Guild Wars 2

Hey Guys,

i just recently came back to GW2 and right away noticed the new “ego” perspective of the camera with all the changes to it along.

after playing for a while with this new feature i got a nice idea how to improve this even more or at least give it some more options.

I simply would like to have an option that allows you to use your mouse to move your field of view right form the start (without having to hold down the rmk, similar to TES-games or Tera) and make it possible to put other actions onto the mouse keys.

Would that be possible and more improtant is such an option desireable in the community, what you guys think?

Harper.4173:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

Harper.4173:

snip .

Stack and burn has been adopted as the standard by the players because that’s what the players want – to burn down the content as quickly as possible and get those rewards.

You can argue against me that I’m wrong and that’s not what the majority want but the very fact that this is now standard and common practice proves I’m right.

I don’t recall ever going in a dungeon and hearing : “Oh boy – too bad we killed that boss before it became a meaningful threat” or " maaaaan I wish this encounter was harder and more threatening, we should wipe more often".

@And just to prove that every design idea can be played in unintended ways – to your proposal I say this :

-Before said part of the dungeon 1 guardians switches from zerker’s to Cleric’s and just keeps himself in the center holding mob aggro while 4 players ( split into 2) rush the obstacle course ressing each other and bruteforcing their way to the end.

Do you really think the players should make the content as hard as possible by theirselves?

i mean if those things were exploides i would kinda agree with you but certainly they are not.

“challenging and hard content” imo is not determined by damage or hitpoints or stuff like this but by the mechanics and the strategy around it.
So if you are actually able to “Stack and burn” the encounter and get away with it than this encounter is just bad designed (without any excuses).

People will always aim for the most rewarding/forgiving and easiest possibility to have success, it’s anet’s job to make the easiest way hard enough and make you feel successful for finding the right way/strat in the first place.

People already feel successful for finding the right way.

And the problem is that this “hard enough” you mention is a difficult thing to put in practice.

Hard enough for who exactly?

Level 80 chars fully geared with ascendend?
New players who have barely even touched the content?
Old players who’ve farmed it so much they know it by heart?

That’s the real issue – where do you draw the line and say “this hard, no harder”.
Some players on the forums are asking for harder content, but what they fail to realize is that they are a minority. Most players that post on the forums are heavily invested in the game and it’s a safe assumption to make that they’ve put a lot of time in the game and been with the game for a long time.

So they’re experienced and well geared – of course the game poses little challenge now. But the majority of players don’t even post here.

The majority log in a few times a week and just do one random thing and then they’re out.

You can’t really increase difficulty without taking into consideration that you’ve got a huge player base to cater too, not just the dozen players asking for harder fights in threads like these.

thats why i said you shouldn’t make the content hard by increasing HP or DMG because this would result in upsetting the more casual tending players because the only solution how to get forward is to get more effecient in any kind of way (like the things you have mentioned: generel experience of the game and the classes, gear, timing etc.)

if you just make the mechanics of the fight harder it doesn’t require you to be almost perfect in every desicion you make or to have the best possible gear but it requires you to think about the encounter figure out a startegy and maybe die a few times for that so that you will reward smart players and not just maxgeared/farmed players.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

i don’t need to be a game designer to tell you that you will have a hard time balancing PvE content with core-mechanics that are designed to use in PvP mainly.

It is possible but you need an AI that is similar to an “real” player to make it work
and i don’t think this is an easy to do don’t you think so?

I see in your post history that your oldest post is from last October. Should I presume that that means you were not around at launch, when the dungeons were not old news? While players figured them out sooner or later, they were quite challenging at first, when no one knew what to do.

I won’t deny that stack/buff/burn/done is not a complicated encounter. Tank N’ Spank encounters are the trinity equivalent. In other words, in both types of game, basic encounter mechanics make for simplistic fights that can be perceived as boring.

However, many raid and dungeon encounters involve mechanics that are independent of aggro. Encounter phases are just one example. Most (if not all) of these types of mechanics could be adapted to work in a game without tanks or healers. So, no, I don’t think that making GW2 fights more interesting needs to involve making mob AI more like player AI, any more than adding interesting mechanics to tank n’ spank would.

i got the game since release but i wasn’t playing that much so you could be right with your first argument.

back to the issue: i guess i have to give an example to stand my point.
imagine a basic boss fight (T’n’S in any trinity game, or the common in GW2)
in the trinity game where defense and healing is related on different player/roles you can easily add something like a huge aoe spell that kills anyone beside the tanks.

So any DD has to react and run out of range, the tanks needs some of their damage reducing cd’s or similar and the healers need to prepare to heal the tanks back as fast as possible.

In Gw2 the same would mean…3..2..1..dodge roll and even if you failed so you are downed and you can still fight and/or might be up again seconds later.

those active defense abilities that makes PvP so action-reactionbased are the doom of PvE. that’s what i meant with core-mechanics that are designed to use in PvP mainly

imagine a dungeon in GW2 without dodge rolls and downed modus. you actually need to fight way smarter and foreseeing, surviving becomes more important in any way be it through pure health, mobility, defensivespells, armor or boons. Everything would be fine…..besides that you have nobody that really wants to fight especially in melee because the boss can kill you with 3 hits (remember nobody can actually tank) and just kiting the boss 5 mins is as boring as it is now if not more plus it’s forcing you to use range weapons.

So taking these mechanics out of PvE wouldn’t work, only solution left is to make PvE more like (s)PvP and that’s why i mentioned a player-like AI

Harper.4173:

snip .

Stack and burn has been adopted as the standard by the players because that’s what the players want – to burn down the content as quickly as possible and get those rewards.

You can argue against me that I’m wrong and that’s not what the majority want but the very fact that this is now standard and common practice proves I’m right.

I don’t recall ever going in a dungeon and hearing : “Oh boy – too bad we killed that boss before it became a meaningful threat” or " maaaaan I wish this encounter was harder and more threatening, we should wipe more often".

@And just to prove that every design idea can be played in unintended ways – to your proposal I say this :

-Before said part of the dungeon 1 guardians switches from zerker’s to Cleric’s and just keeps himself in the center holding mob aggro while 4 players ( split into 2) rush the obstacle course ressing each other and bruteforcing their way to the end.

Do you really think the players should make the content as hard as possible by theirselves?

i mean if those things were exploides i would kinda agree with you but certainly they are not.

“challenging and hard content” imo is not determined by damage or hitpoints or stuff like this but by the mechanics and the strategy around it.
So if you are actually able to “Stack and burn” the encounter and get away with it than this encounter is just bad designed (without any excuses).

People will always aim for the most rewarding/forgiving and easiest possibility to have success, it’s anet’s job to make the easiest way hard enough and make you feel successful for finding the right way/strat in the first place.

Carighan.6758:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

i assume you have never played something like wow raids in hc mode.

