Update - Thursday, September 17

Everyone needs to calm down and shut the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO up about shadowform. They already addressed R/A abusers and Mind blast AND bloodspikers (that surprised me), and Shadowform is under their watch.

Congrats Anet, Thank you for watching overpowered PvP builds, I would tip my hat to you if I had one.

1. I predict we'll continue to see R/A's. As long as the 1/2sec dagger attacks are around, they'll be worth abusive. Neither require a different/second dual attack, nor taking away the insane defense is going to change that.

2. Selfless Spirit was no doubt overpowered in its maintainable form. However, the energy cost reduction should be returned to 5 if the uptime ratio is going to be returned to terrible.

3. Patient Spirit is a really, really painful nerf.

Mantra of Resolve: decreased duration to 5 seconds.
^^

For that, I honestly don't care. Even though on occasions I farm Raptors, but I don't rely on that for my income. People who do whine about that, should realize that they were abusing the skill to the point of this happening.

What annoys me when they whine about it, when really peopel are constantly running in and out Rata Sum, with the same PVX build, and they are angry because they lost their skill that keeps them from dying.. Seriously, try the other builds, or if you want gold, farm other things or run people! Anything! just don't rely on the raptors for gold, or you'll be seeing more nerfs in the future!

I honestly don't want to see the armor skills nerfed for the ele. I don't want to play terra tank then die two seconds later because of people ruining the fun for others.


I'm sorry, but I had to vent. A person I talk to on Gw decided to whine to me, so I decided to whine here where everyone else is. *facepalm*

Not quite sure about that. I'm pretty sure 50% of the appeal was escape. Now they are pretty much cannon fodder I think, unless they go stance crazy, which would remove room for utility/attack skills.

Then again you could be right, but I'm guessing escape daggers escape scythe is gone for good.

I'm not going to argue with any of these points, because I mostly agree.

But still, what does their reluctance show?
A). Refuse to admit they made a mistake
B). Afraid to make a change because some people won't like it.

Neither of those are a good quality when it comes to balancing a game. In fact, they can even be crippling when it comes to balancing a game.

Of course, I'm under no delusions that PvE "balance" really matters at this point, monsters are dumb as hell, use poorly designed skillbars, and are only balanced by doing 3x damage. Which is basically why I hardly even play the game anymore. It's became a joke...there's nothing to "achieve", and the only challenge that exists is adding more monsters to a group, and multiplying their damage.

But still, I keep up to date on the updates, and am hoping that GW2 turns out good. The longer SF goes unchanged, the more and more grim GW2 looks.

All right a few points for people.

First, bypassing the word filter with f*ck is NOT allowed. I've been editing your posts (which probably mean they don't make sense now) but I'll just delete from this point forward.

Second, we don't allow "I Quit" posts. They will be deleted. They do not contribute and provide no constructive feedback.

Third, if you honestly feel you have nothing to contribute or can't provide anything other then "this is a crappy update", don't post. Real discussion and conversation can occur in this thread but a one-liner like that is not going to help.

Fourth, personal attacks or insults directed toward others are deleted.

You are more then welcome to post your thoughts and feelings in a constructive manner, to discuss both the pro's and con's of this update but one-liners, cussing, personal attacks and "I quit" posts don't help.

the smartest solution is to nerf it, and then change its functionality entirely. here's what i have i mind (as posted in another thread):

Shadowform (PVE)
15e 2c 30r
move to critical strikes, change skill type to Form.
for 10...90 seconds, all damage targeting you are reduced by half, and all hexes and condition durations are reduced by 10...90%. You move 10% faster and have an addition 1...20% critical strike chance. this Form ends if you hit with a non dagger attack. this skill is disabled for 120 seconds.
(and while under this form, you take on the form of shiro tagachi)

awesome? i think so. i would definitely use this skill. its sheer awesomeness will just blanket the nerf entirely.

