Showing Posts For ThrynDrakarian.3179:
If you want to understand various ongoing plot threads (yet also be annoyed at various ones quietly being ignored), then yes, along with LWS3 you may need to pay gems for.
If you don’t care at all about plot, then no.
Good:
- raptor mount mostly good (ramp issues, unable to dismount midair into glide)
- new enemies. (poss need slight HP increase).
Bland:
- map overly flat and open, travel blocks and exploration blatantly gated behind other mounts (mastery point in quick sand to the north, high cliffs near teleporter minigame). Little to do, explore and find in most of it as a result. Other maps need to be more complicated – more crannies.
- mastery minigames – potential to be very irritating.
- Resource bags for karma & trade. Unsure as while useful karma sink and targeted farming appreciated, a good chance to utterly destroy material values with potential to completely destabilise entire in game economy.
Bad:
- choosing to separate HoT & PoF means waste of options for map design/making hidden and interesting things.
- Few Waypoints – assumed the LWS3 part 6 map alternative option was a test for a similar thing in PoF. Apparently not?
- heart activities slightly overly grindy/drawn out, problem due to…..
- Unidentified items.
Due to sometimes hiding rares & exotics in a green tier item, it feels obligatory to ID yet tedious & unrewarding to identify due to the higher than usual return cost and needing a heart vendor, Add in being counted under “salvage all masterwork” and just ugh.
Split into 2 tiers of rarity and/or lower cost to ID significantly.
TLDR:
Wary – map hard to judge due to not being full unlock (size & events) and no elite specs. UnIdentified Items system needs work.
(edited by ThrynDrakarian.3179)
We ran the story as a 5 man group, with 1 player consistently activating things and honestly? It was painfully frustrating at points, both mechanically and plot wise.
I’ll split em down, and include good & bad, largest ones bolded & underlined, as I can’t get it below 75 words.
Mechanics:
1. more puzzles/alternative to combat = good
2.Shining Blade Secrets instance – advise make instances like this solo because:
- major camera issues and oddities for the different cutscenes activating (facing us opposite direction from the final conversation was the best)
- boring for non- main player. ie Being stuck on a balcony with high CD grenades when everything hid under the balcony and a highly restricted camera, followed by a room you can’t do ANYTHING
3. New zone:
- Liked the new 1-core waypoint and buying more and being account-wide; didn’t like the fact we found it by completely by accident after frustrating deaths.
- Dwayna’s Flight buff; setting this as 2-4 instead of 1-3 was infuriating everything else changing weapon bar has run 1>5, leading to most of our party repeatedly dashing left instead of forwards
4. Ancient Magics Masteries
- new one why? what purpose? No use in instances, barely encountered in zone
-one party member is new to the ‘full’ game – no access to counter-spell
- some temporary masteries need reconsidering for permanent use ie gliding options from Bloodstone Fen – felt like an evolution/upgrade, removing feels odd.
Story:
1. Closing old open plot threads = good. See HoT, Malyck + other trees for why not doing so sucks.
2. Pacing was too fast again. Reminds me of Tarir’s plot all over again…
3. Shining Blade oath - PC prioritising Kryta over home country? Don't see Charr or Asura doing it.
4. If you haven’t played GW1 (or gone in-depth wiki lore diving), you won’t know the Eye of Janthir (apparently also in the raid most players won't see), Livia or the Mursaat. None of my group have played GW1, 2/5 of us having read the wiki lore, leaving 3/5 confused, disinterested and calling Deus Ex Machina.
5. PC not being passive responses = better since removal of 3 options system. Nice to finally not be a doormat to Taimi being obnoxious and her not have all the answers. More of this, or at least not “one character has all the answers every time for an entire arch”
6. Couldn’t have told you Crystal Desert from final incoherent cutscene at all I get it’s supposed to be an arcane object smashing images into your brain, but it was completely incoherent
My answers?
1. put in a way of dealing with/actually infracting verbally toxic players. My experience of the PvP community is the majority is either indifferent or incredibly toxic.
2. remove the viewable personal score, given too many people are obsessed with personal glory over team victory (a problem with a LOT of team based competitive games, not just GW2) – not just to the point they’re throwing games for extra personal points, but also abusing others over having lower scores for going objectives > kills.
3. split the PvE and PvP skills, and then do a massive rebalance of numbers for PvP (durations etc). Constantly wrecking PvE builds for ‘PvP balance’ and then still not having balance in either mode is laughable, and this would go a long way to solving it.
4. lower the burst across the board. The power creep has been ridiculous for some professions post June.
5. get a solo queue back in. Seriously. Doesn’t matter how skilled you are if you get matched with randoms all over the place vs pre-mades with the current optimal OP comp that are obsessed with personal > team scores. The stomping in those scenarios is dull and frustrating, and if I was a pure pve player, I’d have bailed by now.
Was this announced anywhere, as I haven’t seen anyone ask this yet and can’t find official word anywhere in the announcement posts etc. How many seasons can we expect, given the current one is 8 weeks and there’s likely to be at least a 2 week gap between them for balancing etc? Are we looking at 4?
The reason this matters for the Legendary Back is that we can’t start/complete most of the achievements from the next tier until we’ve completed the previous one (bar the wings and Essences), which are each gated by a required 15 day achievement. A tedious time gate, given the others can mostly be done within a day if you really push – or so it seems until you look at a specific line of the higher tier achievements, given the requirements go up each tier.
The most problematic (for me and probably others) is the League Recruit/Veteran/Champion/Elite one, which is crossing league division thresholds – 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively, for a total of 10. Assuming 4 seasons, this means you need to hit at least Ruby twice and Sapphire twice over those seasons.
I think it doesn’t require you to do the thresholds for whichever tier in only one season, but as I’m just about to enter Tier 3 Emerald with 8 days of 3 matches still to go until I unlock the Part 2 achievements I don’t want to waste a division threshold.
Anyone mind confirming if the league thresholds achievements go up before completing the timegated part, and numbers of Seasons due so I can work out how much no-lifeing I may need to try and fit in to get the Legendary?
