Curse

Hysteria · Aug 07, 2005, 03:27 PM // 15:27

I cant imagine the skill itself being nerfed. It's doing exactly what its description states, no more then 5% dmg due to an attack. I can see the lvl 17 cast reducing its energy cost to 1 being altered though or perhaps more disenchanters down there.

Divinus · Aug 07, 2005, 03:50 PM // 15:50

I think they're going to throw disenchanters down there. The runes prices are absolutely insane right now. I believe Superior Healing was 74k earlier.

The only thing I can see this helping is at least eventually, if all this UW soloing keeps up, Ecto prices should come down. Storm Bows/Eternal Bows already seemed to have dropped drastically.

Wardog · Aug 07, 2005, 03:57 PM // 15:57

I agree, they will probably nerf 1 energy loss at 17 prot. But I don't think they will nerf anything else.

Farming UW doesn't yeild much!!! Except rare ecto , nothing good ever drops. Is it just me or is it like that with everyone?

Darksci · Aug 07, 2005, 05:08 PM // 17:08

I just did a run just now, got an ecto, 2 storms, 1 rare unid healing symbol (can sell that), and a ghostly staff. All of that negates the 1K spent, so i'm happy. Mind you i spent 40mins ish.

Pandora's box · Aug 07, 2005, 07:16 PM // 19:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wardog

I agree, they will probably nerf 1 energy loss at 17 prot. But I don't think they will nerf anything else.

Farming UW doesn't yeild much!!! Except rare ecto , nothing good ever drops. Is it just me or is it like that with everyone?

Grrrr, its not this build that should be nerfed, its the continuasly switching Favor between Korea and America that needs nerfing lol! Sigh, I've had no access to UW now for 4 days! This build certainly does not pay off for European players

Age · Aug 07, 2005, 07:32 PM // 19:32

They better not nerf protective bond as I have yet to use it in UW as I am still waiting to ascend anyway I want to try soloing in UW as well.It will be ncie when the price of runes come down and black dye.To saphir what no to yu have in swordmanship as I have 4 in mine and use no 4 rated swords.What do you use.Thanks

saphir · Aug 07, 2005, 09:54 PM // 21:54

nomad - not surprisingly, i did not solo my way to the armorer in Fow =)
The breaker/bond groups killed me, that cap is just of the first quest. In any case I don't think the time and effort spent would be worth it to solo. When I tank a party of 8 to the crafter, it only takes ~75 min. Versus a around 30min to solo the first quest w/ about equivalent drops =)

spiritofcat - although colds can be avoided, i can handle up to a group of 6 colds plus 6 smites. of course the time wasted on the colds aren't worth their worthless drops since a regular cold avoiding smite run takes on average 15 min. so until a single run for 1-3 globs takes an hour due to addtional coldfires, uw is still worth the time despite fighting 2-3 groups of colds.

age - mine is at 0 (because i'm smiting). melee weapons like sword are only good for tanking for full parties to take the attention of mobs off the rest of your all caster party.

as for drops, i met one who picked up a purple and a gold crystalline on their runs.

spiritofcat · Aug 07, 2005, 10:39 PM // 22:39

Is the UW covered by the anti-farming code?
Often when soloing I make a mistake and get killed by the darknesses, so I tend to end up doing a few shortish runs which might be triggering the anti-farming code that nerfs drops.
Anyone else have ideas on that?

I find that the drops I get in the FoW are far superior than UW.
Only problem is I can't get very far in the UW due to mesmers. But still, I usually get a chaos axe, some shadow bows/staves etc. and frequently a shard too.

Pandora's box · Aug 07, 2005, 11:41 PM // 23:41

Lol, ur lucky! When my guild askes for a party I join but its my experience that with this build I get deeper into UW than any party I've played in. Anyway, I dont actually play there for the drops or even exp. I'm not the kind of player buying expensive fashion with the same stats lol!

But I like to go there because of the tension, the exitement. So I'm very happy with this build! But I really dont get rich by playing UW lol!

