Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to stop in to say the update a couple days ago with the additional fixes for nvidia cards seems to have worked perfectly for me. I’ve been able to enjoy the new zone, thanks for the quick fix Anet!

Bigglesworth.8249:

Just updated to the new patch on 5/3/17 and the starting area in Draconis Mons has the same problem as shown in Umbert’s video. The lighting for the whole area flickers on and off (like day/night difference) depending on the camera angle. Using a gtx 1050 ti with the 381.89 driver, and no settings changes seem to help.

Just updated to the new patch on 5/3/17 and the starting area in Draconis Mons has the same problem as shown in Umbert’s video. The lighting for the whole area flickers on and off (like day/night difference) depending on the camera angle. Using a gtx 1050 ti with the 381.89 driver, and no settings changes seem to help.

Umbert.2083:

Got the same glitch – " disco bug " !

And nvidia 1080. No mather resolutions from1080p-4K, depending on camera angle things get dark/lit up. Tried every setting in game and Nvidia controllpanel.

Really annoying.

Demonstration here: https://youtu.be/PbVkccwMH_w

Thx for looking in to the problem

Day 1 was great fun to watch. There were some amazing moments and a few slightly cringey ones, but you could tell by watching that it was all earnest and completely heartfelt, which made the whole thing really endearing. Highlights for me included: Quaggan Deep Thoughts, the great live music, Jennifer Hale cooking (insane and amazing, especially sneaking the slaw in there), and the topper of the evening with Irenio’s mic-drop. This was a celebration of all things Arenanet. They came to the show and said “This is who we are and this is what we’re about” and it was unique and fantastic.

I wholehearted endorse and agree with the OP. Matchmaking lately in both ranked and unranked has been mostly one-sided steam-rolling by one team, and very occasionally an actual good match. I’ve had too many games to count against premade voice-comms teams while my team consisted of first-timers, or been a +1 to a premade against some unfortunate solo-queuers.

it’s very disheartening and frustrating and I feel bad for the newbies who don’t even understand why they lost 100-500.

As someone who has mained thief since release, I’m okay with most of the nerfs. “2 spammers” and perma-stealthers who hit like wet noodles were just obnoxious. The problem is that all these nerfs are only half-measures.

They take away our burst (most if not all classes can burst for more than thief now with a good build) so we have to stay in fights longer to theoretically win. But they don’t give us the survivability to actually stay in fights. That’s why thief in pvp is relegated to +1ing and decapping empty points right now. It’s a non-contender. If Anet wants longer fights with less bursty thieves, then we need more reliable access to things like regen, protection and condi clears – without having to give up every ounce of damage (“Shadow Arts” yadda yadda “wet noodle” yadda).

Which brings up another gripe actually. Thief damage has been balanced with the assumption of the use of Beserker amulet. Since the damage we do has been toned down and other classes have moved to tankier builds, thief must run zerker to do close to comparable damage. What I would love to see is the option to build tanky or supporty with a non-zerker amulet be a viable thing. Build diversity!

You really have to think about what thief is currently missing from it’s kitten nal, and that’s mostly AoE dps. I think if thief does get rifle it’s going to be more like an arquebus or scatter-shotgun. Short to medium range, ground-target aoes, very little if any pew-pew type attacks, and probably a melee cc/gap creator. The real interesting question is how or if they will incorporate stealth into the weapon.

The best possible solution is obviously to use a text-to-speech parser for the character’s name: “Oh no – WEED-KING-FOUR-TWO-ZERO-BLAZE-IT-EXCLAMATION-EXCLAMATION-ONE-ONE-ONE-ONE -watch out!”

Loki.8793:

So, a bit of an update on my situation, after spending a few days playing with thief I’m starting to win my 1v1s again with d/p. The only profession I can’t seem to kill are condi engineers, but I expected that. (This is in spvp, btw)

The build I’ve found the most success with is the panic strike 6/0/2/0/6 build for d/p. I’ve curiously never tried it before yesterday, and I’m hitting myself for not trying it earlier. Before I could never see myself without executioner, but with 6 points into deadly arts, I don’t even notice the difference.

