Shadow Form meets the end

From that build:

Boss

* Have your team ball up, one person aggro him, and PI him.
* When your party dies, run into a fireball so you dont accumulate Death Penalty.
* Repeat until the boss dies. 4

edit Counters

* Bad pubbers.

Huh, I was unaware that the entire game only consisted of about 20 explorable areas that is dominated by the SF Permasin. I guess all those Dervs, Paras, Mesmers, Rangers and others I see are just Permasins wearing costumes?

Looking on Wiki I see 11 A/E builds. There are 12 600/Smite builds. Plus a bunch others of various classes and teams, and that's just under the "Great" category.

So yeah, I guess in the face of overwhelming evidence that supports my claims, I must still be wrong, cause, you know, everyone only plays SF Sins now. Oh wait...

Oh my!

Now you zinged ME. You cannot be contained man, you are a wild beast at this whole debate and game balance stuff.

Since it was refered to as elite since the begining and they have done nothing to change it. It should be safe to assume that it is an elite area, thought easier than DoA/Deep&co. Also the fact that it was unlocked by the "best pvpers" in the begining. I doubt they would make pure-pvpers work for the lowly-pveers for no reward. (added: Actually, they probably did it so that PvEers start PvP)

He was wrong there but the mission should hopefully teach you how to kite/disrupt/kill/stay alive/[basic technique]. Then you have to apply them in an environment where the minautaurs hit for 100 on auto-attack and learn how to do the UW quests.

If it's your 6th char, you should already know how to play the game. You've (probably) been playing for quite some time. You're basically not a newbie.

Now you have to be trolling, you're mistaking classes and builds. A Marksman ranger or a dom mesmer would have their place in DoA (in theory), in practice they should work but will be suboptimal. It's a problem if they are suboptimal everywhere. Beside, an area where any build would work would be easy, thus would not be elite.

Concerning "bringing war/elem" to sin level, the other way should work too : bring sin to war/elem level.

You said it your self, the only effect is e-peen. Their point is to show your dedication and time at the game while not giving advantages. If the plebes with their Permas can have them thrice as fast, the epeen value diminishes. You nerf the title basically. A nerf is only to be made if it's necessary, right?

Learn math symbols if you want to understand my post.
A decrease in the amount of time needed to complete an area with a balanced group accompanied by the nerf of SF would allow elite areas to continue to see play.
Yes, but it will probably consist of a much greater variety of classes than the current SCs. And, according to your previous posts, classes being excluded from play is a big concern to you.

It's a general rule of thumb in every (good) game ever made that end game content is reserved for experienced players.

Tell you how playing through the game prepares you for playing through the game in more difficult areas? It seems self-explanatory.

Copy/pasting from wiki isn't necessarily a bad thing, but doing so without actually gathering knowledge/experience/skill yourself is.

I was talking about inexperienced players.

1. Nerf SF
2. Make ridiculously difficult areas a bit less difficult
3. Make ridiculously time-consuming areas less time-consuming

I don't expect Beastmaster Rangers and Illusionary Weapon Mesmers to be able to find groups, but I do expect rangers and mesmers to be able to find groups. And making elite areas less exclusive to other professions (by the means stated above) will do just that.

Also, it causes profession exclusion to high-end content.
It's also in their best interest to not make themselves look like incompetent game-designers. Giving permanent invincibility in a game like GW goes against their best interest.

Quite.
I'm wrong but you agree with me?

this this this

The longer SF goes untouched, the more ridiculous and incompetent the GW designers look, not only to rational GW players, but also to any onlookers.

Hell, I use this game as an example in other games. People bitch that a skill is slightly overpowered? I link them to SF on the wiki and tell them that Guild Wars has a skill that can make you invincible, and can be maintained indefinitely. We all have a chuckle at GW's expense, then agree that the balance isn't that bad in the other game.

Interesting debate - but that nerf IS happening has been announced. No point in debating that, and no real argument to defend god mode anyways.

It only remains to be seen when it will happen, and if it is at all playable afterwards.

