UWSC going to be nerfed?

Thats what i've always thought. Disable it to render all recharge buffs useless, if necessary turn it into a Dervish form skill to block Arcane Mimicry too (and extend its duration slightly to compensate for the lack of enchantments mod). Lets it be used for the old boss killing with A/E//E/A without it being (ab)used as an invincible tank.

K let's back up. I seem to have misunderstood some part of the past couple posts. Allow me to clarify my point.
Normal groups a.k.a. balanced groups, right? If not, be more clear in your posts. These do not happen in PUGs. Which, to me, is a normal group. My alliance is pretty much purely social so no luck there. And don't tell me to find new friends or submit to UWSC because you would be contradicting your previous argument that one should not have to submit to another's mighty playstyle.
Just because something happens in your alliance, does not mean that it is practiced anywhere else. No alliance that I have ever been in has run balanced teams, so, from my experiences, that is not the norm.
Are you even reading what I'm replying to? You argued that sins had no farms other than farms "that matter" (either you forgot the "don't" or were trying to be sarcastic, I dunno) and you asked me to give an example other than UWSC. So, I did. I never said that they would fall apart without the perma. Although, they probably would (unless you want to wait 20 minutes for a terra tank to crawl around an area).
You're mature.
Protting requires timing and battlefield awareness. If you just start hitting keys, your team will die. 1 > 2 > 3 for a perma gives you invincibility. After that, you can do whatever the hell you want. Just make sure you do it again before SF runs out. There's no possible argument that that is difficult and you're well aware of that. So, you cover that up with childish remarks, insults, and half-baked arguments.

If you were talking about 600 monks then you should be more clear. And I agree that 600s require as much thought as a perma (none), but this is the wrong thread for that.
Sorry. I should have gone to the wiki and read through hundreds of updates to make sure my argument on GWG that Anet won't even listen to is as precise as possible. And yes, that makes me illiterate. More insults and childish behavior.
As I have previously stated, that's not what I want. I hate the 25/90 nerfing style:
If this skill is not nerfed, I will lose much faith in the dev team. To me, it would show they are lazy and have officially given up on GW1.
If you didn't work for your e-peen, you didn't earn your e-peen. Everyone has a busy schedule (but not today, sick day ), you're no different from anyone else. Once again, I see this as a big middle finger to everyone who actually earned their armor. And yea, I know it doesn't matter and it's just for e-peen, so no need for anyone to remind me.

I don't even know where to start, and there is way too many threads to quote on this.

Alot of you guys make valid points for and against a SF nerf (for the record I personally think it should be more of a Vow of Silence style skill, flame away - I honestly couldn't care one bit...), and for and against a UW change/nerf (for the record once more I don't UW hardly at all, and FoW armor is ugly as hell imho for the most part, once again flame away - I honestly still don't care...).

In the end I do as a casual gamer see how it does affect other people's gameplay. Finding a non-UWSC group even within an active alliance is all but non-existent nowadays, BUT... Specialized teams/builds are nothing new to GW.

Overall I do believe something needs to be done about the UWSC as a whole, but bringing the nerf-cannon out and taking aim at SF might not be the optimal choice in this situation. More ideas need to be explored before you take the viability of a skill away from all of PvE just because it is being abused by a small group of people in the elite areas of the game.

Besides, haven't the Assassins suffered enough already?

No, they've actually already done that. Without an essence, perma-SF results in a net loss of energy if you do anything to do damage (which you pretty much have to do with the damage nerf).

SF + DP + GoS = 30e in 22.5 sec (with max recharge reduction of 50%)

Assassins have 4 pips of e-regen, which is 4/3 e/sec, or exactly 30e in 22.5s.

Other than the high-end stuff (UW, etc...), it's generally not cost-effective to use an essence for most farms (which drops the cost to 20e every 22.5, leaving you with what is still a paltry amount of energy for damage. You still need a zealous scythe/daggers to keep at it, or spend a lot of downtime waiting for natural recharge)



Normal groups = Not meta/gimmick groups, in the context that I used it (which was not directed at you). If you consider a PUG to be a normal group, then your definitions are flawed. As I said, a UW PUG group will always be either inexperienced, or meta.

I wouldn't dream of telling you to find new friends or learn to UWSC. I will, however, ask you to stop bitching because YOU made a choice to join a social alliance instead of one that will play the game with you, and point out that that decision was yours and is NOT grounds for forcing others to change how they play.

And just because something doesn't happen in yours, doesn't mean it never happens. Spend less time in "social" alliances and you might be surprised.

