The worst part about stealth is that it makes bad Thief players. Meaning that if you took the stealth away, all these Cloak and Dagger spam Thieves would be downed in a few seconds, because they have never learned how to move as a Thief.
It’s funny when people say it’s a learn to play issue, when the problem is not that the Thief is impossible to kill. The problem is that it’s way too easy to play like this, and it’s never fun to play against. It could be easily balanced by nerfing stealth, and then give the Thief a bit of defensive boons in return, like aegis and stability. But Cloak and Dagger spam Thieves would still complain, because they love the fact that it is so easy to play. This is the core of the problem.
This is not false advertising at all, you see the exact same thing in hundereds of movies, not to mention the real world. The mounts are obviously used to carry the refugees belongings. They are only used as mounts when some of the refugees get tired of walking, so they can keep traveling without having to stop. Or for leaders of the pack, so they can ride ahead to make sure they are heading it the right direction. It’s not like they are going on a picnic here, they are actually running away from something that has destroyed their home, so they have to keep moving until they are safe. That is what the artists are trying to illustrate. It has nothing to do with having mounts.
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@Bobby Stein
I feel like you were overrating peoples attention span, with this teaser content. Teasers are nice, but they shouldn’t be announced, if they’re going to be introduced a month in between. What happens is that players play the content, because they know it’s there, and then wonders why there isn’t more of it. The player’s logic is that; if something is announced, it must be something substantial. So if you’re going to release teaser content, it needs to come out closer to each other (at least every third week), or have a bigger impact. Otherwise, the teaser content shouldn’t be announced at all, as others have already suggested.
You really need to factor in the habits of how your players think a lot more, based on other games. And then plan and release your content with that in mind.
I’m sorry, but I just can’t take their word for anything relate to balance, until I see it with my own eyes. This whole scenario has been the exact same for many months now. They promise some changes, people get their hopes up, we end up getting sub-par balance changes, and everyone complains. Next month, it starts all over again..
I think 25 is a little too high, as 25 players can quickly take down a gate. 15 is a better number.
The Ranger doesn’t only have swiftness on the warhorn. And there is more to movement speed then simply swiftness.
Swiftness:
Warhorn
Shortbow
Rampage As One (With a 120 second cooldown, this is viable to use in Worlds PvP)
Storm Spirit (With the “spirits can move and follow you” major trait)
Tail Wind (A minor trait that gives you swiftness on weapon swap, when in combat. But getting in combat is easy enough; just send your pet to attack a nearby mob)
Birds (Aim at a target that’s a great distance from you, and then call the pet back as soon as it gives you swiftness, if you don’t want to agro the mob. Use the major trait Concentration Training to make the swiftness last 15 seconds instead of 10. Practice makes perfect)
Other:
Signet of the Hunt (10% increased movement speed is great)
Shortbow (Use the ‘turn 180’ key to make the jump move you forward, instead of back)
Greatsword (Swoop makes you leap forward. This skill will actually move you forward faster then the warhorn, because of the short cooldown)
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The problem is created by players, for players. Because players play through content too fast, then complain that there’s not enough content to do. These time sinks are created in order to keep these players in the game.
If you don’t primarily play for the rewards, then you won’t feel these restrictions. I just log in, enjoy the game, and then I might finish my daily before I log out. I couldn’t care less if I get some dungeon armor part today or tomorrow, or if I miss a daily. What difference does it really make?
This is part of the reason (the other being the really bad dialog) why I don’t like the personal story, but love the dungeon story of Destiny’s Edge. Sometimes this game just feels like it’s rated ‘Everyone 10+’, and not Teen. It’s a bit annoying.
When it comes to being a consumer, voting with your wallet is the only thing that really has any value. If you don’t like the idea of something, then don’t spend your money on it. No matter how appealing it might be.
It’s not so much that they are hard to beat, it’s just that they aren’t fun to play against. That’s all. Having stealth and superior movement, together with very high burst damage, is a horrible combo from an entertainment point of view. It makes players feel underpowered, because they are unable to fully react to what they are facing, while they are getting downed very quickly. It’s the feeling of playing against a different set of rules.
