Guild Wars 2

I was running Centaur runes when i was playing shatter mesm back in the days. It may not be scholar damage wise but the main power stat makes it not that bad and the swiftness uptime is pretty nice.

Sviel.7493:

@ich

By slow, do you mean the new condition that Revenants have? I’m pretty sure that’s the name, but sometimes people use that for Cripple. At any rate, that’s a good condition for a non-damage impact but it might be too powerful to apply in an AoE unless it was a really long CD.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toxic_Unveiling_Volley seems to be a good candidate : long cd and meant to “reverse” a fight ? I would add a 5s slow here.

Sviel.7493:

With Bulwark, I was thinking a really narrow area that would cover just the siege and user. Someone directly behind would also benefit since the projectile would be destroyed. What kind of abuse cases are you thinking of?

Put 2 ballistas as close as possible in the corridor leading to hills lord and chain the bulwark.

I would add Slow to the #3 (or the poison+reveal shot) to make a bigger non damaging impact.

I don’t agree with the Bulwark since i feel it could be exploited. Maybe a immunity/reflections to siege & projectile only for the siege and the user. Or add a disabling effect to a shot. Or add a mortar-like shot that deal high siege but low player damage so you can use that to clear AC / proxy cata and open up more placements.

Else +1

Traveler runes with Dsh = waste. You are perma swiftness with dash (spam your dodges on traveling and you will quickly cap your swiftness at 1minute duration). IMS bonus from Traveler doesn’t stack with swiftness unless you get chilled/crippled but dash take care of that anyways. Better take a power orientated rune like Pack / Scholar / Daredevil / Vampirism / Scrapper that waste stats for a IMS boost you don’t need.

If you are taking Potent Poison only for poison coverage, I think you are wasting the awesome potential of Impro (or Executionner) by not applying your poison at the correct moment (or don’t fully use your AA chain).

I’m not a fan of Impact Strike at all in a d/d setup, BV seems mandatory but I’m not playing d/d often so maybe another thief more into that set can confirm or not. Impact Strike or not, Brawler’s Tenacity isn’t worth it at all since it only works on IS. I would go either Havoc for moar damage (especially if you went Impro so your damage isn’t too low) or WS for sustain (that trait is very powerful since you can perma weakness with it and Lotus poison making your foe doing no damage).

Assassin Signet over SS is very risky but if you are not alone that shouldn’t be that such a loss if you aim at high burst (take Executionner and Havoc in such case, modifiers are what make thief a damage beast). If you want more sustained damage & survivabily, drop that signet and take SS or BD and go either Impro/Havoc (i would take that) or Exec/WS.

Bridget Morrigan.1752:

Honestly, imo, there probably isn’t an algorithm that would do this as well as a human being would. It probably needs to have someone looking at a variety of factors—including play hours (I wouldn’t take it out of the equation by any means) and then making decisions based on not just leveling by tier, but on leveling all the tiers, in a slow and gentle manner over time. It probably wouldn’t cost any more money than it does already, with all the meetings and changing and developing of new algorithms.

Anet would not do it by hand because at every decision taken people will say Anet is unfair (see linkings). I (and I think Anet too) prefer having something that treats every server the same way instead of something that will open more the gates of tears in that forum.

I agree that we should think of another metrics to add so the algorithm is more accurate. To be honnest i don’t think the raw number of unique players is a good metrics to add because it can add toxicity towards casual players, maybe count only those that play more that 1h/day on average ? We must keep in mind that Anet wants to measure player input (aka the server ressources) into the server not the result (which are measured by PPT & PPK).

You can DC on purpose (i.e. unplug cable) to simulate a DC and come back quick. Anet has no way to tell if a DC is an abuse or not and treat all of them equally.

Scykosix.7836 is right, if you log out / DC, you get a penalty of maximum bleed out time + respawn timer to prevent log out / log in abuse which is way faster on fast computer. See here

The penalty is indeed stored in the server (security reason) and sent back as you come back.

@OP:
Idea-1

Tbh i’m happy with the state of steal atm. It fits the theme of thief and is customizable via traitline (stealth with SA, raw damage/heal with DA, plenty of “tricks” with Trickery, dodges with DD [should maybe move to Accro for purity of purpose but that would be a disaster balance wise]) which is imho a good design. The stolen skill is pretty cool in pvp/wvw but rather boring in pve most of the time.

The only problems I have with steal are the dependance of Trickery (which is by design the profession mechanic traitline [like BM for ranger pet] so that’s kinda normal but frustrating) and the “obstruction” bug.

Idea 2
The venom stays for X whatever you do is OP (think basi or poison) so an icd is needed but then it’s kinda a nerf to the current system.
I don’t like the initiative cost because of the sharing mechanic (how would you scale the ini factor on shared stacks ? does the thief lose ini when shared ?) and the base concept of the game that an AA should be free of any ressources.

Idea 3
If it can give each set a clear role why not but I doubt very much. I like very much the fact that #3 is a combinaison of both set. The “spam skill problem” on dual wield is that the combinaison of both weapons are often akward.
S/P : the #3 is a raw power offensive skill on the combinaison of an in/out power mainhand (S) and an utility offhand (P)
S/D : the #3 is a utility power skill on the combinaison of an in/out power mainhand (S) and an offensive offhand (D)
P/P : the #3 is a raw power offensive skill on the combinaison of a condi mainhand (P) and an utility offhand (P)
D/D : the #3 is a condi skill on the combinaison of an raw power offensive mainhand (D) and an offensive offhand (D)

So when you dual wield, your #3 is often out-of-sync and you often spam it (P/P, D/D condi) or don’t use it for the original purpose (D/D power). Like babazhook.6805 (I can’t +1 his post enough) said, D/P is strong because “because all of the skills have a very good reason to be used in a given encounter”, the set has synergy with itself, has tools to do stuff and a clear purpose.

