Next Skill Balance

Regina and all the other guys in ANET atm aren't working for us, they are working for their money! (at least by pve side)
Else the updates would be a lot different

skill doesn't exist in GW since Nightfall (hi Searing "tards" Flame !)

Who are you and what have you done with Regina?

But good info, thanks for the post

Realistically, 600/Smite is nowhere near the problem that people perceive SF to be. SF, can solo. 600/Smite you need at least another player sometimes two.

600 is also a lot slower than a full team, and is generally only used in a few places.

CoF, where all the items are worthless anyway making the only point of doing the 'farm', is grinding Vangard points, slow chest running, and Diessia Chalices and Rin Relics.

MQSC, is probably the most popular place for 600/smite. And here it's used for Luxon faction gain. Drops are secondary importance, as are chests, it's mainly about Luxon faction. I spend 2 years slowly working my way to Saviour, finally managed to retain my sanity and maxed Luxon using 600/Smite with this.

DTSC, the Kurzick version of MQSC, again drops and chests are secondary to faction gain.

SoO, used to be used a fair amount here, but the Sinway SC is now the preferred method. Might see a comeback if SF is nerfed. But again, isn't really as fast as a good full human team.

Bergen Hot Springs.. think most of the farming here is 55'rs and not 600/Smites.

So if you look at that list, you'll see that 3 out of the 4 places that see's a fair amount of 600/Smite usage, HAS ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT ON THE ECONOMY WHATSOEVER. And is really primarily used as a method of reducing some of the quite INSANE grind (10,000,000 faction anyone).

So the way I really see it, there's really little or no need to nerf 600/Smite. It's not effecting the economy, it's helping people grind out their titles. It's not the only builds being requested in any party formation. It's not a solo farming build, and yes it takes a modicum of skill to use correctly (if I can do SoO sinway, but not as 600/Smite then it takes more skill than I have).

Please stop trying to nerf things that do not need fixing.. and do as you said you were going to do for SF, and adjust the areas concerned instead, shouldn't be that hard there's only few of them.

like all you guys said to us perma's...''face it its gonna happen ...get used to it''

its gives u a taste of what we have to look forward to....nothing ...enjoy!

Logical error. Of COURSE they are working for us, just like any industry that sells a product or service, without paying customers they wouldn't have a job.

In the absence of subscriptions, what ANet SHOULD be focusing on is retention for GW2 and spreading the GOOD name of GW and ANet among the playerbase, instead of nerfing popular and fun builds that people enjoy, it is a game after all, they should be adjusting areas and the way things work in game, such as reward/time ratio.

The reason the updates are as they are is because ANet and NCSoft are testing the waters to see what the level of chumpery is, and exactly how many suckers are in their game. With the advent of the $9.99 costume pack, they now can do a visual headcount of all the idiots with too much real world cash and not enough common sense. If the level of suckers meets or exceeds their expectations, they'll continue with adding more and more MACRO transactions to the game, while reducing content updates from their original sales model.

*cough* remove aftercast on shadowstep *cough*

I'm sorry, but.. when are we getting a skill balance? It's December 20th..

No further skill update this year. If you read the first post, Regina said that. No date is forecast at present.

Let me quote myself:
Wanting similar treatment has nothing to do with being neutral.

No I am not insane, thank you. I am trying to have a discussion. A discussion is a dialogue in which participants state their opinions and support them with arguments. If no arguments are given, the opinion becomes worthless and the discussion becomes useless. Let me show you how a valid argument for the opinion "I think 600/smite should be nerfed" can look like:

• "I think it should be nerfed because the build is overpowered in comparison to other builds. Under normal circumstances, a build should never be able to be this efficient at achieving what it's doing."
• "I think it should be nerfed because the build is able to survive and kill almost anything. It has hardly any counters, and as a result it is so widely used, it discourages the use of any other build."
• "I think it should be nerfed because farming is a bad thing for the economy. It makes casual players poor compared to the people who grind 24/7. This is in turn, bad for the community."

"I think it should be nerfed because it's fair treatment in regard to the future nerf of SF" is not a valid argument because "fair treatment" by itself is not good enough. I'll illustrate this by the following example: "I think John, who is a douchebag, should be hit in the face. I think Mike, should be hit in the face as well. After all, it's only fair treatment." What the heck? Until you can prove or at least support with valid arguments (see above) if and why Mike is an equal or bigger douchebag as John, you can not legitimize Mike being hit, and as such, this has nothing to do with neutrality. It only gives way for the assumption that you wish to see Mike suffer equally as John. The same goes for 600/smite.

