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I don't understand

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Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

Essentially I want to learn what the build is, since it’s so common and cheese, their weapon/utility skills and general rotation.

He tried to look polite but he is essentially another whiner, next one.

Not to mention a warrior who has trouble killing thieves. I’ve been S/d for four years. Competent warriors are always a tough fight, and often don’t go my way.

How do you get to 80 without getting bored?

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Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

If you are bored you don’t have enough aggro.

Granted there are spots where getting enough aggro is difficult. You should avoid those spots. Even boring PvE trash mobs become interesting if you can get three or more on you. I suggest soloing group events.

Really Devs, One against 20 in the story mode

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Basharic.1654

I am really bad at fighting. I am a scaredycat and feel overwhelmed really fast during fights. That’s why I only play PvE.

Today I was lucky and finally found someone who helped me with S2 Epidsode 8, the mystery cave. But it took me awhile to find someone. I was so thankful for the assistance, that I gave that person 1 gold. I wish I could’ve done it without help, but for me it’s simply not possible. I am not that good. And like I said, I get scared really easily. That dragon was so scary, holy moly! xD

I understand your feelings. Go do pvp or WvW everyday for two weeks. You’ll never feel that way about PvE again. I’m not some elite player, but once you have fought other players you won’t care about dying at all becaue you will die so much. And you’ll start to notice PvE mobs move like molasses compared to human controlled toons.

I mostly WvW these days with occasional forays into PvE, but back when I PvE’d a lot if I started to feel like the mobs were getting tougher, I’d go fight some real people to sharpen my skills and timings.

My philosophy for PvE is: “If you are bored you don’t have enough aggro.”

Major Concern- Mounts and "motion sickness"

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Basharic.1654

Reporting on Charr riding raptor. No motion sickness. My FoV slider is at 75 percent Rotation speed zeroed out, Vertical far zeroed out. Collion sensitivity 10 percent. No camera shake. Zoom all the way out for riding. Usually only a tick or two zoomed in for fighting. Should also mention I have a widescreen monitor.

Really Devs, One against 20 in the story mode

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Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

I can’t even fathom why you would be struggling. I’ve been through the instance twice on thief and not struggled once. I LET the boss land the big charged attack and it took 90 percent of a full health ball. The thing is, to get hit with that move you’d have to be asleep. I walked out of it every time before that.

My guess is you you are a stand and plant player. Don’t be a stand and plant player.

Mount size scaling and race

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Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

As I said in the other thread this needs addressing. My max height Asura had a raptor bigger than the mount of a Norn player four times her size. Ideally min max settings for each race and/or a mount size slider in the appearance pane.

Mounts: More Dye Channels?

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Basharic.1654

Yes please Raptors need an undercoating!

Major Concern- Mounts and "motion sickness"

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Basharic.1654

ok this is new. virtual motion sickness is an thing? not trying to be mean here but i’m genuinely surprised here.

Yes it’s a thing. For multiple reasons. One is Field of Vision settings in games. I’d have to look up the exact numbers, but healthy humans have something like 180 degrees of motion detection. And ~100 degrees of clear vision. For some unknown reason only some folk’s brains have difficulty processing games the narrower the FoV gets. First person shooters especially back in the day were the worst as thier FoV could be as low kitten-60 degrees. Because of the game, your eyes are telling you that you are moving, but they are giving conflicting information because your peripheral vision says you aren’t; not to mention your body isn’t moving. Some peoples brains can’t process this information and it induces naseua, eye strain, dizziness, and/or headaches.

Even if FoV is good, a lot of squishy camera movement or jiggly terrain can induce the same symptoms, first person camera views in any media can trigger it, as can environments were foreground movement is very different from background.

By way of example, all those “found footage” type movies and TV shows are literally impossible for me to watch, my symptoms are tired eyes and nasuea. Super Adventure Box in GW2 is right out for me in this game, because the environment bops around on its own seperate from whatever the characters or camera happen to be doing. I used to get easily car sick. That mostly went away once I started driving, but absolutely cannot read anything in the car for more than a minute or two.

My PoF Feedback, so far

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Basharic.1654

I have my doubts about the opening fight sequences as well. My demo character was decked out, in a way my regular characters aren’t and probably never will be. I can’t imagine doing that fight on any of my level 80 characters as they stand now.

If you mean that opening fight to be a discriminating gateway, you’ve succeeded. There’s no point in buying the expansion when I know I could never get through that gate and on to the rest of the content.

So, in that regard, the Demo was very helpful in helping me make up my mind.

I’m very confused by this statement. Exotics are baseline gear for level 80s. As in by the time you hit 80 you should have a decent set of gear that crafting can easily top off to level 80 exotics, or enough gold to simply buy level 80 exotics off the trading post. Neither the gear nor the runes or sigils are terribly expensive even for a fresh 80.

Ascended is nice and all but isn’t really necessary to do anything in this game, other than higher level fractals. I found the opening instance fights to be pretty standard fare.

Parrish if you really are struggling with the game that much, feel free to message/mail me in game I’ll glady lend you any help I can. I’m fairly casual these days, playing mostly on the weekends.

My PoF Feedback, so far

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Basharic.1654

Love: The Hydra. Having the heads flop around bleeding out was inspired. I smile every time I kill one. Only possible improvemnt I can think of their is that the heads grow a new body instead of eventually dying. But it’s a quibble.

Hate: Mount size for the bigger races needs tuning. Not a single Charr or Norn on a raptor that I saw looked proportional.

