(Rant warning) F the bandwagon monks.

You are assuming his views of fun are the same as yours. That is wrong, and shame on you. His idea of fun may not be to farm and be god to melee, his idea of fun could be an honest challenge. You can't take someones words and spin them to make that person look bad, especially if you are not in that person's mind. Which I doubt you are. Therefore if you have your opinion that Farming and Being god is fun, then post it in that manner, do not post in some subliminal liable manner.

Again, I'm a Monk by trade. Its not a matter of jealousy that others can solo. I can solo, and I have, as I stated before, without the 105 build, granted it was alot easier and more effective with the 105 build. So No, no jealousy here. Actually, I find soloing boring, I dont see how anyone can do it all day long, as many do. I had ALOT more fun when I was part of a crew of 5 that would do smite runs, because they were good players, funny and unselfish. Yea, I had to share loot, but I had alot more laughs with that group than I ever did by myself in UW.

Yes, other players can be frustrating, but thats a fact that every other class has to deal with, and monks should be no different. The thing you seem to be missing is that other players can also be the best thing this game has to offer if you dont approach playing with them with an attitude of superiority and are willing to teach "the incompetents" what to do and not to do.

blaming other players as a reason to exploit is a pretty poor excuse in my opinion.

Actually, I'll disagree with this. Protective Bond is broken. There's a serious problem with any enchantment where the *only* answer is removal. There should always be the option to play around or power through the enchantment, or to effectively ignore it under the right circumstances. Protective Spirit shuts down damage spikes but you can still whittle your target down quickly - Shielding Hands works in reverse to prevent nicks, but you're still vulnerable to big spikes of damage. Guardian works against focused physical attacks, but you'll chew through energy with target switching. Aegis can shut down a physical offense wholesale for 10 seconds, but a team can simply wait it out. In other words those skills are powerful tools against the right offense, but some offenses avoid them entirely while the ones they do hit can adjust to still win the game.

Protective Bond is one of the few enchantments that cannot be played around. Either you remove it to take the skill down, or you have a target that simply cannot be killed and you'll lose to it. This creates PvP situations where all you have to do to win is fight to keep a particular enchantment up - if you can recast it enough and bury it under chaff or otherwise win the battle over that enchantment, you win the game. Of course you don't see this problem right now in PvP, but I assure you that if NR disappeared you'd be seeing the enchantments that fall into this category back out in force - the aformentioned Protective Bond, and the once ubiquitous Healing Seed.

Just looking at PvE concerns, though, it's problematic that the only way to prevent Protective Bond farming is to put monsters with enchantment removal in *every single pack*. How is that supposed to be interesting? That a pack of level 28 mobs can be shut down by a single enchantment doesn't set off any alarm bells? To me it says that the skill is simply overpowered, and needs to be changed so that monsters, and players, have options other than 'bombard the Monk with enchantment removal' if they want to be successful. Otherwise we have degenerate buff stacking strategies that aren't good for the game, in any aspect.

Peace,
-CxE

There are plenty of places in UW that render that build useless. Forget dealing with the worms or Mesmer mobs in that place as a 105. If UW is a snooze its because the smite run groups have done it so many times they can do it in thier sleep, or trappers exploiting spirits, have done it so many times...

UW is tough enough if you're doing more than the average smite runs. Prot bond is broken, I cannot belive that Anet intended it to have an energy cost of 1pt per reduction of damage.

I can solo UW without the 1 energy, I can do it just as easy with 2 energy per hit.

I dont mind if they make it 2 energy at 17 prot...

Well stated, /signed, Thank you.

Sure, it can still be done with 2 energy, but its better with 1, with 1 /ebond/balthspirit you are not only invulnerable to phyisical damage but it also charges you up at the same time... with bless sig/bonnetti's it would be fine if you just broke even, i know. Ensign hit upon why its broken better than I did.

