Guild Wars 2

That is why I suggested splitting how bps would deal damage, don’t just give it a flat damage increase across the board, but as it stands (for non d/p builds) its mostly used for the on-demand stealth and in rare cases the enemy is stupid, for the blind field.

S/d has a gap closer but sometimes you want to get a shot off, for power builds, without putting yourself out by them which this “finisher” effect could fill. For p/p, it has no skill that packs a single punch, and unload spam is bad enough on it. As for d/p they already have 2 gap closers so a ranged punch does buff it a little but the removal of a smoke field at your feet to disenguage pushes that off so atleast the thief is staying in the fight to use BPS in that way.

I’d like to see BPS used as a combat tool not as a disenguage/reset tool. I thought of what it would feel like by just removing the smoke field at your feet and to be “on-hit” only but it felt like a rather large nerf to a build a large population tends to like. I’m no developer but I don’t like to see builds get destroyed, just get rid of their lazy mechanics and if its a noticeable nerf, give them something in return.

Perhaps they can have BPS deal moderate damage (in the range of Heartseeker stage 2) and have it auto crit if your target is below 20% health. Damage buff doesn’t have to be massive, but some compensation for removing their on-demand stealth seems only fair imo.

I’m only suggesting this because its a really old skill that I think needs an update in role. Its just boring to watch fights reset with this skill’s potential.

Changes
-Reduce initiative use to 5
-Increase damage significantly, with bonus damage against low health targets (25% to make the health mark more tedious but rewarding with a good boost in damage).
-Change projectile to create smoke field on SUCCESSFUL HIT at target’s location.
-Increase field radius slightly.

Reasons:
-Harder use so reduced cost to not be so punishing if you miss.
-Now has role for p/p and s/p giving them a “finisher” skill rather than utilizing AA.
-Limits ability to use this skill to maintain stealth during combat without momentary exposure.
-With field no longer being at your feet, increased radius so you can get inside of it quicker during combat.

-(Main reason) to prevent #5-#2 spam as a means to maintain high stealth and reset a fight. If you blast several cooldowns to do so, that’s fine it comes at a cost. #5-#2 spam is to cheap to maintain and leads to dull gameplay.

Thoughts?

Who here even wanted another glass build? I’ve been wanting to use sword/sword since launch and be up front and survive by being a boss. Hiding in the back or in shadows is what bores me on thief, I mean I don’t mind the quick stealth and reposition but watching d/p thief reset fights is boring and now they want us to shoot from the backline?

Might try Deadeye out at launch but for gimmicks like p/p power thief. The glass cannon mold is old, we have too many variations of it.

The minute I found out they were going the rifle route I already had no interest in what the result of it would be.

If you don’t like DE, don’t play DE. Pretty simple solution I think.

Also its a preview, not a finished product. Not to say the finished will be completely different, (it may, I don’t kitten know I don’t work over there) but a few weak spots should be expected, not just in design but the fact that no one has mastered these spec’s yet and will expect some clunky gameplay.

Would love to see this implemented given they have a raid reward system already in place that fits the end-game perfectly (in my opinion atleast).

With this, raid size groups will be able to venture into instanced version of various zones known with some differences. The scenario will be more difficult than anything but having the majority of the map layout already there, adding a war machine here or a pre-war torn building there. Many buildings in game are already destroyed, these zones will give us a glimpse of what went down.

Each zone will have its own storyline, which many lore fanatics will probably know of from interacting with npc’s and events, with a major event at the end followed by several events prior either being required or being optional but beneficial to complete. Similar to the old bonus events in Gw1 except instead of loot these pre-events can grant anything from a special weapon, buff, or npc support for the final boss.

-Hardcore mode grants no generic loot except for the boss chest at the end. This promotes completion rather than farming the multitude of trash mobs and mini-bosses found throughout. Mini-boss can drop unique crafting items however meant for unique skins or quality of life items themed for that zone, but at a much lower drop rate than the final event chest.

-Pre-events that are required won’t grant any bonus towards the final event as far as buffs or support, only the optional events around grant that so players wanting the bonuses will have to venture a little. These events are also scattered and sometimes won’t be there or will move to another area. This makes the dungeon ever-changing and raid’s can’t run off a script sending them to the same locations everytime for the “best” buff" or “most tokens”.

-End event can either be a boss such as Shadow Behemoth and how it came to be for Queensdale, or a large warzone with Branded enemies in Fields of ruin during the rise of Kralkatoric and its lieutenant The Shatterer in how it came to be.

The Goal of this hardcore mode is to give a little more interactive story telling for each zone and how it was shaped into what it is now with some exquisite rewards such as an account bound Traveling Merchant or bank access, and various end-game skins. Some zones of course don’t need that kind of explaining so doing all 3 zones of Orr would be pointless, but maybe 1 zone right before the rise of orr.

Spoiler This is a suggested event for community participation from all servers as a pve/pvp event.*

Basic Details===

-Using the Megaserver, the pvp portion of this event is granted to a select few. Limited numbers of players can put themselves on the ballot for selection to act as an “elite” during the event. At a designated interval/threshold they are summoned onto the field on the enemy side as one of their elite soldiers being able to attack players freely with their entire build with the benefit of the enemy buffs that are placed. When serving the enemy your main objective is defeating the player side from the event but your numbers are capped to be always drastically lower (20 players = 1 enemy player, or some balanced ratio since your enemy allies are naturally stronger). As an enemy you gain significant magic find and unique rewards throughout the battle but you are restricted to spawn only during the events designated times.

-Pve players must defend the island using siege weapons placed around the map including a map wide event to "finish building the “Lion Warship”". Collecting building materials and/or destroying enemy siege to salvage parts you can build a warship with a stronger set of siege weapons to defend the waters as well. Overall the players will need to spread and cover multiple areas from a huge waves of enemies. In fairness of various participating numbers, siege and npc ally strength are increased with lower player counts as well as npc “Captains” who act similar to wvw keep lords in terms of defence.

-Event changes randomly selecting which type of invading army will make their attack. Selecting between the the undead army, the deep sea minions, pirates, and other various groups. With them, their siege style changes such as pirates having much more ships and undead having control over fallen soldiers on the battlefield with resurrection.

-Event happens as a “guild leader initiation” meaning a guild with the designated authority can sign up a date to do the event and if a player from another guild attempts to sign up with them that first guild can authorize their help allowing members of that guild to assist them. After the event, win or lose, is a week cooldown of any of those members from rejoining the event.

Note; enemy players are allowed to opt after a threshold of players sign up and must be apart of a guild that has NOT been authorized to join the player side. This guild is not announced to the allies prior in any way but on the battlefield their guild tag/emblem can be seen.

Goals===
-Sparks Guild Vs Guild competition on a small scale, and gives large quantities of guild related items as well as rare materials.

-Merges pve enjoyment and group challenge with a flavor of pvp to give allies a real threat to be on alert with.

