Guild Wars 2

Can you get an Amen?

Hell yes you can. Amen to what’s been said. Even all the back stab cool down topics are coated in ‘you guys needed this.’ I’m waiting for people to show up and say that here too.

Doing the dig in story, get the same green circle near the sylvari soldier, story does not progress beyond that.

>.> I didn’t get what I asked for, but I’m still so kitten happy. Those dodge changes literally make rolling either sinister or zerk incredibly fun. SUCH CHOICES MAN! Two excellent dps and one beautiful defensive gm.

That said, I still am going to make a point of asking for dust strike to at very least negate projectiles! I’m also super in favor of a dark field, but think about it. Staff has a reflect in its auto chain (which is cool), but one excellent way to branch it out from other weapons would be to give it the BEST projectile counter that thief has. Blind is always going to be secondary compared to the pistol 5, which is why we all keep yammering on and on about how staff doesn’t quiet cut it. Two whirl finishers, along with a leap finisher make an excellent field combo class. Give us that field without sacrificing utility slot and you’ve got a weapon that will be in contention with top tier.

Again thanks for all the hard work.

Staff 1-3 are so much better than they were. In pve I triggered ALL THE WHIRL FINISHERS, which gave staff its own feel. Give dust strike projectile absorption and a dark field, and it would be the most amazing skill that we would talk about all day. Vault does need that evade frame still, but the improved speed made it usable in pve. Not great, but usable. Dash is in a REALLY good place, but that means that Bound and Lotus training need improvement to keep up. Someone recommended that Lotus not break stealth, I don’t know if this can be done but whirl finishing while staying stealth would be crazy awesome. Let Bound grant stability, as right now our only source is through using dagger storm, which is never going to happen in pvp. Unlike lotus training that would be an easy benefit to tack on and make the grand master trait ‘grand master worthy’

I’d celebrate, but I think my work would frown upon me drinking and cheering before I clock in. Still though, celebrating on the inside that the errors are being worked on.

SirMoogie.9263:

We didn’t ask them to do double the work. ¹ We’d prefer they just do right by the player base and not do this to begin with, but since they have here we are.

¹ – Assuming that is the case, which I have my doubts as no one has seen where the challenge lies. If the difficulty lies in the stats, damage, or timers; scaling these back would be trivial and succeed in diminishing that challenge.

Doing right by the player base IS providing a variety of content for new and old players. In case of veterans, challenging and meaningful content is the difference that sells expansions. I’ve maxed out my fractal level and have a group of folks that has aether path down to a science, don’t folks like myself deserve something to strive for with the expansion as well? Why would you assume that veteran players should be denied that feeling of accomplishment through challenging content that is rich in lore/story?

Literally 90% of PVE is catered toward regular players. I’m cool with that. But a raised skill bar for PVE needs to be more than just ‘l34t sause c4n s0l0 everything,’ in order to keep players like myself engaged. A level 50 fractal has no more story to it than a level 1, and let me tell you I HATE the repetition of it. If higher level fractals had little hidden gems of lore I would be much happier to repeat if not guide other players through. Having the skill set to conquer a raid should be more engaging than just a loot grind, and should be something you want to get good enough to see/complete for yourself. Your argument is similar to all the folks who begged for Liandri the Concealing Dark to be nerfed, and just as fundamentally flawed.

Quick comment on the dodges… it might be limited by the power of the code writing. I know we want them decoupled, don’t think I’m trying to harass or exploit any arguments for that. But in part I suspect that retooling the f commands on thief to have two separate functions might encounter the same problem ranger did with druid. Notice how their avatar bar had to be placed over the hp line, and why they’ve been so mum on pet removal for a long time? I’m not 100% but based on things said at twitch con I think we might be asking more than we realize. That said, I’d still really really really pine for this feature down the road.

Thanks for continuing to work on the animations Karl. I’d like to also agree with all the folks asking for the combat run staff animation to be altered. Looking cool and feeling cool have perks that ignore stats and overall make the build ‘feel’ far more like an elite bad@ss who is there to chew bubblegum and deal crap tons of damage while knocking down and interrupting enemies.

Seriously, if dulfy’s recalculation on the staff 1 chain attack is correct… staff is going to be beast. prays to the six

Maugetarr.6823:

So no more Mai Trin like bosses?

