Guild Wars 2

Human prologue story is bugged. Won’t progress to next dynamic event.

Can’t quote..so annoying.

@oflow: A game doesn’t have to have a “carrot model” per se, but it should make you want to play more than is probably good for you. I fondly remember playing games I absolutely did not want to stop playing. I had to be disciplined, but imo thats what it should feel like. GW2 doesn’t really try to keep you in the game for any length of time. I find that interesting, and a tad weird for an MMO lol.

@Gohlar: And that is an excellent tangent, it really has no depth at all. One hand this makes it highly accessible, as in you never have to worry about getting rusty, or forgetting important details. At the same time, it becomes quite dull quite fast. Dull is probably the perfect word. Within 2 hours your skillbar is virtually complete. Sure you dont have all your utility skills, but offensively you are finished. I find that crazy. It seems like such a gross step backwards. Your average f2p clone has more to offer in terms of combat than GW2 right now…which is ridiculous.

I will preface this by saying GW2 is a great game. If I were to write a professional review of it, I could not give it below an 8 because it is definitely top quality. From a technical standpoint, it passes with flying colors. That being said, I do notice one effect it has on me (personally) as a player: I just don’t feel the need to play it. Ever.

GW2 is the kind of game you can jump into and out of quite easily. There are loads of options for everyone (minus raids i guess), and it does not require you to sit on your butt for hours on end just to “keep up” with whats going on. As a result, I find that GW2 lacks a real “hook”. What do I mean by hook? Psychologically one could call it an addictive quality. Practically speaking, its any aspect of the game that “demands” your time and attention. In other words, its the nicotine of the mmorpg world.

Many aspects of a game can function as a hook. Some games rely a lot on community to hook its players, although this is more of an old school thing. Other games focused a lot on storyline, hooking players through immersion into another universe. Recently, we have games like WoW using tiered gear/raid progression while exploiting the universe of a well-known franchise. That leaves us with GW2. I would argue that it really doesn’t have a hook, nor tries to make one. In fact, I’d say it goes out of its way to ensure it is rather time-friendly. There’s nothing wrong with this, just an observation.

One of the things I like most about GW2 is that its very easy to just pick up and play without committing hours of your life. What I don’t like about GW2 is that I never feel like I need to play, because essentially I can always play later. Whether I do it now, or 6 months later, what have I missed really? Nothing. Whether I play it for an hour, or several, its all the same at the end of the day. You don’t really “get” anywhere..you just have fun, in a mindless sort of way.

I haven’t logged on in ages. I imagine I’m sure i’ll log on in the near future. I’ll play for a while, then won’t play for a while, and it won’t really make any difference. You have access to all your skills from jump street (pretty much), gear does not differ much at all, and if pvp is your thing you certainly dont need to grind to do it. I have no viewpoint of whether this is good, bad, successful, or destined to fail. It really is just an observation, one I found pretty interesting.

You dont really quit a game like this for good, you just stop logging in for a while. Its like any console game you have sitting around. In reality, GW2 feels just like a console game in a lot of ways. Its a weird flavor for an MMO to have, and time will tell if it becomes the new status quo.

Discovery is your best friend.

1) Wayyy more xp

2) Far less materials

3) 1 and 2

With Guardian you can be a holy warrior or something more like a cleric. Personally, I find heal spam quite useless in PvE, outside of maybe dungeons. In WvW or Spvp its a much bigger deal, but the content in PvE just doesn’t really challenge a group of players enough for heal support to be warranted. So if I were going support, i’d definitely focus on the shielding and blocking, with boons and conditions to boot.

Yeah just broken design across all leap skills. For now just avoid using it on declines.

I find GS boring, so I dont use it. Guardian GS is way more fun imho. So far I find axes to be the most efficient weapon in the warrior line. Great dmg, great mobility, awesome skills (there is not 1 skill I find lackluster), and a wtfpwn burst.

Ive rerolled warrior 3 or 4 times, so I definitely feel you. That being said, I wanted to like Warrior so i kept trying aha. Eventually (so far), I hit my stride and am having a blast. I started with dual axes and found it really fun, and when coupled with my hammer and phys utility skills, I expect to be knocking things around for the lulz.

