Guild Wars 2

I WAS RIGHT, BABY! WOOO!

Randulf.7614:

There is no reason for a God who has left the World to disguise themselves as a mursaat. Remember, as far as we can tell, “lAzarus” is 4/5 Lazarus and 1/5 something from whatever artefact Caudecus substituted in the final pieces place. That is likely to rule out just a person in disguise if the final part of the last episode is any reliable guide.

I don’t think Lazarus is simply a disguise. Depending on what really happened during the resurrection ceremony, Lazarus might physically have the body of a mursaat and the mind of someone else.

Let’s go back to the bloodstone explosion … remember that it was believed all that released magic went into resurrecting Lazarus. Now we know that ceremony was a sham, so where did all that magic really go?

Whoever Lazarus is, he’s powerful. Powerful enough to burn dozens of White Mantle at once, and powerful enough to get inside the egg chamber even though it’s supposed to be incredibly secure for anyone other than the Player to get inside. At this point, I’m going to also suspect that the dragon minions in the egg chamber were in fact summoned by Lazarus so he could kill them and look like the good guy.

Going by this logic, I think its impossible for Lazarus to belong to any mundane race like humans, charr, asura, ect. None can absorb that much bloodstone magic and live, let alone properly harness it (just look at Caudecus).

… but what about a god?

If it’s not a mundane race, we’re left with gods, demigods, and other highly magical races like the Forgotton, Seers, and so on. I am almost certain that Lazarus’ true identity falls into this category.

Now, as for who Lazarus is exactly … I unfortunately don’t have a good guess.

But at least I have a bad guess: now I’ll admit the following is a stretch, but could one of the human gods absorb that much bloodstone magic and put it to use? What about a god of war , who would perhaps find use in an army of fanatical White Mantle? … and a god of fire, who can set ablaze entire armies of dissidents? We don’t know why the human gods left, but some suspect it had to do with the dragons (and some players believe the gods are even connected to the dragons in some way). Now that the dragons are being destroyed, they might want to come back. And perhaps they’d need a large amount of magical energy to manifest their physical form.

And of course … Kasmeer would definitely recognize one of her race’s deities with a shocked “No … it can’t be!”

Episode 5 is called Flashpoint and fire is a strong theme throughout the trailer. So it is possible (but not likely) that the fake Lazarus is connected to Balthazar in some way.

You guys are throwing out a lot of ideas based on speculation but you aren’t looking at the more practical issues like motive.

Scareltt doesn’t make sense because she’s definitely dead and she has no reason to be a villain anymore with Mordy dead. Neither would she have a reason for protecting Aurene. Plus, resurrecting her would kitten off a lot of players.

Queen Jenna does have a motive for wanting to control the White Mantle AND for protecting Aurene, but she doesn’t have a reason to attack the player/Dragon’s Watch, as has been hinted in the trailer. The trailer depicted Lazarus as a villain that “kills to get what they want” and that isn’t Jenna at all. Moreover, killing masses of White Mantle with magical fire isn’t her style.

A dragon champion of Kralkatorik would most definitely want to kill Aurene, not protect her. None of the dragons would be interested in controlling the White Mantle. Manipultion and mind games isn’t Kralk’s style. And Kasmeer wouldn’t recognize such a villain.

Gleam (Glint’s first surviving egg) would definitely benefit from absorbing the magic of the bloodstone, and would have a reason to protect Aurene … if she’s not evil. If she is, Aurene would be competition and first on Gleam’s dinner plate. In either case, a dragon champion has no reason to pose as Mursaat or need the support of the White Mantle, so it doesn’t fit.

I’ve seen some posts on reddit suggesting Palawa Joko, but he doesn’t fit, thematically speaking. He’s a lich who wants hordes of undead, not a White Mantle army. Nor would he have any interest in Aurene, or have the power of fire magic. And what would he do with all that bloodstone magic?