No guarantees on that (if anything giant red zones of death are probably guaranteed if the regular mobs in HoT are any indication), however, dodge rolling through it will still mitigate 100% of the damage as long as you reach a ‘clean spot’ by the end of the dodge. The real trick will be learning each of the daredevil dodges to use on the threshold of such attacks. My main fear came from the idea that enemies would start having ground target attacks that would be unblockable. I can understand a wind up mega hit if you’ve failed a mechanic, but essentially in the rush to get the stream about druid out the dev misrepresented his meaning. My believe is he was speaking very much about ranger/druid, and about how raids would encourage more than just ten top tier dps builds. I mean, think of the last time you did a dungeon or fractal with a ‘speed run total zerk’ pug group. Did they really meet those expectations? Because for me 80% of the time the fail miserably and bicker at each other. Yet with how the content is structured, those people STILL wind up beating the thing eventually by bashing their heads against the keyboard until it works. For raids, that won’t cut it (at least by their goals), because the skill requirement is going to be raised while the forgiveness meter is all but non-existent (no revive orbs or way points). The DPS will still need to dodge but also be focusing on mitigating damage through weakness and destroying break bars, in essence making it faster. One of their main goals was that zerker should be an equal but different solution compared to sinister. You’ll notice a lot of what the druid does both mitigates enemies in a control sense while promoting party synergy through heals AND damage. Frost spirit buff + that shiny new glyph = ALL THE DAMAGE. Weakness from Druid + Weakness from Daredevil = constant weakness to keep the squishes up while still maintaining dps.

As for Main Trin, you can dodge roll through the canon phase if the area gets surrounded by red circles of doom, and, so long as you land in a ‘clean’ spot take no damage. Took me a bit on thief to figure that out but sb5 is still the best option combined with harpy feathers to stay stealth (for reasons that are probably well known). Either way the important part is that Karl’s energy was genuinely there. He wants this to work and is putting in insane hours to make it so. Granted we do have the right and need to say what we feel isn’t energizing the build, but I don’t want us lashing out with personal attacks or belittling someone just because someone somewhere said something.

Anywho’s I’ll be beta testing Daredevil and scrapper exclusively on BW3. So much has changed from BW2 that I’m really looking forward to the improvements.

One of my buddies got to talk to Karl at twitch con! One thing we can still count on is that dodge will mitigate 100% of damage. I don’t know about certain bosses having unblockable attacks and would assume they still might, but at very least the thing that struck fear in my heart is a little toned down.

Nike.2631:

Ok, I’m gonna make a Marvel Comics joke, but I’m not entirely kidding. As part of the Adept minor trait~

• The Daredevil is immune to Fear.

…Because standing there when one of the Dragon champions drops their multi-fears and looking on as everyone runs off and saying to yourself “What? It’s just a dragon…” would be PERFECT for the Daredevil .

I know we’ve had our disagreements, but 100% I support this. My poor wife wondered why I started laughing at the computer for a good moment.

For channeled vigor, the word that would make it better is ‘protection.’ Seriously end of story that would make it viable for some fights. Apply weakness through the 2 skill then channel to heal up without being as afraid of insta down.

It is also completely viable for people to ask or complain about the elite spec when compared to the effort shown on other elite specializations. Say what you will about Tempest as a class, but the animations for overloads are beautiful. Our staff animations feel lack luster and recycled. Saying ’let’s only focus on us’ also ignores the component of teamwork that the game essentially requires for high level content. Our component tends to be DPS with stealth skip and blind mitigation, which daredevil so far only feels to help out mitigation through weakness, knockdowns, and daze. Arguably equal but different mitigation is again okay, but since we’re being encouraged to dodge and be a more physical presence we still need something that switches out stealth. This is why I’m arguing that just using dodges as the class mechanic is not enough. Knockdowns require stealth aside from the elite and bandit’s defense, and all three of those dodges are not at the point of being a valuable class mechanic. The DPS will need BW3 to be retested, but it was not there in BW2.

Finally, while I get the anger levels are soaring, don’t make this personal. Even if Karl does regard us as ‘ugh… that class.’ He’s still in here and still making progress on DD. From my experience as a costumer service rep, being attacked or degraded by the people I’m trying to help does not inspire effort of the right kind. Call out the problems and raise hell if you don’t feel like you are getting your money’s worth, but stay professional at least with the dev.

Nike.2631:

Because healing has been so integral to success up to this point.

That’s not at all why people are getting raw. I for one am not going to get salty about having a healer around. Having a dedicated healer even through Rev on high level fractals was okay, neither really bad nor good because it was hard to compare to regular meta (a lot of regular metas spend time on the downstate unless they are excellent players, and having a healer to reduce down time DOES mitigate this). What concerns at least me is that with a low health pool and dodges not working against new challenging content means that healer will be working over time to keep us up, while our NEW BLOODY MECHANIC turned out to be much less useful than we’d hoped. I’ve been making posts saying I was okay with the 3rd dodge because it is at least useful by some means and measure to help us mitigate damage. If it will not mitigate the damage, it and staff along with it become obsolete when compared to what we already have.

Hopefully that makes sense, not trying to call you out but also trying not to get my words tangled up with healer hate.

Time for some very frank talk.

So on the ranger live stream, it was just stated that you will ‘not be able to dodge your way through attacks, and Zerker meta is going to die.’ So… let’s talk for a moment.