A little bit of lag makes HoT impossible
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: ThrynDrakarian.3179
Having a connection that seems to tank during ‘peak hours’ here, and unfortunately random other times, I agree.
It’s especially bad for some of the Adventures if you ever want gold on those and the associated mastery points, given some of their over reliances on near perfect timing.
Gonna be honest – I bought it for the ‘extra’ looting for making my backpack, (which still isn’t done months later btw) and because it eventually pays for itself as a result (approx 7k sprockets assuming current gold to gem and sprocket prices).
Due to the expense per tool outside of sales, there being 3 of them, and you have to swap them between characters rather than being in some kind of ‘account wide unlimited tool pool’ – I would not have bought this without it paying itself back over the long term, as for something convenient they’re oddly inconvenient if you dare to have alts.
The ONLY way I would consider agreeing to this change is if we got the ability to have an account bound slot for infinite tools, that would allow you to choose between any you’ve bought on any characters at any time. Except then you have people who’ve bought multiple of the same tool for their alts. So either they’d have to refund the clockwork picks from people who bought them for their pure functionality over other ones with nicer aesthetics in your scenario, or refund people who bought multiple of the same tool AND probably offer a rechoice of pickaxe skin to everyone with the clockwork in mine – in both cases ANet would lose money, or certainly not gain enough for the backlash and ill will such a change would generate.
I would also be iffy about using utility slot necklaces for the same functionality for laurels – a) ANet would most definitely NOT have those available for laurels, they’d be gemstore items and you know it, therefore becoming again ‘pay2win’ and b) what happens when the extra material you choose suddenly tanks in value as everyone ELSE went for that as the currently highest value mat? plus c) you lose out on using the current ones as these material ones would be strictly better.
Gonna be honest, while I love the idea of many of the challenges and the gameplay changes some of the adventures bring…..ye gods are more than a few of them frustrating, and often for different reasons. So belows both a general list that affect multiples as well as some specific ones.
1. randomisation of spawns that clearly hasn’t been tested, as opposed to ‘set’ multiple spawn options/routes – can we just not? This is one of the biggest common frustrations I’m encountering in the adventures. It is immensely frustrating to be stuck in a chain of attempts at an adventure where no matter how perfectly you play, the random spawns prevent you from getting a gold. Worst culprit: Shooting Gallery in Verdant Brink. Honorable mentions for problems – Fallen Masks, Scraprifle Field Test. Honorable mention for randomisation done well – Beetle Feast.
2. Seemingly random yet set camera angles on resets, often facing the wrong way, angle/direction different for every adventure. May be a nitpick but leads to frustration if multiple runs required.
3. Action camera use in adventures. I get it, you guys want to show it off, but it behaves/starts differently in both Shooting Gallery and Scraprifle Field Test (different central offset, zoom and angle). Also resets from whatever you’ve had to tweak it during adventure back to ‘default’ after a rest – you were 1st person? Now you aren’t, waste precious time fixing it! Also needs separate keybinds for when using action cam as opposed to normal.
4. sensitivity to lag. Ho boy. Gliding in general for opening and closing has issues with this, which given multiple adventures rely heavily on is a bit of a bummer. There’s also one of two others that heavily rely on say jumping mushrooms that are affected by this.
For specific adventures:
Floor is Lava – if you’re having any lag, even slightly? You aren’t golding this. Enjoy jumping mushrooms not firing, gliding sometimes refusing to open/close and the spore motes sometimes either not jumping you at all, or only partially.
Haywire Punchomatic – I wasn’t even aware of where this was without google as it doesn’t show on the map. Also not quite sure why it requires Exalted Assistance to access honestly, given it’s a Rata Novus golem, not an Exalted construct/device unless I missed some lore saying they are somewhere?
Scraprifle Field Test – several here really.
1. doesn’t show on the map, again had to google this. Why?
2. the random nature of spawns sometimes just not giving you enough to kill,
3. the tendency of multiple eggs with one shot to burst out of range of coolant/healing/endurance refill is odd – maybe increase the “splash” range of them?
4. the flamethrower (skill 2) requiring being held down to get full use (no tooltip suggesting as such) as well as seemingly not being bindable to right mouse click – as far I know, r-click doesnt seem to be used for much in Action Cam, so why not allow this?
General QoL suggestions:
- Some kind of map screen tracking once you’ve found a challenge of if it’s been done & highest reward tier reached that day; either an extra box while on the map screen listing them or maybe just a hover over tooltip on the challenge symbol. May be something as an 30+ gamer, but sometimes we play either end of the day hours apart and have more important RL things to worry about.
- if using randomisation on a challenge, please either build multiple testable for viability ‘paths’ that are chosen between, or use a similar approach to Beetle Feast – same locations, different mushrooms. I feel this would cut down on some feelings of resentment immensely.
I realise it mostly seems I’m ripping on adventures – I really do like most the concepts and the change of pace they bring. However, as a completionist and arcadey style gamer, I just don’t like some of the frustrations they bring that seem like slight design oversights.
I figured I’d rather try and get discussion on it, to show there’s some interest in an overhaul NOW than sit here going “I don’t like it and there’ll be no change so whatever” and then them still be not great after launch and even less likely to get the overhaul that’d make them so much more interesting. I did post something similar in the feedback thread, but I don’t think many people will trawl through every post in it
Given Scrapper is one of the last to be released it may mean they’re more open to a possible big tweak now and take the risk, given as it stands there is very little reason to take Gyros over either a FT kit and elixirs, or other kit/turret combos.
See I quite like the implementation Glenndevis suggested, which is more specific alongside an interesting trait idea to complement it.
I’m curious if it’s just me, but when the Scrapper was first revealed given the language used, was anyone else expecting the Gyros to run off a new resource bar in a similar style to Revenants & the toggleable Herald auras (and to a lesser extent Thieves & Initiative) rather the standard CD and flat duration we have for them now?
So a slowly regenning bar that drained per Gyro, allowing you to choose between 1 constantly or for a long duration, and multiples out for a shorter time.
