shadowform

Usually the reason for those missions being so slow is NPC's being retarded or something. One mission that comes to mind is Abaddon's Gate. When doing the bonus, this mission can easily consume 30-40 minutes of your time, but this is because the spirit moves so retardedly slow. If the spirit would move at your speed, this mission would easily be cut down in half.

I have yet to go on a sub-40 minute UW. 20-30 minutes are usually for teams that consist out of very experienced people. These people had to spend time, and usually also money on learning their roles, and they most likely failed a lot as well. Same applies for FoW and DoA as well. Try making an unexperienced DoA team and you should be glad if you actually finish.

Explain to me exactly why speed is so bad. To take an example out of real life, I have had countless arguments with my gf as to taking your bike to go to the store, or going by foot. (fyi, the store is at like 200m from my house). She always insists on going by foot, which will take you ~3 minutes, as to taking your bike will get you there in ~20 seconds. This implies that going by foot is inferior to going by bike, now why would one still prefer going by foot then? The only reason is because you like it. Some people in this game like Balanced ways. They will take slightly longer to finish an area than people who prefer speed. There is nothing wrong with this. If you enjoy doing something the speedy way, why would you have to be forced to do it balanced way? If you enjoy doing it balanced way, why bother with people that do it fast way?

For your interest, UW Balanced will be done by ~45min-1h as to FoW will be done by ~30-35 minutes with the right tactics. This is about the same time it takes a PUG team to do those areas. So SF isn't that great after all if you put it in the hand of retards.

side note: long time ago, people were still proud of going over the alps by foot... noone was arrogant like today saying "gah, 10 weeks, you guys fail". Does this imply that taking the car to do so is bad? No, it just implies that doing it by foot would be incredibly stupid if you have a car available.

Let's reverse the question. Why should we be able to finish ELITE content in 20mn?? Why should so called areas still have those high rewards after 2 years ? Why are dungeons which are 3 times harder rewarding you nothing ?? That's fun ecto price didn't drop much after all that time no??

I got no problem using SF the way you do , in exped groups with non-retard tactics for DoA( yet , the way people did complete urgoz in 15mn was ok if i remember good), but i simply do not like those builds especially for UW and FoW and anyone who played GW since its begins would understand

Under the assumption that OP is a huge troll I still find it hard to believe anybody can actually defend Shadow Form. Then again, looking at who it's proponents are and what they stand to lose if it gets obliterated maybe it's not so surprising. Having abused the hell out of that skill for years myself I'm not arrogant enough to pretend it's reasonable for it to exist. Convenient, sure, but let's see where the current Live Team's heads are at regarding skill usage...

His rationale for those too lazy to watch: "...[flat damage modifiers are] overpowered to the point of being staples to a build which tends to segregate out the playerbase...if you have this you can get into a party...if you don't have this or if it's not at it's peak of efficiency too bad you're just simply inferior to everyone else and that's not the kind of thing we want to be encouraging. We want builds to have diversity..."

I think he totally missed the mark with how that statement applies to BUH/Ascan but it could absolutely apply to Shadow Form and be 100% correct. Why they continue to dance around the real issues in this game I guess we'll never know.

I have played guild wars for a very long time. I used to PUG Deep and Urgoz, and completing in under 1h30 was an unusual feat. It was considered very fast. 2h was average at that time. If I went back in time and told myself in the past that, 4 and a half years from then, I would complete Urgoz in 7 minutes, I'm fairly sure I'd slap myself (the past me would slap me).

Why is speed needed you ask. Well, to be honest, the speed at which we currently complete high end areas is due to certain players being exeptionally good at understanding this game, and coming up with tactics to complete them as fast as possible. Fyi, prior to the BUH and the Intensity nerf, DoA record was 22 minutes. At this moment it is 19 minutes (yes, thread says 20 minutes, but Zraw has their reasons not to release the screenshots). Someone who would think about this would say: "that's strange, you deal less damage now, yet you go faster, how is this possible?" Simple, because we changed our tactics.

If you insist on getting Shadow Form nerfed, people will come up with the newest way to do the areas as fast as possible, just because that's how people work. Because wasting 1h30 in an area you can clear in 40 minutes is just plain stupid (subtle hint towards people that do DwG).