The strange part about Thieves and Mesmers, is that ArenaNet themselves has said, on several different occasions, that their aim is to make “professions equally fun to play against, as they are to play”. But how can it be fun to play against something that you can’t see? Even from a design perspective this sounds bad. But the worst thing is that a lot of these player issues could be fixed, simply by reducing the stealth mechanic, and replace it with boons like protection and aegis. Or simply just make stealth a removable boon itself? No one wants any profession to be underpowered. People just want to feel like they have a fair chance to react to what they are facing, even if they do end up getting defeated. Why should anyone have to but up more of a fight against a Thief or Mesmer, compared to any other profession?
I play both a Thief and a Mesmer myself, but I try to make builds that are also fun to play against for my opponent. So instead of playing a stealth based back stab Thief, or a stealth based shatter Mesmer, I play a Thief that’s based on movement, and a boon Mesmer playing on condition damage. These builds makes it more fun to play for me, because I feel like I give my opponents a chance to defeat me. Which in turn makes it that much more rewarding when I defeat my opponents. And that’s how the game should be. If you get defeated, you should have the feeling of “I gave him a good fight, but he was just the better player”. Not “what the hell just happened?!”.
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To those who don’t know, this is all the ways a Thief can go into stealth (with duration and recharge times):
Weapons
Cloak and Dagger (3 seconds – 6 initiative) (can easily be triggered twice or more)
Black Powder+Cluster Bomb (~6 seconds – 6 initiative/3 initiative) (does AoE stealth)
Black Powder+Heartseeker (~6 seconds – 6 initiative/3 initiative)
Healing
Hide in Shadows (3 seconds – 30 seconds)
Utility
Blinding Powder (3 seconds – 40 seconds) (can be used on top of another skill)
Shadow Trap (5 seconds – 30 seconds)
Shadow Refuge (10 seconds – 60 seconds) (does AoE stealth)
Smoke Screen+Cluster Bomb (~12 seconds – 30 seconds/3 initiative) (does AoE stealth)
Smoke Screen+Heartseeker (~10 seconds – 30 seconds/3 initiative)
Steal
Blinding Tuft (3 seconds – 0.5 seconds) (stolen from Thieves)
Blinding Feathers (3 seconds – 0.5 seconds) (stolen from Moas)
Downed
Smoke Bomb (2 seconds – 20 seconds)
Traits
Hidden Thief (2 seconds – on stealing) (really lasts 3 seconds because of Meld with Shadows)
Instinctual Response (3 seconds – when losing 10% health in one hit)
And all of this stealth can be improved by 1 second (or more in the case of combos), by picking the trait Meld with Shadows. You can also stack up more stealth with the smoke combos, by using the trait Infusion of Shadow (gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths).
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Stop looking for things that can make you “addicted” to a game, and just judge it based on your own honest values. If you can’t find any fun reason to play a game anymore, then stop playing. The point where you say you’re playing with a coworker and having fun, yet still feel like you are wasting your time, because you feel forced to farm CoF, is the basic problem. Your mindset is screwed. You’re forcing yourself to do something that you don’t find fun, because it’s the only reason you have to keep playing.
The only real goal a game should be judge by, is whether or not you’re enjoying it. After all, gaming is an entertainment media, not a job.
Just because someone has taken a piece of the cake before you got there, it doesn’t mean the rest is going to taste terrible =)
If you are the type of person that can only make friends, if you are forced into a situation with people, I can see why Guild Wars 2 could be “disheartening”. But I honestly find it very easy to spark up a conversation with random players. The thing that makes Guild Wars 2 different, is that no one are forced to play together, so just like when making friends in the real world, it becomes more about your personality, and not what your character can offer.
It sounds about as exciting as WXP…
The pet is out unique mechanic. ButI’m sure you already knew that, and were just waiting for someone to post this, so you can make a condescending reply, and turn this into yet another useless Ranger complain topic.
Don’t worry so much about what others say, make your own judgment. If you enjoy something, it can never really be a waste of your time.
