Guild Wars 2

One of the following:

• Switch ranger and thief debuff
• Increase duration of the debuff by 2-4 sec
  – rangers current debuff will have to be something else for this
• Increase duration but decease effect to 50% or 33%
• Change thieves debuff from loss of endurance to cannot stealth for duration + x seconds
• Make quickness more threatening
  – e.g. GW1 Frenzy: Stance. For 8 seconds, you attack 33% faster but take double damage.

I did have a write up with reasoning behind all points but pressed backspace without the window selected, noob moment.

To me I see quickness only as a problem vs new players. If you can get out of it then your usually facing a foe with less abilities left then you (pointing the finger at power builds that pop everything then quickness+x). Helping new players by telling them how to avoid such moves would also be helpful, instead of just saying L2P orL2 dodge.

There are far more powerful factors in this game than quickness. To refer to it as a singularly broken mechanic above all others is just inaccurate. It is dangerous, but it is meant to be as such.

Reflection/Retaliation, Cripple, Stun, Fear, Stealth for goodness stakes any class with a duration-based block ALL hard counters to quickness and its uses.

Kalar Meadia.8439:

There are far more powerful factors in this game than quickness. To refer to it as a singularly broken mechanic above all others is just inaccurate. It is dangerous, but it is meant to be as such.

Reflection/Retaliation, Cripple, Stun, Fear, Stealth for goodness stakes any class with a duration-based block ALL hard counters to quickness and its uses.

• Relfection/Retaliation somewhat works but not every class is equiped with instant retaliation and reactions to Quickness have to be instant.
• Cripple never saved me from Quickness, swapping to a ranged weapon makes cripple meaningless and getting into melee range isn’t really difficult for Thiefs and Warriors.
• Fear is a problem, how? At least the Necromancer fear is the weakest CC in the game, durationwise. Even the stolen Thief fear is longer than Necromancer fears (1s)
• Duration based blocks work, once. Quickness can be gained several times during a fight, while duration based blocks have rather long cooldowns

100% increase in dps is too much. If it would at least increase damage by 100% instead of increasing the frequency of attacks, that would leave some more time to react. Quickness is plain wrong.
I wonder how Quickness came through while other powerful boons are at reasonable 33% (which would still be powerful enough for meaningful damage) like the healing decrease from poision and the damage decrease from protection.

Quickness could be fine (alas 100% is very much) if it were on classes or spec which do consistently damage without spikes e.g. a DoT line.

Anyway, it is amusing that necros are screwed because of death shroud could be potentially op whereas such a thing as quickness on high burst builds seems to totally ok for A-Net.

Oh well, so much for balance

I agree with switching ranger and thief down sides for quickness. Rangers engage at ranged (often) and use dodge entensively, while thieves don’t. THeir dodges are built into their skills already, so why do they really need to worry about endurance?

I’m a horrible thief, I’ve been working on it, but I still suck, but I have yet to need to ‘dodge’ extensively, and when I do need it, even when I’ve just used my quickness, I always have the nedurance to dodge.

Rangers, however, use it proliferately.

Switching them would balance the classes extensively.

However, if you do remove quickness, take that kitteny immobilize with you. kkthxbye

Quickness is kinda strange… I would not mind if it would be removed!

Manji.3801:

Quickness is kinda strange… I would not mind if it would be removed!

lol, I would, simply because rangers have no other dependable killing skills without this. That is a flaw with design of the class, however, anytime a ranger bursts, its only because QZ was up. Otherwise, you’ll never see ranger at the top of the list for anything.

but still, take Immob if you take quickness.

I realized why quickness is such a ‘hated’ skill.

Its not the DPS output one gets with this skill, its the fact that it is combined with a stunlock or immobilize and you are helpless at the hands of the class that combines this with a burst.

Rangers usually do not use entangling roots, as it can be countered all too easy. However, when you do, again, you are helpless agianst the rangers’ burst.

This is what I realized today. Its not the quickness in itself, its combining it with some form of CC that is making this skill look bad. In its most natural state, quickness is probably just fine as it is.

In a way, that can explain the polarization of hatred and uncaring on the forums about Quickness. The people that have the tools and experience to counter the bursts consider Quickness to be nearly worthless, meanwhile the ones that have been through the situation of considering themselves helpless while being bursted down absolutely loathe it. In my opinion, this is in part due to the communities preference at blaming the game rather then blaming themselves for a possible mistake.