A minor character like Bauer has all the motives, but doesn’t fit simply because Kasmeer wouldn’t recognize him. Nor do I think it’s Anet’s M.O. to have such a inconsequential character (that doesn’t even have an in-game character model) to secretly be revealed as a major villain. This same logic applies to Tranton and many other obscure characters. Whoever Lazarus really is, I think it’s highly likely that we know the character already, if not from GW2, then from GW1.

Now if it isn’t any of those choices, then who is it? To be honest, I don’t know, but I can narrow down our choices in the next post.

I was so disappointed. Here I thought I was going to kill a big elder dragon when instead I killed some humanoid plant thing not much bigger than a norn.

I would really love to craft a set of ascended Zealot gear. Does anyone know if the merchants you unlock through Supply Line Management offer recipes for Keeper’s gear and weapons?

All I’ve gotten from them so far is exotic recipes.

Wow … are those images for real?

Well, thanks for letting me avoid a disappointing purchase!

Staff is fun for the first few minutes but I find the weapon very underwhelming. Its not very powerful, it doesn’t offer stealth, and it gets outclassed by sword or dagger in most cases.

The dodges are fun, and the utility skills are okay-ish.

I dunno, I find the whole spec to be really disappointing.

See the attached picture.

Do you see that little green treasure chest hovering above my minimap on the right-hand side? It’s permanently stuck on my screen, because every time I try to open it, my game immediately crashes.

I’ve tried about five or so times, under various circumstances (changing maps, entering PvP, restarting the computer, and so on) and there’s nothing I can do to prevent the game from crashing when I open it.

EDIT: I received that chest on the map Verdant Brink, when the map changed from day to night. This happened five minutes after completing the questline involving the Hylek trying to convert the Itzel to their religion (it ended with a wyvern fight) . I otherwise cannot give any extra information about the chest, because it doesn’t give me a name when I hover my mouse over it

Any help from Arena-Net would be greatly appreciated.

Agemnon.4608:

Thief feels like an afterthought.

That has been my feeling regarding the daredevil since its unveiling.

I mean, its “unique class mechanic” is an extra dodge, and instead of GM traits, you get to change what kind of dodge you have (when really that should be on a toggle key just like revenant legend switch)

Not to mention the Acrobatics trait line was mysteriously gutted and horribly nerfed with the trait change patch … and now it’s clear that was done to make room for the Daredevil trait line which also focuses on dodging ….

The DD has felt half-baked since the beginning.

OMG YES

YESSSSSSS

The new animation looks great!!!! I’m so glad! Now I can play the DD and feel like a total BAMF

Okay, call me crazy, but why do you need achievement points so badly that you’re considering putting down 30 bucks on a 10 year old MMO that will need to be played for hours upon hours?

I haven’t tested much yet but I wanted to make a quick post about the animations since that doesn’t take long. Some of the animations have improved and some are still absolutely terrible.

First off, Daredevils still run around carrying the staff like a big hammer and it looks absolutely silly. If only there were some snazzy staff idle and run animations coded into the game … oh wait, there is. The monkey king tonic. Please give us these animations, they look fantastic and it’d be less work than making new ones. Please, Karl … I’m begging you, here.

Staff Bash and Staff Strike (love the added spin) are fine, but the Punishing Strikes animation that was directly ripped from the revenant (AKA the third auto-attack chain where the staff hovers in the air and spins around like a helicopter rotor) needs to go. It needs to go and be replaced with something that actually resembles martial arts. Perhaps something like a series of rapid forward thrusts. I cannot take the daredevil seriously when its animations make it look like a glorified baton twirler.

Hook Strike moves way too slow. It looks like my character is in slow motion.

Weakening Charge looks really bad. The character’s feet glide across the ground at the beginning of the animation. The footwork isn’t synced up with the movement. The daredevil looks more like an ice skater than a staff fighter.

Dust Strike and Debilitating Arc are fine.

Vault still looks awkward as heck. This animation should be altered so that the character actually uses the staff to vault up in the air. Since, you know … that’s what is implied by the name “Vault”.

