Guild Wars 2

This game can be so backwards sometimes. Playing PVE is a reward in of itself so I don’t even see why pvers need other rewards…

O.O

Carighan.6758:

Vrak.2193:

Of course it can be fixed, I have already given one example that would work perfectly fine

Well, your idea however doesn’t fix it, it replaces it with an entirely different ability.

Haha of course it fixes it, what on earth are you talking about? A bit nit-picky there buddy. It replaces half of the ability with a different (and better) type of leap, making the ability work every time you use it as long as you use it correctly. This is a great improvement over it’s current state, thus this would indeed count as a fix.

And that was merely just an example from someone who is not even a games developer. I say again, Illusionary leap is 100% fixable.

Godmoney.2048:

Vrak.2193:

Godmoney.2048:

Vrak.2193:

Also I disagree that it’s a minor issue; Illusionary leap is a core class ability and it’s rather important that it functions in a reliable manner.

You seem to be fortunate as the ability bugs out for me easily over 50% of the time and I go out of my way to avoid using it on uneven terrain and often stand closer than it’s max range…

Well you need to ask yourself why this is such a issue for you and not for me Osicat, Carrihgan, etc.

Maybe it’s that we’ve all learned to work with it? Just sayin. I know now where the ability will function perfectly and where it won’t. It took time.

Not trying to be rude just trying to give some perspective.

Yes, maybe they could change the ability entirely, it’s a possibility. I’m not going to stop playing mesmer though in the mean time. Still one of the stronger classes in many ways.

I have plenty of perspective thanks and I very much expected this type of a response. I can play the Mesmer perfectly fine and have played sword main hand almost exclusively.

The point is that you should’t have to “work around” it; the ability should simply function correctly.

There’s really no reason for it to have been bugged for this long.

There is a reason it’s been bugged…….because they can’t fix it. Wanna know why Warhammer had such horrible pet pathing? Because they couldn’t fix it.

Of course it can be fixed, I have already given one example that would work perfectly fine

Godmoney.2048:

Vrak.2193:

Also I disagree that it’s a minor issue; Illusionary leap is a core class ability and it’s rather important that it functions in a reliable manner.

You seem to be fortunate as the ability bugs out for me easily over 50% of the time and I go out of my way to avoid using it on uneven terrain and often stand closer than it’s max range…

Well you need to ask yourself why this is such a issue for you and not for me Osicat, Carrihgan, etc.

Maybe it’s that we’ve all learned to work with it? Just sayin. I know now where the ability will function perfectly and where it won’t. It took time.

Not trying to be rude just trying to give some perspective.

Yes, maybe they could change the ability entirely, it’s a possibility. I’m not going to stop playing mesmer though in the mean time. Still one of the stronger classes in many ways.

I have plenty of perspective thanks and I very much expected this type of a response. I can play the Mesmer perfectly fine and have played sword main hand almost exclusively.

The point is that you should’t have to “work around” it; the ability should simply function correctly.

There’s really no reason for it to have been bugged for this long.

Really depends on how much damage the auto-attack chain would do. I can’t see any reason why it shouldn’t work but then we do already have this mechanic in place with the sceptre, I personally would rather a new melee weapon have new/different mechanics.

Or just make the second half of the ability function like the Warriors MH sword leap.

Also I disagree that it’s a minor issue; Illusionary leap is a core class ability and it’s rather important that it functions in a reliable manner.

You seem to be fortunate as the ability bugs out for me easily over 50% of the time and I go out of my way to avoid using it on uneven terrain and often stand closer than it’s max range…

Of course it can be fixed. Just change the mechanics but keep the function the same. There are plenty of leaps that work perfectly fine right now in Gw2. Make the second half of the ability function in a similar way to the Warrior MH sword leap, but keep the target requirement. Now I am sure there are better ways of going about it, but this is just one example that would actually work.

Well if it’s so difficult to fix due to how the ability works Anet really need to consider changing it’s core mechanics or at least altering them, but keeping it’s function the same. Reverse the leap and the clone for example? I am sure there are plenty of viable solutions :/

Agreed I can’t believe this ability has not been fixed yet…it’s been like this since launch; under no circumstances should a class ability be this severely buggy for so long, especially when Gw2 is staking as claim in the world of competitive pvp.

I have been away from the game for quite some time and I was expecting this ability to be working properly by now.

Just wondering if there has been any word on when/if Illusionary leap will be fixed.

Just to clarify I am referring to the fact that the ability fails to work far too consistently; easily over half the time I use it the clone will get stuck half way at best and will then either die or slowly make it’s way to the desired target, well after the opportune window to follow up with the second half of the ability.

