Guild Wars 2

Think another bug with deadeye… in deadly arts the second line middle trait applies poison stacks to enemies you immobilize, and immobs when you hit someone under 50%…but it has a 20 second cooldown. Currently, that cooldown is missing, so you can stack like 30 stacks of poison almost immediately.

That said, the current version makes an insane condi build which I previously didn’t think possible

I think this is effective because of a bug… it’s supposed to poison upon immob with a 20 second cooldown.

Tiamatria.4758:

OP has to be trolling. I can’t see how rapid 5k+ crits is worse than base Thief.

base thief, and daredevil will eat this spec… just like they eat rangers. Play this like a longbow ranger, keep your opponent at a distance.

Moises.2196:

deadeye works without trickery just fine. What gets me killed is that I have to get out of kneel by pressing the skill 5. I Naturally want to move out of harms way, but end up forgetting that I have to press 5 then I can move. If I could just kneel and break kneel with normal movement that would be great. If the breaking kneel with skill 5 could do something like return some initiative and break kneel or something I would be down with that.

If you’re having problems with that equip withdraw, roll for initiative, shadowstep, and the flare for panic button-like movement. You can also weapon swap, and dodge. I’ve found a lot of times I’ll forget I’ve kneeled for quite a while, just using utility skills to move when people come at me.

Overall I like it… the third line traits in particular need reworked.
Mirage is awesome!
Only in Guild Wars are bullets slower than arrows… it’s like playing in stop motion. It’d be great if they reduced the cool downs on the utility skills…up the damage on the flare and perhaps let it burn another second.
Reduce the delay, casting time, and tell of the skill that drops the house on people… it’s ok if it only knocks them down for 2 seconds instead of 3…but right now I think it’s the slowest firing skill in the game. 3/4 to cast plus an eternity to wait for it to do something, which is be dodged.
Mercy would be more useful if the second line middle trait did something more on stun, like inflict pulmonary impact…call it shot to the heart or something.
Reduce the casting time on the push… also the knockback and the launch currently have the same duration and effect so why call them different?

babazhook.6805:

Warrost.4895:

babazhook.6805:

Ramoth.9064:

Warrost.4895:

babazhook.6805:

Warrost.4895:

The initiative cost of rifle is too high.
If deadeye would offer a kind of faster initiative regen, this would shake up meta alot.

The costs are fine and in line with any other set if not cheaper for the effecs achieved.

since there are so many blocks and reflects and on top of that, gap closers literally everywhere, even costs of 0 wouldn’t help, since deadeye doesn’t have the possibility for unblocking attacks.

That’s the problem, the class is so all-or-nothing, it feels completely unrewarding. Either I completely tear you down with that utility cantrip that knocks down, spamming kneeled 2, or you have defenses up blocking/reflecting.

When you play thief D/P, its much more dynamic, you go in, do some damage, you get out, then you go back in. You can be very dynamic with the deadeye, i’ve vsed some players who are, teleporting about, but they are just not efficient, and they usually end up getting killed.

You have to unlearn DrD and relearn how to play without those extra dodges. If you get down to the basics when it comes to the ability to survive longer it pretty well all about the extra dodges and to a lesser extent Bandits defense.

It is a rethink as to how you fight. If they just made it like DrD with the same amount of dodges and evades , it hardly becomes a new spec.

That said keep in mind that DE is NOT rifle anymore then DrD is staff. You can use D/P specced to DE. You can still use Rifle at extreme range and when an enemy does close change to your preferred melee set.

Which doesn’t help the fact, that omnipresent blocks/reflects/deflects literally counter your whole weaponset and you have no possibility to play against this.

ALL classes have ranged users. if they were all countered to the degree you claim no one would play them.

I have been playing with rifle all weekend and suggesting “there no possibility” to play against this is ignorance. No one has permanent and a lot of professions have little to no access to reflects.

it’s bugged but right now ele has a permanent block if they take stoneskin…sure that will be fixed..

I’m more curious as to what the op’s poison build was, I tried one for a bit but found the rifle much more tuned to direct damage.

Mentioned it in my other post but since it’s game breaking… Weaver Stone Skin doesn’t just mean you can’t critically damage the ele… it means that if it was going to crit, it’s automatically 0… also it seems to have a cap on what it considers crit… like anything over 2k and it reduces all damage to 0…if it even shows numbers.