@martin.1653
I have mixed feelings about the stealth button. I really like the stealthless play on thief (playing DA/CS/Tr S/P pre-HoT then DA/DD/Tr dash staff) and I think there is already too much stealth in the game (especially engie & druids).

But I see your point about stealth availability and maybe a cooldown + ini cost + cast time f3 can be added OR make a targetless (I don’t know if the tech exists yet and I don’t want to have the rule “on miss” but on “no target” so it’s on purpose, we should never be rewarded for failing) steal apply stealth on self (you blew an important cooldown after all and since many of our traits affects steal it’s a huge commitment for a ~3s stealth [+ buff from SA]).

I can’t help but think it’s a bad idea in the end. Maybe making SR and SA not to be as bad as they are now could be enough.

@Zintrothen.1056
@Kocoff.7582
All I see is a bunch of random buffs/nerfs without purpose. I don’t specially agree or disagree with them, they are just irrevelant to this thread.

Please describe me the 8 skills a thief can use in less than 0,25s (you can assume quickness if you want).

What buffs did you use for your benchmark ?

Swamurabi.7890:

ich.7086:

Stand The Wall.6987:

ich.7086:

@Kaiser
Don’t think on “players” count but on hours played count.
10 on 10 hours > 25 on 4 hours did you ever heard of nightcap or coverage wars ?

its really 10 for 10 hours and 62 for 10 hours when equating for hours

10 over 10
25 over 4 = 25×2.5 over 4×2.5 = 62 over 10

You need a reality check if you think 62 people playing 10 hours equates 25 players only playing 4 hours in terms of hours played.

I think he forgot his units.
10 players for 10 hours = (10 players)(10 hours) = 100 player-hours
25 players for 4 hours = (25 players)(4 hours)= 100 player-hours

I agree with your calculus but i don’t see the relation with Stand The Wall’s calculus.

Stand The Wall.6987:

ich.7086:

@Kaiser
Don’t think on “players” count but on hours played count.
10 on 10 hours > 25 on 4 hours did you ever heard of nightcap or coverage wars ?

its really 10 for 10 hours and 62 for 10 hours when equating for hours

10 over 10
25 over 4 = 25×2.5 over 4×2.5 = 62 over 10

You need a reality check if you think 62 people playing 10 hours equates 25 players only playing 4 hours in terms of hours played.

@SkyShroud

I know I don’t have to quote & reply at everything but I think the way you see the new algorithm is plain wrong.

2nd statment : Population balance is a community problem. The lock from Anet is just a way to limit the imbalance, queue system is also a system that prevent a too high imbalance. The system doesn’t make people move (apart linking which are move according to the metrics to lower the imbalance) : it’s the community that move from its own will.

For the strawman, you put a logical connector “Thus” so it’s pretty much fine to examinate parts one by one and then the logical connecter. When looking at X Then Y, you have to look at X, then Y and then the Then if X and Y seems fine.

3&4 statement :
I’m trying to give an explanation, I’m still asking to open up reply if i’m wrong (am I ?).
The old algorithm was the number of uniques players. But that metrics was too raw because it doesn’t make a difference between someone who just come and do its daily, an average prime wvwer and an hardcore player. We all agree that thoses types of players doesn’t contribute at the same level. One key difference is the time spent in wvw. That’s why Anet choose this metrics. It’s only better. Before 1 casual = 1 hardcore so if you want to stay competitive you have to make casual leaves so hardcore have more slots. Now since 1 casual = 0,2 hardcore (i.e. the casual took 30 mins to make its daily and the hardcore spent 5 hours) it doesn’t matter as much. And the disparity between the casual heavy server and non-casual heavy server is normal. The non-casual heavy don’t need more transfers, they are fine, it’s the casual heavy that needs more activity. I looked for the categorical imperative and I disagree strongly with your conclusion. A system contradict this when an logical action under this system when universalized breaks one of its core concept. I don’t see anything like this here.

5 statement :
. I agree with the very flaw. I just pointed the fact that the same argument could be used for the old algorithm (i.e national vacation on FR/DE/SP servers). There are reasons for people not playing WvW at all and playing again (old system) as they are reasons for people playing less and coming back playing more WvW (new system).

@Liston

If you got the most hours played in WvW and get steamrolled by another servers that could mean that you are either bad (on average) or have coverage issue or they teamed up against you or any combinaison. I don’t play NA so I can’t tell but having more hours played means you have more players on average so on average and assuming same average skill you should be winning or at least not being destroyed.

@SkyShroud
I totally agree, coverage is one of the hardest problem of this metrics (it was one of the former too) but i fail to see any elegant solution for this (cf my first reply to you at statement 4). Remember that queues aren’t accounted in that playtime since time spent in queues outside WvW aren’t likely to be counted (EotM isn’t counted so i fail to see why Anet should count someone who afk at LA waiting for its queue).

@Kaiser
Don’t think on “players” count but on hours played count.
10 on 10 hours > 25 on 4 hours did you ever heard of nightcap or coverage wars ?

SkyShroud.2865:

Under this new algorithm, some servers that were Medium or High become Very High, big changes yes. Some servers that were Full become Very High. Some some servers that were Very High become full. The problem is what comes after that.

