Guild Wars 2

sophiewhite.3149:

Hendrix.9763:

afrocrusade.4253:

Use one of your (literally) 15 dodges. Stop complaining with the most broken, goofy, silly class in the game that just barely manages to function.

Please, teleport on top of the roof above you on Kyhlo while the rest of us are actually limited.

As a thief, you unfortunately shouldn’t win every fight you have. Sadly, you can’t get a trump card in GW2. It’s a trap for a reason.

You act like shadowstepping is some “godly” ability that makes me completely “unlimited”. You’re so obtuse it’s sad. Right now shadowstepping is more of a LIABILITY than it is a PERK with these traps.

And not only that, but how is this a “trump card” for a thief to win any fight? That’s not even possible, this would only affect thief vs guard!

never thought id say this but have you tried you know. not walking into the traps?

Wow, yeah… How come I never thought of that?

/s

“Pistol thieves counter guardians”
Yeah until they:
1. Throw their spear at you while you’re unloading and insta kill you by yanking you into their traps (which will happen, because to be even slightly effective with PP you better be traiting into damage and not vitality/toughness)
2. Pop Shield of Courage and negate your entire build with one utility
3. Pull out their longbow and out-damage you until you run or die
4. Literally ignore you because they can out-sustain your damage with their ridiculous amounts of blocks and healing (I’m looking at you, shelter and purification), and smaller yet still noticeable amounts of invuln and blinds.

Darknicrofia.2604:

If you mean you shadowstepping the entire trap is causing you to take twice the damage, that’s not a bug because as I’ve explained, that means you’re just running through the barrier twice.

If you mean you’re inside of an activated ToF, then shadowstepping out of it is giving you double damage, please by all means submit a bug report since that’s obviously not intended.

If I’m shadowstepping across the traps, why not path it so that it thinks my character is running around it, and therefor taking less damage?

Mr Godlike.6098:

Brack.6172:

My wits and landscape using allow me to beat almost anyone. Even dodgebots at times.
It’s just a little (a freaking lot actually) unfair that there are specs which provide even headless chicken with an upper hand in combat.

these headless chicken die in few seconds after team focus in diamond+ there is nothing impressive in DH besides it’s dps that is avoidable if you know yours/his mechanics – that’s all

I’m in upper diamond, soon to be legendary atm. This is not true at all. Guards are still the most predominant class around. I see minimum 2 a game on each team.

Darknicrofia.2604:

shadowstepping mechanic and lore wise isn’t the same as teleporting, its simply “running very fast” so any barrier you cross still affects you.

If we’re going “lore wise” then surely a thief, master of all things agile and dexterous, can hop over a one foot tall barrier or swords…

But to make my main point: who cares about lore? This is PvP, and this mechanic is unbalanced. Lore should not be apart of PvP – balance should.

afrocrusade.4253:

Use one of your (literally) 15 dodges. Stop complaining with the most broken, goofy, silly class in the game that just barely manages to function.

Please, teleport on top of the roof above you on Kyhlo while the rest of us are actually limited.

As a thief, you unfortunately shouldn’t win every fight you have. Sadly, you can’t get a trump card in GW2. It’s a trap for a reason.

You act like shadowstepping is some “godly” ability that makes me completely “unlimited”. You’re so obtuse it’s sad. Right now shadowstepping is more of a LIABILITY than it is a PERK with these traps.

And not only that, but how is this a “trump card” for a thief to win any fight? That’s not even possible, this would only affect thief vs guard!

If a thief is smart, they’ll completely avoid a DH. It’s sad that it’s got to be this way.

If they implemented 1 rez per 1 stomp, and synchronized respawns to prevent one team from trickling back into battle, then comebacks might be easier to make happen.

Maybe this effect was intended, maybe not. Either way, I think that it’s really frustrating and shouldn’t be the case. Especially since shadowsteps are a utility, and blowing one should be cause for escape, not cause for taking damage and/or being insta killed.

