New PvE Metagame

Maybe they will go the other way and instead of Nerfing Shadowform they will give each of the other classes a skill that allows them to be comparable in speed and simplicity to Shadowform...........

Maybe we will see something like this:

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WARRIOR: Steady Stance becomes: Elite Stance. (20 seconds) You gain 100...300...400 Armor. This stance ends if you use a skill. 5 energy ; 22 Second recharge

Not quite as effective as Shadowform as you can still take damage from Hexes, but sturdy enough so that Warriors would see use as tanks in pick up play again. The two-second interim between uses would keep it interesting.

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MESMER: Psychic Instability becomes: Elite Hex Spell (15 seconds) Enemies within spell range have 10 energy degen, Party members in earshot have 10 energy regen. 1 second cast time ; 10 Energy ; 30 second recharge

Party would still be able to take damage from melee enemies and wand attacks and this skill would be effected by hex removal so it would not be as foolproof as Shadowform under cons , but it would allow party members to let loose thier skill bars without concern for energy , and make enemies largely inneffective , allowing speed and ease similar to Shadowform under cons in elite zones.

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Necromancer: Order of the Vampire becomes: Elite Enchantment Spell (4 seconds) Enchants all party members, All damage done by Party members becomes Life Stealing. 1/2 second cast time ; Sacrifice 75% Health ; 20 energy ; 10 Second recharge.

This would provide Shadowform level invulerability to high damage party members while still keeping things interesting for tanks. Subject to enchant removal and vulnerable to things like traps. With a 20% enchant mod it could be kept up half of the time so it would not be quite as imba as Shadowform, but would certainly make Necros a viable option in pick up play.

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Elementalist: Master of Magic becomes: Elite Spell. (10 Seconds) Deals 5...17...20 fire damage for each second since casting this spell and causes 90% slower movement. Hits foes near target's initial location. Foes still in area when spell expires are knocked down, blinded and have cracked armor.

This would still scatter enemies even though they are snared so may leave HM SC groups preferring to take groups one at a time as opposed too grouping entire areas, hence it may not be as fast as Shadowform, but it would be fun and certainly we'd see Eles as candidates for damagers in pick up play in Elite zones again.

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Paragon: "The Power Is Yours!" becomes: Elite Shout. (5 seconds.) Effect all party members in earshot. All damage is converted to healing. All degen becomes regen. All DMS is converted to IMS. All DAS is converted to IAS. When this shout ends all party members lose all adrenaline. No Casting time ; 10 Adrenaline ; 4 second recharge.

Basically would be 5 seconds of invulnerability and 5 seconds of vulnerability. Not at good as Shadowform when they party splits 4 ways but would definetly allow for some fun and interesting parties.

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Ritualist: N/A - Signet Of Spirits is already OP enough. Perhaps spirits would become stackable in order to allow all rit teams and satisfy the Shadowform mentality.

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Monk: Healing Hands becomes: Elite Enchantment Spell. (10 seconds.) Enchants all party members in spell range, All party members deal 33% less damage. Heals all party members for 5...29...35 whenever any party member takes damage. End effect removes all hexes and conditions. 1/2 second cast time ; 25 energy ; 30 Second recharge.

Would grant extreme buffness at the cost of 1/3 the partys damage and would require some creativity to maintain at all times. Very similar to Shadowform in function however could make 8 way splits slightly more difficult as some degree of effort or thought may be required.

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Ranger: Expert's Dexterity becomes: Elite Stance. (1...16...20 seconds.) You attack 33% faster and you gain +2 to your Marksmanship attribute. (25%...75%...90% chance of Vorpal kill shot which deals 5000 piercing damage) 5 energy ; 20 second recharge.

Would bring the popular concept of headshots to Guild Wars. Would be a little slower than shadowform as this skill only allows you to engage one enemy at a time so taking on 5 or 6 groups at a time could be problematic. Would be great for 4 way splits and could be used by "pros" for 8 way splits.

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Dervish: NEW SKILL: Avatar Of Dhuum: Elite Form. (10...58...70 seconds) You become Dhuum. When you activate Avatar Of Dhuum, your skill bar is replaced with Dhuum's skill bar. You have 61,500 health. Your skills cannot be disabled. You are immune to all conditions. Hexes on you expire 50% faster. When this skill ends all of your skills including Avatar Of Dhuum are recharged and you lose 3 energy and 9 health. 3 Second cast time ; 20 energy ; 120 second recharge.

This could create some problems for many shadowform mentality players as it may be necessary to read the skill descriptions in your bar to be effective.

