Guild Wars 2

Well it is a large issue, I just feel like they have a lot of other big fish to fry as well. Such as cc being out of control, bugs, terrible build diversity, too many face roll aoe abilities, too many blocks, blinds, and evades, ect.

Woe is me! Where has my lady friend gone it’s okay slayer…I forgive you. We’ll get the next one.

style.6173:

Here is the scary part… they announced that they have a team who only has the job of balancing. I wonder what they do all day.

Play Guardian and Revenant. Balance is honestly one of the minor problems with PvP at the moment. So many other issues exist. If they don’t pull their heads out of their kittens this game is so kittened.

It seems like this is the case. It’s unfortunate for the players, but probably more so for the developers because losing half or more of their PvP player base isn’t gonna look so good come evaluation time.

SlayerSixx.5763:

ANet doesn’t stab you the back. They smack you square in the face with their nerf bat.

Shhh…you’re ruining my lines mate! :O I’m trying to woo a woman here!

Snow.2506:

Eisenwald.8562:

Snow.2506:

SlayerSixx.5763:

You’re doing god’s work, son.

That would actually be “Daughter”. But thank you.

Daughter? Marry me!? >_>

Thanks for the read. Cheered me up in these dark times sort of…

You don’t want to fall for thief girls. We’ll just stab you in the back.

I’m used to being back stabbed by Anet, I’ll be okay. I’m a big thief

Snow.2506:

SlayerSixx.5763:

You’re doing god’s work, son.

That would actually be “Daughter”. But thank you.

Daughter? Marry me!? >_>

Thanks for the read. Cheered me up in these dark times sort of…

+1 for OP

I main thief (pretty much only class I play) and after this, not only am I done with thief but PvP in general for this game. They know full well the kitten hole they’ve created out of PvP and still fail to even address the issue in a dev post much less address it in the form of balance changes.

Bump

This needs to stay on the front page. I realize the latest patch full of nothing but bull kitten in regards to PvP is a hot topic, but this is still important to a lot of people.

+1 this

The problem with this skill is that it is completely unavoidable and unpredictable. Combing this with test of faith and the spear pull it becomes absurd if used in conjunction.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

This is what happens when you power creep all the time and never do any nerfs.

The state of pvp atm is pure rubbish.

There’s literally no skill anymore…. its just who gets to blow their cooldowns first.

esports.

+1

My analogy for sPvP at the moment is like Tic Tac Toe. Only there are no turns and you are just throwing X’s and O’s all over the board in hopes for a win.

Thanks for your input Jackalrat I have to admit, I think you’re right to doubt Anet on ever removing the downed state from spvp. Although it’s a sad state, I appreciate your voice in the matter. It’s good to know I’m not the only one with a solid head on my shoulders. They have a lot bigger fish to fry at the moment I guess too. Just adding this to my list of reason to move on to Blade & Soul or Black Desert before long.

SlayerSixx.5763:

They attempt a res, you down them….? Your build is deficient if you’re pure melee.

You’re making a claim without any evidence or reasoning. Just down them? It’s like answering the question “how do you kill a Dragon Hunter” with a Shia lLabeouf quote “Just do it”. Please put more effort into your post next time.

Dagins.5163:

Downed state is not the reason you can’t win 2v1. You can pick some stability or skills like elixir s, and stomp without problems.

Problem is, skill floor in GW2 is very low, while skill ceiling is above human level. It’s just very hard to be very good at this game. Too hard. It takes cyborg skills to avoid all important attacks without cast bars, and to time all yours between plentiful evades/invulns/blinds/blocks – where 95% of these things are instant. Did I mention asura models?

I don’t completely agree with you regarding the downed state, but I definitely agree with you regarding the skill ceiling and floor. Too many animations in this game are so subtle or similar that you’d need a microscope to predict them.

There are skills in this game that literally have the exactly same animation as an auto attack. There are also animations that are so similar to other skills that the only difference is perhaps a 20 degree angle difference in the bend of the left arm. Not only these, but there are plenty of instant cast no animation ranged abilities that are literally impossible to dodge unless you have a crystal ball. This, compiled with a cluster of other problems, is why this game will NEVER ever in a million years become even a semi popular e-sport like they apparently plan.

