Shadow Form meets the end

Actually Anet never intended any kind time limit requirement for any zone. They did however underestimate the ability of several players being able to refine to such a min/max ability. So to simply answer your question with a yes or no answer is obviously impossible. They did however go heres an area, heres skills of any combination, go at it however you want. Whether it be solo or in a group of any number of ppl upto the allowable max number of ppl for that area.

Yes I can blame Anet for going about things the wrong way to fix what the real problems are ecspecially when they were given the way to fix the problems numerous ways that wouldnt screw any one over.

This made me lol.

What do you think the price of a e-blade. Frog scepter, Obi edge etc etc etc Would have been without any Speed clears?
Why would I even bother doing UW for small rewards while spending hours?

I agree that they certainly did not intend for such things to occur. They introduced far too many skills, making them impossible to balance accordingly. Allowing three PvE only skills is overkill as well. I'm not against buffing areas or mobs at all, I'm just against needlessly nerfing skills that are not causing issues other than in a handful of specific areas that can easily be balanced against it's prominent use.

Trust me, I'm not one of the pro-SF'ers who want it around for my own gain, I don't even do UWSC's. I have a Sin, who never uses SF unless I'm speedbooking Guildmates. I think it's a very good profession that unfortunately has never been part of a meta before SF.

I do think there need to be changes to keep SF from being such an overpowered skill in elite areas -- these are the places where the most money is made as well as the most amount of PUGs. I just don't agree that these should be changes to the skill itself.

That false, maybe there are about 800 skills on the game, but most of them are so bad that the balance need only made on a small set of them.

And only a blind man would have not see what kinda of build would have born from buffing shadow form to 34 second(the first buff)

It is a shame that assassin where never really liked as pugs, they need to rebalance skills so they can be more pug friendly.(so they need to rework mesmer too).

Yet only a skillbar build around SF can do what SF can do.


And for the bolded part, i dont get it.
To make a build comparison we need to understand what we are comparing.

We are making a comparison of a assassin soloer for a speed clear?

Its simple OF can't and SF can.

We are making a comparison of a tanking build?

SF is much better because you only need to keep that up while for OF you many other skill, leaving a lot of slots for utility. Not that since you are not slowed an SF tank can ball up enemy much faster the OF one.

We are making a comparison of a farming build?

Well i would say both suck compared to a 600/smite but if we really what make the comparison then SF have much more flexibility since you can actually reach farming place where other can't.

And here is the crux of the problem. You equate gameplay with Barbiefication. You can play the game just fine without all that extra crap, which means that SF and farming is a non-gameplay issue.

How is it terrible logic to suggest that skills have varying degrees of power? You do know of Elite skills yes? You must since we're discussing Shadow Form.

What is stronger, Death Blossom or Twisting Fangs? Depends on what you're trying to accomplish. WITHOUT varied skills, that have varied effects, there would be no such thing as builds in the first place, since everyone would always run the same.

You should learn how logic works before invoking its name.

No, actually, the skills are fine and quite pug friendly. Assassin can be brutally effective in most any team setup. I won't list the builds, because we all know what basic flavor they are, but Sins can really dish it out. What needs to change is the community opinion. Mostly the reason Sins are hated is because of the opening months of Factions before they were properly used. Now, well-informed people realize how strong they can be, but the idiots running double echo Firestorm in pugs haven't caught on yet. Moreover, pugs seem to think Warriors should always be strong-like-bear tanks. Essentially, the community at large doesn't understand the DPS and aggro management capabilities of an offensively suited physical, be it Assassin, Warrior, even Ranger and Dervish.

If SF is nerfed, I hope that opinion is changed and Sins are given credit where they are due. They deserve better than obscurity, with or without the existence of Shadow Form.

Only a skillbar built around OF can do what OF can do... ad infinitum, insert Elite skill. Most classes have an "infini-build" and have been around longer, yet no hate is directed at them. Why? Someone answer me that.

And how do you keep SF up? With two other skills plus PvE and glyphs for e-management, whereas an OB Flesh Ele can do the same thing, with the same advantages, and actually be more resilient and better energy management. Stop trying to minimize the reality of the situation to suit your flawed arguments.

I had no problem farming Glacial Stones from Vaettirs with my Ele for example, no problems getting there, so what is your point? Prior to the Permasin build, every DoA tank was a Warrior or Ele with a perma OB Flesh build, yet no one complained about that. Same effect, a little slower because of the move speed on OB Flesh, but not by a lot given the density of foes in DoA and the environmental effects.

