Guild Wars 2

Pyroathiest.4168:

Standard shatter builds are not viable without DE. On-clone-death builds are not viable without DE.

Lockdown builds occasionally sacrifice DE for the increased return of the lockdowns/interrupts. However, these builds are absolutely weaker in terms of maintaining sustained pressure or effectively fighting against high aoe due to the lack of clone production.

Phantasm builds are better played without DE, and most phantasm builds don’t take DE as a result.

In short, you’re completely wrong.

Edit: I noticed that you’ve claimed to have played most of 1k hours in PvP and WvW on a pure shatter spec without this trait. I’d like to make a note that just because you’ve done it doesn’t mean that it’s any good to do. I can play a phantasm build without any phantasm traits and using scepter/torch+scepter/torch, but that doesn’t make it a wise decision.

In short, you are actually completely wrong. Like I said before, just because you haven’t learned how to play without deceptive evasion and you still rely on it as a crutch doesn’t mean it isn’t possible or that the build is any worse off without it. I have played with DE in my builds before, but I’ve noticed almost 0 difference in the amount of clones that are involved in my shatter, and 0 difference in my survivability/damage output. If your sole purpose of running DE is to increase clone generation, then either you are not properly using the weapon skills already given to you, or you are just spamming your f1-f4 skills everytime they are off cooldown. If your sole purpose of running DE is to increase survivability then there are plenty of other traits/weapon skills/utilities that can do this just as well, if not better.

There is a huge difference between taking deceptive evasion in shatter builds and taking phantasm damage/cooldown traits in a phantasm build. Deceptive evasion does not directly increase your damage of your shatters, nor will it have any effect on your shatter if you already have 3 clones up when you dodge roll. The only trait I would consider is vital to a shatter build is illusionary persona as it is a 25% increase in the potential damage of your shatters on top of many other useful things.

Sarrs.4831:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Since you failed to respond to my first post, Ill post again. DE is not a necessity for any playstyle or any game mode in guild wars 2. It is a crutch, pure and simple. Does it make certain things easier to handle? Sure it does. Are there other just as useful traits/weapon skills/utilities for handling those same things? Yes there are. Saying that without a certain trait, the class is significantly weaker is the reason why it is a trait in the first place… Mesmer is perfectly capable of performing at the top level in pve/pvp/wvw without this trait, just because you haven’t figured out doesn’t mean it isnt possible.

Um.

Have you figured out how? I’m genuinely curious how someone can play a mesmer viably at top level spvp without using DE.

By choosing other traits aside from Deceptive Evasion? I can’t even tell if this is a serious question..

Jackums.3496:

People don’t run DE just because they want to. Are you honestly suggesting that Mesmers are just as powerful without it? Have you played tPvP or roamed in WvW recently? Deceptive Evasion is necessary, because without it we’re significantly weaker.

Since you failed to respond to my first post, Ill post again. DE is not a necessity for any playstyle or any game mode in guild wars 2. It is a crutch, pure and simple. Does it make certain things easier to handle? Sure it does. Are there other just as useful traits/weapon skills/utilities for handling those same things? Yes there are. Saying that without a certain trait, the class is significantly weaker is the reason why it is a trait in the first place… Mesmer is perfectly capable of performing at the top level in pve/pvp/wvw without this trait, just because you haven’t figured out doesn’t mean it isnt possible.

Jackums.3496:

There are very, very few Mesmer specs that don’t require this trait, to the point that it has essentially become as much a class mechanic as our shatter skills.

I don’t know if you are talking pvp or pve, but I know I’ve spent probably 90% of my 1k hours on my mesmer playing without this trait in pvp, wvw, and pve. In pvp and wvw, all of that time has been spent playing pure shatter specs. About the only spec I would consider this trait being mandatory for would be a clone death condi spec, but even then there are still ways around it. Imo a crutch like this should require a 20 point investment. If you want build diversity learn how to play without crutches.

Dub.1273:

Isn’t doing something for the challenge, complaining to be too easy while using facetank sets a bit contradictonary?

However, yes, I do have some faster duo runs from a few months ago. This is one.
And I even had like 1 second delay, which you can clearly see when dodging gargoyle heads fire balls.

At no point were we going for a speed run or even trying to utilize the most efficient approach to any part of the dungeon, it was simply a test to see if we could do the same content that a lot of 5 man pug groups struggle with, with just the two of us. You skip the set of gravelings at the beginning which without fgs is another 1-2 mins, so your video isn’t even the same content, nor the same group comp.

Dub.1273:

All I can say is: not impressed. A rather slow run using easymode set-ups and using fgs for basically anything.

Sorry we couldn’t impress you. I’m sure your AC duo video was much faster and utilized much “harder” set-ups.

RSLongK.8961:

Well done!
I need to make an ele friend :/
btw how much time did it take for the whole run?

About 15 minutes, a good chunk of which is the last boss, since there aren’t too many effective ways to kill it quickly with two people.

Spoj The Second.7680:

I saw facetanking the spider auto attack to ensure perma weakness and then turned it off.

I counted about 8 seconds of weakness over the course of a 45 second fight. Most of which was applied during dps down times. Bad troll is bad.

ODB.6891:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Imo it is there purely as a dps increase for greatsword, that also gives you 200 power for going 20 into zeal. Do I think it is a minimal dps increase? Of course it is. Do I think it could have more functionality that would make sense for it being in a dps line? Of course I do. Is it the only weapon specific trait that is like this and also requires 20 points into a trait line? Not at all. Quick example off the top of my head. The only trait that a thief has for shortbow is a simple 5% damage increase with 0 other functionality that requires 20 points into Shadow Arts to get. The point of these traits are not to be keystones to hinge a build on. They exist to provide a little extra then what you would get otherwise, and generally only worth taking if you are going for something further in the line, or just want the passive bonuses that line has to offer.