I just feel it’s a missed opportunity to do something a bit more interesting and allow for more varied balance tweaks in the long run, given different Gyros could have had different drain rates dependent on what they do/how hard they hit etc etc. Could have also opened the door to have had traits that helped the Fuel bar regen in certain circumstances too (dodges, use of detonations etc)
Bit of a weird one I guess, quick 15 minute meddle in PvE (I have work in 10 mins).
1. That stealth Gyro – 40 out of every 60s in group stealth in PvE, given nothing seems to target the drone. Although if you’re in combat and use it, the drone itself attacks things – working as intended, or unexpected side effect? Also needs the toolbelt pulse either getting a higher CD or smaller range. Maybe both, given the reveal being 6 seconds long.
2. Gyros in general. I was honestly hoping for something like the Revenant energy bar but as a ‘fuel’ that either didn’t regen or did so very very slowly when they were out, but let you have multiples out at once. Would have made the Profession more ‘active’, similar to Thief and Revenant, rather than same old CD watching.
3. Hammer seems fine, if a complete no brainer choice given it massively outclasses the other engineer weapons. Honestly I’d almost consider the line just for that, given the synergy the traits seems to offer a flamethrower engineer and completely ignore all the gyros
(edited by ThrynDrakarian.3179)
I should note I could see a split of say 75%, 50% and 25% when traited into my proposed Ricochet-lite working well, but I’d rather foster good reasonable discussion with starting at a reasonable point and debating it than requesting something outright broken and then being surprised the answer is just “no”.
If ricochet always bounced to three targets and dealt 50% to each extra target, in the absolute best case possible (all bullets hit everyone and every single one crits) that’s:
14186 + ( 7093 * 3 ) = 35465 damage total vs 4 targets
A lot, right? Well, now let’s look at another skill. I ran the same set up to test mind wrack. Zerk, scholar etc. with mental anguish and compounding power. Second try mind wrack destroyed the light golem, or about 14k. It consistently did around 12k. This can hit 5 targets, so absolute best case that’s:
14k * 5 = 70k damage total vs 5 targets
They each have advantages and disadvantages. Mind wrack is harder to hit the maximum amount of targets with, but it has twice the damage potential in a single use and can be instantaneous if set up right, so it’s harder to dodge or react to. Unload has no cooldown, and can be cast 3 times plus 1 per five seconds if initiative is full to start. To keep the maximum damage potential per unload, though, you need to use it once per 5 seconds. It’s also very easy to react to and dodge, block or what have you to mitigate the damage.
Many other AoE skills could also be looked at for comparison. A lot of classes have great 1v1 damage, but can also pressure whole groups because most of that damage is AoE. I don’t really see how ricochet is any different. We keep good single target damage, while gaining decent team fight pressure. If it’s really too strong, you can just reduce the damage on the bounces until it’s reasonable. You don’t need to also take away the single target damage.
/End rant
The problem is with other classes AoEs in comparison to Ricochet is those are often ‘circles’ around whatever target, Ricochet never was and could go in weird ways due to this, potentially hitting targets up to 450 range in any direction from the initial target (assuming for having 2 near enough for the first 2 bounces) .
The original version was 50% chance of bounce per target hit, up to 4 targets hit total – effectively modifiers of 100%, 50%, 25% & 12.5% for a total of 187.5%, as opposed to your 250% suggestion for 4 targets on a weapon set that’s recently had a near 20% flat output boost.
Using your scenario and best case damage numbers you can dump out around the following:
- 140k damage in 6 secs (assuming no interrupts/death), 56k of that to the initial target, and 28k each to 3 other targets
- 14k Healing if you took Invigorating Precision,
- 17.5k healing if you take Signet of Malice (mine does 137 per attack – 32 * 137 = 4384 per Ricochet Unload) .
That is what – 9k dps to initial target, 4.7k dps to each bounced one, PLUS 5.25k self heal-per-second? Effectively 4 dead players in PvP in 3 seconds, tonnes of dead stuff in PvE, and a very hard to kill thief due to the regen unless you design things high enough to outright oneshot a thief. Way WAY too high to be considered acceptable at range, especially if you opened with a Sneak Attack that bounced and bleeds all 4 targets first.
At that point, why would you bother taking any other weapon set as your main at all? Less risk, high output for much less effort than melee choices, way more survivability due to the ridiculous level of regen.
A 250% constantly on boost in output vs 4 targets is just not going to get greenlit as a dev choice. It also means the trait would no longer really be optional as opposed to mandatory – ‘optimal’ rotation is of course not the same as ‘can be done’ rotation which is what things need to be balanced around, especially given thief weapon skills running on Initiative not hard CD like other classes.
The highest amount you can get away without issue is a total split of 187.5%, as otherwise it interacts very poorly from a balance perspective (and even then you get 75% of the figures I listed above, using only 1 skill repeatedly and zero utilities/elites) leading to a snowballing of rebalances, nerfs and breaking of other options which is something we haven’t had much luck with
(edited by ThrynDrakarian.3179)
I should note I could see a split of say 75%, 50% and 25% when traited into my proposed Ricochet-lite working well, but I’d rather foster good reasonable discussion with starting at a reasonable point and debating it than requesting something outright broken and then being surprised the answer is just “no”.
I’d repost it in here, but might get yelled at for doing so, so instead have a permalink to other post (was in there as Karl has posted in there).
Basically a justification for just removing Ankle Shots as a trait and replacing it with a toned down/altered Ricochet-lite that has 2 guaranteed bounces and always divides the current single target damage between 3 targets (even if there’s only one), given the objection doesn’t seem to be random targets, just RNG number of bounces based on other skills still in the game.
The trait would then be a case of letting people choose between having a weaker per target AoE pistol set for 3 targets that also lets D/P multi shadow step on 3 again (with reduced damage), multi headshot (again reduced damage) etc or to take Practiced Tolerance for increased single target pistol for burst damage, which is currently the no-brainer option anyway…..
It might however require Pistol 2 to be reworked for balance, but I don’t think many people are a fan of it as is.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/So-the-Pistol-wasn-t-buffed/first#post5548907
What in the world? Why should we get our damage reduced 66% vs single targets just so it can bounce? Make it deal 100% to first target and 50% on bounces. That makes it similar to old ricochet without rng. Compared to other class AoE abilities, it’s definitely not overpowered. Certainly not enough to warrant dealing 33% damage to each target and hitting like a wet noodle.