Regarding the 2v1 scenario, if you manage to down one of your enemies yes you can attempt to cleave the two of them. However the other enemy still up can easily disable you with a knockback, fear, stun, ect. (take your pick, everyone has over 9000 cc’s now’a’days) and res his ally before your able to get back on him. All a Dragon Hunter has to do is put one blades trap down and presto, free res. If you are dumb enough to walk into the trap to attempt to cleave them, the DH can just shoot you with his unblockable shot and knock you away. In the case of the Ranger, he has his knockback arrow on a low cooldown, his pets taunt, his pets knockdown typically, and there is still the cc that the downed player provides. This could go on and on for most all classes.

So I apologize to the people that disagree with me, but you haven’t swayed my opinion on this matter. You’ve only made me realize that you think bad players are actually good. Any semi competent player who knows how to press a crowd control button can stop you from cleaving or stomping or can simply kill you with the help of their uber powerful Revenant downed friend.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

downed state is fine.

if one is competent enough, they can put down 2 opponents and keep them down.

Perhaps if these players are just really awful, which is something I addressed in the OP. Against remotely competent players I don’t think this is true. You have not given me any reason to believe this besides stating that it is true. Give me a reason.

+1

This is utterly broken. Most downed states are FAR too powerful for surviving (except poor warriors they got dog kitten) but Revenant is just absurd.

+1

Please for the love of all that is good in this world add that to Dragon Maw. While you’re at it please make it visible more than 50% of the time. 100% visibility would be optimal.

When I first got into GW2 I was really exited about the PvP because from the outside it looked like skill was a huge factor. I thought that unlike in other mmos, if I was really good, I could take on several people at once and still win. I thought that with enough skill, I would be able to even take on three people at once and still win.

Well now that I’ve gotten pretty good at PvPing I’ve realized that I was completely dead kittening wrong. Just in a two vs one scenario, unless both of your enemies are complete and utter dip kittens, you cannot 2v1. Now why is that? The answer is the downed state.

If the down state was simply a state at which you were able to be revived by a teamate and nothing else, I would be fine with that. However Anet doesn’t stop at just that. They decided that it was a good idea to not only give everyone extremely strong abilities in the down state, but even decent damage. We’ll take the most extreme case of the Revenant as an example. This class can hit for 1k damage per attack (which is quite fast) and also permanently slows you while doing so. On top of this, when you manage to get close to stomping him, he can knock you incredibly far away while putting 5 stacks of torment. Don’t get me started on their 3rd ability. Now imagine trying to stomp this opponent while any other class in riding your butt with massive damage and cc (because you’re not dodging).

Yes there are some gimiky ways to down someone such as invuln and stability, but not everyone has these abilities and more than likely they will be on cooldown from fighting the opponent you’re now trying to stomp. However, even with this gimiky stomp, several classes such as thief, mesmer, and elementalist, can say “kitten you” with their 2 abilites and foil your stomp.

I love this game’s PvP and I love having good team play, but the down state just feels WAY too strong for a downed state. I mean come on…if someone lost all of their HP, give them some consequences for crying out loud. In the case of the Revenent I swear he is stronger while DOWNED than while he is up (although Rev is pretty broken if played right while up).

I don’t care about PvE all that much to be honest, so keep the downstate if people like it in PvE, but it needs to be changed in PvP. The way it is now, you cannot 2v1 unless you are just fighting really really awful players.

TL : DR – Downed state is too strong and makes 2v1’s nearly impossible against somewhat competent players. This diminishes the value of skill. Players need to be a lot more helpless in downed state.

Disagree with me? Give me some feedback on why you think being so powerful while downed is a good thing? Just in a non-flaming manner please

+1

Honestly I think any half way intelligent person will come to the same conclusions you have. The game has been so flooded with power creeps that it’s not even skillful anymore. You don’t even have to carefully time a stun or anything because you’ve got so many that if you miss, hell there are 5 more in your back pocket.

