Guild Wars 2

Knowing other people have a mass of duplicates makes me think they’ll handle it well… hopefully.

The only bummer is that it means there will be that many more unidentified dyes pouring into the trading post. Prices are going to pluuunge.

Across all of my characters, I’ve unlocked 2010 dyes. And 1592 of those are duplicates.

If that many unidentified dyes get mailed to me individually, I will cry.

Merus.9475:

I never read this as fixing the berserker meta – this change seemed clearly focused at normalising crit damage on different slots and on different tiers of gear. Much like the OP, I believe that the berserker meta is driven by content, especially because in PvP, WvW and now with Triple Trouble, berserker is not nearly as strong. I also believe that ArenaNet are aware of the problem, again because we see in Triple Trouble a fight that explicitly involves mechanics for builds other than berserker, and if ArenaNet intended to fix the problem, they’d announce changes to dungeon content as well.

It seems like you’re the first person to remotely understand why I made this post.

One correction: I know the change isn’t intended to remedy the issue entirely, but I do think it marks their starting point, and that’s what bothers me.

I believe that the level at which berserker gear allows players to perform should be the standard that support and control roles are enhanced to. Lowering the viability of damage-centric builds to be balanced with those that are more invested in support and control mechanics will only diminish the quality of combat further.

Merus.9475:

Regarding the form of the content specifically, I know many players enjoy the active mitigation style of play, so clearly breaking that in favour of biggest stat wins is hardly a good solution. The problem appears to be that damage is always more important than support or control, so building fights where damage is not important would shift the meta in a more diverse direction.

That is exactly how I feel.

Several dungeon encounters have mechanics that support and control builds could potentially have the strongest counter for. However, no effort was made to keep that potential role-exclusive and so damage wins out.

Here is an example:

In the first explorable path of the Crucible of Eternity there is a room where miniature golems spawn endlessly. When they detect a player nearby, they detonate, knocking back and dealing damage to anyone in range. But these golems have incredibly low health pools which make their threat trivial to all damage-based builds.

Imagine if their health were increased ten-fold. They can no longer be tipped over by a single auto-attack and so controlling them becomes necessary. Take it a step further and make them invulnerable. Now it becomes a matter of supporting your teammates through the constant onslaught.

Those are the kind of changes I would welcome.

I’m not sure where you’re hearing that buzz, but personally, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

In any event, I assume the crafted precursors will be account-bound, but this will effect the price regardless. As more people work to craft their own, the ones posted to the trading post will begin to accumulate and the price will drop.

I wouldn’t let it get you down, though. I don’t expect the cost to craft a precursor to be cheap.

Karl McLain.5604:

Critical Damage:

• We’re adding a new stat to the game called ferocity which affects your critical damage multiplier, similarly to how precision affects critical chance.
• All existing percentage critical damage stats on gear and items will be converted into the appropriate amount of ferocity, which will then factor into your critical damage multiplier.
• We expect that in the most extreme power DPS focused builds this change will account for a maximum reduction of about 10% damage.
• This change will not affect PvP, as critical damage is already at a much lower value and item attributes will be adjusted in order to compensate for the changes.

While I agree that the berserker meta needs to be addressed, I fail to see how this can be considered a solution in the slightest. Allow me to explain why.

Berserker gear is popular because it offers the most bang for your buck. The harder you hit, the quicker things die, and the faster your team is able to complete a dungeon. Even with the effectiveness reduced by 10%, that fact will not change. Berserker stats will continue to offer the highest DPS and therefore remain a requirement.

What will change is the efficiency of your group. You’re not hitting as hard, so things aren’t dying as fast, and that decrease translates into you spending more time inside of a dungeon.

What does that solve?

From what I understand, people dislike the meta because they enjoy having the option to play different roles in combat. However, this idea struggles to find a place in a game where there is no holy trinity. With support and control utilities readily available to even the most damage-centric builds, there is little reason to defer from maximizing your offensive potential.

