Guild Wars 2

Tried multiple times to purchase the $79 version and ran into the same problem most others have reported – after hitting continue it doesn’t process the payment and tells me an error has occurred and that I should try again later. Tried on both my machine and my wife’s without success.

So I really hate this achievement.

The spirit attacks cannot be dodged and you cannot kill the Self Doubt quickly enough before the spirits debuffs and buffs make it impossible. So, the achievement is essentially made for a minion or perhaps heavy condi builds. GW2 lack something as basic and convenient as build templates, and that some profeesions have no minions and/or crappy condition builds that people don’t normally use. So regular or condi ranger, condi or minion master necro, or turret engineer (maybe mesmer?) are really the most clearly advantaged if not the only ways to get this achievement.

I’ve completed most of the achievements for Living Worlds season 1, and every achievement from Living World seasons 2 and 3 to date and I can only think of a few achievements that so blatantly favored certain classes. And I hated those too. Encounter designs that heavily favor certain classes and builds over player skill are not good encounters. This achievement encounter is just a step backwards for them.

So, I’ve been told I have all the necessary permissions to scribe however, I cannot seem to access any of the items in the Guild Storage in order to scribe. For instance I buy a basic chair and it disappears into the Guild Storage and then when I go to craft a fancy chair – one of the ingredients is the basic chair which even though the guild has 26 of I cannot use as an ingredient to craft a fancy chair. WTH is going on? What specific permission do I need to access items in Guild Storage?

Still has not moved on to Snowden Drifts

Experiencing same lag spikes and disconnects. I’m in CA. No other internet problems noticeable.

Two computers with NVidia cards, up-to-date drivers. Get eh same bug.

Friend of the Frogs achievement in Tangled Depths is bugged. The second part of the series does not seem to trigger (ex. my wife has completed both the defend the larva and protected the beetle hatchlings by rounding them up several times and it has not triggered). This is keeping her from a Mastery Point as it is the only part of the chain she has not gotten credit for completing.

Edit: Appears that the first and second on the list for Friend of the Frogs are reversed. So, while the first indicated it had been done, it had not.

That’s from a mystic forge recipe. As far as I know none of those items normally indicate they are ingredients AND my other Mango Pies don’t say that.

Amend that: Looks like the ones you can buy at the TP do say that so it probably is for the tray recipe.

Not this time unless it was in a special reward package. Don’t have Mawdrey (I have better uses for bloodstone dust). I have the two items that return bundles with heart items (the karaka and the gift of generosity). I do get items from them that are soul bound. I got this item on a second-third tier alt that I rarely use that had neither of those items – got it as a reward for . . . something . . . don’t remember what though.

Received a single Mango Pie from and unusual source (can’t remember exactly what) and it indicates “Crafting Material: Chef” at the bottom which is not there for any crafted pies. Checked and its not useable as an ingredient. An error or did someone jump the gun?

It is essentially anti-loot. Can’t/won’t use it. Can’t salvage it. Can’t vendor/sell it. Can’t trading post it. Can mystic forge it I guess but that would require 3 more green items – preferably equally useless ones so its not effectively a waste of three items that I could salvage/sale/trading post.

So I have a question for ANet:

Why did my level 80 Elementalist/Tempest get a level 50 Masterwork (Green) Sentinel’s Scout Hammer that was Soulbound on acquisition?

For everyone else:

Am I uniquely blessed or has anyone else gotten absurd soulbound drops that they can’t use or salvage recently?

Burtnik.5218:

Doggie.3184:

Burtnik.5218:

Thief. With rev at least you had to swap utility skills etc, now you have to press 2 too. Thief – autoatk while you drink coffee

Then you die in one hit because a feather landed on you while you were immobile.

There are tons of vids that disagrees with you, sorry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA126dULIr0

In b4 “its hard” or “need skill”

This is easily the most idiotic thing that anyone has written on these forums in a long time. Thief main with thousands of hours since launch, every other class except Revenant and Engineer for probably hundreds of hours each. Thief is the last class I want to play if I’m too tired -it requires constant attention, movement and field of fire awareness. I play better because I play a thief because I have to or I’d just rage-quit. Every other class is lazy in comparison.

Tangle Depths achievement Friends of the Frogs, stage 2 Defend the Hatchling Beetles, seems bugged. Several attempts and no luck. Defending the grubs as they hatch into beetles works fine, but seems to roll directly into stage 3 of the event chain where you round up the beetles. I went to wait out stage 2 at the beetle pen and several red hyleck spawned in the beetle pen I believe and I fought them prior to one attempt so perhaps the spawn timer is off? Does the event occur someplace other than the beetle pen? Will try again after reset over the next few days in the hopes that will fix it.

I have not even read the OP but I had to comment since it doesn’t matter if its serious or mocking: The title alone gave me a good chuckle.

Berelious.3290:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’ve been around the sun a few dozen times. I can give some insight as to why it is this happens. AKA, the harsh and terrible truth as to why devs won’t talk to you. Not a direct “you”, but the “you” in the general sense, so don’t take it personally.

#1: You blow things out of proportion. A change doesn’t actually have to be big before people will moan endlessly about it. This is the internet, and people are always making a big drama about something, and just because you’ve gone on to the forums and found a dozen people who agree with you doesn’t mean it is an issue even worth mentioning. You’ll get over it, and if you don’t get over it, bye. We don’t want you here.

#2: You can’t be placated. If you’ve ever tried to reason with a tantruming child, you’d find it is impossible. And of course, being an online videogame, the majority of complaints come from just that. The playerbase is young, full of hormones, and also full of life’s little frustrations over how unpopular in school they all are. You aren’t looking for a solution, you just want to be angered by something. The reason why the devs won’t subject themselves to your every beck and call is because it would only fan the flames. Calm down, kid!

