Guild Wars 2

Faux Play.6104:

Druid and scrapper shouldn’t be hard for a DH. Neither one have burst damage. DH should be able to easily decap them and hold a point and keep their health up. They might not be great in open world combat vs Druid but if you have to fight on point the druid will struggle to get a DH off of it.

docMed.7692:

Oslaf Beinir.5842:

You wont be killing a mender symbolic DH alone on thief.

^ this

Just like a DH won’t be 1v1’ing a druid or scrapper. We all have counters.

In a 1v1, a meta druid or scrapper will absolutely out-sustain a DH. Hop on a DH and give it a whirl.

Oslaf Beinir.5842:

You wont be killing a mender symbolic DH alone on thief.

^ this

Just like a DH won’t be 1v1’ing a druid or scrapper. We all have counters.

Zelulose.8695:

I speak for the people. If class X is called op by lots, class x is prevelent in tpvp and used by the pros it is apparent something is wrong with the class. I won’t shut up until people stop complaining. I’m doing fine playing a DH/Thief in ranked so Idc if they get nerfed just DH when team has too many DH. But I wan’t this game to be good not a reroll DH fest in ranked. If people stop complaining about them in hotjoin and ranked I will stop complaining as well. (Notice as complaints on DH escalated my complaints did too.)

I think the problem was is DH was definitely significantly weaker prior to this patch at high-level play. In particular, I found it extremely difficult running medi trap DH against druids/tempests/scrappers not because they were just "too tanky", but because their up time with reflects was too much and it negated any continued pressure a DH could apply. So, Anet shaved their bunkyness a bit and nerfed their reflect up time overall, and then suddenly DH’s were a bit too overtuned (I agree). The one thing I don’t want to change though on DH’s is the burst they have, I would have just been fine with the shave to reflects (hell a scrapper pre-patch had reflect up like every 8 seconds) and still leave these classes slightly bunkerish. Now, where I don’t want to get in to a debate is about "hot join and low-level ranked QQ". Balancing a game around unskilled players is just a pointless concept and there are still currently more than ample counters to medi/trap DH => noobs just have poor awareness, reactions, etc and are more abundant than higher level players; it’s very easy to pay attention to trap placements, watch cooldowns, etc and counter guardians (those are supposed to be the things that separate good from bad players).

Am I the only one happy glass builds are becoming more and more viable and boring, unkillable bunker builds have slowly been getting shaved? Sure, everything isn’t perfect across all classes, but I confidently feel that bringing glassier builds to the top speeds up game play and further requires a higher level of skill/timing/etc than just face rolling through rotations on a bruiser scrapper/druid/tempest in the last meta.

I run full ascended zerk with mara trinkets and hit 12k’s on glass all the time and average 3-7k. The only way you’re hitting 1k is against high toughness players.

The only place they’re not in the greatest place is pvp, and even then I’d argue they’re C/B tier (as opposed to the recent pole putting them in D). If the amounts of reflects available to scrappers and tempests was reduced, then they would be much higher. In WvW & PvE they have multiple viable builds & I run DH (LB + S/F) in WvW and Hammer DH for raids/fractals (or sometimes I swap in a higher dps build for fractals if I don’t have a chrono with me).

Nath.3918:

Staff can be swapped for longbow, as it has better utility, can not be blocked by projectile hate and its better in melee. But question is if you can have enouch burst to take something down … (I would also swap sigils air and fire to sword and shield in case going with staff)

I would never swap out LB for Staff. Too long of CD’s, too low of damage/etc. Staff is mainly used in support builds.

This would be a good build if the current meta involved a lot of ranged dps pressure (outside of simply fighting other DH’s). That being said, scrapper, druid, ele, rev, etc - all can stick to us in melee and thus all ranged projectile blocking this build has really isn’t worth it. The current meta S/F + LB is just a better take at the moment since it can deal with melee better and offer condi cleanse + defense + higher burst. Might be something worth taking in a WvW roaming in a group, but otherwise in straight up consequent it’s slightly kitten in the current meta.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjUqQFL2zCOsAXLGIEqt0Dgq+/iaI39XPav9Sm2ZA-TZBFABA8IAKZ/BEOCAiXGogLAAA - give this a shot, basically a tweak off the old-school LB/GS ranger build prior to HoT/druid release. With the changes this last patch has been what I’ve been running. Decent for side point 1v1’ing and rotating/etc. Good support as well (I put out around 1500-2000 boons a match) & the new pet revive on a 36 second CD has made for many clutch rezzes in matches (you can essentially port players to you and rez them off the side safely/etc). You can also easily maintain 25 might with this - smokescale does amazing single target DPS and bristle back’s F2 is really strong.

