Shadow Form meets the end

Too bad. It's still not the fault of the game that you choose to play with bad players.

I don't CHOOSE to play with bad players...I'm FORCED to play with bad players whenever my guild/friend teams are not available, get this through your head. And don't bother saying "its your fault your guild/friend is not on at the same time as you, it just make you look like an idiot"

Bladed Aatxe are not hard; there are any number of counters to them. Yes, they will kill you quickly if you are not prepared, but Shadow Form is not the only way to beat them. If a PuG can't find any means other than Shadow Form to defeat so simple a foe, they deserve to fail. Helpful hint: UW was possible to complete before Factions or Shadow Form ever existed.

You choose to play with the people you play with. There are a lot of people out there, and you have a choice between them. You are not forced to play with anyone, you have the option of picking Monk A or Monk B, or not playing at all. You choose, yourself, to join teams that are incapable of completing content. You choose, on your own, to repeatedly subject yourself to problems, because you choose to not find better people to play with.

Don't play with scrub Monks if you don't want to die. That's all there is to it. Make more friends, and keep a list of people who don't suck at easy content. Or, bring a hero, because they are perfectly capable of completing the content you seem to think needs nerfed to cater to the terribads you choose to play with.

Did you read my post? Or did you have reading comprehension problems? I specifically said I do have a list of people that are GOOD the game. Therefore, I didn't CHOOSE to be with bad people. When the guild only has 6 people wanting to do UW runs and the rest are in FoW or PvP, then you are forced to rely on friend list.

Guess what, if a monk is good enough to be in my friendlist, he is good enough to be in other people's friendlist and in other good guild as well...chances are he is already doing the UW run with other people. The number of guilds that actually schedule a UW run on specific dates are few and far between, and players shouldn't have to rely on something like that to do UW.

At that point I'm FORCED to rely on pugs or wait an indefinite amount of time for other members of the guilds or friendlist people who might not want to do UW run.

Sorry bro, but you're still choosing to play with shitters, no matter how you try and spin it to look like some plot by ArenaNet to shoehorn you into playing with bad people and dying to easy shit that people who don't suck have been clearing since the day the content was released.

Aatxes aren't hard, your Monks just suck. Enjoy your /deaths.

I didn't choose because I don't know people's skill before I enter any area. Its more like I'm forced to gamble with groups. In grindy games like WoW I can have some sort of idea of how "good" they are by looking at their equip. In strategy game, I have an idea based on the automatic record pairing system (like those in Warcraft 3). In FPS, its nearly completely random, and there's usually a system to force the good players onto the other team with the bad players to even things out.

You do know that to actually have a good guild/build a long good friend list that I have now I pretty much HAVE to go through all the crappy groups/guilds...that's FORCED. Maybe this is why GW2 seems to be designed in such a way that allows soloing all the way through, because apparently "find good players to play, and if you can't its your fault" is not that popular.

And to think I actually didn't like the 7 heroes concept...with people like you now I understand why people want it so much.

So you want the game to be balanced around shit players? :\

PvE should be balanced around decent players (HM good players), not shitty players.

I think it should be balanced around above average players. As in balanced in such a way where good groups can still have challenge, BUT isn't instant fail and frustrating to the majority of non-good guild groups.

Bladed aatxe is an example of memorizing gimmicks to win, NOT promoting skills, it just force people to staple prot spirit on monks and according to theocrat "find good monks to play with". The combination skill sets in slaver's exile is an example of monsters that promotes challenge, for example. Those monsters are hard to kill but the group won't instant wipe due to a single mistake.

Having monsters spawn on top of important NPC just for grabbing a quest is another gimmick. Most of the time its not even possible to tell what the heck went wrong. Its just "erm, I grabbed these few quests, and somehow one of them caused the group to wipe" Stuff like the eotn insta kill rocks/snowballs, on the other hand, is something that is implemented correctly because its possible to know its coming (screen shaking), and actually promote people to have good position.

The easiest way for them to do something about it without drastic measures is to just split the bladed aatxe into two forms...the ones in the first room should be weaker (bladed aatxe jr.? ), while later on there's a more difficult form...this reduces the instant wipes and encourages pugs to actually learn the area in a progressing manner. Then make it so that once you grab a quest, the other quest locks themselves. And then maybe have a separate quest saving system like DoA? (other people had suggested that before).