You have to find a playstyle that suits you and never worry about what is effective. I am of the firm belief that it is effective if there is a player who can make it effective. I am sure out of all the weapons a warrior has, there are a couple you enjoy using. Use those, and forget about synergy and all that junk. In time, you might find a kind of synergy that has been overlooked, and it could turn out to be really effective.

My main recommendation is to just play whatever aspect of the warrior you enjoy. If there’s absolutely nothing, just move on with your life lol.

I was actually thinking of stacking a couple of the phys utility skills with that grandmaster trait, but then I realized i’d have very little in the way of stun breaks and condition removes. Still I might try it out. Something like Kick/Bull Rush with Stomp and a Hammer to just knock stuff around. With the Juggernaut elite skill that might be fun lol.

EDIT: maybe dual axe/hammer as my two weapon sets, with whirling axes as a mobile and easy way to build up adrenaline after my knockdown combos.

I thought it was a well constructed complaint, though I disagree entirely. First of all, if CnD is your only stealth mechanism you are screwed. Secondly, if you do indeed require melee to stealth, you need to consider how you are going to land CnD on ranged or kiting targets. This is a long way of saying pack a lot of shadowsteps. Example would be Sword+dagger for an easy shadowstep/CnD. Another example would be steal (bonus points if you gave it the stealth trait) plus whatever else you wanna do.

Not every class will make sense to everyone. Obviously the thief doesn’t “click” for you, so i’d just cut your losses and find something more intuitive. Its not about being smart, its just all of our brains work differently as individuals; therefore, certain things will just “make sense” to some, and not so much for others. Part of enjoying a game is not only finding a class thats fun, but also finding one that “clicks” for you. If its all Greek to your brain, why waste your time?

Let me preface this by saying I really really really want to like a Warrior, but I just can’t seem to find a way to make it fun. Now I know it may not be for me and yadda yadda yadda, but I’m willing to believe that maybe I just hadn’t tried everything you could try with a warrior. So here I am, looking for suggestions or advice that might prove more interesting than auto attacking things to death.

1) Weapon choice is kinda killing me. GS is lame, Hammer is pretty cool but he CD’s are too long, Sword feels way too vanilla, Bow is pretty awesome, Rifle is cool, and I havent really delved into axes. The weapons I like, I just have no idea of how to work them into some mangeable build.

2) Traits are a turnoff for me. I was playing around with them, but I had a hard time finding something that was interesting. I’ve yet to try banners, so maybe i’ll try that. I thought about a ranged warrior but haven’t heard/read much on that…especially since it seems to have few applicable traits. Not too interested in shout spam, and the might/crit Gs thing seems like a snooze.

Basically i’m looking for different builds/weapon combos to try that others had found fun and engaging, in case I missed something.

Knighthonor.4061:

I believe you all missed the OP’s point.

Condition damage- that’s a stat that increase the damage done from Burning.

Problem is, since burning doesn’t stack in damage, your burning damage can be overwritten by somebody else who uses a burn effect on the same target.

Only stacks in duration, so you condition damage was negated

No it doesn’t. If two ppl cast burning on the same target, priority is given to the higher condition dmg and the duration stacks. Basically it goes like this:

Player A casts burning for 5 seconds.

Player B casts burning for 3 seconds.

If player B has higher condition dmg, the result would be as follows:

Player B’s burning ticks first for 3 seconds, then Player A’s burning ticks for 5 seconds. At no point in time will your burning be overwritten. It will just be shuffled around in the load order, with the highest dmg burning ticking before the other ones.

There are different ways to deal dps. Facerolling is not the only method of burst. The advantages of a Guardian are insane toughness, access to boons like retaliation, and free burns just for facerolling. The more ppl hit you, the more dmg they take from retaliation and conditions, not even counting the dmg you deal with that big ole sword.

Personally I’d rather build a Guardian as a juggernaut that lols at dmg. The whole burst obsession has got to stop, you can’t dps when you’re dead.

^ Agree with this. Greatsword is more of an aoe weapon, while Sword is great single target. You get a blind, good dmg, fantastic balance of offense and defense, etc etc. With GS you get nice aoe output, free condition removal with combo fields, and a pretty awesome 5 skill (just for the cool effect). They do different things, I’d imagine most ppl would carry both.