It’s not that the Ranger is ridiculously underpowered, it just feels a bit “off” when you play, compared to other professions. Damage output feels a bit lower, your utility skills and traits seem like they could do more, and your pet can feel slow and unresponsive. But it’s not like you can’t kill anything. I like to say that the Ranger is viable, but not reliable.
Playing against good Thieves and Mesmers, is a damage game. If you can’t burst them down fast enough, then don’t bother. The Thief will just reset in stealth, and the Mesmer will create clones too fast for you to keep up.
There are some general tricks to playing against these professions, though. The most important one being; play aggressively. Both Thieves and Mesmers have an easy time taking you down if you just run away, so you have to turn the tables, and make them run away from you. This will give you some space, allowing you to run away from them. If you want to take them out, then you have to be right up in their face, and burst them down as fast as you can. Don’t give them any breathing room, even if you’re at low health. Use your boons, and keep pushing. If you do this well, then the Thief will mostly go down while attempting to stealth away, and the Mesmers clones will die so fast, that the Mesmer will be exposed and vulnerable to attacks.
The Thief will always go for the Backstab, or try to take you out with a shortbow from range. It’s very rare that you will come across a Thief that plays anything ells then this. So when he goes into stealth, be aware of the time it takes before he Backstabs you. Then remember this on your next encounter, and you will slowly learn to dodge it. If you play aggressively and deal enough damage, the Thief will mostly just run away, and not risk fighting you again. Thieves are very “safe players”, in that they only follow through on encounters, that they know they will win.
When facing a Mesmer, be aware of movement patterns. The Mesmer will usually be the one who’s standing the furthest away from you, so if his clones go down, he still has distance to you. Clones can’t dodge, so if you see someone dodge, that is the Mesmer. Clones generally also stand still a lot, and always move forward towards you, while the Mesmer player will be moving away from you, or from side to side. This is also why playing aggressively against a Mesmer is important; you force him to move. Only very few Mesmers will continue to stand still, even if you stand right next to them.
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lol, no stun breaker. you can at most cast 1 skill in front of zerg then be stun locked to death.
if youre casting from 600 range, by the time youre done, the melee train is upon you. so youre still at melee range.
How the hell do you guys play? Stand still and take all the incoming damage to your face? The Ranger has more then enough evasion to move out of the way. You’re talking like the only reasonable scenario is a hundred foes, with +100% movement speed, vs. one imbecile Ranger. Let’s get back to reality shall we..
If you want more stun removal, then changing Muddy Terrain to Signet of Renewal, or Lightning Reflexes, wouldn’t make the build that much worse. And the build also has Shared Anguish.
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This skill gave the pet and the Ranger another purpose. It allowed the Ranger to attack enemies on walls in WvW with full damage, as the Rangers damage is balanced with the pet. And it allowed us to send the pet to unreachable locations in fractals, to help allies. Like reviving fallen allies on Cliffside Fractal, instead of having to suicide and start over.
It was already balanced by these facts:
You removed a very important tool from the Ranger here ArenaNet. It puzzles me that a skill like Cloak and Dagger can exist in the game, which is the primary tool that allows the Thief to be permanently in stealth, which is very annoying to play against for a large population of your players. Yet the pet can not be send on top of walls in WvW? Hell, even the Mesmer can send illusions on top of walls and shatter them, with an auto attack. So why was “Guard” changed?
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Direct damage builds have become better, but they aren’t quite there yet. It’s the same for support builds. Condition damage builds and bunker builds, are still what the Ranger does best.
What bothers me the most, is the wasted potential. They could have done a lot of things, but at the end of the day, these pointless passive skills are what they chose to spend their time on. It’s rather frustrating. They should have ditched these passive skills, and focused only on active skills. Like a short swiftness AoE skill, a Swirling Winds type skill to destroy one siege projectile, a healing skill that only works when using a siege weapon, a quickness type skill that increases build speed, and so on.
The more I play Guild Wars 2, the more I begin questioning ArenaNet’s ability to create valuable content for three different game types.
I expect to be disappointed when seeing next to zero profession balance changes. I’m looking forward to all the content, though.
I’ve never played WoW, so I have no idea what half the things on that list are :P
The only thing I dislike about Guild Wars 2, is ArenaNets way of being overly precocious about everything they add to the game, to such an extend that a lot of what they add, almost has no impact on the game. WvW skills is a good example of this.