Personally I hope it gets the full "Smiters Boon" treatment. Gogo meta shake-up . While I would like to get the nerf as a Wintersday gift I have no problem if the SF lovers get to keep it as their gift. Just get it gone before 2010 plox.

Don't even need the Smiter's Boon treatment.

Hell, something like...
For 5...18...21 seconds, all physical damage done to you is reduced by 50%, and you are immune to all conditions.

Would be more balanced than it is now, without removing it from the game (I'd still use it in some places).

You make very valid points, and I agree with them. The problem is not basic technique, but how each class applies it. The technique to tanking used by a Warrior and its effects are vastly different from a shadowstepping Moebius Sin or the like. The way ANet designed it, the classes that make it in the elite areas are the ones with the most resilience to being spiked down, especially in places like DoA. The Sin is very poorly designed in this respect, as are other classes suchas Mesmer or Ranger, that do not DIRECTLY contribute to either overwhelming DPS or damage mitigation. In theory, a domination Mesmer or interrupt Ranger could be very effective, but in practice, especially in Elite areas with little room for error, most groups would rather have extra redundancy in either an off-tank or more prot monks and nuker eles.

A Sin can be a very effective melee nuker, the problem is getting into melee with DoA creatures with 70 armor. When ANet designed the Elite areas, its almost as if they had the Big 3 in mind as the only classes people would take.

Untrue, my point is that to make it in "Elite" areas, all classes should bring something to the table, such as Mesmer Interrupts or Ranger spirits and such. The problem again, is the way ANet designed these areas, such that the only valid solution is massive DPS, solid tanking and crazy healing/prots. I played WoW for a couple of months, with some friends who were really into it, and as a contrast to GW, in places like Naxxramas and such, every class was represented, because the areas while difficult, were still designed so that all classes could participate.

In GW, this is not the case. There's no stealth system for Assassins, Mesmer interrupts have little effect when recharges on OP monster skills are half or less the Mesmer interrupt, and so on and so forth. There's no way for marginalized classes to compete with the Big 3 because the areas are very poorly designed.

Thats what happened. Permasin replaced OB Flesh tanking. Now people QQ about it because their War and Ele mains aren't wanted anymore. So the Sin will go back to obscurity while the crybabies get their way.

The title isn't nerfed, those who worked hard for it know the value. Anyone on this forum who sees a Sin with GWAMM is going to assume Perma, while a Mesmer with GWAMM will surprise people. The title is not devalued at all IMHO. And even if it WAS, a grind title which has no effect on gameplay is not a good enough reason to nerf the one build that allows a class to actually participate.

My hope is that ANet DOES change SF so that it is not so dominant, but along with that buff other skills to make them more desirable in areas that are Elite. Along with THAT, I hope ANet buffs skills on the other marginalized classes, like Rangers and Mesmers, to give them some reason to be taken along.

Bring back the days of the Bunnythumpers and Touch Rangers lol. Dervishes need a massive overhaul for example, Mysticism needs to be totally reworked and the scythe's AoE effect needs to have something like:

Only hits one target with a Mysticism score of less than 4.

Then at least you'd see the end of scythesins and scythewars, IMHO that's more important a change than SF.

I don't care what I get either. I care about what OTHER get because every single f*cking nerf they does shrink the amount of areas in which I can group with people without relying on a guild all the time!

When Ursan was around people actually do dungeon clear AND DoA AND UW AND FoW AND there were even more people doing The Deep and Urgoz. After Ursan the amount of areas shrunk to ONE.

Once it gets to the point where every area of the game is empty except for one...I don't f*cking care if there's "broken" skills around. If they can't balance their reward system and skills to enable more areas and more classes....then I'll take the "broken" skill as the alternative. Because to me anything is better than playing a "single player" game with H/h + begging guildies/friends to wait for me to do end game areas all the time.

I'm pretty sure the majority of the players in the game feels the same way. The only people who doesn't feel like the entire game is empty(except for UW) are the people who only play with their little circle of guildies/friends and never ever even look around to see how many people are still playing.

Agree to everything said. Except they STILL have to balanced the reward between areas or people will just all take their newly accepted class to just one area, leaving everything else still empty.

