Guild Wars 2

Here’s another idea they could implement along the same line.
PvP Perfect Mastery Tokens:
To make a legendary precurser, all you have to do is the PvE precurser scavenger hunt, plus 1000 Ascended Shards, 10 gold, and 85,000 Unbound magic.

After all, PvP should not be the optimum way to get Legendary Weapons.

Additionally, I am insulted that they give PvP players a “reward” that ultimately makes the costs for ascended equipment increase. Seriously, who came up with that idea. Here is your reward: you’re screwed. (I consider time as part of the “costs.”)

This is exactly what I feared.
Arena Net has completely lost touch with their gamers.
The vast majority of GW2 players are intermediately casual.
We are classical MMO and RPG players who enjoy earning decent rewards for decent effort.

But Arena Net has been on a one way trend to nerf all earned rewards. This is especially true in areas like PvP and WvW. The whole mindset that PvP should not be the “optimum” method of obtaining rewards flies in the face of their original ideals. Originally, GW2 was built on the philosophy of “Play your own way to achieve good and similar rewards.” Now, however, it is play and grind in the ways the Devs favor to get the rewards we slated for you.

PvP, PvE, and WvW should all be co-optimum ways to achieve the same rewards, with very few exceptions. Their initial implementation of the free ascended for coming back to PvP was broken. So now, they have completely gutted the system and forced all PvP players back into PvE if they want any rewards.

I have played this game since BETA. I have loved this game.
But if the Devs keep destroying it I am going to quit. This time for keeps.
I want to play the way I want to. And if Arena Net keeps punishing me for doing the things I think are fun. I am done.

I was holding out for the next expansion, but I cannot take very many of these “screw you” type “adjustments.”

This is my opinion on the topic:

The PvP Ascended Tokens from this past season were thrilling to me. A great shiny reward to a very low reward area in the game. I’d have played far more PvP if it had good rewards. But mostly the Ascended Tokens were wonderful, not because they were ridiculously cheap, which admittedly they were, but because it was an opportunity to acquire Ascended items without grinding my crafting up to 500 and then having to daily remember to slog through crafting enough material to make something.

Perhaps ascended gear is not an appropriate reward for people who are as casual as me. I have only put 4,067 hours into this game and ascended armor seems to be something for more serious people.

But regardless, you got my hopes up. You dashed them. I am disappointed. Heck I would still use the system if you added a 15 – 30 gold price per item onto the cost of the ascended gear bought with the shards. But with a new crafting token, what is the point? The point was to force me to spend the time crafting. I don’t want to, therefore I can either comply and hate the way I am forced to play the game, or I refuse and just don’t get the shiny new gear. I will refuse, I have played too much Guild Wars 2 to let you guys bully me into hating the game. Instead, I will just be disappointed and go back to ignoring rewardless PvP.

But I think this is a poor decision. Maybe I am alone. Maybe the crafting time gates are pervasively loved. Maybe not. Whatever. My input is after the fact anyways.

For those of you who want to discuss this, Grant Gertz just posted this:

Greetings Tyrians!

With the next release we will be making some changes to ascended vending in PvP and Fractals. Over the past year we introduced ways to obtain ascended gear via participation in either game mode thus allowing players to acquire gear by playing the game mode they chose. We implemented these vendors in a way that made sense for their perspective player base at the time. With the next release we are making two significant changes to these vendors to create one system that functions the same regardless of game mode.

First, each game mode will still use a specific currency unique to that mode as part of the price but the rest of the costs associated with purchasing the gear will be the same across the game modes. Having a unified system for acquiring ascended gear via vendors will give us more flexibility for adjustments, if they are needed, and it will give us the flexibility to potentially introduce this system in other game modes where appropriate.

Second, purchasing the ascended gear will now rely much more on player crafting. The cost for a piece of gear will now include a crafted token which shows a player’s mastery of the appropriate crafting discipline, the game mode specific currency, and raw gold. Ascended crafting is vital to sustaining a healthy economy and it is important that we keep that in place even when a player acquires ascended items via a vendor. For PvP, this will add a considerable cost to the acquisition of ascended gear. Please note that you will be able to buy gear with current prices until the update is live.

Ascended vending is not intended to be the optimal path for acquiring ascended gear, but rather a way for players to acquire the gear through time spent playing their preferred game mode. And while ascended vending now requires max level crafting, players that obtain ascended gear via vending will see a moderate discount in cost over traditional crafting.

Come on, mates. This is getting irritating. I have the identical problem. No Challenge Mote on Meeting the Asura. Stopped my progress entirely.

After I just explained how to handedly beat a mesmer every time, all the whiners ignored it. This is a flame post. Just some bottom-tier players whining because they don’t get the purple butterfly animation.

Stop trying to explain to them how to beat mesmers, they don’t want to learn; they want to complain.

Good news! You know how much ArenaNet pays attention to logicless, skillless whiners? About as much as the girls in their middle school.

To those on this forum page who cannot beat mesmers, I have bad news. Stop trying, you never will. You need to pay attention to the game to do that. Which – judging by this post – you are incapable of doing.

Mates, this is all perspective.

On Flamers
There is no reason to defend flamers. Flamers are simply small minded people who use the perceived anonymity of the internet to be verbally abusive. I have witnessed people engage in verbal bullying, racial slurs, and ridiculously nasty behavior on GW2. Nobody “deserves” that type of treatment, no matter how badly or inattentively they play a game. This is not a debate, this is a fact. If you disagree with me here, it is because you lack perspective. Get some perspective or quit playing this game. As for the rage quitters and rage AFKers? The Dishonor system will deal with them when it is finished.

On Sensitives
Mates, no matter what you do there is no way to get rid of all verbally abusive people. It is a symptom of: the perceived anonymity of the Internet, a general world-wide lack of moral education, and childishness of alpha-nerds. But that crap cannot be totally removed. ArenaNet has a Report function for dealing with people who are legitimately abusive. Use it. They actually do take reports seriously, just look at all the angry whiners on the forums who are whining about being banned. Boohoo.

But there is a second part of this, too. Don’t let someone else ruin your game. Your attitude is your own, not theirs. If they scream at you, imagine their mother yelling down at them “Johny, are you playing that devil-game again? Quit-yer whining or I’ll come down there and take it away again.” It’s probably a more accurate reflection of their existence than they will ever admit. Then shrug and still be polite to the people around you.

Conclusion
In the words of Dean Winchester, “Don’t be a duche.” And when other people are, report them if it is bad enough and otherwise, shrug your shoulders. Their temper tantrum is certainly not worth ruining your game time over.

Abazigal.3679:

I agree with branningan. Sometimes, it’s even worse when you put a tactic and it’s not followed by all players. Y

I am afraid I can’t agree. Chaos is always the result of not having a plan. Sometimes things work out accident, but usually not. If people ignore the plan, there is chaos, obviously. But suggesting that the plan caused the chaos is backwards. Rather, you had idiots on the team who would have caused chaos regardless.

Having a plan for a solo que team merely promotes order. Not having a plan promotes disorder. Just because the plan does not always work does not mean things are more orderly without a plan.

The only question is whether it is worth your time to try to bring a little order to the team. If not, then why are you trying to find new ways to help your team in solo que?

Just wow,
Do you guys actually hear yourselves? Mesmers are near the lower middle of the pack right now in PvP. Even Necro has a better meta. Ele and Eng are the top with Rang not far behind. Seriously, look it up. If you are having trouble with Mesmers it is because you don’t understand the mechanics of the beast. The best way to beat a mesmer? Play mesmer in PvE for a while. Use the meta builds. Then when you understand how they operate, they should be easy to counter.

Right now, mesmer is in a good spot for competitive play.

Here is how I know that: I used to mesmer main for several years (since Beta). But recently I switched to a warrior because war has greater versatility, survivability, and overall damage.

As a former mesmer, I know exactly how to kill mesmers: target the mesmer and AoE the clones when they get cluttered.

