Guild Wars 2

Zdenny.2704:

I guess you dont get the idea of competetive games. You dont play solo, you play with a team. And in order to win you sometimes has to sacrifice something. Look at ESL, fast moving and capturing points wins the game. Its just too much valuable.
But of course if you want to play random unranked and jst brawl with somebody you might be right. And if people want kills instead of winning the game, then my oppinion is stupid.

Then call me mad, or lunatic…. But if I press a button that says “PVP” I expect getting an experience similar to a Player (me) fighting another Player.

Conversely, if the button were “PVRCOTF” ( Player versus red circles on the floor) I’d also get an accurate idea of what I’m going to face.

So maybe the root of the problem is a lack of exactitude in describing the game experience for each of the different classes.

This could be easily solved replacing the “PVP” tab in the thieves class by a “PVRCOTF” tab, complete with statistics about % of captures, average capture time, total distance travelled, and average speed per second between points, in order to more effectively measure your contribution to the team.

That way, no Thief would be erroneously mislead into thinking that by clicking “PVP” they are going to actually fight other players.

IMO, I’d say that A-Net is adding content to themselves.

I mean, it was pretty obvious that they were running short of thief skills and abilities to nerf… But with the addition of Daredevil they’ll probably have at least a year worth (if not more) of continuous streams of nerfs…

So, not P2W… but S2N (sell to nerf)

It was planned to be a shaft (a staff shaft) but then, ‘thieves got the shaft’ would be too obvious, and they changed it to something less conspicuous.

I must admit it lightened my mood.

And the lyrics are rather catchy… Great work.

Now, If only A-net had half the passion of you guys…

I find quite ironical the fact that A-Net gave us a staff when most thieves won’t touch PvP with a 10’ pole…

MrForz.1953:

Kyrion.2749:

Black Frog.9274:

Also, there’s no Asia in Tyria.

* Sigh… *

Well, then just leave it out there for Pete’s sake. Plus, if I recall correctly, it’s not exactly the sweetest place to tread in.

Altough it was indeed left out at GW2 release, Cantha is still very present in the game’s lore. There are lots of references to it across the game’s content, many characters are undoubtely of Canthan origin, and even one of the Fractal mini-dungeons is a chunk of the Jade Sea.

If you ask me, I’d say that ANet is just awaiting the proper moment to release it as an expansion.

Black Frog.9274:

Also, there’s no Asia in Tyria.

* Sigh… *

Recycling so many animations from hammer was… lazy…

Cool but shoehorned
Lazy staff animations

Thieves, buy HoT!
Won’t nerf later
( Actually, we will )

The projectile from Infiltrator’s arrow was there since launch, then, some months ago it was turned invisible (probably a glitch from a patch). Now it just have been made visible again.

I lost all hopes for the thief profession several months ago. I don’t hope anything.

However, I’m pretty confident that there’s still room beneath thieves to bury them a little more…

Not to mention that the functionality of the skill is broken when you shoot a target behind you.

The dodge portion moves you away as intented… and the new backpedal portion closes up again to your target …

I won’t enter in the debate of is this change is justified or not, but come on, the change wasn’t even properly tested…

This skill has been battered beyond recognition… Stunbreaker removed, range reduced, inability to use it when stunned/prone/feared…. But of all changes, the casting time makes absolutely no sense on a reaction-defensive ability.

It feels clunky, detrimental for a smooth gameplay experience, and inadequate for its primary use, which is damage avoidance.

For the record, I wouldn’t mind it being unable to be used while stunned… If it was instant casting time.

Assuming this is true, it will be worthy only if it has low cooldown and multi-targets…. Or maybe if we could ‘detonate’ it.

Other than that, it will only engross our already long list of ‘semi-useless’ skills.

It will be funny for jumping puzzles tough… Just what we need to increase Thief love amongst community.

First megalaser falls on the WvsW gates. Reinforcements cut.

Second Megalaser falls on the Stargates plaza… Not really neccesary since all major racial cities are empty, thus, no reinforcements will come from them. But just to be sure.

Third magalaser falls on the bank, and everyone loses bank-stored items and resources. Now, this would be remembered forever in the history of MMOs…

What: Thief’s Shortbows

Why: Every thief is using them so it must be an OP weapon. For starters, thieves are abusing the ultra-short range to detonate arrows at point blank, and that is unrealistic and unfun. The explosion should damage the thief too to prevent that, and since the projectile is slow, the thief has time to get out of the way so the change is balanced.

Also thieves are spamming evades too much, so, whenever they use SB #3, they must suffer a 20% cumulative chance of the bow’s string snapping, and slashing their eyes, blinding them. Then, the string should fall to their feet, entangling them, and inflicting cripple for 10 seconds.