Anet changed metrics so expected result.

SkyShroud.2865:

As mentioned in that thread. There are concerns about how this new algorithm can possibly make gameplay unbalance. Before I go any further, I need to highlight that I advocate for population or gameplay balance, I am not scoring system supporter. And of course, I am doing this for personal benefits but I am sure my personal benefits will coincide with some other servers, population and gameplay balance.

The algorithm is just a way Anet measure things and take decision from. It won’t solve any problem imbalance by itself (which is a community problem) but only but barriers to help community to reach the balance. If Anet take care of population balance, they will lock all transfers, move people to even the population (with good metrics ofc) and then you will have to ask for moving so you moving doesn’t create imbalance. But nobody want that with good reasons.

SkyShroud.2865:

Moving on, the concerns mentioned are pretty simple. Given that gameplay hours are used to determine population size, it is easy to assume that there will be servers with fundamentally more players than others just because of it.

At any given time we will have servers with more players than others, unless you have ANet moving players agaisnt their will. The algorithm only change the way dev measures population, not the population itself.

SkyShroud.2865:

Thus, there will be likely scenarios where at some timing, the lower gameplay hours servers will have bigger numbers than the higher gameplay hours. In this scenario, can it really be called balanced?

Explain because that makes no sense for me. The metrics is on average so at a certain timezone, a 8000 gameplay hours servers will have more players on fields that the 9000 gameplay hours server. And ? We had the same thing with the former metric (unique player) where a 700 players server can have more people at night that the 1000 players server. So nothing new and nothing wrong apart the fact that the metric doesn’t account for timezone which is a valid point but very hard to fix (how do you separate timezone ? do you need to classify players by timezone in order to allow them to move or not ? many questions hard to answer).

SkyShroud.2865:

Moving on, the next scenario is population cap. Given that population cap is most likely a hard limit and accounting for the nature of players, there will be likely scenarios where the lower gameplay hours servers start to put in more hours regardless of what reasons. Naturally, the system will put this server full but what about the already full server due to higher gameplay hours? The higher gameplay hours servers will not be able to compete in comparable numbers and will have no ways to get more due to the status.

It’s the very same with the old metrics, if you have 100 players that didn’t played last week (because reasons) and that server open to replace those 100 players. What happen next week when the 100 “retired” and the 100 new want to play ? You got 100 players more than the cap.

The thing is that participation is pretty much slow to move and unless purposefully tanking (which can already be done) this scenario is very unlikly to happen.

SkyShroud.2865:

Generally speaking, the new algorithm is questionable.

I agree but not for the reasons you said. I find this metric way more meaningful that the former the only problem I have with this one are present with the former (akf players/trolls/abuses).

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

As for the mesmer only explanation I seem to find is it’s actually a special attack or considered an unblockable attack. Makes sense for a player mez or one that creates clones. Here it just seems like their picking the most difficult mobs/attacks that most minimize mitigation, upping their health and damage, and then saying there that’s more difficult. Sure one or two attacks are fine like the Chaos Storm in Orr, but not every other attack then it’s just a cluster of crap.

Beam is also found on staff auto for druid too. They are many attacks like necro scepter
that are ranged and not a projectile and have the very same mitigation ways than the beam.

The problem is that with “one attack per minute”, there is no pressure to go defensive and on glass canon the mobs are too squishy to even vaguely threaten a player. So you have to up the mob hp to prevent them from being 2-shot and its damage output to make him a bit threatening. And yeah it adds difficulty, but it’s good difficulty because i’m not bored to death when fighting mobs.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

What is the point of the Jade even being here? I’ve done the story and it still doesn’t explain why the Jade are working with the White Mantle especially given their story of hating anything and everything.

Basic lore : jade constructs were made by mursaats, the White Mantle gods, centuries ago and were left to abandon when the race went near extinction. White Mantle only managed to reactivate them due to the increase of magic following Mordremoth’s death.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

The champion Bow is beyond difficult, it can reliably down a player every ranged attack string.

If you juste circle around him, you are safe.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

Even the construct in Ember Bay isn’t that over the top and it’s a Legendary. It’s more difficult than the Bloodstone Wyvern in Verdant Brink another legendary. Even with my necro dying several times there is a relatively close waypoint and repair. That small ledge and it’s flame hurt, but when your blindsided by a electric wyvern avoiding it well you’re just screwed.

Different bosses having different difficulties i don’t see any problems here.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

I haven’t even gotten into the the most over the top difficult area in the whole map. I don’t even have to name it and anyone who’s been there instantly knows which one it is.

If you mean the pack of veteran/elite spirits, you aren’t supposed to solo them. You can solo one or two at the same time, maybe more but i didn’t bother to try hard.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

They really need to update other player classes with more accessible mitigation. Take for instance my Guardian vs my Necro. My Guardian has a couple active skills that can mitigate conditions and a few traits that can mitigate these. Yet my necro can take one though I recommend two traits and focus the rest on damage and mitigate the conditions without me wasting skill slots, CC (let’s be honest minions are the best form of open world crowd control, you don’t need to do anything they just do it on their own), and sacrificing damage. It’s not even a comparison the amount of damage I can wield against large groups or single target yet laugh off damage (with the two traits) and conditions.

Necro can be very tanky with its high hp pool and the huge amount of lifesteal. Each classes soak up damage in a different way, don’t expect to play your necro as you play a guardian.

