Curse

Ambuu · Jun 24, 2008, 03:20 AM // 03:20

I do agree with your letter.
But we've seen skills get nerfed before. We've moved on.
And... I dont suggest nerfing it completely. Reduce the duration 5 seconds. (16 Shadow Arts = 27 seconds). 6 seconds at the most to nerf it.

27 seconds = just barely cutting it (when going A/E swiftness). Makes players have to be more alert and gives them more room for error.

faraaz · Jun 24, 2008, 04:02 AM // 04:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by strcpy

If it really is a problem that nearly everyone can afford ecto (Other than e-peen reasons I still haven't seen any real reason) why not nerf the current perma-favor we have? I see the main issue most have is with people being able to farm too much ecto - reducing favor to the moments when only those complainers were on line would solve *all* the issues.

Could it be that the "nerf SF" people like their ability to farm ecto endlessly but do not want others to do so? Nah, I'm sure it is something else, it really is a real problem when people who purchased the game get to do the same things that someone who devotes their life 24/7 to get too.

Lets face it, it is a real accomplishment to have gotten your Obsidian Armor or other high end item and we can't have all these noobs getting the same things. They really should have an all game announcement every time someone completes that set along with automatic congratulation whispers just in case others do not care if you read someone else's guide and then spent the next three months doing the same simple mindless thing to get it (totally different than spending the next three weeks doing the same thing - yours took longer).

Ecto will stabilize back to where it has been for months once the idiots quit acting like the sky is falling. Farming ecto is boring and the perma-sf sin isn't terribly easier or more productive than the previous alternatives. If the community hadn't of made such a big deal of it few would have made one. As is Ecto are screwed unless a few other builds are killed too - they are just as easy, almost as productive (close enough to not affect prices), and there are plenty of guides with the builds included. Ecto's price fluctuations are more to do with the speculation crowd trying to play the market. The perma-SF sin makes other farming MUCH easier but there were already simple builds out there for anyone that was interested beyond a few weeks of curiosity - or at the least those that have now realized how much more said farming runs make will find those other builds if SF is nerfed to unusable.

In all the thread's many many voluminous pages, this 1 post stood out to me. QFT man..say it like it is!!

Trinity Fire Angel · Jun 24, 2008, 04:32 AM // 04:32

actually... i just had this thought..

how many of you out there have stopped to think that some of the people calling for nerfs on Shadow form are people who have used it and other broken methods for obtaining huge numbers of ectos and want prices to go back up again. i mean really.... you obtain many stacks of ectos at real cheap price now and then call for a nerf only to make price of ecto;s go up by 3k each. i mean... look at it this way

merchant has ectos at 3.8k at merchant. price goes up to 4.3k at merchant 2 hours later. someone might have bought 1000ecto. so, if the price goes up to 7k, that person makes over 3000k in one hit.

how long did it take for people to call for a nerf? gave them plenty of time to raise enough ectos hoping for a nerf to raise the price again.

my suggestion is, don;t nerf shadowform, the build or the farm. i mean, you can;t even do DOA solo with it, so what;s the problem? perma-obs-flesh is imba too... and so is 55monk... and so is 330 derv or Rit.... VwK is pretty damn easy as well. Oh and the raptor farm is IMBA. just look at the way that effected the Ele Sword market. They are barely merchant fodder these days....

Age · Jun 24, 2008, 05:49 AM // 05:49

^.Those builds are nothing like the pera SF build as it takes 2 using a 55 build to farm the UW I am not sure about the 330 Derv and the VwK can only farm Smites and Raptors as well as the Ele can't keep Obsidian Flesh up permanently I have tried this.

To the Dark Paladin X.The 55 Monk went through the same thing if there is a balance on SF as you can't use Protective Bond and they did this because of bots as I read the past update notes aswellas adding rend enchanments.

samifly · Jun 24, 2008, 06:04 AM // 06:04

I don't have a huge stack of ectos. I, in fact, have none. I've only soloed or duo'ed UW a couple of times. I want FoW/etc to be accessible. But I still think SF should be nerfed because it was decent before for farming, now its just crazy silly.

strcpy · Jun 24, 2008, 07:15 AM // 07:15

I too have no ecto. I rarely farm the UW. I have in the past but find it a combination of boring and frustrating. It has absolutely no latitude for error and is fairly mindless. This means I make mistakes, die, and have to restart fairly often. I can focus to that extent but I enjoy watching TV at the same time and other things. I don't mind dying when watching tv or having consumed alcohol but I hate having to spend 1 plat for the honor of goofing up. Add in that even if doing every thing perfectly there can be environment problems that make it such that you can not complete the run.