While you people bitch about something as trivial as a skill, consider the big picture. Ok, you stick enchant removal in every mob, guess what, that pretty much screws EVERYONE over.

Consider that UW and other places have some ways of screwing over 55 monks.

Ataxe can interupt you, especially when they are in mobs.
Squids can drain you to 0 Energy and then remove Prot Bond
Squid can also interupt you till you die.
Coldfire own you, unless you take alot of time to kill them using Glyph of Con.

If you are bitching about this, then there are 2 explainations.

You either cant afford to make a 55/105 monk, or you made enough money and now are trying to screw others over.

The farming monk influence on the economy is minute at best, mainly because of the Market reset. Also, Monks arent the only class that can farm. I farmed on my E/Mo and Wamo, and made roguhly 50k in less than a few days of slow farming, and that was NOT in UW.

Just changing Protective Bond to 2 energy per hit at level 17 won't fix it - I've gotten used to running the build without Essence Bond so that I could run Watchful Spirit instead - it makes the gameplay that much more brainless. Putting Essence Bond back in wouldn't be a problem, and you could manage energy around the few hits that don't trigger both. So much emphesis is put upon the level 17 Protective Bond, for the one energy per hit, that it's easy to lose sight of the obvious - the skill is abusive because while it's up you only take two damage per hit. As long as it has that effect people will find a way to work around the other drawbacks.

Peace,
-CxE

Why not just leave the whole monk thing alot and worry about fixing the more important things, like PvP or the Linear PvE >.>

/signed

treat us right and learn to play.

The coded it that way did they not?

Coldfire are easy, even without Glyph, just move around a little bit.

Your explainations are wrong.
1.)I could afford to make a 105 build because I had nearly everything for it before everyone jumped on the bandwagon thus I didnt have to spend 200k on the runes. 2.)I don't care how much money people make, notice that hasnt been a part of my argument yet?? Its not about how much money I make or how much money others make, its about the fact that its unbalanced and its an exploit, and needs to be fixed.

Ensign said it first, and I concur whole heartedly, disenchants everywhere is not the answer. You say doing so would screw everyone, and I say EXACTLY my point, if the skill is so powerful that the only way to moderate it is to screw everyone else over, doesnt that set off alarm gongs???

I disagree about the economy, the influx of gold into the game simply devalues gold, which is rotten for the causal player/non botter because the smaller amount of gold hes going to be able to acrue is going to be drastically reduced in value.

Your point about farming in places other than UW also makes my point for me. Yes you soloed in those places that were not UW and made money, And I'd wager I could make a monk build to solo those same places you did with another class, but I'd LOVE to see you try to solo with those classes in UW where any monk who can read or have someone explain the build to him can solo with the greatest of ease.... More proof its broken and unbalanced.

Well, it cant be aruged that indeed they did code something, wether or not the exploitation of protbond was intentional or an oversight is debatable.

To the OP- You are the reason I don't go with PuG's anymore.

Lose a mission- our fault.
You die- our fault.
We give a suggestion- "Shut up monk, just heal."

Your one of the people who beg "NEEDZ MONKS FOR GROUPSS!1;11" and then treat us like crap when we join. You wonder why we don't want to join groups anymore.

Irrelevant - the only spells you cast are offensive in nature, and even those spells can be forced through with Bonetti's Defense. Aatxes do nothing to remove Protective Bond, and are thus rendered helpless. The most dangerous thing they can do is apply bleeding, which is why you carry Mending / Watchful Spirit / Healing Breeze to counter the pips. Generally Aatxes are ignorable though and my biggest complaint is their terrible pathing - I'd rather kill them six at a time, instead of watching them body block each other and come in two at a time with a long train of stupid bulls that won't move around behind them.


