Guild Wars 2

I haven’t even started playing WvW yet because I’m still in the process of deciding exactly which profession I wanna level up and stick to but I already have the impression that thieves are way overpowered. I’ve been looking up videos for each profession playing solo in WvW as that’s what I’d like to do and I figured I could get an idea of which profession fits my playstyle by watching others. What I’ve found is a bagillion thief videos interspersed with roughly one video from three or four other professions. I’ve literally seen about a dozen thief videos for each video from another profession.

Now, there are videos of people playing sPvP or zerging it up with other professions but team play is a whole different ball game. I had the impression that you should, given enough skill, be able to successfully solo with any profession in this game. They all seem to have the tools required to be set up for whichever type of play one would want to do, including soloing. Was my impression wrong? Are thieves really the only viable soloers? Are they simply that overpowered that it’s easy for people to look l33t while playing them or does every skilled soloer just happen to also play a thief?

On a related note, if I’m simply overlooking a treasure trove of videos, please post your non-thief solo WvW footage. I’d love to see it.

Engineers are really good solo, in part for the same reason theives are, they are difficult to catch / good at getting away, so even if a group spots the solo engineer, catching something that has permanent swiftness, loads of CC / knockbacks, drops bombs behind it as it runs and can stealth with a blast finisher in a smoke field, is a real pain in the kitten

This was the last solo WvW engineer I watched (and for once remembered to bookmark) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lYe5dLVOXTc

I’m willing to bet the popularity of thieves for solo play is more to do with their ability to get away if things get bad then them being generally imba. If a fight goes bad (which may not be in a lot of posted vids, idk) you can just cloak and heartseeker away.

mesmer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdTnXeZslKs

Your seeing the illusion of fotm. Let me guess majority were dag/dag heartseekers?
The key to a solo in gw2 is : running your own math / tailoring your own spec.
Majority seems to be replicating and mass producing a “right build”.

I would say so far war and ele are not solo friendly classes. As a thief with a obscure self made build I can say two things:
I’ve been beaten in a 1v1 by a couple of very skilled every class except war/ele.
I build anti fotm thief and can take out 5-6 thieves solo.
The only thing to roflstomp me solo so far was a engi.

I’ve actually seen both that mesmer video and the engineer video. I’ve seen one other video of a solo mesmer, one of a necro, and one of a guardian (which I haven’t been able to find again). I’ve seen probably 12-15 thief videos.

I’m glad the consensus so far is that this has to do with their mobility, though.

Thief’s suck at pretty much everything else when it comes to WvW, that’s why they go looking for solo challenges.
Why fight in a zerg where you can’t contribute on a larger scale when you can just run around invisible picking off people who don’t even see you coming!
If the rendering issue is fixed and they don’t stay invisible even when they drop out of stealth they’ll soon run into trouble!! Right now even when they drop out of stealth they aren’t becoming visible straight away and they can blast off 2-3 attacks before visibility properly kicks in, by which time they can re-stealth anyway.
It’s sad to see everyone rolling thief’s and just using daggers because of the invisibility bugs, it shows no real skill and no willingness to enjoy a class for all its worth!
I’m sure they have lots of great abilities but they will never be used when you can just run around mashing the same few buttons for easy kills or even worse just running away when its not working out for them because no other class can really catch them.

Engineer can solo WvWvW fine with several builds. It’s more fun with glass cannon, but far more likely to win a 1 vs 2, or survive 1 vs many with a tankier builds. Purely defensive bunker builds work well in sPvP, but not so well in WvW, because they suffer the same problems Necros do atm – it doesn’t matter how hard you are to kill, if the other guy can just disengage at any time to prevent you from killing them.

Engineers survive 1 vs many and escape via speed compared to a thief relying on stealth. Obviously stealth is the better option of the two, but what can ya do (there’s always comboing for stealth with the smoke bomb). Engineers can also burst almost as hard as a thief over a period of 5 seconds – the problem is engineers need a lot longer for their abilities to recharged compared to a thief.

I’ve seen thiefs and mesmers solo pretty well in WvWvW, for pretty obvious reasons. Although, the deadliness of a mesmer drops very very fast when they are up against people who know their tricks.

With the culling delay as it is, there’s no reason for a thief to ever really die in wuvwuv as he can stealth for closer to 6s than 3s.

That said I’ve seen solo engineers and elementalists roaming about as well.

that engineer video is godawful lol

Thieves solo because they can’t die.

WvW solo doesn’t get you or your server very much.

What are ya gonna do, go farm centaurs?

WvW and Solo do not mix well. In fact WvW does not really support solo play. If your solo in WvW you are doing nothing to contribute to the match.

You can solo but its for your own pleasure and does nothing to help your server win. Also your missing out on the game rewards if you just go it alone.

As to Thieve’s solo well it is because they have the best mobility and evasion mechanics of any class. Ele and Mesmer would be the next best for mobility but they cannot get away from a zerg like a Thief can.

Edit: I take back what I say about contributing to the match, I guess a solo player could kill Dolyaks and Sentries. Does a little something but not much.

Thieves never die, we multiply………

mulch.2586:

WvW solo doesn’t get you or your server very much.

What are ya gonna do, go farm centaurs?

sure, because the only thing to wvw is running with the zerg or doing pve… tunnel vision outside of playing the game, classic

I play a thief mainly because I dislike the zerg style of play. I am not trolling or dissing, its just how I feel. Anyway, with a thief I dont have to worry so much about dying and having to run all the way back to where I was. I mainly scout, kill the mules, take the little check point areas, stuff like that.

