Guild Wars 2

Some clips are actually really good. You almost made me want to buy HoT and start playing the game again.

Props.

The funny part is that he even spent (likely a lot of) time to write this bullsh€€t.

I still don’t get why people have to “falsify” their gameplay by increasing the video playback speed by 10-20%.
If you do it because you want people to feel more in awe to your gameplay, by saying “wow this guy’s execution speed is so fast”, then you’re not doing something really legit.
If you do it because you believe the “standard” speed would make for a poor video experience, than I believe you should clearly state so, as people might get the wrong idea.

In any case, I stopped playing the game after HoT’s release. Came here to see how a once considered cr4p-tier build could ever become strong enough to get people to “Legendary”. Good thing I never had to deal with this in my past experience, as it is very painful to watch – at least for an “old” (and “deceased”) player like myself. Still, if it’s effective, no reason not to use it.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Even though this is just a comic relief, I think there is a lot of truth about it.

I have worked as game designer and programmer and I am still teaching game design. Few of the key principles of designing MMORPG, fighting and action game skills and mechanics:

1. Each well-rounded skill should do one thing well e.g. damage, utility or defense, maximum 2 from that list and that should be countered with heavy cost (mana, energy, sacrificing own life force etc) and/or long cooldown. E.g. a well-rounded defense skill only provides defenses and does no damage or does very little damage and offers no utility. If skill does two things well at same time it should never have a relatively cheap cost or cooldown.

2. Each powerful game mechanism requires a hard counter counter e.g. direct damage can be blocked, evaded or fire damage can be countered with complete fire immunity or partial fire resistance. The most problematic powerful game mechanics are invisibility and stealth, which some wise game designers leave out of their games. Invisibility could have “see invisibility” or “invisibility purge” or they must be balanced with extreme rarity and very heavy cost. Teleport could have a counter skill which prevents teleports happening or foils them (forcing random wrong target). Both teleportation and invisibility often allow to skip game content and can create very cheap and annoying tactics in pvp. Imagine how bad CS:GO would be with group stealth and teleports.

3. Fully passive mechanics should be clearly weaker than any of the active ones, more like secondary things.

(DISCLAIMER: This is far from a complete list)

It is very easy to break these rules and invent too powerful skills for your favorite professions. In general almost every game of this type starts to suffer from skill and trait inflation aka power creep. Year 2015 was very bad for Guild Wars 2 as the power creep was massive, first with June 2015 trait rework and later with HoT. Almost all got tons of power creep except the warrior.

I’ve stopped playing the game since HoT’s release, and I only occasionaly lurk these forums.
But the 2nd point of this post is hilarious. Even trying to compare GW2’s mechanics to CS:GO’s ones is just plain wrong.
You having worked as a game designer (even assuming that it is true) is absolutely irrelevant. It’s not like every game designer knows how to properly design games – let alone balance them.

Each game has its own set of “rules” that must be balanced within itself. You claim that “there should be a way to prevent teleporting”, yet one of the most successful competitive games of all time (League of Legends) has entire matches relying on the proper use of Flash – whose CD is huge but not-that high – and this without considering the many teleporting abilities that a lot of Champions have.

With this I am not saying that GW2 doesn’t have its problems. Heck, I’ve stopped playing the game because of how terrible (at least for me) it became after HoT (no, actually, after the 23rd June 2015 patch). However, coming here and trying to apply “set-in-stone” (?) rules to GW2’s combat system is just plain wrong.

EDIT: points 1 and 3 of your post are valid. It’s just the second that is out of place. I clarified this.

What a shame. I hope this gets fixed as it is completely unnecessary. Interrupting the cast time of a skill is one of the highest mechanical skills to master, this change (bug?) is absolutely pointless.

Maybe this has been already brought up, but I haven’t played the game in months (and probably will keep doing that), so I apologise if that’s the case.
Anyho, is it just me or you can’t interrupt the cast animation of Wells anymore? Tried both with Weapon Swap and with /stow Weapon, and the result is the same: the animation is canceled, but the skill goes in full cooldown.