It is a natural drawback to the ally system. Most games are easy to balance because parties have a limited size. But here parties are basically unlimited in scope. The dmg potential is so incredibly high that there isnt much of an effective way to match it. Even world bosses, for all their ridiculous amounts of hp, fall rather easily with enough ppl. Basically without mobs that can 3-4shot groups of players there is no way to make it hard.

I think people largely overestimate the level of “contribution” their healing does. Let’s be honest for a bit here..

a) In most DE’s, players will not take that much dmg because it is a zerg. Things die too fast for you to really get hurt all that much.

b) The aoe heal skills by themselves are not very strong, especially if you have low healing power to begin with. The ticks are so small its almost negligible.

c) The majority of aoe heals will actually come from finishers in combo fields. While it is your combo field, its not like you’re getting credit for all the finishers going off inside of it. You only get credit from your low tick heal field. The masses of aoe regens going on don’t belong to you.

d) There’s no way to know if you’re actually healing anyone or or just topping off 3 or 4 hp. For all you know, everyone you are supposedly healing has been sitting at max or near max hp the whole time.

e) There are no healers in this game. This is the number 1 rule about GW, the trinity isn’t really there. You can’t just heal and expect to get contribution, because there is no way to “main heal”. You can drop helpful combo fields, but again, you don’t get credit for other ppl’s finishers.

f) The “right” way to do it is to drop your healing combo field, use CC/conditions where necessary, and switch to dmg while that stuff is on cooldown. The priority would be Heal/condition removal>CC/conditions>burst. Alternatively it could be CC/conditions>Heal>burst.

g) You really shouldn’t get contribution for basically doing nothing. And I guarantee most of that healing is really doing nothing. Thats just how the game is designed. Heal/support only works in places like dungeons, some world bosses, and obviously WvW. In DE’s they are essentially useless, as the number of burst aoes negate any potential dmg someone could possibly get.

Paragonkid.4602:

So, I took 30 in Defense and Tactics, have tons of decent Tough and +Vital gear, run all the defensive/survival oriented skills and have maceshield and I don’t feel much more sturdy in PvE than someone who didn’t just build to be fragile speedster.

Waaaaait a minute. What about healing power? Healing traits? Are you speccing into those or just go pure defense?

Also every defense needs an offense, in the form of counter attacks, stun locks, other hard CC, or conditions. You can’t literally just soak in dmg and not dish any out. And you sure as heck cant soak in dmg without being able to heal off anything that whacks you. In other words, straight toughness/vitality isnt going to help you at all. You need things to complement that style.

I find boons/conditions a great complement to a defensive style. Heck take sword shield. Its the perfect combination between offense and defense. Alternatively look at mace+sword. That gives you TWO parries, bleed dmg, vulnerability stacks, and access to skull crack. Idk exactly how you’re speccing your warrior so I can’t help that much. But this isnt a game where you pump up stats and all of the sudden you’re a tank. You need an offense, a way to easily heal off dmg, a way to apply boons, etc etc.

The Necro is a good example of this. They are hard to kill because

1) Health like crazy

2) healing power like crazy

3) condition dmg like woah

This combination lets you take hits, heal off hits, and deal out steady dps that will eventually wear your foes out.

I use P/D without the kiting. Instead of kiting I dodge around enemies and spread caltrops on dodge. I use cloak and dagger whenever the visibility debuff wears off.

HS is a bad way to play. Period. And if ppl thought HS spam was broken, just wait until they see a thief who actually uses all of his skills. Quite frankly, dealing with HS spam would have been infinitely easier. Now everyone who complained is screwed. Jus sayin. Preventing bad players from playing bad in a competitive environment does not help your W/L record aha

More or less, the offhand has no synergy with the main hand. You dont need vulnerability stacks if you’re doing condition dmg. You don’t need blind spam if you’re kiting from range. They dont go together. Basically you pick off hand pistol or mh pistol, buth both just gives you something other things can do better.

