Guild Wars Update - Nov 10 and Nov 11

completely aggreeing w/ that

pve guys should not be smarter then players tahts what the tombs and pvp arenas are for. ya enemies have no strategy but like whosaidwhatnow said they are lvl 28 double hp and dmg dealt and 3 times the mob size as teams so it makes it unfair to players. and especialy unfair to nukers

Yeah, but that's just the problem. Those who play PVP are people, and lots of people that play this game are inherently douche bags. ANET can't do a thing to fix that, can they. If they could take out all the immature freak-shows that ruin PVP for most of us who dont like it, I wouldn't be so up-in-arms with this patch. But by making this fix, they force the rest of us who like to play with a few buddies or by ourselves, to play with those otherwise pretentious asswipes who think they are better than everyone. No thanks. I liked it just the way it was. They call it a solo monk for a reason, or a guild for a reason. You can choose who you want to do it with, if with anyone.

I would change to water or earth for PvE if I could actually buy a sup rune.

I'm a little annoyed about the changes, i'll try and get over it, but it doesn't look liky when Anet make it as hard as possible (sort the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing traders out).

so this update do more good or harm????

your missing the point...

many of us ENJOY farming ....

coming home from work and turning on the comp to farm a bit and marvel at what drops ( even though we ALL KNOW collectors and crafters make perfect stat weapons)or gather enough money to buy another 5 black dyes and mix other colors into them to change the look of a char we played thorugh the game four months ago... or find that elusive max damage tribal axe that we seem to only find in blue or white with crappy mods or even better a sickle!!!..

your arguement would be akin to me setting back complaining about FOTM builds in tombs... I dont mess with pvp, I dont like the additudes I find there. ( If I wanted to deal with trash talking jerks I would work later, NOT saying ALL are but theres enough to effect PVP all too often.. so I stick with what I enjoy..farming areas and occasionally hitting different areas to see if I can luck out and farm with my lil 55hp build monk through north snake dance.. one heritic and im toast I dont gloat when they nerf a build in tombs, I dont complain and I dont talk crap to pvpers.. I do however understand the frustration of those who used those builds, tweeked them, and made them work for themselves... dont prove me right by setting back talking crap like I EXPECT you to .....

I dont have hours to set about working on a new build to farm the same area I did for the last 2 months... nor am I overtly interested in learning what every skill does in every class... for instance Ive no love for necros, I just dont have the pateince to play the build properly I can respect those that do ( got a guy in guild thats by and far the best minion master ive ever seen, reminds me of playing with d2 summoners) I do however like having four builds set up for farm different places... some with 3+ sets of armor for different jobs (ranger=beastmaster set of armor with proper runes= trapper set of armor with runes=marksman armor w runes) I dont want to have to REINVENT the wheel to enjoy a game I was ALREADY enjoying...

your sarcasm isnt needed... either here or in game after a pvp match...

For an even cheaper energy cost, you can use symbol of wrath. Yep, same effect. And this had me laughing pretty hard considering how they all ran when I cast it.


I went out in a low-level area to work on a Grasping Earth/Ice Prison/Ice Spike/Mind Freeze build. Nope, that didn't work either, they all ran away.

I don't care for PvP, other than GvG battles. I don't care for the attitudes of the "hard-core" Pvp'rs, and their spamming of their rank. I personally don't care if you have a deer head, dragon, or the goddess Athena. I've gone to the Tombs, and I find the insults as to what skills I use, that I'm not using the FOTM, rather immature, and not very fun. So no, I don't PvP. And yes, I have rank-I'm just not saying what it is.

Have you been to the War Camp lately? Everyone is now advertising for two water ele or 1 water/1 earth, and the price of that lame Fleshcleaver? Well, it's sky-rocketed to about the price of Rago's Staff. So no, not much has really changed. No one is asking for my mesmer or ranger (unless I'm willing to change to a me/e and echo one of the slowing spells).

As for those going on and on about how ele's are whining about not being able to use firestorm? My over 2million xp FIRE ele hasn't used firestorm since I was able to get a different spell. I was overjoyed at Searing Heat no longer causing exhaustion. *shudders* And mind burn, yummy. Yes, I still have Meteor Shower on my skill bar, but it was for the disruption, not the damage. Knocking down the 3-monk groups in FoW was hard enough WITH Meteor Shower. Unfortunately, my FIRE ele has now been relegated to the same level as Orion....not a pleasant thought.

