Revert Blood Bond

Blood Bond suffers the same issue that Ash Blast has. Majority of the users of the skills are using them for their old versions. The Blood Bond buff and Ash Blast nerf is making PvE harder for many players.

i do agree with ash blast, but my hero uses blood bond as nice healing for minions, i never used the old one, so i like it the way it is

Revert elementalist update part 2. It was a terrible idea and didn't fix the issue with elementalists in Hard Mode at all. Part 1 with the Hard Mode fix was great, leave it at that.

/agree

on the other hand T go away ur not whalecum

Uh? I think Ash Blast is more interesting now and definately stronger in PvE. I still wouldn't use it though. Only for a fun team build maybe.

And who used Blood Bond in PvE before? Dunno but I think the change to it made it viable.

As long as we're dreaming about stuff ArenaNet will never do because they no longer touch the game, revert Holy Wrath and Spell Breaker.

I miss the old 600/smite.

i dont care what they do with spell breaker, but no, dont let em change holy wrath, now that we can use it normally on heroes

(no offense, but why do so many people i see about and in gw, complain about farm builds being nerfed? instead of true problems called NORMAL paragons and smiting...... and ranger pets...... sry, just wondering)

note: i'm only talking (and caring) about pve

How is it stronger as a skill that went from being considered meta to something that even snowflake build people won't touch?

And people are using Blood Bond when the only ones that benefit are spirits.

When was blood bound considered meta in PvE? lol

btw. Minions benefit from it.

I was replying to what you said about Ash Blast.

Blood Bond cannot heal minions when there are none.

When was Ash Blast considered meta in PvE then?... I didn't even know Ele was considered Meta in PvE, lol. And I can't even imagine how a single target ele skill can be meta in PvE at all.

As far as I'm aware there is a certain minion build that was considered meta for a long time in PvE. I don't know why there wouldn't be minions...

Are you sure we are talking about the same thing? Or are you walking about PvP/some secret dungeon runs?

Ash Blast was used with Fevered Dreams and to a much lesser extent Extend Conditions on mesmers.

I think you're confused about what the topic is. They're not aiming to use Blood Bond for minions because they're using it as if it's the old skill.

is the reason that people want an old version of skills that they liked it more, or because of that so called meta?

either way, it dont see anything bad happened with the mentioned skills in this topic
sorry to disagree, but i have my own opinions

I agree with Ayu, I still don't even understand where Cuilan is coming from. There are good hero team builds and tons of variations for them without these skills (doesn't matter if the old or new version) that work perfectly for hardmode content in the game. For your particular example: Use Ineptitude+Panic Mesmer and you have the same effect but much much stronger.

Who are the people you speak of? Those who don't keep up with updates and thus utilising skills wrong beceause they changed? Why are you bring up the term "meta" then? I'm completly lost atm. o.O

No offense taken - I never really saw it as a farm build, to me it was a more fun way of vanquishing. Although I guess it probably still works for that... haven't tried it since I lost my main account.

You mentioned it, not I.

Err? You posted this before:

No offense, but do you read what you write? I only jumped on the term meta because you entilted one of these two skills as considered as meta at one point.

You must feel very special in pointing that out. You still didn't know about Ash Blast and remained confused in most of the thread.

Ok I'm out here. I don't want to offend anyone. But writing complete bullshit all the time, not explaining yourself and say wrong things about facts that happened ending it with insults as others point it out... Sorry that is too much. Please go on and mourn about the changes and I go play the game without having problems. -.-

On the other Side of the cake.

I think we all could say that Smiting Prayers definately needs a PvE/P Upgrade.

And Shadow Form shouldnt even be in this game.
I know, you know, we all know its the cause of serval severe market collapses.

Blood Bond
I like the new version better than the old. Although I think Blood Magic in general is weak.

Ash Blast
I think the new version is fine, although the old version could have just a reduction in blind duration. No need to change it's functionality.

Smiting Prayers
Definitely needs an upgrade. Shorter recharges at least.