Though, while I’m able to win most of my 1v1s again, I still have the same problem of feeling like I have to greatly outplay my opponent if I am to win. Ironically, the only profession I don’t have to put a lot of effort to win against is other thieves. When I rejoice at seeing a thief over any other profession, I can’t help but feel something is wrong.

However, while I’ve found better success with thief, I’ve found even greater success with the other professions. The axe/sword longbow celestial warrior is stupidly good at 1v1s, I’ve even found myself paying attention to my other monitor when playing it sometimes. And the hambow build destroys team fights with facerolling your keyboard.

Both meta engineer builds are amazing. I almost rarely go down, and I can often win 1v2s and even a 1v3 in one case. What I’ve found when playing engineer is I don’t seem to even be trying to actively hit my opponent. When I take damage or pressure, I just kite away while throwing aoes all over the place, and when I look back after I recover, my opponent is already at half hp. What? Why is that so strong? I honestly get mad when playing my engineer because I would never be able to have as much success with my thief as I do with it.

And the new power ranger is just hilarious. I’ve killed thieves with a single auto attack and a hasted rapid fire more times than I can count. S/f fresh air eles are also stupidly good when you can just blow up any thief you see in under a second while having amazing defensive abilities such as 4/5 earth, 4 air, and arcane utilities.

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While I’ve mained thief since beta, having over 1300 of my time dedicated solely to playing it, and finding it the most fun class to play, I’m finding more and more reason to not use it in sPvP aside from having fun. The other professions and builds just outshine it in nearly every way, and can do exactly what it can do with half the effort and dedication. When I have to spend every ounce of my concentration to win a 1v1 on my thief, and then switch over to a profession I’ve played 30 hours with and can win 1v2s with ease, it makes me want to quit the game altogether.

It’s frustrating. It really is.

+1, quoting this for truth. I love thief playstyle, I love the potential, but the profession is broken right now. I log on to thief, play a game and have to apply extreme concentration to have any measurable effect in combat, while still getting downed in a stiff breeze. Switch to Engie or Guard and just faceroll. I can’t even count the number of matches on (non-bunker) Engie and Guard where I’ve spent the entire game in the middle of combat and not been downed once.

All you really need to see to know that thief is broken is that the current s/d 20066 meta build uses Pain Response as a grandmaster. It’s a 1300 heal that clears 3 specific condis on a 30 second c/d, and only procs if you’re hit while below 75%hp. That trait should be garbage but there it is! ANY other profession would laugh at it and take something actually useful, but that’s the best Thief has in that defensive trait-line.

And don’t get me started on Assassin’s Reward. 69hp per initiative spent is insulting! I’m getting myself angry just thinking about it. Time to go play some relaxing Guardian.

Just resurrecting this old dead thread to gloat and :smug: about how close to right I was. I’d almost completely forgotten I even wrote all that stuff, but Scarlet was the subject of an Asuran experiment and the Sylvari are dragon minions! Lookit all dem wrong people in here! AHAHAHahahahaaa better get your race-change kits!

EoNxBoNx.9213:

Acrobatics is pretty broken, period. There is a very low skill floor which is just like Anet likes it. Feline Grace, the crux of this trait lines imbalance, is evidence enough for me that Anet is okay with builds that require spam, and low skill or none at all.

Unfortunately even if feline grace was nerfed, thieves would be inferior compared to other classes. Their mobility would still be a necessity, but they would seem more like a liability than anything, just like any D/P thief currently.

I honestly hate S/D and S/P so much (because they are boring) that I just use D/P and try to outplay, since that’s all you can do when you use an inferior weapon set against an S/D thief or a D/D ele, or an engi, etc.