Many many ways to retain the challenge while remaining accessible. Out of all of the end game areas I think Slavers' Exile is the one where its done to perfection, too bad it is probably too difficult to translate that to UW.

PVE can't be balance
But since people wants it, it should be balanced around EVERYONE!

Bladed Aatxe: How to beat.

Body block against a corner, a wall, stairs, a gate, etc. and prot the party member who's blocking.

Protection or armor skills.

Blind it: Elementalists, Mesmers, Rangers, Ritualists, Dervishes, Assassins, and Warriors(Belly Smash is Awesome!) can all blind a foe.

Make it miss or attack slower. Blocking is also effective.

Snare it. If it can't get to melee range, it can't touch you.

Knock it down.

Just kill it, i.e. spike.



There is nothing wrong from a game design point of view with putting a foe who swiftly punishes you for making mistakes right at the beginning of an area that is supposed to present a challenge. The solution is to overcome the challenge or not play, not dumb it down to the point where any challenge and fun is lost.

Pumpkin pie speaks the truth!

But they can still get a bit closer to balancing for everyone just by just reducing the "epic fails" to plain "fails". just make it harder to instant wipe (die in first room), or fail after 3 hrs+ (die in last room). The loot can easily be adjusted to match the difficulty and the area would still remain "elite" as they call it.

Pug skill level != above average player.

Prot spirit isn't a staple because of aatxes, it's a staple because it's an amazing prot skill. Every monk should carry it.

How exactly is it a gimmick? It just makes it so your group should know what they're doing and not pick up a quest too early. Teamwork ftw.

There's no need. If people can't make it past the chamber because of aatxes, chances are they're going to fail somewhere else. Chamber is easy, it consists of protting your frontline and getting your frontline to hold aggro. Very, very simple.

As for a quest system like DoA, no. UW isn't long or hard enough to deserve that.

It's impossible to please everyone.

hopefully the just pick at the deadly damage part of SF so that perma can still act as a harmless tank.

I had a bit of problem explaining what I meant. Difficulty should be balanced around above average players. Accessibility should be balanced around pug players. Its basically the concept of splitting up a difficult area into may parts, allowing pugs to learn the entire area without being forced to repeat the entire thing over and over, and reduce the need of everyone needing to have a team build that can clear the entire area. Basically a pug can go in with a build for a specific area of UW, and switch builds (wasting time) for each different area. Good groups can just have one perfect team build and blast through the entire area in less than 2 hours.

Its a gimmick precisely because it doesn't really promote any real skillful "teamwork" gameplay.

Gimmick build: a build that relys on a few skills to win, break the skill and the build falls apart, but Don't break the skill and the build wins with flying color.

Gimmick UW challenge: relys on a few tricks to make it a challenge, memorize all the tricks and break them to win with flying color, but if you don't it doesn't how skillful you are, your team fail.

As long as you find people who know it before hand, its great. But in a scenario where you don't have people you know, the chance of utter failure is extremely high. It boils down to whether or not you know people who already grinded through each area beforehand. (or spam in the chat a hundred time hoping everyone would listen)

Its not just UW either, the factions end game areas had even more gimmicks in the form of weird environmental effects.

Agreed. The question is who portion of the player base to please....

You attempt to please all of them, and this is where difficulty settings come into light.

If the player wants to see the area and the lore, set it to Easy mode.

If the player wants to be challenged and rewarded for his efforts, set it to the Hard mode.

Pleasing both ends of the spectrum - casual and highend - is a difficult task. But ANet's simply not even trying at this point, even though they have a system in place to cater to two separate difficulty groups.

Bingo, anyway this have always happened, after SF change maybe it will happen more often. At least now we have the option of "ping" the build , bad thing is that it means nothing and it can be faked ( yes , there are ppl that do that stuff ) so a lot of ppl go gimmicks but .... lets see what happens when there are not "so easy" gimmicks around like SF .

People like me (i.e. people who know how to press buttons and not die) are the reason we don't need 7 heroes."Prot vs huge damage" is not a gimmick. "Suck less" is not a gimmick. "Ele stand way behind Obsidian Flesh / SF tank and nuke shit to death" is a gimmick.

