june skill balance update

That skill would just go where Deadly Paradox is now, aka no change at all. Permanent invulnerability should not exist in a game like this.

Kind of pointless as the skill has already been split into pve/pvp versions.

No to permanent invincibility, its a lame mechanic that should never have been allowed. Revert to the old shadowform, which was still used to effectively farm in certain circumstances, just not to the extent of the current crap. It was balanced by the short burst of invincibility followed by the loss of health.

inb4 wah its fun and you can still take dmg hurr durr

ok, fair point and i forgot about Deadly Paradox...

ok, lets make it old sform again, can use in gvg again then :d:d

As the other team runs directly past you and kills your lord.

Why not just touch SF and leave the people who enjoy it to enjoy it?
Honestly, people complaining need to learn to shut up and play the game if you seriously have such beliefs and are not a troll.
Nothing is truly balanced. Every game will always have one "1337" exploit that gives you an advantage. But it's that advantage that makes surroundings things stand out. Namely the assassin, in this case.

Why not just nerf SF and ignore those who enjoy easy mode'ing their way through every area?

I can make stupid arguments too, whee~

FYI my argument is actually pretty valid. But let these images do the talking of the so called "Balance" we have in video games these days though.







That said, balance should be an aim. But too much balance ruins the game.

You folks are so spoiled, lol.

+1

But a Shadow Form "revert" to original form, 21s, 60s recharge would be okay too. Still maintainable for people who aren't idiots (before or after the buff).

Nobody wants a buff to Mysticism?
or atleast a Dervish buff, atm it seems other classes are better at being a dervish then the dervish.

I agree, but I think that the thing to change would be the skills linked to Mysticism rather than Mysticism itself. The Avatars are the real highest point of the Dervish and only 2 of them are really even usable in general PvE outside of niche situations... even then, Lyssa and Grenth are often left off the skillbar in favor of Wounding Strike. I think they should revamp the avatars. Give Balthazar a 33% IAS, give Dwayna some condition removal and energy gain/regen, make Grenth function properly with Conjure Frost (you still have to take an Icy Scythe with you for Conjure to activate last time I checked) and maybe even just immune to block at all, give Lyssa +5...15 damage against foes not activating skills, and give Melandru some offensive capabilities.

Overpowered, perhaps, but it sure would help put Scythes back in Dervish hands instead of Critscythe Sins and Enduring Strength Wars.

This month we have been listening to players and have totally ignored them. What we have done instead was something quite unheard of, this month we have started introducing more synergy between skills. Assassins have had this synergy since factions and now we thought we would introduce more of it to all the professions.

We have also noticed that by nerfing overpowered builds we have been introducing too many trash builds into the game and we thought we would like to invoke more thought producing skilful play by buffing seemingly random skills. In fact, what we have done is introduce some specific builds into the game that are specificially able to shutdown other types of builds and professions. we thought that this scenario will lead players to think more tactically about how they play the game and should lead to some pretty interesting game play.

This month we have also introduced a secret OP uber-build. each month we will buff certain "random" skills to create one uber build and a counter build to the completely overpowered build. we thought that all the theory crafters would enjoy hunting out new skills and builds to try out. amongst these uber builds, we will also introduce two new FoTM GVG builds that will have some form of synergy with regards to the MaT Rotations. We thought that this will revive buildwars on a new level trying to out-think other top guilds similar to the way that Hero Battles players are able to build-wars against other players.

One thing that many of our users have wanted is a revival of smiting that is not too overpowered in all situations. Similar to the way that minions and undead take double damage from holy magic, all necromancers now take double damage from holy magic as well. We feel that this will provide a direct shutdown and mitigation between necromancers and monks, however, this is very situational and does not make smiting overpowered against other professions. to balance this new functionality, we have modified some necromancer insignias that will add armour against holy damage. we thought that this would be a trade off to health or energy insignias and would make necromancers think about their armour a lot more. at the same time, we have started introducing off hand items that increase armour vs holy magic. we thought that this would revive the economy a little as well.

