Update - Thursday, June 11

If more QA time is needed to release a proper update instead of broken skills, please do so. See broken RoJ, and crashed XTH 2.0. Do we need more skill updates with bugs like Signet of Ghostly Might and Dark Aura spam? I can't say I'm surprised at the keg delay, but it's curious why it wasn't noticed when they changed kegs in HoS.

Okay, two points...

Who cares that assassins went keg farming? For me it was certainly very nice to get the gold I need in 2 hours instead of grinding somewhere else for 4-5 hours... I call BS on this one

Second, WHERE DID THE HA ZBOUNTY GO???
I've been waiting for it for over a week, and now it's gone... gg...

It's probably the first time ever I'm angry at Anet, I'm very sorry to say

EDIT: Also, I think the decorations added such a nice aura to the towns, I actually enjoyed being in Kaineng City, though I usually hate that town for being so complicated.
Why were the decorations removed?

As of right now, I wont expect much from any updates now.

Seriously, make a list of the top three things that need a major focusing upon and update the game monthly with at least one or two of the three things covered.

What group of people thought the decorations were a problem? Did the decorations make people lag a lot more than when they weren't up?

Of all things, this update contained what was necessary the most? Anyone want to make a bet RoJ gets nerfed between now and next month? I truly dislike having to mention my dislike to something, but come on! This isn't an update to QQ over. This is just pure garbage.

Keg Bombing nerfed??? jeez late to Ursan and late to this as well...I understand Ursan cos it was so powerful...but Kegging ?? one tiny area out of 3 huge areas and little ol EOTN for what?? worthless golds and a gazillion Mesmer Tomes .

Martin, I know you're not allowed to respond with information back, but I just wanted to give my open letter and regards to upcoming updates as a whole, on skills. Please read it, as I've put a lot of work and time into this.
Nothing is being demanded, but it's just my thoughts.

First things first. My thoughts on RoJ. Anyways, RoJ is a very fun skill and is necessary for a lot of ingame activities players commonly do and enjoy such as the UWSC, as well as some versions of the DTSC and MQSC.
Since it is a very-easy-to-get monk elite and it is easy for many players to use, it greatly relaxes the grind we must do for a lot of after-game tasks in farming.
Not only that, but it allows many players to give the tri-necro heroes a break and experiment with monks for the more "elite" and efficient hero build.
Furthermore, it gives smiters actual use in high-end areas.
And if you look at the other professions that deal AOE dmg than elementalist, most others have options just as vaible as RoJ. For example. A Mesmer's cry of pain. An Assasin's death blossom. A Warrior's hundred blades for the "100lulz" build. A necromancer's discordway. And, of course, a ranger's splinter barrage. Maybe it's just eles who need a buff to reclaim their title as the "AoE dmg dealer"?
Skills like RoJ are really, really, REALLY useful and needed for things like hardmode. And if it's nerfed again, it will only cause players to cry more. Both with cry of pain and on the forums. In which, then people will complain about that skill, and exploit it to the point of needing a nerf. Though, that in mind, any skill can be exploitable and nerfed. It's just a matter of overusage.
And as it is, damage over time AoE is bad all-around for general PvE unless enemies are bunched up. So the problem lies more in GW's design.
And as for PvP, kill it. Kill it with fire!
If it is nerfed for both sides of the game, I ask that the meta is re-shaped and for new-overpowered skills to have the spotlight. After all, the constant shifting meta is what made guild wars so interesting over the years. Wouldn't you agree?

And as for non-roj, I'd just like to share my hopes for a paragon buff, as well as ritualists, most preferably SPAWNING POWER, and perhaps even resurrecting dervish primaries.

But as a paragon mainer, I must say that I LOVE SY and my imbagon. But when you get right down to it, that's a warrior skill and even warriors use SY better than the paragon if used properly, since the Dragon Slash/SY build is as awesome as ever.
Since the PvE split, I would say to revert Paragon back to the state they were prior to all those PvP nerfs. And to possibly re-buff "Incoming!" as well.
What they could truly use is perhaps more adrenaline management, an alternative to Aggressive Refrain for IAS, and maybe even allow them to take the frontlines like the concepts were. As it stands, spear mastery is a piece of crap. It is quite understandable that spears as a weapon is quite the powerful thing. But what use is it when most of your skills are crap?
Motivation is also a bit annoying to work with. Mostly because both the heal is crap and your effectiveness in energy support is crap as well. It is too hard to heal people at the right time due to most things having annoying requirements, as well.
Perhaps this should be looked into as well.
And as you guys at anet might've noticed, a lot of people lately are experimenting with different weapons on the paragon. Especially daggers, since even that outclasses the spear. The two options here could be to perhaps allow an "offensive" paragon by changing some of the skills to support their own usage of alternative weapons, perhaps even hammers, due to skills such as awe. Or to redo the spear line. It's bad enough the skills are crap, but there's such a limited amount of skills available.
Paragons were supposed to be a profession that can go either offensive or supportive. But besides SY, I don't feel the "support" I can do for my party. And the most damage I've ever gotten with them is with the extremely inefficient dagger paragon.