I posted this in the Thief forum a few days ago but I feel that it would be better placed here. Right now, DH traps are flagrantly countering Thieves. A big part of this is how shadowstepping across DH traps actually triggers them, even if you’re going to the other side of them. Too often I have been blatantly wrecked and insta killed not by skill of the guards, but rather by shadowstepping ACROSS Test of Faith, just for the shadowstep pathing to think I walked through it. In the process, it triggers the traps twice and insta kills me.

This is a big problem for me and other thieves and needs to be toned downed. Shadowstepping should NOT trigger DH traps.

Too often is this happening.

1. Our fifth is DCed at beginning of game
2. I cap home while it’s 3v4 at mid
3. We get wiped at mid
4. Our fifth finally reconnects
5. Our team harps on him for DCing at a vital point at the game (… the beginning)
6. He disconnects again
7. We are already losing terribly, so our fourth leaves the match
8. It’s 3v5, and we can’t prevent them from winning for long enough to count the DCs as desertions
9. I lose a pip and my winning streak for a crud game like this

My point: Please make punishments for AFK and Idle players harsher. This has happened to me probably 8 or 9 times to me today alone, and I’m fed up with it. If somebody gets reported for idling or match manipulation multiple times, they should be -banned- from ranked matchmaking for the remainder of the season.

There’s no need to nerf guards into oblivion. Sure, they have a lot of blocks, some invulnerability, and a ton of area/node control. But that doesn’t mean we should knock them out of the meta.

Instead, just put a cast time on their traps. It doesn’t even have to be a long one. That way, through good timing and awareness, enemy players have a chance to interrupt their traps, which would be so important if it were possible due to the AoE daze and area control that these traps can inflict. This would also make guards take a little more skill to play by requiring knowledge about good moments for when to drop traps to avoid mishaps.

EDIT: I’d also like to point out that every single trap that both rangers and thieves have take 0.5 seconds to lay down. Guardian is the only profession where this isn’t the case for traps.

Bump.

/15 characters

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TheDevice.2751:

Struct.7453:

So your saying just play DH and win? Ha, you know the trap trick only works the first time. If you don’t learn then its natural selection…

The funny thing is people keep saying that but none of them must play necromancers.

CC + tRAps is death to any necromancer. The highest most precious comodity in this game right now is stability and necromancers have the least

Actually I just want to remind everyone what necromancers lack
- The least Stability in the game
- The least (zero) blocks in the game
- The least (zero) invulnerability in the game
- The least mobility in the game
- The least hard cc in the game
- The least healing in the game

I’m pretty sure I can go on. So maybe you’re right. Just don’t play necromancers this season is maybe what Anet is trying to tell everyone huh?

Oh and you’re comment means nothing when talking about objectives like Chieftain / Svanir and Lords.

EDIT: and another thing.

ITs funny that you bring up the exact same retort every other person brings up when talking about DH. I’m tier 7 Diamond and there are STILL full teams of DH. I’m sure when and if I get to legendary it will be even worse. 4+ DH a game. about 6 on average. This is not amber.

So what you’re saying is NOBODY has figured out how to not die by DH. Not even in Legendary. lol

No, thieves have the least stability in this game. You can pop reaper and ult and you automatically get stacks of stability. And necros SHOULD have the least healing… They have access to two health pools. Duh?

Please make it so that shadowstepping across guardian trap boundaries doesn’t instakill me. This happens way too often, and for blowing a utility to get out of DH trap pressure, this really shouldn’t be happening and is blatantly wrecking thieves against DHs.

I think Anet just messed up with the design of the DH class. They’re encouraging way too much passive gameplay, where you lay your traps down and then pop enough blocks, blinds, invulnerabilities, healing, and what have you until your traps have killed the enemy.
Maybe chuck a spear to get them to cross your trap’s boundaries for more damage, but ultimately it’s just BORING and it’s a PAIN to fight against, especially since they deal SO MUCH AoE dmg.

