The Nerf Bat has Stuck Thank you A-Net

Meteor is fine as it is because of its relatively fast (compared to other heavy end ele spells) casting time and knockdown effects. 20 seconds at 5E is enough to consider chaining up a triple echo for knock-lock, but the exhaustion makes you deal with the consequences.

So on the one hand you have builds revolving around ONE SKILL: Nature's renewal vs. builds that revolve around 1/3 of the game (enchants and hexes). Hmmmmm, which has more room for creativity... I wonder...

What makes you think that??? ANet can just increase random drops you know. Does not take a genius to figure that out.

/holdtounge

/bitetounge

Folks....come on!
Just play to frigging game or don't.
What's the big deal?
It's not real money you're hoarding.
Heaven forbid we should have to adapt and pay attention to how we play.
Perseveration isn't healthy. Change is good.
Regardless of how much money I earned, if I had a job in the real world where I did the exact same thing every day... hour after hour I'd go nuts.
Geesh.

jmho

A stagnant metagame is a stupid metagame. Change is good. Bring it on.

I think that I can sum this one up. The people who won all the time got used to winning. Then they were told that they had to change something. Instead of taking the challenge and changing and adapting, they turned into those that they hate most. Whiners. I have no compasion for people who refuse to adapt. I changed my characters stats and skills around 3 times in the first 15 lvl. And I will continue to adapt as new obstacles present themselves.
So for people who used to rely on NR, chill... you can still win, instead of complaining go out and figure out a new build with all the extra time.
For all the people who didnt use NR... nows your chance to even the playfield, and maby get some payback for getting owned so often.
Here is a rule for your gaming. Be worthless, and you will be treated as such!

The orininators of both these build, in my opinion, where pretty darn creative. Those that came after, and followed in the same footprints.....I would agree with your assessment. Those that understood both builds, more than likely have moved on to other tweaks anyway. My position though is I hate the concept of nerfing without regard to the effects of the nerf. The creative player will more than likely always stay one step ahead of an upcoming nerf, but my point is that eventually there will have been so many nerf's that the game will have been altered far from what it was when play began which for me has been quite awhile.

I'll be glad if they stop people from soloing UW, it's obvious they never meant for any build to solo the hardest pve mission in the game, and god forbid they balance the game, the poor monks might cry at an actual challange.

I gladly welcome any nerf that will balance the game out to stop these uber builds, the game was never meant to have one build to rule them all, pardon the crappy lotr reference.

As for fissure armor, its rather sad the farmers got it in every bit of 2 weeks, 3 tops, and it was obviously meant to be something that was going to take months and months with an insane gold sink for those dedicated to getting it, not some people who exploit farm spots early on to get it before aNet planned for anyone to have it.

lonk my brother and guildmate

i have to take issue with your post. you know i do not have a monk toon so I am not defending myself here, but i will defend others who found a way to not only make it a bit easier for themselves to get fissure armor but the rest of the community as well.

the monks flooded the market with ecto making it easier for others to buy it at a lower price. (shards are still rare and must be gotten in fissure of woe, which by the way monks cannot solo :P)

what i do not understand is that in PvE it effects no one else how you play the game. it is either jealousy or
just plain griefing that makes people call for nerfs of any PvE build.

there can be no other reason.

Well actually, protective bond was quite annoying in random arena PvP - or so I've heard, but that's probably not why anet nerfed it.

Salja: your toon will still be able to team up with a monk toon for two man UW runs

lonk: monks are still soloing he UW...infact the very first thing I did when ArenaNet updated was go into the UW and test new build. Didn't close GW that way I could continue to Farm griffons for XP, and ultimately refund points, if the build didn't work. The invinci-monk never stopped...they just nerfed protective bond and made it a small degree harder.

Mithie: I ran the build in 10 seperate matches in random arena yesterday evening...it stood 0 chance all 10 times. I was the first character killed and couldn't be resurected. It's not a valid PvP build, it doesn't work.

in PvP protection bond is easily removed. absolutely no need to nerf it for that.

obviously it was done for the griefers who cannot stand the fact that they cannot do what others can.

this is PvE folks get a clue

Disagree. PvE is as much tied to PvP in GW. Invici Monks made ectos cheap (although ANet can fix that rather easily by dropping price or increase drops) but they made monk runes much more expensive.

It is rather silly also that one build can have such distinct advantage on PvE compared to other builds. I have several invici monks in my guild. But we all agree it is rather silly to have half of your guild farming solo.