Ayestes.1273:

In a way, that can explain the polarization of hatred and uncaring on the forums about Quickness. The people that have the tools and experience to counter the bursts consider Quickness to be nearly worthless, meanwhile the ones that have been through the situation of considering themselves helpless while being bursted down absolutely loathe it. In my opinion, this is in part due to the communities preference at blaming the game rather then blaming themselves for a possible mistake.

While I agree with this, quickness/stunlock combo is rarely a L2P issue. People will wait for the most oppurtune time to use it and burst you down. Now, for those who have condition removals and stun breakers, this is rarely a problem, but for classes weak on this (like rangers) this combo is all too devastating.

A ranger can use a signet, but its on a high CD, and all you have to do is watch that its not up. If its not…free burst, if it is, you can often trick the lesser rangers into blowing it. If they are not runnig the signet, a pet can remove conditions from you, but thats 1 condition every 10 secs….chances are, its not that immobilize, or the timer hasn’t come up yet. If a thief or warrior can’t burst you down in under 10s, they did something wrong.

also, a ranger can use healing spring, but that is buggy in and of itself. It doesn’t remove a few good conditions, and immobilize is not one of them.

Lightning reflexes does not work on immobilize.
sb 3* skill does not work on immobilize.
dodging does not work on immobilize
turning does not work with immobilize
evasive purity does not work on immobilize. (blind and poison)

All in all, rangers get pretty boned by this combo. And all too often in HJ, this is all you see.

Even in tPvP lately, I’ve seen group chain spamming this skill to burst down person after person.

ridiculous.

Lightning Reflexes and Shortbow 3 does work. You evade during the animation, I was doing it last week. You just don’t move position. Unless it changed recently?

Quickness and Stunlock is mostly a learn to play issue. There are select cases where it’s a cat and mouse type of game, but the final verdict always depends on the target. If they use up all their active mitigation defenses before someone has unloaded their burst, that’s their mistake. If someone is built for burst and doesn’t unleash it, you will win. I mean, I play a build lately (Engi, no stun breaks) that doesn’t even have any active mitigation once I’m caught with a stun-burst chain, and I still don’t have issues with it. You need to see it coming, you need to pick out the smart ones from the “omg cooldowns up spam buttons” variety. It’s actually not that hard, but when you do get caught with it, I realize that I myself made the mistake.

Ayestes.1273:

Lightning Reflexes and Shortbow 3 does work. You evade during the animation, I was doing it last week. You just don’t move position. Unless it changed recently?

Quickness and Stunlock is mostly a learn to play issue. There are select cases where it’s a cat and mouse type of game, but the final verdict always depends on the target. If they use up all their active mitigation defenses before someone has unloaded their burst, that’s their mistake. If someone is built for burst and doesn’t unleash it, you will win. I mean, I play a build lately (Engi, no stun breaks) that doesn’t even have any active mitigation once I’m caught with a stun-burst chain, and I still don’t have issues with it. You need to see it coming, you need to pick out the smart ones from the “omg cooldowns up spam buttons” variety. It’s actually not that hard, but when you do get caught with it, I realize that I myself made the mistake.

so..you evade a hit?? What about the other 27 coming at you??

If you can’t move, evasion is worthless. Only classes like engi’s, guardians and warriors have ‘evasion’ skillsin the form of blocks.

And all too often, if you are engage on one person and never see that bull charging warrior or thief come up behind you, its not a L2P issue, its a ‘DEV team needs to fix camera angles’ issue.

It isn’t a L2P issue in any meaningful sense of the word. Quickness is a 100% damage boost skill. It is the only buff in the game that is even close to a 100% damage boost.

The problem with a skill that boosts your damage by 100% is it means your damage has to either suck when not boosted or it becomes overpowered when it is boosted.

It’s like pally bubble from early in wow: pallys had to suck at everything baseline to make up for the 8 sec invulnerability. It took blizzard years to get the class into a decent place and it is still more prone to unbalance than most other wow classes.

It’s just a bad mechanic. Burst combos shouldn’t be based around hitting a button and getting a 100% dps boost. That’s just bad design.

Yukishiro.8792:

It isn’t a L2P issue in any meaningful sense of the word. Quickness is a 100% damage boost skill. It is the only buff in the game that is even close to a 100% damage boost.