You see, that's what happens when you don't support your opinion with arguments. People have to guess what they are, and since you didn't specify any yourself, people assume that you have no rational arguments, and that your opinion is therefore based on something irrational (emotional), such as revenge. If you don't want me to assume this, then next time make sure I don't have to, by supporting your opinion with arguments from the start. And if you don't want me to believe it at this point, at least start by denying it.

Because, as mentioned above, you haven't provided any reasons to why you think 600/smite should be nerfed, and as a result, you are forcing me to assume things. If you don't want me to assume things, then support your statements with arguments. Also "you can't comprehend written text" is an obvious fallacy, as it can easily be turned around into "you can't write comprehensive text", and is therefore, worthless.

Also, making fun of someone or "having fun with someone" as you call it, is not good for a discussion thread. It usually transforms a civilized discussion into a savage flame war. So don't do it.

I have no problem with people who give their reasons. In fact, I support the nerfing of 600/smite, and I gave my own reasons as well. At the same time, you are now referring to reasons in favor of nerfing 600/smite in this thread, while in your first post, you were making fun of the lack of people in this thread in favor of doing so. This is as contradicting as things can get. You need to stop making fun of people, and start posting your own arguments in the future.

Well 600/smite is a possible candidate to skill rework according to Regina BUenaobra´s post so any discuss about it to defend SF or not is rather pointless.

*cough* remove aftercast on shadowstep *cough* <- Dont think it will happen but maybe in pve .... shorten recharges ? :/

Gimmick builds are not fun as for SF its god mode said and spoken we dont want GOD mode in games pushing prices down so the economy is upside down hey i can get prestige stuff for almost no effort.

Yeah. (@ Xenex and Meridon)

No love for the smiting attribute? The smiting attribute is in my opinion pretty useless in pve and pvp, except for 2 or 3 skills that are actually worth taking. It would be nice to rework some of the smiting elites and skills to actually give monks a secondary option to a full-time healer job

For you, they are for others. Stop cramming your opinions down others' throats.

Its not god mode. That's an argumental fallacy and one that has not been backed up by any evidence. To the contrary many besides myself have proven that no skill is god mode in this game, one of the easy proofs is PvP combat. There's a reason why SF is not used there.

Its quite a simple connection to make. PvP changes the skill environment, with each player always facing something new or different, and never knowing what they might face. If PvE were like that, then there would be NO issue with farming builds of any kind, much less one slightly more powerful one.

Would you agree that its ok to pay money for costumes? They are prestige skins, and ANet simply took all the grind out of it and put them on the store. The same thing could be done with ALL their prestige armors, but of course people would QQ all day not realizing its the same exact premise.

The economy is an ILLUSION made and maintained by people's perception of value of non-common skinned items, which have no inherent functional value over collector items.

Removing a build that can be used for things other than farming for elite skinned items because its too efficient is not a problem of the build or skill, its the areas that are poorly designed.

I've said this time and time again, but none of you seem to get it. The PROBLEM is area design coupled with a poor reward/time ratio. Fix those, and SF goes away on its own. In the process, fixing areas to be more PUG friendly by varying skill makeup of the mobs also could possibly increase the marginal utility of underused classes such as Rangers and Mesmers.

But NOOO, all the "elitist" jerks want SF nerfed so they can have their status quo cake and eat it too. What you absolutely fail to realize is that by affirming this process to ANet, you'll only be degrading the play experience and game quality in the long run.

Or the tl;dr version: you can't fix a leaky roof by bashing it with a hammer.

SF and 600 smite are being nerfed merely out of principle. Not because SF jerks want status-quo whatever.

Stop over-analyzing.

I just love the fact that the people who screamed 'NERF SF ITS RIDICULOUS!!', are now complaining about their precious little monks.. haha.. thanks for cracking me up

Well, that's not really our fault now, is it?

sf has had its time. its broken and overpowered build that allowed records to be set that will probably never be challenged without it. now its time for anet to clean up this mess and fix the 600/smite and SF skills. the only people that whining about the nerfs are the ones that before SF ran ursan and before ursan did nothing thus these people have always moved from 1 OP gimmick to another. To you types of players, take a month or two off let the people who play and understand the game theory craft and test some new stuff. I am sure these same elitest snobs you all complain about will agian post these builds to wiki and you will all be able to play the elite area's agian and button mash your way to riches

good day.