Was that bs? Because I really hope it was. Otherwise OUR CLASS mechanic of a 3rd dodge is still not going to solve thieves damage mitigation problem for new content. Even with Bandit’s Defense, our health pool and armor are weak to the point of laughter for most of basic Tyria content. There is no reason to run PVT on thief, trust me I’ve tried for the sake of testing. I can only imagine that with HoT’s added challenge, that low health and medium armor are still going to be the main things going against us. On the one hand I’m super happy we at least didn’t get a weaker reaper shroud *cough*druid*cough* but at the same time I’m realized that if what they are talking about is true we didn’t just get denied a truly unique class mechanic (extra dodge is a mechanic but it is not new, as mentioned by feline grace users from ages past). We got a class mechanic that WILL not give us a greater use in challenging content. “Dodges will not save you.” Those were the words.

Perhaps I should be calm and wait for a better explanation on raids, but considering what was said it rubs the wrong way.

ZDragon.3046:

Im not concerned with any of that. Im concerned with a unkillable Cele healing build that revolves around stacking all the heal options Scrapper will be able to use.
Regen boon 112 to 200 ish
Healing aoe’s roughly 200-400
Healing with swiftness per second at least 104 as shown in the stream
Healing with super speed at least 400ish as shown in the stream
Backpack regen roughly 120ish

If they route for all of these the scrapper will be healing easily more than a warrior per second and that can be gained without even counting the super speed healing.

Im wondering if some of these will need to be toned down or if damaging builds suffer when traited for these things.

This is something no one has touched on yet and I want to know has this bee modified at all or is it still as it sits right now. I don’t main engi and i have to say i don’t like fighting them so im going to be the elephant and the room and throw this on the table. Forgive me engi players but someone has to >.> Nothing personal..

There it is! The engi hate begins before the class is even out for BW3. Oh no, someone might by entirely respecing as a heal bot be able to out heal warrior’s passive signet of better than all the healz. Do you hear yourself ignoring the stability traits? Because I think you’re ignoring the reason that Engy season is about to make a comeback. Literally the best part of this elite is that most if not all the traits look GREAT. It’s going to be difficult for me to decide on a final pve vs pvp path. Meta build is going to do whatever meta build does with it, but I guarantee you the fear you should have about Scrapper is not that you won’t kill it because they ran and healed real fast. Hell, if they are doing that how are you not capping to punish them?

As for hammer vs rifle in spvp, I can’t wait to try it. At this point we have way too little data and too little experience to make a judgement call. Rolling Grenades does seem like something we will absolutely need for range engagement, like it or not.

Fade.5904:

As others have said give a toggle dodge button on f3 f4 f5
Add a daze to staff 4 because it needed something extra and see below
Add new GM traits (ideas below)
Remove vulnerability from staff auto attack 3rd chain and add an evade

Traits GM
Shadow Armor – Gain Protection (2s) when you sucessfully evade an attack

Skulk in shadows – gain resistance while in stealth – drains 1 ini every second (this could synergise with ’Shadow rejuvenation, nullifying the ini gain from that trait, it would also help thief survive the insane aoe conditions currently in game)

Physical fitness – Staff and Physical skills deal more damage (1% per unspent initiative)

GM Minor
Endurance Thief – Gain Endurance when you succesfully steal from an enemy

Traits Master
Passive Defense Take reduced damage per initiative (1 ini = (-) 1% dmg)

Slip away – Gain stealth (2s) and superspeed (2 secs) when you daze a foe

(this would give old sets like PP SP ways to get stealth and also staff if you added a daze to staff 4)
Escapist’s Absolution – Remove a condition when you evade an attack

Master Minor
Driven Fortitude – Gain Health when you successfully evade an attack

Traits Adept
Staff Master – Gain a stacking toughness buff while wielding a staff (400 toughness) resets on gaining stealth or swapping weapons (this is not crazy – scrapper has a 500 toughness buff)

Quickital Wits – Critical hits reduce weapon swap (by 1 sec – 1 sec cool down)

Brawlers Tenacity – Gain Endurance when you first activate a physical skill. Physical skills have a reduced cooldown 20%

Adept Minor
Gain access to the physical skill category, enhanced dodges, staff weapon type and your maximum endurance threshold is increased.

These right here would be crazy broken. I appreciate that you’re trying to give us something to work with though. I don’t mean to call you out individually, but this is exactly why we will not see grand master traits redone at least until after launch. You do have some ideas I like though! Adding a daze to staff 4 is brilliant and would give some merit to the ability. Unfortunately your traits have heavy thematic synergy with something that daredevil should not be. With multiple classes getting new mechanics to combat stealth, we need non-stealth centrist options in order to stay competitive in sPvP. On PVE, the damage mechanics you have are crazy. Physical fitness + trickery + executioner would result in a 60% damage increase on targets below 50% when you have full initiative (15% trickery, 15% physical fitness, 10% for target having a condition, 20% for executioner). It would be essentially a new mandatory trait for us to run. Critical Wits with thief would allow for almost instantaneous constant weapon swapping between staff 1-2, dagger dagger and sword pistol for their 3 skill. The defensive abilities are not bad, but dip into more stealth mechanics when i believe thematically the daredevil was supposed to be less about stealth.