However, that’s only half of the problem. I believe that content is the other half. Current dungeons do not offer any advantages to players who opt out of the berserker meta, and these are the aspects that should be focused on.

morrolan.9608:

Alex Kelley.2748:

I think it is important to remember that ascended gear is not required.

For over a year everyone used exotic-quality equipment and had no trouble completing content. Ascended items were not added because there was a statistical gap that needed to be filled; they were added to provide players with a long-term goal. If you do not feel that the effort required to obtain ascended gear is justified by its very minor boost, then don’t bother with it. End of story.

A 14% increase for full ascended, I’d say that was required in WvW if one wants to be at an optimal level in that mode, plus if you really want to be as efficient and optimised as possible in PvE I’d also say it is heavily desirable.

You may want to reread the second to last sentence in my post (assuming you managed to get that far before replaying).

Ascended gear actually provides a 12.6% increase to overall stats. While it may seem big, it is an individual boost. This percentage then diminishes for every person you are playing alongside.

If you were suggesting that a single player with ascended items would greatly impact the efficiency of a zerg in WvW, I think you may be disappointed when you complete your set.

I think it is important to remember that ascended gear is not required.

For over a year everyone used exotic-quality equipment and had no trouble completing content. Ascended items were not added because there was a statistical gap that needed to be filled; they were added to provide players with a long-term goal. If you do not feel that the effort required to obtain ascended gear is justified by its very minor boost, then don’t bother with it. End of story.

FuriousPop.2789:

subscription based – so enjoy!

Wildstar has a hybrid business model. While there will be a subscription fee, it is also possible to exchange in-game gold for C.R.E.D.D. (their version of gems) which can be spent on game time.

SplendidDust of AncientSuns.8453:

This game is in beta form right now from Carbine Studios who’s parent company is our very own NCsoft. Have any GW2 players here played it? How do you like it? What about it do you like and what comparisons between GW2 and Wildstar can you draw from your play experience?

Thanks in advance.

In regards to gameplay, the two games will likely be very different. Wildstar plans to revive the holy trinity in a big way. They’re giving each of their six classes access to at least two of the three combat roles, all of which follow a very live-action theme similar to what you see in TERA. Telegraphs are used to show areas of effect, and dodging can be used to… dodge them. Limited-action sets are also a thing, which means you’ll be able to customize all of your skills for a specific fight. There’s also double jump, which is exactly what is sounds like. Press the space bar once to jump and press it again to fly a little higher.

Some more key features include paths, which are comparable to the personal story in the sense that you’ll be able to personalize some of your questing, and super major hardcore raiding. There will be 20 and 40-man raiding instances with weekly boss mechanic variations, which are designed to make each week feel like an entirely new raid. Frustrating to most, challenging to the best. You can read more on raiding by checking out this link.

Feel free to hit me up with some questions. Hope I’ve been helpful!

Glenstorm.4059:

On the contrary, if they decide to keep the re-skin in the Store, I seriously hope that they offer the other races’ T3 (Light) skins on there too. Throwing humans only under the bus is NOT okay.

If that were to happen, I’d imagine that nearly all prestige for completing a cultural set would be lost, and that’s not something I’d want. It just gives players one less thing to work towards.

I also have T3 sets on my Sylvari mesmer, Human warrior and Human thief, and I honestly think I’d stop playing if the same were done to them. It’s pretty unsettling to have something you’ve spent a fair amount of time working and saving for given out for half the price.

As much as I want this to be fixed, judging by how ANet has handled things in the past, it won’t be. Can only hope they don’t do this with all of the other cultural sets. Quite bummed that I’ll have 120g worth of junk taking up six of my bank slots.

A vast majority of eles seem to prefer spending their remaining ten points in air as opposed to fire, but I’ve always thought fire has more to offer. Here’s why.

Fire’s minor adept trait grants a passive chance to burn foes. Air’s minor adept trait boosts your movement speed by 10%. The way I see it, a little damage is better than no damage at all. And with fire, you’re 20% more likely to be dealing damage at moments when you otherwise would not.