#3: Your complaints are irrational. Yes, just because you’re mad about something doesn’t mean that it makes sense, or is practical in any sense. The fact is that the devs can’t make the sky blue and not blue at the same time. and yet people will be angry at others for not doing their crazy bidding Whether you’re factually wrong, the solution you propose is worse than the problem, or you’re upset over something that can’t be understood by the rational mind, what you want isn’t correct.. There’s nothing to gain from talking to someone who is insane, because sanity is a per-requisite of meaningful communication.

#4: Your complaints are illegitimate. There’s a lot of vitriol leveled at the devs not because what they’ve done is necessary bad, but because something is bad for you. Even if other players want things differently, you are there with your own uncompromising desires, dead set on trying to make the world yours instead of better. Sometimes you have an ulterior motive, sometimes you’re just trolling, other times you just don’t care what other people think. Either way, your “feedback” is flailing wildly in a crowded room: it goes nowhere and just makes people more upset.

#5: Your complaints are a minority. Angered players speak out, content players don’t. While it seems like everyone agrees with you, in fact it is an echo chamber where the same 10 people just yell at their own shadows for days on end. Ultimately, to change any complaint you have it takes resources, and if there are a handful of cantankerous players irate over something, it doesn’t mean it is worth dealing with. The quality of updates and changes is subjective, so if you find yourself constantly out-voted on the matter, accept the horrible fate that your life will be filled with nothing going your way.

#6: The devs already speak with you, but you aren’t satisfied with the exact manner or how much. It is a goalpost that can be constantly moved, so to the belligerent mind can never be sated. Yes, the emotional black holes out there are all aflutter when something isn’t said fast enough, or where they want it to be said, or whether enough is said or not. No matter how much of a dialogue is trying to be casually opened, the fact is that you will always be looking to punch a gift horse in the mouth..

In short: You aren’t worth talking to. Now, I’m going to add this on to the end:

#7: The devs are people, too. Fact is, the devs don’t know what the hell they’re doing. Most people don’t. Most things in life are gambles. They’re going to make mistakes, and they’ll feel bad about their mistakes, or they won’t realize that something is a mistake. Thing is, you’re the worst person to tell them their mistakes. For the 6 reasons above, but also because you’ve assigned a air of mysticism around their work, and thus see anything that doesn’t suit you as the actions of a defiant spirit of some kind. The whole “fester with rage in their public spaces for weeks on end” is not a good look. It is not always going to be immediate that a problem even exists.

I like this guy/girl. Good head on their shoulders. It’s practical, logical, and makes sense… problem is it’s precisely the kind of thing haters hate. Still like though.

Not really. Smart yes, wise no. What I see here is intellectual arrogance mostly. The implicit assumption is that off all the millions of people involved in GW2 (i.e., players and developers), apparently all the adults work at ArenaNet and everyone else is a child. I’ve been around the sun 50 times myself and from what I’ve seen ANet’s earned a fair amount of the ire that’s been directed their way.

Final story boss fight bugs . . . again.

Duoing the final story instance with Canach and Bram playing a Reaper (myself – “instance owner”) and a Mesmer. Killing Mordy just fine – ran into the horrifically bugged glider phase and we both died a couple times to that (no surprise). By now you know sometimes you run over them and they work other times try in vain as your character gets slowly downed and dies.

Finally got Mordy to the final stage – I’m the instance owner and I’m in the penalty box. The Mesmer player cannot get help from either Canach or Bram. At my suggetion Mesmer suicides off the side of the platform – is teleported back and Canach rezzes her. That has unstuck him before but not this time. Bram is still a lump doing nothing. Mesmer tries to suicide again at different location closer to Mordy – is teleported back to the exact same position (doh) and still Canach is not unstuck. Finally resigned to doing it all over again – Mesmer suicides in front of Mordy. Canach doesn’t move to rez her.

We reenter – and it appears to have reset as per normal. We beat down Mordy again and Rytlock appears and – thats when it takes a turn for the weird. Suddenly Mordy is back at his final stage position and we got waves of Mordrem grunts (seriously felt like far more than the previous run through – it was like an ocean of them). So we beat down Rytlock and the grunts – Mesmer flips Rytlock and I use the rift on Mordy. Burn phase goes normally except that now Marjory is in the fight as well. One more round of grunts plus Marjory to beat down (not certain if we ended up flipping Marjory or not). Burned him again and completed the instance.

Best part: We both got “Flights of Fancy” awarded.

Suggestion: Turn the jets into bouncing mushrooms and put as many updrafts in the instance as there are currently. Jump on the mushroom set to vault the player in a high arc to another mushroom, open glider mid-jump and glide to the updrafts. That way you are using two mechanics that players will be familiar with and it will probably work better than the current situation where the drafts are just unreliable. If you’re on mushroom you take damage just as if you were on the ground.

BTW – The whole “penalty box” mechanic is just obnoxious. If you are going to use that mechanic and send people there – let them reenter after a period of time.

Mystic Forge does not see some Bags of Jewels as recipe components. I had four of them – 1 pre-HOT from the karma converter, the other 3 recent acquisitions. Tried to craft the Goblet of Kings and only one of them showed as a recipe component. My guess is that its those Bags of Jewels being sold by Guild Vendors since that is when I remember picking one up most recently.

So this whole thing just reeks of “hey we used to love console platform games they will too” sort of thinking . . .