:(

Haven’t played in months, logged in just to make a cosplay of Kagamine Rin from Vocaloid ( http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/vocaloid/images/0/0a/Kagamine_Rin.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140826004349 )

:3

I honestly think this trait should be removed from the game due to how cheesy it is. It can literally make a bad player become like a God if he is lucky enough.
So no, I’m 100% against it.

NiTjSefni.9802:

I really don’t know what to say about it,

…then don’t say anything in the first place, maybe?

tobascodagama.2961:

You guys realise Moa has a 1s channel time? And it can be dodged and blocked? And that nobody actually runs it for PvP anyway because it’s not even all that useful compared with Time Warp or Mass Invisibility?

Lol, of course nobody runs that, only every top mesmer.

Kicker.8203:

necro stolen is too slow to cast:

cast time 1.25 sec + aftercast

duration 1s / 1.5s / 2s

---

cast time should be 0.75

Use it in stealth?

Also, forgive my arrogance, but some thieves should stop overrelying on Stealth. I mean, of course that’s a powerful mechanic, but hearing things like “Throw Gunk reveals me when I’m in Stealth” is just dumb.
You know it reveals you. If you are as stupid as to use it when you are/are about to go in Stealth, it’s entirely your fault for using it wrongly; the skill has nothing to do with it.

Get a second account.
Get another gw2 client.
Play on your 2nd account while you queue on your main (or viceversa).
Profit.

Considering the experience you get scales with your level, the time it takes to level up is always the same. So, really, any moment is good.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Extra evades used to remedy this, and in retrospect maybe it was a bit too strong.

Too strong in which circumstances?
Prior to the patch, 60206 D/P with Vamp runes was used by every thief in any sPvP match basically, even Sizer switched.
In 1v1s, the trait that carried thieves was Shadow Rejuvenation (hence why it is still banned in the Angz 1v1 Server [in EU]).
Feline Grace was a strong trait, and certain specs really struggled against it (Shatter Mesmers and Warriors mostly). But that’s it.
Even if they reverted Feline Grace to its former version, 60606 D/P would still be the go-to choice for sPvP due to how strong Blinding Powder & Shadow Refuge are, when traited with SA, in a teamfight.

philheat.3956:

The real problem is that Ele can cleanse condis out of water.

Yeah, but they need to use an important cooldown to cleanse those (unless they use “Stop, Drop and Roll”, which is a trait nowhere as strong as Soothing Ice against Thief).
Burning Fire only procs when they have 3 condis on them, which you can plan around. For example, an opening with Basilisk Venom+ShadowShot+full aa chain will inflict Poison, Weakness and Blindness, making Burning Fire to proc. After that you have a 30s window in which you can land your Chill, which they need to use Cleansing Fire to cleanse (40s CD). If you have Improvisation you can just use it again. If not, then just make sure to land it while keeping less than 3 condis on them.

Nephrite.6954:

Not every thief chooses improvisation over executioner. In fact executioner in any circumstances will always outshine improvisation.

False. Despite how much I hate Improvisation, it really outshines Executioner in most of the situations. I will never run Improvisation in a duel unless I REALLY want to tryhard, because getting carried by RNG resets is just silly, but in 1v1 the victor clearly goes to Improvisation.
In sPvP Improvisation is still better, because, again, those RNG resets are invaluable in a teamfight. For example, in the last WTS, the thieves (Sindrener, Toker, Levin) were running Improvisation. There are some cases in which Executioner can be better, but having an Improvisation proc when you have Shadowstep+Shadow Refuge+Blinding Powder on cooldown can literally change the odds of an entire match.

The only cases in which I can say that Executioner→Improvisation are in WvW (from solo to small group roaming) because you don’t really “need” to commit to a fight in WvW and you can always escape if you want to. Plus having Panic Strike+Executioner kicking in on an unaware opponent is invaluable.