-Rewards can be expanded on such as unique skins, titles, and large quantities of rare materials as an incentive to participate.

-Gives some purpose to the island outside of a short storyline mission.

====Signets
-Assassin’s Signet: (Passive) Entering stealth grants 2 might for 10 seconds; (Active) Increase your critical strike chance to 100% for the next 5 seconds. Increased cooldown to 50 seconds. Reason for change is the active and passive were redundant with one giving just a stronger version for 5 attacks (which can miss and be lost). The purpose of this is for stealth builds of course but the active can be used for any build.

-Signet of Shadows: (Passive) Same, increased movement speed. (Active) Blind nearby foes(240 unit radius) and apply shadow armor breaking stun, and granting 2 stacks of stability for 6 seconds. Cooldown increased to 35 seconds. Reason for change is the current active is just far too weak, providing almost no situation where you would want to take the passive off, even though the passive is pretty weak too but it helps on some builds to push you over the top in mobility. The active now relates to the passive where you move faster passively, and if caught you can break free and continue moving for a brief moment.

-Signet of Agility: (Passive) same, increased precision; (Active) update to remove 1 condition baseline and additional 1 condition for each bar of endurance recovered. This will work on obtaining 1 dodge roll so if at 35% endurance you would recover 2 dodge rolls (you were at 0) meaning a total of 3 conditions removed (1 base +2 from dodge rolls recovered). Reason for change is better reward for timed use currently it doesn’t feel like a very rewarding skill as it does not break stun or move you.

-Infiltrator’s Signet: Same, initiative regen per 10 seconds. Active however now grants superspeed for 4 seconds when used. Small buff to the stun break , nothing that grants too much in one short cooldown.

====Tricks
-Caltrops: Bleed duration increased 7 seconds. New Effect foes knocked down pulled or launched in this field are applied with 6 stacks at once upon knockdown. Little bonus if you can combine heavy cc in this field.
-Roll for initiative: Only change is turn skill into directional rather than a retreat. It should be a roll, the name says so. Doesn’t say retreat for initiative. This skill would be much better with this quality of life change.
-Haste: Reduce cooldown to 40 seconds. Otherwise strong as is, just 6 seconds isn’t really 6 seconds, theif shouldn’t stay in one spot for that long, because they usually die if they do.
-Scorpion Wire: Increase missle speed by 33%, now unblockable (including cannot be reflected) and increase range 1,500 units. Missile now takes a mediuim sized arc which increases the further away your foe is. New Effect if pulling a foe, that foe will knock down their allies during the duration of the pull, 120 unit radius. Knockdown duration 1 second. No cap to knockdown amount. Cooldown increased to 30 seconds. Reason for change is to give it a serious focused cc and so knocking foes down on the way back could give you that extra moment to have a 1 on 1 with them. The no cap part is because the skill doesn’t pierce so trying to use this as an AoE cc would be extremely unreliable since the wire pulls to where it was used not necessarily to the thief. With arc it is potentially there just unlikely.

=Physical
-Bandit’s Defense: Fine as is, really strong defensive choice.
-Fist Flurry: Increase attack speed by 15%, increase vulnerability stacks to 2 per hit. Little stronger effect incase you don’t get all hits in.
-Distracting Daggers: Change active to throw 1 dagger on use rather than “equip” also daggers should remove a boon on hit, little QoL change to be quicker use.
-Impairing Daggers: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds, increased slow duration to 6 seconds. Replaced immobilize to vulnerability 2 stacks for 8 seconds. Each dagger now has its own application, dealing 2 seconds of slow for 6 seconds and 3 stacks of poison for 8 seconds each Makes your target a lot more open to mayhem being filled with conditions and almost immobile.
-Brawler’s Tenacity: changed to now reduce the cooldown of physical skills by 1 second when you dodge roll, 1 second ICD rather than 20% reduction. Physical skills still grant endurance on use. Flat % reductions are too simple, make it engaging.

===Venoms
-Skelk Venom: reduce healing amount and adjust scaling based on 1h or 2h weapon combos. New Formulas; 1h weapons = 320(0.18* per hit, 2h weapons = 650(.35*) per hit, no longer charge based but effect lasts 6 seconds after cast. Reduce cast time to .50 seconds. Reason for change is to give a moment of active defense, and split based on weapon size to prevent overhealing on 1h weapons fast attack speed.

-Ice drake Venom: Removed, now Karka venom. Next 3 attacks transfer a condition from you to your foe, same cooldown. Reason for change is devourer venom does the cc better than ice drake, chill isn’t a thief themed condition or one that is very accessible making any sort of incorporation of this venom next to useless. At least with condition transfer it plays into the dirty thief theme and provides a defensive utility worth looking into against certain encounters.

-Skale Venom: Increase number of attacks to 6, lower allies effected to max 3. Very short lasting utility that doesn’t do enough even in a burst, make it better suited for low group count so it can still pump numbers just not requiring allies.

-Spider Venom: Increase number of attacks to 8, increase poison duration to 8 seconds.

-Leeching venoms: fix to work on venom charge rather than once per strike.

===Deception
-Hide in shadows: Change regeneration effect to instead grant resistance for 2 seconds baseline and +2 seconds for each condition removed (total 10 seconds). The skills is meant to handle damaging conditions despite its long cooldown so thief has more time to focus offensively.

-Smoke Screen: Added effect to remove revealed effects when passing through or while in stealth increase the duration of stealth by 2 seconds. This can only occur once per target every 30 seconds. This skill is now a cast skill, 600 range. Increased wall width ~33%. Reason for change is to add a little more group utility to this skill as it doesn’t serve any other purpose. Can be used for group stealth or projectile blocking now.

-Shadow Refuge: Added effect, on cast remove revealed and increase healing effect to 650(0.25*) per pulse. This healing amount is doubled to allies effected with reveal. Reason for change is with such a massive cooldown and providing a very negative reaction for standing in a small circle (perfect for AoE skills) it can at least better provide the defense that its there for. Unfortunately removing the revealed effect upon early exit is kind of an intended counter since this skill can provide a fairly long stealth uptime but at least the AoE effect can help a bit more.

-Thieves Guild: Increase ally damage slightly, reduce cooldown to 150 seconds. Both thief allies now will cast signet of shadows at 50% health (new effect). Added condi based thief and shortbow thief (see effects below). Ally will no longer use main utility skill right after spawning. Will now use their unique utility at either 75% health or after 10 seconds whichever comes first. Reason for change is to get their 30 seconds in the fight and do something during that time. With new shadow signet effect they should be much sturdier and with threshold based actives they should be able to serve as a major utility bar. Simply raising their stats or reducing % of incoming damage would be a typical fix, but lets not be so simple minded here..
*Condi thief (D/D)- Normal auto attack like power thief, uses death blossom combined with lotus training after every 4th successful attack chain after being hit as a utility. *
*Shortbow thief – Uses choking bomb followed by cluster bomb every 5 seconds as an attack. Uses Infiltrator’s Arrow if near an enemy for more than 5 seconds (180 unit radius, resets after arrow).
*Power thief (D/D existing)- Scorpion wire drastically reduced cooldown, if thief ally spends more than 8 seconds without hitting a target, it will use this skill.
*Pistol thief- Smoke bomb shot off by this thief now lasts 6 seconds and grants the thief ally (only) 100% combo finisher chance while in the field.