If Anet doesn’t realize this then they are even dumber than I thought. I can’t believe they’ve intentionally let it get this out of hand though. PvP has become a complete cluster kitten recently.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I wonder how long it will take for someone to realize the purpose of this thread…hmm.

You think you’re so kittening clever don’t you? I had you figured from the start:
Merging stealth and evades would render the thief class useless officially, no amount of good play would save us. Simultaneously giving us access to quickness and swiftness would give a facade of a buff making players bring their thieves into PvP. They’d be lambs to the slaughter. After the copious amounts of threads complaining about it Anet would eventually delete the class entirely and remove all traces of it. With your main obstacle out of the way since DD condi is making a return, you’d get in your Revenant you have stashed away since they’d no doubt give them someone good in place of a pulsing reveal since the one class they did have that could abuse it is gone. Upon receiving these buffs you’d then go into copious amounts of pvp to finally get that Champion Ritualist title you’ve so coveted, expect Dragonhunters would be a main threat. But by so cleverly deleting the thief, people would direct most attention to the broken nature of the DH, causing them to be nerfed to oblivion. As people abscond to other classes that aren’t thief and guardian, the Revenant will naturally have a good shot at them making them rage and quit the game. As more and more people leave you’ll gather their belongings to hoard as much gold as possible using it to raise the prices of everything on the trading post. With the price of gems now at an all time high Anet will lose out on supporters causing them to have to pull the plug. In the desolate wasteland that is now GW2 you’ll then be free to reshape the world in your image.

I think this is the best post I’ve seen in quite some time. I’m glad to have been able to read this before I bid farewell to Tyria. Farewell sir Thief, you were my one and only. I will miss you dearly.

kumang.9361:

+1
sometimes I’d rather just beat the kitten out of that downed player than stomping. takes almost the same time, either way.

Honestly that’s true with this mega power creep of elite specs. You just spam a few abilities and blow a downed player up in the same time it takes to stomp them. It’s easy when everyone is throwing 5k-10k crits around like it’s an auto attack.

If Anet is going to do a balance patch soon, they should say something regarding that before the community finds out where they live and comes for them with pitch forks and torches.

If Anet is not going to do a balance patch soon or before the next quarter, kitten them I’m getting a refund. You can’t even properly stomp a player atm in PvP and half of the Dragon Hunters abilities don’t render animations. Then you have the whole issue of class balance and the extreme power creep of elite specializations. If they don’t attempt to balance this in the next week I’m getting a refund, but I’ll still probably watch the tournaments because it will be so kittening hilarious to watch the cluster kitten that’s suppose to become an e-sport.

Dragon Maw from Dragon Hunter is broken for the same reason that gravity well on chronomancer is broken; there are little to no counters. Unless you can throw a ton of stacks of stability on yourself, either one of these hard crowd controls can’t be countered. So for classes that don’t have access to stacks of stability on demand, one skill wins the fight instantly if landed, which isn’t hard considering both are aoe.

Dragon Maw is also broken because it is buggy and most of the time doesn’t have an animation. This goes for several DH abilities.

Just my opinion, no need to get pitch forks and torches if you disagree.

+1 but honestly I am holding out no hope. Anet refuses to interact with the community since the expansion launched

I completely understand the frustration of fighting a daredevil with practically permanent dodge (I main a daredevil). While I’m playing the class vs most people except DH, it feels incredibly fun, but I am always left thinking “man I bet I must kitten people the hell off”. I do think the amount of dodges you can perform is a bit ridiculous, but as others have stated it IS necessary for the their in it’s current state to survive without stealth. Heck even with the massive amount of dodges you still die quickly. I think thieves and their enemies would enjoy it more, and it would feel more skillful than spammy, if the amount of evades was toned down while giving sustain in another form to compensate.

I think what most people, or at least myself, are frustrated with has nothing to do with X class being way more powerful than Y class. While this is true that there are many classes that are completely unbalanced with one another, I think the larger issues at hand are power creeping, bugs, and imbalance within ones own class.