Shadow Form
Definitely a nerf, at least make it a 'skill' and make you unable to deal any damage.

Signet of Spirits
While I do use it a lot, this too needs a slight nerf.

Healing Prayers
Needs a slight buff as well. Remove some of the 'target other' requirements.

Remove some of the 'target other' requirements of which skills? I can't think of any or why.

Agreeing with the sentiment of the post. SoS is too strong and SF is just ridiculous. Although no dmg while in SF would make the skill completly useless (besides rushing...) which isn't an optimal soloution. I would rather aiming for making SF removalable by certain skills/reduce defensive abilities of the skill.
Adding to it: A lot of PvE only skills are completly broken. I would like to remove them alltogether but a nerf to them would do something at least.


There are quite a few. E.g. dwayna's kiss, healing whisper, jameis gaze, fuse. Dunno if removing the target requirement would be good though.

i dont see much of a problem with alot of these skills myself. Maybe add another nerf to sf to put it on par with obsidian flesh

you do realize that a nerf to shadowform would kill the game off completly it can be removed by skills melee attacks can rape you in the anus and so on so SoS was already nerfed going from 30 dmg each spirit to less it is fine as is any nerf to it would kill the rit class ash blast needs unchanged smiting is just op in pve learn to use it also healing prayers is already super op it needs nothing

SCs are definately a problem here. A huge chunk of players do them every day. SF nerf shouldn't destroy SCs in this state of the game. But every SC full of SF sins is just plain boring. It wouldn't hurt to require other mechanics for a few of them. Note, that we are just talking, nerfs won't come anyways.
For SoS, yes it got nerfed. It is still so strong that many people suggest playing Any/Rt spirit spammer. That's just as boring as Discord Caller. Moving it to Spawning Power would probably help a lot (though one have to rethink their Ritu Channeling/Resto build, uhh oh, such pain...). Maybe a higher CD/Cast Time. Dmg is fine I think and shouldn't be nerfed again.

I agree with Smiting, it's strong enough I think, though very limited. Healing prayers are good enough for normal PvE, yes. Speaking of OP, it's funny how you call HP and SP OP but SF is totally fine, lol.

why nerf skills in pve? isnt it better if people can use more and more builds?
people enjoy using SF for farming alot..... so what? let em enjoy it and lets use other skills to play normal

thats my opinion

i'd love to see pve only skills getting 1 buff at rank 10, so that people can use them as they are now at rank 5 already, but if they want more, they have to work
then most paragon shouts and chants should be "each ally in earshot" to make paragons what they are made for (support)

and SoS..... rits dont ahve many options, so let it be (and maybe some spirits having less recharge, like 30 sec like the others)

ask for nerfs equals to asking to let anet make people leave

anyways, thats just my opinion, i'm still doing goals, and after that i'll make non-pvx builds for myself, try anything on my heroes and such

The problem is: There is less build diversity if there are OP skills. Shadowform is pretty much used in every single Speedclear. There aren't more builds because SF is OP, there are less.

And Ritu's have a damn lot of options. I love the class. So much diversity.

The problem with nerfing comes if people become to accustomed to being overpowered. NF/EotN basically delivered too many OP skills, especially the PvE only ones. Btw. they made rank 5 for a reason. I didn't liked bringing it down as much back then. But now I think they should have just removed the rank-skill-progression. GW was never about progression in terms of better stats. And the powercreep and additional stat progression destroyed much of the original flair of the game.
Of course, they could not move back now without bringing an expansion. People just play the game they are accustomed to since years and only nerfs would kill it. Nerfs alongside with a lot of new addition that would make the nerfs look like pretty minor would be good I think.

Players find it degrading to have heroes or other players carry them because their profession they enjoy isn't as good. People like to know they are fairly comparable to other players and professions.
There is a SoS vs. SoGM thread where the OP found the two do about the same damage if not more from SoGM. This was before the last SoS nerf, so that would mean both elites are pretty equal depending on what you want to do if true. That's one example why nerfs can be good.