The problem with a skill that boosts your damage by 100% is it means your damage has to either suck when not boosted or it becomes overpowered when it is boosted.

It’s like pally bubble from early in wow: pallys had to suck at everything baseline to make up for the 8 sec invulnerability. It took blizzard years to get the class into a decent place and it is still more prone to unbalance than most other wow classes.

It’s just a bad mechanic. Burst combos shouldn’t be based around hitting a button and getting a 100% dps boost. That’s just bad design.

Which was my point. Classes will always be balanced around this bad design, and because of that it needs to be removed to move forward.

teviko.6049:

Ayestes.1273:

Lightning Reflexes and Shortbow 3 does work. You evade during the animation, I was doing it last week. You just don’t move position. Unless it changed recently?

Quickness and Stunlock is mostly a learn to play issue. There are select cases where it’s a cat and mouse type of game, but the final verdict always depends on the target. If they use up all their active mitigation defenses before someone has unloaded their burst, that’s their mistake. If someone is built for burst and doesn’t unleash it, you will win. I mean, I play a build lately (Engi, no stun breaks) that doesn’t even have any active mitigation once I’m caught with a stun-burst chain, and I still don’t have issues with it. You need to see it coming, you need to pick out the smart ones from the “omg cooldowns up spam buttons” variety. It’s actually not that hard, but when you do get caught with it, I realize that I myself made the mistake.

so..you evade a hit?? What about the other 27 coming at you??

If you can’t move, evasion is worthless. Only classes like engi’s, guardians and warriors have ‘evasion’ skillsin the form of blocks.

And all too often, if you are engage on one person and never see that bull charging warrior or thief come up behind you, its not a L2P issue, its a ‘DEV team needs to fix camera angles’ issue.

I don’t know what to to say here. If you are being hit with a multi-attack, then will avoid more then one “hit”, however vague that is. There are also a lot more ways to deal with it then just using your evades, I was merely pointing out that they do work while under the immobilize. Protect Me!, Signet of the Wild with the Trait, the Signet that pulls conditions, Healing Spring (?), and more could easily get you out of that situation. I’m sure there are other ways too, such as controlling your opponent during the situation with a daze, knockback, or knockdown.

The camera angle sucks sure, but I’m not sure how that deals factors in with a high impact to awareness unless you never pan your camera around.

As for it being a learn to play issue, I hate to say it but it really is. If you get hit by a quickness burst, you did something wrong. It’s not the bloody games fault, it was your fault in some form. Whether it be via build choice, awareness, reaction time, or something else… it was your fault. When I branch out and experiment with professions, I get nailed by these quickness bursts all the time. It’s not because the class has no way to counter it, but rather because I’m making mistakes as I don’t have the muscle memory down on how to deal with it. I had serious issues with it for the longest time on my Engineer, and now I quite simply don’t. I don’t even take a shield nor a stun break. It’s all preemptive mitigation rather the reactive.

I mean, I don’t even use Quickness in either of my builds. I guess I could selfishly care less if it gets nerfed. It’s not hard to deal with in its current state though.

It’s not 100% Damage boost, it’s 100% speed boost. As a Mesmer, I can tell you that the translation isn’t perfect, and there’s plenty of wasted potential inside quickness when done.

Ability cooldowns and actual damage dealt per hit are normal. It’s just that the animation speed is doubled meaning you’re striking twice as fast and those with combo-skills and range auto-attacks are doing so at a quick rate.

Retaliation and reflection are really amusing counters to this, as you can watch them melt themselves.

I’d rather they not remove quickness from the game. Right now people are complaining hard about bunker/tanky builds and quickness serves as methods that could bust them down.

They could stand to make adjustments that would allow for more reaction times, or just tone down the abilities that are getting abused during quickness. But aside from quickraise/quickstomp, there’s not much to quickness that needs heavy nerfing.

It’s ok to be burst down occasionally. It’s part of the danger of competitive play – you have to be wary of it.

thieves and warriors don’t need quickness. please leave rangers be

the reason we suck without QZ is because 1/3-1/2 of our DPS is supposed to be our pets. So our weapons and base damage is weaker to compensate. Yet our pets are so fundamentally flawed that it means 1/3 of our overall damage is gone, permanently.