Evidently, you're having reading comprehension problems again. I made no such argument, so put that strawman away. I said to come up with a subset of farms that ONLY sins could do, and I even gave you a distilled series of steps to reach that subset.


And accomplish nothing. See above, my notes about e-management and skill choice. But you're going to disregard that because it doesn't suit your weak argument. And I never said it was difficult. I said it wasn't as simple as you make it out to be.

As for half-baked arguments, please try to be more understanding. Irony meters are too expensive for you to be blowing up 3 of them with every post.

No... making arguments based in direct opposition to what is written, setting up weak strawmen, and a general failure of logical reasoning make you seem illiterate.


If it is nerfed, it will probably be smiters' booned, because that's the only thing that will shut people like you up. And then I will have lost faith in the dev team, because it means they are lazy and will always go for the low-hanging fruit. Smiters' boon is the perfect example. That was supposed to be an "emergency nerf" to fix the meta for the then-upcoming skill update. How long did the fix take?


You do realize that e-peen is a sardonic term, for something that someone thinks makes them a big shot but is not actually any sort of achievement worth recognition. No one "earned" their armor, they just PLAYED A GAME.

Still though, what the hell do you mean by 'earning' anything in Guild Wars?? Any and all valuable drops in Guild Wars are completely random. What takes one person 4 years to not earn obsidian armor might take the next person 2 months, and that's by doing the exact same things. If they made all drops rigid, like a set item or a set number of items from every end chest, you would know going in, based on the value of those items, how long it would take to earn enough for obsidian armor. As it is, however, with the randomness of all drops, if they nerf all speed clear possibilities, it might take one person one completion of UW to get a crazy expensive drop, while it might take the next person 500 completions of UW to get one drop half as expensive.

The point of farming is to get money despite the randomness of the drops. Keep doing the same thing over and over again until you finally get what you want or what you need to buy something. Now I'm not saying to take out the random element from the game. I'm just saying that because it's random, farming will always take place.

Once again, how does anyone earn anything in this game, according to you? And furthermore, how does anyone else getting something faster or more easily than you affect your gameplay in any way? It happens all the time in GW because of the randomness of the drops, not because of the speed clears.

What and make all the farming chimpanzees cry???

i love these threads as it never takes long for any of the permas to start with how SF isnt godmode, a-net made it this way so it could be used this way etc....

Doesn't change the fact that SF broke the game mechanic, a-net are to slow to fix it (as always) and why PvE is held in such contempt by the majority of players, due to the fact that a lot of PvE players understand synergy about as far as GoS+DP+SF = farming for shiny crap and if you get hit once an hour then it proves it isn't god mode or broken or any of the other lame excuses they give for running said build

Still you can't blame them, why spend 3 hours to complete an area if you can do it in 10-12 minutes due to poor skill balance, and broken mechanics implemented by the "devs" of the game who seem to take at least 6 months to get off their ass and actually rectify anything

I am so glad I have retired from this game as anytime I log in I am told that things are as bad as they have ever been and actually coming onto these forums and seeing the same posts asking the same questions and still nothing rectified or answered by the "Community relations Team" just proves this game has died.

see you all in a few months when I check in again to see if anything has changed lol

I'm not sure I agree. SF is still quite clearly maintainable alongside offense costs on the energy management that a single character can bring. No external energy support is required (not counting consumables, which are a given in a speed clear).

good point, but to counter they offense costs they intorduced skills and consumables that negated the loss so in effect the offense cost meant nothing

It is simply a case of the devs really having to rebalance the whole skill lines as well as stopping the ability to perma SF, Chain Spell Breaker or chain Ob Flesh, there simply should be no god mode at all, tank and spank is one thing, but standing there for a year and a day taking no damage is clearly broken

No, no *external* support is required, but you originally said "not maintainable by normal energy recharge" which they have, indeed, done, and it didn't kill any complaints. A zealous scythe or dagger is usually enough, alongside GoLE(for A/E, optional).

But what you're getting at is that if every perma needed his own personal BiPer, you think that would make a difference?

Hello all, I am one of those silent majority types often referred to on here who don't say much and just play the game. This was an interesting read though so I decided to register and weigh in.

I have had a "permasin" for about a year and a half now and use him somewhat often. I find UWSC and other speed clears to be boring outside of the incredibly low odds on an Eternal or what have you. He is not my main character and typically I drag him out when I want a green or for raptors...things like that. Just want it to be clear I'm in the "haves" camp.

What I find confusing are a couple points...

First, why even argue for balance in PvE at this point? It's a stacked deck, you fight monsters that are using mechanics unavailable to players (multi-elite, hot swap on attributes, greater than 200 attribute points, levels well above 20, etc.). We have also been given PvE skills which are by design outside of normal gameplay or does anyone think skills like Mindbender (read: I'm also secretly a Mesmer with 15FC and a 33% IMS) are balanced?

