Confirmation that the Live Team is going after SF this year

No, the reasons that I want SF nerfed have relatively little to do with items. It should be nerfed because it's broken in half. It's indefinite invincibility against 90% of the critters in this game. Often, but not always, its weaknesses can be managed against the 10% of critters that are capable of harming you when SF is active. This is not good for the game.

Further, I'm arguing that SF is stratifying your game further. It makes the super-rich just that much wealthier for every hour that players are out there farming ecto. The game isn't printing more limited items, it is printing more ecto, and people value ecto. As a result, the limited items become more valuable (and harder to acquire) as more and more ecto gets dumped into the system.

This is counterintuitive, and you're not the first person on these boards to have difficulty accepting the argument. I've argued the same about the great zkey giveaway that is XTH; the recent run of inflation started when zkeys were getting printed like mad and before UWSC really took off.

You would intuitively think that if the game designers make it really easy to get money, the skewed distribution of wealth in the game would ease. In reality, an easy money regime makes it much easier for players that make a living from buying low and selling high to acquire wealth. An easy money regime incentivizes farmers to sell lower in order to get back to farming sooner, and continually gives buyers more currency with which to bid. But the number of ectos that a farmer can make in any given period of time remains the same...

The upshot is that the traders win big when in-game currency is easy to get.

But it distinguishes you from other players less and less as other players fill their hall...

There is more than one reason to want to max title tracks/own something/dedicate something/fill your Hall. One is to distinguish your accomplishments from those of others. Another is because you are completionist and want to do everything the designers put in there. These are both human motivations underlying the same set of actions.

This is what you're really saying here. What I'm trying to tell you is that peoples' valuations for objects have two components - intrinsic and comparative. People look around at others when assessing what they have and how they feel about it. It may not be "right" or "healthy", but it's human. Everyone does this to some degree, whether they admit it to themselves or not.

I recognize that you're a completionist and want to do everything that there is, but it isn't a realistic goal. There are only a bit more than two dozen mini Kanaxai's to go around and a lot of completionists out there...

The upshot is that doing so is attainable, but not without considerable sacrifice, the ruthless pursuit of the efficient use of your time, and absolutely no scruples. ('Sup, Wasabi.)

If you took a poll of the REALLY rich players in this game, I would imagine that they'll agree with the view I'm putting forward. There are plenty of players out there that are more money-motivated than me and have more stuff as a result. They didn't make those fortunes farming UW, and they've stated such on these boards any number of times.

I know from personal experience that every area in the game that can be H/H'ed, I can H/H. Of the remaining areas, Urgoz and the Deep aren't particularly difficult. The only areas that really take effort are DoA and the UW.

I do not see how nerfing Shadow Form will destroy gameplay in any area other than DoA and UW, because the alternatives to doing these other areas already exists.

Thommis ZQ will be easy enough to do. With me helming the team at least. Otherwise I'd expect people to do it with an Obsidian tank, which is still better than Perma tank (8 minutes for the Underworld is way too fast).

I doubt Discordway can curbstomp some VQs, e.g. the Desolation with "We Shall Return!" buffed and no Frozen Soil on Discordway, although I've never tried. There's also Grothmar Wardowns, which you said couldn't be done either (so even if it can be done, it's not "curbstomp"). There are more than 3 dungeons not curbstompable by Discordway: Slaver's, Vloxen's, Rragar's, Shards, Ooze Pit and possibly other dungeons I've not thought about. The UW and DoA can't be curbstomped by Discordway, and neither can any area where you see players going "LF Discord partner" during ZQ days.

Now I'll put the reverse question to you. Is there any area which cannot be curbstomped by running Shadow Form?

No, it cannot. See what I wrote to upier above. I do not believe nerfing Shadow Form will lead to other areas dying. The UW maybe, but not elsewhere.

You can't. I've countered this argument several times already. Don't bring it up unless you can answer the counter.

Minis are the exception here.
They differ from other end-game goals due to the limited supply. You don't craft or farm a Jeti. So their function is to exclude the majority of players form owning them.
And they still have this function.
Stuff like SF potentially just changes WHO is excluded. But as you said, a smart player will use the field to his advantage. So if one can't obtain these items, then one just isn't smart enough.

There is no limited supply for stuff such as the consumable titles. You having such a title does not prevent someone else form having it.
The only thing that is problematic here is the cost. And this cost is not in touch with playing the game. It's in touch with farming the game.
And when these goals can only be achieved by farming - then it doesn't make sense to oppose the best farming tool.
As long as farming is needed to achieve certain goals, I'd want the best possible option for farming so that I can minimize my time doing it.
(And the "best" tool isn't always the one that brings in the most money. How easy something is plays a massive role.)

