Guild Wars 2

I don’t think that necros are as bad as many people think, they are one of the few classes with good boon removal and therefore counter bunkers or any class that tries to use boons very well.

wit.2310:

The problem isn’t even that bunkers are hard to kill 1v1 or 2v1. The problem is that because of the short distance between points and especially the broken mesmer teleport,
it’s easy to get ppl to help the bunker before he dies and still get back to help another point if needed.

Yes, and the speed at which you would have to kill the bunker to prevent this would be absurdly fast, especially against a defensive class.

Waffler.1257:

Just an idea, rather than changing classes, change how nodes are controlled. Make it so that to capture a node you need to have more players in the node than the other team. If there are an equal number of players from both teams in the node then its control will slowly drift to neutral. Then you don’t have to beat a bunker or even knock them out of the node to remove their control, you just need to stand in the node. This in turn gives additional pressure on the other player to remove you from the node, most likely by killing you, and reduces the overall effectiveness of bunker builds. Likewise, if you have two people on your team vs. one bunker on the other, you will eventually gain control of the node regardless of whether you can kill the bunker or not.

I do not necessarily agree or disagree with this idea but this is what I am talking about, instead of crushing defensive classes into worthless piles of trash its a much better idea to change the game play so that it does not favor them so much.

Sprinkles.6748:

Parakeet.6083:

You seem to be dodging most of that being said and going straight to “warriors can’t handle everything”. Then taking said argument and completely exaggerating it to make everything about his post sound foolish. I really don’t approve of this strategy in an argument and it’s not going to help anyone but maybe…your ego?

I play warrior 90% of my pvp games and I do not think they are totally sub-par. The reason he is resorting to this argument, however, is because of contradictions made in older arguments. This thread is about bunker builds being too “meta” and wringing the game dry of fun and dynamic gameplay. If i build a warrior for offense and can be 100% countered by a single defense there is a problem. If I have to resort to doing certain things just to counter this 1 build type. If I have to always take bunker builds into consideration when making builds. There is a problem here.

Zyrusticae is resorting to saying “I can’t do everything as a warrior” because everyone in this thread is telling him to do everything as a warrior! You can’t expect one class to completely focus on countering bunkers AND be able to have a variety of builds. This is the problem with it. Bunkers counter almost everything too hard. They secure points indefinitely. That’s 1/5 members doing 1/3 of the job. Also, prepare for impact, it promotes non team-like behavior and strategies by having one guy bench a point all day. What communication does this bunker need with the outside world when he’s hunky dory on his one point. He doesn’t need help. If it’s at the point where he will need help ASAP or die and lose the point, his team is A capturing other points or B coming to wipe up the enemies currently smacking their heads into his big bunker brick wall. They will win this fight because of how much the offense had to blow just for a chance to down the bunker.

You cannot lose with this setup. There is no reason to not roll teams like this. That is not what we were promised with GW2 gameplay. That is why there is a problem!

P.S. GW1 is not GW2. I think this doesn’t really need to be argued. But I do have some evidence to back that one up if so needed. Like, I know how it is in that game and all. But, it’s pretty much completely irrelevant to the argument. This new game was made to change things. Heavily.

This is honestly a problem with the game type mode, not with bunkers themselves. The game type promotes a game style where very tanky characters just sit on points w/out really trying to kill anyone but are very hard to kill themselves. The problem with nurfing bunkers so that just anyone can kill them is that it will not change the problem of that game type, it will just shift the point holding to another class and will simultaneously destroy the point of playing a defensive class. It will just turn the game into a dueling contest and then the class that can hold points the longest will be the best dueling class. Then people will be on here complaining about that.

I don’t really see a problem with a class that is good at tanking holding a point in a capture style game play. This thread started with a “The meta is bad it must be changed” theme. I disagree with that very theme at its core. Why does it need to be changed? Its not unbalanced, both sides have the same numbers of players and the same opportunity to bring each class. Why shouldn’t a guardian shine in a game mode that caters too him. When they finally come out with other game modes there may be a game mode that caters to another class. And if you are unhappy about a classes performance in a specific game mode the answer is not to nurf that class into uselessness.

Zyrusticae.7245:

Oh, hahahahahahaahahahahaa!

I’m sorry, really? Really, really?

Your counter… is to deflect the subject by suggesting that the solution to a class being horribly sub-par in a role is to look at roles they might not be horribly sub-par in?

Oh, of course the solution to a weapon or set of weapons being insufficient is to use one that isn’t insufficient! Except it didn’t actually solve anything at all and you still have useless weapons to contend with.

Look, the whole point of my argument is that the game should have a reasonably decent build variety, that all weapons should have some use, and that all classes should be able to fill each role with some level of decency – otherwise, what the hell is the point of giving us free reign to create our own builds? What is the point of, say, having power/precision/crit damage as a possible trait path on a necro if they’re so terrible at direct damage? What is the point of having condition damage as a possible trait path on a warrior if they can’t apply conditions with any level of frequency? They become traps, something no high-level player would ever, ever want to even so much as touch with a ten-foot pole because they’re so obviously bad and sub-par.

