Guild Wars 2

The problem with Thief is at lower skill levels. Mediocre Thieves can be moderately successful due to the low skill floor. Mediocre players struggle with Thieves because it requires fast reactions to avoid the initial burst or it requires an almost chess-like dance of death – just waiting for their initiative to run dry – or surviving just long enough to whittle down the Thief’s tiny health pool.

At higher levels of skill the Thief is an easy target. Any good team will instantly target the Thief – one root and some coordinated burst and the Thief is toast. There’s a reason there are so few Thieves in the top teams right now.

Aside from the current S/D spam builds (which need tweaked in my opinion – but not actually by that much) – it’s a learn to play issue.

stof.9341:

S/D is not bad either. Considering that #5 is situationally useful and that #2 and #3 are actually two skills each and not exactly spammed as many pretend. You should not constantly chain FS into LS because it’s predictable and it’ll cause you to get dodged out of your most important attack. And spamming #2 itself is a stupid mistake so you have to tactically prepare the first #2 and choose the right time to use the second.

I don’t see much usage for #4 though and for good reason : it’s a kind of chasing tool (applies cripple) but S/D already got #2 and #3 to do that job! Also, the attack is such a slow projectile it’ll inevitable fail against a target that is fleeing because it’ll be out of range by the time it connects.

I agree that you should make use of 4 out of 5 skills on the S/D hot bar but spamming 3 is possible and can score you kills. With D/P you would never score a kill by spamming a single button. It just wouldn’t happen.

It’s similar to the Heartseeker spam we had in the early days of GW2. Sure, the good Thieves would make use of all the skills at their disposal but it’s was possible to get kills by just spamming Heartseeker. We have the same issue with S/D right now.

The fact is, FS/LS is imbalanced right now. It might be a simple fix like lowering the damage OR only removing 1 boon at a time OR increasing the initiative but the spec is just too one dimensional right now.

I like the downed state system. It’s what differentiates Guild Wars 2 from most other MMOs.

Lose downed state and lose the whole essence of what makes Guild Wars 2 unique.

Manuhell.2759:

Jonwar.9205:

Result of a poorly designed system (initiative). Balancing a class with no cooldowns is next to impossible leaving thieves in a constant state of too strong or too weak (though frankly, thieves have enjoyed far more too strong time in comparison to too weak time).

Basically this. In classes that have cooldowns, you can balance with cooldowns and skills that are more or less good, but will still be used cause they’re still better than the autoattack.
In the thief’s case, “weak” skills can be ignored and you will just spam the best ones.
And you can’t even simply buff the weak ones – give them damage, and people will use just the best one; give them different effects, and you risk giving too much versatility on top of damage capabilities.

Something like that suggestion of increasing initiative cost when used more than one time in a short timeframe would be fine, imho.

Not all of Thief’s weapon sets feature one button spam. A really good example of a well balanced set is Dagger/Pistol. Every single skill is useful and should be used in a fight. It’s not viable to simply spam any of the skills.

D/P is proof that you can balance the skills in a weapon set to the point where every skill is useful (i.e. spamming one button is not the most optimal way to play)

I’ve done a fair bit of testing with this and I’ve found 25/30/0/0/15 with D/D to be the highest raw damage. Basically just CnD and backstab repeatedly. Use blinding powder and shadow refuge for free stealth and use heartseeker once the boss is below 25% as it becomes more initiative efficient at that point. P/P is the second best for pure damage output but it’s a fair bit further behind. It makes up for this in safety though. Use entirely berserker gear with scholar runes.

Thanks for doing this. It makes it very clear how the community is feeling right now. I’m not one to go around shouting my opinion as it’s a much more moderate one than the regular “nerf this, OP that” attitude you see on the forums. It’s good to see that my fairly moderate view on things is fairly aligned with the majority. Seems the silent majority are a little more realistic

The one thing that I disagree with the majority on is ArenaNet’s communication. I feel that their communication is absolutely fine. The fact that they regularly post on the forums and attend the SOTG chats is great. You have to remember that the more time they spend communicating, the less time they spend developing new or needed ideas. I can really relate to the developers on the communication front as I play in a band in real life and it can be tough creating music, videos and other content for people at the same time as having a constant communication with fans. No communication and the fans forget about you, too much communication and you end up creating no content for them and they forget about you.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Here is a typical occurance whilst solo queuing. But o yeh anet I should carry this team right?