I think they’re just trying to reserve the bigger changes to the expansion packs. Cuz if they gave us everything, how else are they going to make some moolah. They are a business after all. Let’s not forget that developers need to eat too. We keep saying that they’re greedy, and they’re evil for wanting money. Let me ask this, don’t YOU want money in your personal life too? Does that make you evil? They’re a business, that’s that.
No, that’s not it. Take WXP Upgrades as an example. They could have given us the ability to carry +1 supply, per 15 points spend, with +10 supply being the maximum for a total of 150 points. But instead they decided that we need 300 points, for the ability to only carry a total of +5 supply. I actually have to be reminded that the points are there, because I constantly forget to check how many I have. The WXP Upgrades have no impact on the game. And that’s just one example.
I totally disagree that Ranges are unparalleled to other professions. Rangers are amazing damage dealers. I still would like to see these small fixes though:
Great post Jenna. I think you are a great example of the type of gamer Guild Wars 2 is primarily made for.
PvE -> Elementalist.
Still dont get, or want to get, the current stupid Attunement swapping mechanism.
Oh, and Ele also seems to have worst combo of low health and low armor.
Look at it this way: Fire=power/burn, Water=healing/chill, Air=critical hits/speed, and Earth=toughness/bleeding. Putting each attunement in these categories makes them a lot more manageable. Fire is great for AoE damage, Air is for single target damage, Earth is great for extra durability, and Water when you’re low on health.
The Elementalist gains a ton of survivability from boons alone, not to mention reliable healing from water attunement skills.
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The point of the Mesmer playstyle is to confuse you, which is also why it’s so annoying. But there are plenty of counters you can use against clones.
Give them some time. Shoutcasts for Guild Wars 2 is still rather new.
I’m always surprised not to see more Rangers use drakes. The drakes have by far the most powerful F2 skills, they deal really good sustained damage, they deal great AoE damage, and they have fairly good survivability. River Drake and March Drake seems to be the best, as they can hit up to five foes at a time, with their F2 skills. Why a lot of Rangers choose to run felines or canines, I can never understand. They die so fast, they hardly get to dealt any damage.
Try the drakes the next time you’re in a dungeon. And don’t forget to use those F2 skills (just let them auto-attack first, or they will usually mess up the targeting).
Removal of culling, stealth reveal now lasts 4 seconds, quickness effectiveness reduced, and new weapon skins. I love this patch. If pet targeting was also improved, it would have been perfect for me.
I think a more interesting question is; with ascended weapons being put into the game, will the higher damage output from foes in PvP, cause the pet to have an even harder time surviving AoE damage?
Buying boxes =/= no expansion.
Conversely not buying boxes =/= expansion.There are more factors to it than just RNG box purchases. Yes, profit margins do have an impact on business decisions, but people not buying RNG boxes would not be a break the bank issue for them necessarily. If the profit forecast becomes that bad from just people not buying the RNG boxes, they are actually more likely to scrap the game than make an expansion for it. Risk vs reward assessment….
Not buying boxes =/= game being abandoned.
True, and technically I didn’t say it would be, although I probably could have phrased it better.
The general point was that if RNG boxes make up so much of their profit that a reduction in their sales results in a rush for an expansion (in order to save their bottom line), they may opt that the expansion isn’t worth the time or investment. It’s a gamble, and with other games launching, they could potentially make more on one of them over a rushed, buggy expansion for a game that is no longer producing.
So your logic is; buy crap now, so you can buy something of value later? That’s really doesn’t make any sense..
Not buying into random boxes, will only push the developers into create something ells that has value to the consumer. They need the money, so they are going to create something for us to buy. It’s simply a matter of how easily you, as a consumer, is willing to give your money away. Thinking that you have to buy crap just to support the developers, is undermining the power you have as a consumer.
First of all, the show is pretty horrible. There is zero honesty between the players and the developers, because everyone are afraid of saying something “wrong”. Which means the show looses its point. It’s also only aimed towards sPvP, and the beastmaster-bunker Ranger, is very powerful in sPvP right now.