Basic strategy against all mesmers: Call target on the real mesmer. You can always find the real mesmer through the play style: clones do not dodge, quickly switch directions, switch weapons, jump, etc. Also the real mesmer will usually have more boons, active effects, and signet effects.

Here is a bit of a breakdown:
(1) Phantasm mesmer (usually GS w/ Sw/P or Sw/F) the phantasm deals a lot of damage. You can kill the Phantasms to deprive the mesmer of all DPS. Best plan, chase down and CC the mesmer then cleave through him and his phantasms. Phantasm mesmers are almost always squishy.
(2) Ranged shatter mesmer (meta is GS/St) – this mesmer does only moderate damage, but pumps out a lot of clones and conditions. Again, if you can CC the mesmer cleave or AoE (combustive shot) will wipe the clones easy. But don’t be stupid: Unlike an ele where every other attack is AoE, the RS-Mes only has one main AoE, chaos storm. Do not melee inside chaos storm. It will overwhelm you with conditions. Get out of the storm and continue your attack. Also, don’t go into your burst while chaos armor is up. These mesmers are squishy. They will try to Distort out of problem areas. Hold your burst until they use their Distort or simply sustain/condition them to death. They have VERY few good ways of dealing with conditions. Longbow kills shatter mesmers.

(3) Prismatic Understanding (PU) mesmers (Sc/T or S/T and St) – You should start by laughing. The PU mesmer can be strong in WvW, but is weak in PvP. Simply stand in the control point. You will cap it while they are figuring out how to attack you. A good cc and aoe will make them unable to close on you. Their phantasms are weak and their clones are not as destructive on shatter as the meta.

Importantly, mesmer has very few group assist mechanics. (Chaos storm is about the only one to speak of.) That means their primary function in group battles is distraction and DPS. If you are having trouble tracking a good mesmer, kill his teammates first, leaving him vulnerable.

In the end it comes down to this: Can you play the shell game? If you can and you are using a viable PvP build (don’t whine that your 100blades zerk war gets killed by a mesmer, it’ll get killed by anything else too), and you track the Mesmer, you will win the battle. If the mesmer beats you, it is not superior mechanics, it is superior play. I used to main a mesmer, now when my war gets taken out by one I am surprised and impressed, I simply got out played.

Practice, concentrate and you will find that in any given encounter just about every other class has an advantage over the mesmer. Only when a mesmer is really good do they actually have the upper-hand. But then so will a really good Hambow, a really good D/D ele, or a stealth thief.

Once you are at a point that you always win the shell game, you will be beating mesmers. Then you’ll realize there is no reason to nerf them.

Brannigan,
First, thank you for the complement.
Second, I have a couple thoughts on your points.

brannigan.9831:

… my experience is you won’t get people to rotate correctly ever unless they want to take the time to learn themselves and many don’t want to. You can ping the map, kindly tell people at the start what kind of split you want at start, and many will just refuse to listen.

This is an unfortunate and, currently, unavoidable fact. There are plenty of people who refuse to talk or listen. I always, always use my paste-plan method when in solo que. I would say that about 75% of the time I get at least one person to take home and one person to take far and the rest head for middle (assuming conquest, of course). But 25% of the time I have only one responder or less. Around 7-8% of the time nobody responds at all. Of that 7-8% about half of those times are because I simply was dropped onto a guild group prospectively running TS or Vent. No prob, we win. I simply adapt to whatever their plan appears to be. The other half the time it is because the other peeps in the group really don’t care about a plan. It is chaos. Nobody (or everybody) takes home (or far, or mid). There is no rotation and everything falls apart. If all the people, not counting guild teams, refuse to respond to a plan at the beginning, I have found that there is an extremely high likelihood, 50-60%, that one or more will leave before the end of the game, too.

But that worst case scenario is only, realistically, a 4% probability. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t win 75% of my games – ha, I wish – but at least peeps try to go with a plan. Thus, even when I lose games inside that 75%, the score tends to be around a 100 point spread.

The only hypothetical solution I have for the 25% is below.

brannigan.9831:

I really think a big problem is the individual point scoring system still. It encourages people to fight off point to get kill and skirmish points on running enemies and to always try to take a point you don’t control whether it makes sense or not. It encourages going for Chieftain and Svanir at inopportune times. It encourages trying to kill the Lord in FoeFire 2 minutes into the match. You end up with matches were you get squashed by 500-300 and you have people on the 300 point team with higher individual scores then people on the winning team because all they did all match was trade point control while they winners actually protected what they owned. They also look at there score and think they did awesome at the end of the match. The saddest thing is that stupid score doesn’t benefit you in any real way. It’s not even like you get some kind of modest reward.

You are right. The scoreboard sucks. Example: I used my War to hold off 4 (I kid you not) enemies from taking a point for more than a minute two-three times in a single game. Did I get any points for that long losing battle? No. But my team took the other two CPs and we eventually won because for a good long period of time I was able to stonewall the other team from getting any points. Then, at the end of the game that we won, some noob harassed me for having such a low score! I am sure a lot of you have even better examples, that was merely the one that came to mind.

I believe that the scoreboard should be removed or possibly heavily modified.

Regardless, this problem is not unique to the GW2 esport. In pickup hockey, sometimes you get a team full of hotdogs who refuse to play defense, but rather cherry pick and refuse to pass the puck. Then in the locker room they brag about having the most points even though they were the entire reason we lost. Do they get anything special for having the most points? No. They just get to act like braggarts.

Suggested Solution
I believe the PvP community needs to begin educating its own. We have some great players in PvP and we should be able to compile some relevant guides to playing some of the main viable class builds. A recent review shows that the stickied developer-run “New to PvP? Start here” is a little sparse on content. Further, the forum links to several How-To Guides are dead(404).

Compliments to Shnicky for putting this guide together. We need more of these guides – a lot more – and we need a central hub (that would hopefully be stickied) to allow access to each of the guides. Hopefully then, we will be able to better educate PvPers. When we see someone who clearly does not know how to play, rather than say “You suck, noob. Get out of Ranked.” We can send them a link to a guide “Dude, you seem new to PvP. Check out this Guide for tips.” And the guide will tell them how to learn and where to practice.

Here are a couple more points (that have mostly already been discussed) that I think would be good additions to the first post:

11: Keep a short, simple plan copied on your clipboard. E.g. “1-3-1. I will go home, who wants mid? Who wants far?” Paste and send it after all your teammates load, but before the game begins. This will spark a discussion as to who is going where. Even if someone insists on a different plan, fine. At least your team has a plan.

12: Before the game begins, remind people of objectives: steal the boss kill, rush lord at 350 points, take Tranquility, etc.

13: Learn to use the minimap during the game. Do not burn fighting time by long typed conversations during fighting (unless dead), instead you can:
13-a: Ping the minimap repeatedly to indicate a certain point needs assistance. Use this both to call help to yourself and also to call help for others when you see a group of enemies heading for a lone ally.
13-b: Draw on the minimap to indicate that specific allies should come. If a camper at your home is needed in the fight, it is far easier to ping several times and then draw a path from home into the battle than it is to type in instructions. Your ally will pretty much always understand that you need him in the fight.

14: Always try to encourage your team. In any given situation, if teammates are playing poorly they may be: (1) newer or less experienced than you, (2) as experienced as you but dealing with other things you cannot fully see [new build, specifically targeted, lagging, etc.], (3) as experienced as you but having an off day, (4) more experienced than you but suffering from 2, 3, or both, or (5) not paying attention. People tend to react as though everyone who makes a mistake falls into category 5. But 96% of people simply fall into categories 1-4. If you encourage them, remind them, and “gj” them when they do things right, it will help keep them focused on winning. And it will make the game more fun for everyone involved.

Well done! You’ve done the impressive: you’ve made me enjoy playing my Ele in PvP.

Explanation:
As one of the oldies whose been playing since beta, I’ve dalied with maining an ele several times, but I always leave the class because of the necessity for rotations. Very few other classes are so dependent on rotation patterns for viability.

