Shadow Form meets the end

Anet knows what needs to be done. They've been dragging their feet because they're afraid of the QQ.

600/Smite and OF are not invincibility. SF is. Big difference there. Using anything except SF is the same as putting mending on your bar. The methods of tanking other classes have? Useless. There's no reason to use anything other than SF, any more than there is to use mending. All are equally useless in the face of SF.

All I did was take your arguments to their logical end:

If invincibility is ok, then why is it not okay for all professions? Why do assassins get special treatment?

If all people are entitled to win simply because they bought the game, then why shouldn't they have an insta-win button?

Keep trying to dance around this. It amuses me.

If they were going to go as far as to alter the areas then what's the point of nerfing SF? I'm certain the changes would be to combat the current metas, of which SF is one of them, thus ending its current efficiency, would it not?

Umm...yeah. Thought that one was kinda obvious for most PRO SF people.

True, but you have the ability to play or not to play a Permasin. Just as you have the ability to group with whomever you choose in game. I have a Permasin, but I still choose to play my Warrior. Think of all the ecto I'm missing out on for the sake of "fun". I just make sure to play with like minded individuals or H/H. And contrary to my non"Hardcore" status. I'm pretty successful in game. To this date, I have yet to see how Permasins have negatively impacted me and my fun in game. Yet people keep making the argument that they are hurting my GW experience somehow.

I hope someone from ANET is reading this. You have talent!! R&D could use a guy like you. And one of your wishes is coming true. I saw guns being used in the new GW2 trailer!!

And you sidestep, rather than answer, the question. Because there is NO valid reason. You must deflect from the question, rather than answer, becaue the way one person plays PvE in NO WAY affects your enjoyment of how you play PvE. Thanks for proving my point.

1. Labeling it as invincibility is a last ditch, desperate argument.
2. So if every profession were to be able to maintain it, it wouldn't be an issue in your eyes?

Bolded for you. Don't say you don't envy something, just to call it a "pleasure" soon after. So that's about it. You're basically saying: "Elitists exist! I'm not like them! Shadow Form is an equalizer: I can be as nasty as an elitist, so it's fine."

You don't need a single minute of farm in GW to play effectively. You can do it if you like, but if you find bling and flashing items attractive, that has probably more to do with their perceived image amongst the playerbase. You don't need an Obsidian Edge to play. I hardly believe anyone would ever craft Obsidian Armor or Chaos Gloves if they weren't so expensive. It's just show-off. You want the show-off without even the effort. As I said, go for it. I don't care. I don't like elitism as well, yet I don't go after it.

The simple fact some content IS in the game DOESN'T mean you MUST be able to access it whatever the case. No "hardcore area" is mandatory in the game, no hi-end weapon is, this kind of content was designed with a simple equation in mind: bigger effort = higher reward.

You're basically taking the "bigger effort" part down. Fine with me: no effort = no value to me, so you can get multiple Obsidian Armors for your shortcut elitism, that will just make you an elitist-wannabe yourself. Final word to the developers, who mantain the game and have the right to decide if that's they way they want it to be played.

Funny, because no one said anything along these lines before they announced the balancing update. All that was talked about was how Anet is killing their own game, don't know what they're doing and are pandering to "lazy farmers". I doubt you'd really feel this way if they came out and concluded that Shadow Form was not an issue and would not be altered. It's a statement only ever used when things are looking in your favor.

Ahem...

Have you ever done DoA before? Gl doing the majority of it with 8 permas.

Has it occurred to you that you aren't always right? There's a reason that people dont form for most of the missions in the game, and it's not because everyone wants a shadowform sin. The real reason is that pugs are, quite franky, absolutely terrible. There is zero advantage whatsoever in pugging a mission over doing it with heroes, or, if it's difficult, getting a friend to lend you their heroes as well.

Shadowform is available to all professions. In fact, all professions can maintain it. This principle applies to ALL skills and professions. Of course running a particular role is possible on all professions, but one will always excel at it. Even in the current state of the game, Eles actually run perma SF better than sins do.

Lastly, the arguing shouldnt be done over Shadow Form. The Shadow Form nerf has been announced. It is guaranteed. Arguing back and forth on whether or not it should be nerfed is pointless. The nerf you guys should all be fighting for is Obsidian Flesh. Once Shadow Form is gone, nothing, and i mean NOTHING, will change if Obsidian Flesh is not nerfed. In fact, terra roles using OF(with candy), are possibly faster than shadow form, simply because of the lack of the damage reduction.