The problem was never damage, but targeting. And the Ranger has always dealt more damage then the pet. So you can argue about how big of a difference this really makes. ArenaNet also makes really weak balance changes, so if this damage nerf were to happen, it would probably be an insignificant amount.
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You aren’t going to have any problems if you’re just playing open world PvE, or dungeons. The Ranger does well in these cases. The problems arise when playing PvP, or higher level dungeons in fractals.
That’s about it.
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The Thief would be my first priority. The way the Thief’s stealth is currently working is ridiculous. It was meant as a tool to keep the Thief alive for a short period, but now it has turned into an almost permanent thing, making the Thief next to impossible to catch in a fight, or predict an attack from. Basically, the Thief has turned into an Assassin, which was exactly what it shouldn’t be. I would love to see the “old” Thief return again, that relied on movement and speed, rather then hiding in stealth. The Thief also desperately needs some more support abilities to help allies.
The Ranger also needs a great overhaul. The pet is still not where it needs to be, as it still has problems reviving with Lick Wounds, the F2 abilities are still not sharp and reactive, and AoE is still a major issue. Traits are also a mess. They are basically a mixture of useless or unimpressive effects. Some more support skills would also be nice here.
I recently began playing a Necromancer, about a weeks ago, because I’d read it was hard to play, and I enjoy difficult classes. But to my surprise it wasn’t so much hard to play because the Necromancer is a complicated professions, it’s simply just next to impossible to make a working build. Playing with the Necromancer in sPvP, I just feel like I never deal any worthwhile damage. There’s a lot of fun skills there, but none of it feels very useful when you can’t defeat any players. Playing the Necromancer, it feels like it’s too much work, for too little gain.
I don’t play Warrior, Guardian, or Elementalist, so I can’t really comment on them. However, when playing against an Elementalist or Guardian, they do seem way too strong when it comes boons. It’s feels like I’m trying to bring down a brick wall with a baseball bat sometimes; it hurts me more then it hurts them. The Mesmer feels really balanced to me, although shattering seems way too powerful when it comes to burst damage. I play a stealth/clone Mesmer, though, so it’s not something I notice unless I’m playing against it, which is why the Mesmer seems balanced to me. The Engineer I haven’t played for a while, I need to pick that up again. I hope it’s not going to feel like playing the Necromancer..
What is this need people have to drag down others with them? If you don’t like the game, then just stop playing. This isn’t politics, it’s entertainment. If you aren’t entertained by Guild Wars 2 anymore, then there’s nothing to keep you here. Learn to let go…
The main issue, is that there is POTENTIAL… it COULD be a fantastic MMO and possibly one of if not the best out there…..but they just can never seem to get it quite right….so right now, their is a large amount of people who have stopped playing, some people who have been playing since Beta, like myself, who still enjoy aspects of the game and in that group of people that stopped playing (some went to other games), but some….are hanging around HOPING the ANET gets their collective heads out of their kitten (not likely) to truly make this MMO what it should be…at least until someone else comes out and does it better…
So what exactly are you saying? “Hanging around” doesn’t change anything. You are just wasting your own time, thinking that you’re something more then just another player. You’re not. You’re only setting yourself up for more disappointment. If you don’t like a movie, do you go in a watch it three more times, in the hopes that it will somehow become better? No, of curse not. You stop thinking about it and move on.
Life is full of bad investments. But if you enjoyed something, it can never really have been a waste of your time.
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The Thief is fine in PvE, as long as you understand that you need to use a combination of movement and stealth, not just stealth alone. Your weapons sets as a Thief are full of dodge moves, you don’t need traits to get them. In dungeons the Thief is by far the best at reviving, thanks to AoE stealth and very fast movement, and can also give some boons to allies with steal, plus share venoms, through traits. But when it comes to full support, the Thief has always been lacking.
I find it astounding, that even over a year after the game is released, people are still complaining that the Ranger doesn’t play like in Guild Wars 1. Maybe if you’d actually try to accept the Ranger for what it is, you might come to like it, instead of hoping that ArenaNet eventually turns the GW2 Ranger into a GW1 Ranger clone.
