Guild Wars 2

Tongku.5326:

GUTB.8436:

So, on my first character, I am trying to find the fun in the combat system. I’m really struggling. I rolled a Charr Thief.

1. The rune/skill/weapon system in the game seems incredibly counter-intuitive. I’m sure this problem will go away when I learn the game — are there any meaningful tutorials that assumes the system makes no sense and explains everything?

2. Going by the few ability slots, rotation doesn’t seem complex. In fact, it seems extremely casual. However, the system mixes in action elements like dodging which appear to be necessary in order not to die. To me, Wildstar is a joke because it is too action-oriented — is GW2 going to be plagued with the same problem?

3. Thiefs. I understood going into this game really doesn’t have a stealth class, but so far I just don’t see how this character is going to go out ganking anything if the opponent sees you coming a mile away. Escapes seems powerful though…is Thief really just for trolling?

4. Voice acting. It’s….atrocious. Maybe my expectations have been too heavily skewed by WoW and SWTOR, but is there some way to listen to my character in battle without cringing? Do you just become desensitized to it? Are there other races with better voice acting? kitten .

Forget about the voice acting. It is horrible.

As for combat, you are just barely seeing the 1st layer of it in dodging and are missing many features, especially on thieves. Experiment with various mechanics, start using your Stealth Openers, Combo Fields and Finishers. Learn to use their effects.

Later on in game you will be interacting with other peoples combo fields and finishers on coordinated level. Learn which weapons and utility skills give you which fields and finishers.

Also, if thief doesnt have enough skills for you, then I highly recommend engineer. you can run around with 29 skills available with 4 kits slotted, can go higher actually. But on the other hand, if you cant even fully get thief, you may have an even much harder time juggling engi kit skills.

Up to 45 skills, even. Some day I’ll use all of them in a viable build….

Ele’s can get 46 in a conjure build but nobody uses those, lol. (but I also wish I could).

It’s really simple, see…. Make a premade too. The only major factor in MMing should be rating. A team of casuals should still play against casuals, even strangers. In no world should casuals be forced against veterans.

GUTB.8436:

I can’t help but think that substituting actual RPG mechanics for action mechanics is console-y and actually pretty pathetic. All I’m saying is, even in it’s currently severely dumbed-down state, WoW has:

Attack Power
Spell Power
Intelligence
Stanima
Armor
Avoidance
Strength
Dexterity
Mastery
Versatility
Haste
Multistrike
Crit
Spirit
Dodge
Block
Parry

As far as I can tell, at least for my Thief, GW2 has:

Precision
Power
Armor
Vitality

In addition, I have a very simple 2-key rotation (auto-attack and heartseeker). Using the blind + heartseeker combo to get into stealth seems to be a clunky and expensive way to get a little bit of stealth. It also takes quick and accurate mouse action to accomplish in a useful manner.

Lol, gonna have some fun here.

First of all, since you show very little understanding of WoW if you’re gonna lump all of those different stats together, it’s a very good chance you’re misunderstanding GW2’s on a deeper level.

So anyway, all of the stats you listed and claim to be missing are actually in GW2 (and then some), you’re choosing to base your experience on a low level character. You’re probably new to MMO’s in general but a good rule of thumb is to not hop on a pedestal the first chance you get if you feel like the game’s too difficult for you.

Power – this is your direct damage and what most skills scale off of.
Condition – this is what adds strength to skills that apply conditions such as burns and poisons.
Vitality – health and sole mitigating factor against condition damage (conditions ignore armor)
Toughness – armor and one of two mitigating factors against power (health is the second component)
Precision – crit chance. You want lots of this to crit, shocking.
Ferocity – crit damage. You also want this for crits to hurt. Amazing! You’re now learning things.

Now onto the rest that you claim to be missing;

Dodge – we have this, except instead of being lazy and adding a trinket to gears that boost dodge, you have to actually pay attention to the game and not just the UI to function at all.

Block/Parry – we have block AND THREE similar things in this department: aegis, invulnerability, and protection. In addition to some skills outright blocking, there are also these;

Aegis completely blocks a skill, preventing damage and the effect. (some skills are unblockable but there aren’t a lot of those) Invulnerability is, well duh, what makes you completely invulnerable to damage. And protection reduces damage across the board by 33%. You can stack more via traits and skills but that’s really up to you to find out instead of complaining on the forums.

And because gw2 is so generous, there’s a yet another defensive stat – stability! This status negates any CC (crowd control FYI, just gotta throw that out since you probably needed it) thus preventing you from being stunned, dazed, knocked down, and a whole bunch of nasty things that can and will be done to you a lot unless you learn how to dodge or block.

And I’m not even finished with block! Not only can you actively mitigate enemy damage, you can do your favorite thing and passively (read: lazy) way and apply conditions like weakness that will cause all hits to deal glancing damage (reduced damage). Poison reduces healing too, chill increases cooldown along with slowing movement, and so on. Hell, the stealth that you claim to be useless is pretty good at mitigating damage by lieu of being untargettable, unseen, and giving you the opportunity to strike hard and freely. Apparently there’s more to the game than heartseeker spam on your thief, it seems like.