Mob difficulty: Veterans, outside of the Forged Colonnade (or was it Cannonade) seemed adequately dangerous. Trash mobs are still trash mobs. The forged mob I just mentioned was far to slow and clumsy to be any threat to my thief. That being said the only times I’ve downed were on the angry quaggan champ and on purpose in the quicksand.

Charr Mount Size

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Had another thought. If Anet has the capability to do it, give us a mount size slider in our appearance pane. Then you could set the upper and lower limits based on race. And let the players decide if they want to look like an action figure on a Great Dane or like this:

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Major Concern- Mounts and "motion sickness"

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Basharic.1654

Reporting I’m usually the first to fall to motion sickness and I was fine. I generally go full zoom and have a wide FoV. I was playing an asura today so that may have also lessened any negative effects. I will need to test it on a Charr to see if it gets me. If I can stand to look at a Charr on a raptor no bigger than the character too is.

I will also say town was worse, to where I didn’t bounce around in the mount like I did out in the open.

Charr Mount Size

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Basharic.1654

Mount size is based on the height of the character, not race.

If that is the case they need to adjust their parameters to account for race too. A short Norn or Charr is a tall human or Sylvari. While Asura are in a whole ’nother category. I made my Beta Asura max height and her raptor was bigger than the one carrying a male norn four times her size. It looked ridiculous. Every Charr on I saw on a raptor looked equally as bad.

I pretty much like everything else about the raptor mounts, I know some folks have issue with how squishy the controls feel, but you are controlling a large animal with it’s own brain. It took some getting used to but I’m down with it. I even lol every time the Raptor skids to a stop.

Post a pic of your character only if your armor is mix-n-match

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Basharic.1654

I probably have a post in this thread from year ago, but here’s my squad’s current looks.
I like dark dyes so images are brightened a bit.

Thief is my main.

In order of appearance: Thief, Warrior, Ele, Necro look1, Necro look 2, Ranger, Revenant, Engi, Guard, Mes

Perverse Incentives: Outnumbered

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I think the point is being missed. Outnumbered is determined by MAP population. Not if you are alone or in a group. So by putting such a huge reward boost into Outnumbered, it encourages people to try to lower their own server’s TOTAL PLAYERS ON MAP so as to keep the bonus active. It’s meant to be a reward for fighting at a disadvantage, but it ends up being a reason for people to actively try to discourage others from playing on their map. Outnumbered gives the single biggest pip gain outside of extreme rank. Rank gain is auto, and it is more economical to encourage people to leave even if you drop to third place that to get more people in and try to win.

Except that it’s not. The tiny fraction of fools I have seen seriously try to do what what you are saying are being openly mocked and/or ignored on my server, and I’m supposedly on one of the most “toxic” servers in the game.

Also, keep moving those goal posts. You explicitly stated you wouldn’t want a friend to play with you because it might hurt your rewards. You aren’t much of a friend in my book.

Even if players jump maps to get the outnumbered bonus, there is no bad in encouraging people to go to the less populated maps. The truth of the matter is it’s a gift to roamers and borderland moms, as well as those stuck in que for more populated maps, and that’s a good thing. Because they don’t earn rewards as quickly as blobbers and ktrainers do.

Perverse Incentives: Outnumbered

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Basharic.1654

something that discourages blobbing and people are complaining? typical. this is a great mechanic and it should stay as is. rewards people for doing other things than running around in a group of 80 spamming 1. bravo anet.

It’s not about discouraging blobbing, which it barely does (blobbing is a function of the players ON a map, not the players distributed between maps). It encourages people to get other people to not play so their own rewards are better. Are you going to tell a friend to come play WvW with this in place? No, because you will decrease your rewards if they do. It encourages keeping the mode niche and servers empty so as to min-max time vs rewards.

You’d discourage a friend from playing with you to get a marginal increase in your rewards? The problem isn’t the game. The problem is your deeply skewed priorities. Choose to be a better person.

Move PIP System to EOTM

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I’m on Mag, fighting BG and SBI. The bags have been plentiful and I am grateful. Yesterday I had fun in the blob fights and in small scale battles. Biggest problem I’ve seen is the the same problem we always have vs BG: More often than not BG’s definition of “Solo” roaming involves five or more players. That and I’ve seen more AltF4’s in the last few days than I have in years of playing the game.

WvW is big joke now

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It’s the first day of a Feature Pack, of course it’s going to be crowded. Not sure what you expected.

Lower the Rank Requirement for Armor

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Basharic.1654

Shiren . . . .

That’s a lot of words to advertise you’re full of malarkey. Just play the game however you feel like, if there’s some shiny bit of digital kit you like do what it takes to get it. Stop basing your happiness on how easy other people may or may not have it. It’s a childish mindset irl or in video games.

I recently decided I wanted the Whisper’s back for an alt and spent two weeks mostly out of WvW and finally doing the open world PvE HoT offers. To me PvE is deadly dull after you’ve done it once. But I had to bang out masteries I hadn’t completed and currencies I hadn’t collected to get the thing I wanted. Before that I made myself an Incinerator, but I bought the precurosr because the PvE grind for that was too much FOR MY TASTE.

I have long-term plans to get the WvW legendary backpack, but odds are good the only toon I’ll ever display the skin on will be a little-played alt. I have zero plans for the armor rewards, because they are ugly, and I already have my main’s ascended and esthetic needs met. Once I’ve gotten the things I care about from the WvW rewards I may buy some pieces here and there and reskin them simply as a way to burn off currency and get the odd piece of gear for “free”.

Btw . . . Gold Major here. I didn’t WvW for the first year of the game, and I’ve taken significant reductions in play time over the years for real life stuff. I loathe EoTM and not only do I often roam, and flip camps, but I can and will borderland mom our home bl, even when it’s desert. Ktrain is what you do between fights.