The meta rotations are dull, overly predictable, and are about as much fun to play as pressing the right arrow key to play “Snake.” Looking all the way back to GW1, I have always preferred discretion-oriented builds to rotation-dependent builds. (E.g. I hated playing “PermaSin.”)

I said all that to say that I find that this mono-element build actually gives me far more discretion than pretty much any other ele build I have used – and I’ve used a lot. The autoattack supplies decent pressure, but the timing of the signets, elite, and heals make all the difference in the world.

So, thank you! I will continue to enjoy this version of the Ele in PvP and will try to recommend changes as the build evolves. Hopefully it does not become too meta or it will surely be nerfed into oblivion.

I enjoy the range of music I get from listening to Nightwish, Within Temptation, and the Birthday Massacre set on random. Electric, acoustic, epic, and heavy all rolled up together. Besides, it feels like each band represents a facet of the Mesmer:

• Nightwish – phantasms, the beautiful destructive force at your command.
• Within Temptation – the glamorous manipulations we use to control the world.
• Birthday Massacre – the illusions we hide within, only to shatter when our advantage is clear.

Gosh, now I want to go home and listen to music while I play my mesmer…

Uh oh.

ArenaNet,

First, we love your game, that is why we are spending time on these forums.

Second, for the most part people like the April 15 Feature Pack.
My ReasoningThe forums attract naysayers at about a 5 to 1 ratio. Accordingly, the other announcements were extremely well received at a 1 pro to 1 con or a 1 pro to 2 con ratio. Which is puts the sampling between 5-1 and 5-2 in favor of the new changes.

Third, the boss/event feature changes of today are disliked by everyone.
My ReasoningAs far as I can tell, the comments in this thread (the only allowable thread to discuss these changes) seem to show zero in favor and 200ish opposed. Only a few are saying the changes don't matter.

Specifically:

• Eternal and specific daily times for bosses mean that a lot of people will have to take vacations to fight a particular boss.
• The new boss timers will mean far less chance to participate with most bosses. (I used to have a couple chances an evening for most bosses. But now, I will only have one shot at each. Thus, if I want to spend some time with guildies, I will miss my only chance at a lot of bosses.)
• Waypointing will be far more expensive (may or may not be intended) and time consuming (loading screens, certainly not intended).
• Guild World Events will be impossible for small guilds.
• Guild World Events will be very inconvenient for large guilds.
• Loss of dungeon entrance monitors will discourage running dungeons. (When I have two hours to play, I am not likely to want to spend it unlocking a dungeon I will not be able to run. Instead, players like me will just do a different dungeon or previously do the boss train.)

Like I said earlier, we love this game. And we know you do, too. You have some good ideas and some impressive plans. But the pervasive opinion is that these specific changes will make the game a lot more tedious and slower than it needs to be.

Will you consider changing your minds here?

Sorry, I give up, here is a Straight up Complaint

Dear ArenaNet,

You have given us a lot of new information on changes. Literally, dozens of new aspects we can discuss. But we have to discuss all of them in a single thread. This is not conducive to an intelligent conversation. This only promotes one-and-out whining.

I already asked for suggestions to fix what I feel could be a significant new waypoint problem, but you closed the thread. So now I ask the same thing here. But note, rather than answer me, you will find a lot of responses that are ignoring my request to reiterate what they like/dislike/hate about other unrelated changes.

If you actually want a discussion, let us discuss the separate changes separately.

Apparently, ArenaNet does not think that their waypoint change deserves its own thread as they closed and locked my attempt to discuss this. Pity, this is a pretty big issue, not just a after note on other changes.

The new perma-contested waypoints (for outside maps) will create a significant time separation for activities. Most high-level areas only have two non-contestable waypoints. Thus you will be required to map twice in order to travel successfully. On people not running off of a T1 line, that will easily double their travel time. And for high level characters, it will jump costs to around double for short travel (2 sil each for two close waypoints) and 1.5 for long travel (4 sil for the distance, 2 sil for the intra-map waypoint).

But that is not the big problem I see.

Although each map will hypothetically have a higher player count, I believe this will make it vastly more difficult to gather players for a specific event.

Consider the Temple of Lyssa (aka Cathedral of Eternal Radiance) event chain:
The typical method to proceeding with this event is to clear the Garden of Ilya event so that others coming from LA, DR, etc. can map directly to the meta-event. This change will make clearing the Garden useless.

Similarly, the Modniir Ulgoth chain naturally clears the Cloven Hoof Waypoint, allowing other to map in to attack the final series of Group Events. Again, this change will directly slow anyone attempting to join the rush.

No doubt, this is not a game breaking issue. But in an update that will yield so many quality of life improvements, this is a large, simultaneous step backwards.

I hate to throw cold water when there are so many exciting things happening, but I do have to point out that I am very troubled by this issue.

“Waypoints—All contestable waypoints on any map you’re not currently playing in will always appear contested. When you arrive in the map, you will be able to travel to these waypoints pending their local status.”

I believe that this will make waypoint travel significantly more cumbersome. It will double cost, double load time, and make arriving at world events in time significantly more problematic.

What does everyone else think? If you agree, what do you think would be a better solution for Arena Net?

HHR LostProphet.4801:

I honestly see no point why I oughtn’t get 1 gold for an event lasting 15 minutes if I’m able to get 1 gold within 15 minutes through dungeonrunning. Ofcourse, this has to be balanced out, but there is no argument why it oughtn’t be that way.

The balance is the issue.
It is much easier to zerg an event than to speed run a dungeon.
(There are exceptions to everything, i.e. COF1 vs Teq., but this is a general principle that most people won’t dispute.)
If we get that type of profit, we will see massive inflation.
Nobody wants to see Twilight selling for 26,370 gold in the trading post.

If everyone were getting that type of cash for being at the right event at the right time, it would totally break the economy.

If they want to heal the economy, they could slightly nerf dungeons. That would be painful for a while, but would slowly reduce prices and make events/champs more worthwhile.

My suggestion? Drop types

Concentrate certain types of drops in different areas. Overland general, events, bosses, and dungeons would each have slightly different median drop types. Thus, people would be attracted to each area: I need new weapons? I go boss hunting. I want new armor? I do events. I want new trinkets and rings? Dungeon.

Thus, people would have incentives to do them all. Of course, the TP would make it so that anyone who wants to avoid any particular area doesn’t have to go.

Just an off-the-cuff thought…

To chime in on LostProphet’s legitimate point,
I agree in principle, but disagree on point. Specifically, I disagree on adding silver to events, because to actually make the event feel rewarding the increase would have to be dramatic enough to be economy-breaking.

I would, instead, suggest a large subset of rares/skins/etc that only drop randomly from particular events. This would make events – especially major ones – more rewarding. The mini-chests were a good idea. That idea should be expanded. IMO

But if they were to expand even loot drops there would have to be a gold sink somewhere to balance it out. :/

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Did you even read my initial post? I’m claiming that they should increase the event rewards so it actually worth farming them.

My pardon, LostProphet. I did read your post which was why I wasted my time reading all the others. That comment was not targeted at you. (Notice I wanted them to read your post that kicked this off.)

You brought up a topic that should be discussed. Not whined about. And for the most part people who commented on it said “I hate the world!” Rather than discussing your comment.

Thus my anger.

If they want to complain, they should find someone who cares. You – and I – actually want Arena Net to succeed with GW2. And I prefer constructive – even if critical – conversations.

Awbee.8405:

If no one was farming it, then why nerf it? That makes no sense.

I did not say that. I said nobody is farming it for the silver drops.

They nerved the ancillary silver/copper drops. That’s all. I farm champs/events all the time. This won’t change that. I will just probably end up with about 10 silver less per night. You make the real cash off of selling the loot.

It will slightly decrease the economy’s gold influx. But not by much. In fact, probably not by enough. Prices will probably increase.

Raise your hand if you farm events and bosses for silver drops.
I see no hands.

So why does this matter?

Oh, I know. There was nothing better to complain about today. Seriously, I hope arenanet staffers only bothered read the first two whining posts on threads like this before they stop wasting their time. I don’t disagree with critical commentary, but there is nothing useful about the complaints in this thread.

