Spirit Bond - Farming

It seems ANet has had a stance against farming for quite some time now, but I don't exactly understand why. They put "unique" items in the game and make many aspects expensive requiring a large gold base. Now, why punish a human player from trying to farm for these items with a creative build? I do understand the bot problem and the gold sold on Ebay, but doesn't making farming harder for the regular players make this problem worse? Professional farmers will always find a way around any changes, and will have bots running to collect their gold. Regular players though are going to have more issues and are more likely to turn to Ebay to solve this. Punishing regular human farming actually ends up rewarding those who use bots. ANet really needs to research economics a tad, specifically supply and demand.

On to what this topic is really about, the recent change ANet implemented to cease a lot of farming builds. Spirit Bond is now restricted to last only for the next 10 attacks or spells. Basically this kills any Spirit Bond builds, which was a very creative way of farming. But why stop this type of build? The energy management and obstacles to overcome in certain areas were complex to say the least, which makes it impossible to use this type of build in a programmed bot. So here again, instead of hurting the bots, we are hurting regular players who are trying to get "greens" for themselves or enough gold to purchase another set of armor without turning to Ebay.

I guess I just don't understand why ANet made this change since it is clearly to prevent this spells use in farming. Bots can still use the normal 55 builds (at least once the scatter bug is fixed and and the damage which causes the scatter narrowed back to AOE over time spells like it should be). Stop punishing regular players for farming, especially when you add "unique" items and keep armor/skills so expensive. Don't reward botters with making supply limited because demand will not drop.

On a quick final note, most of the new changes, especially with interface, are awesome. The scatter bug, movement canceling bug, and spirit bond nerf are the only parts I have problems with so far. The first two I am sure will be corrected, but I definitely disagree with the deliberate nerf of spirit bond farming as it is only used by regular players and not bots.

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Quote: Originally Posted by amosvt

How about you add some input instead of just a standard insult? Do you have something to contribute or reasoning to think otherwise? Heck, at least explain why you don't think this will make Ebay gold purchases more widespread since players don't have the gold they need.

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grrrr...

Yes this SB build was def not a "bot"-able solo build, and this nerf is really pooping on people. Its almost like I can hear ANET saying "haha you suck now"

Seriously what was the point of this? At least remove the 8 second limit on the enchantment and make it simply "next 10 attacks/spells"

Quote: Originally Posted by amosvt Bots can still use the normal 55 builds (at least once the scatter bug is fixed and and the damage which causes the scatter narrowed back to AOE over time spells like it should be).

The scatter bug, movement canceling bug, and spirit bond nerf are the only parts I have problems with so far. The first two I am sure will be corrected, Ummm.. What makes you think the "scatter bug" is not behaving exactly as ANet intended ? Before the update, Cyclone Axe was not AoE and didn't cause scatter. Now it causes scatter, but only when their health goes down quite a bit.

Because right now, enemies scatter.. and go sit there. They do not attack in some cases.

Either way, please stay on topic. This thread is on Spirit Bond being nerfed for the sake of limiting farming.

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good spirit bond got nerfed, now learn how to tank, what do you think people did before factions and your stupid lil SB skill came out did ?

I just hate to see everything revolve around the "farm". So much that these spells and skills become obsolete to use in the "normal" way.

oh... and I _think_ its possible that someone besides yourself knows how to tank. anet could nerf 1 or more critical tank skills and do the same thing...

Once again, provide some actual input instead of flaming. I know how to tank, I have one. In fact, I experiment with just about every build combination and even have many new ones I have never seen posted anywhere before. That is not the point of this thread though.

It is nice to have more than just one technique for farming. I don't believe "learning how to tank" is the only way things should be done, variety is a good thing and that is where the nerf of Spirit Bond is harmful. Hell, the skill isn't even useful as a healing spell since it only last 8 seconds and requires such high damage to trigger anyway.

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"good spirit bond got nerfed, now learn how to tank, what do you think people did before factions and your stupid lil SB skill came out did ?"

I thought that they just kept hitting 1 and 2, 1 being Prot Spirit or Cyclone Axe and 2 being Healing Breeze and Bonnetti's Defense.

Yea, exactly. A few tank skills could be nerfed just as easily to stop those farming builds and the tanking options for farming would be useless as well. The point is that we don't want any of that to happen, we don't want nerf to stop farming by regular players.

Spirit Bond was changed for just that reason, and made it a pretty useless skill.

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Quote: Originally Posted by amosvt

I do agree with you Amosvt. The nerf to SBond in no way hurts commercial farming in the long run. They'll just go back to 55s. Or take on smaller groups of mobs. Or maybe add Shadow of Fear to cut down the hits per second.
On the other hand, it does stop the invincibility effect somewhat in pvp also. SBond + PSpirit doesnt mean 8 secs of invincibility anymore albeit most teams aren't going to hit with 20 spike damage effects(10 to end SBond and 10 more to kill under PSpirit) so it's not a serious nerf to the pvp side.
I do question ANets farming stance. More and more I get the vague feeling that they support the commercial farming. Changes wont stop bots or live commercial farmers but they will hurt casual/semi serious player/farmers and their ability to generate gold. Oh well, want some new armor? Don't waste the next few hours/days trying to farm an area, just go to EBay. Spend all that free time you now have doing something else(there is nothing else...) or watching a movie or something. When I think of all the hours I spent farming and ridiculing the EBayers the reality of good time management appears.
If you farm cuz its fun to you GG. You can still farm somehow. If you farm for purely gold well, hey its your time to burn in semi-futility. I feel for ya but reality of time=money(real-life money) says it is smarter and more effecient to give up trying to make "gold" and let the professional commercial farmers do it. Not promoting EBay gold(and yes it IS a service)....just admitting I understand the reality now.

ranting. closed.