Guild Wars 2

Absolutely.

Why indeed have level ups? New players should be able to instantly equip max level gear.
Why scale us down? How dare you try to let content designed for lower levels continue to be challenging to level 80s. This is not some game we play, we just want to insta-acquire everything.
Why would you ever put selfish personalities in the story?! People never put themselves above others, or try to take advantage of a terrible situation to strengthen or further their own position, or increase their wealth. During the wars, companies didn’t manufacture weapons and sell them to invading countries for profit at all!
Exactly! Why are we constantly evacuating civilians? Why not let them all be dead after the first iteration of the event? If players weren’t online and in the area immediately after the update that brought that event, they should not be able to play it. I mean seriously, what it this, a game?
And the different races being the same! It’s just terrible. I mean who of us knows anyone that picked a particular race for a particular class purely for styles or the animation differences?

(Tried to type serious response. Couldn’t do it. [This part isn’t sarcastic.])

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Nocta.5274:

It’s REALLY silly that going up in divisions basically requires win streaks when the GAME itself tries to keep you from getting them.

This is the gist of it. One system actually works against the other.

Even the systems are competing.

E-SPORTS!

They’ll moan and insult you for being a thief unless you just stand there and let them kill you. Then, once they’ve killed you, they’ll lecture you on how terrible you are.

My only issue with the steal change is what is hopefully a bug.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Bug-resulting-from-steal-changes/first#post5815977

Compositions are good if the builds therein have good synergy and role versatility. For example, having a build capable of supporting and bunkering is better than having a build that can only bunker.

You really have 3 types of comp: out sustain, high damage, and inbetween.

Generally, the comp with more sustain plays more points, aiming to deny the other team captures, while the comp with less sustain plays fewer, aiming to focus fire targets down one by one, and simply overwhelm them with spike damage.

There are exceptions such as if the sustain comp has tanky players but lacks support and therefore recursive support; in such cases, splitting up more rather than grouping up, and relying on mobility to focus down the tanks when they are vulnerable is a better approach.

A balanced comp can decide whether to play two or three points based on the other team’s comp. For example, if the other team is all damage, they will play three. If the other team is tanky, they can play two, and if the other team is full on sustain with strong support, they should match the three point split and contest because once such a team has a cap, it’s hard to take it off them.

That’s the easy part. Then comes knowing your matchups, because that has an important part in rotating. For example, if the enemy +1s a 2v1 turning it into a 2v2, but it’s a very unfavourable matchup for you, it might be better to leave it and take a number advantage. Why? The guy that +1’d just spent time not helping his team while travelling, and now he has to travel again while you run to another point, leaving 1 guy to cap the point. If you are mobile, you have a good chance to get there and win the fight before that guy catches up. Another important factor is respawns and being able to estimate enemy rotations. For example, you’ll see many people die far because they decided to push it after wiping the other team, instead of taking the time to recover their cooldowns, and counter rotate the earlier respawns probably looking to contest or decap your close point.

You can’t rotate very well when out numbered on the map, so pulling out of lost fights is always extremely important to do, instead of staying to die. There are no heroic deaths in PvP because you just resapawn 15 seconds later, probably just as an ally died from being out numbered. Pull out before you die. Remember that if it’s your node or neutral, one of them must stay behind to capture it, which either gives you the number advantage or removes their number advantage as you travel to another point. You should also arrive ahead of them because you left first and can drop hard and soft cc behind you, so you’ll have a brief big number advantage at the point you arrive to.

Block projectiles, relfect projectiles, retaliation, dodge, and any other damage mitigation and gap closing skills you have, to get to the thief, who will have low armour, low health, and only black powder and head shot for defense (no stealth or evade abilities except what they might have for utility).

Head shot drains their initiative, meaning less unloads, meaning they lose their only useful attack ability with that weapon set, rendering them extremely vulnerable. Black powder is a small AoE, easily countered by attacking from outside the AoE, ranged attacks, or AoE of your own. While the thief can move back while in black powder, moving around the outside will keep you within melee range, and certainly with two of you against the one thief, you should be able to hit him, and being squishy, it will hurt him. Reflection will melt the thief instead, and retaliation is also an effective defense against unload.

Insane burst does not make one over powered, especially when there are many counters to it. It makes them squishy, and only useful while they have access to their burst abilities. When focus fired, they have to run or die. Starting a fight at range to gain some time to deal damage before receiving any is more of a necessity for such a build, and is an advantage available to all classes, so it doesn’t make P/P thief any more overpowered than other ranged glass cannons.

Most will disagree I’m sure, but it’s true. People want thief nerfed down till it’s no longer a class in this game.

People cry about something a thief did that other classes can do, that isn’t at over powered. Forget the other class(es); it only matters that it is nerfed for the thief.
We get nerfed.
People cry about something else that they were completely fine with a month ago.
We get nerfed.
People cry about something else that they were completely fine with two months ago.
We get nerfed.
People cry about something else that they were completely fine with three months ago.
We get nerfed.
People cry.. you get the picture.

Bye to shadow step next month I guess, plus a further ‘build diversity’ update that removes all our other stun breakers, following a monthly nerf to our damage, conditions, stealth, boons blah blah blah. Thieves shouldn’t have a healing skill or elite skill because they have deceptive utilities. Thieves should have 1 utility slot not three because one skill can be used twice within a 10 second window. Thieves shouldn’t have an energy pool because they have hard to catch (LOL). Deny it now but it’s bound to be said eventually.

And while you’re at it, buff warrior damage and nerf ours; nerf our evades but let a ranger keep their’s on top of spirits; nerf our stealth but let a mesmer have it on top of clones and phantasms.Thief will be gone from the game and still have people complaining it’s too over powered.

Pot kettle. You said warriors can’t chain teleports in response to the person you quoted. I said they can’t teleport in response to you. If I was wrong to say it then so were you. Not every class’s mobility is teleporting. Stating that warrior’s can’t as if to suggest they have inferior mobility is wrong, because they have their own mobility skills.

The attack on me isn’t justified either. Assuming I use D/P and using that to attempt to weaken my points is flawed reasoning. You have no evidence that I use it, or that I don’t use it, or that I can’t use all weapons. Your straw person approach weakens your attack, and your arrogance is not appreciated.

The post you replied to concerned escaping a warrior, not catching one. If you take your own advice, and read the posts you reply to, you’ll see that I stated a thief’s mobility skills are designed to close gaps, not create them. You’ll also find that no where did I state a thief cannot create a significant gap, and that I did state a warrior can close that gap.

