Guild Wars 2

David.5693:

Rahar.9872:

Yes hello David, I happen to be in said daily party that does this for low level fractals, and chances are you’re referencing us (myself and two friends) by your post.

The vast majority of posters in this thread are right. It’s an easy, albeit occasionally inaccurate way to judge player experience level at a glance and attempt to guarantee that the run will go as quickly and as smoothly as possible.

Does it always work? No. Sometimes we end up being slow anyway, due to people leaving or having the requirement and still being inexperienced. But it can have a large effect on the kind of player that does end up joining our party, and I find we’re generally faster.

Bottom line is: We are not obligated to babysit you, hold your hand, or tell you that it’s going to be okay and that your 2.3k achievement points won’t be an issue. We -could- require you to send us a picture of yourself with a shoe on your head before you joined our party and we could still kick you for not doing it. We’re going to play how we want to play.

It doesn’t bug me. Your money , your game. I was more mystified by the actual 5K metric. If the point is to save time, I can see where that might actually backfire.

But as I said, it is totally your choice and I am okay with it. It just has a middle school vibe, but I tend to be a patient sort and actually don’t mind helping people be better. But if you have limited time and don’t want to risk it, I understand.

If I had fully read the description I would not have joined. And that is totally my fault. So if it happened to be your group, I apologize for wasting your time. I was simply sort of taken aback.

It appears that other posters may have taken my sarcasm as anger or frustration of some kind.

You, however, seemed to be a reasonable sort from the get go, so I hope I’ve cleared some confusion. My post’s main purpose was only to clarify why groups like mine might choose to have said metric on our LFG’s, and that’s to attract the kind of player that wants to get the run done in the shortest amount of time. Call it elitist if you like, but we don’t have the time to “train” new players or don’t care to use our time “imparting” our knowledge.

Hopefully this provides some insight to the other side of the argument.

Yes hello David, I happen to be in said daily party that does this for low level fractals, and chances are you’re referencing us (myself and two friends) by your post.

The vast majority of posters in this thread are right. It’s an easy, albeit occasionally inaccurate way to judge player experience level at a glance and attempt to guarantee that the run will go as quickly and as smoothly as possible.

Does it always work? No. Sometimes we end up being slow anyway, due to people leaving or having the requirement and still being inexperienced. But it can have a large effect on the kind of player that does end up joining our party, and I find we’re generally faster.

Bottom line is: We are not obligated to babysit you, hold your hand, or tell you that it’s going to be okay and that your 2.3k achievement points won’t be an issue. We -could- require you to send us a picture of yourself with a shoe on your head before you joined our party and we could still kick you for not doing it. We’re going to play how we want to play.

Apparition.1576:

…

But why should a Greatsword warrior be forced to use axe or hammer for damage. Greatsword has no sustain, horrible damage, at the cost of mobility thats part of the class design?

Greatsword received way to many nerfs, and no compensation before the condition meta.

Should thief or mesmer have their damaged nerfed to kitten as well?.. Mesmers have clones, stealth and mobility. How is a greatsword warrior supposed to compete?

Oh my God yes, why should Warriors have to make the same choices other professions have to make? No one gets everything quite like the Warrior. Mesmers have damage and good in combat mobility, but they sacrifice sustain and out of combat mobility. Thieves have good damage and mobility, but they have very, very poor sustain. Warriors, on the other hand, have damage, sustain, and mobility through weapons and traits. You see where I’m going with this?

Greatsword has its place, and that’s as a utility weapon. Just like the Thief’s shortbow or the Mesmer’s focus.

The last thing we need is Warriors getting more of everything.

Lore wise, a Dervish is also based heavily on human gods. It would be pretty hard to justify that for Charr or Asura.

Raziel.4216:

Or maybe they want to catter to one of the most universally underrepresented groups out there.
Some of us like it, just so you know

I was expressing an opinion. I know that not everyone will agree with me, but it felt forced and artificial.

Raziel.4216:

Can I have your crystal ball?

Satire is not going to help your point.

Electro.4173:

Female Charr got Rox’s horns shortly after she was added to Living Story. That’s pretty much it so far, though.

I’m not sure if we’ll ever get a big batch of new horn styles, honestly. See, the thing is, while horns are a pretty big thing for Charr, the other races get much less impressive “secondary features”. Male Humans and Norn get facial hair, which is relatively major. Asura and Sylvari only get ears. And female Norn and Humans get nothing at all.

Given that imbalance of features between the races and genders, they wouldn’t make for a very good makeover kit / gem store addition. They may be exciting for Charr and male humans / norn I doubt the other 2 races would care that much about new ears (well, Asura might, sylvari probably not since half the hairstyles hide them anyway) and female norn and human players, which is the largest or 2nd largest chunk of the playerbase, wouldn’t get anything at all.

So my guess is that at most we’ll get a new horn style added passively every so often if they add a new character with different horns, but that’s about it.

I’d love to be proven wrong, though. New horn styles would be great.

Unfortunately you’re likely right. ArenaNet, at it’s core, is a business. You’re wrong about one thing, though: Female Norn get tattoos as a secondary feature. ‘So do male Norn’, you say. While this is true, they do not share the same patterns.

However, the best way to release horns would probably be an extra pair or two along with a face update for the female humans/norn. Even though Charr are probably one of the least played (if not the least), there still should be updates to their visual appearances, as with the other races.

Leshain.6720:

Oi’ people keep talking about the whole “relationships” deal going on in season 1 with the two human female characters going all kissy face on each otha’.

I couldn’t find a topic on this, but i have to say, the writers at arena net so far have been extremely biased when it comes to story character screen time from season 1.

But the real issue, in my opinion, (from a balanced cast of major characters perspective) is the lack of focus on major kitten male characters, mainly human.

Example for Season 1:
(Marj, Kas, Rox, Taimi, Scarlet, Mai Trin, Ellen Kiel, Turma > Braham, Captain Magnus, Evon, Canach)

I most likely missed some on both gender sides but I’m pretty sure i ain’t far off target. That is 8 to 4, literally double the amount of female focus to males.

I would have enjoyed it more if there were at least “SOME” strong male leads, there is none. Logan is stupid and has lady issues, Braham has mommy issues and eats too much ham, Lord Faren is the fool of tyria, Canach was on the right track since he was actually a loose cannon kitten at first but the writers nerfed him right at the ending in terms of personality.