Hopefully by the time high-end minies are the only thing to do for the majority of players, GW2 will be out.
Because then, this will be a problem.
But currently people in GW are still in their title-grinding phase.

Why do people run SF?
Because it's so damn easy.
And why is that important?
Because when you play with people you don not know, you want skills that make it pretty impossible for them to fail.
You remove SF, you increase the risk of failure.
And this increase in risk will deter certain players from playing in a fashion that they played in now.
For instance, certain players will quit. The game or just the area.
Certain players will only do guild groups (or group only with people they know).
And then there is going to be a few players that will still play - either because the risk will still be worth it or because they won't be able to understand the risk.


Unless of course a new "risk-free" is given.
Which is the new SF.

You make it sound as though it's so bloody difficult to do Thommis HM front way.
That's just so wrong.
And even if it weren't the case, Obsidian tanking is pretty damn near "risk-free" as well, and let me say I care much less for Obsidian tanking as I do for Perma tanking.

One more thing. Don't think people use Permas because it's so easy to play. People use Permas because it's so freaking fast. There is nothing that comes remotely close to clearing Thommis HM, UW, DoA, Kathandrax, Slaver's, etc as fast as Perma, sometimes 8 of them. Nothing. Not even pre-nerf Ursan. What does that tell you?

Sorry, that should be easy and fast.
And this is something players strive for.
So if you remove the easy and the fast part - thus making it a bit slower and a bit harder (or much) - what makes you think that people will still do it?
Why won't they just go to solo-SSing UW?

I guess they've finally sold enough copies of factions. Anyways, buy cheap eblades while you can.

The ZQ argument.

Solo-SS'ing the UW gets you Ectos or whatever, but it won't get you anything else. If you need to complete a dungeon book, you can't solo SS the UW to get it (OK, so you can solo SS the UW and get $$$ and then pay a runner to get it for you, but that's really long-winded). If you want Zaishen coins, you can't get it by solo SS'ing the UW either.

Also ... that is - again - a UW specific argument. Do you have anything against nerfing Shadow Form for reasons outside of the UW? Or do you believe that even though Shadow Form is totally broken for areas other than the UW it's perfectly balanced in the UW, and to save the UW it's better to sacrifice every other area?

I would love to see a perma team clear Foundry, it would be horrifically inefficient. The Citadel even more so. The current heroway build down there doesn't use perma...at all. Gloom you may have a point but that's basically a rep farm with the off chance of some extra gems so who cares. Kathandrax is 600 territory unless something has dramatically shifted. I'd also put up a knowledgeable clear team (on cons if HM) vs a perma any day of the week in Slavers.

Listen, I'm all for toning down SF a notch but this skill is nowhere near as prevalent as Ursan was in it's prime. To claim otherwise is just hysteria. Ursan, quite literally, was being used everywhere for everything. It got so bad that when rank discrimination to filter out failway pugging stopped working they shifted to professions piling on bonus AR. Which brought the game full circle right back to the holy trinity of W, E and Mo...the original complaint everyone had about groups in high end content.

Perma SF should lose the word Perma. Then SF would be ok.

And Anet knows that.

If you want ZCoins you don't bother with doing balanced Thommy.
The reward doesn't justify the time investment. You create a few PvP guys and do the RA quest instead.

Doing things for the title is something that people will need to do and there is no alternative for it.
But, if I can't do things with H/H, I bug the people on my FL or my guildies.
I only bother with random folks for things that I know they can't screw up.

Documentation please? Where are these NUMBERS of EVERYONE didn't like the holy trinity balanced builds? You are very wrong as it's just as easy to me to say EVERYONE enjoyed the holy trinity grouping groups much more than the destructive nature of solo builds in these high end content areas. I wish they would nerf every solo build out there for high end areas as that's the best loot in the game and there shouldn't be one specific class and one or two specific builds that get the best rewards in the least amount of time. Not unless every class gets a god mode build. Then I wouldn't care. I personally hate the sin class and would never play one. They are a weak cowardly childish class any other place in the game. People who play them have no skill except how to press 1 2 3 over an over again.

Not true. They are quite powerful but people do not know how to play them except playing perma. To play a good sin in pve outside perma requires skill. I saw a few good moebius sins out there when pugging FOW for example. To play such a sin and not to die at every mob is quite a challenge for a random sin player...

Can Ursan do this?