Toker, hands down best thief performance ever showed.

Toker is the epitome of carrying. Never seen something like that.

They are 2 stolen skills that are actually very strong in certain circumstances.

Everyone knew that the Chronocancer would have been disgustingly strong. This BWE only confirmed what every decent player already knew.

The problem, though, it’s that it would need a COMPLETE rework on the F5.

Avoid using maths for these kind of choices. The best thing you can do is test it yourself.

Hype.8032:

I figure those who do it completely seamlessly have it macro’d. Maybe someone else can chime in and prove me wrong.

What? It is very easy to do it, no need to macro it. I use a Razer Nostromo for playing, but the rare times I play on my laptop I can still do it without any issues.

Taobella.6597:

one good thing to remember about ice shard is it 170 range skill on an instant cast it not as flashy as a lot of other bundles but it a great finisher if you need cheap dmg.

An if we talking about effective way to use gunk you preset turret to x hp throw it on top of it force gunk to kill turret making it so thief does not hit knockdown status.

Wat

Michael.9517:

why are people still hung up about feline grace….

lets talk about the real problem for s/d acro builds…..really low damage…

You compensate to low damage by having enough survivability to make you able to dish out more damage in the long run.
If Feline Grace hadn’t been nerfed, the damage would still be low but AT LEAST you would stay alive long enough to make your damage meaningful.

You want to have damage? Take CS.
You want to have survivability? Take SA, even with S/D it is not bad.
You want to hit like a wet noodle and have bad survivability, thus harming your team performance? Go Acrobatics.

Perhaps it would be better if you told us which class/spec you play?

blitzkrieg.2451:

It’s simple, if you buff s/d dmg it overshadows d/p obviously then you’ll get the same thing you had pre-patch. Do you want that back? Because it looks like most thieves do, then you’ll just get nerfed yet again some other way. Thieves were broken pre-patch , you have to think of another way to balance it or else we’re just moving backwards or going in circles.

No, it won’t overshadow D/P and it will actually provide some build diversity to the Thief’s side. Plus, before the June 23rd patch, most thieves were running D/P 60206 with Vampirism – even Sizer was.

D/P with SA provides higher burst and better group support due to Refuge/Blinding Powder, but very weak point presence, to the point that you can’t reliably hold any point against ANY class unless you’re facing a terrible opponent with a useless build.

S/D used to provide smaller burst, worse group support, but better mobility (better access to swiftness) and better point presence. You could contest a point for a decent amount of time against any class with an S/D build before the patch.

So, all in all, it’s all there. The nerf to Fire+Air sigils made it so that S/D got nerfed even further because its burst has been lowered.

These are all FACTS, you can’t deny any of the above. If you do, you clearly don’t know how this game or the thief class works.

blitzkrieg.2451:

d/p SA overshadows s/d in damage and defensives. S/d isn’t weak, nor is the damage weak , it’s just much worse than d/p SA because it’s OP as hell at the moment.

SA is OP only in 1v1s. In group play it is pretty balanced, basically in line with all most other classes have (aside from maybe Ranger). And even in 1v1s it is less OP than PU.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

swinsk.6410:

Don’t use acro? It’s useless unless you are maybe in wvw.

That’s really not how balance works. If something sucks, you improve it. You don’t just leave it to fester.

…but what can WE do about that, aside from venting in the forums (when it has been proved that Devs rarely listen to us anyway? I mean, even though Devs said that they were looking into the old “Last Refuge” trait, it took them 3 years to actually “fix” it)?

What swinsk said is correct. For the time being just stop using Acrobatics. It is just a worthless traitline. I played yesterday against some classes and I could literally go without it and it would feel the same.

