Guild Wars 2

The solution to this is simple. Conditions need to become the attrition mechanic they were always meant to be.

Problem
Blanket condition removal is too frequent (i.e Remove 3 Conditions vs Removes Burning and Poison or Remove Immobilize). This causes classes to have to spam massive conditions at once, and forces the devs to increase condition application and damage to compensate for frequencies of cleansing. This leads condition damage to basically function as burst. Basically you need to split second reaction use condi cleanse to get burn off you before you go down in seconds (making it almost no different then a dodge). Which is completely against the idea of a DoT class/Attrition class. And the back and forth balance between buffing conditions and then buffing cleanses is exacerbating the problem and limiting utility options and build diversity.

Solution:
To really get this stuff in line, they need to drastically reduce the amount of blanket cleansing and add more specific condition removal skills, making certain classes better at removing certain conditions would be ideal. (ie A heal that removes burning only, or a utility that specifically removes immobilize and crippled instead of “Remove One Condition”). This way they can lower the amount of condition damage and stacks available to put out on someone, while increasing their duration substaintially. This way conditions would ramp up in a fight ultimately being your demise. Not being hit with 15 conditions on an immediate engagement. This could be coupled by removing resistance as a boon and give it to us as a defensive stat. This way you can tune conditions much more effectively, because it makes them less binary and more gradual as they were always intended.

PvE Concequences:
Just as each player has a base amount of each stat, they could start with higher base resistances (based on class perhaps) and leave PvE enemies to have minimal or no resistance to allow for conditions to ramp up harder on PvE mobs to not allow condition damage in raids etc to fall too far behind. This would be the harder balance to reach and may require trickier mechanics of maybe condition damage windows, etc.

Honestly I feel MMO’s should always balance from a PvP perspective to keep classes unique and on par with each other then design and balance PvE accordingly.

You guys replied on my personal post. I am definitely interested, I am a thief (I know not popular raid choice), but I am geared fully in both power and condition.

Would love to join!

No luck so far, but I feel these forums aren’t replied to much. PM me in game though if you want to join up to do some older living world achievements and such. Would love to find guilds commited to doing things like Triple Trouble, and Current event achievements.

Looking for a guild or group of players that are into organizing large world boss achievement hunting and other challenging world achievements.

Any good friendly guilds out there doing this?

I along with with two friends are looking for a fun guild that doesn’t require a ton of representation, that raids each week. We are very geared and eager to progress, but we are patient with those looking to just get into it.

Any guilds or like minded players looking to start a casual raid group? Our times are flexible but best hours would be Monday – Thursdays 8PM – 12AM Eastern Time.

I would love to see more quiver options. Anyone else? I literally buy every quiver even though the designs are not my ideal design. The fire quiver was terrible in my opinion but any sort of variety is worth the cash. It’s just so long in between them with only having a total of 4 quiver models over the games 4 year life span…

Dying back pieces would help a ton here, but since we wont ever see that.

I’d love to see a black quiver, racial quivers, and a cool backpack/quiver hybrid.

Any one else have some great quiver ideas?

I know it’s very odd to see this used, but Healing Signet and staff auto, brings a ton of heals mixed with the aforementioned 15% healing from critical hits. You can do some serious healing while putting out big numbers. Probably not ideal for super competitive levels of ranked, but worth messing with in unranked and lower tiers.

For me I like trying anything non-meta.

Honestly, in my opinion, as much as I loathe Dragonhunters as a thief sometimes, the real problem with Dragonhunters is that the trap mechanic for DH is just not fun to play against whether you can counter it or not.

This is more true for a game that features a conquest mode ONLY. Most of the maps have capture points that are the same radius as the traps. It’s not so bad in maps like legacy where the mid point is huge, or in game types like Stronghold where you can use more of the environment and battles can move and drift locations without having to sacrifice position on a cap point to avoid traps or wait for reinforcements.

This, mixed with all the invulnerable and uninterruptible heals, is my main gripe with the class. It’s not unbeatable, it’s just not fun to play against.

Stronghold is by far my favorite game mode. It allows you to shake things up with new builds that cater to a totally different game type. I, as a thief, absolutely love the big open map that allows me to use my mobility to get wherever I need to be and the opportunity to be able to fight in open spaces without having a tiny circle to have to fight on.

What it needs is more maps, and maybe a guard and archer rework. Make archers more valuable.

I’d be interested in trying out an 8-man stronghold, I think it would definitely add a new element with more engaging skirmishes on more areas of the map simultaneously.

As a huge fan of HOPE and a regular pistol user, I approve this request.