I’m all for discussing what those splits should be, but it should NOT be as high as previous Ricochet because it clearly won’t fly – an entire Initiative bar dump gives about 4 Unloads with the regen (assuming you’ve taken trickery) leading to upwards of 40k, which split between 3 targets over 4.5-6s comes in at around 24k, 12k and 6k and that’s assuming no other trait procs, venoms, other utilities, sigil procs, etc, which would just take it even higher.
If you can’t see why that’s an issue, I’m not really sure what to say – with the other damage boost pistol recently received, we’d get shrieked about and then heavy nerf batted yet again, as increasing a boosted Pistol output by a further guaranteed constant 75% is ridiculous and wouldn’t even be considered whatsoever at the dev end, otherwise we’d already have that instead of the frankly rubbish Ankle Shots
Also I permalinked the other post I made because it includes the maths on why Ankle Shots currently shouldn’t ever be taken instead of Practiced Precision and why it needs replacing with a Ricochet-lite, my suggested splits (50, 30 and 20) and why it shouldn’t be a straight upgrade –
a) because then it’s 100% mandatory trait for taking that weapon in any weapon set, rather than an alternate option which is something thief (and the game) sorely needs full stop
b) I don’t see the problem trading some straight damage equivalent out for utility
c) it would cause massive balance problems with running both Signet of Malice and Invigorating Precision.
(edited by ThrynDrakarian.3179)
I’d repost it in here, but might get yelled at for doing so, so instead have a permalink to other post (was in there as Karl has posted in there).
Basically a justification for just removing Ankle Shots as a trait and replacing it with a toned down/altered Ricochet-lite that has 2 guaranteed bounces and always divides the current single target damage between 3 targets (even if there’s only one), given the objection doesn’t seem to be random targets, just RNG number of bounces based on other skills still in the game.
The trait would then be a case of letting people choose between having a weaker per target AoE pistol set for 3 targets that also lets D/P multi shadow step on 3 again (with reduced damage), multi headshot (again reduced damage) etc or to take Practiced Tolerance for increased single target pistol for burst damage, which is currently the no-brainer option anyway…..
It might however require Pistol 2 to be reworked for balance, but I don’t think many people are a fan of it as is.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/So-the-Pistol-wasn-t-buffed/first#post5548907
FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.
-Karl
Hi Karl, I know I’ve recently been somewhat harsh with regards to thief changes since June. Just 3 points I’d like to mention, although I apologise point 2 is long and 3 may become a little long as well as they include my reasoning on their initial points (the most important ‘skim read’ bits are bolded):
1. Thank you for posting and showing you are both reading our forums and considering our concerns, although at this time due to the current state of the profession my thief has now been relegated from my main char full-ascended-wearing fun AoE gunslinger and highly unpredictable mobility annoyance in team fights to ‘craft and storage mule in exotics’ for both PvP and PvE content.
2. Why Ankle Shots is currently not worth slotting
The ‘bugged’ range increase on Ankle Shots was the main reason many of us took the trait considering how semi-random the damage increase on it is, from both anecdotal posts on the forums and amongst my own friends (none of whom have picked up their thieves in weeks asides me).
Justification/maths on why it is no longer worth taking: (For the full breakdown of the following calculations please see the bottom of the post)
Currently there is no reason to take Ankle Shots over Practiced Tolerance for the following reasons:
- Ankle Shots currently LOWERS damage on the AA/Vital Shot, although oddly Sneak Attack is unaffected by this. Maths supporting this:
With AS: normal: avg 444.5 plus crit avg of 1142, crippled: avg 512.5 plus crit avg of 1251
Without AS avg 573 plus crit avg of 1440.5
Therefore
Normal targets: non crit shots loss of 22.4% , crit shots of 20.7%
Crippled targets: non crit shots loss of 10.6%, crit shots of 13.2%
- As Unload is unaffected by the damage drop bug, it’s a good test of which is better on an equivalent skill…..and again for average play, Practiced Tolerance wins.
Unload with AS: Crippled target average of 5 = 8128, un-Crippled target average of 5 = 6036
Unload with Practiced Tolerance: average of 5 = 7977.8
Against a Crippled target a gain of 1.9%, against an un-Crippled target a loss of 24.3%
- The only skill that Ankle Shots wins with is Sneak Attack and not enough to justify the above losses, with a weapon that currently is unable to self stealth unless in P/D configuration or using utilities (I’ve assumed it will be used as an opener, therefore always applying cripple with AS)
With AS: average of 5 = 4602
With Practiced Tolerance: average of 5 = 4401
AS gain of 4.6% over Practiced Tolerance
- To get maximum benefit of Ankle Shots, due to the internal CD and duration of the trait supplied Cripple, you need to be in melee range to use other sources of Cripple (utility slot traps, caltrops etc) on a mid-range set where the point is to NOT be in melee range due to the Pistols lack of mobility skills, and give up escape/mobility/survival skills to do so. Or rely on someone else to be applying it for you constantly.
- The increase to crit damage from Practiced Tolerance also synergises with Invigorating Precision, increasing the healing gained from that GM trait.
- Ankle Shots only affects Pistols, Practiced Tolerance works for every equipped weapon.
3. Suggestion (and justification) for AoE/multi target Ricochet ‘lite’ Trait replacement for Ankle Shots
While you have stated outright now several times Ricochet will not be coming back in it’s current form, I do believe this was very useful both for P/P aoe and unpredictable D/P mobility which helped with our overall survival, which is the currently biggest problem facing the profession especially with the increase in stealth and reveals for other professions.
Would a guaranteed 2 ‘random target’ bounces trait be an option to replace Ankle Shots? I ask due to the maths from point 2 above showing why Ankle Shots is currently very lackluster/not worth slotting over Practiced Tolerance (esp with the number of bosses immune to CC for large periods), plus the main objection dev side seemingly being the random number of times it would bounce, rather than it hitting random targets after the first (see knife utility skill for DD, the 4 for D/D (Dancing Dagger) etc).
