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.