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

1st time poster.. long time lurker...

i have to say.. being 37 and playing pong when it first came out... games have changed a wee bit in the last 20+ years...

but never in my life have i seen such ugliness in a 'community'.. so i figured i'd spout my 'personal' point of view about the situation of the murdered 600/smite builds...

at first i was like wtf?! they just wiped out an entire established style of gameplay.. (no i don't care if you enjoyed the style or not.. still happened)

so i spent the last week reading about the most insane stuff... i can not for the life of me believe people would character assassinate each other just because one vocalized their dissatisfaction with a implementation that the game company has done.

anyway... i did some checking.. especially in the hacking/bot maker forums.. and i think... i say again.. i think there is more going on... and the murder of the 600/smite had to be done.

it seems that there is a massive botting problem in PvP as well as the PvE botting i am well aware of personally. (which i do not bot or PvP.. not my thing).. and it appears in the thursday update an injector detector was placed into the code...

and funny as it was... the forums were full of 'my account(s) was just banned'... then alot of talk about what they are going to do next... different story..

so.. here comes the speculation...

anet killed all the solo farming so they can catch as many of the botters and try to restore some balance in the core of the gameplay... PvE and PvP..

what i hope is that the destruction of the 600/smite gameplay style is temporary.. like i said.. slo mo vanquishing was my personal style of play after beating everything up with all my toons and not really enjoying PvP. (and my guild is only my wife and i)

because i can't see anet bothering with something like the 600/smite after it has been going on so long most old timers don't even use it anymore.. (though it was a personal favorite for my wife and i after a long day at work.. to take our frustrations out in CoF )

anyway.. i say again.. all is my p.o.v... and /yawns..QQ's and bs is not required.

Except you know, like, um, how do I put this bluntly. Short selling is bad for the real life economy same as powertrading is bad for the ingame economy. And yes, short selling is the equivilent of powertrading. The mechanics are different, but the result is the same. (make money at someone elses expense)

No kidding. Because as they were "intended" to be done (as stated by the anti-SF crusaders and never the developers) is slow, fail-ridden, annoying and ENTIRELY unrewarding.

This has been Anet's view for years:
'ArenaNet tries to keep the game fun for everyone while still providing fun and rewarding play for solo farmers.'

Too funny I dont know where you found that Maybe something you thought of ontop of your head. Out of the years ive played guildwars soloing has been highly frowned on. With all the nerfing and the change of agro and everything else.

I've been thinking about your post last hours and you may be onto something. Although I hope you're not luring me into well...shame.

Fact: Invincibility builds have been here since the 55 was born first year after release.

Fact: After more than 4 years Anet suddenly says they want to do something about invinci builds.

Fact: After the recent update, my 600 is still invincible, but the damage output has been adjusted on the smiter so it slows the setup down. So what Anet said about no more invinci is bull. It may be about botters once again.

Someone here posted Anet neglected most of the TK advice. If that's true, why would they do that? Maybe because they have their own agenda?

So after all those years of fighting bots (anti farming code which is still vague if it existed or not, loot scaling etc.) they have to result to the actions we recently saw because they still aren't capable or lack recources and the manpower to keep the game bot free. In the meantime people reported and reported bots last years.

What's even worse is the effect this has on the community. If and only if this is true Anet, then you played a dirty game to cover up the inability to deal with bots.

An mmo run by bots and crappy code doesn't look good on your resume, especially when GW2 is on the way.

Good luck to the future new sprankling community relations lead because you left a very bitter community.

My sincere apologies if nothing of the speculation is true.


You could just have asked for the scource instead of hinting I might make things up.

Source: dev update from 2007
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Devel...dates/20070420

lol.. nor i...

but it makes no 'reasonable' sense to me why they would do something so definite this late in a games life without a real reason... so to speak.

as to the past behaviors of the anet crew... i've only been a semi-avid player for a little while and can not claim to know any more than i have stated and why.

Depends on how you look at invincibility. 55 monks weren't invincible, anything good damage them. It's the combination of protection + healing that kept you alive. Shadow form on the other hand, literally made you invincible, because it made you immune to attacks and spells. There's quite a big difference between something not able to damage you, and something being able to damage you.

Yeah, well isn't that the same for 600? And why did Regina put 600 (which has been here since factions 'Spirit Bond') under the same category then? I'm too tired now to look up that quote where she said that.

Find the quote and I'll be able to reply, since there's not much I can say when I don't exactly know what you're trying to discuss.

And yes, it is the same for 600 monks. They aren't invincible, they can just take an assload of damage due to protection and healing, which is still very different from the way SF works.

Signets, touch skills, non targeted skills.
Which means technically SF wasn't "invincible" either.

The difference between 600/55 is huge. 600 in combination with SoA, PS and SB gave the user the ability to tank an unlimited amount of enemies. 55 had a limit to how many foes you could tackle at any given time before the damage overwhelmed your healing capacity. In the case where a 55 build had SoA in it, you were still susceptible to degen which also reduced your limit on foes. Yes I am aware of Spell Breaker but it hardly provides you 100% invincibility like Shadowform otherwise would. Lets not forget 55 = 55hp. Your reduced health means you're a glass cannon. The room for error and flexibility are far less. It's common knowledge that 600 is far superior to 55 and has in fact replaced 55 over the years in many areas.

Well I'm not gonna nitpick over which of the two is more efficient. Those first years people referred to 55 as invincimonk.

But the point is there are indications that the recent nerfs have everything to do with fighting bots again and nothing else. Which is a big fail on Anet's part.