This meta is the most balanced it’s been in awhile, despite some possible healing adjustments that might make fighting in teams a lot less… lengthy… Anyway, the guardian class still needs to be adjusted. In my opinion, and I am definitely inviting discussion on this, they simply have too many blocks. WAY too many blocks. This gives them so much sustain and it makes it hard to be effective if you’re sitting in their traps to do damage while they just block everything.

Marvok.1083:

Hendrix.9763:

About time. Although I would have preferred a nerf to trap damage honestly.

Really? So you are telling me that you had problems dealing with DHs on the previous patch and that they needed nerfs? You are either a troll or a complete noob.

Awesome, so just call me stupid or unskilled just because I’m happy about a nerf.

Just as ANet is trying to change, guardians do too much damage too quickly, with traps and trueshot. I’m in diamond atm and I’ve seen too many times where a guard kills a majority of my team with traps.

Now, you can say “omg Hendrix your team must suck then!!#$@@” or you can say, “Wow, that really shouldn’t be possible in the first place…”

I prefer the latter.

Thief
The thief has had numerous changes in the vein of quality-of-life upgrades. We’ve made improvements to help pistols play nicer with their hybrid nature while also improving the dagger and sword weapons. Survivability has been boosted a bit, with healing skills and traits working to provide more condition removal, vigor, and healing. Larcenous Strike and Bountiful Theft now remove additional boons, with Lead Attacks receiving a large rework that promotes spending initiative rather than holding it. We’ll continue to monitor the effectiveness of Lead Attacks and adjust it accordingly as needed.

Vital Shot: Reduced the aftercast delay of this skill by 0.6 seconds.
Body Shot: Reduced the aftercast delay of this skill by 0.16 seconds.
Unload: This skill now grants 1 stack of might for 8 seconds when striking an enemy.
Heartseeker: This skill is now able to be affected by quickness and slow.
Weakening Charge: This skill is now able to be affected by quickness and slow.
Dust Strike: This skill now applies 5 stacks of vulnerability per hit. Fixed a bug that caused this skill to strike more than once. Fixed a bug that caused this skill to blind for only 3 seconds instead of the full 5 seconds.
Larcenous Strike: The number of boons stolen by this skill has been increased from 1 to 2. The initiative cost has been increased from 1 to 2.
Withdraw: This skill now removes torment in addition to its other removals.
Hide in Shadows: This skill now removes confusion in addition to its other removals. Increased the duration of regeneration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds.
Skelk Venom: The base healing modifier for venom strikes has been increased by 40%. The healing contribution for both the initial heal and venom strikes has been increased by 50%.
Expeditious Dodger: Increased the swiftness duration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds.
Pain Response: The internal cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 20 seconds to 16 seconds.
Vigorous Recovery: Increased the vigor duration of this trait from 7 seconds to 10 seconds.
Swindler’s Equilibrium: Damage while wielding a sword has been increased from 5% to 7%.
Lead Attacks: This trait has been reworked and now grants 1% damage and condition damage per initiative spent for 15 seconds. This effect has a maximum of 15%.
Bountiful Theft: The number of boons stolen has been increased from 2 to 3 in addition to applying vigor.
Consume Plasma: This stolen ability now grants resistance for 2.5 seconds, but it will not apply quickness. Updated the skill facts.
Throw Gunk: This skill is now ground targeted. Added the radius to this skill’s description. Added an allied combo-field effect and enemy ring effect to this skill.

About time. Although I would have preferred a nerf to trap damage honestly.

Why not just change it so that either ONLY the pet OR the druid can rez? Having both rezzing a teammate at the same time literally makes the rez end in 1.5 seconds and is too quick to have a reasonable chance to counter.

I’m not asking for a nerf y’all.
I would like to see a rework to make other builds more viable.

Currently with the state of things, any half-brained ele is able to out sustain any class in a 1v1. For most eles, a 2v1 is necessary to kill them, but even with that it will take time to bring their health down.