It goes without saying that this can really kitten a MH sword Mesmer especially when it happens multiple times in a row.

Cassocaster.4576:

Vrak.2193:

Tbh I wouldn’t mind some extra rewards! I have just over 1007 hours played but it was all spent in spvp so all I have to show for it are 2.5k achiv points and a handful of armour sets for each armour type…few weapon skins…41 rank points that basically do nothing. Not even any skill points to unlock the new healing abilities

If you park yourself in an arena for all of your game time, you haven’t explored and more than half of the achievements are geared towards exploration, killing different creatures and completion of events and hearts.

I have 2250 hours in game, I’ve gotten one precursor (Zap), about 50 exotic drops and a handful of super rare dyes. But, drops come from fighting and if you don’t fight outside the arena, nothing will drop to you at all (for example I have every slayer achievement except Jotuns and Giants, that’s around 20K documented creature kills, each with the chance for a drop).

Your rewards are the fact that you don’t have to work for your gear, you go into PVP and have everything, it’s like God mode in Quake/Doom. This can lull a person into complacency outside that arena so rewards could seem pale in PvE in comparison.

No achievements in PvE means you haven’t earned those rewards…go fight the mobs!!!

I don’t care about drops, or pve for that matter. I am a pvp player You should be able to earn cool rewards regardless of what game mode you prefer to play. Thankfully spvp rewards have been improved slightly with more improvements to come.

Also your remarks about spvp are false; the system was designed the way it is to put people on an even level playing field for the sake of better balance. You’re still supposed to earn rewards hence rank points and Glory. Just saying

It’s pretty normal to be able to level up in pvp in other mmorpgs, I don’t see why it should be different for gw2.

Tbh I wouldn’t mind some extra rewards! I have just over 1007 hours played but it was all spent in spvp so all I have to show for it are 2.5k achiv points and a handful of armour sets for each armour type…few weapon skins…41 rank points that basically do nothing. Not even any skill points to unlock the new healing abilities

…with the upcoming patch? I still need to get 10k Glory for my tier 3 cultural set

BV is so bad as a standalone stun because of it’s powerful synergy with stealth-based burst builds.

Not entirely relevant to the bulk of the thread but just wanted to chime in and say that almost every build for every class in this game should be considered “cheese”

Bombsaway.7198:

Vrak:

With all due respect, they are giving you lots of different options.
The only person I would feel badly for is the player who took a break and had no idea during that break that the change was happening.

For them, I would suggest that when glory goes away, you convert all remaining glory into gold at some conversion rate.

Not sure what else anyone can do for you Vrak.

You see that would be great. I am looking for a solution along those lines.

jcbroe.4329:

I’m sorry, how did you lose your progress? You are still the same rank you were when you stopped playing, and you still have all of your glory and PvP skins.

That’s all there was in the mists. Glorys value was using it to buy RNG chances to get new armor and weapon skins in the mist.

So you got burnt out and stopped playing. That’s fair, it happens to everybody. But while you were away, during part of a living story arc (which by the way, you missed all of those, but really seem to only care about rewards than content. Just saying, I’d be equally upset for everything I missed, not just rewards) in which new glory vendors were introduced, and with that living story arc, a wintersday based vendor was added to the mists as well.

Now, while I’m sure ANet knew full well that people were going to trading post the vendor items that they could, the vendors themselves were just carrying Wintersday items that allowed the PvP playerbase to participate in Wintersday without having to to PvE.

Unfortunately, you did miss that opportunity. I feel bad for you, really, I do. But just like with all of the other content based rewards in the game, like dragon wings or halloween weapons, there are time constraints on particular rewards that you can get during living world story arcs.

BUT, you still have all of your ranks and all of your glory. Just like the wintersday vendor was a pleasant surprise to everybody, there is a chance that any number of living story arcs will provide another vendor that has items that you can trading post for money.

It really sucks that you did miss this opportunity, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be more opportunities in the future.

Sorry that my first post came off as rude. The thread just came off to me as another whine thread about somebody who feels entitled to money, when in reality, the glory and ranks are the reward, and any money being made with the glory is being done through living world content.

I didn’t say I have lost any progress at all. I said that I will be losing past progress if my Glory gets deleted. I want to spend it before this happens but there is no longer an easy and time efficient way to do so, and if I were to be playing the game right now that would not be an issue, however I am not and do not have the time as it is.

It’s amusing that you say all I care about is rewards rather than content when as I have already said a few times I have played spvp exclusively; a game mode renown for having had a really bad progression system since the launch of the game. It may interest you to know that I have played no living story whatsoever because I simply have no interest in it, but thanks for caring

Your comparison between this issue and the temporary content of special events and living story does not work; with those types of game content you do the work and you get the rewards. With my issue I have done the work already, and thus I should be entitled to the rewards regardless of whether or not I am actively playing the game.