So rangers have had to rise to the challenge of becoming a competative class with this inherent damage reduction.

teviko.6049:

thieves and warriors don’t need quickness. please leave rangers be

the reason we suck without QZ is because 1/3-1/2 of our DPS is supposed to be our pets. So our weapons and base damage is weaker to compensate. Yet our pets are so fundamentally flawed that it means 1/3 of our overall damage is gone, permanently.

So rangers have had to rise to the challenge of becoming a competative class with this inherent damage reduction.

That sounds more like an issue with fixing the AI on your pets than really needing quickness. Not that I think quickness needs to be removed, mind you. It’s just that the power of one mechanic should not make up for the bugs in another.

Personally, I think Quickness should never have existed, and should have instead been a buff that causes you to attack half as slow, but deal twice the damage, or similar. This way, there’s a native means to see it in progress and dodge it. It becomes an interesting gameplay mechanic that doesn’t require these ridiculous attempts to “balance” them by making you take double damage or removing all your endurance, or similar.

As always, GW2, the stupider sibling, should look to GW1 for guidance. GW1 had various kinds of IAS moves. In fact, it had a LOT of them.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Attack_speed#Skills_that_affect_attack_speed
Frenzy, for example, you could cancel out of using another stance (as you could only use one at a time, which is not true in GW2). There was a lot more depth and choices there, with various drawbacks that GW2 is just too dumb and straight-forward-thinking to utilize.

As an Engineer you have a vast arsenal of CC spells other classes don’t have such a luxuary. Same goes for instant retaliation.
By the way worse than stun is immobilize, since you can’t break it convienently with instant stun breakers. Now if you combine stability, immobilize, a stun and quickness, its a done fight…
The downsides of Quickness are far outweighed by its benefits.

• Thiefs can’t regenarte endurance and dodge, so what? The Thief wasn’t planing on dodging anyway, Quickness is used offensively. Pistols don’t need to be used in melee range, Daggers are always in melee range with Heart Strike and a Sword conviently CCs with Pistol Whip, in addition no sword Thief uses quickness without Devouring Venom…
• Rangers can’t heal, so what? The Ranger fired up quickness to deal damage anyway…
• Warriors take 50% more damage, so what? Your enemy will take 100% more damage and your healing skill will cast twice as fast…

And thats just the skill based sources of Quickness. There are the dreadful secondary sources for Quickness:

• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Last_Chance
• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_Haste
• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr%27s_Speed_%28ranger%29
• and the worst of all http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Rage

Especially the synergy between skill quickness and the sigil is sickening. During the skill based quickness the attacker doubles his chances per second to gain sigil quickness.

If Quickness were to stay as it is, it should make invulnerability, stability and evading impossible while its up.

if you touch quickness you have to make thief sword attacks a little faster and definitely remove the self root on pistol whip (the word self root is blasphemous for a class that is supposed to be based on mobility anyway)

Quickness doesn’t need nerfs, but a Thief does need Quickness for Pistol Whip to be effective either. Ideally you aren’t spamming the crap out of it anyway, in my opinion.

As an aside, I’d be curious which profession doesn’t have some way to absorb a Quickness burst. Honestly, I think the only one with a valid complain would be a Necromancer, and frankly you could still dodge the control in the first place.

Ayestes.1273:

Quickness doesn’t need nerfs, but a Thief does need Quickness for Pistol Whip to be effective either. Ideally you aren’t spamming the crap out of it anyway, in my opinion.

As an aside, I’d be curious which profession doesn’t have some way to absorb a Quickness burst. Honestly, I think the only one with a valid complain would be a Necromancer, and frankly you could still dodge the control in the first place.

Honestly if they did remove the self root and made both sword attacks a little faster I could do with them 100% removing quickness from the game, no need to even nerf it

If they ever did remove the immobility of it, then I think they’d have to remove the stun/daze or whatever it is now as well, which kinda messes with it a bit too much.

Ayestes.1273:

If they ever did remove the immobility of it, then I think they’d have to remove the stun/daze or whatever it is now as well, which kinda messes with it a bit too much.

Yea I forgot about that. A stun would not make sense because it stops your target. It would probably need to be a daze

Uh any ability that results in a 100% dps increases is always going to be problematic balance wise.