Personally I’m a P/D man myself. Low intiative cost, great bleed stacks, decent mobility, with the only real weakness being lack of powerful ranged abilities. With a shortbow the problem is remedied with increased mobility, moar conditions, and useful kiting tools.

If you were using heartseeker above 50% (well 66% my bad) you were doing it wrong. If you relied on it outside of utility for general purpose pve/pvp…you were doing it wrong. The skill was only ever useful for two things: gap closer and finisher, usually both at the same time.

This wasnt even a nerf, if anything it makes ppl play thief right instead kittening themselves with bad use of abilities. ANET helped everyone.

DeTalores.4507:

@ everyone responding to OP
can you guys seriously not sense the overwhelming presence of sarcasm in his post?
His point is that HS spam is not doing as much damage as everyone is claiming “OP”. Not to mention that people facing against HS spam are terrible at avoiding said HS spam.

I thought it was just me lol….i was like “why is everyone so serious”

Discovery is so broken >_> what are you talking about?

1. You dont even have to guess, recipes are online.

2. Discovery gives a ridiculous amount of crafting xp.

Crafting is so easy to level its not even funny.

Yeah cooking is super useful and very rewarding. In fact, crafting in this game is pretty darn awesome. The discovery system is just…lol. Its almost too good, especially since recipes aren’t exactly hidden thanks to the internets.

Talon.8219:

Just been scanning the forums and it looks like everyone and there dog is either using DD or DP.

Is there a particular reason that no one uses double pistols as their main set up. I’m only level 51 at the moment working towards a dual pistol stealth heavy build as show below.

http://en.gw2codex.com/build/17325

Can you guys explain to me why using dual pistols seems to be frowned upon. So far I’ve had no problem taking on anything in PVE, I seem to be very survivable and do a good deal of damage. 1 on 1 in PVP I hold my own and very rarely die.

So guys clue me in why is PP so bad?

I use PD personally. I dont like PP for several reasons:

1) I’m a stealth guy, PP doesn’t give me stealth options.

2) Its great in terms of survivability, thanks to blind spam, but you can spam blind through stealth as well…which is aoe and not single target.

3) I prefer to be close range. From close range I can utilize cripples from caltrops as well as make casters very uncomfortable. PP doesn’t offer much close range utility.

4) Best part about pistol is the stealth attack. Its like a single-handed unload and gives really nice bleed stacks coming out of stealth. This is why I rock the PD, cloak and dagger gives me easy stealth.

5) Pistols are a bit slow unless you are using multi-hit skills like sneak attack or unload. Unload will get heavy on intiative though.

Its not so much pistols are bad, its just that other playstyles seem to offer more of what other ppl are looking for. I like PP though, just not my steez.

I beg to differ…steal is one of the most hax abilities around if traited properly. You can get poison, stealth, aoe blind, a free ability, weakness, and a shadow step all at the same time. That’s insane, especially followed up with whatever skills you like to use out of stealth.

HarderStyles.6820:

So my problem atm is im currently level 32 Ranger and im getting pretty bored already, i feel as tho once i got to 30 and got all the skills i wanted now it just seems….repetitive and now i have no urge to play anymore which really sucks cuz ive been waiting soon long for this game.

Ive tried pretty much every class, i have a level 21 Elementist and that got boring fast lol ugh i want to play but i just dont feel it anymore What can be done?!

Do something else. WvW or sPvP/tPvP are good options. I always get bored with PvE, so I feel you.

No matter how good anything is ppl will always complain. There is no such thing as perfect, and it is painfully easy to be critical.

Zaise.4237:

I noticed that my Critical Chance keeps on changing on my character menu. Sometimes it would be in the 40s, and sometimes in the 30s. My equipments havent changed, and its also not due to level scaling (as I’m always in town when I check). This is without eating any attribute changing foods as well. Equipments are fully repaired too. What could be the explanation?

Likely a fury buff coming from someone nearby.

Thief for me…it took a looooong time. Its never been so hard to pick a class.

Thief does not need any help. And 15 base initiative is far too OP.

Stealth is broken, despite all the limitations its just strong.

Steal has way too many traits for it, one skill should not give you a super strong ability, aoe blind, stealth, poison, and 2 extra initiative.