I’ve never been kicked from a party for being a Ranger. I fact, I often feel like I make a big difference in dungeons. I have seen a few players write that they don’t want more Rangers in a party, but this is usually because they already have two or three. And there really aren’t as many good Ranger players, as there are bad. I think this comes down to Rangers relying on their pet too much, meaning they aren’t prepared for the pacing of a dungeon. In PvE, the pet can very easily make the Ranger lazy, as it does a lot of the work for you.
Basically, the solution is to show other players how useful the Ranger can be. Even doing something as simple as using Search and Rescue at the right time, knowing when to place down and use your Sprit of Nature, or knowing when to make your bear attack to give everyone some breathing room, can make a huge difference in a dungeon. Letting you pet run around aimlessly until it dies, is wasting the Rangers potential. It’s like a Mesmer who doesn’t use illusions.
I’m very surprised that the majority still prefers to have small balance changes, considering the ‘class balance’ votes shows the game really needs some obvious big changes.
I use Signet of Inspiration and the focus with a Sigil of Speed on it. Both Signet of Inspiration and Sigil of Speed stacks, and Sigil of Speed doesn’t have any recharge, so I can ramp up quite a lot of swiftness during a fight.
I don’t recommend using runes to get swiftness, as you miss out on quite a lot of damage (Rune of the Undead) or utility (Rune of Lyssa).
Does Sigil of Speed proc on Critters?
No it doesn’t. I mostly use it to get away from a losing fight, after defeating a couple of players. Or if I see a downed player in a zerg, I can stealth and go in to stomp him, and then have the swiftness so I quickly can get back out again.
There is nothing wrong with keeping almost everything the same. Some chars can be made more damaging, some can be made more tanky or healy. All should still have to avoid fire, obviously. That makes it really fun.
But tank and healer types, deserve their place. It brings order and we just love to help.
This is already how the game is..
All professions are able to deal burst damage in one way or another. Tanks are known as bunker builds. And the Elementalist, Guardian, and Engineer makes for fine healers. There are even runes and sigils that heals allies.
This is what I say all the time to other players myself. But it’s astounding the amount of MMO players who doesn’t know the difference between chore and fun, because they have long forgotten the reason why they started playing games in the first place. The other day I went on a “farm run” with my guild, just to see what it was all about, but half way trough I was too far behind them because I kept getting sidetracked, and because it was stupidly boring. Running around in a circle collecting mats for an hour. Why?! I could have spend that time play Worlds PvP, or anything ells that’s not a chore. People don’t think about what their are doing. But, to each their own..
I’m just sticking to PvE with my Ranger. I’m not interested in playing a sword, trap, and/or bunker build. But I feel like those are the only viable options right now.
This is what was said about stealth for the Thief, when it was first revealed:
(watch from 2:50 to 3:21)
Interview (http://kotaku.com/5780900/the-guild-wars-2-thief-is-a-rogue-like-none-other):
“Stealth in Guild Wars 2 runs on a timer, which would allow you a few precious seconds of Initiative recharge before the enemy uncovers you again.
The wise Thief player will know when to retreat and recharge."
“Players are used to going toe-to-toe with monsters, and the Thief is built around hopping in-and-out of combat. If you don’t know when to back off, you’re going to die.”
Here’s the description of stealth from wiki:
“Stealth — Thieves have access to multiple skills which, for a short duration, make them invisible to enemy players and avoid aggro of hostile NPCs. While stealthed the thief is not targettable, but can still be damaged by attacks which hit them, and attacking from stealth will break the deception.”
And from the 14th december update notes:
“Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.”
Now look at these resent videos I picked randomly from YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9grDRzNT_wg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4m2mGDUL38
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OYniHrGqE
The thing to notice about these videos isn’t only that the Thief is able to have stealth up for what seems to be next to permanently, but also how easily the Thief is able to escape once low on health. That shadow stepping makes the Thief able to easily escape AoE attacks and snares. That with Cloak and Dagger the Thief can keep stealth up without any lose to playstyle, thanks to the fast recharge of initiative. That “Revealed” is not a hinderance for the Thief at all, because the three seconds that the Thief can’t stealth, is the time that’s spend on attacking anyway. That the Thief don’t have to use their utilities for anything, other then gaining more stealth. And that on top of all of this, the Thief can also use skills like Dagger Storm to avoid damage, or Thieves Guild as pseudo clones for distraction.
