Guild Wars 2

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war

As of the current scoring Blacktide has moved into T1!! Keep it up!!

Crevura.3750:

Hi guys,

I’m a player from Arborea Stone I enjoyed the fights of yesterday night. However I’ve to admit that for the next week it will be better for the T1 if Blacktide and Desolation are both in the first division. Actually I can imaging how it’s boring for desolation to play when FR servers are almost empty.

In my opinion, we (Arborea Stone) really need to find players with different time zones and find a way to come back to the T1 with a server that offers a 24h fight. This is actually our only weakness. In fact, Desolation make a big part of its score by night, when Europe is sleeping. Everybody knows that. I can’t wait to see how Desolation will manage an opponent with the same time zone ( or with no time zone^^). It will be for sure a better challenge for Desolation and for sure more fun for players

I wish you the best in T1 and I hope we will find a way in the future to come back.

Have fun

/Salute – Definitely think you guys can be a contender with 24X7 coverage and I definitely feared fighting the Arbor forces more than VZ, who seemed to just be a big squishy zerg. Not sure why they keep saying we are so bad because I’ve been in countless fights against them over the last 2 weeks in which our smaller forces wrecked their larger zerg.

5 more points Blacktide keep it going!! You bring the vodka, I’ll bring the cheese, and we will steal some whine off the French when you hit T1!!

dirtyklingon.2918:

Hrist.8972:

How is requirement to communicate more holding hands? Could you even give a well laid out thought about what does the sword icons bring into the game, positively? Everyone worth his salt is out there to do PvP so that point is hardly relevant.

you hav eto communicate if the swords on the map are worth engaging, if they are feints, if they are diversionary tactics, if they are something you need to engage right this minute, or if it’s something you can hold back on.

the swords actually increase the need for communication, and add a layer of depth to wvw.

all these threads and podcasts and youtubers and streamers have in commmon is they don’t consider improving their strats or utilizing what the game already offers in their favour, they simply go straight to asking anet to change things in a way they think will make winning easier for them personally, and that’s the hand holding you people are asking for.
less qq more pew pew plox.

This!!

Just this morning I did a quick scout run up to the north side of the map to see if the main force needed to disengage from the south and respond. It was just some people tickling a gate and not worth the time. Swords or no swords it still requires someone with the ability to analyze the situation. Even with folks there you still need to make the call if you need backup or not. I was in a 3 man defense team last night that did a stellar job on siege and held off a force of 25+ on a tower for a long long time before we had to call for backup to come wipe the force, meanwhile we captured 2 towers during that time to gain points.

I’d also refrain from taking strategy advice from a guild/show that hasn’t proven successful in WvW tactics so far.

I group up with a couple other thieves in my guild regularly for 2 man defense teams, covert ops, supply camp raiding, scouting, etc. I run a more p/d condition build and the others run more spike backstab builds. It is a pretty sick combo to immobilize someone for the backstab spike. In general it is a good combo because of the mobility, escape, and strong burst and 1vX skills. We also like to abuse “Spin to Win” in combo and have even coordinated steals on warriors so we get double “Spin to Win” while defending a keep/tower.

Weris.5248:

Exewre.2837:

What are you talking about?
all servers are in Austin texas. So whatever server you go you ll have the same ping; but you can retrace your route to have less routeurs on the way.
Just do a tracer in Dos and you will see its coming from Austin. In fact when NA is coming in EU, its europeans who have lag. Seems legit Oo

False, a tracert on IP used by the game locates server near Frankfurt, Germany.

That is not true for the WvW servers.. they are all located in Austin. The PvE servers for the EU are located in Frankfurt but not the WvW servers.

Welcome to what we dealt with in the NA bracket since launch. Also there are more time zones in the normal EU region than in the Canada, Mexico, US region. Again unless we go the other MMO route of region lock (which I strongly disagree with) there isn’t much of a solution outside of combining the brackets and making one big pool of servers for people to choose from. I get the challenges that language specific servers have and vote those get changed to be community type things just like the Oceanics did with Sea of Sorrows.

Again I fall back to this thread in which Anet stated it is a persistent 24X7 battle and I don’t think they qualified that was only for the NA bracket..

jaxom.7469:

i just don’t want to list everything all the time, and that’s clearly the one i prefer, EU ladder was never made to be H24 at first. ( why not doing directly only one ladder with only international servers if it was not the case ? )

You can see it easily, just one guild transfer, and there is all this mess.

Really? Did you make the EU ladder? Because last time I checked there wasn’t a difference between the NA and the EU ladder. I thought THIS post was for both brackets.. I didn’t see the statement it only applied to the NA bracket and not the EU bracket because well your “special”.

Gah.. they delete threads like they are going out of style here..

Gah.. they delete threads like they are going out of style here..They really need to collapse the brackets and not keep them separated. Why should the NA bracket have to deal with timezone issues and the EU is supposed to be exempt? Doesn’t sound fair to me. Let’s just fix the mistake and make this one big worldwide battle. I think Arena Net is right for letting things shake out a little here too, because you are finding that the brackets are starting to get a little more stabilized and limiting transfers to 7 days should help. Maybe they are leaving free transfers open so more servers can recruit to create their 24X7 teams without cost? Anyone think of it that way?

R E F L H E X.8413:

Yea I’ve seen them disappear while using them also like they have some kind of limit on how many ammo they can shoot, I’m not sure how you refresh the timer (other than running to it and manning it but you say that doesnt work were u shooting it?) but I’ve had a treb at sm I placed last a few days. Was quite nice to see something I placed still there, which is how it feels it should be.

Pretty sure I remember arrow carts having a finite amount of ammo before they despawn.

Gwal.2813:

kharza.3974:

I want my doors back.. you told me when we came to Desolation I wouldn’t have to fight people and could just knock down the doors all the time. You said this was going to be Carebear land!! WHERE ARE MY DOORS!! All I see is tons of French people standing in front of them and on the walls. I had to wade through corpse after corpse of dead French just to get to the jumping puzzle. I mean come on guys.. can’t we get our easy PvDoor back? Please.. I’ll make you veggie pizza..