Played plenty of that (organized raids for 8 years without taking much of a break, in fact), that’s largely where that analysis comes from.

than i just can’t follow your statement sorry. i my guild we had to working our kitten s off to progress not just the healer, but maybe that was also due the motivation of being first guild on the server.

but this topic aside; atm the fights in all the dungeons are even more boring than what you did describe in your previous post

IndigoSundown.5419:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

haviz.1340:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

i guess nobody wants boring tank’n’spank boss mechanics.
but i assume that with the trinity you can actually create fun, challenging and balanced content with way less work compered to the time anet have to spent in order to make the same content fitting for their system

And you can’t without trinity? I’m thinking it’s more to do with anet designers than lack of trinity. Games like dark souls (active gameplay) are popular, challenging and fun to play.

please read more carefully next time.
i just said it is way easier with the trinity than without

Are you a game designer, that you know this? If not, on what do you base this assumption?

i don’t need to be a game designer to tell you that you will have a hard time balancing PvE content with core-mechanics that are designed to use in PvP mainly.

It is possible but you need an AI that is similar to an “real” player to make it work
and i don’t think this is an easy to do don’t you think so?

Carighan.6758:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

please read more carefully next time.
i just said it is way easier with the trinity than without

How so?
The component trinity-based combat enables is tank&spank. That’s what it contributes.
On top of that, you run into the issue of XYZ-fights. Most common type is the “healer fight”, but only because every fight is a “dps fight” but we never notice that.

Meaning that one role has the outcome of a battle on their shoulders, depending on encounter. The rest stand there and mechanically push their buttons while looking pretty, because the most important combat mechanic around which the boss is built doesn’t concern them much.

Yes, you can avoid that pitfall. But, every time you do, you design a fight so it doesn’t care for the trinity in the first place. Alas, why have it then?

i assume you have never played something like wow raids in hc mode.

haviz.1340:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

i guess nobody wants boring tank’n’spank boss mechanics.
but i assume that with the trinity you can actually create fun, challenging and balanced content with way less work compered to the time anet have to spent in order to make the same content fitting for their system

And you can’t without trinity? I’m thinking it’s more to do with anet designers than lack of trinity. Games like dark souls (active gameplay) are popular, challenging and fun to play.

please read more carefully next time.
i just said it is way easier with the trinity than without

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I picked up FFXIV the other day and the dungeons are, like, super boring. Healer stands at range clicking on bars, tank sits in melee tabbing through targets to make sure everything is on him, everyone else stands on the other side and refreshes their DPS macros every 20 seconds of so.

Is that what people actually want? Replacing the zerk meta with a trinity is just going to make everything 10x more boring and take 10x as long. That’s 100x the headache.

i guess nobody wants boring tank’n’spank boss mechanics.
but i assume that with the trinity you can actually create fun, challenging and balanced content with way less work compered to the time anet have to spent in order to make the same content fitting for their system

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think the point I want to make is that if your friend asks you ‘hey, hows the dungeons in GW2 like?’ and you answer ‘we stack in a corner and faceroll everything.’

Is that going to make him want to buy the game?

i have to say that’s pretty on point.

Harper.4173:

How many people do you see doing high level FOTM? As a person that did them extensively ( even 3 runs/day if I had the time for about 9 months) I can tell you very few players are interested in hard and challenging content.

Look at the LFG – make a group for CoF P1, or some other easymode dungeon. See how fast it fills.
Then make a group for FOTM 49, see how fast that fills.

this is not about only a few players are interested in hard and challenging content.
this is because if you have done the same dungeon over and over again it is getting boring no matter how “hard” and “challenging” it gets. you can also try the normal dungeons with starter gear it would have the same effect. people who wants a hard and challenging content want it on a mechanic kind of way and not just dependant on more hp/more dmg etc.

a sencondary demotivation to do the high level FOTM is that the loot-design of GW2 is not really rewarding and way to random in terms of luck

Rhego.6590:

Hello Guild Wars 2 Community!

Let me begin by saying I don’t have a definitive idea of how to fix this issue… but I do know it is something that I haven’t seen talked about very much and it is something that needs to be addressed.

From my experience (I have the Dungeon Master title and have completed up to and including fractals level 40), the average PvE 5 main group in Guild Wars 2 consists of 5 full Berserker players or something very similar. Guild Wars 2 classes have three roles: Support, Control, and Damage. Berserker = damage. Where is the support and control? (Again.. this is only my opinion. Please don’t flame me haha). I come from World of Warcraft… I played a protection/holy paladin for 7 years since close to release date of WoW. I was a tank and a healer. I tanked server first kills for multiple raid bosses and my guild earned server first Deathwing kill. ALL I DID in WoW was tank. It was my heart and soul of the game; I don’t recall having a single dps character. Raid bosses were difficult and the tank and healers had to be on there game (arguably more so than the dps) to be able to clear the fight. PLEASE DO NOT MISUNDERSTAND… I am NOT asking for Guild Wars 2 to implement raids and a role trinity (tank healer dps). However, I do think it is more then necessary to develop a place in PvE content for those who have a support/control play style similar to mine. The logic which I have heard at this point is, “Bosses in high level fractals hit so hard they will 1-2 shot anyone, regardless of gear and traits, so everyone should just build Berserker for max dps.” Hopefully I’m not the only one that thinks this is outrageous. In addition, the counter argument, “Just build support anyway and bring support utilities” is also somewhat invalid as bring a support build (traits and utility skill) results in a kick because you aren’t pulling your weight in terms of damage output.
Possible solutions: Maybe decrease how hard the bosses hit just enough so a full support PVT guardian can eat some of this hits, taking aggro pressure off of his full berserker party…. do this just enough so that an individual who plays a support or control role is not only not kicked but somewhat desired in a fractal or dungeon group.
Again, I am not a game developer and I have no idea how this would be balanced or actually implemented into the game. However, I do feel that current PvE content excludes players who enjoy a Support or Control play style.

Please comment and let me know what you all think!
Who knows: maybe after enough players agreeing Arena Net will consider making some changes.

this doesn’t need any more statements.
i feel exactly the same so imho this is a perfect feedback.

it’s almost 4 moths since this post and already more time since the first player told similar stuff in the forums, we only can hope that within the 2nd season they so something about this.
But when i see that posts like this have only minor feedback while the “X is OP PLZ nerf” threads are huge i can only assume that the majority of the community isn’t even interessed in stuff like this and therefore anet isn’t even listing….

4. Balancing weapons

the main problem to make all weapons on tjief viable is that dagger aswell as pistol offhand doesn’t synergize well with the same weapon in the main hand.

examples: when you go for plain non-conditional damage with daggers the 3rd skill is useless, than dancing daggers are ok because you can cripple the target you are chasing but the pistol in offhand gives you a real gapcloser (with blind on top!) as 3rd skill which is way superior at least imo. CnD is nice but more useful in PvE than PvP in any kind because you need to hit your target and the debuff will tell good enemys that a BS is incomming. meanwhile the blackpowder gives you the abilty to go invis even without hitting any enemy and also blinds them which is more important in close combat.
And not to mention with headshot you got an interrupt which is the only one you can have as a thief (without traits) afaik.

But on the other way round those advantages pistol has with a dagger in mainhand the same disadvantages it has with a pistol in mainhand…why you might ask now?