Amused Observer · Aug 08, 2005, 12:02 AM // 00:02

I've done runs w/ full parties in uw and fow last week, and the drops are MUCH better in fow.

B3H · Aug 08, 2005, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by saphir

someone was asking for screen shots?
here are some of mine:

is that 15k judges armor?

wiz12268 · Aug 08, 2005, 03:44 AM // 03:44

UW is stinky these days. I have gotten one colored weapon (other than blue) in about 30 solo runs. In those runs I have gotten 22 ectos. I run everything I can including the town and the circle by the gate, I have even started killing cold fires, those runs take about an hour. But they still are not dropping anything substanital, although I did get a white fell blade off one.

I was running a solo build quite awhile ago and ecto drops were at least 75% more than they are now, meaning you got one a run every run. Now that is not the case. Not sur eif it is "nerfed" or not, but you would have a hard time convincing me something isn't right. Oh yeah I get about 20-30 demonic reamins nowadays per run. Now if they were worth 60 gold I wouldn't mind, but only 20 gold is a joke.

Another thing I have noticed is the smites and fires fight more amongst themselves these days, usually with the smites taking the worst of it. So ultimately fewer chances for a decent drop.

I am thinking of trying some short FOW runs, maybe get some shards or at least a colored item. I like seeing 6-8 dead monsterd and a couple purples and a gold sitting there when I am done. I rmemeber when it wasn't uncommon to see 2-3 golds AND a purple or two in certain groups lying beside your toon. Now one gold a map is about average, and a lot of times they aren't even max damage.

Hysteria · Aug 08, 2005, 04:24 AM // 04:24

I did a run just for the heck earlier and I also noticed some cruddy drops, I must say the worst I've ever seen. This was my first time since last Wednesdays patch and every patch seems to reset the anti farm crap. Perhaps it was just bad luck but I'm not so sure.

volgaris · Aug 08, 2005, 04:38 AM // 04:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by capitalist

I get to feel smart for a second since I started using this build after you released 2.0. Some other guy had commented on using watchful spirit with mending (but with 5 pips) so I thought I would try it with the 4 pip mending. I was suprised how easily you can tank just about every ataxe and darkness at the beginning at one time (if you manage to get them together). Anything less than that, like 5 ataxe and 8 darkness, is cake. Any smites are a joke and it takes 15 minutes to complete a run (post-prot bond cast). Now I just want to figure out how to get further into the UW solo...

The only variation for me is that I refund 4 from protection and pump smiting up to 16. So 8 total refund everytime (including going back to 16 protection). I figure it doesn't matter since you 4-5K exp from clearing the first room. Additionally I use a 10/10 furious longsword(henge sword) with a +18% enchanting pommel. This way I charge bonettis a little faster and I get the extra 4-5 seconds from SoJ and 2 seconds from Balth Aura. This insures that all enemies of the same type that are surrounding me drop at almost exactly the same time (due to be hitting them for 1 dmg with my sword)

Cast Order: Prot Bond, Change hat to smite and dump prot points into smite, balth spirit, mending, blessed signet, watchful spirit, blessed signet. Leaves me with 32 energy to start the fight with.

Battle Cast Order: Bonetti's, Balth Aura, Bonetti's, SoJ, Balth Aura, Blessed Signet (if needed), Bonetti's, Balth Aura, Bonettis if they are still swinging (my goal is to kill them and walk away charged). For smites skip the first bonetti's and throw up balth aura.

I tired this build although it worked very well I found myself stuck when I got to the terrorwebs. I couldn't even put a dent in them, I could run from them but couldnt kill them so I found myself stuck. I tried all sorts of things, soj didnt appear to work well on them since they are casters and aura just wasnt doing enough damage to them.... any ideas on how to beat them with this build below? Or isthe divine boon build better to use? I also bumped my smite to 16 once I cast prot. bond so I had that as high as it would go also casted mend at 13 for the +4 regen

Originally Posted by miteethor
Ok, here is the new build I have been running, which can easily handle big mobs of 15+, mixed mobs of darkness/ataxes, and terrorwebs. I can sit inside 3 malestroms at once without even losing health, etc.

