword is not that big of a deal. I can still get +5 energy from a 1 handed weapon. The 20% enchant is the reason they removed it. Because nothing else came close it became the only option.

Only the SoA axe would give you an edge. The rest are not going to win or lose you the battle. The increase is so small what's the point of complaining about. Most enchantments last for 10 seconds with 20% enchant you get a big 2 second boost. It makes protective spirit easier but that's it.

Do the hod axes still allow you to get +55 hp as i have never seen an answer so hope this is ok?

As someone aptly pointed out (in one of the millions of threads on this topic) the imbalance from the HoD sword really shines when a WaMo equips it with 20% enchant mod and can cast the 25E spells but equip the sturdier armour.

If the rockmolder was bugged with the wrong mod then the older versions should be changed.

I agree the bugged axe was way too much, but really if ANet is going to keep item balance then they should do just that. Take the items out of the game completely if they are going to make them unavailable at all. Make mods on adjusted items the same.

In a game where skills are supposed to be center it just seems bad practice to create limited edition items that are available to only a very few. This is especially true when access to new instances of these items was removed for balance purposes. What does this mean? If you were lucky you get to have the imbalanced option while the rest are not? It may not be that bad, but it is still an irritating spot with me.

These "limited" items are really just collector items, or for bragging rights, neither of which affect how you actually play the game.

If the +5 energy from the HoD sword is vital for your build, then either your build isn't that great, or you just aren't playing it right. The energy boon is nice sure, but the only build that i *might* consider being really useful with it, is a 55 monk, so that when you click on the enemies you chase them, but with all things working as they should be .. even with the 55 monk i'd rather the flame spitter axe.

The HoD axe .. its 25 hp .. sure, its a nice little boon for runners, hmm, but is adding a fort mod the correct option.
I'm not looking for a armor vs health battle, thats been done enough times, go search if interested, but a number of people out there would take the HoD axe, and apply a +5 armor bonus.
"Booyah!" you might thing, the best of both worlds, its like a +5 armor mod, AND a +25 fort mod on the axe "i am teh awesome" you might remark.
But how often is your runner enchanted?, pretty often?, then .. wouldn't you rather have that +5 mod AND a +30 fort mod?, you know, for all those times +5 life are going to save you and the such, wouldn't you be that much cooler?.
Get the quest reward from Rurik's presear quest.
+5 armor while enchanted. Then, get the fort mod, or, another +5 armor mod for +10 armor from your sword. *bam* a very nice runners item. For very cheap. Still in the game.

The rockmolder ... eh, savio covered that one about as good as anyone can. ... Its illusion, and a 10% chance just isn't that significant.

just wanted to drop my 2 cents on the rockmolder:
i don't understand why people say it doesn't work - mine works like a charm - and i use it on my monk most of the time. to be honest: it works too good, i shouldn't be able to chain my own divine spirit or aegis at the rate that i am doing it. same goes for other skills like shielding hands, healing seed or aura of faith. even spellbreaker chains are possible with this item.

1: smiting staff of enchanting (10% recharge, insightful head)
2: yakslapper
3: enchanting falchion + rockmolder
4: enchanting falchion/holy rod with energy mod + divine symbol/protective icon/+27energy ankh

default is 3, not much energy to get drained away and sick recharge rates.
(when my mesmer has the molder i have 10/30 on all skills, thats really sweet)

I think you misunderstood the point of these items. And the +55 Axe wasnt HoD if I remember correctly, it was the quest reward axe from Scavenger's in Old Ascalon. Correct me if I'm wrong.

No, the quest reward axe was the 40% enchants one.

The SoA axe could have 2 of any grip on so they could be +55hp or 40% enchantments or any other 2 grip types.

It's my understanding they were removed because like people have said it was a bug, they were never ment to work that way. Rockmolder and the HoD sword were created as they were and then deemed embalanced and so removed.

Everyone that had a SoA axe knew they were taking advantage of a bug, something that wasn't meant to be there.

The SOA axe was removed because a weapon is not meant to have 2 suffix's. Also that having 2 enchanting grips meant nearly limitless enchantments with certain builds. It was overpowered.