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10395578

Pay close attention in particular to how long it takes to do each part. Ursan might've been more prevalent, but it cannot match this - and it happens in all sorts of areas. Here's another example:

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Team...handrax_Sinway

Again, look at the time taken.

I think it's a close fight between which the greater problem is / was, Ursan and Shadow Form.

You do if you're bad at PvP, and I know lots of people who're bad at PvP (or do not PvP).

You may not bother with random folks, but it doesn't mean anyone else has to. As I wrote before I prefer to PuG when the area in question is easy for me to do. I gave Thunderhead Keep as an example above. Since the mission is so easy, I might as well help some worse players through. Actually given my experience Thommis HM would be pretty easy too if people just trusted me, but of course you can't expect me to find people when everyone just hitches a ride on VSF right?

There was no shortage of crying when 5 man FoW farming didn't include x profession. How about steel wall? Searingway/Ritway? b/p? I don't need to cherry pick this is how elite content was run. It was just as bad when the only people allowed in Ursan groups (intended as a profession equalizer) were Wars, Eles running prismatic, the occasional Necro and Monks as a backline. If we run back to tank and spank, as the game usually does, the unused professions still won't see the light of day. You will most likely trade A/Mo/N for E's, Mo's or likely a combination of both in the case of perma.

There is absolutely nothing stopping you from forming a solid balanced team by the way. I do it anytime I need one for HM Duncan in Slavers and I'll bet if you ask some people you know to plan ahead on a weekend you can do UW/FoW this way too. I pull up my friends list and set a guild announcement when we want to run, as an example, Urgoz HM for fun. "I can't find a group" is a total bs excuse.

Nothing should be that fast, that is a problem. I do think however that they could re-evaluate dungeon design rather than smiters booning the skill. This sort of play was inevitable anyways...they add insanely overpriced DAW skins and then don't expect novel runs to pop up? Heh.

There's nothing stopping you from forming a solid balanced team, I agree, but you can't PuG a group, that is the problem. I for example have ... 6 people on my friend's list I trust enough to ask for PvE help in the hardest areas. Of this 6, one of them recently got back into the game and is working hard getting skills / heroes / etc for his new Monk. Of the remaining 5, 3 of them tend to be PvP'ing. Of the remaining 2, one of them has pretty incompatible timezone with me - we see each other online every now and then, but when I need him he's usually not on. And the last guy is inactive. I can't ask my guildmates either since I'm in a PvP guild myself.

I can't form groups to do the UW / FoW / Urgoz / etc whenever I want to. Well for the FoW I can ask to borrow someone's heroes and 7-man it, I've done it before. But I can't put together teams for Vloxen's or whatever (which is why I learned to H/H them).

I don't agree with re-evaluating the dungeon. Duncan HM for example is pretty damn difficult for a normal team already. It's not the fault of the area for not carrying the counters to Shadow Form (how many are there anyway?), it's the fault of Shadow Form for bypassing way too many builds in the game.

One perma with no (basic?) heals shouldn't be able to sit there and take 200% damage reversed off Sliver Armor solo against Duncan and survive. I agree with this. Since the trigger in that run is wanding (spirits and restless) set the popups right around Duncan to always be the SP variant. This wouldn't change the run for a normal setup at all with proper pulls. Let's face it they are probably in the run for those overpriced Hierophant Bows...make him impossible to solo and you remove the incentive to run the entire dungeon this way.

So, then, you think godmode is ok?

Good, then. Go to the suggestions forum and make a suggestion to give every class permaSF. If it's ok for one class to be invulnerable, then it must be ok for everyone, right? If it really doesn't take away all purpose in playing, then it's fine for everyone to use it. After all, no matter how you slice it, it's not fair for one profession to get something as powerful as SF and no one else.

I'll take your argument seriously when you do that. Same goes for anyone else who thinks SF is ok.

First of all, I am not against nerfing Shadow Form

But if all they do is nerf shadow form you still won't get groups. As the dungeons/UW/FoW stand not one wants to spend the time doing them for the rewards as offered. These places are active now only because SF makes it possible to do them quickly.

All the high end areas really need to be redesigned with more than an eye toward ending shadow form abuse.

One of the dynamics they have to keep in mind whatever they do is that with a game getting this long in the tooth PuGs simply will not form on a sustainable basis. This fact was made evident by the Zaishen quests. PuGs formed for the first couple of weeks but now it's back to doing the Zquests solo or skipping them till one comes up you can run.

This is just the reality of the game. It is no longer a PuG friendly game and SF is not the cause of that.