Second, where are the complaints about 600 monks? I don't see anyone complaining about CoF being farmed into oblivion worse still SoO or does anyone wonder where all these super expensive BDS's are coming from? How about the infamous Titan gemstone famine/smite run that made many a monk filthy rich until the price finally collapsed?

I'm left to wonder if the most vocal opponents to Shadow Form are in fact people who are too lazy or otherwise disinterested to make an Assassin. The fact is it's here so by not using it you are really only punishing yourself. Why would you deliberately handicap your available options in what should otherwise be a game you enjoy?

Serious questions and observations here folks. Thanks.

Just, wow.
Reading thru all of these posts.....just...wow.
Avarre, I have to agree with you on all of your above statements, The game is BROKEN.
The 'newer' players who have not experienced the same game as we had...are at a huge dis advantage.
I'm going to give these players the benefit of the doubt.
Believe me guys, this game was not originaly created as a 'speed-thru-everything-in-god-mode-collect-phat-lewt-in-10-minutes-a-sitting' sorta game.
I have a life, and of those that know me, you understand that my time IS very valuable. My leisure time is just that...leisure.
And yes, I hear all of you 'But I have a real life! I don't have time for waiting an hour to gather a group, and play through such a HARD elite area in 3 hours!' crowd.
Select a different area in accordance with your skill then.
It was character development, earning skills, gaining more powerful gear and attributes to spend for more powerful skills...ect.
Now it seems to be a 'gib me 3k for cons, this is an UWSC/FoWSC/DoASC sorta thing...oO
I am more and more grateful for my guild every day.
We are 'old school', many call it physway....we call it balanced.
Enjoy the game` good luck, and have fun!

I meant by 'normal' as in 'as is possible with one character'. I should have clarified that further. It should be obvious, though, given how pretty much any character in GW uses energy support skills.

I wouldn't mind seeing SF possible under BiP, since you bring up that example. That forces SF to work in a tandem, similar to 55/SS. That said, comparing SF and 55/SS would still be a pretty high disparity in terms of bar compression - all the offense and defense fitting on one bar. Regardless, the change I would prefer is simply making it impossible to chain - along with other immunity skills like SF and Ob Flesh as Toxic mentioned.

Honestly, though, if it were impossible to chain, it would have to have at least the life-loss malus removed to prevent the Smiters' Boon treatment. Otherwise, it's an "I am guaranteed to be one hit from death in 20 sec" skill. And even with that, it would basically become an "Oh shit" button which may or may not ever be triggered.

Which means it would only find a spot in builds centered around it where nothing does better, which would lead to a renewal of the crying about it. On a non-gimmick bar, it would be a waste of an elite, not unlike Energy Drain.

It saw a lot of use in unmaintainable builds for zone/chest running and boss farming. And to be fair, it was pretty ridiculously good at those too. SF also saw use in top-end GvG during the (I believe) Round 3 qualifier tournament for the GWFC, by [WM].

SF farm will never ever be nerfed cause of this:

Community: ANET, ANET look at this, SF is broken, hardmode is a joke and ectos are as common as grass.

Farmers: No, SF is not broken, it takes a lot of skills.

ANET: ..........

Community: Yes, is broken, ANET nerf it!!

Farmers: No, is not, leave it untouched or ill leave!!!

Community: Leave then!! you lazy guy

ANET: ..........

NCsoft: WTH is happening here? What's all the rant and QQ i hear left and right?

ANET: Players are discussing over permaway.

NCsoft: Well, what are you going to do? and before you answer, remember i have the money, and i want more.

ANET: ........., yes sir, as you wish sir, well, our first instinct was to nerf it, but soon we realize all those mindless childs farming everywhere with SF, will soon need more and more storage, so leave them farm all they want, they will end up buying more storage and accounts to save their goods, and thats is more $$$$$ for your pocket oh great master.

NCsoft: And what happens to those players who argue GW has lost it's essence and now is just another mindless korean mmorpg grindfest? We are going to lose those players?

ANET: Don't worry mylord, as you know those pesky players already paid, and they have no interest in buying our microtransactions, so they are not an income source right now, so if they leave, we don't mind, but don't worry sir, our evil plan is promising those players, GW2 will be the game GW1 we promised them to be, so they will come back soon, with loads of fresh money for you mylord. MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

But those are "gimmick" one-off builds, too. And to be fair, the game has changed a lot since then, especially in terms of monster-density (EotN, particularly) and PvE skills. Why use unmaintainable SF and hope to the gods that the SOB goes down in 22 seconds, when you can use PI et al to spike the bugger into oblivion.