I can understand that argument and rationale. I am of the opinion that a 20 point trait does need to offer more…just like you said. That’s why I think it does need to provide something competitive to choosing a trait in a different line. Currently the opportunity cost is just too much. That’s my whole argument today…that it attempts to give some amount of sustain…but fails to do so in any competitive fashion to the alternatives. I think that the other classes need the same consideration.

Yeah, idk, I’m of the opinion that it should just offer something else entirely. Not try to compete with other traits, but rather offer something unique that the guardian is lacking, hence my suggestion for the addition of a soft CC. The problem I have with it adding to something the guardian can already do pretty well with other traits is that the trait will either be so minimal that it will be worthless (as it is now), or it will be powerful, and when combined with those other traits will lead to overpowered capabilities. I don’t really see any middle ground that can really be achieved between it being useless and it being overpowered due to the already strong sustain that a guardian can achieve. I open to discuss other suggestions that you think might be more reasonable than the OP though.

ODB.6891:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Your argument is flawed on the level that you are only concerned with one playstyle. You want to be able to do good dps and have high sustain. Whether it be pve/pvp/wvw, that is a single unique playstyle. So why does it not make sense that this single unique playstyle only have 1-2 viable builds and force you down 1-2 specific trait lines? If you decided you didn’t care about sustain and you just wanted max damage, your only reason for going into valor would be for the bonus crit damage/access to fury from meditations if you decided to run those. If you decided you didn’t care about damage and just wanted max survivability/sustain then you still have several build options, one of which being altruistic healing, but several of which will not need more than 10, or any at all into valor. Your playstyle is what is limiting the build choices, not any specific trait, and if you think your playstyle should be viable no matter where you spread your traits then I dont know what to say to that…

I am under the impression that ZB is designed to support that one play style. It is relatively deep into the zeal tree, where only dps players will typically be looking to go. I am not looking to have “high” sustain, but decent sustain..yes. I am looking to have sustain that is not a severe drop off from trading may 10 points out of honor or virtues to pick up that same number in zeal. Currently, it would make no sense to pick up ZB as it is a tiny boost to damage and no boost to survival….versus what you would pass up in any other trait line. That is the problem I see and that is not flawed logic. What exactly is ZB there for? If not to support a dps play style? What exactly is zeal there for? If not for a dps oriented player to choose traits from? Not quite seeing how my argument or logic is flawed. Yes, my build choices are limited by my play style choices…but it is further limited by overly weak traits…which is what this argument is about…how weak ZB is.

Imo it is there purely as a dps increase for greatsword, that also gives you 200 power for going 20 into zeal. Do I think it is a minimal dps increase? Of course it is. Do I think it could have more functionality that would make sense for it being in a dps line? Of course I do. Is it the only weapon specific trait that is like this and also requires 20 points into a trait line? Not at all. Quick example off the top of my head. The only trait that a thief has for shortbow is a simple 5% damage increase with 0 other functionality that requires 20 points into Shadow Arts to get. The point of these traits are not to be keystones to hinge a build on. They exist to provide a little extra then what you would get otherwise, and generally only worth taking if you are going for something further in the line, or just want the passive bonuses that line has to offer.

ODB.6891:

Considering the majority of your justifications were pvp oriented ones…it is a fair assessment that you were only concerned with pvp ramifications. I think you are also thinking that sustain means complete survivability. That’s not what is being said either. I pretty much agree with you that anything near what healing signet gives is completely over the top. I think the OP agrees with that too now. I am also not talking about anywhere near 100% uptime of protection…despite that being exactly what the hammer gives. The main reason I even mentioned protection as an alternative to the miniscule healing currently attached to ZB is that zeal is not a healing tree and we already have enough healing options. You may disagree, but I still think ZB is where it should be and I don’t think there is anything wrong with having some sustain in a damage oriented tree. Just because we are ahead of the curve versus some other classes, does not mean this the wrong design decision. On the contrary, this is what the other classes need to have…that’s what leads to build diversity. Options that do not involve being forced down certain trait lines.

All this being said, I would be hard pressed to find any reason to abandon the points I do have in honor and virtues to go deeper into zeal as the trade offs are too severe…hence the reason for improvement in the zeal traits to make it a viable alternative instead of a waste of design/trait space. To answer your question…no, I don’t think you should only need to run absolute resolution to deal with conditions…that’s why we have utility slots for purging flames, etc…but I’ll digress on further responses to sarcasm.

You wanted examples of “strong sustain” in offensive trait lines:

Ele: Air – soothing winds Fire: burning fire
War: Strength – restorative strength, great fortitude, building momentum
Mes: Dueling – critical infusion, desperate decoy, deceptive evasion

Those are the classes I have played enough to know well. I consider all of those traits to be stronger than ZB. I am not trying to take these out of context as guardians have other options, but so do these classes. No trait exists in a vacuum.