Reducing your energy to 0 does not remove Protective Bond. You need to lose energy from a hit while Protective Bond is up and you're at or below 0 energy. With Balthazar's Spirit and/or Essence Bond, this never happens. Fear Me does not beat Protective Bond. As before, interrupts do not remove Protective Bond so these enemies are safely ignored. For the XP farmer, Darknesses are ideal because they do not body block each other and don't have a ton of HP - I've done ~20 Darknesses at once before without any real fear of dying.


Coldfire are fairly straightforward to kill, if you've developed advanced enough tactics to not stand in their Maelstroms. Well, at least when you're casting. Walk out of it, cast, walk back in. With Essence Bond and Balthazar's Spirit up Maelstrom actually recharges your energy. Sure it can take a while to kill a pack of Coldfires, but they can't exactly kill you either. Usually I avoid them altogether because their drops are terrible and they don't die fast enough, but when I do kill them I try to train a pack of Smite Crawlers along as well - to recharge my energy for me.


Or maybe, just maybe, we see a serious imbalance in the game that we'd like to see closed.

While I'm mentioning serious imbalances, there's a bigger game design problem at work here - the most effective way to accumulate wealth is to play solo, usually against degenerate packs of easily countered mobs, which just so happens to be the most boring way to play the game. If the reward scale was skewed so that the best way to get rich and powerful was to run missions with your friends, then you'd see a lot more people doing that, but as is you make as much if not more money and XP in a single solo underworld run as you'd make in several hours running missions with friends. I can spend 15 minutes wiping out a pack of smite crawlers and come away with a full inventory, a glob or two, and stacks of crafting materials that I salvaged to free up inventory space - or I can go and help a group through the ostensibly difficult Thirsty River mission and come away with a few Forgotton Seals, white weapons, and a hundred gold in cash. I don't even get the 1000XP reward for completing the mission again? What's up with that?

That imbalance doesn't exactly get talked about a lot, but it's a serious problem that needs to be addressed.

Peace,
-CxE

So now its Prot bond that is an exploit? Please. From the stance of game designer, prot bond is not the problem. The "problem" is that they made two skills that do the exact same thing: Essence Bond and Balthazar's Spirit. It was stupid of Anet to make two identical skills, but that isn't Prot Bond's fault.

Did you actually read this thread? I'd suggest actually reading what I wrote before going off on some kind of offended personal attack next time. I am a monk, I've been a monk forever. I started as a monk, I've never once been the person you describe. Your post just goes to prove my point that the monk class is going to hell in a handbasket because of this build. Used to be that warrior was the class of choice for the majority of the asshat players (not that every class didnt have some) but now people like you are shifting that balance towards monks, and I don't like it.

Yep, Prot Bond is broken. Ebond/Balthspirit do not do the exact same thing. Thus they are not identical. Ebond I belive only applies to physical damage, where Balthspirit applies to "damage", and provides a boost to adrenaline. Seeing as how Ebond is garnered earlier in the game and has somewhat "lesser" effects that seems about logical to me. Besides, the energy cost of Prot Bond is only part of the problem. Even if I had to do without either Ebond or BalthSpirit, I could more than deal with the energy loss with blessed sig/bonetti's. The other problem is that it can be exploited to the point were ALL damage of any sort is reduced to 2pts, which is easily overcome with some basic regen's.

The 105 build makes me sick, i just shows how far people will go to be "invincible" (sounds a little villain-ish to me) personaly i like being a healer and i would feel useless with out my healing

I think there are more than a few people who disapprove of this 105 build, about 70% (random guess, no actualy math was done) of the groups i join ask the same question before they let me in and that is "please tell me your not a stupid 105 monk"

However i guess people can play the way they like so there is not much we can do.. its all up to Anet

Protective bond doesn't stop life stealing I found out :P 63 or so Vampiric Gaze = byebye 55 hp Monk. D:

prot bond does stop life stealing, maybe you messed up testing it.

so, the Suffering/Feast of Corruption from Maw The Mountain Heart, and the Shadow Strikes from the Darkflame Dryders was a glitch, eh? If it's not life stealing it doesn't stop, it's shadow damage. Go try it yourself on the Dryders on Perdition.