One more thing regarding feedback so far… pretty much every class has a passive trait that will block steal, which really blocks skill 4… ele, engi, guard, and warrior if they are running it are basically immune to a deadeye.

As for how this stacks against the other classes:

Guardian: Deadeye effectively eats core and trap based guardians pretty well as long as you remember to keep your distance and although you have to plant yourself to be effective, you’ve got to move as much as you can. If they can close and drop on you you’re in trouble. It does decent against firebrand just again…. distance and patience is key… it’s better than daredevil at handling guardian specs.

Revenant: This one I think needs more testing as renegade seems to be overall meh so I haven’t seen them in pvp much this weekend. When I have run into rev they seem to be running the basic revenant…which if he closes on you again can be a problem. When you die, you’ll die quick. Overall if anet is going to do fixes before release I’d guess renegade would get a boost.

Warrior: These guys take awhile, but you’ve actually got a decent chance against them. People seem to be liking spellbreaker, watch out for reflect and of course their permastun that if they manage to clip a single hair on you you’re done for.

Engineer- Unless an engineer is hard up in my business, deadeye is eating them. So much easier than with daredevil. This goes for holosmith as well… avoid their protective skills and follow general deadeye rules.

Ranger- Soulbeast-. This one flat-lined for me. balance-wise. I don’t really notice a huge difference between that and its druid thing. they tend to be a bit tougher because they also have good range, and arrows fly faster than bullets in gw2.

Thief- The other meta thief builds destroy deadeye quite handedly. They can close distance, have access to blinds and stealth and interrupts. If you can hit first or manage to get a reset you’ve got a chance, but odds are ever in their favor.

elementalist- weaver… I mentioned this before, if they are running stone skin, it is completely pointless to engage them at all right now. there is an alternate build running around that is doing ok, but can be contained if you’re keeping your distance

Mesmer- Mirage… this is the meta of this expansion. 20k power and condi burst out of stealth, with zero tells and no build up is easy on this build. Or go straight condi…. they can get you at a distance, they can get you up close. The ONLY way I’ve countered them is running dagger pistol, and that’s usually because of a lucky fluke. If you’re running against a mirage… this is the one to focus otherwise they’ll take you 3 or 4 v 1. It’s the main reason to carry signet of agility and shortbow. (anything to deal with or get away from the illusions). They are faster than you, you don’t have all the dodges you did with daredevil…this will eat you. This spec is seriously THE strongest spec they’ve put out so far.

Necro/scourge- this one is ok… it’s like the other necros in that as long as you can keep your distance you’re solid. If they close on you, remember you have the mobility of a dead person. Don’t be that dead person.

Based on my play so far, I’d recommend Amet takes another Mirage, the Weaver, Deadeye, and Renegade. Mirage because it’s game-breaking op for a basic player, Weaver mainly for bugs, Deadeye for trait utility and it’s gonna need some timing adjustments… and there are some bugs with terrain and targeting, and Renegade because that seems to be the spec left behind so far.

Here are some initial bugs and feedback from this weekend. I’ve been playing Deadeye and daredevil:

Deadeye: In all of the pvp maps obstruction is an issue. A gently sloping hill can be too much, or on the Capricorn, the flat terrain that makes up the point area can be an obstruction. It’s a disaster for the updated steal skill as it forces it to a long cooldown. It will usually say “obstructed” or “no line of sight” (most common on flat terrain). Hopefully this is a fixable bug. For the most part you’re ok if you imagine that your line of sight should be assumed to be measured from slightly below your feet.

While on the new steal… it may need tweaked as right now it can be blocked, obstructed, etc… and that’s IF it fires at all…sometimes it just does a quick spin cooldown without connecting.

All the skills are slow…they may take 1/2-3/4 of a second to cast…but then there’s another delay as the bullet has to travel with a noticeable tail. It’s a sniper shooting laser’s through a cloud of light fog like at a nightclub basically.

The patience aspect is nifty… though malice does take a lifetime to charge up… and by the time it’s fully charged it’s often gone. the 4 skill, which is the primary dps of this spec often fails to account for malice when it hits. when it does…it’s like a train…a train that took a very long time to get to the station but you’re happy it did. For those worried that it’kittenting too hard… keep in mind that it’s costing 10-20 seconds (likely in the middle) and 10-11 initiative a shot to fire (kneel then 4 skill). it’s the expensive glue holding the rifle together.

