Guild Wars 2

Specific Game Mode
PvE, but would likely affect all

Proposal Overview
Remove pets as AI, replace them as “pet combo” skills that get bonuses based on which weapon skills you use.

Goal of Proposal
Eliminate the AI headache that pets pose by changing them to be an additional “weapon” equipped by the player.

Proposal Functionality
Pets already have 4 skills total with their own cooldowns. The idea here is that pets would stand by the Ranger’s side and “wait” to do each of those skills until commanded by their master (F1-F4).

Because pets would be “command only” like skills are, they could move much faster and also be untargetable/invulnerable. Telling a pet to do a specific attack would result in it sprinting towards the Ranger’s current target at high speed and delivering its strike (which could then be blocked/evaded/etc like any weapon attack). Then the pet would return to its master’s side. If the Ranger queues up all 4 of its pet’s attacks, the pet rushes out, executes those attacks in the order instructed, and then returns. If the pet is interrupted, they simply return. The Ranger can “combo” pet skills with their weapon skills by using the corresponding pet skill after a weapon skill: for example, Greatsword Maul + Pet F1 = More vulnerability, or Barrage + Pet F4 = a Knockdown attack.

Associated Risks
1. Invulnerable, “non-AI” pets sounds weird, but it eliminates all kinds of strange behaviors of dead pets and AI problems such as standing still to attack and skill command lag (which I understand is being addressed as well).

2. Since pets would no longer be providing sustained damage or be assigned targets independent to the Ranger, damage coefficients on both Ranger skills and Pet skills may need to be reworked. This might be a good thing as well since many players feel that the Ranger should be less pet-dependent for damage.

3. Pets would still have to be able to be knocked back/blocked/or otherwise disabled when they are attacking.

With the devs posting about in-world rewards getting some love in the upcoming patches, I thought I would throw in a suggestion for handling Champion loot drops and Events.

When people know about a consistent Champion spawn (say, the Champion Cave Troll in Queensdale), it’s easy to get a rather large group of players involved in the event. While this is awesome and gets players playing together, the Champion can only scale to a point, so when a very large group of players is involved in a Champion event it diminishes the value of the event and the overall impact that each player has on the enemy.

I would like to suggest two changes to the way Champion drops and events function in the game:

1. Indicate when a Champion has gone beyond (versus N players) its maximum scale with a condition called “Overwhelmed.” This condition should remove Defiant/Unstoppable/Unshakable/etc boons that Champions often have. Unstoppable should also diminish the possibility of “Champion quality” loot. Standard Champion Dynamic Event Rewards should still apply.

2. Champions should have a significantly higher chance to drop zone-themed Rare-skinned items. For example, if I’m hunting Champions in Fireheart Rise, I should have a pretty good chance of obtaining “Flame” weapons.

Basically, a Champion scales up to N players. If the number of players is <=N, the Champion behaves normally (although hopefully with a nice set of loot possibilities). If the number of players is >N, apply “Overwhelmed,” which will result in the event ending more quickly with normal event rewards (XP/Karma/Money), albeit with reduced drop possibilities.

I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this!

In my experience it removes the most recently applied condition. So, in theory it is possible to “bury” a powerful bleed stack (say BiP) behind another long-ish condition (such as the the Weakness from Enfeebling Blood), hit them with Deadly Swarm, then throw on a Fear and Epidemic. You could even go so far as to hit Death Shroud (traited to pop Enfeebling Blood again), fire off Doom, and then exit, swap to Staff, lay down a Reapers Mark under them, THEN pop epidemic. They’ll be jogging for days!

Ideally this would get them to blow their condition removal/fear breaks without costing you your bleed stack. Of course, all it takes is one Guardian with Save Yourselves + Contemplation of Purity to ruin your day.

Try Flame Dagger (rare quality dropped skin, also a Charr cultural weapon), Molten Dagger (from CoF) or Destroyer Dagger (Mystic forge recipe).

Tested with a Sword and Short Bow, using Stone Spirit and Sun Spirit. rough average across about 20 tests is one proc every 15-20 successful hits, which is between 6.6% and 5.5%

Most of the time it seems to happen within the first 5 hits, then it will not happen again for another 15-20 hits. If there is some kind of internal cooldown, it is not indicated in either the tooltip or the spirit effect in the boon list. It’s also worth noting that the trait that increases the Spirit proc rate to 50% does not seem to effect the actual Proc rate.