About the only times I do is when something new hits my fancy or I need gold. All the hype over how easy the perma-SF sin is made me give it a try on my sin but I found it no better or worse than other UW farming methods - just a bunch of people acting like the sky has fallen. If the community had not have panicked then little would have changed. If nerfed the players that bought into the hype and like farming it will use older builds that are as easy and effective (go ahead, claim they aren't all you want - people will figure you are a hack or stupid when they note otherwise) and those that don't like it would have quit anyway. They will stabilize at the same point regardless.

I'll probably abuse it for another week just in case it gets nerfed. It is still new enough to be different so I'm not bored with it so might as well go with it until a nerf or boredom. Nothing better to do and I find it amusing to be a part of the deflation on the price of ecto. Like those that want the price of ecto to be high I'm playing for my own enjoyment, not the community as a whole so shove it if you don't like that idea. If enough cared about doing the right thing I might think otherwise, but then again probably not on an online game.

Quote:

To the Dark Paladin X.The 55 Monk went through the same thing if there is a balance on SF as you can't use Protective Bond and they did this because of bots as I read the past update notes aswellas adding rend enchanments.

Obviously you were not around then - many of us were. It was nerfed because the influx of gold with no money sinks made it mostly impossible for anything other than an 105 monk (not a 55 - the 55 build became popular well after all those nerfs) to play the game. Ecto were in the 40k range, sup vigor runes were 100k, sup monk runes were *all* 50+k, and anything that was remotely useful was 5+k. Heck black dye was in the 40-50k range. It made the game unplayable in the extreme for new players.

Bots had nothing to do with it, it all had to do with the massive inflation from the amounts of gold some were making. Anet has rarely cared about deflating prices (have they ever? I don't recall one but I will not say it didn't happen) but huge inflation gets them into action. We may have enough gold sinks now to take care of this, I do not know. If we don't I expect a nerf, if not then I don't expect a nerf to the whole build.

Were I to care about the community at large I would make it such that you can not outrun trap activation. The run would be MUCH harder - in fact harder than other ecto farming runs - yet not affect group runs. There are no party based missions that need you to outrun traps, there are only solo farming runs. Even then I'm sure I could change builds enough to take care of that but it would take more skill than other UW runs.

Ben-A-BoO · Jun 24, 2008, 07:22 AM // 07:22

[leech signet] instead of [power drain] on the Mindblade Spectres should take care of all those obs flesh / shadow form solo adventures on the Chaos Plains.

Age · Jun 24, 2008, 10:17 AM // 10:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by strcpy

I too have no ecto. I rarely farm the UW. I have in the past but find it a combination of boring and frustrating. It has absolutely no latitude for error and is fairly mindless. This means I make mistakes, die, and have to restart fairly often. I can focus to that extent but I enjoy watching TV at the same time and other things. I don't mind dying when watching tv or having consumed alcohol but I hate having to spend 1 plat for the honor of goofing up. Add in that even if doing every thing perfectly there can be environment problems that make it such that you can not complete the run.

About the only times I do is when something new hits my fancy or I need gold. All the hype over how easy the perma-SF sin is made me give it a try on my sin but I found it no better or worse than other UW farming methods - just a bunch of people acting like the sky has fallen. If the community had not have panicked then little would have changed. If nerfed the players that bought into the hype and like farming it will use older builds that are as easy and effective (go ahead, claim they aren't all you want - people will figure you are a hack or stupid when they note otherwise) and those that don't like it would have quit anyway. They will stabilize at the same point regardless.

I'll probably abuse it for another week just in case it gets nerfed. It is still new enough to be different so I'm not bored with it so might as well go with it until a nerf or boredom. Nothing better to do and I find it amusing to be a part of the deflation on the price of ecto. Like those that want the price of ecto to be high I'm playing for my own enjoyment, not the community as a whole so shove it if you don't like that idea. If enough cared about doing the right thing I might think otherwise, but then again probably not on an online game.