I'm starting to think you were the monk in your story.

True, true, and true.

But the huge damage is.

Look, basically, ANet made some stupid decisions by putting way overpowered skills and consumables in EoTN. SF was not overpowered when it could only be maintained by A/Me and the player was forced to rely on dagger skill damage and some degen.

Until EotN, you could farm a limited amount of areas, several bosses, or tank in some areas for your allies. ToPK could be soloed with a huge investment of time and very careful playing (you had to use A/E with limited time on SF and shadow of haste to make it work, though)

EotN introduced not only terribly overpowered skills but GoS which opened up the whole elementalist line of damage, including intensity, to SF.

The intention seemed to be to introduce a huge high end area to keep people occupied until GW2. But it was done without proper consideration to what the results would be. Suddenly, high end overpowered skills were available to all areas of the game, steamrolling over what had been moderately balanced before.

Not only that, expensive and rare items like the elemental sword and serpent axe became so common they were merchant fodder - further reducing rewards for playing the three basic campaigns and removing the thrill of playing them. There is no fun in playing through the general campaigns because hardly anything drops there anymore that is worth anything. They have become mostly farming spots to get materials for playing the few high end areas where unique rewards do still exist. (the need for zaishen quests just to get anyone to play those areas is a good indication that something is very wrong)

Basically, the game is screwed and SF is just the tip of the iceberg. Even if every overpowerd skill is nuked, we still would have the problem that the whole reward system for most of the game is out of whack. Nuking OPed skills would keep the average player from playing the high end areas. But there is no incentive to play any of the other areas either.

This whole debate then, is really just evidence that after nightfall, ANet stopped caring about GW. They did not put in the time or thought needed to keep it a truly enjoyable game. And I don't see anyway to go back at this point.

Nuking SF is just pointless now. It will do nothing. It will help nothing. It will just further reveal the incredible flaws in the game to the average player and create boredom and frustration - and who wants to play that kind of game?....

..........unless ANet does more than rip off the bandaid and comes up with some creative way to repair the flaws introduced into the basic game with EotN. And, I have little confidence in that happening.

It's a sad day when "fun" in a video game is defined by how much ingame money can be made.

If you seriously have a problem with "farming" you need to find a new genre of game to play. Farming has been a staple of MMOs since before they were called MMOs when they all used text/ansi graphics, worked on 300bps dialup lines, and were called "MUDs".

It's a way to keep people in persistent worlds after all the "content" has been cleared. Getting rid of it entirely would be a phenomenally stupid thing to do (although Anet has shown a sad track record of stupidity wrt to it ranging all the way back to the AFC) especially since we know they're unwilling to provide more content to play.

They did, its called Guild Wars 2

I don't understand the hate on SF?

For those who play assassins (my main is a Sin, which I've had since Factions was released and did not rely on SF), can anyone say that they got into Urgoz/Deep/DoA/UW/FoW/Etc. etc. in a balanced group without being perma-SF tanks?

I will just go ahead and assume that in most situations the answer is a resounding no. This is not the players' fault, or the game's fault, it is ANet's failure to properly balance the game and classes.

Take perma-SF out, and one of the most enjoyable classes for myself and many others will once again be resigned to H/H the entire game, since no PUG or even some guilds will take Sins into high end areas without some form of tanking ability.

The nerfing of SF is silly! I mean who's really against it, Wammos and other tanks? Solo-farming raptors and certain bosses isn't really affecting the economy, and before those new skellies in UW, several classes could solo farm UW for ectos, even W/Rts, and usually with better survivability and redundancy.

If ANet earnestly wants to balance out (nerf) SF, then they're going to have to rebalance other skills. First though, is the intent. Its silly to nerf a useful skill because a few crybaby players who's warrior tanks got replaced by SF Sins whined too much. And since ANet is not publicly against farming, then what is the point? SF is not godmode as so many erroneously claim, there are many areas with signets, non-targeted enchant stripping and such that make SF builds useless.

I personally am sick of the holy trinity of Wammo, Monk and Ele. Why even introduce new classes in expansions if no one will seriously consider them in group play? Personally, I feel the problem with GW is that each class is not really differentiated well. There's no stealth system, so assassins make little sense in the first place. Every class is either direct damage, support or healing, and while the assassin does a lot of damage, its survivability is low because its poorly designed.