Also wish the downstate throw dagger skill didn’t throw lasers… but I’m a sucker for consistency and common sense.

I am all 100% for making holes for the ears. I’d prefer that in most cases, but it requires additional unique skins for the individual race. I’d at least like for them to recognize they don’t have the time or resources to do this and just remove the ears on helmets with obvious major clipping issues, or opt for a simple “hide race feature” option.

Also, while I appreciate you like the way that looks, your ears massively clipping through the metal buckle parts on that helmet is absolutely unbearable for me. >.<

It’s just ridiculously frustrating in a game that is focused around cosmetics, that I can’t use 1/3 of the head items because of the clipping issues. I even chose the smallest ears possible to help remedy this. I actually mained Charr until I got fed up with those issues before rerolling Asura. I just don’t like human/norn and sylvari are okay, but not my roleplay favorites. They hide the ears on some helmets, I just don’t understand why there can’t be minor quality control on the final reward from completing this story episode.

Can we, please, for the love of god take the time to when having a helmet that clearly should not have asuran ears clipping through it, simply hide the asuran ears like you do on most of the other helmets like this? Give us a “hide race feature” option to hide ears and horns?

Honestly,

I’d like to see:

Stealth: Stay the same
AA: Stay the same
#2: Reload (New) – Short cast time small iniative gain, maybe 4
#3: Unload (Update) – Stay the same, but possibly bring in ricochet mechanics for only this skill (maybe add low % chance to apply burning or a trait that would add this). Giving pistol more condi options.
#4: Head Shot – Stay the same.
#5: Black Powder – Turn this into a dark field to nerf D/P stealth stack (which simultaneously makes stealth utilities and smoke screen more valuable, possibly allowing them to be buffed), also allows for P/P to be more defensive and actually use BP more frequently outside of Bounding Dodge trait.

You could see a Signet of Malice P/P build that would engage with unloads, then reload for Black Powder and Headshots while increasing health with signet and life drain. Could synergize well in a condi build too with Needle trap on heal, Trapper runes, etc.

Just a way that could really mix things up with only minor changes and a good change to skill #2.

What’s wrong with them? O.o

Ara,

That is 100% what I’ve been saying since the game came out.

PvE needs more PvP-Oriented AI that is closer to human players. Once the mechanics align in all modes, balancing them is much simpler. Less worry of power creep, when balancing either mode, causing imbalances in the other, and also no need to split PvE and PvP skills (which I am against).

But I guess this is a discussion for another thread.

So I predict that the passive invulnerability is going to happen. What do I do next? I should at least have someway to counter the invuln, prevent it before hand, remove the buff. None of that is possible. Just pummel more damage into them or evade until it expires, allowing heals to come off cooldown and extending a fight which required 0 key presses from the enemy.

I’m not saying I can’t beat this mechanic. I know it’s coming and play accordingly and despite thief’s current issues, I still find myself rather successful. I’m simply stating that this type of mechanic is unhealthy for PvP and the skill ceiling on these classes could be much higher.

My biggest gripe with the changes to all of the classes from launch is the addition of so many passive effects that take 0 skill and change the dynamic of a fight entirely.

Specifically as a thief, someone who is there to burst classes down quickly with little sustain or defensive capabilities, this is the most frustrating.

Anything that triggers an instant Endure Pain at X health threshold or activates Death Shroud on finishing blow should be reworked to something like:

At X% health the cooldown on Y skill is refreshed.

This way, intelligent players can use the skill back to back, while unsuspecting unaware fools don’t get an automated “Duhhh…oh I’m almost dead.” reaction time to have all of their utilities come off cooldown and force a retreat from the player who had the advantage of a surprise engagement.

Even as a thief, I would never expect nor want a passive (despite our need for more sustain), at 25% health evade all attacks for 6 seconds. It is just boring, uninspired, would be necessary for PvP and would promote 0 skillful play.

Those of course aren’t the only two skills, but mere examples.

Anyone else agree? Are there any other passive skills and traits that are mindless and don’t promote skillful play you’d like to see adjusted or removed? I can’t be alone here.

I cannot interact with the first markings left by Rox. It is preventing me from moving forward. Very frustrating after grinding Itzal Poison Lore all day and night…

Anyone experience this? I’ve tried everything, reboot, relog other character, die, waypoint, switch zones, quit and restart quest, everything….

Help!!!!

I would very much like to see an officer chat function.

The simplest and best way to go about any of these complaints, for both parties, (without going into deeper rooted issues with thief, ala SB #5) is to do what we’ve suggested for some time.

Have two debuffs:
Revealed – The thief is now visible to enemy players WHILE STILL being stealthed as far as stealth attacks and traits are concerned.