The cd between stealths should be increased imo. I can literally spam attacks from stealth, and when im not stealthed, im dodging and leaving caltrops everywhere. Thieves are too hard to hit lol.

Summong thieves is just cheap. We do NOT need any help in the dmg dept, and they also spam blind. I’m talking about the trap btw. Speaking of which, triggering a trap and still remaining in stealth seems..unfair. Maybe not allow them to be set right on top of where ppl are standing.

Thief will probably get a nerfbat once ppl stop spamming heartseeker like noobs.

LiquidOcelot.1508:

Viladel.1837:

Candiru.5279:

Increase Intitative and decrease range and heartseeker is balanced again

Not sure about the initiative, but you can decrease the range on your own. Cripple the thief.

Seriously, decrease his movement speed. Doing that decreases the range of heartseeker. Then kite him. The thief blows heartseekers on trying to get to you, goes like 2 feet with every one, blows all his initiative, has no health, no toughness, nothing left. So then just kill him straight up.

Well if you like me and probably a lot of other thieves who run shadowstep or just happen to have steal off CD, you aren’t getting away from a thief by simply crippling them. On top of that I usually run condition removal on at least one of my skills.

“One does not simply….cripple a thief”

Chances are even if they cripple the thief, they’ll be crippled as well. We have caltrops utility, caltrops on dodge, dagger offhand has a cripple skill….basically crippling is a waste of time. It might work depending on the thief, but my build has at least 3 cripples in it. Even if they break one I have caltrops on the field and a cripple dagger in my back pocket.

Not even counting my shadowstep on the weapon switch to dagger/pistol. Or the shadowstep from steal >_>

One does not simply…escape from a thief.

Stealth will always be broken imo. ANET has tried so hard to limit it, but its still just too good sometimes. If i can square off against a veteran mob 1v1 and hardly get touched thats just not right rofl.

One, stealth causing blind is just broken ahaha. You can basically keep someone perma blinded while you go in and out of stealth all day. Then there’s caltrops on dodge. Not only can i dodge roll like everyone else, but i spread freakin caltrops everywhere that cause cripple and bleed dmg. Lol. Backstabs? Dont need em. Heartseeker? Don’t need it. Sneak attack with gun mainhand? Yes please. Coming out of stealth is more bleed stacks. Joy. But wait, there’s more. Venom? Check. I’ll stack poison while im at it. But wait, there’s more! What a handy trait, cause weakness for 3 sec whenever I poison. Gee, so handy.

So now we have perma blind, poison, bleed stacks, vulnerability (from cloak and dagger), and weakness. Thats…5 conditions you can easily keep up at all times. Oh wait I forgot the cripple from caltrops, thats 6. Its like a sick game of peekaboo where all someone can do is just die while you pop in and out of stealth. The visibility debuff only lasts about as long as it takes to dodge roll or get off 2 shots with a gun (which adds more bleed stacks, or spreads more caltrops).

The only way to win is heavy CC/conditions, but thats hard to do when a thief is only visible for a few seconds at a time. And unfortunately, time is not your friend when dealing with a condition thief. He can play peekaboo all day while you flop like a fish.

But what if you see the thief first? Congrats! Except steal can give stealth AND poison, which means it doesn’t really matter anymore. Kill him with dots? Brilliant! Minus the fact that shadow refuge cures burn, poison, and bleed. Oh…and it gives stealth too.

Well kitten.

EDIT: Not even touching the fact that you can set a trap on someone in stealth, which forces it to trigger. So we can set up clones like mesmers that hit like phantasms, and spam blind in some cases. From stealth. Seriously, im expecting some nerfs once ppl start to figure out heartseeker spam is noob.

LoreChief.8391:

No counter to stealth? You’ve gotta be kidding me. Every class EXCEPT Thief has access to a wide array of AoE’s, which don’t care if you’re stealthed. Not only that, but the stealth only lasts for 2-5 seconds. Half the time when you use it, the enemy either shuffles around in circles to prevent you from landing an effective backstab, or they just move out of the way (it’s not like you go more than 33% faster while you’re in it). It’s almost humorous how easy it is in concept and practice, for an enemy to see me stealth and go “lol gonna move back a few feet now” completely preventing any advantage from stealth.