Advice: Buy a towel. Cry into it in silence. Leave the rest of us alone.

Please consider:
Cynar, LordByron, and Azreell are making some points that are valid, no matter what you feel ANet’s intentions were.

First, I believe that Zerker needed to be nerfed, especially crit damage. Not only does it dominate the game, but as a long-time zerker myself, it was a pretty boring way to make all my builds. ANet intended the swap to: (1) drop DPS builds while maintaining the strength of all other builds and (2) normalize the crit damage statistic.

Second, this change will accomplish number 2, but not number 1. And that is because in GW2, due to the spacing of AI attacks as well as one-hit boss mechanics, DPS is not optional for high-level PvE: it is mandatory. Every build that can hold its own either relies on pure DPS (is built for nothing other than DPS) or relies partially on DPS (is built with DPS as its second goal). In other words: you can (1) just do DPS or (2) you can do something else AND DPS. For a variety of reasons are no functioning zero DPS builds. Accordingly, this change nerfs ALL builds.

Third, this change harms several DPS secondary builds more than it harms straight DPS. The numbers Cynar, LordByron, and Azreell provided above illustrate this fact with Celestial. Celestial was best for people who wanted a little of everything while maintaining DPS. But the nerf that is targeting Berserker gear will destroy that DPS in Celestial almost entirely.

Saying that someone should just put together a Celestial build that has no DPS, is silly. This game runs on DPS, based on the intrinsic mechanics. There are no stack limits, duration limits, or time limits on DPS. It hits harder, faster, and more reliably than anything else.

I agree with ANet’s intent to curb Berserker gear. But to accomplish that will require a different approach then merely decreasing crit multipliers across the board.

I gotta be honest, I don’t play selfish, but I am a Guardian for myself.

Guardian is just too good at too many areas for me to sit back and watch others play. I
try to give them lots of might, and protect/regen/Aegis them when they need it. But the rest of the bar is for my game, to benefit my playing style.

I will strategically revive players. Downed and useful: I will risk to get them up. Downed and useless (or irritating): I will get them up if convenient. Defeated and useful: I will get them up if safe. Defeated and useless (or irritating): Let sleeping dogs lie dead.

We can support others, but that’s not our job. I can’t tell you how many times I have just let the other guy stay dead on his fourth time down and defeated the champion solo. Our job is to win and often we can do that better than the guy demanding the support.

I am afraid you have got us Guardians a bit wrong.
We are not really tankish at all.

Guardians have good toughness, but very low health.
We can blind and block to stay alive.

Meanwhile, guardians have some great AoE (my engineer and ranger pale in comparison). And we have some excellent single target attacks.

Really, the only thing we lack is range (which we pretty much totally lack).

Play-style with a Guardian is dependent on build. A Greatsword build will have you wade into the center of combat and then unleash a flurry of devastating AoE attacks. A hammer Guardian will allow you to dominate one target. A sword and focus combo, will give you both strong defense and strong offense. Meanwhile mace and torch will have you blocking and burning enemies.

Further, there are a wide variety of trait specs that will allow you to do everything from self-heal continually, spam burning and blinding, buff your group, or play a glass cannon.

Second only to Ranger (and just slightly better than Necromancer) Guardian is the best balanced class in GW2. It is a blast. So welcome! We’d love to have you!

I think what Kasei was noting is that for an offhand which is arguably the coolest looking offhand in the game, it is relatively useless except in very specialized situations.

The shield only works well in certain situations in group PvE or SPvP. Normally, you’d be better off with the focus, a 2-hander, or a torch. Even in the group environment.

Thus, for the most part, Guardians don’t use shields. Just like Guardians don’t use scepters. It is not a question of “Hey, this is really awesome when the stars align just perfectly.” It is a statement that whether you love the shield’s specialty uses or you hate them, you will probably never use it because it is generally so much weaker than the other offhands.

I, like Kasei, wish the shield was the most useful offhand – complete with blocking – and that the specialty skills got stuck on some ugly-skinned contrivance.

Asura are misunderstood. And perhaps amoral to some extent.
The Court-Supreme of Moralethicism intends to correct these lapses.

ORDER OF THE COURT-SUPREME
Prior opinions of Meccal, in his capacity as Supreme Moral Arbitrator shall be published.
FURTHER, such opinions shall constitute binding moral authority upon any sentient being with enough sense to so understand. (Refusal to use a dictionary is not grounds to abrogate moral culpability nor deprive a life-from of the requisite sense.)

As first order of business,
The petition of Angry in Ascalon is heareby GRANTED.

Angry in Ascalon (female human) v. Fluffykins (male charr) Docket No. 12003-01

Zaxares.5419:

Dear Meccal,

I write to you today in the hopes of resolving a long-standing argument between myself and my husband (It’s MATE, woman!) husband, who is a Charr. He insists that the Charr were perfectly within their rights to use the Searing against Ascalon, seeing as how it was their land to begin with and the Ascalonians were “illegal squatters” who had stolen their land through deceit and murder. I contend that no war, no matter the underlying causes, could have justified using something as horrendous like the Searing on thousands of innocent people. (And the Foefire is a “different story”. Right, love?) This is my letter, Fluffykins. (YOU KNOW I HATE IT WHEN YOU CALL ME THAT!)

Ahem. Please help us resolve this one thorny issue in an otherwise blissful relationship, Master Meccal! Was the Searing a justified military act or not?

Sincerely,
Angry in Ascalon.

The Krewe of The Court-Supreme shall research said case and seek Meccal’s MAJORITY determination. When that determination is made, it shall be published herein for the edification of all.

Dictated in his own voice by,
- Meccal -
The one and only vote; other titles unnecessary.

*Hear ye, hear ye! The Court of the Supreme – Meccal, Profound Fount of Moralethicism, is in session.
Meccal, himself presiding in his singularity as the acumenical MAJORITY. Harken! Harken unto his wisdom and let the illumination of ethics and the bright beam of morality guide your path.*

(By order of Meccal, the “Spoiler” tag shall be used to truncate length of opinions.)
The Reason for The Court – Supreme, of Moralethicism

It has come to the attention of many that, while Asura are widely known for their immeasurable intellect, we have also become known as immoral, amoral, unethical, and even monstrous.
This problem is twofold in nature.

1. Most Asura have vast mechanical and scientific knowledge, yet pitiful comprehension of true moralistic philosophy. Thus, they are perhaps more susceptible then a member of a typical semi-intelligent race towards neglecting to take morality into account. Thus, of all the claims levied against Asura, amoral is probably the least errant.
2. Even when moral and ethical decisions are made by an asuran, many members of the semi-intelligent races seem to misunderstand the asuran’s motives. Essentially, due to their preeminent perception, asura are capable of making a moral decision beyond common understanding.

Meccal, the MAJORITY, of The Court – Supreme, of Moralethicism, shall ameliorate these problems.

The Purpose of The Court – Supreme, of Moralethicism
Meccal, in his Supreme virtuosity has mandated the following:

1. Upon solicitation and grant of review, Meccal shall hear, judge, and prescribe the appropriate determination of moral and ethical conduct in any given situation. Thus, asura – and other semi-intelligent life-forms alike – may solicit Meccal for the correct answer to any moral problem and have no fear of making the wrong moral choice. Provided the asura utilize their The Court – Supreme, of Moralethicism, they will soon be known as the most moral of races.
2. Meccal shall publish the MAJORITY opinion so that all asura – as well as semi-intelligent creatures – may read and understand that when the parties involved follow the dictates of Meccal, they are, in fact, acting ethically. Further, onlookers shall be able to assimilate themselves to the righteousness that they read.

Addressing The Court – Supreme
Meccal, in his Supreme capacity as singular MAJORITY, may be petitioned in the following manner.