I’ve found going with the third column middle line trait is helpful because it gives this build 4 seconds of quickness…which it desperately needs.

The 3 skill is where I see most the fast damage coming from in the form of might stacks,

I’ve found the kneeling skill 2 helps on svanir

As for traits… it’s all top line. You can sub the first column middle, and the last column middle… third line has no utility. 2nd line sounds neat, but needs the daredevils pulmonary impact or something to flesh it out. The rest of the build seems to flow with anything except acrobatics (because you’ve essentially been turned into a dredge turret).

For utility skills… Withdraw is nice because it helps you keep your distance. Roll for initiative is handy because you’ll burn through it like a coke-fiend. Signet of Agility can be substituted here for condi removal. If you’re in pvp the cantrip that pushes people away is helpful as it’s the only cantrip other than the elite with a relatively fast cooldown and casting time. They have introduced a new shadowstep…which can be used in pvp but I found it more helpful in wvw where you have more space should you need to get away. The cantrip that allows you to drop a house on your enemies has an ENORMOUS tell and weeklong casting time. The mercy Cantrip would be better if it had more utility.

That said, don’t waste anytime on an ele using stone heart. I think it’s a bug, but stone heart makes them so they can’t be critically hit… which currently translates into they can’t be hit. 1 skill will hit them but do pretty much no damage— nothing else will though. You may not even get numbers. Just don’t do it. Walk away and hope that it is indeed a bug and will be addressed.

Oh…and shadowstepis invaluable…. like it is in pretty much every thief build ever.

If you haven’t gotten it already… distance is your friend with this build. Most people are either spamming 3 or waiting on skill 4 to charge. Some thieves are carrying either sword/pistol, or dagger/pistol around for when distance is closed or they come up against other thieves. It means they can beat other thieves and deadeyes (since everything a deadeye does requires a windup).

Oh… I keep talking about WvW and deadeye…but to make it simple…don’t. It’s a terrible idea.

To finish off skills… the elite cantrip is pretty amazing as it has a short cooldown and breaks revealed. It’s a lifesaver. Bow down and praise it’s existence.

I tried for a short period but don’t think this makes a great condi build. It’s better as a slow throat punch build…. seriously… imagine you’re a villain that has to explain your plan in detail before committing to killing the hero. That’s deadeye.

20k crit is a full glass build on deadeye… just keep in mind it takes them a lifetime to build it up…it’s like your perma stun that lasts forever… only rather than being able to pop it off at will they have to wait a minimum of 10 seconds (more likely 20) in order to get it fully charged to hit for 20.

I run dagger/pistol…. currently metabuild but with the free slot I run impairing daggers for the immob/slow/damage. I’ve been dueling in private arenas a bit, and what most have been doing is they’ll when I do my initial burst, they’ll immediately pop dodge and mass invis, then throw a billion clones at me that I didn’t see a second before. If I make it past that initial burst, I have a chance, but I’m struggling to keep target as they pop clones and stealth as often as available.

Since patch I’ve been having a particularly frustrating time with Mesmer’s in PvP. In WvW they’re about the same as before, but in PvP even the glass Mesmer’s seem to have steel skin. They are shrugging off my initial burst, and then one shotting me as I come out of dodge or stealth. Should I start off with like… a false burst, try to survive long enough to get back into stealth, and then hit them hard on the second go? Any specific counters you can think of would be helpful.

I understand anet has been trying to shake things up with the balance patches, and supposedly the metas should shift with that…unfortunately in practice they’ve had the opposite effect. They’ve just reinforced existing meta-builds. Most classes have a secondary build that’s ok in some situations, but for a vast majority of games the meta is the way to go. Question becomes how can you change up the meta builds to make other builds viable without deconstructing each class individually… then balancing it against the other classes again. It’s like being stuck in a pit. Many skills just are not useful in PvP and WvW, and many trait lines are just… wonky and fit together like a circle peg in a square hole. Personally I think it’d be great if we had more variety in the trait lines… rather than picking one in each of three columns, it’d be nice to be able to pick any of the 3 of the 9 available traits, or some variation of that idea.