Fire improves power and condition duration. Air increases precision and critical damage. Po/V/T gear seems fairly standard for most eles, so by default precision is lacking. To me, the extra precision isn’t enough to compensate, which makes the crit damage redundant. I’d much rather have a constant power bonus, and the extended condition duration complements my minor trait too.

The major adept traits are a lot more balanced. Both Bolt to the Heart and Spell singer can hold their own, but I think Zephyr’s Boon is a staple for D/D builds. Fortunately, I swap between a staff and S/D, so an extra 105 power every time I pop a cantrip adds up nicely.

Where do you stand? Am I missing something? Because I feel like I must be.

I’ll make this short.

A few nights ago I managed to find a method of kiting mobs in one of the Fractal paths that allowed me to solo that part of the dungeon that would otherwise require the team to have near-seamless coordination to complete it at the same speed. It made things easier for my group as a whole, but it wasn’t easy in itself. I was juggling cooldowns and dodges, and one slip would have left me licking the floor in an instant – similar to how people ran UWSC and FoWSC back in GW1, which is where my uncertainty comes from. I wasn’t hacking the game or taking advantage of resources no other player had access to. I was just outsmarting game mechanics and redistributing the group’s responsibility to myself. But Anet has shown a tendency to come down pretty hard on anyone that isn’t playing their game the way they expect people to. What are the community’s thoughts?

Some additional info:
Profession – Elementalist
Weapons – Scepter/Dagger
Fractal Level – 23

Galandil.9641:

Is this really a whine thread about thieves stomping while stealthed? Which, as other people correctly pointed, CAN be interrupted by aoe, no-target interrupting skills even while stealthed?

Uhm… No, that’s not what it is at all. Let me reiterate for you. I’m asking why a downed player in stealth cannot be finished if a player in stealth can finish a downed player. Hope you understood it that time!

Tulisin.6945:

To reiterate the point some other people are getting at: Downed stealth is skill #3, the purpose of downed skill #3, regardless of profession, is to stop finishers.

You’re trying to link two completely separate arguments. The functionality of thief downed skill #3 doesn’t have anything to do with finishing in stealth just because they share the stealth mechanic.

For the other implied argument (that stealthed stomps are unbalanced), I would put forth that they are well balanced with other kinds of safety stomps. Stealth stomp is the easiest of any safety stomp to counter with the exception of 1v1, wherein the first to go down should die anyways barring extraneous circumstances.

The problem is the #3 skill for all other professions does not guarantee that all stomps will be avoided in the way stealth does for a downed thief. (I mean, the warrior skill does. But there’s rarely enough time for it to recharge since their interrupt leaves them in the same spot just waiting for the second stomp to begin. And even if they do manage to use it, they’re dead when it ends.)

And it’s not that I think stealth stomping is unbalanced. I just think that the use of stealth to aid or avoid stomping should be a two-way street.

STRanger.5120:

@Alex Kelley.2748:

So, Stealth cannot be compared to stability/invulnerability in any way, cause you are still vulnerable to dmg/any condition or knockdown in stealth. And please show me which Thief has all of his stealth abilities at once, so I can laugh at him, because he probably cannot do anything else

You forgot the Elementalists Mist form as an invulnerability stomp option (not only the focus skill is available). Also you´re forgot about Endure pain warrior ability for the same usage posibility.
Please try this: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skill before you post anything else about the classes skill options and try to take in consideration that there are actually some builds in the game, I doubt that someone would build around stealth/invul/stability stomps if those abilities don´t fit in his actual build he like/sees effective….

Stealth stomps are caused by ppl who don´t know how to counter that, which is unfortunately the big part of WvW population, sorry, just my experience…

Edit: Unless you are talking about the mystic 30/30/30/30/30 build with 10 utility slots. In that case, I take my post back…

The only weapon skill that grants stealth is Cloak and Dagger (Dagger Skill #5). There is one healing skill and three utility skills that grant stealth. If you’re at all familiar with how combat in this game works, you can clearly see that all five of these skills could be placed into a single build if a player wished to do so. My statement remains valid.