Just a few thoughts on the utility skills after this past update, some to things left alone and others in response to the changes. This comes from on-off playing this game, but main thief from launch, just haven’t the time to play games as much these days.

This includes traits specific to these skill categories.

=Traps (Now Marks, a throw-back to GW1 assassin themed skills)
Full rework, thief is not the type of profession to need an entire set of skills based on the enemy walking over a skill they planted awhile back (or being a hooligan and trap bombing).
-Shadow Trap: Now “Shadow Mark” Place a void Wall on the ground that marks the first foe that passes through it. -> Break the void early and shadowstep back breaking stun (no cast time); (if a foe triggers)-> Shadowstep to foe breaking stun, granting 5 seconds of stealth, 10 might for 10 seconds and fury for 10 seconds. Void duration 120 seconds. Cooldown 45 seconds. Void width same as shadow trap was. Shadowstep distance 10,000 units) Shadow pursuit still remains for only 10 seconds before reverting. New effect, void is visually invisible however when a foe triggers it and becomes marked, they no longer produce a shadow, effect expires once shadow pursuit either wears off or is used Essentially same skill but it gives a visual queue to the enemy that requires an attentive eye. I feel like with such a nice reward, it should have a small counter to it.
-Needle Trap: Now “Mark of Debility” Channel a mark on your foe reducing their outgoing condition duration by 33% and increasing their incoming condition duration by 33%. range 900 units, Cast time 1.5 seconds. Cooldown 35 seconds. Mark duration 8 seconds. Poison application 3 stacks for 10 seconds, 2 stacks of confusion for 10 seconds. Immobilize duration 2 seconds. Condition application applied before mark effect, therefore are unaffected by 33% increase from skill itself. Keeps the focus of the original skill but in a risky channel form. Given greater risk to using this skill, now greater reward.
-Trip wire: Now “Mark of Empowerment” Leap towards a location to apply an AoE mark which disable boons on foes. In addition, stealing boons from marked foes now grants might to allies around the foe. Mark duration 6 seconds. Damage 620(1.2) Cast range 600 units, cast time 1 second. ICD 1 second on might application per foe. Radius 120 units (mark effect only applied on initial hit, does not leave mark on terrain). Might duration 2 stacks for 10 seconds. Might application radius 240 units. Max number of targets (for might application and mark application) 5. Cooldown 45 seconds. Marked foe can still receive boons but boons will not effect them while marked. HUGE utility for boon theft builds which could imho help s/d tremendously in pvp and wvw, pve on certain encounters.

-Ambush: Now “Mark for Death” Channel the shadow realm to call upon a thief ally to attack your foe and apply vulnerability to foe. Cooldown 50 seconds. Cast time 1 second. Thief ally duration 30 seconds. Vulnerability applied 5 stacks for 10 seconds.Thief ally attacks and type updated, see below Cast range 900 units (if cast out of range, thief ally will spawn on you instead of near target. Spawn on target location similar to Mesmer’s Illusionary Leap.) New Effect If cast while in stealth, thief ally will also spawn with stealth and will attempt to use stealth auto attack skill. Now you can’t have multiple of these going off, but their presence will be much stronger and provide a serious distraction towards foes if they don’t handle them quickly. With added buffs a nerf to cooldown was necessary.

-Trapper’s Respite: Now “Deep Marks” Applying a mark now dazes your foe. Daze duration 1 second. (careful using this trait on Shadow Mark), huge AoE effect for Mark of Empowerment.

-Deadly Trapper: Now “Empowering Marks” Applying a mark now applies vulnerability to the foe and might to you. Vulnerability 5 stacks for 10 seconds. Might 5 stacks for 10 seconds. (Careful using this trait on Shadow Mark)
-Improvisation: Same as before.

I disagree whole heartedly, this skill is not useless it just needs a slight buff.

Think of what thief does best currently in every game mode… +1. Whether its +1 dps for pve (pretty good at it for pve if played right), or +1 wvw roaming or +1 pvp to a point being capped or even in combat if well placed (at doorway to point, enemy has ally try to enter the fight and you refocus on them now without any suspicion. )

I think it just needs to not have a cast time if you choose to break it early. I understand its a pretty strong teleport but that’s what thief does best in defence, avoid damage. They don’t heal up quickly even with healing power, next to no stability or protection access, they move and dodge. The only buff I’d consider necessary is to the early break. Rest is pretty strong as is.

I use marauder accessories chest legs and head, rest is full zerk. This has been my personal best balance for 2 reasons

1. enough hp to survive most “1shot” mechanics low surviving builds suffer from in pve.

2. Best balance of defense and offense to keep me fighting. remember, dead zerker <living player.

Pvp it varies, dps difference is definitely noticeable so just pick what works for you, some people play a little more aggressive and marauder is better to keep them alive during that. Zerker can pop in and spike and disappear if played well.

WvW idk I don’t play that lame mode for a long time now.

I was thinking of that new skill to deal a percentage of your downed health to the enemy that puts you down… reminds me of Ninja 2h ability in ffxi and would lead to some really funny videos XD……

In all seriousness some nice changes but some new ideas are a huge change of the kit thief is used to having. Might be something worth considering how thief is really only good in 1 role and all we seem to get are different ways of doing that same 1 role…. I want a new role

People still think thief OP? Where?

@ OP

60-80 is exotic, 80 is ascended. “end game” gear does have better stats, but its not so much as to make fresh 80’s obsolete.

Biggest end game content is skins and a lot of them are locked behind very long collections which span across the entire game. Problem are the grinding parts where some places are far better than others to get gold which you just end up buying the grinded mats. Not a horrible thing, as some people can’t dedicate a lot of time to this game due to more important things (like life).

All end game needs is to continue expanding on things like legendary items (armor already announced, think trinkets were as well) and open up more doors on how to collect these things. Having a specific area or world event best suited for the item, making these things more enjoyable and challenging. There are quite a few out there but its still a pretty small list compared to how big the game is. Plenty of room to add and change.

I think the biggest problem with conditions is the need to spam them. Not as in “unskillfully”, but as in keep reapplying them so that things like condition removal become obsolete especially on classes with very limited access to these.

Trying to balance a zerg scenario is not a solution to every game mode, and the stacking conditions are a big problem when trying to balance them with some being able to put out a wide variety very quickly and others taking far to long to put any dent in.

I know they don’t want to split mechanics too much between pve/pvp/wvw but there is no way to balance conditions across all 3 using the same methods.