And no it isnt just about ranks. It is about premades having tactics and most crucically having a good team composition. The necro/2 warrior/2 thief comp isnt exactly great.

It is a joke. The ladder is going to be a COMPLETE joke because people like me cannot get high on it no matter how pro we are.

Everyone on my team quit after about 3 minutes.

I don’t get something here. Your team finished with 180 points yet individually you’re all at 0. Surely someone must have capped a point or got a kill at some point?

Or did someone get some points, rage quit and then come back?

I agree that the system of putting PUGs against premades is a big problem but it’s easy enough to put together a premade PUG in Heart of the Mists. Just do that next time and you can pick and choose who you play with.

It’d be nice if this only happened while in combat. That way you can’t CnD until you’ve fully regenerated your health but you could still use Hide in Shadows then Shadow Refuge after falling out of stealth while out of combat.

In any case, good Thieves will adapt. I’ve always found mobility to be our greater saving grace than stealth anyway. Only bad players struggle with stealthing Thieves. Good ones will be able to predict where you’re going or just AOE the area you’re in. If you stealth and then shadowstep to an unpredictable location then you’re completely out of harm’s way. A lot of the time in tPvP when people think you’re perma-stealthing, it’s actually just a 3 second stealth, shadowstep and line of sight.

Skill in this game is very much based on twitchy play. If you can stun break and dodge the burst then you’ll have no problem with a HB Warrior or BS Thief. If this is what Anet intended, yes it’s balanced. If they is not intentional then it needs a rework.

I’ve never felt gap closers to be much of an issue. And I play classes with a variety of levels of mobility. I play Thief which obviously has some of the best mobility in the game (which is why I play it), I play a Guardian that has poorer mobility (but tends to defend points anyway) and Necromancer which has some of the worst mobility in the game. I also dabble with Elementalist but I’m not as good with it.

At no point while playing any of those classes do I feel like I have too much or too little mobility when taking the other features of the class into account.

As a Thief it is so necessary to have high mobility as the Thief is just so so squishy when caught out. Thieves are particularly susceptible to roots. It’s useful to know that when I’m fighting against other Thieves.

As a Guardian you don’t tend to need much mobility in the current meta but you can actually get some decent mobility via Judge’s Intervention, Sword and Greatsword.

Necromancer has arguably the worst mobility in the game. It has a few utilities and skills that improve mobility but none of those tend to be used much in competitive builds. In fact, a properly spec’d Conditionmancer has no escapes and no gap closers (except the 2 skill in Deathshroud). I never feel like I’m lacking in mobility, however.

I don’t see any problem with people running more than one of any class. If you have two people in your team that are exceptional at a certain class, why not have them both play that class?

If a lot of teams are running two of a class then it sends a clear message to the developers that there is a problem with that class or there isn’t a good enough counter to that class. I like that the developers have a “wait and see” attitude with balancing. They allow the meta to counter problems before making rash balance decisions. Elementalist went from being super underpowered (in people’s eyes) to super overpowered with very little actually changing other than people’s knowledge of the class.

Mesmers and thieves really do rule the roost in hot join but I wouldn’t judge the viability of any class purely in hot join. 2 hot join players are worth 1 tournament player. 2 tournament players will completely demolish a glass cannon who is in the wrong place at the wrong time. As a thief I can get 300+ points every game in hot join because I can nuke from the outside of a skirmish unmolested. In tournaments I have to be super careful with my positioning as one wrong move and I’m a dead man. Same applies to a mesmer. They’re often the first target in a skirmish.

I’m not a top player but I’m a decent player (who plays paids)

Weapon Skills: 1-5
Heal: C
Elite: X
Utilities: Q, E and R
Class Skills: F1-F4
Dodge: V

I have long fingers and I’m a guitarist and pianist in real life, so stretching quite far for keys accurately is easy for me. Otherwise, I might have changed the class skills to something a bit nearer to WASD.

Is it just me or does the average American have a shorter attention span than the average European? Europe’s player base has shrunk as well but it’s still totally playable.