Something is broken.

Yes, there is anti-farming code in place. No one really knows how it works, but I’ve seen others online complaining about experiencing it. Personally I’ve never noticed it, and I pretty much just run around Orr and kill everything I see.

1. Play the game
2. Get loot.
3a. Sell everything to vendors that’s not Rare or Exotic
3b. Sell RNG loot bags on BLTP
3c. Salvage things marked as “Salvage Items.”

IF [item type] = Rare or Exotic
IF [BLTP Sell Value] > [1 Glob of Ectoplasm BLTP Sell Value], sell on BLTP
ELSE Salvage.

And where can I get it?

Thanks!

You could always pop Haste and spam Unload, then use Signet of Agility to get all your endurance back, then use Roll for Initiative to get some initiative back for another Unload at normal speed.

Even then, you probably won’t bring down a target. Also, pray they don’t have the ability to reflect projectiles.

One more thing (my edit ability is broken somehow…):

At 80, I’ve been using Valkyrie gear (Armor and Weapons). I’ve found that stacking Power and Crit Damage (with the Vitality there too) has provided a nice bump in my non-crit and crit damage output. Runes I’ve been using Superior Lyssa (6). Jewelery isn’t worked out yet, but I’m trying to focus them on precision to get my crit chance above 50% at 80.

Sigils have been Superior Perception, but those don’t work in dungeons so well if you spend a lot of time on your rear. I’ve been considering changing them all to Superior Force or Accuracy for the overall damage bonus or crit chance improvement, depending on how outfitting myself with Rare 80 Jewelry affects my stats.

I run a 0/30/0/20/20 build pretty much all around (PvE and Dungeons). Shadow Refuge is a must for bigger fights, and Scorpion Wire has its uses as well. I take Signet of Agility because it’s condition removal for up to 5 conditions for you and anyone around you on a 30s CD. Sometimes instead of Scorpion Wire I take Caltrops, Smoke Screen, or Blinding Power (another AoE stealth skill).

For weapons, I usually take Sword/Pistol and either another Pistol (for single target focus) or a Shortbow for the Area Weakness combo (Choking Gas + Cluster Shot). Additionally, the Smoke Field on Pistol 5 is great for dungeon mobs, especially if you can get them focused on you.

I use Withdrawal for a heal most of the time, but if the dungeon has me on precarious footing I’ll switch to Hide in Shadows. It’s a bigger heal with regen on a longer CD, but it doesn’t flip me off of ledges.

Dagger Storm is the go-to elite here. it’s an ages-long whirl finisher that combines well with Shadow Refuge (and any other thing in the huge chaos of fields in big fights).

Since we’re wishing here, I want stances that I can set on F2-F4. For example:

• Focused Stance: + Initiative Regeneration, – Damage
• Longshot Stance: Increases all ranged attack distance, – Initiative Regeneration, reduces ranged attack cost by 1 Initiative
• Parrying Stance: Chance to absorb projectiles and reflect melee damage

Kizee.2184:

Welcome to the “I should have rolled a warrior or guardian” club.

It is annoying how squishy we are without the dps to back it up. We may be good in PvP because of stealth and mobility but IMO thieves are pretty frustrating to play in PvE.

I’m a level 80 Thief that spends most of my time in Orr/Frostgorge. I hardly ever die because I use Sword/Pistol with Shortbow on swap.

Here’s my build.

At level 35, if you’re worried about survivability, I would focus on Acrobatics. It will increase your mobility and Vitality in ways that gear can’t really help you at this point. Then build out into Trickery and finally Critical Strikes for your last 30 levels. Wear gear that gives you Power/Crit Damage (like Valkyrie) at later levels to even out the lack of points in your Power trait line.

If Grenth is the son of Dwayna and Malchor, how did Malchor sculpt Grenth’s Statue before he saw Dwayna? We know Malchor saw Grenth at some point, because Grenth’s statue is inscribed with Malchor’s thoughts of the god.

Stealing does not interrupt “channeled” skills (any skill where you see a bar go from left > right over your skill bar). In the case of daggers or sword, stealing correctly suspends your auto attack; however, with a pistol or shortbow it’s possible to steal “in the middle” of preparing to fire, which causes you to break stealth shortly after stealing. It’s probably a bug.