I know there are plenty out there that are just over-joyed at this update. I'm disappointed. Disappointed that when I first started my FIRE ele (back at the public release), I was under the impression that that was what my FIRE ele was for. I've worked out several different builds with her, incorporating all fire, fire/maelstrom, fire/air, and fire/earth. I LIKE watching things go up in fire. I'm a pyro at heart. And it wasn't about a cookie-cutter build, it was about the FIRE.

Gotta love people like this. "I havent played yet... but your all wrong for thinking like you do". The simple letter change between PvP and PvE is not just a simple letter... it is a gamestyle change. I couldnt agree more with the person who stated that he does not want to play with anyone else if he does not want to. I dont like pugs because there is always the one or two players that are "uber leet". I dont like pvp because of the time involved Thinking. Thats right... I want a mindless video game to play. I get payed to think all day at work. I dont want to think about a game. I want to come home and "Tank, Nuke and repeat"... not plan my every attack with 7 other people.

I dont mind this,but as long as they increase the drops and such in nerfed places like griffon runs/uw. Even though they maybe harder to kill, they should drop better.

bingo!

I think it should be: best blow Anet yet put against their own business

I do not farm, and my nuker is not working, and it effect every other professions too (e.g. Ranger's traps, Mesmer's Chaos Storm etc), it is a complete screw up. The game has lots of real bugs need to be fixed, but seems nerfing is Anet's priority. I do not get it at all.

In the other issue, AI for monsters should not be increased, because in basic RPG concept; there are lots monsters, but only limited players on map, the only chance that the players have is higher intelligent. (my experience in PRG AI design). Anet can nerf skills to seek the balance the game, but as game developer, should not work against the fundamental concept, otherwise, it will drive players away.

Good luck to Anet for this update. You will see what happen in your second chapter.

Only him though, I think.

I just remember all the solo monks standing in ToA after the Prot Bond nerf saying "oh man, healing is gonna cost people now," doing lots of chest thumping about how everyone would quit GW if they didnt reverse it. *looks around* Looks like you're all still here. The update isn't bad. I didn't redesign my build, and I went out and got Drago's Flat Bow today. It makes PvE much more interesting, not impossible.

GW just became my favorite game because you can no longer easily steamroll all the mobs with a couple nukers.

Sorta agree. The problem, as I see, it basically a form of elitism. People say it seperates the good form the bad - do you really think that doing this is good for this game (that's not aimed at you Batou, but to those who said this). Especially given that GW's model depends on those noobs purchasing the game. Most out there are the noobs and getting rid of them will kill a game. Beware that you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.

As another poster said, the new players will know no different. Though I think this has made the game frustrating in PvE for new players, but I do not know how much. Other than that - I pretty much agree.

The real issue, in my mind, is that whole lines of spells and builds are pretty much dead. For the most part I've felt that the past changes were OK, didn't really like some, liked some others. But over all not really much either way (and to note - I do not play PvP and refuse to have an opinion on that unless I know more). "Different" doesn't mean bad, it is just different. However, this change is "dead" or "useless".

One of the main is that in the past the only things that were made useless were obvious exploits and the updates were pretty much targetted fairly well at just them, plus those exploits were more knowlegable gamers - not the casual gamer. Regular builds - one that were obviously intended - were still quite viable. Sure, some things may have slight changes, but it was still valid. Unless someone comes up with something better this stops entire builds that are *not* exploits. No one should be happy that fire eles are pretty much dead - better that they would be removed instead of made worthless. This is true from veterans (smart and dumb ones) and newbies - imagine really being turned on by the idea of a fire ele (my first char, at that point I didn't know anything about the game, only the high level description) only to find out that most of your skills are worthless? Just think how horrid the mage henchman AI is now with AoE spells. Before I sometimes took him, never will now. Not to mention when the greifers figure out they can be VERY disruptive with a few well placed AoE spells (especially with respect to aggro) I bet that a lot of the "This is great" people will turn.

