(Rant warning) F the bandwagon monks.

Don't be so thick-headed. Those examples don't refer to me and you specifically, they refer to people using the monk farmer and people not using it.

As for the skill being overpowered in PvE, you have yet to prove it. Prot bond is largely used in solo work. As such, it has no effect on PvE team mechanics. So calling such a skill broken in PvE is pointless because if you do not solo, you will not (or rarely) come across this skill. If it was indeed broken, you'd be seeing every team running multiple copies of it, like they currently do with healing seed. Currently, you don't see that, you only see it as a tool for soloing.

And who the hell cares if a skill is overpowered in solo play? This game was balanced around teamplay, and as such, you're gonna see certain combos being very strong in solo play. That's like saying cheats should be banned in single-player games since they make the game too easy and broken

Good point. But, first, how many players actually buy from dye trader? Id say it is just a few since you can buy any dye from players cheaper than dye trader.
If people dont buy from dye trader, that cannot be accounted for in the law of supply and demand.

Just to give you an idea of how many factors play a role into this dye thing, think about competition and a kind of conspiracy. Dye traders always maintain the same price BETWEEN them, like a conspiracy of sellers, meaning there is no competition between them. No competition no fall in prices. Supply includes competition between suppliers and differences in prices between some sellers.

Second, if you plot a graph with the numbers you posted for the price and use means, you will see the price has gone down.

Third, yes...i know gw economy doesnt work like real life economy, which i stated before in my previous post. I also said that the law of supply and demand helps the goods to reach a price, i didnt say that ONLY the law of supply and demand determines that price.

There are many factor accounting for the prices. You cannot possibly know all of them. First, can you actually say that the law of supply and demand didnt had nothing to do with the prices u posted? Just a theory, but at first, very few people had black dyes. So, the price was huge. Then people started getting more black dyes due to playing more or having more players in the game, so the price went down. Then, maybe by coincidence or because it was nerfed, black dyes were dropping less so price went up again. This is just one theory. There can be many theories behind the price fluctuations. So, in my opinion, the law of supply and demand applies to the game at certain times, but it is not totally responsible for the prices as i stated before. Simple proof: ectoplasms.

Well, before they restructured the economy, i'd have to say that no one bought dye from the trader, but now that they have, i believe that people do buy their dye from the trader, as the prices between players and traders isn't actually that much now.

The real problem of the GW economy isn't inflation. It's doubtful if there is any inflation at all in the game.
What is happening right now is that prices simultaneously is rising (for a very few highly sought after commodities) and dropping for a very large number of commodities (e.g. a non-maxdamage weapon or shield is unsellable; a maxdamage weapon or shield which is not gold is unsellable unless you sell it ridiculously cheap; a gold maxdamage weapon costs a couple of K and is affordable to pretty much everyone above lvl 12; but gold maxdamage PERFECT weapons OF CERTAIN TYPES are ridiculously expensive and skyrocketing in price).

Which means that GW is suffering from mudflation. Which in turn is due to there being no item sinks.

I suspect the upgrades and the fact that you have to salvage items to get the upgrades back were supposed to act as item sinks, but since you quickly, easily and cheaply can get maxdamage weapons and the upgrades of your choice + almost all runes, that doesn't hold.

My guess is that the economy was designed to work when PvP was seen as the goal of the game, and the PvE was a tutorial. Basically players were supposed to pass through once and never look back. Now that most players spend most of their time in PvE, the economy is showing weakness.

I'd not say the economy is crashed, though. People complaining over things like the price of FoW armor are just being silly - status items are SUPPOSED to be expensive, or they'd not be status items. It's like complaining about the price of Ferraris.

Viewing the world through a microscope is certainly your prerogative. If you believe you are the only players that abuse protective bond, or that people only use it for soloing, that's fine. But you are mistaken.

The main idea behind the concept of game balance is that each player is supposed to be able to contribute to a party. Ideally, one should always be able to contribute on equal terms, and experience a certain amount of difficulty against tough foes. As players tend to min/max their characters to make them more powerful, existing options need to be balanced so that such players do not rise too far above the expected power level of others. Simultaneously, an effort should be made to bring as many options as possible close to each other in power level, so that people don't fall behind the power level of others, regardless of whether they make different choices with respects to their skills/items/whatever.