Shadow Form is the Sins only way to simulate "striking from the shadows." Personally, I play a variety of classes, Derv, Ele, Mes, Rit, etc. and I always come back to the Sin not because of SF farming but because its the most fun for me. But to get into a human group for an elite area I pretty much HAVE to use SF, just as other classes have meta builds that work in certain high end areas. If you take away SF, ANet has to give the sin another option, such as making Critical Defenses a unremovable skill or even a stance. Its not fair or just to take away a Sin's ONLY skill that allows it to play with others in high end areas unless you balance another skill or set of skills to allow the same thing.

No, "big black demon does huge damage when he hits you in the face" is roleplaying. KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE CAN SAVE YOUR IRLIFE.

But as long as I am under PS and SoA he can hit me ALL he wants!
And that's the gimmick.

We go from a situation where we have nearly one hit kills to a situation where the guy is just a tame pussy. The difficulty relies on a simple gimmick, which is one hit kills. And once you figure out the gimmick, the difficulty is gone.

Yup, as to be expected with a 4,5 years old game, that hasn't been updated in those core area's by much.

Anet makes a puzzle for us to crack (UW), people bash their head against a wall (Aatxe), one smart individual solves the problem (Prot Spirit) and posts it on PvX.... puzzle solved by everyone. Stale gameplay from there-on.

That's why I like skill balancing. Lots of opportunities and new puzzles to solve.

What kind of proper general PvE warrior uses those skills? Perhaps a tank, but that is a completely different role than the assassin.

And also, to my knowledge, Obsidian flesh will not stack with Dolyak. And if you use endure pain, and to a lesser extent, signet of stamina, you will be useless to the team.
If you use Signet of Stamina, you can't fight. Making your warrior role useless, unable to spam SY. Meanwhile, Endure Pain is a literal suicide skill.

And obviously the Aatxes would hit the squishies that come into range over the warrior. The warrior has too much hp and armor, making the AI target others. And once the Aatxe moves, you're pinned down from your own skill bar.


I'm sorry, no thanks. I'd much rather take an assassin any day if warriors are going to do that.
I would much rather take the assassin with his insta-SY to the team with all his 1/2 attack skills rather than the latter. They don't even need moebius strike!
Personally, I take flashing blades for extra defense and damage, but auspicious parry looks great for the SY spam too.

The difference between Guild Wars and all those other games is that all the areas in GW are designed to be played with a full party. Going against that undermines the game's mechanics.

Next will definitely be SoS seeing how strong it is. Maybe a return to old school tanks and RoJ/Cry will come back into the meta. Maybe 100b if they don't touch it. I'm sure Manlyway will be fine as long as 100b isn't changed again, they will just find a new bar to tank.

Bingo . The "challenge" gets out of the picture with some broken combos. It is a cancer , now its so grown that the only solution is killing/entire reworking that combo .... lets see what happens.

SoS can't be a meta as only one can be used per' team. And if it were to be used for a speed clear, it would be very, very hard.

And what about the people who find it "challenging" to design builds that are able to make things solo able? The whole premise behind GW was an open ended game where the player was in charge of everything about their character. Contrary to all the purists beliefs about principle, there are those players who do in fact like power gaming by making broken builds that defy the conventional. These players can only use the skills presented to them by ANET. And no one seems to mind that ANET broke their principles by introducing grind into the game. It was the only way to sustain this game, but a broken principle none the less.

Once again, while there may be implied principles and beliefs about what's "supposed to be" in GW. Being an open ended game pretty much leaves it up to the player on what they feel their GW experience should be like. If it wasn't, then GW should have just been a 2d side scroller like Super Mario Bros.

When the nerf comes. I just hope ANET has the decency to at least revert UW back to its original state among other areas that necessitated the need for perma sins. I wish I had made my Sin sooner and cashed in like everyone has. Too bad.

I'm sorry, I really REALLY hate this argument. For one, have you played GW2? How would you know what they're doing with it? What we know is that the people who made GW1/semi maintain GW1 are making GW2. SF has been godmode for WAY too long, and you think that this proves that GW2 will rectify a mistake such as this? Of course, I'd love to be proved wrong by something under the GW2 fact going "there will be no godmode build/farm for this game."