It seems the American sPvP scene has just completely died by the sound of things. The exact same thing happened in Bloodline Champions. The queues for the US servers in BLC are so long; there are almost no teams left. To be fair that game is just dying generally but it happened on the US servers much sooner.

Do Americans just get bored of things more quickly? Or do they tend to move onto other games sooner? Maybe it’s a money thing… If you have more money, you can afford to play lots of different games in quick succession. If you have less money, you’re more likely to really savour the experience of what you can afford.

This is purely speculation of course as I’m basing this on a trend that I’ve only seen in 2 games. And for the record, I’m not anti-American. It’s just a cultural observation! I speak as a Brit and we tend to have short attention spans too. Maybe the cause is the same.

QSpec.4298:

Did anyone else see this? It is a quote from a Planetside 2 dev regarding their plans for the future.

“The next couple of months will be largely dedicated to bug fixes, polish, optimization, and stability. We didn’t want to immediately pivot and move on to creating brand-new features until we felt like the state of everything that’s in the game right now was as polished, solid, and fun as it could possibly be.”

Are you trying to say ArenaNet should stop developing rankings, matchmaking, custom arenas and observer mode in order to polish what is already in?

What’s in already is pretty polished. Balance issues in GW2 have been blown wildly out of proportion by inexperienced players.

We NEED these new features.

hackks.3687:

I don’t understand this “defending should give points”. You kill a player on a node that your team controls, you get 5 points for the kill, and 10 points for objective defender. There’s points!

So what are you guys asking for? Points for sitting on an uncontested node? As in reward people for inaction?

What if you’re holding off two people on the point for 2 minutes? You don’t kill them but they don’t get the point. You’ve just got loads of points for your team but you don’t get rewarded for it. This is something that can happen in tournaments and as a node defender Guardian you get like 50 points while your team get 150+

MarcusKilgannon.5048:

PvP state is a sad sight. I haven’t logged on it weeks, not even to test the new pvp map type. My main issues are:

1) More game types, what the hell is Anet doing. It’s been months, release another dam game type already.

2) There needs to be a separation of players in hot-join. Why not make brackets with the ranking systems 1-10, 11-20 etc so at least players with relatively same experience levels in pvp are matched against each other. Rather than new players getting stomped or constantly being stomped by players who have just simply played much longer.

3) Increase the glory points for point captures/defends etc rather than just pure kills. With a point based objective game type only…..kills should not be the main glory gain.

That’s my main three, so many others but those need to be addressed before I log back on. I keep watching the forums but Arenanet isn’t even addressing the community anymore. Extremely disappointing.

Separating playing in hot join by rank isn’t a bad idea. It might suck for the higher ranks but a lot of them will have moved on to tournaments by then.

Seems a lot of people agree that defending should give points. ArenaNet have even said it. They said it a few months ago so I don’t know why they haven’t introduced it yet.

I disagree about the game modes. LoL has one map that is played competitively. I used to play CS 1.6 on de_dust and cs_assault only and never got bored of it :P While I’d really like new game modes, I don’t think it’s a priority.

As a would-be competitive player the lack of Elo rating is one of the main reasons I’m playing less and less. The population is making me not want to sign on at all. For the first time ever I signed on today to see no one on my friends list online at 8pm (peak time). I have around 70-80 people on my friends list and not a single one was online.

I don’t care about hot join but I know a lot of people do; and a good general player base is key to having a good competitive scene. So for that reason I’d like to see hot join sorted out. If the Thief style of play wasn’t so well rewarded in hot join then not as many people would play it. The class itself is actually pretty balanced. The issue is: if I do play hot join I will play as Thief as the only reason I’ll play hot join is to farm glory. Thief is one of the easiest classes to do this with. If I could sit on a point with a Guardian and get just as many points, then I’d do that sometimes. In a similar way to how medics in Planetside 2 can get just as much experience as someone who’s killing enemies; different play styles need to be better rewarded in hot join.

I’m not trying to be a fearmongerer but this is getting pretty serious. I really can’t get over there being no one online at peak time in the evening.

Phira.3970:

Lord is not overpowered. My thief can run straight to the lord and aggro and ignore every npc hitting me and I can still kill the Lord within 20-30 seconds.

^ This

If your team knocks down the door early in the game then a Thief can easily sneak in towards the end and kill the lord so quickly that the enemy team can’t respond.