If you LIKE a game centered around avoiding 3 second 100%——>0% gimmicky combos on long cooldowns go for it I guess. But most of us don’t like that sort of game. It isn’t skill intensive, it’s just boring. Either you hit your 3 second 100%———>0% combo and win or you don’t and hit like a wet noodle for the next 40 seconds. Not particularly compelling gameplay.

You are right, it’s not skill intensive. It’s instead, incredibly easy to do. That’s the part that astonishes me here. The only reason I’d agree that it’s not actually the compelling of gameplay, is that the typical users of these combinations put themselves at such a disadvantage when they fail that combat is flat out over. There is no challenge. Against good players the cat and mouse game is actually quite fun though. Taking Quickness always has the opportunity cost of something else you could’ve had, whether it’s a sigil, trait, or utility slot. Failing it is even worse then just dealing with the debuff, as you’ve often spent many cooldowns with nothing to show.

Quickness is awesome.

I play necro and I don’t think quickness is op at all. I do think that the thief’s punishment isnt harsh enough but at the same time thiefs are SO SQUISH that it’s nbd.

I say – spend less time on the forums qqing and spend more time getting better at the game.

Its a bad mechanic in general, but only Thieves take it to the extreme and absurd. Every other professions you see comming, and Warriors/Engineers get serious drawbacks from its use. Rangers to a lesser extend.

But a Thief can get close without you noticing it, and use stealth to bypass its inability to dodge. Its already a burst heavy profession, but before you even see him appear you’ve eaten a ton of damage.
After you go down you either eat a hasted finisher or the thief quickly vanishes for a stealth stomp.

When pvp comes down to building your character just to counter one specific ability/profession, thats the cue that stuff is out of whack.

@Terrahero
If quickness takes a brokenly out of place weapon set (sword with slow swing speed and self root on a MOBILITY class) to the extreme then wouldn’t that blatantly state that the broken out of place weapon set needs to be fixed/buffed and the quickness needs to be nerfed/removed?

Bladeth.8620:

Fiesbert.9816:

Quickness is just too powerful. 100% increase in DPS is too much.
PvP currently boils down to avoiding and when to use quickness and above all decides the outcome of PvP.

Let me get this straight. Because all you kitten spec “Glass Cannon” you want to nerf Quickness?

Spec more defensive build which any PVP er knows you have to spec for PVP NOT PVE (Glass Cannon).

DONT ruin the game because you havent learned how to counter classes. Practice. OR go back to WOW.

Those are quite big assumptions you are making. I don’t have a glass cannon build and I’m not spending much time on the forums either.
Its just like Yukishiro.8792 said above, this all or nothing, split second gameplay is what I’d expect from a firstpersonshooter not an MMO. The strategic meta game gets destroyed by Quickness, which is what makes MMO PvP more compelling than fps-gameplay.
Its not like I mind fps-gameplay but I’d play an fps if I wanted to fight other players in such a shortlived fashion. I expect longer more strategic fights out of an MMO.
If there would be tanky skills as powerful as quickness and similarly generous handed out to professions, for example those without an quickness utility skill… nah… would make it even worse.
Offense scales way better than defense. Even as a Necromancer, where vitality and toughness counts twice, I get downed in seconds by Quickness-burst-builds.
Considering that 30k HP is max as a Necromancer and Hundred Blades being able to hit for 18k, its not really surprising.
This scaling problem just becomes more apparent by builds based around Quickness and critical hits.
It would be too kind, if you actually would reply to my case instead of being polemic

Knyx.5926:

@Terrahero
If quickness takes a brokenly out of place weapon set (sword with slow swing speed and self root on a MOBILITY class) to the extreme then wouldn’t that blatantly state that the broken out of place weapon set needs to be fixed/buffed and the quickness needs to be nerfed/removed?

So you just would have 2 out of 3 viable mainhand weapons without Quickness?! Thats unbearable! Here, have the Necro mainhand dagger, our ONLY viable mainhand
Jokes aside, two wrongs don’t make a right and if removing Quickness would break sword thiefs, which I’m not convinced it would, there are still issues between ALL professions due to Quickness that justify changing it.

Fiesbert.9816:

Bladeth.8620:

Fiesbert.9816:

Quickness is just too powerful. 100% increase in DPS is too much.
PvP currently boils down to avoiding and when to use quickness and above all decides the outcome of PvP.

Let me get this straight. Because all you kitten spec “Glass Cannon” you want to nerf Quickness?