Locking important content behind annoying grindy, pointless mini-games is just foolish. A (likely small) segment of this games population do really well at them (probably because they spent their childhood playing those old platform console games) and enjoy them. I don’t because I didn’t . . . and I don’t. Just spent a couple of hours attempting three different ones – I came to the conclusion that the kittenty little games would be the last place I turn for my mastery points. I cannot believe that this is where Anet chose to put resources over a polished story and refined set of meta events.

Of the “fails” in HOT so far that have bothered me personally (elite specializations initial costs, turning verdant brink into a LFR lobby, an unfinished/unpolished story that felt rushed at the end) locking so much critical content behind mini games is the most obnoxious.

Yes . . . we all need to slooooow down apparently . . .

Yep, both my wife and I are downloading at about 3 kb/sec.

qarinus.3869:

Several times during the Pact encampment meta last night, the “sylvari loyalties” event to kill the tendrils bugged and blocked progress on the Pact Encampment for that event cycle, making T4 impossible. After the second tendril, the circle indicating where the event is would start to move across the stone bridge towards the third location and then stop, approximately centered on the bridge, and the third set of tendrils would fail to spawn.

A fix for this would be good, please, because it’s frustrating enough to lose T4 to us as players not managing to do everything needed, but when progress is blocked by an event malfunction, it’s just downright discouraging.

This has happened to me twice in 2 nights and I’m getting angry about it. I need this for the Pact Camper and and this particular event is keeping me from getting it. Two nights two hours plus looking for an achievement to have it die because of a bug. Fix it please!

Sir Vincent III.1286:

merrykitten .9423:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

merrykitten .9423:

BartHomer.7512:

Hey boys. I main ele and honestly if u actualy saying thieves are op u should go hide yourself. thieves have low health base, incredibly hard play style compared to other classes. NO BLOCKS! NO STABILITY! NO INVULNERABILITY! thieves are the weakest class at this game in every game time, especially in pvp where their are horse kitten. If anyone says they are op again just shoot urself pls

The kitten you talking about? Thieves has a kitten ton of blocks, stabiliity and invulnerability. You must be a terrible thief because you are ignoring the secret trait line: The BLOCKSTABILITYINVULNERABILITYMASTER. Bruh every thief runs this, you must be really bad if you can’t find this trait line. To unlock this: you take your thief and jump off a cliff and die 1000000 times. After dying so many times, your body becomes used to the dmg, so you just become completely immune. Almost every thief has unlocked this, how come you still havn’t done it yet?

This achievement is not easy to find though. I found this in my Thief by accident while doing the Arah story mode. There’s also a visual que when you unlock this. Your Thief is surrounded by an invisible glow that shows everyone that you have unlocked the hidden Thief art called “Shadow Form”.

If you have HoT, you’ll easily unlock this achievement by not using your glider.

Exactly, this trait line is so easily obtained, yet thieves still say they are not op, they need to be nerfed immediately!

I already added 2 nerf suggestions in the Nerf Wish List thread. Thief’s brokenness needs to be fixed to keep the status quo.

While D/x spams HS, Staff spams Vault…it’s ridiculous.

For example, Vault hits for 5k-6k crit and with Trickery, you can use Vault 3x which deals damage around 15k-21k crit damage which is enough to kill any low health players. Also the fact that Vault is an AoE, the potential of Vault killing 5 players at the same time is beyond comprehension why such thing is allowed to exist. In addition, the Thief is evading at the same time so there’s no stopping this maddening insane pogo-clown.

+1 for the image of a thief in a clown suit jumping up and down on a giant pogo stick (scary stuff man!) while a player’s character is laughing so hard they just stand there and die

Just managed to log in on a character I’ve not played for awhile. Strange since the 2 other HOT characters I could not log in on.

Yep, the darkness is back. Same error code as last night: 1083:5:7:1595:101.

Ran into this bug around 10:20 Pacific Time. Was working through my wrap-up routine and attempted to get into my home instance on my main character (Daredevil) and it got stuck on the loading screen then got the unable to connect to server error and the code: 1083:5:7:1595:101. Although I was unable to load my other HOT character (Druid) I was able to load another non-HOT character. After that I could load my main – however, it bugged again when I attempted to enter my home instance with my main.

Couple of points up front: I intend to play all of the content. On all of my alts. I don’t want everything handed to me on a silver platter. I don’t even object to the cost given the value of hero challenges in HOT. So all the tryhards and whiteknights above and just pound sand about that stuff.

I just want to know is why didn’t they simply cut the elite specialization into 2 lines – one line for traits and one line for skills? Maybe put the weapons/weapon skins etc on the traits line and the armor skins on the skills line. Two hundred points per line. That way veteran players who have ground through world completion can fully open either the skills or the traits and use them. Experiment with them as they go through the new content and the old content they revisit during their routines. Those points would be meaningfully spent and change the experience for the player. Every veteran player that dumps 200 points into an elite specialization now gets pretty much nothing for it. Maybe you can use the weapon (if you don’t really need the synergies between traits and/or skills to make the weapon worth using), or maybe one of the skills if it fills a niche in their current build, but no one in their right mind would purposely chose to try and use a truncated/kitten trait line that ends long before reaching Grandmaster.

Case that makes my point like a nail gun shot between the eyes: Daredevil (admittedly Herald is another good one). ANet “cleverly” locked the elite specialization mechanic into the three final Grandmaster Traits. The 1 extra dodge is a crappier version of an old pre-June nerf Acrobatics Adept trait Feline Grace and only the most ardent fanboys think that 1 extra dodge mostly useable at the start of the fight qualifies and acceptable elite specialization mechanic. Bet you can’t guess where those Grandmaster traits are in purchase order. So its pretty much ~375 points in at least before you would consider playing with the Daredevil elite.