Hi guys,

Thought I’d open a discussion about the state of sPvP.

From what I’m seeing, the sPvP community is dying rapidly. I’m seeing the well known teams logging in and playing paids less and less, paid queues often aren’t popping at all, hot join players are getting sick of Mesmer/Thief wars and even Desolation (an sPvP hot spot) is starting to look a little less busy in the mists (although it’s probably holding a lot stronger than the other servers).

The issues are pretty wide spread. Balance is actually less of an issue than a lot of people think; the issue for hot join is the fact that roaming and killing quickly is rewarded most – which has lead to the Thief and Mesmer problem. If people were rewarded more for actually holding onto the points and winning then we would see much less Thieves and Mesmers and more Guardians, Engineers, Necromancers, Elementalists etc in hot join.

The problems in competitive PvP are pretty huge as well. First of all; no ranking and matchmaking system has lead to mid level teams getting sick of stomping in free tournaments and getting stomped by Super Squad, Chieftan Ninjas and Team Paradigm in paids. Another issue (in my opinion) is the fact you need 8 teams to queue at once to get a paid tournament up and running. That’s 40 people that need to be online and queued at once for a tournament to pop. As you can imagine, paid tournaments are only popping at peak times. If paid tournaments were just between 2 teams then you would only need 10 people on at a time. Long paid queues has lead to some people not even bothering to queue which has had a snowball effect leading to less and less people queuing.

Fundamentally, the game is great. The class synergy and strategies are really fun but the population is waning and I know many of us are growing tired of it. I’ve been playing Planetside 2 and other games a lot more as I’m not really enjoying waiting around for queues to pop or having to sign on and play between 7pm and 9pm if I want a challenge (paid tournaments). It’s a real shame as the combat is the best I’ve ever seen in an MMO but the PvP has been screwed up big time. If the issues can be resolved before the end of the year they may have a chance to save it. Time really is of the essence we want PvPers to stick around.

What are everyone else’s thoughts on the matter?

I’ve noticed a lack of ArenaNet posts in this forum in the last week or so. Is this a good sign? Does it mean they’re busy working on the much needed matchmaking system for tournaments? Are they going to reward people for defending points and winning (which would solve the Mesmer and Thief issue in hot join – roaming and killing fast are the only things rewarded right now)

I’m really at the end of my tether with the state of PvP. The game play is brilliant and the meta in paid tournaments was beginning to develop nicely but I’ve noticed a sharp drop in activity since the 15th November patch. I waited for this game for 5 years after having some of the best PvP experiences in GW1. I can live with only one game mode, the balance is good enough for now in my books and the game play is a lot of fun. It’s even fun to watch but the lack of matchmaking in tournaments and the reward system in hot join is killing the game.

I really do hope this silence is a positive sign and we see all the promised systems implemented in a timely manner but I’m growing skeptical. This really is a plea for ArenaNet to get this sorted out as soon as possible as it would be one of the biggest misses of the year to see a game with such great PvP potential go to waste.

Same thing in Europe (although paids do pop during peak times: 7pm to 9pm)

It’s a real shame as this game has the best combat system of any MMO to date (in my opinion). The balance is kinda what I’d expect of a 3 month old game but the activity has dropped sharply in the last couple of weeks. This is something that needs to be sorted promptly and needs a response from Anet immediately. The player base really do need to know what kind of time scale we can expect things to be implemented in. “When it’s ready” is something that only really works before a game is released. I don’t mind if we have to wait til January or when ever to get matchmaking and custom servers, but I’d like to know when we can expect it!

Edelweiss.9815:

Necros is Plague Form are pretty much immune to melee damage, so they’re annoying. Just run away and wait until it passes, but that’s pretty much a fight stopper.

Other than that? Bunker Guardians are annoying. They can’t kill me, but I can’t kill them either. Same thing with Ele bunkers, immortal sobs. All other bunkers are easy, just take a little bit of time to beat.

Nothing else is even a problem in 1v1. LoL at people saying 100b Warriors can beat Thieves, I can probably kill three of them by myself if I have Thieves Guild, unless they’re double rezzing each other, of course.

