It's time the anti farming and anti solo inquisition comes to an end.

That's not really what the inquisition was about OP but I suppose I agree with the rest of your points. The only time I was ever mildly annoyed by PuG shifts was when Ursan jumped into progressively more exclusive team formations. In the case of these solo and team farms I've never really had a problem and if anything they keep a nice steady flow of high end items coming to market. I wouldn't hold my breath on this being the end of all of this however. There is a small but extremely vocal group that has gotten results in the past and wants to see these things removed for purely selfish reasons. Until Anet starts saying "no" this group is always going to come back to the table...I give it 6 months maximum.

Well, in the interview @ PAX, when questioned about Shadow Form, Linsey Murdock states that they've been lingering on these nerfs because they were afraid of the reaction of farmers. She cites the precedent of Ursan: even if it's still playable and powerful, people don't want to use it anymore, since it's "nerfed".

Guess who's been screaming the loudest for months then: farmers had the developers in check so far. And, guess what, SF and 600/Smite are still playable, functional and efficient, just a little toned down.

If you want to play the game "as you like" with no intervention from developers and no input from the community playing it, well, online games are not for you. Get a single player game.

Read again ArenaNet's stand on imba builds. They will ALWAYS nerf a widely-used skill that makes high-end content too easy. Older accounts will remember the loss of the 50-minion armies, middle-aged accounts the Ursan nerf, and now young ones the SF, SoS, OF and HW nerfs. All focused on the same company stance - if you want the good stuff, you will work for it.

"Ultimately, we focused on the lack of trade-offs in builds centered around Shadow Form and, to a lesser degree, other sources of invulnerability. All builds should have trade-offs. Extreme defense should come at the price of offense. Extreme offense should come at the cost of defense. The most efficient characters for solo-farming should differ somewhat from the best characters for team play. The best team builds for clearing endgame content efficiently should not consist almost exclusively of a single profession. (For example, a 5-Obsidian-Flesh-Elementalist/3-Monk team that can clear the Underworld is fine, but a build like that should not feel like it's a significantly better way to play than using a more balanced team.) In addition, we've maintained our stance that endgame content should not be completed so easily or so quickly that it becomes trivialized. All of our changes are geared toward reinforcing those principles."

Or in the case of UW...A-Net changed the area itself due to farming builds. Thus making it much harder for any other options to complete it. Note: Servents of Grenth is rediculous....not luv for A-Net on that quest. (granted I can't stand babysitting mishs of any kind)

I dont rly think they added it for farm builds, its just for new content orso.

Hopefully someting like that will also come for FoW, its cool stuff.

OF is buffed! ~__~

You're comparing Anet to the spanish inquisition???

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahah...heheh...o oo

don't cry and just find another way to "solo farm"

Running != farming

If a build can solo, duo, or even trio an area designed for 8 people to have a challenge with, it is broken and has no place in an online game.

Game balance in PvE requires professions to be equally efficient in clearing actual missions and dungeons, once a profession becomes more efficient than another at clearing these areas it is imbalanced.
Which leaves two options:
1) Nerf the overpowered build
2)Buff every other build to the point where it becomes as effective as the overpowered build

Option 1 leads to gameplay that is still challenging, where option two makes you able to take any 8 people regardless of skill level and steamroll an elite area. Incidently, both options kill running, but only option two makes farming less effective by comparison to other builds.

I sort of agree with the OP but only because I think PvE is a crappy format that won't benefit from balance. Nerfs/Buffs or no, PvE won't change until the AI is improved. And even then, it will always be inferior to PvP anyway. Sucky format is sucky.

Because being told to "just buy a run" when you are trying to look for a legitimate group is fun, right?

i don't think I even need to write /sarcasm for people to know I'm being sarcastic.

Not Anet, the fanatic anti (solo) farming group and their arguments and behaviour. Especially when you realise that in GW there are no über items or gear that give you tremendous advantages like in other games.

I also like to point out that there's a big misunderstanding that (solo) farmers only play solo and thus should play an offline game. The beauty of GW is that you can play different styles depending on what you feel like when logging on.

Another misunderstanding is that it's all about the money or not be able to cope with nerfs. Most long time players already have everything they want, from gold to knowledge about the game.

This is about the fun of the hunt which decreases immensely by making it dull and boring. It's about PvE endgame content and enjoyable replayability and the importance of loot and farming in an RPG game, online or offline is irrelevant.

Let me get this straight, making you change one overpowered build every few months(or years) is somehow more dull and boring than using the same build over and over and over and over and over...

What is this, i don't even

No, but it's more fun than being unable to finish any elite areas because the only pugs going are limited to 3 classes, as they were for literally years. At least 600/smite lets people passenger through content where their classes aren't wanted or needed. Which is just a small sign of failure in Anet's area design, don't you think?

And smiting is more fun now, even if it takes 25% longer. And the smite need to have a brain, which has killed pugging, to an extent.

I've got absolutely no problem with farming, it's when builds are more effective at non-solo non-farming activities, UWSC was not solo, and it was not a farm. Farming builds have to, and have always had to cope with skill balance.

I can't speak for other people who wanted this update though.

Because doing the same thing for an extra 10 minutes a run (passive smiter with retribution) is an improvement right? What a waste of time for achieving the same as before, completing for example a smite run. And that's why it becomes dull and boring.

SF and 600/Smite were not farming builds.

Farming builds are, by their very nature, limited in scope. 55 is an example. In certain areas, it dominates everything it meets. However, if you try to use it as a general PvE build...the results aren't pretty.

This is a good thing. 55 should not be touched for this reason.

However, SF and 600/Smite weren't like this. They dominated most of the game, and often did it better than entire parties (admittedly, SF was much worse in this regard). That is not farming. That is taking a hammer and smashing PvE into little bitty pieces with it.

See the difference? There is nothing wrong with farming. If Anet really had a problem with it they would have nerfed SoS into the ground, or killed 55 monks. What Anet (rightly) has a problem with is builds that break PvE in half to the point that it becomes trivial, and people are left to look at the other professions going "why on earth would I use something so crappy when I can just use these guys?".


No, but there are builds that do. And that's why they got nerfed.

^Its hard for me to take you seriously when you compare this to being tortured and/or murdered by the inquisition.

I was... and still solo farm on my paragon, I don't do it often, but I still do it. Farming Dead Swords and Elemental Swords and Totem Axes. Sure, those items may not be worth much, but I farm them because they are easy to do so on my Paragon and it makes me money. So yea... I used something other then the "one build"

Most groups fail, because people are human, and have different life styles. How many times did you spent half an hour or more to get a group ready, then when play finally starts, the monk goes off to eat. The tank must rush off somewhere etc. That's what I liked about 600/smite. You have either a hero or a friend to depend on. I have spent countless times hours in dungeon or an elite area to fail because people afk. So why do people prefer a runner, because there is a 90-100% success rate.

Yes, if you go with your guild, and people you trust it is a different story.