I’ve been eying a full set of Exotic Valkyrie Armor since I’m running a 0/30/0/20/20 build. The crit damage bonus per item would be significant to offset the lack of power traits, while I’ve found that since the thief can sometimes find himself under a lot of conditions without many removal options, more raw HP from Vitality will probably help there.

Sword offhand would create 5 more skills (4/5 skills + dual skills with dagger/pistol/sword), which is more balance work for ANet. I personally feel like a dual-sword thief wouldn’t feel like a thief.

I think a major trait in the Precision that extended pistol range to 1200 (could call it “Crack Shot” or something) would be a nice middle ground between adding a whole new weapon to balance (Rifle, for example) and leaving thieves to just spam 2 slow-moving shortbow skills for the duration of a siege.

Edit: They could replace Critical Haste, because that trait is worthless on a 30s CD.

You can go back into the vaults in Plains of Ashford. The entrance is near where all those earth elementals spawn.

The helm is in the north of Lornar’s Pass, sold by a Karma vendor in the Skritt cave that you can find coming from the northeastern exit of Gendarren Fields.

Metzger Wickersham.5976:

Doom.8647:

Make supply drop from Dolyaks in WvW. Not all the time…only when a server holds a minority of a map.

With this implemented, teams would be able to “raid” supply caravans in order to make up for the supply deficit that results from not having many (if any) supply camps in a given zone of WvW.

Make the supply an item that they carry in their inventory so it can’t be used immediately, requiring them to take it to a tower/keep/etc and put it in the storage there. This way, a single Dolyak could yield an individual player more than the 10 supply limit (to be dropped off at a supply spot), and fast movers (Thieves/Rangers) would have something to really stand out by doing.

Except, Dolyaks do sometimes drop an item which grants you 5 supply on pick up.

I thought this was the case, but I haven’t had it happen in a few days. Still, it would be nice to be able to pull a “supply crate” off of them that can be delivered to a quartermaster and give a keep like 20 or 30 supply.

Based on the posts seen here and in the WvW forums, I think it’s clear that defending them is not the issue, it’s having the supply to retake them after a huge server rolls over the entire map.

Make supply drop from Dolyaks in WvW. Not all the time…only when a server holds a minority of a map.

With this implemented, teams would be able to “raid” supply caravans in order to make up for the supply deficit that results from not having many (if any) supply camps in a given zone of WvW.

Make the supply an item that they carry in their inventory so it can’t be used immediately, requiring them to take it to a tower/keep/etc and put it in the storage there. This way, a single Dolyak could yield an individual player more than the 10 supply limit (to be dropped off at a supply spot), and fast movers (Thieves/Rangers) would have something to really stand out by doing.

You can heal regen yourself pretty consistently with Sig of Malice and the Assassin’s Reward trait. If you have high Healing Power, the trait that regens you when you’re stealthed is also great when combined with Shadow Refuge.

The scoring mechanic needs to change. It’s too dependent on time held instead of actual activity.

While time held works in the context of short games or round-based games, it does not work in a 7 × 24/7 scenario.

The solution is to reduce the scoring interval to ~4 times a day (like every 6 hours), and then reward a server with points when they either successfully defend or successfully capture a control point.

This reduces the ability for servers with large 24h populations to sit on captured points with no resistance and gain massive leads (while still rewarding them for capturing them). It also rewards servers that are constantly fighting to retake lost control points by awarding points upon capture/defense of a control point.

Basically, servers would be getting points for battling one another, not capturing a mostly empty server overnight and then sitting on it.

I think this would solve the overall scoring problem; not sure what to do about piles of supply and siege that gets set up during off hours. I can only run out of my base to get impaled by a ballista so many times before I just port back to LA.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

The real question is: How many other hoods are there in the game? Far too many of the head options for medium armor are just differently textured masks.

The starter hood, from what I’ve seen, is unique in its style. However, there are several other hood/mask combos (such as the Crucible of Eternity medium helm) that look pretty awesome.

xkellettx.5673:

is there a way to get another Subtlety Hood i lost mine and im 80 now

This apparently works. I haven’t had the opportunity to try it out yet, though.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/58988-thief-hood-sollution/

I use it in dungeons because I can apply 25 stacks of vulnerability in about 3-4 seconds. Super useful, especially with decent Initiative regeneration. Black Powder and Head Shot are also great tools for dungeons.

