Guild Wars Update - Nov 10 and Nov 11

I think this update doesnt reach its intended goal in many way... u can still farm with monks tho its slower thats true. Are boters nerfed? i dont think so... ...they will only get the cash a bit slower like 4/5 of the income in the same time as they did so far. But it has a large impact on most of the player classes, not to mention the ele fire line that mostly consists of aoe spells...

Besides a funny thing:
Lets say you go out with some players and u notice a mob.
You say:
"Hey funny boy!"
Mob:
Wha'? Ya talking to MEEE??? Im gonna KILLL UUUUU!!
so he runs up to you then you use a 0 smiting balts aura and he takes like 8 dmg
then he say:
WTF? Im taking 8 dmg/sec! /scared U bastard! u trying to kill me??? Im outa here!
*runs* *runs* *runs*
W8! i changed my mind! im still gonna KILL UUUU!!
*runs up to you again*
*8dmg/sec* *8dmg/sec*
Oh the HELL with it!
*runs away again*
But while he is on the move he suddenly notice an earth ele and he thinks:
Hey! soft target!! Now u r gonner little ele!!
quickly rushes to her and starts the beat up. The ele casts a 106 dmg obsidian flame.
Mob:
Huh? 106 dmg? Nah... r u kidding girl? U r soft...
then someone runs up and uses an 8dmg/sec balts again
Mob:
OMFG 8dmg/sec!?!? gooodddamit im on the run!

hehe no comment

Personaly i can live with the update but im not very happy about it. It affects too much skill's effectiveness severly, and thus the players using them. And im not talking about one or 2 ppl. Yes u can use the aoes to shoo away some unwanted attention, but thats not real purpose of aoe attacks. They r meant to deal considerable dmg over an entire area but now they barely do it. What they DO now is to break off the enemy from the tanks so they can entertain the casters ...so whats the point in having tanks then? I can see the point in making this update, but thats not the way it meant to be done. It should be reduced so they dont run from every aoe just from specific ones like meteor shower or something. Any other ideas?

P.S.:sorry for my bad english

Hey Laura, i was using ignite arrows on an azure shadow yesterday and it ran so far away from me, it stopped attacking and stood still.

Best-DEFENSIVE-skill-ever!

^^ You must be right. I think someone said that specific mobs tend to have a diversity in their reaction to aoes. Some run a few steps than back others run to the other end of the world

But i have a question about it:
Anyone tried using for example balts aura and then what Tactical-Dillusions said iginite arrows on the SAME mob type?
i wonder if its the skill or the mob itself that makes the difference... O_o

Tho i have a feeling it can be the skill... I mean u hit him with ignite = he is on the run, but u keep firing on him and every hit is an aoe in ignite prep = he wants to run away from that too

huh FUN! Rangers to shoo everything away!! thx 4 the tip Tactical ^^
lol just an idea but maybe You can keep Glint running around with this prep so she cant even attack (maybe you can do the same with enemy monks so they dont heal, rather run?)? O_o and what about the lich?
LOL! thx again for posting Your experience with this!

Since nobody has mentioned it, it seems bosses are not affected much by this update.

I really feel this update is brutal for people who don't have a lot of skills.

Being a player with well developed PvE characters.. I am not hurt by this so much. Yet, with skills costing 1p and this HUGE INSANE nerf... I really feel terribly for players with less gold.

We can work around it, but this will not be the solution for farming. I wish you guys weren't so against farming. You're completely alienating a large group of post-diablo 2 players who enjoy doing such things. We don't rip people off, we don't sell ebay gold. We enjoy grinding and finding items/gold. WHAT is so wrong with that.

I know that you've said again and again that you don't hate honourable farmers, and that the bot-like human ebay gold sellers are the problem, and I accept that. However, I dunno. This just sorta killed things for not only farmers, but for a lot of the general pve crowd. ESPECIALLY the elementalists, ouch. Seriously.