Pistol/Pistol new meta?

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I’m a WvWer and finding P/P has it’s uses. Usually run S/D and Sb but it doesn’t always have the dps I need to chew through some of the tankier builds. It is especially hard on certain flavors of Guardian as it overwhelms their defenses. Usually pair it with Thieves guild for even more DPS, which is especially lulzy if Improvisation procs keep resetting Theives Guild. It’s rare but I’ve had 5-6 thieves out before in an1v1.

Doesn’t work against the best players who will out-mobilty you on pistols, but has a place. Can also be fun in blob fights for sniping low heath targets and downs.

Happy PvEr hunting!

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Them PvE guys you speak of can actually follow a tag, in PvE if you fail an event coz you didn’t do as you were told you have to wait hours for the next attempt. I personally think PvE players will rip the kitten out of WvW players in this context.

All they need to do is make the suggested builds, listen for an afternoon and BOOM they will make WvW mainers look like window lickers.

theres several factors to take into account for that to happen, if theres a server with lots of WvW players with massive aoe damage optimized builds the pve players will melt every time since they are used to fight static A.I’s, pve commanders and players dont have the sense of how to leech the damage creep optimization builds, against other players.
pve players are awfull at placing, they are awfull at dodging and noticing what needs to be dodge and cleansing, PVE has static dps spam for quite some time while in WvW the dps race happens in a very fast way and ina very aoe gameplay.

The game balance on this game is very very stupid and saying its crap is being positive, WvW players know how to leech from that better than pve players at the end.

Sorry about the english :\ and as recommendation PVE commanders SHOULD not tag on the initial/first days until they understand how to avoid getting farmed, WVW WILL NOT FOLLOW PVE TAGS.

Like sPvP there’s also a vast difference between effective reaction times in WvW vs PvE. That’s not something you can plan for. It’s earned through getting your butt handed to you over and over until your reaction time improves. Not to mention very few PvE mobs punish you for skills with a long wind-up. Versus players those usually get you blocked/interrupted/evaded and punished severely.

Pretty much every Bronze and lower I’ve run into in the last few days has looked like they were fighting in slow motion compared to me. Some clearly had potential to do better others would just stand there and get whaled on, while I looked like a smokescale going upside thier heads – and I’m not even on a sword rev.

As for the combat system, I’ve long said GW2 combat shines far brighter in the competitive modes than it does in PvE. The system is, quite frankly, overpowered for the PvE Anet offers. What that means is players only use a fraction of their potential to get through the world. How the professions work together matters A LOT more in the competitive modes.

The one piece of advice I’d give those new to WvW is to remember ABM: Always Be Moving. Because if you aren’t moving you are going to be dead soon.

Unplayable Solo

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Maps are already emptying. I sat at a Hero point for 3 hours waiting for people to come do it yesterday. The maps are already losing players. Maybe because some of us don’t have the time to invest like allot of the children posting here do.

Why would you passively sit anywhere for three hours in game?

Every time I’ve called out in map, “hey, I’m doing x” people have come. Every. Single. Time. I’m not that popular. I’m not on as much anymore, RL is busy these days, but if anyone needs advice or help and I’m not in WvW I’ll gladly lend a hand where I can.

Unplayable Solo

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Edmond Dantes your points are well considered but don’t address the issue: They forced all this upon the paying casual player who doesn’t want to deal with raid-style group and tactical requirements. As I said, they are free to change the gameplay, but when it’s this drastic they have to disclose the changes before taking money.

I’m sorry, you are right. Why on Earth would a game mode primarily focused on fighting have tactical requirements. How silly of me to think we should have anything but loot piñatas. We should all be able to have like it is in Orr now, put no thought into our build and face tank 6 mobs at a time.

For the record, I’ve soloed every loose champ in Orr except for the Megalodons and that one undead with the yanks and bubble. His name escapes me atm. I’ve also killed Melandru with no more than 3-4 people(before they changed the mechanics) and the wife and I once duoed Grenth priest to 20% before we messed up.

And has been stated multiple times, if you thought this new content was going to be the same difficulty before you bought the game you weren’t paying attention.

You also mention using stealth cheese in the new zone . . . I already stated my build above. I don’t run the stealth heal unless I need the cleanse and I only put shadow refuge on my bar when I was in a group for a hero point . . . So I could Rez teammates. I’m proud to say I’m running Withdraw for my heal and haven’t rolled off of anything to my death yet. I am evasion cheese thank you very much! :-D

(edited by Basharic.1654)

Unplayable Solo

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Basharic.1654

I didnt have to type /y and beg for help before HoT. The change in playability is obvious, and we were mislead by their lack of disclosure.

I love the people saying the old game didn’t train you for the “sudden” increase in difficulty in HoT. Remember Orr at launch? If was good brutal unforgiving fun, then the people who couldn’t be bothered to learn how to move fluidly, to read mobs and time their dodges, or even to chain their own skills got there. And that wonderfully difficult zone got turned into easy mode.

And here we are again. I’ve got insta gibbed and cc chained, I got wtf’d by the raptors. You know what I learned? Snipers die first and fast, don’t fight raptors standing still or in tight spaces, orange/red stuff on the ground is actually painful, your positioning matters A LOT. It’s the most fun I’ve had in PVE since I first got to Orr after launch. I usually have to go to PvP or WvW to be this entertained.

I usually run a sword/dagger shortbow thief with full glass gear, DA/Trickery/Acro traits. The mobs in HoT are great, interesting mechanics and they will kill you if you aren’t paying attention, that is how it should be. I’ve had to go pistol pistol to really drill some of the tougher mobs from range. I’ve had to switch utility’s in and out. Learn, adapt and overcome.