Obviously you were not around then - many of us were. It was nerfed because the influx of gold with no money sinks made it mostly impossible for anything other than an 105 monk (not a 55 - the 55 build became popular well after all those nerfs) to play the game. Ecto were in the 40k range, sup vigor runes were 100k, sup monk runes were *all* 50+k, and anything that was remotely useful was 5+k. Heck black dye was in the 40-50k range. It made the game unplayable in the extreme for new players.

Bots had nothing to do with it, it all had to do with the massive inflation from the amounts of gold some were making. Anet has rarely cared about deflating prices (have they ever? I don't recall one but I will not say it didn't happen) but huge inflation gets them into action. We may have enough gold sinks now to take care of this, I do not know. If we don't I expect a nerf, if not then I don't expect a nerf to the whole build.

Were I to care about the community at large I would make it such that you can not outrun trap activation. The run would be MUCH harder - in fact harder than other ecto farming runs - yet not affect group runs. There are no party based missions that need you to outrun traps, there are only solo farming runs. Even then I'm sure I could change builds enough to take care of that but it would take more skill than other UW runs.

You might want to look at my sign up date and I was around probably before you as I beta tested it in 2/19/05.There is a good thread on that old build I got saved.I only got 1 ecto to my name and I am not rich either.

Productivity · Jun 24, 2008, 10:56 AM // 10:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dark Paladin X

It will ruin the experience of farming bosses and the Underworld and will destroy the player economy.

How did you manage to survive before the SF buff if a nerf will have such a horrific impact on you?

You've changed your argument about five times allready in this thread everytime someone refutes your previous one. Now that you've run out of things that sound halfway plausible (at least to yourself) you've got into pure bleat mode 'I don't like it QQ'. Face it, you want a cheat mode. I suggest you try single player games, they might be more to your level of ability and have an appropriate amount of cheat codes.

Sniper22 · Jun 24, 2008, 11:44 AM // 11:44

I want ursan nerfed, and now I also want shadow form nerfed to hell. Prices are going to crap, we need more than one way to farm and earn a decent profit.

Selket · Jun 24, 2008, 12:07 PM // 12:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Productivity

How did you manage to survive before the SF buff if a nerf will have such a horrific impact on you?

You've changed your argument about five times allready in this thread everytime someone refutes your previous one. Now that you've run out of things that sound halfway plausible (at least to yourself) you've got into pure bleat mode 'I don't like it QQ'. Face it, you want a cheat mode. I suggest you try single player games, they might be more to your level of ability and have an appropriate amount of cheat codes.

This, or "Wah wah wah I'm bad and want money" to sum up that kid's statements.

Witchblade · Jun 24, 2008, 12:57 PM // 12:57

nerf both of em

you can still farm stuff, without SF
nerf that spot with enchant removal and stuff

ecto will jump back to 5-6k ish, some "QQ-my-life-is-now-ruined" threads will get locked and that'll be it

Ate of DK · Jun 24, 2008, 01:37 PM // 13:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by timebandit

[leech signet] instead of [power drain] on the Mindblade Spectres should take care of all those obs flesh / shadow form solo adventures on the Chaos Plains.

Don't change the mindblades skillbar. It will cause more trouble than just destroying a farm-build.

Sjeng · Jun 24, 2008, 02:31 PM // 14:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper22

I want ursan nerfed, and now I also want shadow form nerfed to hell. Prices are going to crap, we need more than one way to farm and earn a decent profit.

Play the xunlai tournament house each month. Free cash.

I wouldn't like to see it nerfed. I love the low ecto prizes. 4.3k at the merchant yesterday. w00t. Now just make those Zaishen keys rise again, and I'll have Obsi armor on ALL my characters soon mwuhahahaahaa!
Now all we need is something to easily farm shards...

Dark Paladin X · Jun 24, 2008, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sjeng

Play the xunlai tournament house each month. Free cash.

I wouldn't like to see it nerfed. I love the low ecto prizes. 4.3k at the merchant yesterday. w00t. Now just make those Zaishen keys rise again, and I'll have Obsi armor on ALL my characters soon mwuhahahaahaa!
Now all we need is something to easily farm shards...

There already is my friend, it's permashadow using the A/Me version against the skeletons.

Marverick · Jun 24, 2008, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ambuu

I do agree with your letter.
But we've seen skills get nerfed before. We've moved on.
And... I dont suggest nerfing it completely. Reduce the duration 5 seconds. (16 Shadow Arts = 27 seconds). 6 seconds at the most to nerf it.

