Will nerfing SF really help anything to do with the game?

They did not. But they're an incredibly simple thing to implement that can go a long way. It's fun to be able to look at your progress for numerous games.

I would tend to agree with you on that point.
On the other hand, some can be fun while other can be downright daunting/stupid.

On the bit of SF...I'm also of the mind who say it's the skill that needs to be altered somehow and not the areas in the game.

But oh well, the game company will do as it pleases in any case. lol

Instead of keeping SF as an enchantment, turn it into a form like the Dervish avatars. Create a skill that strips forms. It is called "Shadow Form" afterall.

Why is this still here? How many threads has been about SF is there is never a conclusive answer? not to mention after the last change to SF Anet promised never to touch it again. If you can't stand others playing the game the easy way, play it the hard why yourself, no one cares, really.

If i got an euro everytime ive read this on a GW forum i would be hella rich. The most worthless sentence in favor of <insert bloody broken overpowered skill/combo> ever said ....

Easy fix.

Full: For 5...18 seconds, all hostile spells that target you fail and all attacks against you miss, but you deal 33% less damage. When Shadow Form ends, lose all but 5...41 Health. This skill is disabled for 45 seconds.

If you're going to change SF, atleast change the whole functionality. 100% invulnerability is never a good thing.

Oh shut up already!

I'm so tired of this shadow form madness. Like it ever mattered.

Shadow Form:
Elite Spell.When you use Shadow Form u get DC-ed and temproally baned for (5..3...1) days.

I'm at the point that I stopped caring. Clearly Anet wants to enable people to clear an elite area in under 20 mins. Easy buttons, invincimode... Anet gave it all to the crowds 1+ year ago, and of course people will keep using it. A half-assed attempt of toning down UWSC by introducing skeletons? At this moment people are already inventing new ways for SF to overcome this problem. Well, so be it. I'm not interested in farming for money, farming for rare weapons or any such added fluff. I'll play this game end enjoy it however I want.

The only sad thing that keep haunting me is that this same company is also responsible for balancing GW2

You know a funny thing, if they threw a title path in the game that was about clearing elite areas with no more than 2 of a primary profession in your group, people would play balanced groups.

And conversely they could make a title called "Noobway" that gave you points towards a title every time you accomplish something with gimmick groups.

To the suggestions forum!

?

Idk if that was a flame, but I wasn't meaning what I said as a bad or good thing. I could care less if SF stays or goes. There will always be SCs and farms. Welcome to Grind Wars.

Not even new skill - just enchant removal skills that already exist in-game.

Whatever, I have entire posts removed, but no warnings, or bans, or explanations as to why they censor me here.

This place is not free speech anymore (was it ever?). They don't care, it's all about the bottom line $$$ - but they're so clueless, that they have yet to fix the free revenue XTH. That shows complete stupidity and incompetence...

just give some mobs signet of distraction.. there's your sf strip on recast- not perfect but it would make it harder

choking gas works too..

So, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you've never actually used an SF bar. the SF tanks aren't all as easy as 12345 - the DOA tank being particularily hard. If SF was so easy then there wouldn't be any failing pugs for UWSC.


It is my firm belief that no one area should take so long that the ''please take a break'' comes up. SF allows for DOA to be done in a reasonable ammount of time.

Will changing SF help with anything to do with the game? I doubt it. When people bitch, they bitch about one very niche part of the game - in this case UWSC. Underworld is ONE AREA dominated by assassins. Not GvG. Not Tombs. Not DoA. Not dungeons (cept soo sometimes). and not the rest of pve.

What i'm trying to say is that OVERALL SF is healthy for the game. The ''guild wars should be a second job mentality'' is COMPLETELY RONG! Permas have brought one area to its knees - fine, change that area a bit - but SF hasn't bollocks'd the entire game. It's not generally an easy bar to run (definately harder than the builds the other 7 people run) and I think people shouldn't be so hung up about it.

If you want to play something EVEN MORE grind tastic then go play a korean MMO and stop whining. K. Good chat.

PS: there is so much anti physical in UW that running non-gimmicks is kindof stupid.