While there are several classes at the moment that are pretty even with one another in regards to how powerful they are, I would still not call where we are good design. The problem is that Anet is handing out stuns, chills, evades, blocks, blinds, and stun breaks out like it’s free candy. There is also a big issue with the amount of passive skills in the game that are just way too powerful for a passive (Dragon Hunter stun breaker passive I’m look at you). With all of these stun/evade/blind/block/stability spamming classes out now, it makes the game feel extremely chaotic and unpredictable. You can no longer rely on a stuns or skillful interrupt at a crucial moment. Heck, most of the time you can’t even move unless you are a daredevil with 90% evade time or some class with 90% stability uptime. Look at warriors for instance. They have a RIDICULOUSLY ABSURD amount of stuns, but they are absolutely awful! You know why? Because counters are EVERYWHERE. By giving out so many counters and making every class overpowered, it makes the game feel like you’re playing tic tac toe without any turns but just throwing down your X’s and O’s everywhere you can without strategy. It just creates one big cluster kitten.

The other issue is that SO many utility skills and traits are absolutely useless and complete garbage. Not just in comparison with other traits or utilities, although that is true, but just in general they are useless. This is why we have everyone playing the same meta builds all day.

When devs post replies to trivial things all day but fail to even respond or acknowledge valid points like the above, THIS is why people get frustrated, and rightfully so.

^

That’s one dedicated thief player right there. Kudos to you mate.

They read the forums, but just don’t care to chime in on anything other than trivial small details that has nothing to do with design or balance. I guarantee that it is some kind of policy guideline that devs can’t (or have all agreed to just not) post in any controversial issues like design or balance. This seems like a mistake to me.

Okay, no offense but unless I’m misinterpreting the OP’s post it is absolutely ludicrous. Do you seriously believe that it is good design to be able to say it’s the PLAYERS fault for getting stomped just because they didn’t play the one overpowered meta build? I mean really? In this case what is the point of build diversity? Just take away traits, runes, sigils, ect. and make everyone have to play the meta build for their class. Honestly the game would probably be a lot better this way considering how awful Anet is at balance.

I agree that it’s stupid for someone to complain if they have a kittened build. They should be punished for being dumb. But when you literally have no options if you want to be competitive but to play one single build…that’s just absurdly bad design. Half the weapons, traits, and utilities in the game are utter garbage. Maybe someday there will be a real choice between builds…someday…

Rodzynald.5897:

I wonder how it would work out if there could be some sort of diminishing returns (like WoW) to make us invulnerable to certain CC after being spammed at us (no matter the source).

That my friend would be called a godsend. Crowd Control Wars 2 has more CC’s than WoW does now and still does not have diminishing returns. I understand there is stability and stun breaks, but my goodness it’s out of control.

+1

I thought it was just me since I hadn’t heard anyone else complaining about it, but hot diggity it happens to me all the time! I play a thief and I would concur that it seems to be tied to dodging since it happens far more on my daredevil than any other class.

Kageseigi.2150:

arenta.2953:

if you mean in sPvP. then any backstab hit would never go above 6k. unless u missing pieces of your armor.

I beg to disagree. In one match, my Thief “one-shotted” another Thief with a 17.888k Backstab. She also downed a Warrior with a 13.347k Backstab at the end of the match. Both were fully armored…

EDIT: It happened on September 1st, 2015.

You got my attention with that nearly 18k backstab…what the kitten kind of build is that you’re running? Did the enemy have max stacks of vuln and did you have max might stacks or something? I just don’t even see how this is possible but you’ve got screenshots to prove it.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

^15s stunbreaker, block and knockdown ftw!

15s stunbreaker, block and animation lock for the loss! The range threshold at which your character attempts to kick is farther than the kick goes. Go test this on NPC’s and prepare to face palm. I don’t know how the devs managed to kitten this up so bad. I still run it for the low CD stunbreak, but it gets me killed at about a 1/5 rate.