Spec more defensive build which any PVP er knows you have to spec for PVP NOT PVE (Glass Cannon).

DONT ruin the game because you havent learned how to counter classes. Practice. OR go back to WOW.

Those are quite big assumptions you are making. I don’t have a glass cannon build and I’m not spending much time on the forums either.
Its just like Yukishiro.8792 said above, this all or nothing, split second gameplay is what I’d expect from a firstpersonshooter not an MMO. The strategic meta game gets destroyed by Quickness, which is what makes MMO PvP more compelling than fps-gameplay.
Its not like I mind fps-gameplay but I’d play an fps if I wanted to fight other players in such a shortlived fashion. I expect longer more strategic fights out of an MMO.
If there would be tanky skills as powerful as quickness and similarly generous handed out to professions, for example those without an quickness utility skill… nah… would make it even worse.
Offense scales way better than defense. Even as a Necromancer, where vitality and toughness counts twice, I get downed in seconds by Quickness-burst-builds.
Considering that 30k HP is max as a Necromancer and Hundred Blades being able to hit for 18k, its not really surprising.
This scaling problem just becomes more apparent by builds based around Quickness and critical hits.
It would be too kind, if you actually would reply to my case instead of being polemic

Dude, if you are a necro AND getting Hit by HB FOR 18k- you have problems.
1) necro has blink and SEVERAL stun breaks
2) toughness should still be ~2200 even glassy
3) you have SEVERAL forms of counter cc
4) you have 3 forms of transformation damage mitigation in ADDITION to all this.

Your problems are not quickness…

Fiesbert.9816:

Knyx.5926:

@Terrahero
If quickness takes a brokenly out of place weapon set (sword with slow swing speed and self root on a MOBILITY class) to the extreme then wouldn’t that blatantly state that the broken out of place weapon set needs to be fixed/buffed and the quickness needs to be nerfed/removed?

So you just would have 2 out of 3 viable mainhand weapons without Quickness?! Thats unbearable! Here, have the Necro mainhand dagger, our ONLY viable mainhand
Jokes aside, two wrongs don’t make a right and if removing Quickness would break sword thiefs, which I’m not convinced it would, there are still issues between ALL professions due to Quickness.

Not sure what you mean about 2 out of 3. If it is nerfed/removed it effects ALL weapon sets, but it effects Pistol Whip builds the most because that is the only thief build it takes to the extreme.

As for Necro dagger, trust me I played necro. Just like a self root doesn’t belong on a mobility class, the mix mash of ranges that the dagger set has for necro doesn’t belong either. If we were to talk about necros I would certainly say buff equalize ALL necro dagger ability ranges to 900.

But you see here I am talking about thief specifically; Lets for argument sake get past the self root (and changing stun to daze or removing it) because that needs to go so bad I 100% consider it a bug because no developer in their right mind would INTEND something like that on a mobility class. So that leaves us with really slow weapon speed for #1 and #3. Whilst sword most definitely needs to be slower then dagger I think if quickness is nerfed/removed the speed on sword should be taken to a half way point from current sword speed and current dagger speed.

If you want to base it around any sense of general design common sense, the current sword speed can be pictured to be more of a longsword which doesn’t make sense on a thief, where as a short sword on the other hand or a fencing sword does make sense and those are made for faster accurate strikes. If quickness was nerfed or removed sword would 100% not be viable anywhere BUT maybe (and even this is a maybe) PVE.

Without quickness, since the stun is so short and thief immobilizes don’t last very long, youd find AT BEST non-afk players getting hit by 2 of the hits in a single pistol whip and those 2 being the first, generally the weaker ones. Now lets say even if Pistol whip suddenly was given 100% crit chance baseline. Those 2 hits would tickle ANY class of ANY build at the same time costing just under half the thief natural initiative pool.
I have more faith in A-net not to turn sword thieves into only able to kill AFKers, even though thats the road these whiners want

• 1) Necro does NOT have blink and stun breaks don’t remove immobilize
• 2) I have 2500 toughness, which is 360 toughness short of whats maximally possible. The damage and Death Shroudh traits I’d have to sacrifice for that last 360 toughnes aren’t woth it.
• 3) Necros have Death Shroud fear, Staff fear, flesh golem knockback and warhorn daze. Only Death Shroud fear is instant and lasts merely a second, if not broken by the quickness user, lost in a blind or due to stability and you need to have 25% life force to shift into Death Shroud at all. In other words that rarely work
• 4) wrong again. Lich Form has a cast time and doesn’t add toughness, Plague form is instant but both aren’t available frequently enough with their 3 minute cooldown. Which leaves Death Shroud, that doesn’t increase mitigation but rather adds another life bar IF you have it available

If stated all of the above already, please read what I wrote before replying hastely like you did so far…

There is nothing wrong with it.