First when you go for pistol in your mainhand you are mostly specialized on conditiondamage so unload (3rd P/P) is useless like deathblossom above (3rd D/D),while the 3rd P/D skill is nice to create space to your opponent which is something you need and it applies a damagedealing condition. now dancing dagger makes also much more sense in this build because it is a way better defensive skill to slow mutiple enemys and retreat than a chasing ability! Also blackpowder can’t make you invis because you lack a jumpingskill while CnD can and because your invismove fires mutiple shots even a block ability on the enemys won’t counter it completly.

In my Opinion Anet has to rethink and rework the synergy between the weapons regarding the above mentioned issues because it really minimizes the possibilities of uncommon builds.
Anyway i agree that dagger offhand could use a little buff.

But the real problems are the 3rd skills at D/D and P/P because they are completly out of synergy compared to the rest in the weaponsets.

i just repost my post from another thread so there might be some formatting errors and the responses might seem to be irrelevant!

this is all refering to the thief

just my 2 cents to several posts so far.

1. why am i (are we) playing thief?

someone mentioned he wants to play against players who wants to fight them fair and square. that’s not what the thief is about! simple as that. a thief is a pain in the a**, a sneaky fighter that demoralise the enemy, fighting unfair and dirty and thats what i (we) like about that profession. we don’t care to fight 1v1 in honor we want to be the most possible nuisense/thread to our enemy and to kill him, mind games are our go to. otherwise i wouldn’t have picked the thief as my profession in the first place.

2. spamming the same abilities over and over.

yeah that can happen if the situation is rewarding you for it why shouldn’t you?
but mostly that’s the difference between mediocre and good players.
i think there are enough posts/threads about this so far so my advise too all those anti-thief guys: play a thief yourself in spvp for a month. after that i guess 90% won’t argue anymore….

but i agree that some weapon skills and their synergy doesn’t feel right atm and could need a rework

3. INVIS OP!!!!

i have to say invis in GW2 is broken, but far away from OP.
most stealth skills have with traited shadow arts 4 seconds of invis. during this 4 sec the thief is most likly going to hit on you seems very predictable isnt it? and to a decent player it’s also manageable to dodge, block etc. the incoming attack.

whats broken about it tho?…. it doesn’t serve it’s original propose:

insteat of making the thief unpredictable for an amount of time it makes him pretty predictable during stealth.
stealth is way too short to actually be used to find an opening to engage a “prey” you can’t make any real distance with it (excl. SR) and too short to disengage the fight if you want so. therefore it is “spammable” or let’s say more precise it’s useable quite often during the fight, and here is the real problem in my eyes.

Neither our enemy wants us to get invis every 3 seconds for 3 secs nor we want to use this over and over again till we finally are able to land with enough DMG.

make invis/stealth an out of combat mechanic only. i think the best system regarding stealth is the system Blizzard uses in WoW.
invis should be to engage (no cd, but only outofcombat) and to disengage (usable during combat, but with decent cd).

the moment you decide to engage you can’t disengage and reengage 5 seconds later and than again and again and again untill you feel like finishing your enemy.
you completly rule the pace of the fight and that’s what the QQ’ers are hating on.

stealth should’t be in your skillrotation. it should be your initiate and your last resort to escape. with the option to play mindgames and use the “retreat invis” to reengage again once!

you either choose wisly and you are able to finish your enemys off > reg > keep going onto the next “prey” or you choose poorly and you lose the fight. you still have the ability to disengage with your infight invis, but than you have to risk not having it the next time you make a go or wait long enough to get it from cd again. so it is more about decision making which increases the skillcap to be more effective/effecient with stealth and it reduces the need of counterplay to it.

just a possible change to the skills regarding above:

-Hide in the shadows: instead of making you invis, it grants you the same state as mistform for 3 secs.
-CnD: gives you the abillity to use the stealthskill without being invis for 3 secs.
-Smokebomb: this could be the CD infight invis i mentioned above.
-Shadow refuge: instead of giving invis to you and your allies give them boons (protection and reg f.e.) and add a condition cleanse to it.
-Shadowtrap: i think this can stay that way, even if it makes you invis.

the smoke combo field needs a rework than but i think Anet can think of solutions by themseves if they would consider it as a possible change to stealth.

you get the conditions the moment the elite is activated don’t you?
so theoreticly as soon as the conditions were applied a instand block, dodge, evade will nullify the bs and since i doubt someone will go full condi damage just relying on the runes the damage from the conditions isn’t great at all.

So in the End it’s not about the rune but again about the stealth QQ?
If so use this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/sPvP-Thieves-gameplay-concerns-possible-solutions-merged

just repost my post from another thread so there might be some formatting errors and the responses might seem to be irrelevant!

just my 2 cents to several posts so far.

1. why am i (are we) playing thief?

someone mentioned he wants to play against players who wants to fight them fair and square. that’s not what the thief is about! simple as that. a thief is a pain in the a**, a rat that demoralise the enemy, fighting unfair and dirty and thats what i (we) like about that profession. we don’t care to fight 1v1 in honor we want to be the most possible nuisense to our enemy and to kill him. otherwise i wouldn’t have picked the thief as my profession in the first place.

2. spamming the same abilities over and over.

yeah that can happen if the situation is rewarding you for it why shouldn’t you?
but mostly that’s the difference between mediocre and good players.
i think there are enough posts/threads about this so far so my advise too all those anti-thief guys: play a thief yourself in spvp for a month. after that i guess 90% won’t argue anymore….

but i agree that some weapon skills and their synergy doesn’t feel right atm and could need a rework

3. INVIS OP!!!!

i have to say invis in GW2 is broken, but far away from OP.
most stealth skills have with traited shadow arts 4 seconds of invis. during this 4 sec the thief is most likly going to hit on you seems very predictable isnt it? and to a decent player it’s also manageable to dodge, block etc. the incoming attack.

whats broken about it tho?…. it doesn’t serve it’s original propose:

insteat of making the thief unpredictable for an amount of time it makes him pretty predictable during stealth.
stealth is way too short to actually be used to find an opening to engage a “prey” you can’t make any real distance with it (excl. SR) and too short to disengage the fight if you want so. therefore it is “spammable” or let’s say more precise it’s useable quite often during the fight, and here is the real problem in my eyes.