Depending on the build stealth can be very difficult to deal with. Firstly, shuffling around is no guarantee that you wont be backstabbed. You are basically just hoping and making it a bit harder for the thief, but I’d hardly call it an effective “counter”. Just rolling the dice and hoping thief screws up. Secondly, there’s a trait that gives you 100% crit chance from stealth. It doesn’t matter what shuffling around ppl do, a crit heartseeker will hit them for something they dont like. Thirdly, even without backstabs, stealth provides a break to regen initiative and begin a new burst.

Easiest way to break stealth is through conditions, sure. But its quite potent as it is imo.

You have a few options.

The easiest option is to focus on 3 stats, one of them being a survivability stat. That is the most basic way to do it. For instance, you could focus on power, condition dmg, and toughness or vitality. Alternatively, as another example, you could use precision, crit dmg, and toughness or vitality. I think you more or less get the idea.

A more difficult option is to use weapon sets that give you the most survivability. Instead of using stats to protect you, you use skills from a particular weapon set that keep you alive. This is more difficult because it is directly related to skill level; it only works if you use those skills properly. To maximize dmg you need to look at what the offensive skills do for you. For example, dual guns gives you blind spam, but also stacks bleeds/vulnerability. The stat setup would then be condition dmg/power/whatever else you want to fill it out.

A 3rd option, and maybe the hardest, is damage avoidance. Thieves have it particularly good with their stealth mechanic which can virtually replace dodge if you bring a lot of stealth skills. This means that 1) you have to be good about timing so stealth isnt wasted, 2) have fantastic initiative management, and 3) exercise some patience. Initiative isnt cheap so having some patience is huge when dealing with stealth burst builds. Give it time to regen, but dont give your opponent too much time to recover. Its hard but very rewarding. Worth practicing.

VendettaDFA.9368:

As long as everyone reports … that many reports on one user should easily raise a flag visible a mile away . ANET will know .

This…so report report report!

Its 10g of virtual currency >_> you’ll get it back. Relax guys, no need to get depressed.

Kailthir.6384:

I fail to see where crafting the items are costing people money. if you a patient enought to find the materials it should cost you little to nothing. I must admit I am still a low level crafter, but the only thing it costs me to craft is time. time spent gathering the materials.

If I want to sell something for 50 silver… i should be able to list it for 50 silver. It may of costed someone 1 gp to BUY the materials to make it…. but it didn’t cost me anything. So I have a net profit of 35 silver +or – after all the fees get taken out. All it cost me was time. Stop spending money for materials. You will not have a loss.

The other issue is the game hasn’t been out long enough for money to be generated in siginificant quanity. Hence things will be cheap cause people don’t have the coin to pay the outragious prices that it will soon become.

In most other MMO’s I have played the prices in the AH arekitten I am the guy that will severly undercut everyone, to ensure my stuff gets sold. It’s good buisness. I could care less if someone else dosent sell. Why should I. It seems the copper pinchers can’t stand not getting what they want for their items, and they are complaining about undercutting. Well how about what I want for my items?

Walmart does it all the time, seems to work for them.

Malakree.5912:

Are you talking about some sort of confusion/condition based mesmer?

That and shatter. To clarify my point, a mesmer counts on the fact that an opponent doesn’t care what its strategy is. It just tries to kill you with hyper-offense. Obviously offense will kill you, but every mesmer has to have a plan, as it is an illusion based class. The plan only works if other ppl aren’t too concerned what the plan is.

I’m making the assumption that a player carrying CC, condition removal skills, etc., generally cares about whatever strategy a foe might be using. It may not be a good assumption though, but thats where I was coming from.

Masterpyro.4310:

Please dear god do something about this.. My suggestion would be to have a TP for each server. That way supply dips way down(nearly 6 million soft wood is available currently) and demand goes way up creating higher profits for all!

If this were a real market, I would agree with low amount of restrictions, but the goal of a game is fun, and I am having no fun playing in the market when I can’t make any decent profit. Sure the higher level stuff is less effected by this, but that leaves this part of the game only fun for max levelers and such.