27 seconds = just barely cutting it (when going A/E swiftness). Makes players have to be more alert and gives them more room for error.

27 seconds is way too easy for A/Me.

IMO:

Put [Signet of Disenchantment] on Banished Dream Riders. This won't really hurt regular teams, but perma SF sins will have to watch out and cover their Shadow Form or they will die. The run will still be possible, but now you will only be able to aggro 1 or 2 Banished Dream Riders at the most, which should hopefully slow down the run and keep it on par with other UW farming builds.

Trinity Fire Angel · Jun 24, 2008, 11:15 PM // 23:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Age

Ele can't keep Obsidian Flesh up permanently I have tried this.

wrong.... i have always have been able to perma-obsidian flesh!

1. i was using an E/R build to farm ice imps for the last 12months. IDS values are still ~20k... the E/R build has always been able to perma obsidian. i can;t see anywhere that people have tried to shut this build down.

2. I have always been able to perma mistform as well. this is not as easy as the earth form as the energy management is not as good

3. glyp-h of swiftness has been able to do it perma mist form and perma obsidian since it came about

Please understand that perma-shadowform is not the be all and end all of super imba builds. it requires a little bit a energy management skills and just like 55 monk, requires thought, timing and concentration... do not take that last sentance out of context... for a beginner who has never farmed before, it can be at first difficult to watch skill recharges, and also watch skills. i thought 55 was supposed to be easy to do.. until i first did 55monk and found that it does require some skill. same with the perma-shadow. you trade off certain power and damage and you gain protection at the loss of being an effictive fighter.

put simply. if you want to perma shadow you must obey these laws;

(a) you must be either A/E or A/Me or Me/A (or E/A with Grail of Might)
(b) you must have at least 13 in Shadow Arts.
(c) you must have at least 25 energy at the time when you want to cast chain. GoS + DP + SF = 25e
(d) you are now restricted by energy and trade off all other attributes. ie. you can now only take one other attribute unless you max out in superior runes and run at 330hp or 105hp

ie. 13 Shadow + ??? - if you want daggers, then you trade off only 12 in daggers and no Crit strikes for energy management. etc etc

(e) Your capacity for damage per second is lowered and this makes you a lesser *assassin*. you might as well be a bonded warrior.
(f) You lose 3 slots just to keep yourself alive which doesn;t even include a self heal... Assassins and Eles and Mesmers have rotten self heals

Really, my conclusion is that perma shadow really isn;t all that good. People who want a nerf for it don;t seem to have any other argument other than it ruins the economy. c'mon mate! get real~! Money traders, dupers and bots ruin the economy. not little kids playing assassins.

Finally. It really isn;t that *easy* for noobs to make an assassin and then equip themselves to do the UW. really, it;s only people who are good enuff to hero and hench their way thru to EoTN and then cap SF and get themselves to TOA. If some *noob* supposedly just buys all the tomes and buys all the runes and weapons for the build, good on them... obviously they have that spare 20-30k just sitting there that ANet hands out to noobs when they start playing in pre-searing..

Get a life. it;s a game. enjoy it. wealth is an illusion. money in game and in real life doesn;t exist. when you die, you can;t take it with you. LOL

Dark-NighT · Jun 24, 2008, 11:22 PM // 23:22

One thing is bound to happen soon, loss of favor which means people will need to earn it again, we've only got like 2k minutes left or so.

in any case it could disrupt the hordes of A/E for a brief period of time.

Friar Khan · Jun 24, 2008, 11:34 PM // 23:34

I vote to change Chaos Plains make it harder to solo, as others have already mentioned.

Perma-SF adds an interesting PvE gameplay option that I don't mind staying

Tyla · Jun 24, 2008, 11:37 PM // 23:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Age

Ele can't keep Obsidian Flesh up permanently I have tried this.

Evidently not. Please don't try and disprove what's been going on since the beginning of GW:EN, and was actually possible before GW:EN.

Quote:

You might want to look at my sign up date and I was around probably before you as I beta tested it in 2/19/05.There is a good thread on that old build I got saved.I only got 1 ecto to my name and I am not rich either.

Just because you came to the game in 05 doesn't mean you can be good or informed about the game. I know people who've played this game since 05 and think Illusionary Weaponry is better than Warrior DPS. Don't go buzzin' about it.