Last, but not least, I ask if, whenever possible, something is done about Power Shot from the ranger. I mean, come on? It's COMPLETELY outpowered by crossfire. And that's no exaggeration either! A simple tweak is all it needs though. Perhaps change it to a power attack clone?

Anyways, that concludes my letter. The supporting view of RoJ, reminder of things that NEED a buff, my feedback on paragons as a whole, and my qq on power shot.


Outside of my letter, just so people know, don't QQ at regina or martin for not releasing info.
It's part of their contract of their job. They just want to make a living, and I'm sure they'd release all the info they could if they were allowed :P

So, does this mean there's been a bit of a roll back on the quests, or has the entire mission cycle been reset? Ie any z mission that's occurred so far can now happen again?

I'm trying to figure that out too Joiry.

Also forgot to mention Z-PvP mission went from HA to TA.
Which is wierd.
http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Zaishen_Challenge_Quest
None of them were on the same corresponding day. Not only did they all get reset, but they got reset randomly... so it wasn't a reroll... but it got reset to the same quests (and since we have never seen a repeat PvE quest yet, I find it unlikely that getting 2 at once would be just a coincidence of getting 2 quests pulled from a list). Seems like some sort of z-quest reroll occured... but in a bizarre manner.

PvE'ers, how about that keg farming eh?

it was 10k every 30 min. It was an amazingly broken farm.

Needed to be nerfed.

Looks to me like the gw CRM's were really knowing it was going to get ugly, getting both Martin and Regina posting this quickly in a thread. Of course it seems quite often lately we get the "dont have enough people its gonna not happen or take longer" so often that you would think us as a playerbase would start to just give up on expecting things on time.

But, because so many of us have learned to love and think that gw cares about the playerbase we get fooled into continually putting our hope into each update in hopes something actually happens when it should.

Either way, good to see no more kegs, silly change to the Res Orb in ABattles, sucks on the no stacking Z quests

What 10k every 30 mins?
I didn't get squat

This is getting out of control. I don’t PvE so I don’t know how vital those changes were and I realized that the new system for reward points might cause a bit of a delay, but your current timeline for PvP-related releases has exceedingly negative effects on the game. I see absolutely no reason that the map rotation for each month cannot be planned beforehand and implemented immediately after the preceding monthly. As it currently stands, the two week delay leaves teams two weeks (half the month) less to prepare, both builds and familiarity, for the upcoming monthly. The skill updates are even worse. Due to the drastic shifts balances tend to make, beneficial or not, the two, or in this case three plus, weeks after also means that playing in the first couple weeks of the month does not aid in the slightest. It leads to each monthly becoming nothing of the sort, more of a mad scramble the last couple of weeks to prepare, followed by a couple useless weeks where people feel little need to play due to the fact that they won’t be using the same skills or playing on the same maps when it counts: the next monthly. By shifting the timeline two weeks earlier, you still have the same amount of time to do the skill balancing, yet it makes more sense from a competitive standpoint. You still have an entire month to test skills, but you also put more emphasis on actually playing the game instead of trying to guess what the next balance and metagame will be, and that’s not even going into the advantage people who have access to the balance forums receive. You’ve previously placed emphasis on the fact that it’s not how much you play, but skill that decides games. At this point, however, you cannot deny that you have pushed the game in the direction where preparation matters more, and actual skill matters less. Be that as it may, the least you can do is to give us adequate time to achieve exactly that.

10k every 30 mins???? Not that I have ever seen and I farm with both keg and Ele build. Its decent but it wasnt "amazingly broken" as you say.

Why do I have a feeling that when they 'fix' RoJ, it'll just either: a) make it completely worthless like the old one; b) introduce another bug; or c) they fixed the wrong aspect of what made the skill so OP in the first place? Hmmm....