1. Shortbow aa is fine, the damage could use a slight buff but its heat seeking (unless that has been changed, I play once in a blue moon these days), and bounces. Not like DH aa that fractures to a target behind it, it bounces in any direction and seeks. If anything slight dps boost.

2. Increase speed of bomb to that of engineer nades, remove bleed on non-detonate however it now leaves a field of caltrops identical to that of the trait “Uncatchable” (smaller duration and radius to that of caltrops). As for “on-detonate” just increase the bleed duration to 4 seconds and number of bombs to 4. Goal is to give it more uses than blasting your feet or detonating it at your feet, send it at a doorway to cripple incoming foes momentarily or detonate it from a distance and it would now have better AoE damage than before.

3. Its unfortunately an evade skill on a thief weapon set so it has that natural “spam” capability. If anything greatly increase the evade distance so it gets you out of a red ring, something like from ~240-~400 (still less than heartseeker)

4. Fields are nice, especially when combined with something like lotus training but for applying damage solely to cause reveal they should bump the poison duration on impact atleast. Increase poison stacks to 2 and duration to 5 seconds on impact, leave the pulsing field as is.

5. Fine as is, has typical pathing issues but that’s not something any value adjustment can really fix, send that to development.

In short: Shortbow could use an update, but I wouldn’t say its so out of style that it needs a remake. It just could use a few tweaks so it gets placed back as an all around utility weapon.

Agree 100%. There is nothing going for scorpion wire, not for damage, reliable cc, or even utility in any manner. The whole skill is just outdated as is most of the thief kit. There could be a lot of neat things done to bring this skill in line, biggest thing is for the developers to actually try something, rather than stare at it (don’t even think they do that, more like turn a blind eye.)

Give it something unique like “recharge steal by fixed amount (10 seconds, 50%, 100%? anything)” OR have it “pierce and steal boons, up to 3 foes get pulled, 1 boon from each foe.”

Anything at this point would be nice.

im no math expert for thief dps but I’ve been messing with stamina sigils and zerker/marauder mix and I just evade for days and don’t go down easy.

Moyayuki.3619:

For clarification, may I ask what class you are playing? From lurking around the forums, I’ve learned that the class you bring into HoT really can mean the difference between a struggle and a walk in the park.

Just made some random daredevil spec, main thief so I know the class itself really well but as far as daredevil goes its mostly just a shot in the dark. Needless to say it works far better than I expected and I’m having little trouble adapting to all this new content, just wanting it go a step further is all.

As for previous posts, I’ve only explored map 1, barely touched the 2nd one. I’m not against all of HoT, as the title says “so far”, its just from exploring verdant brink this is what I’ve come to that there is some heavy content areas that bring a good challenge and some others that are just filling space with mediocre events and mobs. I know not every inch and corner can be filled with the best but it feels like a lot of it is missing.

Agemnon.4608:

I hope this changes since I actually find a little enjoyment from HoT pve but at the same time, there is zero appreciation for the customers who were here supporting the game for a long time. ZERO.

What about the knight outfit, character birthday gifts, and the free character slot?

Birthday gifts giving hardly anything, not sure what free character slot you are talking about, I never got one yet, and 1 outfit they designed and gave out, which I don’t even really like the look for.

Try harder… much much harder.

1. Remove the ICD condi/boon applications
2. Actually make unique effects. Projectile speed/unblockable, incoming condi/stun duration, enemy boon duration reduction, etc. Ranger’s don’t need banners with health bars or applications that are impossible to balance even with ICD.
3. Increase their AoE range for their effects.
4. Adjust their actives and cooldowns to be a little more impactful.
5. Incorporate some defense such as stun breaking or cc or a combo field to make better combo effects from them.

6. Adjust these until they are well adjusted for overall ranger builds.

You sure do sound like a sleazy salesman pope. Have you ever been in the customer service business anywhere? Like with most people who fail at it, they look at 1 number. That number in front of their face, whether it be an expense or a customer purchase. Really what they should be looking at is pleasing the overall customer base so 2 things can happen. 1 is returning business in the future, 2 is recommendations towards others to bring in business. If you only market yourself for new customers you will find quickly how your sales dwindle to bupkiss, because no one is going to stay and be treated like that.

So when you gip the existing customer base by making them sub-par to new customers and force them to either purchase something or move on, its distasteful and take a wild guess as to how likely that person is going to recommend such services to a friend. That new customer is only going to last so long before they start to see the same thing assuming nothing is done to keep them around.

I recently purchased HoT specifically for the pve since other games are either worse off or too difficult to get into without a huge dedication. I gata say it is so much easier to just evade for 10 seconds and be doing 5-12k damage. Try to do that with my gw2 build, the account I DID spend hundreds of dollars supporting Anet for and its not even comparable. I DID NOT support HoT with my gem purchases all these years, I supported GW2 and that went to nothing since HoT is the new game with the core being just an after-thought.

I hope this changes since I actually find a little enjoyment from HoT pve but at the same time, there is zero appreciation for the customers who were here supporting the game for a long time. ZERO.

Recently purchased HoT to test the pve side, and I’ve made it to nearly 100% of the first map. So far I’ve had good and bad experiences which seem simple to fix since the solution is already in the game just in different forms.

1. Big isn’t always scary. From the first time I saw the giant wurms come out and start spitting mobs I thought, “uhh hell no”. That was, until I attacked it and saw how quickly it would die. Even the one event towards mellaggan’s Valor spawns a “champion” which although can be quite lethal in melee, ends up requiring only a good ranged player to kite. Making these kinds of encounters challenging without simply increasing health/damage ratio’s is obviously possible, as some encounters do this very well. Would feel a little more stimulating to see a monstrous sized enemy actually put a dent in someone.

2. Major events not contesting waypoints. Main one I’ve noticed so far is the legendary wyvern where if you die you just respawn at the center wp, glide down to the chopper and re-enter the fight. Its been done before, contest nearby waypoints to prevent this but also tie in to #1 to make the fight evolve more so players are encouraged more to rally allies.

3. Not all of the jungle is smart. Seems odd for some mobs to just be wandering in the open, I mean some mobs are actually difficult to learn and when they get mixed and matched it makes it that much more enjoyable. Some mobs however are far simpler than that and you can just run by or at them without any care. For example, what kinda tigers just graze in the open? Make em a little more dangerous and ambush people with a spike leap from some bushes. Could quadruple their agro range and rather than straight charging you they locate a nearby “ambush” spot to pounce on you if you get closer. Same for wyverns (smaller), they seem a little too easy to defeat. Worst is probably the baby raptors that just roam and get 1 shotted in groups.

4. Lastly, I see at night the events shift towards defense but in general exploration could the jungle get a little more fearful at night? Things like making snare traps that lead to an ambush from mis-guided bandits trying to score loot from the airship crashes, or increasing the attack/movement speed of certain creatures, or even patrolling mordrem hunting groups that are absolute terror to attack alone (elites and on mounts). I know some may say the jungle has enough troubles but I havn’t seen a game make night time really dangerous in a long time and so far, it seems like the aim of these maps (atleast the first one).

