Guild Wars 2

Roe.3679:

WA is stupid OP against baddies who can’t kite. I do find it funny that warriors are complaining about it though, since its one of a few things that may actually require more than facerolling to deal with.

There are situations in which you can’t kite.
For instance, in actual PvP.

Galsia.4102:

If this post was made in the first two months after release you’d have a point. However, this is 2014, the Whirling Axe with evasion is long gone, and what’s left is one of the least useful stolen abilities; nothing says, “please kill me,” like a 3.5sec channeled attack on a glass cannon build.

Also, you sold yourself short on Warrior counters:

GS#5 in a different direction.
GS#4 through Thief, dealing damage to him while receiving none yourself.
Shield#4 interrupt.
Shield #5 block.
Sword#2 in a different direction.
Sword#F1 + evade.
Mace#3 interrupt.
Mace#F1 interrupt.
Hammer#4 interrupt.
Hammer#5 interrupt.
Hammer#F1 interrupt.
Rifle#5 interrupt.
Utility: Kick interrupt.
Utility: Bull’s Rush interrupt/in a different direction.
Utility: Stomp interrupt.
Utility: Fear Me interrupt.
Utility: Endure Pain receive no damage.
Trait: Defense/XI: Endure Pain receive no damage.

And lastly, the most OP counter of all:

W, A, S, D.

Seriously, just walk out of it.

Would have just made an L2P post but everything has been said here xD.

Roe.3679:

WA is stupid OP against baddies who can’t kite. I do find it funny that warriors are complaining about it though, since its one of a few things that may actually require more than facerolling to deal with.

WA is NOT one of those few things. You can literally roll your face around WASD and avoid all damage from WA.

What a joke. I rarely get use out of this skill. One stun, one interrupt, or just aoe smashing by the enemies, will make this spell useless and force you to stop it and cloack to get a moment of breath again. This spell is only very good if you use it when enemy is disabled (almost only happens if your team members do that). I also like it on downed + a person ressing him (enemy). It will damage both hard, and you won’t take damage cause they are doing other stuff. This will sometimes help you win the 1 vs 2. But overall this skill is very weak.

sorrow.2364:

Roe.3679:

WA is stupid OP against baddies who can’t kite. I do find it funny that warriors are complaining about it though, since its one of a few things that may actually require more than facerolling to deal with.

There are situations in which you can’t kite.
For instance, in actual PvP.

You’re right, my guildies are always talking about the real way to pvp is by taking huge attacks to show how tough you are as a pvper. I’m not sure I understand the logic behind not getting out of the way?

Shinjo.6092:

Roe.3679:

WA is stupid OP against baddies who can’t kite. I do find it funny that warriors are complaining about it though, since its one of a few things that may actually require more than facerolling to deal with.

WA is NOT one of those few things. You can literally roll your face around WASD and avoid all damage from WA.

Lol, true. I meant facerolling 1-5, forgot that you can probably get WASD with your nose or lips.

Roe.3679:

You’re right, my guildies are always talking about the real way to pvp is by taking huge attacks to show how tough you are as a pvper. I’m not sure I understand the logic behind not getting out of the way?

Getting out of the way = let the enemy cap the node.
You can step off on the node to avoid a single Whirling Axe, but not for 6 seconds to avoid two without getting a decap and getting called by your teammates for not doing your job.

This gets even worse when you aren’t in 1vs1 situations, in which a whirling axe can force 2 or more people out of a node (which is, in most cases, significantly harder), added to the fact that you already want to step out of the node because of the additional DPS you’re getting from the other guys.

Let’s start from the top, again.
Yes WA hasn’t changed since beta and let’s say it was never a problem so why now?
The meta changed.
Just like the warrior hammer and mace did not changed form beta but as warrior’s got other buff the issue from this weapon was raised. And I am sure all thieves in this thread will strongly agree that they deserved the nerfs they got.
Now thief also changed, a lot.
D/D – once thief signature is now consider not viable
and S/P which was once – “so broken , will never be good, does less damage the auto attack” go to buffed to sky, (credit all the thieves whining in these forums).

So all those arguments of this skill is so bad, so ez to kite, avoid and such where also applied while defending the mace or hammer burst skill.
Because when you look solely at a skill it’s easy to count the number of ways to counter it: “just dodge hammer – most telegraph attack ever” ,“just move away form mace – learn to kite” – the problem, as you all know, is with the build that uses the skill.

So if you want to make a REAL argument then talk about real in game scenario.

Real Scenario
Now let’s how easy it is to kill warrior as S/P thief (it is so much easier then any other class atm, personally I realy can’t see the fun in playing it – said the warrior)
1. steal to warrior (every 20sec) (if he is super pro he can pre cast “pistol whip” to just land too – much skill)
2. black powder (thief has the shortest “cooldown” on skill nowadys w/o any ini skill invest)
3. spin to win

So now the warrior is blinded (at least once) and thief is on top of him.

Ways to counter :
KITE
If the warrior had swiftness – the thief now stole so thief got swif warrior don’t – u cant WASD
If the warrior did not have swiftness coz he was smart enough NOT to use his elite (thief tricky line actually punishes warrior for using their elite – another OP topic) – they both on same speed and since the thief teleported right on top of him he can’t WASD also (Galsia.4102 u so pro).
only 3 mobilty skill – GS 5, 3 and sword 2 – viable options, but thief can also teleport there w/o breaking channel.