The ability to access stealth does not have a negative impact on your mobility, as you seem to have implied i.e you don’t have to sacrifice it for mobility. If you were referring utility skills rather than access to stealth itself, for example, shadow refuge, then yes, a movement skill would grant superior mobility. Once again however, the post you replied to concerned escaping, and Shadow refuge is an effective means of escape (albeit without risk, but then, those other skills have their own risk associated with their use in that manner). The decision would come down to what you want to gain from your utilities, and there would be no right answer overall.

You say "Try catching me" after listing a bunch of skills. There is so much I can pick at here.
First is the fact that you included Steal and Infiltrator’s Signet. These require targets, and cannot be used to freely move that distance in a direction of your choosing to put a gap between yourself and a pursuer. You can target something and use them, sure, but then you’ve either gone towards another enemy when you want to escape, or you’ve got lucky and found an NPC you can use. Then, your distance of travel is dependent on how far away that target is, not by the maximum range of the abilities. For steal, being out of range means you don’t go anywhere. So, requires a nearby target, dependent on the distance between you and that target... not very reliable, and certainly cannot have their maximum units considered in the theory because it will more than likely be different in practice. That shaves 2400 units off your "total range".
Second is that you wouldn’t save Roll for Initiative and Withdraw for escaping. Not if you’re half a decent player, anyway. You’d use them during the fight, to help you fight. Shadow Step might be off cool down, and Withdraw may have cooled down since it’s only 15 seconds, but the two combined is still only 2100 units. Again, note the "might be off cool down". It’s not a guarantee. You might have had to use it to escape a stun, or whatever reason before deciding to escape. A warrior’s long distance covering mobility skills which do not require a target, have much shorter cool downs.
Third, infiltrator’s arrow. You would be correct to point out that it can be used to put significant distance between you and a class that cannot scale terrain. However, the presence of such terrain cannot always be counted on. You counted this as 900 units, which is misleading. You’re running while you cast it, so distance is traveled during the cast time, and travel time of the projectile, reducing the distance that this skill actually takes you. Obviously, it shadow steps you fewer units the more ground you travel while casting/arrow travels, and with your swiftness (which a warrior will also have of course) the distance you gain from the skill is significantly less than 900 units. (Note that this is why I used "spam heart seeker" in my example for gap creation instead of infiltrator’s arrow)
Fourth, you listed skills which would use all of a player’s utility slots and their healing slot, and include the use of a trait which requires investing at least 10 trait points into Trickery. This is a very specific and restricting requirement for any player who wishes to maintain their own play style and/or build. While the high mobility warrior build is a reality, it’s bad practice to offer a whole build adjustment to handle one specific build available to one class as a solution.

There are also other, smaller but no less important points of tactic, such as...
...if you have a primary support, trying to force the fight away from the point while they sit on it so they do not take unecessary cleave, and returning when needing the support.
...instantly grouping around a fallen ally to revive - as he falls down, not after
...moving onto the point as you die so your allies can either group around you to res faster, or to allow them to cleave around you to damage any attempts to stomp or to counter cleave the enemy’s cleave. Your death might get your team a down and therefore not make them out numbered and not need to pull out.
...swarming over enemy players as they drop to cleave them out and any attempts at reviving.
...leaving enemy players to bleed out instead of stomping to hold a number advantage longer.
...rotating to secure a snowball rather than a point, and going for the points after once the enemy is in a weak position and needs to regroup.
...rotating to gank respawns instead of waiting for them to regroup.
...communication via drawing and pinging on the map or chatting, if without voice comms.
...trusting mesmer portal plays, and using the portal to over-extend.
...engaging off point, not extending or trying to kill, but to delay their movement onto your capped points.
...stealthing between points so the other team doesn’t know where you’re going.

The list goes on.

Queuing as reaper tonight, and the thieves are out, and oh dear they are awful. I can see why people are so set against them. It’s not that they can’t be useful, it’s that these players are doing all the wrong things. If you are a thief, you need to do what most players - even non-thieves - don’t do, and that is act based on a knowledge and quick assessment of your comp, the enemy comp, and actually play for your team, not for yourself. If I didn’t know what I do about the class and how to use it, I’d probably hate seeing them on my team every time I do, too.

Edit: That being said, the really bad ones I see basically play like druids, looking for 1v1 with no thought towards comp weaknesses and where they might be needed more, except they leave when someone arrives to help them in their 1v1, and stay to die if no one does come to help. So I suppose I see where people are coming from in that you can’t carry that kind of play at all, but still ultimately it’s a player issue, because just as bad plays can be seen made by people on other classes.

I’ve seen plenty of elementalists before the 10th December patch in PVE and PVP both, not investing in Arcane or Water, and sometimes neither. It’s just not heard much on the forums because those who have created a working build are busy playing it instead of complaining they need more DPS in their defensive traits, or more survivability in their offensive traits.

There is a learning curve for this class, and most start out playing defensive with soldier stats and focusing on healing etc. Not everyone decides to try gradually trading it off for offensive stats. If anyone has played a berserker d/d elementalist with reduced access to healing and condition removal for a good time, goes back to the bunker style, they’ll realise that the dependency on survival abilities is due to lacking survival skill. The trick is the same as for any class and any game – to constantly try to improve and find better approaches instead of settling for the first thing that works, however restricting that may be.

I’m not disputing the patch having opened up more build possibilities, however. I do think though, that a lot of people will find it difficult to change after being used to having high armour, a lot of healing, and the ability to remove conditions in an instant as opposed to relying on a trait with a 40 second cooldown.

It could be argued that the lack of perceived diversity before, and even at present, is due to the elementalist being the only class that does not have the ability to adapt in terms of attack range while in combat. Every other class can swap between close range and long range capabilities. While there is the possibility for effective builds which utilise conjured weapons as a ranged weapon swap, they don’t compare to the versatility of being able to swap between a melee and ranged weapon every 5-10 seconds. 1-2 swaps per minute isn’t a great incentive for such a build/play-style adjustment.

To sum up, I think the elementalist has always had more build diversity than the majority of players – at least on the forums – realise, and that most don’t feel comfortable trying anything with a significant change. I hope no one takes offense to anything I’ve said; being rude is never an intention but often stating facts as one sees them or reporting experiences can appear hostile or arrogant.

Come back? It was double elimination which is great for a team that changes their comp every map to find a counter to their opponents. They got beaten fairly, then won after the introduction of lag, two TCG disconnects over two games and in the third a stuck bug - each while TCG arguably had the upper hand - and finally a massive mistake by TCG cost them their place which it wouldn’t have if not for the losses resulting from the bad luck in the previous games.

