How should Shadow Form be balanced?

I've seen alot of people talk about shadow form being overpowered in PvE, alot of people talking about it needing a nerf, but I rarely see suggestions for how to balance it. My apologies if this thread has been created before, I couldn't find anything like it through search. My idea is to have the enchantment itself have a longer duration, say 60 seconds, but have a definate down time afterwards, it would function similiarly to Dervish form spells do in PvP. This would allow people to still use it in groups for tanking, and even farming, but would force you to use it the way I believe it was intended to be used, to grant temperary invincibilty (in most situations), during which time you must either kill what you have aggroed, or run like hell if you can't. The down time wouldn't really even need to be that long, maybe like 30 seconds or so. This could remove the need for glyph of swiftness and deadly paradox on the bar, allowing the sin to do more stuff while in shadow form. That's just one idea, I would love to hear other ideas.

I think the health sacrifice should be removed but the skill should be disabled for 45 seconds so you can't maintain it, but you are still able to use it to save yourself.

I 100% agree with this.

I 100% DISagree with changing this skill again for the 500th friggin' time! if you don't like a skill don't use it. posts like this is why the devs always change things.

For 10...30 seconds, all hostile spells that target you fail and all attacks against you miss, but you can't deal any damage. When Shadow Form ends, lose all but 5...41 Health.

Energy: 10
Activation: 1second
Recharge: 60

Yes I agree with this. It shouldn't be allowed to deal damage.

If they make it so you can't deal damage, all the people who use their sins to farm will suddenly all be runners instead.

I think extending the recharge and leaving the rest alone is the best option.

Shadowform was made originally for a more farming oriented elite, they just didn't realize how out of hand it was going to get. Shadowform is only so deadly because it used to be able to farm anything people set their minds to. Right now, why would they even need to nerf Shadowform? If they want to nerf the current meta farming builds, nerf Essence of Celerity. This will leave raptor farming, and umm.. hmm... farming bosses. Sounds like what every other profession can do!

Using most of the bars with Glyph of Swiftness now is not working very well as the damage done already isn't cutting it, however Strength of Honor has proven to help bring this back up, but then you're farming with two people and the problem is no longer solo farming. You are forced to pick the ele secondary, and though it is possible to echo chain shadowform, the success rate plummets for a lot of farms and using A/Me is also quite limiting moreso than A/E.

OK for one when shadow form was nerfed months back they had said that they will not take it away but make it harder to keep up and they had said they would never Nerf a build like that to make it not usable but they will nerf ways of farming like they had just done with keg farming

I think removing the ability to do damage under shadow form changes what shadow form was originally intended as, a way to do damage without having to worry about your health for a brief time, but afterwards needing to gtfo. Shadowform not allowing damage makes it a pure tanking skill only, something it really isn't meant for, why would an assasin (somebody who kills stuff), want invulnerability but not be able to do damage?

ok there is a difference from dealing and casting spells because what i take from dealing damage is using weapon but when you use like sliver armor its just an enchantment for when a monster attacks you so really the guys are killing them selves

Yeah,this might be the main idea,but I still believe that assassins are doing great as tanks. And if I am not wrong,they are supposed to live in shadows, thus Shadow Form,and here goes the invincibility.You can't really kill shadows,can you?
I don't want them to nerf SF at the first point,but if they have to,that how they should do it in my opinion.

Revert it back to the original form when you had to mimic the skill so we return to A/Me.

i think they just need to change the casting time for 1 sec to 2 or 3 sec's that would stop people form being able to perma it all the time

While you maintain this enchantment, all hostile spells fail that target other ally and all attacks against target ally miss. Target ally deals 41...5% less damage. When Shadow Form ends, you and target other ally lose all but 5...41 Health. This enchantment ends if you use a skill on yourself or become enchanted. Prior enchantments stay on and don't prevent SF from working.


10 Energy, 6 sec cast time, Disabled for 60 seconds, -1 Energy regen.


It may be a bit radical, but it's fundamentally the same. There's no reason to ruin one invincibuild if you're going to let others live, so I propose it be made a maintainable enchantment that you can't self-target with. The Parameters that make it end are there so you don't see UW/DOA teams with 7 Permasins, none of whom are actually assassins running about, causing mayhem with epic Speed.

Make it like shadow walk.

While you are under the effect of this enchantment, you cannot cast enchantments.

DoA 7perma sins? Seriously,something is wrong with that,the main idea of DoA is tank and spank,so you will only see 2permas who deal no damage whatsoever there.
Anyway,I kinda like this idea but it's pretty complicated,kinda hard to see them changing to something like that.

I agree. Its been nerfed what? Three times now? Leave it be, if you dont like, dont use it. I dont like RoJ, but you dont see me screaming at the top of my lungs to nerf it. Jeez. Oh, and so no one will say 'I bet you perma!' No, I do not, have not and will not ever make a perma.

neither am I a perma. i have tried it and dont like it. i will farm with my monky or necro instead

If you don't like it, then don't do it? Hmmm, If I don't like Murder, then don't do it? Yeah, that makes sense.