• State the name (or pseudonym) of the party or parties.
  (A case will be known as: “Party in the First v. Party in the Second, or Party in the First v. Conscience or, when applicable “In Re Happenstance”)
• Note what type of being you are. The Court-Supreme is only open to moral determinations by races that are either: intelligent (asura and dragons) or semi-intelligent (humans, charr, sylvari, norn).
  Petitions by Pseudo-intelligent creatures (Hylek (Simbifrogo-hopidus), Skritt (Rattus-talkatus), Quaggans (Delphinfollyus-leucas), or Tengu (Struthio-screachus)), psyco-intelligent creatures (Grawl (hyloba-tribus), Krait (Lepido-viciouso), Jotun (Dumbo-Thumpulous), and Ogres (Meano-Thumpulous)) or non-intelligent creatures (oozes, bovine, etc.) shall not be considered. (One cannot instruct those lacking the perceptive capacity to understand.)
• State the question or argument of morality for The Court – Supreme to determine.
  (E.g. “I need to know whether,” “He says, but I think,” “Should I,” “Was this right that,” etc.)
• Make a petition for The Court – Supreme to hear your case.
  (If you don’t care, Meccal don’t care.)
• Include all due respect and flattery to This Court.
  (It will not affect the moralethicism of the issue, nor the judgment in question. But it is greatly appreciated. Meccal is an asuran.)
• Absolutely do not repeat the same question.
  (If Meccal has already spoken, there is nothing left to be said.)

If The Court-Supreme has determined to hear your case, a notice will be published. Not later than Meccal determines appropriate, a MAJORITY opinion will be likewise published. DISSENTING opinions are not Meccal’s problem and do not reflect the opinion of The Court-Supreme.

To the incontestably perspicacious asuran whose distinguished name has been judiciously cloaked to douse the inferno of gossip mongering,

Indeed this is a question worthy of my unique moral aptitude that will put my ethical learning to the test. First I shall recap and add to the facts – the additions were provided by a loyal krewe member, Zalgga the Thinner, (whose name is not Zalgga and whose physique is more than robust).

• “Dr Bleent” is ostentatious, bombastic, and pompous. He has even taken on the name “Dr Bleent” to most gracelessly honor himself.
• “Dr Bleent” has taken your krewe’s research and has converted said research to his own ends. Namely profit.
• Dr Bleent has accomplished his adverse commercialization by using indigenous non-intelligent, coagulous life-forms as a consumable medium in which to house your experimental technology for ingestion among populations of intelligent and semi-intelligent persons.
• Meanwhile, Hrouda, your krewe chief is expending his time trying to shutdown Bleent, rather than acquire new and larger grant funding, compete with Bleent, or commercialize the technology into some tangible – and profitable – form.
• Bleent’s apparent success has caused you to wonder about Hrouda’s leadership and capacity to fiscally manage the krewe.

Fortunately, I, Meccal, the Archangel of Acumen and Paragon of Priestly Perception, have a solution.

Opinion of Meccal
Profound Fount of Moralethicism
The only moral decision is to gather the remainders of Hrouda’s krewe, solicit members from Bleent’s krewe, and create a third, superior krewe which both makes tangible and profitable technology, yet lacks the risky folly of Bleent’s operation.

You are beset by two poor leaders. You have exhibited your own intellect and wisdom in identifying their failures, but also have discovered the reasons for their successes. “Asura do not live on bread alone.” But neither do asura live without bread! Absent steady profit from realized technological advances, bread, meat, and advanced gadgetry all are lost. You cannot allow Hrouda to financially ruin an acute and proficient krewe. Such poor budgetary management would have you all selling advanced rattraps to bookah merchants in Divinty’s Reach.

BUT, similarly you cannot go to Bleent’s krewe. Bleent is known to have the attitude of a moa’s backside and his self-proclaimed intellect is challenged by his inability to acknowledge portentous risk. Not that you should suffer any moral issues with experimenting on non-intelligent life-forms. If you do not experiment on non-intelligent life-forms, than you must use pseudo-intelligent life (Hylek (simbifrogo-hopidus), Skritt (rattus-talkatus), or Quaggans (Delphinfollyus-leucas)), whereupon you enter a murky gray area, or semi-intelligent life. (Ever try to give medicine to a rock? It typically shows no improvement or detriment, outside of acid-based elixirs. ) Clearly non-intelligent life is meant to be eaten or used to advance science. Any other use is simply a waste of good beasts.
Nevertheless, it is a known folly to ingest oozes in any form. Anything ingested by an asuran body gets processed and assimilated. Assimilation of an ooze into one’s self gives no positive prognosis. Any benefits your technology would instill would be lost, along with many of the imbiber’s higher faculties.

It has fallen to you to become the leader. You truly understand to genius and follies of both Bleent and Hrouda. To be truly ethical, you must attempt to solidify the talented krewe members of both teams into one cohesive whole under your own sophisticated and perceptive leadership.
Note: Very soon I intend to open up a court of morality to field questions such as the above on a regular basis. It will be for the betterment of all asura and lesser races as well.

- Meccal -
Computations insufficient to relate all titles granted and assumed.

Ahem,
In defense of my race, I’d like—- No, no, no. That’s pointless, we are a flock of intellectual pigeons crapping out ideas upon the rest of the world with no reason or defense. So…
In defense of my krew, perhaps I—- Again, a vain endeavor. The rest of the krew are those who follow my lead. Teamwork is, after all, the execution of my plan through the slightly incompetent efforts of others. Ears! How can I write this apologetic thesis and explain how wrong the bookahs’ have gotten it?

In my own defense, I do not see the asura as an evil species, because this race of short, intellectual sociopaths has also produced the panacea for all Tyrian moralistic ailments. Me.

Unlike my soul-deprived brethren, I do possess a remarkable – and indeed heretofore unseen – ethical compass. My massive morality may mortify many. But that is not my concern. My concerns are far broader, as the strength of the asura as a whole would be vastly improved if they all looked to my highly-sophisticated conscience to achieve the moral “North” on their ethical maps. As a moralist, I’d be pleased if you’d consider me similar to the human god Grenth, yet surpassing in matters of ethical proportions.

Thus, should we asura need a visionary vat of virtue I would be willing to offer my services. As such, I am willing to justify or condemn all that deserves justification or condemnation on behalf of my race. Simply elicit my aid in these forums and, when I deem appropriate, I will provide (or have a krewmember provide) a dispostive moral conclusion on whatever topic on which my advice is sought.

In example I will offer my righteous opinion on the first issue presented. Whether one should slaughter discovered saboteurs in a prestigious inventors’ competition.

Opinion of Meccal
Profound Fount of Moralethicism
Conclusively, yes. The inquest saboteurs at the competition deserved to be removed from the asuran gene pool for three important reasons:

1. Sabotage of a golem – especial an advanced and dangrous golem – is an inherently dangerous activity more likely than not to cause harm or death to many, persons relevant and irrelevant. As such, this type of recklessness deserves maximum punishment.
2. The perpetrators attacked you when confronted, did they not? Assaulting an asura guilty only of possessing clearly superior intellect is a crime deserving of maximum punishment. Besides, had they slain you, their actions would have vindicated themselves somewhat. At least they can fight… Yet, they did not and deserve their just deserts; as they, in fact, have proven most worthless.
3. Most conclusively, those asura committed the foulest of offenses. The offense of Felony Stupid. The only thing more reprehensible than a criminal is a criminal stupid enough to get caught. These inquest meat-heads were caught red-handed. As such, they certainly deserve maximum punishment.

As for a sentence? Maximum punishment is exactly that. Discipline in the extreme. Those who deserve maximum punishment must be eliminated immediately to purge the gene pool from their abundant idiocy. Is this decision moral? What could be more moral than protecting the asuran genes? We are all victims of our gene pools. We cannot allow the inquest to piddle in it. By eloquently offing them, you were attempting to perform a service to your world. Feel no moral qualms. Erase your ethical aversions.

If other opinions on moral issues are needed, simply private message me and I will deliver a perfectly, profound, proclamation as to the moral determination. Also, I am happy to offer my services to all of Tyria’s semi-intelligent races (bookahs, carpets, vegetables, and pre-stretched bookahs). But, I find that I opine at a level beyond that which their diminutive intellect has been adjusted to absorb.