You don't need to group with people for most of the game...and even then, you only need 1-2 other people.

I'm decent at math, what you fail at is logic. It is not logical to assume dungeons will be made LESS time consuming when ANet does things like add Skeletons of Dhuum everywhere to UW. That /= faster, duh. The only way more classes see play is if they're AS efficient as the fastest builds, otherwise people won't use them. Basic economics 101, opportunity cost. Fastest build = more loot per unit time. Which means the fastest group builds will be used, which is highly unlikely to be composed of 8 different base professions.

Fail.

So you're advocating they be made easier then? Because that's the only way a sub-optimized group of builds will be able to get through an area. If the Elite areas are kept difficult, hence retaining their "Elite" exclusionary status, then only the most optimized, fastest builds will be used.

Basic logic.

Yes, actually, exclusion of classes is my biggest concern. However, nerfing SF will only relegate Sins to the netherworld of H/H, unless ANet has a massive inspiration and makes a contrasting buff to skills that makes them valuable in groups. The same thing needs to happen for classes such as Mesmers, Rangers and Dervs who are not attractive at all in the face of having a second tank, additional nuker or more healing. Paragons are iffy, they have the SY! spam, but that's the only one people know or accept, just like SF builds. And SY! is iffy as a skill, since in Elite areas if the back and midline is targeted, its nearly a guaranteed wipe.

No, its not. The problem with GW is people have become used to the idea of "Elite" areas being exclusive to elitist players. I Played WoW for a couple of months and was raiding endgame areas with a sub-kitted Rogue, yet was still able to contribute and play. The same cannot be said for GW. Its a terrible business model if after the short campaigns, the only thing left for players to choose from is endless rep grind or trying to break into Elite areas with sub-par builds. How people justify these exclusionary principles in the face of the fact that every "great" game ever made allows everyone to have a go at the whole thing is beyond me.

Oh really? So you're saying its just a hop, skip and jump from Imperial Sanctum to DoA? I breezed through Nightfall on a melee Dervish, got Legendary Survivor, yet can't get a group in DoA to save my life. Explain that.

Permasin is only a symptom. You people have your priorities all wrong. If you truly want everyone to have a chance at playing the whole game, as I do, then area balance and risk/reward is FAR above the nerfing of one skill.

At what point did ANet announce massive revamps of all Elite areas to accomodate even super-optimized Ranger or Mesmer builds? If you got a link please post it, because i haven't seen it. The inability of groups to accomodate any class but War/Ele/Mo in high end areas has been around since NF was released, and the SF buff did not do anything to make it worse or better. Conversely, an SF nerf won't make the world of GW players immediately say, "hey now that SF is gone we should take a Ranger and Mesmer cause they're awesome now!"

Again, redefining SF has invincibility is an ad hoc argument that is not grounded in any sort of fact. What makes ANet look incompetent is that all content after Hell's Precipice, Imperial Sanctum, Abaddon's Gate and A Time For Heroes is grind, in a game that was supposed to minimize grind and be based on skill. What goes against their best self interest as a company is to change the game so that it caters to the elitist mindset and excludes the statistically larger playerbase that is the casual gamer. Heck, from a technical standpoint, hardcore players are to be avoided because they take up more bandwidth over time per capita than does a casual gamer.

Shame I've been warned for insults...because holy hell...this part of your post makes no sense.

1st...HM is not equal to grinding.

2nd...after you finish HM, do you just expect there to be a never ending stream of new content and missions? How the hell are you expecting to play a video game for 4 years and never repeat the same thing twice? You act like ANet is forcing you to grind out 300 ectos to get you some new armor or something. IF YOU DON'T ENJOY IT, DON'T F*CKING DO IT. Do what you feel like doing. Do what you have fun doing. If you don't enjoy farming for phat lewt to buy FoW armor...don't do it. I really don't understand people.

H/H Underworld and let me know how that goes...

I have done.

Completed the entire place, with me and 6 heroes (let the other person leave, just wanted his heroes)

Truer words were never spoken, its a shame you only mean it for those who agree with how you play, and not everyone.