The only pvp I play is RA lol. I AM a PvE'er! And I don't give a shit what other people use there. So people are clearing UW in 8 minutes by taking advantage of a build. Big woop. Does that make them better players? Not necessarily. I don't see what the big deal is with letting other people get things they want in pve easier if the option is open to everyone, since you can still play the way you want.

I'm not gonna talk about SF anymore, you can go ahead and reply to this and call me troll again if you wish, but then you need to learn what a troll is don't you.

Didn't notice the patient spirit change....won't effect dunkoro though. If anything he will spam less now ^_^

*edit*

Btw, is anyone gonna use unholy feast now? I still don't really wanna use blood magic unless I'm BiPing....Maybe I'll try it out.

It shows Linsey likes to farm her ectos.

Ele raptor farm HM still works.

Wait until you see the one two months from now.


So today I've seen all the effort blizzard is putting into WoW and then this.

*sighs*

The funny part is, that would actually be more balanced than what we have now.

Though, I would like it if it kept the 50% reduced damage of your suggestion, and added "Your attacks with daggers ignore armor" (every attack would be the same as hitting a 60 armor target), and "Your attacks cannot be blocked".

I'm glad they didn't completely destroy escape. Nothing else that I was really worried/cared about, though.

Looking forward to some content updates.

Dear ANET,

You kilt my fire ele solo build. Since you seem to care about the Para solo build, please split this change so that I can has my build back.

Sincerely Yours,
EC

That MOR nerf is killing me. Not so much that they did it, but the rationale on update notes imply far more about PVP than PVE play. Understandable to stop 600 being used in the most abusive of places, but damn, MOR is also hurting for other farming and none farming purposes.

I don't know anyone that relies on raptors for gold or has in a very long time. It is a good fast farm for the event items needed for titles as it would be for grog this weekend and that is all anyone I know uses it for. There are far more effective farms out there if gold is what you want.

Wished that hadn't touched blossom knowing how painful it is to adjust from that. If their plan was to lessen spike dmg, they need to reconsider a few other things including def from other classes and ele's with their current buffs.

Sadly, agreed. I hate admitting I'm a PvEer... it lumps me with a bad crowd.

Nerfs are not meant to drive people away from the game. They are meant to balance it. Which this update did very well.

Edit: @Inde, thank you for trying to maintain the situation. Sadly, update threads always go downhill VERY fast. I'd like this one to not be locked in the next 4 days. Lets try to keep it sane people.

Well this blows.
I still refuse to permaform.
Looks like I'm going to have to go back to running desert tours on my ranger for extra cash now.
Or play with my rit until they kill that too.

Huzzah for having nothing to do but storyline and title grind. :]

Am I the only one who noticed the Ether Prism update? Not that it's a big deal changing between E/Rt to Rt/X for a flag runner matters that much but IWAY and SWAY both just got hit hard with that, SWAY getting hit twice in this update.

For all those Raptor QQers... X/E Raptor farmer, just don't spend the time killing until the last monster. I believe he uses Mental Block on his N/E.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBFI2...108C1&index=16

For all those 600 QQers. Resolve is necessary exclusively against rangers with choking gas. Any other time u can kill shit faster before its needed, its not needed or Spell Breaker is permanent because of QZ so the caster interupts don't work.

Patient was a necessary nerf all skills were shit in comparison once it was added via EotN.

Only thing that seems unfair is a 6 second DB which really only hurts assassins in general for PvP. Only good build left IMO is shattering assault spam now if this attack spam shit is efficiently nerfed.

The monk nerf was completely unwarranted. Way to kill monks in PvE Anet

I'm pretty sure it's a fact that monks are now worthless in PvE, ultimately. ANET and those who disagree need to look at the real problem, and stop needlessly nerfing stuff in PvE for the sake of PvP. You people made a skill split for a reason.

Selfless Spirit was not overpowered. It was the only skill that let monks remotely CLOSE the the energy management ER eles have. Name one thing that monks can do that ER ele's can't, and I will be freaking surprised.