Sheathing your weapons changes the run animation, possibly making it feel like you’re moving faster, but I haven’t noticed an actual speed change when trying this. Additionally, being on a mob’s aggro list doesn’t slow you down. You have to take damage from a mob to be slowed down. Once you take damage, you’re “in combat.”

Thieves Guild is my go-to skill while out in the PvE world, but I use Dagger Storm in dungeons, combined with Shadow Refuge (Leeching Bolts can get huge heals off of trash mobs).

There is a difference between movement speed in and out of combat for everyone. AFAIK the movement speed in combat is still faster with the signet, but it’s slower than your out-of-combat speed.

Here’s my solution (posted in another thread):

In order to mitigate the effectiveness of “night capping” by servers with unbalanced peak times, I would like to suggest the following changes to scoring:

• Change the scoring interval to several hours, such as every 3 or 6 hours.
• Reward a team with points upon successfully capturing a stronghold (keep/tower/camp/etc).
• Reward a team with points upon successfully defending a stronghold (keep/tower/camp/etc).

Here’s what these three changes accomplish:

• Rewards teams for maintaining map control (on a longer interval).
• Places emphasis on capturing and then defending what you have captured.
• Prevents servers with unbalanced peak times from gaining a significant advantage from sitting on every point in all of the zones for several hours straight during their opponent’s off hours, essentially being “rewarded” for nothing.

Then it accomplishes nothing at all aside from making the point totals at the end of a match 2/3 lower.

Before I get into this: I’m aware that WvWvW is a “24-hour game,” and that it’s expected that most servers have at least some presence on their WvW zones at all hours of the day. Imbalances are in WvW by design. It’s possible to be outnumbered and stomped on by a larger group of players, and that’s OK.

What is not OK is having game mechanics that allow servers with unbalanced peak times (lots of Oceanic/AUS players in addition to US players, for example) to have a sizable advantage over servers with more traditional peak times.

Changing the scoring interval does very little to solve this issue, because every team is still bound by the same scoring interval. The point gaps created after a night capping server takes the whole WvW map off peak hours are still proportionally the same as they were when the interval was 5 minutes. This is because each team still gets points tallied at the same interval, making it just as difficult for a disadvantaged team to come back from a significant gap.

In order to mitigate the effectiveness of “night capping” by servers with unbalanced peak times, I would like to suggest the following changes to scoring:

• Change the scoring interval to several hours, such as every 3 or 6 hours.
• Reward a team with points upon successfully capturing a stronghold (keep/tower/camp/etc).
• Reward a team with points upon successfully defending a stronghold (keep/tower/camp/etc).

Here’s what these three changes accomplish:

• Rewards teams for maintaining map control (on a longer interval).
• Places emphasis on capturing and then defending what you have captured.
• Prevents servers with unbalanced peak times from gaining a significant advantage from sitting on every point in all of the zones for several hours straight during their opponent’s off hours, essentially being “rewarded” for nothing.

As it is right now, the same problem still exists, albeit with lower overall scores for everyone involved.

The ability for a player to “fail” a cast or other ground-targeted attack because you moved the targeting circle too far away from your character is frustrating for me. This has been “how things work” in MMOs for a long time. However, I think it’s safe to say that it’s more prudent to assume that a player’s intent when clicking outside of the effective range of a ground-targeted attack is to attack at their maximum range, not to cancel the ability. This is especially true for Thieves, who have several mobility-oriented ground targets (such as Infiltrators Arrow and Shadowstep), where failing them because of a misclick can be the difference between life and death.

I would like to suggest an option (like a tickbox in the controls options or something) that will limit your targeting circle movement radius to its max range, so that once the targeting circle reaches the max distance from the character, it just stops.

This way, players who are spastic like me will be less frustrated when that slight dip in terrain makes them click just outside their max range and forces them to reset their skill, and players who like the “old way” of doing things can keep their default targeting method.

We can certainly all agree that Cluster Shot is fantastic when it lands (or pops in mid-air). The major issue I have with it is the time it takes to get to target. It moves way too slow for the speed of the game. Additionally, lobbing it upwards when I’m trying to fire it at a downward angle is just awful.