TorquedSoul.8097:

ich.7086:

Caliburn.1845:

It also occurs to me that we have seen a downturn in activity in NA T1 in recent months, T1 is often the least active tier in NA by kills/deaths(presumably also ranks). We could reach a point under the new algorithm where servers are far more likely to be locked below T1 then within T1 itself.

That makes no sense at all, it’s the server population algorithm which has been updated not the matchmaking one …

It makes sense if considering actual WvW related activity like caps and kills … BG, Mag, and TC are all on the bottom half of the activity level chart.

Read with me :

We could reach a point under the new algorithm where servers are far more likely to be locked below T1 then within T1 itself.

What puts server into Tx ? Glicko and matchmaking algorithms. Not the new algorithm which computes a server activity. This is what i was pointing out.

On the whole topic now :

Your data is just an another way to measure activity which has flaws and strengths as the way Anet measures it.

You are “locked” into T1 when your glicko rating is high enough and this doesn’t consider any form of server activity.

If you got a full map ktrain that just farm camp with full boosters againts a full t3 map that keeps ticking with like half of the defensors sitting on AC sup guess what : the ktrain server activity is higher (with both your and Anet’s metrics) but its PPT gain (thus glicko rating) is lower than the turtling server. The ktrain train server will get locked before the turling one (if that difference in behaviour is represented in average playtime). And guess what ? It’s perfectly fine.

Let me explain. The goal of wvw is to gain warscore. Servers are a black box that convert “player activity” in “warscore” (where warscore increase with player activity in ways that depend of server/coverage/…). The locking algorithm is just a cap in the input in that black box to prevent the “stack MOAR” mentality and tell players, ok now you got enough players to compete so stop complaining and git gud.

So let’s go back to the low activity in T1. Last time i checked, when a T2 server (with higher activity) goes into T1 it goes destroyed. That means that the T1 server output more warscore than the T2 (so they deserved to stay in T1) and at a lower activity (according to your charts we don’t know Anet’s numbers). They are more efficient than the T2 server. For the T2 to be locked into T1 has to output the same warscore than T1 server and at a activity lower than the lock thereshold (you can gain people/activity but not too much) : aka they need to play better (in terms of warscore).

So what’s wrong ?

Caliburn.1845:

It also occurs to me that we have seen a downturn in activity in NA T1 in recent months, T1 is often the least active tier in NA by kills/deaths(presumably also ranks). We could reach a point under the new algorithm where servers are far more likely to be locked below T1 then within T1 itself.

That makes no sense at all, it’s the server population algorithm which has been updated not the matchmaking one …

Maybe because moar numbers ins’t always the solution and locking means that you have to git gud ?

If JQ destroy SBI with less participation that means that either are overall better ? (or coverage issue i don’t know NA enough to tell). Isn’t that good ?

Wow such a quick answer.

Thank you very much

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Yak’s Bend is among the highest worlds in terms of play hours and ranks gained, which is the primary metric we use to determine which worlds we lock each week.

Just for curiosity : do rank gains/ hours played in EotM count towards this metric (since the player from that server could have played in “main” wvw if there were no queues) ?

Bound can be interrupted by the “do not cross” line like staff 5 on guard and maybe by shocking aura when you steal into it while you are dodging.

Karma / BoH / dungeons tokens are afaik the way most people did their first exotic set.

Aury.1367:

Bandwagoning is caused by the linkings.

Bandwagoning exists since launch. Linking only allows Anet to adjust server pop without forcing people to transfer.

Zenith.7301:

A support weaponset you’re stuck in for 10 seconds, meaning if you use a weapon for for staff 3 and 5 because the other skills and the auto are garbage, you’re sitting in 10 seconds of doing virtually no pressure whatsoever.

Like thief being locked out of his main weaponset when he switch to shortbow for mobility. Or a druid locked out of LB because he is on staff and he needs a quick CC/Burst. Or a war stuck in GS when needed a shield bloc. Like in fact every other classes in the game except engie ?

Zenith.7301:

Conveniently all of the thief support setups also include massive autoattack damage. Whether it is the blind, weakening, or evasion in the thief staff, or the black powder, headshot support utilities included in thief weapons. Dagger, sword, staff all have support/utility features. If you want to include shortbow, it’s one of the better ranged weapons in the game.

I don’t think we have the same definition of support. Support is something that increase your allies prowness. Thief support consisted of : blast spam with SB, stealth, venomshare and a few buffs with steal.

I lol’ed @shortbow.

Zenith.7301:

It’s so dishonest of you to even sit here and pretend that a thief understands what it is to sacrifice damage for support/utility.

Roll a thief and face people that understand how the thief works.

Zenith.7301:

Revenant needs staff for block/CC, when thieves get evasion and CC built into their main damaging weapons.

Rev got evasion (sword #3) and block (shield #5) or CC (axe #5) in their main damaging set (sword/shield or sword/axe depending of preferences).

Zenith.7301:

What’s more, revenant staff skills cost outrageous amounts of energy on top of having now lengthy cooldowns unlike thief whose initiative management is far mroe easily regenerated,

A staff thief skill bar costs 16 ini aka 16 seconds of recovery. A rev staff skill bar costs 55 energy aka 11 seconds of recovery.

Zenith.7301:

but the costs are so cheap you can head shot or vault three times in a row.

If rev got no cd, he could use SoTM 4 times in a row starting from 50%, not even speaking of if starting from 100%. It’s not the low costs, it’s the lack of cd that allows things like the legendary poledancer or headshot+PI spam.