Not gonna comment on the dodge animations since they’re just placeholders, but I will say the one for Impaling Locust was so bad it made me laugh. Also, why are our dodge mechanics still grandmaster traits? Why can’t we have real grandmaster traits and have our new class mechanic accessible through the main UI like the revenant has for switching legends?

EazyPanda.6419:

Dare Devil’s third dodge is basically something they removed, and tried to reintroduce to thieves. Before the June patch, a third dodge bar is called Feline’s Grace. Now, they are taking a single trait and making it a profession mechanic.

At least other classes have new things to play with. We got a recycled trait as a mechanic.

Yes its quite obvious at this point that Acrobatics traits got butchered so that Dare Devil traits would be appealing in comparison, and that’s just sad.

Also, don’t forget the daredevil received zero new animations, and all the staff animation are recycled from other weapons like hammer, making the staff look clunky, slow, and awkward. We were all expecting a martial artist, and instead we got Star Wars Kid. kitten they couldn’t even give us the Monkey King idle and run animations! No, our daredevil holds the staff like a big hammer.

Oh, and the DareDevil got no grandmaster traits, because they put the dodges there instead of real traits (when they could have put the dodge switching on the F keys or give us a button like the revenant legend switch)

As a whole the spec is just awful, and it plays awful, too. The dodges are clunky and awkward, two of them remove you from stealth which is just frustrating, and the staff is really weak to boot. You’re better off taking the dare devil traits but NOT using staff.

The Dragon Hunter might still be the worst Elite spec in terms of gameplay, but Dare Devil was definitely the laziest effort.

20% damage is a start but the conditions are still mediocre, and there’s still no survivibility, and there’s still no way to hit multiple targets …. this change is missing the point of why players don’t like p/p.

Hexalot.8194:

Thief gets short straw ?

Dragon hunters would beg to disagree…

Dragon hunters actually received new animations and spell effects, so that already puts them on a step above thieves.

Icebow could use a nerf, but 50% DPS AND reduction of targets from 5-3 is too much of a nerf.

Sylent.3165:

Scenario 1 – raids are truly difficult, a dedicated healer is needed. That would be a druid. So if that’s the case every one will need a druid, raids will be sitting in lfg needing a druid. Thus creating the issue anet stated this game would never have of needing a dedicated healer or tank to do things thus no queues.

Scenario 2 – druid isn’t needed. A full dps team or team with minimal valkyrie or knights armor can still beat the raids making druid 100% useless and simply not needed.

Is there a scenario 3 I’m missing? I just see this game slowly trying to turn into an mmo that’s been dying over the years and using the old mechanics of old mmos. I feel like guild wars 2 doesn’t want to be guild wars 2 anymore.

Scenario 3: A party with a druid means other party members need to worry less about dying. The rest of the party switches out survibility utility skills for offensive utility skills. People get downed less while proving more DPS which means they contribute more, and the raid is more manageable. Without the druid, the party adapts by changing their skillset and/or traits for more survibility.

Ergo: Raids are difficult. A druid is helpful, but isn’t absolutely required.

Has anyone from Anet ever explained to why the DD is designed to have its profession mechanic taking up all the grandmaster slots of its traitline?

Why can’t we get real, actual grandmaster traits instead, and add an ability to switch between the three different dodges with F3?

This really confuses the heck out of me.

I can only hope that Anet actually listened to the multitude of complaints on Daredevil animations and gave us some spiffy martial arts-inspired animations to make the class feel like its worth playing.

If the next beta weekend rolls around and we still have the awful spinny autoattack ripped straight from the Revenant, I will have a fit.

I am really glad there’s a lot of people in this thread asking for better (more martial arts-based) animations, because that was the one thing that really, really bugged me about the daredevil.

I hope Anet listens. The auto-attack is just awful.

Every time I try running FT juggernaut builds in PvP I always die in a few seconds and without doing much damage as I either get kited to death by ranged weapons or die to so much condi that I can’t cleanse it fast enough. How do you guys keep from getting manhandled when whipping out the FT?