Yes Deimos… I have thanks. I run thief, not necro so can’t corrupt it. As for stability, my interrupts don’t seem to affect that as I can pop 2-3 off and not get the interrupt.

Thanks though, I’ll try again and see if I can get past it.

Also finding that interrupting these guys when their in god-stomp mode isn’t doable. Can other classes knock them back?

Seeing this repeatedly now… how can one take out a warrior who is immune to both condi and dps damage for extended periods of time? It’s the only class I’ve seen that can be completely invulnerable while doing massive amounts of damage, and also the only class I’ve seen that’s completely invulnerable while stomping… from what I can tell, and I can be wrong, every other class that gets invulnerability for more than a second is limited in what they can do… thieves can’t attack while doing bandits defense, guards stand there pulsing, rangers don’t do anything… etc…

It’s a bit game breaking, particularly on the maps with the lord that needs stomped. I understand they need to make a class that new players can master easily, but is it possible to dial it back a bit?

The patch seems to have been a lot more heavy handed than intended. Please roll back that patch 50% across all classes.

Please put the church back in Khylo.

Also, please put the walls back up in the ship match. Actually it would be cool if there were more walls, like the narrow streets of a major city.

I like the elite specs… though it seems like they are struggling to balance things.

miguelsil.6324:

Ardid.7203:

Do mesmer and thief really use “rotation” in high play PvP?

Spvp is not the only game mode.

To answer the question, yes there is a rotation, at least on thief. It has to be fluid (always be ready to try to escape) but yeah, there is rotation.

Playing more during N.A. hours… quite a different experience. This patch is not so much power creep… as power run as fast as you can. On pretty much every class it’d be good to dial the changes back about 50%

They’ve already closed the feedback discussion. My question is are they going to tweak this skill balance patch a little more or is it done? After playing the new patch for a few days, it seems like a few classes are out of whack. It seems the Mesmer buff was particularly ham-fisted. Are they going to roll that back about 50%?

Thief got another nerf, which is normal and expected… however can they better explain where the additional sustainability is coming in? The past few days I’ve felt considerably less sustainable in combat. Also, in the next patch it would be awesome if they’d rework some of the utility skills.

Warrior and guardian on the other hand could use a little less sustainability. While it can be hilarious to watch a squad of 10-15 people try to drop 1 warrior who pops all his invulns, it gets old…really…really…quick. Combine that with high damage output it and it could use some tinkering.

Engineer seems to have gone sideways this patch. Which I think is good, it didn’t really get nuked, and really didn’t get buffed. Just tweaked slightly.

Necromancer appears to have gotten another buff, which has been quite apparent in WvW. Because sufficient condition cleanse is still out of reach of several classes, necros have become a must have class. It’s not guild wars, it’s condition wars. DPS doesn’t work equally well because of perma invuln.

As for revenant, I haven’t seen many on lately but the ones I have fought have been pretty 50/50… so I’m thinking they went sideways too, which is good.

Lastly, I think rangers must have lost some of their sustainability… possibly too much. If I could, I’d nerf their barrage a bit, and give them just a little bit more sustain. Currently I can burst them down as fast as another thief, and that’s just weird.

Gwaihir.1745:

Its easy to get out of if you don’t belong there.

False. If you’re there you’re going to make a maximum of 13-15 points per win or loss… Then it’s a dice roll to see if you get a team that knows a qwerty keyboard.

or if the points are far enough away they are out of range for the port from point to point…

Tiefsee.3647:

I like that idea, mesmer (me) runs in there, opens portal, 4 trappervstand next to me, port out, go far/close and they just kill the enemy off one by one

But if you burned the portal to open the door…

Dawdler.8521:

So what happens when you dont have the “required” classes? Your team automaticly loose the match at the beginning of the round?

No… each door would have multiple fast ways in that are class specific…but they’d also be accessible even if you were a team of 5 thieves on say a rev/guardian door….it would just take more work to get in. On a three point map like ANET is fond of, each door would be fastpassed by 2-3 classes… Say you’ve got a gate in front of you, it’s got windows up above for thief, it has a mesmer pads beneath that, and it’s got a pet door for a ranger— but oh no! You’re group is comprised of 4 guardians and a warrior. To get through the gate you’d have to beat it down. It would be like the gates on the map with the lords, but stronger gates so that one dude isn’t going to knock it down faster than people rez. It’d take some playtesting, but I’d say for 3 people beating on it would go down in 15 sec (long rez), 4 people 10 seconds roughly, and if you had the whole team you’d be in in 5 sec…. roughly.