** oops and I should say this is obviously primarily pvp ** - but you can tweak the traits fairly easily to have an easy open world PvE build as well with good survivability/dps (just sub out mara for zerker) and you can also sub out pet rez for frost spirit (more dps), etc.

Gaile Gray.6029:

A message from John Corpening and John Smith:

We’ve noticed some changes to ascended drop rates that are below what we were expecting.

See, this is what I don’t get about your development team. Why are ascended drop rates below what the developers (you!) expected? You developed the content, you programmed the rates, why would they be different than what you put in or anything other than what you 100% intended? Did someone on their own simply have complete control over fractal rates with no oversight? This design concept seems to run rampant among your developers and is most apparent when reviewing material storage, boxes that open into more boxes, zone-specific keys, etc. (it seems like your internal teams do not communicate changes well with each other, which is a poor reflection on management).

Well, let’s hope this change just restores ascended drops to what they were before.

I’d also like to point out that it is extremely disappointing that there’s no changes to salvaging, which I must say was one of the main features I was looking forward to with this coming expansion; now it’s one of the biggest letdowns I’ve experienced in any game. So glad I saved my 60-some-odd rings for years just to have them continue to sit there.

Finding it more and more difficult to login at all & this hardly entices me otherwise. Here’s to continued unrewarding play.

Yea, same issue; bear & diessa bugged.

I know Dom from the DnT days and although I’m long past the rigorous schedules you all have laid out above feel free to hit me up should you ever need an extra to fill any group (not ideal of course, but figured doesn’t hurt to offer). I’ll be running with a much more casual group (little time investment), but will still have at my disposal completely meta and ascended geared characters (zerk ascended ele, sinister ascended engi, and zerk ascended guard/rev/war or w/e else becomes meta), consumables, etc.

Either way, good people to definitely run with if your interests are hardcore PvE. Good luck with the expansion; I’ll have my popcorn ready for the raid streams/vids.

Also Dom, curious what happened with DnT - PM me and give me the deets brah.

Whether it scales or not; if you’re talking pure dps for conditions - sinister is always the best (unless you could consider ramp. if there’s some kind of build that involves low-ICD and the need for high-crit ratios). The only other stats that may be more viable than power are essentially support/non-dps stats (which who knows what mechanics, if any in PvE, will favor that yet). Basically, for pve; zerker, sinister, ramp, and/or assassins are essentially going to always be the best unless some mechanic forces the player base to have to take some non-dps-mitigation stat (like vit, healing power, toughness, etc).

The only real negative (as a result of thieves hitting extremely hard at launch) is we’ve been pushed into a position that centers around mobility and rez/support (+1’ing); which has essentially just put thieves in a boring play style. They’re still strong as all hell when it comes to conquest at least.

No please no.......

Ahh good catch in the prep thread:

My revenant is soooo ready! Got lvl 30 scroll, tomes, ascended sets, bags, infinite harvesting, food/utility buffs, etc. I do want to craft another legendary before HoT though, but not sure which.

Thanks all.

Don’t get me wrong; I can see a lot of reasons it should just be default available and that’s fine by me, but ya never know - maybe they wanted to include something specific with the new class/leveling experiencing and not have you skip it? Who knows. Either way sounds like nobody knows for sure, but given the silence it’s 99% likely available.

Yea that’s what I’m assuming, but I was just wondering if Anet confirmed this anywhere?

Forgive me if this has been addressed already (I wasn’t able to find anything on it), but did we ever get confirmation if at launch we’ll be able to use leveling scrolls and/or tomes on Revenants? Obviously I’d love to use my stacks of tomes for something and I would expect them to be available for rev; just curious.

bump.com/bumpitlikeitshot

Good changes overall and I’m glad to see blades get an overall damage buff (it needed it badly). The Dragon Maw change is also pretty godly.

My only quick adjustment I would recommend is rather than making tethered enemies pull to you (which is kind of the opposite idea of what we want as ranged dps) - why not make it immob for 2 sec?