Your argument is flawed on the level that you are only concerned with one playstyle. You want to be able to do good dps and have high sustain. Whether it be pve/pvp/wvw, that is a single unique playstyle. So why does it not make sense that this single unique playstyle only have 1-2 viable builds and force you down 1-2 specific trait lines? If you decided you didn’t care about sustain and you just wanted max damage, your only reason for going into valor would be for the bonus crit damage/access to fury from meditations if you decided to run those. If you decided you didn’t care about damage and just wanted max survivability/sustain then you still have several build options, one of which being altruistic healing, but several of which will not need more than 10, or any at all into valor. Your playstyle is what is limiting the build choices, not any specific trait, and if you think your playstyle should be viable no matter where you spread your traits then I dont know what to say to that…

Arken.3725:

I actually really like your suggestion. I just think one issue is that Zeal offers barely any sustain. This would reduce it to zero.

I don’t think it is necessary that zeal have sustain. 30 into valor for meditations is more than enough sustain imo. Sure you probably wont be able to pull off 1v3s like mesmers and thieves can in certain builds, but that isnt an issue of sustain or healing, rather an issue of overpowered traits for an already broken stealth mechanic.

Arken.3725:

Ok, then reduce it. Once again, the last sentence in the OP was to ask for suggestions. Getting snarky over this helps no one. Propose a more balanced change then.

The whole concept that guardian needs more self healing is the problem. The issue with greatsword, and most guardian weapons in general is their severe lack of soft CC (cripple, immob, chill). If you play the typical greatsword, sw/f medi guardian, your only source of cc is binding blades which is horribly easy to dodge, and on a long cooldown. If you want to make this trait useful without making it overpowered I suggest removing the healing entirely and adding something along the lines of “Whenever you burn your target with greatsword, cripple them for 3s.” Give it a 10s internal cooldown and keep the 5% damage increase bit and you have a trait that actually makes running 20 into zeal worthwhile while still not making any particular build overpowered.

Arken.3725:

Lastly, Increase the heal per hit to 300-400 and have it scale with power, not healing power.

This is just silly… 400 healing per hit with an auto attack that has a 1/2s cast time? Let’s just say for argument sake that you land an average of 5 auto attacks on ANY target within a 10s time period (for those who struggle with math, that is only 25% of the possible auto attacks you could land in that time period). Combine that with a standard medi build with 2k heals for every medi, and 8.2k heal on signet of resolve, and passive regen from virtue of resolve. Average it out over a 40s time period to account for the cooldowns of your longer cd medis and you get an average of almost 800 health per second without any statted healing power. That is the equivalent of 2 healing signet warriors, and they are considered to have the most op regen in the game at current. Explain to me how this sounds balanced in any way?

Asami.3572:

Something that comes up every time I get the ascalon fractal is the issue of the veteran agro. Please for the love of god change it back to what it used to be. No one minded needing to stack on the end boss until one of the vets was hit to get them to attack him. Right now, clearing out the area where the ritual needs to take place is a pain because when you pull one group all of a sudden your allied vets go Leeroy Jenkins – aka YOLO – mode and agro the rest of the area. This often wipes the party at least once or twice depending on what builds they are running.

^^^ so much this… lower levels it isn’t as bad cause the mobs dont have as much health or hit as hard, but on level 49 this fractal can easily take 30 minutes just to properly pull and kill each group section by section while hoping to god the vets dont agro into the siege and die.

Proposal Overview
Fix the LFG to have certain requirements regarding your personal fractal level in order to join a given fractal.

Goal
Preventing level skipping, and inexperienced players joining a fractal much higher than their personal level.

Proposal
For the first three fractal tiers (1-10, 11-20, 21-30), players can join a fractal/LFG if their personal reward level is within one of those tiers. Ex. You are reward level 25, and you see a post for a level 29, you will be allowed to join and run this fractal. However if you were only personal reward level 15, you would not be able to join and run this fractal. For the next two tiers (31-40, 41-50) you can only join a fractal/LFG is your personal reward level is equal to that or greater of the the one you are joining. Ex. You are reward level 36 and you want to join a level 39 fractal in the LFG, you would not be able to join or run this fractal.

Without this, there isn’t any point to having different instabilities from 31-50, because everyone just levels up doing the easiest instabilities (36, 49), and the rest of them go completely untouched. This still allows for power leveling your friends through low level fractals, but once you reach the instabilities you are forced to play through the content as it was designed.

Associated Risks
LFGs may take longer to fill up, but I think the trade off of knowing that people in your group are at least of a certain experience/reward level would be worth it.

P.S. For the love of god please make it a requirement to be level 80 to join a Fractal LFG. If you have it on the regular dungeons it doesn’t make any sense to not have it on Fractals.

This is the second time in two days and the third time in a week that your servers have experienced massive lag/disconnects and about the 6th time in the last month or so. There has been literally ZERO communication from anet regarding these issues outside of standard PR responses of “sorry we are working to fix it”. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if these disconnects didn’t cause dungeons/fractals to reset, world boss fights to reset, PvP matches to reset, and siege in WvW to reset. But with all of these things happening, it is leading to an extremely disappointed and angry in-game population whose time is being wasted due to incompetency on a level that is staggering at this point in a game’s life.

I understand that issues happen, and things beyond your control will occur. But when it becomes this frequent and it goes completely unexplained for weeks to months on end then I come to two conclusions: either Anet doesn’t care about these server issues, or they lack the wherewithal to handle them. Neither one of these is a good conclusion, but with literally zero communication it is hard to see the positive side of this. I hope that both of these assumptions are wrong, and that these issues clear up, and we get some real communication from Anet moving forward. Otherwise I fear for the future of this game and its player base.