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasme

P.S. Most fun I’ve had in WvW ever.. thanks again.. and I hope you didn’t wear yourself out to much, we get to do this all again tonight!

(:D funny, I’ll try to be funny to, take this 2nd degree)

Yeah, it must have been disappointing
You were so bad in US ladder that you came to EU to hit doors and get an easy win, but you encountered people who fight, playing on only 1 Timezone, and that ended up crushing you against all odds.
I guess it’s mean you’re bad on EU too

I dunno about that.. the doors in EU hit much harder than anything in the NA bracket! The amount of forum spew seems about the same though.. Better stock up on the coffee my friend I’m really charged up to bang on some doors tonight!

Gwal.2813:

MagnusLL.8473:

Only because Friday is holiday in France, (and 10:30 is morning not night) and it was also the last battle to win the matchup.
He is talking about the typical night, when Deso is ticking 600+ like Tuesday or Wednesday.

If it’s so typical, how come it happened 2 nights out of 7? Even if you discount weekend nights, it’s still 2 out of 5. And it “casually” happened at the time VS had the biggest lead (around 18k points) and as soon as VS realized what was happening, it was able to easily match Desolation night numbers for the rest of the matchup.

Also, if you think Desolation WvW players are not dedicated and they can just live the easy life because they can bring 666 players to WvW on a 24/7 basis you clearly have not been following this match. Just what happened this morning should be proof enough of the colossal holes Deso’s WvW coverage still has. Any server who can fill their mornings will sweep us aside without even trying, and having full maps during the night will also result in the same. Hell… having full maps at any time except prime will result in the same, since that’s the only time of the day when all of Deso’s WvW maps have a queue in them.

Or do you seriously think we didn’t have commanders clocking in at 10-12 hours a day to try and win this matchup?
Jeez, at times like this I wish Ruin was indeed a guild who could constantly fill all maps, just to hear the cries of a server faced with a REAL 24/7 presence.

I didn’t say Deso wasn’t dedicated, I know they are
and of course I know there isn’t only RUIN and wvw is a total server commitment.

However, I don’t understand why you keep trying to deny or underestimate the advantage given by having a big oversea presence has ?
It’s why they come to EU in the first place : to nightcap
If you look at the income graphs, that how Deso closed the gap Tuesday and Wednesday night.

I want my doors back.. you told me when we came to Desolation I wouldn’t have to fight people and could just knock down the doors all the time. You said this was going to be Carebear land!! WHERE ARE MY DOORS!! All I see is tons of French people standing in front of them and on the walls. I had to wade through corpse after corpse of dead French just to get to the jumping puzzle. I mean come on guys.. can’t we get our easy PvDoor back? Please.. I’ll make you veggie pizza..

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasme

P.S. Most fun I’ve had in WvW ever.. thanks again.. and I hope you didn’t wear yourself out to much, we get to do this all again tonight!

Thanks to VZ and AS for one of the best weeks of WvW I’ve had. I think we got better as a guild, team, server, and I learned many good new tactics this week. I expect this rivalry to continue to get better and I’m pulling for my boys in Blacktide to continue to move up the ranks (NA guilds.. give this server a look.. the EU bracket is just a better place to be if you want to really play WvW where there is more given on the battle field as opposed to the forums).

I fully expected for us (Deso) to get focused this week and you guys delivered. I would also encourage everyone to stop the whole 2v1 or not a 2v1.. either way does it matter? Look at the scoreboard.. that is the story.. period. We fought hard and took second place, which is the first loser. We need to get better and I think we will because this is the first server I’ve been on that is determined to work together and has zero politics.

You can tell this was a good matchup too… I think this set the record for the most threads locked/deleted for one matchup.

Removing orbs will do a couple very positive things..

1. Stop a mass amount of flames and QQ during server battles about being hacked
2. Stop the snowball effect of the winning team from just holding 3 points
3. Focus players on the real objective of WvW which is the scoreboard

The borderlands aren’t going to become less important and frankly I think they will become more important. Instead of trying to hold the orbs you are going to focus on maximizing your points in the borderlands because every close fight I’ve been a part of in WvW is ALWAYS decided on the borderlands.

@ Fate.8673 Another point, you love to come and throw all these utilities back here that have these great capabilities, but you ignore the fact that they never make it on to the ranger’s utility bar all that often. Pretty much need to run some form of invuln so that is Protect Me or Signet of Stone (Thieves.. nuff said). You need some form of condition removal so that is Signet of Renewal, which pretty much leaves us with one slot left.. where you can mix and match, but you are going to go for things like Lightning Reflexes and QZ over Muddy here probably.

ArenaNet has stated before that the classes will be balanced around sPvP so that has to be your benchmark for viability. Right now you have 1 (maybe 2.. but it is a stretch) viable builds in sPvP being run by Rangers. That isn’t a lot of options to play the game my way..

I also challenge you like you challenged the ranger community.. maybe you aren’t playing against strong enough competition to see the weaknesses like some of us do.

deepwinter.9015:

Fate.8673:

Did you know it removes a condition EVERY time it applies Regeneration?

Uh, no it doesn’t.

It only removes conditions when cast. Tested.

In addition, you missed the point of Nerva’s post: Rangers do not have an on-demand Immobilize removal ability like other professions. On encounters like the Nightmare Tree in path 2 (forward/forward) of Twilight Arbor roots frequently. Signet of Renewal’s cures one condition every 10 seconds. This is not an on-demand condition removal and it will get you killed by the veteran spirits.

Are you sure you play a Ranger?

Add to that.. Spike Trap is a cripple not an immobilize.. big difference. Muddy also only does the immobilize on creation not the pulse.