-Map is too big for the current population cap
-Too many NPCs that would disrupt “open field” guild fights
-Some NPCs are actually too “strong” (6s immob from a common Spider? U kidding me right?)
-Some buffs are too strong (Just keep the movement speed increase, it would still be really good to have)
-The minimap is very unclear, I got lost many times trying to figure out a way to reach my destination
-Too many locations are buggy when using Teleports due to “No valid path to target”. The top platform in Garrison is a clear example of this
-Shield Generator abilities are too strong: if you “rotate” 3-4 people to use a single Shield Generator, you could keep a permanent Stability Field on a zerg and 2 permanent lines on the enemy zerg. Solution: make the cooldown of the Shield Generator skills be bound to the device, and not to the player.
-Superior Trebuchets are too big

Throw Gunk is only useful in PvP to put pressure on the people staying on point when you range dps them with Shortbow. Just throw it on the point, along with Sb #4, and have fun.

Ice Stab used to be really good against Eles before patch, but now their condi cleanses are insane and can easily cleanse it. Still, it’s a good skill overall. But against Eles you probably need Improvisation to use it twice so that when they cleanse it the first time, you can reapply it soon enough. Landing that skill is the only thing that can make a Thief beat a DD Ele as of now…

A lot of Sigils need to be nerfed. Don’t understand why they only changed Air/Fire and left things like Geomancy/Doom/Leeching/Intelligence untouched…

Ausfer.1853:

blitzkrieg.2451:

Translation: “I want brainless gameplay… I don’t want to actually THINK of skills I need to dodge, I just want to dodge! Anet what are you THINKING?”

Like, I’m all for rewarding more than 4s of vigor for successfully dodging an attack (ranger only gets 5s of vigor on successfully dodging btw , and it’s in a horrible trait line) , but this ….

Smh

No, it’s more like … there’s an endless amount of situations where you can dodge an attack but it doesn’t count as a successful dodge. Dodge out of an AoE that’s just going down? You don’t get rewarded. Dodge early because you anticipated your opponent’s moves, rather than reacting to the attack? You don’t get rewarded. Dodge early because your opponent has telegraphed an attack with a large windup time? You don’t get rewarded.

This design really punishes thieves for actually playing smart. The design as it currently holds, forces you to be risky by always dodging at the last possible moment, just to make sure the game recognizes it as a successful dodge. If you play smart, by reading your opponents and how they telegraph their attacks, or by anticipating what they are about to do, and you dodge before the game recognizes it as a successful dodge (because the attack hasn’t begun yet), you are effectively punished because FG didn’t apply its vigor.

This is a terrible design.

Then, you add this on top of the other changes to FG (no instant endurance regen, only vigor, and not even a lot of it) and FG is just a terrible trait to take right now.

Pretty much this.
If a Warrior is using Hammer F1 and you dodge out of the circle, you will not get any “evaded” message. But you still dodged it.

Diru.4531:

There’s no way you guys are putting a dent in Amazon’s CDN. The test build probably isn’t available yet and you’re all just downloading a small 404 response a gazillion times.

:3

This is a part of the email I received:
“To ensure that you’re ready to participate when the test begins, we recommend that you begin downloading the new client at least one day before the test.”

Since the test is tomorrow, and the email says “at least ONE day before the test”, I’d assume the client is already up and available for download.

Are you sure Guild Wars 2 uses Amazon’s CDN anyway?

Can I join the club of the 2KB/s?

I’ll say this here as well: even if they made Vigor last 300s with no ICD, it would still be a garbage trait in a garbage traitline.

Phil.8901:

Cynz.9437:

hihey.1075:

Even if they made the Vigor on Feline Grace to have 300s duration with no ICD, Feline Grace would still remain a totally lackluster trait compared to what it was before, and to what it SHOULD be now that everything got buffed.

Tbh, i think thief weapon sets in general need to be reworked so all of them have 5 useful spells and not just d/p. That way they don’t need to heavily rely on one trait to be viable.

Honestly the old s/d style was really brainless with a huge quantity of dodge.

For example I’d put on evade skill on 3th autoattack sword chain (basically like ranger GS), or an endurance gain like 2th dagger chain (always on sword).