Finally, SF farming is still highly possible.. they group enough, and you need to block in the bosses so they don't run from the nukes. Water (slowing) magic is also a good idea. Farming the desert is useless now, although it's possible.. but wtf is the point

Dunno what else to say. Ecto, and many other goods are going to skyrocket in the next while.

I'm just pissed about selling my 20% rockmolder :P I didn't realize it was a bug.. ughh.. that's what i'm pissed about screw the update

Ah well...

Well thanks a bunch ANET, i hate this sodding update.

Some of my guildees have now left, some good players that were always their to help others for missions ect.

They are fed up with everything taking longer to kill, and being more of a grind (NOT HARDER BUT LONGER).

Yea this update sucks monkey balls now.

On a side note, does Heal Area cause them to flee as well? If so
Monks just got a major boost.

Although the chaotic state of this threat is testament to the fact that a discusion developing into diiferent directions can no longer be done effectively, the attempt to create a seperate threat for ONE of the different aspects prominent in this chaotic 52page mess was closed.
I repost here with the hope of getting a discussion; knowing that when I check back in 3 h, it will be lost in a hailstorm of posts.

Discussion of several aspects is clearly not wanted.
It is like the update a take it all or leave it all pollicy.

SAD.

But here's my post anyway



Imagine this:
A mob of players all cramming next to a player who casts, Renewal-Baltarar's to scare enemies away. Lighning flashes out and kills monsters as the mob slowly moves through the FoW.
The Ultimate John Wayne, Circle of Bandwagon, Indians build. RIDICULOUS.

Formerly you could just nuke all enemy monks, then nuke everything; now you need another tactic. But from experience I know that for the most part, I just nuked the monk anyway and then kicked back, after all, the prot monks and the warriors want some fun too.

Now I cannot change my build in the sense that I'm more flexible.
I do not have a choice.
A new maximum spike dmg build will replace the old max AoD build.
A forced perspective once more.
The game will relentlessy cry out for THE BEST, and only THE BEST.
I had other very good and flexible builds except Renewal or Echo Nuker.
But in the end people questioned my waste of effectiveness, so I skilled Fire 16.
Now they will still only take me if my effectiveness is 100%.


Soon people will also adapt to the new gamestyle.
People hate chaotic battles.
All AoD does is create chaos.
But in order to play effective, chaos hat to be eliminated.
Therefore the patch eliminated 40% of the game's spells plus Orion, plus Cynn, since all they do now is to create chaos.

I can understand why people are unhappy.
On Nov 10th they were happy, the were equal firenukers, happy with it and the POSSIBILITY of a choice was enough.
Now their happy place is removed and they are FORCED to abandon that which made them happy.
All that without something familiar to fall back on.

Another point the update touches is the delicate balance of the economy.
on Nov. 9th a historic thing happened. For the first time during my 500h of playing I was able to purchase something like a 10/9 sunderung sword grip WITHOUT farming. Suddenly it was affordable.

With farming gone that item will once again vanish in the depths. I will most likely never find (and salvage not to forget), or be able to pay the price.


And it sickens me to the heart to see people divide into the group of whiners and the group of "hey we're pro, we don't care"
Who is going to help the people through the game?
With experienced players now gone, whole missions have to be redone.


Pro Players surely do not mind, they can do Thunderhead and the Island of Fire like they want.

Less experienced player find themself stranded without strategy and I doubt that everyone will have the stomache to suffer through. We are talking about 14-18 year old kids here being one of the focus groups. When they get frustrated they just QUIT !!!

As for my characters:
Before I had a Fire-ele to have fun an kill stuff.
But faced with the prospects of spiking I rather just take my warrior, he can spike just as much, plus has better spell disruption, better Armor, gets less attacked now.....
It's not my choice, the way the game cries out for the best config will MAKE me do this if I don't do it my self beforehand.

Bottom Line:
We like mindless Enemy hordes rushing to their certain doom as they attack the inconquereable warrior, the death raining ele, the undead necro army etc. etc.
Enemies that avaoid AoD is outside ANY Hollywood logic we have grown to accept as entertainment.