Oh, and Karl: please, for the love of all things martial arts, if you won’t give us new staff animations, then at least give us the Monkey King idle and running animations. You already have those coded into the game and they look great!

Kocoff.7582:

the Ricochet effect is mostly why Thieves picked the trait, not the other way around.

I would like to emphasize this for its truth. Karl seems to believe that most players preferred playing without riccochet, when that was not the case at all.

Now that I think about it, in all the time spent playing this game, I haven’t seen or heard anyone ever say that they preferred p/p without riccochet.

Karl McLain.5604:

Being that a player might want to receive increased damage from pistols, but not necessarily inherit the RNG bounce attacks from the secondary trait, this secondary trait was cut.

It was cut without any compensation for the loss in DPS and the reduction in total hits to proc things like signet of malice. Which many players feel was entirely unwarranted.

Why not just remove the RNG factor, then? Why not just make riccochet baseline for Unload, and make every other shot bounce? Or make every shot bounce but have reduced damage? There’s a multitude of ways to go about solving the RNG “issue” without completely removing ricchochet and replacing it with absolutely nothing.

And yes, I put “issue” in quotations as I’ve never seen people talk about it being an issue before. There’s a hundred other RNG-based abilities in the game, so why does this one get flak?

As long as the animations of all the staff skills are replaced with actual martial arts animations (I suggest wushu or bojitsu), then at least the daredevil will FEEL fun to play. Just look at pistol/pistol (before the removal of riccochet and the other nerfs killed it) … even though it wasn’t a powerful build, many people (including me) loved playing p/p simply for the feel of being BA gunslinger.

Staff animations and the “feel” of the class should be paramount. Balance adjustments can always be made later, but we all know there won’t be new animations added in after the game launches.

Please, please, please remove the whirly staff spin auto-attack that has no place on a martial arts-based character. Karl, I don’t think there’s a single person here who wants a short projectile reflect on the auto-attack, which is what you just added. They want an auto-attack that actually feels like a martial art.

Nike.2631:

There is no MMO universe where making non-human races look and act more human is a good thing. We get FAR too many watered down pseudo-humans as it is.

Agreed, though this goes more for video games in general, not MMOs. I love how bestial and hulking the charr are, it really sets them apart from other races. And I totally respect that Anet was willing to put in the effort of giving them animal legs and paws with unique animations and armor, instead of lazily pasting on human legs and feet (once again, looking at you, Elder Scrolls …)

The only things I don’t like about the charr design are the 2 pairs of ears AND horns which makes their head really cluttered and clunky, and the tail clipping on many armors. Come on … it’s not hard to include a little slit in the back of the coat/pants for the tail to stick out of.

That and most of the charr face models look absolutely ugly. And not even in the good way. Ugh.

Ice.5162:

I always was confused by the hunch-back phenomenon. It’s as if all the art designers in all these games have this bias that hunch = barbaric and beastly. Which I find laughable, just put them upstraight like any two-legged vertebraetes known to man and every imaginable universe and hunch them down when holding weapons / combat stance.

I like the Charr’s hunched posture. It makes them feel more like a distinct species and less like weird-looking humans with surgically-grafted animal heads, which is what a LOT of other video games do for their beast races (cough, Elder Scrolls, cough).

As for standing upright “like any two-legged vertebrates”, now you’re just making ignorant and false claims. Go look at any two-legged dinosaur, bird, or non-human primate and tell me if they walk standing straight up like humans do. Or better yet, just take a look at this comparison of primate skeletons: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Ape_skeletons.png

The human is the ONLY one out of the five with a clear “S” shaped spine that points directly up to the sky, because that shape is designed for an upright posture. The rest of the primate spines are all bow-shaped and angled forward, because those spines are designed for walking in a hunched-over posture.

A completely upright, two-legged posture is an anomaly in the animal world. We as humans are the exception to the rule with our upright, S-curve spines.

Experienced a game crash near the end of the event in Diessa, and now I have nothing to show for the last 30 minutes of my life. Wonderful.