Exposed – Replaces the current mechanic of revealed. When a thief leaves stealth by causing damage, they must wait three seconds before entering stealth again.

The two mechanics should function separately. The fact that they are grouped is what is causing the issue in the thief community, as we have stated thousands of times it locks out our only way to regen and remove conditions without burning extremely valuable utilities.

I really think Daredevil beats out Dragonhunter for the worst elite specialization name. I’m holding my breath in hopes of it being something different, since I’m already disappointed in the weapon.

Give me throwing knife kits and a new name and I’m happy. Haha.

I mean really though… It’s like giving rangers fist weapons and calling them Wolverines.

I realize daredevil has it’s own meaning, but it’s too close to Marvel’s Dare Devil who uses a staff (albeit it splits into two batons or what have you), when you have 1000 other things to call the specialization.

They can do much better than that…

ronpierce.2760:

I think its actually intended to synergize with, not replace, Acrobatics. So, say with Acro/Trick/Daredevil (which ironically sounds like just about anything you’d expect in a stuntman) you’d likely be more suited for melee combat pressure rather than hit and run or stealth. Or similarly, Deadly Arts/Acro/DD as a more offensive Daredevil. Obviously we can never know until we see the traits and the changes to steal, but chances are it’s intended to change how you play thief.

Perhaps, but I would really hope the staff is more of a supplement to the elite, leaving the main focus to it’s skill line, kits. Like the datamined throwing knives. This is something I can be definitely be hyped about as I would love this to go along with my current thief build. If we get shouts I’ll be kittened.

Well, here’s to the name not being something as lame as Daredevil, and here’s to hoping it’s not the same evasion, non-stealth build as S/D. Because either it’s better making S/D irrelevant, or it’s worse making it pointless.

Would have much preferred another range weapon and a real alternative to always slotting shortbow.

My only hope for this elite spec, is that it does bring a comparable shadowstep skill so not all thieves are forced into shortbow secondaries. Not that I have a problem with shortbow, but I’d like to see some variety…

I’d also like to see melee staff get a better generic running animation while unsheathed than what we saw in the last beta with Revenant…

Omega Zoa.3859:

Reece.7341:

Am I the only person who really wishes gliding was designated only for specific “gliding areas”, similar to the way diving goggles work, or perhaps have a cooldown to it? I just feel like gliding will remove any feel of fall damage, and seeing people pop open a glider for the smallest gap is just going to look odd. It takes me back to Aion…

The “gliding areas” are only in HoT zones, there, happy? lol

You know what I mean, haha. See the diving goggles bit.

I just don’t want to see someone jump off the ground and pop a glider on flat ground or any of that rediculousness. I love the aesthetics of this game, and gliders are cool, but when used in the right way. It also removes some of the “fear” and exploration and fall damage.

I’m also curious if this can be done in combat, and if so wouldn’t it bug enemies and events? I didn’t get a chance to play beta this weekend.

Sagat.3285:

Reece.7341:

With all the revenant coverage, I was really hoping to have one of the other classes elite be shown…

I’m also a little disappointed with multiple professions receiving Shouts and Shields. With rumors of thief and ranger receiving staves…

Anyone else feel this way, or just me?

With shouts they gave a hint that more than 1 would get it others not but either way us Team Rifle will not support this.

I’m with you on this one. I don’t want staff to be introduced to Rangers > Revanants > and now Thieves.

I would love a rifle for my Charr thief, personally.

Am I the only person who really wishes gliding was designated only for specific “gliding areas”, similar to the way diving goggles work, or perhaps have a cooldown to it? I just feel like gliding will remove any feel of fall damage, and seeing people pop open a glider for the smallest gap is just going to look odd. It takes me back to Aion…

With all the revenant coverage, I was really hoping to have one of the other classes elite be shown…

I’m also a little disappointed with multiple professions receiving Shouts and Shields. With rumors of thief and ranger receiving staves…

Anyone else feel this way, or just me?

Thanks for the reply, Kicker.

If party stealth is the goal, it can be achieved through utilities. Which I think is fair, as most party stealth is done prior to engaging or moving through enemies in WvW/PvE.

Smoke Screen, Shadow Refuge and to a lower level blinding powder can achieve this.

My opinion is this:

If we remove on demand stealth without having a target and limit it to utilities, we could really open up more room for buffs to stealth lines and utilities to improve thief build diversity (Strictly from a PvP perspective).

- From a thief who loves stealth builds.

assassin.7895:

Why would you want to nerf D/P, no reason for it. Needs buffs not nerfs.

I’m assuming you are referring to my post.