They represent wasted development resources. No one uses them, why should they exist in the first place? Either buff them or take them out! It’s that simple. I don’t see what’s so difficult about this.

By the way, warriors are already considered one of the worst tPvP classes in the game, so you’re fighting an uphill battle there.

As for bunker builds, yes, I do think they should be unable to win 1v1s. They are already better at holding points than any other build. That is the whole point of point control. That is the whole point of the one and only game mode in the game. As long as they can hold points almost indefinitely AND win in 1v1 situations they are overpowered, period, end of story.

Not only are they overpowered, they represent an extreme in game design that should never have existed in the first place. They create incredibly stale and boring gameplay, the kind of gameplay that people would NOT want to watch in a stream over and over again. This is supposed to be an e-sport. E-sports HAVE to be fun to watch. The current meta is anything but fun to watch. IT MUST BE FIXED.

Its true that there are many newb trap builds in this game. Warriors may indeed need to be worked on, however, despite that I still see warriors used viably in top tier teams. There are also other classes in much bigger need of work than warriors.

You seem to have a much different vision for warriors that I or anet does. You seem to want them to be like magic wielding blade dancing masters of doom who play tricks with boons and boon strips and whatnot and can do stuff other than direct damage with a rifle. On the other hand I and anet see them as bad kitten guys who have big kitten swords/hammers/axes/rifles and shoot or hit you in the face and focus more on direct damage than magical trickery.

If a class is focused on direct damage they will always have a hard time with any character that can put unlimited amounts of protection/ other boons on themselves. On the other hand if a teammate takes those boons off or if you catch an enemy w/out them on you can smash them. In other words the price you pay for the damage output/ tankyness you have is the ability to handle complex situations that require something other than “hit him in the face”.

I would guess from how you are talking that you never played gw1. In gw1 protection enchantments where so strong that you literraly had to just stop attacking them as a warrior and go hit someone else, otherwise you were just wasting a huge amount of your damage. A warrior could not just smash straight though the protection enchantments provided by a monk, you had to wait for an opening or make one by faking out the enemy and then exploit that opening. You seem to want to just smash faces like your the hulk and nothing on earth can stop you no matter how many boons or anything, and if for some reason boons should stop you then WTF you should have the power to just blow those boons away and keep smashing.

Zyrusticae.7245:

I just came here to mention how utterly hilarious it is that people keep repeating the same arguments ad nauseum no matter how often they’re countered or shot down.

Also funny is how some folks completely invalidate their opinion by resorting to outrageous hyperbole (’don’t like it, go play an FPS or a single-player game!‘, because there’s no such thing as a middle ground).

If you had bothered to read my post I was using the comment that he should go to an fps as a jab at how easy he seemed to want enemy’s to fall down when he attacks them. Next time your going to try and distort someones post wait till they have left the thread bro.

Zyrusticae.7245:

Let me consider for a moment that ludicrous argument.

The problem is that warrior doesn’t have the tools to actually kill a bunker build with any sort of efficiency or even regularity. Supposedly, the idea is that they should make up for it in other areas to cover for the slack.

I say this is nonsense. This is just a symptom of greater issues with the class.

Consider, for example, WHY a warrior can’t deal with bunker builds. The problem is three-fold:

1. Warriors lack the ability to stack conditions (particularly poison) on a target, and
2. Warriors lack the ability to recover from even the tiniest amounts of sustained DPS (which is what bunker builds are bringing)
3. Warriors lack the raw damage to bring down a hard target

Consider these three flaws, and think about how this affects them in every other role in the game. If you have even the slightest capacity for thought, you should already have realized that this means they are sub-par everywhere. I find it utterly hilarious that people say warriors should be roamers, when just about every other class is a better pick for this (especially mesmer). We are considered bottom-tier in tPvP for a reason.

That doesn’t even touch the fact that bunker builds are still ludicrously hard to unseat in any 1v1 situation with any class, even the ones best suited towards it.

So yeah. It’s “hilarious”. Hilarious that I put up with this crap. Hilarious that it’s like this in the first place (after how many months of testing?). Hilarious that I’m still posting here when I should be doing something infinitely more productive.

You do know that warriors are not just dps machines right? They bring huge amounts of cc to the table. Sounds like you are not making full use of the warriors repertoire.

Evagal.2584:

Came in here and read through everything.
This guy is correct.
This is how the meta is suppose to work.
At the moment, bunkers have the best of both worlds. They can defend and assume an offensive position. Bunkers should not be able to kill, or drag fights out for an absurd amount of time like they can now.

So in your opinions bunkers should not be able to kill anything or stay alive for very long……. righto….

If you are defending HAVING to take 2 players off the game field to counter 1, then I believe you are misunderstanding the idea of balance.

You are misunderstanding the concept of balance if you think that a player who is focusing on playing defensively should be easily killed by anyone who lols up to him. Do you not understand that someone who focuses on playing a tanky role actually needs to be tanky? If you can’t effectively be a bunker then it just turns into a pure dps arms race.