I would like to see more eles using power/condi builds so that they are actually killable haha.

An elementalist has too much sustain. In a 1v1 battle versus a zerker of any kind they cannot die, yet they cannot kill. Playing against tempest eles is so utterly boring.

Thoughts?

PLEASE add an anti class-stacking mechanic. I’m not asking for anything stringent like only 1 person per class in matchmaking, but rather no more than 2. Not only does it lead to healthier matchmaking (Remember those matches where 2 tempest eles heal eachother and are basically invincible? Or those 3 engis who essentially keep your entire team in a perpetual stun/daze? Or those 3 guards who wipe out your entire team with traps?), but it adds more variety.

Saiyan.1704:

You’re comparing two different kinds of traps as if they should act the same.

Guardian has always been about AoE bursts and CC (hammer#5, Shield#5, Staff#5). Our traps opperates in the same way. As far as dragon’s maw, it’s one of those make or break Elite specs that’s very out-playable.

Removing the burst nature of it, removes the theme of it. Doing that means you’ll have to treat all other classes in the same way… and I can say quite a bit about Thieves, Revs, Engi etc.

Every class has the ability to burst, but with Guardian being heavy armor and having some of the best defensive abilities in the game (their heal blocks everything, a shield that blocks attacks and then explodes, some blinds, etc.) saying that were meant to be solely burst is just wrong.

Thief has been known for its burst as well, with backstab, vault, basilisk venom, etc, and yet their traps don’t do physical damage?

While I think the way the traps do dmg, the worst part is the way they get triggered. Thief traps won’t do damage to anyone if they get evaded over, and even if they do trigger they only do dmg to one person, while a guardians traps get triggered and can do damage to more than 1 person even if they were rolled over with an evade. The core foundation of this is just unfair.

There’s just so many things wrong with guard traps when a guard stacks all their traps and can kill anybody using zerker gear who didn’t evade through them at the time of trigger. They’re just too punishing all at once and can’t be disarmed like the other traps.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

You cannot dodge a thief or rangers trap unless your dodging through it is what triggers it.
They are completely unavoidable if you just wonder into them.

On guardian traps there is an instant after it triggers were you can dodge/evade/block your way out of it.

That’s what I’m saying.
If you dodge through a thief’s trap it DISARMS it. E.g. it won’t affect, hurt, or do ANYTHING to ANYBODY who was inside of it after it got disarmed.

Now take Procession of Blades, Dragon’s Maw, WHATEVER. You dodge through it, it doesn’t disarm it, oh no. It ACTIVATES it. Now you dodged through it so you’re good, but now it’s killing every single teammate that was in it’s area of effect but may not have been the one to trigger it.

Do you see the difference now?
This need to be fixed.

Although I do agree that Dragon’s Maw should do DoT while trapped inside of it. That makes more sense, doesn’t make Dragon’s Maw so immediately threatening, but keeps the dmg there.

I also think that traps shouldn’t be able to crit, similarly to how mug can’t crit on a thief. In exchange traps should apply burning, bleeding, poison, vulnerability, or even weakness to reduce foe DPS to keep guards safer.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Turk.5460:

As silly as OP sounds, I actually agree that we need a cast time on par with thief and ranger traps.

The only traps that do not have a cast time are test of faith & fragments of faith.

All of the guardian traps can be dodged as well_(also have a very telling 1/2 second daze before any damage is done)_

Conversely ranger & thief traps cannot be avoided by anything short of an evade effect going of at the exact same time they are triggered.

Given all this guardian traps are more or less fine as is. If they were going to do anything they should do all of the following

1: Reduce the damage & cool down on procession of blades. (say 25% less Cd and 20% less damage)

2: Make traps share any boons granted with nearby allies

3: Tack some bleeding onto procession of blades (say 2 stacks for 5 seconds per hit)

This would mean the traps would be less likely to instantly nuke people but would still have good spike.
As an addition any boons granted would be shared & procession of blades would also apply some condition pressure for those willing to utilize it.

