Guild Wars Update - Nov 10 and Nov 11

I'm glad someone made this observation. ZF is like a pve mob repellant. I wouldn't be surprised if every class has a skill that, post-11/10 update, will serve as a mob repellant. Close to dying? Use a mob repellant to buy time to heal/recharge. What a great loophole for gutsy pve players (who deserve medals for the amount of nerfs that they have to adapt to) to take advantage of. And they'll need it b/c mobs will take a lot longer to clear now.

That is one point i forgot to bring up. PvE has now become that much closer to being PvP!! People forget, that people play PvP to play HUMAN players who are intelligent and people play PvE to play the GAME and not HUMAN players. If you make the AI too smart, the line between PvE and PvP begins to fade, and again it comes back to player base, many who do not like PvP will leave...

Disagree? Further reading for you on post #325. lol

Good or bad, it hardly matters.

This is Arenanet's game and frankly, I see no evidence at all that they will go back on this feature - it is an upgrade to the AI that allows for more tactical and varied gameplay in PvE, which is exactly the sort of thing Guild Wars always promised. More complexity than "Tank, Nuke, Repeat."

So maybe instead of complaining we should, whether we like the change or not, all start thinking of counters.

First off, AoE just became primarily a protection line - dropping a Firestorm or Meteor Shower on a given location will stop monsters from entering or attacking within that location.

Therefore, the key to aggroing monsters onto your tanks is to drop your AoE around the casters until the monsters switch their aggro. Spread them out and keep them scattered long enough for your degen and single-target spikes to drop them, and don't set your AoE anywhere near the tank.

Smiting in particular is now a line Monks can use to avoid aggro and scatter monsters, rather than something they can use to do ridiculous levels of damage. Zealot's Fire or some other self-targeted DoT AoE is now extremely effective both for running and shaking aggro while the party is having trouble staying alive.

Slows and cripples have their place to a degree, especially since most monsters have atrocious removal skills.

Elementalists in general will play more like PvP now, in that they will have to carefully choose their AoE targets in an effort to hit chokepoints and key positions on the battlefield. Other casting classes will have to move into their own groups AoEs without drawing too much aggro or damage from ranged attackers.

One other question - do monsters that are in the process of spellcasting break their spell to move out of an AoE? If so it serves as an awesome way of killing Mahgo Hydras or other creatures that group with long casting times. If not, Fevered Dreams, a Daze skill like Concussion Shot, and a couple quick-casted nukes would probably remain effective, as the Showers would go down while the monsters were casting and then they'd be stuck in the Knockdown chain and unable to flee effectively. It would be difficult to get down right though.

Fevered Dreams in general probably just became among the best forms of AoE damage, along with Barrage. It can spread 10 degen over a group quickly and keep it there.

After every update that affects farming at all, lots of people complain that the nerf to farming is going to drive prices way up. The only item in the entire game for which I've seen that prediction come true is ectoplasm, and that's more likely a self fufilling prophecy type of thing rather than a decrease in farming efficiency. I don't see anything that will make this time any different.

ya i know i can't wait. i made a petition about it before. not alot signed though

pets couldn't be that hard though. give him the henches AI they used to have before today's update. i don't care if he is in some aoe dmg he is my weapon. i don't need him running away. at the same time i need to run while my weapon is attacking. sadly he mimics every move you make. you attack he attacks (after you of course to not draw arggo). you run he runs with you. not a very effective weapon.

PvE is like PvP.... I hated pvp. I tried playing but they kept running around, that was very aggravating.

AE-farming was the target of this AI-nerf/upgrade. There are still plenty of skills that aren't affected by this: gladiator's defense, cyclone axe, spiteful spirit, etc... In a nutshell, only AOE framing took a hit. Other farming tactics remain untouched.

After re-reading Batou of Nine's post, I realized I should say that I do not farm all the time. (EDIT: In previous posts, I made it sound like I only farm, and as if that is my only source of income.) I help my guild a lot, and I started doing Tombs, etc. I'm more of a casual/occassional farmer like Batou alluded to being. I'm not hit hard, but it makes the farming less fun for me, which Rich no like. And it's still a fair way to make a little cash sort of quick, and keep the economy alive by keeping money circulating (stagnant money=increased prices & bad economy, circulating money=decreased prices & good economy).

Hmmm, interesting update.

Am I the only one seeing this as a beginning of (or perhaps continuation of) a trend here?..........elementalists are being phased out in favor of mesmers and rangers.

Anyway you slice it, nerfing AOE hurts elementalists.
I think more and more people will start to realize what great spikers mesmers and rangers can be, in addition to the other great abilities they bring to the table.
I think we'll start seeing mesmers and rangers replacing elementalists in PvE groups, as they become the new trend.