This is at least the 5th time something to this scale has happened in the last month. I don’t know what it is going on, on Anet’s end but this is ridiculous. Over the last several months your servers have become increasingly more and more unstable and there are more and more bugs creeping there way into the game with each patch. If this keeps up I find it hard to imagine you retaining your current population with a number of new MMOs on the horizon.

Asami.3572:

Vote to remove the endlessly spawning mobs in dredge! Raise your hands!

fufu.8345:

This is the best we’re going to get and that’s the bottom line… No PPT that matters, No stale server match ups, interesting map with avenues of attack. I’m too excited for this!

If you’ve played this map for longer than 15 minutes and aren’t severely disappointed by what could’ve been, then you are not the type of person that is interested in even remotely fun or balanced pvp. But then again you play condi PU mesmer so I guess that answers my question.

killahmayne.9518:

Dynnen.6405:

Oozo.7856:

Chaba.5410:

Funny thread. I like when skills are able to be used both defensively and offensively so please don’t make this kind of change. It gives me a choice in playstyle.

But I do laugh at the warriors who always run away. If you emote laugh at them, they usually come back to fight.

You would still be able to use the leaps defensively in the same way that guardians use their ports defensively. You switch targets to a target that gets you out of the kill zone.

It just requires more awareness of surroundings and targeting skills, but sometimes there are no good escape options. As it should be.

How dare you suggest that a warrior should be forced to be aware of their surroundings. Anet is trying to take that out of warrior, didn’t you see the 6.5 months of buffs that they got to their traits that activate passively?

Yet axe = nerfed, mace = nerfed, hammer = nerfed, longbow = nerfed, HF and BP = moved from adept to grandmaster, Unsuspecting foe = nerfed. Warriors were buffed for good reason. It is only because warrior got sustain that allowed them to be viable in tPvP play that people are now complaining about mobility.

None of those weapons have been nerfed in any noticeable way. Axe auto rotation is by far the highest in the game. Mace is still very strong in small man or solo roaming. Hammer still puts out 8k earthshakers in cavalier gear. Longbow has never been nerfed. Unsuspecting foe is still easy to pick up and get cleansing ire and burst mastery. Warrior is literally the only class that has had the “shaving” treatment that anet keeps talking about in terms of it’s nerfs. Slight changes that pretend to make a difference yet really have no effect on game balance as a whole.

evilapprentice.6379:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

In my 2k+ hours of playing a thief I literally can’t think of a single time this trait has been the sole cause of my death, or even a significant reason in why I died. If I die due to getting revealed by this trait, is at a point where I would’ve died anyways because I was being too reckless. I can however think of several hundred times in which it has absolutely saved my life, either by clearing a condi from Shadow’s Embrace or blinding an enemy attack that wouldve killed me, or giving me an escape when everything else was on cooldown. There is no need to rework this trait, as it works perfectly if you understand how to use it.

This sounds like you’re talking PvE.

PvP is the realm where last refuge is an issue. It will get you killed you in PvP. Your assessment that it’s working perfectly, and those who don’t understand it is completely incorrect from a PvP standpoint.

90% of my time on all my classes is in WvW/SPvP.

In my 2k+ hours of playing a thief I literally can’t think of a single time this trait has been the sole cause of my death, or even a significant reason in why I died. If I die due to getting revealed by this trait, is at a point where I would’ve died anyways because I was being too reckless. I can however think of several hundred times in which it has absolutely saved my life, either by clearing a condi from Shadow’s Embrace or blinding an enemy attack that wouldve killed me, or giving me an escape when everything else was on cooldown. There is no need to rework this trait, as it works perfectly if you understand how to use it.

Mickz.8356:

Pentzski.4620:

Sure have come quite a ways from the old DR days. Tell Cream he is noob and to get good. Good luck with recruiting, fella’s

Gwynscrub! woof

You noobs should come to Ebay so we can get the full DR gang back together again

Ah, what a shame. Thanks for the responses guys.

I know there probably aren’t too many people that would have experience with this, but I currently have Bolt on my mesmer and I’m considering going for a second one, but I’m concerned there will be no difference in my character aside from just having another sword that looks like bolt. So the question is, will I get added affects and more lightning animations from having a second bolt? I already know that there won’t be more footsteps as it always goes with whatever is in your mainhand, but the extra lightning and sound procs/animations would be enough to justify getting a second one.

Any help on this is greatly appreciated.

Azgarn.2145:

Oozo.7856:

Azgarn.2145:

Oozo.7856:

Not many people from BSty even post on the forums, so don’t direct your ire towards them. :P

They have also had quite a few people come back to the game who have been gone for months just this last week, so they are going to be running heavier for now and don’t know who people are and probably don’t care.

Being gone from the game for a while or not knowing who people are shouldn’t affect your nature or behavior. And yeah I was wrong, it was you Oozo that came to the forums a few weeks ago iirc. It’s just disappointing that a group of skilled players lack class and respect that could really make them stand out.

I wasn’t in your screenshots because I logged off early due to frustration for not finding any decent fights. Trust me, 5v2s aren’t the types of fights they are looking for and maybe they were taking their frustrations out on you, I don’t know. I wasn’t there.

Are you running with an [AF] tag now? That is definitely not a small number roaming guild. :P

When we aren’t raiding, I roam. Always have been a roamer at heart, but it’s also fun to be part of a skilled group that can fight on reset night and take down those pesky zergs. Can’t know how good you really are until you’ve mastered everything. AF is a great guild and they have taught me a lot that I didn’t know. Things that will help me as a roamer as well. And I say this from one roamer to another, it takes a lot more control and skill to be part of a guild like AF than you probably think. I felt like a newborn calf the first few nights with them.