- Meccal -
Titles granted and assumed too long to post.

Mates!
Face it all. No matter what we do, about 1 in every 8 will share the same profession with us, no matter the profession we choose.
Uniqueness in GW2 only comes in cosmetic, play-style, and decisions. Sometimes builds are overused. Sometimes skills are overused. But there are only 8 classes. They cannot be overused.

I do understand, however, feeling a bit superfluous. Eight guardians are already here doing the same thing as me.

There are three counters to that feeling

1. Do what you do better then the other 8. It will not just make you unique, it will make you feel satisfied, too.
2. Do something different with your build and skills than the others. It will make you more valuable to the group.
3. Rotate your characters. You have a bunch of characters. Rotate playtime. It will keep them from getting stale.

Zakk and Obfuscate both had great advice. (Thus saith, Meccal…)

I also highly suggest a using a thesaurus – unless such verbalisms invariably matriculate to your preponderous vocabulary.

Example of Thesaurus:

• Doctor Mopp does not sound quite as good as Mopp the Sophisticate.

OR you can create your own position/specialty/description from scratch.
To create a new fantasy/scifi position or specialty:

• Take the root of a word you like
  (e.g. crystal, blaze, night)
• Add a magical or sciencey suffix
  (e.g. crystal-mancy, blaze-ry, night-ography)
• Add a prefix, or not
  (e.g. crystalmancy, in-blazery, ag-nightography)
• Personal nounify the word.
  (E.G. Crystalmancer, Inblazerifer, Agnightographer)

To create a new description, simply play with adjectives, real and fake:
(E.g. Mopp the Indecimal, Mopp the Insufferable, Mopp the Bloodiforious, Mopp the Expansional, Mopp the Intellectorious.)

Have fun naming your Asurans, bookahs!

- Meccal
(with no descriptor, but if I had one it would be Genuistical or Exceptionalatorius!)

Welcome to Mesmer, the Way of the Illusion.

To truly become a great Jedi Mesmer, you must learn the ways of the Force. There are many learned Jedi Mesmers here with many unique styles. As a Mesmer you will dominate the dark side by wracking their minds, diverting or distorting their attacks, and making them succumb to your illusions. Learn from all, but play your own way, on your own terms.

A few words of advice, my young padawan:

• Don’t trust the phantasms’ skill tip or the official wiki entry. They tell you almost nothing about what the phantasm really will do.
• Experiment (like Sigma suggested) in heart of the mists
• Browse/search this forum for an actual estimate of the phantasm’s projected dps
• Research (forum again) on how to best use the phantasms you like (shatter, maintain, place, etc.)

Thank you all for the discussion, I guess I was totally misunderstood.

alanis.6094:

For instance, I would personally start a fight: w/Staff- Dodge, Phase retreat, Decoy, Mind Wrack, Dodge, Mirror Images, CoF, Warlock….

Way to call me on the 65% number. I freakin guessed and I guess I deserved that.

When using a staff, I use the setup and several of the methods you use. Heck, I even use Decoy on my utility bar. But, statistically speaking, leaving a phantasm up (depending on the phantasm of course) will typically do significantly more damage than shattering. Shatter-on-recharge, unless heavily traited, will typically do far less DPS than would multiple phantasms maintained. A cook-the-clone build, with mirror images, etc. might challenge that. And a good staff/conditions build has next to no DPS, but the ridiculous conditioning will more than make up for it.

EasymodeX.4062:

You should try playing GS and/or Sword more….

Until I tried screwing with the Staff, I was almost religious with my GS/S builds.

Again, I used unreasearched numbers.
Again, I acknowledge that we have other DPS, especially when traited. But my point was not to say that only phantasm builds were viable. Rather, I was trying to illustrate that most builds focus heavily on one or two skills. As a mesmer you can’t waste skills. And we get hammered by recharge of any one relevant skill. Much more so than a class with many similar skills.

Will get to my real points below.

@Carighan
I do believe what I said, and apparently you do too. But again, my comment was misunderstood. I was not making a per capita comparison argument as I believe you thought, I was making a rather obvious observation.

According to your link, which is cool btw, 90% of guild wars characters are not Mesmers. Even assuming all classes had exactly equal participation, only 12.5% of the people would primary in Mesmer. Thus, 87.5% of players are not mesmer primaries. It is my contention, that many of those who do not play mesmer do not understand mesmer. It has nothing to do with the per capita distribution of character professions. General misunderstanding is why we were singled out for a nerf. Please note, although I play even more Guardian than Mesmer, right now, I have nothing to say on the Guardian nerf. Useful or not, at least they explained that one.
Now, to dispel all notions otherwise:
Mesmers are fun. Mesmers are viable. I love being a Mesmer!

Heck, Mesmer brought me back to the game. I almost left in the first week, because I hated thief so much. (Got over it, detailed in another post.)

The points I was trying to make:

1. Mesmers didn’t need the nerf. We are a good class, a fun class, but not an overpowered class. Mesmers were nerfed because they were misunderstood, because the majority of players have not played mesmer enough to deal with our unique mechanics. (When thief gets nerfed, I will probably say the same thing.)
2. Mesmer is not a high DPS class and this nerf hurt that DPS. That does not mean we are not viable or we only get DPS from phantasms. But it is harder to maintain squishy phantasms and it is harder to shatter when we have a longer cooldown period. That is true whether phantasms are the cannon or the cannon fodder.
3. This update did not “fix” the perceived problem; meaning they will probably nerf us again.

EasymodeX.4062:

You have no backup DPS, you waste a phantasm on a weak foe, you have probably burnt your only real DPS until recharge.

Sounds like a build problem/risk if all your DPS is stacked into 1 button and you blow it.

Please keep things in context mate. Usually I would simply steamroll a comment like that, but I know you to be a pretty decent guy from other forum posts.

So instead I will explain. DPS, like all other mesmer abilities, is heavily limited. On any given thief build there will be 3-5 evasions. On any given warrior build, there will be 3-4 bursts. But mesmers – by nature of the class – have less options. There are no weapon combinations that produce multiple phantasms. The recharge rate of our Shatters is time prohibitive. The utility phantasms do little dps and are there for specialty usage. Our other weapon skills are geared toward accomplishing particular non-DPS goals. There are no serious direct damage utilities.

Thus, Mesmers cannot create a multi-DPS build. It is not that we take risks in putting together crazy builds, it is that we are limited by the game’s structure. If you are running the pistol offhand and drop your Illusionary Duelist, chances are strong that that skill will do 65% more damage than the rest of your bar combined. If you drop it on the wrong target, you waste it and have to go on defense until it recharges. Now that it’s been nerfed, it just takes that much longer to recharge.

I hope that explains my comment about “perfect” play. There are certainly lots of styles of play burst, phantasm, condition, boons, etc. that a mesmer can play. But we can only trait – usually – for one, despite the fact that our weapon-build options give us skills for all.

Essentially, as a Mesmer you deal lots and lots of “cuts” to opponents. But you only have one chance to deal a serious blow: DPS, condition, or otherwise. You have to make that one count or you will end up dead.

Likewise, my opinion on the nerf is that: (A) it was made to correct a perceived problem rather than a real problem; (B) it did not actually address even the problem that was perceived; and (C ) it decreases the DPS on the class with the lowest overall DPS.

The nerf was a bad move. Not just for current mesmers, but for future mesmers trying to learn a hard profession that just got that much harder. It’s not impossible – doing ranged damage as a Guardian is impossible – it’s just unnecessarily difficult.

It was and probably still is viable.

But everyone is right. Mesmer is a far more difficult class to play than any of the others (with the possible exception of certain thief builds). I only say this, since I actively play all the professions, except Engineer.

Here’s the rub. A mesmer had very delicately balanced skills. A few buffs, a few escapes, a few (relatively weak) dps skills, and no real AoE (our AoE is too situation-specific to qualify as a general nuke, but this is not the place to discuss types of AoE).

