Showing Posts For darkrequiem.6258:
Well he’s either trolling or has no idea what he’s talking about.
Personally I assumed he wasn’t an idiot, but you seem firmly in that camp.
Get ready Mif, for maths…
In the time that BG/SoR/IoJ have been competing the total point changes are…
BG -13.312 (sorry guys, I find you to be an amazing fight the score doesn’t reflect)
SoR +8.356
IoJ +4.772
But remember, SoR had faced IoJ in 2 previous match ups. If we include these scores just to compare SoR and IoJ we get for the 5 week score of…
SoR +21.995
IoJ -29.314
All of the data is on the same website you sited if you want to look through the complete rather than selective history. You can’t blame Miasmic of Christos for drawing the conclusion’s they did since both had logical assumptions.
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle..
1: 3 seconds is more than enough. It’s easy to dodge C&D and it eats away a thief’s initiative. If all they’re doing is spamming C&D, you shouldn’t be dying to them because the delay in the hits are incredible high to start with. If they’re P/D, predicting their C&D becomes all the more easier. Having said that, THEY ALREADY SAID A HUNDRED TIMES THEY’RE WORKING ON FIXING CULLING ISSUES. So stop with your WvW kittening. It’s not a stealth issue, it’s a culling issue. Even regular players show up invisible.
2: No! If they were doing this…stealth would need to be drastically made A LOT stronger…and all that would cause is make you and players like you come back to complain even more. Stealth does NOT make them invulnerable…and it’s not really that difficult to predict the movements of a common thief in stealth.
3: I haven’t seen this in my combat log in over 2.5~3 months. Perhaps I know how to counter it is why. Perhaps, that also means that it’s not unbeatable and in fact, ANYONE can do it if they learn to. So, my suggestion would be instead of sitting there pondering about what should be nerfed on another class, you should go learn your own class and figure out how you can COUNTER the specific issue you’re having. Believe me…glass cannon backstab thieves are BY FAR the EASIEST to kill (especially those that are carried by it and are clueless as to how to react once it fails). Do not hold your breath on any significant changes to armour. Bunker builds are already under heavy watch because they defy the combat mechanic ANet was aiming for. Armour is in fact fine. The difference in WvW damage is created from CRITICAL DAMAGE (2x in WvW as opposed to sPvP).
4: Other weapon sets needs some love…but that is NOT because the so called backstab thieves and HS spammers are “OP”. In fact, no one should be dying to a thief who can only spam HS. HS has been SEVERELY nerfed, and is actually a VERY poor skill to use on targets to try 100-0 them. The backstab build has also been nerfed and was made A LOT easier to counter. Thieves and Warriors aren’t the only classes that can kill in <3 seconds. Other classes can achieve these kills too IF they’re specced that way (just like thieves and warriors).
1. To clarify, I meant that with rendering occasionally you only see the thief for 2 or even 1 second despite the debuff being 3 seconds. And yes, I’m aware ArenaNet is attempting to fix this.
2. Do you really think adding a way to remove a thief from stealth will break your class? In case you haven’t noticed, a lot of players are already using these methods against thieves. You may be in stealth but you can still dodge these attacks.
3. My point was about toughness. Glass cannon thieves don’t have toughness, but they don’t have a problem eating the hp of someone who spec’s it.
4. WvW is classified by ArenaNet as PvE. Thief damage was nerfed in PvP. Hopefully the February update of WvW is realising that we don’t want to fight the overgrown grub.
Oh, by all means, go try the engineer’s rifle with it’s incredible 1000 range (pistol has 900, just like thieves). I’m sure you’ll all be dying for your own version…
If you look at the warrior’s list of weapons then you will see that when choosing a long-range weapon longbow and rifle are the only options they get. Most warriors pick the rifle (in wvw setting) for the purpose of punishing anyone who kites. It also has these cute things called “channeled abilities” that your stealth does not break. Makes it much easier to find the thief when he’s lying in the same spot you saw the bullets going :P
Thread for thief feedback, so here you are…
I finally got feed up with the constant suggestions of “learn 2 play” on thief forums, so I rolled a thief first. There are a number of issues people have with thieves that are generally based on wvw. Here are the issues I’ve found as well as ways that I would suggest to fix them.