Guild wars has been very well balanced in the past. No matter the build I've found a way to make it work well in a few hours (PvE only, I do not like PvP). Now there are entire classes that I may be able to make work with a lot of time invested - but I didn't purchase GW as a "I have to work at it" game, plus it was advertised and delivered as such. For a casual gamer this is a death knell - go play another game.

*sigh* my ranger will now most likely become my main player again (does ignite arrows count as AOE?). I was seriously enjoying my smiting monk, it was a different style character than I am used to playing in RPG's. Unless either some great new tactic is found or this is rescinded she is dead. The only thing that makes this "bad" instead of "Horrid" is that GW allows rebuilds.

Adapt? I DID adapt pal. Making an echo nuker from the ground up because that was a good PvE class, that was adapting. Spending 100+ hours playing him, building him up just so I could finally get into good PvE groups that my tank couldn't, that was adapting. Being forced to change my entire game, and spend a bunch of money (which will now be twice as hard to come across) rebuilding every time the whiners get their way, thats not adapting, thats ridiculous. It's coddling. Its ANet saying "there there you poor lil mesmers... there there you PvE rangers... we'll make the most damaging class in the game suck, just so you can stop whining about your character class being 'useless'. Don't bother adapting to the game and making characters that fit their purpose, just whine to us until we change it for you."

I shouldn't have to "adapt" every time ANet bends to the whim of the whiners and nerfs whatever build I'm using. I MADE that nuker in response to the trends, that WAS adapting. If you're really in favor of this "adapt" concept, than all whiners should "adapt" by making a character class thats actually useful.

I didn't whine about nobody needing my tank in FoW. I made an echo nuker. I didn't whine about my echo nuker sucking in PvP. I made a ranger. If they made my ranger suck in PvP, I'd make a necro... and so on. I've adapted enough, I'm done adapting, especially when I know I could spend another 100 hours playing a class that will become useless without warning. The only people that aren't upset with this update are the ones that aren't affected, and therefore don't really have a valid opinion.

I just cant wait till someone posts a fraps video link of a warrior with bulls charge/strike and a Mo/E smiter with some bouncy/cheesy music. I imagine all the monsters scattering like ants while pouring water into an ant hill, while being knocked down will be just pure comedy gold. Lol, if only fear me did that too, hmm i havent tried that yet.

I'm also noticing that it's now much harder to aggro/group enemies with my warrior whenever some idiot in my group uses an AOE spell.

I find myself chasing after fleeing enemies, trying to aggro them back onto me before they kill their new and squishier targets.
It's really annoying because emenies seemingly almost always retarget the backline people after fleeing from an AOE spell.

So two things I've learned:
1. If you're an elementalist, please stop using AOE spells (unless perhaps the enemies are frozen or crippled).
2. If you're a warrior, bring plently of snare/knockdown skills in case an idiot elementalist in your group uses an AOE spell.

Seriously, am I the only one who's had to plead with elementalists to please, for the love of God please, stop casting AOE spells and screwing everything up for the team?


Oh yeah, another thing: even FIREBALL is affected by this. Enemies run before it's even cast for crying out loud.
I think I'm going to start kicking fire elementalists from my groups now, which sucks, because I pride myself on never excluding anyone from my groups, regardless of class or build. I usually don't even look at class; I like to think I can be successful with any group, even sans a monk. But fire elementalists simply do more harm than good now, it's ridiculous.
Anyone else agree with me on this?

lol, i did a fireball on a single lone badguy and he ran off.

ph33r t3h 403!!!!!!!!!!

(fear the AOE for those you who are uninformed)

They'll run fomr ANY AOE damage, from any class, chaos storm, frozen burst, ignite arrows, cyclone axe, B.aura, deathly swarm, any skill that hits more then 1 guy, prolly even hundred blades.

So i leave wow to come back and check on my lovely guildwars to see if everything is right in the world as it should be. I get on and decide to run a solo farm run with my necro/ele like i used to. I go to nuke the 1st group of birds. I die. This isnt right, they are punishing those who play by the rules and dont cheat. How about oh i dunno better bot detection. I mean on Wow they catch the people and they are gone.Not to metion on there mobs dont run from aoe and they dont have a bad economy. These are the things i hoped would be fixed and they only made the game worse. I used to like playing Guildwars i used to even defend it aginst other games that where out there. I now see this game as a hopeless waste of alot of my time of alot of gold that i worked hard for and didnt ebay or cheat for. If they wanted to turn away alot of people this was a good way. Its completely retarted. my necro/ele that i worked on for so long and used so well is now a weak helpless pathetic pile of garbage that not only dose no one want in PVP but no one wants in PVE now too. Thank you Anet. You punished the innocent.