I am not sure why you get the impression that I am whining. It seems that most suggestion threads about something negative will get ladled as “whine” threads by a vocal minority of forum goers. It’s a pity!

I don’t care at all about gold, being a pure spvp player I have never had any aside from achievement rewards. It’s just that in this specific case I need gold to spend my hard earned Glory in the new vendor, that was put in place for people with Glory to use, and I have too much Glory and like 4 silver, and I am not even playing the game right now.

Anyways I am just hashing over the same details. We will have to agree to disagree; I think it’s fair that I should be able to spend my Glory before it is permanently deleted regardless of whether or not I am actively playing the game, and you do not.

kirito.4138:

Vrak.2193:

I did indeed enjoy myself while I was playing spvp, but to answer your question YES I also expected that my Glory would be of value to me at some point further down the line. Rank points were there as a form of progression and Glory came with them hand-in-hand. What’s your point here? Am I not allowed to both have fun and have progression?

You are looking at the whole thing in the wrong way. Glory was always intended to have value hence why it was in the game in the first place. This is common sense and I knew it right back at the start, did you not??

There lies your problem. You’re treating or banking on glory having additional value in the future. (it did for a limited time for which you didn’t capitalized on). Most people didn’t play just for glory. The face value at the time when you accrued your glory the value was little to nothing. It was meant for you to buy chests for pvp armor skins and whatnot crafting. . You quit playing so any valued ended there.

The transition to the new reward system in the future was to encourage and reward players to continue playing. You didn’t for whatever reason it doesn’t matter missed out on it and was not rewarded. However, this new reward system won’t be for a while so there will maybe be more chances to convert your glory to gold if you decide to play.

I didn’t play just for Glory but it was quite clear to me that it was going to be of more value in the future, this was even stated by Arenanet themselves. I know I still have my rank points but Glory was put in the game for a reason; it’s a currency.

Considering Glory is essentially being replaced by gold, doesn’t it make sense that it should just be automatically converted instead? I know the system Arenanet put in place gives you more freedom, but what about the people like me who weren’t playing during Wintersday? It’s going to take a very long time to farm enough gold to spend all of my Glory efficiently, and I have other commitments and barely have any time for gaming as it is.

I just so happened to stop playing at the wrong time and thus I made a suggestion that sounds perfectly fair to me, not sure why people are blowing this out of proportion and getting defensive, but I really don’t see much of a downside to just removing the gold cost on the vendor, or making spvp cash rewards retroactive, or simply converting all remaining Glory to gold and changing vendor prices to just gold…etc.

kirito.4138:

Vrak.2193:

Lets summarise:

I don’t play Guild Wars 2 at this time. I also don’t want to lose all my hard-earned Glory. To prevent this I need to invent time travel or come back to the game and grind.

I mean no offence to the developers but this is in my humble opinion poor design; I want to know that my progression is secure; taking a break from the game should not cause me to lose any of it.

You spent your 500hours playing/enjoying the game or did you do it just to “grind” glory? Because at the time glory was considered useless or worthless. Did you expect value of your glory back then? Probably not.

Anet gave us a bonus by allowing people to buy stuff aka wintersday gift before glory is removed. But, you didnt, so that is your fault. You could have had hundreds if not thousands of gold now. People who played the game cuz they liked it or whatever was rewarded.

Currently, you can still purchase armor skins with your glory? Stuff like R80 things that i doubt you would be able to get normally. Better hop on that now, before it is gone and cry later your glory was wiped clean without getting to spend it.

You stopped playing when glory had no real value. Think of it this way. Anet rewarded those who kept playing and gave them a chance to cash in.

Jesus it is getting tedious having to repeat myself in my own suggestion thread, and being accused of “crying” is just icing on the cake. If you note I am responding to people in my own thread. Pretty common practice.

I did indeed enjoy myself while I was playing spvp, but to answer your question YES I also expected that my Glory would be of value to me at some point further down the line. Rank points were there as a form of progression and Glory came with them hand-in-hand. What’s your point here? Am I not allowed to both have fun and have progression?

You are looking at the whole thing in the wrong way. Glory was always intended to have value hence why it was in the game in the first place. This is common sense and I knew it right back at the start, did you not??

You are correct in that I did not take advantage of the Winterday vendor? Guess why? Because I was not playing? Absolutely correct! I did not even KNOW about the vendors, BECAUSE. I. WAS. NOT. PLAYING. THE. GAME. Why on earth is this simple concept so mindbogglingly difficult for some of you to grasp…? I have a life, a family, a job, chores, commitments, other games to play. I do not and should not have to keep track of every single game I have ever played, keeping up to date on the latest news, all for the sake of keeping PAST PROGRESSION.