I am not disagreeing with the OP’s main point. Thieves are truly ruining this games balance. Mesmers, ele’s and even warriors(before buffs) have been replaced because thieves do everything they do just 100% better.

AHA ahaha ahaha AHAH ha…
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Ha.

No, seriously though I would be fine with nerfing dodges (again) if thief got:
- more armor
- more HP
- better healing and more access to decent healing traits.

Anything less would simply break the profession and no one would play it (because thief is already too “high-risk” for an already nerfed “reward”).

First: #10 is rocking that awesome color coordination.
Second: #3 is stylish and sophisticated.
Third: #9 for the dapperest elegance.

Astralporing.1957:

Frotee.2634:

(Also because zerging was the way to go last year, so it may just not feel lika a new, ’I have to figure this out#-event to people)

It’s not even that. It is much simpler – lot of people do not like to be forced to cooperate with other people beyond very basic level. They come to this game not for challenges requiring an effort, but to kick back, disengage their minds and simply enjoy their time off work. They worked for 8 hours already, they do not want to repeat that in their free, rest time.

Can’t +1 this enough.

Stooperdale.3560:

There is no evidence of the Inquest capturing and experimenting upon Sylvari and it seems highly unlikely that they could create a new Sylvari otherwise.

Actually, if you follow the link to the wiki in the OP, there is specific reference to Kudu himself experimenting on Malomedies.

Aaron Ansari.1604

The hole here is that the notion that sylvari are dragon minions has been thoroughly debunked. Several times. That, and dragon minions are not immune to other dragons’ corruption- see Kudu’s Monster and Subject Alpha.

I was not aware that that theory had been debunked, and would appreciate some link to the debunking. You do certainly have a point with Kudu’s Monster and Subject Alpha being amalgamations of several different dragon minions, but it’s not clear how this was achieved and Asuran science is a little… fuzzy anyway.

Konig Des Todes.2086

The short story released before you posted debunks this theory of yours.

Yeah, that story was posted right before I went to post this thread. I decided to post it anyway, as noted at the top of the OP, as a sort of “what might have been”. Besides, I like my version better than the canon, “Scarlet’s just a Sylvari who happens to be an Evil Super-Genius.” Best part is, my theory could still incorporate the good parts of that story (the vision-journey through the Mysts). But yeah, oh well.

The Theory
This is where it gets interesting, as it could have far-reaching implications for a huge swath of the lore of GW2 if it turns out to be correct. What if Subject Alpha wasn’t the only (somewhat) successful result of the Inquest work at Crucible of Eternity? What if Kudu, fueled by the results of his experiments on Malomedies, was able to create a “test-tube” Dragon Minion, totally cut off from the influence of it’s Elder Dragon? What if, somewhere between the meltdown of the Thaumanova Reactor and the events of Crucible of Eternity, the Inquest managed to create a Subject Beta and this Subject Beta is none other than Scarlet Briar? This would not only confirm that Sylvari are a form of altered Dragon Minion, it would also mean the Inquest are an actual credible threat to Tyria instead of simply the bumbling bullies who try to steal other people’s inventions. It might also bring to light some of the deeper mysteries surrounding the nature of the Elder Dragons and the very fabric of Tyria itself.

Scarlet Briar
If the Sylvari are a form of altered dragon minion, and the Inquest managed to create a test-tube Sylvari – completely cut off from the influence of the Pale Tree – would that Sylvari experience The Dream? We already know that The Dream can be heavily influenced by things in the environment, as is evidenced by the effect Ventari’s Tablet has had on the Sylvari Race in general. Perhaps a Sylvari grown in an Asuran lab, forced to fruition through the bombardment of immense Alchemagical energy (could this be the cause of the Thaumanova meltdown?), didn’t experience the Dream at all. Maybe she instead caught a glimpse of the Eternal Alchemy itself. And maybe that’s enough to drive someone mad.