Confirmed traps are invisible sometimes. It’s the most frustrating thing in the world being inside of a Dragon Maw trap and having no animation to indicate you’re in it except getting knocked down over and over. Or not being able to see Test of Faith and walking on top of it only to die 3 seconds later and have no idea what killed you.

+1 for this thread

Been playing s/d and staff for the last several days and I LOVE s/d but this aftercast/delay crap is getting me killed so often It ruined the fluid experience of being a ninja. Please fix this devs.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Eisenwald.8562:

If you do not take DA or CS you hit like a wet noodle

Most thieves I know take improv over executioner. If you’re referring to the minor trait that increases damage by 10% when target is afflicted with conditions, I doubt you’ll miss that much. If you’re referring to mug, again, theres a substitute for that if you look hard enough. Very easy to replace DA and not feel much of a dps drop.

I suppose that’s true with DA. You won’t lose out on a TON of damage, but more so if you drop CS. DA also does have nice poison damage uptime, that mug damage for burst, and a nice immobilize for more offense. It’s mainly giving up utilities and being forced into trait lines that don’t promote the staff playstyle (Shadow Arts) that bothers me. Yes you can build a stealth staff build somewhat, but I don’t think that’s what the staff was suppose to be and it definitely shouldn’t be a requirement.

@ Sir Vincent III – I like the idea of a smoke field, but I’m not sure it promotes the type of play style intended for the daredevil. I would rather them buff the staff in some other fashion that would enhance our non-stealth combat, preferably in some kind of defensive manner.

@ OP – I agree this skill needs something changed. People who run the dash dodge trait simply never use this ability. For those that don’t use the dash dodge, it is very strange how it takes 1/4 a second or so before the evade frames kick in. This makes it completely unusable as a skillful dodge unless you’re dodging a hella long cast animation. Feels very clunky

My issue with using using Scorpion Wire is that you would literally be taking an entire utility skill slot for a 1 condition cleanse ability because it’s actual ability use only hits once in a blue moon. This is HUGE waste of an ability slot. Roll For Initiative is great, but again has too long of a cooldown to be a reliable condition cleanse considering how fast people apply conditions to you nowadays. I like withdraw but after trying it out for several matches I’ve realized that by not taking the vigor on steal AND losing Channeled Vigor you really lose out on a lot of evasion which is necessary to survival while not running stealth. Also yes, the 10% is still missing and will be a shame if they don’t ever fix it.

If you decide to go for Acro or SA instead of DA or CS then yes you are trading damage for survivability, but the thief in it’s current state needs that damage to ever kill anyone at an effective speed. If you do not take DA or CS you hit like a wet noodle and will be no threat to all these new super bruiser builds with lots of sustain and damage. This is more an issue with base thief though rather than Escapist’s Absolution.

I would simply like to see some other form of reliable condition cleanse without being forced into this gheto tricks cleanse build to play sPvP. So yes, you can get condition cleanse, but at what cost? That’s what matters

@glaphen – Confirmed, you can’t dodge roll through any barriers and if you shadowstep out of or through them you still get knocked down after which, in the case of dragon maw, leaves you wide open for an 8k arrow up your kitten

@Xeyon – I would agree that’s it’s up for debate as it’s a design choice. I also agree that the intentions of the abilities at least needs to be disclosed to the player. To my knowledge the Mesmer staff teleport says nothing about being able to be used while stunned, yet still can be used. It is the same way with steal for the thief. There is nothing that says you can use it while stunned, but you still can. IMO they need to add something in the skill description like “usable while disabled”

Vincent I understand the role playing aspect of shadow stepping that you’re trying to enlighten us with and I appreciate that. However, I don’t think that is the important thing to understand. What needs to be determined is whether or not having effects proc from shadow stepping through them is good gameplay mechanics and design.

From my perspective I feel that these types of mobility skills should be a good source for countering foes who sit in the middle or behind their rings such as test of faith. Not the other way around.

Perhaps I didn’t word things correctly in my OP. The reason I say “flaw” is because realistically if you are a daredevil and using a staff the only reasonable condition clear you will have is Escapist’s Absolution. So while it may not be a flaw in the trait itself, it is flaw in the overall thief.