Jus’ sayin it kinda ruined the experience for me, nothin wrong with a strong cool female character, but kitten mang balance the scales for season 2 please.

Pick any lad from this wallpaper and it’ll be all gewd.

Why did you open this can of worms, so to speak? It’s like you were asking for every radical feminist in the entire game to come on this thread and vent about how video games are incredibly biased towards male characters while not giving any actual feedback about the topic at hand.

Speaking of on topic, I’m okay with the feminine cast. A good character isn’t represented by his or her gender or romantic interests, nor is a good story defined by the balance of male or female protags. Some great characters with interesting backstories came from this ‘season’ (Scarlet not included), and I’m excited to see more. In fact, my favorite was probably Rox.

The only thing that I’m at odds with is the blatant shoehorning of homosexuality for the sake of being different or unique. To me, it just seems like a bad way to attempt to make a story more interesting. The right way, of course, would’ve been to actually make the story interesting by improving the plot. Assuming that Marjory was made a male, the kissing scene would’ve likely never even been conceived, and the romantic storyline between the two would’ve probably been more in the background as every romantic storyline in a video game should be – Especially with more pressing things to be concerned about (like Scarletwaking up the dragon). It just felt like it was forced in there regardless of the plot in order to appeal to a specific audience – That’s why I dislike it.

I know my opinions can come off controversial, but I mean no offense.

Wow, you guys are acting like children to the OP.

On topic: OP, this is a pretty basic 30 shadow arts build. The venom is a bit of a surprise (since mug is far greater) but besides that, pretty basic.

Let’s give a simple run down. There’s not a whole lot you can do to this build as a Mesmer, particularly as a beserker one with no condition cleanse, and extra particularly as a non-PU (stealth). What your best bet to do is to put up all your phantasms and hope he’s not smart enough to CnD on them. When he pops out he’ll hopefully take a ton of damage and be too pressured to fight you back and run off. Honestly, you’d be better off just leaving – Not like he packs the damage to kill you or the utility to chase you.

But I concur with one of the posters before me; You’ll never see a -good- thief playing this anywhere outside of WvW. It’s a very weak build for any sort of team play, and is more based on attrition and stealth (not the name of the game in spvp). He’ll be unable to capture points, spend 5 minutes downing a single person, and in general is extra weight for his team.

Excellent posts, makes a clear point and outlines the problems with the devs very well, especially how balance changes in general seem to lag behind.

There’s some work to be done, and personally, I’d gladly go without the fortnightly content (in fact, I hardly do it now anyway) if it meant more balance changes.

Interceptor.2653:

Warriors are too good, but not because of anything you proved in an experiment with some average-ish D/P backstabber. A competent P/D condition Thief would have beaten you up and taken your lunch money. That fight either ends with the Warrior 1) dying, or 2) running away.

They are scaling back Healing Signet some. That will help.

When’s the last time anyone’s ever played a condition P/D outside of duel servers or WvW? I think the OP is referencing a PvP perspective here, and playing that build is absurd in that game type. Especially tPvP.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that P/D was being played in a tPvP match. If I’m the Warrior, I’m going to sit on my point (because you’ll never contest it camping stealth) and call for some help to chase you off or kill you, assuming you don’t mess up and I can’t do it myself. You just wasted a few minutes of the match, and didn’t even neutralize the point. Oops.

More on topic, Warrior sustain is insane and should be toned down. But trying to counter the argument by referencing a niche build clearly meant for another gametype is just cherrypicking.

Interceptor.2653:

Travlane.5948:

not to play “point-counterpoint” with you but the build literally had half a dozen ways of dropping conditions. some thru utility. somethru adrenaline. some thru 2 traits. and all thru lyssa runes. p/d wouldntohave done much. need 7 stacks of bleed justto get inthe positive.

Warrior doesn’t have enough condition clear to deal with the rate that Thieves can re-apply, and your bleed estimate is just objectively wrong. Suppose we have a Thief with primary condition damage everywhere, using condi food/nourishment. That put you at ~1700 condition damage, which means that Healing Signet’s regen is completely negated by any of the following:

1. three stacks of Bleeding (~382 damage per tick)
2. Poison (~ 254 damage per tick plus 33% reduced healing)
3. two stacks of Torment when moving (four without)

It’s trivial for a Thief to maintain any one of those, and in reality you are dealing with multiples. You can hang for a while, but eventually running negative sustain and burning condi cleanses will drain your health to the point where you’ll die to burst. Don’t forget that you’re taking damage from Sneak Attack and Shadow Strike, too.

This doesn’t even get into the realm of Perplexity runes, which is nightmare mode for Warriors to deal with, but easy for Thieves to take advantage of.

This is clearly using WvW stats and should be discarded, assuming the OP means a PvP perspective.

In WvW, healing signet is fine due to the inflated stats and damage values.

Duka.5864:

They fall like fly’s with p/d-d/d condi build !

See above.

I can’t believe you Warriors still think you’re balanced. This is a much needed toning down.

Reckless.6325:

@Rahar – Lol you don’t do much pvp or any sort either then i assume? A D/D thief without 30 in shadow arts is pretty much a free kill. That is ofcourse unless they are running a quadruple signet 1 shot wonder build, in which case they are even easier to kill – you just need to avoid the initial burst. The 10% thing is apparently a 10% nerf to damage for crit damage builds. In other words, his back stabs are gonna deal less damage and therefore take more time for him to kill stuff resulting is potential losses where he may very well have won with an increased 10% damage.

@Big Tower – It’s a shame that your build is being nerfed (I don’t play D/D because its near impossible with australian 300ms ping) but you know what they say my friend:

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Shadow Arts isn’t something you take in sPvP, but WvW, D/D or not. Mocking me doesn’t really work when you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I believe the PvP you’re referring to is WvW. If you took Shadow Arts in PvP, you couldn’t contest nodes and you’d be spending the majority of a battle in stealth to regen health. This puts your team at a massive disadvantage, essentially making it a 4v5.

A Thief build in sPvP with Shadow Arts is an attrition build.

Big Tower.5423:

Rahar.9872:

Spec out of Shadow Arts? I don’t do WvW much, but if you’re running 10/30/30/0/0 or some variation you’re not meant to do high burst damage – You’re an attrition spec.

Perhaps you could try a different spec or weaponset? I’m not really too sure what the 10% thing you’re talking about is.

We got no other viable weaponsets or specs.

S/P and D/P are both viable, at least from an sPvP standpoint. If you need 30 Shadow Arts to play, you need more practice.