All oRNG did was show they have more reliable computers and internet connection, and that comp wars/build wars is apparently completely fine during a tournament that big. Of course, at WTS personal computer/connection doesn’t come into play. EU just lost our best chance at winning WTS.

Yes thief is bad and druid is good. Who doesn’t want 2 1v1 builds on a team comp. Open your eyes and see the real issue instead of blindly blaming the thief. I’ll admit most thieves don’t know the right times to come and go, and a warrior is awkward to play with, but with a good thief the issue is either too many selfish builds or people die instead of rotate to take advantage of the thief’s mobility and stealth decaps/caps/sneaking off to grant a headstart to an ideal point push.

Yesterday I had a revenant cap close, kill our beast instead of help mid, then run past mid to enemy beast and take that, costing us mid since we were out numbered for so long. The thief sees this, stealths off mid to far, decaps it, and waits there knowing the enemy engi is going to push. This is good. Mid is still neut but not very strong and will need to be left soon. Close is capped and no one of the enemy team is unaccounted for. The thief and rev are far ready for a 2v1. The revenant, instead, after killing the beast, decides to go all the way back to close to sit on it instead of push the engi. This was a fault of the revenant. The enemy ele left mid and decapped close without anyone responding to it. This was a fault of the guys on mid. The thief had no choice but to play the hand he’s dealt. He could hold neut vs. engi, but instead he goes all the way to close to push with the revenant. The rest of the game the revenant just camps close refusing to move except for killing the beasts.

Had the thief not been in a 4 man queue, his team would have blamed him for the loss, because he is a thief, and the revenant would probably have been praised for stacking up points from beasts so "we didn’t lose as many pips."

Open your eyes.

Daredevil is in no way elite. It’s got some nice options, but it’s impractical since the vigor changes, and due to the fact that other trait lines are mandatory. D/P works better with Shadow Arts. S/D could make good use of the traits there, but it doesn’t add enough punch to allow S/D to compete in terms of burst, and S/D was barely viable without Acrobatics before the vigor change; now it needs that improved vigor, and near 100% up-time to be on par in terms of survivability with itself before the vigor nerf. Our class mechanic is rubbish without building it up with Trickery, S/D needs Acrobatics, that means Trickery/Acrobatics/Daredevil, and that of course is not meta material because you lose the offensive buffs from Deadly Arts or even Critical Strikes. You’re a DPS roamer that has taken three defensive trait lines just to be able to survive enough to perform a role, instead of building for that role.

I do feel quite jelous of mesmer right now. Not only did they get a bunch of their "mandatory" traits made baseline, which we didn’t, they have gotten a very creative elite spec that, most importantly, is great and will definitely be used in PvP meta. Meanwhile thieves are still forced to take Trickery and have this fun looking elite spec which is pointless to use.

Note it looks fun, not cool. Setting practicality and viability aside, it doesn’t compare to the likes of Chronomancer, Reaper, Scrapper or even Tempest in terms of creativity and appearance. We just have a couple of traits which we should have in Acrobatics, and Reckless Dodge made grandmaster because it comes with a new animation.

Macros? No.
Custom key binds? Yes.

Hit them with a projectile and go to where it landed. Sometimes it’s close enough to the position you see them on your screen and you can interact to stomp, other times you just have to cleave.

Silverkey.2078:

This is a case where pro league is against us. The reason they don’t want balance changes more frequently is that they don’t want to change the meta without letting time to pro teams to adapt.

But I think they should have first balance properly HoT before starting pro leagues. And I perfectly agree that small regular patches is a better way to do that.

The last patch is a typical example of "overcorrecting". For example they wanted to nerf bunker chrono so they:
* removed quickness rez
* removed defensive amulets
* reduced alacrity effectiveness
* destroyed well of precognition
* removed durability rune
* nerfed energy sigils
* nerfed chaotic dampening
* nerfed chaos armor
* nerfed resistance on F5 and glamour

This is obviously overkill. And many changes are like this. If they had more regular updates, they would have been able to do small shaves and slowly adjust the build until it is balanced and healthy for the game.

Don’t forget to include the buffs. The buffs to necro’s boon corruption and thief’s auto attack damage was part of the plan to combat sustain builds to prevent a bunker meta. Not only did they over-nerf, they buffed a solution after the problem was no longer necessarily there to solve. This is a perfect - and perhaps easier to see - example of why balance patches need to be less game-altering each, but more frequent. They should nerf what is problematic first, then, after seeing how it impacts the game, re-evaluate the situation and determine whether they over-nerfed and need to revert some, need to compensate the nerfed classes in other areas, or if the problem still persists and further nerfs or buffs anywhere else are needed to complete the rectification.

If you do something that is easy and counters them, you are running a cheese build. When you do what a cheese build can do but in a way that requires more skill, if you die you’re a noob, but if you win it’s still a cheese build. If your build or play style enables you to counter a crucial part of their rotation or routine, you are running a cheese build. If they are running a cheese build, and you do it better or counter it, you are running a cheese build. If you burst and kite, you’re running a cheese build. If you tank all their hits, you’re running a cheese build. If you build to have the best of both, you are running a cheese build. If you use a cheese build, you are a noob. If you fail at using a cheese build, you are a noob. If you don’t use a cheese build and fail, you’re a noob. If no one identifies anything cheesy and you win, you’re a noob out of spite.

So, we all run cheese builds. We’re all noobs. We should instead be calling each other "bigger noob" or stating that the other "uses more cheese".

I was under the impression from when leagues was announced before HoT, that MMR wouldn’t be a factor in Leagues - that the League system would work independently of MMR, allowing your league position to act as the match making value, thereby making the rating and leaderboards actually, for once, somewhat accurate.

It is disappointing to be hearing otherwise.

I miss the metas before HoT. I don’t miss the bunker meta just passed.

Half a dozen unranked games and I’m sick of off-season already. Let’s get some sort of ranked arena back please.

Unranked is basically hot join. At least that’s how it seems to be played.

PvP is quite ugly right now.

• There are a lot of things that have been thrown in that “complicate” fights, most of which was not asked for and evidently, not very much liked, and they create difficulties in balancing some classes to be effective in the meta without destroying their identity.
• Players want skill to be evident and relevant – for match outcomes to be based on it. Skilful play being rewarding is what makes games fun for most, and more fun for others. There will always be builds which require little skill to be effective, and because there is little flexibility and room for it outplaying other builds, it should not be viable in higher level play such as ESL tournaments. There is no point in creating a meta where the builds make the match instead of the players behind them; it’ll then come down in large part to RNG. We might as well play snakes and ladders.
• Build diversity was the aim of HoT, and instead we have gone from a meta where all classes except ranger were seen in ESL – that’s 7 out of 8 – to a meta where 3, possibly 4 out of 9 classes are seen. There are variants of these builds, but there have always been build variants in any meta.
• The current meta is not fun to watch. Match outcomes can be decided extremely early with little to no chance of a comeback, and despite that, the game will still end via time out.