Umm it should work that way out of the box just like all the other classes. why should I have to use a talent tree to leverage my class defining skill?

Fate.8673:

snip..

I could go to every other profession forum and go “So what are u guiz better than Rangurs @?” And come back here and say LOOK, LOOK AT HOW GOOD EVERY OTHER CLASS IS AT X, Y, Z. What’s your point? This thread is to discuss what RANGERS are the BEST at. So far I haven’t seen a single argument to persuade me otherwise.

But see this is what some of us are asking. What is a Ranger best at? About the only thing that might even have some weight here is traps. Sure I won’t disagree that Rangers have some pretty sick evasion and that was what I put my hat on for a long time. I ran a build with traits that you didn’t even know the use of before this thread. I worked with other sPvP/WvW guys on the Ranger guru forums to swap notes and build ideas.. I did the work to understand this class in depth. Evasion and range was what I hung my hat on.. and then I played a thief. They have the potential to “evade”, who cares if it is backward, forward, left, or right.. it is still evasion, just as much as rangers. On top of that evasion they can gain swiftness, they can drop caltrops that can cripple and bleed, they can gain stacks of might, and even have a trait that returns endurance after a dodge. So they can evade AND get benefits from it through trait synergies. Sorry.. rangers aren’t the best there.

Fate.8673:

So, either learn to Ranger right or re-roll. It seems like there are plenty of us here that want to maximize the potential of this class and be patient with it.

You were doing pretty good until this last part. Listen nobody is hear flaming you out of the house and I’m personally against all the massive unconstructive QQ happening but people are angry and rightly so. In general it has been a pretty good conversation, but you can’t dismiss what some of us very experienced and knowledgeable rangers are mentioning here. Most of us spend our living in sPvP/WvW and so we understand synergies and builds of multiple classes pretty in depth. Happy to discuss this.. but discounting what others are saying isn’t going to help you create a nice haven. If you want a place to get together and hug some trees.. then title your post that way instead of saying we are “doing it wrong”.

You only get it from one.. they share the same internal cooldown

1. Create a thief character with the starter hood look (picked during creation based on Stealth/Shadowy I think)
2. Enter the Heart of the Mists and then Lion’s Arch
3. Run to the bank
4. Switch over to your ranger character and buy a white or blue medium armor mask
5. Deposit the bought mask and a basic transmutation stone in your bank
6. Log in with the newbie thief and transmute the starter hood on to the medium mask you purchased
7. Deposit the newly transmuted mask into your bank (yes I know it says soulbound.. still works)
8. Transmute this to any other headgear for the stats you want
9. Enjoy what I think is the best hood in the game
10. Make people scared because they think you are a thief and run away… not knowing you are a ranger

Looks like the below..

Can’t speak to the cookies.. but I cook up a mean veggie pizza!

CrUMONURFACE.4913:

Thanks for the info 100 condition = 5 damage per tick is exactly what I was looking for.

I have another question regarding Thieves Guild: What is the damage of the two thieves based off of? Is it dependent on your level, power or is static no matter what?

They are based off of your stats. So if you are glass cannon so are they.. if you are tanky so are they.

Naikee.5936:

Thanks to Desolation for a high number of great fights during this matchup, it was very funny!

No thank you for the fights this week and never giving up.. and giving us a run for our money mid week. You renewed my hope that WvW will continue to get better and the dust will settle down to just epic conflicts instead of non stop complaining.

We need more of these guys around.. mad props to you guys as always..

“Hoot”: When I go home people’ll ask me, “Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie?” You know what I’ll say? I won’t say a kitten word. Why? They won’t understand. They won’t understand why we do it. They won’t understand that it’s about the men next to you, and that’s it. That’s all it is.

nic.5720:

.. snip

I am also unable to concur with the OP’s conclusions. According to Anet;

“Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. "

Unparalleled archers? Hardly!

Bringing down foes from a distance with their bows? How? Oh yes… that would be via dealing damage to the target. A concept that the OP seems to think is beyond the remit of the Ranger profession and best left to others.

The OP’s post is simply another thread attempting to shift responsibility for the current state of the Ranger profession in GW2 from the devs/Anet to the players and their perceived failure to play the profession in the way in which the OP believes it is meant to be played.

I thought that we were meant to be able to play any profession in GW2 our way!

I conclude that the problem lies with the poor design of the Ranger profession rather than with us the players.

Very well stated.. kudos

@Fate:

• Longbow @ 1500: except when I just rapidly strafe back and forth and none of your arrows hit

• F2 doesn’t work and hasn’t ever worked right.. that story is from a week ago don’t believe the patch notes..

• Thieves aren’t as squishy as you believe though.. Blood Storm or Venom Share can go toe to toe with a ranger and Venom Share wrecks a ranger (our huge lack of reliable condition removal)

Hey man I’m not saying we can’t win.. and I win my fair share of fights by being an experienced PvPer and knowing my class and the class I’m fighting, but the chips are stacked against us. There are viable builds.. the problem is there are few of them. This really isn’t class envy either because my problem is that since I started a ranger in BWE the amount of available builds that are viable in sPvP and WvW (all I care about btw) have gone down drastically. The core class mechanics don’t function as well as the other classes and to that I’m allowed to say hey Anet what gives here.

Oh yeah.. the only thing reliable about a ranger pet? Being a perfect target for CnD!

Fate.8673:

@Kharza: I actually play a Thief as well, its my first alt, and I use it to PvP regularly.

.. snip

First off thanks for the constructive dialog at least.. not enough of that happens around here anymore.

Ok let’s try this.. throw everything else out of the window and let’s just focus on the class specific skill. To me that is one of the defining things of a particular class. In the rangers case it isn’t so much the pet as it is the pet’s F2 ability. If we compare this particular skill to any other class this is where the core issues with the ranger lie.