You literally have had, and still have, the entirety of the rest of the PVE game to go mindlessly through easy content and you can’t find the internal fortitude to try it for a week before you cry nerf?
I have other words for that but these forums are PG.

Unplayable Solo

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Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

Pop a commander tag and you’ll never have to tackle content alone.

And we have a new expac here, the mobs will surprise the unwary. I got insta gibbed multiple time as I learned how to deal with them.

Full glass thief, haven’t found anything I couldn’t tackle solo outside of the big meta events and the timed champs.

There are trash mobs out in the world that will wreck you if you give them a chance.

S/D thief just tarting out - advice?

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Theif is a lot of fun in PvE. As stated S/P is the easy mode melee weapon set. I prefer S/D.
The big thing is for open world PvE you want a decent cleave weapon set. Sword/x is gonna be the better at that than D/x. Shortbow should be your other weapon for its utility.

For builds just visit meta battle, but also consider going tankier than recommended while learning the class. After all you won’t learn much from being downed all the time.

Stealth is your friend in PvE, it ensure you never have to fight anything you don’t want to.

Has this been attempted? (WvW frontline)

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I frontline thief all the time. Lately been using 2/0/0/6/6.

Full zerker armor, and 2-3 soldier jewelry. I bounce between Withdraw and HiS for heal, then Shadow Step, IS and SoA. Dagger storm elite.

I have frontlined on just about any build there is, even full glass. It’s all about knowing your positioning and never going balls deep without an escape plan. Builds also depend greatly on what you are fighting. The build above is good for pug fighting, against a decent guild group I may go more tanky.

The toughest spots are the choke point/ wall fights. Because you don’t have many escape options.

How exactly do you play a theif in PVE?

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The big thing to remember playing thief is that unlike ezmode professions, your positioning and dodging actually matter for survival. The easiest melee weapon set for open world is S/D. But even it takes learning the timing well.

I also recommend for any profession you are learning there is no shame in going tankier until you learn the class. Can’t learn much if you are on your butt all the time.

I had similar issues when I first started playing thief (in beta). You just need practice.

PvP Confessions

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Basharic.1654

I’ve done the withdraw thing off the side of sky hammer, and one better. . . Successfully yoinked an enemy player into a hole, then brain-farted and pressed forward, following them down.

My latest though is a doozy. I made it all the way to wolf rank before I found out what Tranquility does in Storm. I’ve only just got back into PvP in the last few weeks and just hit wolf this week. I thought the points just randomly flipped and no one ever corrected me.

Wasn’t me, but I saw: I was capping A in Sky Hammer and the friendly fire hammer blasted on me, shattering all the holes, then watched an enemy player come charging around the corner and right into the hole. Never even fired a shot.

Cant tell if its me or my team?

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I think folks here are just missing the obvious, we’ve all had good and bad runs in solo que. For my part, after about the 4th or 5th loss I take a little break, about the duration of a que time. It almost always changes the tempo of win/loss for me.

Sometimes we just get into a cluster of players who don’t work for us, and the only choice is to break up that cluster. It may not even be the individual players are bad, but we just don’t gel vs the other team.

Final LS boss help needed

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Basharic.1654

On the bright side… if you want challenging content, go all in on thief… and prepare for a lesson on the meaning of stability… or the lack thereof…

Tip: Get a group as a thief (or any class for that matter) – it is much easier that way.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, with all due respect and love for the game – QA really needs some love at Anet, as the final boss fight was a rather frustrating experience – at least from a thief’s point of view.

Beat it on my thief first time through, no deaths. I knew nothing of the fight, but was expecting trouble so I went in wearing full pvt with zerker weapons, and a 2/0/0/6/6 build. stayed in shortbow for all but the burn phase. S/D for that. HiS for heal, SS, and the power and crit signets. Ran dagger storm for elite.

Lowest I got was about 30% when I messed up and bounded into an exploding plant with cooldowns ticking. Between Brahm’s bubbles, dagger storm stability, and shadowstep (it doesn’t break the casts so you can treat it like a pvp stomp) I had no trouble getting the fires lit. Got lucky and happened to kill a smotherer accidentally early, so I got that mechanic right away.

I did get knocked down a couple of times but never took unrecoverable damage, and I never used the Crit signet’s endurance return, though there were probably times I should have. Used the shortbow evade when I had no dodges left. Used bow step a time or two to correct my positioning and get to the fires more quickly.

Had to do three burn phases to beat it. Basically, stood on top of him, blew DS if it was off cooldown, and spammed flanking strike when I had no stab. Rode out knockdowns if I had no counters.

I want to play *my own* characters

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Basharic.1654

But if you don’t like this (which you’re of course entitled to) then just enter somebody else’s instances (they’re all on LFG plenty) and your skill bar won’t change at all.

I know you are trying to be helpful, but I don’t think it’s an adequate solution to say that if I want to play my toon in a single player instance, I need a party . . .

I want to play *my own* characters

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Basharic.1654

I love my toons ArenaNet. I log on to play my toons. I cannot politely express my absolute hatred for not getting to play my toon to achieve goals in game. I hated it when I pressed one button repeatedly to kill Zhaitan, I hated it on the Triple worms (to the point where I’ve only deliberately been into the encounter once), I hate it every time I run into it in game, I hate it now. I am always going to hate it.

Please stop replacing my favorite guy and his skills with things I don’t want. If you want to give people who like that aspect the option, put an object in game that lets players choose it.