1. Rendering – We have 3 seconds to see a thief. We’d like to see you please.
2. Stealth – Stealth in combat is a great idea, but there should be a method for an opponent to counter this in a way that removes you from stealth. I’m not talking direct damage and dots, but rather control effects such as daze, knockback and knockdowns. These are skills that disable a player but do not break stealth. For anyone with other classes than the thief, they’ll realise that these effects are constricted to specific weapons sets for each class and tend to have long cooldowns.
3. Burst Damage – We’ve all seen the screenshots of the 1 second burst ability of a thief. We’ve probably all looked at our combat log to see Steal – CnD – BS is all they needed to kill us. The major problem with this is Toughness failing to scale. 23k kill shots were1 glass cannon blowing up another glass cannon with the aid of the projectile bug (fixed). But when a lvl 80 exotic geared toughness build gets one-shot, people tend to get pretty antsy. Atm, our armour value is actually doing very little to protect us, while gearing towards pure damage is rewarding because of this fact.
4. Restrictive weapons sets – the reason that there are so many dagger/dagger thieves around is that it is insanely rewarding to equip this and then either spam heartseeker at your opponent or steal – CnD – BS. Fight over rather than having to think, time and react to your opponent. More thieves might try something different if there was something profitable in these other sets. Yes, you can make sword/dagger, dagger/pistol, etc. work, but why would some players even bother when they can hit 3 keys and win the fight.
Drama aside, I’m really enjoying this weeks match-up. The score is constantly close and every server is constantly fighting back. Looking forward to seeing BG and IoJ in our next match too!
Also, don’t touch my dolyak’s. We’ve bonded, I’ve named some of them and we have a wonderful (but slow) stroll along the shoreline. Any loss is avenged by my eating 3 of yours. They were very tasty :P
Haven’t had this problem with repair bills. Run around doing events to get a bit of extra cash. Take supply camps, defend towers/keeps, escorts some dolyaks and eat a few of the enemies. These combined with facing players ensure that I always make enough gold from wvw for repairs, siege and upgrades.
You’re making me jealous now Babel. Must always be up against the wrong servers.
Occasionally you get players from other servers who pause for a moment and wait to see if you’re going to attack them before continuing. I’ve actually had players in there that will start jumping to lead you in the right direction for the JP in case you took a wrong turn (very rare).
In the end though there will always be somebody towards the end that thinks it’s fun to make you do all of this again. If you want to do the JP undisturbed, use the mystic fountains within that grant you 4 minutes of stealth (I’ve been told there are 3 but have only found 2 myself). If you’re not using these then group up with other members of your server and claim the JP for your server.
Also, if they knock you off the edge (had a previously passive warrior run up behind me and use “Fear Me”) show them your level of amusement by dragging their character down to your spot and making sure they have to start the puzzle all over again. The mesmer that uses “Into the Void” against me because I made the jump they missed is a dead mesmer.
Hi, hobbes. Let me introduce you to engineers. I throw 3 grenades at a time that crit for up to 1.2k each but at my downed state I am reduced to throwing 300 dmg rocks. My other ability is to pull an enemy closer to me and I’m not sure what my 3rd ability does because I never live the randomly huge amount of time it takes to activate it.
Worst…downed state…ever. Whenever I look at the horrible aoe my mesmer’s downed state has put me in I always think: “It could be worse, you could be an engineer atm.”
As far as I’ve been able to tell, you’re meant to use 2 to pull someone towards you (hopefully away from finishing an ally) and then use 3 the blow yourself up and send them flying back. Sounds ok in theory but I’d really prefer it if the knock back actually decided to work against an opponent that doesn’t have stability. Blasted by my suicidal attempt and still channeling his finish: takes guts.
It might be better if the “drop [insert appropriate toolkit here]” trait actually put that thing in your hands. I’d love to blast a flamethrower at someone who thought he could deal with an downed engineer =)
Hate to burst your bubble. But oceanic recruiting drives don’t work out so well. There is only so many oceanics. They’re likely going to stick to servers where there are lots of other oceanics, not be some one’s skeleton crew night shift for WvW.
There’s a reason why all the smart North American players moved to SoS and why HoD as well as ET servers are pretty much dead. It is because the oceanic community will never leave SoS because they have no reason to. Even if the NA players abandon it. Oceanic players have really little else where to go and will still be there.
Can’t really comment on European players how ever. Good luck on convincing them to play on NA servers though.
SoS don’t have nearly as much fun as SoR. Go find the thread of World vs World vs Moose and don’t laugh…I dare you!