I have no idea WHY anet thinks that making an entire class pretty much worthless in comparison to other classes is a good idea.

Wow now this is what I call a nerfing and a half. They really didn't nerf Escape all that much though cept it's useless in PVP now like they were using it for. I would have increased the cost of it also (bye bye R/A rangers in HA though).

But, why did they nerf Mantra of Resolve so badly? 5 seconds duration?? That just makes it worthless or too expensive. (This was my skill of choice on my hero monks as it was a long lasting stance so I could use stance armor on my monks +10/wi stance) A cost of 10 and 20 recharge for 5 seconds of resolve? That's pretty pitiful. Now I have to replace ALL my hero monks armor and think of something else to use in its place besides an enchantment as I find there's more enchant removing npc's than stance removers. They really don't want casters to not be able to be interupted it appears. But, I forgot their love for rangers in the first place when it comes to interupting. I guess Lindsey whined and cried her ranger was just wasting interupt shots because of distortion and resolve.

But sins and R/A's hahah they got hit good with the Blossom nerf.

Poor ele's got hit again bye bye invulnerable for 3 seconds, now you take damage. Wow they hit distortion also? hahah Mesmers haven't got a chance now, no resolve, no distortion for long and ele/me's got hit just as hard. hahahaha Immolate no big deal just use Glyph of immolation and Glow instead you get nearly as much damage and energy back to boot.

Wonder when they are going to nerf blind bots? I hear that whine all the time in RA and TA.

And I still can't believe they nerf normal players skills in PVE and then they leave SF still running strong?? Screw me with mantra of resolve but let the littlr Moe's that use SF still run rampant in the game. No wonder people keep quitting or threatening to quit. Anet does nothing about the REAL PROBLEM in the game.

I don't farm there but people farming it did not hurt anything, if that is how they have fun more power to them, nerfing them was absolutely unnecessary and just plain mean.

Resolve was mostly used against things like savage slash that go through SB. Now an unlucky interrupt on SB or SoA could lead to death. Of course, the Smite usually carries UA or rebirth, so it's not a huge deal, but it will slow things down.

600s can cry a little bit about it... but ele farming builds are nerfed to hell without Mantra of Resolve. Not to mention it happened a day before an event. How much fun is that.

If you're talking about CoF you can do that about 2x faster as a Mo/D with Eternal Aura and Light Of Deldrimor in comparison to Mo/Me anywayz. I've also done groups in CoF where they aggro and interupt me as I cast Spell Breaker and I still live because it's not hard to spam Spirit Bond if they keep interupting SoA even with Power Flux on you. I've yet to find anywhere else that it's super important for and most areas that do have it have variants that don't use Resolve anyways. Glyph of Concentration pretty much replaces all uses of Resolve outside of 600 and that 1 raptor build anyways. The nerf is no big deal...

TY for saying this, pretty tired of saying what needs to be nerfed on R/As... and in the end I was right (Caltrops nerf to Escape.) For those saying Natty Stride will take its spot, don't count on it. Hexes and Enchants are big in PvP so natural stride would not last long.

I was pretty positive for a while. I do enjoy the constant pointless dervish buffs. They are indeed pointless (to me), since I felt dervishes were strong enough in PVE. I even didn't mind when they changed Sand Shards, which I used to use in a way that I thought was quite clever.

ANet keeps kicking my favorite skills in the teeth. While the bulk of my builds are unaffected (I do not use PVXwiki for general pve play, so ANet will not nerf them ), it's my farming builds that get kicked in the teeth. I really liked Mantra of Resolve. I feel that nerfing it for PVE when they don't nerf Shadow Form is unjustifiable. I really don't have anything against assassins, but they not are my favorite class. In fact, they're among my least favorite classes to play, next to monks. While it is clearly not as effective, I enjoy farming with my necromancer, elementalist, and mesmer. ANet has just brutally murdered 2 of the few remaining things about this game that entertain me. That's why I'm a cynical, self-entitled prick. Removing the flexibility from a game that used to be all about flexible strategies tends to piss me off.