That said, there would be another barrier on the map that wasn’t keyed for those 3 classes… perhaps it was keyed for warrior, guardian, or revenant… while they get in quickly, the thief, mesmer, and druid would have a harder time getting into that point.

Strategically, knowing that each class is better at opening certain doors would encourage, but not force players to diversify their team. You wouldn’t have to have a diverse team, it’d just be advantageous if you did. Then you can further strategize by playing weaknesses against strengths. For example, say you know that one point is easily accessed by thieves, but not by dragonhunters…. well, just so happens you’ve got a dh that LOVES eating thieves, and one thief on your team. Thief unlocks the door for the dh… dh sets up his tent on the point. Then he runs and joins his mesmer friend on the point that’s keyed for mesmers, dragonhunters, and necromancers, but not for thieves. Or whatever…options.

You could even do a point where each class would have to enter it’s own unique way… that way they’d have to split on the way inside rather than just zerg their way to center. Something like a huge circle with a bunch of different ways in… maybe make it a neutral entrance that locks after 1 person has passed into it for a certain amount of time… so for a 10 person game, a decagon where you’d have to go through whichever gates are open at the time to fight over the point. You could exit freely. Just ideas.

Was just randomly testing my shortbow, seeing if I could find any new nooks or crannies when I thought what if there was an actual map where class stacking was discouraged by the terrain.

For instance… what if to access a point each team had to first approach a door. In order to gain entry you have a few options for each point.

Basically each door would have 1-2 ways different classes that could fastpass open the gate/door/barrier to where the fight begins. Some examples… you could either break a door down, which would be strong enough to take a significant amount of time for a team of 5 of any comp to bust down. Or you could have the same player stand on two different buttons within a short period of time (Examples Mesmer portal) and get in nearly instantaneously. Or you could have a window or two off to the side that a thief could shortbow 5 through. There could be doors with symbols on them that would unlock with one hit from a guardian, or maybe it’s marked for warrior… or maybe a ranger uses a pet door to have her pet unlock the gate.

Or you could make it easy and just put a symbol on each barrier… and the class represented by that can open it quickly, while if you don’t have that class represented it would be more difficult.

It could be made so that as long as one character on that team is in the area inside, it’s unlocked for all teammates. If there are no teammates inside, it relocks after a couple seconds.

Recovered some of the losses today. Finding that the matches that go far left field are the ones like where a guardian keeps walking to attack the lord… time and time again as I see him coming every time and drop him as he reaches the bottom steps. Thankfully he wasn’t on my team but I feel bad for those that lost points because he was literally just feeding me kills. That said, I don’t know if there’s any way to score a match individually short of 1v1.

That gave me an idea for a new PvP arena. Like the coliseum but with more doors. Could do 4… or 8… or 12 people on a team (however many really) and have a couple options. Either last man standing, or kill your killer. Kill your killer would take longer if it’s even possible in this game but could be an interesting experiment.

Expanding on the coliseum idea, it’d be cool if there were nodes like the sword and shield… where you every so often you could alter the TERRAIN to your advantage. For example:
you activated the button you get some points +

1) walls shift (potentially killing an enemy if they don’t move out of the way in time), or making it harder to get to your home point.

or

2) pulling the floor on the arena, making it an underwater arena where you’re looking to control various bubbles of space. (maybe mid could be on a boat)

or

3) Some large champion type creature is released, which awards big awards when stomped

or

4) One of the champions from the tower defense style thing could assist your team with holding a point.

Just ideas, some could work with today’s PvP, some would be cool for a free for all.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