Tough PvP like battles with every single group on the map is not something that one would get money for if he went with that concept to a publisher.

Quoted for truth, and adding another forementioned thought. As people have said this makes PvE more like PvP. Well I personally hate PvP, thats why I play PvE. But the main problem is, when you go to tombs to fight, you don't expect someone to come at you with armor with an AL of 100, attacking for an unbelieveable amount of damage, and be lvl 29, not to mention that there will be 15 of them vs. your 8.

The ONLY thing the player of this game had over the baddys is intelligence, we have weaker armor, less health, don't do as much dmg, and are in some cases -9 lvls to them. Now you expect us to be happy and play the game when the line of player intelligence and monster idiocy is so skewed?

I played all night. Found a new way to farm, much slower, but thats do to the mobs loosing aggro so fast now. And also found, that there is almost no way there will be another good FoW or UW team to join. AoE smites scatter, AoE fire scatters, rangers traps scatter.

In short, A.Net has taken all the things I enjoyed about playing this game, and got rid of them with no notice, no warning, no explenation, and no reason.

Ahhh been away for a while and GW has so many new things I feel lost!
The two big threads regarding the updates are filled with "flames" (inverted commas cos I didn't read much and don't know if they're really flames or discussions...52 pages and the other is about 10 pages = too much reading for me).

Anyway, I tried farming to see what the big fuss was about, and couldn't get more than a couple of griffons to chase me and ran away once balthy's aura was switched on. Yeah farming takes hell of a lot longer now.
On the other hand, I hope that the drops have been improved so that whatever we get is actually useful.
Got a gold flame artifact just now (flame! woohoo!) and the only mod on it was quick recovery from crippled...
But I haven't really gone out farming yet so I've no idea if drops have been buffed.
I think this upgrade pumps a new breath of fresh air into this game (continuing on from the Halloween event).
No more simple-minded cut-and-paste-kill-everything-within-3-minutes builds (although I'd expect those to come soon).

My opinion is that Anet knows how people hate it when updates screw up the farming, and its a challenge to see how much we can counter their "nerfs". Moreover, it gives people new things to do, experiment with builds, include other professions, etc.
I, for one, was getting bored to shit with farming the griffons with the wamo build. I never changed it simply because it was the most effective.
Your objective is to have fun, mine is to make money. To each his/her own.
Nonetheless, creating a new build should be fun.

I misread the poll page and voted for the first, but wanted to vote for the second.

Well thats all I have to add, and probably nothing constructive, but I've been away, so pardon my ignorance.

new posibility for runners ^^ yust as running mesmers (i know a stupid idea but it might work) a Me/E with fast casting and fire skills whill surely scare away the mobs

THIS update to fix the update SUCKS

NOW when i hydra farm they run away, and the STAND THERE for about 3-5 seconds DOING NOTHING, farming is now still just as easy but as boring as hell, it used to be FUN.

******and intelligent a.i my bumhole, how is standing there doing nothing intelligent.*********

at least before they would DAMAGE you.

whell with the new glitch they kill you in 2 hits so be happy

Ok now CYCLONE AXE makes them run away.

IS IT APRIL THE 1ST AND NO ONE IS TELLING ME.

Echo Fire was never the best build. Popular opinion was that it was, because it looks like stuff is dying. I could do the same amount of damage as an earth ele and they'd say I suck even though stuff dies at the same rate.

ok, I have mixed sentiments about this update...
And I apologize for the length of this post. ALSO, there's suggestions intermingled in there SOMEWHERE..

For one, I welcome the fact that other elementalist specs will be more welcome in the PvE aspect..since Fire is not what it could..or rather should be. Moreover, the skill bars will change up a bit since I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to say that 95% of all ele's take at least 3 of the following (not counting res signet): Meteor Shower--I am sure was on All skill bars for PvE, FireBall, Firestorm, Searing Heat, Flare.