Story Time

Once upon a time in a massive battle assaulting a tower I sat there shooting my bow at the gate while we pounded it down with a ram and my trusty brown bear “Yogi” was at my side (on passive). Egads I said as I realized the enemy was in the middle of flanking the group and a particularly ugly necro had decided to make condition soup out of my ranger. I was oh so confident in my trusty bear that I knew I could just “Shake it Off” and continue to whirl around and assault the savage necro with my trusty short bow. Much to my dismay upon clicking the handy ranger class specific button I was in wonder when my trusty bear Yogi didn’t immediately “Shake it Off” but instead decided he wanted a piece of that Tower Door as well. Yogi rumbled and stumbled all the way to the front door at which point he decided now was the time to “Shake it Off” for all the allies around him.. save me and the 10982903 conditions that I had on me.

This is what my problem is.. I hit steal.. it works.. I hit attunement swap.. it works… I hit Stealth on my Jaguar.. it works 98% of the time. I don’t think anyone here would disagree with me when I say 90% of the F2 pet class defining abilities just don’t work when you want them to.. or really need them. No other class in GW2 has a class defining mechanic as broke as rangers. This should pretty much end the conversation.. except then you can go look at all the other bugs in the list and it is death by 1000 pricks. I want the ranger to work.. I really do.. except I also want to win, be the best benefit I can be to my WvW guild and in that case.. my talents are better off leveraged playing a thief right now.

gibby.9328:

snip..

one thing my ranger is awesome for though in WvWvW is that it runs away faster and better than most classes… except mesmers and thiefs.

This post is so full of win.. well done!

Namu.5712:

Coming on the ranger forum and calling everyone noobs basically, because we are making legit complaints about a broken profession is a good way to make friends I hear.

Fate, your bad, always will be bad, and clearly haven’t played other class’s because your whole wall of text screams I don’t know what im talking about our class has “minor” bugs thats all guyzzzz!

Now I think you are being a little harsh on the guy. In his eyes the ranger is overpowered, because when you are only fighting the skiritt all day.. well we do pretty much own them. I mean it makes me feel like a real man again to go beat down the skiritt to boost up my ranger moral. People/Casuals will never learn the mechanics and depth of a game like powergamers, thus they can’t see the fundamental issues and synergies. The other issues is they are most likely not playing against the higher and better competition and thus can’t see some of the weaknesses as well. Sure the class isn’t destitute but when you compare it objectively to any other class (meaning you need to go play another class to be able to compare.. try a thief.. I encourage you) it is glaring that it needs help.

Just for a good laugh read this thread.. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Rangers-made-me-quit-wvw/first#post470351

I can’t vouch for the on server environment itself (on Desolation).. but these Blacktide boys can fight. I very much applaud their effort and never die attitude this week. As a NA to EU transfer I will caution you that the level of PvP in the EU bracket is much higher than NA.. so you better be ready to bring it if you move over.

DesertRose.2031:

Fate.8673:

Now let’s talk about Healing Spring/Spirit of Nature. Healing Spring, again, being one of only TWO classes that can bring a water field which can=permanent regen to your PvE or PvP team. AoE healig on splash.

Actually it’s one of three professions that can provide water combo fields.
The Engineer’s Healing Turret creates an about 1 second lasting water field every ~6 seconds and the Healing Turret tool belt skill creates a water field, too.

Technically this isn’t correct either.. a thief can create a water combo field with the steal skill by stealing from a….. ranger. Yeah that is pretty priceless.

Let’s play the whatever you can do my thief can do better game.. come on play along.

I’m going to try hard not to flame here and derail because I appreciate the thought and detail you put into the post.

I too have a deep understanding of the ranger class and like you had come to many of the same conclusions you did. I believed at the time that the rangers evasion was one of the key strengths of the class and the available combo field generators and finishers was one of the strongest points. I still believe that rangers have the most combo finishers available of any class.

The problem in all of this is that everyone else does it better. Outside of the 2 combo fields you mentioned the ranger doesn’t do anything else better than other classes. So with that said I’ll touch on a few of your points:

• Mobility – This is the advantage I thought a ranger had until I played a thief.. not only are they more mobile on the battlefield and have access to stealth, they can stack vigor just as much (maybe more..) as us, get evade on dodges, have their own version of Lightning Reflexes in Roll for Initiative and even have a heal that has an evade in Withdraw. Nope sorry.. this is why I rolled a ranger at launch and why after playing a thief I probably won’t go back. I wanted to be a roamer.. thief does it better.

• Ranged damage – Yeah we were supposed to be pretty good at this one and you may think you are until you play a warrior and even better than a warrior is an Engineer. Grenades.. nuff said

• Control – BlusterWolf.2103 said it the best.. mid range control at best.

So the problem is that what is the class defining feature of the ranger? Every class has that niche.. steal, shatter, death shroud, kits, etc.. we get a pet. A pet that has a laundry list of bugs, has never really worked right and is the reason that the ranger itself doesn’t do more damage because it would be overpowered. I played in the BWE.. sure pet’s made a pretty big move during them, but they are still far far from being even close to any of the other professions. The #1 priority should be to make our class defining trait as useful as all of the other professions. None of the other professions have to go through as much work as we do to utilize the class defining skill to their advantage. That needs to happen before my ranger will ever see the light of day again.

ImagoX.4718:

Rangers have a similar signet (always-on passive speed boost), but it’s not nearly as fast (10% IIRC?) Either way I know it made a big difference on my Ranger – faster travel = faster clearing of maps, faster close to MOBs, faster retreats, etc. etc. etc.

99% sure that the ranger one did stack with swiftness too unlike the thief SoS. Still think the ranger’s should have been higher than 10% too.

edamber.1549:

Gonna try the build in sPVP before aquireing a new set of exotics for my WvWvW char :P

A friend plays it and says he’s having fun with it. Btw, what does pistol mainhand do in stealth?

I run it.. I love it.. the odds of it getting nerfed are low too!