Profit goes to the smart and industrious. The trading post isn’t supposed to be there for your pleasure, its there to buy and sell items. There is no need to make it fun, only functional. Have you ever considered investing in gems? They work like a real-world futures market. Buy up gems with hard-earned silver, wait for new market releases, prices for gems will skyrocket due to demand, and you pocket a lot of cash. Course that is more long-term. I would expect new releases within a few months though.

Other strategies involve dungeon hunting for rare drops or crafting really high level stuff. You could scour the market for things that are underpriced, buy it up, and sell it at a more normal price. There are lots of things you can do if your interest is actually in playing the market.

If you want to make easy money that is another can of worms. The trading post isnt there to make ppl easy money, its there to move goods around. If you want to make money with it you have to put in the work. If its not fun just don’t do it and make money via other methods.

Lewk.8359:

Just because thief can be countered, doesn’t mean that their skills aren’t inherently better/have a higher overall damage output without much required by means of setup or skillful play.

Their skills aren’t better, they just do the most dmg. But doing the most dmg =/= best unless everyone else is too busy trying to do the most dmg. I guarantee you a thief would be WRECKED by a full vit+toughness warrior with mace+shield..or even a full vit+toughness guardian with mace shield. Its all about strengths and weaknesses.

If everyone is trying to do the same thing, the class that is the best at that one thing will clearly win just about every time. If everyone tries to do a lot of different things, the game looks a lot more balanced. There is nothing inherently broken about a thief. People get wrecked because

1) Do not carry enough defensive utilities (one stun breaker doesn’t count)

2) Do not use defensive weapon sets (especially in sPvP)

3) Do not carry skills that allow for easy escape

Thieves live and breathe off of people with weak forms of protection. Thats like a gift for a thief. Mesmers are the same way. They live and breathe off of ppl that like to go 1v1 and only try to deal dmg. They count on that! They count on the fact that you have poor condition removal, that all you want to do is spam skills, that you have few forms of CC (cripples, stuns, knockbacks, knockdowns, immobilizes), and that you’d rather faceroll instead of paying attention to what the mesmer is doing (figure out the strat and the mes is toast).

Its hard to survive with a thief. And you will know this if you roll one and go solo in PvE for a while. Its easy to overwhelm them, kill them, get them to run out of initiative, etc etc. My best advice is to play one and see for yourself. Easiest way ever to kill a thief is outlast them. Most thieves are impatient and drain their initiative in a hail mary burst. Easy to survive if you build yourself to survive it. If you refuse, just avoid thieves.

EDIT @ Discordian: Amen! Totally forgot to give everything inbetween some love!

Economics 101: You cannot lose money on something you obtained for free. Anything you sell it for = profit. Low-ballers understand this which is why they low-ball. Those 1-5c transactions really add up over a long period of time. Ever heard of scalping? Look it up, its a stock trading term.

Knyx.5926:

1. Haste is an effect and a skill name (different from each other), there are multiple ways to gain quickness, so him using the skill name is strange to me

2. That is not entirely how stealth works. I have been in a fight tons and tons of times, popped an ability that stealthed me (other then vanish) and if I had a burn or bleed on me it popped me right out.

I can vouch for #2. I’ve been popped out of stealth mysteriously even though I never attacked anyone. Idk if its intended or not, but dot conditions seem to break my stealth. Every. Single. Time.

@OP: The only reason people say thieves are OP is because they refuse to use any sort of defense. Everyone and their mama specs glass cannon, but when you do that, the best burst dmg class will win every time. Thief is obviously the best burst dmg class, as their class was built around burst dmg; therefore, Thief > all until ppl get it into their thick skulls that other builds besides lolburst are very good.

I mean I see even warriors going burst dmg. Seriously? Warriors are not a burst dmg class if you ask me. They can deal high sustained dmg but by no means can they burst like a Thief. Thief has no cooldowns..it will beat you in a burst race every dang time. Its common sense, but everyone just wants to lolfacerolldmg.

ITT: Glass cannon D/D elementalists complaining that a glass cannon Thief can burst them down in a few hits. Well ohemgee, it might be because Elementalists have the lowest health AND armor in the game, and on top of that you insist on going melee. Durr, you are going to get facerolled, its glaringly obvious. You deserve to lose, learn your weaknesses.