Finally, in order to revive GvG, the final each month will take place between two outposts in the PVE environment. Monsters and NPC's will be present at the start of the battle so that each team also has to kill creatures in order to get to the flagstand, that will be located somewhere in the middle of the map. We thought that creating a larger play field and introducing the need to have a better PVE understanding might spice the game up a little. Each base will be located in an unknown area and it is up to each team to find the opposite guildhall and take out the guild leader. as well as this, monsters will also randomly drop items that can be used and elite skills can be captured from the bosses, potentially allowing players to have 2 elite skills (just like PVE) for the remainder of the match. each team will have 1 hour to research and build a team and strategise before the grand final of the monthly MaT.

Which part, the damage nerf or the NPC scatter?

But is there a way that we have a skill (hope) balance for june?
I've seen any official word from regina or anyother that confirm or negate that.

In PvE, you don't balance.

You can't balance two sides with different maximums in attributes, different sets of skills, different numbers of parties and that is supposed to let win one of the sides 100% of the time, if they know what they are doing.
Have you seen Mallyx's skills? They are just insane, and yet people can beat him.

In PvE you don't balance. You just nerf extreme situations, like they did with Ursan.
Now, the next extreme situation is Shadow Form, which prevents being the target of attacks and spells and has a downside that means nothing if you can maintain the form 100% of the time.

But if you don't maintain it 100% of the time, it would not be used in PvE, were most players don't hit and run, but try to keep aggro in the smaller amount of characters as possible and the monsters busy and gathered in one point as much as possible.

In PvP, hit and run is really good. But in PvE that may work too, but is undesired because it's too slow.

So, Shadow Form must be changed to be something that do not prevents to be a target completely, but something different, that let's an assassin to be in the middle of the battle for a lot of time suffering little damage and recharge much later. That is, less strong effect, working for all types of skills, and with the only downside of a very long recharge time: A Form.

Shadowform can still be affected. Wells, shouts, signets, touch skills, ect. Plenty of Mountains in UWSC die because of CB's. Just put a few touch skills on other profs and SF has serious danger.

Helix, I think we have ample evidence that the sort of update you propose just doesn't work. Skilled players find a solution to the problem and eventually that answer disseminates throughout the community.

Eg: Mindblade update to Sig of Disenchant, Dying Nightmares, Prot Bond nerf.

It's silly for the devs to try to fix a broken mechanic by targeting its weaknesses. These efforts usually fail and require more coding work than fixing the broken mechanic.

Perma-SF needs to go.

The entire concept of "holding aggro" needs to go.

@Martin: that kind of update does work, actually, and it doesn't even require nerfing any skills into oblivion; Anet just never went far enough with it. If you want to quash the abuse of a skill, you make sure every monster group in the target area carries hard counters to that skill. The player can't ever win this arms race, because they simply don't have enough skill slots.

Or you just make sure that EVERY group has a healer or two.
I mean, teams of 50 bloody mesmers or warriors (or assassins for that matter ) are just BEGGING to be abused.


Otherwise the player just counters the counter.

Does gw 1 still has ppl other than mods looking at 1 out of every 10000 report and one chick posting stuff to keep the gw players awake?
If there are actually devs working on this game I dont really undestand what they are doing now, the BIG anniversary update had no real content so I guess that every once in a will they'll dish out and update thay says that the 4 least used skills in the game now cost 5 less energy and last for 10 more seconds.
Whoopdy whoop.

Everywhere in the game? Do you have any idea how many areas see SF abuse?

Sure, if you want to put the Stormcloud Incubus everywhere, it'll work. It's also unnecessarily limiting and distorts the game much more than simply giving perma-SF a killshot.

While I agree with you about the holding aggro concept...it would only work if there are no monster stats pump. The strongest monsters should be exactly the same as a player with max stats, and monsters should not have nearly infinite energy, no faster cast, no faster recharge, same armor as player, same HP, et. etc. Only Bosses should be the exception.

With stuff in HM doing cheating-like 200 dmg normal attack to players its pretty much required to hold aggro, either with perma or an 600 tank or an obsi tank with a crapload of bonds. There's just no way around it when the dmg is so ridiculous.

God yes, the diku mud style agro/threat is a really terrible mechanic that I hope does not get introduced into GW2. It just feels so artificial in pretty much any game it is in.