I included Mist Form in my post; you just didn’t finish reading it entirely before you responded.

The only thing in your response that is actually true is that I forgot to mention Endure Pain. But yeah, Endure Pain.

Stiv.1820:

You do understand that you can both damage and knockback/knockdown a stealthed player who is trying to finish you? You should know about how long a finisher is and always assume a thief you see stealth near you has started one and use your defensive ability at the right time. If you have other players around you, it just takes one knock-back from one of them to get you back up.

Every profession has access to a skill that can serve as a method of interrupting a target that is finishing you. The problem is that some of those skills require a target. If the player finishing you is stealthed, you are unable to target them, and therefore cannot interrupt them.

Dual.8953:

That last part’s where you’re wrong. Thieves get interrupted all the time by CC’s, be it Guardian’s pulse, the AoE of a ally who’s wise to the thief, or stray CC.

But a Guardian can only use his pulse as a means to interrupt the thief ONCE while the guardian is downed. A thief can teleport away and stealth to avoid being stomped at least TWICE.

stof.9341

You do understand that the downed skill 3 starts in CD right? Why wouldn’t a thief be allowed to use it’s skill 3 to avoid a stomp?

If you interrupt the elementalist before he uses mist form, you didn’t save much. You see, you need to interrupt the stomp at the end of it’s cast bar to save as much time as possible. Doing your interrupt before the cast starts at all only saves you 1-2s max.

1) And it is finished recharging in time to avoid an immediate second stomp after the thief has teleported away and whoever is trying to finish them has ran to their new location. This isn’t the case for any other profession, so I’m not sure why there should be an exception.

2) Mist Form lasts exactly long enough to finish one stomp. There is no way of leaving Mist Form once it is entered, so if the player is interrupted before they’ve entered Mist Form, they’re unable to attempt another stomp until the cantrip has ended.

STRanger.5120:

Simple answer, Thieves(and mesmers FYI) can finish ppl while stealthed, because they don´t have better option like other classes (stability or invulnerability or both is much better than stealth in this case).
And we can be finished while in stealth, so no problem here, until Anet fixes channeling on invisible targets (which is another great flaw in stealth design imho…)

First off, I said, “If a player can finish…” I wasn’t referring to thieves exclusively seeing as there are obviously multiple ways any profession can acquire stealth.

Secondly, thieves have five skills that grant stealth. The profession with the most access to stability-granting skills is the warrior with a maximum of three sources. So thieves are actually ahead, if you want to consider stealth a substitute for stability. The only skill that allows a player to finish somebody with the aid of invulnerability is Obsidian Flesh. Unfortunately, the focus isn’t all that viable of a weapon for an elementalist in PvP.

Thirdly, there is no downed skill that grants stability for any profession. And even if there was, stability doesn’t negate being finished. Elementalists have access to invulnerability when downed, but normally only have one opportunity to use it before they’re finished, balancing them with every other profession.

Finally, as Dee Jay said, stealthed targets cannot be finished.

ZLE.8293:

Do you realize that the thief is still lying helpless at the same place he vanished?

The fact that he’s still alive at all after a second stomp is the exact problem I’m trying to address.

stof.9341:

The next time you are getting stomped by a stability powered guardian or an invulnerable elementalist and a thief comes and stealths you, you’d better tell him how it is such crap that you can avoid stomps with stealth.

You can deal damage and target a player with stability, which in some cases could be enough to decide whether or not they live to finish you. As I stated above, Obsidian Flesh is the only skill that does not restrict you from finishing a player while invulnerable. Mist Form can be used mid-cast, but there’s still an opportunity for the elementalist to be interrupted. You can’t interrupt what you can’t see.

I just have a simple question: If a player can finish somebody while stealthed, why are thieves immune to being finished after they’ve used their smoke bomb to vanish? I fail to see why a thief should be any more difficult to finish than any other downed player of a different profession.