I realize these are all variations on the same theme but I have found this to be the most effective and highest survival of all the versions I have tried so far, and it's still just as fast as anything else, and only requires 5 buyback points to complete.

MiteeThoRs V3.0

Starting:
Healing 9+3
Smiting 8+3
Protection 12+4
Divine 4+3
tactics 2

Ending:
Healing 9+3
Smiting 11+4
Protection 10+3
Divine 4+3
tactics 2

Skills
Protective Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Mending
Watchful Spirit
Bonetti's Defense
Blessed Signet
Balthazar's Aura
Shield of Judgement

Autumn_Leaf · Aug 08, 2005, 04:45 AM // 04:45

getting bad drops happens. sometimes i go through 3 runs without an ecto drop. my record is 4 ecto drop in one run, my friend is 5 in one run.

saphir · Aug 08, 2005, 06:31 AM // 06:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by B3H

is that 15k judges armor?

8k fissure =)

drops in uw is subjective though. i could say my drops suck since i haven't gotten my crystalline sword yet =)
it all depends on what you're looking for, and i'm looking for globs. usually get between 1-4. max ever was 6.

Pandora's box · Aug 08, 2005, 10:36 AM // 10:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by volgaris

I tired this build although it worked very well I found myself stuck when I got to the terrorwebs. I couldn't even put a dent in them, I could run from them but couldnt kill them so I found myself stuck. I tried all sorts of things, soj didnt appear to work well on them since they are casters and aura just wasnt doing enough damage to them.... any ideas on how to beat them with this build below? Or isthe divine boon build better to use? I also bumped my smite to 16 once I cast prot. bond so I had that as high as it would go also casted mend at 13 for the +4 regen

Originally Posted by miteethor
Ok, here is the new build I have been running, which can easily handle big mobs of 15+, mixed mobs of darkness/ataxes, and terrorwebs. I can sit inside 3 malestroms at once without even losing health, etc.

I realize these are all variations on the same theme but I have found this to be the most effective and highest survival of all the versions I have tried so far, and it's still just as fast as anything else, and only requires 5 buyback points to complete.

MiteeThoRs V3.0

Starting:
Healing 9+3
Smiting 8+3
Protection 12+4
Divine 4+3
tactics 2

Ending:
Healing 9+3
Smiting 11+4
Protection 10+3
Divine 4+3
tactics 2

Skills
Protective Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Mending
Watchful Spirit
Bonetti's Defense
Blessed Signet
Balthazar's Aura
Shield of Judgement

Some time ago I tried a simular build with Symbol of Wrath instead of Watchfull Spirit (and Mending +4). It rocked but I had a hard time surviving Darkness so I switched to this build for more safeness. But since I still find energy drainers very dangerous its probably just me. With maxed smite the SoW build will kill much faster, so give it a try

Fire Childe · Aug 08, 2005, 11:29 AM // 11:29

Quote:

Stop what? Everyone is talking that this game is about skills. And when finally players start combining skills to build a good chr people are afraid its gonna be nerfed? That would cut out the heart of this game, so believe me, thats NOT gonna happen
Or did you mean the trading system where prices are growing with demand?

this solo UW build is almost the same as a build i used back in june and detailed on this forum to prove a point about armour level in UW:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...541#post208541

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...538#post232538

that in turn was adapted from a popular troll farming balth aura/divine boon build at the time when troll farming in talus chute yielded some decent loot. i made the invincible uw tank build public on gwonline.net around the same time as well - reason being that i wanted uw to be made much harder - global enchant strips would be awesome. or more enemies that can strip enchantments. different AI routines (so that enemies run out of AoE - another problem i had with UW being too easy). etc. because at the time it was difficult to find groups that actually wanted to play underworld and try to complete it. most just formed groups to farm smites which i thought was a bit lame. dont know what the situation is like now (ive since left) but my old guildies claim hardly anyone ever plays uw for any reason other than to farm for loot. only now its mostly soloists. most of the actives in my guild later went on to play pvp almost exclusively in aB (angry businessmen). i think everyone got tired of the way uw runs were going.