Overall I enjoy the new map and await to explore the 2nd one soon (trying to 100% before I move to the next). These are just the few issues I see on the first map. As for the core game, it really could take a lesson or 10 from these maps.

Thank you for all the responses. Just looking for something to kill time that isn’t going to be stressful. Pvp pretty much killed this for me but I’ll give pve a try, just wish there was some friendliness towards purchasing HoT on a BWE account.

Anyone got a U.S guild that does pve and guild related events like GM?

Getting away from the pvp/wvw scene since it just…. anyways. As for pve in HoT, I’ve looked at videos in the past and recent and just trying to get a general idea of what it has to offer. With that a few questions for those who hopefully know it best.

1. Is the pve in HoT something that is enjoyable? By this I mean is it something you can pick up for an hour or 2 after work or on a day off and not feel lost or bored?

2. Is it repetitive grinding to high ends or do things get shaken up a bit depending on what you are looking to do, such as building a legendary via the precursor quests?

3. I understand that some professions have an easier time than others in the new zones so I’m assuming there are some challenges. However, are these challenges based on enemy mechanics or just rapid scaling to where everything can “1 shot” you and has x10 health?

4. As with every game, entering something late is not going to be easy to adapt but I have a fairly quick ability to learn. Are raids going to be “semi” friendly to join or are people “know it or gtfo” kind of mentality? I ask this having no active guild atm.

5. Similar to question 4 and 3, does HoT content demand specific builds in raids/world events or are they flexible based on player skill? Similar experience I’ve had in the past with fractals with people demanding build x only to watch them die over and over and ultimately giving 0 dps while they run back or get revived. I’d rather just know what I’m there for and run it on my terms, does HoT content demand something else?

Look forward to answers.

PopeUrban.2578:

You’re basically asking them to invest additional effort to give people reasons NOT to pay them for their work. That’s just dumb.

I’m not asking them to work acrobatics around daredevil, I’m asking for them to separate them so they aren’t so similar. It is quite literally acrobatics 2.0 and that should change. What kind of philosophy is it to make resturaunt patrons pay extra for 1 slice of steak vs another because it was cooked differently? It’s the same steak, same meat, but 1 was prepared better than the other why am I paying more for 1 over the other?

Whether its a selling product or not, other professions for the most part got an elite specialization that changed their play style up a lot, thief got an upgraded trait line. I agree with cynz, all elites are toxic to their professions, but I think thief got hit with the worst one and and not saying that because I main thief, but because the thought behind the whole elite was based on something we ALREADY had.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

NinjaEd.3946:

[Acrobatics] Now acts as Daredevil traits (name fits better)

Adept
-(minor)Physical Supremacy: Same
-(MAJOR) Brawler’s Tenacity: Same
-(MAJOR) Driven Fortitude: when you evade you gain swiftness and heal yourself. Swiftness 5 seconds, heal 456^(0.1).
-(MAJOR) Weakening Strikes: Same

Acrobatic should be a defense trait line thus Physical, Brawler’s and Weakening should not be here and they should stay with DD. Although, the 3rd dodge from Physical should stay. Adding Driven to Acro would improve this trait line big time.

Master
-(minor)Feline Grace: Gain vigor when you evade. Vigor duration 5 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Endurance Thief: Same
-(MAJOR) Impacting Disruption: Add 2 second ICD.
-(MAJOR) Staff Mastery: Same

Again, same sentiment towards non-defensive traits. ID and SM should stay with DD. Bring back HtC since it is the most appropriate trait for Acro along side with Escapist Absolution.

I’m really against any trait that favors a specific weapon like Staff Mastery, so I rather see this effect as a minor Adept for DD where every weapon skill use will return endurance per initiative spent.

Grandmaster
-(minor) Endless Stamina: Vigor effects you apply are enhanced and remove 1 condition when applied. Vigor effectiveness increase 25% (75% endurance regen). Now works on BT for allies.
-(MAJOR) Bounding Dodger: lower damage of leap to ~465^(1.45)
-(MAJOR) Lotus Training: Change Lower bleeding duration to 6 seconds and torment duration to 4 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Unhindered Combatant: Change Remove swiftness, ignore incoming immobilizing effects periodically which become cripple instead. ICD 10 seconds. Cripple 3 seconds. Same condition removal and distance traveled.

BD and LT should stay with DD for the same reason as above since they are damage focused. UC should have been in Acro from the very beginning and no ICD, that’s just bad design.

Bottom line, all damage traits should stay with DD and all defense trait brought into Acro. Remove any weapon specific traits and make some traits’ effect baseline.

The trait name changes, all I did is put evasive/physical/staff traits into acrobatics and sword/brawler based traits into daredevil. The name is really irrelevant as much as which trait line the traits are placed. As for weapon specific traits, they imo should remain major traits so that it is optional. Making them minor only makes the whole trait line an issue since you cannot invest only partially into trait lines.

The whole change in a nutshell is to push all “evasive” traits into Acrobatics and place a little offensive/defensive traits into Daredevil for the melee brute play style.

Straegen.2938:

NinjaEd.3946:

1 play style thief really lacks is being an effective duelist,
…
specifically someone like a boon heavy support. We have the set up started with s/d and BT but its not all the way through to be a complete build, which I think would be a great alternative to having 2 evasive trait lines.

Without evasion/stealth the class simply cannot stand in on the current AoE or CC spam meta. Venom Share is quite powerful in a team setting which is as close as we are going to get for boon support. I don’t see Anet changing that outside of a new Elite spec though.

That’s what I think could be solved if the traits were changed to a specific weapon type and augment just that weapon so when it comes to amulet or rune selection you could build much more sturdy without losing a huge chunk of dps.

This way you can’t make existing builds like d/x or staff even stronger.

Straegen.2938:

The real problem with Dare Devil is how good Unhindered Combatant is. IMO it is the best trait in the game hands down. Bound and Lotus Training are actually very strong traits but pale in comparison. Without that trait, Dare Devil wouldn’t be nearly as powerful for a lot of builds.

Acro is one of the stronger defensive trait lines and IMO completely underrated. It has one of the best tier 1 condi clear traits of any class. Hard to Catch is solid. While Don’t Stop falls short compared to Unhindered Combatant what trait is even remotely as good as that one?

Acro’s real purpose is that it opens up the use of Lotus Training or Bound both of which are impressive traits that can define a build.

My issue with acro is that it falls behind daredevil and it pushes for the same playstyle of evasion defense. Everything that acrobatics has to offer can be outdone with Dardevil, 100%.