Spec out of Shadow Arts? I don’t do WvW much, but if you’re running 10/30/30/0/0 or some variation you’re not meant to do high burst damage – You’re an attrition spec.

Perhaps you could try a different spec or weaponset? I’m not really too sure what the 10% thing you’re talking about is.

Although the evade frame thing is rather annoying (Guardian symbols pls y do u hit) and retaliation is too strong against any multi-hitting skill, I think PW is fine. It’s a very intimidating move, and thanks to the frame reduction, very formidible against any opponent. Combined with shortbow, the Thief becomes a monster indeed – but nowhere near Warrior level OP.

Aza.2105:

Rahar.9872:

As a Thief main, I think backstab is fine. The counterplay isn’t in the backstab itself, but in the stealthing. There’s plenty of counterplay involved in keeping a D/D or D/P Thief from stealthing, and proposing that blinding powder or something is used means that the Thief loses out on a cooldown, stunbreaker, and possibly initiative, depending on the utility swapped out. If he’s Shadow Arts, his damage is pathetic anyway. Blind him and block him as D/D, and use your dazes/stuns when he drops Black Powder for D/P. If he manages to get in stealth, stealth as well if you have access to it, use a cooldown to avoid the damage, or at the very least, attempt to be unpredictable as to try to lure out a facestab.

I’ve played a lot of other professions (Engi, Necro, Warrior, Mesmer) and Thieves were always pretty easy to handle to me. The only ones that put up a challenge are the good ones, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Once again, you make the same mistake that many players make when it comes to understanding counterplay. What you describe are stealth “preventions” not stealth counterplay. I’ll just post what I wrote from another thread:

---

None of what you listed are counters though. People seem to be perplexed at what the word counter means:

1. To meet or return (a blow) by another blow.
2. To move or act in opposition to; oppose.
3. To offer in response: countered that she was too busy to be thorough.
To move, act, or respond so as to be in opposition.

What you and others are describing is stealth “prevention”. Prevention is not the same as a counter.

Prevention:
1. the act or practice of stopping something bad from happening : the act of preventing something

That is a significant difference. There are lots of potential “stealth preventions” in game. But there exists only one counter throughout all eight classes.

By nature a counter is something that delivers equal force but of the opposite polarity. Lets take a look at the counters available in gw2 at this time:

1. Fear, Stunned, Daze, Knockdown, Knockback —-———-Stability & Stun Breaker
2. Boons —-— Boon Strip/Corruption
3. Protection boon —-—— Vulnerability
4. Regeneration boon —-—- burning, bleeding, torment
5. Healing —-—- Poison
6. Endurance —-—- Weakness
7. Swiftness —-—- Cripple, Chill, Immobilize
8. Stealth —-—- Sic em

As you see there is a pattern, the counter is the opposite of the skill it opposes.
Here is how this list would would look like if the understanding of counter according to certain people in this thread were true:

1. Fear, Stunned, Daze, Knockdown, Knockback —-———-Dodge/Evade
2. Boons —-— Do more damage
3. Protection boon —-—— Do more damage
4. Regeneration boon —-—- Do more damage
5. Healing —-—- Interrupt them
6. Endurance —-—- Make them waste all of their dodges
7. Swiftness —-—- Kill them before they can use swiftness
8. Stealth —-—- Interrupt them

What you’re arguing is semantics, which in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t really prove much. Counterplay is also prevention – it keeps the person from doing what they want, and in return, you can deal damage. A Thief has to enter stealth before he can use backstab, therefore, in order to counterplay (or prevent, which ultimately does the same thing in this example) this move, you have to use another to stop it. Isn’t that what you were explaining in your post? And even when the Thief does get in stealth, there’s things you can do to prevent it. Good players will know what the Thief is intending to do by his health and by their experience.

I suppose I miss the reasoning behind your argument, because the differences are lost when the result is the same. To me, your post seems awfully arbitrary.

As a Thief main, I think backstab is fine. The counterplay isn’t in the backstab itself, but in the stealthing. There’s plenty of counterplay involved in keeping a D/D or D/P Thief from stealthing, and proposing that blinding powder or something is used means that the Thief loses out on a cooldown, stunbreaker, and possibly initiative, depending on the utility swapped out. If he’s Shadow Arts, his damage is pathetic anyway. Blind him and block him as D/D, and use your dazes/stuns when he drops Black Powder for D/P. If he manages to get in stealth, stealth as well if you have access to it, use a cooldown to avoid the damage, or at the very least, attempt to be unpredictable as to try to lure out a facestab.

I’ve played a lot of other professions (Engi, Necro, Warrior, Mesmer) and Thieves were always pretty easy to handle to me. The only ones that put up a challenge are the good ones, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

capmasterflash.5690:

I switched to p/d this week after going d/d or d/p for about 8-9 months straight and I’m really liking the condi build. Once you “get it” it becomes really flowy and can pretty much down any class 1v1 except broken condi necros, really good mesmers, and good warriors/guardians who spec’d condi clear.

So pretty much everyone?

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

tattoohead.3217:

Thf is hard to play, it’s rewarding but very difficult. Here is a video of someone with a d/p spec rocking 1vX in wvw and the commentary is great lernin.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KRcTKt47ixk&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DKRcTKt47ixk

Yeeaa, i saw this, very inspiring, but i’m start panic and button mash.

Practice, practice, practice. You’ll never take down a warrior using healing signet without outplaying them tenfold, but for the other professions, just know how they work. The only way to keep a calm demeanor when you’re fighting is practice. Run a few games in sPvP hotjoin, maybe. If you have a problem with a profession, roll one and run a few games. Learn how they work.

From my understanding, it gives initiative when you enter stealth. So that means if you combo with BP + HS or Cluster, you’ll get 2 ini from the first stealth and no ini for the subsequent applications of stealth. However, if you leave stealth and reapply it, you get the 2 ini bonus again.

Awe.8049:

Hello community

I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 on and off (more off than on to be honest) and miss playing an MMO, so I figured I should come back yet again.

Last time I played the game, thieves were in a pretty bad spot, being considered sub par for pvp (save for 1v1) and a burden on their teams for pve, more often than not.
1-Does this still hold true or have things changed lately?
2-If I hop back on a max level character that I haven’t played since forever, will I be lost among the new content and changes or will it be okay? Wouldn’t really mind starting over anyway.

Thanks for reading, friends!