The most evident problems that have led to the reduction of build and even class diversity in the meta, is the inability to reliably play off of kills. This has killed all strategies and supporting compositions except for the full bunker 3-point composition.

• Foremost, this is due to a combination of quickness revival and the invulnerability frame and removal of all conditions during transition into downed state. With mesmers able to grant quickness to allies, both mesmers and revenants having quickness on demand, and both having sufficient utility and self-sustain to be able to take 1-2 of each at a time on a team, there will always be more than one quickness reviver. The more quickness revivers, the faster the revive, while having more people try to quickness stomp does not speed it up for each additional stomper (obviously).
• Next, is the overabundance of immunity and defensive abilities. In part, this is created by alacrity speeding up cool downs. Even with the 50% nerf to vigor, most classes just have too many evade skills, and the potential to chain evades, blocks and invulnerability, and mesmers of course being able to grant invulnerability. In previous metas, you would see two mirror builds, for example 2 elementalists or 2 engineers, fighting each other on a point, because there is room for one to out-play the other, or at least do some damage to get a head start when help arrives. Now, we have bunkers who literally just wait together on a point, because there is no point in trying to fight each other. Neither has enough damage to dent the other, and due to the builds being such a determinant factor now, there is no room for one to out-play the other.
• Crowd control. It’s gotten out of hand. It makes players wish for the days of hambow again, where there was one dedicated cc build, and the rest had cc but not so much. It’s not just about the quantity, but the fact that most of it is AoE now, and some even instant cast. It forces builds which lack self-sustain and don’t have plenty of stability, out of the meta.
• Recursive support. It’s good to have support roles more specialised. Specialisation is good, it can create an enjoyable meta with strong, active team work and potential for synergy through active play, as opposed to builds near passively synergising. However, support potential got buffed so much that recursive support – that is, having A support B, who supports A, so A and B last longer and in turn support each other longer, so they last even longer and during that time support each other longer etc.
• While support and sustain have seen significant improvements, damage hasn’t. While it is true that stronger support enables damage dealers to take less survival options and go more for damage dealing, their damage potential remains largely untouched, and the amount of cc, projectile defences, and lack of stability make dealing damage effectively and consistently quite difficult.

This combination of forcing classes without certain abilities out, inability to play off of kills, overpowering support, plentiful AoE cc, and damage dealing rendered less effective, has led to a meta based around support, sustain, and trying to win by shutting down with control, and failing that, knocking enemy players outside the point instead of defeat them for the decap or cap, and the builds therein have become easy, skill-rotation based, tanky, quite dull, and ineffective against mirror comps, merely matching the sustain.

Not to single it out, but Engineer is a good example. It’s gone from having a variety of combos and lots of available utility and skills – skills which need to be aimed, timed and chained – to swinging a hammer around in a rotation that includes a block and AoE cc, passively gaining invulnerability and a heal skill cool down reset when low health.

While I’m intrigued about thief getting some damage output improvements to its weapon skills, I am annoyed that you would, instead of simply considering making some things baseline and adding new traits in place of those made baseline, decide to focus on improving acrobatics. Acrobatics! The trait line you nerfed to oblivion because of Daredevil coming in, and which is now no longer used! It’ll need some really strong - and I mean extremely strong - improvements to its offensive capability to even be considered against trickery, deadly arts, and daredevil. In fact, so strong that you might even call it a near complete rework.

I’d trade an acrobatics rework for preparedness and kleptomaniac baseline, driven fortitude changed to give stability instead of heal so we can STAND in team fights more reliably, and two new minor traits to replace the ones made baseline.

aarias.4016:

Yes, they’ve only increased the duration by 50%, no big deal. Same ’ol, same ’ol...????????

Your suggestion is to use "obstructions"? Seriously? Is this some new skill I don’t know about? So every time I get hit with Sick ’em or Goggles I’ll just duck behind the nearest wall? LOL!!! Of course, why didn’t I think of that???

"Obstructions" aside, in my experience, 6s is a LOOOOONG time when you’re actually in a even-skilled fight. How many dodges/evades/dazes do you have to pull off in order to survive revealed for 6s? The answer is "too many".

I’m not going to go through the list of possible thief builds and point out why most aren’t currently viable, but suffice to say that we’re running out of builds in a hurry. IMO, P/D condi is one of the last remaining builds that can hold its own, and tweaking it to withstand an unplanned 6s without stealth would make it no longer competitive to begin with.

You could, of course, make the argument that no one will run Sick ’em or Goggles, but that’s a pretty weak argument. Thieves are prevalent in roaming and small group engagements, and running either of these two utilities is essentially a hard counter to the entire class.

All I’ve done is attempt to help rather than simply saying "you have x,y,z defenses", "this is no concern", or "L2P". Given that you made this thread you have a genuine issue, so it might be worth listening to people when they offer guidance rather than attempting to mock it. I say attempt, because if you did indeed know to do that already, you wouldn’t have made this thread; thus your mockery has backfired. If you want to play a berserker class you need to know how to kite and obstruct if you want to survive. Your opponent isn’t going to reduce their damage or toughness for you, so why should you reduce your mobility for them? You don’t have to evade attacks for 6 seconds (you could of course), you merely have to evade your way to a corner for obstruction or a drop that the AI won’t jump down, or a wall to shadow step up that the opponent can’t directly follow. It’s nothing new. Anyone who has clocked a lot of time on their thief will have done this while low health just to escape and wait for their heal on a number of occasions.

The frequent 300-500ms spikes started again for me yesterday, and are still preventing me from being able to PvP today. The silence from ANet on this is appalling. I’ve tried everything I can on my end. Contacted my ISP and got an upload and download speed boost even though it wasn’t needed (turns out it was free and just hadn’t reached my area yet), applied the TCPNoDelay and TCPAckFrequency tweaks to reduce latency at the cost of a little bandwidth, messed around with some other TCP settings using TCP Optimizer, and finally tried VPNs including WTFast, PingZapper and Battleping. I got a slightly (but noticeable) increase in response time for my skills when I wasn’t spiking, which was nice, but it didn’t get rid of the spikes. Sometimes using a VPN avoided or significantly reduced the spikes I was getting, but other times such as now, it doesn’t do anything.