So as Dr. Cox would say, "Wrong wrong wrong wrong.... wrong wrong wrong wrong. You're wrong, you're wrong..."

There is one constant in every guru argument I've seen regarding Guild Wars:

Whether it was sklls & builds, runs & farms, or the BMP and it's sale after those of us who "earned" it.

Every argument seems to boil down to two groups: The ones arguing for exclusivity and the limitation of content to the player base, and the ones arguing for inclusivity and no limitation of content to the player base.

In the world of Guild Wars, I will always side with inclusion rather than exclusion. I had hoped the "members only" mentality had died with slavery.

No, that's what a lot of people want to make it out to be. Mainly the people who support ridiculously overpowered skills.

People who support "I WIN" buttons act like anyone who disagrees with the I WIN button is only doing it because they don't want anyone else experiencing content, when in fact, it has very little to do with that. It usually has more to do with at least TRYING to retain some semblance of balance between builds, rather than one skill/build that rapes the face of everything in the game, aside from 3-4 different monsters that have a special skill that counters it.

But you're trying to put the genie back in the bottle. This game, because of the overload of skills, is horribly broken. It hasn't been anything but Build Wars since Prophecies. The only way to fix this game is a complete overhaul of the combat system, and that'll never happen.

We're arguing over SF now, but even if this skill were completely removed, another build will take it's place and we'll be back here again. As it was with unlimited minions, Ursan, Discord, ad nauseum...

I think there's one area you and I would agree on, I do hate that this game is completely reliant on specific builds to get anything accomplished, but that can no longer be fixed.

Well I enjoy the game more if the stuff I have is wanted. Human nature to show off greater achievements. So yes SF is a issue. Stop making excuses. Even a donkey can see that SF changes the whole gameplay for a long time now.

It has been the same crap over and over. Every weapon gets farmed and then drops it's value to merch food.

Try find a team to play the GAME and not simple button 1 and 2 smashing and yet be rewarded for the rarest weapons. For that people join Pugs with speed clear builds ( can't blame them). And therefore no normal gameplay is possible.

But they've already addressed the UWSC issue as it pertains to SF with a tweak of the dungeon. Any other SC can be addressed in the same manner. As far as "normal gameplay" see my above post, that hasn't existed for years now.

Of course Build Wars isn't 100% counterable. There will always be a build that is slightly better than most others. That is where SF varies though...it isn't slightly better, it is invulnerability. Just because perfect balance is impossible to achieve, doesn't mean that ANet should just throw up their hands, say f*ck it, and throw in a skill that completely destroys any balance between the skills.

At least before SF, there were different builds to solo UW. But it also isn't only UW...you can take an SF sin and completely destroy any game mechanics (like having a perma tank huge groups in Dzagonar Bastion). Not only does it break build balance, it also makes a mockery of some game mechanics and mission. SF is the only skill that can survive indefinitely against 90% of the enemies in the game.

But Discord does the same thing. Take two people into any normal mode area, each with three discord necros, and you will steamroll everything. 2 Man Discord works in many HM areas as well. You only need 1 other human for this, eliminating the need for PuG's there as well. I don't have a SF sin, but over the last two days I did go with one into SoO. The SF sin may have been able to run through every group to the Justiclair, but it was still the responsibility of the group to kill everything at the end, and party wipes are still possible. On average, my 5-6 runs into that dungeon took about 20 min or more each time. While this is definitely an improvement, I wouldn't call it god-mode.

Unlimited minions? Fixed. Ursan? Fixed. Discord? It has enough flaws so can it be considerd overpowerd? I think not (leave it with that statment cus it isn't for this thread)

And yes there will be a new build if SF gets nerfed. Cus other skills get buffed (If they never buffed SF then guru had 1 milioen threads less and what would you have used then to get money or weapons?) Probally 600/smite? Well you won't see the FoW/UW chest with it. You wouldn't see many chest at all. And those you will see will take an hour or more. That will make it a lot less intrested to do it 10 times a day.

And I can recall that GW was not so bad balanced when prophics came out. The only thing that really could be overpowerd then was the 55hp monk. But what do you know. They fixed it (sort of).

You don't need PuGs anywhere.