I'm not saying that this is good or bad, just different. And there's nothing really wrong with different, but it might take some getting used to for some people (myself included).

yea, is still possible to farm griffons w/ a w/mo but Uw solo has died for now, and since the price drops i found that trading to make money got alot harder, i decided to make a monk for uw, 3 days after sum good soloing, random update >_> *sigh, i guess ill jus suck it up and go catch up on sum pvp...

How does it HURT elementalists? Earth and Air are perfectly valid skill lines. Water is still sort of the red-headed stepchild, but you can make excellent builds on Earth and Air. Just because you can't "00ber ech0 n00k" everything now doesn't mean they aren't still a good class.

time to invest money in those sup water runes while their still 100g. Since basicly most of fire ele is AoE nuking. fire eles are out of the game. Water ele. oh man the day i would have to change to all things. water. Now you gotta use water to slow them then fire nuke them. So far im not to fond of this update. Maybe they will un update the update if you catch my drift

I agree. Sometimes it takes 3-4 hits because things are so hectic (and im watching my teammates enery bars) before I notice "Hey look im in a Firestorm...i'll just strafe..."

However...making them run away from things like Fireball and such is silly!

If they want the AI to act like a good PvP player they should all do this:

1) Stop attacking when they have emphaty/spiteful spirit
2) Stop casting when backfire is on them
3) Walk BACKWARDS when in a AoE spell to reduce critical damage and knockdown bonus like Bull's Strike like REAL players do.
4) Stop attacking when they detect a stance and change targets.


Right now, casting an AoE spell will just glitch the enemies. If you have a mob of more than 4, the rest just stand there dazed. I suppose this will happen to your henchmen too, since they are basically the same.

OK I just tried as build to farm griffs and it works great

W/M

Dismember
Axe Twist
Bulls Strike
Bonettis Defence
Defensive Stance
Shield Stance
Gladiator Defence
Mending


Minituars and Griffs do not run from Gladiators Defence so at a high tatic you can still deal damage while standing there


HOPE THIS HELPS

Rune trader is not showing any Sup runes of ele at all less engery and fire now. He is out of stock. Fire down to 9.5

the only counter to hexes is to remove it or to prevent it from coming. the only counter to frags is healing. counters to melee attack is to block, evade or make someone blind.

AoE spells counter? Move or run away from it.

Good thing mobs are now doing this.

good update

Well in pve zealots fire and lava font have become better forms of amnity/pacifism than the aforementioned spells are for various reasons. Virtally all aoe in pve has become about as effective as it is in pvp. Other spells cause mob movement, which also gives reason for pve warriors to use a snare or sprint/charge for reasons other than rushing through the game. Necromancers have potentially become the most effective end game nukers for pve. It also shows the pve crowd that smites are alot more effective when used on a warrior, instead of self farming runs.

I see alot of people upset and or afriad of the changes to pve. All the changes in the pve side of things bring it somewhat closer to the pvp side in terms of tactics. It shows all the pve only players the problems of slow elementalist spells in pvp. I do expect some kind of change to aoe spells, probably making them funciton more like traps or some kind of sustained effect to offset the change. Should that not occur, then they will basically be mostly rendered to the unused pile in pve along with pvp. I am surprised that the change to aoe spells and effects did not occur in tandem with this patch though. It takes alot to ensure full duration effects of aoe spells in pvp, while in the past it took no effort to achieve for pve. I am curious though if things like well of suffering are also a mob be gone as well, because the majority of aoe spells just went from offensive to defensive in nature. To be honest, they were more reliable that way in pvp anyhow, as only warriors are really forced to stay in one place to do anything.

Yeah, great! Let's make the monsters as smart as any human, albeit with twice the HP, hitting for twice the amount of damage, level 28, etc., and swarms three times the size of any PvP team you'll ever come up against. Thats a good idea, because I don't ever want to get past the first three swarms in FoW again.

If you want smart opponents, play PvP.

I havent been on gw today yet, and this thread was the first ive heard of this update. And man.. I just browsed over about half of the replies and all I have to say is.. all you whiners need to do is just suck it up. " Aw man I cant do my repetitive ass nuking any more.." boo hoo... now some people might actually have to create an original build.. too bad.. I know you didnt want to hear that. Now I cant comment yet about the update b/c i havent played it yet. From the sounds of it though, PvE should be very strategic now(which is a good thing). One last thing.. it sounds like the ever annoying 5 amn farm group in sorrows furnace is shot!! Now there may be some decent PUGs for Final Assault.. if all the farmers havent forgotten how to quest that is..

with this update, mobs in PVE are now smarter than some PVP players.

healing ball groups ftl.