Some really awesome shots in here.
Here’s my contribution – was going for the “250 years later” thing.

Apologies for the very late response.

I was under the impression the “break stun” did actually mean it was intended to remove immobilize since Armor of Earth and Lightning Flash both have the same affect in their descriptions and both do remove immobilize. For Lightning Flash, I can understand that it may just be how the skill was designed to work, but where does the immobilize removal come from when using Armor of Earth?

Note: Stability doesn’t grant immunity against immobilize.

Thanks in advance.

Though, considering it hasn’t been working for months, it’d probably make more sense to simply remove it and act like it was never there.

Not going to lie… It kind of irks me to see an ArenaNet official making light of balance issues when somebody has just linked a video of a profession dealing nearly 14k damage in one hit.

This is my idea for a new Norn form intended exclusively for underwater combat. I hope you like it.

Become the Kraken
Duration: 10s.

1. Strike – Strike your foe.
2. Ink – Release a cloud of ink that blinds and poisons foes who enter it. Damage: X. Blind: 3s. Poison: 3s. Cooldown: 5s.
3. Bind – Use your tentacles to immobilize foes around you. Damage: X. Immobilized: 2s. Cooldown: 5s.
4. Adherence – Suck the boons from nearby foes to yourself. Damage: X. Cooldown 10s.
5. Cthulu Assult – Spiral towards your foe, dragging nearby foes with you. Damage: X. Cooldown: 15s.

The skill could be acquired through a new personal story branch that could be implemented when the deep-see dragon is introduced. I’ve attached some artwork of what I think a Norn in kraken form might look like.

I’ll be honest. This started off as a joke with some friends, but for some reason I think it’d actually be pretty cool. Of course, this would probably mean the other four races would need a race-based aquatic skill… which kind of kills any chance it might have. Regardless, I saw no harm in posting!

Since the last patch, I have yet to receive the correct amount of tokens from any explorable dungeon I’ve completed. I’ve missed out on a total of 135 tokens, which is probably enough to at least frustrate most players. I, however, am past expecting things to work properly in this game, and have pretty much accepted the fact that I’ll need to put forth double the effort to get the same rewards as my friends. Until this is fixed in a few weeks, that is.

Oh, and the shoulder rewards intended for light armor professions are still classified as medium, and have been since BWE3. I have no clue why this incredibly minor problem hasn’t been fixed yet, but yeah. Just thought I’d put that out there in case anyone actually pays attention to this sub-forum.

roqoco.4053:

pretty nice – but I can’t imagine u did that just from drops.

You’re correct. I did acquire a pretty large amount before I went on my buying spree though. In total I probably spent close to 35g on dyes. Celestial is the only expensive one I was lucky enough to get as a drop.

LEGION.5834:

Holy moly, congrats. I know I am addicted to buying dyes at the AH. And with 5 characters its kinda ridiculous.
As a general suggestion, pls make dyes account wide.

Thanks! :)
But I actually disagree with this rather common suggestion. Making dyes account wide would demolish the market. However, I think making the eight dyes you can set as your “favorite” account wide would be nice.

Kal.2376:

Wow… I think that does deserve some kind of achievement. How about the obsessive collector achievement :P

I’m kidding. I’m not sure an achievement is a good idea, simply because they can add more colors later on… Ok, not sure what other colors outside all those, but it gives the option without invalidating a current achievement… Ok, same thing could be said for map completion… Ah, what the heck, give this guy an achievement :P Collecting all that really does deserve one.

Haha! You’re more right than you’d think. Once I started buying them… it pretty much became my main goal to get all of them. It actually became a joke in my guild. I was the “Pokédye Master.”
And I actually remember hearing a little rumor that some dye shades had been datamined that hadn’t shown up in the live client yet. So there very well may be more to come!

A title would be pretty legit, but I think it at least deserves an achievement.
There’s one for collecting all 54 mini pets, so why not dyes?