A balance for this would be to pair the guaranteed Ricochet/bounces with damage modifiers that equal nearly the same across multiple targets as current the single target damage (say 50%, 30%, 20%). If taken as a trait, these modifiers would then ALWAYS be in play regardless of whether you’re against 1 or 3 targets so thieves could then choose between having either a single target ranged burst weapon or a crowd/AoE weapon best against 3+ targets.
adding the damage split modifier would also mean Invigorating Precision (healed for % of crit damage) doesn’t get out of control, while making Signet of Malice more attractive for use again.
I believe this would then give the Pistol (and thief on the whole) back some of the flexibility it sorely needs to be considered as a viable weapon beyond generating stealth fields with D/P, offering both PvP and PvE options for play style while also not making the weapon set/trait a complete no-brainer “must take”.
Wall of maths and notes:
- I used Pistol/Pistol in the PvP lobby with Berserker amulet and Runes of the Eagle for armour, Sigils of Force (5% damage) and Lightning Strike (this rune procs removed from damage calcs) in Pistols plus Signet of Precision (plus crit ). giving a ‘base’ crit of 63.76 (boosts to 83.76% with easily accessible Fury) and ‘base’ Crit Damage of 216.6%, using the trait lines of Deadly Arts, Trickery. Target chosen is Heavy Golem.
- I realise 5 isn’t a statistically significant spread and each of these comparison should contain probably 100 plus recorded outputs for each side, but I’m limited in time this week, and it’s hard to fit all that into a forum post without flooding it/people not reading it, so I settled for removing the rare attacks that were of 50% or less crits to try and keep comparison fairer.
- Auto attack calc ranges:
Without AS 444 to 702 (avg 573) plus crit of 1181 to 1700 (1440.5)
With AS
normal: 366 to 523 (avg 444.5) plus crit of 974 to 1310 (1142)
crippled: 411 to 614 (avg 512.5) plus crits of 1087 to 1415 (1251)
- Unload comparison
Unload with AS: crippled average of 5 = 8128, uncrippled average of 5 = 6476.6
crippled: 9088 (8/8 crit) 7647 (6/8 crits), 7871 (7/8 crits), 8617 (7/8 crits), 7419 (6/8 crits)
un-crippled: 6036 (6/8 crits), 6514 (7/8 crits), 7564 (8/8 crits), 6713 (6/8 crits), 5556 (5/8 crits)
Unload with Practiced Tolerance: average of 5 = 7977.8
6781 (7/8 crits), 7468 (7/8 crits), 7238 (7/8 crits), 9070 (8/8 crits), 9332 (8/8 crits)
- Sneak attack comparison
Sneak Attack with Ankle Shots – average of 5 = 4602
4627 (5/5 crit), 4590 (5/5 crit), 4821 (5/5 crit), 4277 (4/5 crit), 4695 (5/5 crit)
Sneak Attack with Practiced Tolerance – average of 5 = 4401
3974 (4/5 crit), 4314 (5/5 crit), 4456 (5/5 crit), 4569 (5/5 crit), 4694 (5/5 crit)
(edited by ThrynDrakarian.3179)
I think you don’t get our point (at least mine, since I’m speaking for myself :P), daredevil for example gets a new mechanic (more endurance), just like reaper does (reaper shroud), but it doesn’t sacrifice the old one (steal) for the new one…. unlike reaper that sacrifices death shroud for reaper shroud.
Of course daredevil loses synergies because of the trait line but that is the same for every other elite spec in the game. Everyone gets a the option of a new weapon and everyone gets a new trait line but not everyone gets a new mechanic for free (reaper and dragonhunter replace the old ones).
The problem is those synergy losses are bigger for a thief than nearly any other profession. They genuinely are, with your current average build likely to be Deadly Arts (flat damage boosts, with poison + dmg & self heal on Steal) Trickery (party buffs + boon steal on Steal, with Initiative regains) and Shadow Arts (better stealth, cond removal in stealth + misc other stealth benefits).
Deadly Arts – don’t take it, huge damage loss (30% on targets under 50% with a single cond on them, which is 2 traits combined btw), alongside poison being pointless (line makes it also apply Weakness for 4s on application poison with an ICD of 10s), and Steal being less useful due to it not applying Poison + Weakness or dmg/healing on successful use. Also makes you do extra damage on coming out of stealth.
Trickery – don’t take it, on Steal you now don’t get 1 stack each of Fury, Might & Swiftness, +2 initiative, 2 stolen boons + vigor, nor 35% Steal CD reduction. On top of that you have less initiative and initiative recovery, leading to less Weapon Skill use and less survivability and output.
Shadow Arts – don’t take it in PvP you’re dead due to minimal self condition removal options and those they have being either very specific or removing only 1 random one, often on 30s+ CD. And the stealth cond removal got massively nerfed with the June trait changes (now 1 removed after every 3s in stealth) and wasn’t that brilliant to begin with (was 1 immediately + 1 per 3s after). Don’t take SA and Stealth options? probably dead to conditions as a result. Also grants stealth for rezzing.
Additional funfact and a major counterpoint – Acrobatics prior to the June trait changes effectively gave us a 3rd dodge bar due to the augments in it to dodge and endurance gain, which we got rehashed into DD.
DD itself – The real ‘new’ mechanic is the dodge variants, not the 3rd dodge, but a) it’s your Grandmaster trait choice, b) all 3 are incredibly situational, currently extremely glitchy and c) all 3 are likely to accidentally destealth you on use,
You get: 1 extra dodge (that stolen from an old line that is now barely useable as a result), and a weapon that is extremely high initiative use, extremely clunky and is all about NOT being in stealth (which is so key to a thief survival in PvP), alongside no combo fields on the weapon set or on the new utilities, nor any new ways to remove conditions. Oh and an Elite you can insta kill a downed person with if you can get close enough and not be interrupted for several seconds…
Genuinely not worth the losses to damage, survival, team support or class mechanics not taking any of those lines would do. Baseline thief is not as great kitten many people make out to be, neither is the class mechanic Steal at baseline, due to a combo of how random the skills granted in PvE are alongside some profession stolen skills being just rubbish.