I've seen a few threads mentioning perma OF and SF as virtually the same thing. Get it straight - they ain't. Sure, in terms of anti-caster protection, they are comparable, but nothing in OF causes physicals to miss, therefore all the consequences of a successful hit by a physical opponent/attack are there. Even when combined with Stoneflesh/Stone Striker/Mantra of Earth to mitigate direct damage there is cripple/bleeding/stance removal/interrupts/knockdowns etc.etc.etc. to counter you.

I wonder what would be the effect if the functionality of SF was changed from attacks missing to being blocked???

There will always be gimmicks for niche use, and that's not entirely a bad thing. My point, however, was that the skill as an unmaintainable had multiple viable uses and thus the idea that receiving the penalty would 'smiters-boon' the skill is incorrect. Leave an option for those without eotn, yes?

If we're going to talk about other PvE skills, I'd say they're a problem of their own. Having to put restrictions on new skills when there are 1000+ in the game just suggests they are a head above the others, which... is pretty ridiculous.

I mean SF is maintainable invincibility...

why is this even a debate?

@Snow Bunny: Because the community likes to complain and blow things out of proportion. Once one thing is nerfed, they jump to the next thing.
Next people will complain about trinecros and already are -_-

While it's admirable that so many want to get in and strike against imbalance, many don't look at the whole picture. The thing the community complains about the largest is usually just the most broken facet at the time. The game has a lot of things wrong with it, and the thing people are most vocal about are just where the game needs to go next to fix it.

sabway compared to permanent invincibility the likes of a single player cheat code?

You like it because you abuse it.

I love the opinions of the biased people here.

Keep everything except this part: While you are maintaining shadow form, all damage you deal to foes, is reduced by 95%, this way you can still perma, but if u wanna do uwsc, gonna take hella long time and ppl wont bother with it

Invincibility in a game is already something blown out of proportion.

In a single-player game, it's considered a "cheat", and in games like GoldenEye, you didn't get credit for completing missions with them enabled.

There's an idea. No rewards for missions/quests/ANYTHING completed if Shadowform was used.

Just nerf SF and 55 monks and I'll be happy. No one should be able to solo elite areas or do them in 11 minutes either. Nerf the hell out of everything and get this game back to reality.

Are you comparing a full-slot hero build to godmode?

It pleases me to no end to still see some developers do this.

or if you are using more than 2 superior runes. :{P

Ok, I had to laugh.

That would be great. I would like to see the same rule applied to 55 or 600 builds as well.

You guys think too much about "nerfing SF will destroy the skill,omg it will be removed from the game,noone will use it bla bla bla".

First,ANET does NOT need to nerf shadowform,but they need to rework it.
Although it will of course be less useful than it is now,they should make it useable.It does not need a smiter's boon nerf.Taking out the drawback of the skill will already be a nice start,and making it non-mantainable,or working on a diferent way.

Back on topic,i do think UWSC and most SC's will get hit hopefully due to a change to SF.Its simple,rework shadowform and u get rid of the SC's.
600/smite also compares,but its not even close to how fast SF runs are.

If they do not fix SC's,then all this time waiting for the update will be a big disapointment IMO.

they mind if you weren't on when they killed the solo plains farming (excuse me making it pointless to do, not killing it) that was solo farming.

They apparently don't mind enough. If you're talking about the Mindflays... they don't spawn no mo'.

perma-SF should never have been allowed again, it is a mechanic breaking build, yet the devs once again screwed up and brought it back into the game, now the robots cry if there is any mention of it being taken away from them.

you need to understand the player to understand the problem, they understand little beyond Perma-Sin and the few areas they know how to complete using their little broken build, so taking perma-sf away means they will quit the game, if something takes more than 20 minutes it falls outside of their concentration span.

The ability to abuse a game mechanic to clear an area makes you a leet player you know!

A-net are to blame 100% for the state of the game, they knew that they were offering up perma-sf again and knew that ppl will abuse it to farm areas but in their stupidity they didn't know just how far it would go, there is no game that is as badly balanced as GW is now, L2 was bad, wow has it's problems but no online game has a dev made godmode available to anyone in the playerbase willing to spend a few hours to lvl up specific class.

The solution to all these problems is as simple as revert all skills to PvP status (including PvE mobs and bosses) then there is no excuse for broken builds (other than the meta's in HA & GvG ) the only problem with this will be the onslaught of crying from the scrubs who cannot run anything other than a broken bar.