For those who think Protbond isnt broken here is a perfect example of how broken it is.

Just for giggles I went into my bags and changed my armor and attribute points over to the 80hp build. Then I went to the comp arena. I crossed my fingers and sure enough the opposing group had no debuffing. The floor was pretty quickly mopped with the rest of my teamates, and then the 4 opponents spend the next HOUR trying to kill me. One of my teamates hung around as they slowly realized that there was no point in trying to kill me and one by one just left the game. The last hold out was a healer monk, and he was doing his level best to kill me, but he couldnt do any damage, and my smiting wasnt enough to bring a healer down by myself. He didnt see the fact that I could go afk and not care eventually I'd wand him down if he left his keyboard for too long. Although I will say he was bright enough to try to train me into the poisonswamp where he would be able to kill me. (if i was afk of course), then I just stopped auto attacking and stood on the beach, he couldnt kill me, and I didnt have to kill him. right around an hour after the fight started he left.

I did that one time to see how well it would work.
Its proof positive that monks are unbalanced if 4 equally leveled players HAVE to have a debuff to have the slightest hope of killing me. Yes a Debuff makes it easy in pvp, but having debuffs literally everywhere in PvE is not the answer.

Fix Prot Bond Anet.

I wouldnt mind if the whole build got nerf, but PvP was fixed. I only farm because PvP is rather pointless atm.

Faction per win anywhere besides GvG (even then, for a long match you dont get much) is very low. At the current rate, its going to take over 1000 hours of non-stop PvPing to unlock all items/runes/skills.

HoH is gimped. Hit an altar match and watch as a Ranger spirit group blocks the enterances and sits there spamming NR and other things. Also, in the 6 team matches, all you really do is either sit and wait for everyone to die, which is generally what other teams are thinking, or you get ganked >.>

Im not even getting into the Random/Team. Ive gotten stuck on flat ground in some of those maps, and couldnt move at all.

PvP could really use some major tweaking, and the grind of unlocking needs to be heavily reduced.

Yeah, I like to credit myself to having one of the first solo monk builds, which I mainly became intested in after going through the hell that is being 1 of 2 monks in a idiotic UW pt that even though they had to have ascended(so calling them "noobs" would seem childish), they still have no idea how the basic mechanics of the game work. And yes, I'm a 105/55 monk, and I have another armor set that I use for end-game missions or PvP. I just don't see how what I'm doing is hurting the economy.

Ok, so I go and solo underworld and get a couple globs of ecto (In case you don't know, that doesn't happen most UW runs). Now, if I went off and sold these globs for 10k each, then I could understand the crying about me getting rich simply because I'm a monk. But I save ectos for FoW armor, so the only thing I'm gaining from all my UW soloing is a little assistance in getting over-priced armor that's no different from your droknar's armor. So if you want to argue how me having FoW armor is terribly unfair to you, then I'd love to hear it. Other than that, I haven't gotten jack from my UW runs, besides all the piles of glittering dust I can handle. Trust me when I say that UW farming hasn't made me rich quick by any means.

The 105 monk is not broken because it can ONLY solo a few key areas. When enchantment removal comes into play and you're sitting there with 55 health, the odds don't look so good anymore.

If you want to talk about a problem that resulted from the boon of 105 monks, then Sup. monk runes are your answer. You CAN buy then from the rune trader...thus is the reason you see people camped around the rune trader constantly refreshing the list in an attempt to snag any Sup. monk rune that comes up. Why? Easy money. Sup. Protection runes cost maybe 2-3k from the trader, and if you're lucky enough to snag one, you can turn around and sell it for 9-10k. I've dubbed this "the next generation of farming", and the people that do this are probably the most crooked of all. And who are they screwing over to make quick money? That's right, the enemy, the 105-monk hopeful.