See buts that’s the thing, even though you dodge them, they still cast and affect anybody in them. E.g. you dodge procession of blades, it doesn’t get disarmed, it just misses the first few hits.

If you dodge thief’s traps it disarms them and they literally do NOTHING.

This needs to be fixed.

Being hated on for being a thief is all to common in PvP. Same with Warrior.

style.6173:

I still find it amusing that people are struggling against scrapper when rev, reaper, and ele are all stronger right now.

Scrapper is #4 though and the top 4 all do need a look.

I don’t think eles are at all OP. Maybe a tempest bunker ele, as they are unkillable in 1v1, but other than that, I haven’t noticed anything completely unreasonable.

Engis have access to so much utility, a ton of dazes, and generally good damage.

The thing about engis is unlike most circumstances – there isn’t one skill or one aspect of the class that people can point to and say, “THAT IS OP,” however, they are OP in general simply because they may not be the best at any one role, but they are a jack of trades. They need to be subtly nerfed around the clock.

The OP made a good list of changes.

FirehawkDAR.9021:

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Reaper, scrapper and a number of other specs are broken beyond help and your problem is moa? Lemme guess, you play necro and can’t stomach that mesmers still have one actually effective skill left.

Tbh, moa might as well be a 5 second daze. You don’t see anybody else with this ability.
ANET: " Here, let us give mesmers the ability to temporarily take away all of the skills and utilities that make you, you. Not only that, but we’ll make it really hard to see the casting animation by giving mesmers the visual spam of a 4 year old with a can of paint."

Thief here,
sneak gyro is like a longer-lasting, mobile, refreshing Shadow Refuge with a shorter cooldown…

Wtf?

Not even is it better in every single way, such as being able to move and not being a GUYS EVERYBODY SHOOT HERE like Shadow Refuge is, but it has a shorter cooldown AND NO CAST TIME?

Omg, so broken.

Run dash OR (not both) unhindered combatant [would recommend dash imo] and you’ll be fine. If the DoTs still get you, pick the trait in the daredevil lines that removes a condi on evade and you’ll be fine lol.

Also, pick the heal that pulses and gives vigor and evades back so you can continue to cleanse condi.

Thief is a very big hit or miss. Either you have a thief who knows where to be and when to be there, or you have a thief who skirmishes and doesn’t know how to capture points.

As for their standing relatively speaking, with the buff of staff and dagger auto-attacks they can be extremely dangerous assuming they don’t have weakness applied to them.

Right now, both from what I’ve heard and from what I’ve gone up against in PvP, reaper necro and scrapper engi are probably the top of the pyramid right now. Tempest eles can be VERY tanky as well, making it necessary for 2 if not 3 people to pile on 1 to kill them.

However, the hardest to kill for thieves are trapper guards. Their traps can be nasty if you’re out of evades, and if you’re a zerker thief, a trapper guard who has lain down all their traps can insta kill you with them even if they’re not there. You just have to watch out and evade them if you can.

I like the idea of staff #4 blinding in the shape of a cone instead of a straight line.

It may be a little OP, but maybe it could make a cone-shaped blind field so that when combined with vault (a blast finisher) it causes stealth.

I don’t foresee this being OP though myself simply because staff stealth #1 isn’t anything like backstab, so stealth wouldn’t generally be as scary to opponents.

As for dagger #4, maybe it could apply a stack of torment, and pistol #1, perhaps a stack of poison similar to main hand dagger’s auto attack.

As for all the venoms, they all need some kind of buff because as of now, they’re not worth the utility spots that shadow refuge, shadow step, and various stunbreakers should naturally take.

I will say that perhaps tripwire should be unevadable. Currently, when you evade through a DH’s trap, they still trigger. As for a thief’s traps, they just get disarmed. I’m still in disbelief at how underpowered this is relatively speaking.

Thoughts?

No, I’m still here, quietly reading and changing my build. I’ve already changed my runes and traits accordingly.