The thing is : if someone 3 vault you, he is naked. If a rev dump all its energy, he legend swap. As I said, totally different ressources design leading to different strengths and weaknesses.

Rev staff was not meant to be a dps weapon, it’s a support weaponset. Comparing thief staff dps and rev staff dps has the same value as comparing fire auto and water auto on staff ele.

Reverence.6915:

Surge of the Mists was nerfed for the exact same reason. I don’t see why Vault can’t get the same treatment.

Old SoTM did mobility, damage, cc and evade.
Vault does mobility, damage and evade.
Now SoTM does mobility, cc and evade.

See a pattern ?

Zenith.7301:

Yeah, clearly spamming headshot promotes healthier gameplay when you don’t have to choose between utility and damage lolololol.

That dev decision was a total bait and switch and one of the worst design decisions in the game as we now see from the way head shot and weakening strike works out. But keep rationalizing your thief however you want.

Headshot+PI spam punish spammer in every case. If you spam againt a headshot+PI spammer, you are punished. If you don’t, he is punished because it dumps initiative so fast since it costs 4 ini. I think punishing spam promotes healthy gameplay. And ofc, if he isn’t spamming but interrupting key skills, he is rewarded for the skill needed to interrupt key skills.

And you merged headshot with PI, headshot is a skill that follows the ini = utility (here utility is daze) rule (headshot damage is trash) and PI is a trait (not subject to the ini = utility rule) that reward interrupt like all of those (power block on zerk should do about the same as PI if it crits, warrior confusion can do more damage too and both classes have plenty of interrupts available).

Wtf you have with weakening strikes, it’s a trait there is no relationship with the dev decision which target the weapon skills. If you speak about weakening charge (#2 staff), I think you picked the worst skill in the staff which one of the few (if not the only) use case is to be combo’ed with steal.

Thief design is basicly an unfair fighter that can’t take the battle heat but use its active defenses and mobility to go in and out and is highly prone to get killed in well-timed burst (just look at the original design of Hard to Catch). By making ini = utility that means that if you want to make damage (aka AA) you have to use your ini to either punish people for being bad (PI/Vault) or lock them to prevent retailation (blind/daze/stun) or out-mobility (gap closer/stealth/port). Once you understand that, you understand how to counter a thief. But ofc you can try to fight against classes withtout rationalizing and thus don’t understand what you fight but that’s not the most effective way to win.

Zenith.7301:

Revenant chares energy cost on weapons, class mechanic, and utilities and elites, but somehow thief gets to be that special class that pays no resource for damage, no resource for utilities, is immune to the cooldown increase effects of chill or interrupt traits.

Rev got an energy reset on legend swap, thief got no class mechanic reset.
Rev got no energy management trait nor skill, thief got some (and some of them are nearly mandatory).
Rev can buffer energy, thief can’t.
Rev has 2 utility bars, thief has one.
There are completly different designs, either having strengths and weaknesses. Apples and orange.

Chill works on utility skills. Utility skills have the same ressource has any other class of the game except rev : time.
Thief pays a ressource for damage : its cooldowns and initiative. But not to actually do damage (most of the time utility skill does not damage at all) but to survive the counterpressure because as a thief you can’t expect to AA someone and get away with it.
Interrupting a thief weapon skill still deplete ini, the global cooldwon applies while other class doesn’t suffer from this. Let’s say you interrupt a scrapper hammer #5. He got kitten cd on that skill but can use everything else not on cooldown. But if you interrupt a Black Power, thief got a 6s cooldown which can prevent him to use some skills. The only interrupt effect thief is immune to is the cooldown increase one.

Anet doesn’t consider price as a problem. The inhability to farm it was the problem for Anet.

Dash DA Staff (aka no stealth no poledance no PI no accro) thief here,

Zenith.7301:

STAFF AUTO DOES MORE DPS THAN VAULT, THAT IS ABSURD. Thief should have to spend initiative to do DPS, those autoattack buffs are beyond the pale, an initiative free attack should never eclipse initiative spenders.

No, the devs said they don’t want to ini = damage equation but the ini = utility (aka rupt/burst/port/blind/immo/whatever). ini = damage thats promote spam (see p/p) while ini = utility promotes healthier gameplay.

On AA trading thief is “strong” but I fail to see any decent player tradding AA with a thief without using any instant burst (guard), blocks (engie), immu (war), PBAoE (necro), condi bomb (mesmer) [do i really need to finish the list?] that forces the thief to create distance.

On the main topic :

And tbh the whole “stealth” thing makes me laugh, even on a stealthless build i got qq whispers about me being a stealth coward that should stop playing a chess class. Engie, druid or mesmer stealth more than me and tbh i think druid has an higher stealth uptime than most d/p thief i see in the openfield.

If you really want, you can just begin to run away when he stealth up, mobility has a cost and stealth + mobility = ressources-less thief.

BP + HS costs a huge chunk of ini (that a thief doesn’t have if he spam that “OP” headshot or that “OP” vault) and has counterplay but people are too used to spam their cc and get them dodged instead of using it at key moment. Interrupting a HS or standing into the BP (reveals 99% of the time) = thief becoming a free kill with a decent follow up.

As a final note : thief isn’t meant to play fair.

Zenith.7301:

There’s a reason only warrior, thief, and mesmer can run berzerker stats in pvp. They’re the only classes with easy to land burst and accompanying strong cc/immunities; they’re also the only classes with remotely decent disengage, as dragonhunters are super immobile and cannot escape, and so are necromancers and eles whose ridiculous nerf to ride the lightning killed them

Last time I have checked thiefs run marauder and mesmers run sage or carrion.
A thief running zerk has 11khp and is unable to +1 against a DH or scrapper because it just dies from cleave.
A mesmer running zerk is a one trick pony.

