Guild Wars 2

A miserable little pile of secrets.

Can’t tell if serious.

Bumping this. With the advent of Druid focusing on healing allies, this is needed to determine when healing is actually required. In small groups the party lifebars are fine but in a wvw atmosphere this is desperately needed. The only alternative is to spam heals and hope the person/group needs them. This is both unintuitive and aggravating as wasted heals means you could have dpsed in that instance rather than heal.

Ursan.7846:

Alphaone.6345:

I gave an example in my post. if it takes 1000 hours so be it; however, it should be some semblance of fun. But hey, if people have fun grinding then I guess who the kitten am I to judge them

Yeaaaa, I’d like to see you design a 1000-hour long quest chain.

I don’t have to. Your using the only game in town fallacy against me. Just because it may seem to be the only available explanation or route to take does not make it the correct route to take. Just because I cannot solve the problem doesn’t mean that my logic is invalid.

I gave an example in my post even though I am not required to give one. If it takes 1000 hours so be it; however, it should be some semblance of fun. But hey, if people have fun grinding items then I guess who the kitten am I to judge them

Meh, maybe so I guess I concede that. Still, a lazy implementation of it to be sure.

Endless PvE item grinding/mob farming is the absolute laziest way to implement high-valued endgame gear. As others have pointed out, there is nothing “legendary” in accomplishing it. All you’ve proved upon obtaining a legendary is you had the patience and time (or you’re a millionaire irl) to perform a mind-numbingly dull task.

I understand the need for some form of a grind in order to maintain rarity – although this is kind of a moot point since sooner or later your server will be filled with people that have epic weapons. It happened in EQ, it happened in DAoC (epic armor+dragon raid items) it happened in WoW and mark my words, it will happen in GW2.

Imo if a grind must exist it should be quest-based. Make it a long chain that requires raids like EQ did. At least the grind would be entertaining in a way.

Actually, they’ve already failed in their promises in this regard:

“It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards.” -Jan 15 Months ahead front page post.

If I don’t want to item grind, I cannot obtain a legendary. If I’m focused on WvW entirely without any PvE, I cannot obtain a legendary. The way I want to play the game does not reflect their design philosophy. Either way you slice it, you cannot argue this fact.

Vol.5241:

I have nearly 1200 hours and have two legendaries. And no, before you accuse, I don’t bot, nor do I play the TP. If anything, I grind, and also make investments (that’s different than playing the TP). My second one was lucky since I picked up Dusk and was able to sell it.

I’m guessing you are extremely inefficient at using your time to make money.

o.O

That there sums up how damaging mmos can be to certain people’s lives. If you claim that obtaining a Legendary requires, in your idea paraphrased, “efficient use of time to make money”, lets examine what it costs a hardcore gamer.

Consider this mathematically: GW2 has been out for 143 days. Total hours: 143×24=3432. Now giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you aren’t a basement dweller and have some semblance of a professional life/studies, and, assuming your professional duties in some way consumed a standard 40-hour week, your total work hours are at 40×22=880.

Further, let’s say you average 6 hours a night of sleep. Any less just makes my point even more obvious. 143×6=858 sleep hours. 858+880=1738.

Minus sleep and work, your spare time equals out to be 3432-1738=1694. Minus ‘1200’ for your addiction and your at 494 hours of non-gaming related spare time. You literally spent well over half of your spare time gaming. You average 8.4 hours a day playing GW2 alone. That’s more than a typical work day. 3.4 hours a day are reserved for personal time but due to professional schedules, you wouldn’t be able to work 8 hours, game 8.4 and sleep for 6 and spend the 1.5 remaining on social interaction. So we’d have to assume you spend even more time per day gaming on the weekend/days off to make up for gaming deficiencies during the week.

If obtaining even 1 legendary takes 600+ /played time then no thx. But then again its moot for me since I’m in this for the WvW anyways and obtaining one through a grinding contrivance is not even a consideration for me; however, I do sympathize with others when their style of play is gear progression. If anything, for a game that claimed you could progress through WvW alone I’ve never heard of anyone obtaining even a precursor in wvw. This just shows anets idea of progressive itemization is limited to pve alone.

The Veil [Veil] on Tarnished Coast is an RP thieves guild. Decent group of people.

WvW focused build: Power/Vit/Crit Damage backstab-focused. D/D

30 CS – Traits: Furious Retaliation; Signet Use/Critical haste depending on how I feel; Hidden Killer

20 SA – Traits: Shadow’s Embrace; Hidden Thief

20 Acro – Traits: Fleet Shadow; Fleet of Foot

Healing/Utilities: Withdraw; Assassin’s Signet; Shadow Refuge; Smoke Screen

My take on it’s effectiveness:

Thieves in WvW imo need to focus on mobility and trickery. Fleet Shadows for easier backstabs and fleet of foot removes cripples that occur sokittenmuch in wvw.

Shadows Embrace I’ve found is invaluable. The first tick of cond removal ocurrs as soon as you stealth. Which means with meld with shadows you can remove 2 conditions while in stealth. Considering how much this build relies on stealth conditions are virtually a non-factor for me. The loss of infusion of shadow does suck but I’ve found the base ini regen rate is still manageable – I just have to dodge around more if I’ve initiative-dumped which I don’t really tend to do. The cond removal is just too valuable with all the bleeds/poisons/burns going around in wvw.

Having taken shadows embrace to remove cond damage I’ve taken withdraw for my heal. For a 1500 reduction in healing I can heal twice as often with an evade/gap creator and remove the annoying mobility conditions like chill and immobilize. Really effective against bola/hundred blade spamming scrubs.