But how do the Aetherblades fit in?
Imagine you’re the Inquest. You’ve created a Super Soldier, a force with the goal and potential to conquer all the other Races on Tyria. Wouldn’t you want to pour all of your knowledge into this creation, sending her to each of your races’ Colleges if she showed an ability to absorb so much knowledge? And wouldn’t you want her to go out and learn from all the other races as well – their tactics, history, and (most importantly) their weaknesses – to better defeat them? “Know your enemy” and all that.

But what if your Super Soldier had a mind of her own? Knowing what we know of the Inquest and Asura in general, would they abandon an experiment just because it goes a little bit off the rails? No! They would go along for the ride, providing assistance when needed and direction where possible. If Scarlet is going to conquer Tyria through her own diabolical machinations (and I believe the Aetherblades are her own creation), the Inquest are only too happy to ride her coat-tails to mutual victory.

TL;DR
Sylvari are Dragon Minions. The Inquest created a test-tube Sylvari (Scarlet Briar) to take over the world, and now they’re riding her coat-tails to victory.

Quick note: This theory has just been debunked by the posting on the main page of the short story, “What Scarlet Saw” by Scott McGough. I’ve decided to still post it, since I put a good bit of work into it and maybe it can still serve as a bit of “what might have been”.

Spoiler Warning: There are some spoilers about Crucible of Eternity if you haven’t played through it yet.

There has been a lot of discussion since the release of the latest Living Story update about our new nemesis, Scarlet Briar. Except for a few lines of dialogue, not much is known about her. We know Scarlet appears to be a Sylvari, we know she seems to be the leader of the Aetherblades, and we know she supposedly “earned special dispensation to study at all three colleges in Rata Sum and earned advanced engineering degrees at each. " (link) We also know from the Aetherblade Retreat Story Dungeon that the Inquest are working in some capacity with the Aetherblades.

The Devs have hinted that there’s much more to Scarlet’s story than we know. Poster Nilkemia.8507 writes, “Given that the Inquest are working with the Aetherblades (and her, by extension) it’s possible that they arranged for her to be able to attend and graduate all 3 colleges.”(link) And this is what got my gears turning.

Why would the Inquest go through the trouble of getting a random Sylvari into all three colleges? And how are they benefiting by helping the Aetherblades? Let’s take a step back for a moment to look at each of the individual ingredients.

The Sylvari
Many people believe the Sylvari are actually minions of the Elder Jungle Dragon, Mordremoth, and that the Pale Tree is the equivalent of a Dragon Lieutenant or Champion. The Sylvari are, for instance, the only known living things on Tyria immune to Dragon Corruption besides minions of another dragon. They all share the accumulated knowledge of their predecessors in the Dream of Dreams before emerging fully formed from buds of the Tree. The Dream also seems to act as a sort of training or programming. Though each Sylvari seems to have it’s own free will, some are driven by a Wyld Hunt: a goal or specific set of tasks given to them in The Dream.

The Inquest
The main aim of the Inquest in GW2 has been the study and research of dragon energies. They want to conquer the other races by harnessing the power of the Elder Dragons and creating their own slave-army of minions. This is more or less what Crucible of Eternity and Subject Alpha is all about (There are six segments to the structure of CoE, each representing one of the Elder Dragons; Subject Alpha goes through several phases throughout CoE Explorable, many of which correspond to a particular ED). The head researcher and final boss of CoE is Kudu, a former apprentice of Snaff, who also happens to have been the first member of another race to meet a Sylvari. Malomedies was that Firstborn Sylvari, and according to the wiki, Kudu conducted some unknown experiments on him.

Continued…

Most Zerg vs. Zerg fights draw a sort of battle line somewhere around 1200 range, and it wavers back and forth for most of the fight. It used to be that I could skirt the edge of the mass of aoe’s and generally drop a cluster bomb right where a big group of enemies was going to be in a few seconds, taking only moderate damage while dishing out some. Now I have to stand in the middle of aoe to engage, meaning I just die.