As I said, I realize that changing the black powder combo field could be seen as a nerf, but with the added stealth at the end of shadow shot, I think it is a fair compromise that could bring D/P in-line with our other weapon sets. This would allow Anet to buff the thief in other areas, without making D/P just flat out better.

What I was trying to accomplish was to open up choice in our weapons with this change, and giving arena net space to buff our stealth lines and defenses without having to worry about their repercussions it would have due to the ease of stealth access through D/P.

I realize D/P is our only saving grace right now, competitively, but I have grown tired of the set personally. I mainly PvP, but I prefer D/D as I think it does stealth right.

I’d like to see D/D change as follows:

Deadly Blossom – Increase the evade frame to 1/2 second.

Dancing Dagger – Increase damage to make this a more meaningful AoE skill, increase the duration of cripple, or perhaps add another condition to it. (Not all, but one or the other.)

Cloak and Dagger – I think a blind in addition to vulnerability would be excellent to bring this more in line with D/P.

I’d like to see D/P changed:

This one is more tricky to deal with as anything is a direct nerf to our only real competitive set. I still think the access to stealth in this build should be brought more in line with the X/D sets.

With X/D a miss on CnD, which is very easy to happen as it can be blinded, or dodged or latency can cause a miss on a target as they run by you, has severe downsides as it takes half your initiative with no stealth.

D/P no matter what it is a 100% chance to stealth on the leap finisher unless your opponent stuns or interrupts, which more often then not doesn’t happen. This especially true when it is precast prior to engaging. All other weapon combos require you to engage in melee, or to burn a utility to access stealth.

I realize this would nerf our best weapon (although evening it up with other weapons), but this could open us up for buffs in our other areas of defense in SA and Acrobat lines. Perhaps even a revert to SE trait would be more reasonable at this point.

The only thing I could think of really is:

Black Powder – Smoke Field to a Dark Field
- Which could synergize with a Heal on Crit, P/P, Signet of Malice combo. Giving P/P some more sustained defenses, since there is no real access to stealth in this set.

Shadow Shot – Increase initiative cost, but triggers stealth on hit. This would basically couple a shadowstep with cnd to keep the set really competitive, but would eliminate the no risk stealth from BP>HS as it can be dodged or blocked. It would fight the complaints of trolling thieves as you would see them engage, and make their escape or fight reset require a larger cooldown (ie: Shadow Refuge). All this while adding more reasonable counter play to our D/P stealth.

Utilities:
Venoms – Across the board need to have additional benefits to using the skills. Stun breaks or boons, outside of the life steal traits. This could really feed into thief’s support capabilities, with venom sharing or at least allow venoms to be a more viable utility choice for non venom sharing builds. OR substantial cooldown reduction.

Traps – These are in a good place, (perhaps buff tripwire?) but the bug to not give vulnerability and might when Ambush or Shadow Trap trigger when taking Deadly Trapper needs to be fixed.

Thoughts?

Edited for Formatting

Steve,

Firstly, I apologize if I seemed to just make a comment bashing your post.

MMO’s have historically catered to the lowest common denominator. This is a problem for every serious gamer who is interested in a mass multiplayer online experience with progression into a single character for years to come, over a single player difficult experience.

The point of a video game at least to me, is to stimulate my mind and force me to quick reactions and puzzle solving that always keeps me excited and on my toes through the gameplay. Without this, the game is nothing more than a chore simulator. A simulator where I go through with no risk, just rolling through the motions enjoying a story, that due to typical genre restrictions (this is getting better), that is delivered no where near as effectively as games in other genres could.

MMO developers are constantly struggling to find this balance between casual content that everyone can enjoy and things that challenge players who are looking for it. It is a trend for MMO’s lately to always go back on their promises of difficulty because when things first come out it seems difficult. After two months it’s farm status, easy-mode and it crushes me. (See Tequatl)

That is why when I see your post that living story mobs that I happened to solo, no problem with no real failure state at all (Fail on a boss and spawn right back in when he’s at the same health…) it makes me kittening sick. Invest in researching how to play your class better, gear better, perfect your play before asking for nerfs (whether you meant it or not, it’s what your title suggests) on content that other people have absolutely 0 problems with.

So my suggestion would be to enjoy the casual end of things, like dynamic events, casual farming and crafting, or find some friends and a guild to help you go through the living story.

Hope this helps.

More conditions.
Unavoidable smaller amounts of damage.
Faster attacking enemies.
Better enemy AI that has groups of AI working together as a team.
Enemy AI that tries to stomp you.