I just don’t see what was gained by the structure they chose. Is it just an incentive to play the content? If so, first, are they that insecure about the quality of the content? Second, wouldn’t locking either the skills or the traits (depending on player choice) behind 200 additional hero points that had be ground through HOT provide the same incentive?

This just feels like another bad management / implementation decision. Which, on some level I’ve come to be resigned to enduring where ANet is concerned.

I must have misunderstood. I assumed they would have two lines – one for skills and one for traits. Stacking them together in one line was really crappy decision honestly. As it stands now no one will be play any elite specialization until at least 20 skill challenges into HOT. Which if I understood correctly, means that since there are 400 points in HOT, that would be about half way through all of the maps content.

Yes but they managed to structure the unlock in the worst way they possibly could: One single line that includes traits and skills. That means not playing the elite specialization until well into HOT even if you have 200+ points since no one in their right minds will play a kitten trait line on a level 80 character in the “challenging” new area. Why they skritt aren’t the traits in one line and the skills in another?

Sidenti.6035:

T raw.4658:

Sidenti.6035:

I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. The only way to have perfect balance is to have every player use the exact same character class, with the exact same gear, abilities and statistics.

Any time there is a choice to be had in PvP, there will be a clearly superior choice.

Obviously arena net are doing just this. Once D/D ele mobility eclipses that of a thief they’ll finally achieve it

Oh, nononononono! There will still be other classes! So, logically, in order to attain perfect balance all but one class must be removed.

Then, only one set of gear may be allowed into PvP matches, and everyone must be forced to use this equipment.

And THEN, only one set of abilities may be used, and everyone must be forced to use these abilities.

Of course, keep in mind that all of those abilities must be exactly the same, lest one ability be better than another, so essentially you get a basic attack button that does a fixed amount of damage no matter who or what you hit. Hit Sixpack_Bob? 500 damage. Hit Pancakez-r-awesomenstuff? 500 points of damage. Somehow manage to hit yourself? 500 points of damage.

There. Isn’t balance FUN?!

Reducto ad absurum much. No one is making the argument you are implying.

Its pretty clear post-June patch the thief class is at its nadir over the course of three years. Anyone not willing to see it is in deep denial. There are kitten ed few things another class cannot do better at this moment. Pointing to one or two things it might be worth using a thief to do in PvP and calling that enough ignores that in other modes you have been relegated to gutter tier.

I have all of the skills on all of my characters along with map completion on all of them, so this won’t negatively impact me personally, but I can why others might be a bit irate – especially given some of the skill and trait lines in the base game are utter trash.

I am assuming that what CJ meant is NOT that players would have to buy the new skills before opening up the elite traits. The only reason I’m even contemplating taking Daredevil on my thief is for the staff dps and the traits. Not being able to buy the trait line out to the Grandmasters would probably kitten me off a bit.

^ Yeah, reveal was pretty much a direct nerf to thief and only thief. Other classes have access to stealth, but the cool downs on their skills that provide stealth exceed the duration of revealed so they don’t notice.

Nike.2631:

All true. Believe me, the prospect of my Thief being a first-round draft pick for raid-tank has me salivating.

Nothing against you as player . . . but I think you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

If you’re looking for reasonable PvE class balance from ANet . . . good freakin luck on that. Real honest efforts from them on that would require admitting they need to split PvE from PvP balance. Not gonna happen. Look forward to Raids with mult-Engi or Multi-Rev or Multi-whatever with probably no more than 5 of the classes consistently represented (3 with multi representation and two for specialties).

wayneericgouin.9371:

I’m not actually against the damage increase, I’m just saying of all the things they could have buffed for thieves why increase the damage of a weapon set when they could have done any number of other more beneficial changes. And you can’t honestly tell me that as a thief player your first thought is “I need more damage”

My multi-nerfed D/D weapon set begs to differ.

Anyway, OP made laugh. That’s something.

On a more serious note: The buffs they gave out were relatively meaningless. I main a thief (D/D and P/P) and have several thousand hours of PvE play on it as well as 6 other 80s (everything but Engineer) with map completion (I’ve spent a fair amount of time playing. PvE Thief is not OP. PvE Thief is UP. There is not a credible argument here otherwise. Anyone who seriously plays a thief AND takes the skills they are forced to learn playing a thief well enough to not rage-quit the game (combat awareness, importance of positioning, when/how/who to engage/disengage, and how and when to dodge) into other classes knows this to be the absolute unequivocal truth. Any new PvE content ANet adds with HoT I will probably complete first on my thief and then on my other characters knowing I can pretty much roll my face across the keyboard and succeed.

So, just got through watching most of the the Druid reveal. I had to come here and say this as emphatically as I can:

No, a staff and one extra dodge is not enough!

Those arguing that is are apparently convinced a new weapon with clunky animation and questionable DPS plus the equivalent of the old Feline Grace Adept Acrobatics Trait and 4 seconds of endurance regeneration is adequate as the basis for an elite spec. I completely agree that the three Grandmaster traits need to become baseline with some kind of toggle.

Also regarding condition cleanse . . . jeezus . . . apparently it its important enough for the Druid elite to have:

1) Vine Surge: a AOE condi cleanse on their new staff to deal with all movement impairing conditions on a 16 second CD;
2) Seed of Life: a spam-able condi cleanse that remove 2 conditions in an AOE in their new elite form;
3) Druidic Clarity: an adept trait that cleans all conditions that triggers upon entering their new form (not a specific type, not 1 or 2, but ALL of them);
4) Verdant Etching: a master trait that reduces the CD on their already short CD glyphs (ATM all but one have less than 30 second cool downs) AND drops a Seed of Life (see above);
5) Natural Stride: another master-level trait that reduces the duration of movement impairing conditions on the Druid; and
6) Grace of the Land: a grandmaster trait that reduces condition damage by 33% for Druid and allies while in their avatar form.