But that is the gist of most anti-SF people. These "bigger effort" elitists are maintaining that the "short cut" wannabes have personally affected them by invalidating their achievements in a virtual world. I was unaware there was such a level of butt hurtness. That was until Permasins came about.

Two players are standing next to each other in FoW armor. One did it the old fashioned way. The other did it a gimmicky way. Now on principle, you can say the old fashioned way deserves more merit for it. Ultimately though, if the old fashioned player is losing sleep over the fact that the gimmick player had FoW armor too. Well "old" boy better reevaluate his current position in life.

Seriously, all the QQer's who are pro nerf are like "Old Money" millionaires who are mad because a new money "Powerball" lotto winner was let into their exclusive country club.

Or perhaps that they realize that removing something that a vast majority can use and enjoy is a stupid idea, especially when the only reason is to kowtow to elitist jerks?

SF is not invincibility, get that out of your damn heads! Trying to label it as such only prolongs the argument, rather than solves the issue. Its a skill that can be mistimed or misused, you wipe and you die. The thing is, its user friendly, so even non-1337 players can run the build with regularity. As to the other builds NOT being as effective (not invincibility, that's such a stupid term), if 600/Smite or an OB Flesh tank can do the same job in roughly the same time, how is it any different? Effectively it isn't, but I'm sure you'll come up with a stupid rationalization anyways.

Its not invincibility, labeling it such defeats your entire argument. Its not special treatment, its equal treatment that Sins now have a build that can effectively farm, just like Monks, Eles and others have had since day one.

People are not entitled to win just because they bought the game, that would defeat the purpose of playing what you paid for. What they SHOULD be entitled to is having an equal chance of winning regardless of what character they pick to play. I've never heard of a game where the balance is so messed up that just by selecting your base profession you run the risk of locking yourself out of ever getting a party, other than the Sin in GW prior to the EoTN update. Perma allows a Sin to finally be picked ahead of all the OB Flesh tanks and 600 monks, which have been around for ages. Spread the love.

Look in the mirror. You're laughing at yourself. Instead of trying to dance around the fact that Sins until Perma were never taken in groups, and because of it now they have experienced a surge in popularity, you're trying to argue semantics of what SF actually constitutes, and you're even terribly wrong about that. Keep trying, we're all having a good laugh here!

This is the funny thing though...I'm poor as RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO in game. I didn't farm, I simply do whatever I feel like doing, and only something that I'll enjoy doing, regardless of the phat lewt.

I mean, I bet a lot of people don't believe it, but some people do actually like challenging games that require some kind of thought process. Now, granted, most of GW can be completed by simply drooling on the keyboard, but some areas are actually designed to try to make you think, and put a bit of effort in.

Now, I'm sure the "IF YOU DONT LIKE IT DONT USE IT LAWL" argument is going to come up, and that's fine, fair enough, whatever...but you shouldn't have to purposely gimp yourself to get a challenge. Purposely gimping yourself takes away any immersion that the game had, and makes it more of a "why the hell am I doing this?".

I mean, in a game completely about making an adequate skill bar...what fun is there in making the best subpar skillbar that you can? That's just retarded. That is the same reason that most games don't have an "I WIN" button that you can just turn on. That's why most games actually somewhat try to achieve balance. That's why the Luxon Base Defender isn't available as a henchman.

Please read my posts again. No where did I say that I want guaranteed success for everyone. What I want is for the actual success to be worth it. Some dungeon in HM are actually harder than FoW HM for pugs, why the hell do they only reward success with 2 gems. Why does UW HM only give 2 ectos + junk for 3 hrs of work with pugs?

If I do UW with a pug group, teach them all the tricks, keep retrying until they finally learn the area and finish in 4 hrs....the group be rewarded far more than the current amount, because that actually contributed far more to the community and livelihood of the game in comparison to the few secluded guilds that never see the day of light or the chronic solo farmer with carpal tunnel syndrome.

Oh?

Not what I get from that. What I get from that is "I want to be able to just fill my party and roll the place".

Also, what I can't understand for the life of me...is WHY do you keep doing the mission? I mean, if you don't enjoy doing it, why the hell would you spend 4 hours doing it? Why does the phat lewt matter if you enjoy doing it?