I don’t find it boring and find it very tactical of a build (which I love). Much more about positioning and when to use a skill as opposed to lightning fast reflex reactions. Don’t listen to people saying that this build can’t put out damage because I put out plenty stacking condition damage and condition duration/food.

I run Wild Bill’s build most of the time. You probably are already pretty good at CnD coming from a D/D build so that is one of the keys to this build. Movement, positioning, and venom usage is the other. I don’t personally run the venom share build most of the time (when I do I just take the 10 out of DA and put it into SA), but I do switch over to it if I know I’m running with a 5 man strike team or something in WvW. Mostly I’m roaming/scouting so I need the 1vX skills more. People watch his videos and are like oh he is just pressing 1 or 2 buttons.. that is faceroll. The build is so much more about positioning, timing skills at the right moment and controlling the flow of the battle. I regularly go back to watch his videos to pick up some small new detail I missed the first time as I get more time in the build.

I personally like a bunch of little 108s flowing over a persons head than seeing some big crit numbers. The survivability and mobility of the build is unbelievable. I choose where and when the fight will happen most of the time. The hard counter to this build is a condition necro.

2 X Lyssa
4 X Afflicted
Full Carrion Gear
Carrion Pistol/Dagger
Sigil of Agony on Pistol
Sigil of Restoration on Dagger (messing around with this yet and might go Corruption here soon as the OP said)

Sigil of Energy on Shortbow

Spider Venom
Devourer Venom
Signet of Shadows
Daggerstorm (Thieves Guild if running Venom Share)

Pistol out of stealth does a Rapid Fire 5 shots that stack bleeds on the target. Usually does around 2k direct dmg for me if I remember right.

My version of the build – http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/1647-wvw-wild-bill-venom

EnochDagor.6185:

Think I’ll go with Edelweiss on this.

On a semi-related note, I’ll take a side bet that 100b gets batted this time.

I’ll take that side bet.. no way warriors get nerfed.. that is what Jon Peters plays..

Eihder.8961:

Anyone else find it funny that the general solution to this problem is for people to switch servers that are overseas? NA playing in EU just as EU and oceanic played in NA to take advantage of such sleep periods. Can we end the whole separate servers now for na/eu? At least this way there is more variety of servers to play against.

They should have never created NA and EU servers to begin with… I also don’t think it is to late to consolidate the brackets now and create a true “World War”. Language specific servers would have been cool as the global French have proven out already. Many of the EU folks have already mentioned that the predominate communication is in English anyway because that is the shared language across all the countries.

HOD would have had better competition early on and in general I’ve found the EU servers to be more organized and relentless in fighting and build more siege than I’ve ever seen. They fight to fight.. don’t see much about looking for rewards.. sounds like true PvPers to me and could be a good influence to the NA bracket.. the NA bracket can teach them how to properly trash talk and forum war though.

titanlectro.5029:

snip..

What small-group guerrilla strategies have worked for you?

Just send a thief.. what else would you do?

Joking aside we regularly run supply camp swat teams to cut off supply lines while we are sieging down keeps. Ranger, Thieves, Mesmers are usually the go to classes, but one of the best swat teams I was a part of was 2 Thieves, 1 Mesmer, 2 Engineers.. lots of control in that team. Combo fields can be pretty powerful here and give a coordinated team a pretty big advantage over people that are disorganized. As a Thief I’m always trying to flank and disrupt the enemy lines as much as possible while making sure I secure the kills with stealth stomps (to me the single biggest factor in small vs larger group tactics.. gotta make them dead dead). Another big point in line with stomping is to make sure you constantly res your downed guys and prevent being stomped. Interrupts, CC, smoke, blind, etc. all help.. it is essential in small group tactics to watch each others backs constantly.

Shomaruki.7395:

Backstab already does additional damage base on how much life someone is missing. So why not just make it where it can’t crit a target.

I just thought about that. So far I haven’t seen a single person actually think that part though. Thief can KEEP everything about it just make it to where Backstab

A skill designed to already do additional damage base on missing life on a target, Not be able to critical.

Umm… wow.. just wow..

I would first go here and read up on how the Thief skills actually work..

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_thief_skills

Redscope.6215:

kharza.3974:

My bad.. Your are a TROLL AND NEED TO L2P.. Thieves need to be nerfed into oblivion because you are a NOOB lover.

Anyway.. At least on my ranger thieves didn’t scare me at all because I have 2 ways to get invuln (Signet of Stone and Protect Me). Switching to a sword in melee almost everytime and go ninja on the thieves.. plus it gives you an additional 2 evades. I was playing a more power/tanky build over the viable trap build. Seriously I didn’t even notice the backstab thief burst issue until I switched over to a thief and got jumped by one.

Anyway.. At least on my ranger thieves didn’t scare me at all because I have 2 ways to get invuln (Signet of Stone and Protect Me). Switching to a sword in melee almost everytime and go ninja on the thieves.. plus it gives you an additional 2 evades. I was playing a more power/tanky build over the viable trap build. Seriously I didn’t even notice the backstab thief burst issue until I switched over to a thief and got jumped by one.

lol

Backstab thief builds don’t auto-win against the high toughness tank-ish builds of almost any class. The problem is, you shouldn’t HAVE to build a rock solid tank in order to even get a chance to play against a thief.

Now many thieves would argue against that, but I’m sure those that do have never played (unless quite briefly) another class. In fact, there are a lot of people who come directly from other games with thief-like, backstab, stealth classes and believe that it needs to directly translate.

It doesn’t.

I hear what you are saying but really I was building more tankish because it didn’t take me long to realize that glass cannons don’t survive long in WvW (which is my primary focus on both ranger and thief now). It isn’t like I was building my ranger out to survive a thief, I was doing it to survive burst from any class (and at least on my ranger the mesmer scared me more than thief).

Thieves need a small tuning.. which I think they are slowly working towards, but these massive cries about nerfing stealth, backstab, etc. are getting pretty old and the majority of them come down to learning to play and getting better at the core game mechanics and class mechanics (ALL CLASS MECHANICS).