Choking gas is going to be nerfed already so that’s OK. Finally, I see that you removed the infiltrator’s arrow, but thieves still keep teleporting neverthless, so they must be using a exploit. Fix it please.

Mmm… Why do you want a new +25% perma speed trait, when you already have a +33% perma swiftness trait on ’Assasin’s retreat’?

Just kill some quick random mobs and enjoy your minutes of swiftness duration.

Wraith.4103:

You can say “just because you cant see do not mean you cant hit”, I say depends. Depends on what weapon you are using, you need a target cause the projectiles dont go foward.

Well, that’s a common misconception.

Actually, they do go forward… but without a target, they go forward to whatever is on the center of your screen… which happens to be the floor in front of you 99% of the time, since your usual PoV is aerial-pointing down on your character.

However, if you adjust your Point of View (imagine as if it were an invisible crosshair at the center of your screen) to whatever you want to target, your projectile will go there, even upwards. But… Given how unfriendly the camera is in this game, this feels awkward ad unpractical to do, since you lose a lot of your peripheral vision.

MrAmputatoes.6031:

March 11th skill preview.

Thieves seem to be in a decent spot overall since our last balance changes, however, like warrior, the thieves ability to both hard CC an enemy and deal respectable amount of damage is giving the thief too much power. So we have changes for Pistol Whip, Headshot, and Basilisk Venom. On the upside, we have some changes that will hopefully diversify thief build options.

Pistol Whip: Stun removed and instead now applies cripple. Duration 1.5 seconds.
Basilisk Venom: Stun has been reduced to 0.5 seconds and now has a venom duration of 5 seconds.
Head Shot: Stun has been removed and now applies a blind. To compensate for lost power, initiative cost is now 3.
Deadly Arts VII, Improvisation: Bonus damage while holding a bundle has been increases to 12% from 10%.
Critical Strike VII, Ankle Shot: Chance to apply cripple on critical hit has been bumped up to 100%, added an ICD of 15s.
Critical Strike XII, Hidden Killer: Increased critical strike chance from stealth
To 100%, but to compensate, placed an ICD of 15s.
Shadow Art IX, Leeching Venoms: Scaling for both the heal
And the damage has been increased by 25%, moved to grandmaster trait.

Bug Fixes:
Corrected Power of Inertias boon duration. It was giving 15s of might when it should have been giving 5s, this problem has been corrected.
Assassin’s Retreat had the wrong duration and ICD, both have been fixed. swiftness duration is 5s while the ICD is 10s.

Ps… I’m bored…

Looks Legit to me

If it were instant, it could have its uses as an interrupt, Both in PvE/PvP.

Right now it’s only the most overcosted stun in the whole game.

Interceptor.2653:

Kyrion.2749:

But now, clearly this skill is unable to perform as before, since it gets queued behind many skills, adding its casting time to the completion of the previous skill, and thus, lacking the required responsiveness to use it as a reflex based evasion, like it was before.

What skills does it get queued behind? I’ll settle for one, if that’s all you have.

Cloak & dagger, for example.

In my case is a smile

And if it was too spammable for their tastes, they could have simply increased their initiative cost.

But the cast time totally destroys the functionality of the skill and defeats its original purpose.

simonerd.8672:

Go to try 20 0 30 20 0 with ambush trap and thief guild before speaking!

In WvsW roaming this is useless, because people always do the same: The moment they see you pop Thieves’ Guild, they retreat, because they know you’ll also use your most powerful venoms on them. They kite you for a while, and even if you manage to chase them, your thieves won’t be able to keep your pace. Once the thieves go, they engage again, but now you have no one to share your venoms, so, the entire point of the build goes trough the window. Also, if they are perceptive, they are aware of where you put your ambush trap, since you do an obvious animation.

Then, they proceed to slaughter you bit by bit, since they know you have practically no condition removal, few stunbreakers if any, and little stealth. You have nothing to defend yourself since you have a trap (Ambush) and venoms (Devourer+another) in your bar and your elite is on 150 secs cooldown, and more than half of your traits will be focused on venoms. Your heal will be on a 36 seconds recharge which is enough time to kill you twice with most popular builds.

IMO, this skill is not working as intended.

The Devs said that Infiltrator’s return would perform the same as before except when being stunned and on port-stomps. Well, fine.

But now, clearly this skill is unable to perform as before, since it gets queued behind many skills, adding its casting time to the completion of the previous skill, and thus, lacking the required responsiveness to use it as a reflex based evasion, like it was before.

So unless the Devs lied deliberately, or declare now that its current state is the intended one, they failed to deliver what they said to us in their patch preview.

As far as I know, this skill is not working as intended.

The Devs said that Infiltrator’s return would perform the same as before except for being stunned and on port-stomps.