Signet of Spirits vs. Signet of Ghostly Might Number Crunch

I don't see anything wrong with Healing Prayers. It's Smiting Prayers... They have signets that can be buffed a bit, but not too much because of Keystone Signet. Maybe an elite change so they can have a signet build, too.

from what i see i only can say this: people say we cant make many builds, cuz the COMMUNITY wont do it

the more good skills we have, the more we can make to work good
its that the community (most people who copy-paste pvx stuff) refuses to

and pve only skills are pve only for a reason, cuz pve doesnt need that much balance, its more about being able to use alot of good skills...... or thats what the small part of the community, the non-copyers(spelled right?) want

but if people enjoy farming with SF, let them be, and if people really dont like creating builds (NOT counting copy-paste +edit a bit from pvx), let them use these builds

more nerfs might make some dual profs useless, and GW is (as far as i can see it) made to create builds (buildwars is a name they made with a reason) with 2 profs, not to let anet make most skills for primary only (although some are good to be primary only)

also, i think they shouldnt nerf skills which are being strong cuz of a build, i think they should buff skills which wont do much without the very few skills you have to use to make that 1 skill good
people do too much solo or speedclears, let anet not take that away from people, let anet make other skills more attractive to use for anything (not looking at whether or not they are good for farming or any solo stuff), so that people find it more fun to have a team with good skills, instead of having to create builds with skills which normally wont do much

tell me this: what can SF (shadow form) do in normal pve (be it NM or HM) WITHOUT the use of other skills? (not without weapon or armor upgrades, as those ARE made to work with certain skills)

you cant do much with SF if using attack skills and some defensive skills, but NOT the ones you use for sc's

its good to let people use certain skills to make other skills better, but we should be able to use most skills on their own too, and i never see many skills in sc/farm/solo builds which would work in non-sc/farm/solo builds at all

too many nerfs (especially in these times) means that people have less choices, and will only copy-paste pvx
look at the pvp version of smiter's boon, they made it cuz people were complaining about it being OP in pvp, instead of searching for a way to be better against enemies with that skill, or to counter it

in pve its easier, we dont need to fight builds which are very strong (woc is hard, but its not like 90% wont get through)

1 more thing to note: there's a difference between "overpowered" (which people use REAL fast when a skill works good) and "useful" (which i never see people use at all anymore.....)

1 more example before i get another "but its overpowered" with no real reason why its BAD in pve: SoS on itself doesnt do much, use SoS as player, and let there be no other spirits in the team's builds

let people have builds which are very strong combined with other skills..... wont destroy my fun
the community DOES make it hard for me, as they refuse to do GW without those builds, so its a community problem
thats why i say "anet, make other ways more attractive, instead of nerfing any good skill, which people like to use"

last words for now: i think there's many skills which arent used well yet, which could even be much better in certain builds than SF (especially in normal pve, meaning no farms/solo's/sc's)

I just don't get it. Nerf this, buff that. Just leave things as they are. Who really cares if a team can clear an elite area in a few minutes? At least there are people using bandwidth and keeping servers up. Taking away why they play will just mean fewer people, meaning a sooner end to the servers. When the 600/smiter team took a hit, all that happened, the beasties in Nebo Terrace quit worrying about my guild killing them every Mon & Weds evenings. The Rune Traders also raised their prices on a few items as well. I used to hiss and moan about changes, but now I no longer care. I just do what I do and let others do the same.

Yes, but skills that are nerfed can still be great.
It's not something to do with a website.
It's because PvE has many differences from PvP, so having skill splits adapts skills for it.
Nobody is stopping them.
Nope. A nerf may have nothing to do with a secondary.
Then everything would be AoE spells that hit for 200,000 damage to make up for Shadow Form skipping mobs of foes.
Nobody suggested that there should be too many nerfs. More balanced skills means more choices for effective skills.
That doesn't mean anything or make any sense.