Your suggestion about buying and selling armour is not very good as the armour sets also require gold as well as glory.

People still playing were not rewarded to spite those not playing, that is not how it works. The vendors were not put there to say thank you to the game’s current active player-base, or to reward them for liking the game lol.

jcbroe.4329:

-Implements a way to convert glory into gold

-refuses to log in to use the conversion but wants to be compensated

Yeah, sorry, you don’t get rewarded for not playing the game. If you dedicated the time in the past, you can log in and convert your glory to gifts and then trade them for gold.

If you aren’t willing to even log in to use this system that everybody else had to live with, then honestly, you don’t deserve anything.

Everybody else played, and converted their glory as mentioned as their compensation for the time they invested. If you can’t even log in because “you don’t feel like it,” then you get nothing.

Everybody wishes that they didn’t have to work and still get paid. If you want your payment, you better log in and get it. Simple.

/Thread

Ok well firstly you are missing the point; I HAVE played the game, hence the 500+ hours worth of Glory I have collected. This is real time spent on real progression and I should not be given an ultimatum. You do not appear to have read my posts correctly. Please go back and do so before responding.

Also I am not quite sure where this hostility is coming from but if you are going through personal issues in your life I would ask kindly that you keep them out of my thread.

You say I “refuse” to log in… Do you really have to put words in my mouth to try and make your “point?” Your post basically attempts to label me as some lazy, petulant child who deserves nothing, whereas in reality I am just some guy who is burnt out but stills loves the game and does not want to lose a huge amount of real-time investment in said game, yet at the same time does not want to have to come back prematurely to grind for gold in order to preserve past progression; it’s past progression for a reason.

As I have already mentioned a number of times I have not been playing Guild Wars 2 for quite some time, and I do not currently have access to a time machine, thus I am unfortunately unable to log-in to a previous build of the game to take advantage of certain vendors. I don’t know why this is so hard to grasp.

You say I don’t deserve anything merely because I chose to take a break, and that if I go off GW2 at any point it is perfectly acceptable for me to lose my progression, progression that I have worked hard for. This may come as a shock to you but I thoroughly disagree. In fact I think the general tone of your post and it’s content is pretty nonsensical.

You mention everybody wishes that they didn’t have to work and still get paid. This implies that you do not think I have done any work to get my Glory, do you stand by this? 500+ hours of game play solely in spvp does not count as “work” to you? Really? Are you listening to yourself lol.

Really come back with a better argument or don’t come back at all please. It’s never fun when people turn a suggestion thread into a troll-fest, but when they do so in such as manner as yourself it gets incredibly tedious. Cheers.

bobomb.5209:

They are saying that you can buy the giant wintersday gifts and sell them for good money. They cost 200 glory each, and no gold is put into buying them. It seems like you haven’t understood them. Just play the game for 10 minutes. Buy some gifts. And sell them for some money. Now you have money, glory, and you have spent some glory so it has not been wasted. Everything is solved.

Actually I understand them perfectly. Unfortunately I do not currently have access to a time machine.

I am not sure why this is so difficult to grasp…I will have to take a different approach. Here are some bullet points to make it clearer. No offence intended!

• I do not currently play Guild Wars 2
• I have not been playing for quite some time
• I currently have no desire to play this computer game until I am no longer burnt out.

• I have played spvp exclusively for over 500 hours
• This has netted me a lot of Glory points
• These Glory points, which as said above have taken hundreds-of-hours of real-time to accumulate, will be wiped in an upcoming patch.

• In order to prevent them from being wiped I either need to travel back in time to when the Wintersday gift vendor was still in the game and play the auction house, or start playing again for the sole purpose of farming gold.

Lets summarise:

I don’t play Guild Wars 2 at this time. I also don’t want to lose all my hard-earned Glory. To prevent this I need to invent time travel or come back to the game and grind.

I mean no offence to the developers but this is in my humble opinion poor design; I want to know that my progression is secure; taking a break from the game should not cause me to lose any of it.

Sorry but you really are missing the point. I do indeed have a lot of Glory. I could have indeed purchased those parcels and sold them for gold. Absolutely.

What are you missing? The fact that I was not ankitten ot currently playing the game of course. As I have said multiple times I feel I should not have to farm gold in order to prevent the loss of hundreds-of-hours of game-play.

This is a computer game. Since when did it become an obligation? I play for fun, and when I don’t feel like playing any more for whatever reasons, I do not want to have to come back and basically do chores and work just so that I can keep all of my progression.