It is clearly the case that this skill is unable to perform as before, since now it gets queued behind many skills, adding its casting time to the completion of the previous skill, and thus, lacking the required responsiveness to use it as a reflex based evasion.

So unless the Devs lied deliberately, or now declare that its current state is the intended one, they failed to deliver what they said to us in their preview.

If enough people complains, Anet will nerf thief sarcasm too… Maybe adding casting time to it or increasing its cooldown.

And regarding subject…. Useless feat. Not only ports you in a short-range random direction (with a pretty good chance of doing nothing/worsening things). It is also automatic, which means that it will often proc when you’d wish to endure the effect (like a 1/2 sec daze), thus being unavailable when you truly need it later.

Also, in dungeons it has a funny tendency to port you into lethal AoEs. Suicide feat when you need precise positioning against a boss with CC.

Don’t forget that by having a casting time, the skill now gets queued behind whatever you are already doing, so even if you react in time, you have to add to those 0.25 seconds whatever time it takes to complete your current action.

In other words, you are no longer able to use this skill reactively. Infiltrator’s return is now nothing more than a burden that you have to pay in order to use infiltrator’s strike again.

Epic. We already knew that they don’t play the thief class… But, was it necessary to make it obvious?

It is a short duration burst heal, not a long duration heal over time. You’ll also spec to share it.

Being a shared burst heal, its usage its maximized the lower your health is and the greater the number of targets it affects.

Ask yourself how many times in a dungeon do you expect to find the whole party severely wounded and stacked next to you, and you’ll get an estimation on its overall usefulness over other healing skills. More often than not, you’ll share it with 1 or 2 teammates at most.

Also, take into account that if you use it for yourself without affecting anyone else, it is a waste of the venom-share. And, if you use it to burst-heal a wounded mate when you are ok, you’ll have to endure 45(36) seconds without potential healing for yourself.

So, even ignoring the crap numbers of this skill, let’s take venom-sharing into account for a moment.

When am I supposed to use this healing skill…?

- When I’m at 100% health but a buddy is wounded? … And pray for not needing it for myself on the next frakin’ 45 seconds?
- When I’m wounded but all my teammates are at good health? Then, what is the point of venom-sharing this heal?
- When all of us are wounded enough to make it worthy? Probably, the best case scenario (every 45 secs). But ofc, all of the above is assuming that everyone will be at kiss range from me to benefit from venom-sharing. In most cases, you’ll have to look for the wounded buddy, move next to him, pray for him not move/dodge, and activate the venom… if he’s still alive of course.

This skill makes no sense from its very foundations.

“This heal is going to shake things”. … I bet he was referring to the ship’s deck… When every thief left on it jumps out-the-boat.

I could definitely try a venom-sharing build, if not for the little fact that I usually require shadowstep, shadow refuge and other stunbreaker on my skillbar just to survive… Not to mention a potent condition-remover ability on my heal slot.

But now that I think of it, I suppose that I could simply replace the dire need of stunbreakers by using the sword skill #2b to make room for some venoms on my skillbar…

… Oh, wait…

- So, what are you planning this time for thieves, man?
- I’m going to put their new healing skill on a trap.
- WTF!!! You are kiddin’ me right?
- Yes, LOL, I’m kidding… That will be too obvious, it will definitely expose me…
- Ha ha, you got me for a moment, man.
- But now that I think of it… I think that it would not be entirely impossible to slip it on a venom…
- No way, man!!!
- Wanna bet? Remember that it was me who managed to put that underwater skill that CCs the own thief when using it.
- Oh, True!!!… That was glorious man, glor… hey! did you hear something?….

DISCONNECT****

So it is as I feared… Calling it a ‘big nerf’ is like calling Hiroshima ‘a loud explosion’.

So, essentially, it will be a defensive ability that I won’t be able to use when I need it, only when I don’t need it. Wonderful.

An absurd change that no doubt will be reverted as soon as the thief-hater that somehow bluffed its way into the thief balance & test team is discovered and fired from the company.

With the incoming 10th patch, shadow return will be given a cast time, which means that it will be unusable while stunned, I know that.

But does not the cast time also means that shadow return will be QUEUED behind your current active skill?

So, just to be sure… If you see a big hit coming, but you are already performing a skill, let’s say, a pistol whip… Will you be able to shadowstep reactively? Or will you be stuck on your animation till the PW ends (eating the big hit, ofc) because Shadow return is queued?

Also, notice how in rata sum, near the Super Adventure Box, small holographic gears are starting to breach ‘the reality’.

My impression is that SAB is developing ‘self-conciousness’ and is taking direct measures to prevent any attempt to substitute it as a learning method or shut-down it.