@ayuhmii: You still don't seem to understand that a few OP skills mean less variety, not more. The whole point of balance would be to allow more builds. Yes it's about using the best skills. But if there are only a few best skills they will be used all the time. To make other skills useful you have to either buff them or nerf the OP skills. It's hard to hit the right decision here and buffing sounds better at first. But if you have a few OP skills it's probably better to adjust them to the majority instead of trying to adjust the majority to the OP skills. Further more buffing everything would lead to make PvE content obsolete. I mean it already is. People clean elite areas within minutes, yolo through hard mode with heroes and what not. Powercreep. It kills challenge and that's kind of bad.
Again: In this state in the game it would be really bad to just nerf these skills and kill of things people like. This game is stuck content wise and people are accustomed to it and play the stuff they like. Destroying that would be horrible. And that's why I said there would need to be an expansion that adds a lot of stuff to do for people and deliver other approaches etc. You don't have to kill of SCs with nerfes for example. Give them other option beside SF. That obviously won't happen so we can talk about nerfs all we want as they won't happen, either.

Ultimately, why doesn't every skill have unlimited power in PvE? Wouldn't that be more "fun" and giving you endless of "fun" builds to make? <sarcasm />

The game would quickly become boring, no challenges, and the economy would go nuts. Skill balances will always be needed even in PvE to give diversity and find different solution to beat different challenges. If you can just take one set of 8 skills and beat most of the game with it, that's clearly not balanced.

These are from a game developer's point of view. If you create a game with 1300+ skills, surely you would want all 1300+ skills to be useful somewhere in game? And surely you wouldn't want 10-30 of those skills to dominate 95% of everyone's builds?

Sadly you can't balance that many skills and make everyone happy. The skill balancing was getting out of hand and it's one of the reasons why GW1 was abandoned. It's a shame because having a lot of skills to make builds from is also what makes the game fun. Even if you take 100 random players and try to skill balance for their need, that's a monumental task as it's almost impossible to make 100 people in the agree on the same things. Now increase that number to the active GW population and try skill balance to make most of them happy. They tried to solve this problem in GW2 with lesser skills and less build diversity, but that was imo a crappy solution.

I would have loved to see a GW1.5, of where most of the game were based on GW1 updated to 2014 standards, with some nuggets from GW2. Perhaps no more than ~80 skills/profession. If these skills are somewhat balanced to make all of them useful in some, but not all, areas of game, it should probably be enough.

* PS. Don't take numbers to seriously in this post, if you want something more accurate, go make a demographic survey *

Even if SF is nerfed alot of the speedclears wont be too greatly hindered, just a slight change in tact would happen.

in fow/uw e/me (or e/mo) would rule supreme as terras

in dungeons shadowform is not really required to SC most of them; just a tank with temporary spell protection can do the job easily and the team can run through the rest. (as proven in rragars & SoO)

I myself have proven that many dungeon solos can be done without shadowform or elite skills (albeit the times were terrible)

Kath is probably the most laughable dungeon to do without spell protection because if take shadow sanct & perma dark escape + SoD you dont need spell protection to get through.

D/A teams could do the perma team jobs in dungeons like fmaw where spell protection is a necessity

Hell fow w/o sf terras is terribly laughable the way vos's run around

simple change in tact could be this:
5x vos
1x mt2 (yes mt2 :P)
1x hunt getter/khobay/burning/tos baller
1x emo

mt2: e/me e/r or e/mo w/e obby flesh tank:
do mt role till after forge then go do cave + wolves
vos 1 & 2 (2 vos for security, remember pugs do runs to )
camp -> menz -> battlefield wolf -> help forge -> tos; 1 goes back to help at griffons
vos 3-5:
mainteam roles, 1 pulls groups of 2-3 sheps to ball and spike for wailing, then just have 1 vos ball full bridge and others spike. Wolf just run in with bonds kill and hop to emo.
emo:
bond and watch the invinci vos's go LOL through FoW
reg terra e/me e/r e/mo or w/e the build would be:
hunt -> burning > ball tos > khobay > help finish griffs (or have an exp vos do khobay)

yes i realize that the spirits in forest make bonding worse for the emo, but wat emo cannot upkeep energy for 3 people bonded?
Also the emo idea can probably be scrapped, just general idea .