I’ll not go on further about it given it’s in the Necro forum and I don’t want to derail too much, but Thief has to give up a LOT to take DD for minimal benefit in most modes, IMO much much more than the Reaper line costs Necros based on meddling with both during the trial weekends, and with less of a viable change in play style. =)
(edited by ThrynDrakarian.3179)
I suspect many of you trying to say Daredevil doesn’t lose anything don’t play thief much – to take Daredevil, no we don’t give up something as obvious as actual skills.
Thief is however far more dependent on the augments and synergy within specific trait lines than most other professions are – to get DD they have to give up an entire set of augments to straight damage or personal survivability or utility. Daredevil is primarily around dodging at the expense of stealth, with frankly currently a very very disjointed new kit attached to it, and currently huge issues with the new dodges that are the Grandmaster, that are all incredibly situational and likely to instead get you killed. Thief has laughable base condition removal, most of what they get is based around trait lines that augments stealth….which Daredevil doesn’t mesh with very well. Most thieves are NOT considering taking it as a result, because it is not a viable option in most circumstances – it doesn’t give anything good in exchange for the losses, nor does it address the base problems or obvious areas the class is lacking in.
Instead Reaper gets entire new mechanic options in exchange for an old one that is a very viable change in gameplay, with a dev that actually appears to be responding.
It was removed with the changes to the trait system so….June I think? Somewhere around then.
Ricochet in its previous implementation is not slated to return at this time.
When the trait system was condensed, the standard was set in that each weapon set could only have one trait. Being that a player might want to receive increased damage from pistols, but not necessarily inherit the RNG bounce attacks from the secondary trait, this secondary trait was cut.
I will say though that pistols are something we’ll be looking to improve, being as they feel under-tuned at the moment.-Karl
Hi Karl – thanks for finally giving us a response on this topic that didn’t consist of something vague like the oft quoted ‘purity of pistols’ answer we were left with last time.
If limited to a single trait per weapon set though, I (and apparently a lot of other people) do feel you may have made the wrong call, given the loss of Ricochet is a far greater damage loss than Ankle Shots provides in exchange, especially given both the fact that the damage boost REQUIRES your opponent to be crippled and provides a chance of crippling them for 3s of every 8….and is the only way that weapon set has of crippling someone.
To further compound why people may think it’s a waste of time, let me list the names of thief skills that apply cripple and the duration of it:
Slot skills:
- Tripwire, 5s, 30s CD. Reasonable if impractical like most traps.
- Caltrops, 10s, 30s CD. Good uptime, but still only 1/3 of the time.
- Dagger Storm, 2s per application, 8s duration, applications between 1 and 8 depending on distance, 90s CD. Elite skill, but cripple mostly drops off nearly as soon as it’s done, requires you to be on top of someone/thing for max benefit.
Weapon sets:
- Dagger offhand skill 4, 3s cripple on 3 random targets within range of each other. Spammable, but no big burst skill to utilise the brief damage boost bar maybe the stealth unload if you manage to land a 5 at point blank followed by a 1.
- Shortbow 3. 2s, assuming you’re on top of them, 1/4s lost to the animation, followed by more to weapon swap and pressing relevant attacks meaning it’s basically useless for the purposes of this.
Thoughts on the above
In both cases for weapons, swapping to P/P to use Unload then also means you’re stuck not able to capitalise/set up on another weapon inflicted cripple until your weapon swap has cooled down twice, unless the random trait one kicks in.
In the case for both weapons and skills – they nearly all require us to be point blank to apply, the only exception being dagger 4, which is counter to the weapon being ranged.
The fact the pistol range increase is a ‘hidden’ benefit of Ankle Shots is also a strange choice given most other classes seemed to get their range talent rolled in to baseline – this makes this trait REQUIRED to even consider the weapon set, but it’s even more unpredictable in practice than Ricochet was as a result of the ICD on it, leading to the uptime/actual use of the damage bonus being negligible.
Also odd it’s removed for being too RNG to use well, yet our damage boost is now dependent on a random trigger of a condition we can’t apply easily with the set (leading to less up time vs the trigger of Ricochet), alongside we get Shortbow 1 (random bounces), Dagger 4 (…random bounces….) and one of the new DD physical skills got it too.
Reasons people liked ricochet?
1. it benefited thinking about positioning (something thief needs to do anyway given we’re the most fragile class by a huge margin)
2. made it easier to evade around the mass of AoE from other classes when paired with Shadowshot from d/p in pvp,
3. kept things interesting as a result of not being predictable for either us OR opponents in PVP.
4. it triggered often enough to be a significant damage boost, and dealing with mesmers, necro and ranger pets
Pistol Auto Attack comparison
One major thing that desperately needs sorting for Pistols is the auto attack – Necro Sceptre 1 does the same thing but better – 900 range without a talent, longer bleed of 6s vs 4s talentable to be 12s, possibly higher base attack damage at the same intervals – my Necro is too low for me to confirm that part atm. Necro does also apply Poison but lets compare and show what it leads to
after 6s:
Thief gets 12 attacks – caps at 7 stacks of bleed. (7 conds)
Necro ALSO gets 12 attacks, 9 applying bleed, 3 applying poison
– untraited caps at 9 bleed, 2 poison. (11 conds)
– traited caps at 9 bleed, 3 poison (12 conds)
After 12s
Thief gets 24 attacks – still caps at 7 stacks of bleed. (7 conds)
Necro gets 24 attacks, 18 applying bleed, 6 applying poison
– untraited caps at 9 bleed, 2 poison. (11 conds)
– traited caps at 17 bleed, 3 poison (20 conds)
The sad thing is, I’m pretty sure Necro does more direct damage with those attacks too. The sceptre then also grants a ranged placeable aoe bleed option, followed by a “does more damage the more conditions on the target” single target option.