Sorry but you’re kinda missing the point…

Aye I know I could do that, but I am not currently playing the game as I am a bit burnt out and I don’t want to have to “grind” for gold in order to prevent the loss of hundreds-of-hours of game-play. I would be more than happy to do it if I were actively playing the game but that’s currently not the case, and I feel my progression should stay intact for when I return. If the gold rewards were to be made retroactive or simply removed altogether I could log-in and spend all my Glory preventing it from getting wiped.

As the title says, I would like for the spvp gold rewards to be made retroactive, or for the new spvp vendor’s gold costs to be abolished.

I have spent around 500 hours in spvp which is a lot for me, but the problem is this was all pre patch; now I have hundreds-of-thousands of Glory but because I only ever played spvp I have no gold whatsoever.

I would very much like to take advantage of the new vendor that allows you to actually put your Glory to efficient use, but this would mean grinding spvp all over again for gold, and to be perfectly honest I am on a bit of a break from the game for now due to being burnt out, but I absolutely love Guild Wars 2 and I will be returning after a small break.

This leads me onto my main issue; I don’t want to play the game right now, but if I do not, all my Glory will be wiped in an upcoming patch and I will lose hundreds of hours of game-play.

Please make the gold rewards retroactive or remove the gold cost.

Unique spvp maps for events in which pvpers can earn said event rewards.

I think it would be a great feature for pvpers to be able to earn special event rewards without having to participate in pve, all while playing on a unique spvp map designed specifically for the current event.

In fact, I am in a bit of a dilemma here as my highest level character is 22…. O.O

Now, that sounds worse than it is but you need to take into account spvp where you don’t actually gain exp, and I have spent a fair but of time there, but even so…not good.

Needless to say I am a bit of an altoholic but I usually always settle on one class that I play considerably more so than others, but after 4 months of playing with over 424 hours played across all my characters (don’t know if it counts deleted ones even) I am still yet to find the right class for me.

This is becoming a problem as I barely even play the game any more. I love Guild Wars 2 and I really want to get stuck into the content but without a main it just isn’t going to happen.

I don’t usually make this kind of thread but after countless hours of experimented and researching I am drawing a blank… So here I am hoping to get insight/feedback that will push men in the direction of finding a main so that I can actually enjoy the game to it’s fullest extent.

A few key points to go by:

1) Depth – The class needs to have reasonable depth to it. By reasonable I mean at least the average standard between all the classes, no less.

2) Decent number of “rotational” abilities – By rotational I mean active abilities used on a very frequent basis, and not situational like condition removal and longer cool-down abilities; I don’t want the core of my game-play to consist of auto 1, 1, 1, 1, with the odd 2, 3, here and there.

3) More than one viable weapon set – by viable I mean perfectly competitive for all types of content.

That’s pretty much it, not too fussy. The most important for me however is number 2; playing most classes admittedly at very low levels, I have missed the feeling of having a decent number of attacks at my disposal. I really need to be consistently pressing buttons to execute my basic damage “rotation.” One or two is just not enough for me.

Any advice/help would be much appreciated!

Agreed; an official response would be great.

Redscope.6215:

Tulisin.6945:

Vrak.2193:

I believe the Thief should be a high damage, low survivability class that is slippery and hard to pin down; very mobile.

This should be a viable way to play a thief, but GW2 professions should not be so strictly classified. There’s no one way to play each profession.

The problem is, if you’re slippery, hard to pin down, and very mobile, you’re also highly survivable.

A lot of people here don’t understand that (Edit: And I don’t mean “here” as in this forum, I mean game-wide). This game’s survivability is partly build and partly class. Mobility is a huge defensive advantage.

Exactly. This is why certain builds need to be adjusted; too much survivability for the amount of damage they can dish out. There needs to be more of a trade-off.

Tulisin.6945:

Vrak.2193:

I believe the Thief should be a high damage, low survivability class that is slippery and hard to pin down; very mobile.

This should be a viable way to play a thief, but GW2 professions should not be so strictly classified. There’s no one way to play each profession.

Agreed; I was more referring to a glass-cannon build. This is why these particular builds need to have their damage lowered; they are just too slippery and mobile (and thus have too much survivability for the amount of damage they deal.)

I quite like the look of the new interface, however I do agree that adding a KDR statistic can mostly only have negative ramifications on the game’s community. Not only will it promote elitism, effectively dividing the community, but it will also have an impact on how people play the game; you should expect to see more “cheese” builds, more passive play, more kill-farming and so on so forth.

I would love to have a KDR stat that is personal only, not viewable by other players, so if that is the case here then I welcome it.