@Kaleban

thanks for many of your posts, i'm glad to see someone posting on a similar wavelength to myself and many of my ingame friends (i just wish more of them posted here but they have no desire to participate in alot of the immature flaming that goes of on these forums so their voices go unheard). People need to start thinking outside of the box and their own personal selfishness and more for whats good for the survivability of the community and game. And as we've both pointed out its changes to makeup of certain mobs and areas that is needed not the nerfing of SF and 600. The UW update was a perfect example of a successful update, and to not do something similar to FoW would be a joke imo. That said the rewards from the end chests are a joke, if your gonna give me a crappy dead air staff i think i atleast deserve a q9 for the time and effort put in rather than a merchant fodder q13. A friend even got a non-max gold from a chest during a HM UW run last night, whats that about?

I enjoy playing perma SF, i enjoy playing 600/smite. The problem isn't with the builds themselves its that they are capable of doing too much. The solution is to change some of the areas to reduce their abilities, or atleast more skill to pull it off.

I also enjoy playing 55Mo, 55N, 55Mes, terra, obs tanks, VwK builds, trapping, pet farming, cryer/energy surge, ursan, spirit farmer, 100b/cyclone/whirling def, and so much much more. None of these builds are a problem, they are no less "god like" in what they do, and in some cases more successful than a perma or 600, they just can't do as much because many areas have foes that have counters to the builds. Fix the areas not the builds like you did back in 2006 to reduce the 55's effectiveness.

The nerf to SF last year stopped non assassin characters running the build successfully and looks to have resulted in all those people who can no longer run it complain because they can no longer compete with an assassin character. Long standing GW players aren't defending its use because we are all assassins, many of us play all character types and my GWAMM is a ranger. Its just one build setup/character from many that we have fun with. Killing your way through CoF as a 600/smite takes time, running through a dungeon with a SF, killing a boss for a key and running to the end boss like in SoO i agree is wrong (but still fun). Don't kill the build, make them have to fight their way, like the main team in the UW mobway setup. If i'm doing a mobway UW run i'll play lead tank in the main team, if i'm doing urgoz i'll go as echo/energy surge mesmer, if i'm doing 4man foundry i'll play QZ ranger, i'm happy to play any class whatever i'm doing. Just because i enjoy playing perma or 600 that does not define me as a perma or 600, especially as my mains a ranger, and my 2nd fav character is mesmer. But i do have fun playing those roles just like every other, they do have a place in the game. Last years SF update worked well, they just failed to follow it up by updating areas of the game.

And as for you people saying pve takes no skill, ok lets take away pvx, guru builds, YT videos, etc and see how far you get working out stuff for yourself. I can assure you, you won't be half the player you are now without the help of someone else. I have more "skill" than i had 4 years ago, 3 years ago, 2 years ago, last year, last week and there is not a player in the game who's been playing less than 12 months that has more skill or knowledge than me. Thats not because i am naturally a better gamer, but because i have had alot more time/hours gameplay to build up my skill and knowledge of the game than they have and to actually put it into practice and gain experience rather than just talk about it. To suggest theres no skill involved in GW's is ridiculous. I've got alot of farming videos on YT for different classes, i'll put the template code up, tell em what spec weaps and armour to use, links and instructions on the videos and yet still theres plenty of people who struggle, how can this be if theres no skill involved? How many times have you been in a team running a button smashing meta build and had a team wipe? Please, lets just just stop the trolling and fix the real issues!!

And as for those people applauding the potential nerfs who no longer even play the game but "might" come back if they do, sorry but your opinion is invalid and to suggest you might comeback if they nerf sf/600, come on, who's gonna take that seriously. You've moved on, so please move on and leave those of us still committed to the game and actually playing it to influence what happens. Maybe we'll see you for again for a brief period when GW2 comes out, but i seriously doubt you'll be back because of some nerfs, more so when we're talking pve nerfs and your mostly claiming to be pvp players. Whatever your reasons for quitting were it had nothing to do with sf or 600

QFT, /agree with all.

BTW, your farming videos are top notch, helped me with the Spirit Spammer Solo build, so thanks. That in itself shows more dedication and a willingness to contribute to the community than any of the rest of these yahoos ever even think of.