AVOID
So a few common fact about warrior:
- most build have very little dodges compared to all other class: very little vigor
- only 1 evade skill across all weapon
- no teleports
And that’s ok coz they should be tanky and absorve damage vs avoiding it (like thief).
So beside GS whirlwind, a warrior can only dodge – avoiding 0.5sec out of 3.5sec (1/7 of the damage) of the skill channel and the thief can just dodge after him as this does not break the channel.

RANGE
no

RANGE AOE
only 1 skill – ‘Arcing arrow’ , but need to get rid of blind first so getting hit by reflect or by melee before switching to bow.

MELEE
getting hit by WA but also hitting back – WA hits very hard so for this trade off to pay mayb only axe is viable option but thief can dodge while in channel so for at least 1sec or 2sec the thief dps will be much higher in comparison.

CC
cc weapon attack slow – so 1 attack to get rid of blind and only then, but again thief can dodge in channel avoiding those slow telegraphed attacks and just keep damaging.

So of course there are ways for the warrior to avoid/ counter this skill but as you see there in almost all cases this will give the thief at least a 3K of free damage.

If the things I wrote above were not known to you as a thief, then sry to tell you that you are not a very good one and comments form bad players won’t get us anywhere.
Watch real thief player play S/P vs a warrior and just see how much extra damage they get from this skill alone.

Oh and that lol WASD post give me an idea to how to balance it:

make the thief move slower while in channel

This will still keep all the skill benefits as a defensive skill (reflect, duration).
But for attacking it could only be use if thief also waste teleport or punish the warrior for staying in place – point pressure in tPVP a thing a thief lacks.

The problem with blackpowder+WA is that the Thief can walk out of the smoke field and continue whirling blinds. Warriors can’t use any melee CC on a blackpowder+WA combo because they’re perma-blinded while in-range.

There are 3 ways to counter to successfully counter a blackpower+WA combo:
1. Having Berserker’s Stance before the combo, now being able to CC the Thief in melee.
2. Using a full or atleast 2/3 Combustive Shot to force The thief out of the field.
3. Using Endure Pain.

chances are the Warrior has Berserker’s Stance on cd, and Combustive Shot has a fair chance to be reflected. So those aren’t 100% child-proof counters.
Also, a Thief can dodge while whirling, so it’s not even a risk/reward.

The even bigger problem is Lyssa+WA(+blackpowder):
Lyssa grants stab/prot/aegis, if a Thief uses Basilisk Venom and then WA you can’t touch him, those 3 boons alone will protect him enough, if he used blackpowder to prema-blind that’s even worse. running away is less effective because he has swiftness for the whole duration.
The only safe solution if Endure Pain, which has a much longer cd than steal and basilisk venom.

The truth is that warriors aren’t able to successfully deal with WA is used with either basilisk venom or blackpowder.
other than that you could argue that WA is about 7% stronger than it should be.

whirlwind from smoke has beed fixed by patches long ago

Eiland.1405:

If think this skill is very unbalanced as a stolen skill (compared to other stolen skills) as it last too tong/ does too much damage/ have almost no counters for the short CD it can be obtained (20sec traited).

ironically i find one of the best counters is warrior Whirling Axe.
(atleast in pvp where it deals more damage)
super secret, you can dodge while channelling the warrior version, with Reckless Dodge you can seriously stack up the damage while also dodging all of theirs.

on my axezerker i have over 80% crit chance,
the whirl will hit for over 10k.
the 2 dodge rolls will deal over 3k each.
if they’re still alive when you stop blending throw a 9-11k eviscerate in there for good measure

A thief using whirling blades is sitting ducks. You are free to use Endure Pain to completely negate it or eat the damage while you just snuff out his little fullzerker life.

I don’t care if they can steal the skill, WHAT I don’t understand is why is has to be better than the warrior skill?? Why reflect? Why warrior doesn’t have reflect and thief does?
Please Anet explain this to me.. I would appreciate it.

Thanks

xbutcherx.3861:

I don’t care if they can steal the skill, WHAT I don’t understand is why is has to be better than the warrior skill?? Why reflect? Why warrior doesn’t have reflect and thief does?
Please Anet explain this to me.. I would appreciate it.

Thanks

Because unlike warriors, thief is actually skillful and gets to go deadpool on them

Why do you get get X3 cc in 1 weapon set?
Why do you get the highest health tier coupled with excessively high hps?
Why do you get ~17 second bleeds on an auto attack?
Why do you get a ~3 second block on a 15 second recharge (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Riposte) while guardian’s protector’s strike ends no matter the hit?
Why do you get so much mobility on top of this?
Where is waldo?

Whirling Axe is pretty hilarious, but I don’t think it’s half as bad as Ice Shard Stab. I understand that Anet made the stolen skills powerful in order to not make Steal just a glorified gap closer – but a 10 second chill is pretty mental.

xbutcherx.3861:

WHAT I don’t understand is why is has to be better than the warrior skill?

it really isn’t, you can dodge while using the warrior skill, you can’t while using the thief version, also as the warrior dodges twice he’ll be avoiding all damage while dealing 6k+ damage with the Reckless Dodge trait.

also (atleast with my axezerker spec) the warrior version deals a butt load more damage, always over 10k with my spec, sometimes up to 12k.

its one of my favourite skills for blending people who are unaware/ignorant of its power!