That meant you could do anything, and for the most part do it well, but you only had one shot to do it. A thief that wastes his dodge can simply use another evasion tactic. A warrior that misses his burst can simply pressure until it is up again.

Not so with Mesmer. To be viable as a mesmer, you simply can’t make mistakes. You have no backup evasion, you have to make the one you have work. You have no backup DPS, you waste a phantasm on a weak foe, you have probably burnt your only real DPS until recharge.

And honestly, Mesmers – for the most part – accepted this. Being a Mesmer primary was kinda like being part of an elite specialist club. You were the perfect player or you died – a lot.

The one thing we Mesmers have constantly asked for was an increased DPS, since comparatively – a perfect Mesmer traited for damage will always have lower DPS than just the average player of any other class, especially if that player is traited to deal damage. That never meant we were not viable, it just meant we had to work a lot harder.

Unfortunately, since there are many other class primaries and few Mesmer primaries, we were singled out for nerfing. The “problem” the other classes whined about wasn’t our phantasms – even in sPvP. The problem was our trickery and our ability to actually deceive other PCs. We became everyone’s least favorite target because we got good at hiding at that perfect moment, amongst our clones. I can’t tell you how many outside-class guides I read that claimed their class would always beat a mesmer 1-on-1 eventually, but recommended staying away since you could fight three other people in the time it took to find one good mesmer.

Thus, the others whined about our clones the illusions that look like us. A few didn’t like phantasms, but that was mostly because the phantasms were an irritant as they were sorting the mesmers from the clones. Regardless our phantasms – really the best DPS to which we had access – paid the price for everyone else’s whining with some rather intense recharge increases in the latest patch. Thus, rather than equalize the mesmer DPS up to the level of the average profession, ArenaNet nerfed our DPS further. I cannot think of any reason why that change would help anybody.

I honestly don’t know whether Mesmers are still viable, I have declined to play my mesmer at all since the nerf. I imagine that the increased recharge has seriously messed up the delicate balance making even average gameplay several times harder.

It is probably still viable, just now it’s probably a lot more difficult.

As for fun in PvE? Mesmer made me love GW2. It’s intense, interesting, and requires 100% concentration at all times. Mesmers have no time off. In short it is a blast.

I don’t know if it will remain that much fun. Mesmers are already ridiculously hared to play. If mesmers keep getting slammed in the updates, they may become completely unplayable.

blink.4239:

Glass cannon ele v. glass cannon thief = thief comes up on top EVERY TIME because they simply have better survivability

Not an indictment of thief, that’s an indictment of ele.
And it’s not true.
And it has no place here.

Notably, I would like to point out all the information that you included as a basis for that insightful comment. Without your thorough analysis, we would think you were whining.

Oh, wait. You just wrote one sentence without proper punctuation. My bad.

This post is directed to all those braggers and whiners are who committed to wrecking the profession for all thieves. For the rest of you, feel free to laugh and nod.

Honestly, people, this is demented.
Nefarious was just saying something that was needed, “tone down the names of your posts.”
Since I actively play all classes, I frequent the boards of each type of character.
As much as I enjoy the thief, the forums here are far different.
There are more flames, fallacies, and foolish posts on the thieves board then anywhere else.
We have:

1. Thieves misleading people about how much damage they can do, if they prep the conditions so that the average moa could achieve the same damage rating.
2. Every whiner who happened to be killed by a thief screaming for a nerf, because they are “too good” to have been killed by a medium-armor class character.
3. Thieves whining about not being able to stay alive with because their armor and health sucks.

I have news for all those whiners:
The thief is neither awesome nor does it suck. It, like most classes is very balanced.

1. For all you idiots tooting your own horns: You can’t deal damage like an ele or a burst warrior, period. Stop twisting things to make that one shining moment seem like it is typical. Talk about the thief’s strategies, tactics, etc. If you want to brag, how overpowered you are, talk to your girlfriend. That will get you brownie points. Right. We want to hear it less than her.
2. For those of you who can’t understand how you at your awesome play level were actually killed by a thief: Grow up. Thieves are burst-only combatants. If you give them free shots on you, they will kill you. If you want to stay alive then: ( A ) break stun, for goodness sakes. ( B ) Move! Just bloody move out of the way. ( C ) Target them, use a distance closer or cripple, and freakin kill them. Seriously, how many of you have been killed by dead thieves?!?! Thieves are glass cannons, if you catch them, they die. If you can’t do that, you aren’t very good, are you?
3. For all you thieves convinced that we are all underpowered, it is time you went through Thieves Guild 101. Thieves – absent a trait-equipment specialty build – are always glass cannons. You have no armor and no health. So get bloody-well used to dodging attacks.

Of all the classes I have played – everything but engineer – the thief is the most balanced by far. It makes it fun and challenging. But everyone, thief or not, is whining about this class. If you think it is overpowered then: as a thief, you haven’t played enough other professions; as a non-thief, you just haven’t figured out how to play against thieves. If you think it is underpowered: as a thief, you haven’t figured out how to evade and disappear correctly; as a non-thief, you haven’t fought a really good thief.

In summary in GW2, like in all games, the good players are all overpowerd and the bad are all underpowered. Deal with it.

The moral of the story is stop whining and stop bragging. You aren’t doing anybody any good.

Wait a second! What?!?!? This forum never heard of the Chronicles of Ridkitten? I have been kittenized!!!!

Thanks for the complement, mate!

Hey mate!
I too played D3. When I switched over to GW2 (since I was a GW1 fan, it felt more like a return) I was reminded of the difference between a good game like D3 and a great game like GW2!
All the thief elites are all good, depending on the situation. Human elites, like all racial elites, (hounds, melandru, Grenth) kinda suck.

Equipment can mostly be bought pretty cheaply on the Black Lion Trading Post.

Signets go either way. I am not a fan of most of them, but others are.

Have you tried any jumping puzzles? They totally rock.

Feel free to friend/contact me in game.

My in-game name is: “Jack Angelfoot” or “Sir Finus”
BTW, I am a member of the Kingdom of Akron (formerly Acropollis Draconium). It is a small laid-back guild going back to the early days of GW1. If you want to check it out just PM me in game.
Oh, and I wrote a short new thief guide here Thief is Fun"

Regardless, you are a long way past the tutorial.

• Know Thyself (“These skills just confuse me.”)
  The real clincher for me was when I learned my skills and how, when, and why to use them. In order to make thief work I had to: use the wiki to learn what my skills should do; use the forum to see what those skills really do and figure out what combos are best; and finally practice them until I could at least land the combo I wanted. I seriously doubt GW2 will ever be able to recover from the loss of the Moas I slaughtered trying to master the basic combos. (In fairness to the Moas, they put up a good showing and – at least at first – they had the upper hand. I can just imagine the passerby, “There’s another thief getting pulverized by the fowls, again.” Fortunately, I choked down my pride. Offed those feathered foes and now enjoy much meaner prey.)
  When you know how and when to use your weapons, skills, and utilities you will enjoy thief. Most GW2 classes do not cater to button mashing. But, with thief, you really need to go a step beyond so that you understand how each skill will help or jeopardize you. (E.g. to state the obvious, avoid Disabling Shot whilst perched on a cliff. Rethink using Heartseaker to heedlessly bounce into a group of 8 veteran ettins with knockdown.) But, additionally, consider when, where, and how each skill can be used to its fullest. Can you get at combo field and a finisher? Should you spam one skill at a certain time? Do two skills really seem to go together? Should two skills never be used at the same time? Answer these questions and thief will be a whole lot more fun.

Conclusion
Thief is fun!
But you have to change the way you look at GW2 in order to really enjoy it. When you master the above – and believe me, I am a long ways from any sort of mastery – you will be able to do the amazing. Even with my moderate skill I have taken out large groups of enemies of significantly higher level, simply because they couldn’t hit me. I certainly hope that readers who don’t like the thief will find my experience useful and give thief another chance.
Enjoy!