Personally, I think the issue is just one of egocentrism. Whereas a few want to see the game quality improved across the board, the majority just want the game improved for THEM, and tend to separate into little "camps."

Ah well, I've come to realize that arguing serves no purpose, every thread here is an exact replica of the "Internet Commenters" although some of us are a bit more long winded lol. No amount of logic or evidence is going to sway someone who's sole reason for their argument is their personal opinion of it being bad, evil or morally bankrupt, with no actual supporting rationale or even point.

ok, let's say we keep SF as it is. sins are perma-untouchable. we change the following locations:
* doa (all five parts)
* fow
* 16 dungeons, with duncan's subdungeons (i've even seen permarunner for frostmaw hm, insane imho)
* at least some locations in hard mode, so that permasins can't be godlike while vanquishing... let's say 25% - about 38 locations
* add misions and eotn quests

that nets at least ~60 areas + missions to rework.

it's not just 'adding some crap to stop permasins'. if you add too overpowered crap, balanced (or other) teams will have serious problems with completing the task - it's not our goal, we just want to stop SF, not rise the general difficulty of the whole game. if you add underpowered crap, sins will work around it in three days. if you add the same as skeletons from uw but in another form, people would qq because it's no new content and it makes some areas damn harder.

but then, let's say that there is a solution and anet finds it. SF is not working in those crucial locations at it's full abilities (or at all), while balanced teams are not hurt and they actually even enjoy the changes. since SF is not working anymore, a lot of people would either reroll from assassins to another characters (probably unbalanced monks or SR-abusing necros) or leave the game. because SF has been nerfed, just other way around. who wants to leave will leave anyway, who wants to stay and enjoy the normal game will stay. it's as simple as that.

and i think that nerfing a skill is more convenient than changing ~60 locations simply to make a skill nerfed - they could balance out more skills or give us two new mobs in that time instead.

wait are you proposing that the whole game be redesigned around Shadowform and 600/smite? Really? Please do elaborate how you would do this without negatively affecting other teams that choose not to use perma or 600/smite

Im having trouble seeing why people are so eager to get PVE skills nerfed. Its not like it affect your gameplay in anyway. You dont get attacked by 10 permas as soon as you leave Kamadan trying to steal your inventory. The only way it can affect you, is if prices of something you got drops because of easy farming. Is that your problem ? I think farming is a fun relaxed gaming that keeps my interest for GW up, If I can longer farm solo, I really dont know what else to do ingame right now. If you loose us now with 1 more year before GW2, we probably will find another game that gets our attention and money.

+1 to this whole thing...it's stupid to suggest changing the entire game to nerf a skill/build rather than...nerfing the skill/build.

Give every monster Well of the Profane, and Ether Signet.

It's really not that far fetched imo.

The same reason that Base Defenders are not available as henchmen. Games need to retain some semblance of balance...they can't have 5 skills that are relatively balanced, and one skill that kills everything on the map in one cast.

People play games to make themselves feel like they have achieved something, using their wits. People put together a build that they think will be successful in a given area, and when they succeed, they pat themselves on the back. With SF, and to a much lesser extent, 600/smite, there is no "thinking", there's no using your wits, there's no thought process at all...just run the god build.

It has nothing to do with "omg it is hurting my gaming", it more has to do with "holy shit ANet is terrible at balancing a game". Keeping an retardedly overpowered skill in the game, especially for as long as ANet has, is an insult to any competent gamer...and yes, I mean gamer, not farmer that spends 6 hours a day running speed clears to get phat lewtz.

Thats it dude , glad to see theres ppl here that uses its brain. Some of us are tired to explain something that is so clear to see like 2+2=4 over and over and over and oooover again.
I hope this update is not going to smitterboon SF , i want to use it as a Stealth or something else that is also good but some ppl are so scared that are seeing UB ghosts everywhere and point some nonsense arguments like "ghosts towns" or unbalanced places are a logical reason to keep unbalanced and broken stuff ingame ..... seriously , the "WTF is this guy thinking" List keeps growing .....

The problem is that the other side either doesn't read or simply ignores arguments that blow a hole in their own beliefs. You even get fail statements like "no one had posted any reason why...".

Given that ANet will eventually (don't hold your breath) re-balance Broken Form, this whole thread is now rather pointless.