No, but seriously. The first time I saw somebody point this out, I couldn’t help but smile. Stay classy, ANet.

For those who have absolutely no idea what the kitten is going on, inappropriate words are automatically changed to “kitten” when posting on the forums.

I think making all dyes account wide is little too extreme. And that’s coming from somebody with 402 of the 403 dyes currently in-game. However, I was talking about it with a few friends and we had the idea that they should make the “favorite” dyes available to all characters on that account. I believe the maximum amount of dyes you can favorite at a time is eight, which is more than I’d imagine anyone needing. Just add the more expensive and rare dyes to your favorites and buy the cheapo dyes that complement them off the trading post.

I’m going to be the odd one out and disagree with this idea. Contrary to what the majority seems to believe, the visible differentiation between teams affects PvP gameplay more than you’d think. It’s a universal mechanic used in every MMO I can think of, and even in team-based sports in the real world. Think about it. How confusing would it be if every player in a basketball game wore a different jersey, but there were really only two teams?

And as for hovering nameplates – those disappear if the person is beyond a certain distance away from you.

If anything, I like Vorch’s idea for the option to turn them off. But I think most people would find this affects their gameplay negatively more than positively. But hey, who cares how well you play as long as you look pretty!

Amnon.4769:

Elementalist is a support class; you have so many skills to cripple, stun, knockdown, chill, and heal, that no other class would DREAM of being able to offer a dungeon team the same benefits as you can.

Yes, us Elementalists don’t outrank anyone on the DPS meter, and we better keep our distance; but it’s about time people stop whining about that and start understanding what Elementalists are for. It’s been long enough for people to have figured it out.

I thought it was Anet’s philosiphy that you shouldn’t be locked into a specific role or play style due to your profession choice. If what you’re saying is true, then I think the least we deserve is a tiny asterisk that clarifies that elementalists are exclusively for support purposes.

Staff:
The skill set that accompanies a staff is, in my opinion, the one that requires the most effort to affectively use. Eight of the 20 abilities you have are ground targeted, half of which have either cast times in which you can’t move or short moments before their initial damage is actually dealt. I feel like this makes it virtually unviable for PvP, and a poor weapon for any combat involving a moving target.

• Lightning Surge – As a single-target skill, the damage doesn’t fit with the other abilities of the weapon, and its blind is nearly impossible to time correctly with its cast time. Increasing the damage dealt, having the blind cast immediately, or making the blind cast at the end of the skill AoE based would make it significantly more useful.

Focus:
The focus is the strongest defensive weapon available to the elementalist. Paired with a scepter it provides great support and utility, but at the cost of being able to do reasonable damage. I haven’t tried it, but pairing it with a dagger may work nicely.

• Flame Shield – The cooldown doesn’t seem fair for a three second shield that only causes one second of burning per hit. You’d need impeccable timing to use it immediately when somebody uses a skill that hits repeatedly in a short window of time for it to cause any significant damage.

• Comet – Perhaps a little overpowered in PvE situations with multiple mobs, but due to its short delay it’s impossible to hit a moving target with it unless they are slowed. The obvious solution is to use freezing gust with it, but using two skills just so one isn’t wasted isn’t exactly ideal. And it’s actually quite common in most elementalist skill sets.

Trident:
To be fair, I haven’t experienced enough underwater combat to feel confident in my opinion on the skills. Feel free to comment on these.

Utilities:

• Conjure Weapons – As of right now, I think conjure weapons are amongst the most useless utility skills available to elementalists. You’re sacrificing fifteen of your skills for five average skills (Heck, two of the conjured axe skills are fire fields) that have regular cooldowns. It’d be nice if there were a trait that sacrifices the second summoned weapon and gave yours double the normal charges, or a trait that reduced the cooldowns of all conjure weapon skills by twenty percent.

• Arcane Power – It simply doesn’t do as the tooltip says. Your next five attacks do not do critical damage regardless of whether or not you cast all five immediately.