• People who fight off point or get kited by mesmers off point while it is not taken or occupied by opposing color
• People who say literally nothing until we are losing, then explode in rage because nobody knows what they’re doing.
• Thieves that refuse to switch if we have more than two thieves. (I can’t be really frustrated at this because some people may just have one character. That’s a failing of the game more than the player I think.)
• People who see 3+ stacked on mid and push it by themselves
• Any non-heavy that does the above (X2)
• People that wont regroup when team wipes and just run off to w/e point is being contested.
• People who go home out of the gate when its already being capped and stand there.
• Any non mes or thief that pushes far without help.
• People that push far and stand there in expectation, even if they manage to fully cap the point when opposing team just completely wiped. Rally at mid please, you’re going to get eaten alive.
• Thieves that don’t at least decap/harass far when it’s free (This is your job >:{ )
• Afkers.
• People who say nothing in game at all
• People who wont listen to the 1 minute call for “Proceed to [kittening] TRANQ”
• People who leave home abandoned when a thief/mes is clearly harassing home.
• People who have a downed ally in a team fight and a downed opponent in a team fight that wont stomp the opponent if the ally is not in danger of dying immediately.
• Unfocused necros
• The -other- kind of unfocused necros.
• Blaming the thief for the loss when the thief performed well/demoralizing the thief in game when far is being harassed properly, because your sorry butt can’t stay off the ground and you think that by blaming the thief nobody will notice.
• Thieves that port out of a heal when they arent in danger of being stomped (or that wont stealth themselves when they are in danger of being stomped when that option is available so I/someone can rez)
  *Thieves that do this but up a ledge . (X2)
• Failing to update on status of Lord.

If you do not fall into any of these categories Idec if we lose. Usually if team loses it’s because of one or more of these is being done incessantly (obvious pet peeves like “waaah, thief ported” aside) .

AMEN

Skyhammer isn’t a terrible map… it could be improved by making the B capture point larger and stretching the map out a bit as well.

I haven’t recorded matches yet, but did run with some friends that are higher tier for a bit. They’re saying it’s just really, really bad luck. Went to 1v1 arena and practiced while some observed as well. Again, being told that I’m running my build well, just running into really bad teams.

Saiyan.1704:

Vicariuz.1605:

pelle ossa.9705:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Also all those games are on thief, maybe you could switch up your play a bit and then come back to thief.

also maybe in the next 4 year you can even try to not put always double guardian , double teef , double war etc etc in the same team
#I WANT TO BELIEVE

Valid, before throwing away OPs thread because u stated some numbers, why not address the major issues with ur game.

What about the major issues with OP’s Thief? I’ve seen plenty of thieves taken down DH at half health and backcap points with ez. Even against a multi Guard comp. OP, can you do that?

With that many games lost @ his record that Evan gave, it’s clear something is not working out with the op.

Thank you Evan Lesh for the statistics. Hope to see more of these in the future!

I can drop DH at half health… often from full health too if I can burst him unaware. One of the wins tonight was against a 4 DH 1 thief comp. Yes, balance could be improved…a lot as I’m sure Evan can see in the stats about who’s playing what and can likely see a HEAVY lean towards DH this season. It is frustrating though that each time you get paired with a team that blows your mind on how things went south so avoidably, your next team is most likely to make your last team seem amazing.

Also… one bug on the map with the clock tower… ranger managed to blow me back INTO the wall. Not dead. Cask of Amontillado style locked in prison with no escape. On the side nearest the pipes.

As an update… now winning 44.8% of my games. Tried dh for a bit. I am terrible at it. Went back to thief, won one, then had another player dc. Played with a friend for a bit, which saved me from dropping to bronze tonight.

And I end out tonight a couple matches above bronze. Ouch. Evan… I don’t know if you ever play… but if you’re not worried about me wrecking your mmr I’d love to schedule an hour of play with you.

As of now I’m at 1137. I guess I have lost count of losses… since every loss costs more than a win. I’ve lost 52% of my games now as opposed to winning 58%. I tried dragonhunter for a couple matches but if I think I’m a crap thief… i’m a worse dh.

I never win more than 14… always lose a minimum of 17. Always… Know this having lost 40 in a row.

I can’t break this spiral. lost 40 games in a row, won 1, lost 20. yesterday. Dropped a division and a half.. today I’m down another 1/4 division. Every kitten game. Doesn’t matter what gets switched up. We can be owning till 2 seconds before the end when one of our teammates will decap a point…and then stand next to it. While we only need 1 point. I suck at life, and can’t get my most basic burst to land, hell even on the practice dummies it’ll do the animation, but not cause damage. I just took dishonor because it’s not fair to my teammates for them to lose their MMR because my rating is such crap now. I went from winning about 60% of matches, to losing all of them. In a snap. Had some legendary players that I know from seasons past are good look at my playstyle, and they said I’m doing things right just have really really crap luck. If I wait a day or two will that reset my matchmaker so I can actually have a chance again?

