Guild Wars 2

Equipping the med kit counts as using a heal skill, equipping a kit, AND switching weapons for procs. In addition to what was posted above, burning could come from Balthazar runes.

I love engi. I also mainly PvP, and I have it as my main split with thief for now.

There are a ton of offensive and defensive options, and the kits/tool belt skills are really unique. You get so many skills, you have tools for almost every situation and build imaginable.

It takes a bit to get used to them all, but it’s definitely worth it. I also have a lot more fun trying out homebrew builds on engi since there are so many different, strong variations that synergise well.

Ah, one other note- the devs said they were getting rid of all guard stacks in the not-so-distant future.

Losing that extra 2500 hp will hurt the lowest HP tier the most, which includes us.

I’ll add that the golem buff/event is making current WvW play even more bursty, so it seems worse than it is.

That said, I know my sustained build for WvW (Knight’s armor, D/P) went to hell with the patch due to damage and condi buffs + thief defense nerfs. I honestly have not found any power-based thief build with any kind of viable tankiness & sustain post-patch in WvW.

Either play more glass-cannon, in & out dodge/stealthy, or try Carrion/Dire condition builds for extra tankiness.

Edit: If you’re having issues with condi-cleanse, you may want to try out Hide in Shadows with the 20% Deception cooldown trait (yes, over Shadow’s Embrace) + Improvisation. They made it a Deception, so you get it at least every 24 seconds, cleansing the big condi bursts pretty well, especially with Shadowstep as a back-up, also benefiting from reduced CDR.

With such a high energy cost, the Rev probably isn’t bursting you afterwards; it’s pretty much entirely a support skill. BOTH their utilities and their weapon skills cost energy, so this skill may actually be pretty worthless 1v1.

I’ll believe it’s a problem when we see it in action; Rev has been really underwhelming so far.

I would be in favor of this, for OP’s stated reasons.

I would just point out that you’d need to re-balance, say, engis’ Healing turret. Engis have decent sustain even without healing power now, but they’re not really an overpowered class, and this nerf would hit them harder than most- even solo roam/dueling specs use water field heals.

With mesmer’s increased survivability AND increased stealth, the mechanics aren’t bad, but they should get reassigned to the lowest health pool. Especially post patch where thief lost a lot of evades, there is no good reason Mesmer should still have 40-50% more base health than a thief.

You want to be bursty/blindy/evady like pre-patch thief? Sure, but your hp pool should not be mid-tier, it should absolutely be moved to the lowest tier.

Are you saying something is wrong with Grenades since the reactivation (aside from the lack of legendary animation)? I haven’t played with it yet today, since the patch release.

ZidZabre.7256:

Question: Was it intentionally too have grenades pierce, because that was a really nice touch.

Nope. They already do AoE, ground-targeted explosions. Piercing was unintended and made grenades explode an unintended additional time for every target it pierced; if you pierced through two people, for example, they’d explode THREE times instead of once.

Considering grenades already do excellent damage, that was clearly a bug. It’s also part of why they disabled it. Honestly, it’s probably the harder part of the code to fix since the other one just doubled the number of grenades in Grenade Barrage; that’s a simple math formula that could possibly be contained in one part of one line of code specific to Grenade Barrage.

Fixing unintended piercing effects on multiple grenade skills? It’s a good bet that’s the majority of code needing to be debugged.

I’ve been saying it since the patch: P/P is actually stronger in sPvP. We can take more stealth/survivability, Venomshare support, or just load up on a ton of damage. I wouldn’t call it meta, but it certainly got stronger (though honestly, it wasn’t hard given how easy it was to shut down P/P pre-patch).

Losing Ricochet really hurt for WvW mobs and PvE, though. We really lost a ton of efficiency against mob groups.

ronpierce.2760:

… Taunt is not very common.

Good point.

After thinking about it in the ranger context, I’d say ranger skill is fine (ranger is underpowered and needs the buff), but the mechanic should absolutely not go to other professions (Someone above said Mesmer has it? Please say it breaks the shatter build to take it.).

I am really just concerned about taunt as a general mechanic since it nerfs a wide variety of skills in ways that, by all estimation, needed no nerfing (there are no widely supported threads calling infil signet and judge’s intervention OP, much less all targeted stunbreaks affected).

Tl; dr I changed my mind and believe this is fine on underpowered rangers but hell no if Anet wants to give it to other professions.

Thanks for the discussion and different POV.

Stunbreaks have always trumped cc effects with no restrictions.

Taunt places a targeting restriction on cc.