Thief Fun Fact: I now have no ability to hit an enemy attacking the SW gate of Garrison if I’m standing on the bridge directly on top of it!

It’s the Lone Ranger!

Entioch.6594:

the truth behind what actually goes on in GvG’s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Ij8YuHIpOjw#t=109s

This is a bit more accurate for Mags GvGs.

sorrow.2364:

Do you know what cross professions combo mean? Are we talking about team settings or solo environments? Because if we are talking about solo environment, thief still wins (Hidden Assassin, Power of Inertia, Signets of Power, Venomous Strength).

It looks like that for you 4 consecutive blast finishers in a fire field (12 stacks of might for 15 seconds each) are worse than 1 stack of might for 5 seconds for each critical hit and 12 stack of might for 10 seconds channeled while not moving for 2+ seconds.

And you don’t even need to spend any traitpoint or utility slot to do so!

No, you just have to depend on someone else laying down a field for you! Meaning that other person is the one providing group support, not the thief. I’m pretty sure every profession has access to a blast finisher, meaning the Thief is not necessary anywhere in that equation. And I know for a fact people would much rather have a Guardian than a Thief in a group for pretty much anything. So I’ll ask again: Where’s our fire field? Or even water? Light?

The Thief profession has abysmal group support, full stop. You will not succeed in convincing anyone who has played the profession otherwise (It’s like we’re 2/3s of a complete class. Damage / Survivability / ?? Support ??).

edit:

I agree and I think all thieves should reroll norn guardian with big swords.

Haha, I actually did roll up a Norn Guardian with a big sword, which I now use any time I’m doing something group-related. Still play my Thief in WvW, though.

sorrow.2364:

Can you please tell me how can a guardian better stacks might compared to thief’s combo finishing into fire fields?

Greatsword 3rd Auto-attack: Just for attacking something you and all nearby allies will have a constant 5 stacks
Staff #4: Channelled heal gives 12 stacks
Trait: Empowering Might – Base 5 seconds of Might whenever you crit
Fields: Hallowed Ground and Purging Flames + Blast Finisher (say… Hammer 2) – Area Might

Please tell me, what fire fields does Thief have access to?

I agree with the OP that Anet has really done a lot right with this event, and it’s worth letting them know the things we appreciate:

- The fact that the coffers drop from any mob, even WvW enemies, and fairly frequently.

- The free Minis gift.

- Dragon Ball is a fun pvp mode (coming from someone who doesn’t like spvp).

- The fact that the Gift of the Dragon Bash gives you a light, medium, and heavy helm, meaning you don’t have to pick just one character to have it.

- And of course all the art assets like the LA decoration and fireworks are neat, especially the Mystic Forge.

So thanks, Anet. In spite of all the constant complaining on the forums, your players do notice and care about the good stuff.

After the third time trying to get to the Queen Karka fight, I’ve given up, rage-quit, and come onto the forums to complain. I actually don’t know what the Queen Karka fight is like, because I’ve never been able to get past the OUTRAGEOUS hordes of karkas camping the only way to get there since Anet put that new area in with the wall. Only way through. So many karka that as soon as I aggro I am insta-downed and then insta-killed. And this is how it’s intended to be?

Bravo on your awesome troll, whoever designed that.

edit: Noticed there’s already a thread complaining about this very thing. Reposting there instead.

Here’s the thing some people are missing. It will take you exactly the same amount of time to get Boiling Oil Mastery on one character as it would take to get it for all of your characters if the ranks were account-bound. So instead of spending 100 hours to get Arrow Cart Mastery on one character, and another 100 hours to get Boiling Oil Mastery on another character, you spend 200 hours on any of your characters and have both. How is that not better in every way?