PR is much better than it was before but its also isn’t as strong as the description may seem. You could get hit with just a few skills, be below 75% health and have bleed tossed on you and it activates leaving you wide open for 16 seconds to be overloaded and melted with conditions. For how short of a cooldown it may be, you don’t need very long to kill a thief. Not to say this trait alone should fix that, but just stating that it isn’t as strong as it seems.

1 play style thief really lacks is being an effective duelist, and I don’t consider going in and out of stealth and using shadow shot and steal to bounce around to be dueling. By dueling I mean being able to be in the fight and not dependent on evade spam and build up momentum to be a tough target but effective at shutting someone down, specifically someone like a boon heavy support. We have the set up started with s/d and BT but its not all the way through to be a complete build, which I think would be a great alternative to having 2 evasive trait lines.

[Acrobatics] Now acts as Daredevil traits (name fits better)

Adept
-(minor)Physical Supremacy: Same
-(MAJOR) Brawler’s Tenacity: Same
-(MAJOR) Driven Fortitude: when you evade you gain swiftness and heal yourself. Swiftness 5 seconds, heal 456^(0.1).
-(MAJOR) Weakening Strikes: Same
Master
-(minor)Feline Grace: Gain vigor when you evade. Vigor duration 5 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Endurance Thief: Same
-(MAJOR) Impacting Disruption: Add 2 second ICD.
-(MAJOR) Staff Mastery: Same
Grandmaster
-(minor) Endless Stamina: Vigor effects you apply are enhanced and remove 1 condition when applied. Vigor effectiveness increase 25% (75% endurance regen). Now works on BT for allies.
-(MAJOR) Bounding Dodger: lower damage of leap to ~465^(1.45)
-(MAJOR) Lotus Training: Change Lower bleeding duration to 6 seconds and torment duration to 4 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Unhindered Combatant: Change Remove swiftness, ignore incoming immobilizing effects periodically which become cripple instead. ICD 10 seconds. Cripple 3 seconds. Same condition removal and distance traveled.

[Daredevil] Now takes place of acrobatic traits. Focused on sword/x and being in melee range.

Adept
-(minor) Fast travel: Gain superspeed when you shadowstep. 2 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Duelist: Dual sword skills perform faster. 25% speed increase(both parts).
-(MAJOR) Havoc Mastery: Gain increased damage to foes within range. After stealing a boon this amount is doubled for a short time. 5% increased Damage. Bonus duration 4 seconds. Radius 360.
-(MAJOR) Pain response: Same
Master
-(minor) Vigorous Recovery: Gain vigor when you break stun or use a healing skill. Vigor duration 7 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Deceptive Theft: Remove a boon from foes you shadowstep to. When you remove(steal) a boon from a foe apply slow. Slow duration 1.5 seconds
-(MAJOR)) Hard to Catch: Merged with instant reflexes, applies 2 second evade after this trait shadowsteps you upon incoming disable. ICD 35 seconds.
-(MAJOR) Bountiful loot: Gain increased boon duration after stealing a boon. This effect stacks 5 times. 3% boon duration for 10 seconds.
Grandmaster
-(minor) Steady Recovery: Gain 2 initiative when you use a healing skill.
-(MAJOR) Assassin’s Reward: Same.
-(MAJOR) Swindler’s Equilibrium: Same.
-(MAJOR) Shadow Leap: Increase shadowstepping range by 300 units.

We all know the promises that the elite specializations were given and how basically none of them lived to see the light of day, SO we are stuck with it for however long that may be.

Some professions have the decency to be very viable without specializations but can do much better with them while some core professions are just far to behind in comparison with their elite specializations that they are locked into 2 if not only 1 trait line to choose from making build diversity non-existent.

Daredevil imho is complete toxicity for thief and here is why.

-Directly caused nerfs to acrobatics since the combination would of been too strong, so rather than keeping daredevil from being to strong they decided to make it acrobatics 2.0 and even still, acrobatics falls short.

-Promotes incredibly unhealthy play styles of “spam” behavior. Whether it be d/d evade spam, d/p easier stealth (bound), being near impossible to lock down with UC (not saying they can’t be, but DD is an excuse to say thief can escape easier making it almost mandatory), and even pulmonary impact with headshot spam. Basically DD makes it easier to spam things than before, many of which were already complained about for being unbalanced or flawed by design.

-with thief being essentially locked into trickery already, daredevil removed another trait line selection from builds, drastically lowering build diversity.

LONG story short, I’d rather not see thief as a profession be dumbed down because of this flawed specialization but I’d also like to not see all other trait lines over buffed to only promote the power creep just so they can compete with daredevil. I know other professions face similar but thief is locked into 1 trait line and with issues still with the weapon skills, even weapon choice isn’t that good. Thief needs changes, and although it has gotten some nice changes in small packages, there needs to be a campaign started to get this profession in a healthy light. Daredevil is in a good spot compared to the rest of the professions but as a whole thief is not even close and that needs to change.

Many people have their suggestions on what should change, many are good, but there needs to be action from a developer to sit down and openly talk about thief, preferably a developer who actually cares about thief and isn’t just stuck with the project. Some core things that thief needs changed is

-remove dependency on trickery(and daredevil, but that won’t happen for sometime). At the moment trickery augments steal to be very useful rather than imo, fairly weak. It also 9/10 times is being used as an on-demand interrupt (sleight of hand) which is huge for thief to have. With that however also limits GM trait choice so trickery becomes a staple on every build with little variation in the adept and major trait selection. It’s simple to be perfectly honest, look at the builds that are out there and you will see why they flock to trickery and find a way to eliminate that necessity either through making things baseline or relocating/changing them to actually be optional for build diversity. Even if they are put into a different trait line or merged somewhere for a new trait to try out, just get rid of the current set up.

-Separate daredevil and acrobatics purposes. I’d say acrobatics was here first but really it doesn’t matter, we don’t need 2 (1 obviously better than the other) trait lines that focus on the same effect. Also we don’t need repeated traits like VR and FG in acrobatics, FG already gives us near permanent vigor without thinking about it, and then you have “don’t stop” GM acrobatics VS. Unhindered combatant GM Daredevil. Separate these trait lines and their traits, 1 or the other, needs to be redone entirely (SEE POST BELOW).

-Look at the initiative management of each weapon set and adjust, even if preparedness was made baseline there are still unbalanced initiative costs between weapon sets. Also look into poor performing sets/skills and don’t factor in any traits to see what issues they have. Things like damage, functionality (evade frames, cast/aftercast times, range/speed, etc). This way you can see what the real issues are and rather than forcing people into a path to make it viable but those who don’t go down that route are stuck with a weak skill or build (main culprit, Bound and BPS, there are others though like VA and venoms for utilities)

-Like with all professions….. rework traits/utilities that don’t do any good. Everyone has their lists and suggestions, I’ll just leave it at that.

With the trait working on recharging and non-recharging skills and only utility skills, you’d have to throw a utility skill out there to make use of this. Not to say that’s 100% a bad thing, however its still letting a trait dictate some of your moves.