I know I have still not answered your question, since the simple answer is: it is not needed to clear it in said times, it's just how people work. People will usually strive to do something as efficiently as possible. Clearing an area in half the time someone else does it is efficient, because it means you can clear it twice in the same time he does it once, thus doubling your reward/time ratio.

There are exceptions to this, and some people just enjoy doing stuff Balanced way, but that's just preference.

We have had 1. Nightfall and 2. EotN added since along with all the cons/PvE skills they brought with them, this is a completely different game. Tactics in The Deep are however largely unchanged from what was established in late 2006/7 with Steel Wall/4-4-4 (right down to still using a BiP!) and in 2011 it still doesn't use Shadow Form because it's counterproductive. 4-4-4 was also producing PuG times <45min all through late 2007 so you must have amazing luck finding the worst groups on the planet...but I digress...

you also have to consider who a complete nerf to shadow form will afect the most: pugs

without it they will be down to c-spacing dungeons for 20min to 1h which im sure is less fun to people that love sc.

so, if lets say 50% of the remaining people now quit gw will it be more fun for those who love balanced way? or will it simply kill the game?

All those skills listed are prime examples of the power creep that is present in this game.
I don't necessarily see speed clears as a bad thing since I myself have dreaded the thought of spending hours completing underworld and the domain of anguish. However, in a balance perspective, having one thing stand higher than everything else and be able to complete a task better than anything else points to it being more efficient (not saying that other alternatives are inneficient) and therefore, more powerful than everything else i.e. power creep (and we all know that power creep is a bad thing).

The answer to power creep is not to increase the power of lesser skills (making them power creeped too) as it will just cause further imbalance in this game and will worsen the effects of power creep. Anet has been repeatedly attempting to reduce the power creep in this game, yet failing on some occassions (see: Dervish update) but I think it is fairly obvious to them and to us that buffing other skills to the same power of shadowform will be a horrible mistake for the good of this game.

Just to point out that just because speedclears are the most efficient doesn't mean that, if it is nerfed, completing high-end areas will start taking 2-3 hours to do. The playerbase created speedclears, I'm sure another efficient alternative will be created soon enough. There has just been no opportunity to come up with them since you already have something perfect at your disposal. Don't underestimate yourselves!

But, hey! If nerfing shadowform (and other power creeped skills used in speedclears) will make the playerbase start thinking outside the box and running different builds with a lot more diversity then I'm all for it!

Honestly the SF wasn't that bad, the UW nerf was bad. That area is dead to me now.

You seem to forget that the entire concept of a SC is the playerbase thinking outside of the box. Well it was, when it was first introduced. It was revolutionary in the GW PvE community at first to split up your entire team as opposed to working together. It's just because now that it's the meta people say it's not thinking outside of the box.

Missions take longer because nobody cares enough to design a way to speed clear them. There's really no incentive to do so, since you only have to do them once to progress.

On the other hand, if someone wants a Dhuum's Soul Reaper, or an Obby Edge, and they can't afford them, then there is only one way to get them, and that's to do those areas repeatedly until they can get one.

So, it's not surprising that people finish those areas faster than they do some missions. There's actually a good reason to do them faster.

Anyways, any number you come up with is going to be pulled out of your ass and completely arbitrary. There is not one "right" time to complete elite areas. The right time is however fast you can finish it. It doesn't matter if it's two hours or twenty minutes.

The only thing that matters is that people have fun. And people do have fun doing speed clears, so why bother them?
And who are you to tell other people how fast they should finish it? You're the dictator of Guild Wars or something?
Umm... doing either would make the game more balanced. Balance basically means equality between two things. Nerfing shadow form, or buffing the others would result in the exact same thing. The skills would be more equal, and so they would be more balanced.

Anyways, power creep? That's the new reason to nerf shadow form?

Power creep isn't necessarily a bad thing. It happens for a reason, you know. It's because the newer parts of the game are more difficult than the older parts. The Realm of Torment missions in Nightfall, or Dungeons in EotN, are a lot more difficult than the Ring of Fire Island missions in Prophecies. So, players get stronger skills to compensate.