Selix.5670:

May I point out that making the game seem balanced when average players are playing it and thus resulting in unbalance when top tier players are playing is not in fact balancing the game.
A rl example: 2 people are trying to kill each other, one with a knife and the other with a gun, both have never seen or used or heard of their chosen weapon before. In this fight the person with a knife stands a good chance of winning. This might make you think that a gun and knife are balanced or even that the knife is superior to a gun. In reality if you put those weapons in the hands of people who know how to use them the gun will prove its superiority.

That would depend on the range that we are talking about lol. You can cover 30 feet and stab someone before the average professional can shoot. The firearm is not always superior.

Your confused about some things. The number you are looking for is 21 feet. A knife is supposed to be as dangerous as a gun if you are within 21 feet, that doesn’t mean that the gun is LESS dangerous, its just that the knife is on par with a gun at that range. Your random factoid about being able to move 30 feet before someone can shoot is just false. Run 30 feet right now and ask yourself if you had time to move your index finger less than an inch in that amount of time.

Take a look at this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jfqoq1e1nlA#!

Video isn’t linking right, just copy paste.

As you can see both of them would probably end up killing each other.

Colton.9460:

And I would say that balancing a game around the top 5% unbalances the game for the bottom 95%.

Lets be clear about what is actually happening in your example. The game is not in fact “unbalanced” for the bottom 95%, its balanced, its just that the bottom 95% don’t know what they are doing.

If you dont know how to fire the gun( to load the bullets, to kitten it, ect) and use it as a thrown projectile or a piece of metal to hit someone with then the knife is far superior. Ignoring balance for the majority to balance the minority is the crux of the esport problem other games are having

Your entire example precludes the possibility that players can actually get better. When they get better the game will become inbalanced.

There is no balance for “majority” or balance for “minority” there is balance… period. Hard numbers is balance. What you are talking about it intentionally unbalancing the game to skew it so that some things that might seem weak if you are bad but are very powerful once you have the skill to use them are buffed to the point that you can use them effectively even if you are not good. The problem with this kind of balancing is that it causes a skilled player to become an unstoppable god once he gets his hands on an ability that was powerful from the start but was made stronger so that scrubs could use it.

please watch the video in the thread I linked. It has the top players themselves explaining how this is bad.

I watched the video, and I agreed with most of it. The problem is that the video went in your eyes, went through your brain, and is now coming out of your fingers as something totally different than what was said in that video. There was not word 1 said in that video about balancing for mediocre players. In fact the guy who does most of the talking even said that the balance issues currently in starcraft don’t even matter. This is proven even more by the fact that one of their main focuses is LOL. LOL is not even remotely balanced, not for bad players, not for mediocre players, not for skilled players and everyone knows it. If anyone has any concept of balance they can plainly see that lol is balanced horribly for EVERYONE.

The summary of that video is that you need to market your game and make it a FUN game. Which LOL is. Playing starcraft (for many people) is more like work than fun. That doesn’t have any reflection on balance.

You could take some lessons away from that video and apply them to gw2 but changing the balance of the game is certainly not one of them, if anything that video would advocate moving balance to the bottom of the list of things to do.

EDIT: He never once says is that video that balance problems are the reason why SC2 is suffering which you try and make it sound like. The reason why SC2 is suffering is very clear and well laid out in the video. Its being competed against and its not competing back. The reason is probably that the more players riot has the more money they get (riot points ect…) Where as blizzard already has your money for the game so really does not care.

Unfortunately gw2 is in the same boat as sc2. There are not much in the way of mini transactions in gw2, once anet has your money there is no incentive for them to work hard at marketing/ keeping the game well known and fresh. The game has been out for how many months now? Still no other game type modes? Still not even a duel mode? No incentive to drive the game at all… their game sales have already probably tapered off, as has their incentive to do anything more with the game…. rather than any major issues being fixed expect a purchasable expansion soon.

May I point out that making the game seem balanced when average players are playing it and thus resulting in unbalance when top tier players are playing is not in fact balancing the game.

A rl example: 2 people are trying to kill each other, one with a knife and the other with a gun, both have never seen or used or heard of their chosen weapon before. In this fight the person with a knife stands a good chance of winning. This might make you think that a gun and knife are balanced or even that the knife is superior to a gun. In reality if you put those weapons in the hands of people who know how to use them the gun will prove its superiority.

Zyrusticae.7245:

For starters, every weapon should have a use, and all sorts of builds should be viable for every class. Having to toss in a hammer or mace because nothing else works is a problem

So you think that every weapon should be the same as every other weapon with no weapon having a certain situation that it is better in? You think that you should be able to just hundred blades on everyone’s face regardless of how many seconds of protection they have or how many heals they have and not have to think about using hammer cc against a defensive build? Because that is what I hear you saying. I think that each weapon needs to be useful but that doesn’t mean that each weapon is the same in every situation. Hundred blades crushes an unbooned opponent, hammer is good for interrupting a survivable builds abilities.