Mostly my point is that building even just 3 new traits let alone testing them would either delay launch or delay our elite spec from being accessible. Earlier I said that I didn’t want an f3 through f5 dodge, but mechanically that’s because I recognize that this cannot happen before launch. Yes I do want each dodge to be awesome and hard to choose between, but to get there we need to make sure they are fixed. Not only because of coding time, but also because of a lack of testing time. Think of how many things we found out from BW2 that needed tweaking, even just small breaks like impairing daggers using initiative.

That said, if we wanted a best of both worlds compromise down the road where we do get a class mechanic for changing dodges, these would be my recommended Grand Masters that still apply to each dodge. Or if we could just add these in and make them more awesome? Because while I feel dash is close to being ‘there’ as a ready class mechanic, Impaling Lotus and Bound are behind.

Black Lotus: Targets with bleeding, torment, and cripple receive three additional stacks of these conditions when you use impaling lotus.
One with the Wind: Dash becomes a 1 second evade and grants 2 seconds of super speed and stability
Tectonic Bound: Bound deals 10% additional damage and dazes targets for 3/4 second. 7 second cool down on daze.

>.> I might have put together a full ascended set just for scrapper based on how awesome it looks. Just saying it looks like the thing I’m going to spend all my time trying out on BW3 when I mean to do in depth tests on Thief and Guardian.

One of my concerns is the mechanic for getting the stealth gyro to not lag behind or split off in a different direction. This happened on the actual stream, but I would prefer that to have some AI tether that stays within range of your Scrapper. That… probably isn’t easy to code, but it provides a minor amount of counter play (other classes who know how SR works can still find thieves quiet easily, this would be the same).

Also quick question? The knock back gyro… if the projectile is reflected and strikes you… does the gyro knock you back? We didn’t get to see that, and I personally think it would be hilarious. Worst red circle evade technique ever, but still hilarious.

I’ll have a lot more thoughts on it after BW3. While I did notice lackluster damage, I noticed we were not shown what trinkets runes and sigils you were rolling, so I could not make any assumptions at that time.

Main Point: Scrapper stepped in front of Daredevil as my ‘do want’ elite spec based on watching the POI and reading the articles. Keep up the good work.

I know it was given up on a long time ago, but still the most limiting thing of Dragon Hunter is that trait mechanics did not stack into the new f1 f2 and f3 abilities. That wrecks so many things and I HATE that we spend more time arguing about traps when the fact of the matter is that Guardian has some great utility abilities already. In PVE I could see use of them being important in certain situations, that doesn’t make them bad. In PVP I’d like to try some out and honestly they could potentially merit two places on my skill bar.

Seriously though, TRAITS NEED TO CROSS INTO THE ELITE SPEC. Please consider this. My Sovereign Longbow is ready to rock, but I want my newfound abilities to be as versatile as those old ones. Otherwise, give the option to switch out of combat between the two types.

Agreed on removing swiftness from dash. It’s main point is now to either break immobilize without initiative and grant the ability to gfto through swiftness. Honestly, I don’t want the F3 through f5 dodge select. I want these grand master physical dodge training traits honed in and hard to select between. Right now, it doesn’t feel like dash is there. Bounding Dodge was fun in the first beta but hard to hit with. Removing the leap from impaling lotus makes me a little sad, but that hopefully clears up the animation error causing extra stuff to be consumed.

I’m getting happier with these changes. That confirmation on targeting for #2 is huge, and the damage upgrades are reasonable enough without getting into ’ going to get the nerf bat after beta’ territory. I would continue to echo comments that we need some more work on dust strike, but I’ve already said my part and others have said it much better.

Finally, I feel one of the worst things anyone could ever say is ‘Hey could we get another dev? The other dev seems better.’ Guys, Karl has Dragon Hunter, Tempest, and us. That’s already two forums loaded with more than enough whine (trust me I’ve been reading on guard since that’s my secondary). Thieves don’t whine, we get it done. We look for details, weaknesses, and ways to bypass or exploit our enemies that no other class can match. Its fine to post mechanics problems and recommended changes based on your experience, it’s not okay to belittle someone because they don’t act like another person. Karl is in here now and communicating with us about changes and LISTENING to feedback. That’s so much more than we’ve had in a long time. We won’t get everything we ask for, but I can’t wait to try retry this with what’s been done so far.

Just got the 25 blooms I was missing. After RNG failing a scarlet’s memory box, I bought a case of sand and was happy with my one bandit key and one geode that can contribute to me completing the Amberite weapons collection. I know it’s difficult to tell tone due to being online… but I was genuinely happier with a case of sand as apposed to the ‘cool/cheap’ event reward prize. I know others said it, but RNG rewards do not ever feel as rewarding as people would like.