So, kudos to you Anet for making the ele PvE less cookie cutter.

BUT

like many have said, spells like Meteor Shower are now completely worthless.. Fire WAS balanced by its high energy cost, the vast number of skills that caused exhaustion, cast time, and recharge time.

the reply to this "gripe" as some have called it, is to rethin your skill bar.. or have others work together to aid your AoE such as Meteor SHower.

my reply:
I agree, this update does require more thinking to be put in to making a team or at least teamwork... but how often have you joined a crappy PUG? (think back to the Ascension quests and shudder).. ok.. think Thirsty River with the monk boss and priest and the mobs surrounding them.
It gets hectic in there, PUGs are 70/30 in terms of efficiency, and it's hard enough for some people just to listen to WHEN to attack. Of course, this is all happenstance.

THe bigger problem I see is in the lower levels.. say when you are only allowed 4 to 6 players on a team.
2 spots go to monk and a tank.
2 spots left.. AoE was great to handle crowd control... but how viable is AoE at this stage? Is it really feasible for the 2 other players (the monk being excluded) to be able to aid YOUR build at this point?
It seems that if you want an ele, you are going to need either another ele, or a trapper ranger.. for any hope of AoE to be anywhere near an efficient skill..
Also, I am not even sure how efficient, say a hydromancer duoing with a pyro mancer would be.
Last night, when I was trying to collect a few things..which is going to take much much longer now (unless ANET realizes that with the nerf in farming, they made collecting even more painful), I had DeepFreeze/Ice SPikes (switching between the two to decide which was better) on my bar along with MS.

Cast echo
Cast MS
Cast Deep Freeze
(3rd rock lands--1st hit on mobs..)
Mobs have 90% speed reduction
cast MS
(all the while, targeting the healer..)
even with a 90% reduction speed, the mob was still able to move out of MS.

to solve the issue, I added Meteor to the skill bar.

cast echo
cast ms
cast deep freeze (glyphed with lesser btw)
3rd rock hits
mobs frozen with 90%
cast Meteor to knock them down quickly again
Cast MS
(once again targeting the healer)
the punk still lives..

stats were
15 (11+4) Fire
13 (10+3) Energy
11 (10+1) Water
or something like that (only 1 unused attribute point)

so, in a 4 person team in PvE.. yes, I believe that Fire AoE..or perhaps any AoE, is ineffective..
Moreover, for there to be a chance for a single player ele to be effective with fire, it seems like now instead of just the aforementioned skills above, the player would also have to add DeepFreeze/Ice SPikes/Grasping Earth/Ward against foes/ etc...

Like I said before, Anet's attempt to improve gameplay and make PvE more challenging, I welcome. Also, I like the idea that this would require more thought when putting together a team for PvE.
However, there's theory and then there's the reality.

Good PUGs are rare.. many people refuse to bend from their skill bar..even "forgetting" to bring res.

Fire AoE seems to be worthless..especially so at lower levels.

Farming (not for just gold, but the damn collector items) becomes a pain in the ass. Sure, this will force people to trade more often with others.. but think back to shouting for items in Augury.. chances are that 7 times out of 10 the collector items you bought were from somebody who intentionally farmed them or got them as "other" drops from a farming run. Also, the collectors' items will now become more scarce..because, let's face it.. how many people are going to want to even attempt to farm minotaurs for horns now? I used to just farm my collector horns myself and give away w/e i had not use for. But, those who farmed for their own collector items, i am sure are a lot more apprehenscious about going to collect in the desert now. I am sure that even the farmers for these items will rethink this money making scheme. So items become more scarce, prices go up, people either shell out money they had pre=patch, or refuse to pay.. and (here's the contradictory nature of this update) will inevitably spend MORE time trying to farm for their item than they would before the update. nice. OR
prices will go down, once sellers realize that their items are not selling (though I doubt that...since items will become scarce rather quickly)
and people will buy them..creating the scarcity all over again (it's economics..) and we still inevitably end up with people farming for much longer periods of time than they normally would.