I had a fair bit of time to contemplate this while waiting for Faolin to kill mobs for me. What with me being stuck in stealth.

And by the way, exposition doesn’t have to be boring. There are plenty of time honored ways to show rather than tell. Even when those fail, good writers know to keep the pain brief. You did neither.

I’m only through the Metrica content so far. I’ll soldier through the rest, but I sure hope it gets better.

Help Leveling

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Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

I was the same way when I started in Beta. I can tell you you’ve made a good choice starting with thief in this game. Like D/D ele, once you have it down playing the other classes will seem easy, because you’ll understand the most fundamental aspect of GW2 combat – don’t get hit.

I can tell you too that thief will get much less painful as you level up and fill out your traits and utilities. Some of the things we get later are so fundamental to the playstyle it feels like a different profession.

As far as weapon sets go, it just depends on what you like. S/P and D/D conditions are the easy-mode leveling sets. The first you just blind spam/pistol whip your way through packs of mobs, the latter you bleed spam your way through packs as described above. If you like kiting then P/x. P/P for direct damage, P/D for condition. These are both single target fighting. If you really like blowing up a single target quickly, D/D or D/P are the way to go with direct damage, lots of stealth, and backstabs. If you want to fight packs of mobs and weave in and out of them with lots of evasion, go my personal favorite, S/D. It’s got a nice cleave to let you deal with small packs, but it’s not so easy mode as S/P. It’s also excellent for chain stunning mobs with the sword stealth hit. Shortbow is your “I’ve gone and aggro’d too much. Let’s kite around and thin the herd a bit,” weapon. It’s also going to be your weapon of choice for getting tags in the big zerg events. It’s damage is only ok at best, but it’s utility is through the roof.

If you find you are dying a lot you might want to fall back on a strat I always use when learning professions. Go extremely tanky until you learn the ropes, then dial it down as you get better. The survival trait lines are Acrobatics and the stealth line. Acro will give you HP and more evasion, stealth will give you toughness , better heals and better stealth. I’d recommend using these lines and then getting DPS stats on your gear until you get into the 60s. This will lengthen your fights a little, but look at it as more practice time. By the 60s you should have enough tools and experience to try higher risk builds.

For utilities, leveling you probably want Shadowstep, Shadow Refuge, and the run speed signet. Shadowstep and Shortbow step are for when you need to bravely advance in a different direction. Refuge is for getting a breather in a fight, ninjaing resource nodes and skill points, or giving you enough stealth to bypass mobs you don’t feel like fighting. You have no Waypoints so run speed is obvious, it also has a single target blind you can use in a pinch.

For your heal go with Hide in the Shadows until you get better. The stealth can buy you breathing room the other heals can’t. When you get to elites, thieves guild is definitely the way to go in PVE. They boost your DPS, and can tank for you.

Hope this helps, if you have anymore questions feel free to hit me up in game.

S/P S/D in wvw blobs ?

in Thief

Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

I run S/D, Sb and frontline often in WvW. Your primary weapon is going to be Shortbow with S/x mostly being used to finish people or catch stragglers. You should be aware that versus strong and organized guild groups frontline as a thief gets a lot harder.

If you want to contribute to the group, run venom share with two venoms on utilities. Using Basilisk is up to you, it will be the more offensive of your options, but dagger storm is useful for staying alive, and for the cripple.

In a pug group your play is gonna mainly consists of Shortbow 1 and 4, using it’s evades to pad out your dodges. Use 5 to correct if you get out of position. With more organized teams that are boon sharing and have a good cleave, you can go melee and cleave with them, just remember you can’t stay in the pocket as well as the heavies. Keep in mind too you have a blast finisher with Sb 2 so hit those water fields when you can.

It is possible to go full Zerk doing this but you have to be on your game, because one mistake could mean death. It also depends greatly on the quality of your opponents. I’ve run from full tank spec gear on lazy nights, to full zerk. Just find your happy place and run with it.

I personally feel dagger storm is our best WvW Zerg fight elite, you have projectile reflects and stability while it’s up, and you can dodge out of it and still have stability. It’s also fun to do some early harassment before a big fight starts. Shadow step won’t break dagger storm, so you can hit it, poof into the enemy pile, smack em around some then poof out, leaving them crippled before the fight even starts.

If you don’t care much about group utility, I currently favor the 2/0/0/6/6 build. Go for boons and boon stripping, and high vigor uptime. With this build I usually run signets to compensate for the loss of DPS stats; and Shadowstep of course. For heals withdraw and HiS both work, I favor HiS because it basically gives me an aggro drop.

This is kind of a helter-skelter overview, so if you have questions, you can also hit me up in game.

To end finisher gimmicks

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Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

What I’m asking is for that type of skills to interrupt just finishers, not every skill, if that’s your concern. Finishing an enemy should require you to stay put in one place.
The way things are now, classes with shadowstep skills have an edge over others when finishing enemies in PvP/WvW.
All I’m asking for is balance.

Did you know that a full DPS-traited Mesmer with all phantasms up and doing everything he can provides as much damage as your meta axe-mace Warrior pushing 111111 on autoattack?

Yeah, it’s “balance” you’re asking for.

What’s that to do with anything?

I’d have termed it ‘counterplay’.

If that mechanic can completly negate the downed state (shadowstepping out of range), then it leaves no room for counterplay.

But it doesn’t completely negate the downed state, it just moves out of range of the downed player. The stomp can still be prevented & the downed player still has opportunity to get up.

If your opponent is out of your downed skill range a millisecond before you are stomped, how are you supposed to counter that?

Classes that can shadowstep stomp don’t have easy access to stability/invulnerability. If you want shadowstep stomps out, then remove stability stomps or invulnerability stomps. Which I think would be a stupid change if it were to come out.