You must have gotten REALLY lucky. 90% of random matches I got into had a mesmer or a necro beating on someone like that.

True, its good, but anyone with any enchant removal will own that person. I tried it too, and the first necro I met owned me in 2 secs. Chilibans + Vamp Touch and I died.

Also, dont blame people farming with the monks, blame ANet for putting in the NPC Rune Traders.

Id love to see even 1% of the current 105/55 Monk Pop. using that build if you had to farm those runes

I don't mind the power of the 105/55 build -if- (and with the ANet team this can be a big 'if') it doesn't result in changes in the game world that come back and bite -me- (a non-monk) in the ass. Now, I use henchmen, so the class makeup of my fellow players doesn't matter to me. Perhaps if I played with PuG's the increased percentage of players who are 105/55 would be a problem.

As to the large (and getting larger) percentage of players who are turning to this build, I find that to be pretty natural. A lot of players in RPG's try to create 'the invincible character' so when they see what they think is a chance to do so they go for it. But I figure long term (how long I don't know) that people will eventually get bored with thier 105/55's (after having farmed with them whatever they feel the need to farm) and will start playing other combos again. All of them won't, of course, but this should result in a more even class distribution over time. Might take a few months, though.

Yep, no doubt, it was pure luck there was absolutely no debuff in that PVP match, but I think that example wonderfully illustrates the point Ensign made about how the skill is overpowered because of the fact that there is only one way of dealing with it. Yes, that way is very effective, but when you apply that skill to PVE, not every place can have disenchant, because that would as you said, screw over everyone. So it needs fixing.

Pinning off the blame on Anet is a copout. Just because they can doesnt mean its right that they should, if you are under the delusion that anet intended monks to solo in UW then maybe the "how can it be cheating if its part of the game" logic holds up, but in my world, it just doesnt cut the mustard. Having said that, youre right, if anet hadn't enabled people to jump on the bandwagon they wouldnt be able to. But I've said several times that the game would be better if more people did what they should do, as opposed to what they can do.

Likewise, if there is a problem, let Anet fix it. It's their game, and they know the issue exists.

No, im saying the booming amount of the monks is mainly because of the rune trader. The trader ruined the economy, and made it possible for everyone to get their sup runes without much trouble.

I got all my sups from drops, and Id still prefer if there was no Rune Trader, but it is too late to remove him.

The fact that you can PvP and win is based on luck and patience. I frankly wouldnt waste time sitting there wanding someone while being invicimonk because I could win a hella lot of battles in that time.

That build works only where it really doesnt matter. It gets owned in HoH or GvG, thus its useless in any PvP that influences the game in other ways than 10/12 faction >.>

Holy crap... theres still a healing monk around in PvE?

I go healing all the time in PvE. 70~ish HP heal parties are just too good to pass up, as well as healing seeds, breezes, and an Aegis to swap out with Lina's

so, earlier I posted about the life stealing or shadow damage ignoring Protective Bond, to show I'm not crazy..



sorry for the height, tried to get it to show the important stuff.

Sainte, if you'd have my experience with getting a superior to drop (not a single one in over 400 hours of play) you'd not be so eager to see the rune trader go.

It's easy to ask for the elimination of something in the game if -you- don't need it.

I think rather, the real issue with these solo farmers is not that they are using a special smiting build with runes to lower health and a spell to decrease damage. Any area with mesmers or chilibans can seriously destroy anyone of these so called uber monks, but the problem is in that in any area where these types of enchant removal or massive health degeneration do not exist these monks can and do kill everything.

Personally, I really see no problem here. Everybody wants to farm decently. These people are just taking advantage of that ability to do so. These characters are quite pathetic as far as the pvp aspect of things go. I saw a post by somebody claiming one of these monks was impossible to kill by thier group. This could be true in some random arena instances, and possibly in the team areans, however there are enough people spamming NR in HoH and in guild battles to make these characters a nonfactor.