Do that new content in HM with Prophecies only skills, and you might have some credibility to complain about power creep... but otherwise, no. Power creep isn't always a bad thing.
This is basically saying that you want people to do elite areas with balanced teams.

It's fine if you want that. There's nothing stopping you from starting a group and doing exactly that. There are enough shadow form haters on this board that I'm sure you could find enough people to join you.

But I'll ask this question again... why do you feel the need to force other people to do that as well?

The truth is that shadow form does NOT prevent anyone from doing DoA or UW balancedway. The only thing stopping it, is that nobody ever starts a group. That's not a problem with shadow form. It's a problem with the players.

So.. you want people to do elite areas in different ways, without shadow form? Go ahead and do it. There's nothing stopping you.

Just stop acting like a computer game nazi, trying to ruin other people's fun. There is really no rational reason to be against speed clears and shadow form.

wow...just wow...


Missions for the most have SC varients....Speed bookers come to mind right off the bat.

I am assumming you are still relatively new to GW, which would explain your feelings about powercreep.

Now that there is the 7 hero ability...grouping for balanced is not as bad as it used to be but still....SCs do have an influence on ppl PuGing balanced. If SF....OB flesh..VoS (only now due to derv update) and SB were to be toned back I can assure you there would be an increase to balanced PuGs.

I myself use SF like it's going out of style (and I enjoy it)....but that doesn't make me blind to how rediculously over-powered it is.

So its like Anet breaks your favorite toy.... its not new happened before plenty of times. Sc or pvp builds got nerfed in the past. of course anet does not want to restrict players in what they want to play but sometimes some stuff is OP (SF= near god mode).

To be honest The elite area's (uw and fow mainly) are incredibly outdated and are not holding up against the power creep of past years.

if your toy breaks find a new one and get over it and if it doesnt break enjoy it.

But why would YOU want to break other people's toys? What's the good in that? All the SF haters keep saying "you can't play with this toy, because it makes our toys look stupid! You have to play with our toys as well!"

i edited the main post to say Anet breaks which makes make more sense. Although at this point i stopped to hope about a change in SF since power creep and no changes from anet...

I read your post correctly, I see that you said Anet breaks the toys. My point was, why would you want them to break other people's toys? Sorry if I was being unclear (which I thought I wasn't)

to be honest what i meant is that Anet's broke toys before why shouldn't it be any different now. SF is OP coupled with other skills and tactics and can beat areas at insane times.

But i think i am getting more and more interested in the speed clear builds that come after SF is destroyed (if it gets destroyed).

today is a bad day to convey messages for me today got misunderstood too many times today.

6 Years ago GW came to light with it's relatively different playstyle such as the good but flawed by design 8 skill build. Shadowform was and still is overpowered, it's so stupid that it should be reworked completely as a skill, however without this skill the population of GW would stop playing.

It's sad that the game has gone downhill like this, it's a huge bore everywhere you look it's SF.

Most probably Anet envisioned a game where people would try new skills and builds rather than having 8 sheep with SF easily completing the hardest areas within a few mins.


No wonder I'm not excited about GW2, With GW1 having such a monotonous play style and population makes you wonder if players won't try the old tricks.


Bottom line: SF shouldn't have existed at all and should have been nerfed after the first time it had the huge success.

@OP: Your idea would give SF a big nerf with 100% damage reduced but that would also make the population QQ especially for the precious dungeons runs. Making SF a highly useless skill would leave a bad taste among the population and probably wouldn't encourage them to buy gw2.


EDIT:

Maybe because they don't want to lose customers in GW1 which probably would affect the sales of GW2 in the future? I'm not saying it's like that but it's a possibility.

If they want diversity they should have changed the skill when they had the chance, like they did with Ursan.

In the end Anet closed a door and opened another. Where we had Ursans in DoA now they have DWG teams, UW was fast for teams doing it in 11-30mins and they nerfed it but it's still doable and now thanks to their UW update, you need stones to join pugs (so much for a Co-oP game).

Pointless to cry over the spilt milk now, the game went too far to become the interesting and challenging GW that longtime players remember.