I would change it to last like 15 second max duration and have either a 45 or 60 second recharge. That way you can get in there, so some dmg without getting slaughtered and get out. Or purely defensive.

I don't think it's a matter of if you dont like it don't run it. The fact is it is very over powered compared to what other classes can do, and sins being able to complete uw in 20 minutes or less is rediculous, and decreases the value of items which other people with normally powered builds would have to work very hard to get. The idea here is to balance it. It is clearly unbalanced. One thing that alot of ppl never seem to think of tho is that instead of nerfing skills to balance things in PvE, why not buff other skills to give other classes a chance too? Ppl say RoJ is overpowered, is it, or is it that ele's are under powered? Anyways, I really didn't intend for this thread to become a debate on whether skills should be nerfed or not, as there are already tons of threads and debates about it every where on these forums, rather, if you feel that changing shadow form could be a good way to balance, this is a thread to post your ideas, and talk about how shadow form could be changed.

Actually, that made perfect sense.

People say how its being exploited, and it is. But if there is room for exploitation, then something will be exploited. Thats the way of the world, both online and off. Obviously people are still able to perma, despite SF being nerfed 3 or 4 times. So why even bother with it.

Say they do nerf SF to the point where permaing no longer exists, you think someone somewhere wont find another skill to exploit for farming on a large scale? To me, its silly to think that anet will be able to balance every skill perfect, and the more they change skills the more people complain, regardless if its a nerf or a buff.

And so to end this off topic adventure for me. Leave SF be please. ^^

While you maintain this enchantment, all spells fail and all attacks miss. For each attack that missed, you lose 10...6 energy or Shadow Form ends.

Casting time: 2 seconds
Recharge: 60 seconds
Energy: 25

Don't bother, really, there really isn't THAT much you can do with SF besides UW/FOW sc, DoA, other farming spots really don't yield much, especially after the Keg-farming nerf. Some people say they don't like SF, and would rather farm with some other character, then by all means, do it, but don't start flaming on SF, just 'cause you don't like it. leave it alone.

If SF where to be made as a defensive skill, then, why not nerf the entire farming? I mean, really, what else is there to do with SF other than farming and running to places? SF is meant for that(since the health drop is so big, there is simply no remedy for the user after it ends, especially in high level areas)

I don't see the point of nerfing SF, because it makes no sense, if you're jealous of the assas out there, then by all meanings make one, it takes less than 10 days to get your perma up and running. If you don't like it, then buzz off, there are too much that you dislike than you can change.

Just my point of view, leave the skill be, because whatever new form the skill takes on, surely it will start another chaos. It works fine, it's not overpowered, there are places where it fails, and Anet really has limited its use within DoA and ToA. Give the skill a break, really now.

Why can't we just revert it to the state it was before? You know, in 2006/2007.

Full: For 5...17 seconds, all hostile Spells that target you fail and all attacks against you miss. When Shadow Form ends, lose all but 5...41 Health.

Cost 10, cast 5, recharge 60. You couldn't maintain it alone and you had to be A/Me to make it last 2/3 of the recharge. And had a way to reduce recharge by half, but then costs go up (QZ).

I'de have to say Leet Tankur that this would completely kill shadow form. I don't think it should be murdered to the point where it can never be used again, but I think it should be changed in a way that would cause it to slow farms down a bit that use shadow form. The idea to turn it into a tanking skill where you can't do any damage would kill all builds that use it for damage, it would kill speed clears completely. If you have the skill last for a while, but then become disabled so that there is a time period that you cannot have it on you allows it to still be used for tanking, and still be used for damage based build, but would add time to the run.

lol, this will put shadow form into the worst elite in game, you can drain out a perma energy in like 3 seconds for single enemy and 1 seconds if you multiple enemies.

Just leave SF alone.
Its only use is for farming like others have already pointed out.
SF is NOT god-mode like people so often think.
If you have ever been in a UW/FoW SC then you know you have a really high chance at failing.
In order to perma anyway you either have to fill up almost half your bar anyway or spend alot of cash for cons its not free.
Just leave it alone already.

Fixed version:

This skill is disabled for 45 seconds. For 15 seconds, all spells that target you fail and all attacks miss. You cannot cast enchantments or hexes while Shadow Form is in effect.

Recharge: 60 seconds
Casting time: 3 seconds
Energy: 10

Good use of it can render some missions ridiculously easy (especially missions that normally involve splitting the party like Eternal Grove and Dzagonur Bastion - you can hold up one side with a permasin while the rest of the party collapses onto the other). I'll admit to being glad of it when it happened, but that doesn't mean I think it's actually good for the game.

Elite Distortion?

The idea does have merit, but I think you're being too punishing with the numbers. Instead... leave it with its current numbers and make you lose 3..1..1 energy for each attack that missed and each spell that fails, and remove the end effect. Makes it useful for a short-term defense, but trying to tank an army while keeping it permanently up will result in it dropping quickly, especially if you're trying to do damage as well.