1) Necro does NOT have blink and stun breaks don’t remove immobilize
2) I have 2500 toughness, which is 360 toughness short of whats maximally possible. The damage and Death Shroudh traits I’d have to sacrifice for that last 360 toughnes aren’t woth it.
3) Necros have Death Shroud fear, Staff fear, flesh golem knockback and warhorn daze. Only Death Shroud fear is instant and lasts merely a second, if not broken by the quickness user, lost in a blind or due to stability and you need to have 25% life force to shift into Death Shroud at all. In other words that rarely work
4) wrong again. Lich Form has a cast time and doesn’t add toughness, Plague form is instant but both aren’t available frequently enough with their 3 minute cooldown. Which leaves Death Shroud, that doesn’t increase mitigation but rather adds another life bar IF you have it available

If stated all of the above already, please read what I wrote before replying hastely like you did so far…

I guess we have ANOTHER necro that doesn’t know how to use his class.
markfear and ds fear last for only a second but interrupts AND puts the skill on CD- it also puts distance between the attacker and the necro, lucky for the necro he has a mark that chills his return back.

what else can you do for his journey back?
1)f1+3+f1+~ and use that a scepter or warhorn cripple or dagger dark pact or warhorn daze or focus chill-(chill is recommended because we want that 100b on as long of a cd as possible ;>)
2)Necrotic Traversal is a blink (notice how the good necros have worms off to the side instead of on the node…)
3)fear+ Rigor Mortis (Bone Fiend active)
4)fear+ Signet of Spite
5)fear+flesh golem Charge

you don’t even have to counter react if you don’t want to… Arena Net was kind enough to add chill to every blind when traited so… cough* plague form cough* Plague of Darkness cough

Yes some things require you to see it coming, some things are reactive and I cant write all the different counters to every battle situation for every class combo but what I CAN do is show you that you’re wrong in assuming that necro cant deal with quickness. I hardly EVER die in a 1v1 and even less to thiefs/warriors.. and I spec support condi in tpvp.

Even as I am writing this I am still thinking of all the different counters to quickness that a necro has and I’m not about to write a “how to necro” guide in response to another forum kiddie so I will just stop here.

I should also add that you are damaging the other player the whole time

Imho the problem is not quickness neither thief nor l2p issues, but game design that enables bursting players down in 2-3 sec. It surely gives us some tactical play to avoid the burst and it can be fun. But… we have experience from other games that moved away from 3 button i win combos. Why? not because it cant be countered or it makes some classes overpowered, but because it makes the game boring. Like a week ago we saw 3-4 thieves in full sPvP match now yesterday it was 5-10… A team having 4 or so thieves has rather small chances of wining sPvP scenario but sPvP isnt about winning and never was (thats another crucial issue of the game). And sure i expect in a week or so when players learn how to deal with qthieves that they will mostly disappear, but then another class with omg i win combo will appear and we’ll start over again. Whats the point of it? That makes the game boring, the only way to have fun i PvP now is playing tPvP :/

And if u ask me whats wrong with thief id say the only thing that is wrong is broken stealth animation that allows them to land some attacks on u before u can see where they come from.

They should just remove quickness from the game all together, in my opinion. The skill effect ruins the dynamic and longevity of combat, and burst damage relies too much on it. And the game doesn’t need it.

Don’t change quickness. It forces players to consider well rounded defense and realize the flaws of one sided builds. Cheese needs to exist for the invention of effective counter-cheese. Only exploitative combos (if any exist) should be adjusted.

obtuse.8291:

Don’t change quickness. It forces players to consider well rounded defense and realize the flaws of one sided builds. Cheese needs to exist for the invention of effective counter-cheese. Only exploitative combos (if any exist) should be adjusted.

Technically, the best way to counter burst is with burst.. unless you play a class that can effectively spec for a true defensive build. Many classes can spec for a defensive build, but it is hardly an effective way to play the class (Thieves and Rangers come to mind).