This gives to S/d different sources to gain endurance (besides vigor) and promote a more interesting gameplay insead of gaining endurance with a passive trait

It’s only an example but i think the right way to make s/d viable again and promote a better gameplay is giving to him an ACTIVE alterantive source to resore endurance, not passive like the old feline grace.

The problem there was ONLY because of S/D. Any other weaponset was 100% fine with Feline Grace, because you had clear times in which you could be hit/bursted.
The problem was only S/D because you could chain FS all the time and you would be virtually unhittable by anything because of its lack of vulnerability frames. This became even worse when they made FS “spammable”, thus making bad thieves staying alive even longer because they could spam it 4 times in a row.

Solution: introduce vulnerability frames to Flanking Strike.

I’ve always disliked the S/D playstyle. Everyone here knows what I think about 20066 S/D. But this nerf affected ALL other builds. I had my funniest times as a thief when I was running 20066 PD or 20066 SP, but now those builds are just a joke, compared to what every class has now.

Cynz.9437:

hihey.1075:

Even if they made the Vigor on Feline Grace to have 300s duration with no ICD, Feline Grace would still remain a totally lackluster trait compared to what it was before, and to what it SHOULD be now that everything got buffed.

Tbh, i think thief weapon sets in general need to be reworked so all of them have 5 useful spells and not just d/p. That way they don’t need to heavily rely on one trait to be viable.

It’s not just one trait honestly.
Pre-patch Acro, gave the thief:
Vigor (due to 6s of Vigor every 15s thanks to Withdraw);
Condi Cleanse (Pain Response);
Boon Duration (which resulted in perma Swiftness and perma Vigor, coupled with the Trickery traitline);
A GOOD source of damage increase (10% when endurance is not full);
A nice third trait: Fleet of Foot (which would be AWESOME now thanks to all the Weakness spammed everywhere), Power of Inertia(which paired well with all the vigor+feline grace), Assassin’s Reward (same as now) or Hard to Catch (the new version is still buggy though, as you will still get interrupted – IE: it’s not like Ranger’s Shared Anguish);
Feline Grace.

Now you have no Boon Duration, “weaker” Vigor (which EVEN with Endless Stamina provides less endurance regen than other classes), less Vigor because you can’t give up Pain Response; a terrible choice of Master traits; a “meh” choice of Grandmaster traits (even Don’t Stop it’s “meh”, because it only really work against Thieves with Panic Strike. The Immob from other classes could easily be “ignored” with Sw#2, SB#5 or any other teleport.

You can’t really ask for better skills on weaponsets when an entire traitline has been NERFED to the ground, and literally EVERYTHING else in this game has been buffed to extreme.
Even people that use S/D right now don’t take Acrobatics because it’s pure kitten…

Even if they made the Vigor on Feline Grace to have 300s duration with no ICD, Feline Grace would still remain a totally lackluster trait compared to what it was before, and to what it SHOULD be now that everything got buffed.

Kayji.4390:

A build I have been having some more success in is this one:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYVl0MhenYpTw7JQ/EHwE1+CWuB1HGxRboTgAIDA-TJBBwAAOFAoLDA5JAsc/BA

Still can’t beat PU mesmers or cele eles (though with the latter I have been putting up a better fight) but other than that, it has alot of HP and has the ability to burst if timed right. Also I found that No Quarters is enough to makes up for lack of fury on runes while along side Ferocious Strikes, Practiced Tolerance, and Wurm runes make up for the lack of ferocity on Barbarian’s Amulet (funny because Wurm runes give more ferocity than Rage runes with this setup). Also timing Flanking strikes can burst ur foes if u do a steal—>CnD—>tactical strike combo. And the trickster trait has given me a bit more heal while giving me the condi cleanse needed to deal with Condi builds. However, this has only been used in PuG games because I’m a PuG type of guy and don’t know how it would fare in high rank play. ANy skilled thief care to give this build a wurl and tell us how it goes?