Forge running also is ruining the balance of the early part of the game. Have you seen Ascalon Arena lately? If you are playing GW for the first time, Ascalon Arena/Shiverpeaks would be such turn off for PvP. Level 6 ranger with Forge armor and poison arrows ??? One ranger or warrior can take down an entire 'fair' level 8 team in Ascalon Arena.

The game is not perfectly balanced like StarCraft is. I am glad ANet is addressing it.

having anticipated the nerfing of prot bond for awhile now, i, amongst plenty of other creative minded players i'm sure, have been tweaking the non-prot bond solo monk build
it's not as 'safe and foolproof' but if you have a brain and a basic understanding of your skillbar and what you're supposed to do, you'll still do smite runs without a hitch

considering i don't need gold, i find it fun to make and tweak such builds with my guild mates

of course, people who like attention will post the builds on forums after getting it from friends, but there's only so much ANet can nerf without unbalancing the whole game/class itself

also, check the skill updates, they've made it easier for another class to solo farm!

yea they made ectos cheap. good for all (since shards are still very very rare)

so how is cheaper ecto hurting anyone??

i would love to hear the ansswer to that

It seems to me that if this nerf were targeted towards UW solo monks, it would make much more sense to throw in a few memsmer monsters in UW or give aataxes enchantment stripping power rather than fiddle with a skill that's pretty iffy in the first place.

one of the few ways around it is enchant removal, and it's not like it has a 10 second duration. *sigh*

Mithie: throwing enchant removal (even if it isn't incredible to begin with), everywhere, isn't the answer. -.-

let me say this in a nice way.

it is a lot easier to code an update to 1 spell then to code in new mobs with new spells.

that answer your question???

Not really. They did it just as easily with the bugs outside of amnoon oasis, they should be able to do it easily with the aataxes. You don't need new spells or new mobs. Just give aataxes chillblains.

it hurts because some people are lazy to get a Monk and do smite runs
if i can't have it, no one else can!

i wouldn't mind if ecto prices went back up to 15k+, i still have 1250 in my storage from the market reset.

putting new mobs into an area changes the environment for everyone...that needs to be weighed when making a change like that. 8 person parties using enchantments shouldn't be effected because arenanet wanted to nerf solo farmers...which is why they opted to nerf protective bond instead of putting new monsters into the UW.

point is they nerfed a PvE build for NO REASON!!!


i am done arguing this point. if you guys cannot see that it did not effect you then i am sorry for you

the jades are necromancers, therefore chilblains is reasonable, the aatxe's are warriors, therefore it makes no sense.

for excuse makers like that man there is no "sense" it isi griefing plain and simple

But it doesn't affect me. I don't want fissure armor. I don't care about getting ectoplasms.

It's not an excuse. Nor is it griefing. I just don't understand what the big deal is. You can still solo UW if you want, nothing's changed.

by the way those who mentioned putting mobs will change the enviroment for everyone... who's talking about mobs? you don't need to add a whole mob of them to do the job!

add one of them and it changes the environment. Plus you'd have to be pretty awful to let 1 monster ruin your build. High HP armor going into the underworld...pull the monster...kill it...put your 105 armor on and go take the aatxes. Either way as a developer you need to weigh how changes are going affect other players and if it's even the least bit negative you need to find a better way to do it.

It's good to know that one thing will NEVER change, and that is the fact that there will NEVER be a perfect game. This change hacks off these people, the last change hacks off those people and then there are those that will complain just because it uses Oxygen.

Some of us can complain in a constructive manner and make a point, speak our minds, move on and deal with the situation. On the other hand some of us just complain and offer no help or constructive input, they just grasp the self instituted "My way is the right way" attitude and dish out full helpings over and over again.

**Spoiler**

More changes will be comming and some of us won't like them.

Sonya, you need to get a life. For many of us, the fun of the game is farming. It doesn't seem that you do much of anything. Sad to see that A-Net tryed to pull the curtain over our eyes and shrug this off as PvP balances. Instead of calling for nerf's Sonya, get out there like the rest of us and PLAY THE GAME.

Aside from your childish remarks, there is no way prot spirit can be nerfed JUST because it is useful in one area. There still has to be Prot Monks in PvP.