Now onto your thief – please read the tooltips carefully and learn the many different fields and finishers if you don’t want to embarass yourself in pvp and on the forums. For example, smoke field + leap finisher combined will cause yourself to stealth. While it’s a far cry from long lasting stealth of other games, thieves in this game are REALLY mobile and capable of reapplying stealth again and again and again that, honestly, it’s a real headache to deal with them sometimes. You definitely can troll with thief a bit, that’s for sure.

Secondly, if you find that difficult to do on a thief, well, it’s simply a L2P issue rather than claiming the game’s entire combat system is ‘horrendously bad’. I found that funny, by the way. Also, the skills on the right side are called utilities and, surprise, they are generally useful skills on almost any weapon you run with thief. Those of which include skills that give longer lasting stealth – oh my! Moreover, you can actually swap weapons in the middle of a fight so you have a second set of weapon skills for your thief. In addition to your dagger/pistol combo, you could take a shortbow for ranged pressure and teleport, dagger/dagger for the classic backstab/stealth playstyle, pistol/pistol for pew pew, and sword for damage, evasion, and teleport.

So not only do you need to understand GW2’s combat beyond autoattacking things to death, you definitely need to learn how to play thief. Come back on the forums anytime if you feel like learning things.

Welcome to GW2.

mic drop

I was actually thinking of using jugg/mass to build up might and then do a surprise wombo combo in rifle.

Most engies run HT because it’s just amazing. I DO run elixir H sometimes if I wanna focus on might stacking in a HGH build, which can work pretty well. However, HT is just too good overall especially in a group PVP setting like sPVP.

Dahkeus.8243:

Ok, so the thief is a profession in a video game and the construction of ‘thieves’ as a population is a pretty false one since so many people play a variety of professions.

But even if everything was that black and white, as others have said, engis have been strong against thieves for a looooooong time.

@ JuiceboxHero: If you’re trying to utilize academia for personal attacks, you’re really only demonstrating your ineptitude at really understanding the type of material you’re citing. Terms like the Dunning-Kruger effect describe behaviors, not identities.

Well, that sounds interesting! But I’m not. Also… Don’t call it a personal attack because it’s not. Oh, and make one on me in the same sentence!

Anyway, the OP both demonstrates behavior that shows his clear lack of understanding of the class regarding its strength against thieves and when pointed out, decides to shift the blame on everyone else on the thread who shares the opinion. Behavior, not identity. I’m not calling him a nerd if he says he’s a trekkie. That’s identity labeling. I’m using a wikipedia link to label his behavior so far.

Let’s move on before it gets off topic, mkay?

This describes the OP perfectly.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Errrrr……… All other points have already been covered in this thread. Points for effort though.

GS leap into a downed thief in a 1v3? Avoid highlighting stuff like that. You’d cut the video in half easily.

Thieves havn’t been threatening to any decent engie for a long long time.

There’s a pretty powerful celestial p/p build that I’m hesitant with sharing. Amazing burns, the best survivability I’ve seen out of p/p builds, very mobile, and tons of options.

I don’t see why we can’t have both… Rifle has great damage from any range plus solid CC, making it a good tool for burst while hammer has a lot of utilities that lend themselves to bunker builds.

Rabid amulet, runes of Balthazar, sigil of earth/torment.

Firearms 1-1-3, HGH 2-2-1, Tools 3-1-2.

Elixir H, FT, TK, S, X/mortar.

Playing P/P means you have to land that burn to deal meaningful damage. I find myself playing like a thief as I stealth to land blowtorch a lot. Other times, I land CC’s like magnet to get a blowtorch to the face. Also, know when to go all in with conditions when they burn dodges or cleanses and can’t deal with the burn.

Grenade kit is not necessary in this build, as it compromises between high condi pressure, CC, and survivability.

I started as a f2p player and while the game’s amazing and all, the chat restrictions were horrible. I couldn’t whisper as much and map chat was inaccessible. I had a hard time getting my questions answered, much less finding a guild to join. I know they’re supposed to fight bots and all but there ARE better methods instead of isolating new players such as me.

I eventually caved and bought the game (Anet’s strategy to annoy the f2p players worked, I guess), and I’m STILL getting problems with accessing some features. I can’t use the TP and I’m a level 47 using level 20-30 gears. This is awful.

And I bought the ultimate, so I expected gems. Nope, day 3 and still waiting. Why does it take so long to arrive? What the hell? I’m all out of patience and I missed several sales because of this.

It’s pretty amazing. The important bit is to lay as many conditions as opposed to making the burn as strong as possible. To that effect, bring sigils and traits and combo your skills to lay poison, bleed, torment, confusion, and chill to blanket the burn from blowtorch. If left uncleansed, it does upwards of 20k damage.

To any class or build that doesn’t bring enough condi cleanse, it’s fatal.