Hellkaiser
I don’t even play a “glascannon nubbinz bs build” but I already know that if they didn’t exist we’d just have insanely one sided matchups where tanky players can outsustain the middle of the road guys and would become RAMPANT. Christ it’s tough enough to kill a tanky specced elementalist who knows what they’re doing if you’re not build for burst. This doesn’t of course mean that B/S builds aren’t POTENTIALLY problematic, but if you change one, you end up empowering the other
Maybe, just MAYBE the problem isn’t with thief though, and more with the misconceptions about how other classes can be played, despite all appearances maybe you SHOULDN’T be stacking your survival out the wazoo on a warrior and should have instead been a bit more counter-aggressive
I just find it odd that this is the “most op build” even after it took a HUGE nerf with BV being altered, it seems that breaking that would result in a potential missed backstab and counter damge
I’m trying to avoid ad hominem arguments, but honestly I’m just not seeing anything but extreme bias against the build as opposed to just rational logic

So basically what you are saying is that to mitigate one imbalance, another is needed; that’s poor game design right there. When one thing gets altered it can and often will affect other aspects of the game; this is not any new revelation. Balancing an MMORPG is a constant endeavour; buffing one thing may nerf another and so on so forth. It would be inadvisable to allow people to go around dishing out obscene burst damage just because there are other people going around taking obscene amounts of damage as well. It’s all about chasing that perfect equilibrium.

I have never suggested that glass-cannon builds should not exist. I agree that they should have a place in the game, but much like every other aspect of balance they must be regulated and adjusted accordingly. In my honest opinion some Thief builds are out of line and thus I think they need to be adjusted; I am not talking about anything drastic, but enough to stop them from being far too consistently game-breaking. Now the devs may very well disagree with me, but hopefully they do not.

As for speccing my Warrior more offensively, well it’s all about play-style and personal preference, but in this instance being more squishy would have only exasperated the problem for me; I did not get a chance to retaliate and thus my extra damage would have gone to waste.

Hellkaiser
The problem with opinions, is that they’re usually biased and not based on actual evidence.
The best and worst case “scenario” question that vrak answered showed this really well. However it was a VERY biased “worst” case scenario offered, one minute he’s one shotting you. And the next he’s nearly one shotting you and double teaming you with an outside interference.
I’m sorry but from what you’re saying it sounds like exaggeration, bias and overall incredibly misleading in terms of feedback.

I agree that opinions are often biased to varying degrees, however I disagree that my opinion is biased; the best and worst case scenarios I provided are entirely realistic.

However we both know that the true “worst case scenario” would be that the Thief ports in and gets annihilated in seconds due to aoe/cleave damage, but what would have been the point of me giving that as an example? We all know that this can happen to most other classes if they build for bust as well, and that the Thief in question would have to be pretty bad to misjudge the situation so severely; the worst case scenario I provided was that of a realistic situation where things go against the Thief, but due to the power of the build and the basic use of his class abilities he was able to contribute to capping the point and come out alive. Yes I could have left out the bit about the Mesmer chasing him, but I added that in to highlight the fact that a Thief is more often than not able to disengage and re-engage again with huge burst.

I can see why you think I am being biased but really, there would be no point in giving a worst case scenario if it was just along the lines of “Thief teleports into mass aoe and basks in a sea of damage.”

Hellkaiser
Don’t take offense to that, it’s just how I personally feel on the matter, and believe me when I say this I WANT to believe you.
No I’m no more a “superhuman savant” than you have a direct line to A-net as I joked, but clearly your opinions seem to be based off of anything but pure “logic”

No offence taken

But how so? What is so illogical about my opinion? I would say that believing a class to be overepowered because it can burst 50-100% (depending on survival stats) of another classes health in about 1-2 seconds (while at the same time having access to incredible mobility and stealth capability) is a pretty sound and logical conclusion.

Thinking logically, surely that kind of obscene damage should have some kind of trade-off? Yes the Thief is also considerably squishy, but when he is instantly teleporting away or simply slipping into thin air, well his poor damage mitigation is not really much of an issue; a glass cannon Thief can still have high survivability (toughness and vitality are not the only factors to take into account in this game,) too high for the amount of damage he can dish out.

Now just to clarify as there seems to be some confusion in regards to the scenario I mentioned in my initial post; I did indeed get killed. Basically I was making my way to defend my teams Treb when the Backstab fellow teleported onto me and crit me for half of my 27k hp, melting through my 2.1k toughness (which is indeed classed as tanky.) I hit my stun-breaker/stability and got off my heal, going back to about 80% health, by which time the Thief had already re-stealthed; seconds later he hit me again taking me to about 30% hp or less. I hit him with Shield-Bash and attempted an Eviscerate but he teleported away and when around LoS; A few seconds later I was crit once again for my remaining hp, and that was that.

