Update 11/19/09

I don't think that was a winnable fight tbh, so good luck "balanced" is all I can say. The whole bb Dhuum tactic vic wanted didn't work out so hot when he just melts into the floor either. On the plus side Chinese was pretty damn pro

Dumb question, but what's "The AI".

Artificial Intelligence. The way the foes are programmed to respond.

Artificial Intelligence. Or Aeropuerto Internacional. I think that the first one is better, no?

Yeah that guy was pro and that went horribly when that happened, was completely not ready for that.

Meh, went in with a balanced PuG in NM, did UW+Dhuum fine, probably would have been just as successful in NM.

Took a while tho

In any other FREE MMORPG you would have to deal with crappy skills and glitched quest and wait for updates, for years at a time, and here everyone is DEMANDING change. Who the hell do half of you think you are? You'll never be happy with the changes, so why should Anet do anything to appease you? Money? Guess what? No matter how many of you "veterans" leave new players will always join, and those of us, like me, who have had bad experiences with games that truly have bad Community Relations will see how good Guild Wars is.

If you don't like the game, QUIT! Simple. Quick. Easy. Done.

We are potential customers and players with 4+ years of experience. Who the hell are you to talk to us this way?
If this was the case, it would mean that MMOs ALWAYS have more players with each month.

You mean like WAR's CRs, who even after the game's failure are still active and talking with the community? Or Champions Online's CRs, who talk with players pretty often in-game and visit the boards?

GW has pretty abyssmal CRs, especially when it comes to PvE or PvP balancing. "We reduced the SC speed from 7 minutes to 85". Yeah, nice, you took the fastest clear and compared it to the first group to defeat Dhuum... Sometimes I think they've got a different version of the game.

It's fanboys like you that ruin games with potential, like WAR or Aion.

"- We don't like this, this, or this in the game. Please, if you could fix it, we would be grateful. This would really improve the game.
- LOL STFU TROLLS, GTFO QQ MORONS!!"

You balance pugged HM or NM? Normal I could see but Hard is beastly. Even if you do clear Servants, Dhuum himself is outrageous.

If I can't do UW as a derv, I sure as heck won't be able to get to dhuum.

Thus I have absolutely no interest in this update, I don't wanna be forced into being some kinda perma or monk to do this.

Fail update is fail, i'll just wait till next year when mini and scythe prices are reasonable.

That's a ridiculous comparison. Obviously the people here don't play games that crappy to begin with, so you're saying we should be happy we're not playing crap... well we already have enough of a brain not to. GW isn't pure crap like those games. It's highly polished on many levels. That doesn't mean we shouldn't expect it can get better. Or if playing isn't satisfying, we shouldn't talk about it.

NM. And we had a Monk leave when we got to Dhuum.
We did all of UW with, pretty much no problems, I think if the group tried we could have done HM, Dhuum too.
I'm not going by experience of course, just reasoning, I do believe it's possible.

Same I'm just going to wait and farm armbraces till things go down in price(mini smite crawler 400e unded /faint). Also as persistant as I've been with groups, balanced can't get past wastes, and the gimmick groups I've been in can't kill Dhuum so I guess that says something... hate my luck with groups.

Quoted for truth.

Rose tinted glasses.

tried to do the UW today with some aliance members. None of us had ever completed UW before. I knew a little but not a whole lot. We got to the bone pits and talked to the reaper and in about 5 seconds it was game over. We had no idea that we were supposed to stand where the spirits spawn. We had fun none the less and are going to read up on wiki and give another go tomorrow. We were using a pretty balanced team with no gimmicks really. We did very well until we failed because of lack of foresight and knowledge about UW. what I fear is that we didn't have a true tank and will probably get owned by the four horsemen. I just hate that you need a specific build to beat any area. I like it when you can take any builds and beat any area. Oh well.

I just wish UW had rez shrines like the EoTN dungeons have.

/ the important thing is that we all had fun and one member got 2 ectos! The rest of us got notta

Me and some friends have tried to get through wastes (Servants of Grenth) and failed every time. So us getting to Dhuum seems to be pretty much impossible. Pugs don't work, and there are not enough of us in the guild or friend group that would be interested in doing this or would have the experience.
And I even took the quest for all my characters.. -_- Doesn't seem like I'm going to get the reward for any of them.

I'm sure Dhuum is a very impressive boss to kill and some people actually get to kill him but I must say I have ran out of ideas to finish UW.

It was a great update.. As an idea.

That's because the posters that did have good reccomendations to the game (such as Ensign) have been ignored or given the "we'll look into it" excuse. Pvp has been ignored ever since factions was released, though Andrew did a decent job in trying to bring the issues up with Anet. As soon as you cut ties with the community, resentment stirs. If anet was more vocal and receptive to the community, the responses would be a bit different.