It's a game, not a bank balance. If you don't enjoy doing a hard mission...don't f'ing do it. Or do it in easymode, that way you aren't missing any content at all.

they've already said that SF will be taken care of. it's only a matter of time. get in on the farming while you can.

just admit it, you don't have the ability to play without a crutch. it's the only reason why you are spinning in circles arguing for something that shouldn't have existed in the first place.

i am a casual player. my highest title track is sunspear castellan. i played this game for the sake of playing this game, not for some arbitrary accomplishment that won't mean anything in the end. in my time playing, i focused in improving myself as a player, so i can play the content playing the builds i want, and not having to resort to a godmode cheat. i also became quite good at playing this game, probably much better than you, in fact. after all, i don't have to resort to cheating. you are not a casual player, you are a bad player that's been carried by an absurdly overpowered build. it allowed you to compete with players you have no business competing with, in areas that you won't be able to survive a second in.

can you still play without SF? sounds like you can't. that by itself invalidates much of your argument: you have an ulterior motive. but hey, if the game really is as easy as you claim to be, and you really are as good as you think you are, then try winning that mAT. after all, winning the mAT (and the ATs that leads up to it) will earn you a shit-ton more money than farming with a godmode build ever will.

An online game also requires players.
Excluding players from the little content we have does in no way promote that.

1. So you're saying Sins only function is perma? Interesting, do you even own a set of daggers? lol

2. This comparison is ludicrous and simply your childish attempt to keep SF as Godmode. Gladiators defence has a 75% chance of being effective and cannot be held up continously. So you'd be happy with SF only being Godmode with 75% efficiency? If SF was reworked to 75% chance for spells to fail and 75% chance for all other attacks to fail? Not to mention How well it defends vs spellcasters...lol you are pathetic in your excuses, if it was reworked to this, Im sure you'd be back here butthurt screaming words like balance, mass exodus, and the accomanying tears.

Obby Flesh is constantly maintained? I'm sure glad it is effective vs completely shutting down any melee just like SF does.

Spellbreaker sure stops both styles of play also, glad those pesky warriors and REAL assassins cant do damage with spellbreaker up!

You're attempots to show balance really are pathetic lol

3. So no other profession is worth rolling? I figured Anet made them for some reason or another...

4. You should really look at your previous posts before you start spittin words like that at others. You are oozing with it

I'm sure many will quit if SF is nerfed, and good riddance to them if they do. That just means all they can play is Godmode and have no clue on how to run other classes, nor the want to join a group....or is Guild Wars no longer about having 8,6, or even 4 in a party?

What do you mean by "playing without a crutch"? If you think that SF implies that it is impossible for you die, no matter what, then you really dont know how SF works. Furthermore, SF is a feature of the game and if using a feature is a crutch then all of us are guilty of this by simply wearing armor on your characters when we can play without armor.

Cheating? You make it sound like he is running a bot or using a godmode hack. And what are you trying to prove? That you are a better player than he is because you dont run a SF build? There are many other farming builds that can be argued to be overpowered one way or another.

Ultimately, the game was not made just to prove that your e-peen is bigger than his or anyone else. The game was made for people to have fun and it sounds really stupid to call yourself a better player simply because you personally do not like his build when he wasn't even trying to compare with you in the first place, and you have to show off your e-peen to everyone here.

Because its more enjoyable than repeating easy areas over and over, I already vanquished the entire game with 8 chars already. Phat lewt doesn't matter (nearly as much) to me, but if the majority of players vote with their feet and move, then at the end I still get dragged along. There isn't enough "play for fun" people in the game for me to pug without frustration. (In the case of DoA, the number of play for fun people is nearly ZERO)

What people need to get through is that 99% of people want phat lewt. That's the reality. Even if I want to do "easy" mode, if no one else do it, I can't do it. I want to do DoA, but its a ghost town, I can't do it. Same with EoTN dungeons. Same with every place in the game except UW. My guild is only active enough for me to do the end game area like two times a week. Sometimes I can't go on at the time my guild is active because I have to work night. etc.