(and let’s be honest here – if it’s effective against a bunker, it’s effective against everything).

Lol cc might be effective against everything but it doesn’t do much damage, why would you cc a player who isn’t bunker or at none critical times when you can just hit him for straight damage.

Secondly, have you actually tried to melee a kiting elementalist build? Are ]you seriously suggesting that melee is the only way to deal with them when they have so many ways to counter enemies that are attempting to engage them in such distances?

Why don’t you try swaping weapons now and then dude. You don’t have to ONLY melee or ONLY ranged, switch weapons at appropriate times to maximize damage output. At this point I’m starting to think its a l2p issue.

Thirdly, if a class can’t deal with bunker spec while others can something is wrong with that class. I don’t even care how you justify this, if warrior as a whole sucks at dueling then they suck, period.

Necros can generally deal with bunkers because they have a lot of boon removal but they have trouble with a lot of other classes because their damage is generally low. From what you are saying you want warriors to be able to output their high damage with the same amount of boon removal as necros….. that is not gona happen bro. One class can’t have everything otherwise we would have to rename it to mesmer2.

Finally, I’m too tired and kitten to think straight, so I’m GTFO. The game thus far has been such a friggin’ disappointment to me I don’t even want to deal with it right now, just, ugh, kitten ..

Sounds to me like you might be more comfortable in an fps like cod or something…. although you may still find enemy’s too tanky for your tastes.

Also, in response to the first half of your post: Ranged weapons in this game do less damage than melee weapons because of the simple fact that close range weapons put you in harms way where as with ranged you can snipe from safety. More risk = more reward. You seem to think that for some strange reason bunker/ healing/ support builds should not even be able to survive vs the weak damage of your ranged weapon? Give me a break dude, you seem to want defensive spects to fall over if you breath on them.

Also refer to the post above this for more info on why it is hard to kill bunkers with warrior.

Zyrusticae.7245:

That’s not my experience at all.

As an example, fighting a bunker elementalist as a ranged glass warrior is basically impossible as they simply out-heal everything I can throw at them. And that’s with the absolute highest damage possible with a ranged warrior.

Plus no poison (none at all, across the entire class), so that’s obviously not an option.

So… what’s the issue here? Does the elementalist simply have too much regen, does my warrior not have enough damage, does the warrior need an overhaul to get more anti-healing conditions, am I just not playing well enough (lol, gimme a break, there’s one interrupt/kb on rifle and that’s it)? Don’t even try to suggest I switch to a melee build, that is just hilariously bad against any kiting build.

At this point, it doesn’t really matter. I hate the way the PvP plays right now and I will not go back to it unless something changes dramatically. I try so hard to enjoy it and I just can’t, not with the current pace and certainly not with the current balance of power between classes and builds.

Parakeet.6083:

Well if a player sacrifices all his damage to be a defencive build, aka a bunker, what would be the point if his defencive build can’t even survive vs 1 person? The game would turn into nothing but glass cannons. Logicaly in order for defencive builds to be balanced it should take more than 1 person to kill them. Either that or it should take a very long time for the bunker to go down in a 1vs1.

Do you see the problem with your post here?

For the last time, bunkers only need to be able to hold a point longer than anyone else. They do NOT need to be able to hold it indefinitely until help arrives and they do NOT have to be able to win every 1v1 they get into (that would be the very definition of unbalanced).

Well your description of how they SHOULD function is exactly how they currently function… good work bro, your work is done here.

Merciless.5349:

@aydenunited

So, in your opinion, you should be using 2 people to take 1 bunker down? 1 to CC him, and the other to DPS him? Why does this sound like a PvE boss or something?

Have you ever seen 2 Bunkers on a mid point? I have. A lot. Down 1, the other rezzes him while having Stability on. Back to square 1. So now it becomes a matter of 4 v 2.

Do you see the problem here?

Well if a player sacrifices alot his damage to be a defensive build, aka a bunker, what would be the point if his defensive build can’t even survive very long vs 1 person? The game would turn into nothing but glass cannons. Logically in order for defensive builds to be balanced it should take more than 1 person to kill them quickly. Either that or it should take a very long time for the bunker to go down in a 1 vs 1.

Do you see the problem with your post here?

Cheyenne.1085:

The only bunker you can’t solo is guardian.

As a bunker engineer there’s really nothing I can do vs necros, rangers, and thieves who use condition damage properly so I really don’t get why people complain about bunker builds when only 1 prof does it effectively.

Bunker guardian is very soloable with the right build.. It will of course take longer than killing a glass cannon but they are very beatable.

Lol its like a smooth talking salesman trying to sell you the “best vacuum ever!!!”

Well the staffs skill bar (other than auto attack) is a very strong one, also the auto attack is not that bad, if you hit someone with it you get 3% life force and it pierces. It seems to be designed to shine in a big group fight, where the aoe’s of the staff also are at their best. I have hit 3 people in a group fight with the staff auto attack before getting 9 percent life force in a single attack…. I personally do not think its as bad as you make it out to be.