This as written would be completely random… which wouldn’t do itself well in any of the modes. Also, Anet tends not to like granting thief much in condi on their weapons. If they are ever going to give us condi, expect one, maybe two of the skill slots to have a condi component. Most likely in blinds, stuns, or poison.

To create a system based on individual skill you’d have to evaluate individual classes. For example… look at Sindrener. One of, if not the best thief on the UK server. How often do you see him pegging a down, or holding a point. You don’t. He helps with the down and keeps moving like a thief should. Likewise, certain classes deal large amounts of aoe damage, making it easier to get top damage in a match… others not so much. So how do you measure skill on that?

The physical skill that no one…ever… uses because it’s useless in literally every game mode. You know, that one that you activate to get 3 daggers, which if it interrupts someone in the short time you have to throw all 3 of them, with the cooldown in between…before the other cooldown? I was thinking perhaps Anet could replace it with a skill that would be akin to finding kitten in the armor. Something that would negate these infinite invulnerability skills. Give it like a 15-30 second cooldown…but let it be something that will punch through the invuln, stripping it off. Just an idea.

I’m on the opposite of the bell curve… went from a 60% win rate (which didn’t affect my rating pretty much at all) to losing a division and a half in a couple hours. But I got my 20 gold chest so that’s something.

The same thing can be said of any build. Moreso on thief because to change between most of the decent builds is a trait or two change. Thief is all offense. We always have been. We used to be the number one offense class back I. The long long ago. To balance it we’ve never had defense worth diddly. Not every one wants to play a low skill floor class. Don’t hate because of it.

Druids, dragon hunter, warrior… Thief if he’s got the right build. Oftentimes they can’t carry enough condition cleanse

The necromancer comment is comedy gold.

I’m stuck in silver hell. I play d/p. You play one of four classes or they freak and tell you to kill yourself. If shadowstep and impact strike are on cooldown… I’m not stopping when there are still enemies up… Because mobility is all we have left as a class… So I’m told to uninstall. If we lose… It’s always the thief’s fault even even though he’s the only one who didn’t spend the entire match running into 1v4/5 at mid and expecting a different result each time.

Plus 1 on all the class stacking comments. When you enter a match and it’s 3 warriors and 2 guardians or vice versa vs a lineup with a higher skill floor you know it’s gonna be a bad match. I’d much rather wait 30 minutes for a match than play a combination of the same 4 classes every…Single..Match.

Stuck in third tier silver after a brief stint in Gold.

Balance changes I’d suggest:
1) casting times for traps
– either make dh traps the same casting time and interrupted by taking other actions similar to thief traps… Or make thief traps instadrop as well. Preference to the former rather than latter.

2) cut the 5-7+ second invulns clean in half. Also, like bandits defense… Being invulnerable should be the full action. None of this I can’t be touched but can still use my full skill bar mess.

3) traps do less damage the more stale they are. Or give them a range before they autoexpire. you’re further than 1200… Trap breaks.

4) reevaluate conditions on ALL CLASSES. both their ability to deal them, as well as cleansing abilities. Reevaluate cooldown times.

5) not so much a balance suggestion as a general improvement. Make shadowstep a bit more like portal. Same distance and unphased by terrain changes. I.e. I walked up a staircase or around a pillar so when I run shadowreturn I get slammed into the pillar or just stand there in my own smoke.

6) reevaluate pulmonary impact and the torment variant… Torment variant does same damage standing still as moving. Pulmonary impact currently has a delay and seems to have a moving cooldown that’s unstated.

7) adjust ranger bristleback damage down 10 percent.

8) distracting dagger… Eliminate the cooldown between tosses. And/or Give a random skill increased cooldown…. Currently this skill is useless in all game modes.

Oh sweetie. Would you like some caramel with your salt? Seriously. It’s a just a game. He’s playing a class that doesn’t have a low “skill floor” as Evan calls it and is just trying to get by in a setting in which most people will tell him to play anything except thief… No matter the build.

Anets bellcurve system means that if you’re on the left you’re always gonna lose more when you lose and gain less when you win. Win or lose your first 10 matches are all that really mattered for your button this season… And all seasons really. Just have fun, unlock all the dye you can and get some gold.