Another benefit to this is that strategic thinking becomes a requirement. Because all options are (ideally) close to each other in power level, you are required to consider multiple choices when building your setup. It is not simply a question of grabbing the most overpowered skill. This spawns diversity and variety among player setups, because so many different combinations are possible without falling behind the players who chose differently.

Or at least that's the way it's supposed to work...

Now, when a player straps on an enchantment that in reality makes him invulnerable, enters a party and proceeds to go on a killing spree, then the game becomes devoid of difficulty. Not just for himself, but for everyone else in that party as well. Varying power levels work great in single player, where what you do (or rather, what you can potentially do) has no effect on anyone else. But not so in a multiplayer environment, where players interact. This is exactly the same reason why you won't find any "power items" in Guild Wars - because people using them would wreck the fun for those who actually appreciate a challenge instead of an autowin.

If a game with no difficulty is what you're looking for, why not simply claim victory in advance and not play at all?


ManaCraft

stop crying, read the 4th one.



there ya go

Doesnt matter if you mean you and me specificially or not. I do find it interesting though, that you would associate the 105 with cheating... very telling.

Pure and simple the build is an exploit, which is as good as cheating, the only thing is, this isnt a single player game even if you have found an exploit that allows you to be profitable without others. So thats where your analogy fails.

You say I havent proven that the skill is broken, comments like that are a waste of time, because while thats true, its also true that you haven't proven that it is not broken and currently being exploited. Hell rather than that, you take the tack that since youre playing the as much like a one player game as you possibly can then cheating should be allowed.... Interesting.

lol ok, so something can only be broken if its being used by teams?? You're right though we dont see teams using the exploit set up because its worthless to a team. What we DO see though is an infestation of monkroaches all of whom are wearing 5 sup runes (one of which is a dup) and switching off between 2 noob offhand items.... Ok so if you see teams of players loading up on a certain build/item/skill thats broken... but all the monkroaches (who could make up how many groups all told if they were forced to group for a census???) doesnt indicate something broken. Nice bias you have there.

Yea, but I'll believe it when I see it.

i think his point was why should monks be the only class that can solo the undeworld? when nobody else can (you will notice that he said why should monks farm WHERE no-one else can) not that its impossible for anyone to solo anywhere at all.

i look at this thread and very few valid arguments are formed
the number of ad hominem fallacies in this thread is astronomical.

in an argument you cannot attack the opponent to disprove their point. you should only attack the argument itself. this is the reason that previous convictions of a criminal are not revealed to the jury, it is called poisoning the water and does nothing for your argument, merely trying to weaken the others position.

now then.
you say that these 105 and 55 farmer monks are helping the economy? (because of the massive influx of items)
i disagree because from my own experiences i have seen no drop in prices of anything (all price drops can be accredited to the merchant reset)
'godly' weapons are still selling for huge amounts of money.
due to this evidence i would say that the farmers are not aiding the economy. sure they are providing rare items for people but none are lowering their prices as a result. and the weapons that cannot be farmed in the uw are still selling for a lot because of a large group of super rich people who buy the best possible items with the money that they farmed.

i will not address the ad hominem arguments (such as its because he did it and he doesn't want anyone else to) the OP should not address these posts at all and if possible they should be deleted. they do not allow readers to arrive at a fair conclusion because of their 'poisoning of the water'.
i suggest that those of you attacking the OP withdraw then if you want this te be a real debate.

The OP said that because a certain build of character can solo, that the character build in question is an exploit and should not be allowed. That is the debate. Not your term paper project on who is a what and why no one should respond to his insanity.

Since all other classes CAN (prove me wrong, I dare you) solo in UW if they know (once again, stronger emphasis) what the hell they are doing, his argument is invalid. End of sentence.

If you can't hack it, the best recourse is to attack it, is what I am gathering from the thread. My reaction is not alien. My reaction is common sense.

And how dare you tell us who can participate in a thread, when you said nothing that hasn't been said 9 ways from Sunday.

Fallacy indeed

Charcoal ann: well said.