I do join in if there is a lot of activity going on – server contribution and all that.

A thief is fun to have in a zerg sometimes – its extremley entertaining to book it after the one thats limping away from all the AOE, end him, then get back to the saftey of your group. Just don’t jump in the middle of a huge group and expect to survive unless you are dagger storming.

Of course ele and rangers are the ones that get the most kills, at least thats what it looks like.
Thieves also make good “savers” that is, they can use headshot or pistol whip to stop an enemy from stomping you, then use stealth to hide you while you heal up.

To the “you’re not contributing or getting rewards” people, who cares? I don’t play games to fulfill my duty to my fellow man, I play to have fun. Fun for me is seeing what I can accomplish relying simply on my own skill; fun for you may be collecting rewards and being part of a team. To each his own.

Otherwise, this information is a bit eye opening. For instance, I wanted to play an engineer since beta because they seemed like a profession that would be underutilized (I like underdogs) yet very versatile. I played one up to 20 and was on the fence then I read the engineer forums and it sounded like they were severely broken (beyond underdogs) and only useful as support. This thread seems to draw a much different picture.

I’ve also been playing a mesmer which is really fun but all the suggestions in the forums that they’re omnipresent and nearly as difficult to deal with as thieves made it seem like I’d just be playing an overpowered FOTM profession (which I’d find unrewarding, personally). You people are making it sound like they’re only overpowered against weak players, though.

out of all the players still here i doubt very many post videos, and the ones who do are probably just really vain and want to bate to thier old videos and big crits and check youtube as much as possible for comments/views/arguments

joshisanonymous: “I’ve also been playing a mesmer which is really fun but all the suggestions in the forums that they’re omnipresent and nearly as difficult to deal with as thieves made it seem like I’d just be playing an overpowered FOTM profession (which I’d find unrewarding, personally). You people are making it sound like they’re only overpowered against weak players, though.”

As a mesmer player I have no trouble dealing with other mesmers. Actually, don’t even remember dying to one (WvW). I have even considered abandoning mesmer class because I believe they are noob bashers, but vs skilled people nothing but average.

Unfortunately, you and I play WvW in a same way so I will tell you this: Thief is the profession best suited for soloing, IMHO. Huge spike damage is one reason: the ability to quickly engage and disengage. Long fights increase the chance for allies appearing. Stealth is another. The ability to choose whom to fight and get out of fights, is extremely important. Mesmer is second only because of few escape/invisibility skills. I am not sure how well elementalist can use his teleports to escape so can’t comment on that. The problem with other professions is that they’re not good at escaping. Guardian seems super strong, if he pulls me into melee the damage is brutal. But no escape skills (to my knowledge).

Also, regarding mesmer, this is not sPvP. In WvW you will need to sacrifice and take Centaur runes. If for some reason you also decide that you want to participate in group combat, you will do poorly. Forget what others are telling you. Mesmer is weak in zergs. You will get more badges and kills as ele or engineer than as a mesmer. It’s also very weak in PvE. And not the best roaming class either. Benefits of being a mesmer are really not that great.

In short, I don’t know how it is in sPvP but mesmer is not overpowered class. It has so so many weaknesses, and the biggest strength is “good vs newbies”. Long-term, that’s extremely poor advantage.

Play the profession you think is fun.
I play Theift and Engineer myself.
Both are fun to me. You can solo with any profession the way things are setup in GW2.
Don’t worry about if its OP or squishy.
OP’d today and nurfed tomorrow.

But he can’t solo with any profession, not in WvW. There’s a huge imbalance in ability of professions to solo in WvW, because of one very important reason:

SPEED IN AND OUT OF COMBAT IS DIFFERENT.

When you enter combat you are pinned down. You are trapped. Either you kill your opponent or you die. And until you kill enemy player you have to pray no other enemy approaches because you can’t escape. You are trapped.

Professions that can free themselves from this trap have a huge advantage that goes beyond pure numbers.

Raffie.7865: “Play the profession you think is fun”
>> This is the best advice for any game any scenario imo.

As a mesmer I solo all the time, most of it is not exactly by choice. Either I was scouting something trying to guard/cap a supply point/Quaggan on off-peek times or moving to target location, or of course my favorite securing hiding spots/portals because forgot to clear me out of the keep… But like an earlier poster mentioned solo is rarely the most efficient use of your skills in the WvW arena, and I agree.

Mainly thieves and mesmers, because they are god class in PvP.

As a Mesmer I always find my skills to be more useful in or against a zerg, rarely do I laugh as hard as when I throw a berserker into the middle of an oncoming zerg and watch them all lose a bunch of health and start panicking, I’m a glass cannon Mesmer with all power/prec/crit/ruby gear and I will happilly stand and fight a larger crowd over 1v1’ing.
It’d be easy for me to solo, I don’t tend to have much trouble against even tanky guardians if I can keep myself moving enough, but its WvW and if I wanted that kind of battle I’d go to PvP.

If Thief’s were more risk vs reward like other classes they wouldn’t solo as much, right now its not really a risk in a 1v1 situation for them if they can maintain stealth for the majority of a battle! Or just disengage and run away when they know they aren’t going to win.

I know my Mes can cause major harm to any class but I also know if I’m not focusing on what I’m doing and slip up with the timing of a skill I’m going down hard lol

The bottom line makes all these theories on Fotm irrelevant.

I assume that a solo is of abnormal skill level, a player of abnormal skill level will match 2-4 regular players regardless of class, but regardless of skill, you will lose to more than 4 because of the speed they can rez each other in combat.

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