All of this can promote CC, Focus fire, more dedicated support roles in PvE other than mass DPS AoE spam. You’ll also get more gear variations as people need to add more Vitality and Toughness to counter the unavoidable amounts of damage as opposed to actively dodging the massively telegraphed, one-shot ability the enemy casts every 6-10 seconds.

I never really post, but I made the effort to login and verify the new IP to specifically say that this post makes me kittening sick…

witcher.3197:

Lamuness.3570:

So I was thinking about this, say for example, I just wanted to roam, +1 fights, and gank the crap out of people in sPvP, what would I run? Assuming I don’t care about capping the points.

5/6/0/0/3 D/D? I don’t like standing on the point for fear of AoE bombs that can be dropped from at least 900 range away.

No. D/D is horrible for tPvP and any PvP thief build without 6 points in the last trait line sucks. What you need is D/P

I believe the OP’s point was that he was tired of the same D/P builds…

I’ve been a long time D/P thief, but I have tried and played most main sPvP thief builds successfully.

I grew bored and after a return to GW2 and a break, it just felt stale.

So I switched my D/P (26006 – Berserker) to a D/D (06620 – Valkyrie) which is more of a WvW spec, but I’m having so much fun with it. Play style is drastically different and I’m still having a ton of success with it.

kitten for point capping, but great team support with easy stealth/blind stomps and resses. Stealth healing when you get downed brings you back into the fight so much more quickly, so you will be self reviving much more.

Not an elitist meta spec, but definitely something fun that if you’re experienced you can make great work of it.

I’ve been a sPvP player almost exclusively since launch and I’m just beginning to get bored of all of the builds that thrive in that mode. I’m really interested in investing time into ascended items and building a great roaming thief to tackle WvW with.

I’ve looked into www.metabattle.com and I’ve seen their D/D build and they are gearing Valkrie and going with steal health sigils. Seems odd for a build not based around attrition, but more of the instagib style of play.

I was just looking for someone with experience with this build in this mode and some input on what they think works best. Utility advice would be great as well.

Thanks for all the help in advance!

I’m having a very similar problem with Charr T1 medium armor.

I’ve got a 1200w power supply. Should be golden.

So, I purchased a completely new rig for NVidia surround, and when playing guild wars I keep crashing after maybe 5-10 minutes of play. Is anyone else experiencing these issues?

My Specs:
2x GTX 780 SLI
ASUS Sabertooth Z87 Motherboard
Intel Core i7-4770K Processor
32GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM
Windows 8.1
NVidia driver: 331.58
Using three HP ZR30w monitors at 7680×1600 (Bezel corrected to 8030×1600 for surround)

Any help would be appreciated!

Definitely need more emotes! At least simple text ones, that don’t animate. It’s a pain typing them out, hah.

I would also like to know why all of my back equipment and weapons disappear when I emote… It totally rips me out of the immersion. Would love for this to get changed.

I’d like to be able to replay because I had taken several breaks through out my leveling experience. I’d like to experience the story in one straight shot.

Also, I accidentally vendored the Commando’s leggings at the end of the Lv78 personal story… I want them so bad!

No experience or anything like that but being able to collect the Personal Story exclusive items again would be nice for those that didn’t realize they were only obtainable through that one, unreplayable mission.

I’ve always thought over sexualized gear really took the immersion out of it for me. No one would be wearing stuff like that in combat, but that is totally subjective.

More variety in the medium armor department would be great. As a charr, having more options then just trench coats could go a long way in making the tail clipping not such a major issue.

I’d also like to see more pants options that cover the boots. See the Commando’s leg armor.

I very much agree here.

A checkbox to display both could solve those issues. If you adjust sheathing positions then there will need to be minor adjustments to the animations. Which is more of a headache.

I logged in just to post my approval of this.

It should at least be a checkable option. In a game about cosmetics, I think this is reasonable.

Now to get them to allow dyes for back armor…

I would greatly like for this to be fixed. Even if it just automatically sheathed your weapons (I’d prefer it didn’t effect your weapons at all), but making them disappear every time is just terribly immersion breaking for me.

Even when your weapons are sheathed and you /bow or /wave everything, shield, sword, backpack just disappears till the emote completes.

Anyone else bothered by this?

Sincerely

An obsessive emoter

This would be an easy gem purchase for my guild.

I’ve been saying this for some time. I completely endorse this.

Downleveling should make content difficult in all zones. ( I would prefer to have it be mandatory to be ~2 levels lower than content, because by the time you have exotic gear and full trait build it becomes completely trivial.)

I do understand the people who don’t want this though, which is where your slider option comes in.

/signed

Hah. Sorry! Should have put a spoiler tag on it or something.