The other part of this is that your rank title is clearly intended as a means to denote YOUR level of experience and time commitment in wvw, but being tied to a particular character defeats that. If someone is a General on one character and hops on an alt who’s a Scout, are they suddenly fresh off the boat and now know nothing about wvw? It shouldn’t matter what character you’re on, if you have 2000+ hours in wvw, you know what you’re doing.

It’s the same for Commander Icons, too. Your ability to lead has nothing to do with your character and everything to do with the person playing. I understand it was a gold sink at the beginning, but wvwer’s have enough gold sinks now with traps and skins and siege and upgrades that Commander Icons should be changed to account-bound as well.

docbon.3486:

Had a lot of good fights at the windmill tonight.

I was the (only) asura engineer repping SBI.

This is a ways up the page, but just wanted to say you’re a kitten good engie. I was the terrible mag thief with the mad memoirs book. You (and most everyone I fought) mopped the floor with me, but it was good times and I learned a lot.

Hey, that’s me! Level 58 with lvl 45 greens getting Heartseeker spammed erryday. (I secretly hope to end up on a youtube video as victim #47 and become internet famous.)

Bevillian.1260:

So the point is, your complaining that one person can’t go through the entirety of tyria and complete every event by themselves.

No, that’s not really it at all. As Sokar said, some of the events in Orr are just horribly mis-marked.

I came across an event in Cured Shore to help some engineers build a thing, thought, “hey, why not? I’ll just kill some dudes, complete the event and move on.” Like the rest of the game. It wasn’t marked as a group event or anything unusual, but it took me over an hour to solo. Wave after wave of Risen Pirates and those black floaty-ball things, respawning as fast as I could kill them. Oh, and 3 Risen Catas raining poison down constantly.

The poor engineers could only get 1-2% further on building their thing before being killed again, and it would be another 5 minutes of nonstop fighting before I could rez them for another 1-2% progress. That’s as an 80 Guardian in full exotics. With my Thief or Mesmer I would’ve either given up or died.

The events like this don’t need to be made easier so that they’re soloable, but they should at least be marked properly as Group Events.

It looks like part of the Shiverpeaks in Diessa Plateau got moved for the Molten Weapons Facility and didn’t quite make it back into alignment. There were a couple spots I could easily walk and end up under the piece of terrain, but I didn’t look around too much as I didn’t want to get stuck/lost.

If there’s some way to do a 20k backstab combo, someone please tell me (hint: it doesn’t happen). I’ve never gotten even close to that and I’ve tried every cheesy gimmick imaginable.

Auesis.7301:

Soon enough, a Warrior is UNIVERSALLY going to be better, not just better in 50-60% of areas.

We’re already there.

Redscope.6215:

Warriors are just as mobile as thieves? Really? Even most BAD thieves would have to concede that no class can touch the thief in mobility with exception of, maybe, an out of combat elementalist.

Tell that to all the Warriors I’ve seen this week waltzing through enemy zergs ignoring everyone, swapping between the horn and a leap to negate any cc attempts, and keeping enough of a speed boost that I have to switch to SB and waste all of my initiative just to keep up.

The fact is that at release Thieves were in an okay state, but only an okay state. The nerfs since then have set us back to where only a few builds and weapon combinations are viable, and most of those rely on some uncanny emergent playstyle just to survive.

Don’t get me wrong, the Backstab combo does need to be nerfed (still. The latest attempt has made almost no difference to the backstab combo, but has ruined many other builds), but they need to look at why it works instead of just taking chunks out of base damage. For instance: Steal being cast in the middle of CnD. I’ve heard a suggestion to give Steal a .5 second cast time, and that might work. Another thing to look at would be the traits in the Precision trait line, as that’s where a large portion of the bonus damage of the combo comes from. 5 stacks of might on activation of a signet, and a signet that grants increased power on activation are just asking to be used together.

What I’d like to see is some of this changed around to lower that burst potential slightly and replace it with options for creating higher sustained damage for pretty much all of our weapon sets.