General notes
We basically went from having a selection of viable if not great weapon sets we could tweak and build around for different situations to basically d/p (maybe s/p too) + shortbow for movement as our only real options
I think ultimately what we don’t get is what your vision for Thief as the profession developer seems to be – our ranged options are basically non-existent right now, both seemingly tuned for melee range given the utilities required to make the trait for one even slightly usable and the complete lack of traits available for the Shortbow, but neither really providing the damage or sustain/survivability required to thrive at that range. I have yet to come across a single thief player who uses Shortbow as their main weapon, unless a boss in a fractal or dungeon has massive AoE, at which point their use feels so undertuned.
(edited by ThrynDrakarian.3179)
Disappointing, fiddly and horribly clunky. Meddled with at a mates on his account, both came to roughly the same conclusions.
Staff
- Auto-attack appeared to be the same speed but do both less damage and less useful status application than sword main hand? Weird for a 2 handed weapon.
- Not enough engagement/close options inherent on staff – the 2 to reengage could really do with having a longer range than the disengage skill has. Not having it leads to it feeling too slow/fiddly/disjointed/lacking in flow compared to what you’d expect from an agile melee staff user that as it’s trying to make you not stealth you’d assume would be mostly about glueing yourself to your target and being hard to get away from.
- Staff 4 doesn’t really fit what you’d expect from a staff user for a “sweep” as per description – it’s a flick/gouge here. Would be better off as a shorter range 180 degree arc via a semi circular actual sweep than an easily dodgeable long line. Maybe needs a combo field adding given the lack of them on this set?
- staff animations need serious work, which may help with it feeling disjointed, given none of them appear to flow together very well. An attack from a non-magic melee profession should not feature a hands-free hovering twirling staff (3rd AA). Staff 4 looks ridiculous given the re-use of shovel ‘dig’ animation. Please look up actual martial artists for ideas if stuck, there’s PLENTY of bo staff videos/films kicking around these days.
Physical utilities – Due to the physical skills being lower cooldown and feeling mandatory to tie staff together as a viable option, it only really worked as a whole if rebinding half your new utility skills to either a fancy multi-button mouse, or right next to movement keys, which is not something I enjoy or like. Something that no other class or build really needs like this one does.
Dodges – Further support the F3 to F5 option to swap between them given how situationally dependent they are, or maybe the option to toggle between normal and chosen special one. Interesting concept idea, but fiddly/glitchy and poor in execution, too slow and easy to predict/be killed while using against other players. Too easy to unstealth yourself with by accident. Annoying to not be able to shadowstep out of.
New Heal – Channeled heal for such a fragile class is a laughable idea – don’t see the point in PvP or PvE, as the former sees you dead long before it’s done against nearly anyone and the latter you’re better off using withdraw as a heal and evade based escape or signet of malice to keep topped up and mobile.
Misc thoughts
- feels like it stole from Acrobatics pre-trait nerf/balance.
- Gives some benefit to s/p viability again given it being a better version of Acrobatics, and the ability to dodge roll into stealth with the currently highly disappointing p/p due to all the unneeded nerfs that set ate.
- Doesn’t really address the base problems with why thief gets shoehorned into the current meta fragile d/p + shortbow burst/mobility build by giving good enough alternative/variable options either build or weaponset wise.
- Not even close to enough reason to rescue my or my mates thieves from being relegated from our main WvW/dungeon/world roamers to “oh I need their crafting professions” that happened with the trait changes. But then I doubt that’ll happen unless various base weaponsets, skills and traits get the rebalance they need – pistols & traps, shortbow (who honestly actually tries to use this for anything but mobility given it’s lack of related traits and general punch?), and all related traits
Combined with the loss of chance of initiative regain on crits, removal of ricochet basically puts P/P from my favourite ‘fun if not entirely brilliant reason to play thief’ to ‘why would you ever use this weapon set’ with boredom at playing the thief as a 1 trick pony meta build that’s near pointless in PVE and not much better in PVP.
Thief suffers at ranged options. Ricochet was a decent bandaid for that, which is now gone. The reasoning of removal being “purity of pistols” is laughable when you have engineers that fire glue, fire and lightning from theirs, and a shortbow on thief that has a pointy projectile ‘bounce’ off targets.
Also given a 10k+ view thread was closed without any dev feedback or commentary on it, I wouldn’t hold your breath in the slightest, unless we can expect another elite spec entirely around ranged options but a) I doubt we’ll get that anyway and b) even if we did it’d be at least 12 months away.
Thiefs been replaced for me by mesmer for stealth (zero revealed preventing restealth problem) and revenant for interesting/flexible melee options for me now. Nothing fun or interesting it can do role or playstyle wise anymore other classes now can’t ape or just do better.
First off – Gaile you have my sympathy, I don’t envy your job right now =P
As for the event? I think it’s been a victim of it’s own hype, combined with a lack of anything being run for a while but I’ll get to that shortly – I’ll start with the rewards and a bit of account background .
Rewards
I bought GW2 early in LS S1 – after a week I was then locked out of my account for 9+ months due to the password reset emails being trashed by various email hosts bug/problem, missing the entirety of the story. So seeing the 2 tonics in the vendor and having another crack at them? Awesome!
Or so I thought – until the problems with rewards not being given the first day, followed by no specific communication of what we could expect when it was fixed and then seeing actually how few of the tokens we get when it was fixed, leading to the realisation that unless I sacrificed most of the weekend, I’d get squat – 1 of the hand/shoulder skins at most, for 4.5 of invasion time (9 hours of game time due to the gaps). The amount of tokens being rewarded seems painfully low for vets compared to other events that used a similar system, like the Pavillion or the 4 Winds stuff. On top of that players being rewarded with the most tokens for running around tagging as many events as possible instead of actually finishing….
Combine all of this with no exp, coin or karma from the individual events, with the gold cost on top of ultra scarce tokens on a very time limited event in the first place, and you’ve got a recipe for both Vets being annoyed at an event we’re losing resources to take part in and new players being confused at the lack of rewards followed by frustrated when they realise the vendor stuff is priced way out of their reach. As a late 20s gamer for the time invested vs real money argument, I’d rather have seen the stuff thrown on the Gem Shop again to buy outright to be entirely honest.
