New PvE Metagame

Ok, first off, NO TALK ABOUT SHADOW FORM UNLESS IT IS RELEVANT TO THE TOPIC (that means no QQ about the nerf)

Since we all know that the massive PvE nerf bomb is coming (supposedly), what do you think will be the next big PvE build? Any ideas welcome.

For the purpose of this discussion, assume the following skills will be nerfed to oblivion:
-Shadow Form
-Spirit Bond/Protective Spirit (600/smite essentially)
-Obsidian Flesh
-Signet of Spirits

I think if they hit SB or Prot spirit, the new big thing will be Emo/Spell Breaker smite. It makes sense as the EMo can tank literally anything and is only vulnerable to enchantment strips, which will be covered by SB.

Nerf PS and all 55 / 600 builds won't work .

imo, the way to deal with 600 / smites would be to nerf holy wrath and/or retribution .

I like solo farming / group farming more than farming with a smite bonder .

Me/Mo Spell Breaker + Arcane Echo + some cover enchant .

I wouldn't think they'd hit SoS that hard, because if you do you leave Ritualists deep in the hole with no real viable use for spirits - again. Seems stupid to buff them then drop it again, what, 5 months later? What makes spirit spam viable as a farming build is 1) armor of the unfeeling (will likely change the damage reduction to something smaller) and 2) spiritleech aura (who knows how this will be changed)

Similarly, I can't imagine they'll change OF all that much, when moves like stoneflesh and sliver are far more to blame when it comes to excessive farming.

I feel (read: hope) that balanced builds will become more effective in PvE. Essentially I want manly spike without supertanks, really.

As well screwing over pretty much any balanced team that tries to make it in HM. That would just promote the use of things like Prot Bond and in particular SY (almost out of necessity).

I sincerely doubt the PvE meta game will be changed much (if at all). At most SF will be kicked out of speed clears and farms and maybe Hammers will become more popular.

New tank in most areas will be a stance tank with a bonder+Spellbreaker. Not sure about doa. UW will probably feature like 4 copies of SY!

I really hope they don't nerf SoS lol. It's one of my favorite builds and I rarely use it for farming purposes.

Besides Shadow Form, none of those skills were even mentioned, I don't think.

Oh, wait, we're assuming all of the above is nerfed and unusable. Um... Defy Pain tankers?

SF and the 600/Smite setup were the two prominent farming builds specifically mentioned as the targets of a nerf bat.

Don't feel like drudging for links, they're somewhere in the dev tracker board.

They've been discussing a lot of changes.. found a link for you.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:..._December_2009

I'm actually really looking forward to that lol.

I think it would be very stupid of them to nerf SoS, Spirit Spamming is the only reason to play rit in pve,if they nerf it and give rits nothing at all, we will be back to rits being useless and never seen.Even so,they should not even think about nerfing it yet, SoS hasnt even been around that long.

I dont think they will hit OF that hard,people say that after they nerf SF people will just jump over to OF,but OF takes a lot more to be effective,it takes you 3 skills just to get it in the same area of SF invulenerablity.

OF makes you move 50% slower so you need to take Windborne speed and/or Storm Djinn's Haste (might as well take it since its in the same line as glyph of swiftness) and you have to take minbender and/or illusion of haste because your secondary is gonna be locked as mesmer since you need mantra of resolve for the interrupts

So thats OF -50% movement speed,Mantra of Resolve,30+ increase movement speed,20+increase movement speed,thats 3 extra skills jus to get the same effect as SF and thats not even counting the energy that you will need

You realize SY! doesn't stack with another SY! right?

As for OF, you can pop a RRC and cupcake/BRC and be moving normal speed again, Math FTW. Guild groups already doing DoA with OF tanks now in 1:30 so it isn't all that much slower then SF tanks.

And why does everyone think PS and Spirit Bond will get the nerf bat? What about Spellbreaker? How about they make it so you can't cast it on yourself, and it won't as much nerf the skill, but make it more of a pain in the butt to use. You would have to bring an extra hero along just to use it on yourself. That would in theory change quite a bit of runs, and likely slow them down.

why would we want to tell them what to nerf

I'm agreeing with the thinking that SoS should be relatively safe. The main thing they're focusing on besides invulnerability, is the speed of the builds itself. SoS spamming as a solo farm build is a little more time intensive. I'm sure once the update comes we'll see some sort of SoS team other than Dual Spammers born from it. Then they will reconsider Spirit Spamming taking into consideration what kind of times people are putting up if they're too fast.

The thing is when a group of SoS get created,that the problem wont be SoS,you can only have one of it active at a time anyways,I guess you could split up at the start of UW and each take one part or even dou-ing one part with 4 groups each a part,but even if you do manage to clear it withouth having to ask for help from one of the other teams,when you reach the end, you cant kill dhuum with 8 people all with the same 2 builds.

You could also just go with 8 spirits spammers all with different spirits, but then again SoS build already has most of the good ones.

Now besides UW SoS has a much bigger limit on what it can take on, any big groups will kill your spirits sooner then your spirits can kill the group and just one mistake and you become the target and die, not to mention there are some mobs out there that after they killed all your spirits will go for you even when you are pretty far from the battle.

SoS can be used equally well on almost any profession . my warrior has no problems using SoS build .

Spirits themselves are already limited since you cant have 2 copies of the same spirit .

SoS is just a little OP imo . just deal with the "SoS being able to be used on any profession" problem and it's good

move it to spawning attribute so only rits can use them ? lol

No No No,that would be a rit nerf too.

I personally dont mind everyone being able to use SoS,your still limited to one anyways.

They say they're looking at 600/Smite teams, but that really makes me wonder exactly what they can possibly do to nerf that without completely screwing over everything else. It's not like SF, which is only used for perma. Rather, key skills to make it work (Protective Spirit and Spirit Bond) are also used constantly in general PvE, and are all but necessary, and if there are any changes made to those skills it has to be approached very carefully, else they risk screwing over anyone who's just doing regular PvE play. I can't even imagine trying to do HM without PS as it stands now.

And I don't think they'll do anything with SoS. Yeah, it's a powerful skill, but it's not all-powerful, and it's used for more than just farming. It's great, but it's not perfect, and it has its weaknesses (spirits are still fairly weak in the amount of damage they can take and they can easily be overwhelmed if you're not careful, mobs will still ignore them and attack you, etc). Not to mention that it's pretty much the only reason Rits see play now, and you can only have one copy up at a time.

Actually Your Quite Wrong About SB AND PS. They wont nerf those skills as there needed in heavy areas of pve as hm they will nerd the smite part of 600/smite before they mess up sb or ps.