Neither our enemy wants us to get invis every 3 seconds for 3 secs nor we want to use this over and over again till we finally are able to land with enough DMG.

make invis/stealth an out of combat mechanic only. i think the best system regarding stealth is the system Blizzard uses in WoW.
invis should be to engage (no cd, but only outofcombat) and to disengage (usable during combat, but with decent cd).

the moment you decide to engage you can’t disengage and reengage 5 seconds later and than again and again and again untill you feel like finishing your enemy.
you completly rule the pace of the fight and that’s what the QQ’ers are hating on.

stealth should’t be in your skillrotation. it should be your initiate and your last resort to escape. with the option to play mindgames and use the “retreat invis” to reengage again once!

you either choose wisly and you are able to finish your enemys off > reg > keep going onto the next “prey” or you choose poorly and you lose the fight. you still have the ability to disengage with your infight invis, but than you have to risk not having it the next time you make a go or wait long enough to get it from cd again. so it is more about decision making which increases the skillcap to be more effective/effecient with stealth and it reduces the need of counterplay to it.

just a possible change to the skills regarding above:

-Hide in the shadows: instead of making you invis, it grants you the same state as mistform for 3 secs.
-CnD: gives you the abillity to use the stealthskill without being invis for 3 secs.
-Smokebomb: this could be the CD infight invis i mentioned above.
-Shadow refuge: instead of giving invis to you and your allies give them boons (protection and reg f.e.) and add a condition cleanse to it.
-Shadowtrap: i think this can stay that way, even if it makes you invis.

the smoke combo field needs a rework than but i think Anet can think of solutions by themseves if they would consider it as a possible change to stealth.

just my 2 cents to several posts so far.

1. why am i (are we) playing thief?

someone mentioned he wants to play against players who wants to fight them fair and square. that’s not what the thief is about! simple as that. a thief is a pain in the a**, a rat that demoralise the enemy, fighting unfair and dirty and thats what i (we) like about that profession. we don’t care to fight 1v1 in honor we want to be the most possible nuisense to our enemy and to kill him. otherwise i wouldn’t have picked the thief as my profession in the first place.

2. spamming the same abilities over and over.

yeah that can happen if the situation is rewarding you for it why shouldn’t you?
but mostly that’s the difference between mediocre and good players.
i think there are enough posts/threads about this so far so my advise too all those anti-thief guys: play a thief yourself in spvp for a month. after that i guess 90% won’t argue anymore….

but i agree that some weapon skills and their synergy doesn’t feel right atm and could need a rework

3. INVIS OP!!!!

i have to say invis in GW2 is broken, but far away from OP.
most stealth skills have with traited shadow arts 4 seconds of invis. during this 4 sec the thief is most likly going to hit on you seems very predictable isnt it? and to a decent player it’s also manageable to dodge, block etc. the incoming attack.

whats broken about it tho?…. it doesn’t serve it’s original propose:

insteat of making the thief unpredictable for an amount of time it makes him pretty predictable during stealth.
stealth is way too short to actually be used to find an opening to engage a “prey” you can’t make any real distance with it (excl. SR) and too short to disengage the fight if you want so. therefore it is “spammable” or let’s say more precise it’s useable quite often during the fight, and here is the real problem in my eyes.

Neither our enemy wants us to get invis every 3 seconds for 3 secs nor we want to use this over and over again till we finally are able to land with enough DMG.

make invis/stealth an out of combat mechanic only. i think the best system regarding stealth is the system Blizzard uses in WoW.
invis should be to engage (no cd, but only outofcombat) and to disengage (usable during combat, but with decent cd).

the moment you decide to engage you can’t disengage and reengage 5 seconds later and than again and again and again untill you feel like finishing your enemy.
you completly rule the pace of the fight and that’s what the QQ’ers are hating on.

stealth should’t be in your skillrotation. it should be your initiate and your last resort to escape. with the option to play mindgames and use the “retreat invis” to reengage again once!

you either choose wisly and you are able to finish your enemys off > reg > keep going onto the next “prey” or you choose poorly and you lose the fight. you still have the ability to disengage with your infight invis, but than you have to risk not having it the next time you make a go or wait long enough to get it from cd again. so it is more about decision making which increases the skillcap to be more effective/effecient with stealth and it reduces the need of counterplay to it.

just a possible change to the skills regarding above:

-Hide in the shadows: instead of making you invis, it grants you the same state as mistform for 3 secs.
-CnD: gives you the abillity to use the stealthskill without being invis for 3 secs.
-Smokebomb: this could be the CD infight invis i mentioned above.
-Shadow refuge: instead of giving invis to you and your allies give them boons (protection and reg f.e.) and add a condition cleanse to it.
-Shadowtrap: i think this can stay that way, even if it makes you invis.

the smoke combo field needs a rework than but i think Anet can think of solutions by themseves if they would consider it as a possible change to stealth.

earvinarp.6347:

Anet fan club and under the table employees should stop commenting on the forum. If a person expresses a bit of disappointment because he/she made arrangements to play a video game, least you can do is sympathize. Anet has released patches most commonly at 9am Pacific, which is 5pm UK. He/she has a right to be disappointed, if not necessarily upset about this one.

You would also think that a serious company like anet would have the patch finished and tested long before release date. But this last minute hold up makes players nervous because they fear, and rightly so, that the update will not be a finished product and patch after patch will follow (say when you are about to cap SMC).

So, in short, sorry for the wasted day, my friend. Everyone else, start your own thread if you feel so inclined to express your condescending opinions in this forum.

He is absolutly right! there may even be some guys who took the day off or managed to have time today because of this. the latest updates was at around 9pm MEZ afaik and they have been 2 hours late so far, which isn’t a big deal in my eyes it woundn’t even a big deal for me if it goes live tomorrow, but a brief info is at least something we could expect!

earvinarp.6347:

Anet fan club and under the table employees should stop commenting on the forum. If a person expresses a bit of disappointment because he/she made arrangements to play a video game, least you can do is sympathize. Anet has released patches most commonly at 9am Pacific, which is 5pm UK. He/she has a right to be disappointed, if not necessarily upset about this one.

You would also think that a serious company like anet would have the patch finished and tested long before release date. But this last minute hold up makes players nervous because they fear, and rightly so, that the update will not be a finished product and patch after patch will follow (say when you are about to cap SMC).

So, in short, sorry for the wasted day, my friend. Everyone else, start your own thread if you feel so inclined to express your condescending opinions in this forum.

He is absolutly right! there may even be some guys who took the day off or managed to have time today because of this. the latest updates was at around 9pm MEZ afaik and they have been 2 hours late so far, which isn’t a big deal in my eyes it woundn’t even a big deal for me if it goes live tomorrow, but a brief info is at least something we could expect!

earvinarp.6347:

Anet fan club and under the table employees should stop commenting on the forum. If a person expresses a bit of disappointment because he/she made arrangements to play a video game, least you can do is sympathize. Anet has released patches most commonly at 9am Pacific, which is 5pm UK. He/she has a right to be disappointed, if not necessarily upset about this one.

You would also think that a serious company like anet would have the patch finished and tested long before release date. But this last minute hold up makes players nervous because they fear, and rightly so, that the update will not be a finished product and patch after patch will follow (say when you are about to cap SMC).

So, in short, sorry for the wasted day, my friend. Everyone else, start your own thread if you feel so inclined to express your condescending opinions in this forum.

He is absolutly right! there may even be some guys who took the day off or managed to have time today because of this. the latest updates was at around 9pm MEZ afaik and they have been 2 hours late so far, which isn’t a big deal in my eyes it woundn’t even a big deal for me if it goes live tomorrow, but a brief info is at least something we could expect!

earvinarp.6347:

Anet fan club and under the table employees should stop commenting on the forum. If a person expresses a bit of disappointment because he/she made arrangements to play a video game, least you can do is sympathize. Anet has released patches most commonly at 9am Pacific, which is 5pm UK. He/she has a right to be disappointed, if not necessarily upset about this one.