Event itself
This is a bit of a harder one. We’ve not had an event in a while – we get it, most resources have been on the rebalance of the trait system (that’s another topic for elsewhere) and the expansion itself. The problem is we got this hyped up as something to get us in the mood for the expansion….and then basically get a couple of variants of the toxic mini-events that are already in the zones anyway, just with current mordrem enemies from the Silverwastes, over and over again in a zone until the time runs out, then it stops, breaks for 30+ mins and then swaps zone repeat. Very repetitive, no consequence/real reward for either ‘winning’ or ’failing.
What I was actually hoping for? The forts & camps in those areas being attacked and overrun if not defended like in the Silverwastes alongside the current incursions, leading to if held out long enough either a a big raid by some of the SW Mordrem bosses, some of the new Mordrem types from the expansion (not all obviously, but gives Vets something new to tackle), or a boss/commander Mordrem Guard we haven’t seen before given the reveal of them just before the event kicked off. Something to bring a map of players together with a feeling of consequences.
This could have then fed into a 2 tier token system, a bit like the Pavillion had with the weapon skins, with the ‘normal’ current 3 variants, plus defending and retaking the keeps/camps could have rewarded the current blooms for smaller rewards, and the ‘boss’ wave rewarded 1 of the big tokens for bigger ones like the 2 tonics.
Of course that then needs balancing against new players trying to level, but for a 4 day event leading to a Mordrem withdrawal could have been perfect, seeing as it could then be ‘flipped on’ again here and there in different zones between now and the expansion.
General Feedback
- Seeing the Mordrem actually attacking existing wildlife and events in the zones would have gone a long way to also helping it feel more ‘meaningful’. It’s weird to see a Dragon that’s seemingly been intent on overriding existing life have his minions casually hanging out next to humans etc.
- More general and specific communication from the company to players over issues. This applies not just to this event where it would have gone a long way to not having so many players raging about rewards/the pointlessness of the event, but just responses in general (Thief subforum had a 10k view thread that got closed without a response, which was concerning and frankly disappointing, but I’ll leave that there given it’s more a framing point anything else). I mean heck, we don’t even know if there’s more events coming up using the same currency, even if it has different rewards available?
All in all, I think we appreciate the theory, but the application felt lacking and it’s a double whammy for you guys as a company of discouraging vets who haven’t bought the expansion yet (and therefore not seen the new zone via beta weekends) and been a poor way to highlight free events for your new influx of F2P players you’re trying to persuade to pay money for the full game/expansion, given both the difficulty of them getting any reward AND the map chat filled with frustrated vets. Honestly if I’d seen it as my first example of a free world event while trying the F2P version, I’d be hitting that uninstall button ASAP, which is a shame as the game has lots to offer and is actually fun and we KNOW you guys can do better for events.
Yeah saw the chat those reasons were taken from – kind of rubbish reasons tbh. Also surprised, given not too long ago before the patch it had been bumped up to a GM trait in one preview I think.
Also “purity of pistols” is a laugh, given engineers can shoot poison darts and flame and glue from theirs, and our shortbow lets us bounce arrows between people. As for the RNG, that’s why it was fun for D/P, for bouncing random between targets.
Really really disappointed. P/P and D/P was my main build, with the fun of bouncing around randomly between targets in melee and multi-interrupts with lucky ricochets.
It’s just changed thief from “bit of an interesting optional randomised different build compared to most other games” to “generic single target thief like every other game”. Was it the most effective build? Of course it wasn’t for the most part….was it fun as all get out though for general roaming and PVE exploration? Hell yes.
To be perfectly honest, I’m going to have to ignore your specific questions and give general feedback, because I haven’t been playing my thief much since the patch hit due to major disappointment after a few hours of trying to make a build I liked that wasn’t generic and boring….and failing. Failing HARD.
Not impressed – my thief was my main, and it seems to now be “go some variant of glass cannon burst dagger thief in every mode of gameplay to be competitive and risk imploding by being sneezed on”.
On a personal note, my main spec was P/P, a spec that let me actually manage/watch over our small guild of mostly casual/not highly skilled gamers during dungeons (love em to bits, but their ability with interrupts, positioning and kiting etc aren’t always great without nudging), as well as support and recover for them when things went very wrong. Now I can’t do that, unless I want to blow everything I’ve got on a single target for P/P and barely manage to output close to the others (compared to everyone elses ranged AOEs, and be too busy managing every CD to watch over people) or as the day of the patch showed risk melee and nearly instantly explode with a slight AOE or condition.
Seriously what happened to ranged and/or AOE thieves? They seem to be majorly lacking right now.
1. P/P and D/P thieves got botched something awful with the removal of Ricochet unless you want to single target now (but you’re better off going melee for that, assuming no AOE/conditions involved!) – it wasn’t exactly the most competitive build, but it was fun in part for the RNG nature of where it’d bounce, alongside chain random shadowstepping via S/P 3. The reasoning of removing it being “purity of pistols and too much RNG” is a poor one to completely wreck a generally sneered at oft considered underwhelming build. Rough P/P output drop of around 50%, probably higher.
2. Shortbows appear to have nearly nothing besides poison traits, but then the SB 4 seems to have a lower duration application? And those poison traits don’t help the REST of the SB skills. Unless we’re getting a mid-long range ranged or AOE specialisation with HoT, things don’t look good for thieves for more casual style players tbh.
General gibberish:
Patch in general feels like on the one hand simplifying a lot of things, the other removing far far too many options. Odd considering half the problem with access to traits came in due to a change around April last year, weighting trait gain towards higher level as opposed to spread out like prior to that, a change that meant multiple professions weren’t clear how they were supposed to be working until 70-80 due to how much traits changed their playstyles (thieves, mesmers, guardians to name the major 3).
TL:DR:
1. Ricochet – when’s it back? Too key to thief build options for too long to remove so hamfistedly.
2. Why are ranged thieves in general seemingly ignored/not really catered to as a build option?
3. Varied & fun playstyle options went down the pan with the update (mainly due to 1) unless you want to be ‘generic stabby thief’. And that’s kind of against the whole GW2 “play your way” philosophy thing isn’t it
(edited by ThrynDrakarian.3179)