Actually...i think SF should stay.

And at that time, I warned that this would happen. I stopped playing DoA too. SF is not the only way to clear UW just as Ursan is not the only way to clear DoA so UW would follow the same path towards DEATH as DoA did.

People here bitch too much without thinking of the consequences while others bitch just to boost their personal in-game wealth.

If UW becomes a lot more difficult, fewer people would play in it. I dont care for UW anymore and I stopped trading ectos or anything else in the game. I just do zmissions with my heroes and work on titles on my characters.

In that sense, the game economy is already DEAD to me, especially the upcoming nerfs doesn't make it anymore appealing. If farming becomes near impossible, I would probably stop my weekly Nicholas farm also. Yes, please reduce the things to do in this game and make it die faster.

[insert random troll]


moar sf threads plz

Totally agreed. Thing are only 'easy' because of gimmicks. Try rolling a balance in HM and most of the time you'll get raped. Something like a lowering of 33 to 20% or less of the bonus attack speeds etc. should be better...

Is SF overpowered? Of course. However, I feel the real root of the problem with SF is not SF itself but Essence of Celerity.

Back when Essence of Celerity recharged skills 25% faster, all classes could maintain SF 24/7. Thus, a much wider array of classes could participate in speed clears. However, when Anet changed Essence of Celerity to recharge skills 20% faster, only sins were able to maintain Shadow Form 24/7. And so only sins can do speed clears like Shards of Orr, Bogroots, Frostmaw, etc. And as expected (and rightfully so), quite a few folks including myself became upset about this. (In fact, the only reason I created my assassin was to be able to continue doing UW qq.)

I really think that if all classes could perma, then this current uproar over Shadow Form wouldn't exist. Revert the Essence nerf, and I think this would satisfy quite a few folks.

Recently, myself and a few others put together a new UWSC ('dayway' xD) which experienced groups can use to complete UW in two consets (or 1 for experienced teams):

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10415339

As you can see our current team is made up of 3 A/Es, 2 A/Mes, 1 A/D, 1 Rit/R and 1 E/Mo. So 6 sins and 2 others.

However, if essence of celerity still recharged skills 25% faster, then the team could also take Me/As and a D/A - thus more classes could participate (btw if Shadow Form isn't nerfed this Thursday, then we plan to do a full writeup of this teambuild and also change a couple things to make it more pug-friendly).

Finally, if SF does get nerfed I cringe at the thought of UW taking 2+ hours to complete and thus seeing ToA become a dead outpost like DoA. Does anyone really want that?

-DT

next please.....

I'm going to start pointing out the things wrong with this post:

First, instead of using sins to successfully doing it, you're STILL just using two classes: Warriors and monks. Isn't this the main problem with shadow form, that it only allows one class in the UW? You're still doing that with this setup, just warriors instead of sins.

Second: I asked that question rehtorically - You said you didn't bother with aggro control. To me, this means not bothering watching what aggro you get and don't get - If you don't bother with this, you will usually end up with pretty much all the aggro in the chamber. Of course I don't do this - Most people I group up with aren't stupid enough to leeroy into everything.

You also keep posting NM - The idea is doing these in HM, which is what shadow form allows you to do! While like I said, I don't think it'll make it impossible to do without shadow form, I think it'll be so hard that it won't even be worth trying, even with a highly coordinated team.

Oh yea, and to whomever says that tank and spank is not a good idea... Let's look at the pros vs the cons:
Pros:
Having a dedicated tank means you can take more aggro successfully
Instead of 2-3 monks attempting to heal/prot the entire party, they have to heal just ONE target. Healing one very protted target is a lot easier then trying to heal an entire party of mildy protted targets. Especially in high-end areas.
Having a tank means that you can ball groups effectively, thus making AoE spells a lot more effective. Instead of your searing flames only hitting 3-4 foes, they're hitting 20+ foes - It's a lot more energy effective for the entire team.
Assuming the tank is good, it's considerably quicker to ball then nuke then attempt to lure one small group, kill it, then move on.
Cons: You lose the damage/healing of one party member. And depending on the tank, this may even be void.