Yes, fix SF but don't expect it to make one iota of difference in being able to get a group together.

Actually, if they don't fix the high end areas properly (and I don't think they have the manpower to do this) I would be 100% for this.

On the contrary, I find the ZQ areas typically packed (comparatively speaking) with people who're happy to form PuGs. This is especially evident when the area in question isn't one that's doable easily (e.g. Zoldark the Unholy ZQ = Vloxen's).

The real challenge when it comes to PuGGing ZQs is to form a viable team out of the players you have at hand. There's always whether the players are running good builds, if they can be convinced to run good builds, if you have enough firepower elsewhere to compensate for some people running bad builds, if you can form a functioning team with no Monks, if the other players in the team actually trust you to have a team that will work with no Monks, and so on and so forth. There're lots of challenges yes, but no people going LFG isn't one of them. There was one day I PuG'ed Oola's Lab the day after the ZQ, and I still got a full human team. Of course it didn't work out well - one Mesmer was running Echo Ether Feast + Energy Tap + Vital Blessing for example, I think one Assassin didn't switch off his Perma set and had like 400 HP, three people disconnected, including one of the healers (ftw), and so on. But I got a team.

@Reformed - well then you'd also have to fix Kathandrax, and DoA, and UW, etc. Why not just fix Shadow Form?

Exactly thread winner statement about Shadow Form. It bypasses way dam too many builds in the game. Nothing should be invincible, nothing should be near god mode. What GW leaves out other games have is a thing called "fizzle" the spell fails to cast. Boy do I remember that from Everquest, but, it certainly kept you in fear mode and not in god mode.

This is the fundamental difference between me and you. Guild Wars was supposed to be a game of skill. We shouldn't give a rats ass if people quit the game or the area "because it is too hard". That was supposed to be the entire point, and anything Anet does to go away from this philosophy is bad for the game.

If people want a game where it is very hard for them to fail, there are plenty of other options. What people are arguing here is that it is ok to put invincible pieces into the game. It is ridiculous and stupid I'm sorry to say it.

Here's how they solve it. Change SF to a stance. The end.

ugh SF is fine, just update the monsters in areas to have attacks or skills that can either hit through SF or take it off. That way its a bit harder to do the farms etc. but the people who have actually invested in sins and love to play em have a new challenge and cna keep their fav characters. Bogroots for example is a great farm but can be difficult in the area with the stormclouds who can strip SF. Its still fun to do this farm but at the same time its a challenge

Or a Form. Whatever they do, it should be interesting, not just tweaking the numeral to a point where it can't be maintained. That's boring.

I think the "problem" with SF is that it's so much closer to semi-godmode than any other setup in the game. OF tanks don't even come close.

Here's a suggestion. Lose the health loss at end, make it end after 15 or 20 misses/fails.

Leaves it perfectly viable for smaller groups, but leaves it vulnerable to being overwhelmed by mass aggro.

I was using RA as an example. A bit of a shitty one as it seems, but an example nontheless.
See, if you want ZCoins, you can either try to do one of the hardest areas in the game or you can just do a 5 minute ZQuest instead. Or do the next ZQuest more than once.
When a ZQuest appears, people weight the reward and the effort needed.
And if you are going to trash the SF shortcut, more and more people will decide that the effort needed to do it, just isn't worth it.

I take pretty much every Zquest that takes me 5 minutes. And I do it on multiple guys!
Give me a ZQuest that takes an hour or more to complete, and I'll laugh at your face.


And btw - if you nerf SF people still won't trust you.
Why should they?
Just because you say they should?
Girlfriend, please!


First of all, that was a response to the argument of trying to more people for one to play with.
If you want more people to play with, telling people to quit will not achieve that.

Second of all, there is no skill in opening 10k chests. Nor is there in consuming 10k sweets.
Not only is there no skill required for it, this is actually impossible to achieve through playing the game. In GW, one of the end-game activities is currently farming. And this activity isn't optional. It's required if you want reach certain goals, since farming isn't a faster way of achieving these goals, but is realistically the ONLY way of achieving them.
And as soon as farming is made mandatory, the game needs to be "balanced" for it. And SF represents the game being balanced for farming.
So, for as long as we have this crap in the game, I'd rather have certain tools that make it stink less.
And SF, as mentioned above, is one of those tools.

Dwarven Stability is what you meant to highlight. Lets face it, SF is baed. Baed. Cheers for GW2!

SF is just today's invincimonk, pretty much. The way I see it, no one should be invincible or able to farm the hardest areas in the game solo without taking damage, period.