I do much prefer Guild Wars' body blocking mechanism, although at times (for example, when my warrior is protted while corner blocking a ton of mobs) it feels almost exploitative. I would definitely rather have body blocking (and snaring, if mobs get around your "wall") as pve mechanics, than the generic threat level, as good positioning is more of a "fun" mechanic for everyone.

Just kill tanking completely. GW1 had more than enough shutdown possibilities, that's how people stay alive in PvP, just carry that to GW2.

Nerf SF so that It may only be used with max cons(essence+egg+cc+greil+rock candy) and has .25second window to cast it in.

CoP-change it to target foe and up to 1...4 other foes.

RoJ-scatter.

rework SF. Perma shadow needs to go, but lets re-think shadowform. so that it can be used for assassins in mobs to take out the important key boss, but then allows them enough time to get out of the battle and not to lose so much health. perhaps you can say, shadow form in PVE and PVP will only last for 20 seconds and will recharge in 1 secs and shadowform is disabled for 45 seconds, see, cant use it twice (make sure that any combination of consumables and enchantment extensions or other skills will not work to allow perma). after shadowform has ended, all your skills are disabled for 15 -20seconds.

this will allow shadowform to be used in pvp and pve for specific purposes ie. assassinating, but will then take the assassin out of the game for a certain amount of time. make sure that arcane echo doesn;t work by making sure that when shadowform ends all enchantments are stipped and for 20 seconds you cannot be the target of enchantments as well. ie. you lose all enchantments and your skills are disabled for 20 seconds. if you make it a maintained enchantment, it might work this way. so that it ends before the new one is applied and then you cannot reaaply it again. you keep full health, but you will be unprotable in gvg.

signets of disenchant should be made more workable so that it can be used as an effective counter in gvg or HA. and there are plenty of counters for signets. so the layers of protection and counters against counters can weave its magic.

*Wishful thinking*

E/Me Distortion Mindblast Nerf

Blocking rate reworked (all stances, enchantments, etc.. 50% across the board unless they have elite status *like Escape*).

Blind miss % reduced to 50%.

Give Hunter's Shot back it's quick-activation and add the same to prep'd shot.

and anything else that is IMBA be BA (not hit with the "N" Bomb too hard though..)

Is the update coming out tomorrow? or next week? We'll really, I care more for my tourny points...

Lets just think about this for a second: what impact will the complete removal of SF have on the already shrinking community?

Who cares? It's broken.

Why would people who rely on broken mechanics to win in PvE leaving just because they lost a skill or two... ever be a bad thing? If that's all it takes to make you quit, then you won't likely be missed.

Broken it sure is, no denying it.
Just as broken as Discord (well, necros in general), AP, CoP, PI, RoJ, SY... the list goes on.
In fact any skill (or combination of skills) that, when used correctly, overpowers the AI in PvE could be seen as being 'broken'. Not true?

That's in part what I was trying to find out with my question. I can see that a SF removal will greatly impact the farming community at large and that a lot of the current farmers will have to move on to different locations and skill sets. That should not be a huge problem though, as farmers generally adapt quite quickly to skill changes.

The bigger issue here could be grouping and the way that part of the game will inevitably change as a result of any tampering with the meta.

How will this change and, will the community adjust and move on to the next gimmick or will it have a more devastating effect on the populace?

I hope that you understood my question as being just that, a question?

People who leave the game because of a single skill change won't be missed at all, 100% agreed. That being said, it is also important to remember that this is, after all, a MMO and if numbers fall people who enjoy interacting with others in towns, missions, whatever will start to move on to games where the populace is expanding, not dwindling (for whatever reason).

So, could a change to a single skill have a much greater impact on the game than first thought?. Or could it be that SF (and it's current usage) isn't nearly as important and widespread as we all think?

Guys, there's leaks anet found a better exploit than SF for uber farming but they won't tell us what it is. So once they nerf SF, be on the lookout for the next god mode skill :|

Hm... maybe the 10000 players with SF assassins could end up making warriors to tank like in the old days...

There are 10 professions, after all.

So you're saying they have another exploit, won't tell us, and are going to nerf SF? Just saying. It's probably SB or Obby.

No way. I thought it was only Assassin, Monk, Necro and Elementalist.

Meta shifting keeps the game fresh :P

Is the update happening tonight, or next week?

Pol