Considering all targeted cc skills were designed without that mechanic, and that the taunt exception is significant (for example, infil signet won’t gap close on a target of choice any more), the change makes all affected, targeted cc’s function in a way they were NOT designed, and they suffer for it.

In my opinion, that’s pretty terrible. Targeting elsewhere should absolutely be allowed while taunted (and to clarify, while taunted you should still only be auto attacking the taunter, non-stunbreaks all disabled). It seems more like a design oversight than anything else. It’s essentially a generic nerf bomb to a lot of skills rather than a tweak to anything specific. It’s almost impossible for anything with that broad of a game impact to be anywhere near balanced.

Kadin.2356:

Placebo Effect.4508:

It wouldn’t, but the person above also threw CnD in there, which does and should reveal you.

I dunno, C&D + Steal is kinda a bread & butter combo of D&D. Even though I never ran the build I was under the impression that for quite a while the old “stealth on steal” trait did work with this combo (just extended the stealth duration provided by C&D). If we can get conformation from someone that this was working at some point I’ll add it to the list. I won’t at the moment though because I’m not 100% sure that was the case.

I agree that CnD + Steal is bread and butter of offhand dagger builds (p/d, d/d, sometimes s/d), but it has never stacked with Hidden Thief. Most people did NOT take Hidden Thief with these builds pre-patch since it played terribly with CnD + Steal. I remember very clearly trying this myself on some builds, wondering why I was getting Revealed, and then going “Aha, damage after initial stealth.”

That hasn’t changed, though it’s worth asking post-patch since they did change it for Mug + Hidden Thief, which used to also Reveal you, but now does not.

Mattigan.6395:

I’ll check it out when I get home, but I could have sworn my Hidden Killer + Mug + Steal didn’t reveal me in the practice areas. I was playing with a bunch of builds yesterday so I could be wrong.

It wouldn’t, but the person above also threw CnD in there, which does and should reveal you.

penelopehannibal.8947:

ades.1386:

the no condi removal answer,

Tricks can remove conditions, and you have two new tricks now (Withdraw & Dagger Storm)

True, but even if you took Shadowstep and 2 trick utilities, Withdraw, Shadow’s Embrace, Pain Response, and Dagger Storm… you’d still be unable to cleanse condis well enough in this meta. Our base hp is a joke, too, so we have less time to do it than other classes.

Then again, it’s all part of making people, especially thieves, glassier. There is no such thing as a sustain thief in PvP anymore, even a casual one, with all the damage/condi buffs. It’s enough cleanse to stay alive long enough to burst someone down, and that’s about it. Anet explicitly wanted to make people glassier and more reliant on active defense (rather than passive/stat-based defense).

Not really a bad thing, but I miss my tankier WvW roamer.

IGN : Bearr Sharpe
Playstyle : PvP and WvW, mostly PvP since the patch
Server : Northern Shiverpeaks
Experience : Thief has been my main since I started about a year ago. I use D/P mostly, but I like to try out my own homebrew builds. P/P may be inferior, but kitten it, it’s fun being a gunslinger. Despite all the forums moaning about P/P post-patch, I actually think it’s in a decent position for PvP right now. Which is relative to being useless pre-patch against anyone who could dodge/interrupt/block.

The patch has turned my world upside down. Pre-patch I ran a sustain, roaming SA d/p thief in WvW and either sustain or glass cannon in PvP. Post-patch I haven’t played much WvW since my sustain became worthless, and I’m all about the glass cannon builds in sPvP.

Thanks for testing/confirming, John! Nice to know about Shadow Shot, too, I wasn’t aware of that

Tabootrinket.2631:

Also pistol increased range should be baseline, otherwise there’s litterally zero reason to choose it over shortbow. (then again, i wouldn’t mind just having ricochet trait back as it was with the bounce on critical AND the range)

It’s not in the trait tooltip, but I think Ankle Shots is actually increasing pistol range to 1050 (showing up in the pistol skill tooltips too). Would need to test to be sure; at work now.

Yeah… I honestly think glass cannon is the only viable PvP spec for thief in this meta, even in the casual custom arenas. I used to run a Knight’s ammy with a 3200 armor thief. I could actually survive and heal pretty well, and with the poison on dagger + a lot of sustain, I’d outlast everyone 1v1 except big spike damage and super heavy condi classes, and I could eat a shatter and recover, or usually run away/survive if they didn’t knock me out of SR.

Then they took away the extra vit based on precision trait and buffed everyone’s damage/condis, nerfed Shadow’s Embrace. Damage easily outpaces thief sustain, even with 3200 armor, so Knight’s ammy sucks now. I went super glass cannon instead (Assassin’s amulet, if you can believe it) and had way more success. My days as a sustain thief are over, sadly.