Disengaging can be done by nearly every class. Most of the time people don’t even bother chasing you because that’s pointless when the disengager know what to do.

Astralporing.1957:

ich.7086:

People that only farm liquid gold to buy things instead of actually farming things only increase prices. Sure it’s a rational economic thing to do since you have the best output/time ratio but it create low supply/high demand on basic things which quickly inflate in prices because people are wealthy.

And? It’s still the reasonable thing to do. And inflation happening is not on players’ but on Anet, and it’s devs that would need to do something about it.

Yeah it’s still the “reasonable” thing to do but doing that only makes the situation worse for everyone. Leather will rise until reach a price where it’s better to farm it directly than farming gold and buying on TP and i see nothing wrong on that.

No. Inflation is not because Anet. It’s an inherent mecanism with a free market and MMO economy. All liquid gold farmers contribute nothing in supply, increase the demand and decrease the gold value. Yeah, totally Anet’s fault.

Astralporing.1957:

ich.7086:

Leather isn’t just worth enough for people going specificly for it at its current drop rate but enough for people to whine about.

As long as the leather farms are so inefficient compared to gold ones, it will never reach that point (because if the inflation were to advance so far, TP market would require intervention long before it might actually happen).

And why the TP market would require intervention for something the players did on purpose ? I failed to see why Anet should “fix” something when players are just hurting themselves. The game isn’t made for farm, leather (like any others mat) is the kind of thing you gather more quickly on actually playing the game than farming. The new farm is a just a way for Anet to tell you : you wanted a farm here it is, stop complaining. I really beginning to think that Anet should nerf gold incomes to make people think about their behaviour.

Astralporing.1957:

Obtena.7952:

If you want to maximize your T6, you convert.

No. If you want to maximize your t6, you farm gold and buy them. Converting is a loss.

It’s not a loss gold wise.

TorsoReaper.8530:

ich.7086:

TL;DR : l2math ?

Exactly, L2Math. Spirit shard using thick leather promote is worth 88s 55c.

But the goal is to get leather, not gold.

Promotion is obviously the not optimal way to convert its spirit shards to gold but the most efficient way to convert its spirit shard to leather.

TorsoReaper.8530:

ich.7086:

TL;DR : people should farm more leather and promote more instead of complaining.

TLDR you don’t understand economics. Nobody is going to waste spirit shards on something as dumb as converting leather. Spirit shards are a limited input and people will try to get the highest gold per shard they can. You can convert spirit shards into something else at 1.5 to 2.5 gold per shard and then pay the TP tax, and go out and buy the leather.

Let’s say a spirit shard worth 2,5g.
If you buy the output leather it costs you about 10/11 gold so the worth of 4/5 spirit shard by TP. The recipe costs only 1 spirit shard. So it’s more efficient in spirit shard to promote.

TL;DR : l2math ?

TorsoReaper.8530:

I don’t know why so many people on this forum are shocked when gamers act in a rational economic manner.

People that only farm liquid gold to buy things instead of actually farming things only increase prices. Sure it’s a rational economic thing to do since you have the best output/time ratio but it create low supply/high demand on basic things which quickly inflate in prices because people are wealthy. But more people farm only gold and less people actually farm the mats, worse the situation is for the gold farmers and better is for the mat farmer. Leather isn’t just worth enough for people going specificly for it at its current drop rate but enough for people to whine about.

Fremtid.3528:

According to the wiki promotion only outputs 10. So it’s a loss.

10 is the minimum output see this (output quantity : 10-40 on the recipe) , I took the average from here

l2wiki :)

I won’t speak about the buffs because i don’t ele enough to make valid points but on the why the buff is asked.

A lot of class (warrior/dh/necro/rev) can already pressure a thief enough for him to leave, it’s pretty much the reason thief never 1v1 apart thief and a rev once in a blue moon. I don’t see the point of buffing S/F ele for making the thief leave (= using its mobility) considering that as you say thief has no counter because of mobility.
You are basicly saying : X is OP because because it has Y so let’s buff Z so X can/must use Y. What ?

On the mobility topic :

Dying on point instead of going away in a 1v1 is the worse thing you can do as a 1v1er. If you are defending a point and in a bad matchup, just kite around and do some jumping puzzle and if you know you won’t hold pretty much longer, disengage. Your oponent won’t follow you, he will cap. Why ?

Because he had a choice, either help his team in the teamfight and cleanup (because outnumber) or push into a node with a favorabe matchup. If he follows you, he gives up the node so the whole purpose he didn’t helped his team : no value. I’m speaking about someone pushing into you since you pushing into a bad matchup is a non sense unless you reasonably expect a +1.

A thief running away is either a thief running away from a 1v1 he should never take (apart vs thief/rev), a teamfight he should never be in, or a 2v1 he failed to +1. In all cases i fail to see why someone would want to chase the thief. The thief counter is the enemy team rotating so he got no good +1 (you can even play 2 nodes, thiefs hate that).

No. ABML was an exploit unintended by the devs. Leather farm is something the devs created to increase the supply of leather. It’s totally different and leather farm was never design to achieve the same purpose as AM meta (ML or not) reward. QQing about a new farm that doesn’t achieve the ABML level of reward is just stupidity at its finest.

The problem about updating salvage result or crafting receipt is that the pop is so high that the resulting influx is going to crash the market.