As for A-Net, you made the skills. Don't expect players to continue playing the game when they spend time, money, and put effort into making something work, just to see you smash them down in 2 mins because of the whiny ass bastards that are lazy and can't farm one damn creature by themselves. Thus, they complain about any one else that CAN farm solo.


Think about that next time before you wipe the floor with those that are most loyal to your game.

you must have missed my point

The changes are very welcome indeed!

Now, I'd love to hear from all the people who told me just yesterday that ANet "intended" the 'invici-monk' build and that it was "exactly what they had in mind" (mentioning no names, of course ).

not in the least...you simply don't understand game design. Changing the environment affects EVERYONE changing a skill only affects the class that uses the skill...it's very basic really.

Exactly. Alot of people go to UW in pairs anyway, so their is no blow to the UW group really.
I myself am annoyed at not being able to get skill points at a great speed like before on griffons. I am also annoyed at how crippling shot [E] is now crap compared to the basic skill pin down. Sure, the cooldown is great but 8 seconds cripple duration is just pathetic. I would rather spend 3 times the energy on pin down and forget about that warrior for a while...not having to spam crippling shot.
I very rarely used NR so i can't say much there.

Distracting shot, quarter second reduction in firing, yeah thats great.

If i were to call for a balance, i would say reduce the energy cost of concussion shot. 25 energy is ALL my max energy....way too steep.

quoted for truth

darn! you got me.

hey now, even though my guild is now solely concerned with maintaining our spot on the PvP ladder, i'm still in touch with PvE enough to know what's going on.

now think about what i said earlier, think, before giving me the generic 'don't add mindblades!' argument!

i'll be back from work later

also, i don't disagree with you that adding others will change things to an extent for others

I ignored(rather than insulted) your idea of giving aatxes enchantment strip because it was asinine....it doesn't make logical sense.

i'm sorry, where did i mention giving aatxe's enchantment stripping abilities? you're confused.

also, the developer must have realized that prot bond is completely useless for that 'creative' monk build i had some success with in PvP (no i don't mean stupidly standing there taking damage in newbie/random arena)

Chain lightning wasn't overpowered, it was just better than the other lightning skills
But I still use it, since it's still good, so I wont complain about it...
(European?) pug spike teams are shitty though, so I should dump air anyway :P

I'm getting Blackout, since thats really overpowered! (hidden hint for next patch).

You know, I think I feel bad for the devs at ANet.

Let's hypothesize that the developers made these changes because they honestly think it will improve creative and balanced play in both the PvE and PvP realm. This may sound far-fetched to some of you, but I think it's a reasonable premise based on the fact that they have access to more information than we do. Let's face it, they've probably been studying data mined from the game while most of us are posting here based on nothing but personal opinion.

Now assuming the changes have been made with the health of the game in mind and not with the intention of pissing off the whole 105/55 and NR spam crowds, think of how much abuse the developers are taking because they tried to make the game better.

The unfortunate thing about most threads I've seen since the update is that only two groups of people are contributing to the discussion. One side is comprised of people who had become accustomed to winning using either the 105/55 PvE, or the NR spam in PvP. Now that ANet has nerfed these somewhat, it's only natural we're going to hear many players cry bloody murder.

The other side are the people who are gleefully rubbing these nerfs in the faces of those who had used them. It's like a younger brother who sticks his tongue out at the older brother after they're separated by their parents.

I want to hear from the third group, those who are quietly evaluating how these changes will affect their character from now on.

Discuss what effect these changes will have on the effectiveness of the 105/55. Talk about how Rangers can still be viable. Hell, tell me what skills you'd use with my Hammer/Heal W/Mo!

Here's my contribution: Last night I discovered how much I like Belly Smash. I was amazed to find that none of my group members had seen how effective it was before last night. We were in a big mob of melee heavy-hitters and with one skill I rendered them pretty much useless for 10 seconds. This probably isn't news to 99% of you, but I hope there's at least one person who's going to look it up and love it.

This is the Riverside Inn.
Gather around, discuss and attempt to remain civilized for knowledge is survival.

Koroh

[edit: grammar]

Nothing. Absolutely JACK NOTHING. The 105/55 builds will STILL be able to solo the UW with great success, as the build posted at GWonline has proven.

The decrease in shot times on distracting shot and concussion shot coupled with the effects of NR is enough to allow the Ranger class to become very adept at disruption, much more so than they were before.

my apologies. Mithie mentioned it not you. You still can't just go adding mobs to areas without thinking about the consequences.