Exactly.

have to say that most of ppl (not all, most of) screaming for a nerf here are probably just envious because: they dont have a sin or are not able to use it or haven't a guild who give them a chance to do any sort of sinway or maybe they simply tried it and die however (which is lol since u call it "godmode", saw too many failers sins in fow/uw these days, and obviously sometimes i fail too but i dont whine like that)

hell if u dont want to run SF there's no problem, but u can't scream for a nerf just because u envious that others (more nerds and, only sometimes, more skilled than u) spend lot of their time on improving their abilities on playing a perma! and than get their results (high-end items in very short time) (go wastes with a perma without a training and tell me how much u last with ur freaky "godmode" if u dont know when and where to use it, it's not so simple!)

is like crying because 1 of ur friends (in real life) has a better job than u, probably works 12hrs/day, have studied more than u and now he has a big house, a cool car, ecc ecc.. and u dont have... obvious! he endeavored much more than u!

Really?

"People want SF nerfed because they can't do it"...really?

Guess I'll go back to the reasoning for not adding the Base Defender as a henchmen. Whether or not "you don't have to use it", games still need to retain some semblance of balance between available builds and playstyles (and no, soloing a place designed for 8 people isn't a playstyle). SF destroys anything that even resembled balance in PvE (though, it is far from being the only one...but it is the most dominant).

Otherwise, yes, let's make a Base Defender into a hench, because hell, if you don't like it, don't use it. Everyone deserves to beat the game right?

That's it? That's your argument for exclusivity? And you wonder why I address your like in the manner that I do. It is exactly the argument I was expecting from the "shadow form ate my baby brigade" which only confirms my belief that the community is tainted beyond repair. According to your reasoning Perma Shadow Form is a casual player invention that "hardcore players" detest and won't touch. If that was true I would pack up and walk away quietly, but it is not. The meta is fueled by the egos of hardcore gamers who want to gain recognition for making the latest and greatest farming build. The meta is their baby. So tell me, why is UWSC good for Peter but not for Paul when the same opportunity to do it is available to both? Because Paul can't commit 12 hours a day to the game is not reason enough. You want recognition for creating great builds; fine, have it; and thank you. Unfortunately, you can't expect to retain that exclusive status as masters of the high end or "hardcore" areas (as you put it) once you release your trade secrets to the masses and bask in their collective ovation. Simply put, you can't have your cake and eat it too. As a result, "mudslinging," as you call it, is standard protocol. I mean, if you are going to bring real world elements into the game (these separatist ideals that you cling to) you should expect real world reactions. Therefore, I gladly sling mud, the pigs on the receiving end love it.

Oh yes, play the victim here. Of course, after all the vicious Perma Sinners ate your baby.

you use 3 skills to keep from being cast at and hit, thats "more skilled"? lol, seriously. I'm not envious by far, I do have a perma but also like to play other character classes. That, in turn, makes me "more skilled" than you sucka! =) Besides, to be "more skilled" wouldn't you need to come up with your own skill bar? rather than plugging into what someone else devised?

But yes, you may as well exclude all PuGs. The average GW player is absolutely terrible at the game. Maybe increased difficulty would persuade them to move on from their Mending/Dolyak Signet build. Maybe. I'm not really sure how giving them an "I WIN" button is going to make them better at the game, it just takes away any need to be somewhat intelligent, and just lets you drool on the keyboard for victory.

Then you are the average GW player and you just insulted yourself to be absolutely terrible at the game. You want a game with increased difficulty? Go play chess, not GW. Then if you are good enough in it, you can take part in competitions and prove your e-peen in the process. Nobody wants to see your e-peen here.

All I can say is: If after the UWSC fix, anet still nerfs SF, it has nothing to do with protecting ectos, and everything to do with pandering to the elite few.

If you are willing to support exclusion of players - did you ever ask yourself what if you are too good for this game?
That this game is not what you want?

You have a point in there somewhere but it is clouded by the "us vs the others" philosophy that you cling to. One thing that I have maintained throughout my discussions is not making an assumption on how the game should be played because you can only play what is given to you. SF is available to everyone and, yes, it gives everyone a chance at farming in elite areas and gathering elite items. Don't be mistaken my friend, farming FoW, The Underworld and owning Obsidian armor and Chaos Gloves does not automatically make one a member of the elite crowd. These things are simply designed and labeled Elite by the developers. They are not exclusive, not to Perm Sinners and anyone with even a slight imagination. It turns out that Perma Sins are very effective farmers and thus are able to achieve high end ornaments faster. Still it does not happen overnight and it is not automatic.