So you abused a game exploit that allows you to have more heros than you are supposed to?

Pot calling kettle...

Like I said...I prefer not having to play a single player game. Making the entire game into H/h + Guilds is not good game design. If you're going to promote that, you better go revive the 7 heroes thread. If they want to kill off pugs in the name of balancing, then do it all the way and let everyone play single player with AI. And I would still need to group for all end game areas...in which I still need to get my guild to accommodate my schedule, or are you suggesting I skip work to play a game with my guild so that I can do end game areas?

If you don't enjoy UWSC, don't do it, see what I did there? It boils down to inclusion/exclusion argument just like Kaleban said. This type of arguments contribute nothing to helping the game get better at all.

I don't care how people "play".

I care about skills that are so unbalanced that a character is invincible for 90% of the game.

If its so distressing, don't use it.

With several hundred skills available, you COULD use a different build. However for those who LIKE playing that way, they can use the build.

Just as you said in your above post, let people play the way they wish, what they find fun.

It boils down to broken game balance.

Which is the same reason Base Defenders were not added as henchmen. I'm sure that a group of people would have enjoyed just blowing up sh*t with a group of Base Defenders destroying everything left and right.

That doesn't mean that it is good for the game, DUCY?

To the first point, she had the pics taken and without much resistance allowed them to be passed around. It wasn't some malicious computer nerd hacking her account and distributing them to everyone as you seem to be inferring with this statement. You also can gfy with this whole internet nerd virgin played out bs, you don't know who the **** any of us are or how much we get laid or don't get laid. If a girl with a nice rack gives tert pics to someone on a forum and then makes no effort in denying the fact I think it would make us gos to not want to see them. To the second point your post comes off as ridiculously pathetic and overcompensating. I get the feeling that you are one of those guys who is constantly life tilted that the girls you fall in love with always go for *******s and never want anything more from you than to be "just friends." I can imagine its really aggravating to put so much effort into bending over backwards for these girls only to time and time again have them go off and hook up with another guy who you deem to be an *******. Let me let you in on a little clue, girls like to be ****ed by *****, when you act like a little nurturing bitch its not gonna turn them on because they most likely see you as a pathetic figure who would likely cry after sex and profess your love to her the next day. So next time before projecting your insecurities out over internet how bout you unclench your ******* so your balls can finally drop into your sac and then maybe, just maaayyybbbee, you'll finally get the girl.

Game exploit ? uh stop right there , those are big words dude. Those heroes are like Henches , only follow the general flag and cant force them to use nothing. In fact , if the person leaves with "avoid combat" in all them with i think they stay like that. Anyway still 7/8 ... and that has nothing to do with SF or this topic.

Seriously , the "hey , there are more broken/bad designed things besides SF" argument has no point in here. Its like stealing a car and tell the police officer "hey , there are more cars being stolen , even BANKs being stolen out there" .
Yeah sure pal but still you are arrested.

No point in complaining about HM design , 600/smite team , UW and or elite areas design , we all know this game is far from being perfect and with no manteinance monthly fee ( oh yes , that stuff that 90% of the online RPG games have ) they are doing a "not bad" job.

I still have fun with comments like "Hey , at least XXX gives solutions , you are only being sarcastic" ....... yeah sure , solutions for what ?. Theres nothing you can say or do here that will stop the incoming skill update. Are there more stuff that needs to be balanced ? oh yeah but still SF is going to be "reworked" yes or YES , so move on. SF is on top list of the broken stuff to fix and its SO unbalanced and broken that Anet finds it bloody hard to "rework" that skill without turning it into dust like Smitters Boon pvp.

PS: For all ppl that dont like ppl that thinks like me .... soz guys , this has been discussed for so long and so many times that some of us find it exhausting to repeat same stuff , reasons , answers and rational arguments over and over again. My apologies.

He claimed he could solo with a Sin, I called his bluff and he admitted that he had done it with 6 Heros. Bringing along Tahlkora on Passive with a customized skillbar is much more effective than the generic Lina Henchman build. Not to mention that a "solo" player in UW shouldn't have more than four characters, since Henchmen are not ascended, which is how ANet decided to balance it.