Well, this update seems a littler more "meh" than usual.
Why are the decorations gone?

They'll probably make it worthless and then to 'balance' they grab a random skill and decrease the energy cost by 5

NOoooooOOOOooooo!!!!!! There goes my 3 Elite Warriors and 2 Elite Elementalists!

I say if you are smart enough to grab the orb and rez your NPC then you should be able to keep them even after the shrine has been capped by the other team. It was great running around with my group of Elite warriors. While it lasted.

----

I am pretty naffed about the fact that there were STUFF ALL skill updates. The current meta at the moment is total shite. I mean, cutting down Strength of Honour to 5dmg and leaving hexes to be OP.... ahhh... why am i complaining...? 50,000 other people are just doing the same.

Anet, if a totaly overhaul is made fixing and buffing what needs to be buffed and fixed, I'd rather wait a few weeks or even another month. It'll be worth it in the end.

Also, now kaineng isn't beautiful anymore. Awwwww T_T

Not that I'm defending the keg farm, but that would put it a distant second to rerolling the HB zquests for the faction reward and zkeys. Maybe even the RA and TA ones, too.

SF should have gotten the nerf, if the intention was to fix broken farms. The perma-sin is the basis for most broken farms atm...and what has made elite locations intended to be the hardest in the game (Urgoz, Slavers, etc.) into a "let's see how fast we can finish" rinse-and-repeat farm-fest! UW HM in 20 min? Yeah, that's the way it was envisioned to be, lol. Raptors is a completely broken farm that's been exploited by every profession now, which is probably why it was left alone - its an exploit that doesn't discriminate and makes for easy festival items for everyone. Next on the tee for the nerf bat - 600/smiting?

RoJ isn't "needed" for UWSC...an SS Nec can do the job. The reason RoJ should be changed is that it is an AoE skill, and as an AoE skill it must cause scatter just like all the other of them.

Also, I'd rather wait on the skill update then have it be just completely terrible

I dont understand the vaettir keg farming nerf...didn't seem like a huge gripe in the community. It's probably just as profitable (maybe a little moreso) than raptor farming, and I didn't see that touched in the slightest.

Also, reducing the rewards from the HB ZQ didn't completely ruin the farming aspect of it. I farm that quest not for the coins as much as for the 6k faction and 1k in gold every two wins. If anything, the faction obtained should have been reduced.

Yeah, so? What's wrong with that.
Haven't you seen other video games than GW? Clearing things the fastest possible is the whole POINT to elite areas in video games in general.
Out of curiosity, have you ever played Cave Story? That game has a timer specifically for that purpose in the last area.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwkquZV-nkY

Now don't tell me it's because the Spur in cave story is overpowered. That'd be just stupid. Just like the SF qq.

Because it also has to be like sort of a challenge, and the whole challenge in GW is gone.

Keg farming nerf? Don't care - too many easy farms in-game anyway. AND Mesmer tomes may go up in price a bit - hehe

Kaineng Center Decorations? Should have been taken down months ago. For you lovers of the decorations: It's gonna be re-decorated for the Dragon Festival next month anyway.

So you don't think co-ordinating a team to follow a strategy is challenge?
All of gw is no challenge if we used your logic. All your doing is using the same skills over and over again on different targets. With the only change being the setup used in different areas. And that's exactly what SF is about. You can't use it everywhere, but it's usable in some areas.

MAIN things that should be adressed in the next update PvE wise, PvP is another thing.

-RoJ - introduce AoE scatter
-Discord - either remove Armor ignoring dmg or change functionality to "target foe cannot be damaged by the same spell for 5 seconds"
-CoP - remove Armor ignoring dmg or lower aoe to nearby
-Shadow Form - change functionality to "this skill is disabled for 45 seconds" or reduce duration to 5...16...20" (Go ahead and start whining crybabies ...)
-Ether Prism - Change skill to "stance" (even tho this is mainly a PvP issue)
-Limit minions to 12 per team, 16 in a team of 12
-Save Yourselves - recharge depending on lux/kurz rank, 8..6..4 (i.e. 1 sec down per 3 levels in the allegiance rank)
-Change town system in Factions to: NPC within owning-guild-only area gives quest "Man the defenses" "To the arms" "whateveridcbbq" (Win 5 Battles in Alliance Battle - Reward: 2000 XP, 500 Gold, 2000 Faction)

Henchies and heroes don't recognize it either and that is certainly not fun. So I for once will be happy it will go as it will make my game easier and not harder. :P

Read above.