I’ve been toying with the idea of paying to use a bigger and supposedly better VPN such as HideMyAss or IPVanish, but that would just be a waste of money if the problem is ANet’s servers. So I need to know if their servers are the problem to proceed with trying to resolve this myself, but I can’t even get so much as a yes or no on that from ANet. Even when I asked the question via a ticket, instead of answering yes or no, they want me to download a program, run a scan, and send them a load of information about my computer, things I have installed, etc. etc. Why is it so hard to get so much as a little one word response? How many more pages must this thread accumulate to warrant a response? Where is the Justin of the technical support section?

Edit: I know some other online games have a status page where players can see if there are any issues with the game’s servers, such as online, offline, slow responses etc. Could we have one of those? It could even be done instead of arguably unnecessary forum reorganisations.

When you finally land it, you trigger their passive that gives them another boon or does something to you allowing them time to freely apply more boons. Then, when you land steal to remove those passively applied defensive boons, you trigger their passive that gives them more boons, or disables you in return.

We have passively applied cc for landing cc, and more skills are coming in which can negate a killing blow. It’s just a matter of time before killing someone triggers a passive than in turn 1 shots the damage dealer instead, as a fair, balanced means of countering burst via ANet’s apparent definition of active play.

Daredevil: When your class gets out played by the game engine.

AikijinX.6258:

GinghamLion.3614:

I’m not sure what’s worse, the QQ thread of the day about how someone lost to a thief so they want them removed from the game, or the people who feel the need to decide that the 2/0/0/6/6 build is or isn’t sizer’s.

He popularized it. That’s why it’s called his build. Just deal with it. I don’t care about this other random kitten who wants his name on this build.

Hop off his private region

GinghamLion.3614:

You said it yourself, it never used to be good. Who cares if you’re the guy who’s been playing the build for a year, it was never good. Now that it’s in the meta, it’s there because sizer brought it there (oh wait, that’s what meta means. someone who has publicity attached to their name started doing it and it trickled down to the masses, holy kitten, guess it’s his build).

Pot, meet kettle.

Any who... Just because Bob made a build that Fred was seen using at a later date, doesn’t mean that Fred took the idea. He may have just had the same idea at a later date. Therefore, it’s not necessarily a question of "which one person made it"; it may have been made by both, thus rendering arguments over who’s name to put to it quite pointless. (And before you think to be smart and throw "pot kettle" back at me, I must point out I have said nothing implicitly or explicitly negative toward entering the debate. To me, "pointless" is neither bad nor good with respect to the pointless act.)

Zord.6130:

Why are you even comparing this build to a 6 points Shadow Arts build?

Such a comparison may be warranted. Indeed the argument against using 30 shadow arts for a D/P or S/D build and against those crying about those who did use them, was that the benefits come from stealth, and while you sit in stealth you are not dealing damage, and therefore allowing your opponent time to breathe and their skills (including heals which are likely stronger than yours) to cool down. The point was that it wasn’t able to maintain sufficient offense to beat an equally skilled opponent using a build generally considered decent.

The same argument can be made here, in that while you dodge, you cannot damage (unless you have caltrops, but even then it’s trivial when you aren’t built for condition damage). If you’re going to spam dodge, sure their skills are evaded and enter cooldown, but you’re exchanging one of your resources for one of their’s (in this case endurance for skill cool down). Such is the same as ranger spamming their evades, guardian and warriors blocking, mesmers hiding behind clones, rangers transferring damage to pet, thieves using blinds, mesmers and necromancers spamming interrupts, any class spamming stuns/knockdowns, and necromancers gaining life force. The difference? It’s annoying to miss, and annoyance leads to complaining. The only time spamming dodge is beneficial is to buy time for your heal or help to arrive. Similarly, if you drain your initiative spamming flanking strike and larcenous strike, you’re left with no evasive attacks, and any kiting to avoid damage results in the same as the above: the opponent has breathing room and skills cooling down.

Let’s face it. Thief combat looks cool. Attacks being evaded or missed is more annoying than having them blocked or interrupted. Annoyance leads to anger and frustration, which leads to exaggeration of the facts. Looking cool and being annoying becomes "I don’t want to fight this", exaggerated it becomes "I can’t fight this", and then they rage about it. That’s why people have always raged and cried about thieves, even when other classes are achieving the same effect by a different means. Finally, when it is complained about, "I can’t fight this" gets exaggerated once more so as to make the crier sound the victim, and not like they were just outplayed. It becomes: "overpowered".

You can’t say "spamming dodge doesn’t make you good" but also advocate that "anyone can be good with this build because of all the dodges". Also remember that just because you couldn’t win, you didn’t lose unless you actually lost. If they couldn’t kill you either, they could just as easily complain about you.

Edit: Fixed a tag issue preventing some of the quote from showing.

Anomaly.7612:

How can an S/D thief counter a P/D Thief? Ran into one of these unicorns in unranked and they melted me so fast that I had no time to react.

Dodge when they attack with venoms, dodge 3 and 5, if you take too many conditions, cleanse them by LoSing and spamming 2. You can also do it by short bow camping.

Meta builds are always subject to change, else, the meta would never change. Sometimes the "meta builds" aren’t even the meta builds - a variant of what is listed is in fact more commonly used if not used exclusively. So no, you’re not forced to play a meta build, but if you want to be effective in a team, you’ll want to take one and tweak it to suit you and your team, if not simply play it as it is most commonly played.

People experiment and test different builds in different compositions often, and if they find success, and it catches on, it has a chance to become meta. The problem is most players don’t appreciate what makes a build worthy of being in the meta. It’s not about the build itself being good or bad, but how it performs in particular role(s), synergises with other builds, and what it brings to a team that nothing else seeking to fill the same role, can.

Remember meta builds are meta together, not individually. This means one meta build may be awful and weak in a particular comp or in pug queue, but be strong in a team consisting of players running the other meta builds. One build might seem better than one that is considered meta, but when you consider it in a team, it’s not always the same verdict.

Trigr.6481:

• You cannot enter stealth while in combat, however rogues can use vanish to equivalent effect.

http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Vanish:

Vanish is a core rogue ability learned at level 34. It allows the rogue to disappear from sight, entering an improved stealth mode for three seconds; it also breaks movement impairing effects. All aggroed mobs on the rogue will exit combat and return to their original locations or turn to other players if the rogue is in a party. During the three seconds any damage the rogue takes will not break stealth. After the three seconds, the rogue will enter normal [Stealth].