Stability/Invulnerability stomps can be countered using a downed movement skill. Same goes for Stealth stomps.
However, shadowstep stomps leave no room for counterplay, like TheDaiBish said.

Ummm, Shadowstep stomps ARE in fact countered by a downed movement skill. The step brings you back where you started from, so if your target moves away you won’t be completing the stomp.

They are also marginally more difficult to pull off than standing over a target and popping invuln/stability, not to mention the thief is blowing a longish Cd that may be their only stun break and condition cleanse.

The sword 2 stomp was only a tacked-on reason for that nerf, the main reason was sword thieves had a spammable stun break/condition cleanse/reposition that had no possible counter due to being instant.

Consider to get the sword 2 stomp you had to have an enemy targeted out of range of IS start your stomp, hit IS, then port back. Because if you hit your IS target you broke the stomp. I would argue doing that in the middle of a fight is the definition of skillful play.

Time to adress bannering of dead NPC's?

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Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

while we didn’t get the keep we did fill our bags. I personally got a keg and an Exotic to go with the ascended ring I got earlier in the night.

Right answer.

And really… 27 times? LOL! Stop asking to nerf things like that. It’s hilarious and we all deserve to be allowed to pull off moments like that.

I think reviving the lord is a perfectly valid mechanic. It just needs to be toned down a smidge to keep the cheese down. While I suggested a basic three rezzes I’d be fine with any cap mechanic on it ArenaNet deems reasonable. I definitely would not want the mechanic to go away entirely.

Time to adress bannering of dead NPC's?

in WvW

Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

We’ve been discussing this a lot recently and we agree that something needs to change. When we have a change that we are ready to talk about we’ll make sure to make it known to everyone.

Something as simple as the lord comes back with 75/50/25 hp then immune to banner type rezzes would be fine.

Mag had a fight in DBs garry last night in which they had rezzers (mostly warriors) running in and out through the Watergate portal, they were simply cycling their cooldowns. With a little help from their girlfriends JQ stalling for them. The lord got rezzed 27 times . . . let me repeat . . . 27 times before they finally massed enough people to push us out.

Joke was on them though, while we didn’t get the keep we did fill our bags. I personally got a keg and an Exotic to go with the ascended ring I got earlier in the night.

How often do you log on nowadays?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

GW2 is my primary free-time activity. So every day.

I could see less if I pigeonholed myself into PvE. I don’t knock the PvE too much, every games PvE eventually goes stale. But WvW and sPvP are fun as hell. I’ve been light on the sPvP lately, but with the coming changes I see myself visiting it more.

Four 80’s and more coming, two world completes, 1 legendary and a bunch of Ascended. I stay engaged through always having a project, and the fun folks I’ve met in WvW.

No Holy Trinity = Boring?

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Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

Once again for the slow, there is nothing wrong with GW2’s combat system, for evidence see both forms of PvP. The problem is an excellent PvP combat system got tied to a PVE system that utterly fails to challenge the combat system in most instances.

It’s literally pitting a Bugati Veyron against an original VW beetle.

Since launch ArenaNet has done a much better job at pushing the PvE systems to better places, but it is still ultimately PVE. AKA easy mode. I don’t know that anyone can program PVE to be or stay challenging. But it has zero to do with the presence of a traditional trinity.

[Suggestion] Mounts?

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Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

Don’t need em, don’t want em. No.

I want to play for the "bad" side sometimes

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

Well it’s not much about races and non-humans. The other nonhumans did not assault and occupy human lands. And I don’t like charrs. They are way too much into a military parody, and they remind me of former Third Reich or former East block states from Cold war era, it was “almighty army first, people then”, too. I’m just allergic to this.
Just face it, charrs are war obsessed monsters who came and occupied human lands, murdering the original inhabitants on the way. And my character, who is a human, should support them and hear them boasting “killing these humans feels like the good old times” and “we killed thousands of them that was so good” etc., ? Just try some Ascalonian quests. It’s disgusting.

Where the heck did you get that characterization of Charr?

For one, the Charr only took back lands that originally belonged to them. Humans are in fact an alien and invasive species to Tyria. That is established lore.

Charr do not have a human outlook on life, because they aren’t human. They don’t glorify war so much as openly embrace it like an old friend. Because for them a battle is just a normal extension of their lives. For them life itself is a battle, and the only thing they can count on is their warband.

The references you refer to also get used a lot when Charr discuss the Flame Legion btw.

Feedback/Questions: The Megaserver System: Guilds and the Future

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Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

They have to merge the servers for population issues and imbalanced matchups on most tiers. There is really no way around it…

WvW is likely going to get some server alliances to even out the numbers. Any type of merger is going to be destructive to the WvW community. Not so bad on Kaenig, but it would be awful for any server in Silver league and get more terrible as it moves up the chain.

New Commander Help Pls

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Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

^ Not a Commander, but out of curiosity, what sort of supply numbers do you need for various WvW activities? (e.g. Assaulting a Tower, Assaulting a Keep, Assaulting Stonemist Castle)

It just depends. Baseline effectiveness against an undefended paper target:

Towers) 100 for two superior rams
Keeps/SM) 200 for two rams on each gate.

You can go cheaper, and do one ram per gate but it’s gonna take longer. I’m sure you can see already see the issue. What if you have to cata? What if you need to build an AC to kill enemy siege? What if the target is upgraded?

Ultimately it comes down to what defenses you face, and how fast you want to go. Our big K-train commander likes to penta-ram if we have the numbers to support it. He also usually won’t bother with something like a buffed up garrison or EBG keep unless he’s got at least 400 supply.