Actually I'd say that solo-farming of any kind endangers economy because it increases the difference between the "haves" and the "havenots", meaning those who are "rich" buy the "godly" stuff at huge amounts of money where those who can't solo farm won't be able to. A guy in my guild just switched to 105/55 and is making huge amounts of money soloing the UW for ecto & shards. Easy money? yes. Balanced? Hardly. Correct? Nah. Solo-farming is a twist of the "rules" - or intended rules - of the game, which is by all means a teamplay game. So as a twist, if it's available to one class it should be available to all.... but I would not encourage that.

I *think* (haven't looked at the build yet) that including one or two casters in the first part of the UW would be enough to take off the solo-farming monks... but I might be wrong. I'm just reporting what I've been told, that casters are the bane of this build, without having a direct knowledge of it.

Yet, if it encourages a growing in the number of monks in the later parts of the game, I'll take it as a good thing.
I'm quite sure that - considering the huge prolification of such monks - the devs are not ignorant to the matter and will address it as they see fit. Considering the good work they did till now, I'm confident they'll take the right measures.

EDIT: SOT, try it with a mesmer. Or a necro? Haven't been down there long enough to say anything, but you would think that if there was a way to solo it with other classes, you'd see more UW soloing from other kind of class. Yet ALL the people I've heard are MONKS. Why? Things are two, either monks are a smarter lot than others, which is statistically HIGHLY unlikely, or no one else has tried it, which is even less likely, or you're mistaken. I'd cast my vote on the last option.

The reason for your constant encounters of Monk this and Monk that in UW is that people talk about it in towns. In your own private instance, should you choose otherwise, unless you PICKUP a pug with them, you dont see it. Period. But that much is obvious.


LMAO, first me, now he moved on to Yuan. I wonder who is next to be found in the shadow conspiracy to ruin the flamebaiter's life? His entire OP was nothing more than an attempt to incite passions and fan flames. He got what he wanted,and Anwiel stepped in and cleaned up some posts, but the madness has spread like polio, more mundanity has entered, and new visions from new mouthfuls of asshat have invaded.

Dump this pos

Protective Bond is NOT broken. It does exactly what it says it does. None of the skills used in the 105 or 55 builds are broken. Nor are the runes. It is just a clever way to use them. What may or may not be broken is the areas which have no enchantment removal whatsoever. However, if you give every place enchantment removal to stop this build, then how are all these people that think Thunderhead is hard going to beat the game?

sure SOT all classes can solo the underworld, all classes can take the 200 dmg per hit that the Aatxes can dish out. maybe they can. i have seen no evidence at all to suggest that this is true.
i have seen videos of a ranger soloing the first group of Aatxes. oh good but not really worth it when the chances of getting a good drop from these 6 is almost astronomical.
you will say so what they are soloing them aren't they?
and i'll say that this thread is about solo farming . and soloing the first 6 Aatxes will not get you any money at all. (the purpose of farming).

you say that your view is not alien?
no apparently not however i have seen only one or two of your brother posters actually back their argument up with any evidence. without evidence an argument does not exist is is merely an unsubstantiated claim.

i am not telling you who can and cannot participate i am telling everyone that those who do not substantiate thier claim are not actually participating anyway. they are forming a bachground noise that detracts from the real emphasis of this thread.

Ad Hominem is a fallacy, this means that attacking the OP personally is not a valid form of argument anywhere. 'replies like ur a n00b' that i have seen on this thread exemplify this. does it add any substance to the argument? no.
therefor should it be included in the reasoning of the argument? no.
and because this thread is devoted to the reasoned argument on protective bond monk build should these be included?
no.

these people may as well say that they rather enjoy blinking... it contributes just as much to their argument as their origional posts.

Well, I know that three rangers can easily solo quite a bit of the underworld... and it went a hell of a lot faster than the 105 build by itself. I think if people looked at all the factor's involved, you'd realize that 105 builds are not godly for farming. Yeah, it's hard to die. But it takes a long time. You could probably do the same thing 3 times with 3 people by the time a single 105 is through.

You're still grandstanding with collegiate terms in a fencing match dealing with pure semantics. Semantics do not refute an argument, they stave off admiting defeat of one.

So because I have not posted a 45 minute myopic documentary in Widnows Media Format, showing that it CAN be done, as it IS done on a regular basis by players across the spectrum of the gameworld, it isn't true. Because you haven't seen it, it cannot be done. Ok, gotcha. And this differs what you claim I personally claim...how? Oh wait, it doesn't.