Discord is so good so good I bet you cant remember last time u used it in ur necro :P
Is allowing someone to remove a 3 sec duration skill do anything?
What next? Only 1 WoH? 1 melee? Is having 20 that crucial in game? The only place I remember using 2 mms is in Eternal grove...
So now you bring 2 imbagons? Spears aren't that bad at damage Or you already bring 1 copy on a paragon and 1 on a front liner like the assassin?

Or are you just trying to kill solo (h/h)/duo(2p+6h) play?

hell, screw the heroes and hench not recognising it...

NPC's (and I'm looking at you, Mhenlo and Togo!!!) don't recognize it and stand in three at the end of Tahnakki Temple (REG ENGINE GO'ers)

Fort Aspenwood. The vital NPC's there just go, "Oooh.. pretty lights." as they die.


Thanks a lot, Gunther.

i agree with Phenixfire

Can't really say much, doesn't really affect me.

so many delays... things are not looking good for schedules...
are you guys sure you can manage to release big quarterly updates? or will the quarterly updates turn into yearly updates?

Logged on today just for the zkeys, /dissapointed.

About damn time they removed the decorations IMO.

Raptors...Anyone?

Wow, that means 24/7 FoWSC for me.

*Discovers meaning between the lines*
"In other words, STFU and be patient."

Haha.

110% Agree with this post. Some people enjoy doing the same thing over and over, and over and over (Etc..) And slowly becomming rich and having fun. Afterall, thats what games are for...Aren't they? To be fun?

I agree with Phenixfire as well.

Shadow form needs the nerf

gg, ANet, giving us yet another delay on skill balances. They may as well tell us next month that the usual dates during which they update their game has been moved a week later.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHA
Dammit I'm out of breath...

A+ post Though ANET would deny that they are sucking out the fun from Fun Farmers.

OMG that makes me mad...

i love the perma kegging .. darn u A net!!!!!

Sry to say, no idea what that is supposed to mean. Multiple discord is way too overpowered. End.

As i said, thats a PvP issue mainly. And yes, look at monsters reaction times in HM, especially with IAS.
PvP wise -> Whirling Axe. Done.

This is targeted at having multiple Minion Masters, being able to sustain a huge "meat shield wall" almost non stop in combination with high dmg output like death nova (when one is spamming death nova, the others can still heal (wink wink hint hint n/rt) and animate).
Moreover, you miss the point. People can't and mustn't be limited to what skills to bring (PvE only skills excluded). "Unlimited" allies on the other hand should and must be. Period.

There's nothing wrong with team play, even if it is for overpowered skills only. If this supports playing coordinated, then it's fine. Nothing wrong with the nerf itself. Purpose is just to keep one single party member from being able to keeping it up all the time.

Moreover, Spawning Power and Mysticism need a makeover as well. That Sould Reaping has been broken right from the very start and very hard to fix shld be clear to everyone by now.

I wouldn't mind a RoJ nerf, it needs one. But at the same time, Shadowform needs to take a hit too, or something else will replace RoJ.

Let's say you play an assassin. How would you like it if Dervishes could shadowstep better than you could, use daggers better than you could, and do pretty much anything you could do, only better? Wouldn't be much fun, would it?

Each profession was designed to have it's own strengths and weaknesses. Monks were intended to be the ultimate healers and protters. Eles were supposed to be the best nukers. Mesmers were supposed to mess with people. Necros were supposed to curse and support and MM. Warriors were supposed to tank and deal damage. Rangers were supposed to be versatile ranged attackers. Assassins were supposed to be squishy but powerful melee attackers. Dervishes were supposed to be melee AoE tanks. Ritualists were supposed to be midway between monks and eles. And Paragons were supposed to be midway between warriors and monks.

Instead, this is what we have:

Eles tank better than warriors. And Assassins, well, they are infinitely better tanks than any other character.

Monks can nuke better than Eles.

Eles can heal better than monks.

Assassins and Warriors are better melee AoE than dervishes.

Necros are better rits than rits.

Paragons just plain suck.

And you don't find any of this to be a problem?

EDIT: I do, however, appreciate the fact that Anet was kind enough to make statements to the community so soon about this. It shows you care about us, at the very least.