The other Krewe research is a direct competitor of SAB in developing new learning methods for young asura. If this alternate project gets ahead, SAB project could be shelved in favour of the ‘direct brain upload’ method, which will mean the end of SAB.

SAB is only defending itself…

And all this without mentioning that the alternate project is being developed by Moto’s ex-Krewe, which mercilessly kicked Moto, and that the SAB matrix is built around Moto’s own perceptions… Which at a subconscious level, can easily identify Moto’s ex-Krewe as ‘the enemy’, and harbor resentment feelings towards them.

How are those daggers called? Where do they drop?

I believe that the unblockable part is more a ‘quickfix’ than a real asset of the skill. It was implemented to prevent proyectile ‘reflections’ from producing weird results.

For example, when you shadowshot someone that had proyectile reflection, it would turn the proyectile to you, and for all effects, it was like if they fired the proyectile themselves. Result: they teleported to you instead of you to them. That was -cleverly- used by some thieves to ‘reverse pull’ some Mobs and players (frecuently mesmers) to themselves.

In order to deal with that, Anet made the skill ‘unblockable’, thus, preventing the proyectile from returning… But from your post, I suspect that the skill is not truly ‘unblockable’ but sort of ‘unreflectable’.

However, I’d need further tests on the subject.

I do indeed miss the archery system from GW1.

It was awesome… Different families of bows each with their own properties… speed, arrow flight path, accuracy, penetration… with simple but effective physics, like extended range/damage downhill, reduced range/damage uphill…

It made you feel like a true bow master. And I felt a bit disappointed when I saw the system they choose to implement for GW2.

Awesome collection of bandaids and self-delusions, but at the end of the day, the OP’s statement reamins true. Thieves don’t have any 1200 range attack.

Look, I have lots of money in the bank, a lovely wife that loves me, a nice directive job, and lots of people more than willing to fulfill/getting absolutely all I wish… But I have no arms…. You may say “You don’t need arms, man”… But you know what? I’d like just to have them….

Geiir.7603:

It show 9 hits (with the daze) in the combat log, but the animation show four hits.

Ahh, so that’s why… Thanks, it was driving me mad. So double punishment from retaliation, amongst other things… No wonder why people is upset wit it.

Travlane.5948:

a good player only gets hit 2 times out of 8 swings on pistol whip. sometimes 3. i could go back and check but this im pretty sure on

Seriously people, pistol whip only swings 4 … FOUR… times. Since release.

I dont get why people keep insisting in that pistol whip hits 8 (even 9 I’ve seen once on this forum!!!) times.

Is it a mind trick? an optical illusion? a wishing hope? Warrior envy? … or what?

Edit: Well, if anything, that tells how much the skill is used by the thief community…

Geiir.7603:

They gave us a slight (and very noticeable) buff to pistol whip by reducing the time between the stun and the slices. If you played PW build before they buffed it then you most definitely will notice it.

Yep, and in the process they messed up the evade timing secuence in PvE, so you no longer evade the mob’s 1st strike after the stun… Since as you execute PW faster, the mob now attacks right after your evade time has expired (but you are still rooted whipping).

Obscure One.4357:

As far as I can tell this only effects skill spamming and doesn’t circumvent the initiative system, but rather encourages learning to play the class as intended.

People is playing the class as intended.

Thieves are intended to be able to use their skills repetitively (What you call spamming). And there is already an exhaustion system… It’s called INITIATIVE.

G·E·T·O·V·E·R·I·T

DanH.5879:

i think the +2 ini on stealth trait should be removed from the game!

Just put it on a 3 seconds internal cooldown. This way you don’t screw those who use it legit.

Marduh.4603:

Because counterplay. Thief with permastealths always beat all other thiefs with 7k+ backstab. He can always stand near your lord and point. Yes, you can stand up smokefield, but it is not the solution.

I only need 4 seconds of stealth to place an anti-stealth trap myself. Then, point your back towards the trap and wait a few seconds…

I specially love when they start with the hectic, convulsive heartseekers.

I would consider a ~48% vs ~52% of the community votes as a defacto tie.

Half Life vs Wrath of the Titans

Stealth in GW2 is magical in nature. It comes from the illusion and deception schools of magic and that’s why other classes are unable to do it, except for mesmers which -not suprisingly- also have access to that type of magic.

Your system is good, for a low-magic setting. But since it’s not based in magic, then every class should be able to benefit from it. Your stealth mode would be applicable to every class, or is that thieves are able to crouch and hide their noses better than a warrior?

You want a realistic, tactical, stealth in a surrealistic, magical game.

Edit: And after reading your proposed skill changes, most of them make no sense at all, only sharing between them an unjustified, visceral, plain hatred to stealth.

Rifle to snipe, Torch to raid the tombs, and Whip to perform our acrobatic stunts.