In most fights I have my utilities off cooldown and only slot defensive ones to either get me up or get me out, I’d rather not have to think about throwing 1 on cooldown to then steal to have this trait help me. Sure it would be nice in those moments where I do happen to have 1 on cooldown and now I get a free-bee but its just like saying last refuge is a good trait because it sometimes works out.

On-action traits should work 100% of the time. Not saying this improvisation is a 100% nerf but it has potential to be an obligation. I’d rather slot a trait that always helps me in some way, but that’s just me.It still beats the current improvisation by a long shot where it is either awesome or extremely disappointing.

I’d like to point out the acrobatics reworks.

Internal Cooldowns were created for a reason, because something like breaking stun on any utility skill use followed by 100% endurance regeneration on breaking stun would make probably the worst thief cancer known to man, perma [Bounding Dodger].

At any rate some merges looked nice but making traits work on anything is another issue, some traits are specific to weapons and/or play styles as to not let others go over the top with them and also because they fit certain weapons and/or play styles best.

So allowing 10% damage to foes with vulnerability basically replaces exposed weaknesses but you still get it as a minor and then you get another minor adding 20% critical then flat damage. Critical strikes would be insanely broken with that many damage increases.

Kicker.8203:

+1, I’ve already shared my ideas on S/D and more in my footnote link below. I’d appreciate comments there.
“One big problem is that the sword line – Acrobatics – is still inferior to the Daredevil line, even with recent buffs.” – it shouldn’t be better than Daredevil but it should be used in combination with it. Acro should get it’s own character and move away from copying daredevil traits.

Acrobatics was here first though…

Either way, they need to be separated and thought out a little better. The perma vigor change to FG is still inferior to the old FG which essentially got put into DD.

I agree with the recharging of 1 utility skill vs skill category however you also mention it chosing based on recharging and non-recharging skills. That doesn’t put this skill anywhere useful still, it actually would be considered a nerf for those who may of had 2 of the same skills from a category and now only 1 of those randomly got selected.

A simple solution, make improvisation reduce recharges of healing, utility and elite skills by a flat amount (say 45 seconds) and split that amongst skills being recharged. So, for example

You have slotted [Hide In shadows], [Blinding powder], [Shadowstep] [Inf Signet] and [Basilisk Venom].

-You have [Blinding Powder] and [Basilisk Venom] currently recharging with 20 seconds and 30 seconds respectively.

-You use steal and successfully land it. 2 skills splitting 45 seconds so despite [Withdraw] only having 20 seconds left, it gets 22.5 seconds and is fully recharged. [Basilisk Venom] gets 22.5 and now has 7.5 seconds left on recharge.

Basically improvisation gets to work 100% of the time but still works slightly off of skill management since any overage of recharge reduction simply gets negated. Ofcourse 45 seconds is only a random value but I picked it based on a fairly high amount of skills being on cooldown to where 45 gets cut down to 22.5/15/11.25/9 seconds but if need be, it can toned down further.

Just curious, seeing on Mesmer Phase Retreat being an instant cast retreat and a leap finisher, can other “retreat” based skills get a similar treatment? Mostly on the finisher part, don’t need instant retreats except for the ones that already are stun breakers.

This would affect the following skills
-Hornet Sting
-Quick shot
-Disabling Shot
-Burning Retreat
-Updraft
-Lightning Reflexes
-Roll For initiative
-Withdraw
-Brutal Shot
-overcharged shot (debatable, since it barely moves you)

The goal is to give a little more defense to a set of skills to be used for positioning or for combo effects. More skills could get a similar treatment whether it be a blast or leap finisher, to give more combo effects to skills. Thoughts?

Dahkeus.8243:

NinjaEd.3946:

Don’t own HoT expansion so I can’t say my experience playing them, but I being a gw2 player since per-launch I can share my experience playing against them….

Kitten Horrible

It’s not impossible to use a core spec and win, because the elite spec’s are being used by new players as well but in ranked season 2 and even unranked the effort that they have to use to be “efficient” in pvp, now put that build in the hands of a competent player who knows the class and mechanics of pvp?

No its horribly unbalanced and needless to say Arena Net will NEVER admit that Hot spec’s are better than Core spec’s because of politics. Whether this was done intentionally (which 99% would probably say yes) or that it was done to address profession issues and give them an option to break free of them the fact remains that Core builds are by no means statistically or mechanically comparable to the new elite specializations.

To put old players who don’t own HoT or new players who haven’t purchased HoT at this disadvantage is pathetic, it only shows the power of greed and not the satisfaction for the players. I still managed to get 3/4 of the way into ruby using non-HoT builds playing maybe 6 hours a week only because the professions I played I know well, but I still died to complete fools (shown by playing the easiest builds in beginner armor) countless times and I’d see them just button smashing to win. The good players using those builds just recked me over and over and I had no choice but to run or re-queue. Past update did several good things but balance should NOT be done in these quarterly updates, fix your game Arena Net. Do More balance patches, even if they are small changes address things that aren’t used and the ones that are overused, isn’t rocket science to know what is working really well and what doesn’t work.

Ahh, it looks like we got the same ol’ argument we’ve seen elsewhere:

“I’ve been playing this game for years and only had to pay $50, but it’s ArenaNet who is the greedy one, since they expect me to pay anything else for this constantly updated content, even when their primary competition would be charging me $15 a month on top of the cost of an expansion that’s even more mandatory than GW2’s.”

I was fine with the game at launch with a few balance patches, its only gone down hill since and with HoT, it was a huge hill to go down. So yeah, I don’t care to buy their expansion just so I can use the meta builds and have an easier winning experience. Money ain’t the issue, its principle and these “constant” updates" haven’t really been anything but balance updates which should never cost a dime.

And don’t pretend there aren’t numerous games out there that offer free updates to their content big and small. Its about fixing your game, not about scamming your loyal players.

Don’t own HoT expansion so I can’t say my experience playing them, but I being a gw2 player since per-launch I can share my experience playing against them….

Kitten Horrible

It’s not impossible to use a core spec and win, because the elite spec’s are being used by new players as well but in ranked season 2 and even unranked the effort that they have to use to be “efficient” in pvp, now put that build in the hands of a competent player who knows the class and mechanics of pvp?

No its horribly unbalanced and needless to say Arena Net will NEVER admit that Hot spec’s are better than Core spec’s because of politics. Whether this was done intentionally (which 99% would probably say yes) or that it was done to address profession issues and give them an option to break free of them the fact remains that Core builds are by no means statistically or mechanically comparable to the new elite specializations.

To put old players who don’t own HoT or new players who haven’t purchased HoT at this disadvantage is pathetic, it only shows the power of greed and not the satisfaction for the players. I still managed to get 3/4 of the way into ruby using non-HoT builds playing maybe 6 hours a week only because the professions I played I know well, but I still died to complete fools (shown by playing the easiest builds in beginner armor) countless times and I’d see them just button smashing to win. The good players using those builds just recked me over and over and I had no choice but to run or re-queue. Past update did several good things but balance should NOT be done in these quarterly updates, fix your game Arena Net. Do More balance patches, even if they are small changes address things that aren’t used and the ones that are overused, isn’t rocket science to know what is working really well and what doesn’t work.