• Mist Form – It’s a three second long partial invulnerability. It blocks direct damage, but not condition damage. It also ends Tornado prematurely if cast while in mist form.

Elites:

• Tornado – Not having access to your heal or other utilities while in tornado form make it incredibly weak for an elite skill. You can easily be kited while it’s active and the damage from switching to the electrified stance doesn’t compensate for it. In PvE scenarios, it isn’t much more useful. Most of the time when there’s a large group of mobs, flinging them apart isn’t the best thing to do. I do use Tornado as my elite in some explorable dungeons as a defensive cooldown to mitigate some of the damage with mass blinds, but it is definitely not worth the thirty skillpoints it costs.

Traits:
I may add my thoughts on traits later on. I’ve got someplace I need to be soon though, and this took much longer to type out than I expected it to.

Instead of just complaining and raging about how elementalists are so incredibly weak, I’d like to point out the reasons I feel they’re lacking in comparison to other professions. I’ll be listing skills, traits, and other aspects of the profession along with their flaws. Your thoughts and comments are welcome as well.

Dagger (MH):
As is true for all weapons, the weapon an elementalist chooses to equip determines the unvarying diameter in which they can damage foes. Unfortunately, a dagger equipped in the main-hand slot provides the lowest range of all. It wouldn’t be as bad if the damage compensated for the lack of flexibility, but to be frank, it doesn’t. The potential damage from using a dagger in the appropriate range is equal to, if not less than, what an ele is capable of dealing using only the first three abilities of each attunement with a staff from more than twice as far. So what incentive is there for using a main-hand dagger at all?

• Lightning Touch – It lacks damage. It has the same cast time as the air auto-attack, but deals half the damage. Yes, it causes weakness, but very few skills benefit from the chance that a player will be unable to dodge. And as for the defensive appeal, a defensive skill based on luck is far from reliable. (I’ll talk about this again further on)

• Magnetic Grasp – The skill is buggy. It can sometimes cause the caster to move to their target, but remain locked in the animation until the skill finishes channeling, which can take a good seven or eight seconds. It’s really only useful if you’re fighting something that is focused on another target and you’re willing to risk stunning yourself.

Dagger (OH):
I use a dagger in my off-hand slot for both PvE and PvP. I find it considerably useful in PvE, so I’ll focus on where it comes up short in terms of PvP.

• Ride the Lightning – It has risks similar to magnetic grasp, except a lot more common and strangely random. I think most people are aware of this by now.

• Churning Earth – While I love this skill, it’s practically a joke. It has a five second cast, and catching anyone in it is either pure luck or simple ignorance. It’s easy to interrupt, and dodging to avoid it is even easier (Especially considering you can regenerate a third of the endurance needed for a dodge during the cast time). You may think pairing it with lightning touch would be affective, but even with weakness on your target, they can just run out of the circle before you finish casting. I pair it with earthquake and arcane shield and hope that the person I’m fighting will both stay in range and fail to get three attacks off before he attempts to interrupt me. But even if the stars align and all of that happens, I still need it to crit for it to do a decent amount of damage. Oh, and it also recharges for its full 30 second cooldown when interrupted rather than the normal 4 seconds other skills receive.

Scepter:
I feel like the scepter definitely outshines any other weapon choice, and the flaws I see with it are relatively minor.

• Dragon’s Tooth – It’s probably fine for PvE, but the damage doesn’t seem like a fair trade for the effort it takes to keep somebody in its range in PvP situations. A larger range or damage increase would seem like a reasonable fix.

• Shatterstone – It does the same damage as the auto attack, but in a small AoE burst. It is only useful when fighting multiple foes that you can keep inside of its range, which for the most part will only be in PvE combat. It’s a lot easier to spam auto-attack when fighting a single target or another player.

I’m honestly glad to see this thread. Thieves are the last thing that need to be buffed, but the fact that some people are finding them difficult to play makes it a little less annoying when one randomly bursts me and kills me before I can even react. Maybe I just keep running into amazing thieves.

That’s kind of what OP professions do… Own things.