I think it’s primarily because of this behavior that it has me longing for a longer-range, more direct-damage weapon for the Thief. Maybe if it was sped up a little (or fired on a non-ridiculous arc) I would have less of a problem using it. Then I would at least be able to hit my Choking Gas from a wall before it disappears.

Divinorium.8952:

Doom this would kill completely the act of defending a stronghold since you will be rewarded for that just every 6 hours.
Remember in this case defending you are denying the points for a world. but not actually bringing your world back in the competition.

Could also do points for a successful defense as well, couldn’t we? The players are already rewarded individually (with XP/Karma/Coin) for both attacking and defending. What if a successfully defended stronghold also got a team points? Either way, the current system creates a lot of frustrating problems for servers without a large 24-hour population (which is most of them). I think it should be re-evaluated and redesigned, so you and I definitely both agree on that :-)

EDIT: Additionally, rewarding a world points for successfully defending keeps would make attackers think twice about attacking a difficult stronghold. I think it would make large WvW tactics more valuable and interesting in the long run. Players would have to strategize in order to take heavily defended strongholds so they don’t attack/fail/attack/fail/attack/fail and cause the other team to get more points for defending.

I agree that something needs to be done, but an easier fix might just be to extend the scoring time significantly, so that points are only tallied once every few hours instead of once every few minutes, then give points for the actual act of capturing a given stronghold.

This way, teams that experience no resistance when capturing a stronghold during off hours will still get some points for the capture, but they won’t sit there and accumulate points during a server’s off hours because no one is around to take it back.

I think switching the point tally to once every 6 hours, with points immediately rewarded upon the act of capturing a stronghold, would do a lot to mitigate the current issues with 24h PvP and server load ebb and flow.

kelric.7864:

Yes, but then I’m now left wondering why there’s even a cap at all to be fair.

My guess is hardware limitations. Even if we assume that they allow 100 people from each world into each zone, that server needs to track the specific behavior of 300 players:

• Current location
• Movement direction
• What boons/conditions they have
• What skills/weapons/traits they have equipped
• What skills, if any, they are using.
• What other players (allies and enemies) those skills are affecting.

Even when it’s simplified like this, that’s still 1800 things to check on a regular basis. This is not including values like HP, cooldowns, etc. This is also not including Zone status (who owns which points), AI behavior (Hyleks/Centaurs/etc), and random environment stuff, like roaming mobs and gathering nodes.

Basically, there’s a cap because it’s not technologically possible to let everyone in and still maintain some kind of playable game. The fact that they can get 300 in a zone is a miracle in and of itself.

It would make sense to have a group queue system. At least then you’ll get in with people you know. Allowing an entire guild to queue would probably be too much, but queuing as a group of 5 seems reasonable. Then, multiple groups of 5 from your guild could queue up and aim for the same WvW zone.

So quite a few of my friends have picked up the game in the past week or so, and I’ve been trying to use the awesome downleveling system to my advantage and help them out in their starting zones.

These friends use waypoints. A lot. They’re bouncing around from hearts to cities, looking for new events to do. Following them around costs me between 1 and 2 silver per waypoint. It’s gotten really expensive, and it’s discouraging me from playing with them, especially because the items and other rewards that I’m getting in the zone aren’t enough to break even on the waypoint expenses.

What seems to have happened is that my waypoint costs have gone up based on my level, but the rewards from the lower-level area that I’m playing in generally aren’t enough to mitigate the cost of waypointing around the area with the same amount of freedom that low level characters enjoy.

Obviously, increasing waypoint costs is intended functionality, but it seems like waypoint costs should be based on the level of the zone and the distance traveled, not the level of player. As it stands now, playing with a lower-level friend in a lower-level zone is frustrating because I’m hemorrhaging silver every time we bounce from point to point.

I’m not saying that the Thief is “bad” at WvW. The class is great at lots of stuff. Unfortunately, it’s severely lacking when it comes to Keep attack/defense. All I find myself doing is spamming cluster shot because my basic attack can’t even reach the enemies down below (or up above). Every other class has a basic attack that reaches out to 1200. It’s frustrating and somewhat boring to be stuck using the same slow-moving skill over and over again.