For the most part, I am pretty indifferent to the whole debate. I thought it would be interesting to read what the ppl who think it should be nerfed suggest how it should be changed. You do have to admit tho that it is a pretty rediculous skill. I showed it to my buddy who plays WoW and he thought it was retarded. Ofcourse, he thinks guildwars is retarded anyways. I was running some ppl to granite citedal earlier with my perma, and there are some areas in the south shiverpeaks with crazy amount of enemies, and I got the feeling running through these huge mobs with ease that this is simply a mockery of what guild wars used to be. I remember back in the days of prophecies seeing these huge groups of monsters getting a sense of how amazingly powerful they were, how hard it would be to take that army on, and now with shadow form they are a joke. It was sad and funny at the same time.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10347384

Signed for SF nerf.

Skill needs to be re-written or removed from the game imo. Or anet will keep messin with it.

They cannot ever make up their minds.

Elite Form. For 10 seconds you are a shadow and have no flesh. Have fun.

Recharge: 45 seconds
Casting time: 2 seconds
Energy: 15

With the current functionality, if youdecrease the duration, it becomes undesirable due to short duration and huge downside, but if you can maintain it all the time, it becomes too much and a working god mode for way too many areas (basically every single area with no enchant stripping and not enough PBAoE)


The original use for Shadow Form was clearly this one:
- Get behind enemy lines, do as much damage as possible without worrying about being targeted, and get the hell out of there before it's too late when you are done.

So, not dealing damage is not a good choice, because it's not a skill to tank, because Assassins are not a profession to tank.
And disabling spell casting is not a good choice, because that prevents the use of mny shadow steps, and they are required to work with it.

* If it is maintained all the time, the skill is too much except in areas with counters like signets or touch skills.
* If it can't be maintained all the time, the skill doesn't last enough to cope for it's huge downside of losing so much HP. A huge downside in an elite skill is never a good idea.

Suggestion

* Change it to:

PvE: 5Energy 0.25 ¼Activation time 30Recharge time
Elite Form. For 10...74...90 seconds, you cannot take damage from attacks, are immune to health steal skills, take 10...74...90% less elemental damage and dark damage heals you. This skill is disabled for 120 seconds.
PvP: 10Energy 1Activation time 30Recharge time
Elite Form. For 10...50...60 seconds, you cannot take damage from attacks and take 10...50...60% less elemental damage. This skill is disabled for 120 seconds.

This way it's a great skill to get behind enemy lines for the begining of one single battle and take out troublesome enemies like enemies with resurrecting skills or healers, and the downsides are just time between activations that force you to leave if there is too much pressure. And still requires something against holy damage and degeneration and waiting 30 (60 PVP) seconds between recharges. Although it would require Echoes and Assassin's Promise to be changed not to affect Forms so Arcane Mimicry can't be used to copy Echo or Assassin's Promise and then recharge it all the time (Turning it into a form would prevent Arcane Mimicry from working directly to copy Shadow Form).

Yes I play with shadow form, because its fun. UW/Fow/DoA still require 8 people, granted some of the people you meet in PuGs can be shall we say unfriendly, but I have also met alot of nice people too.

I dont understand why people want this nerfed beyond use, but hey I have my FoW, full HoM, GWAMM why should I care if it is nerfed, because I actually enjoy playing in full teams.. doing something fun not doing mission over and over. And before someone says go find another game.. I did, but my friends of 2+yrs are here so Im back

Leave people to have fun the way they want to have fun, not the way you think they should. No one is telling you to use it

I don't think it needs to be Nerfed, seriously guys every half decent skill in the game you want to nerf nowadays. Shadowform isn't one skill on your skill bar, it takes up 3, because of Glyph of Swiftness, Deadly Paradox and Shadow Form. Are you telling me that isn't enough to stop it being nerfed? You also have to have a 20% enchantment staff, AND have more than 30 energy when you cast it.

Those seem like a lot of probabilities to me, and it has been nerfed enough. The fact that you have to have weapons and armor to suit it means that it is a powerful skill but it is one that is used and afterall look at Ursan. Ursan was fricking amazing so they nerfed it, and nerfed it, and nerfed it, and nerfed it some more. Now no one uses it, you are basically making the Assassins into more Sophisticated but Weaker Warriors if you take Shadow Form out of the equation.

/unsigned.

Shaddow Form

As it is now + "Ends When you take damage, suffer from condition or hex or get knocked down". Basically, is mob succeeds affecting you, its GG. Limits viable areas without killing it outright.

Or, my favorite:

Elite Stance. 5e, 12r

For 5 seconds, attacks against you miss and spells cast against you fail. All damage you cause is shadow damage instead.

http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10375237
http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10361617
http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10356144

I would post more examples, but they've been deleted, so you can't see them anyway.

Bottom line, Shadow Form has been discussed more that almost any other skill in this forum in the past year. All the ideas have been put forth, and nothing really has gone on. All the people post all the same ideas in the "OMG SF" thread that pops up every other week (sonofthort, you're thread isn't like those, but that's generally how they run). There's nothing new here and no reason for this to continue any further. It's just the same people upping their post count anyway.

Closed.