He is a mesmer.

It happens in spvp all the time, not just wvw. I see it happen all the time personaly and see complaints about it all the time. I do not need to provide video or screenshots to prove it. The hundreds of people who have complained about it are all the proof I need.

Well you do have a chance to defend yourself against a good mesmer… but in the end you will ultimately fail.

@Jesiah its actually 30% on crit to heal allies, it just doesn’t say that.

Night Priestess.8123:

I use it to interrupt. Too bad it doesn’t work on most bosses, they are immune

Who cares about pve though, its made for you to win against. Pvp is where this skill really shines.

Ascii.9726:

My thoughts on deathshroud skills:

Life Blast Hits pretty hard as it is, someone did suggest scaling damage with Life Force amount rather then it dropping off at 50% or less LF. Maybe a tad decrease on its channel time.
Dark Path The teleport and effect should be instant, not that extremely slow moving skill that’s easily blockable/ LoS breakable.
Doom No change really needed, maybe 1s Fear duration increase but who plays necro for fear?
Life Transfer Totally broken, Power Precision Crit Damage build i can hit upwards of 20k+ on a full channel to enemies in WvW, also it being a non-target moving AoE its almost always guaranteed to hit people.

Most people forget Death Shroud is as much of an offensive mechanic then defensive. Its base health amount is around 18k and can go up to 24k with the Soul Reaping tree. Thats 18k free HP on top of our already highest HP pool in game.

Just remember every 1% LF you gain from skills, or kills is +240 HP instantly, as a passive.

Lol if life siphon was hitting people for 20k you would see half the enemys around you die every time you life siphon bro.

Schnitter.9857:

Sigils – Sigil of Leeching is more useful for Healing Power focused specs. Heals almost 1k each swap. Probably 1 Sigil of Energy would be good.

You can dodge alot more than 1k damage with energy sigils, it synergizes well with your mark of blood on dodge, getting it out as fast as possible when its internal cool down is over. When you dodge you move at full speed even if you are crippled or chilled, 4 back to back dodges can make you travel quite a distance while taking no damage.

Runes – Like i said, the intention is be tanky. With Earth, i gain Magnetic Aura each 90 seg when my HP drops to 25% if im not wrong, and much better, chance to active protection for 10 sec.

its 4 seconds I think but another guy who posted mentioned how you can drop the magnetic aura and get longer lasting protections instead with 2 grove runes if you prefer.

Traits – The Well Traits are not a waste of trait points. By the same way, if you go for Spectral spec probably you would use Spectral Mastery and Spectral Attunement, what is the same number of Traits that i put to improve my Wells.

You could put points into spectral skills if you want, but the point is that spectral skills are very good even w/out putting points into their related traits. Wells are not, you virtually have to take traits to help them out, especially the 20 percent reduced cool down trait to help their horrendous times.

And about -25% faster LF decrease, is not so reliable like it seems. Ive done some tests absorbing damage and using DS skills with and without this Trait, and the use of this trait dont make all the improve it seems to do.

Its 25 percent more ds that the enemy has to take down instead of it just falling off you, and with as many spectral skills as I recommend you will be in DS a lot… which is where you want to be if you are trying to be tanky.

Utility – Flesh Wurm is a sklill that i altern with Well of Power, no problem. About Spectral Wall, its not that good.

Spectral wall is insanely good. It lasts for almost 10 seconds which lets you get almost 15 seconds of protection, with runes more like 20 seconds, if you put traits into spectral skills wall almost lasts for 15 seconds giving you more like 20-25 seconds of protection which is half or more of its cool down time. Also any melee enemy who wants to fight you will have to chase you back and forth through spectral wall which will put 25 stacks of vulnerability on them.

I use to receive swiftness and take another skill. We have better options like AoE blindness of Well of Darkness.

Well of darkness sucks. Even with traits it has a 48 second cooldown, if you use it every single time it comes off cool down it will only be up 10 percent of the time…. in other words the skill is cooling down 90 percent of the time. It also only effects people who are trying to melee you. Spectral walk is much stronger, you can escape from bad situations, juke out large numbers of enemys with its second activate skill, it lasts for an impressive 30 seconds which is 50 percent of its cooldown and it also gives you death shroud.

And Spectral Armor, even that its a good skill have a too long cooldown, pratically the double of anyone of my wells. Still being better, the well compensate this difference with a better cooldown and with the trait that gives me 3 sec of protection each time i cast a well.

Again you do not have to invest any points into spectral armor to make it good. It does have a long cooldown but most of the time you only need it 1 time in a fight, in which case its cool down is fine. Its purpose is to fill in the few gaps that you do not have protection active during and it also helps you refill your death shroud very quickly which is the ultimate in tanking for a necro. also its a stun breaker.

Besides, i respect your opinion, but you had some problem with wells in anytest you did? Is not that bad you think. I also tought that wells were not viable, and then i tried to put them in a spec and see their synergy, and for bunkering seems good.