Now, what actually happened here is not the important information; the point I was getting across is that a glass-cannon Backstab Thief can take up to 50% hp away from a 27k hp 2.1k toughness Warrior in a matter of about 2 seconds. Now just imagine that same scenario but against someone with squishy or even “average” survivability stats; they are pretty much one-shot. Are you claiming that this is balanced?

Now, onto my argument, just to clarify as you admit that you do not understand what I am trying to convey here; I believe glass-cannon backstab Thieves are overpowered as they do too much damage for how difficult they are to pin-down/kill. It has nothing to do with complaining; I have a Thief myself and I quite enjoy it, however I play a 1H sword + dagger off-hand build. I am simply giving feedback.

frans.8092:

They can’t one-shot anyone (other then rabbits), but other then that, isn’t striking – and killing – swiftly and unseen an unsuspecting victim exactly what an assassin (thief) is supposed to do? Should their burst-capability be nerfed so they can never kill swiftly and no longer be able to be assassins and instead … do what?

Please tell us, what is your vision of the Thief profession?

Incorrect; actually they can. However when a lot of people say one-shot what they are really saying is killed in a matter of 1-2 seconds, which may as well be the exact same thing, so lets not get caught up on the irrelevant details.

But to answer your question, I believe the Thief should be a high damage, low survivability class that is slippery and hard to pin down; very mobile.

As it stands they are pretty close to that however some builds (such as the one we are discussing) are too over-tuned on the damage department.

Hellkaiser.6025:

Again just as a simple “dodge when he casts his steal” or “stunbreakers dude” response can easily argue against you, there is no need to post any sort of retort, because your claim is “facts from thin air” give us more evidence, give us more DATA, give us some BEST and WORST case scenarios here or else you’re wasting virtual space by typing up garbage… no offense.

“Backstab thieves will be nerfed again”

Really? where is your red telephone direct line to A-Net, and when did it flash and ring telling you they were getting on the line to you to inform you of this?
that’s right it didn’t, and you were just assuming.

Also since when is ONE attack utilising the profession skill, and 2 cooldowns one being an elite, hitting you for half your “tanky” hp from a crit backstab buffed etc strike, which you could have probably healed off a moment or two later a game imbalance? from the sounds of it (and they’re vague claims) you didn’t even die, just lost half your hp…

just because they have “options” afterwards and those being that they’ve used for example their:

*Elite
*assassins signet
*steal
*(possibly another venom for the might stacks)

leaves them with 1 or 2 cooldowns left to run while you have or should have in a clean best case scenario encounter, 5 cooldowns left to fight back, and that includes your heal…..

So how much does your heal restore? assuming that’s your only healing skill equipped of course lets take that from the initial burst of your claimed 14k or so, and what have we left? I’m just not seeing this being overpowered…

Also if they bog off, what’s the problem? they didn’t shatter on your mighty chest and kneel in terror at your awesome tanky face and instantly commit harakiri despite failing?

I don’t get your argument lol, from what you’re saying you didn’t get your rear handed to you by a Backstab thief, yet you still complain because they blew all their cooldowns and escaped :S

Also, if what you’re saying should be on the off chance correct and it’s “overpowering” without damage builds being somewhat viable, what would stop tanks just steamrolling over everything WORSE than they already are?

god, look at the tanks before you look at the now “stun breaker ruined” glasscannons

Ok well firstly the cop-out “learn to dodge” or “use stun-breaker” argument has very little merit indeed.

As baseline, Steal is an instant cast (thus no cast time) 900 range teleport, which can be upgraded to 1,200 range. It can also be upgraded to stealth the Thief.

Are you claiming that the correct counter to a glass-cannon backstab Thief is to have a constant and simultaneous 360 degree battlefield view with 100% uptime up to 1,200 range from your character? If you are really capable of that then I am beyond impressed, but I suspect that you are not, and even if you were it wouldn’t really mean anything as the other 99% of the player-base are not likely to be highly evolved super-savants capable of achieving a near sixth-sense awareness.

But nonetheless, you asked for a best case and worst case scenario:

Best case: teleport in, one-shot the Elementalist, re-stealth, one-shot the mesmer, cap point.