My thief and the “Boom Headshot” at the enemies Keep

Redscope.6215:

Effective long-term balance changes need to be small, well-placed, and data intensive.

This is exactly why they haven’t done a ‘once around’ massive nerf of Retaliation. They’ve said its an issue, they’re trying to change how its used, and they’ve changed things bit by bit to gather proper, and very much needed, information about the effects.

They’ve known about HS, PW, BS, the shortbow, and even quickness for some time now. The thief nerfs are starting to roll in slowly. This is the beginning and it sucks to have your favorite class take hits after you’ve been playing it but they need to make a bumper sticker: “Balance Happens”

I believe they have something in store for quickness given the immediate locks of ‘nerf quickness’ posts that were put out early on but now are being let loose.

Great part of the post and it is what gives me hope yet for this game. Totally agree and it is pretty apparent to people really paying attention and not being fundamentalist about their class that something is going to have to happen to quickness. I think the Ranger SB change was the precursor to that and I pretty much posted on the General thread asking why didn’t they just get rid of it (post lasted a whole 30 minutes before it got deleted).. the funny part was that I wasn’t trolling all that bad and really was just making examples out of where quickness was the heart of the issue not necessarily the skills themselves.

It is funny on the backstab part though.. one of the reasons why I didn’t go that route was because experience has taught me that it was going to get nerfed for sure and wouldn’t help me properly understand how to play a thief well. Much happier with the approach and build I took because it is a longer term sustainable solution and helped me really understand the thief mechanics considering I never got to play one in BWE (ranger and warrior and ended up rolling ranger main at launch.. sigh)

Good post man!

Not sure what happened but Desolation improved GREATLY today. Yesterday at that hour we had like 100 points and Backtide 400+. Today we are leading with 200+ while Backtie is 2nd/3rd. We’ve lost an upgraded SM though and now we’re playing SM ping pong with other servers.

Very coordinated effort in WvW during the nightshift that translated into very strong positions in the morning. The “puppies” on the server did a great job in joining RUIN teamspeak and map hopping all over to counter the relentless.. and I do mean RELENTLESS XAOC/XT/Others? assaults trying to retake territory. I know I was involved in a crazy fight this morning my time in SM and had to bail to head to work, but thankfully it was right around the time the IRON folks started to login and take over. I know I sighted a couple guilds in here but it really was a server wide effort and a job well done to everyone involved. The commanders did well coordinating with each other and I think Deso is going to be a force to be dealt with, especially if we can fill that last coverage gap we have.

(copied from WvW forum thread, not sure if this was posted both places – thought I was replying to Thief forum one)
WvW as a Thief makes my kitten hard.
1st of all, dagger storm is ungodly OP in WvW until anet fixes the culling issue – jump off the wall for auto smoke bomb passive (or HiS / whatever) and pop dagger storm; 90% of the time you won’t even render before finishing your 10k damage PBAoE. There are very few skills in the game that hit more than 5 targets, and Dagger Storm just kinda owns everything in range. A coordinated bum rush that includes a few storming thieves is absolutely devastating.
Thief wall poke is mediocre, but this is an extremely overrated aspect of what you’re doing overall in WvW. Cluster bomb with squishy gear hits hard (easily 5k+) at 1200-1500 range. Poison AoE from shortbow is also decent for wall denial. Scorpion wire is pretty good, too.
Now, what thieves truly shine at:
1- Scouting. Thieves are slippery and fast, perfect for watching flanks/checking marked towers/scouting supply camp raids before they arrive. Having eyes everywhere on the map is crucial.
2- being uncatchable. People say ele/warr can catch up to a thief? They can’t, unless you get caught really badly due to poor play. Worst case, you use stealth to juke them. If any class is going to lead 5 enemy invaders on a merry chase across the map and into 50 friends, its a thief.
3 – Killing people. Pretty obvious. 1v3+ is possible with cooldowns (if low levels are mixed in).
4 – Soloing stuff. Thieves can easily take out supply camps, cannons, and dolyaks ANYWHERE on the map safely and easily if nobody responds. If people do? Just run, they can’t chase you down before combat resets and you waypoint to spawn (or just keep running.)
5 – scorpion wire and chain CC like devourer venom and stealth shortbow auto combined with extreme map traversal speed make thieves ungodly good at catching people and pinning them down until backup arrives.
6 – fast movement speed for supply running to build siege/repair gates.
tl;dr A lot of Thief strengths aren’t as obvious if you just follow the zerg around defending/assaulting head on. Their real strength is in surprise attacks, skirmishes, raiding, and scouting.

Pretty much this.. here was my night last night and this morning..

1. Primary scout for the eastern half of the map while we tried to retake one of the borderlands and responsible for upgrading camps and towers
2. Responsible for key tower defense and early warning letting our zerg respond in enough time to counter enemy zerg
3. Shadow refuge in a camp is very important to not allowing them to cap and give your boys time to bring the noise
4. Coordinated with a small strike team to perform supply camp harassment to starve enemy supply while we trebbed down a wall to take a keep
5. Paired up with another thief during a Stonemist defense to play “Spin to Win” with coordinated Daggerstorms and Whirlwinds (we both made it a point to steal from warriors). During this we wiped 2 attempts on the inner gate.. and totally wiped them in the Lord’s room while the Lord was down.
6. Ganked two dudes trying to harass our supply caravans
7. Clusterbombed span our stacked zerg in front of a gate to provide AOE healing with ranger healing spring
8. Tracked enemy zerg to provide commander up to the minute information regarding location.. picked off people falling behind
9. Stealth stomped behind enemy lines to prevent enemies from continuing to fight
10. Regularly flanked the rear of the enemy zerg, picking people off, and causing havoc with some “Spin to Win” fun
11. Camped near enemy spawn to give updates when key big guild zerg entered the borderlands to give our forces enough time to respond (while we built waypoints across the maps)

And that was last night and this morning…

Yeah I enjoy my thief and the value I bring to WvW 20X more than my ranger.. Only thing that annoys me is not being able to speed buff the Yaks..