Last time I checked there were 8 sins in a SoOsc party and the end chest is still random. I only got my first BDS drop in October after hundreds of runs both in 600/smite and SoOsc teams. I have had more luck with the ZChest than all the elite area chests combined. Furthermore, myself and most people I know don't even bother farming ectos because trading for them with finds from farming or the ZChest is so much easier. Moreover, it is not the possessions that makes one elite, but rather the attitude towards these possessions. For some it is purely cosmetic but others attribute godlike status to them. For better of worse, some people are just selfish and pompous.

Greater effort = greater reward is all well and good. By the same token, any effort deserves some reward. Random drops, random drops, random drops. The game decides who gets what, where, and when. Therefore, you can't base an argument for removing an efficient farming build on the devaluing of a few non consequential items such as, diamonds and onyx, and ignore that feathers and iron have compensated for this. I won't even address the SF is "god mode" argument by saying more than "huh?"

Still, I am confused. You see, you call for rewards for hardcore, high time investment players, but aren't these the same lot who use farming builds more than anyone else? Or are you trying to tell me that hardcore gamers forsake "shortcuts" and only use balanced team builds? Yea, right.

Perhaps, and I am breaking my rule of not lending to the Anet think tank, the answer is having more restrictions on high end areas and dungeons, such as, how many times per day/week a player/character may access them. That way hardcore grinders will feel justified when the find their prizes, can take full advantage of the time allotment on different characters while Speed Clearers will have their chance without disrupting the status quo and will most probably likely not attempt these same areas on other characters.

One final thought for the day. Make all rare items customized to the account it dropped for. This way, rare farming is for the express purpose of getting something for yourself. People can still make a living charging for runs and rep farming, selling crafting materials and max commons, and farming for themselves.

There is no need for tons of ecto in storage, because you can't buy that rare item, only earn it. Everything else you need to buy for gold is relatively cheap, so no more need for gold sellers...they'll be gone in weeks. no gold sellers, far fewer stolen accounts. only the random douche looking to ruin someone's day. and finally the economy will stabalize!

Will this get done? No. Too many of you want to be the next Bill Gates of Guild Wars.

Not quite. I'm not "us" nor "the others". I'm probably one of the few players around who never considered farming at all, since I don't even have the time to,

Actually, my position is:

- Shadow Form is admitedly absurd. That's a fact, builds revolving around Shadow Form are more than just efficient. I think something could be done since Shadow Form as it is goes against a lot of designed game mechanics and all. That seems to be the position of the developers as well: farming is tolerated, as long as it doesn't reach certain levels. Looks like Perma even exceded them. And no, sorry, but they're not basing their decisions on those elitists moaning about SF. Seems like it's the other way round: check Lindsey's position about Shadow Form and what prevented them from nerfing it so far... This is not me saying how this game is to be played. You can't really believe Anet is going to sit there and watch for ever... Watch people playing their game in a way they haven't purposedly designed without intervention.

- I won't lose my sleep if this doesn't happen though. I'm all for the "don't like it, don't use it" approach, since I don't give a thing about game accomplishments or hi-end items. They don't prove anything to me, nor I think anything is to be proven at all. It's a GAME. Anything coming from huge ammounts of time spent on a game - be it farming or playing balanced - just tells this: "I've played this game a lot". It doesn't make you "leet", what ever the route you chose to obtain your accomplishments and goodies. ALT+F4 and GW is gone untill you load it again, and any leetness goes with it.

What I've been trying to say is: SF exists, even tough I believe it should never have existed as it is now, but that's just me. Play it if you like. Don't bitch if you don't like it. Don't moan if they nerf it, since developers are clearly not supporting this playstyle and it's probably just a matter of time because they forcefully stop it. Simple as that.

Oh, about restrictions... I'm no farmer and I could afford pretty much everything I wanted anyway. I'm not in a huge guild either. We're more or less 8 people. Those are my friends. Playing with great people worth my time allowed me to experience ALL the content of this game without being restricted ONCE. My friends wanted ME to play with them, not my characters. You don't really need Perma for this, all you need is better friends and playmates.