Exactly, an immediate effect could be as simple as that. A perma is not invincible, it is just capable of alot. Buffing up or adding other skills that certain monsters use to counter SF may not 100% always stop a perma but it will drastically reduce the number of people running it if an inexperienced player wastes more time failing and more than likely enforce the use of some support.

DoA areas are not perma soloable, they require at the least some bond support. Gloom and City use the SF Commando with bonder. Foundry is mostly about 600/smite/QZ the permas just there to mop up certain bits and gets pwned by the titans aftershock. For Stygian a perma would need the support of a full set of bonders and even then isn't the best choice of tank. They may not be full teams, but they are teams and they all take time, what do you want? to get rid of farming all together? Don't be so ridiculous, thats what mmorpg's are about and how they manage to survive for so long. I'll happily participate in balanced guild teams in these areas, but i enjoy doing my own thing too or joining up with a couple of buddies. If we were forced to do everything as a full team all the time, over and over, many gamers tolerance levels would be seriously tested and the game wouldn't have anywhere near the longevity for most players that its had.

I'm not suggesting changing every elite area or dungeon in the same way as UW, but FoW would be a definite start and welcomed, and tbh you can't do one without doing the other. But changing groups around and making it more difficult to just storm your way through them wouldn't be that big a deal when backed up by certain skill/AI adjustments. Those skills that counter SF will have added benefits to other professions who will then be needed to support the team tank, wether its to help keep him alive or to provide the damage needed because the tank needs to use more defensive skills. There is no need to kill the build altogether, or to kill every solo SF farm, in the same way 55 farming was never killed off.

Looks good to me

Just put in randomly spawned monsters throughout PvE maps, inability to predict what foes we are up against will render taking the same build to farm one single spot repeatedly useless

hence no need to balance pve skills ever plus keeping the game alive forever since everytime you play its different.

Why dont you ask the game devs to setup an entire new campiagn while your at it. We couldnt get a simple gwamm emote afther 5 years of begging; what makes you think they...... Drean on. Your seggestion is absurd. Asking anet to change an entire game for the sake of one broken skill? Take it as a fact. The era of Shadow Form will soon be over. PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!! Adapt or perish. The choice is up to you.

Coming here and arguing that 600/smite isn't overpowered is complete and utter bullshit. And if you think otherwise - you are wrong.
But something being overpowered in PvE does not mean that it needs to be trashed!
And I don't see why people still have issues understanding this.

Now thats your problem, your narrow mindedly looking at one build setup and campaining to linch mob it out of the game rather than looking at why it is capable of doing what it can in so many areas of the game. Its not a skill imbalance, its just another build like any other, which if nerfed will just be replaced by something else unless the real issues are addressed. The imbalance is with the AI and mobs they face. The majority of skills that get through SF would have little effect on a balanced team. You want a challenge when you do something and to have to think, yet you people complain things are too easy to do and then you say you don't want the general difficulty increasing? As i said above, try thinking out of the box and get past your 2+2=4 and maybe somewhere down the line we'll get the problems fixed without spoiling peoples fun, or dare i say, increase our level of fun.

This!, Nothing else to say here.

/Agree

I was posting wishes for that to happen since early 2005 when first 55hp monks started to wtfpwn almost everything.
Randomization of mob spawns and many surprises promotes balanced teambuilds and makes the gameplay much more interesting = pure win.

Bullshit.

Compared to SF, 600/smite is hardly overpowered. It requires at least 2 players and, depending on the area, you need a 3rd (QZ). And, the most significant difference of all, 600/smite doesn't make you immune to attacks, while SF does. Besides that, you need to dedicate about 7 slots to your build, while SF only requires 3 (or 2). See where this is going?

Randomization of mob spawns won't effect standard PvE. People will still use the same old Discord way. Besides, lore-wise your idea sucks.

Woah , good distraction tactic but no.

You can do that and rework SF and 600/smite , if not ... then just the rework will do fine .

That would be kinda cool. Probably way difficult to implement now, but cool. It would absolutely force balanced game play, because you'd have to prepare for every type of enemy.

Just because 600/smite isn't as mental as SF, that does not make it balanced.

When you have 2 (or 3) players completing areas in HM that are designed for a team or 8, without a increase in skill of the players to make up for the lack or 6 (or 5) players, you simply can not argue that is something that is balanced.