Assassins signet is obvious – I can crit softies for 10-14k with it popped depending on toughness/orbs. Shadows refuge is sooo amazing I cant live without it. Its what lets me pop a softie in a zerg and get away with it; great for survival too, only have to worry about aoes while in it and the stealth lasts up to 15 secs as long as you stay in the refuge zone – really handy in messing with people in 2/3v1s. Smoke screen Ilove because its a 30 sec stealth cooldown (combos with heartseek for a 3 sec stealth – and heartseeker actually hits while the stealth is activated, kinda like a ghetto mug. Also a 7 sec blind if I decide to stay inside it and a basic invulnerability against ranged single-target skills. Also good for disengaging. Elite is Thieves guild – self explanatory.

Gear build is valkyrie set for the power/vit/crit damage. Socketed divinity runes. Consumables are orrian steak frittes for +100 power/vit and sharpening stone for even more power. So I’m maxed on power with a secondary on vitality. Crit damage multiplier is through the roof too which synergizes well with hidden killer. I’m only sitting at 20% base crit chance but with furious retaliation that puts me at 40% when my target is below 50%. Not too useful in 1v1s but great synergies in 2 vs 1. HP is 20k+ depending on orb status. Only around 1000 toughness but I focus on evasion as my defense with my high hp pool as a backup. IMO best stat setup for wvw – full berserker is just not worth it.

backstab builds all the way

Power build all the way for my playstyle. Backstab build with Assassins sig, shadow refuge and smoke screen. Hidden theif traited for an extra stealth, withdraw for heal.

30 CS 20 SA 20 Acro

Mobility is so important in WvW and so is stealth. Its Shadow refuge that lets me pick one off in when going up against zergs. I steal in, usually on a softie, backstab with Asassin signet for 8-14k depending on enemy toughness, finish with a hs or two. Shadow refuge when their down so I’m cloaked and finish with finisher. Switch to sb (with hydromancer rune so i freeze nearby players) and IA away. If i soaked too much aoe damage while finishing I’ll withdraw roll away first then IA away.

Armor build is all power,vit and crit damage with divinity rune, mainly for the extra crit damage. Consumables are Sharpening stone and orrian steak frittes (100 power 70 vit)

Soutalgon.3827:

TC/Mag are just so demoralized they dont queue, dont have the numbers or dedication to win and use inferior tactics. .

This. Especially the tactics part. I can say that TC for one are actually good players individually. However, there is no leadership or any form of cohesive effort I can see currently on TC. Hell I cant remember the last time I saw a commander for one thing.

Morale is at an all time low too. TC is supposed to have one of the larger alliances, the AWC but heck if I ever saw any member guilds wvwing, well, ever. Maybe people just need to chill out, lose gracefully, and hope to come back in round 2.

+1 Glad to see the quick response by anet.

I seriously doubt he is exploiting. I think your cloak and dagger quotes of 6.6 k are actually backstabs. Theres no way cnd hits for that much.

Likely the thief is built around raw power and a backstab build. The backstab builds give insta crits from stealth. And because to trait hidden killer you need 30 in CS, you`ll have a raw critical chance of around 18-21 percent. 1 in 5 hits being a critical is still a rather large number in the pvp game. Add to the fact that if furious retaliation is traited, your looking at 40+ crit percent on a sub 50% health player.

I assure you though thieves like this are not rare. I myself play on TC and without tooting my own horn, am quite the kitten. I have a 30 CS 20 SA and 20Acro build and am slotted full power, vit and Cdamage. I have 24k+ hp and utilities are SF and BP with Shadow signet. I`ve gone 3v1 more than once and can often win. The issue is that with this build the thief has so many stealth options that i can stealth whenever i want, basically, and can Infil arrow away when all my utilities are on cooldown. Acrobatics lets me dodge all the time and essentially have swiftness when in stealth allowing easy backstabs. i cant deliver 9k backstabs but I also cant be killed either.

Thats the dynamic of WvW roamer thieves though. Slotting valkyrie armor and power& vit&crit damage makes you impossible to kill and can still dish out damage. Pure damage thieves in wvw are only good in organized groups and zergs where other players are their protection.

Burst classes are king at pvp. Always have been in other mmos always will be in future ones. Dot classes are only viable in duels and even then only excel when the other player doesnt bother to disengage and heal up.

Dzarda.6785:

what is better? vitality, toughness or both 50/50

Vitality all the way for survival purposes.

I believe it was team legacy during beta that worked out that per 100 toughness on a 1000hp hit toughness will soak 30-40 hp and only from non condition-based damage.

The returns are respectable if you have decent healing and high toughness with a low recharge heal. Toughness gets better when you can heal more of the unsoaked damage. In this regard, if you stack toughness plan on using withdraw as your heal.

The major problem imo is in weapon and armor stat sets. Thieves need high damage stats like power/precision/cond damage/crit damage and you wont be able to get toughness high enough to see a benefit without losing a sizable loss in dps. You’ll live longer but take longer to kill stuff.

Another issue is that you have no idea what builds you’re going up against. Couple that with the fact that cond builds are among the most popular now for classes that excell in them (thief/necro) and toughness stacking=waste of stats.

Imo, in its current state, you risk too much taking toughness over vitality as your survival stat. At least vitality is effective against all forms of damage. You dont want to have useless stats going up against a build that bypasses your defences.

For me, I use a a +power,vitality,crit damage setup with my backstab thief. The damage is insane and I’m sitting at almost 24k hp in WvW. With the thief’s evasive playstyle especially vit is the way to go.

My 2c :P