You know . . . its almost like conditions (and apparently surviving unavoidable damage) are thing in the game . . . and removing them might be really important in HOT. But hey, for the Thief it needs to be “choice” and a reward for “skilled” gameplay since presumably every thief in HOT will just hang out with a Druid anyway . . .

1. Wish I could buy Karl and the other devs a clue about the state of the game re. conditions and Thief condition cleanse. Escapist Absolution isn’t the world class trait some make it out to be but Thief condition cleanse is so crappy that it is pretty much a must take regardless of game mode (especially if you plan to dump SA for DD).

2. I guess #1 doesn’t matter at this point since unless they fix the Grandmaster dodge traits to be as fluid and as useable as the current dodge I won’t be using DD. BTW – the Bounding Dodge Grandmaster should be rethought entirely as the damage it does on landing is likely only going to be inflicted on foes accidentally/haphazardly.

Noxicon.4956:

You committed one of the cardinal sins of gaming. You released terribly boring content with absolutely no rewards attached to it. No one is going to do that. I don’t care how many people say ‘play for fun’ and ‘enjoy the journey’, we’re humans and we’re driven by rewards. It is simple psychology and you are not going to reverse it. Sure, someone may be able to login for one hour throughout the course of the event and enjoy doing it once. But repeatedly? The number of times needed to get a good reward? Frankly, you should know better at this point. There is zero reason this event AT A MINIMUM should not have a karma and xp reward upon completion of that ‘invasion’. Absolutely none. Even giving Karma/xp on singular event completion, you are looking at what? Maybe 5,000 karma every 30 minute period assuming they would award the same karma as events typically in the area (I used the number 250). Why exactly are you going to such lengths to eliminate such an absolutely minimal amount of karma? Why is time being spent developing stuff where you REMOVE those fundamental features? Why do you give us account rewards for achievements and then develop content that completely IGNORES those elements that people have put a lot of time into getting? Please understand, this makes you look incredibly shady.

If Magic Find has really caused that much of a problem, JUST REMOVE IT. People will complain but they’ll get over it like they always do. You should have removed it when you switched it to account-bound. Now that poor design decision is causing you to create other poor design decisions. Just get rid of it. At least then you can create solid reward structures going forward without spending time trying to predict the impact that BS will have. This problem did not at all exist within the first game. You guys nailed the rewards in GW for YEARS, but since GW2 has come out, you’ve been flailing, and I really think it’s because of Magic Find and + Karma and + Gold (By far the most useless thing in the game. Why’s it even there?).

I really like just about everything in Noxicon’s post. I’ve been following this thread – and others have have also said just about everything I would want to provide as feedback but I want to harp on the lack of regular in game rewards issue a bit.

From my perspective the lack of kill exp, event exp, event karma and dropped coin and loot is just unacceptable. Noxicon’s take is that it “makes you look incredibly shady.” My descriptors would be much more pejorative than “shady.” Experience, karma coins and loot aree all fundamental features of the game. They are rewards every player should receive for actively participating in the events. Hell, they are tools, properly employed, the developers of this game should look to use to incentivize and reward “good” player behavior.

You’ve put in this game, account level experience, gold, karma, and magic find – not to mention sell through the Gem store items that boost those things – and then you effectively zero them out and make them meaningless. You also put “on kill” traits and sigils in this game and they are completely screwed over by this design choice as well. Why would do that? Why do you think this game is so fragile that having players earn player-level and event and opponent appropriate experience, karma and loot over a four day period special event will break it? I cannot imagine either experience or karma for actually staying and completing these events (that gold completions) would exceed 5,000 for the vast majority of players during a 30 minute invasion. Even if the special event were ongoing for months the game wouldn’t be harmed by that much experience, karma, coinage and loot being added to the game. How long did the Scarlet Invasion event last? I seem to recall that went on for months. Somehow the game made it through that much longer ongoing “special event” in which experience, karma and loot was awarded to players. If the concern is zerg scaling that could easily be dealt with by simply not having Champions spawn OR have faux Champions a-la Claw of Jormag spawn. However, a proper reward structure where the Blooms are mostly awarded based on map performance probably would choke the “zerg for champs train” dead making it a non-issue for a short event like this. In fact, you could probably run this or a slowly expanding version (add more maps add more types of events) of it this special event with a combination of player and map-level performance based currency rewards + experience, karma, coins and loot right up through the release of HOT and the champ zerg train would probably never be an issue given you can use the event currency to gamble (by buying the Memories of Scarlet Boxes or Arid Dusty Satchels).

Players might actually thank you for running that event . . . rather than coming to the forums in droves to complain.

You couldn’t pay me to run Daredevil on my Thief main in its current state. Will need to see if they can turn it something worth taking before 10/23.

Just used the Warhorn on my ranger for the first time in awhile. WTH?!! Seriously? An the change was made on purpose? Ugh.

So . . . give us back our freaking warhorns, no one really wants to use a farthorn.

ronpierce.2760:

Tonikor.5637:

I’ll start by saying I support your idea OP, I even made the same suggestion a couple of days ago, but 70% of the replies were against it, now everyone loves it. Go figure.

Im much too disapointed and tired right now to give a lot of feedback, but might as well give something:

- A revenant dodges and removes a condition on itself and its allies, without requiring to evade anything at all.

- A thief dodges and removes a condition on itself, if an attack is evaded.