Also ITT: Gross exaggerations. 20k backstabs? Seriously? 7k heartseekers all in a row? Seriously? Absurd lol. Its not impossible, but you’d have to be buffed out the wazoo, get a guaranteed crit with ridiculous amounts of crit dmg, and activate assassins signet. Its not happening very often at all.

ITT continued: No one has figured out that vit+toughness >>> thief. If you can survive the burst, a spam thief is dead. Stealth abusers are the suckers you really have to worry about…as they can survive a drawn out fight. Naturally the only way to counter stealth is self-aoe, invuln skills, conditions (using a skill to remove them will break stealth, swiftness (if you’re faster he can’t backstab you), aegis (single-handedly breaks backstab thief), combo breakers (disrupts bursts), the list goes ON!

Yet all of these things would require you to stop trying to do as much dps as possible and add some survivability/defensive options. If you refuse to do that you deserve to lose

Nutcracker.7615:

So after you get the gear and look that you want you are left with PvP. I get it PvP is allot of fun but for how long will the same professions and same gameplay keep you hooked?

In games like League of Legends it’s always the same gameplay but the difference is that every two weeks they add a new champion and new skins to change the way you look and play.

So when I have gotten a Mesmer and I have gotten bored of using the same skills and switching between the same looks what is there left to do?

Create a new build, find a different way to play, challenge yourself, etc etc. There is always something to do, you just have to depend in yourself to create your own goals. This is not the sorta game that will do it for you. At some point you have to learn how to direct your own life.

Play to be the best, play for fame, play for notoriety, elevate your guild to top status, play to win future tournaments, play just to play.

You keep saying months down the line that won’t cut it, but why won’t it? Ive been dancing for a good 5 years, and do it all the time just because I want to get better at it. I’ve done martial arts a good 10 years for the same exact reason. If you like to do something, you will keep doing it, if only to become the best.

If you do not have any of those desires, simply put, the game is just not a long term thing for you. That whole carrot-on-a-stick mmorpg is really just a device to keep ppl playing a game long after it has ceased to be fun. When it ceases to be fun stop playing. Its not like there’s a sub, they dont need you to play all the time. Pop in and pop out. I played GW1 off and on for YEARS, and it was always easy to get back into because it didn’t have that gear progression nonsense.

LOL yeah the kitten thing confused me at first too back in the 2nd BWE. Its just a filter. The word kitten was chosen because it kinda takes the heat off of any insult you can possibly sling at someone. Hard to have a legit flame war with everyone yelling “kitten”

mtclip rage.3975:

Hello Everyone

Is it true at the moment that your only allowed to have your set of characters on one server only?

yes

Is there a possibility of having my PvE character on one server and then creating a Guest / other character to do lvl 80 PvP on another?

No, but from what I remember you can do pve content with your friends on another server. Idk how it works though, never used the feature.

Also, I know you can transfer across for free? but how long is that window open?

Last I heard it was only open for a week. But if they still have it open I have no idea how much longer they’ll keep it open. And I daresay no one does as they seem to be playing it by ear.

Duckzor.4327:

But really, today i’ve been 12k backstabbed, a lot of 5-7k heartseekers, and a 17k pistol whip. I wear medium armor and have 5 points in toughness and 25k HP. For that pistol whip, as soon as i tried to dodge, most of the damage had already been done..

Thieves eat low-def targets for breakfast. HP will only help you if you heal fast enough. But if your heal sucks, which im assuming it does, all your hp is doing for you is giving you a few extra hits before you die. For a thief, its probably one more backstab or heartseeker. You’re extremely fragile which makes you easy pickings for a glass cannon class.

EDIT: This is of course ignoring the numbers because those are very very very hard to pull off, and you certainly cant do that consistently.

It’ll work itself out. As updates come the WvW caps will raise and the queue system will be optimized. Right now its a little low on the list of priorities because there are more pressing matters like bugs, trading post, quest issues, etc etc. In other words you’ll just have to wait.

And as far as I know you can only queue for one map at a time. But I can’t say for 100% certain.