So, comparatively speaking (with WoW), GW2 does not have stealth, but some classes have access to vanish. Your comparison with WoW does not stand; WoW instead implements a similar mechanic to GW2’s stealth, and also allows any and all classes to freely enter a more... fragile version, with no time limit. You could even argue for such a thing in WvW to be added to GW2, but in terms of SPvP, having free unlimited albeit fragile out-of-combat-only stealth on a conquest map would create more complaints.

I too, noticed that you avoided mentioning the fact that stealth (and vanish) expire after a short time (with the exception of Prismatic Understanding buffed stealth which I argue should never have existed).

Conclusion? Your comparison is inaccurate and one-sided, and even if it weren’t, every implementation, at one time or another, was new and stood either alone in what it aimed to achieve, or stood different to all other implementations aiming to achieve a similar result, so the argument "it doesn’t conform to a pattern of similar implementations seen in similar MMOs with similar combat systems (note similar, because the differences are key to arguing for/against and justification, not pattern conformity) does not hold up, and is also invalid just like the comparison.

It must be strong enough in particular areas to be able to perform at least two roles efficiently and effectively.

Bunker: Self healing, self condi cleanse, self stability, tankiness.
Support: Group healing, group condi cleanse, self or group stability.
Crowd control: Support by crowd controlling enemies to prevent stomps, allow revivals, interrupt burst.
Roamer: Mobility, ports.
Far point assaulter: Mobility and good damage, or sustain and ideally knock-backs.

Most roamers double as far point assaulters; most bunkers double as support and even roamers. Celestial engineers and elementalists can of course do all of those, which is among the reasons they are so popular right now.

The critical strikes version is 2/6/0/0/6. Faster at killing but more vulnerable to conditions and has an arguably weaker heal because it needs hide in shadows for the condi clear. That being said, both are still used, they just have different play styles.

I didn’t look at the the build link from Jana, but I have now. That’s a variation of a couple of very old builds you used to see, before the sigil changes which might be why you’re not using fire and air. One was D/D or D/P 10/30/30/0/0, and the other D/P 0/30/30/10/0. The former is a nice build for new players running thief in PvP; it lets you work on the play style and mind set a thief needs for its role while not dying all the time, but as you start meeting better players the build and play style need to adjust - you might not see that now but you’ll realise it when it happens, and why. The latter used to be used competitively as a far-point assaulter build, using shadow trap for decaps and 3 signets for might stacking (malice, assassin’s and either agility or infiltrator’s [I forget]). It was alright, but rather restricting in versatility/adaptability, both for you and your team.

Edit: Got my "latter" and "former" mixed!

I knew the nerf would be good, and that it has been needed for so long, but I’d honestly forgotten how enjoyable PvP was without turret engineers - be they on my team or the opposing team.

Great job! I just wish it didn’t take so long to make these kind of changes in response to player feedback!

"On a successful evade." Dodging and evasive skills grant evade frames, and successfully evade if an attack would have otherwise hit you.

The feline grace replacement is actually the new minor, Endless Stamina. Feline Grace is now an extra source of vigor so we don’t completely fall apart when we miss steal.

Spartacus.5243:

no m8 with deadly arts you wont crit as often.

Actually you will. With pack runes and thrill of the crime, you have near permanent fury. The extra damage from critical strikes mostly comes from fury, so you see, a lot of the benefits of critical strikes is already not being felt. Next, critical strikes offers more damage to targets above 50% and only on critical hits, while deadly arts grants more damage to targets regardless of health threshold and the modifier is direct, therefore affecting both non-crit and crit hits alike. Finally, if more damage is what you want, you take executioner, which brings deadly arts ahead of critical strikes, dealing more damage to targets below 50%, again affecting both non-crit and crit hits. Finally, trickery has good synergy with mug.

Edit: And even if you still choose not to go with thrill of the crime, you still have 50% uptime on fury, so that large bonus offered by critical strikes is still effectively cut in half, i.e. you only get half of it, making that one advantage CS has over DA, therefore, halved.

Anyone that isn’t blinding themselves with hope will realise this is true. Unless the bunker mesmer can retain some support while gaining more damage and control abilities, such as though distraction mantra, gravity well, AoE daze on diversion, etc. Shatter mesmer will be the only build that has a hope of remaining viable. Unfortunately for focusing on control, there is a lot of stability around. Reapers may be effective enough at removing it, but a reaper and mesmer combination would be weaker than a reaper and thief combination, so unless teams move away from 3 support-capable classes to 2, and 3 offensive builds instead, there isn’t much point to mesmer outside of trying desperately to make it work.

While shatter mesmer still brings portal, which is a valuable asset, it needs to be able to bring something to the fight it is in. Shatter mesmer will be at the bottom of the "counter pressure chain." Thieves will shut it down again, and will require counter pressuring to protect the mesmer by another thief, an engi, necro or revenant, each of which can counter pressure each other to protect an ally.

Even if the meta goes back toward "burst" over high sustained damage, shatter mesmer would need a lot of stealth, running, and kiting to be viable. This would mean needing to run PU again, which means dropping an important line, losing damage and utility. If it doesn’t have enough burst, it can’t stand against reapers corrupting their boons every 3rd auto attack, unless they build for condition cleanse as well, which results in losing even more of their damage specialisation, perhaps even reverting to the old shatter mesmer variant of Dueling/Inspiration/Chaos. Furthermore, it would need to rely on a lot of support, and ele has been nerfed, and energy sigil nerf is equates to a clone lost every 10s.

There is a chance the Duel/Insp/Chaos build would have enough damage given the nerf to tank amulets, but new amulets have been added with defensive stats which, combined with the survival abilities brought with the elite specs and revenant, probably will be enough to shrug off such a build.

Roaming-wise, shatter mesmer can’t. Not alone. Being caught off point by a necro, thief or revenant is game over. It needs to be baby-sat, which means it can’t reliably +1. Any fight a mesmer needs to rotate to would have to be a +2 so the mesmer can make it there - unless it used portal of course.

In the end, a necro or revenant would likely just be a better pick. Not a thief, because thieves will be in regardless!

Don’t hit their block.
Dodge into the shattering clones, not away from.
Save important skills until after Blurred Frenzy or dodge, or after a dodge while they don’t have sword out.
Kite or use own defensive skills when they use their distortion since they can attack while it’s up and go full offense for a few seconds.
In team fights, target something else, let AoE/cleave hit the mesmer and quickly change target to them when they are at 50% health for a burst.