The thing is; we’ve only seen simply what 1 single enrage timer does. A lot of enrage timers act differently across MMO’s and per boss/instance. Some 1-shot the raid, some increase defense, some 1-shot 1 target at a time, etc - the point is; yea this ’dps race mechanic’ might not be the most enjoyable if it were to be the only mechanic, but I think a lot of people are forgetting that this is completely customizable as well and many raid designers do adjust this mechanic from fight to fight.

Ah I expected a lot more doritos, mountain dew and get no scoped sound effects for a MLG title.

A simple yes or no, just curious if anyone else is interested in death match (note; I hate courtyard – this is a really bad example of “death match”).

If you feel the need to comment beyond a yes or no… try to be brief or at least concise.

Eurantien.4632:

Maybe if they implemented a league system it would help with some of this stuff…

Too obvious bro, no way!

As it stands server limits are based on how many people per week hop into WvW. Currently blackgate is one of the most active WvW servers; consequently the server status is essentially fixed at full. Unless Anet changes cap limits/etc and/or how it determines server capacity transferring to blackgate is essentially impossible.

This; 100%. My only real issue with dragon hunter virtues is that some have cast times and thus if I want to say for example stomp someone out and activate an aegis in the middle of it I am unable to do this.

No. Bow 3 is great as is.

I would actually use the traps (post-bug-fix) if the CD’s were drastically reduced. Look at ranger traps; burning, poison, combo fields, all on 12-24 second CD’s (if spec’d). 36+ second cooldowns is just far too long. Not to mention DH traps don’t put out any combo fields and the conditions they add in most situations are lackluster (cripple or a reveal). I’ll admit the reveal trap is a nice idea (if you can get someone downed and then use it to stop stealth rezzing), but engi’s already have this in a majority of builds and can bring it much easier with a much shorter cooldown, so there’s really no point if we’re looking at this from a sPvP meta-comp perspective.

Karl, I would recommend reducing trap CD’s and scaling down the effects if need be (although in my opinion I would say the effects need to be improved by either a combo field or better additional condi’s). There’s too much "I better land all my traps or they’re not useful and I’m dead because they won’t be back up in enough time". Not to mention with the FoF nerf the amount of damage they put out was very weak.

How about adjusting the trap trait to daze for 1 second to also put out an aoe blind? Or if any of the traps dropped a water field that would drastically change the use/interest in them.

Karl McLain.5604:

docMed.7692:

Karl, the fragments (aegis on pickup) also seem to have some kind of delay – is that intended? I’ve popped the trap multiple times and I would follow fragments around attempting to essentially spam aegis on myself during fights and there seems to be some kind of ICD (~1sec).

The fragments themselves won’t pop if you have Aegis on when you enter them. They don’t have an ICD though or anything like that. If you lose aegis while standing on top of them, though, they probably won’t re-apply the boon until you move into it again.

Ok, I’ll try giving em a little wiggle from now on

Ash.5034:

Offair.2563:

Carried by traps and the stupid trapper runes. Lamest build of all available.

Agreed.

Anet recently nerfed the Mesmer PU trait because of too much stealth.

Then this style of play, with pretty much perma stealth, should be adjusted too.

Ok, on the flip side – can we have on use reflects, aoe daze, aoe boon clear, oh and invulnerabilities as well?

BrunoBRS.5178:

docMed.7692:

BrunoBRS.5178:

well, one of their traps is bugged right now and it hits really, _really_ hard, three times (that’s the bugged part). best part? it triggers on CC with the right adept trait. guess who has a shadowstep that also CCs?

translation: don’t use steal on dragonhunters if you have sleight of hand equipped.

Where did they confirm it was bugged? The trait indicates it hits multiple times (fragments) and does 1500 damage per fragment, with a chance to crit on each fragment. In order to hit hard with the trap it is based on +power, which means the DH has to run Mara and/or Berserker and then the DH also has to crit each hit (full zerk build can hit around 3.5k-5k per fragment on 100% glass targets depending on might stacks). The trap itself also has a 36 second CD (when traited).

here:

Karl McLain.5604:

The trap was bugged. It’s intended to strike enemies only once as it explodes and will be fixed.

of note, the "fragments of faith" are the little aegis thingies you can pick up after the explosion. it’s not a frag land mine.