New Commander Help Pls

in WvW

Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

Posted this in the your first thread, basically the same stuff Bertrand said:

1&2) You can designate a siege dropper, but if you want to be prepared you should have all the siege types available. About the only thing you really needn’t worry about are regular ACs and Alpha golems. It you are K-training you should probably pack at least a hundred superior rams for a multi-hour run. Even if you never intend to do a large golem rush you should have a few omegas handy in case you need to deal with a well-sieged target. If you are low on anything buy more and/or ask for donations.

3) Mostly ignore the ragers – acknowledge a mistake, crack a joke and move on. Never, never, never waste time arguing, or dwelling on screw-ups. If it gets really abusive or obnoxious block them.

4) The only reason to claim things is if your guild is running buffs for WvW, the most common is a +5 supply buff that will allow players to carry 15 supply. There are also stat, MF, exp, etc. buffs.

5) Attacking a well defended and properly sieged keep will most likely require several omega golems, and a minimum of 200 supply (after the golems are built) in your group. Strats vary depending on the situation and location, but the basics consist of target siege first in order of danger to your attack; and block reinforcements both on foot and from the WP if there is one. Re-contesting WPs wins keep fights. Be sure to control and burn any enemies who can rez the lord.

6) Dual commanding is great so long as you both have enough people.

7) The rally issue will self correct as you get better and are better known. If your guild is going to be supporting, you’ll draw people. Significant numbers of pugs will bail on you on a wipe, unless you are very well-known and liked. You should also be very active on the voice coms. Directing, driving open field fights, letting people know where you are going etc. Doesn’t hurt to tell jokes and just generally be entertaining too.
Above all else stay positive, and don’t respond to the haters. If you make a bad call, just give out a “Sorry, bad call” and learn from the mistake. Discussion of your failures should be kept to private communications with more experienced commanders. To do so publicly will invite trolling, and will demotivate, and demoralize anyone following you.
Remember mistakes happen to everyone. One of my favorite guys to follow on my server still occasionally gets a jab (from me usually) about that time he threw catapults down to hit the north side of Klovan.

New WvW Commander

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

1&2) You can designate a siege dropper, but if you want to be prepared you should have all the siege types available. About the only thing you needn’t worry about are regular ACs and Alpha golems. It you are K-training you should probably pack around a hundred superior rams for a multi-hour run. Even if you never intend to do a large golem rush you should have a few omegas handy in case you need to deal with a well-sieged target. If you are low on anything buy more and/or ask for donations.

3) Mostly ignore the ragers – acknowledge a mistake, crack a joke and move on. Never, never, never waste time arguing, or dwelling on screw-ups. If it gets really abusive or obnoxious block them.

4) The only reason to claim things is if your guild is running buffs for WvW, the most common is a +5 supply buff that will allow players to carry 15 supply. There are also stat, MF, exp, etc. buffs.

5) Attacking a well defended and properly sieged keep will most likely require several omega golems, and a minimum of 200 supply (after the golems are built) in your group. Strats vary depending on the situation and location, but the basics consist of target siege first in order of danger to your attack; and block reinforcements both on foot and from the WP if there is one. Re-contesting WPs wins keep fights. Be sure to control and burn any enemies who can rez the lord.

6) Dual commanding is great so long as you both have enough people.

7) The rally issue will self correct as you get better and are better known. If your guild is going to be supporting, you’ll draw people. Significant numbers of pugs will bail on you on a wipe, unless you are very well-known and liked. You should also be very active on the voice coms. Directing, driving open field fights, letting people know where you are going etc. Doesn’t hurt to tell jokes and just generally be entertaining too.

Above all else stay positive, and don’t respond to the haters. If you make a bad call, just give out a “Sorry, bad call” and learn from the mistake. Discussion of your failures should be kept to private communications with more experienced commanders. To do so publicly will invite trolling, and will demotivate, and demoralize anyone following you.

Remember mistakes happen to everyone. One of my favorite guys to follow on my server still occasionally gets a jab (from me usually) about that time he threw catapults down to hit the north side of Klovan.

WvW over EotM [solution]

in WvW

Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

One thing you forget about is the major difference of server population, which we try to balance out in some way in this thread.

1) WP distance is a huge advantage/disadvantage. Only if the server population is equal. 100 people fighting a group in a 6 people terretory face 0% disadvantage. Mainly because well… they win the fight. They can hard rez eachother, not having to use the WP

2) Of course there is something to do for outnumbered players if they can slip past enemy zergs. But what I meant is: things to do for small groups. Splitting zergs and making small groups more efficient. Because really… capturing a supply camp does not really help as much as joining the commanders zerg.

3) What do “some guards” stand against a huge enemy zerg? If any player wants to put the money/effort to buy them in the first place (for their keep which will be recaptured in minutes)?

4) Thats the problem! The way people think. They do not participate in the battle at all! With this system its just one massive zerg. Perhaps with some new mechanics the game requires you to play smart. With smaller groups. And not follow the brainless zerg and spam 1.

I didn’t forget anything you choose to ignore my response to it. There is very little ArenaNet can do to compensate for severe population imbalance that won’t fundamentally alter the game mode or shut it down to “off time” okayers.

They can’t boost rewards to far because of farmers – they have, infact, been forced to dial back rewards. See Yak escorts.

Any significant amount of NPC power added to slow a zerg down is going to shut down small-team action completely.

Adding other stuff to do besides fighting or taking vital nodes does nothing for the game mode, take a look at Bloodlust and see how well more small-team nodes have helped the little guys. Hint: They haven’t.