Why else do you think that DoA teams consist of a bonder and a UA? The UA doesn't even do much, aside from an Extinguish and heal party whenever the tank is crippled - And res, when something bad happens. When not using a shadow form tank, obviously, the UA has to do these a bit more, but it's not like the UA has to spam heals to keep the party alive - Just one member.

I would love to see any team do DoA, in hard mode, without using any sort of tanking - Spellbreaker, obby flesh, shadow form, defy pain, what have you - In a reasonable amount of time, for all 4 areas in one go. Oh, and since we're all bitching about cons, PvE skills, etc, none of those either. Let's say, a reasonable amount of time is around the two hour mark.

Totaly agree whit you nice point

lets just make every monster in UW/FoW and DoA lvl 30 and remove SF from the game and then put even more monsters in the elite area's!

Ya know what i can't help think this is the exact same topic we usually have with a different title....which makes me think the impact on changing Anets mind on detailed changes is slighlty low. I wouuld consider it a huge waste of time now if they just backed out too

I personally don't care one way or the other about sf, it doesn't affect me or my enjoyment of guildwars. Yes I occasionally use it to run my gf or friends places (female sins just have a spiffy looking ims run animation, except with scythes and hammers) But I can run places with my ranger or warrior to replace that.

(though since that announcement merely said changes to sf, I would laugh hysterically if they buffed it, but we know they intend to nerf it)

Anyway, wondering what other skills are already in the cross-hairs as blanket nerf to farming is what bothers me. I have been playing 4 years off and on, so I have seen farming builds come and go. It is the blanket / band-aid nerfs that screw over other builds along with the intended target that irritate me.

I am still confused why anet is so anti-farming. (loot scaling / anti farm code etc)

I play a lot of different games and gw has one of the worst in game economies that I have seen. And it is highly due to a lack of money sinks to remove gold from circulation, so it just accumulates.

gw is a perfectly designed game with sh*t balance.

you can't since this is a team game where you need 7 other guys to do stuff with and if 99% of ppl run sh*tway you don't want to take part in.. then you are screwed.

i don't really care if SF gos now, more balanced teams are getting into UW than before (ish), and killing off SF might just knock a few farmers off the game population. if we're lucky it could just mean lots more people are accepted into balanced groups.
as soon as SF goes away another, maybe less powerful, solo/tanking build will come along. how long has SF been around for anyway?
*applause for standing up for your SF beliefs anywhere*

The purely blood-thirsty nature of the SF bashing is only rivaled by that which Ursan received. It's also the point of being irrational.

Contrary to what some Guru posters would have you believe, Shadow Form is not God-mode by it's design, rather by the design of many areas. Secondly, the Permasin isn't even profitable to any degree outside of dungeons runs and UW. They will nerf SF, but I still don't think it's the main issue. Poorly designed "nerfs" to areas did little to discourage the use of Permasins, who are nothing more than a build taking advantage of those poor designs in areas. Time vs. reward is ridiculous in many areas, this discourages balanced groups and requires players to use the current meta to attain any wealth.

Speaking purely about UW here, there are many counters to SF (one being a core skill -- Leech Signet) yet it was never equipped on mobs. The beauty of it is that it replaces an almost identical skill (Power Drain) so that it doesn't penalize balanced groups.

Anet in the past has done many alterations to areas, pop-ups being the most notable, to deter specific farming builds yet they never even seemed to try it for Permasins -- Skeletons were not an issue for UWSC, let's be honest. So instead they'll likely nerf a skill across the board that is only an issue in a handful of scenarios? That seems like overkill.. or hiding ineptitude of the staff to properly handle current metas. Shadow Form received no wrath from the GW population prior to it's dominance in the UW. This makes it obvious that it's not the skill, rather the dominance of said skill in elite areas. Fix the areas, and hopefully rewards to help push balanced groups, and Shadow Form is once again relegated to just another farming build.

I covered most of this previously, but I don't feel like typing it all out again.