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Yes this is a joke, and yes it is kind of ridiculous.........

...............but then again......... if you think about it..........

.......... is any of it really any more ridiculous than 30 minute UW HM speed clears........

........ or the idea of bi-monthly skill updates every 8 months or so.........

......... at least people would get to play.........

sorry if this isn't really on topic but it'd be a ta unfair to drop the ner-bomb on SoS. spirit spamming is on the same level (in some ways beneath and others above) MMs. forcing spirit spammers into other skills/proffesions would kinda weaken ritualists and would be pointless when MMs are just as powerful and utilised just as much.

That was one long joke post.


I hope.

ROFL This stuff is way better than bringing ursan back!!!

W/D SY Scythes, while already popular, will probably see a major forthcoming as frontline damage dealers/tanks. A/D perma is incredibly popular in certain areas and used in a number of speed clears. W/D pumps out better damage (due to SF's damage reduction) and has SY to support a balanced team.

Alternately, a Warrior with some e-management, bonds, and anti-spell abilities of some flavor. Turn 600/Smite into Warrior/Bond. Not a terrible idea since physicals still deal the most damage and don't cause scatter.

These are my thoughts.

They could make Prot Spirt scale with protection prayers instead of being set at 10% so like "Target cannot take more than 59...50...47 damage from a single source." And make spirit bond trigger after the PS reduction, or not trigger I guess is what would happen. They'd still be viable and needed, they just wouldn't stack which is the problem with 600 tanks.

Eles. Why? Even without OF they have plenty of tanking skills. Emo also seems to work well.

And eles still have some decent damage spells.

I will just do as I've been doing the entire time:
- Check the wiki to see the monsters I will be facing.
- Check their builds.
- Make a build accordingly.
- Check my party members builds for synergy.

It will never make any sense to me to stick to a single build. Why using only 8 skills all the time when you have 1319 to choose from?

That's why they are nerfing the overpowered bulds, all skills should have a use, not just a couple of them.

Because those 8 skills gets the job done as well (actually, 4*8 skills, including heroes).

Sad, but true nonetheless.

That idea for being Dhuum's avatar is pretty funny. It just makes me wonder how the pvp build will turn out.

there was gear stance tanks who could hold all the aggro while back.. after that there was alot of bad wannabe tanks remember playing pve.. before the gear, stance warriors used to run out ahead and grab all the aggro.. and rest of the team had to sit back and play their role- nuke, heal after he had all the hate on him (gw aggro is pretty cool- the monsters can see health and AL- go after the weakest).. alot of the newer players don't know this so they want something similar to the gear or taunts

if they put that back in none of the mob ai matters.. you can get a group of monkeys to clear any area- but sure the leeroys would love that

yeah nerf all the solo builds but make it easy on the players with downs =| let's play SY cause that's not op but it's something we can actually do without knowing to how play the game (or even how aggro works for that matter)

oh don't nerf my main that's not fair! think this whole business with the current set of nerfs is just bad players who can barely hold a pencil in rl

just my opinion!

I used to do the very same.. Until i realized that i will lose more time tweaking and synergyzing than i need to complete the area..

they should rather nerf broken skills and buff useless ones. nerfing pve will eventually lead to even less options to choose from.

Nerfing powercreep will bring everything in line better than buffing unused skills. They tried that before, remember? Now those skills are overpowered.

This is exactly what I do as well and will continue doing. Maybe it does take more time because i have to get on wiki and change around builds/heroes but so what? Id rather have fun using many different, effective builds/teams that take a little longer to set up than save time by using the same build and team over and over again.

I don't really agree with that. Just because there's a few examples of that doesn't mean it has to be that way or is that way with all changed skills. I would agree with you if you were to say that the PvE skills based on titles were overpowered...because a lot of em are even with a low title.

They need to bring overpowered skills down to a reasonable level first, because right now the only way to make underused skills used is to make them overpowered.

yea, i would agree with that. Everyone acknowledges that PvE is too easy, and the overpowered skills are one of the main reasons why. It is true that underused skills need to be buffed (just slightly) up to a "balanced" level, but that will not change anything if the overpowered skills are not nerfed to the "balanced" level as well. Anet needs to reverse at least some of the powercreep in skills in order to make PvE harder, and there are definitly several overpowered skills (Assassin's Promise, the eotn PvE only skills, Mark of Pain) that need nerfing before the buffs to the underpowered skills can take place

people will have to actually start playing with intelligent balance, slow pulls, and not be able to "speed clear" areas that are suppose to be the hardest of the game.