I have tested wells extensivly, I do think that they are somewhat under powered but I do think that some of them have a place in the game. Unfortunately I do not believe that that place is in a build that is focusing on being tanky. If you want to focus on support or something like that wells are great, but for personal all fight long tankyness I do not think that wells do the job.

@jaydee, ds fear does not take a second to use. Knockdown will interrupt enemy skill and does damage and knocks them down for some times. Wail of doom will also interrupt the currently casting enemy skill and stop him from using any others for 2 seconds.

You can intentionally wait for a second after the enemy comes out of one of them to use the next so they have just enough time to start doing something before they get interrupted.

bwookie.3807:

That’s because it really doesn’t matter. Being a glass cannon and dying from full to 0 or being at 75% health and getting killed by a nerfed backstab combo there is very little difference. People want to be able to have these nice 30 second fights solo but also want to be glass cannons. The answer is to roll a bunker for long fights and roll a glass cannon and stay with a buddy if you want to prevent dying to backstab thieves.

No one has said anything about having a 30 second fight with or against a glass cannon class (please stop making up imaginary quotes). 5 seconds would be nice though……..

Unicron.9248:

Sabbathius.1465:

It’s the same here. You can dance around the issue all you want, but we all know there are certain classes in this game that are both grossly overpowered and easier to play than their weaker counterparts. When class like that runs into a weaker class, all else being equal, the weaker class loses.

This statement is wrong, incorrect, and infactual.

No matter what class you are, and no matter what class your opponent is, you CAN in fact beat them, the bigger factor involved is your traits/amulet selection, and if you get a heads up on what build the opponent is and what to avoid before you actually start going at each other.

So your contention is that gw2, on release (because they have released very few balance changes since then) is a 100 percent perfectly balanced game and no class has any advantage on another class? I must say that you give anet credit for godlike game balancing abilities such as this world has never seen.

Unfortunately you will find that the vast majority of people who have a semi firm grasp on reality do not agree with you. In short, you are just plain wrong, this game has many flaws and is not perfectly balanced. Some classes are just plain better than other classes as it has been in many games in the past, in the present and will be in the future.

A thief will not always defeat a Warrior, a warrior will not always defeat a necro, no such rock papper scissors exists in this game, sorry. You lost because of YOU.

Just because one class does not ALWAYS beat another class does not mean that it is not overpowered or under powered. You could literally build an “I win” button into a class and some newb would find a way to lose with it, that doesn’t mean that the class is somehow balanced just because someone lost with it.

shaolin.9716:

Such bad reasoning. Can’t kill a bunker 1v1. Now can’t kill a thief 1v1 either. Tell me what fun is left for the other builds out there? As soon as you’re caught alone you’re dead meat unless you play a bunker or a thief? And then have to run back to your team with your tail between your legs like a beaten dog?

I have never been unable to kill a bunker in a 1vs1…. of course I play mostly necro so maybe I have an advantage in that area.

Saiyan.1704:

Sigil of Fire and Sigil of Air share the same ICD and only one of each can proc at a time. So I chose Sigil of Fire for its aoe. The reason why I have two Sigil of Fires is because If one 30% chance to proc on crit fails on one weapon, then the next sigil will have a 30% chance to proc after that. I know the % doesn’t stack and they can’t proc at the same time, but I want that Increased chance of one procing every 5 seconds. At least that’s what I’m lead to believe after testing.

@ Parakeet
I’ll reapplied it with several sigils then reapplied Sigil of Battle but I still don’t get that 3xmight buff when I switch after Sigil of Fire procs. I can’t destroy the weapon because that’s the only weapon skin type that I have.

All of the Sigils on item switch doesn’t work when Sigil of superior Fire Procs. It’s frustrating to know that the Sigil I want to use will only work half the time.

I’m sorry I made a mistake in my post. Sigil of battle will not work because weapon swap sigils share a cooldown with % based sigils. If you want weapon swap to work you cannot use a % based sigil except for those that have no cooldown time (I think, you might have to experiment to confirm this part).

Also sigils that have % based proc stack multiplicatively so having 2 of them does in fact increase your chance of one of them procing on crit, however, I do not think that it is worth using 2 runes that cancel each other out just to increase the chance that their effect will happen, especially when its already at 30 percent with just 1 of them.

Cribbage.2056:

tOss.9024:

Aga.8641:

No class, whatever spec, should be able to hit just about anyone with 10k+ in 1 hit. It’s just absurd.

What I find really funny is that ANet went on about how they wanted balance, yet they somehow let stuff like assassin signet + backstab into the game, what kind of useless testing did they do before release?

Maybe the envisioned people working together? Ie:peeling the thief or using the revive spells given?

I don’t see how this argument stacks up. If it was your whole team against one thief, then sure (although peeling doesn’t work in GW2 like it does in WoW you will find), but it’s the thief plus his team against your team. You can work together but so can they.

I personally don’t have a problem with burst damage, but my view is that burst damage should take a large chunk out of your pretty quickly, it shouldn’t take you from full health to dead in just a few seconds.