There might be only so many oceanic’s, but we’re allowed to be on whatever server we choose. Some of us like socialising with the other oceanic’s, insomniacs and devoted wvw-ders that this server has. Some of the names you constantly see in the BL or EB makes me wonder if anyone gets more than 2 hours sleep =) I have never felt like I’m someone’s skeleton crew.
I’d also recommend 20 points for dueling to get you deceptive evasion. This also ensures that you get the passive trait of gaining vigor on crit’s. This saved me so much =).
Greatsword and Staff are both great for keeping distance (knockback or a retreating blink). Just don’t forget that you have F4 for the distortion shatter. It may not do damage but you get a few seconds of invulnerability which should give you enough time to get another clone on the field.
Mesmer is tied for most played along with Guard and Necro for me in tPvP and Hotjoin.
It’s the only class without a true hard counter. Thieves come to a full stop against bunkers, warriors have trouble with anything that kites remotely well. Condition specs should always fall to Necros and so forth. But there’s nothing in the game that comes remotely close to checking Mesmers.
Mesmers unlike a lot of classes also have a much bigger variety of viable specs, for most other classes you could count at three max, one really viable and others just effective. For the Mesmer shatter is possible the most “OP” one, but that doesn’t mean any of the other builds are lacking.
The class design in itself is really slippery, like Thieves they can get away with building full on glass if you’re decent at actively avoiding damage. They have stealth too (albeit more limited) but also the huge advantage of really good ranged. Not to mention, distortion effects on Blurred Frenzy is bounds better than Pistol Whip evade or any other channel swing shindig skill. If you’re a shatter build, you’ll always immobilize them before your burst combo and unless they have a condition removal, they can’t peel. You can’t fear a Mesmer away like you would a Pistol Whip thief or 100b Warrior mid channel.
They also have the lowest CDs on a large number of stun breaks and better iterations of other class’ skills like Blink > Lightning Flash, Null Field > Wells.
Then you get to the elites, even though Time Warp is the best elite, Moa is still bounds better than a lot of what other classes can utilize, most classes can only dream for their elites to have such game changing consequences as Mesmer elites.
Mesmers are also really self sufficient, unlike some specs who play better when supported (Warriors), Mesmers are great at doing whatever they’re doing AND bringing unique support to others at the same time.
All of these points while not OP by themselves adds up to a lot and sets this class ahead of all classes right now in PvP. Yes, Mesmers are OP.
I also disagree with a lot of your points here. You’re underselling these other classes and bolstering the mesmer. If that’s your opinion, then fine. You find the mesmer OP. For anyone else…
Facing a Mesmer is a mind game and the fact that you can’t simply rely on your auto target to follow them throws many players off. Like when a thief stealths and you have to think about where it’s going to hit you from, you have to watch a mesmer in order to discover which is the real one. Unlike a thief, you can see the mesmer (for the majority of the fight at least :P) so you have an easier time figuring them out. A mesmer is only OP if you’re letting them mess with your head.
As for the viable builds, just no!. Like every class, our abilities need to have another look all the bugs. A condition-mancer is not the only build for a necromancer. It is a powerful build until you meet anything with mass condition removal but it’s not all the class has. A warrior does not have to be the 100blades/frenzy setup to succeed and a skilled warrior (probably best not to use this setup though) can do just as well against a larger group as a mesmer.
We are a class in which all 3 elites can be useful to different users, but other classes have good elites too. Thieves have dagger storm and thieves guild, engineers get supply drop (2 second stun is fantastic!), Necromancers have Plague Cloud and Lich Form…I think this makes my point.
Also, your later snipe at taking a guardian over a warrior for anything but burst? I normally run wvwvw with a Greatsword/shout warrior and I’d take him into an outnumbered fight over a bunker guardian any day. Not only will he terrify them by not using a frenzied 100 blades, he’ll be buffing me as I mess with their head.
The downed states in general need to be reevaluated. These two are definitely the most powerful because they allow classes to get back into the fight immediately rather than forcing a 5 minute walk from spawn that every other class faces upon defeat outside tower walls.