To be quite honest, PuGs actually make the game more difficult because PuGs are absolutely terrible at the game.

As for Discord...it is nowhere near as ridiculous as SF. I mean, at least it is still possible to die while using discordway.

The last part of your post, address what is so screwed about SF. A single player can go through an entire dungeon, by himself, and doesn't even need to kill anything. How does that not break the way the game was designed?

WHAT?! LOL. So SF is an issue because it makes the "1337" stuff more available. So you're mad because casual gamers have access to the same stuff 1337 players do? So you're for segregation and exclusion? Lame.

NOT gameplay, hello?

So what you're saying is that there were hundreds of players in 1337 zones before Permasins, and that Perma caused the death of the 1337 areas? Lol, or maybe its because all that's there are farmers that make it impossible to find groups, and therefore the only thing to do IS to farm?

Perhaps if you understood logic or causality, simple concepts such as these would not got over your head...

Wow never saw so much crap at once. first try typing with words and not letters. And yes there were enough players in an area like ToA to make a decent group for UW.

Ugh not even going to comment more to someone that makes brainless coments like these

Perhaps if you understood logic or causality

Try to read and make sense.

But it's really not that uncommon. I don't spend much time farming for items, so I'm not going to be able to recall build names, but how about builds for multiple professions that allow 1 person to take 7 leechers into "A Time for Heroes", they run past everything and kill the boss in about a minute or so? How about the glint warrior and ele builds that allowed fast core farming (I actually did this one to make gold to give to my kids as an extra x-mas present)? How about the dozens ofchest running builds that allow you to use high-end chests without killing any monsters in the area? There are many more. The only difference is that SF can be used for more that just one area (but by no means all areas) whereas many of these builds listed above were area-specific.

Look, if you, or anyone can come up with a real solution that will keep this from happening over and over again, I'm all for it. but as it stands now, with or without SF, the build is king of GW and not the skill of the player.

Agreed. SF, is just way to easy to use. Kind of takes the fun out of the game.

And no point in this thread have I condoned other ridiculous builds.

SF just happens to be the one the thread is about, and happens to be the most dominant of the ridiculous builds atm

Name me another class who can solo (or duo) 4horseman and maybe we can start having a discussion on what your direction of tought.


You keep up SF with your normal 4 pips of regen. You dont need anything else.

Here what is a SF tank better then a OF

1 Skill

You need only those skills

1 Swiftness
2 deadly paradox
3 SF

5 utility slot.

OF need

Swiftness
OB
Stoneflesh
Armor of earth
Mantra of Resolve (and with that you can say by by to your superior energy management)

Mobility

The jobs of pulling at normal movenment and the half speed is quite different i assure you.

Hello? like many people said (me between them) is farming is to the issue here there are a lot of farming build more efficient then SF.
Now, name me a build without shadow form who can even think of doing what those sin can do in FoW, UW, SoO etc etc etc


PS. I would also say that OF tanks are not only little slower, i myself playing perma can manage to ball up different group of enemy even if they are not near each other. With OF thanks it take quite longer.

To be honest I have no idea, I personally have never tried to solo or tank any elite dungeons with a permasin, although I am perfectly capable of doing so.

Unlike many in this thread who assume they know what's best for everyone else, I don't presume to tell others how they SHOULD play. If they want to solo tank Kathandrax, and there is a build that allows it, more power to them, no skin off my back. There choice to use or not makes no difference to me or my gaming experience.

As has been repeated ad nauseum, the point of contention is the Sin's ability to dominate and solo tank certain elite areas, but is it really a problem? I say no, because IF ANet nerfs SF, without doing something about the areas (which is a shortsighted and heavy handed approach anyways), then something else will replace SF and the cycle of speed clearing will continue.

If ANet really wanted to provide a solution, they'd do something like increase the rewards based on the variation in the party (scan on entry) or time spent doing the area, so a 8 Sin team speedclearing UW in 10 minutes would get bupkiss, compared to a balanced team taking two hours.

You must admit that the problem is not shadowform itself, but the inverse proportion of time taken versus reward earned. No matter what though, people will always look for the fastest build, simply because they want to maximize their rate of return on play time.

In light of that, it makes zero logical sense to hate on Shadow Form specifically, rather than a broad desire to see all farming builds nerfed.