You would also think that a serious company like anet would have the patch finished and tested long before release date. But this last minute hold up makes players nervous because they fear, and rightly so, that the update will not be a finished product and patch after patch will follow (say when you are about to cap SMC).

So, in short, sorry for the wasted day, my friend. Everyone else, start your own thread if you feel so inclined to express your condescending opinions in this forum.

He is absolutly right! there may even be some guys who took the day off or managed to have time today because of this. the latest updates was at around 9pm MEZ afaik and they have been 2 hours late so far, which isn’t a big deal in my eyes it woundn’t even a big deal for me if it goes live tomorrow, but a brief info is at least something we could expect!

earvinarp.6347:

Anet fan club and under the table employees should stop commenting on the forum. If a person expresses a bit of disappointment because he/she made arrangements to play a video game, least you can do is sympathize. Anet has released patches most commonly at 9am Pacific, which is 5pm UK. He/she has a right to be disappointed, if not necessarily upset about this one.

You would also think that a serious company like anet would have the patch finished and tested long before release date. But this last minute hold up makes players nervous because they fear, and rightly so, that the update will not be a finished product and patch after patch will follow (say when you are about to cap SMC).

So, in short, sorry for the wasted day, my friend. Everyone else, start your own thread if you feel so inclined to express your condescending opinions in this forum.

He is absolutly right! there may even be some guys who took the day off or managed to have time today because of this. the latest updates was at around 9pm MEZ afaik and they have been 2 hours late so far, which isn’t a big deal in my eyes it woundn’t even a big deal for me if it goes live tomorrow, but a brief info is at least something we could expect!

earvinarp.6347:

Anet fan club and under the table employees should stop commenting on the forum. If a person expresses a bit of disappointment because he/she made arrangements to play a video game, least you can do is sympathize. Anet has released patches most commonly at 9am Pacific, which is 5pm UK. He/she has a right to be disappointed, if not necessarily upset about this one.

You would also think that a serious company like anet would have the patch finished and tested long before release date. But this last minute hold up makes players nervous because they fear, and rightly so, that the update will not be a finished product and patch after patch will follow (say when you are about to cap SMC).

So, in short, sorry for the wasted day, my friend. Everyone else, start your own thread if you feel so inclined to express your condescending opinions in this forum.

He is absolutly right! there may even be some guys who took the day off or managed to have time today because of this. the latest updates was at around 9pm MEZ afaik and they have been 2 hours late so far, which isn’t a big deal in my eyes it woundn’t even a big deal for me if it goes live tomorrow, but a brief info is at least something we could expect!

best way to create build diversity overall:

Skillsystem from GW1.

easiest way to create build diversity in PvE:

Holy Trinity.

As long noone can really heal nobody wants to be tanky, as long nobody can tank bosses nobody sees the need for going for heal/defenseve support.
As long DMG/DPS is all that matters the meta won’t change.

PvP is fine. there are so many builds that you can play if you are playing them good because a uncommon build will always be surprising for the enemy which will lead into an advantage for you. after a balance patch some build vanish some new come that is the case in every MMO so far. Only difference in GW2 is that you might have to reroll professions not just traits if you want to keep your playstyle similar to the old one

WvW is a mix of PvP and PvE it will never be balanced to some degree.
In zergs the zerk will always be the meta. it’s all about stomping over the enemy as fast as possible.
in the other scenarios there are enough build that could come in handy

Dual.8953:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

urdriel.8496:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

urdriel.8496:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

Atherakhia.4086:

So when all is said and done, unless you’re standing on a wall, this is a melee dominated WvW and PvP.

fixed it for you because the term game includes PvE aswell

melee is better in pve too , sometimes you may need to use ranged weapons, but the best dps is always from melee .

depends on the situation.
i agree on soloing, leveling in generel etc.
in cases of mass-events and dungeon bosses i keep my point from my previous post

The key is cleave damage, any attack or autotack of a melee weapon will hit more than 1 enemy, if all your group use melee weapons you have a x3 or x5 “damage boost”.

what does cleave dmg against single targets because i was refering to bosses and boss-like events? i never said it’s the dmg thats make range better. i did already agreed that the dmg output of melee is superior i still think that range is way less risky and the reduction in dmg isn’t reason enough to switch to melee if you don’t need to because of your build/playstyle. the greatest issue why the risk of being melee is too high imo is because nobody actually tank the boss so every melee even if he is a glasscannon is taking the risk of becoming the next target due no indication of aggro whatsoever.
So kiting is the playstyle in this whole game regarding PvE and this is ofcourse more handy for ranged players addionally.

tl;dr i don’t think a weaponclass is better than another i just think the risk/reward ratio isn’t balanced in PvE

You should take a look at how the dungeon meta works in this game. Speed runners do go melee in glasscannon builds pretty much exclusively. They use tricks like pinning to mobs/boss into a wall so they can maximize their dps. They survive on active defenses such as blocks, aegis, blinds, stuns and reflects, and as they’re all stacked up, they share theirs party boons and buffs without needing to call everyone together. At the top level of PvE, ranged is considered essentially useless along with defensive stats, to the degree that the meta players will consider you a leecher, looking to for a free ride just for investing in them. The old mantra “A dead DPS is no DPS” doesn’t apply to them as they’ve learned how to erase their need for passive defense all together.
Go in the dungeon board and you’ll find them complaining about the run they did with that, bearbow ranger, or that camping staff guardian.

ok seems legit as long as you are in a coordinated group, but i guess in a lfg-goup or at the events which you do with random players it isn’t the same isn’kitten

urdriel.8496:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

urdriel.8496:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

Atherakhia.4086:

So when all is said and done, unless you’re standing on a wall, this is a melee dominated WvW and PvP.

fixed it for you because the term game includes PvE aswell

melee is better in pve too , sometimes you may need to use ranged weapons, but the best dps is always from melee .

depends on the situation.
i agree on soloing, leveling in generel etc.
in cases of mass-events and dungeon bosses i keep my point from my previous post

The key is cleave damage, any attack or autotack of a melee weapon will hit more than 1 enemy, if all your group use melee weapons you have a x3 or x5 “damage boost”.

what does cleave dmg against single targets because i was refering to bosses and boss-like events? i never said it’s the dmg thats make range better. i did already agreed that the dmg output of melee is superior i still think that range is way less risky and the reduction in dmg isn’t reason enough to switch to melee if you don’t need to because of your build/playstyle. the greatest issue why the risk of being melee is too high imo is because nobody actually tank the boss so every melee even if he is a glasscannon is taking the risk of becoming the next target due no indication of aggro whatsoever.
So kiting is the playstyle in this whole game regarding PvE and this is ofcourse more handy for ranged players addionally.

tl;dr i don’t think a weaponclass is better than another i just think the risk/reward ratio isn’t balanced in PvE

urdriel.8496:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

Atherakhia.4086:

So when all is said and done, unless you’re standing on a wall, this is a melee dominated WvW and PvP.

fixed it for you because the term game includes PvE aswell

melee is better in pve too , sometimes you may need to use ranged weapons, but the best dps is always from melee .

depends on the situation.
i agree on soloing, leveling in generel etc.
in cases of mass-events and dungeon bosses i keep my point from my previous post

Atherakhia.4086:

So when all is said and done, unless you’re standing on a wall, this is a melee dominated WvW and PvP.

fixed it for you because the term game includes PvE aswell

to bring some PvE relevant notes:

even if melee got enough engage/disengage i still feel that in uncoordinated events there is still a huge gap between the balance. while a ranged player can almost react to everything (especially projectiles) slower and still have the possibility to dodge all of them, while a split second to late as melee is certain downstate (due to zerk meta).