Totally agree, one of the main problems with the thief is being able to do this while invisible for the entire time…… culling bugs MUST be fixed. Imo they are the root of many of these problems.

imba.3620:

Just came out of a sPvP game with 9 thieves..

Frankly I am at the point where I’m just gonna play something else until they are brought down to earth.. I’ve seen 6k steals, 9k CnDs and 17k backstabs and 7,5k heartseekers.. And yes, I run a pure dps build, but no, that doesn’t make it ok. Even if other dps classes were able to do the same type of damage, which they don’t by a long shot, it wouldn’t be ok. And no, the solution is not that everyone but thieves have to run bunker builds.

Even bunker builds don’t really work. If you have 2 coordinated thieves they will crush any bunker.

Zsymon.8457:

I see a lot of wildly exaggerated claims flying around about thief damage.. whenever someone actually tests it and gets hard numbers, the damage is like 3x lower than what people claim they get killed by.

There are plenty of screenshots showing the high end of thief damage at round 15k, and it is average to hit for 10k.

tOss.9024:

Aga.8641:

No class, whatever spec, should be able to hit just about anyone with 10k+ in 1 hit. It’s just absurd.

What I find really funny is that ANet went on about how they wanted balance, yet they somehow let stuff like assassin signet + backstab into the game, what kind of useless testing did they do before release?

Maybe the envisioned people working together? Ie:peeling the thief or using the revive spells given?

Did they envision the thief working together with his dagger to hit you for 10-15k? Oh…. so its just other players who have to work together against the thief…. so hes like.. what? A raid boss?

@Schnitter I never said that a power build is viable for tourneys. I think that they are but I really don’t want to spend time on that argument. What I said was that I think that your build can be much more survivable than it currently is.

I would be happy to give you a quick rundown of ways you can improve the survivability of your build. My suggestions are as follows:

Sigils: Sigils of energy instead of sigils of leeching.

Runes: Runes of earth will give you more tankyness but its probably not worth it to give up all that extra condition damage.

Utility skills: Get rid of all the wells and put in spectral wall, Flesh wurm, and either spectral walk or spectral armor.

Traits: Without having to invest so many points into trying to make wells viable (and still failing) you will have enough points to put 10 or 15 into soul reaping for the 25% less degeneration on death shroud. If you go 15 in you can get the spectral armor at half health.

These changes will make you harder to kill and possibly even make it easier to kill enemys. If you are unsure of how these changes will help you, let me know, and I will explain them in more detail.

This is why 4 people I know irl have stopped playing gw2 even though they were excited for it when it came out. It has been a long time now and still no other game types…. forget game types there still isn’t a duel option like every other mmo on earth has.

Basically a guy in plate armor was invincible unless you could overwhelm him with numbers…. that is until guns improved. Then armor of that type became useless, worst than useless it slowed you down and made you an easy target.

I agree. Downed state needs to be altered in some way as to make 1vs2’s possible if you are good enough. As of right now 1vs2’s are actually 1vs4’s cause you have to kill everyone twice.

Josher.9612:

Parakeet.6083:

Wail is very strong, dazed condition prevents enemy’s from using skills for its duration. Not so great in pve… but in pvp you get to wail on the enemy for 2-3 seconds with impunity.

What does wailing on them with impunity in Necro language=) Watching bleeds tick away while 2 or 3 other players wail on you while you watch? I’d LOOOOOOVE to ever get in a 1 vs 1. I don’t do tourneys so maybe thats where PvP doesn’t involve 5-8 people mucking up the screen with AOE rainbow barf effects that cover up whats actually going on=) Lets not mention WvW.

Well if you are getting beat down in a 4 vs 1 thats a personal problem I can’t help you with your skill level unless you want to schedule some pvp classes with me.

Wail of doom comes out in a cone shape in front of you, if you need to learn how to use it practice dummies are available. You can daze multiple people with it. I hit 2 people with it on a normal basis and have hit up to 4 with fair regularity.

Rottaran Owain.6789:

Unless you use one of the dozens of ways to mitigate the thieves damage, in which they fall flat on their face at your feet.

If by fall flat on their faces at your feet you mean push a button and walk away while invisible to try and kill you again in a couple of seconds when you don’t have your miraculous damage mitigate ability that lets you anticipate the first attack of an invisible opponent and reduce the 15k damage available.

GW1 was great, have multiple different kinds of spells (hexes) and conditions that you could put on people added a lot of depth, conditions/hexes could be much more powerful than they are in this game. For example the blindness condition would stay on a warrior/whatever for x number of seconds and gave him a 90 percent chance to miss with his attacks. A properly set up ele could keep a warrior perma blinded (at the cost of damage of course) and the warrior had to use skill to overcome this obstacle.

Unfortunately guild wars 2 does not have the depth that gw1 had. They have combined everything from gw1 (conditions, hexes, enchantments, boons, heals) and all of the said mini games that took place between them in a fight into 2 things: boons and conditions, neither of which are as potent as their counter parts in gw1.