1. Yes, this still holds true, even more than it did a month or so ago (When we had a viable S/D build for tPvP.). Expect PvE viability never.

2. Read the patch notes and you’ll be caught up. Most changes have been living story related and have disappeared since then. WvW has gotten some pretty significant changes. PvP is untouched and ignored mostly, save for 2 maps.

Try using the S/P set for power, using #5 to lay down a field and kill mobs in it.

If you must insist on using D/D, go condition damage evasion. Spam 3 into mobs with caltrops up, then kite them and let your condis do your work for you.

If these don’t suit you, and you want something easier/more flexible, re-roll Warrior.

Reclaimermaster.4107:

Lately I’ve been playing many of the professions to find one to Re-roll as. I liked the elementalist but the switching between attunements all the time wasn’t my cup of tea. I have narrowed it down to Thief or Ranger (my current main). I really like the thief play style and not having the pet is somewhat of a relief, however I have played the ranger for so long I know the class well and I already spent about 70 laurels for trinkets (kind of wish I had saved those). I have made many other posts in other profession forums in the past on trying to re roll to that class but in the end I always go back to the ranger. The Thief is the only class that I feel like I would be able to re roll as. I have some concerns though, I am worried about how viable the Thief is in Pve (dungeons and fractals mainly). I have never felt like I’m causing my team more harm than good as a Ranger but I’m not sure if I will burden my team if I play as a Thief. I would appreciate feedback on what the current state of thieves in Pve is.

All I had to do is read the first sentence. Re-roll to Warrior. They’ve currently got CC, damage, mobility, and massive amounts of sustain in one build.

If that’s not an option to you, then expect to be sub-optimal.

Awe.8049:

I’m guessing this is a WvW build or…?

Yes, this appears to be a WvW build. You’d be better off going more offensive for PvE, and forget about anything like this working in sPvP. Any points in Shadow Arts is a no-no for sPvP.

Cogbyrn.7283:

@Rahar: Cleansing Ire only removes 1 condition per bar of adrenaline used. Not a flat 3.

Berserker Stance doesn’t remove conditions, nor negate damage of conditions that are already on you.

I assumed, by the context of the OP, that the Warrior using his adrenaline was at 3 bars. I’m perfectly aware of this, and how easy it is to obtain 3 bars of adrenaline.

As for your next point, this is true. But Warriors have Cleansing Ire, Signet of Stamina, “Shake It Off!”, Lyssa runes, Soldier runes… Suffice to say this shouldn’t be a problem. Part of using Zerker Stance is using it before you get conditions. Not many professions can say that they can become immune to damage at all. Engineers are the only other one that can become immune to conditions, if I remember right, and that’s under 25% health.

Cogbyrn.7283:

You won’t be stunned 25% of the time if the Warrior doesn’t land the Earthshaker. All classes can: dodge OR block OR evade OR use stability OR blind. And regarding Dodging, players should be trying their hardest to dodge the most impactful abilities in a fight, not just whenever they want. So even without a back-up, play better.

With the ease of getting adrenaline, and not all professions having access to what you’ve pointed out above, this isn’t a good excuse for them to be able to throw out Earthshakers every 7 seconds. Not all professions can get stability (Necro, Thief, Mesmer), not all professions have big blocks (Necro, Thief, Mesmer, Ranger, Ele). I could go on. But not all professions have all of these. Playing right certainly does have an impact – And I believe I play right enough – But when it comes down to impossible to react skills like Skull Crack (which has the same recharge time and a 3s stun instead of 2s), that you have to instead anticipate, your point falls flat on it’s face.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I thought Melandru runes were the issue. Yes, Lyssa can clear condis, but then you’re using your Signet of Rage (assuming that’s your elite) to clear conditions. Which is ok, but eh. I ran Lyssa for a long time, and the best use was using it before bugging out of a fight. If you’re ravaged by conditions, it doesn’t really help.

Either way, none of the information you provided about Endure Pain was about Endure Pain. You’re simply trying to stir the pot because you were concerned there wasn’t enough bold text.

Berserker’s Stance takes Condis out of the equation for what, 8-10 seconds out of 60? It’s a brief period for a Warrior to regain the initiative or make a play. It doesn’t remove conditions or affect the ones that are already on you in any way.

How can you just dismiss my point and say it doesn’t help? It clears all conditions as well as giving all boons. If you use it at the right time, it’s a game-changer. It won’t make you immune, yes, but it’ll give you more than an edge. Combine it with your Zerker Stance and you’ve got complete immunity.

Endure pain lasts for 4 seconds. If you activate this, and block immediately after, you’ve got 7s of damage immunity. This is not including the trait (either of them, for that matter. The stance duration one and Defy Pain).

As for Zerker Stance – It doesn’t just clear conditions that damage you. Chilled, Crippled, Immob, Fear – Everything a profession can use to keep you off them (looking at you, necro) can be nullified with a single skill. It’s too powerful, and that’s why it’s on every Warrior’s utilities now. Not many other professions can say that they can ignore conditions at all, and most would kill for a skill that has even half the effect. You’re the special one here. Again, combine with Lyssa runes, Cleansing Ire, shouts, etc. for complete immunity.

Cogbyrn.7283:

You’d think Greatsword 3 wouldn’t fall victim to being Immob’d when using in conjunction with Mobile Strikes. You’d be wrong: http://www.twitch.tv/cogbyrn/c/1803881. In any case, Rush is the one you want to Immob during, and when you do, the Warrior CANNOT get away from most classes with any kind of pursuit ability.

Good video, but it looks like you were immobilized immediately after the skill from what I can tell. Guess someone got lucky. Still, appreciate some evidence in all this.