Doesnt seem very fair now does it?

Now as to Staff, most of you are already crying and complaining but you rooted for this instead of a RIFLE. Yeah, thats right.
Staff is bad, its boring, it needs a complete rework to be viable/more viable than the other weapon sets.

As for the skills:
- Daze daggers make no sense with a precast, and are not worth using over other utilities in any situation.
- Immob/Slow daggers are cool but weak, 25second cd for such low damage and low condition time (4s slow 2s immob) is not worth it over other utilities.
- Heal makes absolutely no sense for reasons already stated.
- The block is really cool, thief needed this. But the tooltip needs to be more in depth and mention its attack range for example.
- Fists of fury is a really cool concept, but the damage is bad. Five hits? really? its impossible to successfuly land this more than 1/10 times due to evades, blinds, blocks, invulnerabilities, range, etc. Needs to be reduced to 3 hits or have its cast time increased. If it were for me id make it the other way around: Palm strike for 2 sec stun, if it hits, strike the enemy for kittens, if they all hit, deliver pulmunay-whatever.
- The Elite is really cool, yeah, but its INCREDIBLY HARD to land the second and third hits, simply because it has 130 range, and oh boy thats frustrating.

peace.

Are you really suggesting the Revenant’s dodge roll to remove 1 condi AoE with a 10’second cool down on their support tree that basically no one uses…. Is worse… Than the 1 seconds ICD for 1 condition removed when you evade on the most evadey of characters in the game… If anything the DD had that was a huge perk to playing it, it was this… A potential of 5-8 conditions removed every 10 seconds out classes just about any other single source of condition removal in the game…

Maybe in PvP (although that seems unlikely) in PvE you’re just dead wrong.

It will be very rare if not impossible to successfully EVADE 5-8 attacks with 5-8 SEPARATE DODGE ROLLS in 10 seconds. You simply will not have the endurance for it unless you spec into Acrobatics AND Daredevil AND Trickery AND take endurance regen food and maybe some appropriate sigils. Good luck with that. You’ll hit like a wet noodle. Everyone who thinks this trait is OP needs to buy a clue: 1) its on Evade NOT Dodge which means that if the game doesn’t register it as an evade (i.e., you dodged out of that circle a little too quickly my friend no “EVADE” for you) you get skrewed and 2) it cures 1 condition with a 1 second cool down – it does not matter if you evade 5 attacks with 1 dodge you cleanse 1 condition. Potential =/= reality. If you are lucky and DON’T take any of the Grandmaster dodges (which actually make it harder to dodge effectively) you can probably cleanse 4 conditions in 10 seconds if all you do is dodge. Of course while you’re doing that nothing is dying unless someone else is killing if for you . . .

So I noticed in another post that someone had tumbled to the fact that all the Grandmaster dodges were coded as attacks, and used attack animations and a light went on – “Oh, that’s why they were so clunky, delayed and unreliable.”

I ran a D/D thief through the beta area last night specifically to see if I could get a build using DD that would synergize well with my thief. Used 2 builds:

CS, Trickery, DD: Could not stick with this build. On paper it seems like it should be wonderful. It wasn’t – the primary issue I found was a lack of on-demand condition cleanse. I know everyone was thinking the “on evade” condition clean would be OP. Far from it. Given the condition spam in the beta area I found it completely unreliable – it ended up feeling more like a quality of life improvement (oh look you evaded and got rid of that torment too bad you still are poisoned, chilled, bleeding and crippled!) than a helpful trait. Mordrem and frogs dump massive amounts of poison and torment most notably – one mordrem drops 10 stacks of torment in a single attack. Having to evade an attack to remove either of those was way too hit or miss. And it you miss and you moved by dodging the torment wrecks you.

CS, SA, DD: So, this was quasi-viable. Mostly for the reliable damage condi cleanse and the blinds. However, as I noted at the start it really highlighted the problems with the grandmaster dodge traits. I honestly did not try the dash (I wanted damage)but regarding the other two:

Bounding Dodge: I was suspicious that this would really not work worth a dam. Unfortunately I was correct. The first problem as I see it is conceptual – I instinctively dodge away from attacks and attackers not into them so nearly every “dodge” attack hit nothing. The second problem is the coding of the dodge as an attack and the animation made it feel hopelessly slow and jerky. Dodges should be fluid and quick and this dodge was neither. Also, it seemed like my Norn thief sometimes barely moved in the dodge (but maybe that’s just a Norn issue.

Lotus Dodge: So this was half-way useful for damaging – too bad I wasn’t running a condi-thief. It still suffered from the same issues as the Bounding dodge though to a lesser degree. I was able to solo-defend a camp near the end of the night period using the second build with Lotus dodge without being defeated but it wasn’t pretty.

Grandmaster Dodge Trait Suggestions: I know appearances are important (sort of) but I would get rid of all the unique animations and stick with the fundamental dodge animation which is smooth and fluid and works. Then add the additional effects as you do with Uncatchable and Reckless Dodge. I would rather the Grandmasters be effective than look cool. Regarding the Bounding Dodge I recommend the attack occur at the start of the dodge (call it Explosive Dodger or something if you want) so that it has a relatively good chance of actually damaging an opponent you are evading.

Overall, like many have noted so far I found not much to get excited about. The three dodge bars were ok, but we had that with the pre-recently-nerfed Acrobatics line. Not going to get real excited about getting something back you took away for no good reason.

An End Note to the Anet Devs: For me, the new areas highlight the toll your incessant nerfs to initiative regeneration, condition cleanse and damage output have taken on the Thief class (not taking Trickery was painful to initiative, not having Shadow Arts left me too exposed to a condi-raping). I expect that as usual I will complete the content on my Thief first, knowing that when I’m completed it on my Thief I should be able to slam my face on the keyboard with every other class (yes, including even my Necromancer and still make it through.