This post is just too funny… posts like this are gonna make me miss the matchup forums when they’re gone.

Josh XT.6053:

The reason that most groups will respond with a no thanks is because most set their group composition is setup for 15-20 people. It gives a perfect balance of front line and backline where there are factors of skill, builds and ability to work together with the group composition. Most don’t want to do a 5 man because their characters aren’t built for 5v5’s, they’re built for 15v40s (or so the good ones are.) I can tell you that in a 5v5 situation, I wouldn’t do well as a backliner. It is very easy for 5 people to have instant stability from one guardian and run right past the front line and aim the poor necro (me) with no stability standing in the back trying to drop his nukes lol..

So yeah, it just isn’t how most skill guilds have their characters build. I can tell you that I wouldn’t want to risk losing a 5v5 under the any tag that I rep because I know that none of the guilds I run with build like that.

If you want to setup a 15v15 or 20v20, I’m sure you could get in contact with BB pretty easily to set it up, they love to do GvG and I’m sure its been pretty dry for them since we all fight all the same guilds every day now with this new way that they’ve got the tiers set up. Better get comfortable with this match up until Dragonbrand moves up a couple ranks from their oceanic presence lol..

To try and say that there are more guilds that want to do 15v15 or 20v20 vs 5v5 is extremely ignorant. There are just as many or more organized small man roaming groups that run groups suited for 5v5 or 10v10, just like the zerg guilds run groups suited for 20v20. Just because you personally do not run smaller than 15, doesn’t mean no one else does. The point is, a huge majority of those small roaming guilds don’t wish to do organized 5v5 fights. All of them have their own excuses, but for the most part they are just afraid to lose what is guaranteed to be an even fight number wise. It hurts a lot more when there is no other excuse to use aside from “they outplayed us” or “we played like crap”.

Just because you have only witnessed one point of view, and you only know one playstyle doesn’t mean it is the only one, or even the one that a majority of players follow, so try not to be so ignorant in the future.

Oozo.7856:

Although, Creepy is right.

Oh no, my worst nightmare. Being mistaken for creepy silent.

Edit: and now its fixed. Nightmare over.

fufu.8345:

RazGerb.6173:

To be honest I see what oozo means.
After roaming for ONE hour on my newly made necro.
I was ganked by BP 17 times, not a single fair fight.
Then roaming with a group Rekz feels the need to be meanies to us.

Don’t worry Oozo’s group zergs solo’s also, he’s just a hypocrite and says they don’t.

We only really “zerg” down one person when they play things like PU condi mesmers. But that is just out of principle.

Watching [Lost] do laps of hills for the last hour has been thoroughly amusing. I guess their driver was in dire need of some cardio, cause not much else was accomplished.

Evilzara.6378:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Nalivan.6451:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Evilzara.6378:

nothing.7941:

They’re a fine guild.

Oh god no.

This coming from the leader of VNG.

If you think Zara is the leader of VNG then you definitely know nothing about VNG.

Her actions and words on the forums suggest otherwise, but thanks a bunch for clearing up my misconception with your convenient signature. A friendly suggestion to you then, sir master guild leader. You should do a better job at managing your guildies on the forums and the amount of kitten talking they do given how little of it they can actually back up. “Zara” alone does so much kitten talking you’d expect your guild to be legends and gods of WvW, yet sadly, that is no where near the truth. Quite the opposite actually.

So only the best guilds of the best are allowed to trash talk?

No, you just usually expect that given a certain level of trash talking, it would reflect in game with a certain level of player skill. In your case, it is no where close.

Nalivan.6451:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Nalivan.6451:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Evilzara.6378:

nothing.7941:

They’re a fine guild.

Oh god no.

This coming from the leader of VNG.

If you think Zara is the leader of VNG then you definitely know nothing about VNG.

Her actions and words on the forums suggest otherwise, but thanks a bunch for clearing up my misconception with your convenient signature. A friendly suggestion to you then, sir master guild leader. You should do a better job at managing your guildies on the forums and the amount of kitten talking they do given how little of it they can actually back up. “Zara” alone does so much kitten talking you’d expect your guild to be legends and gods of WvW, yet sadly, that is no where near the truth. Quite the opposite actually.

Given that, i do not remember fighting NA much at all except for super small man fights i’ll just sit here and laugh at this comment.

Also, while i may attempt to sway what people from my guild say at times if it gets too rash, who am i to tell them what they should say/do. They are human beings who can think for themselves, i am not here to babysit them.

Oh, and excuse the 4 month old guild for not being up to your super leet prosauce year old guilds standards.

4 months? really? Unless you are implying that all of your members were new to the game in the last 4 months (which they obviously aren’t), if you can’t hit your stride as a guild within 4 months then no amount of time is going to help. I also never said my guild is “super leet prosauce”, I’m just saying you should step up your game to match that of your forum warrioring (if that is even possible), or more people might think you are just a joke guild filled with trolls.

Nalivan.6451:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Evilzara.6378:

nothing.7941:

They’re a fine guild.

Oh god no.

This coming from the leader of VNG.

If you think Zara is the leader of VNG then you definitely know nothing about VNG.

Her actions and words on the forums suggest otherwise, but thanks a bunch for clearing up my misconception with your convenient signature. A friendly suggestion to you then, sir master guild leader. You should do a better job at managing your guildies on the forums and the amount of kitten talking they do given how little of it they can actually back up. “Zara” alone does so much kitten talking you’d expect your guild to be legends and gods of WvW, yet sadly, that is no where near the truth. Quite the opposite actually.