i say it like this: i dont see many OP skills, its just the builds they are used in which make them stronger.... or as YOU call it: OP

and i never said OP skills make more variety, but more GOOD skills (see? not many know the difference..... sigh, i give up, lets hope anet wont nerf anything anymore, and will buff a few skills which barely do anything in pve)

ps. i dont copy-paste, or do sc's and such at all, i play with regular builds, self made
that is different from copy-paste and edit a little

nvm this, years ago i couldnt make my points, and its still impossible with people who like everyone to suffer through nerfs ONLY CUZ THEY WANT A CHALLENGE

i made a whole topic with challenges you can make, but nooo, they want anet to do it for EVERYONE
THAT would really kill the game
guess why we have 7 hero option, and pve only skills, and why you can only have 3 in your bar, to at least give people some skills they like, but not making it way too easy (unless you are hardcore doing sc's every single day)

good luck with it, i just hope anet wont let you destroy the fun for others who DO enjoy it

ps. few challenges: no upgrades at all on equipment(weapons and offhands being white), no pve only skills, no elite skills, no consumables in any form, HM only

if still easy, use no heroes, and in NF, use the required hero with a build from the same prof hench there, then take half of the maxed armor.... etc

oh yea: NO RUNS (in case some wouldnt understand that that also makes it easier)

ps. i dont care about challenges, as after years i'm still trying stuff with my chars and my heroes, but this is an idea for those who want it

"but more GOOD skills"

Define "good". As Bristle says, the more fitting word would be balanced. Which means the skills are balanced against each and against the whole content. If they would be only balanced against each other but all OP against the content then everything becomes pointless. Why would you then bother making a build when you could just take every skill you want and faceroll any content you want?

Doing challenges yourself is already a point in any game (inculding GW). But removing challenge from the core game alltogether is still a big mistake. Look at GW2 as a prime example. It has no challenge and everything comes down to boring achievement grind, button mashing and zerging and some people create their own challenges.
The core for playing games should be "for fun, challenges and escaping the "real world" a bit". All three of them and not just one or two (though of course the focus can be different). Games should make us learn in a fun, interactive way.

Btw. challenge doesn't mean you have to work 24/7 on your abilities to complete it. Challenge just means that you have to take an effort to complete it and that you can't go braindead.

good skills are skills you can use in many (not just a few) builds, and not just the same kind of builds

and GW having to be challenging ok, but if most just pvx everything, and after they done everything complain about GW being too easy, then yea, anet would have more work reworking everything for EVERYONE only cuz SEVERAL have done everything with certain builds, than they would have with making a new game....

plus nerfs must be made.... BUT, then you also let the newbies suffer, cuz they didnt complete GW yet

if they want to make challenges now, they have to make some kind of expansion or just new areas with enemies who are between NM and HM of normal areas, but in HM they require you to do ALOT of thinking..... so HM NOT just adding a few skills ands attribute points and such

what i'm talking about, is that more skills have to be useful in more ways, SF is only good for a few builds, thats not overpowered, thats boring, as you always have to use a few other skills to let SF even work

if they should nerf all useful skills (like SoS, as its not much on its own, but requires more to work real good) then people who are playing the storylines or even HM for the first time, wont have a chance, because then most skills are weaker cuz of others who have done GW millions of times with the back then not nerfed skills yet

challenges is 1 thing, but dont force everyone into the same difficulty levels by nerfing useful skills

if only they had made more monster skills in WoC and such, like monster versions of skills

but now they should keep it mostly as it is, cuz they dont add new stuff (like areas and monsters and such), and so nerfing skills will not only hurt newer people, but also makes it less fun to those who enjoy farming or soloing or sc-ing stuff after they done everything for years

lets say SoS, SF and such are now the only things that can make people like that happy

also
"Why would you then bother making a build when you could just take every skill you want and faceroll any content you want?"