Anyone who defends Perma-SF as an acceptable build & denies it is broken just make me LOL they either have no concept of what they are talking about or know it is broken but could care less as long as they can farm the shiny crap fast, unfortunately these players are slowly becoming the majority as the players who see the problems not being fixed are leaving GW in the dozens.

unless a-net do something fast I shudder to think what state the playerbase will be in, in 6 months time, probably just dragging their knuckles across the keyboard after finding a new perma-mega-nuke bar after the devs add a 2000% dmg increase to PI if anyone in your party has SF on their bar

Wow, you really are a troll. You have no idea what you're talking about and you just keep saying the same stupid thing all over again: "Undo the PvE/PvP skill split"

PvP and PvE are separate games with separate mechanics. There are no level 30 monsters with monster skills, a constant +10 energy regen coming at you in groups of 10 in PvP. Your solution is not one, your premises are insipid, wrong, and self-gratifying, and you've offered nothing to the discussion. Give it up already.

He does have a point,SF is broken,people just don't want their gold mine taken away,it'd be like taking away candy from kids,they will cry and cry until u give it back,but u shouldnt give the kid candy in the first place.
People are used to UW clears of 20min tops,if anet get rid of the speed clears and make a 1h+ uw runs(which it should be),people will QQ cuz they cant get over it.it was anet's fault to give them perma SF and not fixing it in the first place,but now might be a bit too late since people got used to it.

Undoing the PvE/PvP is indeed a stupid idea tho.

If they nerf UWSC to oblivion, I think a lot of people would just quit.

UWSC and to a lesser extent, FOWSC are currently the only two semi-difficult areas in the game that are actually possible to get a team together in reasonable time.

Contrary to popular belief, SF is not cakewalk. There are dangers in every area you need to know about and look out for. There is almost no margin of error in timing SF. At the very least, you have to actually pay attention, unlike 99% of PvE and that's probably why so many people enjoy it.

There's actually no economic reason to nerf UWSC. Feather farming nets you comparable income. The difference, obviously, is that there is no danger... or variation in feather farming. At this point, you are just whining.

You could say the exact same things about 600, 55 or any other type of farming build.

Agree, but that's no excuse for not fixing it at all.

BTW, this discussion kinda reminds me of those endless threads about Ursanway last year. Same arguments, we all know how it went...

Why is everyone so upset over this? It's not like money makes you any better then someone who got all his things from a collector...

Targren I truly can barely be bothered to discuss this with you as you haven't got a clue about game mechanics but I will make this as simple as I can for you.
A-net killed PvE by splitting the skills and by adding stupidly OP badly thought out PvE only skills, PvE players have come to rely on broken builds to accomplich anything and a good majority would not have the first clue how to synergise bars in a party to be able to get things done, hence why the majority CANNOT (not will not) but CANNOT play PvP, they CANNOT understand how the skills are different, act different, don't throw out ridiculous power etc... do not understand how to kite, how to protect, how to play a role in any PvP team situation. THAT is how much PvE gameplay has degraded. Perma-SF abuse is simply the most extreme tangent of this PvE retard gameplay and ALL the blame rests solely on A-nets shoulders for re-introducing it and dumbing down PvE to the level that a spastic monkey can now play the game with little effort.

that clear enough for you?


@TraverSC
Feather farming nets you a similar profit, true, apart from the odd good drop from UWSC, but what do ppl feather farm with? yu Perma's (amongst other things) as for running a perma needing concentration are you kidding me, you have at least 3 seconds in which to cast SF that is the only bit of concentration you need, having to watch for the SF light blinking ready to be re-applied.

same old arguments put forward, SF is broken FACT, there should be no bar in the game that = godmode in solo form and the only true solo godmode is PermaSF.

Why did I quit GW, for these reasons and for the fact that instanced play is dead, once you have done everything 100+ times there is no replay value left and popping on here reminds me just how bad PvE play has become.

I'll bow out of this thread now as it seems that some ppl are quite happy facerolling their way through the game.

It turns the elegance of the 8-skill, team-based, player-skill driven combat system that GW did so well into a joke. When one build (arguably two, if you include 600/smite) can dominate any high-end dungeon you care to name with little modification or skill required, there is just no point to tinkering with other builds and skills, when such tinkering used to be a defining characteristic of GW, since you can't bring all of your skills to the fight at once.

I'm amazed these arguments have been going on for so long, and some people still think that everyone who wants SF nerfed is doing it out of spite or greed. Many of the most "hardcore" players, the rich old-timers who UWSC regularly, are also the most vocal about the fact that it should be nerfed. This isn't about spite, this is about sticking to the core principles of GW and resisting the trend towards dumbing down the game.