So he exploited a game mechanic to get more powerful heros in an area designed not to have them. Given his vociferous hate on SF and cries of imbalance, this is hugely hypocritical.

The rest of your post is pretty full of fail, sorry, not even worth responding to.

I think at this point its time to agree to disagree. Kaleban, if you didn't notice, Yelling literally camped at his comp for like the entire day just arguing (just check all his post times)....no wonder he doesn't care if the game dies for pugs because he spend so much time on this thread instead of playing.

Just like Tenebrae I'm getting tired of retyping my argument over and over. We'll just have to wait for the update. Far better to save my typing strength for after the skill updates to try to get Anet to change the unbalanced area/reward, and underpowered class...because I can then put out my argument without it being lost in a bunch of nonsense by someone.

You're right of course about both sides being intractable, however I lol'd when you wrote this.

There's ALWAYS going to be someone filling up threads with nonsense to distract people from the point, usually those on the losing side!

Its not hard to remember that guildwars isnt suppose to be soloable. They dont want you to SOLO period. It ruins the ecomony why do you think ectos got to be so low. Elite areas arent suppose to be done in 7 mins ... Unfortunley they are going to be reminding you by nerfing shadow form and some other builds. Every single time they do a major change there are alot of QQ That choose not to adapt.

Like with the 6 man HOH, When they changed the agro twice, Nerfing ursan ( Just like they are going to do with shadow Form), When They changed the grinding on titles, When they changed the book when rit came out.

Its not like a big secert that they just came out with... Since the beginning they said Guildwars isnt suppose to be soloable. It sucks seeing everything so low to begin with greens golds and stuff like that. God they even nerfed the drops trying to stop you to solo.. They even made it where you cant even solo area over and over again.

Know what? we basically agree on a lot of things. But as an overhaul is unlickely, the best alternative to stay true to sin concept would be to make SF enough protection to support collateral damage, but not tank.
How about somethign along those lines : 100% maintainable (with cd-reduction and all), you take half damage and can't be the target of spell.
Or attacks and spells targeted against you have 75% chances to miss/fail.

Hope fully that would give the needed survivability while being impratical for tanking. Tought the first could allow tanking, you'd need to stack damage redux enchants, which is OK in my mind. If a character wants to survive so much as to stack 5 enchants on himself, he might as well be allowed to.

Dunno for you, but what really bugs me with SF is that the glass cannon is also the best tank (without really trying to be one, aka without stacking 9 000 defensive buffs). Plus the fact that SF was a fragile kind of invincibility as opposed to a war or elem who would be more on the ductile side. Not that fragile is bad, just when it proves that strong.

Actually, if you go back to his first post :

Yelling didn't say he could H/H everything, it was Keleban who gave the challenge.
Yelling went with 6 heroes : aka 2 ppl and 6 heroes, but with a "leaver".
So he may not have won the challenge, but he did proove HIS claim was true.

Seriously? How you can possibly believe that SF is even close to being balanced. THe whole "its not the skill but the mobs are broken" arguement is dumb. Need proof > http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/u...t10416792.html

Even after the biggest zone redesign since sorrorws furnace it took less than two weeks for UW to be done under a con set.

Also despite all the attempts to nerf DOASC it still happens, COP nerf, VOR etc etc. http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/u...t10416792.html

You know the problem here is SF, with cons you have six slots 100att pts to invest in whatever you want. You also can ignore the majority of the game and those things that do affect you are easily countered with shield sets and a self heal. The only area which isnt the case is DOA, even then infuse and LB is enough to protect you.

If you really think that SF is a skill that allows groupings of these elite area's to be done by normal players, think agian. These truely elite players have the time to grind out 640k eotn rep pts, do the same runs over and over, tweak the builds and tactics to get these truely amazing times and reap huge profits. While your average player is left attempting to copy the builds tactics by reading wiki. You will never be an "elite" player by reading wiki, you have to PLAY THE GAME and UNDERSTAND IT. SF just makes the divide even greater to overcome because the elite players sequester themselves off from the majority of the community ingame, the only interaction you have from them is postings here. I think most "elite" players will tell you that most of their knowledge game from someone else that taught them "how to play" Certainly they didnt learn everything but they would have learned alot. If you don't have the chance to play with someone better than you how will you ever get better?