Evilzara.6378:

nothing.7941:

They’re a fine guild.

Oh god no.

This coming from the leader of VNG.

XPGAMER.7324:

So for example, you realize your health is getting low so you go to cloak and dagger an enemy, so you can stealth to get regen, blind, escape, or other things depending on your build.

You just figured out your own problem with this sentence… Why in gods name are you going for a cloak and dagger when you know you are getting very low and you know that last refuge is going to proc. Honestly I have no sympathy for people that die because they don’t understand how to use this trait. I have over 2.5k hours on my thief, mostly in WvW or Spvp and I can count the number of times that this trait has killed me on one hand. And even in those circumstances it was my fault. Either I was playing too recklessly or not paying attention to incoming damage etc. The other hundreds of times it has proc’d it has either saved my life or given me an advantage over my opponent in winning the fight. The only time I can see this trait being an issue is if you play so unbelievably glassy and have so little game awareness that you drop from full health to below 25% in the time it takes you to cast an ability, in which case it isn’t the fault of the trait, it is the fault of your build/gear.

Aeros.2046:

Oozo.7856:

Aeros.2046:

Hello Ehmry Bay. I know I don’t speak for Borlis Pass. But I do speak for almost 400 WvW players on borlis pass.

Welcome. Welcome to the blasted desert of reality. The cold hard existence of the real. Where mommy yaks bend and the illusion of relevance is no longer present to hold your hand and wipe your nose when the going gets tough.

And the going is to be very tough. Mommy yak is no longer present Ehmry. You are here. With us. Alone. To our crystal desert pals, I can say we honestly don’t care how the chips fall this week, or the next. So long as Ehmry suffers. And they will suffer. The chickens come home to roost my friends, and your alliance with yaks means nothing now.

You belong to Borlis.

Is this guy serious? Somewhere a 40 man zerg is missing one of their zerglings.

You have no idea the power you are poking. But I won’t do silly forum thumping without backing it up. Prepare yourselves. Normally, the BS guild tries to maintain a low profile, but for you guys, I will make a very pointed exception. If you want to fight a 100% rep guild with 400 members, I will fully entertain your desire. Exclusively. For ebay. And when we come, tell your friends that you called us out. they will assuredly thank you for it.

No one cares. Everyone in your guild is trash anyways. 40 of you consistently fail to kill 1 person even though you chase them halfway across the map. Please by all means continue to do so though, it is highly entertaining when you fail and then 3-4 of your tail dies afterwards and has to run back from spawn. That’s gotta be great for guild morale.

To anyone else who enjoys doing more than pressing 1 in a mindless blob. Feel free to whisper me for 1v1-5v5s.

LF anything from 1v1s-5v5s. Signet of Spite necros need not apply for 1v1s. Message me in game or on here if interested.

In an effort to reach 30 pages Ill make a contribution to the thread:

Thanks to Sc for the GvGs yesterday, was fun playing the game again for the first time in 2 weeks. To the Yaks Bend that spam joined my party after I killed them telling me to stop killing them and go cap camps for points so Ebay could take second place, thanks for all the loot and the tears. To everyone QQing about the points and 2v1ing, I really don’t think the extra 2 greens and 1 blue you will get for getting 2nd vs 3rd will be that big of a deal.

Tibstrike.2974:

Maybe they don’t want to die? People know NA is good at roaming. That is what you guys do. You are very good at it and I’m sure 8 times out of 10 you win an even fight. Sure, many people will keep on trying to fight you and trying to win, but many would rather not.

You seem to have a very low tolerance for anything not suited to your playstyle. Either people run away and not fight or they are zergers who blob over you.

I would like to extend you an offer to gather up 20 of your buddies and actually try zerg fighting. Maybe you will realize its not all about spamming 1. Maybe your opinions will stay the same. I don’t know.

Anyways, people are probably going to spam emotes as long as the game exists. So just move on and go roflstomp other players in a small-sided fight after you respawn.

This is engame player vs. player combat. No matter how much PvE Anet tries to put inside WvW it will always be a primarily PvP environment with the focus of killing other people. So saying “maybe people don’t want to fight you cause they know you are good” makes no kittening sense… What is the point of going into a primarily PvP environment if you aren’t going to fight people (especially good players). Of course I’m not going to begrudge someone for running away from us if it is a 5v1, but if they do and then show up as part of a zerg 10 minutes later and run us down like dogs 20v5 and then emote spam on us, then you can expect tension to rise. Especially when that is literally 99% of the fights I and my guildies have witnessed this week from FA both from CD and Ebay’s perspective.

Not only do we not have 20 people to “roam” with, we don’t want to roam with 20 people even if we did. Once you break a certain threshold of about 15 players, the contribution of individual player skill goes out the window and 99% of the group’s success comes from the intelligence and experience of the driver, and the build/class comp of the group. Individual player skill begins to not matter, as long as they are capable of pressing buttons on their keyboard and following the driver.

grabemx.9836:

SIC always running small mans.

I lold.

sephiroth.4217:

Edit: not even gonna reply to your guildies cause a good chance you asked for his help but we were on your map for 6+ hours, not my fault you guys logged on for the last 10 minutes.