Way to go Anet: "Fixed a bug that caused a big with the intended initial bug" Sounds buggy to me BTW I'm still getting DC's in the UW at a rate of 3 miles/ hour. ^^

This is the main fact that 95% of the QQ'rs are leaving out. The UW has been down there four years and they never bothered to learn it, then a new mini or two comes out and they cry because they can get to the chest on a whim.

UW wasn't hard. I have beaten it many times since 2006 when I began playing, always balanced or some group build that didn't abuse the preferred farming method of the time.

The new updates, combined with the difficulty of Dhuum itself is the problem. It's been mentioned before, but someone in Anet is on drugs if in order to reduce UWSC, they thought first making it difficult for ALL teams and then nerfing Shadow Form a month later (behind schedule I might add) was a bright idea.

I really don't care about the minis, and although I wouldn't mind the scythe, I'd really just like to clear UW/Dhuum, or at least fight him, without having to roll an SF sin or grab my monk and get in an SF group. I'm not saying its impossible to do this now, but its certainly not probable. Its counterproductive to nerf UWSC time, but make it so in order to have a good chance of clearing, its best to run an SF group.

They've actually set a definite date for nerfing Shadow Form?

Almost, kinda sorta. I myself have never finished UW in one go(did 2 of the quests with just me and 3 heroes once...) and can feel the argument of some. "Get friends or a guild together" people say. That was a viable option until both started quitting the game or moving to PvP. Then you get people in pugs who are terrible. On the other hand, get good people who always have to leave in the middle of your run for whatever reason. Easier said than done, people.

The number of responses in this vein are few

Fair enough, but if we leave the SF/UWSC discussion out of it the update was good. PvE skills and power creep alone demanded the area be buffed. A few new wrinkles in the quests puts the difficulty level back where it was in 2006. I can't QQ about the update itself. But describing it as a answer to UWSC is fail on Anets part.

Pretty much my problem, too. *shrugs*

You "need" ONE person to play paragon, everyone else can roll whatever they want. Same thing that lets bad balanced teams stroll through any other area.

not true. you don't need a para for shit. you do however need some sort of a tank for uw (4H + imprisioned). With the addition of skeles, its pretty much impossible to fight 4h at the reaper. 4 skeles just put out to much everything ignoring dmg to sit there. So one way or another you have to gank one-side then fall back to the other. With imprisioned its much much more important that you quickly gank the random new spawn of 2 or 3 dryders and 2 dhuums that come from behind and rape the spirits. While someone else holds off the other sides till those guys are done.

UW wouldnt be that hard for balanced with no permas, no 600s, no imbagons, and no cons if skeles did not exist. As it stands now, you pretty much need a perma just to stand there for two quests if nothing else. its not fun. i understand SF being usefull for bad people to complete things they otherwise wouldnt be able to, but if decent players can't beat an elite area with a balanced team in at least normal mode without resorting to permas, 600s, imbagons, or cons, then its not fair or fun.

The only way I've come close to completing the UW with none of that is with a brave spirit spammer holding off one side of the 4h quest. The new wastes really isnt that hard. just make sure you spread out and gank out the couple skeles that spawn with the quest. We lost at pits, because i didn't realize yet that there was a new spawn of terrors and skeles that come from the back side and attack the spirits.

I mean i understand the need to stop speed clears with 8 sins, but adding groups of 1-4 skeletons that have a spirit-range aoe spell that deals 35dmg/s for 3 sec and a 100 dmg bone spike, thats everything ignoring was not the best solution for everyone. Because i love having to try to compete with massive amount of non-preventable dmg, just because you couldnt come up with a way to stop shadowform otherwise. So not only does balanced have to be able to spike down multiple skeles really quickly, but it has to be able to out heal 100dmg party wide dmg over 3 seconds per skele + normal foes. Its just ridiculous.

I understand GW gets harder by pumping out bigger numbers from monsters, but practically forcing us to use cons or a gimmick to win isn't cool. I dont care that it could take me 3 hours to beat UW with balanced, the fact that i could was fun team experience.

You think 4H is a problem now for balanced, give servants of grenth a whirl.

Yeah, there are a lot more of the second responses.

i'm not worried about the necessity of using cons. it's kinda good addition if you view it other way. the cons are there, available to everyone (if you don't have eotn, you can just buy the cons from someone). if cons were not 'required', the usage of them would spoil the fun and make the whole run too easy. so you are 'required' to use them to level out the difficulty, as otherwise it would just be too easy with them.

we haven't used cons for the most part and completed everything but wastes and pits; failed at pits cause of new skeles spawn, they've just killed the spirits too fast. but other than that, it was fine, no one was even dying too much.
we have used a permasin there, but basically just for one side at 4h, something a terra ele can handle as well, or even a decent spiritmancer in nm. to spice things up, we've used a main dervish tank just to see how it works and it worked well.

if you know the new spawns, if your monks and other backup do their job, if you have a decent blocker (for 4h and dragging some mobs away - perma/terra/spirit/whatever works) and if you have enough damage output to kill the mobs, you can do it. the biggest issue now is, as it seems, the new spawns tbh.