As ranged player you can go afk and might deal more damage than a melee who have to chase the target around because the aggro system is the most stupid thing ever in GW2 and might have to disengage and than reengage and all this while being in the danger of maybe become the next target.

Of course you deal way more damage theoreticly as melee but it isn’t worth the risk of getting downed/killed. therefore armorerosion, repaircosts (which will be gone at least), time to get the armor repaired etc.
All player i know personally play range in PvE because it’s much more simple and less risky in almost every situation. the only ones who play melee does this because they have no range weaponset that works similar to thier build/playstyle.

I think it should be a question of what you want to play instead of what is easier to play with which decides your weapons. Even absolutly newcommers shouldn’t get forced to play range until they know the game good enough, if they want to play melee they should do and and be as effective as ranged imho.

Talyn.3295:

No, people hate trinity because its boring. It always has been always will be.

wrong it isn’t boring as system if you know how to put the players to their limits in thier job. i think WoW did a great job in their HC Raids and the challenge to be the fastest at your server, your region the world etc. it drives you forward. different boss mechanics are the thing that makes PvE enjoyable, of course tank’n’spank is boring but this will be boring in any PvE scenario whatsoever it isn’t the fault of the trinity. And the trinity helps to define playerroles which we are completly lacking in GW2 except DPS.

Even if you think the trinity is boring, than you have to accept that only DPS is even more boring in any case. In the most dungeons you have the highest success with the tactic to burst down the boss asap, even if interrupts etc will help these are things you can do in full DPS builds also you don’t need to be tanky or suportive to do so.

there are only 2 options to make the PvE interesting:

1. make PvE like PvP, which is almost impossible and will cost many rescourses and (re)work of almost every PvE content so far.

2. defined playerroles, so that the job they are doing is crutial in the group and without them it’s almost impossible to be successive. it doesn’t has to be the trinity but it is the most balanced and stable system regarding this. yes maybe the content till now will be even more boring since you can play tank’n’spank-stlye but it give complete new posiiblilitys of contentdesign for the future where “bring the player not the class” actually matters.

I can understand Anet in the point they want you to be able to play every content with your friends without be forced into several roles! but if therefore the content is always/mostly the same and dishing out the most possible damage in the less possible time isn’t enjoyable neither. If you give every profession the possibility to fulfill every playerrole together with the upcomming change that you are able to switch traits everywhere everytime this arguement i mentioned above won’t be harmed and still will improve the overall experience……so i don’t see a problem in doing so since GW2 is a PvP only game until yet. you can’t make PvE worse than it is today imho.

infantrydiv.1620:

Thief:

1. Offhand dagger: Dancing dagger is pretty pathetic damage and not even guaranteed to bounce. Cloak and Dagger is a huge risk against all targets since evades and blocks are so prevalent. Compared to pistol offhand, dagger just doesn’t cut it.

Honorable mention: Pistol/Pistol, overall a very weak kit when compared to D/P or S/P. Very little synergy

totally agree on offhand dagger, but i think it feels most out of place in D/D. pistol offhand is so far superior in every aspect and situation here. But in P/D it is ok imo.
to avoid saying things thgat were already said i link my post on this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvP-Thief-Dagger-4-5-small-buffs/first#post3823309

i like the passive changes on the thief’s ones
but i don’t see why they need to change the active one of the current Assassins Signet
with your change it would be absolutly useless in a pure power build while a condition dealer won’t use it anyway i assume. it would be really nice in hybrid builds but it’s too niche imo

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

I honestly don’t know why most of you say the dmg on dancing dagger is so bad. I have been using it lately and especially on bounce I feel it is actually pretty decent. I do run almost a full zerk build though so maybe that’s why?

The only thing I really have a problem is how many times you can hit the button, waste initiative, and it gets “obstructed” or “miss” for no reason at all. I don’t see why they can’t make it more like shortbow autoattack. It doesn’t miss like dancing dagger does.

Though they DID mention “bug fixes” in the upcoming patch for thief… so lets hope this is one of them!

i can imagine that it seems to have to less damage if you compare it with Shadowshot /HS which is/are the better option in most cases and in combination with your other skills since your goal as thief is mostly to burst/cases a single enemy. but as already mentioned i don’t see the main problem at dancing dagger why D/D is underwhelming against D/P f.e

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

Yamsandjams.3267:

I would actually say that CnD needs a damage nerf. That thing can hit very hard even though it’s a “utility” skill that is primarily for putting you back in stealth. Either that or maybe give it the mug treatment where it can’t crit.

i am ok with this to nerf damage or make it non-crit only!

But therefore give it a 600 unit or even just 300 if you think 600 is too much (for PvE i would say 900 is ok but i guess it’s too strong for PvP) shadowstep range so it doesn’t miss unless it’s been dodged by the enemy.

would nerf it in PvE where it is really strong and it would be actually reliable in PvP imo.

possible buff for dancing dagger might be to apply Immobilized for 1-2 sec on the main target. what’s your opinion on this, guys?

I don’t think there is anything wrong with CnD, it’s a weapon skill after all and I don’t have an issue with the dmg it does. It doesn’t make sense IMO to make a weapon skill non-crit.

I don’t think Dancing Dagger needs immob either. The cripple is perfectly useful when it actually hits a target, it’s just bad because it doesn’t properly follow a moving target and it is too slow. Ever watched Dancing Dagger when you throw it at someone who is running perpendicular to you? It just like, kind of randomly flies in front of them and disappears usually with an “obstructed” or “out of range” message, even when there is nothing in the way and the target is in range lol.. very frustrating. If they could fix this, it would be fine.

i never told there is anything wrong with CnD, i just said that IF it should get nerfed in dmg it has to have more utility instead. it was just a reply to the op i was referring to.

like i said the problem i see is in the 3rd skill, in the combination of D/D aswell as in P/P because they feel out of place compered to the other 4 skills.

i also think that a fix of dancing daggers would/should be enough to make it legit.
But still in PvP, even with changes, i think D/P or P/D are still superior in terms of synergy as D/D and P/P could be and this can only change with a rework of the dualwield skills for those combinations

Yamsandjams.3267:

I would actually say that CnD needs a damage nerf. That thing can hit very hard even though it’s a “utility” skill that is primarily for putting you back in stealth. Either that or maybe give it the mug treatment where it can’t crit.

i am ok with this to nerf damage or make it non-crit only!

