Guild Wars Update - Nov 10 and Nov 11

If enemies run from area weapons, then Firestorm or whatever could be used as protection when a group is mobbed by enemies. Just call them onto your position and the enemy should scatter.

Players often do their own testing, especially when the testing results are not shown to players. The following person and his/her guild did some of their own testing, here are the results. (Much thanks to X Bound X and his/her guild for testing and sharing the results with us.)

These are intelligent actions by the AI? Where these the kind of results that were found by the ANet testing group? If so, were these AI behaviors simply ignored, or decided to be intelligent actions? If testing did not find the aforementioned results, how can ANet have "... tested these changes for some time..."? Perhaps I am putting too much stock in a person unknown to me, though I see no reason to, nor do I believe that, X Bound X and his guild mates are lying, or even exaggerating. Enough on that, lets move on.

Casting damage over time area of effect spell (DoT AoE), such as Firestorm, now causes the mob to run away. If this update stays those skills might as well be removed or completely changed, as they will have little to no effect. I am all for more intelligent AI, but mobs shouldn’t run from Ignite Arrows or Fireball, and DoT AoE spells should be changed so that they are not rendered entirely useless. Saying these skills are frowned upon in PvP would win you the understatement of the year award, this update makes them almost as useless in the PvE enviroment as well.

Lets talk about the henchman side of things. Suppose I go to an area, with my Mesmer, with only henchman. A common tactic of mine, as well as that of many players that use henchmen, is to call a target before getting agro. This will cause good old Stephan and Little Thom to run in and take the agro, keeping the damage off the easier to kill casters. They run in, get hit by a single shot aoe spell and run back to the casters. The end result is the same as if I had just walked into the mob, the casters get attacked and die quickly because of their low armor. Might as well rename "Little Thom", "Leeroy" and "Stephan", "Jenkins".

In the end I believe there will be some changes made. This is causing more of an uproar than any previous update I have witnessed, and in truth i dont believe this update is working as expected. If this update is left as is, I fear for the Guild Wars community. I have lost enough sleep over this, good morning and good nite.

Lol if i ever saw a Fire Ele in PvE i would piss myself laughing. Don't know what Arena's you've been playing but most ele's i know use air spike or earth spike.

This is excatly what ive been saying.

ANY AOE spell is a DANGER to your team.

may as well just delete ALL of them, as now only farmers can use them (UW CAN still be soloed with AOE, so can hydras so can griffons)

Want to know what this has done, fuzzed up farming for alot of people that ARE NOT invincimonks.

ya well fricken done.

Every skill you listed is a solo monk skill. And in my experience, solo monks will find a way around everything. How many solo elementalists are there? Not as many...most either group with 5 man teams or are part of a group, be it henchies or otherwise.

Diversity is good. Altering skills to force people away from a class (fire elementalist) is not. It is the player's decision what class they wish to play. So what if there are thousands of fire elementals? So what if they all use the same, tired, worn-out build? Maybe, (oh my....) they LIKE to play that character. Wow, a new concept, playing a character in a game that you like with the skills that are available to you.

Has anyone pointed this out yet?

I just completed thunderhead with a bunch of fire nukers and only 1 tank and it was much much much easier. The confusion effect of AOE on the mobs kept the soft targets from being quickly obliterated.

I was in the mission helping a guildie, and I was unaware of the patch specifics. I sent her a whisper saying that our group had zero chance of completing the mission because we had only one tank, a monk wearing no cloths or tatoos and 4 eles. I figured we'd make a corpse collection at the end. But, no. the firestorm/meteor showers kept the mobs at bay - almost confused. The eles were able to keep em at bay and at a distance.

Who'd have guessed?

Meteor Shower is a great skill. PvE or PvP. Just because YOU can't use it properly, doesn't mean it sucks. I ran with HTR and we held for a few rounds with an echo nuker.

that doesn't make sence if u like pvp y do u like update in the 1st place???
are u just laughing at us and saying how dumb we are???

I guess you could group together now have one or two people keep spaming AOE all around the party while ranged fighters take out the running enemy.......you and your party are never touched. (except by their ranged fighters)

Alot of districts are eerily empty...those that are occupied have exchanged their WTS spam with "Anet this" and "Anet that"...and it isn't pretty.

I have looked at what this update has done for me and there is nothing negative at all for me personally.
None of my builds have been affected by the improved A.I. since i don't use AoE.

Ignite arrows? Fabulous! I can now use this as a damage-inducing defensive skill, while my unguent tops me up! I have always favoured kindle instead of ignite (extra damage to single target).

I do however feel great pity for the fire ele's...i know how i would feel if half of my bow attacks were rendered useless for shooting at a static target for example.
They shouldn't be made to suffer.