To be fair, the combat log does say ’fragments of faith hit you for X...’ and with Anet’s history of tooltips ya never know. Nice have to have Karl confirm though. That is really underwhelming to hear however considering the remaining traps are significantly weaker and have ’meh’ effects (the reveal is a decent one to take though, but engi does the same thing just in a better/safer build).

Karl, the fragments (aegis on pickup) also seem to have some kind of delay - is that intended? I’ve popped the trap multiple times and I would follow fragments around attempting to essentially spam aegis on myself during fights and there seems to be some kind of ICD (~1sec).

The only trap I’ve liked using thus far and actually think will see a lot of play is the elite trap as it can slow/trap a target and also be used to kite around for the period it is in solid state.

/15bump ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I don’t have access to screenshots now (at work), but I can see the trap hitting for 15k (in WvW numbers) if you stood in it for the whole activation phase (it’s around 11.5-12k on full glass in PvP if you happen to get all 3 fragments to crit). It should say something like [fragments of faith hits you for X] or ... [critically strikes you for X] and appear 3 times; and then obviously the sum of those damages is how much damage the trap did overall.

Sheesh all the salty comments about it ’not being a true world first’... Just say ’congrats’ or nothing at all people - no reason to be upset.

I don’t get all the QQ about thieves; I main one and run it often both in sPvP and WvW - they are very strong. Yea, we can’t 1v1 every class in the game and we’re not the best at holding points - OK? Welcome to the idea of balance.

BrunoBRS.5178:

well, one of their traps is bugged right now and it hits really, really hard, three times (that’s the bugged part). best part? it triggers on CC with the right adept trait. guess who has a shadowstep that also CCs?

translation: don’t use steal on dragonhunters if you have sleight of hand equipped.

Where did they confirm it was bugged? The trait indicates it hits multiple times (fragments) and does 1500 damage per fragment, with a chance to crit on each fragment. In order to hit hard with the trap it is based on +power, which means the DH has to run Mara and/or Berserker and then the DH also has to crit each hit (full zerk build can hit around 3.5k-5k per fragment on 100% glass targets depending on might stacks). The trap itself also has a 36 second CD (when traited).

Never been easier? Man you should have played zerk warrior at launch with quickness and the insane amounts of crit damage. Used to be able to pull off 21-27k Axe F2’s.

He announced a while ago that he was switching to casting CS and has already been on multiple ESL casts. https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/352nob/blu_moving_on_from_guild_wars_2/?

Bump bump bump a bump

bump /15 charsssss

Nocta.5274:

docMed.7692:

Shadowstep.6049:

docMed.7692:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Supreme.3164:

Thieves asking to efficiently 1vs1 all other classes that must invest in defense-

Hold on…..*why the hell should I even play any other profession if a thief can simply 1vs1 anybody

Like…:" Oh KK dear devs I want the defensive options to 1vs1 that tanky guy..

We dont even have the sustain to 1v1 the dps specs right now. Just thought I’d mention that.

This is strawmanning. asking for general 1v1 sustain does not = “want to win against tank specs”. Stealth does nothing for us at the moment combat wise but delay death.

Really? What pure-dps specs do you have trouble with (maybe burst guard or burst engi, but even then they can be dealt with – albeit at a slower pace)? Thieves dominate most power builds (war/ranger/mesmer/other thieves) and struggle vs high condi-pressure builds (condi engi, condi necro) or sustain builds (d/d ele, tank necro/etc). I agree thief is certainly boring to play at the moment, but it is hardly underpowered and every top tier team has 1 for a reason.

wat? are we playing same game?

Haha, I think so. War is simply a wait out the stances game, blind spam> dead; ranger is wait out the signet of stone > blind spam > interrupt > dead; Mesmer is the toughest of the three, but shatter Mesmer vs thief at least is more of the balanced match-ups with it maybe being 55/45 depending on who you talk to; but in general when it comes to looking at meta power builds, thieves are arguably #1/2.

I think the current Meta ranger build has a slight advantage against Thief because of how overtuned Taunt is. Rangers can set up some deadly combos with it that you won’t be able to lame out.

The advantage for Thief lies in how powerful the stolen item from rangers is IMO.