As for your next point, it’s simply false. To professions without a reliable immobilize, Warriors get away scotch free, even after engaging. Not even Thieves can keep up with their burst mobility specced, even with a shortbow. Take a sword and a greatsword and you’ve got guaranteed escapes. Zerker stance for icing on the cake. Melandru, food, and traits for OVER THE LINE edition.

teg.1340:

There are so many warrior QQ threads nowadays with so many false facts. So I think it’s time to clarify some of those:

- Unsuspecting Foe doesnt work with knockbacks or knockdowns, only with stuns. Hammer only got 1 stun which last up to 2s that they can use every ~7 3/4s. So you’ll be stunned approx. 25% of the time.
- Adrenal Health ticks every 3 seconds, not every second. So nop, it doesnt heal for huge amounts. Most warriors use their burst as much as they can, so at average they are at 50% adrenaline (citation needed) which results in an average 125 hp / 3s = 41hps plus healing power. With full adrenaline its 120 hps plus healing power. Also when they use their adrenaline, they lose 3 conditions.
- Warriors strong healing skills compensate for the lack of all the defensive stuff other professions got, e.g. Stealth, Pets, Clones, Blinks
- Healing Signet and Healing Surge both have pros and cons. Healing Signet is less effective against huge spike damage which is unlikely if we have over 3k armor. Thats where Healing Surge shines. Example: In a 40s battle you can use Healing Surge twice for up to 20540 hp. Thats 514 hps vs 407 hps with HS. The reason most warriors just use Healing Signet is that just few enemies run zerker builds. Healing Signet shines against all builds that deal under 1k DPS under pressure, and it can’t be interrupted or stopped. Simple as that.
- Endure Pain lasts 4s not 8s. It doesnt remove conditions and it doesnt negate condition damage. Berserker Stance does this, and there’s a trait to increase the duration of both, along with blocks and Lyssa runes.
- (removed due to inaccuracy)
- All warrior mobility skills rely on the actual run speed. They are hard countered by cripple, chill, root and boon stripping (in case of swiftness stripping). They all have a fairly long traveling time. All conditions are nullfied by Berserker’s Stance, though.
- Mobile Strikes only removes immobilize at the beginning of the skill. You can still immobilize the warrior during traveling time of the skill excluding Greatsword 3, because it evades.
- Warriors can reduce cripple/ chill/ immobilize duration bei -98% via Dogged March, Melandru Runes and Food. But this is easily negated by +Condition Duration food. So with +40% condition duration food the reduction is back to -58%. If the warrior doesn’t use Melandru its only -33%. So a 3s cripple will last 2s, long enough to counter most of the warriors mobility skills.

ftfy

About time they realized they went too far. Thank you based Sharp.

Rufy.6093:

If you are focused in mid fight or 3+ you have no defense and will die fast (u have no teleports, u have no invis, and u have no mobility with this build), so this nerf is basically because people lose 1 vs 1. It’s unfortunate, but will probably force s/s and lb to do anything in this condi meta that people apparently enjoy since the biggest complaint is stuns. I guess they never heard of stability or evade or block.

“If you are focused in mid fight or 3+ you have no defense and will die fast”

Every profession does. Warrior is the only one that can hold those 3 people more than a couple seconds – I’ve seen Warriors do this and win, consistently. I guess you sort of forgot that you’re the only profession that can become immune to all damage for 5 or so seconds (8s counting block – 11s if we’re counting condition damage only).

“so this nerf is basically because people lose 1 vs 1”

No, it’s because Warriors can sustain like a bunker, CC like a dedicated control, and damage like a DPS build all in one. 1v1 is what most complain about, yes, but you would have to be remiss to tell me that they don’t bring unbeatable CC support and sustain to a tPvP team.

“I guess they never heard of stability or evade or block.”

Not all professions have 2 of these.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I have two questions about the videos:

1. If the Warriors had used a different healing ability and had it on cooldown at the end of the fight, regardless of whether they “needed” it, would they still have often been above 75%? It looks like the answer to that is yes. Of course, they may have had their heal interrupted or what-have-you, but I think it’s worth thinking about.

2. Where exactly is the line between OP and a good player playing well? In these 1v1 scenarios, like in the first vid, there are several times where a good combination takes off a large chunk of health, and appropriate pressure keeps the health off. The Elementalist at the end looked like he was having a rough time, but was that Staff he was using? Is that a very good 1v1 weapon? I’m asking honestly, because I haven’t played in a while and things have changed.

My main question is this: it really took Warriors a full year to figure out that Hammer and Mace stuns were pretty good? Those two weapons were effectively the same all this time with a few slight differences (movement on hammer being the one I can think of), but now they’re OP. Many of those fights weren’t dictated by the regen, because the other heals would have left the Warrior at high health by the end anyway.

Just me musing a bit. What I’d also like to hear is where the Warrior in those videos should have lost, but didn’t because of OP. Did they waste a lot of Burst skills on whiffing, not dodge effectively, and mistime blocks, while still landslide winning against a good opponent? I’d also like to see videos of a Warrior losing, but people don’t make videos with that sort of footage.

Thank the merciful kittens for good discussion.

This reminds me of a video stream I saw with Coloxeus, a skilled S/D Thief fighting a banner, healing signet, condition warrior. The first few times the Thief lost, with the warrior maintaining max health at almost all times. Then, with a little poison through mug, they went down (Keep in mind Thief has been nerfed since then, while Warriors were only buffed). But although they went down, it took him minutes to do so. Probably about 5 minutes each duel, maybe more, maybe a little less. But the Warrior wasn’t playing well at all, as far as I could tell. Standing still, using his skills on cooldown, and using blocks on cooldown among them.

Although Colox won, how come the Warrior was able to last so long, even with poison on him? Not to mention that Colox got dangerously low some parts just because of the massive AoE and a few lucky hits that he had to retreat, while the warrior can tank his damage and disregard most of the timing of his skills? That’s what I think is OP: When you don’t have to play at the same level of an opponent and still stand up to them; Even beat them.

Again I wish I had the video, but I can’t seem to find it. If I do, I’ll edit this post.

EDIT: found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00hfh1XsUOM

.
What you can expect from these videos:
- Mostly PvP setting.
- Showcasing the extreme survivability of Warriors with little or no drawbacks, such as less damage
- Outrageous stun support.
- most 1v1 battles ending with the warrior not dropping below 75% with the opponent helpless.

What you should not expect:
- Outrageous 1vXX ending with the Warrior not breaking a sweat.
- 10k+ crits with high survivability.
- Anything else that’s very extreme that you’re expecting me to show you (protip: You couldn’t do this for any profession.)

What I expect from you:
- To immediately cherrypick from these videos, find one certain scene where the Warrior is disadvantaged, and claim it to your defense as inaccurate, noobstomping, or otherwise discrediting.

My personal favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsQbe_BPjmk

Yeah, it’s WvW. Beware the memes. More of a funny video to me, but still showcasing how broken Warrior can become. The videos above were all on the first page of my search when I put a time filter on, searching “Guild Wars 2 Warrior pvp”.

EDIT: Formatting, a little citation, and clarification.