Please, for future events, don’t abandon them immediately when the community says something is wrong. It doesn’t feel like we’re being listened to when instead of improvements, we basically hear about a cancellation. I get that devs were busy or were off for their weekends… but wouldn’t a few hours of overtime/fixing actually gotten more than enough positive press to counter this now 17 pages of negativity? ‘We won’t change this but we’ll listen for next time,’ feels akin to when your parents used to tell you that ‘maybe you can have that new toy.’

Maybe was always no. I lost hope and spent my blooms because I’ve waited long enough to hear if there were going to be fixes or future related events. Hundreds of up votes on reddit and 17 pages of comments should have warranted a staff meeting with a united solution to start fresh this week, start with positive announcements about lessons learned and give some concrete details on how things can change in the future.

I know we’re collectively beating a dead horse, but today you missed an opportunity to just bury the horse. Don’t keep wasting time and praying that negative press will go away. If there’s one thing and only one thing you take from this, please let it be that. I want you guys to succeed and it sucks for all of us when that doesn’t happen.

Oh also… any luck on steal/vault as a combo? And could I get a confirmation that utilizing my assassin’s signet could buff damage on 5 finger death… i mean 5 point exploding…

Fist Flurry. that one. I didn’t get enough time to mechanic test that damage comparison.

Karl thanks for listening to all that feedback. I know the thief forums get pretty rough between folks asking for buffs/non thieves complaining that we are the anti christ. Even after the elite specs launch, if you could occasionally let us know what feedback you need/want, it would be a huge boon to the thief community. Dev presence is nothing if not helpful when players get this involved.

Personally I would MUCH prefer a 6 cost evasive strike at the end to a 5 cost. Even with quickness the risk/reward factor leaned toward auto attack rather than risking the big drop. Either a slight damage or range increase would be the real selling point though. I got one 8k hit off it, but that nearly killed me while dagger dagger would still drop higher damage. Reducing the times on both dust strike and and giving us a targeted weakening charge (that still goes through to allow a camera spun strike for quickness? BE STILL MY BEATING HEART). More on dust strike though… It needs something to make it special. I wish I could give more help on this, because I feel really lame being like ‘pistol 5 is just… better.’ Either a high damage ratio or perhaps a cripple/slow effect would be my first go to toward making it unique and useful. Again I know neither of those are brilliant options but it’s my hope that someone brings something more to the table than just ‘make aoe.’ Pistol 5 will still win out against this as smoke field with built in repeat blinds > line of ‘wish I could see clearly again.’ I can understand some of the comments about the 3 skill seeming a little lack luster, but combining it with a targeted weakening strike would just be legend…. wait for it….

oh wait that’s Reverent’s thing.

Concerning utilities it’s like 75% good news to me. The Elite should be a three click because it is fracking epic in spvp (I was on the receiving end of one over the weekend, but alas I didn’t have time to try my pvp build). Pulminary impact hitting harder gives it meaning. Bandit’s defense was amazing and I can understand the 15 second cool down. The mere thought of impairing daggers with a sinister build makes me quiver. That said… a nitpick I’m still having is with the distracting daggers. While the projectile traveling faster is nice, the epic then use within a set timer mechanic still feels flawed in the theme of being a physical skill.

First off lemme focus on the good parts of it. The appearance of daggers on your arms is cool, but in my mind that always makes me think of a kit. In fractal/dungeon PVE it was quite good in combination with the pistol to remove stacks of stability. I never got that clutch “No it’s my turn again!” moment against a boss, but I wasn’t solo fighting anything. IF there was a way for those to ignore stability and cause an interrupt against anything without a break bar, equipping them within a window would be huge for certain fights like flame shaman/Mai Trin.

That said, equip to throw with such a low window feels wrong compared to the simple click to win pistol 4. If it was equip 3, start cool down timer upon final use (with a longer cool down timer that still got reductions for successful interrupts) I could get behind that. If it was ‘click to use’ with the third use starting the cool down timer at current rate but ignored stability, also useful and awesome for the pulmonary interrupt mechanic that I would love to see. But as it stands it competes against excellent utility skills that we already have without a countdown from the start timer. So while I love the theme of the skill, I feel those improvements are not enough to fix the heart of the problem.

One other note is that healing skill. I get it, we have three pretty cool healing skills… but I’d really like this to be a viable alternative instead of that spike heal I will never risk. One thought could be to tie it in to our dodge training to grant unique boons, like using it with dash ends with a different effect as apposed to using it with Lotus training. Again I get that competition is hard against healing skills but this one does come off as the most lackluster of both healing options and the total daredevil utilities.

Finally, our traits were pretty excellent. Not ‘zomg that’s so broke’ but, ‘oh those probably won’t be immediately nerfed and negate and work i put in toward a build.’ I REALLY REALLY wish the Escapist’s Absolution proc’d on an evasion instead of only a dodge. Admittedly between the new/awkward mechanic timing on the dodges (looking at dash and leaping bound) and being a thief with low armor and lower health… it would be nice and really make us choose between damage/survival. As it stands I’d rather risk the damage and condi cleanse either through a signet or through sword/pistol.