Atm, t5 → t6 (raw) is profit :
sell price of the receip : 250 * 83c + 20s14c + 5*20s16c = 3g32s29c
buy price of the receip (aka opportiny cost) : 250 * 1s + 23s30 + 5*21s33c = 3g79s95c

The receipt output according to wiki en average 18.92 t6 so about 3g81s23c (buy price) or 4g40s07c (sell price, i let you make compute the tp tax). Here is a link to gw2profit, which assummes a average output of 17, which shows that if you want leather, the receipt is still a profit but isn’t if you want to sell because tp tax which is prefectly fine. If you intend to sell leather, you misunderstood the purpose of this farm.

tbh i’m pretty impressed by the way Anet implemented this because :

• promotion increases value of spirit shard and t6 dust (thus ecto)
• doesn’t flood the market with t6 mat because it’s a promotion and not a plain drop
• it’s a “slow” farm so its effects aren’t huge and aren’t likely to crush the market
• lazy people that don’t promote are punished

The only thing that bothers me is the HoT exclusivity but cleric farm or ABML were already HoT only.

T5 and T6 are linked (not anchored because that implies one doesn’t move), a huge influx of T5 will make the promotion even better so T6 should get lower as T5 does. T5 is still faaar away from vendor trash and the demand is lower than i expected since the promotion is worth it.

People that are just farming gold to buy leather are basicly saying “I find that leather too cheap”. There is a lot of way to acquire a lot of leather in this game (wvw is a giant leather farm) if you go out of ABML and SW.

As a final note, i’m pretty amazed by everyone who just discovered that unstable hide is a good farm, we know it since bloodstone fen. Did you even cleric farm ? I think people whinning about low tiers never did because i’m drowing into low tier leather.

TL;DR : people should farm more leather and promote more instead of complaining.

Jski.6180:

Regnum.7102:

Doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to deal with commander focusing, but of course it’s easier to simply kitten about it and blame your death to it than actually trying to deal with it. However that’s great. The more noob commanders we have, the more fun commander focusing is, huehuehue.

It becomes a numbers game most skills are made with 5 targets or getting hit with a set number of hits (3 blocks etc..) Its easier to pin snip then to def vs that pin snip because of how the game is balanced. If support is going to be a thing in gw2 full on healing support that they added in HoT then there got to be a healing / support targeting system that works off the same rules of targeted attks.

Everything supports “numbers game”, it’s the game mechanics itself : at equal skill 60 players will beat 40. The only thing that allows people to take over superior forces is skill (building skill, teamworking, coordination and so on). And higher is the difference, higher the skill gap has to be for the smaller force to be successful.

Pinsniping isn’t free, AoE is king on zerg v zerg and restricting yourself on one target that has invu/block/stab/… and is (or at least should be) more tanky is lowering the overall pressure on your melee group. Having 10 people using their burst skill on a target that become invuln just in time is a tactical victory for the target since its oponent just wasted 10 people.

Remember that gs f1 does about 50% more damage on <50% health target which may explain a huge part of the gap.

Jski.6180:

Jeknar.6184:

Oh yes, Yaks are NPCs and they are the last in the line of priority. But in the phrase I quoted you were talking about players and pets, and pets don’t have priority over them.

The boon priority list is:

- You
- Players in your party
- Players in the squad not in your party
- Players not in squad
- Pet/Minions of players on your party
- Pet/Minions of players on squad not in your party
- Pet/Minions of players not in squad
- Friendly NPCs

And I see no issue in this list.

But was a counter to pin sniping it would be nice to have some level of chose where your skills are going to go. As ppl are able to chose where they attk are going and who will be hit by them before others why not give the same tool to support? You can pin snip but you cant pin support.

Read the list and think about your squad comp & repartition.

If you have still trouble, try to ask in the raid lobby they understood that problem pretty well.

TtL : granting +30 adrenaline make it a skill that you have to think before pressing since you are likely not to benefit totally from one effect which makes it better than a “I heal”-button. Warrior can count on his defenses to wait for the skill recast. Cast time reduction needed but 3/4s should be good. Maybe make it give swiftness or protection to make it match the whole shout theme you are going. Imho the skill isn’t used because it makes the warrior loses momentum (compared to healing signet/defiant stance) nor provide the additional dps (compared to blood reckoning).

SiO : I would put regen instead of resistance. Counting with the passive one, you can output 10s of resistance AoE every 30s not accounting for boon duration or cooldown reduction. Regen is more thematicly on the “warrior that sustain the fire of battlefield” spot. I think removing confusion or torment instead of bleeding is more on the theme too.

FGJ : I would definitly make it grant more might as Yannir.4132 suggested. Fits the theme and synergy with traits.

OMM : the concept of this skill is weird. It’s a single target skill in a support category. I really don’t like the instant daze + immo combo which can is nearly a death sentence on some fights. I would add a special effect debuff that makes a +10% damage on the target so it stacks even if the target has already 25 stacks and still trigger all the on condi/on vulne traits. But imho it’s the concept which is flawed, unless you make that skill OP it won’t be used.

FM : it’s an offensive skill so offensive effect. Weakness is good as a added effect, maybe make the war steal one boon from each foe ?

The best wvw build is an utopia. I would say the best build for you is the build which you are the more fun running with. This is the magic of wvw, there is no role, no real limit on our creativity, no purpose on running meta. When i die in a “fair” fight , it’s 80% of the time because i played bad, 15% because my oponent played well and 5% of build. Once your build is decent (aka well constructed but w/o stats optimization), it’s only a matter of skill and a bit a luck.