to this i say this:
i never said all skills have to be as good, but i think they must be good in more builds than just a few

i once heard something funny and made alot of people be like O_O
"what if they would change alot of skills, and put pvx down for some time?"

i bet that'd be funny, to see people actually do more thinking

also to those who say my way is wrong cuz i mention pvx: that is EXAVTLY whats going on
anet nerfs skills, people wait for pvx to update and copy-paste

i'm not doing facerolls, cuz i make my own builds from scratch, and DONT use pvx to inspire me, so that i'd make the same builds with 1 or 2 different skills
i actually try other skills together (talking about hero builds, btw)

once i see a build, i look at the skills which work together, and then see with what skills those working skills could also work with, which result in different builds

example (then i quit, cuz this can and will go on for years like what happened before.... on ANY forum, with ANY pvx user):
my own dervish char will use all 4 attributes, cuz half the flash enchants i like, are in earth prayers, and the others in wind prayers, while derv needs mysticism for energy costs and +armor, and scythe mastery for dmg and other effects on scythe attack skills

people will say: dont!! thats going to be bad!! .... but i never heard of anyone who also did that before with dervs, so i'll try anyways

for now, enjoy the game, and if you think SF and SoS are OP, dont use em, but make different kind of builds, i do this all the time..... ok, sometimes i use the same elite (not SF, as its useless when using in my OWN way, unless having sin as survivor, lol) but build way different around it, and try alot with 2ndary profs too a/d-d/a or maybe d/w and a/w with tactics and such, barely see people do as much as i try.... by myself, WITHOUT looking at pvx or anyone else's builds

melee/ele for pbaoe skills and such (sin and derv would do better, as they have 4 energy pips by default)

When it comes to skill system and balancing, I think they should look by statistics on where to buff and nerf skills, and it should be done fairly often (bi-monthly?). Not to grief players but to make it part of an ever changing world.

To make an example.. look statistically on the top 10 most used skills and add a *tiny* nerf. Same time you take the 10 least used skills and add a tiny buff. Maybe some of these buffed skills start to find more use, or that some of the middle skills start to become more popular due to nerfs? I think that would have made a game much more fluid and challenging.

One result would be in that PvX builds would fluctuate more since many people use those as base. People who create their own builds would be affected less since it's less chance many of their skills would be in the top.

People seem to be forgetting here that of over 1,200 skills in the game, many are designed for utility or special purpose, not to maximize the power of a build.

Take for example the 2006 version of Blood Bond (which is what this thread was supposed to be about). At 14 Blood the skill caused the ally +6 regen and the caster -3 degen, and it's an enchantment. Kind of a terrible skill really for all but a Blood necro primary, and even then requires a bar built around it. If the current version of the skill were reverted back to that, I can't see it showing up in any PvX builds. Who even used it in 2006?

I did, as an Orders necro in Tombs of Primeval Kings with a Barrage/Pet team. As an Orders necro I was always regenerating health like crazy anyway to cover for Order of Pain/Vampire and Blood Ritual/BiP health sacrifice. 3 pips of regen was no big deal, and it allowed me to send out a puller with a long lasting regen enchantment up at no cost to a monk. If it got stripped, no big deal. But that skill was only on my bar for Tombs, nowhere else.

Gaze of Fury is another example. If you're doing the Sunjaing District mission, the quest for Razah, or just clearing Silent Surf, the skill has great utility. Otherwise it's just an underpowered damage spirit and you don't see it on most spirit spam bars.

I disagree with the original premise. The game evolves, and players have to change with it. A templated skillbar is not a birthright, it's a shortcut to a group of skills that work well together. If it stops working together, fix it, or design a new bar.