I’m sorry, but your pitched ideas demonstrate the axiom of “A computer is a lite brite for bad ideas.”

I, like any WvW player outside of T1, have played outmanned. And I’m not gonna sugar coat this for you. You are flat out completely, 100 percent wrong on point 2. I’ve seen small teams delay upgrade completions for hours giving their servers time to try and take a garrison or keep before it is upgraded. But there is nothing small teams can do more efficiently than a large team. You keep ignoring the fact that if you could make splitting into small teams more efficient the high population servers are always going to have MORE small teams doing more things than a low population team can field. Not the least of which is linking up 2 or 3 small teams (aka making a zerg) to deal with any of the small teams on a low pop server that do put up a fight.

I have personally chased a 25-30 person zerg off of towers with a sum total of three people. One trebuchet and two acs do the job for most things. You place the treb where it can hit the gate and can turn to hit the likely cata spot, ACs cover the close approaches so they can’t build anything right on your walls. This will stop everything short of omega golems, and some of the sneakier siege placements.

As to point 4, ArenaNet can only encourage certain player behaviors, they cannot enforce anything besides the basics of shared loot/tags.

If you want your server’s behavior to change, your choices are to build your server up into a fighting force during your playtime or move to a server that already has one.

Results: Should GW2 have mounts in WvW

in WvW

Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

Can we change the thread to discuss how horrible you are at statistics?

Never mind you don’t have a representative sample. I also like how you are ignoring a rather definitive no vote of 60 percent while lumping multiple flavors of yes and the maybes, which still only gets you to 38 percent, then rounding up to 40 percent just because.

ArenaNet has said no, your poll says no. The answer is no. Let it go.

WvW over EotM [solution]

in WvW

Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

I know but jumping puzzle was just an example. Let me give you the idea behind the example, and forget the jumping puzzle entirely.

  • I want anet to implement a system where capturing an entire map becomes exponentially harder to achieve. So capturing your own keep and towers should be cake.
    Capturing further laying tower should be easy. Capturing other camps or other servers towers should be harder. (I gave the example of npc’s scouting the area). It could be anything.
  • I wanted players while being outnumbered be able to contribute. By doing something, while harder and less effective, still more effective then it is now. (50% supply cost while outnumbered maybe). (Or keeps being easier to defend while being outnumbered).
  • I want maps to be guarded somewhat, so that it’s not required to have 24/7 coverage.
  • And finally, the jumping puzzle to promote small groups to contribute in a way.

This could be entirely implemented without really affecting normal populated servers. And it adds pve only to support the smaller groups of players. Right now its player zerg of 100 vs some small groups of 7 maybe. Do you honestly think thats fun? Even numbers of zergs are actually fun. But thats only happening in evenly populated servers.

WvW is explicitly designed for large numbers of players to be participating. The beauty of it it the game-mode also leave plenty of room for solo-roaming, and small-group action.

To address your points:

1) It already is – WP advantage/disadvantage pretty much seals this one on it’s own. The difficulty in capturing enemy positions increases the further you get from your WPs. Additionally the maps are specifically designed to provide advantages to defenders in their home territory. In EBG the two closest towers in each area are easily covered with siege from the respective keeps. On the borderlands the home diamond is protected by garrison/citadel coverage and terrain. Your suggestions in this regard would actually make small group attacks on targets behind enemy lines more difficult and hurt an outnumbered server more.

2) There is always something for outnumbered players to do right now. I’ve personally soloed camps to capture, I know of people on my server who have solo captured towers, and breached keeps. It takes one person to turn mercs. I’ve also seen 3 people in a properly sieged tower hold off massive zergs to the point of preventing capture, keeps are no different. It takes 5 baseline people to build a superior ram, and one ram is all you need. Especially versus paper gates. It takes 3 to build a guild catapult. Not to mention what an Omega with a couple of people assisting can do.

3) If you want a map guarded recruit guards. Complaining that a game mode designed to be running 24/7 rewards teams that play 24/7 over those that don’t takes a special kind of logic. Or the absence of any.

4) Already covered with my second. But additionally, how does encouraging small groups to not participate in the ongoing battle help in any way?

Perfectly even numbered zergs almost never happen outside of GvG (or maybe tier 1). A qued blob is going to be around 80 not 100. Do small groups get caught and rolled? Absolutely. It happens no matter what server you are on. It’s part of the danger and challenge of doing small-group action. As a small team your goal is to take nodes and not get squashed, not to kill an enemy zerg. If you don’t like that kind of play, if you want the big fights, you are left with two choices, recruit or change servers.

Karma... Yes, I think you already guessed.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Basharic.1654

Basharic.1654

Before the nerf people were getting ~350,000 karma a month just from doing the daily and monthly. They hammered that so that people weren’t getting more karma than they ever needed just for showing up.

The rest was cleaning up around the edges, you just actually have to play the game to have tons of karma now.

This.

The people who saw the biggest nerf were the people playing the least. What exactly are you going to do with all that currency for a game you don’t play?

I’m sorry if you don’t have enough free time to earn the rewards you want, sucks to be you. But beyond a certain basic level (exotic) you have to actually work a bit for things you might want. And if you actually play the game regularly you have plenty of karma.

I obliterated my karma pool for a lil less than two stacks of obby shards when ascended crafting started, and I am jut now getting to the point of having to think about getting more. I’m creeping up on having another 2 million karma. I mostly WvW, with split offs to LS or the occasional T6 node run. The wife and I have a normal life, but no kids, and the game is our primary leisure activity.

I haven’t spared a thought for Karma beyond the occasional conversation in Mumble about how much we happen to have at the moment.