That's because pugs are stupid. People that haven't even finished the game are able to roll a perma and start UWSC. Of course those people fail, because they haven't got any understanding of the game mechanics, and are only shielded form death by pressing 1-2-3. One unexpected pop-up and they screw up. But they hear where the riches are, and want to join in, so to UW we go.
The so called 'hard areas' are made into kindergarten with a perma-SF. Be it a bunch of assa's for a speedclear, or a single dedicated perma-SF tank for tank 'n spank. UW, FoW, Tombs, the Deep, Urgoz, DoA and the dungeons are greatly facilitated with the use of a perma. As in, not using a perma in these areas slows the run down considerably.

The remaining areas of the game are already easy enough for a player with 3 reasonably skilled heroes to complete, and don't warrant the use of a perma.
Guild Wars only becomes a second job when people want to go for the big loot, as in, clearing one area over and over. Regular people complete the UW once or twice for the accomplishment, not because they want the rare sword. If you want to complete an area for the added fluff that's in the endchest, prepare to invest your time in it. But don't come whining here about 'omg grind', because you've cleared the same area for the xth time and it's sucking up too much of your time.
SF allows DoA to be grinded over and over again in the least amount of time possible. I can't see anything wrong with people taking days, maybe weeks to finish the elite content of Nightfall.

Further thoughts on this topic, touching upon something which may have been already discussed in this long thread:

SF is actually an anti-game feature, in a sense (because you can always argue it's been put there to be used!), whose sole purpose is to prevent monsters to do what they're supposed to do (use skills to kill you). Some skills have particular aspects of SF (e.g. Mist Form), but SF is unique in that it allows to bypass completely the game mechanics and monsters to be able to go almost anywhere in the game (hence the "free ride").

I'm sure that it does require "a bit" (ty consets) of skill to sure, or in other words that SF wouldn't still help some players. But for most it's a key to a public backdoor in the game, a bit like implementing a "teleport" button in the car to avoid actually driving (or "get my degree" button to avoid learning ;P )...

It doesn't shock me in the sense that we're free not to use it (my sin doesn't have it, and I still got Elite sin tomes to use) but indeed it's become so "mundane" via these super-speed UWSC. But if people want to accumulate ectos and "rare" items, who are we, players, to decide to stop that? I understand that gameplay levels would help in a lot of other aspects of the game and the "game" in general (ie game mechanics, not game rewards/economy), but our paychecks are not determined by the GW1 design decisions (not true for GW2, but I believe Anet will catter to everyone, that's my feeling).

anyway why did they kill Ursan, but keep Shadow Form...
it's pointless...

Dear Arduinna,
PvE isn't the only thing in this game, and uwsc/doa is an even smaller portion.
Get your head out of the gutter.

Sincerely,
The Ghetto Prophet

PS: Tombs = Heroe's Ascent, not the Tomb of Primevil Greens.

TBH, while we're on the subject; why not kill discord? It makes PvE bearable just like SF does. With discord vanquishing becomes an excercise in patience while cspacing your way to vanquisher. The only difference between Discordway and SF is that all the classes can run Discordway.

PvE is where Shadow Form is causing problems, not in PvP. And like I said, it's in the end-game and elite areas where the use of Shadow Form is most prominent.

Which is the fundamental problem with the skill. It restricts the set of skills the game can use to kill you to touch skills, monster skills and area-of-effect skills. The original design of the game didn't account for that. It assumed that any effect like SF would be finite in duration, and that you would always risk death by targeted spells and attacks.

A maintainable effect like SF with no drawbacks thus lets you burn through content at an unmatched rate. It's an easy button that isn't exactly optional. If you refuse to use it, either you're fine with H/Hing the content you play, or willing to invest the time and energy to find enough scarce players that also object to the easy button.

The WoW approach to this issue (let you play the content with the easy button but restrict rewards) is a much better compromise solution because it incentivizes players to not use the easy button.

Signets.

Throw Signet of Disenchantment on a few monsters in the UW and we're talking a whole new ball game (as there are so many of them).