Bah, people run from AoE's, why shouldn't the mobs, they are just computer controlled people, about time they started showing a little intelligence.

^^ LOL @ Whosaidwhatnow. You claim to have spent 100+ hours playing your Ele and then come out and say this patch has made Ele's useless? Dude, have you read any of the Ele spells apart from Meteor Shower?

This patch is great.. they finally fixed the AoE bug. I mean, come on... who stands in AoE spells for 10 seconds? Smarter AI makes for a better game. Period.

It will also slow down solo-ing (note, it slows it down, it doesn't remove it), reducing the amount of gold coming in to the economy, which is also good because the value of gold seems to be falling rapidly.

Snares FTW... they're finally making PvE closer to PvP... now people will actually have to start learning to play their characters...

This is probably the best post (that I've read so far) summmarizing the effects of the AoE-AI nerf. The rules of engagement in a pve against mobs have changed significantly as a result. W/o AoEs, nuking is virtually dead. Eles will have to shift gears to spiking (dealing significant damage to one target in a very short time and hope a W is nearby to finish off the mob). Smiting will be a specialty in and of itself (when to use ZF to cause scattering from which party member).

Here is the difference:

On the day the invici-monk is nerfed. A few hundred people log into GW and go about thier normal business and - Uhh Ohh. Something isn't right. These few hundred complain that they, and thus, others will quit. Ok GW can handle that. The amount of money and knowlede needed was great enough that non-casual gamers were the target, only highly specialised ones.

Today, 10's of thousands of AoE based people log on, many simply casual gamers who do not read boards, do not keep up with the build of the day, simply just play the game. They go and die. And die, and die, and die. They realise that thier entire build is now wrong and there is no real way to fix it. Sure, maybe the fire ele nuker is the province of the noobs, but to tell all these people "play an air ele" sucks as much as if the nerfed airs to the point that the reply is "Well, play a fire ele" (or replace it with a build you do not want to play). This isn't a narrow, specific nurf - but a broad one against even one of the official builds.

How many are going to spend the next few hours, or even maybe days, pouring over skills, figuring new class combinations (how many are ascended and can easily change?)? Or how many get frustrated and quit.

An update that affects a very small percentage vs one that makes almost every fire ele and every smiting monk MUCH less usefull (arguable even worthless) are going to hang around. Especially given that some of the *official builds* are now either ineffective or take so much skill to play that the casual gamer can not.

Dunno, I have enough other chars I will just change. Not really that big a deal. It's just irritating. Had this happened before I become totally hooked? Had I come in after this and never knew? I don't know. I do know, however, that this breaks quite a bit of what Anet claims. Personally I think they didn't fully test this outside of thier listed goals. It's easy to do, I've done it in the past and present (in fact, I read the update notes and went "Yay" until I played the game) and will do it again. I've seen it called "The Law of Unintended Consequences".

*sigh*

Snare + Nuke. Water + Fire.

I did i spent 200 hrs on that char. Theres no useful way to use her now and if i did change her, because of the increse in cost to buy spells ill go broke buying the ones i shouldnt have to be buying.

I didn't say it made the Ele's useless

I said it made echo nuking useless, which is my BUILD. I still use this char as an air spiker, but it totally defeats the purpose of using him in PvE. Thats what I said, thats what I meant.

Come on people ... listen to what you're saying here. You guys are complaining that they improved the AI!!! You should be happy that you actually have to put a little thought into beating PvE mobs now.

Hopefully this will also teach people to not bring firestorm into tombs and randomly cast it on people out in the open.

Well, im glad people are coming back to the big picture, with which i was trying to focus on. Cept on thing, that bolded part of your quote, i never said that or eluded to it. It isnt elitism because as you said, new players will know it as normal, will learn to play as it is now. Basic builds will always exist, but my "good" highlights are just a few aspects that will boost GW community.