Death Knights and Paladins, Warcraft II's godmode cheat wasn't "invincible" either.

I would have agreed if it wasn't for this:

Some of those things are probably overpowered, some of them (ER, N/Rts) can be called "gimmicks", but they're absolutely NOT comparable to "invincibility".

First of all: none of these is self-sufficient. None of these is completely lacking any credible counter in the game. None of these works without a team. Not even SY! makes your party "invincible".

Most of these solution could probably use some toning down, but at least these mostly rely on synergies and teamwork to achieve some sort of "invincibility".

While the 55 was indeed "invicimonk" or "invincinecro" in the early days, it was still possible to tank a huge amount of foeage by dying and adjusting your armour (headpiece) to give you 8hp, which meant you could tank more until DP was removed. So while annoying, it was still possible. This was also pre-scatter too.

Some forget that the 105 also replaced the 55 as a soloer (putting the 600 into a duo farm here). The 105, with PS and SoA/SH, opened up continued tanking ability similar to the 8hp tanker above. But also opened up much more powerful builds due to less attributes required to make it work.

Nothing in GW is truely invincible. But I agree, SF was (and still is) closest to it. I am still surprised that the nerfbat was swung the way it has been. ArenaNet left the mess to fester FAR too long and now it's hardly surprising that they don't was to scare off certain areas of the playerbase. But carry on like this and, imo, GW2 will not be the highly-sold product ANet are hoping for.

Don't forget 55s are prone to encantment removal and SF isn't.

I completely agree with on this and for those who are saying pug it.The only way this will happen is if you remove heros and make up bad hench bars.

Against everything? No. Against physical attacks and spells? Yes. I thought that was obvious when I said it made you immune to attacks and spells.

55 can tackle an infinite amount of damage and degen (since degen is capped at 10), although it is easier to run at 105 or even 155 if you face a lot of degen. Put Protective Spirit, Spirit Bond, Shield of Absorption, and Shielding Hands on the bar. It's very true that the margin for error decreases as you lower your health.

The only difference between so-called 55 and 600 builds is armor and weapons, and since you can armor swap in PvE, you are free to vary your health to whatever fits the situation best. The 55 and 600 labels are very poor names for the builds. They impose artificial limitations on discussion.

I'm having trouble understanding this thread due to how little ANet actually did in the update to nerf farming. They actually buffed skills in most cases. The ridiculous title does not help this thread either.

Actually 55 and 600 monks were light years away from the perma sin in term of invincibility.

If we analyze 55 the yearly ones had a limited number of zones due to their low hp. No enchant removal, no places with lots of dgen.
Without the scatter update i would guess no 55 would bring SB on their bar since SoJ was the main damage dealer.
It couldn't tank an infinite number of foes 11 attacks in short time would kill you, and its not needed a lot of monsters for that to happen.
Now with SoA/SH we can get 55 that take 0 dmg but they'll either lack damage, because of the scattering nerf SoJ isn't viable, or you need to resort to some tweaks in very exclusive areas. (highligh the risky DoA city farm for example)
Dgen is still a problem be it spirit bond or healing breeze the way it's used to heal.

The 600 isn't invulnerable either. Spell Break wasn't maintainable so you actually were harmed by spells for quite a while and the poor guy is dead if he over-agro.
The Spirit Bond/SoA combo has a down time, even if low, it's enough to get you killed by a slight mistake on the number of foes you take on.
The problem was on the smiter's holy wrath that should break at 0 energy like protective bond (would be a useless skill i know but holy wrath concept was broken from day 1).
At least now even though that the 600/smite team is still functional the smiter won't just stand there waiting for the 600 to do all the work.

So with 600/smite team you can get a decent amount of offense and defense but the drops are divided by both players, and with 55 you will lack one of those but you can solo.

With SF there was no drawback since you weren't targetable by attacks and spells this, even though it wasn't 100% invincible.
SF can be taken down by aoe, sigs, touch skills the problem is that to everything else it was completely invincible, unless you screw up the timing.
For an SF sin it was as easy to agro 2 groups as the whole map, if the timing of GoS->DP->SF is done right there's no problem. To that just add sliver armor or some aoe dgen (CoP/Radiation Field) and we get god mode enabled.

Before the update each of them had it's uses:
-55 could quickly farm some elite tomes, crappy greens, few groups around the world, can manage parts of elite areas but low efficiency
-600/smite teams we're good for some dungeon runs, FFF, some elite area farms (i would say foundry trio was one of the most significant one)
-SF was the hardcore uw farmer, basic need for FoW Sc and VSF, run areas of DoA, one of the fastest SoO/Bogroot runners (BDS/Froggy staffs)

Don't think i added anything new but i just think that even though the builds were and still are, in a different way now, great farming ways, SF's invincibility was incomparable to 55 or 600/smite to the point it's efficiency was much better in most areas.

I do think that the nerf should have affected all the major farming builds but what was done seems like a cheap trick from a 2nd class magician.
We get an SF that it's the same as SB with lower energy, faster recharge, longer duration (humm... doesn't this feel weird).
But now, leaving the poor forgotten 55 to the side, we get sins that finally take damage from attacks (but reduced) and immunity from spells (not bad i guess at least they'll have to think how to tweak their skill bar before the farm fest beggins).
I just wonder what will be the next elite used by the new 600/smite teams. /sarcasm

Good observation!
The next elite... You are right I suppose. Which proves why this is all useless lol!