Reasons I’ve read in GWGURU Threads:
1) Ruins the economy – Only Makes Farmers Rich
2) Reduces Cooperative Balanced Team Play
3) ANET doesn’t want people doing Speed Clears
4) Excludes balanced PUG

Reason 1 - A ruined Economy? What the? It’s reasonable to infer this could take 1 of 2 forms Inflation or Deflation)

Inflation = Rich Farmers pay more for High End Items to “stash their cash” (hard limit @ $100k on each toon), since the mega wealthy HAVE TO BUY High End Items (assets) to continue to retain their holdings. So with inflation, a ruined economy means that casual players can’t afford High End Items. Doesn’t sound like ruin, it seems FAIR that someone that plays A LOT should get things that are harder for casual players to get..

Deflation = If too many people farm, then prices on high end commodities like ectos or zkeys will drop significantly because everyone is sellin? So if the prices on these commodities drop in prices below that which the farmers are willing to sell, then they will begin to horde these items sending prices back up in a cyclical fashion? Or do they simply sell them below the price that they want, so that eventually the casual players might be able to afford these commodities? That doesn’t sound like ruin either

Reason 2 – Reduces Cooperative Team Play

Hmmmm... I presume this ONLY applies to DoA & UW & FoW. DoASC requires at least 1 SF to be effective (I prefer 2 because it’s safer & arguably more efficient). Everyone on the team NEEDS to coordinate & PLAY Cooperatively. Without the tank, DoASC is simply NOT possible. SF tank ENABLES coordinated teams to play together to complete the quests in HM. The meta builds are actually REQUIRED because that’s the way GW is structured – kill everything before it kills you. For Example, when you go vanquish ALMOST ANY area with party size of 8, you pretty much need to bring at close to 16 healing skills (equivalent to 2 healers) on your team & maybe an MM to increase your mob size. The only viable/repeatable strategy employed is to overwhelm & outlast your foes – kill the mob before you run out of healing energy. HM DoA foes in particular have energy pools in the 100’s (I once used aneurism on a foe and did -531 damage so you do the math). So if SF gets nerfed such that there is neither a tank nor agro management & you want to do DoA HM, make sure U block out at least 2.5 hours WITH cons & a WELL organized team.

Reason 3 – ANET doesn’t want people doing speed clears?
As if. The recent UW changes were made to make the game more challenging to the people that do UWSC so they don’t get bored. Since, some people can’t block out 2-3 hrs at a time & only have ¾ hr of game time available, ANET wants to allow these people to UW or FoW.

Reason 4 – Excludes Balanced PUG
Agreed, but there are lots of other reasons for limited balanced PUGS being formed for High End areas in the game…

Just leave it be...

Problem is that it is unfair in that it only incents players into one particular style of play. Same as Ursan did.

Again, it reduces a team to one style of play. It also uses characters in ways that they were not originally envisioned by Anet.

Discordway?

I don't buy this argument at all. Anet has not said this. In addition, there are several areas that can easily be completed in less than an hour. Why reduce what is supposed to be one the most difficult areas in the game to casual gameplay. This conflicts with your statement in #1 above.

meh, I don't really care either way. Anyone who plays GW for any amount of time should have enough cash to do most things they'd like (tho not everything). Don't need to play that "mine is bigger than yours" game anymore. I don't Perma, but don't complain about those who do. I do feel that it would be in Anet's best interest to make certain that the game is properly balanced so that players aren't forced into a particular style/build just to be able to play.

I think that is the beauty of the skill system. It shows how skillsets can drastically alter what a given profession can do.

And if the skill system is inbalanced (like SF) it also drastically makes everybody play one build/class if they want to be most efficient.

Ectos are abit different than other items permaform ruined (elemental swords, saurian scythes, torment gems). Most professions can solo UW for ectos with out permaform, so ectos won't change much if SF is removed.

Deflation due to permaform has dragged most of the prices of items down for high-end items not only because of overfarming of locations, but an abundance of ectos floating around with the SCs. As a result, the whole economy is deflated. While it doesn't seem that bad that items are cheaper, it's harder to farm for money (excluding SF and powertrading)


I really want SF to be nerfed to restore my faith in Anet. This past year has been nothing but terrible skill updates, and it doesn't seem to be changing. After trying Warhammer online I can say that if Anet doesn't stop the proverbial flipping the bird at the community like it has been, GW2 is going to be a mess of broken skills and flawed mechanics.