Arena Net isn’t being mature about this issue, I don’t see the logic in keeping this nonsense in there game. Guild wars being Arena Net’s first project they should learn that this dosin't sell games not satisfying customers, isn’t good to have in the game, and removing this will result in a better game experience. Worrying that kids complaining/whining about there special items getting taking away from them is VERY sad [something I expect from a 15 year old child not a company doing business]. NCsoft is clearly not taking this seriously and must not want to make quality games.

*blink* *blink*

What nonsence?, items that are a 'little' bit better then would otherwise be desirable, are discontinued.
Items that are horrendously broken/exploited are removed.

They clearly are taking the jobs seriously, based upon the huge amount of feedback we get from them, how many other games have the dev's talking to us as much as they do here?

Guildwars is a quality game, it gets great reviews everywhere really, and still has a hige playerbase. Your post doesn't really contain any compelling arguments.

Why will removing these items make a better game experience?, are they not satisfying customers?, do you have some evidence, a large petition perhaps stating a large group of people are disatisfied?

You cannot please every person all of the time, no game ever has, .. please, present something proving that anet doesn't care about our wishes, and that people are unhappy that items such as the HoD sword still exist, but can't be found anymore.

.. On that note of things not dropping anymore, do you also want them to remove the christmas items?, the shields were after all 10 armor no req ... better then can be dropped.

I think the confusion stems from the following: The 20% fast recharge on spells has always worked. What was "bugged" was that the description used to indicate that it should work on all skills, not just spells.

I've been using one of these on various casters for both pve and pvp since they were added to the game, and have always observed it to perform on a par with any other 20% recharge item, except of course that it works across multiple skill lines. Just for grins, I tested it again today - out of 50 casts of various spells, 9 received the fast recharge. That's 18%, or one fast recharge shy of 20%. I also tested it with some warrior skills, out of 25 skill activations none received the fast recharge. (To clarify, the fast recharge is for any spell, not just mesmer or illusion spells, and is independent of whether or not you meet the 9 illusion requirement, which only applies to the energy bonus.)

Also, as pointed out on guildwiki (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/The_Rockmolder), the description was changed during the item description overhaul last month to accurately reflect it's behaviour. It now explicitly states "halves skill recharge of spells, chance 20%), which is how it's behaved all along. Note that the picture they have of the 10% one is pre description update, and shows what the description used to look like, i.e., indicitive of 20% all skill recharge, which was not accurate.

In short, following the description update, it behaves as advertised.

This topic gets beaten to death..

Whats with all the Dramatics? These items don't have a "significant" impact on the game.. if they did you would see the top GvG guilds and top PvPers all use them.. I know people in a rank 4 guild who don't use any of these items.

An HoD sword with a +20% enchantment mod isn't much better then a regular sword with a 20% enchantment mod. Period.

So you have a life so do I, I run a company, have a girlfriend etc.. I'm probably busier then most people who have millions in gold.

I got the money for my HoD in 2 days, I found some new Victo Axes when they where 100k each and sold them, boom new HoD sword.

So because you can't have one of the "limited edition" items you are going to cry about it? This is the one thing I dislike about these forms, people who complain about everything... I don't complain I just adapt. This is again just a game.. I'm sure you'll live a long a happy life without an HoD sword or the like.

The only item they "purged" was that axe that could allow two of the same type of upgrade aka a glitch on there part.

Every other item they allowed you to keep, you just can't find any new versions of it.

Some things that are also discontinued

Hollday items - usable items, armor, special weapons, etc.

Items I don't see any more or don't hear talked about, I had a weapons that had a mod that makes DP go down faster that I no longer see.

If you're the casual player you claim to be:

1) You shouldn't really care about having the best weapon
2) You shouldn't really care about a oh-so-subtle and oh-so-rare statistical advantage.

There is a nice alternative to the HoD sword that is still floating around the game:

Battle Axe
6-21 damage
req 8
+3 energy while enchanted
+5 energy while hexed

This axe is fully upgradable with say an Enchanting mod and a Furious mod...Sadly, this quest reward axe was also discontinued, but can still be found through trading occasionally.