I am pleased that the bots have been destroyed, prima facie at least.

All in all, i am pleased with my own situation but i am concerned that ArenaNet may have made a big mistake. Alot of people are very annoyed and i can't understand why ArenaNet couldn't have found a better solution.

Do they have something coming with which to compensate us? Usually when a severe "balance" comes along, they implement something which would have caused even more trouble had the balance not occurred.
(Protective bond>fire island collectors anyone?)

Time will tell but i bet at least that this thread has got ArenaNet biting their nails.

Actually, Gaile, you might wanna throw this out to whoever is currently nerfing Farming. The ONLY thing you need to do is make Protective Spirit have a Minimum Amount of Damage Taken.

I mean, face it. Why the hell should someone be taking 3 damage from level 24 griffons? To farm. In other PvE areas and mainly in PvP, most people average out at 450 health, thus making Prot Spirit effective up to 45 health. Just make it so that Prot Spirit can minimize damage UP TO 20 health/skill or attack.

Who is cuasing the hard feelings here....

You skipped over the 3-4 other posts I posted about how Ignite Arrows is a a decent prep now for scattering aggro, and the advantages it gives monks in protecting themselves by popping a AOE smiting spell.

Don't get your feelings hurt more just because I see no use in getting emotional over the topic..Stuff changes..

Lol, just as much as the Prot Bond nerf thread did.

Well, see, here's the problem with that line of thought. Suppose this update was released from the very beginning. All the cookie cutter builds would be with this in mind. Now, there will just have to be NEW cookie cutter builds. I can't believe I just said "New" and "cookie cutter" in the same sentence, but it's true. So keep your pants on and wait for the new "trends" to emerge, I'm sure people have already figured out how to play the update with a minimum of thought.

If fire AoE's could be cast anywhere, and not just on targets, this would be much less troublesome.

I'm sure Ignite Arrows is really supposed to scatter mobs, and make them run like cokroaches when you just flipped on the light. This is about as feasible as using firestorm to protect your party...mhmm...works, but it is utterly stupid. How is this realistic?

So many skills broken and useless, it's sad. Why? Because some people just had to have more REALISM in a damn fantasy game! LOL! Hope you noobs got what you asked for. Now this game is pathetic in it's current state, and far from "realistic."

Don't be fooled - I loved this game before, I don't plan on moving to WoW or anything - but this update is so horrible...

And why would my feelings be hurt?

I think this update is great, now you can protect your casters by getting them into your AoE dmg spells. So the mobs will go to your tanks. Use it smart, there is no update that ruins a game, there never will be. Just keep searching for better builds.

"It's sad. [Followed by] Why would my feelings be hurt?"

Read what you type. You're taking this like it's the end of the world. Be happy that people won't rely so much on Fire Eles and that other Elements and Professions will be accepted in groups.

well all fire department is down so it monk every1 is selling their superior runes to trader and they keep on losing their price
now my nuker 4 life that got 700k xp by nuking is a spiker which is pretty useless in pve
there is update that can ruin the game
this one did (imo)

Really only thing I hate about this update is that all these major changes are coming in way too fast. For me, I consider myself a casual gamer, 2 hours per day, I can't keep up with all the changes. I have only been playing a little over 2 months, and its change that, nerf this or totally redo this part of the game the whole time. I have seen so many builds been ruined or made to work different so many times, I can't keep up with it. Two words SLOW DOWN. 90% of the changes I have seen, have really been very subtle, tried to fix something that wasn't broke or ruin something really popular. I wished the time spent changing was spent adding on, we could probably have 3 or 4 Sorrow's Furnace by now. I also can't believe that a non monthly fee game would spend some much time changing stuff, like A-Net has, IMO it can not be anymore balanced. I have loved the add-ons, Sorrows Furnace, Halloween update, the chest which take certain keys, the on-off showing of cloaks and helmets, this is great stuff. Keep adding stuff, but please at least slow down on changing stuff. My 20 dollar strategy guide is obsolete, probably half the spells listed in it are wrong. I have seen a lot of websites 1 or 2 updates behind, they can't keep up either.

It is real hard on a person to spend a lot of time and gold getting a character where they want and then one update, or the 3 in one month, totally change or ruin that character, especially for the casual gamer. Last I seen Sup. Fire Runes were selling for over 10k, I am glad I didn't waste my 10k. Maybe if A-net would put all changes on a 1 or 2 month wait, and then see if the changes are needed then and only make changes say ONCE every 3 months or so. I hate playing a game and finally get a feel for it and then one update later its a new ballgame or new useless character taking up a slot.