That being said, as people can see my "bad" list outways my "good" list because i do not "really think that doing this(patch) is good for this game".
((Btw, i know you werent flaming/focusing on me, i just wanted to clear up my opinion to others )

To all the other posters out there, LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE!!!! Too many people are complaining about a specific class becoming useless, or a skill they cant use efficiently any longer... This patch is a detriment to the WHOLE GAME... >>REFER TO POST #325 for all teh reasons<<... I will reiterate for teh lazy ones::

Detriments affect Economy, Player Base (both veteran and new), PvE and PvP dividend, and the lasting of the GW community as a whole... want more details... Post #325...

lol sorry i dont wanna type it all out again...

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. . . . . deja vu. . . viva la france!!!! Storm the Bastile i mean Lions Arch!!

Yeah. Boohoo finally to the snobs who were like, "TOO MANY WARRIORS. KIK WARRIOR." I just did Perdition Rock with Henchies and the henchies did a better job than most of the human teams I've joined in the past two days.

Justice is served. Warrior-dissers beware.

Do a search on e-bay...

there is where the gold will be coming from in mass quantity... since the regular joe farmer just got hit with a nerf now all the lil masses of EULA abusing companies who make profit from intangable items in the game will continue to farm with even more bots and from this anyone who is trying new dye mixes. etc etc.. now has a 1k PER hour ratio ( based on me doing fire islands missions with 8 ppl) instead of 9k per hour farming griffons.

where it not a total underhanded approch Id almost accuse anet of BEING the ones selling gold on ebay..
but that would be too much like american government atm...


the value of gold, items, ecto everything is about to skyrocket.. there is a GREAT DEAL of plat out there....Ref; beta vets who still play this game/ companies who farm..

the amount of playing time for items, ecto and plat just increased almost tenfold... hench the value of everything will also increase.

totaly agree...

they really dropped the ball with this update

now i'm pretty sure i wont buy chapter 2

The value of gold is dropping because of websites that sell gold for real cash. This update will likely encourage that, since it discourages simple solo farming as you said.

I'm still really disturbed by the number of people that have this completely arrogant and snobby attitude that anyone who plays a popular or so-called noob build hasn't "learned to play their character." I have played GW for 400+ hours, I have a M/N, a Mo/M and a W/R in addition to my fire ele -- I just have a great time playing her. Fire is entertaining to me. What's the problem?

It really sickens me to see so many people in agreement that they know the real, the smart, the cool way to play GW, and everyone else is retarded. I had no idea the community at large was filled with such elitist bastards.

What does that have to do with anything? How does NPC AI affect what players do in PvP? AOE has never been viable in PvP since you can just move... you'd have to be clueless from the start to waste a slot on AOE in a PvP match. Unless you're talking about people bringing henches into the tombs, this post makes no sense to me.

Second, I don't want to think and strategize for two hours to make 500 gold and split it with my 8 party members. If I wanted a grind I have plenty of other games to choose from.

Economics 101. Amount of money in the system increases = inflation. Farming brings more money into the system. Q.E.D.

If farmers can't get gold, where will these people get it from to be able to sell?

Bots. Sweatshop farmers. Plus, a lot of it still exists on eBay.

Few spells I've tested thus far. These three are from my own bar.

Chaos Storm: Dead.

With Fast Cast I can hit a group once, for weak damage, and one little energy drain. I can understand the more powerful AoE spells getting effected by this. Chaos Storm was weak, and only useful for helping out the warriors aggroing big mobs. Its now gone. The spell that made me love being a mesmer is dead. Yay...

Energy Surge:

Still works. In fact, usually they detect it and all run away together in the same direction. So it still hits all of them. Sometimes they dont run away at all. So I get a single hit energy drain for max damage. Yet another reason Chaos Storm is useless. I can do the same thing for one hit with energy surge as I could with Storm now, and do more damage and drain more energy.

Chain Lightning: This one seems uneffected. But I'm a mesmer with Fast Cast, so it may not be that way for Aeros. Basically they cant run away fast enough to get out of the area of the Chain. Combine Chain with Thunderclap, and you're going to stop them from running away entirely.

playing alot.

It will decrease drammatically because the sweatshop farmer will have to work twice as hard (or more) to get the same amount.