SOLUTION (look here Anet!)
Choose any of the following, multiple answers allowed and preferred..
a) Reduce the amount of items for collectors-- instead of say 5 minotaur horns, how about 3? (btw, does anyone else think that 5 bleached shells is a little much ><)
b) Increase drop rates (essentially unnerf that patch from..when was it? June?)
c) Increase the Speed of effect in AoE skills.. for example, MS actually hits the enemy only 3 times.. and there's what? 9-12 meteors that strike the earth.. why not make it every other meteor that hits? instead of every 3rd
d) decrease recharge of AoE Skills
e) Log into system tools and find a System Restore Check point for sometime before November 9th.

Keep at it Anet. I appreciate the attempt, but I look forward to some sort of resolution.
Sorry once again for the long post ><

:O omg thats fun maybe they also run away from wells :3

Interestingly, many of the arguments people have made in support of this change is the tired "maybe other underused classes will have a chance now." My first character was a ranger, second, a mesmer, and I never had any problem finding PUGs. If it ever took longer than I wanted to wait, I started my own group and went from there. And then it was my choice as to who or what profession I wanted in the group.

Now if I need someone to do my taxes, and my trash collector offers to do them, I'm most certainly going to ponder that situation first. If I need a fire nuke, I get one. If I need a ranger, that's what I get. Rather than everyone complaining about underused professions and the inability to get in PUGs, why not complain to ANet and ask for them to alter the missions and quests to the point where said professions become essential, or at a minimum extremely viable. Don't complain to those people who pick up the professions they need in order to complete whatever task they are attempting.

I think these complaints are more centered around the 5-man farm, with the typical tank, 2 monk, 2 nukes set-up. (I've said it more than once.) THAT is the situation that the "unused classes" are upset about. I'm turning the tables on you this time. Rather than spending your time telling fire nukes to change their builds or experiment, why not spend it developing your OWN 5-man build centered around YOUR skill set. That's what we did, so why can't you?

That seems to indicate they are not in favor of farming with solo players, and with the comments about teamwork, might lead one to believe they want an 8-man team for a reason.

i really really wish they would just take it away, and bring it back when its fixed.

I do not like the update whatsoever, but i can adapt.

However in its current state its a joke.

Anet are making themselves look like incompetents.

I read that into Gaille's quote as well. However, we can all simply understand that a team number limitation (before leaving a town or outpost, be it henchmen or PUG) would completely eradicate soloists. So, you may ask, why have they not implemented this? My thought....there are far more soloing players than many may think, and this restriction would but a large dent in their customer base.

AI = artificial Idiots?

If Aoe, then chickenize
elsif cycloneaxe, then chickenize as well

lol WTF is this.

For my part i farmed because of boredom and finding things. When i dont have anything to accomplish anymore best thing to do was farming. Been thru with the game 3x and i cant see the quests and missions anymore.
I logged on yesterday and tried a few things and it was boring as hell chickens everywhere. I logged off and played RA3 for 6 hours and i havent done that for over a year now. i dont like playing with chickens

Problems with that: 1)rezoning for groups 2)running 3) taking screenshots by yourself 4) doing random stuff like when I took a picture of the red cones around wards. There are just too many reasons to not put a cap on it. I'd be in favor of it, if it were not for those things.

Indeed. Which makes me wonder why they simply can't accept it since so many people want to play GW this way. At least 50% of the players in my guild do it... which doesn't mean that we don't like teamplay. We have guild runs every evening and thoroughly enjoy playing in teams. Solo playing is sometimes a welcome change and a means to earn some money. Nothing more, nothing less. Hard to believe why anybody should have a problem with that... At least solo farmers usually don't ebay, they earn their money THEMSELVES.