It's too late to nerf speedclears, the game's gone too far to go back to balanced pugging. Maybe it would have happened if SF was nerfed for good.

There were lots of pugs in the old days for many areas across the game and there wasn't any SF, you failed to mention that pugs died because of heros. SF pugs form because they finish stuff in short time, If there was no sf and heros in the game, players would pug.

I've been to other mmo's and I've been in countless of pugs everyday. It's how GW1 should have been, and how GW2 should be (if not better).

You really think that if all speedclears were nerfed then people would PUG balanceway like the old days?
Speedclears did not kill PUG groups they brought them back to life.

Not all, but there would definately be an increase. Look at all the z stuff ppl still pug...pugs are not dead outside of sc's

Words cannot describe how fail this is.
I think you need to re-read what I have said. No where did I say that people should be running balanced builds. No where am I forcing my views on people. All I'm saying is that I have faith in the playerbase to create something just as effective as speedclears are now, so nerfing speedclears/shadowform should not be the be all and end all.

Let me repeat: Just because speedclears are the most efficient doesn't mean that, if it is nerfed, completing high-end areas will start taking 2-3 hours to do. The playerbase created speedclears, I'm sure another efficient alternative will be created soon enough.

The tl;dr of that is: Once speedclears are nerfed, another will pop up. Understand?

The entire concept of speedclears came as a result of ridiculous buffs to certain skills in this game. It didn't take a genius to see what was coming.

The newer parts of the game ARE harder. Killing Abbadon at the end of nightfall is harder than killing the Lich at the end of prophecies. Shards of Orr is harder than Sorrow's Furnace. So, it makes sense that people have stronger skills now.
Yeah, and I've never disagreed with that. I said pretty much the same thing earlier in the thread. If you nerf shadow form, something will pop up to replace it. Probably Obsidian Flesh, since that's the next best option.

Here's what I'm saying... people shouldn't have to. There is no good reason to nerf speed clears or shadow form. There is nothing wrong with doing elite areas quickly. Nothing wrong with having powerful skills in the game.
Well, I went with a (mostly) balanced UW group today on my dervish. Guess how long it took to do all the quests and then wipe at Dhuum?

Two and a half hours. In normal mode. With an assasin who soloed mountains and pools, and an emo to prot everyone and tank dhuum.

So... I think you're a bit optimistic about how long it would take most people to do these areas.

Lol, you must have missed the point of guildwars which anet tries to uphold that tactics & team coordination can beat the game. (see efgjacks clear of UW HM with 7h, he used some sub par skills. thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/h...0476981p6.html)

so you are saying the game got harder so you need uber ray beamz of death to win. My conclusion you are bad at gw....

anyway back to topic:

Anet failed at balance the moment Nightfall came out with too many broken skills which led to more powercreep to balance other skills.

Powercreep was the worst process(the many fail updates from anet with dartboard buffs) that happened to gw both for pve or pvp.

Speed clears however are part of the game. People always want to farm at the best times to yield maximum result. which led to speed clears. the nerfing of shadowform will just lead to new speed clears.

Just nerf SF and see what it the community thinks up next.

I guess you play with empty skills bars all the time? You beat everything with tactics and teamwork and auto attacks.
My conclusion is that you're not good enough to successfully do any job in a speed clear, so you post in this forum to try and get them nerfed.

No, but seriously, do the Realm of Torment missions and EotN dungeons in HM with only Prophecies skills, and then I might listen to you when you say that better skills are a bad thing.
Guild Wars was totally ruined by this power creep. That's why you're still playing it some 5 years after Nightfall was released. Right?

They aren't difficult to learn. They just take practice like a lot of other things in this game so I fail to see any point you're trying to make.

Prophecies skills have also been subject to power creep . . . wow . . .

Totally don't agree with you.

For me, when I have first time played GW, Lich was 10x harder than Abaddon.

Just did Abaddon in NM 2 days and 1 time in HM in last 7 days, and he was easy as hell.

Just do normal routine:

Clear right spawn, get back, clear left spawn, go into middle, clear spawn, PI Abaddon and dmg him, run back to the right or left side, kill, go to another side, kill, get in middle, kill, kill Abaddon.