And no, he offered no evidence that his claim of it (the issue and skill within it) being 'broken'. He stated it is broken 90 times, and type more and more insanely and emotionally, but no, he offered no literal proof that when I click on the skill, nothing happens. That would be defining it as broken, not his dislike of it.

So try again. I am atingle in thrilling anticipation at the next sociology lecture, since the thread as a whole is meaningless anyhow, this is more interesting.

umm hang on... doesn't solo mean on your own?
and isn't a 3 man team something different from solo?
why yes it is!
and 3 times as fast? sorry i don't think that can be true. that is just dreaming up stats on the spur of the moment to support your argument. also a fallacy

(don't worry 93% of people do it at some point in their life )

and to SOT. i'm not refuting the argument. i am telling you that the argument is not an argument .

also if you provide no evidence for a conclusion it is not a conclusion. so the fact that you say you can't be bothered doesn't validate your argument.

personally i don't like the term broken as it does indeed suggest what you say. however in the gaming dialect it is something that does not work as it should in a fair world .

also this is not sociology, it is philosophy .

Please link me to your text book supplier, I am enthralled.

Until you've tried it, then you can't call my claim a fallacy. Me and 2 rangers from my guild decided to go down there and polished off the aatxes shortly and them moved onto the easier parts. Alright... maybe not 3x as fast... but it's still a lot faster.

In any case, what does it matter if it's solo or not? If you can do it fast enough, you would theoretically get the same amount of drops.

if you are not doing it 3 times as fast are you doing it at the same productivity (per person) as the monk? no.
hence the monk is even more productive then a well oiled team of 3 working at maximum effectiveness.

to SOT the info on fallacies i am using can be found on the internet.

I KNEW you were going to say that. I have seen enough

But you see weezer, that is the OP problem first hand. He was (is I am sure) upset because you and your buddies were intelligent enough to figure that shit out for yourselves, and he would rather spend his time screaming about how unfair the universe is, rather than innovate his strategy and avoid the noid (so to speak).

As for the other claptrap in here, its not contributing to the thread, and yet that same claptrap claims no one else is either. I truly marvel and wonder at what that means.

i would like to point out that i did not look that info up just for the purposes of disproving arguments on GWG but looked it up months ago for use in my philosophy class. for some reason it sticks in the mind.

after reading many of these debates i have finally become very annoyed with the 'flaming' as people seem to think that it aides their argument. it does not it weakens it (if looked at properly) as it suggests that they have no info with which to back up their claim.

you have seen enough? has my endless quoting of the philosophic encyclopedia demonstrated that my point is not valid? are you suggesting that i know nothing about that which i speak?

SOT: my 'claptrap' is contributing to a fair argument because i am showing that personal attacks prove no point and only weaken you own argument.
i have stated my own point. if you have not read it then so be it.

Then why are you arguing?

So because you don't like the term we should toss it. Check. And the definition of the word 'broken' is not something that doesn't function, as opposed to not something that doesn't function FAIRLY. Right. Check.

Telling people their argument is invalid simply because you do not like the argument is not philosophy, it is sociology, and trying to effect social behavior change by way of verbosity and semantics. Walking into a thread that was dying as it first appeared because of the nature of it is not philosophical yammering to annoy the grandpal, it is pointless drivvel designed to gain some attention. You got some.

And no, your post was attacking my own post, from pages back, I surmise from boredom on your part. The thread was going on fine (as best as can be expected in this inanity). I simply chose not to sit silent and take your words as gospel.

Then you hopped onto the other person's post. I wonder if a pattern is as obvious to you as it is to me and anyone else who reads them all in context?

Possibly.

No doubt Weezer, the 105 is not as fast as some other 2somes and 3somes, but then the loot has to be shared doesnt it? I'll never accept the arguments that the motivation for the 105 build is anything but greed for many of the monkroaches that now infest the server. I've said it before I'll say it again, I don't believe anyone makes a 105 monk with the intention of doing anything but going to UW and farming up ectos/storms and such.