Finding this thought really funny. Warriors and Elementalists have the most powerful downed skills in the game? I’m sure some of the more experienced ele’s on this thread have already made their point on this and will have to remake it again. But as for a warrior, I would consider them to have the 2nd worst downed abilities of all classes. Only an engineer can beat them in this department. But here’s the warrior…
1. You can throw rocks at people.
2. You can throw a hammer at someone for a knockdown. This hammer can be stopped like any attack by blind where it goes on it’s cooldown and you’re going to be dead before it’s available again. Also, it can be body blocked by someone standing directly on top of the warrior.
3. You can Vengeance. As has been stated, unlike mist form this is not immediately available. Provided your hammer actually worked and gave you some time you might still be around for this to work. Vengeance is buggy and killing 1 guy does not guarantee a rally. The worst I’ve seen is 16 kills in PvE and no rally. For this reason of course most of them are going to run into the tower for a rezz.
While other classes may not have the ability to enter a tower while downed, they do possess skills that allow them an easier time getting to the door. Thieves stealth: Mesmer clones+stealth, Guardian auto aegis and activatable protective buffs, Engineers have an evade elixir, Necromancer death shroud. Can’t think of one for rangers =/ but this would be why I don’t see it as a problem that 2 classes have a way through that door if downed. If you’re really desperate for that warrior to die on your side of the gate then can I suggest killing him? You have plenty of time.
Decided to change some skills around for round 3 since I don’t like using Moa Morph. But if you’re hanging around our keep area for the next match up I’d be more than happy for a rematch 1:1.
But again, insignia(s) for weapon/armour/accessory setup as well as runes would be much appreciated since this gives a better overview of your stats.
Was this a one vs one? cause I don’t recall dying 1v1 against anyone this morning (or yesterday that matter)
SoR human mesmer wearing the CM armour with Greatsword and sword/focus. There was a scaled 80 asura rifle warrior that’d rushed you after I told him to wait, so I went into assist him. You seemed pretty convinced to destroy me first though so I ended up shattering my clones for a distortion and Moa’d you. You didn’t even try to dodge it.
If it helps, our earlier match was up at Valley, when you were just strolling around inside the ruins. I had time warp up then which doesn’t respond well to retaliation + confusion.
If you are the Blackgate ranger that was hanging around the SE area of Stonemist for a bit, then I have to say that fighting you was a pleasure and one of the 2 best fights I had in EB that day. I’ve never fought a ranger that went melee and stayed melee so congrats for trying something different =).
It certainly made it so much more satisfying when I returned, saw you patrolling the same area in front of the castle and defeated you. I waited around in case you came back, but you didn’t return for a rematch.
Just curious if you could list the insignia(s) you’re using on your armour/weapons/accessories. Thanks for the fun and hope to face you again.
Mesmers already have a whole lot of strong and/or unique tools for attacking the walls, apart of what you and me mentioned there are also chaos storm and projectile blockers and possibly something else that I could forget.
That is in addition to insane utility that mesmers offer to their party and zerg such as portals, mass stealth and illusion of life.
And on top of everything 2-3 DPS-orientated mesmers are able to make wall defense impossible.
For attacking walls the skills we have that are actually worth something are:
GS4. Illusionary Berserker
Focus4. Temporal Curtain
Staff5. Chaos Storm (which I did mention if you’ll just read my initial post)
Utility Skill. Feedback (this is the purple bubble that reflects projectliles)
Elite. Time Warp (210 second cooldown)
5 skills that we can use reliably in a siege, spread between 3 weapons sets, utility and elite. Yeah, that’s huge. None of these skills are as quick to recharge as people think. Now go and look at a ranger and an elementalist with their arcing projectiles and aoe and then tell me that we’re the overpowered ones in a siege. And don’t forget staff necromancer’s can discourage people from walking over the walls through their marks.
Mass Invisibility is 5 seconds. Thieves can provide far more than this to their companions (though in a smaller aoe start). And from experience I can tell you that a few people always do something to break the stealth. As for portals, can you say obvious. It’s the shiny circle on the ground that’s making a noise. In order to get a sizable group to utilise it takes immense coordination. Uncoordinated, chances are only 2 people are going to use it and they’re about to portal right into your base and they’ll die. People forget that you know exactly where they’re going to arrive. You are prepared, they are not prepared for you to be prepared. Plus, the mesmer has to somehow get into the tower/keep your trying to protect and live. Illusion of life only works on the downed. It does not resurrect, it casts vengeance. Any warrior will tell you that vengeance is bad. That have to kill someone, not down, kill. Applying vengeance to anyone is giving the other teams downed a free rally.