So let me get this straight: OP thinks it’s harder to sell party slots to allow lazy people to finish a dungeon without actually doing any work?

I fail to see a problem with this.

EDIT: especially since some dungeon path sellers run with PUGs and kick ’em before finishing the dungeon so they can sell the spot to other players.

I am seriously confused as to why this event doesn’t immediately give you a bloom for every wave you defeat. I don’t want to jump on the QQ bandwagon, but this entire event seems very poorly designed.

Anyone else feel that Acrobatics was neutered to accomidate for the Daredevil trait line?

Some people have suspected that long before the daredevil was even released but it seems rather apparent now.

Seabreeze.8437:

I spent some time over the weekend sketching up some storyboard concepts of what I feel skills 2, 3, 4, and 5 should look like, along with some notes about them. To anyone interested, please feel free to take a look at them and let me know what you think.

The amount of work you put into those sketches is really impressive. It’s clear you have a good sense of form and posture, and you put forth some very compelling animation suggestions. I wish there was a way to make A-net aware of it.

I feel like the reason acrobatics was made so terrible in the trait change patch was to make way for the daredevil traitline.

What I expected: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbWvOk79pg0
What I actually got: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU

Seriously, it seems like whoever animated the staff for the thief had no idea how people fight with a staff IRL. What we have is incredibly awkward, stiff, uncoordinated, and silly. I still can’t get over the twirly spin auto-attack that seems like something out of a bad Power Rangers rip-off.

beastie.4536:

When they said theif is getting staff for HOT I had this in my mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H65M8bi5lI8

And now we’re getting this pathetic hand spin combo /flip table

I was expecting something along those lines, too … you know, a fighting style based off actual, real life bojitsu or similar martial arts. That seems like a pretty reasonable expectation. But instead we got a bunch of clunky animations and this flowery spinny autoattack that looks like it’s out of a bad anime.

Now now, we can’t have viable, powerful, or useful p/p builds, because that “would hurt the purity of pistols”

Staff was not the agile, acrobatic weapon I thought it would be.

Someone please get rid of that whirly staff spin auto attack, please. I cannot stress enough how ugly and cumbersome that thing is. I can’t even take the weapon seriously.

It looks like whoever animated the staff attacks has NO idea how a staff is used IRL.

Tim.6450:

That’s why they are called daredevils. Not for dodging the moment they see the circle but staying in it until the last moment.

Riiiiight, and the engineer is called a forge because they forge weapons and armor … the reverent is called a herald because they shout at people on street corners.

Give me a break. It was called a daredevil because it’s a high risk, high reward playstyle, not because the game developers intentionally wanted players to be at the mercy of the game engine’s evade recognition system.

Rauderi.8706:

B-But a timed dodge is skillful play. >_>

What then? Should players train themselves to always dodge at the last possible moment just to make sure the game actually recognizes it as an evade? Dodging is a reflex action. You don’t have time to think about whether or not the game will count it as an evade.

Rauderi.8706:

Conversely, should a player be rewarded for wasting a dodge?

You must have one or the other, and wasting a dodge comes with its own price of using up the endurance you had stored, leaving you without a dodge for when a real attack comes. I’d rather have a game mechanic that rewards players for all dodges, rather than a mechanic punishes players who play smart and anticipate their opponents.

A lot of thief players feel that the acrobatics trait line is absolutely terrible since the trait changes, and that partially that has to do with Feline Grace, which now only grants vigor after performing a successful evade.

I was also incredibly disappointed to find more “on successful evade” traits revealed for the Daredevil. Here is why:

Simply put, there is a multitude of situations where you can dodge an attack but the game doesn’t register it as a successful evade. Dodge out of an AoE that’s just going down? You don’t get rewarded. Dodge early because you anticipated your opponent’s moves, rather than reacting to the attack? You don’t get rewarded. Dodge early because your opponent has telegraphed an attack with a large windup time? You don’t get rewarded.