Namu.5712:

I have and its a 1 button build… snip

The whole point of stealth is to avoid people killing you and control the encounter.. it is a control mechanic. Rendering bugs aside.. how do you normally go after a mesmer and his 50 friends? Personally I learned all about call target and take target when I played on my ranger.. imagine that the same mechanic works for thieves and stealth. This right now lets you get around the render bug because just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean you can’t target them. Hell all you have to do is play in WvW and that will teach you how to fight invisible targets!

I’m not defending a backstab thief.. assassin’s signet is the problem and that is where the “nerf” should be applied. So enlighten me on what stun breaker you are using in a p/d leeching or venom share build? Normal utilities for that build are spider venom, devourer venom, SoS and thieves guild or dagger storm. What exactly is the stun breaker? So maybe you replace one of the venom’s with a stun breaker.. you reduce not only your damage or control, but your source of healing in that build through the leeching. Meaning your time to kill increased and a 5-10 stack of bleeds even cranking condition damage isn’t going to kill anyone with a clue.

CnD isn’t spam to win either.. you have to have good timing and sure I’ll admit when you are running around in an enemy zerg it isn’t hard to land the skill, but seriously AOE wrecks all thieves in stealth. I know because I used to live on using barrage on my ranger to smack thieves around and my answer to the backstab to win thieves is a nice healthy dose of spin to win (Daggerstorm).. nothing more rewarding then watching them come out of stealth downed. It isn’t the other classes as much as the bad players not adjusting to the mechanics of this game fast enough. I feel it is faceroll playing a thief or any class (heck even my neutered ranger) against bad players. Some people have adjusted to the skill cap in this game quicker than others, of which that is always the case. Good players figured out the traits and utilities and synergies with gearing.. most bad players are playing traits because they sound cool or following the FOTM build posted here instead of actually learning the mechanics. You can never help those people.. they will get destroyed by good players on any class.. period. They have been trained, however, over the years from “other” MMOs.. that they can whine and whine and whine and eventually the company will give in and change things. The reason I am here in Guild Wars 2 is because ArenaNet was supposed to be different. They actually use data, and while they are human and will make mistakes I believe they have the long term view in mind.. which is very refreshing. This is coming from a former RANGER who watched almost every other viable build get smashed by the short bow nerf.. Glad they did it because I believe the thief class is much better for my desired play style. Oh yeah.. I’ve never back stabbed anyone on my thief.. ever… never liked the mechanic no matter how much damage it does.

On a tangent just look at WvW.. everyone CRIED and WHINED about night capping.. ArenaNet said tough.. it is 24X7 deal with it. Now what do we have? We have European servers looking for NA help.. we have NA guilds transferring to EU servers.. The result is a great international community being built. I just moved from a top tier NA server to Desolution in the EU and found the competition at T3 EU better than anything I could find in NA and people that don’t quit fighting and bring the noise day in day out.

TL;DR: The game is new.. players are bad.. bugs will get fixed.. assassin’s signet needs to be nerfed a little. Embrace the global nature of the game…

Namu.5712:

Fact: Thief is going to be nerfed.

Its not a L2P issue, its a broken mechanic issue and the might nerf bat is going to come down upon you.

And yes people are complaining about condition thieves as well because really what can you do against most of them?

Perfect example: You claim a thief is a glass cannon, okay. A glass cannon that can kill you before you can do anything to take advantage of that 90% of the time.
And the other is a condition thief not a glass cannon, but their mobility and surviablity is unrivaled.
The problem? In one word, stealth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEWOGcU61ng&list=PLdRu-1piROblxmQL9HcyqJKzgITtf9TTg&index=5&feature=plpp_video

1 button spam ftw.

I play this build.. it isn’t 1 button.. and I encourage you to try it if it is so easy. Wild Bill is a freak at hitting his CnD’s and I regularly rewatch these videos to continue to get better at it and pick up the subtle things. Sure this build is very strong, but it has counters to which he himself would attest. Condition Necro’s can absolutely destroy this build and well place immobilizes and stuns also give it issues. Sure I’ve had those awesome 1v3 win moments with the build because of the defensive nature of stealth, but most of that was because those 3 people didn’t ever work together to try and take me down.

Check this out..

http://beatsandlevels.blogspot.com/2012/10/gaming-gw-dd-heavy-ambush-thief.html

Turn.3690:

Revelstoke.8924:

2) There are several points where you run, unstealthed, through hordes of enemy players and no one even notices you or bothers to attack you. Why?

I will comment more on questions when I am back from work – but this is a confusing part of the video. There are many points where I AM stealthed though my character doesn’t appear so (you have to watch for the stealth buff icon).

This happens often after stealing/shadow stepping/for unknown reasons.

This is all due to the rendering bug I mentioned.. same issue with your character rendering the stealth properly.. really annoying too. Especially the part mentioned where you ran through everyone.. they never saw you.. at all. Thieves had it even more OP because the only way around the rendering bug was to tab target, of which it is easy for a thief to clear using stealth. So the moments when you were in stealth but still saw your character normal with the buff was when the rendering was all messed up.

Revelstoke.8924:

Anet introduced a new server wide stealth buff to all people in WvWvW..

Whatchu talkin bout, Willis?

There is currently a large scale rendering bug that when you are running a large zerg you can’t see the other team. Literally you can be fighting a 1v1 and get steam rolled… then the other 30 people will render after you are dead. It has gotten a little better for me lately, but it was really bad last week.. almost unplayable.. you constantly tabbed around looking for a target. The zerg would run around constantly shooting just in case we ran into the enemy team zerg.

Revelstoke.8924:

2) There are several points where you run, unstealthed, through hordes of enemy players and no one even notices you or bothers to attack you. Why?