Solutions:
1. use the district selector
2. pffffttt...take henchmen if it's that necessary (i'm anti running)
3. not a must-have...good sacrifice in my opinion if you want to achieve the removal of soloing
4. see #3

I stand by my previous statement. It's a business decision made on their part not to cap it. I see the number of complaints because we can't solo far outweighing those of people who can't screenshoot themselves.

Every area would not need to be like that. They could easily select places or sections of the game where it is more appropriate for "required groups" than others. Hell, putting that into effect across all areas would make pre-searing a lot slower to get through for a new player. Alot of afk, clueless, or already finished with pre-searing people there to be honest. Mission areas would be a given, as would some of the more late game areas, but they wouldnt need to be full size parties either. Of course, they would have to be larger than just 2 people, to avoid the afk second account syndrome.

The update is good, the bugs its riddled with is bad. Anet needs to fix the trigger for what causes a unit to move out of the way. Also the distance a unit runs and the innability to then aquire a new target are somewhat out of whack; in FoW I can simply make a Shadow Warrior run between several targets doing nothing, just running.

As for the hit to farmers, it true it has hit them hard but it has also helped other less farm-capable classes to farm (my opinion). You can now simply make things run around you like morrons while you pick them off, so not so bad after all. But again this goes to the "to much running" bit that I covered above.

I doubt that any large portion of the people will leave because of this, for one its clearly bugged so just wait a few days. Two it has the obvious reason of making GW more team orriented, and making the teams have an actual brain... and not the current Trinity thought pattern. I went to FoW last night following the updates, no one in my group complained. Sure things were slower but hey our water ele made things so much easier, and our fire ele nuked to his hearts content (Hey this update gives use to 1/3 of my illusion line! ). Sure the AI now makes warriors (and sadly berserkers) to run right at the mushy center, but then thats what those mesmers, necros, rangers, water/earth eles, and monks are for

To those who complain, I am sorry you can no longer run around like gods among stupid AI but then again maybe you can adapt and find something else to farm/kill/be god to. Just to be honest, this doesn't need the flames its getting, sure you don't like the nerf to farming but hey others like the boost to actual strategy and team play. Double edge sword to the max.

What is people against farming and running? I would never be able to ascend my 4th character without running. I am not going to waste another 20+ hours of my life doing all those boring ass missions that tell an absolutely crappy story. What's wrong with farming? People can choose how they like to play the game. Anet if just wrong to believe they can dictate how the players actually play. Whether they play through the story, farm all day, or just do w/e.

the creatures in pre are not moving out of the way of my firestorm, is there a difference between worlds?

I have noticed certain things not move (Jades for example) and just keep hacking away and killing you.

Get rid of player to player trade.

Prevent the dropping of items.

Implement an auction house.

Boost drops.

Add more skills.

Add more areas.

Everyone has fun and the bots do not make real money from farming.

/problem solved.

Alright. I forced myself to give it 24 hours before making any comments and sharing my opinion. Had to go play and see for myself what I thought, as well as think about it a bit. Done that.

I had a lot to say about the whole AoE thing. It got too long lol, so I'm just going to say this:

This is the first I have seen Anet say in effect, we dont like farming and we are taking actions to stop you from doing it. Now THAT concerns me.

More than half of the players of the game I would estimate make their income from farming to some degree. Its simply the best way to do it. For some its just fun. Happens also to be a lot of grind. Remove this, continue making it less enjoyable or even possible, I fear you may end up removing one of the incentives for a large part of the population. Rather then being an economic fix (ie, remove farming) I think it could quite possibly have a more direct result of removing the best source of income from many. I dont think that is helpful in any way, to really anyone.

One of the things I like about GW is the many ways you can play it. You could PvP with all of its iterations, you could PvE either with henchmen or friends or PUGs, you could solo farm or solo play, you could run and you could even do fairly idle things like find cool places to take snapshots lol.