Given how it’s relatively easier to trait into compared to pre-patch (only takes 1/9 major traits instead of 1/7, and 1/3 GM traits instead of 1/2, on top of not needing traits for stats), and the increased damage/lack of survivability across the board (and especially on thief), I’ve had great success just tacking it onto a glass cannon build with Basi and Devourer venom in sPvP. Extra team-wide cc support in a glass cannon meta, without giving up huge spike damage or stealth yourself, makes it much stronger and easier to fit into many builds.

Of course, it’s not so great in PvE or large-scale WvW encounters, but I am really enjoying it in PvP right now. That may change if they tone down the damage and the meta shifts away from burst-burst-burst.

Also, patch notes have Trapper’s Respite (Deadly Arts Adept trait) on a 10-second ICD. The game itself has it on a 30-second ICD. Unsure if it’s just a post typo or a legit bug.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Don’t know if it’s a bug, but Shadow’s Embrace now has a limited selection of conditions it can clear, whereas before it didn’t. This is displayed in the tooltip, but it’s still annoying that I can’t remove Fear by clicking Blinding Powder anymore. If it’s an intentional change, learning the rationale behind it might be nice, as thieves don’t really have a lot of condition removal options!

The rationale I can think of is this: they want thieves to be glass cannon specialists; bad condi cleanse with a low hp pool means your only chance against condi classes is bursting them down. Seems keeping in line with their general “everyone will be more glassy because everyone gets damage buffs” theme. I guess they dislike bunkers.

Having tried it out now:

It sucks losing Ricochet for PvE, but I actually like p/p better in sPvP for now. I have ranged spike damage (with cripple/immob traited), venomshare support (with an additional charge built in), and 5 sources of stealth (with 25% damage reduction traited in) to survive with the new system (HiS, SR, BP, Steal, Last Refuge [with Vamp Runes of course]). It’s actually a lot more survivable and team-friendly than it was pre-patch, for me.

Then again, devs might be nerfing the ridiculous damage we’re seeing in PvP across the board… so this might go away soon. It’s the glass cannon meta that makes a cc supporting, ranged stealth spec so strong.

Who knows where it’ll end up, but I have no sPvP complaints for p/p. Then again, I have no clue what I’ll be running in WvW now. My Knight’s armor set became worthless, and my p/p PvP spec lacks the needed mobility pretty badly. It could work if you have a small havoc team with a source of swiftness, though.

Bleeding already got nerfed; burning seems to be the problem. There’s a screenie going around of a guardian stacking burns enough to get 17,000-20,000 (yes, 17k-20k) damage ticks on a world boss, in that “Things We Know” thread. That’s insane.

I’m hoping they at least run a bunch of WvW tournaments again, giving players access to cheap-ish ascended trinkets. Waiting to gather enough laurels is a pain.

Great summary. I wonder how devs are going to address the unbalanced amount of damage we have now; they’ve straight up said that damage is currently too high, across the board. I’ll definitely be paying more attention to the “Dev Tracker” part of the forums.

I’m going to try it out later, actually. I noticed in the patch notes that Combined Training is now baseline- an extra 5% damage on all dual skills, which always applies to our main damage dealer.

Maybe not all is lost? I really liked p/p… gotta try to make it work again.

Thanks for the info about leaderboards being currently frozen. I just wish they had that information posted on the actual leaderboards. Doubly so since what is actually posted says “last updated on” with the current date and on the last hour.

Posting it on the leaderboard page should be incredibly easy, and it fixes a lot of confusion for players, particularly people participating in ranked for the first time in a while (or ever).

I have had the same happen.

I’ve played a handful of Ranked matches in the past few weeks, but I actually don’t show up on the leaderboards at all, anywhere, even though I see a few friends/guildies are on there after 1 ranked match.

After not playing Ranked for a while (since they merged Solo Q and Team Ranked), I actually thought it was maybe a general “all leaderboards are broken” thing.

I’m having the same issue. I’m just returning to Ranked (haven’t played since they combined Solo Q and Team Ranked), but none of my five games were recorded on the leaderboards.

Another player who just ran into it, on my second character ever.

Jesus, that’s annoying to be unable to finish a storyline quest. I have a level 64, wanting to level him via personal story, but I can’t. I just used a good 40 Tomes of Knowledge on him, too, and got Armorsmithing to 500, so there’s no way I’m deleting this toon and starting over.

Come on, Anet. I’m a gem buyer, and until you fix this stuff, I’m not buying any more gems.