Kageseigi.2150:

Thieves Guild on 3-minute cooldown?

Two AI Thieves that get swatted like flies?
That’s some kind of guild, eh? :-P

cooldown reduction won’t fix that skill.

Trap meta?

Anyways please tone down initial attack of DH traps (the only culprit here). When you can be dragged in with a working pull or are forced to pretend you can outrange a DH because going in melee range insta-kills you, there is something horribly wrong.

Yeah they can be countered, by builds that can survive the onslaught of cc and damage that DH repeats. Thieves aren’t beefy by any means and sometimes even a good timed SS isn’t enough to get you out of the AoE spam before being killed.

Nope, never did.

I think someone mentioned a similar idea with cripple applying bleed but in DA, which I think sounds more reasonable. Not only is DA our condition augment trait line, but it gives some love to the trait line that could use it more than Trickery which is, as many have said, practically mandatory.

2 stacks of 4 seconds isn’t OP at all when you consider the application, the only potential overpowered effect would come from caltrops but with how heavily they can be tossed out they might as well add a decent stack amount and put an ICD per target on it like 3 stacks for 5 seconds with an ICD of 5 seconds. This way dagger #4 can be mixed into a d/d or p/d condition build for extra damage without being dependent on spamming.

Its pretty much the same method of comparing non-HoT builds to their meta counterpart. In the right hands, you can play a non-meta build and do good or so-so, but you have a much easier time playing that “cheesy” garbage that puts out higher numbers with less effort. Can buff thief all day, but it won’t do any good to “master” or new players, thief needs QoL changes and reworks. It is still playable but only on a moderately skilled level, new players are very noticeable on a thief.

Dare devil basically gives thieves a lot of traits that are ESSENTIAL for thief to keep up in the game, but it doesn’t make them better than any other profession. Sure they can escape better and evade for days and spike unsuspecting foes but they are still incredibly fragile to damaging conditions and cc and general AoE skills.

Core thief is still good in the right hands but by no means is it up to par with the rest of the professions.

4 Changes to solve pistol main-hand problems.

1- Increase bleeding duration of sneak attack to 7 seconds, helps p/d which is a fairly weak set, sneak attack is pretty easy to avoid as is.

2- Increase vital shot power scaling from 0.5 to 0.8 (now comparable to ranger and guardian LB auto attack)

3- Update body shot.[Body Shot] fire a shot that causes an open wound (new effect). If this shot hits, you gain endurance.
Open wound 3 seconds (successful Physical projectiles apply vulnerability, 1 stack 6 seconds.)
Endurance gain 35
Range 900
Initiative cost 4

4- Unload now synergizes with body shot and sneak attack to stack vulnerability.

This idea comes from how they reworked warrior rifle and honestly, that weapon set is incredible now. You have your up close defense and evasion and tons of vulnerability. The whole set works very well with itself and every skill has its use, pistol just needs that mobility and for the skills to work a little better with each other.

Point is to push them towards heavy rewarding skills. The conflict is that stances are short cooldowns and last several seconds with very strong effects, then you got shouts with immediate effects and a few with lasting effects, and signets same story. Banners being the other underperformer but that’s another topic all together.

Since they are 1 time effects they should be changed to fit a situation a little better than a simple cc effect and play a part with the warrior profession and its role in groups. Kick being an anti-defense skill, bulls charge being the way to your target, stomp being an extra punch while they are on the ground, bolas could be changed a little better but basically makes them a sitting duck, and rampage as usual, being a rampage. Perhaps some more powerful effects such as

-adding double damage increase from stomp to downed foes and foes under the effects of stun or knocked down.
-Bulls charge range increase to 1,200. While charging you are immune to cc effects.
-bolas will wrap around adjacent targets if they make contact (120 unit radius, up to 2 additional targets).
-Kick cooldown reduced to 15 second cooldown.

This is for all the physical related skills to receive a buff, but with cost. To simplify that, here it goes.

Physical skills now cost adrenaline

The goal here is to buff a skill category to be stronger based on how the warrior manages their only resource. In the previous title many skills consumed various amounts of adrenaline and it led to many strong skill chains but they weren’t’ free and could be countered with the right spells (no adrenaline gain or adrenaline -). The aim here is to bring some of that back but not for free, and to also make the elite physical skill a tad bit more powerful if managed versus being a button smash form. Some suggestions are

[Mending]- Now a physical skill Costs 10 adrenaline in addition to 20 second cooldown. Now heals for 7,824 (1.15^). Removes 3 conditions (before healing).Regain 2 adrenaline for each condition removed.

[Kick] Costs 6 adrenaline in addition to 20 second cooldown. Unblockable. Foes that attempt to block are instead knocked down for 2 seconds. Same damage and distance as before.

[Bull’s Charge] Costs 10 adrenaline in addition to 40 second cooldown. Foes in the path of your charge are knocked back 180 units and receive damage(behaves similar to necromancer flesh golem charge as far as “path of charge” goes).

[Throw Bolas] Costs 5 adrenaline in addition to 20 second cooldown. Add daze duration for .25 seconds. (an interrupt skill now)

[Stomp] Costs 15 adrenaline in addition to 45 second recharge. Ground targeted (300 units), increase damage to 915(1.2^). This skill cannot critically hit. Downed foes suffer a 100% damage increase from this skill.

[Rampage] Costs 25 adrenaline in addition to 180 second cooldown. While in rampage, rapidly regenerate adrenaline by 3 per 1 second(. Rampage form duration increased to 30 seconds.)
-[Uppercut] Now grants 5 adrenaline on successful hit.
-[Kick] Costs 4 adrenaline in addition to now 5 second cooldown.
-[Dash] Costs 8 adrenaline in addition to now 5 second cooldown.
-[Throw Boulder] Costs 8 adrenaline in addition to now 8 second cooldown. Causes knockdown instead of stun. Damage is now AoE upon target hit in a 120 unit radius.
-[Seismic Leap] Costs 10 adrenaline in addition to now 10 second cooldown. Increase damage dealt to 244(2.0^).

+1, mainly for the extra boon handling especially if we had a method to share them with allies. We should be better at dealing with bunker’s given our single target focus, let us be efficient at those group fights against that pesky bunker.

Get your rest, gw2 can wait. For real.

Not like its going to suddenly get better anyways, they got a lot to climb through.

Yeah dealing 5 digit numbers seems a bit excessive but w/e, that’s the route HoT took so they can present you with 2 doors.

1 door is old and weak with stains, and falling off the hinges but it leads you to where you want to go.

The other door opens automatically when you get close to it and also leads you to where you want to go, but it costs $50 to use.