Approach depends on the group and situation. For trash you can pretty much sustain yourself with pistol whip or detonate cluster bomb with signet of malice. When stacking for trash, blinding fields keep you and your allies from needing to heal as much, and they can instead focus on damaging. Pistol whip has the same DPS as sword auto attack so you don’t lose any DPS from using initiative to place blinding fields instead.

That just leaves tougher mob encounters and bosses, which are just a case of doing it, and learning from what works and what doesn’t. D/D back stab is a popular way to go, and P/P is a good choice for weapon swap in a single target situation for when you get low health; you can drop back swap to pistols and unload to get significant heals out of your signet. If you’re dangerously low and want a burst heal, placing shadow refuge then stealth attack + unload will also get you some leech health combos on top of the pulse heals from shadow refuge itself. You might not want to burn shadow refuge for such a thing but if you need the health, it’s a perfectly good use of the utility. You’d use it to revive someone anyway, the only difference is you’re preventing others from needing to revive you.

An important note when running glass is that if your group is not also glass, things simply won’t die fast enough, and you will die not from being a bad player, but because you have the wrong build for your party’s set up (or as some perceive it, the wrong party). If in doubt, or want some safety while learning the fights, stick 30 in Shadow Arts for Shadow’s Rejuvenation and you’ll get 323 health back for each back stab, and 2 stacks of might (you can maintain 8 stacks of might for yourself doing this which more than makes up for the loss of power (but not the damage modifiers).

Res ally, steal on the enemy trying to stomp to interrupt while ressing.

Stomp enemy, steal on resser to interrupt while stomping. Well timed the downed will think they are about to get up and won’t mist/port.

Delay a cap on a point you decapped a bit, then leave. Drop Infiltrator’s Return on the way. Port back from behind an obstruction (wall/fence on Forest, wall/rocks on Legacy) where they think you’re going to join a team fight. Decap them before they realise what you’ve done or can get back.

Stand over the downed enemy and infiltrator’s arrow away. Press interact immediately to start stomping. Port back with steal or signet to land the stomp.

Vs. opponents that dodge almost randomly/face roll evade like condi ranger where landing your steal isn’t just succeed or fail but live or die to those conditions, use steal after landing immobilise from infiltrator’s strike.

Press flanking strike right after an enemy S/D thief does so yours hits and their’s gets evaded.

Withdraw + weapon swap to cancel the roll. Good for keeping yourself in range when you want to swap weapons anyway but not go defensive, and for healing inside shadow refuge.

Pre-cast flanking strike on the buildings on Khylo to turn it over to larcenous strike.

Use withdraw to escape immobilise even if you don’t need the heal. It could save you more health that it can give back.

About face + withdraw for covering ground quickly / gap closing.

Dancing dagger on the enemy trebuchet when a D/P thief or mesmer goes into stealth.

Jump+infiltrator’s strike to make infiltrator’s return not port you back.

Heartseeker/cluster bomb in throw gunk. This one isn’t really a tip or trick but a lot of thieves don’t do it.

Dancing dagger in throw gunk can stack quite a bit of confusion.

Dancing dagger inside shadow refuge if you’re S/D trying to fight on point in 1v2 holding a cap for backup. Lots of life steals.

Target+steal quickly (+agility signet to cleanse blind if blinded) when surprise jumped by another thief.

Don’t think just press steal or infiltrator’s signet when focusing a thief or mesmer and they dissapear but you still have them targeted and are in the stronger position.

Stealth in the open where an enemy player sitting on a point can see you to force them to stay on that point for a bit longer.

Always always always be aware of where the enemy squishies are. Both for survival (they don’t surprise you) and so you can gank them before they gank your allies.

Vs. downed guardians and engis that have their #3 skill soon, cloak and dagger, swap to shortbow and blind them with infiltrator’s arrow so the knockback misses. You can also use infiltrator’s arrow to blind them while an ally stomps, but it requires very good timing.

Vs. downed elementalist, stealth, count to ~3, then start the stomp. If you’re lucky you’ll stomp them immediately after they exit vapour form.

Vs. downed mesmer, stealth, count to 2-3, then start the stomp. If you’re fortunate they’ll reappear close enough to you that your stomp will finish them.

Don’t stand in wells. Save stun breakers and blinding powder if traited for Shadow’s Embrace until you’re feared and break or cleanse it instantly. Try to use steal defensively to prevent their burst. Don’t fall below half health; if you do, you’re as good as dead because their next hit could carry 3 procs, one of which (their traited one) can crit for over 4k. At 50% health, a single hit from them can hit you for 66% of your total health: 4k traited Chill of Death, 4k Life Blast, 1.5k Lightning Strike and 1k Fire blast. If you’re approaching that 50% mark, stealth and recover.

Edit: Oh and it does go without saying but, engage on your terms, not on their’s. If they jump you, get out and return to jump them if you need to. Get your burst off first.

What: Back-stab build with condition runes.
Why: You can’t anticipate it because it’s such a nonsense combination, making it nearly impossible to recover from.
Suggestion: Thief OP with runes that compliment the build, and with runes that don’t. Rune slots should be disabled for thieves.
Thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/New-rune-of-the-krait-backstab-cheese/first

Viking Jorun.5413:

I’m not talking about single-targets. Most of PvE is designed around multiple enemies, and taking dagger mainhand for PvE is not only selfish, but severely gimps your team’s overall DPS in dungeons. That being said, most PvE thieves run S/P + D/D for the utility of both. I failed to mention that in my OP.

She spoke of D/D obviously referring to bosses or other single target situations. It is therefore implied that trash would be S/P or short bow depending on the situation; this is obvious since they are the two multi-target candidates.

You declared D/D is wrong, and that S/P is better. Given the context, you implied that S/D is superior for single target. You also didn’t clarify that it would be for trash, and D/D is popular for single.

Basically in the desire to prove someone wrong, you’ve both managed to disagree while having the same opinion. It’s quite funny reading from the outside perspective lol. Anyway, the thread is regarding ele…

@OP Ele has just as much diversity as the other classes you mentioned. You can go glass, support, tanky, or mid-way getting a good balance for damage and survival while providing some group might and a little healing. This is why ele was often referred to as the best class to pug with.

Nothing is designed to burst down targets using direct damage, which staff is, and Settler’s gear, or even Knight’s for that matter. Berserker and Marauder.

Cries for nerfs, cries for buffs, cries of imbalance. Zzz. The devs do aim to make all classes balanced in PvP, while maintaining the distinct differences thereof so that not only is there variety, but a) the various roles and play styles exist and are viable, and b) variety is necessary against a team of equal skill and knowledge.