There is nothing that will give gw2 the depth that gw1 other than a total revamp of the game (they would have to add a mana/energy system to all classes). Accept it for what it is, realize that anet has gone the way of many cash cow companies, stop trying to change it, and you will have more fun.

@Schnitter Someone could easily make a power build that has better survivability than yours… simply because you are not using the right skills. Every one of your utilities is not the best of choices for a build that wants to live for any length of time.

In pvp power builds can be used… in pve its much harder.

I have had life blast crited for 6k and I only had 10 points in the death shroud line and was not really going for high damage hits with life blast.

I do think that death shrouds automatic degeneration rate is a little high considering how long it takes to build it up. You are basicaly forced to get the trait that causes death shroud to degenerate 25 percent slower if you want ds to last any longer than 15-20 seconds and thats without even taking any damage from anything.

@saiyan Those sigils do not stack, if your sigil of air or of fire procs all 3 of your % based sigils go on cooldown.

For the battle one it should be working but sometimes they get bugged (especially if your using sigils that effect each other). I have found that destroying all your weapons and reapplying the sigils will fix those bugs but perhaps you can find a less severe solution.

Valhallen.1693:

First, no thief or warrior has ever killed you before you had time to react.

Thats right, you have TIME to react… you just can’t because you are stun/feared/immobalized for the 1.2567 seconds it take them to kill you.

Maybe they DOWNED you in 2 seconds since you have a slow internet connection or slow reflexes.

The difference is irrelevant if you get downed by a theif in pvp you are getting stomped by an invisible theif unless you are in a decent team. So you have to have godlike reflexes and ping to defeat the 3 button theif?

My question is, where was your backup? Why didn’t your teammate destroy the glass cannon after he burned his 45 second burst cooldowns?

So it takes a team to beat a theif? Also your buddy can’t kill him because he is…………. invisible.

you thought it was a good idea to run around the map by yourself like a one man army with no defensive spec and obviously lacking in sufficient PvP skills.

So theives only kill people who suck and have no defensive spect? That is simply not true. I think we have all seen the 10-15k crits coming off theives and its not just something that happens on people with no defence. In 5vs5 tourney games it is not always possible to run around in a constant clump just because there is 1 theif on the other team.

GW2 PvP is about TEAMWORK!

Except for the theif apparently.

Glass cannons, especially thieves, warriors, and to a lesser extent a few other professions, are good at ONE thing. They down one person every 45-60 seconds that isn’t paying attention or has “average” reflexes before they can defend themselves. Once they blow their combo, that’s it until it’s ready again.

So theives can’t do any damage until their long cooldowns are up? That is simply not true. When their cooldowns are up theives can insta gib a person…. without those cooldowns they can do decent damage and even still win fights.

If you had a friend with you, that thief that just backstabbed you for 11K wouldn’t have stood a chance of winning because his measly 14K HP would have been gone before he got off the stomp.

So you have to fight all theives 2vs1?

Game balance is NOT everyone being the same and being able to do everything equally well. You should not be able to play as a roamer, bunker, single target dps, AoE dps, and support with a single profession. Balance is one profession being good at one thing and another being good at something different

Your right….. a game can be perfectly balanced with a class that can insta gib you…. but games have to be more than just balanced, they have to be FUN. It is not fun for people to get insta gibed and even if they have mad skills and survive they insta gib it doesn’t matter because the theif can either finish them off (since they are at 1/4th health) or can just go invisible and escape easily even though they failed their gank.

Thieves are really good at taking out one person really fast.

Maybe this needs to be changed. Maybe this one spect of the theif needs to be nurfed a little so that the theif can’t insta gib people but needs to be buffed to give the theif a little more survivability for a slightly longer fight. People need to feel like they have actually had a chance to fight back.

No one has said that thieves are unbeatable or that you should make 5vs5 teams full of thieves because they are stronger than every other class. What people have an issue with is the specific theif build that lets you kill the majority of other classes in less than a second. Even if you are running a glass cannon build of another class and expect to take more damage in combat there is simply no other class than can deal out the near instant death damage of a theif. The closest is a 100 blades warrior but there are big differences, for starters you can see the 100 blades warrior coming, there are no culling issues, he has a hard time running away after he messes up his combo and he has to stand still while he uses it… none of these things apply to the theif.
The first thing that needs to be fixed are the culling issues with the theif’s stealth. I have seen on a consistent basis thieves able to 100-0 players while invisible on that players screen, this is simply not acceptable, 3 seconds of stealth should not be 6 seconds of stealth while you kill someone. After this MAJOR theif issue is fixed we can look at other details of the theif.

Wail is very strong, dazed condition prevents enemy’s from using skills for its duration. Not so great in pve… but in pvp you get to wail on the enemy for 2-3 seconds with impunity.

Bleeds, their duration’s and damage seems really quirky right now. Almost as if anet themselves never actually mathed it out.

I have had elementalists do some surprising burst to me before, dropping me to 1/4th health… but never enough to insta gib me.

Counter… remeber this word.