Sure, you can beat a HB Warrior with Thieves Guild but most Backstab Thieves don’t run Thieves Guild. In fact it’s pretty stupid to be running Thieves Guild when a huge part of Backstab is using Basilisk Venom.

In a real fight a Thief will crap all over a HB Warrior if he catches him off guard but in a duel with all cooldowns up… A Warrior can just soak up the Thief burst with Endure Pain then the Thief either has to run or get squished. If you’re beating HB Warriors, you’re probably not playing against good ones.

I started with Necromancer in BWE1, didn’t get on with it well in PvE (although I still like it in PvP)

I tried Warrior and liked it a lot more…

Then I saw this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IogrJbCsUE4

Gameplay looks crap now but at the time it was really fun to watch compared to any other class. And I really do like having high mobility… It’s always been something I’ve valued in a class.

I play backstab Thief primarily and find that most equal skilled players can beat me in a duel (when joining an empty server)

In a duel I tend to lose to the following (when they’re as good or better than me):

Pretty much any well built Elementalist
Hundred Blades Warrior (with Endure Pain)
Conditionmancer
Mind Wrack Mesmer
Any well built Guardian
Most well built Engineers
Other Thieves can go either way
I don’t know about Rangers; haven’t played against any good ones

So any class can beat a Thief 1v1 but the main thing with Thief is catching people off guard. In a real game I’d say a Mesmer, Thief or Guardian are best. A HB Warrior can work if you catch the Thief before they catch you.

I’d really like to get this resolved as it’s a real problem. Is everyone experiencing this or is it just my team? None of us seem to hear the trebuchet incoming.

CakeOrDeath.4859:

The responses / counters posted on these forums to thieves being over the top are always hilarious. They always boil down to:

a) don’t play the spec you want to play, play the spec you’re forced into playing to deal with one ridiculous class/build combo

b) don’t you dare defend a node, always move with the zerg (as if that prevents thieves from picking you off once you’ve engaged someone else anyway)

c) don’t play hotjoin PvP, just play tournaments instead

How insane is this? Don’t play the build you want, don’t play the map correctly, don’t play the game type you want. Just play an AoE bunker build, move with the zerg and profit?

How is that fun?

a) You can’t expect to play any build and be successful with it. I love to play quirky builds but if I’m playing an unusual build I just accept that I won’t be as effective as if I was playing a stronger build. Either play a strong build and win or play an ineffective build and lose (but perhaps have fun doing it).

b) Winning the game in hot join has no incentive. People just want to maximise glory gain. Running around as a zerg and doing AOE is more effective at gaining glory. When ever I play bunker and actually try to hold points in hot join I get no glory but will often win the game. No one cares that I’ve done it though… I’m just the noob with 50 points.

c) If you want to actually play the maps properly; tournaments are your only option. There is an incentive to win in tournaments.

Hi,

I’ve had an issue (and I’m not the only one) with the voice over in sPvP. This is the guy who says “Hold onto your points, seize theirs!” etc. This is mostly not a problem as I can just watch the map and UI. The issue comes in Battle of Kyhlo when there is a trebuchet fired. I don’t hear the voice saying; “Trebuchet!”

I know other people are experiencing this. Is there a way to fix this? It’s making Kyhlo much harder as I’m getting hit by the trebuchet unnecessarily.

Thanks in advance.

Backstab is definitely over the top but this whole “Thieves are OP” thing has been blown way out of proportion. The only reason there are so many thieves is because it’s a meme. People think thieves are OP so they play one, leading to more QQ, leading to more people playing Thief. Most people who have jumped on the bandwagon can’t even play thief well. So 90% of thieves you come across should be a non-issue. If you die to most thieves in hot join; it’s YOU who needs to play better.

In competitive PvP you will never see more than 1 thief per team and some teams don’t even roll with a thief (Team Paradigm have no thief at the moment)

Guardians and Elementalists (especially paired together) are a much more game breaking problem.

nerva.7940:

only one profession that performs “worst” if played perfectly is the ranger. the only viable build is the condition build with traps and spirit elite, and other profs (necro especially) do conditions better and/or have more survivability.

there are other OK builds, such as power/crit and power/pet/regen that give decent survivability and burst with signets, but other profs do it better. for example, my GS/meditation guard brings so much more utility, dps and survivability than my tanky power ranger.

in addition, rest of it goes like this:
- bunker: ele, guard
- mobility/dueling/burst: mesmer, thief
- conditions: necro
- warriors and engies are generally subpar in the above roles, but theyre still kinda viable, which is why you only see a few here and there

unfortunately, the current meta is extremely limiting, and the ranger cannot find itself anywhere. hoping to see some great changes on the 15th, both to the meta and the ranger.