Black Frog.9274:

It’s amazing how many people in this thread don’t comment in thief forum regularly, yet have much to say here. You can tell who plays thief regularly and who doesn’t.

I stopped commenting on this forum long ago. Mostly because it was so heavily PvP and WvW oriented and I have zero interest in both. I’m back again (briefly at least) because yet again it seems like my favorite profession has gotten the shaft again in the name of PvP balance – not talking about the elite spec although not getting a 1200 range weapon is pretty much because of ANets overweening concern with their precious esports – talking about the recent specialization changes. Just about every other class (7 level 80s – can’t stand the Engi) I play got buffed pretty significantly and I can’t say the same for my thief.

But just so you understand that you really can kitten U M E incorrectly I checked the /age on my thief and got: 3,233 hours and 49 minutes over 1094 days, 6,400 hours over all characters over 1,094 days.

Never really believed that ANet had the stones to give us a 1200 range weapon due to their precious esports (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Dual-pistol-traits/5184190).

I’m not impressed by their choice. Yet. Given ANet’s track record my hope for this “elite” spec . . . low. Hopefully they’ve packed some pistol traits into the line as an alternative path for those who are likely to be unimpressed with yet another melee weapon with crappy damage and/or CC and/or conditions and/or high initiative costs, etc. ad nauseum (probability <10%).

Seriously, I’d rather they fixed what they’ve broken or left broken – repair the Acrobatics line, revamped D/D #3, give other trait lines than Trickery reasonable initiative regen boost options (so its not a “mandatory” line), give us back our freking condi cleanse for all conditions on stealth, make pistol #1 attack twice as fast, etc. etc.

Gotta be Mace.

/15chars

Today was not an auspicious start to the “sale.” Going to be waiting for them to actually discount something I want . . .

Anniversary celebrations like this should also be about showing your customers (that would be us players) that you appreciate the support they have given you over the years. They are not just an excuse to take cash out of your customers wallets.

To the ANet defenders on this thread: Can’t you learn to expect more from them? Are your expectations this low for every company you deal with in your lives? Seriously, is it your contention that something like a limited-time mini with a fairly rare drop rate added to the drop tables for champion bags and world boss chests, or a higher drop rate consumable like Birthday Cupcakes added to the same, will just break their backs as a company?

Here it is in a nutshell: They used to BE better. They used to DO better.

Doing a self-merge since I started a separate thread about Smokescales that didn’t get merged into this one:

Smokescale (esp. Veterans) are a bit silly OP really. Unnecessarily so, actually, given that they would be reasonably dangerous with their abilities toned down so that they didn’t have defenses and attacks most players would kill for. Specific issues:

Smokefield: This is some kind of uber blind field that most players would KILL to have access to. It appears to lasts a good deal of time (10+ seconds). Allows the Smokeskale to evade (i.e. invulnerable) while within it no effort on their part – in other words no dodging with endurance no mesmer like very short term blur effect on one weapon attack. No this ability feels like a good 10+ seconds of invuln vs. EVERYTHING. It would be less egregious if you could at least hit it with AOEs. Kiting it out of the field works a little bit (esp. against the normals) but the Veterans delay leaving the invulnerability field (BELIEVE IT – I watched it happen – gotta love that improved AI . . . most of the time). Oh and the “good” news (for the Smokescale) – it seems to have pretty short cool down (seems about 30 seconds, but maybe more like 40 – 45?). Even more good news (again, for the Smokescale) – the kitten ed field seems to last after it has left the field and and you have left the field. In other words you lose several attacks after its out of the field and you are out of the field. Of course the Smokescale has no problem hitting you. If that’s not lag on my end . . .its just BS on your end ANet. Seriously, their “mistfield” is nothing more than a glorified blind field – if my thief with offhand pistol isn’t invulnerable to all hand to hand and all ranged attacks why are they? I’m trying to think of a single ability that a player has access to that would be the equivalent of what you’ve given to these trash mobs (feels like about 33% invulnerability up time). So, I’m suggest a few changes – 1) treat this ability like a pulsing blind field (hell make it twice per second if that will make you feel good ANet) that would make hand to hand combatants miss so long as the were in it but not make them immune to ranged or AOE attacks; and/or 2) leave the field as is but make them vulnerable to AOE while in the field; and/or SIGNIFICANTLY increase the cool down on Smokefield.

Assault: The Shiro Sword Three Burst attack is ok on the normals, except that it does not seem to be dodgeable – that is you get one miss and the Smokeskale is immediately teleporting to you and hitting again. If its a channeled attack maybe it can be dodged if you can dodge twice in quick succession? It is blockable but that doesn’t mean much usually when the chain is 5 or 6 (or 7?) attacks. Assault might be interruptable (?) – but the best/quickest to use interrupt I can think of is thief pistol offhand 4 and you have to be facing it while its teleporting around you. Usually the PCs are outnumbered so while Shiro’s Sword 3 Revenant attack can flit around uncontrollably to multiple targets often times the Smokeskale just focuses down one target. Two to three normal Smokescales will probably down many solo players and on Veterans . . . well that can get a bit messy. My Zerk+PVT trinket with celestial gems Guardian was taking pretty significant damage (4225 damage even with Focus 5 absorbing three of the attacks). Hate to see what it would be like on a real squishy (thief or ele). Hate even more to see what that would be like on from Elite. Not much fun being one-shot by level 80 non-champs.