Ashanor.5319:

Yes. Why? Warriors give up nothing for their massive amount of survivability and damage, thanks to Unsuspecting Foe or the way condi damage works in general. Some classes are completely unable to kill a decent Warrior (See: Shatter Mesmer, Thieves in general) without a massive skill difference margin, thanks to the way those specs/classes are designed (burst damage).

You’re tolling right? This is a joke, is it not? You can’t have possibly named two of the absolute strongest classes vs warrior, one of which is a pretty hard counter, and claimed that they are weak vs warrior. lol

Then tell me why they aren’t, instead of just claiming I’m wrong and dismissing my point.

Mesmer, strictly shatter Mesmer, it’s impossible to win against your sustained healing. Shatter damage is low on your 3k+ armor, and they have no access to poison to stop your passive healing. This is excluding your defensive utilities and skills, and assuming you’re just going to run at a Mesmer like an idiot autoattacking and putting on mild pressure and stuns/condis. They’ll eventually be hit by one of your stuns and be doomed – Attrition is on your side in this one, because the Shatter Mesmer is poor at it. Condition Mesmer is another story entirely – I can see one winning against an equally skilled Warrior with some luck.

Thief – Every build they have is poor against you. Typically, they’re burst damage builds with lots of blind or lots of dodges. D/P, S/D, it doesn’t matter here. All they have to do is mess up once, run out of initiative once – and it’s game over for them, and they have to give you the point or die. The fact isn’t that you Warriors always win, it’s that in order for the Thief to win, they have to play flawlessly. Thieves spend too much time recovering versus Warriors to think about taking you down, thanks to the passive healing. And without mug or shortbow poison? You’ll never take one down, even -if- you play flawlessly.

That’s my two cents. Let’s hear yours.

FrownyClown.8402:

Here I have complied a list of cheese

1. Swiss
2. Cheddar
3. Condition Mesmer
4. Provolone
5. P/D thief
6. White American
7. Colby Jack
8. Every brand of Warrior
9. D/P Thief
10. Pepper Jack

Thief is above Warrior? Ya blew it.

Xter.6271:

Rahar.9872:

Just the fact that you have to resort to making an entire build to even think about killing a Warrior speaks volumes.

Nah, I’m sure this would do well against other builds too. Just the Meta Hammer Warrior build was the target since everyone says their brother and dog use it.

All builds have a counter(s), just like all builds have their pitfalls. No one build can destroy everything out there, unless something is seriously drastically out of balance.

You’re right, but you also missed the point of my post. Having to resort to making a special build to even think about standing toe-to-toe with warriors, as opposed to simply learning to fight them, is the core problem and a sign that the profession is getting out of hand.

And as it stands right now, a Warrior condi build with LB + S/S can destroy everything out there.

Just the fact that you have to resort to making an entire build to even think about killing a Warrior speaks volumes.

I used to play a Thief as my main.

I play an Engineer now.

Everything is better. Thieves are the laughing stock of PvP.

Yes. Why? Warriors give up nothing for their massive amount of survivability and damage, thanks to Unsuspecting Foe or the way condi damage works in general. Some classes are completely unable to kill a decent Warrior (See: Shatter Mesmer, Thieves in general) without a massive skill difference margin, thanks to the way those specs/classes are designed (burst damage). Poison is the only way to reliably kill you guys, and it still takes lots of time. Protip: not all professions have access to long-lasting poison.

Something needs to be changed. You can have your massive HP/s but you need to lose damage. You can have your damage, but you need to lose your massive HP/s, and so forth. You can have your mobility, but take away your 4k+ armor. You guys can’t have everything for nothing, like you seem to be getting.

phaeris.7604:

The reason it’s so popular is because it’s just very easy to play with insane survivability and great damage.

Yep. Reinforces my above points. I play Warrior in hotjoins for kittens and giggles, and have been taking down people with sword #1 alone. There’s nothing to it; it’s all passive.

This is the last thing you guys need. As a Necro who used to play and enjoy the profession on the side before the over the top overpowered changes you guys got, I never really had too much trouble with this outside of very specific situations in sPvP. You guys are already getting 2+ bars of life force if you play your cards right (use your accumulated force before spectral armor pops in the traitline, excluding utilities) and you don’t need any more room to be able to screw up and have your way with the AoE spamfest Necro and the meta in general have become. Necro has a ramp-up time; This is intended. Death shroud is a powerful mechanic, and it shouldn’t be handed out like free candy.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNJL6nfu__Q

All i wanna say is that….

I laughed, great joke.

I’ve got your Norn Thief right here. Sup?

RedSpectrum.1975:

This is far from a bannable offense. He is stealthing off of a damagable object. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Like you said, it one thief so that one person won’t do much to turn the tides to the war. It’s not exploited either since it’s kind of working as intended. CnD stealths when damage is dealt, damage was dealt to the wall, stealth. And besides, it not like he can do that across the entire map, just the tower. So his “guaranteed stealthing” is rather limited. Now if he was DP…

A fair point. However, walls can’t be damaged. No damage appears at all. So, therefore, should he be getting stealth? Technically, walls aren’t be able to even be hit by regular means with this logic, and I recall ArenaNet attempting to fix this at one point.

Encountered this today. Just as a disclaimer, I’m not coming here to complain. It was one Thief, insignificant to the entire picture in WvW and I understand that, so don’t go jumping on my back, please. But I’d like to know if this is considered against the terms of service, since gaining stealth on walls is most likely not intended.

My personal opinion and guess is that it’s considered some form of exploit, since gaining a guaranteed stealth with every CnD is pretty cheap and almost guarantees a heavy advantage. I recall it being said somewhere, but a lot of things are said here.

So I’ll defer to you. What’s the answer here? Is there a specific quote from a developer, perhaps, that can clear this matter up for me? Is this a bannable offense that I should be reporting every time I see? Or something to simply ignore and move on?