NERF SF INTO THE GROUND! and buff ursan.

i second that. <-- Read it

SF is fine in PvE.

Google:
Results 1 - 10 of about 507,000 for buy guild wars gold. (0.36 seconds)

Bing:
ALL RESULTS1-10 of 3,870,000 results

Yahoo:
11,200,000 results for buy guild wars gold

All these gold sellers cannot be getting the gold/items to sell exclusively from hacked accounts.

Maybe I am reading too much between the lines from Regina's post, but this makes more sense than the rest of this thread. Especially when looking at it from ANETs point of view. I really doubt ANET gives a crap about us normal players getting rich from SF or making the game "too easy" for us.

Reginas post:
This was not an attempt to address all of the concerns about Shadow Form Assassins. That will happen in the next major skill update, which will include big changes to Shadow Form and may also include changes to other prominent farming skills.

My opinion is our "concerns" are secondary to the thorn in any MMO's side. What better way to limit gold sellers ability to obtain in game gold than to nerf all "prominent farming skills". It will not wipe em out but I would be willing to bet it will slow the sellers down alot.

Oh well my two cents....back to lurking......

It's the age old simple answer. If you don't like the skill, don't use it!


Edit: And by the way, if it was "God Mode", PUGS should never fail then right?

No. As long as SF can deal DPS I will never agree with keeping invincibility in a game.

There is no point in arguing about it anymore, Anet is going to change it. The only thing to do is wait and see what happens.

You have a point there. But that won't be different from the current situation. Who do we have in ToA right now?
Group A) SC teams doing FOW with SF and manly or Mobway (slowly getting replaced by dayway)
Group B) ppl lfg to do FoW or UW for fun or for hall ...mostly first timers.

The two groups never mix. Whether you buff or nerf SF.
These days ToA is populated with Group B) mainly because of Dhuum.

If sf is nerfed Group B will still be lfg in ToA except they start using a different type of tank or ... blasphemy!... they don't use tanks at all and will go with balanced.

If sf is nerfed Group A will do the next most profitable farm that fits their level of experience. If that is not another form of UW/FOW farm, they will disappear from ToA and will go someplace else. So what?

Btw, I am 100% sure that with the sf nerf another godmode build will be born (in addition to ER). Haha, recession or not ...there is no way anet would "decrease the profit rate" of the (soon to be ex-)perma population.

I for one will probably quit after SF nerf. Yes, SF is easy to maintain and makes elite areas simple to complete, but it also makes so many things actually possible. Being (mostly) invincible coupled with the mobility that SF provides allows you to concentrate on aggro control and running rather than staying alive. Completing pools in 5mins, pits or 4H in 7 etc. all take skill, and are simply not possible without SF.

Sure without SF you can still finish the UW, but can you finish it in 7mins? Can you solo every quest? I don't want to just complete areas willy-nilly in a balanced team, I want to design a build and a method then refine it to achieve the fastest time possible.

Because obviously online RPG games are meant to be played only by rocket science elitists with an IQ over 170 with 7 friends alike them. Because wait.... ANet does not want "retards" to buy a copy and enjoy playing a game, cause "retard" money is no-good money for ANet.

Not to mention how "retarded" it is to refer about someone's "skill" in a game as being "retarded". Obviously people with great GW skills get to be elected presidents and are known to have invented the cure for cancer, aids and what not.

This is my feeling as well (I won't quit, but will be extremely disappointed for sure).

While creating the 'dayway' UWSC I had the most fun playing GW that I've had in quite a while - as I was on vent many nights with other UW pros trying to figure out a quicker way to do UW than the 90+ mins pug-time (assuming they even complete the run) which was typical prior to dayway. When we got the 28 minute run, we were all extremely satisfied and excited that we got the run down to such a manageable time.

However, if post-SF the best possible time to complete UW is 2+ hours, then imho that's just simply way too long to spend in an area - especially if one of your teammates fails and causes the party to be booted back to ToA and wasting all the time you just spent (at least now we can do a 'relaxed' dayway run in 35-45 mins, and so the time investment isn't so great that a failed-run seems like a complete waste of time)...