Does excess farming cause problems with the economy, yes, of course it does. However, more of these dopes farming more gold and items creates more items for trade with other players. Do they really want to get every cent they can possibly get from these items? Most likely, since this is normally the nature of business, but considering they can farm almost everything everywhere and rake in items and gold, would charging that extra few coins means much to them? Probably not. In my experience, it is not the farmers who are causing economic problems for this game, but rather the shoddy patches by Anet and the developers which try to limit the economy in some fashion or another. There is no "quick fix" to economic issues, there never has been and never will be, in any game or in any real life senario.

Does it bother me that the population of monks has quadrupled, no. Why should it? Anybody playing this game has a right to play whatever class they desire to for whatever reason. You have the same liberty. The only thing I can think of, is if the monk population grows too big, warriors will be off the hook and monks will become the new "noobs".

There are many things wrong with this game. There are many things right with this game. There are many idiots in this game, and there are many intelligent people in this game. There are many stupid spells in this game, and there are many great ones.

I think there is one key ingredient everybody is missing here. For the price of a pack of cigarettes and a 40oz bottle of malt liquor, you can purchase 100,000 gold coins. Is it immoral? Maybe, but consider how many hours you might have to farm to gain 100,000 gold coins and then tell me how many real dollar bills you would be willing to give to gain that time back. If its greed that drives people to creating the special farmer monks, then I feel sorry for them for even considering to do so.

*I do not endorse the buying of gold coins for dollar bills in any way whatsoever.

I think the ANet team has a bit of a split-personality when it comes to the economy. This game was advertised as being a non-grind game. What is grinding? It's killing the same creatures for hour after hour to get a particular piece of gear and/or a certain amount of money. So, when more gear and more money started entering the GWars economy, why did this upset the ANet team and cause them to implement any number of half-ass 'solutions'? They should have been -glad- more items were available and more people got the money to buy them quicker. That fits -exactly- with the 'non-grind' game they supposedly wanted to create.

Somewhere along the line, the ANet team forgot their own goal. Look how so many of their changes and tweaks have increased the grind factor. They've turned their back on their own vision. The question is: are they going to realize this and go back to their original vision, or are they going to keep fighting the playerbase and increasing the grind factor? Time will tell, supposedly they are going to fix the drops in a future patch, that would be a start in the right direction.

Vorlin has pointed out the problem perfectly here. They say we should play the game normally, well there isnt much to do once youve beat it and want to level your pet in a place you can handle (me) or want to make money since you never got any good drops playing the game "normally" (also me). Anet needs to take away the "grind" factor so we can enjoy the game and actually compete with pvp characters.

I made my monk three months ago (healing) and also have a 105-armor. Wouldnt be the end of the world if they "fixed" the build as i didnt intend to use it for farming in the first place.

I can't agree with that. Coming from Everquest I saw a big decrease in prices of elite items as more people started to farm them. When you have an influx in "supply" no matter how much gold is in the game prices come down because people will have price wars to sell their items first. When you have a "rare" commidity though that is when prices will be sky high, not much supply and people who have the item can demand just about any price they want, but, then they are just swapping money from the rich to the rich already, they aren't gaining anything from the middle class or lower class because they can't afford it anyway.

And just wait till A-Net adds the bazaar/auction system. Prices will drop considerably as more people will be able to see the lower prices, that's another thing that brought prices down in Everquest. When one could browse the market one could always find the lowest prices and there wasn't a day that went by that some other fool would lower his prices to sell his items first and then the next person to come in with the same item would do the same until it was a domino effect of prices falling like rain and the middle class and poor could now afford the better quality items.

Many times I made profits off of these price wars by buying the items at their lowest prices and then just putting them on my mule at double the price and just wait till the market was drained of the cheap sales wars. There's always an impatient person to come along and pay the price when the market is bare. The monk sleeves were a very popular item that I bought for 4k or so and sold for 9k all the time. Never once having to farm them on my own.