I’d like to add that a Hundred Blades Warrior paired with a Thief is a lethal combination. Hundred Blades Warriors have almost as good mobility as Thieves (only thing they lack is being able to teleport up walls).

Engineers are absolutely fantastic for neutralising points. Their knockbacks are brilliant. A tanky Engineer can make a pretty good bunker generally.

Remove downed state and Thieves WILL rule the roost. Right now, the only reason Thieves are balanced in high level PvP is because, sure, they can instantly down someone but the chances of getting the stomp will be slim if the enemy team are any good.

With no downed state, the objective of the game will be to burst someone down as quickly as possible and when they’re dead, they’re dead. The downed state prevents burst from being the be all and end all. Right now, 5 Thieves would just fail in tournaments thanks to downed state. Remove it and 5 backstab Thieves becomes viable. Same applies to Hundred Blades Warriors to an extent.

The balance of the different downed states needs looked at a bit, however.

I’m pretty certain the Backstab burst combo will be changed.

Apart from the rendering issue everyone keeps talking about I think stealth is absolutely fine. I didn’t think stealth was overpowered in other MMOs (I never played a stealth class in other MMOs) and I don’t think stealth is overpowered here. The only exception to that is MAYBE Shadow Refuge, stealth resses are pretty powerful but one knockback in the Refuge and you can knock the Thief and anyone else inside out of it (removing stealth).

Stealth classes require intelligence to beat. It’s all about mind games. Thieves are squishy as hell if more than one competent player focuses them. And even 1v1; Mesmers, Guardians and Engineers can beat them pretty consistently. Once Backstab is nerfed I’d be willing to bet Necromancer and Elementalist will be able to beat them 1v1 as well.

Most Thieves are incompetent buffoons as well. My team had such trouble finding a good one that I (the Guardian) started playing Thief instead because good Guardians are easier to find. If you can’t beat a Thief you just need to practice. Get a friend to play as Thief and work out how to beat them. Make yourself more tanky if you’re playing hot join. I can 1 shot everyone as Thief in hot join. In tournaments I can only 1 shot other glass cannons. People just have god awful builds in hot join.

In conclusion: Thief has some issues that need sorted… but I don’t believe stealth is one of them (excluding rendering bug).

I would recommend finding people to play with. I set up a Mumble server on my computer (obviously you need a connection that is good enough to do so) and just find people in map chat on Desolation. Even if they’re a bunch of randoms it’s better than solo queuing.

I honestly don’t mean to sound condescending when I say this but MMOs are social games and you will only get the most out of them when you play with other people. Try and make some friends in the game. There’s one particular person I play with that I enjoy playing with. We either play Guardian and Elementalist or Warrior and Thief (two great combos) and we can often pull 3 randoms through an entire free tournament.

Failing that, I’d go check out some MOBAs… LoL, DOTA2, SMITE or my personal favourite; Bloodline Champions. The PvP in MOBAs is just plain better than most MMOs.

Beyond the invulnerability of Death Blossom and stupid burst of Backstab combos, the Thief is getting there balance wise. Pistol Whip is now exactly where it should be imo and I’m sure the other two will be soon as well. ArenaNet are making a real effort to balance Thieves with each patch.

I know Thieves are annoying but there are plenty of classes that can beat Backstab Thieves 1v1. For example Necromancer, Guardian, Mesmer, Elementalist and Engineer. Rangers and Warriors might have an issue. 6/8 (including Thief vs Thief) classes being able to beat Thief is not bad going. I know the issue is Thief burst when you’re not expecting it but once backstab combos are sorted it’ll be fine.

I notice people in hotjoin all build very glassy. I can melt through people in hotjoin on any class I play. People just need to start having more toughness and/or vitality in their hotjoin builds. Try playing with Soldier’s Amulet, Rabid Amulet, Cleric or Shaman Amulet instead of one of the glassier Amulets.