I posted out of my own volition after seeing how delusional your posts were. And I don’t care that you guys logged off right after our fights, I was simply explaining why the first post from Winters happened. If there hadn’t been any emotes this would’ve never made the forums, but when you emote spam someone when you massively outnumber them and then wipe to them when you still outnumber them twice in a row, and then bail off the map (regardless of the reason why), you can bet that it is gonna result in a forum post. You have no one to blame but yourself for this drama dragging out over 48 hours. You’ve had several opportunities to just end it and move on or ignore it completely, yet you still continue to post argumentative drivel.(Obviously because of how little you care).

sephiroth.4217:

We died = we are bad. We need to learn to play cause we are so bad, we actually died.
That video you posted of 1 fight over a 6 hour period of many wipes on your side and ours just proves how bad we are. From now on we will refrain from using alts, uplevels and/or new builds to have fun while we are in WvW.

happy?

Our side never wiped.. Stop trying to make this out to be some amazing back and forth action. It was a total of 15 minutes that started with me and a mesmer running into your 6-8 man group outside of bay where the mesmer died and I got away (on a dps guardian with 0 condi removal ROFL) which led to one of your players /pointing at me and /laughing. I told the rest of the group (who were looking for fights on another BL) to come make it closer to even numbers. First encounter was 8 of you at SW tower behind cubby. All 8 of you and a couple added pugs died without a single person from our side going down. Second fight about 5 minutes later was at SW camp after your server had just flipped it so it still had the buff. This was the fight shown in the video and it is pretty obvious how that turned out too. And then that was it, saw 3-4 more of you outside of your spawn a few minutes later, and then poof you disappeared from the map because nothing flipped red (not even a sentry) for the next 15 minutes, which is why Winters made his initial post about you leaving after losing two fights.

Try and twist it however you like, the fact is they weren’t good fights or challenging fights, they were stomps and very anti-climatic after the emote spamming that your side did and the fact that at least 3 of your “alts” were using perplexity.

As a side note, from the tone and length of your posts I would wager that you are much angrier and more worked up about this than Winters is, which is ironic cause you have tried multiple times to pull the “we just having fun lolol” and the classic “you are a kid and clearly less mature than I am while I argue with you about events that took place in a video game”.

JonPeters.5630:

this is currently the only instant weapon ability

I really, really, really hope you are only talking about thief weapon abilities. Cough Mesmer Staff #2 has the exact same functionality Cough. Wanna know why it doesn’t have a cast time though? Cause if it did it would severely hinder the survivability of mesmer. Imagine that.

Balefire.7592:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Thief is the only class in the game that does not have access to aegis, protection, or blocks/invulns.

I would gladly trade my meager protection uptime and all of Deathshroud to have half your stealth.

I would gladly trade my stealth utilities when I’m running weapon sets like p/p or s/p for getting 3x more toughness and 2x more vitality and 20s of stability from plauge form.

Conncept.7638:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Also do you and the other devs really not realize that a majority of thieves main source of survivability comes from traits that you are nerfing into the ground. A reduction of 40-50% of all of our sources of vigor is huge to weapon sets that don’t have access to stealth, both in pve and pvp. Any pistol/pistol thief who relies on near permanent vigor uptime from withdraw with vigor on heal is now going to be drastically less survivable. Any sword/pistol thief that relies on keeping pressure on targets through pistol whip and survivability from black powder, and used traits like Opportunist, Signet Use, and Quick Recovery is now going to have less initiative than before, because the nerfs to those traits outweigh the buffs to passive init regen. And if that wasn’t enough, now with a cast time on sword #2, thieves lost one of their main sources of not getting stun locked in pvp.

If you paid attention to any other class you would notice nearly every class is receiving nerfs to vigor, and no class will be able to maintain permanent vigor anymore. It’s overpowered across the entire game, dodge was never meant to reach the point where you could use it every 5-6 seconds for the entire length of a fight. And if any class has the least right to complain about the vigor nerfs, it’s thieves, you have more evasion on your weapons and utilities than any other class, and your already-too-spammable weapon evasions are about to receive a 1/3rd buff. You are the only ones apparently receiving anything at all to compensate for these vigor nerfs, be happy, stop whining.

I’m not even going to bother responding to the rest of your post. Mesmers and guardians both have access to permanent vigor as a 5 point minor trait. They have had this access since the beginning of the game and this isn’t getting touched, because if it did it would drastically reduce their survivability. Learn anything about other classes before you try calling someone else out on not knowing about other classes. Also, thief is fairly unique on how its main source of survivability comes from evasion, especially on weapon sets that dont have access to stealth, which happens to be 3 of the 7. Thief is the only class in the game that does not have access to aegis, protection, or blocks/invulns.

JonPeters.5630:

Versatility for thief. We are giving every single thief build 33% more initiative to work with. We have said this a number of times, but clearly it needs to be said again. If any other profession was getting a patch note that said: Decreased cooldown of all weapon skills by 25%, that would be considered a huge buff. The way initiative works is obfuscating how powerful this change it, but please consider the value of this change when weighing thief changes in this patch.

Look, I’m really trying my hardest here not to post something inflammatory, but what you just said was so incredibly silly and non-sequitur that I don’t even know how to approach this response respectfully. Initiative does not in any way shape or form compare to cooldowns. Thief skills are intentionally balanced on being able to use them consistently and repeatedly, if you were to change other classes weapon abilities to use initiative instead, the game would be so horribly broken. So trying to make a comparison to increasing passive initiative regen to being equal to reducing cooldowns makes no sense.