There’s probably tons more to say, but I’m waiting until we hear more details about the dodge alterations before droning on. Thanks again, and keep up the good work!

For the first time in a long time, I’m pretty unhappy with the state of the game. As in, ‘should I keep playing?’ unhappy. I know your resources are ‘dedicated’ to working on HoT, but rewards are basic mechanics that you guys improved upon in the dry top and silver waste segments. If temp events for HoT are going to be as backwards as this, I will not waste my time.

Before I push on let me clarify something. As a person who bought both the scarlet and toxic armors, I’m not at all offended that you made them obtainable for other players. I’ve had them FOR MONTHS. I’ve show boated and enjoyed them long enough. Other players being able to earn them through team based (or god forbid guild based) content is awesome, not detrimental to me. The problem I have is that for most players who work on weekends (myself included), the rewards of this track become essentially too little for too much time to farm. Why would I touch this stupid event when I can go make gold to gems, and it gives no karma or xp that I can farm on my alts?

Everyone in here has echoed some amazing comments about how to make the event better. In short i echo the agreement that champs should drop single blooms, completing each individual event should award between 2-5 based on how many events you’ve COMPLETED. Not tagged and run off to tag more. Maps should have a success/failure based mechanic to either reward or introduce additional challenges for a failure. Map based success should be the twenty bloom drop, NOT as a daily.

Furthermore there should have been achievements attached to this. It may seem small but even with crappy rewards achievement points would have given me a reason to farm it.

Finally: Stop dropping the kitten ball on ‘guild’ events. We haven’t had real guild based content updates, and this was advertised in that light. For god’s sake the game is called ‘Guild Wars 2,’ ADD SOME INCENTIVE FOR GUILDS TO DO THESE TEMPORARY EVENTS. Or at least don’t bloody advertise it as something that guilds would want to recruit for, then have the content offer NOTHING guild related. As it stands the only ‘recruitment’ guild should be doing at this moment is recruiting people to do LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE IN THE GAME.

I apologize if this comes off completely gruff, but asking for the communities guidance on this gave 5 pages of ideas that should have been on the drawing board day 1. It’s the equivalent of my 7 year old pretending he can’t read if only to make me do it for him. Don’t use free to play as an excuse on this either. Free to play individuals should be able to have fun with the game and not used as an excuse for why to make things empty for a hollow grind.

EDIT: Oh one more thing. If you changed the type of boon given from the event to the same type as the temporary buffs (you know, xp/crafting/call of the mists type thing) THEY WOULD STILL WORK IF PEOPLE GOT DISCONNECTED. It’d probably take some coding work but why not use something that is ALREADY IN THE GAME ENGINE to fix the problem?

Guys, we only get two shots of beta. That’s two tries to give feedback and get changes like the other classes have, but we won’t get those without being specific. Yes give feedback, but give the devs something to work with.

On that note, could someone please describe staff by USING MORE GODkitten WORDS THAN JUST CLUNKY?! I know we all like to use similar vocab to express consensus, but if you don’t drop specifics then ANET will not know what to do in order to make it ‘Not clunky.’ We are not going to get this fixed by being generic and coming off whiny about how ‘thief has no role.’ Bull. In WvW we are both havoc and zerg venom, in dungeons we’re part of chill/speed run skip (same with fractals. Seriously, tell me dredge isn’t easier with a thief. Go on, keep lying), and in PvP everyone right now is having trouble with condi/ so many eles. Admittedly i don’t pvp much on thief, but I haven’t gotten to use my pvp build for daredevil yet. When I do I’ll post in detail about it.

So far I’ve tried rocking two builds. One build for world running, and another for zerk pve fighting. World running build ran dash with sigils of energy on short bow and staff. Traits lines were trickery, acrobatics, and daredevil. Very boring and felt slow when compared to even old warrior. I do intend on trying out Berserker for a comparison, but the most underwhelming is Dash. While I’m aware it takes us further than a regular dodge, it completely lacks the feel of super speed running on Shiro Rev. Using acrobatics for vigor was less thrilling than promised. I won’t get into much detail because I gave up on the build very quickly.