Here is my build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn8lCFmilOBePB8PhFqiqLCCgg0LE+gSY+67+yH-TphFwAGOEAJOCAAuAA82fYaZABPAAA

And tbh guys, I’ve never had issues with fighting. I consider myself pretty good at dueling and killing people. I guess I was looking more for general gameplay tips, not fighting tips.

Unless you want to offer advice for killing trap guardians, I hate them lmao.

Where is Thief in this?

I play a zerker staff build, traited in daredevil, acrobatics, and trickery with DMG focusing sigils and runes. I’m also pretty good with daredevil s/d and condition p/d.

I’ll be editing this post as people give me tips so as to hopefully help everybody who shares my thoughts.

So last season I cut through the PVP tiers pretty much like butter. But now, I’m struggling. I’m struggling hard. I’m going on losing streaks with scattered wins and there doesn’t seem to be an end to this.

I assume the common denominator is me, and I hate it. I want to be good, I want to win. Unfortunately, it’s not happening. My gameplay in conquest primarily revolves around 1 upping fights. I’m the guy who looks for 1v1s at each point on the map, and I go there and make it 2v1. That’s what I do, that’s what I like doing. On top of capping deserted points, it doesn’t seem to be enough.

I would like some hard tips that I can utilize and practice so that I can be the deciding factor in matches. I want my team to find me useful, so… How can I do this?

So I guess what I’m asking is:

When a thief is playing conquest, what makes them a winner? What makes a thief GOOD?

Thank you.

ronpierce, you keep reading things that aren’t there.

I didn’t recommend any changes, I was just hoping to get other people’s thoughts. particularly guardians. I’m not bashing that they’re underpowered, I’m bashing the meta. It’s stale.

Makes a statement about guardians
OMG BUT EVERYTHING ELSE IS SO MUCH BETTER

ronpierce, I don’t care if they’re in the bottom 3 professions, I’m saying HEY, they’re REALLY really really REALLY BORING to fight against. Has nothing to do with OPness or the like.

The meta trapper guardian is probably the most boring profession to play against. They camp on their traps, shoot you with their longbow. But maybe it’s alright, maybe you can ranged them down. Then they pop their 6 or 7 second reflect and then you’re kittened, unless you wanna use evade to run through their traps, taking damage because they’re more than likely using procession of blades.

ArenaNet’s idea of making lasting physically damaging traps that are AoE damage, and much more powerful than the other classes traps, was when I started liking this game less and less.

Not to mention that the PvP matchmaking in this game is TOTALLY screwed.

It’s an elite skill for crying out loud… Giving it anything but unblockable kind of undermines the point of it being an ELITE skill…

Guardians are solid at controlling points in a conquest match by dropping traps. For such passive play however (dropping traps and waiting for enemies to step in them), it simply does way too much damage. They offer too much crowd control capability by making segments of points completely off-limits by creating areas of high pressure. I think the problem here is that the traps deal out damage in the form of direct or physical damage. Like a druid’s or Thief’s traps I believe that it should be changed to deal DoT so as to not offer such an immediate threat to people’s well being but also being a major problem if not dealt with in the form of CC.

For example, for each procession of blade hit it will still deal physical damage, but the physical damage will be reduced and that reduced damage will be replaced with bleeding, poison, or burning of equal damage, but just simply done over time. This give’s people a chance to blow some cleansing to mitigate some of the damage.

Vieux P.1238:

thief dont need no buff.

Makes stand. Doesn’t elaborate on it.

At this point in the meta other classes are overpowered relative to thief. Thieves have solid mobility and can maneuver the map very well, but doing any kind of engagement with the enemy really is a waste of their time as their lack of CCs and small HP pool get them wiped fast.

I main a thief and I was doing pretty well in the unranked queue, coming out on top of my team if not winning most of the time. How do I do this, you ask?

I just capture points!

Oh, and I avoid all interaction with enemy players.

LET’S DO THIS