-DT

this^^^^

apply this to any area where i'm spending 1.5-3+hrs to get double diamonds. nothx.

I did not refer to people's skills in a game. There are 2 kinds of gamers: the ones who are good and the ones who are bad. In every single game. Now that if people play pve in a game like guild wars(a pvp game(originally) with terrible pve) can only be bad. sorry.

So... making a single iWin skill for an elite area that is suppose to be the hardest thing to do in the game in order to make it a cake walk and complete it in under 15-20 minutes is a good thing? err... no... They call it an Elite Area for a reason people... its suppose to be hard.

Holy high and mighty trolling. Haven't seen this pedigree since.. well, the other Shadow Form threads.

are you sure?

Well Underworld is or once was considered an elite area. I would think it would require some level of time. I feel like I just stated the obvious.

2 Ectos for 2+ hours (3+ for most pugs) is not elite....I could get more by just doing Z quests with multiple characters, solo farming, running, etc. If I factor in the percentage of pug failures with "balanced" builds....well f**k that the reward doesn't even come close to what I get from normal casual play.

Stuff like mini dhumm and eternal sword is so much like a real life lottery, I will probably come out on top if I just do easy farm and buy it.

Sure, make it hard....but if I don't come out after 3 hours with a pug with at least 30k in the bag then no thanks.

Or...make it easier and leave the reward as it is...their call.

Of course, they'll probably choose the "DoA method" instead.

PvE player = bad player? Yes, I'm sure you are mightily wrong in that matter.

Their goals may not be the same as yours, but that in no way makes them "bad".

Most PvE people I played with is pretty bad...

eg. not carrying rezzes, not switching to shield sets, insisting on healing breeze is awesomezorz, running 400 hp while yelling at monks, no position awareness. The list goes longer.

When I play with my HA buddies or old GvG friends.... PvE is ACTUALLY ENJOYABLE

The problem being the only criteria it meets for an "elite" area is the time involved for a balanced group. The rewards are minimal outside of a luck-of-the-draw chest. They could make a two hours mission with little reward, but that doesn't make it elite.

Pick up some random PvP'ers.. not much different. Like an entire team watching as the lone anti-caster is taking down my monk while bashing on minions. The average player is just that -- average. Given that a high percentage of knowledgeable players have moved on, that would mean what was once considered below average or even poor is now the mean. This fact applies for all areas, PvE or PvP.

as someone else said, sf nerf won't bring anything to the community, just like ursan nerf didn't bring anything

PvE doesn't need balance, PvP does... as long perma sins can't gank your guild lord, who cares if they can complete uw in 2 hours (with a 90% failure rate for pugs) ?

I disagree. What is supposed to make UW an Elite area is the difficulty involved & the high possibilty (relatively speaking) of a party wipe, as lamented by so many regarding balanced groups/PUGs in every single "SF" thread.
I agree that the rewards should match the challenge involved. Right now with UWSCs & SF, the rewards are much greater than the challenge involved. Conversely, with balanced groups/ PUGs, the rewards are too low for the challenge involved. Back in the day, when ectos were worth 12K +, the reward matched the challenge for balanced groups/pugs.

I agree with you to a point. Difficulty is definitely a requirement for an elite area, but I think it goes hand in hand with the reward of completing that area as well. In the end, there are many difficult (for PUG) areas in the game that most would not consider elite. I think this comes down to UW being historically as one of two end game areas when the game was first released and the then reward (I agree with you there). Maybe we'll see ecto prices rise in the wake of the nerf making the reward for PUG's worth the effort and time to invest. I doubt it though, unfortunately.

The fact that people consider a "balanced" team to require a tank to hold aggro really shows how much this game has fallen, and how much the mindset of many players have grown accustomed to that.

I think SF should stay, but should be non-damaging, just a harmless tank

^


12 chars.

I agree with upier

Make Res Sig Stronger with 200 Dmg aoe..and when will upier run for president?