This is how the majority of Thieves play: Stealth to get the upper hand and maximum damage on first attack, attack for three seconds until Revealed has passed, gain stealth again to regain positioning on your foe, attacking him again when he’s got his back turned, keep attacking him as he tries to run away with 20% health left, alternatively use shadow stepping or cripple to stop him from escaping, stealth again when he’s downed so he or an ally can’t stop you from stomping him, and then stealth/shadow step away, or start attacking the ally who was trying to help the foe you just stomped. If three or more players finally do manage to get you down to low health; use shadow stepping/Dagger Storm/Thieves Guild to get away, go back into stealth to make your foes lose track of you, hide until your health is restored, proceed to attacking again.
Am I the only one who can see the contradictory between how ArenaNet wants the Thief to play, and how it is actually played? I’m not sure how anyone (other then a Thief maybe) can justify stealth, for the Thief, as being balanced. I mean, how are you suppose to fight a profession that you can’t see for 80% of a fight, and who can easily escape you during the 20% window where you actually do see him? How is this fun to play against?
I think a more interesting question is; with ascended weapons being put into the game, will the higher damage output from foes in PvP, cause the pet to have an even harder time surviving AoE damage?
Isn’t that pretty much a given?
It completely depends on how much more damage the ascended weapons will deal.
The pet just needs some AoE damage reduction, as the Ranger community have been suggesting for months now.
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The rewards don’t fit with the challenge, because the focus of the game is not the rewards, but the challenge. Do you expect to get a price after you read a book, as well? No, of curse not, because reading the book is the reward itself. And likewise, playing the game is the true reward, the rewards you get for completing a task is a bonus. The problem is your mentality towards the game, because in other games you are use to getting a biscuit, every time you preform a trick. You should look at it from a perspective and ask yourself; why are you playing a game, if you are only enjoying it for the rewards you get?
It might be that you aren’t suggesting that Guild Wars 2 needs a holy trinity system, but that is still what you expect from it. So the solution is, quite obviously, that you need to change your approach towards the game. If you think that “zergs” kill mobs too easily, then stop being part of one! Gather a group of three to five players, and head of in a different direction. PvE, and Worlds PvP, has never been about skill, but about exploring the world and playing with your friends. That’s why these modes are balanced loosely. If you want to test your skills, then try out Structured PvP instead. It requires much more attention to detail.
I’ve played in dungeons five times now, and I’ve never had any problem finding a group of people. I just run up to the dungeon and asks if anyone has a spare spot. It doesn’t take more then a few minutes (sometimes seconds) before I get a party invite. I’m not sure what you are doing different? Further more, every party I’ve been in has had some great people who were easy to talk to, and to plan tactics with. Everyone would listen to each other, and ask if everyone was ready before proceeding to fight a boss. And everyone were prepared to do what needed to be done, in order to proceed. Including sacrificing yourself in order to revive someone, and changing skills and/or playstyle in order to best take down a boss.
The connection you are making is all in your head. You are just making assumptions based an a bad experience with the game. I don’t recognize the problems you are mentioning. The players I’ve talked to. and played with, have all be prepared to do what was needed to be done, in order to get the most out of the game. I have yet to met any lazy players, who existed on taking the easy way out. And if I do, I won’t be around them for very long.
Grind is all in the hands of the player. The only time a game can force you to grind, is if it doesn’t introduce any other options of playing. In Guild Wars 2, you don’t have to play a dungeon thirty times in a row, you can choose do other things in between. You also have to eat food everyday, but that doesn’t mean you should to eat the same food each time. That would become boring for anyone. Instead, you can choose to eat pizza on monday, and lasagna on tuesday, which is arguably a lot more “fun”. And that mentality is the same in a game. If you can choose not to grind, then why do it?
That awkward moment when you rally, and start reviving your own clone…
You want a major trait that only affects one weapon skill? That seems like a waste of a trait.
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