That's up to you tough, your choice. I'll never question it. Have fun while you can, just like me.

if u read my post i write "more skilled" after a big MAYBE and between ( ), it's a really minor part of my tought, and i also have 8 other chars that i use, and i dont even told i'm more skilled than anyone but IF U WANNA READ ONLY WHAT U WANNA READ, and not the rest it's not my fault...
it's not a fault of gamers if a skill like SF is avaiable and it's not a crime or a cheat use it, they gave us it, we use it, they gave as ursan, we used it and so on from the begin of the game!
so stfu child

ps: i'm in the guild who developed that team-build so i'm not here just devising what someone else did as u think.

Hello I have read almost all of the comments on this thread all of which make a great point 1 way or the other. However coming from someone who has played the game for over 3 years as a pug player no guild and no active freinds to do organized SC's. It is very frustrating to take2-3 hours of my time to do an elite mission or area ( Uw,FoW.DoA) to fail. For a long time I stopped playing them to prevent wasting my time.

So my point is SF gives a chance for real pug players to do elite stuff and actully have a shot at a nice title or rare weapon. For anyone with some common sense y would I go for a title if it is going to take 500 hours what normal casual player can do that? So I never bothered but since the SF era it is possible and now I play more andenjoy the game more.

Just an example. Yesterday 5 Pug FoWsc groups 1 actual clear so by the time I pay for cons and the time spent makin groups still not really a 20min clear is it and cost me 5k or so to get a chest that was crap(that's fine) it is the point that at least I had a shot a couple times not just one 3 hour epic fail.

Hope this helps anet

Feel free to debunk this irrational argument, which I made earlier in this circular thread:

I'd like to see a reasoned response to that argument, as most of the responses were of the juvenile variety.

I'll give it a go!

I think most, including myself will agree that Shadow Form, as a skill by itself is fine. Even combined with Deadly Paradox, its fine, because there's still a window where you're extremely vulnerable. Shadow Form fits "aesthetically" as a Sin skill because in theory it could allow a Sin to shadowstep in, kill its target and get out, before the duration expires.

However, as with MANY builds in the game (not just SF), the introduction of OP PvE skills, EoTN skills, consets and more changed the landscape. For example, I'll compare "perma" builds:

Shadow Form:

Glyph of Swiftness, Deadly Paradox, Shadow Form

OB Flesh:

Glyph of Swiftness, Obsidian Flesh

Now the difference becomes obvious at first. Shadow Form is nearly complete immunity barring AoE and Signets, whereas OF is only against spells. However it does include added armor.

Where the comparison breaks down is when you add in other skills. A Sin, if trying to farm or do damage, has to cart along PvE skills like "By Ural's Hammer" or EBSOH, along with Glyph of Lesser Energy for e-management. The Ele, conversely, has only to bring Stoneflesh Aura for anti-physical (and if running 330 HP is basically immune), along with Stone Strike and Mantra of Earth for virtually infinite energy. Which leaves 3 skills for damage, whether Mesmer CoP variants or Sliver Armor and AoE burst skills.

Add in the fact that Eles have much higher energy naturally, and its easy to see Eles as being more versatile, except in heavy interrupt areas, but of course there are builds for that too.

The point of all this is that a Permasin is not the ultimate PvE build, if that were the case, then when I login to Spamadan, I should only see Assassins, when actually I see very few. The counter is that they're all in high end areas, forming 8 sin teams to steamroll areas, but ToA, DoA and other Elite areas are basically ghost towns.

You know its bad when you login to a main hub like Lion's Arch, and for the entire American continent there's only one district that's not even full.

So the cause of the problem was ANet introducing skills and items that unbalanced the accepted status quo, where Sins were not allowed in parties, anywhere. And now, because all the Eles, Monks and Wammos have been supplanted by Sins, there's a lot of butthurt (lol) being spread around by these former elitists who for once are not picked first for the teams anymore.

I don't know what to say to all the SF haters anymore. Their arguments are generally designed to derail the conversation, by misquoting and taking out of context, and rather than trying to reach a compromise, they seem content just to dpread discord and malcontent.

In response to thos who claim I'm nothing but a Permasin, well all I can say is you're wrong, making baseless assumptions and not contributing anything to the thread. My Assassin is a daggersin, I did not fall into the trap of using bows and scythes to get invites, although I don't begrudge anyone who does, daggers are just my playstyle. And that's an important point, I don't care how others play, if they wanna perma UW all day, how does it possibly affect me? Apart from making ecto prices drop, and causing all these "powertraders" (lol, like its some important knock off of Wall Street, how lame is that?) to whine about the "economy" of Barbie dresses, for me there is no effect, AT ALL.