Can you hear that ? its the sound of truth hitting you in the face mate . And for exploits , yes , armbrace issue was a game exploit , was a bug being abused and ppl got banned for that so NO , asking someone to give their heroes is not an exploit no matter what you say and do.

Good for you ! first step is to admit you have a problem.
You are here to tell ppl that white is black ..... nor gray , or a dark color , no . At this point the "SF defenders" , that never had a real argument , cant even shout "hey , if SF is so broken/unbalanced , why didnt anet do something ?" and they are coming with some "wtf is this guy thinking" stories. Please , even some posts are funny , some of them are not.
If you want to go offtopic, fine , but telling someone he fails or trolling stuff like that when you are going offtopic yourself or doing the same ...... is not even funny anymore pal , dont think ever was.

Why are people still throwing around the (im)balanced-argument?
SF is not balanced.
It's not supposed to be.

PvE is to big to achieve skill balance. So by trashing SF, the game will just be slightly less imbalanced. You will not achieve skill balance by trashing SF.
If on the other hand you are trying to achieve class balance by nerfing SF, then you are screwed also. SF is a farming tool - so by trying to achieve class balance where SF is used, you are trying to class balance farming. And in farming ONLY the best tools are always used. There is absolutely NO reason whatsoever to go with the options that isn't as good for the job as the best option but might have additional benefits. Which means you will NOT achieve class balance in farming by trashing SF.


Trashing SF will not influence balance enough in this game for this to actually be a valid reason for it's nerf. You are just trashing it for the sake of trashing it. And if that's the point - then don't be a pussy hiding behind "balance". Just flat out say it.

My challenge was to H/H Underworld with a Permasin.

Which means 1 player, 3 heros and 4 henchmen, just as it would for any other area in the game where you "H/H."

The whole point of my post was to sarcastically point out the FACT you can't H/H Elite areas like UW, because you can't take Henchmen.

He then got around the point by using a "leaver" and basically "Herowaying" which is vastly more powerful than taking a bunch of unoptimized henchies.

Wait, what? The armbrace issue was a bad bug, which also happened to violate the EULA (duping/hacking), which is why people got banned. "Hero dumping" is not a breach of the EULA, BUT when you're attempting to discuss game balance, its not difficult to make the obvious connection that under all NORMAL circumstances, any one player is restricted to three (3) Heros.

By having a buddy come in and leave his Heros for you, you altered the gameplay balance in your favor, making said area easier. This isn't a tough distinction to make, I'm not sure why you're so hung up on simple details?

I'd like to respond to your posts, with the hope of having a decent argument. Unfortunately, your command of English is too poor to make sense to me. If you're attempting to claim that SF supporters are just blindly holding on without making constructive comments to get things changed, I could go quote most of my own posts in which I lay out gameplay changes, some simple, some sweeping, that would eliminate the problems that cause symptoms like Permasins to erupt.

By contrast, your posts are simply filled with sarcasm and ad hominem attacks which do nothing but obfuscate the issue and prolong useless commenting. You remind me of those guys from College Humor who do the "Internet Commenter's Business Meeting." Nothing solved, nothing handled, just useless back and forth.

Contribute something to the discussion or stop posting. Stop insulting people and attacking their opinions. Offer a counter opinion that is backed up by logic and reason, not "n00b" and "I R 1337." At this point I have to wonder if you're posting just to make people annoyed, or if you're really unable to understand the nuances of the discussion.

Just 4 more days and we will finally be rid of this ****ing thread! Woooooooo Hooooooooo.

Yelling @ Cats & Kaleban: If you two would like to continue your largely off-topic back-and-forth debate, excluding all others, I suggest you do so via Private Message.

Maybe because details are what make something a bug , an exploit or something against Eula ?.

Booooo , that was a low blow but coming from you , not surprising or unexpected.