Scorpion wire requires the target to be on the ledge of the wall, it randomly becomes obstructed at plain sight and sometimes it fails to drag the target even on a terrain with no obstacles.
Don’t forget about guardian’s and their aegis. Blocks me every time I try with temporal curtain.
It’s all good and fine but zerker deals initial damage the moment it spawns on target and no mesmer expects its zerker to live enough for a second whirl. So there’s no easy way to prevent mesmert hurting siege. You can kill zerkers all you want, your cata’s going down anyway. The only way to prevent that is to put your siege in the spot that is 1200+ away from any place where invader can stand and/or where it cannot be directly targeted under any circumstances (sometimes it still can be targeted with auto-target but having something targetable in front of your siege usually helps, like these same walls or defenders).
I understand your concern with siege. To put it anywhere that it is remotely protected sacrifices it’s usefulness.
The point we’re trying to make in regards to the berserker is that it takes time. If you’re not hopelessly outnumbered you can be using this time to force them back or have everyone target the mesmer. A greatsword on a cloth wearer isn’t something we can hide easily. Plus, to stay targeted on the siege you’re trying to protect we have to stay locked onto it. If they haven’t already moved out of range follow the purple line that screams obstructed.
I think you’ll find an Elementalist is far more dangerous to your siege than a mesmer can ever hope to be. Huge AoE’s that can cover your entire front wall and watching as you siege equipment health bar plummets. Personally, I’d be trying to kill them instead.
Has everyone forgotten that the thief can use scorpion wire to drag you off the wall? As a mesmer, unless they’re sitting on the ledge I can only drag them into the ledge. A thief managed to pull me through the ledge into the zerg below. Not sure if it was a glitch or if they can do this constantly.
You forgot to mention mesmers sending their illusionary berserkers regardless of LoS to attack siege engines and multiple defenders that are unreachable for any other AoE or ability from any other class.
Mesmer’s don’t really have many other options. With a Greatsword from the ground there are only 2 attacks that can be used to actually hit something. It’s this or mind sword which has 120 aoe and can only be placed on the wall or ledge. If they’re standing on the ledge I’d be better off switching to focus and dragging them off the wall. Or we can equip a staff where the only attack that can hit on the wall is chaos storm with its long cooldown.
Plus, illusions don’t really take a lot to kill. To take down an arrow cart it takes around 8 berserkers (who take forever to attack again so they’ll be dead before take 2).
It’s not just our standard attacks though that are obstructed. I have manned a ballista that was placed in a precarious position open to aoe, but every bolt I fired went straight into that little incline on the tower wall, the one that’s meant to prevent our being dragged off the wall. We wasted siege on something that is less effective than our shaking our fists at the enemy.
I’m pretty sure that there’s only the two.
1. Thief – stealth is their survival mechanic. They are also able to provide it to other people but it has an obvious AoE circle. After they attack from stealth there is a 3 second revealed debuff before they can return to stealth but rendering in WvW makes this a bit problematic. If they are fleeing with you then they can chain together 20 seconds with very little effort, provided they have the initiative (it’s like a cost to use ability system) to do so.
2. Mesmer – They have 3 stealth abilities. Decoy creates a clone at their current position (provided they have a target) and gives stealth for 3 seconds. Veil is a line aoe that grants 4 seconds stealth to any friendly character that walks through it. Mass Invisibility grants 5 seconds of stealth to every friendly player within a 1200 radius but has a really obvious charge up of raising their main weapon into the air.
The best means to deal with stealth is aoe abilities. As a necromancer you should be setting up marks and wells since they’re invisible, not invulnerable.
Thank you to both of you. This really helps clarify what is happening during the stealth time. =)
Hi all, just hoping someone who consistently plays a thief in WvW could help me out.
I play for my main as a Mesmer (hears the cries of OP). Since my main source of dps is a Greatsword a thief going into stealth tends to make most of my clone/phantasm skills worthless (no target means either no clone or no using the skill at all). In order to counter this I use the Illusionary Wave skill in order to knockback the thief and give me time for the rendering to figure out where they are. Most of the time I’ve either given myself enough time or the thief is right behind me and stabbing me in the back. Definitely a first though to see a thief revealed 2 seconds later, running the same path I predicted with no hint of stability.
So to summarise, if you are hit with a knockback while stealthed, do you actually go flying as I’d hoped?