I friend of mine has been wanting to kill duncan, but my main has already done him nm and hm. So I thought I'd just take another guy through and kill the bosses so we can go do duncan together. So, I log in see guys offering to do a slavers tour. Was tempting but what the hey, I hate those summit btards and want to kill them.

So I grab my necro and her 3 necro buddies and H/H rand and thommis. After about an hour killing everything, I got a whole bunch of white crap, a req13 gold (from a locked chest), a diamond from thommis and an onyx from rand. Now, I went just to kill stuff, and I only really care about titles or anything on my warrior, so didn't really care about drops or points. I crossed the bosses off my list, so I was happy enough.

But if I was looking for good drops, well I can't imagine doing this over and over again till I got a anything of worth. Its just too slow. I'd either just not do it and farm elsewhere, or I'd use a perma/600/smite to do it. Nerf them, I can can see just about all the dungeons becoming like DOA. That is, dead to all but guild teams. Well, unless some other gimmick comes anyway. But it certainly won't be balancedway.

QFT. I don't mind exclusivity, but at least do it RIGHT by making the reward balanced as well.

Like putting a rare and expensive weapon (Voltaic Spear) or crafting material (Onyx) in that chest, only to see it plummet in price because they get farmed that much.

But that's more of a problem of an aging game, to be honest.

ahhh man my Sf wont vanquish the rest of tyria for me...ahh i tell u what ill make a 600/smite team to do that for me...but ofc there not godmode skills.........

Farming is not a problem. Farming builds are, by their very nature, specialized for particular areas. They fail if you take them outside of those areas.

SF is not a farming build. It is an invincibility build. It just so happens that it's also great for farming. Invincibility is bad.

SF is the worst offender. Therefore, it recieves the most hate.

And yes, SF being able to solo everything is bad, because it removes the need for any other professions. Anet went to a lot of trouble programming all those other professions. Do you really think that a mechanic which makes them completely redundant is good for the game? Do you really think a skill that makes all those hundreds of monsters practically non-existent is good for the game? Do you really think that a skill which makes the entire game a joke is good for it?

No, it's not. SF was a mistake. In no other multiplayer game in history has such imbalance ever been tolerated. Shadow Form makes the entirety of the game meaningless. As long as SF exists, the vast majority of the game mechanics within it might as well not be there. It needs to be nerfed, for the good of the game. That's all there is to it.

The problem with this argument is that you all keep re-defining SF as "invincibility." There are plenty of skills in the game that can easily nullify it, case in point, why are there no SF Sins in PvP? If you want to have a discussion, then you all must realize that the mechanics of SF are NO different from OF, VwK, 55/600, etc.

It receives the most hate because it replaced all the traditional "invinci-builds" such as OB Flesh Warriors and Eles. The hate is not because its unfair or morally bankrupt, but because those players no longer get picked, because the Meta changed. Its simple envy/jealousy.

Do you really think that a Sin can solo the whole game? If you do, you're wildly off base and absolutely mistaken. Before SF, the Sin as a member of a group anywhere was practically non-existent, just as Mesmers before CoP, or Smiters with RoJ. Now the one skill that gets it invited is being decried by a whiny minority as unfair. What arrogance...

SF makes the Sin have a purpose in groups, where it did not before. The game is not broken or worse off, the only possible way that would be true is if every player in the game was rolling nothing but SF Sins, which is extremely far from reality.

The mechanics of end game content dictate there will be certain ways that are more efficient to beat it. SF is not the cause, it is a symptom of the playerbase which is sick of mediocre rewards for the time investment. I DON'T want to slog through an area for two to three hours to get a gemstone I could have bought at the trader for less than a plat by farming with any character in noob areas for crafting material drops. I DON'T want Shadow Form nerfed, just as many other Sin players, who were never able to get groups feel the same.

Why should ANet listen to a vocal minority such as the SF haters, when the vast majority of gamers either don't care about SF because they realize it doesn't affect their gameplay, or want it in as an option to mess around with?

The SF haters are not a big enough group to support ANet, should they decide to side with the hardcore elitists who believe gameplay exclusion is the right thing, despite the fact that both casual and hardcore payed the same price for the game.

This isn't a job or career, there's no corporate ladder to climb, those that argue for exclusion and the rights of the hardcore 1337 are missing the simple fact that this is a game. You want exclusion, go play on Wall Street, and leave us casual "n00bs" to our fun please.

Way to completely fail to read the post you quoted.