The design as it currently holds, forces you to be at the mercy of the game engine for determining what’s an evade and what’s not … and if you play smart, by anticipating your opponent’s moves or reacting to their telegraphed attacks before it hits, you are effectively punished by the game engine. This is unfair.

I cannot stress enough how utterly terrible of a design this is. No gameplay mechanic in the game should ever punish players for skillful play! I understand Anet wants to make evading attacks more skill-based rather than reward every dodge equally, but in some ways this design actually accomplishes the opposite effect by not rewarding the players who play well.

I strongly urge Anet to consider reworking these traits. No gamer should be punished for skillful play.

Screw outfits. I want more armor sets. I like mixing different armor sets to produce something unique and interesting.

Nothing is more boring than seeing tons of people running around wearing the exact same outfit and looking nearly identical to each other.

Girbilcannon.8259:

It saddens me to say, but at least blizzard responds when something like this happens.

Are you kidding? In StarCraft 2, 6 months ago Blizzard abruptly nerfed the hell out of the Swarm Host, changing it from a core unit that was essential in many, many games, to such a terrible option that it is never, ever made anymore, especially not in professional play. And the playerbase erupted with masses of complaints that lasted for months. Heck, people are still complaining about it 6 months later, and there’s still no change.

And don’t even get me started on the slew of fundamental problems with the game that have existed since SC2’s beta (of which I was a part of, so I would know). All things considered Anet is far better at addressing player concerns than Blizzard could ever hope to be.

But with that being said, until Anet fixes p/p on thief, I will continue to not play thief, because I don’t like being forced to abandon my old build and switch to a different playstyle simply because “it hurt the purity of pistols”. And I will continue to voice my complaints over them unfairly nerfing an already underwhelming weapon set.

jweez.7214:

the writers failed with scarlet

I don’t understand why some people think this. I loved Scarlet. Sure, she was a bit similar to Batman’s Joker but she was different enough to be compelling and her characterization and voice acting were top-notch.

Scarlet’s story isn’t over yet, I’m sure of it. There’s a number of reasons why, but Taimi’s character is one of them.

You’ll see someday … Tyria will need Scarlet. And Taimi’s character will be there to finish the work she originally started on: killing mordremoth.

thrag.9740:

I think the penalty for failure is the failure it self. The group has to run back, or res you, etc. I don’t think anyone is ever thinking “oh no I am going to have to go fix my armor”.

Yeah exactly. There’s no real consequence to having your armor damaged, and repair is merely a minor inconvenience at best.

After Anet removed the cost to repair items it made me wonder why it was even kept in the game. It’s absolutely silly and pointless to even have that mechanic exist now.

My main gripes about the dragonhunter are:

Doesn’t feel particularly exciting or powerful.

The new virtue skills are really cool in concept but underwhelming in practice.

Doesn’t bring much to the table that rangers aren’t already doing.

The traps are pretty boring, minus the one that grants aegis. But even so, traps don’t feel worth using at all. If I want to switch to melee I feel like I’m far better off equipping purging flames, stand your ground, and other useful skills rather than switch to traps.

Longbow #5 cooldown is absolutely atrocious, WTF seriously.

The elite spec traits don’t feel particularly interesting or compelling. They’re mostly boring (with some exceptions like Big Game Hunter)

Having access to trap skills ONLY when using the spec that also unlocks longbows is counter-intuitive. One’s all about ranged support and the other is only useful on the front lines. This is really awkward, because they are two conflicting playstyles.

Really, what the Dragonhunter needs, is new long-range utility skills to compliment the longbow, not compete with it. Ergo, traps need to be cast at a distance. If they need rebalancing, that’s fine. Increase the windup time to compensate, or something similar. But if these skills were ranged, the Dragonhunter in general would feel like a much more solid option.

Ghotistyx.6942:

I don’t care about the nerfs to p/p, and therefore anyone who used to enjoy the build and is upset that it’s been ruined need to grow up and quit whining because their opinion is WRONG and they shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy p/p builds in the first place.