If items are cheaper, why would you need more money?

armor, titles, and minis aren't any cheaper

And none of them (other than PvE-skill tied titles) affect the gameplay in anyway, which is what everyone keeps saying is the issue, though we know it's to protect egos more than economy.

But hey, FoW armor is cheaper now.

It isn't for me although I wished wouldn't mind getting 3 sets and I am not GW millionaire.

I can't use the SF Sin if my life depended on it.

I guess, we all need to remember that this game is a 1 off Fee. Thats it! It's not monthly payments where we -the gamers - get to decide what goes on in the game, if it was a monthly fee game then guild wars would probably be the best game out, at the end of the day guys, A - net don't give a **** , they just care what they get every month -
A PAYCHECK. So I think we should just drop this subject, its brought up so many times that it just gets annoying. IF They wanted SF out , they wouldn't have bothered nerfing UWSC.

~James

It is one of many rpg games that is free.I could get a set of TT-90 from PWI in a lot quicker time than it takes to to get FoW armour.

This was precicely my point - that there is more than one thing to do in the game.

And for all you people complaining about how invincible SF is; I would just like to point out that before SF people used OBSFLESH TANKS. It's the same nonsense, just took a little longer.

Many of the arguments against SF are something along the lines of ''takes no skill, tank and spank is stupid, I want to see balanced groups''. GO PVP. Areas with mobs of 30+ horrifying monsters are not the place balanced teams will shine.

By saying that you defined your own worth, which is next to none. The thing is there is no point of having this fuss over SF. It's like you see someone driving a Mercedes while you got a 1991 Ford, and you're like, f-this, you can't drive that car, since it is better than what I'm having now. THAT, is complete BS, Shadow Form is made to be farmed, that's it's only use besides running missions and some others. Fix SF would mean to nerf it, because you simply can't do elite area if SF ever ends, the punishment for that is too great(lose all but 50hp). People have seen them in UWSC where when a SF ends without being react fast enough, 9 out of 10 times the assassin dies.
But even if Anet is to nerf SF right here right now, there wouldn't be much of an effect. It's too little and it's too late, if you're gonna nerf it, nerf it when the speed clears were at their peak, why nerf it now when only half of people who has GW actually plays? What's the point? Make it like one of the Dev forms = nerf it to oblivion, there is no way to fix a skill that is made to be used as a farming skill.

So, when people complain about a given build being clearly OP in GvG, rolled by everyone, dominating the meta, you tell them to shut up and play HA, because there is more than one thing to do in the game?

Adding to the points pointed out by doomfodder, and in league with Fril Estelin:

5) The option of being invincible in an online game shouldn't exist.

Aside from ruining the economy and the other points, take a step back, and look at GW in it's entire form. If you want to go iddqd in Doom, go ahead, but not in a game where other people are participating in. It throws the skill>time principle all out of the window. No need for a thorough understanding of game mechanics. Just buy cons and get a few skills, and you are good to go. Just steer clear of monsters with signets or pointblank AoE, and you will do fine. No need of thinking about who will mitigate the incoming damage, who will shutdown the offensive casters, who will gank the enemy monks...

Maybe you are right Ghetto Prophet, with PvE not being the place where one should wish to encounter balanced groups. Yet I think it is saddening how this game started out as a Magic the Gathering type online game, where your progress was determined by your proficiency in adapting your own and your teams skillbar to any given situation, yet evolved into being able to warp the game mechanics to such an extent that every prior game rule became obsolete.

In this, SF is most prominent, but the same warping of game mechanics can be achieved by using consets and by the use PvE-Skills.

I'm just wondering if this process was intended by Anet. Did they want to make GW more available to the masses? Is this because there hasn't been a major content update over the past two years and people are just stuck in doing the same stuff over and over again?

Ah well, it might be too little, too late AKB48, but it doesn't excuse Anet from letting their game fall into ruin.

Although the latter is a point where most people vehemently disagree upon.

123 (12 if under effect of the ESENCE OF CELERITY) and you're invincible. 678 for GoLE, EBSoH and Sliver Armor to kill stuff. Is this playing a game?

To farmers, yes.

Sure. Why wouldn't it be?