People like to complain. No matter the state of the game, there will be people saying X is too strong, others saying X is too weak; some saying X should always beat Y, and others insisting Y is a counter to X. It’s very easy to be influenced by these claims; eventually you’ll encounter one that relates to your experience. That’s when you discover the type of player you are: does it encourage you to become better so that is no longer true for you, or does it inspire you to complain alongside those people, and make no progress unless the devs sympathize with your crowd.

TLDR? - PvP is balanced. "Moaners gonna moan".

More often than not (if not every time), I’ve noticed, the people who still complain about fighting a thief who “perm stealthed” are actually just oblivious to their surroundings. You stealth… you realise you’re going to lose and be of no use to anyone unless you can heal or time a burst, so you obstruct the opponent’s line of sight before stealth runs out. You’re not in stealth… they just either a) can’t see you due to the extent of the obstruction, or b) don’t think to look more than 300 range in front of themselves.

Just to reinforce this, because it does sound a bit unlikely that people would be that oblivious: I even get trash talked for “perm stealthing” with S/P. I find a spot on a PvP map where I can’t be seen by the target, and I infiltrator’s strike to them. When they go for a burst or drop some AoEs, or enter death shroud or whatever, I infiltrator’s return back for a second, heal if necessary, then infiltrator’s strike back down. They just stand on the spot, evidentally not reading my animations at all, and then go into a rage on “perm stealthing” thieves after I kill them. The most amusing of these incidents was against an engineer. Even after I told them S/P weapon set cannot repetitively stealth, I was instead using infiltrator’s strike/return from above them, and that they could counter it or at least see it by target locking or simply opening their eyes, they raged that I was using a broken ability to escape their turret perm immobilise + aoe condition nuke. Well.. obviously it’s either escape and run (then get trash talked for being a fleeing thief), die (not the objective of the match), or repetitively escape and keep fighting using their lack of observation to my advantage. Even after realising I wasn’t perm stealthing, they still flew off the handle because I was using a thief.

It really does make you wonder how many complaints about “perm stealth” before Dec 10th patch were also a result of poor observation.

EDIT: Just some grammar corrections.

New maps were asked for and we were told sure, but they seemed to have been abandoned or became stronghold instead. I still remember seeing them in development - for a while you could see them on the map in Heart of the Mists, just like you can see the other PvP maps there.

I’m not against the idea of ANet working on Spirit Watch to make it a good choice, either in conquest or as its own game mode. The issue with having it in ESL or ranked is that its map mechanic is too different from the other maps that it would affect your comp. This can be argued over because teams change comps between matches on Legacy, Forest, Temple and Khylo already, I suppose, but even so, it still needs working on. ESL removed Temple while it had an bug, even though it was avoidable by standing closer to the buffs when channeling.

I would have preferred Spirit Watch reworking into a capture the flag mode, or just a new map for that type of mode, instead of Stronghold with its PvE/NPC-reliant element. I detest Stronghold, and whether you like it or not, it is not ESL material, and the majority of the PvP playerbase (from my understanding) prefer Conquest, and of them only those looking to get quick pips or dailies will consider Stronghold.

Counter suggestion: No.

I also don’t have much time so I’ll keep it brief. The flow of combat is fine. Infiltrator’s return is an escape from AoE and incoming pile, and it’s a much needed condition cleanse. Quite often flanking strikes will be evaded, or just be used to evade your opponent. If larcenous strike was merged, you’d lose that strong boon theft attack. As it is, you can actually go and land it if it wasn’t landed, and even chain it with a shadow step. Merging wouldn’t increase flow, it would reduce skill level required but also reduce versatility and I would consider it a nerf.

hehk.8705:

How dare Anet make it so you have to hit with your skill!

I genuinely enjoy sarcasm, despite it being the lowest form of wit, but if you’re going to do it, at least make sense with it. The question is what counts as a hit, given that when the ride the lightning change was made, a hit for those purposes included being blocked. It was just never fixed to work as originally stated/intended. That is what is being asked here, because what is the point in having an unblockable skill in a chain that you cannot reach while being blocked?

Zenith.7301:

Impact.2780:

This is about PvP. You’re now showing me damage scaling off PvE stats. It might be on an NPC, but those are the same stats used in WvW. Whatever the scenario, it’s not important. What is your point?

The skills’ damage formula does not change based on whether it’s spvp or wvw/pve. A backstab will do that much more damage compared to a maul regardless, and that’s why the wiki tooltips are what people trust instead of your meaningless comparison that’s just plain wrong.

Do you want me to take the screenshots naked? Backstab will still outdamage maul by a fair margin. Sorry, you can’t wiggle your way out of base damage differences and a coefficient that’s almost twice that of maul.

Dear God man. I can own your whole little charade right now by saying DUH. Yes backstab hits higher. It always has. Now, kindly show me where anyone – specifically myself – said otherwise. Show me where the topic was “maul = backstab.” I think you’ll find it was you saying maul can’t hit 5-6k, and me saying yes it can. I’m starting to sound like a broken record. Now that I’ve proven it irrefutably to you, you’re just trying to save face by attempting to alter what this was about. As if I’d ever be so stupid as to say maul and backstab were equal. I’m insulted that you’d try to pull that. The only one wiggling here is you.

Idea Of Evil.1845:

Hello guys i play gw2 for like 5 months and i only play pvp as thief and mesmer

Learn the skills of other classes – including the guardian – so that you know what to watch for and what to avoid, and when it’s safer to land steal.

Idea Of Evil.1845:

and i can say 1 thing the Medi dps guards are cancer if the guardian knows what to do vs a class they can easily kill everything and i mean everything from condition builds to zerker

This is true of any class/build if the opponent is inexperienced or less skilled. It does not have a 100% win rate against thieves. Celestial ele is a strong counter to medi guard.

Idea Of Evil.1845:

i know that they may get countered from like 2-3 builds like wp condi engi but really u hardly find that build at tpvp and it’s like unfair that they can own most of power builds and can stand very well versus the most others ,they have a tone of blocks a freakin op burst and they also have a tone of healing

They can be worn down; their healing abilities have long cool downs. Just beware the blocks and blinds. Their burst is telegraphed. Move out of range with your mobility or evade, and be sure to look at their class so you know what skills do what and how hard they hit.

Idea Of Evil.1845:

and if i try to play them from afar they rekt me with just auto attack

As you range or approach, if you strafe side-to-side slightly, all the projectiles will aim for you to those sides leaving you mostly untouched.