Next build was significantly more fun in combat. Copied from my build notes:
Scholastic Fiend:
Trickery
~Flanking Strikes
~Bountiful Theft
~Sleight of Hand
Critical Strikes:
~Flawless Strike
~Sundering Strikes or Practiced Tolerance
~No Quarter
Daredevil
~Weakening Strikes
~Staff master
~Bounding Leap
Heal: Signet of Malice
Utility: Bandit’s Defense, Signet of Agility, SR
Elite: Daggerstorm
Weapons: Staff, Sword/Pistol, Shortbow for travel.
Sigils: Force/Energy, Force/Energy or Frailty for more vun (use sundering strikes for this)
Runes: Rune of the Scholar

WAY WAY WAY MORE FUN. Combat is fun against the new Mordy fodder and that knockdown on staff. Whatever critical comments i have to say below, PLEASE UNDERSTAND that the stealth staff 1 attack is the best kitten present you’ve given thieves in a long time. Oh and hey guess what, zerk on thief can still get you killed. I learned this the hard way and then tried planing for coordinated attacks on enemies. Stealth in, knockdown the sniper, use skill 2 for weakness sweep. Enemies run in, switch to sword pistol for black powder bounding leap from smoke field to go stealth while dealing damage. Daze strike on priority target, pistol whip, bounding leap, pistol 5, sword 1 or react as necessary until weapon swap occurs. I found it beneficial to always try to leave one evade available as a just in case, but that’s probably not optimal damage rotation. Hey, I had an hour to try.

So yeah, staff problems. Main issue is that it acts differently pending on camera position, and it’s hard with a brand new weapon to learn those key positions. 1 skill chain is hitting for less than any other weapon, which feels a little wrong when you look at sword, pistol, and dagger functionality. I’m not asking for it to be stronger, but in pvp there is almost no chance of getting to the third toggle skill. I like the animation for this skill’s third toggle though. Number 2 skill is actually quiet excellent for the reason of obtaining quickness. Rotate the camera as it spins you through enemies and quickly hit 1 to activate quickness, THEN AND ONLY THEN GO FOR LEAP. The 3rd staff skill I admittedly did not use much, but that doesn’t make it bad or wrong. Admittedly there were so many dodge options that it felt a little redundant. Would trade in a heartbeat for a reflect, but it at least offers total zerk a way to break cripple. Staff 4 is where my big problem lies. The blind moves way to slow to be useful in anything other than pve, or after obtaining a knockdown in pvp. Even still why bother when pistol 5 easily beats it? More often than not I’ll dodge roll for bounding leap or stealth in to start combat, which grants a much bigger advantage. It looks good but doesn’t function well compared to other combat options. Last but not least skill leap hits like a truck, but without quickness or knockdowns it will get your health bar much lower. It takes careful timing, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing…. but if it could at least hit in a wider range (seriously bounding leap for the win) it would be way more worth the risk. Or give us that sweet sweet 900 range gap closer? Pretty pretty please?

Utility notes:
I haven’t bothered with the healing skill. It seems like a really easy way to get yourself killed in the new areas. Probably awesome while running the ‘get across the map’ build I talked about, but otherwise meh.
Bandit’s defense is the second best present you’ve given thieves. A 1.5 second block is a life saver against things like Terragrifs. Please don’t raise the cooldown above 15 seconds or stealth will still remain the superior mechanic for 95% of enemies. Short story, knockdowns good.

I tried out the Distracting Daggers only briefly, but admittedly it feels like you guys wanted kits without having to give up physical skills as a theme. Equipping then throwing is abundantly terrible for the double clicks, especially just for an interrupt. You know how I like interrupting? Bandit’s Defense, or Blinding Powder + Staff 1, or Pistol 5+Bounding Leap+staff 1, or SR + staff 1, or hide in shadows + staff 1, or steal to grant stealth + staff 1…. OR THE VASTLY SUPERIOR PISTOL 4 SKILL headshot. (yes I’m aware most of those are knockdowns, but knockdowns are amazing as interrupts) Seriously either make these awesome with stun duration/not having to equip or GIVE A PHYSICAL REFLECT/STABILITY. <- Thief can use more of these.

I haven’t tried Fist flurry or Impairing Daggers, but I do have builds that incorporate them and I will try them out.

The Elite: It’s fun, But I made the mistake of not repressing the button again for the second and third hits. My bad, again hits like a truck and awesome even just as an interrupt on boss monsters if you start it when they have one stack of stability. Will be attempting to use this in pvp and provide better feedback.

That’s all I have for now, I’m working on more builds and will post thoughts on them as the weekend continues.

That rolling mist change is HUGE. HUGE i tell you. Only needing 60% crit chance + fury to trigger a 100% crit rate bring the possibility of different stats. I’m surprised by the evades, but agree with the concept because it does get you killed when fighting multiple enemies. Can’t wait to hop back into my rev for Beta Week 2!

Please note I played about two hours so far, intending on working more on this. For my Rev I wanted to attempt a hard hitting constant crit build. Using a mix of assassin’s gear along with zerker or Valkyrie for some added vitality this is very possible. When playing solo one can utilize fierce infusion + rolling mists for a constant 30% boost to critical hits, meaning you only need to worry about reaching 70%. Add in either a warrior or thief probably drops this down to 65 or thereabouts.