Don’t take my word for it though. Go make a Thief and spec for full defensive play, with defensive sigils and runes and let me know how far you get. lol

The only defensive Thief spec I know of revolves around Death Blossom spamming.

Xhaiden.3891:

Remove it. It is not and will not ever be balanced, frankly. 90% of the complaints about burst damage are directly related to haste. Dying in 1-2s in an MMO has kitten people off since the dawn of the Internet. Don’t try to incorporate it into yet another game. You’ll never balance it and never justify it.

Fiesbert.9816:

If something is balanced and increased by 100% its vastly overpowered. If something is fine while increased by 100% its vastly underpowered when not increased.
Its that simple. Quickness is bad.

Yukishiro.8792:

Quickness is obviously a bad mechanism. What is amazing is that it made it this far. A 100% damage increase from one ability is never going to be good for balance.

You 3 took the words right out of my mouth.
I fully support the quickness nerf as a Thief player. Quickness is ridiculous numbers-wise. It should be more like a 33% or 50% speed increase with 150% of the current durations (6ish seconds)

Quickness has ruined SPVP hotjoins. It’s just a bunch of ppl spamming with 2shot builds.

I understand if Anet wants to take time to be sure their changes are positive, but god i hope they are smart enough to realize quickness needs to be heavily nerfed.

I would like FRENZY to go the way of the dodo for sure. I won’t say quickness in general because I don’t mind it on the weapon sigils and I never used it on my thief (D/D backstab or gtfo imo) or ranger (condi/traps) so I can’t really comment there.

However as other people have said, it seems that in order for an ability to be balanced assuming the possibility of on-demand quickness the abilities must suck kitten when used without quickness. This is part of the warrior problem. They are pigeon-holed into frenzy builds, pretty much regardless of weapon.

The class shouldn’t be balanced around that crappy kitten gimmick ability. Get rid of Frenzy and make warriors a decent class in general, not a “meh” class with a kitten powerful utility skill.

Ayestes.1273:

Quickness is flat out unreliable against players that know what they are doing.

Kinda true, kinda not. It’s very situational.

Quickness can be unreliable in 1v1’s unless you go out of your way to make yourself unpredictable, but reliability scales upward quickly once more players join the fight -

1. Visual noise. This is a more overarching problem within the game as a whole, but it directly enhances the usefulness of quickness and any other ability that needs to be identified immediately… mostly because these abilities become nigh impossible to identify with the amount of particle diarrhea that the game spews at you unless you have the source player targeted 100% of the time.

2. Endurance is limited and most solid players will try to make you dump your bar on other things prior to using quickness. In 2v2+, this is very feasible. Even in 1v1’s it’s feasible depending on the specific match-up if your build includes more than typical frenzy burst, which newer frenzy builds do.

3. Immobilize is the new stun, many players have realized it, and builds are steadily changing to take advantage of it.

The glass frenzy builds of the betas have long been out of flavor, honestly. Axe frenzy builds are better, flurry/frenzy builds are better, and they’re both way more reliable and sustainable than what most people associate with “frenzy warriors”. Even hammer frenzy builds can be incredibly powerful and outclass the classic GS builds.

Warriors are among the worst 1v1 classes right now for a variety of reasons, but put them in a coordinated environment where your target has to worry about more than just you and the game changes a lot. Quickness has its place, and it’s a very strong place, so long as you don’t use it haphazardly.

That said, I do think quickness in general needs some changes. For starters, give haste and QZ drawbacks that actually mean something significant.

People still need to learn how to react in spvp , it seems that all this crying about nerf haste , reduce haste comes from unexperienced and new players. Easiest thing in this game is to avoid it with just one dodge you can break a whole haste combo leaving the opponent open without any endurance and defences. Like everyone posting in the last few days im just gonna say its an l2p issue.

+1 for nerf quickness

rook.4625:

-1 for nerf quickness.

In this thread, other professions spending too much time focusing on another profession not their own.

But hey, these guys must be perfect players.

Actually, I play a Thief main and Ranger alt, try again.

It seems they started to adress burst, so I’ll just wait and see if quickness remains an issue, or if gets more balanced by other means.
Not that I really know how much balance is needed, I’m still learning.

Bursters that kill me at rank 10 might not stand a chance later on… who knows.