But therefore give it a 600 unit or even just 300 if you think 600 is too much (for PvE i would say 900 is ok but i guess it’s too strong for PvP) shadowstep range so it doesn’t miss unless it’s been dodged by the enemy.

would nerf it in PvE where it is really strong and it would be actually reliable in PvP imo.

possible buff for dancing dagger might be to apply Immobilized for 1-2 sec on the main target. what’s your opinion on this, guys?

MonMalthias.4763:

One major thing that I also find is missing from PVE is that a lot of monsters have no heals in lieu of simply having a massive health pool. This is despite the fact that most outcomes in adversarial combat (PVP, WVW) are decided largely upon the Poisoning of, or the Interruption of, the Healing skill. Without a heal skill to Interrupt, even Defiance-less bosses have no susceptibility to Control; as there is no reward for shortening the encounter by applying Control effects.

you have the right idea here but i think just making control effects, interrupts etc. useful won’t be the solution. Don’t get me wrong i would like to see more of this mechanics aswell to be rewarding but this are things you can do even with a full DPS build, so it is literally not nessesary for you to have a supportive build just to achieve this.

to make full support viable you have to make them do a crutial job in the group which is almost needed to reach the goal or is at least making it way easier or faster.
If you just do the thing you mentioned above a supportive player would prolong the encounter because he lacks damage compared to a full DPS build with the possibility of doing the same but with way more damage output

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Truthfully, most of Scarlet’s armies are pretty well-designed on the NPC front. Aetherblades use boons, CC, and even invulnerabilities, Toxic Alliance hit rapidly, use/cleanse conditions, and evade attacks/use reflections, Twisted Watchworks use a mix of CC, conditions, and direct damage, and Molten Alliance compliments buffs and vuln stacking with damage and blinds/CC.

The biggest issue is that most of the bosses are not like this. Reworking just the bosses is much easier than reworking all of PvE, but enemies that do these things need to become more common.

You are right about the “new mob-design” but also this events were just a “spamming wars” without proper roll distribution. in those massive fights you mostly just care about yourself and maybe downed player(assuming they are in no guilds, parties etc.)
in PvP this might all work because the fighting times are way less than fighting a boss, veteran, champion. so supportive-focused player are/will be still underwhelming in comperision with pure DPSplayer

Kaon.7192:

Significantly reducing the damage of mob attacks and increasing their attack frequency proportionally is what I think would be the easiest and most efficient fix for increasing PvE build diversity.

this could be a possibility to make it at least better than now with little effort of changing something drasticly, but i doubt it would be a long term solution.
Imo this will only affact solo playing content in PvE like leveling and personal story but it won’t resolve in huge changes in dungeons, fractals etc. but i could be wrong

hands down… the real problem is that the “No Holy Trinity” just isn’t working in a proper PvE.

it doesn’t matter that someone deals decent damage and endures 1 or 2 more hits, if another one deals way more damage but dies earlier just because even if you could “tank” there are no healer to make it worth for you being tanky. Now to make your tankier build working you need to buff your own healing since you won’t recover the same percentage and your heals will be less effective without it. But with the need to increase your heal aswell your damage output will suffer even more and because of the high cooldowns of heal and defensive abilities it’s ineffecient in comperision against full DPS.

So all we do in PvE is more kiting/dodge rolls than actually fighting.

So many builds would be viable if their own defense and/or their defensive support
would be actually as usefull as pure damage or increasing damage support builds.

like MonMalthias said in the OP instead of “DPS,Tank,Heal” we have “DPS only” in GW2 which is making at least PvE less attractive to almost every kind of player who is more focused on the PvE content than PvP

Black Box.9312:

I think that rather than requesting this, we should be asking why the ‘elite’ skills feel so underwhelming in the first place.

exactly. elite skills should be the keystone in the build we use instead of a high cooldown ability which sometimes isn’t even worth using it. In GW1 your whole build was wrapped around the elite skill and defined your play, in GW2 i could cut it off and woudn’t even notice it is missing

the problem is not really that Dagger offhand is too weak but that dagger aswell as pistol offhand doesn’t synergize well with the same weapon in the main hand.

examples: when you go for plain non-conditional damage with daggers the 3rd skill is useless, than dancing daggers are ok because you can cripple the target you are chasing but the pistol in offhand gives you a real gapcloser (with blind on top!) as 3rd skill which is way superior at least imo. CnD is nice but more useful in PvE than PvP in any kind because you need to hit your target and the debuff will tell good enemys that a BS is incomming. meanwhile the blackpowder gives you the abilty to go invis even without hitting any enemy and also blinds them which is more important in close combat.
And not to mention with headshot you got an interrupt which is the only one you can have as a thief (without traits) afaik.

But on the other way round those advantages pistol has with a dagger in mainhand the same disadvantages it has with a pistol in mainhand…why you might ask now?

First when you go for pistol in your mainhand you are mostly specialized on conditiondamage so unload (3rd P/P) is useless like deathblossom above (3rd D/D),while the 3rd P/D skill is nice to create space to your opponent which is something you need and it applies a damagedealing condition. now dancing dagger makes also much more sense in this build because it is a way better defensive skill to slow mutiple enemys and retreat than a chasing ability! Also blackpowder can’t make you invis because you lack a jumpingskill while CnD can and because your invismove fires mutiple shots even a block ability on the enemys won’t counter it completly.

In my Opinion Anet has to rethink and rework the synergy between the weapons regarding the above mentioned issues because it really minimizes the possibilities of uncommon builds.
Anyway i agree that dagger offhand could use a little buff.

But the real problems are the 3rd skills at D/D and P/P because they are completly out of synergy compared to the rest in the weaponsets

all characters on the same level naked without armor and not a single trait point spent
should all have the same base stats.

If they arn’t balanced in this state, how is it even possible to balance 8 completly different professions with some many combinations of weaponsets utilitys and traits?
at this point you always have to look back at this point to actually balance passive stats by making active spells/skills stronger/weaker or consider those in the traits etc.

Anet is just making it way harder for themselves with this

MonMalthias.4763:

In terms of balance, builds relying upon a confluence of traits and procs that emphasise great reward with little risk dominate the field – Healing Signet/Cleansing Ire Hambow Warrior, Decap (CC bunker) engineer, Spirit Ranger, Minion Master Necromancer – these are all builds that put the burden of skill upon the defender – overwhelmingly so – that “off-meta” or inferior builds with higher risk-reward ratios have to struggle to survive and yet contribute less to the outcome. The state of the game has teetered upon the brink since the introduction of the Dhuumfire/Aetherblade feature patch and despite a multitude of changes since, the same builds are still dominating and team compositions are looking increasingly similar – Bunker Guardian, Soldier’s Hambow Warrior +/- another Warrior, Thief, Spirit Ranger, (option of) Decap or Condition Bomb/Nade Engineer or Necromancer.