This is seriously what you are sounding like in your last post.

blitzkrieg.2451:

Translation: “I want brainless gameplay… I don’t want to actually THINK of skills I need to dodge, I just want to dodge! Anet what are you THINKING?”

Like, I’m all for rewarding more than 4s of vigor for successfully dodging an attack (ranger only gets 5s of vigor on successfully dodging btw , and it’s in a horrible trait line) , but this ….

Smh

No, it’s more like … there’s an endless amount of situations where you can dodge an attack but it doesn’t count as a successful dodge. Dodge out of an AoE that’s just going down? You don’t get rewarded. Dodge early because you anticipated your opponent’s moves, rather than reacting to the attack? You don’t get rewarded. Dodge early because your opponent has telegraphed an attack with a large windup time? You don’t get rewarded.

This design really punishes thieves for actually playing smart. The design as it currently holds, forces you to be risky by always dodging at the last possible moment, just to make sure the game recognizes it as a successful dodge. If you play smart, by reading your opponents and how they telegraph their attacks, or by anticipating what they are about to do, and you dodge before the game recognizes it as a successful dodge (because the attack hasn’t begun yet), you are effectively punished because FG didn’t apply its vigor.

This is a terrible design.

Then, you add this on top of the other changes to FG (no instant endurance regen, only vigor, and not even a lot of it) and FG is just a terrible trait to take right now.

EDIT: Actually, most of the entire Acrobatics trait line is terrible now. Anet is effectively telling us to use stealth for survival or have fun dying a lot.

Now that is something you should be shaking your head at.

Gimmie skelks, raptors, and gryphons and I’ll be very happy.

Your average ogre can tame all of those … but not Tyria’s finest rangers? What gives?

Has anyone else switched classes due to the changes to the thief?

While I love my daggers, back before the changes to the trait system I also had a ton of fun roaming PvE with p/p riccochet. I heavily relied on the Acrobatics trait line to stay alive, because p/p lacks stealth and shadowstep weapon skills. I also relied on Signet of Malice when things got dicey, because riccochet + unload procs the skill a ton, and was a great healing option for my build.

But none of that is possible anymore. None of it.

Riccochet is gone. If I go p/p, I can’t tag multiple enemies and lose out on a lot of DPS. I really don’t like that I’m forced to choose shortbow in nearly all situations except champs and world bosses in PvE, especially when sb does so little damage. And don’t get me started on PvP. Shortbow is so much more useful that p/p is laughable in comparison.

Likewise, I used to love the Acrobatics trait line. But now Acrobatics is terrible (and the tiny buff to FG doesn’t make up for everything else that’s wrong). The entire trait line is not worth taking anymore. But now I’m way more vulnerable.

Signet of Malice is nowhere near as good without riccochet, so I heal much less, and this combined with the terrible Acrobatics trait line, means I die way more easily. So not only do I die a lot more often, since I’m forced into shortbow for ranged encounters, I can’t kill as fast either. It’s terrible.

So yeah, Arena-net pretty much killed my thief. I haven’t touched her since the changes to traits. I had been clinging to the hope that they’d fix the thief and bring back build diversity with the next balance update, but they haven’t. So I’ve stopped playing her. This really saddens me, because I loved my old build for her, but it’s literally impossible to play her the way I used to.

Who thinks it’s a good idea to make under-used builds even worse, and by doing that, pressure all players to use the same exact playstyles? Arena-net has killed build diversity with the thief, and that’s a terrible thing to do, especially since the thief has such a narrowly-defined role to begin with.

I mean, I understand if the devs think riccochet was “too much RNG” (which is a BS argument considering all the other RNG-based attacks in the game) but there’s simple ways to change riccochet to have less RNG. Ways that don’t involve cutting it from the game completely with no fair compensation for it.

I’ve been playing more with my guardian, engineer, and even ranger lately. And while I’ve been having fun with those classes, I still miss my thief. She was my most-played character, but now the only thing I use her for now is ascended item crafting. That depresses me. But there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s literally not possible to replicate the old build I had for her, before the trait changes.

The thief I used to play as … Arena-net killed her.