SF will get nerfed, the people that used it to get rich will cry, and someone will find some other build eventually to replace it. The cycle will likely just continue really.

It has nothing to do with being "elite" in any way; simply put this and other builds in the past are exploiting cheap unbalanced skills/tactics to make it easier for people to farm/get rich/screw the economy over for their own personal gain.

I doubt anyone can logically argue that ANet really planned for people to be utterly un-killable by the toughest monsters in the hardest areas while solo on some of the professions with the lowest armor ratings (monks and eles, I'm looking at you especially, though assassins are a bit squishy as well)

Check SF's update notes.
You'll be surprised.

People who want a skill game don't play with people who don't want a skill game anyways.

The problem with your theory as that these goals are optional, thus farming is not mandatory nor has it ever been.

Farming is not mandatory. All SF represents is either a shitty balancing job or a very very bad idea by Arenanet.

If you want the ZQs done quickly and get Zaishen Coins quickly, you can't wait for a 5-minute ZQ to do it.
You can't do a ZQ more than once if you have only one PvE character.
Lots of people feel ZQs are worth doing, just try to PuG a ZQ where there isn't a Shadow Form shortcut.

If Shadow Form gets nerfed people still might not (is not the same as "won't") trust me, of course. But there'd be more people around. If half the people in the game trusted me and there're 20 players LFG'ing a ZQ, there'd be 10 people I could PuG from. On the other hand, if there're only 6 players LFG'ing a ZQ, I can only draw on three.

Shadow Form (Elite) 10e 2c 60r
Elite Form. For 10...20 seconds, you deal 30...100% more damage with attacks and cannot be the target of hostile attacks or spells. All your non-assassin skills are disabled for 20 seconds. When this skill ends, you shadow-step to your original location. This skill is disabled for 60 seconds.

This way, it can still be used to 'tank' and also improves assassin dps, but it can't be permanently maintained and its solo power is diminished. It might actually give rise to solo builds using dagger attacks but I don't see that as a problem.

Hm. An interesting idea. It's not completely useless anymore since wearing out/stripping doesn't automatically put you 1 hit from death. Not sure I like the shadow-step end result though. It seems like that was added specifically to screw with running (not dungeon running, but "running to beetletun from LA" type running).

While I agree with you in principle, the solution to the problem is not to make it very easy to farm ecto (which screws with other markets). The solution is to make the consumables available to farm more regularly, and improve the available means with which players can farm them. I oppose the current "best available means" because of all the negatives it creates - the inflation, the death of diversity, the required title grind. Making the desired consumables available more frequently is strictly superior to permitting SF to flourish.

This just gets back to nerfing Vaettirs being a poor idea. That region could easily have been farmed by ObsFlesh at relatively little time reduction using kegs. Further, players made more "money" farming Vaettirs during good events than they ever will farming UW. And it's not as though it was challenging.

Of course, then you're reducing the amount of "content" by reducing the amount of time investment necessary to get the items. But at least it's grind-based content that you're getting rid of.

As mentioned a few pages earlier in this thread, would still be maintainable by Escence. Plus all the other stuff already mentioned.

Here's the solution: Bring back Ursan, the old school version. Then the playing field is level. People talk about how it was a 3 button smashing talentless skill, well it takes 3 skills to make you invincible too, and doesn't take much skill to maintain, but a fair ammount of grind to get you to where you can use it (wasnt that a complaint about ursan? Grinding your Norn title? How funny). There will be a lot less QQing if you make it work for everyone instead of taking it away from the one class that can solo these elite areas.

why not just add Wild blow or it's related skills then (Aatxe?). seems like it would make the run more fun.

/edit

or better yet make a monster only skill that ends the effects of certain consumables.

Ugh, OK stupid post - but why not make totally worthless unused skills also remove enchants, based on some condition - like moving, knocked down, affected by hex/condition, etc.

Then make sure to propagate (said-same) disenchant skills to PvE mobs in these SC runs, where llamas go god-mode under SF.

Pretty simple, cut and dry, and *FAIR*. Time to think, and not just capture/tome an OP elite.

IMO, the damage is already done... The people that have used shadow form to farm 7 stacks of ectos will still be there... screwing up the economy, and making a huge financial barrier between rich and extremely poor. in this case ectos will go up making FoW armor insanely expensive as well as chaos gloves... which makes it alot harder for the people that dont have 7 stacks of ectos to get it... and when they do its no big accomplishment like it should be because tons of other people have 3 sets of FoW, because they abused shadow form to death. sorry for the typos im sure i made... i havnt slept in awhile ^^