Anet introduced a new server wide stealth buff to all people in WvWvW..

PsionicDingo.2065:

I enjoy my Thief.

snip..

You ask how to make it fun, so this how what I do for “fun” in WvW:

Scorpion Wire – When I’m not on a siege weapon, I love to dart in and yank down the overzealous defenders from their wall. Your fellow attackers will enjoy this, and if you kill them before they get back inside, you can wage a war of attrition. Also, use it to be a jerk in the jumping puzzle. Hey, usually THEY started it!

Shadow Refuge – I drop it on/in front of a group of ranged during back line fights or anything like that. Whee, utility.

Dancing Dagger – Try it in a group during skirmishes. You’ll enjoy it.

Dagger Storm – Always cried about, and always handy to clean up unorganized zergs.

.. snip

QFT

I play a P/D venom/leeching build which I love in WvW. I swear it is designed as the ultimate griefer build. While I do not one shot people.. I never lose 1v1.. I probably bat 95% in 1v2 and survive much longer than most classes and have probably won 50% of the 1v3’s too. One of the HUGE advantages thieves have, and it totally shines in WvW, is stealth stomping. Cruise up to someone while they are downed.. slap them with a CnD and proceed to stomp them into oblivion. This really is a huge help in skirmishing and even larger combat. I pretty much roll at the fringes of the battle, regularly flank the enemy, steal/CnD into someone towards the back to get into the fray and just start to cause havoc.

Most people have tunnel vision during these large scale fights, and they rarely think someone is going to come up behind them when they have 20 of their teammates in front of them.. It is so fun for me personally that I see how long I can stay engaged “behind enemy lines” before I have to bug out to regroup. No other class can live on the edge that way and impact a battle in such a way, and RUN AWAY when it gets to be to much. Sure I on occasion screw up or get gibbed, but those to me are learning experiences on what I could do better (although most of the time it is me cursing because I missed a CnD at a critical moment). Now if you put together a little strike team of 2-3 thieves doing this you can make a serious impact in a large battle and even break an enemy zerg because they start seeing dead bodies around them and get scared and run away (Visualize Monty Python in your head..) No joke.. seriously happened in WvW the other night.. I was running with a 3 man thief strike team and we rolled up on a battle that was easily 3:1 odds against our server (30 on 10).. we rolled up behind the enemy force and proceeded to send them packing even though we only killed 5-6 people.. it was enough of a spook that made the team break ranks and run.

This class has a ton more options and depth than my 80 ranger did and I’m so glad they nerfed SB so I could enjoy the class. Just when you go down.. you see the thief run towards you and then poof.. he is gone.. you wait.. knowing that.. soon… he will drive a stake threw your heart and send you back to waypoint land.

You have to say to yourself “Get over here!” everytime you scorpion wire though.. it is mandatory entry into the thieves guild.. serious.

Wulfrim.4793:

nic.5720:

Um. Wulfrim, your posts are coming across as rude and antagonistic. Neither qualities are contributing anything to this thread. Maybe instead of calling posters babies, telling them to l2p and to not to be so negative, you could shed light on your experience of playing a ranger before and after the stealth nerf of 7th October.

Many thanks.

I apologize, I received rude replies so I replied with rude responses. You can take babies as an insult if you wish but I don’t know how else to compare it. Babies whine and cry when they don’t get what they want right away. That’s exactly how people are acting. It seemed like a fitting analogy.

Before hand we had a ranger, shortbow/axe/warhorn trap condition ranger on our tournament team. His job was to neutralize bunkers with a ally, steal svanir/chieftain and take down the enemy lord. Before the patch him and one other were able to take down bunker guardians very quickly. After the patch he can still take down bunkers very quickly. He can still roam effectively and intercept other roamers and take them 1v1. He can still steal svanir and chieftain. He can still solo all the lord monsters with a 1 defender. I don’t know what else you want me to say? There is little/no difference in his performance and ability to do what is needed in our tpvp team after the patch. Are the numbers smaller? Maybe, but the traps still apply a lot of conditions, shortbow still applies a lot of conditions and he can still solo like the best of us.

That is because that is the only build that didn’t get nerfed.. and it is the only build that rangers can play to be competitive in sPvP. The issue is the lack of options. How many different builds can the other classes play in sPvP and be effective? Rangers have 1.. the build your teammate is running.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Rangers have been getting nerfed since beta. With each nerf it narrowed us into fewer and fewer builds until our last good builds were removed with the short bow nerf.

And this is the big reason I shelved my ranger and now play my thief exclusively. I haven’t even touched a backstab build on my thief yet and everything just seems more in sync on the thief. I think the OP hit the nail on the head when he said our weapons are the issue. I played both a warrior and ranger in all the BWE and enjoyed the flow and style of the ranger combat over the warrior and that is why I rolled it at launch. The problem is that the weapons I flew in love with in BWE got nerfed into the ground (Longbow and Greatsword) and caused me to switch over to shortbow and sword/horn to perform. Sure I love the ninja of the sword, but it has it’s draw backs too. It isn’t one big thing that is broke it is the death by a thousand cuts that just makes the ranger perform so poorly compared to other classes.

My skill level with a ranger was 100 times better than with a thief. and I feel 20 times more powerful in combat playing with my thief than I did with my ranger. I know part of it is the es-capability of the thief, but I still face slap wondering why thieves got the 25% speed sigil over rangers.. The skill cap on a thief just seems so much higher too and I think that is because the ranger’s depth has been gutted by the lack of options due to trait lines just being flat broke.

I had high hopes for the class, but it is going to take a lot of work to bring it back in line with the other classes right now. I wonder if Anet even realizes this right now (hope so). The good news is I’m really enjoying my thief and the ability to roll alts and level them to 80 so fast is a huge plus for me about the game. When the ranger does get fixed I got a fully decked out one waiting to rofl stomp some thieves!