Wrong, I'm talking about a known and proven build which is in my opinion an exploit, that can solo in UW, I dont need to prove anything because we all know I'm talking about fact. You on the other hand, are trying to tell me that a mesmer primary or any other primary for that matter can solo UW smites like a monk can? LoL, sorry chummer, the burden of proof on that claim does not rest with us but with you. So why don't you put your money where your mouth is, I'll meet ya with my monk, you can take any primary class you want thats not a monk and I'll buy your way into UW, then you can show me. If you can show me one class that is even close to as effective as monks at soloing smites, no wait, soloing ANYTHING in UW, I'll come back and amend my remarks on this thread. Untill then I'll not belive it.

i find this funny.

1) i am arguing because you are trying to suggest that Ad Hominem is a correct way of conducting an argument.

2)as in this case broken is being used in a dialect form i have been led to believe from many hundreds of posts on this forum (including my by yourself) that it the skills must function fairly in a predictable and consistant way. if they don't then the players call them 'broken'
i don't understand this point fully 1st of all you say: why should we toss this term just because i don't like it. then you say that 'broken' means what it does in normal life. i don't see any link. (i shouldn't think you will find the form broken being used here in any normal dictionary)

3) i am not telling people that i don't like their argument because it is not philosophy. i am telling people that i don't like their argument because it is not an argument.
argument:a set of statements (premises) that support a final statement, the conclusion.
if an argument has no conclusion is it an argument? no.
if an argument has no premises is it an argument? no.
philosophy is not old men sitting around asking bloody stupid questions like the tree in the woods. it is the science of arguments.
hence my points are philosophical not sociological. and like any sciences the inevitable outcome of information will change public opinion. without being fomulated to do so.

eg. global warming. scientists say oh the atmosphere is heating up. might be because of cars. public go: argh the government must do something they must ban all cars!

i may not respond after this (i have a philosophy essay to write )


also i was not attacking your post. i was attacking all posts that were guilty of the Ad Hominem Fallicy. you presuming that i attacked your post alone suggests that you knew what you were doing in it.

Right. And nature's renewal is a perfectly fine skill as well. It does exactly what it says it does, right? And anyone who uses other skills in conjunction with it to spam it like no tomorrow has just found a "clever way of using it", right?

You don't fix an imbalance by conforming to it. The answer to prot bond is not to build the game around it, but to fix prot bond itself.


ManaCraft

In the fine tradition of the sociology poster above you, I'll throw this out there:

What you encapped that up there with, is known as argumenteam ad nauseam. It means that, because you keep repeating it aloud, it makes it true. This is also known as denial, idiocy, and complete mindlessness. Take your pick.

Please quote me, word for word, where I said the word smite, let alone where I singled out a profession to debate you on. I am waiting. There is no debate here, there is "I am right, and anyone who disagrees with me is lying, on crack, or basically just dumb". There is no ongoing argument over the issue you claim to have postulated on. There is instead "I refuse to accept someone else is capable of doing what I am upset that I am not doing, so it cannot be possible and will therefore revert to claiming my supreme truth"

Wrong again. Trendy.

As for the challenge to meet you ingame, your forum postings tell me more than enough about who you are as a human being, so playing with you has no value for me, pro or con. I have nothing to prove to you, as you have offered me nothing that would inspire such grandstanding. Your thread is a dead thing, and your repeteating every 3rd post that you are right and everyone is simply not right because that is how it is, well, good luck with that worldview.

Eventually, this thread will be closed, and the beauty in that is immortal. Your idea that UW cannot be soloed without a monk's mite (im still not even sure wtf that is suppoed to mean, as I don't use such things) is flawed beyond repair. I take my leave of this dead husk of posts...Farewell. LMAO.

Indeed, perhaps I'm holding to a different use of the word broken from a different mmo i've played with a different community.

So, I'll not use broken anymore, because even though I think Manacraft was absolutely right in displaying why the argument that "it does what it says it does" is invalid.

To be more accurate, the skill has an unbalancing effect on the game. "clever" use of the skill has lead to exploitation of the skill which has lead to monks being extraordinarily efficient, if not the fastest, at farming one of the more desireable places in the game. I've not yet seen proof that any other class can even begin to solo there with the smallest fraction of effectiveness that a monk has there. Online gamers are like running water, they have this innate (or maybe just inane) compulsion to find the path of least resistance, thus the explosion of monkroaches all over the place.