Accuracy Sigil is bad, take Fire or Blood.
Bountiful Theft is a MUST for any competitive scenario, even though against certain classes it is not that useful (especially against Necro or Engi).
Ferocity is the WORST offensive stat. Increasing Power is ALWAYS better, so Wurm Runes are kind of wasted. If you want to do damage, take Power Runes→ Vampirism/Pack are the best choice here.

This is a tip that only very few people know, and only works against thieves/mesmers(with daze mantra):
When you are attempting to go into stealth with a BP+HS, IF your enemy has Steal/Daze mantra ready, use Headshot to hit him before using Heartseeker.
The Headshot will daze the enemy AND blind him, making it impossible for him to interrupt your Heartseeker. This can also work on Warriors though.
Getting interrupted during a BP+HS Combo is one of the worst things that can happen as a DP thief, and will usually force a cd (Shadowstep/Shadow Refuge) due to the fact that you will be left with little to no initiative. Ensuring that you complete that Combo no matter what is very important, and using Headshot before Heartseeker is the safest way of doing this.

Then where would the handicap be if you played one handed? :>

Mesmer clones maybe?

I think Feline Grace should be restored to the old version. Vigor should stay as it is now. Pain Response is still needed, and the nerf to Withdraw is reasonable so there won’t be issues with perma-vigor thieves. The Grandmaster Traits are all terrible, but if they buffed Assassin Reward to 100hp per initiative I think acro builds could become a good attrition set. They should also make the Swiftness on dodge be 50% longer.

I literally see no reason to EVER spec into acrobatics right now.

The nerf to Acrobatics affected all Thief’s builds. I successfully played every weaponset with Acrobatics prior to the June 23rd patch (PP, SP, SD, DP, PD,+SB), now I really cannot play anything with that without feeling that it would be the same if I went with no traitline at all.

Plus it’s not just the nerfs to Acrobatics, but it’s the fact that EVERY other class has been buffed to ridiculous amounts, with passive traits kicking in 24/7 to save their lives.

EDIT: I forgot to say that Guarded Initiation is a horrible trait. It is highly unlikely that a thief stays above 90% HP with a build which includes Acrobatics. Plus, if we look at the ways of applying Weakness, you can easily realise that that very attack that applies Weakness to the thief will most likely bring him below 90% HP.
They should rework this trait and make it so that the ICD is increased to 5s and the health threshold should be above 50% HP.

Seconded. This bug has killed me many times. Being unable to dodge and being forced to have Shadowstep ready when I use this skill is just plain stupid.

Covis.6037:

Bacon.4918:

The June 23rd patch undid two years of balancing. The game was far superior before these changes.

Look Back, Dodge, Jump

Executioner, Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft.

Only time I would go for Improvisation over Executioner is in “tryhard” duels. Maybe in a 2v2 against certain comps… but in a team based situation, Exe>>>Improv.

StickerHappy.8052:

Wow people here critiquing the thief for missing steals lol.

Every thief that misses Steal more than once in the same duel needs to blame himself.

The only time I would call it “fair” to miss a Steal is if the thief was fighting an “old” S/D 20066 thief. Anything other than that, and missing a Steal is a clear mistake.

(<— thief main)

Of course, this has nothing to do with how easy it is to stay alive right now if you’re playing Mesmer. Reduce PU to 66% more stealth and make Blind on Shatter dodgeable, as right now this cancer is polluting too many game modes.

You missed A LOT of Steals. He has GS, so only use F1 when he is on GS.
Aside from this, that spec is definitely in need of some shaving.

I honestly think the most balanced meta was the previous one.
With only a couple fixes here and there, the game would have been PERFECT, PvP wise.

Dunno if I like it or not.
Against zerk classes it’s a horrible trait now. Cripple+Weakness really hurt now.
Against Condi… I dont know, but overall I think it’s worse than before. For some reason I feel way more vulnerable.