Yes you can take the tricks trait to remove one condition per trick, but tricks are not good for daredevil staff wielding builds. Haste doesn’t effect your main skill vault, so that one is out. Scorpion wire still bugs like the old magnet on engi used to, so that’s out. Caltrops is for a condi build which the staff has none of, so that is out.

This leaves you with Roll For Initiative and Withdraw (which still is missing 10% healing power). Roll For Initiative has a long cooldown for just removing one condition. Withdraw with tricks trait seems to be the only skill possible to use for a independent condition clear. However this means you won’t be able to ever use your elite specialization heal which is lame if you ask me, especially with how necessary extra dodges are on a build without stealth. Even still, this means you have 1 single reliable condition clear…that’s it…

Dakarius.3284:

It needs to proc on dodge or evade (still a 1 sec cd).

I would VERY much like this as then it would give us a reliable condi cleanse, however I feel like this might potentially be a bit too powerful for one skill and make it a mandatory trait. Somethings does need to be done about it though. Good idea

I believe this is an incredible strong trait and I even like the idea of it, however I also think the mechanics of it are flawed. This is because the trait is a dependent condition clear rather than an independent condition clear. When someone is running a condition build and they realize they are fighting a daredevil, it is FAR to easy for them to hit the daredevil with one or two burn abilities in a row (there are plenty that will put 10k burn damage on you with one ability use) and then simply take a step back to watch them die.

I will admit this does not happen ALL the time, but the more I play daredevil the more people I am running into that realize this flaw and exploit it.

A bit more minor issue with this trait is that if you are ever fighting in a 1v1 situation vs a condition build, even if you manage to kill the foe, you will more than likely die shortly after because your foe has stopped attacking you and as a result you have bled/burned to death.

In all I really like this skill, but it is simply to easy to exploit when the daredevil/thief doesn’t have any other access to condition clear.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

I can’t remember where I read this, I think from the books. Shadowstepping is going into the realms of shadows and move physically to point B. In reality this seems instantly but the thief is still walking to point B.

Well if this is the case then things that aren’t in the shadow realm shouldn’t hit us. Also, I’m not sure that makes complete sense anyways seeing as how you can shadow step over terrain that you could normally not walk through/on.

What are you talking about man?! We’re so broken it’s hillarious! We’ve got that shortbow 5 teleport that has a 50% chance to teleport us 900 distance! We can run away like pros!

(On a serious note) I feel your pain mate. I used to be angry about it, but I’ve gotten to the point where I just don’t care because it doesn’t do any good. Developers aren’t showing any concern for the awful spot they have put us in regardless of what we post. I say just troll and try to have a bit of fun or re-roll.

Jana.6831:

Just wanted to say:
The amount of trolling going on on this forum lately is really good – outsiders (and probably devs) won’t get it, but I love it.

Only when you’ve lost everything you’re free to do anything, right?
So, thanks for the laughs I’m having while reading your insanity.

It’s sad when you think about it, but I am glad we have such a great thief community that we can ban together under our depressing state and have a few laughs. I honestly spend more time on the thief forums reading troll posts than playing nowadays.

Well this explains why I am always dying to Dragon Hunters when I teleport inside their Test of Faith trap instead of dodging through it. This is completely jank…please fix this crap devs so I can teleport and not take 6k damage please.

+1 for this post.

I have noticed this not only with the dash dodge but with other daredevil skills as well including vault and bounding dodger. Not sure what causes it and haven’t found a way to consistently recreate this bug but will try your method when I get home tonight.

Agreed! This skill is incredibly overpowered! It’s absurd! I mean what real choice do you have between Hard to Catch, Swindler’s Equilibrium, and the grossly overpowered Guarded Initiation? IN FACT I think the whole idea is just too strong no matter how you nerf it…this should just be removed from the game and replaced with something else.

Omgursh! Yessssssss please! It’s a small thing but it’s SO frustrating when match ready pops up and completely shuts you off from anything you were in the middle of.