I used to sell SOW potions and made a fortune doing it, because I monitored the trade screen, I was always 1 to 3 plat lower than anyone else. I relied on selling "quantity" per day as opposed to trying to sell 1 a day at 100plat I would sell 40 a day at 75 to 80plat. And on weekends I would sell 60 to 80 per day. It's all about supply and demand and the lowest price. Always has been always will be.

The influx of money only causes inflation for the very elite items or the very rare items. It doesn't affect the whole economy because as I said before, the more people farming the same items, the less that item will be eventually. Yakesha swords used to be like 10k, when I left EQ they were 50gp or less lol. That's something else too, with each new expansion and better gear and weapons, the old stuff also became cheaper. As new armor and whatever in the next expansion of this game comes out, ecto and whatever will also drop like rain, because "vanity" rules the world for the most part and people will move to the next best thing in materials and gear for the "bragging and vanity" rights.

The hording of Superior Monk Runes now is something else as the world becomes saturated with 105/55 monk builds (fotm club) there won't be as much demand for them in the very near future. Then people that have horded them will start to unload them at reduced prices just to try to get back what they put into them. When you can sell one you got within 5 minutes of hawking it, they will continue to be high, but, as soon as it takes 30 minutes to an hour to sell just one, watch the prices drop like rain. That's when I'll laugh at all those that horded a bunch of them and can't unload them. lol

So no inflation in a game doesn't affect everything, just the most elite and rare. Common will always level out and become a pretty standard price range and anyone with common sense will find the lowest price when we get the auction system.

I think this better illustrates the real issue here. If they change protective bond, monks will still solo... just with a slightly different build. If they destroyed monks completely to make it impossible for them to solo, people would just solo with warriors or elementalists (not UW, but countless other places). Many people will always insist on soloing because the loot over time is simply much higher that way. People say it's boring, and yes - it is! So why would people do something boring over something fun, like going with a good group can be? Because the rewards are that much better in the same amount of time.

There are other ways to combat the general issue here rather than screaming for nerfs to *whatever class can solo the best this week*. Things like lowering the amount of gold that drops overall, at the base level, then raise it for each additional person in your group, so that you wind up with a similar amount of gold whether you are in a group or not. Things like chests that have items for EVERYONE in the group, not just 1 or 2 (especially at the end of UW/FoW quests). Those are just two simple examples; there are many other ways to go about this.

The point is that it's better to do things that promote group play, rather than to do things that discourage or prevent solo play. It is always nice to have SOME option to solo, even if it were made less worthwhile than grouping, because sometimes you just want to get away from the groups or you don't have the time/patience to gather one up (side comment: there should be a better method of forming groups in this game). Now, you could argue that a place like UW should never be possible to solo either way... but truthfully, I am impressed with the creative builds people came up with to do so.

No offense to some people here, but the constant nerf posts are just sounding more and more like pointless whining. I think it's much more constructive to promote group play and give better rewards for it.

Of course, this post and others like it will mostly get ignored by the masses screaming "nerf".

Sorry for the late response.

I agree the more money in the system, the more worthless it is. I've just sat in Lion's Arch District 1 looking at the items being sold. Except for the really persistant, alot of people just want to get rid of their items for alittle more than what the trader will give them, so they lower there price to "bargin prices". Hell, Monk Superior Runes usually go for 12K, I've seen people going for 8K just to get them out of there inventory.

As with my orignal post I am looking at this situation glass half full. The more farmers means more of the same items entering the community, the more people are forced to offer deals to move that "godly gold uber" weapon.

I don't think anyone bitches about all the identicle running builds, or every stupid W/Mo that uses the same tanking build, or every fire ele that uses the same firestorm, meteor shower, lava font build... And those people don't have to put up with the incompetance of their parties - not that there aren't incompetant monks. How the hell does a SOLO build do you any harm? You're not even in his party... This is just bitching for no reason.