Worst case: teleport in, crit Elementalist for 80-90% of their hp, get hit with stun, teleport 1,200 range away and switch to shortbow, continue to teleport (while dodge rolling if you like) as the mesmer attempts to chase you down, leaving your Warrior buddy to finish off the last 10-20% hp on the elementalist and then cap the point. Once silly Mesmer is a safe distance from the point re-stealth and crit them for 80-90% of their hp, then hit Heartseeker; they dodge roll, your hp is already low as they got a phantasm off just as you re-stealthed…no worries just heartseeker again; oh bugger they dodge-rolled again, now you are at 20% hp! Phew steal just came back off cooldown, just hit that and Backstab for the kill. Close call!

Ok, so moving on to your next point; no I do not have a direct line to Anet, don’t be silly. I did actually say Thieves are likely to get nerfed again; I did not claim it was a certainty, and Indeed I am just assuming, given the good cause and logic behind it. I could very well be wrong, though I hope I am not.

Kurow.6973:

Vrak.2193:

I have not read any of the responses in this thread, but just to chime in: Backstab needs to be nerfed (and it likely will be.)

My Warrior has close to 2.1k toughness and 27k hp. Backstab thieves that specc glass cannon can instantly teleport onto him from 1,200 range (right into an auto-stealth) and proceed to crit him for half of his hp in one single attack.

Stopped reading there and came to the conclusion you’re one of these clueless ones that come here to qq about something you have no idea what you’re talking about.

PS: Just to add to the injury…when I’m on my warrior, and I see a thief…I drool, because I know it’s an effortless kill for me. Especially if they’re a glass cannon.

Ok well considering you didn’t actually read my post, by your own admission, how am I supposed to take you seriously in a discussion regarding class balance?

Also just to clarify, I generally don’t have problems with Thieves, however no amount of “skill” can magically augment your stats high enough to viably mitigate such burst damage. 2.1k toughness and 27k hp is much higher than the average, and this particular breed of Thief can melt through it in seconds.

Of course you could say, “learn to dodge” etc, but realistically we all know this this is just a cop-out counter argument that holds no real merit; nobody is an all seeing all knowing oracle.

Stin.9781:

And when phantasm mesmer shatter them after innitiatial hit for like 10k+ on non glass cannon doest get physical with you , still got just 1 utility used and elite skill available is ok ? Backstab sure does more but it also give in more elite skill+melee range + if he root you its 2 utiity slots not 1. means .. he has 1 utility left failed to get a kill.

As I already covered the Thief has a number of potential ways to disengage. Hit blinding powder for example and dodge roll twice, switch to short bow and teleport. Stunned? Just use the 1,200 range double-stun-breaking-double-teleport. So on so forth.

I have not read any of the responses in this thread, but just to chime in: Backstab needs to be nerfed (and it likely will be.)

My Warrior has close to 2.1k toughness and 27k hp. Backstab thieves that specc glass cannon can instantly teleport onto him from 1,200 range (right into an auto-stealth) and proceed to crit him for half of his hp in one single attack. As this happens my Warrior is also instantly “turned to stone” (stunned) and then rooted; this all happens within the space of about 2-3 seconds and is not even remotely RNG reliant. This is unbalanced, simple as that.

Of course you could counter argue by saying that the Thief is glass cannon, and thus you can kill him just as fast, but we all know that this is simply not true; a pure glass cannon thief is perfectly capable of surviving on the battlefield for an extended period of time.

How? Stealths, stun-breaks, teleports, and to a lesser extend other forms of mobility such as swiftness; a Thief can linger on the outskirts of any battle and when the opportunity presents itself they can teleport in and 1-shot any squishy. If their target happens to be a tanky profession/build (much like my Warrior) they will still crit for approximately half their victims health.

But what happens next? Well, there are different options available to the Thief, none of which include being killed by the enemy (unless they are incredibly unlucky or have vital abilities on cooldown.) The Thief can for example re-stealth and disengage, linger again and wait for another opportunity, or they could simply re-stealth and burst the next viable target. But what’s that, your stealth did not allow you to make a clean exit? Well try popping your other stealth, and if this fails you could always use your 1,200 range double-stun-breaking-double-teleport, or simply switch out to your shortbow and use that to teleport.

Now, I am using absolutely no hyperbole; everything here is simple fact. Yes it is true that things will not always go in the Thieves favour, however on a far more consistent basis it will, and the end result is basically a class who can lock a target in place (depending on stability/CC breakers of course,) and crit them (100% guaranteed) for anything from about half of their health to all of their health. Then the Thief can happily evade retaliation until the next viable opportunity presents itself.

This is very clearly imbalanced, however I welcome any other counter arguments. Maybe there is something I am missing?

Regardless, needs to be changed.

The Burst-Skill (Flurry) for the main hand sword is bugged on my Asura Warrior; it only does damage for half of the intended strikes; for the other half the attack animation continues, but no damage is applied.