When compared to other classes, Thieves are at a unique disadvantage in a “standard” WvW engagement, specifically when they are on either end of a Keep/Tower/etc siege. Before I get into this, here’s what I’ve found I can do with my Thief in WvW:

• Supply Runs for Siege Setup: A pack of Thieves is way faster and a heck of a lot more vicious than a dolyak. What bums me out is that I can’t drop my supply off at a supply hut in a keep or something. Once I have it I have to use it. Maybe this is a balancing thing to encourage reliance on dolyaks for Keep/Tower/etc upgrades? If it’s not a balancing thing, having a mini-DE for supply delivery (specifically from a supply camp to an held Keep/Tower/etc) could be cool. It would also be a nice thing for WvW soloers to try.
• Baiting Stragglers: I like to get behind enemy lines with a buddy and bait stragglers, then pin them down with CC so my friend can get in close and help with the beat down.
• Scorpion Wire!: Over zealous wall defenders can sometimes get pulled down if they hang off the edge of the wall a bit. I don’t know if this is intended functionality, but it’s unreliable at best. Still hilarious when it happens though.
• Sentry Attacks: A lone Thief should have no problem with a Veteran Sentry NPC. This is useful for distracting the enemy zerg.
• Hill Scouting: I can get places faster than anyone else, so being the first over a hill (and often the first to take a ballista bolt to the face) falls to me.

However, regardless of the things that I can do, what I want to do is to blast people from atop a wall while defending a castle. Right now, my only options for doing that are Shorbow Skill #2 (Cluster Shot) and Shortbow Skill #4 (Choking Gas). All of my other attacks are max range 900 or less, which becomes problematic when fighting from a wall (or up against people defending a wall, for that matter).

Additionally, when firing Cluster Shot from a wall directly down at my targets, my Thief inexplicably lobs it up in the air! The flight speed is already slow, and the additional travel time from the lobbing shot makes it almost impossible to deal damage to the highly mobile enemies below.

I’m not sure what the fix for this is, or if it needs one from ArenaNet’s point of view. There are clearly other things that a Thief (or group of Thieves) can be successful at in WvW…but I guess what I’m trying to say is:

A Rifle would be nice. Something long range, probably slower-firing, designed for sniping, ineffective at close range. Something to make me feel like I’m defending a keep with my buds instead of being all by myself waiting to jump out of the bushes at passer-by. Right now, being a WvW Thief is kind of lonely.

Since you’ll be kiting with P/P a lot, you can’t really go wrong with the Roll for Initiative utility. It’s a backwards roll that breaks stun and gives you 6 initiative points. Combine with the 5-point Trickery trait that gives you 3 initiative on stealing, and you can dodge backwards, steal forwards (for 3 initiative) and then Roll for Initiative (6 more), that’ll get you almost a full bar back. Caltrops are also great to have as a utility. They have a big radius, and cripple and bleed on a pulse, making it easier to kite while you’re waiting for another unload to be ready.

Another favorite of mine is Smoke Screen, which blocks projectiles for 8 seconds and you can shoot through it for added blinds. Just remember that blinds don’t work on some enemies (like dredge).

This is the build I use.

Sword/Pistol has condition removal and stuns. Pistol Whip in particular does damage in a forward cone, which is great for dealing with multiple mobs. Dual pistols is a good single-target ranged option, but you could slot a shortbow and be effective in other ways.

I use Trickery for the extra initiative and damage bonus, Acrobatics keeps me less squishy than a glass cannon, with lots of mobility and extra initiative generation.

I gear for Power/Condition Dmg/Vitality (“Carrion” armor), but I’m going to try out a Power/Healing/Toughness (“Cleric” armor) set once I get the materials. When I’m out in the world I use Sigils of Perception (stacking Precision bonus for higher crit rate). I need to get different Sigils for doing Dungeons, because everyone goes down so much the stacking Sigils are pretty useless.

My armor uses Superior Runes of Lyssa, which seems to work pretty well, especially the 6-piece bonus (remove all conditions/get all boons for 5s when using an elite). It’s a great self-save when combined with Shadow Refuge and Dagger Storm (Shadow Refuge + Dagger Storm = Leeching Bolts), which turns into a pretty decent heal in a pinch, especially when surrounded by enemies.