i much prefered uw when the smites had balth aura and it stacked - they used to be able to kill a whole party in about 2 seconds flat. it was frightening and the thought of soloing them was just not even worth entertaining. since then, they have become a bit feeble :/

its interesting to see how the original build has evolved into this build.

ive been out of the loop since quitting GW at the end of june (moved out, back onto 56k and too busy working) but the reasons for making that build public was because i wanted everyone to abuse it, hardcore. so that anet would take a look at uw and go 'hang on a second, something cant be right if we have level 10 monks soloing the hardest pve area in the game - lets make it harder.'

not so that specific build would be nerfed - it should stay the same really. its easy to kill that build in pvp with enchant strips so thats not a problem. but uw really needs to be made harder. with every part of it being unsolo'able. the reason being to maintain the difficulty level and preserve the group challenge i believe it was intended to provide.

this could be done in several ways and should be quite simple to do. having squids cast rend enchantment. having baddies flee when they take a consistant and high rate of dmg and resume attacking outside the area of damage (if possible). the latter would stop baddies running in stupidly and dying to mass AoE damage spells. making dream riders more abundant would be even better. since they spawn blades and they all have interrupts. giving them one or 2 more interrupts would be even better. since its too easy to trick them all into interrupting some cheap crappy spells then letting off the big ones. finally, having more enemies packing interrupts.

dajg · Aug 08, 2005, 12:57 PM // 12:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by volgaris

I tired this build although it worked very well I found myself stuck when I got to the terrorwebs. I couldn't even put a dent in them, I could run from them but couldnt kill them so I found myself stuck. I tried all sorts of things, soj didnt appear to work well on them since they are casters and aura just wasnt doing enough damage to them.... any ideas on how to beat them with this build below? Or isthe divine boon build better to use? I also bumped my smite to 16 once I cast prot. bond so I had that as high as it would go also casted mend at 13 for the +4 regen

Originally Posted by miteethor
Ok, here is the new build I have been running, which can easily handle big mobs of 15+, mixed mobs of darkness/ataxes, and terrorwebs. I can sit inside 3 malestroms at once without even losing health, etc.

I realize these are all variations on the same theme but I have found this to be the most effective and highest survival of all the versions I have tried so far, and it's still just as fast as anything else, and only requires 5 buyback points to complete.

MiteeThoRs V3.0

Starting:
Healing 9+3
Smiting 8+3
Protection 12+4
Divine 4+3
tactics 2

Ending:
Healing 9+3
Smiting 11+4
Protection 10+3
Divine 4+3
tactics 2

Skills
Protective Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Mending
Watchful Spirit
Bonetti's Defense
Blessed Signet
Balthazar's Aura
Shield of Judgement

To do the Terrorwebs I drop my -50hp focus item and change to something with decent +energy and charge my energy right up (you should be around 50 energy and 105hps). I use the skills above except I drop shield of judgement for healing signet. You should be able to fire off 3 balth's Aura's in the first 45 seconds of the fight (using blessed signet in between to regen) which should take out at least one of the terror webs. Healing signet heals for 77 at tactics 4 IIRC so pretty much a very spamable full heal for zero energy.

You can also do the "wrathful spirits" 10k quest solo with this build from the keeper of the forgotten vale. Also with nuker backup you can tank the mesmer spirits in the "escort of souls" quest. They do spam ignorance on you to stop signets but you can usually get healing signet in when it wears off (or breeze but watch for interupts).

capitalist · Aug 08, 2005, 01:50 PM // 13:50

To handle the Terrorwebs with the build I use (the same as mitee's but i pump smiting up to 16), switch to the collector's 10/20/20 smiting staff w/ +5 insightful head and 18% enchanting wrap. Make sure you are at full energy going in, and run around until they fire off at least 1 Meteor Shower each. Pull them into a group and run right next to them and cast Balth Aura/SoJ/Blessed Signet(i think my divine is at 4 so I get 9 energy from this)/Blessed Signet/Balth Aura/Blessed Signet/SoJ, all the while hitting them with your weapon.