There are many questions to ask when tailoring a build :

Solo roam ? With buddies ? Duel ? Havoc ? Zerg ?
What is your purpose of roaming : “duel” / outnumbered / dolyaks&camps / pinsnipe / focusparty / trolling ?
How do you feel about stealth (against/pro/don’t care) ?
Do you prefer a in/out style or combat or a “persistent” one ?
Is it okay not to be able to disengage or outrun ganking squads (if you are solo/small scale) ?
Which set do you like the most ?

Once you have thought about all that and after some build creating effort, you should be able to create a first template from which we can help you on more specifics questions.

Take note that many things come from experience and personnal taste : every thief has its definition of decent hp pool for example, some are fine with 11k while others may find everythin below 17k as too glassy.

Ofc if you are lazy or don’t want to create or reinvent your build (because you may find that the meta build is suited to your needs after all), you can take the d/p staff bound thief which combines the strengths of staff and d/p at the cost of mobility.

Crinn.7864:

Darknicrofia.2604:

Crinn.7864:

If you don’t have a thief, it’s better for the Mesmer to do it since they do rotate faster.

lol at a thief capping home.

you’re basically praying your opponent 1/4/0 splits or else you’re giving up a free home cap every single time.

If my team sends the thief far instead of home, then we have to send some else home instead, if the enemy goes 1/4 then we are undermanned at mid, and completely dependent on the thief winning his 1v1 at far.

That’s way too much trust to be putting on a pug thief.

Now of course if your team has 2 roamers, then yeah sending the thief to not-home is probably a good idea.

If they are 1/4 you send you best 1v1er against the far defender to help the thief which should fake disengage while the 1v1er come so he can surprise burst and you slowly disengage mid towards close so they loose time and the close capper is full cd to help his team. At the end you got sides and 1 kill while they got mid with 0 kills (if you successfully disengaged) and their team has to split up which is good for the thief.

Welcome to “hell” henry :)

Lordrosicky.5813:

And you know the class is broken when its impossible to die on thief unless the other team has a thief! The only time a thief has to be careful is when the other team has a thief.

A decent rev can put some heavy pressure on thief, with legend/weapon swap + reveal it can rekt a thief pretty fast and he even got good mobility to do some chasing. Try to +1 when you got a rev chasing you, it’s worse for you than if it was a thief because rev can handle the 2v2 for far longer than a thief and still do high damage to both thief and its teammate.

But people don’t play rev because it’s “garbage” while it’s still fine.

KrHome.1920:

Cerby.1069:

Lets be honest here…..how would the 2nd place server get punished under this system and how would the loser server get rewarded?

Being not punished for 3rd place is a reward.

3rd place is punished. As the same level at 2nd. Apart from Glicko, the 2-1-1 is a 1-0-0 aka “the winner takes all”. Have the 2nd win ? No. He doesn’t deserve the point nor the 3rd. This system is meant to make victory the goal for the 2nd not salvaging. There is no consolation prize. If the oponent is out of your league you don’t deserve reward for being less bullied than the 3rd. If the oponent was on a more equal level, you don’t deserve reward for not winning.

KrHome.1920:

The 2-1-1 system rewards nightcapping.

Every system accounting every timezone rewards nightcapping. As long you don’t dismiss some timezones (like night = 50% points only) which is totally against WvW philosophy (permanent war), you can’t have a system that doesn’t reward the very fact of “being here when others aren’t”. It can be night, morning or afternoon, it’s the same thing : oponent is being rewarded by its dedication of having people on the battlefield while your server is punished for having none.

There is a certain spanish server that takes the first place between 11pm and 7am every night while showing absolutely no presence the rest of the day.

This results in:
Server 1: 16 hours 1st, 8 hours 3rd: finishes 1st
Server 2: 24 hours 2nd: finishes 3rd
Server 3: 8 hours 1st, 16 hours 3rd: finishes 2nd

Not fair by definition!

You know that Server 3 can have more points in total that Server 2 and thus on the first scoring system be better than Server 2. It can even have more points than Server 1 and be ranked #3 by the 3-2-1 system or #2 in the 2-1-1. Is that fair ? No, because there is no fairness. It’s only metrics.

X T D.6458:

Hey all, I have been reading through many recent threads and thought it would be a good idea to start a thread with a compiled list of ideas for QoL improvements players have mentioned they would like to see in WvW.

+1 for this as long as we keep this clear

X T D.6458:

*Changes to Waypoint Contesting.

*Tone down the DBL keep lords, too much CC spam.

Imho they belong to the balance side of things and not to QoL so i disagree with their presence in this thread.

100% crit from stealth is on CS now, SA has the juicy Rending Shades now.

Afaik if you reflect something with AA #3 AND if the reflected projectile it you will go back to AA #1 and Staff #3 doesn’t reset the AA chain only if it doesn’t hit.

The main point of creating distance between you and your target is to entice him to use ranged skills : a rifle warrior will rifle #5 or headbut you if you stay at melee but he is more likely to just gunflame or volley you if you stay “away”.

You know the OP is just trolling henry ?

All Matters Fecal.9560:

My god that’s a lot of micro-management of the auto-chain…do people actually do this? Is it even worth it to keep it queued up for the half-second of reflect or whatever it is?

I have made some LB rangers push themselves into their death with that. A more concret example (only the first fight).

So yeah having that in mind may be useful.

There is a red post on this forum each time linkings are changed, you can see the actual state here