ShadowPuppet.3746:

LightningBlaze.4913:

”In the hands of a good player” whaaaat….. It requieres 0 player skills to make this rune deadly specially as an engi.. This rune is very scary and eventually will have to get nerfed. In the meantime it is very fun easy mode to play with them

Bad players that just spam skills when they are on cd will not get the most benefit from this runeset since you have to actually interrupt in order to get that 6/6 bonus. Yes on a engi we do have more opportunity to interrupt (if we build for it) than some other classes but that doesn’t make the runeset itself op. I mean hell, you could already stack that much confusion with a mesmer and everyone largely ignored confusion as a condition after the nerf, granted they typically had slower timing in generating cover conditions. It’s just everyone is pointing to this runeset and showing edited video"evidence" with conditions favorable to the build and runeset and claiming it needs to be nerfed into oblivion. If you look at this video, that guy who was attacking the dolyak, literally didn’t even know anyone was around him….you can’t seriously expect that someone with that kind of level of awareness would have won anyway with or without this runeset being used. My personal opinion is that it needs to be considered from all perspectives not just in a 1v1 scenario, give it time to develop and if people can’t figure out a way to counterplay it then and only then should it be nerfed. These callings for “nerf xyz because it’s op” before giving people time to adjust and actually figure out ways to deal with certain scenarios results in wild swings and shifts in balance or Anet missing their mark entirely when they get to swinging the nerfhammer. Just as likely that anet would look at this and go hmm engineers have too many interrupts we need to fix that

http://youtu.be/rsQbe_BPjmk

As much as you want to believe it’s true, 21 stacks of confusion for just using your CC’s is absurd. I’m posting this video half as proof that stacking this confusion requires no co-ordination, and half because maybe this is the video you were talking about in your post.

The warrior in this video is simply using his CC skills. He’s not timing his interrupts as you seem to believe. They just happen. And every time they do, 9 stacks of confusion are added. He can, theoretically (and I believe he does at one point) put 21 stacks on someone instantly. To put that in perspective: 4,036 (21 stacks on confusion in the video) damage every skill. That’s the average Thief’s backstab on balanced players every time you use a skill, without all the set up.

Oh, beware of the massive amounts of memes in the video. It isn’t mine.

Kman.7358:

Making it insta cast would not work. At all. It doesn’t need anything and it can be landed very reliably with a steal mid cast. With the amount of damage CnD can do being so ridiculous, changing anything else would push it far over the top.

Note that the picture below is NOT on an upleveled player.

Aberrant.6749:

evilapprentice.6379:

You’re joking, right?

“Large damage” – CnD hits as hard as an over 50% HS – universally considered the absolute worst time to use HS for damage. It hits for crap, how did you miss that?

Nobody is running a stealth heavy spec without Infusion of shadow, so your “traiting” argument is entirely pointless.

D/P brings to the table a 900 range gap closer that does respectable damage regardless of a targets health AND blinds (meaning it has utility beyond damage and gap closing), a ranged daze, and an AoE blind field. In comparison, D/D offers a condition damage based AoE with a .25s evade (read: kittening worthless), a ranged snare that misses the target if they move for .25 seconds during the travel time, and CnD.

You are enjoying higher risk and vastly lower reward.

I like how the person above me posts a 10k C&D yet you make it sound like it hits like feathers. Lol.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heartseeker
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cloak_and_Dagger

^ Read these and learn what the skills do before posting. At UNDER 50% HS hits for the same as C&D, NOT above.

As far as Ini, for D/P most take Quick Recovery + Infil signet to keep up with the higher ini cost of the set. With just Infusion of Shadow you’ll be losing ini very quickly. So… that’s the far heavier investment which limits builds.

Thanks for what I can only assume was a fail troll post full of misinformation.

Quoted straight from the patch notes, November 15, 2012:

• Cloak and Dagger: This skill’s damage has been reduced by 33% in PvP only.

What you two sound like you’re saying is you think CnD hits hard based on the evidence that Kman provided. I hate to say this about WvW, because it’s a great game type with a lot to offer, but with food buffs, 25 stacks of bloodlust, what is likely full berserker armor, and with the quote above, the evidence from the picture that cloak and dagger hits hard is heavily skewed at best. Citing evidence in WvW with the most buffs to power and crit damage you can get does not make CnD hit hard. The amount of damage that you trade off for superior stealth access with D/P is negligible in PvP. The fact of the matter here is that CnD is too much of a risk for the poor damage that you get in exchange. Why else is D/D all but gone in PvP, and replaced by alternative like S/D and D/P?

This is leaving out other facts like the #3 and 4 skills being very underwhelming, lack of utility, etc. The whole weaponset needs a rework or a buff.

In my opinion, the skill damage and dodging is fine, you just have to learn the timing. It doesn’t make Thieves completely immune to everything, there’s plenty of time to strike back.

The problem with the skill, to me, is the unblockable skill fact and the amount of boon removal. Maybe get rid of one boon removed so if you want to counter boon professions, you have to spec for it, not just equip this set. Also, Larcenous strike, the second part of the chain, should be the one that is blockable. It’s the hardest hitting skill on the entire set, and shouldn’t have a guarantee to land most of the time. Flanking strike (the first part of the chain) should be the one that is unblockable. Of course, that’s just what I think. You’re free to think otherwise.

Obscure One.4357:

-snip-, last post above me

It’s an interesting idea, and it could work. The fundamental problem you seem to be missing, however, is we have a mechanic in place to already limit this skill spamming; Initiative.

Had it been 8 months earlier and Heartseeker still did incredible damage, this might’ve been a road worth going down. But in a state such as it is, spamming a skill is not equivalent to winning. Instead of making a sweeping generalization about players, (IE: “bad players can’t dodge skill spam!”) I’ll go ahead and analyze further. Maybe all players can’t do it, but it’s a part of learning the game and getting better. And, as much as I hate to say it, it’s part of the Thief class.

Thieves have, on average, two damaging abilities and three for utility on each skill bar. For example, let’s take S/D and D/P or D. (Very popular sets accused of spamming) and analyze them for a moment.

S/D. What we have here is a, well, what’s supposed to be a controlling, denying set. However, with Jumper’s build, deteriorates into a dodge spamming set(which is bad, by the way, this set needs fixed). One is your basic auto – almost never used aside for the first in said build. Two is a teleport utility with some tiny damage tacked on. Three is your main damaging ability. Four is a lackluster cripple with lackluster damage. Five is never used in this build.

So you have one main damaging ability, outside of stealth. See the problem here? Let’s take D/X for a spin.

D/P or D. A damage set, primarily, adding either more damage with X/D or more control with X/P. Both have lots of stealth built in. 1 is your auto. 2 is your damaging ability outside of stealth. 3 on X/D is condition damage for some reason. 3 on X/P is utility. 4 and 5 on both sets are mostly utility and access to stealth with a bit of damage (barring cloak and dagger, but that damage has sort of been nerfed and will be considered utility for the purpose of this post, as it’s main use is accessing stealth).