Yea, I agree – if we’re talking about just straight up 1v1’ing though then you should have something (like shadowstep) available to break the taunt as the only other stuns are easy to dodge (hilt bash and/or pet leap if they’re running canines) and if you get knock backed by longbow 4 then you should save your steal for that (since they are more than likely going to start channeling rapid fire next). In actual pvp matches though where you’re bouncing from point to point it definitely is easy to get blown up by a ranger if you get caught on a taunt with no stun break. The water field is definitely nice, but against a power ranger it’s not as useful compared to against trap/condi ranger; which should still lose to thief but is a more lengthy fight to win overall (usually have to SR/reset/longbow poke/etc).

Poxxia.1547:

docMed.7692:

Well necro vs thief is completely dependent on what build the necro is running (obviously) and whether or not they have any death shroud up. Roll up on a glass necro with no death shroud; basically dead instantly. Cele condi signet is tough if they have shroud, but doable without. Sustain necro just takes forever to kill.

Assuming it was to me – then yep, that is my take on it as well.

It was!

Shadowstep.6049:

docMed.7692:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Supreme.3164:

Thieves asking to efficiently 1vs1 all other classes that *must* invest in defense-

Hold on.....*why the hell should I even play any other profession if a thief can simply 1vs1 anybody

Like...:" Oh KK dear devs I want the defensive options to 1vs1 that tanky guy..

We dont even have the sustain to 1v1 the dps specs right now. Just thought I’d mention that.

This is strawmanning. asking for general 1v1 sustain does not = "want to win against tank specs". Stealth does nothing for us at the moment combat wise but delay death.

Really? What pure-dps specs do you have trouble with (maybe burst guard or burst engi, but even then they can be dealt with - albeit at a slower pace)? Thieves dominate most power builds (*war/ranger/mesmer*/other thieves) and struggle vs high condi-pressure builds (condi engi, condi necro) or sustain builds (d/d ele, tank necro/etc). I agree thief is certainly boring to play at the moment, but it is hardly underpowered and every top tier team has 1 for a reason.

wat? are we playing same game?

Haha, I think so. War is simply a wait out the stances game, blind spam> dead; ranger is wait out the signet of stone > blind spam > interrupt > dead; Mesmer is the toughest of the three, but shatter Mesmer vs thief at least is more of the balanced match-ups with it maybe being 55/45 depending on who you talk to; but in general when it comes to looking at meta power builds, thieves are arguably #1/2.

Nocta.5274:

The class has issues, but it’s not unplayable, its even really good at what it does, most people just don’t like doing, well, what thief has to do.

Yep, basically this.

Well necro vs thief is completely dependent on what build the necro is running (obviously) and whether or not they have any death shroud up. Roll up on a glass necro with no death shroud; basically dead instantly. Cele condi signet is tough if they have shroud, but doable without. Sustain necro just takes forever to kill.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Supreme.3164:

Thieves asking to efficiently 1vs1 all other classes that must invest in defense-

Hold on…..*why the hell should I even play any other profession if a thief can simply 1vs1 anybody

Like…:" Oh KK dear devs I want the defensive options to 1vs1 that tanky guy..

We dont even have the sustain to 1v1 the dps specs right now. Just thought I’d mention that.

This is strawmanning. asking for general 1v1 sustain does not = “want to win against tank specs”. Stealth does nothing for us at the moment combat wise but delay death.

Really? What pure-dps specs do you have trouble with (maybe burst guard or burst engi, but even then they can be dealt with – albeit at a slower pace)? Thieves dominate most power builds (war/ranger/mesmer/other thieves) and struggle vs high condi-pressure builds (condi engi, condi necro) or sustain builds (d/d ele, tank necro/etc). I agree thief is certainly boring to play at the moment, but it is hardly underpowered and every top tier team has 1 for a reason.

Nice idea; would be a pain to balance though considering most ’basic’ steals are already very good & most thieves run double use.

One of your highlights was greatsword 3 leaping onto a down thief 3v1... I... I appreciate the effort at least...

This is just a great example of how statistics can be skewed to one’s beliefs (not fact) and interpreted incorrectly. In particular, when sampling populations the data always has to be selected at chance [i.e. random] and compared against reliable control groups. Not to mention 100 games is an insignificant sampling size. Interesting points, but this really doesn’t tell us anything other than your personal experience, which may have been drastically skewed by the fact you were already playing a thief. If I were to summarize my experience I would find a favorable portion involves thiefs, but that would again simply be my direct experience - not a representation of the much larger populations’.