Also do you and the other devs really not realize that a majority of thieves main source of survivability comes from traits that you are nerfing into the ground. A reduction of 40-50% of all of our sources of vigor is huge to weapon sets that don’t have access to stealth, both in pve and pvp. Any pistol/pistol thief who relies on near permanent vigor uptime from withdraw with vigor on heal is now going to be drastically less survivable. Any sword/pistol thief that relies on keeping pressure on targets through pistol whip and survivability from black powder, and used traits like Opportunist, Signet Use, and Quick Recovery is now going to have less initiative than before, because the nerfs to those traits outweigh the buffs to passive init regen. And if that wasn’t enough, now with a cast time on sword #2, thieves lost one of their main sources of not getting stun locked in pvp.

About the only spec that isn’t going to feel the effects of the majority of these nerfs are dagger/dagger and pistol/dagger builds that don’t play vigor on heal or bountiful theft, which is one hell of a pigeon holed spec for both weapon sets. The outcome of this patch will put thieves at an even worse place than they already are in spvp, make them less survivable and decrease dps of many specs in pve, and make the WvW specs even more pigeon holed then they already were.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Oghier.7419:

D/D didn’t get nerfed. Increasing base initiative gain by 33% is a pretty big deal.

It’s more than a big deal. It’s a MASSSSSSSSSIVE buff to all thief specs.

This proves how little you and many other devs understand about your own game. If you honestly think that an extra .25 init/s is going to at all counter act the MASSSSSSSSSSSSSIVE surivivability nerfs that you are throwing out with this patch then you have clearly never played a thief above the level of spamming heartseeker in CoF p1. Also considering the majority of thief specs that played with opportunist, the nerf to that alone is on average more than .25 init/s loss. Please provide me with any context on how you are reputable source with regards to what constitutes a MASSSSSSSSIVE buff for thieves, outside of “I’m a developer, of course I know what I’m talking about”.

These patch ideas summed up in a few points: Thieves are dead in wvw/pvp. Most warriors will switch to condi builds since there is still no nerf healing signet/adrenal healing. No matter how much you buff mantras, the 2.75s cast time will always make they useless in wvw/spvp outside of specific circumstances. Guardians are still too heavily reliant on valor/honor trait lines for survivability. Condi eles are going to be insane, and fighting an ele as a condi class is going to be worse than fighting a warrior. Engies and necros will still fly high in condi/bunker builds. Rangers still have no reliable aoe damage outside of traps, keeping them at their same level of uselessness in a group when compared to virtually every other damage class.

All I resulting from this patch is a massive reduction in the amount of thieves, and a massive increase in the amount of people playing condi builds on warriors/eles. You (Anet) are still not working to address the issue with how powerful the current condi meta is, despite repeatedly stating that there needs to be a reduction in the amount of control/damage that condi builds can put out. Simply buffing the condi removal abilities of certain classes still does not address the issue of how powerful certain fully specced condi classes are at both aoe damage, control, and sustain/survivability. All it does is pigeon hole those classes into running those traits/utilities and cause hybrid dps/condi builds to become completely worthless. This just leads to extremely predictable and boring builds and gameplay.

Kcrook.3945:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Kcrook.3945:

Dynnen.6405:

Kcrook.3945:

billiamgrace.2804:

Kcrook.3945:

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Kcrook.3945:

EFWinters.5421:

Today’s karma training from SBI has made me realize what a sad state WvW is in.

For those of us who don’t omniblob or karma train it is very very boring. Roaming around 50-75% of the time looking for people to fight because Ebay and NSP for the most part aren’t showing up at all anymore. I don’t blame them really, just sucks for everyone all around.

Assuming you are who I think you are…

Good god, you are a tank. I don’t think any other guardian has given me as much trouble in WvW as you did earlier during those duels. It’s been a while since I had to call a stalemate against someone who was not an ele. I was the ranger, Billiamgrace was the mesmer.

Ahh, yeah that was a fun duel, you got that regen down to a science :P

I’m actually not tanky at all, I only run about 2700 total armor and 600 healing. I just hold my own well against condi classes because I shifted to Soldier Runes and I use SoR for the passive condi removal along with the traited passive condi removal.

Oh, and FOR SHAME for that mesmer using perplexity runes. Isn’t Condi Mes strong enough without using the most over powered rune set in the game? We all need to boycott that garbage.

Perplexity runes definitely do need nerfing. The fact that the sixth bonus doesn’t have an ICD is straight up ridiculous.

That being said, I’ve been running a Condition-Interrupt build with the same trait layout (give or take 5 trait points here or there) since late April (i.e. before Mesmer interrupts were buffed, before Perplexity runes were introduced). I’m not going to forego a runeset that synergizes perfectly with that build/playstyle purely because it is unbalanced for non-mesmers. There are certainly strong Condi Mesmer builds sans Perplexity runes. However, those builds are not interrupt builds and I, personally, do not find them to be as rewarding to play.

I realize this comes across as a massive QQ on my part. For that, I apologize. I honestly enjoyed fighting you earlier. You play the meditation style well.

You mention that it is unbalanced for non-mesmers. I would think it is the MOST imbalanced for classes that can already apply confusion, since your duration and stacking intensity is MUCH higher. That said, I understand people ran confusion before the runes, still do, and will continue to do so once they are nerfed and that’s fine. The fact that the set creates a great imbalance though can not be ignored.

You’re only mad cause you still play your Guard

Don’t make me hunt you down and crit you to death :P

With all that extra fury you have now from how overpowered meditations are, amiright?

Well, since I posted about 15 posts back or so that I run Soldier Runes to clear conditions the assumption would be that I don’t use meditations.

In other words, NO =P

I know you do. Just a simple joke made at the expense of the sad state that guardian is in outside of being a dodge roll spamming boon machine.