Again. Same boat here, fundamentally. Two damaging abilities.

So here’s why I went so far out of my way on this post. All Thief weapons look like this. One damaging ability, the rest utility. This is not true on other sets outside of the profession (take for example, Warrior Greatsword or hammer, which all have damage AND utility. Still, poor guys). Clearly the developers intended for us to have a lot of utility and mix in the damage when it’s best. And here’s what I’ll ask you: Is this not what’s happening? Aside from, say, PvE (where we do poor damage anyway, even when spamming) most Thieves don’t spam. You see, this sort of change is not warranted for such a small minority of the Thief population that, in all honesty, learns to play skillfully as you say or die. And here’s why: Inevitably the initiative system will take it’s toll on a spamming Thief and do what you propose to do with Exhaustion already, without changing the game.

See what I’m trying to say here?

Khandarus.2738:

Going to keep it short, seen a few of them before but. My opinion however kitten y it is.

I would like two changes
Split the skill like Flanking Strike at 3/2
3 for the stun, 2 for the flurry

Unroot the flurry so we can use it on the move, aka make it so we don’t plant our feet.

If we are not getting the damage back I feel some more flexibility with the skill would be nice.

I use S/P often, so here’s my opinion on the matter.

Pistolwhip is in an okay state right now. In my personal opinion, splitting the skill like flanking strike would be much too detrimental, leading to sub-par timed flurries and using more than intended stuns, or something of the sort. In short, it would just leave room for error instead of being practical, like the S/D combo. It dodges FIRST, so using the dodge is reactive and cool, and you can follow it up with a nice attack. But as far as the stun goes for S/P? If you’re stunning, 90% of the time you’ll be flurrying after, because otherwise you would have used the cheaper, faster, non-melee headshot. That’s just the way it is.

The only thing it really needs is a faster stun (the first part of the skill) and maybe a small damage boost, like 5-8%. More and it’s too strong. But as it is right now, the damage is a little poor.

Oh, and one more thing, but this really doesn’t have much to do with S/P. Make Retaliation have an ICD, but do more damage, maybe, to balance it out. Hate getting hit with 2-3k just for using PW.

Obscure One.4357:

OP’s post

For what it’s worth, I agree with you to an extent. I understand that beating these Thieves is not the problem here. In a matter of fact, I posted this same exact idea a few months back and understand where you’re coming from. But let’s take a closer look. And for the sake of the Thief’s forum’s dignity (ha) I’ll be very civil about it.

Adding this sort of functionality to our skills would punish us too harshly, in too many ways. Aren’t we limited to initiative cost at any rate? Either way, sometimes, it’s best to spam a skill, especially when the enemy is so pressured he has nothing left. This is just one case where it’s beneficial to spam a skill, IE, Heartseeker. But there’s other things, too. Headshot comes to mind. I run a very initiative-traited build where spamming headshot can disable an opponent for seconds at a time, while my allies do the damage. Is it practical? Maybe not. Is it effective? Yes. Is it unfair? No. He can dodge my headshots, but is too confused or not situationally aware to do so. Which brings me to my next point.

If spamming a skill is so cheap and predictable, why do these so-called “good” players have such a hard time countering it? Are they so short sighted and ignorant that they can’t predict, or for that matter see, me spamming a skill? Keep in mind most of these skills are easily blocked, dodged, or invuln’d. A good player would see this and punish me for it without the game doing so for them. Adding this functionality would simply be a handicap for bad players.

Oh, and I read your post about “whack-a-mole”ing skills. For some reason, the Elementalist’s playstyle came to mind. Can’t imagine why.

Zacchary.6183:

-snip-

EDIT: A tactic I use in fights against more skilled players is when my opponent and I are low on HP I let them down me so I can hit them a few times with my downed attack and rally. Afterwards, I proceed to kill them. It works.

Let me correct you here for clarity and other’s understanding. You cannot rally from downing someone. You must defeat them, or another creature/NPC to rally. Simply getting them down does not rally you. Don’t try this at home. You’ll likely die.

Well, that’s true and all, but what about after the daze? Considering it might last longer than 5 seconds, it’d be worth it since a daze can last 1/2 a second or at most, 3s.

Or we can do something else, like Vulnerability, sort of like a Mesmer.

Still, got you thinking, eh?

Maybe I don’t do as much tPvP as some of the folks in here, but I’ll go ahead and offer my view on some things.

- Retaliation needs an internal CD or scale with % of damage. It is simply too strong sometimes and can lead to a hard counter to some builds like FT Engi or PW Thief. If not an ICD, then it needs to not be 100% uptime.

- Thieves need some help outside the gimmicky builds (See: S/D and D/P). Revealed in particular needs to trigger on destealth, attack or not, as originally intended. Stealth needs a hard cap in duration, blast finisher or not. Maybe 6-7s, like some people here are saying. I agree completely, as a Thief myself. In general, we just need some roles outside of glass cannon to fill.

- This might be a bit out there, but I really think the game as a whole would benefit from removing boon duration and condition duration as stats from the game completely, and the base durations increased slightly to compensate. Balancing would be much easier then, in my opinion. These are just two stats that can fluctuate too wildly, leading to them being too strong or too weak, depending.

I might think of some stuff later, but I guess this is a good start.

Marduh.4603:

Trickery Master
Confusion attack
5 sec confusion(5stac) on crit/ 10 sec cd.

Interesting. Instead of being on-crit, like so many of our other traits, why not make it on-daze? This would give stealth S/D a chance and a controlling aspect to it, and in a lesser bit, S/P and D/P.

Hmm. Maybe make the confusion last longer, too. Like 8 seconds, ish? ‘Course, then you’d have to increase the ICD or something, eh?

Hey.

I’m a Shatter Mesmer because I love the way it rewards a higher tier of play. The flexibility is great and the potential to do clutch after clutch play is there. I feel that Shatter Mesmer, as a play style, rewards know-how and careful play. A close second reason would be for the control, I suppose, as well. I enjoy controlling a fight and punishing an enemy for his slip-ups. I play mostly sPvP and WvW.

Marduh.4603:

Reroll Necromancer.

ensoriki.5789:

Reroll Necromancer.

Excalibur.9748:

Reroll Necromancer.

Zacchary.6183:

Reroll Necromancer.

Thief community: The thread.

As for the OP, try S/D for WvW and S/P for PvE. If you don’t like those, reroll Necromancer.

Or just play a Guardian.