To be even more clear, I cant see Anet having intended people to be able to reduce incoming damage from nearly all sources down to .6% So, if the skill cannot be called broken because it fits within the 15 word skill description you get when you mouseover the skill, i'll stop using broken. However, I fully believe that the use of the 105 build is an exploit that exceeds the INTENT of the developers. The tired, 'they coded it that way" excuse is simply a way for those who know they are exploiting to see no evil and hear no evil. As if its not possible that the exploitablility of prot bond is not an oversight on thier part. Hopefully one that gets corrected soon.

Wow, thats alot of words and backhanded insults to say that you won't back your claim that anyone who knows what they are doing can solo UW in any class. I'd really love to see that. I told you I'd ammend my comments about the fact that monks being the only effective soloers in UW is completely unbalanced, and is due to exploitation of protbond. Hell I'd even apologize. But you don't want to grandstand, rofl.

Bottom line, I'm talking about facts, and now you're making rediculous claims about how anyone can solo UW in any class. I even gave you the chance to shut me up but good, by actually proving it, but youre not interested in that.

I am jack's complete lack of surprise.

i'm afraid that the restating of a position is not a valid way of making an argument
UNLESS people are not addressing his real point and are skirting around the issue by generalisation or over simplification (this is the straw man fallicy).
(another thought on this broken thing: the skill is in need of fixing hence is broken)

SOT he voiced his premesis at the begininng of the thread and you then say that he has not? and that he cannot restate them?

he has not restated him premesis because no-one has attacked them and hence they don't need changed.
(mite = might i think).
SOT i have enjoyed this argument and it would be nice to think that you understand my position on the subject of the totally irellivant replies this thread has recieved.
my posts strengthened the OP's position and where therefor valid to the argument (they helped by demonstrating the lack of good points on the other side)

i do think that this thread has died a death because of the constant flaming and this makes it impossible to find substance in either argument.

I can't help but laugh at the 227 posts here.

wtfpwnd.

HAHAHAHAHA

hahaha

ha

No. This thread sucks. Lock and ban please. Thanks.

I've got a hot tip for all you low-levellers out there: farm the Cities of Ascalon quest for the necromancer -50 health item. The POS thing actually fetches 20-30K now, and is much easier to sell than gold weapons.

Better hurry up and cash in on the army of bandwaggoners before ANet nerfs the build!

Nerf protective bond all you want, you can make a fully acceptable UW/melee mob, solo build without it.

Thank You, for pissing those off and driving them to find another way to effectively solo the monkeys, in and out of UW

Let's see you stop us from farming now

I posted this in another area, but I see it's relevance here as well, just wanted to let all you solo monk haters know, were here to stay

Thanks for bringing that up Numa, I think its very telling that such a lousy piece of equipment is suddenly one of the hottest sellers on the market. It's much like how nobody in thier right mind would've EVER worn a duplicate superior rune, on one set of armor, prior to the leaking of the exploit. Particularly when the cost 20k each or so. These two things alone point to the fact that Protbond is not being used within the intent of the spell, and thus is being exploited.

again, I dont hate farmers. I dont hate solo play for the simple hatred of solo play. Its yet to be proven to me that any class other than monk can solo in UW, which makes Prot Bond unbalanced. Futhermore, the way that prot bond is peforming in that build would seem to be beyond what it was intended to do, and thus an exploit. Sorry, I'm not from Mo. But I'm gonna have to be shown. The day an honest to god rep from anet tells me to stfu cause they wanted prot bond to reduce a 300+pt melee attack to 2pts or .6% of the orginal damage, I'll say its not being exploited. And the day that I learn of another effective UW soloing build for any class other than monk I'll speak right up and say I was wrong, its not unbalancing... Untill such events come to pass Its unbalanced, and exploiting. And it needs fixing.

SOT: fallacy in logic is as evident as clear day if one takes time to reason. It's LOGIC - not just phylosophy. It's mathematics. "First order logic" if you want to look it up on the 'net, there's plenty of clear and very interesting literature, fast reading.
Don't like it? sorry. I can say the exact same thing in different terms, does it make it more efficient or a better argument? nope. So, to use your words "we should not use it cause you don't like the term?"
"Ad hominem" is latin - not a language I'm fluent with, but it's pretty obvious to me it means "to the man" or something like that. Do you need an encyclopedia? hardly.