Ill say it again for the 384th time , even though i dont expect you to understand me.
"Theres no way in hell that something you say here is going to change ANYTHING" . Update is coming , all your words in favor or against SF are pointless , thats what im saying.

I guess sarcasm wont make you see that you are doing the same BS you say im doing with other ppl in this thread. Like ....

See ? its like looking in the mirror . And btw , you are the one insulting , all your posts are full of name calling , "you fail" . Stop doing that , just wait for the update because nothing here is new , no one is posting suggestions for the change ( like it would matter but at least is something ).

No.

Bug = something that doesn't work right, could be harmless to catastrophic

Exploit = something within the game engine that allows an advantage, may or may not be "bannable"

What makes the difference is the legal language of the EULA. Duping armbraces was exploiting a bug that violated the EULA. It actually remains to be seen if "Hero dumping" will be fixed, although given the state of the game it would make sense for ANet to just allow 7 Heros at a time. I doubt as an exploit that its serious enough to warrant banning, but it is still an exploit of the game.

I wasn't trying to be insulting, just noticing a trend, and the part of your post I quoted was literally unintelligible to me. I apologize for any offense, I did not mean to, which is why I tryed to puzzle it out.

Contributing in a constructive fashion is never a waste, you never know if and when a random idea on the boards might be incorporated into the game. I don't speak my mind for any sort of recognition, I simply want to be heard and in the process, hopefully ANet will take a more moderate approach than heavy handed skill nerfs, and realize the actual problem is making areas totally inaccessible to classes which are not totally optimized to either DPS, Heal or Prot. All the "support" classes like Ranger and Mesmer are left out in the cold.

MOST of my responses have been overly wordy and long, I admit, but I feel in general have been constructive and address the issues brought up. While I don't want to start a flame war of accusations, several "others" posts have been one or two line "zings" with no intention to further the discussion or come to some sort of compromise/agreement. I try to avoid those as best I can.

I will respectfully have to disagree with you, but will of course stop short of quoting yours and others posts which are full of what you accuse, and also stop short of comparing my posts to those to demonstrate how many more suggestions I propose by contrast.

Several posters in this thread have attempted to point out constructive ideas, one of which is that to make the game balanced for all the classes, the areas need to be revamped to make said classes attractive to party play. The viability of such a solution, given ANet's record is quite low though, and I sympathize with the air of despondency surrounding the future of the game.

because people like challenges.

instead of bitching that a skill is "too strong" on a forum people are using it to find new, quick, extremely efficient ways to get end chests. some of them dont even care about the chest (which does get annoying at times) and just want a quick completion time.

like its been said before, this is proof of player innovation & progression. add to that static monsters with predictable skills....you know what youll face EVERY time and just have to design a team build around completing these predictable areas with semi predictable spawns.

and if it hurts you so deeply, there is a very simple ai mechanic that can be changed that will kill the 20 minute runs. try to figure it out and send it in to gw support and your name will go down in history as the one who killed the new uwsc forever.

anyways...

i dont really care anymore but i'm just gonna throw this out there..maybe they wanted to implement the assassin as a "rogue" type character and since there is no threat level or dis-agro ability, they couldn't fit a "stealth" type skill in the game mechanics but they wanted to and this was the outcome. after all an assassin should be able to assassinate something right? kinda like a ninja. so anyone crying is obviously a pirate fanboy. qq. flame away

Shadow Form is indeed an assassination skill, you are invulnerable to nearly all damage, have 20 odd seconds to dish out damage to an enemy, but you have to make sure to get out before it expires.

The ability to have perma Shadow Form on the other hand is a far cry from assassination. Quick in, quick out is my idea of an assassination. Not tanking 10+ enemies all at the same time, without getting hurt the tiniest bit and still be able to kill those enemies at your leisure.

But we will see what Anet and the Krewe are up to.

Yep, this is how it should be imo. In no way being able to contantly maintain it, but just long enough to assasinate a key target, and when thats done the player should retreat from battle.

Shadow Form: Enchantment. For 8 seconds all hostile spells that target you fail and all attacks against you miss. Your next attack does 10 000 damage and can't be blocked. Shadow form ends when you attack.