This update also seems to be moving in a direction that discourages some of these things. You could play with henchmen, but we'll make it a bit more challenging to use them and they pick up most if not all of the valubles, so maybe you shouldnt. You could solo or solo farm, but wait, we now would prefer you did not do that, so dont. We will encourage you to stop now by nerfing until you either cant or dont want to. In fact, we think you should simply PvP or PvE with other players. Sure seems that way. I like the freedom of playing any number of ways, depending on my time commitments and what I feel like doing.

I'm stubborn. Its not going to stop me from playing the way I like to. I dont like the update, and its the first one where I've had that opinion. Players will adapt, but more casual players I think will be a bit frustrated.

Plain and simple, if Anet never intended for anyone to farm the higher level monsters, then shame on them for ever including any skills that would make it possible to do so. Hipocrasy

Actually, it doesn't say anything about farming. It says Arenanet doesn't want solo farming. Which is not the same thing. If you want to farm with a few henchmen or other players (i.e. as the game was designed to be played) then there's no problem with it, and for the most part Arenanet has improved or left alone that aspect.

It's pretty clear the fact that you can solo groups of monsters of higher level than you and get better loot than if you took a group has always been a design flaw, not intended. If they wanted you to be able to kill things solo, they wouldn't have bothered to add henchmen in the first place.

Agreed - make PvE foes big, tough, and in (sometimes) overwhelming numbers, but let us keep some advantage.

I've also read the opinions that the AI update makes PvE more like PvP. I don't enjoy the PvP aspects of the game at all: as previously mentioned, the manic chaos and mixed-up scrambles are not my idea of fun.

Secondly, to me, playing environment changes such as AI, should not be dictated to address issues such as solo-farming or botting - this seems to be a bit like "cutting off thy nose to spite thy face," the "tail wagging the dog," or [insert favorite metaphor here].

In short: I enjoyed the game immensely before the 11/10 & 11/11 patch... I do not now. (Yeah, I know, boring, can't play, noOb, stagnant, unimaginative... but that's just me I guess...)

Straying back to the topic of the update/s. I've have done testing with my elemental, with henchies essentially because that is how i typically play...not always, but for the most part. There are a few things I would like to address after doing so.

Were there other changes made in coordination with these updates, it may have worked. For instance, if the original intent of the game was this, and elementalists and other squishy characters were intended to repeatedly be in the center of melee, (which is what is happening exclusively with me when I or any character utilizes AoE), why are we able to cast from outside the aggro bubble? Why is elemental armor incapable of providing an acceptable level of protection against a barrage of melee attacks.

Sure, I can use wards. But wards do expire and while I am very good with energy management, the duration of the battles is draining on energy. While I still say this update is an exceptionally poor decision (any major change to basic game build or makeup is, in my opinion, after a certain length of time during which players adjust to it), if coupled with an upgrade to the various armors of the squishies, and various energy cost changes to the more exhaustive AoE skills which are not quite as effective as they once were, I may be satisfied enough to stick it through.

If they didnt want solo farming, they should have made a 5+ teamsize restriction on areas.

Oh but they wouldnt do that because that would REALLY pizz people off.

I did sign the petition about the enemy that avoids AoE.

But I must admit it's ironic .... This is the only time I've ever seen so many people support a "dumbed down" enemy AI.

Yea it is isnt it, i think theres a few reasons for this though.

1.people want to be able to farm and for it not to be toooo boring, this dosnt stop it, but makes it more slow and boring.

2. if i want to play charachters that act like pvp players, ill play pvp.

3. the excicution of this update is awfull, spells like throw dirt should not make them run away in fear, buggy buggy bugggy.

prob more but that will do.

Overall their wouldnt be half as much complaining from me included if they actualy had tested this properly, which they clearly didnt.

And also if they LISTENED to us and removed it untill it was actually patched.

Ive given up playing for today untill the bugs are ironed out its too frustrating. I can work around the bugs, but why the hell should i work around bugs

(also my monk is now forced to be a healer or prot in pve, no one wants smiting monks after this they are now only for solo play.

Thing is the ai isnt any smarter. so people aren't really asking to make the ai dumber, cus its not a very realistic ai in many situations to begin with.