As per your argumentation:
"The reason for your constant encounters of Monk this and Monk that in UW is that people talk about it in towns. In your own private instance, should you choose otherwise, unless you PICKUP a pug with them, you dont see it. Period. But that much is obvious."

Uhm yes, of course. Yet, I constantly talk to people, because I like talking. And I have never, ever, ever, heard (or read) anything about ANY other class soloing UW. Does it prove it's impossible? nope. Now, how many 105/55 monks are there? plenty. How many soloers of other classes are there? Dunno. Haven't ever heard ONE, I say ONE person claiming he did, except for you - oh wait you didn't. You just said if you can't you're a bad player. So even if this does not disprove your argument, you have not proven anything except that you can speak english, so far. And your claim remains disbelieved by many - or I've heard no voice joining you in saying anyone can solo UW.

Manacraft: Yes, it's a clever combo. If you change all skills just because one can find a great combo, you'll end up with a really boring game.
Put a couple enchantment removers in one area, you've solved the issue of solo-farming and complaints about this, without influencing ANY other area of the game. We've been using Prot bond in PvP with some success without any weird 105 build (which, IMO, wouldn't work for 3 secs in pvp), and it works great.
So you want to change a perfectly fine skill just because there is one area where there is NO enchantment removal? I say the minor reasonable intervention is in the best interest of all. Add a couple enchantment removers and see how the solo-farm build goes back into forget-land like many other FotM builds.

JMNERHO.

If youre not using a low hp build with Prot bond to maximize the amount of damage reduction, I don't see how placing a reasonable cap on the maximum potential damage reduction the skill provides would effect your use of the skill. Meanwhile, changing UW in reaction to the exploitation of a skill instead of fixing the skill would lead to the changing of the experience for those who are not exploiting the skill. In my opinion, its always better to avoid effecting those not exploiting and focus on the exploit at the heart of the issue.

how the hell is using a skill properly "exploiting" ?

We're not talking about all skills, just one. You're blowing what I said out of proportion. I'm not advocating across-the-board changes, simply a fix for one skill.

I'll say this just one more time, so perhaps it'll get across: I don't give a damn whether people farm solo or not. That's not the issue, nor was it ever - at least not as far as prot bond is concerned.

That being said, I would like to move the game toward party play instead of solo farming, but for entirely different reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with prot bond.

Prot bond working in pvp does not translate to prot bond working in pve. They are two entirely different worlds.

The problem is not confined to one area only. The 105/55 build is being used quite a few other places in the game as well, to avoid the difficulty of the game and ensure autowins.

So you'd like to add enchantment removal to deal with the problem? Fair enough. And what will you do when the next farmable/abuseable area comes along? More enchantment removal? And for the next area after that? You'd be hurting every other build that relies on enchantments as well, not just the prot bond users.

Better to fix the problem at the root.


ManaCraft

Dont even START comparing NR / Seed to Prot Bond.

You dont get the differences do you? Prot Bond is PVE, while Seed and NR are PVP. The difference is quite simple.

Prot bond gives you no advantage in the game's most important aspects, eg. HoH and GvG. I have yet to see even ONE person using that build in any high end PvP area. But oh wow, whats this, out of 10 games we played in HoH, 7 were NR or Seed, or abusers of BOTH.

Dont spit that bullshit about the skill is broken, its not even close. Tell me, whats the advantage of being rich in GW? You can get some gold items with stats that resemble collectors items?

NR and Seed Balls are inbalanced, its obvious when a team can stand and no do anything and not get dented by 3 running balths and 2 Symol of Wraths, and the only counter if to find the caster and desnechant him. 1 Counter, and Prot Bond has 4-5.

Stop spitting bullshit.

In all your elitist BS you forgot that a very healthy number of people play 4 on 4 random or 4 on 4 matches in general. And the Pro bond monks are a serious pain in the ass there. I think its time for ANET to quit balqancing the game around the elitist crowd. I would say MORE people play random 4 on 4 than the GvG or HoH. Balance for tha majority of the playerbase.