And that's the real issue at hand. No matter HOW the SF haters whine about how SF is unfair, what it comes down to is it has zero effect on your gameplay. ESPECIALLY considering the fact that if these haters play with like minded people, then none of them are using SF and its not affecting them. The only way it could is if they're jealous about the times, but since its a game, and there's no competition in PvE, then its irrelevant except if they're worried about the length of their e-peens, which is just a whole extra dimension of lameness.

What you're arguing is against whatever the current meta is. That will always be the issue. Once a meta is discovered as the most efficient way to go about any area, that will be the required setup for almost any PUG. So once SF is nerfed, you'll be the same one calling for a nerf of whichever meta builds spawn next... Just like SF came to power after Ursan's nerf. This makes no sense and is a cycle of ignoring the main issue -- the lack of updates to the area and mobs to combat current metas that have existed for some time now.

There simply is not enough variety in the end-game to keep the average user's interest outside of pushing for the best time possible. This will continue after SF's nerf regardless of what many here will say. The outcome will be just the same as it is now, whichever builds are listed on PvX will be required in the PUG's. It's not because they're lazy, but due to not knowing the other players it's the most fail safe solution.

Whether or not it was created with that type of time in mind is irrelevant. They created the skills (and in SF's case, rebuffed it) that caused the time to be shorter and shorter. As I said before, they've combated this in the past many times by changing or adding mobs, why could they not do that effectively for UW? They in fact made it more difficult to balanced groups while adding little difficulty to UWSC's with the skeletons.

Any player with half a mind can devise skill updates that could eliminate SF's dominance in high end areas without making it more difficult for balanced groups. Again, why can't Anet?

It boils down to the fact that SF's dominance in elite areas is an issue, not the skill itself. Nerfing it across the board is heavy-handed and not well thought out. I still contest that if all professions were able to maintain SF, this would not be an issue.

So if we change SF in.

You are immune from spells, you gain +30 mana, you movement speed is halved.

It will be fine?

No, because for the people using shadow form it will be the equivalent of a nerf.

Wow really? I typed all that out and thats what you come away with? I spelled it out for you!

There are 8 skills. SF is more powerful in certain respects than OF. Just like all skills have varying degrees of power, if they did not, then making "builds" would be pointless!

A Permasin's bar is taken up by sub-par e-management and skills to maintain SF and buff the one damage skill usually. An OF Ele on the other hand only needs about half the bar for "immunity" and e-management altogether, and thus can take more offensive skills, combined with higher natural energy.

I wish you all would stop acting like SF is somehow morally bankrupt, its not. Its the people in the game that suck.

This is again, terrible logic.

If skills have varying degrees of power, they actually make the whole build creation process useless...since it is better to just put the 8 strongest skills on your bar and rape face.

True. But only when it is seriously unbalanced. And as Kaeban put is so well (in an argument in favor of SF), it's really the PvE skill introduction that threw things out of whack, both for SF and other builds. Discord anyone?

True, if it seriously unbalances the game.

A simple question which seems to be ignored in this argument. Do you feel that Anet ever intended for Elite areas to be cleared in less than 15 minutes? And if not, can you blame them for either modifying those areas, the monster AI, or a skill combination that causes this imbalance?

Yeah, the law of unintended consequences. In trying to combat one skill combination, they mess up other stuff.

I agree with the first part. Sins are really best at PvP and got no love in PvE until Perma SF. So I'd hate to see a nerf that killed their usefulness in PvE. But Sins were designed to be gankers, not tankers, so something that moves them back in that direction would be nice.

Absolutely agree.

The only problem I have with your comparison is that you're basically comparing solo farming builds. I could care less about farming, as I stated previously. Farm your heart out, get uber rich. I'm sure you are already, as anyone who's played 4+ years and isn't is doing something wrong.

That's the basis of the problem I have. They've reduced Elite areas to PvX wiki c-space zombie teams.

I agree that I'd hate to see Sins nerfed to the point where we can't play them in PvE. Rebalanced would be best.

First, I'm not an SF hater. But I think that the argument you made above about the combination with PvE skills has made it imbalanced.

Second, SF has affected my gameplay. I am no longer able to play in the elite areas (PUG at least) unless I have a specific cookie-cutter build that takes no imagination whatsoever to use. That sucks the fun out of the game.

Good discussion though.