Anyways, Mainhand sword truly makes me feel like Shiro. #2 feels a bit underwhelming compared to a strong auto attack with cleave and that holy jeebus #3 skill. I don’t like how the camera struggles to keep up with the 3 skill though, it feels a bit like being jerked around after the animation ends. Still highly useful and AMAZING for using the signet of strength to quickly build might. This might be because I rocked mostly assassin’s gear, but damage felt low. As I keep playing I will try to use the damage tracker in the text box rather than just the on screen numbers, but the big hits were coming in at about 4k. Now, 4k + Impossible Odds makes even auto attack REALLy good, but genuinely i thought it could hit a bit harder (5k to 6k would be understandable considering I was not utilizing a max strength build) Off hand sword is not on par. Block was functional most of the time, but are enemies now anticipating blocks? Only sure way to trigger it was to stand in an AOE. If enemies are supposed to be reactive like that, holy crap that’s some awesomely written code. #5 is the big problem though. It worked just fine during the story parts of the mission, but when I got outside of that I could not for the life of me proc it. That’s the main asset of off hand sword and not working means I’m switching to axe. By the way, like one of the previous posters said, sword/axe for some crowd control gets my nod.

Hammer feels much better, the boosts really shine through especially on the #3 skill. Haven’t had time to check staff, but about my only use for it was that awesome gap closer #5. Shiro has one that I feel is better, which still leaves the availability of a ranged weapon when need be.

Again i realize I’m not rolling strength, so if those who are can state what their sword hits are coming in at, that would be awesome for some comparison.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Shadow Dragon Bob.7160:

That said…. Turret engy was the first build that made me fall in love with pvp. It was different, strategic more so then other builds I had tried.

Stopped reading there. LOL. What a load of crap. Learn to play a real build xD

I have played other builds since then, but good job being THE EXACT person that ruins pvp for new people.

First off, I’m kinda happy at least one person thought out of the box about a solution to turret engies. I don’t agree with it, but I appreciate this way more than the normal rants. Anyways, long rant will be long. Apologies.

The easiest solution I can think of that would be balanced is to nerf the regen rate or on turrets. Make it every five seconds, or even possibly seven if need be. That would provide a fair aoe counter strategy that could succeed in actually destroying turrets and forcing a wider spread, hence more difficulty to collect boons. Despite loving this build, even I can admit it’s a little unfair that people essentially have to focus on me if they want to win. Probably easier to do that then to code for condi damage on turrets.

That said…. Turret engy was the first build that made me fall in love with pvp. It was different, strategic more so then other builds I had tried.

It still amazes me to see how many people assume that turrets just do all the work for you. Remember when the decap build was such a bane that people basically wanted engineers wiped off the face of the earth? That was legit. Dodges and stability were not enough to counter what a good decap engy could do to you. I’ll admit I’m fine with some balance issues on turrets, but do you ever take the time to understand why you keep loosing?

First off, Placement is king. If the Turret Engineer placed all his/her little friends around them, THAT MEANS THEY HAVE THE TRAIT WHERE EACH TURRET GIVES BOONS. It means they are going to hit harder and possibly reduce incoming damage if they choose the thumper turret (it grants protection). Like other people have said, this means TIMING IS EVERYTHING. View it less like ‘i hit the thing until it dies’ and more like a real time strategy. Coordinate with yourself to slip between their boons and catch their rotations off guard. Yes, BOTHER TO LEARN THE COOLDOWNS. If a turret engineer is your number one problem in life than address the bloody problem.

Secondly, DO NOT attack turrets. Any turret engineer that is not a masochist has taken the trait where turrets repair themselves over time. Short version “they regenerate quick.” This also increases the turret health pool, meaning that even IF you do destroy them, you’ve probably wasted a rotation on doing so. The real key is to get the engineer far enough away from their toys to where you at most have to deal with one of them. That said, RANGE WHEN POSSIBLE. If your party has a ranger, they should make VERY good friends with the turret engy.

Third, Turret Engies nearly completely sacrifice mobility. Oh sure they suck to fight especially 1v1, but guess what? You have mobility and allies. If they are hands down destroying you on one point, have your FIVE people focus the other two. The match becomes a 4v5 which results in a loss for the team with the turret engy. That’s one reason the NA pvp has slowly grow away from pure bunker, rotation is a very powerful tool when used correctly. As a turret engy I need to be on top of cool down times to even provide mild support to anywhere else. In the stress of a mid battle it’s easy to forget and wind up having no utility skills to support other points.

Engineers may play their build differently and you need to prepare to see variations. Guess what though? If you want to be good at pvp you need to both know your weaknesses and understand your enemy. Normally though the game community skips that step to come banging on the devs door with complaints of how broke their game is. “Why haven’t you fixed this yet?” Is basically the short way of saying “Just blindly swing the nerf bat because I don’t use it so I don’t care.”

This isn’t a simple ‘Get good brah.’ Chances are folks like Grouch are aware that tweaks might be necessary, but I guarantee you every time people refuse to bother pointing out change dynamics and just say “IT SUCKS NERF IT!” It falls on deaf ears. They put in countless hours trying to make it fair, only for you to judge it within a second while not bothering to bring evidence to the table.