I'll admit the speed clears using bu are pretty easy.. but look these guys spending 12-16k a run to clean fendi's, bu on 3 levels.. and though they are bound to the wiki letter for letter- it's still equates to fun for them.. you want to take that away and what are they going to do then? you want the community to die off even more?

anything harder and your looking at alot of peeps with a chance to get something good in the game, finding they can't run any other kind of tank.. for guys like me, who can't stand the wiki because it's basically inefficient if you have any sort of real skills.. it doesn't matter- I use assassin and rit as my main farmers because it's simply fast.. I really don't see your point besides principle of having the skill in the game.. but it's there along with all the pve only skills, let the new players catch up with us, who cares

on another note just to rage you sf ranters, who obviously don't farm at all.. look what dropped for me this morning!

i dont like to discuss but i will just put a list of facts about SF here and everybody here just take your conclusions
1-Any skill that allow a player to solo a lot of 8-man dungeon,missions or area in hard mode is by any mean overpowered
2-SF is more easy to manage than the old OF tanks and better because that made OF obsolete
3-SF made the sins tanks,farmers,runners and not damage dealers,since a little part of GW recognizes the true power(sadly the rest think sin without SF is a suicidal front liner and prefer Eles) of a sin apparently will be unwanted
in PUGs after the nerf
4-That "Who want SF nerfed is a loser noob who dont know how to use it!!11" is nonsense
5-GW had your better moments before this SF rush
6-Who dont like SF just /cheer and who like just /cry because 40 pages(and up) of discussion will not change nothing

You forgot to mention how many boring and monotonous hours it took you to get that drop. Saying you are a SF farmer is equivalent to saying you have no life.

Shadow Form needs to go, I'll be glad when it is changed.

All these cries of jealousy are hilarious. After 4 years, there are very few items of worth left, and so theres items that anyone can get and items that are far out of the reach of sf-ers/normal players. Not only that, but lowering the prices of things that were previously fairly rare has removed any 1337ness you think you had.

Now I expect to be slammed down as elitist, because obviously anyone with more money than an sf-er is an elitist and anyone with less money is a jealous noob.

True. In the start of Guild Wars, Obsidian Armor was for the very elite people. Then people said like: Wow, you've OBSIDIAN ARMOR?!
Now, sometimes I see people say: Ooh pretty nice, I might get myself in a few days then.
Doesn't that say enough that a skill, made the elite things way too easy to get? Many people would disagree with me, but if an elite area like Underworld and dungeons like SoO can be done in little time with as basic two skills and a consumable, then it surely needs to be nerfed. I just still don't understand why it took so long for them to come to that decision.
But all this saying, doesn't mean I don't use a perma sin to farm. But I don't do it because I really like it etc, but because everybody else uses it. When UWSC was still possible, I tended to go with FoWSC because it wasn't a bunch full of perma sins, but there were actually still some of a team which don't fully exist of perma sins using sliver armor.
So what I try to say is: don't you think it also will be more fun, to have Shadow Form gone? It'll be of course more difficult, but admit. Imo, the more difficult, the funnier it is.

hehe you can't comprehend how I do it.. thats <45 min run and you won't find it on the wiki.. I'll admit I put some time into perfecting that run.. but having quit gw as many times as I have.. nothing too steep

some peeps like to farm, I can't stand to trade, to me that's boring.. I did the same with the vs run here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trGo-4jn61Q&fmt=22

what's so great about this game.. you can do things people like you can't possibly even understand.. you think it took hours XD

well shouldn't be so harsh.. that's pretty mean and I'm not usually mean just sf is used by alot of peeps who I know are really good.. hate when people who don't farm, chime in on a thread that has to do with farming

like if you hang in any district with a dungeon, you'll see just how many sf farmers their actually are.. and then there's the really good players who exploit it to the full potential

like that fendi run can be done with a 600 also.. it's just harder to do.. I think they should keep it in the game, my opinion anyway

You think SF did that on it's own? Try XTH, Nicholas and RR while it lasted. It's pointless to blame a build when Anet implemented ways to make mountains of free money for minimal effort.

Bolded for truth. Also, all those people complaining also does NOT support any sort of a community in the game either because most of them never touch pugging with a ten foot pole. So they take this "I already got my guild so screw you" attitude. Turning the game into guild/friend groups only is a bad idea no matter what.

Exactly.