Thanks ANET for taking away a game of GREED where everyone just thinks about $$$$$$$ and giving us back a game of challenge, cooperation and CREATIVITY!!! Keep up doing a good job.

You apparently missed my edit with your knee-jerk reply.

But, I have to admit, this new NERF mentality reminds me almost exactly of the reason I quit playing WoW in disgust... Doesn't seems a smart thing to do to your established customer base. But then, they still haven't fixed z-predictions, so it's apparent they're not real concerned about selling new accounts to generate new revenue...

Great Update for the PvP Community , a step in the right direction .

Good PvP update.

My Monk is crying in PvE though. Patient, Selfless Spirit and Mantra of Resolve got hit (harder to keep up with Ele healers and harder to 600). I need to think of something to Raptor farm this weekend too. My Ele used Mantra.

Overall, good update though. R/As NEEDED to go.

Some good nerfs there but... come on... if you do nerfs for PvE why not do the most obvious and most needed one first? It's easy and simple, nothing to think about for 1.5 years... it was obvious back then, mere days after the ridiculous buff. Just don't let any way for it to be maintainable, remember of glyph, echo, deadly paradox, and all consumables +1attributes or celerity. Easy.

Use RoJ.

12char

I don't understand the logic in the selfless spirit change. They made selfless spirit less powerful but didn't do a thing to ER, which is far more powerful?

Everyone complaining "this isn't changed yet! This isn't fixed yet! They said they were working on it and looking at it!" are making me facepalm. Talk about sounding like a bunch of children, assuming that it'll be done immediately.

Just because Shadow Form wasn't changed this update doesn't mean they're not working on it. Just because the XTH isn't back yet doesn't mean they're not trying to fix it. Seriously, guys, stuff like this doesn't change itself overnight. And with something like SF, I would bet that they're being very careful with trying to change it, since it's so prevalent and so many people dislike it. I wouldn't be surprised if the functionality on it is changed entirely, and that'll take a bit of testing to see how it works.

In other words, some people need to grow up and stop whining.

Anyway, most of the changes didn't really effect me, though the MoR nerf kinda sucks, as I use that with my Mesmer sometimes (imagine, a Mesmer actually using that skill!). But I'll just find something else to replace it, I suppose.

I spent hours upon hours hopping from 1 profession to another setting up farming builds and this MoR nerf really really hurts. Off the top of my head I can recall my Ele, Rit, Mes, Monk and any other class I missed that requires MoR for farming. I feel like I've been robbed of my time and effort. I will adapt of course but having to redo the work and redo the testing through no fault of my own leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. It just so happens MoR plays a very significant part in many of the professions/areas I choose to farm/test in. Some of you may not share this same problem as I but the fact remains that this is bothersome. As a strong supporter of GW I am deeply disappointed and I have a valid reason to be upset.

PvE/PvP split please...

LMAO that they kill one of the most useful skills to farming monks, necros, and eles in PVE, mantra of resolve, and cause farmers to switch to perma sins instead! The same evil perma sins that they are targeting in the next update 2 months from now???? That is like saying we are taking away your beer, so go get high on crack instead.

I dont get it. Mantra is now completely useless in so many areas that were fun to farm. I swear I just bought my ele vabbian armor as a treat so she could do some farming and had mantra of resolve in her bar. That figures...

Maybe this is really an evil plot to get everyone to start using perma sins for farming instead before they are obliterated in 2 months. Really hurt monks, necros, eles... push people towards SF sins... what am I missing? Anyone want to go get raped by an aaxte? cuz only the sins can handle them now.

nice with the mantra, there goes some stuff done by the 600/smite easily

Hmmm... Wonder how long it'll take me to get a perma-sin up and farming UW? Bet I can easily get it done and have a stack or two of ectos before the light comes on and they fix that mess.

What's more likey, is that they'll see that I made one and go "Oh! he's got a perma-sin? Can't have that. WHERE'S MY NERF BAT?"