So let me say this before the moronic “get gud” and “all you need is life steal” or the “just kite them out of the field” (see the above in case you missed it) type posts in response: Most of the HOT mobs haven’t been too horrendous – they are tough but defeatable solo. Normals in pairs or triples, some Veterans handled readily enough but many are real challenge and I don’t mind it. Even the Mordrem snipers are acceptable (grumble grumble #$@*&^! snipers) once you understand what’s going on with them. I expect that we will get better, the community will learn how to deal with them one after another . . . but I’m not seeing how that going to work with Smokescales.

I think each hit with Death Blossom causes bleeding now, so I was just suggesting doubling the number of hits, halving the bleed damage and reducing the number of targets (from 3 to a max 2 on any hit) to compensate. Not quite a carbon copy of the Unrelenting Assault since its single target focused, causes bleeds and likely will do less direct damage given the recent buff Unrelenting Assault received. Obviously I don’t agree that DB is fine for what it does now. It’s only real use for me is to bleed down Mordrem Husks but maybe its used in WvW or PvP?

So, currently this is Death Blossom:

Do an evasive attack over your opponent, striking nearby enemies three times. Each hit causes bleeding.

Damage (3x): 201 (0.6)
Bleeding (10s): 660 Damage
Number of Targets: 3
Evade: ¼s
Combo Finisher: Whirl
Range: 130

Having played a Revenant in the beta recently, and used the Shiro legend with a Sword main hand I thought Sword #3 “Unrelenting Assault” should be D/D #3 “Death Blossom” not the crappy attack above that we have now. In spite of its occasional problems Unrelenting Assault was a blast to use. I suggest scrapping much of the above existing version of Death Blossom and replace it with:

Death Blossom: Shadowstep to target and execute a serious of quick teleporting attacks around the target striking your target and one or more nearby target up to 6 times. Each hit causing bleeding.

Damage (6x): 201 (0.6)
Bleeding (10s): 330 Damage
Number of Targets: 1 (plus 1 from cleaving, each attack could cleave a secondary target in range)
Evade: 1/2s
Range: 600 (for shadow step); dagger cleave range would be 130

The attack would focus on one target but could cleave as a dagger attack. Replace the current clunky jump over the target animation with the shadow-step/blink animation of Unrelenting Assault. Cast time/attack time would be identical to Unrelenting Assault. Dropped the whirl finisher but if Unrelenting Assault is a finisher then this version of Death Blossom would be as well.

Name: Dagger Training
Rating: F-

Response: There are not enough minuses on this rating. Suggest adding three or four more. My suggestion is that rather than continue with the poison motif, simply change it +1 initiative per critical strike with dagger with a 5 second CD (should be about +10 initiative every minute). This will start to make up for the entirely questionable, unreasonable if not downright obnoxious decisions ANet made to buff initiative regen while simultaneously and over time stripping every reasonable initiative bonus trait out of the class making us overall worse off.

Name: Revealed Training
Rating: D+

Response: Won’t argue the rating for PvP. I use this in PvE and I don’t mind it at all as is. I play D/D and I tend to move in and out of stealth frequently so I find it has a better benefit up time than Panic Strike. If I PvP’d I would definitely take Panic Strike over it however. Also, might seem a bit counter-intuitive but I think this should be in the same position in the Shadow Arts line where Leaching Venoms are now and Leaching Venoms moved to this line at the same level.

Name: Signets of Power
Rating: C+

Response: I run this trait for a couple of reasons: 1) I run Strength runes and 2) I can’t stand the current iteration of Acrobatics so I use the runes plus food to get me most of what I can from that line without the dead weight of the Acrobatics line. I find myself using them (the Signets) more than previously, and the Might is a decent boost on a short CD (most of them at 24 seconds). However, what you are recommending here would be an overall improvement even with the loss of Might.

Name: Invigorating Precision
Rating:B-

Response: Won’t argue the rating for PvP but I think for PvE its an A to A+. I vacillate between this and No Quarter with this one winning most of the time since it is kind of “god mode” for most PvE content. Love to see another 5% on top though.

Name: Shadow’s Embrace
Rating: A-

Response: No, this used to be an “A” trait and now it is at most deserves a B. Your suggestion doesn’t go far enough. Look at this page carefully: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition#Skills_that_remove_conditions. Thieves have by far the worst trait-based condition removal options. Our utility and healing skill-based condition removal is also at the bottom or very near the bottom of the pile – both in terms of the number of options and their effectiveness. This is just simply not ok anymore. Revert the recent nerf should be the recommendation.

Name: Fleet Shadow
Rating:A+

Response: My experience is that this is a situational trait that gets swapped to when necessary. These kinds of traits don’t deserve such high ratings. The fact that it doesn’t suck doesn’t make it an A trait, again, a B trait at best.

Name: Vigorous Recovery
Rating: A-

Response: Deserves a B at most. This trait should give a flat +25% boost to endurance recovery – similar to the boosts that many other classes with much better health and armor and sustaining boons already have.

Name: Feline Grace
Rating: B-

Response: Agree 100% with the suggested change only thing better would be a complete reversion of the recent nerf.

Name: Assassin’s Reward
Rating: F

Response: kitten fine suggestion.

Name: Don’t Stop
Rating: A+

Response: As a grandmaster trait I would give this a C. Compare this to the Warrior trait Dogged March (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dogged_March) which is an Adept tier trait on the heavy armor class + highest health class in the game. Have we all become so beaten down by ANet that we cannot recognize when they are handing us second hand crap that other classes get without much fanfare? For this to be an A-class Grandmaster trait it should remove all movement impairing conditions on a 10, 12, max 15 second cool down.