Secondly, kind of goes to my first point, we are currently playing GW1, not 2. Frankly, until I get to play and see the game I dont give a rat's ass what is in it. Point is, they need to fix THIS game first.

Finally, to the main point of this topic: I'll believe it when I see it. They've been discussing nerfing SF for over a year when people were able to farm mindblades for ridiculous amounts of ecto, and have had "serious" talks since earlier this year. Yet instead of fixing a single Godmode skill, MANY months later they decide to make UW harder for ALL groups, not just farmers, but SF remains UNCHANGED.

Farming is not the problem, godmode button is. Usually nerfing a single skill is pointless, but when its godmode...it needs to be done. The fact that its the single most prevalent farming style and even used in group farms proves its over efficiency.

Didn't Anet compare GW to a trading card game like Magic The Gathering during development? Drawing a comparison between the 8 skill limit and building a deck out of the vast number of cards available?

With that in mind, it makes perfect sense that using the right build is just as important (and possibly more important, in some cases) as knowing how to use that build. No matter how good you are at MTG, failing at deck building will almost always mean the match has been lost before you even started. Inversely a particularly well built deck can make up for some amount of a player's lack in skill, especially if you happen to know what type of deck the other person will be using ahead of time.

If someone's deck is clearly superior to yours then you don't go "you only won because your deck is better than mine!" because deck building is part of the game, and if you don't like it or aren't good at it then it's probably best to find a game that closer matches what you're looking for than complain that you don't like "gimmicky" deck building and try to get the entire game changed to fit your wants.

The same applies to GW. Some cards/skill can be over/underpowered and require and adjustment, but once you start complaining that, for example, using PS to counter high damage is "gimmicky" and not "challenging," then it starts to become clear that you're looking for a challenge or gameplay the game isn't meant to provide (at least not in PvE, anyway).

What some call "gimmicks" are really part of the basis of the game's design philosophy. You use the tools/cards best suited for the job you want your build/deck to fulfill, or to best counter your opponent's deck/build if you know it beforehand. Removing the "gimmicks" would require a reworking of the entire game, which begs the question: why change the entire game to fit the wants of some when they could find another game that already has what they want?

And apparently Anet realizes that there are enough people looking for "something else" which is why they seem to have developed less of a "deck building" and more of a "quality over quantity" approach to skills in GW2. That doesn't mean one is inherently better than the other, though. It just means it's different, which gives people choices, which allows people to pick the one they prefer instead of there just being a single option that's in constant flux because the developers haven't realized you can't cater to everyone at once. Which means everyone should be just a little bit happier in the end.

If one skill bar is able to take on six other skill bars, something is really, really wrong.

GW isn't open-ended, it's just poorly designed to allow such openness.

And I'll give you that to an extent. Taking Blobbob MTG example. The DCI, which is MTG's sanctioning body, has to enforce the banning of certain cards that are considered too powerful for game play. Which is how it should be when your playing against another player in a tournament type setting. Especially if it's a tournament where money can be won. Which is why I was happy when ANET decided to differentiate between PvP and PvE skills. But were not talking about nerfing permas for the sake of PvP. We're talking about nerfing a build rooted in PvE that helps makes it easier for players to get those high end items. So is it sour grapes for those that followed "the rules of play" for their high end items not being so special anymore? That's what me thinks ultimately more than any "principle" someone else throws at me.

I'd much rather see systems set in place to allow less-experienced players easier routes in experiencing the more difficult areas. This is where the Normal and Hard mode settings can accomplish. A tone down of elite areas in Normal mode would go a huge way in allowing newcomers in playing through the content, while the players looking to go through the challenging portions can do so in Hard mode.

In regards to letting less experienced players a chance to get the high-end drops, why? The only things those items have going for them is the rarity. The only things you truly "need" are obtained at the first area where you can get max gear.

And if ANet does want to make rare drops easier to get I'd much rather see an increase in droprate - or hell, I'd rather ANet just simply give everyone the items. Making the items easier to get through dumbing down the gameplay is not the proper route.

sf is not godmode

^^ I believe that's answer to your "question", couldn't have said it any better. bear in mind GW2 will have less skills because ArenaNet sees too many skills as a problem. I especially like the bold part.