This is not to say that such builds should not exist, but balance should be in such a way that more builds than those listed above can have a place in a team composition without those builds shutting out others to the point of exclusion.

For PVE, the so-called “Damage, Support, Control” alternative trinity so trumpeted as the innovation over the “Tank, Healer, DPS” trinity has dissipated in favour of “DPS, DPS, DPS”.

Defiance has stripped the Control archetype of its teeth, whilst providing no reward for controlling Boss mobs.

Slow, extremely hard hitting attacks have negated the need for Support – there is little need to support allies with healing if taking a hit means almost certain death. DPS with just enough Support through Boons has become the one true god and PvE encounters have devolved into a “stack mobs, cleave to death” DPS race over thoughtful, deliberate challenges that tax a group’s ability to co-ordinate and problem solve.

100% true!
i just can’t disagree he is completly right on the point

sorry for being off-topic here but just a question:

will there be also CDI’s for the other professions after the ranger is done?

Sometimes i think we have to start from zero again, because all this number scaling or traitswitching is meaningless if the generell classdesign is questionable at some point.

When i have the thief in mind or let’s say rather the assassin from GW1 i got without thinking much about it 3 possible playstyles in mind that are fitting into that profession (without taking the different weapons into account).

*1. the hit and run glasscannon assassin – find your target (mostly healer or other low hp low armour guys) -> get to them (by invis or shadowstep or however) -> use your spells/attacks which should deal massive burst to nuke them down in secounds b4 they can escape or call for help -> try to get out there alife, since you are deep into the enemys territory (to get out alife is the difference between a good thief and a mediocre one, not to deal enough dmg that should be done by the build/traits).

*2. the sneaky annoying guy – (for example like the s/d was b4 the nerf) deal with your enemys by weakening them let it be by stealing their buffs or by apply debuffs, way more surviveabillity than the glasscannon but therfore less direct burst damage, letting their victims suffer and finish them off slowly or drawing attention of the enemys allies. (here it should be the priority of skill to be able to time your debuffs perfectly to be most efficient and maybe even be able to handle 2 guys! the skills/traits should be there to make sure your debuffs and/or buffstealing is a nuisance)

*3. the guy that never dies (for the costs of damage and also taking risks like the shadowform assas from GW1) just being there to interupt the enemys and being a pain in the kitten almost getting 0 damage and survives almost every initiation so your goal is to draw all attention on you. (the trait/skills should make sure you have enough defense in the first place and you make this playstyle better working by your positioning and juking abillitys)

these are the playstyles i have in mind then i think about this profession there can be variations and more complex factors but i think similar have all guys in mind that play this class. what all 3 types got in common is to take care of the keyplayers 1v1 (let it be the glasscannon, healer, tank etc every build handles another kind of keyenemy).

tbh i don’t feel any of this at the moment in GW2 all thiefs have the access to so many abillitys but the things you need for your playstyle you did choose are not effective enough.
lets take for example the D/D backstab thief that was called OP all the time in the forums or ingame. afaik only the player which didn’t altercate with the thief were whinning while the good players know how to counter them but it was hard if the thief was good himself. now every mediocre player can counter the backstab max dmg thief so no reason to play.

Now despite the nerfs you deal to the most popular buidls atm you say you buff the thief in generell by increasing the initiative reg. but for the hitandrun build this isnt even a buff because you want to deal high damage in short periode of time i dont care about being able to “spam” my abillitys….they can be on cooldown 30sec after i finished my job but they should be enough to do this after i used them.

if i want to stay at the front dealing good dps all the time i woudn’t play a thief in the first place…

sorry for the long text not being able to give constructive feedback to the change of numbers or traits since i didn’t play active for half a year or so but im still feeling conected to the game and this profession, and hope there will be changelogs that will bring me back to the game. Thanks for listening

tl;dr – scroll on and ignore if you dont have the time to read all of this^^

I don’t know if that is something that other thiefs want also but i think it would be great if you keep nerfing the invisibility skills that you might put some focus on the other mechanics the thief has in his repatoir. I would like to see more use of the shadowsteps in an offensive way (and i don’t mean the 2nd swordskill) so i would be nice if you can use him on target also to make him more effective in attacks, i also would recommand if you will be hasted for a short time after the step so you can chase better and more which is very crucial for the playstyle of the thief.

It might be also an solution if you gave thief the oportunity to attack their targets with the “stealthskill” in a short periode after those shadowsteps to make invis less important for attacking, so that the focus of the invisskills is for scouting and escaping.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

Nuka Cola.8520:

raahk.2786:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Of all the classes in this game, thief would be the #1 choice to go full zerker if you decide to play a zerker class… just don’t be stupid enough to zerg in groups, duh

Actually, you’re a lot safer in a group zerg then roaming solo as a berserker, as the large amount of players on either end provides a better cover for actually doing damage.

And most thief players will go zerker/valk anyways, since our class has hardly any build diversity.

you don’t cover from anything, you have stealth for that.

yeah stealth for maximal 11 secs with standing still 5secs wow 0.o impressive. you are mixing too many builts in your complaints (backstab is D/D, the nerf goes to S/D, the “perma” invis is D/P) and i dont even bring out the traits you are also mixing.

As a thief i dont want a buff tbh the nerf is most for sPvP so i can look over it all i want is a rework of “steal” and more possibility playstyles with the weapons we already have…… i and think even other classplayer could agree with that

you have 10sec of stealth in a normal BS builds from refuge, this isn’t enough to disengage whole zergs?

this is what i meant with 11sec for 5sec standing still, i assume you are messmer from your post so if you use the 5th GS right after you see a thief goes invis you will properbly knock him out of refuge so that is invis is maybe 2 secs or if you have good timing he is revealt instanly

Nuka Cola.8520:

raahk.2786:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Of all the classes in this game, thief would be the #1 choice to go full zerker if you decide to play a zerker class… just don’t be stupid enough to zerg in groups, duh

Actually, you’re a lot safer in a group zerg then roaming solo as a berserker, as the large amount of players on either end provides a better cover for actually doing damage.

And most thief players will go zerker/valk anyways, since our class has hardly any build diversity.

you don’t cover from anything, you have stealth for that.

yeah stealth for maximal 11 secs with standing still 5secs wow 0.o impressive. you are mixing too many builts in your complaints (backstab is D/D, the nerf goes to S/D, the “perma” invis is D/P) and i dont even bring out the traits you are also mixing.

As a thief i dont want a buff tbh the nerf is most for sPvP so i can look over it all i want is a rework of “steal” and more possibility playstyles with the weapons we already have…… i and think even other classplayer could agree with that

would be nice if “steal” from the Thief gets a rework. i mean this is almost useless but the shadowstep the abillity on top is too random and mostly worse than autoattacks , i think that would be a nice way to make the thief more attractive.

Also the ability “shadowstep” could teleport you behind a target if you got a target also getting you in stealth for just a second just to ensure you are able to use your stealthattack, this way it might be possible to use this under warter also.