• You don’t Steal to “steal” (Why is the thief mechanic so under powered?!?)
  When I first played thief, I wanted “steal” to be awesome. I was so disappointed. You get some random skill that may be suckier than most of your utility skills? How is that cool? The answer is that you don’t steal to steal! Forget the new skill. It is there strictly as a bonus. Steal is awesome when used right. Arena Net just named it wrong. The Steal function is actually a permanently available, initiative-free shadow-step that you can trait to give you all kinds of extra bonuses. (Then again what should they have named it? “Initiative-free-shadow-step-plus-extras?” Maybe we will just stick with steal…) Currently, every time I “steal” from an enemy, I poison them, damage them, regain initiative, and then I begin my attack burst. The extra skill? Half the time I just burn it to get back to my beloved FSS (free shadow step). Occasionally, however, I pick up something amazing like Whirling Axe, which I can then use to surprise a mob with bizarre AoE damage before I even start to apply my own attacks.
• Going for the “Sweet Spot” (“Back-stabbing is useless.”)
  Actually, Ridkitten and I would both disagree with that statement (even though I think that I may have originally said it.) Back stabbing is one of the hardest thief talents to learn. The function – you disappear, gain a new #1 slot weapon skill, and when you execute it behind an enemy it deals extra damage – is pretty straight forward. The execution is difficult. But, when you plan its use in battle, you will almost always land it.
  Scenario: Thief blitzes a warrior, warrior survives, thief adapts, warrior has 100 life left – thief usually only deals 50 damage. Thief has 50 life left, no initiative, and warrior usually deals 100 damage. Who wins? That depends on how well the thief can back-stab. Usually, a thief faced with this situation will cloak and run. If he escapes, he heals up and will probably try the encounter again. If the warrior uses a closing or crippling skill, however, he might catch and kill the thief. BUT a smart thief will cloak, roll behind the warrior, and immediately back-stab him. The back-stab will typically do about double damage, giving the clear victory to the thief. Thus, if the thief had that end game strategy planned he will prevail. If not, the best he can do is a wash otherwise – death. (And yes, I did this [with numbers to match my level] yesterday.)
• I like to move-it, move-it (“I get killed by AoE in a second.”)
  Although pretty much every class has its own movement functions – minus, perhaps, Necro unless you have high traits and a weird playing style – the best movement belongs exclusively to the thief. Perhaps a sixth or so thief skills have something to do with the movement of your character. Use them. Don’t ever just stand there! Anyone and everyone will attack a motionless thief. Although a little dizzying at first, the movements of a thief are a joy to use. Similarly, with the Signet of Shadows you get a permanent, passive 25% boost to speed, allowing you to escape all those irrelevant encounters that a Warrior would have to fight through. To enjoy thief to its fullest, keep moving, watch any red circles around you and run or roll out of them, and make sure that nobody is quite sure where you will appear next.

How to Make Thief Fun for You, Too – 101
Or
What Makes a Thief so much Different from All other Classes

• Dealing with Damage: (“Why do I die in 3 seconds as a thief?!?!”)
  Every class in GW has methods to prevent, mitigate, or deal with damage. Guardians block, blind, tank, and heal. Warriors tend towards tanking and healing. Mesmers distract, interrupt, and confuse. Rangers block projectiles and tank with their pets. Elementalists avoid or reduce the damage, heal, and stay at a distance. Necromancers life-steal and use deathshroud.
  But that is all a far cry from the way that thieves handle damage. Or shall we say the way thieves don’t handle damage.
  Thieves evade. Plus nothing. I didn’t understand this, so I didn’t understand how I could make my thief work. Thieves evade attacks, or they die. Essentially, as a thief you are a 2-3 hit wonder, even with good equipment, fighting normal monsters. You cannot stand and fight, you cannot mitigate or reduce the damage, you must avoid it. Fortunately, thieves have a wide array of skills – both weapon and utility – to help you evade attacks. Many of these skills allow you and/or reward you for continuing to attack, while you are evading. Thus, as long as you have initiative (and sometimes without) you can deal damage and remain unscathed.
• Thieves don’t Fight, they Blitz (“Why does the guardian always come out on top?”)
  Well, he caught you, that’s why! Logan Thackery will always beat the tar out of the miscreants he lays his hands on, but if he can’t catch ‘em, what’s he going to do then? As a thief you must understand that you cannot pressure (lets not go into condition pressure or initiative building right now; this is for new thieves).
  The typical attack method is something like: (A) Close distance. (B) Use your attacks as they recharge. (C ) Be smart to the situation. (D) Dodge major attacks.
  Thieves however are different. They have no skill recharge but instead have “initiative.” Initiative is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it gives you a selection from all your tools at once, allowing you to use the best skill – even to repeat that skill – whenever it is needed. But initiative is a curse, because once it is gone, your weapons are next to useless. Thus, thieves have become burst fighters. As a thief, you appear suddenly in combat dropping a devastating amount of damage on your unsuspecting target. Then, whether it dies or not, you disappear into the shadows to recharge the initiative for your next ambush. Necessarily this changes your gameplay.
  Your thief attack method is this: (A) Determine the nature of the encounter/enemy and which weapon set is best for that. (Armor class, number of opponents) (B) What order will you engage/kill the enemy? (Can you take them 1-by-1, or will you need to slaughter multiple foes simultaneously?) © Which skills will you use, in what order, while staying within your initiative allotment, to kill the foe before they can react. (D) Engage and launch your full assault plan on your unlucky victim (E) Adapt to changes. (F) Disappear and escape.
  Notably, A-C of the thief attack method require thieves to think before they engage the target. It is not a long thought process. Anyone who has played GW2 for more than a week can predict the basic flow of a battle in a second or two. But any other class can shoot first and think later. Whereas a thoughtless thief is a dead thief.
  But gosh is this fun! As even a decent thief, you can plan out a battle and then, usually, execute it according to plan. I have literally attacked 6-7 foes (my level) together with a simple plan of who to kill first, what order to use my skills in, and when to disappear. The result, more often than not, is 20-40 seconds of slaughter and the dead bodies of the baddies falling to the ground. Wicked! A simple plan allows a thief to defeat a champion that could 1-hit kill him! Thief wasn’t fun, because I wasn’t thinking ahead. When I did, just a little bit, I became a killing machine.

Ok guys, thieves are fun!

A bit of history
Currently, I am a primary Guardian, secondary Mesmer.
I actually started as a thief. I was on pins-and-needles waiting for GW2 just to play the thief. But on release, I hated the gameplay as a thief. It was so bad that I quit the profession, quit playing the area, and almost quit the game entirely.

Mesmer and Guardian got me back on-board with GW2. Subsequently, I have played all the classes (but I haven’t bought my engineer slot yet) and found each to be uniquely enjoyable, but I was afraid to return to the thief. I had finally begun to love GW2 and I was afraid thief would kill that.

I talked to a guildy who loves his primary thief and asked him, “why?” His answer set me off on a forum/wiki/web quest to find out why some people love playing thief so much. When I concluded my research I again tried the thief.

My conclusion (to reiterate the above) thieves are fun! Now, whenever I am alone I play thief – I still break my guardian out for multi-person (and yes, Guardian is a hoot). I am leveling up my thief at twice the speed of any of my others right now and am exploring – and winning – in PvE areas that should be just stupid for me to try. I even find my self shouting taunts at my computer screen as I evade lethal damage and deal it with the same move.

Why the change?
Now for the specifics. I have heard primary thieves tell other people – specifically people having a hard time playing the profession or who are complaining that it is underpowered – that thief is “just not for them,” or it “doesn’t fit their playing style,” or that they “think like a warrior.” Although probably most of these comments were well meaning, I don’t think they are helpful – they weren’t helpful to me. What is helpful is to understand some of the core differences between thief and all the other classes.

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Additionally, Search does not work when rendering (Firefox developer function to allow IE to process the site as opposed to Firefox) in IE.

I also tried on different versions / OS combinations with Firefox and it is still broken.

This is really vexing.